KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP)  Human Rights Watch said Saturday that the coronavirus pandemic doesn't justify Malaysia's turning away of overloaded boats carrying Muslim Rohingya and risking the refugees' lives.

The New York-based rights group noted that Malaysia had recently pushed back to sea at least two boatloads of Rohingya refugees. Despite Malaysia's partial coronavirus lockdown that prevents foreigners from entering the country, Human Rights Watch said the pandemic should not be an excuse for a blanket policy of turning away boats in distress.

Malaysias claims to support the rights of the Rohingya mean shockingly little when they push desperate refugees back to sea, said Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch's Asia director. The COVID-19 pandemic does not create a justification for risking the lives of refugees on overcrowded boats.

Predominantly Muslim Malaysia has previously protested the persecution of the Rohingya and sought justice for them. But its navy on Thursday intercepted a boat with some 200 Rohingya refugees off its northern coast and prevented it from entering Malaysian waters. The fate of that boat is unknown.

On Wednesday, Bangladesh coast guard officials rescued a boatload of 382 starving Rohingya refugees. Survivors said the boat had been turned away from Malaysian waters weeks earlier and that at least 30 people on board had died before the rescue.

Malaysia's National Security Council on Saturday defended the decision by enforcement agencies to turn away the boat amid concerns that the refugees might be exposed to the coronavirus. Malaysia, which has recorded 5,251 coronavirus cases with 86 deaths, has tightened border patrols to prevent illegal immigrants from sneaking in, the National Security Council said.

Siti Sabrina Imji Rahim, a senior official on the council's COVID-19 task force, said that sending the refugees to detention camps could increase the risk of spreading the virus. She said in an email reply to a query from The Associated Press that the refugees were given food and fresh water before being turned away.

Human Rights Watch, however, said Malaysias pushback policy violates international obligations to provide access to asylum seekers, and noted that the refugees could have been isolated or quarantined. It said the COVID-19 outbreak has only intensified the misery of an estimated 600,000 Rohingya who remain in Myanmar and nearly a million living in refugee camps in Bangladesh after fleeing persecution by Myanmar's military.

The Malaysian government can both protect against the spread of the virus and ensure that those risking their lives at sea are rescued and given a chance to seek asylum, Robertson said.
Starting Monday, all air passengers flying to and from Canadian airports will be required to wear face masks amid the coronavirus pandemic, officials said.

Transport Canada announced on Friday that all airline passengers would be required to wear a non-medical mask or face covering while traveling. The order will go into affect at noon EDT.

The regulator said travelers must use face masks at screening checkpoints and when passengers can't properly social distance six feet.

Otherwise, passengers will not be allowed to complete their trip.

Transport Canada announced that air passengers must wear a non-essential face mask or face covering while traveling

Canadian Minister of Transport Marc Garneau said: 'Canadians should continue to follow public health advice and stay at home if possible.

'However, if you need to travel, wearing a face covering is an additional measure you can take to protect others around you, especially in situations where physical distancing guidelines cannot be maintained.'

Air Canada said in a statement that passengers may bring their own face covering, which may include a cloth mask, scarf or similar item. It added they would be asked to lower their masks for security checks.

The new order from Canadian officials will go into effect Monday at noon EDT

Marc Garneau (pictured) said the face masks are 'an additional measure you can take to protect others around you, especially in situations where physical distancing guidelines cannot be maintained'

A statement said that people traveling by ferries, boats, trains and buses should also use face mask but it is not mandatory.

Air Canada had previously recommended that customers wear a face-covering over their mouth and noses while onboard its flights.

Canadian officials initially said face masks were unnecessary for uninfected people, but later changed course as more research into COVID-19 was done.

Dozens of commercial flights have touched down in Canada with passengers who suffered from the disease.

The Globe and Mail reported that the most recent incident was on a Cathay Pacific flight from Vancouver to Hong King on April 7.

Passengers aboard that flight were told they had been exposed to coronavirus.

Canada ordered all residents to avoid non-essential travel out of the country until further notice.

As of Saturday, more than 33,000 Canadians have tested positive for COVID-19 and nearly have 1,500 died.

Pictured: A traveler wearing a protective suit and mask arrives to Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) in Toronto

Pictured: A traveler wearing a protective suit and mask walks through a terminal at Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

This comes as the United States and Canada announced that its shared border will remain closed for 30 more days.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the decision was made to curb coronavirus cases on both sides of the border.

He said: 'The agreement is the same terms. Its just extended for another 30 days. It will ensure we continue to get essential goods and services back and forth across the border.

'We will continue to take the measures necessary to keep Canadians safe while ensuring the continued flow of our essential supply chains on which so many Canadians depend.'
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CHESTER  Gilster-Mary Lee Corp.'s food products  staple pantry items such as cereals, soups and pasta  are in high demand worldwide as restaurants have curtailed business in response to COVID-19, driving more people into grocery stores. But even as business production ramped up, the manufacturer has also been forced to contend with an outbreak of the virus that affected nearly half of its administrative staff and resulted in the death of its president and chief executive officer, Don Welge.

We had a number of precautions in place but the very contagious nature of the virus is what shocked us in how quickly it hit a number of people, myself included, said Tom Welge, a company vice president whose father died Thursday in a St. Louis hospital. As of Thursday, three other employees were hospitalized. It was very surprising. You know its contagious and youre doing things to protect people, but still, its like nothing weve really probably ever come across.

The companys headquarters is in Chester, the county seat of Randolph County, which has suffered one of the highest COVID-19 per-capita infection rates in Illinois, according to The Southern Illinoisans analysis of Illinois Department of Public Health data.

Its infection rate lags Chicago, Cook County and a handful of other northern counties that have been ground zero of the outbreak in Illinois, but it is significantly higher than most others throughout downstate Illinois.

I think people need to hear that and they need to understand why we have been so stern with our warnings, said Angie Oathout, administrator of the Randolph County Health Department.

What happened here offers a cautionary tale on how quickly the virus can spread to devastating consequences, even in a rural county that is at least half farmland. It may also be looked to as a case study as some downstate political leaders push Gov. J.B. Pritzker to loosen his stay-at-home order and empower local officials with the ability to reopen some shuttered businesses.

It could get to anywhere and everywhere, and it doesnt care what color or how much money you have in your pocket, or whether you live in a big city or a small town, said Chester Mayor Tom Page. It can affect anybody in any given time.

Page said he understands that people are growing impatient with so many businesses closed and school canceled for the rest of the year, especially as the weather warms and people are eager to get back to their normal lives. But Page said he is concerned that easing restrictions too soon could cause serious problems for his small town, home to two large state facilities, Menard Correctional Center and Chester Mental Health. The coronavirus has already wreaked havoc on Gilster-Mary Lee.

Over the past few weeks, some 50 employees at the companys Chester headquarters either tested positive or were quarantined due to showing possible symptoms of COVID-19, or because they had been around someone in the office with a confirmed case or symptoms, Tom Welge said. He had only been released from isolation due to his own COVID-19 diagnosis for a few days when his father passed away. Don Welge, a well-known Southern Illinois businessman and advocate for Southern Illinois and Southeast Missouri, is the first person in Randolph County to succumb from the disease caused by the coronavirus.

As of Friday evening, Randolph County had reported 51 cases of COVID-19. Of that number, 32 have been released to resume normal activity, three remained hospitalized and one person  Welge  had died. Oathout said the recoveries are encouraging, but were not out of the woods yet.

Based on Illinois Department of Public Health data, as of Friday, Randolph County, and neighboring Monroe County, both had known infection rates of about 150 per 100,000 people. These were the highest rates of any county south of Kankakee.

The two counties with the highest infection rates were Cook County (including Chicago and county cases), at about 370 per 100,000 people, and Lake County, at about 270 per 100,000 people.

Jackson Countys infection rate is about half of Randolphs, at about 70 per 100,000 people. Williamson Countys infection rate was about 20 per 100,000 people, and in Franklin County, it was about 12 per 100,000 people. The infection rate in St. Clair County, which neighbors Randolph County to the north, was nearly 100 per 100,000 people.

I dont want my residents to let their guard down, Oathout said. I want them to understand that what they have been doing is reflecting on why we have people recovering, and why were starting to see a slow-down in cases.

Oathout said that Randolph Countys early surge in cases can be largely traced to a single event in mid-March. The ripple effect from that event illustrates how connected rural areas can be, and how miles of open space may provide a false sense of security about COVID-19s reach.

On March 15, there was a group gathering that took place in a public setting, Oathout said. And from that group gathering, we had about five individuals that came up positive. That was the same afternoon that Gov. J.B. Prtizker announced he was closing bars and restaurants to in-house dining across Illinois, allowing only drive-through and take-out service. His order was not effective until the following day, and the people who gathered that weekend were not in violation of it.

One of those individuals who attended the gathering and later tested positive for COVID-19 soon after went to work at a large employer in Chester, Oathout said. She did not identify the public gathering nor the individuals employer.

He actually came to work and was not aware that he was positive and was starting to show some signs and symptoms and worked for about three or four days before he went to the doctor, Oathout said. So because of the exposure period, he exposed multiple individuals who ended up positive.

On the day of the social outing, there were fewer than 100 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Illinois and none in Illinois southernmost 17 counties, including Randolph.

It was another two weeks, on Sunday, March 29, before the Randolph County Health Department reported its first two cases, but the disease  officially undetected until then in the county  had already spread rapidly under the radar.

By that Friday  five days later  the county had confirmed 17 cases. Thats how fast and quickly it happened, Oathout said.

Oathout said the vast majority, though not all, of Randolph Countys cases point back to that one event. She said this became apparent after the first cases were confirmed and officials undertook investigations, which are standard practice, to determine who else those with the disease may have come into contact with, so that they could advise them to quarantine.

The positive cases had some of the same close contacts on their lists, she said. So we asked them, How do you know each other, and why are they a close contact? and then it came out, Well, we were at this outing together on Sunday.

I dont think they realized that the virus was here, she said. And I dont think they completely understood how quickly it spreads.

State Sen. Paul Schimpf, R-Waterloo, said he didnt have adequate information to speculate on the cause, but said that it is not shocking that Randolph Countys infection rate is higher than other counties in Southern Illinois. If you would have told me at the start of this that Randolph County would have a significant number of cases that would not have surprised me just because of the state facilities, with Menard and Chester Mental Health, he said. Those facilities are almost powder kegs waiting to go off.

Though neither facility has seen an outbreak yet, that possibility continues to concern Oathout as the county works to tamp down the spread of the disease. Oathout said she has been in close communication with state officials and they continue to monitor the situation. We have got the attention of the Illinois Department of Public Health, she said.

Schimpf is advocating that the governor give local health officials the power to begin reopening some shuttered businesses in areas where hospital and ventilator capacity is sufficient. Though Randolph County has experienced a high infection rate compared to other downstate counties, its hospital systems have not been overwhelmed. But Oathout said she remains concerned about how quickly that could happen if there were to be an outbreak in a large facility here. The case numbers are deescalating in Randolph County because of the restrictive measures put into place, she said.

Welge said Gilster-Mary Lee had started discussions by early March about how to protect its employees and the business operation. Much of the focus of those early conversations focused on safety precautions for its factory workers, who make products shipped throughout the U.S. and around the world.

He was surprised that it was the business office that was hit hardest. We dont have a lot of people working shoulder-to-shoulder in an office environment, he said. Oathout said that 13 employees of the Chester employer tested positive for COVID-19 who live in Randolph County. Additional employees who tested positive live in other Illinois and Missouri counties and commute to work there, but she was not able to say how many. Welge said that as more people tested positive, others with symptoms who were otherwise relatively healthy were directed to forgo a test, assume they had the illness and quarantine at home.

Welge, who was isolated at home away from his family until only a few days ago, said he suffered only mild symptoms. He never ran a fever, but had headaches and a bit of a cough. It wasnt a dry, relentless cough like many people with COVID-19 report, but more of a light cough, he said. He also experienced chills and lethargy for a few days. Ive had flus that were worse, and colds even. And then theres people it obviously hits a lot harder, he said.

Tom Welge said that the family, and many at the company, are saddened by the loss of his dad, who had been with Gilster-Mary Lee for more than 60 years, and oversaw its massive expansion from 200 employees to more than 3,000 across four states. He was 84, and in a high-risk category as a senior, but otherwise relatively healthy for his age, Welge said.

"If there's any good out of this, is that people need to realize that while most people aren't going to be severely ill from it, as I recovered from it myself, there's a certain percent of people that this can obviously be fatal for," he said. "We all need to take it seriously."

Gallery: COVID-19's impact in Southern Illinois

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Sri Lanka in a post COVID-19 world By Sheran Fernando Features View(s): View(s):

The purpose of this article is to present five simple strategies that could set Sri Lanka on an alleviated growth trajectory in a post COVID-19 world.

This pandemic is unique because economists, statisticians and data analysts cannot formulate a credible model to define when the world will normalise. Without knowing when normalcy can occur, the global cost of the pandemic cannot be worked out.

No one doubts the fact that the pandemic will end. In a motor race, when there is an accident, a safety car is brought out. While the safety car is on the track, no one can overtake. Hence, the lead that everyone built up is brought to nothing and when the safety car exits the circuit and racing recommences, even the car that was running last, has another chance to improve track position.

When COVID-19 leaves us, we should be able to change our growth trajectory and grow rapidly. This article presents five strategies that could change this growth trajectory.

Post COVID-19 world

Many futurists are envisioning a world that is less consumeristic and more savings oriented. A world where food security is more important. A world that is more crisis-ready.

People would be more health and wellness focused. Maybe even more spiritual. Definitely more sustainable, with a lighter carbon footprint.

The pandemic is likely to enable Sri Lanka to negotiate a moratorium on her debt which could be around US$5 billion. The saving from the reduction in oil prices could be as much as $2.5 billion. On the other hand, our exports of $10 billion will decline, as will our earnings of $2 billion from tourism and our foreign remittances of $7 billion. However, the net position for Sri Lanka could be neutral or even advantageous.

Proposal 1: Private sector to fund/partly fund expenditure on health care.

Sri Lanka will need to spend money on healthcare which will include Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) for health care workers and social workers. Equipment such as ventilators will also be needed. Emergency facilities will be needed as backup.

If the Sri Lankan private sector can fund or at least assist to fund this expenditure in return for a 3-times tax deductibility of the money each individual company spends, this could take some load off of this expenditure from the Government.

The Government could then concentrate their expenditure on safeguarding and supporting the lower income groups and the companies that need support.

Proposal 2: Ensure the value

of exports is greater than the

value of imports

My view is that effective import substitution can lead to a material difference in our balance of payments. Vehicles, which are seen by every government as the Evil that rapes Sri Lanka of her foreign exchange, only accounts for $700 million (Jan-Nov 2019), whilst the value of food and beverage imported in the same period was $1.3 billion.

Whilst tourism will require some imported food, there definitely seems to be potential for effective import substitution. Similarly, whilst Sri Lanka exports $5 billion of garments we have also imported $250 million worth of clothing and accessories. If Sri Lanka allows exporters to sell more than the 5 per cent of exports currently allowed, in the local market, a large proportion of this expenditure could be saved. Allowing BOI companies to sell more on the local market can be applied across the board, and similarly, non-export companies must be incentivised to become export substitution industries. Benefits given to exporters via BOI and EDB could be granted to them, in an attempt to reduce imports. Sri Lanka will also need to restructure the exports to cater to the post COVID-19 world. We will need to monitor and adapt to changes in demand and the trends of the new era.

Proposal 3: Restructure State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) for greater transparency and efficiency

I cannot fathom the political sensitivity of SOEs, but I am cognisant of it. Hence, I am only proposing to bring the SOEs under holding companies that are incorporated as Public Limited Company (PLC) under the Sri Lanka Companies Act Number 7, of 2007. The holding companies could be for Tourism, Health, Financial or Other. These holding companies could be 100 per cent government owned. Temasek Holdings Pvt Ltd, the model used by Singapore, could be a model that we could follow.

The PLC structure will bring the SOEs under a PLC, which dictates governance norms via the Companies Act. Using the governance norms used by the private sector will bring in greater transparency and efficiency into the SOEs. This restructuring will enable any Government that wants to broaden the equity base of the holding companies or to bring in strategic investment to the SOE to do so.

Proposal 4: Suspend all capital expenditure

Sri Lanka can pursue all available grant funding such as the infamous and much talked about Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) grant. Apart from grant funding, Sri Lanka can achieve CapEx via Build Operate Transfer (BOT) project undertakings. Airport upgrade and new highways can be funded through the BOT route.

Proposal 5: Restructure,

retrain and re-legislate

Legislation should be passed for public servants to Work from Home (WFH). Their tasks can be set and work can be monitored digitally. This can bring in more transparency and also efficiency. Further, all offices can be downsized, leading to further efficiency. Government employees can be given mandatory training in IT, HR, Customer Service and fields that are defined as important and useful. They can even be trained in entrepreneurship with a view to restructuring the Government Service when such politically sensitive exercises can be entertained. We have around 1.5 million trishaw drivers. They could train as primary health care workers. Farmers could retrain to enable them to be more tech savvy and use more modern techniques.

Conclusion: An enabling platform

These proposals are not meant to be exhaustive and they are presented as broad concepts. The platform that can enable these proposals to be evaluated is technology. The Sri Lanka Information Communication Technology Authority (ICTA) has developed and is implementing a very effective technology platform that will enable many of the proposals presented here to be implemented. The fast-tracking of the ICTA initiative through increased funding will in turn fast-track Sri Lankas revised development trajectory. The second enabling platform is political consensus. When faced with combating an international crisis, Sri Lankan politicians collaboration on broad policy will be of huge national benefit.

(The writer is a Co-Founder of Innosolve Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd, a start-up dedicated to introducing sustainable mobility solutions in Sri Lanka. He is an economist by training, with wide commercial experience including 20 years in the automotive industry.

He can be reached at sheran68@icloud.com)
PRISTINA (Reuters) - Serbia delivered 1,000 coronavirus test kits to Kosovo on Friday, a health official said, in a sign of solidarity despite trade frictions, violent recent history and Kosovo's failure to gain acceptance by Serbia as an independent country. A Serbian official familiar with the delivery said Belgrade dispatched the kits without any political conditions but with 'solely the desire to help overcome this virus problem'. 'This (coronavirus) is a stark reminder that we can resolve many problems only together,' the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters

PRISTINA (Reuters) - Serbia delivered 1,000 coronavirus test kits to Kosovo on Friday, a health official said, in a sign of solidarity despite trade frictions, violent recent history and Kosovo's failure to gain acceptance by Serbia as an independent country.

A Serbian official familiar with the delivery said Belgrade dispatched the kits without any political conditions but with "solely the desire to help overcome this virus problem".

"This (coronavirus) is a stark reminder that we can resolve many problems only together," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

Faik Hoti, the spokesman of Kosovo's Health Ministry, confirmed Serbia's donation. He said on Facebook the donation would be added to 3,100 test kits in stock and the winner of a tender for 13,000 more would be announced on Friday.

Kosovo has reported 449 infections, including of 17 health workers, and 11 dead among its people of 2 million, made up mostly of ethnic Albanians and a small Serbian minority.

Serbia so far reported 5,790 confirmed cases and 110 deaths from the coronavirus infection.

Serbia lost control of Kosovo after the NATO bombing in 1999 to drive out Serb forces following a counter-insurgency in which more than 13,000 people, mainly Kosovo Albanians, were killed.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 but Belgrade does not recognise the move.

EU-sponsored talks between Kosovo and Serbia came to a halt in November 2018 when Kosovo introduced a 100% tax on goods produced in Serbia.

(Reporting by Bardh Krasniqi in Prishtina and Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade; Editing by Nick Macfie)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Residents of Sector 40, along with other stakeholders, have decided to thermal scan the outsiders entering the area from Sunday onward. Besides, the residents have also decided to sanitise the outsiders vehicles to prevent the spread of the virus.

Chandigarhs Sector 40 is the first one to take this initiative and UT adviser Manoj Parida will formally launch it on Sunday. The decision was taken during a meeting held at the sectors community centre where residents, police and local area councillor Gurbax Rawat were present.

Rawat said, The stakeholders contributed money and formed a team of 16 volunteers to monitor the two entry and exit points of the sector and check all those entering the area. She said only people with valid movement passes will be allowed to pass through the sector.

Rawat further said, The administration has sealed one exit point and plans to seal the other soon. To ensure the safety of volunteers, the administration will provide them with personal protective equipment (PPE) kits, she said, adding that the volunteers will be on duty from 7am to 7pm.

Through the contributions, residents have purchased four thermal scanners of  8,000 each. They have also purchased chemicals worth  8,000 for preparing sanitiser liquid to disinfect vehicles entering the sector. Volunteers have also been knitting masks and have made over 400 besides 1,000 three-ply masks for distribution among the people. The residents have also bought 1,000 pairs of gloves.

Sector 40 resident welfare association (RWA) president Dalwinder Singh Saini said the residents have also formed a team of volunteers to help senior citizens and differently-abled persons.

Anyone who needs help can approach their RWA heads or the councilor. We will also touch base with the local police and help them with any such requests, he said.

UT adviser Manoj Parida took to Twitter to praise the residents of the sector and asked other localities also to adopt the new system rather than depending on the administration and police for everything.

Parida will inaugurate the system at 12pm in Sector 40 on Sunday.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday described the Covid-19 pandemic as a "huge challange" and an "opportunity", saying there is a need to mobilise the country's scientists, engineers and data experts to work on innovative solutions to the crisis. "The Covid19 pandemic is a huge challenge, but it is also an opportunity," he said in a tweet. "We need to mobilise our huge pool of scientists, engineers & data experts to work on innovative solutions needed during the crisis," the former Congress president said.

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The Department of Agriculture has issued a status orange fire warning in relation to wildfires.

With very dry weather of late, the ground is drier than normal and there is a real danger of gorse fires.

A number of major fires have broken out in the Wicklow area in recent days and there is concern that areas of upland in Roscommon, Leitrim, Longford and Cavan could also be at risk.

In a Condition Orange warning published on Thursday, the Department said that there was a heightened risk "in all areas where hazardous fuels such as dead grasses and shrub fuels such as heather and gorse exist."

The warning will remain in place until midday on Monday, April 20.

In relation to the Wicklow incidents, the Department said: "Based on recent fire incidents, most ignition risks appear to be associated with illegal burning of upland vegetation, particularly in areas where active turf cutting is taking place.

Additionally, the warning noted that anyone visiting forests or recreational sites should be mindful of social distancing laws restricting non-essential journeys to within a 2km radius of one's home.

The Department has shared advice for the public at large on how to avoid danger from fires.

- Do not light fires in and around forests or open land.

- Do not attempt to intervene or fight fires under any circumstances.

- Gather all family/group members and move to a safe fuel-free location such as a car park, upwind of the fire.

- Telephone Fire and Rescue Services via 112 and report the fire and its location.

- Evacuate if instructed to do so, and cooperate with all Emergency Service instructions.

Meanwhile, householders or building owners in areas susceptible to wildfire are advised to remove or cut back any vegetation in the immediate vicinity of their house, building or oil tank to prevent wildfires damaging or destroying their property.

Landowners and members of the public are reminded that under the Wildlife Act 1976 and the Wildlife (Amendment) Act 2000 it is an offence to cut, grub, burn or otherwise destroy any vegetation growing on any land not then cultivated between March 1 and August 31 in any year.

Meanwhile, Head of the Teagasc Forestry Development Department, Nuala Ni Fhlatharta has urged all landowners to be aware of the fire danger notice.

She reminded landowners that they cannot burn at this time of the year, and highlighted the risk to forestry.

It is important for landowners (including farmers) to know that it is illegal to cut, grub, burn or otherwise destroy any vegetation growing on any land not then cultivated between 1st March and 31st August in any year, under the Wildlife Act 1976 & the Wildlife (Amendment) Act 2000.



In addition, The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed T.D. has recently warned farmers that they must not burn land at this time of year and doing so may have serious consequences for farm payments.



For example-

Burnt land is not eligible for payment under the Basic Payment Scheme and other area-based schemes;

Inclusion of illegally burnt land in the 2020 Basic Payment Scheme application may result in reduced payment and penalties under this scheme and the other area-based schemes, e.g. Areas of Natural Constraints Scheme;

Illegal burning can also render the land of your neighbours ineligible for payment;

Where it is identified that lands were burned during the closed season this may result in on-farm inspection of such land in due course.

In these unprecedented Covid-19 circumstances that we find ourselves in, everyone needs to be conscious that illegal burning at this time robs our communities of vital emergency service response capabilities.

John Casey, Teagasc Forestry advisor said: On a personal level for landowners, the uncontrolled burning of land consumes more than just forests and bogland. They can damage lands, farm infrastructures and contribute to the long term decline in the grazing potential of farmland. These fires also threaten the safety of our most delicate ecosystems and habitats, and the flora and fauna that live in them.
The Tamil family celebrated the news they will not be deported to Sri Lanka, but the asylum-seekers still face many challenges in their bid to stay in Australia.

Priya and Nades Murugappan and their Australian-born daughters Kopika and Tharunicaa, aged four and two, have spent more than two years in detention fighting their deportation to Sri Lanka.

Federal Court Justice Mark Moshinsky on Friday ruled their deportation must remain on hold after determining the youngest daughter had been denied procedural fairness in her bid to apply for a protection visa.

'We were just sharing the joy. Priya was saying it's a happy day. You could hear the smile on her face, and that sense of relief,' family friend, Angela Fredericks, said after speaking with the Tamils.

Priya (right) and Nades Murugappan (left) and their Australian-born daughters Kopika and Tharunicaa, aged four and two, have spent more than two years in detention fighting their deportation to Sri Lanka.

Federal Court Justice Mark Moshinsky on Friday ruled their deportation must remain on hold after determining the youngest daughter had been denied procedural fairness in her bid to apply for a protection visa (pictured: Christmas Island)

Ms Fredericks spoke to Priya after the decision and revealed she saw the decision as another small step back to the town of Biloela.

'She said she feels, after two years, there's now a slow step in the right direction ... for coming home to Biloela,' she said.

Immigration Minister David Coleman lifted a barrier to allow him to consider a visa application for Tharunicaa last May, but no decision was made.

The immigration department then completed an assessment which found the family was unlikely to come under Australia's protection visa obligations.

'The applicant was not notified that the August 2019 assessment was being conducted and was not invited to comment in relation to any aspect of the assessment,' Justice Moshinsky said.

Lawyers for the two sides have a week to agree on a proposal for what happens next or, if they can't agree, two weeks to submit their own proposed orders.

They'll remain on Christmas Island, where they've been since August, until the legal case is finalised.

Lawyer Carina Ford said it remained open to either the Home Affairs or Immigration ministers to allow the family to return to Biloela at any stage.

'We were just sharing the joy. Priya was saying it's a happy day. You could hear the smile on her face, and that sense of relief,' family friend, Angela Fredericks, said.

The Tamil family came to Australia by boat in 2012 and 2013 respectively, alleging they were escaping the Sri Lankan civil war (pictured: Kopika on the left and Tharunicaa on the right)

The Tamil family came to Australia by boat in 2012 and 2013 respectively, alleging they were escaping the Sri Lankan civil war.

Both of their daughters were born in Australia.

The family want to return to the Queensland town of Biloela, and have been waiting on Justice Moshinsky's decision since a two-day hearing in February.

Toddler Tharunicaa is considered an 'unauthorised maritime arrival' by authorities, despite being born in Australia.

Normally, holding this status means a person does not have the right to apply for a visa.

The rest of her family has not been found to be legally due Australia's protection, and have exhausted any appeals process - meaning the family's fate rests with their two-year-old daughter.
The new Paycheck Protection Program, run through the Small Business Administration, had a rocky rollout as the normally sleepy government agency and the banks could not handle the influx of businesses with fewer than 500 employees seeking grants to keep workers on their payroll. By Thursday the SBA ran out of funding authority, but the demand remains intense.
Delta Goodrem will join Keith Urban in representing Australia at the Global Citizen One World: Together at Home live concert.

The Australians will be joined by a host of internationally acclaimed artists, including curator Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, Elton John, The Rolling Stones and Taylor Swift.

Delta, 35, plans to sing a tweaked version of her 2006 hit single Together We Are One.

Australian representation: Delta Goodrem (pictured) will join Keith Urban for Lady Gaga's Global Citizen One World: Together at Home live concert it was revealed Saturday

'I chose it for the sentiment,' she told the Herald Sun on Saturday.

Delta added: 'It still has a powerful message of strength and resilience.'

She originally sang Together We Are One at the Commonwealth Games in 2006 and it went on to become at no.2 hit in Australia.

'I chose it for the sentiment': Delta, 35, plans to sing a tweaked version of her 2006 hit single Together We Are One

Delta decided to tweak the lyrics to reference the coronavirus pandemic.

Chris Martin, Annie Lennox, Jennifer Lopez, Shawn Mendes, Stevie Wonder, The Killers, Adam Lambert, Kesha, Billy Ray Cyrus, Sheryl Crow, Niall Horan and countless more are also slated to perform for the virtual concert.

The concert kicks off on social media at 4AM AEST, with Delta set to perform around 7AM.

Aussie talent: Delta will be joined by Keith Urban (pictured) to represent Australia at the star-studded virtual concert

Channel Ten and Channel Seven will replay the concert from 10AM, as well as Foxtel's National Geographic and MTV Australia.

Delta has had plenty on streaming experience over recent weeks, having shared a series of free online performances with fans.

She asked fans to send in requests and even debuted brand new songs that had not been heard by the public.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-19 03:38:27|Editor: huaxia

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ISTANBUL, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday inspected the construction zones of two COVID-19 hospitals in Istanbul from the air by a helicopter.

Turkey has been building the hospitals for COVID-19 patients in the Ataturk Airport area on the European side of the city and the Sancaktepe district on the Asian side.

On April 6, Erdogan said that construction on both sites were expected to be completed in 45 days.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca also visited the construction areas and said that "we will make Istanbul ready for disasters on both sides."

Koca said at a tweet that the "multipurpose hospital" in the Ataturk Airport area would constitute a strong health infrastructure for epidemic, earthquake and all kinds of disasters.

"Our hospital will have a total of 1,008 beds, which can be all converted into intensive care units," he added.

For the hospital in Sancaktepe, Koca said it would provide full capacity service with its 1,008 beds when completed.

"Turkey will continue to make a difference in the world with its health care system," he noted.

Turkey has so far recorded 82,329 coronavirus cases and 1,890 deaths, according to the latest data released on Saturday by the Health Ministry.
If it seems like the strain youre feeling over the coronavirus pandemic is hitting your pets, too, it may not be just in your head.

Scientists have found that our furry friends, especially dogs and cats, intuitively know how were feeling: They can read our facial expressions, pick up on emotional nuances in our voices, even sense when were nervous or worried.

They can definitely pick up on our anxiety, said Dr. Wailani Sung, a veterinary behaviorist at San Francisco SPCA. Dogs and cats are visual communicators. They know our body language much better than we know theirs. When we get worried, they get worried.

The disruption pets may be feeling goes beyond mirroring our angst.

At a time when everybody is being urged to keep social distancing and California is under a shelter-in-place order, animals are also adjusting to new routines.

Christina Pappas, a public school office manager in San Francisco, said as the streets have become quieter her dog, Lassen, has become sensitive to noise, barking at the slightest sound in the middle of the night.

I jump out of my skin every time he does it, she said of her German shepherd, who is also exhibiting signs of depression.

Now Playing: Since the Bay Area's shelter-in-place order, Oakland Zoo has been closed to the public, but has started scheduling live video behind-the-scenes visits with various zoo animals. Video: SFGATE

Hes used to socializing with other dogs, Pappas said. Were still walking him, but he doesnt get to socialize.

For some pets, it may be a boon to have their owners home around the clock. But for a lot of pets, the constant companionship can also be confusing and disruptive, Sung said.

Especially if we are home and were working, she said. Theyre used to us coming home after a workday and interacting with them. Now, we sometimes have to ignore them or shut them out and they dont understand that.

Cats and dogs who are used to having an empty house during the day to freely lounge around might also be feeling put out with the constant buzz of Zoom meetings, children running around and pots and pans clanging in the kitchen.

Constanza Hevia H. / Special to The Chronicle

If theyre not getting their adequate sleep, they might be a little bit more grumpy, Sung said.

There are ways to keep pets happy through the pandemic. Sung suggests pet owners take brief breaks every hour, to spend a few minutes playing with their animals, whether its throwing a ball or working with them on learning a new trick.

They learn they get your undivided attention for a couple of minutes and then, while theyre mentally tired, you can go back to work again, she said.

She also recommends coming up with sensory activities for pets who have had their usual physical activities curtailed because of the statewide, stay-at-home order, especially if theyre exhibiting destructive or attention-seeking behavior  like prancing across your keyboard during that important conference all.

This is especially important for dogs that are used to long outings with hired walkers during the day.

These can include anything from delivering their meals in puzzle toys to ordering wild animal scent markers online and leaving droplets along the path of your walk around the block.

Just processing a new scent that theyve never smelled before can be really enriching, Sung said. We try to tire the brain cells a little bit, give them more mental enrichment versus physical enrichment, and that can be pretty comparable compensation for them.

Thea Lee, a user experience researcher at a local tech company, and her wife, Amanda Faulkner, said their dog Rogelio, a 4-year-old beagle and Chihuahua mix, has wholeheartedly embraced the change at their Oakland home.

Constanza Hevia H. / Special to The Chronicle

He thinks this is the new normal: I get my moms all the time! said Lee, who is considering switching to a permanent work-from-home setup even after shelter-in-place orders are lifted.

Melissa Bain, a professor of clinical animal behavior at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, said there are a few signs pet owners should watch for until things get back to normal: outward signs of anxiety, such as cowering, panting, shaking, drooling and pacing.

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.

If a pet is displaying any of the signs of anxiety or stress listed above, it could be a cause for concern, Bain said. Additionally, owners should be on the lookout for changes in physical problems, as sometimes stress can manifest itself (in reactions) such as vomiting and diarrhea.

The other thing people should consider is how they will transition back to their normal lives; and how their pets will react to, once again, being left behind most of the day.

Ideally, owners should have a consistent schedule as much as possible, and interact with their pet as they did previously, Bain said.

Constanza Hevia H. / Special to The Chronicle

Barring that, Sung said that its best to start planning a transition as soon as we get more information about when the shelter-in-place mandate is going to be lifted.

She suggests owners start now by leaving their pets alone, even if its just in a separate room, for incrementally longer periods of time; stocking up on sensory toys to keep the animals occupied while theyre away; and working with employers to gradually resume their regular office hours.

If youre with your pets 24/7 for six to eight weeks and all of a sudden you leave them, its going to be a shock to their system, she said.

Public health officials are also urging residents to plan ahead for pet care, in case the owners become ill or hospitalized with the coronavirus. They suggest gathering pet supplies, including food to last at least two weeks, 30 days supply of medications, a travel kennel, treats and toys.

I think everybody should have an emergency plan for their pets, especially living in the Bay Area, which is an epicenter of natural disasters, Sung said. That way, if something happens to you, the person who cares for your pet doesnt have to run around and figure out, What kind of food do I need to get?

Officials also suggest identifying a temporary caregiver and writing down emergency information such as the owners name and contact, veterinarians contact and pets feeding schedule and medical conditions.

Everyone seems to agree that pets are resilient and generally adapt easily to change. As much as they need us to guide them through trying times, it may be that we need them even more.

Rogelios providing a lot of sanity for us, Faulkner said.

Aidin Vaziri is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: avaziri@sfchronicle.com
The teachers at the front of Cayden Degner Chartrand's classroom have been replaced with daytime-TV game-show hosts.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/4/2020 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The teachers at the front of Cayden Degner Chartrand's classroom have been replaced with daytime-TV game-show hosts.

The 10 year old has assumed his usual position on a well-worn couch in his grandmothers living room. He has a selection of television channels to flip through, a fidget spinner and an endless amount of time to kill.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Nicole Woodford and two of her four kids, Landon (back), 13, and Elizabeth (front), 11, were on hand to be surprised by the delivery of a computer so her children can participate in e-learning.

With in-classroom instruction on hiatus indefinitely because of the coronavirus pandemic, he has been spending upwards of six hours daily hanging out with his "Omie." His mom, Kat Degner, drops him off at the Bruce Park home around 9 a.m., before she heads to work.

'Omie' Rita Degner, 66, estimates they accomplish one hour of academic work a week; her mobility is largely limited to the living room as she recovers from a recent stroke.

"Were not really doing so good with the homeschooling; I dont have the internet," she says.

The Grade 5 student doesnt mind the slow-paced routine. At Omies, Cayden mostly gets to relax, free from math lessons. Printed worksheets and books are no match for the entertaining quizzes on America Says or The Chase. Neither do they compare to the e-learning assignments out of reach for a student without a combination of Wi-Fi and a computer.

As more fortunate students across the province log in, their monitors and touchscreens shine a light on the possibilities of e-learning; they also expose how it's near-impossible for students on the other side of the digital divide to keep up.

Teachers, tutors and so-called internet-rights advocates are banding together to supply families in need with computers, internet access and adequate bandwidth. Despite their efforts, they admit demand is far greater than the current resources available, and learning loss will be inevitable.

"My son is not getting his education because I cant be at home helping him," Kat says over the phone, during a break in the workday.

"I feel like a failure."



MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Elizabeth (right), gives her mom, Nicole, a hug as both got overwhelmed after receiving a computer from Tech Manitoba.

Almost 94 per cent of Prairie residents have access to the internet at home, according to the latest Canadian Internet Use Survey.

Of those who reported accessing the internet in the 2018-19 countrywide survey, 16 per cent reported using the internet at school. Notably, only Canadians 15 and older were surveyed.

Theres little specific data on how many Manitobans have access to enough devices to meet family member needs or the quality broadband internet required to make any device useful in the context of online classrooms.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission  which deemed broadband internet a basic service in 2016  has set download speed of 50 megabits per second and uploads of at least 10 Mbps as targets for internet service providers to offer all Canadians. That combination allows users to stream video.

Across the country, almost 86 per cent of households have access to 50/10 internet. But in Manitoba, that figure is less than 72 per cent.

The ever-present gap is often hidden, thanks to the free Wi-Fi available in schools, community centres and libraries, says Laura Tribe, executive director of OpenMedia, a Canadian non-profit internet advocacy organization.

"When that plug is taken away. How far behind will people be when this is over?" she says from her home-office in Ottawa. "Getting the internet into the hands of as many people as possible is going to be the glue."



Its 3:30 p.m., and had learning schedules not been disrupted by COVID-19, dozens of North End students would be coming and going at 541 Selkirk Ave. Today, however, the glass doors are locked.

The building, which has a facade of four tall feathers, houses the Community Education Development Association and, typically, high school tutoring.

Approximately 350 inner-city students participate in programming during the school year. Mid-pandemic, less than 15 per cent of the student population is accessing online tutoring.

"The longer young people feel disengaged, the harder its going to be to engage them. As time goes on, its going to be harder to connect, so thats why I think these next two, three weeks are really key," says Tom Simms, co-director of CEDA.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Tom Simms says learning loss is inevitable since they've been unable to connect with many students due to internet access challenges.

It has already been one month since schools closed, originally, for a three-week period. Pandemic paranoia had been creeping into Winnipeg homes even before the province shut things down, prompting many parents to pull the plug on activities outside the classroom.

Alongside the schools inner-city tutors work with, staff are surveying families to find out what their technology needs are.

Preliminary responses to the needs survey conducted by the Winnipeg School Division  the largest in Manitoba, where many North End and inner-city schools are located  indicate 2,500 area families require at least one device. Of those families, roughly 40 per cent dont have the internet.

Tony Marchione, the division's acting director of technology, says the division is in early conversations with service providers about potential partnerships to provide internet to students.

As administrators explore options, Marchione notes two key concerns: first, that students are able to access Wi-Fi safely on division devices that filter content; and two, that families can access an e-learning help desk with their questions.

Tactics being used by divisions across the province  from widespread device distribution to outdoor Wi-Fi hotspots  are under consideration as Marchione and other members of a provincial distance-learning committee set out to find best practices.

School support staff across the city have already delivered hundreds of iPads and Chromebooks to households in need. At the same time, teachers have taken to their kitchen tables to prepare both paper packages and e-learning lessons.

Grade 1/2 teacher Christi Benoit has so far mobilized a network of a half-dozen inner-city teachers to share their methods to ensure they are reaching all students, regardless of family access to digital connections.

"No matter where you teach, you worry about your kids and you worry about their well-being  making sure theyre safe and healthy," says Benoit, who works at Shaughnessy Park School on the outskirts of the North End.

Benoit has been focused on uploading work to online platform Seesaw and creating take-home bags with craft equipment and cross-curricular activities children and parents can do without her usual extensive teaching, modelling and co-practising.

"More important than anything Ive sent home, usually either Mondays or Fridays, I do phone-call checks," she says.

"Its been an eye-opener as to how important our relationships are with our kids and our families  them knowing Im calling just to check in. It helps establish a genuine relationship. It shows parents that we genuinely just care about your kids and we want to help you and support you as best as we can."

MAGGIE MACINTOSH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Rita Degner and her 10-year-old grandson Cayden Degner Chartrand have been spending their days watching daytime game shows on TV and talking since they don't have internet access.

The challenges of the new learning environment seem to all revolve around connection, be the loss of in-person contact or the inability to maintain a link online.

Around the corner from the main CEDA building, Melanie Swain is sitting on the porch, watching her young children play on the brown lawn in front of her Flora Avenue home.

Swain, a mother of eight and stepmother of three, and her husband clearly have their hands full. The children are between the ages of three and 19.

Swain says her children have been spending most of their time playing amongst themselves and completing the odd homework sheet since the last bell rang March 20.

"They get bored easily," she says. The family of 13 has one computer.

While she says teachers have been touching base by phone and delivering paper packages, the kids miss their friends, phys-ed class and the breakfast and lunch programs at William Whyte School.

"Weve all got to be working together on this. Its too much to ask of schools, its too much to ask of parents," Simms says.

"We need the community sector, the philanthropic sector, the private sector, the public sector all working together on ways to meet this digital divide issue  and what I would call a COVID learning-loss issue that were going to be, inevitably, dealing with."



Standing in their front hallway, an emotional Nikki Woodford watches her two middle children  Elizabeth, 11, and Landen, 13  snip the polka dot-patterned ribbon wrapped around their newly gifted computer equipment.

Just a few moments ago, the two George Waters Middle School students opened the front door to find a refurbished monitor, computer and keyboard on their concrete steps in the Brooklands neighbourhood.

"I wont have to worry about them falling behind," Woodford says, wiping away tears streaming down her flushed face before heading to her last shift at Canadian Tire. It's a job she cares about deeply but has opted to give up so she can take care of her children during the pandemic. Finding child care has been one of many challenges during the last few weeks.

"Thats my main concern right now  just making sure the kids keep up with their education, and can reach out to their teachers if they have any questions," she says, adding she also worries about their mental health under the circumstances.

The Woodfords are among 240 families who are receiving used computers thanks to a joint effort between Tech Manitoba and Computers for Schools to get as many Manitobans connected as possible.

The hope is that e-learning lessons on the device, combined with the board games, books and yard work the Woodfords have been occupying themselves with since mid-March will continue to keep them productive while school is out.

Margaux Miller, program director of DigitALL at Tech Manitoba, and her team are encouraging Manitobans to donate used devices to Computers for Schools. Donated gear is wiped of personal data and gifted to people who cant afford to buy devices. Its but one way to tackle the connectivity cracks.

Educators and advocates are also asking businesses to keep their Wi-Fi networks open so people can connect outside facilities. Among their other quick-fix solutions, eliminating punitive data caps, expanding low-income coverage programs such as the federal governments Connecting Families initiative and gifting students "rocket sticks"  USB-sized devices that connect users to the internet once plugged into a device.

Service providers have already taken some steps. Bell MTS is waiving extra usage fees for all residential internet customers until June 30 while Shaw has announced its 100,000 WiFi hot spots will be open to the public until further notice.



Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen has repeatedly said no students will be held back because of the pandemic. One month into school closures, families are already concerned about the remedial learning that will be required to bring kids up to grade level in the fall.

For Kat Degner, a single mom juggling work, cooking and math lessons for a resistant student, the only thing that would make life easier is if school resumed Monday.

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"Theres no time (for school work), whether theres technology or not," she says, adding Cayden, who has ADHD, needs one-on-one time because he struggles with focus.

While theyve tried to fill out math problems on paper, Kat says she doesnt adequately understand the lessons to help Cayden when he gets frustrated.

"I hope (the province) has a plan in place for students who didn't get to do all this online stuff," she says. "I think its going to lead to a lot of bullying."

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie
BERLIN  Felix Germann was not expecting anyone when his doorbell rang last week. Outside was a doctor who looked like she had just stepped out of an operating theater, green scrubs, face mask and all  and a policeman.

I didnt do it! Mr. Germann said, throwing up his hands, and everybody laughed.

The unusual visitors had come with an unusual proposal: Would he allow them to test his blood for Covid-19 antibodies? Every month? For a year? Starting next week?

He would be helping to further the science that would ultimately allow for a controlled lifting of social and economic restrictions and save lives.

Of course I said yes, said Mr. Germann, a 41-year-old project manager at a media company. I want to help. This is a collective crisis. The government is doing what it can. Everyone needs to do their bit.
Nguyen Thanh Phan, CEO of Doctor Anywhere Vietnam

Having entered Vietnam in late 2019, what do you think about the growth potential of the Vietnamese healthcare market?

The potential is extremely appealing. Vietnam is one of the fastest-growing developing economies in Asia with lots of favourable conditions for us to dive in. The smartphone penetration rate is 84 per cent, one of the highest amongst Southeast Asian countries. Moreover, the young population with hi-tech adoption will continually be changing their behaviour to online platforms and services. It happens everywhere in all aspects of community and society, and thats where the growth of Doctor Anywhere is heading to.

In addition, not only individual users but corporations are also looking for digital healthcare providers, enhancing their employees conditions and approaching new innovations for a full digital transformation. Doctor Anywhere is in the right place and the right time to witness these business co-operations thrive.

As Singapore's leading tech-led health and wellness platform, what are the highlights and advantages of Doctor Anywheres healthcare services?

Doctor Anywhere aims at being a super app and a one-stop place for all users healthcare needs. We connect all the healthcare networks, offering products at all stages.

Users of the Doctor Anywhere app can directly access a range of healthcare services on the app. This includes on-demand service to consult a locally licensed doctor of high expertise and experience through video call to have a thorough medical consultation process as doctors are not subject to the pressure from overcrowded local public hospitals and medical facilities, with medication delivered within three hours.

The app also allows scheduling an appointment in advance with a preferred doctor or the booking of home-based healthcare services where users can get a care team to visit them at home.

Users can also keep track of their medical history and store documents such as consultation records, health screening reports, and referral letters directly on the app. This enforces the family doctor concept, thus making the medical consultation process convenient and efficient  without compromising quality.

The app also features a function to purchase health and wellness products and services on the Marketplace and customers can pay for consultation sessions and any other transactions in the app conveniently through a digital payment gateway.

Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, Doctor Anywhere helps users to reduce the chance of cross-contamination.

Additionally, we have customised our app to meet the needs of Vietnamese customers and will roll out more specialities including ENT, paediatrics, and more in the coming time.

Due to the growing health demands, hospitals in big cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are overloaded, to a large extent driven by the healthcare demand of people in the countryside and other cities and provinces. In addition to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, does Doctor Anywhere plan to expand to other cities and provinces to cash in on the growing healthcare demand?

Public hospitals in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are being overcrowded with patients coming from the surrounding cities (both industrial cities as well as rural areas), highlighting the inefficiencies of the current healthcare system.

To tackle this issue, the Vietnamese government has been putting a lot of effort into developing new healthcare infrastructure in these surrounding cities but so far this has not been efficient as it has not stopped patients from traveling long distances to get to the public hospitals in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City while the newly-established hospitals and medical facilities in these surrounding cities remain under-utilised. One of the main reasons for this is the lack of trust: our population does not believe that the doctors and caregivers in these medical facilities are as qualified as the ones in big cities.

By connecting all the doctors and medical service providers on the Doctor Anywhere platform, conveniently making them available to our patients via our technology and encouraging transparency and the sharing of medical information between the relevant parties, we are positively contributing to resolving one of the biggest problems that the Vietnamese healthcare industry has been dealing with for quite some time now.

On a more concrete note, in the second phase, we plan to initiate discussions with some of these overcrowded public hospitals to pilot a project where they will integrate the Doctor Anywhere platform into their operations to better assort and filter patients prior to them arriving to the hospital, as well as Provide patients with follow-up care from a distance via teleconsultation so they do not have to travel back to the hospital.

How does the Vietnamese market appear next to regional markets like Singapore and Thailand in terms of market size, legal conditions, and future growth potential? Apart from these three markets, which new potential markets is Doctor Anywhere targeting to venture into?

As I stated earlier, Vietnams huge population and high number of smartphone users promise blooming growth for healthcare services. Besides, the Vietnamese government is encouraging digitalisation with Circular 49 of the Ministry of Health outlining guidelines for telemedicine, which set the foundation for health-tech services to take off.

I believe that health-tech companies fit in well in this context. Doctor Anywhere leads the market by our promise to supply sustainable services: accessibility, convenience, and quality.

Apart from our three traditional markets that you mentioned, were are planning to venture into Malaysia, Myanmar, and the Philippines. As we soon venture into these markets, we continue to personalise and localise our healthcare services to bring optimal experience to each countrys users.
We must reject policies which will limit the access to oxygen therapy for millions of people.

How many times a day do we hear that coronavirus is the great leveller, infecting world leaders and bus drivers alike? Should we be finding it reassuring that a deadly virus is the thread that unites our shared humanity across increasingly unequal societies?

This common refrain does not hold up well to scrutiny. While lawyers and bankers work from the safety of their homes, low paid professionals like care home staff, hospital cleaners and delivery drivers continue to work in environments where they are more at risk of contracting the disease.

Self-isolation is not an option for vulnerable communities, such as refugees or the homeless. And some communities are clearly more vulnerable to the disease: In the United States state of Louisiana, for example, 70 percent of the COVID-19 deaths are African Americans, yet the African American community makes up just 33 percent of the population.

As the pandemic takes hold in the southern hemisphere, the supposed equality in the face of COVID-19 will be exposed for the lie it always was.

Intensive care units have buckled under pressure in China, Europe and the US. However, large swaths of the world face a different scenario. Gaza has approximately 20 mechanical ventilators for two million people; the Central African Republic has three ventilators for a country of five million; and Burkina Faso has a grand total of 12 critical care beds for its 20 million citizens.

We can hope that a younger demographic in most of these countries will help mitigate the effect of COVID-19. But many already suffer from tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, various non-communicable diseases, and infections such as cholera, measles, or malaria. Catching COVID-19 on top of these may prove to be a deadly combination.

For now, the working assumption is that the pattern of severe infection will at least match that seen in Asia and Europe: 80 percent may not require hospitalisation, but some 20 percent will. Most of the latter will need oxygen therapy, and a full quarter of them  mechanical ventilation. For those without such care, death by asphyxiation is all but inevitable.

Oxygen and ventilators will be the dividing line between the north and south, just as access to antiretrovirals drugs (ARVs) were at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the 1990s. For years, Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) scaled-up ARV treatment projects in South Africa to demonstrate that this divide was neither necessary nor acceptable.

We, and others, refused to accept denying the severity of the crisis, and the fatal indifference towards people who could not afford quality care.

We must refuse to accept the oxygen divide now, too.

COVID-19 moves fast. The virus is highly transmissible and the time between infection and a fatal end is often less than a month. This time we have weeks, not years, to scale up if we want to make a difference.

The unprecedented challenge of COVID-19 for wealthy countries can seem insurmountable in resource-poor settings. Under-resourced health ministries will inevitably bear the brunt.

First, the gulf between the care available and the potential demand is massive. In high-income countries, medical oxygen is taken for granted. It is built into the walls of each hospital room via sophisticated piping systems.

In the hospitals where we work, this is just not the case. Oxygen concentrators demand stable electricity supplies. Or we must source bottled oxygen, which is not a practical solution for a disease where patients require it for days or weeks. In many places, there are simply no supplies of medical-grade oxygen.

Second, very few humanitarian organisations have the knowledge or logistical capacity required to provide high-end medical services, at the best of times. Now we are faced with a new virus that requires highly specialised skills and intubation at scale over several weeks for each patient. Though MSF specialises in medical emergencies and epidemic response, we rarely provide intubation for more than a few hours or days to trauma patients in our warzone hospitals.

Still, MSF plans to provide essential care of critical cases with oxygen therapy, and in a few settings, push our limits to deliver intensive care with mechanical ventilators. We need to challenge this divide, this socioeconomic triage where minorities, vulnerable groups, slum dwellers, and in some cases entire populations, will have no access to care and oxygen.

But none of this will be possible unless current obstacles are surmounted. Freedom of movement across borders for medical and humanitarian staff should be facilitated. Bans on exporting medical supplies to particularly vulnerable countries should be lifted. Newly produced medical equipment, drugs and personal protective equipment for front-line workers must be made available beyond national borders.

We must reject policies that abandon half of the worlds patients to face the pandemic without access to the oxygen and intensive care available in the North. We need you, reading this text, wherever you are in the world, to denounce policies that expect the south to settle for soap and leaflets telling them to wash their hands. We must all refuse to accept that thousands of those who contract COVID-19 should die  for lack of oxygen.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
Varanasi, April 18 : The Banarasi saree industry, renowned for its production of beautiful and some of the finest sarees in India, is struggling to cope with the dip in the business it is facing due to the nationwide lockdown owing to the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed over 450 lives in the country so far.

The Banarasi sarees are quite popular for their gold and silver brocade or zari, fine silk and opulent embroidery. The sarees are usually made of finely woven silk and decorated with intricate design. Due to these engravings, these sarees are relatively heavy.

The Coronavirus-triggered crisis has not only led to the fall in the sale of sarees, a number of workers associated with the Banarasi saree industry are also suffering. It's being said the industry is facing a loss of around Rs 24 crore daily.

Ashok Dhawan, patron of the Banarasi Textile Industries Association, told IANS,: "It is a cottage industry. About one lakh families are involved in this. Everything is closed now and this is causing a loss of about 24 crores per day. "

"We have an annual income of about Rs 6,000 crore. We sell for 250 days. The business is closed for 100 days. This business runs without any support from the government. It's a self-funded employment. This industry is currently closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak and due to this, many families are struggling," Dhawan said.

He said that Banarasi sarees are sold most in the domestic market. The saree is sold in all districts of India its demand raises especially during marriages as it's used widely.

"There is no system here like place an order and book your product. Here, the customer comes and purchases the products himself. People purchase these sarees a lot during the wedding season," he said.

Vaibhav Kapoor, vice-president of the Silk Trade Association, said: "The Coronavirus pandemic has affected the entire market. The business of the months of March and April have taken a blow, and things are not likely to get better even in May. It will take at least six months to recover from this. Even after the end of lockdown, it will take a lot of time for the industry to recover."

The Banarasi saree industry is also dependent on tourists to a significant extent. Many tourists from south regions of India come here to purchase the sarees.

"There is a huge market of Banarasi sarees in the south. Even in Holi, the business did not pick much pace. The Navratri season was also simlar. Now, due to COVID-19, the loss would be in crores. There is a lot of demand of sarees in the villages as well but due to the current situation, the business is stalled there too. Let's see if we can witness some decent business around Diwali," Kapoor said.

Ramswaroop, a saree shopkeeper in Varanasi, said: "Sarees are sold in large numbers during wedding seasons. But this time, the sale of sarees have been low since March. The Coronavirus has wreaked havoc on the markets." (Vivek Tripathi can be contacted at vivek.t@ians.in)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The radiation background in the Exclusion Zone, Kyiv and the region is within normal limits

The chairman of the State Emergency Service, Mykola Chechotkin, states air pollution in Kyiv is not related to fires in the Chernobyl zone. He said this during a daily meeting chaired by the President of Ukraine, the press service of the head of state reports.

According to Chechotkin, the radiation background in the Exclusion Zone, Kyiv and the region is within normal limits and does not exceed normal values.

Also, the head of the State Emergency Situations Committee noted that there are no threats to the critical infrastructure of the Exclusion Zone, such as the Shelter, or the radioactive waste storage facility.

In addition, the State Emergencies Ministry announced the creation of forces reserve in case of complications.

Earlier Kyiv city hall recommended that citizens close their windows, which is due to a drastic increase of concentration of harmful emissions into the air. That's the consequence of fires in Chornobyl exclusion zone and a forest district in Zhytomyr region, northern Ukraine; they still have not been extinguished.

Bellingcat investigation bureau came up with a big article focused on the current environmental situation.

"Citizens have meanwhile expressed concerns that radioactivity in the exclusion zone could be spreading through thick smoke from the burning trees. Also, some international media outlets have made misleading claims about spiking radiation levels at the abandoned nuclear waste storage  with both of these statements actually being incorrect", the agency wrote.
France's lower house of parliament approved an emergency budget overnight that takes into account the government's 110 billion euro (USD 120 billion) plan to save the economy from virus-related collapse.

The budget includes bonuses for medical staff, funds to help struggling workers and families, and aid to businesses including strategic industries like aviation and car manufacturing.

The bill goes to the Senate on Tuesday. The government has warned that France's economy, one of the world's biggest, could shrink 8 per cent this year and see its worst recession since World War II.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tiger King's Joe Exotic would only have sex with two of his husbands at the same time to avoid them getting jealous, documentary maker Louis Theroux has revealed.

The 49-year-old British filmmaker met Joe while making 2011 documentary Louis Theroux Dangerous Pets.

During the course of filming, Louis touched on the now-57-year-old's sex life with his two husbands, who were 20 and 31 at the time of their nuptials.

Wedded bliss: Louis touched on the now-57-year-old's sex life with his two husbands, who were 20 and 31 years his junior at the time of their nuptials. The flamboyant zoo keeper had a three-way wedding with Travis Maldonado and John Finlay in 2014 (pictured). John was 31 at the time, while Travis was just 20, while Joe was decades older at 51

Revelations: Louis Theroux (pictured) has revealed details about the sex life of Tiger King star Joe Exotic. The 49-year-old British filmmaker met Joe while making 2011 documentary Louis Theroux Dangerous Pets

The flamboyant zoo keeper had a three-way wedding with Travis Maldonado and John Finlay in 2014.

John was 31 at the time, while Travis was just 20, while Joe was decades older at 51.

Both husbands had begun working at the zoo aged just 19 - John in 2003 and Travis in 2013.

Joe told the journalist that the men avoided jealously by making love in a group, with all three involved at all times, The Weekend Australian reported on Saturday.

'It works awesome,' Joe told Louis at the time, 'Because we're all too tired to have sex.'

Details: Joe told the journalist that the men avoided jealously by making love in a group, with all three involved at all times. 'It works awesome,' Joe told Louis at the time, 'Because we're all too tired to have sex.' Joe and Travis are pictured in Tiger King

Younger men: Both husbands had begun working at the zoo aged just 19 - John in 2003 and Travis in 2013. Pictured: John in Tiger King

Tragic: In 2017, Travis, then 23, died after authorities say he accidentally fatally shot himself in the head. Pictured: Travis in Tiger King

In 2017, Travis, then 23, died after authorities say he accidentally fatally shot himself in the head.

John was moved on and is engaged to a woman named Stormey Sanders. The pair have a child together.

Joe's final marriage was to Dillon Passage, 22, in December 2017, with the duo together when Joe was arrest in 2018.

This week, Dillon revealed he doesn't know if the Tiger King star has cheated on him in jail but says it's 'disgusting' if he has.

New love: Joe's final marriage was to Dillon Passage, 22, (left) in December 2017, with the duo together when Joe was arrest in 2018

Speaking to the Fifi, Fev and Byron radio show in Australia on Friday, Dillon said he used to talk to Joe several times a day before he was moved to a different facility, but now their communication has significantly decreased.

Dillon admitted Joe would support him if he decided to find a new relationship, but wasn't sure whether Joe had found someone else in jail.

Dillon explained he used to speak to Joe around 'three to five times everyday'.

'But recently he was moved to another facility so I've only been able to speak to him two times in the past three weeks,' Dillon said.

Loyal: This week, Dillon revealed he doesn't know if the Tiger King star has cheated on him in jail but says it's 'disgusting' if he has. Loyal: This week, Dillon revealed he doesn't know if the Tiger King star has cheated on him in jail but says it's 'disgusting' if he has

Dillon doesn't plan on 'going anywhere', but he's unsure if Joe feels the same.

'I have no idea, if he has [cheated] then that's disgusting but good for him. I have no idea if he has, but if he has, he hasn't told me about it,' Dillon admitted.

Joe is currently serving 22-year sentence after being found guilty of a murder-for-hire plot against his exotic animal rival Carole Baskin, 58.

The husbands have had a conversation about whether Dillon, who is 35 years Joe's junior, should move on to a new relationship.

'If I decide to move on and find somebody that he's going to support me,' he said.

Moving on? He admitted Joe would support him if he decided to find a new relationship, but wasn't sure whether Joe had found someone else in jail

Tiger King tells the story of zoo owner Joe as he spirals out of control amid a cast of eccentric characters in the true murder-for-hire story from the underworld of big cat breeding.

Joe reportedly loves the docuseries, and the fame it's brought him, with Dillon affectionately labelling him an 'attention whore'.

Meanwhile, Big Cat Rescue CEO Carole has been receiving death threats over the allegations she murdered her millionaire first husband Don Lewis, who went missing in 1997.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 18

By Elnur Baghishov - Trend

According to the UN resolutions and documents, the occupied territories must be returned to Azerbaijan, Irans Ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh told Trend.

Iran has always supported the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, the ambassador said.

Jahangirzadeh added that the Islamic Republic of Iran was one of the first countries to offer assistance and mediation in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and positive steps have been taken in this direction.

The ambassador said that there is a need for stability and cooperation in the region. Iran is pleased that Azerbaijan has always demonstrated its readiness for a peaceful solution to this conflict.

Commenting on the video footage of Iranian trucks allegedly transporting goods to Nagorno Karabakh, he said it is fake and unreliable.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has nothing to do with the illegal regime created in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, added Jahangirzadeh.

Talking about the recently held so-called "elections" in Nagorno-Karabakh, he noted that Iran condemns any move that would undermine the negotiation process on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"Such actions will not help resolve the conflict and will only complicate it. The Armenian side must prove its claim to be sincere in the discussions, but their actions prove the opposite," he said.

Recently, a video was posted on social media allegedlyshowing transportation of goods and fuel to the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh of Azerbaijan by Iranian trucks. The Iranian side said that the footage was fake.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
(Natural News) Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has extended the countrys national coronavirus lockdown  considered to be the largest in the world  until May 3. The announcement, which was made on Tuesday, has been heavily criticized by millions of Indians, many of whom report being left without any support as their main sources of income have disappeared.

In his announcement, Modi noted that while extending the lockdown means paying a big price from an economic angle, the measure has long-term benefits for all. The lockdown, which began on March 25, was slated to end at midnight on Tuesday.

But the lives of the people of India are far more valuable. From the experiences of the last few days it is clear that the path we have chosen is correct, he added.

The World Health Organization has praised the countrys decision to extend the lockdown period, stating that it will go a long way to curbing the spread of the coronavirus.

India has 14,972 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 488 deaths, according to the latest tally from Johns Hopkins University on Saturday, but many experts believe that the real number of infections is probably much higher. The country is home to some of the most congested cities in the world such as Mumbai and Delhi, and health officials arent testing as many people as it should.

Millions struggle to cope as economy grounds to a halt

The extension also comes as many industries are starting to tackle how to kick start the countrys sputtering economy  in particular, by easing certain lockdown restrictions  in an effort to remain afloat despite the economic impact of the global pandemic.

The ongoing lockdown has also impacted most of the countrys population, who rely on daily wages to sustain themselves and their families. Due to the shuttering of transport services, people have been forced to walk hundreds of miles back to their home villages, with many recorded cases of people dying while on the journey. Other laborers have been stranded in cities, where cramped and unsanitary conditions increase their risk of being exposed to the coronavirus, possibly pushing the countrys already strained healthcare system to its breaking point. (Related: South Asia grapples with the coronavirus outbreak: India cracks down and Pakistan leaves patients in appalling conditions.)

To soften the impact of the lockdown, India unveiled on March 25 a $22.6 billion stimulus plan to help workers through cash transfers and a and help a significant chunk of the population that was food insecure. However, many economists and activists pointed out that a significant portion of the Indian population didnt benefit from the program, with some sectors calling for greater relief to be provided.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, the Indian economy was already going through a terrible low period. Its growth had slowed down to around five percent, and analysts were predicting it could slump to 1.5 to two percent for the rest of the year, far below the level needed to give millions of people new jobs.

States will undergo trial by fire before they reopen

The prime minister explained that the lockdown follows the recommendations of his advisers. Some states  including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Odisha  have already announced extensions to their own lockdowns. Maharashtra is home to Mumbai and has the highest number of cases in India.

Due, in part, to significant pushback from the private sector, Modi has agreed to limited relaxations on the countrys national lockdown policy, beginning on April 20, in an effort to help families who depend on daily wage earners to survive. The measure will apply to parts of the country that havent had any new cases.

Every town, every police station area and every state will be examined on the basis of how strictly the lockdown is being followed there, said Modi. However, he added that the severity of the lockdown will be increased in places that continue to report new cases.

Furthermore, Modi has warned that if new cases emerge in areas where lockdown restrictions have been partially rolled back, a total lockdown will be reimposed. An area is considered a coronavirus hotspot if it receives six or more new cases, lower than the global standard of 10 cases.

Lockdown restrictions will most likely be rolled back in states such as Uttarakhand, Odisha and Kerala, as well as other states in the countrys northeast  regions which have done a significantly better job in containing the spread of COVID-19.

Sources include:

News.Yahoo.com

Coronavirus.JHU.edu

AlJazeera.com

EconomicTimes.IndiaTimes.com

TheWire.in

NYTimes.com

Bloomberg.com

IndiaToday.in
Press Release

April 17, 2020 GSIS online emergency loans now available as Bong Go continues appeals to government agencies to ease burden of affected Filipinos amid COVID-19 crisis The Government Service and Insurance System announced on Thursday, April 16, that its online emergency loans are now available following Senator Christopher Lawrence "Bong" Go's continuing appeals to the government to further help affected Filipinos given the extension of the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon and ongoing nationwide state of public health emergency due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in the country. In a radio interview on the same day, GSIS President and General Manager Rolando Ledesma Macasaet announced that the agency's members and pensioners nationwide will be able to take out a P20,000 loan, payable in three years at only 6% interest per annum. Monthly amortization is pegged at an affordable amount of P655 only. "Isang malaking tulong ang iniaabot ng GSIS para sa mga Pilipino, lalo na ang mga miyembro at pensioners nito. Ang mas maganda pa nito ay hindi kailangang bayaran agad ng buo dahil maluwag ang conditions para mas mapagsilbihan pa ang mga Pilipino sa krisis ngayon," Go, a member of the Joint Congressional Committee overseeing the implementation of the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, said. GSIS also made the application process easier for its members and pensioners by allowing online loan application. According to Macasaet, one can apply for the loan online and submit required documents and identification. Active members and pensioners with UMID cards can also immediately apply for a loan through their GSIS Wireless Automated Processing System (GWAPS) kiosks located in all GSIS branches and extension offices; government offices, such as provincial capitols, city halls and select municipal offices; large government agencies, such as the Department of Education; and several private partners, such as SM Malls and Rustan's. "Ayon kay GSIS President and General Manager Rolando Macasaet, ito ay first time nilang ginawa na nationwide ang pwedeng application for emergency loan. Gusto kong ibahagi ang aking suporta sa kanilang hakbang upang matulungan pa ang mga Pilipino," Go said. In addition, all GSIS members of good standing are also qualified to avail of the COVID-19 Emergency Loan with some exceptions, such as those who are on leave without pay, among others. Old-age and disability pensioners can also apply for the loan subject to some conditions. Meanwhile, Go also lauded GSIS in their program to enhance the current life insurance of medical frontliners. On Tuesday, Macasaet told the House of Representatives' Defeat COVID-19 Committee through a virtual meeting that the GSIS Bayanihan Fund for Frontliners would be in addition to the regular life insurance of the member-frontliners based on their monthly salary. The GSIS Bayanihan Fund for Frontliners includes beneficiaries who are GSIS members under the Department of Health, health offices, hospitals, medical centers, treatment and rehabilitation centers, including local government units, and DOH-supervised hospitals. With the new insurance policy, medical workers were granted a P500,000 addition to their allowable coverage. In sum, the surviving family of a government medical frontliner who died because of COVID-19 will be getting a minimum of P1.8 million (P500,000 from GSIS expanded insurance plus P1 million from the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act and 150% of the deceased's annual salary under the GSIS regular life insurance). "Para sa akin, marapat lamang na bigyan natin ng maayos na insurance ang ating mga medical frontliners at pati na rin ang benefits ng kanilang pamilya," Go said. Go has also appealed to the government to continue to support and protect health workers serving as frontliners in the country's fight against COVID-19 by providing sufficient protection, compensation, equipment and facilities to do their jobs. "Sa bawat medical worker na sasabak sa giyera laban sa COVID-19, dapat lang bigyan sila ng gobyerno ng karampatang proteksyon at sandatang panlaban. Let us use the funds available to give them proper compensation and provide them with the tools, facilities and protection they need to resolve this health crisis," he added.
Its a big shift for him personally, and his use of the bully pulpit is a new dynamic in Democrats push to shore up voting laws in key states before its too late to make a difference for them in the midterms.
Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine talks about the coronavirus and the states latest steps to deal with it, including expanding testing.

You can watch the Saturday news conference online here:

Levine said the state overall still has more than 48% of its hospital beds, 41% of intensive care space and 70% of ventilators still available.

However, there are some hospitals in Philadelphia and the southeast part of Pa. that are closer to capacity, which the state is monitoring, she said.

Another testing site has been added in Wilkes-Barre, she said, opening Monday. Itll be drive-thru, with a two- to three-day wait for results. She warned people who are getting tested because they have symptoms to avoid public spaces and people.

Before the state can reopen and social-distancing rules relaxed, virus testing must be expanded, Levine said in response to a question. Were exploring all ways to expand testing, she said.

She said Pennsylvania is only testing symptomatic people. While testing others would be helpful, Levine said, its not possible right now.

The state has more than 31,000 diagnosed cases of coronavirus and 800+ deaths as of Saturday morning. No state is able to track the recovery of all whove had the virus, she said, but information on those whove been hospitalized is being followed, Levine said.

There will be no news conference from the health department on Sunday, but updated numbers of cases and deaths will be released.

As of Saturday morning, Pennsylvanias self-employed and independent contractors can file for unemployment compensation online.

Beginning Sunday night, Pennsylvanians will be required to wear face masks when shopping in stores. Workers will also be required to wear masks, and retailers will also have to comply with new regulations, including limiting the number of shoppers in stores.

Residents remain under a stay-home order, allowed out only for life-saving reasons like getting groceries and medical care, until April 30. Businesses considered non-life-sustaining have been shut down for about a month. Gov. Tom Wolf has said the state will reopen slowly and in stages based on data-driven information on the virus. Details on the reopening plan will be released next week, he said Friday.

This is a developing story and has been updated.

More:

Watch: Lloyd Big Cat Hill talks coronavirus diagnosis, what the test is like, quarantine, and more

Do not click on this COVID-19 text message scam, authorities warn

An act of survival? Calls to reopen Pennsylvania from coronavirus lockdown are steadily getting louder

Pa. nursing homes largely police themselves as coronavirus deaths mount

Coronavirus forced schools to go online, but many students arent showing up
SOME might say the middle of a pandemic is an odd time to release a report on child poverty in Manitoba. After all, we are busy with slowing the spread of the coronavirus and trying to protect individuals and families from its economic impacts.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 18/4/2020 (633 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

SOME might say the middle of a pandemic is an odd time to release a report on child poverty in Manitoba. After all, we are busy with slowing the spread of the coronavirus and trying to protect individuals and families from its economic impacts.

But, the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, in collaboration with Campaign 2000 to End Child Poverty, released the report Broken Promise, Stolen Futures: Child and Family Poverty in Manitoba on April 8, precisely because of two factors related to the pandemic.

First, children living in poverty are at greater risk than children in more affluent families during the pandemic. They are more likely to have entered the pandemic with compromised health status, and to be experiencing food insecurity and chronic stress, which can affect their immune systems. Many of them live in crowded households, which do not have the resources to purchase supplies for frequent hand-washing and surface cleaning.

Similarly, many poor parents do not have the resources for home delivery of groceries. Some of these parents are essential workers involved in low-paying jobs in service industries, as home care aides and as cleaning staff and aides in health-care facilities. They are also more likely to rely on public transportation to get to their jobs, and therefore at higher risk of bringing infections home.

Second, in the recovery that follows the pandemic, poor children cannot afford a return to normal because normal was not very good. The report demonstrates there are 85,450 children living in poverty in Manitoba (census family low income measure, after tax for 2017, the latest data available). This means that one out of every 3.6 Manitoba children (27.9 per cent) is poor, the highest rate of any province and 8.3 percentage points above the national rate.

We need increased investment in poverty reduction, not cutbacks based on austerity to pay off pandemic costs.

There is something ironic about governments responses to the pandemic. Why are the benefits offered through the Canada Emergency Response Benefit more generous than the wages working parents of many poor children earn in normal times, and than the welfare benefits that support many poor families with pre-school children, parents with disabilities, and those unable to find work?

Poverty reduction was important in Manitoba before the pandemic, and it is doubly important now. Beyond our collective moral obligation to care for our children, there is strong evidence that child poverty impairs health status, limits educational attainment and is a barrier to success in the labour market.

A 2019 consensus report of experts assembled by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in the United States has concluded that "The weight of the causal evidence indicates that income poverty itself causes negative child outcomes, especially when it begins in early childhood and/or persists throughout a large share of a childs life."

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These impacts of child poverty generate costs in health care, social service, and educational and criminal justice systems, and also rob the economy of the optimum contributions of adults who experienced poverty as children. Poverty also stands in the way of achieving Canadian values of fairness and equality of opportunity.

Beyond the overall child-poverty rate, there are other indicators of the gravity of the situation in Manitoba. Children in single parent families (63.1 per cent), those under age six (31.6 per cent), Indigenous children and children of immigrants (29.1 per cent) all experienced higher child poverty rates than the general population. Among Indigenous children, First Nations children on reserve exhibit the shameful rate of 65 per cent, while more than half (53 per cent) living off-reserve are in poverty.

Children living in poverty in Manitoba live in much deeper poverty than in Canada as a whole. For example, typical lone-parent families with two children in Manitoba would need $15,749 just to reach the poverty line, compared to only $12,438 in Canada as a whole. The typical couple struggling in poverty with two children in Manitoba is living at $12,752 below the poverty line, while the Canadian average is $10,462 below.

Progress has been slow in Manitoba. In the 28 years from 1989 to 2017, the child-poverty rate in Manitoba decreased by only 1.1 percentage points. This amounts to an average decrease of 0.04 percentage points per year  a rate at which it will take another 697.5 years to eliminate child poverty in Manitoba.

We cannot say that child-poverty reduction can wait for more prosperous times. Poor children need an aggressive recovery  not only from the coronavirus pandemic, but from the ongoing poverty epidemic.

Sid Frankel is an associate professor in the faculty of social work at the University of Manitoba and board member for Basic Income Manitoba.
WASHINGTON  Frustration boiled over into anger Friday on a private call with Vice President Mike Pence as Democratic senators questioned administration officials about coronavirus testing plans but left without adequate answers.

At one point, Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent and former governor, told Pence the administration's failure to develop an adequate national testing regime is a "dereliction of duty," according to a person who joined the hour-long call but was unauthorized to discuss it and granted anonymity.

"I have never been so mad about a phone call in my life," King told the administration officials, the person said.

The plea for more testing before implementing President Donald Trump's new guidelines to ease stay-home restrictions is a top priority for Democrats. They are heeding the warnings of health officials worried the virus will simply boomerang into prolonged national crisis.

The outburst came as Republicans signaled Friday they are willing to accept Democratic demands for additional federal funding for hospitals as part of an effort to break a stalemate over the Trump administration's $250 billion emergency request for a small-business paycheck subsidy program that's out of money.

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy told The Associated Press he is also willing to meet a demand by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to set aside some of the requested "paycheck protection" funding for community lenders.

But he said Republicans would draw the line at Democratic demands for additional tens of billions of dollars in additional funding for state and local governments suffering from plummeting tax revenues. McCarthy said Republicans also want replenishment of another Small Business Administration program that offers disaster loans.

"I think it'll be (paycheck protection), the other SBA ... the disaster portion. And probably some hospital money," McCarthy said in an interview Friday with the AP. "I don't think you'll see any money for states in there because states already have it." State and local governments were awarded $150 billion last month.

The House met in a pro forma session Friday in which no business was conducted. A Senate session quickly adjourned Thursday without any progress. The next meeting of either the House or Senate is a Senate session Monday that could be used for legislative action if all sides agree.

Negotiations are continuing into the weekend and pressure is mounting since the SBA announced Thursday it has reached its $349 billion lending limit and is no longer accepting applications.

At issue is the Paycheck Protection Program that was a centerpiece of last month's massive rescue bill. The program gives grants to businesses with fewer than 500 workers so they can maintain payroll and pay rent while shutting down their businesses during social distancing edicts.

But it has been swamped by businesses applying for loans and has reached its appropriations limit. Frustrated businesses are demanding more help, and pressure is intense on Democrats to deliver more.

"They can't sustain this any longer," McCarthy predicted, citing unrest among rank-and-file Democrats like Dean Phillips, a freshman from Minnesota.

"Many of these businesses  which together comprise the backbone of our economy  are on the precipice of insolvency. Congress must cast aside partisan affiliations and pass relief for these companies NOW. No delay. No excuses," Phillips said in a statement. "This is for our country's small business owners, their employees, and their families. We simply cannot afford to let them down."

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said more money is needed for widespread, accessible testing for the coronavirus before the economy can be reopened with confidence.

"Right now the testing regime is scattershot and totally inadequate for the job that's needed to get the country back to work," Schumer said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

Republican senators also discussed testing on their own private call earlier this week with the president and administration officials. But they counter that plenty of money has already been appropriated for testing.

"In the last month, Congress has given federal agencies up to $38 billion to develop tests, treatments and vaccines," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate health panel. "We should start by using the money Congress has already provided, put politics aside, and work together on more tests with quick results."

Thursday's Senate session featured a short speech by a frustrated majority leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who said he had cleared the $250 billion package on the GOP side but Democrats would have stopped it.

"Democrats would not let us reopen the program," McConnell said. "This really should be above politics."

On Friday, Trump added his voice, tweeting that the "Do Nothing Democrats" should immediately return to Washington and approve the legislation. "End ENDLESS VACATION!" he wrote.

The Capitol is largely shuttered, requiring consensus from all sides for any legislation to pass, and top GOP leaders are vowing to stick closely to Trump's request despite Democrats' additional demands.

The Senate is away from Washington through May 4, but it convenes twice each week for pro forma sessions that could be used to pass more coronavirus aid  though only if no senator objects.

McConnell, asked by a reporter whether he could support any agreement reached by Schumer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, was noncommittal.

"Well, look, we'd take a look at it. My members want to plus up the small-business program. We think the need is obvious," he told reporters.

Democrats want money for hospitals burdened under COVID-19 caseloads and additional funding for states and local governments straining as the economy slides into recession.

They also want to make sure the Paycheck Protection Program is opened up more to businesses that don't have established relationships with banks that have been accepting applications for rescue funding.

Republicans are agitating to help rural hospitals, while Democrats are also keen to boost aid to cash-strapped states and local governments whose revenues have cratered. Aiding the states may be a stretch, as the issue can easily provoke fights between large, high-tax states like California and New York and smaller states more typically run by Republicans.

Lisa Mascaro and Andrew Taylor wrote this story.
Delhi Congress President Anil Chaudhary on Thursday demanded that an FIR should be registered against the Arvind Kejriwal-led government for the fire at some shelter homes on the Yamuna river bank, as he accused the Delhi government of criminal negligence and failing to fulfil its duties.

Addressing a press conference, Anil Chaudhary highlighted the plight of the poor and needy people after a fire gutted 4-5 shelter homes on the Yamuna bank near Kashmere Gate recently.

"Illegal gathering of thousands of people took place despite Delhi government and its officials being aware of the situation. We had apprised the government about the gathering on April 6 and reminded it again on April 12. Delhi government has been making tall claims and asking people to maintain social distancing through advertisements, only to pat its own back," he said.

He said that the rules made by the Central and Delhi governments for the people to follow during the lockdown period are being violated with impunity by top officials of both the governments.

"We demand that the Lt. Governor should take strict action against the Delhi government and the concerned officials for playing with the lives of thousands of poor people. An FIR should be registered against the Kejriwal government for committing gross violation of the rules," he added.
Washington

The United States is considering pulling back front-line CIA personnel from bases in Afghanistan, according to U.S. officials, as part of the U.S. government's effort to further reduce violence in the country in the wake of its landmark peace agreement with the Taliban.

The deliberations over the CIA presence in the country are part of larger discussions about pulling back international forces to push forward the peace plan, which shows signs of floundering amid continuing violence.

Top Taliban leaders have demanded reductions in the CIA presence in the country alongside U.S. troops, something that until now U.S. negotiators have resisted. There are thought to be several hundred CIA officers and contractors in Afghanistan, a number that fluctuates , and it is perceived as one of the agency's largest presences outside of the Washington area.

Yet one plan, lobbied by Trump administration officials in September, included increasing the CIA presence in the country as U.S. forces pulled out.

CIA personnel operate in various places around the country, advising militia groups. The operations began as part of an effort to hunt al-Qaida, in the earlier years of the now 18-year war, before shifting to targeting organizations including the Haqqani network, among the most violent groups in Afghanistan and a significant source of income for the Taliban.

One move being discussed would relocate agency personnel to the embassy in Kabul, enabling some level of U.S. advice to militia groups operating under the oversight of Afghanistan's intelligence service. Officials cautioned that various plans were under consideration.

Pulling CIA advisers away from the front lines is a key demand of Taliban and Haqqani leaders, U.S. officials have known. But any withdrawal of the agency will be done alongside the broader withdrawal of U.S. military advisers, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Including the CIA's presence in negotiations with the Taliban is Washington's latest effort to use what bargaining chips it has left with the insurgent group. U.S. forces already are drawing down to 8,600 troops from roughly 12,000 with an aspirational timeline of leaving the country altogether in just over a year.

U.S. negotiators believe that to save the peace plan they need to find some way to stop the Taliban from brutalizing Afghan forces. Getting the Taliban to ratchet back attacks on Afghan troops and police, U.S. officials said, is the best hope to accelerate the peace process between the Afghan government in Kabul and Taliban leadership. But even preliminary talks, regarding the release of prisoners on both sides, have run into complications.

But, at its core, the Taliban's move to curtail the agency's operations is centered around its income stream, specifically the Haqqani's network of illicit and legal operations that make up a significant chunk of the insurgent group's coffers, the officials said. The Haqqani is known to run mob-like extortion rings as well as smuggling drugs, people and weapons over the Afghan-Pakistan border.

One of the best known agency-advised militia groups is the Khost Protection Force, operating in eastern Afghanistan. As the main Afghan unit commanded by the Afghan National Directorate of Security  the country's CIA equivalent  and supported by agency personnel and U.S. military advisers, the Khost Protection Force has been championed by many U.S. officials as one of the most effective military forces in Afghanistan.

The group's ties to the CIA have been critical to allow that military support to flow during operations against the Haqqanis and other targets.

But it is also among the most criticized parts of the U.S. war effort. The Khost Protection Force has been accused by human rights groups and local Afghans of operating in a brutal, lawless matter.
Lockdown clamped on base and contact tracing of personnel being carried out

INS Angre is an iconic hub of the Western Naval Command in Mumbai. (Indian Navy)

New Delhi: At least 26 Indian Navy personnel serving at the Western Naval Command's base in Mumbai have tested positive for the coronavirus, triggering a big scare in the Indian military establishment.

This is the first major outbreak of the virus in any one single establishment of the armed forces. The Army has 8 Covid-19 positive cases on hand but they are sporadic cases.

But this is an outbreak at one installation, which would require the authorities to throw a wider containment perimeter around the hot spot and initiate extensive testing and isolation of personnel.

All the infected sailors were serving at INS Angre, an iconic shore-based logistics and support establishment that hosts barracks for sailors on shore and supplies ships at sea.

INS Angre has been put under lockdown and the sailors are all undergoing treatment at a Navy hospital, official sources said.

A large-scale contact tracing operation has been launched to track the people who may have come in contact with the sailors.

Sources said 25 of the infected sailors were staying in a barracks with single-room accomodations within the INS Angre complex, while one sailor was living with his mother in his own house.

The sailor's mother has also tested positive, sources said.

The Navy is carrying out virus testing of all people staying in the residential accommodation and it has been declared as a "containment zone", while INS Angre was put under total lockdown as per the prescribed protocol of apex medical research body ICMR.

A statement put out by the Navy earlier had said "Most of these (cases) are asymptomatic and have been traced to a single sailor who was tested positive on April 7. They all reside in the same accommodation block at INS Angre.

INS Angre includes the Manor House, which is the seat of the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Western Naval Command. It is the shore-based logistics and administrative support establishment of the Western Naval Command and also houses the naval barracks.

Supplies to the Western Command's ships go out from INS Angre. However, there are no cases of infection on board any of the ships and submarines of the Indian Navy.

The outbreak comes at a time when a number of navies globally are grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic. A sailor on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier, reported as many as 500 cases of the virus. The French Navy has also been hit hard by the pandemic.

Indian Navy had already issued a detailed advisory on COVID-19 for its personnel. It directed crew on submarines and warships to disembark at domestic and foreign ports only if it was essential.

The advisory said that when a COVID-19 case is reported onboard while at sea, the patient must be isolated and all close contacts of the patient should be quarantined. It should be treated as an emergency and all efforts should be made to evacuate him to a hospital ashore, said the advisory.

Last week, Navy chief Admiral Karambir Singh, in a video message, told personnel that vital operational assets such as ships and submarines must remain free from the virus. "The coronavirus pandemic is unprecedented. The danger posed by this disease is real, imminent and unprecedented.
A number of businesses in Roundwood are locked in a dispute with Irish Water over excessive bill charges.

Keith Grant Master Butchers and The Green Room Flowers and Gifts are refusing to pay individual quarterly bills issued to both business a year and a half ago which far surpass previous and subsequent bills. Keith Grant Master Butchers were billed for 2,000, while The Green Room Flowers and Gifts owned by Ciara Quigley received a bill for 1,505.

The two businesses argued that there must have been some sort of 'leak' taking place at the time the charges were issued, as none of the other quarterly Irish Water bills they have received since have exceeded 15.

Keith Grant Master Butchers received a major shock 18 months ago when he opened up his first bill from Irish Water after setting up his master butcher business in Roundwood.

Aishling Barrett, Keith's partner, said 'We felt a bill for 2,000 seemed extremely high so we asked our landlord what sort of bills were the former tenants getting from Irish Water. Their bills averaged around 15 each month. They were also a butcher so we are talking like for like. We queried the bill and told Irish Water we can't pay a bill that high. They asked us to send in a metre reading but we aren't sure where the water metre is and we can't access it anyway. An Irish Water engineer came out and said maybe there is a leak, but that's all we have heard. We talked to other traders and they experienced the same thing. Their bill just rocketed all of a sudden and no on seems to know what caused it, including Irish Water.'

Aishling maintains that she has tried to engage with Irish Water but they refuse to budge over the 2,000 bill, despite issuing subsequent bills that are only a fraction of that figure.

'We are refusing to pay the bill for 2,000 and have received other quarterly bills since then and none of them have been above 15. Irish Water still expect us to pay even though it is quite clear that something is wrong. We got a plumber into check things and they found nothing. We also fitted new pipes internally just to make sure. This has been hanging over our heads for far too long now.'

At the same time Keith was issued with such a large bill, Ciara Quigley of The Green Room Flowers and Gifts also received a huge bill.

'My first reaction, after I stopped crying, was there must be a leak. I got onto my landlord but we couldn't find anything. Then I was issued with a warning letter from a solicitor representing Irish Water, which scared the life out of me. I contacted them and explained that something had to be really wrong for me to be charged 1,505, when previous Irish Water bills were usually between 14 and 19. I have been on to Irish Water since and they said they will get back to me but I have heard nothing.'

At the time Ciara thought she was the only business owner from Roundwood in dispute over huge Irish Water bills, until she recently found out that Keith and other business owners in the area had suffered similar problems, all dating back to a year and a half ago.

'I have had other bills issued by Irish Water since then and they are for around 15 each quarter. Unfortunately, you can't pay individual bills with Irish Water so it is all building up. I have no issue in paying the smaller bills but not the one for over 1,500.'

A spokesperson for Irish Water said the situation will be investigated and if it turns out to be leak problem, there is a leak allowance policy that will be enacted.

This has occurred in other locations where business owners were not charged for water they did not use.
An allegedly controlling and paranoid man accused of attacking his partner allegedly told her wanted her to die by his hand, a court heard on Saturday.

Appearing at Lisburn Magistrates Court via videolink from Lurgan police station, 44-year-old Jason Veitch confirmed that he understood the four charges against him.

Veitch, who has been freed on bail to live at Oakdale in Ballygowan, was charged with causing actual bodily harm to his partner on April 16, assaulting her and threatening to kill her on April 11 and a further charge of assault on a date unknown between February 20 and March 10 this year.

Giving evidence to the court Constable Russell said he believed he could connect Veitch to each of the charges, adding that police were objecting to bail.

He conceded that while Veitch had a clear record, police felt the alleged victim was extremely vulnerable and feared that he would commit further offences and potentially carry out his threat.

A prosecuting lawyer recounted how the complainant fled the Portadown home she shared with Veitch on Thursday when he allegedly kicked her about the head after ordering her to clean the fridge.

That was the second time Veitch had allegedly assaulted her that day, said the lawyer who told the court that two hours beforehand, he had head butted her to the left side of her head during an argument over their three children.

When police went to her parents house, officer noted that she had swelling and bruising to her face.

She disclosed further incidents of domestic abuse, said the lawyer adding that the alleged victim had described her partner as extremely controlling.

By way of example, the lawyer said she told police that when she went to the shops, she had to produce a receipt and described how Veitch had placed CCTV cameras all around and inside their home which she felt was used to keep tabs on her.

In relation to the alleged incident on April 11, the lawyer revealed the woman was able to record the incident in a dictaphone which was in her pocket.

He can be heard assaulting the injured party and the IP screaming and comments made that if she called the police he would stick a knife in her head, said the lawyer adding that Veitch was also recorded threatening her that she would probably die of natural causes but he would prefer it would be by his hand.

Veitch also allegedly threatened her that he had put the house in his name so when he killed her he would get everything.

There had also been an alleged earlier incident when he came into the kitchen in a temper and struck her on the head causing her to fall to the ground.

Turning to aspects of control, the lawyer told the court the woman had claimed that all her benefits get paid into his account, he controls all the money that comes into the house and when they go out, he makes her sit behind him in the car as she is, as he puts it, scum.

He has made her sleep in a dog bed, claimed the lawyer.

Arrested and interviewed, Veitch made no comment throughout.

Applying for bail, defence solicitor Jarlath Fields told the court its news to the defendant that he has been such a controlling character during their 14 year relationship.

The most important point is that he has no record whatsoever, said Mr Fields who revealed that as former member of the security forces, Veitch suffers from PTSD and paranoia which was why he had installed CCTV cameras.

He submitted that despite police concerns, Veitch could be freed to live with his mother in Ballygowan with conditions put in place to keep him away from the complainant.

An additional factor, argued the lawyer, was that his GP had told Veitch that due to medical conditions, he needed to shield himself from Covid-19 risks for at least 12 weeks so there is a grave concern of sending this man to Maghaberry.

Freeing Veitch on his own bail of 300, District Judge Amanda Brady said she felt the leopard bail address is sufficiently far away but added there will be strict conditions.

As part of his bail conditions, Veitch is barred from contacting his partner either directly or indirectly and from entering Portadown.

She warned that if he breaches bail and comes back in front of me, he wont be getting back out, it will be a remand in custody, declared the judge.

Judge Brady listed the case for mention on 15 May.
Fear and panic has gripped everyone, especially since the number of active coronavirus cases rise rapidly across the country. Amid the coronavirus scare, WHO advised people a 20-second hand wash to kill the virus. The truth however is that hundreds of thousands of people wait in line every day to fill drinking water from government water trucks in India. Washing their hands is the least of their worries. Clean drinking water is a bigger concern. With temperature rising everyday, this situation will become worst across the country. Here's a look at how some are struggling with a water crisis while we are locked up inside our homes.
WASHINGTON  As Democrats and Republicans debate more money for small businesses, hospitals and states, a proposal sent by Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin late Friday night included $17 billion in new funding for New York state, counties and towns.

Schumer spent much of the week on the phone with Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., from his home in Brooklyn toward reaching a deal, a senior Democratic aide said. Negotiations have been ongoing for more than a week. While the parties agree on the need for more small business aid, they are at loggerheads over whether to include more support for states and hospitals in the emergency legislation or to wait to resupply those groups.

The two sides may reach a deal as early as Monday or Tuesday, the aide said.

"I dont see any reason why we cant come to an agreement soon, Schumer said on the MSNBC show "Morning Joe" Friday.

While short of the $500 billion Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan asked for, Schumer's proposal would mean a new $2.5 billion for New York City, $27 million for Albany County, $14 million for Rensselaer County and $13.8 million for Saratoga County.

On Thursday, funding ran out for the Small Business Administration's main vehicle for assisting companies hurt by the coronavirus, the $349 billion Paycheck Protection loan program. In New York, only about 3.86 percent of small businesses were approved for a loan through the program as of Thursday at noon, up from 1.95 percent as of Monday night, according to an Small Business Administration data by the Albany Times Union.

Republicans have repeatedly slammed Democrats for delaying a deal on more small business aid while the Paycheck Protection Program sits dry. The administration requested $$250 billion in additional funding for the program. Senate Republicans tried to approve the money unanimously on April 9. Democrat opposed the measure.

While Democrats support adding more funding to the small business program, they are pressing for changes that would direct more money to community-based lenders, increase the loan amount businesses can receive, clarify that farmers can get the loans and pump more money into the other coronavirus small business relief program, the Economic Injury Disaster Loans. They also have proposed $150 billion in increased aid for states and localities, along with $100 billion more for hospitals and health centers.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Politico Friday that "progress" was being made on the negotiations, but Republicans were unlikely to support more money for states.

"You could possibly get some hospital (funds). I think that would be the deal. I dont think youd get any state money," McCarthy said Friday. "Thats where I think it would end."

Schumer's proposal sent to Mnuchin Friday night would deliver $12.2 billion in new funding for New York state government, along with $4.8 billion for New York counties and cities, according to a senior Democratic aide. This funding would be on top of $5.1 billion for New York state and $2.4 billion for New York counties and cities provided by the federal stimulus bill, the Coronavirus, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

This emergency legislation would ensure both the new funding and the CARES Act funding for the state and localities could be used to cover lost revenues.

Cuomo has repeatedly pressed Congress and the administration for more state aid, as New York  the state hardest hit by the pandemic  struggles under skyrocketing emergency response costs, while tax revenues decline.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Cuomo and Hogan, who lead the National Governors' Association, called on Trump Friday to break the Senate "logjam" and provide $500 billion in new aid to states.

"Without this relief, states will be confronted with the prospect of cuts to essential services," Cuomo and Hogan said in a statement. "This will make it that much harder to have a strong economic recovery, which is a top priority for the president and for all of the governors."

Schumer's proposal includes over $3 billion in Community Development Block Grants for New York cities and towns. It directs millions of dollars in funding to rural counties and towns, something Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-Rhinebeck, have called for.

They didnt get any money in the last bill, Gillibrand said Thursday.

The block grants include $34.7 million for Albany, $23.5 million for Schenectady, $18.5 million for Troy and $3.1 million for Saratoga Springs.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, has pushed with her caucus for Congress to approve "clean funding" for the Paycheck Protection Program immediately, sidelining state and hospital aid for later.

"It is inexcusable that Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer blocked critical funding for our small businesses who are facing unprecedented challenges during this pandemic, Stefanik said Thursday. "I urge Democratic Leadership to quit playing political games with the livelihoods of so many hardworking families in my district."
It has been nearly seven years since Reese Witherspoon and husband Jim Toth, 50, were arrested in Atlanta, Georgia under suspicion of driving while intoxicated.

And the 44-year-old actress opened up about the moment she deemed as 'embarrassing and dumb' during her appearance on Thursday's episode of I Weigh with Jameela Jamil.

'But, you know what  [it] turns out I breathe air. I bleed the same way. I make dumb decisions. I make great decisions. I'm just a human being,' said Witherspoon.

Reflecting: Reese Witherspoon opened up about her 'embarassing and dumb' arrest in 2013 during her appearance on Thursday's episode of I Weigh with Jameela Jamil; Witherspoon pictured in January

She continued: 'We're all just the same as each other and we're all trying to find what our special skills are. My special skill is storytelling but that doesn't mean I'm a special person.

'But I did something really stupid. Talent doesn't make you a good person. But a big value in my family was, 'Are you a good person?''

On the night of her and Toth's arrest, Reese infamously resisted police officer orders, exited her vehicle, and was later charged with disorderly conduct.

A video of the altercation between Witherspoon and the on-duty officer was later obtained, uploaded onto the internet, and showcased across the websites of various news outlets.

Shortly after, Reese released a statement acknowledging her wrongdoings and expressing her sincere regret over the incident.

Whoops: On the night of her and husband Jim Toth's arrest, Reese infamously resisted police officer orders, exited her vehicle, and was later charged with disorderly conduct; Reese pictured on April 22, 2013

'Out of respect for the ongoing legal situation, I cannot comment on everything that is being reported right now,' said Reese in the statement obtained by People.

'But I do want to say, I clearly had one drink too many and I am deeply embarrassed about the things I said.'

The Big Little Lies actress expressed that although the situation was 'definitely a scary' one, it was not an excuse for her to disobey the orders of a police officer.

'I was frightened for my husband, but that is no excuse. I was disrespectful to the officer who was just doing his job. The words I used that night definitely do not reflect who I am. I have nothing but respect for the police and I'm very sorry for my behavior,' concluded Witherspoon.

Seven years: It has been nearly seven-years since Reese Witherspoon and husband Jim Toth, 50, were arrested in Atlanta, Georgia under suspicion of driving while intoxicated; Witherspoon and Toth pictured in February

During Thursday's podcast, Jamil professed her love for the Little Fires Everywhere star's public apology and praised Witherspoon for openly shaming herself 'in a way that was so fing refreshing' at the time.

According to People, Witherspoon pleaded no contest to her charge and was ordered to pay a $213 fine.

Toth pleaded guilty to his DUI charge and had to complete a total of 40 hours of community service. He was also required to attend an alcohol education course.

Leading by example: 'But I did something really stupid. Talent doesn't make you a good person. But a big value in my family was, 'Are you a good person?''; Reese pictured with 20-year-old daughter Ava and 16-year-old son Deacon in 2019

Reese married talent agent Jim Toth in 2011 and the pair share a seven-year-old son named Tennessee.

The Legally Blonde actress also has 20-year-old daughter Ava and 16-year-old son Deacon with ex husband Ryan Phillippe, 45.

Witherspoon and Phillippe married in 1999 and divorced in 2008.
Bihars public healthcare system is not equipped to deal with the challenge of COVID-19. The density of testing centres is the worst for Bihar in the country, with one testing centre for a population of 110 million. Besides, it lacks in both infrastructure and human resources in the health arena and, thus, is unprepared to deal with and properly respond to the health crisis.

The global pandemic of COVID-19 which has forced the world into a virtual lockdown registered its first case from Bihar on 22 March 2020. A 38-year-old man, who had a history of travelling, passed away at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Patna due to kidney failure. Later he was tested positive for coronavirus. On 23 March, it was reported that most of the junior resident doctors working in the Nalanda Medical College and Hospital, Patnathe designated hospital by the Bihar government as the states primary hospital to treat cases of COVID-19were exhibiting some symptoms due to exposure to a coronavirus positive patient. Instead of following a home quarantine for 15 days as advised, in the absence of any tests and response from the state government, all resident doctors continued to treat the patients for the next several days (Ray 2020). With no protocol regarding prevention and control of COVID-19, until the first death was reported, the mismanagement of the state administration forced Bihar into the stage of local transmission at the very beginning. The density of testing centres per population in Bihar is the worst in the entire country with only one centre, Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Sciences, in Patna to test its over 110 million population.

To deal with such a situation, what a state needs is not just expertise to identify the origin, spread, projected course and the methods to contain the virus spread, but also a strong health infrastructure with medical facilities and well-trained medical professionals at all levelsat the sub-centres and primary health centres (PHCs), and the rural and urban level. Also needed are adequate facilities for early detection, investigation, basic labs to conduct tests, and regular plans to conduct community health education to prepare the masses against an evolving pandemic. However, the condition of the public health system in Bihar is dismal.
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The SSE Renewables Round Ireland Yacht Race has been pushed back by a couple of months due to the Covid-19 epidemic.

The first Round Ireland hosted by Wicklow Sailing Club took place in 1980, with the 704-mile race starting and finishing off the pier head at Wicklow Harbour.

This year's race now has a new starting date of Saturday, August 22, subject to Government guidelines, rather than the initial June 20 date.

Wicklow Sailing Club Commodore, Kyran O'Grady, said August 22 was the latest possible date which could accommodate the race. 'June 20 was getting less and less likely so we decided to postpone things until August 22, which is the latest feasible date whereby the Round Ireland can run successfully.

'Our traditional start date of mid-June just would not have been possible. The safety of everyone involved has to be our main priority. We will keep updated guidelines under constant review as we plan for the new date,' said Mr O'Grady.

This year's Round Ireland was destined for a record fleet of boats, with over 40 entries registered prior to the outbreak of Covid-19. A record fleet of up to 60 boats was predicted and as of yet, it remains unclear what sort of impact the rearranged date may have on the number of entries.

The SSE Renewables Round Ireland is the second longest race in the Royal Ocean Racing Club calendar and takes place every two years. 2018 marked the 20th edition of the off-shore event.
President Donald Trump announced a $19 billion bailout package for farmers hurt financially by the coronavirus crisis.

The aid plan includes $16 billion in direct payments to farmers to boost their incomes, along with $3 billion in government purchases of meat, dairy products and other foods, the president said Friday at a White House briefing. The Agriculture Department will receive another $14 billion in July for further assistance.

This will help our farmers and our ranchers, and its money well deserved, Trump said.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

The combination of direct payments to farmers and bulk government purchases of commodities parallels the approach the Trump administration followed in its $28 billion agriculture trade bailout over the past two years. Farmers and rural communities are a critical part of Trumps political base as he seeks re-election.

The commodities purchased will be distributed through food banks and other nutrition programs serving the poor, school children and the elderly.

USDA Payments

The USDA will make direct payments of $5.1 billion to cattle producers, $2.9 billion for dairy and $1.6 billion for hogs, according to a statement from Senator John Hoeven, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee.

Another $3.9 billion will go to producers of row crops such as soybeans, corn and cotton, while $2.1 billion is earmarked for producers of specialty crops such as fruits and vegetables. And $500 million will go for other crops, Hoeven said.

The Agriculture Department will begin the food purchases by buying $100 million of fruits and vegetables per month, and $100 million per month each of dairy and meat, the department said in a statement.

The closing of restaurants, school cafeterias and other commercial food service operations has upended the market for agricultural products, particularly dairy, meat and produce. The food-service industry is a disproportionate buyer of cheese, butter, meat, fresh fruits and vegetables. Farmers are dumping as much as 8% of their milk, according to the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative.

A shutdown of several slaughterhouses because of virus outbreaks among employees has further disrupted hog and cattle farmers ability to sell their livestock. At the same time, an oil price war forced ethanol plants to shut down, further depressing corn prices.

Funding for the aid was included in the Coronavirus relief package Congress passed last month.
Dumaguete City (CNN Philippines, April 18) - After being quarantined for almost three weeks, over 400 stranded passengers will be allowed to travel to their home province.

438 residents of Negros Oriental who have been stranded in Cebu for more than two weeks were cleared to go home on Saturday.

The passengers arrived in the Bato Port in Samboan, Cebu on March 28, a day after the provincial government of Cebu ordered it closed, in line with the enhanced community quarantine in effect.

The stranded passengers said port authorities requested them to either return to their places of origin in Cebu, or stay and undergo a 14-day quarantine in the area.

Meanwhile, the government of Negros Oriental sent a team to assist the stranded residents at the quarantine site in Samboan, Cebu.

The provincial government of Cebu on Saturday issued certificates of completion of the mandatory quarantine.

Authorities said the residents of Negros Oriental will undergo another 14-day quarantine upon arrival to their respective local governments, as part of the protocol.

Bato Port in Samboan, Cebu is about 25-minutes travel time to Tampi Port in Amlan, Negros Oriental.

CNN Philippines' Stringer Roy August Bustillo contributed to this report.
This is the first time that Easter mass will be held under the current patriarch at a location other than Cairos Saint Mark's Cathedral and without attendants or worshippers

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi sent on Monday his greetings to Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the St Mark Diocese Tawadros II on the occasion of Easter, hours before a mass that will be held with no public participation due to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to a statement by the presidency spokesman, El-Sisi praised the honest and kind sentiments between Christian and Muslim Egyptians, and prayed for the countrys safety during such a critical time.

He also sent his Easter greetings to Egyptian Copts abroad, wishing them progress and prosperity.

Coptic Orthodox Christians  who comprise a substantial majority of Christians in Egypt  will celebrate Easter on Sunday.

However, this year, the coronavirus outbreak will force Copts will celebrate Easter at home, as Egypt continues with its unprecedented measures to stem the spread of the virus, including a nationwide night-time curfew and suspension of prayers and activities at all houses of worship.

Easter mass will be led on Saturday by Pope Tawadros II at the Monastery of Saint Bishoy in Wadi El-Natrun and will be aired live on Egyptian TV channels.

This is the first time that Easter mass will be held under the current patriarch at a location other than Cairos Saint Mark's Cathedral and without attendants or worshippers

The pope will not receive guests at the Cairo Cathedral in light of the preventative measures taken to curb the spread of the virus, a spokesman for the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church said in earlier press statements.

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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




It has been months since the start of the crisis, but until now, there are still a lot of questions unanswered about COVID-19 as scientists and organizations are doing everything they can to provide a cure and vaccine to the deadly illness. The public is still at a loss of knowing which information is accurate or not.





Here two frequently asked questions about COVID-19:

Can heat from the sun kill coronavirus?

There are people using UV light to kill the virus. However, The World Health Organization has been telling the public to refrain from using UV light to kill the novel coronavirus.

According to the World Health Organization, people should not use UV lamps to sterilize their hands or any other areas of the skin. They said that UV radiation could cause irritations on one's skin.

There is some information that suggests as the weather gets warmer, the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 slows down. This may have led people to believe that sunlight helps kill the virus, says an article.

Sunlight can be used as a disinfectant for other pathogens. The World Health Organization advises the public to sterilize water by placing water in plastic containers and placing them under direct sunlight for 5 hours under specific conditions.

According to a virologist at Emory University named Juan Leon, no data are suggesting that the UVA rays of the sun cannot kill the novel coronavirus. However, some experts believe that UVC light can help fight COVID-19.

But still, the websites of WHO or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) do not contain any statement saying that sunlight and UV light can be used as a preventive measure against COVID-19.

Check these out:



Will I get infected if I step in an elevator with a COVID-19 patient?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are current data suggesting that the primary mode of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is through respiratory droplets originating from an infected person. A person contracts the virus if it lands on the nose, eyes, or mouths of people. Those who are near an infected person tend to contract the virus by inhaling it. There are also data suggesting that people can be infected through touching contaminated surfaces.

According to the CDC, the airborne transmission of the novel coronavirus from one person to another over long distances is less likely to occur.

Lindsey Marr, an aerosol scientist from Virginia Tech, believes that the virus is also being transmitted through inhaling the virus in the air.

Marr expressed her concern about people in elevators and other confined spaces with a COVID-19 patient. A lot of elevators do not have mechanical ventilation, she adds.

The respiratory particles fall quickly to the ground after a sneeze or a cough. They head directly to the ground due to gravity, says an infectious diseases expert at Columbia University Doctor Daniel Griffin. He suggests preventing touching any surfaces in the elevator and observe social distancing guidelines to lessen the chances of getting the virus from an infected person.
Liyna Anwar, a podcast producer of South Asian descent whose struggle to find a stem cell donor to treat her cancer became the center of a social media campaign that aimed to make up for racial disparities in marrow and stem cell registries, died on March 26 in a hospital in Duarte, Calif. She was 30.

Her brother, Abbas Anwar, said the cause was complications of acute myeloid leukemia, the disease for which she had needed a stem cell transplant.

Stem cell and bone marrow transplants, critical treatments for blood cancers and other diseases, are far more likely to succeed when the recipient and donor are close genetic matches. When Ms. Anwars family sought a match for her, they found a dearth of potential minority donors registered. Among members of her family, her brother was the closest match, but still not an ideal donor for her.

A South Asian patient has about a 38 percent chance of finding a matching donor, considerably lower than white patients, who have about a 77 percent chance, said Kate McDermott, a representative of the nonprofit organization Be the Match, which manages the largest marrow registry in the world. Of 22 million registrants, she said, only 1 percent were of South Asian descent.
Families who have been forced to cancel their dream holidays because of coronavirus are now battling unexpected cancellation fees.

Travel agent Flight Centre has been inundated with hundreds of angry customers who only learned about the $300 fee while organising refunds for cancelled holidays.

But the $300 fee is the cost per person, so some families are being slugged more than $1,500 just to cancel their holidays.

The problem is so widespread a Facebook page has been set up called 'Flight Centre - Give us our refunds' which has more than 1,200 members while dozens are considering a class action lawsuit.

Among them is single mother Louise Coombes whose plans to take her two children to Bali in February were derailed by COVID-19 cancellations.

The travel agent Flight Centre (pictured) has been inundated with hundreds of angry customers who only learnt about the $300 fee while organising refunds for cancelled holidays

Another is David Swiggs who saved for up for two years to take a family holiday to Europe with his wife and three children

Mr Swiggs told Daily Mail Australia despite the airline offering a full refund for cancelled flights, they're facing excessive fees from the travel agent and a lengthy wait time to get their money back.

'Flight Centre is wanting to charge us $1,500 for flights that have been cancelled,' he said.

He said the entire process is causing unnecessary stress on his family during an already difficult time.

The departure terminal at Sydney International Airport is empty after COVID-19 caused massive disruptions to the travel industry

'My wife is in an essential industry, providing out of home care for children removed from their families by child protection. I'm trying to work from home while home schooling the 3 kids under 14,' he said.

'It is just adding to the stress. Working from home. Having to home school the kids. Then to think that some company thinks it can basically take our money.'

Flight Centre's global media manager Hadyn Long told the Age customers can avoid the fee if they keep their money as credit for future holidays.

'These charges, which are outlined in our standard terms and conditions, reflect the fact that our people have performed the service requested of them in booking products for customers and the significant time involved in processing and securing refunds from airlines and other suppliers,' he said.

'If customers request a refund, charges do normally apply, although they are being waived or reduced in some cases.'

Empty check-in counters are seen at Brisbane International Airport in Brisbane, Friday

The travel agent announced it would be standing down 3,000 Australian workers on Marc 26 after the travel industry started to feel the impacts of coronavirus.

In a statement to the ASX Flight Centre said travel restrictions and social-distancing meant staff levels were unsustainable.

'These never-before-seen restrictions, which have forced airlines to ground their fleets and heavily reduce their flight schedules, have virtually halted travel demand and led to the stoppage of the vast proportion of work that Flight Centre's people previously carried out,' the statement read.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Flight Centre for comment.
A Nazi swastika flag seen flying in the backyard of a home just 350m from a synagogue is being investigated by police.

Shocked residents spotted the offensive flag at the Watkins Street home in Newtown in Sydney's Inner West on Sunday.

Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne was alerted of the flag and contacted police to ensure they take it down.

'There's no place for racist extremism at any time but we must especially guard against xenophobia during the crisis - we will beat COVID-19 through solidarity, not division,' he said.

Shocked residents spotted the offensive flag at the Watkins Street property in Newtown in Sydney's inner west, on Sunday

'For someone to have put this up in the middle of this crisis is insulting and deliberately trying to sew division.'

Police conducted an investigation and the flag was taken down on Friday afternoon, Daily Telegraph reported.

A council spokesman from the City of Sydney condemned the flying of the flag and said they had not received any complaints.

'The City of Sydney condemns any form of discrimination or vilification on the grounds of religion, gender or sexual orientation,' she said.

'We would urge anyone who sees any material they find offensive to contact NSW Police.'

In February, Jewish Community Council of Victoria called on the state's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act to completely ban the public display of the Nazi symbol.
A labourer from Madhya



Pradesh who was apparently depressed because of the lockdown and yearning to return home chopped off his tongue at a temple in Gujarat's Banaskantha district on Saturday, police said.

While some reports claimed that it was a "sacrifice" to appease the goddess, police did not confirm them.

Vivek Sharma (24), a native of Morena district of Madhya Pradesh who worked as a sculptor, was found lying unconscious and covered in blood at the temple of Nadeshwari Mataji at Nadeshwari village in Sui Gam tehsil on Saturday.

"We found him holding his chopped tongue in his hand. and rushed him to Sui Gam hospital," said police sub inspector H D Parmar.

The temple where the incident took place is looked after by the Border Security Force, while Sharma worked at another temple which is 14 km away.

As per the preliminary inquiry, Sharma had become extremely homesick, and was restless ever since lockdown was imposed for containing coronavirus, banning inter-district or inter-state movement.

A local BSF official said Sharma might have thought of offering his tongue by way of sacrifice to the goddess so that circumstances changed and he could return home.

However, police said they can not ascertain what exactly happened until he recovers and his statement is recorded.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The prisoners were held out of reach of the courts for years in the belief that they might have information that could stop another attack, help disrupt the Qaida terrorist network and lead officials to Osama bin Laden. Rather than take the defendants to New York to trial after their captures in Pakistan in 2002 and 2003, the United States dispatched them to a secret network of prisons run overseas by the CIA.
Perhaps I am a bit edgy due to coronavirus house arrest. Just kidding. However, this guy's email really annoyed me. We're in lock down and people are hurting wondering how they will pay their bills. All this was not happening 4 years ago. Over the last 4 years we have continued to see our freedoms erode. Yet, some keep hoping Trump will be our savior. What has he done over the last 4 years? All I've seen was more decay.

Here is my response: Where do you think we would be had Hillary won? Trump has fought for our freedoms like no Republican since Reagan. He has Republicans, Democrats, never Trump conservatives and 99% of the media fighting against his America first agenda. I give the guy credit.

Folks, I refuse to dump on the only guy with the guts to fight for us. Trump has accomplished an extraordinary list of unprecedented achievements for We the People.

Coronavirus placed Trump between a rock and a hard place. Upon learning about the coronavirus, Trump immediately implemented a travel ban from China. Democrats and fake news media accused Trump of overreacting and racism.

Democrat and conservative media began reporting coronavirus as the worst to hit the planet and that we were all gonna die. I stopped watching Tucker Carlson on Fox News because every evening his reporting about the virus became scarier and scarier. Media scared the crap out of Americans on both sides of the political aisle.

Some folks say Trump should not have gone along with Dr. Anthony Fauci and other experts' proven-false prediction of two million deaths. Trump could not challenge the experts. With nationwide fear so high, members of his base would have joined fake news media and Democrats in crucifying him. Therefore, I do not think Trump screwed up by appearing to listen to Dr. Fauci. Trump did what he had to do. He did not willingly risk collapsing the remarkable economy he built via deregulation.

With the exception of Rush Limbaugh, pundits and politicians on both sides of the aisle were afraid to oppose the shutdown. Everyone surrendered to the narrative, We cannot sacrifice lives for money. Was Trump supposed to stand out there all alone, appearing to endanger lives by refusing to support the shutdown? Fake news media would have eaten him alive with many of his supporters joining them.

Trump is a master dealmaker with excellent instincts. He had to go along with the program until more Americans realized that the predictions of catastrophic high deaths was fake news. People realize that the so-called coronavirus crisis is Democrats' dream weapon to unconstitutionally control every aspect of our lives.

I am hearing tons of heartbreaking horror stories about the shutdown destroying lives. Cruelly, Democrats and fake news media are lovin' it. They plan to blame Trump for the economic suffering to stop his reelection. In realty, their insidious fearmongering pushed America into this self-induced mess.

A 106-year-old woman recovered from coronavirus. Ninety-eight percent of people who catch coronavirus recover. Rush Limbaugh pointed out that in 2018, the normal flu season caused 810,000 to be hospitalized and 30 to 60,000 died. Hospitals were not overrun, and we did not shut down the country. We are nowhere near such numbers with coronavirus.

Still, a lot of Americans remain petrified of coronavirus and oppose Trump reopening America. At the same time, many Americans are fed up with governors' draconian edicts.

The swiftly growing nationwide rebellion against the shutdown gave Trump ammo to be the adult in the room. Despite the fears of many, Trump announced Opening Up America Again beginning May 1st. Trump said some states will reopen before May 1st. Governors are empowered to tailor the reopening of their state. It is up to residents of each state to aggressively protest to rein in their power-obsessed governor.

Speaking of wacko power-obsessed governors, California governor Gavin Newsom implemented an extreme lockdown for residents while tent city vagrants and illegals roam free. Newsom's boot on the neck of residents contributed to creating mile-long lines of cars to get to Second Harvest Food Bank. Meanwhile, Newsom proudly announced he will give $125 million in coronavirus relief checks to illegal aliens.

Thomas Jefferson said, The government you elect is the government you deserve. How on earth did Gavin Newsom get elected? Californians should start saying no to Newsom's insanity.

After Trump announced his plan to reopen America, CNN immediately began cranking up more coronavirus fear to undermine reopening America. We all know that upon the first death after the reopening, Democrats and fake news media will call Trump a murderer, guilty of crimes against humanity. They'll say ego-driven Trump selfishly sacrificed lives to save his economy. They will even find a way to absurdly throw racism into the mix.

Who in the political universe would be able to withstand such attacks other than our Superman president, Donald J. Trump? Trump's leadership, guts, and commitment to the American people will make him victorious over their evil smears.

I'm on the Trump Train, folks, riding it all the way through November 2020 and beyond.

Lloyd Marcus, The Unhyphenated American

Help Lloyd Spread the Truth

https://www.trumptrainusa2020.com/

http://LloydMarcus.com
ganand wrote:

Biologist: Some computer scientists imagine that all that is required for making an artificial intelligence is to create a computer program that encapsulates the information contained in the human genome. They are mistaken. The operation of the human brain is governed by the interactions of proteins whose structures are encoded in the human genome.



Which one of the following is an assumption required by the biologist's argument?

No information indicates that the functions cannot be simulated by a computer

Correct. Those proteins are decoded from the information contained in the human genome. However,

the information contained in the human genome doesn't determine the interactions of those proteins.

The passage didn't indicate this information.

No information supports this choice

No information supports this choice

(A) The functions of the human brain are governed by processes that cannot be simulated by a computer.(B) The interactions of the proteins that govern the operation of the human brain are not determined by the information contained in the human genome.(C) The only way to create an artificial intelligence is to model it on the operation of the human brain.(D) The amount of information contained in the human genome is too large to be easily encapsulated by a computer program.(E) It is much more difficult to write a program that encapsulates the interactions of proteins than to write a program that encapsulates the information contained in the human genome._________________
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A man police believe was high on PCP attacked a Cleveland City Councilman as he passed out food to the needy in the citys Hough neighborhood.

Ward 7 Councilman Basheer Jones said the incident left him with some bruises, but that he used his jujitsu training to wrestle the man to the ground and hold him until police arrived.

I love my community so much, I was kind of blinded to what could have happened, Jones said. I know the ills of the community and the ills of poverty and the ills of the coronavirus and I just wanted to help. So Im just happy to be alive, because it could have turned out very bad.

The 36-year-old man who attacked Jones taken to University Hospitals for treatment. Formal charges have not been filed.

The incident happened about 8 p.m. Thursday on East 79th Street and Superior, Jones said.

Jones said he was passing out food at the intersection, as hes done each week during the coronavirus pandemic. He said the food comes from the Cleveland Food Bank. He passes out food, and delivers some to peoples homes, and he passes whatever food is left over at the intersection.

Jones said he typically notifies Cleveland police and has his own security in the area, but forgot to notify anyone.

This time I wanted to hurry and get the food out, he said.

Jones said he noticed the man chasing people down, banging on car windows and scaring women and children. He called Cleveland Police Third District Commander Dorothy Todd.

While he was on the phone, he told the man leave. The man charged at Jones and hit him several times. Jones said he somehow wrestled the man to the ground and that others nearby helped hold the man on the ground until police arrived.

Officers noted in a police report that the man was unable to speak coherently and that he smelled of PCP. Officers used minimal force in handcuffing him, the report says.

Jones, a member of the councils safety committee, commended the police for their quick response.

Jones said he will not be deterred. He plans to finish passing out the rest of the food later on Friday.

Im a little bruised, but Im okay, Jones said. Im not unfamiliar with my neighborhood and the ills of it, so it wont stop me from going back out there today, and finishing.

Read more from cleveland.com:

Cleveland cop accused of chasing, threatening man with gun

Cleveland APL investigating after video posted on Instagram shows man kicking cat

Cleveland police issue first citation for violation of Ohios stay-at-home order to beauty supply store
New Delhi:

A senior engineer with the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) on Saturday tested positive for coronavirus, prompting the civic body to disinfect its headquarters on Parliament Street. Besides, the 16th floor of the NDMC headquarters has been sealed as the 56-year-old engineers office was on that floor, officials said.

According to the officials in the NDMC, the engineer had complained of breathlessness on Wednesday and was taken to Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital from the NDMC headquarters. The officials said the engineer, who is diabetic and has high blood pressure, has no history of foreign travel.

He had no history of foreign travel. But as a senior engineer, he was responsible for the maintenance of NDMCs Charak Palika Hospital in Moti Bagh. This is a Covid-19 screening centre and at least one positive case has emerged from here. Besides, he also frequently went to NDMCs Bakkarwala flats in west Delhi which have been turned into isolation centres for suspected Covid-19 patients, an NDMC officer said.

Another NDMC official said that the engineer had attended several meetings as he was unaware of the suspected transmission. The 16th floor of the headquarters has at least 10 offices of the engineering department of the civic agency.

Assistant press and information officer of NDMC, Om Prakash, said, One of our engineers has tested positive for Covid-19. Contact tracing as per protocol is being done and necessary action would be taken. The NDMC is disinfecting his office and entire building.

This is the first case of an employee working at the NDMC headquarters testing positive for Covid-19, the officials said.

On Thursday, the state government had sealed the Chandni Mahal police station after two constables, who lived inside the station, tested positive for Covid-19.
Some staff of the Tema General Hospital (TGH) are threatening to abandon post as management conceals information on colleagues who have tested positive to COVID-19.



The Tema General Hospital is one of the designated national treatment centres for the coronavirus.



According to the aggrieved workers, management of the hospital was endangering their lives because they were concealing information on their colleagues who had tested positive.



They indicated that they were not told by management of the incident but were rather instructed to go and take the corona test without any explanations.



They disclosed that they heard that a doctor at the unit tested positive, but management failed to inform them even though they encouraged them to test, after which another person tested positive.



Due to the nature of our work we had cross contaminations and almost everyone was a contact, more than half of the nurses and doctors are currently under quarantine, they indicated.



They intimated that even though management was aware that they had been exposed to the virus, they did not inform them only for them to see the pediatric unit shut down.



The workers indicated that there was a lot of tension and anxiety at the hospital as they had been deprived of the needed information which they said would aid them during contact tracing.



They questioned why the hospital did not have a designated place for quarantining staff with suspected cases as it is being done at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital but rather asking them to do so at home, a situation they said could lead to contamination of families and homes.



Meanwhile, the pediatric unit that was shut down was disinfected on Thursday.

Source: GNA









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.

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In a white paper published by the American Civil Liberties Union, the watchdog agency warns that apps mean to track the spread of COVID-19 could come with major privacy risks.

While the ACLU doesn't expressly oppose apps that use data from people's phones to trace the spread of the virus, the organization says in its advisory that implementation will require a greater level of consent from users - especially when it comes to how their data is shared.

The ACLU says contact tracing apps could carry 'significant' privacy risks if they're not designed with robust controls on safety and consent (stock)

'While some of these systems could offer public health benefits, they may also cause significant risks to privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties,' writes ACLUs Surveillance and Cybersecurity Counsel, Jennifer Stisa Granick in a blog post.

'If such systems are to work, there must be widespread, free, and quick testing available.'

The ACLU warns 'voluntariness' should be an integral part of any contact tracing system, otherwise users may reject its implementation entirely by disabling their location data.

'The systems must also be widely adopted, but that will not happen if people do not trust them. For there to be trust, the tool must protect privacy, be voluntary, and store data on an individuals device rather than in a centralized repository,' wrote the ACLU.

According to the organization, contact tracing proposals like those recently set forth jointly by Google and Apple should also have express conditions on how the data can be used.

For instance, a statute dictating that any data collected won't be used for advertising purposes in addition to limits on how long the data can be retained by governments.

An NHS contact tracing app would only completely stop the spread of coronavirus if 80 per cent of current smartphone owners use it, researchers have warned

The ACLU has also questioned whether data could be used for surveillance purposes and has sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for correspondences with the Google and Apple.

The ACLU's guidance on contact tracing comes on the heels of an initiative by Google and Apple who partnered up to provide governments and health authorities with support on developing their own contact tracing apps.

Specifically, the companies are providing governments and health agencies access to their application programming interfaces (APIs) so that they can interface with Google and Apple's data banks to build out their own contact tracing apps.
Amaravati, April 18 : One more person died of coronavirus in Andhra Pradesh while 31 new cases were reported during the last 24 hours, officials said on Saturday.

A death was reported from Krishna district, taking the death toll in the state to 15. According to a medical bulletin released by the health department at 10 a.m. on Saturday, 31 more people tested positive, taking the state's tally of positive cases to 603.

Of the 31 new cases, 18 were reported from Krishna district and 5 from Kurnool.

A total of 42 patients have so far recovered and been discharged from hospitals. With this the number of active cases stands at 546.

The state has imported one lakh rapid testing kits from South Korea for screening. Officials said a door to door survey will be carried out and tests will be conducted on the doorsteps of those with suspected symptoms and those living in red zones.
YEREVAN, APRIL 18, ARMENPRESS. The Office of the President of Armenia adopted new approaches for social assistance taking into account the current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

At the instruction of President Armen Sarkissian, the Office these days is paying special attention to the most vulnerable and socially needy groups, living in bordering and remote communities, as well as affected by earthquake.

The program beneficiaries have been selected based on the Presidents communication with the residents during his visit to provinces, as well as the letters sent to the President and their analysis.

The assistance program will be implemented in stages. The current stage involves a total of 200 beneficiaries from various social groups. At this moment a priority is given to children of remote communities who do not have an opportunity for remote learning, as well as to large families and elderly people.

At this stage of the program assistance has been provided to the children of socially needy families living in Shirak and Tavush provinces.

The next group are the children of needy families or killed servicemen, living in bordering communities of Tavush province.

The program also includes several large families from Yerevan, as well as from Ararat, Armavir, Syunik, Tavush and Kotayk provinces, who have 6-14 aged children. All beneficiaries have been provided with essentials and food.

Computers have been provided to the children of needy families and families of fallen soldiers in Chinari, Nerkin Karmiraghbyur, Movses, Choratan, Aygepar communities of Tavush province.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- Thanks to community sponsorships and donations, multiple Genesee County restaurants have been able to bring thousands of meals to essential workers in the region.

Restaurants that have started mass meal deliveries include Flint establishments like Hoffmans Deco Deli and Cafe and Blackstones Smokehouse. Grand Blanc restaurant Taboon has also delivered.

Hoffmans has delivered meals to places like hospitals, grocery stores and banks, owner Heath Hoffman said. It started with one of Hoffmans friends asking to sponsor 50 meals for hospital workers.

Takeout Tuesday available at these five Flint restaurants

Since then, weve been just getting more and more, which is great because were not getting much business elsewhere, Hoffman said.

Hoffmans has delivered over 1,000 meals to workers at Hurley Medical Center, McLaren Flint, Ascension Genesys Hospital, Meijer and Huntington Bank over the past two weeks.

One sponsorship came from State Senator Jim Ananich, who donated 250 lunches to Meijer on Center Road in Flint, Hoffman said. On Thursday, Hoffmans worked to deliver 250 meals to hospital workers, 100 to Meijer employees.

If you invest in the community, the community will invest in you, Hoffman said. Thats my motto.

Downtown is a ghost town, Hoffman added, but people still working at banks, hospitals and the courts still need to be fed. His wife is a nurse at at the front line of battle working at Genesys.

Theyre out there trying to help everyone out and well do our best to help out as well, Hoffman said.

An army of Blackberry pulled pork sandwiches getting ready to go out today! Posted by Blackstones Smokehouse on Thursday, April 16, 2020

Blackstones Smokehouse closed briefly after the stay-at-home order dramatically reduced business in downtown Flint. The restaurant then reopened some functions in order to start delivering to essential workers, said owner Jerrid Heidel.

People have sponsored Blackstones meal deliveries through contributions to a GoFundMe. For every $6 donated, Heidel said he matches $6. As of Friday, April 17, more than $10,000 has been raised.

Starting the week of Monday, April 6, the bar and grill was able to deliver 800 meals, Heidel said. This week, it was able to deliver around 1,000 meals. Heidel coordinated with Hurley Medical Center and McLaren Flint to deliver meals.

I have some friends who work in the medical field. Just talking to them and family members, you could hear the worry and the stress," he said. Im just not much for sitting around so I thought, Well, Im going to start delivering meals to the hospitals.'

Lebanese-Mediterranean restaurant Taboon in Grand Blanc has also started a Feed the Heroes Project. As of Friday, April 17, the restaurant said on its Facebook page it has fed 1,912 workers.

Meals have been provided to medical staff, police officers, EMTs, paramedics and hospital support staff, the restaurant posted.

Related news:

Thursday, April 16: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan

More than 2,000 people have died of coronavirus in Michigan

First drive-thru coronavirus testing site opens in Flint

Genesee County jail deputies test positive for coronavirus

Lapeers Mr. Christmas, Tony Macksoud, dies of coronavirus

Owosso dumps back-up plan for drive-through graduation ceremony
Even after birth, infants cannot get the flu vaccine until they are 6 months old yet are highly susceptible. According to two studies published in 2014, infants aged 0 to 6 months have the highest rates of flu-related complications. Since 2010, according to C.D.C. estimates, between 7,000 and 26,000 children under age 5 were hospitalized for flu-related symptoms.

Research suggests that getting vaccinated while pregnant will help protect your baby  both in the womb and out. One study published in the journal Pediatrics in 2016, for example, found that babies born to mothers who were vaccinated for the flu while pregnant were 70 percent less likely to get influenza and 81 percent less likely to be hospitalized for influenza in their first six months of life than babies born to mothers who werent vaccinated while pregnant.

We know that babies are almost totally dependent on the antibodies they get from their mother to protect them from diseases until their own immune system can react and eradicate those diseases themselves, said Dr. Mary Healy, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine in pediatric infectious diseases at Texas Childrens Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine.

Get the Tdap vaccine in your third trimester.

Pertussis, or whooping cough, is a bacterial infection that can cause intense and violent coughing fits, and can lead to pneumonia, convulsions, encephalopathy (brain damage) or even death.

According to Dr. Healy, infants younger than 6 months have a high risk of catching pertussis, and the majority of those who die from infection are younger than 3 months. Anyone whos ever heard or experienced an infant with pertussis, its something you dont forget, said Dr. Healy. They have those coughing fits that can go on for a very long time, they turn blue, they stop breathing and its horrible.

The Tdap vaccine protects against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis, but its only recommended during pregnancy for the pertussis component since a pertussis-only vaccine does not exist. Infants cant get their first Tdap dose until theyre 2 months old, so public health agencies recommend that pregnant women get it later in their pregnancies, between 27 and 36 weeks gestation, to help protect babies after theyre born and before they get their own vaccines. Studies have found, for example, that getting the Tdap vaccination in the third trimester can prevent up to 91 percent of pertussis infections in the first two months of life.

If you didnt get the Tdap vaccine while pregnant, said Dr. Healy, its a good idea to get it postpartum to reduce your risk of contracting it and passing it along to your newborn.
For people with asthma, the outbreak of a pandemic that can lead to respiratory failure has not been a welcome event. Many health organizations have cautioned that asthmatics are most likely at higher risk for severe illness if they get the coronavirus. Theres been a run on inhalers, and coronavirus patients like the actor Idris Elba have openly worried about their asthma. But this month, when New York State, the epicenter of the outbreak in the United States, began releasing data on the top 10 chronic health problems suffered by people who died from coronavirus, asthma ...
A longtime Enfield resident died April 12 in the same Massachusetts hospital complex where she once worked, according to her obituary.

Sally J. Carr, 90, died at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., because of COVID-19 complications. Because of the virus, her obituary said, her family was not by her side.
The National Weather Service in League City issued a severe thunderstorm warning Saturday afternoon for Trinity, San Jacinto, Polk, and Walker counties until 5:30 p.m.

At approximately 4:30 p.m., NWS detected a severe thunderstorm located near Huntsville State Park, moving northeast at 45 mph. Hazards include possible hail and 60 mph wind gusts.

Another severe thunderstorm warning was issued earlier on Saturday afternoon at approximately 3:30 p.m. for northern Fort Bend County in southeastern Texas, southeastern Waller County in southeastern Texas, west central Harris County in southeastern Texas. The warning expired at 4:00 p.m.

For residents who live near Lake Livingston, NWS warns to "get away from the water and move indoors or inside a vehicle."
The family of an American man who died from coronavirus is suing Princess Cruises for not warning passengers about the risk of catching the bug on board.

Chung Chen, 64, died on April 4 in Los Angeles from COVID-19 after travelling on the Ruby Princess, which finished it's voyage in Sydney.

Mr Chen became the 21st death linked to the cruise ship and the second outside Australia.

Chung Chen, 64, died on April 4 in Los Angeles from COVID-19 after travelling on the Ruby Princess, which finished it's voyage in Sydney. Pictured with his wife and daughter

Debi Chalik is the lawyer representing Mr Chen's wife and daughter - Juishan Hsu and Vivian Chen - in a lawsuit against the cruise line.

'The case against Princess Cruises is based on corporate negligence and corporate gross negligence, they sailed on March 8th knowing that there was a huge risk of putting their passengers exposed to COVID-19,' she told the ABC.

The cruise ship docked in Sydney on March 18 after a ten-day trip, and 2,700 passengers were allowed off the ship the following day.

Ms Chalik said while the family was on the ship they had no idea what was happening in the outside world.

'There was no reason for them to know that anything other than an ordinary cruise was happening. They didn't realise there was an outbreak on the ship until after they got home,' she said.

She claimed in the lawsuit papers the cruise line was 'reckless' to continue the cruise follow earlier incidents with ships.

The cruise ship (pictured) docked in Sydney on March 18 after a ten-day trip, and 2,700 passengers were allowed off the ship the following day

The lawsuit claims the cruise line were aware of the outbreak and on the day it was intended to set sail and instructed staff to give lunch vouchers when the trip was delayed by six hours.

'If [the] plaintiffs had knowledge of the actual risk of exposure prior to boarding, they would have never boarded the ship, and they would've boarded the first flight out of Australia and returned home,' the lawsuit said.

A spokesman for the cruse line declined to comment on the legal proceedings when contacted by Daily Mail Australia but wanted to re-emphasise comments made earlier this week by Princess Cruises President Jan Swartz.

'It is heartbreaking and distressing to know that coronavirus has had, and continues to have, such a terrible impact on so many people across the world, including some of our guests, crew members and their families. Our hearts and thoughts go out to everyone that has been affected,' Mr Swartz said

'What happened on Ruby Princess reflected what was happening in the world. Even at the time the ship left Sydney, international flights were coming to Australia, the borders were still open and major sporting events were still being played to packed stadiums. This was an unprecedented global situation and everyone involved was no doubt making the best decisions they could at the time.

The cruise ship left Sydney on March 8 to travel around New Zealand.

From 15 March, all international cruise ships were banned by the Australian government from sailing into or out of the country's ports for 30 days.

The Ruby Princess arrived in Sydney Harbour on March 18 and more than 2,700 guests are allowed to disembark without adequate health checks.

HOW CRUISE SHIPS HAVE BECOME HOTBEDS FOR THE CORONAVIRUS The Diamond Princess cruise ship was at the centre of the early beginnings of the coronavirus outbreak in February. Japan forced the Diamond Princess cruise ship into quarantine at the port of Yokohama after hundreds contracted coronavirus. At least seven people who were on board the vessel died. Diamond Princess cruise ship seen above at Yokohama Port near Tokyo on February 26 From 15 March, all international cruise ships were banned by the Australian government from sailing into or out of Australian ports for 30 days. On March 19, the Ruby Princess arrived in Sydney Harbour and more than 2,700 guests are allowed to disembark without adequate health checks. About 700 of its passengers have since tested positive for COVID-19, with many more put at risk - accounting for around 10 per cent of all Australia's cases. So far, at least 22 COVID-19 deaths have been linked to the cruise liner. A criminal investigation was launched on April 5 into how passengers were able to disembark without checks. Cruise ships around the world have struggled to find somewhere to dock during the coronavirus pandemic as countries close their ports to the vessels. Advertisement

Australia has had a total of 6,560 coronavirus cases diagnosed as of Saturday afternoon

Around 700 of its passengers have since tested positive for COVID-19, with many more put at risk - accounting for around 10 per cent of all Australia's cases.

So far, 21 passengers from the cruise liner have died of COVID-19.

A criminal investigation was launched on April 5 into how passengers were able to disembark without checks.

Princess Cruises announced they would be suspending services until June 30.

The Ruby Princess is currently docked in Port Kembla, on the New South Wales South Coast.
Health Economist, Dr. Gordon Abeka-Nkrumah is cautioning against calls not to extend the lockdown in parts of the country.

Dr. Gordon Abeka-Nkrumah says Ghana is at its critical stage in the fight against the novel coronavirus and any move to remove the current restriction of movements will affect the progress made so far.

President Nana Akufo-Addo is expected to address the nation this weekend on additional measures government is taking to curb the spread of the virus amidst calls for lockdown on Accra, Tema, Kasoa and Kumasi to be lifted.

But speaking on Citi FM/TV's news and current affairs programme, The Big Issue, Dr. Gordon Abeka Nkrumah said government must consider a number of factors before making such a decision.

Lockdowns have economic gradients. So the best we can do is to make sure that, we get people to stay home in the next week or two. We make sure we ramp up tests and isolate people and then we can encourage the wearing of masks so that we can then come out. Because if we don't do that and we joke, what will happen is that, we may go back again and lockdown entirely in a way that we probably can not handled. We need to get a bit more firm and get this to work.

Last week, government extended the lockdown imposed on some parts of the country by one more week.

The extension took effect from Monday, April 13, 2020, subject to review.

The decision has been taken through the issuance of another executive instrument to extend the restriction of movements in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area and Kasoa and the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area and its contiguous districts by one more week beginning 1 am on Monday the 13th of April, subject to review, the President said.

The decision was also aimed at assisting the government to enhance its contact tracing and testing efforts.

---citinewsroom
He poured his heart and soul into it, Carrick said, noting shes heard from many former students since his death. He truly loved all kids. A lot of former students are reaching out saying, no matter how artistic they really were, he always made them feel as if they were (truly talented)."
Although COVID-19 infections continue to spread rapidly in Europe, with thousands becoming ill and dying, big business representatives in Germany are defending the hospital closures of recent decades and preparing new ones. They are playing down or ignore the catastrophic conditions in hospitals and nursing homes.

The economist Professor Boris Augurzky of the Leibnitz Institute for Economic Research (RWI) claimed that there are not currently too few, but too many hospitals in Germany, and called for the crisis to be used in a targeted manner to further reduce the number of facilities. He said he was sad that no more hospitals had been closed. Why should a more efficient hospital structure be worse in a pandemic like the current one, he asked on the podcast Tonspur Wissen. But efficiency here merely means profitable.

Augurzky calls for the closure of more small hospitals, greater specialization and above all greater profitability. Of course, a small hospital with 100 beds might then no longer exist in the neighbourhood, the economist says. But this would not mean a reduction in medical staff and the number of intensive care beds, he claims.

That this is not true is obvious. The massive reduction in the number of beds is leading to deficiencies in care in all areas and in personnel. Furthermore, the hospital in the neighbourhood is crucial in life-threatening emergencies. Even today, rescue services must sometimes travel great distances to a hospital, which costs lives.

Augurzky also advocates a shorter length of stay in hospitals and a shift towards outpatient care. Go there in the morning, back in the evening, he says. In doing so, he is talking about a tightening of the development that began with the introduction of per-case flat ratesso-called Diagnosis-related Groups, DRGs, originally established in the US. These have massively increased the pressure on hospitals to be profitable. He cynically explained that the impression has been created that the health care system has been saved, complaining that more and more is being spent on health.

The professor speaks for that narrow stratum at the top of society, where every cent that goes into public care is a thorn in their side.

His argumentation is anything but new. Last summer, the Bertelsmann Foundation called for the closure of every second hospital in Germany and suggested that not even 600 of the current 1,400 hospitals survive.

Augurzky previously admitted that the peak of the coronavirus infections in Germany, and thus the strain on the hospitals, has not yet been reached. However, from April onwards, a huge wave of COVID-19 patients will come to the hospitals. Until then we must activate all reserves, he told the press last month.

At the same time, he was unimpressed by the blatant lack of protective equipment. But nobody is properly prepared for such a pandemic, the medical journal Arzteblatt quoted him saying. That was not even possible, medical protective equipment on the scale that is now required was not practical in normal operations, he said.

For Augurzky, what is normal is that doctors and nurses are pushed to the limits of their ability to cope with stress under impossible conditions and expose themselves to health risks. He disagreed with the moderator's remark that health care workers are usually paid properly. Both doctors and nurses have made major salary leaps in recent years, he said on the podcast.

While Augurzky and other representatives of big business advocate using the crisis to push through further cuts, it is becoming increasingly clear that the policies of recent decades of cutbacks and privatization have led to the current crisis.

In fact, hospitals and nursing homes have become corona hotspots due to a lack of personnel and materials. A research group at the London School of Economics has analysed the effects of the coronavirus on nursing homes in Italy, Spain, Ireland, Belgium and France. According to the study, between 42 and 57 per cent of all deaths related to COVID-19 were in these facilities. The extent of the infections and deaths in these homes cannot be ignored, the researchers demand.

News weekly Der Spiegel reports that of the 6,444 patients with lung disease registered by Saturday, 288 had died in Ireland. 156 of them54 percentwere residents in nursing homes. In Spain, the figure even reached 57 percent. Here, however, the figures were based on media reports on statistics published by regional governments. Belgium came in at 42 percent, France at 45 and Italy at 53 percent, the news magazine said.

This trend is also evident in Germany. Hamburgs health senator Cornelia Prufer-Storcks (Social Democratic Party, SPD) recently had to admit, We are worried about the nursing homes. Officially, 28 of Hamburgs 150 or so old peoples homes and nursing homes are now affected, 234 residents are ill and so also are nursing staff. Due to inadequate testing, the number of cases is certainly much higher.

Peter Walger, a member of the board of the German Society for Hospital Hygiene (DGKH), criticised the negligent conditions in nursing homes and hospitals. In an interview, he answered the question of whether hospitals are adequately supplied in the current corona crisis saying, No. In the current coronavirus crisis, there is a shortage at every turn, especially in respiratory protection, protective clothing and disinfectants.

Walger expressly pointed out the danger to personnel and patients. Where protective masks in particular are lacking, medical personnel are at considerable risk. Staff are normally trained in the wearing of personal protective equipment and their use is well known to all personnel involved.

The catastrophe is a result of such shortages and the necessity to improvise in desperation, Walger explained. According to him, a high number of infected employees in hospitals and nursing homes must continue to be expected. In the same context, other patients who are not primarily infected with COVID-19 are also infected. What the conditions in hospitals are like cannot yet be substantiated with concrete figures. Initial data from Italy, Spain and China suggest the worst.

This is also confirmed by a senior physician at a Berlin clinic who recently spoke with the World Socialist Web Site. He noted the serious lack of protective materials. Face masks, which should actually only be worn for a few hours, have to be used for a week because there are far too few available. We have to sign for them. According to established hygiene standards, these products should only be used once.

The constant danger of becoming infected increases the pressure on hospital employees. Several doctors and nurses have already died of the virus in the United States and Italy.

Although doctors have had to work overtime even before the coronavirus crisis, this has increased considerably in the last two months. I regularly work almost 40 percent over the regular 40-hour week without any financial compensation, the senior physician said. Colleagues have already collapsed under the pressure, breaking down in tears and expressing the sentiment that they are failures. Inexperienced doctors, in particular, were often overwhelmed. The risk of contracting a potentially fatal disease is a burden on all employees.

Even before the eruption of coronavirus, beds in the doctors ward had already been cut due to a lack of personnel. Now, this shortage was even more dramatic. In order to position a patient being ventilated on their front, for example, four staff must be present for about one hour. Often there simply is not the staff there.

Although the risk of infection is so high, far too little was being done to stem the spread of the disease, particularly in hospitals, the doctor complained. For example, there was no basic testing for COVID-19, only when symptoms such as fever or similar occurred. But by then, it can often be too late.
QINGDAO, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Chinese oceanographic research ship Xiangyanghong 06 is sailing to the Pacific Ocean from a port in east China's Shandong Province for a 75-day expedition.

The expedition team, led by the Ministry of Natural Resources, will focus on the research about global change and sea-air interaction. Some 50 scientists on board will carry out surveys of marine geology and organisms living on sea bottoms in the West Pacific.

Before setting out, expedition members have made emergency plans and conducted rehearsals on the ship to prevent the novel coronavirus infection. All of them have tested negative for the virus, said a source of the ministry.

The ship returned to China in mid-March after completing a research expedition in the Indian Ocean. In less than a month, the preparation of supplies and examination of facilities were completed to ensure the success of the Pacific mission, the ministry source said.
18.04.2020 LISTEN

Preliminary results from government lab experiments show that the coronavirus does not survive long in high temperatures and high humidity, and is quickly destroyed by sunlight, providing evidence from controlled tests of what scientists believed  but had not yet proved  to be true.

A briefing on the preliminary results, marked for official use only and obtained by Yahoo News, offers hope that summertime may offer conditions less hospitable for the virus, though experts caution it will by no means eliminate, or even necessarily decrease, new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The results, however, do add an important piece of knowledge that the White Houses science advisers have been seeking as they scramble to respond to the spreading pandemic.

The study found that the risk of transmission from surfaces outdoors is lower during daylight and under higher temperature and humidity conditions. Sunlight destroys the virus quickly, reads the briefing.

While that may provide some good news about the outlook for outdoor activities, the Department of Homeland Security briefing on the results cautions that enclosed areas with low humidity, such as airplane cabins, may require additional care to minimise risk of transmission.

In a statement to Yahoo News, the DHS declined to answer questions about the findings and strongly cautioned against drawing any conclusions based on unpublished data.

The department is dedicated to the fight against COVID-19, and the health and safety of the American people is its top priority. As a policy, the department does not comment on allegedly leaked documents, the DHS said in a statement. It would be irresponsible to speculate, draw conclusions, or to inadvertently try to influence the public based upon a document that has not yet been peer-reviewed or subjected to the rigorous scientific validation approach.

The results are contained in a briefing by the DHS science and technology directorate, which describes experiments conducted by the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, a lab-created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to address biological threats.

While the DHS describes the results as preliminary, they may eventually make their way into specific recommendations. Outdoor daytime environments are lower risk for transmission, the briefing states.

Simulated sunlight rapidly killed the virus in aerosols, the briefing says, while without that treatment, no significant loss of virus was detected in 60 minutes.

The tests were performed on viral particles suspended in saliva. They were done indoors in environments meant to mimic various weather conditions.

While the results of these tests have not been previously made public, Harvey Fineberg, head of the National Academies Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats, broadly described plans to conduct the experiments in an April 7 letter to the White House.

In that letter, addressed to President Trumps top science adviser Kelvin Droegemeier, Fineberg wrote that the DHS lab is well suited for the kinds of studies they have planned, and the scope and relevance are noteworthy. In particular, they plan to create simulated infected body fluids, including saliva and lower respiratory secretions.

Droegemeiers office did not respond to a request for comment on whether it has received the latest results from the DHS. The National Academies also did not respond to a request for comment.

While the lab results are new, scientists for many weeks have predicted, based on available data on the diseases spread, that warmer, wetter climates would be less hospitable to the spread of the coronavirus. An early analysis by scientists observed that the virus was spreading more slowly in countries with warmer climates.

We are not saying that at higher temperatures, the virus will suddenly go away and everything would be fine and you are going out, Qasim Bukhari, a computational scientist at MIT and a co-author of the analysis, told Yahoo News in an interview. No, we are not saying it. We are just seeing that there is a temperature- and humidity-related dependency, but I think many people now have started to realize this.

Bukhari said that since he and his colleagues published that analysis, the numbers on the coronaviruss spread continue to support their contention. They are doing a lot of tests now in India. Also, when you look at the numbers in Pakistan its the same. There are more than 5,000 cases in Pakistan right now, he said. But the increase is not as rapid as you see in other countries.

The question of the effects of sunlight and heat on the coronavirus has been particularly fraught, because there has been a tendency to misinterpret the relationship between good weather and disease spread. Early on, some politicians tried to encourage people to go outside , including to beaches, arguing that sunlight would kill the virus. The problem, however, is that without widespread immunity, people can still transmit the coronavirus to others, even in warm weather.

The real question now, Bukhari said, is whether enough people have already been infected that the summer temperatures wont prevent continued transmission.

So lets say 50 per cent of the population is already infected, and then those temperatures arrive and then those humidity levels arrive, then what difference can those temperatures and humidity levels be? Probably none. Thats the thing.

While the new lab results are important, the science behind how sunlight kills the virus is fairly well established, says Arthur Anderson, former director of the Office of Human Use and Ethics at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md.

[Ultraviolet] light breaks DNA into fragments. If the virus is floating around in the air and theres bright sunlight, the UV component in sunlight will break the DNA or the RNA into pieces, he told Yahoo News.

Infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci, who has become the leading face of the White House response, has provided cautious statements about what the summer months might mean for the coronavirus, saying recently, Its almost certainly going to go down a bit. He has stopped far short, however, of saying that good weather alone would have an impact.

Yet the lab results may ultimately provide at least some basis for optimism.

Does this give a little more hope about the virus potentially decreasing? said Dr Kavita Patel, a Yahoo medical contributor and nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution. Yes. I would say even Dr Fauci has alluded to that.

Colds and flus dont disappear in the summer, even if they are less common, Patel noted. We do have cases of the flu in the summer, she said. Thats why all of us in medicine are being a little more guarded.

The labs work was done in a controlled environment, according to the DHS briefing, and tested how long the coronavirus survives on stainless steel in a droplet of saliva from a cough or sneeze under conditions related to temperature, humidity and sunlight. The lab is now doing additional testing, such as experimenting with low-tech techniques for sterilization of protective equipment, which would include using rice cookers, clothes steamers and electric pressure cookers.

The National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, which conducted the experiments, has traditionally kept a low profile because of its classified work on biological warfare defence and bioterrorism. Fineberg, in his letter to the White House, did not go into detail on the planned experiments, noting that the lab shares its findings with the interagency task force on the coronavirus.

It is unclear for now whether the centre intends to publish in a peer-reviewed journal or choose some other route for making its results known. Patel said she could understand government concerns about releasing preliminary results, but in general, she leans toward openness.

As a clinical doctor, we want to learn as fast as possible anything that works clinically. You want to be able in the first line to say: This is preliminary, with caveats. But why hold back the information? she said.

It may be that the government wants to control how the message is released, she suggested. I would say in a global pandemic, thats less of a priority.

--- yahoo news
A one-year-old girl from Dombivli (East) tested positive for Covid-19 on Saturday. The girl had fever since April 7 and was taken to Rukminibai Civic Hospital, said civic officials. The girl was later taken to Kalwa Hospital but her case was not considered, and then she was admitted at Shastri Nagar Civic Hospital in Dombivli.

We had sent her swab sample for testing as she had fever since earlier this month and she tested positive. She has been sent to Neon Covid hospital in Dombivli for further treatment. Her condition is stable, said Pratibha Panpatil, epidemic officer, Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC).

Her parents, who are at risk of the infection, have been quarantined and will be tested.

KDMC is yet to be sure about how the girl got infected as none of her family members was infected or had travel history.

Last week a six-month-old boy, the youngest to have contracted the disease in Kalyan, was released after treatment.

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Assyrian Journalist Targeted in Turkey

An Assyrian Christian journalist currently living in Istanbul, Isa Karatus, has reported that gunshots were fired at his house in Mardin on the morning of April 14th. He does not regularly live at the Mardin house, and thus was not home when the attack occurred. An investigation is ongoing.

Karatus said to the media, "When we consider the increasing attacks and provocations against the Assyrians recently, this attack is likely to be scaring and intimidating for Assyrians who are considering returning to their villages."

This follows a recent and ongoing investigation into the disappearance of the Diril couple, who were abducted by the PKK (a terrorist organization) in Eastern Turkey earlier this year. The elderly wife's body was recently discovered. They had returned to their village in an attempt to rebuild the Assyrian Christian presence after the violence had forced them to leave several years ago. This incident has also been interpreted by the community as an attempt to scare Assyrian Christians from returning home.

Assyrian Christians were victims of the Ottoman-era genocide conducted against ethnic Christians a century ago. This genocide has never been recognized by the authorities, and the policies which facilitated the genocide have not been addressed. Journalists are also highly targeted by the current government.
While much of the population will be forced to travel no more than 2km from their front door for the next three weeks, one Kilsaran man will be going a little further than that - China to be exact!

And he is set to make the journey quite a few times in the coming weeks as part of the incredible Aer Lingus airlift of vital PPE for staff on the frontline in our hospitals.

Captain Padraig King has seen some sights in his 32 years in the air, but this is something unique.

For the majority of the time, his trips are to the USA, but his latest route is over the UK, the Baltic countries, Russia, Mongolia and China.

'We have five pilots,' he states, meaning some can rest while others fly and vice versa after a three to four hour turnaround in Beijing.

They fill the hold with 25 tonnes of equipment and then fill the aircraft, items strapped in to seats where passengers normally sit.

Padraig admits the scenes he has come across while flying such a journey are breathtaking.

'Going over St Petersburg, into Siberia, the Volga and the Gobi desert and the Great Wall. It is a sight to behold,' he admits.

He feels he is lucky to be involved in such a mission and it is great to be able to keep flying. 'We are fortunate that way,' he adds.

A former student at Kilsaran NS before heading to the CBS, he worked in an electrical store and on fishing trawlers before realising his dream of joining Aer Lingus in 1988.

In the coming weeks, Padraig will continue to be part of 'Ireland's Call' and he couldn't be prouder.
The medical supplies had been shipped. The planning began a year in advance. Then the coronavirus arrived, and Dr. Charmaine Emelife's heart sank.

The annual trip to Nigeria to provide free medical care the flagship project of the Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas had been set to start Sunday but can't go on. Now the 4,000-member organization, like diaspora medical groups around the world, is scrambling for other ways to help back home, where it might be more needed than ever before.

A global brain drain of medical professionals to richer countries has left developing nations in Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America and elsewhere without tens of thousands of highly skilled workers. Some 30% of doctors in the U.S., and one-third of those in the UK, were foreign-born as of 2016, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

At the same time, sub-Saharan Africa has a painful shortage of medical professionals, with access to just 3% of the world's health workers, according to the World Health Organization. Nigeria has four doctors per 10,000 people. Kenya has just two.

But even as some doctors, nurses and others overseas yearn to return to help with the coronavirus crisis, they face travel restrictions that have slammed shut borders and closed international airports.

There are said to be no commercial passenger flights going into Nigeria from the U.S., and the U.S. is not receiving the same flights, Emelife, the Nigerian association's president, told The Associated Press. The issue of going back to Nigeria at this point to help is not a conversation. Instead, the association is raising money to buy and ship protective equipment for front-line workers, reaching far beyond its U.S. base for sources.

When the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-16 briefly spread to Nigeria, the association focused on sending tons and tons of protective gear, Emelife said.

But the task is far more difficult now as the rest of the world competes for the same supplies.

So the association is also exploring telemedicine, Emelife said, in which members can offer long-distance consultations for patients in Nigeria, where some private medical practices have shut down out of caution, further limiting options for care.

If what is happening in the U.S. or Italy should dare happen in Nigeria, there would be complete, total disorder, said Dr. Biodun Ogunbo, who closed his private surgery facility in the capital, Abuja, for a month after the country's first cases were reported. Currently, Nigeria's cases number nearly 500, but health experts say Africa is just weeks behind Europe and the U.S. in the pandemic and the worst is yet to come.

It's the personnel that matter, Ogunbo said. We don't have the numbers of trained medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists for the 24-hour care that some virus patients need.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild to moderate symptoms such as fever and cough. But for some, especially older adults and those with other health problems, it can cause pneumonia and death.

The thousands of Nigerian medical workers in the diaspora, Ogunbo said, would definitely, 100% be welcome, along with insights into how virus cases are being treated overseas.

Emelife said even such items as soap and clean water are needed in parts of Nigeria. Africa's most populous nation recently surpassed India with the world's largest number of people living in extreme poverty.

We need to help take care of the people at home and we are working on it with this COVID-19 pandemic, she said. We love our country. Some diaspora groups are appealing to shared culture in this time of isolation.

Our Filipino values and traits ... will keep us strong and resilient in this trying time, the National Organization of Filipino American Physicians wrote in a statement on COVID-19. We are a people that reaches out to and looks after each other. The group partners with the Manila-based Philippine Nurses Association for online seminars on the pandemic.

The Association of Pakistani Physicians and Surgeons of the UK asked members this month to consult patients in Pakistan via video conference. Pakistan needs you more than ever before, it said. This week, Dr. Sefa Ahiaku updated the website of the Ghanaian Doctors and Dentists Association UK with the obituary of a Ghana-based colleague Coronavirus is no respecter of who people are, she said and a fundraising appeal to buy protective gear for others in the West African nation.

For us, the death really brought it close to home, Ahiaku, the group's vice president, said. We want to help out. That desire is more acute when there's a crisis. Ghana, like Nigeria, has locked down certain high-population areas instead of the entire country. The diaspora group hopes to help rural communities who don't have the luxury of shutting their doors improve sanitation ahead of the virus' possible spread.

I am really encouraged by the doctors I'm speaking to in Ghana who are keeping a level head, Ahiaku said, as the country's virus cases near 650.

Her Ghana-based colleague had been talking with the government on ways to streamline the process so medical professionals in the diaspora can come home and offer their services, she said.

She hopes this pandemic might lead governments to invest more in health systems, giving medical workers more incentive to stay at home or return for good.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Adequate testing and PPE supplies are critical if we are going to get a handle on this pandemic

The need for solid information about COVID-19 diagnoses is critical to the successful fight against the novel coronavirus. LeadingAge, the association of nonprofit nursing homes and other providers of aging services, and its affiliate, LeadingAge Texas encourages action by Texas leaders to gather and leverage data.

The COVID-19 virus is taking a toll on nursing home residents and the dedicated staff providing care, yet we remain committed to turning this pandemic around.

Nursing homes are an integral component of the public health system. They offer a service unlike any provided in other care settings to older residents with complex health care needs and life-threatening conditions.

The combined physical and emotional impact of the pandemic is unprecedented for nursing homes in Texas. The incidents of COVID-related deaths are increasing in nursing homes, consistent with data indicating the impact the virus has on older populations.

Every day, nursing home staff do their part to aggressively prevent and mitigate the spread, while delivering compassionate care under challenging circumstances. Among the key defenses against infection transmission in nursing homes is the use of suitable personal protective equipment (PPE) for nursing home staff and residents. However, the shortages are very real, and distribution networks overwhelmed. Likewise, testing is inadequate.

As has happened in several nursing homes in Texas and elsewhere, asymptomatic staff have unknowingly spread the virus to residents and other staff resulting in clusters of cases. Until all staff and residents can be tested regularly and quickly, these types of situations are nearly impossible to avoid.

Katie Smith Sloan, President and CEO of LeadingAge, said, We have been working in partnership with LeadingAge Texas as it battles the pandemic. Nursing home staff is on the front line in caring for older adults. They must be prioritized for PPE and testing supplies -- particularly as nursing homes nationwide have assumed increased responsibilities as partners to hospitals in caring for COVID-19 discharges. We fully expect that consistent reporting of cases will lead to adequate and timely access to PPE and testing.

The pervasiveness of this virus and the limited supplies has led to the spread of the virus among the workforce and residents, leading to staffing shortages that result in longer shifts and multiple days of duty without breaks in service.

George Linial, President and CEO of LeadingAge Texas said, The services that aging services organizations, including nursing homes provide are fundamental to the lives of the people we serve, their families, and our communities across Texas. Our members care deeply about the role we play to provide much-needed care, services, and supports as this crisis continues. Adequate testing and PPE supplies are critical if we are going to get a handle on this pandemic.

About LeadingAge Texas: Established in 1959, we represent more than 350 members, including approximately 200 of Texas' finest retirement housing communities, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities, nursing homes, and home and community-based services providers. Over 30,000 older Texans reside in LeadingAge Texas-member communities. Thousands more are served through home health services, adult day care centers, and other community out-reach services. LeadingAge Texas members are sponsored primarily by community-based nonprofit civic, religious, fraternal, and other quality groups and are mission-driven organizations. LeadingAge Texas is committed to assisting its members in providing the highest quality of services possible to the residents they serve. For more information: http://www.leadingagetexas.org

About LeadingAge: We represent more than 5,000 aging-focused organizations that touch millions of lives every day. Alongside our members and 38 state partners, we address critical issues by blending applied research, advocacy, education, and community-building. We bring together the most inventive minds in our field to support older adults as they age wherever they call home. We make America a better place to grow old. For more information: http://www.leadingage.org
This is a difficult time and there may be a lockdown in force but Easter just wouldn't seem like Easter without chocolate eggs and any residents of the four 'pensioner estates' in Gibraltar who were worried about missing out found their fears were unfounded.

Thanks to the generosity of the local branch of Marks & Spencer, Easter eggs and other goodies were delivered to their homes for them to enjoy.

Gibraltar's Minister for Housing, Steven Linares, said he was very grateful to Marks & Spencer for their kind gesture of solidarity. "This action of generosity further shows the unity within our community and will definitely put a smile on many faces, making their Easter a little extra special," he said.
President Donald Trump had dropped his biggest hint yet that he is considering pardoning Roger Stone, a former advisor to his campaign.

'This is a disgraceful situation!' Trump wrote in a tweet late on Friday, as he retweeted a post from conservative activist Charlie Kirk that read in part: 'RT for FULL PARDON'.

Kirk, the founder of campus conservative group Turning Point USA, had tweeted decrying a judge's decision on Thursday to reject Stone's request for a new trial.

Stone had claimed the jury forewoman was biased after it emerged she was a former Democrat candidate for president and tweeted frequently bashing Trump and even commenting on his case.

President Donald Trump had dropped his biggest hint yet that he is considering pardoning Roger Stone, a former advisor to his campaign

Stone's motion prompted Judge Amy Berman Jackson to call nearly all jurors back for a hearing, a highly unusual move, after Stone's attorneys also alleged misconduct after some jurors spoke out publicly following the case.

During a trial, jurors are not allowed to read news accounts or social media posts about the case or discuss it with anyone until deliberations, but after their verdict is rendered, they are released from duty and can speak publicly if they wish.

In her 81-page memorandum, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said the lawyers had not proved the forewoman was biased or that any jurors acted inappropriately. She included details of their juror questionnaires in her explanation.

'The assumption underlying the motion - that one can infer from the jurors opinions about the President that she could not fairly consider the evidence against the defendant - is not supported by any facts or data and it is contrary to controlling legal precedent,' she wrote in denying the new trial.

'The motion is a tower of indignation, but at the end of the day, there is little of substance holding it up,' she wrote.

Stone was convicted on all seven counts of an indictment that accused him of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing a House investigation

Stone was sentenced by US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson (seen right while Stone testifies in this 2019 courtroom sketch)

Stone was convicted on all seven counts of an indictment that accused him of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the 2016 election.

He was the sixth Trump aide or adviser to be convicted on charges brought as part of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Before his Feb. 20 sentencing, the Justice Department leadership backed away from its initial recommendation just hours after Trump tweeted his displeasure at the recommendation of up to nine years in prison, saying it had been too harsh. The move led to a brief flare-up between Attorney General Willam Barr and Trump.

The decision on sentencing was Jacksons to make. She sentenced Stone to more than three years in prison plus two years probation and a $20,000 fine.

Speculation has been rife that Trump will pardon Stone, and last month the president said he was considering a full pardon for former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about dealings with Russia's ambassador before Trump took office.

Flynn attempted to withdraw the guilty plea in January, saying federal prosecutors had acted in 'bad faith' and broke their end of the bargain when they sought prison time for him.

'I am strongly considering a Full Pardon!' Trump tweeted. The president also cited an unspecified report that the Justice Department had lost records related to Flynn's case.

In response, Flynn's lawyer, Sidney Powell, tweeted, 'Thank you, Mr. President' and said 'the persecution' of his client 'is an egregious injustice.'
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 04/17/2020



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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

star Evelin Villegas has denied speculation she has gotten breast implants.Evelin, who lives in Engabao, Ecuador, recently took to her Instagram Stories to post a video of herself, setting the record straight on whether she's had a breast augmentation.Evelin wrote on the video, which was later reposted by Instagrammer John Yates on his own account, "No I haven't get new boobs."Evelin told her fans, "Today I'm going to talk to you about one subject. Some people say that I have done my boobs and they always ask me the same thing about this. But I have not done that."Evelin went on to show different sides of her chest in the video in attempt to show her breasts look larger from different angles and smaller in others."It's just a little bit more weight on me and good bras [with] good lining," she continued. "And a good angle. But that's it. I will never get a surgery done because that goes against everything I want to teach women and everything I want to show.""I want everyone to love how we were brought into this world," Evelin concluded.Evelin announced in late March that she and Corey Rathgeber , with whom she starred on : The Other Way last year, are no longer together But it appears Corey is still living in Ecuador and he and Evelin are self-quarantining with each other amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic."Just a quick update now that the what now is up, corey and I broke up," Evelin wrote late last week, according to a screenshot of her posting obtained by the 90dayfiancenews Instagram account."We are stuck in quarantine together but that's just it," Evelin continued in her posting. "We are friends and always will. Have a good day."Corey and Evelin's relationship and how it's changed from their storyline on : The Other Way was featured in a series of Season 4 episodes of : What Now? that were released by TLC last month.: What Now? is an online digital series that's available for streaming on tlc.com and the network's TLC GO app.On March 27, Evelin captioned a photo of her backside in a bikini, "Quarantine is not easy but I'm so lucky to be here. I can't give you details about my relationship right now. Is not easy what I go through and Is definitely harder in times like this, but i look forward for everything getting better and this quarantine to be over."In December 2019, Evelin wouldn't confirm or deny whether she and Corey from Mill A, WA, were still dating and engaged.Evelin hinted at the time she had to keep their relationship status a secret because cameras were still rolling It wasn't clear at the time, however, whether Evelin and Corey were taping : What Now? or a future season of one of TLC's spinoffs.It appeared Corey and Evelin broke up in September 2019 when Corey had blocked Evelin on social media and spent his birthday alone in America. Corey wouldn't talk about his relationship at the time, claiming it was only his business.On September 20, John Yates posted a screenshot showing Evelin and her : The Other Way co-star Laura Jallali conducting an Instagram Live session together in Ecuador during which they reportedly confirmed they had ended their respective romantic relationships.According to the posting, the women appeared to have been drinking before the Live session and reportedly said they were "together mending their broken hearts."Corey then apparently went on a date with alum Larissa Dos Santos Lima in Las Vegas in early October 2019. Larissa documented their fun night together on Instagram, and their outing enraged Evelin."All [Corey] gives me lately is [disappointment]. Clearly in a [ridiculous] desperate need for fame and [recognition]. Theres only 1 more minute of your 'fame.' Stop being a loser ," Evelin wrote in a pair of Instagram Stories postings the day after Corey's alleged date."Corey is way to[o] boring and needy for anybody, and [doesn't] have money is all an [illusion]."Evelin said Corey was "supposed to be taken" because they hadn't "officially" split yet, and she fired insult after insult and allegation after allegation against Corey But Corey expressed his unwavering love for Evelin on Instagram on October 4 and claimed he and Larissa just met up as friends, a statement which Larissa had firmly denied afterwards.When : The Other Way's Tell-All taped, Corey and Evelin were still engaged and "in the process" of planning their wedding."I was accepted for a six-month extended Tourist Visa, meaning, it gives us the extra time necessary to get the ball rolling with the marriage," Corey shared, although Evelin wasn't wearing her engagement ring at the time she called in through video chat.Evelin seemed less optimistic about the wedding timeline because she wanted Corey to lose weight.Corey also didn't seem completely over the fact Evelin had once hooked up with her ex-boyfriend Raul Cabrera when they were on a break. (Corey was also still dealing with Evelin and Raul's little fling).: The Other Way documented Corey moving from the United States to Engabao, where he tried to adjust to a completely different culture and lifestyle away from his family and friends.Although the couple seemed madly in love, Corey had to try to convince Evelin to marry him because she's a free spirit who never wanted to be tied down to a man.But on their four-year anniversary, Corey took Evelin on a romantic hot air balloon ride and then popped the question -- and she replied, "Yeah, I do want to. Yes."Want more spoilers or couples updates? Click here to visit our homepage!
Finbarr OConnor, of OConnor Bros funeral home, North Gate Bridge, Cork.

The Irish funeral has been turned completely on its head in the last three weeks, admits funeral director Finbarr OConnor.

Mr OConnor, who runs OConnor Bros Funeral Home on Corks North Gate Bridge, has dealt with about seven Covid-19-related deaths since the outbreak began.

These deaths, he said, can be particularly hard on families.

New Government guidelines to prevent transmission of the virus prohibit kissing or washing of the body, embalming, and the use of open caskets.

Physical interactions, including shaking hands and hugging, are avoided, and funeral arrangements should not be publicised, as a maximum of 10 people can attend.

With a Covid death, theres no embalming; the coffin is closed, said Mr OConnor.

Close contacts - generally the immediate family - are not permitted into funeral services.

For Covid deaths we recommend a graveside service, with a memorial Mass or service held at a later date.

"And we recommend that people record a Facebook Live video from the graveside so that people who cant travel to be there can still be part of it.

The pandemic has changed the ceremony of death in Ireland.

Family members now work with the funeral director only on the phone and online if their loved one has died after contracting the virus, managing everything remotely, from choosing the coffin to giving the death notice.

The Island Crematorium in Ringaskiddy no longer holds services for Covid-19-related deaths, in a bid to contain the virus.

Some deceased have been transferred straight from the hospital to the crematorium with no service, said Mr OConnor.

Once the ashes have been returned from the crematorium a family could have a memorial Mass with the ashes present, he said.

These are very difficult times for the families. All we can do is give them the best advice we can.

One positive thing Mr OConnor has noticed throughout the pandemic is that Ireland has not yet had the terrifying number of virus-related deaths that was originally feared.

Cork has not had the glut of Covid deaths that were expected, he said. I think that social distancing and the lockdown allowed Ireland to get a handle on it.

The death rate hasnt fluctuated. It may do in weeks to come.

We have not seen a marked increase [in deaths], our numbers are still roughly the same as usual.

But for deaths, whether Covid-19-related or not, similar funeral restrictions apply.

Non-essential travel is banned; there are no removals; no more than 10 people can attend the church; and post-service gatherings are banned.

In churches, two people are permitted to sit at opposite ends of a pew, with every second pew taped off to enforce social distancing.

Its not a normal funeral, Mr OConnor said.

Funerals that would have had hundreds now have 10 people.

Most people understand; they know it has to be done, but theyre not very happy about it.

People can feel hard done by that they didnt get to say goodbye the way they wanted.

"And people cant express condolences properly online, people are much better at expressing sympathy face-to-face and families miss that.

A normal death in normal times is hard on families. But an abnormal death in abnormal times is even harder. And were definitely in abnormal times.

"Its not a normal funeral anymore. Funerals that would have had hundreds now have 10 people," says Mr OConnor.

The times are so abnormal that the Government announced yesterday that nurses and paramedics will now be legally allowed to pronounce someones death - usually the preserve of doctors - to relieve pressure on their colleagues during the pandemic.

All Covid-related deaths must now be reported to the coroner, although an autopsy will not normally be required.

In cases where it is unclear whether Covid-19 was the cause of death, a test may be required.

In all confirmed or suspected cases of Covid-19, the body may be placed in a body bag before it is put in a coffin, in a bid to contain the virus.

Mr OConnor, whose family has been in the profession since 1887 and whose father was the first person to bring embalming technology to Ireland from America in 1967, said that these times are unprecedented.

When I talk to families now, a question I have to ask is did your loved one have Covid-19? Families can be reluctant to tell you, he said.

I think that some people feel that theres a stigma attached to testing positive.

We have to protect ourselves too, because if one of us caught it, wed have to close down the business while everyone went into isolation for two weeks.

"And there are not very many funeral directors out there so it would put pressure on the system.

Were the fourth emergency service - Gardai, ambulance, fire brigade, and us  when a family is in need were always contactable, he added.
In early March, when patients with the coronavirus started arriving at Stanford Hospital, a team of infectious disease researchers at the university put their heads together and made a quick decision. Among the potential treatments for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, their first choice to investigate was the experimental anti-viral drug remdesivir. They jumped right in.

Within a week, Stanford Medicine had joined a number of other medical centers around the world in global trials sponsored by Gilead Sciences Inc., the maker of the drug, which is not yet approved as a treatment for COVID-19. By the end of March, the infectious disease doctors had enrolled 30 participants in two trials  one for severe and the other for moderately ill patients  who were receiving the drug intravenously. In addition, another group of Stanford scientists began enrolling participants in a similar, large-scale clinical trial of remdesivir, this one sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

We brought this on fast, said Aruna Subramanian, MD, clinical professor of infectious disease and principal investigator of the Gilead trials at Stanford. We got everything together in a week and were ready to roll. This was record time. This type of thing normally takes two to three months to get on board.

Worldwide push

During normal times, a phase 3 clinical trial  the final step in the process of drug approval  typically takes months of planning, after years of research, before its underway. But these arent normal times. With a fast-moving pandemic bearing down and no approved treatments available, researchers are, like everyone else, desperate for answers, and they have ramped up their efforts to find solutions. Remdesivir jumped to the top of the list of potential treatments in part because it was farthest along in the approval process, Subramanian said. By the end of February, as the virus spread in the United States, there were at least five clinical trials of remdesivir underway. China initiated the first two studies in February, followed later that month by the Gilead trials for severe and moderate patients and the NIH trial. By the end of March, Gilead had expanded to 100 testing sites both in the United States and abroad, and the NIH trial had expanded to 60 sites, 50 of those in the United States.

Gilead recently reported that it is expecting to have preliminary data from the study of severe patients by the end of April. The two studies in China, though, were halted due to lack of patients. We urgently need a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19, said Anthony Fauci, MD, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in a press release announcing the start of the NIHs remdesivir trial. A randomized, placebo-controlled trial is the gold standard for determining if an experimental treatment can benefit patients. That same month, while speaking about the coronavirus, Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organization announced, Theres only one drug right now that we think may have real efficacy, and thats remdesivir.

How does remdesivir work?

There are multiple reasons for remdesivirs current reputation as a potential treatment for COVID-19, among them the anecdotal stories that have appeared in the media. While the drug is not commercially available, it is being used to treat patients with COVID-19 through a compassionate care program on a case-by-case basis, with approval from the Food and Drug Administration. In late January, reports out of Washington State that the first person in the nation diagnosed with COVID-19 had been treated with remdesivir, and recovered, made headlines. But scientists are quick to warn against basing treatment guidelines on anecdotal evidence and reports in the news media.

We have had patients hospitalized at Stanford who got remdesivir under compassionate care guidelines, said Stanley Deresinski, MD, associate chief of the division of infectious diseases at Stanford. Some got better. Some got worse. At this point, we just dont know. We hope to have results soon for remdesivir, and by then we should have another trial in the works for the next best thing.
For actors and sisters Yami and Surilie Gautam, home is always where the other sister is. Sure, film commitments mean they are often separated  Surilie works in the Punjabi film industry and must often return to her home state to shoot, promote films and so on. But the women have lived together in Mumbai since 2016, and have never been separated for a prolonged period of time.

Although Yami and Surilie have very different tastes, it rarely leads to full-blown fights (Rohan Shrestha)

But India has been locked down since March 25 to hopefully avoid a massive spread of the Covid-19 virus. And while Yami is in Mumbai, Surilie, who had gone to Chandigarh to promote her film Posti, is now there till the country is unlocked again. I kept telling Yami to come to Chandigarh so we could all be together, but she kept postponing it because of meetings and work commitments, and then it became too risky to travel, says Surilie. When the lockdown was announced, my heart sank. We are all so worried about her. She is very strong and independent, but she is all alone.

Bridging the distance

Of course, the sisters use all the tech they possibly can to keep in touch. In fact, on Surilies birthday, Yami baked her a chocolate cake and Surilie cut it on FaceTime. She always bakes me a cake on my birthday, so why should this have been any different? laughs Surilie.

I hope the lockdown teaches us to preserve our resources and value things, especially kitchen essentials! Yami Gautam

Though Yami is longing to be with her family in Chandigarh, she is focusing on the positive. Im trying not to think, Oh, Im all alone. Because that wouldnt change anything, but the situation would feel worse to me. I am blessed that we all are safe and are having decent meals. Like everything, this too shall pass.

Yamis only company at home right now is her household help, and the actor keeps herself busy by meditating, painting, doing yoga, baking and cooking. We are from Himachal and I love Himachali cuisine. Now I am learning to cook some delicacies, she says. On Navratri, she used Surilies besan ka laddoo recipe She is forever making laddoos and I missed them. So I made them myself, says Yami.

Yami has just starting cooking. So when I meet her, I am going to send her directly to the kitchen to cook me something. After all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating!  Surilie Gautam

She was always baking, but now she has started cooking also. And it looks so professional, says Surilie. She sends us pictures of what she is cooking and then she calls and says: Bahut hi swaad bana hain! When I meet her I am going to send her directly to the kitchen to cook me something. After all, the proof of the pudding is in its eating!

Clearly, the two are completely bonded, even though Surilie is an extrovert and Yami is introverted. I need family when I come home from work, says Yami. We dont have a social life in Mumbai We know we are here to work. Also, we enjoy each others company so much that we dont really need anyone else!

She is forever making laddoos and I missed them. So I made them myself Yami Gautam

Their ideas of chilling out are different. Yami wants me to watch series like Narcos, The Crown, Game of Thrones, while I insist she watches a random Punjabi film! And we both ignore each others recommendations, says Surilie. If I get upset, she cant take that at all. So emotional blackmail works like a charm! When we were kids, Id demand that she play a horse, and shed would be on all fours, carrying me on her back! 

Yami, who wanted to become an IAS officer, was quite a nerd growing up; Dress, Ona Studio, jacket, Esse by Sahib and Sunayana (Rohan Shrestha)

Although they have very different tastes, the sisters dont really fight, says Surilie. She rarely gets angry, says Surilie. Even if she does, at the end of it, it is she who manaos me. I am the man in the relationship! Yami will say sorry even when it is my fault! And I let her make it up to me with gifts!

Screen girls

While Yami has made a mark in Bollywood with performances in Vicky Donor (2012), Kaabil (2017), Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019) and Bala (2019), Surilie has chosen the Punjabi film industry and is on her second film. I am not averse to Bollywood. It is just that I got a good opportunity there. Moreover, the Punjabi industry is in a very good space right now, she says. However, shed love to play the quintessential Bollywood heroine. Please make Barsaat 2 with me! I love 90s films! I would love to do a romantic film in a chiffon sari with my hair blowing as I run in slow motion and all that jazz!

This is her first magazine cover with her sister and Surilie turns out to be the chatterbox between the two! Outfit, Zara (Rohan Shrestha)

The sisters actually started their careers together. Yami and I came to Mumbai together. I had bagged the lead role in a television series (Meet Mila De Rabba). I was 17 then. She was also working here and there. But then Yami started signing films down South and Surilie had to return to Chandigarh for college.

We are the fun factor in each others lives; we are our own detox pills!

 Surilie Gautam

From the small-town life of Chandigarh, moving to a city like Mumbai was a huge shift for me, says Yami. The city keeps you busy but also alienates you from people. I dont think I could have survived in this city without Surilie. Also, when I started working in regional films, there was no entourage, no manager, no one to ask for help. All I had was Surilie on her holidays.

We are the fun factor in each others lives; we are our own detox pills! Surilie says. For an introvert like her, it was difficult make it on her own in an entirely new city. I have huge respect for what shes achieved.

The mirror crackd

While Surilie had always wanted to act, Yamis ambition was the IAS. But Yami had another side to her personality. I used to observe people, and then impersonate them. You can say I was a closet brat. A closet dancer. A closet drama queen! laughs Yami.

Shed lock her room and act out scenes in front of the mirror. And I would watch through the keyhole of the door! One day I called mummy and showed her what her elder daughter was up to But then she caught me prying and from then onwards she would plug the keyhole with a crumpled piece of newspaper! says Surilie.

Im trying not to think Oh, I am all alone. I am blessed that we are all safe and are having decent meals. This too shall pass. Yami Gautam

So how did the shy girl become a Bollywood actress? When I did my first audition, I was 19. And somehow I felt very liberated in front of the camera. I was so focused that everything else, everyone else just disappeared! says Yami.

Yeh kuch bhi karti hai, jee jaan laga deti hai, says Surilie. Once she did a Haryanvi dance in school bahut hi loser type, she had a huge bindi and bright red lipstick, but jee jaan laga diya tha usme bhi. So I knew if she decided to do something, she would pull it off.

Partners in Quarantine: Whos stuck with who! Salman Khans quarantined with a major part of his family. Check him out sharing breakfast (read fodder) with his horse! #ThingsOnlySalmanDoes Ayushmann Khurrana and Tahira Kashyap are at home with their kids. Ayushmanns poems are as memorable as Tahiras Lockdown Chronicles. Shes stealing my pictures, I should be on social media! the gentleman husband, Saif ali khan, went ungenteel and playfully accused his Intagram-novice wife Kareena Kapoor Khan Amrita Singh, Sarah and Ibrahim Ali Khans family videos together reveal more about them than any interview ever has! Ranveer Singhs Insta stories are a gush fest on his Deepika padukones cooking skills. Looks like the actor might himself don the apron soon! Blind Item! Bollywood chatter is about this Bollywood actress who wanted to head to the Mumbai suburbs one day before lockdown. Her parents are thankful she did not; imagine if shed have been stuck with her rumoured boyfriend for this extended quarantine. Oooh the horror!

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The Gujarat Cooperative Milk



Marketing Federation (GCMMF), the owner of 'Amul' brand, said on Saturday that it is procuring 15 per cent more milk than year ago at 255-260 lakh litres per day.

While the sale of milk pouches, flavoured milk and ice cream was down due to lockdown, milk procurement had increased because it was also buying milk from private milk producers, the federation said.

The sale of paneer and ghee had also increased, it added.

The quantity of milk sold in pouches has fallen from 140 lakh litres per day in March 2020 to 125 lakh litres in April, mainly because hotels and catering firms have closed, GCMMF said in a release.

Migration of urban population to rural areas has also affected the sale of pouched milk, it said.

The sale of ice cream and flavoured milk has decreased by as much as 85 and 70 per cent, respectively, compared to the same period last year, it said.

On the other hand, sale of paneer, ghee, butter and milk sold in tetrapack has gone up by 15-50 per cent, the GCMMF said.

"Milk procurement at around 255-260 lakh litres per day is around 15 per cent more compared to the same month last year," the release said.

"Amul milk cooperatives are also procuring milk from private milk producers as per the direction of the government. Collection has also increased as private businesses and sweet shops cannot run their operations during lockdown," it said.

To handle increased supply, the GCMMF has rented milk processing plants outside Gujarat, it said.

It has asked its member milk farmers to take precautions to avoid coronavirus infection, the federation said.

GCMMF's member cooperatives have donated Rs 15 crore to the CM's and PM's relief funds, it said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - The Congolese head of state, Denis Sassou Nguesso, is likely to extend the state of health emergency in the country due to the continuous spread of the coronavirus (COVIC-19)in the country, an official source said here Saturday
(Newser)  Denmark made headlines this week by reopening some of its schoolsmaking it a laboratory for other countries that want to get things rolling again, the New York Times reports. So far, Denmark is allowing younger students back amid restrictions, like having desks six feet apart. "It is a new world," says the head teacher at a school in southern Denmark. "We used to make plans for if there was a terrorist attack herebut never this kind of attack." CNN reports that other restrictions include regular hand-washing, schoolyards separated into sections, and staggered drop-off times. So it's not quite the life students knew before March 11, when Denmark became one of the first European countries to shut down schools, restaurants, and stores.

story continues below

"We usually jump and hug and fight and give each other high fives," says a 10-year-old while pointing to his friend. "But we can't do that any more." There's also been controversy as some parents protest the reopening, and the World Health Organization urges countries like Denmark to wait until the coronavirus is gone before easing restrictions. But Denmark's case rate has fallen lately (321 have died amid 6,870 positive diagnoses) and experts are telling Danish policymakers that parents need free time to return to the economy. The BBC reports that other European nations eased restrictions this week, including Spain, which let non-essential employees go back to work after a two-week hiatus. German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she'll discuss the issue with state premiers on Wednesday. (Read more coronavirus stories.)
Thiruvananthapuram, April 18 : The data privacy row involving coronavirus suspects' details being reportedly transferred by the LDF government in Kerala to the US-based company Sprinklr intensified on Saturday with a minister saying "there is nothing secret in the world now." The opposition Congress has demanded Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's resignation and has dragged his daughter too in the raging controversy.

Industry Minister E.P. Jayarajan, when asked about it by a TV channel, shot back, saying: "There is nothing secret in the world now".

"The Sprinklr issue raised by the Congress is a needless one. People's information will be in public domain. In today's world, any information is available," said Jayarajan.

The Sprinklr issue surfaced in the state after the Congress alleged that the data of all Covid-19 suspects had been given for free to the US-based marketing and PR company Sprinklr by the IT department headed by the CM and that it had no clearance from any government department.

The data, according to the Congress, is priceless and it is "unethical to hand it over to a US company without any clear-cut agreement".
High profile celebrity feuds have popped up year-after-year, from Taylor Swift and Katy Perry (who have buried the hatchet) to Wiley and Stormzy (who have not).

But one of the longest-running of the lot, Ryan Reynolds feud with Hugh Jackman dates all the way back to 2008, and like anything the Deadpool star does, its an hilariously meta mix of political attack ads, Hugh Jackman/Ryan Reynolds face masks and acerbic social media comments.

The pair recently put the feud aside to work on an advert for Hugh Jackman's coffee company and to raise coronavirus relief funds through the All In Challenge, which saw them raffle off a chance to have them help run a lemonade stand. Speaking on TODAY, Jackman revealed the truce was brokered by his wife Deborah-Lee Furness and Reynolds wife Blake Lively who reached out.

Getty Images

That said, he added, [The feud] is not overWe've been reaching out to Blake, we talk to her, because can you imagine quarantine stuck in the house with Ryan? It must be brutal for her, so we're reaching out.

Speaking of the feud, Jackman said to The Daily Beast, "Its gone back so long now... God, this is a classic sign where your feud has gone too long, where you dont even know why or how it started!"

He added that he has had to "limit [planning retribution] to five hours a day", saying, "Ive found in the past that it just gets unhealthy if its more than five hours of obsessing over how to get Ryan Reynolds. But five hours is good and healthy and keeps me strong and ready."

Over the years, peace treaties between the celebrities have been brokered and broken many times. However its clear that the pair arent really fighting, but that doesnt stop the feud from being any less hilarious.

Heres a timeline of the frenemies greatest spars.

2008: Hugh Jackman gives Ryan Reynolds grief over Scarlett Johansson

Speaking to the Daily Beast, Jackman talked about the (literal) X-Men origins of their feud.

The pair first met filming X-Men Origins: Wolverine, shortly after Reynolds and his ex-wife Johansson (who he divorced in 2010) had just tied the knot.

Jackman said, "I used to ream him because I was very close friends with Scarlett [Johansson], and Scarlett had just married Ryan, so when he came on set I was like, Hey, you better be on your best behaviour here, pal, because Im watching."

"We started ribbing each other that way, and then it all escalated with the Deadpool thing and him calling me out, and trying to manipulate me through social media to do what he wanted," he continued.

November 2015: Ryan Reynolds pretends to be Hugh Jackman

For context - both Reynolds and Jackman were Peoples Sexiest Man Alive in 2010 and 2008 respectively.

Donning a full face of Deadpools burn prosthetics, he pretended to be Jackman and put on his best Aussie accent.

In the video which was shared to Twitter by Jackman, he said, Gday mate! Hugh Jackman here just reminding you to get your votes in for Peoples Sexiest Man Alive. Covers coming up.

January 2016: Deadpool's Australia Day trailer

Reynolds also poked fun at both his and Jackmans critically panned film X-Men Origins: Wolverine in an Australia Day trailer for Deadpool.

Dressed as his character, he said, One tiny problem [Australia], you gave us Wolverine and for that - I cant forgive you.

Ive got no problems with Hugh, I mean, hes a delightful guy he really is. True legend. But that movie was a career low for me, you understand.

February 2016: Deadpool wears a Hugh Jackman mask

In the film Deadpool, when Reynolds finally reveals his new scarred face to his love interest - he first unmasks to reveal a paper cut out of Hugh Jackmans face.

February 2016: Hugh Jackman calls security on Ryan Reynolds

Ahead of an interview Reynolds conducted with him, Jackman shared a picture of the two with their arms around one another.

He tweeted, Seriously, Mate. Youve got to stop following me. SECURITY!!!

February 2016: Ryan Reynolds interviews Hugh Jackman

Reynolds interviewed Jackman ahead of the Australian actors film Eddie the Eagle, deliberately asking him poorly researched questions including what was it like playing Eddie the Eagle? (Jackman did not play the character) and lying about having seen the film.

He also used a planted fan question from someone called Brian Blenolds to call out Jackman for his specific costume request on the set of their X-Men film.

Reynolds said, I heard that on X-Men Wolverine, you had specially designed lifts put in your shoes so you would appear taller than one of your co-stars.

Owning it, Jackman said, Thats true...but everything in that movie was about advancing story and character.

Reynolds also read out a fan question from a man named Blake Lively (his wifes name), which joked that Jackman had arranged to meet his wife for a hotel tryst while he was having a mani-pedi done.

November 2016: Hugh Jackmans fan art

Jackman retweeted a fans drawing of him as Wolverine and Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, which called them my amazing heros [sic] in the world.

Although Jackman called it awesome, he said, feel it would be better if @VancityReynolds werent (always) lurking in my shadow.

In response, Reynolds tweeted, Im not lurking in your shadow. Im caressing its soft, shadowy fur.

December 2016: Hugh Jackman impersonating Reynolds for Walk of Fame

In a reference to Reynolds wearing a mask of his face in Deadpool, Jackman did the same in December.

Holding up the paper mask, he pretended to be Reynolds in what he claimed was a 100% real video by him to congratulate the Deadpool actors star on the Walk of Fame.

He said, You may remember me from such things such as People Magazines 2010 Sexiest Man Alive of DC Comics Top 10 superhero movie Green Lantern. Who wouldve thought that just three years after getting a star on Canadas walk of fame, Id be getting a star on Hollywoods walk of fame?

How could a guy who failed his high school drama class be this talented? Jackman continued, I have no answer to that. But to quote my favourite actor in the world Hugh Jackman and who by the way was peoples sexiest man alive way before me - [America is] the most generous country on the planet. And feel free to urinate on my section of the sidewalk.

January 2017: The Wolverine/James Bond/Deadpool crossover

Signalling something of a detente, Jackman shared a picture of himself, Pierce Brosnan and Ryan Reynolds all crammed onto a couch and laughing.

March 2017: Ryan trolls Hugh over his Beijing press tour

Jackman shared a picture of himself posing with fans in Beijing, flashing a thumbs up at the camera. Writing Thanks for an amazing visit Beijing!, Reynolds later retweeted the picture with a snappy response.

He wrote, Pretty sure those are protestors.

April 2018: Hugh Jackman wishes Ryan Reynolds a strange happy birthday

In another meta video, Jackman introduced a trailer for Deadpool on Ryan Reynolds birthday.

In the short clip, Jackman (dressed in a fluffy bathrobe and sitting on the edge of a bed) tried to wish Reynolds happy birthday - but kept being interrupted by Reynolds as Deadpool, who was lying in the bed beside him.

As Jackman tried to get through the message, Reynolds continued to sing songs including 'Who Let the Dogs Out' over him.

When the camera panned over to Reynolds, Jackman snapped, Yeah, dont give him too much attention. Thats why I cant be with him.

April 2018: Ryan Reynolds responds to Hugh Jackman's anniversary post

In a precursor to this year's anniversary post, Reynolds poked fun at Jackman in the comments of his 22nd wedding anniversary post.

Jackman wrote a moving message to his wife, which read, "Deb, from day one, we had that. 22 years later... it only gets deeper. You and the kids are the greatest gift I will ever receive. I love you a gazillion times around the world."

Reynolds retweeted it and wrote, "I gave this 3 months. Tops. I was wrong."

August 2018: Deadpool 2s Hugh Jackman/Wolverine joke

Deadpools second outing saw the film poke fun at Jackman yet again.

In one scene, right before Deadpool blows himself up, he plays a music box sculpture of Hugh Jackmans character Wolverine.

The sculpture depicted a scene from Logan - Wolverines death scene where hes impaled on a pole.

As the explosion goes off in the film, Deadpool flashes the middle finger at the camera and says, F**k Wolverine. Well guess what, Wolvy? Im dying in this one too.

There was also a post-credits scene where Reynolds (as Deadpool) travels back in time to stop himself from starring in X-Men Origins Wolverine.

Recreating a scene from the film where Jackman faces down an old version of Deadpool, Reynolds shows up and kills the former version while speaking with Jackman saying he was just cleaning up the timeline.

October 2018: Hugh Jackman wishes Ryan Reynolds happy birthday

Jackman shared a picture of himself hugging Reynolds on Twitter for the stars birthday, writing, Because Im told that I AM THE NICEST GUY and youre NOT... I will let you hug me. Just this once. On your birthday.

Reynolds retweeted the message and wrote, This man is a monster. Hes not even from Australia. Hes from Milwauke.

November 2018: Ryan Reynolds' political attack ad of Hugh Jackman

Jackman and Reynolds feud took a major turn when Reynolds released a political takedown ad of Jackman.

Featuring a dramatic voiceover by Reynolds, he said, Hugh Jackmans upcoming performance in The Frontrunner has fooled some people into thinking he deserves an award. But before voting begins, some people should consider these facts.

Hugh Jackman isnt even his real name. Its Hugh Michael Jackman. Hugh Michael speaks with a charming accent, but hes actually from Milwaukee.

Cutting to a photo of his character Wolverines death scene in Logan, he continued, He then walked off the job on Wolverine, adding to unemployment. Is this the type of amazing actor and nice person we want delivering a preachy liberal speech this awards season?

November 2018: Hugh Jackman responds with his own campaign ad

Jackman fired back at Reynolds with his own takedown ad.

He began in a voiceover, Ryan Reynolds may seem like an honest, hard-working movie star, husband and father - but dont let the facts get in the way of the truth.

The truth? Hes been riding on Hughs coat tails ever since 2009, when Hugh hand-selected him to star in X-Men Origins: Wolverine in the universally acclaimed best portrayal of [Deadpool] Wade Wilson. Ever, he continued.

Jackman added, He was only named Peoples Sexiest Man Alive in 2010, the year after he met Hugh. Coincidence? Please.

He then called for people to see Once Upon a Deadpool, pleading for people to do it in case Reynolds decided to make another Van Wilder movie or worse yet, Green Lantern.

December 2018: Ryan reveals Hugh is dodging his calls

Speaking on Ellen DeGeneres, Reynolds was asked if he and Jackman would ever team up for a Deadpool/Wolverine film.

At the time, Jackman was heavily promoting his film The Greatest Showman and would go on to tour it as well.

Reynolds told DeGeneres, Hes on this kick-ball-change kick right now. I cant seem to bring him back to the violence and mayhem. Im trying.

Every other day he takes the call, Reynolds told her. Its not really a rivalry. Its war.

December 2018: Jake Gyllenhaal joins the feud

Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal pranked Reynolds at a Christmas party.

Reynolds shared a picture of himself wearing an ugly Christmas sweater as Jackman and Gyllenhaal posed triumphantly on either side of him, with Reynolds tweeting, These assholes told me it was a sweater party.

January 2019: Ryan Reynolds responds to a FaceApp picture of Hugh

Reynolds responded to a tweet by Buzznet, which FaceApp swapped Jackman and a number of celebrities into their female counterparts.

The tweet read, Female Hugh Jackman kinda looks like Ryan Reynolds' wife Blake Lively and now I can't unsee it.

In response, Reynolds tweeted, Neither can I. Thanks for this.

January 2019: Announcing the truce

Signalling an end to the feud, Reynolds shared a picture of him and Jackman holding hands in an official truce.

He teased that he would be promoting Jackmans company Laughing Man Coffee in an upcoming beautiful ad, writing, As a gesture of goodwill, Im gonna make a beautiful ad for his company, Laughing Man Coffee. Cant wait!

February 2019: Truce video

The anticipated beautiful ad dropped on Reynolds YouTube channel in a video titled simply Truce.

Jackman began by saying, Ryan and I recently called a truce in our social media war and we promised to make ads for each other.

Reynolds revealed he had been working 24/7 on an ad for Hughs incredible coffee company, which he claimed cost a million dollars.

Reynolds ad was a thoughtful heartfelt video about Jackmans coffee company, but when the time came for Jackman to unveil his own ad for Reynolds company Aviation Gin - it didnt go down so well.

Jackmans seemingly low effort ad saw the star declare, Ryan Reynolds is a complete and total f*****. Gins pretty great though. Ill have to try it some day.

Then, Jackman unscrewed a bottle of Aviation Gin and put it on its side so it leaked all over the table.

Jackman then apologised to Reynolds saying, Sorry man. I didnt think the truce was actually real.

December 2019: Ryan Reynolds plays a Christmas jumper prank

Jackman and Reynolds tried to out-prank one another in 2019 at a Christmas party, where Jackman wore the exact same jumper he'd fooled Reynolds into wearing the year prior.

Sharing a picture of the pair with their arms around one another, Jackman wrote, "I can't believe I agreed to wear the matching underwear too."

In response, Reynolds wrote, "I don't recall mentioning underwear."

April 2020: Ryan upstages Hughs anniversary post

Reynolds responded to Jackmans anniversary post, Hang in there, Deb.

April 2020: Ryan Reynolds weighs in on Hugh Jackman's picture

Jackman, wearing head to toe Aviation Gin merchandise, posted a picture to Twitter of himself walking his dog wearing a facemask.

He wrote, "Busted. I thought it best to share this before the paparazzi do. (In my defense, it's all that's clean.)"

In response Reynolds said, "That's a good looking outfit. You must've been drinking. And you can't spell drinking without 'drink gin.'"

He then used the opportunity to plug his company Aviation Gin.

March 21, 2019: Jackman and Reynolds call a truce to join the All In Challenge

The duo joined the All In Challenge, which raises coronavirus relief funds for charities battling food insecurity in the United States. In a video posted to Reynolds YouTube account, Reynolds announced that they had agreed to agree not to disagree and only a pandemic could make that happen.

They revealed they were joining the All In Challenge by raffling off the chance for them to come work at your childs lemonade stand, with Reynolds saying they were doing it as no one deserves to go hungry.

YouTube / Ryan Reynolds

The video also delved into the history of their feud, with Jackman joking that their feud had gone back generations - alongside photoshopped pictures of them as Deadpool and Wolverine in historical black and white photos. Reynolds added, The Jackmans and Reynolds have been mortal enemies as long as there have been Jackmans and Reynoldses.

The videos opening credits also joked that it was inspired by X-Men Wolverine Origins and tolerated by their wives.

March 24, 2020: Jackman reveals their wives brokered a truce

Hugh Jackman appeared on TODAY to speak with host Hoda Kotb about their All In Challenge. He told her, We're in extraordinary times. Deb actually said to me, Look, really, this is a time to rethink all that. Maybe it's time to build a bridge. I wasn't ready for that, but actually Blake reached out. So Blake and Deb have been brokering this thing and we came up with participating in the All-In Challenge.

We're going to do a lemonade stand togetherThat's how much I want to support the frontline workers and make sure people have food and all that sort of thing, he continued.

He also revealed that the feud was not over, saying, We've been reaching out to Blake, we talk to her, because can you imagine quarantine stuck in the house with Ryan? It must be brutal for her, so we're reaching out.

September 16, 2020: Hugh Jackman's Laughing Man Coffee ad

The pair put aside their differences and worked together on an advertisement for Hugh Jackmans coffee company, Laughing Man Coffee. Shared on Reynolds YouTube channel, the ad saw a very irritable Jackman holler at children playing outside, swear at his adorable dog and grumpily blast death metal until he gets his hands on a cup of Laughing Man coffee. Reynolds provided a hilarious voiceover about the eternal optimist and his company.

Though it was one of their more pleasant encounters, when Jackman shared the ad on Twitter Reynolds responded, You sleep with the wig on?
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.
New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry on Friday (April 17) released an informative video for general public about which medicines are necessary and should be used in the coronavirus COVID-19 crisis.

A key anti-malaria drug, Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) which is being seen as a possible cure for coronavirus COVID-19 infection can not be sold without the prescription of a doctor. The ministry has stated that HCQ is recommended only under exceptional circumstances.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare tweeted: "India Fights Corona: Information for General Public on the availability & use of necessary medicines for #COVID19 in India. Do not consume any medicine without prescription."

Specifically for three groups  first, patients who have been clinically advised, second, healthcare workers treating a COVID-19 patient and third, persons staying with and caring for a household COVID-19 patient.

It also pointed out that it could be harmful to consume HCQ without prescription as it may have adverse effects on a person's health. The government has pointedly advised people to not self-prescribe itself medicines which have not been prescribed by a doctor.

Meanwhile, the number of COVID-19 cases stood at 14,378 which includes 11,906 are active cases and as many as 1,991 people have been cured and discharged and one has migrated, the death toll is at 480.
Indian Army Chief Slams Pakistan for Carrying Out Cross-Border Fire Amid Pandemic

Sputnik News

16:47 GMT 17.04.2020

New Delhi (Sputnik): India and Pakistan have been engaging in cross-border firing since the first week of April. India has alleged that three civilians were killed by Pakistan on 12 April in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan has countered that Indian troops were targeting civilians along the Line of Control with artillery fire.

Slamming Islamabad over unprecedented cross-border fire amid the coroanvirus outbreak, Indian Army Chief Manoj Mukund Naravane said on Friday that it is "unfortunate when the world is fighting the pandemic, that Pakistan continues to foment trouble".

"While India is exporting medicine, Pakistan is exporting terror," Narvane said.

The firing on the Line of Control (the de-facto border between India and Pakistan) has been going on between the two south Asian rivals since the beginning of this month.

On Thursday, the Indian Army claimed that Pakistan initiated an unprovoked ceasefire violation in the Qasba and Kirni Sectors by firing with small arms. Pakistan resorted to another ceasefire violation along the Line of Control in the Nowshera Sector at 1145 hours on the same day, India said.

Around six civilians have lost their lives and more than 12 sustained injuries during the firing on both sides of the border. The two countries have been exchanging firing and shelling since the killing of five Indian troops near the Line of Control in the first week of April.

Tensions between India and Pakistan have escalated since India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019. Islamabad termed the move a violation of the previously existing bilateral agreement.

 Sputnik

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The AAP government and the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) have told the Delhi High Court that there are sufficient measures in place to safeguard victims of domestic violence and child abuse amid the lockdown in the country.

The submission was made before a bench of justices J R Midha and Jyoti Singh which was hearing via video conferencing an NGO's plea claiming that there was an increasing in number of domestic violence incidents since the nation was put under lockdown and sought an urgent intervention by the court.

The NGO -- All India Council of Human Rights, Liberties and Social Justice (AICHLS) -- in its plea has sought safeguarding measures for the victims of domestic violence and child abuse amid the lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus, which has infected 14,378 people and claimed 480 lives in India.

The Women and Child Development Department, represented by Delhi government's additional standing counsel Sanjoy Ghose and advocate Urvi Mohan, told the court that sufficient facilities were available to house victims of domestic violence and children in need of care and protection.

The department also said there are 24x7 helplines in place and when a complaint is received, rescue of the victim(s) is carried out immediately.

The DCW, represented by advocate Rajshekhar Rao, told the court that the volume of calls on its helpline - 181 - has gone down after April 1.

However, there was a spike in call volume between March 26 and March 31, but it was largely for seeking clarity in relation to the imposition of the lockdown.

Normally, on an average, the DCW receives around 1500-1800 calls, it told the court.

The submissions were made on notes placed before the bench by the department and the DCW on Friday.

The court, thereafter, listed the matter for further hearing on Saturday afternoon.

The DCW, in its note, has also said that analysis of the calls received on its helpline during the lockdown indicated no rising trend in domestic violence cases.

"On the contrary, the number of cases reported to the helpline has decreased. While no definite conclusion can be drawn, this is probably due to the circumspection on the part of victims in reporting such incidents due to the presence of the perpetrators in the house and the fear of further violence if such attempts to report were made known to the perpetrator," the commission said.

It has also said in its note that the cases of molestation, sexual assault and stalking, etc. have decreased manifold presumably since a large number of these incidents take place outside the domestic setting and by third parties".

"The reported cases of rapes have also decreased by 71 per cent (approx.) again presumably due to the perpetrators being third parties and the location of the attacks being outside the household. Kidnapping cases reported to the helpline has also seen a fall of more than 90 per cent," the commission said in its note.

The NGO, in its plea, has contended that incidents of domestic violence and child abuse have gripped not only India, but countries such as Australia, the UK and the US, and the reports suggest that countries are witnessing a horrific surge in domestic violence cases since the COVID-19 outbreak and lockdowns.

The plea has claimed that the helpline numbers across the country have received about 92,000 calls based on domestic abuse and violence in the first 11 days of the lockdown alone, and sought to appoint nodal officers to attend such distress calls.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A morgue truck worker in New York City has told of the gruesome duties of transporting the dead bodies of those who have succumbed to COVID-19.

Erik Frampton, 46, was hired as a temporary worker at a refrigerated morgue trailer after stay-at-home orders shut down his boutique art framing business that he runs with his husband.

In a column in Gothamist, Frampton explained how the morgue operation had run out of body bags and space, leading the bodies to rip through thin, temporary bags and expose tubes from where ventilators had been connected.

'If I could describe the utter chaos of needing to remove 50 to 80 bodies in a jigsaw arrangement in order to maneuver the shelving over them, I would. But words escape me,' he wrote.

He said the job pays $75 an hour. 'They write a check for your first day, in case you don't come back.'

Erik Frampton, 46, was hired as a temporary worker at a refrigerated morgue trailer in New York City after his art framing business shut down

Frampton explained how the morgue operation had run out of body bags and space, leading the bodies to rip through temporary bags or bed sheets

Frampton said he jumped at the job opportunity without thinking through what would be required of him and how emotionally draining it would be.

On Saturday morning, he revealed on Facebook that he had been fired - which came as a relief to him and his family.

'The bodies inside the trailer were not well marked. Sometimes we were forced to open up the bags to find ankle or wrist bracelets,' he told WNYC reporter Arun Venugopal. 'We use hospital bed sheets where bags have failed. There are tons of blood and fecal matter, etc., that have leaked out. The floor is sometimes streaked with it.

'They have obviously run out of body bags and space, with the heavy black bags being replaced with very thin white ones. Some are barely in the bags because they have ripped so many times. Almost all of the remains still have their tubes in them, especially the ventilator connections. Most of the index fingers clearly read ''Covidean''.'

The city has been setting up dozens of refrigerated mobile morgues for weeks outside of hospitals in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

'I think Im scared of dying. I dont want to die. Im definitely scared,' he said. Frampton (left) is pictured with his husband Kirby, who worried for his safety daily

The city has been setting up dozens of refrigerated mobile morgues for weeks outside of hospitals in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic

The job pays $75 and hour and he said they write a check for your first day, in case you don't come back

New York City has become the epicenter with 122,148 cases and 7,890 deaths as of Saturday morning.

Frampton explained that he and a crew of 10 worked in one of two full size 20 ton air-cooled trailers. Each trailer can hold about 110 bodies.

'Installing the three-tier shelves was delayed because they were being built hurriedly off-site and kept arriving through 4 p.m.

'Almost all of the remains still have their tubes in them, especially the ventilator connections. Most of the index fingers clearly read ''Covidean'', he said

'At that point half of the shelving had been installed and bodies two abreast had been hoisted and manhandled and lifted into place.

'Most of my first four hours yesterday was hand-writing a master inventory list with MR numbers (a dead persons digits). Three bodies were not found for funeral directors who showed up to collect them.'

Frampton said he tried to protect himself as best he could with the PPE provided to them.

'We are dressed in two layers of body aprons to prevent liquids from splashing on us. Two layered masks--hospital grade - and unlimited gloves.

'We do not know if the bodies can generate aspirating [COVID-19] particles during their continuing leakage and decomposition, and constant temperature flux.'

Frampton revealed he was fired from his job Saturday, which came as a relief to his family who worried for his safety

He wrote of the toll the job was taking on his family and the measures he'd taken to not spread the virus to his husband Kirby - efforts that he felt came up short.

'We are isolating, in a weird way. Were not touching. Were not kissing. But we sleep in the same bed. So its all just farce,' he said.

'I think Im scared of dying. I dont want to die. Im definitely scared,' he added.

On Saturday morning, after his story appeared in Gothamist, Frampton said he had been fired.

'I was fired from the duties presented to me by fate and the management of the site that was asked of me, totaling some 200 deceased local residents and eight loyal and deserving individual workers bringing their best to a morbid crisis, solvable only with human labor,' he said.

'I fell standing, but standing up for my crew, who literally lifted the dead weight on our shoulders. We helped share also, each others living weight, hopping up and down off the back of the trailers each time. Our PPEs ripping a little more each time. The makeshift stairs suffering more collapse each time.

'It will take me some time to come down from the adrenaline of being there. Of the monumental ask,' he said.
BJP president J P Nadda slammed the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal, accusing it of stopping his party's workers from carrying out relief works in the state during the COVID-19 crisis for "political reasons".

Nadda interacted with the BJP's elected representatives, state unit chiefs and office bearers in Rajasthan, West Bengal, Karnataka and Maharashtra on Saturday, the party said in a statement.

Noting that party workers are facing obstacles and trouble in carrying out relief work in Congress-ruled Rajasthan and in West Bengal, Nadda said the state governments should rise above

Applauding party workers for doing a "good job" in reaching out to the needy and helping them amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown, he said, "It is unfortunate that the TMC government in West Bengal is stopping BJP workers from carrying out relief work in the state during this crisis and doing over it."



He also asked the BJP workers to make people aware about announcements made by the RBI to boost the economy hit by the lockdown.

The Reserve Bank of India on Friday cut the reverse repo rate and announced a slew of measures including re-finance window of Rs 50,000 crore and targeted long-term repo operations of similar amount to deal with the impact of the pandemic.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As I am writing this article, someone is being infected by the novel coronavirus (Sars-CoV-2) around the world and the statistics of the pandemic are updated and disseminated by some online platforms, such as the Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases, created by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

And in certain parts of the globe, countless families are concerned about the virus and how to get access to food, clean water and health care. Even though their addresses, faces, ethnicities and social and economic conditions are familiar to the media, world leaders and the UN system, their suffering has fallen into an embarrassing silence and invisibility.

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, on March 11, some political and business leaders have tried to convince the public opinion that we are in the same boat.

Even if the risks of COVID-19 are widely spread around the planet, among rich and poor nations, like a cartography of the risk society, in the Ulrich Beck meaning, the world has seen the consequences and the costs of having not done anything to reduce the historic level of inequalities that exists today.

As in every disaster, nothing is sudden but the result of a social construction accepted over time, including its impacts in disparate realities. If COVID-19 is new to the worldwide societies, the social inequality  which is responsible for leaving the worst marks of the coronavirus across the world  is an old-know. As well as we learned to recognize the geopolitics of climate change, especially from the perspective of Antony Giddens, we must do the same with COVID-19.

In my country, Brazil, while some women have to focus on minimizing the health and economic impacts of COVID-19 on themselves and families, other women are struggling to provide dignity for their children  at least food. It is their prime struggle. Therefore, we are not facing a public health emergency, not in a strict sense, as the politicians and parts of the media want to demonstrate with their narratives, but we are seeing the other faces of a pandemic, its social, cultural, political, economic, ethical and moral features.

If you ask ordinary people from whom they would expect this understanding of the multifaceted nature of a pandemic, they could answer the UN system, governments and mainstream media.

The understanding, however, came from those who historically have suffered the burden of social inequality. Without voice and strength, the most vulnerable people  or people in the most vulnerable situations euphemistically speaking had only one chance to draw attention to their reality: the community leaders. Faced with standardized messages and statements from WHO and the local governments, the community leaders have promoted risk communication campaigns addressed to the realities of the poor communities.

Consider Brazil as an example. Half of its citizens, around 105 million, dont have access to sanitation systems and according to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in 2018, 52.5 million were living in poverty and 13.5 million in extreme poverty [US$ 36 a month]. In this context we must reflect on two points: Why the communication campaigns are standardized in a world with social disparities? What is the role of the social institutions historically created to protect the most vulnerable groups?

During a humanitarian crisis and emergencies, the social institutions must be strong, and to be seen to be strong. In the context of a humanitarian crisis, like that arising from the coronavirus outbreak, it is crucial to build the perception that the most vulnerable groups are not alone.

The communication campaigns, declarations or protocols of WHO are non-binding, therefore, their success depends on the efforts and response capacities of each UN member state and the understanding of the local social framework. Even so, in its declarations WHO has forgotten to highlight this understanding and to address messages to the vulnerable groups or to their true leaders, showing awareness on the geopolitics of COVID-19.

Since the beginning of risk communication studies as a field of public health, around the 1980s, we have learned to recognize the potential of communication to build resilience, to promote horizontal decision-making practices and to give ways to social institutions to build their credibility vis-a-vis the communities. In the context of a pandemic, people need to trust in someone to show they are not alone facing the uncertain scenarios in short or long term.

While I am finishing this text, a community leader is providing dignity to the members of her or his community, including food and information adapted to their social reality.

The metaphor of the oxygen mask must be used for community leaders around the world. They are showing to the rest of the world how to understand the meaning of Sustainable Development Goal 16 of the 2030 Agenda: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.

This video was produced by UNAS, a non-profit union of neighborhood associations fighting for the rights of the community of Heliopolis residents, in Sao Paul, Brazil. Currently, the estimated population of Heliopolis is around 200 thousand residents. Production: UNAS Communication English subtitles: Renata Juliotti - POSCOM/UMESP

This video was produced by UNAS, a non-profit union of neighborhood associations fighting for the rights of the community of Heliopolis residents, in Sao Paul, Brazil. Currently, the estimated population of Heliopolis is around 200 thousand residents. Production: UNAS Communication English subtitles: Renata Juliotti  POSCOM/UMESP
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-19 00:34:39|Editor: huaxia

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LONDON, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Another 888 people who tested positive for COVID-19 have died in hospitals in Britain as of Friday afternoon, bringing the total number of coronavirus-related deaths to 15,464, the Department of Health and Social Care said Saturday.

As of Saturday morning, 114,217 people have tested positive for the virus, marking a daily increase of 5,526, said the department.

The figures were announced amid growing concerns over a serious shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline medical staff in hospitals.

On Friday, Public Health England changed its guidance, which includes asking doctors and nurses to reserve the gowns for surgical operations and procedures that are likely to transmit respiratory pathogens and to reuse items such as surgical gowns.

As for testing, Professor John Newton, national coordinator of Britain's coronavirus testing program, has warned against the purchase of unapproved antibody testing kits in a statement released on Saturday.

Antibody tests are designed to detect if people have had the virus and are now immune. Several reports have emerged of organizations seeking to purchase antibody tests for their employees, or of individuals purchasing these tests online for personal use.

Antibody tests offer hope for people wanting to find out if they have had the novel coronavirus, are now immune and could get back to work. But so far no country in the world, including Britain, has found a reliable antibody test, according to the statement.

Professor Newton said that unapproved tests could be misleading by providing inaccurate or inconsistent results, potentially putting those tested and those around them at risk.

The government is currently working with several companies who are offering these tests and are evaluating their effectiveness.

However, so far, the antibody tests that have gone through the validation process have not proven accurate enough to be rolled out for public use, according to the statement.
Carole Baskin has been outspoken about her portrayal in Netflixs Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness. The Big Cat Rescue owner at the center of rival, Joseph Maldonado-Passage (aka Joe Exotic), previously called the docuseries salacious. Still, Baskin warns that people have totally missed the point of Tiger King.

Baskin said she believed filmmakers would put emphasis on her cause

Carole Baskin | Netflix

If theres one name everyone remembers from Tiger King (aside from Joe Exotic himself), its Carole Baskin. The animal rights activist has been working for years to bring awareness to pay-to-play operations such as cub-petting.

The seven-part series covered many aspects of the exotic pet industry, notably Maldonado-Passages (formerly-named) G.W. Zoo practices, Jeff and Lauren Lowes traveling cub-petting party busses in Las Vegas, and the murder-for-hire plot against Baskin.

Since the release of Tiger King, viewers are left talking about everything except animal rights, according to Baskin. Maldonado-Passage is currently serving a 22-year sentence for allegedly planning Baskins murder, along with several counts of animal abuse for the death of five tigers.

With all of this happening  not to mention the deep dive into Baskins missing husband, Don Lewis  how can viewers focus on much else?

Baskin says no ones focusing on what Tiger King says about the industry

In a recent interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Baskin shared her feelings on the many layers of Tiger King.

I just feel so angry that people have totally missed the point, she said. And the point is these cubs are being abused and exploited and the public is enabling that.

The majority of Tiger King put focus on Baskins missing ex-husband (and whether or not she had anything to do with it). However, the series didnt highlight Baskins award of excellence for her visionary leadership and advocacy efforts to end the private possession and trade in exotic cats through legislation and education, the outlet reported.

Theres almost no way to describe the intensity of the feeling of betrayal, Baskins third husband, Howard Baskin, said.

In reference to all the memes circulating which allude to [Carole] Baskins guilt, she revealed her frustration.

They saw those cubs being dragged away from their mother. Where are those memes? Where are those comments?

Maldonado-Passages zoo has been under scrutiny for years

In 2017, Maldonado-Passage began giving information to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to help his own case.

He saw PETA as a potential lifeline, Brittany Peet said via Harpers Bazaar.

However, Maldonado-Passage had been investigated by the humane society of the United States since 2011 for various animal allegations, Tampa Bay Times continued.

Things are a lot worse than what was portrayed in the Netflix series, Debbie Leahy, of the Humane Society said of the G.W. Zoo. We hold Big Cat Rescue and the Baskins in the highest regard. Not many sanctuaries do rescue and advocacy and Big Cat Rescue does both and they do them very well.

The Baskins have been working to pass The Big Cat Public Safety Act which aims to end the private ownership of big cats and ban public interaction with the animals at zoos.

I really hope what will come of this is that law enforcement will take this seriously, [Carole] Baskin said. Weve all been screaming at the top of our lungs for 20 years that this abuse was happening, and no one was listening.

She continued: Now the abuse is so apparent, I hope it will encourage them to take action on it and inspire Congress to do what they can to end cub petting and private possession of big cats.

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness is available to stream now.
AIAs valuable support to staff of IDH, Mulleriyawa and Welikanda Hospitals View(s):

AIA Insurance has pledged its support to help Sri Lanka fight COVID -19, at a meeting held last week at the Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine, under the patronage of the Minister of Health and Indigenous Medical Services  Pavithra Wanniarachchi, Director General of Health Services  Dr. Anil Jasinghe and a number of other senior officials of the Ministry. AIA Insurance was represented by the CEO- Nikhil Advani and Head of Services and Health Care Management, Priyankara De Silva.

Mr. Advani expressed the companys desire to pay tribute to the frontline hospital staff who are risking their own health and safety to take care of affected patients at these hospitals that are focused on the treatment of COVID-19. AIA has therefore agreed to provide not just a life insurance cover, but also importantly, a hospital cash benefit to all Health Ministry registered permanent staff, who are on government payroll, attached to the three hospitals, Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH), the Mulleriyawa Hospital and the Welikanda Hospital, the company said in a media release.

With this free cover, should any of the hospital staff contract COVID-19 and is hospitalized, AIA will provide a hospital cash benefit of Rs.1000 per day, for up to 14 days. While the medical staffs primary care needs will be supported by the hospitals in such a situation, AIAs objective is to provide the comfort of a supplementary fund that supports and helps them be financially secure, when battling the virus.

AIA will also provide free life insurance coverage to the staff of these hospitals worth Rs.500,000 in the unfortunate event of a death due to contracting COVID-19. These benefits will be provided to all doctors, nurses, paramedics and other support staff at these hospitals which are fully dedicated to the treatment of COVID-19 patients. The offer will be valid until July 10, 2020 and will be considered for extension, if required.

Mr. Advani said, We recognize the sacrifices made by these medical staff in their line of duty and as a leader in life insurance in Sri Lanka, we want to thank them for their selfless and tireless efforts. AIA had been working with the Base Hospital Homagama to donate protective gear and equipment to their medical staff, but we wanted to do more. That is why, we reached out to the Ministry of Health with this proposal.

Minister of Health and Indigenous Medical Services Ms. Wanniarachchi commented, We thank AIA Insurance for coming forward to provide financial security to our medical staff and appreciate their gesture at this hour of need. It will make the staff at IDH, Mulleriyawa and Welikanda hospitals feel appreciated for the hard work they put in day and night and let them know that the community is deeply grateful for their great efforts.
EAST WINDSOR  A Broad Brook resident, remembered as a woman who radiated unconditional love, died earlier this month as a result of complications from COVID-19, according to her obituary.

Carol Ballard died at the Kimberly Hall nursing home on April 6, her obituary said. She was 81.

Carol had so many people that loved her and she loved back, the obituary said.

Data shared by the state on Thursday showed that Windsors Kimberly Hall North had 17 residents who tested positive for the coronavirus. The data indicated nine resident deaths there had been linked to the virus.

Kimberly Hall South has reported no deaths linked to the virus, but eight residents have tested positive for it.

Ballards obituary said she was born April 2, 1939, to Frank and Mabel Donahue.

She was a member of the first graduating class of East Windsor High School in 1957.

After graduating high school, she went on to proudly serve as a secretary from various locations in Glastonbury for more than 50 years.

She raised her two daughters alone, instilling in them a strong work ethic and unconditional love, the obituary said. It said she also taught them to always find the good in others and every situation.

Ballard enjoyed all apsects of life, her obituary said, including her faith, her friends, country music and her.

She loved music and loved to dance the Polka, the obituary said. She made a difference in all our lives through her patience, strength, gentle and kind spirit and warm smile. This is how she will be remembered.

She is survived by her daughters, her grandchildren, her nieces and nephew and her friends.

In lieu of flowers, family asked those interested to make donations in Ballards memory to the Alzheimers Foundation.

Online condolences can be left at pietrasfuneralhome.com.




Lithuania seizes 75 tonnes unsafe poultry meat

In the first quarter of 2020, officials in Lithuania have confiscated the supply of 75 tonnes of what they described as "unsafe" imported poultry meat.

The State Food and Veterinary Service (VMVT) performed more than 800 targeted inspections of imported poultry meat in the quarter. Most of these were related to the risk of avian influenza in Poland at the end of last year and to protect the Lithuanian poultry sector.

Of the 19 batches of unsafe poultry, 18 originated in Poland. The agency reported no human pathogenic microorganisms had been detected in Lithuanian poultry this year.

Inspectors recently banned the sale of three batches totalling 25 tonnes of fresh Polish poultry contaminated with Salmonella. After detection of any type of Salmonella in Lithuania, the sale of products is prohibited.

Poultry meat, like other food products, is inspected by specialists at wholesale, processing plants and markets. According to VMVT data, poultry imported to Lithuania from other countries accounts for about 20% of the market with most of it coming from Poland followed by Latvia.

In 2019, VMVT banned the supply of almost 200 tonnes of poultry meat to the Lithuanian market, which was contaminated with Salmonella. Most of the products unfit for consumption were imported from Poland but 12% consisted of Hungarian and Lithuanian poultry.

In February this year, retail chain Maxima temporarily suspended sales of fresh chilled meat and semi-finished products because of the detection of Salmonella in self-monitoring checks.

VMVT inspections at the retailer, supplier meat processor Biovela Group, and a logistics warehouse found no grounds for further action. Officials noted it was not possible to assess the batches that were linked to suspected Salmonella contamination as expiration dates had passed and cleaning and disinfection had been performed.

An investigation instructed Maxima to provide VMVT with information on identified unsafe products within the deadlines set by legislation, which is no later than 24 hours, to ensure accurate traceability of raw materials and manufactured products. Biovela Group was told to strengthen hygiene control of the production process and tighten self-control testing procedures. Both companies could be fined by authorities.
A man who after recovery from the



coronavirus infection uploaded his discharge papers on social media and accused authorities in Nagpur in Maharashtra of unnecessarily placing him in quarantine was arrested, police said on Saturday.

Inspector Jayesh Bhandarkar of Tehsil police station identified the accused as Jamirul Jafirul Mohammad (32), a resident of Takia in Diwanshaha here.

"He had gone to Delhi on March 13 and returned here after two days. Based on his travel history, he was placed in quarantine on April 2, and tested positive for coronavirus on April 3. He was discharged on Friday after his samples tested negative post treatment," Bhandarkar said.

"However, he put up discharge papers on Facebook claiming he was never infected with coronavirus and that officials had unnecessarily placed him in quarantine. After Nagpur Municipal Corporation officials filed a complaint, we arrested him and place him in quarantine," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
 Flash

China on Friday handed over 91,000 U.S. dollars and protective medical supplies to the government of Lagos, Nigeria's economic hub to help the state to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in Lagos in partnership with the Overseas Chinese Association in Nigeria donated 12,000 face masks, 100 protective clothing, 2,000 forehead thermometers, 2,000 surgical gloves, 1,550 hand sanitizers, and one ventilator.

The bank draft and medical supplies were handed over to the state commissioner for transportation, Fedrick Oladehinde.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has become a global challenge. The Chinese government and people will continue to stand and work with Nigeria and Lagos state in fight against the disease," Zhou Jun, president of the Association of Chinese Women in Nigeria said in a speech during the donation ceremony.

In his response, Oladehinde thanked the Chinese government and firms, saying the donation will help the government's efforts in fighting the spread of the viral disease.

The official added that the medical supplies will be distributed to medical workers that are at the forefront of fighting against the pandemic.
A suspected COVID-19 case who was declared wanted by the Abia State government has been taken into an isolation facility in the state, the government said Saturday.

The man is said to have been avoiding health officials after he called the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to report that he had contact with a confirmed case in Akwa Ibom and that he was showing symptoms of the new coronavirus.

The Abia government on Friday declared him wanted.

Our team swung into action and called the number forwarded, took notes and asked the individual to isolate himself pending our arrival to take samples for testing, the Commissioner for Information in Abia state, John Kalu, said in a statement.

Mr Kalu is also the secretary of the states inter-ministerial committee on COVID-19.

On arrival at the given location, he disappeared and was later to confess that he saw the ambulance and the fully kitted RR-team, lost courage, detested the possibility of being locked down and decided to switch off his phone and disappear into thin air.

Mr Kalu said health officials eventually got the man with the assistance of security agents. His sample has been collected for testing and he is cooperating with the authorities, the commissioner said.

There is no confirmed case of the coronavirus in Abia State which has been in the news lately because of deadly clashes between some residents and security officials enforcing lockdown in the state.
Big business and its governments in Australia are not just pushing for a premature return to work amid the worsening global COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of the obvious dangers to working-class lives. They are demanding a complete economic restructuring to accelerate the decades-long assault on social spending and workers jobs, wages and conditions.

Never let a good crisis go to waste, Australian Financial Review senior writer John Kehoe declared yesterday, invoking the phrase made infamous by British Tory Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

In fact, the escalating drive for a rapid reopening of workplaces, even as the international death toll continues to soar, and Australias deaths near 70, is bound up with a bid to use the emergency to impose drastic cuts to working class conditions as quickly soon as possible.

People queuing for coronavirus tests at Royal Melbourne Hospital

In increasingly rapacious language, the ruling elite is insisting that the coronavirus crisis provides a golden opportunity to pursue a brutal agenda, while introducing repressive measures, such as mass mobile phone surveillance, to monitor and suppress working-class unrest.

There must be no return to any sense of business as usual, Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared on Thursday, following the latest meeting of the bipartisan national cabinet of federal, state and territory leaders that currently runs the country by decree.

His Liberal-National governments previous catch cries of securing a business snap back after hibernation have been replaced by calls for an aggressive pro-growth agenda.

Election promises would have to be ditched, Morrison said ominously. Nervous of the public response, he refused to specify, but that would certainly include slashing social programs to pay off the estimated $1 trillion government debt incurred by bailing out big business over the past month.

Yesterdays Australian Financial Review editorial described the coming recession as a burning platform. It would be the launching pad for a multi-pronged program of expanded corporate tax cuts, more business de-regulation and the transformation of industrial relations to entrench the slashing of pay and conditions agreed to by the trade unions over the past month.

Perversely, the ruling class sees the international health disaster as a chance to inflict an historic assault on the working class. Such is the ruthless logic of the private profit-driven capitalist system that has failed to avert such long-predicted pandemics.

The editorial decried that the failure of one government after another to prosecute the productivity drive based on enterprise bargaining launched by the Keating Labor government and the unions in the 1990s.

Every government over the past two decades, from the Howard Liberal-National Coalition government of 1996 to 2007, and the Greens-backed Rudd-Gillard Labor governments of 2007 to 2013, to the current Coalition government, first under Tony Abbott and then Malcolm Turnbull, has tried but failed to deliver in the eyes of the financial elite.

Likewise, todays editorial in the Australian, the Murdoch media flagship declared: For two decades, Australia and its political leaders have been policy complacentyet, at times, lucky, insulated, distracted, dysfunctional and exceptional. As bizarre and confronting as COVID-19 is proving to be, this curious malady presents a breathtaking opportunity for national reinvention.

Speaking on Melbournes 3AW radio yesterday, Morrison was more explicit. He described the global financial breakdown of 200809 as an entree compared to the really bad news now hitting the economy.

That meltdown a decade ago was exploited to boost corporate wealth to astronomical heights while imposing harsh austerity measures. These included cuts to public healthcare, contributing directly to the criminal lack of resourcestesting, personal protection gear, intensive care beds, ventilators and hospital staffto protect the population from COVID19.

The new offensive will go far further as the burden of the bailouts is imposed on the working class. Economists are forecasting a federal government budget deficit of more than $100 billion by the 202021 financial year. This dwarfs the deficits left after 2009.

Business Council of Australia CEO Jennifer Westacott spearheaded calls at an Australian Financial Review Business Summit last month for governments and employers to exploit the crisis. The demands issued at that summit included massive tax and investment incentives for major corporations, on top of the $200 billion in high income tax cuts already legislation for commencement in 2022.

And once and for all we need to make it easier to do business, Westacott insisted. We must not waste a second of this new level of co-operation in our society to get important things done.

This co-operation referred to the role of Labor and the unions, which have backed all the massive bailout packages provided to big business, together with their provisions for employers to slash pay and conditions. Fearful of the working-class outrage that its agenda will provoke, the corporate elite is relying heavily on them.

This month, Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Secretary Sally McManus vowed on national television that employers could get everything you want by cooperating with the unions. She signed off on a deal with Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter, who described her as his best friend forever, to back the governments $130 billion wage-subsidy scheme, which gave the government and the employers the green light to slash jobs and conditions.

At the same time, on April 8, the ACTU hailed a Fair Work Commission ruling that altered 99 industrial awards to allow employers to force workers to take their annual leave at half their usual rate of pay and coronavirus-affected workers to take two weeks unpaid pandemic leave.

This week, McManus issued a statement hypocritically complaining that companies were asking the Morrison government for Fair Work Act regulations to permit them to force workers to agree to tear up their work agreements with just a days notice. But that power was granted by the legislation that Labor and the ACTU helped pass.

Last Thursdays national cabinet meeting said one pre-condition for lifting pandemic restrictions, in just four weeks, was the introduction of a phone app to enable the government to track everyones movements, supposedly to contact anyone who has been in close proximity to a coronavirus victim.

Morrison yesterday refused to rule out trying to make this system of mass surveillance compulsory, although the public outcry forced him to retreat today to making it voluntary.

In the name of belatedly carrying out the testing and careful contact tracing that was required months ago, the governments, Coalition and Labor alike, are preparing police-state measures to suppress resistance by workers to being pushed back to work under these unsafe and transformed conditions.

Events in northwest Tasmania over the past few days, where eight people have died and thousands more have been placed in quarantine, provide another warning of the dangers facing workers. They also give an indication of the opposition building up, including among the health workers on the frontline of the pandemic, to the disastrous official response to the crisis.

More than 150 staff at the Mersey community hospital in Devonport wrote to the state government complaining of a breakdown of trust after a senior emergency doctor was told not to speak to staff about the hospitals ability to manage the coronavirus outbreak.

The letter said the governments promises of personal protective equipment and stronger infection control protocols were not delivered, with an enormous, snowballing effect on staff wellbeing and anxiety. The transfer of patients from hospitals in nearby Burnie, which had to be closed because of widespread COVID-19 infections, had caused major unrest and undue stress to staff and patients.

The hospital workers letter epitomises the determination of workers to protect themselves and the population from the catastrophic operations of the ruling class, and poses the necessity for the working class to take charge of society to reorganise it on the basis of human need, not private profit.
A man has returned to his car with out-of-state licence plates to a furious note telling him to 'f*** off back home you d***head'.

Patrick Tozer was fishing in Batemans Bay on the New South Wales South Coast on April 8 when he found the note.

Mr Tozer is a resident of the area but his car has Australian Capital Territory registration plates for work purposes.

'C***sucker, f**k off back home you d***head. You should not be here,' the note said.

Patrick Tozer was fishing in Batemans Bay, on the NSW South Coast, on April 8 when he found the note

He shared the note on social media and several others said they had similar things happen to them.

'If you are worried about not being registered in NSW let the police do their job and keep your nose out of other peoples business,' he said, according to the South Coast News.

He did accept this was a small majority of people who lived in the area.

Samantha Turner, from Mollymook, also on the South Coast, found a similar note on her car with ACT plates.

'You should not be here, go home,' the note left on her car yesterday said.

Mrs Turner, who has lived in the area for six years, said it ruined her day to find the note on her car.

However her husband works in Canberra and lives there six days a week, which is why the car is registered with ACT plates.

'I guess this note is tame as I have seen others that have been far more aggressive,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'I would probably want to ask what gives them the right to assume Im here doing the wrong thing and dont live here as there are many people that live locally with ACT plates'

She said she is now nervous to leave her home with her four-year-old in case something worse happens.

'I guess they think its essential to leave their house and go around leaving notes on peoples cars telling them to go home,' she said.

Samantha Turner, from Mollymook, also on the South Coast, found a similar note on her car with ACT plates

Other social media users expressed disgust at the actions - and concern that it could happen to them as well.

'That's terrible! Some small minded person - they don't speak for all locals,' one person said.

Another said: 'It's so sad that it has come to this type of behaviour. We are all Australians and should be able to stay in our homes wherever they are.'

One woman said she was in a similar situation.

'How sickening. I also reside here but have Canberra plates as it's a company car. Should I be scared to leave my home,' she asked.

The notes come after political leaders - including the Prime Minister and NSW Premier Gladys Berijiklian - urged Australians not to travel over the Easter long weekend.

'Please stay at home,' Ms Berijiklian said.

'The more we do, the better options we have as a community moving forward.'
New Delhi: Maulana Ghulam Sarwar, who was exposed in an explosive sting 'Operation Virus' by Zee News, was on Friday (April 17) interrogated by the Delhi Police on charges of evacuating Tablighi Jamaat members from a mosque and helping them flee from the police during the coronavirus COVID-19 lockdown.

According to a source, Maulana Sarwar was grilled by a team of police at the Jamia Nagar police station for over 9 hours. The police said the Maulana was not cooperating with them and did not respond properly on the allegations levelled against him. The police said that he will be called again to the police station if needed.

After being released by the police following the interrogation, when Maulana Sawar stepped out of the police station, he was intercepted by a Zee News reporter. When asked why did he misuse his media pass to help flee Jamaat members from the police, he replied that he will answer to the court.

In the 'Operation Virus' sting by Zee News, Maulana Sarwar revealed how he had helped at least 15 people, all Tablighi Jamaat members who were hiding inside a Delhi mosque, flee from the area. Sarwar also described coronavirus as the curse of Allah and claimed that the virus came to India due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was also seen saying in the video that the deadly pandemic is spreading in those parts of the world where people are being oppressed.

Maulana Ghulam Sarwar is the national spokesperson of the All India Muslim Front and the founder and secretary of the All India Muslim Dalit Morcha.
The government has injected nearly Rs 36000 crore of direct cash for farmers in the lockdown period to get the severely affected farm sector back on course again, but transportion, shortage of labour and markets are yet to pick up pace despite relaxations from the ongoing lockdown.

Under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi or PM-KISAN, the income transfer scheme for farmers, the government has transferred Rs 16927 crore to the bank accounts of nearly 84 million farmers since the country went into lockdown on March 24, according to official data.

Under PM-KISAN, the government provides income support of Rs 6000 a year to farmers with a valid enrolment, paid in three equal cash transfers of Rs 2000 -- one every four months. It was launched on 24 February, 2019, when the first instalment was paid. Cash transfers under the programme take place every four months: for the periods of December to March; April to July; and August to November.

Under the state-regulated farm insurance scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), insurance companies have paid Rs 2424 crore in claims in 12 states.

Banks have also approved farm loans worth Rs 17,800 crore under the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) to 1.82 million farmers out of a total of 8.3 million applications.

The payouts are aimed at easing the credit crunch in the farm sector. They will help fund operations for harvesting and sowing in the upcoming kharif or summer-sown season.

Shortage of labour and transport facilities remain key hurdles for farmers, as social distancing rules are being enforced on farmers and markets. Transporters said despite the Union home ministrys guidelines that allow several rural-economy sectors to resume operations from April 20, those employed in these sectors lacked clarity on various aspects.

There is still a lot of clarity needed from the governments side on the guidelines and how and when businesses can resume their operations fully and all of us are still trying to understand this from local authorities, said Pushkar Singh, the CEO of LetsTransport, a logistics firm.

The biggest challenge, Singh said, is that a lot of migrant workers who work in the logistics sector have left for their homes and it will be a tough task to replace all that workforce in a short period of time.

The problem is that current harvesting is taking longer because of shortage of labour. This labour shortage could spillover to the summer sowing season as well, said R Mani of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Zia Haq Zia Haq reports on public policy, economy and agriculture. Particularly interested in development economics and growth theories. ...view detail
REGINAThe Saskatchewan government predicted Friday that the economic fallout from COVID-19 could reduce the provinces revenues by up to $3.3 billion.

Finance Minister Donna Harpauer noted its still early days and it remains unclear how long restrictions to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus will be in place.

But different GDP and oil price scenarios suggest revenue in the 2020-21 fiscal year could decline between $1.3 billion and $3.3 billion, she said.

Premier Scott Moe said his Saskatchewan Party government will go ahead next week with its plan to lay out how and when it may lift some restrictions on businesses and services that have had to close to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Moe said allowing more businesses to open will mean more people going back to work and boosting the economy.

Expanding the list of allowable businesses and services ... impacts the general economy of the province, but I would say the largest impact is to the general finances of family after family.

Health officials reported one new case and one presumptive case of COVID-19 for a total of 307. They said 228 people have recovered.

The chief medical health officer said while overall cases are low, theres a concern about new ones in long-term care homes.

Dr. Saqib Shahab said a second staff member at an assisted living facility in Regina tested positive for COVID-19 and three residents were showing symptoms.

There is also an outbreak in the northern community of La Loche tied to a long-term care facility, he said.

Moe said the province is likely to keep seeing flare-ups as it tries to slow the spread of the virus.

In terms of finances, Harpauer said government spending is likely to increase from estimates released last month that, because of the pandemic and an oil-price collapse, didnt include revenue projects.

She said reducing the work week or cutting wages for public-sector employees are not being considered for now.

The agreements that we have with our public sector that are already in place and have been ratified we will honour those agreements. We will probably review any going forward, of course, because our fiscal situation has dramatically changed, she said.

Were going to have to be very mindful of our expenditures going forward.

NDP Opposition Leader Ryan Meili called on the premier to allow for some kind of legislative oversight in light of the financial projections.

Moe has already rejected Meilis suggestion of a committee of NDP and government members, as well as local leaders, to respond to COVID-19.

Meanwhile, RCMP said they have received nearly 900 calls since the beginning of March with complaints about people not properly self-isolating or meeting in groups larger than 10. Mounties said most of the calls were dealt with by educating people about public health orders.

However, 13 charges have been laid, police said.
One hundred and twenty-five Bahrain



nationals, stranded here because of coronavirus outbreak, were evacuated on Saturday, an airport official said.

A special flight of Gulf Air evacuated 125 Bahrain nationals from here and flew to Chennai to take on board others, said a senior official of the Pune International Airport.

Before boarding the flight, they were screened.

"One of them had a high temperature so he was not allowed to get onto the plane. He was referred to a hostel facility," the official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The coronavirus pandemic has changed nearly every aspect of our lives, including our wardrobes. If were going to be stuck in our homes we might as well get comfortable, right? Goodbye jeans, hello sweatpants. Or no pants, even. What you wear in the privacy of your home is your business!

But uh, when you step out your home to check the mail? Keep your pants on. Literally.

Thats the message the police department in Taneytown, Maryland put on their Facebook page, to the tune of 10,000 shares and nearly 2,000 comments.

Please remember to put pants on before leaving the house to check your mailbox. You know who you are. This is your final warning. Posted by Taneytown Police Department on Tuesday, April 14, 2020

This message may have come from our neighbors to the south, but its advice that should be followed in New Jersey, too. We get it, youre excited to possibly get mail during this difficult time. But cmon yall.

Postal workers have it bad enough. Theyre putting their lives on the line, going door-to-door and delivering parcels of mail as a highly contagious virus ravages the country and sequesters us to our homes. On top of that, the United States Post Offices already troubled financial situation has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis and President Donald Trump is blocking emergency funding.

The least you can do is spare these essential workers the sight of you in your skivvies. If youre not doing it for the postal workers, do it for your neighbors. Theyre scared enough right now as it is (though such a sight may promote social distancing).

Im not here to judge you. Wear whatever kind pants you want during the pandemic. Parachute pants, cargo shorts, jorts, sweatpants that you havent washed since quarantine started  I may be telling on myself with that one  whatever. Just wear pants when you check the mail. The police, the post office, your neighbors, and the entire state of New Jersey thank you.

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.

If you would like updates on New Jersey-specific coronavirus news, subscribe to our Coronavirus in N.J. newsletter.

Jeremy Schneider may be reached at jschneider@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @J_Schneider. 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.
CALLS have been made on officials at Limerick council to radically change their approach regarding planning, so that clusters of houses can be built in county Limerick.

You have a fantastic stretch from Foynes to Tarbert and yout cant build a house there. In any other country in the world you would have thousands of houses along the river bank, with such fantastic scenery, says Askeaton based councillor Kevin Sheahan

He said that planners would in the coming months be meeting to look at the county development plan, and he hoped a debate could be triggered in advance.

We should give permission to build in clusters of six to ten houses.

These developers can build small treatment plants so that the environment is not affected by the build, he added.

He said that while it would hardly save villages which are dying it could have a very beneficial effect on the economy in the county and would bring life back to rural areas.

It would help, if these clusters were given planning, people have to shop, buy refreshments and so on, so it definitely would help. We need to change our planning policy. There is too much dictat from Dublin, he added.

Cllr Sheahan said if you go over the border to Kerry, houses are being built everywhere. On every Mountain side and everywhere you have a good view houses are being built, but here we refuse planning. We need to cop ourselves on and bring people back to the countryside, he added.

It is a crazy situation. Anyone who wants to build should be allowed and permission should be granted to anyone who wants to live and enjoy our beautiful countryside and the magnificent view of the Shannon estuary.

With the Covid-19 crisis he is not sure when the councillors will meet face to face again, though he said there are numerous important issues to be discussed.

I would hope that I would get support for this idea, at least it deserves debate. We cant have planners deciding everything. We need to act for the people, he added. "I would expect that the vast majority of rural councillors would support my call as there are numerous different scenic areas in county Limerick, that would also benefit from this idea," he concluded.
Press Release

April 18, 2020 Villanueva appeals to DBM to replenish funds for govt's emergency employment programs Senator Joel Villanueva has appealed to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to continue sourcing funds for the government's emergency employment programs that supports workers while the enhanced community quarantine is enforced. In a statement, Villanueva explained that the emergency employment programs of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has so far received P1.5 billion from its proposed P7.8 billion funding requirement to run its emergency employment programs for workers in the formal and informal sectors, and overseas Filipino workers, who are all affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. "Our Bayanihan Law states that DOLE programs will be prioritized for budget augmentation, but it has only received about 16 percent of their total proposed funding requirement. We hope that our DBM augment the coffers of DOLE so it could continue its emergency employment programs," said the lawmaker, chair of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment, and Human Resource Development. "If the proposed P7.8 billion could not be fully granted at this time, we hope the government can spare whatever funds it has for DOLE to continue providing the much-needed assistance for the workers whose companies have already applied for CAMP benefits as of April 15," he added. "We should continue to be compassionate and swift in helping our workers survive the pandemic, especially since it would impose additional hardship for those who already applied, but unable to get CAMP benefits, to reapply again with DOF or DSWD, as the case may be." He pointed out that the department has yet to make significant headway into meeting its target number of beneficiaries for its COVID-19 Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP), the support program for workers in the formal sector. On Wednesday, DOLE announced it was suspending the program because its funds had been depleted. Citing a report his office received from DOLE, Villanueva said the department targeted some 540,000 workers to benefit from CAMP. But as of April 13, the program has only attained 31 percent of its target beneficiaries, reaching a total of 167,941 workers, as mentioned in the President's third Report to Congress on the Bayanihan Law. "DOLE-CAMP should be allowed continue so it could improve its reach. We have confidence in our economic team that it would be able to find a way to replenish the coffers of the labor department," Villanueva said. "We hope that the suspension of CAMP is just temporary." Aside from CAMP, DOLE also implements Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Displaced/Disadvantaged Workers (TUPAD) for workers in the informal sector and Abot Kamay sa Pagtulong (AKAP) for overseas Filipino workers. TUPAD beneficiaries have reached 118,086 workers, 17 percent of the department's target of 700,000 workers. For AKAP, DOLE expects to cover 150,000 OFWs displaced or repatriated due to the pandemic, with each beneficiary receiving P10,000. While CAMP's implementation is on a break, Villanueva urged the labor department to continue processing the pending applications, and deal away with requirements that are outside the program's guidelines. The lawmaker said his office received feedback from workers on the apparent additional requirements some DOLE regional offices are imposing. A region office in the Visayas requires CAMP applicants to state the educational attainment of workers in one of the necessary forms, while another region office asks employers to submit signed payroll slips. Villanueva also pointed out that his office received a complaint from one CAMP applicant that applied since March 19, but whose employees have yet to receive the P5k assistance as of April 17. "We ask Secretary Bello to look into these reports and prevail on field offices to remove unnecessary requirements so we can expedite the assistance to our workers," Villanueva said.
ACP Anil Kohli had tested positive for COVID-19 on April 13 and had been undergoing treatment in the Satguru Partap Singh (SPS) Hospital in Ludhiana

Ludhiana's Assistant Commissioner of Police Anil Kohli died due to the novel coronavirus at a hospital in Ludhiana on Saturday.

Sad News

ACP Anil Kohli passed away.

Died of #COVID19 . Was admitted in SPS Hospital Ludhiana  DPRO LUDHIANA (@LudhianaDpro) April 18, 2020

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh expressed his condolences and said that the demise of the "corona warrior" was a loss to the state.

Sad to share that we had lost Gurmail Singh Kanungo yesterday & ACP Anil Kohli in Ludhiana to #Covid19 today. In this moment of crisis, losing our Corona Warriors is a big loss for the State. I join their families in this time of grief. Rest assured Punjab will stand by them.  Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) April 18, 2020

The chief minister also announced that the government will pay Rs 50 lakh ex-gratia to the police officer's family. The state government will pay Rs 50 lakh to the next of kin of all officials who die in the line of duty, he added.

Deeply saddened to lose two of my officials to #Covid19. Have decided to pay Rs. 50 lakhs ex-gratia to their next to kin. While I pray such an incident shouldn't happen, but if it does, State Govt will pay Rs. 50 lakhs to NoK of officials who die in line of duty due to #Covid19.  Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) April 18, 2020



ACP Kohli had tested positive for COVID-19 on 13 April and had been undergoing treatment in the Satguru Partap Singh (SPS) Hospital in Ludhiana, said a report in the Hindustan Times.

According to the report, Kohli's wife, driver and three other officials who were in contact with him have also tested positive for the virus.

Click here for LATEST updates on coronavirus outbreak

On Friday, the Punjab government had given its go-ahead to the hospital to conduct plasma therapy on the police officer. However, his condition began to deteriorate and he died of multiple organ failure before the therapy could be administered, said the report.

With inputs from PTI
Government has started distributing locally produced Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to frontline workers in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

This came to light when Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia visited a number of local companies including Digital DTRT Apparel, Sleek Garments, Cadling Fashions and Bulluk Apparel (manufacturers of the Nallem Clothing) in Accra who are manufacturing the PPEs.

The visit was to afford him the opportunity to know at first hand the efforts they have been putting in so far.

Dr Bawumia was overwhelmed by the level of commitment and speed with which they are producing the PPEs.

He therefore commended the local companies.

After the inspection, the Vice President said he was impressed by the exhibition of Ghanaian ingenuity by the companies in response to a directive by President Akufo-Addo for the production of PPEs locally.

He was particularly delighted by the fact that the companies which hitherto were producing for export quickly shifted form to produce PPEs to save lives locally.

The Vice President was of the conviction that in the next few months, Ghana would not be importing PPEs and thanked all providing goods and services in the fight against the coronavirus.

In the last five days, the local companies contracted by the ministries of Health and Trade to manufacture PPEs have produced 250,000 face masks, 18,000 surgical gowns and 11,000 medical/hospital scrubs for distribution to frontline workers in the fight against the virus including health and security personnel across the country.

Another company is said to be producing disposable PPEs for use.

Trade Minister, Alan Kyerematen who accompanied the Vice President said the government is creating the opportunity for local companies to manufacture for the Ministry of Health.

The quality of the product is very high because the fabric used are local fabric and specially produced by Volta Star Limited and it is taken through a process called mesterisation by both Akosombo Textile Limited and GTP, he told journalists, insisting this has made it a very high quality fabric suitable for the production of the PPE and meets international standards.

The Food and Drugs Authority and the Ghana Standards Authority have certified the type of fabric and the production. The standards would not be sacrificed.

He added that very soon Ghana would be exporting PPEs to some African countries and the developed world.

As a nation, he insisted we need to understand that this pandemic is going to create a major disruption in global supply chain and that you can no longer just focus on bringing in every conceivable item from outside the country.

---Daily Guide
By Rodrigo Viga Gaier

RIO DE JANEIRO, April 17 (Reuters) - Government loans for Brazilian airlines battered by the coronavirus crisis would only be ready in May, and not later this month as some had hoped, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

The loans have been publicly announced and are being coordinated by Brazil's state development bank BNDES. Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes and Azul SA have confirmed the talks and suggested loans of around 3 billion reais ($569.10 million) per carrier.

The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said LATAM Airlines has also asked for help from BNDES. Gol, Azul and LATAM control virtually all of Brazil's commercial passenger flights.

Gol Chief Executive Paulo Kakinoff said earlier this month that any aid from BNDES would take up to two weeks to sort out. But the sources said the timeline has been pushed back until May.

The sources added that the amounts requested by the airlines were higher than expected. BNDES has decided it will not rescue the airlines alone, the sources said, and is bringing private banks, debtholders and aircraft leasing companies to the table.

"We have received positive signs from the banks to renegotiate debts," one of the sources said.

Airlines around Latin America are increasing pressure on their governments for state aid to weather the coronavirus crisis after the United States approved a $25 billion package for its national carriers, much of which is money that will not have to be repaid.

In order to receive the aid in Brazil, BNDES is requesting that airlines cut executive bonuses and investments as well as suspend dividends, the sources said.

The carriers "cannot assume that they will come out with no scratches or without some sacrifices from a crisis like this," the second source said. ($1 = 5.2715 reais) (Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier Editing by Paul Simao)
Following directives issued by the Supreme Court, Gauhati High Court has directed Assam police to release inmates of detention centres in the state who have completed two years in detention.

In an order issued on April 15, the division bench of Justice Manojit Bhuyan and Justice Ajit Borthakur directed the police to compile a list of all such detainees and ensure that they are released.

Acting on two intervention petitions seeking the release of detention centre inmates over fears of them contracting Covid-19, the Supreme Court had ordered on April 13 that all detainees who had spent two years in detention should be released.

It was a modification of the Supreme Courts order issued in May 2019 ordering the release of detainees who completed three years on furnishing two sureties of Rs 1 lakh each. The recent order reduced the amount for sureties to Rs 5,000 each.

There are six detention centres in Assam where those declared foreigners by foreigners tribunals are kept. According to government records, there were 802 inmates in these centres till March.

In its order, Gauhati High Court directed the border department of Assam police to prepare a list of eligible inmates and release them expeditiously within an outer limit period of seven days.

The court ordered the special director general of police (Border) to submit details of all those who have been released by the next date of hearing on April 25.

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Mr. Burgamys lawyer, a federal public defender, declined to comment.

Prosecutors said that Mr. Wilson had regularly mailed drugs from his pharmacy to Mr. Burgamy since at least last August.

Mr. Burgamy advertised and sold the drugs using encrypted email accounts on the dark web, giving a cut of the profits to Mr. Wilson through Bitcoin payments, wire transfers and bundles of cash sent through the mail, authorities said.

In court documents, the F.B.I. said it started investigating Mr. Burgamy last December after learning about his account on the dark web. Unlike most sites on the traditional internet, the dark web uses technology that lets both sides of an online interaction hide their identity and location from each other and law enforcement.

In January, agents with the F.B.I. and the Food and Drug Administration began making undercover purchases from Mr. Burgamy, who went by the name NeverPressedRx and had a reputation for selling high-quality drugs. The agents ordered the pills from Virginia, where they were also delivered.

In an email to an undercover agent, Mr. Burgamy said he was running a five-star business, according to court documents.

We will never succumb to purchasing drugs off the street that could be potentially tampered with for your safety, he wrote in a post, according to prosecutors.

He told potential buyers, all of our stock comes directly from a U.S. pharmacy.

That pharmacy, federal agents learned, was Hyrums Family Value Pharmacy.
Nasa and SpaceX have picked May 27 for resuming astronaut launches from the United States after nine years of complete Russian dependence.

Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine announced the launch date on Friday.

Astronauts have not launched into orbit from the US since Nasas last space shuttle flight in 2011.

Before our Apollo astronauts launched to the Moon, they had to walk out of these doors at @NASAKennedy.



And when we launch @AstroBehnken and @Astro_Doug on the @SpaceX Demo-2 mission, these doors will be used again.



Prepare to #LaunchAmerica on May 27: https://t.co/BtWva5fpmF pic.twitter.com/PAYSDdl6Cm  NASA (@NASA) April 17, 2020

SpaceX aims to end the drought by sending two Nasa astronauts to the International Space Station.

On May 27, @NASA will once again launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil! Bridenstine tweeted.

Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken will blast off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, departing from the same Kennedy Space Centre launch pad used by shuttle Atlantis in July 2011, as well as the Apollo moonshots a half-century ago.

Mr Hurley served as pilot on that last shuttle mission and will be the spacecraft commander for SpaceXs Dragon crew capsule.

Launch day will be a Wednesday, with a liftoff time of 4:32pm EDT. It is too soon to know whether the coronavirus pandemic will prompt crowd restrictions.

Only three countries have launched people into orbit since 1961: Russia, the US and China, in that order. SpaceX would be the first company.

SpaceX successfully conducted its first test flight of a Dragon crew capsule a year ago, sending the capsule  minus a crew  to the space station.

The returned capsule was accidentally destroyed during ground testing at Cape Canaveral, further delaying the astronaut launch.

With the space station crew now down to three, Mr Hurley and Mr Behnken will spend weeks, perhaps months, helping to maintain the orbiting lab.

The length of their mission is still under review, according to Nasa.

Nasa, meanwhile, is in the process of buying another seat on a Russian rocket.

Russian Soyuz capsules have been the sole means of crew transportation to and from the space station since 2011.

SpaceX has been using Falcon 9 rockets to launch cargo to the space station in the companys original Dragon capsules since 2012.

Nasa turned to private companies for deliveries once the shuttle programme ended.

Boeing also is working to launch astronauts under Nasas commercial crew programme, but the companys effort suffered a serious setback following last Decembers botched test flight.

Launching without anyone on board, Boeings Starliner capsule failed to reach the space station after ending up in the wrong orbit and came close to destruction twice because of software errors.

Boeing plans to repeat the test flight, again without astronauts, this autumn.
The Tema General Hospital in the Greater Accra Region has shut down its Paediatric Unit for emergency disinfection following reports that some workers have been exposed to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).



Two units at the hospital  Paediatric Medical Ward and Children Emergency,  which were said to have been exposed to the virus, will remain closed until further notice.



The Daily Graphic was informed yesterday that two medical doctors at the hospital are among health workers who came into contact with someone said to be COVID-19 positive.



The Tema General Hospital serves as a treatment and isolation centre for COVID-19 cases.



The Clinical Coordinator at the hospital, Dr Augustine Kwashie, in an interview with the Daily Graphic yesterday said the hospital had information that two of its staff had come into contact with someone with the disease.



We were puzzled as to the source of the infection so management has had to close down the unit for disinfection, he said.



Dr Kwashie said health workers at the unit had been placed in mandatory quarantine while samples from them have been taken to the laboratory for testing to ascertain their status.



He will, however, not state the total number of staff placed on mandatory quarantine.



Alternatives



Dr Kwashie said with the shutdown, patients could not access healthcare services at the paediatric unit since the critical staff that would attend to them had been placed in isolation.



He said the hospital management had made arrangements for critically ill patients to be cared for in other units and wards of the facility while clients with new cases had been advised to visit other facilities in the metropolis.



Sanitisation



Following the reported COVID-19 case at the Tema General Hospital, the Tema Chapter of the International Lions Club, in collaboration with JEM Intercontinental Services Ghana, a pest control company, has fumigated the Paediatric Medical Ward and the Childrens Emergency Ward.



The exercise was targeted at curbing the spread of the coronavirus in the affected and adjoining wards.



The President of the Tema Chapter of the International Lions Club, Mr Kofi Dzambo, said the exercise formed part of the clubs annual programme dubbed Protecting the Environment.



He explained that the Lions Club carried out a detailed fumigation and disinfection of the hospital last week to put the facility in a much safer state.



The exercise, he said, covered the Out Patients Department (OPD) and surrounding buildings, male and female Surgical Wards, Childrens Ward, Accident Recovery Ward, Adult Emergency Ward, Maternity Ward, Pharmacy, Laboratory, Archives, Administration Block, Accounts Department and Stores.



Following the latest incident at the Childrens Ward, the club was approached by the hospital management to carry out an emergency disinfection of the ward.

Source: Daily Graphic









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Ranjit Chowdhry, a Bollywood actor who starred in seasons four and five of the US version of The Office, has died aged 64.

The Times of India reports that the New York-based actor had travelled to India at the beginning of this year to receive dental treatment. He had planned to return to the US on 8 April but was unable to do so due to the coronavirus lockdowns.

Indian theatre actor Dolly Thakore said Chowdhry suffered a ruptured ulcer in his intestine on 14 April and underwent emergency surgery in Mumbai. He died at 4am the following day.

Thakore said a funeral was held on this week with close family members in attendance. A celebration of Chowdhrys life is planned for 5 May.

Chowdhrys half-sister, Raell Padamsee, confirmed the news from her Instagram page.

Chowdhry began his career performing in Bollywood films during the late Seventies. After writing and starring in the 1991 Canadian film Sam & Me, about a young Indian immigrant who forms an unlikely friendship with an eldery Jewish man, Chowdhry landed a number of acting roles in the US.

Among these was a part as telemarketer Vikram in seasons four and five of NBCs The Office, and in US dramas including Prison Break and Law & Order: SVU.

He also had a part in the 2006 romantic comedy Last Holiday, starring Queen Latifah.

Bollywood actor Rahul Khanna led tributes to Chowdrhy after hearing reports of his death.

Gutted to learn of #RanjitChowdhrys passing, he wrote. Despite his diminutive frame, he was a towering icon of Indian diaspora cinema and a master of his craft. By far, one of the most endearingly quirky and acerbically witty people Ive had the pleasure of knowing. A true original!

US actor Andy Buckley, who starred in The Office as David Wallace, tweeted: This lovely actor passed away in India. Ranjit Chowdhry. He played a Vikram on The Office. He was terrific on the show and a lovely fella. Rest In Peace Ranjit [sic].

Actor Poorna Jagannathan said: This guy made magic out of nothing, filling paper thin roles with so much depth. I always saw my father when I was with him- the same humor, stubbornness and brilliance. Heartbroken, dear friend. RIP.
In the gloom of the pandemic, nurse Sheila Montague received news on Thursday that brightened her day.

It came from a Western University student in London  a young woman who was the third person to test positive for coronavirus in Ontario, on Jan. 23. She was the first person with COVID-19 that Montague supported while tracing and monitoring the people who came in close contact with the student.

The text message Montague received brimmed with exuberance and gratitude. She said she was doing well, that she and her partner are still together and that she got her drivers licence and bought herself a car, Montague says. And when all this is over shes going to pick me up and were going for a drive.

The bit about the boyfriend was a sign that another momentous plan was still on track  the student has promised to invite Montague to her wedding.

We formed a bond, says Montague, a nurse at Middlesex-London Health Unit for more than 30 years, adding that the student followed self-isolation and other instructions to the letter.

The human aspect is so important in the work we do, she adds in a phone interview. You dont want to lose that.

Montagues concern about losing the connection she makes with both infected and at-risk people comes as Ontario and the federal government join a growing list of countries exploring the use of cellphone data for contact tracing.

We will develop new technologies for contact tracing and we will all become much better at reacting when a possible resurgence happens, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last weekend.

Contact tracing is vital, labour-intensive gumshoe work done by public health units whenever a communicable disease is detected.

When coronavirus is diagnosed, a physician or lab must by law report the infected person to the local public health unit. A health worker then calls and tells that person to self-isolate for two weeks.

The health worker also asks for contact details of people in close contact with the infected person as far back as 48 hours before the onset of symptoms, says Dr. Shelley Deeks, chief health protection officer at Public Health Ontario. Those close contacts are called, told to self-isolate and to monitor for symptoms.

Everyone is checked on daily by phone, text or social media, and if anyone develops symptoms, the tracing and monitoring process is repeated with their close contacts.

What were trying to do is break the chain of transmission by ensuring that those people who are at the highest risk of exposure are actually self-isolating, Deeks says.

The Public Health Agency of Canada defines a close contact as anyone who cared for an infected person without consistent use of proper protective equipment; who lived with the person or had prolonged contact within two metres while symptoms were present; or was coughed or sneezed on.

A report this week by researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the group representing U.S. public health agencies put the COVID-19 tracing challenge in stark mathematical terms: It is estimated that each infected person can, on average, infect 2 to 3 others. This means that if 1 person spreads the virus to 3 others, that first positive case can turn into more than 59,000 cases in 10 rounds of infections.

COVID-19 can cause large outbreaks quickly, so even 1 missed case can significantly undermine control efforts, the report adds. It calls for an extra 100,000 contact tracers estimating Congress will need to approve $3.6 billion (U.S.) in funding.

In Wuhan  a Chinese city of 11 million and the epicentre of the outbreak  9,000 people divided into teams of five were exclusively working on contact tracing when the World Health Organization reported on efforts there in February.

Contact tracing is usually triggered by testing, which in Ontario has lagged. Still, as infections rose, many of Ontarios 35 public health units scrambled to increase their contact tracing staff. (The 2019 provincial plan to amalgamate and reduce health units to 10 is under review.)

The Middlesex-London Health Unit, for example, had 15 people on its infectious disease team when the Western student became the areas first case. Within days the unit was using 40 people for contact tracing.

On April 3, Ontario issued an emergency order allowing public health units to boost their contact tracing teams with volunteers. That day, the Middlesex-London unit began training 60 medical students; the units contact tracing staff now has about 120 people. (By April 15, the units area had 250 people infected with the virus, and 12 who had died.)

Also in April, the federal government issued a nationwide call for volunteers, including for work as COVID-19 contact tracers. (Public Health Canada said it does not have figures on the number of contact tracers in the country, and Ontarios health ministry did not provide statistics.)

Officials with Middlesex-London and Toronto public health units describe Ontarios centralized health database as inefficient for contact tracing and have developed their own data programs to facilitate tracking.

In the journal Science last week, Oxford University academics argued that viral spread is too fast to be contained by manual contact tracing and called for a cellphone app to help.

The attraction of digital technology is the promise of faster tracing and more targeted self-isolation before clusters spread. In enthusiastic comments, Trudeau emphasized its value when blanket stay-home directives are eased.

And in a confidential document revealed by the Star, the provincial government notes its considering the use of artificial intelligence and geolocation data from mobile phones to combat the virus.

Theres huge enthusiasm about this technology, says professor Ross Upshur, who co-chairs a WHO working group on ethical issues involving the pandemic. But this needs to be navigated very carefully.

The enthusiasm extends to the WHO, which recently entertained presentations from a European group flogging such technologies and an AI official from China, says Upshur, who witnessed the presentations. Upshur, who also heads the University of Torontos public health division, adds his WHO group is drafting a guidance document on the ethics of using apps and artificial intelligence in the COVID response.

Countries including China, South Korea, Singapore and Israel have already used some form of mobile tracking data for contact tracing. Britain has plans for an app and the EUs data protection watchdog has called for a unionwide one that meets its strict privacy regulations.

An already extensive digital surveillance industry going into hyperdrive with COVID-19 doesnt surprise Ron Deibert.

Surveillance has become so normalized into our lives and used for so many other purposes, from marketing to security, that its a reflex, says Deibert, director of Citizen Lab, U of Ts elite cybersecurity watchdog group.

Deiberts team has counted 36 proposals for tracing apps from companies, governments or academic groups. Some especially raise red flags for Deibert: none more so than Israel-based NSO Group, which sells spyware that Citizen Lab has repeatedly linked to the targetting of dissidents, journalists and activists.

The apps gaining favour in western countries are a version of the Singapore one, which uses Bluetooth technology to register close contact with other smartphones. Apple and Google announced this week theyll ready their iPhone and Android software to host such contact tracing apps.

In Europe, a leading proponent of this type of app is a non-profit, Swiss-based group of academics called Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing. It says its app will not collect geolocation history. Proximity history that is relevant to contagion  two metres is the current best guess  is stored encrypted in individual phones, inaccessible to even the phones user. Older proximity events no longer relevant are automatically deleted.

If a person tests positive, health authorities provide a code to allow notifications to other smartphones whose proximity history puts its users at risk. They would then be told to self-isolate.

Such apps would only be effective if widely used. Amnesty International warns that an increase in state surveillance powers with such apps heightens the risk of discrimination  likely to disproportionately affect marginalized communities  while threatening privacy and freedom of association.

Deibert also warns about hacking, glitches and technical limitations that signal false contacts. He stresses that data collected in an emergency needs to be destroyed when life returns to normal.

Once emergency measures are created and extraordinary means are pursued, they very quickly can become a new normal, he warns. Its very difficult to walk them back.

In an emailed statement to the Star, the Public Health Agency of Canada said, Mobile apps can help to encourage physical distancing by empowering Canadians to modify their activities and reduce risky behaviours. They can complement other measures, such as regular handwashing and avoiding crowds.

However, any support from the federal government would be highly contingent on measures taken by developers to protect the privacy and security of users, the agency added.

Dr. Christopher Mackie, medical officer of health and CEO at Middlesex-London Health Unit, supports a mobile app with those safeguards. His unit has already developed one that helps contact tracers assess the risk level of exposure, according to criteria from Canadas public health agency.

Tracing went as smoothly as possible when the first case appeared in London in January. The Western student in her 20s had returned from Wuhan, where her parents had COVID-19 symptoms. She had none but wore a mask while flying to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Vancouver and finally Toronto.

At Pearson, she had arranged for a taxi through a Chinese-language social media site. The driver also wore a mask. She gave him her contact details, in case he developed symptoms.

At home in London, she convinced her roommate to temporarily move out as a precaution. Her boyfriend visited wearing a mask.

She woke the day after her arrival with a slight fever and cough. She called a taxi and warned the driver, who arrived wearing a mask. She gave him her contact information, walked into emergency and was immediately isolated.

Tests from Ontarios public health lab were negative. Two or three days later, different tests on her swabs by a lab from Canadas public health agency came back positive.

Nurse Sheila Montague called the student all day to give her the news but got no answer. So she suited up in protective gear and knocked on the door. The jet-lagged woman had been sleeping with her phone off.

To Montagues relief, she had self-isolated the whole time, without being advised to do so. She was one of the smartest young ladies Ive ever encountered, Montague says.

One of the things that was so frustrating for me at the time, Mackie says, was seeing all these prejudiced comments against Asian people and blaming the Chinese for this. And we were seeing the exact opposite  a person who went above and beyond to protect everyone, even more than we would have asked her as public health.

Montagues advice to the boyfriend, roommate and taxi drivers was to monitor for symptoms. She worked with hospital officials to determine if close contact occurred in the ER and found none. Passengers on her flight were considered low-risk and not contacted. Less was known at the time about asymptomatic transmission.

During two weeks of daily contacts by Montague, no one who came in close contact with the student developed COVID-19.

Montagues contact-tracing cases quickly became more complex. The last one she finished this week required daily contact for more than a dozen people who were self-isolating.

She doesnt only check for symptoms. She makes sure they have someone to buy them groceries; if not, she arranges for that. She advises on how an infected person can isolate from family. If a client is homeless, shell sometimes help search for accommodation outside of shelters.

An important principle in public health ethics is reciprocity, Mackie says. If were asking you to stay in your home for 14 days straight theres a responsibility on our side to make sure you have what you need.

More than anything, Montague tries to be reassuring.

People get quite frightened, she says. What I mostly do is let them talk about how theyre feeling. And I say, Look at all the people who have very light symptoms. Youll get through this. 

You wont get that from an app, Mackie says.

The human touch can be a really powerful tool to support people and to inspire our patients, he says. An app really isnt going to motivate you to self-isolate.

So if were going to use an app to augment what humans already do  great. But if its about trying to replace them, then I think youve got risks on the health side of things, not just the privacy side.
- Mallam Abba Kyari tested positive for coronavirus and was receiving treatment an unknown location

- He travelled to Germany during which it was suspected he may have contracted the disease

- There were reports the late was isolated at a local university where doctors monitored him

Office of the Nigerian president has announced the death of the chief of staff Mallam Abba Kyari.

The deceased had tested positive for coronavirus and was receiving treatment at an unknown location.

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He died on Friday, April 17, according to a statement by President Muhammadu Buhari's spokesperson Femi Adesina.

Adesina went on to say funeral arrangements will be announced shortly.

Kyari who hailed from Borno state was seen as the most influential personality in the presidency before his demise.

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There have been rumours that the president's right-hand man was receiving treatment somewhere in Lagos.

When asked recently, the Lagos state commissioner for health said that Kyari was recuperating and seemed well.

Im not aware of the chief of staffs itinerary, so I dont know where he is. We are exchanging information but I havent asked him for his location. He seems well and happy and we are exchanging information on strategic issues and its been a long time weve talked about his health so I presume hes made a full recovery," said the commissioner.

He had gone to Germany alongside the country's minister of power for a meeting with Siemens directors where it was suspected he contracted the disease.

Three of his personal staff also tested positive for coronavirus.

There were reports that the late was isolated centre at a local university where doctors monitored him.

He was said to have commenced treatment in the facility under the watchful eyes of doctors.

Later, new reports claimed that he was receiving treatment at a private facility in Lagos.

Kyari himself had issued a statement saying he could not wait to be back to his desk and promised to use his own funds to pay for his treatment.

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Ruth Matete is not telling the truth about her husband's death - Pastor John's manager | Tuko TV.

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Poco F2, Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite Pegged For May Launch News oi-Abhinaya Prabhu

We already know that Xiaomi is working on a toned-down variant of the Mi Note 10, which is said to be launched with the moniker Mi Note 10 Lite. The rumors regarding this smartphone are existent since later last year. And, it has already been certified by authority databases such as Thailand's NBTC.

Now, a fresh report citing information from a reliable tipster from China claims that the Mi Note 10 Lite could be launched in the European markets in May. Besides this smartphone, the tipster has also revealed that the Poco F2 could be launched sometime next month.

Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite Launch Details

While the NBTC certification is one of the sources hinting the imminent launch of the smartphone, there are others as well. The device was spotted at the FCC certification database carrying the model number M2002F4LG.

It is believed to arrive with a 6.47-inch FHD+ display with an in-display fingerprint sensor. On the hardware front, the upcoming Xiaomi smartphone is said to make use of an octa-core Snapdragon 730G chipset and a capacious 5260mAh battery with support for 30W fast charging technology.

On the imaging front, the Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite is said to feature a 16MP selfie camera. At the rear, there are claims that the smartphone will use a penta-lens camera setup comprising a 64MP primary sensor, two 8MP sensors, a 5MP sensor and a 2MP sensor.

Upcoming Poco Smartphones

Recently, we saw that the highly-anticipated Poco F2 could be launched soon with the model number M2004J11G as it was spotted on the IMEI database. Following the same, the Chinese tipster suggested that the Poco F2 is none other than the rebranded Redmi K30 Pro launched in China. The difference is that the global variant called Poco F2 will not arrive with 5G support, unlike the Chinese variant.

Furthermore, the tipster revealed that the Poco F2 is not the sole device that we can expect from the company. Another Poco smartphone is also said to be in the making and it is claimed to have model number M2003J6C1. For now, there is no word regarding the name of this smartphone but it seems to have some common aspects from the Redmi Note 9 series of smartphones.

Best Mobiles in India

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Evexia Diagnostics in Washington is contributing to the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The business will be donating 500 COVID-19 (IgM & IgG) Antibody Tests and an additional 500 COVID-19 RT-PCR Tests to New York CIty area hospitals to help with the current crisis.

Evexia is uniquely positioned to offer validated, fast, and reliable testing to help with the current crisis in NYC, and we have an obligation to help the brave men and women who are risking their lives to save others, said Dr. Kevin K. Bodling, president and CEO.

Evexia is now looking to partner with other municipalities and state governments, as well as companies, that would likely have an interest in utilizing their COVID-19 Antibody Test to test their workers.

Knowing whether someone has already had COVID-19 and may now possess immunity to the virus will be key in not only helping companies transition their employees back to work but giving companies and the government the ability to make informed, strategic decisions, Bodling said.

The COVID-19 Antibody Test offered by Evexia Diagnostics is a validated serological assay that detects 2019-nCoV IgM & IgG antibodies, which offers the expanded ability to determine current infection (IgM) as well as past infection and concomitant immunity (IgG).

The test requires a simple blood draw and results are available within 24 hours.

The COVID-19 Antibody Test has a validated sensitivity of 87.3 percent and a specificity of 100 percent, indicating no cross-reactivity with other viruses, Bodling said.

The high performance and fast turn-around time make this test ideally suited for asymptomatic individuals who may have already had SARS-CoV-2 and now possess immunity, he added.

In addition to the COVID-19 Antibody Test, Evexia Diagnostics also offers a multi-target COVID-19 RT-PCR test for detecting live virus in symptomatic individuals with a very fast 24-hour turn-around time as well as a COVID-19 PCR Stool Test for monitoring viral shedding in the GI tract following symptomatic recovery of the infection.

Based on the latest research, viral shedding can continue to occur in the stool post-recovery for up to 30-45 days, he said. Therefore, being able to monitor viral shedding will likely become a crucial diagnostic component to prevent further transmission of the virus after an individual no longer has symptoms.




Malam Abba Kyari, who is from the Kanuri tribe, was born in northeastern Borno state.

He attended primary and secondary school in Borno State, but did his first degree at the University of Warwick in England, in Sociology in 1980.

He has also completed another degree in Law at Cambridge University.

In 1983, he became a lawyer after attending the Nigerian Law School.

In 1984, he completed his law degree from the University of Cambridge.

He later attended Lausanne College of Management in Switzerland in 1992 and participated in a course on Management and Community Development at Harvard Business School in 1994.

The late Abba Kyari has worked in several fields, including the Editor of New Africa Holdings Limited Kaduna from 1988 to 1990.

In 1990, he became Commissioner for Forestry and Animal Resources of Borno State.

From 1990 to 1995, Kyari held the position of secretary of the board of directors of African International Bank Limited, a branch of the lending and commercial bank.

Kyari previously served as managing director of the United Bank for Africa, where he later served as president of the bank.

In 2002, he was appointed director of Unilever Nigeria and previously worked at Exxon Mobil Nigeria.

As the chief of staff in the Presidency, Mr. Abba Kyara has been involved in almost everything that has to do with the president.

He is the person who sets the agenda for the presidency and meets with at least 20 people a day, according to some officials in the Presidency.

A reporter with the president, who declined to be named, told the BBC that Abba Kyari had been meeting with Buhari on at least four occasions.

He is also meeting with governors, ministers and other senior government officials who want to meet with the president.

Politically, in 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed him as the chief of staff of the Presidential Palace.

The position gave him full authority over the matter, which he placed before the public, where he is alleged to have turned down the governments bribery and allegations of corruption.

For example, in September 2018, the Presidential Palace fired Mr. Abba Kyari on corruption charges.

The newspaper quoted Punch newspaper as saying that Mr Abba Kyari had received N29m bribe to give a man a contract to buy cars for the presidency.

President Buhari has repeatedly stated that no one distorts his governments credentials.

He had one wife and four children.

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(Natural News) A new study seems to show that around three percent of the Dutch population have developed antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus responsible for the current pandemic. Health officials are looking at the study as an indicator of the percentage of people living in the Netherlands, and countries with similar rates of infection, may have already had the disease  and therefore could have immunity to the virus.

Jaap van Dissel, head of the Netherlands National Institute for Health (RIVM) said that the results of the study  conducted on Dutch blood donors  could indicate that several thousand Dutch could already be immune to the coronavirus.

This study shows that about three percent of Dutch people have developed antibodies against the coronavirus, Van Dissel said.

You can calculate from that, its several hundred thousand people in a country of 17 million.

Antibodies as an indicator of immunity

Health and government officials around the world are looking at antibody testing as a possible means of determining when governments can start relaxing restrictions that theyve put up to slow the spread of the coronavirus and reopen their countries.

The U.S. has just begun conducting antibody tests  despite questions over the tests reliability. President Donald Trump, who wants to reopen the government by May 1, has himself added his voice to those who have urged the expansion of antibody testing.

The revelation that three percent of the Netherlands population has developed antibodies against the coronavirus gives some small indication of what percentage of people living in countries with similar infection rates might have developed some immunity to the disease.

As of reporting time, Johns Hopkins Universitys running tally of infections reports that 29,383 people in the Netherlands have contracted the coronavirus. This accounts for 0.17 percent of the nations population of 17.28 million.

Although the United States has a population thats more than 10 times that of the Netherlands, the infection rates of the two countries are somewhat similar with about .20 percent of the formers population having caught the virus.

Of note is the fact that the Netherlands is only testing the sickest of people and those whore on the front lines of the pandemic. Additionally, its first coronavirus case was reported a month later than when the U.S. confirmed its first patient. Both are factors that may partially account for the slight difference in infection rates.

Testing in America is inconsistent

Some work still needs to be done before similar antibody testing can be done in the United States. While at least 95 antibody tests are now available in the country, only three of these have been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration. Additionally, there is little consistency in how the tests were developed or even what antibodies they are screening for.

So far, there is no repository of data on how many people have been tested for coronavirus antibodies using these disparate tools. Neither are there any figures on how many of those who have been tested have come up positive for the antibodies.

In light of this, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that it would launch its own antibody study last week. The NIH plans to recruit 10,000 American adults who have never tested for the coronavirus to take part in the test.

This study will give us a clearer picture of the true magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States by telling us how many people in different communities have been infected without knowing it, because they had a very mild, undocumented illness or did not access testing while they were sick, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Americas top expert on the outbreak.

Its too early to know if the American population will have similar rates of immunity as the Dutch. Should that be the case, however, and three percent of Americans have some form of immunity, then that would open up the possibility for some 47 million people  three percent of the workforce  to return to work.

Question of antibody immunity

The big question hanging over all of this is that of just how much immunity antibodies provide. Only the first glimmers of data are available about immunity to SARS-CoV-2, writes epidemiologist Marc Lipswitch on the New York Times.

While antibodies do give immunity, scientists still dont know how long the antibodies hang around after an infection. Based on clinical evidence from other coronaviruses, as well as what data scientists do have on SARS-CoV-2, Lipswitch makes an educated guess, stating that antibodies will offer some protection over the medium term  at least a year  then its effectiveness might decline.

The other thing scientists still need to figure out what levels of which antibodies will be enough to neutralize the coronavirus. This is an even more important thing to find out in light of efforts to use antibody testing to determine if people can go back to work. Should the tests flag people with not enough antibodies of the right kind as immune, then they put these people at risk of catching the coronavirus.

Sources include:

DailyMail.com

Coronavirus.JHU.edu

NYTimes.com
Delta Air Lines passenger planes are seen parked due to flight reductions made to slow the spread of COVID-19, at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport in Birmingham, Ala., on March 25, 2020. (Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters)

US Airlines Sitting on $10 Billion Owed to Consumers for Canceled Flights, Lawmakers Say

U.S. airlines are estimated to be sitting on more than $10 billion in travel vouchers that should have been cash refunds from canceled flights, a group of senators released on Friday.

Many U.S. airlines are canceling between 60 percent and 80 percent of their flights, and under federal law passengers on those flights are entitled to full refunds, Senators Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and Richard Blumenthal said in a statement.

However, many airlines have been obfuscating this right by offering travel vouchers as the default option, requiring passengers to take burdensome steps to request refunds instead, they said.

The Democratic senators had asked Alaska Air Group Inc, Allegiant Air, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines Inc, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue Airways Corp, Southwest Airlines Co, Spirit Airlines Inc, Sun Country Airlines, and United Airlines to each provide details on their refund policies during the pandemic.

In the airline replies, which were reviewed by Reuters, most did not share the total value of the travel vouchers and credits they have issued during the pandemic.

But JetBlue, which has 5.5 percent of the domestic market share, said it issued over $20 million per day of travel credits to consumers in the first few weeks of March.

Assuming a similar trend throughout the industry over the last month, this figure could mean that the airlines are sitting on more than $10 billion in customer cash, the lawmakers said while inviting airlines to provide more information if they dispute the figure.

According to their findings, airlines are offering cash refunds when the company itself cancels a flight, as required by the U.S. Transportation Department. Still, only Allegiant and Spirit are offering refunds to passengers who voluntarily cancel their tickets.

None of the biggest carriers with the most revenue, including United, American, Delta, and Southwest, offer similar refunds, it said.

In their replies, the airlines generally said their policies are consistent with DOT guidelines.

Sun Country, a Minnesota-based ultra-low-cost carrier, said refunding all of its non-refundable tickets outside of DOT guidelines would put the companys future at risk.

Among replies by larger carriers, Delta said it had processed over 1 million refunds totaling more than $500 million in March, for passengers that had requested a cash refund for flights that Delta canceled or changed.

American Airlines said in its reply that over 90 percent of the customers who were offered a refund for flights the company itself canceled chose that option over a travel voucher.

If passengers do not specifically request a refund, they are issued a travel voucher. While many airlines have made the vouchers valid for up to two years, some airlines vouchers expire within one year.

U.S. airlines are soon to receive $25 billion in government payroll aid, much of it in the form of free cash. They can also apply for another $25 billion in government loans to help them weather the downturn as a result of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as the novel coronavirus.

The airline industry received its $50 billion taxpayer bailout, so the least it can do is offer full refundswithout forcing customers to jump through hoops. All passengers deserve a full cash refund during this unprecedented time, said Consumer Reports aviation adviser William McGee in a statement.

The nonprofit organization, which said it has heard from thousands of affected passengers, launched a petition on Friday for airlines to refund money to all travelers who had their flights impacted by the CCP virus crisis.

Two weeks ago, the Transportation Department reminded airlines that they are obligated to refund tickets when they cancel a flight or make a significant flight schedule change that passengers opt not to accept. However, it did not take any immediate action against airlines.

The department said, given the massive crisis, it will exercise its prosecutorial discretion and provide carriers an opportunity to become compliant before taking further action.

By Tracy Rucinski and David Shepardson
"If we disagree about that, then Id be more than welcome to sit down with anyone that wants to go over the constitution or see where our authority is derived from, Holcomb said.
Thousands of U.S. hotels have volunteered to help local authorities house doctors, nurses and other medical personnel at reduced rates - or even free - during the covid-19 pandemic.

President Donald Trump's White House has praised these efforts. But so far, none of Trump's own hotels are known to be participating.

In five U.S. cities where Trump's company operates large hotels - New York, Chicago, Miami, Washington and Honolulu - local authorities said that the Trump hotel was not involved in their efforts to provide low-cost or no-cost rooms to those fighting the virus.

"They did not volunteer, and we did not ask them," said Frank Rollason, the head of emergency management for the fire department in Miami-Dade County, Florida. That county is home to Trump's Doral resort.

Rollason said the county has rented out two hotels, and is negotiating with five more, to pay them $35 per room per night to house both first responders and homeless people during the pandemic. Rollason said some hotels have also offered to donate rooms, but Doral was not among them.

Trump's company, which the president still owns, did not respond to questions this week. It is possible that the company has offered hotel rooms to medical personnel in private transactions, without involving local officials.

The Trump Organization has no legal obligation to house medical personnel during the pandemic. If it did, it would be taking on an extra financial burden - filling its hotels with low-paying or nonpaying guests - at a time when it is already facing a huge drop-off in revenue. In all five cities, only a small fraction of local hotels are participating in these programs.

But - by staying out of these programs - Trump's company could be missing a chance to lead by example, embodying the sort of sacrifice that Trump has praised in others.

"Thank you to hotels around the country for providing healthcare workers and first responders a place to stay while they're on the front lines of the pandemic," the White House's Twitter account wrote on April 5.

That tweet exemplified the contrast between Trump's words and the Trump Organization's actions. In the tweet, the White House linked to a story about Hawaii's program - dubbed "Hotels for Heroes" - which has put medical personnel up in 33 hotels around the state.

There is a Trump hotel in Hawaii, which another company owns and pays Trump's company to operate. The Trump hotel is not part of the program, said Marisa Yamane, a spokeswoman for the Hawaii Tourism Authority. The hotel's owner did not respond to a request for comment.

The Trump hotel in Hawaii is closed, having voluntarily shut down last month - after travel limits slowed tourism to a trickle, but before the Hotels for Heroes program began. The Trump hotel told the state that it had "temporarily furloughed" 226 employees.

It's possible that Trump's company is abstaining from these programs because it is concerned about violating the Constitution's emoluments clauses, which prohibit presidents from taking payments directly from states.

But Trump has argued in legal filings that the clauses are meant to ban bribes, not business transactions. And his companies have previously charged state governments: in 2017, for instance, then-Maine Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, spent $22,000 in state money at Trump's D.C. hotel. Also, Trump's company could get around the clauses by giving away rooms free - as some other hotels have done.

These are difficult times for the Trump Organization, which operates 24 hotels and clubs around the world. Now, 18 of those properties are shut down - by choice, or by government order. The shuttered properties once produced hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue per day, according to Trump's financial disclosures. Now, some have already been closed for weeks.

So far, Trump's properties have laid off or furloughed more than 2,500 employees, according to government filing and people familiar with their operations. The largest furloughs were at Doral, Trump's biggest U.S. moneymaker.

After that resort shut down in March, to comply with county lockdown orders, 560 people were laid off, according to government filings. In those filings, Trump's club called the virus a "natural disaster' and an "unforeseen calamity."

Last month, Trump's company was barred from receiving loans or investments as part of a $2 trillion bailout program run by the Treasury Department. "Those of us who write the law shouldn't benefit from the law," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said at the time.

The pandemic has been a calamity for the entire U.S. hospitality industry. The data-analysis firm STR said this week that hotel occupancy is at 21% - down from 91% at the same time last year.

But some hotel chains have still offered up their rooms to medical personnel - seeing a chance to keep employees working and to help medical personnel self-isolate. And, perhaps, to be noticed doing a good deed. Hilton, for instance, said it has partnered with American Express to offer up to 1 million room-nights free. Marriott offered reduced rates at some of its hotels

In New York, the Four Seasons near Trump Tower first shut down for the virus, then reopened to offer 225 rooms to medical personnel.

"They need a place close to work where they can rest and regenerate," said Ty Warner, the Beanie Baby billionaire who is now owner of that Four Seasons, in a press release earlier this month. "I heard Governor [Andrew] Cuomo's call to action during one of his press conferences, and there was no other option for us but do whatever we could to help."

The American Hotel and Lodging Association has said that 15,000 U.S. hotels have offered to house medical personnel during the pandemic. The association declined to give the names of the hotels, or to say if any of Trump's properties were among them.

To see if Trump's hotels were participating, The Post reached out to the Trump Organization and to authorities in five cities that have both a Trump hotel and a hotels-for-medical personnel program (Trump also operates a small hotel in rural Virginia, far from any hospitals, and a hotel in Las Vegas, where a county spokeswoman said there is no official hotel-rooms-for-medical-personnel program).

In New York, the city government keeps a list of about 100 hotels that offer reduced rates to medical personnel. The Hotel Association keeps a list of about 50.

Trump's hotel in midtown Manhattan is still open, but not on either list.

In Chicago, the city has reserved more than 1,100 rooms at five hotels, to house both medical personnel and people with mild cases of covid-19. The city is paying rates as much as $175 per night, according to media reports, though a city spokeswoman said the rate varies from hotel to hotel.

Trump's hotel in Chicago is also open, but it is not part of the program, a city spokesman said. The hotel recently reported laying off 294 workers, according to state filings.

In Washington, D.C., the city is using three hotels to house medical workers, according to a city official. Trump's hotel is not among the three, the city official said.

That Trump hotel is also still open, but it has laid off 237 workers.

All three of these Trump hotels have not dropped their prices significantly, despite the pandemic. On their websites Thursday, the cheapest rooms available for the next night cost $267 at Trump Chicago, $316 at Trump Washington, and $525 at Trump's hotel in New York.

- - -

The Washington Post's Jonathan O'Connell contributed to this report.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh chaired a meeting of senior Union ministers at his residence on Saturday to discuss the coronavirus pandemic and how best the ministries can help people in the present situation.

There is a nationwide lockdown in place till May 3 to combat the spread of the deadly coronavirus disease.

All senior ministers were seen wearing masks. Among those present were Smriti Irani, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Prakash Javadekar, Ram Vilas Paswan, among others.

Interacted with the GoM on the COVID-19 situation. We discussed ways to mitigate the hardships faced by the people and the role ministries can play in providing relief to people, tweeted the minister.

Singh said the guidelines to allow limited activities post April 20 and the measures announced by the Reserve Bank of India on Friday were also appreciated at the meeting.

Yesterday, the RBI cut the reverse repo rate by 25 basis points  from 4% to 3.75%  encouraging banks to deploy surplus funds and lend more, a move that will in turn result in cash in the hands of the borrower.

According to the Union governments guidelines, starting April 20, key parts of the economy, including agriculture, logistics, infrastructure, e-commerce and factories located outside urban limits, will resume operations in areas with no infections -- what the health ministry calls green zones.

Evidence available with scientists suggests there has been no mutation in the three known strains of the coronavirus that is causing the Covid-19 outbreak in India, government officials said on Friday, even as they claimed that the steps taken by authorities have helped the country slow the doubling rate of the infection to 6.2 days from three days before the announcement of a nationwide lockdown last month.

According to the ministry, there have been 13,387 Covid-19 cases in India till April 17 with 1,749 recoveries and 452 fatalities.

Separately on Friday, a group of ministers, headed by Union health minister Harsh Vardhan, discussed how the implementation of lockdown measures can be improved, especially in areas reporting more Covid-19 cases. The group also discussed how areas such as diagnostics, vaccine development, drugs and hospital facilities can be strengthened for Covid-19 prevention and management.
A former Oklahoma zookeeper who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for a murder-for-hire plot and federal wildlife violations has been granted an extra month to argue why his lawsuit challenging the convictions shouldnt be dismissed.

Joseph Maldonado-Passage, also known as Joe Exotic, filed a federal lawsuit last month against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Department of the

A federal judge decided to recommend dismissing his lawsuit and provided an April 28 deadline for objection filing.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Scott Palk extended that deadline to May 28 after Maldonado-Passage provided a handwritten letter requesting at least 30 days to respond, The Oklahoman

In the letter, Maldonado-Passage writes that hes being isolated at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, with (no access to a computer, phone, email or library).

A jury last April

The former zookeeper, who maintains his innocence, was also sentenced for killing five tigers, selling tiger cubs and falsifying wildlife records.

Maldonado-Passage is prominently featured in the recently released Netflix documentary Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti develops CARES CORPS that will have an immediate impact on Los Angeles Recovery from COVID-19

Friday, April 17. Mayor Eric Garcettis office announced the development of CARES Corps. This will be a federally funded initiative to be a stronger national response to COVID-19. The Mayor of Los Angeles joined the Mayor of Oklahoma City, David Holt and founding director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, Mark McClellan to outline a brand new infrastructure. The CARES Corps is an alliance of the national government, local public officials, and healthcare professionals that are under federal leadership and funding. Within the CARES Corps there are three core factors that it will focus on healthcare, economy, and the unity of Government Officials.

The program is looking to work as the long-term economic solution, since coronavirus has damaged the delicate balance of the national economy. CARES Corps are built on six pillars: testing, real-time surveillance, rapid response to new cases, hospital capacity, blood testing, and ongoing research. Much like the pillars Mayor Garcetti outlined April 15. The CARES initiative is looking to create an immediate difference. It is a fusion of federal leadership, public health, and local government. This is looking to assist with preventing reduction in resources for all Americans when there is high demand on every scale.

CARES Corps. Is looking to be a bridge between government and local businesses, by providing job training, loan programs, and unemployment insurance. A priority of this program is to match solutions to the need of every community. The CARES Corps initiative will be doing frontline activities such as attaining food supply, health safety, and medical necessities. Other actions under this initiative includes childcare, assistance for the elderly, and expanding more care towards families and people with disability.

As of Friday, April 17. Eric Garcetti summarized the current COVID-19 statistics surrounding Los Angeles. There were 40 additional deaths confirmed on Friday, this brings the total coronavirus related deaths in the L.A. County to 495. There were 567 new COVID-19 incidents reported April 17. In summary, there is a total amount of 11,391 coronavirus cases in the Los Angeles region. Its been four full weeks that the Stay At Home Order has been initiated. While deaths are doubling, there are alleged stories of people fraying away from the social distancing guidelines, Mayor Garcetti ensured that thats not what Los Angeles is seeing.

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Mayor Garcetti advised that those who are showing even the slightest symptoms, should get tested for coronavirus. The Los Angeles Mayor acknowledge the growth in the citys testing system, last week we had 19 testing systems. Presently, there are 30 testing sites available. A collaboration was built between the L.A. Unified Coordination Group, Los Angeles public officials, local political board offices, and the Fire Department Incident Management team, along with healthcare stake holders across the L.A. region. By the end of Friday, 67,000 Angelenos will be tested for coronavirus; thats double the amount that were tested last Friday.

The Los Angeles Mayor acknowledged the severe impact COVID-19 has on working families and the unsheltered. Eric Garcetti disclosed an initiative for affordable housing extensions; all housing deadlines will be extended. This will prevent the loss of funding for all affordable housing projects. Mayor Eric mentioned there will be more street assistance and professional medical personnel available to service Angelenos that are unsheltered. Testing will be immediately available for those vulnerable to the elements. There are use of trailers for those that are in the tier one bracket of being most vulnerable and unsheltered. Dozens of negotiations are happening between the L.A. County and hotels and motels, to join the project Room and Key. under that initiative; more beds will become available.

There are plenty of resources for people who had their job impacted as well. Critical roles within food delivery, grocery stores, and medical staffing are all looking for qualified workers. Applicants for the Angeleno Cards will be getting more information regarding the time they will receive their cards. It will be financial assistance to those who were able to be a part of this batch receiving the prepaid debit card. There will be more information about the next round of Angeleno Cards that will be available. The County of Los Angeles continue to develop the best strategies to progress to a state of recovery.
Casper's mayor pleaded with residents to "do the right thing" and stay home if they believe they've been exposed to the novel coronavirus.

YouTube/City of Casper, Wyoming

A Wyoming health care worker attended two parties while awaiting coronavirus test results, officials said.

The worker was tested last Friday, then went to a party that night and a second one the next night, then received a positive COVID-19 test result on Monday, Casper Mayor Steve Freel told reporters.

Now, the partygoers have been told to quarantine, but it's unclear how many people were there or whether any have been tested or shown symptoms.

Freel said the most disturbing part was a Facebook video from one of the parties, where attendees were "flat-out thumbing their noses" at the coronavirus threat.

He pleaded with residents to "do the right thing" if they believe they've been exposed to the virus and stay home.

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A Wyoming health care worker exposed to the novel coronavirus and awaiting test results went to two house parties before receiving a positive diagnosis, Casper Mayor Steve Freel announced Wednesday.

The worker, whose identity has not been released, got tested last Friday after being exposed to the coronavirus by a roommate who was also a health care worker at the Wyoming Behavioral Institute, Freel said. The facility has been linked to a cluster of at least 22 COVID-19 cases, according to The Casper Star Tribune.

After the worker's test last Friday, the person then attended a party that same night and a second party the night after. The worker received positive test results on Monday, Freel said.

Now, health officials are scrambling to track down the partygoers and quarantine them. A health department spokeswoman told The Casper Star-Tribune it's unknown how many people were at the party, and officials are still following up to see whether any have been tested or shown symptoms.

Freel said what disturbed him the most about the incident was a video of one of the parties which was uploaded to Facebook.

Story continues

"The individuals at these parties that we're talking about are flat-out thumbing their noses at the fact that this is not serious to them," Freel said at a press briefing.

"We've been preaching this for the last how many weeks now? That you have got to take this serious," Freel said. "And for people to say it's not a serious thing, I would ask you to ask the people who just attended a party  tell me how serious it is now."

Casper's mayor pleaded with residents to 'do what's right' if they think they've been exposed

Public health experts have urged those awaiting coronavirus test results to self-quarantine in the meantime, so as not to potentially expose others to the virus.

The Wyoming worker is not the first to disobey that warning  a New Hampshire medical worker similarly attended a crowded mixer while he was waiting for coronavirus test results early last month, and a Missouri family attended a school dinner-dance with hundreds of other students and parents while their quarantined daughter awaited test results.

Wyoming, the least populated states in the country, has reported 296 coronavirus cases so far and two deaths, according to a New York Times database. The state's first case was reported March 11.

In this Aug. 28, 2016 file photo visitors watch the morning sun illuminate the Grand Tetons from within the Great Room at the Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park north of Jackson, Wyo.

Associated Press/Brennan Linsley

The state is one that hasn't yet issued a broad stay-at-home order to reduce transmission, though Gov. Mark Gordon ordered schools and non-essential businesses closed and banned gatherings of 10 people or more in a single room.

At the end of his press briefing on Wednesday, Freel acknowledged that he "probably" seemed frustrated.

"All I can do is sit here and plead with you that if you, in fact, think you've been exposed or you find yourself in that situation, do what's right. Quarantine, don't be around others until you know you're safe enough to go out in public," he said. "Follow advice and follow the orders."

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A Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket with a payload of approximately 60 satellites for SpaceX's Starlink broadband network lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on March 18, 2020. (John Raoux/AP Photo)

FCC Chairman Backs L-Band Spectrum for 5G After Decade of Pushback From Pentagon

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai circulated a draft order on Thursday asking the five-member panel to approve Ligado Networks Companys request to deploy a low-power nationwide network to support next-generation 5G wireless.

We have compiled an extensive record, which confirms that it is in the public interest to grant Ligados application while imposing stringent conditions to prevent harmful interference, Pai said in a statement (pdf). The draft order that I have presented to my colleagues would make more efficient use of underused spectrum and promote the deployment of 5G and Internet of Things services.

The low-power terrestrial bands, also known as L-band, refers to the radio spectrum in the range from 1 to 2 GHz. Satellites using the L-band spectrum are considered essential for the fast nationwide deployment of 5G networks and development of the related Internet of Things (IoT) service because of their potential to overcome the shortcomings of 5G towers, which can be easily blocked by buildings, trees, and other establishments.

According to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (pdf) in February 2020, IoT is a collection of electronic devices that can share information among themselves without necessarily requiring human-to-machine interaction. Examples include smart factories, smart home devices, medical monitoring devices, wearable fitness trackers, smart city infrastructure, and vehicular telematics.

The Federal Communications Commission building in Washington, on June 19, 2015. (Andrew Harnik/AP Photo/File)

The terrestrial bands Ligado applied for include 1526-1536 MHz, 1627.5-1637.5 MHz, and 1646.5-1656.5 MHz, the FCC said in the draft order.

Ligados application has been objected strongly by the Department of Defense for a decade.

We have very strong technical evidence that would suggest that moving forward with that proposal would cause harm to the adjacent GPS (Global Positioning System) spectrum, Dana Deasy, the chief information officer of the Pentagon, said during a press conference. Therefore, we continue to believe its in the best interestand I believe I can say this on behalf of all the agenciesits in the interest of the government not to pursue the Ligado licensing requirement.

The Pentagon is not the only agency that pushed back on the draft order.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, also said in a filing (pdf) that theyre unable to recommend the FCCs approval on behalf of the executive branch.

A coalition consisting of Delta Airlines, FedEx, JetBlue, Lockheed Martin Corporation, and other 28 parties (pdf) also raised objection to the draft order.

However, the FCC said that the draft order would ensure that adjacent band operations, including GPS, are protected from harmful interference.

Key to Fend Off Chinas Dominance in 5G: Barr

Ligado said in a statement that the potential FCC approval will improve mobile 5G coverage indoors and outdoors and accelerate the deployment of 5G networks.

The company said it is committed to protecting GPS after its application is approved.

Ligado is committed to the twin goals of protecting GPS while delivering highly secure and ultra-reliable communications to accelerate next-generation technologies and the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT), the company stated.

Attorney General William Barr, a former telecom executive, said in a statement that the draft order is strategically important.

This is essential if we are to keep our economic and technological leadership and avoid forfeiting it to Communist China, he said in a statement. Freeing up L-band spectrum for use in tandem with the C-band, as the Chairman proposes, should greatly reduce the cost and time it will take to deploy 5G throughout the country and would be a major step toward preserving our economic future. I hope the full Commission moves forward quickly.

Barr chairs an interagency committee that advises the FCC on national security and law enforcement concerns related to certain license applications by companies under foreign ownership or control. The committee, known as Team Telecom, has existed for years and was formally established by President Donald Trump on April 4 in an executive order.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shared concerns similar to Barrs. Last year, he warned European countries that the Chinese Communist Party can use Huawei and ZTE, two main 5G companies, to steal private or proprietary information.

Reuters contributed to the report
EPA

A single mother fearing judgement for taking her five-year-old daughter shopping with her during the coronavirus pandemic has come up with a creative solution to avoid criticism from strangers.

In an attempt to make people aware of her reasons for taking her daughter shopping, MaryAnn Fausey Resendez shared a photo of her daughter with a sign on her back explaining her situation to strangers.

I am only five, the sign reads. I cant stay home alone so I have to buy groceries with mommy Before you start judging stay back 6 feet.

In the post on Facebook on April 9, the Texas mother explained that she felt people would judge her for bringing her daughter outside the house during the pandemic and might criticise her on social media.

The sign I made her wear cuz I just know some dumba** will take a picture & talk s**t on social media not knowing all the facts, the tattoo artist wrote.

Many supermarkets across the country are implementing measures that limit how many people from one household should be shopping at one time.

The image also showed the five-year-old wearing a protective mask that had been tightened to fit around her face properly with a piece of material, according to Ms Resendez.

The post has been shared over 43,500 times as of Friday, and many parents are sympathising with the single mothers dilemma.

I have to do this with my 6-year-old son. Im glad Im not alone. It had momma feeling really really bad! one commenter wrote.

No judgment! I am a mother and understand! 100% Support you, another said.

In another post, Ms Resendez outlined the 14 step routine she undertakes when they both leave the house.

The steps involved wiping down the shopping cart and sterilising items bought from the store.

Ms Resendez also wrote that the pair limit contact with others and only touch what you need to.

Read more

How to help the elderly and vulnerable during the coronavirus

How to feel less anxious about the coronavirus

Story continues

How to be productive when working from home during coronavirus

Which countries around the world has coronavirus spread to?

The dirty truth about washing your hands
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gives a press briefing about the CCP virus crisis in Albany, New York, on April 17, 2020. (Matthew Cavanaugh/Getty Images)

Cuomo Blunders Big by Tying NY Recovery to CCP Apologists at McKinsey

Commentary

The headline in The Hill screams, New York state hires McKinsey to create science-based, Trump-proof plan for the safe economic reopening.

Okay, we live in an era where propaganda dominates our media to an almost unprecedented degree, but this is beyond the proverbial pale and headed for Alpha Centauri.

The consulting firm McKinsey? Whose science are we talking about here? That of the Wuhan Institute of Virologythe laboratory, consensus now accepts, from whence the pandemic that destroyed the health and economies of nearly the entire globe emanated? It would seem so.

To put it bluntly, McKinsey & Co., the giant U.S. consulting firm with 127 offices worldwide and some 27,000 employees, has been in bed with communist China for decades.

But dont believe me. Believe the unstintingly liberal New York Times, which did an extensive expose of the company in 2018, titled How McKinsey Has Raised the Stature of Totalitarian Governments:

This years McKinsey & Company retreat in China was one to remember.

Hundreds of the companys consultants frolicked in the desert, riding camels over sand dunes and mingling in tents linked by red carpets. Meetings took place in a cavernous banquet hall that resembled a sultans ornate court, with a sign overhead to capture the mood.

I cant keep calm, I work at McKinsey & Company, it said.

Especially remarkable was the location: Kashgar, the ancient Silk Road city in Chinas Far West that is experiencing a major humanitarian crisis.

About four miles from where the McKinsey consultants discussed their work, which includes advising some of Chinas most important state-owned companies, a sprawling internment camp had sprung up to hold thousands of ethnic Uighurspart of a vast archipelago of indoctrination camps where the Chinese government has locked up as many as one million people.

Belt and Road

While the repulsiveness of this frolicking near concentration camps is bad enough, the companys actual activities in and for the Peoples Republic of China are even worse.

McKinsey advises a good swath of Chinas state-owned companies, including those building the artificial islands in the South China Sea that the United States and much of the West, not to mention the World Bank, holds to be illegal. These islands are an integral part of the escalating Chinese military threat.

McKinsey has also been deeply involved with Chinas Belt and Road Initiative, a program that many see as the linchpin of communist imperialist expansionism. The company has reassured Third World countries about Chinas benign intentions with this project in places as far-flung as Malaysia only to find themselves embroiled in corruption scandals, according to the Times.

Domestically, McKinsey, quite recently (November 2019), has also been dealing with a criminal inquiry over bankruptcy case conduct. McKinsey has denied wrongdoing.

Globalism

But even more troubling than the degree to which the company is alleged to have skirted the edges of the law is its formative, and in some ways decisive, role in a once-accepted concept that has lately come under tremendous scrutiny because of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) behaviorglobalism.

In a Tablet articleThe Coronavirus Didnt Cause This Crisis by Itself. McKinsey Helped Michael Lind wrote:

If we ignore our ritual partisan debates and try to be as objective as possible, I think we can agree that the pandemic has exposed two weaknesses in contemporary American society: the loss of critical manufacturing capabilities and the decline of the one-earner family.

The loss of manufacturing capacity means that the U.S. is forced to import from China and other countries essential products that it used to make inside its own borders: many drugs and their chemical precursors, large supplies of ventilators and safety masks, and so on.

This loss of manufacturing capacity stems from the concept of unbundlingsometimes known as off-shoringthat originated with McKinsey (plus some others of similar bent) decades ago.

They opposed the vertical integration of U.S. companies such as GM and IBM that generated all aspects of their products and suggested menial tasks (in essence, actual manufacturing) be sent abroad where it could be done more cheaply. McKinsey (and those others) are responsible for the situation we are in now.

In McKinseys defense, believing that enriching China was the road to its democratization was a common belief for many years accepted by several administrations of both parties (actually, it may have been an excuse for good old-fashioned greed). But that belief has been shattered by recent events as we all sit locked in our apartments and houses, the Peoples Republic of China having again shown its Maoist totalitarian roots.

(Of course, we could have seen the handwriting on the wall in 1989, when the tanks of Tiananmen ran over the demonstrators, but the lure of mammon proved to be too great then, too.)

Biden Connections

So why would Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in the attempt to make New York states recovery Trump-proof (if we are to believe The Hill), choose McKinsey of all companies to lead the reconstruction?

Does the governor want to resurrect McKinseys brand of globalism, which means more appeasement of the Peoples Republic of China, which caused the pandemic in the first place?

After all this, does he want to hold our supply chain (from antibiotics to face masks) hostage to despots?

I hope not. But I admit Im flummoxed here. Cuomo would seem to be an intelligent man. He reads The New York Times, doesnt he?

But there is one possible clue discoverable on LinkedIn. The deputy general counsel/head of public affairs for McKinsey is Louisa Terrell, which apparently isnt well known because Terrells post at McKinsey is quite new (November 2019). Before then, she was the executive director of the Biden Foundation, and was also a senior visiting faculty at the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware.

I realize this can be construed as guilt-by-association, and in a sense, it is. But its interesting that one of the great vulnerabilities that Joe Biden hasand that Cuomo is beginning to demonstratein the coming election is Bidens, shall we say, overly friendly relationship with the Peoples Republic of China.

Charles Lifsonan emeritus professor from the University of Chicagowrites of this problem in The More Anger at China, the Worse for Biden on Real Clear Politics on April 17. As Lifson points out, during a 2019 campaign stop in Iowa, the former vice president declared:

China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man. They cant even figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the West. They cant figure out how theyre going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. Theyre not bad folks, folks.  Theyre not competition for us.

Given Bidens sons association with the Bank of China, this cant be ascribed merely to being addle-brained. The Democrats, in general, are going to have to face up to their relationships with the Peoples Republic. (Michael Bloomberg, if hes really a Democrat, is in deeper than anyone.)

They all, including Biden, are going to have to learn to separate from the PRC if they hope to win in November.

Cuomos choice of McKinsey to solve New Yorks economic problems isnt going to help. Its certainly not too late to reconsider. But if the governor doesnt, he can expect a lot of questions. Not only that, he will be betraying not only his state, but his country. And he will indeed be complicit in raising the stature of a totalitarian government.

Roger L. Simonthe Epoch Times senior political columnistis the co-founder of PJ Media. He is also an award-winning novelist and an Oscar-nominated screenwriter. His most recent book is The GOAT.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The draft legislation, which passed the Senate  a deliberative body  without any amendments, would allow for the curbing of fundamental freedoms of movement, expression, association, and assembly  all enshrined in the Cambodian Constitution  and has been widely criticized by rights groups.

Senate spokesperson and Senator Mam Bunneang said the draft was passed by 54 of the 62 senators in the upper house, without any changes. Eight senators were absent.

He added that critics were looking at the law from a political viewpoint, rather than a national security perspective.

They think about politics too much. If we think about the legality, the law is very democratic, he said.

The law now heads to the Constitutional Council after which it will be signed into law, likely by acting Head of State and Senate President Say Chhum, in the absence of King Norodom Sihamoni.

During the Senate, newly-appointed Justice Minister Koeut Rith defended the draft, calling the law very necessary and needed for the country.

The law is not enacted to restrict peoples rights and freedom, but the law is enacted to help the nation in the state of emergency, he said.

Koeut Rith called anyone who criticized the law not a friend of Cambodia, while still touting his intent to protect rights, including freedom of expression.

But Rhona Smith, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, said in a statement on Friday that the law endangers human rights including the right to privacy, free speech and criminalized peaceful assembly.

The broadly worded language on the protection of national security and public order, ostensibly aimed at addressing COVID-19, can potentially be used to infringe on the right to privacy and unnecessarily restrict freedoms of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, read the statement.

The law should be more focused on addressing public health needs while also protecting fundamental freedoms, added Rhona Smith.

The hastily-drafted legislation is based on Article 22 of the Constitution that enables the King to declare a state of emergency, after reaching consensus with the Prime Minister and Presidents of the Senate and National Assembly.

The draft law allows for a state of emergency to be declared in multiple scenarios, ranging from national security situations such as war or foreign invasion to public health concerns such as pandemics and severe calamity. It additionally allows for this law to be used during the vaguely-worded scenario of severe chaos to national security and social order.

The draft has not been placed for any kind of public consultation with international stakeholders, civil society groups and NGOs.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-19 06:32:31|Editor: huaxia

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LOS ANGELES, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron, also known as the Thunderbirds, performed a flyover on Saturday in the western state of Colorado to salute the frontline COVID-19 responders.

The F-16 aircraft of the Thunderbirds started at noon in Greeley and wound south to Pueblo over what is estimated to be a one-hour flyover, according to the flight path announced by the Air Demonstration Squadron.

Local television showed that six F-16 Fighting Falcons in formation, with two others trailing, flew over Fort Collins and other cities in the Centennial State.

The Thunderbirds reminded that local residents should observe the flyover from the safety of their home-quarantine and should maintain social distancing and avoid gatherings amid the pandemic.

"Our team is honored to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the countless Coloradans working every day to support their communities during this difficult time in our nation," said Lt. Col. John Caldwell, Thunderbirds commander and leader, in a statement posted on the Air Demonstration Squadron's official website.

"We want Coloradans to look up from their homes and enjoy the display of American resolve and pride while keeping frontline responders in their hearts," he added.

The Thunderbirds also soared across the Las Vegas skies last Saturday to honor the frontline COVID-19 responders. Enditem
Guenther Steiner expects the 2020 Formula 1 season to start in three months. According to the Haas F1 team boss, the chance of an Austrian Grand Prix at the beginning of July is definitely there. Moreover, he expects that spectators will be admitted to race weekends in due course this year.

"Promised is not quite the right word", says Steiner when asked by presenter Rob Kamphues, or at the video conference with the Formula 1 team bosses by Liberty Media and the FOM, Liberty Media and FOM promised that it would be possible to race again soon. "I think good progress is being made, although there are still some things that need to be arranged. There is a good expectation that we will be able to drive in Austria at the beginning of July. The number of infections is decreasing there and Red Bull manages the circuit, so that makes it easier".

More clarity within three weeks

In the Formula 1 cafe the Italian has high hopes that in three months time we will be able to start again in the king's class of motorsport. "I think it is going to happen, but there are still some problems to be solved. For example, in terms of safety you have to make sure that everyone who is there is healthy. Formula 1 is working on that and if they have arranged that, they can hopefully announce it officially sometime in the next two or three weeks", is the expectation of the chief.

Through the broadcasts of the Netflix documentary Drive to Survive the team boss has become a very well-known person in the Netherlands. "I haven't been to Holland for a long time and I was looking forward to returning to Zandvoort. But no, I still haven't seen the episode. I don't like looking at myself."

Steiner is expecting five GPs before September

Steiner doesn't think the entire Formula 1 season will go on without an audience. "For some races I see that happen, but not the whole year. Where do all Max fans have to go then?", he wonders winkingly. "I think we'll have two Grands Prix in July, three in August maybe. Then we have a good start and maybe we can go to Asia because they will have the virus under control there", he concludes.
LONDON  A nationwide lockdown didnt stop Britains National Youth Orchestra from making music  alone but together.

With the country in its fourth week of isolation to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, the collection of teenage musicians from across the U.K. can't meet in person the way they usually do during school holidays.

Instead, the orchestras 164 musicians opened their windows or stood on their doorsteps to play 40 seconds of Beethovens Ode to Joy at 5 p.m. on Friday.

Members of the public across Britain joined in on myriad instruments  from violin and viola to saxophone, trombone and tuba  and posted footage of their performances on social media using the hashtag #NYOdetoJoy. In London, Anglican vicar Jeremy Fletcher gave his rendition on an electric guitar.

The performance was dedicated to health care staff, other essential workers and anyone who feels isolated in their home.

#NYOdetoJoy @NYO_GB Its only an hour away!!! At 5pm this evening (Friday 17th) every musician in the country is coming together to perform the Ode To Joy from Beethovens Symphony no.9 . Throw open your windows and doors and join in!!! https://t.co/Sbzn1I930f pic.twitter.com/tWjOmAnGeT  Ruby H (@rubyerinnn) April 17, 2020

Violinist Kynan Walker, the 18-year-old orchestra leader, said the performance was intended as "a nationwide gesture of gratitude."

Beethoven wanted this music to be a completely new innovation for classical music, but also a message to society in terms of uniting, and this overwhelming sense of joy, he said. So its been great for us to prepare something that seems so relevant to today  especially in the circumstances that were in right now.
The experience of the lockdown has been mixed. While its extension was warranted to arrest the spread of Covid-19, now it needs to be executed with lessons learnt in the last few weeks. It is fine for the law enforcing authorities to be strict, but peoples problems too need to be resolved with sincerity.

It is not easy to sit at home, even though one retired as a Colonel from the Army years ago. Inactivity and lack of outdoor exercise take their toll. Think of those who have been laid off, lost their jobs, and those whose salaries have been slashed by over 30%. Most of all, the heart goes out to the millions of daily wagers in the country who are without work today. Most of them are without a roof over their heads, at the mercy of others for food and shelter. Where is their dignity and self-respect? They are missing their families and parents, possibly living hundreds of kilometers away, who could also be suffering .

That is why many of them are protesting, earlier at Surat, and now in Mumbais Bandra. They want to go home to be with their families, and old parents, to look after them. Their anxiety is understandable.

Taking care of daily wagers

This is why I feel the lockdown should be imposed carefully. It should be humane. These daily wagers should have been taken care of in a much better way. Most of them have migrated to the metropolises from smaller towns and villages. They do not have ration cards where they work, so they are deprived of government welfare schemes like free ration or monetary help.

The Delhi government made a sincere effort to house them centrally at a number of facilities, giving them regular food. Kerala also looked after its people well, and arrested the infection. Why couldnt Maharashtra do it? Why were these poor people sleeping on the bridge/open areas without regular food or water?

The rich and the advantaged are the ones who have brought coronavirus to India from abroad because of which the poor are getting infected.

Yes, these are the disadvantaged communities that have helped the rich become wealthier by building their properties and working in their industries.

Arent they then entitled to a dignified life?

From canvassing to door-to-door feeding

Remember election time, when every MP and MLA candidate makes it a point to visit each poor mans house with folded hands for votes? The whole party machinery is activated, with cadres and local leaders reaching out to each and every family in their constituency, making tall promises for their welfare. Now, in a lockdown, with the poor going hungry, where are those leaders? Why cant they visit each house now with the same gusto and ensure the welfare of their people? Why cant they ensure that a basic minimum amount is given even to those who do not possess the ration card of the place they work in? Why cant they reach out to the families of the migrants in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar and assure them that their sons and daughters are in safe hands?

Yes, the government has to do more. It has to ensure the mental and physical health of people, particularly of the migrants and daily wagers. It is not the iron hand, but a warm heart which will make the extended lockdown a success.

We the people also need to be responsible citizens. Let each one of us adopt a poor family in our lane, street, locality, and take care of them during the lockdown. Lets share our blessings and emerge as better persons. The nation then is bound to win.

The writer is a star blood donor, and at present the convenor, INTACH, Ambala Chapter. Views expressed are personal.
PARIS (Reuters) - France said on Friday there was no evidence so far of a link between the new coronavirus and the work of the P4 research laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the current pandemic started. 'We would like to make it clear that there is to this day no factual evidence corroborating the information recently circulating in the United States press that establishes a link between the origins of COVID-19 and the work of the P4 laboratory of Wuhan, China,' an official at President Emmanuel Macron's office said. The broad scientific consensus holds that SARS-CoV-2, the official name of the coronavirus, originated in bats.

PARIS (Reuters) - France said on Friday there was no evidence so far of a link between the new coronavirus and the work of the P4 research laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the current pandemic started.

"We would like to make it clear that there is to this day no factual evidence corroborating the information recently circulating in the United States press that establishes a link between the origins of COVID-19 and the work of the P4 laboratory of Wuhan, China," an official at President Emmanuel Macron's office said.

The broad scientific consensus holds that SARS-CoV-2, the official name of the coronavirus, originated in bats.

In 2004, France signed an agreement with China to establish a research lab on infectious diseases of biosafety level 4, the highest level, in Wuhan, according to a French decree signed by then-foreign minister Michel Barnier.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday his government was trying to determine whether the coronavirus emanated from a lab in Wuhan, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Beijing "needs to come clean" on what they know.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that U.S. intelligence indicates that the coronavirus likely occurred naturally, as opposed to being created in a laboratory in China, but there is no certainty either way.

The Washington Post said this week that national security officials in the Trump administration have long suspected research facilities in Wuhan to be the source of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

As far back as February, the Chinese state-backed Wuhan Institute of Virology dismissed rumours that the virus may have been artificially synthesized at one of its laboratories or perhaps escaped from such a facility.

(Reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Earlier in the outbreak, many countries looked at anonymized GPS data to assess how well their lockdown orders were working and how many people were still moving around. But policymakers and engineers like Bluetooth for contact-tracing, because it is more accurate than GPS in dense urban settings  even though it doesnt pick up certain kinds of indirect contact, such as when someone with covid-19 sneezes in an elevator, then leaves, and another person enters minutes later, potentially facing exposure. Bluetooth also has an advantage in that it doesnt require the sorts of centralized databases that privacy advocates fear would be prone to abuse.
Before the coronavirus lockdown was implemented last month, actor Kriti Sanon had been shooting for her next film, Mimi in Rajasthan. She had reportedly put on 15 kilos for her role as a surrogate mother. Now, in an interview to Bollywood Hungama, Kriti has revealed how her fans had loved her fuller avatar and had begun calling her chubby Sanon.

In the video, a fans note (read by the host) to the actor asked her to consider retaining her 15 kgs plus look. Amused at the suggestion, Kriti mentioned I have gotten this comment a lot. Its really funny that my fans have started calling me chubby Sanon. Its too funny. Its really cute and I like the nickname also. However, the actor said she would not be able to do so and joked how she would never be able to do Aao Kabhi Haveli Pe (her hit song from Stree) if she did. She, however, said that she was open to the idea of retaining 5 kilos.

Another fan asked about her experience of gaining weight in a limited period of time. Kriti mentioned her team initially thought she would not be able to do it. As her metabolism is high; the idea of gaining 15 kilos seemed like an uphill task. It was something that actually my whole team thought I wont be able to do. My body type is such that my metabolism is high.

For the makers, the initial target was 10 kilos but, given her height, even after gaining 7 kilos, it didnt show on her. Thats when her director Laxman Utekar asked her to gain 15 kilos. Initial target was 10 kilos and when I gained about 7, they realised that I am tall and it doesnt show as much. Thats when my director Laxman sir told me that I think you will have to gain weight to 15 for it to show on your face and on the screen.

Also read: Salman Khan sneaks up on Iulia Vantur at chat session, see her embarrassed reaction in new video

Speaking about working in Mimi, Kriti had earlier told IANS in an interview, how it had been a journey of self discovery for her as an actor. I had a really nice experience shooting for the film. In fact, I feel this is one of the most besautiful scripts I have read. Sometimes, it happens that certain scenes of a film look really good on paper but you are not able to execute them when you are shooting, and vice versa. But in this film that wasnt the case.

Directed by Laxman Utekar, Mimi is a remake of the National Award-winning 2011 Marathi film Mala Aai Vhhaychay!. Kriti stars in the film in the lead role of a surrogate mother alongside Pankaj Tripathi, Manoj Pahwa, Supriya Pathak and Sai Tamhankar.

(With IANS inputs)

Follow @htshowbiz for more
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Three people are in custody following an early morning standoff that happened after a shooting. Police responded to the area of 25th and Agnes on a shooting call around 4:00 am. When they arrived, they found a male shooting victim outside who was taken to the hospital in critical condition.
The hardest part, for Ellen, is the shock of what happened, the coming to terms with the fact the girl she knew with the bright smile is gone.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 18/4/2020 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

The hardest part, for Ellen, is the shock of what happened, the coming to terms with the fact the girl she knew with the bright smile is gone.

The next hardest thing is the comments about how she died, written by people who never knew Eishia Hudson in life, comments that are almost uniformly angry and brutal.

SUPPLIED Eishia Hudson is remembered by a mentor as a teen with a bright smile and goals for the future.

On social media, people thanked police officers for shooting the 16-year-old girl: "good kill for WPS," one person wrote. "Good riddance," wrote multiple others. "Another one bites the dust." Some called her a "thug," a "criminal dirtbag" and "a piece of s--t" who "should have been slow tortured."

These are agony to someone who cared about Eishia. Ellen can hardly bring herself to read them. She knows the circumstances around the teens death, how she was shot by police while behind the wheel of a stolen SUV fleeing the scene of a liquor store robbery, an incident now under review by the Independent Investigation Unit, Manitobas police watchdog.

But unlike the commenters, Ellen knew Eishia as so much more than that: as the girl who cherished her baby nieces and nephews. The one who volunteered to help clean classrooms after school, wiping down tables and picking trash off the floor. The bright girl who kept trying, even when circumstances in her life made that challenging.

"Im not making excuses," Ellen says. "She chose to do what she did and unfortunately it cost her her life. And its sad. It hits home.... Everybody has a story. Unless youve read it from beginning to end you have no room to judge. Nobody knows everything this girl went through."

JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS FILES Family and friends gathered for a memorial where Hudson was killed at the corner of Lagimodiere and Fermor.

For years, Ellen  not her real name; she asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of her work  was one of Eishias mentors. They kept in touch as the girl grew older, and right up until days before she was killed, Eishia would often message Ellen on Facebook to talk about her family, her life and her goals for the future.

The teen had many such goals. She had written her resume and was excited to show it to Ellen. Shed done well on an algebra test, and was proud of how well she understood the material. She was eager to finish high school, and hoped to someday move out on her own: "I can graduate next year if I try," she wrote in one recent message.

"It hurts to know what she could have been," Ellen says.

When she completed the Training Resources for Youth program, a life-skills course that gives youth real-world work experience, she posed proudly with her certificate in a graduation cap and blue gown. Shed earned a food-handling certificate through that program and wanted to be a chef. She loved to cook, Ellen says.

Once, she sent Ellen a photo of a hashbrowns-and-eggs breakfast shed cooked. She said that cooking helped her relax, and it made her feel good about herself, but she didnt always feel that way; she was "very hard on herself," Ellen says, and often worried about disappointing the people she loved, especially her family.

She had her struggles, her ups and downs. There was a lot of pain in her life, and a lot of difficult circumstances. Sometimes, she told Ellen that she was trying to stay out of trouble, and the mentor could see how she meant it. Eishia would stay home more, and tell Ellen how she wished for more structure in her life.

"Id always tell her I worried about her," Ellen says. "Shed say she knew."

FACEBOOK Hudson died on April 8.

And she was not, as strangers later assumed and insisted, involved with gangs. Ellen bristles at that allegation. After Eishia was killed, observers hunting for dirt grabbed photos from Facebook, where she was holding up a "W" symbol, for "west side," with her hands: but most kids in the area do that, Ellen says.

"It doesnt have anything to do with gangs, period," she says.

Yet to those who leave celebratory comments over her death, the distinction hardly matters. In Eishias death, she became an empty vessel to be filled with the rage and, yes, the racism that permeates the city. The facts of her life and her death are made nearly irrelevant. She becomes only what vengeance demands her to be.

This process compounds the tragedy by putting a veil over justice. Right now, the facts of the shooting available to the public are scant; the IIU wont comment until its investigation is complete. The Indigenous Bar Association has called on the province to launch an independent inquiry, but even if that happens, it will take time.

That process of pushing for a full and transparent accounting of what happened must continue.

For now, what we do know is that, of all the powers belonging to the state and its agents, none is more grave than the ability to take a life. None is more irreversible. So none should be more intensely scrutinized by the public or more soberly evaluated with cautious skepticism.

Above all, the use of lethal force should never be cheered.

But when it is cheered, what hope is there for that sober scrutiny? What chance is there for constructive discussion about the events that collided at that intersection, or more nuanced understanding? As advocates call for justice for Eishia, they face an uphill battle, and it starts with this widespread public disdain for her life.

When tragedies happen, there is lip service paid to making Winnipeg a healthier city for vulnerable youth, especially Indigenous kids. But when those youth struggle, the sentiment that spills out betrays the truth of how some actually perceive them: that they are already irredeemable, worthless. That they deserve to die for their mistakes.

Then we wonder why some youth look around and see no brighter future out there for them.

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In this way, the anger that boiled over after Eishias death represents both a failure of compassion and of hope. To assert her life had no value is to declare that there is no possibility of healing or change. It is to believe that, by age 16, all that a person is or can ever be is already decided by a few hours, or even a few panicked seconds.

There are many victims in this story. Pain always spreads outwards, in ripples. There are the staff and customers at the Liquor Mart and the witnesses at the intersection who watched a terrifying and traumatizing scene. All of them were hurt in some way by the events that unfolded and some, no doubt, were left permanently shaken and changed by what they experienced.

There is also Eishia. No matter what someone judges of the circumstances of her death, the fact remains that she was a child who was more than one series of events. She was loved, and she loved others. She had dreams, and took steps to achieve them. She didnt always get it right, but she tried, and that belongs in this story, too.

Now, it falls to Eishias family and friends to desperately try to humanize her for the public, a portion of which, before many facts were known, had already decided she was less than human. But to deny her humanity is to avoid seeing the whole truth, one that is never as black and white as a headline or a police press release suggests.

"In the end, shes a kid who tried very hard to make good choices," Ellen says. "She had a great heart... I dont know what was going on in her mind, but this is a child who made a mistake. Shes already paid for it. Why do people have to continue (the negative comments)? Let it be. Whats done is done."

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca
People want the coronavirus pandemic to mean something, so it is no surprise that we use it as evidence for what we already believe.

For those opposed to global capitalism, it turns out that global capitalism is to blame. But we had the Black Death in the 14th century; admittedly, this pandemic moved faster thanks to air travel, but on the other hand, the medical care is better.

For those worried about the power of authoritarian China, the disease proves that Xi Jinping is up to no good, although you would have thought the detention of 1 million Uighurs was sufficient proof of that.

Closer to home, the outbreak was bound to be seen through the prism of domestic politics. Jeremy Corbyns claim that the governments response proved he was absolutely right was not even the silliest example.

Matthew Parris had some fun in The Spectator this week by guessing what commentators have said about it, and then looking them up to find that they had. For Polly Toynbee of The Guardian, the virus revealed that the NHS and social care are brutally worn down by a decade of needless, ideologically driven austerity. While for Charles Moore in The Daily Telegraph, it exposed the inflexibility of our lumbering NHS, which is why the country has had to shut down.

Parris acknowledges that he himself is not immune to the contagion of confirmation bias. As a Conservative who is suspicious of Boris Johnson, he admits he has tried to find a way of representing this pandemic as overhyped.

Which is interesting, because Parriss criticism is representative of the right, which tends to argue that the government has overreacted, sacrificing the economy and civil liberties in an attempt  based on inadequate information  to curb the spread of the virus. They say that if the daily death toll peaked last weekend, it suggests that the lockdown announced on 23 March was unnecessary, because the previous measures were working after a three-week lag.

The criticism from the left, on the contrary, tends to be that the government failed to react quickly enough, and that if it had locked down earlier, lives would have been saved.

Personally, I would rather not take a view. I dont care if this makes me a centrist, which is not a label Im keen on, but I dont think we know enough about the virus to be sure either way. If it turns out that one side is right and the other wrong that wont vindicate that sides ideology; it just means we will have found out more about how the virus works.

Meanwhile, Johnson has a cast-iron, copper-bottomed and gold-plated defence either way, which is that he acted on the advice of Sage, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. Anyone who disagrees with that advice should take it up with Patrick Vallance, the governments chief scientific adviser, who chairs the committee.

For a scientist, or a centrist, the coronavirus doesnt mean anything. It is a chaotic event to which we have to respond as best we can. Once we get past the tiny minority of people who believe governments should have no role in dealing with it, politics doesnt matter.

That is why Corbyns comment was so absurd, and it is also why Keir Starmer has made such a colourless entrance to the political front rank: his criticisms of the government are administrative and procedural, not ideological.

Politics will reassert itself for the next phase, however. The questions of how we get out of the post-coronavirus recession are likely to be intensely political, and quite familiar. This will probably be the third period in postwar British history to be described as one of austerity.

Soon there will be real political choices to be made about how to manage the economy and the public finances. The right will worry more about the national debt and the left will worry more about the condition of the poor. Then centrists will have to choose sides.
Between the endless hours Yifan Jin spent listening to Taylor Swift and watching science fiction movies as a little girl in Wenzhou, China, and the sparkle in her eyes during a trip to the U.S. when she was 14, her mother knew she would adjust well to living and going to school in America.

Yong Wang remembered her only childs excitement as she boarded a plane headed from China to the Wisconsin International Academy in Milwaukee as a high school sophomore two years ago and then again for her junior year last summer.

But now Jin, 18, is one of an estimated 2,000 international students stuck on U.S. boarding school campuses, unable to return to their home countries in spite of school closures from the coronavirus pandemic. Her Milwaukee dorm room is no longer a place of choice for her, but one of forced circumstance.

Yifan Jin, 18, a student at the Wisconsin International Academy in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, looks out one of the dorm windows on Monday, April 13, 2020.

I dont worry much about it, because I would have had to stay home right now no matter where I was, said Jin, whose American friends call her Alison. But everyone has their own opinion. Some of my friends are really worried and they want to catch the first plane back home.

About a month ago, as one state governor after another ordered school closures to quell the spread of the virus, boarding school leaders across the country overnight became travel agents and diplomats, making flight arrangements and consulting with one foreign embassy after another to broker safe passage home for more than 15,000 foreign high school students living on boarding school campuses in the U.S. and Canada.

'I'm heartbroken entirely': Pandemic threatens high school seniors' graduation dreams

Thats not counting the number of students who live with host families through student exchange programs.

Most were able to return home. But those like Jin who remain on the campus of their now-closed schools are unsure of when they will be able to return home  or resume classes.

Yifan Jin, 18, a student at the Wisconsin International Academy in Wauwatosa, Wi., maintains her distance from others while having lunch on Monday, April 13, 2020.

Im very anxious about the implications of this for her college, Wang told USA TODAY in a FaceTime call from Wenzhou, a port city in China's Zhejiang province about 550 miles from Wuhan. But her father and I know we will see her again. We just dont know when.

Story continues

College upended: US colleges scrambled to react to the pandemic. Now their very existence is in jeopardy.

2,000 students stuck on campuses

The Association of Boarding Schools, a research and information hub for an estimated 95% of college preparatory boarding schools in the U.S. and Canada, conducted a survey last month of how schools in their membership were dealing with COVID-19 school closures for their collective enrollment of 100,000 students.

School leaders reported roughly three-quarters of international students had traveled back to their home countries to be with their families. A few others were staying with relatives domestically, and others had moved in with host families. According to the survey, only 13% remained on campus.

Jian Sun, founder and director of the Wisconsin International Academy, said 82 of his 87 students, ages 13-18, are still in his care on campus.

Jian Sun, director at Wisconsin International Academy (left) is photographed with Yifan Jin, 18, one of the students from the academy in Wauwatosa, Wi., on Monday, April 13, 2020. Eighty-two middle and high school students are on lockdown at the boarding school. Normally students would be attending area schools in the greater Milwaukee area but due to the coronavirus pandemic they are relegated to their school's campus.

Sun sat several feet away from Jin during a recent video chat but wore a surgical mask for good measure because he has to leave the campus sometimes.

Safety has been a primary concern among boarding school leaders, who now remain in charge of students like Jin indefinitely. None of the children at the Wisconsin school have been outside the premises while it has been closed.

Jay Gideon, dean of students for Florida Prep in Melbourne, Florida, said the eight international students who remain on his campus underwent 14 days of restricted movement and daily temperature checks to make sure all were healthy before school officials started to reintroduce group activities.

School officials must prioritize the childrens physical safety, and they're arranging distance-learning programs. But a big concern for boarding school leaders for stranded students is their emotional well-being.

Wisconsin International Academy is a boarding school for middle and high school students in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

Sun has kept in touch with students parents through frequent group phone conferences. He said one father called him to share that his son had cried on a recent call home. The father said all he wanted was for school officials to see that the boy got outside to enjoy nature.

For high-school-age international students who remain in dorms in the U.S., the school closures and uncertainty tied to the pandemic can unnerve even the most resilient child, said Chris Thurber, a psychologist at the 1,000-student Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. At Phillips Exeter, each of the 800 boarders returned home.

All students who arrive at a boarding school come with a mental calendar. Its just like if I told you: 'Were going outside for a run now. Were going to run 2 miles, and its going to take 25 minutes,' " Thurber said. Mentally, students prepare to pace themselves. But in an incident like this, not only did the calendar get pulled off the wall, theres no new calendar to replace it.

Print a calendar, keep a journal

Thurber says something as simple as having students print a paper calendar of the next few months to hang on a wall can be a therapeutic reminder that their separation from their families is for a finite period of time.

School leaders also should encourage stranded students to journal their thoughts, said Rosario Montgomery, a Texas clinical psychologist who recently wrote a guide to help children deal with pandemic-related anxiety.

A teenager who is able to go home can ask a lot of those what if questions they would have in the midst of a pandemic, Montgomery said. But students who dont go home dont get that chance, so its important for them to get it out in some way.

Boarding school directors such as Sun in Milwaukee and Gideon in Florida say they have tried to keep their remaining students on a daily routine, something that both Thurber and Montgomery say is important for maintaining good mental health.

They also try to make sure the students thrive academically. Students such as Jin say they actually prefer the flexibility of the distance-style learning program.

International college students: They face a similar dilemma: To stay in America, or go home?

The uncertainty at boarding schools is likely to persist beyond this semester. Prospects for international students' enrollment could be grim.

After the pandemic abates, school leaders are worrying about the cumbersome process of students getting visas to return to the U.S., officials from the board school association said.

Members are also reporting that their endowments are down, and fundraisers for initiatives like capital improvements have all been suspended. So the absence of international students from boarding school campuses will not only harm school diversity and the culture of student life, but it also could have drastic financial consequences.

For the first time in decades, (schools) are actively laying people off, Andrew Hirt, the groups chief of staff and vice president for advancement, said last week. Some of our schools may not be able to exist going forward, because the ones who might have had some struggles before are really under duress now.

Private colleges are in trouble, too: Small colleges were already on the brink. Now, pandemic threatens their existence

For Jin, who fell in love with Boston and California on her first visit to America and who dreams of attending university on either coast, the separation from her parents is one thing she knows she will survive, although she admits she is homesick for her friends back home and for hot pot, her favorite authentic Chinese dish.

Wang said she remembers her daughters first trip home after a year in boarding school in America. The girl who rarely did housework when she lived at home surprised her mother with a meal she prepared while her parents were at work.

Jins mother and Sun both hope a similar evolution will come from her time stuck in the U.S. during the pandemic.

We tell our students and our parents that this is an opportunity, Sun said. This is a horrible experience, but you have to decide how you are going to leverage it to get something positive. But you are going to get through this.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus closures maroon international boarding school students
TDT | Manama

Bahrains Finance Minister yesterday welcomed the World Bank Groups decision to increase its COVID-19 response package to $14 billion. The package aims at strengthening national systems for public health preparedness, including for disease containment, diagnosis, and treatment, and support the private sector.

Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa said the package will assist countries in their effort to prevent, detect and curb the spread of COVID-19. The Finance and National Economy Minister was speaking on behalf of the Arab and Maldives Group countries, represented by Bahrain, during a virtual meeting of the Development Committee on the sidelines of the Spring Meeting of the Boards of Governors of the World Bank Group (WBG) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

WBG, Shaikh Salman said, is capable of playing an influential role in reducing the social and economic effects of COVID-19 by developing policies that would restore the pace of robust and comprehensive global economic growth. Shaikh Salman also urged the World Bank to deepen its analysis, while determining spending priorities and policies to ensure the achievement of sustainable development.

The Finance Minister said the Arab Group welcomes the call to reduce the debt burden on low-income countries and continue implementing the multi-dimensional approach followed by the World Bank, including helping countries to improve public debt management capabilities, increase debt transparency and enhance financial sustainability, especially for countries in regions with fragile situations, and are affected by political conflicts. In its communique, the Development Committee stressed the importance of implementing directed substantive measures at the level of public finance, monetary policy and financial markets to support affected individuals and businesses as quickly as possible.

The Development Committee also called on the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund to continue supporting the development process to confront the virus and mitigate its health, social and economic impacts in various parts of the world. The additional $2 billion builds on the announcement of the original response package on March 3, which included $6 billion in financing by the World Bank to strengthen health systems and disease surveillance and $6 billion by IFC to help provide a lifeline for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, which are more vulnerable to economic shocks.
Healthcare staff across hospitals in England are being advised by the UK government to consider reusing personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gowns as it battles to deal with a shortage of supplies due to rising demand amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Public Health England updated its guidance on PPE to say that some should be considered for reuse based on advice on suitable decontamination arrangements obtained from the manufacturer or supplier.

Gloves and aprons are subject to single use as per SICPs [Standard Infection Control Precautions] with disposal after each patient or resident contact, notes the guidance.

Fluid repellent surgical mask and eye protection can be used for a session of work rather than a single patient or resident contact; gowns or coveralls can be worn for a session of work in higher risk areas, it adds.

Doctors and nurses are being recommended to reuse washable surgical gowns or coveralls or similar suitable clothing such as long-sleeved laboratory coats, long-sleeved patient gowns or industrial coveralls, with a disposable plastic apron for aerosol-generating procedures (AGPs).

Unions representing healthcare workers have expressed concerns about the updated Public Health England guidance.

"If it's being proposed that staff reuse equipment, this must be demonstrably driven by science and the best evidence rather than availability and it absolutely cannot compromise the protection of healthcare workers, said Dr Rob Harwood, Consultants Committee chairman at the British Medical Association (BMA) doctors' union.

"Too many healthcare workers have already died. More doctors and their colleagues cannot be expected to put their own lives on the line in a bid to save others, and this new advice means they could be doing just that. It's not a decision they should have to make," he said.

Chris Hopson, chairman of NHS Providers, which represents healthcare trusts across England, said some National Health Service Trusts could run out of crucial PPE over the weekend.

"We have now reached the point where the national stock of fully fluid-repellent gowns and long-sleeved laboratory coats will be exhausted in the next 24 to 48 hours," he said.

The UK government has said that a global shortage of PPE has led to constraints but that it was working on addressing the issue, including asking manufacturers such as Burberry to reinvent their production lines and produce medical gear.

"New clinical advice has been issued today to make sure that if there are shortages in one area, frontline staff know what PPE to wear instead to minimise risk," a Department of Health spokesperson said.

The shortage of PPE across UK hospitals and care homes has been a persistent issue through the coronavirus pandemic, with ministers repeatedly pledging to address the issue.

I would love to be able to wave a magic wand and have PPE fall from the sky in large quantities, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons Health Committee recently.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 21:05:45|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian national carrier EgyptAir repatriated 216 Egyptian nationals from Canada amid efforts to protect expats from COVID-19 pandemic, an Egyptian health ministry official told Xinhua on Saturday.

"The 216 citizens arrived on board two EgyptAir planes in the Red Sea province and they have undergone medical check and are currently in a 14-day quarantine in Marsa Alam resort city," said Tamer Marei, Egyptian Health Ministry's undersecretary in the Red Sea province.

The planes left Canada's Toronto airport on Friday and arrived in Egypt's Marsa Alam airport on early Saturday morning.

EgyptAir runs exceptional flights to take Egyptian expats from other states amid growing infections with the novel coronavirus across the world.

Earlier in April, EgyptAir repatriated about 250 citizens from Washington and they have already finished their 14-day quarantine period.

Until Friday night, the Egyptian Health Ministry confirmed 2,844 COVID-19 cases, including 205 deaths and 646 recoveries. Enditem
The provinces Special Investigations Unit provided an update Saturday afternoon into an investigation of fatal fire that occurred in a downtown highrise Friday night.

The SIU initially stated officers arrived shortly after 10 p.m. to 220 Victoria Street, near Shuter Street for calls for an assault. The initial statement also said two investigators and two forensic investigators have been assigned to the case. In an update Saturday afternoon, the SIU said officers arrived on scene shortly after 8 p.m. and that three investigators and two forensic investigators were now assigned to the case. A post-mortem of the victim is set to be conducted Sunday morning at 10 a.m. in Toronto.

Most residents of 220 Victoria Street, near Shuter Street, could re-enter their units this morning after being evacuated Friday night, Toronto Police Const. David Hopkinson said.

Except for a few that may be in the direct vicinity of where the fire occurred, Hopkinson said. Police said they are not releasing the number of affected units or residents at this time.

Police arrived shortly after 8 p.m. on Friday to the apartment building and made their way to a unit on the 12 floor and forced the door open. They saw flames inside the apartment and tried to communicate with a 32-year-old man residing in the unit.

Toronto Fire Services brought the man out of the unit and he was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the SIU.

The SIU is mandated to investigate any incident involving police where there had been serious injury or death.

In this case, police were present in the building and attempting to communicate with the man prior to his death, Monica Hudson, SIU communications, wrote in an email.

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Since early April, wildfires have raged in the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Although temporarily extinguished on Tuesday, April 14, they reignited by Wednesday.

The fires broke out on April 4 within just 1 km of the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power station, according to Greenpeace Russia. While Ukrainian authorities blamed the fires on a local 27-year old man, the reasons for the outbreak remain unclear.

Smog over Kiev [Credit: AFP/Sergei Supinsky]

The Chernobyl nuclear power station and the nearby town of Pripyat have been located in a 30 km exclusion zone since 1986 when Chernobyls Reactor No. 4 exploded causing the worst nuclear accident in history, spewing over 50 tons of radioactive material into the atmosphere.

According to the New York Times, most of the radiation released by the 1986 disaster had settled into the soil. However, some was also absorbed by the roots of moss, trees and other vegetation in the surrounding area. The wildfires brought it to the surface, spreading radioactive particles in the smoke. Radiation readings close to the wildfires were elevated in the first half of April.

Initially, the wind carried the smoke mostly toward rural areas of Russia and Belarus. For the past week, however, smoke has also clouded the Ukrainian capital Kiev, home to 3 million people and located just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Chernobyl. The smoke has become so thick that Kiev is now considered the city with the worst air pollution in the world, outstripping even cities like Shanghai.

While authorities have insisted that radiation levels in the capital were within the normal range, they urged residents to drink a lot of water, and stay indoors. They also advised the population to keep their windows shut and cover them with wet fabrics when opening them. The country is currently under lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic, minimizing to some extent the exposure of the population to the smoke.

There have been 4,662 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 125 deaths in Ukraine.

There are many indications that authorities are downplaying the scale of the disaster. According to ABC News, 1,000 firefighters backed by aircraft have now been deployed to contain the fire, up from 450 a week ago. Firefighters have been forced to work 24-hour shifts within the Chernobyl contamination zone without radio-protective equipment. Photos circulating on Facebook showed exhausted firefighters sleeping on the ground without protective equipment. It was also reported that they were not even provided accurate maps of the exclusion area.

Throughout the ordeal, Ukrainian authorities have maintained they had the situation under control and that the fires had caused no increased risk of radiation to surrounding areas including the capital of Kiev which is located just 100 km (62 mi) from Chernobyl. On Monday, Volodymyr Demchuk, a senior official from Ukraines emergency service stated that There is no threat to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, waste fuel storage or other critical facilities.

However, on April 4, the Ukrainian government was caught deliberately lying about the scale of the fires claiming that they were a mere 20 hectares in size, while satellite imagery from Greenpeace showed the fire covered around 12,000 hectares. Other satellite images taken by NASA Worldview and confirmed by Reuters also proved fires had extended far into the exclusion zone.

Rashid Alimov of Greenpeace Russia also contradicted the governments claim that the fires posed no radiation risk by stating the fires could release radionuclides or atoms that emit radiation into the atmosphere. A fire approaching a nuclear or hazardous radiation facility is always a risk, Alimov said.

On April 5, just two days after the start of the fire, Yegor Firsov, head of Ukraines state ecological inspection service, posted on Facebook a video with a Geiger counter showing radiation levels at the fire 16 times above normal. According to Greenpeace, the fire spread to at least 20,000 hectares, the equivalent of 7 percent of the area.

The governments brazen lies were further exposed by Chernobyl tour operator leader Yaroslav Yemelianenko who posted on Facebook that the fires were now only a kilometer from the station itself and around 2 kilometers from a site containing radioactive waste. He added that The local authorities report that everything is under control, but in fact the fire is rapidly spreading across new areas.

Yemelianenko also appealed to President Volodmyr Zelensky for help and suggested that Zelenskys incompetence in dealing with the fires was a result either of the cabinet not being told the real situation, or theyve chosen the Soviet policy of hushing it up, as they did in 86.

The haphazard and self-serving response from the Zelensky government mirrors the behavior of both the capitalist and Stalinist regimes that have preceded him.

The scale of the disaster in 1986 continues to be deliberately downplayed and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people affected by it have been left without adequate medical and financial support.

A 2006 United Nations report contends that the Chernobyl accident caused just 56 deaths, but the Ukrainian government continues to pay 35,000 pensions to spouses of victims of the disaster. However, the historian Kate Brown spoke to Ukrainian scientists who estimated that at least between 40,000 and 150,000 people died in Ukraine alone. The radioactive materials also spread widely into Belarus and Russia, contaminating tons of milk and other produce that were sold in the Soviet Union at the time.

The fact that firefighters are now forced to work around the clock shifts without radio-protective equipment is an indictment of both Zelensky and the previous capitalist regimes. It is well known that wildfires occur regularly in the area surrounding Chernobyl. Yet there was clearly no plan whatsoever to contain, let alone, prevent another outbreak of fires around the worlds most dangerous radioactive site.

While the initial explosion at Reactor No. 4 took place over 30 years ago, the sarcophagus that was constructed around it in the years immediately following the accident now faces the high probability of collapse and is scheduled to be dismantled by 2023. The sarcophagus itself was covered by a New Safe Confinement structure in 2016, which is essentially a shell that will surround the reactor while the sarcophagus is dismantled and the area is remediated. Scientists estimate that radiation remediation efforts will last until 2065. Ukrainian governments have turned much of the area immediately surrounding the site of the disaster into a tourist attraction.
WEST MIFFLIN, Pa. - Ruth Ann Parkinson's Facebook page looks like that of any MAGA grandma. Between recipes and cooking tutorial videos, the 74-year-old shares a deluge of memes mocking Democrats and applauding President Donald Trump.

There's an image likening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the Wicked Witch, a doctored photo of California Rep. Adam Schiff that places him next to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and a clip from Trump's State of the Union address with a caption deeming him "The most PRO MILITARY PRESIDENT EVER."

Yet Parkinson and others plugged into the right-wing meme sphere remain members in good standing of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee. The controversy over that highlights the national party's dilemma in Pennsylvania and other swing states such as Michigan and Wisconsin: voters who consider themselves loyal Democrats but also may be attracted to Trump.

Here in Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh and surrounding communities such as West Mifflin, an effort to boot some of those members has created a bitter schism. U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle is among several elected officials who've called for Chair Eileen Kelly to step down. State Rep. Austin Davis resigned his committee vice chairmanship, citing Kelly's inaction over members he deemed "Democrats for Trump."

"It's an organization that's supposed to support Democrats," Davis said. "If you are supporting another candidate, that's grounds for dismissal."

Such splits could be exacerbated by the divide over Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic, further challenging Democratic organizers who for now can't even contact voters in person.

Participation in Allegheny County's party committee has never been based exclusively on ideology. The organization has 2,400 elected member positions spread over 1,200 districts, most of them tiny wards or voting precincts. The title of committee member comes with a small role and a smidgen of power in a vast political machine, traditionally run by blue-collar, union-household Democrats whose involvement often resembles a kind of old-fashioned civic engagement.

The recent internal conflicts surfaced publicly after images of old Facebook posts by committee member Heather Kass appeared in the Pittsburgh Current, an alternative newspaper.

"AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE I HATE OBAMACARE," she wrote in 2015, blaming her own health-care costs on "NO GOOD IDIOTS SUCKING THE SYSTEM DRY." The message, previously visible only to her friends, included the line "GO TRUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Kass, a medical worker who is running for the legislature with the backing of her district's retiring incumbent, subsequently expressed regret over her posts. The following month, the other committee members in the district endorsed her by a wide margin - at a meeting where a local Democratic officeholder sported a red Make American Great Again hat.

"I wore it to show my disgust with the Democratic Party," said Nick Viglione, a councilman in the small borough of Mount Oliver. He voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 but plans to cast a ballot for Trump in 2020. "So this Kass didn't like Obamacare? So didn't a lot of people."

The outcome that day only hardened divisions and raised the stakes, according to committee member Bethany Hallam, who also serves on the Allegheny County Council.

"Now there's a consequence," said Hallam, one of the committee's younger, more liberal activists. "Someone had gotten the endorsement." The only appropriate response, she felt, was to cull Trump support from the ranks.

Another alternative newspaper, the weekly Pittsburgh City Paper, also jumped in and published an article with a compilation of other members' pro-Trump content. (It continues to collect and post such images on Twitter.) One image showed Jeffrey Anesin, a ward chairman in the city's working-class neighborhood of Troy Hill, posing in a Trump hat with the caption "2020 Trump Train!"

The county committee chairwoman, who works for the Pittsburgh city controller, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. In a news conference after the Kass endorsement, Kelly said, "There are no Trump supporters in the committee." She dismissed the Anesin photo, too. "Well, you have to know this gentleman," she said. "He was doing it out of fun."

The issue is particularly exasperating to James Rizzo, who ran for a committee seat in 2018 because the member for his voting precinct in Troy Hill was posting pro-Trump content on Facebook. "I did not want to be represented, at the most local level, by a Trump supporter," he said.

He feels just as strongly about Kelly's pleas for party unity, calling them "the height of dishonesty when what we are trying to draw attention to is the presence, perhaps significant presence, of people who will not and cannot unify in November."

Reached by phone, Anesin said, "I have no idea what you're talking about," and hung up. Kass, who still faces an opponent in the upcoming Democratic primary, responded to two emails asking for an interview and then stopped communicating.

The controversy raises a key question: Who is a Trump supporter? The state party's bylaws allow for the ejection of an officer who "by voice, vote, financial support or otherwise" supported a candidate "opposed to the duly nominated candidate of the Democratic Party" within the past two years. Has a committee member who declares "Go Trump" on Facebook clearly broken that rule?

"One can circulate right-wing memes and fall short of an electoral endorsement," Rizzo said. "For me, the red line, and it's specified in the county and state party bylaws, is electoral advocacy of a candidate opposing the Democrat. And 'Trump Train 2020!' is that."

Hallam agreed. "First we kick off all the MAGA hats, and then we'll talk about what's next," she said.

In her view, the county Democratic committee has been lax in upholding core principles. "I think people see it as a social club. They say, 'I get invited to candidates' parties. I have a line to public officials.' "

She believes the party should be more stringent with "anyone who goes against Democratic ideals, anyone who is working against what we are working for, anyone who is anti-choice, anti-union, anti-living wage."

Though the emotional pitch has subsided amid the pandemic, it's sure to heat up again soon. Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, has ordered all Pennsylvanians to stay at home through the end of the month and moved the state primary from April 28 to June 2.

That's when the signs of partisanship are likely to reappear in places such as West Mifflin, a borough situated along a bend of the Monongahela River that once was populated by union members who worked the region's steel mills. Today it's a bedroom community of modest but tidy homes where Trump came within several dozen votes of beating Clinton, largely because of people such as Rudy and Ruth Antoncic - lifelong Democrats but fervent Trump fans.

The couple intends to cast another ballot for him in November.

Parkinson didn't know about the efforts to eject the president's ostensible supporters from the county party committee. She rolled her eyes at the notion that she might be for Trump - neither he nor Clinton got her vote four years ago, she said - and conceded that her Facebook jabs might have gone too far. "Maybe I am too loud," she allowed.

The retired administrative assistant can recount decades of work for local and state Democrats' campaigns, printing candidates' brochures, distributing them at the polls and then hosting pizza parties for volunteers on election night. Her generation is used to hard political footwork, she noted.

"I don't know who they could find to replace me," Parkinson said. "If they kicked me out, it would be their loss, not mine."

- - -

Jeff Swensen contributed to this report.
As the coronavirus spreads, public and private companies as well as government entities are requiring employees to work from home, putting unforeseen strain on all manner of networking technologies and causing bandwidth and security concerns. What follows is a round-up of news and traffic updates that Network World will update as needed to help keep up with the ever-changing situation. Check back frequently!

UPDATE 4.27

According to the April 22 Verizon Network Report, overall data volume across its networks has increased 19% compared to pre-COVID levels. While data usage remains elevated, the changes in how people are using the network has stabilized, the company stated.

In the United States, there has been a notable decline in peoples movements during the course of the global pandemic. Mobile handoffs the times when a data session moves from one cell site to another as users walk or drive around  have reduced by 27% nationally compared to typicalpre-COVID levels. And, measured by mobile handoffs, the U.S. has seen a decrease in movements since March 1. Verizon said that the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions appear to have the most people in the nation staying at home. Verizon stated it expects usage to continue at sustained higher levels, even as movements begin to shift in the coming weeks and months as stay-in-place restrictions begin to lift . We believe all trends point to sustained network usage at this higher level for the foreseeable future, said Kyle Malady, Chief Technology Officer for Verizon.

In its fifth report tracking internet speeds across the top 200 most populous U.S. cities, Broadbandnow reported networks were slowly adjusting to the new demand placed on them. But as of April 22 despite these adjustments, internet speeds in some cases slowed to a crawl. Over the past week, 67 cities (33.5% of the top 200) experienced median upload speed decreases of 20% or greater below range of previous weeks in 2020. Through April 15, the number was 61, or 30.5%. In turn, 51 cities (25.5%) have recorded download speed dips of 20% or greater, compared to last weeks 52.
Billy Monger has reflected on how the NHS saved his life after a horror F4 smash in 2017 resulted in both his legs being amputated.

The 20-year-old driver was involved in the sickening crash at Donington race circuit, and Monger posted a video on his third 'happy alive day' paying tribute to the staff that have allowed him to continue chasing his dreams.

Monger also bravely revealed the extent of his injuries for the first time to fans.

Billy Monger has reflected on how the NHS saved his life after a horror F4 smash in 2017

The 20-year-old driver had both his legs amputated after the incident at Donington race circuit

The teen driver was airlifted to hospital for urgent surgery after the incident, with healthcare workers amputating his left leg high above the knee. Monger's right leg is longer, having been amputated below the knee, and this allows him to drive modified cars.

The racing world united in support for Monger, with a JustGiving page which raised over 500,000 in the first 24 hours having been set up and countless drivers also coming forward with their best wishes.

And in his latest display of inspiration, Monger has laid bare the impact that the injuries have had on his life.

He said: 'Talking about the NHS, and how amazing they are, I realised that in my three-year journey I've never actually shown you guys my amputations. I can really highlight the work the NHS do, and how proud I am to have been blessed to have such a great service take care of me in a time when I needed it most.

Monger opened up on how healthcare staff have allowed him to continue chasing his dreams

'I was operated on by NHS doctors, surgeons. The nurses that looked after me, the people that put me into an induced coma, the air ambulance got me to hospital to allow them to save my life... there's so many people that I could sit here and thank.

'These injuries to me, the scars that you see, they mean nothing. The fact that I'm alive and well and able to continue living my life... I'm super grateful for everything the NHS have provided me with.'

Monger's charge through the field in 2017 at Donington came to a horrific halt after crashing into Finnish driver Patrik Pasma's stationary car at 120mph.

The Surrey-based racer was rapidly taken to Queen's Medical Centre, in Nottingham, where he was placed into a coma for three days for the extensive surgery.

And the Surrey-based racer also laid bare how injuries have affected his life in a touching video

But Monger has now revealed his excitement for what lies ahead, which was rendered possible by the stellar intervention from the health service.

He added: 'I'm proud today is my happy alive day, and i'm excited for the future. Without the NHS, those things wouldn't be possible at all. A big thank you to the NHS.'

And the youngster also urged those in isolation during the coronavirus pandemic to remain steadfast.

'To all those in isolation, keep motivated, keep strong,' he said. 'This is our chance as a generation to prove what we're capable of. We're not being asked a lot, we're just being asked to stay at home.'
ABC News

Former President Donald Trump, his sister Maryanne Trump Barry and the estate of his late brother Robert Trump tried on Tuesday to convince a New York judge to dismiss a lawsuit by Mary Trump that accused her family of swindling her out of at least $10 million. Attorneys for the Trump siblings argued Mary Trump's claims are time-barred by a six-year statute of limitations and prohibited by legal releases she signed in 2001 when the family settled the estate of Fred Trump Sr., the former president's father. The Trumps also argued Mary Trump possessed "boxes and boxes of information" about the estate settlement that should have given rise to any claims at the time.
Italy is staring down the barrel of the worst recession since the Second World War, which could bolster the far-right and damage the country's love affair with the European Union, analysts say.

Much will depend on how Rome handles the easing of the national lockdown, how quickly it manages to get liquidity to suffering businesses, and how much solidarity it is seen to get from the EU at a key meeting next week.

The coronavirus emergency in Italy has fuelled not only national pride but also eurosceptic and populist narratives.

That brew could play right into the hands of Matteo Salvini, whose League party governed Italy in a coalition for a year until summer 2019 and who is determined to return quickly to power, to rule alone.

Italy is staring down the barrel of the worst recession since the Second World War. Pictured: Red Cross volunteers load boxes of food to deliver as donations to families in need during the current coronavirus crisis in Turin

'The economic blow is going to be extremely hard, that's clear. But it can be merely extremely hard, or it can be exceptionally hard,' Giovanni Orsina, professor of politics at Rome's LUISS University, told AFP.

'If people begin to suffer seriously, rage could spread throughout the country... at which point far-right propaganda becomes very effective', he said.

At the height of the health crisis, which has killed 23,227 people and infected around 175,925, largely in the country's wealthy northern powerhouse, Italy's warring political parties called a temporary truce of sorts.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte's popularity shot up to a record high of around 63 per cent, polls showed.

But as preparations for relaunching parts of the economy begin, cracks have emerged in the already fragile ruling coalition, made up of the centre-left Democratic Party and anti-establishment Five Stars Movement.

The coronavirus emergency in Italy has fuelled not only national pride but also eurosceptic and populist narratives. Pictured: medics in Milan

The impact of the virus could play right into the hands of Matteo Salvini (pictured), whose League party governed Italy in a coalition for a year until summer 2019 and who is determined to return quickly to power, to rule alone

And opposition leader Salvini has resumed his virulent attacks on the government, along with Giorgia Meloni, head of the small far-right Brothers of Italy party, which has been enjoying a sharp rise in popularity.

Bitter spats have broken out over the length of the economically-crippling lockdown, which has been extended by Conte and is currently due to be lifted on May 4, after a near two-month stoppage.

Millions of Italians are either furloughed or have lost their jobs, and the northern regions - League strongholds - are champing at the bit to re-open.

An aerial view from a helicopter of the deserted Piazza San Marco in the center of Venice as the Italian lockdown continues

A delay in shutting several virus hotspots in the Lombardy region, home to the financial capital Milan, allowed the virus to spread and has sparked a row between the government and League - with each blaming the other for failing to act.

The anti-populist, youth-driven Sardines movement - founded last year to try and stop Salvini's rise - is one of many left-wing voices calling on Conte to put the region under special commission for woeful crisis management.

The economic fallout forecast is mind-boggling. The International Monetary Fund expects Italy's economy to shrink by 9.1 percent in 2020 - the worst peacetime decline in nearly a century.

The Confindustria big business lobby has said every week of the shutdown chops another 0.75 percent off GDP.

Yet Conte has hesitated over entering the so-called 'Phase Two', the easing of the lockdown, amid advice from top scientists that the epidemic could flare up again, forcing him to shut down the country a second time.

The deserted Ponte di Rialto in the center of Venice as the strict Italian lockdown measures continue to be implemented

An aerial view from a helicopter of the deserted Jesolo beach just outside of Venice during the Covid-19 lockdown

He is banking on help from the EU to weather the storm.

Eurogroup finance ministers have approved a 500-billion-euro rescue package to help European countries hit hard by the pandemic - but some Italians fear that the cross-border solidarity will come with strings attached.

The ministers have so far refused to counter a proposal from Italy, Spain, and France for a joint borrowing instrument, dubbed a 'coronabond', that would have raised money towards a recovery after the outbreak.

The bonds could reduce Italy's borrowing costs, but northern nations say they unfairly help countries that had been spending beyond their means for years.

That has incensed many Italians.

Italy also felt abandoned at the start of the crisis, with European countries reluctant to share much-needed medical supplies, for which the EU Commission president offered a 'heartfelt apology' this week.

A Tecne poll from April 9 and 10 found the share of Italians that would vote to leave the EU in a referendum was up by 20 percentage points to 49 percent, compared to a previous poll from the end of 2018.

An aerial image of Chioggia near Venice during the lockdown shows empty motorways as people continue to stay at home

Rome is reluctant to use the rescue plan, which includes loans from the financial-crisis-era European Stability Mechanism (ESM), despite an easing of the tough economic and fiscal reform usually tied to it as requirements.

The ESM evokes bad memories of Brussels dictating policy to bailed-out Greece, and Salvini and Meloni have both said Conte would be stripping Italy of its sovereignty if he uses it.

They also complain Italy is being offered a fraction of the money it pours into the EU, and will have to pay interest.

'It's stealing,' Salvini said, sneering at the suggestion Italy had got a good deal in terms of the reduced conditions.

Meloni said using the mechanism was 'worthy of a totalitarian regime' and 'a democratic point of no return'.

Doctors arrive in Lombardy to help at hospitals in the region during the coronavirus pandemic

The government hopes it will score an important win on the question of joint bonds to finance reconstruction at a videoconference meeting of EU leaders next Thursday - perhaps allowing it to avoid using the ESM.

Former Italian prime minister Enrico Letta implored Brussels, Berlin and Paris 'not to underestimate... growing euro-frustration' among Italians. It would be 'a big mistake', he tweeted.

Conte's problems are not limited to the far-right.

While the PD is in favour of using the ESM, part of the Five Stars Movement is stridently opposed, with party leader Vito Crimi saying in an interview on Wednesday that Conte's premiership was at risk over it.

Analysts say the PM is gambling on getting more attractive aid from the EU if he drags his feet over the ESM.

Conte said Wednesday no decision would be taken before the exact conditions are drawn up and can be studied by parliament. Italy has said it will use other resources on offer from the EU, such as unemployment support.

But it was not clear his assurance would soften the rumblings of discontent inside and outside the government.

According to political analyst Stefano Folli, a fracture like the one currently dividing the ruling majority 'would usually have already toppled the government'.

Conte has appeared 'increasingly muddled' over the past couple of weeks, and his opponents were being given ammunition by his 'mediocre handling of the emergency,' he wrote in the Repubblica daily on Tuesday.

Medical workers pictured bringing a patient suffering from coronavirus into an Italian hospital

The PM has been accused of avoiding difficult decisions on lifting the lockdown by simply extending it.

He has called on Italians to be patient, saying financial aid was coming. But there are real fears that widespread job losses, poverty, homelessness and hunger could spark social unrest - and a revolt against the government.

Media reports have flagged a rise in domestic abuse and suicides as quarantined families snap under the strain.

Italy's interior minister has put the police on alert. Particular attention will be paid to the poorer regions south of Rome, where the lockdown is costing some 10 billion euros a month in lost productivity, according to the SVIMEZ association.

Anger is rising there that an area already dogged with high unemployment has not been allowed to leave the lockdown early, despite having relatively few virus cases.

'If you have a very, very troubled country, you cannot have Salvini and Meloni fanning the flames,' LUISS University's Orsina said.

'You risk serious trouble: very bad polling numbers for the government, people protesting in the streets, people stealing in supermarkets, a furious country,' he said.

Orsina said Conte's only option at that point would be to bring Salvini's League and Meloni's Brothers of Italy party into a new, national unity government - though it would be 'an extremely complex operation'.

'I don't think Conte is likely to be able to carry on' as things are, Orsina said.

Not all are as pessimistic.

The Stampa daily's commentator Ugo Magri said Salvini or Meloni were unlikely to go for Conte's jugular now, largely because they would be blamed if the manouevre slowed or hampered the easing of the lockdown.

'Conte will be politically untouchable throughout 'Phase 2', so until the autumn,' he wrote.

And while fellow analyst Massimo Franco thought Italy's anti-European forces could prevail in the short term, he told AFP he believed Italians would soon realise their connection with Europe 'is increasingly necessary and important'.

'Problems like pandemics need a supranational effort. And Europe, in spite of everything, is doing what it can for Italy', he said.
Sabrina Ionescu was selected No. 1 overall in the 2020 WNBA draft as the former Oregon Ducks superstar gets set to take her game to the professional level with the New York Liberty.

Now you may be looking to support Ionescu at the next level and you can do that when you get your own Nike brand Sabrina Ionescu New York Liberty swingman jersey ($139.99) custom made on Fanatics.com. Simply put the name Ionescu in the player name field and the number 20 in the number field to customize it for Ionescu. If you want a cheaper version of the jersey, the Fanatics brand New York Liberty custom replica goes for $79.99. The youth version Fanatics brand New York Liberty jersey goes for slightly less at $69.99 and those are both customizable as well.

Important note: Immediately following the draft, the Fanatics made a Sabrina Ionescu New York Liberty Commemorative 2020 WNBA Draft Pick Fast Break Replica Jersey with the No. 1 noting the Ducks star went No. 1 overall in the draft. While it hasnt been made official, it is widely assumed that Ionescu will actually wear the No. 20 with the New York Liberty. No one currently has that number on the Liberty roster and the No. 20 is the same uniform number she has worn at Oregon during her career.

If you didnt have a chance to get a Ionescu jersey when the Ducks star was at Oregon, you can still get a No. 20 Fighting Ducks t-shirt at a reasonable $26.99 price tag.

If you are looking to get another jersey to promote the other Oregon Ducks players likely to be picked high in tonights WNBA draft, you can also buy custom WNBA jerseys for any players once you know which team has selected them during the draft.

 Tim Brown, The Oregonian/OregonLive | @timfsbrown

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.

More on how to prepare for social isolation and how to protect yourself from the coronavirus:
Gov. Kate Brown issued an order Friday preventing creditors and debt collectors from seizing federal stimulus checks sent to Oregonians.

The CARES Act passed by Congress does not prevent private debt collectors from seizing relief checks, prompting lawmakers and recipients to call on the Treasury Department to protect the relief money.

Brown announced that she was issuing the order to correct an oversight in the federal legislation, ensuring that Oregonians can use the funds for their intended purpose: covering the costs of essential needs during the COVID-19 public health crisis.

Many Oregonians, through no fault of their own, are struggling to pay their bills, their rent or even buy essentials like groceries and prescription drugs, said Brown in a statement. These recovery checks were meant to provide relief, not reward debt collection agencies for preying on Oregonians who have lost their livelihoods due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most individuals will receive a relief check of $1,200 as part of the CARES Act. Checks started being deposited in bank accounts this week.

Under Browns order, Oregonians receiving stimulus checks will have the same protection from garnishment as recipients of other government payments, such as Social Security, disability, and veterans benefits.

However, the order does not stop money being seized because of criminal actions requiring restitution or civil judgments based on a criminal conviction. Past-due child support can also be deducted from the checks before they are deposited in bank accounts.

Other governors have issued similar orders this week, including Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.

-- Jamie Goldberg | jgoldberg@oregonian.com | @jamiebgoldberg

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Washington

President Donald Trump urged supporters to "LIBERATE" three states led by Democratic governors Friday, apparently encouraging protests against stay-at-home restrictions. Some states under Republican leadership edged toward easing up the mandates aimed at stopping the coronavirus.

A day after laying out a road map to gradually reopen the crippled economy, Trump tweeted rhetoric some of his supporters have used to demand the lifting of the orders that have thrown millions of Americans out of work.

"LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" "LIBERATE VIRGINIA," he said in a tweet-storm in which he also lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for criticizing the federal response.

Responding to pleas from governors for help from Washington in ramping up testing for the virus, Trump put the burden back on them: "The States have to step up their TESTING!"

At the same time, at least two states took their first steps toward easing the restrictions.

In Florida, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis said municipalities could reopen beaches and parks if they could do so safely. In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said stores could begin selling curbside, nonessential surgery could resume and state parks could reopen.

Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to see businesses reopen quickly and claimed earlier this week that he had total authority over the matter, even though the lockdowns and other social-distancing measures have been imposed by state and local leaders.

"We may be opening but we're putting safety first," Trump said.

On Thursday, he outlined a three-step set of guidelines for easing restrictions over a span of several weeks in places that have robust testing and are seeing a decrease in COVID-19 cases, assuring the nation's governors: "You're going to call your own shots."

But governors of both parties suggested Friday that they would be cautious in returning to normal, with some warning that they can't do it without help from Washington to expand testing.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican ally of Trump's, said he would listen to medical experts in deciding how to move forward.

"I am not going to do something that I feel in my heart is the wrong thing that's going to endanger our people," he said.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, said Trump's tweets about "liberating" states put millions of Americans at risk of contracting COVID-19.

"His unhinged rantings and calls for people to 'liberate' states could also lead to violence," Inslee said. "We've seen it before. The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly."

Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said he and his staff are focused not on the president's tweets but on fighting a "biological war."

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

"I do not have time to involve myself in Twitter wars," said Northam, who is a medical doctor. "I will continue to make sure that I do everything that I can to keep Virginians safe and to save lives."

Even in largely rural states with small populations, such as Wyoming, Maine and South Dakota, governors said they were not anxious to quickly resume business as usual.

"Until we've got the testing up to speed  which has got to be part of the federal government stepping in and helping  we're just not going to be there," said Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican.

The University of Washington, whose computer models have frequently been cited by health officials at White House briefings, predicted Friday that Vermont, West Virginia, Montana and Hawaii could open as early as May 4 if they restrict large gatherings, test widely and quarantine the contacts of people who test positive.

Iowa, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Utah, Arkansas and Oklahoma, however, are among states that would need to wait until mid-June or early July. About half the states should wait until at least early June to reopen, the institute said.

Worldwide, the outbreak has infected more than 2.2 million people and killed more than 150,000, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally based on figures supplied by government health authorities around the globe, though it has becoming increasingly clear that the true numbers are much higher.

The official death toll in the U.S. neared 35,000, with about 685,000 confirmed infections.

The shutdowns have inflicted heavy damage on economies around the world. In the U.S., the crisis has cost at least 22 millions Americans their jobs.

Many Americans, especially in rural areas and other parts of the country that have not seen major outbreaks, have urged governors to reopen their economies. Protesters have taken to the streets in Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia and Michigan.

Protests continued Friday, including one outside the home of Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and another in Idaho, where the governor is a Republican.
Citing a semi-flattened curve of novel coronavirus cases in Texas, Gov. Greb Abbott announced three new executive orders during a Friday press conference outlining the process of re-opening the state's economy.

The orders include implementing a Strike Force that consists of a team of nationally recognized medical experts and private and public leaders that will advise on best practices to safely re-open the state.
Will they or wont they?

Thats the question parents, teachers and superintendents wonder as state education officials mull over whether to keep districts closed.

Gov. Charlie Baker said his administration has had discussions with superintendents, local officials and other leaders over the past four weeks about whether to reopen schools in early May as planned or postpone reopening.

At least 27 states in the U.S. have closed schools for the rest of the academic year because of COVID-19, according to a count by Education Week. More than 699,000 people have tested positive in the U.S., and more than 37,000 people have died, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Baker doesnt seem inclined to close schools down for the rest of the year in Massachusetts, where more than 34,000 people have tested positive and 1,404 people have died. The Republican governor said his administration and local officials are discussing what a safe reopening of schools would look like.

If you could wave a magic wand, which we cant, I believe that the vast majority of school systems and school district leaders would like to see the kids back at some point before the end of the year, Baker said.

One reason Baker said he wants to see schools reopen before the end of the school year would be so students could take tests to determine how far behind they fell due to the pandemic.

Baker said competency tests are important so that theres some idea about things people could work on over the course of the summer so theyre not completely behind when they show up in the fall.

Another reason, Baker said, is so that school officials could properly prepare for the next school year, despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Baker did not have an estimated reopening date when asked Friday afternoon.

Weve been back and forth with them about this now for most of the last three or four weeks, and we get that a decision needs to be made soon, that people need to have clarity around this and theyll make one shortly, he said.

Several school districts closed before the governors executive order shutting down K-12 schools due to the coronavirus pandemic. Temporary school closures were extended until May.

The temporary school closures have made students shift to online learning, which has disrupted progress for children across the state. Some dont have reliable internet access, while others may not learn as well remotely as they do in-person.

Parents who are working from home have had to juggle their jobs with helping their children with coursework, while other parents must continue reporting to work because their jobs are essential to the COVID-19 response.

Related Content:
Could This Be a Suckers Stock Market Rally?

Everyone I know who is not involved in the stock market or has little knowledge about it is calling me and asking what stocks, indexes, and commodities to buy because everything is so cheap and dividends are juicy again.

Just look at the market sentiment chart, and price cycles that the stock market goes through, and listen to my talk below while reviewing these to images. Its not rocket science, but the lack of education on the financial markets coupled with the force of greed to make money and miss out on the next big bull market has everyone getting suckered into this dead-cat bounce, also known as a bear trap, bear market rally.

LISTEN TO MY TALK  CLICK HERE

If you want to see something else really exciting/nerve-wracking/ and real check out this post on the Stock Market Top.

A subscriber to my market video analysis and ETF trading newsletter said it perfectly:

Always intrigues me how many amateur surfers get to the north shore beaches in Hawaii, take one look at monster waves and conclude its way too dangerous. Yet the amateur trader looks at treacherous markets like these and wants to dive right in!! Richard P.

I have to toot my own horn here a little because subscribers and I had our trading accounts close at a new high watermark for our accounts. We not only exited the equities market as it started to roll over we profited from the sell-off in a very controlled way.

As a technical analyst and trader since 1997, I have been through a few bull/bear market cycles in stocks and commodities. I believe I have a good pulse on the market and timing key turning points for investing and short-term swing traders. 2020 is going to be an incredible year for skilled traders. Dont miss all the incredible moves and trade setups.

I hope you found this informative, and if you would like to get a pre-market video every day before the opening bell, along with my trade alerts visit my Active ETF Trading Newsletter.

We all have trading accounts, and while our trading accounts are important, what is even more important are our long-term investment and retirement accounts. Why? Because they are, in most cases, our largest store of wealth other than our homes, and if they are not protected during a time like this, you could lose 25-50% or more of your entire net worth. The good news is we can preserve and even grow our long term capital when things get ugly like they are now and ill show you how and one of the best trades is one your financial advisor will never let you do because they do not make money from the trade/position.

If you have any type of retirement account and are looking for signals when to own equities, bonds, or cash, be sure to become a member of my Long-Term Investing Signals which we issued a new signal for subscribers.

Ride my coattails as I navigate these financial markets and build wealth while others lose nearly everything they own during the next financial crisis.

Chris Vermeulen

www.TheTechnicalTraders.com

Chris Vermeulen has been involved in the markets since 1997 and is the founder of Technical Traders Ltd. He is an internationally recognized technical analyst, trader, and is the author of the book: 7 Steps to Win With Logic



Through years of research, trading and helping individual traders around the world. He learned that many traders have great trading ideas, but they lack one thing, they struggle to execute trades in a systematic way for consistent results. Chris helps educate traders with a three-hour video course that can change your trading results for the better.



His mission is to help his clients boost their trading performance while reducing market exposure and portfolio volatility.



He is a regular speaker on HoweStreet.com, and the FinancialSurvivorNetwork radio shows. Chris was also featured on the cover of AmalgaTrader Magazine, and contributes articles to several leading financial hubs like MarketOracle.co.uk

Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any securities mentioned. Technical Traders Ltd., its owners and the author of this report are not registered broker-dealers or financial advisors. Before investing in any securities, you should consult with your financial advisor and a registered broker-dealer. Never make an investment based solely on what you read in an online or printed report, including this report, especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isnt well known. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report has been paid by Cardiff Energy Corp. In addition, the author owns shares of Cardiff Energy Corp. and would also benefit from volume and price appreciation of its stock. The information provided here within should not be construed as a financial analysis but rather as an advertisement. The authors views and opinions regarding the companies featured in reports are his own views and are based on information that he has researched independently and has received, which the author assumes to be reliable. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content of this report, nor its fitness for any particular purpose. Lastly, the author does not guarantee that any of the companies mentioned in the reports will perform as expected, and any comparisons made to other companies may not be valid or come into effect.

Chris Vermeulen Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




A Cairo criminal court added on Saturday former MP Ziad El-Aleimy and 12 other defendants, including Ahmed Abdel Rahman Morsi, Palestanian activist Ramy Shaath, Mohamed Abu Huraira and Khaled Ahmed Abu Shadi, to the terrorist list for five years in the case dubbed the Hope Plan cell.

The court stated that "fugitive leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood... have devised a plan to provide financial support for their hostile actions against the Egyptian state, with the aim of harming national interests, economic security and carrying out aggressive actions against the army and the police to topple the regime."

It added that Brotherhood leaders have tasked some members and associates of the group at home, including those held in custody over some cases -- Hope Plan defendants -- with providing logistical support, such as the weapons and firearms needed to carry out their scheme against the state.

The Terrorist Entities Law of 2015 states that any person described as a "terrorist" in a court order will be added to a "terrorist list."

Prosecution charged suspects of the Hope Plan cell case with crimes including cooperating with a group established in violation of the law, and disseminating false news and information about the political and economic conditions in the country in order to destabilise public peace and undermine trust in state institutions.

In June 2019, the Interior Ministry announced the arrest of a number of defendants after uncovering a hostile scheme dubbed Hope Plan.

According to the ministry's statement, the scheme was organised by fugitive Brotherhood leaders in coordination with those who claim to represent civil political forces.

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Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra on Saturday said a truly diversified, global supply chain with less dependence on China will be one of the positive outcomes of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mahindra, who earlier criticised sub-standard masks and testing kits sent by China, said India must fight hard to become a major node in global supply chain.

"Yes, I said that because I believe that a truly diversified, global supply chain with less dependence on China will be one of the positive outcomes of this crisis," he said in a tweet in response to a follower's comment.

Mahindra had asserted that what many had thought to be a global supply chain was indeed a Chinese supply chain and the quest for global supply chains independent of Beijing needs to go further and deeper.

"India must fight hard to become a major node in the world's new supply chain," he said in the tweet.

Earlier, Mahindra criticised China, which he said "is already under siege as the source of COVID-19".

"Now, some of the masks and testing kits sent by them as humanitarian initiatives are apparently sub-standard. It must do more stringent checks on these shipments, or it will only accelerate its 'social distance' from the world," he had said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A German cruise ship has left Western Australia state after a three-week stay during which three people on board died of COVID-19.

The Artania began its journey from Fremantle back to Europe, keeping to its scheduled early afternoon departure time Saturday.

A total of 79 crew and passengers from the Artania tested positive for coronavirus in Western Australia.

They included a 42-year-old crewman from the Philippines who died in a Perth hospital on Thursday, raising the state's toll to seven.

The ship's captain, Morten Hansen, said the crew member had been with the company since 2006 and most recently served as a motorman, describing his death as heartbreaking. Two other people from the Artania died last week, one a passenger in his 70s, and the other a 69-year-old crewman.

Some of the crew who are expected to return home on a charter flight were removed from the ship on Saturday and transferred to a Perth hotel. The ship is expected to make stops in Indonesia and the Philippines en route to Germany.

The ship had been scheduled to depart earlier this month before being granted an additional 14-day quarantine period by the Australian Border Force. Some 219 of the state's 541 cases have been among people linked to cruise ships.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Columbia county sheriff's office car: (WJBF YouTube)

Residents in Wisconsin were told to lock their doors, after two inmates escaped from a maximum security prison.

The inmates, 37-year-old James Newman and 46-year-old Thomas Deering, escaped from the Columbia Correctional Facility on Thursday.

The Columbia County Sheriffs Offices released a statement on Twitter and Facebook, informing residents that the inmates had escaped.

Report of inmate escape at Columbia Correctional Facility (CCI) please lock your doors, and stay home, the statement read.

See anyone suspicious call 911. This is an ongoing investigation. Both white males, James Robert Newman age 37 and Thomas E Deering age 46.

@COSOWI

Report of inmate escape at Columbia Correctional Facility (CCI) please lock your doors, and stay home. See anyone suspicious call 911. This is an ongoing investigation. Both white males, James Robert Newman age 37 and Thomas E Deering age 46. pic.twitter.com/JCSeXLsvld  WI State Patrol (@wistatepatrol) April 16, 2020

In their statement on Facebook, they added that these individuals are considered dangerous. Anyone that has information regarding the whereabouts of these escaped suspects should immediately call law enforcement.

The sheriffs office updated their Facebook post later in the day, informing residents that the inmates were no longer in the state.

At this point the public is no longer in danger. We believe the suspects have travelled outside of Columbia County.

Mr Newman has been convicted of kidnapping and theft and Mr Newman has been convicted of sexual assault and battery, in addition to kidnapping, according to NBC.

Read more

Inmate released over coronavirus fears arrested for murder
Voroshilov in whose honor the city was named during the Soviet times was involved in the execution of over 18,000 people during Stalin's rule.

Leonid Pasechnik, the so-called leader of the self-proclaimed "Luhansk People's Republic" ("LPR"), a terrorist organization in Donbas, has issued an "order" to use the Soviet name "Voroshilovgrad" in relation to the Russia-occupied city of Luhansk.

The copy of the "order" was shared by Ukrainian journalist Andrey Dikhtyarenko on Facebook on April 17.

Read also"LPR" leader said to be terminally ill, Kremlin looking for replacement  Ukrainian blogger

The document says that the name "city of Voroshilovgrad" will be used along with the name "city of Luhansk" during events related to the anniversary of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945).

Luhansk was called Voroshilovgrad in 1935-1958 and 1970-1990 in honor of Soviet military officer Kliment (Klim) Voroshilov. He was born on January 23, 1881. In 1953  1960, he chaired the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR. He had two awards as a hero of the Soviet Union and one as a hero of socialist labor. He was one of the first Marshals of the Soviet Union (1935).

During the Great Terror period, also known as the Great Purge (large-scale political repression), Voroshilov was among other close associates of Joseph Stalin and personally signed 185 documented execution lists. Voroshilov was involved in the execution of over 18,000 people.
MBABANE  Babies who are almost a year old can defer their routine checks to avoid being exposed to the coronavirus.

This was said by Health Promotion Officer Calvin Dlamini during a health programme on national radio.



Dlamini said during the partial lockdown, which has since been extended by a further 21 days, it was currently wise for mothers not to take their babies to health facilities for the monthly check-ups.



During these check-ups, babies are given vaccines to immunise against illnesses and have their weight and height taken to monitor growth.

Dlamini said since health facilities were known to be fertile ground for germs, it would be sensible to keep children away from them.

We should know that children are in various development stages and they have a compromised immune system as they are still growing up and developing disease-fighting body cells, he said.



He explained that babies who were expected not to miss clinical check-ups were newborns and those younger than six months.

It is very crucial for these babies and their mothers to be examined and have their health monitored due to the risk they are in.



Skipping



He said health studies have shown that most babies would die around the early months if they were not well taken care of.

Some parents called in during the programme to find out if skipping clinic visits would not have any negative impact on their children and they were told that it would not.



Dlamini explained that this was not a permanent suspension but it was a deferment of a short period of time, which could be not more than three weeks.

Other parents called to ask if it would not be risky for their newborns if they lie idle while waiting for public transport to resume operations in the afternoon after going through the check-ups at clinics.



On this, Dlamini said it was unfortunate that by the time these new mothers were done at clinics, transport would be on break. However, by the time this report was compiled, government had said public transport would resume normal working hours.



Control



Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said if a child missed a shot, there was no need to start over.

Just go back to your childs doctor for the next shot. Talk with your childs doctor if you have questions about vaccines.

Deputy Director of Health Services Dr Velephi Okello said even though she was not privy to the arrangements that the public health unit may have put in place for the duration of the lockdown, she was aware that some mothers did not take their babies for check-ups on the specific dates advised by health workers.



Problem



Some parents do not maintain the dates. I can say there will not be a problem with deferring because these vaccines are not like ARV tablets where you cannot afford to skip appointments because you need to have the tablets and take them continuously without fail.

The country went into a 20-day partial lockdown on March 27.



Lockdown



At the end of the lockdown on Wednesday, Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini announced an extension of 21 days.

During this time people who can, are expected to work from home; avoid gatherings of over 20 people; keep a two-metre distance from other individuals and wash their hands with soap and water regularly.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18)  The number of coronavirus infections nationwide has surpassed 6,000 cases as the Department of Health confirmed 209 new patients on Saturday.

All in all, the Philippines has recorded 6,087 cases of COVID-19 three months into the outbreak. The number includes those under treatment and those who have died or recovered from the viral illness.

The country has also been seeing a rise in the number or recoveries, which is now at 516. The DOH said 29 more people have survived the disease.

Meanwhile, 10 more patients have died of COVID-19, bringing the death toll to 397.

The Philippines has a case fatality rate of 6.6 percent, the DOH has pointed out.

This is slightly higher than the global average of 6.4 percent. The DOH said most fatalities belong to the age group 50 years old and above.

There have been more recoveries than deaths for a third consecutive day as the DOH included in its report those who have gotten well while under home quarantine. Previously, its count only included those confined in hospitals.

The DOH has also explained that it takes around 13 days up to more than a month for patients to recover, depending on the severity of their symptoms.

To contain the spread of the virus, the government has placed Luzon under enhanced community quarantine for a month now, suspending most work, classes, and mass transportation so people would stay home.

The Luzon-wide quarantine has been extended until April 30 amid daily spikes in new infections. Other local government units across the country enforced their own lockdowns.

The Philippines confirmed its first case in late January, a month after the coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan, China. COVID-19 has since infected more than 2.2 million worldwide and killed over 154,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University's COVID-19 global tracker.
New York state extends business shutdown, school closure to May 15

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 08:37, April 17, 2020

NEW YORK, April 16 (Xinhua) -- Governor of the U.S. state of New York Andrew Cuomo on Thursday said the state's non-essential businesses shutdown and school closure will be extended to May 15 in an effort to keep reducing the infection rate of COVID-19.

Cuomo said at his daily briefing that this action is taken in consultation with other neighboring states, which will jointly re-evaluate after this additional closure period.

The state has seen a net decrease in total hospitalizations, intubations and intensive care admissions. "We have shown that we can control the spread of the virus, but we can't now undo all the progress we've made," he said.

The governor further explained the face-covering order he put forward the day before, saying all people in the state should wear masks or face coverings on public transportation systems and while taking private transportation or riding in for-hire vehicles.

The order applies to anyone age two and older and will take effect Friday night.

The governor reiterated that the state will reopen its economy over the coming weeks in collaboration with other neighboring states, and officials will determine what businesses can be reopened first and how those businesses can ensure the safety of its customers and employees.

"We have to do it in a way that doesn't drive up the infection rate and create a second wave of the virus," he noted.

In New York City, mayor Bill de Blasio said all public pools will remain closed in the summer due to the pandemic, and the city government is still considering whether to open its public beaches.

"I do not want - until we have a much, much better sense of where this is going - I don't want to create a situation where people start gathering," he said.

New York state has seen 223,691 COVID-19 cases and 14,832 deaths, as the country's total cases rose to 667,225 as of Thursday afternoon, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- In a world that seems to be growing darker by the day, we are constantly reminded of the countless good deeds that people have been doing by helping those around them.

One Staten Island-based charity is bringing a little bit more light into the world.

The Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation has answered the urgent call for help by government officials by securing 140,000 face shields for frontline hospital workers.

*** CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE COVERAGE OF CORONAVIRUS IN NEW YORK ***

The face shields will be donated to hospitals in the New York City area and around the nation.

We want to make sure that every health care worker and first responder feels protected when they go to work each day," said Tunnel to Towers Chairman and CEO Frank Siller.

"We hope this donation of face shields will make them feel more secure and less vulnerable as they risk their lives daily to save others during this pandemic.

The face shields are part of the Foundations commitment to provide PPE to first responders and frontline health care workers through its COVID-19 Heroes Fund.

The 140,000 face shields brings up the Foundations total number of personal protective equipment (PPE) donated to over 500,000 pieces.

The Foundation is one of several Staten Island-based charities and residents that have gone above and beyond to provide to the community during a time of need.

Recently, volunteers for the Carl V. Bini Fund hand-delivered over 30,000 pieces of PPE to all of the boroughs four police precincts and 20 firehouses.
Dick Higgins has stories to tell, and wants to share them before he forgets.

The 98-year-old great-grandfather from Bend may be living in a pandemic, but hes survived some of historys greatest crises. He grew up in small town Oklahoma and lived through the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. He enlisted in the Navy after high school and was propelled into history when he awoke Dec. 7, 1941, to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

So last month he turned to Instagram. He is using the social media platform to share short videos of his history and post them to the account he calls quarantine_chats_with_gramps. Higgins is one of the oldest living survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor, which the U.S. surgeon general recently compared to the coronavirus pandemic.

Higgins has five videos so far and a growing following of about 40 people, and counting.

Hes doing it from his Bend home he shares with his granddaughter, Angela Norton, and her family: Husband, Ryan, and their 5-year-old son, Josiah, and 6-month-old daughter, Nolle.

Higgins, who spent his career in radio engineering after serving as a radio operator in the Navy, never heard of Instagram until his granddaughter set up the account for him.

I dont even know what it is, Higgins said in the first video he recorded on Instagram on March 22. That came along after I got out of the electronics business.

Norton uses her cellphone to record her grandfathers stories for the Instagram account. The posts follow the events of his life in chronological order.

In one video, Higgins recalls his first childhood memory, of a circus coming to his small Oklahoma town.

We were running down the street following the circus wagon, he said in the video. Seeing all those tigers and lions and stuff we had never seen before.

In the latest video, posted Thursday, Higgins talks about living through the Dust Bowl in the 1930s

Soon he will discuss Pearl Harbor, Norton said.

The account also features fun posts showing Higgins feeding his 6-month-old great-granddaughter, Nolle, and him dancing to Justin Timberlakes song, Cant stop the feeling.

We are trying to keep his mind active and sharp, Norton said. And keep him engaged.

Higgins Pearl Harbor experience is a story his family knows well.

Higgins was a 20-year-old Navy radio operator two years into his service, when Japanese planes roared over his barracks on Ford Island on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941.

Through gunfire and bombs dropping, Higgins cleared the wreckage from the airfield to salvage planes that were still intact and prepared them for flight.

Daniel Martinez, chief historian for the WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument in Honolulu, Hawaii, said the Ford Island airfield where Higgins served is considered ground zero of the Japanese attack.

He would have witnessed the opening of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Martinez said.

It is difficult to track how many Pearl Harbor survivors are still alive since there is no official count being kept, Martinez said.

But Higgins is among the oldest living survivors in the nation, he said.

Its simple math. A survivor who was 18 during the attack would be 96 today.

The number of survivors keeps dwindling. Higgins was one of six survivors in Bend, and now hes the only one.

At the national anniversary ceremony in Honolulu last year, only about a dozen survivors were in attendance. At the 75th anniversary, three years ago, about 200 survivors made the trip to Hawaii.

Every generation goes through that, and we are going through that with our World War II veterans, Martinez said.

Martinez worries that many of the remaining survivors are vulnerable to COVID-19 and are in nursing homes that are susceptible to the virus.

How many have we lost that we dont know? he said.

Higgins family is grateful he is not in an assisted living facility, where they wouldnt be allowed to see him during the pandemic.

The family is making sure Higgins stays healthy through the isolation, and does his daily exercises.

Friends have offered to grocery shop for the family to reduce the risk of exposing Higgins to the virus.

We are trying to protect him, Norton said. All our friends have offered to go to the grocery store because they know we are a high-risk family.

Higgins is motivated to get past the pandemic and return to Pearl Harbor for the 80th anniversary next year, when he is 100.

And he has plans beyond that.

I want to outlive my wifes brother-in-law, Higgins said, who was 106.

Higgins married his wife, Winnie Ruth Higgins, in 1944, and they were together for 60 years until her death in 2004.

While the pandemic isolation can be difficult, Higgins is making the best of it. He likes to sit in his La-Z-Boy chair and watch the History Channel. He also gets to spend extra time with his great-grandchildren.

For the last month, we have been home every night cooking dinner together and being outside when the weather is nice, Norton said. There has been a ton more quality time at home.

On Wednesday, Higgins sat in a chair on the front porch to record a video for his Instagram account.

Norton aimed her cellphone at her grandfather as he talked about farming during the Great Depression. He recalled planting watermelons between other crops so he would have watermelons to drink instead of having to carry a water jug.

Norton paused the video and told her grandfather, You could tell hours of stories couldnt you?

Higgins smiled and nodded his head.

Well I dont know, he said. If you give me a starting point, I might be able to.
- Vice Ganda once again proved that he is ready to help other people in times of crisis

- Recently, he sent donations to a person affected by the COVID-19 pandemic

- The said beneficiary then confessed that he is a basher of the comedian and his real-life boyfriend

- He then thanked Vice for his generosity and he also apologized for criticizing him

PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed

A self-confessed basher of Vice Ganda immediately made a social media post after he received donations from the prominent comedian.

KAMI learned that the said critic was one of the people who received grocery items from the showbiz personality amid the novel coronavirus crisis.

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He admitted through a much-talked-about post that he criticized the love story of the Unkabogable Star and Ion Perez.

After receiving relief packs, the said basher apologized to the celebrity for committing a mistake.

He also expressed his gratitude to Vice for his generosity amid these trying times.

"Nakonsensiya ako... Tao lang, sorry po. Yung binabash ko na Ion at Vice, nagpadala ng ayuda here sa bahay Salamat, meme!" the netizen wrote,

In a previous article by , Vice warned the public after learning about a Facebook page that uses his name.

Vice Ganda is one of the most popular celebrities in the Philippines. He recently starred in the comedy movie entitled The Mall, The Merrier with his showbiz friend Anne Curtis.

POPULAR: Read more news about Vice Ganda!

Please like and share our Facebook posts to support KAMI team! Dont hesitate to comment and share your opinion about our stories either. We love reading about your thoughts!

A Filipino found his own way to help frontliners amid pandemic. They had to walk an hour, an hour and a half to get to work. I mean, coming from an 8-hour shift sa hospital, tapos palalakarin mo pa yung nurse o kahit security guard. Parang hindi makatarungan, diba?  on HumanMeter!

Source: KAMI.com.gh
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THE boss of a well-loved county Limerick charity has issued an urgent appeal for donations.

Marion Fitzgibbon of Limerick Animal Welfare, which operates a sanctuary in Kilfinane has seen more than 50% of its income evaporate overnight due to the onset of coronavirus.

The lockdown meant that its two charity shops in Parnell Street and William Street had to stop overnight, depriving them of a vital source of income.

Sadly though, animal cruelty doesnt stop, and Marion says there is appalling stress on her and her staff at the moment.

We need a minimum of 60,000 each month to remain open. There's an awful lot of collection on that when the shops are closed, she said, My budget for this year was 800,000 after it was 750,000 last year. That's what we need to bring in, that's without any extras. That's just to keep us going.

Despite the fact the shelter in Kilfinane is closed to the public, its telephones never stop ringing, and the centre have not abandoned animals in need of help and shelter.

I am trying to keep my staff going. We have had two very badly injured dogs in the last five days. How are we going to pay the vet's bills, as our three charity shops are closed?  she asked.

The sanctuary is closed. More than half our income has gone overnight. How are we going to pay the insurance, pay the ESB and keep our staff paid? I don't know, Marion told the Limerick Leader.

She said her last three weeks have been spent adding and subtracting.

I have my jotter and my biro out. Looking at the accounts, the overheads and what's the minimum I need to keep the sanctuary going, pay the vet's bills, she said.

Marion said the charity would never put down an animal it feels had a good chance of survival.

If you are in a position to donate to Limerick Animal Welfare, visit their web site at www.limerickanimalwelfare.ie

Alternatively, you can call the centre in Kilfinane on 063-91110.
Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site.

People who live in nursing homes long termusually older adults, many of whom have significant underlying conditions such as heart disease, lung disease, and diabetesare particularly vulnerable to experiencing serious complications from COVID-19. And since the beginning of this epidemic in the U.S., some of the most severe clusters of the disease have been in long-term-care centers.

Coronavirus in a nursing home can be like fire through dry grass, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a press briefing.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) since mid-March has instructed nursing homes to stop admitting most visitors and non-essential personnel, in an effort to prevent the introduction of COVID-19.

But the potential for the infection to quickly wreak havoc once it takes hold in this setting, plus the inability of families to visit their relatives and check on them in person, has many wondering whether they should bring a parent or loved one back home to wait out the storm.

It's difficult for families to know how to react to the ongoing news of outbreaks in nursing homes across the country. By mid-April, for example, about a quarter of reported COVID-19 fatalities in New York State were in long-term-care facilities. Just a month after two cases of the coronavirus first appeared in a nursing home in Virginia, 45 of the 160 residents had died, according to The New York Times.

The decision can be fraught with complications. Is being on lockdown in a nursing home safer than being in an imperfectly quarantined home? Can family and friends provide everything that's needed? And what are the financial implications of bringing someone home from a nursing home?

Of course, theres no one correct answer to these questions. People need to respect the wisdom and wishes of their parents, and trust their gut instincts on what is the right decision based on the best current news and evidence, says Olga Jarrin Montaner, Ph.D., R.N., an assistant professor at Rutgers School of Nursing.

Story continues

We consulted a number of experts to find out what families should take into consideration before pulling a loved one from long-term careplus what you can do to help take care of relatives from afar.

Weighing the Risks and Benefits

If youre thinking about bringing a loved one home, here are several questions to consider first.

Can you ensure a safe level of social distancing?

Given the frightening outbreaks that have occurred in nursing homes, it might seem like someone would have a lower chance of catching COVID-19 in a private residence.

But that might not necessarily be the case, says Ashley Z. Ritter, Ph.D., a nurse practitioner and a postdoctoral fellow in the National Clinician Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania. People may be coming and going in your home, including, for instance, young children who might not be as practiced or reliable at covering sneezes and coughs or regularly washing their hands. Your family might not be able to avoid trips out to the grocery store. Or someone in your household might be an essential worker going out every day. Any of those factors can add to the risk of an infection unwittingly brought home.

Nursing homes are being directed not to allow visitors; to regularly screen all staff, visitors, and residents for signs of disease; and to require all staff interacting with residents to wear facemasks and other protective equipment, among many other directives. In our homes, its likely that we dont practice infection control as rigorously as is done in many nursing homes, says Sheryl Zimmerman, Ph.D., professor and co-director of the Program on Aging, Disability, and Long-Term Care at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Is the nursing home enforcing effective infection control?

Nursing homes should have protocols in place for controlling infection outbreaks, Ritter says. And although this pandemic is much more severe than seasonal flu, nursing home staff should be trained in preventing the spread of disease.

Still, its important to keep in mind that some nursing homes violate these protocols every year, and infection control violations are common. You can use Medicares Nursing Home Compare tool to look up nursing homes and find recent inspection reports. Look for violations on the requirement to provide and implement an infection prevention and control program.

With COVID-19 spreading, nursing homes may also be short-staffed and struggling to find appropriate protective equipment (such as masks) for residents and employees.

Ask your contact at the nursing home whether the facility is abiding by the infection control guidelines from CMS, such as designating separate staff teams to care for residents with COVID-19 and those without.

Once a facility has a confirmed case of COVID-19, though, says Joseph Ouslander, M.D., a professor of geriatric medicine at Florida Atlantic University, it may be unwise to bring a resident home. That person could already be unknowingly infected and may put other loved ones and caregivers at risk.



Can you provide the level of care your loved one needs?

The California-based nonprofit Institute on Aging recommends considering a few key factors when deciding whether to bring a relative home from a nursing homeapplicable at any time, not only during a pandemic. These include whether you can manage your relatives medications, whether youll be able to get them to all their necessary regular medical appointments, and whether you can provide them all the help and services theyll need.

Though both low- and higher-tech solutions are available for medication management, the problem of getting relatives to their regular medical appointments might be trickier than usual now, Jarrin says. Thats because healthcare providers may in some places be restricting who can come into hospitals and medical centers, in order to limit the potential for any infection spread. That might mean a spouse or caregiver would be unable to sit in on someones appointment and take notes, ask questions, and receive directions for care. Investigating the use of telehealth for part of your loved ones care can be useful, Jarrin says. Telehealth may also be necessary if your loved one is in a nursing home far away from where youd be bringing them home to, so you may want to make sure ahead of time that their doctor can see them virtually.

At home, its important to be realistic about whether you can match the level of care your relative needs and is receiving in their nursing home, says Liz Barlowe, an aging life care manager and board president of the Aging Life Care Association. Particularly for people coming from a skilled nursing facilitythey're in there because they needed a nurse, she says.

And hiring help presents its own challengessome agencies may have a harder time than usual finding enough providers, for one thing, in part because home-care workers may, like everyone else right now, want to avoid too much contact with a lot of different people. And having people come in and out of the house to provide care could raise the risk of infection being transmitted, just as visitors to a nursing home do.

For this reason, if you do decide to try and find home health care, Barlowe advises checking with agencies about their infection control policies upfront. Caregivers should be checking their temperature and evaluating themselves for any potential COVID-19 symptoms before coming inside your home, changing into clean scrubs once they arrive, and wearing gloves and a mask throughout their shift, Barlowe says. And ask agencies how many clients your potential caregiver has right now. We know the less contact with people, the better, Barlowe says. I would not accept a caregiver visiting multiple clients.

What costs are involved?

Theres a lot of variation in what Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance might cover when it comes to home health services. Tools such as the U.S. Administration on Agings Eldercare locator, Medicares search tool for home health agencies, and the National Association for Home Care can help you locate resources. Barlowe also recommends enlisting the help of an aging life care professional, who can help you navigate the resources available to you locally and put together a care plan for your relative.

And be sure to check on what might happen to your ability to resume your relatives care in a nursing home once this crisis is over. Once you take them out, it might be difficult to get them back in, or to resume coverage for the costs of care.

Whats your backup plan?

Keep in mind, Ritter advises, that whatever plans you make, you should expect that you may need to keep them in place for months, because the pandemic isnt going away anytime soon.

And you should have a backup plan in place for what happens if your loved ones primary caregiverswhether thats you, other family members, or health workers you hireget sick and become unable to care for them. Do you have a second and third line of planning to take care of that individual in the home? Ritter says.

Special Considerations for Assisted Living

If you have a loved one in assisted living, rather than a nursing home, the risk vs. benefit balance might be somewhat different. For one thing, Zimmerman says, assisted living facilities are subject to less regulation around infection control procedures than nursing homes are, so its important to find out what safeguards your loved ones facility has in place.

And in general, assisted living facilities vary more widely than nursing homes in terms of the level of medical services they provide and the amount of medical staff they employ. As more and more people start getting sick with COVID-19, that could deplete assisted living staff even more.

Zimmerman recommends checking in with the management of your relatives assisted living facility about their infection control practices and staffing levels. If the facility isnt making changes that would ensure social distancing among residentssuch as discontinuing with group mealsthat should be cause for concern, she says.

Additionally, Zimmerman says, If there was some serious concern that, given insufficient staffing, the basic needs of my family member could not be met, because there were not sufficient staff there, then I would certainly start to think about what would be the best way to take care of my family members welfare.

Care for Loved Ones From Afar

If you decide you dont have the resources to bring your relative home and keep them safe, theres still plenty you can do to take care of him or her from afar. Regular phone calls or video chats are critical for virtually checking in on your loved one.

Zimmerman recommends making these check-ins do double duty, and keeping an eye out for any signs of illness that overtaxed staff may not yet have noticed. Stay in contact with your relatives doctor so that you can alert him or her in case you notice anything worrying.

Last, if you havent clarified your loved ones end-of-life wishes, have that conversation. Its more important now than ever to review and revise advance directives and physician orders for life-sustaining treatment (POLST) forms that clarify wishes regarding life-sustaining treatment options including hospitalization and ventilator, Jarrin says.





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Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright  2020, Consumer Reports, Inc.
Residents of Markievicz Heights, Sligo who took part in the ShineYourLight campaign last Saturday at 9pm in a gesture of hope and solidarity during the Covid-19 pandemic. Pic: Carl Brennan

Carraroe: Help kill the virus - Carraroe and District Regeneration Association (Cadra) wants to help keep our community safe. St John's GAA Club has agreed to help any elderly or vulnerable or living alone person in our community with shopping, fuel or prescriptions etc.

Ring Seamus Casey chairman at 085 2498067 and he will arrange a club member to assist. Sligo Gardai Station at 071 9157000 or sligo.community@garda.ie is also available to assist. Keep safe Keep your distance and wash hands well and regularly.

Carraroe Church

Visit churchtv.ie When the page opens just look for the image of Carraroe Church and click on it. People can still join in by listening to Fr Jim celebrate Mass on 107FM Just tune your radio before Mass.

Age and Opportunity exercise

The Age and Opportunity Facebook page provide exercise sessions each Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 11 a.m. Please click on the page and follow the Tutor.

Gardai Siochana Home Crime Prevention Advice

Keep lights on inside and out. Do not keep large amounts of cash at home. Keep valuables and keys out of sight. Visit garda.ie for more crime prevention advice. Be alert to online and telephone scams. Do not share personal or financial data. An Garda Siochana encourages the reporting of Hate Crime.

KEEP UNEXPECTED CALLERS OUT - Do not open the door. Use the door chain. Look for ID. If you require assistance call your local garda station at 071 9157000. Keep a lookout for friends and neighbours while adhering to appropriate physical distancing. Use only the services of people you know and trust.

Seniors Alarm

Residents with the Seniors Alarm are advised to were the alarm pendant at all times including in Bed/Shower/Bath - it is waterproof. We also ask everyone to test the alarm by pressing the red button on the pendant once a month at least.

A new support telephone line for those with the Seniors Alarm has been put in place by Department via Alone. Just press your alarm and the service will ask your permission to pass your telephone number to Alone which is an organisation the Department has requested to give extra support like calling you for a chat and support. It will also organise assistance for you. The people monitoring the alarm will chat you to see all is ok so don't worry about testing as the people expect that to happen.

Anyone that requires help can also call any of the following: Bridie McLean 086 3998925, Pat Benson 087 2222835, Dympna O'Loughlin 087 9303540, Mary Murphy 087 6888293, Mary Dunbar 087 6669533.

CPR advice

Community CPR is not advised in any case of COVID 19 infection as it may cause others to be infected and should be undertaken with appropriate PPE as available in GP, Hospitals, Ambulance etc. Please note the Defibs are located at Community Centre and Community Field Clubhouse. The code is posted beside the machine. Please be aware CCTV is in operation.

Have your Eircode number available

Cadra reminds all residents of Carraroe the Eircode number of your house will assist emergency services to find your house faster. All residents are advised to place their house Eircode number on all telephones used to summon emergency services to ensure it is available in such an emergency.

Future news/events

To have events/news items included in Carraroe section contact 087 2222835 or email to carraroesligonews@gmail.com not later than Thursday each week.

Gurteen

Recent deaths

The death has taken place suddenly at her residence on April 3 of Ada Sherlock, Doon West, Gurteen. News of her passing was received with shock and sadness in the community. She was a well-liked, unassuming member of the community and will be sadly missed by all who knew her. Her funeral was private with family only - in keeping with the HSE regulations and a Memorial Mass will be held at a later date.

She is survived by her sisters Patricia Duffy, Monasteraden: Christina and family in Leeds: Philomena and family in Switzerland, brothers-in-law, nephews, nieces, extended family, neighbours and a large circle of friends to whom deepest sympathy is extended. May she rest in peace.

The death took place on April 1 of Mary Ann O'Connell nee McGowan, Clooneen, Gurteen. She was predeceased by her husband Matt and daughter Nora. A quiet and friendly woman she will be missed by all who knew. Her Funeral was private to family only - in keeping with HSE regulations and a Memorial Mass for her will be held at a later date.

She is survived by her sons, Michael and Patrick, daughters, Patricia, Kathleen and Una, daughters-in-law, sons - in law, 17 grandchildren, nine great grandchildren, nephews, nieces, and a wide circle of friends to whom deepest sympathy is extended. May she rest in peace.

Suspension of Masses

In line with National and Governmental efforts to stem the spread of Covid - 19 - the decision is reluctantly taken to cancel all public Masses in Achonry Diocese for now. There will be no public Masses in Gurteen Church but the church will be open during the day for personal visits and prayers. Adoration of Holy Eucharist on Wednesday is suspended for now and the collection for Holy Places is deferred till September.

Community Care

Since persons over the age of 70 are directed to stay home-'to cocoon' - the following Gurteen Community Care members may be called upon to bring shopping etc or any need. Please feel free to phone any of the following members: Carmel at 086 0621913: Christine at 087 6364044: Seamus at 087 2934782 and Paddy at 086 23803.

Text Alert

Should any person in the Gurteen/Cloonloo alert area need help of any kind, food, fuel, prescription or medication please dont hesitate to phone Gurteen Gardai at 071 91820002; Kieran McGill 087 1676180: John Hannon 086 8798979: Dolores Hannan 086 0876403:Maureen O'Dowd 087 4176249 or Fr Joe Caulfield 087 2473234.

Alone

Alone has a national support line and additional supports for older people who have concerns or are facing difficulties re outbreaks of Covid 19. Professional staff are available to answer queries, give advice and reassurance where necessary. Support line is open Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. by calling 0818 222 024.
Gov. Tom Wolf on Saturday announced nearly $16 million will be donated to food banks across the state to assist out-of-work families, amid reports that food bank usage in Pennsylvania has tripled since the coronavirus outbreak began.

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has received about $14.9 million from the federal government that will go toward feeding hundreds of thousands of families, the governor said.

COVID-19 has caused severe economic stress for many Pennsylvanians, and as a result our food banks have been working in overdrive with unprecedented demand, Wolf said, according to a news release. Were proud of the Pennsylvanians who are sacrificing so much for the greater good. Well continue to push hard and advocate on their behalf, because no one should have to go without when theyre doing their part to save lives.

About $3.75 million will go to 18 food banks in Pennsylvania for storage, transportation and distribution costs associated with donation, Wolf said. The rest of the funds  about $11.15 million  is earmarked for getting meats, vegetables, canned goods, cereal, rice, pasta, eggs and more to the donation sites.

An additional $1 million is going to Hunger-Free Pennsylvania as emergency funding for food and supplies, according to the governor.

Since this crisis began in early March, our food banks and pantries have been working hard to continue to meet the needs of the more than 1.5 million Pennsylvanians who were already facing hunger, while also stepping up to support our neighbors who are newly out of work and need assistance, said Sheila Christopher, executive director of Hunger-Free Pennsylvania.

Food banks around central Pennsylvania have had to adjust over the past month to accommodate the increased demand stemming from recently out-of-work residents.

One in five Pennsylvanians has filed for unemployment during the pandemic, according to state data released this week.

The York County Food Bank went as far as moving to a new address with more space for the growing number of people needing assistance.

For Amy Hill, director of community engagement for the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, working out of a larger facility has helped with efficiency as well as the ability to abide by social distancing guidelines.

She told PennLive she doesnt know of another instance in which this high of demand has existed at Pennsylvania food banks.

Some of our agencies have reported three times the number of clients theyre used to serving, Hill said. We are seeing increased demand.

Volunteers continue to assist with day-to-day operations at larger facilities like the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, but more localized banks such as the Caring Cupboard in Palmyra, as well.

At both facilities, food is pre-packaged and delivered to families in a drive-thru capacity  cars pull up, pop their trunks and the food is stowed inside, with as little human contact as possible.

Its been really great to see, said Shila Ulrich, the Caring Cupboards executive director. The people we serve, who are mentally ill, cant work  thinking about not putting out the food didnt even cross my mind.

Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said COVID-19 turned Pennsylvania upside down and forced thousands out of jobs, "but were not willing to accept hunger as our next pandemic. Well do whatever we can to support our charitable food system. Its a system thats supporting hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians doing their part to slow the spread for the health of Pennsylvania.

Staff writer Steve Marroni contributed to this report.
BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese regulator handed out hefty fines to individuals and companies in the securities sector for illegal practices last year as the country stepped up efforts to contain financial risks.

In 2019, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) confiscated and fined a total of 4.18 billion yuan (about 591.5 million U.S. dollars) in the sector, according to a report released by the CSRC Friday.

During the same period, the CSRC handed out 296 administrative penalties and prohibited 66 people from entering the securities market, the report said.

The harsh crackdown on illegal practices came as China's rapidly expanding financial industry has been placed under greater regulatory scrutiny in recent years to curb financial risks.
<! Nollywood Actress Yewande Adekoya welcomes new baby girl >

Nollywood Actress, Yewande Adekoya, popularly known as Kudi Klepto took to her Instagram handle to announce the arrival of her new baby girl on Friday.

Adekoya, who displayed her baby bump in a black see-through mesh dress and a pair of jean shorts also congratulated her husband, Actor cum movie producer, Abiodun Thomas.

The actress expressed her excitement and said she had stayed off the social media for a while due to the bundle of joy she was carrying, which has finally been delivered.

God, we give you all the glory, our joy knows no bound.

Our little princess is here.

Now you all know why I have been away from work and social media, I have been baking a bun in the oven.

Welcome my love.

Congratulations to us my love, she said.

The actress had featured in many Nigerian films among which are: Fadaka, Omo Elemosho, Iyawo Adedigba, Kurukuru and more with several awards to her credit.
OTTAWAThe demand for toilet paper in Canada has skyrocketed  increasing by 241 per cent during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Derek Nighbor, president of the Forest Products Association of Canada, revealed the eye-popping increase Friday in testimony to the House of Commons finance committee.

He told the committee that the forest products industry has rarely enjoyed such a high profile.

And thats not just because it produces toilet paper, which Canadians began stockpiling as soon as it became clear early last month that orders to stay home were imminent.

Nighbor said the sector is supplying the pulp needed to make sanitary wipes, paper towels, protective masks and hospital gowns.

Its also supplying the wood pellets, biofuels and green energy that feed heating systems and provincial power grids.

While Nighbor called the steep increase in demand for toilet paper a bit of an anomaly that will not last, he also signalled that the supply of pulp-based products could face trouble down the road as sawmills across the country shut down due to a pandemic-induced collapse in lumber prices.

Thirty-nine sawmills have temporarily closed, throwing thousands out of work and reducing the supply of wood chips that are needed to make pulp.

Some of those essential products I talked about earlier are made possible because of Canadas pulp mills but, with sawmills going down, our pulp mills are starting to suffer, Nighbor said.

They cant get the chips they need to make their in-demand products so some of them are starting to announce down time as well.

With offices, stores and schools closed and advertising revenues down, he said pulp mills are also suffering from a collapse in demand for newsprint and other paper.

For now, most of the sawmill closures  24 of the 39  have been in British Columbia. But Nighbor said: As this drags on, Im increasingly concerned about capacity issues in the east as well.

Nighbor said the emergency aid measures implemented by the federal government to help businesses weather the storm have been little help to the sector.

For instance, he said the massive 75-per-cent wage subsidy program leaves a large majority of players in our sector and our workers behind.

Nighbor said many companies operate a number of different mills and have not, overall, experienced sufficient decline in their revenues to be eligible for the wage subsidy. Rather than basing eligibility on a companys overall revenues, he urged the government to take a mill-by-mill approach, predicting that would keep thousands of workers on the job.

He also suggested that companies whose revenues have declined by smaller amounts of 10 or 15 per cent could be made eligible for a smaller wage subsidy of 40 or 50 per cent.

But Nighbor said the biggest worry in the sector is about the lack of liquidity to manage increased operating costs as prices for products are falling off a cliff. He said the industry is not convinced that federal business loan programs offered so far will be sufficient and that lenders must be willing to take more risk than the banks have so far been willing to do.

Our industry is not looking for a bailout, Nighbor said. What were looking for is bolstered cash-flow support to keep our businesses operating through these difficult next two to three quarters.

The committee also heard Friday from Mary Robinson, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.

She warned that farm labour shortages, unexpected pandemic-induced costs, supply chain disruptions and reduced capacity among food processors are eroding the confidence farmers need to invest in planting a crop or maintaining livestock herds  decisions that must be made now and directly affect the availability and affordability of food later this year.

Without immediate federal help, Robinson said: Canadian consumers could see a decrease in the amount and variety of food at their local grocery stores, as well as higher prices in the months ahead.

Robinson called for a flexible federal emergency fund specifically for farmers, priority access to personal protective equipment for agri-food workers, and measures to encourage Canadians to work on farms and in food processing plants. She also called on the government to enhance existing income-stabilization and support programs for farmers.

As well, Robinson echoed the Conservatives long-standing demand that the federal government exempt farmers from the carbon tax.
Coronavirus: In the quarantine period, actor Sanjay Dutt is badly missing his wife, Maanayata Dutt and kids as they are stuck in Dubai when the lockdown was imposed. In the latest interview, the actor also says, isolation period has taught him about the fragility of life.

Coronavirus: By looking at the current scenario of rapidly spreading coronavirus, the nationwide lockdown has now been extended to May 3, 2020, by the honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi. People who are strictly confined to their homes are now spending much time with their families. For some its an eye-opener towards life of not taking things for granted, and thats what actor Sanjay Dutt talked about in his recent interview with a leading website.

The actor said, earlier also he has spent similar lockdown time in jail, the only thing was the same is that he misses his family, then and now as they mean everything to him. Thanks to technology, they can virtually connect with each other, yet he badly missing them.

This lockdown period has taught him a lot about the fragility of life, and the value of near dear ones. Those moments which they have had spend together, and the blessing from them are never to be taken for granted, the actor said.

Asking about his self-isolation period and a gap taken from acting, to which he replied, as an artist its a physical and mental job, quarantine period has given the chance to reenergize his body mentally and physically, and preparing for the next role. He further explained, to play a role its time taking as he earlier performed complex characters. Talking about Maanayata and kids, he said when the lockdown was announced unfortunately they were in Dubia, and yes missing them badly.

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Mandatory lockdowns to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, which has so far infected more than 2.2 million people and for which there is no vaccine, have brought widespread hardship.

In a joint statement on Saturday, a group of 13 countries including Canada, Brazil, Italy and Germany called for global cooperation to lessen the economic impact of the pandemic.

It is vital that we work together to save lives and livelihoods, they said.

The group, which also includes Britain, France, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, South Korea, Singapore and Turkey, said it was committed to work with all countries to coordinate on public health, travel, trade, economic and financial measures in order to minimise disruptions and recover stronger.

The countries emphasised the need to maintain air, land and marine transportation links to ensure the continued flow of goods including medical equipment and aid, and the return home of travellers.

Most governments remain cautious, even as the economic toll rises.

Public health experts warn that easing shutdowns must be accompanied by wider testing and tracing of infected people to keep the virus from coming back.

Singapore, which has been held up as a model for other nations after taking strong measures to clamp down on the virus, reported a new daily record of 942 infections on Saturday that saw its total surge to 5,992.

The number of cases in the city-state has more than doubled just this week alone amid an explosion of cases among foreign workers staying in crowded dormitories, that now make up 60 per cent of Singapores infections.

Japan also reported a fresh surge of 556 new cases on Saturday, pushing its total to over 10,000.

Prime minister Shinzo Abe expressed concern on Friday that people were not observing social distancing and announced a 100,000-yen cash handout to each resident as an incentive to stay home.

In Africa, the pandemic is only just getting underway.

The continent now has more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fifty-two of the continents 54 countries have reported the virus, with the total number of cases more than 19,800 as of Saturday morning.

Top leaders of Chinas ruling Communist Party called for deficit spending and a more flexible monetary policy after the economy shrank 6.8 per cent in the first three months of the year.

Frances lower house of parliament approved an emergency budget overnight that takes into account the governments 110bn (95bn) plan to save the economy from virus-related collapse.

The government has warned that Frances economy, one of the worlds biggest, could shrink 8 per cent this year and see its worst recession since the Second World War.

South Koreas health minister Kim Gang-lip said on Saturday that new guidelines could be issued soon that officials have said would allow people to engage in certain levels of economic and social activity.

The east Asian country was among the 13 nations to issue the joint statement on protecting global trade.

The declaration also stressed the importance and critical role of the scientific community in providing guidance to governments, and suggested pooling scientific resources and efforts to tackle the pandemic.

The outbreak has killed at least 154,000 people worldwide, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally based on figures supplied by government health authorities around the globe.

Reuters
With so many people cocooning in relative self-quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic, on-demand and streaming video services are reporting a significant uptick in viewership of classic and current movies.

That got me to thinking about some of my favorite movies that are decidedly food-centric. Not just having a food or beverage item in the title -- like "Fried Green Tomatoes" or "Like Water for Chocolate," or having a great food fight -- like "The Great Race" or "Animal House," or a catchy song -- like "Food, Glorious Food" from "Oliver," but ones that actually delve into cooking, wine making, restaurant operating, or food as a pivotal scene or plot point.

I'm sure the following list of 20, in order of release date, can be expanded because any list of "best" items of any kind always can. Feel free to add your own.

1. Burnt (2015) - Bradley Cooper stars as a hotshot Paris chef who derails his career and personal life with drug use and a really lousy temperament. So, he heads off to New Orleans to rehabilitate himself in hopes of returning to Europe and getting back into the Michelin-starred ranks. To put it mildly, it doesnt go smoothly. Sabotage, betrayal, temptation, and romance help spice up some pretty fancy cooking.

2. The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014) - Virtually anything with Helen Mirren is a gem. Here, she plays the snobbish owner of a Michelin-starred French country restaurant upset with the arrival across the street of a loud, gaudy, brassy Indian family led by the late, magnificent Om Puri that sets up their own ethnic dining spot. Her underhanded efforts to derail them have an interesting counterpoint -- the eldest Indian sons effort to make the perfect omelette to impress her with his multinational culinary skills. A couple of budding romances are thrown in for spice.

3. Chef (2014) - John Favreau wrote, directed, and starred in this Tribeca Film Festival award winner. It deals with a chef who loses his restaurant job then sets out to become a food truck entrepreneur, assisted by his son. Ups and downs ensue, both personally and professionally. It has an extremely strong supporting cast that includes Sophia Vergara, John Leguizamo, Bobby Canavale, Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman, Oliver Platt, and Robert Downey Jr.

4. Spinning Plates (2013) - Documentaries dont have to be dry, and this winner of multiple film festival awards certainly is juicy. It looks at a world-renowned chef in Chicago battling a life-threatening condition while working on a competition, a startup Mexican restaurant in Tucson, AZ, and a 150-year-old Iowa restaurant still in business only because of its connection to the community. A compelling view of family, passion, and endurance.

5. Le Chef (2012) - The iconic French actor Jean Reno plays a renowned chef and TV host in this comedy originally titled Comme un chef. He is struggling to change his entire menu because of an impending visit by critics who prefer molecular gastronomy, something he doesnt do. Should he not please their palates and loses a star from his rating, the restaurants owner will fire him and his staff. A feuding couple  a pregnant young woman and her self-taught chef-boyfriend  get into the mix and create heartburn while helping change the menu. A typical French farce, but with a lot of laughs and tasty looking dishes.

6. Haute Cuisine (2012) - This French release, originally titled Les Saveurs du Palais, is based on the true story of Daniele Mazet-Delpeuch, a renowned chef from the Perigord region, and how she was appointed private chef for French President Francois Mitterrand. The chef, here called Hortense Laborie, steps into both the halls of power and into a cauldron of kitchen jealousies and cooks her way through both.

7. Eat Pray Love (2010) - Julia Roberts may be long remembered for the zany lobster-eating scene in Pretty Woman, but in this biographical romantic drama she offers a wider menu from a journey of self-discovery based on the book by Elizabeth Gilbert who chronicled her travels after her divorce. Most of the foodie stuff is when she spends time in Italy.

8. Julie & Julia (2009) - Interspersed looks at the adult life of culinary goddess Julia Child and New York City blogger Julie Powells real-life effort to recreate in one year in her tiny apartment kitchen every recipe in Julias iconic cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Amy Adams is solid as the amateur cook, but Meryl Streeps portrayal of Julia is astonishingly accurate. The subplot of Julias real-life love affair with diplomat/gourmand husband Paul Child outshines Julies culinary struggles and successes.

9. Bottle Shock (2008) - If youre not familiar with what came to be called the Judgment of Paris, this is a perfect vehicle to learn about this true 1976 event. A solid cast headed by Chris Pine, Alan Rickman, and Bill Pullman brings to life the early days of California winemaking when its wines defeated the iconic French wines in a blind taste test, vaulting California wines into worldwide credibility.

10. Ratatouille (2007) - This animated gem features Remy, a kitchen rat (voiced by actor-comedian Patton Oswalt) who tries to keep out of sight  rodents are not appreciated in kitchens - while mentoring young Linguini (voiced by Lou Romano), a bumbling restaurant garbage boy who dreams of becoming a chef. It has everything, including a tyrannical head chef and a deliciously evil food critic voiced by the priceless Peter OToole.

11. No Reservations (2007) - The life of Catherine Zeta-Jones, playing the imperious head chef of a trendy Manhattan restaurant, is thrown off kilter when she becomes the guardian of her nine-year-old niece after the girls mother is killed in a car accident. Its a remake of the 2001 German film Mostly Martha that has more cooking action than the usual kitchen-focused films.

12. Sideways (2004) - Some people regard this as a film more about wine than about food, but buddies Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church ingest plenty of both in a comedy-drama road trip through Californias Santa Ynez Valley wine country. The climactic scene shows Giamattis character gulping down an exquisite 1961 Chateau Blanc from a Styrofoam cup, a disgusting act to any serious oenophile.

13. Soul Food (1997) - The title arguably makes it sound like a documentary, but this is a comedy-drama told through the eyes of an 11-year-old boy in a close-knit Chicago family that gathers weekly for Sunday dinner. Thats when the food serves as a connection for the various family members despite some tensions and outright dislikes of one another. Many in the young cast went on to solid careers, including Vanessa L. Williams, Vivica A. Fox, Nia Long, and Mekhi Phifer.

14. Big Night (1996) - The Italian immigrant Pilaggi brothers (Tony Shalhoub and co-writer, co-director, co-star Stanley Tucci) operate a failing 1950s Jersey Shore restaurant whose worst enemies are their relationship and a very successful neighboring restaurant. The sibling rivalry is evident in the brothers names, emphasizing their birth order  the elder Shalhoubs is Primo, Tuccis is Secondo. Hardheaded chef Primo wants nothing to change, businessman Secondo insists on giving the public what it wants. Angst ensues. The film foreshadows Tuccis food-related roles as Julia Childs gourmand husband in Julie and Julia and in real life as onetime co-owner of a Westchester County restaurant.

15. Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) - The Oscar-nominated (Best Foreign Language) Taiwanese film that helped make director Ang Lee famous in the English-speaking world concentrates on the traditional Sunday dinners a master Chinese chef creates for his three unmarried daughters as a way to communicate with them. Each of the young women challenges any aspect of traditional Chinese culture. They are by turns emotionally repressed, stubborn, and funny. And, the food looks marvelous.

16. Mystic Pizza (1988) - A group of young actors, some of whom became household names - or at least very familiar to filmgoers, made this coming-of-age tale of a group of pizza parlor workers in Mystic, CT, a lasting delight. Just as a positive review from a local food critic did wonders for the pizzeria, film critics reviews helped a lot of careers take off from here. The cast included Annabeth Gish, Julia Roberts, William R. Moses, Matt Damon, Conchatta Ferrell, Lili Taylor, and Vincent DOnofrio.

17. Babettes Feast (1987) - This Danish film won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film. Its 19th Century protagonists are the elderly, pious sisters Martine and Philippa Christian whose story flashes back 49 years, then moves forward to their present when Babette appears at their door. She presents herself as a housekeeper, but serves as their cook for the next 14 years, always presenting bland foods until one day she creates a masterful French dinner attended by the sisters and other elderly followers of their late fathers austere religious group.

18. Tampopo (1985) - This Japanese comedy -- referred to when it came out as the first noodle western, a twist on the Italian-made spaghetti westerns -- is the tale of a widow who dreams of opening the ultimate noodle bar. Its a tough haul. Several stories intertwine, but what might stand out the most is a particular vignette in which a lowly office worker upstages the arrogant upper echelon people in his office with his knowledge of fine French cuisine.

19. Whos Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978) - After all these years, this remains one of my favorite guilty-pleasure flicks, a comedy-mystery romp starring Jacqueline Bissett as a renowned pastry chef and her on again/off again lover, a fast-talking, fast-food entrepreneur played by a youngish George Segal -- now the grandfather on the hit TV series The Goldbergs. While all around them someone is killing celebrity chefs in manners that mimic how the deceased cooked their specialties, the leading pair spars delightfully. Its inevitable. Shes a food purist, he wants to open a chain of omelette shops called H. Dumpty. But British stalwart Robert Morley steals the film as a food critic who also is a gluttonous, demanding character.

20. Tom Jones (1963) - This film version of author Henry Fieldings 18th Century classic English novel really has only one extended scene about food. However, it is mesmerizing, so the film makes the list simply because its sensuous banquet scene is arguably the best food porn scene ever made.

(William M. Dowd, a longtime journalist and author, and a judge in the fields of food and drink, lives in Troy, NY. His daily blog, Notes On Napkins, covers those fields in the Greater Capital Region, Adirondacks, Catskills, and western New England.)

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SPRINGFIELD  Retired Hampden Police Sgt. Bill Joy, 64, has been released from Baystate Medical Center after battling coronavirus at the Intensive Care Unit there.

He had been on a ventilator during what daughter Melanie Joy-Cooper described as a lengthy stay in the ICU.

She posted a Facebook video of his release from Baystate earlier this week, as well as photos of him relaxing at home.

A heartfelt thank you to all of the wonderful staff at Baystate Medical Center and the community who supported my family during this difficult time, Joy-Cooper stated.

Her father had been a police officer for 43 years, working 25 years in Hampden, 16 years in Monson and two years in Amherst. Joy retired in August 2017.

Joy fell ill a few days after a doctors appointment with an auto-immune specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Joy-Cooper told The Republican, adding he had not been going out and was taking precautions to protect his health at the time.
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As Canada hit some dismal coronavirus pandemic milestones  surpassing 30,000 cases and 1,300 deaths  Manitoba reached a positive turning point.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/4/2020 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As Canada hit some dismal coronavirus pandemic milestones  surpassing 30,000 cases and 1,300 deaths  Manitoba reached a positive turning point.

For the first time, the province registered more people recovered from COVID-19 than active cases.

On Friday, chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin reported no new cases of the virus, with 132 patients who've recovered and 113 active cases.

"We should be cautiously optimistic," Roussin said, warning Manitoba is six weeks behind other hard-hit provinces and it is "too soon to let up our guard."

The R0 (pronounced R-naught) is a viruss basic reproductive number  an epidemiologic metric used to describe the contagiousness of infectious agents. It's a theoretical number based on the average number of people who would be infected by a single case in a susceptible population, said Roussin.

The R0 rate for COVID-19 is estimated around 2.5 or 2.6, he said: for social-distancing measures to be lifted in Manitoba, it needs to decrease to below one.

How a virus can spread and quickly overwhelm the health-care system Exponential growth from the reproduction number (R0) of 2 Those two people each infect another two people Infected by a pathogen with an R0 of 2, one individual infects two people Each of those people infect two more. The virus continues to spread exponentially and the infected population quickly overwhelms the health-care system The reproduction number (R0) of a virus describes how many new cases of the disease that a single infected person can cause. The basic R0, depicted here, demonstrates the maximum potential spread of the virus. An effective R0 is dependant on how infectious the pathogen is and the populations susceptibility. An individuals overall health, any existing immunity and vacinations can greatly influence the effective R0. The physical environment and socioeconomics are also factored in the effective RO. Measles, a highly infectious virus, has an RO in the range of 12-18. Polio and smallpox have an R0 of 5-7. COVID-19 is estimated to have a basic R0 between 1.5 and 3.5 with 2.5 as the widely recognized value. Winnipeg Free Press How a virus can spread and quickly overwhelm the health-care system Exponential growth from the reproduction number (R0) of 2 Each of those people infect two more. The virus continues to spread exponentially and the infected population quickly overwhelms the health-care system Infected by a pathogen with an R0 of 2, one individual infects two people Those two people each infect another two people The reproduction number (R0) of a virus describes how many new cases of the disease that a single infected person can cause. The basic R0, depicted here, demonstrates the maximum potential spread of the virus. An effective R0 is dependant on how infectious the pathogen is and the populations susceptibility. An individuals overall health, any existing immunity and vacinations can greatly influence the effective R0. The physical environment and socioeconomics are also factored in the effective RO. Measles, a highly infectious virus, has an RO in the range of 12-18. Polio and smallpox have an R0 of 5-7. COVID-19 is estimated to have a basic R0 between 1.5 and 3.5 with 2.5 as the widely recognized value. Winnipeg Free Press How a virus can spread and quickly overwhelm the health-care system Exponential growth from the reproduction number (R0) of 2 The reproduction number (R0) of a virus describes how many new cases of the disease that a single infected person can cause. The basic R0, depicted here, demonstrates the maximum potential spread of the virus. An effective R0 is dependant on how infectious the pathogen is and the populations susceptibility. An individuals overall health, any existing immunity and vacinations can greatly influence the effective R0. The physical environment and socioeconomics are also factored in the effective RO. Measles, a highly infectious virus, has an RO in the range of 12-18. Polio and smallpox have an R0 of 5-7. COVID-19 is estimated to have a basic R0 between 1.5 and 3.5 with 2.5 as the widely recognized value. Infected by a pathogen with an R0 of 2, one individual infects two people Those two people each infect another two people Each of those people infect two more The virus continues to spread exponentially and the infected population quickly overwhelms the health-care system Winnipeg Free Press

There have been only 10 new cases in the last six days in Manitoba, but Roussin couldn't say if the low number or more strict public health orders have had an effect on COVID-19's reproductive rate.

"Its a tough thing to calculate," he said, adding the reproductive number will change as fewer people become susceptible to the virus over time.

Until then, public health orders remain, limiting travel to the north and ordering people returning to Manitoba to self-isolate for 14 days. Next week, the province will announce guidelines to stop health-care workers from working at more than one personal care home to limit the risk of transmitting the virus to elderly and vulnerable residents.

"All these measures we are taking here are to decrease the (R0) value to under one," said Roussin.

In Ottawa, the first chief public health officer of Canada said the reproductive rate is retrospective, and may not reflect Manitoba's low case numbers for two or three weeks.

"The number is calculated on previous numbers that eventually will get adjusted to reflect the current level of transmission," said Dr. David Butler-Jones, who held the national post from 2004-14. "You're always looking backwards. There's no way of knowing what today's rate is."

"All these measures we are taking here are to decrease the (R0) value to under one."  Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba's chief provincial public health officer

Two or three weeks from now, after more people have been tested, Manitoba may have the reproductive rate of the virus drop if the number of positive test results remains low, said Butler-Jones.

However, all the gains made from social distancing can rapidly disappear, he warned.

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"The R0 can change very quickly, if you're not careful," he said. "All you need is a nursing home outbreak... or what happened in Newfoundland... that totally skews the numbers."

A person who attended a March 16 funeral in St. John's has been linked to at least 143 COVID-19 cases in that province.

"All you need is one super-shedder," Butler-Jones said.

The reproductive rate for a virus varies, with some diseases much more transmissible than the novel coronavirus, said University of Manitoba virologist Jason Kindrachuk.

Seasonal influenza has a reproductive rate between one and two, on average; measles is one of the most transmissible diseases, with one person infecting between 12 and 18 people, said Kindrachuk.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
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Coronavirus outbreak: Positive cases of COVID-19 reaches 50 in seven northeast states

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Guwahati, Apr 18: The total number of positive cases of coronavirus in the northeast's seven states has now increased to 50. The number of cases in these states began to increase after the detection of the first case in Manipur on March 24, when a 23-year-old student who had returned from the UK was found positive.

With 35 cases of COVID-19 in Assam, the state has the most number of coronavirus affected patients. Assam had its first case of coronavirus on March 31.

Containment ops to be scaled down if no secondary coronavirus case is reported for 4 weeks

Apart from two cases from Guwahati and Nagaland, all other cases in Assam have links with the Tablighi Jamaat gathering at Nizamuddin Markaz in the national capital last month.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

Last week, a 65-year-old COVID-19 positive patient died at the Silchar Medical College Hospital, making him Assam as well as the region's first fatality. It is reportedly said that nine patients who have recovered from the disease have been discharged from three different hospitals while 25 others are under treatment.

The reports further said that Manipur's first patient has recovered and been discharged from hospital. The other patient in the state who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat event last month is still undergoing treatment in Imphal.

Mizoram was the second state in the region to record the novel coronavirus case with a 50-year-old pastor who had returned from the Netherlands testing positive. No other case has surfaced in the state this month.

Coronavirus outbreak: How COVID-19 made changes in education system

In Tripura, the first positive case was a Tablighi Jamaat attendee followed by a 45-year-old woman who had visited Guwahati. The woman has been recovered while the first patient is still in the hospital.
The number of COVID-19 tests administered in Hale County broke triple digits Thursday.

According to the daily coronavirus snapshot report sent out by the City of Plainview every morning, 101 tests had been administered at health facilities around Hale County as of 5 p.m. Thursday. Eight-six of those tests yielded negative results and 12 results were pending. Six people are under monitoring.

No other details had changed as of the announcement of the newest case announced April 11. That marked the 11th case reported in Hale County since March 24.

So far, six individuals are categorized as recovered. There have also been two deaths within the county.

Of the cases reported, five were transmitted within Hale County, four were transmitted outside of the county and the transmission location of two cases is still undetermined.

Seven of the confirmed cases have been men and four have been women. The age group of people 61 years or older has been the most affected with five confirmed cases and the two deaths. The 41-60 age group has had three cases and the 21-40 age group has also had three cases.

Of those still dealing with the virus, two are in isolation at home and one is in a medical facility.

Hale County is currently under a stay-at-home order. Citizens are urged to only leave home for essential activities, practice social distancing and not congregate in groups of any size. Violation of the order could result in a fine and/or jail time.

A health advisory was also issued Friday morning calling for Hale County residents to wear cloth face coverings when out in public in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19. Wearing face coverings is not required but it is strongly recommended.
Know what pre-eclampsia is and how its diagnosed.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists defines pre-eclampsia as a combination of high blood pressure and protein in urine or some other sign of organ disfunction, such as anemia or neurological problems. Its typically diagnosed after 20 weeks gestation, but most commonly diagnosed after 32 weeks, said Dr. William Grobman, M.D., an obstetrician at Northwestern Universitys Feinberg School of Medicine.

Theres no official consensus on what happens inside a womans body to cause pre-eclampsia, largely because of the difficulties of studying human pregnancy in action. But there is a generally accepted theory that it starts when the placenta implants into the wall of the uterus, Dr. Poon said.

When the placenta first develops, its blood vessels are tiny and narrow, but they have to get big fast to support gaseous exchanges  like nutrients and oxygen  from the mom to the fetus. If they dont grow big enough, resistance in the flow of blood between mom and placenta can build up and cause the mom to develop high blood pressure. Chronic high blood pressure can cause all kinds of damage throughout the body. The first thing that usually goes is that the kidneys become leaky, and that lets protein in the urine, she said.

Pre-eclampsia can also be diagnosed in the absence of protein in the urine, Dr. Poon said. Doctors will look for other features, like neurological problems or other signs of kidney dysfunction.

At its worst, pre-eclampsia can result in seizures, liver rupture, stroke or a drop in the number of blood platelets, small cell fragments that help blood clot. Ultimately, it can take the life of the mom, baby or both. Worldwide, pre-eclampsia is a major cause of maternal death, however Dr. Grobman said that most of these complications are uncommon in the United States, where severe pre-eclampsia affects about 1.4 percent of pregnancies, according to the 2013 analysis published in the journal BMJ. Nonetheless, the complications can be severe, so the condition is treated seriously.

Know the symptoms.

High blood pressure and protein in the urine are the clinical signs of pre-eclampsia, but there are also symptoms that some women experience. These include swelling, like Dr. Moore had, but also a slew of others, according to ACOG.

A persistent headache

Seeing spots or stars

Nausea and vomiting that occurs in the second half of your pregnancy

Pain in your shoulder or upper abdomen

Having trouble breathing

Rapid weight gain

Many women dont experience any of these symptoms, Dr. Poon said, or they may think their symptoms are a normal part of pregnancy, adding to the importance of regular checkups.

How is pre-eclampsia treated?

If youre diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, Dr. Grobman said, you want to be focusing but not alarmed. Most of the time, things turn out O.K. with proper management. Right now, the most effective treatment is delivery, whether induced or via cesarean section. When to deliver the baby, he said, depends on how the mom is doing and how far along the pregnancy is. It also takes into account the risks of premature birth. Its basically a risk-benefit balance, he said.
As governments in the Middle East isolate their populations to prevent the spread of coronavirus, attention is turning to the region's jails, where detainees face a more punishing form of lockdown. "Because of the pandemic, confinement is an additional punishment for the prisoners," said Kaddour Chouicha, 63, an engineering professor at Algeria's University of Oran and a human rights activist. Chouicha was detained in December. He is part of an anti-regime protest movement that toppled longtime autocrat Abdelaziz Bouteflika more than a year ago. Some Middle Eastern governments have released prisoners as part of their response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, while others have ignored pressure to do so. Iran has temporarily released 100,000 detainees, while Bahrain freed hundreds last month and Morocco and Tunisia have announced pardons that affect thousands of prisoners. Algeria too has pardoned some 5,000 inmates. But for those still languishing in jails, incarceration is a brutal experience. "You have to plan for the future," Chouicha said of surviving the prison time. "It's the only way." - 'Catastrophe brewing' - Egyptian authorities have rejected pleas to free up overcrowded jails, continuing to imprison dissidents even as COVID-19 infections in the country rise. Rights group Amnesty International last month urged Egypt to release "all activists and human rights defenders detained solely for peacefully expressing their views", along with pre-trial detainees and vulnerable prisoners. One former detainee, who preferred not to be identified out of fear of repercussions, said there was a "catastrophe brewing in prisons" in the country because of unsanitary conditions and overcrowding. "We used to dream of having the metal door to the cell opened even though it led to a hallway with a prison guard. Psychologically, that meant a lot to us," the ex-detainee and writer told AFP. He spent around two years in a cramped cell with some 25 other men in the Borg al-Arab prison, near the northern city of Alexandria, and recounted how a hole in the ground functioned as a rudimentary bathroom for showering and as a latrine. "We had a tattered blanket that we used as a door for privacy, and the little running water we had... would wash away all the filth on an already dirty cement floor," said the former inmate, who was released in late 2015. "We slept on our 'swords', meaning we lay on the floor next to each other on our sides. You couldn't sleep on your back, that was out of the question because of the lack of space," he added. He expressed fear that the fragile health of some prisoners would have been further strained by the authorities' decision to suspend family visits from last month, as many depend on such visits for medication supplies. The move would be taking a psychological toll too, he added. "Imagine you're in a room all by yourself with no access to the outside world," he said. "That's the feeling of a detainee... and it destroys you psychologically." - Not a priority - In war-torn Syria, the pandemic has put a spotlight back on the plight of political prisoners and long-term detainees. Syrian activist Wafa Mustafa is part of a group that wants the United Nations to pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to free detainees. Last month, on Twitter she said it had been "2,464 days for my dad in #Assad prisons. Almost 7 years in fear, sadness, anger, and hope. I've always tried to avoid thinking: is he alive? Is he fine? Is he hungry? Will I ever see him again? "With the #Covid_19 disaster now, it's more difficult than ever to resist the pain," she wrote in English, posting an old photo of herself with her father. In Iran, Reza Khandan, husband of jailed human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, described on Facebook the situation in Tehran's Evin prison, where family phone calls have been limited. "The crowded meeting room is an ideal place for the virus to spread," he wrote, since many families have been forced to visit in person. Khandan said that according to his wife, there was an acute shortage of face masks and gloves to prevent the spread of the virus in the facility. Laleh Khalili, a political science professor at Queen Mary University of London who has written about jails in the region, was pessimistic about authoritarian regimes safeguarding the health of their populations, let alone detainees. In her view, some governments have been able to exploit the pandemic to exert further social control because their concerns about security "are far more important than... the public health of citizens". "The very threat of the illness can serve as a means of terrorising prisoners," she said. "Unfortunately the plight of prisoners will not be prioritised." burs/ff/lg/sw/je
As of 12 p.m. April 18, 2020, there are 4,185 COVID-19 cases among residents in 347 nursing and personal care homes. At least 459 people have died from the virus.

According to Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, nursing and personal care homes are required to contact the Pa. Department of Health if someone dies of COVID-19. The data below is released by the Pa. Department of Health and is updated by the Pennsylvania National Electronic Disease Surveillance System.

(Please click here if you cannot see the map embed above)

The state is also providing detailed hospital and respirator data here for desktop users and here for mobile users.

You can see more data about the coronavirus in Pennsylvania through our data and resources page.

Adams County

3 cases among residents, 1 case among employees and 1 fatality in 1 facility

Allegheny County

159 cases among residents, 48 cases among employees and 34 fatalities in 27 facilities

Beaver County

166 cases among residents, 10 cases among employees and 26 fatalities in 3 facilities

Berks County

291 cases among residents, 46 cases among employees and 18 fatalities in 13 facilities

Bucks County

255 cases among residents, 48 cases among employees and 42 fatalities in 37 facilities

Butler County

10 cases among residents, 9 cases among employees and 2 fatalities in 3 facilities

Carbon County

29 cases among residents, 1 case among employees and 7 fatalities in 2 facilities

Chester County

141 cases among residents, 19 cases among employees and 27 fatalities in 17 facilities

Clarion County

1 case among residents, 0 cases among employees and 0 fatalities in 1 facility

Clearfield County

1 case among residents, 0 cases among employees and 0 fatalities in 1 facility

Columbia County

13 cases among residents, 2 cases among employees and 0 fatalities in 1 fatality

Cumberland County

58 cases among residents, 6 cases among employees and 2 fatalities in 3 facilities

Dauphin County

45 cases among residents, 2 cases among employees and 3 fatalities in 3 facilities

Delaware County

397 cases among residents, 41 cases among employees and 54 fatalities in 37 facilities

Erie County

2 cases among residents, 0 cases among employees and 0 fatalities in 2 facilities

Fayette County

3 cases among residents, 0 cases among employees and 1 fatalities in 1 fatality

Indiana County

11 cases among residents, 0 cases among employees and 4 fatalities in 2 facilities

Lackawanna County

220 cases among residents, 18 cases among employees and 20 fatalities in 9 facilities

Lancaster County

238 cases among residents, 53 cases among employees and 25 fatalities in 18 facilities

Lebanon County

8 cases among residents, 1 case among employees and 0 fatalities in 1 fatality

Lehigh County

140 cases among residents, 28 cases among employees and 12 fatalities in 14 facilities

Luzerne County

155 cases among residents, 15 cases among employees and 24 fatalities in 12 facilities

Lycoming County

0 cases among residents, 1 case among employees and 0 fatalities in 1 fatality

Mercer County

1 case among residents, 0 cases among employees and 0 fatalities in 1 facility

Monroe County

65 cases among residents, 18 cases among employees and 15 fatalities in 7 facilities

Montgomery County

695 cases among residents, 20 cases among employees and 77 fatalities in 58 facilities

Northampton County

200 cases among residents, 46 cases among employees and 12 fatalities in 11 facilities

Perry County

2 cases among residents, 0 cases among employees and 0 fatalities in 1 fatality

Philadelphia County

735 cases among residents, 3 cases among employees and 36 fatalities in 46 facilities

Pike County

17 cases among residents, 1 case among employees and 1 fatality in 1 fatality

Schuylkill County

1 case among residents, 0 cases among employees and 0 fatalities in 1 facility

Susquehanna County

36 cases among residents, 3 cases among employees and 1 fatality in 3 facilities

Washington County

4 cases among residents, 1 case among employees and 1 fatality in 3 facilities

Westmoreland County

80 cases among residents, 20 cases among employees and 14 fatalities in 4 facilities

York County

3 cases among residents, 1 case among employees and 0 fatalities in 2 facilities

READ MORE:

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Air Force update for COVID-19

By Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs / Published April 17, 2020

WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- In an effort to minimize the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 and to prioritize the health and safety of Department of the Air Force personnel, the following modifications have been made:



April 17, 2020

Tomorrow, The United States Air Force Academy will hold its graduation ceremony for the Class of 2020. The ceremony will be live-streamed beginning at 11 a.m. MDT and available for on-demand viewing after the event.You can find out more about USAFA's graduation events here: https://www.usafa.edu/about/traditions/graduation/

The Department of Defense has stood up task forces across the U.S. to provide relief to state health care systems fighting COVID-19. Task Force-Southeast, led by Ninth Air Force, is the primary DOD support organization for the Federal Emergency Management Agency response to COVID-19 in FEMA Regions III and IV.Read more about this Task Force here: https://www.acc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2153794/task-force-southeast-supports-covid-19-fight/

Guam Air National Guard Airmen from the 254th REDHORSE Squadron meet with personnel from Guam Department of Public Works and Guam Power Authority to discuss logistics for a potential alternate care facility at the Guam Memorial Hospital in Tamuning, Guam April 17. See photos of their efforts here: https://www.dvidshub.net/image/6176673/guam-national-guard-conducts-logistics-assessment-covid-19-support

Airmen from the 116th Air Control Wing, Georgia Air National Guard, conduct infection control operations at Southern Pines Nursing Home in Warner Robins, Georgia, April 16. Airmen from the 116 ACW volunteered to assist with sanitizing long-term care facilities around the Georgia during Georgia National Guard COVID-19 response.

Find photos of their efforts here: https://www.dvidshub.net/image/6176089/116th-air-control-wing-assists-residents-long-term-care-facility-during-covid-19-pandemic

Airmen and Soldiers with the Colorado National Guard are supporting multiple task forces that have been deployed around the state in various capacities to support state and local officials combat the coronavirus pandemic.

Find photos of their efforts here: https://www.dvidshub.net/image/6176443/colorado-national-guard-members-support-covid-19-response-efforts

Staff Sgt. Brandon McKeever, 342nd Recruiting Squadron, B-Flight recruiter, donated boxes of scrubs to Vanderbilt Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee that could be used on the front lines of the COVID-19 battle.

Read more about his donation here: https://www.aetc.af.mil/News/Article/2153472/recruiting-service-airman-helps-people-on-covid-19-front-lines/

With more than 500 Air Force Reservists mobilized for the COVID-19 pandemic, the vast majority of reservists are still working their civilian jobs. For Master Sgt. Andy. A. Jean-Pierre, a KC-10 Extender production supervisor and a traditional reservist stationed at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, he is currently on the front lines as a veteran New York City Police Department temporary assigned to the Bronx responding to COVID-19 911 calls.

Read more about Master Sgt. Jean-Pierre's role here: https://www.514amw.afrc.af.mil/News/Articles/Article/2137621/coronavirus-demands-service-before-self/

Essential missions throughout the Air Force still continue even during this pandemic. Below are some links to stories on how these units have adapted to make sure they can continue to execute these missions despite COVID-19.

AFMC mission operational under 'new norm' - https://www.afmc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2153823/afmc-mission-operational-under-new-norm/

Yokota Medical Support Squadron ready for anything - https://www.pacaf.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2153004/yokota-medical-support-squadron-ready-for-anything/

DM, local businesses join forces to protect Airmen - https://www.acc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2153821/dm-local-businesses-join-forces-to-protect-airmen/

914 ARW announces full operational capability over converting from C-130s to KC-135s - https://www.niagara.afrc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2151103/914-arw-announces-full-operational-capability/

Air Force Totals of COVID-19 Positive Cases as of 9 p.m., April 16, 2020

CASES HOSPITALIZED RECOVERED DEATHS Military 328 (+11) 8 73 (+14) 0 Civilian 168 (+2) 11 (-1) 32 (+3) 0 Dependents 191 (+7) 5 42 (+5) 0 Contractors 70 (+6) 4 9 (+1) 1 Total 757 28 156 1





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Three policemen, who were patrolling in Tonk district to ensure compliance of the curfew enforced in Rajasthan, were injured when a family attacked them on Friday, police said.

Jaipur: Three policemen, who were patrolling in Tonk district to ensure compliance of the curfew enforced in Rajasthan, were injured when a family attacked them on Friday, police said. Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot condemned the incident, saying the curfew has been imposed in view of the coronavirus pandemic for everyone's safety, and orders and guidelines must be followed.

The incident occurred in Kasai Mohalla and a video, purportedly of the incident, was shared widely on social media. It purportedly shows one of the policemen dragging a man from the gate of his house as he starts screaming for help. His family members then attacked the security personnel.

Locals alleged that a man, Rashid, was entering his house with a packet of toast when he was attacked by the three policemen who were in civil dress. Rashid's family mistook them for some hostellers who were rumoured on social media to target Muslims.

However, the police termed it a misunderstanding. "A police team was patrolling in the area to ensure compliance of curfew and there were some youths whom the police team questioned for moving around. A verbal spat broke out and some misunderstanding occurred ," DGP Bhupendra Singh said in Jaipur.

He said that locals interpreted the situation differently and attacked the policemen. Singh said the attack was taken seriously and SP Tonk were issued necessary directions. He said the SP has been asked to ensure that no confusion occurs again among people.

Additional SP Tonk Vipin Sharma said that the injured policemen, Bhagchandand constables Rajendra and Ramraj, were admitted to a local hospital and eight people were arrested for the attack. He confirmed that the policemen were in civil dress.

"There are messages being shared on social medial for the last three-four days that some local boys have formed a group for targeting Muslim families. Today, the man had gone to buy toast and was entering his house when a policeman caught and dragged him away," a local, Mohsin Rasheed, said.

"Hearing his screams, his family members came out and thought that the three men were hostellers. They retaliated to protect Rashid who was also beaten up by the policemen," he alleged. The police have arrested Khaleel, Faraz, Sanu, Khalid, Shafirehman, Aamad, Miyan and Shahzad and also detained nearly a dozen others for attacking the policemen.

Meanwhile, Sachin Pilot and BJP state president Satish Poonia condemned the attack. "I condemn the unfortunate attack on police personnel on duty in Tonk. The injured policemen had to undergo medical treatment. I pray for their speedy recovery. An attack on #CoronaWarriors will not be tolerated. An inquiry has been ordered," Pilot tweeted.

He said that action will be taken against anyone indulging in violence. "Curfew has been imposed for everyone's safety, orders and guidelines must be followed. Police doctors, and the admin are doing their best to keep everyone safe. We need to stand united in this fight against #COVID19, he said.

Poonia also condemned the incident and requested Governor Kalraj Mishra to intervene in the matter. "This is an attack against humanity and they should be booked under National Security Act," he said in a video message.
The Maharashtra government on



Saturday urged Muslims to offer prayers and break their fasts during the month of Ramzan, which begins next week, inside their homes instead of gathering at mosques or any other public place in view of the coronavirus outbreak.

There is a lockdown in place till May 3 across the country and restrictions have been imposed on celebrating festivals and offering prayers at public places by followers of all religions during this period.

The Union Minority Affairs Ministry has already urged Muslims to not congregate for offering prayers and Iftar during this period.

In a statement, the Maharashtra Minority Affiars Minister Nawab Malik said community members should not gather on homes or building terraces or grounds to offer namaz, prayers or for iftar.

The department asked the community members to follow the instructions strictly.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rotarians continued to comply with social distancing and stay-at-home mandates by conducting their weekly meeting online. This week, 35 participants joined the meeting, including some from other clubs across the district.

Key among the participants was former Rotary Youth Exchange Student Angleo Olteteanu from Romania. He was unable to join last weeks RYE meeting so this week he signed in and gave a quick update to the club. Currently he is working on his doctorate and is studying finance.
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Australian actress Teresa Palmer, her husband Mark Webber and their three children have been in lockdown in their Adelaide home amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia this week, Teresa, 34, admitted there have been moments of challenges throughout the lockdown.

'Each day feels new and I'm definitely navigating the ebbs and flows of it,' she said.

EXCLUSIVE! Australian actress Teresa Palmer, 35, (pictured) tells Daily Mail Australia there have been challenging throughout the lockdown

'I can recognize just how fortunate we are to be able to be living on land and have a roof over our heads and that kids are able to run outdoors and play and explore'.

Teresa and Mark are parents to sons Forest, three, and Bodhi, six, and daughter Poet, 11 months. Mark also has a 12-year-old son, Isaac, from a previous relationship.

While the Australian government has not ordered for schools to be closed, many parents are choosing not to send their children to educational facilities.

Getting through it! Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Teresa said: 'Each day feels new and I'm definitely navigating the ebbs and flows of it'

Teresa Palmer's Top 5 tips to keeping your children focused while homeschooling 1. Give your children regular breaks 2. Try and not bombard them with too much information 3. Try and not put pressure on your children - as teaching is so different to being in a classroom with a bunch of other children 4. Set a goal of what you want to focus on 5. Be patient and try and make it as harmonious as possible Advertisement

Teresa also revealed homeschooling her two children, Bohdi, six and Forest, three has been tough.

'The juggle has been challenging at times, but I read a really beautiful piece on homeschooling and the woman said, ''Just pick two hours in the day where you do education and it doesn't need to be a full school day''.

'I think the first week I packed lunches, they got to choose their uniforms,' she said.

'I did an entire day from 9 to 3 and then I realized that actually they only need these little snippets of time with me doing one on one learning.'

Teresa added that after she took some the pressure off 'learning time' it feels like everyone's enjoying it much more now.

'I did an entire day from 9 to 3': Teresa admitted that she had to learn new tricks to keep her children focused because a 'normal school routine' wasn't working

'Parenting is a sensitive and delicate dance between you and your children': Teresa wants her book, Zen Mamas, to be a source for parents to turn to and disappear. Pictured with her husband Mark Webber

Meanwhile, the Adelaide-based star has just released a parenting book, Zen Mamas, which she co-wrote with her friend Sarah Wright Olsen.

Teresa said she wants her book to be a source of comfort for women to turn to and disappear into while trying to find what works for them and leave what doesn't.

The mother-of-three said: 'I look at parenting like it's a sensitive and delicate dance between you and your children, and I think if at all possible, you're able to find those moments of self-care, then you can embrace the imperfect picture of parenting.'

'That's where we say being Zen is actually trying to come back to place a calm and getting rid of the self-critical voice.'

'It's so imperative that we take the pressure off of ourselves as parents and really show up for ourself and ''say, you're doing a great job''.

Zen Mamas is out now via Penguin Books on paperback and E-book.
New Delhi, April 18 : As the government has launched a separate Prime Ministers emergency fund to secure donations for its fight against Covid-19, Surendra Mohan, a retired director of the Indian Defence Service of Engineers and his sister Aditi, have contributed Rs 1 crore to the PM-CARES Fund.

Surendra Mohan had retired from his job with the Defence Ministry in 2019. Mohan has donated half of his total life savings to the emergency fund and his sister Aditi also supported him in this.

He has also contributed all the money he received as benefits from the government, while his sister also donated all her life savings, kept as fixed deposits.

Speaking to IANS, Surendra Mohan said, "When there is calamity in the country, my donation is nothing. Hopefully it will help the needy." On asking, what if he needs money in the future for a medical emergency, Mohan said that we did not bring anything nor will we take anything. "What the government gave us, what the country gave us, we returned them so that in this difficult times some people could use this money for buying food and medicines." Aditi said what is the use of money if it does not help the country.

On March 29, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM-CARES Fund), where citizens can contribute to aid the government's efforts in supporting those affected by disasters.
THE ESSENTIAL Professor Luc Montagnier, 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine, says that SARS-CoV-2 is a manipulated virus accidentally released from a laboratory in Wuhan, China

Chinese researchers reportedly used this coronavirus as part of work to develop an AIDS vaccine

HIV DNA fragments allegedly found in the SARS-CoV-2 genome

We knew the Chinese version of the emergence of the coronavirus more and more undermined, but here is a thesis that tells a whole different story about the Covid-19 pandemic already responsible for more than 120,000 deaths in the world. According to Professor Luc Montagnier, 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine for having "co-discovered" the HIV causing the AIDS epidemic with Francois Barre-Sinoussi today affirmed that SARS-CoV-2 is a manipulated virus and accidentally left a laboratory in Wuhan, China during the last quarter of 2019. This laboratory known to work on coronaviruses, according to Professor Montagnier, sought to use one of these viruses as an HIV vector as part of the looking for an AIDS vaccine!

"With my colleague, the bio-mathematician Jean-Claude Perez, we looked closely at the description of the genome of this RNA virus," explained Luc Montagnier, interviewed by Dr. Jean-Francois Lemoine for the daily audio journal of Pourquoi Doctor , adding that others had already explored this track: "Indian researchers had already tried to publish the results of analyzes showing that this genome harbored sequences of another virus which is ... HIV, the virus of AIDS, but they were forced to retract, the pressures were too strong! ".

"To insert an HIV sequence into this genome, you need molecular tools"

Faced with these assertions by a professor who is sometimes challenged following iconoclastic positions, in particular on vaccination, one might also think that these conclusions are due to chance and that the coronavirus examined could have been taken from a patient otherwise afflicted with HIV. "No, replies Luc Montagnier, to insert a sequence of HIV into this genome, molecular tools are needed, this can only be done in the laboratory".

According to the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine, the explanation is due to an "industrial accident" at the Wuhan laboratory. "The history of the fish market is a beautiful legend ... The assumption is that this virus left the laboratory because it escaped its promoters, it is a work of apprentice-sorcerer!", Estimates he promoting the thesis that the object of this work was the search for an AIDS vaccine.

"The truth always ends up breaking out"

This thesis defended by Professor Luc Montagnier generates in any case "reassuring" information. According to him, the altered elements of this virus eliminate themselves as it spreads: "Nature does not admit any molecular construction, it eliminates these foreign bodies ... even if we does nothing, things will get better, but after a lot of deaths ... ", he announces, advancing all the same a solution. To stop the pandemic, Luc Montagnier says that by using "interfering waves, we could eliminate these sequences".

This is enough to fuel famous debates! To the point that Professor Montagnier's statements could also classify him in the category of "conspirators": "Conspiracies, it's the opposite camp, the one who hides the truth", he replies without wanting to accuse anyone but hoping that the Chinese would recognize what he said happened in their laboratory. "Anyway, the truth always ends up coming out, it's up to the Chinese government to take responsibility."

Below, the interview with Pr Luc Montagnier...
Government is to decide the fate of over 200 pregnant head porters also known as Kayayei today, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Cynthia Mamle Morrison has said.



Over 200 pregnant Kayayei in Kumasi, Accra and Tema, who are homeless have been affected by the partial lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.



Speaking on the issue on radio, Cynthia Morrison, said she is hopeful by the close of Friday a decision will be taken.



I informed the President about this issue on Thursday so hopefully a decision will be taken by the close of Friday".



We will know if they will be supported to deliver at their present locations or be sent back to the northern regions,



The Gender Minister said the pregnant head porters' issues are very delicate therefore government will act appropriately.



Earlier, president of the Head Porters Association in Ghana, Adiza Zongo Pioneer, had appealed to government to come to the rescue of the pregnant girls who she said are vulnerable.



They dont have decent accommodation here and so if they deliver here, there will be health challenges for them. I am appealing that they should be tested for Covid-19 to see if they are not infected before transporting them back to northern regions where they came from.



If they are transported to the north, they will be supported by their families in terms of feeding and care after delivery.



Adiza said: President Nana Akufo-Addo is a listening father and so he will surely assist to transport the head porters back home.



She recounted several instances where the President had personally supported the head porters in trying times.

Source: Daily Guide









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The Delhi High Court has dismissed a plea filed by a physically-challenged man seeking interim bail in a drug possession case on the ground that he is suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, and there is a risk of contracting coronavirus in prison.

Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar, who conducted the hearing through video-conferencing, perused the health status report of the accused which showed that his condition and vitals are stable. Regular treatment from jail doctors and the RML Hospital was being provided, and he was being given the prescribed medicines.

The differently-abled man, who is facing prosecution for allegedly possessing 3.5 kg charas, sought interim bail for 45 days on the ground that he is suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, and there is a risk of contracting coronavirus in jail.

The court dismissed the plea saying no ground for interim bail was made out.

It said accused Basudev failed to qualify the three criteria laid down by a high powered committee for releasing a prisoner on bail during the coronavirus pandemic.

As per the high powered committee, the undertrials who are facing trial for offences of rape, gangrape, acid attack, for intermediary/large quantity recovery under the narcotics law, foreign nationals, corruption and terror activities should not be released while de-congesting jails to contain the spread of coronavirus.

Keeping in view the allegations against the petitioner (Basudev), he is not entitled to grant of interim bail as prayed as in the present case, the petitioner was found carrying 3.5 kg of charas which is a commercial quantity, so as per the resolution dated March 28, he is not entitled to the benefit of this, the high court said.

The man claimed in the court that he was not being treated for his medical condition in the jail and looking into the present COVID-19 situation, it was dangerous for him to remain in prison as he was suffering from diabetes and hypertension.

The prosecution opposed the bail plea saying the man was arrested when he was carrying 3.5 kg charas and added that he was being treated well for his medical condition by the jail authorities.

The court also noted that the man's health status report showed he was being given proper medical attention and he was also taken to RML Hospital, where his 2D Echo Test was carried out which showed his normal valve functions.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Cook County Department of Corrections (CCDOC), housing one of the nation's largest jails, is seen in Chicago, Ill., on April 9, 2020. The jail has seen a rise in coronavirus cases after two inmates tested positive on March 23. The Cook County Sheriff's Office reported that as of 5pm, April 9, 276 inmates and 172 Sheriff's Office staff had tested positive for the virus. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)

Prisoners Need COVID-19 Protection, Too

Commentary

These days, we are all worried about those most susceptible to the ravages of the COVID-19 virusnot only the elderly and already sick but also those on the daily line of fire, like medical first responders and the countless essential workers still on the job.

But my inbox is filling up with letters beseeching Americans not to forget the incarcerated locked up in jails and prisons. These places are notoriously overcrowded and oftentimes operated in dilapidated and unsanitary conditions. There is no possibility for inmates to practice social distancing, to wash their hands at will or to possess a face mask. They are trapped in places that are notorious breeding grounds for germs.

Brendaly Segarra was one of many who wrote me to say, We see commercials of animals in cages suffering and we are moved with compassion, but when it comes to inmates they are thrown away and people forget that they are human beings that are completely helpless.

Cheryl Maddox told me about her son. (He) only have five months left of a 5 year sentence. He has struggled to get to this point, and for them to knowingly allow him to be exposed to this virus is inhumane.

Maddox and others who are related to imprisoned citizens believe incarceration during a ravaging pandemic amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Indeed, prisoners have died in several states, including Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Louisiana and Washington, D.C. If inmates are infected, its a safe bet guards will be, too.

Death may soon be coming to a prison near you. Unlike the national response to COVID-19, there seems to be no uniform plan for dealing with this highly contagious disease in local and state jails and prisons.

Attorney General William Barr did recently write to the Federal Bureau of Prisons asking that more at-risk inmates who are non-violent and pose minimal likelihood of recidivism be released to home confinement. Barr listed a six-bullet-point guideline for release, including the age, health and original crime of the prisoner. Sex offenders and violent inmates are not eligible for release.

But at the local and state level, there has been a hodgepodge of court orders and scattershot prisoner releases, some of which seem both ill-conceived and badly carried out.

Several states have decided to ease overpopulation by releasing inmates who could not afford bail and are incarcerated while awaiting trial, or those deemed to be low-level offenders. There is evidence, however, that some decisions are being made on a defendants last arrest and without regard to their criminal history.

New York judges have even granted coronavirus-related release to a convicted cop killer.

In Florida, Joseph Williams, 26, was in jail after his arrest for possession of heroin, considered a third-degree felony, and possession of drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor. In the effort to mitigate the spread of the virus, a state judge ordered county sheriffs to release any pretrial detainee arrested for a misdemeanor or third-degree felony.

The Hillsborough County jail released 164 prisoners, described by the sheriff as being those with the lowest public safety risk. Williams was among them. One day later, Williams was arrested again on suspicion of murder. Apparently, in the race to winnow inmate populations, Williams extensive criminal record, which included arrests on 35 charges, was either overlooked or considered unimportant.

We should all care about the treatment of prisoners because a vast majority of them will serve their time and reenter society. Certainly, they have been found guilty of crimes against their communities, but does that mean, in addition to their incarceration, they must stay trapped in a potentially deadly environment as well? Doesnt someone who is nonviolent, has behaved themselves in prison and has served a majority of their original sentence deserve to go home to their family to ride out this pandemic?

This ferocity of COVID-19 caught the world by surprise, but it is past time for each state to come up with a humane and sensible plan to safely deal with its incarcerated population, especially the elderly and ill. They all deserve plentiful hand sanitizers, protective masks and aggressive testing, just like the rest of us.

Diane Dimond is an author and investigative journalist. Her latest book is Thinking Outside the Crime and Justice Box.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Human Rights Watch said Saturday that the coronavirus pandemic doesn't justify Malaysia's turning away of overloaded boats carrying Muslim Rohingya and risking the refugees' lives.

The New York-based rights group noted that Malaysia had recently pushed back to sea at least two boatloads of Rohingya refugees.

Despite Malaysia's partial coronavirus lockdown that prevents foreigners from entering the country, Human Rights Watch said the pandemic should not be an excuse for a blanket policy of turning away boats in distress.

Malaysia's claims to support the rights of the Rohingya mean shockingly little when they push desperate refugees back to sea, said Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch's Asia director.

The COVID-19 pandemic does not create a justification for risking the lives of refugees on overcrowded boats.

Predominantly Muslim Malaysia has previously protested the persecution of the Rohingya and sought justice for them.

But its navy on Thursday intercepted a boat with some 200 Rohingya refugees off its northern coast and prevented it from entering Malaysian waters. The fate of that boat is unknown.

On Wednesday, Bangladesh coast guard officials rescued a boatload of 382 starving Rohingya refugees. Survivors said the boat had been turned away from Malaysian waters weeks earlier and that at least 30 people on board had died before the rescue.

Malaysia's National Security Council on Saturday defended the decision by enforcement agencies to turn away the boat amid concerns that the refugees might be exposed to the coronavirus.

Malaysia, which has recorded 5,251 coronavirus cases with 86 deaths, has tightened border patrols to prevent illegal immigrants from sneaking in, the National Security Council said.

Siti Sabrina Imji Rahim, a senior official on the council's COVID-19 task force, said that sending the refugees to detention camps could increase the risk of spreading the virus. She said in an email reply to a query from The Associated Press that the refugees were given food and fresh water before being turned away.

Human Rights Watch, however, said Malaysia's pushback policy violates international obligations to provide access to asylum seekers, and noted that the refugees could have been isolated or quarantined.

It said the COVID-19 outbreak has only intensified the misery of an estimated 600,000 Rohingya who remain in Myanmar and nearly a million living in refugee camps in Bangladesh after fleeing persecution by Myanmar's military.

The Malaysian government can both protect against the spread of the virus and ensure that those risking their lives at sea are rescued and given a chance to seek asylum, Robertson said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A man injured by crossfire amid armed conflict in Kyauktaw township, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, is taken to Sittwe General Hospital for treatment, April 17, 2020.

A teenager was killed and a dozen other civilians were injured Thursday amid crossfire as government soldiers responded to landmine attacks in western Myanmars war-ridden Rakhine state, where civilians are dying violent deaths even as their region braces for the contagious coronavirus, local residents said.

Myanmar troops fired at rebel Arakan Army soldiers following explosions of remote-controlled mines near Kishpanadi Bridge in Kyauktaw township, killing a 13-year-old ethnic Rakhine boy and injuring six ethnic Rakhines, five Rohingya Muslims, and one Burmese construction worker, they said Friday.

The deceased teenagers father, mother, sister, and uncle were among the injured, and three construction workers who were at the scene are missing, locals added.

Among the injured Rohingya were three women and two men. One woman was sent to Apaukwa Hospital in Kyauktaw township, while the others are being treated at a village clinic, they said.

The Burmese man who was injured while working at a construction site near the bridge was sent to Sittwe General Hospital, said Soe Min of Phyu Sin Metta Social Services, a civil society group.

Locals said they heard the sounds of light and heavy weapons fire around 4 p.m. Thursday, which lasted for an hour.

We heard noise from the bridge. Our village is close to it. Five villagers got injured due to fighting near the bridge yesterday evening, said a resident of Pikethe village who did not want to be named out of fear for his safety.

Another villager who also requested anonymity of the same reason confirmed the artillery fire.

We heard noise from opening fire first, and then two explosions from heavy cannons around 4:30 p.m. yesterday, the villager said

Some boys ran into the village and said that the government army opened fire from the bridge, he said. Three Rakhine construction workers are now missing.

Military spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun said the remote-controlled mine attacks on government soldiers occurred near the bridge at about 4:30 p.m. and near a highway station from where the AA had fired on government soldiers about four or five times in the past.

In response, the army began a counteroffensive against the Arakan Army (AA) at the highway military station, he said.

Zaw Min Tun also noted that the government army has served in Rakhine state since the 1990s and that fighting in the region began only after the AA was formed in 2009.

AA blames Myanmar Army

Khine Thukha, spokesman for the AA, a mostly ethnic Rakhine force seeking greater autonomy for Rakhine people in the state, said there had been no clash between the AA and Myanmar soldiers.

There was no fighting in that area yesterday, he said. The government army is conducting targeted attacks on Rakhine ethnics, and it is a war crime.

Khine Thukha ignored a question about whether AA forces had disguised themselves as civilians to attack Myanmar soldiers near villages.

Myanmar and Arakan forces have been engaged in intensified hostilities in northern Rakhine state for the past 15 months, leaving hundreds of civilians dead and displacing about 157,000 others, according to the Rakhine Ethnics Congress, a local humanitarian relief group.

During that time, 34 civilians have died and 166 have been injured in Kyautkaw township alone, according to list compiled by the Arakan National Party (ANP), a political party representing the interests of ethnic Rakhine people in the state.

In March, the Myanmar government declared the AA an unlawful association and terrorist organization.

The AA and two other armed ethnic organizations declared a temporary cease-fire during the month of April as the country battled the spread of the coronavirus, but the Myanmar military rejected it.

Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
They're the tip of the testing spear in the fight against the coronavirus.



Reagents.



It's a fancy word for the main ingredients of any chemical-based test, which in this pandemic includes inorganic solutions as well as enzymes, probes, and primers created to match the coronavirus's genome.



And they are a necessity for the coronavirus test kits that are vital to combating COVID-19, the pneumonia-like disease that by April 18 had killed more than 156,000 of its 2.2 million confirmed sufferers since the coronavirus jumped to humans in central China in November.



The importance of reagents will continue to outstrip supplies in many places as the race for safe and effective vaccines and treatment continue and governments embrace "testing, testing, testing" while they try to lead billions of people out of the great lockdown.



But for all their durability in a vial, the COVID-19 crisis has underscored our vulnerability to reagent shortages brought on by sudden demand, export bans, and stockpiling. Their scarcity is compounded by problems like limited production capacity and a market dominated by just a few firms.



"The bottleneck is that basically there are these specialized enzymes and specialized primers that you have to make," Davey Smith, co-director of one of the U.S. National Institute of Health's Centers for AIDS Research (CFAR), told RFE/RL. "But, you know, we always had just [enough] capacity to run the tests that we needed. We weren't thinking about scaling up to have to test for a new pandemic."



No Reagents, No Reliable Tests



Central to that great effort to test people en masse is the ability not only to see who is infected -- the emphasis so far as officials tried to contain and then mitigate it -- but also to spot anyone with the telltale antibodies that signal past infection and possible immunity.



The most widely applied tests so far are the so-called RT-PCRs, which start with a swab to collect genetic material that is then extracted, multiplied with polymerases, and amplified in a lab. They use "primers" to target specific sections of genome to show if the coronavirus's RNA, its genetic code, is present in a patient's body.

The second major category of test is serological, separating and scouring blood samples for antibodies generated by past exposure to the virus. It is this less common antibodies test that will be especially important as COVID-19's first wave recedes.



Doctors and policymakers, experts say, will need to learn more about asymptomatic and recovering patients to weigh questions of immunity and vulnerability as they look to relax social-distancing measures and lockdowns.



Both types of test require complex and pure reagents, and plenty of them.



"It's a different kind of chemical that might extract the virus, and then [another to] amplify the virus, and [another to] detect the virus," Smith, who is also a translational research virologist at the University of California-San Diego, said. "But all that chemistry and all those enzymes and salts and buffers are just chemicals that are included [in the PCR test] and called a reagent, and the same sort of thing goes for an antibody test."



'Never Been A Shortage'



The head of a British trade association of coronavirus test-kit manufacturers said recently that "there's never really been a shortage of chemical reagents before now."



But in the face of this pandemic, the British In Vitro Diagnostics Association's Doris-Ann Williams told The New York Times, "all the major countries in the world are wanting the same thing at the same time."



For whatever reason, most countries don't stockpile many reagents despite recent viral epidemics like SARS (2003), MERS (2012, 2015, 2018), Ebola (2014-16, 2019) and Zika (2015-16).



There have been notable exceptions like South Korea, which manufactures and exports test kits after facing a deadly MERS outbreak five years ago.
DMCC, a leading free zone and Government of Dubai Authority on commodities trade and enterprise, is accelerating its digital outreach to support its member companies and attract new business to Dubai.

For the first time, DMCC successfully hosted its flagship Made for Trade Live international roadshow event virtually with business leaders in Johannesburg, South Africa, seeking to learn more about setting up a company in Dubai. This year and through virtual roadshows, DMCC will showcase its free zone offering in key markets including: China, the UK, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine, a statement said.

Now more than ever, it is crucial to stay connected to our international prospects and our existing community. Today, we have a fully-fledged digital strategy that meets the needs of the business community, both at home and internationally. We are proud to bring Made For Trade Live roadshows and these educational webinars to market, attracting an even larger audience and providing real value to our member companies and the business community as a whole, said Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, DMCC.

During the session, DMCC highlighted the benefits of setting up a business in Dubai, and specifically in DMCC, for companies seeking to establish an international footprint and drive trade. In light of the current circumstances, questions from the audience ranged from the type of support offered to SMEs to questions on the dynamics of virtual offices. DMCCs executives emphasised their range of flexible office solutions before discussing the ways in which DMCC is supporting their member companies and new firms through their new, highly attractive Business Support Package.

Since its inception, DMCC has attracted over 5,000 businesses from 17 cities around the globe to its series of international roadshows. The outreach programme brings together business leaders and organisations looking to expand their home base and offers them insights into the commercial appeal of Dubai and the opportunities the city offers for growth in the region and beyond.

DMCC will continue to further support and attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to Dubai in line with the eight principles of the Fifty-Year Charter announced earlier by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai.

DMCC is also hosting an array of educational webinars for their 17,000 member companies. Having historically supported member companies on various topics through face-to-face events, the new webinar series are delivered in collaboration with industry experts and cover a variety of topics to help businesses with day-to-day operations as well as overall business strategy. Subjects to be covered include the impact of the latest VAT guidelines, business planning in times of uncertainty and success through digitisation.

Over recent years, DMCC has implemented a digital first agenda, providing smart solutions allowing member companies to access a wide range of business services from any device, anytime and anywhere. Company set up in DMCC is now fully digital. In line with Smart Dubai 2021, DMCCs digital strategy is bringing value to member companies through the latest technological advancements.

In March, DMCC rolled out a Business Support Package which provides a range of waivers and discounts to support DMCCs business community in navigating the current economic environment, the statement said.
The demand for medical equipment has surged all across the globe - and one Ballymote company is helping answer the call.

Tente Limited, situated in Ballymote for over 40 years, specialises in plastic injection moulding and is currently working around the clock to ensure they can cater for demand for their products from major international companies.

The onset of Covid-19 has seen countries across the world seek more medical equipment than ever before.

Most recently, Ireland's purchase of 200million worth of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) demonstrated the need for such items, while the government here has also set up a new website to allow businesses or industries donate equipment they may have, which could be of use to the medical profession during this unprecedented time.

Indeed, such is the international clamour for medical equipment, the EU's crisis management Commissioner Janez Lenarcic said last week that there is now a 'global scramble' underway.

In that context, the work of Tente becomes even more important.

A major employer in Ballymote for 41 years, Tente Managing Director John Stewart says that while this is undoubtedly the most challenging period for the company since it first opened, they are determined to meet demand and provide essential parts for vital equipment that can help save lives.

"Tente Ltd is in Ballymote for over 41 years, and is part of the TENTE International GmbH which is a German family-owned business," Mr Stewart said.

"We specialise in plastic injection moulding with 97 employees producing 24 hours a day."

Though based in a rural town in south Sligo, Tente has a worldwide reach.

Its products are essential for several international companies that provide medical equipment, the importance of which continues to rise as the impact of coronavirus worsens in many regions around the globe.

Ventilators represent one of the most important medical devices when it comes to Covid-19.

With many patients of the virus experiencing significant breathing difficulties and respiratory issues, a ventilator is crucial to ensure survival and recovery.

Parts from Tente provided to companies such as Hamilton Medical, a company specialising in the production of ventilators and a leading provider to many countries, are a vital part of the production process.

It is not just ventilators, however, that Tente has a hand in helping produce.

Their products are also used to help build hospital beds, another item that has become hugely important as Ireland and other countries seek to expand bed capacity in hospitals in anticipation of a surge in coronavirus cases.

Several other hospital items also require the products Tente provides.

"Our orders have risen dramatically for our range of medical and healthcare equipment products because of Covid-19," John explains.

"We are producing wheels, castors and other component parts that are all urgently required for hospital beds, ventilators, intravenous stands, patient monitors, diagnostic machines, fluid and oxygen management devices, imaging/MRI devices and many other vital hospital mobility products. Our products from Ballymote are used worldwide for medical and healthcare original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as Hillrom, Stryker, Hamilton Medical, Paramount Bed, Drager, Provita, Invacare and many more."

Like any company, the Tente operation relies on the commitment of its staff and the local area services to help it meet demand and function on a day-to-day basis.

John says they are lucky to have such a diligent workforce, all of whom are now playing a "vital part" in the fight against Covid-19.

"A big thank you to our committed and fantastic Tente team and their families who are now all playing a vital part in helping healthcare workers worldwide to fight this virus.

"We also thank all our local suppliers in transport, logistics, cleaning contractors, local toolmakers who support us through these difficult and challenging times.

"We will get through this working together as a team," he says.
Lyra McKees partner Sara Canning talks exclusively to Aoife Moore about how she is still struggling to come to terms with her death one year on.

Its a year to the day since Belfast writer Lyra McKee was shot and killed on a street in Derry.

Lyra, just 29, was watching a riot that had broken out in the Creggan estate when a stray bullet cut short her important life.

Her girlfriend, Sara Canning, who witnessed Lyras final moments on that footpath in Creggan, has taken the day off work.

She works in Derrys Altnagalvin Hospital, where she has been deployed to the Covid-19 testing unit, another frontline in another unwanted battle.

She has become an unexpected spokeswoman, a reluctant role model, and the living embodiment of what has been stolen from the Good Friday generation.

Sara has witnessed her girlfriend die twice, first as it happened, when those scattered shots rang out on Good Friday in 2019, and again in a BBC documentary which broadcast social media footage of Lyras final moments.

Sometimes it doesnt even feel like a day has passed, then in other ways, I look at the events of this year, how much has happened, it seems like so much longer than a year, she says from her home in Derry, where she lives with her sister, and her sisters partner.

The footage was all over Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, but I hadnt seen it until the documentary.

Id been told about it because one of Lyras older brothers had collected all of the videos and watched them, because he wasnt there, he wanted to see them, to process what had happened.

I think when we watch the news and see people in Gaza and Syria and different places being killed, to us thats a dead body and we dont ever think about the fact that its somebodys loved one, a family member.

Then that happens to you, and suddenly I was like; Jesus Christ, thats me. I can hear myself screaming, I never wanted to go through that again, watching the most horrific moment of your life from a different angle.

Derrys tragic past is well documented, its unsteady future receives fewer headlines than it should. Northern Irelands second city, but often first when it comes to inopportunity, child poverty, and levels of debt.

The tightknit community reeled in the aftermath of Lyras death.

Speculators, both professional and otherwise, flocked to social and traditional media to offer opinions on the city, which locals refer to as the town, many maligning its ignorant population for shooting each other, without any wider examination into why someone would be persuaded pick up a gun in these days of peace.

This is a factor not lost on Sara Canning either.

You have to speak out, she says.

I think when you look at what happened to Lyra, and the circumstances and the fact that its my community.

I was raised in a republican family, in a nationalist, republican area.

My people took Lyra away from me, the people that did this see themselves as defenders of the people in the community that I live in, and the community where Lyra was murdered.

This was not Derrys fault and was not Creggans fault.

A lot of the time, were afraid to speak out about stuff like this, but I just thought; Im not shutting my mouth.

If they had killed a police officer that night instead of Lyra, I still wouldve spoken out. Taking a life has never been justified.

As angry as I am about what happened to Lyra, I wouldnt kill the person who killed her.

I would like five minutes alone with them in a dark room, but I wouldnt want to kill them, she laughs.

Why should I not call these people out on what theyve done? It couldve been me, and Lyra wouldve spoken out for me. It couldve been a child.

No part of that would have been defending their community. All theyre doing is further demonising the nationalist and republican communities because it gives people that option to say; There they are, at it again.

It was a massive step backwards in so many ways.

Grief, they say, comes in waves, but Sara paints a picture of a life buoyed on the surface.

Sara Canning is comforted at Lyras funeral. Picture: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

She has been unable to mourn properly, or attend consistent counselling, as the very nature of public grief keeps Lyra both front of mind, and memories far too distant.

Often asked to speak or write on her partners behalf, Sara says she talks about Lyra daily, to keep her memory alive.

In the 12 months since Lyras death, Sara has appeared on TV, radio, and spoken to many print journalists.

She says she turned down even more, including money for appearances.

I felt I had to do it for Lyra, she explains.

It was almost like we became public property, it was insane, the volume of it.

That started from day one, and didnt end for months.

"There were things I did because I felt they were important and valuable, to portray the situation in the light that it deserved, but that peace, real peace, never came for months.

I still havent grieved properly for her, because the time when everything died down, I had to go back to work, I couldnt stay off any longer and survive.

Its been so hard to process, and I still havent processed and accepted what has happened.

Not before time, marriage equality was finally implemented in the North this year, another milestone which Sara marked on behalf of  and without  Lyra, who she had planned to marry next year, by releasing a statement to mark the occasion.

There was a bit of me that was completely gutted, she says.

Thats normal, Im always going to have the mentality of; That shouldve been me, but Im happy for other people, its hard to do, but youd have to be really bitter to not take joy from life.

It does hit you, Ive had a lot stolen from me, an entire future that I had planned, and its gone.

Most of the time, I feel the feeling when it comes, and let it go, and take comfort in the fact that things are changing, and have changed for the better.

The PSNI has issued a fresh appeal for anyone who may have information about Lyras murder to come forward.

Log onto mipp.police.uk from your mobile, tablet, laptop or other device.

Paul McIntyre, 52, from Kinnego Park in Derry has been charged with her murder, which he denies.
Michael Minasi, Staff Photographer / Houston Chronicle

The YMCA at Shadowbend Place in The Woodlands is once again teaming up with the Montgomery County Food Bank to do a free food give-away. The next event is scheduled for 10 a.m. to noon April 25. It is first-come, first-serve for 200 families who will receive a diverse menu of free food.

Roxanne Davis, community liaison for the YMCA Greater Houstons two locations in The Woodlands, said it is critical that families in need get in line early to ensure they are one of the 200 families that receive free food. Unusually long lines of vehicles have been documented throughout Texas and the nation as economically stressed residents who may be out of work and in need of sustenance seek free food hand-outs at food banks and schools in hundreds of communities.
In the current technological climate, the world is your workplace. In the age of digital interconnectivity, more of us than ever are making our living outside the office. Even notwithstanding the necessity of working from home in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, remote work has become the new norm for many. In January 2020, the number of employees working remotely had already increased by 173% since 2005. We can expect that figure to rise substantially going forward.

When the pandemic passes and the lockdown ends, its likely that many companies around the world will likely re-evaluate the viability of encouraging their employees to work remotely on a part-time or full-time basis. It benefits companies in a number of ways- allowing them to reduce operational costs without compromising employee productivity.

Your tech can play a huge role in determining your productivity, no matter where youre working. If were discussing working remotely, the conversation should inevitably turn to our smartphones. While any smartphone is a useful aid to remote work, not all are created equal.

In no particular order, here are some of the best models for working and productivity in 2020...

Samsung Galaxy Note 9

The Galaxy Note series is focused more on the needs of business users than casual users. As such, the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 has a range of capabilities that will benefit remote workers. The large screen is perfect for reading emails and parsing/ editing documents. Moreover, the Galaxy Note feature also has the Samsung DeX feature which allows users to transform their smartphone into a desktop computer with the right monitor and dock. The S-Pen functions both as a precision stylus and a remote trigger for the phones camera.

With a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, 6GB-8GB of RAM, up to 512GB of storage, and a 2,960 x 1,440 display, its a high performing smartphone that allows you to carry your business around with you in your pocket.

Apple iPhone XS

The iPhone XS gives you the high-performing functionality and incredibly user friendly interface you would expect from Apple. Its powered by a A12 Bionic processor with a sleek edge-to-edge design which will add clarity to sending, reading and receiving emails and documents. Like most iPhones, its processing power makes for easy multitasking, allowing you to switch effortlessly between applications. Lets be honest, looks do matter when it comes to your business tech and this phone is sleek yet robust. A great look on any remote working professional.

Apple iPhone 8 Plus

Dont have the budget for the flashy iPhone XS? The iPhone 8 Plus is a worthy piece of business tech, with a range of upgrades that make it superior to its little brother the iPhone 8. Its a high performing phone with outstanding build quality and its 12 megapixel dual camera will make it highly attractive to anyone who needs to take pictures for work.

While theres always a temptation to go with the newest, shiniest model, the iPhone 8 Plus has more than its fair share of proponents. Indeed, as this YouTube video explains, there are some clear advantages over the X series.

Google Pixel 3XL

Contrary to popular belief, Apple hasn't completely cornered the market when it comes to high performing smartphones that have a clean and easy interface. However, the Google Pixel 3XL offers the best of both worlds. It uses Android but also employs Googles trademark user friendly efficiency. Perfect for busy professionals who need a phone that can provide frictionless business use. Theres no need to use third party services as with most Android phones and the interface is easy and intuitive.

Its no slouch in the performance department, either. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, combined with 4GB of RAM and up to 128GB of storage. Not to mention the cutting edge camera for which Google Pixel phones are justly famed.

Blackberry Key2

One of the common pain points for those seeking a robust phone for work is the lack of a physical keyboard. Many professionals simply work better when they have the feel of keys under their fingers. Fortunately, the physical keyboard is still alive and well in the smartphone era, thanks to Blackberry.

The Blackberry Key2 combines the benefit of a physical keyboard with some impressive processing power. It uses a Qualcomm 660 processor with 6GB of RAM, and up to 128GB of internal storage. Whats more, its robust security and privacy services provide peace of mind for those who work with sensitive data.

Make sure you choose the right smartphone to unlock your productivity, no matter where you are.
Levering zelftests aan scholen start volgende week

Scholen in het basis en voortgezet onderwijs krijgen vanaf maandag coronazelftests geleverd voor hun personeel. Het kabinet wil vanaf 3 mei de zelftests ook beschikbaar maken gaan maken voor medewerkers in de kinderopvang, schrijft minister Hugo de Jonge (Volksgezondheid) dinsdag aan de Tweede Kamer.



De zogeheten antigeentest wordt nu alleen nog in teststraten gebruikt. De uitkomst ervan komt een stuk sneller dan bij een PCR-test, maar is ook minder gevoelig. Net als bij de PCR-test wordt met een wattenstaafje slijm uit de neus en keel afgenomen.



De overheid wil dat onderwijspersoneel in het primair, voortgezet en het speciaal onderwijs straks twee keer per week preventief een zelftest kunnen doen. Ook mensen die op een kinderopvang werken die in hetzelfde gebouw als de school zit, komen in aanmerking voor een test. De Jonge denkt dat door zelftesten eerder besmettingen kunnen worden opgespoord bij mensen die geen klachten hebben.



De minister wil dat pedagogisch medewerkers die op de kinderopvang buiten de schoolmuren werken vanaf halverwege mei toegang krijgen tot zelftests. Het kabinet onderzoekt nog of de gastouderopvang ook de antigeentests kan krijgen.



De leveringen van zelftests voor leerlingen en personeel in het hoger onderwijs en het MBO komen begin mei op gang, verwacht De Jonge.
The National Commission for Women has written to Mumbai Police, asking for a fair probe into the scuffle between a woman hawker and the police after she was not allowed to sell in the coronavirus containment area of Mankhurd in Maharashtra.

According to a report, a scuffle broke out between hawkers and police in Mankhurd area. Subsequently, a case was registered by the police.

The National Commission for Women (NCW) said in a statement, The Commission takes cognizance of this matter and is disturbed to see an incident of such behavior from the Mumbai Police.

The women rights body said it has written a letter to Subodh Kumar Jaiswal, Director General of Police, Maharashtra that a fair investigation must be done immediately in the matter as per the law.

NCW chairperson Rekha Sharma called the behaviour of the police "totally uncivilised".

"I am taking Suo motu..totally uncivilized behaviour of @MumbaiPolice. We must implement guidelines in a civilized way. Remember these are challenging times, more so for daily wagers and small sellers and you need to tackle things with sensitivity," she said in a tweet.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hundreds of buses carrying stranded UP students in Rajasthan's Kota have returned to Jhansi amid the nationwide coronavirus lockdown. The Yogi Adityanath led state government had sent 200 buses from Agra to Kota and another 100 from Jhansi on Friday.

Thousands of students had been stranded in Kota for the past month as they have been studying there for competitive exams before the lockdown was initiated. Kota has reported six coronavirus cases as of yet.

Also Read: Coronavirus India Live Updates: 6 states past 1,000-mark; Maharashtra tops the list with 3,323 COVID-19 cases

According to NDTV, all returned students from Kota will be screened for coronavirus before they are sent to their homes in UP.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was critical of this move by the Adityanath led government. Nitish said that the rescue operation would defeat the purpose of the lockdown at a time when practising social distancing is crucial for defeating the coronavirus.

"The way special buses are being sent to ferry students from Kota, it is injustice with the principle of the lockdown," Kumar told the news channel on Friday. Kumar also mentioned that this move makes it look like the state governments are 'making excuses" when it comes to rescuing stranded migrant workers.

The Bihar state government wrote to the Home Ministry earlier this week when a group of 300 students from Kota arrived in Patna. They had been given permission by the government to travel in taxis.

Meanwhile, India has reported 11,906 active cases of coronavirus (as of 8 am, April 18), according to the Health Ministry. Total deaths stood at 480. As many as 1991 patients have been cured or discharged and 1 migrated.

Also Read: Coronavirus: 'Global contraction in H1 2020 is inevitable,' says IMF
We are not done looking for those responsible.

This was the warning given by the Head of the Special Operations Response Team (SORT) Supt Roger Alexander yesterday during the Beyond the Tape TV programme on TV6.

Earlier in the day, Alexander was part of several units which went searching for kidnap victim Mattie Maraj in the eastern division.
At least 26 Indian Navy personnel have tested positive for coronavirus, in the first major case of COVID-19 outbreak in country's armed forces, even as the Centre asserted Saturday that 30 percent of all cases in the country are linked to the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi.

As the country completed 25 days of the nationwide lockdown on Saturday, with 15 more days to go till May 3, Union Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed the situation across India, including taking stock of the supply of essential commodities even as state governments continued to take steps to mitigate the hardships arising due to the shutdown.

Amidst spiralling numbers of coronavirus cases in India with 14,792 confirmed infections and 488 deaths on Saturday, Union health ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal said positive trend has been noted in 47 districts across 23 states and UTs, and also there are 22 new districts in 12 states that have not reported any fresh cases during the last 14 days. All these are the 170 hotspot and 207 non-hotspot districts identified by the government.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal also said there has been a "slight decrease" in the number of COVID-19 cases in the national capital in the last three days, but appealed to people living in containment areas to follow rules and don't step out of their homes as he noted that 26 members of one family tested positive for coronavirus in an area in Jahangir Puri, declared as containment area.

At a daily media briefing about the COVID-19 situation in the country, Agarwal said, "a total of 4,291 COVID-19 cases or 29.8 per cent of the 14,378 coronavirus infections reported till Saturday morning are linked to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation."



Most of the Tabligihi Jamaat event-related cases have been found in states with high burden of the disease, such as Tamil Nadu (84 per cent), Telengana (79 per cent), Delhi (63 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (59 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (61 per cent), he said, adding some states which have reported fewer COVID-19 infections, also had cases with links to the Nizamuddin event.

The only coronavirus case reported in Arunachal Pradesh till now is related to the Nizamuddin event. Similarly, 32 of the 35 cases reported in Assam and 10 out of 12 cases from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are linked to the same congregation, he said.

"The reason I drew your attention to this event is to highlight that even if one person does not follow the guidelines of social distancing and the lockdown, the entire country has to suffer the consequences," Agarwal said.

The outbreak of coronavirus at a key naval shore-based facility in Mumbai where 26 sailors have tested positive for the virus may also impact the overall growth rate of cases in the country as sources indicated that the numbers are likely to go up.

The incident is a wake-up call for stricter implementation of all laid down norms to insulate around 15 lakh armed forces personnel from the pandemic, military officials said.

All the three forces have already enforced a "no movement" policy under which almost all their bases have been put under total lockdown barring the wings handling key operational matters and strategic surveillance, they said, adding the top brass in the defence ministry is reviewing the overall preparedness of the armed forces to deal with the pandemic.

While the union health ministry placed the total number of coronavirus cases in the country at 14,792 and the death toll at 488 in its Saturday evening update, according to a PTI tally based on figures from states, the total number of cases was 14,848 with 2,067 recovered while the death toll crossed the 500-mark.

According to Agarwal, the mortality rate due to COVID-19 in the country was around 3.3 percent, while the recovery rate stood at 13.85 percent with 1,992 people cured of the total tally of 14,378 cases.

Meanwhile, the Maharashtra government decided to pay Rs 2,000 each to over 12 lakh registered construction workers in the state who have lost their livelihoods due to the ongoing coronavirus lockdown, the Uttar Pradesh sent buses to get back students stranded in Rajasthan's Kota area.

Nearly 3,000 students stranded in Kota due to the ongoing lockdown left for their home in 100 buses sent by the UP government but another 7,000 were waiting for their turn in the Rajasthan city on Saturday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
New Delhi: Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday held a review meeting with top officials to take stock of the current COVID-19 situation across states and Union Territories.

The meeting was attended by the two Ministers of State for Home - G Kishan Reddy and Nityanand Rai besides Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla and senior officials.

A Home Ministry official said that Shah has been consistently taking review meetings every two-three days to take stock of the situation.

The ministry has set up a 24x7 control room to coordinate with the states.

The central control room is linked with state control rooms.The Home Ministry had come up with detailed guidelines for the extended lockdown which will continue till May 3.

The Ministry had issued an advisory and said that it would be necessary for each state and union territory to set up a 24X7 control room/office with helplines at state and district level to address any grievance or undue problems faced by the providers of goods and services including during inter-state movement.
Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank spoke to Hindustan Times about the CBSE and University exams, fee structures in schools during Covid-19,summer vacations, e-learning, and research linked to the coronavirus disease. Edited excerpts:

Covid-19 struck at a time when thousands of students were waiting for their CBSE Class 12 exams to finish. Will it be possible to conduct the remaining exams, or are you considering alternative measures to promote students?

The safety of teachers and students is our prime concern. We also need to ensure social distancing in the examination room. Keeping these considerations in mind, and to ease the pressure on the minds of students, I directed CBSE to reschedule the board examinations for Class 10 and 12. In view of these concerns, will now be conducting board examinations of 29 core courses, instead of 83 courses. The decision on the conduction of examinations will be taken by undertaking extensive consultation with various education authorities and by keeping all aspects related to entrance exams, admissions dates, etc, in mind. CBSE will give notice of about 10 days to all stakeholders before starting examinations.

Is there a possibility that there wont be any exams?

Our students, their parents and teachers are all prepared for the circumstances that may occur. It cannot be predicted now what the situation will be on May 3. Many of our schools are functioning as quarantine centres. It has to be seen what decision the government takes. I would assure students not to be anxious, we will continue to support them in all possible ways.

Is it possible to get the answer sheets evaluated during the lockdown period?

Due to present situation and countrywide lockdown, CBSE has not been able to continue its evaluation work. The board will come out with further instructions for evaluating and dates for restart of evaluation work in various evaluation centres after rightfully assessing the situation. The safety and health of our teachers is as important for us that of students.

Similarly, universities are also unable to conduct exams. Do you think it is possible to hold online exams?

To assess the possibility of conduction of online exams for higher education MHRD has constituted a task force under UGC. We will issue the guidelines on the basis of that report.

Does the HRD ministry plan to recommend early declaration of the summer vacations to coincide with the lockdown period?

MHRD has not recommended early declaration of the summer vacations to coincide with the lockdown period. We believe that pandemic should not be a reason to stop. We are trying our best to find opportunities to make sure learning continues.

MHRD has set up a task force under NCERT to deliberate on the academic calendar. To ensure that learning does not stop, MHRD recommends the use of e- learning platforms -- like Diksha, Swayam, Swayam Prabha, epatshala, Nreor.

You have been focusing on online learning. Can it be an effective substitute to classroom learning?

I agree that the pandemic has derailed the classroom process, but at the same time I would encourage all the students to continue learning using e-resources. E-Learning provides wider opportunities for enhanced learning, flexibility of learning at your convenience, uniform quality content delivery, reusability of content, less paper for hand-outs and books, saves time by enabling quick access to information, and the ease of research across subjects.

The teachers and students are putting in remarkable efforts to make sure that the learning does not stop. We are putting in our efforts and resources to make e-learning more immersive and constructive, and to nurture the capability of turning this crisis into an opportunity.

Questions are being asked about the digital divide when it comes to online learning. Has the HRD ministry made any efforts or conveyed concerns related to this issue to the IT ministry?

To address the digital divide, MHRD has tied up with Information & Broadcasting ministry to air Swayam Prabha channels on their DTH platform, Tata Sky, and Airtel DTH. Earlier, Swayam channels were be available on DD-DTH, Dish TV and Jio TV App. Now a student anywhere in India can request the DTH service provider for these channels without any extra cost as these are free-to-air channels. Swayam Prabha is a group of 32 DTH channels providing high quality educational curriculum based course contents covering diverse disciplines.

We are also trying to explore the option of All India Radio to transact the curriculum to students so that we can reach the last person in the queue.

You have appealed to private schools to not pressure students into paying quarterly fees. You have also asked schools not to lay off teachers. Have you planned any further steps or consultation?

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has urged the citizens to give priority to human values in the time of this pandemic. In line with the same, I have appealed to all the private schools, given the difficult circumstances of the unprecedented health emergency. It is recommended to the private schools to not to charge the increased annual feel from the parents. Also, to not to take the fees for three months together. Further, schools should be disbursing timely salary to their teachers and entire staff.

In case schools continue to demand high fees or remove teachers, will there be some action?

I feel the state education ministers will handle these issues in appropriate manner.

Have you looked at the research carried out by educational institutions under HRD? How satisfied are you?

To monitor and coordinate the research and development,we have recently formed a separate and a new research division within the ministry. Earlier, monitoring work was undertaken under the respective bureaus.

In respect to Covid-19, IITs are doing remarkable research on technology initiatives to control infections. More than 250 projects have been undertaken in the following areas -- personal protective equipment, testing kits, sanitisation, medical equipment and robots, surveillance, pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment, and data analytics/AI to model epidemic patterns and disease dynamics.

Since the entire focus has shifted to the coronavirus, the biggest educational reform, the New Education Policy (NEP) is held up. What is its status?

We are coherently working at a faster pace on the New Education Policy. We will submitting it to the Cabinet soon.

Seven IITs issued a statement that they were boycotting the Times Higher Education ranking because of doubtful criteria. How does the ministry view this development? Do you support the IITs?

It has come to my notice. They feel the ranking agency has worked in an arbitrary manner. There must be some instances because of which they felt so. I also sometimes feel that there should be an understanding of the Indian context. I will speak to the directors of the IITs and if needed also look at the parameters of the ranking agency.

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Diana Brainard is nowhere near close to celebrating.

Dr. Brainard is the head of antiviral clinical research at Gilead Sciences, the Bay Area biotech giant whose drug portfolio includes the antiviral medicine remdesivir. On Thursday, Stat, the superb medical-news website, reported some of the leaked results of a pair of Phase 3 clinical trials of the drug at the University of Chicago. Of 113 patients with severe cases of Covid-19 who were treated with daily infusions of remdesivir, most were discharged from the hospital in under a week, and only two died.

That sounds like fantastically good news, but Dr. Brainard has caveats and cautions. The Chicago story, she told me in a phone interview this week, is still anecdotal. The trial did not include a control group. Hard data, once it comes, can be hard to interpret. We have to assess whether the drug is working without having a clear picture of what is typical with this disease, she says.

But whether remdesivir turns out to be effective or not  and its always wise to curb ones enthusiasm about supposed miracle cures  the remarkable thing is that its available at all. It began life in 2009 as a potential treatment for hepatitis C, but didnt work as hoped. It got a second chance during an Ebola outbreak in Congo. It showed limited effects but proved safe to use on people.

Lab tests, however, suggested it might have potent effects against coronaviruses such as those that cause SARS and MERS. As it became clear that Covid-19 was also caused by a coronavirus, remdesivir was one of the few potentially helpful drugs ready to be in clinical trials. Gilead began distributing it on a compassionate-use basis on Jan. 25.
New Delhi, April 18 : The central government has handed over the 67 acres of land, acquired in 1993, to Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra.

Image Source: IANS News

Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra General Secretary Champat Rai said a residential complex near the construction site was required. To measure strength of soil, samples had been collected, survey of the 67 acre land was on, he said.

Rai said the tent that housed Ram idol had been removed. It was required to prevent any fire during summer and to start the temple construction, he added.

He said Mahant Shashikant Das had provided space for the office of trust.

-- Syndicated from IANS
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / April 18, 2020 / Mota Ventures Corp. (MOTA.CN)(FSE:1WZ:GR)(PEMTF) (the "Company") is excited to announce that for the month of March 2020, its First Class CBD brand achieved sales of Cdn$4,290,000, with related expenses of Cdn$4,240,000. Customer acquisition expenses for March 2020 include one-time costs of approximately Cdn$1,160,000 associated with the introduction of the new line of Immune Support and CBD products. The Immune Support product line experienced further positive growth contributing to First Class acquiring 20,959 new customers during the month of March. The all-natural Immunity Blend is made from 100% pure essential oils, including cinnamon leaf, lemon, clove bud, lime, eucalyptus globulus, rosemary, peppermint, spearmint and oregano. The Company also launched an Immune CBD oil, along with an Elderberry Gummy product. The new Immune CBD product contains CBD, B3, B12, Vitamin C and Zinc. Sales for March 2020 compare to sales of Cdn$1,280,000 during the same period last year, representing an increase of 235%.

The Company also introduced a new brand, Nature's Exclusive CBD, in the first week of April 2020. The Nature's Exclusive CBD brand will offer a range of products, which include the new Immune CBD oil, Elderberry gummies, CBD oil drops, CBD gummies, CBD pain relief cream, CBD skin serum and CBD coffee.

First Class offers a CBD hemp-oil formulation intended to provide users with therapeutic benefits that hemp may offer. The hemp oil used in the products is derived from hemp grown and cultivated in the United States. The extraction process is designed to maintain all the beneficial qualities that hemp may offer. First Class offers a range of products, which include CBD oil drops, CBD gummies, CBD pain relief cream, CBD skin serum and CBD coffee. First Class plans to continue its significant growth in their U.S. operations over the balance of 2020, as well as an expansion into the European market.

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"I am extremely pleased with the performance of our business during March 2020, a month where the world and the economy faced immeasurable challenges. Our ability to efficiently innovate and launch new products, is a perfect example of our primary competitive advantage, and what allows us to be a leader in the ecommerce space. We expect our investment in accelerated customer acquisition from February to March, including a one-time cost of Cdn$1,160,000, will continue to produce significant revenue growth, and are hopeful it will lead to increased profitability in the upcoming months," stated Ryan Hoggan, CEO of the Company.

The Company cautions that figures for revenue, expenses and margin generated from the sale of First Class CBD products have not been audited, and are based on calculations prepared by management. Actual results may differ from those reported in this release once these figures have been audited. These figures were translated from US dollars into Canadian dollars using the Bank of Canada monthly average exchange rate of US$1.00:Cdn$1.3953 for March 2020 and US$1.00:Cdn$1.3368 for March 2019.

About Mota Ventures Corp.

Mota is an established ecommerce, direct to consumer provider of a wide range of CBD products in the United States and Europe. In the United States, the Company sells a CBD hemp-oil formulation derived from hemp grown and formulated in the US through its First Class CBD and Nature's Exclusive brands. Within Europe, its Sativida brand of award winning 100% organic CBD oils and cosmetics are sold throughout Spain, Portugal, Austria, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Mota Ventures is also seeking to acquire additional revenue producing CBD brands and operations in both Europe and North America, with the goal of establishing an international distribution network for CBD products. Low cost production, coupled with international, direct to customer, sales channels will provide the foundation for the success of Mota Ventures.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

MOTA VENTURES CORP.

Ryan Hoggan

Chief Executive Officer

For further information, readers are encouraged to contact Joel Shacker, President at +604.423.4733 or by email at IR@motaventuresco.com or www.motaventuresco.com

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release, which has been prepared by management.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statement

All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including with respect to sales generated from the First Class CBD brand, the launch of new products under the First Class CBD brand, its plans to become a vertically integrated global CBD brand, its plans to cultivate and extract cannabis to produce CBD and high-quality value added CBD products in Latin America for distribution domestically and internationally and its plans to acquire revenue-producing CBD brands and operations in Europe and North America. The Company provides forward-looking statements for the purpose of conveying information about current expectations and plans relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. By its nature, this information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited those identified and reported in the Company's public filings under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise unless required by law.

SOURCE: Mota Ventures Corp.





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/585515/Mota-Ventures-Announces-Significant-Revenue-Growth-During-March-2020




The U.S. space agency NASA and the private company SpaceX have chosen May 27 as the date for the first launch of a crewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS) from the United States since 2011.



"On May 27, @NASA will once again launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil!" Jim Bridenstine, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said on Twitter on April 17.



The United States has relied on Russian Soyuz rockets to send American astronauts to the ISS for nearly a decade. U.S. astronauts previously flew to the ISS aboard space shuttles, but that program ended in 2011.



The US space agency had said it was aiming for the launch to take place in May but hadnt set the date. It is sticking with its plan despite the global coronavirus pandemic.



The two-astronaut crew, Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, will fly to the ISS on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft also built by SpaceX.



They will lift off at 4:32 p.m. local time on May 27 from the same launchpad used for the Apollo and space shuttle missions at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA said.



Behnken and Hurley have been training for years for the mission, which is expected to move the United States closer to no longer being reliant on Russia for crewed flights.



After the return of two astronauts and one cosmonaut on April 17, a three-member crew made up of one American and two Russians remains aboard the ISS.

Based on reporting by AFP and dpa.
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Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan  Sat, April 18, 2020 12:27 634 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2b06e2 1 National COVID-19-in-Indonesia,National-Police,Medan,Medan-Kota-Police,North-Sumatra,social-media,viral-video Free

The Medan Police in North Sumatra are investigating an incident involving a police officer identified only as RS, a video of whom circulating on social media since last Saturday appears to depict him spitting at a car driver.

Medan Police chief Sr. Comr. Jhonny Eddizon Isir immediately expressed his regret over the incident after watching the video.

It is such a shame. RS act has tarnished our institution amid the polices efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19. He couldve spread the virus by spitting at the car driver, Jhonny said last Saturday.

The recording was made during an activity that seemed to be a street operation, after the driver allegedly refused to pay hush money to the cop.

Read also: National Police detail tightened measures to combat COVID-19, support government policy

The video was recorded by another driver, who was also stopped by RS. The driver who recorded the video claimed that his driving license was detained and later returned by a colleague of RS, identified as WI, who is not a police officer, after the driver handed over Rp 10,000 (US 65 cents).

Jhonny apologized to the public for the dishonorable action conducted by RS. He said he would request a transfer for RS.

We suggest that he no longer work at the Medan Police, he said.

North Sumatra Police spokesperson Tatan Dirsan Atmaja said Sunday if proven guilty, RS would be put on disciplinary trial and given sanctions by the Medan Polices division of internal affairs.

The North Sumatra Police head, Insp. Gen Martuani Sormin Siregar, would not hesitate to punish police officers whose behavior has unsettled the public, he added. (aly)
In the U.S., Robinhood has led the charge in upending the stock investing model through its mobile-first, minimal-step, commission-free trading platform. Now a startup out of Germany built on a similar premise is announcing a big round of funding from some top investors to continue its growth.

Trade Republic -- which lets people buy and sell shares, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and derivatives by way of a mobile app, paying just 1 ($1.09) in fees (no commission) -- is today announcing the it has closed 62 million ($67 million at today's rates) in funding to expand its business into more markets in Europe and to move into adjacent business lines in the near future.

The Series B is being co-led by Accel and Founders Fund, and it brings the total raised by the Berlin-based startup to just over 80 million. (Its Series A last year was led by Creandum.) It's not disclosing its valuation right now.

This is one of the largest Series B rounds for a fintech startup in the region and comes on the heels of the company's commercial launch last year. It has picked up more than 150,000 customers in that time, collectively managing more than 1 billion through the app. It's currently available in Germany and Austria, with plans to add more countries soon.

"We want to be the one-stop shop for trades, and we want to grow that as a safe space," said Christian Hecker, co-founder and CEO of Trade Republic, in an interview this week. "We plan to introduce a sequence of savings features in the next couple of months. We see saving as our biggest growth path in the years to come."

Even without the milestone of this being a big Series B, this is a significant round of funding for another reason.

Everyone is watching how tech startups, fintech, and investing overall -- remember, stock markets the world over have taken a nosedive in the wake of COVID-19, catching their own form of the virus -- will fare right now. With everyone staying indoors, some losing jobs, and many businesses being asked to remain closed to contain outbreaks, the measures have led to a slump in the economy, and it's hard to see right now how much of that effect will be temporal or permanent.

Story continues

This round, in that context, is a vote of confidence for Trade Republic that speaks to what shape fintech and how we as consumers interact with it might take in the years to come.

There has long been a theme in European startup land around the idea of "clones." These are businesses that are founded more or less based very closely or even exactly on the same model as a slightly older and successful U.S. counterpart, sometimes built with the aim of creating a regional leader that the U.S. counterpart might eventually even acquire to save itself the hassle of organic international expansion.

There was even a "startup factory", Rocket Internet, led by the Samwer brothers, set up to found and grow multiple companies on this principle. (They succeeded to some extent, selling companies to Groupon, eBay and others over the years.)

I'd argue that fintech, and Trade Republic, is not quite in that category, though. The company was founded five years ago and spent the first four of those in stealth, obtaining licenses to trade and operate as a bank and building its platform.

It's very squarely focused on European growth and doing so in a way that will not fall afoul of strict financial regulations. Expanding into new countries is one of the toughest things for a fintech startup to do, and that may well be compounded in cases where the platform is potentially leading to billions of dollars of trading.

"On paper the offering might look similar but the positioning is very different," Hecker said, pointing to the stable asset classes that Trade Republic focuses on, and the fact that it will be moving into savings. Also, there are no plans for crypto-trading, he added. "We focus on more mature and secure asset classes."

There is also a bit of open water right now. Notably, Robinhood has not expanded outside the U.S. and seems to have pushed back its plans for its UK launch, which would have been its first international move. (It launched a waiting list for the service last year.) It's not the only company in this area, though: Revolut, another fintech leader out of Europe, also launched trading in a limited release last August.

The opportunity is ripe for the taking, and investors believe startup's bid to be one to take it is a viable one.

Trade Republics team impressed us with its vision, beautiful product, strong traction and clear potential to become the European leader for mobile smart investing," said Luca Bocchio, a partner at Accel, in a statement. "We are particularly excited about the strong focus on long-term savings and better access to the capital markets, which Trade Republic makes easier and more affordable."

Peter Thiel, the storied investor that backs Founders Fund, is a prolific supporter of fintech startups, stretching back to his early days as part of the so-called PayPal Mafia, so his support also signals a strong play.

Trade Republics rapid growth in Germany testifies to the superiority of its technology platform over legacy offerings," said Peter Thiel, partner at Founders Fund, in a statement. "The company is poised to become a major player in European finance."
Many of us in Greater Cleveland have families and resources that offer needed emotional and financial capabilities during this time of national crisis. Great numbers of our fellow Clevelanders are struggling greatly without these resources.

Heres a thought! Perhaps many of us could turn over those $1,200 stimulus checks to each ones favorite charity: Greater Cleveland Food Bank, Catholic Charities Emergency Fund, Hunger Network, the Salvation Army or multiple others.

The leadership of the state of Ohio has been remarkable in this crisis. Lets put the city of Cleveland on the map as the city that reached out to and cared for our neighbors in need during this time through this SOS -- Sharing Our Stimulus -- initiative!

May God bless us all and bring us to a time of peace, health and healing.

MaryEllen Grady,

Rocky River

MaryEllen Grady is a retired registered nurse.
As communities around the world grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors and nurses have been on the front lines, working around the clock to help treat patients and contain the spread of the virus.

Doctor Nguyen Trung Cap, head of the Emergency Department at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

Doctor Nguyen Trung Cap, head of the Emergency Department at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases, where more than 100 COVID-19 patients have been treated, talks about how he and his colleagues are fighting the virus.

Can you give us an update on the health of patients being treated at the hospital?

As of April 15, we have isolated and conducted screening of 2,110 suspected cases. There were 142 positive patients being treated, of which 81 have recovered and been discharged.

Among the patients we treated, we also had 14 patients in very severe conditions, including five patients on ventilators and one of them on ECMO (Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation). But fortunately, among serious patients, many patients have improved. Eight patients are recovering, three out of five cases on ventilators have been weaned from the machine, and the two others who are still on ventilators have passed the critical phase.

What has Vietnam's biggest success in COVID-19 prevention and control been?

I think that the greatest success in this battle is that we remarkably controlled the spread of the epidemic into Vietnam. Although we are very close to China and trade activities between the two countries are abundant, we have been able to prevent the epidemic from making a huge outbreak in Vietnam. Thats what helped the health sector avoid being overloaded and society has had time to prepare for what might come next.

We were affected by the pandemic rather early compared to other parts like Europe or the US, while our health care system, to be honest, lacks many things compared to those developed countries. But it was fortunate that we quickly became aware of the risks and conducted aggressive steps to control the pandemic.

The result is that we have timely restrained the diseases spread in term of speed and scale. Up to this point in time, we have not been overloaded and we have not had to experience a total collapse of the treatment system like in many other countries.

There are reported shortages of personal protective equipment in many countries. Whats the current situation at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases?

We have made quite proper preparation and now the number of patients with COVID-19 at the hospital is about 100, so there is no shortage of personal protective equipment like in some parts of the world.

However, plans can be prepared and facilities can be only sufficient to meet a certain scale of a pandemic. If we implement good community-based disease control, limit the number of patients, the hospital will be able to cope with the situation. But if the epidemic prevention in the community is not good, which can lead to a high increase in the number of patients, exceeding the capacity of hospitals, at such a point, we will lack everything.

During the course of treatment, what difficulties did the doctors encounter?

Our biggest difficulty when facing this disease is that it is a new disease and our understanding of it is limited. For the first patients, we had to set up a treatment regimen based on our experience and existing knowledge, as well as knowledge from other similar or related diseases such as SARS, influenza and a few studies by foreign colleagues.

But after treating a few patients, we gained certain knowledge and experience. In addition, many studies of colleagues around the world have started to produce brighter pictures of COVID-19 pathology. This has improved the treatment regimen and made it more consistent with the understanding of this pathology and reality in patients.

The second difficulty is that COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease. Therefore, ensuring safety for health workers is also extremely difficult. And sadly, two doctors at the hospital were infected when treating patients.

However, after a period of time, we have improved our skills to prevent on-the-job infections, as well as improved the use of protective equipment, so that there have been no more on-the-job infections.

What do you think of the support the Government and the people have given to the health sector?

Since the beginning of the epidemic, we have received much attention and support from everyone in society, both physically and mentally. The Government has provided us with good working conditions and colleagues have been supporting us in term of professional knowledge sharing.

Individuals and organisations have also been very generous in donating protective equipment and sending us presents and their encouragement. That has given us more strength to continue this battle.

Can you tell us a bit more about preparations for different scenarios of pandemic development, given the fact that we have seen community transmission?

So far we have taken steps to prepare for worse situations such as more than 1,000 or 10,000 patients. But the capacity and resources of our health system are limited, so it would be difficult to respond to situations with hundreds of thousands of patients like in Italy or the US. Therefore, we hope that every citizen will continue to strictly follow the guidelines on social distancing so that the disease does not break out beyond the ability of the health sector.

And even though our health system is ready, everyone should take care of their own health and safety, think of the community and work together to control the disease together with the health sector.

The fight against epidemics is not only the job of the health sector. The Government has been working on scenarios and proper instructions and preparations. We also have a mechanism for inter-sector co-operation in pandemic prevention and control. Many companies have started to work on manufacturing ventilators and protective equipment.

The Ministry of Health has also sketched out plans for worse situations. Hospitals have prepared equipment, machines, medicines, protective materials and also training for doctors at all levels.

What is your biggest hope now?

I really wish everyone would raise their awareness about community health and we need every single person to comply with the Government's anti-pandemic regulations and the Ministry of Healths practices for infection prevention. If every one of us can do that properly, well be able to contain COVID-19 more effectively and return to normality soon enough.  VNS

Police doctors on frontline in COVID-19 fight Police Hospital 199 under the Ministry of Public Security is one of four hospitals in the central city of Da Nang receiving and monitoring patients suspected of being infected by the COVID-19 virus.
On the second day of his trip to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) to review the security situation in the newly created Union Territory, army chief General MM Naravane on Friday accused Pakistan of backing terrorism in the region at a time when the world has united to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, and said India would not let its guard down.

Naravanes remarks came days after a ceasefire violation by Pakistan along the Line of Control (LoC) in J&K , the death of five Indian para-commandos and five militants in a hand-to-hand battle and the killing of three civilians.

While the whole world is focused towards fighting Covid-19, Pakistan-instigated terrorists have been targeting innocent civilians in the hinterland; just three days back they targeted a retired Kashmiri soldier. Therefore, we cannot let our guard down, Naravane said.

Before ending his trip on Friday, the army chief visited forward posts in north Kashmirs Kupwara sector and interacted with soldiers guarding the LoC.

Naravane, in an interview with a news agency, said the five terrorists killed in the battle with para-commandos had attempted infiltration taking advantage of bad weather in Keran.

Infiltration attempts in areas where the snow levels are high indicate the Pakistan Armys complicity, he said. Naravane said in the hinterland, Pakistan-backed terrorists were targeting civilians with the aim of coercing them to follow their Azadi narrative.

He said India will respond proportionately to ceasefire violations. Unless Pakistan gives up its policy of state sponsored terrorism, we will continue to respond with ...precision, he said.

Pakistan on Friday rejected what it called the irresponsible, spurious and totally false allegations against Pakistan by the Indian army chief.

It also charged India with ceasefire violations. This year alone, Indian forces...have committed over 765 ceasefire violations, resulting in shahadat of 3 civilians and serious injuries to 54, its foreign office spokesperson Aisha Farooqui said.

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LED by religious leaders, Tanzanians yesterday began holding special prayers, asking the almighty God to heal the nation from the world ravaging COVID-19 pandemic that has so far claimed the lives of five people and infected 147 others.

The Arch Bishop of the Glory of Christ Tanzania Church (GCTC) Dr Josephat Gwajima, Reverend Dr Eliona Kimaro of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT)s Kijitonyama Parish and Dar es Salaam Sheikh, Alhad Mussa Salum were among the religious leaders who led the prayers.

The prayers are being held in response to a proposal floated by President John Magufuli issued through his Twitter handle @MagufuliJP on Thursday evening.

The Head of State asked Tanzanians to dedicate three days from Friday-Sunday (1719 April) to prayers to overcome the threat of spread of COVID-19 pandemic.

"My fellow Tanzanians, due to the presence of Coronavirus, I ask that we spend three days from 17-19 April (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) to pray to God who is the master of everything to rescue us from this disaster, lets pray according to our beliefs," read the Tweet of President Magufuli.

During the prayers that were broadcast live by the Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation (TBC), Rev Kimaro said through prayers, the country can be healed and God will help us all.

Before he prayed, the cleric delivered the biblical message from the book of Jeremiah 30:17 that reads:

"For I will restore health into thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord, because they called thee an outcast, saying, this is Zion, whom no man seeketh after."

Bishop Gwajima said the fear of the COVID-19 in the country is greater that the virus itself, reminding Tanzanians to remain active in taking all preventive measures against the deadly coronavirus.

"As we pray, it's crucial that all members of the country continue to follow all the guidelines by health experts; all things should go together, he said.

For his part, Mufti of Tanzania, Sheikh, Abubakar Zuberi shared the same message with what was said by Sheikh Alhadi Mussa Salum, that prayers and strong belief in God are the key weapons for winning whatever battle.

As other religious leaders, the duo also reminded Tanzanians and worshipers to ensure they maintain social distancing in churches and mosques as well as taking all other preventive measures.

Dr Magufuli's Tweet got positive response from his followers as most of them supported the idea, saying they would definitely do what the Head of State had proposed.

Among them were Mr Godbless Lema the Member of Parliament (CHADEMA) for Arusha Urban Constituency and Mr Wiliam Ngeleja the Sengerema MP on the CCM ticket.

Mr Lema said he would fast for the same purpose, while Mr Zitto Kabwe, who is the MP for Kigoma Urban Constituency and leader of ACT Wazalendo party, stressed the importance of avoiding mass gatherings and undertake hand washing as recommended by health experts.

On their social media accounts, majority of Tanzanians reposted Dr Magufulis tweet as part of efforts to spread the message from the president to the country.

Yesterday, many Tanzanians showed solidarity as the wake up with the message of prayers that went viral on social media with majority sharing it on their accounts.

The message that was highly shared on day one of national prayers was the biblical phrase from 2 Chronicles 7:14 that read, "If my people who are called by my Name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my Face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their Land".
Hyderabad, April 18 : Telangana's Minister for Industry and Information Technology K. T. Rama Rao on Saturday appealed to the industry not to lay off the employees due to the crisis triggered by coronavirus induced lockdown.

He said if required the industry may go for austerity measures to overcome this phase.

He was interacting with members of the Telangana unit of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Responding to the members queries on the economic revival, he said that 25 per cent of the economy is still working and post lockdown, the economic growth may happen in spurts.

Even after the lockdown is lifted, one of the biggest challenges for industry will be to build the confidence of the workforce to return and feel safe. Social distancing will be the new norm and industries have to make changes in the way they operate, he said.

Members requested the government's support for the industry, especially the MSME sector, to mitigate the adversities faced by them due to the lock down.

The minister mentioned that the government is committed to the industry in the state and will extend all possible support.

He urged the CII members to explore opportunities in healthcare, medical infrastructure and biotech industries. "Every adversity presents an opportunity and we must strategise and come up with new ideas," he said.

He also requested CII to work on a vision document on new business opportunities and investments in the post-COVID era.

Rama Rao said that the government is making efforts to contain and flatten the COVID pandemic curve. Stating that the state is well prepared with sufficient quantities of Personal Protection Equipments (PPEs), masks, testing kits and ventilators, he said citizens need to be careful to maintain personal hygiene and stay indoors to contain the spread.

The minister requested industry to support the government with critical medical infrastructure through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds.
Gabriel Kumi

18.04.2020 LISTEN

The National Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Marketers has donated to the National Covid-19 Trust Fund.

The Association donated an amount of Ghc 60,000 to enable government prepare well against the spread of Covid-19 by purchasing more Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) for frontline health workers.

The Vice-Chairman of the LPG Marketers Association of Ghana, Gabriel Kumi, speaking to the media shortly after the donation exercise at the Ministry of Information in Accra, commended the President for his commitment so far to combat the deadly disease.

He said the rationale behind the donation is for the Association to support governments effort in dealing with the situation.

We appreciate the decisiveness with which the President is fighting the battle and we think he deserves everyones support including us he indicated.

He further called for companies and individuals to rise up to the task and support since government cannot do it all alone.

Gabriel Kumi seized the opportunity to show his gratitude to the Minister of Energy, John Peter Amewu for withdrawing the tax the National Petroleum Authority recently imposed on LPGs.

According to him, this is a bad time to introduce new taxes on product such as LPG especially when the President is out there giving out freebies.

---Daily Guide
Senate Republicans have unveiled a plan to slowly and safely reopen the state.

This week, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey revealed the Senate Republican Open Michigan Safely plan, which is structured in five phases.

Each phase includes conditions relying on measurable data points  such as falls in case and death rates  to serve as indicators of decreased risk, as well as proposed guidelines for increasing levels of business and citizen activity.

A breakdown each phase can be found at misenategop.com/OpenMISafely.

The proposal would allow low-risk businesses  including those with little to no physical contact between employers, employees and customers  to operate during "Phase 1." People included in the "low-risk" category would include workers who mow lawns or spray for outdoor pests.

State Rep. Annette Glenn, R-Midland, commended the senates proposal, and said the plan follows scientific data and CDC guidelines for a safe, practical transition.

"It could get people in Bay and Midland counties safely back to work in five-phases, so they can support themselves and their families while continuing to remain vigilant in combating the spread of COVID-19," Glenn said. I look forward to working with Gov. Whitmer and the Senate to slow, and if possible, stop the spread of this virus while at the same time finding a safe way to get people back to work and getting our economy moving again. This plan is a step in the right direction.

Glenn also appreciated the plan's recognition of geographical boundaries.

"Its clear the vast majority of COVID-19 cases are located in the Detroit area, for example," Glenn said. "Its reasonable to assume that we may have a different timeline for safely reopening our economy here."

In a press release, Sen. Jim Stamas, a Midland Reublican who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, stated he supports a new proposal designed to help Michigan workers return to their jobs safely and put the states economy back on track. Stamas believes the new proposal will help many workers in Michigan who could safely return to work with proper safety measures, but are currently being forced to stay home.

I was frustrated that the governor didnt listen to the people when she extended her stay-at-home order, and instead made the situation worse for many Michigan families and small business owners, Stamas stated. The coronavirus is a serious health issue, and we need to be taking serious steps to fight it. However, those steps should also be responsible and should address both the public emergency and its impact on peoples lives and ability to support their families."

According to Stamas, Senate Republicans have shared the proposal with Gov. Whitmer and asked her to respond prior to April 30 on how it can be incorporated into short-and long-term plans for Michigan.

At the time of publication, the governor's office has no returned a request for comment.
Workforce experts got their first look Friday at how coronavirus infection prevention has impacted Southeast Texas workers as the region rises to the second highest unemployment of the states largest metropolitan areas. The outlook wasnt good, and they warn next months data likely will be even worse.

Because of the staggered timeline on which it receives monthly unemployment claims data, Workforce Solutions Southeast Texas has just now been able to report 17,000 claims in March from the Beaumont-Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Network.

Of those claims, the logging, mining and construction sector and leisure and hospitality sector felt the largest impact with 2.9% and 2.4% of the claims respectively.

Lauren Van Gerven, an analyst with the local workforce solutions office, said those numbers came with a warning not to expect the worst to be over.

We will see a more shocking rate when the April data releases, she said. It took a while for a lot of people to get through to the (Texas Workforce Commission) to file their claims.

One of the reasons experts caution against taking the current numbers at face value is because of the slight jumps in the unemployment rate. Statewide, the unemployment rate is now 4.7%, an increase of almost 1 percentage point from February but still a historically low rate after an almost year-long trend of record unemployment.

In the Beaumont-Port Arthur MSA, about 1,300 jobs were lost and unemployment rose 2 percentage points to 7.5%. The region now has the second largest unemployment rate out of the 25 large metro areas TWC tracks

By city in the region, Beaumont has the lowest unemployment at 6.6%, followed by Orange and Newton at 7% and 9% respectively. Port Arthur has the highest unemployment at almost 12%.

Since the week ending March 14, 1.3 million Texans have received some kind of payment through unemployment benefits, according to the latest update from the TWC. The agency said the nearly $500 million paid out so far is nearly the same number of claims filed in a two year span.

Since being inundated with calls starting in mid-March and breaking a record call volume of 14 million calls in one day last week, TWC has developed new online tools and staffed seven call centers to help claimants. It is still hiring phone operators for an eighth call center.

But along with some delays with getting claims processed, the lag in a fuller picture of the impact could be coming from the timing of layoffs.

Kaitlyn Medley, 22, a Vidor resident recently laid off from Johnsens Wholesale Florists in Beaumont, said she applied for benefits in late March and has already started receiving her weekly checks.

She said there were times she checked TWCs site for her follow-up document submissions and it was down, but for the most part it was a smooth process.

I think it may have helped that my store didnt close until we were really forced to, she said. I had heard there were a lot of people having issues, but I may have missed the peak.

While she waits for restrictions to lift and a possible return to her job, Medley said being able to draw her unemployment benefits has given her a moment to bring some order to what has been a chaotic time for many people.

Its also given her a chance to plan her wedding after her engagement in January.

Right now, its helping me gauge what to do next, she said. Im talking to people every day about the wedding and just trying to stay positive about everything.

While some restrictions and drop in foot traffic have dealt a heavy blow to the service industry, analysts like Van Gerven believe those sectors could also help lead a sharp rebound as long as the economy opens up in time to avoid permanent fallout among vulnerable businesses.

At this time, there is a big variety in forecasts because its hard to forecast something without a clear timeline for opening the economy, she said. We are expecting a sharp but short impact, especially with the CARES act that should allow businesses to rehire when they open again.

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Coronavirus India Lockdown Latest News updates: India registered 991 fresh COVID-19 cases and 43 deaths in 24 across the country, the Health Ministry said. Addressing a daily briefing on Saturday, Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry said that the total number of confirmed novel coronavirus cases in India stand at 14,378 of now, while the death toll has risen to 480.

A total of 6 states have the COVID-19 positive cases' tally past the 1,000-mark in India, with Maharashtra at the top. The other five states are Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, while, Maharashtra topping the charts with 3,323 cases. Delhi is the second-worst affected state with 1,707 coronavirus cases and 42 deaths. Tamil Nadu is the third on the list with 1,323 COVID-19 cases and 15 deaths. Madhya Pradesh- 1,310 cases, death toll at 69, Rajasthan- 1,229 and 11 deaths, Gujarat- 1,099 cases, death toll at 41. India registered 991 fresh COVID-19 cases and 43 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to latest data by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases stand at 14,378 after as many as 1,000 cases were recorded for the fourth straight day on Friday. This figure includes 11,906 active cases, 1991 cured and discharged, 480 deaths and 1 migrated, according to the ministry.

Also Read: Coronavirus in India: COVID-19 cases crosses 13,000; check state-wise cases, deaths, list of testing facilities

Follow BusinessToday.in for live updates on coronavirus in India and world:

9:35 pm: Karnataka coronavirus news

Cases have been registered agasint 5 people at Roza Police Station for flouting lockdown norms in Kalaburgi. Around 80-100 people gathered for the cremation amid the lockdown.

9:32 pm: Oberoi Apartment in Civil Lines containment zone

Oberoi apartment in Delhi's Civil Lines has been identified as a containment zone. Eight people including family members and house help have been tested positive.

9:29 pm: India's death rate 3.3%

The government today said that the country's death rate is 3.3 per cent, nearly 20 times less than the global figures. The government said that 75.3 per cent of the people who have died are over 60 years of age.

9:24 pm: Madhya Pradesh coronavirus cases

The state health department said that no deaths were reported in Madhya Pradesh today. There are 1,402 positive cases in MP out of which 127 have been discharged. So far 69 deaths have been reported in the state. The department said that 59 people were cured and discharged in the last 24 hours.

9:20 pm: Noida coronavirus cases

Thirty four people were booked and 237 vehicle owners penalised in Noida and Greater Noida area for flouting lockdown norms. Noida has emerged as a hotbed of coronavirus in Uttar Pradesh. Section 144 has also been imposed in Noida. The police said that 11 FIRs were registered on Snday and 34 people arrested. A total of 776 vehicles were checked across all check points.

9:15 pm: Coronavirus cases worldwide

More than 2.26 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 154,613 have died, according to a Reuters tally. Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.

9:10 pm: Pakistan lifts restrictions on mosque gatherings

Pakistan has lifted restrictions on congregational prayers at mosques, but put in place a host of safety conditions to avert the further spread of the coronavirus in the country, a statement said on Saturday.

9:00 pm: Visuals of flamingoes from Maharashtra

#WATCH Maharashtra: A large number of migratory Flamingo birds seen at the creek in Navi Mumbai. pic.twitter.com/2FT0D0WXcW ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020 8:53 pm: Goa coronavirus news The Goa government has begun scouting for places to quarantine seafarers when they are brought back from abroad. The coastal state has among the highest number of seafarers stranded on foreign shores due to the coronavirus outbreak with officials putting the numbers at between 7,000- 10,000. "The state executive committee overseeing efforts to combat the outbreak is looking at hotels, hostels and rooms owned by religious groups for seafarers to be quarantined," an official said. 8:47 pm: Discharged patient booked in Nagpur In Mahaarashtra's Nagpur, a patient who was discharged was booked for flouting rules. The individual was found roaming outside before he was booked for violating norms. The individual has been put in the quarantine facility again. 8:45 pm: Prohibitory orders in Madhya Pradesh Prohibitory orders have been issued in Madhya Pradesh's Dhar due to the increase in coronavirus cases. The prohibitory orders will be in place from 12 am and continue for three days. 8:40 pm: Amid coronavirus lockdown, migratory pink Flamingos return to Mumbai After dolphins, large number of migratory pink flamingos have returned to Mumbai as people continue to live inside due to the coronavirus lockdown. Maharashtra: Large number of migratory Flamingo birds seen at the creek in Navi Mumbai. pic.twitter.com/CQCHfqNQ4i ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020 8:35 pm: Coronavirus lockdown: Kerala to implement 'odd-even' system for private vehicles after April 20 Kerala police chief Loknath Behera on Saturday said that the state will implement an "odd-even" system for private vehicles with partial restrictions after April 20. "By implementing the scheme, we can reduce the number of vehicles on road by 40%. 3 persons can travel in a car, including driver. Relaxation will be given to women driven vehicles and govt vehicles," said state's police chief. Odd and even scheme will be implemented in the state from 20 April. By implementing the scheme,we can reduce the number of vehicles on road by 40%. 3 persons can travel in a car,including driver. Relaxation will be given to women driven vehicles&govt vehicles: Kerala Police Chief pic.twitter.com/vPnCg4DCBE ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020 8:30 pm: 5 more deaths reported in Gujarat, total toll rises to 53 Gujarat on Saturday reported 5 more deaths due to COVID-19, taking total toll in the state to 53. Total number of active cases in the state stands at 1376 including 93 cured, following 104 new cases were reported, says Gujarat Health Department. 8:25 pm: 8 new hotspots identified in Delhi, total containment zones increase to 76 The total number of coronavirus containment zones in Delhi rose to 76 on Saturday after 8 new areas were added to the list. "Whole Gali H No. 48 to Chaupal) A Block, Khazirabad in New Friends Colony, Israel Camp in Rang Puri Pahari & its adjoining area of buffer zone, Budh Nagar in Inderpuri & its adjoining areas of buffer zone, Oberoi Apartments, in & around area G-1 2nd Floor Mansarovar Garden," added to the list. The total number of containment zones in Delhi increases to 76 after 8 new areas were included in the list today. #Coronavirus pic.twitter.com/zoZy23heCZ ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020 8:18 pm: Punjab govt announces Rs 50 lakh ex-gratia for families of ACP Kohli, Kanungo Gurmel Singh Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday announced Rs 50 lakh ex-gratia for the kin of ACP North Ludhiana Anil Kohli and Kanungo Gurmel Singh, both of whom had fallen victim to COVID-19. "The CM said a similar amount will be paid to the family of any officer who dies in the line of duty due to the Coronavirus," according to Punjab Chief Minister's Office. 8:12 pm: Coronavirus update: Kerala CM on how his state 'flattened the curve' Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan said that selfless cooperation of general public has played a major role in keeping Kerala safe so far, and it needs to be acknowledged. "However it's too soon to assume that we're out of danger...," he said. "Kerala stood in unison and wholeheartedly adhered to directions issued by state govt. Many went into quarantine voluntarily, many assessed risk on their own and contacted control rooms. Others volunteered to assist Health department and local self-governments in their respective interventions," ANI quoted Vijayan as saying. 8:05 pm: National Disaster Management issues guidelines for relaxation of lockdown National Disaster Management on Saturday issued guidelines for relaxation of coronavirus lockdown. Necessary offices can function with the minimum number of staff, says Kerala Police Chief Loknath Behera. 8:00 pm: HC issues notice to Centre, Delhi govt on rising domestic violence during coronavirus lockdown Delhi High Court on Saturday issued notice to the Central, Delhi government and others on a plea regarding the increase in domestic violence cases during coronavirus lockdown. It also asked National Commission of Women & Delhi Commission of Women to file reply and status report on the matter. 7:50 pm: Maharashtra reports 328 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday Maharashtra on Saturday reported 328 new coronavirus cases, taking the total number of cases to 3,648 in the State. Highest 184 of the new cases recorded in Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai area followed by Pune at 78 cases, says state health department. 328 new #COVID19 cases have been recorded today in Maharashtra, taking the total number of cases to 3648 in the State. Highest 184 of the new cases recorded in Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai area followed by Pune at 78 cases: State Health department pic.twitter.com/d6ynCFk3m5 ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020 7.17 pm: Delhi govt demarcates 8 new containment zones, total list grows to 76 Delhi govt has added eight new regions to the list of containment zones in the national capital. This takes the total number of containment zones in the city to 76. The total number of containment zones in Delhi increases to 76 after 8 new areas were included in the list today. #Coronavirus pic.twitter.com/zoZy23heCZ ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020 7.14 pm: Coronavirus in India: No need to panic, assures PM Modi In a tweet on Saturday, PM Narendra Modi assured that there is no need to panic, adding that people should kep taking precautions. His tweet was in response to details of foodgrains supply shared by Conumser Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan. There is no need to panic.



Please keep taking the proper precautions. Together, we all will certainly defeat the COVID-19 pandemic. https://t.co/7sUpNo9Vo9 Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 18, 2020 6.56 pm: Amit Shah meets senior officials to take stock of coronavirus outbreak Delhi: Home Minister Amit Shah is chairing a meeting with top officials to take stock of the current situation regarding #COVID19. pic.twitter.com/7rdYmdCwAF ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020 6.51 pm: Air India airlifts 3 lakh rapid test kits from Guangzhou, China Air India has airlifted nearly 3 lakh rapid antibody test kits from Guangzhou in China, news agency ANI quoted Vikram Misri, Indian Ambassador to China, as saying. These test kits will be supplied to Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. 6.40 pm: Air India to open bookings on select domestic routes from May 4 National carrier Air India will accept bookings for select domestic routes after May 4. Booking for international routes will begin from June 1. 6.31 pm: Corona in Delhi: Rs 1 crore ex-gratia for doctors, nurses, health workers Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal annouced compensation of Rs 1 crore for families of doctors, nurses, sanitation workers and lab technicians who lose their lives due to COVID-19 while attending to patients. It will be extended to other essential workers too, including police officials, civil defence volunteers and teachers, he further added. 6.20 pm: India Coronavirus Tracker: BusinessToday.In brings you a daily tracker as coronavirus cases continue to spread. Here is the state-wise data on total cases, fatalities and recoveries in one comprehensive graphic {moismage} 6.11 pm: US Army finances ventilator designs in 'Shark Tank'-style competition US Army is holding a 'Shark Tank'-like competition for innovators with plans to develop ventilators amid the coronavirus pandemic. The US Army is offering $100,000 intial investment to winning innovators under this competition, CNBC reported. 5.50 pm: Corona in Odisha: One more COVID-19 case in Bhubaneswar One more #COVID19 case has been reported in Bhubaneswar, taking the total number of cases to 61 in Odisha. 24 patients have been treated while one person has succumbed to the disease: Odisha Health Department ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020 5.37 pm: Corona in Delhi: 67 test positive out of 2,274 tests conducted yesterday, says CM Arvind Kejriwal 2274 samples were tested yesterday out which 67 cases tested positive. In last 2-3 days the number of cases have gone down. I hope that the cases will go down even more in the coming days: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal #Coronavirus pic.twitter.com/4n1QlsRY2T ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

5.09 pm: Coronavirus updates: Govt announces Rs 10 lakh ex-gratia for postal employees

Ministry of Communications has announced compensation of Rs 10 lakh for postal service employees, including Gramin Dak Sevaks who succumb to novel coronavirus while on duty. The guidelines will come into effect immediately and continue till the COVID-19 crisis is over, the ministry said in a statement.

5.02 pm: Coronavirus update India

Watch: Kolkata Police arrested Left Front Chairperson Biman Bose and other party workers on Saturday in the capital city who were protesting alleging improper distribution of ration and low percentage of COVID-19 testing in West Bengal.

#WATCH West Bengal: Police detained Left Front Chairperson Biman Bose and other party workers today in Kolkata who were protesting alleging improper distribution of ration and low percentage of #COVID19 testing in the state pic.twitter.com/4fF5UpaISq - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

4.57 pm: West Bengal coronavirus latest news

Chief Discipline Officer, Ashim Acharya said that a clash broke out between the police and prisoners at Jalpaiguri Central Correctional Home on Saturday allegedly because they were not able to get bail amid coronavirus lockdown. "They pelted stones on prison guards and locked entry gate. Police on spot," he added.

West Bengal:A clash broke out between police&prisoners at Jalpaiguri Central Correctional Home today allegedly because they were unable to get bail amid #COVID19 lockdown."They pelted stones on prison guards&locked entry gate.Police on spot,"Ashim Acharya,Chief Discipline Officer pic.twitter.com/jjZM20mIsP - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

4.51 pm: India coronavirus status

Health Ministry said on Saturday that 75% of COVID-19 deaths in India have been recorded in patients aged 60 year and above adding that 83% cases have co-morbidities.

4.46 pm: Uttarakhand coronavirus latest news

The state police said on Saturday that 1,758 cases have been recorded and 7,220 people detained so far in regarding the coronavirus lockdown in the state.

4.39 pm: Health Ministry on coronavirus

Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry said on Saturday that "a positive trend has been noted in 47 districts across 23 states. No positive cases have been reported in the last 28 days in Mahe of Puducherry, and Kodagu of Karnataka." He added that no new COVID-19 positive cases have been reported in 45 other districts in last 14 days.

4.34 pm: Karnataka coronavirus latest news: HD Kumaraswamy son's wedding was a simple affair, says CM Yediyurappa

Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa said on Saturday that HD Kumaraswamy's son's wedding was held in a simple manner. No need to discuss the issue.

4.24 pm: Coronavirus India updates

Regarding the Hydroxychloroquine, we are studying the drug on 480 patients, it will take 8 weeks to reach any findings, says Indian Council of Medical Research.

4.19 pm: Coronavirus news India

Air India opens bookings for a few domestic flights May 4 onwards and international flights June 1 onwards.

4.13 pm: Health Ministry on coronavirus

Only PCR test for confirming COVID-19 cases, says Health Ministry

4.11 pm: Coronavirus cases- Tablighi Jamaat connection

4,291 cases linked to talblighi kanaat. Jamaat linked cases found in 23 dstates, says Health Ministry

4.09 pm: Coronavirus briefing

No cases reported in 22 districts in past 14 days, says Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry

4.06 pm: Coronavirus in India news:

991 new COVID-19 cases, 43 deaths in 24 hours, 1,992 cured so far, says Health Ministry.

4.03 pm: Government briefing on coronavirus

The Health has begun its daily briefing on COVID-19 along with Indian Council of Medical Research and Home Ministry

3.58 pm: Coronavirus Mumbai latest news

Minister of State for Defence Shripad Naik said on Saturday that 20 COVID-19 positive cases have emerged from INS Angre depot in Colaba where 30 people were kept under isolation. The patients have been shifted to the India Navy's hospital and are being treated, meanwhile, others have been quarantined.

20 #COVID19 positive cases have emerged from INS Angre depot in Colaba where 130 people were kept under quarantine. Patients have been shifted to the Indian Navy's hospital and are being treated. Others have been quarantined: Minister of State for Defence Shripad Naik pic.twitter.com/b8AstAX5Jy - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

3.53 pm: India corona live updates: Govt amends FDI rules amid coronavirus crisis

The central government has reviewed the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy for barring opportunistic investment by neighbouring countries comprising China.

Govt of India reviews Foreign Direct Investment policy for curbing opportunistic takeovers/acquisitions of Indian companies due to #COVID19. A non-resident entity can invest in India, subject to FDI Policy except in those sectors/activities which are prohibited:Govt of India(1/3) - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

3.46 pm: Lockdown in Indore

3 women health workers were allegedly assaulted by a man in Vinoba Nagar on Saturday while they were conducting a survey on COVID-19. Vinod Dixit, SHO, Indore said, "The men were fighting and thought that the workers have recorded the incident and will send it to the police."

Madhya Pradesh: 3 women Asha workers were allegedly assaulted by a man in Vinoba Nagar today while they were conducting a survey on #COVID19. "The men were fighting and thought that the workers have recorded the incident and will send it to the police," Vinod Dixit, SHO, Indore pic.twitter.com/FH6rIMHI6N - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

3.37 pm: Assam cronavirus updates

Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma took to Twitter to say that 1 more COVID-19 patient- Sajibur Rahman is discharged from Silchar Medical College & Hospital after 3 successive tests reported as negative. He is being sent for home quarantine. This takes the total number of cured patients in the state to 12.

Good news! One more #COVID patient - Sajibur Rahman is discharged from Silchar Medical College & Hospital after 3 successive tests reported as negative. He is being sent for home quarantine. Total cured patients - 12#AssamCares @Pijush_hazarika @drrajdeeproy @ParimalSuklaba1 pic.twitter.com/Ns5ibtuw2s - Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) April 18, 2020

3.27 pm: Delhi coronavirus updates

New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has issued a public notice announcing a fine of Rs 1,999 for spitting or urinating in public.

3.18 pm: India corona cases: Zomato introduces contactless dining and payment service

Online food ordering and delivery platform Zomato has introduced contactless dining and payment service for customers. Here's how:-

Contactless menu- scan a QR code on the table to explore the menu of a restaurant.

Contactless ordering- Order through the app.

Contactless payment-Once you place the order, pay the bill via the app and leave the restaurant premises

3.07 pm: Ludhiana ACP passes away

Ludhiana Assistant Commissioner of Police Anil Kohli passed away due to coronavirus. He was at the SPS Hospital in Ludhiana. Punjab had 202 cases of coronavirus till 8am on April 18.

Punjab: Ludhiana Assistant Commissioner of Police Anil Kohli passes away due to #COVID19 at SPS Hospital in Ludhiana, says District Public Relations Office pic.twitter.com/C0bW62J9MO - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

3.05 pm: Rajasthan coronavirus cases

Rajasthan reported 12 more coronavirus cases in the state. Eleven of these cases emerged in Nagaur and one is Jaipur. Till April 18, 8am, Rajasthan had 1,229 coronavirus cases.

3.00 pm: Gujarat coronavirus updates

The Gujarat government will provide Rs 1,000 to 66 lakh families under the National Food Security Act, said Principal Secretary Ashwini Kumar.

2.55 pm: Maharashtra to help migrant workers

Maharashtra government will provide Rs 2,000 each to 12 lakh construction workers through direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme. This will ensure some help to migrant workers who have been rendered jobless and are unable to return to their homes as well.

2.50 pm: Maharashtra coronavirus updates

Maharashtra Police has arrested 10,729 people and seized 33,984 vehicles over violation of lockdown norms. The police has registered 52,626 cases under Section 188 of IPC. The police also said that eight police officers and 29 other police personnel have contracted the virus.

2.40 pm: Delhi Cabinet Meeting

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will chair the Cabinet Meeting at 4pm. The cabinet will discuss the coronavirus situation in Delhi.

2:37 pm: DGCI to conduct drug surveys

Health Ministry has asked the Drug Controller General of India to monitor and conduct surveys with regard to coronavirus drugs, says govt.

2.33 pm: Coronavirus in Manipur

Officials of health dept were booked after substandard N95 masks were seized in a raid. The raid was conducted by a special team of the Vigilance and Anti-corruption Police Station on Friday after allegations were levelled that substandard masks were supplied to the district hospital in Churachandpur, they said. The team seized 1,250 N95 masks and samples of other medical protective gear, police officials said.

2.30 pm: Coronavirus in Haryana

Haryana State Health Department has said that there are 227 cases of COVID-19 in the state. Out of the case, 137 are active and 88 have recovered. The government said that two people have died in Haryana.

2.28 pm: AIIMS to advise non-COVID patients

AIIMS has said that allnon-coronavirus patients who were undergoing treatment there can now register online for follow-up appointments. On the given date, doctors would call the patients up and advise them.

2.22 pm: Coronavirus impact in India

Flipkart and Amazon are gearing up to increase their deliveries but they have been facing logisitical challenges. Firstly, they require approval from states. They also need to ensure social distancing measures, which means that full staff cannot work at fulfillment centres. Moreover, workers are also not keen on joining back as they fear they might not be allowed to enter their villages and towns.

2.19 pm: Coronavirus in Delhi

Delhi Police has caught absconding man who visited Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital to get tested. He ran away from there. The police is also ensuring that all who came in contact with the man are being tested.

2.17 pm: Coronavirus in West Bengal

People at Ramgarh market of Kolkata buying essentials amid COVID-19 lockdown. The countrywide lockdown will be in effect till May 3, 2020.

West Bengal: People at Ramgarh market of Kolkata buy essentials, amid #CoronaLockdown. The nationwide lockdown imposed to combat #COVID19 will last till 3rd May 2020. pic.twitter.com/OzSeatVTAx - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

2.11 pm: India coronavirus news

Congress leader Manish Tewari writes to Parliamentary Standing Committee of Finance's Chairperson, Jayant Sinha, requesting him to explore the feasibility of convening the committee virtually to take stock of the economic situation in the country amid the lockdown due to coronavirus.

My letter to @jayantsinha Hon'ble Chairperson Parliamentry Standing Committee of Finance requesting him to explore the feasibility of convening the Committee virtually to take stock of the Economic Situation in the Country in the wake of the Lockdown due to COVID-19 pic.twitter.com/PueEj13EOZ - Manish Tewari (@ManishTewari) April 18, 2020

2.05 pm: Coronavirus latest news

A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking to allow migrants across India to return to their homes adding that the state should make necessary arrangements for their travel.

1.57 pm: Mangaluru coronavirus news

A case has been registered against 2 foreign citizens who were under home quarantine in Kodailbail in Mangaluru for allegedly spitting in the lift in their apartment building on Friday. The 2 foreign nationals and their 3 room-mates have been sent to an isolation facility.

Mangaluru: Case registered against 2 foreign nationals who were under home quarantine in Kodailbail, for allegedly spitting in the lift in their apartment building yesterday. The 2 foreign nationals and their 3 room mates have been sent to a quarantine facility. #Karnataka pic.twitter.com/3IkgFuSgt0 - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

1.49 pm: Delhi receives 42,000 rapit testing kits, Rajasthan first state to conduct rapid tests

Delhi has received 42,000 rapid testing kits which will be used in containment zones beginning from April 19, state Health Minister Satyendar Jain informed. Meanwhile, Rajasthan is the first state to conduct rapid tests with the arrival of 10,000 kits from Delhi.

1.42 pm: Delhi lockdown news

Delhi government has directed the officials to move all non-COVID-19 patients from dedicated hospitals to other facilities by Sunday. (PTI report).

1.36 pm: Coronavirus lockdown in Gujarat

The Gujarat government has finally got the permission for plasma therapy to treat critically-ill coronavirus patients in the state.

1.30 pm: Japan coronavirus updates

The total tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Japan climbed to 10,000 on Saturday, NHK public broadcaster said. This came just days after emergency was extended to the entire country in order to prevent the further spread of novel coronavirus.

1.24 pm: Tamil Nadu coronavirus news

Vasanthamani, Dean, Kilpauk Medical College & Hospital in Chennai said on Saturday that 19 coronavirus patients who have completely recovered are being discharged adding that, "13 were discharged earlier, out of which 5 are interested in plasma donation, 4 are not fit, while we are motivating rest."

Today, 10 #COVID19 patients who have completely recovered are being discharged. 13 were discharged earlier, out of which 5 are interested in plasma donation, 4 are not fit, while we are motivating rest: Vasanthamani, Dean, Kilpauk Medical College & Hospital in Chennai. #TamilNadu pic.twitter.com/fUvBHaWdKR - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

1.16 pm: India corona cases: Unfortunate that people not being given PPE kits, says Ajay Maken

Congress leader Ajay Maken said on Saturday that it is unfortunate that people are not being provided with PPE kits. He added, "We got also know that doctors are getting bad quality kits. A large number of health workers are getting affected."

1.09 pm: Coronavirus in Mumbai

Watch: A scuffle broke out between a hawker and police personnel on Friday after the hawker was not allowed to sell vegetables in a containment area in Mankhurd. The police has registered a case in the matter.

#WATCH Mumbai: A scuffle broke out between a hawker and police personnel yesterday after she was not allowed to sell vegetables in a containment area in Mankhurd. A case has been registered in the matter by police. (Source - Amateur video) #Maharashtra #CoronaLockdown pic.twitter.com/NGhaUypxIx - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

12.59 pm: GoM on coronavirus over: Discussed ways to mitigate the hardships faced by people, tweets Rajnath Singh

Taking to Twitter after heading a Group of Ministers' meet (GoM) in Delhi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, "Interacted with the GoM on the COVID-19 situation. We discussed ways to mitigate the hardships faced by the people and the role ministries can play in providing relief to people. The guidelines to allow limited activities and the measures announced by RBI were also appreciated."

Interacted with the GoM on the COVID-19 situation. We discussed ways to mitigate the hardships faced by the people and the role ministries can play in providing relief to people. The guidelines to allow limited activities and the measures announced by RBI were also appreciated. pic.twitter.com/xUGfaSmV8L - Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) April 18, 2020

12.49 pm: Coronavirus India live updates: 6 states past 1,000-mark, Maharashtra tops the list

A total of 6 states have the COVID-19 positive cases' tally past the 1,000-mark in India, with Maharashtra at the top. The other five states are Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, while, Maharashtra topping the charts with 3,323 cases. Delhi is the second-worst affected state with 1,707 coronavirus cases and 42 deaths. Tamil Nadu is the third on the list with 1,323 COVID-19 cases and 15 deaths. Madhya Pradesh- 1,310 cases, death toll at 69, Rajasthan- 1,229 and 11 deaths, Gujarat- 1,099 cases, death toll at 41.

12.39 pm: Gujarat coronavirus news

7 more die due to COVID-19 in Gujarat. With this the death toll in the state has risen to 48.

12.35 pm: World economy bound to suffer severe recession due to COVID-19, says IMF

International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva has cautioned that the world economy is bound to suffer a "severe recession" in 2020, due to the coronavirus crisis. (ANI reports)

12.29 pm: Madhya Pradesh coronavirus updates

The total number of COVID-19 positive cases rose to 1,355 in the state, whereas, death toll stands at 69, said MP's Health Department.

12.24 pm: Delhi coronavirus news

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Saturday that 42,000 Rapid Test kits are available across the national capital now. "Currently, training for using the kit is going on and soon we will begin with Rapid Tests for Covid-19. We will first conduct these tests in hotspot areas," he added.

12.19 pm: Karnataka latest updates on coronavirus

12 fresh COVID-19 cases have been registered in Karnataka since Friday evening. This takes the total count in the state to 371, including 13 deaths and 92 discharges as of now.

12.15 pm: Meghalaya coronavirus news

Meghalaya registered 2 more fresh COVID-19 cases on Saturday, taking the total count in the state to 11.

12.10 pm: PM Modi on coronavirus

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday took to Twitter to laud "all those working round the clock, across the nation, to ensure India's energy needs are met."

Kudos to all those working round the clock, across the nation, to ensure India's energy needs are met. https://t.co/52SxN97j6n - Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 18, 2020

12.05 pm: Tamil Nadu coronavirus news

Watch: Tiruppur police in Tamil Nadu has released a video showing cops operating a drone to monitor the general public and request them to stay at home.

11.57 am: Coronavirus in Lucknow

Lucknow's King George's Medical University (KGMU) said that the report of 64 patients came out to be positive on Saturday. Out of these 53 were new cases and 11 other people were tested for the second time.

11.48 am: Coronavirus latest news

A Group of Ministers (GoM) meet is underway to track the developments related to coronavirus situation in the country. The meetin is headed by Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. Other ministers such as Smriti Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan and Ram Vilas Paswan are also attending the session. The meeting is expected to discuss the way forward, after the easing of restrictions in some areas post April 20.

11.38 am: China coronavirus updates

Imported COVID-19 cases in China reach 1,566, with 27 new ones. While, the death toll is at 4,632 with 50% jump in fatality numbers from Wuhan, which is the epicentre of the virus, health officials said on Saturday.

11.27 am: Delhi coronavirus news

A COVID-19 patient, who had escaped from LNJP hospital in Delhi, was arrested by the Delhi Police from Rai village in Haryana. The police has registered a case and is in the process of making a list of people who might have come in contact with the said patient while his duration of escape.

11.17 am: Coronavirus in Gujarat: Sharpest rise in COVID-19 cases in 12 hours

Gujarat saw the sharpest rise in the number of novel coronavirus cases in 12 hours with 176 new cases reported since Friday evening, the state health department said. The total number of COVID-19 cases have now reached 1,275 in Gujarat now.

11.03 am: UN chief salutes countries helping others fight novel coronavirus pandemic

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres salutes nations like India in helping others fight COVID-19 pandemic world over, his spokesman said. This came days after, India sent supplies of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), an anti-malaria drug, to several countries, including the United States.

10.55 am: Coronavirus in Andhra Pradesh

31 new COVID-19 cases and 1 death were reported in Andhra Pradesh in the last 24 hours, taking the total tally in the state at 603 and death toll at 15. There are 546 active coronavirus cases in the state as of now.

10.45 am: Nagpur coronavirus news

The Nagpur Municipal Corporation said that 4 new COVID-19 positive cases were registered in Nagpur on Saturday. (ANI reports).

#Maharashtra Four new COVID19 positive cases reported in Nagpur today: Nagpur Municipal Corporation - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

10.36 am: Coronavirus news: Donald Trump urges US states to lift restrictions imposed over COVID-19

US President Donald Trump has appealed the supporters to "liberate" 3 states led by Democratic governors, encouraging protests against stay-at-home mandates which are aimed at stopping COVID-19.

10.29 am: Coronavirus in Gujarat

State government has decided to conduct plasma transfusion treatment on COVID-19 patients in Gujarat, especially on those in critical condition, to boost their immunity, health officials said. This treatment entails plasma extraction from the blood of a fully recovered COVID-19 patient which is injected into the critical patient to help his body generate antibodies to fight the virus.

10.23 am: Punjab coronavirus news

Punjab Department of Higher Education has issued a show cause notice to Lovely Professional University in Jalandhar for "violating government orders and endangering around 3,200 people" by "not shutting down completely".

Punjab Department of Higher Education has issued a show-cause notice to Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar for 'violating government orders & putting in danger lives of about 3200 people' by 'not shutting down completely'. #CoronaLockdown pic.twitter.com/qnoFkJmVum - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

10.17 am: Rajasthan coronavirus news

2 more people died of COVID-19 at a state-run hospital in Jaipur. With this, the death toll in Rajasthan rose to 19 on Saturday, an official said. Meanwhile, the total number of coronavirus cases in the state have climbed to 1,270 after 41 more people tested positive for the respiratory infection.

10.09 am: India lockdown news

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan warned on Friday that action will be taken against hospitals if they turn away patients needing immediate attention and treatment. "We need to take a serious view against this denial of treatment to patients who have been visiting hospitals in case of emergency and are being forced to visit a number of hospitals, one after another resulting in denial of immediate medical attention which may result in loss of their lives," the minister said.

10.01 am: Coronavirus cases India

India registered 991 fresh COVID-19 cases and 43 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to latest data by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

9.55 am: Coronavirus pandemic a big challenge but also an opportunity: Rahul Gandhi

Taking to Twitter on Saturday morning, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said, "The Covid-19 pandemic is a huge challenge but it is also an opportunity. We need to mobilise our huge pool of scientists, engineers and data experts to work on innovative solutions needed during the crisis."

The #Covid19 pandemic is a huge challenge but it is also an opportunity. We need to mobilise our huge pool of scientists, engineers & data experts to work on innovative solutions needed during the crisis. - Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 18, 2020

9.48 am: Coronavirus in Kerala

An 85-year-old person, who was earlier tested positive for COVID-19 and later tested negative, passed away due to cardiac arrest early Saturday in Kerala. The patient was from Keezhattur, Malappuram and was admitted to the Manjeri medical college in Gujarat after testing positive for the virus.

9.42 am: Coronavirus vaccine: CSIR to start trial on anti-leprosy drug

As the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) announced that it will start with the study of the immune-boosting BCG vaccine, Council of Science and Industrial Research (CSIR) is going to begin clinical trials of Mw (Mycobacterium w) drug, an anti-leprosy vaccine to see if it can be used as a vaccine to treat COVID-19 patients. CSIR and Gujarat-based pharma company Cadila Healthcare Ltd would be working on Mw vaccine for COVID-19.

9.32 am: Karnataka coronavirus news

Additional Commissioner of Police, Crime Branch said on Saturday that a raid was conducted at Ramamurthy Nagar from where 1,000 tetra packs of whiskey were confiscated. The police also carried out another raid at Kengeri from where the officials confiscated cigarettes and tobacco products.

9.24 pm: Coronavirus cases live updates

In Pics: People at Ghazipur market come out to buy essentials amid lockdown.

Delhi: People at Ghazipur fruit & vegetable market to buy essentials, amid #CoronaLockdown. The nationwide lockdown imposed to combat #COVID19 will last till 3rd May, 2020. pic.twitter.com/yLIqdRPSuH - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

9.15 am: Coronavirus cases United states

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the US has cross 7 lakh and over 36,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. The country has clocked the highest number of cases and deaths in the world. The US has registered 7,00,282 coronavirus cases and 36,773 deaths as of 8:30 pm (0030 GMT Friday), according to the Baltimore-based university. (Agency)

9.00 am: Number of coronavirus cases rise in India

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases jumped to 14,378 in the country, according to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. This figure includes 11,906 active cases, 1991 cured and discharged, 480 deaths and 1 migrated. Maharashtra remains the worst-affected state in India with 3,323 cases and 201 deaths followed by Delhi and Tamil Nadu.

8.45 am: Coronavirus scare in Navy

Over 25 Navy personnel have already been tested for COVID-19, many have been found positive aboard INS Angre, docked in Mumbai. The first cases was reported on April 7. Meanwhile, there is no confirmation on the exact numbers of positive cases as many suspects' results are still awaited.

Read more here: Coronavirus: Over 20 Indian Navy personnel tested, several feared positive

8.30 am: India lockdown news: GoM likely at 11 am on Saturday

A Group of Ministers (GoM) meet is expected to happen at 11 am on Saturday to track the developments related to coronavirus situation in the country. The meeting will be headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other ministers such as Smriti Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan and Ram Vilas Paswan are likely to attend the session. The meeting is expected to discuss the way forward, after the easing of restrictions in some areas post April 20.

8.15 am: Coronavirus cases in India: Cases near 14,000-mark

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases stand at 13,835 after as many as 1,000 cases were recorded for the fourth straight day on Friday. The death toll also jumped to 452, according to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Indore in Madhya Pradesh recorded a very high jump in death toll. Rajasthan became the first state in the country to conduct rapid tests for COVID-19 as 10,000 testing kits.
Threat actors employed the previously-undetected PoetRAT Trojan in a Coronavirus-themed campaign aimed at government and energy sectors.

Cisco Talos researchers have uncovered a new Coronavirus-themed campaign employing a previously-undiscovered RAT tracked as PoetRAT.

The attacks targeted the Azerbaijan government and utility companies, the malicious code was designed to infect supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, broadly used in the energy and manufacturing industries.

Cisco Talos has discovered a new malware campaign based on a previously unknown family were calling PoetRAT. At this time, we do not believe this attack is associated with an already known threat actor. reads the analysis published by Cisco Talos. Our research shows the malware was distributed using URLs that mimic some Azerbaijan government domains, thus we believe the adversaries in this case want to target citizens of the country Azerbaijan, including private companies in the SCADA sector like wind turbine systems.

Experts believe the attack was carried out by an already known threat actor.

The malware infected ICS and SCADA systems used to control the wind turbines within the renewable energy sector.

Attackers launched phishing attacks using weaponized Microsoft Word documents, experts identified three separate phishing attacks that used COVID19 as a lure.

The messages used a document named C19.docx, they claim to be from departments from the Azerbaijan government and Indias Ministry of Defense.

The name PoetRAT comes from various references to the English poet William Shakespeare, the malware implements RAT standard features and uses FTP for data exfiltration , a circumstance that suggest it was designed to transfer large amounts of data.

Upon enabling the macros a dropper downloads and executes the PoetRAT.

This was a previously undiscovered RAT. It uses two components to avoid detection by a single component. The dropper uses an old trick in a new way: It appends the RAT to a Word document. Upon opening the document, a macro is executed that will extract the malware and execute it. The operation seems to be manual, but its streamlined to deploy additional tools as needed and to avoid unnecessary steps. continues the analysis.

The malicious code is not directly loaded as an executable, it is written to disk as an archive named smile.zip that is appended at the end of the word document.

The .zip archive contains a Python script and interpreter, the Word macros checks for a sandbox environment. The macros checks weather the hard drives are smaller than 62GB, which could be an indication of being in the presence of a sandbox. If a sandbox is detected, the malware is overwritten and deleted.

The Python Trojan is composed of two main scripts, frown.py which is used to communicate with the C2 and smile.py, which executes a range of other commands (i.e. directory listing, exfiltrating PC information, taking screenshots, copying, moving, and archiving content, uploading stolen files, and killing, clearing, or terminating processes).

Experts noticed the use of a .NET malware module named dog.exe, that monitors hard drive paths and automatically exfiltrates data via either an email account or FTP.

The PoetRAT gains persistence creating registry keys, the malware makes several modifications to the registry entries in order to skip sandbox evasion checks.

Talos experts also found a phishing website hosted on the same infrastructure that mimics the webmail of the Azerbaijan Government webmail infrastructure.

The actor monitored specific directories, signaling they wanted to exfiltrate certain information on the victims, Talos says. Based on our research, the adversaries may have wanted to obtain important credentials from officials in Azerbaijans government. The attacker wanted not only specific information obtained from the victims but also a full cache of information relating to their victim.

Taloss report also includes the Indicators of Compromise of the campaign.

Pierluigi Paganini

( SecurityAffairs  Coronavirus, PoetRAT)

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Sydney Kook walking "Hutch" and Niciole Troia walk under a sign of the times at The Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville. Read more

The sign at the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville is one for the times and a great play off the 1977 American sci-fi classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The film, written and directed by Steven Spielberg, starred Richard Dreyfuss as Roy Neary, an everyday kinda guy from Indiana who has an encounter with an unidentified flying object. Neary went on to try to establish contact with alien intelligence.

The film inspired children across the country to mimic a memorable scene when Neary tried to sculpt, out of mashed potatoes, the iconic geological formation from Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming.
Italian nurse Cristina Settembrese spends her days on the frontline caring for COVID-19 patients, the illness caused by the new coronavirus which is killing tens of thousands of people across the world.

Settembrese has been a nurse since she was 18-and-a-half and two months ago the infectious disease ward where she works at San Paolo Hospital in Milan started treating only COVID-19 patients.

The 54-year-old told the Associated Press the illness had forced her and many other staff to "reinvent" themselves as they learnt how to operate machines she likened to "helmets" to help patients battle the virus.

She said: "We health care personnel reinvented ourselves, all of us a little bit, because working in the infective disease ward I had never seen a helmet, nor a Niv mask, nor did I know how to check the monitors so we worked and when at home we had to study these machines."

To try and stop the spread of the illness strict measures have been put in place in Italy.

The country was placed in lockdown with people stopped from leaving their homes except for essential travel and to buy food. This also included not being allowed to visit loved-ones who were in hospital fighting the virus.

Two days after Italy's first confirmed coronavirus case, in late February, Settembrese sent away her 24-year-old daughter, Rebecca, from their home in the Milan suburb of Basiglio to live with her sister for fear she might inadvertently spread infection when she returns from work.

Walking Pepe, her dog, is her only moment of socialization at a safe distance with other dog owners she says.

But Settembrese said she had a new family, her patients and her colleagues, who have forged bonds in these last fraught weeks.

She said: "There are patients that touch your soul because they are there alone, they don't have relatives, they live their disease alone and sometimes they live their death alone unfortunately, so we feel a little bit like we are their family."

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks.For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

(Image Credit: AP)
The Trump administration's failure to test all but a small percentage of detained immigrants for the novel coronavirus may be helping it spread through the United States' sprawling system of detention centers and then to Central America and elsewhere aboard regular deportation flights, migrants' advocates said Friday.

The discovery of numerous COVID-19 cases among deportees on a flight that arrived this week prompted Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei to tell Guatemalans in a national address on Friday he was suspending such flights a step his foreign minister had mentioned earlier to reporters.

Just 400 detainees in the U.S. out of more than 32,000 have been tested so far, according to testimony that Matthew Albence, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, gave Friday to a congressional committee.

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform said that Albence also confirmed that ICE does not routinely test detainees before deporting them.

More than 1,600 people deported from the United States to Guatemala over the last month were allowed to go home and into voluntary, unenforced quarantine.

Fears are rising that it may have seeded the Central American nation with an untold number of undetected cases, increasing its vulnerability to the pandemic.

U.S. authorities took passengers' temperatures before departure, and Guatemalan officials checked them for cough, fever and other symptoms on arrival.

Those with possible COVID-19 symptoms had their mucous and saliva tested, but apparently healthy deportees underwent no testing and were allowed to head home even if they arrived on a flight with sick people.

Health experts say that was very risky because many infected people never show symptoms but are still highly contagious.

Airport workers and at least one family member of a deportee have tested positive in Guatemala and are believed to have been infected by returned migrants, said Dr. Edwin Asturias, a University of Colorado epidemiologist who is from Guatemala and maintains close contact with health authorities there.

It's clear that deportees have been coming infected and without appropriate safety measures in the same airspace with other people, Asturias said.

As we're seeing, this type of deportation is producing contagion in Guatemala.

Only on Monday did Guatemala begin testing every passenger who shared a flight with someone confirmed as positive. The same day, a plane carrying 76 people arrived on an ICE flight from Alexandria, Louisiana.

A migrant who was feeling ill was tested and found to be infected, leading to tests for everyone else. Forty-three tested positive despite showing no signs of illness and are in medical quarantine, officials said.

Giammattei, who spoke while wearing a surgical mask, said a team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also tested 12 of the passengers at random on Friday and all tested positive.

He said flights would be suspended until the U.S. certifies passengers on such flights are free of the new virus.

It's very worrying because these adults and children are being deported from places with high levels of contagion, said Leonel Dubn, director of Refuge for Childhood, a center for young and vulnerable deportees in Guatemala.

ICE has restricted the movement of hundreds of detainees across the United States after they were suspected of coming into contact with an infected person, according to interviews with detainees and lawyers.

The agency says 124 have tested positive for COVID-19 in 25 detention facilities.

A Department of Homeland Security official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures said not everyone in immigration custody is tested because there are a limited number of tests available not just to ICE but worldwide.

We are only testing individuals we have reasons to believe may have the disease because of symptoms or close contact with individuals with symptoms, the official said.

DHS learned that four on a March 26 flight tested positive after arriving in Guatemala. Last week it started ensuring that everyone on deportation flights has a mask, and on Thursday began pulling people off if they had a temperature of 99 degrees, instead of 100.6 previously.

The U.S. will consider new procedures if needed but has no plans to halt removals, the official said: We continue to feel strongly that each country has an obligation to receive its citizens, that taking those individuals out of custody is the safest situation for them.

At the Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, Louisiana, three cases had been confirmed and dozens of detainees are under lockdown.

One Guatemalan detainee who has COVID-19, Diego Ortiz Garcia, said Friday he is confined to a dorm with about 20 others suspected of having the virus. ICE said late Friday that it had confirmed 20 COVID-19 cases at Richwood.

Another Richwood detainee who was infected, Salomon Diego Alonzo, was hospitalized Thursday. According to his attorney, Veronica Semino, Alonzo was taken there shortly after a guard told an immigration judge he does not have the lung capacity to speak during a hearing he listened to remotely, by phone.

So far there hasn't been any documented case of the virus among deportees to other countries in Central America's Northern Triangle region.

In El Salvador, more than 800 have arrived over the last month and been placed into 30-day quarantine. President Nayib Bukele said in a statement to AP that 70 percent have been tested with none coming back positive. Tests are pending for the rest.

Honduran officials said they weren't aware of any cases among deportees, who undergo 14-day quarantine on arrival even if asymptomatic. That hasn't eased concerns.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Minnesota Governor's Residence. Liberate Minnesota and other groups opposed to Gov. Tim Walz's stay home orders protested outside the governor's residence in St. Paul.

This past week saw a number of protests spring up around the country demanding the reopening of the U.S. economy as cases of coronavirus now surpass 700,000.

As cases continue to rise, several states have extended stay-at-home measures and social distancing orders into May. This comes after another 5.2 million people filed for unemployment last week, bringing the total jobless claims to more than 22 million.

Protesters in Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, Minnesota, Maryland, New Hampshire, Idaho, Texas and California gathered in cities and outside their state legislatures to demand the reopening of the economy.

President Donald Trump seemingly tweeted his support for the protesters to "LIBERATE" Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia, whose Democratic governors are still grappling with a rise of coronavirus cases.

Several beaches in Florida have now reopened, sparking fear that an increase in cases will be inevitable in a state with a large senior population.

The following are scenes from several protests around the country as governors now struggle with striking a balance between protecting the public health and flattening the curve while making plans to reopen the economy.
MEXICO CITY - An armed vigilante group in southern Mexico has threatened a well-known human rights activist and a journalist, saying the two would be abducted and subjected to re-education.

Mexicos National Human Rights Commission condemned the threats and said protection should be provided for rights activist Manuel Olivares.

The vigilante group operates in the mountains of the southern state of Guerrero and has bragged in the past about employing professional hitmen.

Olivares has been active in seeking justice for residents of mountain towns who were forced to flee their homes due to fighting between vigilante groups. Many of the groups call themselves community police, but in fact have links to drug gangs.

The group that threatened Olivares is the United Front of Community Police of Guerrero State, and it claimed in a statement that Olivares and journalist Ezequiel Flores were allied with the groups enemies, who it claims operate a drug gang.

While it said the rivals would be pursued and exterminated, it said the activist and journalist would be detained, re-educated based on custom and tradition and presented to the media.

Flores works for the news magazine Proceso. The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Mexican authorities to protect Flores, as well.
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Fani Kayode, a former minister has taken to his official Twitter handle to mourn the demise of Abba Kyari, the chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari despite their political difference.

Read Also: Mele Kyari: FG Has Paid Over N200bn To Power Sector To Improve Supply

The popular commentator in his condolence message described the late Kyari as though we disagreed politically. Abba was a good man: a man of honor and a loyal friend.

I have lost a friend of 40 years. We were at Cambridge together. We worked in my fathers law firm together. We remained close throughout right up until the end even though we disagreed politically. Abba was a good man: a man of honor and a loyal friend. May his soul rest in peace, Fani-Kayode tweeted.
A note from Julie Tinney: This iJam blog post was supposed to be very different when we originally planned it. But right now, coming together as an industry seems more important than the marketing-focused content Id originally planned with the good folks at IICF.

If youd like to hear more about what IICF is doing, read the press release below. Please help if you can. And when you have time, take a moment to watch my conversation with Melissa-Anne Duncan, Executive Director of IICFs Western Division.

More about Melissa-Anne:

Melissa-Anne Duncan serves as the Executive Director of the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundations Western Division. As such, her responsibilities include strategic planning, board development, fundraising, and division operations. Having joined IICF in 2010, Melissa-Anne previously held the positions of VP of Development and VP of Communications.

Insurance industry unites through IICF to help vulnerable children during unprecedented pandemic

The new normal continues. We are sheltering in place, physically separated from loved ones, friends and colleagues. There are significant personal and industry economic concerns to work through. Yet for some, particularly vulnerable children and their families who are struggling with food insecurity and homelessness, the pandemic brings an immediacy of need for even the most basic necessities.

This is a time we can all join in giving back to those at greatest risk, and insurance industry professionals are heeding the call. Our industry is contributing tens of millions in relief funds to nonprofit organizations and communities affected by the pandemic. And as it has done for more than twenty-five years as the philanthropic voice and foundation of the insurance industry, the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF) is uniting the industry to help communities in a meaningful way.

Through the COVID-19 Crisis: IICF Childrens Relief Fund, insurance companies and individuals working in the industry are able to give back to nonprofit and charitable organizations that are delivering vital services and support to vulnerable children during the pandemic. Funds raised through the COVID-19 Crisis: IICF Childrens Relief Fund will help support children at risk of food insecurity, educational disruption, family homelessness and other circumstances exacerbated by this crisis.

IICF is working with fourteen nonprofit partners in each of its four U.S.-based divisions so donors can direct their donations to the regions where they live and provide much needed support for children in their own local communities. To learn more about IICFs nonprofit partners in each region, please click here. IICFs UK Division is supporting communities with its own COVID-19 crisis fundraising campaign to benefit nonprofits serving families in England and Scotland.

In IICFs Western Division, industry professionals and companies are responding with generous contributions in support of IICFs fundraising campaign. Due to the urgent need in underserved communities, Melissa-Anne Duncan, IICF Executive Director of the Western Division, is preparing to award the first grant in the West from IICFs Children Relief Fund to Covenant House of California. On Monday, IICFs Southeast Division awarded the first grant from IICFs industrywide Childrens Relief Fund. View here to learn how this initial IICF grant is helping to provide 3,000 additional meals to children in the Greater Houston area.

IICFs Western Division encompasses Division and Associate Boards of Directors in Northern and Southern California, Chapter Boards in Arizona, Colorado and Washington, along with unique program committees in San Diego and the Central Valley, and for the IICF Child Abuse Prevention Program (CAPP) and Insuring the Children (ITC). To learn more about how you can become involved in the Western Division as a board member, volunteer or support in other ways, please visit IICF Western Division or contact Melissa-Anne Duncan at maduncan@iicf.org.

IICF offers special thanks to the Campaign Champions who are supporting IICF Childrens Relief Fund at a leadership level, including AmWINS, Chubb, CNA, Hanover Insurance, Zurich, and the Henry Family of Texas and the Robitaille Family of California. IICF is grateful for the support of all those companies, industry partners and individual donors who are joining together to provide critical support in our communities. Please see a complete listing of IICF Childrens Relief Fund supporters.

By giving through the COVID-19 Crisis: IICF Childrens Relief Fund, we can make a much greater impact collectively to help children at risk. To make a donation and support children in need, please contribute here. Join us as #insurancegivesback!

Alisa Faust Breese

Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation

Vice President, Communications

abreese@iicf.com

About the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF)

The Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF) is a unique nonprofit that unites the collective strengths of the insurance industry to help communities and enrich lives through grants, volunteer service and leadership. Established in 1994, IICF has served as the philanthropic foundation of the insurance industry for more than twenty-five years, contributing $36 million in community grants along with 300,000 volunteer hours by more than 110,000 industry professionals. IICF reinvests locally where funds are raised, serving hundreds of charities and nonprofit organizations, for maximum community impact. IICF is a registered nonprofit organization under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code. Learn more at www.iicf.org or follow us on Twitter @doubleicf.

Topics California COVID-19 Market
Thousands of Americans would be alive today if President Donald Trump had spent more time listening to the World Health Organization instead of trying to destroy it.

Trumps announcement that he will halt U.S. funding for the WHO just as the world is facing a raging pandemic is a dangerous attempt to find a scapegoat for his own failings. It is like taking away a fire departments trucks in the middle of a blaze.

Many Americans know nothing about the WHO, but its worldwide budget (of which the United States pays about one-fifth) is less than that of some American hospital centers. Yet it is charged with fighting Ebola and polio, saving childrens lives and keeping the world safe from pandemics like this one.

Trump says that he is cutting the funds while his administration reviews the WHOs handling of the coronavirus. His own pandemic preparedness plan, which he characteristically has failed to implement, called for building support for the WHO  because its a critical player to keep Americans safe.

Yes, some of the complaints about the WHO are valid, and Ive made them myself: It has been too cozy with China, it made some wrong calls on the coronavirus early on such as doubting Jan. 14 that there was human-to-human transmission and it should stop blocking participation by Taiwan. But it has still managed the coronavirus crisis far better than the Trump administration.

The WHO tweeted its first warning about the coronavirus as early as Jan. 4 and then rang alarm bells, culminating at the end of that month when it declared a public health emergency of international concern. It developed an effective diagnostic test for the coronavirus that is used in dozens of countries worldwide, while the U.S. still cannot manage adequate testing.

In late January and February, the WHO issued increasingly urgent warnings about the coronavirus. Trump ignored them, instead insisting that it was totally under control, predicted the number of infections would drop, declared that its going to disappear and consistently downplayed the virus while talking up the stock market.

Trumps passivity, even as the WHO and his own advisers warned him of the risks, squandered the chance to acquire more personal protective equipment for doctors and nurses. His likening of COVID-19 to the flu led people to join public gatherings like Mardi Gras and Spring Break, and that is one reason the U.S. has had 80 deaths per 1 million inhabitants from COVID-19, compared with 4 in South Korea and fewer than 1 in Taiwan.

Ive known the WHOs director general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, for 20 years and have had disagreements with him, largely over his accommodation of dictators. But I have deeply admired his passion for battling malaria, malnutrition and maternal mortality, and Ive seen his work save lives. Growing up in Ethiopia, he lost a brother apparently to measles, and that left him with a deep commitment to improve health care access.

The WHO is bureaucratic, frustrating, timid  and indispensable. No other organization can fill its international role overseeing the fight against disease. It has battled an outbreak of Ebola since last year in Congo, and thats one reason we havent had Ebola cases in the U.S.

Every day, the WHO saves lives. It has promoted safe childbirth, and the number of women dying in childbirth has been cut almost in half over 25 years. It fights female genital mutilation and helps women with obstetric fistula. It is struggling to eliminate cervical cancer. It is part of the campaign against polio.

Normally, an American president is a leader in global health, and Democrats and Republicans have often cooperated on a humanitarian agenda. President George W. Bush started a program against HIV/AIDS called PEPFAR that has saved 17 million lives. President Barack Obama helped lead the global effort to end the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-16.

In contrast, Trump has provided zero global leadership against the coronavirus, and he is now trying to crush the one organization providing such leadership.

Trumps complaint about the WHO is that it is too close to China, and theres truth in that  but Trump himself fawned over Chinas response to the pandemic. China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus, Trump tweeted on Jan. 24. I want to thank President Xi.

Gutting the WHO will mean more kids dying of malnutrition, more moms dying of cervical cancer and the coronavirus infecting more people in more countries  impairing the pandemic response, which may well cost even more American lives. And all because an American president is seeking a scapegoat for his own ineptitude.

Yes, Americans have died unnecessarily from COVID-19, and Ive been seared by my own reporting in hot zones of New York hospitals. But if Trump insists on holding people accountable, he neednt denounce the WHO. He can gaze in the mirror.

Twitter.com/NickKristof
Morocco's army has mobilised all its resources to help the health system tackle the coronavirus pandemic, beefing up facilities for a possible mass influx of patients, the military's chief medical officer said.

"The crisis has prompted us to reinforce medical teams so that there is proper care" as well as improving available equipment, Colonel Zbir El Mehdi, the chief doctor at Rabat's military hospital, told reporters during a guided tour this week.

Military hospitals have been reordered to maximise bed capacity, he said, adding that two field hospitals had been deployed to the coastal Casablanca region.

Medical teams have been sent to 45 areas across the country, he added.

"We still have the situation under control," he said.

Rabat's military hospital, considered the country's most modern, has treated several African heads of state in the past.

Morocco had recorded 2,528 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 133 deaths as of Friday, while over 270 have officially recovered.

The North African kingdom has closed its borders and imposed a lockdown, enforced by security forces, to stem the spread of the disease.
I feel deeply concerned by Gov. Mike DeWines decision to start reopening the economy on May 1, before testing and contact tracing are in place. Experienced health experts consider these two elements to be the No. 1 priority and essential for safe reopening

Many still ignore physical distancing, refuse to wear face masks, and do not practice necessary hygiene. Reopening without testing and contact tracing fully up to snuff, relying instead on hygiene and distancing, seems to risk a sharp resurgence of COVID-19 infections.

As someone in the higher-risk group for infection, I am struggling to understand how this decision aligns with the governors commitments to put people and health first and to reopen the economy only when it is truly safe to do so.

I hope that Gov. DeWine will reconsider this decision, lest he put Ohioans, and especially those of us at higher risk, in significant danger of COVID-19 infection and death.

Better to wait for robust testing and contact tracing and to push the federal government to do what economists have urged all along - keep people and businesses whole until it truly is as safe as possible to begin the gradual reopening of the economy.

Lance Colie,

Willowick
Washington

Kamala Harris is making a hard push on television. Amy Klobuchar is pitching herself as a voting rights champion. And Stacey Abrams is openly campaigning for the job.

As the Democratic Party closes rank around its presumed presidential nominee, an entirely new race is taking shape: the one to become Joe Biden's running mate.

After wrapping up the primary earlier than expected, Biden has been holding high-level conversations with aides about his vice presidential options, and has taken the unorthodox step of publicly stating that he will select from a list of six to 10 women. He's planning to empower a committee to formally begin the vetting process sometime this month.

Much of the quadrennial ritual known as the "veepstakes" usually occurs behind the scenes. But during a coronavirus pandemic that has halted traditional campaigning and limited face-to-face meetings, the public effort has taken on even greater importance for the contenders.

"If you think you're one of those people, you're putting on a full-court press with Biden advisers and things you're saying in public," said Harrison Hickman, a Democratic pollster involved in vice presidential vetting during the 2004 and 2000 cycles. "You're probably writing an op-ed, you're doing interviews on cable television. You're trying to do things to impress the person."

Harris, who most Democrats see at the top of Biden's VP list, has been on an aggressive media tour during the past two weeks, hitting CNN, MSNBC, "Late Night with Seth Meyers" and "The View." The California senator has also participated in a virtual town hall with Donna Brazile on Howard University's TV station and taped a message for an online coronavirus town hall hosted by Diddy.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's national profile is on the rise thanks in large part to President Donald Trump's attacks over her response to the coronavirus. After Trump derided her as "the woman from Michigan," the first-term Democrat went on "The Daily Show" wearing the attempted insult as a badge of honor on a T-shirt.

Whitmer even made an appearance on Biden's recently launched podcast, "Here's the Deal."

"I didn't go out looking for the national spotlight," Whitmer said during a podcast with The Atlantic in the aftermath of her back-and-forth with the president.

On Wednesday morning, Whitmer appeared on the "Today" show, and this week she was the lead writer on a letter from a dozen governors requesting that the Trump administration hold a special open enrollment period for Obamacare insurance.

In the weeks since Biden effectively wrapped up the nomination, Klobuchar has positioned herself as a leading proponent for voting by mail nationwide, most recently tweaking Trump in a New York Times op-ed for voting absentee in 2018. An adviser said she has three virtual fundraisers scheduled on behalf of the Biden campaign in the coming weeks.

And Abrams, the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate, is unconventionally unapologetic about her teeming ambition for the No. 2 slot.

"I would be an excellent running mate," she declared to Melissa Harris-Perry in a feature for Elle magazine. "If I am selected, I am prepared and excited to serve."

Elizabeth Warren isn't playing coy either, telling MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that she would be Biden's running mate if asked.

With his final rival, Bernie Sanders, dropping out of the 2020 race last week and endorsing him soon after, Biden is getting an earlier start on the process than recent Democratic nominees.

But the pandemic that has shut most of the country down is bound to complicate a delicate process that normally relies on face-to-face meetings to establish a potential ticket's rapport and chemistry.

"I don't think you can do that well over video conference, but in this day and age and with Joe, I don't know if they want a lot of people coming in on a plane and sitting down with Joe Biden right now. It definitely will make it harder," said a Democratic aide who was intimately involved in a previous vice presidential vetting process. "Some of this is just about the relationship, can you trust this person, does this person have your back? I don't know how you do that. I think you're at a disadvantage. This process will be different."

Harris enters the competition with several advantages. At 55, she's more than two decades younger than the 77-year-old Biden, who many Democrats believe needs to consider age in his calculation. As a first-term senator, she's new enough to the national scene to demonstrate a future-looking vision, but also has experienced the rigors and pressure of a presidential contest.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Perhaps most importantly, she's an African American woman, representing the constituency most crucial to not just Biden's electoral success, but to the Democratic Party's at large. If Biden chooses a white woman, he is likely to incur backlash about a lack of ethnic diversity.

"Biden putting a black woman on the ticket rewards all women," said Christine Pelosi, a Democratic National Committee member from California and daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "Biden putting a white woman on the ticket doesn't necessarily reward black women. If white women don't want this black woman, they were not going to vote for Biden anyway."

Harris was the first former 2020 rival to hold a virtual fundraiser with Biden, a typical rite of passage for potential running mates.

During last week's event, Biden went out of his way to forge a partnership with Harris going forward. "The biggest thing we can do is make Donald Trump a one-term president, so I'm coming for you, kid," he told her.

History suggests it's also beneficial she's a senator. Statistically, most running mates have come out of Congress' upper chamber, with all but three Democratic choices since 1940 being senators.

But the vetting process will be the ultimate threshold any political partner has to pass: Do no harm.

Thousands of documents  from taxes to campaign paraphernalia to news articles to speeches  will be requested. Confidentiality will be demanded, meaning top aides will have to ensure any meetings and calls around the vice presidency be kept off the official schedule.

Leaks can be automatically disqualifying. And every public appearance must be calibrated with the ultimate goal in mind.

Unforeseen events can recalibrate the skills most imperative in a governing partner.

The state-by-state battle to combat the coronavirus has lifted governors into the limelight and pushed members of Congress to the sidelines.

This is why the 48-year-old Whitmer is being seen as a compelling late-breaking option. While national progressives contacted by McClatchy struggled to define her profile, she is popular with left-leaning activists in the Midwest.

"She's a good politician. She's an adaptive politician i.e., someone like Biden who can be very centrist if that's where the energy is, but if the energy goes to activists she can move there," said John Nichols, a Madison, Wis.-based progressive writer for The Nation.
The Chief of staff of the President, Abba Kyari was buried today in Abuja after he died of COVID-19. A lot of people however attended his funeral as watched on tv.

Now, Nigerians have called for the arrest of those who attended saying they are more than 20 and that automatically floats a coronavirus lockdown rule.

Many chastised the government for allowing such see some of their tweets below



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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The borough sorely missed its Chinese food as eateries took their siesta at what seemed like the height of the coronavirus outbreak. The notable absence of the restaurants made our collective appetites for dumplings and dim sum that much stronger.

Welcome back, New Foo Sing in Great Kills (New Food Sing via whereyoueat.com) and Empire Szechuan in Eltingville (EmpireAmboy.com). And there are more Chinese restaurants to come next week. Soon those noodles will add to the waistline with the uncanny wisdom in fortune cookies to guide us in our lottery luck.

And a reminder that Thai food does still live here on this Island in the form of Noodlefan in Castleton Corners (Noodlefanusa.com) and Chang Noi Thai (Chang Noi Thai via Whereyoueat.com) in St. George.

Lets move onto another favorite Staten Island subject, a little comfort fare courtesy of our Italian food experts. By the way, we are missing you, Vittorio Asoli of Trattoria Romana in Dongan Hills and Stefano Sena of Bocelli in Grasmere. See you with garlic and oil, maybe a little vino in hand, when this mess is ov-uh.

Yes, indeed, while in the throes of coronavirus quarantines and bad haircuts at home there is a secret comfort dish at Ninos in Grasmere (NinosRestaurantSI.com) you should know about -- a chicken feast. In better times owner Agim Djencic would bring to the table an oval platter of a plump bird basted with olive oil, lemon and garlic. The dinner comes with sides of scalloped potatoes, sauteed mushrooms and a vegetable such as the obligatory borough green -- choice of broccoli raab or escarole.

Happily we do have our Giulianas of Great Kills (GiulianasSI.com) and owner Janet Ruggiero supplying the home-sequestered world with the masterpiece Mona Lisa dish -- orecchiette with garlic and oil, toasted bread crumbs, sun-dried tomatoes, black olives and artichoke hearts. Chef Robert Felices also killin us softly with his Almond Chicken, a pan-fried, nut-coated chicken breast served with Frangelico sauce sweetened with a pinch of sugar. That comes with potato of the day -- mashed, roasted or croquette -- and a side of fried zucchini and carrots.

Also packing up cozy on the South Shore, Chef Danny Improta, owner of Danis Italian Bistro in Tottenville (DanisItalianBistro.com), said the to-go business has been terrific these past few weeks -- hes certainly quite pleased. And in return hes keeping his restaurant fans happy with Penne Ala Vodka, house-made gnocchi turned fluffy from fresh mashed potatoes as as base and an entree of double-cut pork chops served with hot cherry peppers. Danny says his Chicken Bistro also has been well-embraced by patrons -- chicken breast layered with filet mignon in a brandy cream sauce, onions and melted mozzarella.

On the topic of mozz, one of my favorite comfort dishes is mozzarella en carrozza aka Spedini alla Romana.

While spending time with my Italian grandparents in their Brooklyn apartment as kid, it was the stuff of lunch sometimes before The Soaps. Grandma would slice leftover Italian bread into thick slices, dunk them in eggs beaten with parmesan cheese and parsley and fry them in olive oil. Shed put a thick slice of Polly-O cheese between the hot slices and keep them warm in the oven until the cheese melted. Delicious.

Mozzarella en carrozza from Max's Es-ca (Donna Lindsay)

Maxs Esca of Dongan Hills presents that dish with a lemon-caper sauce hit with cream and butter. Its been a popular pick among customers in these times.

Mozzarella en carrozza from Italy (Dominic Elia)

Dominic Elia of West Brighton fondly recalls the dish from his time in In Ravello by the Amalfi Coast -- a lightly coated specimen offered with tomato sauce.

When I was 9 or 10 years old my parents took me to Gargiulios and I sat at a table under the octopus stuck to the ceiling in that cavernous dining room. Crispy with egg batter and oozing with hot fresh mozzarella cheese, that was the first version of mootz en cuhr-rutz" I ate in a restaurant. It remains a personal gold standard of the dish which later on in life I discovered was actually called Spedini alla Romana," paired with a lemon-anchovy-caper sauce as opposed to marinara. Yet another great version of the carrozza comes from Il Cortile on Mulberry Street in Little Italy with its fine batter coating and thusly its satisfying crunch.

Mozzarella en Carozza from Il Cortile in Little Italy, Manhattan, owned by the Espositos of Staten Island. (Staten Island Advance/Pamela Silvestri)Staff-Shot

Both restaurants are closed at the moment during the pandemic. But of course those two New York City classic eateries have borough connections. Chef Giovanni Porzio of Gargiulios schooled Coney Island-born Joe Fauci of La Fontana Restaurant in Oakwood. Fauci makes it with the same hand as did Porzio. And the Esposito family, owners of Il Cortile, also hails from the borough. It goes to show that in times when you need to think of great comforts in a lifetime, all roads come back home to Staten Island.

Keep in touch.

Pamela Silvestri is Advance Food Editor. She can be reached at silvestri@siadvance.com.

**** FULL CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE IN NEW YORK *****

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The viral-clearance analysis involved 68 people (48 men and 20 women) with symptoms of COVID-19 who were examined at India's Kasturba Hospital for Infectious Diseases, in Mumbai. After undergoing initial nasal swab tests indicating active infection, individuals were re-tested with serial swabs until the tests turned negative, indicating the time taken to clear the coronavirus. The women cleared the virus significantly earlier than men: a median of four days for women vs. six days for men.Next, three Mumbai families were identified in which men and women had tested positive for coronavirus infection on swab testing. Again, the women in all three families cleared the coronavirus earlier than male members of the same family.Why do men have trouble shaking off their infections? Seeking a molecular explanation, the researchers focused on how coronavirus infection occurs. To infect cells, coronaviruses must first latch onto well-known proteins, called ACE2 receptors, that sprout like tiny antennae from the surfaces of cells. Cell types expressing copious levels of ACE2 on their surfaces would theoretically be most susceptible to infection.The researchers consulted three independent databases with information on ACE2 expression in different tissues. They saw that the testes, along with the lungs and kidneys, were among the areas of the body with the highest ACE2 expression. By contrast, ACE2 could not be detected in tissue of the ovaries, the female equivalent of the testes.Dr. Shastri stresses that the novel coronavirus' ability to infect and multiply in testicular tissue needs to be confirmed, but says it wouldn't surprise her. A recent study from China compared the levels and ratios of sex hormones in male COVID-19 patients vs. healthy men of the same age. Such a COVID-19 complication could have important medical and public health implications, she notes, and deserves to be investigated by clinical trials.The study's Montefiore-Einstein senior authors are Amit Verma, M.B.B.S., professor of medicine and of developmental & molecular biology at Einstein and director of hematologic malignancies at Montefiore; and Ulrich Steidl, M.D., Ph.D., professor of cell biology and of medicine and the Diane and Arthur B. Belfer Faculty Scholar in Cancer Research at Einstein, and associate chair for translational research in oncology at Montefiore.The study's other senior author is Jayanthi Shastri, M.D., a microbiologist and infectious disease specialist. As director of Kasturba Hospital's molecular diagnostic laboratory, Dr. Jayanthi Shastri led Mumbai's effort to serially monitor and analyze coronavirus infection in individuals and their family members.Source: Newswise
The World Heritage Day is held this year under the theme "Shared Cultures, Shared Heritage and Shared Responsibility."

The International Day for Monuments and Sites, also known as the World Heritage Day, is an international observance held on 18 April each year around the world with different activities, including visits to monuments and heritage sites, conferences, roundtables and newspaper articles.

Egypt will celebrate the international day in a different way this year as the country has adopted precautionary measures to fight the coronavirus.

Videos of archaeological sites as well as a virtual tour of a tomb and a new discovery have been posted on the ministrys website and social media platforms at 2pm.

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The government will present its plan of easing coronavirus measures in Slovakia next Monday.

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Neither their contribution to the national economy nor the threat of bankruptcy will decide whether small companies and shops will be allowed to open soon. The decision will be mainly up to epidemiologists and infectologists grouped within the council of experts with whom PM Igor Matovic (OLaNO) is collaborating.

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The decisive factor for opening shops should be, among other things, the number of persons who move around each shop, and the trend in the number of coronavirus infections in Slovakia.

"It is a purely medical- and epidemiology-related issue," the prime minister said. After the tightened measures during Easter holidays, the state has returned to the original measures.

The government plans to present a concrete plan of easing the measures on Monday, April 20.

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Related article Government to help all employers and self-employed affected by COVID-19 Read more

Making decisions without economists, only listening to experts from medical professions, might however lead to bankruptcies of small companies and freelancers, says deputy prime minister and economy minister, Richard Sulik (SaS).

"When I am looking only at the virus and my assignment is to have as few infected cases as possible, then it obviously seems best to close everything and make everyone stay at home," Sulik said to defend the need to open shops under strict hygienic rules. "But this world is more diverse than just one virus. We have got 2 million employees here, there are social aspects."

Even though the spread of the coronavirus in Slovakia is on the decrease and, according to PM Matovic, one person currently infects less than one other person (the R0 factor is lower than 1), the plans to open up shops may be halted due to the development in the Roma settlements and the spread of the virus after Easter.

"Those who travelled home for the holidays have not tricked the government, but themselves and their close ones," said epidemiologist Zuzana Kristufkova, pointing out that it will only be seen in two weeks how the infections might have spread around the country during the holidays.

The potential spread of the infection in Roma settlements where several individuals have tested positive so far would also postpone the decision to open more shops.

"In my private estimate it will not be earlier than in ten days' time," Labour Minister Milan Krajniak (Sme Rodina) said when asked about the possible date when measures could be eased.

Shops will save entrepreneurs but not the economy

The two main arguments the prime minister has voiced against rushing to open the shops and facilities that have been closed is that they only contribute 2 percent GDP to the national economy, and that the restart of Slovakia's economy depends on other countries where the products made in Slovakia are sold.

"Once a German in Germany decides not to buy a Volkswagen, then the Volkswagen plant in Bratislava will not produce it," Matovic explained how open the Slovak economy is.
If I.U.I. isnt successful, the next step is the more invasive I.V.F. procedure. In vitro fertilization is a short-circuit of the system, said Dr. William B. Schoolcraft, M.D., founder and medical director of the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine. In a normal menstrual cycle, he said, a woman has to produce one egg, then that egg needs to get captured by the fallopian tube, then the sperm has to get there and fertilize the egg and that embryo has to make its five-day journey to the uterus. Thats a lot of things that have to go right  with only one egg, Dr. Schoolcraft said. We bypass the mechanical steps of natural conception or even I.U.I. and deliver the embryo directly to the uterus.

During I.V.F., medication helps stimulate your ovaries to produce multiple eggs. Then, your doctor will extract them, and embryologists in the laboratory will fertilize them with sperm in a petri dish. After three to five days, your doctor will transfer the resulting embryo or two into your uterus, and you will wait almost two weeks to see if it implants, resulting in a pregnancy.

Learn your treatment options.

Before starting I.V.F., your doctor will decide on your individualized protocol: the type and amount of medication youll need, when youll need to take it and when youll be scheduled for egg retrieval. Your doctor will consider things like your age, menstrual cycle regularity, ovarian reserve, B.M.I. and medical history, according to Dr. Eric Forman, M.D., the medical and laboratory director of Columbia Universitys Fertility Center in New York City. After your doctor decides on a protocol, youll then get an ultrasound and bloodwork on day two or three of your cycle to assess your hormone levels and make sure youre ready to begin I.V.F. Then you will begin taking medication, Dr. Forman said, which can include:

Gonadotropins to get your ovaries to produce more eggs and grow those eggs at the same rate, so theyll be ready for retrieval at the same time.

Antagonists to make sure you dont ovulate on your own.

A trigger shot to make you ovulate.

After about eight to 10 nights of medication, Dr. Forman said, when your eggs are mature, your doctor will prescribe the trigger shot and then proceed to the egg retrieval about 36 hours later.

Right before retrieval is a good time to think about or ask some questions, such as:

Will I be getting local or general anesthesia? Some clinics make that decision based on the number of eggs you have. If you only have a few, they might do local.

Are you using fresh or frozen sperm? If you have a limited amount of frozen sperm, because you purchased it or it had to be extracted via surgery, discuss how much of it will be defrosted. Fresh sperm should be used within an hour after its produced.

Will you be doing intracytoplasmic sperm injection (I.C.S.I.)? With standard I.V.F., an embryologist puts some 50,000 to 100,000 sperm into a petri dish with an egg and hopes the egg fertilizes. I.C.S.I., which involves microinjecting one sperm into an egg to create the embryo, is typically recommended if youre dealing with male factor infertility (because you have few or slow sperm) or if youre using donor sperm (because its limited). Doctors may not use I.C.S.I. for your first I.V.F. cycle, but you can sign up for emergency I.C.S.I. to be used in that cycle in case no eggs fertilize with the standard protocol.

Are you going to do a fresh embryo transfer? While some doctors prefer to transfer a fresh embryo a few days after egg retrieval, others prefer to freeze all the embryos to transfer in later cycles. Doctors who advocate for frozen transfers believe that it will give your body a chance to recover from the retrieval process. However, some say freezing harms embryos, so if you are a poor responder, meaning you havent produced a lot of eggs or embryos, you may need to do a fresh transfer.

Will it be a day-three or a day-five transfer? Most clinics prefer to transfer embryos five days after egg retrieval, believing that the longer an embryo survives, the stronger it is. But if a woman is older, did not produce a lot of eggs or there is reason to believe her embryos may not survive, some clinics will transfer after three days. Studies show that day-five embryos have about a 51 percent chance of implantation, while day-three embryos have a 30 percent chance.

How many embryos will you transfer ? In the past, I.V.F. produced many twins and triplets because doctors were transferring multiple embryos. Today, due to better technology, doctors are able to select fewer, healthier embryos to reduce the chance of multiples. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine recommends transferring as few embryos as necessary for one healthy baby.

Will you be testing embryos? Pre-implantation genetic testing (P.G.T.) can be used to ascertain which of your embryos are chromosomally normal before transferring them. If you decide to test your embryos, they will be biopsied, then frozen at least until your next cycle, so a fresh transfer is not an option. Keep in mind, however, that some doctors believe that P.G.T. is not effective and cannot discern healthy embryos from bad ones.

Know the health risks of I.V.F.

One of the biggest risks of I.V.F. is ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, a sometimes painful condition that can be caused by medications that stimulate egg growth too well, causing enlarged ovaries, fluid retention and weight gain. It can be controlled by giving less medicine, especially to young and highly fertile women.

Other side effects from I.V.F. medications can include cysts, abdominal pain, local skin reactions from the injections, mood swings, nausea, and headaches, said Dr. Forman, noting that many women have few side effects.

While there is a correlation between infertility and increased risks of breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers, there is no solid evidence that infertility drugs themselves cause cancer. According to a 2018 review of the evidence in the journal Current Opinion in Obstetrics and Gynecology, While infertility per se is a risk factor for some female cancers, including breast, endometrial and ovarian cancer, most studies do not show a significant risk of these cancers with the use of fertility medications. The review found that some studies have shown a possible increased relative risk of borderline ovarian cancer, but the increased absolute risk is small without a clear causal relationship. Ask your doctor about the potential health risks of I.V.F.

Get emotional support.

Social support is important during this physically and emotionally challenging time, whether it comes from your partner, friends, online communities, group therapy or private counseling.
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Hamilton has been a focal point for inspecting and distributing desperately needed personal protective equipment in Canada during COVID-19.

The Public Health Agency of Canada has long had a warehouse at an undisclosed location in the city that is part of the countrys distribution chain for PPE and medical supplies.

That Hamilton warehouse  which has made national news numerous times as shipments from China are flown into the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport  has become key during COVID-19 as the federal Minister of Public Services and Procurement, Anita Anand, competes in what has been described as a Wild West marketplace for masks, gowns, gloves and ventilators.

We are aggressively procuring in the global marketplace, recognizing the risk posed by fragile supply chains, the fluidity of the current situation and extremely high global demand, Anand said in an interview with The Spectator on Friday.

She said her ministry is constantly monitoring the supplies as they travel from China to Canada and are transported directly to that warehouse in Hamilton.

It has been a focal point for us, she said.

The warehouse has not translated into extra supplies for Hamiltons health-care workers, which include Anands own sister  internationally known cardiovascular disease researcher Dr. Sonia Anand, who is married to family physician Dr. Myles Sergeant.

Hamilton Health Sciences has even had to start asking health-care workers to bring in their own plastic containers to store their mask for same-day reuse despite unions raising concerns about whether such extended use is safe.

I wanted to thank the front-line health-care workers in Hamilton, said Anand. My sister and brother-in-law are both doctors in the system in Hamilton and I am very concerned about all health-care workers.

In Hamilton, more than 20 per cent of confirmed cases are health-care workers, with 68 testing positive so far. Such high numbers suggest workers dont have adequate PPE, says the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).

Health care workers are working with pretty threadbare levels of protection, said Michael Hurley, president of CUPEs Ontario Council of Hospital Unions. When you look at the numbers of health-care workers who are currently reported as having COVID against the number of cases in the general population, you can only conclude that there has been a colossal failure to protect health-care workers and that is all about failures of ordering enough equipment.

They also believe that the confirmed cases are only the tip of the iceberg.

We believe a lack of testing in long-term care facilities, hospitals and home-care agencies is failing to expose the true rate of infection among health-care workers and that is incredibly alarming, said Candace Rennick, CUPEs Ontario secretary-treasurer.

CUPE held a moment of silence in health-care facilities across the province Friday to remember two Ontario front-line workers who have died of COVID-19  a cleaner at Brampton Civic Hospital and a personal support worker from Altamont Care Community in Scarborough.

We are deeply afraid and concerned, said Rennick.

Hamilton reported a new COVID-19 outbreak at Wesley Supportive Housing, which has had one resident test positive.

Another resident has been infected at Heritage Green Nursing Home in Stoney Creek, bringing the total of confirmed cases to 12 residents and three staff. There was a new case at Kingsberry Retirement Residence on Limeridge Road East, so it now has three residents ill. And Emmanuel House Hospice on Stinson Street had two new confirmed cases increasing its outbreak to two residents and five staff infected.

In total, there are eight outbreaks in Hamilton and seven in Halton, including at Park Avenue Manor in Burlington.

The province said Wednesday that SWAT teams of hospital, home care and public health staff would be rolled out within 24 to 48 hours to help long-term care homes where the virus has proven its ability to spread rapidly. But on Friday, Hamilton medical officer of health Dr. Elizabeth Richardson said they are waiting for more clarity from the province on how they envision these happening.

Hamilton had 13 new confirmed cases Friday bringing the total to 314. There are also five more probable cases. The city has had 11 deaths, 40 people hospitalized and 132 recover.

Halton has 359 confirmed cases as of Friday  including 66 in Burlington. In addition it also has 47 presumed cases  including 11 in Burlington. Halton also reported a new death as of April 15, bringing its total to 12.

Ontario has 9,525 confirmed cases of COVID-19 including nine at Six Nations and 155 in Haldimand and Norfolk. There have been 478 deaths including one at Six Nations and 23 in Haldimand and Norfolk.

The city of Hamilton declared a state of emergency Friday so it could have the ability to redeploy staff if necessary.

It has cancelled the Victoria Day Fireworks in Dundas that were scheduled for May 17.

But it will start collecting yard waste again on April 20  on a revised schedule.

Facing a deficit of nearly $23 million, the city is going to stop scheduling hours of 1,200 part-time employees performing work deemed non-essential, which will save about $250,000 per week.

The city is also allocating provincial funding to local community organizations for services that support the ultimate goal of reducing community spread of COVID-19. More information can be found at hamilton.ca/coronavirus/financial-supports.

Meanwhile, the province has expanded the list of essential workers who can receive emergency child care.

It has also partnered with Rogers Communications and Apple to provide iPads to Ontario school boards for virtual learning.

Premier Doug Ford and Education Minister Stephen Lecce did not rule out Friday that kids might still go back into classrooms this school year. But they also said they are preparing for the possibility schools might not reopen in the fall by providing teachers with extra training on online learning.

We arent sending our kids back into harms way, said Ford, vowing hell wait to open schools until health officials say its safe. We arent going to chance risking our children and their health.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday the second round of monetary measures by the RBI will enhance liquidity and improve credit supply. These steps would help our small businesses, MSMEs, farmers and the poor. It will also help all states by increasing WMA limits, he tweeted.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the RBI took a host of steps to maintain adequate liquidity in the system, incentivise bank credit flows, ease financial stress and enable normal functioning of markets.

Experts said the move will infuse more liquidity in the banking system and bring relief to borrowers, but the central banks ability to shield the economy from the adverse impact of covid-19 is limited and the government needs to come up with a major stimulus package.

He is doing a tightrope walk by keeping the customers alive and banks not slipping into the red. Despite limitations, RBI governor has done what was within his capacity, but the government has not yet really stepped in with policy and fiscal measures required in this unprecedented situation, economist Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India, said.

A Nomura Global Market Research said the RBI governor had outlined measures to divert liquidity to the have-nots in the financial system by disincentivising banks from parking excess liquidity with the RBI and through regulatory easing measures for banks and shadow banks.

Monetary policy will be in sync with fiscal policy, where we expect a second round of fiscal stimulus to be announced shortly following the first tranche of ~0.8% of GDP [gross domestic product], the report said. Industry, which has been concerned about an acute liquidity crunch and slump in demand even as business activities resume partially next week, is expecting a booster dose of up to 16 lakh crore from the government. At least three government officials said requesting anonymity that the finance ministry is in discussion with the Prime Ministers Office to finalise a comprehensive stimulus package soon.

According to DK Srivastava, economist and chief policy advisor at EY India, the reverse repo rate cut and increase in the WMA limits would facilitate increase in economic activities as the lockdown is progressively eased. The ways and means advance (WMA) is an instrument the RBI uses to provide enhanced temporary loan facilities to cash-strapped states. As per Assocham, companies want government to clear the 2.20 lakh crore owed to them by government departments and agencies.

Opposition parties urged the government to take more steps to mitigate the problems of the poor. Congress leader Anand Sharma also said the measures were far too little to meet the needs of industry.
LONDON (Reuters) - U.S First Lady Melania Trump called Carrie Symonds, the pregnant fiancee of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to wish the couple a speedy recovery from the coronavirus, a White House statement said on Thursday.

Johnson is recovering from COVID-19 after a spending several days in intensive care with the disease. Symonds said on April 4 she had suffered the main symptoms of the coronavirus but was on the mend.

"Mrs. Trump expressed well wishes for Ms. Symonds and Prime Minister Johnson, and noted that the United States was praying for their speedy and full recoveries," the statement said.

(Reporting by William James, editing by Andy Bruce)
Anybody entering the Union Territory of Chandigarh will be quarantined for 14 days as part of efforts to check the spread of coronavirus, a senior official said here on Saturday.

The move comes days after the UT was declared a coronavirus hotspot. Chandigarh is the common capital of Punjab and Haryana.

UT Chandigarh Adviser Manoj Parida said as per the guidelines of the Ministry of Home, a detailed containment plan was under preparation.

"As per the government of India's directions, outsiders entering the city will be quarantined for 14 days either in homes or in government facilities to prevent spread of infection from outside," Parida said in an official release here.

This will, however, not apply to people coming from the periphery areas on government duty or for providing essential services, he said.

Two new cases of coronavirus were reported in Chandigarh on Saturday, taking the total count to 23 in the city.

Meanwhile, UT Chandigarh Administrator V P Singh Badnore directed that flour mills should be kept open so that beneficiaries receiving wheat under the PM Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana (PMGKAY) can get it milled.

He expressed satisfaction about the arrangements made for the procurement of wheat from farmers.

Badnore directed the chiefs of all medical institutions to ensure that critical non-COVID cases are also attended on priority.

Municipal Corporation Commissioner K K Yadav said drones were being used to conduct sanitization drives in the city.

Director General of Police Sanjay Beniwal said the curfew was being strictly implemented in the city. Drones will also be used to detect persons violating curfew orders, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The City of Laredo has confirmed an additional 14 new cases of the novel coronavirus today in their noon update, bringing the city's cumulative total to 267 positive cases. 25 individuals are currently hospitalized in Laredo.

During the noon update, the city also discussed vital issues like the states reopening plan; specifically, the order to open all state parks starting Monday.

Despite the plan laid out by Texas Governor Greg Abbott in his proposal to reopen Texas and jump start the state's economy, Lake Casa Blanca State Park will not open to public.

City officials said this is due to the increase in number of coronavirus cases in Laredo. The decision mirrors others made by some Texas cities, including border cities.

I know that all of the state parks of El Paso will not open, and the same is true in Laredo due to the high rate of transmission of the virus locally, City of Laredo spokesman Rafael Benavides said.

Benavides mentioned all recreational parks in the Laredo area are being cleaned in efforts to comply with statewide guidelines.

The Laredo Police Department continues to enforce the stay-at-home ordinance currently in effect throughout Laredo.

LPD public information officer Joe Baeza noted that a majority of violations to the order are for locals not wearing proper protective gear out in public in his enforcement report for Friday.

Zero price gouging, 55 citations, of which of 32 were for no masks. Officers are out there being active to ensure everyone is following true with the ordinance, Baeza said.

Five non-essential travel citations or arrests were made as during the week, as well as arrests for nonessential businesses operating under the order.

Baeza said it is important for the people to not try to become entrepreneurs during this time of crisis. Many Laredoans appear to continue operating businesses from their homes, such as nail salons and others.

As of Saturday afternoon, 1,539 individuals have been tested for COVID-19. 731 have tested negative, while 541 are awaiting results.

Additionally, the city has reported 85 individuals are considered recovered by the city, having passed their quarantine and are cleared to return to work and the general public.
Omicron variant of COVID-19 identified in Antrim, Charlevoix counties

The omicron variant of COVID-19 has been identified in one Antrim County resident and one Charlevoix County resident.
DAKAR, Senegal  South Sudan, a nation of 11 million, has more vice presidents (five) than ventilators (four). The Central African Republic has three ventilators for its five million people. In Liberia, which is similar in size, there are six working machines  and one of them sits behind the gates of the United States Embassy.

In all, fewer than 2,000 working ventilators have to serve hundreds of millions of people in public hospitals across 41 African countries, the World Health Organization says, compared with more than 170,000 in the United States.

Ten countries in Africa have none at all.

Glaring disparities like these are just part of the reason people across Africa are steeling themselves for the coronavirus, fearful of outbreaks that could be catastrophic in countries with struggling health systems.

The gaps are so entrenched that many experts are worried about chronic shortages of much more basic supplies needed to slow the spread of the disease and treat the sick on the continent  things like masks, oxygen and, even more fundamentally, soap and water.
KAMPALA  A Tanzanian truck driver has tested positive for coronavirus in Uganda, the ministry of Heath has clarified, regretting the earlier misinformation that the patient was from the Ugandan community.

Director General of Health Services at the Ministry of Health Dr Henry Mwebesa said his surveillance teams with a backup of security forces are searching for the 34 year old Tanzanian truck driver to return him home for treatment.

The new case is a 34 year old Tanzanian truck driver from Dar Es Salaam who arrived at Mutukula border post yesterday [Thursday] April 16 2020, Dr. Mwebesa wrote adding that he said the case didnt present any signs and symptoms consistent with COVID-19.

Ministry of Health says the driver will be repatriated to Tanzania for treatment, meaning, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Uganda remain at 55.

The samples taken betweenThursday and Friday are 1120 and of those 744 are cargo drivers who entered Uganda from different border points.

Dr. Mwebesa said all tested negative

This is the second truck driver to test positive for coronavirus in Uganda.

Uganda on Thursday discharged eight more patients who have recovered from COVID-19 after treatment, bringing the count in the country to 20.

Seven patients were discharged from Mulago National Referral Hospital in the capital Kampala and one from Hoima Regional Referral Hospital in the western part of the country.

All the discharged patients tested negative twice for COVID-19. We are now remaining with 35 active cases from the confirmed 55 cases in the country, the Ministry said in a statement.

Uganda started discharging patients who recovered from the novel coronavirus on last week Saturday with three patients from Entebbe Referral Hospital, about 40 km south of the capital.

Uganda has registered 55 confirmed cases and is currently under a three-week extended nationwide lockdown aimed at stopping the spread of the virus

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Today, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank Spring Meetings close, UNDP commends the decisions of the IMF, the World Bank Group, and the G20 to immediately suspend debt service payments of 76 countries for one year, including 40 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This debt relief will play a critical role in helping countries to prepare, respond and recover in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, including to navigate its devastating social and economic impacts.

However, as the UN Secretary-General sets out in his new report, Debt and COVID 19: A Global Response in Solidarity, the agreed suspension of debt is not enough. Focusing on the poorest countries alone will not be sufficient to address the scale of this emergency.

Debt relief should not be based on the level of income but on vulnerability. A hurricane can wipe out an economy in the course of 8 hours. A pandemic will put a continent on freeze for months. These have nothing to do with income, wealth or GDP. They have everything to do with vulnerability.

The United Nations encourages all parties to put in place a debt moratorium for the next two years for all vulnerable countries. If the virus does not discriminate between countries based on their income level, nor should the international community.

As laid out in the UN Secretary-Generals report, we are calling on all creditors  public and private, bilateral and multilateral - to take three steps towards debt sustainability in these extraordinary times.

First, to establish an immediate debt moratorium for all developing countries to provide breathing space for all that need it to focus on crisis response.

Second, to provide targeted debt relief for countries with unsustainable debt levels and provide the policy space needed to achieve the SDGs.

Third, as the immediate crisis recedes, to revisit the long-standing challenges of the international debt architecture, to prevent debt defaults that could lead to prolonged financial and economic crises.

In line with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, all actions taken should be in line with countries strategies to finance progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Shutting down economies to prevent the spread of this virus saves lives, but without simultaneous action, decades of hard-won development progress could be lost. More than half a billion more people could be pushed into poverty, according to recent research.

This crisis has laid out in the starkest way possible just how interconnected our world is. We must act in borderless solidarity to defeat it.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > Tripura CPIMs ego throws 10,323 teachers in stress along with (...)

by Prabhajyoti Roy

Agartala, April 2020

March 31, 2020 is a Black Day for Tripura. In this day 8882 school teachers of the state lost jobs for none of their folly.

While some of the teachers journey started in 2010, others in the profession had entered in 2014. The number 10,323 bears a historical significance in the states political history. Since lots of turmoils had happened relating to the issue; ultimately coming from bolt from the blue as the High Court judgement against the recruitment in May 7, 2014. Thereafter, the then ruling Left Front Government of the States reaction to the victimized teachers was We are with you as his service. Lots of teachers of the group had to face untimely death, not being able to face the unbearable situation while a few of them got qualified for the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) to get a fresh appointment.

The Left Government of the State was thereafter thrown into gutter in 2018 Assembly poll by the people to pave way for new era. BJP too in its vision document for the poll teachers.

On March 31, 2020 the teaching career for the 8882 teachers came to an end. In future lots of them may get jobs in other departments loosing their identities. In various State Government departments the State Government has created more then ten thousands vacancies to accommodate the 8882 unemployed teachers lots. The State Government is now waiting the Supreme Court node to absorb them.

The case history of 10,323 teachers case is needed to be discussed a bit here. In 2002, 2006 & 2009 thrice the than Left Government had published advertisements to recruit teachers, mentioning clearly that those who had applied earlier need not apply afresh. The carrot of a government school job had been hung to the youth to overcome the two successive Assembly polls. The years 2003 & 2008 Assembly polls were thus overcome by the CPI-M, riding over the youths as hungry generation.

After the West Bengal debacle for the Left, there came a saying that the Golden Age of the Left is running in Tripura. The CPI-M of the State celebrated their victory in the 2013 Assembly poll with pomp & show, where the West Bengal CPI-M leader Suryakanta Misra had joined happily as a guest.

Over the queries from the press to Misra about why the State Government had stalled recruitment of the school teachers for around the last two decades, Misra had vehemently opposed it as a game plan of the rival opposition campaign. However, he had to bow down over the convincing statistics placed to him.

Sensing trouble ahead the State CPI-M leaders became active to mend the issue.

In the meantime, in 2009 Educational Rights Act was passed throughout the nation & it became implemented in April 1, 2010. Ignoring the Act, the then ruling Left Front of the State at that time had released 4856 posts for the Graduate Teachers & 1100 posts offer for the Post-Graduate teachers. Most of the Graduate Teachers were given offer to join in May 2010. The Post-Graduate teachers offer had been released after some time. They had joined in August 2010. Regarding the Graduate Teachers appointment there had been lots of hue & cry. The science graduates pointing out the step motherly attitude had created a State wide militant movement forcing the government to give appointment to thousand science graduates, six hundreds of whom were of Pure Science and four hundreds of them for Bio Science to give them posting in the year 2012. Thereafter, 4000 Underground Teachers were given posting with tremors in the State about gross injustice.

The Left Front in the State had maintained in their appointment policy seventy percent seniority & talent & thirty percent needy. After the Graduate Teachers posting in 2010, one after another law suits followed in the High Court. It is not true that the court didnt oblige the State Government. The State Government rather had ignored the court verdict. In the meantime, the State got equipped with its own High Court. Thereafter in 2014, the Agartala High Court bench had passed its final verdict that the appointment of 10,323 teachers were illegal. Justice Deepak Gupta, now a Supreme Court judge, who had handled the case in the Agartala High Court bench, tried his best as a mediator between the State Government & those who had filed RTI in the court. In clear-cut tearms Justice Gupta had expressed that there were only twelve to fifteen RTIs faced by the court. If the Government had obliged them, the whole case would be dismissed.

The State Government didnt however pay any heed to the Justice Guptas advice & had filed a leave petition to the Supreme Court while preaching lip service to the 10,323 teachers that it was with the victims.

Thereafter in March 29, 2017 the Supreme Court had quashed the Special Leave Petition of the State & had maintained the judgement of the Agartala High Court as final. The Left-run State Government then had filed another Appeal to the Supreme Court to keep the school education in system. The Supreme Court thereafter gave the State Government six months time more & it came into effect from January 1, 2018.

In the meantime the 2018 State Assembly Poll approached. BJP in its vision document of the poll manifesto had given special emphasis to the woes of the 10,323 victimized teachers & had assured them that once in power, the party would deal the issue with a human touch. Meanwhile the Supreme Courts given term had expired & the new State Government had brought it to the notice of the Supreme Court. Considering the situation, the Supreme Court had allowed the 2019-2020 academic year, meaning upto March 31, 2020 to keep the 10,323 lots in Ad-hoc basis.

The historic blunder the Left Govt did out of the overconfidence that they didnt care to take the Finance Department of the States approval before the large scale appointments.

Though their had been no case reported about illegal money deal or favouritism about the distribution of 10,323 teachers job only in the last fortnight, the States major vernacular daily Dainik Sambad had highlighted that in the North District the States Kamalpur subdivision a primary school faced closure because of non-cooperation from the doner of the schools land, who is a village tribal.

According to the news, the CPIMS partymen had promised the local tribal villager that if he had donated a part of his land to bring up a Government Primary School, his son would be assured a teachers job in the school. Sensing trouble ahead the tribal villager had locked the school premises on the ground of breach of trust at least more than six months back. A news got highlighted only recently.
Two more persons died of coronavirus in West Bengal in the last 24 hours, taking the toll in the state to 12, a top government official said on Saturday.

During the same period, 23 fresh coronavirus infections were reported from different parts of the state, taking the number of cases to 233, Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha said.

The Union health ministry, however, put the total number of cases in the state at 287.

At present, there are 178 active cases in the state, Sinha said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 12:23:02|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government has decided to send a team of medical experts to Malaysia to help the country fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian announced Saturday.

The team, organized by the National Health Commission and selected by the health commission of Guangdong Province, left for Malaysia Saturday morning, according to the spokesperson.
RACINE COUNTY  The Racine County Sheriffs Office may no longer be enforcing the Safer at Home order.

The Safer at Home order, which some feel infringes on constitutional rights but that state health officials say is necessary to slow the spread of COVID-19, has been extended through May 26 by order of Gov. Tony Evers and Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm on Thursday.

Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling, a Republican, weighed in via a statement sent from the Sheriffs Office on Friday that received more than 1,000 positive reactions on Facebook Friday. Although he said that the Sheriffs Office continues recommending social distancing and the use of masks and other personal protective equipment, Schmaling said that state law does not have the power to supersede or suspend the Constitutional rights of American citizens.

He continued: I urge the Wisconsin DHS to develop a workable plan that balances the safety of our citizens while at the same time acknowledging the fact that there is a way for business to operate even during the current health situation. I have all the confidence in Racine County business owners that they can make the appropriate adjustments in the way they operate during this difficult time to accommodate for the safety of their employees and guests.

When The Journal Times asked Schmaling to clarify if that meant the Sheriffs Office would no longer be enforcing Safer at Home  several people around the state have been cited by local law enforcement for violating the order, including one Racine man in Portage  the sheriff replied via text: Wisconsin law gives the authority and responsibility for investigating and enforcing public health violations to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and local health departments.

When asked again if that meant the Racine County Sheriffs Office would no longer cite violators of the law, Schmaling sent the same text again, this time with quotation marks around it.

As of April 10, neither the Racine Police Department nor the Racine County Sheriffs Office had issued any citations for violating Safer at Home.

Several Facebook commenters applauded Schmaling for his statement. It means a lot knowing that you recognize the gravity and trust that we are responsible for our own well being, one man wrote.

But state Rep. Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, was quick to criticize the sheriff. She issued a statement less than 2 hours after Schmalings statement appeared on Facebook.

I am disappointed in Sheriff Schmalings decision to end enforcement actions of the Safer at Home order by Racine County. Wisconsin is still seeing daily increases in COVID-19 cases, and we must continue to follow the advice of public health experts as we assess how to respond to this pandemic, Neubauer wrote. The evidence shows that Safer at Home is working, and while this is incredibly difficult for our community, we must not rush this process. We must continue to ramp up our testing and our PPE (personal protective equipment) production, so that we can trace new infections and protect our essential workers before ending Safer at Home in May.

Racine Public Health Director Dottie-Kay Bowersox also issued a statement late Friday afternoon that said the sheriff's stance could cause confusion for local residents.

"It is concerning and alarming that Sheriff Schmaling would be unsupportive and defiant of the extended 'Safer at Home' order. The actions come in response to the best available science and data from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and local public health officials," Bowersox said. "The fight against COVID-19 is not over and how we respond in the coming days, weeks and months will determine whether or not we will be successful.

"Undermining this effort adds confusion to the public, which imposes unnecessary risk to many residents. The economic hardships of employers and their employees is clear and definitive," Bowersox continued. "They are understandably facing challenges that cannot be easily mediated and/or sustained long term. However, ensuring the health and welfare of all community members is an essential duty of all public servants which honors those we have lost or who are struggling at this time."

State law does not have the power to supersede or suspend the Constitutional rights of American citizens. Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling

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Microsoft on Thursday gave the newest Windows 10 upgrade a name, calling it the "May 2020 Update," signaling that it will launch the refresh next month.

Computerworld had argued that Microsoft would be better served, and better serve customers, if it pushed back the release of Windows 10 2004, the four-digit label it had assigned earlier, by several months. The COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on businesses, notably a massive shift to working at home, the argument went, had so stretched IT resources that adding a Windows upgrade risked breakdowns or even catastrophic failure of core business tools.

If Microsoft ever entertained a delay, it clearly rejected the idea.

"We are now getting the Windows 10 May 2020 Update (20H1) ready for release," wrote Brandon LeBlanc, a senior program manager on the Windows Insider team, in an April 16 post to a company blog. "We believe that Build 19041.207 is the final build and we will continue to improve the overall experience of the May 2020 Update on customers' PCs as part of our normal servicing cadence."

Microsoft began delivering build 19041.207 to a subset of Windows Insider's Release Preview ring, the channel that provides testers the most stable code. More Insider participants will receive 19041.207 as time goes by. Insiders can also manually trigger an upgrade to this build.

LeBlanc did not hint at a specific availability date for Windows 10 May 2020 Update's final, polished code. One obvious date would be May 12, that month's Patch Tuesday. Of the last three Windows 10 feature upgrades, two started shipping on the month's Patch Tuesday.

Code name, short name, long name

Like all Windows 10 feature upgrades, this one goes by any of three names that Microsoft had assigned. Some were less accurate than others.

The 20H1 identifier used by LeBlanc was Microsoft's code-named label for the year's (2020) first-half (H1) feature upgrade, presumably one of two assuming the company follows its 2019 cadence.

Its newest name, Windows 10 May 2020 Update, is in the form Microsoft's used since 2018, when it began applying month and year, spelled out, rather than coming up with monikers like 2017's Fall Creators Update or 2016's Anniversary Update. Because Microsoft has tended to wait until later in the development process to assign such names, they've been the most accurate of the bunch.

Finally, Microsoft had earlier tagged this as 2004, the four-digit number in its yymm format. The company had altered it from the usual yy03 for 2020's spring feature upgrade because the resulting 2003 because it was afraid it might be confused with the long-obsolete Windows Server 2003.

Free support to business customers

Perhaps in an attempt to coax more commercial customers into participating in Windows Insider -- specifically the Windows Insider for Business spin-off -- Microsoft also said that it would provide support to those running the Release Preview ring or the Slow ring builds. (The Slow ring is more polished code issued about once a month to Insiders.)

The support is free of charge and limited to "business use cases" for customers running Windows 10 Pro or Windows 10 Enterprise. They can file a support request by completing this form. (LeBlanc's post included instructions on filling out and submitting the form.)

"If you run into a severe issue that prevents you or other users in your organization from using a device or compromises security or personal data, you can use our online form to request assistance directly from Microsoft Support," LeBlanc said.
She's been trying to stay busy and keep her spirits up during the extended quarantine period with good deeds and family activities, in spite of a broken wrist.

And Ali Larter was again seen out in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles, California on Friday as she took her two children Vivienne and Theodore out for a walk with the family dog.

Larter, 44, looked ready for a fashion shoot on the outing, wearing a cream and pale purple striped loose-fitting sweater, paired with an A-line white buttoned down midi skirt.

Like out of a catalog: Ali Larter was seen out in the Pacific Palisades on Friday, foregoing a face mask as she took her two children Vivienne and Theodore out for a walk with the family dog

The Legally Blonde star wore one simple necklace, and sported her black wrist brace to protect her injury.

Ali had her blonde hair down and arranged beautifully over one shoulder.

To complete her day look, she wore leopard print slip-ons on her feet.

The mother-of-two, who shares her nine-year-old son and five-year-old daughter with her standup comedian husband Hayes MacArthur, looked serene on the walk, as she kept up with her large poodle-mix dog and colorfully dressed children.

Strut: Larter, 44, looked ready for a fashion shoot on the outing, wearing a cream and pale purple striped loose-fitting sweater, paired with an A-line white buttoned down midi skirt

Smiling mom: Ali had her blonde hair down and arranged beautifully over one shoulder

Earlier this week, the Heroes actress shared two lovely Easter-themed posts to her Instagram feed, which is followed by 442 thousand users.

In one, the blonde beauty puckers up for the camera in bright blue bunny ears glasses.

'Kisses and love and joy today! And this red lip and floral explosion helped lift me up,' she wrote in the caption.

Good spirits: Earlier this week, the Heroes actress shared two lovely Easter-themed posts to her Instagram feed, which is followed by 442 thousand users

'Diving back into the real tomorrow, but dont underestimate the power of a red lip and bunny glasses to change your mood. ' she concluded.

Earlier on Easter Sunday, Ali uploaded another selfie, this time fresh-faced with no makeup while she laughed and posed with a smiley Easter bunny.

In that caption as well, the star focused on positivity and mental health, asking, 'Can we choose Joy today? Im thinking about renewal and rebirth, ways to create new traditions for my family. Ways to find laughter and levity.'

Outside of the holiday posts, since entering quarantine Larter has largely used Instagram as a way to communicate her feelings as well as advocate for those most affected by the virus.

Easter fun: Earlier on Easter Sunday, Ali uploaded another selfie, this time fresh-faced with no makeup while she laughed and posed with a smiley Easter bunny
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to see people apply for universal 100,000 yen ($930) cash payouts online or via mail to ensure the assistance gets to them quickly, possibly in May.

"Unity with the people is important to overcome the fight against the virus, which could become protracted," the prime minister told a press conference Friday, explaining the cash assistance.

Residents can apply "by mail or online," not at local government offices, Abe said, adding "We want to prioritize speed while also avoiding having floods of people [at the offices] that would heighten the risk of transmitting the virus."

The government has decided to give a cash handout of 100,000 yen to every resident, regardless of income and age, after a haphazard withdrawal of an earlier proposal to give 300,000 yen to qualifying households that had lost income. Heavy criticism of the earlier plan from the public, including coalition partner Komeito, forced Abe to scrap it.

"I apologize to the people for creating confusion in the decision-making process," Abe told reporters.

Abe brought up Japan's heavy reliance on medical supplies, apologizing "as the prime minister" for a shortage of masks and other protective gear for medical personnel treating coronavirus patients.

"It's a problem that we depend heavily on foreign sources, especially China," he said.

On U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to cut off funding for the World Health Organization over alleged mismanagement of the pandemic, Abe said, "Japan is not considering reducing its contribution," adding that "we must support the WHO."

"It is true that [the WHO] has its problems and challenges," he said. "We should fully examine its functioning after the coronavirus outbreak is under control."

The cash handouts, designed to cushion the economic blow from the coronavirus pandemic, is expected to cost 14 trillion yen ($130 billion), the prime minister said. Although Abe did not specify when exactly the cash would get to households, he said it would take "another week" for it to be deliberated in parliament.
Over the past six weeks I have tried to give you the best advice about how to stay safe and well during this pandemic  and also what to do should illness strike. Ive also attempted to clarify the often confusing  and, yes, sometimes seemingly inconsistent  recommendations and rules coming from public health officials and the Government.

Everyone is trying their best, but theyve probably made mistakes. This virus was unknown until December, and although understanding is growing rapidly, there are still question marks and grey areas. Thats why, based on evolving evidence, some guidelines have had to change.

Until now, the consensus has been that mask-wearing wasnt necessary to protect people from getting Covid-19. Ive said so myself, many times. Good hand hygiene, covering coughs and sneezes, social distancing and, if showing symptoms, self-isolation are whats needed. And this remains true.

Dr Ellie Cannon, pictured, has changed her mind about the need to use masks in public and now urges people to make their own from old T-shirts

But over the past week there have been growing calls in the scientific community for face masks or coverings to be made part of this mix.

And it is believed that our Government  like those in Germany, Italy and Spain, and many American states  is poised to make what might seem like a dramatic U-turn: that we should ALL wear a face covering in public.

Having listened to the scientific argument, I agree. In fact, I have already started wearing a mask when out and about myself.

Q&A: Are we at the peak and why is the UK death toll so high? Q: Have we reached the peak of the outbreak yet? And will things get better now? A: Its likely were approaching the peak of this outbreak  but its a complex issue. When officials talk about the peak of the pandemic, theyre referring to the point at which the number of daily confirmed Covid-19 infections and infection-related deaths reaches an all-time high. The Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, said the UK was probably approaching this point after the daily death toll reached 980 on April 11. Numbers of infections and deaths have since decreased, but complications with reporting the figures mean we cannot be certain this is the true peak. We will still see many hundreds of hospital deaths announced each day for some weeks ahead, says Professor James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute at the University of Oxford. The daily figures also dont count those who die at home or in care homes, so its virtually impossible to know if the infection rate has plateaued, according to Dr Andrew Preston, reader of microbial pathogenesis at the University of Bath. Only a small proportion of people are getting tested  those in hospitals and frontline care workers, he says. And many people are asymptomatic. Data from Spain and Italy, which saw their peaks earlier, shows that although numbers rose incredibly fast, they decline far more slowly. We have flattened the curve, thanks to social distancing. But its not possible to tell exactly what shape the curve will take on the other side of the peak. And if lockdown measures are relaxed too soon, it is clear the numbers could rapidly shoot up again. Q: Why is the UK death rate so high, compared to other European countries? A: Reports last week suggested that the UK is expected to have the highest death toll in all of Europe. The current UK toll is passing 15,000  far higher than Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, where only a few thousand have died. There are several reasons for this, according to Dr Preston. Firstly, many of our big cities are especially densely populated, increasing transmission rates. This is why most of our deaths have been in London. We are also the largest travel hub in Europe, so weve had more people bringing the virus over. Like Italy, which has the highest death toll in Europe, we have an ageing population. Another crucial factor is that other countries, such as Germany, had a head start, he says. They had 50 testing laboratories already set up so they could test and isolate cases. Whereas we have only eight, so were playing catch-up. But Dr Preston adds: Its very possible that other nations [who relax lockdown measures earlier] will have a second wave and the UK wont. We simply wont know until the restrictions have been lifted and the infection can spread again. Q: Is it not safe to lift the restrictions until we have a vaccine? A: An effective vaccine is our best chance of beating the virus. Yet scientists predict it wont be available until at least the autumn. Studies suggest it is possible to lift some restrictions safely, while keeping infection rates under control, says Dr Preston. Weve seen evidence of this in other countries such as Singapore. We will need to maintain strict social-distancing measures and have controlled access to shops and supermarkets. Well need to identify sectors most at risk of infection and those who can remain working from home. Perhaps we let specific sectors go back to work at different times or introduce a shift system. But limits on the use of public transport must remain in place. Mass testing  even for those without obvious symptoms  and contact-tracing is key so we can isolate people and stop the number of cases growing. We must be prepared for a second lockdown, if figures rise significantly again. Q: If Ive had the virus, surely I wont need to be so careful about social distancing? A: It is still essential that you follow Government guidelines even if you have recovered, says Dr Preston. Data from China suggests that a small number of people may be susceptible to reinfection. He adds: Although most of the reports show that after two weeks of being symptom-free, you are no longer infectious, some reports suggest it could be longer.  Advertisement

But it is essential that everyone understands that the mask is not worn to protect the wearer from infection  you should wear a mask so you dont inadvertently infect other people.

Itll mean a shift in thinking. But let me explain why it makes sense.

Early this month, evidence began to mount that people with Covid-19 are highly infectious  expelling, or shedding, large amounts of the virus  before symptoms begin and they know they have it. This was initially thought not to be the case.

It is now suspected that a large number of those infected  up to eight in ten  may never show symptoms at all. These asymptomatic people, while seemingly unaffected themselves, can pass it on.

Its not just coughs and sneezes that spread this disease. When we speak  and even just breathe  tiny micro-droplets of moisture are ejected from our mouths. If someone is infected with Covid-19, even without symptoms, these micro-droplets contain virus particles.

And this is where masks are vital. They create a physical barrier and block these droplets just as they come out of the mouth. This is called source control.

As Ive mentioned, the debate about masks has often centred on whether they protect the wearer. Unfortunately, they dont always. The problem is that many who wear masks dont do so properly.

I have lost track of the number of people Ive seen wearing a grubby, poorly fitted mask that they fiddle with and pull down every time they need to talk on their phone.

This contaminates the mask, and that means it could raise the risk of them getting infected. In these cases, masks may be giving wearers a false sense of security  and lure them into thinking they dont need to exercise social distancing.

Doctors are taught proper mask etiquette early on in medical school. But there has never really been a concerted campaign to show people how to correctly use a face mask. Thats because, until now, weve never needed one. Covid-19 has changed that.

Hand hygiene, learning not to touch your face when out of the house and social distancing are far more effective in everyday life to protect us from catching Covid-19.

My hope is that now, listening to world-leading scientists and doctors, the Government issues clear guidance, so everyone knows why they need to wear a mask and how to do so correctly.

Health officials have been unsure how the public would react to pandemic control measures. There were big concerns, for instance, that people wouldnt follow social-distancing guidance  but we have taken to it all remarkably well.

So are we all too stupid to understand a simple set of instructions about safe mask use?

Or too selfish to grasp the fact were doing it to protect those around us, rather than ourselves?

I dont think so.

And this is also vital to understand: if mask-wearing is to have an effect, everyone must do it.

Research by Professor Trish Greenhalgh, who is a GP and public health expert at the University of Oxford, suggests that if we all start wearing masks in public  alongside maintaining good hygiene and social distancing  we might drop the rate of transmission enough to see off this devious virus once and for all.

Thats not to say we should now rush out and buy up every mask available.

There is a global shortage of masks and we need to make sure that NHS staff, who are at high risk of catching the virus, can still get hold of them.

In hospitals, healthcare workers in close contact with Covid-19 patients are given medical-grade masks. These are usually worn with other protective kit, such as visors and gowns.

But the average person on the street doesnt need these.

A DIY cloth mask  or anything that covers the mouth and nose, such as a scarf  will do the job. In fact, thats exactly what the US surgeon general Jerome Adams currently recommends, and we detail one way of making your own in the panel, above right.

There are loads of alternative methods too, which you can easily find online.

If you are infected, a simple cloth covering your mouth could stop droplets from being expelled  and help to halt the spread of the virus.

Of course, its still vital you dont adjust it, touch it or pull it down or up over your hair.

VIRUS FACT: Tiny droplets from a person's throat can spread five metres with a cough and as far as eight metres with a sneeze, a US study suggests.

Always assume the outside of the mask is contaminated.

By making your own, you can take a bit of time to make it as comfortable as possible, so you can breathe easily.

This also means youll be less likely to fiddle with it.

Dont take it off until you are somewhere you can wash your hands. And when you do take it off, you should lean forward and drop it into the sink or washing basket, and not touch your face until you wash your hands.

If commuting, having a clean one for the trip home is ideal.

I know, something that seems simple is actually quite complicated. But if we can all start to make it part of our routine, it could have a huge impact.
New Delhi, April 18 : The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has initiated action in a big way towards setting up new hubs for manufacturing renewable energy equipment in the country to meet both domestic and global demand.

The ministry has written to various state governments and port authorities to identify land parcels of 50-500 acres for setting up such parks. The Tuticorin Port Trust and the states of Madhya Pradesh and Odisha have already expressed their keen interest in setting up RE Manufacturing Parks.

Secretary, MNRE, Anand Kumar held meetings with RE manufacturing companies last week. The Ministry has also got in touch with Trade Commissioners/ Representatives of various countries inviting them to invest in this promising opportunity in India.

Kumar addressed the US India Strategic Partnership Forum earlier this week through Webinar and sought collaboration and investment by US firms. These facilities will manufacture equipment like silicon ingots & wafers, solar cells & modules, wind equipment and ancilliary items like back sheet, glass, steel frames, inverters, batteries etc. The hubs will also export equipment and services in the RE sector.

At present there is around 10 GW of wind equipment manufacturing capacity.

In case of solar cells and modules India imports about 85 % of its requirements.

The Government has levied a basic customs duty for protecting the solar manufacturing industry in India.

At a time when many companies are shifting their manufacturing base from China, it is time for India to bring policy changes for facilitating manufacturing in India. In tune with this, MNRE has already set up a RE Industry Facilitation & Promotion Board to facilitate investment in the sector., a government statement said.

The Ministry has strengthened the clauses in Power Purchase Agreements( PPAs ) to boost investor confidence. The three Power and RE Sector NBFCs namely PFC, REC and IREDA have reduced their repayment charges to 2% for enhancing the funds available for new projects in the sector. Moreover, IREDA has brought out a new scheme for project specific funding to promote new RE projects in India.
Dr. Kong Yuefeng, a recovered COVID-19 patient who has passed his 14-day quarantine, donates plasma in the city's blood center in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020.

Microsoft is working with a consortium of pharmaceutical companies to recruit people who have recovered from Covid-19 to donate their plasma, which could be used in treatments for the disease.

To help get the word out, the company is launching a chatbot, which it refers to as its "plasmabot," to lead people through a series of questions to determine if they're a candidate to donate plasma. The plasmabot, which goes live this weekend, will also provide information about the procedure and direct them to a nearby site where they can safely make the donation.

Using convalescent plasma -- a component of blood -- as a treatment is a decades-old idea. When a patient recovers from a disease, they produce antibodies to fight the presence of the antigen that caused the disease -- like a virus -- and those proteins will remain in the blood for a few months.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved any treatments using convalescent plasma, but is currently regulating it as an investigational product. In a blog post, Microsoft says there are two possible approaches with collected plasma: Make transfusions directly available to those who are battling the virus, or incorporate the antibodies to help develop a medicine.

Microsoft's head of research Peter Lee noted that the goal is to recruit as much plasma as soon as possible, as experts predict that we've either hit or are close to hitting the peak number of cases in many cities. He said the company is supporting the efforts of plasma alliance formed by companies like Octapharma, Takeda, CSL Behring and others. That project kicked off in late March, and counts the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation among its advisors.

After conducting its own research into the approach, Lee said he believes it has the "potential to save lives." So the company is setting aside computing resources and other infrastructure, as well as engineering talent. It is also promoting the plasmabot through a website, and it's search, web and social channels.

Microsoft is getting behind the effort now because plasma of recovered patients is only useful for a limited time.

"There's a window from onset of symptoms that lasts from 21 to about 56 days," said Lee.

Donating plasma is a more involved process than giving blood, and will take a few hours for those who are willing to participate. But efforts that are already underway are showing some promise, and recovered patients are enthusiastic to help others.

Lee noted that the approach is not going to provide a replacement for a full treatment, like a vaccine. But a vaccine will probably take more than a year to develop, and in the meantime plasma could provide some immediate relief to sick patients and potentially some protection (although that isn't yet well understood) for frontline workers.

External experts agree that convalescent plasma is worth exploring, but point out that there are some potential pitfalls.

"Convalescent plasma is very promising as a candidate for immediate treatment, especially as we continue to see mixed results from the repurposed drugs and their trial readouts," said Vasudev Bailey, a biotech investor with Artis Ventures.

But as Bailey notes, there are some challenges that will need to be addressed, including the problem of recruiting enough patients. "It's not an antibody being made and scaled and mass produced in a lab. The limitation here is that we need enough people to have recovered and enough of these antibodies (quantity) to use in ailing new patients."
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Linkedin Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Bandung  Sat, April 18, 2020 18:45 633 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2c6275 1 National Greater-Bandung,COVID-19,ridwan-kamil,social-aid,PSBB,large-scale-social-restrictions Free

The West Java administration will officially begin enforcing large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) for Greater Bandung starting Wednesday after being given the green light by the Health Ministry to limit public activities to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Greater Bandung, which consists of Bandung and Cimahi cities, as well as Bandung, West Bandung and Sumedang regencies, will join other regions in West Java, namely Bogor, Bekasi and Depok cities, as well as Bogor and Bekasi regencies  all satellite areas of Jakarta commonly referred to as Bodebek  in imposing the PSBB.

West Java, the most populous province in Indonesia with some 50 million people, has the second-highest number of confirmed cases with 641 cases, 41 recovered and 56 fatalities as of Sunday.

West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil said that the social restriction period would start on April 22 and last for 14 days.

But if the residents do not obey [the rules], it can be extended without needing approval from the health minister, Ridwan said in a press conference on Friday.

Introduced earlier this month, the PSBB policy prohibits public gatherings and mass religious activities and mandates the suspension of school and office activities, allowing only essential businesses to operate.

The governor instructed all leaders of Greater Bandung to promote the policy in their respective jurisdictions.

The goal of the PSBB is to make room for [mass] testing and tracing in the regions so we can detect which areas are infected or which areas to watch out for, Ridwan said.

Read also: COVID-19: West Java to request large-scale social restrictions for Greater Bandung

The governor explained that Greater Bandung and Bodebek metropolitan areas had around two-thirds of COVID-19 cases in West Java. Data from the West Java administration released Friday show that Bandung city has the most cases followed by Bandung regency, Cimahi city and West Bandung regency.

The administration had distributed 80,000 rapid testing kits to all areas of West Java, where the testing has managed to detect 1,200 positive cases thus far, with additional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing prepared to verify the results.

Ridwan said that local residents could apply for individual testing through the West Java COVID-19 Information and Coordination Center (Pikobar) mobile application, available on Googles Android mobile platform. At least 21,000 have already applied.

The application can also be used to apply for social aid so long as applicants are not already registered under any of the governments social aid programs.

The administration would give Rp 500,000 (US$34.91) in monthly aid per family for four months in addition to the aid from the city and regency administrations and the governments monthly Rp 600,000, which is being given for three months to Bogor, Depok and Bekasi residents.

The administration would also give food aid to nonregistered residents in West Java, such as street children. (mfp)

Editor's note: The article has been updated for clarity.
The novel coronavirus continued on the upswing in the San Antonio area Friday, as the total number of cases swelled by 41 to a total of 959.

But even with confirmed cases closing in on 1,000, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said Gov. Greg Abbotts order to carefully begin letting nonessential businesses resume curbside operations where possible seems to be following what the local governments have been doing.

In particular, I was pleased with the fact that the governor was very clear, the first step in this whole process of opening up the states economy is with health authority data first, Nirenberg said.

The mayor said he and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff would announce an economic transition team next week to work in coordination with a local Health Transition Team appointed this week.

Wolff said the governors initiative to begin loosening restrictions on elective surgery should not pose a problem with hospital capacity, based on feedback Friday from leaders of the four major hospital systems in San Antonio.

Theyre quite prepared to do that. Weve had a lot of vacant beds and personal protective equipment, Wolff said. So we feel comfortable that thats going to work out fine.

There were no new coronavirus-related deaths reported Friday, for a second day in a row. Bexar Countys death toll stands at 37. The leaders have noted that the San Antonio area is doing better than other parts of the state; Dallas County, for example, had 50 deaths as of Thursday, with 2,066 confirmed cases.

Nirenberg said 80 people who tested positive were in the hospital, with 47 in intensive care. Only 25 are on ventilators to help them breathe; one of the lowest totals in recent days.

On ExpressNews.com: Get the latest update on coronavirus and a tracking map of U.S. cases

At their daily city-county briefing, Nirenberg and Wolff again urged residents to stay the course and remain at home as much as possible to slow the spread of the deadly virus. Wolff mentioned expanded COVID-19 testing, temperature screening of workers, disinfecting of workplaces and use of masks and cloth facial coverings as key steps needed to ease the transition back into normal economic activities.

We believe you need to wear a mask when physical distancing is hard to achieve, Wolff said.

An addendum to local emergency orders that takes effect Monday requires everyone age 10 and older to wear a cloth facial covering in public places where maintaining 6 feet of distance is difficult. Exceptions include car travel and outdoor exercise.

Officials are still emphasizing staying at home and frequent and thorough hand-washing as key measures to containing the disease.

COVID-19 in jail

Wolff noted that five more inmates at Bexar County Jail have tested positive for COVID-19, for a total of 15 inmates.

Theyre all in separate cells within our infirmary, protected from the rest of the population, Wolff said.

To date, the Sheriffs Office has had 21 deputies test positive for the coronavirus, as well as one video visitation civilian employee, a dispatcher, a county facilities maintenance employee, a fleet maintenance employee and a University Health System nurse.

Wolff said the jail has had 1,004 inmates booked in recent weeks who are being isolated from the rest of the population for 14-day observation and that the jail has increased the presence of UHS workers by about 50 to 175, while expanding the infirmary from 54 to 84 beds. The jail also is supplying masks to all 3,000-plus inmates.

Were doing everything we can to contain the spread there, but I would assume were going to see some in the future, Wolff said.

First responders

As of Friday, the San Antonio Police Department had six officers with confirmed cases of coronavirus, with five other officers and three civilians in quarantine.

The San Antonio Fire Department has reported five uniformed personnel as having tested positive at one station, with the fifth firefighter confirmed Friday, and 53 in quarantine. Other personnel with symptoms have tests pending.

Out of an abundance of caution, the entire station now is under quarantine and being deep cleaned, Nirenberg said, identifying the station as No. 14, at 2415 Thousand Oaks Drive on the Northeast Side.

Meanwhile, eight residents have tested positive for COVID-19 at the Frank M. Tejeda Texas State Veterans Home in Floresville. One of those residents has died, and five are in hospitals.

Scott Huddleston covers Bexar County government and the Alamo for the San Antonio Express-News. To read more from Scott, become a subscriber. shuddleston@express-news.net | Twitter: @shuddlestonSA
New Delhi, April 18 : National passenger carrier Air India has opened bookings for flights which will be operated from May 4.

According to a senior AI official, the bookings are opened for select domestic destinations only. The national carrier had earlier halted bookings for flights till April 3.

The airline at that time was said to be awaiting further clarity from the Centre, on whether or not the lockdown deadline of April 14 will be extended.

With the lockdown now extended till May 3, at present, no foreign or domestic passenger flight operations are allowed till the deadline.
PPE appeal - An urgent appeal for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and sanitiser donations has been made.

Please contact Paul on 087-6889968 or email technical@curraheefoodconsultancy.com and he will tell you where to drop it or organise collection from you.

Paul said: 'As our frontline staff need PPE urgently, we're launching an appeal to gather up anything anyone can spare. We will be hiring a van and delivering it. We will collect any quantity that justifies collection. Otherwise I will accept deliveries to my house in New Ross.'

He will be liaising with the HSE for direction on where to deliver the donations.

All donors will be advised where their donation has been delivered to. Items needed: Goggles, Facemasks and Faceguards, Plastic Aprons/Gowns, Hand Sanitiser and Liquid Soap, Dettol/disinfectant type sprays, Plastic/Latex Gloves, Arm Covers, Shoe Covers, Hazmat/Plastic Suits, Hairnets/Beard Snoods and Unopened packs/boxes only please.

Parish office maintained

There will be no 8 a.m. Mass in Mount Carmel Monastery for the interim.

New Ross Parish Shop is closed for the interim, however Parish Office services will be maintained via telephone at 051 421 348 or email: info@newrossparish.ie. The office apologises for any inconvenience caused during this unprecedented time.

Raffle delayed

The Good Counsel College Monster Raffle has temporarily succumbed to the Covid-19 emergency.

College principal Mark O'Brien said: 'The health of all is of primary importance to us as a school in this unfamiliar time and this has informed our decision.

'We have had fantastic support from students, parents/guardians and past pupils alike to bring our raffle to its current point and all of this work will not go to waste. Thank you to the huge numbers of people in our community and beyond who have shown their support for the college in buying large numbers of tickets to date.'

The raffle is being deferred until early in the next academic year.

All tickets sold will be valid for the deferred draw and tickets will remain available from students, families and past pupils.

Community Covid-19 help

The Rower Inistioge community are rallying behind residents who need essential items delivered.

A Camogie Rower Inistioge Covid-19 Assistance Facility has opened and is up and running. A group of volunteers who will deliver medication, groceries, fuel, etc., to elderly/vulnerable people in the community has been established.

This will be operated in the strictest confidence. To avail of it, contact 089 4525740.

Enrolments

Ramsgrange Central NS is now taking enrolments for September 2020. Enrolment forms are available on the school website www.ramsgrangens.com or by contacting Karen in the office on 051 389363 or emailing ramsgrangens@hotmail.com. The three-teacher school is situated in the heart of Ramsgrange village.

A school spokesperson said: 'Please feel free to speak to our principal Lorraine Kennedy at any time during the school day.'

Obituaries

This newspaper offers tribute pieces to bereaved family members within the local community who have recently suffered the loss of a loved one.

The service is available free of charge, and will be completed in a manner that is sensitive to your own personal wishes and requests, shaped entirely by your direction. Please contact the journalist whose details are listed above if this is something that interests you or is something you would like to do to honour the memory of your loved one who has recently passed away.

Painting offer

Helen Walsh Painting & Decorating are offering to respray a kitchen for someone from our frontline healthcare workers completely free of charge when restrictions are lifted. See their Facebook page.

Charity raffle

Tesco community champion Mary McGrath is selling lines for the following prizes: a hamper of Wexford Home Preserves, a pair of tickets for the Irish Beauty Show in the RDS in Dublin and 1,000 litres of Campus home heating oil.

The money raised this year is to buy a new CT Scanner at Temple Street Children's Hospital.

For anyone who wants to donate money or a prize for a raffle, contact Mary in Tesco New Ross or email Marydancer2006@gmail.com

Appeal for information

An appeal has been issued from New Zealand for information about Murtagh Redmond, who lived on Michael Street in New Ross.

Greg Murphy from New Zealand came up as a match on Graiguenamanagh man Dennis Murphy's family tree DNA. Dennis said: 'He is trying to find the burial place of Murtagh Redmond who lived in 18 Michael St during the 1901 Census. Murtagh Redmond, died 1906.'

Dennis said Murtagh was his great great-grandfather.

'His daughter, Catherine (Kate) married my great-grandfather, Laurence Murphy, of Wexford town and she lived there until her death in 1900. She was born around 1850. Our oral family history tells us that Murtagh was part of the Redmond family, which donated the 'Bull Ring' to Wexford Town. Also, this family owned shares in the Redmond Bank, and were related to John Redmond, member of Parliament.'

Several months ago, Dennis spent two days searching New Ross cemeteries for Murtagh's grave to no avail.

'My aim was to see if the headstone could suggest to me some way I could prove the oral history. I have a copy of Murtagh's death certificate which says he died in New Ross and the 1901 Census has him living then in Michael Street.'

The cemeteries visited were: St Stephens; the Catholic church in New Ross; the Friary near Irishtown, New Ross; the Catholic church in Rosbercon; and Rosbercon cemetery.

Dennis can be contacted by email on 7duiskecrescent@gmail.com or by calling him on 086 3007695.

Ross Meals on Wheels

Due to the health crisis, New Ross Meals on Wheels, in their continuing efforts to limit social interaction with clients, have decided to operate on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday basis until further notice.

All clients have been notified and will be adequately supplied with dinners and desserts for the days that the service is closed.

Meals on Wheels has been in New Ross since the late 1960s, when it was based out of volunteers' kitchens.

The invaluable service is located at the St Aidan Centre on Cross Street. Soup, a main course and a dessert are available to people at a cost of just 5 per meal.

The meals are delivered by around 12 p.m. daily and people can buy extra meals.

Meals can also be ordered by people in the hinterland such as Cushinstown, Camblin, Greater Rosbercon, St Mullins and other surrounding areas and these can be collected at the centre each day.

All food is prepared in the St Aidan Centre on Cross Street from 8.30 a.m. every weekday morning by three people who are employed directly by the Meals on Wheels and FAS CE Scheme employees.

GAA clubs offer help

Gusserane GAA Club members are kindly volunteering their services in order to help people in need. If you know of anyone who requires assistance you can contact club members.

Adamstown GAA Club are also offering to help people who may need items delivered during the current crisis.

For anyone who would like assistance from a local volunteer, please contact 087 1852949 in confidence.

Additional volunteers are also welcome to put their name forward to deliver prescriptions, groceries, etc. to people within the Adamstown community, providing them with an essential service.

Enrolments

Scoil Mhaodhoig Poulfur, Fethard-on-Sea is welcoming applications from parents of prospective pupils for Junior Infants in September.

Enrolment forms are available from Kathleen in the office on 051 397193 or by emailing a request with your name and address to poulfurns.ias@eircom.net.

Enrolment for Scoil Naomh Una, Shielbaggan is also open. Scoil Naomh Una, Shielbaggan is a two-teacher primary school in the parish of Ramsgrange.

Phone 086 0210524 or email shielbagganns.ias@gmail.com.
Two hard-hit oil field services companies are laying off San Antonio-area workers.

Hallibuton terminated 384 workers at its Elmendorf operations center in southwestern Bexar County, and Step Energy Services will cut 69 workers at a facility in Floresville in Wilson County.

Houston-based Hallibuton, which employs more than 50,000 workers in the U.S., said in a notice to the Texas Workforce Commission that it began laying the workers April 7.

The facility will remain open, though the company didnt say how many employees will keep their jobs.

In the notification, Hallibuton said most of the laid-off employees worked in technical parts of the fracking process.

On ExpressNews.com: Oil & gas industry sheds more than 6,000 jobs in a single day

STEP Energy, which is based in Calgary, Alberta, told the TWC it would begin its layoffs no earlier than April 16. In addition to the employees at it Floresville location, the company said it terminated 75 workers at its Midland facility.

The mass layoffs are a result of the recent, unexpected, drastic downturn in the price of oil that began on or around March 9, 2020, and which STEP has been assessing over the last few days, the company wrote in a March 31 letter to the TWC.

STEP provides workers and equipment for fracking, according to its website.

Neither Halliburton nor STEP officials responded to requests for comment.

The letter from STEP officials shows how quickly the oil market has collapsed in a little more than a month.

On March 9, the day STEP officials complained about the decline in oil prices, the U.S. benchmark price closed at $31.13, down around $10 from the prior trading day.

Texas Inc.: Get the best of business news sent directly to your inbox

The benchmark crude, West Texas Intermediate, closed Friday at $18.27, an 8.1 percent drop from the previous day. It was the lowest price since 2002.

Oil producers usually need oil prices of at least $40 per barrel to make a profit. The recent low prices have caused oil companies to suspend drilling operations and shut completed wells.

Oil prices have collapsed because a plunge in demand for gasoline and jet fuel as many motorists and would-be air travelers remain under government stay-at-home orders.

An agreement by Saudi Arabia, Russia and other countries to cut production to curb supply last weekend has done little to slow the drop in oil prices.

Over the past several months, oil companies have cut capital expenditures, including exploration activities.

While oil producers have been severely hurt, oil field service companies are feeling the pain more quickly.

Bankruptcies among service providers have been common over the last year, a trend thats expected to accelerate.

The (oil production company) capital cuts have been devastating for oil field services companies, said Ed Hirs, an energy economics lecturer at the University of Houston.

Hirs said he expects thousands of layoffs at energy companies and oil field service firms.

Pioneer Energy Services, a San Antonio-based drilling contractor, filed for bankruptcy reorganization on March 2. The company hadnt seen a quarterly profit since 2014.

Randy Diamond covers aviation, energy and manufacturing in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Randy, become a subscriber. randy.diamond@express-news.net
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Linkedin Nina A. Loasana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, April 18, 2020 08:39 634 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2a8afb 1 City COVID-19,coronavirus,Greater-Jakarta,business,work-from-home,physical-distancing,social-distancing Free

You have completed the tasks your boss gave you, watered the plants and binge-watched your favorite shows online. Yet the day is still long as you spend time confined to your home amid the study- and work-from-home policies imposed by the authorities to stem the spread of COVID-19.

But for some, a surfeit of leisure time has sparked ideas about new productive hobbies that can support them financially.

Ester Christine Natalia, a 26-year-old office worker from Tangerang, Banten, has chosen to spend more time in her kitchen after being asked to work from home by her employers around a month ago.

"I love to try new recipes and my husband is also into cooking, since he watched a Korean drama recently," Ester told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Ester said she and her husband were surprised to find a new recipe they had made tasted delicious, so they decided to try selling the dish online several days ago.

"My husband tried a new recipe called tahu walik [fried tofu], and it was surprisingly really good. So, we decided to sell it through Instagram starting on Wednesday. I didn't expect anybody to buy it, at first. But as it turned out, a lot of people were interested in trying it out," she said.

Ester said she was quite happy with her new business although she admitted that it was quite challenging since she and her husband had to juggle between work and cooking.

"My husband and I have wanted to start a business for a long time, especially at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, since there's a high risk that both of us could lose our jobs. We were thinking hard about how to get extra income," she said.

The profit for the two days sales was Rp 50,000 (US$ 3.21).

Physical-distancing policies have been imposed in Greater Jakarta since last month in a bid to curb the spread of the coronavirus, forcing many residents to stay at home as their companies comply with the regulation.

Meanwhile, for 29-year-old journalist Muhammad Andika Putra, working from home is a great opportunity to restart the family's culinary business.

"My brother loves to cook. For the past three years he has occasionally sold food via social media, but not like 'seriously'. However, since we started to work from home around five weeks ago, we thought it was a great idea to start selling food again," he told the Post.

Dika explained that he and his brother convinced their mother to sell her doughnuts via the popular photo-sharing app Instagram. The brothers were certain that their mothers doughnuts, which have been a family breakfast staple for years would be a hit among people who were stuck at home and craving a nice snack.

Read also: Small businesses cry for lifeline as government aid underway

He said his family had been surprised by the success of their new business.

The family now count making and packing doughnuts as one of their daily activities, thanks to the growing number of orders.

"We've seen our sales steadily rise due to the social-distancing policy, since a lot of people want to snack at home but they can't go anywhere. In the first week we sold around 20 doughnuts but now we manage to sell 90, Dika said adding that a pack of five unfried doughnuts cost Rp 25,000 and a pack of 10 sold for Rp 50,000.
Auburn police are investigating a homicide after a woman was found dead with gunshot wounds beside a truck that was on fire early Friday morning.

Police responded the Farmville Volunteer Fire Departments call for assistance on a vehicle fire in the 9500 block of U.S. Highway 280 West around 6 a.m. Friday. When officers arrived, they found a 54-year-old woman dead with gunshot wounds by a white 2005 Chevrolet Silverado truck that was on fire.

The victims name was withheld because their next of kin was yet to be notified of their death.

The womans body was taken to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences in Montgomery for an autopsy, Lee County Coroner Bill Harris said.

Anyone with information on the homicide was asked to call Auburn police detectives at 334-501-3140 or the tip line at 334-246-1391.

The case is being investigated by Auburn police, the state Fire Marshalls Office, the state Medical Examiner Office and the Lee County Coroners Office.
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The government has amended the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy to discourage opportunistic investment in Indian companies by neighbouring countries in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic.

This comes after China's central bank recently raised stake in Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) to a little over 1 percent.

PBOC buys 1.1% HDFC shares on behalf of Chinese sovereign wealth fund, Saudi picks 0.7% stake: Deepak Parekh

You can read about it here:

As per the new amendment, FDI investments into Indian companies from the neighbouring countries will now require a nod from the government. This will be applicable to all countries that share a land border with India  such as China among others.

The amendment specifies that transfer of ownership of Indian companies arising out of FDI investments from neighbouring countries will now also be subject to government approval.

Similar FDI restrictions were earlier placed on Pakistan and Bangladesh.

These changes were notified via a Press Note by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

As per the note, Government has reviewed the FDI policy for curbing opportunistic takeovers or acquisitions of Indian companies due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

The note states: A non-resident entity can invest in India, subject to the FDI Policy except in those sectors/activities which are prohibited. However, an entity of a country, which shares land border with India or where the beneficial owner of an investment into India is situated in or is a citizen of any such country, can invest only under the Government route.

Further, a citizen of Pakistan or an entity incorporated in Pakistan can invest, only under the Government route, in sectors/activities other than defence, space, atomic energy and sectors/activities prohibited for foreign investment, it said.

In the event of the transfer of ownership of any existing or future FDI in an entity in India, directly or indirectly, resulting in the beneficial ownership falling within the restriction/purview of the mentioned sectors, such subsequent change in beneficial ownership will also require Government approval, it added.

The decision will take effect from the date of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) notification.

Earlier, reports said that market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) was monitoring equity transactions in India by Chinese companies and banks. Such transactions have come under the scanner at a time when the share prices of companies have dropped due to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Globally, transactions by Chinese firms and institutions have come under scrutiny recently since the assets are being purchased at low valuations. Nations such as the US, Japan and Australia have already placed restrictions on Chinese companies buying assets.
Karnataka to undertake Triaging: What does it mean and how do you pronounce it

Delhi to ease restrictions, if Covid cases come down in next 2-3 days: Health Minister

Lata Mangeshkar health update: Doctor says,'She in ICU with Covid-19 and pneumonia, will be under observation'

9-month-old tests positive for COVID-19 in Uttarakhand, father attended Delhi mosque event

India

oi-PTI

Dehradun, Apr 18: A nine-month-old infant who is among the latest coronavirus cases detected in Uttarakhand contracted the infection from his father after he returned from a Tablighi Jamaat congregation, officials said on Saturday.

They did not say where the congregation was held or when the infant's father had tested positive.

The infant is one of the three new coronavirus cases detected in Uttarakhand on Friday. The number of cases in the state after these fresh infections has risen to 40, a health department spokesperson said.

The baby is quarantined at a school in Jakhan area of Dehradun, he said.

According to the spokesperson, the infant''s father is one of the 10 Tablighi Jamaat members under treatment for COVID-19 in Dehradun. He is admitted to the isolation ward at the Doon Hospital.

However, the baby''s mother has tested negative for COVID-19, he said.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

The other two persons who tested positive on Friday were a woman officer posted at a military hospital here and a Tablighi Jamaat member from Nainital district, the spokesperson said.

The woman officer had recently returned from training in Lucknow. Contact tracing of the officer is underway, he said.

The Tablighi Jamaat member is undergoing treatment at Sushila Tiwari Hospital, Haldwani, he said.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Saturday, April 18, 2020, 15:30 [IST]
It's a modern mystery that's currently plaguing the entire world right now - are you infected with the new novel coronavirus?

The answer might now reach you in a matter of minutes, courtesy writer and film-maker Satyajit Ray's famous fictional detective, 'Feluda.'

A team led by two Bengali-origin scientists, Dr Souvik Maiti and Dr Debojyoti Chakraborty, at the Council of Scientific & Industrial Researchs Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB) in New Delhi, have come up with a simple 'strip-test' to tell you if you have COVID-19, in minutes.

And yes, its named after the Bengali sleuth.

The 'Feluda' is a paper-based test strip detects the new coronavirus within an hour and can now be the solution for Indias urgent need for rapid-testing.

The test uses the cutting-edge gene-editing tool- Crispr-Cas9 to target and identify the genomic sequences of the novel coronavirus in the samples of suspected individuals.

We have been working on this tool for around two years. But, in late January, when the outbreak hit its peak in China, we began testing it to see if it can work for Covid-19. It took us around two months to come up with these results," said Dr Debjyoti Chakraborty, told LiveMint in an earlier interview.

This testing could also reduce costs  the real-time polymerase chain reaction test (RT-PCR) used currently requires machinery worth lakhs of rupees and its price is capped at Rs 4,500 in private labs, but the Feluda test could cost as little as Rs 500. It can be used in a way similar to pregnancy test strips widely available over the counter, reports The Print.

This strip will be similar to a pregnancy test strip, and will not require any specialised skill and machines to perform, as is the case with other PCR-based tests. This strip will just change colour, and can be used in a simple pathological lab. The most important part is it will be 100 per cent accurate, CSIR Director-General Shekhar C. Mande told The Print.

While scientists in other countries like Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have been testing this approach, this is the first of its kind to be developed in India.
The policy, though, still rings a bit hollow. Vrbo seems to want consumers to treat all hosts as struggling entrepreneurs. For some, the rental property may be their only source of income  and the companys policy works reasonably well for them. But many other hosts are making extra money off the second home that they could already afford.

No traveler who is struggling wants to be on the hook for the income stream of someone else who owns a spare property somewhere pretty. If a refund is on offer, dont feel bad taking it if you cant make a trip or now dont think its wise. (Airbnb, for what its worth, refunded all money to travelers in similar situations.)

Then there are more painful choices.

For some businesses  like summer camps, day care centers and after-school programs  your decision on whether to seek a refund will be crucial. And if you dont get a refund, youre taking a risk: If these establishments go under before youve used whatever credit theyve offered you, youre not going to get a cent unless you line up in bankruptcy court with the other creditors.

A note arrived recently in the inboxes of parents planning to send their children to French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts, a camp in New Yorks Catskill Mountains. It said families would receive a nonrefundable credit toward camp in 2021 if the state kept the camp from opening or if it opened late and families couldnt attend a later session. It also mentioned the possibility that some insurance would kick in and provide partial refunds.

In the normal course of events, many people do not like to hear the word nonrefundable when an entity seems to want to hold on to thousands of your dollars and then wait a year to give you the service that you paid for, when you may not want or need it anymore. And how are you supposed to pay for alternative programming or care this summer in the meantime? That was the opinion of the parent who sent the note my way.

When I spoke to Ron Schaefer, the founder of French Woods, he expressed exasperation at first. The camps intent, he said, is to give refunds to any family that wants one, once it has funds available. Cash flow is tricky for camps, especially right now, when they're spending money to prepare for an opening that may not happen.

Mr. Schaefer, who has been at this in one form or another for over 50 years, then answered the question that I hadnt really wanted to ask: How many refund requests would put French Woods out of business if it didnt operate at all this summer? He said that if 70 percent or 80 percent of families requested a refund  and some already have  that would probably do it.
The First Vice-President of Azerbaijan, Mehriban Aliyeva congratulated the Azerbaijani Christian community, celebrating the holy holiday of Easter. The relevant greeting she posted on her Instagram page:

I sincerely congratulate the entire Christian community of Azerbaijan on the holy Easter! On this bright day, prayers are read in the name of health, happy future for our citizens, prosperity in our country. Joining all these prayers and wishes, I want to express confidence that thanks to solidarity, with the determination and will of our people, we will successfully overcome all the difficulties that we face today! I ask the Almighty God to send each of you good health, long life and happiness."
Over 1.7 million HCMC students will have their prolonged school break extended further until at least May 3 over Covid-19 safety considerations.

More than 135,000 students taking vocational training classes will also stay at home until this date.

The city has asked the Ministry of Education and Training to adjust some content related to the school year plan, the time to finish textbook selection for the new school year and the time to end the 2019-2020 school year.

This is the eighth time that Ho Chi Minh City has announced the extension of the school holidays to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. The government has asked HCMC, Hanoi and 10 other provinces with high risk of spreading the virus to continue social distancing until April 22.

Since mid-March, the city has been running an online teaching program on TV for students in grade 9 and 12 to help them revise lessons for the national high school entrance and graduation exams.

For the remaining grades, the city has organized online learning classes using digital media and television to streamline the subjects.

At an April 10 government meeting, Ho Chi Minh City Party Secretary Nguyen Thien Nhan had said that if the city continues to control the disease well, students can return to school in mid-May. Nhan also asked the Department of Education and Training to establish risk assessment criteria to ensure safety for students in case that there are still Covid-19 patients and the risk of infection in the city.

The closure of the school year has been pushed back to July 15 and the national high school exam to August 8-11, which is 1.5 months later than previous years.

Vietnamese students are typically given a two-week spring holiday and a three-month summer break. This is the first time in history that more than 22 million students in Vietnam have to take such a long break after the Lunar New Year due to a pandemic. The education ministry has had to cut short the curriculum and recognize online learning results.

At the moment, 13 provinces have extended the school closure for students, except Ca Mau, Vinh Long and Thai Binh provinces, which reopened classes for grade nine and high school students in April.
Philip II was the father of the renowned Alexander the Great, but was also a notable general and conqueror in his own right, who began the military ascendancy of Macedon which was later cemented and expanded by his more famous son. Philip was known for his love of women and many wives .but like most powerful men of the Hellenistic world, he also had male lovers. Philip II was the military genius who defeated the combined armies of Athens and Thebes, conquering all of Greece. Along the way he availed himself of the 800 young eunuchs that had been brought with the army for his pleasure. In the end it would be one of his male lovers who assassinated him, possibly as a result of jealousy.

Philips military skills and expansionist vision of Macedonian greatness brought him early success. He first had to re-establish a situation which had been greatly worsened by the defeat against the Illyrians in which King Perdiccas himself had died. The Paionians and the Thracians had sacked and invaded the eastern regions of the country, while the Athenians had landed, at Methoni on the coast, a contingent under a Macedonian pretender called Argeus. Using diplomacy, Philip pushed back Paionians and Thracians promising tributes, and crushed the 3,000 Athenian hoplites (359). Momentarily free from his opponents, he concentrated on strengthening his internal position and, above all, his army. His most important innovation was doubtless the introduction of the phalanx infantry corps, armed with the famous sarissa, an exceedingly long spear, at the time the most important army corps in Macedonia.

Philips military skills and expansionist vision of Macedonian greatness brought him early success. He first had to re-establish a situation which had been greatly worsened by the defeat against the Illyrians in which King Perdiccas himself had died. The Paionians and the Thracians had sacked and invaded the eastern regions of the country, while the Athenians had landed, at Methoni on the coast, a contingent under a Macedonian pretender called Argeus. Using diplomacy, Philip pushed back Paionians and Thracians promising tributes, and crushed the 3,000 Athenian hoplites (359). Momentarily free from his opponents, he concentrated on strengthening his internal position and, above all, his army. His most important innovation was doubtless the introduction of the phalanx infantry corps, armed with the famous sarissa, an exceedingly long spear, at the time the most important army corps in Macedonia.The murder occurred during October of 336 BC, at Aegae, the ancient capital of the kingdom of Macedon. The court had gathered there for the celebration of the marriage between Alexander I of Epirus and Philips daughter, by his fourth wife Olympias, Cleopatra. While the king was entering unprotected into the towns theater (highlighting his approachability to the Greek diplomats present), he was killed by Pausanias of Orestis, one of his seven bodyguards. The assassin immediately tried to escape and reach his associates who were waiting for him with horses at the entrance of Aegae. He was pursued by three of Philips bodyguards and died by their hands.the historian Cleitarchus expanded and embellished the story.

Centuries later, this version was to be narrated by Diodorus Siculus and all the historians who used Cleitarchus. In the sixteenth book of Diodorus history, Pausanias had been a lover of Philip, but became jealous when Philip turned his attention to a younger man, also called Pausanias. His taunting of the new lover caused the youth to throw away his life, which turned his friend, Attalus, against Pausanias. Attalus took his revenge by inviting Pausanias to dinner, getting him drunk, then subjecting him to sexual assault.

When Pausanias complained to Philip the king felt unable to chastise Attalus, as he was about to send him to Asia with Parmenion, to establish a bridgehead for his planned invasion. He also married Attaluss niece, or daughter, Eurydice. Rather than offend Attalus, Philip attempted to mollify Pausanius by elevating him within the bodyguard. Pausanias desire for revenge seems to have turned towards the man who had failed to avenge his damaged honour; so he planned to kill Philip, and some time after the alleged rape, while Attalus was already in Asia fighting the Persians, put his plan in action.
Almost 1,000 nurses have rejoined the medical register since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

Just under half of eligible student nurses have also made themselves available to work.

The figures since mid-March show that 1,399 people have rejoined the medical register here.

The largest proportion is in nursing and midwifery with 346 signing back onto the Medical Council, which includes Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

48% of student nurses who were eligible have signed a contract with the HSE to be Healthcare Assistants.

The sign-ups are part of the On Call for Ireland initiative which more than 70,000 people applied for as part of the Government's response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Health Minister Simon Harris has said "we will be forever indebted" to those who have signed up, saying "we need every hand on deck".

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Hasmukh

Director: Nikhil Gonsalves

Cast: Vir Das, Ranvir Shorey, Ravi Kishen

Its such a shame when a good idea strikes the wrong people. Vir Das had an epiphany for the agesa stand-up comedian who needs to charge his soul with murder, every time he steps up to the stage. Its the perfect Killing Joke; or it could have been in the hands of a better writers. What we have now is a joke of a series, which fails to deliver on either the dark or the comedic aspects of the designated genre.

From the beginning itself, things just dont seem right with Hasmukh (Vir). In the very first scene, the timid and anxious Hansmukh slits his comedian gurus (Manoj Pahwa) throat when he refuses to fulfil his promise of giving him a break on the stage. This pivotal moment comes too early in the narrative, not giving the audience any time to witness why or how Hasmukh reached his breaking point. It may be his first murder, but he pulls it off with more confidence than any that follow. He shoots right to the stage after splitting open the dead mans head and delivers a starry performance to a wedding party in Saharanpur.

Watch the trailer for Hasmukh:

Of course, there is absolutely nothing starry about that performance. The screenwriters made a note in the script*and the crowd goes wild*and the junior actors laughed and applauded as they were told. But not a single joke from Hasmukhs murder-induced performance or any that succeeds it through the entirety of the show, is funny in the slightest. The pact with Satan would have seemed more believable if the patni-peedit jokes were not this lame.

But Hasmukh has made up his mind, killing a few bad people is worth a career in comedy. He sets targets on his abusive chachaji, a party leaders corrupt PA, a greedy lawyer, a girlfriend-beater, a rapist superstar and multiple others. While a couple of these escape his clutches, most end up choked to death with his leather belt.

For Hasmukh, with each subsequent murder, it becomes progressively a mechanical job but the jokes never improve. The police get on his tail, as he becomes more human with each murder. He tells himself and us that he is not the good guy and that he sees the men he has murdered in his nightmares. However, he never hesitates the next time he sets eyes on his target. His guilt and imposter syndrome manifests itself in the rotting, walking corpse of Manoj Pahwa who sh*t-talks at him before every show. Hasmukh, however, is easily able to ward him off with a wave of his hand.

Hasmukh is joined in his criminal-comedian lifestyle by his manager Jimmy (Ranvir Shorey). Together, they find targets, sign contracts with television studios, throw corpses in incinerators, go on double dates with their girlfriends and meet with mafia bosses. Ranvir and Virs chemistry as murderous bros may be the only redeeming factor of the otherwise hopeless series. They quickly become partners in a dark life and have genuine care and affection for each other. Ranvir is also perhaps the only one making a positive contribution in the acting department in this show. His greedy eyes lighten up on seeing a fat paycheck and well up when he is accused of being disloyal. He is also the jumpy, singing, dancing idiot who rarely gets annoying.

Also read: Karan Johar pens emotional note for daily wage workers, extends help to govt and NGOs to fight Covid-19

But the show makes sure you are reminded often of the substandard mess you are watching. There are multiple shots of cleavages for the perusal of a sleazy television head (Ravi Kishen) that seem more apt for those Tusshar Kapoor movies from the last decade than a Netflix Original. There are also teenage boys pulling on womens bra straps and landing in a MeToo case of their own. People break into impromptu, choreographed dance parties and every other character has a takia kalaam like a SAB TV comedy.

Even with this huge, stinking pile of issues, the biggest crime committed by Hasmukh is that it is hopelessly unfunny. Vir Das was expected to do just one thing correctly and it was giving the series a big helping of humour and wit. But all the jokes do is kill your patience.

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President Trump, who wanted the country to reopen May 1, has since said he would leave the decision to governors. Some states are working on plans now for businesses to resume work, and as they do, many of us will be faced with difficult decisions to make about our personal risks and how we should behave. This is a daunting prospect for anyone coping with the individual pressures wrought by a national economy in turmoil, or the emotional pain of not being able to spend real time  not Zoom or FaceTime  with loved ones who live elsewhere, especially in hard-hit cities.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18)  General Santos City is back to being coronavirus-free after its first and only confirmed case has recovered, Mayor Ronnel Rivera said.

The General Santos Doctors Hospital sent off the 59-year-old male patient on Saturday, after he tested negative for COVID-19.

The city's Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, Inc. office. covered all of the patient's treatment expenses which amounted to over 700,000, office head Nol Valila said.

However, governor Rivera said 98 patients remain under monitoring for possible infection. The city is still under total lockdown.

Meanwhile, Ilocos Norte has not reported any new cases for the past 16 days but 160 patients are still being monitored, its official Facebook account announced.

Ilocos Sur Governor Ryan Singson also said on Thursday that there are no more confirmed cases in the province after 17 patients received negative test results. Eleven of these patients are still in treatment facilities receiving medical care, he added. The local government also lifted the lockdown on Barangay Magsaysay, Tagudin, where a former patient resides.

Stringer Roland Ortillano contributed to this report.
The Union governments telecommunications department is offering states the ability to mass track people using mobile network tower data, offering a platform that can let ground-level authorities create virtual geo-fences for those meant to be in quarantine, as well as a second service that can let officials send out SMS messages to people in a specific area for Covid-19 containment efforts.

Officials in several states have acknowledged previously that they use mobile network information to monitor those meant to be under quarantine, but the Centres pitch to other states that are not using such services at present details how these tools work and the sort of legal authorization behind it.

Coronavirus outbreak: Full coverage

The first service, a mobile device surveillance system called Covid Quarantine Alert System, uses cellphone tower  also called a base transceiver station (BTS)  data to determine the approximate location of a person. If this person has been put on a watch-list, the system throws up an alert if their phone goes out of that geographic area and connects to a different BTS, according to an official who asked not to be named.

To put someone on a watch-list, state authorities will need to send the persons phone number to the department of telecom (DoT). An alert will also be sent if a mobile number if switched off for too long, the official quoted above said, adding that the tracking will not work if people leave their phones behind.

As on April 16, we tracked the movement of 70,422 persons in states including Bihar, Telangana, West Bengal, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh. The service is authorised by the home secretary of the respective states and is allowed under the provision of section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraphs act for public emergency, the person quoted above said.

The law invoked, telegraph acts section 5(2), is used for legal interception of telecommunications that is allowed in the Indian constitution under specific conditions, such as for national security and to prevent a crime. Breaking quarantine is a criminal offence under Section 188 of the Epidemic Diseases Act, which has been invoked since India declared the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) a health emergency.

The second service, called Covid-19 Savdhan, too has been deployed by some states. Covid-19 Savdhan allows messaging in a targeted geographic area, we can send message to targeted groups, narrowing it down to one mobile tower. It is of great use in the hotspots and containment zones. This is again being done in Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Sikkim, Haryana, Arunachal Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the functionary quoted above said.

To get more states to start using these utilities, the Union government first reached out through the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). The DoT will now write to the chief secretaries of those that have not adopted it, the person quoted above said, adding that both services are free of charge.

The official also said that states will not be passed on the names of the mobile phone users. It is a non-intrusive way of checking if a person is within the tower area; we dont monitor the phone usage, this person added.

A second official who occupies a senior post in the telecom department, said the tools have been developed by C-DOT to help health and disaster management authorities. Covid Savdhan application, in particular, enables authorities to reach out to all mobile subscribers in any particular containment zone up to the level of individual mobile tower and convey targeted messages about health, well-being, water supply etc by means of SMS in local language, this person added.

The messaging service is available in all regional languages, and so far 26 million messages have been sent out through the platform for Covid-19 related communication till now.

C-Dot is a government agency that develops computer applications for use in telecommunications.

Experts said for the government legally use such surveillance mechanisms,there needs to be an order issued by the Union as well as the state governments. The systems of mass surveillance which are being deployed are being done without any clear legal authority or limits. While the Telegraph Act does permit the government to place people under surveillance, it also contains safeguards which must be followed. It also remains an open question how the Central governments cellphone tracking data will integrate with the data gathered by the Aarogya Setu app, said Apar Gupta from the Internet Freedom Foundation, who was one of the lawyers in a PIL filed by the PUCL that led to the codification of the guidelines under section 5(2).

While there is a concept in health about disaster and epidemic tracking, those are applied only to people who fall sick. These steps are larger in ambit and the fundamental right to privacy is breached. The government should be transparent and issue orders, while letting people know that this is a temporary measure, that a complaint officer will be instated, and talk about how the data will be dealt with once the pandemic is over, said Raman Jit Singh Chima of the digital rights group Access Now.
Nine people quarantined in Victorian hotels tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, with travellers responsible for more than half the new coronavirus cases recorded in the state.

Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said on Saturday that 17 new cases of coronavirus were recorded in the state overnight- up from just one new recorded on Friday.

The total number of cases in the state had increased to 1319 overnight. Ms Mikakos said 39 people who have been placed in quarantine in Victorian hotels since strict isolation measures were put in place had tested positive to the virus.

Seven people from the Greg Mortimer cruise ship have tested positive for COVID-19 since returning to Australia on a mercy flight from Uruguay last Saturday.
Millions of workers in Indonesia plan to stage mass rallies, despite social distancing orders, to protest against an overhaul of labor-market rules.

President Donald Trump said the U.S. has enough testing capacity to allow for a phased reopening of the economy, and that hes not happy with China over the countrys early actions to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.

The U.K. said it can see early signs of the lockdown working. Spain had the most new cases in a week, while Russia reported another record daily increase in new infections.

Key Developments

Virus Tracker : Cases top 2.2 million; deaths exceed 154,000

: Cases top 2.2 million; deaths exceed 154,000 U.S. farmers get $19 billion bailout package

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Japan again for virus response A wild ride for global supply chains captured in seven charts

European football clubs struggle to make up for unfinished season

Subscribe to a daily update on the virus from Bloombergs Prognosis team here. Click VRUS on the terminal for news and data on the coronavirus.

Indonesian Workers Plan Mass Rallies: Jakarta Post

Millions of workers in Indonesia are planning to break social distancing rules to stage rallies across the country on April 30 in protest over an overhaul of labor-market rules, according to the Jakarta Post newspaper.

Labor unions say changes to the labor rules, contained in a so-called omnibus bill currently being considered by lawmakers, legitimize the exploitation of workers. President Joko Widodo had put the bill forward as an essential reform even before the virus hit as he sought to appease those who see the labor law and generous severance pay conditions as a major barrier to investment.

The option is either to die from the coronavirus for joining a rally or die of starvation from having nothing to eat, the paper cited Inter-Factory Laborers Federation chairwoman Jumisih as saying.

China Reports 27 New Cases

China confirmed 27 additional virus cases, 17 of which came from overseas. The country reported 54 asymptomatic cases.

South Korea Cases Rise to 10,653

South Korea reported 18 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 10,653. The country reported two more deaths, taking the total to 232.

SoftBanks Son Criticizes Japan for Virus Response

Masayoshi Son, founder of SoftBank Group Corp., again criticized the Japanese governments response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying its not doing enough to reach its goals for social distancing.

Son said on Twitter the situation will be prolonged because the governments emergency declaration was incomplete, and testing and quarantine measures were being implemented too slowly. The infected who have yet to show symptoms continue to commute on trains and buses, and the virus is spreading to families, he said.

Mexico Cases Rise to 6,875; 546 Deaths

Confirmed coronavirus cases in Mexico rose by 578 to 6,875, Health Ministry official Jose Luis Alomia said at a press conference. The death toll in the country increased to 546.

U.S. Has Enough Testing Capacity, Trump Says

President Donald Trump said theres enough coronavirus testing capacity to put in place his plan to allow a phased reopening of the economy, even though some state officials and business leaders have raised alarms about shortages.

Weve already built sufficient testing capacity nationwide so states can begin their re-openings, the president said Friday at the White House.

Business leaders and lawmakers told Trump in phone calls this week that the U.S. must increase its testing capacity before attempting to reopen the economy. Trump also tweeted on Friday that the States have to step up their TESTING!

In many parts of the country, health officials say adequate levels of testing still havent been reached. California has been especially hamstrung, reporting more than 7,000 backlogged tests on Friday despite massive pushes to process more tests.

Trump Announces $19 Billion in Farm Aid

President Donald Trump announced a $19 billion bailout package for farmers hurt financially by the coronavirus crisis. The aid plan includes government purchases of meat, dairy products and other foods to bolster prices, along with direct payments to farmers to boost their income, the president said Friday at a White House briefing.

Minnesota Governor Warns Against Reopening Too Soon

Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, a state that President Donald Trump tweeted should liberate, said he agrees with the presidents desire to reopen business but wont endanger residents by acting recklessly.

Reopening too soon would be a costly mistake not only for state residents but the nations food supply, Walz said. Several Midwest meat packers and processors reported some of their workers have tested positive for Covid-19, but the facilities are still open and operating in part because providing food for the nation is considered essential.

We have to help feed the world. Because Im telling you this thing gets really ugly if we have to send people back to work sick, Walz said. Well see the shortages in the grocery stores.

Earlier Friday, Walz issued an executive order allowing golf courses, parks, marinas, trails and other outdoor facilities to reopen. Minnesotans who engage in those activities must maintain 6-foot social distancing, avoid crowded areas and stay close to home. The provisions go into effect on Saturday.

San Francisco Requires Face Masks

Counties across the San Francisco Bay area mandated face coverings for the public when leaving their households. The masks must be worn shopping, in public transportation or while working at essential jobs. The rule in San Francisco takes effect Saturday but wont be enforced until April 22 to give residents time to obtain coverings.

Nearly 40% of N.J. Deaths Were at Nursing Homes

Nearly 40% of coronavirus-related fatalities in New Jersey have taken place at nursing homes, according to data newly disclosed by state officials.

Outbreaks have been reported at 394 of the states 503 long-term care facilities, which include nursing, assisted-living and dementia-care homes. Those facilities have recorded 9,094 cases and 1,530 deaths, the data show. New Jersey, the hardest-hit U.S. state after New York, has reported a total of 3,840 deaths statewide.

California Taps Steyer, Yellen, Iger for Task Force

California Governor Gavin Newsom assembled an economic recovery task force that includes top executives from some of the states largest companies  including Walt Disney Co.s Bob Iger and Apple Inc.s Tim Cook  as well as labor leaders, social justice advocates and all four living former governors of the Golden State, both Republican and Democrat.

Former Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer will co-chair the 80-member group, along with Newsoms chief of staff, Ann OLeary. Former governors Jerry Brown, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gray Davis and Pete Wilson have joined, as has Janet Yellen, former chairwoman of the Federal Reserve.

Newsom and Steyer said the group would try not just to restart the economy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic but to address the inequality that had been widening within the state before the virus struck. Steyer called it a fair, green and prosperous future.

We want in real time to demonstrate meaningful reforms, meaningful changes, Newsom said.

U.S. Confirmed Cases Rise 5.4%

U.S. cases rose 5.4% from the day before on Friday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg News. That was higher than Thursdays growth rate of 4.7% but on par with the than the average daily increase of 5.4% over the past week. Deaths increased 9.4% to 34,575.

U.S. coronavirus deaths for the first time passed the 34,157 people estimated to have died last season from the seasonal flu, according to data released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

New York cases rose 0.2%, as the hardest-hit state shows signs of stabilizing in the past week. New Yorks cases climbed 9.8% during the same time period on Thursday. New Jerseys cases rose 10.5%

No Country Has Herd Immunity, WHO Says

Evidence suggests herd immunity hasnt yet been achieved anywhere and that only a low proportion of people have antibodies to Covid-19, Mike Ryan, head of the World Health Organizations health emergencies program, said at a press briefing in Geneva. Countries should be careful not to assume that people who show antibodies to Covid-19 in blood tests have immunity, said Maria Van Kerkhove, a WHO epidemiologist.

Countries must impose stringent food safety and hygiene standards on wet markets that sell animals and fish for food when they reopen, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. While such markets are necessary as millions of people depend on them as a source of food, the sale of wildlife for food should be banned, according to the WHO. The novel coronavirus outbreak has been linked to a wet market in Wuhan, China.

Reported cases in Africa rose 51% in one week, though Asia and some European countries demonstrate that its possible for that continent to try to contain the virus, Van Kerkhove said. Were constantly fearful of disease exploding in places like Yemen, Syria and Iraq, or in many fragile states where people are displaced and living in overcrowded conditions, Ryan said.

Trump Tweets Liberate States

President Donald Trump urged Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia to liberate themselves on Friday in an apparent criticism of stay-at-home orders in the three Democrat-led states.

Trump made the comments in a series of tweets on Friday, less than 24 hours after unveiling a plan that deferred heavily to governors to determine when they could safely reopen their states amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The tweets signaled support for protests demanding an easing of the stay-at-home measures aimed at curbing the pandemic that have crippled the U.S. economy. All three states have Democratic governors.

Now read: Biggest jump in new coronavirus cases in South Africa since the first day of lockdown
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 21:25:22|Editor: huaxia

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HONG KONG, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Legislative Council (LegCo) approved on Saturday the funding for an economic relief package worth 137.5 billion Hong Kong dollars (17.74 billion U.S. dollars) in total to support businesses and residents amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

The funding application, proposed by the HKSAR government for the second round of the Anti-epidemic Fund and other relief measures, was passed by a vote on Saturday afternoon at the LegCo Finance Committee.

Welcoming the passage of the funding application, HKSAR Chief Executive Carrie Lam noted in a statement that the epidemic has caused an unprecedented impact on Hong Kong's economy in the past three months.

"Various sectors have been hard hit with many businesses facing pressure to close down and massive staff layoffs being anticipated. The government needs to take resolute and exceptional measures to prevent the situation from deteriorating and relieve the imminent need of the businesses and the employees," she said.

The package of relief measures, announced by Lam on April 8, include providing subsidy for employers to safeguard jobs, supporting the badly-hit sectors and relieving residents' burdens, and are estimated to benefit directly and indirectly millions of members of the public.

"Together with the first round of relief measures under the Anti-epidemic Fund worth 30 billion Hong Kong dollars and the relief measures in the 2020-21 Budget costing 120 billion Hong Kong dollars, the government has committed a total of 287.5 billion Hong Kong dollars, accounting for 10 percent of Hong Kong's Gross Domestic Product," Lam noted.

"Given the epidemic's unprecedented impact on Hong Kong's economy, the government has to dig deep into its fiscal reserves accumulated over the years to help our businesses and people," she added. Enditem
After wearing my mask in town this week I left it on the front dashboard of my car thinking that maybe the sunlight could sterilize it to new again. From what Ive seen this must be a problem for all Americans looking at ways to keep them clean. According to the CDC, single-use face masks should be worn once and then thrown away and thats alright to do if they were plentiful  which they are not. There must be a suitable technique to get rid of any accumulated pathogens.

At AHV we have seen a recent upsurge in companies needing high voltage for medical devices with some for immediate use against the Chinese Covid-19 pandemic. One technique that seems to be increasing in popularity is using ultraviolet radiation to destroy the virus particles that may have adsorbed onto surfaces. This includes, among other things, clothing, countertops, benches, and utensils. Its already used in hospitals to disinfect contaminated surfaces and has appeal because its simple and doesnt involve dangerous chemicals that can linger long after the cleansing operation.

Back in January, way before Covid-19 hit the news in America, I wrote a column about a UV laser being developed at Nagoya University, Japan, and suggested it may be utilized in killing bacteria. Unfortunately, the laser there is only in the prototype stage with mass production still years away. For us to understand the idea of using UV light for germicidal cleansing purposes it is a good idea to review the physics of this electromagnetic energy form.

Ultraviolet light is invisible to humans although research has shown that bees use the UV emission from the sun to navigate between flowers and home. Some birds are equipped with a 4th optical sensor that allows complete detection of ultraviolet light. Though its adjacent to visible light on the electromagnetic spectrum, its wavelengths are just too short for human eyes to register and see. You would think that our retinas would activate on sensing UV but the UV light just cant get through the lenses of our eyes. In fact, UV cannot even get through a pane of glass because the atoms in the glass composition absorb the UV energy like a sponge soaking up water.

Since UV waves have high-energy, we can feel their effects even though we cannot see the rays. For instance we know that ultraviolet light generated by the sun is what gives you a tan  or a sunburn if you stay out too long. In addition, if your body is exposed to UV for years by working outside all of the time without adequate protection, it may also lead to skin cancer.

Historically, UV light falls into two categories, long wave and short wave, covering the 400 to 100 nanometer wavelength range although new ISO standards offer up to six finer divisions. Lets look at the long wave series first.

You can easily buy a black light that generates long wave ultraviolet. These were very popular in the 1970s when young people bought glowing posters complete with fluorescent paints that would glow bright orange or green. On a more useful note, if you are a rock-hound you know that some minerals can glow while being illuminated with long wave UV light (although a lot more will glow under short wave UV) and using UV sometimes helps in identifying similar looking rocks.

One mineral in particular, fluorite, CaF2, will sometimes glow a bright blue when illuminated by long wave UV. This discovery goes back to 1852 when George Gabriel Stokes, of viscosity fame, coined the phenomenon fluorescence because he was using a piece of fluorite in his experiments. Geologists know that fluorescence usually occurs when specific impurities known as activators are present within the mineral. For fluorite, activators are thought to be rare earth atoms of yttrium, ytterbium or even europium.

Long wave is the lowest energy form of UV, and it accounts for about 95% of the ultraviolet light that reaches the Earth from the sun. Many detergents have added compounds that glow under long wave illumination making whites look whiter when worn outdoors. But the suns long wave UV can penetrate deep into the skins layers, which eventually ages the skin and forms wrinkles over time.

Long wave UV has many uses however. In dentistry certain acrylic polymers can be cured or set by illuminating them with an LED-based long wave light. Long wave UV is also used in the semiconductor industry for very fine resolution photolithography. This allows solid state device manufacturers to cram 10 times the amount of transistors on a silicon wafer. Because the wavelength used to create the structures is much smaller than visible light, finer resolution may be obtained. Without this technique there would be no computer microprocessor integrated circuits as we have today.

The most effective UV radiation that can kill bacteria and virus particles is the short wave type. It has been found that this variety can penetrate the cells of pathogens and damage the DNA or RNA that contain their genetic code. Some researchers now believe that short wave UV can damage the amino acids and proteins that either protect the virus or allow it to attach to and infect a host cell. To use this technique effectively, as in the case of Covid-19, it is important to know the pathogens sensitivity to specific UV wavelengths.

Next week we will list the history of disinfecting objects with UV light, what sources make the best shortwave UV, and how it can help the ongoing pandemic if it can be used at all.

Gary Hanington is Professor Emeritus of physical science at Great Basin College and chief scientist at AHV. He can be reached at: garyh@ahv.com or gary.hanington@gbcnv.edu.

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A luxury hotel, epic panoramic ocean views, and lush blush and burgundy wedding details made this destination wedding in Phuket, Thailand a dream day! Candy and Angus have a heart for traveling so they knew they wanted a destination wedding. In their search for the perfect spot they found Como Point Yamu and fell in love.

With the help of an incredible vendor team and their incredible wedding planner Wedding Boutique Phuket they created an incredible design. Their outdoor wedding ceremony overlooking the ocean was a magical set-up. With a 3-meter tall floral arch complete with ombre florals in blush and burgundy every detail was perfect. Gold chairs with blush chair sashes invited guests to take their seats for the big moment. Candy walked down an aisle filled with soft blush rose petals. It was more than her and Angus could have ever imagined!

To top everything off, their reception was a tented masterpiece. It was truly something out of a fairytale with strings of lights and fabric hanging down. It was luxurious and elegant in every way. Not to even mention the show-stopping hanging floral installation above the head table. Hundreds of orchids delicately floated above them creating an extra special focal point in an already amazing reception design.

All that alone would have been enough to make the perfect wedding day. Candy and Angus didnt stop there though. They wanted the night to end in an equally memorable way. So, to end their night they left to a fireworks show over the water. It was the perfect end to the most incredible wedding day!

We cant decide what we love the most about it all, the stunning ceremony, the epic reception or the burgundy wedding details. Its up to you to decide! If you want to see more of this dreamy burgundy wedding in Phuket by Madiow Photography click here to see their FULL GALLERY.

VENDORS

Wedding Planner: Wedding Boutique Phuket | Venue: Como Point Yamu | Flowers: I Am Flower | Makeup Artist: Pond (Makeup Masterclass) | Photographer: Chang & Madiow | Videographer: Tichakorn | Wedding Cake and Desserts: Joob Joob Bakery
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 17:07:24|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday discussed the COVID-19 epidemic and the China-Africa cooperation in a phone conversation with Amadou Ba, foreign minister of Senegal, which holds the co-chair of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).

Noting that China bears in mind that African countries, including Senegal, gave firm support to China during the critical phase of its fight against the epidemic, Wang said China is very concerned about the ongoing spread of the epidemic in Africa.

The Chinese government and all sectors of society have taken active actions to assist Africa, with various material assistance shipped to African countries and the African Union (AU) in batches, Wang said.

Chinese provinces and cities have also taken the initiative to provide assistance to African countries and renowned Chinese medical experts have held 14 video conferences with their African counterparts and the 46 Chinese medical teams in Africa have conducted nearly 400 training sessions for local medical workers, according to the Chinese minister.

Wang also noted that at the request of the World Health Organization and the AU, China has sent two medical teams to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso respectively to assist the two countries and their neighboring countries in fighting the epidemic.

China is preparing to provide a new batch of urgently needed supplies to African countries for the next stage and send more expert teams to relevant African countries to help fight the epidemic.

Wang said that the Chinese people have a very strong bond with the African people, and China-Africa relations have withstood the test of the vicissitudes of the international situation and have an unbreakable solid foundation.

He recalled that when the Ebola epidemic broke out in Africa in 2014, the Chinese medical team went into the affected area while others withdrew, putting their own life and death aside and treating the patients side by side with their African brothers.

During the difficult time of China's fighting against the COVID-19 epidemic, Senegal and many other African countries maintained trust in China and didn't evacuate their students, Wang said, adding that China has also kept its promise to protect the safety of African nationals in China, especially students, just like family members.

As the co-chair of FOCAC, Wang said, China is willing to work with Senegal to implement the outcomes of the FOCAC Beijing Summit, especially in the fields public health cooperation, so as to guide China-Senegal and China-Africa relations to achieve greater development.

For his part, Ba noted that Senegal-China relations are based on friendship, sincerity and mutual trust, and the two heads of state have maintained close contact and both countries have achieved fruitful results in cooperation within the framework of the FOCAC, adding that Senegal is ready to work with China to implement the results of the FOCAC Beijing summit.

Senegal appreciates China's assistance in fighting the epidemic, Ba said. The epidemic is currently posing a severe challenge for African countries and prompting tougher measures across the continent, said Ba, expressing his belief that China will continue to support the continent. Enditem
Messages of social distancing and wearing face coverings can be seen all over television and the internet, but local governments around the country are finding that message is still not reaching everyone. There are densely populated pockets around cities like Boston which arent getting the message -- or full access to things they need to stay safe and prevent spreading coronavirus.

This is part of what led to the launch of Bostons COVID-19 Health Inequities Task Force.

We know that there are significant inequities that put our communities of color and immigrant population at higher risk for contracting coronavirus, developing severe illness, and impeding them from accessing care, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh said when announcing the creation of the task force. Data is critical to knowing how deep these inequities run and to help the public better understand the virus and its risks. By forming the COVID-19 Health Inequities Task Force, we can focus specifically on increasing access to this important data and tackling the inequities that we know exist in our communities.

That data pointed Brigham and Womens hospital to an area of need in Hyde Park, and led to the creation of its first mobile screening, testing and support initiative of the crisis.

I think it really punctuated and underscored the significant disparity and disproportionate share that under-served communities were bearing of COVID-19 and positivity and the health impact, said Bernard Jones, chief of staff and vice president of Public Policy at Brigham and Womens hospital. So we view that as a call to action not only to care for the people who came into the hospital, but we needed to proactively go out into the community and start testing and start providing support that they need in their day-to-day lives.

Hyde Park was an emerging hot spot the hospital already served through a private practice, which allowed them to quickly set up not only a testing facility, but also offer other ways for the community to get healthy.

We believe strongly there are social determinants of health, Jones said. Underlying social and societal reasons that lead to health disparities.

So the hospital came up with two paths. Anyone wishing to be tested can go to the Brigham and Womens Faulkner Hospital community physicians practice location on Hyde Park Avenue and fill out a form. If they are symptomatic or know theyve interacted with someone who is COVID-19 positive, they can go for the actual test. Results can come back within 24 hours, which not only get people help faster, it helps in containment and education of the public to the importance of isolation.

This service is available to all residents in the area and there is no requirement to get the testing. People do not need to be a patient at the hospital or of any affiliated primary care physician. There is no need for health insurance or even proof of citizenship or immigration status. Jones says the goal is to remove as many barriers to testing as possible. Fear or misunderstanding has kept many in communities like Hyde Park from seeking help, which severely hinders the containment of the virus.

These are not only hot spots, but because they are under-served communities, that influences them being a hot spot, Jones said. They are also fundamentally under-served communities that have higher rates of undocumented individuals. They have lower, generally, socioeconomic status, they suffer from many of the health inequities that are unevenly distributed throughout the greater Boston area. So what were trying to do is communicate clearly that this is a safe place to go, its a place where you can get help.

There is an added layer of comfort for the patients built into the staffing. Most of those at the site are Hyde Park residents who understand the community and who are multilingual, which helps them make sure those tested get the proper care.

If the screening shows they arent a coronavirus patient, they go down a second path at the site for a social determinant of health screening. This helps find out if theyre housing or food insecure or if theyre in some sort of danger at home.

If someone is determined to be food insecure, we give them a box of food. If there is a persistent food insecurity, we arrange to have food delivered to their home, Jones said. If theyre housing insecure or homeless, in either instance, we want to make sure we find them a safe place to go, particularly if theyre symptomatic or COVID-positive where they can go to self-isolate.

They are also handing out care kits that contain masks, hand sanitizer, and $10 gift cards for Hyde Park Main Streets, a consortium of small businesses and restaurants in the area. The hospital believes this has a twofold benefit.

First, were injecting dollars into a community that needs it. These are small businesses or restaurants that are no doubt struggling, Jones said. Were also putting something in the hands of people who live in the community so they can go get a nice meal or they can go get something from a store that they might need.

Brigham and Womens is currently planning to expand into other under-served communities like Mission Hill, Dorchester, and Mattapan, which may involve partnerships with other hospital groups. Jones says that at times like this, the partnerships help reach more people to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

We dont want to waste an opportunity to have a very visible presence in the community, he said. We dont want it to stop at COVID. Were there, were interacting with them, weve got the resources and the staff to help them more holistically.

Related Content:
Cy-Fair ISD Superintendent Mark Henry took to his blog to announce the cancellation of all in-person classes for the remainder school year per instructions from Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Gov. Abbott closes Texas schools but takes steps to reopen economy

At noon today, Gov. Greg Abbott extended the closure of all Texas schools for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year; however, distance learning will continue, Henry said in his blog post on April 17. While I am disappointed that we will not be able to close out the school year in ways that we usually do, we must follow the directives issued by the governor so that we can safely come back together sometime soon.

The school district will continue Learning At Home instruction, for which grading began this week. Curbside meals will continue to be offered each weekday at select campuses. UIL has also suspended all activities for the rest of the 2019-2020 school year.

SCHOOL DISTRICT UPDATE: Cy-Fair ISD begins grading online assignments, provides updates on COVID-19 response plan

Our departments and campuses will continue to take your calls between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday through Friday, as well as through email, Henry said. On behalf of all of the staff in CFISD, we miss you and look forward to the time when we can safely be together again.

As of Friday, CFISD was still looking to hold alternative graduations in July if graduations still scheduled for May are not able to happen due to COVID-19 precautions.

For more information, visit cfisd.net/en.

chevall.pryce@chron.com
Fears are growing that patients who recover from the coronavirus may not have immunity, after South Korea revealed that increasing numbers of people are testing positive for a second time.

Some 163 patients there have been found to have Covid-19 again, having previously being discharged following a first bout.

The findings raise the disturbing possibility that contracting the infection once does not guarantee a natural defence in the future.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Kwon Joon-wook, deputy director of the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said authorities would now test 400 people who had been infected, with the aim of determining specifically how much  if any  immunity they appear to have.

However, he emphasised there was no concrete evidence that patients who had tested positive twice had actually contracted the virus again.

Rather, officials said that, while possible explanations are still being investigated, they suspect it may simply be a sign that the original virus had not disappeared from the body entirely: the hyper-sensitive tests may have detected fragments of the destroyed viruss RNA.

Thats one possible and very strong explanation, Kwon said.

The same theory was posited by Zhong Nanshan, one of Chinas top respiratory experts, earlier in the week.

In a press conference, he said that a recovered person can test positive because elements of deactivated disease remained in their body. Im not too worried about this issue, he added.

Both scientists suggested early indications were that such fragments, while potentially causing minor symptoms in the patient, would probably not be contagious to others.

Errors in testing were also mentioned as a possible cause  although, given the number of people found to be positive for a second time, this seems increasingly unlikely.

The World Health Organisation has also said it is investigating the phenomenon.
More than 2.3 million people have been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus worldwide as the spread of the virus continues.

The global coronavirus death toll stands at more than 160,000, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers, however, are believed to be much higher.

Many cities and states have begun counting probable deaths caused by COVID-19, including New York City, the epicenter of the disease in the United States.

The U.S. has more cases and deaths than any other country in the world, with at least 734,000 and 38,903, respectively.

Today's biggest developments:

US cases surpass 700,000 Illinois food plant to close after outbreak NJ reports 1,530 deaths at long-term care facilities Total deaths in Massachusetts exceed 1,500

Here's how the news developed on Saturday. All times Eastern.

9:29 p.m.: Judge strikes down Kansas ban on church gatherings

U.S. District Judge John Broomes ruled late Saturday against Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly's decision to limit churches from holding services with more than 10 people.

"Laura Kelly, in her capacity as Governor of the State of Kansas, is hereby enjoined and ordered to refrain from enforcing the prohibition in Executive Order No. 20-18 and Executive Order 20-25 prohibiting religious gatherings involving more than ten attendees ... so long as those gatherings comply with the social distancing and public health protocols Plaintiffs have indicated in their complaint they are prepared to apply," Broomes wrote in his decision.

MORE: With constitutional questions murky, some churches continue to defy restrictions on gatherings

The Democratic governor was fighting to keep large church gatherings from meeting in opposition to the Republican-controlled legislature.

Broomes wrote that "churches and religious activities appear to have been singled out among essential functions for stricter treatment."

Story continues

The ruling will hold at least until May 2.

There have been at least 1,850 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Kansas, according to Johns Hopkins University, and 85 deaths, mostly in Wyandotte County, which includes Kansas City, and Johnson County.

5:26 p.m.: Trump touts 'big studies' on racial disparities

President Donald Trump said his administration is conducting "big studies" on how COVID-19 is affecting African American and Hispanic communities.

"We're taking care of them, and it's so important because you've all been reading about the disproportionate numbers on African American, and you're reading a little bit less about Hispanic, but, likewise, Hispanic communities, Trump said at his daily White House briefing. "The numbers are disproportionate."

He did not elaborate on the studies.

The president also urged lawmakers to replenish the small business relief fund.

"The Paycheck Protection Program funding is now fully drained. It's out. It's gone," Trump said of the $350 billion relief fund.

He called on Democrats to get "on board," and said lawmakers "must stop blocking these funds."

PHOTO: President Donald Trump addresses the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in Washington, April 17, 2020. (Leah Millis/Reuters)

4:33 p.m.: Deaths in Massachusetts top 1,500

There were 156 deaths in Massachusetts over the last 24 hours, the state's second-deadliest day since the start of the pandemic, according to the state's Department of Health.

Total fatalities stand at 1,560. An alarming 52% of those were reported at long-term care facilities, according to the department.

There were 1,970 new cases confirmed over the last 24 hours, putting the state's total at 36,372.

The sobering news came ahead of Patriot's Day, the state holiday that commemorates the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and the day of the Boston Marathon, which, for the first time in its 124-year history, won't be run in April.

"[We] recognize that this will be, to some extent, a marathon for us as well," said Gov. Charlie Baker, following a tour of the citys largest field medical facility at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

3:30 p.m.: CDC did not manufacture COVID test 'consistent with its own protocol': FDA

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) did not manufacture its COVID-19 test consistent with its own protocol.

The news comes after a report from The Washington Post, claiming that the CDCs facilities that assembled COVID-19 kits violated manufacturing practices. The paper reports that one of the three test components was then contaminated. "The cross contamination most likely occurred because chemical mixtures were assembled into the kits within a lab space that was also handling synthetic coronavirus material," according to the Post.

In a statement to ABC News, the FDA said the following: "CDC made its test in one of its laboratories, rather than in its manufacturing facilities. CDC did not manufacture its test consistent with its own protocol."

"In February, the FDA was not able to determine from information provided by the CDC whether the test issues were due to a design or manufacturing issue. Knowing the underlying cause was important to determine whether the contract manufacturers could proceed to make the CDCs test for distribution and if the CDC could continue to manufacture its test. The FDA sent a renowned diagnostics expert to the CDC to help make that determination and to assist CDC. The FDA expert determined it was a manufacturing issue and worked with CDC to facilitate the production and quality control processing of test kits made by one of its contract manufacturers to expedite test kit distribution to public health and non-public health laboratories. That companyIDTmanufactured the CDC test as the FDA had authorized it. The test manufactured by IDT was distributed and has encountered no issues, thus supporting the conclusion that it was a manufacturing issue. The CDC test design has been used to develop tests by other commercial manufacturers and academic laboratories without any problems."

The CDC did not immediately respond to ABC News for comment.

2:55 p.m.: Canada mandates all air travelers have face coverings

All air travelers departing or connecting through Canada will be required to wear a non-medical face mask or face covering, the government announced.

The new order goes into effect Monday at noon.

Passengers without the necessary face covering during boarding will "not be allowed to continue on their journey." Passengers traveling by rail or motor carrier-bus are also strongly encouraged to wear non-medical masks or face coverings as much as possible, according to the government's statement.

2:32 p.m.: Biden campaign launches new ad against Trump's COVID response

Former Vice President Joe Bidens campaign launched a new paid media campaign and digital ad, pushing back on President Donald Trumps claims that he adequately prepared the nation for the coronavirus pandemic.

In the nearly 2-minute ad, titled "Unprepared," a narrator says Trump "rolled over for the Chinese."

"He took their word for it," the narrator says, before playing news reports of a February tweet from Trump praising Chinas "transparency" in handling the coronavirus crisis.

The ad also shows Bidens January op-ed in USA Today urging Trump to put American officials in China to monitor COVID-19s spread and Trumps early praise of the Chinese governments handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

"Trump praised the Chinese 15 times in January and February, as the coronavirus spread across the world," the narrator continues, saying that 40,000 travelers from China were allowed in the U.S. despite Trumps claim that he banned entry into the country.

"We have more officially reported cases and deaths than any other country. Donald Trump left this country unprepared and unprotected for the worst public health and economic crisis in our lifetime. And now, we're paying the price. All the negative ads in the world can't change the truth," the ad concludes.

The campaign is not running broadcast ads, but the digital ad will run on Facebook and Instagram in the key battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina and Florida, according to a campaign aide. It will target both current and new supporters.

In addition to Facebook and Instagram, the ad will also run on YouTube in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to combat the negative ads being run by Trump and his allies.

PHOTO: In this March 12, 2020, file photo Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks about the coronavirus in Wilmington, Del. (Matt Rourke/AP, FILE)

2:13 p.m.: Boeing delivers 540,000 masks to New Hampshire

Boeing delivered 540,000 masks from China to the United States Saturday, marking its first completed COVID-19 airlift mission, according to a statement from the airline company.

The masks will be used by frontline medical workers and first responders in New Hampshire, where the Boeing 737-700 landed.

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu and Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun were in attendance as the aircraft filled with personal protective equipment (PPE) was unloaded at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.

Boeing said more airlift transport missions with its Boeing Dreamlifter and ecoDemonstrator are planned in the future.

1:55 p.m.: At least 18,215 cases in Texas

There are now at least 18,215 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Texas, according to the state's Department of Health.

More than 1,000 people have been hospitalized and at least 453 people have died, the department reported.

Houston remains the city with the most cases, at 4,460. Dallas and Fort Worth have reported the second- and third-highest numbers with 2,190 and 1,175 cases, respectively. Austin and San Antonio follow.

1:34 p.m.: Over 1,700 California nursing home residents COVID-19 positive

At least 1,740 residents at nursing homes in California have tested positive for COVID-19, according to data released by the state's Department of Public Health. There are also at least 1,290 staff at the homes who have tested positive, the data shows.

It is the first time California has made public the names and case data for nursing homes statewide.

The largest outbreak in a nursing home in the state is at Redwood Springs Healthcare Center, in Tulare County, where 91 patients and 46 employees were infected.

1:10 p.m.: Canada, US extend border closure

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada and the United States have agreed to extend a border closure for nonessential travel an additional 30 days.

"This is an important decision and one that will keep people on both sides of the border safe," Trudeau said. "It's another example of the excellent collaboration between our two countries."

Essential goods and services will continue to pass through the border.

Daily deaths in Italy drop below 500

There were 482 deaths reported in Italy over the last 24 hours, according to the Civil Protection Agency, the first time since March 19 that figure was below 500.

The total number of fatalities is now 23,227, according to the agency. There were 3,491 new cases, putting the total number of cases, including active, deceased and cured, at 175,925. That's a 2.1% increase from the previous day.

The number of patients in hospital care again declined.

PHOTO: An ambulance of the Italian Red Cross is seen in one of the main squares of the city, on April 8, 2020, in Bergamo, Italy. (Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images)

12:25 p.m.: Travel ban for troops extended

Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday is expected to extend the ban on domestic and international travel for U.S. troops to June 30. The original bans, announced in March, were through May 11.

Esper hinted that he would extend the ban earlier this week, however he didn't provide specifics. Matt Donovan, the Department of Defense's undersecretary for personnel and readiness, told reporters on a conference call Saturday morning the extension would be revised to June 30.

Under the previous ban, all travel within states and to overseas countries was banned. Only limited waivers were granted for domestic and international travel. The extension will mostly follow those same restrictions, but Donovan said they will "be more liberal and will allow for the deployment and return of troops from combat zones."

"While many areas in the United States may be on a positive trajectory, some areas and many nations are not, as personnel movements continue to present a threat of spreading COVID-19 within our ranks and communities, and from abroad," Donovan said.

12:14 p.m.: Cuomo says labs unable to double testing at this time

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that the top 50 labs conducting tests are not able to double their output because they don't have enough reagents.

Cuomo said increasing testing is crucial in order to safely reopen the state.

He offered cautious optimism about the virus' spread in New York. Based on a number of indications, including net hospitalization numbers, ICU admissions and intubations, Cuomo said it could be argued that the state is "past the plateau" and starting "to descend."

However, he also noted that 2,000 people were admitted into hospitals statewide on Friday.

"That is still an overwhelming number every day," Cuomo said. "If it wasn't for the relative context we were in, this would be devastating news."

In the last 24 hours, 540 people died as a result of COVID-19, according to the governor. The majority of those deaths were in hospitals, with 36 in nursing homes.

Cuomo called nursing homes the single-biggest fear in all of this," saying that they are a "feeding frenzy" for the virus.

The governor also announced that the federal government has sent 1.5 million cloth masks to distribute to the public.

PHOTO: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gives a press briefing about the coronavirus crisis, on April 17, 2020, in Albany, New York. (Matthew Cavanaugh/Getty Images)

10:20 a.m.: At least 7,300 long-term care residents have died in 19 states

At least 7,300 nursing home or long-term care residents have died as a result of COVID-19 throughout the U.S., a survey of state records by ABC News shows.

The count comes from data provided by governor's offices and departments of health in 19 states. Many states do not yet report such data and did not reply to requests for the information.

New York reported the most deaths at nursing homes in the U.S., with 3,316 residents having died there from the virus.

On Friday, data showed that 10 different nursing homes in New York each have at least 30 confirmed COVID-19 deaths. Nineteen of the state's nursing homes have each had at least 20 deaths linked to the pandemic.

The Cobble Hill Health Center in Brooklyn reported the most deaths at 55, followed by Kings Harbor Multicare Center in the Bronx with 45.

New Jersey reported the second highest figure, with 1,530 long term care facility deaths.

The states reporting such data were Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming. Three states -- Alabama, California and North Carolina -- reported some data, but not statistics on fatalities.

9:37 a.m.: African American Mayors Association asks Trump to fund collection of racial data

As coronavirus appears to disproportionately affect certain races in the U.S., the African American Mayors Association is requesting the Trump administration allocate federal funds to collect a racial breakdown of the data.

The mayors said they, among others, are "on the front lines of this pandemic, and have quickly confronted crucial gaps, which surprisingly includes the availability of basic and accurate data about whom is affected by this virus."

The letter was signed by Mayors Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, Georgia; Muriel Bowser of Washington, D.C.; and Hardie Davis, Jr. of Augusta, Georgia.

They noted that some data on race and ethnicity has been made available in California, Georgia, New Mexico, Michigan and Washington, D.C.

"However, to enhance the quality of care and to address ongoing disparities in our health system, federal guidelines for COVID-19 data collection and reporting standards are essential," the letter reads.

The states currently lack uniformity in both the collection of data and federal reporting standards for the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases they report to the federal government each day.

In addition to a breakdown of race and ethnicity, the mayors requested a report on health indicators, such as insurance, education, employment, disability status, primary language and sex.

PHOTO: Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms speaks at a news conference in Atlanta, Jan. 4, 2018. (David Goldman/AP-File)

6:37 a.m.: Minnesota governor says he tried to call Trump about 'liberate' tweet

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he tried to call President Donald Trump after the president tweeted LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" on Friday.

For a couple of hours, the governor had tried calling Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and "got no return," Walz said during a Friday press briefing.

"My first responsibility is protection of Minnesota's people," Walz said, while also stating he supports the protesters right to protest.

"When I called to ask what are we doing differently about moving towards getting as many people back into the workforce without compromising the health of Minnesotans or the providers and that will probably take longer than a two-word tweet," he said.

"I would argue we are doing everything that they're telling us to do, but the difference is I actually have to do it here," Walz added.

Minnesota reported its largest daily increase in diagnosed coronavirus cases Friday, and an additional 17 deaths. The state has at least 2,070 COVID-19 cases and 111 deaths.

4:29 a.m.: Illinois food plant forced to close after outbreak

The Ogle County Health Department has ordered the Hormel Foods plant in Rochelle, Illinois, to close immediately due to an outbreak of the novel coronavirus. Health officials say there are at least two dozen cases linked to the facility.

The plant will be forced to close for two weeks.

"Although many essential businesses are open and operating, we will not tolerate them risking the health and safety of their employees or our community during this pandemic or any other time," Rochelle Mayor John Bearrows said in a statement Friday.

Tune into ABC at 1 p.m. ET and ABC News Live at 4 p.m. ET every weekday for special coverage of the novel coronavirus with the full ABC News team, including the latest news, context and analysis.

The county health department said it made "several attempts" to help control the outbreak, including recommending additional testing, steps for employee monitoring, new sanitation processes and more.

"My team has spent countless hours in collaboration with Rochelle Foods in an attempt to mitigate the virus spread," Kyle Auman, Ogle County Health Department administrator, said in a statement. "Since these efforts were unsuccessful, it is my duty to order a complete closure of the facility."

In a statement, Hormel confirmed it was given a notice of closure on Friday and that it's "working to further understand the closure order and are consulting with our legal counsel to understand next steps," according to ABC News affiliate KAAL.

The company said Rochelle Foods team members would continue to be paid during the closure.

PHOTO: Amanda Zacek, a certified medical assistant from Swartz Creek, peeks out from the tent, April 15, 2020, at Atwood Stadium in Flint, Mich. (Jake May/The Flint Journal via AP)

What to know about coronavirus:

How it started and how to protect yourself: Coronavirus explained

What to do if you have symptoms: Coronavirus symptoms

Tracking the spread in the U.S. and worldwide: Coronavirus map

ABC News' Matthew Vann, Allison Pecorin, Katherine Faulders, Soo Rin Kim, Olivia Rubin, Luis Martinez, Gina Sunseri, Jason Volack, Joshua Hoyos, Matthew Fuhrman, Mina Kaji, John Verhoveck, Molly Nagle, Matt German, Sophie Tatum and Elizabeth Thomas contributed to this report.

Italys daily coronavirus death toll lowest in nearly a month originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
We are getting the phrase "We are all in this together" rammed down our throats at every opportunity. The hope is, I suppose, that we we will believe it if we hear it enough. Sadly the evidence is very clear that we are not all in this together, in fact we have never been so torn apart as a society. Consider these results of the virus:

People panic buying excessive quantities of products, which are then unavailable to the majority.

People buying up items that are in short supply and selling them at a vast profit.

People snitching on their neighbours for perceived breaches of guidelines (and most of them are guidelines, not laws).

Health workers being rejected as tenants by potential landlords.

People clamouring for us to close provincial borders so that our fellow Canadians can't cross.

A prime minister who tells us not to do something, but then does it himself.

Many small businesses will not make it through this crisis but dairy farmers get to keep producing milk and then pouring millions of litres away. For our government this is preferable to giving all Canadians a break on the price.

A government that increases carbon tax at a time when many are struggling to make ends meet.

It's time to face reality: that this crisis is bringing out the worst in people, and in our incompetent government. It may be that we will still be faced with restrictions even when this is all over, so it is up to all of us to hang on to our freedom of speech and the liberty that we used to enjoy.



Peter Emery
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18) A 72-year-old inmate of the Correctional Institution for Women (CIW) in Mandaluyong City has tested positive for coronavirus infection, the Bureau of Corrections said Saturday.

The elderly patient was brought to Sta. Ana Hospital in Manila on Monday after being diagnosed with community acquired pneumonia at the CIW's infirmary, BuCor said in a statement.

The patient also has been diagnosed with diabetes mellitus type 2, according to a report from Corrections Superintendent Virginia Mangawit.

BuCor said all medical personnel and prisoners who had contact with the patient "are now being tested" for COVID-19 as a precautionary measure.

Justice Undersecretary Marrk Perete said prison authorities are now trying to determine if the patient got infected while at the facility or while confined at the hospital. The Department of Justice has supervisory powers over the BuCor, which manages the country's prisons.

On Friday, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology announced that nine detainees and nine prison employees at the Quezon City jail have contracted the coronavirus disease. The BJMP said all nine inmates have been isolated and are "in good shape," without any symptoms.

Meanwhile, some employees afflicted with the virus were told to go through self-quarantine at home as they did not exhibit severe symptoms.

Earlier this month, 22 prisoners who have underlying medical conditions filed a petition before the Supreme Court, seeking temporary freedom amid the coronavirus disease outbreak.

The high court on Friday asked the BJMP to comment within five days of the prisoners' petition.

For their part, BuCor said no other prison and penal facilities have reported COVID-19 cases.

"Rest assured that the lone PDL (person deprived of liberty) patient who is now confined at Sta. Ana Hospital is being attended to by our hospital frontliners," it added.

Nationwide, the number of COVID-19 cases rose to 6,087 on Saturday, with 397 deaths and 516 recoveries.
Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi said that building submarines equipped with nuclear propulsion systems is on the countrys agenda. The two branches of Irans Navy, the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy, include 34 submarines.

Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi said that building submarines equipped with nuclear propulsion systems is on the countrys agenda. The two branches of Irans Navy, the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy, include 34 submarines.

A Russian-built, Kilo-class diesel submarine purchased by Iran. (Picture source Wikimedia)

Its a kind of negligence if the Islamic Republic does not think about using nuclear propulsion in submarines  this domestic capability exists in the Defense Ministry regarding the production of submarines bigger than Fateh and certainly, the developing of submarine propulsion is on the agenda of the Navy, Rear Admiral Khanzadi said.

The stance of the Islamic Republic of Iran towards nuclear energy is clear and defined and the Leader of the Islamic Revolution has many times highlighted its peaceful nature, he added.

All the countrys organizations are moving in the defined framework regarding the nuclear program, Rear Admiral Khanzadi said, adding, None of the international pacts ban using peaceful nuclear energy but the peace we are talking about doesnt find meaning without maintaining defense readiness.

When there is no deterrence and readiness for a defense, no peace and stability will be established and so the Armed Forces of the country are present to ensure sustainable peace, he added.

Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi announced last year that his country had made good progress in manufacturing nuclear propulsion systems used in ships and submarines.

Nuclear propulsion uses a nuclear power reactor to generate electricity on a vessel. Such systems are best known for their use on strategic nuclear submarines, which allow them to stay submerged for weeks avoiding detection. Nuclear propulsion is also used on some big surface ships like aircraft carriers or icebreakers.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in 2016 ordered the country's nuclear agency to start plans to produce nuclear fuel and propulsion systems for ships and submarines in response to the violation of the 2015 nuclear deal by Washington.

Currently, Iranian Naval forces don't have nuclear-powered attack submarines. From 1992 to 1996, Iran commissioned the three Kilo-class (called Tareq-class in Iran) diesel-electric submarines from Russia. In 2007, Iran began deployments of small Ghadir-class and Nahang-class mini-submarines for use in shallow coastal waters. Reports on the number of operating Ghadir-class submarines range from 10 to 21, but in 2017, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence estimated that Iran possessed 14 of such submarines.
Filmmaker Karan Johar on Saturday announced his support to various relief funds and a host of NGOs to help those affected by the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The producer will be donating to PM-CARES and Maharashtra Chief Minister's Relief Fund through his banner Dharma Productions.

The production house will also be helping out not-for-profits such as Give India Fundraisers, GOONJ, Zomato Feeding India, International Association for Human Values (IAHV) and Producers Guild of India.

"Over the past month India has stood united in this decision to stay home and stay safe until we overcome this pandemic. But there is so much more to do in order to win the fight against this dreaded disease," the production house said in a statement.

"With the lockdown being extended, it's only going to get harder on everyone, especially those workers and technicians who rely on daily wages for their livelihood. They are in a situation in which they don't have clarity on where their next meal is coming from...and that can be scary.... very scary," it added.

The company said that it is the moral responsibility of every individual to help those affected by the lockdown.

"They are in this situation through no fault of their own, and we believe it's our moral responsibility to help them as much as we possibly can that is why the entire Dharma family has come together to extend our support to the various causes initiated by the government and host of NGOs to help those affected by this lockdown.

"There is still a lot to be done, and this is our contribution to the cause. Let us all unite and fight COVID together," the statement added.

According to the health ministry, death toll due to COVID-19 rises to 480 in country; cases climb to 14,378.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In an effort to keep people at



home during the ongoing lockdown, the department of Bihar has introduced an online quiz competition, an official said on Saturday.

The department has also decided to give prizes and certificates, as a token of appreciation, to the winners of the competition to encourage people to participate in the programme, he said.

The quiz contest aims at engaging people during the lockdown and giving them an opportunity to know about nature and wildlife of Bihar, the environment, forest and climate change department's principal secretary Dipak Kumar Singh said.

The government's priority has been to keep people at home to check the spread of the coronavirus outbreak.

"Initially, we have launched the programme to entertain people and build awareness about Now, we have converted it to a competition," Singh said.

One has to visit the Facebook page and Twitter account of the department to take part in the quiz competition, he said, adding that there will be multiple-choice questions and participants have to select one among four options given for each question.

The competition will be arranged every day during the ongoing lockdown, he said.

"During the first phase of the lockdown, we had conducted a special campaign on What Mother Nature Teaches Us' in a series of 21 unique informative posts on social media. Now we are conducting the quiz.

"We have a treasure of information related to the environment, forest and climate of Bihar, which common people may not know and this would be interesting for them," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China-Kazakhstan ties unaffected by online article amid joint fight against pandemic: Chinese envoy

Global Times

By Deng Xiaoci Source:Globaltimes.cn Published: 2020/4/17 2:12:29

China and Kazakhstan are joining hands in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic, and friendly relations between the two would not be affected at all by a minor episode caused by an online article by some we-media, the Chinese Ambassador to Kazakhstan told the Global Times in an exclusive interview on Thursday.

The Chinese ambassador made the comments following an episode in which major Chinese social media networks and websites deleted a series of nationalist misleading articles which spread fake information online about China's neighboring countries and regions "eager to return to China." One of these online articles reportedly suggested "Why Kazakhstan is eager to return to China?"

The online article prompted Kazakhstan's foreign ministry to summon the Chinese ambassador on Tuesday to protest over the article, Reuters reported.

Zhang Xiao, Chinese Ambassador to Kazakhstan, told the Global Times that he met with the Central Asian country's First Deputy Foreign Minister Shakhrat Nuryshev on Tuesday at the latter's request.

"The two sides reached major agreements after fully exchanging views over the development of China-Kazakhstan relations in a talk conducted in a practical, friendly, and highly constructive atmosphere," Zhang said.

On his part, Nuryshev spoke highly of the large amount of humanitarian material aid China has sent to the country to assist its fight against COVID-19.

Also, on behalf of the Kazakhstani government, Nuryshev expressed gratitude to China's dispatching of a medical expert team to the country. He also believed that China demonstrated good-neighborly friendship and strategic cooperation between China and Kazakhstan through practical actions.

He especially pointed out that rapid testing kits China provided to the country enables Kazakhstan to quickly identify confirmed and suspected cases, and achieve early treatment and control of the epidemic.

During the meeting, Nuryshev mentioned an article about Kazakhstan that recently emerged on a Chinese website, content of which was not in line with historical facts, nor with the high level of bilateral relations between the two countries. The Kazakhstani diplomat hoped the Chinese side could take measures to eliminate negative influence brought about by the article, so as to avoid it being used by people with ulterior motives and solidify a good atmosphere for public opinion regarding a permanent comprehensive strategic partnership.

China and Kazakhstan have been firmly supporting each other in battling the pandemic, which fully demonstrates true brotherhood in the time of adversity, Zhang said during the meeting.

Commenting on the controversial article, Zhang underscored that it does not represent the Chinese government's stance over the matter, and it works opposite to constructively pushing forward the development of relations between the two countries and enhancing mutual trust.

Zhang vowed to forward the request from the Kazakhstani side to relevant departments in China.

Zhang told the Global Times that it was a normal and routine diplomatic meeting, and it took place in a relaxed and friendly fashion.

"I noticed some media outlets have used exaggerated vocabulary to hype up the event, which is entirely groundless," he said.

Some Western media have hyped up Zhang's meeting with the Kazakhstani foreign ministry official as a "protest" event staged by the Kazakhstani side.

"It is clear from any experienced diplomat, protesting is only proper when relations between two countries have witnessed a major crisis, and when one side has severely harmed the other's major interests."

"Currently, China and Kazakhstan are fighting the pandemic shoulder to shoulder. In China, from the central government to local governments, from companies to individuals, we are all going all out to help Kazakhstan, and we sincerely wish Kazakhstan could soon rein in the epidemic."

China has sent the largest amount of aid, moving swiftly to assist Kazakhstan in its epidemic fight, and Kazakhstan is the first Commonwealth of Independent States member that China has sent a medical expert team to, Zhang stressed.

"On what grounds can anyone say the two countries are experiencing a diplomatic crisis, and one is harming the other's major interest?"

The incident counts only as a trivial episode and would not affect China-Kazakhstan relations at all, Zhang noted.

Zhang also revealed that he advised during the meeting that the two sides should both attach great importance to the content of history books, as to educate teenagers from both countries the correct historic view, in order to ensure the continuing friendship between the two countries can pass down from generation to generation.

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Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Snow will taper off and end this evening but skies will remain cloudy late. Low 3F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 100%. Snow accumulating 1 to 3 inches..

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Snow will taper off and end this evening but skies will remain cloudy late. Low 3F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 100%. Snow accumulating 1 to 3 inches.
A small group of Christian clergy celebrated on Saturday the Holy Fire ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in a deserted Jerusalem as pilgrims who normally attended the ancient ritual stayed home due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Clergymen entered the Edicule, a chamber built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was buried two thousand years ago and rose from the dead after being crucified. Bells tolled above a near-empty church as the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, Theophilos III, emerged from the crypt carrying a candle lit by the flame. The source of the flame is a closely-guarded secret.

Clerics from different Orthodox denominations then circled around inside the empty church, chanting prayers that echoed off the walls. In the medieval courtyard outside, instead of the tens of thousands of worshippers who usually attend the ceremony, there were a few Israeli police and clerics maintaining social distancing.

Traditional festival

Sunbeams that pierce through a skylight in the churchs dome are believed by worshippers to ignite a flame deep inside the crypt, a mysterious act considered a Holy Saturday miracle each year before Orthodox Easter Sunday.

Jerusalems Greek Orthodox Patriarch then lights a candle with the Holy Fire and disperses it to the faithful. The Greek Orthodox and Armenian Orthodox churches share custody of Church of the Holy Sepulchre with Roman Catholics, who celebrated Easter last week.

In normal years there would be thousands of tiny candles held by cheering worshippers packed into the passageways of the building. But this year only a handful of Greek, Armenian, Russian and Coptic clergy, many garbed in black and wearing face masks, were present inside the church to receive the flame from the patriarch.

An Armenian priest wearing a protective mask and gloves passes on the Holy Fire lit in the church of the Holy Sepulchre [Ahmad Gharabli/AFP]

Ripples of applause broke out from a small group in Jerusalem awaiting the flame outside the church, including envoys from Orthodox Christian countries.

As the fire passed through the Christian Quarter of the Old City, worshippers who had been unable to attend the church ceremony thronged into the back streets to receive it, ignoring coronavirus restrictions as they chanted, banged drums, waved crucifixes and climbed on each others shoulders.

The flame was also transported by oil lamp a few miles south to the Palestinian town of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, where clergy witnessed the Holy Fire arrive at the Church of the Nativity.

The church, revered in tradition as Jesuss birthplace, has been closed for weeks because of a coronavirus outbreak in Bethlehem, as have other churches in the Holy Land.

As Israel has reported more than 13,000 coronavirus infections and 158 deaths, it made special arrangements with church leaders to allow the holy flame to be carried abroad to other Orthodox communities.

Because anyone entering Israel must go into quarantine, foreign dignitaries coming to pick up the flame will receive it in special containers on their planes and immediately return home.

Jerusalem has sites sacred to Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Leaders of all three religions have closed holy sites or restricted access, and have urged followers to celebrate festivals at home this year.
With many businesses closed and unemployment applications exceeding 350,000 in the state, putting food on the table has become one of the biggest challenges for families.

The coronavirus pandemic has strained the stock in pantries and other organizations across Connecticut, sometimes forcing families to drive home from a distribution empty-handed.

Food has certainly been the greatest need identified by those who are calling for assistance, said Isabel Almeida, interim president for United Way of Western Connecticut. Our local food pantries have seen a doubling and even tripling for those who need food.

United Way, which is among the organizations and companies involved in distributions to low-income housing facilities in Danbury, has not run out of food, Almeida said.

But the Connecticut Food Bank had to turn away about 150 cars when it ran out of goods to distribute in Danbury on Thursday morning, while other organizations said they have given out all their food or ended their events early when supplies go quickly.

Food distributions are one of the most, I think, visible and emotional proofs of this pandemic, said Paul Shipman, spokesman for the Connecticut Food Bank, which provides commodities to pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and more. We are working hard to meet (the increased need) and, clearly, its a challenge.

The issue at Rogers Park Middle School in Danbury, where 300 cars were still served, attracted the attention of Gov. Ned Lamont, who described the sense of fear the situation represented.

He said the number of calls to the 211 hotline about food reflect the anxiety people feel in trying to feed their families. While he said fewer items have been voluntarily donated, resources are still available for organizations to purchase food.

Our food supply in this state, in this country and in our food banks is strong, Lamont said in his press briefing on Friday.

Meanwhile, the number of applications for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has roughly quadrupled since February, said Dan Giacomi, program administration manager for the state Department of Social Services.

We are seeing a major increase in SNAP applications, as expected in times when more people qualify for help in making ends meet, he said.

About 360,000 individuals in 212,000 households were enrolled in the program at the end of March. That could rise to 400,000 individuals, levels last seen during the Great Recession, he said.

Increased need

The Connecticut Food Bank has run out of commodities at its mobile pantries before, but the organization has never seen this level of demand statewide, making it harder to plan, Shipman said.

Recently, a mobile food distribution in Hamden saw 176 cars one week; the following week, they served 490 cars before turning away many more, he said.

Its a terrible feeling to have to turn someone away from a food distribution, Shipman said.

Requiring individuals to sign up would not work because word of the pantries spreads quickly, and families would show up without registering, he said.

Often, these families have not needed these services before.

These are families who typically would be fine if all things were normal in the world, Almeida said. But theyve lost wages or theyve lost their jobs because of COVID (19), and all of a sudden are facing a need and dont know where to turn.

Food pantries and organizations in Bridgeport, Greenwich, Stamford, Stratford and Hamden said they have seen significantly more clients and served more food than average.

Norwalk schools have seen a surge, too, distributing 9,600 meals between March 30 and April 3, compared to 17,300 meals just last week.

The crisis could have long-lasting effects on pantries, said Chris Dina, manager of South End Community Centers food pantry in Stratford.

As this goes on longer and longer, theres some folks who wont have a job to go back to, she said. Until they can figure out what to do, they may for awhile depend upon our type of resource in order to provide food for their household.

Demand is coming not only from those who cannot afford food, but those who are unable to leave their homes because they are elderly, have underlying medical conditions or are quarantine, said Kathleen Purdy, executive director of Hillside Food Outreach, which is delivering free items to homebound people in Fairfield County and Westchester and Putnam counties in neighboring New York.

It doesnt matter whether or not they can afford it, Purdy said. This is a crisis situation, and if you cant get out, you cant get out.

Typically, the organization makes two to three deliveries a week, but has made about 70 in Fairfield County since March 10, she said.

A greater spike in demand could occur once the states ban on evictions ends and families are under pressure to pay rent, said Kate Lombardo, executive director of the Stamford-based Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County, which serves food pantries from Greenwich to Wilton.

When they pay that rent, that is when the crisis of food shortage should kick in, she said. Thats when its really going to be a crisis.

Slow to restock

The biggest challenge for Greenwichs Neighbor to Neighbor is the growing wait time for access to popular foods, including pasta, rice, tuna and cereal, said director of operations Duncan Lawson.

The pantrys supply remains adequate, he said, but hes worried about the weeks ahead.

While I have enough to support what we do in the moment, it is a constant concern, and it changes daily, he said.

Shelf-stable milk is not available, so the organization is buying non-dairy milks, such as almond and coconut milk. It would take six to eight weeks to acquire the non-perishable version, he said.

Pancake mix, fresh vegetables, eggs, meat, fish and canned goods are in short supply at other pantries.

YIsiah Lopes, Hamdens Community Services coordinator, said his team worried last week the pantry would run out of food, since they were running dangerously low on dry goods and items in high demand, including milk.

The pantry relies on the Connecticut Food Bank for about 96 percent of its goods, but was told this week more food would be available in three to six weeks, Lopes said. Still, he expects supply being strained until October.

Typical donations from the food industry to the Connecticut Food Bank have declined because grocery stores have been shopped bare, Shipman said. The organization and congregational delegation have been pushing for more products at the federal level from the Emergency Food Assistance Program, he said, while financial donations have helped the organization order food.

But even that can prove difficult.

Youre in a very competitive marketplace, and those orders stretch beyond Connecticut borders, he said. Youre looking at everyone across the country who are dealing with these same challenges.

A new shipment was delayed to New Milfords Faith Church, which allocated $20,000 from its general fund to purchase groceries and meals from local restaurants to distribute on Wednesday evenings, the Rev. Frank Santora said. So, only restaurant meals  not groceries  were distributed last week.

He hopes the new food arrives by the next distribution.

As weve spoken with our normal suppliers, they said things are basically running dry and theyre having to wait for it, Santora said.

Social distancing challenges

Social distancing has forced some pantries to move operations outdoors and hand out items to people in cars.

Bridgeport Rescue Mission suspended its mobile kitchen, which served sites in Bridgeport and Norwalk, because the quarters were too tight for volunteers.

Instead, the mission launched a grocery delivery service to some of the low-income housing developments in both of those cities, spokeswoman Donna Romano said.

Some smaller, scattered food sites run by individual churches and other groups that are often operated by senior volunteers have been forced to close, said Mike Donoghue, executive director of Catholic Charities of Fairfield County.

This has put more pressure on his organization, which operates soup kitchens and food pantries at the Thomas Merton Center in Bridgeport and the New Covenant Center in Stamford. He has noticed an influx of younger volunteers, including college students.

The Connecticut Food Bank reduced the number of people working in its warehouse at one time, but has adjusted priorities to increase the number of pounds going out on trucks, Shipman said.

Donations key

Meanwhile, other organizations said they have seen an increase in community support.

This community always surprises me, but right now its amazing, said Amanda Meeson, executive director of the Sterling House Community Center in Stratford. Without saying a word, weve had financial donations. We arrive every day with a bin full of food people have left.

Donations have been flowing into Hillside Food Outreach, too, Purdy said. This includes money from Boehringer Ingelheim and volunteers from Sodexo, which operates BIs cafeterias, sending volunteers.

If it wasnt for them in any county, we never would have been able to keep up with this, Purdy said.

The companies are working with United Way and Food Rescue, as well, delivering 4,780 meals across five sites, said Linda Ruckel, spokeswoman for Boehringer-Ingelheim.

United Way is collecting donations for a fund to enhance its healthy food program, where families receive $20 each week for six weeks to purchase healthy food. This is double the benefit normally given.

It really does help families week-to-week as they buy groceries, Almeida said.

The nonprofit also offers a digital rewards card to purchase necessities, such as food and gas.

It gives them the flexibility to identify their most critical need and put those funds toward that, Almeida said.

Staff writers Tatiana Flowers, Katrina Koerting, Ethan Fry, Michael Mayko, Clare Dignan, Brian Lockhart and Erin Kayata contributed to this report.
Three labourers suffocated to death and another was injured after inhaling toxic gases while cleaning the septic tank of a private bungalow in Virar on Friday.

Despite the Covid-19 lockdown, the bungalow owner identified as Hemant Gharat had hired the four labourers to clean the septic tank behind his bungalow at Ranpada, Boling in Virar (West).

The four men identified as Nayan Bhoye, Jayendra Mukne, Tejas Bhate and Nitesh Mukne entered the septic tank without any safety gear with Gharat supervising the work from outside.

The men complained of uneasiness inside the tank and Gharat managed to pull them out. He rushed them to a private hospital where three of them were declared dead before admission. The hospital informed the Arnala Coastal police.

The condition of Nitesh is said to be serious and he is being treated at the Sanjeevani Hospital in Virar. He was at the topmost area of the tank while the other three had ventured inside it to carry out cleaning work.

We are in the process of registering a case of causing death due to negligence against the bungalow owner and also Sections 188 (disobedience) and 296 (spread of infection) of IPC, Epidemic Diseases Act,1897, and Disaster Management Act, 2005, said a police official.

We are also investigating if the workers were sent to the bungalow by a contractor, the official added.

A case of accidental death was registered on Friday night.
WILLIAMSPORT  The estate of a Northumberland County man who died in police custody in 2017 has received $$350,000 as settlement of its federal lawsuit against two Coal Twp. police officers.

The township, responding to a Right to Know request, said Crystal Hogan Spurgeon and her attorney received $270,099 with the balance going in annuities for three minor children.

Spurgeon is the widow of Joshua D. Sprugeon, 27, who committed suicide in a holding cell on Oct. 1, 2017, after being taken into custody related to a domestic dispute at his Shamokin area home.

Settlement of the suit in U.S. Middle District Court against then Officers Edward C. Purcell Jr. and Matthew Hashuga was reached last October but the terms were confidential.

Purcell is now police chief and Hashuga is the departments detective. Neither was disciplined over the incident, township manager Robert Slaby said.

According to the court complaint, Spurgeon was not home when Purcell initially responded but was there about an hour later when police were called back.

Both officers came this time, handcuffed Spurgeon behind his back and placed him in a cruiser, the suit stated.

Emilio Spurgeon, who also lived there, alerted officers his brother was not in the right state of mind and might hurt himself, the complaint stated.

The estate accused Purcell and Hashuga of not removing the visible drawstring on Spurgeons pants that he used to hang himself.

Northumberland County Coroner James F. Kelley said that based on what he saw on surveillance video the officers were not at fault.

Family members claimed they were not permitted to see the body for several days but when they were, they observed unexplained cuts and bruises on it.

Insurance covered the entire amount paid the to Sprugeon estate, Slaby said.

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The statement was from a recently released publication themed "Annual Vietnam Economic Review: Improving Labour Productivity in the Digital Economy" by the National Economics University (NEU).

This is the first study of a domestic organisation quantifying the impact of digital economy on labour productivity across industries and economic regions, as well as offering a forecast on the impact of digital economy on overall labour productivity.

According to Prof., Dr. Tran Tho Dat, Chairman of the NEU Council, among the three major cores of the economy, the FDI sector has always led in terms of labour productivity, followed by the State-owned and non-state sectors, respectively.

Specifically, the labour productivity of the FDI sector reached VND186.23 million per labourer in 2010, 1.4 times higher than the State-owned sector and 8.6 times higher than the non-state sector. In 2018, figure in the FDI sector reached VND225.12 million per labour, about 1.3 times the State-owned sector and 6.9 times the non-state sector.

However, labour productivity in the FDI sector has fluctuated unstably and witnessed continuous decreases since 2016. Meanwhile, the labour productivity of the State-owned sector tends to increase, thus gradually bridging the gap regarding the absolute labour productivity in comparison with the FDI economic sector. Significant improvements in the labour productivity of the State-owned sector (from VND132.46 million/employee in 2010 to VND175.37 million/employee in 2018) were mainly due to the accelerated equitisation of State-owned enterprises and based on their advantages in allocated resources and preferential access to production resources.

The non-state economic sector has the lowest labour productivity, in which the private sector has labour productivity of VND44.58 million/labourer, lower than the figures of the collective economic sector, the State-owned economy and the FDI sector but higher than that of the household economic sector and the overall economys labour productivity.

Despite the household economic sector having the lowest level of labour productivity, reaching VND17.83 million per employee in 2010 and increased to VND27.52 million per employee in 2018, it is still an important economic sector as it creates more than 70% of the economy's jobs. Therefore, if the labour transition from the household economic sector to advanced areas takes place smoothly on the larger scale, the overall labour productivity will increase very quickly. For that reason, creating a favourable environment for businesses to grow to a larger scale is the core to improve labour productivity of the whole economy.

According to evaluation of the research team, Vietnams labour productivity in 2010 was VND71.87 million per employee and may increase to VND126.5 million by 2030. The average growth rate of labour productivity is likely at 5.7% a year during the 2020-2025 period and 5.9% per year between 2025 and 2030.

For the whole period from 2020 to 2030, on average, digital economy each year can contribute from 7% to 16.5% to the overall growth rate of labour productivity. According to the report, it can be seen that the contribution of digital economy is important to productivity and efficiency of the whole economy, and offers a new driving force for rapid improvement of labour productivity.

The publication also stated that digital economy lays the most impact on labour productivity in the fields related to science and technology, financial - banking activities and insurance, real estate and ICT, while having the lowest contribution to agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and at a modest level in the processing and manufacturing industries.

Assoc. Prof., Dr. To Trung Thanh, Head of Scientific Management Department (under the NEU), commented that Vietnam's labour productivity has continuously increased, making an important contribution to the country's socio-economic growth. However, a gap in labour productivity still remains between the top industries and the others in the economy.

Because only over 2% of the labour force in the economy is working in the Top 4 industries with the highest level of labour productivity, it can be said that one of the reasons leading to the low level of the economys overall labour productivity is that most employment is concentrated in industries with low labour productivity.

In the national socio-economic development process, labour productivity is a decisive factor to improve the competitiveness of the economy and enterprises. Therefore, the Prime Minister has issued Directive No. 07/CT-TTg, dated February 4, 2020, on solutions to boost national labour productivity.
| By Alex Likowski

We're staying at home, were restricted. For me, it has seemed like an eternity. There, in the opening minutes of his weekly web program, University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Interim President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, gave voice to the thoughts of every participant.

COVID has taken away a big part of my freedom and your freedom, too. Im happy to tell you that UMB is meeting its many missions, although for each of them we're meeting those missions in new and innovative ways, and I want to thank each of you for playing a role in that success, he told the audience of roughly 200 students, faculty, and staff.

(top l-r) Alex Likowski, Emilia Petrillo, Patty Alvarez; (middle l-r) Amy Ramirez, Flavius Lilly, Roger Ward; (bottom) Bruce Jarrell

The focus of the April 16 edition of Virtual Face to Face with Dr. Bruce Jarrell was the wide array of issues facing students, especially those nearing graduation. Engaged to answer those questions were Roger J. Ward, EdD, JD, MSL, MPA, interim provost, executive vice president, and dean of the Graduate School; Flavius R.W. Lilly, PhD, MA, MPH, associate vice president, Academic and Student Affairs; Patty Alvarez, PhD, MS, assistant vice president, Student Affairs; Emilia Petrillo, LCSW-C, executive director, Student Counseling Center; and Amy Ramirez, MA, director, Office of International Services.

Before the questioning could get underway, Ward took a moment to speak candidly about an important aspect of the current situation.

We continued with instruction, albeit in the virtual environment and recognizing and acknowledging that its not necessarily what all of you signed up for, but the institution did its best and continues to do its best to try to make sure that were meeting your educational needs consistent for those of you who are in programs with accreditors with the flexibility granted us by the accreditors, he said. Some of those decisions may not be the most perfect decisions, may not be always very well-received, but I hope you know and will accept that we are doing the best we can.

Among those in the virtual audience was University of Maryland School of Medicine student and current University Student Government Association president Nivedita Hegdekar, who brought several questions on behalf of numerous fellow students.

Several other universities have been offering continuation health coverage for graduating students, once their coverage expires. Why has UMB not been offering the same post-graduation? she asked.

Students who are enrolled in the student health insurance plan, their policy ends on July 31, explained Alvarez, adding that the end of their policy due to graduation is a qualifying event, thus opening the way to enrolling in the states health exchange.

Riva Medina, assistant director of admissions at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, was looking for answers to questions shed been receiving from foreign LLM students, worried that they may not be able to return to their studies in the fall. The U.S. embassies in their countries are closed. How should they proceed? she asked.

As things stand, were going to continue to monitor what is happening at embassies as this pandemic continues to evolve, Ramirez answered. International students can certainly participate in online courses if we get to that point for the fall 2020 semester, so that is something that we certainly need to contemplate.

Issues of clinical placement and accreditation requirements were a large part of the conversation. University of Maryland School of Social Work (UMSSW) student Jen Strongwood expressed concern about the validity and usefulness of restricted internships.

Im supposed to be starting my advanced year, which is a three-day-a-week internship, she said. And then I only have a handful of credits which are left for me to take. My internship will be at Veterans Affairs Medical Center. My concern is though I did hear the School of Social Work field education say that theyre trying to find online options with these internship placements, I cannot imagine I will have a quality advanced internship three days a week for very long at the VA. Maybe a week or two, but theres a certain point where that wont be useful.

Fellow UMSSW student Francisco Leco pressed a key issue facing many graduating students. Has anybody heard anything from either the state or [accreditors] about doing testing online or waiving the requirements? he asked.

This issue is hot on the burner, Ward answered quickly. As you might imagine, your dean has his shoulder on the wheel on this issue and has been pushing very, very hard to get the appropriate boards and people in the state to allow students at a minimum to get a provisional license so they can get jobs.

Virtual Face to Face with Dr. Bruce Jarrell will be presented live each Thursday at 2 p.m. Next weeks program will include former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman R. Augustine, MSE, and former Lockheed Martin executive vice president and University System of Maryland Board of Regents chair Linda R. Gooden, MBA. Information needed to attend the program will be posted prominently on the UMB homepage, umaryland.edu.
The Donald Trump administration is touting a small amount of COVID-19 assistance for both Palestinians and Yemenis as part of a major increase in coronavirus aid for several Middle Eastern countries. Theres just one problem  the aid for Palestine and Yemen falls short of the funding Congress actually appropriated for fiscal year 2020.

The State Department on Thursday announced $5 million in new coronavirus aid for the West Bank and Gaza as well as another $500,000 for Yemen as part of a $508 million emergency package. But that aid comprises only 7% of the Palestinian economic and humanitarian assistance and 1% of the Yemeni stabilization assistance that Congress has appropriated for fiscal year 2020.

Im very pleased the USA is providing [$5 million] for Palestinian hospitals and households to meet immediate, life-saving needs in combating COVID-19, tweeted US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. The USA, as the worlds top humanitarian aid donor, is committed to assisting the Palestinian people [and] others worldwide in this crisis.

Congress appropriated $75 million in Palestinian economic and humanitarian assistance for this fiscal year while severely limiting the Trump administrations ability to reprogram foreign aid funding. The Trump administration first eliminated $215 million in Palestinian economic aid in 2018 by reprogramming it elsewhere without congressional authorization  a policy championed by Friedman.

The $75 million appropriated for humanitarian assistance was already a significant drop from what Palestinians have historically received from the US, wrote Aaron Weinberg, the government relations manager at the center-left Israel Policy Forum. What the administration released yesterday pales in comparison to that total, while being touted as an achievement. This is all occurring against the backdrop of COVID-19 and its impact in the region.

The aid Trump eliminated included $25 million in funding for the East Jerusalem Hospital Network  six hospitals that provide specialized medical services for Palestinians.

There are nearly 300 recorded COVID-19 cases in the West Bank, including two deaths, and another 13 in the densely populated Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, there are nearly 13,000 recorded cases in Israel, including 151 deaths.

While there have been stories of increased Israeli-Palestinian cooperation in combating the virus, we have also seen Israel closing down a testing site in East Jerusalem because it was operated by the Palestinian Authority, wrote Weinberg.

The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday that Israel is providing a loan to help the Palestinian Authority cope with the coronavirus but did not specify the amount. Additionally, the World Bank has provided a nearly $6 million grant to the Palestinian Authority to help fight COVID-19 as well as a $27 million grant for Yemen.

But that $27 million grant and the additional $500,000 the United States announced Thursday for Yemen will do little to offset the millions of dollars the Trump administration recently slashed from humanitarian aid operations.

The United States suspended $73 million in Yemeni assistance  the bulk of its humanitarian spending on the war-torn country  last month, citing the onerous new aid restrictions on international delivery set up by the Houthi rebels, who control most of the north.

The United States was significantly more generous with Yemen last year, spending some $740 million on humanitarian aid. And the $500,000 in Yemeni coronavirus aid falls short of the $40 million in stabilization assistance Congress has allocated for Yemen this fiscal year.

There has only been one recorded COVID-19 case in Yemen so far. But health experts fear that the lack of testing and the countrys crumbling health infrastructure, coupled with a significantly immunosuppressed and malnourished population, is a recipe for disaster.

Aisha Jumaan, an epidemiologist who heads the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation, said, Cutting aid in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic to a population that is severely vulnerable due to the US-supported Saudi war and blockade that resulted in mass famine, the largest cholera outbreak in recorded history, diphtheria, severe dengue and untreated chronic diseases (which the UN called the largest humanitarian crisis in the world) is a sure way of hastening a catastrophic outcome.

Still, the Trump administration was far more generous with other countries throughout the region, significantly building upon the $40 million Middle Eastern coronavirus aid package it announced last month.

The new batch of COVID-19 assistance includes $13.3 million for Lebanon and $8 million for Jordan. It also includes an additional $10 million in funding for Baghdad, bringing the total in COVID-19 aid for Iraq up to $25.6 million. Morocco will also receive an extra $1 million after getting roughly $700,000 in last months package, while neighboring Algeria will be given $500,000.
Ukraine is seeking the return of Ukrainian detainees kept in Russia-occupied Crimea and in the Russian Federation itself.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says talks on a new swap of prisoners with the Russian Federation are under way.

"The next step is: We want to exchange the people who are either in [Russia-occupied] Crimea or in the Russian Federation's territory. This is a little more complicated because of the coronavirus ... All over the world," the president said on TV late on Friday, April 17.

Read alsoU.S. calls on Russia to immediately release all unjustly imprisoned Ukrainians

"But we understand that life doesn't stop with the coronavirus," he added.

Zelensky recalled that Ukrainian members of the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk had proposed that the negotiations should be held in video format, so that the talks could continue "on demand, rather than on schedule."

As UNIAN reported earlier, a mutual exchange of detainees between Ukraine and Russia-controlled parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions took place in two stages on April 16. Twenty Ukrainians returned home.
President Muhammadu Buharis chief of staff, Abba Kyari, who died Friday of coronavirus, has been buried in Abuja.

Mr Kyari was interred at exactly 11:20 a.m. at the military cemetery in Abujas Gudu neighbourhood amidst tears from family members and supporters.

The men who lowered the remains of Mr Kyari, from Borno State, were in full personal protective equipment as required by the ministry of health in the burial of coronavirus victims.

Mr Kyari died on Friday at a private hospital in Lagos, about four weeks after he was confirmed positive for COVID-19 after he returned from a trip in Germany.

Tributes have continued to pour in for the departed banker, journalist and politician. Former President Goodluck Jonathan, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and a host of other public figures have extolled the virtues of Mr Kyari, who contracted the fatal virus while on a national assignment in Germany for Nigerias power infrastructure.

Abba Kyaris remains being brought off the plane

Abba Kyari laid to rest

Abba Kyari laid to rest

Abba Kyari laid to rest
The Russia Collusion hoax is one of the biggest media stories in recent years, and yet there is more public confusion than clarity.

So when the texts between high ranking officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were made public, journalist Phelim McAleer read through them looking for the story. These were the originators of the hoax, involved in an extramarital affair ahead of the 2016 elections and deeply invested in having Hillary Clinton secure the Oval Office.

I just looked at this and saw A, a love story; B, a conspiracy; C, madness; D, childishness and juveniliaand a personal tragedy for Lisa Page as well. If you read the texts and testimony  theres a personal heartbreak there. Theres international intrigue, theres politics. How could you not be interested in this story? McAleer said. Itd seemed brushed aside by major media. Its an amazing story nobody wants to cover.

The media might not have wanted to tell the story, but McAleer and his wife Ann McElhinney knew the public would want the truth.

Time and again theyve found grassroots support to tell stories that butt heads with the narratives pushed by bigger media entities, and this was no different.

McAleer had been interested in verbatim theater, a form similar to dramatic readings, in that the actors on stage read entire testimonies and transcripts verbatim. Hed done it before with the Ferguson grand jury testimonies to great effect, and thought letting people hear these texts, hear Strzok and Page in their own words, would be a great way to get the truth out.

Threes a voyeuristic aspect to it  it is very shocking because youve got these very senior FBI officials, one of them a lawyer and one of them a counterintelligence officer, and a lot of what they say is very juvenile, McElhinney said. I think the most overwhelming emotion is how disturbing it is that these are the people, particularly in the case of Peter Strzok, who really instigated the Russia Collusion storyand then you realize who this guy is and how he speaks and how partisan he is, and how in the bag he was for Hillary Clinton. You think stage reading and you think, Itll be a bit on the stale side, and it certainly wasnt that.

In fact, once they managed to find a theater willing to show the play, audience members burst into laughter during FBI Lovebirds more times than you might expect from the subject of the play.

Magdalena Segieda, a producer who has worked with the couple for over a decade, says this is what they do best.

You have to bring some humanity to those stories, to those subjects, and we always look for that, Segieda said.

Hundreds had voted with their wallets to crowdfund the production of the play, starring Dean Cain and Kristy Swanson, and so theyve made it the full program public.

Green Deception

Ann McElhinney had been a journalist for a few years when she and her husband Phelim McAleer traveled to Transylvania to cover a story about a new mine.

McElhinney had been a high school teacher before becoming a reporter, and McAleer grew up in a house full of newspapers and had a natural sense for it. He was also in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and lived amongst a big news story for years.

He later worked for the Financial Times and The Economist as an Eastern Europe correspondent, and this led the two of them into making documentaries.

As they made their way to the little Romanian village, McElhinney could see the story playing out in her mind; it was an environmental story weve all heard hundreds of timesthe villainous corporation was going to destroy these poor townsfolks village, all for profit.

The truth couldnt have been farther from what shed imagined.

The town was poor, the townspeople were unemployed, and many buildings did not even have indoor plumbing, meaning in the winters people had to go out to use outhouses in -4 F weather.

McElhinney and McAleer visited a model home, a replica of what the Canadian mining company would build for the local population as a part of their agreement, and met an elderly woman who had tears in her eyes. She said she only hoped she could live long enough to live in a house like this.

They realized then there was something suspect about the environmentalism movement.

Why were well-to-do foreigners flying in from far away, claiming to rescue the poor townspeople from the evil Canadians who would destroy their rural, idyllic lifestyle? They had to be either grossly misinformed, or deliberately trying to prevent the townspeople from access to a better life.

It turned out the activists were so married to their narrative that they refused to look at the facts, and the journalist duos findings became the 2006 documentary Mine Your Own Business.

The stranger-than-fiction nature of environmentalist deception took more than one film to fully explore.

In 2008, they took on Al Gores An Inconvenient Truth and dove into the climate change issuesthen still called global warmingand looked at why there was so much legislation intended to mitigate climate change, if the science was inconclusive. They discovered the impact of some of these new laws would actually cause more harm than benefit, and the incredible irony of billionaires trying to prevent economic growth and development in poverty-stricken areas in their quest to save the world. They found shockingly anti-science, and sometimes even racist, roots in many environmentalist movements, and in 2009 came out with Not Evil Just Wrong.

In a similar vein, when the 2010 film Gasland prompted a sudden and robust, celebrity-driven protest against fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, their interest was piqued. The film contains an iconic scene of a man lighting his sink water on fire, and so McAleer did a quick online search, and found it had nothing to do with fracking. There was a disturbingly similar theme to the other environmental projects theyd tackled: incredibly wealthy and influential people were keeping struggling farmers from keeping their land.

FrackNation addressed the misinformation, and sought to tell the truth about fracking.

These projectsgrassroots and crowdfunded, quite unlike the celebrity-backed environmental movementshave gotten them labeled enemies of the environment by various activist groups.

Abortion

After FrackNation came out, they held many screenings in Philadelphia, where fracking is popular. McAleer had a day off, and read in the local paper that Kermit Gosnell was being tried for murder. So he went down to the courtroom.

It was some of the most shocking evidence Id ever heard in my life, it really was, McAleer said.

Gosnell was an abortion doctor who regularly delivered babies alive and then cut their spinal cords with scissors, and he kept parts of the fetuses as trophies. He performed illegal abortions beyond Pennsylvanias 24-week limit under unsafe (filthy very outdated, horrendous) conditions, leading to the deaths of multiple women. There were photos, harrowing testimonies, and descriptions of the clinic walls literally dripping with blood.

McAleer had covered dozens, hundred of court cases of crime as a crime correspondent, but what the evidence he saw in this case was worse.

But shocking as the evidence being presented before him was, it was the rows of empty press benches behind McAleer that drove him into action.

Gosnell was there sitting in front of me, the five rows behind me were empty benches, McAleer said. To leave out this stuff was shockingthat the media was not covering this amazing story. Now, regardless of your opinion of abortion, its an amazing, amazing story.

When McAleer brought this story to McElhinney and Segieda, they balked.

None of them had considered themselves pro-life, and frankly just werent interested in the abortion debate.

If anything, I was very skeptical of pro-lifers, and all the things that they said, claims that they made that I sounded exaggerated, sounded untrue, so I had been very suspicious and skeptical of pro-lifers prior to this story, McElhinney said.

Delving into the Gosnell case turned out to be tremendously educational: for starters, those images shed seen pro-life activists cart around, with tiny baby-shaped fetuses being snipped at with scary-looking implementsthats standard procedure. They started to realize that with the billions of dollars the abortion industry spends on marketing, the public doesnt actually have a good, scientific understanding of what the abortion process is.

It shocked me, what I didnt know as a grown woman, McElhinney said.

McAleer said the crux of their covering the story was to get the truth out, not enter the abortion debate per se. This was a prolific serial killer who took pleasure in the act of ending lives and keeping parts, and he was only exposed because of a brave rookie cop who ignored the pro-choice administrations directives to let abortionists operate without scrutiny. It was undeniably a huge learning experience.

We learned so much about abortion through doing the story. Were journalistsits shocking we didnt know what we should have known. And you know, Planned Parenthood are geniuses; the establishments done a great job in hiding the truth about abortions from Americans, he said.

Over 30,000 people signed up to give $2.3 million to the Gosnell project in less than two months, and the team created Gosnell the movie, and a book of the same title, which sold out just three days after publication.

The two have continued to tell the truth Planned Parenthood has been trying to cover up, being among the very few who covered the lawsuit Planned Parenthood brought against investigative journalist David Daleiden, who exposed their operations of skirting procedures in order to deliver babies in a way where they could harvest and sell their body parts.

Getting Around Gatekeepers

Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney. (The Epoch Times)

Although Gosnell had tremendous interest, a guaranteed built-in audience, no distributor wanted to pick it up.

Kickstarter wouldnt even let the project be funded on its platform, though it became the most successful crowdfunding venture on Indiegogo.

Theres all these gatekeepers, McAleer said. As theyve done more and more of these misinformation-busting projects, theyve seen both increased resistance and increased support.

With Gosnell, were getting hundreds of emails from people, theyre saying they didnt know, and theyre angry they didnt, know, why didnt anyone tell them, McAleer said.

Its taken a lot of work, but theyve become some of the most successful crowdfunders, and all of their projects are supported by regular news readers who want the truth, who along with their $5 or $10 contribution online, or $25 mailed in check, send messages of heartfelt encouragement and thanks.

We get a lot of people that turn up again and again for us, on different stories that are very different, McElhinney said. We have people turning up because I think they see the need for it.

While the movie was underway, McAleer tackled Ferguson. The grand jury transcripts told a different story from the one permeating social media, and he wanted to bring the truth to light on stage.

The truth was shocking enough that nine of the actors who had signed up to tell this story read the transcripts, and then walked out.

When a lot of people saw the Ferguson play, they were completely changed and they told me afterwards. Nine of the actors walked out of the Ferguson rehearsalsthey may not think that changed them, but they got to realize what the truth was, and they didnt like the truth. It made them think, McAleer said.

The narrative was so embeddedhands up, dont shoot,' McElhinney said. Just try not to believe it when its so often repeated, and so much taken up by the cultural elite  To learn that that wasnt true, to really learn that that wasnt true from multiple witnesses who gave evidence during the grand jury, testimony under oath, under pain of perjury. They were literally asked to tell the truth and none of them not oneno, he never said dont shoot.'

Its very powerful, the truth is very powerful, and the telling of lies by journalists is a terrible thing, and the telling of stories that arent true is a terrible thing, McElhinney said.

Its a sign of dark times that their reputation for telling the truth has made them enemies of influential gatekeepers.

I think journalists now see themselves as activists rather than truth tellers, McAleer said. Theyre not curious when a story might challenge their beliefs.

Despite the challenges, theyre optimistic. Terminally optimistic, McElhinney said. I think something has got to change. Funnily enough, exposing these stories, what were doing, I think it does chip away at this problematic journalism thats going on. Its going to have to stop. Its going to have to come into account.

Theyre committed to telling the stories that interest groups are determined to cover up.

McAleer is the kind of journalist who comes up with a hundred story ideas a day, and there are more lies to dismantle than they have the bandwidth for. In order to better communicate with their followers and get stories out there quicker, they started the podcast The Ann and Phelim Scoop.

Ive always been interested in podcasts, I originally wanted to do the Gosnell story as a podcast, McAleer said. Its the lack of gatekeepers actually, which is very, very useful.

On the podcast, they interview guests, review books and movies, comment on the news (We read The New York Times so you dont have to, McElhinney said) and report stories that other media ignore.

People really appreciate the truth and really appreciate the truth being told, McAleer said. Theres plenty more lies out there for us to expose, and were going to have fun doing that.
St. Francois County hasnt had a new confirmed case of COVID-19 for almost a week.

As of Friday afternoon, the last case reported was on the evening of April 11, according to SFC Health Center director Amber Elliott. That brought the total to 22 cases.

There are five active cases right now as 16 have recovered and one passed away.

Elliott praised the health center staff and the COVID patients themselves and their contacts for the low number.

The staff has been starting its contact traces 48 hours before the patient's symptoms even start.

Obviously, I'm a little biased since Im the director here, Elliott said. But I think our staff has done a really good job of jumping on cases when theyve been reported.

"We immediately start our investigations as soon as we get one. Our nurses have been almost entirely focused on the coronavirus since this whole thing started, but certainly since we started seeing cases on March 22. So thats allowed us to quarantine people who are contacts to those confirmed cases and isolate those confirmed cases.

The cooperation of the patients and those whom they had contact also has helped the community, according to Elliott.

Without their cooperation and their understanding of the importance of the issue, things might look different," Elliott said.

About a potential May 4 reopening of the state, Elliott again urged cautious optimism.

I think we have to evaluate whats happening around us in surrounding jurisdictions and whats happening in St. Francois County at that time, Elliott said.

She mentioned that neighboring Jefferson County has more than 150 cases and the St. Louis area is still seeing an increase in cases.

I know that St. Louis is looking at a longer period of time to reopen, Elliott said, But they are in a little bit different situation than we are.

It is encouraging that cases have been holding steady in the county and in some of the neighboring rural counties, Elliott said, but testing is still an issue statewide. The health center knows of 279 residents that have been tested.

I know thats a goal nationwide, to increase the capacity and the availability of testing because thats how we identify cases, Elliott said. Thats how local health departments are able to quarantine and isolate.

On its Facebook page, the Ste. Genevieve Health Department also encouraged its residents to be cautious.

In response to Governor (Mike) Parsons intent to open back up the state of Missouri, we respectfully encourage citizens of Ste. Genevieve to take a somewhat cautious approach to returning to life as normal, the post said. Rather than jumping in rapidly with both feet, we are recommending continuing to use precautions when out in public.

"The virus spread may be slowing, but it is not gone. The slowing of the spread is very likely due to the precautions we all have been taking. Please do not be too quick to discard them all at once.

Nikki Overfelt is a reporter for the Daily Journal. She can be reached at noverfelt@dailyjournalonline.com.

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Developing countries unlock key industries to safeguard earnings and jobs By Helen Reid and Tanisha Heiberg View(s): View(s):

(Reuters)  From Africa to Asia and Latin America, emerging countries disproportionately bruised by the COVID-19 pandemic are allowing some key industries to start back up in a bid to soften the economic blow.

This tentative unlocking highlights the balancing act for developing nations as they seek to protect their people while averting an economic collapse some fear could do more damage than the disease itself.

While academic study of COVID-19 containment policies is in its infancy, one model by Yale economists argues social distancing measures deliver far fewer benefits, at much greater economic cost, in poorer countries.

Theyre battling competing tensions. Its being framed as lives versus livelihoods, said Ronak Gopaldas, director of Africa-focused consultancy Signal Risk. Unlike wealthier economies, developing countries cannot afford to spend trillions of dollars protecting people and businesses from the economic fallout of the pandemic. That has prompted some to start reopening key sectors.

Whats clear is that lockdowns cant go on forever and theyre having to strike a balance between safety and productivity, said Gopaldas.

South Africa has announced it will allow mines to operate at 50% capacity during its lockdown, allowing workers to be called back gradually.

Mining contributed 360.9 billion rand ($19.74 billion), around 7% of GDP, to the economy in 2019. Amid mass unemployment, it provides more than 450,000 jobs.

Getting mines back to full production will take weeks, said Jacques Nel, of research firm NKC African Economics. But opening them early is essential.

Some countries are going to recover quicker than others, so you have to position yourself as one of the more attractive ones when this blows over, he said.

SHOCK ABSORBERS

Other governments are making similar calculations, generally favouring large employers or generators of crucial foreign exchange. JPMorgan calculates that emerging market FX reserves fell by more than $190 billion in March.

They wont be able to borrow anymore, said Wayne Camard, an ex-IMF official in Africa and Latin America who now heads the Camard Group, a business intelligence consultancy.

Mining and agricultural commodities are the main foreign exchange earners for a lot of developing countries. Investors pulled a record $83.3 billion from emerging market stocks and bonds in March. At the same time, borrowing costs have soared, making it effectively impossible for many countries to raise funds on international capital markets.

Malaysia has allowed its palm oil industry  the worlds second-biggest  to operate during a six-week lockdown. Its electronics industry, which produces nearly 8% of the worlds semiconductors, is running on a third of its normal workforce.

Colombia, the worlds fifth-biggest coal exporter, allowed coal producer Drummond to partially restart on April 9.

Coal is Colombias second-largest source of foreign exchange, and royalties paid by coal firms are fundamental to coping with the health emergency and reviving the economy, the energy ministry told Reuters.

Governments that cannot afford to replace workers lost incomes are under pressure to reopen labour-intensive sectors.

Pakistan on Tuesday extended its lockdown by two weeks but said some industries, starting with construction, would reopen in phases.

If the construction sector can be stimulated in these testing times, it can prove to be an important shock absorber, said Sakib Sherani, chief executive of Islamabad-based economics research firm Macro Economic Insights.

Construction and related sectors account for about 8-10% of Pakistans GDP, he estimated, and 10-12% of jobs.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is keeping open factories, which he called the life-blood of the country, provided employees live in on-site accommodation. Manufacturing employs 10% of the formal workforce.

TARGETED MEASURES

Other countries have implemented targeted quarantines to isolate critical industries from the pandemic.

Nigeria, Africas top crude producer, is allowing staff to travel to oilfields only when essential in a bid to avoid infections that could force a broad shutdown.

In Chile, where mining constituted 50% of exports last quarter, the governments preference for targeted, local action has helped keep large mines of Atacama and Antofagasta open.

The northern desert provinces account for most of Chiles copper and lithium output but fewer than 2% of its COVID-19 cases as of April 12, health ministry figures showed.

But in an interconnected world, damage limitation policies can only go so far.

Mexicos president last week said the auto sector, which contributes 3.8% of GDP, would only reopen when the U.S. industry ramps up again.

Developing countries also have large informal sectors which are harder to measure and lack financial safety nets.

In Jakarta, Indonesias capital, COVID-19 restrictions ban motorbike taxis from carrying passengers, threatening the livelihood of thousands who work for ride-hailing apps.

We pleaded for the presidents help, said Igun Wicaksono, who heads Garda Nasional, an association of 100,000 motorbike taxi drivers.

Of course were worried and were scared. But if we stay at home, we wont have food.
Peers are demanding their daily 323 'attendance' stipend while attending their virtual Lords proceedings on grounds of age discrimination.

Insiders say that some peers are becoming irate about whether they will receive the fee as non-legislative debates are conducted remotely.

Peers are not salaried, but they receive a tax-free income of 323 per day for attendance in the chamber - up from 313 at the start of April.

A member attending the 150 days the Lords usually gathers each year can expect an annual a tax-free income of more than 48,000.

They can claim their allowances by attending the Houses of Parliament and certifying that they have performed parliamentary work that day.

Insiders say that some peers are becoming irate about whether they will receive the fee as non-legislative debates are conducted remotely (pictured, House of Lords, January 2020)

Rules currently state that peers should not receive the 323 stipend for 'proceedings', and only for physical 'sittings'.

Their pay rise results from a 2018 decision to link annual increases in allowances to MPs' salaries, removing any role for peers in setting their own pay.

But as the country expects to endure another three weeks of lockdown to battle the coronavirus pandemic, some members are kicking up a fuss.

Peers - many of whom are elderly - cannot attend due to the rules around self-isolating. However, they are 'agitating' to be paid all the same.

To refuse to pay would be 'age discrimination', The Daily Telegraph reports.

Insiders told the newspaper: 'A cross-party group of peers has already started talking about receiving the allowance retrospectively.

Peers - many of whom are elderly - cannot attend due the Lords to the rules around self-isolating. However, they are 'agitating' to be paid (pictured, Government Zoom handout)

Peers are not salaried, but they receive a tax-free income of 323 per day for attendance in the chamber (pictured, view of the Houses of Parliament, April 2020)

'A lot of them are elderly and so cannot attend due to the rules on self-isolating but are using terms like age discrimination.

'They are agitating to be paid and there is going to be pressure on getting clarification of the situation if this situation is going to continue in the long run.'

They added: 'We want to avoid a situation where you've got frail and old peers turning up saying, "I couldn't stay at home if you won't pay me".'

A spokesperson for the House of Lords said: 'Currently, taking part in a virtual proceeding would not qualify for attendance allowance.

'Any change to this would require a recommendation from the House of Lords Commission which would then need to be agreed by the House.'
His death is the first most high-profile one in Nigeria, where almost 500 cases have been recorded.
Sanjay Dutt is away from his wife Maanayata and 9-year-old twins Shahraan and Iqra who had flown to Dubai before a lockdown was announced in India amid coronavirus crisis. The actor has revealed despite his multiple facetime chats with his kids everyday, he is still worried for their safety.

Opening up about how much he misses them while being alone in Mumbai, Sanjay told Times of India in an interview, In the past, I have spent periods of my life in a lockdown. Back then and even now, the one thought that stays with me is the way I miss my family. For me, they are everything. Thanks to technology, I can see and talk to them multiple times in a day, and yet, I miss them terribly. These times teach you about the fragility of life, and the value of moments spent with your loved ones. We should count our blessings, and never take them for granted.

Although I have them virtually with me, there is a difference. As a father and husband, I am worried about their safety, even though I know that they are fine, he added.

The actor said he is utilising his time to prep for his upcoming films which include practising his dialogues and working on his body. Sharing how much he values his time, he said, I keep my life simple by focusing on my family and work. I love the multiple chats I have with my children. My kids keep me amused with their non-stop chatter and masti, even on video calls.

Also read: When Nargis wondered if Sanjay Dutt was gay as he locked himself up with his friends

Sanjay will now be seen in Ajay Devgn-starrer Bhuj: The Pride Of India. It also features Sonakshi Sinha, Ammy Virk and Pranitha Subhash. The period drama revolves around Indian Air Force pilot Vijay Karnik and looks back into the journey of 300 women of Madhapar village in Gujarats Kutch district, who played a pivotal role in helping India win the 1971 Indo-Pak war. The women came together to rebuild and repair the only runway in Bhuj, which was crucial for the war.

Sanjay will also be seen in Torbaaz which has been entirely shot abroad. He plays a doctor in the film which has Rahul Dev in the role of the antagonist.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
A Queensland man who allegedly knifed a woman and abducted her six-week-old baby girl is in police custody after being charged with domestic violence offences.

Police say the man, aged 34, repeatedly assaulted the woman, 33, after the pair, who were a couple, started arguing at a home north of Brisbane on Friday.

The man is then alleged to have left the Narangba house with a child about 10am, causing police to issue an amber alert just after 7pm the same day.

Police, at the time, said they were urgently seeking public help to locate the newborn with fears she could be at significant risk.

However, the baby girl was found to be uninjured and well after the man showed up at the Caboolture Hospital with the child about 11:30pm on Friday.
PIC 1

Jarerin Chung, of South Korea

Well, I'm not a recipient so I don't know how people are going to react, really. But, I think it's something that's going to help a lot of people. From my perspective, America is a very consumer-based system so I think it's going to be helpful to the U.S economy and the system in place. It's kind of helpful for people to buy whatever they need but I don't think it's going to be a big help, overall.

PIC 2

Joey Lewis, of Marshall County

I probably won't be really affected. It will be supplemental to what I already have. I'm retired, so it's not a big deal as far as that part is concerned. I think it will help a lot of people who need help right now, but it won't materially affect my life.

PIC 3

Kobe Kendall, of Symsonia

It doesn't impact me too much, because I live with my parents but it gave me the opportunity to pay off my car. I start school in the fall, at WKCTC, and it gave me the opportunity to buy a school laptop without going into debt. I can also pay my car insurance and my Verizon bill, so it's less to worry about.

PIC 3

Lyndsi Knees, of Paducah

It definitely helps ease the anxiety of not being able to pay for my utilities, rent and any other bill I might have.

Close
WASHINGTON DEPOT  ASAP! recently received a $3,000 grant from the American Savings Foundation. The American Savings Foundation, based in Connecticut, is dedicated to strengthening the community by supporting education, human services, and the arts, with a special emphasis on the needs of children, youth and families, through grants to community organizations and college scholarships.

The grant is intended to help cover costs for 60 students from Waterbury and Torrington who attend ASAP!s two-week summer camp in July. However, given the uncertainty many programs are facing because of COVID-19, the foundation has made the grant unrestricted, so that funds can be used where ASAP! has the greatest need. ASAP! is planning its summer program scheduled to begin July 27 and is hoping to use the funds as originally planned.

ASAP! is a social profit educational arts organization that reaches 9,000+ participants a year. ASAP! will provide nearly $40,000 in financial aid to families in need this year.

For more information or to register for summer camp, visit www.asapct.org

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Foundation makes Rapid Response Grants

TORRINGTON  The Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation, in partnership with Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, has awarded $40,350 in Rapid Response Grants to nonprofits providing basic needs in Northwest Connecticut.

The Northwest Corner Gives: COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund strengthens the safety nets in Northwest Connecticut communities by awarding Rapid Response Grants to nonprofits that provide basic needs, according to a statement.

The fund is supported by the Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation Draper Foundation Fund, The Making Cents Fund, Nolin Selby Fund, and the Women & Girls Fund, through gifts from anonymous and discretionary Community Foundation funds, and through gifts from community members.

Rapid Response Grants have been awarded to:

AHA - AfterSchool Program - in support of childcare in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (in partnership with Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation); Caring For Bethlehem - in support of food, infant supplies, fuel, and utilities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; Catholic Charities- Archdiocese of Hartford - in support of food and utilities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; Center Congregational Church - in support of childcare with meals in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; Community Kitchen - in support of food, to-go supplies, PPE, and bleach in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; Cornwall Food and Fuel Fund - in support of food in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (in partnership with Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation); EdAdvance - in support of food in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (in partnership with Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation); Family & Children's Aid - in support of food and gas in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (in partnership with Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation); Family Strides - in support of transportation, rent, and utilities for clients in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; First Congregational Church of Torrington - in support of pop-up tents for CT Food Bank distributions and PPE in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; Fishes and Loaves - in support of food, PPE, cleaning and to-go supplies, and gas for volunteers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (in partnership with Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation); Friendly Hands Food Bank - in support of equipment for the weekend food program in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; Gilbert School - in support of gift cards for food and medication in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; Hands of Grace - in support of food in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; Healing Meals Community Project - in support of food in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; Litchfield Community Center - in support of food (perishable) and infant supplies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; Litchfield County Family Child Care Network - in support of childcare in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (in partnership with Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation); Maria Seymour Brooker Memorial - in support of Relatives as Parents in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; McCall Center for Behavioral Health - in support of food and solar cell phone chargers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (in partnership with Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation); New Opportunities - in support of rent assistance in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (in partnership with Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation); Salisbury Visiting Nurse Association - in support of PPE in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (in partnership with Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation); Susan B. Anthony Project - in support of food, cleaning supplies, rent, copays, infant supplies, utilities, medication, and hoteling in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (in partnership with Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation); Town of Warren Social Services - in support of food in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (in partnership with Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation); United Church of Christ in Cornwall - in support of rent, heat, food, medication, and utilities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (in partnership with Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation); Winsted Area Child Care Center - in support of food, rent, utilities, medication, and copays in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; Winsted United Methodist Church - in support of food in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Nonprofits may apply for Rapid Response Grants at www.northwestcf.org Donations to the foundation can be made at www.northwestcf.org

Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation serves the towns of Barkhamsted, Bethlehem, Canaan (Falls Village), Colebrook, Cornwall, Goshen, Hartland, Harwinton, Kent, Litchfield, Morris, New Hartford, Norfolk, North Canaan, Salisbury, Sharon, Torrington, Warren, Washington, and Winsted.
As much as the stimulus cash  officially known as the Economic Impact Payment  looks like easy money, the process isn't simple for many, including homeless and poor people and those without bank accounts.

And there's growing concern that some people will lose out on seeing any money.

One big issue continues to bubble up: How will poor people get their stimulus cash?

About 1.5 million people in Michigan, alone, could be at risk of not getting a payment or could need to wait as long as five months to receive the money via a check sent in the mail, according to H. Luke Shaefer, director of Poverty Solutions and the Hermann and Amalie Kohn Professor of Social Justice and Social Policy at the University of Michigan.

The 2020 Coronavirus Stimulus Payment website  developed by Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan in partnership with Detroit-based nonprofit design firm Civilla  offers a straightforward approach to help vulnerable people and others figure out what they might need to do next to eventually see they money that they're owed. See: https://poverty.umich.edu/stimulus-checks/.

The website includes information on:

How to link your prepaid debit card to make sure your direct deposit is automatically deposited onto that card.

How to sign up for a bank account online to receive a direct deposit.

What to do if you moved since you last filed your taxes.

What's unusual about this recovery relief program is that even if you have no earnings  and you weren't required to file a tax return  you might be able to qualify for a payment.

Not everyone, of course, does qualify. For example, immigrants who don't have Social Security numbers will not be eligible for checks.

While eligibility for the money is nearly universal, Shaefer said, challenges remain in reaching out to homeless people, poor people and families who move frequently.

Behind on child support?: If so, you won't get a stimulus check

Your money questions, answered: Will my stimulus or unemployment checks be taxed?

Story continues

To be sure, many people continue seeing stimulus payments from the Treasury Department directly deposited into their bank accounts. And they didn't have to do a thing to get up to $1,200 for a single person  and up to $2,400 for a couple without children  into their accounts. Qualifying children who are under age 17 get an extra $500.

The vast majority of Michigan residents are eligible for the stimulus checks made available by the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Individuals earning less than $75,000, or married and filing jointly earning less than $150,000, are likely eligible for full payments of $1,200 per adult plus $500 per child under the age of 17. Heads of household making less than $112,500 also are eligible for full stimulus payments.

But gaps and potential barriers exist for people who typically "don't file taxes, don't have a bank account or move frequently and don't have a stable address where the check can be mailed," according to Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan.

Someone who faces financial troubles and has moved in with a relative may be at risk for not getting the money, if they don't take action, Shaefer said.

"Our email box is getting flooded with people asking questions," Shaefer said.

Efforts are being made to reach vulnerable people through various groups and communities, including working with providing information relating to stimulus payments on the City of Detroit website.

If someone doesn't have a bank account, for example, an account could still be opened up online and the City of Detroit site lists "safe and affordable accounts" where someone might be able to get a stimulus payment quickly via direct deposit instead of waiting up to five months to receive a stimulus check.

If you dont want to sign up for a bank account, you can link your prepaid debit card instead.

Shaefer said it's important for lower-income households and others to realize that stimulus payments will not impact other benefits, including food stamps, health care, the Earned Income Tax Credit or unemployment benefits.

Stimulus checks are treated as a tax credit. As a result, your stimulus payment will not influence the benefits you receive now or in the future.

Low-income taxpayers, veterans receiving disability payments and select others will need to file information online at IRS.gov in order to receive stimulus payments. File photo: In this May 8, 2008, photo blank checks are seen on an idle press at the Philadelphia Regional Financial Center, which disburses payments on behalf of federal agencies, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

Some efforts are being made to make sure people don't fall through the cracks.

The Internal Revenue Service, for example, announced Wednesday that recipients of Supplemental Security Income or SSI will automatically receive automatic Economic Impact Payments at some point down the road.

"SSI recipients will receive a $1,200 Economic Impact Payment with no further action needed on their part. The IRS projects the payments for this group will go out no later than early May," the IRS said.

The IRS said moving SSI recipients into the automatic payment category follows weeks of extensive cooperative work between the Social Security Administration, Treasury and IRS, as well as the Bureau of Fiscal Services.

Since SSI recipients typically arent required to file tax returns, the IRS had to work extensively with these other government agencies to determine a way to quickly and accurately deliver Economic Impact Payments to this group, said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig in a statement.

Additional programming work remains, but this step simplifies the process for SSI recipients to quickly and easily receive these $1,200 payments automatically.

Stimulus checks: IRS rolls out new website to help non-filing Americans receive emergency payments

The IRS has a separate online tool called the Non-filers: Enter Payment Info tool. This tool can be used by eligible U.S. citizens or permanent residents who had gross income that did not exceed $12,200 ($24,400 for married couples) for 2019. And they were not otherwise required to file a federal income tax return for 2019, and didn't plan to do so.

Additional information is available at www.irs.gov/coronavirus/non-filers-enter-payment-info-here for those who have a valid Social Security number.

The IRS also has an online tool called "Get My Payment" that can help people track their payments, and many people but not all can provide direct deposit information there if necessary.

As of Thursday, though, the IRS said the Get My Payment tool did not have information yet if you receive Social Security, Railroad Retirement Board Form 1099, Supplemental Security Income or veteran benefits.

It's been a confusing time for many taxpayers as some receive stimulus money quickly and others struggle to try to figure out when their money will arrive. Unfortunately, many people who may desperately need the money could fall through the cracks without a little extra help.

Follow Detroit Free Press reporter Susan Tompor on Twitter @tompor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Poor, homeless in Michigan at risk of missing out on stimulus
A decision on whether to keep Bostons schools closed through the end of the academic year should come in the next few days and could parallel a statewide announcement, Mayor Martin Walsh said Friday.

Under Gov. Charlie Bakers current order, Massachusetts districts must stay closed through at least May 4 to limit the spread of COVID-19. Walsh told reporters Friday that his office is still engaged in conversations with Baker about lifting or extending the order.

When it comes to schools now, it has to be uniform across the state, Walsh said. I had a conversation with the governor a couple nights ago, and were going to follow up today to talk more about it. But I would expect that decision coming in the next few days.

State and education leaders elsewhere in the country have announced lengthier shutdowns. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu on Thursday announced schools across his state will not open in-person until the next school year. Baker on Thursday said his administration will make a decision about schools some time soon.

Planning is underway for how schools would operate if they return this spring, Walsh said, and also for how summer school can run if social-distancing measures are still in place. He said he would have more concrete answers probably in the next month or so as far as summer school goes.

On Friday, Baker said the vast majority of local leaders want students to return at some point this year to settle in and talk about next year and for competency testing to identify any gaps in learning tied to students being out of school for weeks.

He said he recognizes the challenges associated with returning students to school and understands the need for a decision soon and for clarity. The mayor also plans to speak with college presidents next week to consider options for the fall semester, and he said he would share more information after that discussion.
Pentagon Could Award Contract for Next Generation of ICBMs Before September

Sputnik News

21:02 GMT 17.04.2020

Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Will Roper told reporters earlier this week that the contract for the US' next generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) could be awarded even earlier than September, in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Roper told reporters during a teleconference on Thursday that a contract award for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), the next generation of ICBMs for the US Air Force, could be awarded even earlier than the expected September date.

"I think early award is possible on GBSD," Roper said, according to Defense News. "I'm very hopeful, but because GBSD has a large component of classified work, that team is having to go in and maintain workforce in our [sensitive compartmented information facilities] and in our classified spaces. So we're watching very carefully to make sure the installations are open to allow that work."

The GBSD system is slated to replace the roughly 400 Minuteman III ICBMs that presently form one-third of the US nuclear triad. Alongside bomber-carried gravity bombs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the ICBMs help ensure that Washington is able to respond to any potential nuclear attack in kind.

However, the contract awardee isn't exactly a mystery: Boeing withdrew from the running last July, leaving just Northrop Grumman in consideration. The contract is reportedly worth $85 billion.

The Government Accountability Office, a watchdog agency set up by Congress, warned in a recent report that "full viability" of the Air Force's aging ICBM force will begin to dwindle in the next six years, a decade before the GBSD is scheduled to arrive.

"According to Air Force officials, as a result of the expected attrition of current field assets, the Minuteman III weapon system will be unable to meet full mission requirements after 2026, should full deployment be required," the March 26 report said. "Continued asset attrition is also affecting the Minuteman III retirement schedule."

The LGM-30 Minuteman III missiles entered service in 1970 and have a range of roughly 6,000 miles, enabling them to strike almost anywhere on the planet.

Todd Harrison, chief of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank, told Air Force Magazine in February that at the Air Force's present rate of test firing four to six ICBMs per year, the service risks running out of useful rockets in the coming years.

"The Air Force may want to consider slowing the Minuteman test rate to 2-3 missiles per year as a hedge to make sure we don't drop below 400 missiles in the inventory before GBSD replacements come online," the academic said.

Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the US Space Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, told Space News last month that despite the pandemic and associated shutdowns, the Pentagon intends "to the maximum extent possible to stay on track."

According to Space News, Roper described his office last month as having adopted a "wartime posture," specifically clarifying to reporters that the GBSD procurement process was "on track  we expect to award on time. We are still doing virtual program reviews, trying to keep as much normality as we can."

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Popular Nigerian airline, Air Peace has distributed food items to several indigent families in different areas in Lagos as palliatives for Nigerians in some parts of Lagos.

The airlines officials visited Sabo, Makoko and Ajegunle areas of Lagos.

Also Read: Covid-19: No Infected Person Was Onboard Aircraft- Air Peace

In these areas, the private airline gave out edibles, includes bags of rice, cartons of noodles and loaves of bread to hundreds of people whose sources of livelihood have been adversely affected by the COVID-19 lockdown aimed at curtailing the spread of the pandemic that has stifled global economy.
Supporters of Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro protested from their cars in the streets of Rio de Janeiro to reject the restrictive measures applied by the local government to reduce the spread of the COVID-19.

Dozens of cars and trucks carrying Brazilian flags drove through the southern area of the city.Demonstrators shouted slogans against Rio State Governor Wilson Witzel, a former ally of Bolsonaro who was infected with the new coronavirus and a month ago imposed measures to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.

Protesters said they wanted less restrictive measures and supported the policy of "vertical isolation," defended by Bolsonaro, where only elderly people or others who are at risk groups remain home.

They also expressed concerns about the economy.

There were also demonstrations in Sao Paulo where its governor Joao Doria, another former ally of Bolsonaro, has also clashed with the president since the pandemic hit the country.

Sao Paulo, where the first case of the country was registered, was one of the first states to apply restrictive measures.

On Thursday Brazil's President fired his health minister, after a series of disagreements over efforts to contain the new coronavirus, removing him just weeks before experts expect the virus' peak in the South American country.

The new minister, Nelson Teich, was sworn in on Friday after pledging to work not only to save lives from the coronavirus, but also to spare the economy.

Bolsonaro said that he and his minister of justice, Sergio Moro were in talks to reopen the borders of the Latin American largest country.

As of Saturday Brazil had registered at least 36,599 confirmed cases and more than 2,300 deaths.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, that clear up in two to three weeks.

For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and could lead to death.

(Image Credit: AP)
Libyas internationally-recognised government has said its forces have killed eight fighters loyal to eastern-based renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar.

The announcement by military spokesman Mohamed Gnunu on Saturday came as forces aligned with the United Nations-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) ramped up their offensive against Haftars forward bases in western Libya.

GNA troops have in recent days retaken a string of strategic cities located west of Tripoli, including Sabratha, Surman and al-Ajaylat.

Libya, a large oil producer, has been engulfed in chaos since 2011 when longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed in a NATO-backed uprising.

It is now split between two rival administrations: The Tripoli-based GNA, led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, and the House of Representatives allied to Haftar and his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA).

In April 2019, Haftar launched a military campaign to wrest control of Tripoli but the offensive was largely stalled by forces loyal to the GNA.

Gnunu said GNA forces on Saturday overran a camp in the area of al-Hawatim near the city of Tarhouna, arresting 12 fighters from Haftars LNA and seizing several armoured vehicles.

The latest developments are threatening the very existence of Haftars forces in the whole of western Libya, said Al Jazeeras Mahmoud Abdelwahed, reporting from Tripoli.

The city of Tarhouna is a major stronghold for Haftar after they lost the city of Gharyan last June. Its important to note that the central command of Haftars forces is now located in Tarhouna and it is from there that Egyptian, Emirati and Russian military experts are running Haftars offensive against Tripoli.

On March 17, the UN and nine countries called on Libyas warring sides to cease hostilities to allow health authorities to fight against the new coronavirus.

Numerous UN efforts to mediate a ceasefire have failed to result in a truce and have been on hold since envoy Ghassan Salame quit his post in early March, citing health reasons.
Kim's Absence at North Korean National Holiday Drives Health Problem Suspicions

Sputnik News

19:12 GMT 17.04.2020

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been absent from several important state functions recently, including the Day of the Sun this past Wednesday, leading experts to speculate as to why. While some believe he might be sick, most think it's an effort to distance himself from previous leaders.

April 15, the Day of the Sun, is perhaps the biggest holiday in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). It's the birthday of Kim Il Sung, the communist guerrilla leader who led Korean resistance forces to victory against the Japanese Empire in World War II, founded the DPRK in 1948 and led it for more than 40 years until his death in 1994. He's also Kim Jong Un's grandfather.

Typically, Kim pays a visit along with other Workers' Party of Korea leaders to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang, where the eldermost Kim lies in state, as does his son, Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011. This year, however, the youngest Kim just sent flowers.

According to state news outlet Korean Central News Agency, "floral baskets were laid in the names of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK and the Cabinet of the DPRK."

The day typically includes a host of festival events, dances, and public performances, as well as all the cultural, culinary and tourist trappings of a national public holiday in the capital.

Kim wasn't just absent from the celebrations, though: he also missed out on the summer session of the Supreme People's Assembly, the country's national legislature, which typically meets in April before the Day of the Sun. Instead of Kim, Choe Ryong Hae, president of the assembly's Presidium leadership body, led the proceedings. According to Reuters, Kim's last public appearance was on Saturday at a meeting of the Workers' Party of Korea politburo.

As chairman of both the Workers' Party and the State Affairs Commission, Kim's presence is usually required for these sorts of events. His absence from both the legislature and the Day of the Sun has given experts ample fodder for speculation as to what could be going on in the DPRK.

Cheong Seong Chang, a senior fellow at South Korea's Sejong Institute, told Reuters, "It is possible that there was a problem with his health or safety even if temporary, though it is difficult to assess how the situation might be."

However, South Korea's Ministry of Unification, which seeks to reconcile differences with the North, had few answers for Reuters, noting only that it was aware of the contents of Pyongyang's news reports.

Other experts floated the idea that Kim might be trying to cut his own path and had purposefully downplayed the holiday.

"It could be setting a new trend on the Kim Il Sung cult of personality stuff, moving more quickly to him being largely irrelevant to day-to-day policy," Peter Ward, a writer and researcher focused on North Korean politics and the economy, told NK News on Wednesday. "Another possibility is that Kim Jong Un is sick, but that wouldn't really negate the floral tribute. It's a bit weird."

NK News' Rachel Minyoung Lee similarly noted "this could be part of North Korea's ongoing propaganda effort to distance Kim Jong Un from the legacies of his grandfather and his father, a trend detected since the latter half of last year, the North's handling of the party founding anniversary in October 2019 being one example."

"Kim Jong Un wants to break away from the past, as well as the North's traditional cult of personality," Ahn Chan Il, a defector from the DPRK who works in Seoul as an academic, told Agence France-Presse. "His message is that Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung's times are now over."

Asia Times on Thursday gave five possible scenarios for the 36-year-old's absence: the DPRK's government might be in some kind of coronavirus-related lockdown; Kim might indeed be sick - or even dead, according to some; Kim might be trying to change his image, including leaving his ancestors' shadows; Kim might have been removed from power in a coup d'etat; and the fifth theory is that Kim is being ultra-paranoid and declining to appear in public for fear of being assassinated, as happened to Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani.

A Sputnik

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A group of Winnipeggers sewing homemade surgical scrub caps for front-line hospital workers during the COVID-19 crisis are looking for volunteers to expand the community operation into Brandon.

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This article was published 18/4/2020 (633 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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A group of Winnipeggers sewing homemade surgical scrub caps for front-line hospital workers during the COVID-19 crisis are looking for volunteers to expand the community operation into Brandon.

What started as one nurse wanting to sew a couple of scrub caps to wear exploded into a community-wide endeavour, said Rebecca Chambers, a human-ecology teacher in Winnipeg who started the Facebook group that now connects more than 450 members with the ability and the itch to sew.

JESSE BOILY / WINNIPEG FREE PRE JESSE BOILY / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Rebecca Chambers, the home-ec teacher at Shaftesbury High School created a pattern for washable reusable caps for nurses, poses for a portrait in her home on Monday. Monday, April 6, 2020. Chambers created a Facebook group to get more sewers together to share the pattern and make caps for medical professionals. Reporter: Doug Speirs

Chambers said her friend, an emergency room nurse in Winnipeg, reached out asking whether Chambers knew where she could get some fabric to try sewing her own surgical cap to wear at work.

It sparked a brainstorming session that resulted in two simple patterns for a surgical cap  one for short hair and one for long hair  with buttons on the side to hold up a mask.

"Its an extra thing (health-care workers) can do to protect themselves  and they want to be as safe as they possibly can," Chambers said. "Their ears are also breaking down  bleeding after a shift of wearing those masks for hours and hours on end, so (the buttons) take the pressure off their ears."

Chambers friend wore the cap during her next shift, and the response from her co-workers was overwhelming, she said, so she decided to put the call out on Facebook.

Chambers created the group "Surgical caps for Front Line Health Care Staff - Winnipeg Covid 19 Response," sharing the surgical cap pattern and inviting people to make it.

The group quickly gained momentum, and drop-off/pickup locations were established to get caps to health-care workers and also to connect donations of fabric, thread and buttons to people who sew, Chambers said.

People have been cleaning out their closets looking for fabric and using old bed sheets, she said.

JESSE BOILY / WINNIPEG FREE PRE JESSE BOILY / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Rebecca Chambers, the home-ec teacher at Shaftesbury High School created a pattern for washable reusable caps for nurses, poses for a portrait in her home on Monday. Monday, April 6, 2020. Chambers created a Facebook group to get more sewers together to share the pattern and make caps for medical professionals. Reporter: Doug Speirs

The group has also received donations. Parkland Fabrics in Dauphin donated brand-new fabric for people who sew to use, and people have been purchasing bolts of fabric to donate, as well.

In one week, Chambers said, more than 587 surgical caps have been distributed to health-care workers in hospitals across Winnipeg.

"Its incredible, and thats in under a week that we have almost 600 (surgical caps)," Chambers said. "Its so wonderful that people want to help, that people are looking for ways to help front-line workers. We all have a lot of empathy for folks who are not only needing to work under these circumstances, but who are showing up to work in jobs that are inherently a little more dangerous now that this is going on."

The group has started getting inquiries from across Manitoba asking how to get involved, Chambers said. Health-care workers in Brandon have also found their way to the group asking how they can get the surgical caps here.

"It sounds like theres some demand from health-care workers at (Brandon Regional Health Centre)  the demand is definitely outside Winnipeg," she said.

JESSE BOILY / WINNIPEG FREE PRE JESSE BOILY / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Rebecca Chambers pattern for washable and reusable caps for nurses at her home work bench on Monday. Monday, April 6, 2020. Chambers created a Facebook group to get more sewers together to share the pattern and make caps for medical professionals. Reporter: Doug Speirs

The patterns are easy to follow, she said, and there are instruction videos available in the Facebook group if you get stuck.

"If I was at school right now, I would absolutely be getting my Grade 10s, possibly even Grade 9s, to be making them."

Knowing youre making a difference is also good for your mental health, Chambers said.

"Im just happy to serve, really. It does make me very happy to bring people together and to meet a genuine need using some specialized skills. I think thats a good feeling for people."

Volunteers in Brandon are needed to sew surgical caps, as well as establish pickup/drop-off locations for completed caps and donations of fabric and other sewing materials.

Brandonites who would like to get involved or health-care workers looking for surgical caps are encouraged to join the group "Surgical caps for Front Line Health Care Staff - Winnipeg Covid 19 Response" on Facebook or call Vicky at 204-404-7267.

 edebooy@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @erindebooy
Nearly one third of 200 Massachusetts residents were infected with antibodies linked to the novel coronavirus, according to a pilot study.

Physicians at the Massachusetts General Hospital said they found evidence of widespread COVID-19 exposure in the city of Chelsea.

Chelsea, located just north of Boston, had the state's rate of coronavirus infections at 1,900 cases per 100,000 residents.

Researchers collected drops of blood from residents in Bellingham Square on Tuesday and Wednesday after advertising the study.

Of the 200 voluntary participants, 64 had antibodies created by their immune systems to fight the coronavirus.

Physicians in Chelsea, Massachusetts, learned that nearly one third of people who participated in a coronavirus study had COVID-19 antibodies. Pictured: Medics check on a patient who declined to go to the hospital amid the coronavirus disease in Chelsea

Although researchers noted that the participants appeared healthy, around half told doctors they experienced at least one COVID-19 symptom in the past four weeks.

Additionally, researchers determined that 32 percent of participants have already had COVID-19 and several had no idea.

Residents who previously tested positive for COVID-19 were excluded from the study and identities remained anonymous.

Unfortunately, this means none of the 200 participants received individual test results.

Physicians used a diagnostic device to analyze blood droplets and said results were available in around 10 minutes.

The pilot study was conducted by physicians at the Massachusetts General Hospital (pictured) this week

A city official previously referred to Chelsea as the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis in Massachusetts. Pictured: A caregiver walks past as an undertaker removes the body of a deceased person from the Eastpointe Rehab and Skilled Care Center in Chelsea

The device is not FDA approved, but researchers said that Massachusetts General Hospital deemed it reliable.

Dr. John Iafrate, the study's chief investigator and vice chairman of MGH's pathology department, explained that the findings were partially good news.

'I think it's both good news and bad news,' he said.

Dr. John Iafrate (pictured): 'There's a raging epidemic in Chelsea, and many people walking on the street don't know that they're carrying the virus'

'The bad news is that there's a raging epidemic in Chelsea, and many people walking on the street don't know that they're carrying the virus and that they may be exposing uninfected individuals in their families.

'On the good-news side, it suggests that Chelsea has made its way through a good part of the epidemic. They're probably further along than other towns,'

As of Friday, Maryland recorded 32,181 COVID-19 cases and 1,245 deaths.

Thomas Ambrosino, Chelsea's city manager, said he wasn't surprised by the findings. He previously referred to the city as the coronavirus epicenter of Massachusetts.

'We've long thought that the reported numbers are vastly under-counting what the actual infection is,' Ambrosino said.

'Those reported numbers are based on positive COVID-19 tests, and we're all aware that a very, very small percentage of people in Chelsea and everywhere are getting COVID-19 tests.'

He admitted that it was 'sobering that 30 percent of a random group of 200 people that are showing no symptoms are, in fact, infected.'

Scientists think that people who've recovered from COVID-19 could be temporarily immune from catching it again.

Pictured: The BioMedomics Rapid IgM-IgG Combined Antibody Test for COVID-19 at rapid blood fingerstick study site in Chelsea

Laboratories and biotech companies have asked recovered citizens to donate blood with the hopes that their antibodies could launch a vaccine or treatment.

Still, physicians who tested residents said those who had antibodies could still be contagious.

'Just because you have the antibodies doesn't mean you've cleared the virus,' Dr. Vivek Naranbhai told the Boston Globe.

The pilot study's test results have not been shared with Massachusetts officials yet as of Friday, but researchers admitted results couldn't apply to Chelsea's 40,000 residents.

Rather, it allowed researchers a glance into a hyper-localized case of coronavirus cases.

Physicians hope to place a medical tent outside the Mass. General Chelsea Healthcare Center to conduct more antibodies test.

Maryland, one of the countries leading COVID-19 epicenters, recorded 32,181 cases and 1,245 deaths

They also want to expand the testing into other local cities.

Those participants will reportedly receive test results, but physicians still have to determine the guidelines for what the next course of action should be if people test positive for antibodies.

'Knowing how many people are infected is critical,' said Dr. Dean Xerra, a study investigator and medical director of the Mass. General Chelsea Healthcare Center.

'We need to get them isolated. We need to get masks delivered to the city. We need to launch more safe isolation sites. We need to be able to identify cases and then give people the things they need to prevent perpetuation of the spread.'

Ambrosino said that many residents in Chelsea, which covers about two square miles, work in the hospital industry or health care careers.

Many of them must work throughout the pandemic and several residents live in three-decker houses, which can make it hard to properly self isolate.

Massachusetts officials extended stay-at-home orders through May 4.
Kathmandu, April 18

Nepals second Covid-19 patient has been discharged from the Shukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital on Saturday.

The 19-year-old lady from Kathmandu has told reporters that she is completely recovered now.

The teenage girl had returned to Nepal from France via Qatar on March 17 and she was diagnosed on March 23. The confirmation of infection in her had led the government to impose a complete lockdown across the country, which is still in effect.

Two other people who travelled on the same aircraft from Doha to Kathmandu that day have also been infected. The natives of Baglung district in western Nepal are undergoing treatment at Dhaulagiri Hospital there.

So far, there have been 30 coronavirus positive cases in Nepal. Of them, two including the lady discharged today are recovered.
An outsider entering Chandigarh will be quarantined for 14 days as per a decision taken in a review meeting chaired by UT administrator VP Singh Badnore on Saturday.

UT adviser Manoj Parida said as per government of Indias directions, outsiders entering the city will be quarantined for 14 days either at home or in government facilities to prevent spread of infection.

He, however, stated that this will not apply on residents of neighbouring cities who are out on government duty or catering to essential services.

He said as per the ministry of home guidelines, the entire UT has been declared as containment zone. Since in Chandigarh, the coronavirus outbreak is scattered and not confined to a specific pocket, area, village or cluster, the entire city has been declared a containment zone, he added. The latest declaration has ruled out any relaxation of curfew from April 20.

Meanwhile, Badnore expressed serious concern over health workers getting infected after two Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) workers were found positive for the virus on Friday.

He directed that authorities of all government and private hospitals must strictly follow the protocol laid down by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) while treating Covid-19 patients. He also stressed that the administration must rigorously do the contact tracing of these two patients and ensure that the infection is contained.

He advised the PGIMER director to ensure that proper safety, security and sanitisation is done on the institute campus so that there is no reoccurrence of such infections.

He directed the chiefs of all medical institutions to ensure that critical non-corona cases are also attended to on priority.

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Sec-26 mandi to remain closed on Monday

The UT administration decided to shut the Sector 26 wholesale mandi on Monday for sanitisation and cleaning. There will be no distribution of vegetables and fruits by the administrations buses on Monday.

Badnore directed that the flour mills should be kept open, so that the beneficiaries receiving the wheat under PMGKAY can get it milled.

Municipal commissioner KK Yadav stated that sanitisation through drones has been started in the city. He also stated that distribution of baby food for the needy mothers has been arranged by the municipal corporation.

4800 rapid kits received

Principal secretary (health) Arun Kumar Gupta said 4,800 rapid testing kits have been received, which will be utilised as per the advice of medical experts. The administrator has given directions to coordinate with Panjab University, Punjab Engineering College and other NGOs for blood donation camps.

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UT allows patients from other states at PGIMER

The UT administration also allowed treatment of serious Covid-19 patients from other states at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) following a protest from Haryana.

UT adviser Manoj Parida shared it through a tweet on Saturday, saying that PGI will continue to treat serious corona or non-corona cases of neighbouring states, if local doctors find treatment beyond their capacity.

Only condition is that they must consult in advance PGI director so that they are ready to receive patient without causing infection, he said.

Earlier UT had restricted the institute to entertain Covid-19 patients only from Chandigarh that created a problem in Panchkula three days ago.

As reported by Hindustan Times on Saturday, PGIMER declined the request of Panchkula chief medical officer regarding shifting a serious Covid-19 patient. Justifying the denial, PGIMER dean (academics) Dr GD Puri in a statement said they were restricted by Epidemic Act evoked by the UT administration that stopped the inter-state migration of corona patients.

This, however, did not go well with Haryana government and state chief secretary took up the matter with UT and PGIMER authorities. Sources confirmed that Union minister of health and family welfare too intervened in the matter.

Will strengthen coordination with states: PGI director

PGIMER director Dr Jagat Ram said the system at the institute level will be strengthened for better cooperation with the neighbouring states for the treatment of Covid-19 patients who need critical support and care. Primarily, if the patient who require intensive care unit (ICU) support, experts from anaesthesia and internal medicine departments will be nominated for coordination with the neighbouring states for decision on shifting of critical patients, he said.

Dr Ram said that the patients who can be treated at local facilities should not be referred to the institute as isolation is the only possible way to stop the spread of infection.
Twenty nine people of Filipino heritage are believed to have died from covid-19 in the UK, including a Grenfell tower survivor.

With the UK death toll now standing at 15,464 one community particularly hit by the devastating virus appears to be those from the Philippines, many of whom were working within the health service.

Eighteen Filipino nurses, porters and care staff are now believed to have died from the virus whilst working to save Britain's ill and vulnerable in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Virgilio Castro, 63, known as Larry, succumbed to the virus last Thursday, April 9, just three years after escaping the Grenfell tower blaze

A number of others continue to fight for their lives in intensive care.

Virgilio Castro, 63, known as Larry, succumbed to the virus last Thursday, April 9, just three years after escaping the Grenfell tower blaze, which had left him suffering with long-term respiratory problems, reports The Guardian.

For 29 years the bar maintenance supervisor had lived with his family on the 17th floor of Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, west London, until the fire, which took the lives of 72 people and destroyed 120 homes including Mr Castro's.

Speaking at the public Inquiry into the fire Mr Castro who lost many people he knew in the fire said: 'The Grenfell Tower fire is such a tragedy. It shouldn't have been allowed to happen and I want the public inquiry to ensure it can never happen again.'

Nurse Amor Padilla Gatinao, 50, (left) came to the UK in 2002 and dedicated her career to the NHS. Mother-of-one Linnette Cruz, 51, was a senior head nurse at a practice in Sketty, Swansea (right) who lost her life to Covid-19

Amor Padilla Gatinao and husband Mario. She was the third Filipino in the NHS to lose her life to Covid-19

Adding: 'I have watched my daughter grow up in that flat and have many fond memories of living there as a family.'

The Guardian has confirmed the deaths of 21 Filipinos from covid-19 in the UK, with a further eight people believed to have died after contracting the virus.

Other Filipino victims of covid-19 in the UK include nurse John Alagos, 23, who had been caring for patients with coronavirus at Watford general hospital and is believed to be the youngest medic in the UK to have died from the virus.

Last weekend Oscar King Jr (pictured) and Elbert Rico, both porters at John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, died from the virus

Last weekend Oscar King Jr and Elbert Rico, both porters at John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, died from the virus.

King Jr died on Saturday just an hour after being brought into hospital, his wife Twilight is currently recovering after also being hospitalised with the virus, the couple have a ten-year-old-daughter, reports The Guardian.

Leilani Medel, 41, a nurse from Bridgend, south Wales, who worked in UK care homes for over ten years, died on April 10. Her husband remains in critical condition.

Elbert Rico with his family. He died from Covid-19 after working as a porter at John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford

Linette Cruz, a senior nurse at Brynteg dental practice in Sketty, Swansea, and mother-of-one died on Tuesday from the virus.

Elvira Bucu, 50, mother-of-three and care worker, died on April 3 as her husband also fought for his life against the virus.

Leilani Medel, 41, a nurse from Bridgend, south Wales, who worked in UK care homes for over ten years, died on April 10

Leilani Dayrit, a nurse at the Hospital of St Cross in Rugby, died on April 7, from suspected coronavirus.

Amor Padilla Gatinao, 50, who worked as a nurse at St Charles Hospital, Ladbroke Grove, West London, died after falling ill on Mother's Day.

Her husband, Mario, said that he begged paramedics to take his wife but they refused.

Mr Padilla Gatinao thinks his wife caught the virus while working at the hospital in west London.

The widower says that the death has left him and his three children devastated. Her family suspect Mrs Padilla-Gatinao, who suffered from asthma, type-2 diabetes and hyperthyroidism, caught Covid-19 due to not having the right PPE.

Other members of the community who have lost their life to coronavirus include Arnel Ganias, a driver at Heathrow Airport, and Romeo Castillo Jr, 34, who caught the virus while on a work reward trip to Mauritius.

Earlier this month Piers Morgan used his platform on Good Morning Britain to thank members of the Filipino community for their work in the health service.

The journalist thanked the 'amazing number of Filipinos working in the NHS and unsung heroes like so many.

'Its worth bearing in mind when we talk about immigrants in this country, these are the immigrants currently saving peoples lives. Coming here and actually enriching our country and doing an amazing job.'

Other members of the community who have lost their life to coronavirus include Arnel Ganias, a driver at Heathrow Airport, (left) and Romeo Castillo Jr, 34, (right)

Of the 200,000 Filipinos in the UK, 18,500 work in the NHS, according to data from the House of Commons library in 2019, sourced by The Guardian, making Filipinos the third most numerous nationality working in the NHS after British and Indians.

Antonio Lagdameo, Philippine ambassador to the UK, told The Guardian: 'We are are deeply saddened by reports of Filipino staff at the NHS who are either infected by Covid-19 or have succumbed to the disease. Our thoughts are with their loved ones.

'Filipino health workers have served tirelessly and courageously at the frontlines of the war against this pandemic, and their contribution to the ongoing effort to save lives is nothing but immense.
By John Miller ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Roche aims next month to be able to offer blood tests to identify those who have been infected with the coronavirus, joining a huge global push to inform locked-down nations about who might have some immunity and return to work. Governments and businesses are seeking out such tests, to help them craft strategies to end lockdowns that have battered global economies even though it is not yet certain if those infected develop immunity to the new virus as with many other illnesses

By John Miller

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Roche aims next month to be able to offer blood tests to identify those who have been infected with the coronavirus, joining a huge global push to inform locked-down nations about who might have some immunity and return to work.

Governments and businesses are seeking out such tests, to help them craft strategies to end lockdowns that have battered global economies even though it is not yet certain if those infected develop immunity to the new virus as with many other illnesses.

Roche's announcement on Friday follows others including U.S.-based Abbott Laboratories, Becton Dickinson and Co, Italy's DiaSorin that aim to develop and sell tests to identify antibodies.

"This is the working assumption: If you test and find people that have developed these antibodies, then at least for a certain period of time they will have gained immunity," Thomas Schinecker, Roche's diagnostics head, said.

"We worked day and night on this, over weekends, to make sure we can help as many patients as possible," Schinecker told Reuters.

The Basel-based company pledged to make its antibody test available by early May in countries that accept European CE regulatory standards, and is seeking Food and Drug Administration emergency authorisation for U.S. use.

It plans by June to boost production to "high double-digit millions" per month, with the tests due to be run on more than 40,000 of Roche's cobas e testing machines installed worldwide. The test identifies antibodies including immunoglobulin G (IgG), which remains longer in the body, suggesting possible immunity.

Countries have various plans to use such tests to better understand the COVID-19 illness caused by the virus, while also identifying those who were infected but showed only mild symptoms, or none at all.

Diasorin SpA of Italy is among those developing an antibody test which it hopes to put to use this month.

Chief Executive Carlo Rosa told Reuters last week that demand is immense, a situation that parallels the global scramble for ventilators to keep critically ill patients alive.

"We won't be in a position to respond to the enormous demand that there will be for these tests on our own," said Rosa, adding Diasorin has 5,000 testing platforms installed globally, including 500 in Italy, which can process 170 samples an hour.

Authorities in the Italian regions of Veneto and Emilia Romagna have already begun testing health workers and authorities in hard-hit Lombardy where thousands have died are planning an antibody screening from April 21.

Finland, Germany, Britain and other countries have antibody testing plans, too, while the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is using them to study community-wide transmission.

It is not yet clear how conflicting demands from governments and businesses will be managed.

Amazon.com has voiced interest in testing, but in Spain, the purchase by Siemens wind turbine maker Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA of 2,000 assays to test employees, prompted the Spanish government to requisition the tests, union leaders said.

IMMUNITY OR NOT?

In Roche's home country of Switzerland, officials are examining antibody tests in trials underway in Geneva's university hospital, while still warning that too little is known about the new coronavirus to conclude a positive test offers conclusive evidence of immunity.

"What you can't say, and that's this idea that's going around, is that if I have the antibodies, then I know if I'm immune or not," said Patrick Mathys, the Swiss health ministry's crisis management head. That will take more research.

A spokesman for the ministry said antibody tests are foreseen playing a role for future steps to lift the country's restrictions like bans on group gatherings and school closures.

For now, the Swiss government is basing its decision to start easing curbs on April 27 on slowing rates of new infections, hospitalisations and deaths. Before antibodies play a role, "first we've got to have validated tests," the spokesman said.

Even tests with high accuracy have weaknesses, potentially producing thousands of false positive results. False positives could lead someone to believe they have immunity when in fact they have none.

Roche's tests have met the company's accuracy expectations, Schinecker said, though it is not yet releasing data.

"We put our best scientists on this," Schinecker said. "What we see is that the way we've designed the assay, it's extremely specific."

(Reporting by John Miller in Zurich and James; Mackenzie in Milan, additional reporting by Gincarlo Navach in Milan; editing by Bill Berkrot and Elaine Hardcastle)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Douglas Busvine

BERLIN (Reuters) - A European technology platform to support smartphone apps that can help trace people at risk of infection by the new coronavirus is gaining support from governments, one of its prime movers said on Friday.

Seven countries have either formally supported the Pan-European Privacy Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT https://www.pepp-pt.org) initiative or tasked one of its members with developing a national app, German tech entrepreneur Chris Boos told Reuters.

PEPP-PT has emerged as a leading proponent of the use of Bluetooth short-range communications between personal devices as a proxy for measuring the risk that a person infected with coronavirus can pass it on.

"A lot of larger countries have dedicated their app teams to build on top of what we're supplying," Boos, a co-initiator of PEPP-PT and founder of business automation startup Arago, said in an interview.

He listed Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Malta, Spain and Switzerland, adding that another 40 countries had registered and were in the process of being brought onboard.

More than 200 scientists and technologists are collaborating on PEPP-PT, conceived as the backbone for national apps that would comply with Europe's strict privacy rules and be able to "talk" to each other across borders.

Technologists are rushing to devise digital methods to fight a disease that has infected more than 2 million people worldwide, 150,000 of whom have died.

Automating the assessment of who is at risk and telling them to see a doctor, get tested or self isolate, is seen by advocates as a way to speed up a painstaking task that typically entails phone calls and door knocks.

DATA PRIVACY

The approach is based on work https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/04/09/science.abb6936 by researchers at Oxford University's Big Data Institute who argue that if 60% of a population uses such an app that would be enough to suppress the pandemic.

Story continues

This would be tough to reach if apps are voluntary. But even with lower takeup one infection can be prevented by every 1 or 2 people using an app, Oxford's Christophe Fraser told a separate video briefing.

A schism has however opened up among technologists around issues of data privacy, with some favouring decentralized approaches that do not host sensitive data on a main server over more centralized systems.

Boos said PEPP-PT could work in either setting. "Both models have their pros and cons ... A country has to pick which system it needs."

Italy has backed a contact tracing app developed by Milan startup Bending Spoons, a member of PEPP-PT, while Germany plans to roll out an app under development by the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, another participant.

In France, the INRIA digital research institute is also working to develop an app based on PEPP-PT. "We are fully committed to make this pan-European initiative a success," said INRIA head Bruno Sportisse.

PEPP-PT has faced criticism from supporters of a decentralized protocol called DP-3T https://github.com/DP-3T/documents/blob/master/DP3T%20White%20Paper.pdf, with early backer Marcel Salathe of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne publicly dissociating himself from it on Friday.

Boos said DP-3T still had a role to play. He also responded to criticism that PEPP-PT was too secretive, promising to publish its documentation for public review on Friday.

Friday's briefing on video conferencing app Zoom was hacked by someone who posted racist comments. The case of so-called Zoom-bombing, Boos conceded, was a reminder of the need to make sure the PEPP-PT platform safe and secure.

(Reporting by Douglas Busvine; Editing by David Holmes)
Megan Prendergast felt a sliver of hope in a time of crisis after she saw the additional $600 unemployment check from the federal stimulus bill deposited into her bank account on April 9.

After she was laid off from her job as a phototherapy technician, and her husband furloughed from his job in Agawam, the uncertainty over how to make ends meet during the coronavirus pandemic deepened. While that stimulus money gave her a bump, another week went by and the promised weekly payment, which is part of the federal pandemic unemployment compensation package, hasnt arrived.

Its been one of the most trying times of our lives, said Prendergast, a mother of two teenagers, an 11-year-old and a newborn.

In fact, a second check hasnt arrived for many others across Massachusetts as well, who say they have not been able to reach anyone from the state government about the delayed payments.

Its been very aggravating, said Nickoles Strobel, from West Springfield, who also got his first check last week, but is awaiting a second.

Strobel, 21, said he is depending on the federal funds to supplement the money hes receiving under state unemployment after he was laid off from his towing job in Northampton. He said he planned to use the funds to fix his car, pay his car insurance and phone bill and buy dog food for his dog.

Tyler Creador, who lost his job as a technician at a Mazda dealership in Raynham the day Gov. Charlie Baker ordered all non-essential businesses closed, says he hasnt received a second check either.

Bakers order, for many, was the beginning of a period of hardship. Initial claims for unemployment benefits soared, nearing 20,000 on March 16 alone. Since mid-March, the state has processed 572,562 unemployment claims since mid-March, about 16% of the total state workforce eligible for the benefits.

When youre promised money that youre expecting, you rely on that, Creador said. Its scary.

According to the state Department of Unemployment Assistance, the supplemental $600 checks come through the CARES Act, and are available to those who are are collecting regular unemployment for a maximum of 39 weeks.

Efforts to reach the states Department of Unemployment Assistance were not immediately successful Friday night.

The CARES Act also extended unemployment benefits to independent contractors such as Uber drivers, consultants and self-employed people. But distributing those funds will take time, Baker said last week.

Like other states, Massachusetts must build a new system for these applicants because their work history isnt in the states current unemployment database. Baker estimated the new system will start processing claims by April 30.

Steph Solis contributed to the reporting of this article.

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Ben F. Windham P.C., Macon Personal Injury Lawyer, was chosen by Super Lawyers as one of their top attorneys of 2020.

LOCUST GROVE, GA / ACCESSWIRE / April 17, 2020 / Windham Law is proud to announce that Founding Partner, Mr. Ben Windham, has been selected to the 2020 Georgia Super Lawyers list. This year marks the second consecutive year that Mr. Windham has been named to the prestigious list. Super Lawyers, a Thompson Reuters company, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement.

Super Lawyers selects only 5% of practicing attorneys on an annual basis using a patented multiphase selection process that includes research, peer nominations, and peer evaluations. To choose their winning attorneys, Super Lawyers evaluates candidates' verdicts and settlements, experience, bar involvement, honors and awards, pro bono and community service, and other qualifications on an annual, state-by-state basis. Their mission is to create a credible and comprehensive list of exceptional attorneys that can be used as a resource for lawyers and consumers searching for legal counsel. The yearly list results in featuring profiles of attorneys across the nation who exhibit excellence in their practice areas. To be selected to the Super Lawyers list speaks volumes about the reputation attorneys have cultivated among their peers, as well as their professional achievements and exemplary ethical conduct.

"I am honored to be named a Super Lawyer again for 2020 as it is an acknowledgement of the important work our firm does on behalf of our clients who put their trust in us to seek justice," says Windham. "This recognition is a testament to our firm's dedication to our clients and unwavering commitment to providing high-quality legal representation."

About Windham Law:

Our personal injury attorneys serve clients throughout Macon and the greater Atlanta area including McDonough, Rockdale County, Locust Grove, Jonesboro, Clayton County, and Greensboro with an array of law services. We specialize in many areas of the law in order to provide honest counsel and tenacious litigation. Our approach is hands-on and personal because we believe it's the most powerful way to pursue any claim by being truly invested in delivering the outcome our client deserves. At Ben F. Windham P.C., expect a collaborative team with an entrepreneurial mindset determined to meet and exceed our client's expectations every step of the way.

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To learn more about Ben F. Windham P.C. Trial Attorneys, or for a free case evaluation please visit https://windhamlaw.com or call 833-236-9467.

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A teenager who died in a car accident has been remembered as a 'gentle soul' by heartbroken family and friends.

Declan Primmer, 19, was killed after his car slammed into a tree on West Mount Road at Sheldon, south of Brisbane, about 12.30am on Tuesday.

The teenager, who was diagnosed with Crohn's disease at age 11 and went on to suffer from depression, has been described as 'kind, selfless and so loving'.

His mother Cassie Primmer told The Courier-Mail: 'He loved animals and children and had such a gentle, loving nature.'

Declan Primmer, 19, was killed after his car slammed into a tree on West Mount Road at Sheldon, south of Brisbane, about 12.30am on Tuesday

Ms Primmer said the 19-year-old wanted a career with animals and worked with children at PCYC.

The devastated mother said Mr Primmer maintained a close connection with his first girlfriend.

In a tribute, a family friend said the world 'lost one of its most amazing people'.

'Declan had been fighting Crohns for so long and battling his own demons of anxiety and depression,' she wrote.

The tribute said Mr Primmer would now be at peace.

'My beautiful angel boy you will be so missed, but I understand. You are no longer in pain and will be in my heart forever,' the post read.

'Hug the people you love if you are lucky enough to have them with you during this time a little tighter.

'I am so blessed that I got to know Declan, take him to his first concert, shared many laughs and adventures together. Rest in Peace beautiful boy.'

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There are clearly no winners in the coronavirus pandemic. But some are faring better than others. Among those making hay are the giants of TV streaming, including Netflix and Amazon. And now we have Disney+, which will be releasing its big-budget adaptation of Irish author Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl bestsellers over the summer.

These companies certainly now have a captive viewership. With tens of millions confined to their homes and allowed out only for exercise, television has become the default coping mechanism and homeworker's babysitter.

It's a moment in history for which streaming could have been tailor-made. If ever there was a time for binge-watching, this is it. Across the world, people who might otherwise be at work or on the school run are finishing Netflix's The Witcher, discovering Tales from the Loop on Amazon Prime or fobbing their kids off with a Disney+ subscription.

The degree to which we're all craving escapism is underlined by the success of Tiger King on Netflix. In less troubled times, would we have flocked en masse to this surreal story of feuding hillbillies and caged tigers?

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That isn't to say the major players are all faring equally well or that competition isn't as fierce as ever within streaming. When Disney+ unveiled its aggressive $6.99 price point on its US launch in November - essentially a $5 undercut of Netflix's most popular subscription option - it was regarded as a declaration of war.

It's the Tiger King vs The Lion King, a duel that is playing out all across Ireland.

Mickey and his mob have certainly gone a long way in making up ground. Disney+ already has 50 million subscribers around the world. That puts it a considerable length behind Netflix's global customer base of 160 million.

And now comes news that Disney's forthcoming adaptation of Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl is to have its debut on Disney+ rather than in the cinemas. It's fortuitous timing for Irish fans, with Disney+ having rolled out here in early March.

The decision to put Artemis Fowl on Disney+ comes despite its reported $125m budget and a starry cast including Colin Farrell, Judi Dench and the voice behind Olaf the Snowman from Frozen. Considering an adaptation was first mooted as far back as 2001, for it to be denied a cinematic release at the 11th hour was quite the bombshell.

"The drama [of where it will be released] has been going on for the past few weeks," explained Colfer in a radio interview recently. "But the conclusion, that it will be going straight on to Disney+, was the one that I had been pushing them for."

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Disney+ launched in Ireland on March 24, just in time for coronavirus. With the world caving in, the timing was obviously slightly strange. This led to several not very funny think pieces that jokingly wondered if Mickey had orchestrated the pandemic to boost subscriptions.

The service is the Magic Kingdom's family-friendly riposte to Netflix. Outgoing Disney CEO Bob Iger's big idea was to leverage the studio's decades-spanning catalogue of cuddly classics in order to challenge Netflix's dominance. If Disney didn't establish a presence in streaming, he warned, it would find itself left behind.

Disney could call on several magic bullets in its duel with Netflix. Its war chest of movies included such bone fide classics as Snow White and The Lion King (original and live action remake). There were also the Pixar, Star Wars and Marvel titles - and 600-plus episodes of The Simpsons - which it has acquired in the course of an ambitious spree of takeovers across the past 15 years.

As Colfer explained to RTE, Disney+ was getting into the original content business, too. At launch, its roster included the Willem Dafoe Arctic rescue movie Togo and a sequel to the Lady and the Tramp, featuring terrifyingly life-like CGI pets.

But Artemis Fowl, which was due to hit cinemas on May 27, nonetheless represents a new frontier for Disney+. The movie cost a fortune, even for the studio behind The Rise of Skywalker and Avengers: Endgame. It was directed by Kenneth Branagh and stars Farrell, Dench, Josh Gad from Frozen and, as the eponymous prepubescent master criminal, 15-year-old Kilkenny newcomer Ferdia Shaw. And it is written by Conor McPherson, acclaimed for his depressing plays about miserable Irish people.

And yet, despite the starriness of the cast and crew, and heftiness of the budget, Disney has decided to bung it on Disney+. There would be no red carpet, no midnight screenings, no queues at the popcorn stand before Artemis Fowl fanatics took their seats.

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Disney didn't have to do this. It has pushed back the cinema release of the Marvel Black Widow movie rather than put it out on streaming. And it's doing the same with its live-action remake of Mulan. Disney+ isn't the only answer to Covid-19.

However in his key point, Colfer was absolutely correct. Disney+ is the future. And, the moment the lockdown hit, that future suddenly arrived.

"Disney+ suddenly became the most profitable arm of Disney overnight. It used to be the parks, but the parks shut down. And so Disney+ needed content. And they talked about it, and [thought] what better way to put this big, tent-pole movie on Disney+," he said. He added that switching from cinemas to the streaming service was "exciting."

"I was talking to an agent in Hollywood, a friend of mine, and he said it's all changed forever," Colfer continued.

"Disney+ has, in some ways, launched in [Ireland and the UK] at the perfect time, with millions of subscribers signing up in the past two months - a much faster pace than Netflix's initial sign-up rate," says Ivan Radford, editor of online TV magazine VODzilla. "Its inbuilt library of Disney classics, plus Fox's vault of content including 30 seasons of The Simpsons, makes it a genuine rival to Netflix, particularly when lots of children and families will be at home together needing something to watch.

"But even with Disney+'s cheaper price tag, Netflix remains the dominant player thanks to its one key advantage: fresh content. Since its launch years ago, it has poured money into original and exclusive projects, which means that even with TV and film productions on hiatus around the world, Netflix still has new titles it can release."

New subscribers

Investors are confident about Netflix going from strength to strength through the pandemic. With the world shutting up shop, its shares have climbed to a two-year high. Since social distancing was rolled out across the US, Netflix has seen a 47pc jump in new subscribers.

Disney has, if anything, performed even better. New sign-ups to the service more than tripled in the US between March 14 and March 20, according to figures compiled by analytic firm Antenna.

Amazon has created a splash too with Prime Video. It has announced a number of ambition projects including the recently-debuted Making the Cut, with Heidi Klum, and a $1bn Lord of the Rings prequel (production in New Zealand has obviously been halted due to coronavirus).

Then there are the many smaller players. Sky TV has beefed up its on-demand service in Ireland, where it has some 600,000 subscribers. And Now TV, which is owned by Sky, allows viewers to pick and chose what they watch by selling monthly "passes" on different kinds of content.

There are also more niche services such as Irish independent movie streaming site Volta and its UK equivalent Curzon. There, for prices in the range of 4.99, you can rent films such as Lorcan Finnegan's dystopian suburban satire Vivarium (though the movie is arguably redundant given we are all currently living through a dystopian suburban satire).

Not every entry into streaming has been a roaring success, it is worth pointing out. Apple has stumbled with Apple TV + and its lacklustre original content. True, Apple's business model is slightly different in that Apple TV is essentially a portal to subscribe to other services. The supposed sweetener is the selection of programmes Apple itself is producing. It's just a shame they are so awful.

The Morning Show, starring Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carrell and Reese Witherspoon, is a clunking workplace dramedy that tries to crowbar in a #MeToo storyline (the Harvey Weinstein scandal erupted mid-production and the series visibly scrambles to tack to this new reality).

See, meanwhile, is a hilariously naff Game of Thrones wannabe from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight about a future society in which everyone is blind yet manages to run around fighting with swords.

Both offerings suggested Apple should stick to what it is good at: making shiny, expensive gadgets. That's what the public thinks, at any rate. In contrast to Netflix and Disney, Apple TV+'s subscriber base climbed just 10pc since lockdown.

Apple is reported to have ploughed $6bn into its launch line-up. That's even more than Disney which plans to spend $2.5bn on Disney+ programming up to 2024. The crown, though, is seized by Netflix which lavished $15bn on original content in 2015 alone.

The rewards are huge when a show does take off. Tiger King was an international talking point from the moment it debuted on March 20. This tale of eccentric big cat enthusiasts in the American South became an instant global talking point.

You can see why. The world is a big confusing place right now. Social distancing has left each of us facing the future in relative isolation. And yet we can still bond over Tiger King, and whether Joe Exotic deserves to spend the next 22 years in prison and if we think Carole Baskin really fed her second husband to the tigers.

The numbers back up this argument. In the US alone, some 34 million people are estimated to have binged the seven-hour series within 10 days. That makes it Netflix's second biggest hit ever, behind season three of Stranger Things, which racked up 36 million views in the equivalent period (not counting the tens of millions more who watched outside North America).

Still the challenges facing even those streaming services perceived to still be a work in progress pale compared to those confronting legacy broadcasters. We're glued to news and current affairs like never before these days. Alas for RTE and other networks dependent, to one degree or another, on advertising, generating revenue from all those extra eyeballs is proving a challenge.

Huge debts

"The initial shock of Leo's [lockdown] announcement caught everyone off guard. Some advertisers couldn't advertise because their product/service wouldn't be available in the short-term, while others had to step back and think about how they should advertise during this crisis," says Colm Sherwin, managing director of investment at Core Media, Ireland's largest marketing communications group.

"We've had some larger clients come back on TV in recent days with tailored messaging," he says. "Overall the next two months will be down significantly."

But if streaming is in a stronger position in the short term, further out there are several major challenges. There will be a drought of content coming down the pipeline, with coronavirus bringing production of hits such as The Witcher to a halt.

In addition, as the pandemic threatens to plunge the global economy into another depression, fewer and fewer households will be prepared to subscribe to multiple services. It is already doubtful whether people are willing to pay for Amazon, Netflix and Disney+ on top of a cable media subscription. And with HBO Max set for a worldwide rollout over the next few years, the space is likely to become even more crowded.

It is also questionable whether these services can continue to splurge billions on content. Netflix has racked up debts of $14bn as it pumps out programming. Last year, it debuted 371 new shows - more than one for every day of the year.

Disney +, for its part, thinks nothing of bunging a $125m movie such as Artemis Fowl on to its service. And Amazon is writing cheques for Lord of the Rings and other big-budget series such as the forthcoming The Wheel of Time as if determined to burn though as much cash as quickly as possible. Something, sooner rather than later, has to give, experts believe.

Netflix, as things stand, has the clear advantage, says Yunus Emre of the website Netflix Junkie. "Disney+ has 50 million plus subscribers and Netflix already reaches 200 million plus around the world. Disney+ need a worldwide expansion if they want to gain more subscribers."

"My general opinion re streaming services versus TV, is sustainability," says Core's Colm Sherwin.

"Content is expensive and depending on your source, approximately 50 to 60pc of content on Netflix for example, is original, while the rest is licensed.

"Netflix is an amazing product, but is consumed in peaks and troughs," he continues.





Five of the best: what's on offer

Disney+

Big hitters: Star Wars series The Mandalorian, High School Musical: The Series, The World According to Jeff Goldblum

Weakness: Aside from the excellent Mandalorian and all those Simpsons reruns, Disney+ is strictly for kids.

Netflix

Big hitters: Tiger King, The Witcher, Stranger Things, The Crown

Weakness: Along with some genuinely excellent programming, Netflix churns out oceans of dross.

Amazon Prime

Monthly cost: 5.99

Big hitters: The Boys, Making the Cut, Tales from the Loop

Weakness: Lacks the variety of Netflix and Disney's deep bench of classics.

Now TV

Big hitters: Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Chernobyl.

Weakness: Now TV lacks the sheer number of programmes that are available on Netflix.

Volta

Big hitters: Vivarium, Lars von Trier's Antichrist, Tim Robinson: Connemara

Weakness: This is for students of independent and avant-garde cinema. Star Wars fans should jog on.
Amazon Studios is set to reboot a female-focused reboot of Michael Douglas' 1983 film The Star Chamber.

The studio will reportedly give the 1983 thriller a gender-bending twist, as it will follow a 'revered female federal appellate court judge' in San Francisco, according to Deadline.

In the original legal drama, the 75-year-old Fatal Attraction actor, played a disheartened judge, struggling to navigate the failures of the legal system after seeing hardened criminals go free on technicalities and loopholes.

Gender-bending twist: Amazon Studios is set to reboot a female-focused reboot of Michael Douglas' 1983 film The Star Chamber

In a desperate attempt to seek justice, he accepts his older colleague's invitation to join a modern-day Star Chamber, originally derived from the 15th-17th century English court.

The sub-rosa organization, consisting of nine like-minded judges, work to take the law into their own hands with a hired assassin.

While the new female lead has yet to be announced, like the five-time Golden Globe winner's character, the outlet reports her character will similarly work to maneuver a 'broken legal system.'

Reboot: The studio will reportedly give the 1983 thriller a gender-bending twist, as it will follow a 'revered female federal appellate court judge' in San Francisco, according to Deadline

37 years later: The forthcoming series will be written by Sheldon Turner and executive produced by Jennifer Klein and Ileen Maisel, who worked on the original

Additionally, the film's protagonist will weigh 'her obligations to law, to religion and to her family.'

The forthcoming series will be written by Sheldon Turner and executive produced by Jennifer Klein and Ileen Maisel, who worked on the original 37 years prior.

Douglas has yet to comment on the upcoming remake of his movie, which earned a score of 71% based on reviews from critics and a rating of 6 out of 10 on Rotten Tomatoes.

Legendary role: Douglas has yet to comment on the upcoming remake of his movie, which earned a score of 71% based on reviews from 14 critics and a rating of 6 out of 10 on Rotten Tomatoes

The actor, who is married to Catherine Zeta-Jones, is currently staying in isolation with his wife at home amid the coronavirus outbreak.

In addition to learning how to play pool from her husband, the 50-year-old actress recently shared a sweet snap of their maltipoo Taylor, who they welcomed in February.

News of the couple's new puppy came a week after the death of Douglas' father, legendary movie star Kirk Douglas' death.
To defund WHO in the middle of the pandemic, is foolish and dangerous, she said flatly. It weakens them at the time of their greatest need. It means they cant do what they need to do to protect the worlds population and it will hit the poorest and most vulnerable people most, particularly in the sub-Sahara. She emphasised that while tragic for them, it is also a grave matter for the rest of the world, which will always be threatened unless the virus can be contained across the entire world, not just the developed one, and WHO is fundamental to that. We can see clearly now Yes, I know the upside of the coronavirus pandemic is hard to find. But has anyone else noticed how crystal clear the air is lately? Its not actually that it felt that smoggy before  at least not in bush-fire season  its just that it is so bracing and clear now it surely gives a glimpse of what the future can hold if we get on top of fossil fuels, and those millions now working from home dont all go back. And the other species that seem to like it are the white cockatoos. On the North Shore at least, several people have commented that they have never seen so many flocking and frolicking about. Thousands of them.

Feeling blue? A reader with a background in this field, Professor Michael Izard, makes an interesting point. See, the bubonic plague was called the Black Death because it caused black swellings of the lymph nodes; syphilis was the Red Plague, because red in the 13th century had connotations of sexual recklessness; and smallpox was considered the Yellow Plague, while tuberculosis was the White Plague due to people looking so pale as the disease ate away at them, so there is obvious nomenclature for the coronavirus. He says it should be the Blue Plague, for the colour of the cyanosis that kills patients with respiratory distress, and blue for the impact on mood that is caused by social isolation and financial distress.

Joke of the Week If Trump were captain of Titanic  There isnt any iceberg . . . There is an iceberg but its a small iceberg in another ocean . . . The iceberg is in this ocean but its a small iceberg and will melt in about three days . . . There is an iceberg but we didnt hit the iceberg . . . We hit the iceberg but the damage will be repaired very shortly . . . I didnt know how big the iceberg was until two weeks ago . . . The iceberg is a Chinese iceberg . . . We arent taking on water but every passenger who wants a lifeboat can get a lifeboat and they are beautiful lifeboats because we make the best lifeboats in the world . . . Look, passengers need to ask nicely for lifeboats if they want them . . . We dont have any lifeboats, were not lifeboat distributors . . . I really dont think we need that many lifeboats . . . The people drowning should have planned for icebergs and brought their own lifeboats . . . We have lifeboats and theyre supposed to be everyones lifeboats, but theyre only for people who kiss my a** . . . They are not the passengers lifeboats . . . The last captain of this ship didnt leave enough lifeboats and, besides, nobody could have foreseen the iceberg. What they said How could any journalist hearing that not say: '"Activities"? How could you describe child abuse as an activity?' What is happening to our profession? Bolt did more than protect Pell here. He allowed Ridsdales appalling crimes to be trivialised. - The redoubtable Barry Cassidy, after the Andrew Bolt interview with George Pell, when Pell said of the infamous pedophile Gerard Ridsdales decades long sexual abuse of children, I totally condemn those sort of activities. Hes a professional politician who understands marketing and messaging better than most. His cringeworthy daggy dad persona is more exaggerated than it is conflated, but in net terms it probably helped. All that aside, however, the truth is that Labor lost the election that the coalition, after the August coup, did not deserve to win. - Malcolm Turnbull in his memoir, released tomorrow, on Scott Morrison.

I have today left hospital after a week in which the NHS has saved my life, no question. It's hard to find the words to express my debt. - UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson thanking his medical team after leaving hospital and singling out two foreign nurses, Jenny from Invercargill, New Zealand, and Luis from near Pporto in Portugal, who he said stood by his bedside for 48 hours when things could have gone either way. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Things have been drafted in haste, it's entirely understandable that there are errors, but I think a lot of these fines, if people contest them, will ultimately be withdrawn or dismissed in court. You see reporting of people being moved along [by police] on beaches, in circumstances where people have left the house to exercise, then apparently have set down at some place at the beach. On my reading of the public health order, there is absolutely no power to move someone on or fine someone in that circumstance. - Barrister Stephen Lawrence, one of several lawyers warning that many of the "social distancing" fines issued on the basis of hastily written public health orders could fall over in court, saying they lacked clarity on key details and left police with too much discretion. The thing that worries us most at the moment is complacency. - The Chief Medical Officer, Dr Brendan Murphy, advising against hurrying into relaxing COVID-19 safeguards. Instead of 'Amening' or saying 'Yes', we got to honk our horns [or] swish our wipers. -

A parishioner at a drive-in Easter service at a church in South Carolina. You must remember that every elder is a library. - Artistic director Wesley Enoch about the importance of keeping COVID-19 away from Indigenous communities to preserve culture. Ill go quietly." - George Pell. [Americans need to] unite in a great awakening against a politics that has too often been defined by corruption, carelessness, self-dealing, disinformation, ignorance and just plain meanness. This [COVID-19] crisis has reminded us that government matters. - Former American president Barack Obama speaking in support of Joe Biden in his attempt at the next presidential election. This is not going to change the government books but for us it's about leadership. It's an acknowledgement of the hit many New Zealanders are taking right now. - Jacinda Ardern once again taking the lead, announcing that her Cabinet members and senior public servants are getting a 20 per cent pay cut for six months in solidarity with the population.
A section of inmates at the Jalpaiguri correctional home in West Bengal started violent protests on Saturday, demanding that they be granted bail in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, officials said.

The correctional facility houses around 750 prisoners in eight wards and of them, 50-60 inmates are protesting, citing a Supreme Court directive, they said.

On March 23, the Supreme Court had directed all states and Union Territories to constitute high-level committees to consider releasing on parole or interim bail prisoners and undertrials for offences entailing up to seven-year jail term to decongest prisons in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Police personnel are trying to enter the main prison area, the gate of which has been shut by the inmates from inside, said Chief Disciplinary Officer Ashim Acharya.

They are throwing stones from inside but no one has been injured till now, he said.

Jail authorities earlier tried to persuade the prisoners but they continued with the protests, officials said, adding that they have been provided masks and sanitisers.

Officials said police personnel have been deployed along the periphery of the facility to prevent any attempts of jailbreak.

Around 2,000 undertrial prisoners and convicts have been released on bail and parole from various jails in the state, following the Supreme Court directive.

Last month, clashes broke out at the Dumdum Correctional Home near Kolkata over the state government's decision not to allow the inmates to meet their families due to the coronavirus outbreak.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
How Legacy Church Launched Streaming Services in the COVID-19 Crisis

How does a church with no in-house streaming gear or on-staff expertise deliver live-switched, streamed services to hundreds of socially distanced parishioners on four days' notice? Legacy Church's Jeff Leach and Apache Rental Group's Zak Holley explain how they did it in this interview with Streaming Media's Steve Nathans-Kelly.

Page 1

Steve Nathans-Kelly: I'm Steve Nathans-Kelly, editor of Streaming Media Producer, and I'm here today with Jeff Leach from Legacy Church and Zak Holley from Apache Rental Group. Legacy Church is based in Downey, California and like like a lot of us, they've been moving things online: streaming their services, and getting the message out that way and trying to communicate and keep the community together in the crisis that we're going through now. Maybe Jeff, if you could just start off just talking a little bit about Legacy Church and how you've gotten involved.

Jeff Leach: Okay. Legacy Church is in Downey. On Sundays, we have a regular attendance anywhere from 200 to 250 people in-service. With the social distancing, quarantine, we decided to move our services online. We haven't historically published live streamed video of our services, and so this was a new challenge. It came up out of nowhere. It was a Wednesday night. I was asked what we would need to do to be able to do that for the next Sunday. That evening, I reached out to Zak, knowing that he had been working with a kit to live stream, and asked about its availability for that Sunday service. He had it ready for me to pick up on Friday, and we started installing the gear and we had a successful Sunday livestream.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: And so Zak, you run an A/V rental service, is that right?

Zak Holley: Yes, I work for an A/V rental service. I do live broadcast shows. I've not only worked for the service; I actually install the gear on the shows. And that's how I know Jeff. So I had been working on this streaming kit. I started putting it on paper in December, gathering the pieces together in January. By the time I had all the parts and pieces up and running, it was early February. It looked nice from the inside and outside. I could get it to work in my shop, but we were still working out the kinks and figuring out what worked for it and where it would fit and what the demand was for this. Crazy as it was, just as it started to be dialed in and working, this COVID thing started happening and I started losing all my work, and I've slowly watched everything turned to a streaming-based service.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: Makes sense. Even as weve seen more and more demand for streaming, obviously we're not having in-person events. We're not doing a lot of the stuff thats traditionally been the lifeblood of their livestreaming industry. So tell me a little bit about what's in the kit. And did you customize it for Legacy Church? What are they working with?

Zak Holley: I based the kit around the ATEM Mini, a new product from Blackmagic. It's a four-source switcher with HDMI inputs. So, my first thing coming around was, not all the sources we're going to use in the field are going to be HDMI. One of the first things I did in the chain outside of the switcher was I threw in the bi-directional converters by Blackmagic. I think they're great because they auto-select your source if you're feeding it SDI or HDMI in, it knows what it's taking and it'll auto-spit it out on the output side and an output it either/or. So I basically made harnesses from the switcher to four individual bi-directional converters. And then from the bi-directional converters, I ran an HDMI to a patch panel for each one and an SDI for each one. That gave me the ability to run four HDMIs or four SDIs or two and two--whatever made sense at the time. And then I kind of just went along with taking everything off the ATEM Mini and putting it on the back of the patch panel, getting it away from the router and keeping it all nice and clean in the back. I threw on a Blackmagic SmartView Duo, a dual-screen monitor on the front of the panel so we can physically see what we're doing in real time to see if things are working and talking. And then a couple little audio things we had to do to get the audio to be perfect where we wanted it to be. The network with it works great. The USB-C out to a computer works great and always sees it as a webcam. I've never had an issue with any computer not seeing it as a webcam. And really it's, it's given me the ability to offer a simple solution throw-down kit. Whether we're talking GoPros or Sony FS7 cameras--anything with an HD-SDI signal or an HDMI out--we can do a little live show.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: And then at Legacy Church, what are you shooting with?

Jeff Leach: So we started with some cameras that Zak provided to usMarshall CV-502s. And they were great for getting it out there and starting with just what we needed. It is a wide-angle lens and so up close, it would slightly distort and fisheye. It gave great full-sanctuary views of the church, but people didn't like to see an empty sanctuary with pews that were empty. And so that shot was cut out pretty quickly. We've now gone to a Canon DSLRs: a 5D Mark IV as our primary camera, and another EOS camera as a secondary if we're using a second source. At the beginning we were using three cameras and a computer input. But it was requiring us to run a heavy production staff. We had four or five people to operate between the switcher, the lights, and the slides. And so we've cut that down and gone to mostly single-camera shooting. The Canon DSLRs do better in the low light in our dark sanctuary, and they also allow for facial auto-focus. So it will track whoever's speaking if they're moving in and out and adjust for depth of field.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: I watched some of the Easter service that you put together. It seems like you're kind of going back and forth between the pastor and the worship band. Was all of that shot and streamed live or were there some prerecorded components? How are you doing that?

Jeff Leach: Everything now is prerecorded. When we were shooting live for the first two weeks, it took 4-7 people onsite, working in close proximity, to make it happen. And with where we are now there's a desire to not have that many people in a confined space. So we're it doing prerecorded. It's whoever's on stage and then a technician running the splitter and the cameras. And so we'll prerecord and then that is sent off to be cut up and put together for the service. And then we upload it as a live feed off of that recording. Where I work, my role is assisting in providing network infrastructure. It's not in the actual camera operation, switching, or editing. This has been all new to me since mid-March.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: Zak, in terms of your role, were you involved at the outset in installing, hands on with getting the kit running?

Zak Holley: I was actually walking off on another project up in Cupertino for Apple. So I had built the whole kit and I had it at my shop and Jeff had called me saying he needed it, and I had some people in my shop get him what he needed. I basically made them a full little flypack with everything I thought he could use. And like he said, for the first two weeks, they had the basic Marshall cameras. Their HD-SDI out is a simple way to see a feed. But they upgraded to nicer cameras, and the quality on the Easter service look great.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: With the ATEM Mini, one of the things that strikes me about it--besides being only $299, you've got the Software Control Panel, which is the same as in the higher-end models. Did you find it pretty easy to get started with?

Jeff Leach: It was pretty intuitive. There was a learning curve to start with, but it went pretty quick. I am still learning. It is very feature-rich. And so basic functionality was very simple. But I'm learning what different terms and functionalities mean on the audio engineering side. And then on the video side, I'm digging in deeper. It works out of the box pretty seamlessly. But once you want to get into the deeper functionalities it does take a little time and research, but it's very, very easy.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: In terms of getting the streams out, what platforms are you streaming to?

Jeff Leach: We're streaming to two Facebook pages and one you YouTube page as well. The church changed its name, first of the year, from First Baptist Downey to Legacy Church Downey. And so we still have an active First Baptist Facebook page. And so that is still receiving the live stream as well as the congregation moves from one platform or one page to the other. Wanting to cover both sides, I'm doing that through an Epiphan Webcaster X2, something that I had purchased and was playing with before the flight kit was delivered. That allows me a push to Switchboard, which is a third-party, cloud-based solution. It sends a single stream to Switchboard, and then you can pick your destinations and it will push them live for either. That's been nice. Our network there at the church is not very resilient and it's on the carrier side. And so if we tried to do three actual pushes or live streams at the same time, the bandwidth wouldn't support it. So third-party service is really necessary for that.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: That makes sense. I actually have a number of friends that are in the clergy that were asking me, What do we do? when all this social distancing started. It's interesting to hear you say that you switched pretty quickly to prerecording the video and then getting it online, because I had told one friend who wasn't confident in the bandwidth they had at the church, I said, There's nothing wrong with prerecording it and just making sure the congregation gets it when church is supposed to start. How has the reception been with the congregation? You mentioned seeing the empty seats the first week wasn't so great, but other than that, have they been taking to it? Has it been easy for them to watch it?

Jeff Leach: Most definitely, they've taken to it. The first week, we only streamed to YouTube, and we had about 350 views of that strea, by the end of the week. This morning, four days after our Easter service, we just over 10,000 views of that service across the three platforms. The livestream is seeing anywhere from 200 to 240 people actually watching it pretty sustained from start to finish. In the comment section there's a lot of welcomes, hellos, miss yous. And so it is giving people a way that they wouldn't necessarily have to reach out to an individual that they would see on a Sunday. They are able to interact with each other during the service. And I think that's been a huge benefit for them.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: And so do you get a sense that this has been challenging for the worship team? Ive talked to people who are doing this, and they say it's different preaching to a camera than preaching to a congregation.

Jeff Leach: Yes, it's most definitely different. They don't know where to look. You're looking into a room that seats upwards of 800 people and there's me, I'm sitting there at a table. And so that's kind of awkward. I asked our Lead Pastor, Shane Hicks, about this, because you asked the question what the adjustments are, and his response was, There's been a high learning curve that required a lot of agility from the leadership, and a transition from leading people physically to leading in physical separation. We've had to focus on learning from others who are more experienced. And this has helped us develop eye contact, creating energy and production skills that our church wasn't experienced in before this crisis. The shift online has required a forced mental, emotional, and purposeful response that has impacted every level of the churchs functioning. God has shown us how to use the crisis as an opportunity to reach thousands where we were unaware of our existence before the crisis. Most definitely, it's a conscious effort. We've joked about putting placards in the seats. It's difficult to get excited or to have some energy with an empty house.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: Do you think anything will change about how the church does things going forward?

Jeff Leach: Well most definitely continue the livestream. As we continue on, there's no question about that. We're in the process of sourcing and building a longterm system for the church to be able to do that. With what's going on in the world, it's difficult to find equipment in this kind of niche. And so we're building that out. I have since returned the flykit to Zak. Back in the middle of March, I purchased an ATEM Mini. They were backordered. I just got it this last Sunday. And so we're gonna use that in the interim. And the idea would be to go to one of Blackmagics larger boards that this is based off of, and then stay within the product line. It's very intuitive for a Sunday volunteer to come up and push buttons that are illuminated rather than having to try to learn an entire system that they touch very rarely. So we'll most definitely continue down this route, and it's been a good product for that. I'm actually using my ATEM Mini now for this zoom call. And in my living room, so this is not on, let's see. This is the table that Im at now, and these are the bi-directional converters that Zak used. This is the Webcaster X2 that we use at the church, and it makes it very easy to switch between sources. That's the second computer I have at the table with me. It makes it very simple. I set this up in 25 minutes this morning in preparation for this interview. So I think that it's a good product for this. In small settings, it's most definitely an easy to use, resilient product. The only thing that I did have an issue with was audio. We were trying to get service out of our church sound system and the ATEM Mini has two 3.5mm jacks for audio up on top. And those were getting a ground loop or ground hum from the power board. And so we've gotten a Zoom recorder that gives our audio source. It's made for a webcam or podcast mic that is either USB-powered or battery-powered. We were not able to get it to work well with a powered external audio source that is AC-powered. That was the one complaint that I did have. But the Zoom works; it has XLRs on the bottom. So we can hook up other audio equipment for that. So that has been nice.

Zak Holley: I agree with him. I think one of the main downsides is that 3.5mm jack looking at the ATEM TV Studio HD compared to the ATEM Mini, the software is identical. It's very easy to learn the ATEM Mini. If you've already learned to use the software, it'd be even easier to learn the TV Studio if you began with the ATEM Mini. I love the picture-in-picture. I think the picture-in-picture is a great feature Blackmagic introduced that was done in the other products going forward. I'd love to see a solution similar to what the ATEM Mini provides in more of a TV Studio-style frame that's rackmountable. I do like that it's a keyboard-style switcher, but I am more fan of rackmountable gear for traveling. I just think it's easier to pack up if it's all set up. No one's touching wires and unplugging things for that reason. But like Jeff was saying, the 3.5mm ground on the board isn't isolated. So if you take an XLR input from a third-party console mixer directly from a mic even, there's a little crackle, a little hum. There are some forums I've found on Blackmagic stuff that I've addressed to Blackmagic and it seems to be that Blackmagics solution was that the audio has to be on the same ground as every HDMI input, so that the mic console or a mixer console has to be on the same power source as every camera's HDMI output. We can make that work in some situations, but it's not a common thing. It's something that if you're not familiar with, you're going to be scratching your head, why isn't it working? And I think that's why that Zoom recorder that he uses works great. I think they take a third XLR out of the console, put it in the Zoom, and the Zoom outputs 3.5 mm directly to ATEM, which is awesome.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: Thanks so much for your time, Jeff and Zak. Stay safe and healthy.

Page 1
As the Covid-19 crisis continues, Arklow Meals on Wheels has expanded its service to seven days a week, delivering almost 700 meals a week.

Hot meals are also being delivered to around 30 elderly people living in the Avoca area.

'We are making almost 700 meals a week,' said Hilary Sharpe, chair of Arklow Meals on Wheels.

Around 20 volunteers have come forward to help as drivers, kitchen staff, and helpers while following the strict physical distancing and sanitation regulations set out by the HSE.

Arklow Meals on Wheels has also now a local link in the national system that is providing support for elderly or vulnerable people during the Covid-19 crisis.

'We have wonderful team of volunteers who would do anything. They are happy to bring up a bag of shopping when they are delivering a meal,' Hilary said.

Meanwhile, many local people and groups have come forward to offer donations and support to the Arklow Meals on Wheels during this challenging time. Julie-Ann Farrell and her family have donated 100 Easter eggs which were delivered by the service on Easter Sunday. Members of the community in Arklow also left cards with Hilary, which were be included with the Easter egg.

Meanwhile, fitness instructor Aisling Nolan organised the recent online 'Release Wellness at Home' event which raised over 1,000 to support this local cause.

Costa in the Tesco supermarket was among many of the local businesses which donated perishable food to the service.

The committee of Arklow Meals on Wheels have extended their thanks to everyone who has donated or supported them at this time in any way.
Even those who are not Trump devotees but would like to see the government function properly should sympathize with the presidents frustration over the way Senate Democrats have slow-walked his appointments.

To be sure, this is not the exclusive reason why there are vacancies in key executive-branch slots, including in posts relevant to the governments COVID-19 response. The administration has been slow in making nominations to some positions (when asked about this, the president says it is an intentional strategy to shrink bloated government). Trump can be very difficult to work for. And the baseless investigations of the administration have made it challenging to recruit high-caliber people  such people always have other options, and even the most public-spirited people would rather avoid situations where the need to retain counsel comes with the territory.

Hopefully, though, the president was just blowing off steam earlier this week when he threatened to force an adjournment of Congress in order to enable recess appointments, by which he might temporarily install executive officers and federal judges. Realistically, the president has no power to force Congress to adjourn  it is up to the Senate to decide whether it is in session. The Constitutions recess-appointment provision, moreover, is an anachronism that should be treated as a nullity.

To take the latter first, it is not 1787 anymore. Modern transportation technology makes it easy to convene Congress if there is some emergency reason to do so. Modern communications technology may soon usher in remote congressional sessions, in which senators and House members debate and vote from wherever they are situated outside of Washington  something that was seriously proposed when the coronavirus hit Capitol Hill a few weeks back. In short, we are no longer in an era when (a) Congress is not in session for months on end, (b) it is challenging to assemble lawmakers in Washington to conduct emergency business, and (c) the president has to have some way to fill key posts during a sudden crisis.

Story continues

The Framers sagely intended the Senates advice-and-consent power to be a check on the presidents power to appoint federal officers and appoint judges to life-tenured seats on the bench. It is a terrible development that appointments have become so politicized, but the check is still necessary to assure that important jobs are filled by competent, scrupulous nominees. The Constitutions recess-appointment clause (Article II, Section 2) was not meant to be the exception that swallows the rule. In an era when convening Congress quickly was impractical, it was meant to give the president authority to fill slots temporarily between congressional sessions. That is why recess appointments last only through the end of the congressional session that follows the appointment.

As for recesses, Congress is not in recess unless it says it is in recess. The Constitution gives both houses of Congress broad authority to make their own rules.

One of the few requirements the Constitution imposes on congressional procedure is that neither chamber may adjourn for more than three consecutive calendar days without the others consent. To avoid this, they conduct pro forma proceedings  the proceedings that the president railed against as a sham during a coronavirus press conference earlier this week.

The pro forma procedure is usually used by the Senate. When the Senate takes a break in the middle of a session, as it is doing right now, one senator (often from a state close to Washington, but it can be any senator  all of them live in Washington much of the time) gavels the chamber into session and then promptly gavels out. It takes just a few minutes and no real business is conducted, though the Senate retains the power to conduct business (and has in fact occasionally used the procedure to conduct routine unanimous consent business).

The pro forma proceedings mean there can be no claim that a true recess in the session has occurred. They further deprive the president of power to make recess appointments. Recall that President Obama, in his characteristic intolerance of constitutional restraints on executive authority, attempted to make some recess appointments when the Senate was not in recess. At the time, the Senate was conducting pro forma sessions because Republicans then, like Democrats now, were determined to prevent recess appointments. The Supreme Court, in NLRB v. Noel Canning, invalidated Obamas lawless gambit. The Court concluded that the pro forma proceedings count, and thus the Senate is in session if it says it is in session. Case closed.

In his mini-tirade, President Trump said that if the House did not allow the Senate to adjourn so that he could make recess appointments, he would exercise my constitutional authority to adjourn both chambers of Congress. He was apparently referring to another vestige of the Founding era, Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution. It provides that if both houses of Congress disagree about whether there has been an adjournment of the session, the president may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper.

The problems with the presidents suggestion are obvious. First, there is no disagreement between the two chambers. Unless there were a change by law, the current 116th Congresss session will end on January 3, 2021. (Under the 20th Amendment, the terms of outgoing Senators and House members end on January 3 of the odd years in which their successors take those seats.) Clearly, there is not going to be any change in the law.

In addition, while the Framers anticipated that there could be extraordinary circumstances when the president would need to referee an intramural congressional dispute about whether an adjournment has occurred, this power has never been exercised in American history. It is hard to imagine this kind of controversy ever arising; but one thing is certain: The Framers did not put this obscure adjournment provision in the Constitution to facilitate recess appointments. Again, such appointments are irregular  stopgap measures to address a contingency that no longer exists.

The president is right that the Democrats obstruction has been reprehensible and of historic dimension. From the first, they have proclaimed themselves The Resistance and made Trumps governance as difficult as possible, exalting their political ambition to portray him as illegitimate over the countrys need for a functioning government. They have slowed appointments to a crawl by forcing the Senate to take 144 cloture votes on executive-branch nominations, with all the extended debate and chewing up of Senate session days that this entails. By doing so, Democrats have smashed the traditional bipartisan consensus that the president is entitled to have qualified nominees of his choosing exercising executive power. As the Heritage Foundations Hans von Spakovsky and John G. Malcolm point out, the Senate took only 30 such cloture votes during the first term of the preceding nine presidents combined.

Unfortunately, the only ways to beat back such intransigence are political: If the public is outraged enough, it must punish Democrats at the ballot box; or congressional Republicans must play the kind of hardball that makes Democrats feel there is too high a price to be paid. Neither of these is very likely  and the latter is in many ways self-defeating. Nevertheless, the president has no legal basis to adjourn Congress and make recess appointments.

More from National Review
Klein ISD schools will be closed through the end of the school year following Governor Greg Abbotts Friday announcement which extended closures for all Texas schools.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Cy-Hope and Houston Food Bank begin weekly mega food distribution in the Houston Premium Outlets parking lot

In an April 17 update, Klein ISD stated the district would continue its At-Home Learning and food distribution programs through the rest of the school year.

Students can find their At-Home weekly lessons at https://kleinisd.net/athomelearning.

AT-HOME LEARNING: Teachers see opportunities in online education as Klein ISD wraps up first week of At-Home Learning

The school district launched a new portal for students in special programs. The At-Home Learning Family portal, https://kleinisd.net/ParentAtHomeLearning, offers resources for families of students in special programs such as Multilingual Services, Foster Care Services and Special Education.

The district is continuing to offer free drive-thru curbside meals for children 18 years old and younger 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays at Hildebrandt Intermediate, Klein Annex, Klein Cain High School, Klein Intermediate, Strack Intermediate and Wunderlich Intermediate. Children must be present during meal pickup. Information about the districts food distribution can be found at https://kisd.us/food.

Klein ISD Class of 2020 in-person graduation has been rescheduled for Aug. 1 at NRG Stadium, barring any coronavirus-related factors that would prohibit the event. The school district plans to provide a more detailed update next week regarding Class of 2020 activities such as graduation and prom. For more information, visit sites.google.com/kleinisd.net/class-of-2020.

mfeuk@hcnonline.com
Trade associations and other organizations have stepped up to provide information and resources to help those in the book publishing industry navigate their way through the disruptions and challenges caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

Below is an overview of what a number of groups are doing.

American Booksellers Association  bookweb.org

The ABA is hosting a page providing event updates and resources for booksellers on its website, in addition to maintaining a public list of bookstores that are open, closed, or operating in limited capacity during the crisis.

American Library Association  ala.org

A Covid-19 response page on the ALAs website collects information and resources for librarians and lists the content that its members are offering free of charge or at reduced costs.

Association of American Publishers  publishers.org

A page on the AAPs website catalogues the actions publishers across all sectors are taking to help the public and their partners during the crisis.

Authors Guild  authorsguild.org

The guilds website is collecting news and information covering the collective response to Covid-19 by the government, publishers, and the author community. It also has a page directing authors to sources of economic relief.

Authors League Fund  authorsleaguefund.org

The fund collects and distributes donations to professional authors, journalists, poets, and dramatists in financial need. It is providing updates on resources for writers struggling with loss of income due to Covid-19.

Book Industry Charitable Foundation  bincfoundation.org

Binc has created a page on its website with information and resources for booksellers, and it continues to collect and distribute donations to independent bookstores as part of its normal activities and in conjunction with James Patterson and the #SaveIndieBookstores campaign.

Book Industry Study Group  bisg.org

BISG recently conducted a survey on the book publishing supply chain during the Covid-19 pandemic as part of its continuing work to create a more informed, empowered, and efficient industry.

The Book Manufacturers Institute  bmibook.com

BMI has created a new public-facing website, bookmanufacturers.org, to provide a forum for all book industry members to discuss issues. The site also gives updates on manufacturing operations.

Community of Literary Magazines and Presses  clmp.org

A page on CLMPs website lists resources available to publishers and other literary stakeholders to help them cope with the Covid-19 outbreak, as well as the resources its members are offering to writers and the public.

Independent Book Publisher Association  ibpa-online.org

IBPA is hosting a page on its website rounding up resources for independent publisher members and is accepting suggestions for resources, which can be sent by members to CEO Angela Bole.

Independent Publishing Caucus  indiepubs.org

A page on the IPC website provides a guide to financial relief resources for members and suggestions for how members can support booksellers.

PEN America  pen.org

PEN America has relaunched its Writers Emergency Fund, a streamlined way of getting cash to published writers who face acute financial need, and dedicated it to supporting writers affected by the Covid-19 outbreak.

Poets & Writers  pw.org

In addition to maintaining lists of resources for writers and cancellations and postponements of writing retreats and contests, P&W has established the Poets & Writers Covid-19 Relief Fund to provide emergency assistance to writers having difficulty meeting their basic needs due to the pandemic.

PubWest  pubwest.org

PubWest has petitioned Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to encourage his company to provide relief to the publishing industry during the crisis and is holding a weekly strategy roundtable focused on helping small and medium-size publishers cope with the dramatic changes in the business environment.
But Mr. ONeill also became known for his outspoken manner and his sometimes sharp dealings with members of Congress and colleagues within the White House. At his first Cabinet meeting in 2001, he reportedly distributed a speech he had delivered two years before about the dangers of global warming, saying it could be as devastating as a nuclear holocaust. It met with a frosty reception from the administration of a president who hailed from the Texas oil fields.
Another billionaire-approved movement is pushing for massive human sacrifice in order to save Trumps presidency

On April 15, Michigan reported 1,058 new cases of COVID-19 and 153 new deaths. That put the total number of Michiganders who had tested positive for the novel Coronaivirus 28,059 and the number confirmed dead from the virus at 1,921.

And this is how some right wingers in our state chose to mark the preventable deaths of our neighbors nearing the thousands  by purposely creating a traffic jam near a hospital.

The scene on Grand Ave. in downtown Lansing about 15 minutes ago where conservatives have jammed streets around the Capitol to protest Gov. Whitmer's stay-at-home order. It took about 10 minutes for this ambulance to evade traffic by turning the wrong way down a one-way street. https://t.co/xxoGnfg3EK  Gongwer Michigan (@GongwerMichigan) April 15, 2020

The arguments against the restrictions Governor Whitmer has put into place in an attempt to contain this plague are as flimsy as you might expect. Prohibiting travel to second homes, for instance, was actually requested by some elected officials in Michigans Upper Peninsula, where the hospitals could quickly be overrun by a Covid outbreak. States that havent embraced restricting are, predictably, seeing a sudden rise of Covid-19 cases.

And while there is definitely a place for frustration given the Trump administration disastrous response to Covid-19 and the growing economic destruction accompanying this massive failure, this protest mocked the horrendous suffering our state is enduring.

Under the guise of our American right to assembly, a mob gathered, not only endangering themselves, but jeopardizing thousands of others throughout Michigan, Jeff Timmer, Former Director Michigan GOP, wrote.

It also stank of the billionaire-sponsored tea party movement that exploited right-wing failures to attack anything the government might do to help workers out of the financial crisis. And like the tea party of the last decade, this movement has a direct connection to right wing billionaires.

The Michigan Conservative Coalition and Michigan Freedom Fund (MFF)  founded by Greg McNeilly, political adviser to the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos  planned the protest following Whitmers executive order last Thursday that expanded existing restrictions, The Washington Post reported. The group insists they werent funding the protests, despite running Facebook ads to promote the intentional traffic jam.

The MFF was launched in 2012 by McNeilly, an employee of Dick DeVos Windquest Group, for a sneak attack on the states unions launched in the lame duck session after Barack Obamas almost 10 point victory in the state led to Democrats getting more votes for both the State House and Senate but not enough to overcome Republicans unconscionable gerrymander.

You can assume that everything McNeilly and the MFF does has the tacit approval and implicit financial backing of the DeVos family and Betsy DeVos, Betsy DeVos, current Secretary of Education and perennial contender for worst member of the Trump administration. As most any right-wing political activity in Michigan does.

But it wasnt the DeVos family, or the other rich sponsors of the Republican Party, out on the streets risking being part of the potential spread of Covid-19. As Susan J. Demas noted,[W]hy put yourself and your family in harms way when you can outsource protesting to folks who think conspiracy king Alex Jones magic remedies will keep the evil vibes away?

Instead, this protest attracted many of the usual folks who show up to Trump events, The Guardian noted:

Placards identified the Michigan Proud Boys as participants in the vehicle convoy. Near the state house, local radio interviewed a man who identified himself as Phil Odinson. In fact the man is Phil Robinson, the prime mover in a group called the Michigan Liberty Militia, whose Facebook page features pictures of firearms, warnings of civil war, celebrations of Norse paganism and memes ultimately sourced from white nationalist groups like Patriot Front.

And you also saw a Confederate flag or two, because thats how much these guys care about states rights:

Huh, I guess it is a Republican protest. But what does the Confederate flag have to do with a #StayHome order?  pic.twitter.com/qR4EX6Hw5X  Susan J. Demas  (@sjdemas) April 15, 2020

Of course, invoking a defense of chattel slavery seems subtle compared to the lynching of a Barbie doll:

The pro-COVID Trump rally yesterday  not only endangered public health  it was also a shameful spectacle of misogyny and hatred.

Keep saving lives, @GovWhitmer. Michigan stands with #ThatWomanFromMichigan pic.twitter.com/Pqs1c0Vk57  Jennifer Granholm (@JenGranholm) April 16, 2020

These small protests are generating the same sort of coverage the tea party did in 2009-2010 with the same sort of conniving motivating them.

Instead of aiming to sink Obamas presidency, the goal here is to save Trumps. If you believe, as some suggest, that it will take six months for the economy to recover from the shock of Covid-19, you need to begin reopening by May 1 to see a resurgence by November 1, days before the election. And Dilbert Guy Scott Adams, who ridiculously enough tends to be the bellwether on where Trumps messaging is headed, is selling reopening as worth the cost  even if the cost is the slaughter of a population the size of Pittsburgh:

Trump is so onboard with this plot against America that hes invoking a civil war to sell it.

Its not hard to figure out what Trump is suggesting by connecting guns to Covid-19  and its not that the pandemic he didnt prevent has surpassed gun violence as a leading cause of preventable death. We know when Trump talks like this weird coincidences happen. For instance, his fans start putting together bombs in their fans and the evil killers suddenly target synagogues.

Of course, the one small hitch with this prescription for mass death is the fantasy that people will just return to normal economic behavior if Donald Trump and Republican donors like the DeVoses decide we should okay with sacrificing hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Only proper testing, tracing, and containment can send people who dont want to see their families die alone on ventilators back to Applebees. And the notion that theres some sort of recovery that will ease the economic pain of a decade of job losses being wiped out in about a month in time for an election isnt just cynical. Its the same sort of the happy delusion that allowed Trump to ignore this pandemic until the stock market started crashing.

The catch is that Republicans are as good at playing the media (and the stock market) as they are terrible at governing. And though the polls show massive support for life-saving restrictions  81% supported a national stay-at-home order in a recent Quinnipiac poll  politicians may feel the pressure to give into the massive human sacrifice Trump and the GOP feel they need to maintain power.

Regardless what happens, this is another vile example of how little the party that frets over fertilized eggs and fetuses actually cares about human life.

[Photo by Gage Skidmore]
While industry leaders Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro have announced deferring wage-hike plans, other players such as Infosys and HCL Technologies are expected to follow suit, according to industry insiders.

Image used for representational purpose. Photograph: Reuters.

Indian information technology (IT) services companies are holding back salary increments and promotions to conserve cash as they gear up to battle the crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

While industry leaders Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro have announced deferring wage-hike plans, other players such as Infosys and HCL Technologies are expected to follow suit, according to industry insiders.

The approach taken by the Indian IT firms is, however, different from their global peers, a couple of whom have announced salary hikes for a large portion of their employee base in India.

French IT services and consulting major Capgemini and US-headquartered Cognizant have effected salary hikes, apart from giving out of turn increments, to help employees during this time of crisis.

Basically, the company culture is at play. All Indian IT firms have gone through the disruption that had happened during the 2008-09 financial crisis. Drawing lessons from that event, most companies will possibly exhaust all methods before laying off an employee, said Aditya Narayan Mishra, director & chief executive officer (CEO) at CIEL HR Services.

Many Indian firms, even without a single penny of revenue at this point of time, are not laying off people. In that sense, Indian IT firms are a lot better-placed, he added.

During their earnings calls, TCS and Wipro have said they would not retrench employees, even though both the firms are deferring wage hikes. Both firms have also announced that they would honour all the job commitments made during the campus placements last year.

We will double down on our talent base and will not retrench any of our employees (due to this crisis), said Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO of TCS. TCS, however, would consider promotions though it would depend on the business performance.

Wipro has deferred increments and scheduled promotions for June for most of its employees. It is certainly not happening in the first quarter. We will take a call based on how the business moves and are not in a position to give guidance, said Saurabh Govil, president and chief human resources officer at Wipro.

Last week, French IT services firm Capgemini rolled out high single-digit hikes for 70 per cent of its Indian staff of about 84,000, effective April 1. The rest will get increments from July. It is also giving out cash benefit of up to Rs 10,000 to staffers who are stranded without a paying guest accommodation.

United States-headquartered Cognizant had decided to give 25 per cent additional pay of basic wages to its employees in India and Philippines as a sign of gratitude for continuing work during the crisis. Some global multinational companies have, no doubt, given salary hikes and increments. But, many of them have laid off people, which is not the case for many Indian firms, said an HR expert.
Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - The Mauritian finance minister, Renganaden Padayachy, Friday announced that an amount of Rs4 billion (US$104 million) had been earmarked by the government to extend the Wage Assistance Scheme to cover the month of April
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf outlined a plan that was short on specifics Friday about what would have to happen for the state to begin reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Further, and perhaps more concrete, details are expected to be released next week, and while Health Department Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine did not reveal any secrets during her regularly scheduled daily briefing on Saturday, she did offer some insight into the kind of information that could fuel what Wolf said would be a data-driven process.

We are going to be looking at a number of different parameters, both public health parameters, but then other social and economic parameters to decide which counties would be best to relax social distancing and have some businesses open for economic recovery, and then how were going to track that from a public health perspective to make sure that there are no outbreaks, Levine said.

State officials will be working with academic partners to devise the model, which is not expected to be released publically. Its unclear when it will be ready to put into action, but many across the Commonwealth, especially in counties with few COVID-19 cases, are eager to ease social distancing restrictions and reopen non-essential businesses again.

Levine stressed, as she has often since the pandemic began, that now is not yet the time to do that, however, regardless of how hard an area has been hit. First, consistent declines in daily cases are needed, and then mass testing needs to be readily available before other things can be taken into consideration.

As Ive stated before, this is not going to be one grand reopening of Pennsylvania, she said. "Itll have to be either county or regionally based, and well need to see those types of trends in those regions, and well need to make sure that we do have the testing and the public health workforce and policies and procedures available as we do that type of relaxation of social distancing in specific areas.

To repeat, [reopening] is not going to be statewide.

More coronavirus coverage:
People sit in the sun as others relax in an inflatable boat along the Landwehr canal in Berlin's Kreuzberg district on April 18, 2020. (David Gannon/AFP via Getty Images)

Sunlight Destroys CCP Virus Quickly: Government Tests

Government tests show sunlight rapidly destroys the CCP virus, according to a Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate report.

Sunlight destroys the virus quickly, the report states.

Researchers simulated sunlight and found it greatly increased the inactivation rate of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, a novel coronavirus that emerged from mainland China last year, on surfaces relative to darkness.

The half-life of the virus was 2 minutes with full solar intensity, or similar to New York City or the District of Columbia during a clear day on summer solstice.

Sunlight reduced infectious virus to undetectable levels after just 3 minutes of exposure to the solar equivalent of midday sun on a sunny day in the middle latitudes of the U.S., researchers wrote.

Half solar intensity killed the virus in 3 minutes while quarter intensity, equivalent to a clear day at the end of February, inactivated it in 4 minutes.

The CCP virus showed no decay when no light was used.

The risk of transmission from surfaces that are outdoors is lower during daylight, according to the tests.

More tests are planned for higher concentrations of the virus to better understand decay rate.

Higher temperatures and higher levels of humidity also inactivated the virus, researchers found.

If a location has a COVID-19 (+) individual and is going to be vacated for cleaning, turn up indoor heat and humidity if possible, they wrote. Increasing air flow indoors may reduce risk of transmission, the results suggested.

People enjoy the sun in Central Park in New York City on March 14, 2020. (Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)

Researchers with the Department of Homeland Security also tested the effectiveness of commercial cleaners on surfaces with the CCP virus and found that bleach or 70 percent isopropyl alcohol killed the virus in both wet and dried saliva on stainless steel in just 5 minutes. They plan to test shorter contact times with cleaners as well as analyze how other off-the-shelf products such as Lysol spray and Clorox hydrogen peroxide cleaner work against the virus.

The report wasnt released by the government. Yahoo News obtained it and released it online. It is marked for official use only.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesman told The Epoch Times: The department is dedicated to the fight against COVID-19, and the health and safety of the American people is its top priority.

As policy, the department does not comment on allegedly leaked documents. It would be irresponsible to speculate, draw conclusions, or to inadvertently try to influence the public based upon a document that has not yet been peer-reviewed or subjected to the rigorous scientific validation approach, he added.

The departments Science and Technology Directorate announced ongoing research into the CCP virus in March. Researchers would be trying to answer questions about the impact of a range of conditions, like temperature and humidity, to determine the viruss survivability in the air, in respiratory fluids, and on various types of surfaces.

Research was taking place at the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center laboratory,

Research against other viruses has shown sunlight is effective against them.

Researchers in November 2019 found full intensity simulated sunlight caused influenza virus aerosols to decay much faster than in darkness. The study was published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. A study published in 2003 found ultraviolet light can efficiently eliminate the viral infectivity of SARS, another coronavirus.
So, now its meat.

Just as I was celebrating my latest acquisition  the last four-pack of generic bathroom tissue  I rolled my way over to the meat aisle, only to find a few sad, lonely leftovers. There was a butt roast, a package of sausage and a pair of pork chops. That was about it.

COVID-19 is taking a toll on the countrys meat processing plants. A Smithfield plant in South Dakota was forced to close after hundreds of its employees tested positive for coronavirus. Other plants throughout the country are also closing. Bottom line: If the processing plants close, the meat doesnt get to your grocery story.

I was just coming to grips with the prospect of resorting to a toilet paper substitute. I never considered life without burgers or bacon.

Yes, no ground beef might be a small-potatoes inconvenience for experienced food shoppers, but for the inexperienced and reluctant, it only deepens the mystery of the grocery store.

There are now blue arrows on the floor. One aisle goes north, the next goes south. No U-turns. If you want out, you either play through or back out illegally, which I tried and almost took out a display shelf full of Oreos.

There are now employees without uniforms stocking shelves. The other day, I found myself with five cans of the wrong diced tomatoes. As I was putting them back, a woman wearing a mask, approximately six feet behind me, asked me if there was any baking soda.

Yeah, one aisle over.

I admit Im having a difficult time staying six feet away from others, mainly because its hard to judge distance while people are moving around. So, I overcompensate and treat people as if theyre radioactive. If someone rolls up behind me, I quicken my step. If theyre gaining on me, I break into a trot.

In the grand scheme of a pandemic, navigating the supermarket isnt a big deal, confusing as it might be. But it is representative of a question this pandemic continues to beg: Whats next?

People are growing impatient.

On Wednesday, protestors surrounded the state capital in Michigan to protest the governors draconian stay-at-home orders.

Some 15 million Americans have lost their jobs during the current pandemic. The number will continue to go up as long as the country remains shut down. Were quickly getting to the point where the risk of contracting coronavirus will be worth taking if the alternative is not being able to put food on the table or pay your bills.

Small businesses are drowning. The guy who owns my gym is now delivering pizzas to make ends meet.

Americans across the country have been arrested and/or fined for violating social distancing orders.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that hell be giving stimulus checks to immigrants who are in the country illegally.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order Wednesday requiring everyone to wear face coverings in public.

Local governments are releasing thousands of inmates.

This is not sustainable for much longer and Americans should not have to accept any version of such new rules and restrictions as a new normal as weve heard far too often in the last month.

No one in charge, Republican or Democrat, should be willing to concede  as some experts have predicted  16 percent unemployment by July.

An economic collapse of such magnitude will only invite government to fill the void. If you think thats something you want, consider the delay getting those relief checks in the mail.

Whats the answer? Beats me. Thats why we have elected officials to figure this stuff out. President Trump and the governors need to work together and come up with a plan to reopen the economy and they need to work fast.

This is not a matter of choosing between, as Cuomo said in one of his recent media briefings, public health and economic activity. The latter term trivializes the depth of the economic component of this crisis. Theres a big difference between economic activity and financial ruin, which scores of Americans are facing at this very moment.

We can come up with a nuanced approach that will allow Americans to get back to work while keeping them as safe as possible.

If we dont find such a solution, well be asking Whats next? a month from now. And were not going to like the answer.

Rich Manieri is a Philadelphia-born journalist and author. He is currently a professor of journalism at Asbury University in Kentucky. His book, We Burn on Friday: A Memoir of My Father and Me is available at amazon.com. You can reach him at manieri2@gmail.com.
While India fights the coronavirus pandemic, its postal department is playing a pivotal role in ensuring medical essentials reach different destinations across the country.

Boasting the largest postal network in the world, the robust India Post has become a lifesaver, working round the clock, delivering COVID-19 testing kits, ventilators, masks and medicines to far-flung places.

BCCL

Red postal vans are a familiar sight in India. They make thousands of journeys every day, criss-crossing the country's wide network of post offices in 600,000 villages.



The vans have now become the mode of transport to faraway locations during the nationwide lockdown, with no trains and flights in operation.

In one of the toughest times facing the country in decades, Indian postal department has been transporting medical equipment and drugs to where they are needed most, at a time when transport has come to a standstill.

Twitter

The department has had to not just transport tonnes of medicines and equipment, but has also had to step in to ensure government benefits are reaching the beneficiaries.



In order to help people in need of cash during the lockdown, the Kerala government tied up with the postal department to deliver cash at their doorsteps.

To ensure that people have sufficient cash flow amid the ongoing lockdown period, the Indian postal office based in Jammu and Kashmir has facilitated financial transactions, allowing people to withdraw and deposit funds easily.

Twitter

The Indian postal service has also collaborated with Karnataka State Mango Development and Marketing Board (KSMDMC) in a one-of-a-kind initiative to deliver the farm-fresh mangoes to people in the state amid the nationwide lockdown due to coronavirus.



India Post has the largest network of over 1.55 lakh post offices of which 1.39 lakh are in rural areas. It also plays a key role in the disbursement of wages under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and old age pension and widow pension schemes.
These days we are all worried about those most susceptible to the ravages of the COVID-19 virus. Especially the elderly and already sick, but also those on the daily line of fire like medical first responders and the countless essential workers still on the job.

But my email box is filling up with letters beseeching Americans not to forget the incarcerated who are locked up in jails and prisons. These places are notoriously overcrowded and oftentimes operated in dilapidated and unsanitary conditions. There is no possibility for inmates to practice social distancing, to wash their hands at will or to possess a face mask. They are trapped in places that are notorious breeding grounds for germs.

Brendaly Segarra was one of many who wrote me to say, We see commercials of animals in cages suffering and we are moved with compassion, but when it comes to inmates, they are thrown away and people forget that they are human beings that are completely helpless.

Cheryl Maddox told me about her son. (He) only have five months left of a 5-year sentence. He has struggled to get to this point, and for them to knowingly allow him to be exposed to this virus is inhumane.

Maddox and others who are related to imprisoned citizens believe incarceration during a ravaging pandemic amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Indeed, prisoners have died in several states including Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Louisiana and in Washington, D.C. If inmates are infected, its a safe bet guards will be, too.

Death may soon be coming to a prison near you. Unlike the national response to COVID-19 there seems to be no uniform plan for dealing with this highly contagious disease in local and state jails and prisons.

Attorney General William Barr did recently write to the Federal Bureau of Prisons asking that more at-risk inmates who are non-violent and pose minimal likelihood of recidivism be released to home confinement. Barr listed a six-bullet-point guideline for release including the age, health and original crime of the prisoner. Sex offenders and violent inmates are not eligible for release.

But at the local and state level there has been a hodgepodge of court orders and scattershot prisoner releases, some of which seem both ill-conceived and badly carried out.

Several states have decided to ease overpopulation by releasing inmates who could not afford bail and are incarcerated while awaiting trial or those deemed to be low-level offenders. There is evidence, however, that some decisions are being made on a defendants last arrest and without regard to their criminal history.

New York judges have granted coronavirus-related release to not one but two convicted cop killers.

In Florida, Joseph Williams, 26, was in jail after his arrest for possession of heroin, considered a third-degree felony, and possession of drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor. In the effort to mitigate the spread of the virus, a state judge ordered county sheriffs to release any pretrial detainee arrested for a misdemeanor or third-degree felony.

The Hillsborough County jail released 164 prisoners, described by the sheriff as being those with the lowest public safety risk. Joseph Williams was among them. One day later Williams was arrested again on suspicion of murder. Apparently, in the race to winnow inmate populations, Williams extensive criminal record, which included arrests on 35 charges, was either overlooked or considered unimportant.

We should all care about the treatment of prisoners since a vast majority of them will serve their time and reenter society. Certainly, they have been found guilty of crimes against their communities, but does that mean in addition to their incarceration they must stay trapped in a potentially deadly environment as well? Doesnt someone who is non-violent, has behaved themselves in prison and has served a majority of their original sentence deserve to go home to their family to ride out this pandemic?

This ferocity of COVID-19 caught the world by surprise, but it is past time for each state to come up with a humane and sensible plan to safely deal with its incarcerated population, especially the elderly and ill. They all deserve plentiful hand sanitizers, protective masks and aggressive testing just like the rest of us.

www.DianeDimond.com; e-mail to Diane@DianeDimond.com.
A couple in Maine who were forced to cancel their dream destination wedding in Florida amid the coronavirus pandemic has gotten hitched at a bank teller's drive through window.

The bride's son walked his mom to the drive through window where they stood in front of an officiant who was on the other side of the bullet proof glass, inside the bank.

Bradley Gray and Teresa Norwood Gray were determined to keep their wedding date, despite being unable to travel to their original venue in Clearwater Beach, Florida.

The ceremony was streamed live to relatives in Florida.

Gray says he came up with the idea for the unusual wedding arrangement as a joke, but the couple eventually agreed that it could actually work.

The manager of their local bank also agreed, and discussed the idea with senior executives who allowed the event to take place  as long as it did not disrupt bank operations.

The bride says she was nervous as she walked up the driveway to the window, as light snow fell while she was dressed in a gown fit for tropical weather.

The ceremony, she says, injected an element of happiness to passersby who stopped to watch the unusual ceremony and take their minds off the uncertainties of the pandemic.

The couple say they are planning on spending their honeymoon in the groom's cabin in Maine.
Pennsylvania now has 31,069 coronavirus cases, according to the state health department. At least 836 people in the state have died of COVID-19 issues.

The latest update reflected 1,628 new cases and 80 additional deaths as of 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

The state does not release figures on how many have recovered from the virus, but to date, there have been 122,896 patients who have tested negative. Most people who come down with the coronavirus suffer mild symptoms and recover without requiring hospital care.

Locally, new deaths were reported in Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon counties.

Until April 30, Pennsylvania remains under a shutdown that orders people to stay home except for life-sustaining trips for things like food and medicine. Businesses deemed non-life-sustaining have been closed until further notice, and schools are closed and doing online learning for the remainder of the academic year.

On Friday, Gov. Tom Wolf said the state will reopen slowly and in stages based on data-driven information on the virus. He said more details about his plan will be released next week.

Beginning Sunday night, Pennsylvanians will be required to wear face masks when shopping in stores. Workers will also be required to wear masks and retailers will also have to comply with new regulations, including limiting the number of shoppers in stores.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

More:

Heres where and how self-employed Pa. residents can file for unemployment

At least 10 residents of Pa. veterans nursing home have died of coronavirus: Were all freaking out

Sheetz employee in Harrisburg tests positive for coronavirus

Viral photo of Wolf, Levine shows pre-distancing time, not rule-breaking
Armie Hammer and his wife Elizabeth Chambers Hammer have two children together.

Gregg DeGuire/FilmMagic

Armie Hammer and his family are currently quarantining in the Cayman Islands, according to a new Instagram post shared by his wife, Elizabeth Chambers Hammer.

In the post, which features a picture of her wearing a mask while grocery shopping, Chambers explained the family's decision to quarantine in the Caribbean.

"We're currently quarantined in the Caymans, which wasn't planned when we left LA 5 weeks ago for nyc," Chambers wrote.

"Due to travel restrictions, school closures and the fact that we were planning to be here with our extended family two weeks later for spring break, we made this decision for the health and safety of our family," she added.

According to Chambers, their experience on the island has been generally stress-free, with no lines or crowding at places like grocery stores.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Armie Hammer and his family are quarantining on the Cayman Islands, according to a new Instagram post shared by his wife, Elizabeth Chambers Hammer.

The post features a photo of Chambers wearing a mask while grocery shopping on the island. And in the caption, she explained her family's decision to quarantine in the tropical locale.

"We're currently quarantined in the Caymans, which wasn't planned when we left LA 5 weeks ago for nyc for previews of @minutesbway," Chambers wrote, referencing the Broadway play called "The Minutes" that Hammer was to have starred in (before theaters were shut down because of the pandemic).

"Due to travel restrictions, school closures and the fact that we were planning to be here with our extended family two weeks later for spring break, we made this decision for the health and safety of our family," she continued, adding, "But none of that is the point...I just know this is a very sensitive time and emotions are heightened, so felt the need to explain."

Story continues

According to Chambers, the Cayman Islands, where Hammer lived for five years during his childhood, are doing a good job of limiting crowds and enforcing social distancing measures.

"The government here seems to be handling this entire situation extremely well," she wrote. "There are strict curfews, lockdowns and visitation to essential businesses are only allowed on certain days based on the first letter of your last name."

"And it seems to be working. There are no lines or crowding," she added. Chambers concluded her post by urging her followers to stay home and stay safe.

The Hammers aren't the only celebrity families quarantining in tropical locations. In March, television personality Kristin Cavallari, along with her husband, Jay Cutler, their children, and a few family friends traveled to the Bahamas, where they quarantined for several weeks.

Cavallari and her group were the focus of backlash for claiming that they couldn't leave the island because of travel restrictions, despite information from Bahamian public health officials that suggested otherwise. The group finally returned to the US on April 6.

Read the original article on Insider
The Department of Health and Human Services is conducting a review into the social media accounts of a top coronavirus researcher after she was accused of sharing controversial tweets about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr Kizzmekia Corbett, an NIH immunologist working with the government to develop a vaccine for the contagious virus, suggested in a recent post that the pandemic could be a 'genocide' against black people.

In a separate tweet, she implied that doctors would overlook black Americans if ventilators are in short supply, which could cause them to die.

An HHS official told Fox News that 'career ethics officials are reviewing the matter' and taking the situation 'very seriously'.

Unprofessional social media posts about government work can violate federal guidelines.

Dr Kizzmekia Corbett, an NIH immunologist working with the government to develop a vaccine for the contagious virus, suggested in a post penned last week that the coronavirus pandemic could be a 'genocide' against black people

The Department of Health and Human Services is conducting a review into the social media accounts of a top coronavirus researcher after she was accused of writing controversial tweets about the COVID-19 pandemic -including this one shared last week

After her Twitter posts were publicized on Fox News Friday night, Dr Corbett switched her account to private.

However, screengrabs show she has posted several other divisive comments on her Twitter page stretching back to February.

After the White House Coronavirus Task Force was unveiled on February 29, Dr Corbett appeared contemptuous of the assembled team, writing that it was 'largely people (white men) Trump appointed to their positions as directors of blah blah institute'.

She theorized that they were 'indebted to serve Trump, NOT the people'.

When she received pushback on her post, the immunologist insisted she wasn't dismissing white men, but rather the 'system that they curated'.

After the White House Coronavirus Task Force was unveiled on February 29, Dr Corbett appeared contemptuous of the assembled team, which includes Dr Anthony Fauci (far left) and Dr Deborah Birx (second from right)

Dr Corbett theorized that the Task Force were 'indebted to serve Trump, NOT the people'

Dr Corbett's Twitter page is now private after her account was publicized by Fox News

Dr Corbett, who is only 34 years old, has been described as a 'superstar scientist'

Meanwhile, when Surgeon General Jerome Adams last month pleaded with the African American population to avoid cigarettes and alcohol, Dr Corbett wrote: 'Black ppl are not dying more because of their behaviors that is just a cop out to adjust accountability'.

Dr Corbett, who is only 34 years old, has been described as a 'superstar scientist'.

She has appeared on CNN and was recently praised by California Senator Kamala Harris for 'leading the charge' in developing a coronavirus vaccine.

'The world owes you and your team a debt of gratitude,' Harris cooed.

Dr Corbett has appeared on CNN and was recently praised by California Senator Kamala Harris for 'leading the charge' in developing a coronavirus vaccine.

Kamala Harris cooed over the top immunologist in a recent Twitter post

Despite controversy around some of Dr Corbett's tweets, disturbing data out of New York reveals that black people are twice as likely to die from coronavirus than white people.

Grim figures released Friday by the city's Health Department show the devastating impact the pandemic is wreaking on New York's African American communities, where residents are dying from the virus more than any other racial group.

Fears have been mounting for black communities all across the US as state officials and lawmakers warn the outbreak is hitting African Americans hardest, highlighting the systemic racial inequality that continues to exist.

The CDC has been urged to be more transparent about the virus' toll on communities of color, while Oprah Winfrey made an impassioned plea to black people to take the outbreak seriously because it is 'taking us out'.

In the virus epicenter New York, 1,999 black people have been killed by coronavirus across the five boroughs as of April 16, according to the NYC Health Department data.

This means their deaths make up a third (33.2 percent) of the city's total death toll, despite accounting for just 22 percent of the city's population.

White people make up the next highest number of deaths (1,861) and 30.9 percent of the city's death toll - however white people account for at least 43 percent of all residents.

As of Saturday afternoon, more than 700,000 Americans have tested positive for COVID-19. More than 37,300 have died.

Grim figures released Friday by the city's Health Department show the devastating impact the pandemic is wreaking on New York's African American communities
Azerbaijans strong standing before the Covid-19 outbreak as an energy and reformer state offer reasons for optimism that the country could quickly return back to normal, writes Esmira Jafarova. As Euractiv writes, over 25 years Azerbaijan has become an energy state, but not only the mere exporter of the crude, also the exporter of energy security.

Together with its partners Azerbaijan has built a successful model of cooperation through the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum oil and gas pipelines that transport hydrocarbons of the Caspian Sea to international markets.

Azerbaijan has managed to become self-sufficient state despite the fact of occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and the socio-economic burden of its refugee and internally displaced population created in the consequence of Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. Its reliance on hydrocarbons therefore came as a natural escape to deal with variety of its challenges.

Lately, Azerbaijan has also been working to build international partnerships towards exploration of the countrys gas resources, estimated to be at around 2,6 trillion cubic meters. The existing Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline did not suffice for the exploration of these fields and transportation of large production volumes.

This begot the strategic project  the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), which having been initiated in 2013 and partly inaugurated in May, 2018, became an important chain of energy security, economic development and global partnership.

The Corridor consists of four integral parts  Shah Deniz-2, Southern Caucasus Pipeline Extension (SCPX), Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP), Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), and the works on all of them are successfully implemented. It is the first tangible megaproject in Europe that unites all components of energy security.

It involves close cooperation of seven nations  Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania and Italy, participation of numbers of international oil and gas companies as well as the support of major financial institutions, like EBRD, EIB and ADB.

Turkey is already receiving volumes of gas since the formal inauguration of the SGC and after the completion of the project this fall, Europe will also start receiving 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year. As of June 2020 Turkey is expected to receive 6 billion cubic meters of gas.

TAP is almost complete (93,5% as of March 2020) as also reported during the latest, 6th meeting of the Advisory Council on the SGC on 28 February, 2020 in Baku. The finalization of the TAP will enable the export of about 8,8 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas to Italy.

Azerbaijan will contribute to the energy security of Italy as well as of the countries in South Eastern Europe and will ensure the diversification of sources and routes, and help in the de-carbonization efforts of the continent.

SGC is also an expandable network and has the potential to expand to Balkans, Central and Western Europe as well, to attract new supplier, transit and consumer countries. BRUA project, the interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) and the Ionian-Adriatic Pipeline (IAP) are the potential interconnecting pipelines that could deliver Shah Deniz gas to other destinations through the SGC.

There are 31 billion cubic meters potential in SCPX and TANAP, and doubling up to 20 billion cubic meters for TAP is possible. Such plans could though be challenged by the considerations that the EUs energy policies may be changing in a long-term future with the adoption of the Green Deal setting the stage for Europe to become carbon-neutral by 2050.

With EBRD becoming a climate bank and mostly focusing on public and private green investments, it will therefore not invest in any future fossil fuel projects, including gas, starting from 2022.

However, it is stated that the situation with already functional projects like the SGC could be assessed differently. As was voiced by the EU officials themselves, becoming carbon-neutral in fact does not mean that the EU will no longer need natural gas. Natural gas is also said to be a significant back up commodity for the renewables for some time.

Before the onset of COVID-19 pandemics, forecasts on Azerbaijans economy were therefore rather positive. The country was also in the midst of comprehensive reforms that have already brought number of palpable changes in the state administration.

In October 2019 the then Minister of Economy Shahin Mustafayev declared that In 2020, real growth in Azerbaijans GDP will be three percent, including 1.6% for the oil sector and 3.8% for the non-oil sector.

The growth of the non-oil industry is projected at 8.8%, and agriculture  at 4.8%. His successor, Minister Mikhail Jabbarov later also reiterated this objective and pledged to achieve more. Azerbaijans unemployment rate dwindled from 5,02% in 2018 to 4,99% in 2019 and was projected to further decrease.

Azerbaijan also aims to increase the share of renewable energy resources in the overall energy consumption balance of the country by 30% till 2030, while currently this number is 18-19%, including hydropower stations.

In January 2020 it has signed implementation agreements of pilot projects on renewable energy with two leading companies of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Amirates  ACWA Power and Masdar, respectively, and more such undertakings could come in future.

Despite the positive picture above, when the scales of global pandemics acquired bigger proportions, Azerbaijan did not also remain immune to the contagion. The news about the first infection case broke on 28 February and the government was swift to put the country into quarantine and enhanced it as the situation so demanded.

The special Coronavirus Support Fund was established with 19 March 2020 Presidential Decree and the government prepared 9 programs worth 2,5 billion manats  3 % of the GDP to support the economy and extend social benefits.

The idea is to put the economy back on track as soon as possible and weather the COVID-19 storm with minimum losses. Granted, the acute slump in oil prices as a consequence of the suppressed demand for crude put further strain on the economy, which otherwise was on an upswing.

Azerbaijans 2020 budget has envisaged at $55 per barrel of oil. However, with oil prices in the first two months of the year being above $60 and budget proceeds surpassing the expenditures for about 400 million manat in January alone, plus the proceeds from tax and customs services provided increasing income to the state budget.

Azerbaijans strategic currency reserves are estimated to be over $50 billion, which provides extra fiscal security and enables to compensate for the losses incurred. This is more so, in the light of the recent OPEC+ deal, which pledged to withdraw at around 20 million bpd. oil from the markets that could potentially help to stabilize the market.

The effects of the deal are yet to be seen, but early market reactions have shown some positive dynamism.

The debate on the ramifications of COVID-19 and its impact on world economy is still ongoing. However, it is clear that there will be no winners and losers of this global calamity as everyone is affected. So is Azerbaijan.

However, Azerbaijans strong standing before the outbreak as an energy and reformer state and swift measures to contain the virus as well as operationalization of state support mechanisms can offer the cause for optimism that the country could quickly return back to normal and continue the works interrupted with greater rigor.

There definitely is a political will and hopefully the way will be unhindered soon too.
Its not something you might put together, but in the time of COVID-19, its costing significantly more to distribute free food to the needy in the Lehigh Valley and surrounding counties.

Second Harvest Food Bank of the Lehigh Valley and Northeast Pennsylvania has seen prices increase in the past two months from 64 cents a pound to about 80 to 90 cents from its food vendors -- if food is available at all. At the same time, demand has risen 25 to 30 percent in the communities the Feeding America subsidiary serves in Lehigh, Northampton and four surrounding Pennsylvania counties, the East Allen Township-based organization said Thursday in a news release and an interview with lehighvalleylive.com.

In a collapsing economy where it takes 30 days to get approved for what used to be called food stamps and unemployment systems are stretched to capacity or beyond, having access to balanced offerings of free food before stimulus checks arrive is essential for ever more households in the region.

But at the same time as its challenged by the increase in demand and widespread shortages of food, Second Harvest is thanking many generous cash donors who are allowing the food bank to buy 1.25 million pounds of food, taking it through the end of May, the organization said.

This week, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos donated $110 million to Feeding America, and Second Harvest will share $499,000 of that gift, the news release said. Since the coronavirus crisis began, Truist -- which used to be BB&T -- donated $200,000 and Wegmans and Highmark Blue Shield made leadership gifts, the news release said. Many individuals wrote $10,000 checks, the food bank said. In total, local donations have exceeded $500,000 since the first COVID-19 case was reported a just weeks ago.

Weve got to love the Lehigh Valley, new Second Harvest Director Katarah Jordan said in the release. ... We have a wonderful community and they want to give, she said later over the phone. Donors understand the food bank does well by the money, oftentimes buying in bulk and getting twice as much for the same dollar, officials said.

The organization gets money from the state and federal governments as well.

New Second Harvest Food Bank Director Katarah Jordan.Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com

Jordan and David Cool, who handles purchases for Second Harvest, issued a clear message during an interview on Thursday afternoon.

And its a message many families in the region can repeat when visiting one of the more than 200 nonprofits, including food pantries and other distribution points across the area. (You can search for one near you on this site.)

Were good, we have food, Jordan said when asked about current supplies. Theyve just ordered $300,000 more, she said.

But they have concerns as well. Of the 19 vendors from which they purchase, eight didnt respond to a recent contact from Cool and five said they had nothing available. And what could be bought was much more expensive, as were shipping costs, Cool said.

And since they feed more people in the summer, with school out -- and many businesses closed -- summers here, Jordan said.

The food bank is not entertaining external visitors at the moment due to COVID-19, volunteer activity at the warehouse is suspended and community food drive donations are not being accepted, Second Harbor said on its website.

With so many people ordered to stay at home, however, the nonprofits who supply Second Harvests food to the public have more volunteers and some have extended hours and days, Jordan said. Very few of the pickup points have shut, she added.

Some rules are different now at the food pantries. At this point they dont allow grocery-store-type shopping, which was the previous standard. And people are encouraged to request two weeks of sustenance in order to not have to return as often and risk infection.

Normally, people picking up the free food would need to sign a declaration saying they make 150 precent or less of the poverty level, but with the risk of paperwork changing hands, that rule has been waived at the moment, Jordan said. You just need to be a Pennsylvania resident and say how many people are in your household.

Everyone is being taken care of, Cool said. But Jordan quickly added, Its going to be challenging going forward.

If you want to support Second Harvest financially, you can at donate at this link or this link. Second Harvest was created in 1982 by the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley.

Here are food panties in Warren County, as listed by the county division of temporary assistance.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. If theres anything about this story that needs attention, please email him. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A woman in Jharkhand who had given birth two days ago at Ranchis Sadar Hospital, tested positive for coronavirus on Friday, an official said. The number of Covid-19 cases in the state have gone up to 35.

The new-born has been admitted to the isolation ward at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) hospital in the state capital, according to the Ranchi Administration, reports ANI. The infants samples were being sent to test for Covid-19 on Saturday, Dr V Kashyap, RIMS medical superintendent told the news agency.

The baby is under proper care and all precautions are being taken. A detailed discussion was held by experts and doctors and the baby has been allowed to be fed by the mother, after proper sanitisation. The babys sample will be sent for testing today, Kashyap said.

The Sadar hospital staff that attended to the woman will undergo tests, the administration added.

With the latest case, the number of Covid-19 cases in Jharkhand have risen to 35, according to the Union health ministry figures released on Saturday morning. These include two deaths from the disease. One fatality was reported from Ranchi while the other from Bokaro district. Both were senior citizens.

Expressing concern over the spread of novel coronavirus in the state, the Jharkhand high court on Friday observed that a war like situation has arisen. The court also wanted to know if the government was well prepared to deal with this situation.

Whether the government has a road map for this and sufficient man power and resources to handle the situation, the court asked. It sought a detailed reply from the government by April 24, the next date for hearing.

Defending the government, advocate general Rajiv Ranjan, said that Covid-19 hotspot in Ranchi, Hindpiri, has been sealed with corrugated sheets and all 15 entry and exit points have been blocked.

He added that demands made by the government from the Centre to send masks, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), testing kits, ventilators and rapid testing kits have not been complied with. The state has only 5,000 testing kits at its disposal, the advocate general said.

(With inputs from ANI)
[April 17, 2020] JELD-WEN 72 HOUR DEADLINE ALERT: Former Louisiana Attorney General and Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Remind Investors With Losses in Excess of $100,000 of Deadline in Class Action Lawsuit Against JELD-WEN Holding, Inc. - JELD

Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") and KSF partner, the former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have only until April 20, 2020 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against JELD-WEN Holding, Inc. (NYSE: JELD), if they purchased the Company's shares between January 26, 2017 and October 15, 2018, inclusive (the "Class Period"). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. What You May Do If you purchased shares of JELD-WEN and would like to discuss your legal rights and how this case might affect you and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, contact KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or via email ([email protected]), or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-jeld/ to learn more. If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action by overseeing lead counsel with the goal of obtaining a fair and just resolution, you must request this position by application to the Court by April 20, 2020.



About the Lawsuit JELD-WEN and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.

On October 15, 2018, the Company disclosed that it would be taking a $76.5 million charge related to ongoing antitrust litigation, and the judgment expected to be rendered against the Company therein, brought by independent manufacturers alleging its involvement in a price-fixing conspiracy with another manufacturer, and further announced the sudden resignation of its Chief Financial Officer. On this news, the price of JELD-WEN's shares plummeted 19%, on high trading volume. The case is Cambridge Retirement System v. JELD-WEN Holding, Inc., 20-cv-112. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC KSF, whose partners include former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is one of the nation's premier boutique securities litigation law firms. KSF serves a variety of clients - including public institutional investors, hedge funds, money managers and retail investors - in seeking recoveries for investment losses emanating from corporate fraud or malfeasance by publicly traded companies. KSF has offices in New York, California and Louisiana. To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200417005640/en/

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The consumer finance market grows at an average 30 per cent annually

Recently, privately-held Saigon-Hanoi Bank (SHB) announced selling part of its capital at its subsidiary SHB Finance to a foreign strategic partner. Albeit the deal value was not disclosed, the parent company is likely to still retain the bulk of the capital in the subsidiary.

Despite its infancy (it has been operating for less than two years), SHB Finance has reached nearly VND3.3 trillion ($143.5 million) in total asset value, 2.75 times as much as in 2018, and total outstanding balance touched VND2.7 trillion ($117 million), up 3.8 times over 2018. After nearly two years, the company posted nearly VND107 billion ($4.65 million) in profit.

Selling equity to major foreign partners will help SHB leverage the experience, management expertise, modern and professional distribution channel, as well as access cutting-edge technology to leapfrog in development and vie for a bigger market slice, according to a bank representative.

Sharing this mindset, an executive at FE Credit, Vietnams No.1 consumer finance company, said they have been considering joining hands with foreign partners, but the plan has yet to be realised.

Early this year, the company was approved to shift from a limited liability into a joint stock company, as well as got the green light to raise its charter capital from VND7.328 trillion ($318.6 million) to VND7.333 trillion ($318.83 million).

The company holds more than 50 per cent market share in its field and belongs to privately-held VPBank, one of the top performers in the banking sector.

According to industry experts, the shift into the JSC model would pave the way for FE Credit to offload shares in the stock market or sell stakes to outside partners, including foreign investors.

Lately, Japans leading retailer AEON has disclosed intentions to jump into Vietnams financial market.

Masaki Suzuki, chairman of AEON Financial Service Co., Ltd., at a recent meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue, unveiled that AEON would expand operations into financial investment in Vietnam through acquiring either foreign-backed or state-owned financial firms in the country.

Regarding Vietnams consumer finance market, Shibata Kenichi, senior expert at Hitachi Asia (Vietnam) Ltd. assumed that this is a robust segment with growth averaging 30 per cent annually.

It is like Japans consumer finance market 30 years ago with its sharp rise in growth year after year, he said.

Experts assumed that after seeing the booming development, the new policy aims to ensure the safe and sustainable development of finance companies, avoiding too-fast development.

Leaders of diverse consumer finance firms, in a recent talk with local media, agreed that Vietnams consumer finance market will continue its growth momentum albeit at a slower pace due to the implications of the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) as well as new policy moves.

Accordingly, in November 2019, the State Bank of Vietnam enacted Circular No.18/2019 regulating the consumer lending activities of financial companies.

The circular, coming into force from January 15, 2020, consists of more stringent requirements on the operation of financial firms. For instance, financial firms must have at least VND500 billion ($21.74 million) in charter capital, and they could not lend to firms that have bad debts.

Regarding the policy factor, experts assumed that after seeing the booming development, the new policy aims to ensure the safe and sustainable development of finance companies, avoiding too-fast development that might surpass the management capacity of both state agencies and companies themselves.

Slower market growth also means providing opportunities for finance companies, particularly consumer finance firms, to restructure operations for higher efficiency.

By the end of last year, the scale of Vietnams consumer finance market came to around VND1 quadrillion ($43.48 billion) from just VND646 trillion ($28 billion) in 2016, accounting for 12 per cent of the countrys total outstanding balance.

This figure, according to senior economist Le Xuan Nghia, is just a drop in the bucket compared to that in many countries, regionally and globally. In the US or Europe, consumer finance accounts for 50-70 per cent of banks total balance.

Vietnam is currently home to 18 financial companies, including six foreign players. The governments strong commitment to crackdown on shadow banking is expected to propel the markets further development.
At least three Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were martyred and one injured on Saturday when unknown terrorists attacked security forces in Baramulla district Jammu and Kashmir, the second attack in two consecutive days.

The attack took place on the F/179 Battalion at a checkpoint near Ahad Bab crossing in Sopore of north Kashmir. Terrorists opened fire on a joint party of CRPF and Jammu and Kashmir Police at Noorbagh near Ahad Babs crossing.

In the incident, the paramilitary trooper who sustained injuries was evacuated to nearby SDH hospital. Two of the troopers were declared brought dead on arrival, said an official.

IGP Kashmir confirmed that CRPF jawans succumbed in the terrorist attack. Soon after the incident, security forces launched searches in the area to nab the terrorist.

The three CRPF troopers who were martyred are--1. Head Constable/GD Rajeev Sharma (42yrs, a resident of Bihar's Vaishali), 2. Constable/GD CB Bhakare (38 Yrs, a resident of Maharashtra's Buldhana) and 3. Constable/GD Parmar Stayapal Singh (28Yrs, a resident of Gujarat's Sabarkantha).

The personnel who have been injured are--1. Constable/Driver Javid Ahmed Amin and 2. Head Constable/GD Biswajit Ghosh.

In a similar attack on April 17, one CRPF personnel was injured when terrorists launched an attack on a joint camp of the CRPF and Jammu and Kashmir police in Pulwama district.

The unknown terrorists fired upon the troops of B/183 battalion of the CRPF on a mobile checkpoint established by security forces at the Newa area in Pulwamaat around 7.45 pm. One Ct/GD of CRPF sustained bullet injury on his ankle and was evacuated to the hospital. His condition was stable. The troops then carried out a search in the nearby areas and the entire area was cordoned off.
Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex have started the next chapter in their lives, moving on from their royal duties to live an existence far from the spotlight and media scrutiny. Their initial announcement came as a surprise to many but was supported by Queen Elizabeth and, one royal expert claims, the palace made an astonishing request of the Sussexes when they left the royal family.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry | Chris Jackson/Getty Images

The royal family had an interesting request for the Sussexes

Prince Harry and Meghan made a stunning announcement in January  a plan to take a step back from their roles to live a more normal existence. The queen worked to finalize all of the details, signed off on the drastic departure, and issued a statement in support of Prince Harry and Meghans plan.

The Sussexes finished up the last of their royal engagements before they officially left their royal duties behind on Mar. 31. The couple had been living in Canada before making a move to Los Angeles amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The palace, according to one royal expert, had an astonishing request for Prince Harry and Meghan for the first few months of their life, post-exit.

In discussing the Sussexes exit during the Pod Save the Queen podcast, the shows host and the Daily Mirrors royal editor Russell Myers shared whats next for the couple. According to Myers, that included the familys request for Prince Harry and Meghan to have some time off.

Certainly people Ive spoken have said that there were huge, huge plans to launch them and their new foundation alongside the social media profiles within weeks of leaving, Myers shared. Obviously that has been put on the back burner for now, due to the global situation with COVID-19.

Myers continued: The family had certainly told them to take a step back and to have some time off.

I found that a bit astonishing, really.

Theyd already had time off with their seven-week holiday, and with everything thats been going on they really havent been seen publicly for such a long time, Myers noted. But because the situation and emotions had run so high, thats probably not bad advice, to take a few months off. And the coronavirus situation is unfortunately going to last several months.

He added, I just dont know how they can put themselves to good use, publicly, at the moment.

The Sussexes can use this time to re-evaluate

Myers shared how, rather than rushing into a new project, they can use the time to re-evaluate where they are in the world.

I think youve only got to look at the public opinion, it has shifted for them unfortunately, the royal expert explained. It goes back to what the family were telling them, they need to take some time off and really re-evaluate where they are in the world.

He added, Perhaps it will allow them to realize what it means to have a profile like that.

The couple announced their new brand Archewell

Despite the reported request to take time off, the Sussexes announced a new brand to replace the Sussex Royal brand they had to give up when they left the royal family.

Though they hadnt planned to announce Archewell amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Telegraphs royal correspondent Hannah Furness shared that the newspaper had seen documentation filed in the US that revealed the Archewell name.

The couple had not planned to launch details of the non-profit just yet, emphasizing that they and the world were rightly focusing on the threat posed by coronavirus, Furness explained.



Prince Harry and Meghan told the Telegraph: Like you, our focus is on supporting efforts to tackle the global COVID-19 pandemic but faced with this information coming to light, we felt compelled to share the story of how this came to be.
Gov. Phil Murphy on Saturday called a social media post from an Atlantic County official saying the state should reopen immediately without restrictions "irresponsible."

In a post on his Facebook page, county Surrogate James Curcio said county officials need to sound the alarm.

Trust American freedom ingenuity and the US Constitution, he said in the post. Untie the hands of the Private Sector so it can rescue NJ from this nightmare.

Curcio did not respond to a request for comment.

After reading the post during his Saturday media briefing, Murphy said if the state were to restart the economy in full now, "there will be blood on our hands."

I would just say this, folks. That is irresponsible.  I want to make sure folks understand that. This is literally life and death, and what we need now is responsible leadership. We do not need irresponsible leadership," Murphy said. Anybody out there who thinks that Lets just open the place up will lead to lower infections, lower hospitalizations and lower fatalities is being completely, utterly irresponsible.

State officials on Saturday said the number of positive cases of COVID-19 in New Jersey has increased by 3,026, bringing the total to 81,420. There have been 231 additional deaths, bringing the state total to 4,070. Atlantic County has reported 392 cases, 19 deaths and 71 recovered. Cape May County has reported 204 cases, with 45 designated as off quarantine and 13 deaths. Cumberland County has reported 269 cases and three deaths.

Curcio's comments come at the tail end of a week when, nationally, officials began discussing and unveiling plans to reintroduce aspects of pre-pandemic normalcy, though health officials continue to urge caution for fear of a fresh surge in cases. Meanwhile, protests against stay-at-home orders organized by small-government groups and Trump supporters were planned for Saturday in several cities after the president urged supporters to liberate three states led by Democratic governors.

Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson said Curcio was successful in getting the governor's attention and sparking that same debate here.

"South Jersey is far different than North Jersey," Levinson said. "This is not a one-size-fits-all state. As county executive, to treat us down here exactly the same as North Jersey should be debated."

Levinson said he understands the frustration Curcio is expressing. He doesn't agree that unrestricted opening right now is the solution but does urge the governor to take another look at restrictions that he feels may not fit this part of the state with a less dense population.

"What's the thought process of the governor leaving the boardwalk open but not our parks?" Levinson asked. " It would be much easier to distance yourself at a park."

"If you want to criticize Curcio's comments, I think you can criticize the policy at the same time," Levinson added. "What he's done is open it up for debate, and debate is healthy."

County Freeholder Chairman Frank Formica said Curcio's Facebook post demonstrates the level of frustration felt in the county.

"In one fell swoop, 26,000 people lost their jobs when those casinos closed," Formica said. "He probably thinks better of what he should have said, but I'm sure he was just frustrated."

Formica said the governor is doing the best he can, but the idea of an indefinite shutdown is frightening to people.

"We want to get everybody back working as soon as it's safely possible," Formica said. "We have to work on a plan. We don't want the damage to last any longer than it has to."

Curcio, 59, of Hammonton, announced earlier this year he will seek a third term as Atlantic County surrogate. The Republican was elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2015.

The main functions of the surrogate are to probate wills and appoint administrators of estates, according to the Surrogate's Office website.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

___

The number of positive cases of COVID-19 in New Jersey has increased by 3,026, bringing the total to 81,420, state officials said Saturday. There have been 231 additional deaths, bringing the state total to 4,070.

We are flattening the curve, Murphy said. This is a credit to each and every one of you who has taken to heart our aggressive social distancing measures and continue to do your part.

Murphy debuted a set of graphs that show the numbers of new cases and hospitalizations over the last three weeks as well as another showing the rate of people being discharged from hospitals is now greater than the number of new hospitalizations, saying so far, so good, but we cannot let up.

There are 7,718 people hospitalized across the state, including 2,024 in intensive care and 1,641 on ventilators, Murphy said. Between 10 p.m. Thursday and 10 p.m. Friday, 814 residents were discharged from hospitals.

Cape May County has reported 204 cases, with 45 designated as off quarantine and 13 deaths.

Cumberland County has reported 269 cases and three deaths.

So far, Atlantic County has reported 392 cases, 19 deaths and 71 recovered. Included in the totals are 22 new cases that Atlantic County officials announced Saturday.

They include six Hammonton residents, three Linwood residents and two residents each from Egg Harbor Township, Hamilton Township and Pleasantville, Gilmore said. Absecon, Brigantine, Buena, Galloway, Northfield, Somers Point and Ventnor each had one new positive case. An 84-year old Egg Harbor Township woman with underlying health conditions has become the countys latest fatality attributed to the new coronavirus.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.

Also during the briefing, Murphy dispelled the idea that the new coronavirus isnt as virulent as the seasonal flu.

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The number of fatalities in the state from COVID-19 in the past six weeks is greater than the number of people who succumbed to the flu over the past three flu seasons combined, he said. In addition, the hospitalization rate for the new coronavirus is far greater than what it is for the flu; the general hospitalization rate for the flu is about one-tenth of 1% of cases, but for the new coronavirus, its about 10%.

This is a pandemic the likes of which we havent seen in a century, he said.

He also featured a Cumberland County boy who asked his community to donate boxes of pasta and jars of sauce for his 12th birthday, which he plans to donate to the Vineland Soup Kitchen.

Murphy is scheduled to tour the field medical station at the Atlantic City Convention Center on Tuesday morning.

Other state officials will join him for the tour, as well as Matt Doherty, executive director of the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority.

There will be no livestreamed briefing Sunday, but numbers of cases and fatalities will be distributed through a news release. Mondays briefing is scheduled for 2 p.m.



Atlantic City is getting two COVID-19 testing sites, according to Mayor Marty Small Sr.

A drive-thru testing site at Bader Field and a walk-up location in the Showboat Hotel Atlantic City surface parking lot could be operational beginning the week of April 27, Small said. Find out more here.



The Community FoodBank of New Jersey is partnering with Unite Here Local 54 Wednesday to provide food to casino workers.

There will be a drive-thru food distribution from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Shore Mall, 6725 Black Horse Pike, Egg Harbor Township

Unite Here Local 54 represents nearly 10,000 employees in the casino industry.



An Atlantic City distillery has produced 30,000 bottles of hand sanitizer that will be distributed to Wells Fargo branches all over the country.

Earlier this week, Little Water Distillery finished its first order for the bank, producing 20,000 16-ounce and 10,000 8-ounce bottles of sanitizer to be shipped to the distributing center in North Carolina, according to a news release from Wells Fargo.

From there, the order will then be spread across the entire United States to Wells Fargo for the 270,000 employees working in the banks, offices, service centers, trading floors and contact centers to maintain necessary workplace safety during COVID-19, according to the release.



Cape May County Prosecutor Jeffrey Sutherland put out a release Saturday clarifying campground usage. All campgrounds are closed with the following exceptions:

People who have year-round residential leases and use the campground as their permanent address; and

Campground where individuals own their site and have a deed. Only the owners and their immediate family may occupy the site.

Excepted campgrounds can not be used for short-term rentals. Mobile home parks where residents have yearly leases do not qualify as campgrounds and are thus not subject to any restrictions.



The New Jersey State Police charged Franklin Moore, 62, of Cape May Court House with possession of heroin, DWI, motor vehicle violations and violating the emergency orders in Port Norris Friday. Moore was in a motor vehicle accident with heroin in the vehicle. He was unresponsive when police arrived. He was treated and charged.



NJ Transit announced Saturday that Senior Vice President & General Manager of Rail Operations, Raymond P. Kenny, passed away from COVID-19-related complications.

"Ray's reputation and experience in the industry are unparalleled," NJ Transit President & CEO Kevin Corbett said. "The leadership and incredible wealth of railroad knowledge Ray brought with him has truly made a positive impact on our organization. On behalf of everyone at NJ Transit, our thoughts and prayers are with Ray's family and friends at this difficult time."



Governor Murphy along with the governors of New York and Connecticut announced the alignment of their state policies regarding marinas and boat yards during the COVID-19 crisis.

Marinas, boatyards and marine manufacturers will be allowed to open as long as strict social distancing and sanitization protocols are observed. Restaurants on site will be allowed to sell takeout and delivery food, but chartered boat services and rentals will not be allowed.

Weve committed to working with our regional partners throughout this crisis to align our policies when and where appropriate, Governor Murphy said. A unified approach is the most effective way to alleviate confusion for the residents of our states during the ongoing public health emergency.

Heres where to get tested for COVID-19 in South Jersey

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Molly Bilinski Staff Writer My beat is public safety, following police and crime. I started in January 2018 here at the Press covering Egg Harbor and Galloway townships. Before that, I worked at the Reading Eagle in Reading, Pa., covering crime and writing obituaries. Follow Molly Bilinski 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. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today
The state confirmed another 50 COVID-19 deaths Saturday, bringing Connecticuts death toll up to 1,086, according to a release from Gov. Ned Lamonts office.

The number of residents who have tested positive for COVID-19 continues to climb, according to state data, which shows it hit 17,550 Saturday, up by 741 from Friday.

On the other hand, statewide hospitalizations related to COVID-19 decreased by eight people, state data shows.

It was the first time since the start of the pandemic that the number went down, Lamont said on Twitter, adding that the decrease provided some hope.

But 1 day of data alone does not mean we are out of the woods and can return to life as normal, he continued. Many of our hospitals and nursing homes remain under stress, and front line workers continue to battle around the clock. But with proper measures in place, we can slow down its spread.

Whats more, not all counties saw a decrease in hospitalizations.

While Fairfield County reported 21 fewer hospitalizations, the other two hardest-hit counties, New Haven and Hartford, reported five and seven additional hospitalizations, respectively.

Hospitalizations in the states other four counties remain relatively stable, only going up or down by three people at most, the data shows.

At 432 deaths, Fairfield County has the most fatalities, according to state data.

Meanwhile, Hartford County has recorded 289 coronavirus-related deaths and New Haven county has recorded 241, the data indicates.

Only six of Connecticuts 169 municipalities have yet to record a coronavirus-related fatality, according to the report.

In addition to providing the latest coronavirus data, the state detailed some of its latest COVID-19 response measures in its Saturday release.

A new rapid-testing site that opened in New Haven Friday will likely have the capacity to test about 750 individuals daily, the release said.

The state also announced partnerships between the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) and two companies, SoFi and Equifax, for an effort meant to speed up loan processing and payments under the Connecticut Recovery Bridge Loan Program.

The DECD created the program to provide cash flow relief to small businesses, per the release.

The governor also encouraged all residents to sign up for the states emergency alert system. You can do so by texting COVIDCT to 888-777.

For more state-provided information on COVID-19 in Connecticut, you can call 2-1-1 or visit https://portal.ct.gov/Coronavirus.

meghan.friedmann@hearstmediact.com
Not a lot of social distancing among these worshipers, though they are out of doors. Photo: Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

Its no secret that one of the flash points in the administration of measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus has been the status of religious services. Most places of worship have managed to adjust via virtual services and other events, with some even innovating with drive-in-style, socially distanced services for people who stay safely in their cars. Others are expressing their ministry by charitable acts such as food distribution or care for the homeless or the elderly.

But theres a bit of an ideological edge in the attitude of some religious communities toward restrictions on their traditional forms of worship, which may involve crowded sanctuaries, touching and hugging, and other forms of contact generally considered highly dangerous during this pandemic. And among some conservative Evangelical Christians, the belief that traditional worship forms are literally sacred has overlapped with hostility to secular authorities, particularly those not aligned with them on political and cultural issues. There is, in fact, a strong religious flavor to the never-suppressed and now rapidly growing movement of resistance toward coronavirus lockdowns, and agitation for reopening businesses and other shuttered or restricted enterprises. In various parts of the country, Evangelicals are demanding the right to worship as they choose as a matter of constitutional religious liberty, and some conservative politicians (e.g., Florida governor Ron DeSantis) are agreeing with them to one extent or another.

How widespread is conservative Evangelical defiance of voluntary guidelines or mandatory orders that frown upon in-person worship services? Well, a late-March survey by three researchers publishing their findings at the Religious News Services found some pretty significant civil disobedience. They divided the states into three categories  30 states with no stay-at-home orders or with religious exemptions; ten with stay-at-home orders that only partially restrict religious activities; and ten more with stay-at-home orders with no religious exemption. Non-Evangelical Christian congregations matched or exceeded their Evangelical counterparts in holding in-person services in states with no or limited restrictions, but among Evangelicals the same percentage (about 12 percent) of congregations reported holding such services regardless of the legal regime.

But a lot of individual believers are attending in-person services outside their customary congregations, whenever they are available, and the numbers are substantial among Evangelicals:

Just because 88% of congregations are following public health officials advice does not mean that individuals are following suit. Our survey asked if the survey respondent was still worshipping in person even if their own congregation was closed, presumably crowding into a church that is open. This number was much higher  20% of church attenders reported still attending in-person services. Did it vary by state regulations?

This number varied according to state regulations, but again, evangelicals were more likely to report worshipping in person in states with no restrictions as well as states with religious restrictions. In both cases, almost a third of church-attending evangelicals reported attending worship in person.Evangelicals behavior stands in contrast with non-evangelicals, among whom only about 10% report worshipping in person and without much variation across levels of state restrictions.

So Evangelicals are about three times as likely to defy restrictions on their worship as non-Evangelicals. And the researchers think Evangelical traditions and leadership have a lot to do with that defiance:

Evangelicals have been preparing for this moment. In a 1998 book, sociologist Christian Smith famously referred to evangelicals as embattled and thriving, and we can see that embattled mentality on display here. But this view is also currently being stoked by religious elites, with a number of evangelical leaders calling for active resistance against state orders. Christian right legal groups such as Liberty Counsel are spoiling for fights; other Christian right think tanks are urging resistance, supporting the few individual clergy who are quite open about their mission.

The Rev. Tony Spell, the Louisiana pastor who has been charged with a misdemeanor for keeping his church open, told Reuters: The church is the last force resisting the Antichrist. Let us assemble regardless of what anyone says.

Lord have mercy.
Former representative of the Rivers South-East Senatorial District at the National Assembly, Senator Magnus Ngei Abe, has appealed to Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, to explore back-channel lines of communication to settle political scores with the Federal Government of Nigeria instead of being confrontational.

Abe made the appeal in a statement posted on his Facebook page titled: "COVID-19, ABE APPEALS TO RIVERS STATE GOVERNMENT TO EXPLORE BACK-CHANNEL LINES OF COMMUNICATION".

He stated that his decision to passionately make the appeal is in the interest of Rivers people as the confrontational approach of the state government will only open the flood gates for conflict entrepreneurs who will use the opportunity of the conflict to further their political and economic nest, to the detriment of the state.

The senator said the conflict will not in any way help the majority of Rivers people in the fight against the coronavirus as it is not the time to settle issues of supremacy between elected and unelected functionaries of government.

Abe, in a statement signed by his spokesperson, Parry Saroh Benson said: "I want to use this opportunity to publicly appeal to the Rivers State government to immediately seek and secure back-channel lines of communication, and resolve any outstanding issues with the federal government through dialogue.

Wisdom is not weakness, it is one thing to have a political dispute with an individual whose attitude and conduct, a lot of people may not approve of, but it is a different matter for sub-national entity like Rivers State to challenge the sovereignty of Nigeria at this time when we should all be working together to combat an unseen but deadly enemy.

I had earlier stated my determination not to be a party to any action that will politicize our ability to confront the coronavirus pandemic as a people and I maintain that position.

However, in the light of the spiraling controversies, escalating issues between the Rivers State Government and the Federal Government, I want to use this opportunity to publicly appeal to the Rivers State Government to immediately seek and secure back-channel lines of communication, and resolve any outstanding issues with the federal government through dialogue.

After all, the constitution gives power to both the elected and unelected officials of government and the Supreme Court of Nigeria is there, which has the ultimate power to decide issues in the country. They are made up of unelected officials".

The former Chairman, Senate Committee on FERMA at the 8th National Assembly further said: "In the fight against coronavirus what we need is unity and cooperation between all tiers and arms of Government.

Even sovereign nations cannot win this war alone, we must all work together, to act otherwise at this time will have grave consequences for our dear state.

I also wish to appeal to the Federal Government on behalf of the people of Rivers State to keep open the opportunity of dialogue and cooperation with all states particularly Rivers State because of its population and strategic importance to our economy. Nigeria cannot afford to be distracted by politics at this time.

This is because, the greatest danger facing the states at this time is not the risk from approved international travelers who can be easily tracked and monitored, it is the risk of community spread and interstate commuters most of whom are neither documented nor can they be tracked.

Therefore, the solution to this danger is for states to establish accredited test centers and take steps to document interstate travelers for tracking purposes."

Meanwhile, Senator Abe has condoled President Muhammadu Buhari over the demise of his Chief of Staff, Mallam Abba Kyari.

The Senator stated that the unfortunate demise of the Chief of Staff should act as a clear reminder that, "we cannot afford to fiddle while Rome burns.

Let us put aside all differences and work together to defeat this pandemic. Once our country is safe from danger we can all safely go back to politics".

Signed:

PARRY SAROH BENSON, ANIPR

Spokesperson to Senator Magnus Ngei Abe

April 18, 2020
Upset that the president was antagonizing trading partners in a way that could hamper supplies of critical equipment coming to the United States, foreign leaders and U.S. companies used a White House back channel, appealing to members of a task force reporting to Trumps son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner. The backdoor approach was successful: Trump reversed course three days later and announced an amicable agreement: 3M could continue providing masks to foreign customers, while ramping up domestic production. Despite the presidents caustic remarks about 3M, a senior White House official had praise for that company and another U.S. manufacturer of masks  Honeywell  for quickly agreeing to step up domestic mask production and distribution.
Were going to get back to living life, even if it kills us
The Boeing logo is displayed on a screen, at the NYSE in New York

(Reuters) - Boeing Co <BA.N> said on Friday it would resume operations at production facilities in Philadelphia next week after a two week suspension due to the spread of the coronavirus.

The company said operations at its Philadelphia plants, which manufacture military rotorcraft including the H-47 Chinook, V-22 Osprey and MH-139A Grey Wolf, would restart on Monday with enhanced safety measures.

Boeing said on Thursday it would resume the production of commercial jets next week in Washington state.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)
Nurses at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica raise their fists in solidarity after telling managers they can't care for COVID-19 patients without N95 respirator masks to protect themselves. (Lizabeth Baker Wade)

When Chelsea Halmy reported for her nighttime shift in the COVID-19 unit at Providence St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on April 11, she made what she thought was a routine request: to be provided with an N95 respirator mask before coming into contact with patients.

As she knew, the N95 masks were the most effective in the hospital's stock for blocking potential infection by the novel coronavirus that causes the disease. Her supervisor said no; standard surgical masks were good enough, she was told.

When Halmy refused to treat patients without the N95 equipment, she was brought into a closed room where a supervisor, reading from a script that Halmy captured with her smartphone, threatened her with a charge of insubordination and a report to the state Board of Registered Nursing for "patient abandonment," which could result in the loss of her nursing license.

We started asking employers back in January how they were preparing for the potential pandemic. We saw right away that they weren't prepared.

Bonnie Castillo, National Nurses United

Per Halmy's telling, the supervisor named a COVID-19 patient. "Will you accept a direct order to accept assignment" of the patient? "Yes or no?"

"I said, 'Yes, I want to accept my assignment,'" Halmy told me. "'However, I don't feel safe going in the room without an N95 respirator.'" Asked again, she repeated the answer.

Three fellow nurses told me they were subjected to the same treatment that night, as seven others had been earlier in the week. All were sent home.

As of Friday, the 10 nurses who demanded N95 protection before working in the COVID-19 unit were still suspended, even though the hospital has backed off from its insistence that N95 masks aren't necessary for nurses in the unit.

Having received new supplies as well as government approval to reprocess N95 masks, the hospital says, it is now able to "provide them to all caregivers treating COVID-19 patients."

Story continues

The hospital refused to comment on the status of the suspended employees. The California Nurses Assn., which represents the nurses, says that seven of the nurses had had "investigative" meetings with managers by Friday but had been sent home afterward without a resolution of their cases.

Workers in many front-line occupations requiring direct contact with the public, such as grocery workers, can be dangerously exposed to the novel coronavirus.

But healthcare workers may be the most vulnerable. Their work requires them to come into closer contact with COVID-19 patients and in more confined spaces than other workers. Nurses particularly spend more time with patients than most other hospital employees and therefore may have a better sense of their institutions' level of preparedness for disease outbreaks than their professional colleagues.

As my colleagues Anita Chabria, Harriet Ryan and Soumya Karlamangla report, the coronavirus has taken a significant toll on healthcare workers in California, with more than 175 cases at UCLA and at least eight cases at Providence St. Johns.

As of Thursday, according to National Nurses United, the parent of the California union, 320 members have tested positive for COVID-19 nationwide, and 40 nurses have died of the disease.

During the coronavirus outbreak, as it happens, nurses seem to have suffered an outbreak of management threats of discipline and terminations. These have occurred in connection with nurses' insistence on being provided with the highest-grade personal protective equipment, or PPE, or with public critiques of their institutions' operational shortcomings.

"Nurses aren't afraid of caring for COVID patients," says Malinda Markowitz, president of the California nurses union. "But nurses are the only professionals who are at the patients' bedside 24/7. They're worried about themselves and about passing the infection on to their families or other patients. But the hospitals feel that RNs are expendable."

Some nurses have faced discipline for bringing PPE from home or raising money to buy it for their colleagues. Kaiser Permanente, the giant national managed care organization in Oakland, threatened to fire nurses "on the spot" if they were caught using their own N95 masks, according to the nurses union.

"Kaiser is insisting that this is not an airborne disease, that it only needs droplet protection, and therefore you only need a surgical mask," says Diane McClure, a registered nurse at Kaiser's South Sacramento location and a union official. "But there's a lot about the disease that's not known, and we want the highest-level protection first."

After the Kaiser nurses made the management threat public, Kaiser management issued an email telling staff that they wouldn't be disciplined for wearing their own masks, the union says. A Kaiser spokesman told me by email: "We are not and have not been disciplining nurses or other staff for bringing in their own protective equipment."

Other nurses and some physicians have also been disciplined for posting public complaints about the lack of preparedness at their hospitals. Jhonna Porter, a supervising nurse in the COVID-19 ward at HCA Healthcare's West Hills Hospital, was suspended on March 23 after she posted an alert to a private nurses' Facebook group about inadequate supplies and asked for community donations for herself and colleagues in her unit.

HCA says Porter was suspended for posting "specific information, including room numbers of possible COVID patients," to Facebook, which it implied was a violation of patient privacy laws. Porter was reinstated on April 8 after an investigation established that the violation was "inadvertent," HCA said.

Porter says that she posted no patient information and that HCA was citing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act "to save face." Her suspension sent an intimidating message to employees to prevent them from speaking out. "They didn't shut me up," she told me, "but they shut a lot of other people up."

She says West Hills, where the COVID patient count more than doubled to 25 in the weeks she was suspended, is still doling out N95 masks to staff piecemeal, sometimes using donated supplies. HCA, the largest for-profit hospital chain in the country, earned $4.1 billion on revenue of $51.3 billion last year.

Hospitals may be cracking down on nurses and other whistleblowing professionals out of embarrassment.

"A lot of hospitals were caught off-guard" by the coronavirus pandemic, says Blake Horwitz, an attorney representing Lauri Mazurkiewicz, a nurse who was fired in March by Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago after she emailed 50 fellow nurses with a warning that N95 masks offered better protection than the masks the hospital had distributed to the nursing staff.

"They've employed the knee-jerk response of not wanting to be caught with their pants down," Horwitz told me. The professionals, however, "are speaking out on a matter of public concern. These are straight-out retaliation cases."

Hospital managements should keep in mind that nurses don't take lightly to being pushed around. They're outspoken, organized, knowledgeable and adept at presenting their case in terms of patient protection.

In 2005, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger learned that to his misfortune when he attempted to delay a tightening of staffing-to-patient ratios in California hospitals and denigrating them as a special interest. The nurses launched a public campaign against the change and eventually secured a court ruling upholding the tighter standards.

In the current crisis, supplies of N95 masks  so designated because they're designed to filter 95% of airborne particles  are in such demand that authorities say they should be reserved for front-line healthcare workers.

The very fact that this equipment needs to be rationed is a scandalous commentary on American public health preparedness.

"We started asking employers back in January how they were preparing for the potential pandemic," says Bonnie Castillo, executive director of the California Nurses Assn. and its parent, National Nurses United. "We saw right away that they weren't prepared, mainly because they subscribed to just-in-time stocking of supplies and equipment, similar to how they staff in general. But when we demanded PPE, we were met with discipline."

The cases at St. John's illustrate Castillo's point. The suspensions began the morning of April 9, when several nurses arrived at the first-floor unit reserved for patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 or were awaiting test results. They were issued paper masks.

"A couple of staff physicians coming onto the unit to do their patient rounds were wearing hospital-issued N95 masks," says Michael Gulick, one of the nurses. "When they saw us, they were bewildered why we weren't wearing N95 masks. The doctors said we're taking care of an unknown disease and the hospital should be using the most conservative safety protocol."

Supervisors refused to issue the masks. Gulick says that when he stood his ground, he was taken into a private room and subjected to the same scripted interrogation that Halmy described.

But the issue that confronted Halmy and her colleagues wasn't scarcity; she and other nurses say their supervisors never claimed that the supply of N95 masks at St. John's was so short that the masks needed to be conserved. Rather, the practice was based on protocols set down by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The hospital says that at all times, every nurse caring for COVID-19 patients or those awaiting test results was provided with "appropriate" protective equipment according to guidelines issued by the CDC, the World Health Organization and the state.

The CDC's guidelines state that flimsier surgical masks are good enough for healthcare workers unless they're working with patients in extremely close quarters. The CDC placed this advice, however, in the context of "crisis capacity strategies," including the reuse of equipment that was designed for one-time only use or that had exceeded its manufacturer-designated shelf life. The CDC acknowledges that these steps could "pose a risk of transmission between [healthcare personnel] and patients."

Those words are a reminder that it's not only nurses who are punished when hospital managements retaliate against them for whistleblowing. Patients are too. Nurses know how to recognize preparedness, and when they find it wanting they should be heeded, not punished.
Amid the pandemic, it's the generosity of people and humanity that is indeed making the world head, step by step.

The Producers Guild of India has decided to donate fully-equipped tents and vanity vans of Bollywood stars to the police force, particularly female cops, across 22 key locations in the city, as the uniformed personnel battle it out every day in order to protect Mumbai from the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic.

The initiative is called Mission Suraksha.

Usha Kadam/BCCL

"We are delighted to launch ''Mission Suraksha'' to protect our caretakers, especially women cops on bandobast duty. Fully equipped tents and vanity vans used by cine stars have been provided across 22 key locations as restrooms for breaktime," a statement issued by the guild reads.

Uma Kadam/BCCL

The gesture comes just a few days after Bollywood stars took to social media to express their gratitude to Mumbai Police for their tireless efforts during the ongoing lockdown and pandemic.

TOI

Even before the nationwide lockdown was announced, the Producers Guild of India had set up a relief fund for daily wage earners associated with the film industry, to ensure these workers and their families get sustenance during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Agencies

The Producers Guild of India, along with Indian Film and Television Producers Council and Federation of Western India Cine Employees, recently came together to support the most impacted daily wage workers through direct bank transfers.



According to the latest stats provided by the Government, at least 13,835 people have been infected with the highly infectious novel coronavirus in India and killed 452 in India.


Hamilton County Schools officials have tentatively scheduled high school graduations for June 25, 26 and 27 at the Tivoli Theater, Memorial Auditorium and McKenzie Arena.

Or they could be moved back to late July.

County school officials said:

"It has been an unusual second semester for students and staff in Hamilton County Schools, and our high school seniors have been uniquely affected due to missing many of the milestone events typical for this time of year.

For the safety of staff, seniors, and families, the district has postponed our original plans for graduation.

To explore alternative graduation options, district leaders formed a graduation committee and consulted students and parents through surveys and discussions.

The district has tentatively scheduled graduations on June 26, June 27, and June 28 at the Tiovli Theatre, Memorial Auditorium, and McKenzie Arena. We've explored a variety of options, and these three locations were chosen because they are ideal for streaming the events live for those who cant attend. View the June graduation schedule .

We've also scheduled dates in late July as another option if we are not able to hold ceremonies in June. The July dates run from July 27 through July 29 at the Tivoli Theatre, Memorial Auditorium, and the Chattanooga Convention Center. View the July graduation schedule .

Please remember there is still much we do not know about how we will immerge from COVID-19 restrictions and what types of public gatherings will be allowed in June or July. However, please know that we are committed to doing everything possible to provide the graduation experience for the Class of 2020. We hope these will be able to be traditional graduation ceremonies, but we realize there may need to be some modifications. The district will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates to families as we get closer to these scheduled dates.

Next week the district will distribute a survey seeking input on our alternative graduation plans.

GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS AND TESTING INFORMATION

The Tennessee Board of Education has made adjustments to requirements to ensure high school students continue to progress toward their plans for the future. Below you will find Hamilton County Schools' updated graduation requirements for the 2019-2020 school year and important testing information.

Graduation Requirements

Any student scheduled to graduate during the 2019-2020 school year must earn a minimum of 20 credit hours which include the following subjects:

- 4 required credits of math

- 4 required credits of English

- 3 required credits of science

- 2 required credits of social studies

- 7 additional credits

- Requirements for taking the ACT or SAT and passing the civics exam have been waived for any student scheduled to graduate during the 2019-2020 school year.

- A students GPA will continue to be calculated as a result of the final grade in a course.

Students will receive a final course grade no lower than the grade earned in the course through the end of the Third Quarter (March 16) but can improve their overall grade for GPA calculations by completing remote learning credit opportunities in the course.

Additional weighting will still be added to courses for students in honors or postsecondary courses who were unable to participate in the culminating exam in the spring semester of 2020 due to COVID-19.

Testing Information
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday chaired a meeting of a Gorup of Ministers (GoM) with a focus on finding ways to mitigate the hardships being faced by people across the country.

Government sources said the GoM on coronavirus crisis also reviewed various measures being initiated by concerned ministries to allow partial economic activity in "non-hotspot zones" from April 20.

It was the fifth meeting of the GoM headed by the defence minister.

"Interacted with the GoM on the COVID-19 situation. We discussed ways to mitigate the hardships faced by the people and the role ministries can play in providing relief to people," Singh tweeted.

The lockdown had shone the spotlight on the miseries of lakhs of migrant workers whose journeys on foot from several urban centres to their villages hundreds of kilometres away had grabbed headlines for many days last month.

Several opposition parties have demanded the government to announce specific welfare measures to help poor people as the lockdown has triggered job losses due to economic disruptions.

He said the guidelines to allow limited activities and the measures as announced by the Reserve Bank of India were also appreciated.

"The GoM obtained feedback from various ministers on the overall situation. It appreciated the decision of gradual opening up of economic activity in areas which have not reported any coronavirus cases," said a source.

Sources said the GoM also appreciated disbursement of Rs 31,000 crore to more than 33.25 crore beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana to help the economically weaker sections of population.

The meeting was attended by Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar.

HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Zubin Irani, Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Civil Aviation Minsister Hardeep Singh Puri were also among those who attended the meeting.

India went under a total shutdown of 21 days from March 25 to April 14 to fight the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced extending the lockdown till May 3, adding the drastic measures would be relaxed in some areas from April 20.

On Wednesday, the Home Ministry issued detailed guidelines allowing certain sectors to resume their economic activities from April 20.

According to the Union Health Ministry, India has recorded a total of 14,378 coronavirus cases and 480 people lost their lives in the infection.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Doctors have revealed one of Melbourne's biggest public hospital networks is short of basic protective equipment for staff, and expressed concerns health workers and patients could be at risk of contracting COVID-19.

Leaked minutes from a meeting between Eastern Health senior medical management and hospital doctors noted shortages of medical scrubs  sanitary clothing worn by doctors and staff  as well as protective masks, with some newly sourced masks found to be defective.

Doctors are concerned about a lack of personal protective equipment. Credit:Nic Walker

In the meeting, doctors also asked whether there would be shortages of medication and other supplies. A manager replied there already were and it is likely there will be continuing issues.

Eastern Health, which includes Box Hill, Maroondah and the Angliss hospitals, performed 40,350 operations in 2018/19 and had about 170,000 emergency department presentations.
TWIN FALLS  There arent many bright spots for Magic Valley agriculture right now in the face of the COVID-19 crisis. Farmers are dumping milk and potatoes onto the ground. Beef prices have taken a nosedive, and some processing plants have closed. When you look at wheat, corn, sugar beets, alfalfa and barley, there don't appear to be any big winners.

With almost all the valleys producers and processors suffering, it appears there's just one Magic Valley crop benefiting from the pandemic: Beans. Dry, edible beans.

A few weeks ago, at the height of panic buying, grocery stores were either completely or nearly out of beans. Thats because beans are a logical item to stock up on if youre expecting to be home for a long time. They're protein-packed and they store well.

University of Idaho Extension Agriculture Economist Ben Eborn said that bean prices have skyrocketed in the past few weeks, and theyd already been on an upswing before the pandemic began.

Beans are kind of the opposite of the potato plight and the dairy plight, Trinidad Benham Merchandiser Craig Kelley said. Were having a hard time keeping up with demand.

For dry beans  not soybeans  Idaho is one of the nations biggest producers, typically ranking in the top five annually. In 2017, Idaho accounted for 8% of Americas dry edible bean production. The countrys best seed beans, disease-free, come from Idaho.

Most farmers wont want to deviate from their crop rotations even in the face of uncertain crop prices, Kelley said, but some spud farmers might try to plant beans this year in place of potatoes.

Kelley also noted that with stay-at-home orders being extended, there could be another surge coming for dry beans.

Beyond beans

With the exception of beans, all Magic Valley ag is struggling, the only question is how badly. Corn is one of the crops that's doing poorly right now.

Eborn noted that with gas consumption sinks, ethanol demand drops. About 40% of the nations corn goes to ethanol, Eborn said. Plus, Magic Valley corn farmers depend on dairies.

"I grow a lot of dairy feed," Buhl farmer Rick Pearson said. "When dairies hurt, farmers hurt."

Pearson noted he's more worried for dairy farmers than himself right now. But if this continues, the dairies' problems will increasingly become his own.

"It's like a domino effect," he said. "It knocks down one guy and pretty soon it's going to knock down more."

Earl Reed, owner of Reed Grain and Bean Co., said that the coronavirus has caused a number of snags for his daily operations, much of which revolves around barley storage and shipping for beer companies. Shipping has gotten complicated, he said, and he wouldn't be surprised if beer demand decreased.

Jill Davidson is a manager at Davidson and Company in Eden. Her business also moves a lot of barley, and she said so far the grain is relatively insulated. The price hasn't fallen too much.

Wheat is impacted by the pandemic as well. Restaurants account for a lot of wheat demand, Idaho Wheat Commission Executive Director Blaine Jacobson said. Idaho is generally sixth in the U.S. in total wheat production.

Compared with potatoes, wheat stores well. People have been buying lots of pasta in supermarkets  when theres been pasta available on shelves  and it takes a long time for wheat to go bad. Unlike with dairy and spuds, its improbable anyone will have to dump wheat. Growers can store their wheat for years.

Its also possible that some farmers who had planned on growing potatoes or corn could turn to spring wheat instead, Jacobson noted.

On top of that, a lot of people are turning to baking while theyre stuck at home. Many have been buying lots of flour  at times stores have been sold out  which is good for wheat producers.

I think theres a whole generation of people out there that are rediscovering the pleasure of baking products at home, Jacobson said. Wheat will benefit from that.

About half of Idahos wheat gets exported, and its not fully clear how COVID-19 will affect international markets. Jacobson said theres a chance wheat might be impacted less than other crops. Maybe.

If more trade barriers get erected, then markets like wheat may get affected, Jacobson said.

Most people in agriculture say that despite the current hardships, ag is relatively fortunate. People in the industry still have jobs, for the most part. For many ag workers, social distancing isnt much of an issue.

A pretty good segment of Idahos economy is based on agriculture, Jacobson said. And agriculture right now is less affected than many industries.

People still have to eat, and that universal fact has helped out the Magic Valley in past recessions.

A lot of times, its agriculture that continues to chug along and is the engine for the states recovery, Jacobson said. I think youll see that happen again this time.
A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking directions to allow migrant labourers, who test negative for the coronavirus disease, to go back to their homes amid the extended lockdown, news agency ANI reported on Saturday.

According to ANI, the private litigation, one of many such pleas, said the government should allow for their safe travel to their hometowns and villages and provide necessary transportation from cities to their homes.

Follow latest updates on coronavirus here

Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are stuck in several states after the countrywide lockdown was announced on March 24 to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

They have borne the brunt after the 21-day lockdown was subsequently extended up to May 3 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and were left without money to buy food or pay rent.

The PIL was filed by lawyer Prashant Bhushan on behalf of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), former professor and founder trustee Jagdeep S Chhokar and advocate Gaurav Jain.

The petition said the migrant workers, who are amongst the worst affected due to the ongoing lockdown, must be allowed to go back to their homes after being tested for Covid-19.

Also read| Mapping Covid-19: Most of Indias economic hotspots under grip of coronavirus

Those who test negative for COVID-19 must not be forcefully kept in shelters or away from their homes and families against their wishes. That the government should allow for their safe travel to their hometowns and villages and provide necessary transportation for the same, the petition said.

The plea said a large number of migrant workers wish to go back to their native villages to live with their families and it was evident from the sudden rush in the wake of the initial 21-days national lockdown that led to chaos at various bus terminals.

It pointed out that it led to tragic deaths of many such migrant workers who were left with no option but to travel hundreds of kilometres to their home on foot.

Also read: Woes mount, migrants stare at long road to normalcy

Recently, there have been media reports which show that migrant workers are protesting on streets in some places due to non-payment of their wages and demanding to return to their native villages, the plea said.

It also said these reports show that migrant workers are being harassed by the local residents and even beaten in some cases.

Click here for complete coronavirus coverage

The fundamental rights of migrant workers cannot be suspended for an indefinite period forcing them to stay away from their families and living in unpredictable and arduous conditions, the plea added.

(With agency inputs)
Brian Phillips, 60, has been self-medicating with pot since he was a boy when he got in a car accident. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

If theres one business the coronavirus has kissed with fortune, its weed.

Business is up, oh, about one hundred percent, said Ryan Moran, operations manager for the Flower Co., a marijuana distributor in Arcata  a small college town, seated on Humboldt Bay, just north of Eureka.

Moran, who hails from New Jersey, said his company provides next-day delivery for communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, and as of Friday, he expected to start next-day service for Los Angeles, too.

We call it Next Day LA, he said.

The Flower Co.'s offices are in a small, newly constructed office park, where all the tenants work in the weed business, said Moran. A constant stream of small Toyota pickup trucks and Subarus filtered in and out of the parking lot Wednesday morning. A late-model BMW idled outside the adjacent buildings entrance.

Moran said his business really started to pick up on March 16, after seven Bay Area counties announced a shelter-in-place order.

Ryan Moran is operations manager of the Flower Co., a cannabis packaging and distribution company in Arcata. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

We saw a surge in panic buying, he said, which dipped soon after, apparently because people thought that weed shops would be shuttered.

But then on March 22, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared cannabis and scores of other enterprises to be essential businesses.

After that, sales ratcheted back up, Moran said. They are now higher than they were after the initial surge.

There are a lot of people stuck in their houses right now, he said, theorizing about the growth in sales. So, what are they going to do? They stream Netflix  and get high. Or watch movies on Amazon ... and get high. Or play board games ... and get high. There's not much else to do.

He also conceded that job-loss anxiety and people feeling unsettled could be contributing to the demand.

Like other essential businesses operating during this period, Moran has set up new safety protocols for his employees, which include wearing masks, gloves and spacing themselves adequately from one another.

Young cannabis plants grow in the greenhouse at Huckleberry Hill Farms in Garberville. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Many of those precautions are practiced anyway, he said, given California and Humboldt County's strict regulations and oversight of the the cannabis industry.

Story continues

He has had to temporarily outsource his production arm, however, because many of his employees have opted not to come in, fearing contracting the virus.

A lot of them had underlying health issues, he said.

Eight of the roughly 20 workers he usually employs have been moved to pick and pack, where they get the product ready for shipping.

The same holds for John Casali, owner of a small, craft pot farm in Garberville  82 miles south of Arcata.



Casali has been in the business since the 1970s, when he and his mother moved to the family's current property  a small, family farm located 20 miles west of 101, along a winding road that leads through gigantic, centuries-old redwood trees and hilly fields of sun-soaked grass.

It was his mother who started growing the crop, along with other fruits and vegetables such as lettuce, snow peas and tomatoes. And she inspired a love of farming in her young son. By the age of 15, he was growing his own plants.

But that was during the Reagan years, he said. Remember? The war on drugs.

Back then, Blackhawk helicopters were frequent sights overhead across all of the "Emerald Triangle"  Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino counties, he said.

Youd see the helicopters stop and hover in the air, ropes coming flying out the side, and men in black, with AR-17s, descend to the ground, where theyd give chase to farmers, such as Casali. Theyd run you through the woods, to the edges of ravines. It was terrifying.

Before cannabis was legalized, Casali was arrested and convicted of growing marijuana and sent to prison. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

In 1992, he said, 30 federal agents burst into his house, pushed him to his couch, and held a gun to his head. And after three years of frequent court appearances in San Francisco, he was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for the cultivation of cannabis and conspiracy to grow.

As Casali told his story Thursday morning, he oscillated between tears and bewilderment as he toured his state-and-county-certified greenhouse, where he is growing roughly 2,000 young plants.

Casalis product is distributed by Flow Kana, and he grows strains for Willies Reserve, Willie Nelsons cannabis company.

He said he is not in the business for the money. He wants to keep his operation small. Hes the only laborer on the farm and hopes he's providing a product that can help people get through times like this.

People like Brian Phillips.

Phillips, 60, said he has been self-medicating since he was injured in a car accident as a boy, and his mother gave him some weed to ease his pain. He moved from Los Angeles to Red Bluff in 1972, where he rides around town in an electric wheelchair after suffering a second accident later in life.

"There ain't no dispensaries in this town," Phillips said, "This is one poor town."

As for Casali, hes not an avid user of his own product, he said, testing it only for quality  not for recreation.

John Casali is owner/operator of Huckleberry Hill Farms, an organic cannabis farm in Garberville. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

It makes me too relaxed. Id never keep this farm going if I smoked it, he said with a laugh.

Recently, Casali enjoyed a visit from two prison officials he got to know while serving time at the Lompoc Federal Correctional Institution. He said they stayed with him for three days, and both left with a half-dozen plants to bring home.

You just never know how things are going to turn out, he said with a laugh. Life is full of surprises.

Los Angeles Times reporter Susanne Rust and photographer Carolyn Cole are embarking on a road journey throughout California. They aim to give voice to those in remote parts of California as they grapple with the worst health and economic calamity of our lifetimes.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - ConocoPhillips has announced another $200 million spending cut in Alaska following previous reductions a month earlier as oil prices decline amid the coronavirus pandemic.

ConocoPhillips made the initial cut in capital spending in mid-March, before announcing another $200 million cut earlier this week in response to large drops in the global oil market, the Alaska Journal of Commerce reported.

We expect prices over the next few months  they will be weak and they will be volatile, CEO Ryan Lance said.

The price of Alaska North Slope Crude fell to $16.65 a barrel on Wednesday, the lowest price since January 2002, the state Department of Revenue said.

The announcement comes about a week after the Houston-based company told its North Slope drilling contractor Doyon Drilling to demobilize its drilling rigs and crews to minimize the risk of workers contracting COVID-19, meaning drill rigs will stop drilling and be placed in long-term storage.

Doyon Drilling is a subsidiary of the Interior Alaska Native regional corporation Doyon Ltd.

ConocoPhillips expects to see a production impact of about 2,000 barrels a day on the North Slope as a result of decreased development drilling for the remainder of the year.

About 130,000 barrels were produced per day from Kuparuk and 56,000 barrels per day from Alpine in February, department officials said.

The company previously had plans to drill seven exploration wells in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska this winter, company leaders said. It is unclear what will happen with ongoing near-term development projects such as Greater Mooses Tooth-2 and Nuna.

ConocoPhillips is one of the major oil companies operating in Alaska. It spent about $1.5 billion on capital projects in the state last year.

Across the company, ConocoPhillips has reduced spending by $5 billion from prior expectations since early March, and expects to curtail oil production by about 225,000 barrels each day in the Lower 48 and Canada.

We continue to monitor the market situation. But at this time, based on our current outlook, we chose to maintain organization capacity so we can resume programs in the future, spokesman John Roper said, confirming that no layoffs have been announced as a result of the cuts.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will chair a cabinet meeting on Saturday afternoon to review the coronavirus situation in the national capital, a news agency reported. Delhi is close to registering two thousand positive cases with the tally presently at over 1800 cases including 72 recoveries and 42 casualties.

The city-state hopes to increase testing of suspects with the help of approximately one lakh rapid testing kids meant for quick antibody detection. The current daily average of tests done in the month of April in Delhi is under a 1000 samples. Its average of 930 tests per million population, however, is much higher than the national average of 220.

The AAP government has offered a major relief to parents by instructing private schools to only charge tuition fees till the time schools do not reopen due to the lockdown. It also asked private schools to only charge monthly fees as against the practice of charging fees for a quarter in advance. They have also been advised against a fee hike without governments sanction.

In another important relief, the government is offering Rs 5,000 as immediate cash assistance for over one lakh autorickshaw drivers in the capital. The process of verification of their identities is currently on and the first batch of verified drivers have already been paid.

Delhi government is also distributing ration to those without ration card through distribution centres established in about 400 schools across Delhi.

The Congress on Friday had asked Delhi government to give ration and cash incentives to daily wagers and migrant workers to prevent them from leaving the city during the national lockdown.

The Congress had also asked the Delhi government to completely waive school fees for three months to provide succour to parents and demanded that the government funded 75 per cent salaries of teachers in aided schools.

The HT Guide to Coronavirus COVID-19
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The governor of Borno State, Babagana Zulum, on Saturday expressed shock over the passing of Abba Kyari, the chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, who died after contracting the COVID-19.

Governor Zulum said Me Kyari, whose passage attracted divided reactions across the country, was a patriotic good man misunderstood by many Nigerians.

Similarly, Borno senator, Muhammed Ndume, has also joined many Nigerians to mourn the late chief of staff.

Mr Kyari, a Kanuri native of Borno State, died 25 days after he tested positive for the new coronavirus disease. He died in while receiving treatment at a private hospital in Lagos.

Mr Zulum, who was attending a function at the Gamboru-Ngala border community when he received the sad news, cut short his engagement, a statement by his spokesman, Isa Gusau, said.

We have lost one of our own, Alhaji Abba Kyari, chief of staff to the President, Governor Zulum said in the statement.

It is a big loss for us because Borno has just lost a rock. I was really shocked by the news of his demise. I last spoke with him [exactly] weeks ago and he was in good spirit.

I share the grief of his immediate family, His Excellency, Mr President, and the Presidency as well as his larger family, the people of Borno state.

Alhaji Abba Kyari was a good man that was misunderstood by many people and whatever it is, his appointed time has come and every human will one day die, no matter how long we live and for this divine reason, good people or those with wisdom, do not celebrate the death of anyone.

READ ALSO:

I urge all of us here to pray for one of our own. Someone who was sincerely passionate about the fight against Boko Haram towards peace-building and restoration in Borno state, the northeast, and Nigeria.

Kyari dies when he is most needed  Ndume

Reacting to the death of his Borno kinsman, Mr Ndume said he was left shocked when he received the sad news.

In a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES via Whatsapp message, Mr Ndume commiserates with the family, the Presidency, the people of Borno and the nation at large.

While calling on all bereaved to submit the development wholly to the will of God, Mr Ndume described Mr Kyaris death as shocking. Adding that late Kyaris wise counsel will be missed at such trying times.

The loss of Malam Kyari who died in active service is a national tragedy and his innumerable contribution to nation-building will always be remembered.
Demanding bail, a group of inmates of the Jalpaiguri central correctional home in north Bengal held a number of staff members hostage on Saturday afternoon.

Senior district police officials rushed to the spot but could not enter the premises as the inmates had blocked the main gate from inside. Till last reports were received at 5 pm, officials were trying to diffuse the tension by talking to the inmates.

Most of the agitators were undertrial prisoners, officials said. The inmates separated the new and old jail complexes by locking the connecting gates.

A police officer, who did not want to identified, said most of the agitators at Jalpaiguri central correctional home had been booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

There were rumours that some guards were assaulted but officials did not confirm this. The inmates also ransacked security cameras placed inside the premises.

There are around 1300 inmates in the correctional home, officials said. Among them, around 200 are undertrial prisoners. This is the biggest correctional home in north Bengal.

This is the third incident of rioting inside correctional homes in West Bengal. Days after the lockdown started and bail hearings stopped in courts, there was violence at Baruipur correctional home in South 24 Parganas district on March 3. A second incident was reported at Dum Dum central correctional home in March 21.

Incidentally, Bengal and other states have released thousands of inmates on bail and parole following a Supreme Court order.

Additional policemen and Rapid Action Force personnel rushed to the correctional home in the Raikatpara area of Jalpaiguri. The district superintendent of police and other officers were stationed at the spot.

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Now that he is lifting the ban on beach and some retail store access, Gov. Henry McMaster wants to relax coronavirus-protective orders as soon as possible that are keeping people close to home, forcing them to take online classes, and preventing them from dining in restaurants.

The governor is slated to allow public access to beaches and other waterways and reopen clothing, jewelry and furniture stores starting Tuesday, his chief of staff told The Post and Courier. McMaster lifted a ban on public boat ramps on Friday.

Occupancy is limited in stores and social distancing is being enforced at beaches with authorities allowed to charge groups of three or more considered a health threat. Local governments can still make their own rules about waterway access. Some beach towns  including Sullivans Island, Isle of Palms and Folly Beach  have banned access to nonresidents.

In ending other restrictions issued since the state's first coronavirus case was reported six weeks ago, the governor will lift them in stages by relying on data and expertise of state health officials, his office said. A spike in cases coupled with growing crowds on beaches, rivers and stores led the governor to issue a stay-at-home order on April 7.

South Carolina was the last state east of the Mississippi River to issue a stay-at-home order believed to help curb the spread of the deadly coronavirus, but it could be among the first to loosen restrictions.

McMaster told reporters on Thursday that he thinks South Carolina could be ahead of some states looking at a May 1 "reopening" date because of how government leaders carefully shut down activities.

The governor was careful to not offer any dates, but provided a preview by relaxing his calls to halt elective surgery and insisting he would not delay the June 9 primary for state races with in-person absentee voting starting May 11.

McMaster Chief of Staff Trey Walker said restrictions will be lifted in stages in coordination advice from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.

"(DHEC) understands his desire to move as quickly as possible," Walker said.

S.C. State Epidemiologist Linda Bell and other state health officials have provided broad outlines of what will drive their decisions in a state with more than 4,200 COVID-19 cases and a virus that has killed nearly 120 people.

When we reach a period were clearly on the downward side of that slope and that activity has remained at some low level for some period of time and we have some reassurance its not going back up again, then we would use the information about disease activity and not a date on the calendar," Bell told reporters Thursday.

For now, though, South Carolina remains on the "upward slide of that curve" with a peak in cases in early May, she said.

McMaster's optimism came the same day President Donald Trump unveiled guidelines for states' use to ease coronavirus-induced restrictions. Trump's plan suggests a two-week downward trend in the number of COVID-19 cases and in patients with COVID-19 or flu-like symptoms.

Asked about those recommendations, a leading DHEC doctor said Friday they are being studied to see how they can work in South Carolina

"We certainly would want to see for a sustained period of time, for whatever length, a decrease in cases and symptoms," said Dr. Brannon Traxler, a physician consultant for DHEC.

State governments are under pressure to ease COVID-19 economic restrictions amid steep job losses. Protests have broken out in several state capitals. Now one is planned in Columbia on April 24.

McMaster is facing some decisions over the next few weeks.

Schools: An announcement is coming next week on what happens to schools now closed through the end of April, Walker said.

McMaster is working with state Education Superintendent Molly Spearman to make sure infection rates have dropped enough to prevent a resurgence if students return. They also are examining whether schools have the money and staffing to reboot in-person classes for a short period.

Summer classes were discussed, but are are off the table, Walker said: "No one liked it."

The governor wants to find a way for seniors to have a graduation ceremony, perhaps during the summer.

(Update: Spearman told WIS-TV in Columbia that district superintendents "overwhelmingly said they don't think it's in our best interest to go back to school." Social distancing would be difficult, especially on buses, she said.)

Dining in/other nonessential businesses: The governor will wait for word from medical experts to resume dining in at restaurants and reopening close-personal contact businesses, including hair stylists and gyms, he ordered closed.

In reopening retailers, McMaster set limits to allow for social distancing, such as a lid on occupancy in stores at five customers per 1,000 square feet of retail space or 20 percent occupancy, whichever is less.

Stores allowed to reopen include department stores, flea markets and florists as well as shoe, luggage, book, craft and music shops. Many retailers, including supermarkets, hardware stores and gun shops, have been allowed to remain open during the outbreak.

When it comes to restaurants and close-contact businesses, a task force of public- and private-sector leaders being formed by the governor's office, called Accelerate SC, will offer recommendations.

The task force, which is expected to be announced formally next week, will develop solutions for businesses that can be put in place when state health officials give the go ahead.

Walker expects that approval when DHEC experts "see a trend that satisfies them."

But the governor is anxious.

"It's not lost on him that nearly 300,000 South Carolinians are out of work," Walker said of the monthly tally of jobless claims.

Stay-at-home order: Walker said South Carolina's version of a stay-at-home order was more permissive than other states.

Big box, home improvement, liquor and gun stores were allowed to remain open, as well as churches and other houses of worship, the chief of staff said.

"We put in the least restrictions possible on businesses and the economy so when we came out of this we would be ahead of competitor states by a long shot," Walker said.

The governor will want to make sure his decision to end his orders don't lead to a resurgence in COVID-19 cases.

"Once you turn it back on, you can't cut it back off again," Walker said.
Theres no denying that Tiger King: Murder Mayhem and Madness, has become a phenomenon. Everyone, it seems, has seen Tiger King," and is talking about the seven-part documentary series, which tells the bizarre story of a zoo owner who calls himself Joe Exotic, the colorful characters in his tawdry world, and Exotics attempts to have Carole Baskin, who operates a big cat sanctuary, killed.

The Hollywood Reporter notes data from the Nielsen ratings service, which shows that Tiger King is the most-streamed show in the country, as Netflix subscribers watched more than 5.3 billion minutes of the show from March 23-29. Thats more than 50 percent ahead of the second show on the list, Ozark (3.5 billion minutes).

An after-show episode, called The Tiger King and I, hosted by Joel McHale, also drew eyeballs, with an average viewership of 4.6 million for the first day it streamed, April 12.

But all the attention Tiger King has received has also sparked some critical feedback, and articles accusing the filmmakers Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin of letting Exotic, also known as Joseph Maldonado-Passage, off way too easy. Exotic is currently serving 22 years in prison after being convicted on charges relating to animal abuse and his role in the murder-for-hire plot intended to kill Baskin.

Tiger King has also been getting blowback for spending time on the tabloid-ready aspects of Exotics life, and not giving serious attention to the animal abuse going on among big cat collectors operating private zoos without adequate regulation.

For example, Portland-based publisher TidalWave Productions is getting into the Tiger King act, with an upcoming comic book inspired by the series. Infamous: Tiger King, will, according to the press release, be available in June, and include information from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

The Portland-based publisher, TidalWave Productions is putting out a "Tiger King"-inspired comic, "Infamous: Tiger King," in June. (Image courtesy of TidalWave Productions)

In the press release, Brittany Peet, PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement, is quoted. PETA is excited that TidalWave Productions will reveal some of what Tiger King left out, says Peet, adding, When readers learn how exotic animals suffer when theyre snatched away from their mothers as babies and exploited for photo props, theyll despise Doc Antle, Tim Stark, Jeff Lowe, and anybody else who profits from breeding and abusing these wonderful animals in shady, moneymaking schemes.

John Goodrich, of the wild cat conservation organization, Panthera, recently told the Daily Beast that Tiger King is one of the most appalling shows Ive ever seen, adding that the series wasnt really that much about the cats and was about the bizarre characters involved in the big-cat industry in the U.S. If it were more focused on the tigers, Tiger King wouldnt have left out that Joe Exotic wasnt just convicted of murder-for-hire but nine violations of the Endangered Species Act. Federal agents found bones belonging to five tigers in the back of Joe Exotics zootigers that he shot to death and buried there."

Goodrich is also critical of Baskin, who says her operation is devoted to big cat conservation. "One of the problems with legitimate sanctuaries is that some of them might be making profits off of their sanctuaries, and it gives the public the impression that theyre making some great contribution to cat conservation and protecting cats by giving money to these sanctuaries, Goodrich tells the Daily Beast. It is not a contribution to saving big cats. These sanctuaries in the U.S. run the gamut from people who are living hand to mouth and putting everything they make back into taking care of the cats, to ones where people are making a lot of money under the guise of a big cat rescue sanctuary.

Joe Exotic is the central figure in the Netflix documentary series, "Tiger King." (Photo: Netflix) Netflix

Baskin, the owner of Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida, has been outspoken in feeling duped by the Tiger King filmmakers. In Tiger King, the conflict between Exotic and Baskin is central. Baskin is shown as actively opposing Exotic and the practices at his G.W. Zoo, in Wynnewood, Oklahoma. Exotic makes videos in which he alleges that Baskin -- whose former husband, Jack Don Lewis, has been missing since 1997 -- killed Lewis and fed him to her big cats.

Baskin has said she had no role in Lewis disappearance, and she hasnt been charged with any crimes related to her former husband. However, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister has asked anyone who might have information on the cold case to get in touch with the sheriffs office.

On the Big Cat Rescue website, a detailed refutation of Tiger King is posted, along with a video in which Howard Baskin, Caroles current husband, talks about how when they were first approached by Goode and Chaiklin, the filmmakers said they wanted to make the Blackfish of big cats, referring to the documentary about issues involving SeaWorld, and keeping whales in captivity.

In her response, Carole Baskin writes, in part, that instead of exploring issues of big cats being kept in captivity, Tiger King has had the sole goal of being as salacious and sensational as possible to draw viewers. As part of that, it has a segment devoted to suggesting, with lies and innuendos from people who are not credible, that I had a role in the disappearance of my husband Don in 1997. The series presents this without any regard for the truth or in most cases even giving me an opportunity before publication to rebut the absurd claims. They did not care about truth. The unsavory lies are better for getting viewers.

In a piece on the Slate website, critic Willa Paskin writes that the Tiger King filmmakers made Baskin look as bad as possible, even as the show is packed with men who do extremely questionable things.

In a series that is bursting with felons, cult leaders, polygamists, wife abusers, animal abusers, and cruel egomaniacs, Paskin writes, its Baskin alone who is treated without sympathy.

More of our coverage:

-- Kristi Turnquist

kturnquist@oregonian.com 503-221-8227 @Kristiturnquist

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The nightmares started weeks ago now. When she wakes up, Linda Courser tries not to relive them.

The veteran TriMet driver tries not to think of how, since the tri-county transit agency cut service due to plummeting ridership during the coronavirus pandemic, she went from driving one bus route to working a split shift. She tries not think of the added exposure she faces now, driving two different bus routes and taking a MAX train in between to go from one to the other.

The anxiety of the job in normal days is one thing. But Courser, a 46-year-old single mom who also lives with and is the primary caregiver for her own ill mother, isnt worried about herself.

Im more worried about losing my mom, she said.

As Oregon approaches the one-month anniversary of Gov. Kate Browns stay-home order, essential workers across the healthcare, grocery store and public works sectors keep showing up to work. Those workers include TriMet bus operators, who are in many ways at the frontlines.

TriMet has said just one worker has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, a bus driver who works out of Coursers facility in Beaverton. But the pandemics effect on the workforce is far greater. According to data provided to The Oregonian/OregonLive, hundreds of TriMet employees are concerned enough about their risk of exposure to the virus or their loved ones personal health that they have taken medical leave.

Since April 1, at least 271 TriMet employees filed for COVID-19 related medical leave, according to data provided in response to a public records request.

As of April 14, some 208 employees were on COVID-19 related leave, 119 of them bus or rail operators.

Roberta Altstadt, a TriMet spokeswoman, said the transit agency does not yet have an accurate dataset that gives a breakdown of the reasons those workers are out. Altstadt said those explanations are numerous  they could need to supervise a child out of school due to the shutdown, need to care for someone sick with COVID-19 or be at high-risk of contracting the disease themselves.

We are in the process of trying to reconcile all that, Altstadt said of the various reasons. She said its not clear because some workers fill out multiple reasons for taking leave.

Regardless of the data sets, Courser isnt included in the list of employees who have taken medical leave because of COVID-19 -- yet. She said she has taken only a few days off to care for her mother, Paloma Czwpieski, a retired TriMet operator who suffers from heart disease and neuropathy. Courser said she is in the process of filing paperwork to take COVID-19 related leave.

And shes not the only employee concerned about their loved ones health or the level of support TriMet has provided employees during the unprecedented pandemic.

Bruce Hansen, a long-time operator and former president of the Amalgamated Transit Unions Local 757, said hes exhausted and frustrated with the situation.

TriMet has acknowledged it has struggled to get sanitizing wipes and supplies. Hansen said he still brings his own materials from home because there arent enough to go around.

The virus has upended his daily routines. Instead of spending pit stops in western Washington County break rooms chatting up colleagues, Hansen now spends that time hunkered down on his phone, refreshing the websites for the Centers for Disease Control statistics and county health departments.

And the number of cases in Washington County, 376 as of Thursday, is troublesome. This is getting to a point where its scaring a lot of drivers, he said.

Hansen is also concerned about his wife, Melody, who has diabetes and a heart condition.

Im doing all I can to prevent bringing it into my house, he said.

Meanwhile both Hansen and Courser are still driving, both on the Line 57, which runs from Beaverton to Forest Grove along Tualatin Valley Highway. Courser wears the mask she started bringing to work weeks ago, long before TriMet said it would start distributing face coverings to operators.

Linda Courser (left) and Paloma Czwpieski (right) are mother and daughter. Courser works at TriMet and Czwpieski worked there for 20-plus years. Courser is concerned about her mother's health amid the coronavirus pandemic.

SPEAKING UP

She is one of several bus operators who decided to speak and identify themselves publicly to The Oregonian/OregonLive this week, a change from recent weeks, when employees asked for anonymity due to fear of retribution or layoffs.

On Thursday, driver Scott Qazzaz spoke publicly about why he installed a shower curtain on his bus in an attempt to prevent exposure. He openly expressed frustration with being asked to remove it.

The unionized workforce, which is still negotiating a new contract with TriMet, remains distrustful about the true scope of the virus effects on coworkers.

Rumors swirl every week. We get fearful that we arent finding out about everyone, Courser said

Courser said shes not concerned about speaking out. I dont care because I care about my fellow drivers. Someone needs to speak up.

On Thursday, after The Oregonian/OregonLive spoke with her, TriMet send an agency wide notice to its operators, referring to a policy handbook on speaking with the media. Please refer all media inquiries to the Communications Department, the notice stated.

According to a copy of that policy provided to The Oregonian, employees are encouraged to fall back on agency policy and not feel pressured to speak.

This policy is not intended to preclude or dissuade employees from engaging in legally protected activities, such as discussing wages, or benefits or terms and conditions of employment, or from speaking to the media on their own behalf and not purporting to speak on behalf of TriMet, the handbook states.

Altstadt said TriMet sent its workers the notice in response to multiple media requests they learned drivers had fielded. Operators can still speak out, she said. But we're just reminding them they dont speak on the behalf of the agency.

THICK SKIN

Paloma Czwpieski spent 21 years behind the wheel of a TriMet bus, and despite developing neuropathy and retiring due to disability, she loved the career.

Some colleague would gripe about the work, but Czwpieski didnt.

If you pay me 29 bucks an hour, Id wear a clown suit to work, she said of her approach to the job. You develop a thick skin and a sense of humor.

Her daughter, Courser, never envisioned a TriMet career. She was a stay-at-home mom, before working as a school bus driver for seven years. Shes now been with TriMet for six years.

In 2019, Czwpieski moved into Coursers home in Dayton.

Czwpieski doesnt leave the house anymore, out of health concerns, so she spends much of her time cooped up painting gourds and rocks or doing other artwork in her room.

She worries about Courser, who is unprotected out there. Those germs float through the air and youre confined on a bus, she said.

When Courser gets home, she strips off her clothes and washes her hands immediately.

Czwpieski uses hand sanitizer in her own home, even if shes just going to the kitchen.

When not painting, she watches TV, wondering whether that will continue , during the pandemic. If actors, too, wont be able to be on set. When are these things going to collapse? she asks.

Scott Qazzaz said he installed a shower curtain to keep him safe, but TriMet told him to remove it

TRIMET PROCEDURE

Since March 24, at least 26 times, a TriMet operator has picked up the phone and called in a COVID-19 related concern.

Those calls were prompted by someone appearing sick on a bus, an operator feeling ill, a rider making a claim aboard a bus or train about the virus, or other concerns.

On March 26, TriMet codified a standard operating procedure for what to do if a bus is believed to contain an elevated risk of COVID-19 exposure.

Without entering the bus, while wearing gloves and safety glasses or face shield, tape a quarantine sign on the inside of the front door glass with the print facing out, the document states, in part.

On a Line 14 bus on March 28, a 27-year-old passenger reportedly spat on a bus operator and proclaimed, Now youre going to get the corona.

That incident wasnt logged as a COVID-19 concern, Altstadt said, because a dispatcher didnt categorize it as such.

Altstadt said that bus was taken out of service and cleaned.

She said the number of drivers out on COVID-19 leave crested twice so far during the pandemic at roughly 17% of the total workforce, more than double the average rate of operators on sick leave. Altstadt said from October through March 17, that rate was roughly 8%.

The significant reduction in available employees hasnt affected service due to April 5 cuts to bus and rail frequency. No bus or train has been cancelled due to a shortage, she said.

Theyre out there on the frontlines and I understand its scary, Altstadt said of bus and rail workers.

The agency thus far has just the one confirmed positive case, she said, while adding I wish we had zero.

Still frames taken from a video by TriMet show workers performing nightly cleaning on buses and MAX trains. Dave Killen / staff - TriMet nightly cleaning TriMetTriMet

COMMUNICATION

Courser, Hansen and other operators see the death toll at some large transit agencies and have watched viral videos showing transit-related COVID-19 scares.

An operator in Detroit died after posting a video in which he drew attention to a passenger coughing without covering her mouth. More than 50 New York City bus drivers have died of COVID-19 so far, and thousands more are believed to be infected.

Locally, union officials, when presented with the number of operators who are currently on COVID-19 related leave from TriMet, said they were unaware of those figures.

It sounds like you have more information than we do at this point, Jon Hunt, vice president of the ATU Local 757 said Friday.

Hunt said communication between the union and TriMet remains an issue.

At the end of the day I just want to make sure our people are safe, he said.

Some of TriMets actions, like temporarily banning cash payments, have backfired, he said.

Some operators report that customers not used to paying with Hop transit cards linger near operators, putting them at risk.

Its just this wonkiness where we want to protect the operators, he said, and on the flip side were creating more problems.

Courser said shes growing frustrated with apparently homeless riders on her route who lug large bags of cans and cough near her.

The cash ban led to an influx in ridership, she said, even as TriMet subsequently instituted a 10- to 15-rider per bus limit. All of a sudden we saw a wave of people weve never seen before, she said.

Similar concerns about exposure led Scott Qazzaz to install the see-through shower curtain on his bus.

TriMet said it plans to install plastic safety barriers, which it already added to half of its 700-bus fleet, on all vehicles by the end of July.

On Friday, TriMet announced it would encourage all riders to wear face coverings. It expects to receive another 11,000 reusable, washable cloth face masks to distribute to operators on Monday.

In the meantime, Courser said shell still be out there driving through what she describes as an apocalyptic setting on some days, with traffic sometimes nonexistent and businesses are closed from downtown Beaverton to Forest Grove.

She still loves her job.

And she has a message to those few riders who remain. We dont want to be out there driving in this unsafe environment, but were forced to in a way. So be kind.

-- Andrew Theen; atheen@oregonian.com; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen

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Pompeo Told Lavrov Any Future Arms Control Talks Must Include China - State Department

Sputnik News

16:07 GMT 17.04.2020(updated 16:37 GMT 17.04.2020)

Russia and the United States are parties to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which is set to expire in 2021. It is the last remaining arms control treaty in force between Russia and the United States after the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Any future negotiations on arms control between Russia and the United States must include China, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in a phone conversation on Friday, according to the spokesperson for the United States Department of State Morgan Ortagus.

"Secretary Pompeo and Foreign Minister Lavrov discussed next steps in the bilateral Strategic Security Dialogue, taking into account the COVID-19 pandemic," Ortagus said.

She added that the two officials also discussed bilateral relations, including the detention of US citizens. The spokeswoman did not elaborate what citizens she was referring to.

The New START is the last remaining arms control treaty in force between Russia and the United States. The deal stipulates the reduction of the number of strategic nuclear missiles launchers by one-half and limits the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550. The agreement is set to expire in February 2021, and the US has not so far announced plans to extend it.

Washington, however, signalled its support for an amended arms control regime that would also include China.

Beijing stated that it was not interested in negotiations on such an agreement.

The United States withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in August 2019 after formally suspending its INF obligations in February and triggering a six-month withdrawal process.

The United States has repeatedly accused Russia of violating the military pact by developing advanced ballistic and hypersonic delivery systems and modernising its inventory. Russia has denied all allegations.

A Sputnik

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Simon and Carla Fowler are anchored in their catamaran about 650 feet off a deserted beach in the Bahamas, and they have a message for anyone locked down on land who wishes that they too could be self-isolating on the water.

Being out here in a pandemic is actually a lot harder and more stressful than you might think, said Mr. Fowler, a 60-year-old British events organizer who has spent the last two years living at sea with his Portuguese-born wife on their 40-foot catamaran.

It is the most depressing time we have had in two years, he said. It has been quite nasty.

Locals fearing infection have become less welcoming to cruisers like the Fowlers over the last six weeks. Ports and borders have begun closing, supplies have become harder to find, and the couple have to abide by the same social distancing restrictions in place on land, meaning they can no longer socialize with other sailors.

The seas may be the ultimate escape and self-isolating destination, but people aboard everything from solo craft to superyachts say the tranquillity of the waves has come with logistical hurdles and ethical dilemmas. And then there is the bullhorn of social media: the blaring comments and tweets calling them entitled, clueless about the serious struggles of the day.
By Trend

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 23 times, Trend reports referring to Azerbaijani Defense Ministry on April 18.

The Armenian armed forces were using sniper rifles.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding regions.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding regions.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Apr. 17, 2020 | GRAVES COUNTY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Apr. 17, 2020 | 10:01 AM | GRAVES COUNTY

A Lynnville man was arrested Thursday on DUI and other charges after the vehicle he was driving crashed into a home.



The Graves County Sheriff's Office said a deputy responded Thursday evening to a report of a reckless driver on KY 381. The caller said that the vehicle was traveling south towards Lynnville. Before the deputy arrived, the vehicle crashed into a mobile home on Swan Road, where the officer found 19-year-old Joshua West of Lynnville, outside of the vehicle walking around.



Deputies said the homeowners were home when the crash took place, and one of them was sitting on a couch about 15 feet away from the room that was struck by the truck. Another resident was outside in the back yard about 15 to 20 feet from a pickup truck that was also struck.



The deputy reportedly found West to be under the influence.



West refused medical treatment at the scene. He was arrested and taken to Jackson Purchase Medical Center, then to the Graves County Jail and booked on charges of first-offense DUI, reckless driving, and second-degree wanton endangerment.
In New York, which has been hit hardest by the coronavirus in the United States, officials have been far more cautious, urging patience and warning that reopening too quickly could cause the health crisis to spiral out of control. The daily death toll in the state Saturday was 540, officials said, the lowest figure in two weeks. But there are still roughly 2,000 new patients a day walking into hospitals or being diagnosed with covid-19, the disease the coronavirus causes, meaning that New Yorkers still have a long, difficult road ahead of them.
Mayors in the county warned that the beaches were only reopening for activities deemed essential, a list that included fishing, surfing and taking care of pets.

Just to be clear, this is an opportunity for people to come out to the beach and exercise a couple of times a day, Mayor Charlie Latham of Jacksonville Beach said at a news conference with other local mayors. Its not a sunbathing opportunity.

Organized group activities, such as picnics and team sports, will still be prohibited, and park restrooms will be closed. Beaches will open from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. and from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

This can be the beginning of the pathway back to normal life, Mayor Lenny Curry of Jacksonville said in a video address on Thursday, when he announced the reopening. He and other officials pleaded with residents to be careful and patient, and some warned that the privilege could be revoked if proper safety guidelines were not followed.

Asked about crowded Florida beaches, Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator, indicated she would defer to county health officials.

Id have to link that with a specific county and look at their case rates, she said at a White House news briefing. If the county health directors believe that thats appropriate for their county, then Im not going to second-judge an individuals approach to this.

Mr. Trump chimed in, saying: Many of the counties, as you know, are really free of this horrible enemy. So were opening up. Youll be seeing a lot of this country start to open up fairly quickly.
Chris Clark has been the CEO of GB Group plc (LON:GBG) since 2017. First, this article will compare CEO compensation with compensation at similar sized companies. After that, we will consider the growth in the business. And finally - as a second measure of performance - we will look at the returns shareholders have received over the last few years. The aim of all this is to consider the appropriateness of CEO pay levels.

View our latest analysis for GB Group

How Does Chris Clark's Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies?

According to our data, GB Group plc has a market capitalization of UK1.3b, and paid its CEO total annual compensation worth UK1.2m over the year to March 2019. While this analysis focuses on total compensation, it's worth noting the salary is lower, valued at UK491k. As part of our analysis we looked at companies in the same jurisdiction, with market capitalizations of UK800m to UK2.6b. The median total CEO compensation was UK1.5m.

Now let's take a look at the pay mix on an industry and company level to gain a better understanding of where GB Group stands. Talking in terms of the sector, salary represented approximately 70% of total compensation out of all the companies we analysed, while other remuneration made up 30% of the pie. GB Group sets aside a smaller share of compensation for salary, in comparison to the overall industry.

So Chris Clark receives a similar amount to the median CEO pay, amongst the companies we looked at. This doesn't tell us a whole lot on its own, but looking at the performance of the actual business will give us useful context. You can see, below, how CEO compensation at GB Group has changed over time.

AIM:GBG CEO Compensation April 18th 2020

Is GB Group plc Growing?

GB Group plc has seen earnings per share (EPS) move positively by an average of 2.6% a year, over the last three years (using a line of best fit). Its revenue is up 43% over last year.

I like the look of the strong year-on-year improvement in revenue. With that in mind, the modestly improving EPS seems positive. I'd stop short of saying the business performance is amazing, but there are enough positives to justify further research, or even adding the stock to your watch-list. It could be important to check this free visual depiction of what analysts expect for the future.

Story continues

Has GB Group plc Been A Good Investment?

Boasting a total shareholder return of 102% over three years, GB Group plc has done well by shareholders. As a result, some may believe the CEO should be paid more than is normal for companies of similar size.

In Summary...

Chris Clark is paid around what is normal for the leaders of comparable size companies.

The company isn't showing particularly great growth, but shareholder returns have been pleasing. So considering most shareholders would be happy, we'd say the CEO pay is appropriate. On another note, we've spotted 3 warning signs for GB Group that investors should look into moving forward.

If you want to buy a stock that is better than GB Group, this free list of high return, low debt companies is a great place to look.

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.
As of 11:00 on April 18, its US Air Quality Index (AQI) is the highest one (361).

The Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv still tops the live Air Quality and Pollution City Ranking as the city with the dirtiest air.

Read also"Red level" of air pollution prevails in Kyiv Friday morning (Photo)

As of 11:00 on April 18, its US Air Quality Index (AQI) is the highest one (361).

Kyiv is followed by China's Shenyang with 146 and Thailand's Chiang Mai with 142, the ranking shows.

Earlier, Kyiv City State Administration explained the phenomenon by wildfires in Zhytomyr region and forest fires in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, as well as northwest wind gusts.

The local authorities call on residents of Kyiv to limit time spent outdoors, keep windows closed (especially at night and early in the morning), use air conditioning equipment and air purifiers, drink up to three liters of water (for adults).
Wide-awake in the middle of the night, Angela Magno, eight months pregnant and diabetic, found that only one thing could take her mind off the coronavirus pandemic. With a bottle of Pine-Sol and a bucket of hot water, she repeatedly cleaned her home: wiping baseboards and handrails, washing walls and mopping floors.

"I was petrified," said Magno, a school clerk in Bakersfield, California, whose daughter Madelyn was born safely on April 7. "What if I got it? What if I gave it to the baby?"

As if being pregnant weren't enough all by itself to make you nervous, covid-19 has raised a brood of scary new questions. Experts acknowledge there are still enough unknowns about the virus and its impact on pregnancy to keep expectant mothers - and their doctors - up at night.

"We are operating in a data-free zone," said Yalda Afshar, an obstetrician and gynecologist at UCLA Health in Los Angeles. "People are appropriately scared because when we can't counsel them with good evidence-backed data the unknowns are very intimidating."

U.S. doctors have been relying to date on small studies from China and hypotheses based on experience with other illnesses to inform their guidance to patients, Afshar said. But she and her multidisciplinary team of colleagues hope to change that in a hurry, as they compile a new national registry of pregnant women and new mothers who have tested positive or are being evaluated for covid-19.

They plan to follow the women and their babies for up to one year, culling data about symptoms and outcomes.

The response to their call for participants has been "incredibly humbling," Afshar said. Within three weeks of their launch, about 1,000 women have signed up for the Pregnancy Coronavirus Outcomes Registry (PRIORITY), coordinated through UCLA and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Normally, this kind of project can take a year or more to start providing data, Afshar said, but her team intends to start announcing findings this spring to help doctors coping with the void.

While awaiting more certainty, researchers and front-line obstetricians have been advising patients as best they can and adapting policies as new evidence emerges. Several paused to respond to some of the most frequent questions they are hearing from worried pregnant women.

- - -

What can I do to protect myself and my baby while I'm pregnant?

Major national health organizations advise that pregnant women take the same precautions as everyone else. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says you should:

Avoid anyone who is sick.

Stay home as much as possible.

Stay at least six feet away from other people.

Frequently wash your hands with soap and water, for at least 20 seconds.

If you cannot wash, use a hand sanitizer containing at least 60% alcohol.

Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.

As of April 3, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been advising that everyone, including pregnant women, also cover their nose and mouth in public with a cloth face mask.

In New York, Silvana Vergara, who is 22 weeks pregnant, said she and her husband took every precaution - working from home, avoiding public transportation and wearing gloves and masks - yet both still caught the virus. Coughing "24/7" and short of breath, she said she called the emergency room at her hospital but was informed that they didn't have any tests. It was only after she made a second call to the same hospital's maternity ward that she was told to come in, was tested and was also reassured. "I just want everyone to know how contagious this is and how unprepared our medical system is," she said.

While pregnant women have no special tools to fight the virus, they may reap extra benefits from being more vigilant, since doing so also protects them from influenza and other contagious diseases.

"The quarantine is kind of working out for me," said Sharon Devendorf, a Dallas marketing consultant who is 37 weeks pregnant. Disappointed that she had to host her 42 baby shower guests on Zoom instead of in person, Devendorf said she was also grateful for having to shelter at home earlier than planned, thus avoiding co-workers who might be ill, adding: "As it was, I was worried about every little cough or sneeze."

- - -

Does being pregnant put me at more risk of complications from covid-19?

There's some encouraging news on this front. Pregnant women are unlikely to suffer more severe effects than anyone else from covid-19, according to an April 9 study in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology MFM. The report involves the largest U.S. sample of its kind to date, with researchers having observed 43 pregnant women diagnosed with covid-19 at two New York hospitals. The breakdown of the severity of the cases closely resembled the pattern for patients who are not pregnant, with 86% of cases being mild and only 14% severe or critical.

Still, that's no reason to throw away the masks, particularly since other research suggests that pregnant women hospitalized for severe or critical cases of respiratory illnesses including covid-19 infection may be at greater risk of pregnancy complications. A new meta-analysis combining a variety of studies of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and different types of coronavirus infections among pregnant women suggested that in severe cases, most of which included pneumonia, these illnesses can cause greater risks of pre-term births, preclampsia, C-sections and perinatal death.

- - -

What should I do if I get covid-19 while pregnant?

Once again, major U.S. health organizations offer no separate guidance for pregnant women other than to stay in close touch with their doctors. The CDC guidelines for anyone infected with the virus say you should:

Stay home except to get essential medical care.

Avoid public transportation.

Consult with your health-care team by phone before going to the office.

Get care right away if you feel worse.

Separate yourself from other people in your home.

Wear a face mask whenever you are with other people.

- - -

If I do get the virus while pregnant, will I give it to my baby?

Mother-to-child transmission of coronavirus during pregnancy is unlikely, according to the CDC. The virus has not been detected in amniotic fluid, and none of the babies in the recent New York study tested positive immediately after birth.

Doctors had worried about reports that some babies in China had tested positive for the virus shortly after birth, yet it is still unclear when those babies became ill, said Neil Silverman, an expert on obstetric infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. In this case, experience with other illnesses is promising.

"As a respiratory disease, the coronavirus is different than HIV and hepatitis B, both of which carry risks of high levels of virus in the mother's bloodstream that can pass the infection from the mother to the baby," Silverman said. He added that a "big takeaway" from the latest information is that "there is no evidence of direct fetal infection or birth defect due to this virus."

- - -

Should I see my doctor less often while I'm pregnant?

Delivering babies is still considered an essential service - but yes, experts say that as long as you and your future offspring are in good health, you can and should - for the time being at least - skip several of the conventional once-a-month in-person appointments, keeping in touch with your doctor instead by phone and online. This will minimize your risk of catching the virus.

"During the covid-19 pandemic, we're advising women with low-risk pregnancies to come in at about 12, 20, 28 and 36 weeks," said Vincenzo Berghella, director of the Maternal-Fetal Medicine division at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and editor in chief of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology MFM.

"Pretty much every one of our obstetrical provider colleagues has dramatically decreased the amount of in-person prenatal care visits," Berghella said.

Afshar, at UCLA, said many doctors' offices throughout the country have come up with new protocols to protect expectant mothers' health.

"We ask women to come by themselves to the prenatal visits, and we check their temperatures when they arrive," she said. "We also space out visits and let them wait in their cars until we call them in, so they don't have to wait in the waiting rooms."

For pregnant women without access to a primary health-care provider, Planned Parenthood, which offers prenatal care up to but not including delivery, recently announced it is expanding telehealth services to all 50 states.

- - -

Wouldn't it be safer to give birth at home?

No, warns the ACOG, which notably is not an indifferent party. Even when not amid a pandemic, the safest place to give birth is in a hospital or hospital-based birth center or accredited free-standing birth center, where professionals and appropriate technology are available in case anything goes awry, the organization says.

International studies have found that home births with professional midwives can be just as safe as hospital births for women with low-risk pregnancies - meaning, among other things, no high blood pressure, diabetes, or previous C-sections. Still, those conditions often don't apply to the estimated one-fourth of all home births that are unplanned.

Research promoted by the ACOG has found that giving birth at home is linked to a twofold risk of perinatal death and threefold increased risk of neonatal seizures or "serious neurological dysfunction."

Other research suggests that many women who plan to give birth at home still end up in the hospital. One meta-analysis found that between roughly 10 and 32% of women attempting home births are hospitalized due to reasons including postpartum bleeding and fetal distress. What's more, giving birth at home can be more painful, without top-of-the-line anesthesia, and may be more expensive because insurance plans may not cover it.

The total number of U.S. home births is still small - just about 35,000 per year, or less than 1%, but it has been rising in recent years. The pandemic could offer an additional boost, as advocates argue that home births could help protect low-risk mothers and babies and relieve the stress on hospitals crowded with covid-19 patients. ACOG advises that any women considering giving birth at home should first talk to their OB/GYN about the risks and benefits.

- - -

What about a C-section?

Not unless it's medically justified, says the World Health Organization. And testing positive for covid-19 isn't by itself a justification.

Silverman said a C-section might be unavoidable for a pregnant woman who was so severely ill that she required mechanical ventilation. But offering a C-section to try to minimize the chance of an infection was not a good idea, he said, adding that it often required a longer hospital stay for the mother.

- - -

Should I consider induced labor?

ACOG guidelines say that women can be induced artificially, with hormones or other treatment, for nonmedical reasons after 39 weeks, one week short of a normal term. This question might arise for women who live far away from a hospital - or who want to have their babies and leave before an expected surge of women testing positive for the virus. But the ACOG warns that inductions carry risks that include infecting the mother and fetus, rupturing the uterus and making a C-section more likely.

Doctors who have debated the question say elective induced labor at 39 weeks can be a safe option for healthy women, and many insurance plans will cover it.

- - -

Can I have a support person with me during my labor?

In the first panicked weeks of the pandemic, some hospitals barred all visitors from delivery rooms, infuriating many parents-to-be.

That harsh rule has since been overturned. Magno, who gave birth at the UCLA medical center, said her baby's father could stay with her during the delivery, although he had to leave two hours later. Some variant of that limit is now standard practice for many hospitals, said Silverman at UCLA. Women are limited to just one support person, be it a spouse, relative, friend or doula, who will be given a mask and told to stay in the room for the duration - no pacing the corridors. In most cases, hospitals also will not allow postpartum visitors.

At UCLA and elsewhere, Afshar said hospitals are trying to soften the effect of their newly strict rules by having nurses spend more time with the expectant mothers and by discharging patients sooner than normal, providing they are stable.

- - -

How can I feel safe while giving birth in a hospital crowded with coronavirus patients?

Hospital directors throughout the country have been working overtime on this question, even while coping with the notorious shortages of diagnostic tests and personal protective equipment (PPE) for providers, Silverman said.

"For deliveries, we have always worn standard surgical masks, face shields and gloves," he said. "What's a little different now is that everyone in the hospital is wearing standard surgical masks." At the UCLA hospital and many other facilities, expectant women enter the hospital through a door far away from the emergency entrance and are immediately given a mask to wear.

At Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, maternity patients enter through the front door, avoiding the emergency room, and they must then be buzzed through to the labor and delivery unit, said Constance Bohon, an obstetrician-gynecologist in the District. Bohon said all obstetric patients are masked until their covid-19 test results are available, typically within two to four hours. All providers and staff in labor and delivery units wear masks at all times, and both masks and face shields are used by anyone within six feet of the patient when she is in the active stage of labor.

Many U.S. hospitals now require that all incoming patients have their temperatures taken and symptoms screened at the door.

As tests for the virus become more available and in more common use at metropolitan hospitals, some doctors urge they should be standard practice everywhere.

"This is a hot topic among hospitals now," said Char-Dong Hsu, chair of the Wayne State University Obstetrics and Gynecology Department in Detroit. Similarly to the population at large, as many as eight out of ten pregnant women who have covid-19 may be asymptomatic yet contagious, he noted, meaning they could pose an extra danger to other women and providers if they aren't identified.

- - -

How will my delivery be different if I have the virus?

Typically, hospitals now have special isolation rooms for women in labor who have tested positive for covid-19, Silverman said. Some are equipped with "negative pressure," meaning that the ventilation system is sealed off from the rest of the building.

Hospital policies vary throughout the country, but in some cases, due to the risk of infection for babies, new mothers testing positive for covid-19 may be separated from their newborns for up to two weeks, Silverman said, with the separation ending once the test comes back negative.

This too is controversial, given the many benefits of skin-to-skin contact between a mother and a newborn. The CDC says such separations should be made on a case-by-case basis, with input from both the mother and health-care providers. Factors that should be weighed include the likelihood of healthy breast-feeding and whether the newborn has tested positive (which would make separation unnecessary).

- - -

Should I breast-feed?

Yes, if you can, is the mainstream consensus. Breast milk is still the best source of nutrition for most infants, according to the CDC, and it helps protect against many illnesses. That initial close contact between mother and newborn also helps babies thrive.

If a mother has tested positive for covid-19, she doesn't need to worry about infecting her baby with her milk because research suggests the virus doesn't appear to be transmitted that way. But she will have to take special care during feedings, making sure she wears a mask and has washed her face and hands.

Many doctors are encouraging women to buy a breast pump, which is covered by most insurance plans, and it can be used if the mother tests positive for the virus and needs to limit contact. Expressing breast milk also helps establish breast-feeding and maintains your supply.

- - -

Besides deep-cleaning my house, what can I do with all this stress?

"Stress and anxiety in general is never good for anyone, and all of us are feeling it to varying degrees right now," Silverman said. While stress doesn't appear to increase complications such as hypertension, he said, he is encouraging his patients with histories of anxiety to consider counseling and advising them that the majority of anti-anxiety medications and antidepressants can be taken safely during pregnancy.

The ACOG website includes a breathing exercise for expectant mothers coping with stress: Breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds, and breathe out for 8 seconds. Repeat three times.

It's something that may come in handy again over the next 20 or 30 years.

- - -

Ellison is the author, among other books, of The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes You Smarter."
- Wetang'ula and Mudavadi asked the government to spend part of COVID-19 fund to evacuate Kenyans from the Asian country

- The leaders condemned Foreign Affairs ministry's decision to force the distressed citizens to cater for their own travel expenses

- African nationalities living in China had borne the brunt of racism in hands of Chinese counterparts

The government plan to evacuate Kenyan citizens from China at their own cost has received heaviest of public condemnation and backlash from the public.

Opposition politicians Moses Wetang'ula of Ford Kenya and Amani National Congress boss Musalia Mudavadi demanded the government spend part of its COVID-19 fund to fly back home Kenyans living in China.

READ ALSO: Baba, send us a signal: Raila's meetings with Shahbal awakens Joho's succession talks

Wetang'ula (right) and Mudavadi have asked the govenment to use part of COVID-19 fund to fly back Kenyans. Photo: ANC Official.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Tanzania records highest number of new COVID-19 cases in a day as 53 people test positive

Mudavadi said it was regrettable and highly unacceptable to direct any distressed person in a foreign land to cater for his own travel expenses back home.

"Asking distraught Kenyans in China to pay for their tickets home and COVID-19 tests is unacceptable! We have quarantine centers for that. The government announced that over KSh 1 billion has been raised for the COVID-19 fund. Surely part of that money can be used to evacuate our people,'' he said.

His sentiments were echoed by Wetang'ula who reiterated his earlier calls to President Uhuru Kenyatta to charter a plane and bring back all those stuck in China.

"Our embassy in China is a big let down. You can't offer distressed Kenyans an evacuation at their cost! Arrange KQ planes to lift our people. Pay from the COVID-19 fund. President Kibaki ordered us to evacuate Kenyans from SA when they faced xenophobic attacks and we did," he said.

African nationalities living in China have borne the brunt of racism in hands of Chinese counterparts whom accused them of infecting them with the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, Kenyan ambassador in Beijing Sarah Serem who came under fierce critism over manner in which she handled the situation, insisted only coronavirus-free people will be allowed on board.

If you are ready to travel under these conditions, fill the above QR code so that the bio data reaches the Embassy immediately. Please note that the departure will be from Guangzhou on a date to be determined immediately the above information is availed," the embassy said.

The situation in China saw many Africans being locked out of their houses and denied access to social emenities such as shopping malls and supermarkets.

In one viral video, a middle-aged woman got stopped stopped from accessing shelves inside a shop.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly.

Ruth Matete is not telling the truth about her husband's death - Pastor John's manager | Tuko TV.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Political parties have maintained a wall of silence over revelations that TDs are collectively entitled to 250,000 a month in travel and accommodation expenses from the taxpayer - despite Dail sittings being reduced.

The Irish Independent yesterday revealed how TDs can claim on average 1,700 a month for expenses incurred fulfilling their parliamentary and constituency duties during the lockdown.

The amount they claim depends on how far they live away from Leinster House.

The top rate of just under 2,840 a month is paid to those who live more than 360km from the Dail, while TDs living in Dublin are paid 750 a month.

The Oireachtas suspended the Dail's clock-in system for the duration of the Covid-19 outbreak so there is no record of TDs attending Leinster House.

Dail sittings have been restricted to fewer TDs in an attempt to adhere to social distancing guidelines.

Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein, the Green Party, the Labour Party and Social Democrats were all asked if their TDs decided to forgo their expenses during the coronvirus emergency.

However, none of the parties responded to the queries about the lucrative travel and accommodation expenses TDs are receiving while the country is in lockdown.

Rise TD Paul Murphy said it was "abhorrent" that Dail deputies would continue to get "bloated" expenses and salaries during the national health emergency.

Mr Murphy also said Dail expenses should not be unvouched.

"It's always been the case we should have a vouched system for these expenses," he said.

"The idea that there's any sort of unvouched expenses in this day and age doesn't make sense.

"In the here-and-now without a vouched system, that points to the need for a significant cut - I would say 50pc," he added.

TDs are paid an annual allowance for travel and accommodation expenses they incur as parliamentarians.

The annual rate, which is based on the distance between a TD's home and the Dail, is paid in monthly instalments.

In return for the allowance, TDs are required to clock into the Dail for at least 120 days over the course of a year.

For every day short of the target, they must pay back 1pc of the annual allowance to the House of the Oireachtas.

Due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Oireachtas asked that as few TDs as possible attend sittings in Leinster House.

However, as the annual travel and accommodation allowance is set out in legislation, it will continue to be paid each month to TDs even though they are mostly confined to their constituencies.

It is expected the next Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, which consists of TDs and civil servants, will examine the issue when the Dail is fully functional.

It is likely the number of days needed to clock in will be reduced to ensure TDs can claim their full annual allowance.

However, the commission may also examine whether other mechanisms can be used to take into account the fact that monthly payments were paid to TDs during the lockdown.

This could involve a percentage of the allowance being deducted from the overall rate later in the year.

"This is an annual allowance which we pay monthly and members then certify at the end of the year re amounts they receive," an Oireachtas spokesperson said.

"As you know, we have asked members not to clock into Leinster House during this pandemic."
(Editors Note: Dr. Wayne Shearer, 95, is a retired optometrist and retired colonel from the U.S. Air Force Reserve now living in Hixson. In his early 90s, he decided to sit down and write from memory and a few records he still possesses his recollections of going through Army Air Corps pilot training at several bases in the United States during World War II. A lifelong writer, he wanted to pen them as he remembered them happening at the time. He also recreates now-lost letters as best as he recalls writing them and references newspaper articles he collected at the time and still possesses. This is the 36th in a series of regular excerpts from his as yet unpublished book, Under This Arch.)

* * * * *

Epilogue:

After pilot school graduation in August 1944 and due to the various assignments, most of us never saw each other again. I was always making new friends.

At this stage of the war, there was such a glut of pilots that at times the powers in command didnt seem to know what to do with us. I went from the B-24 co-pilot school, briefly into training for the A-26 (a sweet airplane), and last into the B-29 flight engineer/co-pilot training. Then in July 1945, all training more or less ceased.

On August 6, 1945, when the first atomic bomb mission to Hiroshima, Japan, made news, and three days later on August 9, 1945, when the second atomic bomb mission to Nagasaki, Japan, took place, we began to understand the reasons for our training to have gradually ended.

Around the first or second week of September 1945, my group of B-29 trainees were called into the chapel by our commander. He said, Now that the war is over you have three options: resign for convenience of the government and go home, sign up to be in an Army Air Force Reserve or Army National Guard unit and go home, or stay on active duty with no promise to fly as a pilot again, since we have so many experienced combat pilots to fill the cockpits.

Most of us went with the first option and resigned. I officially became a civilian on November 15, 1945, and was home for Thanksgiving three years after my last civilian Thanksgiving. Since I had not been in combat, it was hard to consider myself a veteran; but I had done what I was ordered to do.

As I looked back on my service, I realized that, during World War II, our Army Air Force selected top quality young men to enter pilot training. Most of us built model airplanes and considered World War I pilots our heroes. Many of us had never flown in an airplane.

That $1 flight as a 10-year-old with my dad in a Ford Tri-Motor plane that landed in a local farmers field in Cordele, Ga., inspired me with the desire to be a pilot.

In our excellent training, the Army Air Corps turned all of us raw material aviation cadets into the Best Damn Pilots in the World. Yes, the sign above the arch entranceway to the San Antonio Aviation Cadet Pilot Preflight School was true.

The Aviation Cadet program no longer exists; only commissioned officers are now trained as pilots.

During that segregated time, we cadets heard rumors that black Aviation Cadets were in pilot training at an airfield in Tuskegee, Ala. After the war, I learned that they flew honorably as AAF pilots supporting our wartime missions!

Once home after leaving the service, I enrolled for the Winter Quarter 1946 in the University of Georgias Pre-Medical/Pre-Optometry studies. We frequently were having our eyes and vision examined while flying and I decided that this is a needed profession to help others.

I applied and was accepted at Southern College of Optometry in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1947 after finishing the required pre-optometry courses. Before long I met a smart and beautiful University of Tennessee School of Nursing senior student from East Tennessee named Velma Jordan. We got married in 1948 after she graduated. I graduated in 1950 with the Doctor of Optometry degree.

After the Korean War started, I received a form letter from the Air Force Personnel Center at Denver, Colo., asking me to be re-commissioned for active duty and fly again. I didnt but it caused me to consider joining the Air Force Reserve once I was settled in my optometric practice, which I did.

I was assigned in the early 1970s to be a liaison officer to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. At around the same time, my fellow cadet at Independence Army Air Field, Kansas  Fred Olivi of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bomb mission  was also assigned and we reconnected with each other. We had corresponded after the war.

I continued my Air Force Reserve duties with the Air Force Academy, retiring after 30 years active and reserve duty in 1984 as a colonel (O-6).

Over the years, in looking back at the history and results of World War II pilot training, I came to realize more fully how difficult, dangerous and challenging it was.

In some 1993 correspondence with M/Sgt. Dave Manard, USAF Retired, from the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, he wrote, The successful completion of pilot training was not an easy task. During the period of January 1, 1941, to August 31, 1945, there were 191,654 cadets who were awarded pilot wings. However, there were also 132,993 who washed out or were killed during training, a loss rate of approximately 40 percent.

Velma and I had two wonderful children  Cathy Morris, born in 1956  and John Shearer, born in 1959. My wife and I had a happy 64 years together before she died in 2012. We were blessed with three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Most of the former aviation cadets Ive kept up with over the years went on to lead good and productive lives after the war. In my Cordele High School Class of 1942 and with two good friends from the Class of 1941, for example, one who had been a valedictorian became a PhD rocket scientist at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala. Three others became doctors and two became lawyers.

One, Mac Hyman, wrote the well-known book, No Time for Sergeants, which was later made into a movie and helped propel Andy Griffiths acting career.

One other high school friend from Cordele who went through pilot training sadly died of an apparent suicide shortly after the war from domestic problems. Two of these seven were navigators and five were pilots; all from a high school class of 70 students.

Sadly, two members of our Class of 1942 died in combat in the South Pacific islands fighting.

These brief statistics seem to point out that we were the pick of the litter. Since it has been 75 years after the war ended as I write this in 2020, most of us are gone now. But we were present when needed by our country and proudly served!

* * * * *

Final note: Thanks to all the readers of my World War II memories of pilot training and especially to those who sent me nice emails. I am proud to have served my country in World War II!

* * * * *

To see the previous entry in this series, read here.

Dr. Shearer can be contacted at docshearer@epbfi.com
The U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi said on April 17 it was "deeply troubled" by reports that Russian-led security actors have resumed borderization activities along the administrative boundary line of the Georgian-breakaway region of South Ossetia.



A statement from the embassy said the activities were reported near the village of Takhtisdziri.



We condemn any actions by the de facto authorities in Tskhinvali that aggravate tensions and distract from urgent efforts to safeguard the lives and health of the affected populations, particularly during the Orthodox Easter weekend and against the backdrop of the global pandemic crisis, the statement said.



The embassy called for an immediate halt to the construction of any signs, structures, fencing, or barriers intended to strengthen or expand the borderization of the administrative boundary line.



The United States has previously expressed concern over reports that Russia-backed authorities in the breakaway region were erecting structures near the administrative boundary line and it called for a halt to the construction.

U.S.State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in August that the process of borderization "indiscriminately and disproportionately affects civilians living in the area, separating them from their farmlands, family, livelihoods, and critical infrastructure."



Only a handful of countries have recognized the independence of South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, which together comprise around 20 percent of Georgian territory, and Moscows backing of the regions has drawn broad international condemnation.



The statement issued on April 17 by the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi again called on Russia to end its occupation of the territories.

Russia has maintained troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia since a five-day war in August 2008 between Russia and Georgia.
If you're looking for a self-quarantine activity, this luxury subscription service has you covered.

Are all the days starting to blend together? The Robb Vices delivery service will give you something to look forward to and will (literally) spice up your quarantine routine.

I tried the Robb Vices delivery service and wasn't quite sure what to expect - I had previously tested out clothing subscriptions, but when the only people I'm seeing are in my immediate family or on House Party, having a designer ensemble isn't that appealing. I was excited to try one out that was supposed to be ideal for self-quarantine, although I wondered what exactly that meant. Would it provide the tie-dyed sweatsuit every single Instagram influencer suddenly seemed to have? Would an influencer fitness instructor come to my house (standing six feet away, of course) and encourage me to actually work out instead of staying in child's pose?

No, none of the above happened, but it was a pretty cheerful surprise.

Robb Vices, launched from Robb Report magazine, delivers luxury items like wine, booze, food, and swanky tools to your house monthly for $99.

Robb

My recent box was a hot one - it would also make an ideal Father's Day gift if you're starting to think that far in advance (although time has lost all meaning).

It consisted of wine, jam, cayenne chocolate, and Maddy & Maize bourbon barbecue popcorn, the perfect isolation treat so you can avoid having to share.

Robb Vices

There was also a Weak Knees Gochujang Sriracha from Bushwick Kitchen that I would happily eat for the rest of quarantine and for forever. There's also a selection of sauces to add a little something to all that Ramen you're eating. Finally, there's Mango Habanero mixer to add a little something to your Zoom happy hours.

A separate box contained crystal whisky stones from Anna New York. It also had a crystal to save wines, even though most people are probably enjoying the whole bottle these days.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari's top aide died of coronavirus on April 17, the presidency informed in a statement. Abba Kyari, the president's chief of staff was undergoing treatment after testing positive for coronavirus in late March. According to reports, Kyari had travelled to Germany before testing positive for the deadly disease, forcing a bunch of other top Nigerian officials to self-quarantine.

Read: Anti-Brexit Group Projects Plea Of NHS Workers On To Walls Of UK Parliament

Abba Kyari dies of coronavirus

As per reports, Kyari on March 29 had issued a statement confirming that he had contracted coronavirus and was being shifted to Lagos for private medical treatment and said that he hoped to be back at work very soon. Kyari, who was in his 70s is the highest-profile COVID-19 casualty in the most populous African nation. Kyari was one of the few influential figures in the group of advisers around President Buhari.

Read: Coronavirus: Switzerland's Matterhorn Mountain Lights Up To Send Message Of Hope

The presidency in the statement said, 'The deceased had tested positive to the ravaging COVID-19, and had been receiving treatment. But he died on Friday, April 17, 2020. May God accept his soul."

Nigeria's capital city Abuja and economic hub Lagos had been placed under a strict lockdown since March 31, which was later extended for another two-weeks by President Buhari. State governors had been asked to impose a number of measures in other regions by the central government. According to data by worldometer, Nigeria has recorded 493 cases of coronavirus so far, of which 17 people have lost their lives, while two patients remain under critical conditions.

Read: COVID-19: WHO Warns There Is No Evidence That Antibody Tests Can Show Immunity

Read: COVID-19: UK Doctors Advised To Wear Aprons Amid Shortage Of Protective Gowns

(Image Credit: AP)


North Korea announced on April 18 that it has released all foreign nationals kept under quarantine in its effort to contain the coronavirus. According to KCNA, the authorities also released all citizens quarantined in the provinces of South Phyongan and North Hwanghae and the city of Rason.

The official state news agency has not disclosed any specific number regarding the number of citizens still under the countrys mandatory 30-day quarantine. Initially, Pyongyang had quarantined 380 foreigners and later arranged a special flight to fly out several diplomats out of the country to Vladivostok, Russia.

On April 11, Politburo members reportedly discussed on thorough state measures for saving the citizens from the pandemic that has claimed around 155,000 lives worldwide. According to KCNA, the Politburo discussed the coronavirus pandemic while cautioning that such an environment can become a condition creating some obstacles to our struggle and progress.

Read: North Korea Claims It Has Zero Coronavirus Case, Experts Sceptical

No COVID-19 case reported

Meanwhile, North Korea has continuously said that it has not reported a single case of coronavirus case so far which the Politburo reportedly called a result of countrys top-class emergency anti-epidemic measures from the outset. Last week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that it has been receiving weekly updates from the health ministry and the country even has the capacity to test coronavirus in its national reference laboratory in Pyongyang.

Read: Kim Jong Un Absent As North Korean Legislature Holds Third Session Amid Pandemic

Earlier, Norths senior health minister had also insisted that the country is free from coronavirus saying it does not have a single case of the disease. Pak Myong Su, director of the anti-epidemic department of the Norths Central Emergency Anti-Epidemic Headquarters, said that North Korea sealed its borders late January, shortly after the coronavirus outbreak news emerged from neighbouring China.

According to the WHO website, North Korea, Lesotho, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan have not reported a single coronavirus case. However, several foreign experts have raised doubts over the veracity of report from North Korea, which shares a border with China and South Korea.

Read: North Korean Leader's Absence From Important Celebration Triggers Speculations

Read: WHO Representative: North Korea Is Testing For COVID-19, Has No Cases

(With agency inputs | Image source: AP)
The Manitoba Metis Federation will soon have camps ready in the event the pandemic blows up in our villages, president David Chartrand said Thursday.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/4/2020 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Manitoba Metis Federation minister of energy and infrastructure minister Jack Park hosts a video tour of a 96-room camp the federation is setting up for people who may need to isolate or quarantine if the coronavirus hits a high number of people. (Screenshot)

The Manitoba Metis Federation will soon have camps ready in the event the pandemic "blows up in our villages," president David Chartrand said Thursday.

In mid-March, the federation announced it would transform two construction camps into two 48-bed health facilities that could be used for emergency quarantine during the COVID-19 outbreak. Chartrand said the federation added a camp to the equation, and it might add another.

The idea is to be ready to act if large numbers of people are affected, and Chartrand said the federation cabinet has been preparing for more than three months to utilize tools it already has.

An aerial view of the Manitoba Metis Federation's emergency isolation and quarantine camp located between Treherne and St. Claude, about an hour and a half southeast of Brandon. (Screenshot)

"Weve been fortunate in our past investments and with our construction company," he said, via livestream.

The federation and Metis N4 Construction originally bought the camps for construction projects.

"Its set up for a live-in situation," Chartrand said.

"I encourage you to be comfortable with the idea that the Metis governments already got your back."

One of 96 bedroom at the Manitoba Metis Federation's emergency isolation and quarantine camp. (Screenshot)

But Chartrand also repeated what he said back in March:

"If the Metis do not need this, if the pandemic does not, knock on wood, ever hit our villages, this can be used for other Manitobans."

Energy and Infrastructure Minister Jack Park hosted a video tour of a double camp, located between Treherne and St. Claude and approximately an hour and a half southeast of Brandon.

"We know this COVID virus is here in Manitoba and we know it hasnt reached its peak, yet," Park said about the need to prepare for quarantine in numbers.

Chief cook and camp manager Mike Moseychuck said it's important to have such a facility so people can isolate away from family and neighbours so as not to infect them. (Screenshot)

"(The camp) has 96 rooms in total."

The camp will be fully electrified, with an exercise room, a fully stocked kitchen, with dry goods and an industrial-sized cooler and freezer, individual bedrooms for isolation, washroom facilities, TVs and internet access, and laundry facilities.

Its important to have such a facility so people can isolate, said chief cook and camp manager Mike Moseychuck.

"If you dont have the symptoms, you dont have to stay at home with the possibility of infecting anybody in your household or your neighbourhood," he said. "You come in and you do what you have to do. And, hopefully, people are not going to develop the symptoms, and go home."

Tenants at the camp who are isolating or quarantined will be served meals at their rooms.

A fence will be built around the camp for security purposes.

"If the pandemic explodes and we find ourselves with 90 people in that particular facility, we want to make sure theres safety for those surrounding communities who might fear this could linger into their houses and area," Chartrand said. "We want to show them that wont be the case. We want to put all precautions in place."

Chartrand thanked the nearby Municipality of Norfolk Treherne for its partnership in the federations efforts, as well as the landowner who agreed to have the camps on his land.

"Were well prepared and well on our way," said Park.

The federation is preparing another camp at Winnipegosis, approximately 225 kilometres north of Brandon.

 mletourneau@brandonsun.com

 Michele LeTourneau covers Indigenous matters for The Brandon Sun under the Local Journalism Initiative, a federally funded program that supports the creation of original civic journalism.
Groups Plan Protest Against Wisconsins Extended Lockdown

Wisconsins extended stay-at-home order is drawing criticism from lawmakers and law enforcement as thousands plan a protest at the state capitol in Madison.

The protest is slated for April 24, when the Department of Human Services order was originally supposed to expire. Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, this week told the Health Secretary Andrea Palm to extend the mandate until May 26 in a bid to slow the spread the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, a novel coronavirus that emerged from mainland China last year.

Protesters want Wisconsin reopened so we can have our lives back and so that Wisconsin can thrive, organizers wrote on the events Facebook page.

Lift the stay-at-home order so we as people can engage with one another in our parks, our playgrounds, at our workplaces, in our place of worship, in our communities and have connection again, they said.

Organizers encouraged people to bring signs with phrases including: I am losing my business, my kids are missing their graduation, and I couldnt grieve with my family.

Nearly 3,000 users have said theyre going and another 12,000 marked a tab that theyre interested in the event.

Its one of dozens of protests happening across the nation. Crowds already gathered in Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Utah, and Virginia. Demonstrations are scheduled for Pennsylvania, Washington, New York, Maryland, and other states.

Protesters attend a rally outside the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan on April 15, 2020. (Paul Sancya/AP Photo)

Evers said at a press conference on Thursday he was glad people could exercise their First Amendment rights.

The Capitol and its grounds have been part of exercising first amendment rights as long as Ive been alive, the first-term governor said.

Were encouraging people that do come to use social distance discipline so they can remain healthy, he added.

Social distancing refers to measures recommended or ordered by public health officials, including staying at least six feet from non-household members and wearing a mask and gloves in some public settings.

Madison Marie, one of the organizers, accused Evers of not listening to people who have lost jobs, farmers, mental health experts, small business owners, and others.

You and DHS have narrow views and its making the rest of us suffer, she wrote.

Voter Matt Phillips feeds his completed ballot into a counting machine inside a polling station at Hamilton High School during the presidential primary election, held amid the global CCP virus pandemic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on April 7, 2020. (Daniel Acker/Reuters)

Lawmakers and a Sheriff

After Evers extended his mandate, some Republican lawmakers criticized the move, and a sheriff issued a statement indicating he wont enforce the order.

In a Facebook video, state Rep. Shae Sortwell, a first-term Republican, said the measure is absolutely lawless.

There should not be a bureaucrat that has the authority to shut down the economy of the state of Wisconsin, he said.

State Rep. Barb Dittrich, another GOP member, called Evers a tyrant while state Rep. John Jagler said the extended orders effects on our economy will be crippling.

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said during a radio interview Friday that he plans on having a legal response to Evers in place in the coming days. A lawsuit isnt the best move because of the potential consequences if its struck down, he said.

Republicans think the pandemic is serious. We know that its real, Vos said. But the economy is starving, he added.

Vos said that people should attend the April 24 rally, which saw an explosion of interest after the order was extended.

Another avenue to express frustration, petitions to recall Evers, have garnered thousands of signatures.

State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, holds a press conference in the Assembly parlor at the Capitol in Madison on Dec. 4, 2018. (Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP)

Evers in a statement Friday responded to critics.

Folks are scared and they need to know who they can trust, he said. They should trust science. They should trust our public health experts. And they should be able to trust their elected officials to make the best possible decisions based on science and facts. I cant speak for any other elected officials, but thats my commitment.

Christopher Schmaling, the Racine County sheriff, said in a statement that Evers and the state Department of Human Services have the authority to develop emergency measures and enforce rules to protect the public during a health crisis.

However, state law does not have the power to supersede or suspend the constitutional rights of American citizens, he said.

Urging the department to come up with a plan that balances safety and the need for businesses to operate, the sheriff said he took an oath to uphold the constitutional rights of Americans.

I cannot in good faith participate in the destruction of Racine County businesses or interfere in the freedoms granted to all of us by our Constitution, he wrote. We will leave the enforcement of public health orders to the health department experts.

The county has a population of about 200,000 and is located south of Milwaukee.
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia reported 325 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, taking the total number of infections in the world's fourth most populous country to 6,248.

Health ministry official Achmad Yurianto also reported 15 new deaths, taking the total to 535.

On Friday, Indonesia surpassed Philippines to become the country with the highest number of infections in Southeast Asia. It has the most number of deaths in Asia outside of China.

(Reporting by Tabita Diela; Writing by Fathin Ungku; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
Gurdev Kaur Dhaliwal, 98, wakes up early every day, offers prayers and then spends hours on her sewing machine, which is almost as old as her, stitching face masks for the poor who can't afford them.

The resident of Moga district in Punjab has blurry vision in one eye, but that does not let her energy and vigour down, said her daughter-in-law Amarjit Kaur.

The nonagenarian, who takes help of a walker, wakes up early, offers prayers and then starts making masks on the machine which her in-laws got for her from Singapore over 100 years ago.

"Several vegetable sellers in our area were not wearing masks. We told them to wear it to protect themselves from coronavirus but they said they could not afford it. Then we decided to stitch masks and give it to them free of cost," Amarjit told PTI over phone.

Now, many people have started coming to her house to get free face covers, she said.

Dhaliwal's neighbours are coming forward to help her and many of them also giving clothes for making masks, Amarjit said.

The Punjab government has made wearing masks mandatory as at least 202 people have been infected with coronavirus in the state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
One of the victims, 30, suffered a wound to the right thigh, and the other man, 41, was shot multiple times in the chest and abdomen. The younger man was in good condition, and the other man was listed in serious condition at Stroger Hospital.
Some of these are battlefield interventions that we would not normally use in hospitals, but this crisis has been an incredible spur for creativity and collaboration, said Dr. Greg Martin, a pulmonologist in Atlanta and the president-elect of the Society of Critical Care Medicine. The beauty of this is that were learning a lot and hopefully some of this will translate to things we can use in the future.
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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18)  The Labor Department has revealed the main cause in the delay in the processing of workers financial assistance  the fear of employers that the government might discover their payroll violations; but it assured the companies that they will be granted amnesty.

"Unang-una, nagkaroon ng delay diyan dahil sa mga employers. Na-delay sila mag-submit ng payroll," Department of Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre Bello III explained in a public briefing on Saturday.

[Translation: First of all, there was a delay because of the employers. There was a delay in their submission of payroll.]

Bello said the employers need not worry about violations in their employees payroll, and guaranteed them of amnesty, should they avail of the 5,000 cash assistance from the administration.

"Kung ano man ang pagkakamali ninyona diperensya sa payroll ninyo'wag na kayong matakot. We will recommend to the President amnesty para hindi na kayo habulin dahil hindi kayo nag-report sa BIR [Bureau of Internal Revenue], SSS [Social Security System], PhilHealth [Philippine Health Insurance Corporation], at Pag-IBIG," he said.

[Translation: Whatever you did wrongwhatever your violations weredon't be scared. We will recommend to the President amnesty, so you will not be sought after because you have not reported to the BIR, SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG.]

The Labor secretary said they have already made modifications in the requirements for DOLE's COVID Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP).

"Before, payroll ang ni-rerequest namin. Pero ngayon, to liberalize the requirement, sabi namin  na pwede nang payslip; pwede nang logbook; pwede nang ledger... Just any evidence ng any empleyado na hindi nakapagtrabaho dahil nga naka-quarantine," Bello said.

[Translation: Before, we requested for the submission of payroll. But now, to liberalize the requirement, we are allowing the submission of payslips, logbooks, ledgers, or any other evidence on employees who were not able to work because of the quarantine.]

The DOLE said it has stopped accepting applications for its financial aid program on April 15, after the number of applicants reached over a million and went "beyond its budget." It added that it is endorsing those it cannot accommodate to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, who spearheads a 50.8-billion wage subsidy program for employees of small businesses.

As of April 18, the DOLE has already extended aid to 237,653 formal workers, totaling nearly 1.2 billion. The Labor chief said they are still targeting some 231,975 employees, which will cost their department a little over 1.6 billion.
For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME.

Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire.

Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III.





to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever.





Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation.





View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union.

Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history.

Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words.




A man in his fifties has become the first person to die from the novel coronavirus outbreak in the Kurdish-dominated northern part of war-torn Syria, UN officials have said.

The administration of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region accused the World Health Organization of not having immediately informed its officials, saying the UN agency and the Syrian authorities would be to blame for the spread of the virus.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said it received notice on Thursday of the death from WHO, which was not immediately available for comment.

The WHO "provided information indicating that a fatality at Qamishli National Hospital in northeast Syria on 2 April had subsequently tested positive for COVID-19," OCHA said on a Twitter post on Friday.

The dead man was said to be 53 years old.

"Another family member is currently reportedly also in hospital with symptoms of COVID-19 with test results pending," it said. "Active surveillance is ongoing in NES (Northeast Syria) to detect additional potential cases."



Even if the northern region is under Kurdish control, the government of President Bashar Al-Assad has a presence there and the hospital in question is under the authority of Damascus.

In regime territory, the novel coronavirus has officially infected 38 people and claimed two lives, which were announced on 29 and 30 of March.

The Kurdish authorities have accused the Assad regime, with which it has tense relations, of failing to provide ventilators, testing and other equipment needed to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Kurdish Red Crescent and the Kurdish administration both criticised the two-week delay in the WHO announcing that the patient had died from COVID-19.

"There is a high risk of a large spread of the virus due to the delay in informing the self-administration and humanitarian organisation in northern Syria of the positive (virus) result, after 15 days of the case," the Red Crescent said on its website.

The Kurdish authorities "put the blame on the WHO for a spread of the virus among our citizens because it kept under wraps a suspected case," the administration said in a statement.

The Kurds added that "Syrian government practices... endanger the lives of northeast Syrians," accusing Damascus of not cooperating with the minority group.

In areas under its control, the regime has adopted a series of measures to curb the virus, including closing schools and restaurants as well as imposing a lockdown and a curfew.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pandemically speaking, so much has changed, particularly the job market. COVID-19 has created a new elite  anyone with secure employment. The hierarchy and even the very definition of a good career has been shaken up. Will it last? Is it permanent or just a passing phase?

Applicants line up at Centrelink amid the COVID-19 shock. Credit:Getty Images

If you are untroubled by the question then you are part of this fresh elite. You know where your future lies, you are confident about what comes next. But if you are amongst the million or so newly unemployed, you are likely to be anxious, wondering whether any precarious chance of a job will outlast the new moon. It does not help that underpinning the Morrison government's JobKeeper versus Jobseeker package is a moral judgment between the good unemployed and the undeserving unemployed. The deserving unemployed presumably are people who may vote for Scott Morrison at the next election.

There are some strange realignments happening. Who ever would have thought a supermarket shelf stacker was a community service? That Bunnings staff are as important as the fire brigade? Petrol station attendants are a protected species! These are the new realities.

If you have a full-time permanent job you are amongst the privileged. If it is a public sector job, even better. Big government is back, big time. A permanent position in the public sector is even more desirable, particularly in anything to do with the newly expanded essential services.
A father baked a huge Cornish pasty to celebrate the birth of his son - matching the exact same size and weight of the baby.

Tim Fuge, 33, from Liskeard, Cornwall, took on the task after seeing a post online of another father using a pasty to demonstrate the measurements of his child.

It took Mr Fuge two-and-a-half hours to produce the 6lb 4oz (2.8kg) pasty - and 19 hours to eat it after he researched the method online and did a practice run.

Tim Fuge, 33, from Liskeard, Cornwall, baked a huge Cornish pasty to celebrate the birth of his son Jowan - matching his exact size and weight of 6lb 4oz (2.8kg)

He said the hardest part was finding a tray big enough to cook on - discovering eventually that a grilling rack was the perfect size.

Jowan was born early on April 4 and Mr Fuge baked the pasty on Thursday - the baby's original birth date. It measured 19 inches (50cm) in length.

He was 'absolutely stuffed' after eating the tasty Cornish treat.

The pasty had a filling of beef skirt, swede, onion and potatoes.

Mr Fuge said: 'I saw on Facebook that people are trying to make their own pasties as the bakeries and shops are shut.

'There was a picture of a bloke holding a pasty next to his baby to show how big it was. I thought: "I can go one better".

'I had never made a pasty before, apart from a couple of days before - but I had eaten plenty!

'I tried to work it all out. There's a Cornish Pasty Association website that gives you the ingredients.

It took Mr Fuge two-and-a-half hours to produce the pasty after researching the method online and doing a practice run. It then took him a staggering 19 hours to eat the 7,000 calorie Cornish treat

'It came out bang up to how much the baby weighed when he was born.

'It was then in the oven for two-and-a-half hours while we went for our daily walk.

'I didn't have any breakfast that day and started eating it at lunch. I finished it the next day. It actually tasted really, really good.

'My wife was annoyed because it was nicer than hers! But I had to get her to do the crimping.

'I think it's about 7,000 calories - I tried to work that out from the ingredients.'

The pasty - made to mark the birth of two-week-old baby Jowan - had a filling of beef skirt, swede, onion and potatoes. Pictured: Mr Fuge eating the pasty with other sons Aiden, four, and Rory, two

Mr Fuge lives with wife Jen, 32, and other sons Aiden, four, and Rory, two.

A self-employed lead worker, he hasn't been able to work since the coronavirus lockdown was enforced - giving him the time to bake.

He added: 'I wouldn't have had time to do this if I was still working.

'It's been nice to spend some more time with the kids.

'I do like cooking, but I don't normally get a chance - I walk in the door and my wife has made it.'
The U.S. Constitution was ratified and adopted in 1789, with the first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, added in 1791. The first of those amendments reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." [Emphasis added]

Those are important rights, and ones that the adult industry lives with and supports dailybut back in 1791, if an incurable, deadly disease were to appear anywhere in the world, the possibility that it could spread across the globe in a matter of days, infecting 2,214,861 of its inhabitants (as of today, though with the current haphazard testing system, that number could be far higher) and killing 150,948 of them was, simply put, impossible, even if the main means of transmission were airborne.

Currently, the U.S. has 690,279 confirmed coronavirus cases, and 36,118 people have died from it, and most state governors have issued "orders," some enforced by police, others entirely voluntary, to stay at home, keep six feet away from all non-family members ... and refrain from gathering in groups of, depending on the state, 100, 50 ... or ten.

It's that last part that caught the attention of the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and roughly 20 other speech rights organizations, including the adult industry's Free Speech Coalition. (The full list is here.)

NCAC noted that earlier this week, police in Raleigh, North Carolina tweeted that "Protesting is a non-essential activity," and found those words disturbing.

"The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic cannot be used to justify the suspension of First Amendment rights," said the email sent out by NCAC today. "People must be free to express disagreement with government decisions, even when it involves criticism of essential public health measures.

"Upholding First Amendment rights need not be at odds with the governments authority and obligation to protect public health and safety," it continued. "The emergency decrees that call for social distancing, wearing of face covers or masks, and limits on the size of public assemblies can regulate the manner in which protests occur. However, regulations should be narrowly tailored to what is necessary to protect public health. ... Most protesters have been exercising their constitutional rights without threatening the health of their fellow citizens: wearing masks and standing six-feet apart outside hospitals and other places of business to protest inadequate safety precautions; participating in car demonstrations in Arizona, California and Michigan, and launching digital campaigns."

We don't know which protests NCAC has been looking at, but that clearly hasn't been the case. Some if not most protest marches and other gatherings haven't cared a whit about the health of the participants, as the following images taken from TV news feeds in Michigan, Ohio and, yes, North Carolina show:

(Of interest: A headline on Breitbart.com announces, "Watch Live: Minnesota Workers Protest Outside Governor's Mansion"but for some reason, no video footage is anywhere to be seenbecause it shows protesters ignoring distancing recommendations?)

"The Michigan Conservative Coalition on its Facebook page said that Gov. Whitmer and her allies are 'infecting ALL of us with their radical, progressive agenda,'" claimed an article from EFE News Services. "'We can get this rally done and stay within the social distancing guidelines,' said Michigan Conservative Coalition co-founder Marian Sheridan in a statement."

Really? Is that what social distancing, as shown above, is supposed to look like?

But perhaps the point is, many, many protesters, nearly all members of or appearing at the behest of right-wing groups, either don't give a crap about social distancing, believe it doesn't workor actually believe that even in a crowd, they stand little to no chance of catching the disease.

"Despite the most hysterical and alarmist efforts of the leftist counterculture to convince us that the planet teeters on the brink of incinerating itself, people looked around themselves and didnt see any evidence of it, so they werent willing to forfeit their prosperity and standard of living to turn the tide on 'global warming,'" conservative commentator Christopher G. Adamo wrote today. "But just perhaps, when those same members of the leftist counterculture have done their best to convince everyone that we face the terrifying prospect of an unknown killer that randomly takes lives, enough people can be cowed into giving up everything theyve had, in hopes of achieving the historically empty promise of trading it all for a meager oppressed existence which the left tells us is the embodiment of security. And of course the opportunistic leftist Democrat office holders across the land, from local offices to the highest levels of government, were waiting in the wings to seize upon the potential death and suffering of the Wuhan Flu as a springboard for their despotic aspirations."

Guess what, Chris? You probably won't believe it but "leftist Democratic office holders" have no despotic aspirations! You're thinking of Trump and his cronies who, if they could figure out a way to turn these protests into a method of converting "blue" states to red, wouldn't waste a second putting that plan into place!

How about this one? "As acts of civil disobedience go, this was oddly pastoral: Gary Golden spread a blanket on the grassy lawn by Virginia's Executive Mansion, opened a wicker picnic basket and offered strawberries to strangers," wrote The Washington Post's Laura Vozzella and Gregory S. Schneider. "As fellow protesters took him up on the offer Thursday, coming up to the edge of the blanket, sticking their hands right into his container of sliced berries, Golden was defying Gov. Ralph Northam (D), who has ordered Virginians to keep their distance from one another to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus."

Ain't that sweet! A social distancing "protest" reimagined as just some friendly sharing! How could that possibly hurt anyone?

And let's not forget the preachers who've decided that filling pews is more important than making sure their flock stays healthy.

 Evangelist Robert Jeffress, who preaches at Dallas First Baptist Church, on Sunday, March 15, "insisted on holding a large gathering even though countless health officials were warning against that type of thing."

 "On Facebook, the New Life Christian Center declared, 'Due to the recent outbreak of fearand the resulting raw, unmitigated stupidityregarding the perceived threat of the "corona virus," etc., tomorrow night, Friday, March 13th, 2020, we WILL be having a church service here at the New Life Christian Center in Austin, Indiana. Anyone who is sick, you are welcome to come to church. We will lay hands on the sick, and the sick shall recover.'"

 "While many well-intentioned people have different opinions regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting government restrictions, we should all agree, however, that the church should be 'essential'so essential that the community groans when its doors are shut," claimed far right attorney Mat Staver in an email. [Emphasis in original]

 "Pastor Tony Spell of Life Tabernacle Church in Baton Rouge spoke to TMZ this Wednesday [April 8], saying that if his church members die from coronavirus, theyve done so in the name of religious freedom," wrote Sky Palma of Raw Story. (Congrats, Tony! One's dead... and there will be more!)

 "Easter looming, Kansas Republican leaders on Wednesday revoked Democratic Gov. Laura Kellys order limiting religious gatherings to 10 people as the states coronavirus death toll jumped 40 percent," reported Kansas.com on April 8.

 "Infowars host Owen Shroyer demands that President Donald Trumps administration lift social distancing recommendations meant to slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, threatening to push the Infowars audience into 'revolting' if he does not," reported Jared Holt. "Shroyer took issue with the guidelines in place, equating the measures to 'tyranny and communism'ideas he claimed were 'more deadly than the coronavirus.'"

The point is, these people are fucking nuts, and to support their efforts to gather closely at protests, church services, funerals, parties, beaches or whateverwith Trump's support!is to open the door to the deaths of more and more Americans.

But what is the NCAC's and its co-signers' position?

"We urge all public officials to recognize their obligation to defend First Amendment rights while they protect public safety. These rights are critically important during uncertain times like these."

Are First Amendment rights important? Damn right! But the current situation is unprecedented in world history, and until a vaccine can be developed to immunize the populace against this sometimes-deadly disease, perhaps advising people that they can exercise their constitutional right to "peaceably ... assemble" isn't the wisest move.
An experiment has revealed how spit droplets from talking can spray through the air potentially transmitting viruses such as Covid-19, unless the speaker wears a mask.

With studies suggesting that talking can release just as many virus harbouring droplets into the air as coughing and sneezing, scientists have devised a way to visualise the threat posed by an overly chatty neighbour.

By creating a 'light sheet' from green lasers within a box researchers were able to illuminate the droplets of spit as they left the speaker's mouth - who was speaking directly into the box.

A video of the experiment, carried out at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, U.S., shows a high number of oral droplets spraying from the speaker's mouth as they repeatedly say 'stay healthy' - brighter flashes indicate larger droplets.

Scroll down for video

A brightly illuminated smattering of aerosol droplets, also known as spit, are released from the speaker's mouth as he says 'stay healthy' at a loud volume

As the speaker increases the volume of his speech the amount of spit sprayed, or droplets produced, also increases.

The test is then carried out again with the speaker wearing a mask over their mouth.

This time no oral droplets of spit are seen illuminated by the light sheet, suggesting that the risk of infection to anybody nearby would be much reduced.

Smaller aerosol droplets, like those produced when talking, can dehydrate and form droplet nuclei, remaining airborne longer than the larger droplets produced while coughing, which quickly fall to the ground.

Little to no aerosol droplets are released from the Speaker's mouth as he repeats the phrase 'stay healthy' while wearing a mask

This extends the potential for the droplets to reach another individual, causing infection if they harbour virus particles.

Authors of the study concluded: 'Repetition of the same phrase three times, with short pauses in between the phrases, produced a similar pattern of generated particles, with peak numbers of flashes as high as 347 with the loudest speech and as low as 227 when the loudness was slightly decreased over the three trials,

'When the same phrase was uttered three times through a slightly damp washcloth over the speakers mouth, the flash count remained close to the background level (mean, 0.1 flashes); this showed a decrease in the number of forward-moving droplets.'

German officials talk in close proximity while wearing face masks during a visit at the university clinics Giessen and Marburg in Giessen, western Germany, on April 14, 2020

Dr. Harvey Fineberg, who chairs the Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases told ABC: 'Even just quieter talking or breathing can generate tinier aerosol droplets - all of these are capable of carrying a virus.

'What we do not know is exactly what proportion of the virus rides out and infects others from what size droplets. All are capable.'

While it is widely known that covid-19 is highly infectious and can be transmitted from person-to-person when in close proximity the usefulness of face masks has been disputed.

German government officials wear face masks as they talk in front of an intensive care unit during their visit at university clinics Giessen and Marburg in western Germany, April 14, 2020

The World Health Organisation advises against the wearing of masks for general use stating 'If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19'.

In stark contrast the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), urges all Americans to wear masks for their own protection.

The CDC has even went one step further and advised people use makeshift masks out of scarves when travelling on public transport or in supermarkets.

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock insists that 'well' Britons do not need to wear masks because evidence on them being useless had been 'very clear from the start'.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), urges all Americans to wear masks for their own protection. Pictured: Pedestrians in Brooklyn, New York

However Britain's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said on Monday that there is an 'ongoing review' of official advice on masks.

For weeks the Government has told people not to bother with them and to make sure there are enough available for staff in hospitals and care homes who really need them.

Scientists are split on the effectiveness of masks, with some claiming they could prevent asymptotic patients from spreading the disease before they know they're ill.

Others say surgical face masks - the most popular kind - are too thin, loose-fitting and porous, which make it easy for the tiny viral particles to pass through.

The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, was carried out by Dr Philip Anfinrud, Dr Valentyn Stadnytskyi, and Dr Adriaan Bax at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland and Christina E. Bax, at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
It's official: Even the world's second biggest economy, on a growth streak lasting four decades, was no match for the coronavirus pandemic.

China's economy shrank 6.8% in the first quarter of 2020 compared to a year earlier, according to government statistics released Friday.

The superlatives: The plunge is the worst for a single quarter that China has recorded since it started publishing those figures in 1992.

It's also the first time China has reported an economic contraction since 1976, when Communist Party leader Mao Zedong's death ended a decade of social and economic tumult.

Widespread pain: China's three major engines for growth  consumer spending, exports and fixed asset investment  all slumped as large swaths of the country were placed on lockdown.

The country's quarterly economic report is in some ways a barometer for the United States and Europe, according to my colleague Laura He, because the West only began to feel the full impact of the pandemic as the situation in China was starting to improve.

Some restrictions have been lifted in China, and economic data for March points to a tentative recovery. But the country still has a very long way to go before things get back to normal.

Yet there is a growing consensus that barring a major resurgence of the coronavirus, China could emerge from the pandemic in a better position than many other countries.

The IMF expects the global economy to contract by 3% this year. But China is expected to grow 1.2% in 2020 and 9.2% next year  making it the best performer among major economies.

Chinese officials are wary of making predictions. Unusually, Beijing has not yet set an annual GDP target for 2020.

Even so, they remain optimistic about the country's prospects, pointing specifically to the recent IMF forecast. If the predictions come true, China would average growth of 5% over the next two years, said Mao Shengyong, spokesman for China's National Bureau of Statistics, on Friday.

"The coronavirus has caused China economic losses and activity has been suppressed," he said. "[But] it may be unleashed next year."

That would bolster the country's position in the world economy, with China continuing to close the gap with the West in terms of GDP per person.

"It will rebound quicker than Western economies to reach a larger share of the global economy," said Sebastien Galy, senior macro strategist at Nordea Investment.

Brits are prepared for months of disruption

The coronavirus pandemic has profoundly disrupted companies and households around the world. Four months into the year, how are people feeling about things? Britain's Office for National Statistics has some answers.

The statistics agency has published the results of a survey covering household finances, work and society. Here are some of the most interesting takeaways:

Over 4 in 5 adults said they were very worried or somewhat worried about the effect that the coronavirus is having on their life.

Just over half of adults said it was affecting their wellbeing, and nearly half reported high levels of anxiety.

Just over 1 in 5 adults said it was affecting their household finances, with the main concern being a drop in income.

And are they optimistic about what comes next?

Nearly half of all adults expected their financial position to get a little or a lot worse over the next year.

Over 1 in 3 adults thought it would be between four and six months before their life would return to normal, with another third thinking it will be longer than six months.

Investors appear to be focusing on signs that companies are getting back on track. Volkswagen and Toyota are preparing to reopen their factories in Europe, for example, and Boeing plans to call 27,000 employees back to work next week in Washington state to start making airplanes again.

Yet that market optimism may be unfounded. Health experts are warning of a potential second wave of infections that could lengthen the time social distancing remains in place.

"This could be a long, hard road that we have ahead of us until we get to either an effective therapy or a vaccine," Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari recently told CBS. "It's hard for me to see a V-shaped recovery under that scenario."

With a supermajority of Brits expecting it to take more than four months for life to return to normal, the ONS survey suggests the general public may be more realistic than investors about what comes next.

A warning from France

French President Emmanuel Macron is warning that the coronavirus pandemic could end the European Union as a "political project" if more is not done to help members such as Spain and Italy.

The European Union faces a "moment of truth," he told the Financial Times in an interview, and leaders must now decide whether the bloc is more than just a single economic market.

At issue: France is pushing for the European Union to issue debt, dubbed corona bonds, to raise long-term finance for all member states to help pay for an economic recovery plan.

"If we can't do this today, I tell you the populists will win  today, tomorrow, the day after, in Italy, in Spain, perhaps in France and elsewhere," Macron told the newspaper.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, backed by the leaders of Austria and the Netherlands, has opposed the idea of issuing common EU debt on grounds that her taxpayers would effectively be underwriting spending by poorer member states.

Up next

Today: Procter & Gamble, State Street and Schlumberger earnings

Coming next week: Earnings season continues with reports from IBM, Coca-Cola, Lockheed Martin, AT&T, Ericsson, Intel and American Express.
A warning message from nature? The earth is slowly but surely healing as the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly shuts down factories and halts transportation- but will it last, or will nature suffer doubly as countries try to aggressively recover, asks Tharuka Dissanaike View(s): View(s):

Nature is sending us a message, said Inger Andersen, the head of the UNs Environment Programme this week. The catastrophic events of 2020  the global coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing climate crisis which caused wildfires in Australia and locust attacks in Kenya signal that humanity was placing too many pressures on the natural world with damaging consequences. Failing to take care of the planet would amount to not taking care of ourselves, she admonished.

There is a visible silver lining around the grim dark cloud that has enveloped the world right now. As the worlds economic heavyweights lockdown and transportation within and across countries grinds to a halt, the air clears up, the rivers run clean and wildlife are seen roaming empty streets and markets.

Last week, the Central Environmental Authority put out a press statement on the condition of the Kelani river, surprisingly clean after the export processing zones upstream were shut and other sundry economic activities upriver were paused. The tone of surprise in the statement was a sad indication of the way we treat the river that provides drinking water to a large portion of Colombo and Gampaha districts. Water quality indicators measured downstream just before the river meets the sea at the northern edge of Colombo, turned favourable within a week of curfew-enforced shutdown. But industrial pollutants were not the sole reason- low turbidity and sediment loads in the water indicate the halting of other activities- road construction, house building, land clearing that cause upstream erosion.

Air quality over Sri Lanka has improved. While this is obvious in the satellite maps on air pollution, you dont really need complicated technology to prove this. Just step outside and smell the air- or even better look at the sky on a clear night and notice how clear and bright the stars are.

Elsewhere in the world, as cities and factories shut down and humans confined to the barracks, nature surged. Within a month of Wuhans lockdown, air quality over China improved visibly. Similarly air pollution over Italy and Spain has shown dramatic improvement. The most drastic decline is in the nitrous oxides which are generated by transport and industrial activities and cause both climate change and air pollution. Ironically, the smog clears and many people find it easier to breathe, even as the coronavirus takes lives by attacking the respiratory system, and face masks become a mandatory part of our dress code. While China lost over 3500 lives at the peak of its COVID-19 crisis, Stanford University researchers have estimated that the reduction in pollution post lockdown of Hubei Province, may prevent 50,000 to 75,000 people from dying prematurely.

With the worlds biggest polluters frozen in lockdown, the earth is breathing a sigh a relief. The message is clear- nature can and should be allowed to recover, for our own wellbeing if not for its own sake. The issue remains however, how seriously will we take the message, especially when the world emerges from this frozen state and plays catch-up to save the remnants of this failed economic system?

There is no argument that 2020 did not begin auspiciously. But the roots of this years multiple crisis run deep into past misdeeds and demonstrate a terrible neglect of the earth and unconscionable exploitation of nature. Epidemics like COVID-19 reveal the fundamental tenets of the trade-off we consistently face: humans have unlimited needs, but the planet has limited capacity to satisfy them

The virus itself is attributed to human interferences such as deforestation, encroachment on animal habitats and biodiversity loss. In recent years there have been many outbreaks -Ebola, bird flu, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Rift Valley fever, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), West Nile virus and Zika- from viruses that cross from animals to humans. It is not due to an explosion in animal populations and forests that have encroached upon our cities. There are nearly 8 billion of us, jostling for space with a shrinking wilderness, creating in the process, the necessary conditions for rare diseases to cross over to humans- harming both the health and wealth of earths burgeoning population.

The emergence of COVID-19 has underscored the mutually reinforcing relationship between people and nature. We need to understand and appreciate the limits to which humans can push nature, before it turns against us. Ultimately, lost ecological infrastructure such as forests, wetlands, lagoons and coastal mangroves and decline of services we receive from these ecosystems, will cause a decline in overall wealth and well-being. This will be felt much more acutely in poorer regions and developing countries, where many people are still struggling to achieve basic wellbeing. Even though currently its the developed West that is struggling against COVID-19, the disease will scar poorer nations much more. The disease itself may take lives and challenge under-resourced health infrastructure, but many more will be pushed to the margins of poverty, malnutrition and ill-health due to loss of jobs, markets, income. Climate change and recurrent disasters, pest attacks, crop failures will exacerbate these vulnerabilities.

Meanwhile, consumerist societies adjusting to sudden lockdowns and market closures, are rolling back some of environmentally-sound practices laboriously put in place in the last few years. Bans on single use plastics were sweeping across developed and near-developed countries, only to be hit hard by coronavirus lockdowns and health concerns, that required disposable face masks, throw-away packaging for groceries and loads of plastic food packaging! Images of single-use face masks and gloves floating in reefs and tons of disposable packaging clogging local waste dumps, portend a future crisis for nature.

While the world teeters on the brink of deep recession, nations will look to power their post-COVID-19 recovery engines with any possible fuel. The United States announced last week that instead of paving the recovery pathway with sustainability, its lawmakers were considering rolling back many existing environmental safeguards to support a resurgence of domestic production. China, Russia and the EU, and any other industrialized nation for that matter, will also be hard pressed to find a middle ground between sustainable use of natural capital and driving growth through the time tested but short-term strategy of production and consumerism. Some economists are indulgently calling it a V shaped recession, where the plunge will be followed by an aggressive resurgence. If this happens -and the likelihood is very high- then all this short-term positive impact will simply disappear in a puff of smoke, so to say.

There is a school of thought that welcomes this slowdown. That considers this spanner in the wheels of world economy and trade, something that will bring about positive change in the way we live and work; that will eventually lead to a less consumerist society restoring some balance between man and nature. But such philosophical long-term visions have to be weighed against the current suffering of the poor struggling through enforced lockdown. The large majority working day to day, is unable to pay rent, secure food and seek medical attention from over-burdened health systems. Governments will be hard pressed to restore normalcy of not-so-decent jobs and sub-par living conditions to the vast majority who oil the wheels of the capitalist system.

To see longer term opportunity for transformation, governments will have to be bolder and politicians will have to be truthful about short-term suffering. This is unlikely. But then again, this year we have seen the unlikely and unthinkable happening over and overmaybe 2020 is that year when we finally heed the message. Because, if we learn anything at all from this science fiction-like situation, its that nature is still a force to be reckoned with. If we choose to ignore it there will be other messages. They will be exceedingly unpleasant.

(The writer is the former Team Leader and Policy Specialist, Environment and

Climate Change, UNDP Sri Lanka)
All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) doctor and National Sci-Tech Communication awardee Uma Kumar on Friday contributed her prize money of Rs 2 lakh to the Prime Ministers Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) in order to help in the fight against the Coronavirus.

According to reports, Kumar is the Head of the Department of Rheumatology at AIIMS. She was presented the National Sci-Tech Communication award on February 28 by President Ram Nath Kovind for popularising medical science amongst the masses through electronic media.

Speaking to the news agency, ANI, she said, "Coronavirus has shaken the whole world an has created an unprecedented situation. Many people in the country are suffering from the virus. I received this award on February 28 on Science Day. I received Rs. 2 lakh and contributed it to the PM-CARES because I thought the money will be used for the welfare of the country." She further urged people to come forward to help fight the virus.

PM CARES Fund

On March 29, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Prime Ministers Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund), where citizens can contribute to aide the government's efforts in supporting those affected by disasters.

Read: 558 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore are from dormitorries used by foreigners

The fund will provide relief to the affected from any walk of life dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation. PM Modi also urged Indians to donate generously. The fund is chaired by PM Modi and includes Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Read: Good News: Five positive stories to help you fight COVID-19 'lockdown blues'

COVID-19 in India

According to the latest update of the Union Health Ministry, there are currently a total of 13,835 Coronavirus cases in the country, including 11,616 active cases. While 452 deaths have been reported overall, around 1,767 people have been cured/discharged/migrated.

Read: Mamata Banerjee stresses on deploying armed police forces in red zones; WB reports 22 fresh cases

Read: Tezpur Medical College and Hospital gets ICMR nod for COVID-19 testing

(With ANI Inputs)
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





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The County Road Association of Michigan (CRAM) honored former Midland County Road Commission managing director Terry Palmer with a distinguished service award at the association's 2020 Highway Conference.

Distinguished Service Awards recognize road agency staff and commissioners who have dedicated time and service above and beyond their peers to advance the county road and bridge system in Michigan.
Aurangabad : , April 18 (IANS) In a heartwarming development, a 33-year old Covid-19 positive woman from Mumbai delivered a healthy female child at the Government General Hospital in Ghati here on Saturday afternoon, medicos said.

The delivery by the woman -- hailing from Mumbai's Jogeshwari suburb -- took place at 12.40 p.m. through a Cesarean Section, said District Medical Officer Sundar Kulkarni.

"This is the first such case in Maharashtra and the second in the country with the earlier one taking place in AIIMS, New Delhi," said Kulkarni.

He added that the medical team has taken three swabs of the newborn infant -- weighing 3.25 kg -- for tests.

Though the woman is asymptomatic, her first child, a 15-year old son, had also tested positive on Friday night, which had raised concerns among the medical team.

In the ninth month of pregnancy, the woman had left Mumbai for Aurangabad on April 12, but the very next day she had tested positive, just five days before her delivery.

Kulkarni said that the hospital has implemented full protocols to deal with this case and also with other pregnant women who may have tested Covid-19 positive in the district.
By Trend





According to the UN resolutions and documents, the occupied territories must be returned to Azerbaijan, Irans Ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh told Trend.

Iran has always supported the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, the ambassador said.

Jahangirzadeh added that the Islamic Republic of Iran was one of the first countries to offer assistance and mediation in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and positive steps have been taken in this direction.

The ambassador said that there is a need for stability and cooperation in the region. Iran is pleased that Azerbaijan has always demonstrated its readiness for a peaceful solution to this conflict.

Commenting on the video footage of Iranian trucks allegedly transporting goods to Nagorno Karabakh, he said it is fake and unreliable.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has nothing to do with the illegal regime created in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, added Jahangirzadeh.

Talking about the recently held so-called "elections" in Nagorno-Karabakh, he noted that Iran condemns any move that would undermine the negotiation process on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"Such actions will not help resolve the conflict and will only complicate it. The Armenian side must prove its claim to be sincere in the discussions, but their actions prove the opposite," he said.

Recently, a video was posted on social media allegedlyshowing transportation of goods and fuel to the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh of Azerbaijan by Iranian trucks. The Iranian side said that the footage was fake.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding regions.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding regions.
Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson were the first celebrities to come forward and admit they have contracted the coronavirus.

As the world continues to change and people are worried about the implications of such disease, they came forward to help prevent its spread.

Coronavirus Survivors

Rita Wilson, in her interview with The Guardian, said that the entire ordeal became much easier to deal with because she and husband Tom Hanks experienced it together.

"I think that having the virus at the same time made it that little bit easier," she told the outlet.

"We both had a high fever and were extremely achy. I lost my sense of taste and smell, had stomach issues and shivering like you wouldn't believe. Yeah, I was scared."

Wilson also emphasized that while they were away from their loved ones during the time they got sick, having each other saved them both.

"We were taking care of each other instead of having the pressure of taking care of one person and no one taking care of you or understanding that the person at home needs a break. We were fortunate we were in a place where we understood what the other was going through," Wilson furthered.

However, although it was comforting to know that they had each other, Wilson described the coronavirus as one of the worst illnesses of her life -- which is something considering that she has beaten cancer.

When they were finally allowed to return to the United States after being in quarantine in Australia, that's when Wilson felt they had survived COVID-19. Since then, they have been back in their home in Los Angeles while still abiding by the social distancing protocol.

Coronavirus Treatment

Rita Wilson admitted that she was given the chloroquine treatment. It is a different treatment from hydroxychloroquine, the unproven drug that President Donald Trump considered as a potential cure for coronavirus.

However, she said that the treatment came with its own side effects and had intense symptoms of their own.

"Extreme nausea, vertigo, my muscles felt like wet noodles, so I couldn't really stand," she explained. "We were just trying to get through it."

In a previous episode of The Talk with Gayle King, Rita discussed about the chloroquine treatment. Wilson described to King her ordeal undergoing the treatment typically used to treat malaria patients.

"I was very tired. I felt extremely achy," Wilson detailed on how she felt with the treatment.

"Uncomfortable, didn't want to be touched and then the fever started. Chills like I've never had before. Looking back, I realize I was also losing my sense of taste and smell which I didn't realize at the time."

However, Wilson emphasized that despite the side effects, she was not sure if the drug truly helped her recover.

"I can only tell you that I don't know if the drug worked or if it was just time for my fever to break, but my fever did break," she explained. "But the chloroquine had extreme side effects."

As of Friday April 17), the coronavirus has infected more than 2 million people all over the world, resulting to more than 145,000 deaths. In the U.S. alone, all 50 states have confirmed cases of the coronavirus. The country has topped the number of infected patients as well all over the world.
Police in Hong Kong have arrested at least 14 veteran pro-democracy politicians, activists and a media tycoon on charges of joining unlawful protests last year.

Among those arrested were 81-year-old activist and former parliamentarian Martin Lee, and democracy advocates Albert Ho, Lee Cheuk-yan and Au Nok-hin.

Police also arrested media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who founded the local newspaper Apple Daily.

Among those arrested is democracy protester Lee Cheuk-yan, pictured holding a microphone at a rally last year

Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan and Yeung Sum - a former MP from the Democratic Party - were charged in February over their involvement in a mass anti-government demonstration on August 31 last year.

The protests in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory against proposed extradition legislation exposed deep divisions between pro-democracy Hong Kongers and the Communist Party-ruled central government in Beijing.

The bill - which would have allowed Hong Kong residents to be sent to mainland China to stand trial - has been withdrawn, but the protests continued for more than seven months, centred around demands for voting rights and an independent inquiry into police conduct.

The protests in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory against proposed extradition legislation exposed deep divisions between pro-democracy Hong Kongers and the Communist Party-ruled central government in Beijing

While the protests began peacefully, they increasingly descended into violence after demonstrators became frustrated with the government's response.

They feel that Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has ignored their demands and used the police to suppress demonstrations.

The League of Social Democrats wrote in a Facebook post that its leaders were among those arrested, including chairman Raphael Wong.
Shiliang Chen, Vice President of the Shanghai Institute of Public Relations.

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / April 18, 2020 / In 2013, President Xi Jinping of China initiated the construction of the Community of Shared Future for Mankind. The achievements of China's peaceful development bring wealth to the world and are "common sense" in the world today.

"No man is an island","Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." John Donne, a 17th century English poet, has already expressed such exclamations.

From a historical point of view, from the 14th century renaissance to the present, nearly 700 years have passed through wars, peaceful development, economic globalization, and especially the internet, making "the international community increasingly a community of shared futures."

No matter whether in the early days of China or in the present world, the government and the people all fought back with the courage, wisdom and tenacity. No matter by what means, every race in every region has made great sacrifices. It shows that human beings belong to the unshakable community of shared future.

The "Community of Shared Future for Mankind" advocated by President Xi Jinping of China is the necessity of the natural development process of human beings, and is also the common sense of the moment. In the process of understanding common sense, people are faced with various prejudices and doubts.

Is the birth of the United States also rooted in stale prejudices and fears? Before April 19, 1775, the North American colonies were the territory of the Great Britain and dependent on the British pound. The world was generally under the autocratic monarchy. Many people believed that the prosperity of the North American colonies was due to their dependency on the British and the result of their dependency on the British pound. How many people believed that an independent United States would be born? Thomas Paine's Common Sense is an important document of the founding spirit of the United States. It reveals the common sense of human development and inspires the ancestors to establish the United States.

Story continues

Chinese President Xi Jinping's initiative to build a Community of Shared Future for Mankind and China's peaceful development plan have been misinterpreted by prejudices and fears and stale thinking. For example, "the threat of RMB" and "the threat of China" can be solved with simple common sense.

First, different systems are not threats. "If we continue to be misled by those strong preferences when we need to discuss the form and disadvantages of the government system, we will always make a fair judgment on it. "- Quoted from Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Due to the differences in history, culture and religious beliefs of each nationality and region of each country, different development paths will be chosen. Every country has formed its own path in the process of multi-cultural integration. Is there a right or wrong standard?

Before 1775, which of "natural human rights" and "divine right of kings" was correct? Today's United States is the answer to this question. China's history is a history of invasion and resistance. China knows the value of peace and the fate of all aggressors in the world. It is also common sense.

"Since the purpose and fundamental meaning of building a government is safety, any form that can guarantee our safety, even if it is only superficial, will be accepted by all people as long as it can obtain the greatest benefits at the lowest cost."-Quoted from Thomas Paine's Common Sense .

In the face of this rare epidemic in human history, China, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, has taken decisive and rapid measures to gradually restore normal social life to China with a population of 1.4 billion. The system is only the choice of the people, there is no difference between good and bad. Isn't the effective measures currently adopted by most countries in the world the same as China? Narrowness and prejudice have blocked reference to China's experience. On the surface, freedom is not free. This is also common sense.

When President Xi Jinping led China's initial success in fighting against the epidemic, and when he helped countries around the world ravaged by the virus with China's experience and materials, everyone should realize that: The enemy of mankind is virus, not prejudice against different systems. China uses "love" and "harmony" and President Xi Jinping's "Building a Community of Shared Future for Mankind" initiative, and uses the experience gained from the sacrifice of the Chinese people to reduce the sacrifice of the people of the world. It is the best protection for the right to life. Among the right to life, liberty and property, without the right to life, there is no right to liberty and property. -Quoted from Thomas Paine's Common Sense. China's institutional system "can obtain the greatest benefits at the lowest cost." The world will evaluate the "threat" of such a system. Please regard Thomas Paine's Common Sense as the evaluation of the spirit of the nation.

Second, RMB is not a threat. The Sino-US trade dispute is a social contradiction of normal commodities. "Britain will only remember the interests of this land after it has satisfied its own interests. Therefore, once the development of the United States is not conducive to, or even cannot better serve, the interests of Britain, Britain will at any time, for its own benefit needs, inhibit the development of the United States in all aspects. "-Quoted from Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Americans who have had such painful experiences will not allow themselves to repeat the failures of Britain. Sino-US trade dispute is a negotiation process of dividing commercial interests and concluding win-win cooperation.

Modern America is not Britain in 1775, and China is not the United States in 1775. It is now an era of cooperation, sharing and common development for all mankind. This is also the common sense that Americans are familiar with.

With the development of the country and the expansion of world trade, currencies such as sterling, mark, franc, us dollar, Japanese yen and now euro have not gone without wars and carnage from the equivalent of exchange to the symbol of wealth. In a rapidly developing China, the RMB will not go through such a process.

President Xi Jinping of China has said many times that China has suffered from invasion. China cherishes peaceful development and has a good living environment. China is more willing to share with the world the wealth brought about by China's peaceful development.

China has a market of 1.4 billion people and a complete manufacturing system. China is a manufacturing factory in the world and has a perfect financial stock market. Compared with the United States, China's GDP per capita is nearly six times the difference. An open China has brought 30 times the growth contribution of China's current economic level to the world. China welcomes the world to share wealth. There are similarities in the development process between China and the United States.

In President Xi Jinping's initiative to build a Community of Shared Future for Mankind, China welcomes the world to share the fruits of wealth growth. RMB brings the world the choice of wealth. The Chinese people have the right to choose RMB as wealth, just as Americans have the right to choose US dollars as wealth. We have the right to choose RMB as wealth for Americans with a liberal tradition. The world also has the right to choose RMB wealth. RMB is not a threat.

Abandoning prejudice and facing the reality, people will see that China, which took the lead in stepping out of COVID-19, is welcoming the world to invest in this huge manufacturing market, a stable RMB and a huge potential Chinese stock market, waiting for everyone to share the wealth brought about by China's growth.

President Xi Jinping of China's initiative to build a Community of Shared Future for Mankind and the world's sharing of China's wealth for peaceful development are both "common sense" of human society.

Company Name: HK NGO

Person: Peter Lin

Email: Perte_lin2012@gmail.com

Phone: 36157322

SOURCE: HK NGO





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/585696/Chinese-President-Xi-Jinping-Advocates-Building-a-Community-of-Shared-Future-for-Mankind




Not the best time to lobby for vaping

With the coronavirus pandemic effectively shutting down Americas economy, many businesses affected by the closures are looking to be included on the Trump administrations list of essential businesses. One business in particular has drawn more concern and criticism than others: vape shops. Some vape shops have remained open for business, depending on the state and the requirements that allow non-essential businesses to operate if they follow social distancing guidelines.

The Food and Drug Administration changed its stance this week about vaping and the coronavirus in an emailed statement to Bloomberg News saying E-cigarette use can expose the lungs to toxic chemicals, but whether those exposures increase the risk of COVID-19 is not known. Scientists are still studying the long-term health effects of vaping. While the world is reeling from a virus that can seriously damage the lungs, it seems ridiculous to lobby for a controversial product that has been associated with respiratory health risks.

Spencer Whitney, assistant editor
By Express News Service

DINDIGUL: The Dindigul district police have shifted 11 citizens of Bangladesh, who were under quarantine in the Government Headquarters Hospital here, to Puzhal Prison in Chennai on Thursday. The Dindigul police told mediapersons that the 11 Bangladeshis had reached India to attend the Tablighi Jamaat conference in New Delhi on tourist visa. After attending the religious conference, they travelled to Dindigul via train and visited various mosques. They were placed under quarantine and recently their test results for Covid-19 infection came negative. Following this, they were produced before the Judicial

Magistrate III on Wednesday (April 8) and were shifted to the Puzhal Prison.
New Delhi, April 19 : Maruti Suzuki has chalked out an action plan for resuming operations post COVID-19 with detailed standard operating procedure (SOP) on maintaining social distancing, hygiene and employee safety.

Maruti Suzuki Managing Director Kenichi Ayuzawa has laid down the salient features of the new strategy post COVID-19 and in a note circulated in the company has said: "Under such a situation, aligning with the national policy and government guidelines we will progressively resume operations in a graded manner. However, post lockdown we must continue to take all necessary precautions for a much longer duration. Aspects like 'Social distancing' will have to be integrated into our lifestyle." The policy revolves around safety, for self, Safe at Home, Safe for family, Safe in Transit, Safe of Colleagues, Safe at Workplace and Safe for Community.

"To facilitate this change, our COVID-19 Task Force, under guidance of management, has worked out a detailed SOP for safe start of operations. Each element of this plan integrates YOUR SAFETY at the core. Guidelines include starting from home to going back safely," the Maruti MD said.

The SOP details aspects like behavior at workplace, usage of canteen and other common facilities, guidelines in case of sickness and health emergency are explained in detail.

"In addition, the 'Wellness Mitra' mobile app for Maruti Suzuki family, will help you to stay connected and updated about developments related to COVID-19", he said.

For social distancing, the company will not be working with not more than 50 % manpower. There will be markings at all crowd gathering places to facilitate social distancing.

For screening and monitoring, it has been recommended for usage of Aarogya Setu by all, continuous monitoring of employee health through an in-house app Wellness-Mitra and mandatory noncontact body temperature scanning.

There will be regular sanitization of all common / large areas and touch prone areas alongwith disinfection tunnels at entry and use of automated sanitizer dispensers.

Isolation areas near entry gates will be earmarked and quarantine rooms for suspected cases. Masks will be provided for all employees, Hazmat suits & PPE for all staff dealing with multiple people and awareness through Trainings, OHC Doctors There will be not be more than 50% office employees at any given point of time. Employees to be divided in shifts and alternate day rosters with staggered shift start and end timings.

The production Employees will be called as per government with shorter shifts for production employees, no overlap between shifts providing a cushion of almost 1 hour for disinfection.

The social distancing markings are being laid out to ensure a distance of 2 metres at all crowded areas like entry gate, bus stops, water coolers, canteens.

In addition it is mandated for thermal screening pan India including plants, head office, zonal offices, R&D and company transport users to be screened before boarding the bus.

There will be decontamination of common use areas in every shift. Every entrant must pass through tunnels spraying disinfectant mist of Sodium Hypochlorite. There will be frequent disinfection / sanitization of all touch points.

Maruti has prescribed in-house designed auto-dispensing sanitizers placed at accessible points. Bus Capacity will be reduced to 50% and employees asked to maintain social distance while boarding,de-boarding for each bus to be done one by one.

Maruti has said that use of self-transport is highly recommended. If using a 2-wheeler, wear proper gear including helmet & gloves. For refueling, use e-Payments or give exact amount of cash (No return change). Employee asked to avoid car-pooling, if no option then not more than 2 people, the manual says.

Preferably, avoid public transport, is the advice given alongwith avoiding physical meetings. If unavoidable, attendees to follow social distancing norms, meeting rooms may be converted for work stations, the manual says.

The detailed SOP prescribes no handshakes, greet your hands in Namaste. Define your chair, don't use anyone else's chair, don't share food or snacks on the desks, kep sanitizing / washing your hands every few hours and sanitize your laptops, mobiles and desks twice daily, is part of the advisory.
Twelve North Korean restaurant workers and their manager arrive at Incheon International Airport on April 8, 2016. / Korea Times file



In April 2016, a week before the National Assembly elections, 12 North Korean restaurant workers and their manager escaped from China in what South Korean government officials called an "unprecedented mass defection." That was the beginning of the controversy, as North Korea and some human rights organizations in South Korea charged it was a "kidnapping" or fabricated for political reasons before the election. Last year, I interviewed one of the former restaurant workers. Specific information about her will be withheld to protect her identify. TNKR co-founder Eunkoo Lee translated her remarks from Korean to English, then we reviewed the text with her again to confirm accuracy.



By Casey Lartigue Jr.



Casey: The big question that so many have been asking: Did everyone want to escape?



A: It seems like a clear question, but the answer isn't clear. Not all employees working at the Chinese restaurant wanted to come to South Korea.



The context is that the work in China was tougher than we had expected. We had good situations in North Korea, so we were often openly wondering why we were working so hard; it was not as golden as it had been presented to us in North Korea. Therefore, most of us agreed to seek better working conditions in a different country.



We were not ignorant about the outside world. When I was in North Korea, I certainly knew about the possibility of escaping to South Korea, and from what I knew about the others, they did too. But we all had good lives in North Korea; why should we go to South Korea?



In discussing seeking better working conditions, about six or seven employees left. That group took taxis to the North Korean embassy to make it clear they were not participating in an escape.



In the other group, several knew about the plan to go to South Korea, but some had been told we would be moving to Malaysia to work. The ones who didn't know about the plans to escape to South Korea might not have agreed, they may have informed on the entire group or taken action like the other group that went to the North Korean embassy, so they weren't told everything.



We couldn't trust each other. It wasn't sure who might reveal what was going on.



Once we were in Malaysia, everyone finally realized what was going on, but they could not return to North Korea. In Malaysia, we had no time to go back to North Korea, because our tickets had already been booked to go to South Korea.



Casey: It is a simple question that probably also requires a long answer, but for those who are not familiar with North Korea and consequences for escaping: What seemed to be their main reasons for not wanting to return to North Korea?



A: When we arrived in Malaysia, the North Korean embassy in China already knew about our escape. The other group that had run away in China informed the North Korean embassy about it. However, our tickets for Korea were already booked and planned, so the North Korean government could not respond quickly. We were already on board, so it was too late for the North Korean government to stop us.



The South Korean media had already reported that we had arrived. It was so difficult to go back to North Korea even if we had wanted to go. Our families were already destroyed because of the news reports.



Casey: What do you think about the South Korean lawyers who insisted that most of the members of the group were forced or coerced into coming to South Korea?



A: I never met that group of lawyers. I don't know how they can claim that. I have heard about them in the news. They were part of the mobs visiting my home. They even tried to get information from the security guard in my building about me. The guard had no idea what they were talking about, so I had to move, change my information. I have cut contact with everyone from North Korea; I don't associate with other North Korean refugees. I heard that other North Korean refugees were trying to get information about me in order to sell it to agents in North Korea.



Those lawyers are saying we don't want to be here. We have been here long enough that there are no longer restrictions on us using our passports to travel abroad. So if we want to return, we could do so at any time. Now that I am free to leave, they may realize that there is no reason for them to speak for me.



Casey: Are the members of your group that escaped together in contact today?



A: No. We stay apart from each other; there was too much attention on us. Reporters were showing up at our homes, chasing us, pressuring and demanding that we submit to interviews. I have changed my name and phone number several times trying to evade them. Sometimes I feel like I have a lack of information about adjusting to life here because I have disconnected from the North Korean refugee community, but it is safer for me.



Casey: How are you doing today and what do you hope for in the future?



A: I miss my family so much. They have been destroyed because of this. Their status has been downgraded.



I am struggling here in many ways; it has been a real challenge. I am still finding my way here, finding my goals and what I can do with my future. I have tried many things here: going to school, working at different jobs. English has been a real challenge for me; I have lost jobs, struggled in school, taken a leave of absence because my English level is so low. I am disappointed because I failed all of my English classes; that is the reason I joined TNKR even though I have disconnected from everything else connected with North Korea and North Korean refugees. I hope to settle down here and get a stable job.





Casey Lartigue Jr., co-founder of the Teach North Korean Refugees Global Education Center, was the 2017 winner of the "Social Contribution" Prize from the Hansarang Rural Cultural Foundation and was recently named the 2019 winner of a "Challenge Maker" Award from Challenge Korea. TNKR co-founder Eunkoo Lee translated the refugee's remarks from Korean to English.


Prayers during the month of Ramadan should take place at home, Saudi Arabias grand mufti said, as the number of coronavirus cases in the kingdom topped 7,000 on Friday.

The highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia, Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, said the evening and Eid al-Fitr prayers will not be held in mosques or large groups this year.

The kingdom reported 762 new cases of the coronavirus Friday, bringing the total number to 7,142 with 87 deaths.

Congregational and weekly Friday prayers inside mosques were already banned under restrictions announced by the Saudi government in March. Weeks later, Saudi Arabia announced it would no longer issue visas for Muslims wanting to visit the holy sites of Mecca and Medina.

The government has also suspended the year-round pilgrimage, known as umrah, and authorities are currently advising Muslims to delay making travel plans for the hajj this July and August.

With the holy month of Ramadan starting next week, governments in the region have rolled out new measures to stem the spread of the virus as Muslims prepare for their monthlong fast.

Jordan and Egypt are among the countries that will not allow public worship in mosques. In Jerusalems Old City, the Al-Aqsa mosque, where the Prophet Muhammad is believed to have ascended to heaven, will remain closed.

Dubai, meanwhile, has relaxed restrictions to allow Muslims to prepare for iftar, the meal that marks the end of the day's fast. Food stores have reopened so residents of the emirate have time to shop for meals ahead of Ramadan.

In Turkey, the government says it will repatriate 25,000 of its citizens stranded in nearly 60 countries so they can spend the month with their families.
The Laredo Police Department descended upon Vanessita Court late Thursday due to a report of a deceased person. Unfortunately, officers would go on to find four bodies that night.

LPD announced on Friday afternoon that Samuel Enrique Lopez has been arrested in connection to the death of four family members, including a 2-year-old child.

Lopez, 20, has been charged with capital murder of multiple persons and capital murder of a person under the age of 10 years of age. Capital murder, a capital felony offense according to Texas law, carries options for punishment including life in prison or the death penalty by lethal injection.

Lopez was transported to Webb County Jail and is being held with no bond.

Officers arrived on location at the 4500 block of Vanessita Court late Thursday after a call of an unknown nature at a nearby residence. After allegedly finding visible signs of a potential crime scene at a residence, police said they discovered that they could not locate members of that household.

LPD said it searched the area and found three bodies in an adjacent lot. Meanwhile, a 2-year-old child was later found in a separate location.

LPD said that Lopez was identified as a person of interest and was brought in for questioning. Police said that the case later led them to the 4700 block of Arias Court where the childs body was discovered.

The four alleged murders are more than the city had previously in 2020. Laredo's third murder allegedly occurred one day prior as a Laredo Customs and Border Protection officer was arrested in connection with the shooting death of a Laredo firefighter on late Wednesday night.
The 2 million home test kits bought by the United Kingdom from two Chinese firms, namely, AllTest Biotech and Wondfo Biotech, for a whopping $20 million have now been found to be faulty and insufficiently accurate by a laboratory at the Oxford University.

The deal was risky since the reliability of such a technology was not established. The Government had to pay the money upfront in 24 hours and collect the crates of test kits from a Chinese facility. This was supposed to be a game-changer for the UK which has come under fierce criticism for its slow response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

However, the British officials were somehow convinced that it would work. Their enthusiasm motivated them to even promise that such kits would be available in pharmacies within 2 weeks. Now, that the Chinese test kits have been found as unreliable, they have been left unused in the storage.

A government official informed that they are is now trying to recover some of the money from the firms. Health officials have defended the move by labelling the mishap as a valuable experience. Professor of Virology at the University of Surrey said, You cant lift the lockdown as long as you are not testing massively. As long as the government is not testing in the community, we are going to be on lockdown.

Britain has been conducting less than 20,000 tests per day but has promised to up the ante to 1,00,00 by the end of April. The UK has complained about the lack of major private testing companies that can help health officials perform thousands of diagnostic tests in a day, unlike Germany and the US.

The Chinese firms have blamed the British officials for not being able to comprehend the utility of the test kits. According to researchers, the test kits ordered by the UK were more complicated and inaccurate than the lab tests. The World health organisation (WHO) had warned on April 8 about the limited utility of such rapid antibody testing kits for patients.
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Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, April 18 2020

Millions of workers across the country are planning to break social-distancing rules and stage nationwide rallies on April 30 to press lawmakers to suspend deliberation of the controversial omnibus bill on job creation.

The workers, facing mass layoffs because of the COVID-19 outbreak, say they will risk contracting the deadly virus to stop the House of Representatives passing the bill, which they believe is designed to trample labor rights.

A number of labor unions, including the Inter-Factory Laborers Federation (FBLP) and an alliance of the countrys three biggest groups the Workers Union Confederation (KSPI), the All-Indonesia Workers Union Confederation (KSPSI) and the Indonesia Welfare Labor Confederation (KSBSI), said they would rally in front the House complex in Jakarta and the offices of legislative councils across the country.

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Norton Commando 961 | Rs 20.99 lakh (ex-showroom) | The Commando 961 is one of the Cafe Racers that Norton brings to India. The bike gets a 961cc parallel twin churning out 80 Bhp at 6,500 rpm and 90 Nm of peak torque at 5,200 rpm mated to a 5-speed transmission. ABS comes standard with a double disc set up on the front and a single disc in the back. Suspension comes from Ohlins with fully adjustable upside down fork up front and a rear monoshock which also allows you to adjust ride height. (Image source: Motoroyale)

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Amidst the gloom triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic the biggest news from the automotive sphere this week came with the buy-out of Norton by TVS Motor Company. Indian companies now own five European bike brands including three that originated in the UK.

In this edition of the auto weekly wrap we take a look at where Norton is and what lies ahead for TVS. But first, here is a complete look at all the other top headlines.

Car, SUV sales nosedive 51% in March

The lockdown announced by the government to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, resulted in a 51 percent decline in passenger vehicle sales (car, SUV and van) for March at 143,014 units as compared to the same month last year.

The passenger vehicle (PV) segment closed the year in red for the first time in six years. Last time the industry recorded a drop was in 2014. The segment had been under pressure for the whole of FY20 because of a series of steep hikes in insurance costs, poor buyer sentiments and hike in prices.

Bajaj Auto proposes pay cuts

Bajaj Auto, Indias third biggest two-wheeler manufacturer has proposed a 10 percent pay cut for factory employees if production does not resume on April 21.

The proposed cut will be for little over half of April and until the lockdown is lifted on May 3. As per guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on April 15, the government is allowing industries to start operation in rural areas and SEZ.

Automakers open online booking despite uncertainty on delivery date

There was no certainty that the Centres three-week lockdown period would be lifted on April 14, given the rising cases of COVID-19 across the country.

Yet, a handful of manufacturers encouraged and promoted online purchase of vehicles though it became impossible to commit a date of delivery for the bookings because of uncertainty surrounding the lockdown.

BMW pips Mercedes to the top spot in Q1

BMW has regained the top spot in India's luxury car market after a gap of seven years beating Mercedes-Benz. The sales numbers shared by the two companies pertain to the January-March quarter (Q1) of 2020.

BMW sold 2,482 units in Q1 2020 while Mercedes-Benz sold 2,386 units. BMW India sales comprised two brands - BMW (2,365 units) and Mini (117 units).

SIAM seeks GST cut, scrappage policy

Auto industry body SIAM said it has sought temporary GST rate cut on vehicles and introduction of incentive based scrappage policy from the government at the earliest in order to revive the sector amid the coronavirus pandemic.

While appreciating RBI's announcement to support NBFCs and MSME sector by infusing liquidity in the system, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) sought several 'key interventions' for the auto sector.

TVS buys Norton for Rs 153 crore

TVS Motor Company, India's fourth largest two-wheeler manufacturer, on April 17 announced the acquisition of Britain's iconic sporting motorcycle brand Norton in an all-cash deal.

The Chennai-based company will pay GBP 16 million (Rs 153.2 crore) by acquiring certain assets of Norton Motorcycles (United Kingdom) (in administration) through one of its overseas subsidiaries.

This is the first-ever overseas acquisition by TVS Motor Company in its 42-year old history which has to its credit the launch of moped, scooters and motorcycles that are largely powered by engines less than 200cc.

Nortons engine range starts at 1000cc, putting it in same league as MV Agusta, FB Mondial, Harley-Davidson, Aprilia, Kawasaki and several others. Norton brings with itself a similar, century old brand heritage that three other Indias companies are also keen to explore.

Bajaj Auto joined hands with Britains 135 year old motorcycle brand Triumph in January this year to launch a series of mid-capacity motorcycles for India and the world markets.

Mahindra Group acquired another British bike brand BSA in 2016 while simultaneously securing a brand license agreement to produce motorcycles under the Jawa and Yezdi brands. The Mumbai-based firm also owns the 122 year old Peugeot Motocycles of France.

But perhaps the most well known legacy brand success story lies with Royal Enfield. Also a British brand Royal Enfield was revived by Eicher Motors CEO Sidhartha Lal after the struggling brand was sitting on the brink of bankruptcy.

Lals sustained efforts with Royal Enfield are similar to John Bloor when he founded Triumph Motorcycles after the original Triumph Engineering went into receivership in 1983. Both brands are run profitably and are set to challenge each other soon.

As with Norton a petition was made by UK citizens some months ago to Bloor to take over Nortons management and keep it British since both brands have a similar storied past and both are based in the Leicestershire county. Triumph politely declined the offer stating that there is enough on its plate given its partnership with Bajaj.

Soon after Norton Motorcycles slipped into administration three weeks after being in court for non-payment of GBP 300,000 in taxes owned to HM Revenue and Customs. Shortly afterwards the company ceased manufacturing in February but not before dishonouring confirmed orders from customers based in Australia and New Zealand.

Norton was bought by businessman Stuart Garner in 2008 the same year when Lehman Brothers collapsed. Garner, who became Nortons fifth owner, tried to revive the ailing business after production of the bikes stopped under its previous owners managed from the US.

Garner pushed Nortons business forward. He moved manufacturing to a factory that was more than five times bigger at Donington Hall estate after building and delivering more than 2000 motorcycles to customers around the world. Norton even returned to the famed TT race held at Isle of Man under Garner.

However economic instability, worries of Brexit, stricter emission norms, fund crunches, rising competition and a lastly a pension fraud forced Norton into insolvency.

Will Norton's fate change now?

Lal had revived Royal Enfield tapping the brands prowess in the Indian market first before taking it global. BMW took help from TVS to build motorcycles that cost less than half their previous entry range. Europes largest bike maker KTM partnered Bajaj Auto to start doing something similar several years earlier.

Can Sudarshan Venu, joint managing director of TVS Motor Company, who has led the Norton buy-out, do a Bloor? Can TVS afford to make big investments in reviving Nortons business including supporting the development of premium models? Will TVS have to look at Indias cost model like others to bring business stability?
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 21:27:14|Editor: huaxia

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A tailor makes surgical masks at a workshop in Damascus, capital of Syria, on April 16, 2020. As the COVID-19 crisis and the curfew that ensued have affected most businesses, several Syrian tailors have opted to cope with the situation by turning from making regular clothes to making masks and protective overalls for medical staffers. (Photo by Ammar Safarjalani/Xinhua)

DAMASCUS, April 18 (Xinhua) -- As the COVID-19 crisis and the curfew that ensued have affected most businesses, several Syrian tailors have opted to cope with the situation by turning from making regular clothes to making masks and protective overalls for medical staffers.

The tailors came together through workshops supervised by a local social initiative called Sa'ed, or Help, intending to help the medical staff in Damascus through making affordable and competitive medical masks and overalls amid the high prices of the imported equipment.

A total of four workshops cooperate with Sa'ed to make the masks and overalls and every workshop benefits around 16 families of the tailors who work with them.

Despite that the tailors don't make as much money as they used to before the coronavirus crisis, for them, it's better than doing nothing at all.

Tareq al-Tawil, a tailor, told Xinhua that he was encouraged to work on making medical overalls after his original work was suspended during the virus crisis.

"When the coronavirus crisis began, our jobs stopped and later we got the opportunity to work from home, so we started making overalls to help ourselves first because lots of businesses have stopped and I have obligations and family to feed," he said.

For her side, Bushra Iriqsousi, a woman running a tailoring workshop, told Xinhua that her workshop used to make cotton outfits before working in making masks and overalls.

She said that a group of tailors was quickly trained to make masks to meet the needs of people.

The tailors in Iriqsousi's workshop were working feverishly to produce more masks, which are being sold to hospitals and medical teams at cheap prices.

Issam Habbal, head of the Sa'ed group, said that the initiative has succeeded in terms of being non-profitable as it targets the buyers directly without mediators.

He said the tailors have succeeded as they have decided to sell their products to hospitals, medical associations, and individuals in a bid to provide these types of equipment at relatively cheaper prices.

He said the new initiative has offered job opportunities for many tailors.

Such initiatives are helping during these times as the Syrian health ministry said on Friday that 38 COVID-19 cases had so far been reported in the country. It also said that five have recovered and two died.
Are you bored sitting at home due to the Coronavirus outbreak and browsing things you could buy on e-commerce platforms?

If yes, then considering you could spare about Rs 7,000 (for age 30 years or below) to Rs 12,000 (other age groups of 31 years and above), you would be able to buy a Rs 50 lakh life term insurance product within minutes.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, life insurance is necessary since risk of infection and mortality is high and a vaccine is yet to be discovered. While on a regular day, medical tests and several documents would need to be submitted to buy a policy, insurers are now waiving off medical tests and issuing policies after short video interactions.

Purchasing a life insurance cover which is a must-have product for any individual with dependents at home, may also turn out to be cheaper since you would be buying directly from the company. This cuts down commission costs.

Yes, you could buy a policy online but terms and conditions of a product are not always clear over the internet and savings-led insurance does require a few clarifications before a purchase decision is taken.

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

On a regular day, buying an insurance policy would mean several trips by an agent to your home/office, discussing premiums and often the agent himself filling up the form for you after taking the mandatory signatures. There is also a likelihood of you being forced to buy a policy in haste or being asked to not disclose medical history.

The most common advise given here being, 'just say you are a non-smoker'. Individuals who smoke are required to pay a higher premium or price for a life insurance policy since these persons are at higher risk than others. To sell a product quickly, agents often ask proposed policyholders to lie in their forms. Worse still, they answer all the questions on the policyholder's behalf.

Now all those worries can be put away as insurance companies are directly selling products through their sales staff using video and telephonic interactions. Forms are filled live and your physical health and fitness is ascertained through a few questions asked by the sales persons.

Remote working also means you do not need to wait for a weekend to call an agent home to discuss which policy is appropriate nor do you need to waste time during office hours filling policy forms with the intermediary.

Given the uncertainty in the business environment and lack of clarity about when the lockdown will end, insurance companies are also keen to sell products with minimum friction. So it is unlikely that misselling would be done due to fears of potential customers dropping out.

Compared to the pre COVID-19 era, the insurer will ask lesser questions and the only motive would be to suggest a policy that is best suited to your needs. So if you had a video-call at 9 am for buying a cover, it is likely that the policy cover will begin as soon as 12 noon on the same day.

Over and above the need to buy term insurance, an added advantage is that you can also avail tax deductions under Section 80C of the Income Tax (I-T) Act if premium is paid before June 30,2020. This can be used for filing personal I-T returns for FY20.

From April 20, you would probably have a wide choice of non-essential items that can be brought through online platforms. This year, do yourself and your family a favour. Sacrifice that one device off your wishlist and buy a life insurance cover instead.

Follow our full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here
By William M. Arkin

April 17, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser yesterday ordered a one-month extension of the state of emergency, as cases in the region grow at a rapid pace. Federal officials in the nation's capital expect a New York-like epidemic in the District, Maryland and Virginia, one that could potentially cripple the government.

"No one wants to talk evacuation, especially when there's nowhere to go," says a senior military officer working on continuity of government planning; he requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the record.

But a little-known military task force charged with evacuating Washington has already been activated, a task force charged with the most sensitive government mission of "securing" Washington in the face of attackers, foreign and domesticand if necessary, moving White House and other key government offices to alternate locations.

Activated on March 16, Joint Task Force National Capital Region (JTF-NCR) is chartered to "defend" Washington on land, in the air, and even on its waterfronts. The special task force, the only one of its kind in the country, demonstrates how there are two sides of government preparedness. The public face, and even the day-to-day work of most men and women assigned to JTF-NCR, is the same as it is everywhere else in the countrymedical support, delivering supplies, manning health-check stations.

But behind the scenes, JTF-NCR is responsible for what the military calls "homeland defense": what to do in the face of an armed attack on the United States, everything from guarding Washington's skies to preparing for the civil unrest that could occur if a nuclear weapon were detonated in the capital. But most immediate, JTF-NCR is charged with facilitating continuity of government, particularly moving civil and military leaders to secret locations were the order given to evacuate the city.

Ever since National Guards started to activate countrywide, Pentagon officials have insisted that men and women in uniform are not conducting secret missions and that they will not administer or enforce "stay at home" quarantines. The Pentagon has also rejected reports, including articles in Newsweek, about martial law or other extreme contingency plans, arguing that the Guard remains under strict control of state governors, while federal troops support civil agencies like FEMA.

And yet the activation of Joint Task Force National Capital Region, including almost 10,000 uniformed personnel to carry out its special orders, contradicts those assurances. JTF-NCR is not only real and operating, reporting directly to the Secretary of Defense for some of its mission, but some of its units are already on 24/7 alert, specially sequestered on military bases and kept out of coronavirus support duties to ensure their readiness.

On March 12, families and friends gathered at a Decatur, Illinois, National Guard armory to say their goodbyes to guardsmen and women who were shipping out.

"This is my first time getting to do something big for my country," Alycia Thomas, 29, an Army Specialist from Peoria, told the local Herald & Review.

All anyone would say was that two Blackhawk helicopter companies of the 106th Aviation Battalion were headed to Fort Belvoir, in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. There, "something big" was a special assignment in support of Joint Task ForceNational Capital Region.

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Unlike other Guardsmen activated under "Title 32" ordersunder gubernatorial control but paid for by the federal governmentthe soldiers of the 106th were activated under "Title 10" orders, strict federal duty as if they were going to be shipped off to Afghanistan or Iraq. Except that in this case, the battlefield is Washington, DC.

On that battlefield, the Illinois 106th Aviation Battalion's helicopters would be used to evacuate everyone from Army leaders to the White House.

"We are that quick reaction force that allows us to help mobilize forces within the Washington DC area, evacuate people, or whatever that might be," says Cpt. Adam Kowalski of the Illinois Guard. "We're kind of like that big taxicab that makes sure everybody gets where they need to be and keeps the government going."

He and his fellow officers have been studying the Joint Emergency Evacuation Plan (JEEP), the national plan to move Defense Department officials to alternative locations outside the Washington area. JEEP is not the only plan. It is supplemented by Atlas as well, which designates the procedures for the movement of civilian leaders, called "Enduring Constitutional Government," ensuring the survival of the legislature and the judiciary. And above JEEP and Atlas are the highly classified Octagon, Freejack and Zodiac plans that deal with other emergencies, and the movement of the White House and other presidential successors.

The March 16 order that activated JTF-NCR placed all of this planning under the command of Maj. Gen. Omar J. Jones IV. In "peacetime," the Army Major General commands the Military District of Washington, an Army unit mostly known mostly for its ceremonial and memorial expertise, providing the soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery, the Drum and Fife formations for parades, the grave and precise standard bearers for state funerals. Following post 9/11 organizational changes, Maj. Gen. Jones was also "dual-hatted" as the commander of Joint Forces HeadquartersNational Capital Region, an organization created after it became clear that no single command was in charge of immediate response in Washington. There was not even a single military interface with the White House and what's called "the interagency", one organization that would be in charge as continuity of government or other disaster plans were implemented.

In peacetime, the Joint Forces Headquarters is merely a coordinator, with each of the military services retaining control of their forces. But once the Joint Task Force is activated, as it has been now, operations and units shift to what the military calls "operational command." Maj. Gen. Jones is now in charge. He isn't some martial law commander who takes precedence over any civil authorities, nor is he out in public telling anyone outside his secretive task force what to do. But he is the military man who would be in charge in Washington if civil government broke down.

Gen. Jones' battlefield is defined in U.S. law as the "National Capital Region," which includes the District of Columbia; Prince Georges and Montgomery Counties in Maryland; Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties in Virginia; and all cities and towns included within the outer boundaries of that area. The Pentagon plan for the Joint Task Force's operation says that the NCR houses all three branches of the Federal Government, over 270 federal departments and agencies, an inventory of over 880 government-owned and leased facilities and nearly 300,000 federal workers.

It is perhaps one of the most sensitive jobs in the entire military, dealing with three civil governments, all of whom, including the District of Columbia, have their own National Guards and their own responsibilities. The NCR also houses the White House and its two quasi-military controllers, the White House Military Office and the Secret Service. And it houses the FBI and various other federal police forces such as the U.S. Capital Police, each of which has its own jurisdictions and emergency responsibilities.

Most publicly, JTF-NCR now controls the skies over Washington, DC. The operation is called "Noble Eagle" and is the longest-running operation since 9/11, keeping fighter jets within range of Washington airspace on alert, ready to take off with minutes. Fighter pilots on alert for immediate defense are kept in near-isolation, Bloomberg news reported yesterday.

To practice this failsafe mission, less than a week after the Illinois 106th Battalion was mustered, exercise Falcon Virgo commenced in the skies over El Paso, Texas. Over the next five days, small Cessna planes of the Civil Air Patrola volunteer auxiliary of the Air Forceflew evasive missions to test the intercept skills of air defenders assigned to another special unit belonging to the Mississippi National Guard. Single-engine CAP airplanes flew mock terrorist strikes to penetrate restricted airspace, an Army range over Ft. Bliss that was gridded out to simulate the airspace of Washington, DC.

During the exercise, old-fashioned radar operators detected the planes and relayed messages to the Mississippi troops, who were armed with surface-to-air missiles capable of shooting them down. All anyone would say was that Falcon Virgo was preparing the Mississippi Guard "for the upcoming deployment in the nation's capital."

A second Falcon Virgo exercise had taken place less a week earlier, this one in Washington DC. On March 11, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) announced that Coast Guard helicopters and Civil Air Patrol planes would be operating in the skies over the nation's capital. The command said NORAD "routinely conducts exercises with a variety of scenarios, including airspace restriction violations, hijackings and responses to unknown aircraft."

Another Falcon Virgo exercise was over Washington DC on April 7.

The air defense of the nation's capital is directed from a 22,000-square-foot, two-story blockhouse called the Joint Air Defense Operations Center, opened at Bolling air force base in southwest Washington. JADOC was built to oversee the 24/7 operation that has secured the skies over the capital since 9/11. The interceptor aircraft and ground surface-to-air missile units like those assigned to the Mississippi National Guard are vigilant and ready to stop any intruder.

Now JADOC has an added function. It operates as the secure headquarters and command center for JTF-NCR.

According to U.S. NORTHCOM, the overall military command responsible for homeland defense and the higher headquarters that Gen. Jones reports to, "JTF-NCR brings appropriate levels of military support to bear in the National Capital Region when authorized by proper authorities or as immediately required to save lives, prevent human suffering or mitigate great property damage." Three military sources familiar with NORTHCOM planning say the Joint Task Force is currently operating under multiple contingency plans, from specific pandemic response operations through White House-directed continuity plans. The highest level plan, the one written for "homeland defense," exists in case of an armed attack upon the United States or in other extraordinary circumstances.

"As immediately required to save lives, prevent human suffering or mitigate great property damage," a senior retired NORTHCOM commander says, reciting JTF-NCR's orders. "That's the language that endows the JTF commander to have to act, even if he is not formally directed to. Anyone who says otherwise is playing with the truth."

In other words, JTF-NCR supports coronavirus response efforts in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia; guards Washington from a terrorist attack; and prepares for the worst, even taking unilateral action to carry out its orders.

To conduct his multiple missions, Maj. Gen. Jones has a force of over 10,000. They are doing everything from watching Washington's airspace, to standing by for emergency bomb disposal, to staying ready to carry out law enforcement duties should there be a greater catastrophe and need for military intervention.

His largest unit, the 3rd Infantry Regiment, also known as "The Old Guard," normally supplies the spit-shined guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers and conduct the Army's most public events. But behind the scenes, the 3rd Regiment reverts to its true infantry origins. With activation of the Joint Task Force, the Regiment has been given responsibility to "conduct homeland defense and civil support operations to defend and secure the National Capital Region."

Beyond the 3rd Regiment, Maj. Gen. Jones can call on a dozen or more specialized units, all allocated for DC area duties under JTF-NCR:

The Marine Corps Chemical Biological Incident Response Force (CBIRF), a specialized unit able to provide "swift and robust support" to the White House, U.S. Capitol Police and the Secret Service in the event of a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, or High-yield Explosive incident. Two subordinate initial response forces (IRFs) are assigned approximately 150 personnel each. One IRF is maintained on a constant 24-hour alert, with the second IRF prepared to deploy within 48 hours.

The Army Special Reaction Team (SRT), a sort of super SWAT team comprised of elements from 289th Military Police Company and 947th Military Police Detachment, infantry of the 3rd Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard); officers from the base-level Directorate of Emergency Services and DC, Maryland and Virginia State Police Departments.

The Army Aviation Brigade, including the 12th Aviation Battalion, the Army Priority Air Transportation detachment; and the now deployed Illinois National Guard 106th Aviation Battalion. Other helicopter evacuation units include HMX-1, a large Marine Corps unit that provides the "Marine One" helicopter for the President, and the 1st Helicopter Squadron, an Air Force unit at Andrews air force base also chartered with Washington-specific duties.

A specialized "technical rescue" unit, the 911th Engineer Company, able to conduct urban search and rescue; even burrowing into the rubble of the White House, were it attacked.

To augment the immediate response capabilities of the Special Reaction Team, JTF-NCR has more than 1,000 military police and civilian law enforcement officers under his command, including the largely civilian Pentagon Force Protection Agency. In "peacetime" the role of these various military police organizations is to guard the Pentagon and the various forts and bases dotted around the capital region as well as to provide the protective "details" of bodyguards for Defense officials. Under "wartime" orders, though, they too are tasked to actively help with the implementation of continuity of government. That includes most importantly military police who would accompany over 100 helicopters, vans and limousines that are earmarked to evacuate the designated survivors, each of those individuals now on alert to proceed to their marshalling point of embarkation should the "Continuity of Government Condition" (or COGCON) change.

On March 24, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued "Modification 1" to the general coronavirus response order exempting any military personnel engaged in "presidential support duties" and other secret contingencies of JTF-NCR from complying with no-travel rules.

Two days later, all "Immediate Response Force" and "Contingency Response Force" units of the military were moved to a higher level of alert to preserve their special military readiness. That included quick reaction infantry units from the 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, and the 101st Airborne Division from Ft. Campbell, Kentuckyunits that would normally be rushed to the Middle East in some crisis. But tucked away in that same March 26 order were others assigned to JTF-NCRincluding secret special operations units, the so-called "National Mission Force"units that were directed to sequester in operational facilities and split up into multiple shifts, creating a primary and back-up group that would be available for immediate deployment. In theory the separate groups in theory could avoid infecting the other. JTF-NCR has now been operating for one month under these special orders.

Given how many denials the government has issued regarding these plans, Newsweek made repeated attempts to get official and on-the-record comment for this story. FEMA passed the requests for information about continuity of government conditions to the White House press office, which declined to provide additional information or answer questions, saying that Newsweek was getting into "matters of national security."

The National Guard Bureau referred questions to the Military District of Washington, which then referred the request for comment to the Joint Task Force itself, which referred Newsweek queries directly to NORTHCOM. Queries to the Illinois and Mississippi National Guards went unanswered, though officers in both spoke off-the-record. Newsweek also made repeated attempts to contact Maj. Gen. Jones, including sending personal emails, to comment for this story.

Maj. Gen. Jones gave an interview to "Fort Meade Declassified" on March 17, an official and breezy official podcast about goings on in the Washington area military. There he talked about growing up in Maryland and his job as senior officer responsible for the Washington battlefield. When asked what he was doing in his leisure time, he said that he had just finished reading a book about the riots in Washington, DC in 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The name of that book? "A Nation on Fire."

William M. Arkin is an award-winning journalist and author of a dozen books on national security issues. He is writing Ending Perpetual War for Simon & Schuster. His novel History in One Act is coming out in 2021 from Featherproof books. He can be reached at w.arkin@newsweek.com. His Twitter handle is @warkin - " Source "

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==See Also==

Army Corps to build temporary hospital in D.C. convention center
The Union Health Ministry on Saturday asserted that of the total 14,378 coronavirus COVID-19 cases across the country, 4,291 (around 29.8 per cent) cases have been found to have arisen from a single source in Nizamuddin Markaz cluster in the national capital. Addressing a press conference, Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said that in the last 24 hours, 991 new cases and 43 deaths have occurred taking the total number of cases to 14,378 and deaths to 480. The total number of people cured stand at 1,992 (around 13.85 per cent)

Speaking on the declining number of cases across the states, Agarwal said that along with Mahe, Kodagu in Karnataka has not registered any new case in the last 28 days. Besides this, 45 other districts in 23 states have not registered any new case in the last 14 days. "Our field-level action is yielding positive results," he added.

Agarwal said that out of the 168 total cases in Kerala's Kasargod, 113 have already been cured, most importantly, due to proper clinical management, not even one infected person died. Remaining active cases too are being monitored well, he added.

On the mortality rate, he said that mortality has been around 3.3 per cent so far. He also charted out an age group distribution of deaths as--age group of 0-45 has a mortality rate of 14.4 per cent, age group of 45 - 60 has a mortality rate of 10.3 per cent, age group of 60 - 75 has a mortality rate of 33.1 per cent, and above 75 age mortality rate of 42.2 per cent. Agarwal also added that 75 per cent deaths have been found in those aged 60 years or above. In 83 per cent cases, co-morbidities have been found.

RT-PCR test is the gold standard frontline test for COVID-19, antibody test cannot replace this test. The utility of rapid antibody test is primarily for assessing the prevalence of infection in a particular area. He also said that rapid antibody test is to be used in hot spots and it can also be used for surveillance and for epidemiological purposes in such areas where cases have not emerged so far.

He also said that Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on April 17 held a video conference with Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Health Minister of Delhi, Medical Superintendents of various hospitals in Delhi and health officials of Union and Delhi Governments. The Health Minister has urged hospitals to attend to critical non-COVID-19 patients with equal compassion and to keep sufficient bloodstock for transfusion by promoting voluntary blood donors, he added.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) spokesperson said that the MHA control room is providing 24x7 help and new toll-free numbers 1930 and 1944 also are resolving citizens' grievances. "Besides, a single emergency response no. 112 is operational in 29 states and UTs; police, fire and ambulance services can be availed using this number. Single emergency no. 112 uses location-based tracking and provides highly prompt services; this has been used extensively by citizens during COVID-19," she added.

The MHA also said that the foreign citizens who are stranded in India and whose visas have expired or would be expiring would be extended till midnight of May 3, upon receipt of online application by the foreigner. Exit to foreign nationals stranded in India, if so requested by them during this period, will also be granted to them up to 14 days beyond May 3 till May 17, without levy of overstay penalty.

Both Centre and all states have started control rooms and helpline numbers for addressing citizen's problems. All states have started State and District Emergency Centres. The Labour Ministry has started 20 control rooms for addressing grievances of labourers.
Families raising children with Special Needs or disabilities have been left out in the Governments food distribution programme for COVID-19, Mrs Ellen Affam-Dadzie, Executive Director of With God Cerebral Palsy Centre has said.

She said many families raising children with disabilities are unable to go out and collect the cooked food because of their peculiar situation, many are also not members of any organized church, making them totally left out in the management of Ghanas Covid-19 cases.

Mrs Affam-Dadzie said this during an online discussion on the Special Mothers Project Whatsapp platform.

The Special Mothers Project is an advocacy and awareness creation programme on Cerebral palsy issues and other issues affecting families raising children with Special Needs or disabilities.

Many of the Special Needs parents said they have exhausted all the avenues to enable them benefit from the Governments food distribution programme.

Madam Millicent Oboubi, a mother of a child with cerebral palsy, said she called a number given out by the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations to no avail.

I called the contact person for Okaikwei North, the person on the other side of the call picks the call but does not talk, I did this several times and gave up.

Another mother said, she was told to look for the nearest Methodist Church in her community to get the number of the presiding bishop, I felt they were just trying to put me off so I just ended the call, who do I leave my child with to go in search of food, "

Another Special Needs mother said after several calls to a church in her community, they brought her cooked food which wasnt so much needed at the time they brought it.

She added:" Besides, my son with cerebral palsy cannot eat the cooked food they brought, they brought kenkey with pepper and sardine, I would have preferred being given corn dough to prepare porridge for him."

Mrs Hannah Awadzi, Executive Director of The Special Mothers Project, said there was the need for a coordinated effort to reach out to all Special Needs Families who may be in critical need at this time.

She urged government to bring the leadership of the various groups on children with Special Needs together and look at the best way forward to ensure families raising children with Special Needs are served in these unusual times.
A comet hurtling towards the Earth has captured the attention of Astronomers in the recent weeks. Comet Atlas, as it is known, had earlier been anticipated to become bright enough to be visible by the naked eye as it neared Earth.

New images have now been able to capture this out-worldly phenomenon but it is not developing as per the common expectations.

Though the initial predictions suggested to spot the Comet Atlas as a brightly visible comet passing the Earth, Comet Atlas started breaking up into pieces and getting less bright as it approached our planet.

So what was to be the brightest comet of 2020 luminous enough to be seen by the naked eye as it approached its closest point to Earth in May, was in fact disintegrated on its path. A series of images have been able to capture this breakdown by astronomers from across the globe. You can check out some of them in the tweets below.

Comet ATLAS Breaks Up ~ Image Credit & Copyright: Milen Minev (Bulgarian Inst. of Astronomy and NAO Rozhen), Velimir Popov, Emil Ivanov (Irida Observatory) pic.twitter.com/nammV3tz6p  David Crook (@StellarInsights) April 16, 2020





Disintegrated comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) imaged on April 10 through 1.4m f/5.1 telescope at Astronomical Station Vidojevica, AOB, Serbia.

5 fragments/condesations are clearly visible.

Exposition 60x60s, R filter. #CometAtlasY4 pic.twitter.com/B5ysRVKPPQ  Igor Smolic (@pseudotrabant) April 12, 2020

Good news! Comet Atlas C/2019 Y4 is coming back. Image from last night, april 14 UT 21.15. Michael Jager pic.twitter.com/aBWxq08XFb  Con Stoitsis (@vivstoitsis) April 14, 2020

The images clearly show the comet getting dimmer and dimmer as it broke into little pieces. Multiple parts of this fragmented object can be seen in an image clicked by astronomers in Bulgaria.

Interestingly, Comet Atlas is still moving on its trajectory towards Earth. With an orbit similar to that of the Great Comet of 1844, it is believed that the two might be fragments of the same comet that disintegrated at some point in time.

These new images of the Comet Atlas are a great way for astronomers to study the object. Not much is known about the Comet Atlas till now, having been discovered on December 28, 2019 by the ATLAS survey. The comet began to disintegrate around April 2, 2020 and continues to fade to date.
NEW YORKThis old fella is getting out of the can.

Vincent Asaro, 85, who dodged a guilty conviction in the notorious 1978 Lufthansa heist depicted in Martin Scorseses film Goodfellas, was released from prison by a Brooklyn judge Friday over concerns about coronavirus and the longtime mobsters rapidly declining health.

The Bonnano family capo pleaded guilty in 2017 to ordering associates  including the late Gambino boss John Gottis grandson  to burn the car of a man who cut him off in Queens.

Asaros age, in combination with his deteriorating health, constitutes an extraordinary and compelling reason for his release, wrote Brooklyn Federal Judge Allyne Ross in her ruling. In addition, the combination of the COVID-19 health crisis and Asaros age and pre-existing conditions constitutes an extraordinary and compelling reason for his release.

Asaro, who is currently being held at a federal medical facility in Missouri, suffered a stroke in 2019 and now struggles to speak in complex sentences, feed himself and use the bathroom on his own. He even forgot the names of his children, defence lawyers said.

Ross determined that Asaro no longer posed a real threat to society if released.

While I do not know whether Asaro currently has the ability or the power to command others in his organization to carry out criminal acts at his will, I do not believe that, given Asaros current state, his release would put the public at a significantly increased risk of danger, Ross wrote. And, considering his impairments ... he is not likely to be orchestrating complex criminal schemes.

Federal authorities who opposed the application for compassionate release, are reviewing the decision and considering legal options, a spokesman said.
Eleven soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) were killed while 14 others were wounded during an encounter with suspected Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) members in Sulu on Friday (April 17).

The AFP reported that the military encountered around 40 ASG terrorists believed to be led by ASG leaders Radullan Sahiron and Hatib Hadjan Sawadjaan.

The number of ASG casualties is yet to determined but bloodstains were seen on their side of the battle after they scampered towards the northeast direction.

The said encounter lasted for an hour in Brgy. Danag, Patikul, Sulu.

The AFP said they lost six R4 rifles, a K3 SAW machine gun, an R4 rifle with a grenade launcher, and a hand-held radio in the encounter.

The military said flags in all military camps around the country will be flown at half-mast for the 11 Army heroes who died during the encounter.

AFP Chief General Felimon Santos, Jr. expressed his condolences to the family of the fallen heroes. He also ensured that all necessary assistance will be extended to their loved ones.

Meanwhile, Commander of the Army 11th Infantry Division based in Sulu MGEN Corleto Vinluan said pursuit operations in the area are ongoing. AAC (with reports from Lea Ylagan)

The post 11 soldiers killed, 14 wounded in Sulu encounter appeared first on UNTV News.
This story was originally published on March 3, 2020 on NYT Parenting.

Its touted as a miracle remedy for a variety of pesky winter bugs: colds, flu and yes, even recently, the coronavirus. Elderberry has garnered a cult following on social media in recent years, and has the sales numbers to show for it. According to a report published by the American Botanical Council in 2019, sales of elderberry supplements, which are made from the fruit of a flowering shrub, more than doubled in the United States between 2017 and 2018 to a total of nearly $51 million.

In my own community, many of my friends dose their kids with elderberry in pretty much every iteration, said Ashley Adams English, author of Home Apothecary with Ashley English, meaning they give their children elderberry in the form of homemade syrups, gummies and more.

Elderberry supplementation has long been used as a folk remedy for flu, but what does the science say? And is it safe? Heres what to know.

What is elderberry?

The elderberry is a flowering plant native to Europe and North America. Its fruit  which ripen as berries in clusters and which can range in color from bright red to blue to dark purple or black  are often packaged into products like lozenges, syrups, gummies, capsules, tinctures and teas. You can find them in pharmacies, grocery stores, vitamin shops and on Amazon.
Another Massachusetts city has implemented a curfew seeking to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Brockton Mayor Robert Sullivan signed the order this week, which went into effect Friday evening.

The order mandates Brockton residents stay in their homes between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. daily. It allows for travel for essential workers going to and from work.

The city also banned all non-essential gatherings, including birthday parties and all other celebrations and social events of any size for any reason."

It states, Any concentration of individuals outside their home must be limited to workers providing essential services or those undertaking essential tasks and physical distancing must be maintained.

The mayor advised but did not mandate masks be worn at all times outside homes when social distancing is not possible, including inside essential businesses.

It will remain in effect until it is lifted by city officials.

Anyone in violation faces fines up to $1,000.

Brockton follows multiple other Massachusetts communities in implementing orders to curb the spread of the virus.

In Boston, Mayor Marty Walsh saw too many issues with people ignoring social distancing guidelines.

On April 6, Walsh issued a stay-at-home advisory for the city of Boston. Residents were urged to stay home between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. with essential workers excluded. The advisory began on April 7.

We can all help slow the spread by covering our faces, Walsh said at the time.

The city of Lynn has a mandatory curfew asking residents to stay home at night and into the morning. The announcement came on April 12.

Just like Boston, people were told to stay home between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., excluding essential workers and people getting medical care.

These orders will ensure that the entire community can achieve the maximum amount of social distancing, while continuing to provide and receive essential services, and ultimately slow the spread of COVID-19 to the maximum extent that we can, Lynn Mayor Thomas McGee said.

Lynn banned all non-essential gatherings of individuals of any size for any reason. People were still allowed outside but only for non-contact activities. People in Lynn were told to practice social distancing and wear some kind of mask outside.

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The total number of coronavirus cases in India is inching toward the 15,000-mark. On Saturday, the Ministry of Health updated the countrys tally to 14,378. The figure includes 11,906 active cases, 1,991 people who have been cured or discharged and 480 Covid-19 fatalities.

The country entered the fourth day of the extended lockdown on Saturday that was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 14. The lockdown will now come to an end on May 3.

Here are the key developments:

1. Defence minister Rajnath Singh chaired a meeting of senior Union ministers at his residence on Saturday. The ministers discussed the coronavirus situation prevailing in the country and ways in which various ministries can tackle the crisis.

2. The guidelines to allow limited activities and the measures announced by RBI were also appreciated, the defence minister tweeted out after the review meeting.

Interacted with the GoM on the COVID-19 situation. We discussed ways to mitigate the hardships faced by the people and the role ministries can play in providing relief to people.



The guidelines to allow limited activities and the measures announced by RBI were also appreciated. pic.twitter.com/xUGfaSmV8L  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) April 18, 2020

3. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has issued a new rapid testing protocol that allows states to use rapid testing kits wherever they want, including in Covid-19 containment zones and hotspots.

4. With 1,099 coronavirus cases, Gujarat became the sixth Indian state with more than 1,000 coronavirus cases besides Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

5. Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, in its editorial mouthpiece Saamana, lauded Rahul Gandhis recent press briefing on the coronavirus situation. But Gandhi has to be praised for the stand he has taken in the present crisis. He has created a model code of conduct on how an opposition party should behave when the country is faced with a crisis, it said.

6. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday announced a Rs 100-crore package to provide livelihood support to around 4.5 lakh urban poor families affected by the Covid-19 lockdown.

7. 25 naval personnel tested positive for coronavirus in Mumbai. Navy sources on Saturday said that most of them are asymptomatic and have been traced to a single sailor who tested positive on April 7. 20 of these sailors are from INS Angre, a shore establishment in Mumbai.

8. The department of telecommunication (DoT) has asked state governments to use its service for tracking people under quarantine through mobile telephony to augment measures to check the spread of the coronavirus.

9. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday was slammed by the leading opposition party in the state, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), for not evacuating students from Kota, Rajasthan.

10. In a bid to bridge the losses due to the coronavirus lockdown, the Railway Ministry may trim the salaries and allowances of over 13 lakh officers and employees, HT s Hindi language publication, Live Hindustan reported.
While communities feel the strain of both a pandemic and the hard-biting economic downturn that accompanies it, veterans in Cape May County are working together to try to ease the strain.

In the Villas section of Lower Township and in Ocean City, members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars are preparing and distributing meals for veterans, emergency responders and hungry members of their communities.

The commander in chief said this is a war. Who better to go to war with than a bunch of combat veterans? said Michael Morrissey, who served in the infantry in Vietnam and is now the commander of VFW Ferguson-Foglio Post 6650 in Ocean City.

The post is closed, as are most gathering places under Gov. Phil Murphys emergency orders aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19.

The social aspect of the post is important, Morrissey said, providing a place for veterans to spend time with others who understand.

Its an important part of our organization to be able to be with each other, he said.

While that is not available until the emergency orders end, the post remains active.
Paul O'Grady has shared an adorable snap of his new family member, Nancy, a sweet Jack Russell puppy adopted from Battersea Cats & Dogs Home.

The iconic TV star, 64, who is known for his programme filmed at the rescue facility, shared the heartbreaking news with fans earlier this week that his beloved pooch Boycie passed away.

On Friday, Paul shared a photo of his new puppy to Instagram with a caption explaining he had been asked to foster a dog amid the coronavirus lockdown but of course, would be keeping her.

New arrival: Paul O'Grady has shared an adorable snap of his new family member, Nancy, a sweet Jack Russell puppy adopted from Battersea Cats & Dogs Home

To accompany the snap of the adorable tri-coloured Jack, Paul penned: 'As Battersea had closed temporarily and Id been filming there we were asked if wed like to foster a dog.

'Id grown quite fond of this little pup so I took her home. Of course I fully intended to keep her from the start and Ive called her Nancy. Dont let the innocent look fool you- shes well are.'

Following the initial post, Paul shared a sweet snap of Nancy spread out on a faux fur grey blanket.

Heartbreaking: The iconic TV star, who is known for his programme filmed at the rescue facility, shared the heartbreaking news with fans earlier this week that his beloved pooch Boycie passed away

He shared: 'Just thought Id let you all know at Battersea how Nancy is doing. Shes twice her size, extremely confident, loves her grub and when shes not terrorising Arfur( whos mad on her) she likes to pose for glamour shots on her faux fur rug.

'Im thinking of you all and wish I was there with the crew filming. Hope all the dogs and cats are doing ok which Im sure they are with the all the love and care you show them. Keep well and see you soon thats if Nancy hasnt chewed my foot off. X'

Before starting his Instagram account this week, he shared the devastating news that Boycie passed away over Twitter.

So sweet: On Friday, Paul shared a photo of his new puppy to Instagram with a caption explaining he had been asked to foster a dog amid the coronavirus lockdown but of course, would be keeping her

The star posed with his beloved dog in a sweet throwback snap with the caption: 'A message from Paul... Sadly, he had to say goodbye to Boycie today. He asked me to share this photo'.

Paul is well-known for his love of dogs and has filmed eight series of Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs, a documentary about his work with rescue dogs and the ins and outs of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.

The presenter previously called Bischon / ShiTzu mix Boycie 'a smashing little fella'.

Foster fail: To accompany the snap of the adorable tri-coloured Jack, Paul penned a lengthy caption explaining why he adopted the puppy

In February last year, Paul revealed his beloved dog Bullseye had passed away, as he said in a statement: 'I can't handle it, it's what I always say - invite an animal into your life, inevitably you invite heartache.'

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown, Paul urged dog lovers and fans not to adopt a pup.

He said: 'I think you should be really cautious about getting a dog at this time because this isn't forever you know. I know the sentiment and where it is coming from. I really do sympathise...

'What happens when all this is over and the owner goes back to work? The dog who is used to having people round all the time might find itself on it's own. I understand and I can talk...

Hero: Paul is well-known for his love of dogs and has filmed eight series of Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs, a documentary about his work with rescue dogs and the ins and outs of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home

'I just pick a dog up and get on with it. Say you worked in an office or something the dog will be alone and might get separation anxiety.'

Last week, the radio presenter told Gaby Roslin, 55, he combined cider vinegar, garlic and rosemary, lemongrass, parsley and a bay leaf.

A similar potion was used to fend off the plague in the 1600s. However, there is no evidence that this works and anyone with symptoms should seek medical advice.

Paul said: 'I'm alright now. Last week I had flu like symptoms. I didn't have the cough bad, I certainly didn't have the temperature or anything so I just got on with it...

'That was when the heating had gone so it was minus two down here and freezing and I thought someone had got it in for me. I'm fine now.'

Unusual: Last week, the radio presenter told Gaby Roslin, 55, he combined cider vinegar, garlic and rosemary, lemongrass, parsley and a bay leaf

While he has not been diagnosed, Paul is convinced he did in fact have the coronavirus. He said: 'Most definitely. Thats knocking about, but theres also flus and seasonal colds going about so youve got to tell yourself and learn the difference.

'The coronavirus... youd know if you caught that. I lay on the couch with the fire on and the dogs on top of me moaning. When you are lying on the couch dying or you think you are. It was sheer exhaustion like Chris Evans had too.'

Paul admitted he had made up the vinegar solution himself, calling it Four Thieves Vinegar.

He said: 'In France during the plague in the 1600s four thieves were going around and they were knocking off everybodys houses and robbing the dead so when they were finally sentenced to be burned at the stake...

'The magistrate said if you tell us how youve managed to survive not getting the plague Ill lower the sentence to hanging which was big of him.

'Basically this is the recipe which is cider vinegar with as many cloves of garlic in it as you can take and four different kinds of herbs to represent the four thieves.'
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 17:56:27|Editor: huaxia

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PARIS, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The White House's decision to halt its funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) has weakened international cooperation and put the entire world in danger, French newspaper Le Monde has said in an editorial.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that his administration is suspending funding to the WHO, at a time when the specialized United Nations (UN) agency for international public health is coordinating a global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Washington "is particularly badly placed to decide to punish the WHO," Le Monde said on Thursday, adding that "suspending its funding to WHO in the middle of the battle against a global health crisis is the worst idea a political leader can have."

To cover up their own "errors in judgment," the Trump administration wants to make the country's voters believe that China and the WHO are responsible for the tragedy that is striking the United States, the newspaper added.

The number of COVID-19 cases in the United States reached 700,282 as of 9:10 p.m. local time on Friday (0110 GMT on Saturday), according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

A total of 36,822 people have died of the disease in the country, according to the CSSE.

The United States currently tops the world in total cases and deaths, with the state of New York suffering the most with 230,579 cases and 17,131 fatalities. Enditem
U.S.-Russian Crew Lands Safely In Kazakhstan After More Than 200 Days In Space

April 17, 2020

Three members of the U.S.-Russian crew have returned to Earth after spending several months at the International Space Station (ISS).

Russia's Roskosmos space agency said the Soyuz MS-15 capsule carrying the crew chief, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, and NASA Flight Engineers Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan landed safely on April 17 in Kazakhstan.

Skripochka and Meir spent 205 days in orbit, while Morgan's time in space lasted 272 days.

The crew was replaced by U.S. astronaut Christopher Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, who docked with the ISS on April 10.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, instead of being brought to the city of Qaraghandy in central Kazakhstan for traditional welcome ceremonies, the crew members were taken straight to the Baikonur space complex near the city of Qyzylorda.

The U.S. astronauts will fly aboard a NASA plane directly from Qyzylorda to Houston, while the crew's commander Skripochka will fly back to Russia.

The ISS, which orbits about 400 kilometers above Earth, is tasked with conducting scientific experiments.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/u-s--russian-crew- lands-safely-in-kazakhstan-after-more-than -200-days-in-space/30561158.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- We all could use a little extra inspiration while were #stayinghome, and many Staten Islanders are getting their inspirational relief from COVID-19 by reading biographies or dystopian novels and attending virtual book clubs.

The New York Public Library (NYPL) has shared which e-books New Yorkers have checked out the most since COVID-19 shut its locations to help contain the spread of the virus.

The NYPL offers more than 300,000 e-books to browse and read remotely through its e-reader app SimplyE.

Since the library closed, e-book checkouts have increased nearly 10% as compared to the same period last year, and there has been a 15% increase in weekly e-book readers on average, the NYPL announced.

All that is required is a library card, which can be obtained through the app.

The top checkout during the crisis has been Michelle Obamas autobiography Becoming."

Other notable books on the top 10 list include James McBrides Deacon King Kong. Its the first book being read in the new virtual book club, offered by NYPL and public radio station WNYC. Also on the list are two books featured on the librarys 125 Books We Love list: Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, by J.K. Rowling, and the dystopian novel A Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood.

Heres the full Top 10 list of e-books checked out during the pandemic:

1. "Becoming, by Michelle Obama

2. "Educated: A Memoir, by Tara Westover

3. The Dutch House: A Novel," by Ann Patchett

4. Deacon King Kong: A Novel, by James McBride

5. The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaids Tale, by Margaret Atwood

6. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed, by Lori Gottlieb

7. Normal People: A Novel, by Sally Rooney

8. Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, by J. K. Rowling

9. The Water Dancer: A Novel, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

10. The Handmaids Tale, by Margaret Atwood

For 125 years, The New York Public Library has brought New Yorkers together around reading and learning, offering books, classes, programs, and materials to strengthen our communities, said Anthony Marx, president of the NYPL. I am proud that we continue to connect New Yorkers, even when we cant actually be together. Reading provides so much: comfort, an escape, a distraction. I hope this relatively small pleasure helps our communities through a very challenging time.

In addition to e-books, the library has made many other digital resources available remotely, including daily storytimes with its childrens librarians, on-demand virtual tutoring in a variety of subjects via Brainfuse, research databases (such as Ancestry.com, and periodical archives, JSTOR and EBSCO). Check out the NYPL reference / help service for more information.

I hope that during this unprecedented moment, the library continues to play a key part in your life, said Marx in Wednesdays NYPL newsletter, which featured the list. Whether you need an escape from current events, support with remote learning, assistance with your work or help learning a new skill, we are here to help and support you, as we have been for 125 years, through good and challenging times.

The NYPL relies on both public and private funding. To learn more about supporting it, visit nypl.org/support.
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A man was found shot to death around 11:30 p.m. Friday night in the 11500 block of Buffalo Speedway, police said.

Houston police detective Blake Roberts said the man was found in the street with multiple gunshot wounds, and he was pronounced dead on scene.
The failure by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to quickly produce a test kit for detecting the novel coronavirus was triggered by a glaring scientific breakdown at the CDC's central laboratory complex in Atlanta, according to scientists with knowledge of the matter and a determination by federal regulators.

The CDC facilities that assembled the kits violated sound manufacturing practices, resulting in contamination of one of the three test components used in the highly sensitive detection process, the scientists said.

The cross contamination most likely occurred because chemical mixtures were assembled into the kits within a lab space that was also handling synthetic coronavirus material. The scientists also said the proximity deviated from accepted procedures and jeopardized testing for the virus.

The Washington Post separately confirmed that Food and Drug Administration officials concluded that the CDC violated its own laboratory standards in making the kits. The substandard practices exposed the kits to contamination.

The troubled segment of the test was not critical to detecting the novel coronavirus, experts said. But after the difficulty emerged, CDC officials took more than a month to remove the unnecessary step from the kits, exacerbating nationwide delays in testing, according to an examination of federal documents and interviews with more than 30 present and former federal scientists and others familiar with the events. Many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

This account confirms for the first time the contamination's role in undermining the test and the CDC's failure to meets its lab standards.

 FAQ: Your coronavirus questions, answered

The development and rollout of the original kits are subjects of an investigation led by the Department of Health and Human Services, federal officials said.

The CDC - America's premier institution for combating the spread of catastrophic disease - declined to make available for interviews those involved in the test design or manufacturing. A spokesman, Benjamin Haynes, provided a statement Friday that acknowledged substandard "quality control" in its manufacturing of the test kits.

Those efforts "were not sufficient in this circumstance," the statement said. The agency also said it has "implemented enhanced quality control to address the issue."

The CDC said the problems with the test kits might have resulted from "a design and/or manufacturing issue or possible contamination."

Haynes also defended the CDC's work, saying that earlier troubles were eventually ironed out.

"As of March 23, more than 90 state and local public health labs in 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico verified they are successfully using [the] diagnostic kits," Haynes said in the statement.

 READ MORE: CDC, FEMA have created a plan to reopen America. Heres what it says.

Shortcomings with the tests were first noticed in late January, after the CDC sent an initial batch to 26 public health labs across the country. According to those with knowledge of what unfolded, false-positive reactions emerged at 24 of the 26 labs that first tried out the kits in advance of analyzing samples gathered from patients.

"Only two of them got it right,'' said a senior federal scientist who reviewed the development of the kits and internal test documentation, and who concluded that the false positives were caused by contamination that occurred at the CDC.

The false positives arose during testing of "negative control'' samples that contained highly purified water and no genetic material. That aspect of testing was essential to confirm that the test results were reliable and not because of contamination.

"The bottom line is, if you have a negative sample, and it's coming up positive, the only way for that to happen is cross contamination. . . . There is no other explanation for it,'' the scientist said.

Experts said the kits were contaminated before they were shipped out to the state health labs.

Stephen Morse, a retired senior CDC microbiologist, said the circumstances as reconstructed by The Post point to contamination as the cause of the false positives.

"With a negative control, there's nothing there to be amplified unless there was some contamination present,'' Morse said. "If your negative control is giving you a positive reaction, that's indication of contamination.''

The possibility of contamination in the CDC lab was raised by Axios in a story in early March. "The big question: It was not immediately clear if or how possible contamination in the Atlanta lab played a role in delays or problems with testing," the story said.

 READ MORE: People should wear a cloth mask or facial covering when in public, CDC now recommends

The CDC's delay in changing course after the test problems has hindered efforts to contain the novel coronavirus, which emerged in China in late 2019. It grew to a regional outbreak and, ultimately, a pandemic that has wrought widespread death and an unprecedented shuttering of the U.S. economy. As of April 17, the virus has infected at least 695,369 Americans and killed at least 32,454.

The failure with testing kept the public health labs from performing disease surveillance intended to predict and minimize harm before the virus became widely established in the United States. The impact has been magnified by the nation's inability to rapidly expand the availability of testing.

There remains no proven cure or vaccine to prevent the onset of the virus, which scientists suspect jumped from an animal species to humans in Wuhan, China. Until effective medical countermeasures emerge, diagnostic testing is crucial to assessing the spread of the virus and containing it.

The FDA's examination of the CDC's test kit exonerated its design - but concluded that the problem was caused by substandard manufacturing practices, according to an FDA statement. The FDA regulates the safety and effectiveness of medical devices, including the test kits manufactured to diagnose covid-19 disease in humans.

The "CDC did not manufacture its test consistent with its own protocol," the FDA told The Post.

The FDA declined to elaborate on its findings, but those with knowledge of the matter said the problem involved contamination in the manufacturing process.

"It's critical that the tests used work, because false results can also contribute to the spread of covid-19,'' the FDA said.

 READ MORE: CDC, the top U.S. public health agency, is sidelined during coronavirus pandemic

In late February, after an FDA official visited the CDC's lab complex in Atlanta, he advised the CDC to discontinue manufacturing the kits, the regulatory agency said. In response, the CDC turned to an outside contractor to manufacture the remaining kits it had intended to make for public health labs.

The CDC's performance with the test kits marks an unparalleled low in its often-proud, 74-year history.

"I was just saddened and embarrassed when this test didn't work out,'' said James Le Duc, a virologist and former CDC official who now is director of the Galveston National Laboratory in Texas. "It's really a terrible black mark on the CDC, and the impact was devastating to the country.''

- - -

On Jan. 12, Chinese authorities made public a vital piece of medical information: the genetic sequence of the new coronavirus that was raging in the metropolitan area of Wuhan, about 500 miles west of Shanghai.

Because of the volume of global travel, cases would almost surely emerge in the United States. The genetic sequence was what scientists at the CDC needed to design a test kit for detecting coronavirus infections.

At the CDC's labs in Atlanta, scientists went to work. Officials there assigned responsibility for designing the test kits to the CDC's Division of Viral Diseases, whose stated mission is to "prevent disease, disability and death."

Those familiar with the events said the design efforts were led by Stephen Lindstrom, an accomplished respiratory virus specialist who was a co-inventor of seven earlier CDC tests for strains of the flu. Lindstrom, who did not respond to a request for comment, was responsible for designing but not manufacturing the kits, scientists told The Post.

For reasons that have remained unexplained publicly, the CDC scientists chose complexity over simplicity in the test's design.

The test kits featured two components that focused on separate regions of the virus's genome, a standard approach. However, the CDC also outfitted the kits with a third component, a pan-coronavirus segment. That addition sought to identify a wider family of coronaviruses, of which covid-19 is the most recent strain to be observed in humans. Tests that were being developed abroad under sponsorship from the World Health Organization did not include this extra feature.

With the additional test component, the CDC's scientists may have hoped to bolster the kits' reliability in distinguishing covid-19 from other coronavirus strains.

One of them, severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, originated in China in 2003 and killed 774 people worldwide, though none in the United States. SARS jumped from an animal species to humans, as was the case with the coronavirus. The CDC test component also sought to detect coronaviruses that are carried by bats.

The CDC's extra test component was not essential to detecting the novel coronavirus and it complicated the test when speed was critical, many experts said.

"Either the CDC didn't know it was a crisis or they should have pulled the plug on that faster,'' said Paul Keim, a Northern Arizona University geneticist whose institute is testing for the virus. "They didn't have a test that worked."

 READ MORE: We cant reopen the country without a strong COVID-19 testing program. Heres how to do it. l Opinion

Officials at the CDC chose to have the test kits manufactured in-house, instead of by an outside contractor. The CDC facilities are typically staffed by experienced microbiologists and technicians, and the labs had successfully made test kits for other pathogens. Producing reliable test kits requires rigorous quality control.

The kits were developed in a specialty lab that focuses on disease research and were assembled at the CDC's Biotechnology Core Facility Branch, located at the agency's headquarters in Atlanta.

On Jan. 17, five days after the Chinese made public the genetic sequence, Nancy Messonnier, director of CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a news briefing that agency counterparts in Japan and Thailand had already used DNA testing to detect coronavirus cases.

"We at CDC also have the ability to do that today, but we are working on a more specific diagnostic," she added.

Messonnier apparently was referring to the extra, pan-coronavirus component that the CDC was designing into its test kit.

The tests used in Japan and Thailand had been developed by the WHO without the third component. A growing number of countries were turning to that test without difficulties.

Messonnier also said it was likely that the virus would appear in North America.

"It's highly plausible that there will be at least a case in the United States," she said.

On Jan. 21, Messonnier announced that a few days earlier the CDC had "finalized development" of its test and used it to confirm the first coronavirus infection in the United States, a man in Washington state who had traveled from the Wuhan region.

"In the coming weeks, we anticipate sharing these tests with domestic and international partners,'' she told reporters.

While human-to-human spread had been confirmed in China, Messonnier said, "we continue to believe the risk of this novel coronavirus to the American public at large remains low at this time.''

After using the test to successfully diagnose the first U.S. patient, CDC technicians began a second phase of development - manufacturing the batch of kits that would go to the 26 public health labs. It was during this phase that the chemical materials for the kits became contaminated, according to a scientist with knowledge of what happened.

"The first lot, they did not find any issues," the scientist said. "They used the same [genetic] sequence for the second lot. . . . The second lot they manufactured ended up getting cross-contaminated."

In the third week of January, the CDC shipped out the kits to more than two dozen public health labs scattered across the country, from Albany, New York, to Richmond, California.

As designed, the kits required the labs to use a highly sensitive molecular technique called polymerase chain reaction, or PCR.

The testing relies on a multistep regimen that starts when a six-inch cotton-tipped swab is used to gather a sample of mucus from a person's nasal passage or throat. That sample is delivered to a lab in a sealed container.

At the lab, nucleic acid is extracted from the sample and placed into a small tube, along with solutions of various chemical reagents, including an enzyme that converts viral RNA, if present, into DNA.

Once the DNA is made, portions of the solution are transferred to tiny plastic cups, containing additional reagents to help detect whether the virus is present. The cups are placed into the PCR machine, which roughly resembles a midsize office photocopier.

The process seeks to copy and amplify targeted regions of the coronavirus genome. If the virus is present in the original sample, a detectable, fluorescent dye is released.

The CDC provided most of the necessary materials for each of the kits' original three components.

 READ MORE: Scarcity of coronavirus testing, lack of demographic data could hamper Pa.s efforts to reopen parts of the state

The labs were instructed by the CDC to demonstrate that the test would work before analyzing samples from patients.

But when those facilities began using the kits to analyze a negative control sample - highly purified water supplied by each lab and free of any genetic material - the tests wrongly signaled the presence of the coronavirus.

"It's not the water that's contaminated," said the senior federal scientist who reviewed what went wrong with the kits. "It's one of the reagents.''

The precise means of contamination may not be knowable.

Scientists experienced with such lab work pointed to several possibilities, including inadequate decontamination of an enclosed area called a hood, where technicians may have worked with the synthetic coronavirus material. Improper handling of reusable lab devices also could contaminate the reagents.

The synthetic, or man-made, viral material that was used reduced the chance of infecting lab workers.

The widespread false positives point to a central source of contamination - the CDC's manufacturing and assembly of the kits, the senior scientist and others said. The problems were observed in the test's pan-coronavirus component.

Those familiar with what unfolded when the kits were tried out also said the contamination appeared to be at low levels.

For instance, they said, the false signals emerged only after the molecular testing had run for 34 to 36 cycles. Detection more typically occurs at 25 to 30 cycles, in which all of the test ingredients are heated, cooled and reheated from about 160 to 204 degrees.

"On known negative samples, two out of the three [segments] were negative as they should be, but there was a little bit of reactivity with the third one,'' said a supervising scientist at one of the state labs that had a false-positive result with the pan-coronavirus segment.

This disqualified the entire test, said the scientist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he had been instructed not to comment publicly.

Even a trace of coronavirus-like material in lab spaces at the CDC where the kits were assembled could have caused the contamination, those familiar with the matter said.

Had the kits been used to analyze patient samples: "That means when you amplify that [sample], you have no way of distinguishing whether it's coming from a real covid-19 source or not," said a longtime federal microbiologist who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. "That's really bad."

Rigorous validation and record-keeping should have detected the contamination before the CDC distributed the kits, he and other scientists said.

The CDC's lab standards are based on federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments. The protocols are designed to catch errors in the manufacturing process, build in corrective measures and ensure that scientists keep an exhaustive record of their work.

"My question is - where was the adult supervision?" a former CDC lab chief said. "A competent laboratory would not have that problem. I don't really understand how the kits got out without detecting a problem."

- - -

The first public hint of trouble with the test came during a Feb. 12 press briefing in which the CDC's Messonnier mentioned unspecified "issues" bedeviling the public health labs. At the time, most American clinics and hospitals remained unable to test for the coronavirus.

"Some of the states identified some inconclusive laboratory results," said Messonnier, speaking to reporters by phone.

Messonnier suggested that the cause of the unexpected results remained elusive. The CDC's goal, she said, was to make sure "that the laboratory results are correct."

"We have multiple levels of quality control to detect issues just like this one," she said. "We're looking into all of these issues to understand what went wrong, and to prevent these same things from happening in the future."

A reporter pressed Messonnier to elaborate.

"We think that the issue at the states can be explained by one reagent that isn't performing as it should consistently, and that's why we are remanufacturing that reagent," she said.

At the public health labs, officials struggled to figure out what was wrong. Some labs determined that the test would work without the third component. But under the CDC's emergency instructions, health officials had to use the test as it had been designed.

 READ MORE: Inside the coronavirus testing failure: Alarm and dismay among the scientists who sought to help

As the lack of reliable testing for the virus persisted deep into February, FDA officials based in Silver Spring, Maryland, were unable to get a satisfactory explanation from the CDC of what was wrong with the test, according to the regulatory agency and individuals familiar with the events.

By Feb. 23, the number of Americans who were confirmed as infected by the virus had climbed to 53, spanning six states, according to the CDC. The World Health Organization reported 78,811 cases globally.

That weekend, Timothy Stenzel, a top FDA official for regulating diagnostic devices used for medical treatment, traveled to Atlanta to meet with the CDC's scientists and to see firsthand the lab areas where the kits had been developed and assembled.

According to the FDA, Stenzel for nearly a month could not determine, based on information provided by the CDC, whether the kits were failing because of a "design or manufacturing issue.'' With demand for testing surging, some of the state and local labs were using the original kits to analyze samples drawn from patients, on the condition that results would be confirmed by additional testing by the CDC.

Stenzel would evaluate whether the CDC was suited to continue making coronavirus test kits in-house, according to interviews and written responses from the FDA. He also would assess whether companies should be allowed to use the CDC's design to make and distribute higher volumes of the test kits.

Hired in August 2018 as director of the FDA's Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health, Stenzel was trained as both a physician and a Ph.D. microbiologist/immunologist. He had founded a molecular diagnostics lab at Duke University and, during 15 years as an industry executive, helped develop dozens of sophisticated tests, including an FDA-approved assay for detecting pancreatic cancer.

During his visit in Atlanta, Stenzel determined that the problems with the coronavirus test were caused by the CDC's manufacturing, not the design, according to the FDA. The shortcomings with the test kits were attributable to what the FDA described as a "manufacturing issue.''

Stenzel advised CDC officials to stop making the kits in-house.

The CDC was "expected to make a quality product'' and was required to comply with sound manufacturing practices, the FDA said.

Stenzel declined to be interviewed.

In response to questions, the FDA said Stenzel "worked with CDC to facilitate the production and quality control processing of test kits," made ultimately by the contractor, Iowa-based Integrated DNA Technologies. Stenzel also worked with the CDC to "expedite test kit distribution" to public health and commercial labs.

"The test manufactured by IDT was distributed and has encountered no issues, thus supporting the conclusion'' that the CDC's manufacturing had caused the original kits to fail, the FDA said.

 READ MORE: From a companys bankrupt carcass comes donation of swabs to CHOP for COVID-19 testing

By this point officials at the public health labs widely viewed the extra, pan-coronavirus component of the CDC's test kit as unreliable. Amid those concerns, the FDA on Feb. 26 informed the CDC by email that the labs could begin testing samples while skipping the third component.

On Feb. 28 - 47 days after the Chinese distributed the virus's genetic sequence - Messonnier announced that "labs can start testing with existing CDC test kits."

In the news briefing, Messonnier also said that the CDC had "established that the third component . . . was the cause of the inconclusive results" and "can be excluded from testing without affecting accuracy," she said.

Messonnier said nothing about the FDA's recommendation that CDC stop making the test kits in-house.

"We are working as quickly as we can to get CDC test kits to state and local public health authorities," Messonnier said. "To date, our strategies have been largely successful."

That week, the CDC reported that 1,007 people had been tested nationwide. That compared with more than 420,000 tests that had been performed worldwide.

The next day, on Feb. 29, the CDC announced the nation's first death from the virus, a man in his 50s in Washington state.

Citing "unfolding situations'' in other states, a CDC news release said that "preliminary information raises the level of concern about the immediate threat of COVID-19 for certain communities in the United States."

On March 2, the FDA endorsed the release of the newest kits - assembled by Integrated DNA Technologies. Still, patients and health-care providers struggled to secure testing and have continued to wait for many days or even weeks for results.

CDC officials have been tight-lipped regarding what went wrong with the test kits.

At a March 3 news briefing, Messonnier was asked about potential contamination.

"Contamination is one possible explanation but there are others," she said. "And I really can't comment on what is an ongoing investigation."

The failure with the test kits was highlighted at a congressional hearing on March 11 that examined the government's preparedness and response to the virus.

"The Trump administration's testing for the coronavirus has been severely inadequate," said the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. "If you don't test people, then you have no idea how many people are infected."

"We don't know where to direct resources," she said. "We are operating in the dark."

 READ MORE: A plan to defeat coronavirus finally emerges, but its not from the White House

In testimony, CDC Director Robert Redfield described in general terms what may have caused the kits' failure.

"The third control did not perform the way we wanted it to perform," he said, adding that the cause was either "a contamination" or an unspecified "biologic" factor that caused the test materials to malfunction.

Asked about Redfield's testimony, the federal scientist who reviewed the internal test data said the kits steadily amplified nucleic acid within what should have been the DNA-free negative control samples. That pattern of amplification, he said, could only have been caused by contamination, not by any other design or manufacturing flaw.

When a committee member, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., asked about contamination, Redfield said: "This is currently under an investigation at this point, and I think I'm going to leave it there.''

Krishnamoorthi excoriated the CDC's performance.

"When we don't test as rapidly as we should, the virus spreads and people die,'' he said, noting that South Korea, Italy and other nations had tested far greater percentages of their populations.

Haynes, the CDC spokesman, said Messonnier and Redfield were not available to comment.

The CDC's refusal to promptly jettison the problematic first test kit puzzled many who were seeking prompt, reliable testing.

"They just kept doubling down on what they knew was a poor performing assay, and that has really bit us in the butt,'' said James Lawler, a physician at the University of Nebraska Medical Center who has treated covid-19 patients.

Keim, whom the FBI relied on for testing during the bureau's investigation of the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, noted that although the additional test segment was apparently intended to help distinguish covid-19 from the other coronaviruses, it wasn't needed: covid-19 has a distinct genetic sequence.

This made searching for the other strains superfluous.

Among the known coronaviruses, covid-19's nearest genetic neighbor is SARS, Keim said. Although SARS and covid-19 are 85% identical when they are analyzed with the amplifying powers of PCR molecular testing, that gap is an unmistakable distinction, Keim said.

"Fifteen percent is a massive difference when it comes to PCR," Keim said. Covid-19, because of its dissimilar genome, "is like the easiest target in the world. . . . It's not a hard thing to develop an assay to."

- - -

The Washington Posts Alice Crites contributed to this report.
18.04.2020 LISTEN

Some 87% of Ghanaians divided into Residential, Commercial and Industrial Customers are hooked unto the national electricity grid in Ghana.

The final power distribution chain is carried by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG (, the Volta River Authority (VRA) and the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo), all located strategically to off take and serve particular regions and commercial concerns.

The COVID 19 power relief package announced by the president Nana Akufo Addo covers two categories of people.

Life line consumers are defined by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) as customers who consume between 0-50kilowat power per month.

A typical lifeline customer uses one television set, two lighting bulbs, a table top fridge and a fan, for limited hours per day.

All lifeline consumers whose tariffs are already subsidized will have their electricity bills for April, May and June absorbed in full by government using the March bills as benchmark.

Non Lifeline customers will have their bills within the same period slashed by half and the excess absorbed by government using March bills as benchmark.

ECG Customers

Out of the 4.8 million electricity meters in Ghana, the Electricity Company distributes power to 1 million meters.

24.7% of ECGs total customer population are lifeline consumers who will enjoy up to 8.5 million Cedis per month as tariff wavers.

Government will have to allocate 235.4 million Cedis per month to absorb 50% of the full cost of Non-Lifeline Consumers on ECG meters.

In effect, the total amount of government subvention for all ECG customers for the three months is 732 million Cedis.

NEDCo Customers

For NEDCo., government is estimated to set aside 10.1 million Cedis per month for 569thousand lifeline customers.

These lifeline customers who will be enjoying a total of 32 million Cedis for the three months form a whopping 60.67% of NEDCos customers.

For the 369,000 non lifeline customers on NEDCo, Government is spending 36 million a month, totaling 108 million for three months.

In effect, government is paying a total relief fund of 141 million Ghana Cedis for all customers receiving power from NEDCO alone for the months of April May and June.

VRA customers

For the Volta River Authority (VRA) government is allocating a financial relief package of 55.5 million per month equivalent to 166.4 million for the three months.

Twelve mining customers on VRA meters will have 50% of their bills amounting to 42.4 million per month and 127 million for the three months, absorbed by government.

Alluminium smelting Giant, Valco will have same relief of 4.8 million Cedis per month equating 14.4 million for the three months absorbed by government.

The electricity component of the cost of production for other manufacturing companies like Aloworks, Diamond Cement Limited, Savanna Cement Limited and Enclave Power Limited will also be slashed by half.

This will see the VRA submitting bills of 7.9 million Cedis per month, totaling 23.7 million Cedis on behalf of these companies to be borne by government.

In total, government is expected to spend a total of some 1 billion Cedis covering a total population of 4.8 million meters across Ghana as its relief package to 87% of Ghanaians as COVID 19 relief.

Table Showing a breakdown of 1,039,500,000 COVID 19 Electricity Relief:

Distribution Company Category of Customer Payment for 1 month GHc: 000,000 Payment for 3 months GHc 000,000 Total GHc 000,000 ECG Lifeline 8.5 25.5 Non Lifeline 235.4 706.2 732 NEDCO Lifeline 10.1 32 Nonlifeline 36 108 141 VRA 12 mining companies 42.4 127 Valco 4.8 14.4 Aloworks Diamond Cement Savanna Cement Enclave Power Ltd Sum 7.9 23.7 166.5 TOTAL GOVERNEMNT RELIEF 1039.5

Ivan Heathcote - Fumador
SEYMOUR  On top of handling calls during the COVID-19 pandemic, first responders in Seymour are participating in drive-by parades for town residents celebrating a birthday or milestone wedding anniversary.

Many towns and cities have opted to participate in these types of parades during the coronavirus pandemic. Some first responder agencies have also participated in parades by hospitals and health care centers in support of health care workers.

In a statement posted by the towns first responders on Facebook, it indicated that the parades were set up through word-of-mouth and communication between agencies and personnel. But, first responders said, that system led to a tremendous amount of confusion.

Going forward, for as long as Gov. Ned Lamonts Stay Safe, Stay Home order is in place, first responders in Seymour will have an email address specifically for residents to request a parade.

As of Saturday, a potential end date for the order is May 20. First responders in Seymour said they will continue to offer parades through that date, but will continue beyond that if the order is extended.

These parades are a way to bring some excitement to a special day that would otherwise be unavailable due to travel and congregating restrictions, the statement said.

First responders will participate in a parade for birthdays of any age, and for wedding anniversaries of 25, 50 and more than 50 years.

Any resident who has previously scheduled a parade through one of the agencies prior to Saturday do not need to send in an email request.

The parades will be available daily, but will not be scheduled between 2:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. any day to allow for shift changes.

Our first responsibility is to protect the town of Seymour, so in the event of an emergency, one or all of the vehicles in the parade may be called away to respond to the emergency, the statement said.

Private vehicles of family and friends are allowed to join in the parade line with the first responders. But if that happens, first responders ask that family and friends allow them to lead the parade so they can quickly respond to a possible emergency if needed without difficulty.

In order to ensure the safety of the town during these parades, only one can be done at a time.

First responders said while theyll do their best to accommodate residents requests for specific times, they might have to alter the time slightly to fit in their schedule.

All parades are offered free of charge.

Many people have offered to make donations in exchange for a parade but that is not necessary, the statement said. Admittedly, many of our agencies ask for and rely on donations and we are always welcoming of and humbled by your generosity, but these parades are being done as a show of our support for our community rather than a solicitation of donations.

To request a parade in Seymour, email SeymourParadeRequests@gmail.com.

In the request, residents should include the date of the parade, first name and age of the person celebrating their birthday or the names of the couple if its an anniversary, the street address, preferred time for the parade and a staging location (if private vehicles are going to be involved).

Once an email request is submitted, a confirmation email will arrive shortly after from a representative of one of the agencies in town.

We know that the COVID-19 crisis has dampened some of our spirits and has certainly altered the way we can celebrate with our friends, relatives, and neighbors, the statement said. We look forward to bringing a little bit of joy and happiness to your celebrations over the coming weeks.
UN human rights office calls for compassion following Rohingya deaths at sea

17 April 2020 - The UN human rights office (OHCHR), is calling for compassion for people desperately seeking shelter, after 30 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar died on a boat in the Bay of Bengal that had spent nearly two months at sea.

Nearly 400 others onboard were found dehydrated, malnourished and in need of immediate medical care. They disembarked in Bangladesh on Thursday morning and are receiving assistance from UN refugee agency UNHCR, and its partners.

"We are aware of reports that this boat had repeatedly sought a safe harbour, but the vessel was unable to land in Malaysia", OHCHR Spokesperson Richard Colville said on Friday.

"Whatever efforts are taken to combat people-smuggling, this should be a time for compassion towards those in desperate need of assistance and protection".

With reports of other vessels in similar circumstances still at sea, the UN has urged countries to step-up timely search and rescue efforts.

Countries were reminded that any response should be based on international human rights and refugee law, and to avoid "dangerous interception practices", such as preventing boats from landing.

Sea tragedy a 'sad reminder'

Mr. Colville said the refugees' journey was a "sad reminder" of the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from Rakhine state, in northern Myanmar, over the past four years.

The Rohingya are a Muslim minority group and are not recognized as citizens of the country. Members have fled persecution at the hands of the authorities, escaping overland and on boats to Bangladesh and other countries in the region.

More than 670,000 alone fled the latest wave in August 2017 and are now living in camps in the Cox's Bazar region in southern Bangladesh.

The UN rights office reported that the situation in Rakhine and neighbouring Chin state is again dire. A recent surge in violence between the ethnic Arakan Army armed group and the national forces has affected civilians of all ethnic groups.

Violence and Internet blackout

Mr. Colville also reported that the Myanmar army has been carrying out almost daily airstrikes and shelling in populated areas. At least 32 people have been killed, and more than 70 injured, since 23 March. Despite the UN Secretary General's recent appeal for a global ceasefire during the COVID-19 pandemic, calls for a ceasefire have been ignored.

"Further complicating the situation, there has been an internet blackout in nine townships across Rakhine and Chin States since June 2019", he said.

"This blackout has greatly hampered the availability of reliable public information on hygiene, physical distancing precautions and other preventative measures. Internet restrictions have also been applied by the Bangladesh authorities to the Rohingya refugee camps."

OHCHR called on all parties to the conflict to heed the UN chief's appeal.

The UN agency also urged the Myanmar authorities to lift the internet ban and allow humanitarians to access all conflict-affected areas, while Bangladesh should allow Rohingya refugees free access to information and communication.



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One month ago, the Pallister government introduced Bill 34: the Budget Implementation and Tax Statutes Amendment Act.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/4/2020 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

One month ago, the Pallister government introduced Bill 34: the Budget Implementation and Tax Statutes Amendment Act.

One of more than 20 the Manitoba Tories stacked up prior to delivering the 2020 budget, the bill is mostly standard procedure. Part 6, for example, eliminates tax refunds on goods removed from Canada.

Buried under the subsequent avalanche of novel coronavirus news and concern, it sat, until its first reading during an emergency legislative session Wednesday.

Now, Manitobans are learning the potential of its full impact.

Deep in its pages is Part 9  titled "Other Amendments"  which proposes to deal with "the federal special allowances for children that Child and Family Services agencies received or were eligible to receive for children in care between January 1, 2005, and March 31, 2019."

This section proposes a radical change that would permanently keep money earmarked for children in care and remove their ability to disagree.

"Its unprecedented," says Cindy Blackstock, a national Indigenous child advocate and executive of the First Nations Child & Family Caring Society of Canada. "No other province is doing anything like it."

Since 1993, the federal government has delivered the Childrens Special Allowances via the Canada Revenue Agency (similar to the Canada Child Benefit) that directly pays institutions who care for children. In most cases, these funds are used by organizations to pay for the specific needs of children in care (sport fees or health needs) or issued directly to foster parents to help them care for the child.

In 2005  under premier Gary Doers NDP government  Manitoba mandated all child-welfare agencies remit the allowances back to the province to assist it in the administration of child welfare.

Essentially, for 15 years, Manitoba has used this money, intended to support individual children, to subsidize a massive, $543-million bureaucracy (according to 2017-18 expenditures).

The Conservatives, while in opposition, decried the practice. When they took office in 2016, they continued it.

In 2019, Premier Brian Pallister cut more than $100 million from child welfare and introduced a "single envelope" model, which removed "per-child" funding for agencies and implemented "block funding" under four CFS authorities.

Leaders in the child-welfare system say there is now more bureaucracy, poorer delivery of service, more children at risk, and incentives to keep children in care longer rather than help find ways out of it.

Meanwhile, Indigenous children have paid the biggest price. There are more than 11,000 children in care in the province, and 90 per cent are Indigenous.

On Jan. 1, new federal legislation came into force intending to give Indigenous groups control over child welfare. There are issues with the legislation: "groups" is undefined and there is no funding in the model; this means child welfare is left once again to the provinces.

"Manitoba is taking money intended to help children build their lives and futures," Blackstock says, "and its not helping."

Blackstock led a successful, decade-long Canadian Human Rights Tribunal challenge, proving the federal government "willfully and recklessly" discriminated against Indigenous children on reserves. Ottawa must rightfully pay these children and their families compensation, while instituting changes to ensure equality and service.

In 2018, two class-action lawsuits emerged, taking the Manitoba government to court for clawing back the Childrens Special Allowances since 2005.

There needs to be public debate on this subject  and this is what the courts are for. But we may never hear this debate.

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Buried deeper within Bill 34 is not only a legitimation of Manitoba taking the Childrens Special Allowances, but a clause disallowing any lawsuits challenging its stance.

Thats right: if passed (likely in the fall), Bill 34 would disallow any resistance to Manitoba taking federal money for children.

"Governments must be held accountable in their treatment of children," Blackstock says. "Any government who places themselves above the law leaves children and family without protection."

Failing to protect children is exactly how Manitoba has gotten into this unbearable situation.

Through a well-hidden clause in a budget bill introduced during a pandemic, it may continue this legacy.

niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca
Buses, trains on standby to resume service By Kasun Warakapitiya View(s): View(s):

Public transport operators have been readied to carry public servants reporting back to work on Monday and say they are ready to take the governments lead on resuming normal service.

The Ministry of Transport said 5,000 buses and 400 trains would start this limited service next week throughout the country, in both curfew and non-curfew areas.

The Chairman of the Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB), Kingsley Ranawaka, said the SLTB has been providing transport for the health sector, police and army.

He said all staff had been asked to return to work and to prepare buses for wider service although no starting date has been given for resumption of services for the general public.

We are ready and waiting for the instructions from the health sector. The SLTB would only resume services if the health sector advises us to do so, Mr. Ranawaka said.

He emphasised the SLTB would take strict measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 when general service resumed.

One way to do this would be to put on more buses and carry only a small number of passengers. This measure would be taken to limit the number of people and allow them to maintain a distance from each other, he added.

Drivers and conductors have been given face masks and other protective gear to protect themselves while at work. They have been briefed about the defensive measures they need to take against the virus.

Mr. Ranawaka said buses are being disinfected and quarantined. Long-distance buses will be disinfected at depots on designated routes.

The All-Ceylon Transport Workers Union is not in favour of resuming service at this time.

The unions General Secretary, Sepala Liyanage, said passengers could not carry out the one-meter distancing measure in buses and this could allow the spread of the virus. The number of infected people, currently topping 240, could rise if bus transport recommenced, he said.

We cannot endanger peoples lives. I ask the authorities not to resume public transport until the situation comes to normalcy, Mr. Liyanage said.

Private bus operators said they were willing to provide normal services but needed government assistance in order to operate smoothly.

The President of the Private Bus Owners Association, Gemunu Wijeratne, said operators had consulted transport experts such as Dr. Amal Kumarage, Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, on how to operate when the curfew is lifted.

Mr. Wijeratne said operators plan to allow only one passenger to be seated in each row of seats for first three weeks. Afterwards, if the improves, more passengers would gradually be allowed on each bus.

If the bus has 50 seats only 25 passengers will be allowed to travel in a bus at any given time in the first two weeks. Private and state institutions and companies must help us by giving leave to their employees at different times, he said.

Trains have been transporting fuel throughout the curfew period but have stopped transporting goods, General Manager Railways Dilantha Fernando said.

Referring to calls by farmers unions for trains to be used to transport vegetables and other fresh produce from source to markets and distribution points, since the curfew prevented normal transport by road, Mr. Fernando said trains were unsuitable for this purpose.

He said the metal railway goods wagons were enclosed and had little ventilation. The vegetables would go bad as the insides of the freight cars are hot, he said.

There are no carriages used for goods transportation that are equipped with freezers and air-conditioning systems so the railways will have practical difficulties in transporting vegetable and fish, he said.
ABC News

Tennis world No. 1 Novak Djokovic is apologizing for an "error of judgement" related to an in-person interview he conducted last month after being exposed to COVID-19 as he continues to fight to stay in Australia and compete in the first major of the year. Djokovic, who is tied for first all time with 20 major wins, released a new statement Wednesday midday local time in Melbourne explaining the timeline of several public appearances around when he tested positive for COVID in December -- which he says should allow him to compete in the Australian Open despite apparently not being vaccinated. "I want to address the continuing misinformation about my activities and attendance at events in December leading up to my positive PCR COVID test result," he wrote in an Instagram post.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 10:31:36|Editor: zh

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A fighter of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) takes position in Salah Al-Din frontline in Tripoli, Libya, April 17, 2020. The east-based army and the rival UN-backed government have been fighting for control over the capital Tripoli since April 2019. The armed conflict have killed and injured many civilians and also displaced more than 150,000 people. Despite a UN call for a cease-fire to allow authorities to respond to the threat of COVID-19, the deadly armed conflict continues in and around Tripoli. (Photo by Amru Salahuddien/Xinhua)
Guwahati/Shillong/Agartala, April 18 : Assam's swab samples testing ratio is better than many states and samples from Meghalaya and Mizoram are being tested in the state's six ICMR-accredited labs, said Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday.

According to the Minister, of the 34 novel coronavirus positive cases reported in Assam, 33 are directly associated with the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Nizamuddin in Delhi last month.

Out of 34 people tested positive in Assam, aged between 18 yesrs and 71 years, four people are residents of Chameli village (Kheri district) of Uttar Pradesh.

While addressing media in Guwahati, Sarma said that Assam so far tested 120 samples per ten lakh people while Uttar Pradesh tested 106 samples per ten lakh people followed by 96 in Jharkhand, 78 in Bihar, 76 in Mizoram and only 42 in West Bengal.

"In the COVID-19 first wave of concern, Assam is in a comfortable position now, though, there are dangers looming large in India," he said.

He said that out of the 4,400 samples collected so far, 4,199 samples tested negative and results of 167 samples are awaited. The minister said that of the 34 corona-infected people, one person with a travel history to Saudi Arabia and Delhi died in Hailakandi district in southern Assam on April 10 and 12 people so far discharged from the hospital.

"More people would be released from hospitals soon as 21 patients are being treated in different hospitals in Assam," said Sarma.

"To increase the test ratio, the health department would soon launch rapid testing to identify the possible coronavirus suspects," Sarma said.

According to him, so far 4.32 lakh residents of the state, stranded in different states of the country and they have contacted with the Assam government seeking various kinds of help, including financial assistance.

The Health Minister said the swab samples of Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police of Morigaon districts have tested negative.

During their official duties, the Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police might have met people with positive cases that's why as per protocol, their samples were tested to eliminate any doubt.

In Shillong, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma tweeted that two more positive cases detected late Friday night, taking the state's total to 10 active cases after one death.

The latest positive cases include a family member and a helper of the first patient, a senior 69-year-old doctor, who died on Wednesday, two days after he was tested positive.

The deceased doctor, owner of a private hospital in Shillong, had no travel history except that his son-in-law, who is an Air India pilot, had been to COVID-19-infected countries and had returned home on March 22.

In Tripura, Sub-Divisional Medical officer of Kanchanpur Harendra Reang told IANS that 35 Reang tribals, who sneaked into Tripura from adjoining Mizoram, are kept in home quarantine in the refugees camps, where 35,000 tribals are sheltered in seven camps in northern Tripura for the past 23 years after fleeing from the neighbouring state.
The City of Rio Rancho is starting furloughs that affect 15 percent of employees because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

City spokeswoman Annemarie Garcia said 112 employees would have work hours decreased or not be able to work.

Employees whose duties were entirely or partially deemed nonessential under state executive orders were put on paid administrative leave for the nonessential portion of their work after the public-health emergency declaration March 11.

My objective then  which is the same today  was to keep all employees paid for as long as possible, Acting City Manager Peter Wells wrote in a memo to city staff members.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has extended business closures and stay-at-home orders through April 30.

There is a high probability that similar limitations will continue through at least early May, Wells wrote. As such, it is now clear that municipal government operations will be impacted for a minimum of seven weeks. In addition, due to business closures during this time and unprecedented lack of economic activity, the citys revenue sources are negatively impacted.

Because the city couldnt justify or afford paid administrative leave indefinitely, he continued, it ended at the close of business Friday. To receive some amount of pay through May 1, affected employees can use sick, vacation or comp time; use paid-leave provisions under the Families First Coronavirus Relief Act if eligible; be approved for leave without pay; or any combination thereof.

Starting May 2, employees with nonessential jobs will be furloughed until further notice, according to the memo. Theyll maintain their job status and the city will pay the employer and employee portion of health insurance premiums until they can return to work.

The employees will then need to repay their part of the insurance premiums through payroll deductions.

Wells hoped to end the furloughs sometime in May and said every action would be taken to avoid layoffs.

Garcia said impacted employees are from certain departments or divisions at higher levels. As examples, she pointed to 36 affected staff members from libraries; 27 from the Parks, Recreations and Community Services Department, six from the citys Motor Vehicle Division and 19 school crossing guards.
Andhra Pradesh's opposition leader Chandrababu Naidu has expressed shock over Andhra Pradesh's decision to hold local body elections. Reacting to such reports, Chandrababu Naidu said that it is shocking that AP CM YS Jaganmohan Reddy is willing to risk the health of millions for political gains.

Andhra Opposition Leader N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday took serious objection to Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jaganmohan Reddy holding parleys with officials to discuss fresh schedule for local body elections showing sheer negligence towards stepping up coronavirus preventive measures. Mr. Naidu asked whether it was a joke that the YSRCP is still considering to hold polls while the whole world is fighting to mitigate the worst effects of the killer virus. He (CM Jagan) is not learning lessons and willing to risk the health of millions for political gains. Shocking.

Mr. Naidu was reacting to reports that the AP government is considering to take South Korea as an example where the elections were held on Thursday despite epidemic threat and arrangements were being made for counting. AP government is expecting to control infections through extensive testing and then to go for local body polls after May 3, when extended lockdown ends.

Meanwhile, objecting to alleged forcible collections of donations, Mr. Naidu has written to CM YS Jaganmohan Reddy not to force womens self-help groups, farmers societies, hospital managements and trade and industry organisations to donate to the CM Relief Fund in the name of Coronavirus relief. It was highly objectionable and atrocious on the part of YSRCP leaders to make forcible collections at a time when all sections of society were facing untold hardships like never before in this epidemic lockdown crisis. If required, the government may accept voluntary donations from those who can afford to give despite the present financial distress.

Also Read: Coronavirus India: 991 new cases, 41 deaths reported in last 24 hours, total number of cases cross 14,000 mark and toll reaches 480

Stating that the government has itself shown Rs. 30,000 crore more revenue, Mr Naidu said that there were huge Central funds received towards devolutions, 14th Finance Commission and COVID relied funds. But, YSRCP leaders are blaming TDP while the state government is diverting the funds without giving financial support to strengthen the fight against virus.

Unfortunately, YSRCP leaders are collecting commissions even in the distribution of Rs 1,000 and groceries. This relief was not altogether given to the 25 lakh poor people whose ration cards were removed along political considerations.

Mr Naidu accused CM Jagan of ignoring Prime Minister Modis call to everyone to help five persons. The YSRCP leaders are threatening and obstructing different organisations which came forward to distribute relief in response to the Prime Ministers call. It was really atrocious on the part of YSRCP to take relief material from the voluntary organisations to distribute the same with their own activists.

Also Read: How Chhattisgarh laid down one of the best models for containing COVID-19

Mr. Naidu accused the Jagan Reddy government of neglecting the epidemic and releasing false reports on virus transmission which has created confusion among the people. The total concentration of YSRCP leaders was on getting lockdown lifted and getting local body elections held as early as possible but not on saving lives of people. The government has no right to play with the rights of the people. Ignorance of the CM is pushing the state into a serious health crisis.

Mr Naidu expressed concern over rapid virus transmission in AP, saying that the Jaggaiahpeta police in Krishna district had beaten up and harassed one person for placing a social media post about a Delhi returnee freely moving in the area. The returnee later tested positive for Corona but he had moved with local people for over 10 days by that time. Now, the same police are enquiring about the details of all the people who came in contact with the positive returnee. The officials didnt hand over dead body asking relatives to announce the death of a person as not due to virus in Kurnool. But now, the same officials are enquiring about details of persons who came in contact with the deceased person.

Also Read: 135 UK nationals evacuated by special flight from Hyderabad international airport

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North Korean authorities have revealed to citizens in public lectures that there were confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the country as early as the end of March.

The news comes following initial denials by the secretive state, who in official statements from the capital Pyongyang claimed that it has not had any confirmed COVID-19. cases.

Radio Free Asia reported the latest news on late Friday, in which it was detailed how lecturers, speaking to organisations and neighbourhood watch groups, said there were cases within the country, without giving any numbers - citing two sources; one in Pyongyang and one in Ryanggang province.

The lecturers said the confirmed cases were in Pyongyang, South Hwanghae province and North Hamgyong province, RFA reported, and follows on from early denials by leader Kim Jong-un.

North Hamgyong is in the northeast region of the country, while South Hwanghae is in the southwest, showing the scale in distance which the virus has travelled.

Despite earlier denials by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, cases of coronavirus have officially been confirmed within the secretive state, in multiple provinces

Pyongyang had previously reinforced border checks and ordered foreigners from any country that has reported a case of COVID-19 to spend 30 days in quarantine, flying dozens of diplomats out of the country in early March.

North Korean authorities are 'looking into whether there is still any space for infectious diseases to enter, in line with the complete blockade of borders, airspace and territorial waters' until the global virus pandemic is under control, state media KCNA said on Saturday.

As reported by Mail Online, the secretive state had been working 'day and night' to build a new hospital 'faster and better' than planned, despite continuing to deny that COVID-19 had entered its borders.

Work on the new Pyongyang General Hospital began suddenly just under a month ago, with Kim Jong-un setting an ambitious 200-day deadline for completion.

The lecturers said the confirmed cases were in the capital Pyongyang (pictured), South Hwanghae province and North Hamgyong province

However, he appeared to downplay any link to the ongoing pandemic at the time, making no reference to it at a groundbreaking ceremony and instead linking completion to a national holiday.

Amid the pandemic, North Korea has still been the cause of rising tensions after firing several suspected cruise missiles off its east coast on Tuesday.

South Korea's military confirmed the action, the latest in a slew of weapons launches by the North despite the ongoing global fears of the spreading virus.

The launches came on the eve of the 108th birthday of North Korea's late founder, Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un. They also came a day ahead of South Korean parliamentary elections.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the projectiles - presumed to be cruise missiles - were fired from the North's eastern Kangwon province on Tuesday morning before flying toward the country's eastern sea.
An elderly woman who survived the Blitz during World War II, rationing and repeated economic depressions says she is planning her 97th birthday party after beating Covid-19.

Betty Moody (96) celebrated an heroic homecoming to her adopted home at Moyvane in Kerry after being released from hospital.

Now she is planning an even bigger party to mark her 97th birthday in June. She had spent two weeks in hospital fighting the virus  and issued a brave message of hope that Covid-19 can be beaten.

I told them in the hospital: I am not going to die

When anyone is sick, it is in the mind whether or not they are going to survive, she said.

If it is in the mind that they are going to survive, they will survive  that is what I did.

I told them in the hospital: I am not going to die. They said, Oh no, we know that.

Despite being seriously ill at one point, Betty rallied and fought off the virus.

Betty, who moved to Ireland from the UK, said it was vital older people who may contract the virus never lose hope.

She also paid a moving tribute to the healthcare workers involved in the frontline fight against the virus: They are all heroes, thats what they are.

Betty said she was deeply moved by the warmth of her welcome back to Moyvane village after she was released from two weeks in University Hospital Kerry (UHK) and then Kenmare District Hospital.

The entire village was en fete and Radio Kerry was there to celebrate one of the countys greatest victories against the virus.

It was the greatest day that ever happened, Betty said.

The whole street and all the neighbours were out there cheering  it was great.

She also paid a particular tribute to her immediate neighbours and friends including Frances Leahy, who helped organise the homecoming party last week.

'I went to the ED. My heart rate didnt feel normal'

Nurse Aoife Foilliard (38), from Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, has told how she desperately wants to go back to work and care for her patients but is still overcoming the effects of the virus.

Aoife is an advanced nurse practitioner at Mayo University Hospital in Castlebar and began to feel unwell on March 22.

She said: I developed sinus symptoms and a headache and was just feeling generally unwell.

I had been for a walk on the Saturday with a friend and had gotten wet, so I put that feeling down to maybe picking up a cold.

I had no fever or anything like that. I thought I was just very tired because I had changed my shift pattern at work.

Also, my background is respiratory diseases, and I was so careful in following all the guidelines.

I worked from home on Tuesday and went back to work on Wednesday, but then the heaviness in my head was getting worse. That was my main symptom, the awful feeling of heaviness in my head and the real extreme tiredness.

I was at work again on Friday and I commented to my friends that I didnt feel well, but I thought it could hardly be Covid. I hadnt any of the other symptoms, no cough, no fever.

Aoife was told that afternoon a doctor she had been in contact with had been infected.

She recalled: So that was a major red flag. I still hadnt any of the classic symptoms and wouldnt have ticked any of the boxes for testing.

But I pushed for the test because I had been with that doctor quite a lot. I got the test on the same day. I got a call on Monday to say I was positive.

I gradually got worse as the weekend went on.

Also, the whole issue of isolation with three small kids is impossible.

I wasnt able to go into a room on my own. Its not practical.

Aoife began to feel much worse and was forced to go to hospital.

She said: A few days later, I ended up going to the ED (Emergency Department). I felt like I was throwing off some kind of arrhythmia. My heart rate didnt feel normal.

I was tachycardic, and at that stage, I was at the peak of the virus. Over the next 48 hours, my heart rate settled down, and I began to improve.

On April 4, my taste and smell went completely.

Its a very strange feeling. If you eat a piece of chocolate, all you can taste is sweetness. I decided I would try a glass of wine for my birthday, but it was like when you drink neat vodka by mistakethat awful taste of pure alcohol.

I didnt anticipate this to be so drawn out.

Im ready for work, and I want to go back and care for my patients, but I am not cleared yet, as I still have no taste or smell.

'I never had a fever, but I had insane tiredness'

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Sinead Kearns' experience with Covid-19 started with a blocked nose  but then felt insane tiredness.

The 23-year-old from Swords, north Dublin, has spent the last two weeks in isolation at home.

She said: I thought it was tiredness. But I woke up the next day and I did not feel right at all. Then I started to cough, but that only lasted for a full day.

Subsequently, a drive-through test confirmed the Covid-19 diagnosis, and she immediately self-isolated.

I never had a fever, but I had insane tiredness, said Sinead. Like many others, she felt worse a few days into the diagnosis.

My concentration was just gone. I tried to do a jigsaw in the first few days, but I just had to lie down.

My heart rate was racing, and I was so out of breath

Another symptom was an uncomfortable burning sensation in her nasal pharynx, nausea and breathlessness which started on day four and lasted a few days: One night when I was returning from the bathroom, I was so out of breath, having just walked down the stairs and back up I felt like I had done an hour and a half of exercise. My heart rate was racing, and I was so out of breath.

Visit our Covid-19 vaccine dashboard for updates on the roll out of the vaccination program and the rate of Coronavirus cases Ireland

She said her family were a great support, bringing food and leaving it outside the bedroom door.

Thankfully, everyone else in the household remained unaffected.

Despite everything, Sinead who works in the healthcare field, said she considered herself lucky to have experienced a relatively mild dose, although the waves of nausea in particular were very uncomfortable.

When all the restrictions are over, Sinead said she cannot wait to spend time with her dog and visit the beach and to the park.

'I was afraid I was going to die alone'

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Leaving Cert student Brandon Fay has told how he was extremely scared during his Covid-19 ordeal.

The 17-year-old, from North Strand, Dublin, spent six days in the Mater Hospital after contracting the illness. Brandon, who suffers from mild asthma, spent three days in isolation apart from visits from the medical and nursing team. But his worried mum Sarah kept in regular touch by phone.

He said: The isolation was the scariest part, not being able to see my mother, or anybody.

My mother was so upset over me.

Doctors would come into to do swabs once a day, and the nurses would come in two times a day. If you needed anything, they would talk through an intercom to you or phone your phone.

He said it was an anxious time: Nobody could come near me. All my belongings were left in reception for me. It all happened extremely quickly.

It gets worse before it gets better

I was very scared. I thought I was going to die. I didnt know what was going to happen. I was afraid I was going to die alone.

After three days, he was moved to a ward with Covid-19 patients with older men. He experienced nausea, a cough and shortness of breath: It gets worse before it gets better.

The staff were phenomenal, the work that they do, added Brandon, who plans to train as a nurse himself.

Thankfully, Brandon is now recovering at home. He is urging people to donate to the Our Hospital Heroes appeal which is being co-ordinated by the Mater Foundation at: gofundme.com/f/ourhospitalheroes

'It was like I had been poisoned'

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Kathy O'Dwyer has told how the pain of coronavirus was the most frightening part of her experience.

The 61-year-old, from Blackrock, Co Dublin, first felt sick on March 14 and was tested on March 23.

Ms ODwyer was able to be treated at home but said the pain of Covid-19 had been frightening.

It was like as if I had been poisoned. I know it sounds really strange, but it was like my body was trying to deal with something that it had no idea what to do with. It was not nice, it was scary, she said.

The whole thing was like a bad dream, it was desperate

Nothing can prepare you for it. I had chest pains and headaches and temperature and could not sleep at night. The whole thing was like a bad dream, it was desperate.

Now out of self-isolation, she said it was like Ireland was two different worlds at the moment, with some people complaining about being stuck inside.

And then at the same time, there are people like cleaners, people in hospitals, people in nursing homes working, putting their lives at risk and the rest of us are all just looking for things to do. That I find hard to get my head around.
Omans national carrier, Oman Air, will fly out Friday citizens stranded in Tanzania because travel restriction because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The foreign ministry of the sultanate will send an Oman Air flight to both Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar to fly out Omanis willing to return home.

The Embassy informs all citizens in Tanzania who desire to return to Oman to book their seats with the Omani Aviation Office on Wednesday, April 8, 2020, by contacting the number 0685 082 540, the Omani diplomatic mission in the eastern African country said in a statement.

The national carrier will also bring home Tanzanians could not return to their country after the Gulf country imposed a ban on all flights as part of measure to fight the outbreak.

The Tanzanian foreign mission in Muscat, The Citizen, reports, urged Tanzanians stuck in the Gulf country and willing to return home to register not later than April 8.

Both countries enjoy good relations taking back to the days of Sultan Sayyid Said. The ruler moved to Zanzibar and controlled the coastal strip in the 19th century which was a major hub of the Indian Ocean trade, the Tanzanian media notes.
The Times Union has lifted the paywall on this developing coverage to provide critical information to our community. To support our journalists work, consider a digital subscription.

Total COVID-19 cases:

 242,424 in New York state, including 17,627 deaths. 596,532 total tested. 54,339 hospitalized.

 734,552 in the U.S., including 38,835 deaths. 66,500 recovered. 3,698,534 total tested. 114,073 hospitalized.

 2,328,124 worldwide, including 160,518 deaths. 594,194 recovered.

Note: The number of positive confirmed cases is cumulative and includes people who have recovered as well as those who died.

Additional resources:

 Here are the latest cancellations and postponements.

 For a detailed map, check out the Times Unions New York Coronavirus Tracker

 To get regular updates on our coverage, sign up for our coronavirus newsletter.

 Share stories about people helping others in our Facebook Group.

Saturday's updates:

7:14 p.m. Marinas may stay open during COVID-19 lockdown

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced marinas, boatyards and marine manufacturers will be allowed to open for personal use in all three states as long as strict social distancing and sanitization protocols are followed. Chartered watercraft services or rentals will not be allowed. Restaurant activity at these sites must be limited to take-out or delivery only.

12:00 p.m. Marriage licenses can be obtained remotely

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo issued an executive order that allows New Yorkers to obtain a marriage license remotely and allows clerks to perform ceremonies over video conference.

There is now no excuse when the question about marriage comes up, Cuomo joked during a Saturday morning press conference. You can do it through zoom.

11:35 a.m. 2 more die in Saratoga County

The Saratoga County Department of Public Health Services today announced that there are 259 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Saratoga County and 11 of those people are hospitalized. The Department also confirmed the countys eighth and ninth deaths from COVID-19  a 61-year-old man from Clifton Park and a 77-year-old man from Mechanicville.

11:19 a.m.: Glens Falls Transit getting funds

As part of the CARES Act, which included economic relief for transit systems. U.S. Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer today announced $3,458,374 in federal funding allocated by the Federal Transit Administration for Greater Glens Fall Transit.

10:30 a.m. Albany County hospitalization rate dips

With 35 people now hospitalized, the hospitalization rate for Albany County stands at 5.63%, down slightly from Friday's rate of 5.92%. Seven of those people are in Intensive Care Units, an increase of one since yesterday. Shaker Place Rehabilitation and Nursing Center has had 13 residents in total who have tested positive, along with 5 employees and one who has recovered and returned to work. There were no additional deaths, so the number stands at 20.

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Friday's coronavirus updates:

Churches will ring bells Monday

Capital Region Catholic churches will ring their bells at 7 p.m. Monday as a show of solidarity with health care workers, those suffering from COVID-19 and their families, the Albany diocese said Friday.

RPI: Peak could be late May, early June

A Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researcher has developed a model that shows the number of coronavirus cases in the Capital Region peaking anywhere from May 9 through mid-June, depending on how many people stay home and how quickly serious cases climb.

Rensselaer County reports more positive cases

Twelve new confirmed cases of people ages 19 to 64 were reported on Saturday, bringing the total to 186, officials said. There are 16 county residents hospitalized with three in the intensive care unit. The county has seen 2,071 residents tested. Six county residents were released bringing the total to 64.

About 350 residents are in monitor quarantine, and there have been six deaths of residents due to COVID-19.

Warren County reports 2 deaths in long-term care facilities

Warren County officials reported a fourth death Friday afternoon, and provided their first public confirmation that two of those deaths were residents of long-term care facilities.

The Warren County Board of Supervisors and Warren County Health Services said the most recent death was a resident of a nursing home in the southern part of the county, but did not specify which facility. The Pines home in Glens Falls is currently battling a large outbreak.

Of the four county residents known to have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, two were at a hospital, one was at a nursing home and one was at an adult-care facility, officials said.

Schenectady County reports 14th coronavirus death

Officials provided no details about the death. The number of confirmed cases to date in the county rose by 16 overnight to 311 as of Saturday. There have been 106 recoveries from the illness. Twenty-seven people are currently hospitalized in the county, including non-residents.

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Albany and veterans group cancel Memorial Day parade

Mayor Kathy Sheehan and Mark Rosenzweig, the chairman of the Joint Veterans Committee, announced the decision Friday, blaming the cancelation on fear of the coronavirus pandemic. The Joint Veterans Committee coordinate with local veterans groups and schools to pull of the parade each year.

With the event canceled, the committee will hold wreath-laying events on Memorial Day at the Gold Star Families and Vietnam monuments in Lafayette Park.

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Minorities keep UK health service alive View(s):

Call it synchronicity, call it coincidence, call it simple happenstance, just call it what you will. But two recent stories that gelled tell of the key role that UKs ethnic minorities play in battling the coronavirus pandemic and the sad news of the sacrifices they make for their adopted home.

Last Sundays column dealt with the impact of the coronavirus on the UK in the course of which I mentioned the death of Dr Anton Sabastianpillai, a Sri Lankan doctor who died of Covid-19 at the Kingston Hospital where he worked as a consultant geriatrician.

The British Medical Association (BMA) newsletter said that Dr Sebastianpillai had retired but felt obliged to offer his services at a time of national crisis, a sign of dedication to his adopted country.

The column itself was written on Thursday April 9, three days before its publication. The very next day and for several days thereafter the British media focused on the deaths of ethnic minority doctors who were in the frontline fighting the virus in the course of which Dr Sebastianpillais name was listed as a victim of the virus.

What was significant in these media reports was an observation made by Dr Chaand Nagpaul, president of the British Medical Association (BMA). He drew attention to the fact of the first 10 doctors to die of the Corona infection including Dr Sebastianpillai, were all from ethnic minorities with ancestry in Asia, Middle East and Africa.

They use the acronym BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) to describe the ancestral background of the medical and other health service personnel who make up the National Health Service (NHS) which is considered one of the best health systems in the world, though it has many problems such as severe funding cuts which have affected even pharmacists many of whom are from minority communities.

It is a truism that it is these ethnic minorities that keep Britains health system alive and kicking. This has been true for decades, especially since doctors from the former colonies in particular, found it easier to migrate to the UK and work here before immigration restrictions were clamped.

Despite the tightening of immigration rules, today the NHS is dependent on migrant doctors and their children who studied here and qualified as doctors. The BMA president painted a stark picture when he said that 44% of the NHS medical staff are from the BAME which is evidence enough to show how much the British health system is dependent on ethnic minorities.

Most of them are from South Asia  the majority of them of Indian origin some having come via Africa where many Indians had settled during colonial times.

Sri Lanka has a substantial number of medical professionals in the UK. But the problem  if that is what it is- is that nobody can put a figure on how many doctors live and work here and continue to contribute their knowledge and expertise to the NHS.

Well, it could be 5,000 or 10,000. Nobody really knows, Dr Thushara Rodrigo, President of the Sri Lanka Medical and Dental Association UK, told the Sunday Times, underlining that even a guestimate could be wide off the mark.

This much I could say, he continued. In the hospital in which I work in Broomfield, Chelmsford there are 20 consultants who are Sri Lankan. Dr Rodrigo who is a consultant pathologist says that in that department seven of the consultants are from ethnic minorities while only two are white.

This is so several other hospitals and GP practices which I know.

One of the problems in trying to track down numbers is that Sri Lankan medical professionals are not registered anywhere. The association that Dr Rodrigo heads has 300 or more members.

But that is minuscular compared to what many say represent the Sri Lankan medical fraternity. The fact that there are several associations of Sri Lankan doctors, including one based on ethnicity, while some doctors do not belong to any association lies is at the root of the dilemma. It makes it impossible to quantify how many medical professionals of Sri Lankan origin there are to buttress the NHS which has fallen on hard times and whose future was in doubt an year or two ago.

One worrying factor is that the disproportionate number of BAME medical staff in the NHS makes them frontliners in this fight against the Coronavirus. Although some of them may not be particularly qualified in the expertise required in the current circumstances they become frontline doctors accompanying others into the intensive care units and wards with infected patients depending on staff needs and the place of work.

So Sri Lankan doctors  they could be anyone from anaesthetists, those working in A&E or even ENT surgeons  find themselves in the frontline of the daily medical battle to overcome the pandemic in which Britain has recorded over 100,00 cases and around 14,000 deaths at the time of writing.

Furthermore, Dr Nagpaul points out that in terms of BAME population they make up 33% of patients in intensive care while the minorities represent about 15% of the UK population.

Equally worrying for ethnic minority medical staff including some Sri Lankan doctors, is the lack of sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE). In the early days of the pandemic it seemed clear that the government was not ready to deal with an impending outbreak though warned beforehand.

Despite clear warnings from experts and scientists, British politicians like others of their breed in some other countries, ignored the advice and did not take early measures to mitigate the dangers in the arrogant belief that politicians know best.

Nor did they prepare for coronavirus, expecting perhaps an influenza epidemic in the past winter, and so the necessary protective equipment including effective masks, gowns, ventilators etc were not available in the quantities required.

As the situation deteriorated everybody became part of the frontline helping out to save the nation from the catastrophe. Even where ethnic minority doctors felt ill-equipped to serve in the frontlines, they still did go beyond their call of duty.

Dr Nagpaul offered one explanation why ethnic minority medical staff was reluctant to raise the issue of the lack of proper personal protective equipment that placed them in danger.

Among the contributory factors could be that BAME doctors felt less able to complain about inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE)  a recurring complaint among healthcare workers during the crisis  thereby putting themselves in danger.

BAME doctors often feel bullied and harassed at higher levels compared to their white counterparts, Dr Nagpaul wrote. They are twice as likely not to raise concerns because of fears of recrimination.

The president of BMA has urged the government to investigate why ethnic minority doctors and people are disproportionately becoming victims of the virus. That is unlikely to happen any time in the near future, if it happens at all.

But now is the time for ethnic minority medical staff and health workers along with the rest to press their case for better facilities, more funding and equal treatment.

They have proved that without their presence as key frontliners the NHS would never have dealt with this epediomological catastrophe the way it did in the last months and will surely do so in similar situations in the future if politicians stop meddling with it.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor, Diplomatic Editor and Political Columnist of the Hong Kong Standard before moving to London and joining Gemini News Service. Later he was Sri Lankas Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London before returning to journalism. )
BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 18

By Tamilla Mammadova - Trend:

Starting next week, Georgian government will begin checking the companies that are allowed to sell online in emergency situations in compliance with certain rules, Georgian Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development Natia Turnava said at a briefing, Trend reports citing the Georgian media.

Due to the outbreak of the spread of coronavirus, on March 31, the Georgian authorities imposed restrictions on businesses by defining a specific list of enterprises entitled to work. Later, it was decided to expand the list for companies confirming compliance with the rules recommended by epidemiologists.

Next week, we will begin checking and monitoring online trading companies. This will allow us to prepare this sector as quickly and efficiently as possible for the period when we will all together launch the economy, the minister said.

According to Turnava, when the economy activates, the governments priority will be to develop online trading.

As reported, online companies will be visited by labor inspectors from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Economy, and employees of the municipal inspection.

Earlier, representatives of Georgia checked more than 300 companies engaged in various types of activities, except the online companies.

We do not plan to actively launch the business until the state of emergency ends. From an epidemiological point of view, we are at a critical stage, and this presents us with new challenges. We decided to sharply reduce and limit mobility, said the minister of economy.

Meanwhile, the outbreak of coronavirus has dealt a serious blow to the economy of Georgia. Almost all areas of business represented in the country suffer losses, while many people were left without work. To overcome the crisis, the authorities spent three weeks in negotiations with international financial institutions to receive financial assistance.

By the end of the year, the country will receive $1.5 billion for the development of the Georgian economy.

The first case of coronavirus in Georgia was recorded on February 26. To date, the number of infected COVID-19 in Georgia has reached 370 people.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Mila61979356
March was a strong month for pot sales. As the coronavirus pandemic put consumers on edge, many people loaded up on cannabis, presumably in anticipation of prolonged stays at home. However, the data suggest that sales surged during the first half of the month, while sales began to decline toward the end of the month. Some industry experts went so far as calling pot "recession-proof" and similar to alcohol in its resiliency.

However, it may be far too early to tell if that's the case. For investors, April will be a very telling month, and whatever happens will shed light on whether pot stocks will be okay during the coronavirus pandemic, or if their sales could take a significant hit in the weeks and months ahead.

Why March data won't help in forecasting sales during the pandemic

It was only March 11 when the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic. By then, it was still too early for consumers and businesses to feel the impact of what was happening. Sales in the coming days continued to be strong. Governments have since instituted more drastic measures, such as lockdowns, to help stop the spread of COVID-19. And while many states have allowed cannabis stores to remain in operation via delivery or curbside pickup, Massachusetts deemed pot sales a nonessential business, and on March 24 marijuana stores in the state had to shut down.

The ever-changing situation surrounding the pandemic is just one reason why the numbers from March are going to be unreliable moving forward. As states take different and more advanced steps in slowing the spread of COVID-19, their decisions will have different impacts on the industry. Assuming that what happened during the first two weeks of March is the start of a trend would be premature. By March 15, there were fewer than 170,000 reported cases of COVID-19 around the world. Today, there are more than 2 million cases. The measures to stymie the spread of the coronavirus are far more significant today than they were in early March and will have a more profound impact on just how well the industry will do as the pandemic keeps weighing down global economies.

Job losses are another area likely to more heavily impact sales in April than in March. Data up until April 4 show that over the past three weeks, nearly 17 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits. That's why in April, data on cannabis sales will demonstrate whether consumers consider cannabis to be absolutely essential, as they prioritize their purchases in light of lost jobs and tighter budgets.

What does this mean for investors?

Multi-state cannabis operator Curaleaf Holdings (OTC:CURLF) reported its quarterly earnings on March 24 and said its sales jumped 20% due to COVID-19. However, it also pulled its forecast for the remainder of the year, noting that there were some big question marks ahead. Its sales in Massachusetts, for instance, will be hit hard as its stores are shut down in that state. And it will also feel the impact in Nevada where tourism drives demand. Those headwinds -- combined with March's sales numbers being inflated due to panic buying and job losses not yet crippling the economy -- could mean sales for Curaleaf and other pot stocks will be much worse in April.

Shares of Curaleaf are down around 40% since the beginning of the year, which is a bit worse than the Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF (OTC:HMLSF) which has fallen by 33% during that time. The S&P 500, meanwhile, is down around 14%. Where pot stocks go the rest of the year, however, will largely depend on how much of a dent COVID-19 has on their sales. And it wouldn't be surprising if sales were to continue tapering off in April as consumers close their wallets. The pandemic is likely far from being over, so cannabis investors may want to hold off investing in any pot stock until seeing how strong April's sales numbers are.
Besides, our sons wont be with us to roast the lamb in this time of distancing. Theyve watched me for years, fascinated by the fire as little boys, and later they helped season it and learned to time the cook by the crispiness of the skin and the wobble of the joints as the lamb turned.
I am a 6th year student from a school in a disadvantaged area.

The teachers in our schools have helped us incredibly during these difficult times, but I believe we still do not have the resources we need to show our full abilities in the leaving certificate exams.

It's harder on us as we do not have the money to pay for online grinds and such. Some of us do not have computers, Wi-Fi or even phones.

These exams have hindered our thoughts for the last six years. Every single year, being closer to doing these long awaited exams, that basically decide our future.

Since the start of 5th year, my friends and I have been dreaming about the day where wed leave the exam hall after our final exam and start living a stress free summer.

That is now not possible for us, but it goes beyond having a so-called 'free summer'.

Many students, especially in my area, wont be able to attend school during the summer as they will have to take care of their younger siblings.

Many students will have to work and provide income for their families.

Many students will have to study in houses where domestic violence, abuse and addiction reigns.

Many students suffer from disabilities and the change in climate makes it harder for them to do work.

Many students will have to sit the exam grieving the loss of their loved ones as a result of the virus.

Other students wont even be able to leave their houses until the pandemic is 100pc over, as their body could not handle Covid-19.

I'm calling on the Government to tell me how we are going to give our best shot at these exams, because to us it seems impossible.

In no way shape or form, are we saying that we have it hard, however these exams are going to evaluate our life and predict our future. This decision will hinder our future.

Going with predicted grades is something we have never done before, but we may have to adapt to that possible situation. Other countries are doing it, so why cant we?

This situation is hard on everyone, however it is even harder on people living in disadvantaged areas because we are left alone battling not only a terrifying virus, but also with scarce resources. I can call myself lucky as I have everything I need, however I know people that do not. I want to be the voice for these people.

Please, consider all these factors before making big decisions.

Please be the Government you say you are and help the young people that hold the future of Ireland together.

We are living history. The challenges posed by Covid 19 are similar the world over but everybodys experience of this emergency will be different. In this special series, Lockdown Letters' gives our readers at home and across the globe an opportunity to share their stories about how the Coronavirus and the measures to tackle its spread are impacting their lives in these unprecedented times.

Please email your submission (400 words max.) to stories@independent.ie along with a photograph. We will publish as many letters as possible on Independent.ie and a selection in print every week.
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Linkedin Hugh Bronstein (Reuters) Buenos Aires, Argentina  Sat, April 18, 2020 10:10 634 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2aae78 2 World COVID-19,Argentina,sex-education Free

An Argentine official has given some on-air sex education for onanistic lovers in the time of the coronavirus, underscoring how the pandemic and lockdown in response to it are shaking up every aspect of people's lives.

Jose Barletta, a doctor with the country's health ministry, said in a televised broadcast that people needed to wash their hands after sex - whether it was in person or, as is increasingly the case, over digital channels.

"It's more important than ever to wash your hands after having sexual relations, after masturbation, or virtual sex," the doctor said.

"It is important to disinfect keyboards, telephones, sex toys and whatever else you might be using, whether or not you are sharing these things with others," he said.

The coronavirus lockdown has led to an increase in sales of sex toys in countries ranging from Denmark to Colombia.

Argentina's lockdown began on March 20 and will run until at least April 26. The country has recorded 2,669 confirmed cases of the coronavirus so far, 122 of them fatal.

The country's center-left President Alberto Fernandez, who has been praised for being one of the first leaders in Latin America to impose strict measures aimed at slowing the spread of the pandemic, was even drawn into the question.

In a radio interview on Friday, Fernandez was asked about the guidance offered by the ministry about sex and hygiene.

"If it's what the health ministry says, you should listen," the first-term Peronist leader said. "Don't make me offer my own opinion about this."
One of the most toxic elements of the coronavirus is that the road ahead never appears clearly with any obvious way forward. When it comes to the economy and what may lie ahead, the experts disagree.

We have already seen the economic devastation caused by the virus and the necessary political and social response to it, with more than half a million on the new Covid-19 unemployment benefit. There are a further quarter of a million people receiving payments from their employers through the Government's wage subsidy scheme.

Few now see a short, sharp shock followed by a rapid upward trajectory for economic recovery, as was predicted just a few weeks ago.

Even the economic optimists believe the economic downturn will be as large as that of the Great Depression of the 1930s but it won't last nearly as long. They believe economies can bounce back.

The pessimists warn about a prolonged and deep recession, if not depression, that will follow the Covid-19 crisis because governments have borrowed heavily, employers have higher debt, small businesses don't return and confidence is shattered.

Former US president Ronald Reagan, who was a young man during the Great Depression, once remarked: "A recession is where your neighbour loses his job. A depression is where you lose yours."

The prognosis for Ireland is not so stark when you look at headline figures like our GDP, our levels of business debt, our exports and our levels of foreign direct investment.

So, in other words, Ireland could bounce back more quickly than other countries because of the things we export such as pharmaceuticals, IT and food.

The IMF sees Ireland in a more favourable light than other countries for these reasons. The fact we export around the world so much should allow us to benefit from any wider turnaround that comes.

But there are big gaps in this analysis too. It is a slave to the GDP number and as we know Ireland's real economy often feels very different to what large global multinationals are doing.

It still isn't clear how our ability to export can be such a massive help unless the economies to which we are exporting are recovering themselves.

This analysis has little to say to the tourism and hospitality sector where travel restrictions and the desire and disposable income to travel have to be aligned before we can get back on track.

German airline Lufthansa does not believe Europe will see a return to 2019 levels of international travel until 2023. That wouldn't be a bad outcome at all.

Our food industry is also a big employer and it will be dependent on the disposable income and spending power of the likes of British consumers in the years ahead.

The British will create hundreds of billions of pounds in new money to get through the crisis, which could be a longer term drag on their economy. Sterling won't be going up in value in any meaningful way for some time.

It was stated far too simply at the beginning of this crisis that the food industry would be fine because people have to eat. Farmers know only too well beef prices have collapsed as restaurants from London to Paris aren't selling any steaks.

Our own domestic economy will face its challenges too. The retail sector is among the most challenged right now.

According to the World Health Organisation, we cannot maintain a lockdown until a vaccine comes in 12 or 18 months' time so there must be an element of living alongside the virus, with ongoing social distancing measures.

This means opening up manufacturing but with restrictions that will affect productivity and profit.

Similarly, if you are a restaurateur, a hairdresser or a small retail clothing shop, how will you make money where you have half the number of tables or restrictions about numbers in the shop at any one time?

Fewer customers means fewer staff and tighter margins. Ongoing social distancing measures after reopening could be the difference between profit or loss for many small businesses.

It is hard to imagine smaller clothes shops, where we have already seen casualties, recovering in a situation where changing rooms have to be continually sanitised or gloves worn by every customer. Customers are more like to simply go online.

Online favours bigger international players and destroys jobs in small towns around the country.

Some of these changes were probably coming any way and the crisis has simply accelerated things.

The notion of getting back on track in 2021 is a pipedream. At stake now is whether the economy can embark on a slow steady return by putting in place the right supports for families and businesses.

That can be achieved only if the old Exchequer and economic rulebook is torn up. It is inevitable that tearing up the rulebook, while necessary, will become a longer-term drag on economic growth.

A massive fiscal stimulus from the EU is badly needed - not just cheap loans, but real fiscal support.

As French President Emmanuel Macron said, you cannot have a single market where some are sacrificed.
Police on Saturday seized cash and liquor battles from the car of Aurangabad district health officer (DHO) in Jalna district of Maharashtra, an official said.

A case has been registered against the DHO Dr Amol Gite under Disaster Management Act for violating the lockdown norms, the Maharashtra Prohibition Act and under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), he said.

The car was intercepted at Wardi checkpost on Jalna-Aurangabad Road, said police sub-inspector Shivsinh Bhaure.

Police seized cash worth Rs 6.70 lakh and liquor bottles from the car.

He said the DHO, who was travelling in the car, gave evasive replies when asked about the consignment.

"The DHO told police that he was travelling to his native place Lonar in Buldhana district, and that he was going to hand over the money and the liquor bottles to his father," Bhaure said.

No arrest is made yet, he added.

A police officer from Aurangabad said they have informed the Income Tax department about the seized cash.

He said the collective value of the seizure, including the car, is Rs 12.76 lakh.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
New Delhi, April 18 : Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) volunteers have been extending helping hands to the needy in the wake of nationwide lockdown all across the country.

In Delhi, RSS unit Seva Bharti is providing food and other essential items to those who need it the most at the time of coronavirus crisis. The RSS is running 179 kitchens to feed the poor at 910 places across the national capital since March 22.

Till April 15, RSS has made available 1,22,468 ration kits to the people and has distributed 28,62,312 food packets. These packets were prepared at 8 packaging units in Delhi.

According to Seva Bharti, 50,666 people have made contacts with it for help. A total of 550 calls were made on its student helpline and 171 from the handicapped. A total of 2366 students reached out to Seva Bharti on its digital platform for help.

Seva Bharti also reached out to those students who stay in PG accommodation and provided food and other essential items to at least 1917 students. It said even sex workers were not left out. At least 986 sex workers were provided ration packets, according to the RSS wing.

Even bovines were taken care of in this time of coronavirus crisis. The Seva Bharti managed 75,000 kg of fodder for cows.

Sangh volunteers have also been seen controlling the crowd at various places.

A total of 9145 Sangh volunteers have reached out to 13,18,067 people in the national capital for help so far.
The owner of a Sussex County nursing home where 17 bodies were found this week said a holiday weekend backup was to blame, as records reveal the facility has a history of deficiencies dating back more than three years.

The Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center I and II has been ravaged by the coronavirus, with 26 deaths linked to COVID-19 as of April 15, according to state and county officials. The facility gained national attention after local authorities, alerted by a tip, found bodies in a makeshift morgue.

In a statement released Thursday, the homes co-owner Chaim Scheinbaum blamed the crammed bodies and the number of deaths linked to the coronavirus to a backup,...after hours holiday weekend issues" and more than average deaths.

When reached by phone, Scheinbaum, co-owner of the nursing home since 2018, declined to comment further. Calls to nursing home administration were not immediately returned. The home is owned by a Lakewood-based company called Alliance Healthcare Holdings. Federal and state records list its principals as Scheinbaum and Louis Schwartz.

Records show the nursing homes problems date back years, showing a facility beset by health and care deficiencies as far back as 2016.

Since November of that year, the centers second building, where the pile of bodies was found, has had 26 health deficiencies, according to data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The centers first building has had 10 health deficiencies dating back to October 2017, records show.

In one of the more severe cases, a resident at the nursing homes second building suffered a fall last September that injured a hip, but wasnt diagnosed until more than a week later, records show. In the interim, the resident complained of pain, had to use a wheelchair and was given Tylenol. After 11 days, the resident was taken to an acute care hospital and underwent surgery.

Andover has 699 licensed beds between two separate facilities. The larger of the two is ranked at the bottom in the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare ratings, with 1 out of 5 stars, or much below average. The other is ranked 3 stars, or average.

For family of residents, like Theresa Delarosa, whose mother Francesca Pensallorto, 84, is a resident at the second building, the conditions are not news. Delarosas mother has dementia and lives in the basement area, where there is little light and grimy conditions, she claims. During one visit, Delarosa saw what appeared to be human waste in an elevator, she said.

Its disgusting, said Delarosa.

Ambulance and police parked outside the Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center where police said 17 bodies were stored in a room at the nursing home in Andover, N.J. April, 16, 2020 Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

A haphazard and often trickling flow of information has exacerbated the situation at the nursing home, according to local and county officials and family members of residents. Getting accurate and timely numbers of positive cases and deaths from COVID-19 has been a complicated process, a local official said. And getting answers on the condition of family at the nursing home has been devastatingly difficult.

The problem has always been that the information thats flowing out of the facility and even unfortunately whats being posted on the county website just doesnt jibe, said Andover Township Mayor Michael Lesnak.

Initial reports said that as many as 68 people had died at the nursing home. But, according to the Sussex County Health Department, the total number of deaths at the facility as of April 15 was 57, of which 26 were COVID-19 related. The 26 deaths reported were just at the larger, second building, said Carol Novrit, the Sussex County Health and Human Services Administrator.

More than 80% of the cases that have been reported in Andover Township are at the nursing home, township police and officials said in a statement. More than 90% of the townships deaths from COVID-19 are from the nursing home, the statement said.

Andover Township police were initially notified of conditions at the nursing home by the Sussex County Department of Health and Human Services on April 10, said Chief Eric Danielson. On Easter Sunday, they received the anonymous tip that set the national spotlight on the rural township and led police to discover the room with 17 bodies piled inside.

When Lesnak and township officials began to see the number of COVID-19 related deaths balloon in Andover Township, which has a population of just under 6,000, he reached out to the county. The county told him that the townships numbers were being skewed because of the nursing home, he said. The first positive case of the coronavirus at the nursing home was March 29, said Novrit.

Its frustrating for me as a mayor to not be getting true numbers, he said.

Amy, who said she had a relative at the facility but declined to give her last name, said that Easter Sunday, after the morgue was discovered, no nurses came in to work. Many people could not receive their medication until the next shift at 9 a.m. Monday, she said.

In his statement, Scheinbaum said that staffing at the nursing home was solid, with 12 nurses and 39 certified nursing assistants. Normally, there are 11 nurses and 40 CNAs on staff at the nursing home, he said in the statement.

Delarosa said she only learned of the outbreak when her sister called her Thursday, explaining what happened at the nursing home. It took four troubled hours of calling the home and getting no answer before she could finally get information about her mothers condition, she said.

Even before the outbreak, Delarosa, who visited her mother regularly, was rarely, if ever, given updates, she said.

State Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli read part of Scheinbaums statement, including the breakdown of staffing, at the states coronavirus press briefing Thursday.

After he said he was outraged by reports of the makeshift morgue at the nursing home on Thursday, Governor Phil Murphy expressed further frustration over the Andover facility on Friday.

Youve got a vulnerable population, a deadly virus and if that werent enough you have some folks who are doing what they should not be doing or need to be doing, the governor said, chastising the facilitys operators. This Andover thing is a complete outrage. Folks out there who are upset about this, we dont blame you."

Murphy said the state Department of Health will enforce critical safety measures and protocols at the Andover facility and has sent a team there to assist the centers staff and residents. On Friday, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-5th Dist., sent a letter thanking Persichilli for the aid being sent to the nursing home and urged aid be sent to facilities across the state. Gottheimer was one of the first New Jersey politicians to raise awareness of the situation at the nursing home, fielding complaints from residents families.

It is a huge relief that the residents and staff at Andover will start to get the assistance that is so desperately needed there, Gottheimer said in a statement. I have also asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to deploy National Guard and Reserves to assist and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to provide additional support in the form of PPE and staffing from the U.S. Public Health Service.

As of Friday morning, no team had arrived at the facility, said Lesnak.

In addition to the 26 deaths linked to COVID-19, 103 residents and four staff members have tested positive for the virus, while 133 residents are reporting flu-like or respiratory symptoms and 48 staff members are reporting flu-like symptoms, said Persichilli.

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.

If you would like updates on New Jersey-specific coronavirus news, subscribe to our Coronavirus in N.J. newsletter.

Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rodrigotorrejon.
The blast came only hours after the Almon family gathered to celebrate the first birthday of little Baylee. It's a cliche to say the baby was her mother's light, but she was.

Normally, it was just the two of them, but that was a night to celebrate and the extended-family gathering at their apartment in Oklahoma City was to be the first of many the cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles would mark together. That was the plan.

The next morning, April 19, 1995, Baylee's mom, Aren, dropped her off at day care -- on the second floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Then, at 9:02 a.m., a shock wave was unleashed by the truck bomb on the street below. It thundered through the American heartland, changing everything for the Almon family, changing everything for the families of all 168 people killed, for the families of the more than 500 injured, for Oklahoma City -- and for much of a nation that might have believed peace was at hand once the Cold War ended just a few years earlier.

MORE: Feds issue warning ahead of Oklahoma City bombing's 25th anniversary

"This year, for the 25th anniversary, my family will get all the kids together and we'll go to the memorial at 9:02," Baylee's mother, Aren Almon, told ABC News this week.

PHOTO: In an April 19, 1995 file photo, Oklahoma City firefighter Chris Fields, 30, holds a baby who was thrown from first floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building at the Stars and Stripes Daycare Center in Oklahoma City when an explosion occurred. ( Charles Porter IV/ZUMA Press)

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Almon said "we won't be able to go in, but we'll stand outside the fence and still represent Baylee in our own way. It's still important for us to be able to be there and have the kids there and have them all be able to put something that is important to them on the fence for Baylee this year. That's the way we're going to celebrate the 25th anniversary."

Baylee Almon's life was snuffed out in an instant that morning, when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was blown up in a fog of antigovernment and racist hatred. All told, 19 children were killed along with scores of others whose lives were ended or destroyed by a bomb built and set off by extremist Timothy McVeigh.

Story continues

The Oklahoma City bombing stands as the worst act of domestic terror in American history.

"Evil may have had its moment," Kari Watkins, who has run the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum since it was conceived, said in a video message this week. "But together, we get to define every moment that comes after."

MORE: 25th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing: Photos

The memorial and museum were built to honor the lives lost, and community leaders had grand ambitions for commemorating the 25th anniversary Sunday. Everything, though, was put on hold and moved to the internet because of social-distancing rules.

"We had looked towards this commemoration for a couple of years, really," Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt said in an interview. "I viewed 25 as sort of the anniversary where personal experience sort of transitions to history. You know, after 25, it's really less of an experience and more of something we read about and we study. And so, I really felt like this was the last anniversary where the eyes of the nation would, I believe, turn to Oklahoma City."

PHOTO: In this Sunday, April 23, 1995 file photo, Aren Almon of Oklahoma City, clutches a teddy bear as she is greeted by President Bill Clinton after a prayer service for the victims of a deadly car bomb attack in Oklahoma City. (Pat Sullivan/AP, File)

For Almon, the anniversary also means returning to a photograph that shocked and devastated a nation when it appeared in newspapers across the country. A little girl, covered in dirt, bloody and near death, cradled in the arms of Oklahoma City Fire Capt. Chris Fields. The photograph came to symbolize the bombing.

"I recognized her right away," Almon said, recalling the moment she first saw the image that would be burned into America's psyche. "Those were the clothes that I put on her that morning. ... When I saw the paper, I was like, 'That's Baylee.'"

Almon said she "had no idea the impact that it was going to have, no idea. I don't know if it's because I was so young and just maybe naive. Or if it was just the fact that -- I mean, I had so much other things on my mind. I mean, I was going to have to -- at the age of 22 -- bury a child."

In the minutes right after the bomb tore apart the Murrah building, first responders from all over the state rushed to the scene. They had no idea what caused the explosion; they knew only there were people who needed to be rescued or saved, and still others who were gone but whose bodies had to be delivered to their families.

"I have babies in the federal building," one woman screamed to rescuers.

"I'm going to need at least two more companies here," was the message over the fire dispatch radio. "We need to go in and we got this day care here we need to get into."

Rescuers raced toward the danger. Some were already on the clock and had their equipment; others rushed in from home, wearing only street clothes. They sped to get as close as they could until they just had to leave their vehicles and run the rest of the way over streets covered in glass and debris.

Fields, a trained hazmat expert and one of the department's senior officers, had just gotten to the firehouse for the day shift when the bomb went off. He was one of the first on the scene.

"We were told by our incident commander to go to the south side of the building and we were going to be given our assignment," Fields said in an interview. "And walking to the south side of the building with my crew, there was three other guys with me. A gentleman just, I mean, it was like he just appeared in front of me and said 'I have a critical infant.'"

"You know, my mom always said, 'There's a reason it was you,'" said Fields, whose own son had just turned 2 when the bomb went off. "I just remember saying, 'Here, I'll take her.' He handed me Baylee and he was gone back into the building."

The fires were still raging. Heavy black smoke was pouring from the wreckage of the building and the cars that surrounded it. People, injured and bloody in a daze, were desperately searching for help. Fields took Baylee in toward his chest and ran her over to the waiting emergency medical technicians who had to put down a sheet so they could examine the baby.

PHOTO: In this file photo, a color guard stands at the Field of Chairs during the dedication ceremony of the Oklahoma City National Memorial in Oklahoma City. (Jerry Laizure/AP, File)

In the distance, two photographers captured the moment, as Fields waited for the EMTs to get ready to take the child.

"I had to clean some concrete dust or insulation stuff out of her throat trying to open her airway. And I didn't find any signs of life," Fields said. "I'm just standing there looking at her and, in my mind, I'm thinking somebody's world is getting ready to be turned upside down."

That somebody was Baylee's mom, Aren, who by that time was with her own sister, racing back-and-forth between hospitals trying to find the baby with the white socks. They had no way of knowing that a cop had already found the battered little girl and handed her off to the nearest firefighter, Fields.

"We get back in the car and drive back to Saint Anthony's [Hospital], which we originally started at," Almon said. "I walked into the hospital and I saw my pediatrician's nurse, and I was like, 'They said there sounds like a baby that's here that'" could be Baylee.

The nurse said, "'Well, hold on,'" Almon said. "So she called the pediatrician. And she goes, 'Oh my God. No.'"

MORE: Feds issue warning ahead of Oklahoma City bombing's 25th anniversary

The baby is believed to have died almost instantly at the Murrah building.

The next morning, Fields would learn that the critically injured 1-year-old he carried to an EMT was named Baylee Almon -- and that together, Chris and Baylee, would become the faces of the tragedy of the Oklahoma City bombing.

For 25 years, Fields and Almon have shared the bond they wished they didn't have and befriended each other as both confronted demons born out of the blast at the corner of North Harvey Avenue and Northwest 4th Street.

"One day I was a parent," Almon said. "And I woke up the next day and I wasn't."

Fields continued on in the fire department, working until retirement two years ago. It took nearly a decade after the bombing for the survivor's guilt and post-traumatic stress to catch up with him, but when it did, he said, it was brutal.

"I could tell that I was kind of withdrawing from my family," Fields said. "And things just spiraled out of control with my personal life, everything. You know, me and my wife ended up being separated for about 15 months, until I got to a point in my life I would consider rock bottom for me."

Through it all, Fields and Almon said they were there for each other  almost like brother and sister. Fields got help, rebounded and put his life back together. He now helps other first responders learn how to live with the trauma wrought by their careers.

Almon has spent 25 years mourning a child whose last moments were shared with the world. It's been far from easy, she said.

"Baylee was a real person. She wasn't always that baby in the fireman's arms," Almon said. "She was a real person."

PHOTO: In this April 19, 1995, file photo, rescue workers stand in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building following an explosion in downtown Oklahoma City. One hundred sixty-eight people died as a result of the explosion. (David Longstreath/AP, File)

Almon married, had a son and another daughter and now lives down the block from the site of the Murrah building. Some in the community of victims and family members from the bombing have ostracized her, she said, accusing Almon (without proof) of profiting off the bombing and angry that the attention that Baylee has gotten detracts from the other victims.

"That photo's always been a blessing and a curse," Almon said.

"I was able to [help] make safer federal buildings," said Almon, who went on to lobby for increased security at government buildings. "If I'm able to use it to save lives and if Chris is able to use it to save lives, then that's what we should do. We've dealt with that picture for so many years that if we're able to help other people with it, then we should be able to."

MORE: There have been 3 federal executions in modern US, but that number is set to multiply

Baylee remains a constant presence in the life of Almon and her children. They talk about Baylee as if she were just sitting there at the kitchen table or in the living room. She's the sister who just happens to be in heaven.

"I believe that Baylee's in heaven and I believe that she can hear us," Almon said. "I believe that I'll see her again."

And so, every year on April 19, Almon and her family go to the memorial to commemorate a life that was lived for just 365 days. Every year, except this year, as a nation once again confronts fear, danger and uncertainty.

"It's been difficult," Almon said. "It's been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. But we'll still go down to the memorial and  we'll be able to decorate the fence and hang her happy birthday posters and everything. We're making the best of a bad situation."

ABC News' Alex Hosenball, Alexandra Myers, Erielle Reshef and Evan Simon contributed to this report.

The Oklahoma City bombing, 25 years later: The picture and the pain originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
18.04.2020 LISTEN

The prolonged nation-wide lockdown has undoubtedly helped India to control the spread of Corona virus very well. As against almost 2.2 million cases worldwide, India has only 13500 COVID-19 cases in a country of 1.3 billon people. This is all the more important when the strongest of the nations like US have approximately 680000 corona cases followed by Spain and Italy having 185000 and 169000 respectively. In fact, Europe and US together account for 80% of the infected cases and 77% of total deaths 150000 worldwide till date. But then the recipe of self-isolation and complete lockdown of economic activity has come at an enormous cost of devastation of economies around the globe, be it manufacturing, trade, business, tours and travel and IT services.

Never it was thought that we shall lend ourselves in a time when the entire surface and air transport including public and private vehicles, trains, metros and the airlines shall be closed for over a month and that even the poor man's weekly bazars and the e-deliveries for middle class will all be banned. What more there are still no clear signs for the effective control of this global pandemic COVID-19.

But then, there is a positive side of the Corona Lockdown that cannot be brushed aside. It is in respect of its positive impact on the health of the environment. It is a pleasant surprise that we are back with a blue sky and with air quality indices like PM1 registering as low as 10 micrograms per cubic meter (g/m3), PM2.5 has come down to 20g/m3 and PM10 around 40g/m3in a country like India that has the history of touching the highest levels of AQI of 999g/m3 or even higher at many times during the year. Likewise, the holyrivers like Ganga and Yamuna which could not be depolluted by best of our efforts during the last one decade are being reported to be flowing with the cleanest water ever during the Corona virus lockdown.

What more, almost one death every two minutes, amounting to 750 deaths per day that were taking place due to rash driving and road accidents have also been averted, saving some 30000 deaths during the 39days lockdown due to little or no mobility on roads and highways of India. Thanks to COIVD-19 for saving so many lives.

The billion dollar question therefore is whether we the people of India and our government of the day can take some tough, even unpleasant decisions, such as implementing zero tolerance policy towards polluting industries, polluting power plants, polluting heavy vehicles, dusty mines and construction sites and energize and engage municipal corporation, MCDs and civic services to effectively implement efficient waste management measures and maintain a clean and dust free environment that shall guaranty continued saving of millions of lives that were being lost due to air and water pollution and by sluggish enforcement of traffic rules and regulations. Heavy investment for treatment of wastewater and sewage should be made in India, as we currently treat no more than 30% of sewage in our country(22963MLD treated against the sewage generation of 61754 MLD) and allowing uncontrolled flow of dirty and toxic drains directly into ourrivers and water bodies.

But then it requires an iron will on part of the government and also mandates the fullest of public awakening and support to lead India and its 1.3 plus billion people to such healthy times once COVID lockdown is declared withdrawn completely or in a phased manner as may be decided by the government in the coming days.

There is also an urgent need for the review the traffic plan in mega cities like Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata and enforce strict traffic discipline on roads and highways of India as the road accidentsalone are the single largest killer in India apart from heart attacks, chronic respiratory diseases and cancers, much of these deaths are also attributed to environmental pollution that kills us from head to toes.

As far the economic disruption, the recent IMF Report 2020 has already warned that The global economy is projected to contract by 3% in 2020, much worsethan the financial crisis of 2008-09. As per the IMF 2020 report, US economy shall sink by 5.9%, Europe by 7.5%, and India by 1.9%. But the good news is that the WEF outlook for 2021 has projected the global economy to bounce back with high positive growth wherein India is projected to grow at 7.4% in 2021. This positive growth for India would however require robust policy interventions to help the crippled industry, business and service sector to regain the necessary buoyancy to sail and swim with a positive outlook during the time of deep global recession.

While revival of economic growth is important, equally important would be to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 that predicts that over half a billion people around the globe could be pushed into poverty, half of these in East Asia Pacific as per the recent report of WEF 2020.

The RBI has already announced today a series of measures that are rightly aimed to provide the financial stimulus to various instruments of economic system. But it must be ensured through policies and strict guidelines that much of the benefit should go to revive the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid. As such the poor, middle class and daily wagers at the bottom of the pyramid need to be supported such that the financial stimulus through agencies like NABARD results in a productive utilization of the financial stimulus, creating both the productive use of the stimulus and also improving the purchasing power of the middle class and poor to boost the domestic demand.

This becomes all the important as we already have a massive disruption of economy caused by increased automation and industry 4.0 technologies that have pushed human workforce out of many jobs that are increasingly being taken over by their robotic co-workers on the strength of AI and Machine Learning Technologies. It would therefore be wiser to invest in creating new jobs through strengthening the supply chain and the value chain to take the fullest advantage of Industry 4.0 in India by accelerating massification of entrepreneurship and startups in plenty, now that the power of innovation and the spirit of entrepreneurship has been unleashed by the young India, says Prof PB Sharma, Vice Chancellor of Amity University Gurugram who is also the Founder Vice Chancellor of Delhi Technological University and Past President of the Association of Indian Universities.

The author can be reached at email - [email protected] or Mobile- 9810146096
The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi has announced that it will be providing tele-consultancy to all patients currently undergoing treatment at the hospital. This has been done to reduce the need for such patients who visit the facility during the coronavirus lockdown.

According to an official statement by AIIMS, patients can register online and seek medical advice over the phone from April 20 onwards. AIIMS said that the hospital is at the frontlines of the battle against COVID-19 in Delhi but is also concerned about the medical attention needed to be given to non-COVID patients of the hospital.

"All patients who were undergoing treatment in AIIMS, New Delhi and had been advised a follow-up, can now register online for obtaining a follow-up appointment. On the given date, doctors of concerned department/speciality will call up these patients and give them the requisite medical advice. The follow-up patients of AIIMS, New Delhi, can visit this link https://ors.gov.in/followup/ and obtain appointments," the statement said.

On March 24, AIIMS Delhi decided to indefinitely shut down its Out-Patient Department (OPD) services. It was the first the medical institute to have done so.

AIIMS had issued a circular postponing all non-essential elective procedures and surgeries, conducting only emergency life-saving surgeries with effect from March 21.

Also Read: Coronavirus India Live Updates: 6 states past 1,000-mark; Maharashtra tops the list with 3,323 COVID-19 cases

Also Read: Coronavirus: 'Global contraction in H1 2020 is inevitable,' says IMF
In recent court hearings on the issue, a series of clerk supervisors assigned for decades to different suburban offices testified that Yarbrough suddenly implemented a rotation policy under the false guise of standardizing the operations. They cited numerous hardships, including disruptions to family life and long commutes not in prior job descriptions. They argued the policies were put in place to make them so miserable theyd quit.
He had opposed the Nazis from the beginning. A political organizer for the Social Democrats, Kellner campaigned against them during the short-lived Weimar Republic (1919-33). When Hitler came to power, Kellner moved his family to the small town of Laubach where he was not known for his political activities and became the courthouse manager. In 1939, when German troops marched into Poland, he began a diary to record Nazi crimes. Because he sometimes gave voice to his feelings, the Gestapo placed him under surveillance. Fortunately, his position in the courthouse kept him and his wife, Pauline, from arbitrary arrest.




Renowned Indian actor who featured in the popular action movie series Prison Break and The Office, Ranjit Chowdhry, has reportedly died.

Naija News learnt that the 64-year-old Bollywood actor had died on Wednesday, April 15 at hospital in Mumbai, China.

It was reported Ranjit had died in his home country where he recently returned to after several months in the United States.

Giving updates on Ranjits death, theatre personality, Dolly Thakore disclosed to newsmen that the actor had suffered a ruptured ulcer on April 14 and was rushed to a local hospital, where was confirmed dead while undergoing a surgery.

He got a ruptured ulcer in the intestine which happened April 14. A physician was called who said he needs to go to the hospital and he was taken to Breach Candy hospital. They operated on him but he died at the hospital yesterday at 4 in the morning, said Thakore.

In another development, Naija News reported that a United State based Nigerian man, Jonathan Amarachi, has died of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease.

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The Maharashtra government will provide financial assistance of Rs 2000 to all the registered construction workers in the state to tide over the crisis during the lockdown to break the chain of coronavirus infections, officials said on Saturday.

This one-time monetary help will be sent directly to the bank accounts of more than 12 lakh construction workers through direct benefit transfer (DBT), the officials said.

The decision to give the assistance, taken by the state labour department on Saturday, will bring an additional burden of around Rs 250 crore to the state exchequer.

To contain the spread of Covid-19 epidemic, lockdown is being imposed in the state. This has led to shutting down of all the construction works across Maharashtra. Consequently, construction workers have no work. They have to stay at home and are also facing a financial crisis as they have no source of income, an order issued by the labour department said.

Considering this, the state government has decided to provide financial help to all the registered and active construction workers, it said.

The order came days after hundreds of migrant labourers, mostly from West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, gathered outside the Bandra railway station demanding that they be sent back to their homes.

Only those workers who are registered with the states Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board (BOCWWB) will be eligible to get the monetary assistance.

Their registration is also expected to be active, which means renewed every year, said SC Srirangam, the boards secretary and chief executive officer.

Also read: Coronavirus cases in India rise to 14,378, death toll at 480

Maharashtra has 22.70 lakh registered construction workers but only 12.18 lakh who are active, will get benefit of the decision, Srirangam said.

Meanwhile, the state has decided to allow construction work in cities, including Mumbai and Pune, with a rider that prior permission from civic authorities will be mandatory.

According to the order issued by chief secretary Ajoy Mehta on Friday, the state has given permission for all urgent pre-monsoon works. The Maharashtra government has started to allow relaxation of rules in several areas of the state.

The new rules will come into effect from April 20.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Faisal Malik Faisal is with the political team and covers state administration and state politics. He also covers NCP. ...view detail
When she steps into the three-bedroom condominium in suburban Montgomery County, Md., to feed, bathe and care for the three disabled residents, she worries about what she may have carried inside. And after her eight-hour shift, when she returns to her apartment in nearby Layhill, she wonders whether she might have brought anything home to Keith, her 16-year-old son.
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

University of New Mexico Hospital administrators have threatened their front-line medical workers with disciplinary action for publicly raising concerns about their safety while treating patients during the coronavirus pandemic.

The warnings were made as the number of cases and deaths in the state attributed to COVID-19 continues to rise, and state officials have said hospitals could see a surge of patients in the coming weeks. Seven more adults  four in Bernalillo County  died amid New Mexicos coronavirus outbreak, pushing the total to 51 deaths, state health officials said Friday.

Several UNMH nurses and other hospital employees this week raised concerns  primarily about the hospitals stockpile of personal protective equipment, or PPE  during a protest outside the hospital and in interviews with the media. The employees said rules governing the use of the equipment have been changing regularly, raising concerns among the workers.

We get it. Theres a nationwide shortage of (PPE). Treat us like adults. Tell us what you have. Tell us what youre doing to preserve it and why you are cutting back, Hunter Marshall, a nurse who works in an ICU where COVID patients are treated, said Friday. Well be understanding. I have no doubt the hospital is doing the best they can. They just need to tell us what they are doing and why.

Marshall  along with other employees, he said  received a letter Wednesday saying hospital officials observed him speaking with media on two occasions this month in violation of UNMH policy.

Your conduct described above is unacceptable and it has interfered with the efficiency of this office, Felicia Hoffman, director of the medical ICU, said in the letter obtained by the Journal.

This written counseling is not disciplinary, the letter says. However, further instances of the above behavior after receipt of this written counseling will not be tolerated and may serve as the basis for formal disciplinary action.

Asked about the letters, university officials referred to internal policies.

The University of New Mexico Hospital has long-standing media and public relations policies, said Mark Rudi, a hospital spokesman. All employees sign that they acknowledge and understand those policies upon their date of hire.

The warnings for disciplinary action against the workers come as state officials have warned of a forthcoming surge of COVID patients in the coming weeks, based on models predicting how the virus is spreading.

Weve tried to be very clear in our communication that we have no intent to disparage the hospital. We have a lot of respect for the folks who are making decisions about what constitutes sufficient PPE. They are doing the best they can with what they have, Marshall said. The issue is that when we speak up about the safety conditions in a way that contradicts the hospital narrative, which is we have enough to keep staff safe, were being threatened with discipline or intimidated.

Additional cases

Altogether Friday, state health officials said testing had confirmed 115 new cases of COVID-19 throughout New Mexico, pushing the statewide total to 1,711.

More than half of the new cases announced Friday are in McKinley and San Juan counties, where an outbreak has hit the Navajo Nation.

State officials say COVID-19 has been a factor in 51 deaths throughout the state so far. Among the seven deaths announced Friday, the victims ages ranged from their 40s to their 90s. All but two had underlying medical conditions.

Two of the Bernalillo County deaths were older adults who had been residents of La Vida Llena, a retirement community in Albuquerque. Attorney General Hector Balderas has accused La Vida Llena of failing to follow public health orders, an allegation the company disputes.

Ninety-six people are hospitalized with coronavirus symptoms in New Mexico, and 382 people are classified as having recovered.
Nick Wagner, MBR / Associated Press

Gov. Greg Abbott this week unveiled the Strike Force to Reopen Texas, aimed at restarting business in phases and returning the state to some sense of "normalcy" amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meantime, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has way toned down his rhetoric since his proposal for senior citizens to perhaps give up their lives in exchange for a robust economy. And Rep. Dan Crenshaw spars with Bill Maher on HBO.
- A new dad of one has bagged a KSh 320 million lottery win only weeks after losing his job due to the coronavirus pandemic

- The mega win, he said, gave him complete relief as he could now take care of his young family without any worry

- The lucky man will be receiving around KSh 1.3 million a month for the next 20 years

A new dad has scooped a 2.4 million (KSh 320 million) lottery win just weeks after losing his job due to the coronavirus pandemic that has left the world in a limbo.

The unnamed winner who is said to be in his 20s from Adelaide, Australia, had been so stressed and worried about how he would support his family after the coronavirus crisis pushed him out of employment.

READ ALSO: Comedian Michael Che to pay rent for 160 tenants at building his late grandmother lived

The Australian dad purchased his ticket online at thelott.com, which has since been confirmed by officials. Photo: The Lotto

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: COVID-19 heroes: Nominated MCA Anita Thumbi joins health workers to fight pandemic from frontline

But all that changed in a stunning turnaround of fortune when his numbers came up in the lottery and he won the top prize in Australia's the Lott's Set For Life game, Mirror reported.

"I checked my online account last night and saw I had won. I woke up my wife to tell her and she screamed," the winner was quoted by The Lotto.

"It is unbelievable! I checked my online account so many times to see if it was real... it is a wonderful feeling," he added

READ ALSO: Nairobi County Assembly declines to amend supplementary budget bill

It is safe to say that his family will never be the same again. He will receive around 10,000 (KSh 1.3m) a month for the next 20 years.

The lucky dad had also recently welcomed his first child and will use the cash to buy their first home.

"We are a young family and we have a baby, so this will set us up for the rest of our lives. I recently lost my job because of COVID-19, and so this just gives me complete relief. I have been so stressed lately, but now I am so happy," he said.

READ ALSO: Coronavirus: Wellwishers help desperate Kayole man who lost work due to pandemic

The Australian dad purchased his ticket online at thelott.com, which has since been confirmed by the officials.

And speaking of his wife's plans, he said she wanted to do everything; a new car, holidays, and a new house, not just any house but their dream house.

READ ALSO: Coronavirus: China revises Wuhan death toll upwards by 50% bringing total to 3,869

He has become the eighth person to win the Set for Life pot in 2020.

The coronavirus has crippled the economy worldwide with large numbers of businesses unable to operate while people are forced to stay at home.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Donald Trump presents plans to open up the United States following the coronavirus pandemic shutdown at a White House briefing as Deborah Birx watches on 16 April, 2020: AP

President Donald Trump has demanded for state officials to "liberate" Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia amid the coronavirus pandemic, after saying it would be up to the governors to reopen.

The president issued his demands on Twitter on Friday in short tweets.

"LIBERATE MINNESOTA," he first wrote without providing context to why he wanted the state to reopen. Similar tweets were also issued for Michigan and Virginia, with Mr Trump adding the second amendment was "under siege" in Virginia.

"LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege," he wrote.

These tweets come just one day after the Trump administration unveiled its three-phase plan to help guides states on reopening during the pandemic.

At the time, Mr Trump said he would leave the decision up to the states while adding he thought 29 states were close to entering the first phase of reopening. But it now appears the president was willing to publicly put pressure on the states he thought should immediately open.

The three states were not the only ones to receive targetted tweets on Friday. Mr Trump also went on the attack against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo over federal response.

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Elections are coming, its time to flog the dead View(s):

My dear citizens of Paradise,

I thought I must write to you again after a few weeks because this week will mark the first anniversary of the deadly terrorist attacks on Easter Sunday last year that left hundreds of people dead and many others wondering what had become of our land after a decade of relative peace and stability.

One year later, even our commemoration of that event is forced to be on a low key because we  and indeed, the rest of the world  are in the midst of another deadly event, a pandemic of catastrophic proportions that has left hundreds of thousands dead in some countries, though fortunately not in ours.

Even though there wont be any major events to remember what happened on Easter Sunday because we are under lockdown and a strict curfew, it might still be worthwhile revisiting those incidents and asking ourselves whether anything has changed in the way citizens of Paradise think and act.

There have, of course, been some major changes since last April. The most important of them was Aiyo Sirisena becoming Cheerio Sirisena and the Green Man and his team being replaced by Mahinda maama. One could argue that the events of last Easter Sunday paved the way for those changes.

Gota maama, who was until then quite shy of declaring his candidacy came forward and offered himself as the candidate for the pohottuwa party soon after last years Easter attacks. I won one war, I can win another; I am the man the country needs to fight this new form of terrorism, he said.

There is nothing wrong with that, of course, and not only does he have the right to say that, he has done well so far. Nevertheless, the campaign carried out by the pohottuwa chaps to get him elected portrayed him as the leader of only one community  which is why he lost in the North and East.

Despite that, in the current environment where a virus is threatening to overrun the world, many agree that the changes that occurred in Paradise were for the better. One shudders to think what would have happened if Cheerio Sirisena and the Green Man were in charge, as they were during last Easter.

We would have been in a situation where the Green Mans Law and Order Minister declares a curfew and Aiyo Sirisena cancels it. Or, we would have been treated to the spectacle where Aiyo Sirisena implements the death penalty on curfew violators and those who publish comments on social media!

Even if the change which brought Gota maama to the top job was beneficial, we must however ask whether our attitude to some issues have changed since that dark day on Easter Sunday last year when hundreds died and thousands lost their loved ones. Honestly, I dont think so, citizens of Paradise.

If you recall what happened last year, the attacks were followed by a campaign against one community with calls to boycott business establishments owned by that community. Keyboard warriors on social media had a field day, with patriotism oozing from their every pore.

It can be argued with some merit that radical elements of this community did little to integrate with the rest of Paradise. However, long before last Easter there was a hate campaign against this community by some saffron robed persons. It is no secret that some politicians supported that effort.

One of those saffron robed persons who incited riots against this community some years ago but went unpunished because of his political connections was finally put behind bars for contempt of court but that too came to naught because he was given a parting gift by the departing Cheerio Sirisena!

Though the events of last Easter may have had a lasting impact, we havent learnt any lesson from it. Now, every man and his dog want an inquiry into those incidents  and they want to blame someone else. Cheerio Sirisena had his inquiry. The last Parliament had its inquiry. Now there is to be another.

All these inquiries seem hell bent on blaming political opponents and trying to gain votes from the electorate. The fact that we are suddenly hearing about more arrests  one year after the event and on the eve of yet another election  means that this story is, as they say, getting curiouser and curiouser!

Even the current campaign against the coronavirus has its communal undertones. Sadly, people like Rauff  who are supposed to provide leadership to their brethren  havent helped by insisting on burial for those who succumbed to the virus, when the long-term effects of the virus are not known yet.

One year after the Easter attacks, we have learnt nothing. We remain divided on communal lines. Those who conduct inquiries do so only to gain political advantage. So, dear citizens of Paradise, the sad truth is that the 259 people who died that day, may have died in vain.

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: When the Cardinal, who is widely respected, requested a transparent probe into the Easter attacks, Gota maama readily agreed and quickly appointed a team to expedite inquiries. Now that His Eminence has said that this is not the time for elections, will Gota maama agree as readily, I wonder?
More than 1,000 protesters gathered at the Idaho Statehouse Friday in defiance of Gov. Brad Little's extension of the statewide stay-at-home order.

Gov. little has extended the order till the end of April, saying the move is necessary to continue to slow the spread of the coronavirus and hasten the state's overall recovery.

The move was met with derision by some members of the far-right in Idaho, and some libertarian, gun-rights and anti-vaccine organizations began directing members to defy the order. Most at the Boise protest were standing shoulder-to-shoulder and not wearing face masks.

Some carried signs claiming the coronavirus is a hoax, while others held signs with slogans like, "All workers are essential" and "Freedom not fear." Similar protests have been held across the U.S., with groups pushing back against stay-at-home orders in places like Michigan, Texas and Virginia. Dozens circled Oregon's state Capitol in their vehicles to protest that state's stay-at-home order.

Gov. Little said some businesses that were previously considered non-essential, like flower, jewelry and other retail shops, can re-open as long as they can offer curbside service and ensure social distancing.

Some top state GOP lawmakers have been pressing Little to hand control of the coronavirus response to local officials.

According to a Johns Hopkins University tally, Idaho has 1,609 people with confirmed COVID-19 and forty-one residents have died from the illness so far.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday constituted a consultative group, headed by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to deliberate on current matters related to the coronavirus outbreak and formulate the partys views on various issues.

The 11-member group also comprises former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, partys chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala, who will also be its convenor, general secretary in-charge organisation KC Venugopal and former union ministers P Chidambaram, Manish Tewari and Jairam Ramesh.

This is for the first time after he stepped down as the Congress president on May 25 last year following the partys drubbing in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections that Rahul Gandhi has become a member of a newly formed organisational panel.

Even after his resignation from the top post, he continued to be a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the partys highest decision-making body, the central election committee (CEC), a panel that selects candidates for any state or Lok Sabha polls, the election coordination committee and the group to look into future challenges.

Rahul Gandhi also held strategy meetings during the budget session of Parliament that concluded last month.

In a press release, the party said the consultative group will meet virtually, normally every day, to deliberate on matters of current concern and formulate views of the party on various issues.

The other members of the group are Praveen Chakravarty, Gaurav Vallabh, Supriya Shrinate and Rohan Gupta.

Explaining the functioning of the group, a member said on the condition of anonymity that the panel will give suggestions to the government on both health and economic challenges.

Economic pandemic is even bigger than the health pandemic. As Rahul Gandhi had said that the Congress as the principal opposition and the countrys oldest political party will continue to give its suggestions; irrespective, if the government accepts those or not, he said.

We are duty bound to place in public domain the challenges and the solutions thereof in terms of way ahead. It is deeply felt by many many people in the country that the government is doing very little in terms of laying down a roadmap for kick-starting the economy and its strategy for economic recovery, the member added.

He said the group will have wider consultations with chief ministers, former chief ministers, former union ministers, party leaders, non-Congress leaders and experts.

Apart from suggestions and solutions, the group will keep coming out with warnings to the government about the forthcoming challenges, the member said.

He said Rahul Gandhis press conference on Thursday laid down a blueprint for constructive suggestions and positive criticism.

He happens to be the leader who is a rallying point for the party even though he may not hold any post. That is why with Dr Manmohan Singh, him and Chidambaram there, this committee will be able to lay down a futuristic roadmap for the country, the member said.

Both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have been interacting with party leaders from across the country through video-conferencing, urging them to play an active role in the fight against the deadly Covid-19 by reaching out to maximum number of people in distress due to the nationwide lockdown apart from assessing the work of the Centre and state governments in containing the pandemic in their respective states.

The Congress has repeatedly demanded scaling up the testing and providing personal protection equipment (PPE) to doctors, nurses and health workers.

It has also urged the government to spell out steps it planned to take to mitigate the woes of migrant labourers stranded on the borders of different states and those of the farmers waiting to harvest crops.

The Congress has further demanded state-specific special economic packages and urged the Centre to clear all pending dues, including the GST, to states to enable them to fight the pandemic.

It said the government must ensure phased lifting of the lockdown and coordinate with states to mitigate the sufferings of the poor.

For her part, the Congress chief has written six letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi since March 23, seeking relief for different sections and suggesting measures to the government in dealing with the coronavirus.

Addressing a news conference on Thursday through video-conferencing, Rahul Gandhi had said lockdown is not a solution to defeat Covid-19 but a pause button and stressed the need for having a comprehensive exit strategy in place to ensure that the coronavirus does not come back once the restrictions are lifted.

While seeking immediate release of money and resources to states to enable them to deal with the pandemic in a nuanced manner, Rahul Gandhi urged the government to manage its funding to enable the country to tide over the massive financial backlash due to coronavirus.

One must keep in mind that do not use all our ammunition right now, because if you use all your ammunition right now, and we end up 2-3 months from now with a serious financial blowback. We have a real serious problem. So, it has to be thought through strategically. My advice is give out as much money to the poorest, weakest people as you can, but, keep in mind that there is going to be a financial backlash, he added.

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The British government reported that as of Thursday, 13,729 people had died in U.K. hospitals after testing positive for the coronavirus. The number does not include hundreds, and maybe thousands, of virus-related deaths in nursing homes and other settings.

Anthony Costello, director of the Institute for Global Health at University College London, said the U.K. "could see 40,000 deaths" by the time the first wave of the country's outbreak is over.

A leading public health expert said Friday that Britain likely has the highest coronavirus death rate in Europe due to what he described as "system errors," while the government defended its record in responding to the pandemic.

Costello has been a vocal critic of the government's strategy, saying it has not been doing enough testing for the virus and has failed to trace and isolate people who were in contact with infected individuals.

"What were the system errors that led us to have probably the highest death rates in Europe?" he said. "We're going to face further waves and so we need to make sure we have a system in place... that enables you to test people rapidly in the community, in care homes and to make sure that the results are got back to them very quickly," Costello told a committee of British lawmakers Friday.

Britain was slower than many other European countries to impose mandatory restrictions on business and daily life to slow the spread of the coronavirus. A lockdown ordered on March 23 was extended Thursday for at least three more weeks. Schools, restaurants and most shops are closed, and most people are allowed to leave home only for essential errands or exercise.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock defended the government's record, saying "test, track and trace" was part of its strategy. "I think we took the right measures at the right time," he said.

The government vowed to conduct 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by the end of April, a more than five-fold increase on current rates. It has also promised to include nursing home deaths in the official tally.
The back side of the Lazaretto Quarantine Station can be seen from the Delaware River on April 14, 2020. The Lazaretto Quarantine Station was built in 1799 and was used as a quarantine station for immigrants and cargo entering the city of Philadelphia by way of the Delaware River. The building now serves as Tinicum Townships administration facility. Read more

The elegant Georgian structure, built when John Adams was Americas president and Philadelphia its capital, still sits on a picturesque Delaware River landing, a brick-and-columned reminder that this region experienced infectious diseases long before COVID-19 arrived.

That 221-year-old building in Essington, just south of Philadelphia International Airport, was the centerpiece of the Lazaretto, a 10-acre facility where throughout the 19th century, the city quarantined disease-infected immigrants and crew members bound for its bustling port.

And while its been more than a century since patients were isolated and treated there, the history of the Lazaretto  Italian for lepers house  might provide lessons in 2020 for those coping with a coronavirus outbreak that has closed much of America.

In use from 1802 until 1895, an era when deadly epidemics were commonplace and hygiene and sanitation haphazard at best, the Lazaretto was an unusually effective health institution.

Weve got detailed records from 1847 on and they show that 78% of yellow fever patients treated there and 95% of those with typhus were cured, said David Barnes, a Penn professor who specializes in public health. Overall, I think 88% of patients treated there survived. Thats not a bad batting average for the 19th century, especially when they were dealing with such deadly diseases.

Recently, after decades of neglect, the Lazarettos main building, which includes two hospital wings, was repurposed to serve as Tinicum Townships administrative offices. Officials moved into the Western Hemispheres oldest surviving quarantine hospital just days before the coronavirus outbreak hit.

Its all just soaked in irony, said Barnes, who is writing a book on the Lazaretto. The restoration took much longer than anticipated. The township finally moved in and a week or two later the pandemic shut everything down.

 FAQ: Your coronavirus questions, answered

In the 1800s, long before social distancing, the Delaware River in Philadelphia was clogged with sloops, barges, and packet ships hauling cargo and immigrants here.

Four deadly yellow fever outbreaks had hit the city in the 1790s, including one in 1793 that killed 10% of the population. According to Barnes, the neighborhoods most affected were those abutting the docks with their towering skyline of wooden masts.

There were piers roughly from a little north of Vine Street down to Catharine Street, said Barnes. That area back to Second Street is where the yellow fever was concentrated.

The citys medical community was divided on how contagious diseases like yellow fever and typhus arrived here and spread. Some felt they originated in filth and when temperatures rose formed a deadly miasma. Others disagreed, believing it was carried here by ships and spread person to person.

After battling it out for years, they reached an uneasy truce, Barnes said. Both sides got what they wanted. The Board of Health said were going to clean up the city as best we can, and were going to quarantine.

Researchers finally discovered in 1900 that yellow fever is a virus transmitted when an infected mosquito bites a person. It had been brought to the United States on those ships from the West Indies. Though there is no direct medicine for yellow fever, most people recover on their own.

Typhus, on the other hand, is a bacterial disease transmitted person to person by lice. It can be cured with antibiotics and is now rare.

 READ MORE: The world has suffered through other deadly pandemics. But the response to coronavirus is unprecedented.

Quarantining had been employed against contagious diseases since Europes Black Plague in the 14th century. By the 1820s, most American ports had quarantine hospitals or pest houses. The first here was at Fort Mifflin, the second in Marcus Hook.

But the relentless diseases soon overwhelmed them and in 1799 work began on a new and larger facility on an Essington riverbank, a point passed by all Philadelphia-bound ships.

In the warmer months, when diseases prowled the crowded piers, city law required all river traffic, even ships headed north to Trenton and elsewhere, to be diverted to the Lazaretto.

The Lazarettos physician and quarantine master would board and inspect the cargo to see if there was contamination, said Barnes. Then the physician would interview the captain and inspect passengers and crew for signs of illness. Hed then make a decision about whether to detain the ship, the cargo, or passengers or to allow it to proceed.

Barnes estimated tens of thousands of patients were treated there. According to an 1847 newspaper account, between June and October that year, 529 ships were inspected at the Lazaretto, 262 from overseas. A total of 7,808 immigrants were examined. Of those, 300 were admitted and 35 died.

Most Philadelphia-bound immigrants came from Europe, at first England, Ireland, and Germany, later southern and eastern nations. The bulk of the cargo, meanwhile, was from the West Indies.

All those vessels accessed the river from the Delaware Bay. Captains hoping to circumvent the inspection process often unloaded south of the city, in New Castle or Wilmington.

Lazaretto patients occupied the hospital wings, or the barracks and cabins that along with a morgue, disinfectant house, and pier were located on the site. Often its proximity to population centers like Chester caused public concerns.

 READ MORE: In 1918, it was Spanish influenza that afflicted Philadelphia sports

That was especially true in 1870 after the captain and passengers on a yellow fever-infected ship from Jamaica died and the Lazarettos physician, quarantine master, and a nurse contracted the illness.

Barnes estimated the facility, operated by Philadelphias Board of Health, had a staff of 15 to 20, including a couple of domestic servants for the physician and quarantine master.

My argument is that supportive care is what made a difference, Barnes said. Food, drink, clean clothing, clean bedding, rest, and nursing care. As for medicine, most of the medical textbooks were prescribing aggressive depletion like bloodletting and purging. But they also got a treatment of gentle tonics, which included quinine and wine or brandy to stimulate the body. Sometimes there was morphine for pain relief or to help them sleep.

For most of the Lazarettos operational life, Barnes noted, health inspection was the only formal immigration process that existed. Those who passed those examinations continued on to one of the Delaware River piers and disembarked.

That changed in the 1890s when the federal government assumed control of immigration. It set up a disinfectant station on Reedy Island on the Delaware River and an immigration station at the foot of Washington Avenue where newcomers were registered and inspected.

 READ MORE: Spit Spreads Death: A mournful march commemorates 1918 flu that killed 20,000 in Philly

The Lazaretto closed in 1895. It later served as a post office, a retirement home, a private club, and a flight school. Philadelphia aviator Frank Mills bought it in 1937 for $10,500, and it stayed in his family for decades.

Eventually, the three-story structure was abandoned and forgotten. Passengers on planes landing at Philadelphia International Airport often remarked about the old building they spotted from their windows. Finally in 2005, after plans for a bed-and-breakfast collapsed and historians voiced concerns about its fate, the township bought the property.

That was crucial, said Barnes, Tinicum had grant money to build a new township building and it was able to use it to buy and restore the Lazaretto.

A Penn colleague told Barnes about the Lazaretto in 2006. At work then on a history of public health in 19th-century France, the professor quickly diverted his focus and for the last 14 years, he said, its been an obsession.

Hes now developing an audio tour and working with a group thats created a vision plan for the refurbished facility. They hope to stage events there and make it a tourist destination.

Its pretty spectacular now, Barnes said. I think it was beautiful before but in a decaying way. Now its shiny and gorgeous.
Getty

President Donald Trump on Friday defended his support for civil unrest against states that are implementing the very social distancing practices that his administration has recommendedsaying protesters who have gathered to demand an end to stay-at-home orders are very responsible people.

The comments came hours after a trio of tweets Friday morning, in which Trump called to LIBERATE Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia. In his tweet targeting Virginia, Trump added, And save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!

Speaking from the White House just a day after he said hed leave it to governors as to when they should reopen their economies, the president said he thought elements of what theyve done are too much.

During Friday nights briefing, Trump was asked if he was concerned that people protesting could spread the virus, he referred to them as people expressing their views.

I see where they are and I see the way theyre working, Trump said. They seem to be very responsible people to me. But theyve been treated a little bit rough.

Protests decrying safety measures put in place during the coronavirus pandemic have targeted a number of states this week, threatening to cause political havoc and exacerbate the public health crisis. The demonstrations have been relatively small and unreflective of popular opinion, which has consistently shown support for social distancing and stay-at-home orders to combat the spread of COVID-19. But the presidents tweets, and conservative media attention, threatened to elevate them from mere nuisances into a more serious political force.

It sounds patriotic, but to militia extremists it fans the flames of their fear and paranoia. Could push someone over the edge to plot or carry out an act of violence against Democrats, the police or someone else, Daryl Johnson, a former analyst of right-wing extremism at the Department of Homeland Security, said in a text to The Daily Beast. It also shows the anti-government and militia types that the president approves of their mindset and protest activities.

Story continues

Parishioner of Louisiana Church That Defied Virus Lockdown Dies From COVID-19, But Pastor Claims Its a Lie

Anti-social distancing activists across the country said they were encouraged by Trumps tweets, viewing them as proof that the president is taking an interest in their rallies against Democratic governors.

For him to say liberate, I think what hes really saying is restore our freedom, said Matt Seely, a spokesman for the Michigan Conservative Coalition, which organized Wednesdays rally in Lansing, Michigan.

Trumps tweets were also met with excitement on Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine, a Facebook group with more than 350,000 members thats become a hotbed for that states anti-social distancing movement. Many groups members took Trumps tweet as a sign that he backed their effort to oppose Gov. Gretchen Whitmers (D) stay-at-home order; others saw it a signal to rise up against Democrats.

Civil War doesn't seem like such a far fetched idea anymore wrote one member.

The civil war is starting now!!! Rise up!! wrote another.

By Friday afternoon, Democrats were in an uproar.

As the governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia I, along with this staff, is fighting a biological war. I do not have time to involve myself in Twitter wars, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said about Trumps tweet Friday. I will continue to make sure that I do everything that I can to keep Virginians safe and to save lives.

Asked about the tweet during a press briefing Friday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he had tried calling the president and vice president and "got no return. In Michigan, Whitmer said people in this moment of the pandemic are feeling very anxious.

I think the most important thing that anyone with a platform can do is to try to use that platform to tell people, We're going to get through this, she said.

Trump Calls For Reopening Americas Gyms Day After Call With SoulCycles Owner

And during a conference call between Senate Democrats and Vice President Mike Pence on Friday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) demanded an explanation for Trumps social media missives. Why is the president inciting division like that in the middle of a pandemic? Kaine asked Pence, according to two aides briefed on the call. Pence, those aides said, largely ducked the questionstressing, instead, that the White House and the president had been working respectfully with governors. At that point, Kaine jumped in again, once more pointing to the morning tweets. "Thats the opposite of being respectful to governors, he replied.

Fridays tweets are the latest entry in a week where Trump has lashed out at governors, falsely claimed authority over individual states to reopen their economies, and then backtracked on those claims. When he was asked about the protesters during Thursdays coronavirus task force briefing, Trump declined to criticize them, claiming that people are suffering. And when asked if they listen to local authorities Trump said, I think theyre listening, I think they listen to me.

All of which made Fridays encouragement of the civil unrest so jarring. In the halls of the White House, Trumps outbursts were widely viewed as evidence that he was once again getting mad or amped up while watching his TV. But according to three Trump administration officials, it was also seen as an attempt for him to find leverage against certain governors, after conceding that he lacked the constitutional authority to force states to drop public safety measures in favor of economic revitalization efforts.

This happens all the time, said one senior official. He wants to do something big, runs up against limitations or internal resistance, backs down, and then usually finds another way to try to achieve his goals.

Not long before Fridays White House press briefing began, Trump held a conference call with religious leaders and envoys to address questions about his administrations push to re-open the U.S. economy, and also to get Americans back into houses of worship. [Live-streaming a service on] a laptop is fine but its not the same as being in church, the president told participants, according to a source familiar with the call.

Trump also told listeners that his administration will soon be recommending guidelines for how to begin opening churches and other houses of worship in phases. The president said that these federal recommendations could include suggestions about meeting in smaller groups and having seniors and other at-risk individuals coming to church at different times or days, or meeting in different areas of the place of worship.

On the call, the source added, Trump was also asked if the Justice Department would continue to pursue religious liberty cases during the coronavirus crisisa reference to those ticketed by police while worshiping at a drive-in service during the pandemic.

Trump replied that he was confident that the Justice Department will continue to pursue such cases, as they come, and that the department and Attorney General William Barr would be vigilant in protecting the religious liberty of American churches. The president also stressed that he was sympathetic to what DOJ was doing and that he wanted to be sure that places of worship were being treated fairly during this pandemic, this source recounted.

The person familiar with Fridays conference call did not recall Trump bringing up his desire to LIBERATE states or churches, and characterized the call as more sedate than some of the presidents more controversial recent outbursts and calls to action.

But Trumps liberation-focused tweets Friday certainly echo his earlier stance that shutting down the country could be harmful because of the emotional and economic impact of stay-at-home orders and restrictive measures put in place to help keep people safe from the coronavirus pandemic. One of the presidents ardent followers, Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate Jason Lewis, quickly responded to Trumps tweet saying, Minnesota is being held hostage. We must #ReopenMN and we need to do it now!

When a reporter at Fridays briefing pressed Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, over whether the protests concerned him, he didnt appear to share the presidents enthusiasm.

Im looking at it from a public health standpoint, Fauci said. I certainly could understand the frustration of people, but my main role in the task force is to make recommendations to protect the health and the safety of the American people, and I would hope that people understand that that's the reason why were doing what we're doing and hopefully well put an end to this.

With additional reporting by Spencer Ackerman and Sam Stein

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Im about to defend mail-in voting.

Before I do that, though, I need to be honest with you about all the things that have made me nervous about it over the years.

At the moment, we see the issue of mail-in voting purely through the prism of partisan politics. Were also looking at various state primaries and a November general election clouded by the COVID-19 public health crisis.

Few situations create more potential for the transmission of a deadly, highly contagious virus than in-person voting lines and hundreds of people touching the same voting machines. Increased mail-in voting provides an alternative.

Republicans are resistant to widespread mail-in voting, which leads to charges that theyre trying to suppress the vote, since its a well-established rule in American politics that high turnouts generally tend to favor Democrats.

In Wisconsin, Republican leaders refused to reschedule the states April 7 primary, even with major questions looming about how to conduct a safe election.

Democrats countered by requesting six extra days for mail-in ballots to be counted. The U.S. Supreme Court shot down that request.

In Texas, the state Democratic Party is fighting a legal battle to get clear guidance from the state allowing no-excuse mail-in voting for this years elections. The Texas Election Code allows mail-in voting only for applicants who meet at least one of the following criteria: 65 or older, disabled or ill, out of the country or confined to jail.

Once we look beyond the partisan pandemic politics of the moment, however, we realize that concerns about the honesty of the mail-in process have been surprisingly bipartisan  and frequently justified  over the years.

Consider that in 2003, it was a Democratic state representative, Steve Wolens, who passed a bill requiring anyone who helped homebound voters fill out their mail-in ballots to sign their name on the mailer before sending it in.

Wolens was motivated in part by mail-in voter-fraud allegations that surfaced in Dallas, where his wife, Laura Miller, was then mayor.

Consider that in 2016, Dallas County had to sequester about 700 mail-in ballots for a City Council election when voters complained that they had received mail-in ballots they didnt request.

Theres also the 2018 case in which the North Carolina election board threw out a victory for Republican congressional hopeful Mark Harris, who had narrowly outpolled his Democratic opponent with the help of a ballot-harvesting political operative whose team allegedly collected mail-in ballots, completed some of the ballots themselves and threw others away.

Tom Perez, the Democratic national chairman, praised the election boards action.

This is part of the reality with mail-in voting.

The purest form of voting will always be the in-person kind, in which one person steps into a voting booth and casts a ballot with no input or interference from anyone else.

With mail-in voting, theres the question of who actually filled out the ballot and who might have prodded/guided the voter along the way. Theres never certainty about who mailed in the ballots and whether all of them made it to the mailbox.

Theres also the practical reality that universal mail-in voting  in which elections administrators automatically send out ballots to all registered voters  is an expensive and logistically challenging endeavor. And youd better be prepared to wait several days for the final results to come in.

Now that weve put aside any illusions that mail-in voting is a flawless system, its worth considering why its still our best option in Texas this year.

When Gov. Greg Abbott rescheduled our primary runoffs from May 26 to July 14, he bought Texas voters some time to flatten the curve of infection before having to head to the polls.

Nonetheless, short of a vaccine (which no one expects to emerge this year), that later date doesnt eliminate the risk of contracting the virus through in-person voting. Theres also no denying that sticking to our strict requirements for mail-in voting will suppress turnout at a time when people are understandably afraid of social interaction.

For that reason, Abbott needs to call a special session to allow the Legislature to relax this states requirements for mail-in ballots and allow anyone who prefers to vote by mail to do so.

Attorney General Ken Paxton already has made it clear that he will interpret the existing law in the most restrictive possible terms.

In an April 14 letter to Rep. Stephanie Klick, R-Fort Worth, the chair of the House Committee on Elections, Paxton said fear of contracting COVID-19 unaccompanied by a qualifying sickness or physical condition does not constitute a disability under the Election Code for purposes of receiving a ballot by mail.

Maybe so, but that fear does constitute a recipe for low turnout and voter disenfranchisement. No-excuse mail-in voting is our only reasonable solution.

Gilbert Garcia is a columnist covering the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Gilbert, become a subscriber. ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470
Teltumbde was arrested by the NIA on 14 April after he surrendered before it following the Supreme Court's directives.

Mumbai: A special court in Mumbai on Saturday extended till 25 April the National Investigation Agency (NIA) custody of Dalit scholar and activist Anand Teltumbde, arrested in the Elgar Parishad-alleged Maoist links case.

Teltumbde was arrested by the NIA on 14 April after he surrendered before it following the Supreme Court's directives.

Teltumbde, the grandson-in-law of Dalit icon Dr BR Ambedkar, was produced before a special NIA court judge AT Wankehede after his remand ended on Saturday.

Special public prosecutor Prakash Shetty submitted that his custody for seven more days was needed as the agency is yet to complete its probe. The court allowed its plea.

The agency told the court that it wanted to verify with the accused the contents of his social media account. Voluminous documents have been recovered from the co- accused in the case, which need to be verified with him, it said.

The agency said that the accused had received funds from the CPI (Maoist) and there was a "deep-rooted conspiracy" between him and unidentified persons associated with the banned terrorist organisation, which needed to be probe.

Besides Teltumbde, civil rights activist Gautam Navlakha, a co-accused in the case, had also surrendered before the NIA in Delhi on 14 April. His anticipatory bail plea was also rejected by the apex court. He is currently in the custody of the investigating agency in the National

Capital.

Teltumbde, Navlakha and nine other civil rights activists have been booked under the stringent provisions of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for having alleged Maoist links and conspiring to overthrow the government.

The activists were booked initially by Pune Police following violence that erupted at Koregaon Bhima in the district.According to police, the activists made inflammatory speeches and provocative statements at the Elgar Parishad meet held in Pune on 31 December, 2017, which triggered the violence the next day.

The police also said that these activists were active members of banned Maoist groups. The case was later transferred to NIA.
A ration dealer in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli district was arrested for allegedly raping a 30-year-old married woman at her home on Wednesday, police said.



The woman had requested the accused to deliver the rations to her house in Shekhzadan locality of the town amid the nationwide lockdown and the accused agreed to it, news agency PTI reported, quoting police officials.

EPA/Representational Image

Shamli Superintendent of Police Vineet Jaiswal told reporters that a case has been registered under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code against the accused who has been arrested.

According to the complaint lodged by the woman, she had gone to the fair-price shop where the accused promised her to deliver the items to her home. Once he reached her home with the rations, the man found her alone and raped her.

The woman's husband is stranded in Punjab, where he works, since the nationwide lockdown began on March 25.

Just last week, a woman admitted to the coronavirus isolation ward at a medical college, was allegedly sexually assaulted by a healthcare worker for two days in Bihar's Gaya.

BCCL

The woman was admitted to an isolation ward at Anugrah Narain Magadh Medical College and Hospital (ANMMCH). Her family has accused a healthcare worker of raping the woman for two days. She died of excessive bleeding at home after being discharged from the hospital.

"The 25-year-old victim had returned to Bihars Gaya district from Ludhiana (in Punjab) along with her husband on March 25. Before returning to her in-laws place, she had undergone abortion at Ludhiana just when she was two months pregnant," said a report by Deccan Herald.

Police have begun investigation into allegations of sexual assault inside the isolation ward of ANMMCH. A formal complaint has been filed against an unknown person.


There is no evidence to support the belief that people who have recovered from coronavirus will not catch it again, the World Health Organisation has said.



WHO chiefs have warned world leaders against investing too heavily in the tests to show if a person has already had the virus, because they do not guarantee immunity.



The UK Government has bought 3.5million serology tests, measuring antibodies in blood plasma, but they are not definitive in proving if someone has had the virus.



Many tests being developed are pinprick blood checks similar to widely used instant HIV tests and measure raised levels of the antibodies the body uses to fight the virus.



It comes as a top health official said the coronavirus 'immunity passports' plan is doomed to fail after only 10 percent of Italians developed Covid-19 antibodies.



And a study by scientists at Stanford University in the US found as much as 4 percent of California's population may have already been infected with the virus.



Meanwhile, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche said it has developed an antibody test that it hopes to roll out in May to detect people previously infected with COVID-19, even those who displayed no symptoms.



Britain and many countries had hoped antibody tests would allow those who can prove they have had the virus  and therefore thought to be immune  to return to work and stabilise the economy.



But Dr Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's emergencies programme, said there was limited evidence that coronavirus survivors were guaranteed future immunity to the disease.



This means those who have already had the virus could be at risk of being reinfected.



He added: 'Nobody is sure whether someone with antibodies is fully protected against having the disease or being exposed again.



'Plus some of the tests have issues with sensitivity  they may give a false negative result.'



Dr Ryan also warned that the antibody tests raised ethical questions.



'There are serious ethical issues around the use of such an approach and we need to address it very carefully, we also need to look at the length of protection that antibodies might give,' he said.



'You might have someone who believes they are seropositive (have been infected) and protected in a situation where they may be exposed and in fact they are susceptible to the disease.'



Dr Ryan said the tests had to be used as part of coherent public health policy.



His colleague Dr Maria van Kerkhove said: 'There are a lot of countries that are suggesting using rapid diagnostic serological tests to be able to capture what they think will be a measure of immunity.



'Right now, we have no evidence that the use of a serological test can show that an individual has immunity or is protected from reinfection.'



She added: 'These antibody tests will be able to measure that level of seroprevalence - that level of antibodies but that does not mean that somebody with antibodies means that they are immune.'



Dr van Kerkhove said it was 'a good thing' that so many tests are being developed.



But she cautioned: 'We need to ensure that they are validated so that we know what they say they attempt to measure they are actually measuring.'



The WHO is due to issue updated guidance on the issue this weekend.



The Government has already invested in 3.5million tests but has not yet found one reliable enough to roll out.



It was thought that the tests would allow ministers to aim for 'herd immunity', in which most Britons are resistant to Covid-19.

Source: dailymail









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United Nations humanitarian agencies in Jordan are conducting disinfection campaigns and encouraging social distancing in camps hosting Syrian refugees, as part of measures to try to contain the spread of the new coronavirus while the country is in lockdown.

Footage from a hypermarket inside Jordan's Azraq Camp showed such efforts being carried out, including shopping carts being disinfected and refugees putting on rubber gloves and observing a distance from one another when queueing to enter.

In the heavily populated Azraq and Zaatari camps, the two main hospitals and networks of health clinics are fully staffed and have introduced additional infection-control measures, in the event of an outbreak of COVID-19, the illness caused by the new virus.

Plans are in place to isolate any suspected cases and to evacuate them by ambulance to the nearby Mafraq and Zarqa hospitals if needed.

Azraq Camp hosts 40,000 refugees who fled the war in Syria to seek safety in neighbouring Jordan.

Dominik Bartsch, head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) in Jordan, described the situation in the camps as being under control and praised the refugees for following precautionary guidelines.

"I am personally very encouraged by the fact that refugees have taken to the precautionary measures. Refugees are following the hygiene advice, they're following the social distancing, they're not milling about in the camp, they're very diligent in minimising contacts," Bartsch said.

However, he expressed concern that many of them had lost their means of earning a livelihood when small shops inside the camps had to shut as part of a precautionary lockdown.

"Refugees who previously were employed in the informal sector and had the ability to support themselves with a small income, they have lost this literally overnight," Bartsch said.

According to Jordanian authorities, more than 1.3 million Syrians have arrived in the country since 2011 when the conflict started; some 120,000 live in camps, while the majority of Syrians live in Jordanian host communities.

According to the Johns Hopkins University, Jorden has 407 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 7 deaths.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks.

For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.
Spanish daily El Pais and the Italian newspaper Fatto Quotidiano this week revealed new details of the intensive surveillance and dirty tricks operations targeting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange while he was a political refugee in Ecuadors London embassy.

Both articles indicated that a particular focus of the spying, which was allegedly orchestrated by the US Central Intelligence Agency, was identifying Assanges immediate family members. It raises the ominous possibility that plans were afoot to harm Assanges relatives, including his infant child.

A meeting between Assange and his legal advisor Geoffrey Robertson illegally spied on by UC Global

The reports are the latest exposures of the spying, which was conducted by UC Global, a private Spanish firm contracted by the Ecuadorian authorities to provide security to the embassy building.

The companys director David Morales, a former Spanish military officer, is accused of having met with US authorities in early 2015 and agreed to secretly furnish the CIA with material gathered within the embassy in an operation that escalated over the ensuing three years.

Morales was arrested last year and charged with a raft of offenses, including over the surveillance. Assange has taken out a criminal complaint against the mercenary over the activities, which allegedly breached the legally-enshrined right to attorney-client privilege, along with the privacy of Assange and dozens of others.

Last week, Stella Moris, a 37-year-old lawyer, revealed that she has been in a personal relationship with Assange since 2015 and that the couple have two young children together.

The El Pais report indicates that the older child, Gabriel, born in 2017 while Assange was still in the embassy, was a particular focus of UC Globals surveillance.

The Spanish-daily stated that detailed reports were prepared on Moris visits to and from the embassy. Stephen Hoo, a friend of Assange, often brought Gabriel to the building and was also subjected to surveillance. Hoos relationship status and even his sexual orientation were scrutinised.

Actor Stephen Hoo photographed by UC Global bringing Assanges baby into the Ecuadorian Embassy [Credit: El Pais]

El Pais wrote: Moraless suspicion was that a minor who entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London hanging on a baby carrier carried by actor Stephen Hoo could be the son of the cyber-activist (48 years old) and Moris (37 years old).

UC Global was prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to identify the paternity of the baby. An anonymous ex-employee of the company confirmed that UC Global had considered stealing one of the infants used diapers or a pacifier to test for DNA.

The former employee stated: They wanted to prove that it was his son to try to harm him. One got to speak with three laboratories in Madrid to see how the parental issue could be accredited. One of the labs told us that DNA could not be obtained from the stool. Then they tried to get his pacifier.

It is not clear whether the witness meant that UC Global intended to harm Assange, the baby or both. However given the sordid history of the CIA, nothing can be excluded. Moris stopped bringing Gabriel to the embassy after being alerted by an employee of the operation and has since stated that she feared for his safety.

Writing in Fatto Quotidiano, longtime WikiLeaks collaborator Stefania Maurizi revealed that the targeting of Moris and her young family extended far beyond the walls of the embassy. Maurizi cited an email by Morales to his staff, ordering them to pay special attention to Moris. It noted that the company believed that Moris was not using her original name. The lawyer had, in fact, legally changed her name to avoid the operations of the intelligence agencies.

Morales wrote: If necessary I want a person fully dedicated to this activity, so if you have to hire someone to do it, tell me. All this has to be considered top secret so that the diffusion is limited.

In other words, UC Global was apparently planning to assign a full-time investigator to follow Moris. Morales also stated that the company had identified a relative of her mother in Catalonia, in an indication that the company was seeking to track down Moris family members around the world.

There have been previous indications that UC Global, acting on behalf of the CIA, was not only seeking to monitor every aspect of Assanges life, but also plotting physical attacks against him.

In the most detailed public overview of the embassy spying, Andy Muller-Maguhn, a German computer expert and close collaborator of Assange, explained that the UC Global operation dramatically escalated in 2017.

In December that year, Morales ordered that staff conduct a survey of the building, aimed in part at finding new areas where hidden cameras and microphones could be placed, in a bid to overcome measures Assange had taken to stymie the spying.

Most ominously, Morales also passed on to his staff a request from his American friends for a list of potential physical access points to the embassy. According to Muller-Maguhn, Morales asked his employees about the possibility of leaving the door of the diplomatic mission open, arguing that it was an accidental mistake, to allow the entry and kidnapping of the asylum-seeker.

The timing of these CIA operations is significant. They followed WikiLeaks publication, beginning in March 2017, of Vault 7, a vast trove of CIA documents exposing the global spying and hacking operations of the agency.

Then CIA director and current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo immediately responded by branding WikiLeaks a hostile non-state intelligence agency. At the same time, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation put together a counter-espionage squad to investigate WikiLeaks. Its work would culminate in the issuing of 18 charges against Assange, including 17 under the Espionage Act.

FBI special agent Megan Brown, who played a leading role in the taskforce, filed an affidavit against Assange, laying the basis for at least some of the charges against him, in December 2017.

In other words, at the same time that the CIA and its proxies were violating the privacy of Assanges family and considering illegally kidnapping the WikiLeaks founder, the FBI and the Justice Department were finalising a legal case against him.

Morales appears to have played a central role in both. El Pais previously reported that metadata from Morales emails placed him in Alexandria, Virginia, on March 1 and 2, 2017. This was just weeks after the establishment of the FBI squad. Alexandria is home to the largest concentration of intelligence employees in the US and was, at the time, the site of a secret grand jury impaneled to help concoct charges against Assange.

The close connection between illegal activities targeting Assange and his infant child, and the preparations for a US indictment of the WikiLeaks founder, further underscores the fact that he is the subject of what can only be termed an attempted extraordinary rendition. The charges and the formal extradition process are only a figleaf for a CIA operation aimed at destroying Assange because of his exposure of US government crimes.

As he awaits a show trial for his extradition to the US, scheduled to resume on May 18, Assange faces the imminent danger of being infected by the coronavirus pandemic as it sweeps through Britains prison system.

Earlier this month, Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser rejected an application for Assange to be released from Belmarsh Prison on bail, despite the fact that he has not been convicted of a crime and suffers from a raft of medical issues, rendering him vulnerable to COVID-19.

Maurizi published portions of Moris previously unreleased statement to the bail hearing. Moris stated: I have feared with strong reason for a long time that I will lose Julian to suicide if there is no way in which he can stop his extradition to the USA. I now fear I may lose him for different reasons and sooner to the virus. I know very well that his health is extremely poor and can detail the different aspects of that poor health.

Moris outlined the dire impact that long stretches of effective solitary confinement in Belmarsh had on Assange. When in the Healthcare unit he was taken from a ward into a single cell for many months in a form of isolation save for a very few hours each day I noticed how he, as I described at the time was visibly very diminished like a withering flower.

Baraitser was unmoved, decreeing not only that Assange must remain behind bars, but also that it would be in the public interest for Moris and her young children to be named in the media, denying their right to anonymity.

The author also recommends:

Julian Assanges partner Stella Moris speaks out: His life is on the brink

[13 April 2020]
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Linkedin (Reuters)  Sat, April 18, 2020 17:05 633 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2c3c4a 2 Entertainment Netflix,YouTube,film,Education,Our-Planet,Explained,coronavirus,COVID-19,pandemic,documentary Free

Netflix Inc said on Friday it had made some documentary features and series, including Our Planet and Explained, available on the company's YouTube channel for free at the request of teachers.

The move comes as the coronavirus outbreak has forced educational institutions to shut down, and confined millions of students to their homes, compelling schools and colleges to tap virtual tools to keep the classes running.

The decision to make some content free on YouTube is a rare exception to Netflix's marketing strategy, which otherwise charges a monthly subscription fee from users to avail its services.

Read also: 13 Indonesian films coming to Netflix this month

While the COVID-19 pandemic has driven an internet boom, boosting shares of Netflix, the company faces tightening competition from Apple TV+ and Disney+, which has attracted more than 50 million paid users globally.

"For many years, Netflix has allowed teachers to screen documentaries in their classrooms. However, this isn't possible with schools closed," the company said in a blog post, explaining the move.
Good Morning, welcome to Information Nigerias Newspaper headlines for today, 18th April 2020.

Here are the major headlines.

Lockdown: Returning To Work Is A Gamble  Shehu Sani

Former Kaduna senator, Shehu Sanni says returning to work without a vaccine in place against the coronavirus pandemic is a gamble.

China, G-20 To Give Nigeria, Others Debt Relief

China and G-20 countries say they will give debt relief to the worlds poorest countries known as IDA countries as classified by the World Bank.

Military Burst Boko Haram Cell In Nasarawa, Kill Four

The men of the Nigerian army has recorded more victory in its fight against insurgency as four suspected Boko Haram members were killed during a recent operation.

Masari Bans Congregational, Ramadan Lectures In Katsina State

The Governor of Katsina State, Aminu Masari has ordered the suspension of Friday Juumat prayers and subsequently ban Ramadan lectures in the State.

21, Not 18 People Killed By Security Agencies  Falana

Foremost human rights lawyer. Femi Falana (SAN) says 21 not 18 persons have been killed in the first 14 days of the coronavirus lockdown in Nigeria so far.

Lockdown: Two Months Free Electricity Not For Everyone

The Nigerian government has clarified that the two-month free electricity supply being considered is not for all.

Wike Threatens Total Lockdown In Rivers State

The Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike has announced total lockdown of parts of Port Harcourt, the State Capital, as efforts to curb the spread of Coronavirus intensifies.

Lockdown: Okowa Distributes Food items To Low-Income Families

Delta state governor, Ifeanyi Okowa has announced that the state is set to distribute food items to low-income families across the state as a cushion against the effect of the lockdown of the state.

Nasarawa Governor Buys 24 Vehicles For Lawmakers

Abdullahi Sule, Nasarawa state governor has purchased 24 Toyota Hilux as official vehicles for lawmakers.

CAN Presidents Calls For Seven Days Prayers

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has called on Christians across the country to set aside 30 minutes each day for 7 days to pray with their families.
Trump says US investigating reports coronavirus came from lab in China

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President Trump confirmed on Friday that the U.S. government and intelligence agencies are investigating reports that have suggested the new coronavirus spread after escaping from a laboratory, instead of a market, in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Talking to reporters at the White House on Friday, Trump said a lot of investigation is going on about the origin of COVD-19 in Wuhan in Hubei Province late last year, and were going to find out.

All I can say is wherever it came from  it came from China, in whatever form  184 countries are suffering because of it. And its too bad, isnt it? It could have been solved very easily when it was just starting, the president added.

Earlier this week, Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had also said that intelligence agencies were looking at the possible origin of the novel coronavirus from a Wuhan lab.

Jim Geraghty, a senior political correspondent at National Review, recently wrote about a documentary film by YouTube creator Matthew Tye on the coronavirus outbreak which suggests the virus accidentally escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology in China posted a job opening last November, asking for scientists to come research the relationship between the coronavirus and bats, Geraghty wrote.

The same institute posted a second job posting last December. The translation of a part of that posting said a large number of new bat and rodent new viruses have been discovered and identified, the correspondent added.

They talk about a certain kind of bat, but that bat wasnt in that area, Trump said Friday, according to The Washington Times. But that bat wasnt sold at that wet zone. It wasnt sold there. That bat was 40 miles away. A lot of strange things are happening.

Geraghty acknowledged that theres no definitive proof that COVID-19 originated from a bat at either the Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention or the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as that would require much broader access to information about what happened in those facilities in the time period before the epidemic in the city.

However, he concluded, that it is a remarkable coincidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was researching Ebola and SARS-associated coronaviruses in bats before the pandemic outbreak, and that in the month when Wuhan doctors were treating the first patients of COVID-19, the institute announced in a hiring notice that a large number of new bat and rodent new viruses have been discovered and identified.

Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Fox News Thursday he doesnt think Chinas official figures of deaths from the coronavirus are correct. That number is really rather a low number. That number surprises me that that number is so low, Fauci said, when asked about Chinas claim of less than 5,000 COVID-19 deaths, as reported by The Epoch Times.

On Friday, Chinese officials raised the death toll from the coronavirus to 3,869 in Wuhan, an increase of 1,290 from the previous figure, according to The New York Times, which noted that researchers at the University of Hong Kong recently estimated the number of confirmed cases in China was around 232,000 by late February, more than four times the number China projected at the time.

Anonymously speaking to Bloomberg, three officials had earlier also said the U.S. intelligence community noted in a classified report to the White House that China lied about the extent of the COVID-19 outbreak, under-reporting the number of infections and deaths.

The reality is that we could have been better off if China had been more forthcoming, Vice President Mike Pence recently said on CNN. What appears evident now is that long before the world learned in December that China was dealing with this, and maybe as much as a month earlier than that, that the outbreak was real in China.
The United Nations Security Council on Friday endorsed the secretary-generals call for the warring parties in Yemen to immediately stop fighting and focus on reaching a peace agreement and countering the outbreak of the coronavirus.

The UNs most powerful body welcomed the unilateral, two-week ceasefire announced by the Saudi-led coalition that went into effect April 9 to support the UN-led peace process and Secretary-General Antonio Guterress call for a truce.

Despite the announcement, violence in Yemen has been reported by both the internationally-recognised government, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, and the Houthi armed group, formally known as Ansar Allah, believed to be backed by Iran.

On Friday, the Houthis military command accused the coalition of violating the ceasefire 82 times over the past 24 hours, with air attacks on the central province of Marib and artillery attacks in the port city of Hodeidah, the countrys main gateway for humanitarian aid.

Meanwhile, Yemens official SABA news agency said Houthi shelling of residential areas in central Bayda province killed a woman and two children and wounded several civilians on Friday.

Yemeni tribal leaders said government forces retook the large Khanjar military camp in the strategic northern Jawf province, which they had lost to the Houthis earlier this month. The leaders spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The council statement followed a briefing on Thursday by UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths, who said the threat of COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, has galvanised peace efforts.

Griffith said talks with the warring sides are making very good progress and that he expects them to adopt proposals for a nationwide ceasefire and peace talks in the immediate future.

Strong-arm tactic

But Mohamed Abdel Salam, a spokesman for the Houthis on Thursday said the current UN proposal neglects their key demand  to lift Saudi Arabias land air, and sea blockade, which aid officials partly blame for driving the countrys humanitarian crisis.

Dialogue under fire and siege is only a strong-arm tactic that works in the interest of the military option, Abdel Salam said.

A woman holds a malnourished boy in a malnutrition treatment centre in Sanaa, Yemen October 6, 2018 [File: Khaled Abdullah/Reuters]

Doha-based Yemen analyst Saeed Thabit told Al Jazeera that both parties, the government as well as the Houthis, have lost credibility when it comes to ceasefire agreements.

The real problem here is that both warring parties are not basing their decisions on the humanitarian needs of the people of Yemen, he said.

Thabit argued that the UN seems to be dragged along in the political games both parties are playing at the expense of Yemeni people.

The Security Council voiced concerns about the ongoing hostilities, calling on the Houthis to commit to a ceasefire without delay, and urged both parties to engage constructively on Griffithss proposals and to reach an agreement as soon as possible.

The outbreak of the coronavirus in Yemen, which reported its first case earlier this month, threatens deeper and more widespread suffering in the Arab worlds poorest country, engulfed by civil war since 2014, when the Houthis took control of the countrys north, including the capital, Sanaa.

The Saudi-led military coalition intervened against the Houthis the following year, conducting relentless air raids that have killed thousands of people. The more than five-year blockade imposed by the Saudi-led coalition has caused a humanitarian disaster.

Council members underlined the vital importance of access to humanitarian and economic aid for Yemenis in need, which is especially important in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The World Health Organization estimated that 80 percent of health services provided through the UN could stop at the end of April, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock said, adding that UN agencies estimate they need more than $900m to continue their work through July.
The global spirulina chocolates market is expected to grow by USD 151.32 million as per Technavio. This marks a significant market slowdown compared to the 2019 growth estimates due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the first half of 2020. However, steady growth is expected to continue throughout the forecast period, and the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of about 9%. Request free sample pages

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Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Spirulina Chocolates Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Read the 120-page report with TOC on "Spirulina Chocolates Market Analysis Report by Distribution channel (Offline distribution and Online distribution) and Geographic Landscape (APAC, Europe, MEA, North America, and South America), and the Segment Forecasts, 2020-2024".

https://www.technavio.com/report/global-spirulina-chocolates-market-industry-analysis

The market is driven by the health benefits associated with spirulina products. In addition, government support in promoting the production of spirulina is anticipated to boost the growth of the spirulina chocolates market.

The demand for spirulina chocolates is likely to grow during the forecast period, attributable to the growing awareness about their health benefits, especially in Europe and the Americas. Spirulina is considered to be a superfood, owing to its nutrient content. Spirulina contains a decent amount of magnesium, potassium, manganese, and other micronutrients. Spirulina also helps to prevent cancer, as it increases the production of antibodies, infection-fighting proteins, and other cells that improve immunity and help in cancer prevention. Spirulina contains beta-carotene and thus is an excellent antioxidant. Spirulina also contains phycocyanin, a pigment that exhibits antihypertensive properties and is highly effective in reducing blood pressure.

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Major Five Spirulina Chocolates Companies:

Akal Food

Akal Food offers various products made using spirulina such as spirulina drinks, spirulina chocolates, soaps produced using spirulina, and others. The company offers spirulina chocolates under the brand, KISSMI.

Bio Benjamin Chocolate Factory

Bio Benjamin Chocolate Factory has business operations under two segments, namely Benjamissimo, and Happy Benjamino. The company offers spirulina chocolates under the brand, Happy Benjamino.

Doisy Dam Ltd.

Doisy Dam Ltd. is a privately held company, headquartered in the UK. Doisy Dam Ltd. offers dark chocolate made using various ingredients. The company offers spirulina chocolate under the brand, Doisy Dam.

Giddy Yoyo Inc.

Giddy Yoyo Inc. operates its business through various segments, such as body care, chocolate, cacao, and superfoods. The company offers spirulina chocolate under the brand, Giddy Yoyo.

Karmasukom Energy LLP

Karmasukom Energy LLP offers granola bar, cocoa and dates delight double layered bar, and other bars. The company offers spirulina chocolate under the brand, Nutrezy.

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Spirulina Chocolates Distribution channel Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2020-2024)

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Spirulina Chocolates Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2020-2024)

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Europe

MEA

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South America

Key leading countries

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(Photo : REUTERS/Russell Boyce) A man exercising during lockdown to combat an outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) walks past a graffiti that reads "STOP 5G" in London, Britain, April 8, 2020. (Photo : Screenshot from Twitter of @binghu_sh)

The 5G coronavirus conspiracy had spread like wildfire for the past few weeks. To clarify the truth about the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory, an article from Fox News explained how it started and debunked the claims. Let's start with the effects of the spread of this fake news and damages had it done so far.

READ ALSO: Truth About 5G Coronavirus Conspiracy Theory: Here's What Experts Say

Recent Attacks Towards Telecommunications Companies

There have been incidents all over Europe and the United Kingdom where arsonists, vandals, and hooligans have been destroying cell phone towers. Vodafone's towers were attacked, including one serving a field hospital that is treating COVID-19 patients. Apart from destroying 20 towers, employees of telecommunication companies had been threatened.

How The Conspiracy Theory Started

On Jan. 22, a small Belgian newspaper "Het Laatste Nieuws" published an interview along with Dr. Kris Van Kerckhoven, a general practitioner without any previous record. The headline wrote, "5G is life-threatening, and no one knows it."

Dr. Kerckhoven claimed that 5G was dangerous and might also be linked to the coronavirus. That's it. From a small newspaper as well as a minor physician, only a few have heard about covering an entire continent with panic and fear regarding 5G.

There are no scientific facts to back up the claim, and Dr. Kerckhoven had no prior credentials in radio frequency engineering, as well as no proof of how 5G might link to the coronavirus. Nothing at all but his word.

The article has since been deleted, but it didn't take long for the news to spread like wildfire. The article has since been deleted, but as word got out, big names like Amanda Holden, as well as other celebrities, had made such noise about it that people started believing it was real despite no evidence at all.



READ ALSO: [UPDATE] Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories Led to 5G Tower Arsons: UK Mobile Carriers are Politely Asking People to Stop

The Clear Lack of Evidence

Dr. David Ludden wrote in Psychology Today, one of the primary reasons is that humans have a natural desire for control and security. The global pandemic is way beyond our control, and it threatens our security.

Most conspiracy theories followers claim that since no evidence proves them wrong or the lack of evidence for that matter would show that their theory is right.

Most of the electronics used nowadays emit some radiation one way or another. For people who don't know any better, that fact alone could frighten them as well as go-to steps as to signing petitions to ban electronics.

If emotionally committed to a belief, there will come a need to defend or best case for this 5G conspiracy, surrender the argument entirely.

The Solution For This 5G Conspiracy

"Think before you click." This is a popular quote to raise awareness of misinformation. Before jumping into conclusions and joining the bandwagon, and don't rely on one source--research for more information from authority sites.

READ ALSO: Amanda Holden Receives Backlash After Sharing 'No to 5G' Petition as 5G Coronavirus Conspiracy Theory Continues Causing Fear to Some Essential Workers

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Programmes on polio eradication, the fight against HIV and malaria in Africa will be greatly affected if US President Donald Trumps decision to cut funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) is ratified by Congress.



WHOs Africa head Matshidiso Moeti has appealed to the US to reconsider President Trump's decision.



The US, which is the largest contributor to the WHO, had committed to allocate $151m (120m) to the organisation, during its current two-year funding period.



Out of this, the WHO has already received $50m (40m), but the proposed cuts jeopardize the organisation's operations on the continent.



One of the programmes that will be affected is the provision of immunization in many countries. There is still an ongoing campaign for the eradication of polio in Africa, with 12 countries still experiencing outbreaks.



The WHO plays a key role in promoting and monitoring evidence-based health guidelines across the globe. Africas weak healthcare systems benefit the most from this function.



The WHO had also earmarked $300m for the fight against coronavirus in Africa over the next six months, where there are more than 18,000 recorded cases.

Source: BBC









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.

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Aerial snapshots of people flocking to a reopened beach in Jacksonville, Florida, made waves on the Internet on Saturday.

Local news aired photos and videos of Florida's shoreline dotted with people, closer than six feet apart, spurring #FloridaMorons to trend on Twitter after Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, gave the go-ahead for local beachfront governments to decide whether to reopen their beaches during a news briefing Friday. Duval and St. Johns counties have reopened their beaches, while Miami-Dade County officials said they are considering following suit.

On the same day that Florida reported 58 deaths from the coronavirus - its highest daily toll since the pandemic began - DeSantis told reporters that it's essential that Floridians get exercise outdoors.

"I get a kick out of somebody jogging on the beach in California, like all by his lonesome, and you have a fleet of cops go out there," he said. "He's just jogging. Going forward, I think we've got to be promoting people to get exercise."

While DeSantis never ordered statewide closures of beaches, his comment Friday gave the green light to local officials such as Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, a Republican, who announced that Duval County's beaches would reopen Friday. Curry banned certain items, including towels and chairs, and limited hours to 6 to 11 a.m. and 5 to 8 p.m. to deter people from gathering for a long time.

"This can be the beginning of the pathway back to normal life," Curry said. "Please respect and follow these limitations. Stay within the guidelines for your safety as well as for the safety of your neighbors."

The droves that showed up at Jacksonville's beach largely ignored Curry's restrictions. "People were seen swimming, biking, surfing running and fishing," CNN reported.

Curry didn't immediately respond to The Post's request for comment about the crowds, but he retweeted another city leader who shared a photo of a near-empty section of a beach.

St. Johns County, where St. Augustine is, said its beaches would reopen for physical activity from 6 a.m. to noon.

Miami-Dade's mayor said during a Saturday news conference that his county would also move forward with reopening beaches, although he didn't specify when.

The governor's office said he left the beach reopening decision for local authorities because "Florida is not a state where a cookie-cutter solution works."

"Governor DeSantis does not oppose the prudent opening of beaches with restrictions," DeSantis spokesperson Helen Ferre said.

DeSantis refused to close beaches at the height of the spring break rush, saying visitors could maintain social distancing, despite photos and videos from beaches across the state indicating that people were not doing so.

Dozens of college students who had vacationed in Miami and other party spots have tested positive for the virus since returning to their home states of Texas, Florida and Wisconsin.

DeSantis has said he will follow President Donald Trump's lead on closures, although Trump has shifted positions and indicated that he will leave those decisions to the states. Florida's stay-at-home order is in effect through April 30.

On Saturday, he stressed the importance of reopening and getting people back to work, adding that he will share the names of who he's appointed for a task force focused on reopening Monday. This comes as other states are making their own preparations to restart business.

South Carolina announced that it was reopening beaches Saturday.
Actor Patralekhaa has revealed she has been worried for her parents who are in Shillong, ever since Meghalaya reported first death in the state due to novel coronavirus. While her brother is also with them, the actor is worried about the people who may have come in contact with those infected.

Patralekhaa told Mumbai Mirror in an interview, My parents are in Shillong and I have been panicking ever since. Its not about just one case; its the people who have come in contact with the infected person. My brother is there too, so my parents wont have to venture out for groceries, but Im still worried.

She added that she is concerned about the effect the lockdown will have on mental health of her parents. Even on Sundays, hes (father) working in his firm. Time slips by when you are busy, but not having anything to do adds to the stress, she told the tabloid.

Also read: Karan Johar pens emotional note for daily wage workers, extends help to govt and NGOs to fight Covid-19

Recently, Patralekhaa had shared a video in which her actor boyfriend Rajkummar Rao could be seen giving her a haircut. She captioned the video, Jaha chaaah waha raah (Where there is will, there is a way). The post attracted much love from industry colleagues and friends of the actor duo. Warda Khan Nadiadwala wrote, Tooooo cute!!! and posted several heart emojis. Aditi Rao Hydari commented, Omg!!! Fans also showered love on the post. One wrote, Rajkumar sir is finally trapped at right place, Lovely couple.god bless you, wrote another.

Earlier, Rajkummar had revealed in his Instagram stories that he and Patralekhaa were honing their culinary skills during the lockdown. He shared pictures of a meal prepared by him, with her as his co-chef.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Washington

President Donald Trump urged supporters to "LIBERATE" three states led by Democratic governors Friday, apparently encouraging protests against stay-at-home restrictions. Some states under Republican leadership edged toward easing up the mandates aimed at stopping the coronavirus.

A day after laying out a road map to gradually reopen the crippled economy, Trump tweeted rhetoric some of his supporters have used to demand the lifting of the orders that have thrown millions of Americans out of work.

"LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" "LIBERATE VIRGINIA," he said in a tweet-storm in which he also lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for criticizing the federal response.

Responding to pleas from governors for help from Washington in ramping up testing for the virus, Trump put the burden back on them: "The States have to step up their TESTING!"

At the same time, at least two states took their first steps toward easing the restrictions.

In Florida, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis said municipalities could reopen beaches and parks if they could do so safely. In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said stores could begin selling curbside, nonessential surgery could resume and state parks could reopen.

Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to see businesses reopen quickly and claimed earlier this week that he had total authority over the matter, even though the lockdowns and other social-distancing measures have been imposed by state and local leaders.

"We may be opening but we're putting safety first," Trump said.

On Thursday, he outlined a three-step set of guidelines for easing restrictions over a span of several weeks in places that have robust testing and are seeing a decrease in COVID-19 cases, assuring the nation's governors: "You're going to call your own shots."

But governors of both parties suggested Friday that they would be cautious in returning to normal, with some warning that they can't do it without help from Washington to expand testing.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican ally of Trump's, said he would listen to medical experts in deciding how to move forward.

"I am not going to do something that I feel in my heart is the wrong thing that's going to endanger our people," he said.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, said Trump's tweets about "liberating" states put millions of Americans at risk of contracting COVID-19.

"His unhinged rantings and calls for people to 'liberate' states could also lead to violence," Inslee said. "We've seen it before. The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly."

Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said he and his staff are focused not on the president's tweets but on fighting a "biological war."

"I do not have time to involve myself in Twitter wars," said Northam, who is a medical doctor. "I will continue to make sure that I do everything that I can to keep Virginians safe and to save lives."

Even in largely rural states with small populations, such as Wyoming, Maine and South Dakota, governors said they were not anxious to quickly resume business as usual.

"Until we've got the testing up to speed  which has got to be part of the federal government stepping in and helping  we're just not going to be there," said Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican.

The University of Washington, whose computer models have frequently been cited by health officials at White House briefings, predicted Friday that Vermont, West Virginia, Montana and Hawaii could open as early as May 4 if they restrict large gatherings, test widely and quarantine the contacts of people who test positive.

Iowa, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Utah, Arkansas and Oklahoma, however, are among states that would need to wait until mid-June or early July. About half the states should wait until at least early June to reopen, the institute said.

Worldwide, the outbreak has infected more than 2.2 million people and killed more than 150,000, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally based on figures supplied by government health authorities around the globe, though it has becoming increasingly clear that the true numbers are much higher.

The official death toll in the U.S. neared 35,000, with about 685,000 confirmed infections.

The shutdowns have inflicted heavy damage on economies around the world. In the U.S., the crisis has cost at least 22 millions Americans their jobs.

Many Americans, especially in rural areas and other parts of the country that have not seen major outbreaks, have urged governors to reopen their economies. Protesters have taken to the streets in Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia and Michigan.

Protests continued Friday, including one outside the home of Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and another in Idaho, where the governor is a Republican.
Students wearing face masks pump their fists into the air during a health-care action dedicated to battling the coronavirus in Solo, a town Central Java province, Feb. 3, 2020.

More than 1 million Indonesian workers have been furloughed or laid off as the coronavirus outbreak takes a toll on businesses, the finance minister said Friday, as the government announced new stimulus measures to prevent massive bankruptcies during the pandemic in Southeast Asias biggest economy.

The government, which earlier warned that 5.2 million Indonesians could lose their jobs, confirmed 407 new COVID-19 infections on Friday, taking the nations cumulative tally of cases to 5,923 and surpassing the total in the neighboring Philippines.

The number of workers who have been furloughed [or laid off] during April is 1.2 million from formal sector workers, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said in a teleconference. She said workers from non-formal sectors had also been adversely affected.

The government will expand tax breaks it has given to industries to 11 more sectors, including food, trade, telecommunication, mining, tourism and transportation, the ministrys director-general of taxation, Suryo Utomo, told reporters.

The incentives involve temporarily waiving income tax on salaries, discounts on corporate tax payments and the suspension of import taxes, he said.

The state budget will try to provide support so that the shock does not disrupt or does not cause massive bankruptcy, Mulyani Indrawati said.

Over 1.2 million workers from 74,439 companies in both the formal and informal sectors have either been told to stay home  furloughed  or have been laid off as a result of the pandemic, according to the Jakarta Post, citing data from the Manpower Ministry.

The International Monetary Fund, in its World Economic Outlook report released Tuesday,

predicted that Indonesian economic growth could plunge to 0.5 percent this year, from 5.02 percent in 2019.

Meanwhile, Indonesias death toll from the coronavirus jumped to 520 on Friday after it reported 24 new fatalities, said Achmad Yurianto, spokesman for the countrys COVID-19 task force.

More than half of the confirmed cases and deaths are in the capital, Jakarta.

Before Indonesias latest figures were announced, the Philippines had the highest number of confirmed cases in Southeast Asia, at 5,878, with 387 deaths.

Globally, more than 2.2 million infections have been recorded with the death toll at almost 150,000 as of Friday, according to data compiled by disease experts at U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University.

On Thursday, the Indonesian task force said that the COVID-19 outbreak in the country was expected to peak in May at 95,000 cases.

Achmad said 42,000 tests had been conducted, about three times the number of tests compared to the past two weeks. His announcement came after the government was criticized over its low rate of testing which, experts said, could have hidden the actual extent of the pandemic.

Indonesia has imposed a partial lockdown in the greater Jakarta region, home to about 30 million people, banning gatherings of more than five people and restricting travel.

Indonesians in India

Meanwhile, the number of Indonesians who tested positive for COVID-19 in India rose to 75, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said.

They are among 717 Indonesians who had traveled to India to take part in a religious gathering organized by the international Muslim missionary group Tablighi Jamaat, Retno said.

Indonesia continues to communicate with the Indian government regarding the handling of Indonesian Tablighi Jamaat members in India, Retno told reporters.

Retno said attempts to bring the Indonesians home had been hampered by the ongoing lockdown that has been in force in India since March 24.

The leader of Tablighi Jamaat, Muhammad Saad Khandalvi, has been charged with manslaughter after a meeting it held in New Delhi in March was linked to 1,023 COVID-19 cases across 17 states, BBC News reported on Thursday.



Delhi police said that Saad had been charged with culpable homicide, the legal term for the death of a person without intention to kill. Prosecutors said he ignored two notices to end the event at a mosque in the capital, the BBC said.

Tia Asmara in Jakarta contributed to this report.
The claim: A McDonalds location in China prohibited black people from entering

A sign barring black people from entering a McDonalds in the Chinese city of Guangzhou has gone viral on social media. The image, as well as video of an argument at the site, has become a flashpoint in a broader debate about racism in Chinas response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Weve been informed that from now on black people are not allowed to enter the restaurant, the sign in thepost reads. For the sake of your health consciously notify the local police for medical isolation, please understand the inconvenience caused.

An African man was reportedly asked to leave a McDonalds in the Chinese city of Guangzhou. The incident comes amid the growing number of reports of racial profiling and discrimination against Black people in the city, Nextshark posted on Instagram.

The incident has generated outrage across social media platforms. Other incidents of discrimination against black people in Guangzhou, which has Chinas largest population of African immigrants, have been reported.

Videos of African residents being evicted from their homes by landlords over fears of COVID-19 were also posted to Facebook and other platforms.

Apparently, people of Guangzhou are convinced that Africans in the city are responsible for the spread, and their racist and xenophobic precautions are leaving many black people without proper living conditions, The Shade Room wrote on Instagram.

Government officials from African nations, China and the United States have spoken out on the controversy, and McDonalds has apologized for the sign.

Guangzhous African community and COVID-19

Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, is a major international hub in southeast China. Situated in the Pearl River Delta metropolitan area alongside major cities Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen, the region is one of the wealthiest and most populous in the world.

The city was home to one of the largest African communities in Asia, though that number has significantly fallen because of immigration crackdowns by the Chinese government. The region remains a major port and commercial site for business people operating between the continents.

Story continues

The incident at the Guangzhou McDonalds location was confirmed by the company, which said in a statement that the report was not representative of our inclusive values.

"Immediately upon learning of an unauthorized communication to our guests at a restaurant in Guangzhou, we immediately removed the communication and temporarily closed the restaurant," the company told USA TODAY.

McDonald's also stated it would provide training at the site "to further educate managers and employees on our values, which includes serving all members of the communities in which we operate."

The incident appears to be part of a larger trend of racial incidents experienced by black people in the city after a state media report said that five Nigerian men broke quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19.

Government officials and private businesses cracked down after the report; African communities in Guangzhou have reported targeted lockdowns and forced coronavirus testing in the city. In addition to being barred from stores, as in the McDonalds controversy, reports of black people being evicted from their homes have also surfaced.

Guangzhous police department and public health officials told reporters Tuesday that they had reacted to rumors that 300,000 black people in Guangzhou were setting off a second epidemic, which caused panic. They now say the rumor was false.

Xinhua, China's official state news agency, reported that 111 Africans in Guangzhou had tested positive for coronavirus and that 19 of those cases were imported from outside the country. The government had also required 4,553 African people to undergo testing since April 4.

More: This is what China did to beat coronavirus. Experts say America couldn't handle it

To date, the Chinese government has officially reported 1,566 cases of COVID-19 and eight deaths in Guangdong Province. There is no evidence that the disease is disproportionately represented in the citys African community.

People wearing protective face masks to help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus walk by the commercial buildings in the Central Business District in Beijing, Monday, April 13, 2020. China on Monday reported more than a hundred new cases of coronavirus infection, dozens of them imported.

Diplomats and politicians from dozens of African nations have sharply criticized the moves, many opining that the actions taken against residents are racist and xenophobic.

My Office invited the Chinese Amb to the AU, Mr. Liu Yuxi, to express our extreme concern at allegations of maltreatment of Africans in #Guangzhou+called for immediate remedial measures in line with our excellent relations, Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union, tweeted on Sunday.

I have been briefed on the inhumane treatment being meted out to Ghanaians and other African nationals in the Peoples Republic of China, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, Ghanas Foreign Minister, said in a statement. I regret and highly condemn this act of ill-treatment and racial discrimination.

Femi Gbajabiamila, Nigerias speaker of the House, criticized the inhumane treatment that Africans were experiencing in Guangzhou during a conversation with Chinese officials. Its almost undiplomatic the way Im talking, but its because Im upset about whats going on.

We take it very seriously, Chinas ambassador to Nigeria, Zhou Pingjian, replied.

Chinese officials have responded by meeting with delegations from several countries. Lijian Zhao, the spokesman for Chinas Foreign Ministry, said that the Chinese government would continue responding to the African sides reasonable concerns and legitimate appeals.

At the meeting, it was announced that the Government of the Peoples Republic of China had taken note of happenings and was taking immediate steps to stop the targeting of and ill-treatment meted out to Africans, particularly our compatriots in the Guangdong Province, a statement from Ghanas Foreign Ministry reads.

African Americans in Guangzhou have also reported experiencing discrimination during the crackdown. In response, the U.S. Consulate there issued a statement cautioning black Americans from traveling to the city.

The U.S. Consulate General advises African Americans or those who believe Chinese officials may suspect them of having contact with nationals of African countries to avoid the Guangzhou metropolitan area until further notice, a U.S. State Department report from Monday reads. Without advance warning, officials might require such individuals to submit to a COVID-19 test and undergo 14 days of supervised quarantine at their own expense.

It is immoral & irresponsible to sow discord when we need solidarity. We urge U.S. to focus on #COVID19 at home & stop driving the wedge between China & Africa, Zhao said of the American statement.

Zhao also said the Chinese government was mainly concerned with limiting overseas imports of COVID-19 but acknowledged that there might be some misunderstandings in the implementation of measures.

Our ruling: True

A McDonalds location in Guangzhou did post a statement barring black people from entering the restaurant. This incident appears to be part of a larger trend of targeting people of African descent in the city, which has been fueled by rumors about the spread of COVID-19 in African communities there. The incidents have become a flashpoint in the evolving relationships between African nations and China. We rate this claim TRUE, as it is supported by our research.

Our fact-check sources:

Contributing: Joshua Bote

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

This file photo taken on March 2, 2018 shows people walking in the "Little Africa" district in Guangzhou, the capital of southern China's Guangdong province. - Africans in southern China's largest city say they have become targets of suspicion and subjected to forced evictions, arbitrary quarantines and mass coronavirus testing as the country steps up its fight against imported infections.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: McDonald's confirms incident in China targeting blacks
Biden, speaking at a virtual fundraiser, said on Thursday that he has started constructing a presidential transition team, a process he said has been underway for several weeks. Loading Discussions are in progress about the prospect of elevating some White House offices to cabinet-level positions, Biden said. Among those under consideration: the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the global health security pandemic office and a separate climate change operation that "goes beyond the EPA," he said. Biden said he "would consider announcing some Cabinet members before the election," a move that would be highly unusual, but he clarified that he hasn't "made that commitment" yet. Still, he signalled that he has a good idea of who would fill the positions. "If the Lord Almighty said: 'Joe, I tell you what. You have to decide in three hours what your Cabinet is or you're going to be bounced out of the race,' I could write down who could be in the Cabinet," he said. "There are at least two or three people qualified for every one of those positions."

In contrast with the vision of firm leadership that the former vice president is seeking to put forward, Trump and his allies are casting Biden as shaky and unprepared, and calling attention to his verbal stumbles. "No more late night television Sleepy Joe!" the Trump campaign tweeted this week, with a clip of Biden appearing to look down at his notes during a long-winded comment on CNN. Loading Many Democrats recognise that Biden's status as a 77-year-old white man at the head of a diverse party has made the question of whom he will pick for his administration more significant, and his running mate choice more consequential. Some say they want to see evidence that Biden would put together a government that reflects the country. Biden has been offering hints about who would serve in his government for months. At the final debate of the primary race in mid-March, he said he would choose a woman as his running mate, setting off a spirited discussion in the party over whom he ought to select. The declaration focused media attention on several women seen as potential picks, including Democratic Senators Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada; Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer; and former Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, among others.

Even that discussion, however, has received little public attention. Some Democrats from competitive swing areas have said Biden needs to find a fresh way to stand out against Trump in the weeks ahead. "The president is on TV every day. He's coming to us into our TV screens every day from his news conference," Representative Elissa Slotkin said in an interview last week. "So it's going to be important for the [former] vice president to be visible and to use this time in key states like Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, to really rethink creatively what a campaign looks like in an era of social distancing." Trump had a head start in his outreach, although his pitches have been aimed more at reminding supporters of their affection than at seeking out new acolytes. Every time the President tweets - such as on Friday, when he used misleading information to call President Barack Obama and Biden "a disaster" in their 2009 response to the H1N1 influenza - his message goes to more than 77 million Twitter followers. Biden has just under 5 million followers. Over the past several days, Biden has made this most of his circumstances. He won the endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders on Monday, joining his former rival in a live-streamed discussion that conveyed a warmer relationship between the two men than Sanders ever had with Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The next day, Obama bestowed his support on Biden, and the day after that Warren endorsed him. The campaign rounded out the week with endorsements from leading Muslim and Jewish organisations, highlighting the diversity in his coalition. The new alliances are expected to pay off in multiple ways: On May 1, a network of influential Obama alumni is planning to participate in a virtual fundraiser for Biden, according to a person with knowledge of the event. Ticket prices will range from $US250 to $US2800. But the credibility transfer from his endorsers to Biden has limits. That is why the candidate, seen in some quarters of the party as unappealing to younger voters and facing challenges with Latino voters, also has been willing to make pronouncements that have gone beyond what past nominees have guaranteed. "I'm looking forward to making sure there is a black woman on the Supreme Court," Biden said at a February debate, drawing loud applause.

The creation of his cabinet - and more broadly his view of himself as a transitional figure who can help build the next generation of Democrats - has been on Biden's mind for a while. During an April 3 virtual fundraiser, he said he was committed to selecting diverse personnel. "Men, women, gay, straight, centre, across the board. Black, white, Asian. It really matters that you look like the country, because everyone brings a slightly different perspective," said Biden. Presidents-elect typically tap experienced government hands to help them evolve from candidate to officeholder. Cabinet nominations - such as secretary of state and attorney general - are normally announced beginning in the two-month period between the election and the inauguration. Biden would not say who is heading his transition team, but he vowed that those who will take part will be "first rate." He also argued that there is no shortage of qualified people who could serve. "I have had literally several hundred serious, serious players who have held positions in every department in the federal government who have said, including some Republicans, who have said: 'If you win, I want to come back. I'm ready to serve,' " he said.
Business Digest  54 

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"I am COVID-free, safe and healthy. Sex only with condoms."

And with advertisements such as that, some Queensland sex workers flout strict physical-distancing laws by continuing to offer their in-person services.

Physical sex work has been banned, but sole operators are still allowed to sell streaming or phone chat services. Credit:James Davies

Strip clubs, brothels and sole-operator sex workers have been banned from trading during the pandemic but dozens of advertisements for private sex workers continue to appear on popular sites.

One ad seen by Brisbane Times offers: "Sanitised clean room, germ free. Fresh clean towels. Shower facilities."
Money Heist fans received an extra treat when part 4 of the series arrived on April 3. In addition to gulping up the entire new season, viewers were able to watch the La Casa de Papel accompanying documentary that was released on the same day.

While that behind-the-scenes special is certainly worth your time for the gems it dropped, there are some things diehard fans may not know about the series.

Money Heist | Netflix

Police officers like Money Heist

Have you ever wondered what law enforcement thinks about La Casa de Papel? They love it too, and many of them are rooting for the gang. During an interview with El Cultural, director Jesus Colmenar said that police are with the bad guys.

There was a change in fiction, a turning point, with the series The Sopranos. From then on, the protagonists stopped being the good guys who had to fight the bad guys. You could create characters with all kinds of moral layers. That ushered in a golden age of television fiction with a new generation of series that are no longer required to have faultless protagonists. I have met many policemen who are fans of La Casa de Papel and tell you that they are going with the robbers. That some police go with the bad guys is part of the magic of cinema. It is a satisfaction that they also tell you that we reflect police work in a very realistic way.

The series almost had a different name

Creator Alex Pina originally named the show Los Desahuciados, which translates to The Hopeless. Eventually, the title was switched to La Casa de Papel, and Money Heist for the English-speaking audience.

Tokyo was the third choice for narrator

The tale of Money Heist was introduced from Tokyos point of view, and its been that way since the first episode. But before that, the Professor was chosen to narrate. Showrunners decided against it because it felt narcissistic, and they were going to go with Moscow instead because his personality was more cheerful.

That idea was squashed too, and Tokyo was chosen to give the story a female perspective.

How did they make the money?

According to Netflix, production crews used newspaper printing equipment and supplies to give the fake bills an authentic look and feel. Thanks to ABC newspaper in Spain, they created a few thousand paper notes.

Cosas que hacer una vez hayas terminado #LCDP4

 Ver LCDP1, 2, 3 y 4 de nuevo.

 Aprender origami con el Profesor. pic.twitter.com/dfK9nOgBSs  La Casa de Papel (@lacasadepapel) April 14, 2020

Dali masks had competition

Its become the ubiquitous symbol of Money Heist: Salvador Dali masks. Spanish folk hero Don Quixote was also considered as the face of choice. Many recognize him as an idealist, and the character is often referenced in literature not only for his silliness and chivalry, but his bravery and honor.

Money Heist creators cited the premise of madness, genius, and romanticism of Don Quixote. The quote, To fight with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable star, also seems to fit in with the theme of the show.

Ultimately, Dali masks were selected as a symbol of rebellion and revolution, something connected to the artists work.
Chris Tarrant has said Charles Ingram was a rotter, a cad and a bandit, adding he has beef with TV drama Quiz for casting doubt over his conviction.

The former army major and his wife Diana were found guilty of cheating their way to the top prize on ITV game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

A lawyer for the couple said they are planning to appeal against their conviction.

"He was definitely not straight down the line at all."https://t.co/cF799rna3K  Radio X (@RadioX) April 16, 2020

The drama about the scandal starring Matthew Macfadyen and Sian Clifford as the couple, Michael Jibson as co-conspirator Tecwen Whittock and Michael Sheen as Tarrant, concluded on ITV on Wednesday night.

Asked what he thought of the show, which was written by James Graham, Tarrant told Chris Moyles on Radio X: It was very well made wasnt it? It was actually very well done but it is a drama, its not factual.

So most of those conversations were made up because thats what playwrights do.

I mean the bottom line is hes a rotter and a cad and a bandit and he was guilty. No question in my mind at all that he was guilty.

He added: And there were so many things in there that they didnt include.

My beef with it is that they did a very strange but very convincing defence QC  that woman, Helen McCrory  a very good defence wind-up but they did not do any prosecution wind-up.

Now, in any court of law the prosecution does the last bit and when the major and his wife and Tecwen were on the actual court case, the prosecution guy did the most brilliant sum-up, bringing all the strands in  the coughing and the bleepers and all the stuff  and went to the jury and they went guilty, guilty, guilty.

They didnt do that last night at all, they just stopped on her, and youre going oh yeah, I think he might be  oh poor bloke, poor little man  all that  maybe hes innocent.

I think it was  that bit was a bit of production company skulduggery basically. I mean, they wanted you to think blimey I dont think he was guilty.

Remembering the night Ingram won in 2001, Tarrant said: Ive always said, I saw nothing. But the studio that night was like a madhouse.

People were screaming and gasping just because he was so, you know  hes a serving British Army Major whos on, I dont know, 30k a year, rented accommodation or whatever, and hes going oh yes 500,000, lets risk it, lets play and all this and you think: Why would you do that?

The studio was like a madhouse. People were screaming, people were coughing everywhere because people always cough in studios so I didnt hear Tecwen. Afterwards I had to sit through the floor squad the next day and go through the tapes and its like oh my god, what is going on.

He added: I think a lot of people today will be waking up going oh that poor major, I think theyve done him up.

We wouldnt  the police prosecuted him, we didnt. At the time I think we were getting audiences of something like 13 or 14 million. We sold it to 132 countries around the world  America, Australia, India, etc  so why would we go out on a limb to try to prosecute one of these guys?

Of course we thought he was guilty, no question. And nothing has changed my mind, to be honest. It (Quiz) was very well done, though.
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We are all in this crisis together, but we are not all experiencing this crisis in the same way.

That was how Chicago mayor, Lori Lightfoot described the jarring data from Chicagos public health agency that showed black residents accounted for 72 percent of COVID-19 deaths in a city whose black population make up only 30 percent.

From Chicago to New Orleans, Detroit to Milwaukee, cities with large African-American populations are fast becoming hotspots for coronavirus. All across America, people of color are more likely to become infected and die from COVID-19.

Early data seems to suggest that longstanding disparities in health and inequalities in access to medical care are the cause rather than genetic factors. Blacks are more likely to have a higher percentage of individuals with preexisting conditions who are uninsured or underinsured. A pandemic just magnifies the disparities in healthcare that many communities of color face, said Dr. Summer Johnson McGee, Dean of the School of Health Sciences at the University of New Haven.

In September 2019, Hahnemann University Hospital, a 496-bed facility that served Philadelphias inner-city poor blacks and just about two years after being purchased by American Academic Health Systems closed shop. In the months preceding the closure, the hospital was losing about $3-5M in monthly revenue, and the California investment banker overseeing the business side of things had to stop it from hemorrhaging.

On February 1, 2019, Mercy Hospital, a 47-bed acute care facility located in the Southeast Kansas City of Fort Scott, closed her door for good. This was after 130 years of serving not just this rural community of ranchers and farmers but also the local population that made up the surrounding Bourbon County. In the good old days, the hospital was also the areas biggest employer of labor, contributing significantly to the local health as well as economic well-being.

If those surprised you, then you must be totally oblivious of the emerging trend, especially in rural America. The UNC Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health services research reported that 163 hospitals in rural America have shut their doors from 2005. My home state of Texas is leading the pack with 17 hospitals closed since 2010. In fact, more than 700 amounting to about one-third of such hospitals in the U.S. are in life support, according to the national rural health association. Contributing factors included: small patient populations, high rates of uninsured and underinsured, physician shortages, and low cash flow.

The big issues in all these are that those most affected by hospital closings tend to be the poor, minorities, and elderly patients. Added to this mix are the unemployed and those suffering from mobility limitations due to chronic conditions like obesity, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. In other words, the more vulnerable population bears the full brunt, and this no doubt helps to exacerbate already existing health disparities in America.

There is nothing glamorous about being poor, and it doesnt even matter if the poverty is denominated in dollars or pesos. You will always get the short end of the stick and make do with a generous dose of the stigma that goes with it. But the truth is that before now, the American poor, unlike his counterparts in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, had a lot to be thankful for.

Thanks to the social safety net with programs that made life much better even to the envy of the rich in emerging economies. Every passing year, however, the rising health care cost in the worlds richest economy is forcing the gap to close pretty fast. In fact, in rural Coffeyville, Kansas, where the poverty rate is reported to be twice the national average, CBS News reported that people are now going to jail over unpaid medical debt. With the Trump White House launching an all-out offensive against social programs in favor of increased defense spending, the stage is now set for a full-blown disaster.

According to a Gallup poll reported on April 1, 2019, 55 percent of Americans worry a great deal about health care, topping a list of 15 issues.

With the election coming, we need to pay closer attention and ask tougher questions. Americans need to know where each candidate stands on these existential issues facing our nation.

As a physician, one is deeply worried about what is coming  the future, our future. We should all be very concerned about what all these portends to the future of health care in America.

In the past, heavy policing and draconian laws had helped protect society against violent crimes and social misfits. They saved us from those perversions that are so commonplace when we ignore the poor and the vulnerable.

In terms of fighting diseases, the case is totally different. Whereas we can successfully quarantine the sick from public life, the risk of transmission to others is never zero. This one area proves beyond any iota of doubt that taking care of the poor among us is not just a charitable endeavor; it is, in fact, good business. If in doubt, maybe you should ask those that lived through the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.

Osmund Agbo is a pulmonary physician.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Guatemalan president suspends all flights of deportees from US after plane carrying 73 people was largely infected.

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei has suspended all flights of deportees from the United States after a large number of migrants who were flown back this week were found to be infected with the novel coronavirus.

Giammattei said on Friday that 12 randomly selected people from the Monday deportation flight had tested positive for coronavirus when examined by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after their arrival. He suggested more on the flight had tested positive as well.

The flight has been at the centre of a political storm since Guatemalan Health Minister Hugo Monroy this week said up to 75 percent of passengers on a deportation flight in March had been infected with the virus.

A large part of it was infected, the president said in a televised address, referring to Mondays flight carrying 73 Guatemalans from Alexandria in the US state of Louisiana to Guatemala City.

The US said on Thursday it had sent a CDC mission to assess the situation and test the migrants, who remain in quarantine in a hospital.

The Trump administration has pressured Guatemala to keep receiving migrants it deports, despite growing concern in the poor Central American nation that returnees are bringing the virus with them and could infect remote communities.

The Associated Press news agency later cited a Guatemalan official saying 44 people on Mondays flight were infected, the discovery prompting Guatemala to suspend all deportation flights from the US.

Giammattei said: Until the agreement between the two countries is fulfilled, giving us the certainty that those people will come with a certificate demonstrating they are free of the coronavirus, the flights of deportees are suspended.

The president said on April 4, following another flight that arrived on March 26, the US government was asked to sign an agreement to set up a protocol for bringing deported citizens and ensuring they were free of the coronavirus.

It is not clear when the deportees became infected. There have been 30 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employees working in the agencys detention facilities, including 13 at the Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana, ICE data shows.

Flights deporting Guatemalans from the US were temporarily suspended on Thursday after reports of the mass infection. Deportation flights had only started again on Monday after a five-day suspension because of earlier infections.

Neither ICE, which operates the deportation flights, nor the US embassy in Guatemala immediately responded to requests for comment.

Guatemala has reported 214 cases of the virus and seven deaths, according to a running tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Rural and Indigenous communities across Guatemala are increasingly concerned about the spread of coronavirus, questioning whether the countrys already fragile healthcare system could adequately respond.
ODekirk and others said NorthPoints plan also would help get trucks off Route 53 and side streets through a closed loop system for truckers. The citys annexation agreement with NorthPoint includes requirements that construction on the bridge over Route 53 for the proposed closed loop system must begin before the first building permit be issued, and construction of the bridge must be completed before the first occupancy permit is issued.
To start, get down on all fours to see the world from your childs perspective. Its remarkable how easy it is to open cabinets, to climb up on furniture, to get into medications and things that you wouldnt necessarily think theyd be interested in, said Dr. Scot Bateman, M.D., a professor of pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. As soon as theyre mobile, children are very curious.

From there, create a list of things to do and buy. You will never clear your house of every possible danger, but you can prioritize based on the most common causes of death and injury. These include suffocation, burns, choking, falling, drowning, poisoning from medications and accidental shootings, according to Dr. Pomerantz. The hazards in your house might vary depending on how many children you have. If this is your firstborn, staples of your adult life  like a sharp-edged coffee table  might pose the biggest problem. If you have older children, check for toys that are battery-operated or small enough to choke on.

Experts generally agree on the same basic steps to reduce risks in your house:

Set your water heater no higher than 120 degrees to prevent scalding.

Lock up household chemicals and medicines or put them out of reach. (Dr. Pomerantz said that accidentally ingesting medicine is the most common cause of hospitalization in younger children at the hospital where she works.)

Put window guards on any windows on a high floor; a child can fall through a screen.

Secure furniture and TVs to the walls.

Get outlet covers. Instead of the kind that plug in  which can become choking hazards or go unused on outlets you use frequently  look for a self-closing socket plug, which adults can slide back and forth (and tiny hands cannot).

Use only the back burners on your stove and cover the controls with guards.

Use window shades that dont have cords, or tie up the cords you do have.

Be diligent about anything at the childs level that could be a choking hazard, like hard candies or grapes.

Test your smoke alarms once a month.

If you have a firearm, make sure its unloaded and keep it locked up.

A note on baby gates: The experts I talked to emphasized that you should put them at the tops and bottoms of staircases. This will keep babies from falling from the top, but also from climbing up from the bottom and then falling. The most secure gates are ones that attach to the walls, according to Dr. Pomerantz. The Wirecutter, a New York Times company, recommends Cardinal Gates SS-30 Stairway Special because its the best value, the reviewers wrote. Opening it is easy for adults, and its easier to securely install (in more situations) than its competitors.

Youll also want to get a seat for the bathtub. Only rigorous attention can prevent drowning, but a baby seat thats designed for a range of ages can help you (and your baby) feel more secure in the tub. The Wirecutter recommends the Fisher-Price 4-in-1 Sling n Seat Tub because not only does it feel safe, its designed to remain useful as your child grows.

Look outdoors.

In some parts of the country, Dr. Pomerantz noted, drowning is a leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4. Parents should enclose an in-ground pool with a fence roughly four feet from the waters edge, so children cant wander in. Hot tubs should be covered when not in use. And even a wading pool can be a hazard  Dr. Pomerantz mentioned a baby who was left in a Bumbo seat in a pool, but fell and drowned when the childs mother stepped away for just a minute. At backyard gatherings, where parents can easily be distracted, designate someone to keep an eye on the children, Samuel said. (Safe Kids has a printable Water Watcher card for such gatherings.)

Garages are also dangerous. Put chemical products out of reach for kids. As Dr. Pomerantz pointed out, antifreeze can look like a blue energy drink. And any kid can make a mistake  like drinking chemicals  out of sheer curiosity, said Dr. Bateman. Other tips from the A.A.P. include keeping items like tools and fertilizer in a locked cabinet, if possible, and unplugging all power tools when youre finished with them. Reinforce that the garage is not a play area  unwatched children are at risk of being run over or crushed by an automatic garage door.

Bring in help.

Virtually every community has an army of baby-proofing experts just an internet search away. Organizations like the Injury-Free Coalition for Kids offer their expertise to lower-income communities. If professional services are too expensive, friends or relatives can turn a chore into a fun group project.

[Read about your toddlers developmental milestones.]
ACCRA, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese community in Ghana on Friday donated assorted food items and medical supplies to some local communities to help them get through the rough time of COVID-19 breakout.

The donations include 10,000 kilos of rice, 3,000 liters of cooking oil, and 6,000 face masks.

On behalf of the Chinese community in Ghana, Chinese ambassador to Ghana Wang Shiting donated the items to the National Chief Imam Sheikh Osman Nuhu Sharubutu for distribution to the Muslim community in the Ghanaian capital.

"We are well aware of the difficulty of fighting the epidemic. We know the suffering and feeling of Ghanaians," said Wang, adding that many Chinese who have settled in Ghana for a long time regard Ghana as their second home, with deep feelings for the country and Ghanaians.

"At this difficult time, they would like to show their active support to Ghana by playing their part in the fight against the pandemic," Wang said.

In his message, the National Chief Imam expressed profound gratitude to the Chinese community for their heartfelt support for the Islamic communities and all Ghanaians.

"The food and medical supplies are critical needs at this time, and have come at the most opportune time since most vulnerable Muslim households would need some support during the lockdown," he said.
The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) has donated cash of One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Ghana Cedis GHc150,000) and items worth three hundred and fifty thousand Ghana Cedis (GHc 350,000), which include PPE, beverages, provisions, water and oxygen.



The AGI says the move was in response to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo's call for support in the fight against the spread of the COVID-19 in Ghana.



The presentation was done at the press briefing on the update of COVID-19 by the Ministry of Information . At the presentation, the President of the Association, Dr. Yaw Adu Gyamfi, commended Government for focusing efforts on containing the pandemic and working hard to reduce the rate of spread of the virus in the country.



Making reference to the negative impact of Covid-19, he said "within two weeks, we have all been hit by the outbreak of the novel COVID-19 in diverse ways. Indeed, this pandemic and its attendant actions such as the lockdown have really affected businesses and created interruption in manufacturing activities in Ghana.



He continued that "It is for this reason we appreciate with admiration the government's timely strategy and intervention to alleviate the economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic on citizens and industry in Ghana. In particular,



Engaging local manufacturers to produce three million, six hundred thousand cedis of (GHc3,600,000) of face masks;



Making available six hundred million Ghana Cedis (GHc600 million) to be accessed by SMEs as soft loans,



Ensuring the extension of due dates for filling of taxes from 4 months to 6 months after of the basis year by GRA; among others will go a long way to help reduce the negative impact on businesses







Dr. Adu Gyamfi stated further that "we acknowledge the engagement so far with AGI in developing these measures and we anxiously look forward to further engaging with Government on the modalities for effective implementation of these lifeline packages.



"He indicated that other areas of tax relief are also important and AGI will take these up with government in subsequent discussions.



"I take this opportunity to express our gratitude to our gallant members who have been very supportive of government in these difficulties times."



He said a lot of AGI member companies had on their own made separate donations to the fund.



"In addition, AGI has mobilized cash and items from Danadams Pharmaceuticals, Tropical Cable and Conductors, Samartex, Nestle Ghana Limited, Fanmilk, Duraplast, Voltic, Berock Ventures, Afariwaa Estates, Asadtek Group, Redmoon Ventures, Ghana Timber Millers Organisation, GOIL, Merricom Solutions, M&G Pharmacueticals, Sleek Garments, FC Perfumery Polytank, IPMC, Sid Cosmetics, Crocodile Matchets, OsAfric Ltd., Lion Aluminium, Kane-Em Industries, and Metalex Ltd.



Other donors include Fay International Limited, Worchar Agrow Processing Limited, DT Engineering, Debbies Limited, Voltic, Lexta Co., Qualiplast, Gandour Cosmetics, M & G Pharmaceuticas, Pharmacare and Nobel Industries, Accra Brewery.



He said the AGI was considering another round of mobilisation and urge members to continue making their contributions to AGI and be part of the next presentation.



"We also commend all Ghanaian health workers, security and other front line persons putting their lives on the line to save others," the AGI said.









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Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 19:08:02|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, April 18 (Xinhua) -- As the Chinese medical experts joined their Ethiopian counterparts in the fight against COVID-19 on Thursday, Ethiopians across different walks of lives are commending the move as a great demonstration of solidarity to deal with the COVID-19 response in Ethiopia.

The Chinese anti-pandemic medical expert team with 12 members specializing in various public health sectors arrived in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Thursday afternoon as part of the China's continuing solidarity in assisting the East African country on the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It is a precious gesture of brotherhood and togetherness demonstrated by the Chinese government in general and the twelve medical professionals in particular," Mahlet Dinku, a 27-years-old Ethiopian medical science student, told Xinhua on Saturday.

Dinku also emphasized the "selfless deed and sacrifice exhibited by the Chinese anti-pandemic medical experts' team "to come all the way from China to Ethiopia to help us cope with the COVID-19 outbreak."

She further underscored the crucial timing of the latest Chinese assistance, as she underscored that "we sincerely welcomed them as they arrived here while we as a nation are bracing for practically the most difficult time of our recent history."

As COVID-19 cases continue to surge across Ethiopia and beyond the African continent, the Chinese anti-pandemic medical experts' team was dispatched by the Chinese government upon the request of the Ethiopian government. The team will be working in Ethiopia for 15 days as planned.

Public health and economic analysis are currently voicing their concern regarding the lack of first-hand experience in COVID-19 response. In this regard, the Chinese medical experts emphasized their resolve to apply their well-articulated experience to support the East African country's fight against COVID-19.

Noting that Ethiopia and other fellow African countries are now experiencing a rising rate of COVID-19, Zeng Zhiyong, a member of the Chinese medical experts' team and a chief physician specialized on infection-control, stressed that "now is the moment to effectively contend the spread of the virus before its further spread."

"The team members will spare no efforts in fulfilling their mission by way of in-depth exchanges of close to three-months experiences with Ethiopian experts and officials," said Zeng, who is also the head of infection-control department at West China Hospital Sichuan University.

The healthcare professionals are also expected to provide advice on prevention and control of COVID-19 with local hospitals. The team also arrived in Ethiopia carrying urgently needed medical supplies including protective equipment, and traditional Chinese medicine that has been tested effective by clinical practice.

Ethiopian Ministers of Health, Lia Tadesse, after welcoming members of the Chinese medical team also emphasized the crucial role that the Chinese medical experts' team would play in Ethiopia's efforts to contend the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The highly trained experts and professionals who have been active in COVID-19 response in China and with frontline experience came here along with support from the Chinese government," Tadesse told Xinhua. Enditem
The city of Casper has begun writing a blueprint for reopening businesses and other establishments in the community.

Casper Mayor Steve Freel on Friday said a plan is in the works to reopen businesses and expedite economic activity, as health orders designed to limit the spread of the coronavirus have forced many businesses to close.

He said local leaders were watching President Donald Trumps discussions for a timeline and manner for lifting restrictions nationwide.

As soon as the green light is given to us to start returning to some type of normal, we want to be ready, Freel said in a press briefing Friday afternoon.

Freel said any efforts to lift restrictions in Casper would follow guidance to slow the spread of the virus but that he did not know what the decision-making process would look like.

Regardless of the citys efforts, it will still have to follow any health orders the state may make or extend going forward.

Gov. Mark Gordon and State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist extended the current health orders through the end of April. Hailey Bloom, a spokesperson for the Natrona County Health Department, said it is unlikely life will return to normal as soon as those deadlines are expired.

Freel asked residents to submit their own ideas on how this process should be undertaken. He said the process should include different points of view working together toward one common good.

At the end of his remarks, he added that whatever feedback the city receives, the process to reopen economic activity will need to be a phased one.

It will not be a flip of a switch, he said.

Trump released a plan Thursday guiding states on how to scale back social distancing and other restrictive measures taken to slow the spread of the virus. That plan provides guidelines for states to gradually roll back existing restrictions.

Trumps plan has received some skepticism from health experts who have warned lifting social distancing restrictions too soon could be disastrous. Gordon Friday afternoon announced the state was developing a transition plan to lift some of the restrictions put in place to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. But the states existing orders will remain in place through at least April 30.

Gordon said Friday any decisions to lift restrictions would be health data-driven, not date-driven. He has also warned even without certain restrictions, things wont go back to normal immediately.

If anyone thinks that simply easing restrictions currently in place will lead to an immediate return to normal, they need to think again, Gordon said Wednesday.

Trump has also created a task force for reopening the economy. All three of Wyomings congressional delegates have been named to that task force. The task force is comprised of private industry representatives to elected officials.

U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney has split with the president on how to lift the restrictions currently in place, but voiced enthusiasm alongside Sens. Mike Enzi and John Barrasso for the task force in a news release issued Thursday.

Cheney noted in the statement that any plans to reopen businesses must come with expanded testing, access to personal protective equipment, and accelerated research and development of therapeutics and vaccines.

The economic impact of the virus on Wyoming has been severe. A University of Wyoming survey completed in late March shows 40 percent of respondents having lost work themselves, or having a relative who has.

And unemployment claims in the state continue to rise. The state received 4,885 new claims for unemployment insurance the week ending April 4.

Locally, the recent cancellation of large events, including the College National Finals Rodeo, is expected to cost the county millions in lost revenue. The cancellation of state high school art and track and field events alone may have cost the county more than $2 million in lost local spending.

Regardless of economics, Caspers plans for reopening will follow suit with federal and state timelines, according to Freels comments.

The mayor urged residents in the meantime to continue adhering to social distancing guidelines.

We look forward to working together with you on bringing this community back to life, he said, closing his remarks.

To submit your ideas to the city, go to casperwy.gov.

Follow local government reporter Morgan Hughes on Twitter @morganhwrites

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Muhammadu Buharis Chief of Staff Abba Kyari is the highest profile person to have died as country remains in lockdown.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buharis chief of staff has died after contracting the novel coronavirus, the presidency said on Saturday.

Buharis office announced in a statement that it regrets to announce the passage of Abba Kyari, who acted as gatekeeper to the president of Africas most populous nation.

The deceased had tested positive to the ravaging COVID-19, and had been receiving treatment. But he died on Friday, April 17, 2020, the statement said.

May God accept his soul.

Kyari, in his 70s, was the highest-profile COVID-19 death in the West African country, which has 493 confirmed cases and 17 deaths, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

Influential technocrat

The influential technocrat, who was reported to have suffered from underlying health issues, was seen as one of the dominant figures in the tight-knit group of advisers around Buhari.

He reportedly controlled access to the president, a 77-year old former military ruler now in his second term as democratically elected leader, overseeing key meetings and granting audiences.

Kyari tested positive for coronavirus in late March after visiting Germany, forcing a string of top Nigerian officials who had been in contact with him to self-quarantine.

In a statement released on March 29, Kyari said he had been transferred to Lagos, Nigerias biggest city, for private medical treatment and hoped to be back at my desk very soon.

There has been no official confirmation on whether Buhari has taken a test, but the president has since made repeated televised speeches imposing restrictions to curb the spread the virus.

The central government has imposed a lockdown on Nigerias economic hub Lagos and capital Abuja, while state governors have ordered a number of measures in other regions.

Economic consequences

The extension of the lockdown is expected to add to the hardship of millions of Nigerians living hand-to-mouth, often on less than one dollar a day.

Buhari said on Monday he was fully aware of the great difficulties experienced especially by those who earn a daily wage.

But despite these realities, we must not change the restrictions, he added.

The government has pledged a series of support measures to ease the financial pain for the most vulnerable, but there have been widespread complaints that not enough is being done for those facing hunger.

The vast majority of Nigerians depend on daily wages, they have to go out to get money and buy food to put it on the table for their families, Al Jazeeras Ahmed Idris, reporting from the capital, Abuja, said.

For the next two weeks, they are going to stay at home with no work and no chance of getting money.

Experts say the country of 200 million is highly vulnerable to the spread of the disease given its weak healthcare system and high population density.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday that Africa has now more than 1,000 deaths from COVID-19

A total of 52 of the continents 54 countries have reported the coronavirus, with the overall number of cases more than 19,800.

The World Health Organization on Friday noted a 51% increase in cases in Africa and a 60% jump in deaths in the past week. But the WHO chief warned that because of a shortage of testing its likely the real numbers are higher than reported.

The Africa CDC has said more than 1 million test kits will be rolled out starting next week.
Spain's death toll from coronavirus rose at a slower pace on Saturday but surpassed 20,000 fatalities as the government mulled whether to ask Parliament for a third extension of the confinement imposed in one of the world's hardest hit countries.

The number of deaths increased by 565 on Saturday, compared to 585 on Friday and the number of new coronavirus cases rose to 191,726 from 188,068.

"The data of hospitalised, deceased and ICU admissions have maintained a downward trend the past few days," said Health Emergency Chief, Fernando Simon, adding that he hoped to see a steeper decrease soon.

Simon said he expected a significant rise in registered coronavirus cases as the number of quick tests conducted has doubled in the past three weeks, but stressed that the tests have shown a lower infection rate among citizens.

Spain has begun to ease the strict lockdown imposed on March 14 and this week opened up some sectors of the economy, including manufacturing. But most people are still confined to their houses except for essential outings like shopping for food and children are not allowed out for exercise.

On April 9, Parliament approved a 15-day extension of the State of Emergency that brought in the lockdown measures. The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez said at the time that he was certain he would have to ask for another extension, which would go into May.

According to the Spanish television channel, TVE, lawmakers will likely vote on it on Wednesday.

The Technical Panel that advises Prime Minister Sanchez is in favour of extending the confinement measures, Simon said, but added that they could be progressively eased if it was assessed that the health system could handle a potential second wave of infection.

"We are very close to de-escalation" he said, without elaborating.

Madrid Mayor, Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida told a Spanish radio station that it was possible that large events and gatherings will be banned nationwide until the autumn.

Spain's Labour Minister, Yolanda Diaz said on Friday her department was planning a two-phased economic resumption, the first for Productive Sectors up to the summer and a second for Tourism & Leisure which would last until the end of the year.

The final decision will depend on advice from the Health Authorities, the Labour department said in a statement.
In an interview with FRANCE 24 and RFI from Dakar, Senegalese President Macky Sall discussed the Covid-19 pandemic, which has reached Senegal and the rest of Africa. Sall defended the use of the drug chloroquine as a treatment, claiming it has proven effective in his country. He also welcomed the moratorium on African debt agreed by the G20 this week, but said it can only be a first step and that more must be done.
General Dynamics Electric Boat Friday, April 17, 2020, delivered the nuclear-powered attack submarine Vermont (SSN 792) to the U.S. Navy. Electric Boat is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics (NYSE:GD). Vermont Virginia-class is a nuclear-powered cruise missile fast-attack submarines, currently in the military service in the United States Navy.

General Dynamics Electric Boat Friday, April 17, 2020, delivered the nuclear-powered attack submarine Vermont (SSN 792) to the U.S. Navy. Electric Boat is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics (NYSE:GD). Vermont Virginia-class is a nuclear-powered cruise missile fast-attack submarines, currently in the military service in the United States Navy.

U.S. Navy nuclear-powered attack submarine Vermont SSN 792. (Picture source U.S.Navy)

Vermont is the 19th submarine of the Virginia Class, which provides the Navy with the capabilities required to retain undersea dominance well into the 21st century. Vermont is the first of the ten-ship group of Virginia-class submarines known as Block IV. These ships embody a Navy and industry commitment to affordably deliver new submarines to the fleet with unmatched stealth and strike capacity.

"The shipbuilders of Electric Boat are proud to deliver Vermont to our Navy, an extraordinarily capable ship," said Kevin Graney, President, General Dynamics Electric Boat. "I am pleased to report that the Vermont has received some of the highest quality ratings in the history of the Virginia program. We wish Vermont and her crew a long and distinguished career in defense of our nation."

Virginia-class submarines displace 7,835 tons, with a hull length of 377 feet and a diameter of 34 feet. They are capable of speeds in excess of 25 knots and can dive to a depth greater than 800 feet, while carrying Mark 48 advanced capability torpedoes and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

General Dynamics Electric Boat has a workforce of more than 16,600 employees at its three primary locations in Groton and New London, Connecticut, and Quonset Point, Rhode Island. General Dynamics Electric Boat is a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD). Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, General Dynamics is a global aerospace and defense company that offers a broad portfolio of products and services in business aviation; combat vehicles, weapons systems and munitions; IT services; C4ISR solutions; and shipbuilding and ship repair. General Dynamics employs more than 100,000 people worldwide and generated $36.2 billion in revenue in 2018.
President Trump on Thursday offered beleaguered movie theaters a glimmer of hope that they could gradually return to business in the coming months, as the nations largest cinema chain said it plans to raise $500 million in order to survive the coronavirus crisis.

AMC Theatres said it will raise the money in a private debt offering in order to stay afloat during the public health emergency that forced the closure of all 1,000 of its global locations, including about 630 in the U.S. Domestic cinemas have been closed since mid-March because of government restrictions meant to curb the spread of the virus.

Theater owners have increasingly begun to float the possibility of reopening sometime in July, in the middle of what would normally be Hollywoods key summer blockbuster movie season. But AMCs offering of first lien notes, due in 2025, comes amid lingering uncertainty.

Some analysts have predicted that the prolonged coronavirus cash crunch could force heavily indebted AMC to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors. AMC, burdened with long-term debt of $4.85 billion and no revenue coming in, has laid off or furloughed thousands of workers, including 600 corporate staffers all the way up to Chief Executive Adam Aron.

As of March 31, Leawood, Kan., company had a cash balance of $299.8 million, including borrowings of $215.0 million in March, the company said Thursday in a statement. AMC said its balance sheet should sustain the company until a partial reopening in July. The new debt offering should give the exhibitor a significantly longer runway.

We believe the company will have sufficient liquidity to withstand a global suspension of operations until a partial reopening ahead of Thanksgiving, AMC said.

Though it remains unclear when theaters will be allowed to resume operations, exhibitors and studios have begun to prepare for business resuming in early July, though the COVID-19 situation remains fluid. Theaters that reopen would have strict guidelines to limit seating capacity in order to conform to social distancing rules.

The Trump administration on Thursday released guidelines on reopening the nations economy, including multiplexes, while saying that governors will have authority over the return of their states businesses.

The federal guidelines offered states a phased approach. Under the first phase, movie theaters, restaurants, gyms and large sporting venues can reopen if they adhere to strict social distancing rules. However, states should begin the phase only if they meet criteria including a 14-day decrease in coronavirus cases or a reduced trajectory of positive tests. Under the second phase, venues would be able to moderately ease physical distancing regulations as long as the virus doesnt rebound.

National Assn. of Theatre Owners, the Washington lobbying group for cinema owners, declined to comment on the White House guidance.

However, the guidelines represented a modicum of hope for the exhibition industry, in part because they put movie houses in the same category as restaurants and other venues that would be allowed to resume business in the first phase of the economys reopening.

Mooky Greidinger, chief executive of Regal Cinemas British parent company Cineworld Group, said theres still no firm timeline, but the company is optimistic.

There is no way today that we can make any decision about an opening date, Greidinger said in a statement. However, we are optimistic that we will be able to open toward the second half of June, subject of course to an understanding with the studios about new releases. The studios are our main partners, and both parties should be convinced what is the right date to reopen our theaters.

Cinemark Holdings executives on Wednesday gave Wall Street analysts a rough plan of how its circuit may pursue a reopening in the coming months.

Sean Gamble, Cinemarks chief operating officer, said on a conference call that the company anticipated a July 1 opening, which would be in time for major rescheduled studio releases, including Walt Disney Co.s Mulan and Warner Bros.s Christopher Nolan film Tenet.

Under that scenario, the Plano, Texas, company, which has laid off 17,500 workers and pursued a $250-million debt raise, would start rehiring employees in June and kick off marketing initiatives to attract consumers.

That would begin a three-month slow build of operations, Gamble said. For the first couple of weeks, theaters would probably stick to showing older studio movies as moviegoers slowly grow more comfortable with going to theaters.

Were having great discussions already with the studios about a range of different tactics to get the theatrical exhibition engine restarted, Gamble said.



Ryan Faughnder of the Los Angeles Times wrote this story.

2020 Los Angeles Times

Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
After completing his residency at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in the late 1960s, Dr. Anthony Fauci felt uncertain about his career path.

He was about to start an infectious diseases fellowship as public health experts downplayed their danger due to progress on antibiotics and vaccines.

I felt somewhat anxious and even ambivalent about my career choice, to say the least  was I entering into a disappearing subspecialty? Fauci said in a commencement address to Boston University medical school graduates a few years ago.

Today, Fauci is the infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health and a key voice as Americans grapple with the hospitalizations, deaths and social distancing measures that have resulted from the spread of COVID-19.

Before he put in long hours to fight infectious diseases, he was still hard at work at Weill Cornell Medicine where he finished at the top of his class in 1966, during the Vietnam War.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens during a briefing about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room, Friday, March 27, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)AP

Fauci graduated from Cornell during a wartime effort requiring new physicians to complete military service. According to the New Yorker, a recruiter visited Cornell as Fauci neared the end of medical school and asked students to list their preferred sector of the armed forces. Fauci landed his first pick  the Public Health Service  and started at the National Institutes of Health after graduating.

This step led him to critical roles in handling research and treatment for AIDS, HIV, SARS, H1N1, and Ebola.

And hes not done. In 2013, Fauci visited the Ithaca campus to discuss the future of treating HIV and AIDS. Though treatments for HIV have increased lifespan, hes been working on a vaccine to bring the epidemic to an end.

Even for those who arent a part of the medical community, Fauci is hard to miss given his regular media appearances. Most recently, he weighed in on the harsher impact the pandemic is having on communities of color. He also cautioned the rush to reopen businesses and parts of the country before substantial testing and tracing procedures are in place.

We have to have something in place that is efficient and that we can rely on, and were not there yet, Fauci said in an interview with The Associated Press this week.

Still, Fauci has successfully worked with presidents from both sides of the aisle since the Reagan administration. In 2008, he earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, joining Cornell alumni like Toni Morrison in receiving the highest civilian honor.

President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference on the nation's response to the coronavirus pandemic on Friday, March 20, 2020. At right is Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (Fox News video still)

But theres been growing curiosity over his relationship with Trump. A few days ago, he clarified a comment in a CNN interview that his recommendations for social distancing early on had been met with pushback. This approach to working with politicians is explained in a 2008 interview Fauci had with Weill Cornell Medicine magazine.

You cannot inject any political agenda, because administrations change, Congresses change, Fauci told the magazine. You have got to be perceived as an honest broker for the science, and that is what I have been able to do. I do not have a political agenda. I am purely involved in what is best for the country vis a vis science and public health.

Distant from the work in D.C., the Cornell community continues to recognize Faucis task on the frontlines of fighting the virus. Fauci once again is playing an absolutely critical role in the face of an epidemic in this country," Professor Chris Schaffer told the Cornell Daily Sun.

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The imam of the Gwammaja Mosque has been arrested for defying the lockdown order given by the Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje.

Confirming the arrest, Salihu Yakasai, special adviser to the kano state government , Yakasai stated that

The Imam of Gwammaja Mosque that performed Friday Prayers today in Kano despite the lockdown order has been arrested, he said.

The lockdown was with the full blessings of all the Imams in the state from the different Islamic sects. The only way to enforce social distancing is lockdown.

Naija News recalls that Six new cases of the disease were confirmed in the state late Friday, bringing the total number of cases to 27.

The state has also recorded one death.

To curb the spread of the disease, the government had ordered a total lockdown in the state for seven days after four cases of COVID-19 were confirmed.

Following the outbreak of this disease, COVID-19 in Kano and the subsequent cases we recorded, Kano Government has resolved to lock down the state for a duration of seven days starting from Thursday 16th April, the governor had said.

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Sri Lankas spread of the anti-democracy virus View(s):

The anti-democracy virus infecting law enforcement officials in Sri Lanka today appears to have proceeded belligerently to the point that an attorney-at-law was arrested this week in circumstances so outrageous that it has drawn the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) out of hibernation to express its concern.

A manifestly curious arrest

Pointing out in wary tones that reasons for the arrest of this attorney of Muslim ethnicity, who is no stranger to Hulfsdorps legal circles, has not been made known up to now, the Bar has observed that his arrest appears to be based on certain functions attended to by him in his professional capacity as a member of the Bar. As other reports indicate and to all intents and purposes, this lawyer had advised his clients implicated in cases connected to last years Easter Sunday attacks by home grown jihadists, had been speaking out in regard to the racial profiling of Muslims in Sri Lankas anti-covid drive and had been a strong advocate of exposing racial discrimination. But as to how and in what circumstances, these actions taken individually or indeed collectively, violated the law remains a singular puzzle.

While this sequence of events remains to be clarified in due course, what makes this curioser and curioser is that the habeas corpus application filed by his father days after the arrest details that the first intimation to him and the members of his family by state officers that their home would be paid a visit, was by officials of the Ministry of Health regarding tracing of covid-19 infections. However, it was not Health Ministry officials who arrived at his residence but officers of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID). If this version is to be believed absent an authoritative refutation, Sri Lanka has opened itself to joining the unsavoury grouping of states taking cover of the virus spread to tighten their authoritarian grip on their citizens.

What is worrying meanwhile is that this arrest comes in the context of the covid-19 panic taking on an unmistakably racist tone with both private and state media whipping up a frenzy in repeatedly telecasting images of only Muslim residents being quarantined. This is while ignoring the fact that the data on record did not reveal a shift towards any one racial group or another in the spread of infections. The hysteria got to be so bad that the Ministry of Health was forced to issue guidelines for reporters which stressed that demonizing covid victims on the basis of race must be abstained from. There is a hard truth as to why this should not occur, quite apart from the legal issue of discrimination.

Disregarding commonsensical cautions

The fact remains that stigmatization of victims only leads to others being afraid to seek treatment. As such, this is a formidable driver for the virus to infect more segments of the population. But regardless of this commonsensical caution, the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) released a so-called exit strategy a few days ago which went so far as to divide the country into Sterile, Contaminated and Buffer zones, bringing into the assessment applicable to the Colombo District, the factor of the Muslim population. So why not the Sinhala or the Tamil populations, pray? Contrast this rabid racial profiling with the sober and clinically determined set of recommendations formulated by some of Sri Lankas senior medical specialists in advocating a well phased covid-19 exit strategy last week and one immediately sees the difference between top notch professionalism and crude populism. In this set of recommendations by the countrys specialists of repute, it is warned that racial profiling in the anti-covid drive will have disastrous effect.

Indeed, it is hard to decide whether the GMOAs racial profiling is worse than the ludicrous spectacle of one of its leading lights advocating smoke as a method to beat off coronavirus. Sri Lankas medical professionals having a modicum of sense must be shuddering in their well polished shoes as it were. This nonsense is similar to medical fraudsters in Maharashtra advocating that consuming more garlic, curry leaves or cows urine will help combat covid-19 with the state Government having to refute these claims.

So the strategy, it seems, is to use the stick of racism and communalism even in the context of the most serious health emergency that Sri Lanka has faced in decades, to further a political agenda. Towards this end, a niftily cunning parlour trick was propagated by Sri Lankas state media and certain ruling Podujana Party (Pohottuwa) politicians, including an erstwhile Professor of Law this week to say that because South Korea was able to hold its elections, Sri Lanka should also follow suit.

A hollow argument at its core

This dangerous reasoning is, of course, hollow at its core. It must be demolished in no uncertain terms. First, the exemplary manner in which South Korea held its elections was visible for the world to see. Masks, gloves were provided to all voters who were sanitized at the voting centres with temperatures being taken. Those with high temperatures enabled to vote in special booths. Elections staff were equipped in a manner similar to medical staff. Secondly and far more importantly, the decision to hold the election was after medical specialists and health experts assessed that the countrys virus infection rate was on a downward trend. Even so, strict vigilance is practiced to control the virus spread with huge resources directed towards this task.

Can Sri Lanka say the same? True, our public health sector has been doing a stellar job. It has not broken down in the face of a major health emergency despite the degradation wreaked by rapacious politicians. This is notwithstanding the Government allowing its obsession with holding parliamentary elections to delay a lockdown of high risk districts and failing to control entry at the airport of all arrivals, (not only a few selected countries), even as late as by mid March. Even a simpleton, and there are lamentably so many of them cocooned in the safety of echo chambers, should understand that this failure is not just a thing of the past.

As a result, victims who arrived in the country one month ago but were not quarantined or tested but became diagnosed as positive when the virus manifested, were blamed for hiding their symptoms though they were simply not aware. The warning that this virus could be asymptomatic in some individuals did not penetrate shuttered mentalities. Relatives of some who passed away due to the infection have written with great pain regarding the sitgmatization of the deceased. Suffice to say that all this may have been prevented if a solid quarantining and testing policy had been adopted at the outset.

In sum, will all the good done by the nations health sector specialists in containing the spread of the covid virus (despite a few bad eggs) be undone by politicians and their racist acolytes in law enforcement and media, feasting off the most intense human tragedies to fulfil political agendas?

This is the question that Sri Lankans must ask  and answer  as a nation.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 21:41:07|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The China-Europe freight trains made a total of 1,941 trips in the first quarter (Q1) of 2020, said an official with the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd.

The figure was increased by 15 percent from the same period last year, Zhao Jun, an official with the company, told a press conference held in Beijing Saturday.

In Q1, the China-Europe freight trains transported 174,000 TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) of freight, up 18 percent year on year.

In March alone, a total of 809 trips were made by the trains, transporting 73,000 TEUs of freight, expanding by 30 percent and 36 percent, respectively, Zhao said.

On April 14, a China-Europe freight train from Wuhan, the hardest-hit city by COVID-19 in China, arrived in the western German city of Duisburg.

By far, all Chinese cities operating the trains have resumed outbound transport, according to Zhao. Enditem
Health workers demonstrate Monday in Mexico City. (Alfredo Estrella / AFP/Getty Images)

Esther Garcia was walking toward a bus stop after completing her shift when a young man approached her. Then he tossed a plastic bag filled with liquid at her.

The bag struck the left side of her head, splashing her face with its caustic contents  a mixture of water and bleach. The attacker ran off as Garcia felt burning in her eye and her vision went blurry.

I was filled with fear, she recalled. I started to cry. I didnt understand what was going on.

This wasnt a revenge attack, a crime of passion or some kind of message from Mexican organized crime.

Garcia is a nurse at a public clinic outside Mexico City.

Health workers, especially nurses, have been targeted across the country in recent weeks by assailants accusing them of spreading coronavirus, according to health professionals and authorities.

Apart from being sprayed with bleach, they have faced verbal assaults, been denied seats in public transport and been blocked from entering their own communities.

You are spreading COVID! is a common slur.

Mexican authorities, including President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, have condemned the mistreatment and stressed that it has been perpetrated by a scattered minority in a country where most citizens have lauded the workers on the front lines of the pandemic.

It is truly outrageous that anyone would attack health personnel because of fear of COVID-19, Dr. Hugo Lopez-Gatell, who heads the governments coronavirus-response team, tweeted this week. They are here to protect us. Our total gratitude.

In the southern state of Oaxaca, lawmakers passed a new statute mandating nine-year prison terms for assaults on medical professionals.

The medical workers are already risking their lives to care for COVID-19 victims. Across Mexico, doctors, nurses and others have staged protests against a lack of protective gear, supplies and medicines.

More than 500 health workers have already been infected, authorities say, and at least nine have died. Outbreaks have been reported in at least four public hospitals  in Tijuana, near Mexico City, in San Jose del Cabo and in Monclova, in the northern state of Coahuila.

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The reports of infected health workers have left a stigma, stoking fears on social media and elsewhere that they are vectors of contagion.

In western Jalisco state, at least six nurses have been victimized, including one who, like Garcia, was showered with water and bleach, according to the state nursing association there.

As health workers we have confronted disinformation and panic  even physical and verbal aggression, Edith Mujica, president of the group, told reporters.

We are not enemies.  People should know that just because we are nurses that is not to say that we are contaminated.

Across Mexico, townsfolk have thrown up sanitary roadblocks  staffed with self-styled health vigilantes  to prevent entry of outsiders and other potential virus carriers. The barriers have meant some health workers cannot get home, forcing them to move.

In one case, reported Mexicos Reforma newspaper, residents denied a nurse entry to her neighborhood in the Pacific coast town of Bahia de Banderas, in western Nayarit state.

We dont deserve this, the nurse, Melody Rodriguez Navarrete, said afterward. We are not asking them to praise us, only that they understand that we are here to help them. Its our work and everyone is taking the appropriate measures not only to avoid becoming infected, but to avoid infecting others.

Along with outrage, the assaults on health workers have prompted considerable national soul-searching about the collective mentality behind such misguided behavior.

The assaults demonstrate an accumulation of contradictions in our society, columnist Javier Solorzano Zinser wrote Friday in La Razon newspaper. Those who are being attacked put all their determination and knowledge into resolving problems, not into provoking them."

Mexico is not alone in the disturbing phenomenon. Similar attacks against health workers have been reported in India and elsewhere, including the United States.

Traditionally, nurses and other health workers in Mexico have been figures of considerable respect. On crowded public buses and trains, people routinely give up seats to nurses in white uniforms and health workers in lab coats.

Now, to avoid drawing scrutiny, health-sector commuters are being advised to wear civilian garb on public transportation, and to change clothes at their workplaces. In some cases, authorities are arranging dedicated transport to shield workers from ill-treatment.

In Mexico City, unions representing transit workers and health employees this week launched a special bus service for employees at seven public hospitals.

They are victims of attacks despite the fact that they are at the front lines of the battle, Gerardo Garcia, secretary-general of a health workers local, told Reforma.

In the case of Esther Garcia, 46, who has been a nurse for 18 years, her vision returned to normal, but the bleach assault has left a legacy of fear and distrust.

She is a divorced single mother of two daughters, ages 19 and 17, whom she helps support on her nurses salary of about $700 a month. Like many fellow health workers, she cannot afford to leave her job.

I dont even want to think about what would have happened if they had a gun or some other weapon, instead of just bleach, Garcia said. I feel very sad.  In this profession one recognizes that you run the risk of contagion of some illness. But I have never before felt fear that I would be attacked because I was a nurse. Never before.

Sanchez is a special correspondent. Special correspondent Jose Maria Alvarez in Oaxaca contributed to this report.
After the government announced an extension of the national lockdown till May 3, distress among stranded workers and the unemployed is rising. State governments have been asked to provide relief to stranded workers but not allow them to move back across state borders to their villages.

Here are some snapshots from the margins

Yearning for home

My wife suddenly gets up from sleep around midnight and starts crying. She is missing our daughter and two sons who are with my parents in my village, said Vishal Misare, 28, a migrant worker from Balaghat town in Madhya Pradesh.

Misare is one of 48 construction workers from Madhya Pradesh now living at a wedding venue at Miyapur Cross Roads on the outskirts of Hyderabad. They tried to leave the camp on Monday night but were brought back by the police.

Misare has exhausted the money he had earned from February through the middle of March. I am penniless, he said, claiming that the Rs 500 promised by authorities (Central government) has not been given. We were given 5 kg of rice and a kg of dal last month. Ludhiana district officials said they were providing best possible facilities in these tough conditions.

Like Misare, a landless labourer, there are hundreds in labour camps across India, who are yearning to go back to their villages, as they can get work in agriculture fields or under the MGNREGA, both allowed from April 15.

Sunil Kumar, 24, from Patna, wants to leave the camp at Jeedimetla in Hyderabad. I will get married on May 20. I want to go back, but I am not being allowed to step out, said Kumar, who worked in a gas welding unit in Jeedimetla industrial estate, which is shut due to lockdown.

Last week, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao asked migrant workers to not worry as the state government would not allow anybody to suffer from hunger. It is for their benefit that we are asking them to stay back wherever they are. If they have any issues, they can bring it to the notice of the authorities and they will solve them, he said.

Pending wages

For one week, Rajkumar, 28, a steel factory worker in Punjabs Ludhiana has been entreating his employer to pay his wages. His brother is suffering from tuberculosis and he needs money to support his family.

After a week of struggle, harassment and making repeated rounds, my employer paid me one months wages while two months pay was pending. He did not even pay me for overtime, he said.

Possible to ask employer?

For the past three days, labourers in Sahnewal, Machhiwara and Sherpur Kalan in Ludhiana have hit the streets, demanding to go back to their villages, and protesting against the administration.

Ludhiana deputy commissioner Pradeep Kumar Agrawal said thousands of ration kits were distributed and meetings held with factory owners to push them to not slash wages. The helpline numbers are ringing 24 hours, food and ration are being provided to the needy and all efforts are being made to see the migrants do not suffer, he said.

Rental Demand

Ghaneswar Behera, 29, an assembly line operator working with a Gurugram auto major, paid whatever money he had as pending rent for single room in the national capital region on Friday and is now wondering how he will feed his family if the auto company does not start operations from April 20.

Behera left his home in Amartya in Odishas Mayurbhanj district with his wife and 20-month-old son about six months ago. A village acquaintance helped him to get a job with an auto company in Gurugram. Having no work for 21 days, he, with four other families, booked railway tickets to return to Odisha, thinking that the lockdown will be lifted on April 15.

As the lockdown was extended, the landlord came knocking.

The house-owner asked me to pay or leave, said Behera, leaving with no option but to give Rs 5,000 of the Rs 7,000 he had to the landlord. When Behera told his landlord about the government moratorium on such payments, he did not listen. Behera paid up.

Behera is left with just Rs 2,000 to run his household of five people, and little certainty of employment. The employers have asked workers to submit their body temperatures daily to the contractor. We dont have enough money to buy vegetables, how will we buy a thermometer? Behera asked.

Walking Back

We walked for over 12 hours before we got a lift from a truck driver who dropped us here. I hope for another lift, otherwise we will cover the journey on foot, said Naushad Sheikh, a daily wage worker in Ghaziabad, who has walked from Delhi to Lucknow. His destination is Bhadohi in eastern Uttar Pradesh, still 280km away.

The 19 year old, having just Rs 1,500 with him, had decided to stay put in Ghaziabad but changed his mind when the lockdown was extended.

On April 14, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended the lockdown till May 3, Sheikh packed his belongings -- three pairs of trousers, two shirts, some toiletries, a shoe, a sandal, a speaker and documents -- in a backpack, covered his face with a handkerchief and left Ghaziabad.

The decision to extend the lockdown has led to another exodus of migrant workers, though fewer than in the first wave some weeks ago. At least three groups were stopped in Hyderabad, one in Tamil Nadu, two in Kerala and several others in the Hindi heartland by police since April 15.

On his way, Sheikh met seven other daily wagers and the group reached Lucknow together after 24 hours on foot on Wednesday evening. Tired and without a proper meal, the group stretched themselves out on the grass alongside the state highway leading to Varanasi, before starting to walk again.

We saw many labourers returning home, said Shyam Gautam, 24, a mason, returning to Sultanpur with Sheikh. Around 50 labourers, who lived in my locality, also left on April 15. Many more will do the same. We cant survive in cities anymore.

Finally Home

Walking 250 km on an empty stomach was arduous, said Ram Achal, 25, sitting outside his home in his village in Bahraich district, recalling his travel from a construction site in Kanpur soon after the lockdown was announced.

He completed the 14 day quarantine period before he was allowed to enter the village, a protocol implemented by states to isolate migrant labourers. Thousands of others were quarantined at government run institutions, including schools. Despite the trauma and pain, Achal, a landless labourer, said the village was like heaven as he can play with his children and mingle with other people in the village.

Manna Lal, 48, who had led them on the walk, was not nearby. He is now obsessed with swimming in the river. He eats, swims, stays home and does nothing. All of us are just idling around.

We became migrant labours because we get Rs 450 per day against Rs 250 per day as farm labours, he said. But, if the fear of Covid-19 continues, he and other villagers will have to take up farm work. Surviving here is also not easy.

(With inputs from Srinivasa Rao Apparasu, Aneesha Sareen Kumar, Debabrata Mohanty, Pankaj Jaiswal, Chandan Kumar)
With the courts mostly closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and many cases postponed for months, what is a criminal lawyer to do?

The impact has been huge. Its pretty devastating, said Emily Dixon, a sole practitioner based in Toronto. Im a young lawyer. My business has been totally impacted by the closure of the courts.

Some criminal defence lawyers have been navigating the new normal in the justice system since March by representing people in remote bail hearings and guilty pleas, usually over the phone.

But for lawyers like Dixon, who mainly does trials, work has almost completely dried up, as the courts have postponed those cases. She said she genuinely does not know what shell do to earn a decent income over the next few months as expenses, especially office rent, still need to be paid.

Federal government assistance for workers and businesses does not apply to her, she said. Its a situation likely shared by other lawyers who practise alone with no staff. (There were just over 9,000 sole practitioners out of Ontarios 41,000 lawyers in 2018, according to the Law Society of Ontarios annual report.)

Dixon confirmed that shes not eligible for the federal governments interest-free $40,000 small business loan, as she has no payroll  she has no employees at all.

She also doesnt qualify for Employment Insurance because as an independent contractor, she doesnt pay into it. She may one day qualify for the governments $2,000-a-month Canada Emergency Response Benefit, especially now that the government said this week those earning $1,000 a month or less would qualify.

She wasnt previously eligible as she was still receiving some money from legal aid  payments that had been processed for work she did months ago. She made just over $1,000 in March.

Eventually that will dry up, said Dixon.

She said the Law Society of Ontario, the independent body that regulates the legal profession, should be looking to help lawyers financially, such as with an income subsidy.

I think the law society should be doing more, she said.

The regulator has deferred payment of lawyers annual fees, though Dixon had already paid hers (just over $2,300) prior to that decision. It cant be refunded.

A law society spokesperson said the regulator has implemented other measures as well, such as offering free continuing professional development programs to lawyers and paralegals to specifically address managing their practices during the pandemic.

The federal government has to do more to address sole practitioners, said criminal lawyer Daniel Brown, vice-president of the Criminal Lawyers Association. Its a problem that significantly impacts a lot of lawyers who operate under this business structure.

Its also not a problem unique to criminal law. There are a lot of businesses across the country that dont necessarily have employees, who are impacted by the loss of revenue due to this pandemic, yet have no support from the government.

Browns own firm was able to apply for the $40,000 loan, as it had employees on the payroll in 2019.

He also shared some insight into how some criminal defence lawyers are navigating the new normal during the pandemic, and of how the crisis has pushed Ontarios notoriously antiquated courts to modernize, at least to some degree.

Browns firm is still representing individuals at bail hearings  where the court must decide whether a person charged with a criminal offence should be released pending their trial. These hearings are some of the only cases left that are currently being heard remotely by the courts, but they dont bring enough money in to completely make up for a lawyers loss of revenue.

One example of improvements in the system are relaxed rules that allow for the remote witnessing of legal documents such as affidavits, replacing the need to have someone from the firm drive hours just to watch someone sign a document.

But conducting the bail hearing itself remains a challenge, Brown said, as only a few courts are doing them using video conferencing technology. The rest are reliant on the phone, which can cause chaos when you have a justice of the peace, a defence lawyer, a Crown attorney, an accused person and a court registrar all on the line and sometimes talking over each other.

What exists right now in most courts is inadequate, Brown said. And how do you have that private conversation with your client, that you used to be able to have in court? There are no private opportunities to get instructions from your client or to ask them a question.

A spokesperson for the Ontario Court of Justice said the court would welcome the rolling out of more video capacity across the province during the pandemic, but said courtroom technology is the responsibility of the provincial government.

The Ministry of the Attorney General said it has invested $1.3 million in technology to help courts and tribunals work remotely and that operational plans, including technology needs, continue to evolve.

Expanding the remote capabilities of the courts to hear a wider variety of cases, perhaps even trials, is also something that would be welcomed by Dixon, so that she could start earning an income again.

Im hopeful that this will happen eventually, she said.
Britain is not considering lifting the lockdown imposed almost four weeks ago to control the coronavirus outbreak given "deeply worrying" increases in the death toll, a senior minister said on Sunday.

Britain is at or near the peak of a health crisis in which more than 15,000 people have died - the fifth highest national death toll of a pandemic linked to at least 150,000 deaths worldwide.

"The facts and the advice are clear at the moment that we should not be thinking of lifting of these restrictions yet": Michael Gove. Credit:Bloomberg

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove said a Buzzfeed report that the government was considering lifting the lockdown in phases over the coming months was not correct.

"The facts and the advice are clear at the moment that we should not be thinking of lifting of these restrictions yet," Gove told Sky News.

With hospitals under strain, health workers have criticised the government's advice that personal protective equipment (PPE) worn while treating patients infected with coronavirus could be re-used, as supplies run low across the country.

An 87-tonne delivery of PPE from Turkey, which ministers had said would arrive on Sunday, has been delayed, Sky News reported.

The latest data show 15,464 people have died in British hospitals after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, a total that has increased by more than 800 for three days running.

A further 2,500 had died in care homes during the week to April 13, according to the National Care Forum, a representative body for the adult social care sector.

"One of the things that is deeply worrying and concerning is the high level of deaths," Gove said.

"The evidence suggests that the rate of infection and the death rate is flattening, but we're not absolutely certain that we are yet on a downward trajectory."

Gove described as "grotesque" a Sunday Times story that said Prime Minister Boris Johnson had skipped five crisis meetings to address the coronavirus pandemic early in the outbreak.

"The prime minister took all the major decisions. Nobody can say that the prime minister wasn't throwing heart and soul into fighting this virus," he said, adding that the story overall was "slightly off-beam".

Jonathan Ashworth, a lawmaker for the opposition Labour Party, said this comment was "possibly the weakest rebuttal of a detailed expose in British political history".

Reuters
France said on Friday there was no evidence so far of a link between the new coronavirus and the work of the P4 research laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the current pandemic started.

"We would like to make it clear that there is to this day no factual evidence corroborating the information recently circulating in the United States press that establishes a link between the origins of Covid-19 and the work of the P4 laboratory of Wuhan, China," an official at President Emmanuel Macron's office said.

The broad scientific consensus holds that SARS-CoV-2, the official name of the coronavirus, originated in bats.

In 2004, France signed an agreement with China to establish a research lab on infectious diseases of biosafety level 4, the highest level, in Wuhan, according to a French decree signed by then-foreign minister Michel Barnier.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday his government was trying to determine whether the coronavirus emanated from a lab in Wuhan, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Beijing "needs to come clean" on what they know.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that US intelligence indicates that the coronavirus likely occurred naturally, as opposed to being created in a laboratory in China, but there is no certainty either way.

The Washington Post said this week that national security officials in the Trump administration have long suspected research facilities in Wuhan to be the source of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

As far back as February, the Chinese state-backed Wuhan Institute of Virology dismissed rumours that the virus may have been artificially synthesized at one of its laboratories or perhaps escaped from such a facility.
TAYLOR GLASCOCK

The prolific actor Brian Dennehy, known for starring in films like "Tommy Boy" and stage productions such as "Death of a Salesman," died of natural causes Wednesday night. He was 81.

"Larger than life, generous to a fault, a proud father and grandfather, he will be missed by his wife Jennifer, family and many friends," his daughter, actress Elizabeth Dennehy, wrote on Twitter.
THE Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar has banned all tourist flights from entering the Isles as yet another precautionary measure over COVID-19.

The bold decision in preventing the spread of the deadly virus came despite the fact that tourism sector is the main contributor to the economy of the Isles.

Tourism is Zanzibars largest economic sector and essential for the islands socio-economic stability.

It accounts for 27 per cent of the GDP, 80 per cent of foreign revenue and provides the highest private sector employment.

However, due to the global health crisis following the outbreak of the COVID-19, Zanzibars Acting Health Minister, Mahmoud Thabit Kombo yesterday announced the ban of all tourist flights, except tourist charter flights, with condition that tourists onboard should be quarantined for 14 days on their own expense.

Yesterdays development in the fight against spread of the pandemic came barely two weeks after the Isles banned visitors from Italy from entering the Isles for fear of the coronavirus malady.

On Wednesday this week, Zanzibar reported the first case of coronavirus.

Mr Kombo made the statement after visiting Kidimni Village quarantine centre where only one patient so far, a Ghanaian from Germany, who tested positive on Tuesday, is being treated and monitored, and recovering steadily.

On Wednesday, the Isles Health Minister Hamad Rashid Mohamed said Zanzibar was joining the global war against coronavirus by suspending learning in all institutions after confirming the first case of coronavirus.

He said one of the three people, a Ghanaian, a German and a Tanzanian whose sample were taken to Dar es Salaam for testing had tested positive.

The Ghanaian age 24 entered in Zanzibar from Germany by Kenya Airways on March 11, 2020.

In another development, in ongoing efforts to prevent possible spread of COVID-19, the current global pandemic, the Mayor of Zanzibar City, Khatib Abdulrahman Khatib has announced the closure of the famous Darajani Street evening market indefinitely The safety of our people is our top priority.

Mr Khatib said in a statement read over the national Radio- ZBC yesterday, saying the market mainly used by small traders to sell their goods in the evening will be temporarily closed.

Darajani evening market also attracts tourists and hotel operators because the prices are normally reasonable compared to prices in supermarkets and municipal markets in urban and rural areas.

The mayor said Business in the central market and other markets in the municipality continues as usual, but we must take health precautions, including avoiding crowded areas.

Pemba South Regional Commissioner, Hemed Suleiman Abdalla has also called on traders in his region to observe hygiene in support of the global war against the spread of coronavirus, as the Mufti office (responsible for Muslim affairs) directed religious leaders to minimize prolonged mass prayers.

Sheikh Khalid Ali Mfaume- Secretary, Mufti office emphasized that the ongoing restriction on gatherings only aims at containing the COVID-19 as directed by health experts in fighting the virus.
Armagh man John Lennox, then a young man studying at Cambridge University, could scarcely believe his ears. There he stood in the study of a Nobel Prize winning scientist and a couple of other senior academics and he was being told to give up his faith.

Professor Lennox, now 76, a professor of mathematics at Oxford University, recounted this extraordinary conversation in Can Science Explain Everything, one of the several books he has written about what he calls the interface between science, theology and philosophy.

The scientist said to him: "Lennox, do you want a career in science?"

"Yes, sir," I replied.

"Then," he said, "in front of witnesses, tonight, you must give up this childish faith in God. If you do not, then it will cripple you intellectually and you will suffer by comparison with your peers. You simply will not make it."

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Whatever the scientist's intentions his pressure on the young student 50 years ago backfired spectacularly. For John Lennox not only went on to have a glittering academic career but also became one of the foremost defenders of Christianity in a world which he sees increasingly dominated by denial of God's existence.

Speaking to me as he published his latest book - Where is God in a Coronavirus World?, a 66-page work written in just a week - he recalls that Cambridge meeting.

"I not only found it shocking, but it saddened me. His arguments were very weak, almost non-existent. That was astonishing coming from a man of such scientific eminence," he says.

"If he had been a Christian and I had been an atheist he probably would have lost his job the next day for what he did, but it seemed acceptable that he could attempt to pressure me into setting aside my Christian beliefs.

"However, the net effect was the opposite of what he intended. It put steel in me."

Indeed it did. Professor Lennox has taken part in many public debates defending his Christian beliefs against such well-known atheists as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

He argues: "I want to let the general public hear the truth. The world media is dominated by atheism and the Christian worldview scarcely gets a look in. I just want a level playing field. I believe atheists should be heard but the public should be able to make up its own mind having heard both views."

In his latest book he tackles the problem which many people wonder about - how can a merciful God allow disasters like the coronavirus pandemic to occur.

He accepts that in the modern world fewer and fewer people have any 'God-dimension' in their lives. In past times when disaster struck in the western world people flocked to churches and national leaders called for prayers. Today the churches are closed because of the pandemic and many ask if God is present at all.

Professor Lennox uses a quotation from CS Lewis, best known as the Belfast-born author of the Narnia Chronicles, but who also wrote extensively on Christianity after turning to religion from atheism in middle age, to make a point: "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world".

He adds: "Like me and my wife, many people are locked down at the moment and that gives us more time to think about big questions like why do we have pandemics or wars or famines. These questions wake us up to the fact that we are mortal and vulnerable.

"At these times the God question is never far away. It is like a megaphone shouting to us - think about your mortality as a human being; is there more to life than the materialism that we have got used to?"

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He defends God against the charges made by some that pandemics like coronavirus are a punishment for sins committed, drawing on Biblical authority to back his case, but admits that Jesus did warn people to repent of their sins.

"It is not legitimate to see this as God's judgement on massive sinning against Him. But Jesus did say that unless we repent we will perish. This should wake us up to the fact we have neglected Him. If catastrophe reminds us of that fact then it does some good amidst the harm."

He adds: "It is very dangerous to claim the moral high ground claiming we know what God is doing."

At these times the God question is never far away. It is like a megaphone shouting to us - think about your mortality as a human being

Professor Lennox as a young man at Cambridge struck up a friendship with CS Lewis who he describes as a "tremendous mentor to me" and as one who helped him reject the demands of the scientist who wanted him to give up his belief in God.

"I have not known what it was like to be an atheist as an adult like Lewis who only became a Christian in later life. However his understanding of the Christian message and his articulation of it was tremendous."

Professor Lennox's faith was grounded in his Armagh home. His father owned a large general store in the city, employing around 30/40 people.

"My parents were Christian and they made a wonderful impression on me. They were Christian without being sectarian. In those days there was a lot of sectarianism in society. My father employed Catholics and Protestants - it may have cost him some trade - and when I asked him why he told me that all people were made in the image of God. That was a hugely important message to me.

"My parents did not push Christianity down my throat and, indeed, encouraged me to understand other worldviews. I owe them a tremendous debt."

Not only is his Christian faith well grounded but it is also steadfast.

In his latest book he recalls how some years ago he was rushed to hospital with severe chest pains. He was told to say goodbye to his wife Sally. He is in no doubt that the swift medical intervention prevented him having a massive heart attack which would probably have killed him.

Around the same time his sister's 22-year-old daughter, who had just very recently been married, died from a brain tumour.

Did that shake his faith? "The more important question is did it shake my sister's faith or the girl's husband's faith? The answer is no. At this stage of my life I have sorted out certain things in the sense that I know I will die one day - it could even be in this pandemic - but what preparations have I made for death and its aftermath?

"People often ask me if I doubt. I spent my entire life making my faith in God open to questioning including hostile questioning. That is what has led me to hold the convictions I have at the moment. I have been doing that for over 50 years. Of course problems of suffering and evil are the hardest questions any of us face.

"Faith simply means trust. But what do we have faith in? This is not some sort of Santa Claus belief. Faith in Christ and God is evidence based trust, the kind of thing involved in any good human relationship. Everyone believes in certain things and sensible people believe them on the basis of evidence. My hope for the future depends on Jesus' resurrection for which I believe there is historical evidence."

This time of the year has particular resonance for him as it does for all Christians. His belief in the resurrection and therefore a life after death is what he believes sets Christianity apart from other faiths and poses a question which atheism cannot answer. Christianity offers an ultimate justice. People may have escaped justice or been denied justice in life but Christianity has a final arbiter in God.

So what makes this father-of-three grown up children and grandfather-of-ten want to continue with his Christian crusade? "I find that the Christian message of forgiveness and peace in God through Christ is a message which I cannot keep to myself. Jesus told his followers to go out into the world and spread this message and I am trying to do what he said."

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He has an ally close to home, his niece Kristyn Getty. She and husband Keith are acclaimed modern hymn composers who spend their time divided between Northern Ireland and Nashville, Tennessee. Professor Lennox is proud of their work - "they write wonderful hymns and are connecting through their music with a generation of people I would never reach" - and also from the fact that he played a part in their success, having introduced them to each other.

But then Professor Lennox is not just some dusty academic with an intense interest in maths and religion. His hobbies include amateur astronomy, birdwatching and languages - he speaks English, Russian, French and German - and walking.

Where is God in a Coronavirus World? by Professor John Lennox is published by The Good Book Company, price 2.54
The U.S. and Canada have agreed to maintain border restrictions for 30 more days to combat the novel coronavirus, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a press conference on Saturday.

What's happening: President Trump tweeted on March 18 that the neighboring countries reached a "mutual" decision to close their shared border to "non-essential traffic" in an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

By the numbers: The U.S. is reporting over 700,000 COVID-19 cases, while Canada is reporting more than 32,000 cases and roughly 1,300 fatalities. Over 37,000 Americans have died from the virus, per Johns Hopkins data.

Go deeper: Trump says U.S. and Canada will close border to "non-essential travel"
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Unrest has spread across Africa, with riots over food shortages and an army being deployed to 'restore order' as the coronavirus crisis rocks the continent.

Protests have erupted in Cape Town, the military have been mobilised in Lesotho and the chief of staff to the Nigerian government died of the lethal bug.

Africa now has more than 1,000 deaths from COVID-19, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday.

A total of 52 of Africa's 54 countries have reported cases of the deadly virus, with the overall number of cases more than 19,800.

Protests have erupted in Cape Town, the military have been mobilised in Lesotho and the chief of staff to the Nigerian government (pictured) died of the lethal bug

Lesotho's embattled prime minister announced on Saturday he had sent troops on to the streets to 'restore order', accusing unnamed law enforcement agencies of undermining democracy

A homeless man gestures as he receives a food parcel during a food distribution by Meals on Wheels in Hillbrow, Johannesburg

In Cape Town people have broken into tuck shops and attacked each other and police because they are hungry, one resident claimed.

Joanie Fredericks, a community leader in Mitchells Plain township in Cape Town, said in a viral clip: 'Mr President we are in the middle of a food crisis. It's war out here.'

The desperate plea was made in a video posted on social media to President Cyril Ramaphosa who imposed a five-week lockdown to try curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Four weeks into a 35-day shut down poor communities are facing food shortages as incomes for mostly informal workers have dried up.

Imposed from March 27, the lockdown has placed already cash-strapped citizens under further strain.

The numbers of people lining up for food at the self-funded scheme run by Fredericks and other volunteers are growing by the day.

'When we started out feeding people we started out with the very vulnerable, ...the children, the disabled people and the pensioners.

'But we are way past that Mr President, we are past the stage of sending people away,' an emotional Fredericks pleaded.

In Cape Town people have broken into tuck shops and attacked each other and police because they are hungry, one resident claimed. Pictured: A food distribution facility in Johannesburg

A man holds his hands above his head while being searched by South African Police Service (SAPS) officers in streets in Yeoville, Johannesburg

Joanie Fredericks, a community leader in Mitchells Plain township in Cape Town, said in a viral clip: 'Mr President we are in the middle of a food crisis. It's war out here.' Pictured: A South African National Defence Force (SANDF) soldier patrols the streets in Hillbrow, Johannesburg

Homeless people ignore social distance protocols as they queue to receive food during a food distribution by Meals on Wheels in Hillbrow, Johannesburg

A man gestures while being searched by a South African Police Service (SAPS) officer in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, on Saturday

Already, several violent protests have broken out across the country over access to food parcels handed out by authorities.

Hundreds of angry people fought running battles with the police, hurling rocks and setting up street barricades with burning tyres in Mitchells Plain over undelivered food parcels on Tuesday.

Police fired rubber bullets and teargas to disperse them. Social commentators fear such violent episodes could escalate.

'There's a bunch of us at home getting fat and there's a bunch of people who really have nothing,' said Julian May, director of the Centre of Excellence in Food Security, at the University of the Western Cape.

'And it speaks a lot about the inequalities in South Africa (that) are likely to come out,' said May.

'As people are not getting food parcels or hear of other people getting parcels they are starting to react. And I don't think that's going to ease unless there's more rapid delivery of food to people in poor areas.'

Lesotho's embattled prime minister announced on Saturday he had sent troops on to the streets to 'restore order', accusing unnamed law enforcement agencies of undermining democracy.

Prime Minister Thomas Thabane is under pressure to step down after police said they suspect him of having a hand in the murder of his estranged wife in 2017, a case that has thrown the country into political turmoil.

Lesotho's embattled prime minister announced on Saturday he had sent troops on to the streets to 'restore order', accusing unnamed law enforcement agencies of undermining democracy

Prime Minister Thomas Thabane (pictured) is under pressure to step down after police said they suspect him of having a hand in the murder of his estranged wife in 2017, a case that has thrown the country into political turmoil

In an address on public television, 80-year-old Thabane said he had 'deployed the army to take control of this situation and take necessary measures against these elements in alignment with the security orders and restore peace and order'

A highly placed government source said police commissioner Holomo Molibeli, his deputy Paseka Mokete and another senior police officer have been arrested by the army (pictured on the street)

Lesotho Defense Force patrols the town of Maseru on Saturday after the embattled prime minister Tom Thabane announced on Saturday he had sent troops on to the streets

In an address on public television, 80-year-old Thabane said he had 'deployed the army to take control of this situation and take necessary measures against these elements in alignment with the security orders and restore peace and order'.

'This is to avoid putting the nation in danger,' he said.

A highly placed government source said police commissioner Holomo Molibeli, his deputy Paseka Mokete and another senior police officer have been arrested by the army.

'The general informed the prime minister that he has arrested Holomo, Mokete... They are temporarily detained at Makoanyane Barracks,' the source told AFP in the capital Maseru.

There was a heavy presence of armed soldiers, in bulletproof vests and helmets, patrolling the streets. Other soldiers drove around Maseru in armoured cars.

The premier said he was 'surprised' that some 'institutions entrusted with maintaining order and adhering to law are busy tarnishing the very principles' of the country's stability and democracy.

He said the army would also help enforce a 24-day coronavirus lockdown in the country, which has so far not recorded a single case.

Nigeria's government said Abba Kyari, chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, died Friday of COVID-19. 'May God accept his soul,' the statement said.

Nigeria's government said Abba Kyari, chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, died Friday of COVID-19. 'May God accept his soul,' the statement said. Pictured: Being buried

Kyari's case had been one of the highest-profile in Africa. Several government ministers and a U.S. ambassador were infected with the virus earlier in Burkina Faso

Health workers lower the remains of Nigeria's Chief of Staff (COS), Abba Kyari, into a grave at the Gudu Cemetery in Abuja on Saturday

People pictured gathering at a burial ground in Gudu, Abuja, Nigeria where Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, will be buried

People pictured lining the streets in Nigeria as the body of Chief of Staff Abba Kyari passes their homes

Kyari's case had been one of the highest-profile in Africa. Several government ministers and a U.S. ambassador were infected with the virus earlier in Burkina Faso.

The World Health Organization on Friday noted a 51 per cent increase in cases in Africa and a 60 per cent jump in deaths in the past week. But the WHO chief warned that because of a shortage of testing 'it's likely the real numbers are higher than reported.'

The Africa CDC has said more than 1 million test kits will be rolled out starting next week.

Zimbabwe on Saturday celebrated the 40th anniversary of its independence, but without the traditional pomp and nationwide rallies because of a coronavirus lockdown.

In an address on national television, President Emmerson Mnangagwa voiced optimism about containing the spread of the virus in a country that has officially reported only 24 cases.

'We celebrate our milestone 40th anniversary in the context of unprecedented times, that of the pandemic,' Mnangagwa said, noting that the virus had scuttled plans to host celebrations for the first time in the second city of Bulawayo.

Zimbabwe on Saturday celebrated the 40th anniversary of its independence, but without the traditional pomp and nationwide rallies because of a coronavirus lockdown (pictured in Harare)

A front-end loader demolishes vending stalls in the township of Mbare, Zimbabwe, on Thursday amid the coronavirus crisis

An army truck drives past demolished vending stalls in the township of Mbare, Zimbabwe, on Saturday afternoon

Residents pick up remains from destroyed vending market stalls in the township of Mbare, Zimbabwe, on Saturday afternoon

Zimbabwe usually commemorates its independence from British colonial rule with rallies across the country's 10 provinces with the main event held in a 60,000-seater stadium in the capital Harare.

Celebrations include martial displays, acrobatics and live music performances.

'However, the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic is seeing us endure a necessary lockdown in our homes,' Mnangagwa said, imploring Zimbabweans to stay at home, practise social-distancing and regularly wash hands.

'That way we celebrate our independence by saving lives and our economy.'

Mnangagwa, who imposed a three-week lockdown which lapses on Sunday, thanked citizens and donor countries 'for the collective response' in trying to fighting the pandemic.

'May this national character continue to grow and flourish,' he added.

Mnangagwa said his government would not go back on controversial land reforms launched by his predecessor Robert Mugabe to seize white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks.

He said the land reform programme remains a fundamental 'cog to our independence and sovereignty'.

'The land shall remain united with the people and the people to their land. To this there is no wavering or going back. However we shall not shy away from fine-tuning our strategies to enhance land utilisation, equitable access and productivity,' he said.

Meanwhile he commended the European Union for relaxing sanctions imposed on members of the ruling elite and institutions with links to the ruling ZANU-PF party.

'I implore Washington to promptly lift the illegal sanctions against us without any preconditions,' Mnangagwa said.
Continuing concerns in food supply distribution and accessibility View(s):

Ensuring the availability of the minimum food requirements of the entire population is a formidable task as the Government has to achieve this while trying to contain the spread of COVID-19. It is made even more difficult as it has to be accomplished under an island-wide curfew.

Success

There has been success in both containing the virus, as well as the provision of food. However, much more could have been achieved in containing the virus had people acted in a more socially responsible manner. Admittedly fighting the spread of the virus and ensuring food supplies in tandem is a difficult balancing act.

Serious problems

Although much has been achieved in ensuring the availability of food to people during these days of an economic shutdown and prolonged island-wide curfew, there are serious problems with the supply and availability of food in the country. Accessibility of food by an increasing number of unemployed people without income remains a severe problem.

Most Samurdhi beneficiaries appear to have not received the promised income support, and there maybe a large number of people who are not Samurdhi recipients, with no income and no means of livelihood due to the curfew, who are unable to access basic food requirements.

Transport and Marketing

An emerging problem is the inability to transport agricultural produce from some farming areas to markets. This has even resulted in burning of vegetables by farmers in certain agricultural areas, which on one handcould lead to a lesser availability of food supplies in urban areas, and a loss of farmers income to farmers, on the other.

Apparently this dislocation of vegetable transport has occurred owing to the closure of the Dambulla Economic Centre, a hub for vegetable distribution in the country. There is no doubt the closure of this centre was necessary to prevent a large number of people gathering and contracting the virus.

Curfew

The island-wide curfew has hampered the transport of agricultural produce to markets, especially the DambullaEconomic Centre, a key hub from which agricultural produce goes to markets around the country. The Government has now intervened to resolve the difficulties in transporting agricultural produce by purchasing and transporting produce. Yet, the curfew restrictions and limited market access could continue to hinder transport of produce from farms to consumers.

Impacts

The impasse in transporting vegetables has had multiple adverse impacts on food security. It has reduced the supply of vegetables, deprived farmers of their income and wasted food that was essential. It is imperative to resolve this problem by developing an alternate means of transporting food from cultivation areas to markets.

People left behind

The supply, availability and access to food is difficult for a large number of people who do not have adequate income to obtain food. Despite efforts by the Government and community initiatives, the problem of accessibility of food to those without incomes remains severe.

Social interventions

As in the past, when disasters have struck the country, community organisations, religious groups and individuals are assisting the poorest with gifts of essential food. These are a useful supplement to the Governments efforts to reach the poorest. The Government should assist these efforts and channel their assistance through them.

Peace Council

The National Peace Council (NPC) has documented these social interventions in their press release of March 2020. These efforts are in all parts of the island and reach the most deserving. In addition, many of the social interventions are inter-religious and contribute to national cohesion and ethnic and religious harmony.

Individual help

Simple acts of kindness of individuals and groups are alleviating the food security of the most vulnerable. Many people are providing money and food to the deprived in their vicinity. However these efforts are impeded by difficulties of getting assistance to some communities owing to the curfew and travel restrictions.

Curfew constraints

However essential, the continuation of the curfew makes food availability and distribution difficult. The economic shutdown and the curfew are increasing food security concerns by increasing unemployment, low income and the inaccessibility of available food supplies. These conditions could increase the number of people with inadequate basic food requirements. The availability of adequate food supplies has also been hampered by the disruption of food transportation.

Summing up

A large number of workers have lost their jobs. Factory and hotel workers, occupations linked to tourism, daily wage earners, self-employed workers, agricultural workers, workers in export manufacturing and informal workers have lost their income. These people are the most vulnerable. They will have difficulties in accessing adequate food owing to their inadequate purchasing power.

While the national availability of food is of fundamental importance, the harsh reality is, a persons financial capacity to access food matters most in ensuring adequate food for a family. The large number of people unemployed and without income require Government and social intervention.

A continuing problem is the accessibility of food to the increasing number of unemployed without income. Their income has been severely eroded owing to the economic shutdown. They have no money to buy food. It is heartening to know that there are individual, community and social organisations intervening to provide food for those without income to access food.

In conclusion

There should be no doubt whatsoever that the control and elimination of COVID-19 is the foremost need. Economies cannot function until COVID-19 is contained drastically. The world economy and the Sri Lankan economy cannot revive without the elimination of this pandemic.

However, a judicious implementation of the curfew to ensure essential economic activity is vital. Perhaps the time has arrived when a cautious planned curfew relaxation should be implemented to enable a gradual functioning of industries and services, to ease the supply, marketing and availability of food.

Nevertheless, we must be mindful of the World Health Organisations (WHO) advice  countries should be cautious about lifting restrictions introduced to curb the spread of COVID-19, as it is taking hold of more countries.

Rajan Phillips has expressed the imperatives succinctly: Fight the virus, Feed the people.
The presidency has warned Nigerians to stay off the burial of Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Abba Kyari.

The warning was given by Garba Shehu, the senior special assistant to the president, in Abuja, while adding that Kyaris burial is strictly private.

The Presidential aide urged Nigerians to observe Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, and Ministry of Health order against Coronavirus.

His words, After this event, there would be no ceremony such as receiving of condolence visits. People must observe the existing regulations put in place by NCDC and Federal Ministry of Health.

He was brought here for the wife to take a final look before he is laid to rest.
(Bloomberg) --

Earlier this week, a French court, responding to union complaints that Amazon.com Inc. wasnt doing enough to protect warehouse workers during the pandemic, ordered the company to stop selling nonessential items there. Saying it had invested in additional safety measures to keep our hard-working, dedicated colleagues safe and calling the ruling too vague, Amazon responded by closing its operations in the country pending an appeal.

Meanwhile in the U.S., where worker protests have popped up regularly, Amazon has so far largely avoided such restrictions. Its true the company has taken some stepsrecently pared backto prioritize essential products such as food and medical supplies. But while it takes Amazon more than a week to deliver a box of Cheerios and more than a month to get a package of toilet paper to customers, a 9-foot patio umbrella can be had in just a few days.

With thousands of small retailers closed, perhaps forever, and rivals such as Walmart Inc. forced to rope off nonessential sections in some of their stores, the worlds largest online retailer could emerge from the pandemic even stronger than before. Investors have driven Amazon shares to record highs this month, a bet that U.S. authorities will mostly leave the company alone, despite dozens of cases of Covid-19 among warehouse employee ranks.

The government is deciding who the winners and losers are right now, says Forrester analyst Sucharita Kodali. Online demand is surging, and the big question is how much of this shift stays with Amazon when this is all over.

Of course, running a complicated retail business during a pandemic is challenging. Surging online demand from spooked consumers has forced Amazon to staff up; the hiring of 175,000 people along with temporary pay raises is pushing up costs. The profitable advertising business is also taking a hit because those selling must-have products dont need to promote them while those who carry slower sellers have curtailed their ad spending.

Story continues

How much damage these headwinds will inflict on the bottom line will become clearer when Amazon reports results on April 30. But analysts seem willing to overlook a short-term blow to profitability since they expect the company to benefit from permanent changes in shopping behavior over the long haul. In a matter of months, the coronavirus has accelerated a consumer shift from physical to online stores that was expected to take years, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak.

That helps explain why some analysts have increased revenue estimates for this year and 2021 even though overall consumer spending is dropping. Meanwhile, with so many people video conferencing and streaming videos at home, demand is strong for Amazon Web Services, the hugely profitable cloud division.

Walmart and Amazon both have benefited from consumer spending during the pandemic, but Amazon has outpaced its rival throughout, says Randy Koch, who runs Facteus, which analyzes credit card and debit card transactions from millions of customers. Amazon is growing at an incredible clipwell above Walmart, Koch says.

Amazons edge over the big-box stores could widen since most of its sales are online. Department of Homeland Security guidelines defining which businesses are essential are further refined by governors in each state. Vermont and Michigan, for example, are among states that have asked Walmart and Target Corp. to close sections of their stores. The aim is to prevent crowding while letting big-box retailers stay open to sell groceries. Amazon has temporarily closed a handful of bookstores and other physical retail operations that have never generated much revenue.

Physical stores have to figure out complex rules that vary state to state and minute to minute, says Christy Campbell, a partner at the law firm Duane Morris who is helping retailers navigate the new environment. Amazon doesnt have to think about these different rules from state to state that are constantly changing, she says. Thats where online retailers are at a real advantage.

Even shoppers who have been venturing out to Walmart and Costco Wholesale Corp. could become more skittish and flock to Amazon now that populous states like New York and California are advising people to wear masks when they leave their homes, a vivid reminder of the risks of even a quick run the store, says Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities Inc. Overall demand is down, but Amazon is picking up share for sure in every category of retail that is closed because theyre one of the only options, he says. Their designation as an essential business is giving them a huge advantage in nonessential categories.

Amazon has said its voluntarily prioritizing the sale of must-have products like groceries, diapers and pet food and temporarily stopped accepting shipments of nonessentials like televisions to its U.S. warehouses. Still, employees say they have been busy through the outbreak selling puzzles, clothes and bedding. Some Amazon warehouse workers posted videos of themselves packing up sex toys to make their point.

Last month, Bloomberg reported that a warehouse in Kentucky was continuing to handle returns of such items as sneakers and apparel, despite several workers there testing positive for the virus. The governor ordered the facility closed while it could be cleaned, but its open again and still processing returns on nonessential items. Amazon said it is using consumer demand to determine what is prioritized, which explains why some products that seem trivial during the outbreak are still available for quick delivery.

Critics say the government should take a page from the French and do more to protect workers, but so far the pushback has been limited to sporadic worker protests and a handful of letters from U.S. senators.

Amazon is one of the largest private-sector employers functioning at the moment, so theres no reason for government to be so hands-off, says Jim Brudney, a law professor at Fordham University. The federal government has not had an aggressive coordinated response and it hasnt put essential workers at the forefront of its agenda for protection.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration could set temporary emergency standards to protect warehouse workers through the outbreak until more permanent solutions are established. Brudney says. Its a seldom used power, but one the agency has deployed in the past to protect workers from asbestos exposure and other risks. OSHA officials are investigating Amazon worker complaints related to Covid-19 in Pennsylvania.

Pachter, the Wedbush analyst, doesnt see a government crackdown in the U.S. unless theres evidence that Covid-19 is infecting Amazons warehouse workers at a greater rate than the public at large. They have 900,000 employees, he says, so it makes sense that some of them test positive for coronavirus.

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has denied having any intentions to run for the White House after sparring with Donald Trump over a lack of federal assistance amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Democrat told reporters during a press briefing on Saturday that he had no political agenda or plans to hold higher office after his tenure as the states governor.

Im not running for anything, he said. Im going to be governor of the state of New York until the people kick me out  then Im going to spend time with my family, and thats that.

I have no political agenda, he added.

The comments came just a day after Mr Cuomo lambasted the federal government while suggesting states have received zero, zilch, nada in unrestricted aid after three bills were passed to address the pandemic.

The governor has also received increasing calls to launch a bid for the White House in the future, and other recent reports have claimed those close to him have primed Mr Cuomo for the vice presidency  despite Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, having already vowed to select a woman for the job.

On Saturday, Mr Cuomo was seemingly attempting to smooth over his apparent tensions with the federal government, while making the case for its continued assistance to the state.

The Republican doctrine used to be limited government and states rights, he said. Im a good distribution mechanism  because I know whats going on in the state.

He added: If you want us to reopen, we need funding for the state.

Mr Cuomo has walked a fine line in recent weeks when working with the Trump administration, at times publicly thanking it for providing aid and at other moments demanding more from the federal government and its national stockpile, which includes critical supplies like ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE). The governor noted on Saturday that the federal government sent 1.5 million cloth masks to be distributed among the public in New York.

The governor also provided updates about state figures surrounding Covid-19 during the weekend briefing, telling reporters: Happy days are not here again: we still have about 2,000 people yesterday arriving to local hospitals with the novel virus.

Were not at the plateau anymore, but were still not in a good position, he said, adding that 540 people died yesterday in New York due to complications from Covid-19, a decline from 630 the day prior.

If you look at the past three days, you could argue that were past the plateau and starting to descend, Mr Cuomo added. Its only three days, but thats what the numbers would start to suggest.

While Mr Cuomo has discussed a reopening of the state, he suggested earlier this week that New York would not be able to follow along with the White House plans to start back up the countrys economy in mid-May if it does not receive enough funding to ramp up its testing capabilities.

Following the governors press briefing on Friday, Mr Trump attacked him for complaining in a series of tweets.

Governor Cuomo should spend more time 'doing' and less time 'complaining'. Get out there and get the job done. Stop talking!" the president wrote. "We built you thousands of hospital beds that you didnt need or use, gave large numbers of Ventilators that you should have had, and helped you with testing that you should be doing.

He added: Less talk and more action!

The governor then fired back to keep emotions and politics out of this  a sentiment he echoed the following day during his latest briefing.

There is no time for politics, Mr Cuomo said on Saturday. If you have partisan division splitting this nation, its going to get worse.
Navy sources on Saturday said that most of Indian Navys 25 personnel, who have been tested positive for Covid-19 in Mumbai, are asymptomatic and have been traced to a single sailor who tested positive on April 7. 20 of these sailors are from INS Angre, a shore establishment in Mumbai. All sailors are reported to be in their 20s except for one who is 47 years old and is the oldest of the lot.

The infected navy men have been admitted to naval hospital INHS Asvini in Mumbais Colaba, two navy officials informed on the condition of anonymity.

All these sailors reside at the same accommodation block at INS Angre. All primary contacts of the naval personnel (though asymptomatic) have been tested for coronavirus while the entire inliving block has been put under quarantine and classified as a containment zone. INS Angre too is under lockdown.

There are no cases of infection onboard ships and submarines.

While this is the first reported case of Covid-19 in the Indian Navy, the Indian Army has so far reported eight positive virus cases.

We have only eight positive cases in the entire Indian Army. Of the eight, two are doctors and one nursing assistant. Four are responding well to the treatment, Army Chief General M.M Naravane said on Friday.

The Army personnel who have not come in contact with any Covid-19 positive person are being moved back to units.

Our personnel who have not come in contact with any infected person are being moved back to units. We have already catered for two special trains -- from Bengaluru to Jammu and the other from Bengaluru to Guwahati, he added.

As the US Navy is struggling with increasing Covid-19 cases, Indian Navy chief Admiral Karambir Singh had stressed that it is vital to ensure that operational assets such as warships and submarines remain free of the virus and the navy is combat ready at all times.

In a 15-minute-long video message to naval personnel on April 9, the Indian Navy chief had told his men that while they should hope for the best, the navy should plan for the worst.

We need to be ready for the worst-case scenario and to my mind, it will be a long battle, the navy chief had said.

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Drogheda is a poorer place this week after the death of one of the town's true characters, Joan McEvoy.

The Francis Street woman passed away in the great care of the team at Sunhill Nursing Home in Termonfeckin.

For many years, Joan dedicated her life to the well-being of others and whenever a task was needed, she was there, fundraising or indeed, famously acting.

The Befriending Drogheda group remarked about their founder member, ' Joan McEvoy was an amazing funny, kind, enthusiastic, warm and exceptionally caring lady whose drive and commitment was one of the main reasons our charity is where it is today. We will miss you Joan , you will never be forgotten and always be remembered,,especially when we eat apple pie!!.'

Paul Hayes added that he was fortunate enough to direct Joan in The Tiny Dancer Player's 'Christmas Carol' in 2013 and Upstate Theatre Project's 'The Street' in 2014.

'I am always amazed when someone of a certain age gets involved for the first time in a community theatre experience, it take guts to push that workshop room door open for the first time.

'It saddens me that we can't all meet and raise a glass to Joan in these strange times.

'Thank you Joan for opening that door.'

Others spoke about the great days in London with Joan and Danny. They helped in the setting up of the Drogheda Association in the city and many locals were helped down the years.

A man from those days, Michael Clarke, stated, 'Danny and Joan's home was open house. She would ring me and other people from Drogheda, saying your name is in the pot. A lady with a big heart. She will always be in my thoughts.'

To mark their 40th wedding anniversary in 2001, Danny spoke of how the happy couple met, 'We were practically reared together,' he recalled. 'I grew up in Moran's Terrace and Joan Fox in bothar Brugha, but her grandfather Nicky Woods lived next door to us so we saw each other almost every day all our lives.'

In December 1958, Danny found work on a ship serving the old Oil and Cake factory while Joan worked in Morco.

They married on Easter Monday 1961.

'We were married by Father Dorman in the Lourdes Church at nine o'clock in the morning and we all went to the Carlton Cafe in Narrow West Street for the Wedding Breakfast. Over 100 people attended the wedding celebration and enjoyed a fine breakfast at a cost of 12/6 a head. 'That was top class then,' said Danny.

Soon after, they headed to London and spent 35 years there. The couple settled in Maida Vale and Danny found employment with Wimpy's, building houses all over London, while Joan went to work for Westminster Social Services. 'She was a team leader for Maggie Thatcher, which was a very tough job,' said Danny.

When they retired, both Danny and Joan decided they wanted to come to Ireland and in April 1996 they moved to Francis Street and the cottage formerly owned by Danny's uncle Peter McEvoy.

Joan (nee Fox) was predeceased by her son Damien and is sadly missed by husband Danny and family, Tony and Denise, daughter-in-law Shaneen, grandchildren Jack and Robyn, great-grandson Hazel, brother Paddy, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nephews, nieces, relatives and a large circle of friends.
The United Nations lowered its flag at the New York City headquarters on April 18 in a show of solidarity as the world struggles to contain the devastating impact of coronavirus. The UN, which has repeatedly emphasised the need for science and solidarity, made the gesture to also honour those people who lost their lives to the deadly virus.

The UN lowered its flag at NYC Headquarters in a gesture of solidarity and in honour of those who have lost their lives to #COVID19.



Details on how the UN is supporting the #coronavirus response around the world: https://t.co/3EHAHiVpp3 pic.twitter.com/zhQ15b3V8p  United Nations (@UN) April 18, 2020

Read: United Nations: 189 Staffers Infected, Three Dead Due To Coronavirus Pandemic

US remains worst-hit

According to the latest report, over 2.2 million coronavirus cases have been confirmed worldwide with over 154,200 deaths, overwhelming the health care facilities across the globe. The United States, Italy, Spain and France are the worst-hit countries due to the pandemic with around 64 per cent of death toll reported from these four countries alone.

Read: United Nations Warns Of 'global Food Shortage' Due To Coronavirus Pandemic

On April 17, United Nations Secretary-General urged to focus on the most vulnerable to ensure that the rights of all people are protected during the COVID-19 response efforts. The coordinated global humanitarian response plan (HRP) is in line with United Nations plan to fight COVID-19 in some of the most vulnerable countries where millions of lives are at risk due to the public health crisis.

Read: Coronavirus Will Spread Like Wildfire And There Are No Firewalls: UN Chief

Read: 'Only Covid Vaccine Will Allow Normalcy's Return': UN Chief Says What No One Wants To Hear
PRESIDENT Mnangagwa is today expected to update the nation on whether the 21-day lockdown put in place as a measure to curb the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19), which is coming to an end at midnight, will be extended or not.







The announcement will be based on resolutions that will be made after the Inter-Ministerial Taskforce on Covid-19 meeting today. In making the decision to lift or extend the lockdown, authorities are expected to factor in suggestions from assessments made in all the countrys 10 provinces on the nationwide capacity to combat the virus.





The President declared the nationwide 21-day lockdown that started on 30 March as part of means of preventing the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, which to date has infected over two million people globally, with over 150 000 succumbing to the virus. In Zimbabwe as of last





Friday the country had recorded 24 positive cases including two recoveries and three deaths. Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa yesterday said that the announcement on the next course of action would be made today.





As you are aware, it was the President who made the announcement when the lockdown was announced. As the chair of the Cabinet taskforce, we will seek direction from him on the next course of action and it will be announced after the taskforce meeting which will be held tomorrow (today), she said.





A number of nations, including Zimbabwes neighbours South Africa have extended their respective lockdowns with varying days citing need for more days to curb the spread of the pandemic in their countries. Delivering his Independence Day speech yesterday, President Mnangagwa paid gratitude to the nation for its response to the pandemic, especially regarding the collective appreciation and honouring of the 21-day lockdown. He applauded the various sectors that had combined forces in terms of fight against the spread of the pandemic noting that with unity, love and common purpose nothing can prevail against the nation.





I equally want to thank some countries and partners from abroad such as the Peoples Republic of China, United Kingdom, United States of America, United Arab Emirates, European Union, the World Health Organisation and other United Nations Agencies, as well as the Jack-Ma Foundation, among many other international organisations and well-wishers, who have generously supported our fight against Covid-19.





40 years after Independence, let us remain hopeful and steadfast in spirit. Vision 2030 is alive and beyond Covid-19, its accomplishment must be accelerated. Our present experiences, in the wake of this pandemic, teach us that friends and investors may assist us. However, it is the collective efforts of all of our nationals across all sectors, that will make the difference, said President Mnangagwa.





According to the figures released by the Ministry of Health and Child Care on Friday, the country has carried out a total of 1 194 tests of which 24 have been confirmed as positive. Bulawayo still tops the list with 10 positive cases followed by Harare at nine, Mashonaland East at four and Matabeleland North at one. National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said as of yesterday, 8 673 people had been arrested for defying the lockdown.





Bulawayo had the greatest number of people at 1 887, while Manicaland had 1 724. In Harare 1 081 people were arrested while the figure was 1 217 for the Midlands. Other provinces recorded less than 1 000 arrests, he said





Meanwhile, 400 deportees who are quarantined at various centres in Bulawayo will only be released if they test negative in the tests they will be subjected to during their time in isolation. Bulawayo recieved deportees who had been moved from their previous quarantine centre, Plumtree High School last Saturday. They were moved with the intention of easing crowding while providing them with better living conditions. Some are housed at Bulawayo Polytechnic while others are at the United College of Education (UCE). The initial batch of deportees were expected to spend nine more days at the centres before they are released after spending six days in quarantine in Plumtree.





Bulawayo Provincial Medical Director Dr Welcome Mlilo explained the process that those in quarantine would have to go through before their release.





They will undergo Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs) on contact and 14 days later. These are like the tests we do for Malaria or for HIV. Health workers prick your finger and collect blood sample which is administered to a small cartridge. A buffer is added. In 15 minutes, you get a result. These test for antibodies the body produces in response to an infection, in this case the Covid-19 virus. We are using these for screening purposes, not as a diagnostic test. If one tests positive on RDT, we go on to confirm with Deoxyribonucleic Acid Polymerase Chain Reaction (DNA PCR) test, said Dr Mlilo.





He said that should they be negative results in both tests, those individuals would then be released with the Social Welfare Department expected to take care of their transportation to their respective homes.

who have generously supported our fight against Covid-19.





40 years after Independence, let us remain hopeful and steadfast in spirit. Vision 2030 is alive and beyond Covid-19, its accomplishment must be accelerated. Our present experiences, in the wake of this pandemic, teach us that friends and investors may assist us. However, it is the collective efforts of all of our nationals across all sectors, that will make the difference, said President Mnangagwa.





According to the figures released by the Ministry of Health and Child Care on Friday, the country has carried out a total of 1 194 tests of which 24 have been confirmed as positive. Bulawayo still tops the list with 10 positive cases followed by Harare at nine, Mashonaland East at four and Matabeleland North at one. National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said as of yesterday, 8 673 people had been arrested for defying the lockdown.





Bulawayo had the greatest number of people at 1 887, while Manicaland had 1 724. In Harare 1 081 people were arrested while the figure was 1 217 for the Midlands. Other provinces recorded less than 1 000 arrests, he said





Meanwhile, 400 deportees who are quarantined at various centres in Bulawayo will only be released if they test negative in the tests they will be subjected to during their time in isolation. Bulawayo received deportees who had been moved from their previous quarantine centre, Plumtree High School last Saturday. They were moved with the intention of easing crowding while providing them with better living conditions. Some are housed at Bulawayo Polytechnic while others are at the United College of Education (UCE). The initial batch of deportees were expected to spend nine more days at the centres before they are released after spending six days in quarantine in Plumtree.

Bulawayo Provincial Medical Director Dr Welcome Mlilo explained the process that those in quarantine would have to go through before their release.





They will undergo Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs) on contact and 14 days later. These are like the tests we do for malaria or for HIV. Health workers prick your finger and collect a blood sample which is administered to a small cartridge. A buffer is added. in 15 minutes, you get a result. These test for antibodies the body produces in response to an infection, in this case the Covid-19 virus. We are using these for screening purposes, not as a diagnostic test. If one tests positive on RDT, we go on to confirm with Deoxyribonucleic Acid Polymerase Chain Reaction (DNA PCR) test, said Dr Mlilo.




The first warning of the devastation that the coronavirus could wreak inside U.S. nursing homes came in late February, when residents of a facility in suburban Seattle perished, one by one, as families waited helplessly outside.

In the ensuing six weeks, large and shockingly lethal outbreaks have continued to ravage nursing homes across the country, undeterred by urgent new safety requirements. Now a countrywide tally by The New York Times has found the number of people living in or connected to nursing homes who have died of the coronavirus to be at least 7,000, far higher than previously known.

In New Jersey, 17 bodies piled up in a nursing home morgue, and more than one-quarter of a Virginia homes residents have died. At least 24 people at a facility in Maryland have died; more than 100 residents and workers have been infected at another in Kansas; and people have died in centres for military veterans in Florida, Nevada, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington.

On Friday, New York officials for the first time disclosed the names of 72 long-term care facilities that have had five or more deaths, including the Cobble Hill Health Center in Brooklyn, where 55 people have died. At least 14 nursing homes in New York City and its suburbs have recorded more than 25 coronavirus-related deaths. In New Jersey, officials revealed that infections have broken out in 394 long-term facilities  almost two-thirds of the states homes  and that more than 1,500 deaths were tied to nursing facilities.

Overall, about one-fifth of deaths from the virus in the United States have been tied to nursing homes or other long-term care facilities, the Times review of cases shows. And more than 36,500 residents and employees across the country have contracted it.

In interviews with more than two dozen workers in long-term care facilities, as well as family members of residents and health-care experts, a portrait emerged of a system unequipped to handle the onslaught and disintegrating further amid the growing crisis.

Theyre death pits, said Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant-governor of New York who founded the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, an education campaign aimed at stopping hospital-acquired infections. These nursing homes are already overwhelmed. Theyre crowded and theyre understaffed. One COVID-positive patient in a nursing home produces carnage.

It is a tragedy that is continuing to unfold, and one that even the dire figures that are known only partially capture. The number of cases at these facilities  which include nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, memory-care facilities, retirement and senior communities and long-term rehabilitation facilities  is almost certainly still higher since many facilities, counties and states have not provided detailed information.

The outbreaks have been spread across the sprawling senior-care industry, including at publicly run facilities, those run by non-profit groups and others managed by large corporations. Some nursing homes with clusters have a history of safety violations, persistent staffing problems and limited amenities. Other hard-hit facilities have sterling health records, luxurious living arrangements and pricey rents.

The virus is known to be more deadly to aging, immune-compromised people; and small, confined settings like nursing homes, where workers frequently move from one room to the next, are particularly vulnerable to spreading infection. But oversights and failures also have contributed to the crisis.

Virus tests and protective gear have been scarce inside many of these facilities, which are among the most overlooked players in the health-care system. These homes, with staff members who receive less extensive training than those in hospitals, tend to struggle to slow infectious diseases. Employees are often poorly paid workers who move between multiple jobs and return home to communities at risk of contracting the virus.

All of these factors have allowed the virus to thrive, making its way into at least 4,100 U.S. nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, despite increasingly desperate efforts to stop the spread.

Facilities were late to require workers and residents to wear masks  and some were still not enforcing such policies, workers and family members said. Facing shortages of tests and masks, homes often waited, they said, until residents were showing symptoms of COVID-19 before testing them for the virus and isolating them from others, even if they had contact with people who had been infected.

The residents and staff are being led to slaughter, said Judith Regan, an editor and publishing executive whose 91-year-old father, Leo Regan, lives at the Long Island State Veterans Home at Stony Brook University. At least 57 residents and 37 staff members there have tested positive for the virus, and 32 residents have died.

He is on the Titanic, but there are no lifeboats, Regan said. Officials at the veterans home did not respond to requests for comment.

Employees at some facilities have stopped coming to work. In California, 83 patients with the virus had to be evacuated from a nursing facility in Riverside County after only one of 13 scheduled certified nursing assistants appeared at work, public health officials said. Sixteen employees and dozens of patients had tested positive days earlier.

Even now, protective gear is in short supply at many homes. One nursing assistant at a Detroit nursing facility said she had been issued an N95 mask, but had to make it last three weeks. With no gowns available, she said she and her co-workers were being told to suit up in the same gowns that patients sleep in.

In Miami, Rosa Mercedes, a certified nursing assistant at a residential facility, waited in line in her car for a coronavirus test on Thursday at the Hard Rock Stadium. She said her facility, which she declined to name, provides her with one mask each day as she feeds, bathes and helps multiple patients use the bathroom.

Now she has a cough and sore throat.

I dont know if I have it or dont have it, she said. Everybodys living in a nightmare.

Nursing home industry officials acknowledged this week that many of their facilities were in crisis and said they lacked the protective equipment and testing that hospitals have received.

We dont have what we need to stop this, said Mark Parkinson, president and chief executive of the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living, a trade organization that represents skilled nursing facilities and assisted-living homes that house more than one million people. We have got to have masks, and we dont have masks.

Parkinson said that federal health authorities have designated nursing homes and long-term care facilities at a lower priority level than hospitals, meaning a longer turnaround times for test results  a significant problem for slowing spread.

He said that many employees dont have the option of isolating themselves from sick patients.

The cavalry hasnt arrived, Parkinson said. People will end up blaming nursing homes and talking about how terrible we are, but it is the complete lack of prioritization that has put us in the position that we are in.

Nursing home facilities have borne the brunt of a structural shift: hospitals, seeking to keep costs down, send more vulnerable patients into a growing industry of nursing homes. Even before the pandemic, 380,000 people died each year from infection at long-term care facilities, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which regulates the countrys more than 15,000 nursing homes, issued new guidance last month, telling administrators to restrict all visitors, cancel group activities, shut down dining rooms and screen all residents and staff members for fevers and respiratory illnesses.

Families of nursing home residents said some of the new restrictions were enforced unevenly in some homes; unlocked front doors in some places, for instance, have failed to stop visits. And even where enforcement has been strict, staff members could still unwittingly carry the virus inside.

At Canterbury Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Richmond, Va., where many residents rely on Medicaid to cover costs, triple rooms are not uncommon. The facility has struggled to hire and retain nursing staff. As recently as October, federal investigators found nearly two dozen deficiencies at the facility, including a lack of appropriate respiratory care for a resident and a lack of appropriate ulcer care.

When a few cases of the virus cropped up at Canterbury in mid-March, the state had only a few hundred test kits available, limiting officials ability to figure out how far it had spread, according to Dr. Danny Avula, the local countys health official. By the time officials were able to test everyone a few weeks later, more than 60 residents tested positive, including some who did not show symptoms. At least 46 of the facilitys estimated 160 residents have died from the virus, making it one of the deadliest clusters in the country.

Nursing homes were not designed to deal with this kind of crisis, Avula said.

Even in the best of times, the facilities struggle to retain staff, and families of residents of some facilities heaped praise on staff members for risking their own lives to keep working.

The situation has led anxious families to agonize about whether to try to bring their loved ones home. But many cannot provide the extensive medical care that is required and fear exposing others to the virus. As they wrestle with what to do, many say that they are being given little information about what is happening inside the homes.

Its totally horrifying  I cant even describe the feeling, said Adam Zimmerman, whose 77-year-old mother lives in an acute-care facility near Los Angeles where cases of the virus have been identified. He said he speaks by phone regularly with his mother, who has a tracheotomy and medical conditions, but has not been able to visit her in weeks.

At a facility in New York City, there had been no indication of a problem, a grandson of a resident said, until last week when he received a call that his grandfather, who has Alzheimers, was gravely ill. He was coughing hard and had a fever.

By Sunday, he was dead. Only later was the family told that the man had tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the grandson, who wanted to be identified only by his first name, Andrew, because his grandmother is still in the nursing home and has yet to be told of her husbands death. She, too, has tested positive for the virus, he said.

He said it broke his heart that his grandfather died alone.

I couldnt even hold his hand, he said. He couldnt speak English, and he was just surrounded by strangers. I cant imagine how scared he must have been.

Some facilities have found creative ways to combat the virus. At the Park Springs Life Plan Community in Stone Mountain, Ga., four staff members and one resident have tested positive for the virus, but they have fully recovered. The facility decided to take a rare step: it asked staff members to volunteer to live on the campus to avoid inadvertently carrying the virus into the facility from home. Sixty workers volunteered. Ginger Hansborough, the facilitys accounting director, who normally lives with a partner and his octogenarian mother, moved in, not only to protect residents at the facility, but also to protect her family.

I didnt want to be the reason that anything happened to them, she said.
North Dakota officials reported 28 more cases of the new coronavirus Thursday, the biggest jump in cases the state has experienced in a single day.

This marks the second consecutive day of the highest number of positive cases in North Dakota since the pandemic began, Gov. Doug Burgum said at his daily coronavirus press briefing.

The cases reported Thursday stem from a batch of 387 processed tests, which means that 7.2% of the people tested had results come back positive. Burgum said Thursday marked the fourth day in a row in which more than 5% of people tested have COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

Were still in the rising part of the curve, Burgum said.

The state lab that processes tests in Bismarck ran into a backlog earlier this week, but the technician it flew in from Michigan was able to make repairs on Wednesday and staffers worked throughout the night to catch up.

By the end of the week, the lab should have the ability to process as many as 1,100 tests per day, Burgum said. He hopes to double that number in May, and double it again in June by adding more machines and staff.

The governor encouraged people who are concerned they might have the virus to contact their health care providers to advocate for yourself to get a test. Hes aware of recent posts on social media by residents who say their providers will not let them get tested, a problem more commonly heard early on during the pandemic when testing supplies ran low nationwide.

There should be no reason for that because we have enough testing capacity, Burgum said.

Small business loans

Of the $349 billion in federal aid made available to small businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program, $1.4 billion has gone to North Dakota companies.

Businesses will receive the money in the form of low-interest loans, which could become grants if at least 75% goes toward payroll costs.

In North Dakota, 8,232 of the states nearly 73,000 small businesses will receive some of the funds.

This is a way to help businesses maintain their team members, their employees, to help those businesses stay afloat, and it takes some pressure off the unemployment system, Burgum said. I hope that Congress will see fit to get this reloaded.

He said Congress is considering legislation that would provide another $250 billion toward the program.

The Bank of North Dakota is looking at establishing its own program for businesses to ensure they have longer-term working capital that they can put toward restocking their inventories and hiring new employees, Burgum said.

He added that state Treasurer Kelly Schmidt has received $625 million, equal to half the money earmarked for North Dakota under the CARES Act, which recently passed Congress. Shes deposited the money in the state bank.

Its unclear exactly how the money can be spent, but states expect to receive more guidance from the federal government on Friday.

Burgum said in general, governors hope to be given a maximum amount of flexibility in using the money. Some are hoping to put it toward unemployment insurance.

ND coronavirus cases

The governor said a team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has arrived in North Dakota.

While the team was diverted to help with the virus outbreak at the LM Wind Power manufacturing facility in Grand Forks where eight people tested positive earlier this week, its here because of North Dakotas relatively low number of cases, Burgum said.

The team wants to share best practices from North Dakota with other states and will work with state health department officials and local officials on case identification, contact tracing and community mitigation, among other areas.

Of the new cases reported in North Dakota on Thursday, two came in Burleigh County, with the bulk of the rest, 17 cases, in Cass County. Other western North Dakota cases include three in Stark County and one each in McKenzie and Dunn counties.

The state has reported 393 cases since the virus was first confirmed in North Dakota on March 11.

The total number of people tested in North Dakota is 11,704.

Twenty-one more people have recovered from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, according to Thursdays data. In total, 163 people have recovered statewide.

One more person has been hospitalized for the disease, the state reported Thursday. Fourteen people are currently receiving coronavirus-related care in hospitals across the state.

North Dakota has seen nine deaths related to the virus in recent weeks.

Reach Amy R. Sisk at 701-250-8252 or amy.sisk@bismarcktribune.com.

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(Newser)  A volunteer firefighter was a little surprised to see his $1,700 stimulus payment turn him into a multi-millionaire, CNN reports. "What in the world is going on, man?" says Charles Calvin, 45. "That doesn't seem right." When the Indiana resident took his MetaBank card to an ATM last Saturdayto check the direct-deposit payment and withdraw $200 for rentthe receipt said he had $8.2 million. So he withdrew a little extra to help make rent. "It did it again," says Calvin, who took out $800 in all. "8.2 million." He showed the receipt to an employee at the Family Express gas station, who said there'd been no complaints about this ATM before. She even asked Calvin if he really was a millionaire.

story continues below

"I said, 'Lady, if I was a millionaire, do you think I would be here at the Family Express gas station getting $200 out for my rent?'" Calvin told her. He then called a friend on the police force who told him not to touch the rest, and brought his fire-department captain to the ATMwhich showed him the right balance, per NBC Chicago. "I'm like, 'This is ridiculous' and he's looking at me like, 'Oh you're holding out,'" says Calvin. "I'm a volunteer fireman living paycheck to paycheck just like everybody else is." On Monday, MetaBank told him the ATM system had probably screwed up, and his real balance was $13.69. "That sounds more like my bank account," says Calvin. "$8.2 million does not sound like my bank account. I wish it was my account!" (Read more ATMs stories.)
With cases rising, India has been fighting a war against coronavirus pandemic, but crisis as severe as they are, the country hasn't abandoned its humanitarian agenda.

Reuters

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has hailed countries helping others in the global fight against the Covid-19, days after India sent anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine to United States.



Hydroxychloroquine has been identified by the US Food and Drug Administration as a possible treatment for the Covid-19 and it is being tested on more than 1,500 coronavirus patients in New York.

Representational Image

The demand for the drug has only grown after India lifted the ban on its export. Since then, India has supplied it to various countries in need, a testament to India's stand to help the friends during the time of crisis.



"The Secretary General calls for global solidarity in this struggle against the virus, and that means that every country who is in a position to help another country should. And we salute those countries that are doing so, UN chief Antonio Guterres spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said at the daily press briefing on Friday.



He was responding to a question on Guterres reaction to Indias efforts to send medicine and other supplies to other countries amidst the coronavirus outbreak.

AFP

Earlier, India had also supplied 2,800,000 packets of paracetamol to the UK, which had drawn praise from British government, who expressed their gratitude.



At present, India is in the process of supplying hydroxychloroquine to 55 coronavirus-hit countries as grants as well as on commercial basis.



A number of countries including the US, Mauritius and Seychelles have already received the drug in the past few days while several others will get it by the weekend.





In the neighbourhood, India is sending the drug to Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh Nepal, the Maldives, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, sources said.

While the world is fighting biggest health crisis in decades, India is leading by example and providing medical aid to countries across the world.


Oceanex, which said it delivers nearly 50% of the freight to Newfoundland, has suspended a weekly sailing from Montreal to the Port of St. John's "in response to impacts of COVID-19 on the sustainability of operations."

Executive Chairman Sid Hynes told American Shipper on Thursday, "As the economic impacts of recent public health measures continue to unfold, it is apparent that current and expected levels of cargo volume are insufficient to sustain all three of Oceanex's sailings given the high costs associated with ship operations."

The suspension of the weekly sailing of the Oceanex Avalon to St. John's went into effect Tuesday.

"Oceanex recognizes the complexities of the supply chain, particularly the reliance of grocery retailers on well-established transportation networks which include this Oceanex service, and the difficulties that will arise in breaking this vital link," Hynes said.

CBC News reported Monday that Newfoundland only has a five-day supply of food and losing Oceanex's services could lead to critical shortages. Hynes told CBC that Oceanex was losing some C$2 million a week because of a volume drop during the coronavirus pandemic.

But during a video update on COVID-19 Tuesday, Labrador and Newfoundland Premier Dwight Ball said there is no danger of consumers not receiving shipped goods.

"We've had numerous calls with Marine Atlantic, with the trucking industry and with local wholesalers," Ball said, adding that he had "heard from many truckers and they are willing to step up. They say that they have capacity within the system to meet the demands of our province."

Oceanex Inc. provides door-to-door freight transportation services from throughout North America to Newfoundland. The company said, "With no fixed links to the mainland, marine transport is the only viable option to move the large volumes of cargo needed to support daily life in the province. Oceanex's service can be best thought of as a floating railway connecting the ports of Montreal and Halifax directly to the capital city of St. John's."

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Hynes said the short-sea shipper reached out to Transport Canada three weeks ago "to flag the likely disruption in the food transportation supply chain and to work collaboratively on a solution to maintain existing levels of service to the province."

That proposed solution was a government subsidy, according to CNBC. Transport Canada did not respond to a query from American Shipper.

During his video conference this week, Ball said, "I've had many conversations with Minister Seamus O'Regan on this issue, and we both know this is too critical to ignore and that the federal government is looking at all options to make sure the supply chain stays in place."

Ball reiterated that ferry operator Marine Atlantic has the capacity to deliver food and medical supplies to Newfoundland.

"We need to remember that although Oceanex is a big supplier, they're a big mover of goods, we also have Marine Atlantic and they too have capacity in their system," Ball said. "So we have the trucking capacity and we have Marine Atlantic capacity and both are willing to step up. We will continue to follow this closely so that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have food security during this pandemic."

Hynes told American Shipper on Thursday that without assistance from the federal government, Oceanex has had to temporarily discontinue the weekly sailing "to protect the immediate sustainability of the company."

The privately owned Oceanex Inc. has been transporting goods to Newfoundland for more than 100 years, according to the company, which said its services have included two weekly sailings from Montreal and one from Halifax to the Port of St. John's for decades.

"The company handles nearly 50% of all freight into the province and about 75% of the goods destined to the Avalon Peninsula using its three vessels and a fleet of over 3,700 intermodal containers, chassis and trailers to provide its services to customers," said the company, noting that overland transportation is performed by owner-operators as well as hired drivers for Oceanex's own fleet in St. John's and third-party operators. "In St. John's, in-house drivers and brokers perform about 70% of the deliveries."

Oceanex said it carries dry, fresh and frozen foods, pharmaceutical, medical and health care supplies, industrial products, and general goods to Newfoundland.

Marine Atlantic, which operates a ferry service between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, tweeted Friday morning, "Working together with our customers, this week our team transported more than 1,300 commercial units to do our part in getting products and supplies to their destination."

In an email to American Shipper on Friday, Darrell Mercer, corporate communications officer for Marine Atlantic, said the company is "committed to meeting the needs of our customers and maintaining our essential ferry link to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador."

"We have a four-vessel fleet, with two vessels currently in service to meet demand. The two vessels in service are utilizing approximately 50% of their overall capacity on a daily basis," Mercer said. "Should demand increase and additional capacity be required, Marine Atlantic has the ability to add additional crossings to the schedule with the two vessels currently in standby mode."

Oceanex said the suspension of the weekly sailing of the Avalon, which has a capacity of 1,004 twenty-foot equivalent units, is forcing the company to lay off some employees.

"It is with great regret that we had to advise our personnel that this reduction in service will also result in the temporary layoff of many dedicated and loyal employees," Hynes said. "This was a very difficult decision for the company, and we will make every effort to get these valued employees back to work as quickly as possible."

Oceanex did not say how many employees would be laid off.

Photo: Flickr/Indrid Gold

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 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Thousands of Manitoba public-sector workers are on edge, uncertain if their hours will be greatly scaled back or if they will be laid off, their unions say.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/4/2020 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Thousands of Manitoba public-sector workers are on edge, uncertain if their hours will be greatly scaled back or if they will be laid off, their unions say.

Public-sector managers  at universities, Crown corporations and in the provincial civil service  have been given until Tuesday to put forward plans on how to reduce labour costs during the pandemic.

The Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union said it has received thousands of emails and phone calls from members since Premier Brian Pallister first spoke about a reduced work week for up to 25 per cent of public-sector workers on Tuesday.

"People are scared," MGEU president Michelle Gawronsky said Friday. "At a time when our province is in a panic (about the) pandemic, he (Pallister) is now causing more panic... for these workers."

While the government is exploring options such as unpaid days off and a work-share arrangement in which civil servants would work two days and collect federal employment insurance for the remainder of the week, it has not specified which workers it is targeting, Gawronsky said.

Meanwhile, Ottawa has yet to announce that it is on board with the work share-EI scheme.

Pallister said this week if the province doesn't get buy-in from the federal government and the unions, there would be layoffs.

Gawronsky said the premier doesn't seem to have a plan other than to slash costs.

"It's like it's been written out on the back of a napkin as an afterthought," she said of the premier's strategy.

On Tuesday, the premier made it sound as though he would discuss his ideas with public-sector managers and organized labour, but he let Treasury Board officials do the talking instead, the unions said.

While the officials laid out the premier's aspirations, they provided few details on how these could be realized, they said.

Unions were asked for a commitment to the process without knowing how many workers might be affected, in what areas and for how long, their representatives said.

They were provided copies of a Treasury Board Secretariat document full of dire economic and fiscal forecasts for Manitoba due to the coronavirus. It said the province's increased monthly deficit, for example, is in the range of $400 million to $500 million.

The MGEU said the province demanded that it agree to the government's proposals  as well as help in convincing Ottawa of its EI plan  by end of day on Friday. The union responded with an open letter to the premier saying it could not respond to the government's requests without knowing more details.

Kevin Rebeck, president of the Manitoba Federation of Labour, said the government's role in this crisis should be to keep as many people working as possible  be they public-sector workers or private-sector workers.

He said, unfortunately, the premier's focus is not on people but on the government's bottom line.

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Rebeck said he is baffled by Pallister's apparent rationale that since the private sector is hurting, it's only fair that the public sector feel the pain as well.

"The answer isn't, 'Let's make more people suffer, and that's fair.' That's not fair," he said.

Responding to a request for comment, the premier issued a statement Friday that said Manitobans know provincial governments can't continue to pay people full salaries "to do no or significantly reduced work."

"Instead, we need to focus on frontline and other essential services. The unions know all of this, too, but so far they just say that all of their members should get paid full salaries whether they work or not. As premier, I cant justify this, and neither can they frankly."

Pallister said the government has tried to avoid laying off public servants, "and with the union's help and the work-share proposal we are continuing to try and avoid that result."

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca
Not long ago, something unusual started happening with 18-year-old Zach Jordan's blood pressure.

Normally, his mother Isabel would have rushed him to the hospital. But these aren't normal times and Zach has a rare disease that makes him particularly susceptible to the effects of any infection, including COVID-19.

"We delayed probably by a week  out of fear of going to the ER in terms of infection risk," said Isabel Jordan, the Squamish-based chair of the Rare Diseases Foundation.

Her son is doing fine now, but she still questions whether she made the right decision.

"One wonders if that fear kept us from finding out important information that we needed," Jordan said.

Earlier this week, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said British Columbians should be assured that it is still safe to go to the hospital.

But for people with complex medical issues, any decision that requires breaking out of isolation is complicated.

Not only are they more susceptible to serious illness, but people like Jordan worry about the quality of care they'll receive if they contract COVID-19. And with many of the medical supports they depend on currently restricted, they wonder how many disabled people will see their condition worsen or even die as an incidental consequence of this pandemic.

"I think there are going to be wide-ranging impacts on people, on patients and on families," Jordan said.

'A lot of anxiety about health care'

For Jordan, the concerns aren't just about her son. She is disabled as well and has a chronic lung disease. Her 15-year-old daughter Evie has asthma. And they all have a history of pneumonia.

"It's scary for us in terms of what happens if any of us were to get it," she said. "We have a lot of anxiety about health care right now."

In Pitt Meadows, Klara Cramer is feeling similar anxiety about her two-year-old son, Tomas, who has a rare neurodevelopmental disorder called GRIN-1 that has left him severely disabled. He has frequent seizures and lung damage caused by using a feeding tube.

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"Every cough is hard work and every chest infection is potentially life threatening," Cramer said.

Klara Cramer

Taking Tomas to the emergency room means driving all the way to Surrey Memorial Hospital, which has a specialized pediatric emergency department.

The cocktail of drugs that Tomas takes to manage his seizures is no longer working as well as it once did, but because of COVID-19, Cramer has resisted trying new medication out of fear it might cause new problems.

"Suddenly we are compromising his care and his quality of life because we have to eliminate the possibility of going to the hospital, unfortunately," she said.

For Jordan and her family, the current restrictions on provision of health care in B.C. are also taking a toll.

Jordan is unable to attend her regular hands-on physiotherapy appointments that help her deal with chronic pain, and an MRI she had scheduled for this week has been cancelled. On top of that, her lungs have been irritated by ash falling from a wildfire north of Squamish.

As B.C. considers loosening some of the tight restrictions that have been put in place, she'd like to see disabled people invited to the table to make sure their needs are considered.

"We can't treat one ... concern and ignore all the other ones. They don't go away because of COVID," she said.

'The worth of disabled people's lives'

Jordan also worries about what would happen if she or her son contracted the novel coronavirus and B.C.'s hospitals were overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients.

Ethical frameworks from around the world, including one created by the Canadian Medical Association, suggest that when resources like ventilators are scarce, first priority should be given to those most likely to survive and with the longest life expectancy.

These frameworks go so far as to argue it's justifiable to remove patients who are already on ventilators to free them up for higher priority patients.

Jordan wonders where that leaves her family.

"There's a huge societal bias around the worth of disabled people's lives," she said.

"I worry for my friends who already use ventilators and maybe because of their rare disease are probably only expected to live for another year or two. But they deserve that year or two  it's theirs to keep."

Klara Cramer

While the rest of society struggles with the limitations on daily life and anxiety caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, both Jordan and Cramer say the current reality isn't that different from normal life with a rare disease.

"We don't go on vacations because our comfort zone is literally 90 kilometres away from the hospital," Cramer said.

Jordan says she has a lot of sympathy for those who are having trouble adjusting to the uncertainty that COVID-19 has brought.

"We've been living with it in our family for a really long time, and everybody else got thrown into it in a finger snap," she said.

"Maybe there's something that the rare disease community, the disabled community can teach the rest of the world here. Listen to us."
South Africa bans wine exports during lockdown

South Africa is no longer allowing the export of wine while in Covid-19 lockdown, a move which is reported to be due to the fear of alcohol piracy.

At a press conference the countrys traditional affairs minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, said: The only alcohol that is allowed to be transported is the one that is used for commercial purposes, for our sanitiser and related issues but liquor that we drink is not allowed to be exported in the same way - it is not allowed to be sold.

The changes contradict the rules set nine days ago by transport minister Fikile Mbuala, who said wine could be exported around the world during the coronavirus crisis.

A statement from Wines of South Africa said: As an industry task team, we are deeply disappointed and shocked at this sudden change of direction, following extensive lobbying with various government agencies to relax lockdown measures pertaining to the export and sale of alcohol.

The livelihood and long-term future of our industry is in grave danger and therefore we will explore all avenues in this regard, We endeavour to keep all our members informed as further information becomes available and implore each and every one of you to adhere to the newly-imposed measures.

Related articles:
(CNN)  The coronavirus pandemic has dragged China's economy into its worst three-month period in decades  and the road toward recovery will likely be long. But the country may still eke out some growth this year, unlike its Western counterparts.

The world's second largest economy shrank 6.8% in the first quarter of 2020 compared to a year earlier, according to government statistics released Friday. That's slightly worse than analysts polled by Refinitiv were expecting, and amounts to about 693 billion yuan ($98 billion) in lost output.

While a contraction was expected, it's still a historic moment for China. The plunge is the worst for a single quarter that China has recorded since it started publishing those figures in 1992. It's also the first time China has reported an economic contraction since 1976, when Communist Party leader Mao Zedong's death ended a decade of social and economic tumult. The economy shrunk 1.6% that year.

China's three major engines for growth  consumer spending, exports and fixed asset investment  all sputtered as large swaths of the country were placed on lockdown in late January and early February to contain the spread of the virus. Retail spending dropped 19% last quarter, while exports plunged more than 13%. Fixed asset investment declined 16%.

A barometer for the world

The country's quarterly economic report is in some ways a barometer for the United States and Europe, which began to feel the full impact of the pandemic as the situation in China was starting to improve. While Beijing has faced criticism for its alleged lack of transparency early on in the pandemic, the country has been reporting a shrinking number of locally transmitted infections. And a lockdown on Wuhan  ground zero of the pandemic  was lifted earlier this month.

Still, China is far from returning to normal. There are still restrictions in place for many cities, even those that have come off lockdown. And economic data for March, while an improvement over the first two months of the year, suggest the recovery is tentative. Industrial output and exports, for example, remained weak as the rest of the world contends with disruption caused by the virus.

"The March data add to broader signs that China's economy is past the worst," wrote Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist for Capital Economics, in a research note. He added, though, that China may still not be fully acknowledging the extent of the downturn.

China's labor market continues to show signs of strain. The unemployment rate, which tracks jobless numbers in urban areas only, jumped to 5.9% in March  better than February's record high of 6.2%, but still worse than the 5.2% China recorded in December. That means 3.6 million more people were out of work in March compared to the end of last year, according to a CNN Business calculation using government data.

"China is in for a drawn-out recovery," Evans-Pritchard added.

Unemployment as a top priority

The country's unemployment rate is of particular concern for state authorities.

While the metric has often been criticized as too stable  official data has barely budged beyond 4% and 5% in recent years  messaging from Beijing before the coronavirus hit showed how concerned officials were that the existing economic slowdown would take a toll on jobs. The fact that China acknowledged record unemployment during the pandemic suggests the country knows it has a problem on its hands.

"Stability in employment might become the top policy priority for this year," said Chaoping Zhu, a global market strategist for J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

Job losses caused by the coronavirus have also weighed on consumer spending, another problem for a country that was already dealing with cooling domestic demand. Per capita income declined nearly 4% in the first quarter compared to last year. That lead to a 12.5% plunge in consumer spending, according to Friday's government data.

Zhu said those declines could push authorities to consider additional measures to ease the country's economic pain, including more rate cuts meant to make it cheaper for small businesses to borrow money and stay afloat. (China has already been spending billions to support its economy by pumping money into infrastructure projects to create jobs and reducing taxes on small businesses.)

Despite contraction, China could still grow this year

Even as China reels from the shock, the country could still end the year with a growing economy.

The International Monetary Fund earlier this week predicted that China's economy will grow 1.2% in 2020 before jumping 9.2% next year  making it the best performer among major economies.

That annual growth could come even as much of the rest of the world shrinks. The IMF expects the global economy to contract by 3% this year as it slumps into its worst recession this year since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Chinese officials seem wary of making predictions, though. While Beijing has set an annual GDP target every year since 1985, it has not yet done so for 2020. Asked whether the government could still set one this year, Mao Shengyong, spokesman for China's National Bureau of Statistics, said Friday he was not certain.

Even so, Chinese authorities on Friday were optimistic about the country's prospects, pointing specifically to the recent IMF forecast. If the IMF's predictions come true, China would average growth of 5% over the next two years, Mao said.

"The coronavirus has caused China economic losses and activity has been suppressed," he said. "[But] it may be unleashed next year."

Analysts also expect a faster recovery in China than elsewhere, bolstering its position in the world economy and continuing to close the gap with the West in terms of income and GDP per person.

"It will rebound quicker than Western economies to reach a larger share of the global economy," said Sebastien Galy, senior macro strategist at Nordea Investment.

This story was first published on CNN.com "China's economy just shrank for the first time in decades. It could still eke out growth this year"
Roger Yang is among many Toronto restaurateurs turning to delivery and pickup customers to help keep them afloat during the coronavirus shutdown.

Yang, whose vegan fine-dining firm Awai has spawned more easily deliverable Pizzeria Du, is also, as are many, chafing at substantial fees charged to eateries by popular third-party, app-based order services.

He signed up with Uber Eats, but found the delivery fee  its 30 per cent of the pizzas cost  too steep. Also, some delivery people messed up by putting a pizza sideways in a pouch, for example, putting him at risk for negative online customer reviews that can kill a business.

So Yang is looking at partnering with other restaurants in a delivery co-op and hopes something similar goes industry-wide, or that restaurants collectively force app services to cut fees that can range from 25 per cent to 40 per cent of orders.

All thats kind of hidden from the customers, says Yang of the eateries expense. He adds he has laid off all but a couple of employees, and plans to start making other dishes good to go.

Expectations that many restaurants, which typically have thin profit margins, will fail due to COVID-19 shutdowns have shone a spotlight on app-based services, as more people eat at home.

San Franciscos mayor recently imposed a temporary cap of 15 per cent on delivery app commissions. Some New Yorkers are pushing for a 10-per-cent cap in that city.

Toronto Mayor John Tory told the Star he has heard from restaurateurs. If his emergency powers allow him to impose an immediate, temporary cap on such fees to save some small businesses, he says he will.

Preliminary feedback from city legal suggests otherwise, Tory said, so, in the meantime, he has started phoning the major app-based delivery companies.

Im saying The (restaurants) are in a kind of an emergency situation right now  as we are as a city  so what can you do to help? Tory said of his calls.

Im saying I want you to brainstorm because you dont want me sitting here trying to dream about some way in which I can intervene on the governments part.

Companies hes reached so far argue that because they are multinational, making rules for a particular city is difficult. Others are startups yet to earn their own profits.

Delivery services contacted by the Star defended their conduct during the pandemic crisis, citing efforts to help communities at large and others to support the restaurant customer base they need to survive.

Uber Eats said its moves include waiving delivery fees for customers, boosting business for restaurants. The company is also waiving eateries fees for pickup orders made through its app..

DoorDash has reduced commissions it charges restaurants until the end of May and is offering free delivery for customers on Saturdays.

Skip The Dishes said it has a support package that also reduces commissions.

Tory said hell keep pressing the firms to do more.

Some of these restaurants told me they are losing money on each order, the mayor said. If you can imagine  if its $25 meal, then (the order services) are taking eight or nine bucks off the top.

David Rider is the Star's City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering city hall and municipal politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider

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I really believe the states need to have some unencumbered dollars that come in that will help us with the coming years budget. Every state has this problem. It just does, Pritzker said. So, I dont object, like I said, to people talking to our federal representatives with their opinions. I have certainly done that.
Chris Graythen/Getty

A parishioner who regularly attended services at a Louisiana mega-church that has made national headlines for defying social-distancing orders has died from coronavirus complicationsbut the churchs pastor claims its all a lie.

Tony Spell, the pastor of Life Tabernacle Church in Baton Rouge, was issued a misdemeanor summons last month for repeatedly violating a state ban on large gatherings amid the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the charges, he has continued to hold services including an Easter Sunday gathering that he claimed 1,345 people attended.

He previously claimed that his church was not at risk of being infected because coronavirus was politically motivated. Ahead of his Easter service, he told Reuters: Satan and a virus will not stop us... God will shield us from all harm and sickness. We are not afraid.

As Pastors Make Unusual Easter Plans, One Vows Satan and Virus Wont Stop 2000-Person Service

However, a church usher, 78-year-old Harold Orillion, died in Baton Rouges Our Lady of the Lake Hospital on Wednesday. His cause of death was listed as acute respiratory distress syndrome, 2nd pneumonia, 2nd COVID-19, East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner William Beau Clark said in a statement to The Daily Beast.

Local lawyer Jeffrey Wittenbrink, who attended several church events during the pandemic and represented Life Tabernacle in its legal challenge to Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards religious gatherings ban, also confirmed he was on oxygen support in a hospital on Thursday after testing positive for coronavirus.

Reached by phone by TV station WAFB, Spell disputed the coroners cause of death finding for Orillion. That is a lie, he said, without elaborating. He told another station, WVLA, which first reported on the death, that Orillion died of a broken heart after the parishioners son died the previous week, triggering early onset Parkinsons in Orillion.

Harold did not have Coronavirus, he was never on ventilator, he did not have COVID-19, he said.

Story continues

Wittenbrink had made numerous Facebook posts criticizing Louisianas lockdown restrictions and defending Spells right to continue holding large services. Will the government stop the virus? Or will God stop the virus? Jesus healed the sick. Mother Teresa and countless saints have attended the sick. We are quarantining the healthy, he wrote in one post.

He wrote that many members of Spells congregation were poor, had no internet access, and were bused in to worship because they have no cars, and he feeds themnot just spiritual food, but regular food as well. He said Spell is not being narcissistic, he is serving his flock.

1218400275 Pastor Tony Spell stands outside of Life Tabernacle Church before an Easter service on April 12. Chris Graythen/Getty

In an interview with The Daily Beast from his hospital bed on Thursday, he said he felt bad for potentially infecting others but remained defiant in his support of the church.

These restrictions are out of control, he said. Some governors think these emergency powers give them carte blanche... We should not give up our God-given rights so easily.

He said he attended Life Tabernacle on Easter Sunday along with Orillion, who was a lead usher. He was vibrant, he was literally bouncing around the church, he was very happy to be where he was, Wittenbrink said, adding that he thought Orillion would probably have been happy that attending church was one of his final activities.

He couldve got [coronavirus] anywhere, like I did. It could have been at Walmart, Target, Lowes, Home Depot, all places I went to where there was no social distancing going on, he said. At the church, parishioners get their temperature taken, are given hand sanitizer, and sit six feet apart, he added.

Wittenbrink serves as local counsel for former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, who is helping Spell to challenge Edwards statewide lockdown. He was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday after suffering a high fever and persistent cough, and said Friday that he hopes to be discharged on Sunday.

Spell did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.

To curb an unexpected explosion of coronavirus cases in the state, Edwards implemented a statewide stay-at-home order in March that, among other restrictions, banned gatherings of more than 10 people.

He called those who violate the ban selfish and grossly irresponsible, and said on Thursday that the state would not be among the first states to reopen based on the White House guidance released by President Donald Trump.

As of Thursday, there were at least 22,532 confirmed cases and 1,156 deaths in the state.

After charging Spell in March, Central Police Chief Roger Corcoran said the pastor had made reckless and irresponsible decisions that endangered the health of his congregation and our community.

Instead of showing the strength and resilience of our community during this difficult time, Mr. Spell has chosen to embarrass us for his own self-promotion, he said in a March 31 statement.

Spell has remained defiant, however, suggesting in an interview with TMZ that if any church members die from coronavirus, theyll be doing so in the name of God and freedom. People that can prefer tyranny over freedom do not deserve freedom, he said.

In a video posted on Wednesday, Spell asked parishioners to donate their $1,200 federal stimulus check to the church. In another video posted on Friday morning, he dedicated a song to people whove really been going through some storms and trials.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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The rush by countries to shut down schools was one of the first instinctive global responses as covid-19 began scything through populations. As some nations cautiously ease lockdowns, there is far less consensus on how and when to reopen classes.

A big question is what type of setting will work with kids being kids: mingling, playing and trading lunches.

But wider issues on how schools fit into the infection curve are also getting a closer look.

A study published April 6 in the Lancet - and a separate paper by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development - suggest that school closures are less important than workplace closures in stemming the spread of the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19.

Still, few reopening decisions are more sensitive than when to send students back to class. The huge range of policies around the world - some schools shut for the academic year and others places moving to reopen - offer a preview into the contrasting speeds and priorities for the eventual rebound from life under the pandemic.

Denmark is case in point.

It reopened lower-level schools Wednesday, but some parents argued it was too soon and vowed to keep their children home. France, Germany and Australia are among countries making plans to reopen schools, some as early as this month.

At the same time, educators and others worry about possible setbacks for children caused by extended schools closures, particularly for those who lack access to online schooling.

- - -

It all points to the central conundrum of this pandemic era: how to move away from the lockdowns without triggering a devastating second wave of infections.

"Anything we do when we exit lockdown is not without risk. But once we pass the peak, the balance of risks takes us to definitely gradually starting to reopen schools early in the exit from lockdown," said Russell Viner, an author of the Lancet study and British professor of adolescent medicine.

He argues data suggests children have not been superspreaders of the coronavirus. But schools, he said, should introduce social distancing, ensuring students do not mix during breaks, and should provide protective gear for teachers.

But some places are not yet ready. Italy, Spain and Austria will put shops, manufacturing and construction back to work before reopening schools. In Wuhan, China, the source of the outbreak, the lockdown was eased April 8, allowing 11 million people to get back to work - but not school.

Across the United States, school closures are a patchwork of policies. Some states, including Maryland, are considering opening before the end of the academic year. Other places, including Virginia and the District, have shut down schools through the summer.

"We're endlessly balancing risks," Viner said.

- - -

There are a few outliers: countries that did not close schools or even extend school holidays.

Tajikistan, an authoritarian former Soviet state in Central Asia, claims there are no covid-19 cases in its borders and schools are in session.

Nicaragua has bucked the trend in Central America, where some countries have taken aggressive measures against the coronavirus with curfews, quarantines and border closures. Nicaragua's public schools remain open and the government hasn't imposed restrictions on private- or public-sector employees. Pro-government marches and religious processions have continued.

Turkmenistan and Belarus also have generally rejected emergency health measures and have largely kept schools open - but extended holidays by a couple of weeks.

Other nations acknowledged the crisis but prioritized schools.

In Taiwan, deemed a success story in its handling of the coronavirus, students have been back at school since late February, after holidays were extended due to the virus. Sweden has kept schools open for children under 16, along with cafes, bars, restaurants and some other services.

But views on schools reopening vary wildly, even among neighbors and within countries.

Australia's government, having flattened the curve to less than 1% growth in daily cases, said medical advice has been consistent: The risks of keeping schools open was "very low," and schools remain the best place for children to learn. Yet some Australian states ignored this. Only about 5% of pupils, mainly children of essential services workers, are still in schools in some places.

"Our children's education hangs in the balance," Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Wednesday in a televised statement that was criticized by teacher union officials.

Morrison said swiftly reopening schools is crucial for "those students who we know won't get an education at home. It's a sad reality but we know it's true and we need to face it."

Australian Education Minister Dan Tehan said his 16-year-old daughter was returning to school, calling for schools across Australia to resume face-to-face classes within a month. New South Wales, Australia's largest state, plans to stagger pupils' return to school starting April 28.

- - -

School closures are intensely stressful for many parents, who are fearful their children may fall behind. High school seniors worry about how they may be graded and the impact on university admission. Studies also suggest extended school closures have a lasting impact.

According to UNESCO, 91% of students - more than 1.5 billion children are impacted by school closures, with nationwide closures in 191 countries. The U.N. agency warned that dropout rates are likely to climb after schools return. The longer the closures, the deeper the impact.

The Lancet study, led by University College London, found school closures could have a relatively small impact on the coronavirus's spread.

The study noted that school closures typically flatten the peak of outbreaks but have modest effects on the eventual number of cases. Children who stay out of school have half the number of daily interactions with other children but are more likely to mix with children from other schools, the authors note. School closures also hamper the ability of health-care workers to go to work.

David Isaacs, a pediatrician and professor of infectious diseases at the University of Sydney, said closing schools may be unnecessary to limit the spread.

"Of course, anyone who is a bit scared will keep their children at home," he said. "I don't think that's good for children and the whole of our normal living."

Children appear at very low risk of severe outcomes from covid-19 if they do become infected with the coronavirus. Statistics updated Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that in the United States from Feb. 1 to April 11, only three of the first 13,130 deaths officially attributed to covid-19 involved children under 15. From age 15 to 24, there were another 13 deaths.

- - -

Norway's schools reopen April 27 for grades one through four. Within the next three weeks, a host of other countries plan to follow for some students: New Zealand, Mexico, Germany and France are among them.

"Many children are missing out of school," French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday, "and there is an inequality in that there are those who don't have internet access and who can't be helped by their parents."

Israeli officials are considering the limited opening of some school programs for special education students before the end of April. Later, preschool, elementary, middle and high school programs would be phased in.

But the plan sparked a backlash from some parents. An Education Ministry spokeswoman said the ministry was moving with caution, looking at how to expand remote learning.

In China, some provinces reopened schools last month. Beijing and Shanghai have already reopened many businesses, but schools will come later: from April 27 to May 11.

Hong Kong, like mainland China and Macao, was among the first to close schools when the coronavirus hit, with widespread consensus that schools should close their doors, given the scars in Hong Kong society over the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 that took almost 300 lives in the territory.

Mickey Leung, an 18-year-old student in Hong Kong who will sit for a university entrance exam later this month, has to contend with the distraction of her brother playing computer games. Hong Kong schools remain closed.

"I find it really hard to concentrate at home. And on the other hand, anxiety over the virus has affected me psychologically, along with the constant changes in the date of the exam," she said.

Singapore kept schools open until April 8, citing early data that showed children were less susceptible to the virus and had milder symptoms. But it changed course after covid-19 cases rose tenfold in a month.

In Russia, where new cases are rising swiftly, only 8% of schools are running classes in person.

Olga Ryazanova, whose son is in the ninth grade in Moscow, is worried.

"My opinion is that this situation will definitely have a negative impact on the quality of my child's education. You need to have a strong will, high self-organization and motivation to study in this situation. Not everyone has that, unfortunately.

"It is the first time we've had this situation with a killer virus," she added. "Everybody's confused. So I wouldn't dare to demand the opening of schools in this situation."

- - -

Dixon reported from Moscow, Adam from London and Patrick from Sydney. The Washington Post's Steve Hendrix and Ruth Eglash in Jerusalem, Shibani Mahtani and Tiffany Liang in Hong Kong, James McAuley in Paris, Mary Beth Sheridan in Mexico City, Joel Achenbach in Washington and Natasha Abbakumova in Moscow contributed to this report.
An Investigation Into PEPP-PT

This post covers an ongoing situation and will be updated as things progress.

Update 7 (April 27 st , 8:00 AM CEST): Over 400 of Frances cryptographers and computer security experts have signed a just-published letter calling on the French government to not adopt any contact tracing application before due scrutiny has been laid by the applied cryptography community.

Update 6 (April 21 st , 6:00 PM CEST): some of the best Inria scientists that I know have just published a highly critical (and excellent) whitepaper outlining the dangers of the centralized French contact tracing initiatives published over the last week (including ROBERT, see Update 4 below), as well as decentralized approaches such as DP-3T. While the paper is ultimately highly sceptical of contact tracing in general including both centralized and decentralized approaches, its absolutely worth a read and may be the best analysis of privacy-preserving contact tracing that exists so far.

Update 5 (April 20th, 8:00PM CEST): a letter signed by nearly 300 cryptographers and scientists has been published, decrying centralized efforts encouraged by PEPP-PT and urging for a stronger focus on privacy-preserving contact tracing.

Update 4: Inria Proposes ROBERT, a Centralized Protocol

On April 18th at roughly 6:00PM CEST, Inria, under its affiliation with PEPP-PT and in collaboration with Fraunhofer, published documentation for ROBERT  ROBust and privacy-presERving proximity Tracing protocol on GitHub. ROBERTs protocol specification came alongside a PDF statement from the Inria team titled The Misleading Debate about Centralized Versus Decentralized Approaches, which claimed the following:

Several approaches described as decentralised have been proposed. However, a fully decentralized approach is not realistic for proximity tracing. [] The debate about proximity tracing applications is of high importance to all the EU Member States and all the fundamental rights of individuals residing in those states. We underline the importance of this debate and encourage to compare technical solutions based on privacy risk assessment rather than on ill-defined catchwords such as centralised vs decentralised.

Nevertheless, it is truly striking just to what degree the protocol specification describes a system that is centralized:

What is more striking is that the design still claims to have a security and privacy guarantee of user anonymity from a central authority. Section 1.3 of version 1.0 of the ROBERT specification states the following:

Anonymity of users from a central authority. The central authority should not be able to learn information about the identities or locations of the participating users, whether diagnosed as COVID-positive or not.

And yet, this assumption is only meant to hold under an honest authority:

The authority running the system, in turn, is honest-but-curious. Specifically, it will not deploy spying devices or will not modify the protocols and the messages. However, it might use collected information for other purposes such as to re-identify users or to infer their contact graphs. We assume the back-end system is secure, and regularly audited and controlled by external trusted and neutral authorities (such as Data Protection Authorities and National Cybersecurity Agencies).

And yet, Section 2.2 states the following:

When a user wants to use the service, she installs the application, App, from an official App store (Apple or Google). App then registers to the server that generates a permanent identifier (ID) and several Ephemeral Bluetooth Identifiers (EBIDs). The back-end maintains a table, IDTable, that keeps an entry for each registered ID. The stored information are anonymous and, by no mean, associated to a particular user (no personal information is stored in IDTable).

This is a genuinely self-contradicting design. From a first read, it really does appear that all of ROBERT is built on trust from central authorities and the assumption that they will behave honestly and be impervious to third-party compromise. I am unable to determine how this is a strong, or even serious and realistic approach to real user privacy. Given the level of trust assurances that ROBERT, as a system, is attributing to authorities, and given that authorities are responsible for generating, storing and communicating all pseudonyms directly to users to their devices, what security property can actually achieved in ROBERT in terms of pseudonymity between authorities and users?

Furthermore, it appears that the trust model for ROBERT is such that the server allocates pseudonyms and is thereafter trusted to never examine the social graph or any network relationship graph for users, ever. How could this possibly be a reasonable assumption for a privacy-preserving protocol?

I have filed a GitHub issue with my concerns and will keep updating this post as I progress with my analysis.

Earlier Updates

Update 3 (April 18 th , 4:48 PM CEST): At roughly noon CEST, the ETH Zurich and EPFL logos were removed from the list of sponsors on the PEPP-PT website. At 4:00 PM CEST, Prof. Dr. Cas Cremers posted on Twitter that the Helmholtz Center for Information Security (CISPA) had also withdrawn from PEPP-PT.

Update 2 (April 17 th , 7:13 PM CEST): PEPP-PT uploaded a GitHub repository containing a single PDF draft of PEPP-PTs closed, proprietary PEPP-PT NTK protocol, and then removed the GitHub repository minutes after for unknown reasons. Upon inspection, the PDF appears to be a hastily written overview of contact tracing protocols in general and does not include any information in the way of an actual protocol or contact tracing technology design. Prof. Dr. Ralf Sasse noted on Twitter that the proposed design sketch already poses privacy problems and appears to violate the GDPR.

Update 1 (April 17th, 1:54PM CEST): In an internal Zoom call, PEPP-PT just committed to releasing their protocol documentation later today on GitHub.

Original Article

On April 3rd, 2020, a team of 26 European researchers, led by the EPFLs Prof. Dr. Carmela Troncoso, published the whitepaper for the Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing protocol, DP-3T, meant to enable privacy-preserving contract tracing mechanisms at scale in order to help track and manage the COVID-19 pandemic in the general population.

DP-3T has attracted substantial attention, with many fruitful discussions on its GitHub repository as well as reasoned critiques by a handful in the cryptography community. Nevertheless, on April 10th, it was announced that a close variant of DP-3T had been adopted by Apple and Google for roll-out on all of their mobile devices, and the project seems to be moving forward productively. As a cryptography researcher, I personally contributed some outside feedback into DP-3T by writing a Verifpal model for it and participating in GitHub discussions regarding its security properties and wireless communication capabilities.

The purpose of this post is to track and document an emerging controversy between the DP-3T community and an organization called Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT), which claims to represent a pan-European effort at arriving to a proximity tracing standard but which has been accused of opacity and of dishonest political behavior.

Sequence of Events

The earliest record of PEPP-PTs existence appears to be on April 1st. By April 10th, the website mentioned DP-3T in the following context:

Our privacy core: At PEPP-PT we support centralized and decentralized approaches and each country chooses which is suitable for their legislation. The DP-3T approach is the project currently under review for a decentralized implementation of the crypto part of an end-to-end implementation. Anything we provide is based on voluntary participation, provides anonymity, does not use personal data nor geolocation information, operates in full compliance with GDPR, and has been certified and tested by security professionals.

On or around April 16th, the above text was erased from the PEPP-PT website. On April 17th, Coindesk reported on this removal, claiming that it was done without notice:

The DP3T team, which outlined its proposal to CoinDesk earlier this week, was not told the protocol was being removed from the site, and was not invited to attend a PEPP-PT call Friday with the consortiums various partners, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Prof. Dr. Kenneth Paterson, one of the researchers working on DP-3T, expressed his concerns thus:

Their system is closed and not open to review by external experts. We cant look at a specification, said Paterson. We cant look at code. So the system could be full of bugs. It could have a backdoor for the security services. No one outside their closed project can tell.

The concern is that PEPP-PT is attempting to steer its partners into an opaque, centralized approach to contact tracing instead of following the public academic standard maintained by DP-3T. It seems worthwhile at this stage to look into PEPP-PT and to see what can be gleaned throughout their public presence.

Who is PEPP-PT?

PEPP-PT appears to be the brainchild of Hans-Christian Boos, founder of Arago GmbH and member of the Digital Council of the German Federal Government. Booss name is listed on the websites impressum and headlines every communique that PEPP-PT has. PEPP-PTs press communique also lists Prof. Dr. Marcel Salathe of EPFL and Prof. Dr. Thomas Wiegand of TU Berlin as interview and discussion partners.

It is worth mentioning that no other name is available in any disclosed PEPP-PT materials whatsoever, be it their website, press releases, or anything else. Only these three names appear, and the latter two very sparingly. Really, the only name that appears to be strongly associated with PEPP-PT despite its 40+ partners is that of Hans-Christian Boos. Booss online presence has him claiming to be an expert on Artificial Intelligence and many other fields in IT, at many times professing his expertise in a field precisely at the moment in which its name was becoming a public buzzword. Boos is also listed as a participant in the 2019 Bilderberg meeting (see Bilderberg meetings).

But what is perhaps most concerning about Boos is that in an interview with Der Tagesspiegel on April 17th, Boos is quoted as saying:

For Germany, I favor a centralized solution [for contact tracing]. (Fur Deutschland stelle ich mir eine Server-Losung vor.)

On April 17th, Marcel Salathe, who was still listed as the second name out of the three names in PEPP-PTs press communique, publicly disassociated from the project:

I am personally disassociating from PEPP-PT. While I do believe strongly in the core ideas (international, privacy-preserving), I cant stand behind something I dont know what it stands for. Right now, PEPP-PT is not open enough, and it is not transparent enough. 1 3  Marcel Salathe (@marcelsalathe) April 17, 2020

On the same day, PEPP-PT was publicly attacked by the DP-3T community, including Prof. Dr. Michael Veale and Paterson. The criticism of Veale, Paterson and others seems to center around the fact that despite its long list of prestigious members, PEPP-PT has not yet produced any technical or research output whatsoever, and seems to be, on the contrary, withdrawing further into itself:

#DP3T entered as a candidate to so-called PEPP-PT in good faith, but it is now clear that powerful actors pushing centralised databases of Bluetooth contact tracing do not, and will not, act in good faith. PEPP-PT is a Trojan horse.  Michael Veale (@mikarv) April 16, 2020

Its striking how, aside from issuing press releases and accruing industry partners, PEPP-PT has not accomplished anything whatsoever, aside from continuously regressing its practices into opacity. As it stands, it seems that PEPP-PT was established via the following chronology:

PEPP-PT propped itself up on the legitimacy of academic partners by claiming to champion open standards like DP-3T. PEPP-PT then locked out these same academics and only permitted governments and industry to participate in closed discussions. PEPP-PT is using these closed discussions in order to attempt to sell its proprietary, centralized counter-proposal, which would allow less privacy-preserving properties than DP-3T and would be, by design, shielded from public feedback.

This is not only a dishonest way, but also a very dangerous way to coordinate a crisis response. It not only undermines open, independent and peer-reviewed research practice at the times in which it is needed most, but actually is appearing to exploit them in order to further a discrete agenda.

Established Facts

Despite claiming to represent the European effort for a contact tracing technology, and despite having more than 40 partners in academia, industry and government, PEPP-PT has not produced any open or transparent solution, draft, public call, or any research initiative whatsoever for contact tracing.

Despite its claims of having more than 130 (increased to 200 on April 17 th ) members across eight European countries, includes scientists, technologists, and experts from well known international research institutions and companies, only Hans-Christian Booss name keeps showing up, and no technical or research output has been made public by the effort.

(increased to 200 on April 17 ) members across eight European countries, includes scientists, technologists, and experts from well known international research institutions and companies, only Hans-Christian Booss name keeps showing up, and no technical or research output has been made public by the effort. PEPP-PT has disavowed DP-3T without justification and without disclosing its decision to the DP-3T team. In return the DP-3T team has disavowed PEPP-PT and has accused it of being a Trojan horse for a centralized contact tracing standard.

Is PEPP-PT a Scam?

There is a lot that seems to suggest that PEPP-PT is Hans Christian Booss attempt to capitalize on the fear and uncertainty of major European institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to drag them into a group which he leads but which is nevertheless opaque, centralized, ill-managed and untrustworthy. PEPP-PTs behavior currently appears to be political and irresponsible. At the very least, it can be said that PEPP-PT has not earned the institutional credibility required for an entity such as itself being charged with devising a protocol that deals in matters relating to a major global crisis.

In order to address the situation, PEPP-PT should likely do the following:

Explain its contact-tracing efforts, justify the shift away from publicly documented, open designs such as DP-3T and name alternatives.

Reveal the names of the precise technologists and scientists working on alternative contact tracing protocols, if any, as well as their threat models, security guarantees and other design elements.

Publicly disclose a governing process and governing body that is more nuanced and legitimate than a handful of companies and institutions united by Hans-Christian Boos for undetermined purposes and in closed circumstances.

Until the above is accomplished, I strongly discourage anyone from associating with PEPP-PT. Furthermore, I ask all European partners to PEPP-PT to justify their participation in such an opaque and unilaterally-led effort, which appears to be disavowing public standards for solving urgent public problems. This request applies particularly strongly to European academic and public institutions, such as CISPA, EPFL, ETH Zurich, Inria, KU Leuven, and others.

I will continue to monitor this story and will update this post as more unfolds.
AS coronavirus pandemic continues plaguing the world, violence against women and girls is increasing globally, according to a UN policy brief on the impact of coronavirus on women released recently.

A combination of socioeconomic stresses and measures to restrict contact and movement of people has led to dense settings in some communities.

In Africa, over half of the 200 million people living in urban areas live in informal neighbourhoods where vulnerable conditions are magnified by limited access to water and sanitation.

Incidences of drug abuse, reduced peer support and limited access to services among other factors, are also likely to increase in some African countries.

In Tanzania, both in the Mainland and Zanzibar, police, civil society organisations and the media report cases of domestic violence with organisations such as UN Women have already devised new strategies to support strengthening of prevention and response mechanisms to gender-based violence in the new Covid-19 context.

Although Tanzania is not on lock-down, quarantine restrictions are affecting formal and informal businesses, including women cross border traders.

The closure of schools and tertiary institutions is also increasing the pressure on parents who have to make sure that schooling for their children continues in these new settings while some recent media reports in the country have raised risks of female genital mutilation and child marriage.

African Women Leaders Network chairperson Mary Rusimbi says Tanzania is currently facing one of its most difficult times in recent years.

She says the closure of schools and reduced economic activities is exerting financial stress on families and in particular, poor households.

Such a context potentially heightens the burden of women and girls financially as well as in caring for the young and sick ones at home, says Ms Rusimbi.

She further explains that the national response actions should recognise these conditions, which are likely to trigger incidences of domestic violence and strengthen essential services for survivors of violence.

There is also an urgent need for recognition and a response that will address specific needs for women and girls human defenders.

Experience has taught us that in situations as these, they may be violently targeted for protecting survivors of violence in their communities, she adds.

The government should, therefore, invest in the protection of service providers and expand shelters for survivors, alongside supporting capacity rapid assessments, risk assessments, gender assessments, safety planning and case management adapted to the Covid-19 emergency context.

Ms Rusimbi further explains that these interventions will help facilitate access to support and response to practical needs of poor women and girls, including marketplaces, adding that: Some interventions can also include distributing masks and other safety equipment, establishing centres of information and education on the impact of the crisis on women and girls.

Psychosocial support for survivors of gender-based violence, she says, can also be delivered through running online counselling services that can help survivors raise their voices and report incidences.

Technology-based solutions such as short mobile phone messages, online tools for collecting data and evidence of violence and social support networks have become more important due to social distancing.

Recent reports on the Covid-19 situation in the Eastern and Southern Africa region show a disturbing trend of gender-based violence in some countries.

In some developed countries that have efficient reporting systems, there is evidence that gender-based violence has increased by more than 25 per cent.

Ms Rusimbi emphasises a need to improve accessibility of services and reporting of GBV cases by women and girls, particularly in rural areas.

In view of reduced activities by community-based organisations, I would recommend Tanzanias response plan to heighten advocacy and awareness campaigns through community radios and allocate safe spaces where women and girls can easily report cases without the fear of perpetrators, she says.

UN Women Representative Hodan Addou says her agency is supporting the government to ensure response efforts protect the gains achieved in gender equality and womens empowerment.



The pandemic has expanded our mandate to monitor and gather data on emerging incidences of gender-based violence in line with the current emergency situation. We will support innovation that can strengthen and ease accessibility of services and promote collaboration with partners to increase education and awareness on the emerging GBV issues both within communities and among service providers.

Emphasising social distancing, Ms Addou says innovation is the new norm at UN Women to ensure the continuation of GBV prevention initiatives.

We will work with the ministries responsible for gender and women issues both in Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar through non-physical interventions.

Some of the strategies we plan to use to support GBV prevention and response is working with the media, use of information, education and communication packages to raise awareness and change behaviour and utilise online platforms, Ms Addou says.

UN Resident Coordinator Zlatan Milisic says the UN country team is developing a new framework in line with the global United Nations initiatives to support the emergency and development dimensions of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The UN has been and will support the government in a number of ways, working with other partners. Importantly, we intend to support the government to integrate mechanisms that will ensure the protection of women and girls as part of their immediate response to Covid-19, and in longer-term recovery packages, Mr Milisic says.

He says UN Tanzania will leverage on existing global and national campaigns against gender-based violence, to scale up initiatives with innovation with a view to new dynamics presented the epidemic.

As the UN system in Tanzania, we have been ensuring that gender equality and the empowerment of women is always taken into consideration in the development, implementation and monitoring of our activities and this will continue supporting the Covid-19 response, he says.
In the days leading up to Thursdays COVID-19 donation drive, Stafford City Councilmember Alice Chen spent countless hours on the phone, reaching out to her friends and supporters from the Chinese and Asian community seeking personal protective equipment for Staffords police officers, EMS workers and fire fighters.

Every day I was on the phone. I made thousands of phone calls because I saw there was a real need. Our front line responders needed our help, Chen said. As I was making calls, I discovered many of my friends from the Chinese and Asian community really wanted to help but didnt know where to start.

Stafford and greater Fort Bend County is home to a large community of Asian residents, including many with business and family ties to China who recently witnessed first-hand the devastating effect of COVID-19 on the Chinese community. They were determined to offer support to their fellow Americans now facing the same threat.

Chen, an American citizen who was born in China and joined the city council last year, said she was awed and inspired by the outpouring of support for Staffords first responders.

I was so moved witnessing how people wanted to help one another, she said. To me, our city and our community is a family and it doesnt matter where you come from and I began to realize how this crisis has united our community and caused us to become stronger. We are all in this together.

With an estimated population of 18,312, Stafford is one of the smaller cities in Fort Bend County and its tight-knit community has been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 crisis. Unlike Sugar Land, Houston and many larger cities, Stafford doesn't quality for newly-established federal programs for cities facing economic damage from the COVID-19 shutdown. In addition, as a city with a zero-property tax, the recent shuttering of local business leveled a forceful punch as the city budget relies heavily on sales tax revenues to pay salaries and cover operating costs.

Congressman Al Green helped organize the donation drive for Stafford and nearby Missouri City first-responders. He joined forces with local and state elected officials including Rep. Ron Reynolds, Fort Bend County Judge KP George, Fort Bend County Precinct 2 Constable Daryl Smith, Stafford Mayor Leonard Scarcella and Missouri City Mayor Yolanda Ford.

MORE FROM KRISTI NIX: Together, We are Stronger Coalition donates supplies to Sugar Land

We want to make sure we come out of this strong and that we are able to combat this virus. And in this moment, no one should be left behind and no community should be left behind, Green said. We also know this is a critical time for our first responders. They are on the front line, risking their health and their lives and we need to make sure they have mask and the protective equipment they need to do their job.

When Chen arrived at the Stafford Center the morning of the donation drive, she noticed a feeling of excitement in the air and donations began arriving. A number of Missouri City residents arrived with boxes of supplies and checks delivered personally to Mayor Ford and a handful of Fort Bend County residents also arrived with checks and supplies.

But for Staffords first-responders, Councilmember Chens call to action was answered by a small army of the communitys Chinese and Asian residents and supporters from other communities, including a large number of the Asian business community and residents with business or family ties to China. Event organizers said the donations for Stafford included medical supplies and checks delivered by individuals, business owners and volunteers from the Chinua University Alumni Association, Joint College Alumni Association of Taiwan, Alliance for Disaster Relief, United Chinese Association, Pearland Chinese Association, Chinese Community Center and Mark and Alice Lee, Houston Tsinghua Alumni Association, Citi Trends, Fort Bend County Attorney, Asian Chamber of Commerce, Hexion, Houston Guangxi Association and the Houston Chinese American Coalition. In total, organizers said approximately seven pallets of donations valued at more than $23,500 were dropped off during the event. Donated medical supplies included N95 masks, surgical masks, gowns, shoe covers, hand sanitizer, face shields, and disinfectant wipes and spray. Additionally, volunteers from non-profit provided event assistance and staff training.

RELATED: In Houston's new normal, a different curve emerges: Outward racism toward Asian Americans

Eileen Huang from the Sino Professionals Association arrived in a large truck to deliver a special donation for the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center of 30,000 surgical masks and 1,000 protective cover-all suits provided by the Houston Chinese American Coalition. Huang said and she other members knew how COVID-19 had affected the communities in China.

We definitely understand what has happened to others and are aware of the dangers and now its something that it is here in our communitiy, Huang said. We came because we wanted to help our home. We wanted to help protect the front-line workers and other people who are out there working to protect us. We wanted to protect our own community as much as we could.

After the donation ended and volunteers were still tabulating the collections, Chen said the effort reflected the citys diverse community in its fight against its shared enemy.

When we work together, she said, there's nothing that we as Americans can't overcome."

knix@hcnonline.com
The Vision for Alternative Development (VALD) has said there are overwhelming evidences that smokers are at higher risk of getting other respiratory infections and compromising their immune systems.



The VALD, therefore, advised all smokers to halt the habit and adapt to healthier lifestyles to keep their immune systems stronger.



In a release copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Friday, it said the World Health Organisation, which was leading the global battle against the COVID-19 pandemic, has warned that "any kind of tobacco smoking is harmful to the bodily systems, including the cardiovascular and respiratory systems," as they were high risk factors to COVID-19 infections.



"We have been told by experts including the Ministry of Health, WHO, and other respected institutions across the globe that people with underlying health challenges stand high risk to contracting COVID-19."



The Tobacco Atlas reveals that in 2016, tobacco killed 75 men and 21 women every week in Ghana, and that in the era of COVID-19, these numbers were bound to increase.



Further data also showed that 94,400 people, representing 43 per cent, die from Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in Ghana, presenting a situation about health policy, which could not be overlooked, it said.



Many countries had, therefore, taken bold and practical steps to protect their citizens from death or becoming severely ill when they are exposed to the virus.



However, in Ghana the smoking of cigarette and shisha among the youth was highly unregulated even though the Public Health Act (Act 851) bans smoking in public places.



"This is an opportunity for the Government to, as a matter of urgency, ban all forms of tobacco products just as other countries have done for the good of public health," it said.



Reports also states that tobacco smoking could be deadly for non-smokers as well, adding that: "Second-hand tobacco smoke contributes to heart diseases, cancer, and other diseases causing an additional 1.2 million deaths annually".



The release indicated that several health authorities have also proven the fact that tobacco smoking weakened lung defence and made it harder to fight COVID-19.



It urged the public to continue to adhere to all precautionary measures, which include frequent handwashing of hands with soap under running water for at least 20 seconds, use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers to help in the fight against COVID-19, practicing social distancing, and reporting symptoms early for help.

Source: GNA









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In the Ivano-Frankivsk region, where the large number of infected by Covid-19 registered among the local population, authorities will not close churches during the Easter holidays and will not strenghten quarantine restrictions. This was reported by the 112 Ukraine correspondent.

"They did not introduce additional restrictive measures, additional quarantine for the weekend during the Easter holidays. Authorities rely more on people's consciousness. Both doctors, and city authorities, and priests of all faiths: everyone calls on people to stay home at holidays," the correspondent said.



She also noted that over the past 24 hours 35 new cases of infection were recorded in the region, the total number reached 462. Ivano-Frankivsk region is the leader in anti-rating by the number of Covid-19 diseases.



"I note that in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, in addition to the large number of diseases among the local population, doctors are also sick. The main reason is that when the spread of the infection began, many people hid their symptoms," the correspondent added.

Related: Ukraine's public transport to resume work not earlier than June, - Minister of Infrastructure



She said that most of the local residents interviewed claim that they do not plan to go to church. In Ivano-Frankivsk itself, policemen periodically walk the streets. They check if people wear face masks.

Last year, about 7.5 million citizens took part in religious ceremonies for Easter. If this year at least a tenth of the church comes, then Ukraine will receive another surge of coronavirus. The director of the Department of Communication of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Artem Shevchenko stated this, the website of the ministry reports.

"To prevent this from happening, we are negotiating with the Councils of Churches and asking to encourage the flocks not to come to the service, but to stay at home," he said.

Shevchenko also said that over 22 thousand police and guards will be on duty near the temples.

Once again, we urge citizens not to come to religious services this year. In case this happens, law enforcement officers will carry out explanatory work so that people observe special security measures and keep the necessary distance. If you cant prevent people from reaching out to public awareness, according to the head of the National Police Ihor Klimenko, law enforcement officers are ready to resort to tougher measures - administrative penalties," he stressed.
Wherever youre reading this, its likely that working from home is likely to be your reality for the foreseeable future. Until the COVID-19 infection curve is flattened and the pandemic quelled, most of us are going to have to get used to a new way of working. Of course, if youre already a freelancer or self-employed youll be well prepared for the practicalities of working from home. Those new to remote working, however, will likely be experiencing some friction as they adapt to the realities of using a home network for business use.

With children out of school and spouses also working remotely, households demands on their networks have increased exponentially. Moreover, this has placed significant strain on broadband infrastructures in areas where there has been significant under investment.

The reality is that your productivity is intrinsically tied to your internet connection. Remote workers can lose up to 40 minutes a day to a slow internet connection. Whatever youre doing from home, it behoves you to ask yourself some serious questions about your homes current broadband provision...

Can your current provider cope?

In light of the current pandemic, telecoms watchdog Ofcom has encouraged all remote workers to rethink their current home broadband, both in terms of their home and mobile provision. All over the world, countries are concerned that their aging broadband infrastructures will be unable to cope with the sustained rise in demand.

With more users relying on their broadband to work as well as keeping themselves entertained by streaming and downloading all kinds of multimedia content, providers have never faced such a strain on the services they provide. Take a look at your providers website and find out what theyre doing to provide continuity and quality of service.

Will you get the speed you need?

With the whole household potentially using the internet at the same time, will you get the speed and responsibility you need to carry out your duties as you would in the office? If youre currently using a copper wire connection, the reality is probably not.

Not only are fibre broadband connections faster and more reliable, their infrastructures are newer and better maintained. If youre able to upgrade to fibre broadband at this time, its highly recommended.

How will you maintain security at home?

Working from home raises certain security considerations. Workplaces invest heavily in their digital and physical security infrastructures to protect their data. Home networks, however, lack many of the security safeguards put in place by companies. If you routinely handle sensitive data and want to keep it secure over your wireless network, you should consider swapping your current router to a DD-WRT router. These use a different kind of operating system and have a range of security benefits. They offer the ability to use multiple SSIDs and VLANS as well as Port Forwarding and the ability to route traffic through a VPN automatically.

They offer a faster, more reliable and more secure connection whatever your provider may be.

Can you get a wired connection to your router?

Its unlikely that youll be at your most productive using a wireless router. Even a high-quality Wifi 6 router pales in comparison to a wired connection. Why is a wired connection so much faster than its wireless counterpart? This video by TechQuickie does a good job of explaining it in just over 5 minutes.

Wired connections cannot be weighed down with traffic from multiple devices at the same time like Wifi connections can. They offer much more consistent speeds with less chance of performance interruption (which can lead to productivity and data loss).

Should you establish usage rules during working hours?

If youre unable to change your broadband provision at this time, you might want to consider implementing rules for the rest of the family during your working hours. This can lighten the load on your network and allow you to maintain peak productivity.

This might be a great opportunity for your family to rediscover the benefits of physical media and non-digital games and pastimes which have kept us entertained for generations before we relied on the digital realm to keep us entertained.

Do you also need to rethink your phone tariff?

Finally, as well as rethinking your broadband provision, you should certainly consider rethinking your phone tariff. Making numerous outbound calls for work can become very costly for most home tariffs. Consider upgrading to something that offers unlimited calls, at least while youre likely to be working from home.
In 1992, the United States Department of Health and Human Services convened an expert panel to determine whether the 10 Steps program was suitable for the American health care system. In 1994, the committee endorsed the approach and recommended creating an independent national authority to certify hospitals as Baby-Friendly, called Baby-Friendly U.S.A. (B.F.U.S.A.).

Trish MacEnroe, chief executive officer of B.F.U.S.A., said that numerous studies have supported the initiatives 10 Steps backbone in increasing breastfeeding rates. If breastfeeding doesnt get off to a good start, its hard to continue, MacEnroe said.

But Dr. Christie del Castillo-Hegyi, M.D., an E.R. physician in Arkansas, said that the problem is less with the W.H.O.s 10 Steps approach, and more with the programs implementation.

Baby-Friendly U.S.A., for instance, requires each hospital to decide for itself how it wants to fulfill the 10 Steps. This means that hospitals may not have adequate staff or policies in place that would ensure that the B.F.U.S.A. accreditation guidelines are met safely, said Regina Cardaci, Ph.D., R.N., a nursing professor at New York University.

On the Fed Is Best website, parents and health care providers tell stories of babies who were dropped or nearly suffocated by exhausted moms trying to breastfeed. Dr. Cardaci said that she had seen moms in Baby-Friendly hospitals who were given shots of Demerol, an opioid pain medication that can cause drowsiness, and then immediately left alone in rooms so that they could have skin-to-skin time and try to breastfeed. If a mom requests formula, or if shed like for her baby to be taken to the nursery, she must sign a consent form that acknowledges that shes been advised of the dangers of her requests. Some families sneak formula into the hospital because nurses and lactation consultants wont provide it.

These stories are heartbreaking, MacEnroe, of Baby-Friendly U.S.A., said. The initiative is meant to educate families on the benefits of breastfeeding so that they can make an informed choice, she said: Safety is the first priority. If a step cant be done safely, it shouldnt be done.

Indeed, the 10 Steps program states that formula should be given if its medically necessary. This includes anything from a hungry baby, MacEnroe said, to a mom deciding she still doesnt want to breastfeed after nurses have briefed her on the potential negatives of using formula. But according to Dr. del Castillo-Hegyi, Baby-Friendly hospitals will often still push for exclusive breastfeeding, even when formula is clearly needed. In February 2012, for instance, Landon Johnson, who was just 3 days old, went into cardiac arrest from malnutrition and dehydration because his mother, Jillian, wasnt producing any milk. Instead of giving her son formula, Jillian said that nurses at the Baby-Friendly hospital where she gave birth had advised her to try various herbs to increase her milk supply. After Landon spent two weeks in the NICU, his parents turned off life support when it became clear he had suffered irreversible, deadly brain damage.
Karan Johar said that it is the moral responsibility of every individual to help those affected by the lockdown due to the coronavirus

Mumbai: Filmmaker Karan Johar on Saturday announced his support to various relief funds and a host of NGOs to help those affected by the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

(Click here to follow LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak)

The producer will be donating to PM-CARES and Maharashtra Chief Minister's Relief Fund through his banner Dharma Productions.

The production house will also be helping out not-for-profits such as Give India Fundraisers, GOONJ, Zomato Feeding India, International Association for Human Values (IAHV) and Producers Guild of India.

"Over the past month India has stood united in this decision to stay home and stay safe until we overcome this pandemic. But there is so much more to do in order to win the fight against this dreaded disease," the production house said in a statement.

Check out the post

"With the lockdown being extended, it''s only going to get harder on everyone, especially those workers and technicians who rely on daily wages for their livelihood. They are in a situation in which they don''t have clarity on where their next meal is coming from...and that can be scary.... very scary," it added.

The company said that it is the moral responsibility of every individual to help those affected by the lockdown.

"They are in this situation through no fault of their own, and we believe it''s our moral responsibility to help them as much as we possibly can that is why the entire Dharma family has come together to extend our support to the various causes initiated by the government and host of NGOs to help those affected by this lockdown.

"There is still a lot to be done, and this is our contribution to the cause. Let us all unite and fight COVID together," the statement added.

According to the health ministry, death toll due to COVID-19 rises to 480 in country; cases climb to 14,378.

(With inputs from Press Trust of India)
Kaitlin Bennett, who is known as "Gun Girl" from her pictures while attending Kent State University, has been accused of making anti-Semitic jokes in newly released messages between herself and her organisation, Liberty Hangout.

Ms Bennett gained attention from the public after images surfaced of the then-college student carrying her AR-10 rifle on the Kent, Ohio college campus for graduation pictures.

Using this notoriety, she's gone on to be a controversial figure of the alt-right movement. One of her most recent outlandish statements included her willingness for women to give up their right to vote so she could continue to carry guns.

"Honestly, letting women vote in this country wasn't one of the best ideas," she tweeted this week. "Females vote with emotion and overwhelmingly support Democratic feel-good policies that take away our ACTUAL rights. I'd rather lose my 'right' to vote than lose my right to defend myself with a firearm!"

But now Ms Bennett has found herself in more controversy after screenshots of private messages from 2017 were published by It'sGoingDown.org, a far-left news site. The site published screengrabs of the anti-Semitic messages that were originally obtained by Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists.

In the messages between Ms Bennett and other members of Liberty Hangout, the group shared pictures of someone and wrote "they looked Jewish."

Ms Bennett also attacked Turning Point USA, an alt-right media group, in the messages. In 2018, the woman had a public falling out with the group because she thought they strayed away from "alt-right" messaging.

One message called the media group "Turning Point Israel."

"I bet they have a looottt of Jewish and Israel first donors," Ms Bennett wrote, adding she would donate her "Christmas gifts" to the Jewish country.

Another person then responded to Ms Bennett using three parenthesis around the word "they" to reference the media group under attack. The use of the parenthesis is known as an anti-Semitic symbol to highlight people who are Jewish or organisations with Jewish members.

Other messages followed from members of the group with them expressing how they needed a presidential candidate to "deport the Lone Conservative to Israel".

"Can't wait to get back to being normal Nazis," another group member wrote.

Previously, the Liberty Hangout faced backlash in 2016 for publishing a Twitter poll asking people if they believed what happened in the Holocaust as "we've been told".

The Twitter page later responded to someone's comment about the poll, writing: "It doesn't seem possible that 6m were killed." These tweets were later deleted.

Liberty Hangout has remained an active supporter of President Donald Trump on Twitter and wrote this week that the president should be "king" over Americans.

Ms Bennett recently shared on Facebook a picture of herself outside the White House. She said she was invited to tour the West Wing the Trump administration.
Brajwasi Meena, a young farmer from Sheupur district in Madhya Pradesh, decided not to sell his 50 quintals of wheat as the trader was offering him a price which was almost Rs 250-350 quintal less than the minimum support price of Rs 1925 a quintal under a new system called, sauda patrak or parchi If I had sold the crop at the rate offered by the trader, I would have incurred a loss of almost Rs 11,000 in a trolley full of wheat, which weighs 50 quintals, Meena said.

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Joe Zydlo, external communications manager for the American Red Cross, says the blood supply is stable amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Weve had unbelievably overwhelming support. People are going to donate at donor center or the few blood drives we have been able to hold, Zydlo said.

He said many blood drives for March and April were canceled because of stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders. From mid-March to the end of the month, 15,000 blood drives were canceled. A lot of schools and universities had planned spring blood drives, so they had to be canceled when schools were closed. Between 18% and 20% of blood drives are at schools and universities.

Zydlo explained this could have devastated the blood supply, but at the same time, many elective surgeries were eliminated. Surgeries like joint replacement require blood to perform. People also are traveling less, resulting in fewer car accidents. While car accidents and other trauma make some surgeries necessary, the reduction has helped stabilize the blood supply.

In addition to going to get groceries or to the pharmacy, donating blood was deemed an essential thing. It gives people a chance to get out and do something to help, Zydlo said.

Some of the canceled drives have been replaced by drives in other safer locations where they can practice social distancing. Instead of hosting a two-day drive, the Red Cross is extending the number of days they collect blood in those locations.

Nationwide, the American Red Cross is seeing 480,000 to 490,000 fewer blood donors.

We are asking people to continue to book donations in May and June, Zydlo said. "If our nation gets healthier, we will add drives and we will make people aware of them, Zydlo said.

He said they have made some changes to their donation process. The biggest for donors is probably that appointments are required to give blood. Both staff and donors are given masks to wear during donation.

We want people to feel safe when they go there to donate blood. We are wiping surfaces extra times, he said.

To find a blood drive near you, visit www.redcrossblood.org.

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American Shared Hospital Services (NYSEMKT:AMS) shareholders are no doubt pleased to see that the share price has bounced 32% in the last month alone, although it is still down 30% over the last quarter. But shareholders may not all be feeling jubilant, since the share price is still down 37% in the last year.

Assuming no other changes, a sharply higher share price makes a stock less 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). The implication here is that deep value investors might steer clear when expectations of a company are too high. 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.

See our latest analysis for American Shared Hospital Services

How Does American Shared Hospital Services's P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers?

We can tell from its P/E ratio of 15.14 that sentiment around American Shared Hospital Services isn't particularly high. If you look at the image below, you can see American Shared Hospital Services has a lower P/E than the average (22.0) in the healthcare industry classification.

AMEX:AMS Price Estimation Relative to Market April 18th 2020

American Shared Hospital Services's P/E tells us that market participants think it will not fare as well as its peers in the same industry. While current expectations are low, the stock could be undervalued if the situation is better than the market assumes. 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

When earnings fall, the 'E' decreases, over time. That means even if the current P/E is low, it will increase over time if the share price stays flat. A higher P/E should indicate the stock is expensive relative to others -- and that may encourage shareholders to sell.

Story continues

American Shared Hospital Services's earnings per share fell by 36% in the last twelve months. And it has shrunk its earnings per share by 13% per year over the last three years. This growth rate might warrant a low P/E ratio.

Don't Forget: The P/E Does Not Account For Debt or Bank Deposits

One drawback of using a P/E ratio is that it considers market capitalization, but not the balance sheet. Thus, the metric does not reflect cash or debt held by the company. Theoretically, a business can improve its earnings (and produce a lower P/E in the future) by investing in growth. That means taking on debt (or spending its cash).

Spending on growth might be good or bad a few years later, but the point is that the P/E ratio does not account for the option (or lack thereof).

Is Debt Impacting American Shared Hospital Services's P/E?

American Shared Hospital Services has net debt equal to 28% of its market cap. While it's worth keeping this in mind, it isn't a worry.

The Verdict On American Shared Hospital Services's P/E Ratio

American Shared Hospital Services has a P/E of 15.1. That's higher than the average in its market, which is 13.6. With some debt but no EPS growth last year, the market has high expectations of future profits. What we know for sure is that investors have become more excited about American Shared Hospital Services recently, since they have pushed its P/E ratio from 11.5 to 15.1 over the last month. If you like to buy stocks that have recently impressed the market, then this one might be a candidate; but if you prefer to invest when there is 'blood in the streets', then you may feel the opportunity has passed.

When the market is wrong about a stock, it gives savvy investors an opportunity. If the reality for a company is better than it expects, you can make money by buying and holding for the long term. Although we don't have analyst forecasts shareholders might want to examine this detailed historical graph of earnings, revenue and cash flow.

Of course you might be able to find a better stock than American Shared Hospital Services. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have grown earnings strongly.

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.
The Ghana-India Trade Advisory Chamber (GITAC) has urged the World Health Organisation (WHO) and world superpowers to stop singing negative choruses about Africa and rather applaud the continent for the robust measures being taken to combat, contain and prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Chamber's observation comes at a time that the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa's latest report is predicting that Africa could witness 300,000 deaths from COVID-19 this year even under the best-case scenario and in the worst-case scenario, with no interventions against the novel virus, 3.3 million deaths and 1.2 billion infections could be recorded on the continent.

But the President of the Ghana-India Trade Advisory Chamber, Dominic Oduro-Antwi, said WHO's statistics show that Africa has recorded the relatively lowest number of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths as compared to China, UK, USA, Russia and France, which are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and exercising veto power at the world's highest decision-making body.

With Italy, Germany, Iran and other developed countries being hit hard by thousands of COVID-19 cases, Mr Oduro-Antwi is of the view that the spotlight ought to be on applauding and encouraging Africa's efforts at combating, containing and preventing the spread of the pandemic.

Mr Oduro-Antwi told Class News Jerry Akornor on Saturday, 18 April 2020 in Accra that: "Lets praise Africa for the COVID-19 fight. WHO and its affiliates should learn to applaud Africa since the inception of COVID-19. Looking at the statistics all over the world, Africa has the lowest number of cases. Why are we quiet? Or the world is waiting for COVID-19 cases in Africa to hit thousands and millions so that they put us back there in the dark?"

He also called on the international media to put the spotlight on successes chalked in disease prevention, control and treatment as well as the contribution of Africans to the world economies.

According to him, the international media has deliberately done little to showcase the achievements of Africa but are quick to highlight disasters, conflict and wars on the continent.

He stated that good news from Africa is not given the oxygen of publicity because they hardly find favour with the international media.

"I must say, it is about time Africans are praised when due and not always showing wars, sickness and disasters on international TV stations. Every country in the world has a challenge apart from Africa, but most of them do not wash their dirty clothes in public. As a matter of fact, whether it is early days yet or not for COVID-19 in Africa, I think Africa must be praised for her effort using the same WHO statistics".

Ghana's COVID-19 cases currently stand at 641 with eight deaths amidst a lockdown of Greater Accra, Kumasi, Kasoa and Tema coupled with the closure of borders.

The Ghana-India Trade Advisory Chamber has encouraged Africa to scale-up compliance with social distancing protocols particularly, during the distribution of food to the needy.

---classfmonline
The latest on the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus, pandemic. The CCP virus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death.

ROMEThe Health Ministry in Italy says there were 3,491 new CCP virus cases, nearly identical to the previous day increase in confirmed infections.

There were 482 more deaths, raising the overall official toll to 23,227 in Italy, which has Europes highest number of deaths.

The country is approaching the end of its sixth week of nationwide lockdown, with people allowed out of their homes only for essential work or buying food and tending to family members.

Overall, Italy has nearly 176,000 confirmed cases.

TIRANA, AlbaniaThe NATO-led troops in Kosovo say two civilian workers have died from the CCP virus.

A statement by the Kosovo Force on Saturday says, some of our personnel have tested positive, and sadly two civilian workers lost their lives.

It does not specify the nationality of the workers. KFOR, with some 3,500 troops from 28 countries, is led by NATO and supported by the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States.

KFOR says soldiers who show signs of infection or had contact with someone infected are placed in quarantine and treated by medical facilities on KFOR bases before being evacuated.

KFOR commander Major General Michele Risi says, Our Forces remain ready, and our crucial work goes on.

Kosovo has 480 virus cases and 12 deaths.

ISTANBULTurkeys health minister says 121 more people have died of COVID-19, with total deaths at 1,890.

Minister Fahrettin Koca shared the figures on Twitter on Saturday, saying 3,783 more people were infected with the virus. The total number of confirmed infections is 82,329.

Despite an increase in tests, theres a decrease in number of new cases, Koca tweeted and urged: Precaution, treatment.

Also Saturday, the interior ministry extended for 15 days a ban on entering and leaving 31 provinces by land, air or sea. These provinces, including Istanbul and capital Ankara, are on a weekend lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

TORONTOCanadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the United States and Canada have agreed to keep the border closed to nonessential travel for another 30 days.

Trudeau says it will keep people on both sides of the border safe amid the pandemic. U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday the U.S.-Canada border will be among the first borders to open. Nearly 200,000 people normally cross the border daily.

The U.S. and Canada agreed last month to limit border crossings to essential travel amid the pandemic. The agreement was due to expire this week.

STOCKHOLMSweden has reported 111 new COVID-19 deaths, with total deaths at 1,511.

Swedish health officials say 13,822 people have confirmed infections. Most of the infections and deaths have been recorded in Stockholm, which has 897 fatalities.

Swedish state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told Swedish broadcaster TV4, pressure on the intensive care units seems to be easing and pressure on health care services has been somewhat relieved. We hope this is a trend that is continuing.

On Friday, the Swedish government defended its approach of pursuing relatively liberal policies to fight the virus pandemic, saying it shared the same goals as other nations fighting COVID-19. The government has advised the public to practice social distancing, but schools, bars, and restaurants remain open. Only gatherings of more than 50 people have been banned.

ROMEAn Italian cruise liner company says a ship with no cases of COVID-19 has reached the western Mediterranean.

Costa Crociere says the Costa Deliziosa will disembark 168 Spanish passengers early next week at the port of Barcelona, Spain. Then the Deliziosa will head to its final destination, Genoa, Italy, where it will disembark Italian and other remaining passengers on Wednesday.

A company spokesman says a passenger left the ship this week in Marsala, Sicily, for health issues but not due to the virus.

French authorities had rebuffed a request by Costa for permission to disembark several hundred passengers from France and nearby countries at Marseilles port.

The ship, sailing around the world when the pandemic erupted, has 1,814 guests and 898 crew members.

ACCRA, GhanaAs the virus takes its toll on the poor, some 1,000 people in Ghanas capital are homeless after authorities razed their neighborhood.

The Accra Metropolitan Authority says the destruction of the Old Fadama slum clears the way for dredging of a nearby lagoon to help prevent flooding before the rainy season starts. Upset residents ask what they can do in a city under lockdown because of the virus, and some members of parliament call the destruction of homes callous and insensitive.

Some residents had tried to leave the city when Ghanas government-imposed virus measures, but security officials forced them to return. The government has since made some efforts to house them.

JOHANNESBURGAfricas virus cases have surpassed 20,000, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of deaths across the continent surpassed 1,000 on Saturday.

Fifty-two of Africas 54 countries have confirmed cases of the virus, and the World Health Organization has expressed concern that local spread is increasing.

Africa could be the next hotspot in the pandemic. Modeling by Imperial College London says under the best-case scenario with intense social distancing, some 300,000 people in Africa could die this year from COVID-19.

INDIANAPOLISPeople in a small Indianapolis suburb dont have to worry about paying a bill in April thanks to anonymous donors.

Fortvilles nearly 4,000 residents had their water and sewer bills paid for by anonymous businesses.

Residents were informed Friday through a Facebook post, generating a string of grateful comments.

The town has received a gracious donation with the stipulation that it be used to pay for April water/sewer bills. If you have already paid your April bill, you will see a credit on the May billing, the post read.

Fortville town manager Joe Renner says the total donation was more than $210,000. Renner told The Indianapolis Star it was pretty great the town had such caring people.

AUSTIN, TexasA protest is expected at the Texas Capitol, even as Republican Gov. Greg Abbott says restrictions to curb the virus pandemic will begin easing next week.

The protest Saturday in Austin, Texas, is the latest in demonstrations across the country that have been organized by small-government groups and supporters of President Donald Trump.

The Texas protest is organized by Owen Shroyer, a host of Infowars, which is a part of a company owned by conspiracy theorist and radio host Alex Jones. He also broadcast a small protest this week outside the governors mansion in Texas.

Abbott announced Friday that Texas will begin lifting some restrictions on retailers next week, plus reopen state parks and allow doctors to resume elective surgeries. He says more restrictions would be lifted on April 27.

Texas has more than 17,300 cases and at least 428 related deaths. Texas ranks last in the United States in testing per capita, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of data collected by The COVID Tracking Project.

LONDONBritish authorities reported 888 more virus-related hospital deaths on Saturday, bringing the total to 15,464.

The latest daily figure from the health department is 41 higher than the previous days 847 deaths.

Britain posted a record high daily death toll of 980 a week ago.

BARCELONASpaniards are still grieving lost loved ones with shocking frequency and under restrictions that limit burials to three attendees.

The data shows that the disease is decreasing in the population, but we still have a significant number of deaths. So this is not over yet, says Spanish health official Fernando Simon.

Early Saturday at a Barcelona cemetery, the silence was broken by three nuns singing hymns as the coffin of sister Inmaculada Louzan was placed into a niche by cemetery workers. The sister of Nazareth died at 80 of coronavirus-related complications after caring for members of the congregation at a nursing home, where she contracted the virus.

Spain has reached 20,000 deaths and more than 190,000 total infections. Spains health authorities reported 565 deaths in the last 24 hours.

LONDONBritains Queen Elizabeth doesnt want a gun salute for her birthday because she doesnt think its appropriate during the virus pandemic.

The British monarch, who turns 94 on Tuesday, decided not to publicly mark the occasion in any special way, including the artillery salute she traditionally gets on her birthday.

Her Majesty was keen that no special measures were put in place to allow gun salutes as she did not feel it appropriate in the current circumstances, Buckingham Palace said. Shell also be keeping private any phone and video calls with her family.

The queen has previously stressed the importance of lockdown measures, saying in her Easter message that by keeping apart we keep others safe.

PARISThe French military is dismantling a field hospital set up to relieve the pressure on overwhelmed medical centers.

The dismantling of the makeshift hospital in the eastern city of Mulhouse began Friday as the virus has receded in the region, a military official told The Associated Press.

The field hospital held 30 beds and treated dozens of patients that couldnt fit in Mulhouse hospitals. Hospitals in nearby Germany, Switzerland, and Luxembourg also took in French patients from the area.

Lawmaker Olivier Bech told local broadcaster France Bleu Alsace that 15 of the field hospitals beds are now empty.

France has more than 18,000 confirmed deaths from the virus.

ATHENS, GreeceAs Orthodox Easter approaches, the Greek government is concerned about keeping the faithful from flouting quarantine measures.

Authorities are worried people will show up at churches on Saturday night to celebrate at the stroke of midnight. They also will fine those leaving their homes to celebrate Easter Sunday in the countryside.

The government decided not to distribute the Holy Light to churches across the country, as is the custom. It arrives on the eve of Easter every year from Jerusalem, having been lit there at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

ANGON, MyanmarAuthorities in Myanmars biggest city have ordered a six-hour curfew in a bid to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

The Yangon Region Government announced the 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew will start Saturday night. Myanmars eastern neighbor, Thailand, has a curfew covering the same hours.

Several of the citys neighborhoods were put under lockdown, with all people required to stay at home except for essential workers, and only one person per household allowed to buy necessary supplies. Myanmar announced Thursday a ban on gatherings of more than five people.

Public health authorities confirmed Saturday six new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total to 94 and five deaths.

Myanmar was among the last countries in Southeast Asia to confirm any COVID-19 cases, likely because of a lack of testing. The public health infrastructure is considered one of the weakest in Asia.

MADRIDSpain has reached 20,000 deaths for the virus pandemic and total infections increased to more than 190,000.

Spains health authorities reported 565 deaths in the last 24 hours.

New infections rose by nearly 4,500. More than 74,000 people in Spain have recovered.

This week, health authorities said there were discrepancies in the statistics of virus deaths and infections reported by regional administrations. The central government has ordered regions to give more precise data and use the same parameters.

As the outbreaks spread slows, pressure on hospitals has relaxed. Authorities have closed one part of a huge field hospital with thousands of beds set up by the military in a convention center in Madrid.

But strict confinement rules are expected to be extended beyond April 26.

ROMEItalys commissioner for the virus is cautioning against pitting health concerns versus economic worries when deciding to ease lockdown rules.

Domenico Arcuri says, without health, the (economic) revival will disappear in the batting of an eyelash.

Health experts say easing must be gradual. Italy has nearly 23,000 deaths, the most in Europe, and more than 172,000 known cases.

To put the COVID-19 pandemic in perspective, Arcuri noted during World War II in Milan, bombings killed some 2,000 civilians. In Lombardy, which has the largest share of Italys COVID-19 cases and is a leader of the countrys industrial production, more than 11,851 people have died.

Thats five times as many in only two months, says Arcuri.

Authorities in Lombardy and other northern regions, but also Sicily in the south, have been pressing the central government to quickly ease restrictions on factories and many other businesses. The government decree that shut down nonessential industries and businesses runs through May 3.

PARISFrances lower house of parliament approved an emergency budget overnight that takes into account the governments 110 billion euro ($120 billion) plan to save the economy from virus-related collapse.

The budget includes bonuses for medical staff, funds to help struggling workers and families, and aid to businesses including strategic industries like aviation and car manufacturing.

The bill goes to the Senate on Tuesday. The government has warned that Frances economy, one of the worlds biggest, could shrink 8 percent this year and see its worst recession since World War II.

NTD staff contributed to this report
In the 25 years since Amy Downs survived the Oklahoma City Building  buried in the rubble for more than six hours as she wondered if rescuers would get to her  she utterly transformed her life.

Fed up with the way she looked but seemingly unable to change it, she went on to lose more than 200lbs. Having earlier dropped out of college, she earned a Masters of Business Administration. Wanting to take on more challenges but unsure how to do so, she became a triathlete and competed in ironman competitions. Keen to share her lessons about the power of change with others, she became a motivational speaker.

And so the 53-year-old might have prepared for the jolt of this 25th anniversary of the attack on the Alfred P Murrah building in the centre of Oklahoma City as she has the others, until the coronavirus pandemic struck, and triggered emotions she has not felt for a quarter-century.

Its exactly like it, she says from Oklahoma City, referring to the aftermath of the terror attack carried out by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols on 19 April, 1995, and the impact of the virus.

The uncertainty, the grief. Weve lost our own normal. Were not sure what the new normal is. I am telling you  this is April 19 all over again, even though this ones obviously global and ours just happened to us.

She adds: It was unprecedented when it happened in 1995. We had never had a domestic terrorist attack like that before in the United States. So we didnt know how to navigate it. There was nobody to ask, like, okay, so what are the steps that I go through for getting over being blown up at work?

Downs still works for the credit union once located in the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in the centre of Oklahoma City. She was there at 9.02am when McVeigh detonated a 4,800lb bomb packed into a Ryder truck, destroying a third of the building and sending her flying.

She spent more than six hours buried upside down, still sitting on her office chair, unable to see anything. When rescuers finally reached her, they quickly had to back away, having been told a second device was set to go off.

It was a false alarm, and the emergency crews returned for her. But in those moments, Downs was overwhelmed by the belief her life had been a waste.

Im lying there and Im begging God for a second chance, because all of a sudden I realise Im getting ready to die and Im 355 pounds. I have been messing with my life, she says. I have all these regrets, and its too late.

 Oklahoma City Bombing

The lesson Downs shares with others  in addition to being a motivational speaker she has just published a book entitled Hope Is a Verb: My Journey of Impossible Transformation  is about the power of change. She says the ability to shift and move, to dodge and dart, lies within all of us, and that while we cannot determine what life may throw at us, we each have the power to decide how we respond to challenges.

In the context of the coronavirus pandemic that has infected 2.25m people globally and killed 150,000  in the US those figures are 700,000 and 36,000  Downs believe those who change will also be those who survive and perhaps even prosper.

From a business standpoint, there are a lot of similarities. In order to navigate your business through a time like thiswe have to respond by looking for opportunities, she says.

Obviously were all leaning into digital delivery options. These little stores that have been able to pivot, and suddenly will deliver, or will deliver for free. Those companies are still in business right now. They may be struggling, but theyre still in business.

As an example from her own world she mentions the financial services industry, a sector she terms traditional and old school.

There are financial institutions that are refusing to send their employees home to work remotely, because they think if theyre not working [in the office] they wont know if theyre working, she says.

Theyre not really been able to understand how to be a results-driven organisation and allow their employees to work from home. Im really fortunate that at my organisation, we were already letting a lot of our employees work from home. We sent everybody home before it was mandated, for people to be safe.

Downs began working for the Federal Employees Credit Union as a teller 32 years ago. It has now changed its name to the Allegiance Credit Union, and she is its CEO.

Downs has appeared on programmes such NBC's Today show to share the lessons of her experience (NBC News)

In the city that has remained her home, she is doing what she can to help local businesses get a break. (Her own personal contribution was to give away 100 copies of her book to a local bookstore after the virus scrapped traditional promotion efforts.)

She has also used a small amount of money in her non-profit companys community fund, to try and help eateries in peoples neighbourhoods.

Recommended Covering the death of the Oklahoma City bomber

We had about $2,000 ear-marked for community involvement. We took that money, we gave all of our employees $25 in their checking accounts and we asked them to go out and buy lunch or dinner from a local restaurant, to hashtag that restaurant, and promote that restaurant to their friends, she says.

Thats how we can respond right now. Instead of left fighting right, and poking at all the different things we can all poke at, and taking our anxiety out that way, lets try to find some positive ways to do it. Lets help each other.

Asked what lessons she has for people on the 25th anniversary of the attack that destroyed, and changed so many lives, Downs says with a gentle laugh for people to buy her book.

Hope takes action. And the action is in you. Its not in somebody else. Hope is in ourselves, to take the action, to do the things to move us, she says.

Whether its us individually, as a country, as an organisation, whatever it is, you have to take responsibility for that. You cant wait for somebody else to fix you, to solve your the problem. You have to do what you can do to make your life, your world  everything  better around you and for you. You do the action.

She adds: Its all that cliche, of its not so much what happens to you, its how are you responding to it? What are you doing to respond to this?
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-19 07:13:00|Editor: huaxia

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A woman is seen wearing face mask in Warsaw, Poland on April 18, 2020. Poland has named four stages in which the restrictions will be gradually lifting, starting with the opening of parks and forests, and ending with services that require physical contact. (Xinhua/Jaap Arriens)
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says about a million people in Ethiopia are in need of food aid after swarms of locusts destroyed vast areas of farmland.

The outbreak is the worst seen in Ethiopia and Somalia for 25 years and the worst infestation in Kenya for over 70 years. Djibouti, Eritrea South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania have also been invaded by swarms of locusts.

In February, the European Union contributed 11 million to aid the FAO in its efforts to contain the upsurge in the region.

Working with the Ethiopian government, the UN found that desert locusts had damaged about 200,000 hectares of mostly sorghum and maize fields, the BBC reported.

Alongside the FAO, the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture is scaling up aerial and ground operations in the key crop-producing regions of Oromia and SNNP (Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples). However, flight bans imposed because of the coronavirus have hampered these efforts.

Without concerted efforts to control the outbreak, the UN estimates that conducive breeding conditions could see the locusts multiply by 400 times this year.

The UN says the East African nation is already vulnerable to food shortages, and it warns that the international community only has a small window to prevent looming catastrophe.

USAID recently announced that it will be providing $8 million in humanitarian assistance to support regional operations to control locusts in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
Neeshal Modi, younger brother of Nirav Modi, the diamantaire accused of defrauding Punjab National Bank to the extent of Rs 13,578 crore, has written to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) offering to cooperate in the case and distancing himself from his brothers actions.

Antwerp-based Neeshal has been charged by both the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the PNB fraud case along with Nirav, their uncle Mehul Choksi and others. He has also shared with ED sleuths a forensic audit conducted by a Belgium-based independent auditing firm, Van Den Keybus Van Der Jeught, which certifies that all transactions of Firestar Diamond BVBA were authentic, genuine and with legitimate documentary evidence such as invoices and shipping papers. Firestar Diamond has been named by ED as a company used by Nirav to launder money. ED has also said in its charge sheet filed in May 2018 that Neeshal was involved in the appointment of dummy partners and was a signatory or a beneficiary in some Dubai-based dummy companies between 2011 and 2013. He was also the director of Firestar Diamond based in Belgium and that huge sums were transferred into this company from six Hong Kong-based companies.

Also read: 40 assets of Nirav Modi auctioned for Rs 51 crore

In his letter, reviewed by HT, Neeshal said: I am willing to fully cooperate with any investigation that your department is undertaking and help you in accordance with law. I am sincerely hoping that in order to achieve fruitful results in this case, your office will positively respond to my offer of full cooperation with an open mind and meet me in Antwerp so that I can clarify any doubts that you may have about this matter.

Disassociating himself from Nirav, he added: I have nothing to do with any of the alleged criminal activities of my brother, Nirav Modi. I had no knowledge whatsoever of any dealings that Nirav Modi may have had with any of the bank (s) for his business purposes including transactions in relation to the alleged LOUs (letters of undertaking).

There is nothing on record to even suggest that I was ever a party or privy to any meeting or transactions of Nirav Modi with the bank (s) or its officer (s). I had never visited any bank (s) nor had I ever met or communicated with any banking officials in relation to the business activities of Nirav Modi or for the issuance of the alleged LOUs or for any of his business activities.

When contacted, Niravs lawyer Vijay Aggarwal refused to comment on the matter. Nirav is lodged at Wandsworth prison in south-west London while his extradition proceedings are pending.

Also read: 72 luxury items seized from Nirav Modi sold at auction for Rs 2.29 crore

Neeshal also claimed he didnt have a clue of his brothers alleged criminal acts until he saw it in the news. Asserting that he isnt a beneficiary of any of Nirav Modis wealth, Neeshal said: I have always received remuneration through my salary (as director of Firestar Diamond) and income generated from legitimate business, where I have always paid the taxes on this income to the Belgian tax department.

An ED officer confirmed to HT that the agency has received a letter and the forensic audit from Neeshal but added that it doesnt matter. It doesnt hold any value because he is an accused. If he is willing to cooperate, he should come to India, added the officer, who asked not to be named. Neeshal has informed ED that several persons who owe money to Firestar Diamond are using the proceedings against the company as an excuse not to pay their dues
One of America's top space companies, and our most prolific launcher of rockets, Elon Musk's SpaceX is the talk of the town in the U.S. -- but it isn't particularly popular in Russia. In fact, Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin, head of that country's space program, has been complaining about SpaceX and its ultra-low prices for years.

And now he's going to do something about it.

There's no truth in Pravda, no news in Izvestia -- but what about TASS?

Last week, Russia's largest state-run news agency, TASS, ran a story outlining Russia's space plans for the year 2020. Going direct to the source -- Rogozin himself -- TASS reported that Russian space agency Roscosmos will launch approximately 33 separate rockets this year, up from 25 successful launches in 2019.

12 of this year's launches will be conducted under Russia's Federal Space Program (i.e. civil government missions). Nine will be commercial launches for private customers. As for the rest, TASS doesn't say. (So they're probably military -- 10 of last year's 25 launches were military as well.)

Compare and contrast

Compare that to SpaceX, just one of America's several rocket-launching enterprises. After a busy 2018 that saw the company launch 21 times, SpaceX took a breather in 2019, launching just 13 rockets. But just like Roscosmos, SpaceX is planning for a busy year in 2020, with an estimated 36 launches on its manifest.

Yes, you heard that right. In 2020, SpaceX alone intends to launch more rockets than Russia.

How did SpaceX get so prolific? In part, this is a bit of a bootstraps story. SpaceX, as you've probably heard, is working hard to build itself a global satellite broadband internet constellation orbiting Earth -- "Starlink." To achieve this goal, fully 24 of SpaceX's 36 planned launches this year will see SpaceX carry its own satellites into orbit, making SpaceX its own biggest customer. At the same time, though, SpaceX will launch a dozen rockets carrying cargo for other customers -- three more such commercial missions than Roscosmos will launch.

And how did that happen?

Because, as alluded to above, SpaceX charges some of the lowest prices around for space launch. As a result, it's winning away business from rival space launchers such as Roscosmos (and from Arianespace in Europe, and from United Launch Alliance in the U.S., and on and on). Indeed, Rogozin blames SpaceX for the fact that its market share in "heavy" rocket launch slipped from 15% to just 6% between 2016 and 2018.

Russia cries foul

In Russia's view, of course, SpaceX is coming by all of this business dishonestly, undercharging commercial customers for their rocket launches (SpaceX's base price for a Falcon 9 launch hasn't budged since it raised it to $62 million in 2016), but charging NASA as much as four times more for government launches to make up the difference. In essence, says Rogozin, SpaceX is "price dumping" its commercial space launch services -- selling them below cost -- in order to "force Russia out of the market for space launch."

(Roscosmos isn't the only company to level this charge, by the way. Arianespace head Alain Charmeau made much the same allegation back in 2018. You can read all about that -- and why Charmeau's argument doesn't hold water -- right here.)

But whatever the merits (or lack thereof) of his argument, Rogozin is clearly upset with the fact that customers are flocking to SpaceX. And so, in his interview with TASS last week, he made a bold promise: "In order to increase our presence in international markets," Roscosmos will lower its own prices "by more than 30%"!

What it means for SpaceX

So what does this new Russian policy mean for SpaceX -- and for other companies that will have to compete with Russia's lowered prices for space launch, such as Airbus (OTC:EADSY) subsidiary Arianespace and the defense giants behind United Launch Alliance, Boeing (NYSE:BA) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT)?

That depends. In order for Roscosmos to financially sustain its price reduction, Rogozin says it will need to cut its own "overhead costs and increase ... its operational efficiency." Even assuming Russia can do this, though, Rogozin didn't state a specific launch cost he will be targeting, and so it's unclear whether its new and improved prices will be low enough to compete with SpaceX.

What is clear is that the lower Russia's prices go, the harder it will be for Boeing, Lockheed, and Airbus -- all of which, like Roscosmos, are already struggling to meet SpaceX's prices -- to compete with Roscosmos as well.

In a price war between SpaceX and Roscosmos, it could well turn out that everyone but SpaceX and Roscosmos will end up being the losers.
Veterans are hard at work in New Milford.

Members are proactive, doing their part to ensure first responders have the equipment they need during this time.

Both the Andrew B. Mygatt Post 1671 and American Legion Post 31 in New Milford are closed during the coronavirus pandemic.

American Legion Commander Jeffrey McBreairty said he was moved to take action after watching the news and reading stories on social media about a lack of supplies for first responders.

McBreairty said he combed the Internet in hopes he could find gloves that would provide some relief to hospital workers.

He was successful.

In our efforts as a non-profit organization to help out in the present coronavirus pandemic, we are proud to be able to say we are contributing to the commitment of all our nurses and doctors are New Milford Hospital and the cancer center, he said.

The post recently donated 700 pairs of medical exam gloves.

McBreairty said the post chose the hospital in part because it is a vital community resource.

In addition, he said the hospital has been such a great help to his family over the years.

We are so very proud of all (first responders) are doing and we applaud them on the dangerous tasks that are at hand for them, McBreairty said.

We wish them well, we wish all the patients well, he said.

The American Legion would normally kick off its largest fundraiser, its annual poppy sales, at the start of May.

Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the fundraiser is not confirmed at this time.

McBreairty acknowledges the post may have to find an alternative way possibly a GoFundMe campaign  to raise funds to continue its ongoing community support.
Hogan plans to release his Maryland Strong Roadmap to Recovery late next week but said it is premature to implement any reopening plans while the states daily death toll, hospitalizations and ICU bed use continue to rise. He said Friday he would not reopen anything until each of those numbers has declined for 14 consecutive days. Additionally, Hogan said the state would not reopen until it more than triples daily testing capacity, has hospital systems fully ramped up, acquires millions of pieces of personal protective equipment and hires an army of contact-tracing workers who can track  and isolate  any newly infected patients.
India is in the middle of witnessing the entire nation fight against a deadly virus that is rapidly claiming innocent lives across the globe. With more than 15 lakh active coronavirus cases all over the world, and as many as 210 countries fighting the COVID-19 outbreak, doctors everywhere are fighting a tough battle day and night to save lives.

 Twitter

While doctors, nurses and medical staff continue to risk their lives on the frontlines in service of the nation and people, many others capable of lending a helping hand have stepped forward to offer their service and expertise. Just like these 5 popular public figures who have set aside their mainstream careers in order to help doctors and people defeat the life-threatening infection.



1. Ashish Gokhale

 Instagram

Ashish began his acting journey back in 2015 with a ZEE TV primetime soap opera Kumkum Bhagya and later went on to star alongside Akshay Kumar in Gabbar Is Back. But before setting out on this journey, Ashish was a full-time doctor practising at a private hospital in Juhu. Whats more, even until mid-march, Dr Ashish was shooting in the morning and working as a doctor at night. Even now, he is out there on the frontlines fighting the coronavirus outbreak in Mumbai 24x7.

 Instagram

2. Leo Varadkar

 Twitter/ABC News

We all know who this kind man is. The Irish Prime Minister is a certified doctor who quit his practise to join politics. Now amid the coronavirus outbreak, PM Varadkar will be serving as a registered doctor during one shift per week. A Trinity College Dublin graduate from its School of Medicine, PM Varadkar had given up his practise in 2013 before joining politics.

 Instagram

3. Shikha Malhotra

 Pisceann Pictures

Shikha is an actress by passion and a nurse by vocation. The 25-year-old has acted in regional cinema, but holds a nursing degree from Vardhman Mahavir Medical College and Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi. However, currently Shikha is stationed at Balasaheb Thackeray Trauma Hospital in Mumbai as a nursing officer. Given the quickly worsening COVID-19 situation in Maharashtra, Shikha decided to help doctors and serve people in need.

 Instagram

4. Ranj Singh

 Instagram

Ranjit, or Ranj Singh as he is more popularly known, is a British TV presenter and author. But above all, he is a certified doctor with a specialisation in Paediatric Emergency Medicine. A practising clinical doctor with the National Health Service (NHS), the 40-year-old is currently working double shifts, first on his television assignments and then serving as a doctor amid the outbreak.



 Instagram

5. Bhasha Mukherjee

 Twitter

The world knows her as Miss England 2019, but this 24-year-old just proved that she will always be a doctor first. Mukherjee, a University of Nottingham medical graduate with specialisation in respiratory medicine, was in India doing humanitarian work when reports of worsening COVID-19 situation in the UK made her fly back home. She set aside the crown and donned the scrubs and PPEs to help fellow doctors at Pilgrim Hospital fight the deadly infection and save lives.



 Twitter
The interior ministry in Tunisia says that two men, including a suspected jihadist, have been arrested over an alleged plot to infect members of the security forces with coronavirus.



The ministry says that the suspected jihadist - recently released from prison - had tried to encourage those who might have the virus to cough on police and security officials.



The other man says that he was told to deliberately cough everywhere when he reported to his local police station - as part of the surveillance he was under.



He is being tested to see if he has coronavirus.

Source: BBC









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.

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Greenville mayor ends ban on drive-in church services after DOJ intervenes

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Democrat Mayor Errick D. Simmons of Greenville, Mississippi, has changed course and is now permitting drive-in church services after police officers issued $500 tickets to parishioners last Wednesday.

After churches filed federal lawsuits in the city, Simmons said in a Facebook news conference Wednesday that people may attend drive-in church services as long as they keep their windows rolled up.

Simmons also said he would allow churches to have up to 10 people in their buildings for worship services that are broadcast, but added that they must follow social distancing and health guidelines to stop the spread of COVID-19.

On Friday, we had 48 cases. Today, we have 62 cases here in the city of Greenville. This is real, Simmons said. This is serious and this is a pandemic that is endangering all of our lives.

Simmons said he had called on Republican Gov. Tate Reeves to issue guidance on how his stay-at-home order impacts church services, and the governor answered that call by holding a conference call with mayors on Wednesday.

The governor today has answered that call and provided definitive guidance in regards to drive-in services, Simmons said. The governor stated today, for the very first time, that drive-in church services where families stay in their cars with windows up are safe.

In the city of Greeneville, the council will look at its order entered on April the 7th, he continued, adding that the order was made based on the data available at that time. All decisions that we make are data-driven, but more importantly based upon state and federal mandates that we receive at the time.

The city drew national headlines after it issued tickets to people attending drive-in church services last week on grounds that they violated the April 7 order.

The order banned all in-service and drive-in church services as long as Reeves' stay-at-home order was in effect, even though the governor never permitted or suggested there should be a ban on church services.

The next day, tickets were issued to members of Temple Baptist Church for attending a service Wednesday night in which people sat in their cars with the windows up in the churchs parking lot listening to the sermon via broadcast on an FM frequency radio.

One attendee of the church service told news station WREG3 that everybody in attendance received a ticket.

The church filed a lawsuit on Monday represented by the conservative legal nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom, arguing that the April 7 order violates their religious rights protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

At the time, Simmons claimed that drive-in services can be considered a health violation. He explained during his Wednesday news conference that the city received on April 3 a guideline from the Mississippi Department of Health stating that many COVID-19 cases are specifically linked to church gatherings.

We all have seen across the country where folks have had church services and pastors themselves have lost their lives, Simmons said. Congregants have contracted the disease and transmitted it to 30, to 40 people that go to church gatherings.

We were very cautious, given a series of things that we looked at, including the bed space that we have in our hospital, the number of ICU beds, the number of known violations we had of folks doing in-person service over the CDC 10-people guideline. And also folks that were doing drive-in [services] and getting out of their cars.

The Associated Press reports that Reeves accused Greenville of being an overburdensome government that put more people at risk as police officers made attendees of the drive-in service roll their windows down to receive tickets.

At the news conference on Monday attended by more than 25 people, Simmons said he would not force attendees of the church to pay the $500 tickets but maintained the order. However, he continued to call on Reeves to provide more clarification on church services.

Simmons also said he detested accusations made on national television by King James Bible Baptist Church pastor Charles E. Hamilton that he targeted churches, according to the Delta Democrat-Times.

The King James Bible Baptist Church filed a lawsuit this week against the mayors order after the order intimidated the church from going through with plans for drive-in services. Backed by the First Liberty Institute, the lawsuit says the mayors order singled out churches for law enforcement.

After Simmons defended his April 7 order on Monday, the U.S. The Department of Justice intervened by filing a statement of interest in favor of Temple Baptist Churchs lawsuit against the city.

The federal agency said the city "singled churches out as the only essential service (as designated by the state of Mississippi) that may not operate despite following all CDC and state recommendations regarding social distancing."

"The city of Greenville fined congregants $500 per person for attending these parking lot services  while permitting citizens to attend nearby drive-in restaurants, even with their windows open, the DOJs statement of interest reads.

Late Saturday evening, a spokesperson for Attorney General William Barr stated that action would be taken if officials singled out religious organizations to enforce social distance rules.

On Tuesday, Reeves thanked Barr for his strong stand in support of religious liberty.

The government cannot shut down churches. Mississippi is not China, Reeves stressed in a tweet. This is still America. We will help support this any way we can.

Jeremy Dys, special counsel for litigation and communications at First Liberty Institute, praised Simmons decision to allow drive-in services.

Pastor [Charles] Hamilton looks forward to being able to continue to meet the spiritual needs of his congregation while also abiding by public health guidelines and the governors policy, Dys said in a statement.
AzmanL/iStock(NEW YORK)  More than 2.2 million people have been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus worldwide as the spread of the virus continues.

The global coronavirus death toll stands at more than 154,000 people, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers, however, are believed to be much higher.

Many cities and states have begun counting probable deaths caused by COVID-19, including New York City, the epicenter of the disease in the United States.

The U.S. has more cases and deaths than any other country in the world, with over 705,000 diagnosed cases and at least 37,079 deaths.

Today's biggest developments:

US coronavirus cases surpass 700,000

Illinois food plant to close after outbreak

NJ reports 1,530 deaths at longterm care facilities

Here's how the news is developing today. All times Eastern. Please refresh this page for updates.

3:30 p.m.: CDC did not manufacture COVID-19 test 'consistent with its own protocol': FDA

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) did not manufacture its COVID-19 test consistent with its own protocol.

The news comes after a report from The Washington Post, claiming that the CDCs facilities that assembled COVID-19 kits violated manufacturing practices, which resulted in contamination of one of the three test components used in the highly sensitive detection process. The cross contamination most likely occurred because chemical mixtures were assembled into the kits within a lab space that was also handling synthetic coronavirus material, scientists with knowledge of the matter told the paper.

In a statement to ABC News, the FDA said the following: "CDC made its test in one of its laboratories, rather than in its manufacturing facilities. CDC did not manufacture its test consistent with its own protocol."

"In February, the FDA was not able to determine from information provided by the CDC whether the test issues were due to a design or manufacturing issue. Knowing the underlying cause was important to determine whether the contract manufacturers could proceed to make the CDCs test for distribution and if the CDC could continue to manufacture its test. The FDA sent a renowned diagnostics expert to the CDC to help make that determination and to assist CDC. The FDA expert determined it was a manufacturing issue and worked with CDC to facilitate the production and quality control processing of test kits made by one of its contract manufacturers to expedite test kit distribution to public health and non-public health laboratories. That companyIDTmanufactured the CDC test as the FDA had authorized it. The test manufactured by IDT was distributed and has encountered no issues, thus supporting the conclusion that it was a manufacturing issue. The CDC test design has been used to develop tests by other commercial manufacturers and academic laboratories without any problems."

The CDC did not immediately respond to ABC News for comment.

2:55 p.m.: Canada mandates all air travelers have face coverings

All air travelers departing or connecting through Canada will be required to wear a non-medical face mask or face covering, the government announced.

The new order goes into effect Monday at noon.

Passengers without the necessary face covering during boarding will "not be allowed to continue on their journey." Passengers traveling by rail or motor carrier-bus are also strongly encouraged to wear non-medical masks or face coverings as much as possible, according to the government's statement.

2:32 p.m.: Biden campaign launches new ad against Trump's COVID response

Former Vice President Joe Bidens campaign launched a new paid media campaign and digital ad, pushing back on President Donald Trumps claims that he adequately prepared the nation for the coronavirus pandemic.

In the nearly 2-minute ad, titled "Unprepared," a narrator says Trump "rolled over for the Chinese."

"He took their word for it," the narrator says, before playing news reports of a February tweet from Trump praising Chinas "transparency" in handling the coronavirus crisis.

The ad also shows Bidens January op-ed in USA Today urging Trump to put American officials in China to monitor COVID-19s spread and Trumps early praise of the Chinese governments handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

"Trump praised the Chinese 15 times in January and February, as the coronavirus spread across the world," the narrator continues, saying that 40,000 travelers from China were allowed in the U.S. despite Trumps claim that he banned entry into the country.

"We have more officially reported cases and deaths than any other country. Donald Trump left this country unprepared and unprotected for the worst public health and economic crisis in our lifetime. And now, we're paying the price. All the negative ads in the world can't change the truth," the ad concludes.

The campaign is not running broadcast ads, but the digital ad will run on Facebook and Instagram in the key battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina and Florida, according to a campaign aide. It will target both current and new supporters.

In addition to Facebook and Instagram, the ad will also run on YouTube in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to combat the negative ads being run by Trump and his allies.

2:13 p.m.: Boeing delivers 540,000 masks to New Hampshire

Boeing delivered 540,000 masks from China to the United States Saturday, marking its first completed COVID-19 airlift mission, according to a statement from the airline company.

The masks will be used by frontline medical workers and first responders in New Hampshire, where the Boeing 737-700 landed.

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu and Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun were in attendance as the aircraft filled with personal protective equipment (PPE) was unloaded at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.

Boeing said more airlift transport missions with its Boeing Dreamlifter and ecoDemonstrator are planned in the future.

1:55 p.m.: At least 18,215 cases in Texas

There are now at least 18,215 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Texas, according to the state's Department of Health.

More than 1,000 people have been hospitalized and at least 453 people have died, the department reported.

Houston remains the city with the most cases, at 4,460. Dallas and Fort Worth have reported the second- and third-highest numbers with 2,190 and 1,175 cases, respectively. Austin and San Antonio follow.

1:34 p.m.: Over 1,700 California nursing home residents COVID-19 positive

At least 1,740 residents at nursing homes in California have tested positive for COVID-19, according to data released by the state's Department of Public Health. There are also at least 1,290 staff at the homes who have tested positive, the data shows.

It is the first time California has made public the names and case data for nursing homes statewide.

The largest outbreak in a nursing home in the state is at Redwood Springs Healthcare Center, in Tulare County, where 91 patients and 46 employees were infected.

1:10 p.m.: Canada, US extend border closure

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada and the United States have agreed to extend a border closure for nonessential travel an additional 30 days.

"This is an important decision and one that will keep people on both sides of the border safe," Trudeau said. "It's another example of the excellent collaboration between our two countries."

Essential goods and services will continue to pass through the border.

Daily deaths in Italy drop below 500

There were 482 deaths reported in Italy over the last 24 hours, according to the Civil Protection Agency, the first time since March 19 that figure was below 500.

The total number of fatalities is now 23,227, according to the agency. There were 3,491 new cases, putting the total number of cases, including active, deceased and cured, at 175,925. That's a 2.1% increase from the previous day.

The number of patients in hospital care again declined.

12:25 p.m.: Travel ban for troops extended

Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday is expected to extend the ban on domestic and international travel for U.S. troops to June 30. The original bans, announced in March, were through May 11.

Esper hinted that he would extend the ban earlier this week, however he didn't provide specifics. Matt Donovan, the Department of Defense's undersecretary for personnel and readiness, told reporters on a conference call Saturday morning the extension would be revised to June 30.

Under the previous ban, all travel within states and to overseas countries was banned. Only limited waivers were granted for domestic and international travel. The extension will mostly follow those same restrictions, but Donovan said they will "be more liberal and will allow for the deployment and return of troops from combat zones."

"While many areas in the United States may be on a positive trajectory, some areas and many nations are not, as personnel movements continue to present a threat of spreading COVID-19 within our ranks and communities, and from abroad," Donovan said.

12:14 p.m.: Cuomo says labs unable to double testing at this time

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that the top 50 labs conducting tests are not able to double their output because they don't have enough reagents.

Cuomo said increasing testing is crucial in order to safely reopen the state.

He offered cautious optimism about the virus' spread in New York. Based on a number of indications, including net hospitalization numbers, ICU admissions and intubations, Cuomo said it could be argued that the state is "past the plateau" and starting "to descend."

However, he also noted that 2,000 people were admitted into hospitals statewide on Friday.

"That is still an overwhelming number every day," Cuomo said. "If it wasn't for the relative context we were in, this would be devastating news."

In the last 24 hours, 540 people died as a result of COVID-19, according to the governor. The majority of those deaths were in hospitals, with 36 in nursing homes.

Cuomo called nursing homes the single-biggest fear in all of this," saying that they are a "feeding frenzy" for the virus.

The governor also announced that the federal government has sent 1.5 million cloth masks to distribute to the public.

10:20 a.m.: At least 7,300 long-term care residents have died in 19 states

At least 7,300 nursing home or long-term care residents have died as a result of COVID-19 throughout the U.S., a survey of state records by ABC News shows.

The count comes from data provided by governor's offices and departments of health in 19 states. Many states do not yet report such data and did not reply to requests for the information.

New York reported the most deaths at nursing homes in the U.S., with 3,316 residents having died there from the virus.

On Friday, data showed that 10 different nursing homes in New York each have at least 30 confirmed COVID-19 deaths. Nineteen of the state's nursing homes have each had at least 20 deaths linked to the pandemic.

The Cobble Hill Health Center in Brooklyn reported the most deaths at 55, followed by Kings Harbor Multicare Center in the Bronx with 45.

New Jersey reported the second highest figure, with 1,530 long term care facility deaths.

The states reporting such data were Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming. Three states -- Alabama, California and North Carolina -- reported some data, but not statistics on fatalities.

9:37 a.m.: African American Mayors Association asks Trump to fund collection of racial data

As coronavirus appears to disproportionately affect certain races in the U.S., the African American Mayors Association is requesting the Trump administration allocate federal funds to collect a racial breakdown of the data.

The mayors said they, among others, are "on the front lines of this pandemic, and have quickly confronted crucial gaps, which surprisingly includes the availability of basic and accurate data about whom is affected by this virus."

The letter was signed by Mayors Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, Georgia; Muriel Bowser of Washington, D.C.; and Hardie Davis, Jr. of Augusta, Georgia.

They noted that some data on race and ethnicity has been made available in California, Georgia, New Mexico, Michigan and Washington, D.C.

"However, to enhance the quality of care and to address ongoing disparities in our health system, federal guidelines for COVID-19 data collection and reporting standards are essential," the letter reads.

The states currently lack uniformity in both the collection of data and federal reporting standards for the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases they report to the federal government each day.

In addition to a breakdown of race and ethnicity, the mayors requested a report on health indicators, such as insurance, education, employment, disability status, primary language and sex.

6:37 a.m.: Minnesota governor says he tried to call Trump about 'liberate' tweet

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he tried to call President Donald Trump after the president tweeted LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" on Friday.

For a couple of hours, the governor had tried calling Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and "got no return," Walz said during a Friday press briefing.

"My first responsibility is protection of Minnesota's people," Walz said, while also stating he supports the protesters right to protest.

"When I called to ask what are we doing differently about moving towards getting as many people back into the workforce without compromising the health of Minnesotans or the providers and that will probably take longer than a two-word tweet," he said.

"I would argue we are doing everything that they're telling us to do, but the difference is I actually have to do it here," Walz added.

Minnesota reported its largest daily increase in diagnosed coronavirus cases Friday, and an additional 17 deaths. The state has at least 2,070 COVID-19 cases and 111 deaths.

4:29 a.m.: Illinois food plant forced to close after outbreak

The Ogle County Health Department has ordered the Hormel Foods plant in Rochelle, Illinois, to close immediately due to an outbreak of the novel coronavirus. Health officials say there are at least two dozen cases linked to the facility.

The plant will be forced to close for two weeks.

"Although many essential businesses are open and operating, we will not tolerate them risking the health and safety of their employees or our community during this pandemic or any other time," Rochelle Mayor John Bearrows said in a statement Friday.

The county health department said it made "several attempts" to help control the outbreak, including recommending additional testing, steps for employee monitoring, new sanitation processes and more.

"My team has spent countless hours in collaboration with Rochelle Foods in an attempt to mitigate the virus spread," Kyle Auman, Ogle County Health Department administrator, said in a statement. "Since these efforts were unsuccessful, it is my duty to order a complete closure of the facility."

In a statement, Hormel confirmed it was given a notice of closure on Friday and that it's "working to further understand the closure order and are consulting with our legal counsel to understand next steps," according to ABC News affiliate KAAL-TV.

The company said Rochelle Foods team members would continue to be paid during the closure.

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Antibody Test Critical to Asymptomatic Surveillance and Control of Pandemic: Birx

Antibody testing is critical to asymptomatic surveillance of COVID-19, and sentinel surveillance sites for this testing will be set up around the country to control the pandemic, said the members of the coronavirus task force in a press briefing at the White House on April 17.

Sentinel surveillance is the monitoring of changes in the health of a population, and the sites are for collecting community-wide in-depth data.

Analysis of data gathered at the sentinel sites helps the administration monitor and refine strategies to bring the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus under control.

The presence of antibodies to COVID-19 in people determines their immunity to the disease.

During Fridays press briefing, Vice President Mike Pence said that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently working on adding 20 million new antibody tests to the administrations supply before the end of April.

I want to assure the American people that were going to continue to work with your governors and with your state health officials to scale testing in the days ahead, said Pence.

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx speaks at the daily briefing of the White House Coronavirus Task Force at the White House in Washington, on April 10, 2020. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence listen. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Asymptomatic Monitoring Sites

Anthony Fauci, a member of the Coronavirus Task Force and the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, spoke about two purposes of the antibody test during the press briefing on Friday. One of them is to actually test for the infection: is a person infected, said Fauci. The other is to test, as we just mentioned, if someone has been infectedusually someone whos been infected, who has recovered.

Fauci said someone who has been infected and has recovered has antibodies in their system. That person is actually protected against subsequent exposure and infection with an identical organism, he said, adding that because of the novelty of the COVID-19, the researchers still dont know how long this protection in recovered persons will last.

Deborah Birx, a physician who serves as the Coronavirus Response Coordinator for Trump administrations Coronavirus Task Force, explains how sentinel surveillance sites will be key to detecting hotspots that may spring up in the months ahead, What we talked about yesterdaywe talked about nursing homes, we talked about indigenous people, and we talked about vulnerable people in the inner city, really ensuring that something that is so small, that cant even be seen on the surveillance monitoring, will be able to be seen in the asymptomatic.

A staff member of Odyssey House Louisiana, which runs a drive-thru testing site for the CCP virus, waves to passing vehicles in New Orleans, Louisiana, on March 27, 2020. (Kathleen Flynn/Reuters)

Birx wants to identify additional testing capacity across the country. She said as the additional antibody tests come available, she wants to work with mayors to test first responders and healthcare workers in states with the highest prevalence of the disease.

Because things can look very good in the lab, and then when you take them into the field, sometimes theyre not as good, said Birx.

Fauci warned the public not to underestimate the importance of testing. Testing is a part, an important part, of a multifaceted way that we are going to control and ultimately end this outbreak, he said.

We need to be humble and modest that we dont know everything about it, but it [the antibody test] really is an important test, he said.
A photo snapped by a Japanese photographer Yasuyoshi Chiba titled Straight Voice from the protests during a massive blackout in support of the civilian rule in Sudans Khartoum on June 19, 2019, has reportedly won the acclaimed World Press Photo award. The image featured an emotionally-charged youth reciting poetry while the protesters flashed phone torchlights. The mob, featured in the picture, had gathered when the military toppled long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir during the pro-democracy movement in Sudan.

The picture captured by Chiba, the Chief Photographer for East Africa and the Indian Ocean for French news agency Agence France-Presse, bagged him the first prize in the General News Singles category, according to a news agency report.

"This moment was the only peaceful group protest I encountered during my stay. I felt their undefeated solidarity like burning embers that remain to flare up again," Chiba said in a statement released by the Amsterdam-based World Press Photo Foundation. Jury chair, Lekgetho Makola, reportedly said that despite having captured the moments of tensed conflict, the photograph "inspires people" and voiced a sense of hope." Chris McGrath, a photographer for Getty Images and member of the 2020 jury, called the winning photo just a really beautiful, quiet photograph that summed up all the unrest across the globe of people wanting change.

Read: When Will Flipkart Delivery Be Available Amid The Coronavirus Lockdown?

Read: China Denies Cover-up In Coronavirus Outbreak Hours After Raising Death Toll By 50%

Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302 crash images

Furthermore, several images captured by Associated Press photographer, Mulugeta Ayene, of family and loved ones grieving at the crash site of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302 near Addis Ababa won the prestigious award in the Spot News Stories category. Flight 302 had been the deadliest accident that involved an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft operating Boeing 737 MAX to date.

Its truly an honor to have Associated Press (AP) photographs included among the winners of this years World Press Photo contest, said APs Director of Photography, J. David Ake. And as a former Agence France-Presse (AFP) staff photographer, I would like to offer a tip o the hat to Yasuyoshi Chiba for his Photo of the Year

Besides, several World Press Photo Story of the Year images were shot in Africa, the images compiled by the French photographer Romain Laurendeau. Romain reportedly won for his series of images that were titled Kho, the Genesis of a Revolt, that narrated the visual tale of the 20192020 Algerian protests, also called Revolution of Smiles or Hirak Movement. The series also won the Long-Term Projects category, according to reports.

Over 74,000 photo entries were submitted by 4,282 photographers, out of which, 44 winners were declared from at least 24 different countries. The contest was rolled out before the Coronavirus pandemic hit the world, January 14 being the closing date, the organisers told the AP reporters.

Read: Singapore Records 623 New Coronavirus Cases; Foreign Workers In Dormitories Worst-affected

Read: Philippine Economic Chief Resigns Amid Coronavirus Crisis

(With AP Inputs)
Hasmukh

Cast: Vir Das, Ranvir Shorey, Suhail Nayyar

Director: Nikhil Gonsalves

Stand-up comic Vir Das headlines this drama about a small-town comic Hasmukh, an aspiring comedian with good material but terrible delivery as described in the promotional literature.

Hasmukh has been an understudy to a famous comedian Gulati (Manoj Pahwa) who refuses to give him his big promised break. Hasmukh is driven to desperate measures to kickstart his stagnant career, and in an unexpected turn of events, his comedic stint starts with a murder. Whats worse, Hasmukh discovers that he finds his comic mojo only when he goes for the kill! That, right there is a delightful and diabolical premise here that got my immediate attention.

Once Hasmukh has tasted blood and the resultant success, there is no looking back. What starts off accidentally soon turns into a necessity for Hasmukh. He finds a willing abettor in Jimmy, (Ranvir Shorey) the manager of Hasmukhs former mentor Gulati. Jimmy willingly joins hands with the new comic on the block and off they go trying to find new gigs and new people to murderprimarily to fuel Hasmukhs inspiration. Serendipitously Hasmukh becomes an Internet sensation and is noticed by the programming team of a television channel desperately looking for ways to boost their ratings. The next thing he knows is that he is on his way to Mumbai as a wild card entry on a comedy show! Lady Luck finally seems to be smiling beatifically on Hasmukh as he quickly steps into the big league in the big city. But will his past catch up with him? Its the uncertainty of Hasmukhs fate that hangs over his head like the proverbial Damocles Sword lending the show an air of suspense and edginess, which makes it very watchable.

In fact, this 10 episode series on Netflix drums up the excitement in each episode with intrigues replete with enough twists and turns. With workplace politics in the television channel, the on-stage rivalry between Hasmukh and Krishna Kumar (a seasoned Comedy Show winner), and each episode ending on a mysterious note, there is enough to keep the audience coming back for the next. To that extent the team of writers that includes Vir Das, Neeraj Pandey, Suparn Verma, Amogh Ranadive, Nikhil Advani and director Nikhil Gonsalves keep a firm grip on the material giving us a Desi Dexter like character. Where the writing somewhat falters is in the detailinginstead of small-town nuances, the show settles for broad strokes especially in the early episodes when the story is set in a provincial town in Uttar Pradesh.

Just like movies about musicians are expected to have great music, shows about stand-up comics need to have great comic material for the comedian. Especially after watching shows like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel which fare exceedingly well on both the stand-up comedy and the dramatic front, the lack of great comic material in Hasmukh is a bit of a let-down. The good news is that the smart plotting in each episode with convincing backstories and motivations for the dramatis personae more than make up for the patchy comic material. In fact, the competition between KK (Suhail Nayyar) and Hasmukh heating up towards the end of the series provides some edge-of-the-seat moments.

Vir Das, in the lead role, is both effective and convincing in this subdued intense role while Shorey as Jimmy, dazzles. Das and Shoreys immaculate teamwork holds the show together. Ravi Kishan as the channel honcho with a roving eye is delightful too even in just a brief turn.

Director Nikhil Gonsalves handles the material at hand adeptly, focusing on the thriller and dramatic element above all else. In the bargain, he pulls off the arduous task of delivering a binge-worthy series.

Hasmukh may not tickle your funny bone, but those with a yen for dark dramas would certainly find this underdog story-meets-dark thriller, an appealing watch.

Rating: 3/5
A winter weather advisory was issued for parts of upstate New York on April 18 with up to five inches of snow expected in parts, local media reported.

Snow amounts and road conditions will vary by elevation, and the National Weather Service (NWS) said precipitation would taper off across the region on the morning of April 18, with dry weather and some sunshine in store for this afternoon.

In this video, snow can be seen falling in Lee, Massachusetts. Credit: Ezra Bookman via Storyful
The Government is looking to the next stage of the economic battle against the coronavirus and at ways in which it can extend direct support to businesses after putting in place a pay safety net for nearly a million workers.

Measures such as tax and rates relief have already been implemented, but in order to ensure that businesses will invest and hire despite the hefty debts on their balance sheets as a result of the lockdown, the State will need to do more, according to Robert Watt, who is the top civil servant in the Department of Public Expenditure.

"Grants, open-ended grants to small and medium enterprises, and in some cases capital equity, or different types of capital investment in a specific company," Mr Watt said.

"We haven't gone for that in Ireland either but we will have to at some stage."

Even though the eventual cost to Government is likely to be in the region of 20bn, Mr Watt told an online conference organised by UCD's Geary Institute that there was "no need for us to think about austerity or cutbacks in spending or increasing taxes".

Businesses have started lobbying Government to implement new measures and have warned that without support, many companies will go to the wall, especially if there is not a rapid bounceback in the economy.

The Department of Finance is due to publish its economic projections for the pandemic next week and Mr Watt said he suspected the economy could be in for a slower bounceback than some had projected. Many economists have said that even though the pandemic would inflict a bigger one-time shock than the financial crisis, it would be a short-lived one, and there would be a rapid 'V-shaped' recovery.

"There is significant uncertainty about when economies will return back to some sort of normality. There is plenty of discussion about 'Us' and 'Vs' and 'Ls'; we sort of prefer the Nike swoosh," he said.

Read More

Mr Watt said the Government would have to do more in the area of guarantee schemes for companies and "significantly more in the next few weeks".

He noted the Covid-19 programme set up via the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland entailed the European Investment Bank meeting the first of any loan losses incurred in the scheme.

Both Mr Watt and John McKeon, secretary general of the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, said they expected more workers to migrate from the 350-a-week pandemic unemployment payments on to a wage subsidy scheme run by Revenue that aims to keep links between workers and employers.

"Up to yesterday, we had four years' worth of claims in four weeks," Mr McKeon told the conference.

"We have now got, between ourselves and the wage subsidy scheme, close to a million people who are getting some form of income support from the State."

Mr Watt noted that all in all, around 40pc of workers in the private sector were now on Government wage support.

The worst-hit area, he said, was the accommodation sector, which now had almost 135,000 people on the schemes, followed by construction, with 100,000 workers in total.

"For the exit strategy, it's more likely that construction can go back to work, and parts of retail and transport, before food and accommodation," he added.
A Starbucks inside a rest stop along I-80 in Ohio is closed on March 21, 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Rebecca Harrington/Business Insider

Starbucks is preparing to reopen locations that shuttered during the coronavirus pandemic with modified operations, CEO Kevin Johnson announced on Thursday.

Employees will no longer be paid if they do not show up for work starting May 3, as Starbucks adjusts its store formats and service options in stores that reopen.

Starbucks expects to resume normal operations, ending its Catastrophe Pay program and $3 pay bump for workers, in June.

President Trump announced that Starbucks CEO would join other restaurant industry leaders in advising the White House on America's economic revival.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Starbucks is preparing to reopen stores and once again require employees to attend work.

On Thursday, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson announced that the company is rolling out plans to reopen stores that shuttered during the coronavirus pandemic, using different store formats and timing in different areas. The coffee giant is predicting a return to normal operations in June.

"With governments, health care professionals, businesses and citizens all working together, there is evidence many markets have in fact 'flattened the curve' and are now beginning to see a decline in the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases," Johnson said in a letter to employees.

"This is prompting many to define the next steps that will appropriately prioritize health concerns while, at the same time, take thoughtful and measured steps to serve our communities," Johnson continued.

On March 20, Starbucks announced it was closing all stores without drive-thrus, converting many locations into drive-thru and delivery-only businesses. The company allowed all workers to be paid whether or not they came to work, with those who did go to work receiving $3 extra per hour.

Starting on May 3, Starbucks will no longer pay workers who are healthy but do not want to show up in stores. Employees who do not want to risk going to work will need to use vacation day or unused sick leave. Those who do work in stores will continue to receive the $3 pay bump through May.

Story continues

High-risk employees, including those with illnesses that make them susceptible to COVID-19 and people living with healthcare workers, are eligible to be paid without showing up at work through Starbucks' "Catastrophe Pay" program.

Starbucks said it plans to phase out Catastrophe Pay and the $3 pay bump for employees who do show up at work in June when the coffee chain is predicting a return to normal operations, pay, and benefits.

Starbucks' CEO is advising Trump on economic revival during the coronavirus pandemic

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson.

Joshua Trujillo, Starbucks

Earlier this week, President Trump announced that Johnson would join other restaurant industry leaders in a "Great American Economic Revival Industry Group" for the industry. When announcing the creation of the groups, Trump said that the plans to reopen the country are "close to being finalized."

"The day will be very close because certain states, as you know, are in much different condition and in a much different place than other states," Trump said on Tuesday. "It's going to be very, very close. Maybe even before the date of May 1st."

Johnson said in Thursday's letter that Starbucks aims to "exceed public health requirements" as it reopens stores. The chain plans to emphasize options such as contactless service, entry-way pickup, curbside delivery, and at-home delivery.

According to Johnson, Starbucks will look at the local status of the coronavirus outbreak, guidance from health and government officials, community sentiment, and stores' operational readiness when deciding to reopen.

"Not all decisions are financial, and in a crisis like this, they must be secondary to the health and well-being of our partners and customers," Johnson said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
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CPJ and partner organizations today sent recommendations on the European Rule of Law Mechanism to Didier Reynders, the European Unions Justice Commissioner, and Vera Jourova, Vice President for Values and Transparency.

The Rule of Law Mechanism will allow the European Commission to assess, among other issues, member states press freedom records.

CPJ and press freedom groups are calling for the process to be robust and lead to meaningful change to the lives and work of journalists at risk around the bloc.

The text of the recommendations can be found here.
Despite the growing number of protests, polling shows the vast majority of Americans support stay-at-home orders. Eighty-one percent of respondents in an April 8 Quinnipiac University poll said they would support a national stay-at-home order. Sixty-eight percent of Republicans queried said they would support a nationwide order to stay in their homes, along with 95 percent of Democrats and 80 percent of Independents. In a Pew Research Center survey, 66 percent of respondents said they are more concerned that restrictions would be lifted too quickly, as opposed to not quickly enough. Republicans in the survey were essentially split on the question.
By David Kirton

SHENZHEN, China (Reuters) - A prominent Chinese lawyer who served on the board of telecoms equipment giant ZTE Corp has resigned after several news articles in state-backed media reported that he was under investigation for alleged sexual assault.

ZTE said in a filing with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Friday that it had received the resignation letter of non-executive board member Bao Yuming and that he will no longer hold any position at the company.

The filing said that the company was "concerned" by the media reports.

Bao, also known as Robert Y. Bao, could not immediately be reached for comment by phone, email or social media on Friday afternoon. His website, Bao Law, could not be accessed on Friday.

On Thursday, a local public security bureau in the city of Yantai in Shandong province said on its official Weibo account that in October last year it had reopened an earlier investigation into sexual assault allegations against a man named Bao after more evidence came to light.

The city government-backed Beijing News reported on Thursday that it had received confirmation from Yantai police that the statement referred to Bao Yuming. Reuters was not able to immediately confirm the report with Yantai police.

Bao was brought on to ZTE's board in June 2018 in a management shakeup as part of a deal with Washington, as the company sought to lift a devastating supplier ban introduced after it broke an agreement to discipline executives who conspired to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran and North Korea.

ZTE's 2018 annual report says that Bao worked in New York and California for nearly 10 years and that he has served as a senior legal adviser to several multinational companies including Cisco and News Corporation. It described him as "one of the top 10 chief legal officers in the country."

Yantai Jereh Oilfield Services Group said in a separate stock exchange filing on Friday that it had fired Bao from his role as vice president, citing media reports of the investigation.

The prestigious Southwest University of Political Science and Law, in Chongqing, said on Friday it had dismissed Bao from his role as a part-time researcher.

(Reporting by David Kirton; Editing by Tony Munroe and Kim Coghill)
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > Battling COVID-19: Truth and Untruth about North Korea

Introduction

Even when the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world claiming over 1 lakh fatalities, claims made by the most isolated country in the world North Korea has claimed zero fatality. The global death toll of the virus, termed as COVID-19 by the World Health Organisation crossed one lakh on April 11, barely 103 days after the organisation first heard of mystery pneumonia in Wuhan. North Korea could be one of the dozen nations in the world not yet invaded by the deadly virus, but when the neighbouring China, South Korea and Japan are struggling to contain the spread of the virus, analysts and Korean watchers stretch their head to find out how North Korea remains insulated from the attack of the virus. It is hard for them to believe.

This disbelief stems from the fact that North Korea shares a nearly 900-mile border with China, through which tens of thousands of North Koreans escape or navigated as part of a robust smuggling trade and yet North Korea claims to have successfully blocked the mercurial virus that has not discriminated between rich or poor or recognises any identity or location from entering its territory. While the US, its foremost challenger has 560,433 cases of the coronavirus with 22,115 deaths, China, its main backer and most important trading partner, has more than 82,0160 confirmed cases with 3,341 fatalities. (figures as of 13 April 2020) In contrast, North Koreas official count is zero.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has boasted telling his people that international organisations and public health experts are all praise of the governments success to keep the virus at bay. With strict information control and lack of free media, foreign reporters have no means to verify other than to depend on official sources. But whispers in corridors suggest that either Kim is suppressing information or blind to the situation on the ground. The suspicion arises because North Korea lacks the capacity to conduct widespread diagnostic testing.

Early measures

North Korea is under severe economic sanctions for its nuclear and weapons programs. Its medical system is poorly equipped. A country of malnourished people without proper sanitation facilities, North Korea is always susceptible to an impending disaster but the regime is always in denial. For Kim, face saving takes precedence to the health of the citizens. It needs to be admitted however that North Korea was the first country in the world to take swift action and close the borders to foreign tourists in January as soon as news emerged of the virus outbreak in Wuhan. By taking further actions, it imposed strict, lengthy quarantines on foreign diplomats and cancelled virtually all international flights. It also put more than 10,000 of its citizens under isolation and imposed travel restrictions as measures against the virus. Such measures stemmed the spread of the virus from entering the country. Even if this is true, the manner the virus travels, it could be next to impossible for the authoritarian regime to ensure full proof system so that North Korea does not fall victim to the pandemic. There remains always a strong possibility that some people manage to cross through the border even if the authorities seal it.

Given the dismal medical system, the country is unlikely to cope with the spreads when that occurs. While medical supplies and equipment are antiquated, basic infrastructure like electricity and water is not guaranteed even at medical clinics. Being aware of such deficiencies, the Kim regime reached out to international organisations and non-profits organisations in mid-February requesting assistance such as diagnostic test kits, protective gears and equipment, including ventilators and oxygenators. Russia quickly responded by sending 1,500 coronavirus test kits. Medecins Sans Frontieres, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent and the WHO obtained humanitarian exemptions from the UN committee overseeing sanctions to send in coronavirus-related relief supplies. With the overseas help North Korea conducted about 1,000 tests. Compared to South Korea which conducted more than 420,000 tests, this is small.

Economic consequences

As the border was sealed, the economic repercussions are huge. Plenty of informal trade goes on with China and the lives of many North Koreans depend upon the unofficial market. Closure of the border hit hard this segment of people. If the KOVID-19 spreads, it will deliver a blow to the already struggling economy. Still some cross-border smuggling to and from China continues, helping the North Korean to avoid dramatic problems.

After Kim Jong-un consolidated his power, he had launched some economic reforms and reform-driven growth strategy. That pace slowed down in the last 2-3 years and no new reform measures were adopted. When economic stagnation loomed large, the outbreak of KOVID-19 poses another mighty hit. If Kim does not revive the market-driven economic growth strategy, his own position could come under threat. It is possible that economic reforms took a back seat as Kim was focusing on weapons development and missile testing programs, while seeking to reach out with the American President in order to get some sanctions relief. That effort ended with a whimper.

China with which North Korea has a lips-and-teeth relationship has never abandoned North Korea. It has its own strategic consideration (or should I say, compulsions) to keep the North as a buffer against the spread of American influence in the region and therefore keep it always afloat. Therefore it tolerated Kims belligerence in weapons development programs and from 2008 onwards quietly encouraged smuggling and other illegal and semi-legal economic exchanges with North Korea. Faced with the foreign threat, Kim suspended dramatic restructuring of the economy until the outbreak of COVID-19 posed another challenge.

Effect on regime stability

Kim Jong-un is no longer inexperienced as he was perceived when he took power from his father. After carrying out purges and strengthening the nuclear status by tests and a series of missile launches, he also achieved international status when he sat across the table with the American President Donald Trump on equal terms. Therefore he is no more a pushover. Having consolidated his firm hold on power, he has no threat to his regime from any quarter. Therefore, writes Andrei Lankov, even if the coronavirus epidemic gets out of control, that would not constitute a major threat to the regime stability.

Though only credulous would accept the official claim of the complete absence of the COVID-19 casualty, it would be difficult to dismiss totally that the regime was able to successfully prevent a dramatic surge of the disease within its borders. Being an authoritarian system, its order on matters of quarantine and control are complied either out of fear or willingness. This is a clear advantage that North Korea enjoys over democracies where people tend to violate restrictions. Yet, the fear of an impending spread of the virus and therefore disaster remains always real.

That said, if the coronavirus outbreak occurs in North Korea, it would be devastating for the country as the handful of hospitals have ventilators, which are normally reserved for the top elite, and are off-limits for the vast majority of the population, who, when afflicted, are only left to die. Lankov observes: If your country is seriously poor, it doesnt matter whether you live under a democracy, a mild authoritarian regime, or a hard authoritarian regime. At the end of the day, the low-income majority have little chance of getting access to ventilators. Such machinery is very rare in poor countries and will be available only to a select few who will, overwhelmingly, come from the local elite.

Since the elderly peoples in their 60s and above age group are more prone to die of the virus, and if COVID-19 kills top personalities like Pak Pong Ju, the chief economic manager (in his late 70s) or Choe Ryong Hae, Kims closest lieutenant and adviser (70), Kim would have no difficulty in replacing them. But if for example Kim himself fall victim to the virus or dies in a traffic accident or in extreme scenario in a purge, his support group will disappear with little trace in no time. Even when senior officials were purged by Kim in the past on his way to consolidate power, their supporters also quickly disappeared. Kims disappearance also shall be a repeat of that scenario. However, should the present leaders above 60 and above die due to the COVID-19, Kim would have little difficulty in replacing them with another group loyal to him.

Though the COVID-19 has assumed a global dimension, Kim seems to have overreacted, which seems to be delivering another blow to its struggling economy. It is well known that North Koreans are malnourished and therefore extremely vulnerable to the negative impacts of the quarantine panic. If the epidemic lasts for few weeks, the impact will be huge on a large scale. Prices shall skyrocket and poorer people will suffer from acute hunger and many would die.

Relief extended

In the wake of the COVID-19 spread, humanitarian measures have come to North Koreas rescue. US Treasury decided to cut some red tape for aid groups, who have now easier path to bring ambulances, laptops and other aid-related items to the country. The change related to the definition of banned luxury goods under US law came after many experts expressed alarm about the likelihood that the virus has already spread to North Korea, despite Pyongyangs claims of zero infections.

What does Treasury Departments rule mean? It used to issue its own stamp of approval on an item approved by the UN Security Council for export into North Korea that the US defines as a luxury good. Under the new rule of the Treasury, it no longer needs to issue such stamp. It also means an aid group will no longer have to spend its time and resources seeking the Treasury Departments approval, once the group has received a coveted sanctions exemption from the UNSC. US sanctions programs allow humanitarian aid including medicine, medical devices, equipment, and agricultural products at any time.

Yet, the process is not smooth. Though rules have changed, humanitarian organizations trying to work in North Korea still have to navigate a web of laws, regulations, UN resolutions, and often tense geopolitics before they can enter the country. Paperwork, waiting periods, and legal fees can be time-consuming and expensive. Aid groups need special licenses from the US government to send goods into the North, and permission if they need to work with a North Korean partner inside the country.

Even China that has close ties with North Korea faces problems at time in delivering humanitarian goods. The problem was accentuated after North Korea closed the border when the COVID-19 outbreak was spreading in China. Many humanitarian supplies were stuck in Chinese customs for weeks because of border closure. North Koreas own government has put up barriers to aid groups as well.

Politburo meeting

Presided by Kim Jong-un, the Politburo met on April 11 to discuss anti-coronavirus measures, budget issues and organisational matters. At the meeting, the political bureau of the central committee of the ruling Workers Party of Korea adopted a resolution to take more through state measures to protect peoples lives and safety against the pandemic. North Korea is among just a few countries in the world that claim to have no coronavirus infections, but many outside observers suspect North Korea claims. North Korea continues testing for the virus, with more than 500 people in quarantine. The state controlled Korean Central News Agency claimed that the virus had created obstacles to work on the economy, but the North had enforced consistent and compulsory strict top-class emergency anti-epidemic measures to maintain a stable situation.

The agency further noted that the Politburo also aimed to step up emergency services nationwide against the outbreak and push ahead with economic construction, increasing the national defence capability and stabilising peoples livelihoods this year.

In the final analysis, the question that North Koreas claim of being coronavirus free remains disputed. US experts opine that Pyongyang had moved to warn off foreign foes and appear strong to its population. North Korea claims that when the epidemic flared up in January, it took extensive measures to prevent the spread of the virus within its borders, including the quarantine of entire counties near the Chinese border, the cancellation of important cultural events, and the establishment of a quarantine centre in a large Pyongyang hotel.

Experts have expressed their doubts of North Koreas claims that the country is coronavirus-free so far. They say that it is very likely that it crossed into North Korea from China in the early days of the epidemic as the border is quite porous. Others say that the preventive measures seem to be reactionary, and focused on keeping Kim Jong-un and his inner circle safe from COVID-19. Still others say that the claim of virus-free could have a strategic purpose. According to Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation, North Korea wants to project an image of strength in the face of the spreading virus. It could be Kims strategy to allay concerns of foreigners while warning foreign opponents not to take advantage of the situation, says Klinger. Jung Pak of the Brookings Institute also found North Koreas claim improbable.

In conclusion it can be said that because North Korea has created the reputation of not being a responsible actor in world affairs and because of its exclusive nature, opinions normally do not go in North Koreas favour. How North Korea changes this perception of the world about itself remains a challenge for it and until that is done, the world will continue to suspect North Koreas claims of zero infection even if this is true.

Dr. Panda, former ICCR Chair Professor at Reitaku University, Japan, is currently Lok Sabha Research Fellow, Parliament of India. Views are personal. E-mail: rajaram.panda[at]gmail.com
Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has alleged there was a scam in the public distribution system (PDS) in the state, which was getting bigger by the day when the state needed to put up a united fight against coronavirus. He added that he had sought urgent details from the chief secretarys office on the matter.

Covid 19 has to be unitedly fought on ground and not in media/public relations. No politics at all. Worried-PDS SCAM getting bigger by the day. PDS system is in virtual political hijack-a crime. Free ration for needy and not coffers. Defaulters be sternly dealt, one of Dhankars many tweets on the issue said.

Dhankars allegation is supported by BJP leaders, two of whom-- Darjeeling MP Raju Singh Bista and Alipurduars MP John Barla-- have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi claiming there was a scam in the PDS in Bengal. Bista has also spoken to Governor Dhankhar in this regard.

Dhankhars tweet came two days after chief minister Mamata Banerjee acknowledged deficiencies in delivering ration to the needy and removed the state food and supplies secretary.

There is a problem with ration distribution, (it) is only about 10% of cases. We have to look into it and solve the problem, she had said on Thursday.

The state government has promised free ration to 7.5 crore people for six months. The states population is 9.13 crore, according to the census of 2011.

Bharatiya Janata Party has demanded the resignation of the states food and supplies minister Jyoti Priya Mallick.

Whats the gain in making the secretary a scapegoat? Its the minister who needs to be removed if he does not resign on his own, BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha said on Saturday.

In another tweet, Dhankar said the PDS SCAM BALOON was getting bigger by the day and it involved powerful ones. He demanded a thorough probe to unearth the sharks that hijacked PDS and denied poor and needy their due.

Mallick, however, refused to comment, saying that the chief minister had asked every leader and worker of the party to refrain from trading political barbs during the time of a crisis.

In another tweet, Dhankhar wrote, Concerned as regards illegalities and irregularities in making available benefit of free food grains to the poor and needy under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojna, have sought urgent details through my office in this behalf from the State Chief Secretary @MamataOfficial.

Incidentally, the central scheme Dhankhar referred to has not been implemented in Bengal as the state has its own scheme.

In Kolkata, senior Left leaders, including Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo members Biman Bose and Md Salim and Left leader in the Assembly Sujan Chakraborty were arrested while staging a demonstration against the alleged ration scam. The leaders maintained social distancing during the demonstration.
Sable Island Sweat Bee (Lasioglossum sablense): recovery strategy and action plan (proposed)

Official title: Recovery Strategy and Action Plan for the Sable Island Sweat Bee (Lasioglossum sablense) in Canada Species at Risk Act Recovery strategy series

2020 Proposed

Document information Recommended citation: Parks Canada Agency. 2020. Recovery Strategy and Action Plan for the Sable Island Sweat Bee (Lasioglossum sablense) in Canada [Proposed]. Species at Risk Act Recovery Strategy Series. Parks Canada Agency, Ottawa. viii + 26 pp. For copies of the recovery strategy and action plan, or for additional information on species at risk, including the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) Status Reports, residence descriptions, action plans, and other related recovery documents, please visit the Species at Risk (SAR) Public RegistryFootnote 1 . Cover illustration: Lasioglossum sablense. Photo: John Klymko, 2019. Egalement disponible en francais sous le titre : "Programme de retablissement et plan d'action visant l'halicte de l'ile de Sable (Lasioglossum sablense) au Canada [Proposition]"  Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, represented by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, 2020. All rights reserved. ISBN ISBN to come Catalogue no. Catalogue no. to come Content (excluding the illustrations) may be used without permission, with appropriate credit to the source.

Preface The federal, provincial, and territorial government signatories under the Accord for the Protection of Species at Risk (1996)Footnote 2 agreed to establish complementary legislation and programs that provide for effective protection of species at risk throughout Canada. Under the Species at Risk Act ( S.C. 2002, c.29) (SARA), the federal competent ministers are responsible for the preparation of recovery strategies and action plans (for species for which recovery has been deemed feasible) for listed Extirpated, Endangered, and Threatened species. They are also required to report on progress within five years after the publication of the final document on the Species at Risk Public Registry. This document has been prepared to meet the requirements under SARA of both a recovery strategy and an action plan. As such, it provides both the strategic direction for the recovery of the species, including the population and distribution objectives for the species, as well as the more detailed recovery measures to support this strategic direction, outlining what is required to achieve objectives. SARA requires that an action plan also include an evaluation of the socio-economic costs of the action plan and the benefits to be derived from its implementation. It is important to note that the setting of population and distribution objectives and the identification of critical habitat are science-based exercises and socio-economic factors were not considered in their development. The socio-economic evaluation only applies to the more detailed recovery measures. The recovery strategy and action plan are considered part of a series of documents that are linked and should be taken into consideration together, along with the COSEWIC status report. The Minister responsible for the Parks Canada Agency (PCA) is the competent minister under SARA for the Sable Island Sweat Bee and has prepared this combined recovery strategy and action plan, as per sections 37 and 47 of SARA. To the extent possible, it has been prepared in cooperation with Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Province of Nova Scotia (Department of Lands and Forestry). It was developed in cooperation and consultation with Indigenous governments and organizations, technical experts, non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders, as per sections 39(1) and 48(1) of SARA. Success in the recovery of this species depends on the commitment and cooperation of different constituencies that will be involved in implementing the directions set out in this strategy and will not be achieved by the Parks Canada Agency alone. All Canadians are invited to join in supporting and implementing this strategy for the benefit of the Sable Island Sweat Bee and Canadian society as a whole. Implementation of this recovery strategy and action plan is subject to appropriations, priorities, and budgetary constraints of the participating jurisdictions and organizations. The recovery strategy sets the strategic direction to arrest or reverse the decline of the species, including identification of critical habitat to the extent possible. It provides all Canadians with information to help take action on species conservation. When critical habitat is identified, either in a recovery strategy or an action plan, SARA requires that critical habitat then be protected. In the case of critical habitat identified for terrestrial species, including migratory birds, SARA requires that critical habitat identified in a federally protected areaFootnote 3 be described in the Canada Gazette within 90 days after the recovery strategy or action plan that identified the critical habitat is included in the public registry. A prohibition against destruction of critical habitat under section 58(1) will apply 90 days after the description of the critical habitat is published in the Canada Gazette. For critical habitat located on other federal lands, the competent minister must either make a statement on existing legal protection or make an order so that the prohibition against destruction of critical habitat applies. If the critical habitat for a migratory bird is not within a federal protected area and is not on federal land, within the exclusive economic zone or on the continental shelf of Canada, the prohibition against destruction can only apply to those portions of the critical habitat that are habitat to which the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994 applies as per SARA ss. 58(5.1) and ss. 58(5.2). For any part of critical habitat located on non-federal lands, if the competent minister forms the opinion that any portion of critical habitat is not protected by provisions in or measures under SARA or other Acts of Parliament, or the laws of the province or territory, SARA requires that the Minister recommend that the Governor in Council make an order to prohibit destruction of critical habitat. The discretion to protect critical habitat on non-federal lands that is not otherwise protected rests with the Governor in Council. Acknowledgments This recovery document was prepared by Darien Ure and Dan Kehler (Parks Canada). Acknowledgement and thanks are extended to the parties that provided invaluable advice and expertise to help inform the development of this document, including Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Province of Nova Scotia. Special thanks are extended to Julie McKnight (Environment and Climate Change Canada, Canadian Wildlife Service  Atlantic Region), Donna Hurlburt (Province of Nova Scotia, Department of Lands and Forestry), Jason Gibbs (University of Manitoba), Cory Sheffield (Royal Saskatchewan Museum), John Klymko (Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre), Miriam Richards (Brock University), David McCorquodale (Cape Breton University), Cody Chapman (The Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq), Tamara Young (Kwilmu'kw Maw-Klusuaqn Negotiation Office) and Zoe Lucas (Sable Island Institute). Additional thanks are extended to Melissa Ristow and Jennifer Keeney (Parks Canada) for support in mapping critical habitat. Finally, the contribution made by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada in preparing the status report on the Sable Island Sweat Bee, which served as a basis for this document, is gratefully acknowledged. Executive summary Sable Island Sweat Bee (Lasioglossum sablense) is a small (56 mm), dull-metallic sweat bee in the family Halictidae, which is globally endemic to Sable Island, Nova Scotia. The species was first described in 2010 (Gibbs 2010), assessed by COSEWIC as Threated in 2014 (COSEWIC 2014) and listed under the Species at Risk Act (SARA) in 2018. The rationale for an assessment as Threatened was its occurrence as one isolated population with a very small range and no possibility of rescue. There are unknowns regarding the feasibility of recovery of Sable Island Sweat Bee as presented in the recovery feasibility summary section. In keeping with the precautionary principle, this recovery strategy has been prepared as per section 41(1) of SARA, as would be done when recovery is determined to be technically and biologically feasible. Although many knowledge gaps exist for this species, the primary threats to the Sable Island Sweat Bee have been identified to include habitat shifting and alteration associated with large scale processes of climate change and stemming primarily from increased severity and frequency of storms, sea level rise and flooding in addition to potential invasive species introductions and influences of non-native species. Recreational activities, vehicle use and collections for research may also have an influence on individuals, residences and suitable habitat. This document has been prepared to meet the requirements under SARA of both a recovery strategy and an action plan. As such, it provides both the strategic direction for the recovery of the species as well as the more detailed recovery measures to support this strategic direction, outlining what is required to achieve the objectives. The population and distribution objective is to maintain a stable population of Sable Island Sweat Bee distributed across its current area of occupancy (2019). Meeting this objective will involve: (i) addressing key knowledge gaps (e.g., species' needs, biology, abundance, distribution and threats) so that suitable habitat can be described and subsequently protected habitat by 2025; and (ii) reducing and preventing key threats (e.g., ensuring no invasive species are introduced to the island; ensuring no suitable habitat is disturbed or permanently lost due to human activity, which may include restoration of suitable habitat where required). In order to achieve the population and distribution objectives for the Sable Island Sweat Bee, the immediate focus of recovery and conservation efforts will be to prevent and reduce threats to the extent possible and maintain habitat at known sites while addressing knowledge gaps to better understand and protect the species and its habitat in the future. Specific recovery measures involving site stewardship and management, impact assessment and mitigation, development and implementation of best management practices, education and awareness initiatives, restoration activities and research and monitoring have been identified as high priorities over the next five years. Section 41(1)(c) of SARA requires that the recovery strategy include an identification of the species' critical habitat, to the extent possible, as well as examples of activities that are likely to result in its destruction. There are presently numerous knowledge gaps surrounding critical habitat requirements for Sable Island Sweat Bee; critical habitat has been identified to the extent possible at this time. A schedule of studies has been developed to provide the information necessary to identify the critical habitat that will be sufficient to meet the population and distribution objectives. As more information becomes available, additional critical habitat may be identified. Measures proposed in this recovery strategy and action plan will have limited socio-economic impact and place no restrictions on land use outside of Sable Island National Park Reserve. Direct costs of implementing this plan will be borne by Parks Canada. Indirect costs are expected to be minimal, while benefits will include positive impacts on ecological integrity, greater awareness and appreciation of the value of biodiversity to Canadians, and opportunities for engagement of partners and visitors. Recovery feasibility summary Based on the following four criteria that the Government of Canada uses to establish recovery feasibility, there are unknowns regarding the feasibility of recovery of the Sable Island Sweat Bee. In keeping with the precautionary principle, this recovery strategy and action plan has been prepared as per section 41(1) of SARA, as would be done when recovery is determined to be technically and biologically feasible. Accordingly, this plan prioritizes filling knowledge gaps in order to address the unknowns surrounding the feasibility of recovery. 1. Individuals of the wildlife species that are capable of reproduction are available now or in the foreseeable future to sustain the population or improve its abundance. Yes. Although information on total abundance is not available, individuals have been observed annually over several consecutive years of surveys (20132019), indicating that a breeding population presently exists. 2. Sufficient suitable habitat is available to support the species or could be made available through habitat management or restoration. Yes. The Sable Island Sweat Bee is a generalist forager and has been found throughout vegetated areas on Sable Island, which comprise approximately 14.6 km2 (Colville et al. 2016). Many knowledge gaps exist surrounding suitable nesting habitat, however it appears that nest sites require stable, bare to sparsely vegetated, sand substrate, which is also widely distributed across the island (Parks Canada 2019a). Although information on habitat requirements is relatively limited, the continued presence of the species on Sable Island suggests that sufficient suitable habitat is available to support maintenance of the current population. 3. The primary threats to the species or its habitat (including threats outside Canada) can be avoided or mitigated. Unknown. Although several knowledge gaps still exist, the primary threats to the Sable Island Sweat Bee are identified to be habitat shifting and alteration associated with climate change (stemming primarily from increased severity and frequency of storms, sea level rise, and salt water intrusion/flooding) in addition to potential invasive species introductions and interactions with non-native species (COSEWIC 2014). The influence of these threats on the Sable Island Sweat Bee population is poorly understood and it is unknown whether threats associated with climate change can be avoided or mitigated. 4. Recovery techniques exist to achieve the population and distribution objectives or can be expected to be developed within a reasonable timeframe. Yes. Notwithstanding unknowns associated with the species' historic condition, it is considered to be biologically and technically feasible to mitigate some key threats to increase the likelihood that the species will maintain a stable population across its known range. The Sable Island Sweat Bee is intrinsically rare in Canada and naturally precarious due to its small range confined within an isolated location. It is therefore recognized that the recovered condition of this species may continue to be associated with an assessed status of Threatened (D criterion  Restricted population).

1. COSEWIC* species assessment information Date of assessment: November 2014 Common name (population): Sable Island Sweat Bee Scientific name: Lasioglossum sablense COSEWIC status: Threatened Reason for designation:

The species is globally endemic to Sable Island, Nova Scotia, and occurs as one isolated population with a very small range and no possibility of rescue. The island has only about 13 km2 of vegetated area that provides foraging/nesting sites for this bee. Nesting likely occurs near or within this vegetated area and sweat bees are not known to travel large distances (i.e., >200 m) for forage. Increased frequency and severity of storms, in addition to climate change and related sea level rise, are expected to drive change which will further decrease the quality and quantity of bee habitat on the island. Eco-tourism is also a potential future threat, which may also increase the introduction and spread of invasive species. Habitat on the island is also susceptible to invasive plant species, introduced horses, and seawater flooding. Canadian occurrence: Nova Scotia COSEWIC status history: Designated Threatened in November 2014 * COSEWIC (Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada) 2. Species status information Sable Island Sweat Bee (Lasioglossum sablense Gibbs) was assessed as Threatened by COSEWIC in 2014 and listed as Threatened in Schedule 1 of the Species at Risk Act in May 2018. The species was also listed as Threatened under the Nova Scotia Endangered Species Act in 2017. Since the Sable Island Sweat Bee is currently known to be endemic to Sable Island, the percentage of the global population that is located in Canada is 100% (Table 1).

Table 1. Conservation status ranks for Sable Island Sweat Bee (NatureServe 2019). Global (G) Ranka National (N) Rank Subnational (S) Rank G1 Canada

N1 Nova Scotia

S1

a Conservation Status Rank: 1 critically imperiled; 2 imperiled; 3 vulnerable to extirpation or extinction; 4 apparently secure; 5 secure; X  presumed extirpated; H  historical/possibly extirpated; NR  status not ranked; U  unrankable 3. Species information 3.1 Species description The Sable Island Sweat Bee is a small (56 mm), dull-metallic sweat bee in the family Halictidae (COSEWIC 2014). It was first described in a revision of the Lasioglossum subgenus Dialictus for Canada (Gibbs 2010) based on specimens collected from Sable Island in 1966 and 1967 (Howden et al. 1970) and 2008 (Catling et al. 2009). There are five bee species that occur on Sable Island, including two Lasioglossum species: the Sable Island Sweat Bee and the Nova Scotia Sweat Bee (Lasioglossum novascotiae; Lucas 2017). The Nova Scotia Sweat Bee can be distinguished by the sparse punctures on the dorsal surface of the thorax adjacent to the wing bases. Additionally, the dense pale hairs on the end of the female's abdomen can be used to distinguish Sable Island Sweat Bee females from the more sparsely pubescent Nova Scotia Sweat Bee (COSEWIC 2014). 3.2 Species population and distribution The Sable Island Sweat Bee is endemic to Canada and known to occur only on Sable Island, Nova Scotia (COSEWIC 2014). Located at the edge of the continental shelf, 290 kilometers southeast of Halifax and 150 kilometers from the closest landfall, Sable Island is a 42-kilometre-long crescent shaped island in the Atlantic Ocean. Extensive search effort and examination of thousands of Lasioglossum specimens from throughout Atlantic Canada during the species revision process (Gibbs 2010, COSEWIC 2014) as well as subsequent field surveys targeting dune ecosystems in mainland Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island (Klymko and Robinson 2019) have not resulted in discovery of any occurrences of the Sable Island Sweat Bee outside of Sable Island. On Sable Island, the Sable Island Sweat Bee has been found throughout the vegetated portion of the island and confirmed to occur at 27 sites, each separated by a distance of more than 300 m from another location (Lucas 2017, 2018; Figure 1). The areal extent of vegetated communities on Sable Island is approximately 14.6 km2 (as of 2014) (Colville et al. 2016). The population size for the Sable Island Sweat Bee is currently unknown and there is no information on historic populations, trends in abundance or whether current levels are within the range of historic natural variability (COSEWIC 2014). From collections and observations between 2014 and 2018, the Sable Island Sweat Bee has been found to be less abundant than the Nova Scotia Sweat Bee, with a relative proportion of occurrences of approximately 3:1 (COSEWIC 2014, Lucas 2017) but occurring across a wider distribution (Lucas 2017).

Figure 1. Distribution of occurrence records for Sable Island Sweat Bee on Sable Island, NS, Canada. Data from Lucas (2017, 2018).

Long description for Figure 1 This map is of Sable Island surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. An insert map shows the location of Sable Island within Atlantic Canada. On Sable Island, areas covered in vegetation are shown in green (based on 2014 data). Records of Sable Island sweat bee from 2016 and 2017 are distributed across the vegetated area of the island, shown by red circles. Several points of interest on Sable Island are labelled, including West Light, Main Station, #2 Lifesaving Station, #3 Life saving station, Bald Dune and East Lighthouse.

3.3 Needs of the Sable Island Sweat Bee The Sable Island Sweat Bee is a ground-nesting species and a generalist forager on flowering plants (COSEWIC 2014). In temperate regions, Lasioglossum typically have an annual life cycle (Michener 1974) where inseminated adult females overwinter and emerge in spring to form new nests. Reproductive males and females are produced and emerge in late summer (COSEWIC 2014). The Sable Island Sweat Bee has an active flight period from at least mid-May to mid-October (Lucas 2017, 2018). During this period, the species has been found foraging most often in heath vegetation communities but has also been found foraging in sparse and dense grassland (Lucas 2017). The Sable Island Sweat Bee requires pollen and nectar throughout its active period and it uses a wide variety of plant species for this food source (Lucas 2017). An examination of floral associations identified the key forage species as: Rosa virginiana,Trifolium pratense, Achillea millefolium, Anaphalis margaritacea, Hieracium sp., Scorzoneroides autumnalis, Solidago sempervirens, Sonchus arvensis,Taraxacum officinale, Vaccinium macrocarpon, Rubus x biformispinus, Sibbaldia tridentata, Calystegia sepium and Leucanthemum vulgare (Lucas 2017, 2018). The foraging range for a bee of similar size to the Sable Island Sweat Bee is likely a distance of less than 1 km from its nest site (Greenleaf et al. 2007) and considering the windy climate on Sable Island, the nest sites are likely in close proximity to the vegetation communities required for foraging (COSEWIC 2014). Relatively little is known about the nesting biology and requirements of the Sable Island Sweat Bee. They have been confirmed to nest underground, as with most other species of Lasioglossum, and evidence of eusociality has been detected. In Summer 2019, four nest sites, with aggregations of up to 80 nests at a given site, were found in and around Main Station on Sable Island (Parks Canada 2019a). Almost all nest sites were found in stable, sparsely vegetated heath habitat, with greater than 50% bare sand. Note that search effort was largely confined to this habitat within the fenced area of the Main Station. A small search effort outside of Main Station led to the identification of a single nest in a patch of bare sand, in the lee of the dominant winds. It is presumed that overwintering likely occurs at or near the nest sites, as with other species of Lasioglossum (COSEWIC 2014). 4. Threats 4.1 Threat assessment The threat assessment for Sable Island Sweat Bee (Table 2) is based on the unified threats classification system developed by the International Union for the Conservation of NatureConservation Measures Partnership (IUCN-CMP 2006). The threat assessment conducted for the species' status report (COSEWIC 2014) was used as the basis for this assessment and updated to reflect current and potential threats, taking into account activities and operations consistent with legislation and regulations governing Sable Island National Park Reserve. Threats are defined as the proximate activities or processes that have caused, are causing, or may cause in the future the destruction, degradation, and/or impairment of the entity being assessed (population, species, community, or ecosystem) in the area of interest (global, national, or subnational). Limiting factors are not considered during this assessment process. For the purposes of threat assessment, only present and future threats are considered and a 10-year window is used as the period of assessment. Historical threats, indirect or cumulative effects of the threats, or any other relevant information that would help understand the nature of the threats are presented in the Description of Threats, section 4.2. The following description of the species location is provided as context for this assessment: Sable Island became a National Park Reserve under the Canada National Parks Act in 2013. Prior to that, there had been a continuous human presence since 1801, first as the Humane Establishment (lifesaving stations) then as a weather station maintained by the Meteorological Service of Canada. During this time, various buildings were built and maintained, and species of plants and animals were introduced to the island. Currently, the remaining infrastructure is centered on three locations: the Main Station and research camps at West Light and East Light. There are between 3 and 20 contractors, staff and researchers on the island depending upon the time of year. Sable Island National Park Reserve (SINPR) receives about 450 visitors a year, the majority arriving by small expedition cruise vessel, and spending approximately four hours on the island. The remaining visitors arrive by air charter or by private vessel and can spend up to ten hours on the island. There is no overnight accommodation for visitors, nor is there any permanent infrastructure to support visitation. Parks Canada and various researchers maintain a fleet of vehicles, including small ATV s, 26 seat UTVs, tracked skid steers, and 4-wheel drive passenger vehicles. The first ten-year park management plan was approved in 2019 (Parks Canada 2019b).

Table 2. Threat Assessment Summary Table Threat # Threatb description Impactc Scoped Severitye Timingf 1 Residential and commercial development Negligible Negligible (<1%) Negligible (<1%) High

(Continuing) 1.3 Tourism and recreation areas Negligible Negligible (<1%) Negligible (<1%) High

(Continuing) 3 Energy production and mining Not a Threat

(in the assessed timeframe) Restricted ( 11-30 %) Slight

(1-10%) Low

(Possibly in the long term, >10 yrs) 3.1 Oil and gas drilling Not a Threat

(in the assessed timeframe) Restricted ( 11-30 %) Slight

(1-10%) Low

(Possibly in the long term, >10 yrs) 4 Transportation and service corridors Negligible Negligible (<1%) Negligible (<1%) High

(Continuing) 4.1 Roads and railroads

Negligible Negligible (<1%) Negligible (<1%) High

(Continuing) 5 Biological resource use Negligible Negligible (<1%) Negligible (<1%) High

(Continuing) 5.1 Hunting and collecting terrestrial animals Negligible Negligible (<1%) Negligible (<1%) High

(Continuing) 6 Human intrusions and disturbance Negligible Negligible (<1%) Slight

(1-10%) High

(Continuing) 6.1 Recreational activities Negligible Negligible (<1%) Slight

(1-10%) High

(Continuing) 8 Invasive and other problematic species Low Large - Small

( 31-70 %) Slight

(1-10%) High

(Continuing) 8.1 Invasive non-native/alien species Low Large - Small (1-70%) Slight

(1-10%) Moderate

(Possibly in the short term, < 10 yrs) 8.2 Problematic native species Unknown Large ( 31-70 %) Unknown High

(Continuing) 11 Climate change and severe weather Low Restricted ( 11-30 %) Moderate

( 11-30 %) Moderate

(Possibly in the short term, < 10 yrs) 11.1 Habitat shifting and alteration Low Restricted ( 11-30 %) Moderate

( 11-30 %) High

(Continuing) 11.2 Droughts Not a Threat

(in the assessed timeframe) Large ( 31-70 %) Moderate

( 11-30 %) Low

(Possibly in the long term, >10 yrs) 11.3 Temperature extremes Not a Threat

(in the assessed timeframe) Restricted ( 11-30 %) Moderate

( 11-30 %) Low

(Possibly in the long term, >10 yrs) 11.4 Storms and flooding Low Small (1-10%) Moderate

( 11-30 %) High

(Continuing)

b Classification of Threats adopted from IUCN-CMP (Salafsky et al. 2008). c Impact  The degree to which a species is observed, inferred or suspected to be directly or indirectly threatened in the area of interest. The impact of each threat is based on Severity and Scope rating and considers only present and future threats. Threat impact reflects a reduction of a species population or decline/degradation of the area of an ecosystem. The median rate of population reduction or area decline for each combination of scope and severity corresponds to the following classes of threat impact: Very High (75% decline), High (40%), Medium (15%) and Low (3%). Unknown: used when impact cannot be determined (e.g., if values for either scope or severity are unknown); Not Calculated: impact not calculated as threat is outside the assessment timeframe (e.g., timing is insignificant/negligible or low as threat is only considered to be in the past); Negligible: when scope or severity is negligible; Not a Threat: when severity is scored as neutral or potential benefit. d Scope  Proportion of the species that can reasonably be expected to be affected by the threat within 10 years. Usually measured as a proportion of the species' population in the area of interest (Pervasive = 71100%; Large = 3170%; Restricted = 1130%; Small = 110%; Negligible < 1%). e Severity  Within the scope, the level of damage to the species from the threat that can reasonably be expected to be affected by the threat within a 10-year or three-generation timeframe. Usually measured as the degree of reduction of the species' population (Extreme = 71100%; Serious = 3170%; Moderate = 1130%; Slight = 110%; Negligible < 1%; Neutral or Potential Benefit > 0%). f Timing  High = continuing; Moderate = only in the future (could take place in the short term [< 10 years or 3 generations]) or now suspended (could return in the short term); Low = only in the future (could happen in the long term) or now suspended (could come back in the long term); Insignificant/Negligible = only in the past and unlikely to return, or no direct effect but limiting. 4.2 Description of threats The Sable Island Sweat Bee was assessed as Threatened by COSEWIC in 2014 because of its occurrence as one isolated population with a small range and no possibility of rescue. In addition to this natural precariousness, current and anticipated issues and activities that could threaten the survival of the Sable Island Sweat Bee are detailed below. As described in the status report for the species (COSEWIC 2014), habitat shifting and alteration (e.g., saltwater intrusion, sea level rise), storms and flooding and invasive non-native/alien species are likely the greatest threats to the Sable Island Sweat Bee and its habitat. Droughts and temperature extremes and oil and gas activities may also have an impact in the future. Recreational activities, vehicle use and collections for research may have a slight influence on the species and its habitat. Overall, the level of impact of these threats was determined to be either low or unknown and many knowledge gaps remain. Threats are listed as above in the threat assessment summary table (Table 2) and are described in more detail below. 1.3 Tourism and recreational areas; 6.1 Recreational activities Visitation on Sable Island is carefully managed and currently very low (i.e., <500 visitors/year in 2017 and 2018 (Parks Canada 2019b)) with no overnight stays and hence is not likely to be a significant threat to sweat bees or their habitat. All visitation is managed by Parks Canada through a visitor registration process. The majority of visitors arrive by expedition vessels (guided in small groups on the island), with the remainder arriving by chartered aircraft or private vessels (Parks Canada 2019b). Human foot traffic on Sable Island could potentially increase erosion on dune slopes and vegetated areas and trample sensitive bee habitat, however the impact of this activity is considered to be negligible. Visitor activities are managed in a way to minimise disturbance to vegetation and potential bee habitat through avoiding travel in sensitive areas (i.e., heath and freshwater ponds) and using existing horse paths as much as possible. Procedures are currently in place to minimise the risks of introducing invasive species associated with visits to the island, however increases in visitation will also increase the probability of introduction of invasive species. 3.1 Oil and gas drilling Current regulations prevent oil or gas drilling within one nautical mile of Sable Island however low impact surficial exploration activities and sub-surface horizontal drilling beneath the island are permitted under the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act although not currently underway (Parks Canada 2019b). The Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board regulates offshore activities and has a responsibility to consult with Parks Canada in review of resource exploration activities. It is unclear what effect sub-surface drilling would have on the island, but any disturbance or collapse of material beneath the island could have a significant impact on ecosystems. Low impact seismic exploration on Sable Island may also affect bee habitat through trampling and disturbance to vegetation associated with vehicle and equipment use (Lucas 2015). 4.1 Roads and vehicle use Vehicle use at Sable Island National Park Reserve is restricted to barren beaches, limited roads near the island's station and other predefined locations as outlined in Parks Canada's Best Management Practice for the management of permitted motor vehicle use (Parks Canada 2014). Driving on vegetation, dune slopes and sensitive ecosystems (including heath and freshwater ponds) is prohibited, which should limit direct impact on floral hosts and nesting sites of Sable Island Sweat Bee. The only exception to this is the use of ATV s in non-heath vegetated areas during the winter for the grey seal research program, however this seasonal use is not expected to significantly affect sweat bee habitat, overwintering sites or individuals since the ground is frozen, vegetation is dormant and disruption of substrate is minimal. 5.1/5.2 Collecting terrestrial animals and gathering terrestrial plants Collection of insects on Sable Island is limited to permitted research activities and generally confined to voucher specimens to assist with identification. Although this may involve removal of a very small number of Sable Island Sweat Bee individuals, it is not considered to be a significant threat to the population. Collection of individuals is only permitted for research related to the conservation of the species. Protocols for in-situ, non-lethal identification have been developed (i.e., macro photography, capture/release using specimen identification tubes). Collection of plants on Sable Island is also limited to permitted research activities and generally confined to voucher specimens. Although this may involve removal of a very small number of plants that may be food for Sable Island Sweat Bee, it is not considered to be a significant threat to the species. 8.1 Invasive non-native/alien species There are currently no known invasive, alien species that are a significant threat to the Sable Island Sweat Bee. Sphecodes bees that are cleptoparasitic on other species of Lasioglossum have not been recorded on Sable Island. If other bee species were introduced to the island, then they could potentially impact the Sable Island Sweat Bee through increased competition or introduced disease. Nest sites for cavity-nesting bees would be limited to areas near buildings or other structures, which would minimize the impact and likelihood of establishment of these bees. Transportation of ground-nesting species is unlikely but could be possible (e.g., nests in potted plants)(COSEWIC 2014). The broad floral host range of Sable Island Sweat Bee also may help it escape competition from other species. Other invasive insects, such as ants or bee-attacking insects, could also potentially impact Sable Island Sweat Bee if accidentally introduced. Mutillid wasps, which parasite bee nests, are not currently known to occur on Sable Island (Majka 2014). Introduction of an invasive plant species could also be problematic to the Sable Island Sweat Bee and its habitat. The harsh conditions on Sable Island (e.g., high winds, frequent storms, cool summer climate, high sand content, and heavy inundation of salt water) are likely to limit the number of invasive species that could become successfully established. Nevertheless, any invasive plant that interferes with the natural ecosystem could be potentially harmful to Sable Island Sweat Bee. Protocols are currently being developed and implemented to minimize the probability of transporting invasive, alien species to Sable Island National Park Reserve. Sable Island has a resident population of naturalized horses, which are protected as wildlife under the Canada National Parks Act . The impact of the horse population on the Sable Island Sweat Bee is unknown and requires additional study. Trampling of vegetation by the horses is potentially damaging either directly or through increased erosion (Freedman et al. 2011). Horses also preferentially consume Marram grass (Ammophila breviligulata), which is the primary sand-binding plant species responsible for preventing erosion. This large herbivore has the potential to also consume valuable floral hosts of the bee. However, horses play a role in nutrient cycling, soil formation, and plant productivity on Sable Island (McLoughlin et al. 2016). The horse population has been increasing since it was protected by legislation in 1960 from 180 in 1961 (Welch 1975) to 559 individuals in 2018 (P. McLoughlin, pers. comm.). Research on the potential effect of horses on the Sable Island Sweat Bee and its floral hosts using horse exclosures is required (Freedman et al. 2011). 8.2 Problematic native species Grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) also have the potential to damage vegetated areas during the winter months when they come inland on Sable Island. Grey seal populations increased exponentially over several decades during the late 20th century, although this population growth has declined in recent years (Bowen et al. 2003, Bowen 2014). During winter months, the seals move inland and occupy the lowland terrestrial areas of the island. The presence of large numbers of grey seals in these areas may contribute to erosion, which could influence Sable Island Sweat Bee overwintering sites and dormant floral resources however further research is required to address this knowledge gap. In summer months, Grey seal movement and digging may also disturb or damage individuals and/or nest sites. 11.1 Habitat shifting and alteration Habitat loss and alteration, resulting from natural geomorphological processes, which are being affected by climate change and associated increases in severity and frequency of storms, sea level rise, and salt water intrusion/flooding has been identified as a key threat to the Sable Island Sweat Bee. Through natural processes, Sable Island is continually shifting as wind and wave action reduces material from one end of the island and replaces it on the opposite side of the island (Byrne et al. 2014). The island is highly susceptible to erosion by wind and water because of its low topography, unstable sand substrate, and large areas of unvegetated terrain (Freedman 2001). Predictions for Sable Island are for a continued 1 cm/year increase in sea level as a result of climate change (Manson et al. 2019). It is anticipated that Sable Island will continue to build upward with the regional rise in sea level, building new dunes as long as the regional oceanic patterns are not greatly altered and as long as there is an abundant supply of sand available for this regional system (Duck et al. 2014). However, Sable Island has a low elevation and sea level rise may affect some vegetated areas and alter available habitat for the Sable Island Sweat Bee. Increased rates of erosion and dune instability would affect availability of habitat for Sable Island Sweat Bee; however, this is not expected to be a significant threat in the short-term. An analysis of vegetation cover between 1963 and 2014 found that the total areal extent of early and late vegetation communities on Sable Island had been relatively consistent over this period (Colville et al. 2016). 11.2 Droughts A freshwater lens, persisting in a delicate balance with the island's surface topography and vegetative cover, climate patterns, and the surrounding ocean, sustains life on Sable Island (Hennigar 1976). The freshwater lens extends under the entire length of the island, surrounded on either side and from below by saltwater and exposed at the surface in the form of several freshwater ponds across the island. These freshwater ponds have shown a decreasing trend in extent across the island due to erosion, sand deposition and saltwater incursion during storm events (Freedman et al. 2014). An extended period of drought could impact the freshwater lens and availability of freshwater on the island, consequently affecting vegetation communities and habitat and food availability for the Sable Island Sweat Bee. Total amounts of seasonal precipitation have increased (spring, summer) or remained stable (winter, fall) over the past century on Sable Island (Duck et al. 2014, PCA 2017). Groundwater monitoring wells show a slight increase in chloride concentration and decrease in water level over the past 30 years (Kennedy et al. 2014). Overall, significant, extended periods of drought are not perceived to be a significant threat in the assessed timeframe. 11.3 Temperature extremes Sable Island has experienced a slightly warming climate, with surface air temperature increasing at an average rate of about 0.11oC per decade over the past century (Duck et al. 2014, PCA 2017). This increase is consistent with and slightly higher than what is being observed globally as a result of climate change during the past century or so, the causes of which are anthropogenic. Extended extreme hot or cold temperatures could potentially impact the Sable Island Sweat Bee directly or indirectly by damaging floral hosts. Examination of climate data from the past century indicate that temperatures on Sable Island are becoming more variable (Duck et al. 2014) however this is not anticipated to be a significant threat to the Sable Island Sweat Bee or its habitat in the short-term. Climate projections estimate that temperatures could increase by up to 5 degrees Celsius over the next century (PCA 2017). 11.4 Storms and flooding Sable Island is an emergent sand bank in a remote oceanic location and as such is exposed to maritime weather of the northwest Atlantic and affected by fog, wind and heavy seas (Robichaud and Mullock 2011). As noted above, climate change is expected to increase storm frequency and severity in the region (Loder et al. 2013). Blow-outs and wash-overs are prevalent along both the north and south sides of the island and more frequent towards the east and west tips (Byrne et al. 2014). The effect of this flooding on vegetation or the impact of submersion of Sable Island Sweat Bee nests is largely unknown, however there are likely to be some impacts to the species associated with loss of habitat. In particular, freshwater ponds are decreasing in extent across the island due to erosion, sand deposition and saltwater incursion during storm events (Freedman et al. 2014). This inundation by saltwater and infilling by sand of freshwater ponds leads to loss of vegetation and biodiversity, which has the potential to affect Sable Island Sweat Bee habitat. 5. Population and distribution objectives The population and distribution objective is: To maintain a stable population of Sable Island Sweat Bee distributed across its current area of occupancyFootnote 4 (2019). Meeting this objective will involve: Addressing key knowledge gaps (e.g., species' needs, biology, abundance, distribution and threats) so that suitable habitat can be described and subsequently protected by 2025. Reducing and preventing key threats (e.g., take measures to prevent the introduction of invasive species to the island; ensuring no suitable habitat is disturbed or permanently lost due to human activity, which may include restoration of suitable habitat where required). The Sable Island Sweat Bee is intrinsically rare in Canada and naturally precarious due to its small range confined within an isolated location. It is therefore recognized that the approaches to recovery outlined in this document may never result in de-listing of the species and that the recovered condition of this species may still be associated with an assessed status of Threatened (D criterion  Restricted population). Due to a lack of information on abundance and habitat needs, quantitative targets for population and distribution objectives are not possible at this time. Accordingly, the immediate focus of conservation efforts for the Sable Island Sweat Bee will be to prevent and reduce threats (i.e., invasive species introductions, habitat loss and disturbance associated with human activity) to the extent possible and maintain habitat at known sites while addressing knowledge gaps. As key knowledge gaps regarding habitat, population abundance and trends, and threats to the species are addressed, conservation efforts may be refined and the population and distribution objectives may be revised. 6. Broad strategies and general approaches to meet objectives 6.1 Actions already completed or currently underway The following inventories and research activities have contributed to the current understanding of the Sable Island Sweat Bee and its distribution, habitat preferences and seasonality on Sable Island, Nova Scotia:

Specimen collections stemming from faunal surveys on Sable Island in the late 1960s (Howden et al.1970) and 1980s (Wright 1989) included Lasioglossum (sp)

(sp) Gibbs (2010) described the species in a revision of the Lasioglossum subgenus Dialictus for Canada based on specimens collected from Sable Island in 1966 and 1967 (Howden et al. 1970) and 2008 (Catling et al. 2009)

subgenus Dialictus for Canada based on specimens collected from Sable Island in 1966 and 1967 (Howden et al. 1970) and 2008 (Catling et al. 2009) During development of the COSEWIC status assessment led by Jason Gibbs (COSEWIC 2014), field sampling and specimen led to 38 confirmed occurrences in four general areas on Sable Island (West Light, East Light, Main Station and Calapogon Pond)

From 2016 to 2018, Zoe Lucas, in collaboration with Parks Canada, conducted field inventories to better understand the distribution, seasonality and habitat preferences of bees on Sable Island. This work identified the flight season for the Sable Island Sweat Bee to be from at least May 13Oct 18. The species was found to be widely distributed on Sable Island and confirmed to occur at 27 locations, each separated by a distance of more than 300m from another location. Foraging habitat and 15 associated plant species were identified through confirmed foraging records (Lucas 2017, 2018, 2019)

In 2018, Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre ( ACCDC ) led surveys in dune habitat along the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia to search for the Sable Island Sweat Bee in order to further test whether it is endemic to Sable Island. Twenty sites were surveyed in August and September and 174 metallic sweat bees were collected, none of which were identified as the Sable Island Sweat Bee (Klymko and Robinson 2019)

) led surveys in dune habitat along the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia to search for the Sable Island Sweat Bee in order to further test whether it is endemic to Sable Island. Twenty sites were surveyed in August and September and 174 metallic sweat bees were collected, none of which were identified as the Sable Island Sweat Bee (Klymko and Robinson 2019) In 2019, Parks Canada, in partnership with the ACCDC and Miriam Richards (Brock University), led a partial survey of nesting sites at the Main Station on Sable Island. Four nesting sites (consisting of 90, 14, 3, and 1 individual nests) were discovered, but the area was not exhaustively searched (Parks Canada 2019a). Extremely limited search effort outside Main Station (2 hours) led to the discovery of one nest, approximately 300 m east of the Main Station exclosure. Observations strongly suggest eusociality at least in some nests

and Miriam Richards (Brock University), led a partial survey of nesting sites at the Main Station on Sable Island. Four nesting sites (consisting of 90, 14, 3, and 1 individual nests) were discovered, but the area was not exhaustively searched (Parks Canada 2019a). Extremely limited search effort outside Main Station (2 hours) led to the discovery of one nest, approximately 300 m east of the Main Station exclosure. Observations strongly suggest eusociality at least in some nests Parks Canada is currently working with Miriam Richards (Brock University) to sequence and assemble the complete genome of the Sable Island Sweat Bee using next generation techniques for two main purposes: (i) to establish phylogenetic relationships to closely related species in the Viridatum species group, including the Nova Scotia Sweat Bee; and (ii) to assess genetic variation among individuals. The combination of these two types of data will provide information on the biogeographic origins of the Sable Island Sweat Bee, to estimate the age of the species and the time since speciation, and most importantly, to estimate the effective population size and extent of inbreeding in the population

6.2 Strategic direction for recovery The recovery measures outlined below are arranged by both the broad strategies required to recover the species and the general descriptions of research and management approaches that will be taken (Table 3). The classification of broad strategies is based on the conservation actions classification developed by the International Union for the Conservation of NatureConservation Measures Partnership (v.2.0). For each recovery measure, desired outcomes and anticipated timelines for implementation and delivery are indicated. Identified threats that will be addressed by each recovery measure relate to those described in Section 4.

Table 3. Recovery planning table and Implementation Schedule General description of research and management approaches # Recovery measure Desired outcome Priorityg Threats or concerns addressed Timeline Broad Strategyh: Land/Water management  Site/area stewardship Mitigate threats and protect Sable Island Sweat Bee and its habitat through site-level stewardship and management 1 Develop and implement standard operating procedures and evaluate projects through impact assessment and research permitting processes to mitigate human-caused threats to the species and its habitat (i.e., human use and access, including biosecurity procedures; vehicle use; infrastructure) Standard operating procedures (i.e., Best management practices) are developed by 2021 and implemented annually and impact assessments are completed as required to ensure that human-caused threats to sweat bees are mitigated. High 1.3 Tourism and recreation areas; 4.1 Roads and vehicle use; 5.1 Collecting terrestrial animals; 6.1 Recreational activities; 8.1 Invasive non-native/alien species Annually Restore targets and mitigate stresses via active management 2 Mitigate stresses (e.g., erosion, vegetation changes, wind flow changes) associated with infrastructure development/ decommissioning through re-vegetation and site restoration. Impact assessments are ompleted as required to ensure that there is no new erosion created from building or removing infrastructure and that the total area of suitable habitat for Sable Island Sweat Bee is maintained. High 1.3 Tourism and recreation areas; 4.1 Roads and rail roads; 6.1 Recreational activities Annually Restore targets and mitigate stresses via active management 3 If mitigation is not feasible or unsuccessful, restore habitat lost or degraded because of human activity. Area of suitable habitat for Sable Island Sweat Bee is maintained. High 1.3 Tourism and recreation areas; 4.1 Roads and rail roads; 6.1 Recreational activities As necessary Broad Strategy: Awareness Raising  Outreach and Communications Raise awareness of Sable Island Sweat Bee 4 Design and implement awareness program and information materials to provide to all visitors and researchers to increase understanding of the species, its critical habitat and best management practices to ensure its protection. Awareness program is developed by 2021 and implemented annually. High 1.3 Tourism and recreation areas; 4.1 Roads and vehicle use; 5.1 Collecting terrestrial animals; 6.1 Recreational activities; 8.1 Invasive non-native/alien species Annually Broad Strategy: Research and Monitoring  Basic Research and Status Monitoring Conduct research and analyses on Sable Island Sweat Bee 5 Develop a standardized monitoring protocol to assess Sable Island Sweat Bee absolute or relative abundance and distribution. Monitoring protocol for estimating abundance is developed and implemented by 2022. High Knowledge Gaps 2022 Conduct research and analyses on Sable Island Sweat Bee 6 Monitor the species at known sites and inventory for new occurrences in priority areas. Population status and trend is determined by 2025. High Knowledge Gaps 2025 Conduct research and analyses on Sable Island Sweat Bee 7 Complete taxonomic and genetic analyses for Sable Island Sweat Bee. Genome is sequenced and analyzed in relation to other species and effective population size is estimated by 2022. High Knowledge Gaps 2022 Conduct research and analyses on Sable Island Sweat Bee 8 Collaborate with academic institutions and researchers to understand the species' life cycle and social structure. Life cycle and social structure are better understood by 2025. High Knowledge Gaps 2025 Conduct research and analyses on threats to the species and its habitats 9 Collaborate with academic institutions and researchers to understand the effects of horses and grey seals on Sable Island Sweat Bee and its habitat. Exclosure study completed and ecological role and influence of horses and grey seals are better understood by 2025. High Knowledge Gaps 2025 Conduct research and analyses on threats to the species and its habitats 10 Collaborate with academic institutions and researchers to understand effects of invasive species and whether the Sable Island Sweat Bee has any predators and/or parasites and diseases. Mortality factors are understood by 2025. Medium Knowledge Gaps 2025 Conduct research and analyses on threats to the species and its habitats 12 Collaborate with academic institutions and researchers to better understand the role of human disturbance on Sable Island Sweat Bee nesting habitat and identify potential habitat enhancement strategies. Influences to nesting habitat and potential enhancement strategies are understood by 2025. Medium Knowledge Gaps 2025 Broad Strategy: Species Management  Ex-situ Conservation Provide ex-situ protection for Sable Island Sweat Bee via captive breeding (if required to meet population and distribution objectives) 13 Assess feasibility and develop methodology for captive rearing Sable Island Sweat Bees and determine criteria for implementation. Captive rearing plan and methodology is developed by 2030. Low 11.1 Habitat shifting and alteration; 11.2 Drought; 11.3 Temperature extremes; 11.4 Storms and flooding 2030

g "Priority" reflects the degree to which the broad strategy contributes directly to the recovery of the species or is an essential precursor to an approach that contributes to the recovery of the species. High priority measures are considered those most likely to have an immediate and/or direct influence on attaining the population and distribution objectives for the species. Medium priority measures may have a less immediate or less direct influence on reaching the population and distribution objectives, but are still important for the recovery of the population. Low priority recovery measures will likely have an indirect or gradual influence on reaching the population and distribution objectives, but are considered important contributions to the knowledge base and/or public involvement and acceptance of the species. h Classification of broad strategies and approaches is adopted from IUCN Conservation Measures Partnership Conservation Actions Classification v. 2.0. 6.3 Narrative to support the recovery planning table In order to achieve the population and distribution objectives for the Sable Island Sweat Bee, the immediate focus of recovery and conservation efforts will be to prevent and reduce threats to the extent possible and maintain habitat at known sites while addressing knowledge gaps to better understand and protect the species and its habitat in the future. Given the uncertainty around whether threats to the species and its habitat associated with climate change (i.e., habitat shifting and alteration, storms and flooding, drought, temperature extremes) can be avoided or mitigated, priority has been placed on reducing those threats that can be addressed through site stewardship and management, impact assessment and mitigation, development and implementation of standard operating procedures (i.e., best management practices), education and awareness initiatives, and restoration activities where required (i.e., habitat loss and disturbance associated human activity, invasive species introductions). Research and monitoring will focus on working with experts to fill knowledge gaps related to status and trends in population abundance, genetic composition and effective population size, nesting biology, life cycle and social structure of the species, influences of other species and threats, and mortality factors for the Sable Island Sweat Bee. Finally, given that the species occurs as one isolated population with a very small range and no possibility of rescue, a methodology for captive rearing will be assessed for feasibility and developed, along with criteria for implementation. This is a precautionary measure to have prepared in the unlikely event that the species is not able to sustain itself independently and as such, is identified as a low priority measure at this time. 6.4 Monitoring Monitoring activities will be put in place to assess the results of implementation of the identified recovery measures and track progress towards achieving the population and distribution objectives for the Sable Island Sweat Bee. A monitoring protocol to estimate relative abundance and track distribution of the population will be developed and implemented by 2022. Trends in these measures will be examined to determine if a stable population abundance is maintained across its current area of occupancy (2019). 7. Critical habitat SARA defines critical habitat as "the habitat that is necessary for the survival or recovery of a listed wildlife species". Section 41(1)(c) of SARA requires that a recovery strategy include an identification of the species' critical habitat, to the extent possible, as well as examples of activities that are likely to result in its destruction. Critical habitat for Sable Island Sweat Bee is based on habitat occupancy and is identified, to the extent possible, based on the best available information. Additional critical habitat may be added in the future if new information supports the inclusion of areas beyond what is currently identified. A schedule of studies (Table 4) has been developed to provide the information necessary to complete the identification of critical habitat that will be sufficient to meet the population and distribution objectives. The identification of critical habitat will be updated when the information becomes available, either in a revised recovery strategy or action plan(s). 7.1 Identification of the species' critical habitat Critical habitat for Sable Island Sweat Bee is identified as all areas within the yellow polygons in Figure 2. These detailed polygons represent habitat patches containing at least one confirmed Sable Island Sweat Bee nest as of November 2019. Additional critical habitat is required to meet the species' population and distribution objectives.

Figure 2. Critical habitat for Sable Island Sweat Bee is represented by the yellow shaded polygons where the habitat occupancy criteria for nesting is met.

Long description for Figure 2 This map shows critical habitat for the Sable Island sweat bee at the Main Station area on Sable Island National Park Reserve. There are four detailed units within which critical habitat is found. The map is overlaid on aerial photography from 2009 and 2014 for the Main Station area and several buildings and pathways are shown from aerial view. Two insert maps are also included, one showing the location of Sable Island in Atlantic Canada, and one showing the location of Main Station within Sable Island National Park Reserve.

7.1.1 Information and methods used to identify critical habitat The first Sable Island Sweat Bee nests were found on Sable Island in July 2019 (Parks Canada 2019a). Information on necessary nesting biophysical attributes is limited. Four nest sites were found (including two aggregations of nests) during a 1-2 week survey but searches were not exhaustive, were largely confined to the operational fenced area around Main Station area, and covered only a very small proportion of potential habitat. The yellow polygons in Figure 2 include habitat patches containing at least one confirmed Sable Island Sweat Bee nest as of November 2019. The extent of the contiguous habitat patch within which one or more nests were found was delineated based on air photos (ground sampling distance of 10 cm) without any buffer. The Main Station area has a unique substrate, vegetation type and human use pattern compared with other areas on Sable Island, and as a result, characteristics of nest habitat in this area may not be applicable to other areas on the island. Additionally, with the first few nests found only recently, there are many basic questions about nesting biology that need to be addressed in order to better understand nest site requirements and habitat use (e.g., nest site fidelity, dispersal distance from nest sites, key attributes of aggregation sites, relative importance of human-modified habitat at Main Station, tolerance to or benefit from disturbance). 7.2 Schedule of studies to identify critical habitat

Table 4. Schedule of Studies to Identify Critical Habitat for Sable Island Sweat Bee Description of Activity Rationale Timeline Surveys to better understand nesting habitat requirements There is a need to understand if nesting habitat is limiting and can be usefully described and mapped. This would involve additional nest surveys in a range of habitat types across Sable Island (beyond Main Station where nest surveys have focused to date) and a finer-scale analysis of distinguishing characteristics of nest sites (i.e., biophysical attributes). 2020-2022 Research to better understand nesting biology, life history and social structure There is a need to understand: (i) how often and under what conditions nests are aggregated; (ii) whether the species shows fidelity to nesting sites and if so, how long they are used; (iii) flight distance from nests to foraging habitat; (iv) dispersal distance of females from overwintering site to form new nests; and (v) the relative importance of human-modified habitat at Main Station. 2020-2025 Map distribution of floral resources There is a need to determine if areas and timing of high density floral resources could be used to inform additional critical habitat identification for key foraging areas; for example, certain areas or species may be an important forage resource at key times in the season. Discerning pollen foraging from nectar foraging would also help to better describe floral resource requirements. 2020-2025 Develop a habitat selection model using presence/absence data to better characterize foraging/nesting habitat requirements (i.e., examine biophysical attributes of occurrence or nesting sites) This model would be used to refine the definition of foraging and nesting habitat to inform finer-scale critical habitat identification 2020-2025 Identify areas of population aggregates This information would be used to describe and identify areas of high quality habitat (if specific foraging and nesting habitat requirements outlined above cannot be defined) 2020-2025

(if required)

7.3 Activities likely to result in the destruction of critical habitat Understanding what constitutes destruction of critical habitat is necessary for the protection and management of critical habitat. Destruction is determined on a case-by-case basis. Destruction would result if part of the critical habitat were degraded, either permanently or temporarily, such that it would not serve its function when needed by the species. Destruction may result from a single or multiple activities at one point in time or from the cumulative effects from one or more activities over time. Activities described in Table 5 include those likely to cause destruction to critical habitat for the Sable Island Sweat Bee; however destructive activities are not limited to those listed.

Table 5. Activities likely to result in the destruction of critical habitat for Sable Island Sweat Bee Description of Activity Description of Effect Details of Effect Infrastructure development or land conversion Physically replaces suitable habitat such that an area is no longer available for nesting activity. Related to IUCN-CMP Threats: 1.3 Tourism and recreation areas; 3.1. Oil and gas drilling; 4.1 Roads and rail roads; 6.1 Recreational activities.



This activity may result in destruction of critical habitat if it occurs within the identified polygons. This activity may result in destruction at all times of the year. Excavation or alteration of substrate that results in a permanent change in condition (e.g., digging, vegetation removal, deposition of sand or other material on surface) Vegetation cover and physical characteristics of substrate (e.g., stablity, moisture, temperature) become altered such that substrate may become unsuitable as nesting habitat. Related to IUCN-CMP Threats: 1.3 Tourism and recreation areas; 3.1. Oil and gas drilling; 4.1 Roads and rail roads; 6.1 Recreational activities.



This activity may result in destruction of critical habitat if it occurs within the identified polygons. This activity may result in destruction at all times of the year. Re-vegetation of open areas Vegetation cover and physical characteristics of substrate (e.g., stability, moisture, temperature) become altered such that substrate may become unsuitable as nesting habitat. Related to IUCN-CMP Threats: 1.3 Tourism and recreation areas; 3.1. Oil and gas drilling; 4.1 Roads and rail roads; 6.1 Recreational activities

11.1 Habitat shifting and alteration.



This activity may result in destruction of critical habitat if it occurs within the identified polygons. This activity may result in destruction at all times of the year.

7.4 Proposed measures to protect critical habitat The information below outlines the measures proposed to be taken to protect critical habitat for Sable Island Sweat Bee. 7.4.1 Measures proposed to protect critical habitat on federal lands Critical habitat for Sable Island Sweat Bee occurs only in Sable Island National Park Reserve of Canada, a federal protected area. Sable Island National Park Reserve was listed on Schedule 2 to the Canada National Parks Act on December 1, 2013. As required under SARA (s.58), a protection statement including a description of the critical habitat for Sable Island Sweat Bee as well as a description of how critical habitat will be legally protected on federal land will be published on the Species at Risk Public Registry within 180 days of the publication of the final recovery strategy and action plan. 8. Evaluation of socio-economic costs and benefits SARA requires that an action plan include an evaluation of the socio economic costs of the action plan and the benefits to be derived from its implementation (SARA 49(1)(e), 2002). This evaluation addresses only the incremental socio-economic costs of implementing this action plan from a national perspective as well as the social and environmental benefits that would occur if the action plan were implemented in its entirety. It does not address cumulative costs of species recovery in general nor does it attempt a cost-benefit analysis. Its intent is to inform the public and to guide decision making on implementation of the action plan by partners. The protection and recovery of species at risk can result in both benefits and costs. SARA recognizes that "wildlife, in all its forms, has value in and of itself and is valued by Canadians for aesthetic, cultural, spiritual, recreational, educational, historical, economic, medical, ecological and scientific reasons" (SARA 2002). Self-sustaining and healthy ecosystems with their various elements in place, including species at risk, contribute positively to the livelihoods and the quality of life of all Canadians. A review of the literature confirms that Canadians value the preservation and conservation of species in and of themselves. Actions taken to preserve a species, such as habitat protection and restoration, are also valued. In addition, the more an action contributes to the recovery of a species, the higher the value the public places on such actions (Loomis and White 1996; DFO 2008). Furthermore, the conservation of species at risk is an important component of the Government of Canada's commitment to conserving biological diversity under the International Convention on Biological Diversity. The Government of Canada has also made a commitment to protect and recover species at risk through the Accord for the Protection of Species at Risk. The specific costs and benefits associated with this action plan are described below. 8.1 Costs The total cost to implement this action plan will be borne by Parks Canada. These costs to the government will be covered by prioritization of existing funds and thereby will not result in additional costs to society. Many of the proposed measures will be integrated into the operational management of Sable Island National Park Reserve. This includes any incremental salary costs, materials, equipment, and contracting of professional services for measures outlined in Table 3. No major socio-economic costs to park visitors, partners, stakeholders or Indigenous groups are expected as a result of this action plan. The action plan applies only to Sable Island National Park Reserve, the only known location for the Sable Island Sweat Bee, and does not bring any restrictions to land use outside the park. As such, this action plan will place no socio-economic costs on the Canadian public. However, some restrictions may be placed on research and visitor activities on park lands in order to protect and recover the species. 8.2 Benefits Measures presented in this recovery strategy and action plan will contribute to meeting the population and distribution objectives for the Sable Island Sweat Bee. These measures are expected to have an overall positive impact on co-located species, ecological processes and overall ecological integrity of Sable Island National Park Reserve. Additionally, these measures are expected to enhance opportunities for appreciation of the site and the species by partners, visitors and the general public. These include opportunities to learn about and take part in conservation activities and opportunities for visitors and partners to be involved in the protection and recovery of species at risk. 9. Measuring progress The performance indicators presented below provide a way to define and measure progress toward achieving the population and distribution objectives. No significant observed or inferred decline in the species' occupied habitat (area of occupancy)(from 2019 baseline) by 2025. The competent minister must monitor and report on the implementation of the recovery strategy (section 46 of SARA) and action plan (section 55 of SARA) and the progress towards meeting its objectives within five years. 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Halifax, NS. Lucas, Z. 2018. Additional notes on distribution and foraging activity of Lasioglossum species on Sable Island, Summer 2017. Report prepared for Parks Canada. Halifax, NS. Lucas, Z. 2019. Sable Island Sweat Bee distribution, Sable Island National Park Reserve, Summer 2018. Report prepared for Parks Canada. Halifax, NS. Majka, C. 2014. The invertebrate fauna of Sable Island. In Freedman, B. (ed), An ecological and biodiversity assessment of Sable Island. Report prepared for Parks Canada. Manson, G.K., Couture, N.J., and T.S. James. 2019. CanCoast 2.0: Data and indices to describe the sensitivity of Canada's marine coasts to changing climate. Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 8551, https://doi.org/10.4095/314669 (Open Access). Michener, C.D. 1974. The social behavior of the bees: A comparative study. Harvard University Press. 404 pp. McLoughlin, P., Lysak, K., Debeffe, L., Perry, T. and K.A. Hobson. 2016. Density-dependant resource selection by a terrestrial herbivore in response to sea-to-land nutrient transfer by seals. Ecology, 97(8): 1929-1937. Parks Canada. 2014. Parks Canada Best Management Practices for management of permitted motor vehicle use, Sable Island National Park Reserve, Parks Canada, Halifax, NS. Parks Canada. 2017. Let's talk about climate change: Atlantic region. Parks Canada Agency, Ottawa, ON. Parks Canada. 2019a. Field report on 2019 sweat bee survey. Unpublished report. Halifax, NS. Parks Canada. 2019b. Sable Island National Park Reserve of Canada Management Plan. Parks Canada Agency, Ottawa, ON. Robichaud, B. and J. Mullock. 2011. The Weather of Atlantic Canada and Eastern Quebec. Nav Canada, Natural Resources Canada. Ottawa, ON. Salafsky, N., Salzer, D., Stattersfield, A.J., Hilton-Taylor, C., Neugarten, R., Butchart, S.H.M, Collen, B., Cox, N., Master, L., O'Connor, S. and D. Wilkie. 2008. A standard lexicon for biodiversity conservation: unified classifications of threats and actions. Conservation Biology 22:897-911. Appendix A: Effects on the Environment and Other Species A strategic environmental assessment ( SEA ) is conducted on all SARA recovery planning documents, in accordance with the Cabinet Directive on the Environmental Assessment of Policy, Plan and Program Proposals Footnote 5 . The purpose of a SEA is to incorporate environmental considerations into the development of public policies, plans and program proposals to support environmentally sound decision-making and to evaluate whether the outcomes of a recovery planning document could affect any component of the environment or any of the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy'sFootnote 6 ( FSDS ) goals and targets. Recovery planning is intended to benefit species at risk and biodiversity in general. However, it is recognized that strategies and recovery measures may also inadvertently lead to environmental effects beyond the intended benefits. The planning process, which is based on national guidelines, directly incorporates consideration of all environmental effects, with a particular focus on possible impacts on non-target species or habitats. The results of the SEA are incorporated directly into the recovery strategy and action plan itself, and are summarized below. Overall, it is anticipated that implementation of this recovery strategy and action plan will have a beneficial impact on non-target species, ecological processes, and the environment in Sable Island National Park Reserve and will not result in any significant adverse ecological, social or cultural effects. In particular, measures outlined in this plan may contribute to enhanced understanding and protection of other species and ecosystem processes that co-exist with the Sable Island Sweat Bee, including the Ipswich Sparrow (SARA-listed as Species Concern) and other rare plants and invertebrates. Recovery measures for the Sable Island Sweat Bee will be implemented with consideration of all co-occurring species at risk, such that there are no negative impacts to these species or their habitats. This plan aims to address key management priorities aimed at maintaining or improving the broader ecological integrity of Sable Island National Park Reserve (Parks Canada 2019b). Additionally, this plan outlines stewardship measures, educational programs, and awareness initiatives involving park visitors, partners and the general public. This could contribute to greater appreciation, understanding and action towards the conservation and recovery of species at risk in general.
The National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) on Friday called on government to temporary halt all online academic activities until the feud between students and university authorities are resolved.



The Union urged government, through the Communication and Education ministries, to clearly streamline and supervise the e-learning platform directive issued to all universities.



The authorities must also ensure that students were given some financial waivers like free online data and bursaries to continue learning even in these trying times.



This was in a statement signed by Mr Isaac Jay Hyde, the NUGS President, and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra.



It recommended that government should ensure no university conducted any compulsory examination or assessment on e-learning platforms.



The release said conducting such exams and assessments would disadvantage the many students who, by no fault of theirs, were unable to participate in the e-learning process.



It urged government to direct all universities to put a hold on stringent financial requirements demanded of students before accessing various e-platforms.



An evaluation conducted by NUGS among students in some universities as of April 14, 2020, indicated observed that there were still a number of accessibility challenges associated with the implementation of the e-learning platforms for university education, the release said.



It said many universities had not made available bundle incentives for their students, making accessing various virtual learning platforms difficult.



"Apart from the University of Ghana, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Education Winneba, and a few other institutions, a number of universities still havent announced or made any attempt to see how they can bridge the wide digital gap among their students".



It said the University of Development Studies; University of Education Winneba, the Ghana Institute of Journalism and a host of private universities were lagging behind in implementation measures with regards to e-learning platforms.



The release urged government to direct all universities to put a hold on stringent financial requirements demanded of students before accessing various e-platforms.



"Universities should be directed to put on a temporal hold on all financial regimens demanded of students, especially those on the Student Loan Trust Fund (SLTF) scheme, until they get their allocation for the second semester," it said.



Touching on the welfare of students and needy students, the Union called on government to consider including incentives for them as it planned to outdoor a roadmap to allocate resources made to the Covid-19 National Trust Fund.



It appealed to government to grant some loan waivers for needy students who access the SLTF as indeed, these times are not ordinary times.



"We are appealing for a special relief package for International Students studying in the country, since lockdown measures in various countries have affected their ability to receive funds from guardians," the statement said.

Source: GNA









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.

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For more coverage, visit our complete coronavirus section here.

It has long been assumed by medical experts that the United States is drastically underreporting the actual number of COVID-19 infections across the country due to limited testing and a high number of asymptomatic cases.

Large-scale antibody tests are expected to give researchers an idea of just how widespread the outbreak is, and preliminary results from the first such test in Santa Clara County suggest we are underreporting cases by at least a factor of 50.

In early April, Stanford University researchers conducted an antibody test of 3,300 residents in the county that were recruited through targeted Facebook ads. Researchers hoped to put together a sample that was representative of the county's population by selecting individuals based on their age, race, gender and zip code to extrapolate study results to the larger community.

The results of the study are preliminary and not peer-reviewed, but the general takeaways would seem to strongly contribute to the notion that there have been a large number of COVID-19 cases that went undetected.

Due to questions over the antibody tests' efficacy, researchers adjusted for test performance characteristics by using the test manufacturer's data and a sample of controls tested at Stanford University. Again, the results are preliminary and the study has not been peer-reviewed, but researchers found a raw, unadjusted antibody prevalence of 1.5 percent, which was scaled up to 2.5-4.2 percent when adjusting for population and test performance characteristics.

Researchers estimate that if 2.5 to 4.2 percent of the county has already been infected, the true number of total cases in early April  both active and recovered  ranges between 48,000 and 81,000. The county had reported just under 1,000 cases at the time the study was conducted, which would mean cases are being underreported by a factor of 50 to 85.

Our findings suggest that there is somewhere between 50- and 80-fold more infections in our county than whats known by the number of cases than are reported by our department of public health," Dr. Eran Bendavid, the Stanford professor who led the study, told ABC News.

If the study's numbers are accurate, the true mortality and hospitalization rates of COVID-19 are both substantially lower than current estimates, and due to lag between infection and death, researchers project a true mortality rate between .12 and .20. Results also suggest the county is nowhere near "herd immunity," as scientists estimate that 50-60% of the population would need to be infected for the virus to have nowhere to spread.

However, the study's authors caution against extrapolating Santa Clara County results to the rest of the country. The county reported its first case on January 31, and was one of the early national "hot spots" where the virus had gained a foothold. Researchers also acknowledge other limitations of the study, including an overrepresentation of white women between ages 19-64, and "other biases, such as bias favoring individuals in good health capable of attending our testing sites, or bias favoring those with prior COVID-like illnesses seeking antibody confirmation."

In San Mateo County, health officer Scott Morrow made a similar estimation on Monday night.

"I hesitate to give you the following numbers, because first of all they are a guess, and secondly because some will think they are too low to take action," he wrote in a message to the community. "My best guess is that approximately 2-3% of the SMC population are currently infected or have recovered from the infection. Thats around 15-25,000 people and they are all over the county and in every community. I dont believe this number is off by a factor of 10, but it could be off by a factor of 2 to 3."

At the time of his announcement, the county had 699 confirmed cases of the virus, meaning if Morrow's numbers are correct, the county has identified just 2.7-4.5 percent of its total cases.

MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE:

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Eric Ting is an SFGATE digital reporter. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com | Twitter:@_ericting
Uttar Pradesh police arrested a group of 10 butchers who were allegedly slaughtering cattle at their residence in Murad Nagar town here on Saturday in violation of a ban imposed in the wake of coronavirus lockdown.

The district administration has already prohibited slaughtering of cattle under provisions of Section 144 of the CrPC, Ghaziabad Senior Superintendent of Police Kalanidhi Naithani told PTI.

Police got information while patrolling in the morning that some butchers were slaughtering cattle in Kureshiyan Mohalla following which the house was immediately raided and the 10 people arrested from there.

They have been identified as Rahmat Ali, Rahees, Hashmat, Zakir, Gaffar, Asif, Akeel, Wahid, Abbas and Tazeem.

The 10 accused have been arrested and sent to jail under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code and Epidemic Diseases Act, the officer said.

The accused said they were surreptitiously selling meat at higher prices because non-vegetarians are not getting meat due to the lockdown, police claimed.

Two large-size cleavers, an electronic weighing machine and 60 kg of meat and carcasses were recovered from the place. The recovered flesh and carcasses have been buried in a deserted field, the SSP said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Alabama has created a new National Guard unit tasked with helping prevent the spread of coronavirus in the four state-run veterans homes, the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs said Friday.

The unit, called Task Force 31, is a partnership between the agency and the Alabama National Guard. On Saturday, the unit was deployed to the Bill Nichols State Veterans Home in Alexander City to assist the home in preventing the spread of the coronavirus among employees and residents.

Task Force 31 is comprised of special teams equipped and trained to disinfect long-term skilled care facilities like the states four veterans homes. Members were chosen based on their military training.

The team methodically moved through veterans home conducting the operation with close coordination with the homes staff on Saturday, the National Guard said afterward. Residents were moved first to isolated protective areas in the home.

I want to thank Gov. Kay Ivey and Alabama National Guard Adjutant General, Maj. Gen. Sherly Gordon, for mobilizing the task force to perform this critical mission on behalf of our veterans, said Veterans Affairs Commissioner Kent Davis. As a state, we are proud of the men and women of the Alabama National Guard who are always ready to answer the call when their services are needed during a time of state and national emergencies.

Teams will now deploy to the other three state-run veterans homes in Bay Minette, Huntsville and Pell City.

The Alabama National Guard is here to serve our citizens, and Im glad Governor Ivey asked us to take on this important mission, Gordon said. Our specially trained Soldiers and Airmen are prepared to assist our communities as we fight the spread of COVID-19 together.

(Updated July 18 after the task force cleaned the first veterans home in Alexander City)
The outbreak of COVID-19 in India has presented yet another opportunity to launch a fresh attack on the Muslim community. Physical, verbal and psychological warfare is being waged against Muslims, pushing further their ostracisation in Indian society.

Violent attacks on Muslims perceived to be carriers of the virus have been reported from different parts of the country. There have been reports of meetings in gated communities discussing the prohibition on Muslims being allowed in. Elsewhere, gangs of youth have been manning the entry points of villages to prevent the entry of Muslims. Muslim vendors have also been asked to stop selling on the streets.

There has been a sudden surge in Islamophobic hashtags and posts on different social media platforms accusing Muslims of purposefully spreading the virus. A new term, corona jihad, has been coined to describe this conspiracy. Videos showing Muslims spitting on vegetables and fruit, licking plates and smearing surfaces with their saliva are being circulated widely.

It all started when news spread that people who had attended a large gathering of Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim missionary movement, at its premises in New Delhi had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. People travelled from outside India to attend this event and it is suspected that they may have introduced the virus into the congregation.

The Tablighi Jamaat was blamed for organising this event in the middle of March, ignoring the threat of the spread of the virus. Very soon, reports started pouring in from different parts of India suggesting that the largest number of positive cases could be traced back to the event.

This became a justification for the government to create a separate column of Tablighi Jamaat-related cases in its daily briefings. It has created an impression that the Muslim movement is the main culprit. Since it is difficult for many to differentiate between Tablighis and other Muslims, all Muslims are now seen as potential carriers of this virus and are therefore shunned and hated.

But some have questioned the methodology of COVID-19 testing and reporting. According to Saugato Datta, a behavioural and developmental economist, highlighting the large proportion of overall positive cases that are linked to the New Delhi event is misleading, given that the authorities did not aggressively trace and test people from other gatherings like it.

This is basically sampling bias: Since people from this one cluster have been tested at very high rates, and overall testing is low, it is hardly surprising that a large proportion of overall positives is attributed to this cluster, Datta said.

As some have pointed out, the Tablighi Jamaat event was only one of the many congregations, religious and non-religious, which happened in mid-March. At that time, the government of India tried to downplay the gravity of the situation, allowing the parliament to function and letting nearly 1.5 million people enter the country without proper screening between January and March. The Tablighi Jamaat guests were a tiny fraction of this number.

Despite this, Indian media launched a high-decibel campaign about the matter. One newspaper went as far as publishing a cartoon depicting the coronavirus as a terrorist in Muslim attire.

Similarly, social media has been abuzz with posts about what many consider to be a Muslim conspiracy. A tweet which had about 2,000 retweets before it was removed for violating Twitters rules, featured a cartoon of a caricatured Muslim man labelled corona Jihad trying to push a Hindu off a cliff.

These sentiments have been fuelled by official channels as well. Officers from the Border Security forces have claimed that there is a plot for people from a particular community (read Muslim) to infiltrate the porous borders of India through Nepal with the aim of spreading the infection here.

Even the government of India is adding to this campaign in a very subtle manner. It recently sent a memo to the government of West Bengal state expressing concern that it was failing to implement the lockdown strictly in certain areas. It mentioned seven localities in the state, of which six are distinctly Muslim dominated.

Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, reacted very strongly to the directive and asked the central government not to use this crisis to further its communal agenda.

The excitement and enthusiasm with which this anti-Muslim campaign has been taken up is a deeply worrying phenomenon.

It adds to already existing conspiracy theories about Muslims waiting in the wings, reproducing at a frantic pace to outnumber Hindus and pollute the Hindu land. Since the community was already seen as plotting to inflict damage on Mother India, it was easy to establish that Muslims would seek to infect Hindus with coronavirus to destroy them.

This campaign has not only fed existing anti-Muslim sentiments but it has also slowed down the momentum gained by a protest movement, which had been demonstrating against the increasingly precarious situation of the community. For months before the outbreak, Muslims and their allies across India had been protesting against the new citizenship law and other executive exercises like the National Register of Citizens and National Population Register, which were seen as discriminatory against the community.

While undermining political efforts to end government-sponsored discrimination, the outbreak and its accompanying anti-Muslim drive may lead to even further ostracisation of the community.

Muslims are hardly present in the formal sector of the economy and their number is insignificant in the state services. The largest working population of Muslims is in the informal sector. This campaign is pushing to make them untouchable for non-Muslims, which would certainly push them out of a variety of economic activities.

Muslims have been disenfranchised politically, now this campaign can break them economically and make their survival impossible.

It is disheartening to see the world watching silently this continuous persecution of the largest religious minority in India. It would go down as yet another dark chapter in the making of a new kind of apartheid against Muslims in the biggest democracy in the world.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman left his fans worried and anxious about his health when he made an appearance in a slimmer frame on social media.

Boseman's appearance shocked fans during his Instagram Live on Wednesday, reports dailymail.co.uk.

It all started when he shared a video in support of the Operation 42 donation project, a campaign to donate $4.2million in personal protective equipment to hospitals serving African-American communities -- which have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

The star looked gaunt, causing followers to wonder if he was doing okay.

"I hope your okay, your appearance has changed," one person commented

"Dude, I'm all in for this, but please reassure your fan base about your health 'cause even I am starting to be kinda worried," another user posted.

"I didn't recognise him at first. I'm not liking this weight loss bro," shared one fan.

It's not clear when Boseman began to slim down. He looked healthy when he was last spotted in Chicago back in February. It is being speculated that Boseman's weight loss could be for a role. His next project is sci-fi TV series The Black Child. He will likely have to bulk up again for Black Panther 2.

Follow @News18Movies for more
>>> Vietnam presents medical equipment to Laos, Cambodia

>>> COVID-19: Cambodian-Vietnamese families in Preah Sihanouk supported

>>> Vietnam Airlines carries medical equipment to Laos, Cambodia

>>> Cambodia thanks Vietnam for medical support in COVID-19 fight

Speaking at the handover ceremony, Viet said that with the spirit of friendly neighbourliness and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries, the Vietnam-Cambodia Friendship Association had mobilised its chapters, businesses in the Vietnamese Enterprises Club in Cambodia and philanthropists to make donations to help the Cambodian people fight the disease.

The donations included 12,500 face masks, 500 bottles of antibacterial solution and the cash amount of VND50 million (US$2,123).

Cambodian Ambassador to Vietnam Chay Navuth expressed his deep gratitude to the Vietnamese people and the Vietnam-Cambodia Friendship Association for their valuable sentiments toward the people of Cambodia.

He voiced his belief in the efforts toward the prompt termination of the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam, Cambodia and the world, affirming that the two countries would continue developing their solidarity and traditional friendly relations which have been nurtured by many generations of their leaders and peoples.
Ecuador is one of the worse coronavirus affected nations across the Latin American region. Although the official figures report 421 fatalities, the new figures that have emerged from Guayas province suggest that thousands have died. According to the Ecuadorian government, nearly 6,700 people have died in the coastal province in the initial two weeks of April which is far more than fatalities reported.

Authorities cannot cope up

According to an international media report, the death rate is so high that the authorities cannot keep a count of it. This comes as the Ecuadorian government last week started distributing wooden coffins to residents in the worst affected city, Guayaquil. The government had also set up a dedicated helpline to help families who need to remove a corpse from their homes.

Read: Ecuador: Nearly 800 Bodies Removed From Homes In Guayaquil Amid COVID-19

According to government figures, 14,561 people have died in Guayas, due to all causes, since the starting of march and on an average, 2,000 people die in the province every month. As per the latest figures, the coronavirus pandemic has affected a total of 8,450 people in the country out of whom, 838 have recovered. However, experts have attributed the low number of infected cases to lack of testing in Ecuador.

Earlier this week, Ecuadorian authorities said that police have removed around 800 bodies from homes in Guayaquil, the epicentre of the countrys coronavirus outbreak, after complaints of mishandling. Reports of abandoned bodies lying on the streets shocked the world which forced the President to announce an investigation in the management of bodies who died from the novel coronavirus.

Read: COVID-19: Ecuador President Launches Probe Into Mishandling Of Victims Bodies

Read: Ecuador Suspends Oil Exports After Dual Pipelines Destroyed

The COVID-19 outbreak overwhelmed the health and emergency services of the Latin American nation and the funeral homes buckled under the pressure of handling so many bodies. Pedro Pablo Duart, Governor of the province of Guayas, thanked Barcelona Sporting Club for donating coffins to help bury hundreds of deceased due to the health crisis.

Read: WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Fathered Two Kids With Lawyer In Ecuador Embassy: Report

Image: AP
China in Focus (April 17): First Chinese Lawsuit Against CCP Coverup

A Hubei resident publicly sued the local government for covering up the CCP virus spreading. That night he was summoned by police.

Chinas economy shrinks for the first time since records began three decades ago. Its GDP has fallen nearly 7 percent.

Chinese authorities revised the virus death count in Wuhan, increasing it by 50 percent. Many believe the new number is still too low.

Governments around the world demand the truth from China. They want to know how the virus originated, and say it may have come from a lab in Wuhan.

The G7 joins the call to reform the World Health Organization as Republican lawmakers call for its director-general to resign.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more first-hand news from China.

For more news and videos, please visit our website and Twitter.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18)  A day before the deadly clash that left 11 soldiers dead, government forces killed three Abu Sayyaf fighters and wounded eight others in Patikul, Sulu, the military said Saturday.

Eight other members of the Abu Sayyaf group were wounded, the Army's 11th Infantry Division said in a statement.

Meanwhile, three soldiers sustained minor injuries and were brought to the Camp General Teodulfo Bautista Station Hospital for treatment.

This was after members of the 5th Scout Ranger Battalion clashed with the Abu Sayyaf at Sitio Lihnub in Barangay Buhanginan at around 2:00 p.m. on Thursday. Its 4th Scout Ranger Company encountered some 40 Abu Sayyaf fighters led by Radullan Sahiron and Hatib Hadjan Sawadjaan.

Reinforcements from the 15th Scout Ranger Company encountered the same group a kilometer away from the first encounter site, resulting in a firefight that lasted around 45 minutes.

The 21st Infantry Battalion fought the same group on Friday, wherein 11 soldiers were killed and 14 were wounded. The firefight lasted for an hour at Sitio Bud Lubong, Barangay Danag, also in Patikul town. Authorities have yet to determine the number of casualties on the enemy side.

Malacanang condemned the incident on Saturday, warning "enemies of the State" that government troops "remain ready and prepared to crush the enemies of the government and quell any armed attack amid the existing state of calamity and public health emergency."

Major General Corleto S. Vinluan Jr., Commander of the 11th Infantry Division, assured that pursuit operations will continue against the Abu Sayyaf group amid the coronavirus crisis. Some of the police and military have been deployed in checkpoints enforcing lockdown guidelines to contain the spread of the virus.

Our intent is for the soldiers to protect the people and the local government units who are currently delivering basic services to the community in line with the AFP mandates and guidelines in addressing the situation concerning COVID-19," Vinluan said in a statement.
Governments are taking control of our very personal lives during this pandemic --for our own good, of course. It has always happened during such times.

During the London plague in 1665, city officials took control of most aspects of the peoples lives. They did so based on previously passed laws that were still available to them. Daniel Defoe, wrote in A Journal of the Plague Year,

This shutting up of the houses was a method first taken, as I understand, in the plague which happened in 1603, at the coming of King James I to the crown; and the power of shutting people up in their own houses was granted by act of Parliament, entitled An Act for the Charitable Relief and Ordering of Persons Infected with Plague. On which act of Parliament the lord mayor and aldermen of the city of London founded the order they made at this time, and which took place the 1st of July, 1665, when the numbers of infected within the city were but few.

Similarly, laws (many oppressive and intrusive) were passed all over the world to deal with the Chinese coronavirus, and some of those laws will stay on the books for many years. Concerned citizens must be vigilant that any oppressive laws be temporarynot permanent.

During the 1665 plague, all funerals had to be held before or after sunset, and no friends or other mourners could attend. There was to be no eating at taverns, and the unspent money was to be given to the poor. I have found no indication if or how that was enforced.

While the Black Death was raging, London officials appointed examiners, to continue in that office for the space of two months at least: and if any fit person so appointed shall refuse to undertake the same, the said parties so refusing to be committed to prison until they shall conform themselves accordingly. The examiners were to visit homes and to discover any sickness and to ascertain if possible what diseases were present.

Wait a minute! What if the appointed people had other responsibilities? What if they were afraid of being around dead people? What if they were terrified of being infected and putting their families in danger? Too bad, they would be imprisoned.

During this time, female searchers were appointed to make sure the dead had died of the plague and report the deaths to town officials. Also, chirurgeons (ancient for surgeons) were appointed whether they wanted to serve or not.

The home of every infected person was marked with a red cross of a foot long, in the middle of the door, evident to be seen, and with these usual printed words, that is to say, Lord have mercy upon us, to be set close over the same cross, there to continue until lawful opening of the same house. All letters were required to be in upper case.

What if an atheist refused to pay tribute to the Lord with the painted petition on his door? Too bad, no exceptions. And the ACLU was not yet doing their thing.

The searchers, chirurgeons, keepers, and buriers were not to be on the streets without holding a red rod or wand of three foot in length in their hands, open and evident to be seen. What if a person did not want to be identified as such? No option.

It was ordered, every householder do cause the street to be daily prepared before his door, and so to keep it clean swept all the week long. It was the citys responsibility to keep the streets clean; however, it was now a homeowners job.

Laws were passed that prohibited hogs, dogs, or cats, or tame pigeons, or conies, to be kept within any part of the city, or any swine to be or stray in the streets or lanes, but that such swine be impounded by the beadle [a parish constable of the Anglican Church, often charged with duties of charity] or any other officer, and the owner punished according to the act of common council; and that the dogs be killed by the dog killers appointed for that purpose. Sorry, but all creatures were forbidden.

An order was published by the lord mayor, and by the magistrates, according to the advice of the physicians, that all the dogs and cats should be immediately killed, and an officer was appointed for the execution. Defoe reveals that 40,000 dogs were killed and five times as many cats.

Town officials declared, all plays, bear baitings, games, singing of ballads, buckler play, or such like causes of assemblies of people, be utterly prohibited. Anyone defying the order was to be severely punished.

Markets were closed, but the lord mayor permitted the country people who brought provisions to be stopped in the streets leading into the town, and to sit down there with their goods, where they sold what they brought, and went immediately away. But, no chit-chatting.

Denmark has passed an emergency law that allows the government to force people to get a vaccination, although one is not available for the coronavirus. Also, citizens who refuse to be tested for the coronavirus will face fines and potential prison time and will be prevented from entering shops, grocery stores, public institutions, and hospitals while also being restricted from using public transport.

Rahm Emanuel declared in 2008, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before." When citizens are fearful, politicians get afraid of appearing not to be in control. Their first fear is the fear of losing the next election. So, be careful when congress is in session. They will usually solve any problem before us with welfare or warfare.

Both can be deadly to personal freedom.
The Bono and Bono East Shadow Regional Directorate of Health has refuted media reports of confirmed Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases recorded particularly in the Bono East Region.



Rather, the Directorate said 24 out of the 29 suspected cases recorded in the Bono Region had tested negative, saying the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research (KCCR) was yet to bring results of the remaining suspected cases.



It therefore advised the public not to panic, but complied with government directives, wash their hands with soap under running water and use hand sanitizers regularly.



The media should continue to remind the populace on the need for them to continue adhering to the social distancing and other protocols to stem the spread of the COVID-19 in the regions, Dr. John Ekow Otoo, the Deputy Director, Public Health at the Bono Regional Directorate of Health has said.



Addressing a news conference in Sunyani, Dr. Otoo said the Directorate had heightened surveillance and deployed contact tracers in the local communities to help manage suspected cases.



Dr. Kofi Issah, the Bono and Bono East Regional Director of Health condemned public stigmatization of the COVID-19, and advised the media to sensitize the populace to help control the stigma.



He said if this persists it would be extremely difficult to trace contacts of patients and thwart government's efforts to stem the spread of the disease unless stigmatization and discrimination of the disease was brought under control.



Dr. Issah said huge responsibility was on the media, if the nationwide war against the COVID-19 could succeed, and advised that the media intensifies public education on the regular use of sanitizers, hand washing under running water and social distancing.

Source: GNA









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.

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Authorities have instructed farmers in the Mekong Delta to sow the summer  autumn rice crop on established schedules to mitigate the damage of drought, saltwater intrusion and disease.

Preparing land for sowing the summer  autumn rice in Kien Giang Provinces Giang Thanh District.  VNA/VNS Photo Le Huy Hai

The delta, the countrys rice granary, plans to grow about 1.6 million hectares of rice in the summer  autumn crop, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Developments Plant Cultivation Department.

The delta is facing drought and severe saltwater intrusion which is expected to continue and only reduce after this month.

The Plant Cultivation Department has set schedules for sowing the crop in the delta between March and June.

In areas that can secure irrigation water, the sowing is in March and April, while sowing is set in May for areas located south of National Highway No 1 and 70km from the coast.

In areas that depend on rainwater for irrigation, sowing will be in the first half of June when rain is expected.

Based on the sowing schedules, the deltas 12 provinces and Can Tho City have set up detailed sowing plans for each area.

In Kien Giang Province, which is the deltas largest rice producer, the provinces Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has given farmers detailed plans between March 20 and June 26.

The level of water resources in Kien Giangs upper areas has been low, so the province has operated sluices properly to prevent shortage of irrigation water and has dredged irrigation ditches to increase water storage.

Kien Giang targets growing 284,000ha of rice with an average yield of 5.5 tonnes per hectare in the summer  autumn crop.

The province has instructed farmers to grow more high-quality rice varieties that meet export standards, aiming for 85 per cent.

In An Giang Province, farmers have been told to sow the crop between March 10 and May 20 to avoid irrigation water shortage and pests, mostly brown plant hoppers.

Nguyen Si Lam, director of the An Giang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said farmers should follow schedules to avoid damage caused by brown plant hoppers.

Farmers should also apply integrated pest management and other techniques used in rice cultivation, he said.

In Soc Trang Province, authorities have told farmers to sow the crop between the end of April and June, and each area has to sow rice seeds at the same time to prevent the spread of brown plant hoppers.

Ngo Thanh Loan, deputy head of the Soc Trang Plant Cultivation and Protection Sub-departments Plant Cultivation Division, said: In areas affected by saltwater intrusion, farmers have to wash salts out of fields carefully before sowing rice seeds.

When the price of rice rose recently, many farmers in the delta sowed the summer  autumn rice crop earlier compared to instructed schedules after they had a bumper harvest for the 2019-20 winter  spring rice crop.

Farmers had a bumper harvest because local authorities had instructed farmers to grow the crop one month earlier compared to normal schedules to avoid the impact of drought and saltwater intrusion.

However, the delta saw 33,800ha of its 1.54 million hectares of winter  spring crop damaged by drought and saltwater intrusion as many farmers did not follow the sowing schedule instructions.  VNS

Mekong Delta enjoys bumper rice crop Despite being affected by drought and saltwater intrusion, the Mekong Delta harvested a record output of about 7.3 million tons of rice in the Winter-Spring crop 2019-2020.

Mekong Delta gets bumper crop despite saline intrusion Though saltwater intrusion in the Mekong Delta comes earlier and with higher level of salinity than that recorded in the 2015-16 dry season, the damages to farming areas are expected to be less serious
Amid the deadly novel coronavirus outbreak, United Nations human rights experts have called for the immediate release of thousands of political activists, dual nationals and foreigners imprisoned in Iran.

The experts, including the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, and the UN Special Rapporteur on arbitrary and unjust executions, Agnes Callamard, say the Islamic Republic should expand its temporary release of thousands of detainees to include prisoners of conscience, dual and foreign nationals who are still behind bars despite the serious risk of being infected with COVID-19.

In a report released on Friday, April 20, the experts asserted that while Iran's Ministry of Health has officially stated that one person falls victim to COVID-19 every ten minutes in Iran, the Islamic Republic still holds many people in prisons.

"We recognize the emergency situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the problems it faces in fighting the pandemic, including reported challenges in accessing medical supplies due to sanctions", the UN experts noted, adding, "We echo [the UN] High Commissioner [Veronica Michelle] Bachelets call for the easing of sanctions to enable medical systems to fight COVID-19 and limit global contagion."

In recent weeks the Islamic Republic has also pushed for lifting U.S. sanctions, labeling it "medical terrorism". Russia and a few countries have supported Tehrans demand, but Europe has shown lackluster sympathy for Tehrans position.

Meanwhile, the United States has repeatedly countered the sanction-lifting pressure by arguing that humanitarian trade with Iran is not blocked, and the country, as well as its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have enough money to take care of the needs during the pandemic.

As the epicenter of the coronavirus in the Middle East, Iran is struggling with a plethora of problems in containing the deadly virus.

The UN human rights experts have commended the reported temporary release of 100,000 prisoners since a February 26 order by the head of the judiciary, which included Iranian political prisoners and dual and foreign nationals. However, most prisoners of conscience, human rights defenders, environmentalists, and dual and foreign nationals remain imprisoned.

Some (of the prisoners) are at great risk from COVID-19 due to their age or underlying health conditions. We call on the authorities to immediately release them", the experts said, underlining the cases of lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, defenders of human rights Ms. Narges Mohammadi and Arash Sadeghi, as well as dual nationals Ahmadreza Djalali (Iranian-Swedish national), Morad Tahbaz (Iranian-British-American national), Kamran Ghaderi and Massud Mossaheb (Iranian-Austrian nationals).

According to the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), all seven have requested temporary release but have been rejected or not received a response.

"Mr. Tahbaz and Mr. Mossaheb are over sixty years old and could experience serious health consequences from COVID-19 due to their age, including loss of life", the experts noted, adding, "These individuals also have existing life-threatening health issues, as do Ms. Mohammadi, Mr. Sadeghi, Mr. Ghaderi and Mr. Djalali, heightening the serious risk to their health if infected. The immediate-release by the Iranian judiciary of these individuals and other prisoners of conscience could save their lives."

Referring to several reports, the experts have affirmed that Morad Tahbaz and Massud Mossaheb have shared cells with people suffering common COVID-19 symptoms, such as fever and coughing. Hygiene products are either non-existent or restricted, and physical distancing measures are not enforced. Ms. Mohammadi and Mr. Djalali have reportedly been held in small cells with twelve and sixteen people respectively. Ms. Sotoudeh has been on a hunger strike since March 16, 2020, in protest over the non-release of prisoners of conscience.

"Irans prisons have long-standing hygiene, overcrowding, and healthcare problems. We urge the Iranian authorities to implement measures consistent with their obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including the right of persons deprived of their liberty to be treated with humanity and with respect for their inherent dignity, and the right to life", the experts have asserted

They have also called on Iran to permanently release those arbitrarily detained. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found that the detention of Ms. Mohammadi, Mr. Djalali and Mr. Sadeghi is arbitrary.

"We call on the Iranian authorities to expedite the independent and impartial review of all cases of suspected arbitrary detention and to immediately and permanently release all individuals found to be arbitrarily deprived of their liberty, the experts said.
Brought to you by Honda of Staten Island

Have you filled out Census 2020?

The whole world has changed since Census Day on April 1, a kick-off for the count. Forms mailed to your residence may have gone in a pile of to-do stuff or been tossed during a Covid Cleanup.

Dont worry. In one of the most difficult times to conduct the census, there are easier ways than ever to respond.

Simply go online to my2020census.gov or call 844-330-2020. Many languages are available. And you can still fill out the paper form that comes in your mailbox.

Take 10 minutes for 10 questions and make a difference for the next 10 years of our lives, said Michael DeVito, who Zoomed in to discuss Census 2020 with the Life-Wire News crew.

A Westerleigh resident, DeVito, is associate executive director of external affairs at the New York Center for Interpersonal Development (NYCID). The not-for-profit is one of the lead organizations to spearhead the Census 2020 effort in Richmond County. Promoting the census count fits with the organizations work to achieve a civil society by strengthening both personal relationships and community bonds.

WHY BOTHER

DeVito communicated the urgency for completing the Census even as we are distracted by so many other concerns.

Conducting a census dates back to 1790 when it was mandated by Article 2 of the Constitution that every 10 years we will have a count of every person in the country, said DeVito.

The purpose is first to determine the number of seats in the House of Representatives we have. Over the decades, said DeVito, determining the amount of resources we would get became another use of the count.

So participating in the census gives you both a piece of history and your communitys fair share of $675 billion dollars of federal funding.

Because New York has been typically undercounted -- and New York City has been undercounted -- in the last census, we lost two congressional seats, DeVito said. And there is a chance in the coming census, we are going to potentially lose two more.

Have a lot of people filled in the census? Greg Perosi asked.

Right now -- and I believe because of the emergency we find ourselves in -- we are a bit underreported, responded DeVito. We are two to three percentage points behind where Richmond County was in 2010 which is a little scary.

With a growing population, he noted, we could have more people and less representation in Washington if we dont all fill out the census.

FLOW OF FUNDING

In addition to providing the data to determine how many people we can send to Congress to represent our views, the census helps determine how to divvy up billions of dollars. Basically, the more of us who fill out the census, the more money allocated locally for hospitals, fire departments, school lunch programs, after-school programs, specials needs services, Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP), senior centers, housing, roads and bridges and other critical programs and services.

The most important aspect of this is that the resources that we get help to fund our schools, said DeVito, a Marine veteran who has devoted his career to at-risk youth.

GROUP RESIDENCES

We asked DeVito how we get counted if we live in a group home or independently in a residence managed by an agency. In addition, some of us have returned to live with our families during the Covid-19 crisis.

DeVito explained that these residences, known as group quarters, include a variety of other living arrangements, such as skilled nursing facilities, college dorms, military barracks and homeless shelters.

The process is called enumeration, and DeVito said you should be included in the census at the place you were living on April 1. The Census Bureau assists group quarters administrators in responding to the census on behalf of residents. Information on enumeration for individuals and administrators can be found at the Census Bureau website.

STILL HESITANT

One person responds to the census form; however it is vitally important that everyone is definitely counted in the house, said DeVito.

Fears are addressed on the Census Bureau website: The Census Bureau will never ask you for: your social security number, money or donations, anything on behalf of a political party, your bank or credit card account numbers. Additionally, there is no citizenship question on the 2020 Census.

Thanks for reading until the end. We hope you are motivated to complete Census 2020. Here again is the information you need: Go online to my2020census.gov or call 844-330-2020.

-- Written collaboratively by Meredith Arout, Aaron Bialer, Anthony DiFato, Joseph Padalino, and Gregory Perosi for Life-Wire News Service with Kathryn Carse

Learn more about the Advance/SILive.coms partnership with Lifestyles for the Disabled, sponsored by Honda of Staten Island.
All government and private institutions in Uttarakhand have been asked to start regular online classes from April 21 to ensure the students' studies are not affected.

A government order dated April 17 (Friday) said the closure of schools and educational institutions to stop the spread of COVID-19 is badly affecting the studies of college students.

Therefore, all government and private colleges, state-based universities and their constituent colleges should start conducting regular online classes according to a timetable from April 21, the order said.

The online classes can be conducted using Skype, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, etc and the sessions should also be recorded, it stated.

The timetable can be shared with the students through SMS or WhatsApp messages by the principals and professors concerned.

Notes and other materials can be shared with the students by uploading them on WhatsApp, e-mail, the website of the institution, Youtube, etc.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Other measures that would follow - such as the worldwide travel ban, declaring a global pandemic, the creation of the national cabinet and social-distancing measures - all stemmed from this day. Announcing the ban, Morrison was questioned by a journalist over why Australia was doing it against the advice of the WHO. "Because our medical advice is it's in the interest of Australians to do so," Morrison said. Two days later, the WHO's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, hit out at Australia and the United States for putting in place travel restrictions from China, saying there was no need for measures that "unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade". If anything, this reinforced the Australian government's decision. For a number of weeks, the government was growing increasingly concerned about the advice coming out of the WHO's global headquarters in Geneva about the situation in China. Senior Australian health officials still valued the work of the WHO's Western Pacific division, headquartered in the Philippines, and respected its regional director, Takeshi Kasai. A distinction was already being formed in Canberra between "Geneva and Manila". Fast-forward more than two months, and the extent of the WHO's failings are obvious. Meanwhile, Australia hasn't just flattened the curve, but is now pursuing a policy of containment - and perhaps in a few weeks, outright suppression - of the virus.

But there are growing fears that US President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw funding from the WHO pending a review will only serve to further place the United Nations body under Beijing's control. As Trump's America withdraws from the world, ravaged by COVID-19 and deflecting blame onto the WHO and China for its own mishandling of the pandemic, Chinese President Xi Jinping is looking to fulfil his long-held goal of "reforming and developing the global governance system" to build "a community with a shared future for mankind". So where did the WHO, a specialised agency of the UN established in 1948, go so wrong? Firstly, it spent all of January and most of February parroting lines from the Chinese government. The most glaring example was on January 14, when Chinese authorities were still trying to cover up the initial outbreak, and the WHO uncritically repeated China's assertions that there was no "clear evidence of human-to-human transmission". WHO didn't send experts on a field visit to Wuhan, the city where the outbreak began, until six days later on January 20. Two days after that, the WHO finally declared there was evidence of human-to-human transmission, but praised China's efforts in containing the virus. Tedros, through all of February, was applauding the "transparency" of the Chinese response, applauding the Chinese president's "detailed knowledge" and "personal involvement in the outbreak".

When former Hong Kong health minister Margaret Chan was appointed director-general of the WHO in 2006, she was very much Beijing's choice. At the end of her term in 2017, the Chinese government knew they couldn't install one of their own again, so they went for the next best thing, using their voting bloc at the organisation to elect Tedros over British candidate Dr David Nabarro. Tedros, formerly Ethiopia's health minister and foreign minister, trained as a microbiologist but is the first director-general who is not a medical doctor. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation, with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on January 28. Credit:AP Taiwan - which has been a model case in its response to the coronavirus - has been sidelined by the WHO at the behest of Beijing. Taiwan was previously granted observer status in the WHO's governing body, the World Health Assembly, but was ousted in 2016 after the election of Democratic Progressive Party leader Tsai Ing-wen, a critic of Beijing, as president. The mere mention of Taiwan from a Hong Kong reporter last month saw a senior WHO official pretend to not hear the question and shut down the interview. There is now a bipartisan push within Australia for Canberra to change its position on Taiwanese membership. While Australia has campaigned behind the scenes for the WHO to engage more with Taiwan, it has not endorsed the country's bid for membership of the world health body. Australian MPs from both sides of politics have also this week called for a review into the WHO in the wake of the virus, including its relationship with Beijing.

But the problem extends beyond the WHO. For more than a decade, China has been quietly gaining more influence over UN bodies. Four of the 15 UN specialised agencies are headed by Chinese nationals. China now contributes 12 per cent of the UN's regular budget, the second-largest monetary contributor after the US. Loading Beijing has also co-opted the UN's Sustainable Development Goals by using them to promote the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi's signature program to bankroll infrastructure around the world which often directly benefits Chinese firms. There is growing evidence that Beijing has used the BRI in developing nations to create "debt traps" by funding white-elephant projects and then wiping the debt for favours. The moulding of the UN's development goals to China's infrastructure plans has been helped by the fact that a Chinese national has been in the position of undersecretary-general of the UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs since 2007. Michael Shoebridge, director of the defence program at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, says China has used the BRI to sway more votes at the UN, and then legitimised the program by promoting it under the UN banner.

While some analysts say China is using its leverage at the UN just as any emerging or great power has in the past, Shoebridge says China is fundamentally different because of its "Leninist roots". Donald Trump's decision to stop US funding for the WHO plays into Beijing's hands. Credit:AP "The US State Department has a public diplomacy role, but it doesn't have a United Front Work Department agenda subverting or co-opting any source of opposition to its state power," Shoebridge says. "But you have to be in it to win it; nature abhors a vacuum. Given the Chinese state is defined by opportunism, it is a very bad strategic policy by the United States to gift them the opportunity to have even more influence in UN agencies." The US is the biggest financial contributor to the WHO, last year forking out $US553 million ($877 million) to its $US6 billion budget. Australia is set to give $5.3 million in membership dues this year, on top of voluntary contributions, while China will give about $28.7 million. Trump's decision to halt funding will play right into the hands of Beijing, which wants to model itself as a global health leader in the wake of the pandemic. In some ways, Western countries are reaping what they have sown: for years, the international community called on China to engage more with global institutions, and that's exactly what Beijing has done.

Dr Benjamin Zala, research fellow at the Australian National University's College of Asia and the Pacific, says the Chinese government has increased its UN funding "because we effectively asked Beijing to do so". "China looks for greater influence at the UN for exactly the same reason that the US or any other great power does: it is a useful way to advance its interest," Zala says. "Any greater influence that Chinese money buys within the UN system will be amplified by the Trump administration's disengagement from things like the UN Human Rights Council or the World Health Organisation. "Generally speaking, in these arenas power and influence matters in relative terms. So the more the US withdraws, the more influence China will be able to exert." UN bodies are inherently flawed, but they are only as good as their member states. Stuck between a rising authoritarian power and a transactional US President, it may be up to middle powers like Australia to chart a way forward. According to senior sources within the Australian government, the challenge will now be to work out how to encourage the WHO to reform in a way that doesn't further play into Beijing's hands.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A man is dead and a woman was injured in a Saturday morning shooting in the citys Broadway-Slavic Village neighborhood.

The shooting happened on Clement Avenue near East 71st Street, Cleveland police spokeswoman Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia said. She did not say what time the shooting took place.

The man has not been identified and a 25-year-old woman also was shot and taken to MetroHealth.

Her current condition was not immediately available.

Police did not give out any more information as to what led up to the shooting or if they have made any arrests.

Read more crime stories on cleveland.com:

Appeals court entertains arguments on whether Jimmy Dimora should receive new trial

First Cuyahoga County Sheriff deputy tests positive for coronavirus

U.S. marshals task force arrests Cleveland man wanted in deadly shooting

East Cleveland officer shot man after police say he pulled gun from waistband
LOS ANGELES  Vince Cuseo, admissions dean for Occidental College, is racked with unknowns. The college relies on students from other states and countries for more than half its enrollment. It tries to seal the deal with admitted students during tours to the lush campus in eclectic Eagle Rock each April.

But with the campus closed to the public because of the coronavirus crisis and mounting financial pressures on families, will students blindly commit to a private college with a $72,600 annual price tag?

Dasani Anderson, a senior at George Washington Preparatory High School, has dreamed of venturing beyond California and was admitted to Spelman College, the nations top-ranked historically black college. But the pandemic forced her to cancel plans to visit the Atlanta campus, and she is still uncertain if Spelmans financial aid will cover her needs.

Now she wonders: Should she stay local at UCLA?

On both sides of the admission process, college decisions in a year like no other are playing out in new, unpredictable and often frustrating ways.

For college-bound high school seniors, what is likely the most consequential decision of their young lives is riddled with uncertainties over affordability, safety, family obligations and choosing blind without campus visits, as one student put it.

Their quandaries, in turn, are ramping up pressure on colleges and universities to nail down commitments so they can keep enrollments steady, budgets stable and operations secured. And they must do so in uncharted territory, where previous prediction models and admission practices may not apply.

To secure students, campuses are increasing their number of admission offers and spots on wait lists. They are enhancing virtual campus experiences to replace traditional welcome events that often clinch commitments from admitted students. And they are starting to analyze how they can accommodate greater demands for financial aid.

In this year of years, weve got to use common sense and intuition because theres no algorithm that can predict college decisions in a global pandemic, Cuseo said.

Financial pressures on families loom large as the contagion has shut down businesses and forced 17 million people to apply for unemployment benefits. A recent survey of more than 45,000 students and parents by Niche, an educational research group, found that the pandemic had caused 88% of high school seniors polled to worry more about their familys ability to pay college costs.

Occidental and Claremont McKenna College say they are hearing from more families apprehensive about college costs and remain committed to fully covering a students demonstrated financial need. UCLA, which recently concluded a $5.49 billion fundraising campaign, is awarding more scholarships and extending staff hours to handle the growing calls that it, too, is receiving.

Our message to students is that if your familys situation has changed because of this virus, get in touch with us, said Youlonda Copeland-Morgan, UCLA vice provost of enrollment management. We see whats happening to some of these families and were going to continue to do everything we can to make sure UCLA is affordable.

Metzli Cruz, 17, is a valedictorian with a perfect grade-point average at Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez High School in Boyle Heights. She is scrambling to find $300 to cover the deposit for USC because money is tight now that both her parents have lost work at a beauty salon and cosmetics factory.

Sebastian Cazares, a 19-year-old student at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, planned to work 30 hours a week this term so he could focus on his passion of student activism when he transfers this fall to a four-year university  UCLA, he hopes. But the pandemic has dried up job opportunities. If things dont change, hes resigned to commuting from home by bus and putting work over activism, internships and student leadership.

At that point, all thats a luxury, he said.

Indeed, many students are bracing for a less ideal college experience. As most campuses have shifted to online learning, some students say they may change their college plans altogether if they arent able to enjoy the traditional freshman experience of dorm life, campus clubs and new friends.

Crystal Salinas, a 17-year-old senior at William S. Hart High School in Santa Clarita, has committed to California Baptist University in Riverside. But if online instruction continues through the fall, she may take a gap year.

I wouldnt be receiving the best education that I can, she said.

Sonali Jacinto, 18, is also a Hart student who was deciding between Arizona State University and California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. But now shes pondering community college to reduce costs, since her mothers hours as a restaurant manager have been cut.

That option would also allow Jacinto to stay near her family, another big concern for many students. The Niche survey found that more than one-third of high school seniors were planning to stay closer to home than previously intended.

One of them is Keenia Mata, a Mendez High School senior with a 4.27 GPA who plans to major in neuroscience. She has longed to venture off to college outside California  maybe Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.

But after her fathers friend contracted COVID-19, the disease hit home and she decided she wanted to stay closer to family. She will probably choose UC Berkeley as a happy medium.

I really care about family, she said. Without them, I wouldnt be where I am now.

A major lament for others is the inability to visit campuses. Lester Cedeno, a student at Middle College High School in San Bernardino, said its extremely terrifying to commit to UC Berkeley before visiting. Arcadia High School senior Jeffrey Lee wanted to feel the overall campus vibe as he compares it to his other top choices, USC and New York University.

Amid the pandemic, campuses are adapting as best they can. The UC and California State University systems recently announced more flexible rules for admission, including later deadlines for official transcripts, acceptance of pass/fail grades, and, for UC campuses, optional submission of SAT and ACT scores for fall 2021 applicants.

But uncertainty reigns. Cal State Northridge, which enrolls one of the nations highest number of students on federal Pell grants, expects greater demands for financial aid. College decisions could cut both ways, with some students dropping out of school to work and others choosing Northridge over out-of-state choices to stay local. Campus officials are planning for about 38,400 students for fall 2020 but have no idea how close to the mark theyll get.

Everyones trying to read the tea leaves, said William Watkins, CSUNs vice president of student affairs.

To hedge against drops in yield  the percentage of students who accept admission offers  some universities are increasing offers for fall 2020 over last year. USC, for instance, extended about 2,000 more freshman offers.

UCLA extended more wait-list offers, as did other UC campuses in case fewer admitted students than anticipated commit to enroll.

The impulse to stay closer to home, however, may help California campuses. A few years ago, UC Santa Barbara launched a campaign, Were Closer Than You Think, to correct misperceptions that Santa Barbara is really far away from the rest of Southern California, said Lisa Przekop, admissions director.

The campaign may be paying off: Very early signs indicate that more local students are accepting UC Santa Barbara offers compared with last year, a trend also surfacing at Cal State Long Beach.

In addition, all campuses are scrambling to replace celebrations for admitted students with virtual experiences. For Olufemi Ogundele, UC Berkeley undergraduate admissions director, having to do so is jarring and sad because the in-person events mark his favorite time of year, when he can finally meet the bright young adults known until then only through application materials.

But Ogundele said Berkeley will make the most of it by extending Cal Day to Cal Week with more opportunities to experience student panels, lectures and networking events online. UCLA and UC Riverside also are extending welcome events, which usually attract more than 10,000 visitors on a single day.

Smaller campuses, such as Occidental, are facing greater challenges. Their smaller size allows them to customize outreach with individual phone calls and emails. But it also leaves less room for error, as a shift of even a few dozen students could disrupt the delicate balance of needed housing and courses.

Its like running a lunar module on the dark side of the moon on a dime, Cuseo said.

Teresa Watanabe and Nina Agrawal of the Los Angeles Times wrote this story.

2020 Los Angeles Times

Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Karnataka to undertake Triaging: What does it mean and how do you pronounce it

After Tablighis, how Rohingya Muslims are now posing a challenge in the COVID-19 fight

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Apr 18: The Tablighi Jamaat congregation contributed to a steep rise in the number of coronavirus cases in India. The Jamaat members after attending the congregation at Nizamuddin last month spanned out to different parts of the country and spread the virus-like wildfire.

Even as the states continue to cope with the menace that the Tablighis created, the Home Ministry has now asked both states and Union Territories to investigate the links between the Tablighis and Rohingya. The letter written by Srinivasu K, deputy secretary internal security division-1 said that the Rohingya Muslims have attended several congregations of the Tablighi Jamaat. There is a possibility that they may have contracted COVID-19.

COVID-19: Rohingya Jamaat attendees to be screened

There are around 40,000 Rohingyas living in different parts of the country and only 17,000 have registered as refugees with the UNHCR.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

Officials in the MHA tell OneIndia that this is a new headache and the states and UTs have to act urgently to ensure that the virus does not spread further. Many who had gone to the various congregations have not returned. Further, a thorough probe is being undertaken to find out how these Rohingyas attended the congregation despite living illegally in India. The probe would also focus around, how the Tablighi Jamaat managed to bring in so many Rohingyas into their congregations.

It was found that the Rohingya Muslims had attended the Ijtemas and other religious congregations of the Tablighi Jamaat. They have attended congregations in Mewat, Haryana and also the meet at Nizamuddin. It was found that the Rohingyas living in Hyderabad had attended this meet.

There were Rohingyas from Delhi's Shram Vihar and Shaheen Bagh too who had taken part in the activities of the Tablighi. The worry is that they have not returned to their camps as yet. They must be hiding in some states and it is now for the government to undertake a drive to track them, the officer cited above said.

Further, the Home Ministry also pointed out that there are Rohingya Muslims living in Derabassi, Punjab and Jammu. These persons arrived at these places after attending the Tablighi congregation. These persons need to be tracked and screened for COVID-19. This should be done on priority, the MHA has also said. In Jammu, 8 Rohingyas were put under quarantine after they attended the Nizamuddin event.

ED files money laundering case against Tablighi Jamaat chief

Apart from the Rohingyas, the Tablighis also hosted foreign nationals. Most of these persons were found to be hiding in various Mosques in the country to avoid the law. It was found that citizens of 41 nationalities had attended the event last month. There were 379 Indonesians, 110 Bangladeshis, 75 Malaysians, 65 Thai, 77 from Kyrgyzstan, 33 from Sri. Lanka and 63 from Myanmar who had attended the Nizamuddin congregation last month.
~Early life and Education

A Kanuri from Borno, not much is known about his early life. In 1980, he graduated with a

bachelors degree in sociology from the

University of Warwick, and also received a bachelors degree in law from the University of Cambridge . In 1983, he was called to the

Nigerian Bar after attending the Nigerian Law School .

In 1984, he obtained a masters degree in law from the University of Cambridge. He later attended the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland and participated in the Program for Masnagement Development at the Harvard Business School , in 1992 and 1994, respectively.

~Family

Kyari was married to the sister-in-law of Ibrahim Tahir, and had four children.

~Health

On March 24, 2020, it was made public that Kyari tested positive for COVID-19 on March 23, following an official trip to Germany nine days before. It was also reported that Kyari had underlying medical conditions, and was secretly flown out of the country. He later rejected these claims, and was moved from Abuja to Lagos due to medical conditions.

~Professional career

Kyari worked for the law firm Fani-Kayode and Sowemimo for some time after his return to Nigeria.

From 1988 to 1990, he was Editor with the New Africa Holdings Limited Kaduna.

In 1990, he served as a Commissioner for Forestry and Animal Resources in Borno State.

From 1990 to 1995, Kyari was the secretary to the board of African International Bank Limited, a subsidiary of Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

Kyari was an executive director in charge of management services at the United Bank for Africa, and was later appointed the chief executive officer.

In 2002, he was appointed a board director of Unilever Nigeria, and later served on the board of Exxon Mobil Nigeria.

~Political career

In August 2015, Kyari was appointed Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari.

~Power politics

Kyari was an influential figure within the Buhari administration. During the administrations first term, he worked mainly behind the scenes to implement the presidents agenda.

In 2019 with Buharis re-election for a second term, he ordered his cabinet to channel all requests through Kyaris office.

Further enhancing his influence within government circles, and being labelled as the de facto head of government.

In 2017, following a leaked memo, Kyari became embroiled in a public argument with the Head of Civil Service, who was later removed from office and arrested.

In 2020, in another leaked memo, Babagana Monguno the National Security Adviser accused Kyari of meddling in matters of national security.

~Death

Kyari died in a Lagos hospital on 17 April 2020, after testing positive for COVID-19.

~Honours and awards

Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON);

National honour in Nigeria.

Source: Wikipedia
New Delhi, April 18 : With the friction getting louder between the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government and the BJP, party President J.P. Nadda on Saturday hit out at the Trinamool Congress.

Speaking to the Bengal BJP leadership over video conference, Nadda accused the Trinamool of creating "hurdles" for the BJP in the state.

"Even in this time of pandemic, West Bengal's Trinamool Congress is not shying away from indulging in politics and harassing BJP cadres without any reason. They are even creating hurdles in the efforts of the BJP to help the people. This is unfortunate," alleged Nadda.

Nadda said the BJP needs to work by rising above political differences in the states. He also made a passing allegation against Rajasthan where too he claimed BJP cadres were being harassed. But he urged party cadres to ignore them at this crucial time and ensure that no one goes hungry in the states.

BJP's West Bengal president, state general secretary and other leadership were present in the video conference, including Babul Supriyo, Roopa Ganguly and Arjun Singh, among others.

BJP's General Secretary (organisation) B.L. Santosh was also in attendance.

Nadda's allegations came on a day when West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, in an interview with IANS, accused the West Bengal government of a PDS scam in the state.

"The ruling party in Bengal has hijacked the public distribution system (PDS). The PDS scam is getting bigger by the day," Dhankhar said.

He also alleged that the lockdown in West Bengal was not being enforced strictly.

Mamata Banerjee in the past had accused the Governor of working at behest of the Centre. The tussle began shortly after Dhankar assumed office on July 30, 2019.
Commercial creditors need to support debt relief for the poorest countries and cannot just free ride on a suspension in debt payments by official bilateral creditors, World Bank President David Malpass said on Friday.

Malpass told the World Banks Development Committee that the debt relief initiative agreed this week by the Group of 20 (G20) economies and the Paris Club was a huge achievement to help the poorest countries deal with the health and economic impact of the new coronavirus pandemic.

Malpass said the World Bank would look at ways of further extending support for the poorest countries, but cautioned that it was critical to protect the financial capacity, credit rating and low cost of funding offered by the banks lending arms.

He said the pandemic of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, had unleashed a global recession that would be deeper than the one seen during the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, and that would hit the poorest and most vulnerable countries the hardest.

More than 2.14 million people in more than 210 countries and territories have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally, and 143,744 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

Malpass said the World Bank was financing and implementing pandemic response programs in 64 developing countries, with the number to grow to 100 by the end of April. Tne Bank was able to provide $160bn of financing over the next 15 months, with some $50bn earmarked for the poorest countries, or those eligible for International Development Association (IDA) aid.

But more work and resources would be needed, he said.

Its clear that it wont be enough. If we dont move quickly to strengthen systems and resilience, the development gains of recent years can easily be lost, Malpass told the committee, which was meeting by videoconference early on Friday.

Debt relief will be a big topic at the meeting.

China on Thursday urged the World Bank to allow its poorest borrowers to suspend debt payments while they deal with the coronavirus pandemic, saying the worlds biggest multilateral development bank should lead by example.

World Bank officials worry that suspending debt payments could impair the excellent credit ratings currently held by the banks IDA bonds and other instruments.

Nigerian Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed also welcomed the G20 debt relief agreement, but urged the World Bank and other multilateral institutions to find ways to participate.

She said middle-income countries with debt challenges also needed urgent help, and supported a call by African leaders for $100bn in aid for the continent to deal with the pandemic, with $44bn earmarked for immediate debt relief.

Malpass said Africa was a big concern for the Bank, and it would create a new vice president post in July to focus on sub-Saharan Africa.
I encourage women to let their labor evolve at home in their own surroundings and let that momentum build, Dr. Isaacs said. (Many practitioners suggest waiting until contractions are strong and regular: occurring about every 4 to 5 minutes.)

Laboring at home provides the added bonus of feeling more comfortable and relaxed, potentially ramping up your production of the hormone oxytocin, which induces contractions and helps your cervix dilate, said Dr. Isaacs. Youll also have the freedom to eat, hydrate, rest in your own bed, take a bath and move around unrestricted, which may help the baby descend.

Once at the hospital or birth center, request intermittent heart rate monitoring instead of continuous monitoring (provided you are feeling good and the baby is healthy), suggested Dr. Judith Rossiter, M.D., director of the St. Joseph Perinatal Center at the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center. This will free you from being continuously tethered to medical equipment (which can be restrictive and uncomfortable) and might speed labor progression. Continuous monitoring also doesnt seem to improve outcomes, said Dr. Rossiter: Our reliance on it is often more out of convenience than it is out of benefit to the mom or to the baby.

If you can, change positions throughout labor by walking, squatting or sitting on a birthing ball. This allows the baby to be able to descend into the pelvis far better than if mom is stuck in a bed on her back, said Dr. Rossiter.

Understand, however, that a C-section may be necessary if labor stalls or if your (or your babys) health is at risk. Your provider may recommend surgery, for example, if your water has broken and youre at risk of infection; if your babys heart rate becomes unstable (leading to fetal distress); or if your baby isnt positioned properly for a vaginal delivery.

Pre-eclampsia.

Pre-eclampsia  or high blood pressure during pregnancy along with protein in the urine  is unique to pregnancy and is usually diagnosed in the third trimester, but it can develop during delivery or in the weeks following birth. Left untreated, pre-eclampsia can cause serious complications for both mother and baby (including eclamptic seizure in the mother, which is rare but can be fatal). Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, including pre-eclampsia, accounted for about 7 percent of the pregnancy-related deaths in the United States between 2011 and 2014.

If youre diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, you may not feel any symptoms. Or, you might notice severe headaches, blurred or spotty vision, excessive swelling throughout your body, or nausea and vomiting, said Dr. Nola Holness, Ph.D., a certified nurse-midwife and assistant professor at Florida International Universitys Nicole Wertheim College of Nursing and Health Sciences.
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Linkedin Paul Handley/with AFP bureaus (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States  Sat, April 18, 2020 15:20 633 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2be28c 2 World coronavirus,COVID-19,Donald-Trump,united-states,lockdown,China,Nigeria,Germany,Italy,Japan Free

Coronavirus deaths have surged past 150,000 worldwide with nearly a quarter of them in the United States, where President Donald Trump lent his support to protesters rallying against lockdown orders.

Evidence is mounting that social distancing successfully slowed the pandemic after more than half of humanity -- 4.5 billion people -- were confined to their homes.

Governments around the world are now grappling with when and how to ease lockdowns that have crippled the global economy, even as the COVID-19 death toll climbs further in hard-hit countries.

Demonstrators in three US states assembled in public this week to call for an end to the restrictions, with the largest protest in Michigan attracting 3,000 people -- some of whom were armed.

Trump has largely left decisions on easing lockdowns to state officials even as he outlined guidelines for a staged reopening of the national economy.

But his call to "liberate" Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia in a series of tweets were quickly rebuked by the Democratic leaders of the three states.

"I do not have time to involve myself in Twitter wars," said Virginia governor Ralph Northam.

The US accounts for nearly a third of the 2.2 million coronavirus infections reported globally.

It has also recorded around 37,000 deaths, more than any other nation, followed by Italy, Spain and France which have all been ravaged by their own outbreaks.

However these figures likely reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections, because many countries are testing only the most serious cases.

Virtually no corner of the world has been left untouched, with deaths in Africa passing 1,000 overnight.

Nigeria announced the death of President Muhammadu Buhari's top aide on Saturday, the highest-profile person to succumb to the virus in Africa's most populous nation.

Read also: US surpasses 700,000 coronavirus cases

Cover-up claims

China sharply raised its own death toll to 4,636 on Friday after adding another 1,290 fatalities for the city of Wuhan, where the respiratory disease first emerged late last year.

Trump, who has angrily shot back at claims he reacted too slowly to the virus threat, has accused Beijing of downplaying the impact of the virus within its borders.

"It is far higher than that and far higher than the US, not even close!" he tweeted.

China has just announced a doubling in the number of their deaths from the Invisible Enemy. It is far higher than that and far higher than the U.S., not even close!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020

Trump did not offer evidence, but pressure has mounted in recent days on Beijing to come clean over its handling of the original outbreak.

Leaders in France and Britain have also questioned China's management of the crisis but Beijing hit back, saying it had not concealed information about the illness.

Signs that the outbreak could be easing in parts of Europe prompted Switzerland, Denmark and Finland to begin reopening shops schools this week.

Germany's health minister said infection rates had "sunk significantly" after 3,400 deaths in his country, which is now beginning the delicate task of lifting some restrictions without triggering a secondary outbreak.

Some small shops will be allowed to reopen Monday, and some children would return to school within weeks.

Parts of Italy also began emerging from lockdown, with Venice residents strolling around quiet canals.

But Japan, Britain and Mexico all expanded their current movement restrictions.

Read also: China's Wuhan raises coronavirus death toll by 50% citing early lapses

Vulnerable economies

Signs of the economic damage of the pandemic are mounting, with China reporting its first contraction in GDP in several decades.

The Trump administration pledged another $19 billion in relief for farmers reeling from a massive jolt to the agricultural markets with schools and restaurants shuttered across the country.

Part of the funds will be used to buy up surplus dairy products and produce that farmers have been destroying, unable to get it to consumers or food processors.

"Having to dump milk and plow under vegetables ready to market is not only financially distressing, but it's heartbreaking as well to those who produce them," agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue said.

African state leaders and global financial bodies warned on Friday that the continent needed tens of billions of dollars in additional funds to fight the outbreak.

The IMF also warned the virus could spark another "lost decade" in Latin America and backed debt moratoriums to free up spending for the region's fragile economies.
COVID-19 not only threatens the lives of black residents, it also promises to bring more guns to Chicagos streets. Purchasing a firearm to ward off a pandemic is flawed thinking. But that hasnt stopped Illinois residents from contributing to a surge of gun sales in recent weeks. Tragically, many of the guns that people are panic buying today, will end up in the hands of individuals who cannot pass a criminal background check, increasing the chances of arming a potentially dangerous individual. We cannot let these illegal guns flood our neighborhoods and take even more lives.
Even after district mandi officer (DMO) Jasbir Kaur tested positive for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), arhtiyas continued to operate the mandi illegally till late Friday night, throwing all caution to wind and putting residents at risk for infection. The police, however, reached the spot following a tip-off and cleared the area.

While the arhtiyas and their staff managed to flee the spot, police booked four persons who were buying vegetables from the mandi and impounded their vehicles. The four have been booked under Section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of the Indian Penal Code.

To reduce the rush at the mandi, the district administration has earlier decided to allow arhtiyas to sell the produce only to enlisted ward vendors and that too only between 4am and 10pm. However on Friday, the arhtiyas reportedly also sold vegetables to the street vendors. Ludhiana sabzi mandi arhtiya association has condemned the incident and sought strict action against the arhtiyas who were operating illegally to earn profits in the time of this crisis.

Association president Gurkamal Singh said, The arhtiyas are putting the lives of vendors at risk by running the market illegally. Strict action should be taken against them.

He added that thermal scanners should be put up at the entry point of the mandi and proper sanitising work must be carried out from time to time.

Investigating officer ASI Raj Kumar said that the police had received a tip-off following which they conducted a raid at the spot. No arhtiya or staff was found at the spot but police have booked four buyers who were carrying the vegetables to their vehicles.
By Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News

The Rust Belt? Its looking like a solid #BlueWall again.

Arizona? President Donald Trump has only led one out of the last 13 polls in the state.

Even Florida, the ultimate Democratic heartbreaker, appears to be slipping away from the GOP.

Coronavirus has dramatically shaken up the presidential campaign map  and early signs suggest it could be devastating to Trumps reelection fight.

Analysts say Trumps path to 270 Electoral College votes  and four more years  has narrowed significantly as he faces increasingly ugly poll numbers in several battleground states that he won in 2016.

Trump won in 2016 with shockingly narrow victories in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Wisconsin looked like his ace in the hole this year because it has a larger share of white working-class voters.

But Republicans came up far short of expectations in last weeks pivotal statewide election for a Supreme Court seat in the Badger State.

The GOP lost ground in the partys suburban strongholds. And small towns that flipped to Trump flipped back.

A check-all-the boxes dream map for Democrats, wrote Craig Gilbert, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel political reporter.

If Trump can somehow manage to keep Wisconsin in his column, he would still have to win all the other states he won last time to get over the finish line.

Thats looking like an increasingly big challenge.

In Arizona, Trump won by a relatively healthy 3% margin in. 2016. But the state has the fastest-growing Latino population anywhere and has long been trending toward Democrats.

There have been 13 presidential polls of the Grand Canyon State done in the last year. Trump has trailed Joe Biden in 12 of them.

Then theres Florida. The Sunshine State is an absolute must win for Trump with 29 electoral votes.

Even amid the Democratic #BlueWave of the 2018 midterms, the GOP eked out razor-thin victories in Floridas marquee matchups for governor and U.S. Senate.

But coronavirus has badly dented the Republican brand  and the presidents poll numbers are plunging in his adopted home state.

Even worse, the states tourism-dependent, boom-and-bust economy is likely to plunge worse than most as the pandemic keeps Americans close to home for the foreseeable future.

The latest poll shows Trump trailing Biden by an I-95-sized 6% margin in Florida.

The president has six months to get his battleground state mojo back before voters go to the polls on Election Day.

-- NY Daily News via Tribune News Service
A judge has granted a longtime Oregon tax cheat early release, finding his fragile health puts him at serious and immediate risk of the coronavirus because hes at a federal prison that has among the highest number of positive COVID-19 cases of any federal complex in the country.

Ronald Dean Joling , 76, formerly of Coquille, will be released Sunday from the federal prison in Butner, North Carolina. After a 14-day quarantine, hell live with his wife and daughter in California and be on home confinement for two years and seven months.

CORONAVIRUS IN OREGON: THE LATEST NEWS

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ordered Jolings compassionate release over the governments objection.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Potter urged the judge to allow the Federal Bureau of Prisons instead to consider Jolings release to home detention under the new federal CARES Act, which stands for Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.

But Aiken said she didnt know how long it would take for the prisons bureau to consider Jolings case and she didnt want to wait. Joling has prostate cancer and nasal passage cancer and suffers from hypertension, diabetes and obesity, according to court records.

The government is asking for more time, but this defendant, like many others, cannot afford to wait, Aiken ruled Friday.

Because defendant has shown that he is individually at high-risk for severe illness from COVID-19 and because inmates in detention facilities are particularly vulnerable to infection, the Court finds that defendant has demonstrated an extraordinary and compelling reason for compassionate release, the judge wrote in her opinion.

Considering good time, Joling has served about 66 months, or five and a half years of a sentence of eight years and seven months, according to court records. His projected release date was Nov. 30, 2022.

In December 2015, Joling and his wife, Dorothea Joling, were sentenced for conspiring to defraud the United States by obstructing the IRS in collecting tax debt owed. Ronald Joling also was convicted of tax evasion and filing false income tax returns.

Ronald Joling engaged in a nearly 20-year scheme to evade paying more than $1.2 million in federal income taxes, according to Potter. The couple stopped filing tax returns or paying federal income taxes in 1992 and began a brazen campaign to thwart the IRS from collecting, Potter wrote in a court brief. Ronald Joling also encouraged his daughter and son-in-law, Tracy and Richard Corona, to also stop paying their taxes, which led to separate convictions and prison time for tax-related crimes.

After Tracy Corona was convicted, her father helped her to avoid authorities for a period of time and later tried to secure her release from federal prison, the prosecutor wrote to the court.

But Ronald Jolings defense lawyer, Elizabeth Daily, convinced the judge that her client isnt dangerous and deserved to be released, considering his poor health.

Aiken found Joling is particularly vulnerable for contracting COVID-19, not only due to his ailments, but she noted the federal prison complex in North Carolina has a high number of inmates and staff who have tested positive for the disease. As of Friday, there were 50 inmates and 27 staff members with coronavirus at the Federal Corrections Complex in Butner. A fifth inmate from the prison died Friday, according to news accounts.

The Court concludes that defendant is suffering from a serious medical condition which significantly diminishes his ability to provide self-care in the environment of FCI Butner, Aiken ruled.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

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Of the 14,378 coronavirus infections reported in the country so far, 4,291 cases in 23 states and Union Territories are linked to the Markaz event held in Delhi's Nizamuddin area in March, the Union health ministry said on Saturday.

Addressing a daily media briefing to give updates on the COVID-19 situation in the country, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said most of the Markaz event-related cases have been found in states with high burden of the disease, such as Tamil Nadu (84 per cent), Telengana (79 per cent), Delhi (63 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (59 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (61 per cent).

"A total of 4,291 COVID-19 cases or 29.8 per cent of the 14,378 coronavirus infections reported so far are linked to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation," he said.

The health ministry official also said that in some states which have reported fewer number of COVID-19 infections, also had cases with links to the Markaz event.

For example, the only coronavirus case reported in Arunachal Pradesh till now is related to the Markaz event. Similarly, 32 of the 35 cases reported in Assam and 10 out of 12 cases from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are linked to the same congregation, he said.

According to the Union health ministry, 991 fresh COVID-19 cases and 43 fatalities have been reported in the country in 24 hours since Friday morning, taking the total number of cases to 14,378 and the death toll to 480.

Till now, 1,992, that is around 13.85 per cent of the COVID-19 patients, have been cured of the disease, Agarwal said.

The mortality rate in COVID-19 cases in India has been around 3.3 per, he said, adding 14.4 per cent of the deaths are between 0-45 years, 10.3 per cent between 45- 60 years, 33.1 per cent between 60-75 years and 42.2 per cent fatalities among people aged 75 and above.

"So, we see that 75.3 per cent deaths have been in among those aged 60 or above and in 83 per cent cases co-morbidities have been found," Agarwal said and reiterated that the elderly and people with co-morbid conditions are at high risk.

The joint secretary in the health ministry also said that protocol for using rapid antibody test kits have been shared with the states.

"Rapid antibody test kits is to be used in hotspots. It can also be used for surveillance and for epidemiological purposes in such areas where COVID-19 cases have not emerged so far.

"RT-PCR test is the gold standard for frontline test and antibody test cannot replace this test. Utility of rapid antibody test is primarily for assessing prevalence of infection in a particular area," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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President Donald Trump has announced a $19billion relief program to help farmers cope with the impact of the coronavirus.

The relief program will include $16billion in direct payments to producers and mass purchases of meat, dairy, vegetables and other products.

This comes as farmers are being forced to rip up their own crops because of the lack of demand in the market due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Strawberry fields are abandoned, eggplant bushes are plowed over and ornamental plant nurseries are running dry as the COVID-19 pandemic sees consumers purchasing only necessary crops.

Photos from Homestead, Florida, show the stark reality many farmers are facing as the demands plummets and fears of food shortages rise.

A worker in a farm tractor cuts eggplant bushes due to the lack of demand in the market in Homestead, Florida

A man works at an ornamental plant nursery in Homestead, some 40 miles north of Miami

Strawberries plants are seen abandoned in a farm, as the spread of the coronavirus disease continues, in Homestead, Florida

Eggplant bushes are seen after being cut by a farm tractor. 'American agriculture has been hard-hit, like most of America, with the coronavirus, and President Trump is standing with our farmers and all Americans to make sure that we all get through this national emergency,' Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue

Growers are drowning because no one needs an ornamental plants during the pandemic and are only opting for essential crops

'American agriculture has been hard-hit, like most of America, with the coronavirus, and President Trump is standing with our farmers and all Americans to make sure that we all get through this national emergency,' Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said at a White House news conference Friday.

Farmers and ranchers have struggled to get their goods to the market because of disruption caused by the pandemic, forcing some to throw out food and call for government help.

'Having to dump milk or plow under vegetables ready to market is not only financially distressing but it's heartbreaking as well for those that produce them,' Perdue said.

Direct payments will be sent 'as quickly as possible' as farm commodity producers have experienced 'unprecedented losses,' Perdue said.

He added that he hopes checks could be sent by the end of May.

The $16billion in direct payments to farmers and ranchers will include $9.6billion for the livestock industry - with $5.1billion for cattle, $2.9billion for dairy and $1.6billion for hogs, according to a statement released late Friday by U.S. Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Committee.

In addition, $3.9billion will be paid to row crop producers, $2.1billion for specialty crop farmers and $500million for other crops. The payments are capped at $250,000 per individual farmer or entity.

President Donald Trump announced a $19billion relief program Friday to help farmers cope with the impact of the coronavirus

The number of animals being slaughtered is falling because there are not enough meatpacking plants still functioning for farmers to send the produce to

Strawberries plants are seen abandoned in a farm as fears continue to rise that the country may soon be faced with a shortage of meat and groceries

A woman and her daughters pick up green beans in a field open for people to harvest for free

Fears continue to rise that the country may soon be faced with a shortage of fresh meat and groceries as processing plants are forced to close due to COVID-19 outbreaks, taking a vital link out of the food supply chain which is wreaking havoc on farmers and retailers.

Since the pandemic began last month, the number of animals being slaughtered has shrunk because there are not enough plants open to receive the meat and pump it out to the mass markets.

It is causing some stores to limit how much food people can buy, but with the appetite for groceries higher than ever thanks to the nationwide closure of bars and restaurants, it has created a nightmarish supply and demand imbalance.

'Having to dump milk or plow under vegetables ready to market is not only financially distressing but it's heartbreaking as well for those that produce them,' Perdue said

Banners are seen Friday in a green beans field open for people to harvest for free in Homestead, Florida

Some fear that it will become worse in the weeks ahead.

'We are very concerned about fresh meat. We have fresh meat today, but there are indicators that it will be a problem in the future,' Mark Griffin, the president of B&R Stores Inc., a Midwestern grocery chain, told The Wall Street Journal.

According to the USDA, cattle slaughters were down by 14 percent in the week ending April 11 from the previous week, hog slaughters were down by six percent and chicken slaughters were down by two percent.

It comes down to the fact that thousands of meat plant workers have been forced out to stay at home due to outbreaks.
A series of illumination with a message of hope and an instruction for people to stay at home was displayed on Switzerland's Matterhorn mountain amid coronavirus outbreak. The illumination was displayed as a sign of solidarity with other countries that are fighting to battle the deadly disease. Along with the message of hope, the mountain was also lit up with a red heart and the colours of the Swiss flag.

Read: Mike Pompeo Dials Top Chinese Diplomat To Seek Transparency On COVID-19 Pandemic

Media reports suggest that the projection was broadcasted live via webcam for people to watch it from the confinements of their homes. The projection will reportedly run on the mountain till Switzerland eases its lockdown restrictions, which is April 19. The nightly projection is part of the efforts of artist Gerry Hofstetter and it was displayed near the resort of Zermatt on the Italian-Swiss border.

Matterhorn-mountain of FAITH, HOPE, LOVE

Matterhorn-montana de FE, ESPERANZA, AMOR pic.twitter.com/4DGh9zgHsm   (@erivanec) April 13, 2020

Read: COVID-19: Father Designs Unique Protective Suit To Prevent His Son From Contracting Virus

The flag of the United States was also displayed on the mountain to show solidarity with the people of the country. Jacques Pitteloud, the ambassador of Switzerland to the United States shared the images from his official Twitter handle, where he wrote that the American flag was displayed onto the peak of the iconic Matterhorn mountain to send a message of hope and solidarity to the US. According to reports, Switzerland has recorded 27,078 cases of coronavirus so far, of which 1,327 people have lost their lives.

Magnificent! Last night, #Switzerland sent a message of #hope and solidarity to the US by projecting the American flag onto the peak of the iconic #Swiss mountain, the Matterhorn. @zermatt_tourism  pic.twitter.com/YntCsEJG1A  Jacques Pitteloud (@SwissAmbUSA) April 16, 2020

Read: US Judge Requests Lawyers To Dress Appropriately For Hearings On Zoom App

Coronavirus outbreak

The coronavirus pandemic has infected over 2.25 million people globally and has killed nearly 1,54,000 patients since it first broke out in December 2019. The virus is believed to have originated from a seafood market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the initial epicentre of the disease, where animals were reportedly being traded illegally. Currently, the United States, Italy, Spain, France and the United Kingdom are the most affected countries in the world with a recorded death toll of 14,000 and above.

Read: France's President Says He Is Hopeful Of Securing Putin's Agreement On Global Truce

(Image Credit: @SwissAmbUSA/Twitter)
Water roars down Yosemite Falls as Yosemite National Park remains closed to people because of the coronavirus pandemic. (Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: The animals that have come out from hiding and are roaming more freely in a Yosemite National Park closed to people because of the COVID-19 pandemic are simply reclaiming what was theirs in the first place  before John Muir and Ansel Adams ventured into the area, before East Coast companies began bickering over who should run the concessions in Yosemite and how to remake the park in their own image, much like what happened to Knott's Berry Farm and Pacific Southwest Airlines and Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

The quiet must be deafening, with the dumpsters and parking lots empty and vending machines idle. There are no burgers being flipped, no meals or drinks being sold, nothing. Marvelous. Maybe if this lasts long enough, the animals that have grown to rely on humans for their food will relearn how to forage and hunt for themselves again.

Frankly, this pandemic is the deep breath of peace and quiet that nature in Yosemite needs so badly, but I shudder to think what next summer will bring.

Lincoln Gable Riley, Battle Mountain, Nev.

..

To the editor: One of the biggest lessons learned in this pandemic is that mankind is the most damaging of all the invasive species on this planet.

From the wildlife returning to their historic Sierra Nevada habitat, to the massive decreases in smog seen in Asian cities, to the impressive decreases in vehicle-related deaths in the United States, there seems to be no end to the positive impacts on the environment as a result of removing people from it.

It is time to view population control as major tool in combating global warming and pollution, and in the recovery of endangered species. As Thomas Malthus once warned, nature will heal itself from human infection through war, famine or pestilence.

Looks like we all just got a big dose of a natural remedy.

Mike Post, Winnetka

..

To the editor: Phrases like "social distancing," "flattening the curve" and "the new normal" have absolutely no meaning whatsoever to the animals who call Yosemite National Park their home.

Story continues

They have, however, probably noticed that their world has opened up for them due to the park being closed to all tourists. With their innate sense, they're aware that they can roam beyond where they typically are able to do so. And, due to the expanded open spaces, the bear population has quadrupled.

It's thrilling to see that these critters having virtually free rein to roam the land  at least for a while.

Bill Spitalnick, Newport Beach

..

To the editor: For those of us who love nature and Yosemite Valley, your report on bears and other large mammals returning to areas of Yosemite typically packed by tourists may have been the most hopeful and yet most cruel article in the paper.

I'm thrilled that Yosemite has an opportunity to recover, and deeply dismayed that I can't be there to see it.

David Higgins, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: It's so common for people to look down on our 19th century ancestors, but if they had the opportunity to change places with us  freeways, overcrowding, life in front of a computer screen  more than a few would decline.

Douglas Thompson, Hermosa Beach
Scheduled flights inside Ukraine may be resumed in September or even by summers end.

"I think that scheduled [flights inside Ukraine] are quite likely to be resumed in September or even earlier, by the end of the summer," Infrastructure Minister of Ukraine Vladyslav Kryklii said in an interview with Channel 24, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

He specified that the Ministry of Infrastructure was interested in the possibility for Ukrainian air carriers to resume their flights as soon as possible after the crisis.

"We discuss this issue and insist that our airspace should be supported, in particular, through affordable loans, and that the carriers could also join and receive this resource. Second, we already make certain steps during this quarantine such as partial compensation for charter flights. For example, when they [carriers] returned Ukrainian citizens back home when passenger transportation had already been stopped, they had to fly empty one way constantly, taking people away. We made a decision and we currently wait for detailed calculations from the carriers to compensate for that. It would also help them in a certain way to hold on until the restoration of full-fledged air transportation, Kryklii said.

According to him, all Ukrainian air carriers  UIA, Windrose Airlines, SkyUp, Azur  requested assistance from the Infrastructure Ministry.

At the same time, the minister said that it would take two years for the aviation industry to return to the pre-crisis level.

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Just two months ago, Eve Baum never would have believed she would be manufacturing thousands of face masks. Baum is the founder and designer for Military Apparel Company, a 15-year-old Pennsylvania business that specializes in making handbags and other accessories using military uniform fabric. But, like many during the coronavirus pandemic, the spread of COVID-19 has led the Gardners resident to pivot, using her sewing skills to craft whats needed: masks.

It all began in March when her friend Jessica Watts asked Baum to craft a mask for her to wear in her job as a healthcare worker. Baum agreed and then set about making a mask pattern that would best keep her friend safe. She made a batch of the masks and donated them to Watts.

Baum that would be it, but word spread and more and more requests came in for masks. Baums customers began asking for camo masks as well, so she began selling them. Demand grew and grew, so she hired more seamstresses. Now there are around 18 seamstresses working on making the masks. In the span of a few weeks, Military Apparel Company went from making just a few masks for a friend in central Pennsylvania to making thousands for people around the world.

The past few days have been especially busy, as Governor Tom Wolf issued an order that requires everyone to wear facial coverings when on the premises of a business.

Each mask Baum crafts is made with two layers of high-quality fabric and can be washed. The masks do not have filter pockets or nose pieces -- theyre designed to be simple and efficient. The masks are $17.50 and come in a variety of fabric patterns, from stars to camo to stripes to solid colors. The masks are not medical grade and do not compare to a N95 or surgical mask. You can purchase one at militaryapparelcompany.com.

To say Baum and her team have been busy is an understatement. Were calling ourselves the beehive, she said.

Working while still maintaining social distancing guidelines presents its own challenges. Baum operates as the general overseer of the mask-making project. She also gathers the material and cuts the fabric from her home in Gardners. A driver then runs the fabric to each of the seamstresses homes, each of whom can live up to an hour away from Baum. When theyre done with the mask the driver then brings the finished masks back and theyre prepared for shipping out. At the moment it takes a maximum of seven days from when an order is processed until the customer receives it.

The demand has increased so much that Baum is still hiring experienced seamstresses to help with the efforts. Those looking to work for Military Apparel Company can contact Baum on the stores Facebook page.

The seamstresses Baum hires are often people who have either lost their jobs because of COVID-19 or have had their spouse lose their job. It has really blessed so many people who their regular job is closed because of COVID-19 that now have an income, Baum said.

While Baum is selling her masks, shes well aware that many are making their own at home. She thinks thats a great idea for those who can. She also said that shes grateful for those who are in a position that they can make masks for their community. Her masks, though, offer something different.

For us, we are a reliable high quality American-made mask, Baum said. Her masks are for those who cant sew (or dont want to) and who dont know anyone who could make a mask for them. She also said shes still donating masks when she can too.

Baums choice of patriotic fabrics is intentional, she wants her masks to be symbols of support for the country.

I know the pandemic is worldwide but I still feel like as Americans we stick together, Baum said. I think that makes us stronger as a country and as a population, that we look out for our fellow American. I think the patriotic American look is just another way to portray how America is pulling together as a whole."

Theres something different, inspiring even, about working on masks for Baum. Its work that feels like it matters.

Im on such a high because I know this is important, she said. These are life-saving devices."

She said she and many of her seamstresses are taking time to pray over the masks, which she knows doesnt make them invincible. But its a hope and an intention of care thats put into the product. She stresses though that the masks arent medical grade, they arent N95s. But they do still offer some protection and are better than wearing nothing at all.

And protecting others is the real goal for Baum.

Were hoping that all of this work  if it can even save one life its mission accomplished.

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Protesters from a grassroots organization called REOPEN NC demonstrate against the North Carolina coronavirus lockdown at a parking lot adjacent to the North Carolina State Legislature in Raleigh, North Carolina, on April 14, 2020. Logan Cyrus | AFP | Getty Images

Would you be willing to give up your individual rights for the sake of the common good? That's the question that citizens across the world are facing in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. But according to experts spanning law, public health and privacy policy, it may be the wrong question to ask. Instead, they say, we should be weighing the specific kinds of information that health officials need to do their jobs, whether there are less intrusive alternatives, and whether there's evidence that these approaches will work. Once those questions are answered, we need to forge ahead in a way that preserves our privacy and civil liberties as much as possible, while ensuring that there are safeguards in place. It's vital, they say, that powers granted to governments during times of crisis do not continue once Covid-19 is over. "The best way to balance public health with civil liberties is with evidence," said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown Law. Gostin has extensively researched how to strike a balance between the two camps, including during prior health crises like the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Gostin notes that if there are ways to leverage interventions that are voluntarily or less restrictive, they should be considered. "It all begins with science but it also requires proportionate responses that are not arbitrary or draconian," he explained. "And we need to maintain the public's trust." Gostin also shared the criteria that he considers with any new public health intervention that could jeopardize an individual's rights: Is there scientific evidence that an individual poses a significant risk?

Is the intervention the least restrictive possible to achieve the public health goal?

Are the measures used likely to gain the public's support and confidence?

Does the person have access to due process to challenge the intervention?

Is the measure arbitrary or discriminatory?

Red flags

The Covid-19 pandemic is barely four months old, but civil liberties groups are already alarmed by how some governments are responding. At the start of the crisis, Chinese authorities used software to sort citizens into color-coded categories -- red, yellow, green -- corresponding to their level of risk for having the virus. Those in the green group had the most freedom of movement. Yellow and red meant that citizens could find themselves barred from entry to eateries and shopping malls. This is the kind of "big data" that experts like Gostin have not encountered before in prior pandemics, and it presents new challenges as well as opportunities.

A medical worker prepares to check the temperature of an AFP photojournalist before a COVID-19 coronavirus test in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on April 16, 2020. HECTOR RETAMAL | AFP via Getty Images

Ronald Bayer, a professor at the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at Columbia University, sees potential in using new technology for public health surveillance to get ahead of an infectious disease outbreak. But he also warns that there may be examples of countries using the threat of a disease as a "pretense" to justify authoritarian impulses to amass power, and that technology can be used as a tool in that process. He also notes that measures introduced during emergencies can't easily be dismantled. Consider the September 11th terror attacks, which fundamentally changed airline travel for good. Many will recall how it became a lot more challenging to get through security. Heightened fears also led to the Patriot Act, which gave the federal government vast new investigative powers that it claimed were necessary in the fight against terrorism. A terror attack and a pandemic are vastly different, but both present opportunities for governments and the private sector to take on new powers in the the name of keeping citizens safe.

Violating civil liberties can backfire

Undermining our individual rights might not even help public health in achieving its goals, some experts have noted. Tools that are overly intrusive to people's civil liberties can backfire. During the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, for instance, Bayer argued in his research papers that public health and privacy rights did not need to be in opposition. Because of the stigma surrounding the disease, he explained, "good public health respects civil liberties, and anything that advances human rights and civil liberties would advance public health." One of the big issues at the time was the idea of doctors reporting the names of HIV patients to the states. Some states refused to accept name-based reporting so for years because they feared that it would discourage people from getting tested. Another controversial topic was the effort around so-called contact tracing, which is being proposed as way to fight Covid-19 today. In many cases, public health officials would notify an HIV patient's past sexual partners that they may have been in contact with somebody who had the disease, but never identified or named them. "We learned that if you intrude on privacy you will be counter productive in terms of controlling the epidemic," Bayer recalled. He stressed that officials made decisions they thought were "necessary" for public health, not just those they thought might feasibly slow the spread of the disease. These lessons remain relevant today. One present-day example comes from South Korea, which introduced an electronic system that sends out an automatic alert to people living nearby a known Covid-19 case. Reports found that the information includes age, gender, a log of their whereabouts, and in some cases credit card transactions. Sharing that level of detail could help friends and neighbors pinpoint the specific individual with the virus. As such, many medical experts worry that people with symptoms will choose not to get tested because of the potential for stigma in their community.

A South Korean soldier wearing a banner reading "Covid-19 Free" and a protective mask stands at a temperature screening point at Incheon International Airport in Incheon, South Korea, on Monday, March 9, 2020. SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Consent is key

Modern approaches to contact tracing can be designed to protect privacy. For instance, Google and Apple are working to develop a system to do that uses a Bluetooth-based approach, which aims to prevent governments or the companies providing the technology from identifying any one person who might be sick. Users must opt-in to participate. Here's how the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy-focused organization, describes it: When two users of the app come near each other, both apps estimate the distance between each other using Bluetooth signal strength. If the apps estimate that they are less than approximately six feet (or two meters) apart for a sufficient period of time, the apps exchange identifiers. Each app logs an encounter with the other's identifier. The users' location is not necessary, as the application need only know if the users are sufficiently close together to create a risk of infection. This kind of approach differs vastly from methods that use GPS to track the movements of citizens without their consent. On a technical level, GPS doesn't work well in buildings, and it has a hard time understanding whether two people are within 20 feet from each other. But more important, if consumers don't trust a smartphone-based tracking system, they can simply leave their phone at home. That would render the technology useless. "Having consent and good processes to grant and withdraw consent is critical," said Bennett Cyphers, a staff technologist at EFF by phone.
 Flash

Recent Western media coverage on so-called "forced labor" in China's Xinjiang relies almost entirely on a series of "questionable studies" by a few Western think tanks, an independent U.S. news website said in a recent investigative article.

"A close look at the reports churned out by these bodies reveal serious biases and credibility gaps that Western media willfully ignores," said the piece published on The Grayzone.

The article, titled "'Forced labor' stories on China brought to you by U.S. gov, NATO, arms industry to drive Cold War PR blitz," pointed out that "the latest allegations against China appear to form part of a PR blitz" launched by the West.

Ajit Singh, the article's author and a journalist, said the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and Washington D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) are the main institutions responsible for such forced labor studies.

Citing a report by the Australian Financial Review, Singh said the ASPI has been "fomenting anti-China hysteria, to the alleged benefit of its benefactors."

He added that former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr has slammed the organization for pushing a "one-sided, pro-American view of the world," while former Australian Ambassador to China Geoff Raby has said the ASPI is "the architect of the China threat theory in Australia."

As to a recent report on so-called "forced labor" in China's Xinjiang by the ASPI, Singh said it relies "more on sensationalism and speculation than concrete evidence," presenting "no original evidence" from workers alleged to have been forced to work.

The author also said the coverage by the CSIS "offers little to no new information," relying instead on the report by the ASPI and the work of "undisclosed interviews with anonymous 'detainees who were forced to work."

In conclusion, Singh said the stories that the Western public reads on alleged "forced labor" are in fact "the direct product of an orchestrated PR program" backed by the United States, NATO, and arms manufacturers, all of which "stand to benefit handsomely from the intensification of a new Cold War."
Puerto Rican cuisine has always been described as greasy since most of the dishes under it are fried. Nevertheless, if you will explore different Puerto Rican specialties, you will realize that they are not just merely fried foods, but they're filled with distinct flavors, too.

Some food bloggers said Puerto Rican dishes are cooked through the use of different ingredients and preparation styles that result in delectable eats. Here are five of Puerto Rico's sumptuous treats that you can prepare in your kitchen.

Even though Puerto Rican cooking is frequently compared to Mexican, Cuban, and Spanish cuisines, it is a unique blend of African, American, and Spanish influences. These dishes are known to use indigenous ingredients and seasonings like papaya, coriander, cacao, plantains, yampee, nispero, and apio, among others. Puerto Ricans typically name their cuisine, "Cocina Criolla."



An all-time favorite coconut pudding dessert, this mouthwatering treat is made from coconut milk and is cooked only on a pan. Puerto Ricans enjoy this as a snack. Wait, 'til this lockdown is over, and you can serve it too, as a perfect sweet delicacy to serve your guests during family get-togethers and parties.







This dish is made with "mashed and fried green plantains filled with meat and vegetables." It is eaten with a sauce made from broth, garlic, and oil. Some don't find the dish physically attractive, but this surely is far more delicious than it looks. You can stuff the Mofongo with Octopus Salad, Carne frita, or garlic shrimp. And when prepared, you can form it into mini balls and drop them in soups or simply serve in a mortar.







If you love Italian dishes and lasagna is your favorite, you will love the Puerto Rico version of this famous dish, too. Usually made of thinly-sliced plantains, layered with filling made from olives, meat, sofrito, tomato sauce, and aromatic spices such as oregano and cumin and oregano, Pastelon is baked with topped with grated cheese. This comforting dish is prepared with savory Latin spices with spicy, slightly sweet, and salty flavors. This Puerto Rican specialty is better eaten with a green salad and warm tortillas.







This is yet another all-time favorite specialty Puerto Rican dish where potatoes are filled with ground beef, and then, they get deep-fried. The meat filling is usually prepared by having it mixed with sofrito, adobo, tomato sauce, olives, and oregano. You can compare the Rellenos de Papa "to a potato croquette. Typically, this dish is eaten or served as an appetizer.







The Empanadillas may be fried, but they are categorized in Puerto Rican cuisine as pastries. Empanadillas are made of dough filled with seasoned ground chicken or beef, then fried after that. Typically, the crust is thick, and they are quite similar to empanadas except that the dough of the latter is a bit thinner. Some people prefer adding other ingredients to these delectable pastries to result in the orange color of their dough. They are usually prepared much bigger than their size in regular recipes.







Check these out!
Logo of Airbus is pictured at the aircraft builder's headquarters of Airbus in Colomiers near Toulouse

By Tim Hepher and Johanna Decorse

PARIS/TOULOUSE (Reuters) - Airbus has shelved plans to add a French assembly line for its A321neo just 10 weeks after the expansion was launched, as the coronavirus fallout spreads to its best-selling jetliner.

The move heralds the start of a politically sensitive drive to cut investment and overheads as the pandemic reverses the last 8 years of production growth for such single-aisle jets.

Airbus announced plans for an extra assembly line in January when its problem was meeting record demand for the A321neo from its site in Hamburg, Germany, which has suffered production bottlenecks.

That would redeploy jobs threatened by the imminent demise of the A380, the world's largest jetliner whose popularity with airlines has slumped in favour of smaller models.

Although the plan remains on the table, its urgency has evaporated after Airbus this week announced a one-third cut in output of jets like the A321, sources said.

"Our plans for an A321 line in Toulouse are paused, on hold," an Airbus spokesman confirmed. "When we see rates going up again, we will reconnect to the plans."

That leaves a question mark hanging over its massive Lagardere A380 production plant in Toulouse, where the last superjumbo is due to roll off the line in coming months.

French unions said they would fight for the plant.

"Unlike (Airbus CEO) Guillaume Faury who wants to halt non-essential investment, we think the arrival of a new A321 line in the Lagardere factory must be maintained," CGT union official Xavier Petrachi said.

BALANCE OF JOBS

The move could rekindle a debate over the balance of jobs between French and German plants at the company, founded as a European consortium 51 years ago.

Airlines are shifting more towards single-aisle jets like the Hamburg-assembled A321 at the expense of wide-body jets put together in Toulouse, leaving French workers on edge.

When the recovery does come, small jets are expected to lead the way because they are easier to fill and trip costs are low.

Story continues

Airbus is also taking a wider look at fixed costs that weigh more heavily on the profitability of each jet when output falls.

After investing several hundred million dollars in ramping up production, it has a cost structure to support output of 900 planes a year whereas it is expected to ship far fewer.

"We are reducing all nature of costs which are no longer absolutely necessary for the short term and preserving the ability to go through the crisis," Faury said this week.

Airbus has signalled it wants to cut some costs in line with the one-third output cut, unions said. That includes in engineering and support. Development studies will also be hit.

Staff have been told to take 10 days' paid leave by mid-May. Airbus has said it may look at government-backed partial unemployment schemes, but has not done so yet.

Industry sources said a worst-case scenario could include restructuring comparable to its 2007 Power8 shake-up this summer when it has more financial clarity. That is also when Airbus starts its rolling three-year planning process.

Rival Boeing is pondering 10% staff cuts, sources said. Cutting fixed costs at Airbus has traditionally been hard because of a delicate industrial jigsaw designed to balance work among core nations France, Germany, Spain and Britain.

"It is hard to do, especially in these circumstances as there is so little time," said aerospace consultant Jerrold Lundquist, managing director of the Lundquist Group.

Airbus is also expected to lean on suppliers, though it has lost some leverage after cutting production.

"The way you survive a downturn is to hold product at the suppliers. You want to keep the supplier alive but at the same time not take all their product," Lundquist said.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher, Johanna Decorse; editing by Jason Neely)
Actress Naturi Naughton is giving back to her home state to help aid those impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

The East Orange native and star of the television series Power donated $5,000 to the Essex County College Food Bank through the Naturis Dreamers Foundation. Her efforts have provided 100 meals a day to families in East Orange, Newark, and Orange.

Naughton, who attended Seton Hall University, has made several visits to Essex County College, and she has remained active in promoting education in New Jersey.

Some people think a celebrity doesnt have to care about education. But thats certainly not the case, she said. Ive always been a strong advocate of education and know its importance in building up our communities.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Businesses that are open | Homepage

Naughton is slated to be part of the cast of Power Book II: Ghost"  the sequel to her STARZ show  but production was halted due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

The 35-year-old shared a message to Essex County College students currently attending classes remotely.

This is a scary time we are going through, particularly in New Jersey. Remain hopeful and stay home as much as possible to remain safe," she said. "And please, take this crisis very seriously. Some of you may think you are invincible, but that is not the case. We are in a very dangerous crisis, and you must protect yourselves as well as your loved ones. We will get through this together.

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.

Chris Ryan may be reached at cryan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisRyan_NJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Washington, April 18: In a bid to find solutions that can address shortage of critical medical equipment like ventilators in tackling the COVID-19 crisis, the US space agency has joined forces with a task force in California to build medical devices to help patients infected with the disease.

The US space agency on Friday said its Armstrong Flight Research Center partnered with Antelope Valley Hospital, the City of Lancaster, Virgin Galactic, The Spaceship Company (TSC), and Antelope Valley College to come up with innovative ideas to meet shortage of medical equipment that could arise in future. UN Warns COVID-19 Could Trigger Worst Downturn Since Great Depression.

One of their first efforts was to build a prototype oxygen hood that has now proven to work for the doctors at the hospital, NASA said, adding that the production of 500 will begin next week at TSC's Faith Facility in Mojave, California.

The device, developed by NASA engineer Mike Buttigieg, is an oxygen hood for COVID-19 patients exhibiting minor symptoms and will minimise the need for these patients to use ventilators.

The device functions like a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine to force oxygen into a patient's low-functioning lungs.

"We looked across our center's expertise in innovation, engineering, design, and fabrication of unique systems, to bring NASA knowledge and people together to collaborate on solving the needs and challenges brought about by the COVID-19 situation," said Armstrong Chief Technologist David Voracek.

NASA engineer Allen Parker and this team at Armstrong designed a canopy that protects health care workers by safely covering COVID-19 patients while still allowing health care providers access to the patients to provide care.

"The patient will be located inside this canopy where aerosol viral contaminants will be vacuumed out through a viral filter located within the canopy. In doing so, the health provider can freely work around the patient outside the canopy with minimal risk," Parker said.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 18, 2020 01:24 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
A man, accused of shooting dead a villager while attacking a police party earlier this year, was arrested here on Saturday, officials said.

The accused, Bhuri alias Shahrukh, was nabbed mear Chaudras drain under the Kosi Kalan Police Station limits, police said.

He was planning to flee to Haryana's Palwal district but was arrested on the basis of a tip-off, SSP Garav Grover said.

The SSP said a .315 bore pistol, used for killing the villager, along with two live cartridges were recovered from the possession of the accused, who is a resident of Kosi Kalan village.

He was a member of an arms smuggling gang which had attacked a police team on January 28, when they had gone to arrest them based on specific inputs, the police official said.

The villager, Amar Singh, was injured in the attack and hospitalised. He, however, succumbed to injuries. A Sub-Inspector of police, Ajai Awana, was also injured in the attack and is undergoing treatment, Grover said.

Bhuri carried a reward of Rs 25,000 on the information leading to his arrest. His accomplices would be arrested soon, the SSP said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
One of the enduring mysteries of the phony, scurrilous "Steele dossier" used to justify so much government abuse of power against President Trump is the question of who came up with it.

Who was the crummy little Russian operative who made up all the stuff about Trump and the peeing prostitutes in the Moscow hotel room (such a sick imagination), as well as the erroneous nonsense about Russia having a Miami consulate?

It was all made up dreck, and the Democrats, commissioning former U.K. intelligence official Christopher Steele to procure it in 2016, actually paid millions and millions of dollars for it.

I mean, if fake is what they wanted, I could have written something fake for them, for much less. Anyone can do fake. They even could have written it themselves and kept all their money.

But for some reason it was important to these Democrats to shell out big, big bucks for fake, and the Steele dossier was the result.

The dossier was nominally "opposition research" but more consequentially, somehow ended up as the deep-state basis for launching the FBI and CIA efforts to investigate, smear, and try to force President Trump from office. That included the mendacious FISA warrants to illegally spy on Trump operatives such as Paul Manafort and Carter Page.

That might explain why they paid millions for such fakery. Turns out the particular guy they paid to write the fake stuff mattered to them - a former chief of one of the KGB's successor outfits, known by its Russian initials SVR, Vyacheslav Trubnikov.

He's the crummy little Russian bureaucrat who cooked the whole thing up. And he happened to be good pals with CIA-linked Stefan Halper, the Cambridge University millionaire, who also entrapped hapless George Papadopoulos* using his buddy's dossier as the pretext which then fueled an undercover FBI operation.

Here's why it's a scandal, from Undercover Huber, an investigative whiz on Twitter who is believed to be a former federal prosecutor, who put this out this morning:

NEW: The FISA warrant applications on Carter Page directly relied on information sourced to Vyacheslav Trubnikov, former head of Russia's SVR foreign intelligence agency and "good friend" of FBI CHS Stefan Halper



  Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) April 18, 2020

Directly.

Which really raises some questions about Halper. Did he really do both things - commission the phony dossier, nominally to help Hillary Clinton, but in reality to get a federal investigation going, and then, as that ball got rolling, took part in the investigation itself, bagging little Papadapoulos?

If so, this sounds one heck of a conflict of interest. It actually sounds like collusion. With the Russians. The real kind.

Because, as Undercover Huber notes in a later tweet, look at what it amounts to:

So yeah, the FBI/DOJ were using unverified information from a "former" Russian head of the new KGB in order to spy on an American citizen, who was actually a CIA asset. Great work everyone!

Undoubtedly, Trubnikov was being used a fig leaf to make the dossier look important to FISA judges. If anyone ever asked, Trubnikov would be the source, which is why his name appears on the endnotes. He'd carry the water, making it all look true. Because the KGB never lies to westerners, does it? (Even Fiona Hill, the Russia-abhorring former National Security Council aide who testified against Trump during impeachment hearings said she could recognize the smell of disinformation in the whole thing.)

And it also raises questions about whether Halper was behind some of the strange doings of Trubnikov in 2016, such as his getting out and about with the NPR reporters, chatty all of a sudden (these guys don't do chatty), giving the U.S. government-financed (in part) reporter some war stories to get his name out there, maybe in reality to give the FISA judges something to Google as they assessed the merit of the FISA application. Halper also invited Trubnikov to conferences at Cambridge University in 2012 and 2015, according to Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller. That, according to Undercover Huber, writing in the comments section, ironically came as Halper was sounding a phony alarm about Gen. Michael Flynn being the subject of a Russian honeytrap operation. You wouldn't bring in a guy like Trubnikov if you really thought the Russians were up to something.

Halper got paid millions for his Pentagon "contracts." Was he paying guys like Trubnikov? Or, as Sen. Chuck Grassley asked earlier this year, did the U.S. government actually pay those millions for the Steele dossier?

And beyond Halper, it raises questions about the FBI and whether it knew the dossier was commissioned and fake - some evidence suggests it did -- and nevertheless used it as pretext to spy on Trump operatives to get them in jail for process crimes since they knew there was nothing on them.

As far as the Russians go, it's likely the Russians went along with this whole farce because they were convinced that Hillary Clinton was going to win the election. Might as well get in good on the ground floor to ensure that the easily bought Hillary would give them an easy ride. Plus, they'd have that dirt about how they made up the dossier on her behalf on her, to keep her docile.

Colluding with the Russians, to Get Trump, and then spreading years of lies to claim that Trump was doing the colluding, is pretty appalling.

As one of the commentators on Undercover Huber noted: Maybe this would explain why the left was so upset when President Trump had his Helsinki meeting with President Vladimir Putin, who might have told him the whole story, and then refused to release the minutes of the meeting.

They needed that Russia collusion narrative going. Now the evidence is pointing hard to John Brennan, James Comey and all their little operatives as being the real colluders with Russia, convinced they'd never be found out. This should make the upcoming Durham report, which will lay all this stuff out, something worth looking forward to.

Image credit: Twitter screen shot

*Correction: An earlier version of this piece misstated Papadopoulos' name. Thanks, Roger Luchs for noticing and letting me know.
Florida

Climate change causes extreme heat in spring

Florida is caught between a climate change-induced sauna of extreme spring temperatures and a steam bath caused by warming oceans. The result has been record-setting heat that has turned April into summertime across the peninsula, raising the risk that early-season Atlantic storms could blossom off the coast.

Miami reached 93 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday, a record for the date and 10 degrees above normal, according to the National Weather Service. The combination of temperature and humidity has made many places in Florida feel closer to 100 degrees for weeks, said Jim Rouiller, lead forecaster at the Energy Weather Group. This has been the way the spring has unfolded. To the west, the Gulf of Mexico has never been hotter: water temperatures reached 76.3 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.7 degrees above normal in charts that go back to 1982. To the east, the Caribbean almost set a record. The state just had its warmest March on record.
A 26-year-old Kensington woman has been charged with murder in the fatal beating of her 7-year-old son, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said Friday.

Natasha Franks, of the 2000 block of Clarence Street, was arrested Monday, a day after her son, Tazmir Ransom, had difficulty breathing and was taken by medics to St. Christophers Hospital for Children, police said.

Medical staff determined that the boy was suffering from severe injuries, from which he died Wednesday, police said that day in announcing the mothers arrest.

Franks initially was charged with attempted murder, endangering the welfare of a child, unsworn falsification to authorities, and related offenses. Krasner said Friday that the DAs Office has upgraded the attempted-murder charge to murder.

Franks is being held without bail at the Riverside Correctional Facility in Northeast Philadelphia. A spokesperson for the Defender Association of Philadelphia declined to comment on her case Friday.

These are times when we have real concerns about domestic violence, and about what happens when people are sequestered in the home and under all kinds of stress, Krasner said during an online news conference.

He encouraged anyone who suspects child abuse to contact the states ChildLine hotline at 1-800-932-0313.
If you are looking for a stock that has a solid history of beating earnings estimates and is in a good position to maintain the trend in its next quarterly report, you should consider Murphy Oil (MUR). This company, which is in the Zacks Oil and Gas - Exploration and Production - United States industry, shows potential for another earnings beat.

This oil and gas producer has seen a nice streak of beating earnings estimates, especially when looking at the previous two reports. The average surprise for the last two quarters was 48.48%.

For the last reported quarter, Murphy Oil came out with earnings of $0.16 per share versus the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.12 per share, representing a surprise of 33.33%. For the previous quarter, the company was expected to post earnings of $0.22 per share and it actually produced earnings of $0.36 per share, delivering a surprise of 63.64%.

Price and EPS Surprise

With this earnings history in mind, recent estimates have been moving higher for Murphy Oil. In fact, the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) for the company is positive, which is a great sign of an earnings beat, especially when you combine this metric with its nice Zacks Rank.

Our research shows that stocks with the combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) or better produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 stocks with this combination, the number of stocks that beat the consensus estimate could be as high as seven.

The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a version of the Zacks Consensus whose definition is related to change. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier.

Story continues

Murphy Oil has an Earnings ESP of +23.71% at the moment, suggesting that analysts have grown bullish on its near-term earnings potential. When you combine this positive Earnings ESP with the stock's Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), it shows that another beat is possibly around the corner. The company's next earnings report is expected to be released on May 7, 2020.

When the Earnings ESP comes up negative, investors should note that this will reduce the predictive power of the metric. But, a negative value is not indicative of a stock's earnings miss.

Many companies end up beating the consensus EPS estimate, though this is not the only reason why their shares gain. Additionally, some stocks may remain stable even if they end up missing the consensus estimate.

Because of this, it's really important to check a company's Earnings ESP ahead of its quarterly release to increase the odds of success. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported.



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April 17, 2020

News

By Sean Kimmons, Army News Service

Defense.gov

Army Ramps Up COVID-19 Testing

With nearly 1,000 soldiers now tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus, the Army is continuing to ramp up its testing efforts, particularly for new recruits at training posts.

Starting next week, one of the Army's largest training posts  Fort Jackson, South Carolina  will be able to conduct about 700 tests each day for the virus after receiving new machines to increase its throughput.

In a Pentagon briefing yesterday, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James C. McConville said he visited the installation the day before to see how soldiers were training under new safety measures.

"We have not stopped training," he said. "During the training, they were 6 feet apart and they were either wearing masks or gaiters when they got closer. So we're going to see this type of training continue to happen."

When recruits now come to training posts, they are screened and placed in what he described as a "safety bubble" environment to minimize exposure to other soldiers while they train with their cohort.

"That's how we will keep the spread of the virus down," he said.

Earlier this month, the Army halted the movement of new recruits for two weeks to basic combat training posts, such as Fort Jackson, to slow the spread of the virus. The extra time allowed training posts to build up testing capabilities while also carrying out basic training and advanced individual training courses in a limited capacity, which has included smaller classes and social distancing.

Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael A. Grinston also recently traveled to Jackson, as well as Fort Lee, Virginia, to see trainees in action. He said the training was "still executed to standard."

Grinston said he was also impressed with how trainees with symptoms of COVID-19 were sent to a separate facility at Fort Jackson so they could be quickly tested away from other trainees.

"They get the results right there on Jackson," he said. "It's an extremely well-done process." Before mitigation efforts were in full force, a training battalion at Fort Jackson recorded a handful of positive cases, leaders said. But with the safeguards and additional testing in place since mid-March, the spread of the virus has been contained and training goes on to maintain readiness.

"We need to make sure that our Army is ready to go to war," McConville said, "and we're going to make sure that our Soldiers are ready."

Testing capabilities for the virus have also been increased across the Army. Initially, the Army had nine medical centers with a large testing capacity, which has since expanded to 35 installations to provide testing locally, Lt. Gen. Scott Dingle, the Army's surgeon general, said. And if cases go up, the Army has the ability to send testing capabilities elsewhere, or even use local or state testing sites.

"Right now, in the Army, we do have enough tests," Dingle said. "However, as we test [more people], they're going to have to be replenished."

Identifying service members who have been asymptomatic with the virus has also been a challenge across the Defense Department. DOD is pursuing different types of diagnostic capabilities, such as serologic testing that can assess a patient's blood for the presence of COVID-19 antibodies.

"That ability will allow us to consistently test more, so we can identify those individuals," Dingle said. "In the meantime, we must [carry out] the mitigation measures to ensure we protect the forces."

The Army's medical research community also is working on the development of vaccines as part of the prevention efforts. It is currently testing vaccine prototypes in small animals before selecting a candidate for safe testing in humans this summer, Army Secretary Ryan D. McCarthy said.

"The Army is fighting the virus on multiple fronts," McCarthy said. "From medical support efforts in our cities to searching for a vaccine in order to stay ready, so we can continue to be the Army the nation deserves."

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Actress Sonam Kapoor is making the most of her quarantine time with husband Anand Ahuja. The fashion diva keeps sharing glimpses from her day to day activities on social media. On Friday, Sonam baked the healthy version of double choco chip cookies and shared the step-by-step recipe with her online family.

After baking the cookies, Sonam relished them with her partner. Sharing the selfie on the photo-sharing platform, the actress wrote, happy eating cookies.

This is not the first time Sonam has tried her hand on baking. Last week, the Neerja actress had baked a cake for everyone at home. Made chocolate walnut cake today, read the caption.

Her efforts were applauded by mom-in-law Priya Ahuja.

After returning from London, Sonam and Anand had decided to self-quarantine in wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The actress, who is currently in Delhi, is majorly missing her family back in Mumbai. The same is pretty evident for her Instagram timeline as she keeps sharing throwback pictures with her actor-father Anil Kapoor and sister Rhea.

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New Delhi: After the disclosure of the links between Rohingya Muslims and Tablighi Jamaat, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has tightened security arrangement security in the areas in the region where Rohingyas live.

Bhatindi and Sunjwan areas in Jammu, with a population of almost 1 lakh each, have been declared as hotspots. Authorities have sealed the areas, enforcing a prohibition on any sort of movement by the people. The Jammu Police is also using drones in several districts for surveillance in order to keep a check on movement of people amid the nationwide lockdown. A few days ago, the administration had arrested at least 10 Rohingya Muslims from a mosque in this area and had sent them to quarantine centre.

Among these, the police said that two of them were from Hyderabad and were hiding in the Bhatindi area of Jammu after changing their hideout. Later, police arrested 22 people of Jamaat from the Firdosabad mosque in Bathinda, in which nine were found to be coronavirus positive.

As per intelligence reports, Rohingyas residing in camps in different parts of the country, including Hyderabad had attended the Tablighi Jamaat 'Ijtema' at Mewat in Haryana and then took part at a religious congregation at the Markaz at Nizamuddin in New Delhi. After attending the Jamaat event, some of Rohingya Muslims went back to Jammu instead of surrendering themselves to the police.

There are around 40,000 Rohingyas living in different parts of the country and only 17,000 have registered as refugees with the UNHCR. The government has repeatedly insisted that the Rohingya are illegal immigrants, even those registered with the UN refugee agency, and would be deported.

On April 18, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has asked all states and UTs to screen Rohingya Muslims living in their jurisdiction for coronavirus COVID-19 as many of them had attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi's Nizamuddin area.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 09:39:15|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- China's transportation industry continued to decline in March, however, the contraction narrowed from a month ago, an industry index showed.

The China Transportation Services Index (CTSI) stood at 121.2 points last month, down 28.5 percent year on year, according to the China Academy of Transportation Sciences.

The decrease was 12.6 percentage points lower than that recorded in February.

The index incorporated the transport volume of passengers and cargo of various transportation means including railway, highway, waterway and civil aviation.

With 2010 as the base year and 100 points as the base points, the CTSI includes passenger transport and cargo transport as two sub-indexes.

The index for passenger transport plunged by 66.4 percent year on year last month, while that for cargo transport dropped by 8.6 percent, shrinking by 17.4 percentage points and 8.5 percentage points from a previous month, respectively. Enditem
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee Thursday extended until June 4 a statewide moratorium on tenant evictions, adding salt to the wound for at least one local property manager.

Steve Sharp, with Sharp Property Management in Longview, said he is working with struggling tenants in the 1,100 units he manages.

Those who have been affected by this pandemic need to have some protection, Sharp said Friday. Those that have not, dont need (Inslees) help. And placing a blanket moratorium over the whole state ... is irresponsible.

The moratorium extension also halted evictions for dwellings not covered under the Landlord Tenant Act, such as lots for mobile homes, transitional housing and camping grounds. These dwellings were not included in the original moratorium.

Exceptions include evictions for property damage or danger posed by a person to the health and safety of others or the property.

The measure, originally imposed on March 18, is intended to provide relief to tenants who face financial difficulties due to coronavirus-related business closures.

It is clear that as we deal with the challenges around COVID-19, the financial impacts on Washingtonians are significant, Inslee said in announcing the extension. People have lost their livelihoods through no fault of their own and we must continue to take steps to ensure they dont also lose the roofs over their heads. Continued support and protection for tenants is the right thing to do, and I am extending and expanding the moratorium on evictions through the beginning of June, which will allow for two additional rent cycles.

When Inslee first announced the eviction freeze, local landlords and property managers feared tenants would opt not to pay rent. However, after the April deadline, property managers reported that most of their tenants paid. Those who were struggling agreed to payment plans.

Sharp said he still felt optimistic that tenants will continue to pay, especially now that COVID stimulus checks are arriving.

Theres very few people that are just going to thumb their nose at their landlord and say, I dont have to pay rent, so Im not going to,  he said. They all know its something they have to do. And theyre all going to do it, if at all possible.

A better solution, however, would be to offer extensions on a case-by-case basis for tenants who applied, Sharp said. The model would be similar to what Cowlitz County Treasurer Debra Gardner offered for those struggling to pay property taxes.

I get that that takes a willingness on the part of all landlords, but I dont see any landlord out there that is led by greed right now, he said. Landlords understand that this is a situation like no situation has ever been.

They understand that people are struggling and some may have to live rent-free for a while, Sharp said. We all get that. We dont need it shoved down our throat.

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Small businesses in New Jersey were approved for more than $9.5 billion in loans from the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, as of April 16, the Small Business Administration (SBA) said in a report.

The program, which made $349 billion of forgivable loans available for small businesses, is meant to help them pay salaries  keeping workers on the payroll and off of unemployment benefits  and pay rent, mortgage interest and utility costs for eight weeks during the coronavirus crisis.

If businesses use the funds to pay workers, most if not all of the loans will be forgiven.

More than 33,000 New Jersey businesses got the loans, SBA said.

But businesses across the state have complained that their efforts to get the loans were fruitless because the funding ran out before they could submit the hundreds of pages of documents required with applications.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Businesses that are open | Homepage

They also shared problems with the application process, saying some banks werent initially ready to accept applications and were waiting on more guidance from the federal government. Others were only working with businesses that already had a relationship with the bank.

The loan program is part of the $2 trillion CARES Act. Congress is working on the next stimulus package, which would include another round of funding for the loan program.

But will that money come? And when?

We are operating under the idea that Congress will create additional funds for this and we are urging people not to lose hope, said Michael Affuso, senior vice president and director of government relations for the New Jersey Bankers Association. We believe that next week, funds will be appropriated for it.

Affuso said those who have already completed applications are in the queue and will not lose their place in line.

New Jersey has more than 861,000 small businesses, the 11th highest in the U.S., according to the state Business Action Center.

Small businesses in nine other states got more than New Jersey, according to the report.

California: $33.4 billion

Florida: $17.8 billion

Illinois: $15.9 billion

Massachusetts: $10.3 billion

Michigan: $10.3 billion

New York: $20.3 billion

Ohio: $14.1 billion

Pennsylvania: $15.6 billion

Texas: $28.4 billion

In all, SBA said it approved more than 1.6 million loans.

The average loan size was $206,000, SBA said, with the largest amounts of loans going to businesses in the construction, professional, scientific and technical services, manufacturing, health care/social assistance and accommodation/food services industries.

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.

If you would like updates on New Jersey-specific coronavirus news, subscribe to our Coronavirus in N.J. newsletter.

NJ Advance Media reporter Jonathan D. Salant contributed to this report.

Have you been Bamboozled? Reach Karin Price Mueller at Bamboozled@NJAdvanceMedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KPMueller. Find Bamboozled on Facebook. Mueller is also the founder of NJMoneyHelp.com. Stay informed and sign up for NJMoneyHelp.coms weekly e-newsletter.
Students on healthcare frontline praise dedicated support sessions during coronavirus pandemic

This article is old - Published: Saturday, Apr 18th, 2020

A university support team has stepped up their work to ensure students on the NHS frontline are given the help they need to continue their studies.

The team  who work in Wrexham Glyndwr Universitys award-winning Inclusion Services department  have continued to provide a wide range of support to students remotely after the institution closed its campuses last month due to the coronavirus pandemic.

These remote services have seen a steady demand from students who use the services which the Inclusion Team usually offer in face-to-face, one to one appointments.

The appointments enable the team to offer help a wide range of learning needs  including specialist support for students with learning differences, such as dyslexia. As part of their work, advisors help students to develop strategies to suit their learning style and to develop their own independent learning.

In the past few weeks, the team noticed an increase in demand for online appointments  as well as additional demands on healthcare workers as the country faces the challenges of dealing with coronavirus.

These meant that students who had roles in healthcare could have faced difficulties in accessing student support services to help their studies.

Two members of support staff  Carol Thomas and Fiona Falkingham  decided to offer a dedicated slot during the Easter Bank Holiday weekend for students who are also healthcare workers, enabling them to receive the help they needed.

Carol said: As tutors in Inclusion Services our work is highly individualised to the specific needs of the student.

We provide specialist academic study support to students who have specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia, and also support to students with mental health conditions which impact on their working memory  or their ability to access learning.

Students are allocated one or two hours of support per week  but we know that specialist tutor availability is limited and the Easter period is particularly busy each year.

Students have to book these slots one or two weeks in advance and this was proving difficult for some of our NHS students who were working additional hours or being moved to longer shift patterns.

We decided to set up a dedicated day for these students, and were pleased to hear how helpful they had found the sessions  and how they had helped them to complete essential pieces of study over Easter.

Students from across North and Mid Wales who use Glyndwrs support services have thanked the team for their work.

Deborah Evans, a Parkinsons Disease Nurse in Newtown, Powys, said: I would just like to say how useful it was to have a support session on Good Friday as an NHS worker.

I feel it is good to have consistency of support at a very busy time, especially as I am being redeployed. This puts an extra burden on the dissertation process for me, but Carol remains key in my dissertation journey, for which I am ever so grateful.

Aimee Roberts, who is in her final year of an Occupational Therapy degree at Glyndwr, said: I would like to thank the team  even in this current situation and at this busy time, they acknowledged and understood the importance of our being fast tracked as students to our trained positions  and ensured that their consistency of support continued over the Bank Holiday.

Occupational Therapists are facing a growing workload and greater demands on our time right now, and the teams support has proved invaluable for me and my fellow students as we balance work and study.

And student nurse Natasha Chesworth added: I just wanted to say how grateful I am to Carol for giving up her Good Friday to help student nurses and other healthcare professionals with their academic work.

I am under a lot of stress at the moment to finish my last academic assignment before I qualify and begin working as part of the front line workforce. I am now able to continue studying over the weekend as my deadline is next Friday.

Carol is an absolute credit to the team and I cant thank her enough for the support shes given me throughout my degree.

Inclusion Manager, Sarah Roberts, said: Providing student support is at the heart of what my team do here at Glyndwr  and it is one of the reasons our university has been rated the most inclusive in the country in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide for two years running.

Knowing that you have staff who will give up their Easter break to ensure students working in key roles can get the help they need to complete their studies is humbling.

Id like to thank Carol and Fiona for the dedication they have shown to our students, as well as the other specialist tutors, needs assessors, and our specialist mentor, Assistive Technology Trainer, Inclusion Student Advisor, and Learning Support Assistants who are all working one to one with students remotely to support them with their studies at the moment.

Id also like to thank our students for the work they are doing helping to provide healthcare at this critical time.
The National Conference on Saturday appealed to the administration to evolve a mechanism by forming a special task force to reach out to the people from Jammu and Kashmir who are stranded in various parts of the country due to the lockdown.

The National Panthers Party and CPI(M) also raised the issue of the stranded people and sought their immediate return to their homes.

"Even as the lockdown has become the only viable option to fight the pandemic, its fallout on different segments of the society is also required to be taken into account for earnest redressal," NC Provincial President Devender Singh Rana said in a statement here.

He referred to the pitiable condition of Jammu and Kashmir residents, especially students, patients and their attendants, professionals and labourers who have got stuck up in various parts of the country due to abrupt announcement of the lockdown and called for their evacuation on a war-footing.

"A Special Task Force should be created to reach out to the stranded people of Jammu and Kashmir," the NC leader said.

He also expressed hope that a strategy will be adopted for safe passage of over 1,500 local residents stranded in Pathankot to Jammu and the Valley.

Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) chairman and former minister Harsh Dev Singh also called for an exit plan for safe evacuation of the local residents stranded outside the Union Territory.

"The Centre as well as state governments needed to appreciate their peculiar concerns and devise a suitable strategy for their safe return. It was an undisputed fact that not all stranded labourers were getting enough food, medicine and other essential items of daily use with a vast majority having become cash starved and even shelter less," he said.

With patience of such stranded labourers and work force fast running out, the situation could take an ugly turn if not handled appropriately, the NPP leader warned.

CPI (M) leader M Y Tarigami said the decision of the Uttar Pradesh government to send 250 buses to pick up about 9,000 stranded students and drop them to their native districts from Kota in Rajasthan must be replicated by Jammu and Kashmir administration to bring back the stranded people across the country, especially north India.

"We have been demanding the evacuation of stranded J&K students, labourers, traders, patients and others on similar patterns for the last two weeks. What stops the J & K administration to follow the same pattern to bring back its stranded people?" he asked.

He said it is "unfortunate" that even Kashmiris stranded in Jammu are not being brought back by the administration.

"Special transport arrangements must be made for them and after their return, due COVID-19 protocols must be followed," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
American actor John Krasinski hosted a virtual prom for high schoolers whose own dances were cancelled because of the coronavirus crisis.

According to E!News, the 40-year-old actor was seen dressed in a spiffy tuxedo, for a part of his new YouTube show 'Some Good News'. The A-lister called upon celeb pals like the Jonas Brothers, Billie Eilish and Chance the Rapper to recreate prom from the comfort and safety of their own homes.

Actor Rainn Wilson also joined in for a dance party with Chance before the Jonas Brothers took the metaphorical stage for a performance of 'Sucker.'

Nick Jonas said, "How about we do one of our songs and since we never went to prom? We could do one of our songs and turn this party up a notch."

After then speaking to some teens (dressed in what they planned to wear to prom), John closed with a touching moment.

He said that we all are going through this together. This is a very, very weird time but "each and every one of you is missing something and this is the least I could do."
BERLIN - SEPTEMBER 10: Two elderly women push shopping carts down a street on September 10, 2010 in Berlin, Germany. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Queensland COVID-19 Care Army Ranks Boosted

The Queensland government has boosted support for senior citizens isolated by COVID-19 as thousands of people sign up to join the care army.

About 25,000 people have enlisted to support the states most vulnerable community members since the call for volunteers went out three weeks ago.

They have been matched with 350 community organisations and begun helping about 2000 senior citizens, Minister for Innovation and Tourism Industry Development Kate Jones says.

We understand that having to stay in isolation for long periods of time can be distressing and add to peoples loneliness, she said on April 18.

If you are struggling, if you are feeling isolated, please give us a call. Dont feel ashamed. Dont feel embarrassed. We are here to help.

Jones said Uniting Care Queensland had also joined the care army to provide additional social and emotional support.

(They) are working closely with us by operating the community recovery hotline telephone service for our seniors, she said

That means that seniors in distress can get on the phone and talk to a specialist seven days a week.

Uniting Care will also help Queenslanders who are over the age of 70 and in quarantine at their homes by coordinating with local service providers, such as Meals on Wheels.

The organisation will offer the same support to people over the age of 65 who have an underlying health condition or if they are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people, over the age of 50.

By Aaron Bunch
Doctors and nurses will be asked to work without full-length gowns and to reuse items when treating coronavirus patients ahead of expected shortages of protective garments.

The Government has been under fire for weeks over the distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE), with some frontline staff warning that they have had to work in situations where they feel unsafe.

Public Health England (PHE) reversed its guidance on Friday evening which stipulated long-sleeved disposable fluid repellent gowns should be worn when treating Covid-19 patients.

If the gowns are not available, clinical staff are now advised to wear disposable, non-fluid repellent gowns or coveralls or washable surgical gowns, with aprons, and to wash their forearms afterwards.

The updated guidance states that the reuse of PPE should be implemented until confirmation of adequate re-supply is in place, and that some compromise is needed to optimise the supply of PPE in times of extreme shortages.

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At least 50 NHS workers have now died after contracting coronavirus.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: Week after week, we hear of problems in PPE getting to the front line despite what ministers tell us at Downing Street press conferences.

This ongoing failure needs fixing and ministers must explain how they will fix it urgently.

Dr Rob Harwood, consultants committee chairman at the British Medical Association, added: Telling staff to use aprons in the place of gowns directly contravenes both Public Health Englands previous guidance and that of the World Health Organisation. This is guidance thats there to help keep healthcare workers and their patients, out of harms way.

If its being proposed that staff reuse equipment, this must be demonstrably driven by science and the best evidence  rather than availability  and it absolutely cannot compromise the protection of healthcare workers.

Hospitals set to run out of gowns by Monday. Week after week we hear of problems in PPE getting to the frontline despite what ministers tell us at Downing Street press conferences. This ongoing failure needs fixing and ministers must explain how they will fix it urgently. https://t.co/r6JEt3WPkM  Jonathan Ashworth (@JonAshworth) April 17, 2020

Too many healthcare workers have already died. More doctors and their colleagues cannot be expected to put their own lives on the line in a bid to save others, and this new advice means they could be doing just that. Its not a decision they should have to make.

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts, said some trusts could run out of gowns this weekend despite carefully managing remaining stock and collaborating with neighbouring health organisations where possible.

She said: We all hope that this temporary disruption to supply will be short-lived and that the gowns that were ordered a long time ago, and should have already arrived, start arriving consistently and reliably rather than in the current fits and starts.

A Department of Health spokesman said: New clinical advice has been issued today to make sure that if there are shortages in one area, frontline staff know what PPE to wear instead to minimise risk.

Earlier on Friday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock urged more companies to volunteer to manufacture PPE domestically  and admitted he would love to be able to wave a magic wand to increase PPE supplies.

He told the Commons Health and Social Care Committee that the equipment was a precious resource and that maintaining supplies was challenging due to the very high global demand.

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His comments followed reports that the head of an NHS trust in southern England had asked for help from Burberry, fearing his staff would soon run out of hospital gowns.

It came as a leading physician warned that Britain will face further waves of Covid-19 and will probably have the highest death rate in Europe because the Government was too slow to act.

Professor Anthony Costello, of University College Londons Institute for Global Health, said the harsh reality is that we were too slow with a number of things and deaths could reach to 40,000.

The Department of Health said a total of 14,576 patients have died in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Thursday, up by 847 from the day before.

Meanwhile:

 Chancellor Rishi Sunak extended the Governments furlough scheme by another month until the end of June.

 London Mayor Sadiq Khan urged the Government to change its advice to the public on wearing face masks to combat the spread of the virus.

 Downing Street suggested summer holidays should not be booked yet as there is no certainty of when the lockdown will be lifted and travel can resume.

 Scotlands First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she would deviate from the UK Governments lockdown measures if her advisers told her it was in the best interests of her country.

 Public Health England said there were 3,084 care homes with Covid-19 outbreaks in England, as of April 15.

The Government also faced further criticism over a gulf between those being tested and the testing capacity, with just 18,665 tests being conducted in the 24 hours up to 9am on Thursday, despite 38,000 tests being available.

Mr Hancock announced on Friday that testing would be expanded to those in the police, fire service and prisons, as well as critical local authority workers, the judiciary and Department for Work and Pensions staff where required.

In other developments, the hunt for a coronavirus vaccine was given a boost by the launch of a Government taskforce.

Led by chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, and deputy chief medical officer Professor Jonathan van Tam, it will support efforts to rapidly develop a vaccine as soon as possible.

As well as providing industry and research institutions with the resources and support, the group will review regulations to allow quick and safe vaccine trials.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma told the daily Downing Street press conference: The taskforce will support progress across all stages of vaccine development and at pace.

It will back Britains most promising research, positioning the UK as a leader in clinical vaccine testing and manufacturing.

The taskforce will co-ordinate with regulators to facilitate trials which are both rapid and well supervised and it will work with industry in the UK and internationally so were in a position to manufacture vaccines at scale.
filadendron

As small businesses sought emergency federal loans, financial advisors not only assisted clients, but also applied for aid to bolster their practices. The Paycheck Protection Program, the $349 billion small-business loan offering, ran out of money on April 16 after being open for close to two weeks. More than 1.6 million businesses were approved for funding, according to Treasury. The loans are forgivable, but at least 75% of the forgiven amount must be put toward payroll. Indeed, keeping employees afloat and keeping the lights on were the primary motivators for financial advisors who applied for the loans. Clients' portfolios  as well as advisors' revenues  are already taking a hit as market downturns put a dent into assets.

"If this thing lasts six months to a year, knowing revenue and the market will be down, we're making sure we can keep full employment," said certified financial planner Benjamin Brandt, founder of Capital City Wealth Management in Bismarck, North Dakota. He chose Cornerstone Bank, a local lender, and received a PPP loan of $40,000  eight weeks of payroll for himself and his two employees. "We are well-capitalized and probably won't need it, but I'd rather have it and not need it than to need it and have to scramble," Brandt said. Here are three lessons from advisors who applied for the funding.

1. Evaluate your options

Luis Alvarez

While PPP is the loan program that's in the spotlight, independent advisors and their firms may be eligible for other lifelines. Employers have access to a number of refundable tax credits, including the employee retention credit and credits for paid sick and family leave  all granted through coronavirus relief legislation. Be aware that there's a trade-off with these programs and you should evaluate them before you proceed: For instance, you can't apply for the PPP and also take the employee retention credit. Further, until recently, there was also the Economic Injury Disaster Loan, a federal loan program that offered $1,000 per employee up to $10,000. The program recently closed its doors to new applicants.

Michael Molitoris, founder of Flagship Wealth Management Group in Cary, North Carolina, applied for $15,500 through PPP, going with online lender Kabbage. He turned to the program after realizing that he could only obtain $2,000 through the EIDL. The funding wouldn't have been enough to support him and his wife  who is also the chief operating officer of the firm  and that was why he applied for PPP. "I'm not thinking about today; I'm thinking about six months out," Molitoris said.

2. Borrow locally

Thomas M. Barwick | Getty Images

When you're applying for the PPP loan, it pays to know your local bank representative. Rockie Zeigler, a CFP and founder of RP Zeigler Investment Services in Peoria, Illinois, obtained funding through the PPP earlier this week. He declined to disclose the amount borrowed. "For me, it's a situation where I was very afraid of the short-term future of my revenue," he said. "None of us knows how far stocks will drop and where we are headed." More from FA Playbook:

Most advisors see markets diving lower, survey finds

Advisors must find niche to survive next 5-10 years

Op-Ed: Advisors help investors navigate market swings He shopped locally, going with Morton Community Bank, where he already has a personal mortgage, as well as checking accounts for his business. Zeigler also knows his representative personally. "I applied the first minute I could and sent it to my buddy," he said. "I was on it right away, and maybe that was why it went smoothly with me." A banker you know well can coordinate with your accountant to help smooth the document-gathering process.

3. Back your funds up

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Tens of thousands of people attended the funeral of a top Islamic cleric in Bangladesh on Saturday, defying a nationwide lockdown in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed 84 patients and infected 2,144 others.

Mawlana Jubayer Ahmed Ansari, 55, who was the nayeb-e-ameer (deputy) of Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish, died at Bertala village in Sarail upazila on Friday night.

His funeral was held at a local madrasa, which thousands of people from different areas, including Dhaka, attended, flouting government directives and risking their lives, the Dhaka Tribune reported.

"About 50,000 people attended his funeral on Saturday morning, defying the government's strict social distancing rule," the paper said, citing locals.

The incident took place just days after the government announced that the entire country was at risk of succumbing to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 154,800 people worldwide.

The huge gathering at the funeral drew criticism from locals as well as citizens from different parts of the country through social media.

"The funeral was arranged at a time when the government has prohibited gatherings to ensure social distancing in order to curb coronavirus transmission," said Al Mamun Sarkar, member of the district's coronavirus control and prevention committee.

The district's Civil Surgeon Dr Ekram Ullah said: "It is my beyond imagination how a large number of people could take part in the funeral when people have been told to say prayers inside their homes, and not go to mosques, to contain the pandemic."



When asked, a local police officer said, "We did not think the gathering would be this big. Police could not do anything as the situation was out of control because of the massive gathering."



Additional Superintendent of Police Md Alamgir Hossain said they had asked the madrasa authorities to maintain social distancing and ensure all preventative steps during the funeral.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
On Wednesday, the Commerce Department revealed that U.S. retail sales dropped by a historic percentage in March as a result of the state-mandated shutdowns, a devastating report that sent stocks plunging. CNBC reported Wednesday.The outlet notes that the blow to sales in most retail categories caused by the social distancing mandates "far outweighed" the surge in online sales for businesses like Amazon and any gains in sales for businesses deemed by officials to be "essential," like grocery stores and pharmacies. Spending on clothing dropped by over 50% in March, while spending on cars and car parts declined by more than 25% and gas sales fell 17%.Emphasizing that the decline in retail sales was The New York Times notes that theas most states did not shut down "nonessential" businesses until the end of month and even early April, suggesting this month could be far worse.Forrester Research retail analyst Sucharita Kodali described the decline as "pretty catastrophic" and predicted that Aprilthe Times reports.Another expert, Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles's Sung Won Sohn, put the situation in even more stark terms.the business economics professor told CNBC.CNBC reports that economists see "no respite" for consumer spending in the second quarter (which ends in June), citingThat economy-devastating drop comes despite Congress passing the largest-in-history $2.3 trillion economic relief package.The prospect of "deferred" demand, one economist told the Times, does provide some hope of a resurgence in some areas after social distancing measures are eased.In just three weeks after much of the country went on lockdown, 17 million Americans filed unemployment claims. In the first week, 3.3 million Americans filed claims, dwarfing the previous historic high of 695,000 set in 1982. The next week, 6.8 million more Americans filed for unemployment. In the third week, another 6.6 million jobless claims were filed.
Assam government has decided



that all departments in the state secretariat will start funcitoning from April 21, an official order said on Saturday.

The head of the administrative department will ensure that officers of the rank of deputy secretary and above shall attend office regularly and other Grade-I and Grade-lI officers may attend office as required from April 21, the order said.

The prescribed protocol of sanitisation and maintenance of social distancing at the offices as prescribed for COVID-19 management of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs order dated April 15 should be followed scrupulously, it said.

The head of the administrative department will also ensure that up to a maximum of 33 per cent of the staff of Grade-III and Grade-IV categories of the department as per requirement shall attend office on rotation as and when required on need basis from April 21.

The order stated that all personal staff attached in the office of Ministers/ Advisors / senior most Secretaries/ OSDs shall attend office regularly.

These instructions shall not apply to the offices and employees engaged in essential/ emergency services and those directly engaged in taking measures to control spread of COVID-19, it added.

The offices of the Divisional Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners and Sub Divisional Officers (Civil) will ensure that maximum 33 per cent of the employees of Grade II, III and IV as per requirement will attend office for smooth functioning of the offices.

Regarding the state government's Assam Bhawans / Houses located at New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Vellore and Shillong, it said their respective heads shall draw up their day to day functioning plan as laid down in the guidelines issued by the MHA on April 15 and the guideline which may have been issued by the respective state governments where the Bhawans/ Houses are located.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
LOS ANGELESHustler Hollywood has announced it has made curbside pick-up available daily from noon to 8 p.m. at their boutiques located in Nashville, St. Louis, Charlotte, N.C., Lexington, Ky., and Phoenix.

Customers can phone the stores directly, place an order, and have it delivered to them curbside without having to leave their car or enter the store. For those not sure as to what they might want to purchase, they can visit the companys website HustlerHollywood.com for products along with store locations and phone numbers.

"Hustler has been the leader in the sexual health and wellness arena for over two decades advocating and encouraging free sexual expression for all and encouraging the exploration of intimacy and enhancement of relationships, along with personal pleasure," said Philip Del Rio, vice president of retail. "That is what we do, and if we can provide customers with a safe way to obtain our products while isolating during the COVID-19 virus, then we are happy to continue doing so."

Hustler Hollywood is an upscale lifestyle boutique with 35 U.S. locations. It offers top pleasure product brands, lingerie and more, including an extensive selection of toys, apparel, sportswear, accessories, jewelry, gifts and novelties. Education is a top priority at Hustler Hollywood. The stores offer free workshops throughout the year for customers, and its staff receives monthly training from renowned national experts.

The first Hustler Hollywood opened in 1998 on the famed Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, making this the companys 21st year in business.
China

China pushes back on coronavirus theory

China is pushing back against President Trump and some of his officials who have flirted in recent days with an outlier theory that the coronavirus was set loose by a Chinese lab that let it escape.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman on Friday accused the U.S. administration of attempting to shift the focus from its own missteps in dealing with the pandemic by talking up a theory that it was started by a pathogen from a laboratory in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic began.

But that spokesman, Zhao Lijian, has demonstrated that China, too, is not above sowing confusion in the face of the pandemic. He tweeted in March the falsehood that the virus might have come from the U.S. Army.

A scientific consensus is still evolving, but the leading theory is that infection among humans began at an animal market in Wuhan, probably from an animal that received the virus from a bat.

France

1K virus cases found on aircraft carrier
A claim has been staked for the 58.3 million EuroMillions jackpot won on Friday by a single UK ticket-holder.

The winner has scooped 58,366,487.50 after matching all five main numbers and the lucky stars.

Camelot said the claim will now go through the process of validation. Subject to those checks, the prize will then be paid out.

The winner will then decide whether to go public and share their news.

No information will be given on whether it is an individual or syndicate winner, or where the ticket was purchased, unless the ticket-holder decides to go public.

The winner has scooped 58,366,487.50 after matching all five main numbers and the lucky stars

Andy Carter, senior winners' adviser at The National Lottery, said: 'It is wonderful news that a lucky ticket-holder has claimed this incredible prize.

'We will now focus on supporting the ticket-holder through the validation and help them start to enjoy their win.'

What are the winning numbers? The winning main numbers in Friday's draw were: 16, 28, 32, 37 and 45. The winning EuroMillions lucky star numbers were 01 and 11. Advertisement

It is the second EuroMillions jackpot winner in the UK this year, and they will occupy 20th place on the National Lottery's rich list of the biggest winners.

On Friday, another UK ticket-holder staked a claim for a 57.8 million prize won last month.

Last year, there were seven UK EuroMillions jackpot winners including the UK's biggest ever winner.

Among them was Steve Thomson, 42, and his wife Lenka, 41, who became the ninth-biggest winners in history with their gigantic prize last year.

Steve Thomson, 42, and his wife Lenka, 41, became the ninth-biggest winners in history with their gigantic prize last year

Last month it was reported that despite getting the huge cash-windfall the couple, who have two sons and a daughter, are still living in the same 120,000 terraced home in the village of Selsey in West Sussex.

Mr Thomson's wife Lenka met her husband while working at a campsite 17 years ago, tying the knot four years later.

He previously promised to help the local community with the winnings.

Self-employed builder Mr Thomson is understood to have quit working after honouring all the customers that had booked with him prior to his win.
WASHINGTON - The national effort to get money to Americans is at risk of being overwhelmed by the worst economic downturn in 80 years, as understaffed and underfunded agencies struggle to deliver funds to all the people who need help.

Three weeks after Congress passed a $2 trillion package to lessen the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, millions of households and small businesses are still waiting to receive all the help promised under the legislation, according to government data and firsthand accounts.

The bulk of the challenges have occurred with three initiatives designed to get cash to struggling Americans: a $1,200 per adult relief program that launched this week, $349 billion in Small Business Administration loans, and $260 billion in weekly unemployment benefits for the more than 22 million people - and growing - out of work.

The SBA ran out of money to make small business loans this week, almost no unemployment aid has reached eligible self-employed and gig workers, and a significant number of Americans who were due to receive relief payments this week went on the IRS.gov website only to see a message that "payment status not available."

Current and former government officials say it would be a tall order for any president to execute massive new programs in a matter of weeks, and tens of millions of Americans did receive direct deposits worth $1,200 or more this week. But the Trump administration's promise of swift and effective action - President Donald Trump called the small business program "flawlessly executed" this week - is colliding with a federal and state apparatus not well designed to deliver so much money so fast.

The technological backbone to much of the relief - including the distribution of relief checks and the unemployment insurance system - is rooted in systems dating to the 1960s, requiring knowledge of programming languages not widely used in decades. An administration that had made little priority of keeping senior positions staffed, meanwhile, is struggling now to quickly implement one of the biggest government interventions in history.

If problems continue, it could leave people even less able to pay bills or buy groceries and further exacerbate the economic decline. Politically, it could be highly damaging to Trump, who is continuing to belittle his predecessor's record of managing complex government operations.

"Biden/Obama were a disaster in handling the H1N1 Swine Flu. Polling at the time showed disastrous approval numbers. 17,000 people died unnecessarily and through incompetence!" Trump tweeted Friday, adding "Also, don't forget their 5 Billion Dollar Obamacare website that should have cost close to nothing! "

The White House on Friday defended its rollout, saying of 80 million payments made this week, all but 1 percent reached their intended recipients. Trump on Friday called the initiative an "incredible success. "

"We couldn't be more proud of what we've done," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday in an interview.

Still, a big test faces the administration as tens of millions of additional taxpayers are eligible for relief, and many of those without bank accounts or direct deposit information on file could face lengthy delays.

Among the problems taxpayers reported this week were payments being sent to incorrect bank accounts, failures to include $500 checks for children, and not getting money at all due to a technical glitch involving tax preparers.

For example, MetaBank, which serves tax preparers, received payments for 300,000 temporary bank accounts it uses for people who use an online tax service or accountant to pay their taxes. The bank sent them back to the IRS, which is now likely to issue paper checks. The IRS largely used 2018 taxpayer data, and some people have died or changed banks.

The IRS said it is aware of the problems, but is limited in what it can do to help. Taxpayers trying to sort out why they got an inaccurate check - or nothing at all when they qualified for a payment - are unable to communicate with the IRS. With the tax filing deadline delayed to July 15, the agency closed the last of its service centers - in Ogden, Utah - early last week, and the IRS had not been able to expand a pilot telework program for phone agents because of budget constraints, the agency said.

Americans were told to use the "Get My Payment" portal on the IRS website to check on the status of their payment and see if they need to input their bank account information. But many people who went on the portal received a message that the IRS doesn't know the status of their payment is. Or they were locked out of the website altogether.

"The IRS systems are still hard-coded," said John Koskinen, who was IRS commissioner from 2013 to 2017. "It's not just a keystroke to go into the code and make the change and hope you've made it correctly. When you set up a new portal like this, it requires you to get into some very old legacy systems."

The IRS uses a decades-old software and computer programming language called COBOL. The stimulus program has required multiple coding changes. The agency has at least 16 other databases with taxpayer information, none of which can communicate with the other.

The IRS raced to stand up the stimulus program with a depleted staff. Overall, the agency had 76,000 employees last June, down from 99,500 in 2010. Dozens of experts in the agency's legacy computer systems have left or retired, current and former officials said. Starting in 2011, Republicans in Congress have repeatedly sought cuts to the IRS budget.

"[The agency] didn't have the time to think about the outliers," said a senior IRS official familiar with the agency's technology operation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. "You've got two filing years. You've got divorced people. You've got people who've changed bank accounts. They simply couldn't account for every single scenario."

The IRS technology teams have been working remotely since the outbreak intensified. The IRS staff did manage to find a way to update the "Get My Payment" information once a day - an improvement over the usual once a week update to taxpayer information, two senior agency officials said.

"With tens of millions of payments, there are bound to be glitches," said Chi Chi Wu, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. "If you want to blame anybody, blame Congress for not adequately funding the IRS and forcing them to deal with antiquated computer systems."

Aneesh Chopra, the former chief technology officer for Obama, said the problems are deeply rooted in the government's failure to modernize.

"This is very much a reminder of what life had been like a decade ago," said Chopra. "The problems we highlighted then continue to permeate applications that are run at all levels of government."

The IRS isn't the only agency having challenges. The Treasury Department, undersecretary Steven Mnuchin, is working to oversee a sprawling rescue - including the IRS - even while its own senior ranks are depleted.

Treasury headed into the crisis with vacancies in more than half a dozen senior positions, some of whom would otherwise be playing key roles in processing the work, according to critics of the administration. Mnuchin does not have a chief of staff, for instance, or an undersecretary for domestic finance, a role responsible for monitoring large changes in the U.S. economy. Mnuchin strongly disputed in an interview that he had allowed for key vacancies in the Treasury Department, pointing to a long list of officials in key positions, and saying Congress should move faster to confirm his appointees. Treasury has two deputy chiefs of staff.

Mnuchin personally reviews department news releases and informational pages, while also interacting frequently with lawmakers, Federal Reserve officials, the SBA, foreign banking ministers, and banking institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, according to the people in close contact. On top of that, Mnuchin was also intimately involved much of this week in crafting the federal rescue package for the federal airlines.

With Mnuchin personally absorbed in implementing the first major bailout package, the administration has not made progress on an additional congressional package that both parties believe is necessary to dramatically increase the size of the loan program for small businesses.

"People will say I'm a micromanager and involved in lots of details," Mnuchin said in an interview. "A lot of money has been allocated to us by Congress and I want to be involved in understanding the details."

He added, "If I'm a bottle neck, I'm happy I'm a bottleneck - getting a lot done."

Mnuchin was critical to sealing the deal over the stimulus last month, but in his absence progress another measure to expand funding for small businesses has been slow, according to multiple congressional aides. Mnuchin said in an interview he has continued to negotiate closely with Democrats this week on fixes to the small business program.

Democrats have demanded additional help for hospital workers and other concessions to increase small business lending. Republicans have resisted, though on Friday suggested a willingness to trade for more SBA funding.

The SBA has rapidly run out of money as businesses clamor for funds. The initial bill approved by Congress included about $349 billion in loans for the small business program, but within days it became clear the money would not last long, and the administration has already asked for an additional $250 billion.

As separate emergency loan program, meant as a bridge for small firms as they wait, was completely overwhelmed after receiving more than 3 million applications.

The unemployment safety net system, run by the Department of Labor and the states, has been equally deluged as more than 22 million Americans have been laid off or furloughed since Trump declared a national emergency on March 12.

Unemployment insurance is a federal program, but each state administers it for its residents. Many states were unprepared for the rush, which caused websites to crash repeatedly and people calling up to a hundred times a day to try to get through.

Many states have such outdated technology - which also rely on decades-old software - that their systems have struggled to make unemployment aid available for gig workers and self-employed workers who don't normally qualify for money but were made eligible by the new law.

"Our systems are barely keeping up with the overwhelming volume," said Phil Murphy, the governor of New Jersey, whose state has advertised a series of jobs recently seeking people proficient in old programming languages.

Florida has resorted to handing out paper applications and said this week it has a backlog of 850,000 applications. So far, the state has only sent money so far to 34,000 people.

Only four states - Iowa, Louisiana, Rhode Island and Texas - have actually started sending out any money to gig and contract workers, the Labor Department said.

Among those still waiting for their first check is Khalid Mahmood, 66, an Uber driver in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Mahmood had been driving for the ride-hailing company to supplement his Social Security income, which by itself isn't enough to cover his rent and other monthly bills, but had to stop as the coronavirus shuttered businesses statewide. Since then, he's tried and failed to obtain unemployment aid.

"No records found," Virginia's site keeps telling him

"Most of my friends who are Uber drivers, they have had no money since the day they stopped working," said Mahmood added, estimating they've been without a check for over a month now. "They are in a very bad situation."

But even people who don't have complicated situations aren't getting aid.

Michael McCleary a longtime hotel concierge worker at a prominent Washington, District of Columbia, hotel applied for unemployment insurance March 20. At first the system said he had "unresolved issue" and would be contacted if more information was needed. He called the office daily to try to fix it. On Thursday he waited on hold for nearly three hours only to be disconnected.

At 2 a.m. Friday morning, he logged into the portal again to realize he had finally been approved - a month after he applied.

"I'm monitoring my bank account to make sure it goes through. It should be a matter of days before I get a direct deposit," McCleary, 63, said. "There's just so much uncertainty."
J.T. Thomas-Camarillo was stunned to discover $2,400 deposited in his bank account Wednesday.

The 50-year-old Livermore resident and his partner, Ross, each received $1,200 federal stimulus checks, which was puzzling because Ross died in 2018.

Confusing the issue further was the check made out to Thomas-Camarillo himself. As an events and trade show planner for a German medical devices firm, he earns more than $100,000 a year. According to the $2 trillion CARES Act stimulus bill's guidelines, anyone making over that amount should not be getting stimulus money.

The unexpected windfall posed a quandary for Thomas-Camarillo.

"So I'm seriously scared the IRS is going to be like, we want it now and we want interest," he said. "And that was my fear, the interest part - do I need to open a separate, yielding savings account so I can set it aside?"

The answer appears to be no. It looks like the survivors of a dead person do not have to return stimulus money, according to tax experts.

"There is nothing that the IRS has that is preventing someone who is deceased from receiving this money," Adam Markowitz, a tax preparer and vice president of Howard L Markowitz PA, CPA, in Leesburg, Fla., told Marketwatch.

Ross Camarillo died of complications resulting from diabetes on Aug. 5, 2018, at age 55. Because Thomas-Camarillo did not file his taxes for 2019 until just recently, the IRS used his 2018 return to determine the stimulus check amounts.

For 2018, the last year he and Ross were together, Thomas-Camarillo filed a joint return as a married couple. As their aggregate gross income fell under the $198,000 limit, they were both eligible to receive $1,200 stimulus checks.

The CARES Act stimulus bill contained no "clawback" provisions for stimulus checks sent to a dead person, meaning the agency can't go after the money after it's been distributed, Nina Olson, the former head of the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an internal IRS watchdog, told Marketwatch.
Transport Canada said that all airline passengers would be required to wear a non-medical mask or face covering during travel to curb the spread of coronavirus.

The regulator said travellers must cover their mouth and nose during the boarding process and flights. The rule goes into effect at noon ET on Monday.

Air Canada, the countrys largest carrier, had previously recommended that customers wear a face-covering over their mouth and noses while onboard its flights.

The carrier said in a statement that passengers may bring their own face covering, which may include a cloth mask, scarf or similar item. It added they would be asked to lower their masks for security checks.

The spread of coronavirus has grounded commercial flights all over the world. The number of deaths worldwide linked to the novel coronavirus reached 150,000 on Friday, according to a Reuters tally.

(This story has been published from a wire agency without modifications to the text)

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How would you describe your style?

I have two very different styles  my work style and my off-duty style. I am a mother, so its going to be something comfortable, like a vintage T-shirt and jeans. My ethnic background is South African and one of my favourite things at the moment is sourcing very old Nelson Mandela anti-apartheid T-shirts. For work, I like to push the envelope a bit but I never want the news to be about my outfit. Its got to be a clean, simple silhouette.

Janice Petersen: "I have two very different styles  my work style and my off-duty style." Credit:Ashley Mar

What is the oldest thing in your wardrobe?

A pair of Converse All Stars Ive worn since high school.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India will export 50,000 tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan and 40,000 tonnes of the grain to Lebanon in diplomatic deals, the Indian farm minister said on Friday.

Since India has produced more wheat than it consumes, New Delhi has decided to export the grain to Afghanistan and Lebanon after receiving requests from the two countries, Narendra Singh Tomar said in a Tweet.

The Indian government has asked the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd, a farmers' cooperative, to supply wheat to Afghanistan and Lebanon under a government-to-government deal, Tomar said.

India is expected to produce a record 106.21 million tonnes of wheat this year, as favourable weather conditions helped to improve crop yields, with output far exceeding demand and further boosting stocks at grain bins.

(Reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj; Editing by Susan Fenton)
ST. LOUIS  Bank of America is donating $100,000 to the United Way of Greater St. Louis to help those in the region impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.

In addition, United Way is working closely with local COADs (Community Organizations Active in Disaster) to coordinate efforts, ensure efficiency and avoid duplication in the regions crisis response.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 12:38:18|Editor: huaxia

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WELLINGTON, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Medical experts from China and New Zealand have held a webinar for the first time to exchange experience and best practice on combating COVID-19.

During the session held on Friday, Nigel Millar, chief medical officer of New Zealand's Southern District Health Board (DHB), said the timely sharing of China's clinical protocols on COVID-19 by the Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch has helped local medical institutions contain the spread of the virus more effectively.

Chris Fleming, CEO of the DHB, stressed the psychological affinity between both countries facing the common challenge from the pandemic despite their remote geographical distance.

Chinese Consul General in Christchurch Wang Zhijian emphasized the significance of solidarity and collaboration of the international society to combat the common enemy of COVID-19.

He noted the progress of cooperation made in medical science between Shanghai and Dunedin through sister-city platforms in recent years, and expressed hope that both countries could work together to build a community of common health for mankind in this globalized era.

During the two-hour session, Sun Xiaodong, deputy director of Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention and Xu Jinfu from Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital affiliated to Tongji University answered a broad range of questions raised by frontline medical professionals from Southern DHB, including tracing suspected cases, testing asymptomatic carriers, improving diagnostic accuracy, enhancing personal protective equipment (PPE) and evaluating cytokine storm.

The event was jointly sponsored by Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch, Shanghai Foreign Affairs Office, Shanghai municipal health commission, and Southern DHB of New Zealand. Enditem
Debate on good management of the funds received by the Central African Republic to cope with covid-19 retains attention more than prevention measures in the country.

Aid announcements have been steadily coming in the form of donations in direct projects or in cash from the European Union, which pledged 30 million, the World Bank ($5 million) or the United States ($3 million).

This raises questions in the country and heats the debate in the public and political spheres on the good management of these funds.

The Opposition Coalition as well as various personalities questioned the use and management of the funds allocated to the fight against Covid 19. This is the case, for example, of MP Jean-Pierre Mara.

What we are concerned about is how will the money that is made available be managed? Does the State intend to set up a structure that is supposed to manage all these donations in a correct and equitable way? 

International funds come with defined and often preconditioned terms and conditions, says the Minister of Health. As for national and private funds handed over to the Ministry of Health, discussions are under way.

A management committee of the funds, to be placed under the President of the Republic within the framework of the crisis committee, is reportedly envisaged. The modalities of this management are currently being defined.

For the Minister of Health, the most important problem is not whether it is worth giving money if there is corruption because the Central African Republic is not the only country where there is corruption. The most important thing is that a transparent management system to which everyone is committed is put in place.

The minister warns that political manipulations are unfavorable to the campaign against Covid-19 because they do not create a supportive environment for an effective fight against the virus.

MP Jean-Pierre Mara fears that these sums would be used for electoral purposes rather than to be used in a common fund set up to help all over the country.
France's registered death toll from coronavirus infections is nearing 19,000, but most data provided further indications that the spread of the disease

was slowing after a one-month-old national lockdown.

Speaking during a press conference this Friday, Jerome Salomon, head of the public health authority, said the number of people in hospital had declined for a third day running, and that the total number in intensive care units had fallen for the ninth day in a row.

"Our collective efforts demonstrate their effectiveness. The lockdown is starting to bear fruit," Salomon said.

The number of ICU patients, at 6,027, was at its lowest since 1 April and down more than 1,000 from its 8 April peak of 7,148. Before Covid-19 started to spread, France had 5,000 hospital beds equipped with ventilation gear.

The figures indicate a deceleration in new Covid-19 cases

At 18,681, the number of deaths was up 4.2% over 24 hours, though the rate of increase decelerated for the second day running.

France has the fourth highest tally of fatalities in the world, behind the United States, Italy and Spain and ahead of Britain. These five countries account for almost three-quarters of the current global total of more than 149,000 deaths.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in France was barely up (+0.4%) at 109,252. And in nursing homes, the increase of probable cases decelerated sharply - 4% versus 36% Thursday - reaching 38,717.

That took the total number of confirmed and possible cases to 147,969, up 1.3% against Thursday's increase of 9.4%.
N.Y.C. schools report 84 percent attendance rate for virtual learning.

New York Citys abrupt switch to remote learning last month created myriad challenges for the nations largest school system. One of the thorniest issues was how to take attendance for 1.1 million public school students who were suddenly at home.

On Friday, the Department of Education provided initial data indicating that most students were still interacting with school: About 84 percent of students signed on in some way during the first week of April. Average daily attendance before the coronavirus pandemic was around 92 percent.

Each of the citys 1,800 schools have created their own attendance plans, meaning that being marked present could include participating at live instruction at one school, and answering a brief question every morning at another school. Attendance during remote learning was higher for younger children, who are typically supervised by parents during the day, and lower for high school students.

About 20 percent of city schools, including some large high schools, have not yet reported their attendance data. The city will release attendance weekly.

Are you a health care worker in the New York area? Tell us what youre seeing.

As The New York Times follows the spread of the coronavirus across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, we need your help. We want to talk to doctors, nurses, lab technicians, respiratory therapists, emergency services workers, nursing home managers  anyone who can share whats happening in the regions hospitals and other health care centers. Even if you havent seen anything yet, we want to connect now so we can stay in touch in the future.

A reporter or editor may contact you. Your information will not be published without your consent.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 10:02:33|Editor: huaxia

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HARBIN, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province on Friday reported seven new locally-transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases and 13 new imported confirmed cases, the provincial health commission said Saturday.

All the new imported cases were Chinese nationals returning from Russia. Of them, five were previously asymptomatic cases, according to the commission.

By Friday, the province had reported a total of 377 confirmed imported COVID-19 cases. It had traced 2,093 close contacts, with 1,187 still under medical observation.

On Friday, Heilongjiang reported no new imported asymptomatic case. The province had a total of 41 imported asymptomatic cases by Friday. Enditem
Bismah Malik By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: Indias fashion retail industry is looking at reopening only 25 per cent of outlets after the lockdown is lifted, top industry stakeholders who participated in a webinar by the Retail Association of India (RAI) said on Friday.

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in almost zero revenues for a majority of fashion brands, who are now looking to sell their inventory, cut down on discretionary spends and even layoff staff to stay afloat. High-end luxury brands would be the worst-hit segment in the fashion industry and may even become affordable in the post-COVID environment, experts say.

ALSO READ| A long way for jewellers to bring customers back to showrooms post COVID-19 lockdown

Indias apparel industry is the worlds sixth largest, pegged at USD 59.3 billion by 2022 by a McKinsey report. More than 300 international brands were expected to enter Indian markets in the next two years, which may also be delayed due to the pandemic situation.

According to analysts, the partial reopening of outlets is imperative, especially since businesses will have to adapt to the new safety standards, take cognizance of the consumer sentiment, skeletal available labour, as well as follow the government guidelines.

"A majority of the fashion retail stores, whether in malls or otherwise, is concentrated in tier-1 cities that are flagged as red zones. Hence, their reopening will have to be done strategically, in a phased manner. In China, where we have nearly 3,000 stores, we saw that the stores reopened during the course of three weeks, after lifting the restrictions," said Vineet Gautam, CEO, BestSeller India.

ALSO READ| COVID-19 lockdown leaves ready-to-cook, snacks companies high and dry

Analysts are expecting the virus impact on the fashion retail business to linger on for at least a year, with revival expected either around Diwali season or next year. Furthermore, the reinvention of business models with more focus on e-commerce channels and hyperlocal delivery system is expected.

"There are going to be problems related to employees not being able to report to work, pushing the sales of our summer collection inventory and cutting down the production of Autumn wear. Due to such high unpredictability in the markets, the revival will only happen next year," said Tommy Hilfiger India CEO Shailesh Chaturvedi.

ALSO READ| Indian tobacco consumption, exports may fall by 20 per cent due to COVID-19 lockdown

BIG brands hit
Three patients have recovered



from COVID-19, taking the total number of cured persons in Assam to 12, Health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Saturday.

He said the three cured persons were released from hospital on Saturday. The state has 34 COVID-19 cases.

One person was released from Silchar Medical College and Hospital after three successive tests were negative while two were released from Mahendra Mohan Choudhury Hospital in Guwahati after their four successive tests came as negative, the minister said at a press conference here.

All the three patients will now be sent for home quarantine, the minister said.

The total cured patients in Assam now stands at 12 with four released from Golaghat Civil Hospital on Friday, three from Goalpara Civil Hospital on Thursday, two from Sonapur District Hospital, two from MMCH in Guwahati and one from Silchar Medical Hospital on Saturday.

Currently, 21 positive persons from the state are under treatment while another person hailing from Nagaland tested positive at the Guwahati Medical College Hospital where he is undergoing treatment.

Some more patients are likely to be released on Sunday and the day after, he said.

Sarma said that till Saturday 4,400 samples have been tested, 34 of these tested positive and 4199 are negative while 167 results are awaited.

"We were so far testing only throat sample but have now decided to take both nasal and throat samples to detect the virus at the initial stage", the minister said.

Assam has adopted a three-pronged strategy regarding testing and this includes those with contact history, travel history and those with symptoms, he said.

"We are conducting 150 to 200 tests daily and if we get the rapid testing kits from the Centre, we plan to test those coming to hospitals and not on the community in general", he said.

There are plans to reopen from April 25, the three Medical College and Hospitals at Guwahati, Dibrugarh and Silchar, which were turned into exclusive COVID-19 hospitals, for general patients from April 25 and then "we will conduct tests on patients coming to the hospital", he said.

"Assam has broken the chain between society and the positive patients and their contacts who have been quarantined. We are in a comfortable and stable zone as far as the first stage is concerned", Sarma said.

The concern is for the second stage when those from the state stranded in other states with high cases return after the lockdown is lifted, he said.

"We are working on ways to tackle the situation with enhanced medical facilities to save Assam from the second wave of Corona when these people and their families return to the state", the minister said.

Altogether 84,000 people have been quarantined in the state with 72,874 having passed the mandatory period, he said.

Around 2,954 persons were kept in quarantine facilities and out of these 1442 have been released so far. 705 people were quarantined and then hospitalised and of these 98 are still in hospitals while the rest have been released, Sarma said.

Currently, 12,000 people are in home quarantine, he added.

"The family members of the 34 persons, who tested positive, have to be in quarantine for a mandatory period of 28 days", the minister added,



Golaghat with nine patients, Morigaon with six and Dhubri, Goalpara and Nalbari with four patients each have been identified as Red Zones or the five hotspot districts of Assam, while the seven other districts with positive cases are the non-hotspot zones, he said.

The state government has deposited Rs 25,000 each to families of 725 critical cancer, heart surgeries, kidney and liver transplant patients undergoing treatment outside the state while 4,32,383 financially weak people from Assam living in other states have called up for financial assistance to tide over the lockdown and their claims are being verified.

The state government has already transferred the first instalment of one thousand US dollars to people who had gone abroad temporarily and the second instalment will be paid by next week.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
More funding has been made available to tackle the virus in Northern Ireland (Niall Carson/PA)

The UK Government has pledged a further 50 million in funding to support the Northern Ireland Executives bid to tackle coronavirus.

This takes the total funding the UK Government has made available to Stormont to almost 1.2 billion.

Secretary of State Brandon Lewis said: From the outset of this coronavirus crisis, the UK Government has committed to doing whatever it takes to support the devolved administrations in their fight to defeat this virus.

The additional 50 million for the Northern Ireland Executive announced today will help bolster vital public services as they respond to the challenges of coronavirus.

Todays funding, in addition to the support offered to people and businesses across Northern Ireland through UK-wide initiatives, reinforces our commitment to ensuring that everyone in Northern Ireland is able to access the resources and support they need at this incredibly challenging time.

On Saturday, the Public Health Agency said that a further 17 people in Northern Ireland died in hospital settings with coronavirus in the past day.

The Department of Health has set up a new email contact point for health and social care staff to raise PPE concerns. https://t.co/WP8ISz6Bue



It will be checked every day and the anonymity of staff using it will be protected.#COVID19  Department of Health (@healthdpt) April 17, 2020

It takes the total number of confirmed deaths in hospital settings in the region to 193.

Another 148 people were diagnosed with Covid-19 in Northern Ireland, the PHA added, taking the total to 2,486.

The full death toll is likely to be higher after official statistics published on Friday showed the figures were around a third higher than previously reported.

The disparity is due to differences in how the statistics are gathered.

Todays COVID-19 Surveillance Report with the latest information is available at https://t.co/UmnTxYrJYd pic.twitter.com/or5Sf19qRq  Public Health Agency (@publichealthni) April 18, 2020

The latest figures were published as a union claimed a significant number of nurses, including some in the most high-risk environments, have felt pressure to work with inadequate protection.

High-risk environments include areas where patients with or suspected of having Covid-19 are treated on ventilators.

More than two-fifths of nurses surveyed in Northern Ireland (42%) who are treating patients in such areas reported being asked to reuse protective equipment marked as single use by manufacturers.

Of those treating Covid-19 patients elsewhere, over a third (38%) said they were being asked to reuse.

Pat Cullen, director of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in Northern Ireland, said: We all know that nursing staff have been under enormous pressure during this pandemic. However, it is shocking to find that nurses are feeling pressurised to work without the protection they need.

The findings are from a survey conducted by the RCN to provide a snapshot of PPE shortages over the Easter weekend.

Health chiefs in Northern Ireland say they have secured millions of items from international and local suppliers.
Shani Akilah of The Black and Brown Workers Cooperative organized fellow tenants at a six-unit apartment building in southwest Philadelphia. Read more

Shani Akilah Robin started the year fighting housing displacement in Philadelphia, both as the cofounder of the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative and as a frustrated tenant living on the third floor of a six-unit stone-facade building in the southwest part of the city.

Robin said that there were mice in the two-bedroom apartment and that a kitchen cabinet fell off the wall and onto Robins head. In protest, Robin, who uses they/them pronouns, refused to pay rent until repairs were made and concerns were addressed.

Then the pandemic hit and paying rent was not just about a protest  it wasnt an option.

The paid trainings Robin conducts slowed down to zero, as clients were all social distancing and in-person training became impossible. Grants that were pending were on hold.

Anything that me and my family are living off of is simply what we had in the bank account, which for a lot of working people is really not that much, Robin, 36, said.

As the coronavirus crisis worsened in Philadelphia, Robin and the cooperative watched the national conversation around rent strikes and decided to join the broader movement.

It was really a call to action, knowing that at any day, it could be me as well, Robin said.

Philadelphia is the poorest big city in America, with nearly a quarter of its citizens living below the federal poverty line and more than one in 10 Philadelphians in deep poverty. About 47% of residents are renters, with 54% paying at least 30% of their income in rent.

In mid-March, Philadelphia City Council enacted a moratorium on evictions, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court also declared that no landlord or bank could evict tenants for at least two weeks due to failure to pay.

In Robins building, where they have lived for six years, there were neighbors who worked frontline jobs in delivery and the gig economy, nurses and young people whose hours were being cut. Robin sent a letter to everyone in the building ahead of April 1 to gauge their feelings amid the looming public health threat and their financial situation, as well as their interest in a collective rent strike.

At first, Robin said, only one other unit responded, but slowly others began reaching out. Within days, two-thirds of the building replied and a tenants council was formed. At the end of March, four renters sent a letter to landlord Eugene Smith outlining their rights and informing him that they would update him about their ability to return to work.

On April 6, the landlord responded in a letter not only to Robin and the neighbors, but to his tenants across the city, stating his intention to work with them during the crisis. He asked tenants who are able to pay to do so and said that payment plans would be available for those who will need to catch up.

Smith said in an interview Thursday that he is also in a bind, as a property owner whose mortgage is due regardless of his tenants ability to pay.

Its unfortunate, but as soon as that situation is over, theyre going to have to catch up, Smith said, adding that he is paying for insurance and utilities as well as the mortgages on more than two dozen properties across the city.

Robin said the cooperative will continue to fight for housing rights during the pandemic.

This pandemic has only exposed the fact that housing insecurity  was in and of itself a pandemic in this country. Everything has really just exacerbated the issues that have already been there, Robin said. This is about human rights.

This series, Portraits of a Pandemic, is a coproduction between The Philadelphia Inquirer and The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom covering gender, politics, and policy. This work is supported by the Pulitzer Center and The Lenfest Institute.
Taiwan DPP exploiting COVID-19 to attack WHO 'doomed to fail'

Global Times

Source:Global Times Published: 2020/4/17 18:43:41

The Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority has targeted the World Health Organization (WHO), seeking "Taiwan independence" by using the COVID-19 pandemic. Such an attempt is doomed to fail, the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said, following the Taiwan authority's accusation that the WHO "refused to act" on an email it sent four months ago concerning the possible human-to-human transmission of COVID-19.

What the DPP publicized was a false proposition with political intentions, and some Western politicians followed suit, circulating the rumors and targeting the Chinese mainland and the WHO. Such actors have ulterior motives, Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said on Friday.

The DPP claimed that Taiwan's health department had sent a warning email to the WHO concerning the possible human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 on December 31, 2019, and that the WHO failed to disclose the information. These claims were not facts, Zhu said.

The email did not mention "human-to-human transmission" and it was based on information from the Wuhan's health commission, Zhu said.

The email simply proved that Wuhan's health commission had made the information public to the global community in a timely manner, Zhu said.

The Taiwan authority also claimed it has been unable to communicate with the WHO, despite the fact that medical experts from Taiwan have been participating in WHO meetings, and 24 Taiwan experts joined technical WHO meetings at the beginning of 2019 and continued to attend these meetings until March. The Chinese mainland had shared information on the COVID-19 with the Taiwan authority on 127 occasions by Monday, Zhu said.

The DPP failed to mention these facts to the people in the island, but continued to publicize their "warning" email. It's quite clear that the DPP's focus has not been on public health and COVID-19 prevention and control, and that this has merely disclosed the DPP's political goal of seeking independence by utilizing the pandemic, Zhu said.

The WHO is a specialized UN agency comprised of sovereign states. Taiwan's participation in the WHO needs to be arranged in a reasonable and appropriate manner under the one-China principle.

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By PTI

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu reported a marginal dip in the number of COVID-19 cases on Saturdya, with 49 people testing positive for the coronavirus, taking the total number in the state to 1,372, the government said.

On Friday, 56 people had tested positive for coronavirus in the state.

CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW CORONAVIRUS LIVE UPDATES

Health Minister C Vijaya Baskar said the state also did not record any deaths over the last two days and the total remained at 15.

49 more persons tested positive for Corona infection today in Tamil Nadu, taking the total number of persons who have contracted this virus to 1,372; also, till date, 365 Corona positive persons have been recovered from this infection @xpresstn @NewIndianXpress  T Muruganandham (@muruga_TNIE) April 18, 2020

Briefing reporters, he said the state was witnessing an increase in the number of patients getting discharged, which was a good sign.

"Over the past two to three days the number of positive cases has been coming down. At the same time following good treatment the number of those discharged has also been increasing day by day," he said.

The minister said most of the 49 people who tested positive were from Tirupur district.

He said 82 people were discharged from government hospitals on Saturday.

"With this, the total number of people discharged from government hospitals stands at 365," he said.
The Health Research Board - Trials Methodology Research Network, Evidence Synthesis Ireland and Cochrane Ireland based in the School of Nursing and Midwifery in NUI Galway, will help the public quickly and easily check the reliability of health claims being circulated by social media.

The new website, www.iHealthFacts.ie, is funded by the Health Research Board in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has also brought with it an infodemic of misinformation and disinformation. The pandemic has meant the general public are faced with a constant stream of false information through a range of sources including social media and personal communication, for example messaging groups.

Members of the public can submit any health claims they are curious about to the iHealthFacts website. A team of researchers in NUI Galway have established a process for assessing prioritised health claims by searching for evidence to support or refute the claim. The prepared responses are also reviewed by a team of Evidence Advisors from NUI Galway, UCD, TCD, UL, UCC and RCSI and by a panel of Public and Patient Advisors (PPI Ignite, NUI Galway).

The result is a short, easy to read, clearly presented response to help the public make informed decisions about their own health. iHealthFacts is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment and is intended for information purposes only. The website will be updated regularly in response to the submitted and prioritised claims so members of the public can quickly and easily check the reliability of a health claim circulated by social media. The researchers hope this information will help people think critically about health claims and make well-informed choices.

Elaine Finucane, iHealthFacts.ie lead and Research Associate in the Health Research Board - Trials Methodology Research Network, said: Unreliable claims can lead to poorly informed choices, under- or over-use of things we do to improve or maintain health. Unreliable claims can also lead to unnecessary waste and human suffering. iHealthFacts.ie offers a platform to help tease out the reliability of health claims. We hope it also helps the public think critically about health claims.

Dr Tom Conway, iHealthFacts.ie co-lead and Research Associate in the Health Research Board - Trials Methodology Research Network and HRB Clinical Research Facility Galway, said: Now more than ever people need access to open, trustworthy, information and iHealthFacts offers the public a simple way to take control and fact check health claims.

Dr Sandra Galvin, HRB-TMRN Programme Manager at NUI Galway, said: Our team of researchers have already collected and addressed a number of claims which can be viewed on iHealthFacts.ie. Given the current COVID-19 pandemic. These include: Can spraying alcohol or chlorine on your body prevent you becoming infected with the new coronavirus? Does taking ibuprofen worsen the symptoms of COVID-19? Does the use of petrol pumps spread COVID-19 rapidly? iHealthFacts.ie is easy to use, and we welcome the publics help in submitting health claims to be prioritised for review.

To learn more visit www.iHealthFacts.ie, email info@ihealthfacts.ie, or follow on Twitter @iHealthFacts1, Facebook, Instagram.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc attended a ceremony on April 18 to launch a remote medical examination and treatment platform and Bluezone application to help the community in COVID-19 prevention and control.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc attends ceremony to launch a remote medical examination and treatment platform and Bluezone application to help the community in COVID-19 prevention and control

At the event, doctors from the Hanoi Medical University Hospital used the remote medical examination and treatment platform to connect with the general hospital of Muong Khuong district in the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai to make electrocardiographic consultations and ultrasound scans remotely for people with chronic diseases who should be examined.

They also connected online with the general hospital of Ha Tinh city in the central province of the same name, and offered online check-up for a patient in Quang Xuong district of central Thanh Hoa province.

The doctors provided thorough consultations for the patients through an app on their mobile phones, in which they can see each other.

Meanwhile, Bluezone is a solution applying the Bluetooth low energy (BLE). When smartphones are installed with the Bluezone app, they are able to detect others within 2 metres and memorize themselves. If the app user is positive for the SARS-CoV-2 (known as F0), through the saved data, health authorities can identify the F1 in close contact with F0 and the system will alert the F1 users about the risk of infection. They will be also provided with instructions to contact the competent health authorities for assistance. It is worth mentioning that the Bluezone app is confidential, anonymous and transparent, as it only stores data on the user's phone, and does not transfer users information and location to the system.

Speaking at the event, PM Phuc highly evaluated the remote medical examination and treatment platform. He emphasised that this is an initial milestone towards the digital transformation of the health sector and towards a larger goal of becoming a digital and smart nation.

The platform, developed by the Viettel Military Industry and Telecoms Group, to be deployed with low initial costs, he said, adding that it can help save money and time for patients and reduce overloading at higher-level hospitals.

The Government leader also praised the Bluezone app for promptly providing people with another tool to safeguard their health and the community.

He asked the Ministries of Information and Communication, and Health to coordinate in speeding up digital transformation in the health sector and gradually forming a healthcare and disease prevention system based on digital technology, and applying digital technology in all health clinics.

PM Phuc also lauded efforts made by doctors, technology experts and businesses in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 outbreak requires hospitals to offer more remote medical examination channels to help people gain timely, convenient and safe access to health services, he stressed.

The PM asked the Hanoi Medical University Hospital to drastically implement remote medical check-ups and treatment, and requested to Heath Ministry to expand the application to other hospitals across the nation. VNA
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > PUCL Statement on Rejection of the Petition filed by Gautam Navalakhs and (...)

PEOPLES UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES

332, Patpar Ganj, Opposite Anand Lok Apartments, Mayur Vihar I, Delhi 110 091

Phone 2275 0014 PP FAX 4215 1459

Founder: Jayaprakash Narayan; Founding President: V M Tarkunde

President: Ravi Kiran Jain; General Secretary: Dr. V. Suresh

E.mail: puclnat[at]gmail.com& pucl.natgensec[at]gmail.com

09th April, 2020

Statement on Rejection of the Petition filed by Gautam Navalakhs and Anand Teltumbde seeking time to Surrender

PUCL strongly deprecates and deplores the rejection by the Supreme Court on 07th April, 2020, of the Petition filed by Gautam Navalakha and Prof. Anand Teltumbde seeking additional time to surrender before the trial court in the Bhima Koregaon, case in view of both of them being over 65 years old and being in the `high risk category as highlighted by the WHO and the Government of India. What is regrettable is that the Court did not consider the factual circumstance that both persons had only sought additional time to surrender considering their age, medical history of ailments, including cardiac ailments and asthma, which makes them particularly susceptible to contract COVID-19 / Corona infection in the overcrowded prisons in Maharashtra. What increases the possibility of contracting the virus is the fact that Maharashtra also has had the maximum number of COVID-19 infections as also deaths due to the virus, in India. What was also not considered was the fact that both Gautam Navalakha and Anand Teltumbde had categorically assured to surrender in compliance to the Order of 16.3.2020 of the SC rejecting their application for anticipatory bail, once the Corona virus pandemic crisis had abated.

What is especially condemnable is the vindictive and vengeful action of the Central Government which demanded that both the persons should be incarcerated in prison, knowing fully well the dangers that it posed to the two persons, both senior citizens. The action of the Central Government runs counter to their own Guidelines for the prevention of spread of Corona virus which recommends `social distancing, `home quarantine and desegregation of crowded places. What is disappointing is that the SC also did not critically question the State as to what harm would be caused by permitting the 2 persons to surrender some weeks later after the Corona virus pandemic had been curtailed, especially when there was no allegation against them of having committed any offence during the 19 months when they were protected from arrest since the attempt made to arrest them in August, 2018. Both of them are prominent citizens, eminent academics, prolific writers and progressive thinkers and not the type of people to escape or evade justice.

PUCL demands that both Gautam Navalakha and Anand Teltumbde should be given a reprieve from surrendering before the Trial Court in the Bhima Koregaon case until the COVID-19 / Corona pandemic is declared to have ended, after which they may be permitted to surrender. PUCL also demands that the rest of the other prisoners in the Bhima Koregaon case consisting of Arun Ferreira, Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson, Shoma Sen, Sudha Bharadwaj, Sudhir Dhawale, Surendra Gadling, Varavara Rao and Vernon Gonsalves, many of whom are also senior citizens and suffering serious ailments themselves, should also be released, keeping in mind the Corona epidemic and the need to decongest the prisons.

Mr. Ravi Kiran Jain, President, PUCL Dr. V. Suresh, Gen, Secy, PUCL
A promising advancement for mass producing inexpensive ventilators is under development at Sheba Medical Center (Tel Aviv, Israel). BiPAP and CPAP machines, which are commonly used to provide breathing support for patients with sleep apnea, are being transformed into functioning ventilators for the hospitals ICU. Sheba is currently collaborating with a variety of partners on this endeavor, and testing of the ventilator was completed successfully on animals in the past week.Many of the most severe COVID-19 infections witnessed in patients have led to severe lung inflammation, where the patients status may deteriorate to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), a situation that requires assisted ventilation and oxygenation in the ICU. Ventilators are one of the most essential medical devices needed for treating patients hospitalized with coronavirus (COVID-19). However, many countries are already confronting the challenge of a shortage of ventilators.The BiPAP and CPAP devices are more common, less complex, and substantially cheaper than conventional ventilators. Because this solution involves modifying existing technology that is easy to procure, Shebas respirator solution could be a game-changer, especially for communities that lack funding to buy traditional ventilators.Our medical centers efforts will have huge implications for not only Sheba and Israel, but also for the world, said Yoel Har-Even, Director of Shebas International Division & Resource Development. There are hundreds of thousands of BiPAP and CPAP machines across the globe, so if this works, the shortage of ventilators could be overcome much more easily.
Buildings in Ho Chi Minh City (Source: VNA)

Ho Chi Minh City Department for Construction recently issued permission for three projects to sell their apartment units after passing enough conditions to provide to the market.

One of the three projects is Block H of Binh Chieu Residential Area in Thu Duc district with 214 units, invested in by Thu Duc House Development JSC.

Another example is Phu My Hung Development Corporations project that was approved to sell 193 units out of the total 242 units located in District 7.

At the end of March, some projects were announced to be launched in April. As such, Hung Thinh Corporation is going to introduce a new project located next to Thu Duc district. This project will offer more than 3,000 units to the market.

Meanwhile, other developers such as Van Phuc Group and Kien A Corporation are waiting for the time after the pandemic to launch their projects.

Furthermore, Ho Chi Minh City Department of Planning and Investment currently has a list of 46 projects which are considered to be pipelined, with many of those belonging to large-scale and foreign developers. Among those, Phu My Hung Development Corporation proposed to solve the land clearance and compensation in some of the precincts of its project. Meanwhile, Novaland requested to continue its 30-hectare project in District 2.

Hanwha Life Insurance also submitted a proposal to the city to acquire the SJC Building in District 1 while Sun Wah Properties has asked for permission to set up a pre-feasibility study for Hoa Lu Underground Car Park.

Meanwhile, the Singaporean developer Mapletree wants to participate in land auctions for the multifunctional complex in District 5 and District 1.

According to Eric Solberg, chairman and CEO of EXS Capital Group, foreign investors still remain positive when it comes to the prospects for high-end residences.

Over the past few years, EXS Capital Group invested around $200 million together with SonKim Land to build up a luxury real estate development in Ho Chi Minh City. More than half of the units of the groups latest project named Metropole Thu Thiem located in District 2 have already been sold, with development and construction proceeding well.

This project will be fine, even if sales are a bit slower this year. Obviously, the large, fun sales events for which SonKim Land is well known are currently postponed due to the social distancing measures. However, as soon as the pandemic has passed, I am sure the demand for these very high-quality units as well as most other forms of real estate will come back, Solberg told VIR.

Meanwhile, Inoue Yoshitaka, business development manager of Creed Group, a Japanese real estate investment group with a primary focus on the Southeast and South Asian real estate markets, told VIR that Vietnam is very attractive to foreign investors, especially those from Japan. Ho Chi Minh Citys population is growing by 3 per cent per year and the supply is not keeping up. I believe the real estate market will continue to grow due to the strong demand. Therefore, we think it is still a very attractive market for overseas investors. However, difficulties to understand legal revisions and licensing processes remain. As soon as these are clarified, I am sure Japanese investors would act more aggressively, he said.

Since 2014, Creed Group has been involved in a comprehensive co-operation agreement with the domestic An Gia Corporation to build a number of projects in Ho Chi Minh City.

Accordingly, Creed would invest around $200 million into An Gia by buying stakes and transferring technology. After five years of co-operation, both partners have developed more than 10,000 units with a total of more than one million square metres.

Some experts have predicted that the real estate market will be back to normal from the end of the second quarter when many large scale projects are in preparation to launch into the market.

According to Duong Thuy Dung, senior director of CBRE Vietnam, there could be two scenarios in the real estate market this year. In the first, the pandemic will be contained by June, leaving the average marketwide selling price expected to increase by 5 per cent on-year, with mid-end and affordable segments forecasted to have a modest growth rate of 1-3 per cent due to a large competitive supply.

In this scenario, high-end segments could get a price increase by 5 per cent on-year. Many luxury projects are licensed in District 1 and District 3, and their selling price is expected to increase from 5-7 per cent. The sold units volume would drop by 3 per cent mostly attributed to decrease of transactions in the high-end and luxury segments.

In the second scenario, the pandemic will be contained by September, which would cause a significant drop in new launches in 2020. The supply decline would mainly concentrate in high-end and luxury segments. Primary selling prices could drop by 6 per cent on-year as the majority of the supply will be in the mid-end segment. Meanwhile, the transaction volume under this scenario could plummet due to the restrictions in public places.

CBRE forecasts that approximately 13,575 units could be sold within this year, meaning a decrease of 55 per cent compared to last year.
Donald Trump has called on his supporters to "liberate" Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia - all of whom have Democratic governors - as he tries to get the crippled US economy reopened.

Strict stay-at-home orders have been imposed by politicians in 42 states to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, with businesses closed and millions of Americans out of work.

Some people have started taking to the streets to urge governors to reconsider the COVID-19 restrictions, including a demonstration outside the home of governor Tim Walz in Minnesota.

There have also been protests in Virginia and Michigan as well as Ohio, Texas, North Carolina and Kentucky.

Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor for Washington, accused Mr Trump of encouraging "illegal and dangerous acts".

The president also criticised New York governor Andrew Cuomo, another Democrat, for his comments over the federal response.

Mr Trump claimed Mr Cuomo should spend more time "doing" and less time "complaining".

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Mr Cuomo had earlier said the president was "passing the buck without passing the bucks", accusing the government of underfunding the response.

He warned: "The federal government cannot wipe its hands of this and say, 'Oh, the states are responsible for testing'. We cannot do it. We cannot do it without federal help."

The issue has become a personal one between the two high-profile politicians, with the president tweeting: "Cuomo ridiculously wanted "40 thousand Ventilators". We gave him a small fraction of that number, and it was plenty. State should have had them in stockpile!"

On Thursday, the president unveiled a three-step set of guidelines for easing restrictions over several weeks in places that have widespread testing and are seeing a fall in COVID-19 cases.

And he assured the nation's governors "you're going to call your own shots", after previously claiming he had the power to reopen the economy.

Story continues

But governors from both sides of the political divide are calling for more help from Washington to ramp up testing - as the president put the focus back on them, tweeting: "The States have to step up their testing!"

Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who has been critical of the government's response to the crisis, admitted people were very anxious about their livelihoods and worried about paying the rent when they were out of work.

"But the last thing I want to do is to have a second wave here, so we've got to be really smart," she said.

However, she also said she was hopeful the state could begin to reopen parts of its economy beginning on 1 May.

Ohio's Mike DeWine has already said his state would start to reopen on the same day.

Both governors along with those in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky have formed a partnership to work together on restarting their economies, which make up about 16% of total US economic output.
Air-conditioning equipment produced by an engineering company in the Muscrai Gaeltacht is helping in the fight against COVID-19 in the country's hospitals.

The extraction unit with hepa filtration, manufactured by Mark Eire BV in Cuil Aodha, is now being used in some of Ireland's leading hospitals to extract bug-bearing air from the wards.

These include St Luke's in Dublin, Limerick Regional Hospital and the Mercy University Hospital.

Company manager Mike O'Donoghue explained that the equipment was designed to filter out organisms of less than 80 microns, which is the size of the Coronavirus.

"The virus will die there after a few days, and after that it can be dumped," said Mike. "Another option is that we change the filter in a safe way to ensure that no one gets the virus.

"We were lucky to have the stock on site and now we're making more units," said Mike.

"It's keeping the lads working."

Strict social distancing and work practices including staggered breaks, start and finish times are in force at the company.

"If someone came down with the virus, it would mean we would have to close," Mike added.

He pointed out that the canteen now only accommodated a limited number of the workers each break time, in order to ensure that social distancing is maintained.

As well as the extraction unit with the hepa filtration, the company is also manufacturing systems which help in operating theatres by maintaining a negative pressure, which keeps dirt on the ground rather than rising.

Another system being installed in a hospital is an air-conditioning system to pipe fresh, clean air from outside to the wards.

Mark Eire BV has been located in Cuil Aodha since the 1980s. Owned by a Dutch company, the firm receives support from Udaras na Gaeltachta and employs up to 50 people in the plant in the strong Gaeltacht area.
Montgomery County leaders felt frustrated. Residents kept asking why the county of 600,000 didnt yet have a free public coronavirus test site.

The county and public health district wanted a test site. They just couldnt get any test kits. The health district requested 1,000 kits from the state, but they say the state only gave them six.

This scenario repeated in suburban counties around Houston. Chambers County officials said they received five test kits. In Liberty County, officials said they got none.

Texas Department of State Health Services spokesman Chris Van Deusen says they provided more than that, but concedes the point: It wasnt a lot.

Test materials had just been in short supply, Van Deusen said. We are still working on it.

So the pushed-aside suburbs  concerned that it was harder and less convenient for their residents to get tested  had to find other solutions, or fight back. They wanted to understand how the disease was spreading, and protect those living there. Dozens in these counties have already died.

Four COVID-19 test sites have been operating across Houston and Harris County, where most of Houston sits. The federal government provides test kits for those sites, which are meant to serve the entire region.

More Information State supplies allocated so far Fort Bend: 780 test tubes, 810 nose swabs, 40 throat swabs Montgomery: 458 test tubes, 451 nose swabs, 7 throat swabs Galveston: 140 test tubes, 140 nose swabs, 0 throat swabs Chambers: 135 test tubes, 135 nose swabs, 0 throat swabs Harris: 94 test tubes, 74 nose swabs, 20 throat swabs Brazoria: 35 test tubes, 35 nose swabs, 0 throat swabs Data provided by Texas Department of State Health Services See More Collapse

But the region, of course, is sprawling. A Conroe resident has to drive 40 miles to reach the northwest Houston site. A person in Anahuac has to go 20 miles to get to the closest county test site in Baytown.

Seven counties surround Houston, and not all of their residents have the means  and the will  to travel that far. Data released last weekend showed people who lived closer to the federally-backed test sites were more likely to get tested.

NEW DATA: Harris County ZIP codes with more COVID-19 cases closer to testing sites

Residents in outlying counties might not have medical insurance or funds needed to cover a healthcare providers test, either.

As of Friday, about 70 percent of the regions confirmed coronavirus cases were in Harris County, but Harris County is home to 70 percent of the regions population. These neighboring counties account for nearly 2,000 other positive cases combined.

So, officials in the suburbs got scrappy. Galveston County opened a site with test kits from the local University of Texas Medical Branch. Fort Bend opened a site in partnership with a local health center.

The Montgomery County Public Health District and Chambers County sent out news releases pointing a finger at the state. (Both had also tried to order test kits from other suppliers and found them on back order.)

[L]ike several other smaller counties, we have been denied the resources to enable us to offer free tests to our residents, read the Chambers release, sent Thursday.

We know this is frustrating for residents of Montgomery County, and we share your frustration, read the Montgomery County Public Health District release, sent Tuesday.

The Department of State Health Services as of Friday had distributed more than 8,000 items for COVID-19 testing, which they had on hand for checking for illnesses such as flu and strep throat.

They also recently received a shipment of new supplies.

But the materials had to be shared across the state, said Van Deusen, the spokesman. Supplies had been allocated to 67 of the states 254 counties.

Officials in Waller and Brazoria Counties hadnt pushed for kits, they said. Brazoria was deferring to its healthcare system and other agencies to do the testing.

In Waller County, officials were relying on the federally backed site in nearby Katy.

It would be a challenge for Waller County, which has neither a hospital nor a health department, to sustain its own test site  even though the county judge wished they had one.

If we have resources available to us, and theyre working for us, we want to use those, said Brian Cantrell, the countys emergency management coordinator, referring to the Katy site.

Harris County applied for kits from the state to help supply their new mobile test sites. Workers are using vehicles once used to provide vaccines to set up COVID-19 testing around the county.

The county purchased enough kits from another source to get started Tuesday, but it is a finite supply, said Michael McClendon, director of public health preparedness and response in Harris County.

Still, by the end of the workday Friday, things were looking up for some.

COULD IT BE?: Houston County still coronavirus-free

Updated numbers of supplies being sent from the state showed Fort Bend and Montgomery counties  the most populous in the region  receiving hundreds of swabs and test tubes.

Misti Willingham, spokeswoman for the Montgomery County Public Heath District, said she was encouraged by their recent conversations with state officials.

Jason Millsaps, who oversees the countys emergency management, said the tests were needed to understand better how the illness was spreading.

On Friday, Gov. Abbott announced some social distancing restrictions would begin to lift. He said testing would expand but did not provide specifics for how.

In Galveston County, the spokeswoman for the health district said the shortage issue raised the question of what role public health should play in fighting COVID-19.

If it is testing and surveillance, Ashley Tompkins wrote, then test kits need to be made available to all health districts.

emily.foxhall@chron.com
Beijings iconic Summer Palace tourist resort is the home of a huge new ice rink thats opened just ahead of the Winter Olympics. The rink measures 300,000 square meters and consists of two areas designed for different types of activities. The city has opened seven municipal ice rinks and four snow resorts to the public. Since 2014, ice and snow activities in municipal parks have attracted nearly 2 million visitors, according to the Beijing Municipal Administration Center for Parks

Jan 11, 2022 07:26 PM
The Spanish government is currently working on a plan to introduce a gradual return to normal activity after several weeks of confinement.

No date has been marked on the calendar, however, although the outline of a staged plan has been revealed.

"We are working on two phases of de-escalation [of restrictions], one for the summer and another for the end of the year," said the Employment minister, Yolanda Diaz, on Friday.

The first milestone, earmarked for June, envisages a return of productive sectors of the economy.

The second stage, in the final quarter of the year, will include industries such as tourism, culture and leisure, as well as air and sea transport. The minister admitted that these sectors would have "enormous difficulties" in recovering their activity, and measures were being considered to guide the process.

In terms of the relaxation of restrictions of movement, the government is working on a plan to allow children to be taken out for walks, under strict precautionary measures.
China Merchants Land (HKG:978) shareholders are no doubt pleased to see that the share price has bounced 30% in the last month alone, although it is still down 8.1% over the last quarter. But shareholders may not all be feeling jubilant, since the share price is still down 11% in the last year.

Assuming no other changes, a sharply higher share price makes a stock less attractive to potential buyers. While the market sentiment towards a stock is very changeable, in the long run, the share price will tend to move in the same direction as earnings per share. So some would prefer to hold off buying when there is a lot of optimism towards a stock. Perhaps the simplest way to get a read on investors' expectations of a business is to look at its Price to Earnings Ratio (PE Ratio). A high P/E implies that investors have high expectations of what a company can achieve compared to a company with a low P/E ratio.

Check out our latest analysis for China Merchants Land

Does China Merchants Land Have A Relatively High Or Low P/E For Its Industry?

China Merchants Land's P/E of 3.12 indicates relatively low sentiment towards the stock. The image below shows that China Merchants Land has a lower P/E than the average (6.1) P/E for companies in the real estate industry.

SEHK:978 Price Estimation Relative to Market April 18th 2020

China Merchants Land'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 China Merchants Land, it's quite possible it could surprise on the upside. If you consider the stock interesting, further research is recommended. For example, I often monitor director buying and selling.

How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios

P/E ratios primarily reflect market expectations around earnings growth rates. That's because companies that grow earnings per share quickly will rapidly increase the 'E' in the equation. And in that case, the P/E ratio itself will drop rather quickly. So while a stock may look expensive based on past earnings, it could be cheap based on future earnings.

Story continues

Notably, China Merchants Land grew EPS by a whopping 48% in the last year. And earnings per share have improved by 36% annually, over the last five years. With that performance, I would expect it to have an above average P/E ratio.

Remember: P/E Ratios Don't Consider The Balance Sheet

Don't forget that the P/E ratio considers market capitalization. That means it doesn't take debt or cash into account. Theoretically, a business can improve its earnings (and produce a lower P/E in the future) by investing in growth. That means taking on debt (or spending its cash).

While growth expenditure doesn't always pay off, the point is that it is a good option to have; but one that the P/E ratio ignores.

Is Debt Impacting China Merchants Land's P/E?

Net debt totals a substantial 230% of China Merchants Land's market cap. If you want to compare its P/E ratio to other companies, you must keep in mind that these debt levels would usually warrant a relatively low P/E.

The Verdict On China Merchants Land's P/E Ratio

China Merchants Land has a P/E of 3.1. That's below the average in the HK market, which is 9.5. While the EPS growth last year was strong, the significant debt levels reduce the number of options available to management. If the company can continue to grow earnings, then the current P/E may be unjustifiably low. What is very clear is that the market has become less pessimistic about China Merchants Land over the last month, with the P/E ratio rising from 2.4 back then to 3.1 today. If you like to buy stocks that could be turnaround opportunities, then this one might be a candidate; but if you're more sensitive to price, then you may feel the opportunity has passed.

Investors have an opportunity when market expectations about a stock are wrong. 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. Although we don't have analyst forecasts you might want to assess this data-rich visualization of earnings, revenue and cash flow.

But note: China Merchants Land 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.
The Mizoram Board of School



(MBSE) has reversed its decision to resume class 12 board examinations, suspended in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, following an appeal by the Centre to do so.

The decision to postpone the Higher Secondary School Leaving Certificate (HSSLC) examinations till further orders were taken during a meeting of the MBSE officials held on Friday evening, a notification issued by the Board said.

The decision was taken following an appeal by the central government to put on hold the examination due to the lockdown imposed to contain the spread of novel coronavirus, it said.

"The rescheduled class 12 board examinations for the remaining subjects in Arts, Science and Commerce streams have been postponed till further orders.

"The MBSE has sought an apology from all the students and stakeholders for the inconvenience as the Centre's appeal has to be respected," the notification said.

It said the Board had initially decided to resume the suspended examinations to ease the students' inconvenience as Mizoram at this point of time is believed to be "more or less free from coronavirus" as no new cases have been reported and most of the persons placed under quarantine have completed their isolation period.

A 50-year-old pastor from Mizoram, who had travelled to the Netherlands, is the lone COVID-19 patient in the state.

Of the 769 persons who were placed under quarantine, 588 have completed their isolation period and were discharged while 177 are still in the quarantine facilities at present, Health officials said.

The MBSE, in a notification issued on Tuesday, said class 12 board examinations for the remaining subjects will be held from April 22 to 24.

The Board notification was confirmed by Minister Lalchhandama on Wednesday.

The board examinations will resume in view of the hardships faced by the students. The issue was discussed by the cabinet and during a meeting of all political parties, NGOs and student bodies, which recommended the resumption of the examinations, the minister had said.

Around 4,700 students are yet to complete their board examinations.

The decision sparked an agitation from a section of students, who launched a 'no exam' campaign on social media on Thursday.

The students argued that many of the examinees who have left the state and several others who are in their villages will face problems in reaching the examination centres due to the lockdown.

They also accused the state government of backtracking from its earlier decision to resume the board examination only after lockdown is lifted and normalcy returns to the state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announces team to restart the economy, loosens some restrictions

Miguel Gutierrez/The Texas Tribune, pool/ Gov. Greg Abbott, shown Friday in Austin, has announced a strike force in charge of laying steps to reopen the Texas economy in the wake of shutdowns to limit the spread of the new coronavirus.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday announced initial steps to reopen the Texas economy during the coronavirus pandemic, including those that in the next week will loosen surgery restrictions at medical facilities, allow all retail stores to provide product pickups and reopen state parks.

Abbott also named a statewide strike force devoted to getting the economy going again. Austin banker James Huffines will chair the task force, and veteran lobbyist Mike Toomey will lead its staff. The group will oversee what Abbott described as a phased reopening, starting Friday with additional announcements set for April 27 and sometime in May.

At the same time, Abbott announced all Texas schools will stay closed through the rest of the academic year. He previously shuttered them until May 4.

Abbott made the announcements during a news conference at the Texas Capitol that he began on a note of optimism.

Because of the efforts by everyone to slow the spread, were now beginning to see glimmers that the worst of COVID-19 may soon be behind us, Abbott said, noting that the number of infections is beginning to level off and the death toll, while tragic, has not come close to the early, dire predictions.

We have demonstrated that we can corral the coronavirus, Abbott added.

In recent days, Abbott has faced pressure from some in his own party to reopen the states economy, while Democrats have argued Texas is nowhere near ready to do so, citing the states low testing level. Abbott insisted at the news conference that Texas was preparing to dramatically increase its testing capacity, but he did not provide details beyond suggesting a timeline of late April or early May.

After the news conference, state Rep. Chris Turner, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, issued a statement saying Abbott has failed to provide a clear plan for how Texas will increase testing.

Abbotts news conference Friday came a day after President Donald Trump announced guidelines for states to begin lifting restrictions. Trump has agitated for a reopening of the U.S. economy, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has echoed him at the state level, naming his own task force to restart the economy 10 days. Patrick said Friday that his task force will be working together with Abbotts.

Abbott said his task force will include fellow state leaders such as Patrick and Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, as well as top medical experts including state health Commissioner John Hellerstedt and Mark McClellan, former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The medical advisers will focus on developing a strategy to comprehensively test and trace COVID-19 that will enable Texas to gradually and safely begin returning to normal, Abbott said.

The task force will be rounded out by an advisory group of business leaders, Abbott said, naming prominent entrepreneurs including Kendra Scott and Michael Dell.

The first phase came in a series of executive orders issued Friday. One order allows for product pickup at retail stores  what Abbott described as retail-to-go  that will begin April 24. Outlets will be allowed to bring orders straight to customers cars in a manner similar to how many restaurants are offering curbside pickup.

Another order, which goes into effect at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, will allow a limited amount of nonessential surgeries at hospitals, as long as those surgeries dont deplete the hospitals supplies of personal protective equipment and allow the facilities to keep at least 25% of their capacity available for the treatment of patients with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus.

Abbotts previous executive order banning all elective procedures quickly sparked a legal battle because it resulted in a ban on most abortions. Abbott said Friday the courts will eventually settle the matter but that abortions are not part of his latest order on surgeries.

A third order will allow state parks to open Monday. Visitors to parks will be required to wear masks, stay 6 feet away from people who are not in their party, and limit gatherings to five people or fewer.

Additional openings will be announced April 27 after further input from medical staff, Abbott said. Abbott repeatedly pointed to April 27 as the next date on which he could announce additional steps to reopen the economy, as long as Texas is continuing to make progress in slowing the spread of the virus. Previewing that date, Abbott said, One of the things that we will consider is the elimination of the stay-at-home policy, which he announced late last month and expires April 30.

If the data continues to show a flatlining and then a decline in positive tests, that is a signal that we can begin the process of opening up some businesses that adhere to the strictest strategies that will reduce the spread of the coronavirus, he said.

One thing that could delay the broader reopening of the economy is the availability of testing. The number of tests done in Texas is 169,536, according to state figures. That continues to amount to a tiny fraction of Texas nearly 29 million people, fueling concerns about how state leaders can track the virus or know the full extent of the outbreak.

Citing recent talks with the White House, Abbott said Texas would be seeing a dramatic increase in testing  not just testing those who may show symptoms, but also being able to test entire communities so that we have better information. Pressed on specific numbers and a timeline, Abbott said Texans can expect a massive amount of testing capability coming to Texas by late April or early May.

Democrats said they are tired of waiting for Abbotts promises of more testing to come to fruition. During a conference call after Abbotts news conference, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, told reporters that is is hard to flatten the curve when our leaders have been so far behind it, accusing Abbott of first relying on local leaders to address the coronavirus response before finally taking statewide action.

Were concerned about the life and the livelihood of Texans, Castro said. Throughout the response, Abbott has said, More tests are coming, but they still havent come.

Democrats were also quick to note that Abbotts task force does not include any local officials, whom Abbott had initially deferred to in enacting policies to contain the coronavirus.

In naming the leaders of the task force, Abbott turned to two men with deep experience in and around business and state government. Huffines, the chairman, previously served as Central and South Texas chairman of PlainsCapital Bank in Austin. From 2003-10, he served on the University of Texas System Board of Regents, including two stints as chairman.

Toomey, who will be the top full-time staffer for the group, is best known as a close adviser to former Gov. Rick Perry, for whom he was chief of staff. Toomey, a former state representative, also was chief of staff to ex-Gov. Bill Clements. Toomey is a partner at Texas Lobby Group, though Abbott spokesman John Wittman said Toomey has deregistered as a lobbyist to join the task force.

Abbotts news conference came as the number of coronavirus cases in Texas climbed to at least 17,371, including 428 deaths, according to the latest numbers from the Texas Department of State Health Services. Out of Texas 254 counties, 192 are reporting cases.
His defence is, principally, that the extradition proceedings are brought for political purposes, to deter other publishers from revealing what US forces do, even illegally  and what US diplomats know (but the media does not) about human rights abuses. This argument will be developed later in the year at Westminster Magistrates Court.

He now languishes, probably for several years, in Belmarsh, Britains toughest (and mainly for terrorist suspects) prison while he fights the US attempt to extradite him for trial in Maryland. If convicted there, on essentially the same espionage act charges which brought his source, Chelsea Manning, a 35-year sentence, he can expect a somewhat heavier term  50 years, perhaps  time enough for him to die in an American Supermax jail. Manning was pardoned by US president Barack Obama, but there is little prospect that Assange would receive clemency from a second-term President Trump.

There was one piece of happy news on a doleful Easter day in Britain: Julian Assange had managed to father two children whilst locked up in the Ecuadorian embassy. This proves that love will find a way, even if your self-isolation is being enforced by the British police and the CIA.

Now he is revealed as the father of two children born in Britain with a woman he will shortly marry, he can add the right to family life (an aspect of the right to privacy) to the objection to his forceful removal. He already has evidence that the CIA secretly live-streamed his meetings with his lawyers, in breach of the rules of legal confidentiality and of European privacy laws, and his fiancee avers that one of the embassy guards confessed to her (because he found it so disgusting) that he had been tasked to steal her babys nappies so the poo could be analysed to check whether Assange was the father.

Another objection is the way in which the US is breaching its own much-touted right to free speech and is discriminating against Assange because he is Australian and not American. It is inhibited by the First Amendment to the US constitution from prosecuting US publishers (like The New York Times, which disseminated the Wikileaks revelations) but the Trump lawyers now argue that this clause only protects publishers who are American citizens.

That makes all Australian investigative journalists, and those from other countries, whether or not they work for US media, vulnerable to extradition if they publish military or diplomatic secrets. We actually have an illustrious tradition of journalists who have exposed military misbehaviour  beginning, let us remember, with Keith Murdoch during World War I. One of our finest, the late Phil Knightly (author of Truth  The First Casualty) stood bail for Assange. When it was ordered to be forfeited, he said it was money well spent.

The most immediate danger to Assange, with his chronic lung condition, is coronavirus. Prisons are hotbeds and have already had eight deaths so thousands of non-violent offenders are being released on parole to avoid their exposure. But parole is not on offer for Assange. His 50-week sentence for breaching it by seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy is now over and last month he made an application, offering to put himself under house arrest (well, mansion house arrest) in the country, with ankle restraints and electronic monitors and an array of restrictions that would have made it impossible for him to flee anywhere. His application was brusquely rejected.
A group of migrant Pakistani Hindu doctors with MBBS degree from there but not able to take a mandatory MCI examination to practice here for want of Indian citizenship, has urged the government to let them join India's anti-corona fight.

There are over 300 migrant Hindus with MBBS degrees from various medical colleges in Pakistan staying as refugees here in India, mostly in Jodhpur.

A group of such doctors here has urged both the central and state government to relax the mandatory stipulations to allow them to join the Indian medical workforce, relentlessly battling the deadly pandemic.

M L Jangid, who had migrated to India over 20 years ago, has an MBBS degree from Sindh Medical College, Karachi. But in absence of the Medical Council of India's permission to take the mandatory examination, which is open only for Indian citizens having MBBS degrees from abroad, he and 300-odd others like him are not able to practice in India, he said.

If the government of India, takes up the matter seriously and gives permission to us as qualified medical doctors, we can be of some help in dealing with this COVID 19 pandemic, Jangid said.

Another doctor, Anila Sharda, who had migrated to India in 2007, has a medical degree from a medical college of Hyderabad in Pakistan.

After coming to India, it takes us at least 11 years to obtain the citizenship of India and after that, we are supposed to appear in an examination by MCI to attain the qualification to practice in India, which is again a herculean task. Most of us could not appear in this exam due to age and other factors, said Sharda.

Hindu Singh Sodha, president of Seemant Lok Sangthan, has also written to the government, drawing its attention to this group of 300-plus MBBS doctors belonging to Pak Hindu refugee families, who reached India after 2000.

We have already taken up the matter with the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Law and Justice during the past few years, said Sodha.

But the final step leading to allowing them to practice in India is yet to be taken. Sodha said all the stakeholders are convinced in principal but a final decision on permission to these doctors to practice in India is yet to come out.

If the timely permission is granted to these Pak Hindu refugee doctors in this time of crisis, with the qualification and experience, they could prove to be an asset to their Indian fraternity, waging a relentless battle to save lives said Sodha.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
On Saturday, April 18, once again neglecting the ceasefire in Donbas, Russia-led forces fired at the positions of the units of the Joint Forces, as a result of which the soldier of the Armed Forces was wounded, the press center of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) has reported.

"So, against the Ukrainian defenders of Krymske settlement, Russian invaders used grenade launchers of various systems, heavy machine guns and small arms. As a result of enemy shelling attacks, one member of the JFO was injured," it said on Facebook on Saturday.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, April 18, 2020 11:01 634 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2ad9fd 1 Lifestyle Instagram,COVID-19,coronavirus,small-and-medium-enterprises Free

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, small and medium enterprises (SME) are among those hit hardest by the country's physical distancing and self-quarantine policies.

Fortunately, many individuals and communities have banded together and launched creative initiatives to help one another in this time of crisis. Among them is an initiative from several Indonesian public figures to endorse local SMEs' products for free on their Instagram accounts to help the businesses reach more customers.

Comedian and filmmaker Ernest Prakasa, for instance, who has 1.7 million followers, started #MakanApaHariIni (what to eat today), inviting food and beverage business owners in Jakarta to email him with information about their products and he will then choose three to be endorsed for free on his Instagram feed every day. As of Friday, Ernest posted 21 endorsements and attracted thousands of likes.

Read also: Indonesian fashion designers help sew, donate protective gear for medical workers

Content creators such as David Dwi Praharsa's @depepedia, Hans Danial and Julia and Marius' @anakjajan have dedicated one post on their Instagram feeds for SMEs to promote their business in the comment section.

Actress Vebby Palwinta also joined the movement by opening free endorsement reviews on her Instagram Stories, while content creator Alexander Thian launched an initiative where he chooses one food product, purchases it and sends it to his followers every day for 10 days, while also letting the SMEs promote their business in the comment section.

"I know its not much, but I do hope I can help a bit," he said on the post. (gis/kes)
BIGGS, Calif. - Mayor of Biggs announced the city will be providing its utility customers financial relief to help during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The City of Biggs provides electric, water and sewer utilities within the City. The City Council reviewed viable methods of providing financial relief to its citizens during the COVID-19 situation and approved two immediate steps:

1) Immediate suspension of the $4.95 per transaction fee for credit card and ACH payments. There will now be no processing fee for credit card, ACH (e-check) and PayPal payments. The payment system is available at the City of Biggs web site www.biggs-ca.gov

2) The City will provide a one-time $100 credit to each residential electric utility account in April 2020.

Because City of Biggs electric rates are among the lowest in the region, the $100 credit is expected to more than offset the average monthly residential electric charge this month.
Group sets fire to a Cozumel house with Molotov cocktail

Cozumel, Q.R.  A house caught fire in the Flores Magon II neighborhood of Cozumel after people allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail against the door of the home.

Cozumel firemen were called to the scene of the fire after one person from a group threw it lit against the door then fled. According to a report by commander of the Ministerial Police, Armando Perez Perez, approximately six subjects came walking through the colony, until they reached their objective.

Two of them had missile type beer bottles with the fuel and a wick, while two other subjects carried squad-type firearms, ready for use if necessary.

When they arrived, one of them lit the wick and threw the bomb at the door then ran away, and in their escape, they left a second one abandoned in a sandy area of a childrens park where there were no people.

Neighbors requested help from the Cozumel fire department, however, by the time they arrived, neighbors had already extinguished the fire. Firemen entered the empty home to ensure all flames were extinguished before leaving. There were no injures reported.
Rajasthans tally of coronavirus infections stood at 1270 on Saturday morning after 41 new Covid-19 cases were reported from eight of the 33 districts, the state health departments data showed.

Bharatpur had the highest number of cases at 27, Kota had five, Jaipur, Jodhpur and Ajmer had two each, Banswara, Jaisalmer and Nagour had one each, according to the data at 9am.

The states capital also reported two deaths and news agency ANI said one of the patients had chronic kidney disease and the other had acute diabetes.

Rajasthan on Friday became the first state in the country to carry out rapid testing for Covid-19.

Also read: Rapid testing begins as kits from China get clearance

Rohit Kumar Singh, additional chief secretary of medical and health department, said the test will be done at a large scale to assess the prevalence of Covid-19 in hotspotsboth in containment as well as buffer zones around the clusters.

Rajasthan with 12 of its 33 districts features in the list of top five states in terms of the number of hot spot districts. Others are Tamil Nadu with 22 of its 37 districts in the red zone, Maharashtra with 14 of its 36, Uttar Pradesh with 13 of 75, and Andhra Pradesh with 11 of 13 districts.

The tests will be done at designated points on people with symptoms and super spreaders ie persons who are likely to be in contact with multiple persons like vegetable vendors, kirana store owner, etc, Singh said.

The official said in addition to rapid testing, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) based tests for coronavirus infection will continue to be done in an aggressive manner in containment zones across the state.

A judicious mix of PCR based testing and rapid testing will help Rajasthan to control and manage Covid-19 in an efficient manner, Singh said.

Also read: Rate of patient recovery in top coronavirus-affected states in India

Rajasthan started conducting rapid testing for Covid-19 with the arrival of 10,000 testing kits in the state on Friday. This test is not a confirmatory test but helps in quickly isolating the person tested positive so that the spread is prevented.

The states chief minister Ashok Gehlot has said that the lockdown has not just affected every section of the society but the government as well.

The government will also have to take austerity measures and manage finances accordingly because there is no revenue collection. When economic activities will start from April 20 under modified lockdown, revenue will start coming, he said on Friday.

He said Jaipurs SMS Hospital is also participating in research on plasma therapy.

Gehlot also held a meeting through video conferencing with district collectors and gave them necessary directions with regards to the guideline of modified lockdown and opening of offices and starting of industrial activities from April 20.

He said wearing mask is mandatory in the state and protocol related to social distancing must be followed everywhere.

India reported 991 new Covid-19 cases, taking the tally to 14,378, and 43 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to the Union health ministry on Saturday morning.

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CRITICS are accusing the province of pressuring municipal governments to lay off staff, due to financial fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. But the minister who sent a letter listing ways to cut staffing costs to those governments said none of her statements were prescriptive.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/4/2020 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CRITICS are accusing the province of pressuring municipal governments to lay off staff, due to financial fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. But the minister who sent a letter listing ways to cut staffing costs to those governments said none of her statements were prescriptive.

On April 15, Manitoba Municipal Relations Minister Rochelle Squires sent a letter to municipalities that noted ideas to cope with the pandemics financial fallout, which had been earlier discussed with union leaders.

"We shared our fiscal position and options for adjusting our workforce through layoffs, voluntary reduced workweeks, work-sharing, management trims and voluntary wage reductions I am strongly urging you to look to examples being set and continue to deliver the best value for money for your ratepayers by taking new measures to manage your budgets," wrote Squires.

The Manitoba NDP quickly condemned the letter as "pushing municipalities" to lay off workers.

"Their austerity agenda to cut peoples wages and jobs is only going to make the current recession worse  We shouldnt take a hatchet to those jobs right now," said NDP leader Wab Kinew.

The president of the City of Winnipegs largest union said he also expects reduced workweeks, layoffs and pay cuts would reduce the amount of money spent at local businesses.

Gord Delbridge, President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees local 500, accused the province of interfering in other governments business.

"The province can manage as poorly as they so choose but that doesnt mean that they should impose that same method on other levels of government," said Delbridge.

Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman stressed the letter is not the same as legislation and leaves the city free to make its own financial decisions.

"The province hasnt indicated that theres anything mandated Well make adjustments as we deem appropriate," said Bowman.

The mayor noted Winnipeg already balances its operating budget each year.

"I dont take offence to anybody saying tighten your belt. Were doing that and weve actually been leading on it," said Bowman.

Ralph Groening, president of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities, said many other local leaders have also taken steps to cut costs.

Groening said he sees the provinces letter as a call for financial unity, though hed still like to see provincial operating grants to municipalities, which have been frozen at 2016 levels, increase.

"We are doing with less and weve done with less for the last four years," he said.

Squires said some are misinterpreting its intent and accused the NDP of trying to "create panic during a pandemic."

She said her government simply wants to work with municipalities to address the fallout from COVID-19.

"We are all facing unprecedented financial and fiscal pressures and we need to look for solutions. There is nothing prescriptive in this letter," she said.

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When asked if the province will provide more funding to address municipal pandemic costs, the minister stressed the province itself is facing massive new expenses.

Premier Brian Pallister has estimated the pandemic could cost Manitoba $5 billion through added expenses and lost revenue this year.

Squires also rejected the claim the province is interfering in the domain of municipal governments.

"I would say that we respect the democracy of mature, responsible, municipally elected government," she said.

Earlier this week, the province revealed its asking many non-frontline public-sector workers to agree to a reduced workweek.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca
Help India!

By Nazish Hussain, TwoCircles.net

It is a complete lockdown for people like us only, says Tamanna, working as domestic help in Ranchi. Mother of two, Tamanna is out of money for ration and feels bogged down without any financial assistance. She opines that even though a lockdown is in place, she sees shops open from where people who have money are buying and safely eating meals in their homes.

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The central government had announced 21 days nationwide lockdown from March 23 to April 14, and owing to the rapid spread of infection, has been extended till May 3. While the lockdown has halted major economic activities, it is the informal sector that has been worst hit. As per a 2018 survey report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), informal sector in India employs 86.8 percent of workforce. In India, this substantial population of unorganized sector lives largely in Jharkhand which is one of the poorest states in the country. Most of them daily wagers, migrant laborers and domestic help are currently out of job due to economic shutdown, making it no rocket science to estimate that the poverty level will further escalate.

To ease the situation for such vulnerable, the State government has started providing two months ration to PDS ration card holders. According to one of the reports, 2.55 crore people in Jharkhand are presently covered under Public Distribution System (PDS).

For many years I have been trying to obtain a ration card but I have not got it till now, says Tamanna. She has been running pillar to post to obtain the card which would have now provided her food security along with many other benefits. Her husband, who is skilled for house painting, remains out of job for most of the time and Tamanna being the sole breadwinner, sustaining a family of four has not been easy for her. To share the economic burden of her family, she had initially been working in multiple jobs. But over the years, due to work overload and poor nutrition, she grew anemic and it became even more difficult for her to work as her health deteriorated. Loss of job and food insecurity due to pandemic has made it even worse for her.

How will I cover the expenses of household? worries Rasheeda Khatoon, a middle aged widow who is now out of job. Rasheeda worked as a cleaner at a private hospital in Ranchi. She has a family to look after and only to protect them from the threat of the virus she decided to leave her job at the hospital. She is now worried how will she feed her family. Thanks to voluntary charity workers, she has been receiving ration but she fears how long would that suffice for her. Rasheeda has no ration card and is also deprived of the widow pension.

Communication loopholes in dissemination of government aids

The State government had announced that for 8 lakh people whose applications were pending for ration cards, would be given 10 kg of rice. However, it seems the benefit has not reached everyone. Some people were saying that rice is being distributed to non card holders whereas some denied, says Tamanna who is a resident at ward number 4 of the Ranchi Municipal Corporation.

Rare mobility in the state under lockdown, it was hard for Tamanna to confirm the news and walking a long distance in the scorching sun to the ward councilors office was another problem. However, after considering the scant ration she was left with, she decided to walk. When she finally reached the office, she couldnt meet the councilor. Tamanna says, Some lady there told me that no help from the government has arrived yet.

When TwoCircles.net reached Husna Ara, councilor of ward number 4, asking about people whose ration card application is still under process, she confirmed receiving government aid for distribution among the needy. She discussed that she had received rice meant for 120 people, along with an amount of Rs. 10,000 from the Municipal Corporation which she had already distributed. On being asked how many ration card applications had been submitted to her, she replied, around 50-60. She further claimed all such applicants have been provided with the aid.

Too late and too little

For how long can I feed my family in Rs. 500? wonders Tamanna. On March 26, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, announced that as a measure to provide relief to poor women during lockdown, ex-gratia payment of Rs. 500 would be credited to the Jan Dhan accounts of women under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna (PMGKY).

Tamanna explains that had the government sent that money to her husbands bank account, they could have managed something. She recalled having waited in a long queue under terrible heat to receive the amount from Jan Dhan Yojna after 20 days of the lockdown. After being out of job since lockdown, it is the only sum she has received.

It is a meager amount to feed a family of four, she says. She fears running out of this money and her only hope for now is reliance on the charity work voluntarily being done by individuals and different organizations.

Apprehensions over post-lockdown situation

I took loan for my daughters wedding. Without income how will I repay? worries Rasheeda. She has no more savings left and soon she would be out of ration that she received from charitable work of good Samaritans. Sharing the apprehensions over her job security she tells, the hospital has said the cleaners who have left now (during corona pandemic) will not be allowed to continue with the job post lockdown.

Most workers in the informal sector do not have a job guarantee. Illiterate and semi skilled workers often do not have means and access to social protection measures in India. According to government sources, around 5.5 lakh migrant workers are expected to return back to Jharkhand. Sensing the post lockdown crisis, Jharkhand government is gearing up to provide employment opportunities to the workers.

However, this doesnt spell any relief for Tamanna, who is suffering from both the corona scare and the rampant Islamophobia in the country amid the pandemic. Talking about the job security of her husband who works mostly on interior home paint, she feels People will be reluctant to let others, especially Muslims inside their homes even after the lockdown gets over.
The summer season has started and thousands of families are more than eager to take a dip in a swimming pool to cool off. But with the current pandemic, people are asking if the coronavirus can be transmitted through water.

There is a lot of conflicting advice and misinformation seen online and in the media, so it is understandable that the public are confused about whether or not it is safe to swim in a pool during this time. A professor of medicine at the University of Tennessee's College of Nursing, Roberta Lavin, said in her interview with U.S Masters Swimming that there is nothing to worry about.

Coronavirus spread in pool

Prof. Lavin said that COVID-19 is a respiratory virus, which means that it is transmitted through tiny droplets of mucus and spit that may be expelled when sneezing and coughing. The contaminated droplets can speed undetected from person to person, and it can cause an infection after the virus enters a person's mouth, nose or eyes.

Although scientists are still studying the extent of the coronavirus, there is no evidence that it can be transmitted by water. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC reported on March 10 that the COVID-19 virus has not been detected in drinking water. Conventional water treatment methods that use disinfection and filtration, such as those in most municipal drinking water systems, should remove or inactivate the virus that causes COVID-19.

Also Read: U.S President Donald Trump Introduced 3-Phase Plan to Reopen Economy

With this statement from the CDC, it is safe to say that the virus can't be transmitted through uncharted waters, including swimming pools as public pools are cleaned and disinfected daily. Assuming that the pool is properly maintained, the disinfecting chemicals such as chlorine should be enough to kill the virus.

The CDC added that there is no evidence that COVID-19 can be spread to humans through the use of pools and hot tubs. Maintenance, disinfection and proper operation of pools and hot tubs should remove or inactive the virus that causes COVID-19.

Numerous public pools are temporary closed all across the United States, not because of the concerns about virus transmission through water, but because the government discourages social gatherings. The WHO has released a guideline in March about social distancing and that people should stay at least 6 feet away from each other.

Tips for healthy swimming

The CDC has released tips for those who want to go on public pools, hot tubs, and spas. Guests should check the latest inspection score assigned to a public pool, hot tub or spa. You can usually find inspection scores online or on-site.

You can also do your own inspection by using test strips to check the disinfectant level and pH level before getting in the water. Most hardware stores, superstores and pool-supply stores sell test strips. Shower, before you get in the water, rinsing in the shower for just 1 minute can help get rid of most stuff that might be on the body. Avoid swallowing pool water as much as possible, because one mouthful of water with germs can make you sick for up to 3 weeks and it can cause diarrhea.



Related Article: Magic Johnson Compares HIV and COVID-19's Effect on Black Communities in America

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It is not uncommon to see companies perform well in the years after insiders buy shares. The flip side of that is that there are more than a few examples of insiders dumping stock prior to a period of weak performance. So before you buy or sell Kwan On Holdings Limited (HKG:1559), you may well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling.

What Is Insider Buying?

It's quite normal to see company insiders, such as board members, trading in company stock, from time to time. However, most countries require that the company discloses such transactions to the market.

Insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing. But logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares. For example, a Harvard University study found that 'insider purchases earn abnormal returns of more than 6% per year.

See our latest analysis for Kwan On Holdings

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Kwan On Holdings

Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by insider Jiajun Sun for HK$26m worth of shares, at about HK$0.20 per share. So it's clear an insider wanted to buy, at around the current price, which is HK$0.20. Of course they may have changed their mind. But this suggests they are optimistic. While we always like to see insider buying, it's less meaningful if the purchases were made at much lower prices, as the opportunity they saw may have passed. In this case we're pleased to report that the insider bought shares at close to current prices. Jiajun Sun was the only individual insider to buy during the last year.

You can see the insider transactions (by individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!

SEHK:1559 Recent Insider Trading April 18th 2020

There are always plenty of stocks that insiders are buying. So if that suits your style you could check each stock one by one or you could take a look at this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).

Story continues

Insider Ownership of Kwan On Holdings

I like to look at how many shares insiders own in a company, to help inform my view of how aligned they are with insiders. A high insider ownership often makes company leadership more mindful of shareholder interests. Kwan On Holdings insiders own about HK$81m worth of shares. That equates to 26% of the company. We've certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders.

So What Do The Kwan On Holdings Insider Transactions Indicate?

The recent insider purchase is heartening. And the longer term insider transactions also give us confidence. Given that insiders also own a fair bit of Kwan On Holdings we think they are probably pretty confident of a bright future. In addition to knowing about insider transactions going on, it's beneficial to identify the risks facing Kwan On Holdings. Case in point: We've spotted 6 warning signs for Kwan On Holdings you should be aware of, and 2 of these are potentially serious.

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.
A ghostly figure with wild hair and a flowing beard is haunting a small Malaysian community in a bid to ensure superstitious residents stay home during the country's coronavirus lockdown.

It is not a genuine spirit but local man Muhammad Urabil Alias, who has taken to dressing up in a white robe and mask and going on regular night-time patrols.

During his outings in his village in Kemaman, northeast Malaysia, children scream and run back into their homes as they see the "ghost" walking down the road.

Like many countries seeking to fight the spread of the virus, Malaysia has ordered people to stay at home, and closed schools and non-essential businesses.

Urabil said that he decided to start the ghost patrols after virus cases rose sharply in the country -- Malaysia has so far reported over 5,000 infections and more than 80 deaths.

"I am watching the news and I see more people are dead, so I... decided to scare people," the 38-year-old told AFP.

And his creative method of ensuring people stick to the rules appears to be effective in a country where belief in the supernatural runs deep, particularly in rural areas.

Muhammad Abdillah said whenever the town's youngsters see him on patrol, they "run like crazy back to their homes. Now before they go out, they have to check whether the ghost is around or not".

When Urabil posted a photo of himself dressed as a ghost on social media, it quickly went viral and prompted a visit by the police to his house.

He said he was initially worried they were going to arrest him -- but instead the officers thanked him for his efforts and had their photo taken with him.
Denzel Washington Says He Would Not Be Living This Kind of Life If Not for His Mother
The World Health Organization is not sure whether the presence of antibodies in blood gives full protection against reinfection with the new coronavirus, Mike Ryan, the WHOs top emergencies expert, told a briefing on Friday.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

Ryan also said that even if antibodies were effective there was little sign that large numbers of people had developed them and were beginning to offer so-called herd immunity to the broader population.

A lot of preliminary information coming to us right now would suggest quite a low percentage of population have seroconverted (to produce antibodies), he said.

The expectation that ... the majority in society may have developed antibodies, the general evidence is pointing against that, so it may not solve the problem of governments.
Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

San Francisco Mayor London Breed has picked two high-profile attorneys to fill vacant slots on the Police Commission, a board that sets law enforcement policy for the city and conducts hearings for officers accused of misconduct.

The mayors nominees, former district attorney candidate Nancy Tung and business law attorney Geoffrey Gordon-Creed, would serve four-year terms in place of outgoing commissioners Robert Hirsch and Thomas Mazzucco, respectively.
 Flash

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday said only through solidarity can the international community win the battle against COVID-19.





Wang made the remark in a phone conversation with Emmanuel Bonne, diplomatic counselor to French President Emmanuel Macron.





Wang said China is paying great attention to the development of the epidemic situation in France and Europe, and the series of prevention and control measures taken by the French government are delivering positive results.





The Chinese foreign minister said he believes that under the strong leadership of President Macron, the French side will surely overcome the epidemic at an early date.





Recently, despite the difficulties it faces, China has been doing its best to provide assistances to France in purchasing medical and epidemic prevention materials in China and transporting them to France, Wang noted.





He said China will continue to provide firm support for France's fight against the epidemic until the end.





Wang pointed out that China and France, both as permanent members of the UN Security Council, should maintain mutual understanding, mutual trust and mutual support at this critical moment for the human society and play their due roles in international cooperation against COVID-19.





China fully agrees with France's appeal for international solidarity in this global fight, as the virus is a common threat to the health security of mankind, said Wang.





Any attempt to undermine unity and mutual trust or even the act of buck-passing is detrimental to the domestic fight against COVID-19, and also hurts international anti-pandemic cooperation, he added.





Wang noted that the World Health Organization (WHO), as a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN), has been playing a positive leading role in response to COVID-19.





China and France are both staunch supporters of multilateralism, said Wang, adding that supporting the WHO means supporting multilateralism and also supporting the UN.





He said China and France need to continue to safeguard the status of the WHO and encourage the agency to play a due role in international anti-pandemic cooperation.





For his part, Bonne thanked China for its support for France's purchase of medical materials in China.





The French side has called on all countries to be united in the fight against the pandemic, said Bonne, adding that France, like China, firmly supports the work of the WHO and its director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.





France stands ready to work with China to enhance cooperation in the global COVID-19 fight, discuss the drafting of an action plan on uniting the world, and enhance communication and coordination in multilateral mechanisms such as the UN Security Council.





The two sides also exchanged views on how to enhance cooperation between the UN Security Council permanent members in the global COVID-19 fight.




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Indian scholars have not made adequate attempts to establish a relationship between the concept of ethics and the practice of formal politicsthe politics based on instrumental reason to capture political institutions through elections. As a result, we have not addressed the question: What are the constitutive conditions that configure the relationship between ethics and such politics? In order to comprehend the question in its complexity, we need to make a collective sense of the two aspects of ethics and instrumentalised politics. The need to explore the relationship between the two, therefore, has become all the more important, particularly in the context of the lockdown occasioned by the outbreak of COVID-19.

In this regard, what bearing does the current state of lockdown have on the relationship between ethics and politics? The language of ethics of caring for the poor, and the elderly, and the official appeal that was made to philanthropic organisations to reach out to the needy was distinctly present in the extension decision of the central government. In the event of such a decision, coupled with the official appeal to the people of India, the element of responsibility and duty tends to bring enormous pressure on peoples moral capacity to filter out their accumulated sense of anxiety to reunite them with their respective families.
At the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting on April 16 that gave a green signal to $1.4 billion aid to Islamabad to enable the country to face the economic impact of the coronavirus, the Indian representative had red-flagged concerns that Pakistans Covid-19 spending might discriminate against its minorities and could be diverted to enhanced security spending.

Surjit S Bhalla, who is the executive director for India on the board of the IMF, had stressed that Pakistans health and social safety net spending should be comprehensive, targeted and non-discriminatory. He also pointed out that budgetary resources should be made available to all regions of Pakistan as the Covid-19 situation was much worse in Balochistan and Sindh province.

Bhalla pointed to reports to show that minorities such as the Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Ahmadiyya communities - the most vulnerable in Pakistans society - are treated with disadvantage in mitigation response by the federal and provincial government authorities, people familiar with the proceedings of the IMF meeting told Hindustan Times.

Also read: Imran Khan hits mute on Saarc Covid-19 pledge, India sends $1.7 mn relief

The Indian economist also asked Pakistan to carry out effective and targeted disbursement of social sector spending that focuses on the most vulnerable category and not undeserving beneficiaries.

The jab at Pakistan for its treatment of its minorities is seen to be linked to Prime Minister Imran Khans criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that the move to scrap Jammu and Kashmirs special status and the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act was an effort to target Muslims.

It is a point that Imran Khan had made in his speech to the 2019 UN General Assembly also, provoking a sharp comeback by a young Indian diplomat who reminded PM Khan that it was his country that had shrunk the size of its minority community from community from 23% in 1947 to 3% today, that had subjected its minorities to draconian blasphemy laws, systematic persecution, blatant abuse and forced conversions.

Bhalla said the Imran Khan governments Covid-19 response did not appear to be equitable either and was accused to have held back funds from Balochistan and Sindh provinces though the situation in these areas was severe.

Also read| Covid-19 virus accidently leaked by intern at Wuhan lab: Report

The IMF, which has projected that the Pakistani economy will contract by 1.5 per cent over the next year due to Covid-19, had cleared disbursement of $1.386 billion under the Rapid Financing Instrument at its Thursday meeting.

Pakistan is a longtime recipient of help from the IMF and is already under a three-year, $6 billion programme that was approved last year. Indian officials say Pakistan has, since 1958 availed IMF funds and bailouts on 22 occasions and appeared to be facing increasing risks of debt sustainability.

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Paris: France said on Friday there was no evidence so far of a link between the new coronavirus and the work of the P4 research laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the current pandemic started.

Workers wearing protective suits, masks and gloves handle containers of hot dry noodles at a noodle factory in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Credit:Bloomberg

"We would like to make it clear that there is to this day no factual evidence corroborating the information recently circulating in the United States press that establishes a link between the origins of COVID-19 and the work of the P4 laboratory of Wuhan, China," an official at President Emmanuel Macron's office said.

The broad scientific consensus holds that SARS-CoV-2, the official name of the coronavirus, originated in bats.

In 2004, France signed an agreement with China to establish a research lab on infectious diseases of biosafety level 4, the highest level, in Wuhan, according to a French decree signed by then-foreign minister Michel Barnier.
Vietnam is willing to bolster cooperation with Cuba so as to boost economic growth in both countries, and to share experiences with Cuba in tackling the COVID-19, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said on April 17.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) receives Cuban Ambassador to Vietnam Lianys Torres Rivera

He made the pledge while hosting a reception for Cuban Ambassador to Vietnam Lianys Torres Rivera in Hanoi.

At the reception, he voiced his gratitude to Cuban high-ranking leaders and Government for their prompt support for Vietnam in the struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Party, Government and people of Vietnam recently presented 5,000 tonnes of rice for Cuban people, he said.

The Ministry of Defence of Vietnam has been tasked with serving as a focal point in cooperation with Cuba in COVID-19 prevention and control. Since the beginning of April, the two countries have held regular online conferences at all levels to share experiences in battling the disease.

The PM noted that Vietnamese people always treasure solidarity and friendship with their Cuban counterparts and appreciate Cubas support for the countrys liberation and revolutionary cause in the past.

He affirmed that Vietnam will spare no efforts in nurturing the traditional and comprehensive Vietnam-Cuba relations, thereby strengthening the bilateral ties in a practical and effective manner.

In reply, the Cuban ambassador thanked Vietnam for the assistance in the context of trade embargo against Cuba and the global pandemic.

She congratulated Vietnam on its achievements in COVID-19 prevention and control, adding that Cuba is ready to work with Vietnam in research into the cure for COVID-19 and other pharmaceutical products.

The diplomat expressed her hope that the bilateral ties will be promoted in various spheres after visits of Vietnamese high-ranking leaders to Cuba, adding that technology transfer has contributed to Cubas agricultural development.

Vietnam helping Cubas battle against COVID-19

Minister of Construction Pham Hong Ha (R) presents the token of the relief package to Cuban Ambassador Lianys Torres Rivera

Minister of Construction Pham Hong Ha on April 17 handed a letter from Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong, addressed to Cuban high-ranking leaders, to the country's Ambassador Lianys Torres Rivera, as well as the token of the 5,000 tonnes of rice from the Vietnamese Government and people to the Cuban people to support their COVID-19 fight.



The minister was acting under the empowerment of Vietnamese Party and State leaders.

Ha, who is also Chairman of the Vietnam Sub-Committee of the Vietnam - Cuba Inter-governmental Committee, said the Party and Government of Vietnam greatly appreciate the timely support of their Cuban counterparts in COVID-19 prevention and control, adding Vietnam is also ready to provide medical supplies as relief aid to support Cuba.

Amid the complexities caused by the global pandemic, countries need to enhance solidarity, cooperation, and preventive measures in order to protect the people's health and ensure socio-economic stability, he said.

The minister also spoke highly of the efficient cooperation between Vietnam and Cuba in the health sector. The two are holding online conferences involving leaders from health ministries and other relevant agencies as well as experts on strategies to fight the COVID-19.

Support in medical supplies and research into vaccines and treatment for COVID-19 patients, as well as other long-term collaboration, were also on the agenda.

Minster Ha voiced his belief that with determination and effort, Vietnam and Cuba will soon overcome the pandemic.

For her part, the Cuban diplomat said her country greatly appreciates the Vietnamese Governments support at a time of the global pandemic.

As the Chair of ASEAN in 2020, Vietnam has demonstrated its willingness to assist other countries on a multilateral basis to the best of its abilities, she added.

The ambassador also highly valued a recent initiative by former Vietnamese students in Cuba to support the country in the face of the pandemic, noting that it shows the long-standing friendship and solidarity of the two peoples, especially as Vietnam and Cuba are celebrating the 60th anniversary of their bilateral diplomatic relations this year. VNA
" " It's a safe bet that the 12 publishing firms who turned down J.K. Rowling's first "Harry Potter" book are all regretting the decision. Graeme Robertson/Getty Images

Sometimes we make bad decisions about who we date or what movie to see -- and those shoes? Too late to return them now. But sometimes, we make really bad decisions.

For example, Thomas Austin didn't consider the consequence of introducing rabbits to Australia; he just wanted a five-star meal. And NASA knew the Challenger had O-ring problems, but decided to launch the space shuttle anyway. And all 12 of the publishing firms that rejected J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone"? Since their first printing in 1997, the Harry Potter books have broken publishing records; they are now considered the fastest-selling books ever.

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The next time you make a bad decision, remember: It probably could have been worse -- you could have accepted the Trojan Horse or tried to invade Russia. In no particular order, we've collected 10 of the worst decisions ever made. Hold on to your sweet tooth because we're starting with those little candies aliens just can't resist. No, not M&Ms.
New Delhi: Renowned south filmmaker SS Rajamouli has announced his next project after 'Roudram Ranam Rudhiram' (RRR) is complete. The maverick director will be working with Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu for a project to be produced by KL Narayana.

Noted movie critic and trade analyst Taran Adarsh took to Twitter and shared the details. He wrote: BIGGG NEWS... #Telugu superstar #MaheshBabu and director #SSRajamouli to collaborate... #Mahesh will star in #Rajamouli's next directorial, after #RRR... Produced by KL Narayana... Will go on floors in 2022.

The film will go on the floors in 2022. This happens to be his first collaboration with Mahesh Babu on-screen.

SS Rajamouli is these days busy with 'RRR', a period drama in Telugu. The film features N T Rama Rao Jr, Ram Charan, Alia Bhatt and Ajay Devgn. The film will be be released simultaneously in Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil languages on January 8, 2021.

The first look of 'RRR' was released some time back and it created a storm online with fans excited to watch the magnum opus.
Oregon lawmakers are looking to convene a special remote hearing to approve tens of millions of dollars of aid to those affected by the coronavirus outbreak, including hospitals, rentals and workers.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reports top lawmakers in both parties say they anticipate the Legislatures Emergency Board will meet next week to allocate tens of millions of dollars in emergency funds as the state awaits federal stimulus payments. Items likely to be up for consideration, majority Democrats said, include direct assistance for renters, additional resources for homeless services and domestic violence prevention, help for small businesses and money for people awaiting unemployment insurance.

Were gonna deal with some of the things that we think have got to move now, Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, said Wednesday. Theres some real emergencies out there.

The Emergency Board, which has the power to allocate state funds when the Legislature is not in session, has around $50 million to work with. House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, said Thursday she hoped to leave around $20 million in the fund to address wildfires and other hazards.

By contrast, the state is expecting roughly $1.6 billion in additional federal funds to help combat the pandemic.

Top Republicans said early Thursday they were still awaiting a draft agenda.

 AP
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to the nation on April 14 extended the total lockdown till 3rd of May to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and loss of lives. This effectively means that India is witnessing a complete lockdown of now almost a month and a half. India has crossed 13,000 cases with more than 400 deaths due to the pandemic. More than 146,000 deaths have been reported around the world.

COVID-19 has already caused a lot of upheaval. An economic recession is around the corner. Global GDP is expected to contract. The world after the coronavirus pandemic will be a different world. It will never be the same again!

I anticipate many changes that are likely to take shape in the short to medium term.

Job losses (companies will identify redundancies)

Industries are struggling as due to the lockdown there is no business. Airlines have already slashed salaries of staff by 30%-50%. Media houses have fired many people or asked many of them to go on leave without pay, as per reports.

After the lockdown ends companies will be facing demand side issues as consumption will take some time to pick up.

Profits will be under pressure and hence the focus of companies would be on cost reduction. Many of them will identify jobs which are no longer required or without which companies could still run smoothly.

Usually, big companies have some people who act as buffer resources or are hired for expansion: these could face the axe.

Work from home solution for some of the staff

During the lockdown many companies have realized that work can go on uninterrupted from home as well, except some functions like production. Some companies could be tempted to put certain roles and functions on a permanent, or a rotational basis, work from home. This will help companies manage costs

This will lower the rental/power/admin costs of companies. Rent is a big cost. In these difficult times these cost reductions will help.

This will lead to correction in commercial property prices, especially in big cities like Mumbai and Delhi.

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Work from home is likely to increase the costs for employees, power, data, tea/coffee, etc. This means some sort of compensation will have to be provided by employers.

Employers would gladly be willing to do so as this would cost less than what they are saving.

With parents working from home and cash flow pressure/uncertain future, some people could take the decision to let go off nannies and maids. This could lead to further job losses and put pressure on the poor people living in slums and dependent on people living in societies for their living.

Boom for data/OTT platforms to continue

Reliance chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani said at one of the companys AGMs that data is the new oil. There has been a 16% increase in data usage since the lockdown.

This is a big plus for telecom/data companies, notwithstanding their AGR dues issue.

OTT platforms also have witnessed an increase in subscriptions and viewership.

Less stress on public transport, less consumption of fuel, less pollution

As some people start working from home, there will be less stress on public transport, leading to less traffic on roads and, thus, there will be less pollution. In Delhi, air quality index (AQI) levels are usually in high 200s on a good day. Anything above 25 is considered as unsafe. During Diwali, it goes up to 900. During lockdown AQI levels have regularly fallen below 20.

Fuel sales in India dropped by 18% in March and 66% in April till date. We all know fossil fuel combustion is the biggest contributor to pollution.

Remote working will increase the scope of companies to hire the best talent from across the world. As per Global Workplace Analytics, in 2020, the number of people who work from home has increased by 140% since 2005.

Almost 60% of Cisco employees work remotely or are mobile, reporting to the office twice a week. The company has saved close to $400 million on account of the work from home initiative. Most organisations, including Fortune 500 companies, are actively encouraging remote working.

Be ready to accept the new world and the changes...

Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the WHOs resource guides.

Dont Miss: Working From Home in India
After an advisory on video conferencing app Zoom was issued last Thursday, the government has trained its guns on a number of popular Chinese applications including TikTok, Helo, SHAREit and Kwai for any potential breach of data.

"Our data protection bill is still being deliberated but in view of the lockdown that has increased usage of the internet in the country we need to be careful about breach of data," a senior government official told Business Today. "We want to be particularly cautious about data that maybe getting stored in servers in China. So we are monitoring some of the popular Chinese apps like TikTok and Helo."

Also read: Coronavirus India Live Updates: 991 new cases, 43 death in 24 hours, says Health Ministry; total count- 14,378

India does not have a data privacy law but a personal data protection bill is pending before the Lok Sabha. It is the country's first attempt at regulating how personal digital data of citizens can be used by the government, enforcement agencies and companies and seeks to provide an iron clad system against any violation. The current level of data protection in India is considered lax and inadequate.

On Thursday, the ministry of home affairs issued a circular warning that Zoom app was unsafe. It is an American application that has gained traction after India went into a lockdown to fight the coronavirus pandemic on March 25. It has been used by many corporates to facilitate work from home during this period.

"Zoom is not a safe platform," said the Cyber Coordination Centre of the ministry in a 16-page advisory that listed out steps users must take in-case they still wished to use the app.

Also read: Coronavirus: Desi Zoom app? Govt plans to create video-conferencing platform

The main issue with Zoom is that it routed some calls through servers in China, something the company itself admitted as a breach. Countries like Germany, Taiwan and Singapore have already banned the application.

"In our urgency to come to the aid of people around the world during this unprecedented pandemic, we added server capacity and deployed it quickly starting in China, where the outbreak began. In that process, we failed to fully implement our usual geo-fencing best practices. As a result, it is possible certain meetings were allowed to connect to systems in China, where they should not have been able to connect," said Zoom CEO Eric Yuan in a blog post. "We have since corrected this, and would like to use this blog post to explain how our system typically works, where our misstep occurred, and how we will prevent these kinds of problems in the future."

Most countries are trying to bring in policies that mandate that data remains stored in servers that are physically present in the same country. That way it is difficult to access from the outside world. However, till such time these regulations are finalised and implemented chances of data being misused remain high.

Also read: Zoom is not a safe platform, says govt

"Chinese apps are very popular in India. They also command the lion's share of the smartphone market and it is no secret that we have an uneasy relation with them. So we need to be careful," said the official quoted above. "Data is of essence and we cannot afford slip-ups."

This is not the first time Indian agencies have picked up Chinese apps as suspicious. In 2017, as many as 42 mobile applications WeChat, UC NEWS and UC browser, SHAREit, Truecaller were listed as spyware or malware. Further back in 2016, the government had also issued an advisory asking people to refrain from using Chinese origin apps and desist from using smartphones made in China entirely. Chinese firms command more than 50 per cent of the smartphone market in India today but the bulk of them are made in the country.

Also read: More than 5 lakh hacked Zoom accounts up for sale on Dark Web

Also read: 9 video-conferencing apps to use if you're looking for alternatives to Zoom

INDIA CORONAVIRUS TRACKER: BusinessToday.In brings you a daily tracker as coronavirus cases continue to spread. Here is the state-wise data on total cases, fatalities and recoveries in one comprehensive graphic.
Personal care firms join home delivery bandwagon By Duruthu Edirimuni Chandrasekera View(s): View(s):

Consumers have changed their purchasing patterns. They changed especially fast during the past month. The coronavirus outbreak has coerced many consumers to rethink how theyll buy everyday household items without putting themselves in harms way.

Last month saw grocery stores being wiped out by hysterical shoppers stocking up on essential items and then they went online. Now a new category  daily necessities and personal hygiene products  has joined in the bandwagon for online sales.

Since beauty salons closed and people stopped going to hairdressers, sales of shampoo and conditioners in addition to feel-good items like face masks have also climbed in Colombo and the suburbs. After nearly a month in shutdown, consumers are starting to want a different set of products to be available beyond the old-time staples; categories such as soaps, shampoo and skincare products  and now they can.

This was made possible by companies such as Hemas Holdings PLC, when they started ramping up their ecommerce and home delivery in the personal care sector. Hemas brands encompass a range of products for babies and adults in hair care, skin care, toiletries, fragrances and oral care.

Hemas has started a pilot project to deliver their FMCG items. Roy Joseph, Managing Director, Hemas Manufacturing told the Business Times that the company wants to sustain its manufacturing and distribution. We are trying out digital commerce platforms such as PickMe and Daraz to get our products to the customers. We have also lined up a few other such companies to join hands with us in order to distribute and carry out door-to-door operations. He said the surge in orders is overwhelming. He also predicted that the behaviour of consumers is changing. Hygiene oriented product demand will increase.

He also added that one of the main challenges that Hemas is working on is their concern for people. This make them constantly ensure the health and safety of their employees. Also ensuring they adhere to all safety measure including social distancing as far as possible. This limits the number of people that we can bring into the factory and hence the lines that we can run, thereby limiting production output. But we are determined to sustain it, he said.

Our patterns of living are changing and if that changes then what you buy and how you buy it changes.
That poses challenges to finding enough eligible donors, who must also meet standard blood donation requirements, he said. Testing has been limited, so not everyone who has had the virus and recovered has a test on file confirming they were positive for COVID-19. And, since the outbreak of the virus in Illinois has progressed over the past month, many people who did test positive and are recovering have not yet been free of symptoms for 28 days, he said.
When Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwalls affair came to light in the early 90s, it was scandalous even by todays standards. At the time, Prince Charles then-wife Princess Diana, had always suspected something was going on between her husband and Camilla. However, she had been unable to prove it.

However, in 1992, a kinky leaked phone call between the duchess and the prince hit the media and from then on, the future Crowned King and the Duchess of Cornwall were villainized by the press and public. Though the pair continued to see one another following the Prince and Princess of Wales divorce in 1996, they did not get married until 2005.

Despite all of the drama, Prince William noted how his father and step-mother fought for their love and remained devoted to one another in the face of outsiders and traditions. In fact, it made a lasting impact on him.

Prince William knew the truth about his fathers affair with Camilla Parker Bowles

Prince William was just 10 years old when his parents separated in 1992. When he asked his mother, Princess Diana why they were going their separate ways, she was honest with him.

I went to the school and put it to William, particularly, that if you find someone you love in life you must hang on to it and look after it, and if you were lucky enough to find someone who loved you then one must protect it, Princess Diana said in a 1995 interview with BBC. William asked me what had been going on, and could I answer his questions, which I did. He said, was that the reason why our marriage had broken up? And I said, well, there were three of us in this marriage, and the pressure of the media was another factor, so the two together were very difficult. But although I still loved Papa I couldnt live under the same roof as him, and likewise with him.

Prince Harry didnt know about his fathers affair until it was splashed across the tabloids.

Camilla Parker Bowles, Duchess of Cornwall, Prince William and Prince Harry stand on the steps of St. Georges Chapel, Windsor, following the Service of Thanksgiving for the Queens 80th birthday on April 23, 2006 | Anwar Hussein/WireImage

Prince William is close with Camilla Parker Bowles

Prince William first met Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in 1998 when he was 16-years-old. Since then, the pair have become very close. He, along with Prince Harry attended the duchess wedding to their father in 2005. At time, 21-year-old Prince Harry only had great things to say about his stepmother. He called her, a wonderful woman, and shes made our father very, very happy, which is the most important thing, BBC reported. William and I love her to bits. To be honest with you, shes always been very close to me and William  but no, shes not the wicked stepmother. Ill say that right now.

However, over the years, the Duke of Cambridge and the Duchess of Cornwall have formed their own close bond. The Cambridges often make appearances with Prince Charles and Camilla and photographs of the pair together showcase a mutually respectful and light-hearted relationship.

Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles relationship made an impact on Prince William

With a full understanding of his fathers affair with the Duchess of Cornwall and getting to know her himself, the relationship made a huge impact on Prince William. Charles apparent need for there to be a public acceptance of Camilla placed the identity of the Prince of Wales consort firmly in the public spotlight, inviting the press to take notes but strictly on Palace terms, royal author Robert Jobson wrote in Williams Princess. Breaking the mold when it comes to matters of the heart, and struggling to find a comfortable co-existence with the press are traits Charles would pass on to his son. After all, Prince William is an impressionable and intuitive young man who has always taken a keen interest in the press coverage of his parents divorce and affairs. would make a lasting impression on the young prince, as witnessed later on in his own attempts to lead the press a merry dance when it came to his private life  particularly in his blossoming and deepening relationship with Kate.

Not only did Prince William often dismiss questions relating to Kate early on in their relationship, but the pair also went at their own pace when it came to dating, getting engaged and eventually tying the knot.
New Delhi: The whole world is fighting a war against the coronavirus epidemic. The lockdown continues till 3 May in India. The border between the two neighboring countries is also under stress on the border between the ongoing war against Corona. Pakistan is continuously violating ceasefire. Chief General of the Indian Army, Manoj Mukund Narwane, took a dig at Pakistan on the tour of Jammu and Kashmir amidst tension.

In fact, the Indian Army Chief had criticized Pakistan, saying, 'It is unfortunate that at a time when the whole world including India is fighting the menace of epidemics, our neighbors continue to trouble us.' Now Pakistan has reacted to the statement of the Indian Army Chief. Pakistani State Department spokesperson Ayesha Farooqui denied the allegation of Army Chief Narwane, calling it baseless. He said that he has been accused of diverting the attention of the world from Kashmir.

Pakistan State Department spokesperson accused India of violating the ceasefire. He said that despite the Coronavirus crisis and the current challenges, the incidents of ceasefire violations on LoC by India has increased.

Also Read:

Government nod must for investment from these countries

Rahul Gandhi tweets, ' Corona is a big challenge, but also an opportunity'

Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar angry over disturbances in ration distribution

CM Yogi's new announcement, employees will get salary on time
A rally organized and promoted by a conservative group in Lansing Wednesday drew protesters to the state Capitol Building.

Operation Gridlock, organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition, was well-attended with some in cars circling the area while others carried signs and even stalked the area with guns over their shoulders at noontime.

Among their ranks was Royal Oak City Commissioner Kim Gibbs, who was shown on televised broadcasts walking on the Capitol grounds in close proximity to others and without any type of face cover.

A Royal Oak Tribune report created a stir on social media channels with local residents both defending Gibbs right to protest Governor Gretchen Whitmers Stay Home Stay Safe order and criticizing her for taking part.

After initially interviewing her as she drove home from the gathering, The Tribune offered Gibbs the opportunity to further expound on comments she made to a reporter Wednesday, while also receiving input from Mayor Michael Fournier and a city resident who recently lost a loved one due to COVID-19.

Protecting the public and jobs

On April 15, 2020, I attended the gathering at the Capitol building to support the unheard voices of small business owners and those who work for them. Many of them are facing permanently losing their business or their jobs due to Governor Whitmers near total shutdown of the state. The rules of her lockdown have become arbitrary and capricious.

We must still be careful and make plans that protect the safety of everyone in Michigan, but I believe there is a way to slowly reopening parts of our economy safely and with surgical precision without resorting to punitive executive orders that takes a sledgehammer to the entire economy of the state of Michigan.

I fear that the governor and our county government are satisfied with this overly simplistic approach of taking a blunt object to the entire state instead of developing the plans with surgical precision that will keep us safe while preserving hundreds of thousands of jobs and businesses. It is their duty to develop these plans immediately, so that we can begin phasing them in as soon as it is determined that safety can be maintained. Hopefully this can begin on May 1.

Unfortunately, we have not seen or heard of any details or plans to keep us safe and save the jobs we will all need to survive. Instead, we have recently seen plans from Oakland County promoting the gruesome idea to use local ice arenas to store dead bodies. This is unacceptable and needs to stop. We need to help our residents survive, not make plans for their dead bodies.

Politicians and bureaucrats must be reminded that there are real people out there that deserve to be heard. It is time to set politics aside and work together to safely restore our states jobs and economy. Our Governor and county officials have the power and resources to do that, but it is vital to begin that work now. I hope the voice of the people will prompt them to begin before it is too late.

Kim Gibbs

City Commissioner

In a letter sent to the city commission, a city resident had this to say:

Lament from victims loved one

I am writing to express my concern and dismay that Commissioner Kim Gibbs attended the rally in Lansing today. I have attached photos of Ms. Gibbs and former Commissioner Andrew Prentice at the rally, and of Ms. Gibbs standing in a large crowd of people.

Just to begin, the rally itself was illegal. Traveling to Lansing for non-essential business is illegal. Ms. Gibbs and Mr. Prentice are violating social distancing rules. The actions of Ms. Gibbs are not only in violation of the Governors executive order, they are dangerous. Her recklessness puts all of you in danger, as well as her other co-workers, and the citizens of Royal Oak. Her behavior is not only dangerous, but insulting to every citizen of this state who is working to stop the spread of this virus. It is insulting and threatening to every doctor, nurse, and employee of Beaumont Hospital, Oakland Countys largest employer. It is insulting and threatening to our police, firemen, and paramedics, who will have to deal with the people who are sickened by her actions, or may be exposed themselves as a result of Ms. Gibbs Lansing trip. These people are fighting, and putting themselves at great risk to try and help save lives and control the spread of this disease while Ms. Gibbs reckless and intentionally risks spreading it.

Ms. Gibbs obviously thinks this situation is funny. As a person who has lost somebody to Covid-19, I can assure her it is not funny. Last week a beloved member of our family died from the virus. She died alone without a chance to see or say goodbye to her children. She choked to death on her own mucus, was put in a body bag, had a gallon of bleach dumped in the bag with her, since embalming has been suspended, and was buried alone by men in hazmat suits. There was no funeral, no goodbye. Just a body in a bag buried anonymously by strangers.

The possibility that an elected official of this city might bestow this fate on more citizens of Royal Oak is infuriating. You must act. Laws have been broken, lives have been risked, and there must be consequences. To allow this person to walk freely and recklessly among you, and us, is unacceptable.

Michael Levitt

Royal Oak

Friday, Mayor Michael Fournier weighed in with this response:

Black eye placed on us

I have the moral obligation and duty to stand with the victims of this pandemic, their families, and the people I swore to protect. Commissioner Gibbs willfully violated the law and put countless lives at risk. She lacks the judgment and empathy to serve the people of Royal Oak. Her actions and words do not reflect the majority of our city commission or our residents. There is always room for debate on how to safely and effectively open our economy, however there is no excuse for endangering others by deliberately breaking the law. If she cares about Royal Oak she will resign so we can begin healing from this black eye she has placed upon us.

Michael Fourner

Royal Oak Mayor

The City Commissions next meeting is scheduled for April 27. Due to social distancing measures, the gathering will be held online in accordance with temporary provisions set forth by a governors executive order.
NHS testing is carried out as cases and the UK death toll continue to rise. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Hundreds of deaths will continue to be reported every day as the UK declines from the peak of its initial coronavirus outbreak, an expert has warned as the toll rose today to 14,576 people.

The University of Oxfords professor James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, said the decline will only be gradual and social distancing must continue to prevent more deaths.

He said three conclusions could be made from todays increase of 847 deaths.

Firstly, the UK is one of the hardest hit countries in the world from this first wave.

Secondly, the UK seems to have passed the peak for the first wave. Finally, we will likely see only a gradual decrease from the peak and this means we will see several hundreds of announced deaths every day for some time ahead.

Each one of which will have brought misery to families.

Latest coronavirus news, updates and advice

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He added that a significant number of deaths needed to be added to the totals to account for those that happen outside of hospitals.

If we do not continue to socially distance, there will be many more deaths. It seems highly likely that we and the world will face further waves of the virus until a vaccine is in use.

Facing these future threats requires public support and total honesty about the trade offs that will be involved in government decisions. I think everyone now realises just how fast this pandemic can move and what the stakes are."

It comes a day after the UKs lockdown was extended for a further three weeks amid warnings that easing up too early could result in a second outbreak.

There are also 108,692 confirmed cases, up 5,599 from the amount published by the Department of Health yesterday.

The case numbers are accurate to 9am today and the death toll is correct as of 5pm on 16 April.

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The rise is not as high at the daily tolls recorded between 8 April and 11 April, three of which were over 900, but it is the first time since 11 April that the toll exceeded 800.

Focus is now on whether the trend in deaths and cases continues to decline in the long term, which would indicate the outbreak is passing its peak.

The government has announced on Thursday that the lockdown restrictions will remain in place for at least another three weeks.

The measures, which limit the reasons people can leave their home to exercise and essential trips, have slowed the viruss spread and stopped the NHS being overwhelmed with new cases but Dominic Raab, deputising for Boris Johnson, said it was too soon to ease up.

The government believes that lifting restrictions too early would result in a second outbreak.

The very clear advice we received is that any change to our social distancing measures now would risk a significant increase in the spread of the virus, Raab said.

That would threaten a second peak of the virus and substantially increase the number of deaths.

It would undo the progress we have made to date and as a result would require an even longer period of the more restrictive social distancing measures.

The government will look at how it can make changes to restrictions based on five conditions, he said.

He outlined those as ensuring the NHS can cope with demand, a sustained fall in daily death rates, rate of infection decreasing to manageable levels, ensuring testing capacity and personal protective equipment is available for future demand and being confident any action would not result in a second peak.

Dominic Raab announced the lockdown extension on Thursday. (PA Images)

There are also problems with infections in hospitals and care homes, and Raab added: The Prime Minister said at the outset that it would take three months to come through the peak and I think that, broadly, is still the outline.

We cant give a definitive timeframe, that would be to prejudge the evidence, that wouldnt be a responsible thing to do.

But our message to the British public is: there is light at the end of tunnel, we are making progress, but at the same time we must keep up the social distancing measures.

Health secretary Matt Hancock has said the government needs a comprehensive test,, track and trace system in place as soon as possible.

His comments came as MPs questioned him in a virtual health select committee today.

Chairman Jeremy Hunt  the former health secretary  referred to World Health Organization guidance that countries need to detect, test, isolate and treat to lift lockdowns.

We do need to have comprehensive test, track and trace in place as soon as possible, Hancock said.

And we need to get the technology right, we need to have the people and were building that resource and obviously we need to have the testing and were ramping that up as well.

So we do need to have all three of those in place and were working incredibly hard to make sure that we are.

Coronavirus: what happened today
The Writers Guild of America West and major studios are expected to begin negotiations on a new contract next month. Above, WGA headquarters in the Fairfax area. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

The Writers Guild of America and a group representing the major studios appear to have narrowed their differences over whether and when to begin potentially contentious negotiations for a new film and TV television contract.

WGA West Executive Director David Young said in a letter to the president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP, that the union is willing to extend its current contract, which expires May 1, to June 30. The extension had previously been proposed by the studios.

Young recommended the sides exchange bargaining proposals by May 1 and begin negotiations via video and telephone conference on the week of May 11.

"This will give both sides a week to analyze the opening proposals, while still leaving almost eight weeks in which to conduct negotiations," Young wrote in his letter dated April 15.

WGA spokesman Neal Sacharow said there is no agreement yet with the AMPTP, which declined to comment.

The WGA had previously pushed for the contract to be extended until September. Many were predicting writers would stage their first walkout since 2007, but WGA leaders recently told members they would not seek a strike vote during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a devastating effect on Hollywood.

"Youve expressed frustration that it has taken until now to provide you with a response to the AMPTPs proposed contract extension and dates for commencing negotiations," Young wrote. "But I hardly need to remind you the COVID-19 pandemic poses unprecedented challenges to the conduct of meaningful, and we hope successful, negotiations. The effect of the crisis is particularly disruptive for the guild, which represents the interests of 15,000 writers located throughout the country, with whom we regularly must communicate about bargaining objectives and developments."

Citing the crisis, Young said that by Friday the union would like to see the trustees of the WGA Health Fund extend eligibility through the end of the year to participants who will lose their coverage because they don't meet the earnings threshold.

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In a follow-up email to Young obtained by the Times, AMPTP President Carol Lombardini called the WGA health plan "an entirely separate matter," but said she would address the issue with alliance members. "I look forward to starting what will hopefully be a productive and successful negotiating session," Lombardini wrote.

The negotiations probably will have to address how the industry will change after the pandemic.

Guild leaders also want to ensure that writers are getting their fair share of profits from streaming services, which have grown in popularity as more people are sheltering at home. Some streamers are opting for shorter seasons and writers are losing out on money that they would normally get through reruns or syndication of their shows.

"The question for the Writers Guild is, how are our members being compensated?" WGA West President David Goodman told the L.A. Times this year. "Are we keeping up with this enormous growth and how do we make sure to protect our members in this new business model?

Young was responding to an earlier letter from Lombardini about the proposed contract extension.

"Moving forward with the goal of reaching an agreement by June 30 is essential to protect the tens of thousands of people who depend on this industry for a livelihood, including writers represented by the WGA," Lombardini wrote in the letter. "Both of us share the responsibility of creating the conditions that will make it possible for them  many of whom have suffered severe hardships in the form of loss of income."

The WGA also has yet to reach an agreement with the Assn. of Talent Agents over a new code of conduct. The union has negotiated individual deals with talent agencies but remains in a dispute with major talent agencies such as William Morris Endeavor, United Talent Agency, Creative Artists Agency and ICM Partners over industry practices.




Saturday Night Live comedian Michael Che offers to pay rent for one month for 160 residents of the Smith Houses. He grew up in the NYCHA complex and his grandmother recently died of coronavirus. [The New York Times]

The owner of the Lower East Sides Hotel Indigo scores a $1.7 million COVID-19 loan from the federal government. [The Real Deal]

We know the federal Paycheck Protection Program ran out of money and has been a huge disappointment for most small businesses, but the citys loan program has also failed the smallest businesses in New York City. [The City]

Supply chain issues and staffing shortages specific to the Chinese-American community help explain why so many Chinese restaurants are completely closed. [Gothamist]

The pop culture website Uproxx has signed a lease for 3,300 square feet at 161 Bowery. [Commercial Observer]

Ecological City is going virtual with its annual zero waste pageant. [Next City]

An anonymous act of kindness from East Village restaurant owners. [EV Grieve]

Community Board 3s monthly meeting takes place next week on Zoom. [CB3]

Trader Joes on Grand Street will be closed for cleaning April 24., reopening April 25. [Trader Joes]
YEREVAN, APRIL 18, ARMENPRESS/ARTSAKHPRESS. Four US Congressmen  Frank Pallone, Adam Schiff, Jackie Speier and Gus Bilirakis, sent a congratulatory letter to the newly-elected President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan.

The letter says:

Dear President-Elect Harutyunyan,

As members of the United States Congress and the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues, we write to offer our congratulations on Artsakhs historic election on March 31 and the subsequent presidential run-off election that took place earlier this week.

We are heartened to see the people of Artsakh and the countrys leaders remain dedicated to peaceful democracy during these difficult times. Artsakh has remained committed to a system of democratic governance that reflects the will of its citizens, all despite continued violence and threats from its hostile neighbor. And, while we understand there were some complications created by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the relative case in which voters could cast ballots in these elections without interference clearly represents the strength of the democratic process in the Republic.

As Co-Chairs of the Congressional Armenian Issues Caucus, we remain committed to promoting and bolstering the democratic independence of Artsakh. We will continue to support the rightful exercise of self-determination which contributes to regional stability and development. Please know that we will also continue to explore ways to strengthen the ties between the United States and Artsakh that includes the formal recognition of its independence.

Once again, please accept our congratulations on an election that was calm, peaceful, and free of corruption or voter intimidation. We look forward to continuing our productive and robust dialogue with your administration moving forward.
Sterlite Copper, a Vedanta Group entity, on Saturday said it has contributed Rs 5 crore to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister's Public Relief Fund to support the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Vedanta has already provided Rs 101 crore to the PM-CARES Fund and has set up a Rs 100-crore corpus for daily workers, preventive healthcare and welfare of employees and contract partners across the country, the company said in a release.

"We have 1 lakh people working at Vedanta and each of them, along with their family members, are empowered to do whatever it takes to help people in distress. We are facing multiple problems but it's the country that comes first," Vedanta Chairman Anil Agarwal said.

The employees of Sterlite Copper along with group businesses have contributed their one day's salary for local communities.

Sterlite Copper has already teamed up with 10 self-help group (SHG) partners, comprising 150 members, to manufacture and distribute masks and personal hygiene items across 20 villages in Thoothukudi, providing the local communities with preventive safeguards against the virus.

It has so far distributed around 30,000 masks to 5,200 households and truck drivers in the district and is planning to distribute another 20,000 masks over the next few weeks.

As part of its ongoing community outreach programme, the company has provided around 1,300 litres of liquid handwash, 13,000 soap bars and 1,000 bottles of hand sanitiser to people in the district.

Sterlite Copper has distributed 200 sets of personal protective equipment (PPEs) for frontline health workers at the Tuticorin Medical College Hospital and Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital.

The company is in the process of securing an additional 200 sets of PPEs for use by the healthcare personnel.

Disinfectants such as Sodium Hypochlorite and Bleaching Powder along with appropriate disinfecting tools are being distributed across villages, positively impacting the lives of around 2 lakh people in the area, the company added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
On April 2, Draper James announced the offer on its Instagram page, writing: Dear Teachers: We want to say thank you. During quarantine, we see you working harder than ever to educate our children. To show our gratitude, Draper James would like to give teachers a free dress. They were instructed to apply by a form, given a deadline, and told when winners would be notified  as well as that it was valid while supplies last.
A woman officer posted at a military hospital here and a nine-month-old infant are among the five fresh coronavirus cases detected in Uttarakhand in the last 24 hours, officials said on Saturday.

The two had tested positive on Friday, they said.

While the woman officer had recently travelled to Lucknow, the infant contracted the infection from his father, who had attended a Tablighi Jamaat congregation, the officials said.

They did not say where the group's congregation was held or when the infant's father had tested positive.

A state health department spokesperson said the woman officer had recently returned from training in Lucknow. Her contact tracing is underway.

The infant is quarantined at a school in Jakhan area of Dehradun, he said.

According to the spokesperson, the infant's father is one of the 10 Tablighi Jamaat members undergoing treatment for COVID-19 in Dehradun. He is admitted to the isolation ward at the Doon Hospital.

However, the baby's mother has tested negative for COVID-19, he said.

A Tablighi Jamaat member from Nainital, a 25-year-old man who worked at a relief camp in Roorkee, and a 45-year-old woman who is a relative of a COVID-19 patient are the other three people who have tested positive for coronavirus in Uttarakhand in the last 24 hours.

The Tablighi Jamaat member is undergoing treatment at Sushila Tiwari Hospital, Haldwani, the spokesperson said.

The 25-year-old man and the 45-year-old woman, both from Haridwar district, have been admitted to the isolation ward of the Haridwar Mela Hospital, Chief Medical Officer Saroj Naithani said.

Of the total 42 patients in Uttarakhand, nine have recovered and been discharged.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
'Cocaine' Cassie Sainsbury has admitted she tried to smuggle almost six kilograms of cocaine out of Colombia because she 'needed the money'.

The 24-year-old walked free from Bogota's El Buen Pastor women's prison two weeks ago after spending three years locked up.

The former personal trainer from Adelaide was arrested at El Dorado airport in April 2017 after packing cocaine into 18 headphone boxes in her suitcase.

Speaking to 60 Minutes after her release, Sainsbury admitted she attempted to smuggle 5.8 kilograms of the substance for cash.

'Cocaine' Cassie became engaged in November after her Venezuelan girlfriend Joslianinyer Pico (pictured together) proposed to her behind bars

Cassie Sainsbury was arrested with 5.8 kilograms of cocaine (pictured) concealed in her luggage at Bogota's El Dorado International Airport in April 2017

Sainsbury was locked up at El Buen Pastor women's prison in Bogota (pictured)

'Obviously I accepted to come and do it. Because I needed the money,' she said.

'But it wasn't exactly like I came here thinking: ''Yes, I'm going to go and smuggle drugs''.'

'It wasn't like that.'

According to Nine News, Sainsbury was released from jail two weeks ago but under her parole conditions she must remain in Colombia for another 27 months.

Colombia's President Ivan Duque on Wednesday ordered the 'humanitarian' release of more than 4000 prisoners to house arrest, in an effort to reduce overcrowding and prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Sainsbury said the experience had made her grow as a person and she had learnt a lot about herself and others.

Speaking to 60 Minutes after her release, Sainsbury admitted she attempted to smuggle cocaine for cash

Sainsbury was engaged to Scott Broadbridge (pictured together) at the time of her conviction, but no longer speaks to her former fiance after they split in February 2018

'I learned a lot about people, I've learned how to analyse people better,' she said.

'It's been definitely a massive learning curve but, at the same time, everything that I've been through in prison, everything that I learnt I wouldn't change it because it's made me a stronger person it's made me who I am today.'

When she was arrested, Sainsbury was engaged to Scott Broadbridge who attended her court appearances and vowed to marry her in a prison wedding reception.

The relationship eventually deteriorated and the pair split in February 2018.

But Sainsbury was not single for long and in December last year revealed she was engaged to Venezuelan inmate Joslianinyer Pico.

Sainsbury's interview with 60 Minutes will air on Sunday.
WASHINGTON, April 17 (Xinhua) -- NASA announced on Friday to launch its first SpaceX crewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS) on May 27.

NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley will fly on SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, which will lift off on a Falcon 9 rocket at 4:32 p.m. EDT May 27, from Launch Complex 39A in Florida.

It will be the first time since 2011 that NASA astronauts launch on an American-made rocket from American soil, said NASA.

It will also be the first crewed mission for SpaceX since its founding 18 years ago.

The upcoming Crew Dragon mission, dubbed Demo-2, will be the final test for SpaceX, including the launch pad, rocket, spacecraft, and operational capabilities. This also will be the first time NASA astronauts test the spacecraft systems in orbit, according to NASA.

The mission duration will be determined once on station based on the readiness of the next commercial crew launch, although the Crew Dragon being used for this flight test can stay in orbit about 110 days, said NASA.

Behnken and Hurley were among the first astronauts to begin working and training on SpaceX's next-generation human space vehicle, and were selected for their extensive test pilot and flight experience, including several missions on the space shuttle, according to NASA.

Behnken will be the joint operations commander for the mission, responsible for activities such as rendezvous, docking and undocking, as well as Demo-2 activities while the spacecraft is docked to the ISS.

Hurley will be the spacecraft commander for the mission, responsible for activities such as launch, landing and recovery.

Lifting off atop a specially instrumented Falcon 9 rocket, Crew Dragon will accelerate the two astronauts to about 27,200 kilometers per hour, and put it on an intercept course with the ISS.

"Once in orbit, the crew and SpaceX mission control will verify the spacecraft is performing as intended by testing the environmental control system, the displays and control system and the maneuvering thrusters, among other things," said NASA in a release.

In about 24 hours, Crew Dragon will be in position to rendezvous and dock with the ISS, according to NASA.

The spacecraft is designed to do this autonomously, but astronauts aboard the spacecraft and the station will be monitoring approach and docking, and can take control of the spacecraft if necessary, according to NASA.

After successfully docking, Behnken and Hurley will be welcomed aboard station and will become members of the Expedition 63 crew. They will perform tests on Crew Dragon in addition to conducting research and other tasks with the space station crew.

After concluding the mission, Crew Dragon will autonomously undock with the two astronauts on board, depart the space station and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.

Upon splashdown just off Florida's Atlantic Coast, the crew will be picked up at sea by SpaceX's Go Navigator recovery vessel and return to Cape Canaveral, according to NASA.

The ISS has continually hosted a rotating crew of astronauts from all over the world since 2000. Russia has been the only country capable of transporting astronauts to and from the ISS since 2011.

The Demo-2 mission will be the final major step before NASA's Commercial Crew Program certifies Crew Dragon for operational, long-duration missions to the space station.

This certification and regular operation of Crew Dragon will enable NASA to continue the important research and technology investigations taking place onboard the station, which will lay the groundwork for future exploration of the Moon and Mars starting with the agency's Artemis program.

Artemis is NASA's program to return astronauts to the Moon by 2024, preparing the way for human missions to Mars.
The newborn making waves By Kumudini Hettiarachchi The baby boy born to Kshanika and Mevan on Good Friday is the first planned water birth in a hospital setting in Sri Lanka View(s): View(s):

The tiny trailblazer and his joyous parents are back home amidst these trying times.

Not named yet, as Kshanikadevi Rupesinghe and Mevan Peiris wish to see his personality before bestowing a name and did not want to know the gender of their first baby before birth, he will however go down in the annals of Sri Lanka as unique.

For, he is the first to be delivered in a planned water-birth in a hospital setting in the country on Friday, April 10.

Soon after he was born, the baby wasnt crying. He was calm as he was thinking that he was still in the womb, says Kshanika creating an image of kneeling in the comforting waters of the birthing tub in the Moon Suite at Ninewells Hospital down Kirimandala Mawatha, Narahenpita, holding onto Mevans hands during the delivery.

Of course, lots of photographs followed as she held him close and the umbilical-cord clamping was delayed as done in water-births, allowing the mothers blood to keep flowing to the newborn until its pulsating stopped.

Next Kshanika sat on the edge of the tub, cuddling her baby to her chest and then stepped out of the tub, helped by Mevan and the healthcare team which had been around to assist her, onto a bed where the placenta was delivered and she inhaled some laughing gas (combination of oxygen and nitrous oxide) to take away the pain when her Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist,

Dr. Probhodana Ranaweera, stitched up the birth canal tears.

No medication did I take until that time, from the time the contractions started at about 6.30 that morning to the time of delivery, says Kshanika.

All along Mevan was at her side, holding her hand, offering her water or king coconut to keep her hydrated and as the contractions became more intense and painful firstly rubbing her lower back and then seating her in the bathroom and holding a hand-shower over her, in a session that lasted nearly 45 minutes and later taking her through the inhalation and exhalation paces during the water-birth itself.

The staff, meanwhile, kept checking the heartbeats of both mother and baby.

A water-birth is different to a normal delivery on a hospital bed. My babys head began crowning at 3.59 in the afternoon and his body slipped out with the contraction that followed three minutes later at 4.02, she says, going into detail how a midwife who has much experience in water-births flown down from the United Kingdom (UK), Rennie Boreham, guided the couple through the whole process.

For Mevan and Kshanika the week brought about a double celebration  the arrival of their firstborn and Mevan who is Head of Operations of PickMe Food being included in the 30 Under 30 List of the prestigious international business magazine Forbes.

The week of the babys birth was extremely busy for the couple, with Kshanika continuing her work as a Chartered Architect attached to Hyundai Engineering & Construction which is handling the massive Cinnamon Life project.

Before curfew was clamped I was working an 11-hour day which included site-visits after donning construction helmet and boots. My work continued even while at home, says Kshanika.

All their belongings were in boxes as they were planning to shift from their present house to another home. The babys things too was not ready, no cot, no cradlenothing as they thought they had time and many people had promised to gift them or lend them stuff.

Just before the curfew, while Mevan was caught up in heavy work, Kshanika had driven around and got a bag ready with nappies and a few of her maternity clothes.

The curfew also put paid to their attempts to meet and have a chat with the midwife, instead long conversations they had on the phone with Rennie encouraging Kshanika to continue the yoga breathing practices she had begun when she took to Kandyan dancing as a girl. She was also a good swimmer.

Both were working at a hectic pace and Mevan says their lifestyle was in zombie mode.

As they were on the verge of moving, they had no food stocks and had to borrow from their landlady. Maundy Thursday, the day before the birth, they watched the Christian service on TV and Kshanika made pol-rotti for dinner, finding that there was flour enough for just four which she told Mevan to have, while she had a soup and salad.

And the baby did decide to come early, laughs Kshanika, recalling that before their marriage she had seen a YouTube video on The birth of Sloane by Natasha Hance which riveted her attention. It was about water-birthing and she thought that she too would like to go down that pathway.

When they married and she conceived, Mevan however, was skeptical and had many queries about the possibility of the baby drowning. It seemed non-negotiable. Sheepishly, she asked Dr. Ranaweera at their first consultation and he was open to the idea, suggesting that they check out the facilities being done up at Ninewells Hospital.

Dr. Ranaweera, meanwhile, had been fascinated with the concept of water-birthing  which was solely handled by a well-experienced and skilled midwife  during his post-graduate training in the UK.

This is a well-established and routine birthing process in the UK for low-risk expectant mothers, it is understood.

Water-birthing is in keeping with the concept of positive childbirth promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) under which expectant mothers have a choice. It has many advantages and studies have shown that water-birthing reduces pain and cuts out the need for pain relief medication because such relief comes through breathing techniques and the water itself, he says when contacted by the Sunday Times, pointing out that it was also found to reduce the duration of labour, while reducing the bleeding after delivery.

There was also less need for an episiotomy (a surgical cut made at the opening of the vagina during childbirth) and mothers who delivered through water-birthing were found to have fewer perineal tears.

Many people question whether the baby would be affected by the water soon after birth, but remember that the baby is in an amniotic sac with fluid, he says.

There is also evidence that there is no increase in infection from the water for mother and baby, when comparing a water-birth and normal delivery, it is understood.

Dr. Ranaweera says that for the mother, the experience is positive and all about having a choice, moving away from the Sri Lankan mindset that a woman gives birth daha-duk vindala (with much pain). This helps the mother to enjoy the birth. This is another milestone in the maternal quality of care in Sri Lanka.

Echoing his views, Kshanika says she is happy to be a pioneer where the expectant mother is in control of the delivery and she hopes that more women would be empowered to make a choice on how they wish to deliver their babies.

For Kshanika and Mevan the water-birth of their firstborn is the fulfilment of a hope closest to their hearts and for Dr. Ranaweera it is a dream come true, while a tiny baby boy is establishing his own routine, oblivious that he has made obstetric history in Sri Lanka.

1990s: A baby is born in a tubful of water in a home in the hills Tipped off by Dr. Probhodana Ranaweera that there had been a home water-birth in Sri Lanka before his time, we followed up and traced it to Obstetrician Prof. Jayantha Sirisena now living in New Zealand. It was a long time ago, said Prof. Sirisena who was then attached to the Peradeniya Medical Faculty as a Senior Lecturer and Gynaecologist & Obstetrician at the Peradeniya Hospital. A long-haired artist, Rahju, living about 10 km from Kandy had come with a friend of Prof. Sirisenas and requested a water-birth for his wife. After reading the material available on such births which was not much, Prof. Sirisena had visited their home set amidst spectacular scenery, which could be accessed only in a four-wheel drive jeep and seen a fibreglass tub made ready for the birth. He had laid down certain conditions including the need for the jeep to be ready in case of an emergency. It was at the height of the JVP troubles in 1988-89 when Prof. Sirisena was informed that Rahjus wife was in labour. Rushing to a private hospital in Kandy, he had picked up the obstetric instruments and gone in his car, finding to his surprise that Rahju was on a motorcycle to take him to their home. Watching and waiting for about three hours, Prof. Sirisena had not been happy with the babys heartbeat and insisted that they go to hospital. The journey out was nerve-wracking. Rahjus wife and I were ferried to my car in turns on the mo-bike as the jeep was not starting and then we drove down to the private hospital where I delivered a little girl, recalls Prof. Sirisena. It was a normal delivery not involving water. A few years later, in the mid-1990s, Rahju had appeared again with the same request for their second child, whom Prof. Sirisena delivered in a tubful of warm water in their home in the hills. Mother and baby were fine, says Prof. Sirisena, adding that the parents named their son, Ravana.
The ongoing pandemic has helped the world take cognizance of the importance of online education. This was what the Minister of Education of Tunisia, Mohamed el Hamdi declared as his department signed a partnership agreement with the National TV channel and Radio for the launch of an educational TV channel. As school are closed due to the pandemic, governments are looking for ways to continue classes for students since their home. The partnership with the TV channel and radio will allow Tunisian students to follow tutorship classes from their home.

Similar solution is already being experienced in Senegal through Groupe Futur Media (GFTM) TV channel, in Cameroon and soon in Togo.
By Dave Hueston, KYODO NEWS - Apr 18, 2020 - 13:25 | Feature, All, Japan, Coronavirus

As the coronavirus pandemic rages unabated, nations around the world have started looking at each other to understand how they might impede the virus' spread.

Some experts say customs and social habits in Japan such as wearing face masks during seasonal flu outbreaks, bowing rather than handshaking, and removing shoes at home might play some role in hindering transmission of the virus, although to what extent is still unknown.

But even as the scientific evidence remains pending, populations in Western countries have embraced at least one habit -- the donning of face masks in public -- that just months earlier they had seen as a quirk of Japanese or East Asian behavior.

At the same time, Japan's apparently robust practices of social hygiene could have a downside, too -- the lack of urgency with which Japan is embracing social distancing, possibly due to overconfidence in the protection afforded by its hygiene habits.

Wakaba Fukushima, a professor at the Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine in the Department of Public Health, said in an email to Kyodo News that particular social customs found in Japan and other East Asian cultures are "potentially effective in fighting the spread of coronavirus."

"However, results have not been reported, and we do not know at present to 'what extent' it might be valid based on proper epidemiological research, such as for example comparing the differences in infection rates and morbidity rates of people who practice these customs against those who do not," she said.

Josh Santarpia, an associate professor of pathology and microbiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and research director of Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction at the University of Nebraska's National Strategic Research Institute, acknowledged such Japanese customs "probably didn't hurt."

"Rigorous hygiene practices are very important to preventing the spread of disease, so anytime these practices are already ingrained it helps," said Santarpia.

But he added that there were dangers in the adoption of mask-wearing by populations unaccustomed to it. In the United States, people frequently touch or adjust them, posing significant contamination risks. To have a "positive effect," people need to "wear them properly," he said.

Experts have warned about how the coronavirus can cling to non-human surfaces, such as keyboards, doorknobs, countertops and even cardboard boxes, and some are now acknowledging what might seem obvious: it could last for days on the soles of your shoes.

That said, Dr. Amira Roess, a professor of global health and epidemiology at George Mason University, says person-to-person transmission through "respiratory droplets" poses a much higher risk of infection than from contaminated surfaces.

So what explains the discrepancies in confirmed infection and death rates among countries of similar socioeconomic levels? Is it an issue with cultural norms helping slow the spread of the disease, implementing proper testing protocols or other underlying factors?

("The Genkan is a traditional Japanese entrance for a house or apartment. The main function of a genkan is for the removal of shoes before entering the main part of the house.)

[LightRocket/Getty/Kyodo]

In Japan, the confirmed rate of infection has been low thus far -- about 72 confirmed cases per million people in a population of 126 million, according to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the United Nations as of April 17.

One factor that may be keeping the figure low is Japan's modest testing rate compared with other countries. As of Thursday, Japan had tested about 100,000 people, or a rate of 0.8 tests per 1,000 people, compared with over 540,000 tests (10.46/1,000) in South Korea, according to Our World in Data.

But even taking that into account, the comparison with infection cases in other developed countries -- over 2,000 per million people in the United States and 3,900/million in Spain -- is stark, especially considering Japan's huge population of elderly people, who are seen as more susceptible to the virus.

When celebrities in Japan call on fans on social media to take precautions against the virus with protective measures, they generally appeal for people to just do more of what they are already used to.

"Let's strive to practice our everyday customs of gargling and handwashing, especially when we go into large crowds. Protection starts with small things. I don't doubt this," actor Koji Matoba wrote on his official blog on Jan. 30.

Rena Kato, a member of the female idol group AKB48, posted on Twitter the same day, "It pains me that our New Year handshaking fan event had to be canceled. Everyone, please take care of your health. Wash your hands and gargle! And don't forget your masks!"

The question of why Japan remains one of the least impacted countries by COVID-19 has also been a talking point on social media.

Some posters have pointed to a list of personal hygiene norms, such as face masks worn zealously during the flu season, the use of toilet bidets, and baths taken almost daily.

The frequent washing of hands, use of oshibori (hot towels) for cleansing the hands and face at restaurants, and the custom of bowing, instead of handshaking, cheek-kissing or other forms of physical contact, were brought up as a type of baked-in "social distancing" pervasive in society long before COVID-19 started making headlines.

Although people may squeeze onto rush-hour trains, there is very little talking among many of the masked commuters, who are told in repeated public announcements to refrain from chatting on their cellphones, which is considered rude.

Even so, skepticism was also in evidence on social media about Japan's relatively low coronavirus numbers, with about 10,000 confirmed cases and around 200 confirmed deaths reported by Japan's health ministry as of April 17.

Experts point out that cases of COVID-19 in all countries have been undercounted to some degree because of limited testing.

"One of the biggest challenges with comparing countries, and even cities, is that testing protocols and test kit availability are different everywhere," said Roess.

But while testing protocols affect official government tallies, the culture around trusting the government and following its recommendations and the infrastructure of the health care system likely play key roles, too, she said.

On Thursday, Tasuku Honjo, a distinguished professor at Kyoto University who shared the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, said on a television program that Japan needs to ramp up PCR tests to detect virus infections to more than 10,000 per day, compared with the current peak of about 7,000 in mid-April -- dividing cases up into people with serious, mild and no symptoms.

As part of his emergency proposals, he also urged residents of the three cities of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya to impose "complete self-restraint from outings" for one month.

"This is a fight against an invisible ninja. The battlefield is at home and abroad, and it is necessary to know where and to what degree the enemy exists around us," Honjo said.

Fukushima, a representative of the Japan Epidemiological Association based in Tokyo, said that predictions could be made about the effectiveness of practices such as handwashing and bowing instead of handshakes and hugs, since "the virus when attached to fingers can use the mucous membranes of the eyes, mouth and nose as portals of entry for potential infection."

Masks, she stresses, are believed to control infection transmissions by reducing the dispersion of droplets discharged from the mouths of infected persons.

She noted that a preliminary study published in early March in the Japan Medical Association on the dispersal of viral traces at an outbreak center in Singapore found positive samples of COVID-19 from a symptomatic patient beyond just personal protective equipment of medical staff.

"The virus was detected from the floor of the patient's room, and for PPE the front surface of shoes. That does not immediately suggest a harmful effect from outdoor shoes, but it also suggests that we cannot rule out the virus clinging to shoes and being transported by them, either," Fukushima said.

[Our World in Data]

Santarpia also found viral contamination in air samples, surfaces such as toilets and other surfaces that are frequently touched in a preliminary report published in late March, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, on the database medRxiv. He will likely start looking at viral contamination of clothing and shoes of health care workers soon, he says.

But he said it was too early to make a correlation between the rate of COVID-19 cases and various hygiene practices across cultures slowing the progression of the disease.

"Overall, I think we will have to wait until this is over to be able to truly see how the pandemic impacts different countries and cultures, but those countries who already practice many rules that some countries are slow to accept, may have an advantage," he said.

A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that about half of health care professionals working in intensive care units carried the coronavirus on the soles of their shoes at a hospital in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak started.

Asked about the effectiveness of Japan's practice of removing shoes before entering the home in protecting against COVID-19, Roess, an expert on global zoonotic infectious diseases, said infection from shoes of SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is unlikely, but an abundance of caution is still warranted.

"There is evidence that having a no-shoes-in-the-house policy can reduce the risk of pathogens that cause diarrhea, and this is especially important if you have infants or young children who are crawling and putting things in their mouths," she added.

Aside from homes, schools in Japan require students to remove their shoes, which are placed in a shoe rack called a getabako, all the way through high school.

Most temples, shrines, traditional inns, and hot springs resorts require you to remove your shoes -- all in the name of cleanliness. Some restaurants, which also provide cubbyholes, ask patrons to take shoes off. And clothing stores will often request that you remove them before entering a changing booth.

Fearing an explosion of cases, the Japanese government has declared a nationwide state of emergency to curb the spread of the new coronavirus after an alarming growth in cases in urban areas, including Tokyo and Osaka, urging residents to refrain from nonessential outings and some businesses to shut.

Social distancing, however, has been lax in comparison to the strict guidelines being followed in other countries, with not much evidence of people observing the 2-meters-apart distancing goal set by Tokyo's governor, Yuriko Koike, who has asked residents to refrain from being in enclosed spaces, crowded places or in close contact with each other.

Plastic curtains have been installed at many convenience store checkout counters to prevent infections between customers and store employees.

[Getty/Kyodo]

And while schools have closed and universities, cinemas, live music venues, nightclubs, pachinko parlors and internet cafes have been asked to suspend operations in the capital and elsewhere under the state of emergency, Tokyo's restaurants and Japanese-style "izakaya" pubs are still operating, although they have been requested to shut by 8 p.m.

"There is probably still this feeling of 'As long as I have my mask I'll be fine," said Fukushima. "But with the declaration of a nationwide state of emergency (on April 16), people here probably will not be in a situation where they can continue saying this."

Scientists are still grappling with many unanswered questions about how the disease can spread, including through people who show little or no symptoms in what might be aerosol transmissions -- fine particles that can stay suspended in the air for hours -- and surface contact transmissions.

What will be the takeaways learned from various cultures in a world utterly transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic?

Life in the United States could also be radically different with social distancing measures enduring until 2022, including waiters using face masks and gloves and throwaway menus, until a vaccine is found, according to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health. But will it become more like Japan?

"There is evidence that wearing masks, good hand hygiene, and practicing social distancing are the best ways to halt the spread of the virus. Cultural norms in Japan include some of these and time will tell if those are, in fact, why Japan has lower COVID-19 infection and death rates than other countries," Roess said.
Chairperson of the Tralee Chamber Alliance Ken Tobin on the deathly-quiet streets of the countys capital and main commercial hub. Photo by Domnick Walsh

The local economy's reliance on tourism has seen Kerry take a far harder hit than other counties from the COVID-19 shut down according to the results of a major business survey carried out by Chambers Ireland.

In all 155 Kerry businesses - of all sizes and representing all sectors - took part in the survey which was carried out by the national chambers of commerce network group between April 3 and 6 last.

Accounting for 14 per cent of all respondents Kerry's business interests are very well represented in the survey, the results of which make for sobering reading.

While almost every business in the country has been hit by the lockdown the survey shows the disparity in the impact in different regions.

For example while nationally 42 per cent of businesses have been forced to shut entirely in Kerry the figure, 70 per cent is far higher with the vast majority of those expecting to be closed for 12 weeks.

Similarly when it comes to staff lay-offs Kerry is far above the national average. Nationally 47 per cent of businesses have been forced to lay off staff but in Kerry that figure rises to a massive 65 per cent.

Meanwhile two in every five Kerry businesses - double the national average - have been forced to lay off every single one of their staff.

Of those that have managed to avoid lay-off practically all have been forced to cut hours or bring in home working arrangements.

Just one per cent of Kerry businesses that took art in the survey said they had been able to continue trading with no changes or cuts to staff working arrangements.

Tralee Chamber Alliance Chief Executive Ken Tobin said the survey shows the heavy toll the lockdown is taking on Kerry.

Mr Tobin said the findings also prove the need for bespoke economic aid packages - not a one size fits all solution - to help counties and regions with very different needs recover when the crisis ends.

"The results show a more significant impact on businesses in Kerry, because as a county we are very reliant on our Tourism and Hospitality sector. Therefore, it should come as no shock that we are showing double the national average of lay-offs and double the impact on business revenue," said Mr Tobin.

"For those who have closed their business completely, the majority expect to remain closed for at least 12 weeks. Unfortunately, as we're seeing in other countries, the period of closure is likely to be longer for some businesses. This will have a significant impact across all sectors in Kerry, bringing us into the start of the Summer season, and with some restrictions expected to continue for weeks after that, it looks likely at this stage that the peak season will be missed almost entirely unless we get significant Government support now," Mr Tobin said.

While initial Government support measures - such as the wage subsidy scheme - have been welcomed Mr Tobin said much greater levels of aid are needed to help most businesses survive.

These include cashflow and liquidity grants - not loans - to help businesses reopen their doors. Such a measure is sought by 96 per cent of the Kerry respondents to the Chamber's Ireland survey.

"There is almost unanimous agreement that a post-COVID-19 stimulus package is required and that part of these measures must include the provision of grants for business to help them re-open their doors and restore jobs lost. The measures already introduced, while important, were just a first response to support business to hibernate, we now need a real plan to wake up the economy, Mr Tobin said.

There are also calls for a far longer break in commercial rates payment with 86 per cent of Kerry businesses saying the Government's offer of a tow month 'rates holiday' not going anywhere far enough.

Most businesses in Kerry are seeking a seven month break though they acknowledge steps would also bee needed to protect Kerry County Council from the ensuing financial fallout.

"It is clear and obvious that businesses impacted by the restrictions in place will not be in a position to pay rates for some time to come, and that directly impacts on the services that the Local Authority can deliver. Without the rates from businesses the county cannot function," said Mr Tobin.

"Without Central Government support for the Local Authority to bridge the shortfall, then many worthwhile community projects, festivals, county marketing and job creation projects and other essential services will be curtailed right when they are needed most to lift the county," he said.
Continuing a long-standing tradition, the scholarship committee of the Hale County Stock Show announced its recipients for 2020.

Each year the committee meets to review applications from graduating seniors who have been accepted to college for the coming summer or fall term. Applicants must have participated in the Hale County Livestock Show and submit applications which include a review of activities and awards, grades and an essay.

The years scholarship recipients include Wrye Akers of Abernathy, Seth Berry of Cotton Center, Darcie Burnett of Hale Center, and Audrey Gicante of Petersburg. Each will receive a $500 Scholarship for the upcoming summer or fall term.

Akers, daughter of Steven and Cindy, has been an active seven-year member of 4-H and four-year member of FFA. She plans to study agricultural leadership to enter the field of government affairs/lobbyist.

Berrys parents are Shane and Shelley. He is an active member of five years in FFA and 10 years in 4-H and plans to study sustainable agriculture and agroecology to become a farmer.

Burnett, whose parents are Troy and Saralyn, plans to study speech, language, and hearing science to become a speech pathologist. She has been an active five-year member of FFA and thirteen-year member of 4-H.

Gicantes parents are John and Katherine. She is an active eight-year member of FFA and plans to study animal science to become a doctor of large animal veterinary medicine.

Each of these individuals has proven work ethic, leadership skills, strong academics and a desire to be active in their respective schools, communities or churches. They are fine examples for their peers and the stock show committee has all confidence that they will do well in college.

The Hale County Stock Show is led by a board of directors from across the county. The show and related events are held in January.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) gives a thumbs up during a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 18, 2016. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Rep. McCaul Accuses Chinese Communist Party of Worst Cover-up Over COVID-19

Rep. Michael McCaul (RTexas) has accused the Chinese Communist Party of covering up and controlling investigations during the initial days of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in large-scale death and destruction.

Its clear that the Chinese Communist Party were engaged in what I call the worst cover-up in human history, causing economic and death and destruction, McCaul said in Americas Newsroom on Fox News on Thursday.

The congressman from Texas, who also serves on the Houses Foreign Affairs Committee, said the Chinese regime waited six days in January to warn of the likelihood of a pandemic and instead went on to detain eight doctors who sounded the alarm about the lethal viral disease.

After that point in time, they went into the laboratories and destroyed lab samples in an attempt to cover-up and also control the investigation, said McCaul and further went ahead to give a timeline of what happened after that.

Then you go into the January timeframe, it becomes very interesting because at that time you had not only the doctors but Taiwan and the WHO medical personnel in Wuhan warning the WHO. And now we just found out an internal Chinese Communist Party memo from within in, in January, at very high levels warning that this was, in fact, human-to-human transmission, said McCaul.

The Congressman said the WHO, instead of issuing an international public health emergency, decided to keep quiet, and at that time China was also celebrating the spring festival.

Five million people leave Wuhan, travel throughout China and then millions of people from China travel internationally. This could have been stopped, this could have been contained, but instead, we now have a global pandemic, said McCaul.

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would halt funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) over its handling of the CCP virus pandemic while his administration reviews its response to the global crisis.

Trump, at a White House news conference, said the WHO had failed in its basic duty and it must be held accountable. He said the group had promoted Chinas disinformation about the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus, that likely led to a wider outbreak of the virus than otherwise would have occurred.

The United States is the biggest overall donor to the Geneva-based WHO, contributing more than $400 million in 2019, roughly 15 percent of its budget.

The Epoch Times web staff contributed to this report.
MANDEL NGAN

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, was among several inmates at a federal prison camp in upstate New York who were told they would be released into home confinement because of concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, several defense lawyers said Friday.

The inmates were all serving sentences at the minimum-security camp, which is attached to a medium-security federal prison in Otisville, about 75 miles northwest of New York City. The federal Bureau of Prisons did not immediately respond to questions about the reported plan to allow some prisoners there to serve their sentences at home under supervision.
Three days after 50,000 personal protective equipment (PPE) kits reached Assam from China, state Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said those would not be used for now as rumours have been spread about their quality, creating doubt in the minds of doctors and nurses.

"Baseless allegations" had come from some quarters that the Chinese kits had failed the tests and were rejected by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the minister said.

The DRDO has already clarified through an official statement that no kit was rejected, he told a press conference.

"Several doctors and nurses have messaged me regarding these kits as they are in doubt about their quality. We do not want them to feel demotivated or confused at this juncture. They are engaged in a battle against the coronavirus and we have decided not to use those PPE kits for now," Sarma said.

Assam had directly imported 50,000 PPE kits from Guangzhou in China and Sarma himself had received the consignment at the airport here on April 15.

"We have asked the suppliers to keep the kits in their store and in the meantime, we will send a few for testing to government-accredited laboratories," the minister said.

He said some people are indulging in politics by spreading false and baseless allegations but the authorities are now more concerned about the medical staff, who are at the forefront of the fight against the virus.

"Only they who will decide when they are ready to use the kits," Sarma said.

He said the state government had placed the order with the suppliers "when we had around 2,000 PPE kits only, but now we have 1.50 lakh kits with us. It gives a mental strength to know that these are available in our stores and can be used, if required".

The state already had one lakh PPE kits and with the arrival of this consignment, "we are nearer to our target of two lakh, at which it will be capped", Sarma said.

"Now we are using the Indian kits but we have the Chinese kits in our reserve stock. Those will be made available when required," he added.

The stock can also be sent to the neighbouring states, if they need it, the minister said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Rev. Andrew Greeley, the outspoken Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and sociologist known for his deeply researched academic appraisals and sometimes scathing critiques of his church, died Wednesday night, several years after fracturing his skull in a freakish fall.



The Rev. Greeley died in his sleep at his apartment at the John Hancock Center, according to his spokeswoman, June Rosner. He was 85.

Rosner said the Rev. Greeley had been in poor health since an accident on Nov. 7, 2008. He was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Medical Center after being injured outside the Rosemont Blue Line "L" stop when a piece of his clothing apparently got caught in the door of a departing taxi and he was thrown to the pavement.

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The family released a statement this morning saying "our lives have been tremendously enriched by having the presence of Fr. Andrew Greeley in our family. First and foremost as a loving uncle who was always there for us with unfailing support or with a gentle nudge, who shared with us both the little things and the big moments of family life.



"But we were specially graced that this man was also an amazing priest who recently celebrated the 59th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. He served the Church all those years with a prophetic voice and with unfailing dedication, and the Church he and our parents taught us to love is a better place because of him. Our hearts are heavy with grief, but we find hope in the promise of Heaven that our uncle spent his life proclaiming to us, his friends, his parishioners and his many fans. He resides now with the Lord of the Dance, and that dance will go on."

A highly-regarded sociologist, preternaturally prolific author and unabashedly liberal Chicago priest, the Rev. Greeley regularly took his church to task in both his fiction and his scholarly work. His non-fiction books covered topics from Catholic education to Irish history to Jesus' relationships with women.

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The Rev. Greeley authored some 50 best-selling novels and more than 100 works of non-fiction that were translated into 12 languages.

His racy novels and detective stories, which often closely paralleled real events, aired out Catholic controversies and hummed with detailed bedroom romps that kept readers rapt and coming back for more. Best-sellers like The Cardinal Sins in 1981 earned him millions of dollars, much of which he donated to the church and charities.



The Rev. Greeley filled many of his books with the results of work he did at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, where he'd done work since his days as a doctoral candidate in the early 1960s. He also taught sociology at the University of Arizona. But, Greeley said his immense body of research and writing was merely a reflection of his calling to be a priest.



"I'm a priest, pure and simple," Greeley told the Tribune in 1992. "The other things I do  sociological research, my newspaper columns, the novels I write  are just my way of being a priest. I decided I wanted to be one when I was a kid growing up on the West Side. I've never wavered or wanted to be anything but."



The Rev. Greeley's research at NORC showed "that the idea that societies inevitably become more secular as they modernize is untrue," said Tom W. Smith, director of the General Social Survey at NRC.



"I think he drew many of his hypotheses from his vocation as a Catholic priest," Smith said in an e-mailed statement. "He then put those ideas to rigorous scientific testing."



The Rev. Greeley criticized the church hierarchy over issues including its teaching on contraception and the way bishops handled the sexual abuse crisis. His blunt criticism set him apart from other Catholic sociologists, said Martin Marty, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago Divinity School.



"Some sociologists are cautious," Marty said. "He took risks all the time. But he was extremely careful to be sure he had the data."

"So, he didn't just crunch numbers. He interpreted them....and he was never afraid to interpret things very loudly."



Marty, who also shared the same Feb. 5 birthday as the Rev. Greeley, said there was never any doubt that the Rev. Greeley loved the church.



"He was a very, very faithful Catholic and he was a proudly celibate priest. He wasn't ever changing himself," Marty said.



Much of his more recent research on Catholicism included calls for the Church to respond to the needs of contemporary Catholics.

In his 2004 book, "The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old Wineskins, and the Second Vatican Council," the Rev. Greeley wrote that the Vatican II reforms caused a rift between leadership and laity that resulted in a new generation of Catholics who have redefined the faith in their own terms.



These Catholics, the Rev. Greeley wrote, hold onto core doctrines and traditions even as they disagree with the rules in such areas as sexual behavior.



Robert McClory, associate professor emeritus at Northwestern University and a former priest, said the Rev. Greeley was one of the few Catholic scholars who was able to critique the Catholic Church without himself becoming a dissident.



"He was able to be critical of the hierarchical church while balancing that criticism with the sound sociological data that he had been working on for more than 40 years," McClory said.



"It's not as if he was dissenting. He would say, 'The figures are there, you can look at them and the church needs to decide what to do about that.' "



McClory said the Rev. Greeley also had the gift of making his data clear and interesting to the general public.



"He was not a scholarly sociologist," he said. "He had a popular approach to his writing which interested people on issues that they would not normally be interested in."



The Rev. Greeley possessed an unpredictable, sometimes volatile temperament which resulted in people following his columns to find out what he would say. He lashed out at the Bush administration in a series of essays that became a book entitled, "A Stupid, Unjust, And Criminal War: Iraq 2001-2007." Before the 2008 election, the Rev. Greeley wrote a column predicting Barack Obama would lose because racism would defeat him.



"He was gutsy. He was not afraid to take on the religious and political establishments," McClory said.



His muscular writing and straightforward opinions are evidenced in an excerpt from his 2004 book, "Priests: A Calling in Crisis," written after the church's sexual abuse crisis:



"In the worst-case scenario, the Catholic Church in the United States....may go down the drain, but not because of attacking infidels, not because of celibacy or homosexuality or sexual abuse, not because of secularism and materialism, but because of incompetence, stupidity, and clerical culture  all enemies from within."



The Rev. Greeley's research often contradicted commonly held opinions, according to the Rev. John Cusick of Old St. Patrick's Church in Chicago, who called the Rev. Greeley a mentor.

Cusick recalled opining that young people were leaving the church until the Rev. Greeley set him straight  young people still identified themselves as Catholic, they just didn't practice their religion in the same way as previous generations.



"He taught me to trust the data, don't just trust hunches," Cusick said. "He's an intellectual. He could wax a story and in the next breath carry on a phenomenally intellectual conversation with anyone in Hyde Park."



In Chicago's religious circles, Greeley was praised by some as a philosopher-priest and panned by others as an irascible trouble maker.



Catholic officials often didn't know what to make of the controversial priest. In 1986, then-Cardinal Joseph Bernardin reportedly turned down $1 million the Rev. Greeley offered to support Catholic Schools  the Rev. Greeley instead established a private fund for the archdiocese's inner city schools.



Seventeen years later, the Chicago Archdiocese accepted the Rev. Greeley's donation of $420,000 for a scholarship endowment.

The Rev. Greeley grew up in Chicago's Austin neighborhood and attended St. Angela School and Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary.



He studied for the priesthood at St. Mary of the Lake seminary in Mundelein and was ordained in May 1954. He earned a doctorate in 1962 from the University of Chicago. While studying for his doctorate he was attached to Christ the King parish in Chicago's Beverly neighborhood.



His prodigious output amazed even those he knew him best.



"I was with him  years ago in the summer, and he was writing three books simultaneously," Cusick said. "Go and figure that one out."

ttjensen@tribune.com
Switzerland has expressed solidarity with India in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic by projecting the tricolour on the famous Matterhorn mountain in the Swiss Alps to give "hope and strength" to all Indians.

Swiss light artist Gerry Hofstetter has been lighting up the 4,478-meter pyramidal peak straddling between Switzerland and Italy with spectacular displays of flags of different countries and messages of hope as part of a nightly series supporting the nations combating the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

"As one of the most populous countries in the world, India is suffering from the Corona crisis. The challenges in such a large country are immense. The Indian flag on the Matterhorn is intended to express our solidarity and give hope and strength to all Indians," the tourism organisation Zermatt Matterhorn wrote on its Facebook page.

"Indian Tricolor of more than 1000 meters in size projected on Matterhorn Mountain, Zermatt, Switzerland to express Solidarity to all Indians in the fight against COVID 19. A big Thank You to @zermatt_tourism for the gesture," the Indian embassy in Switzerland tweeted.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also shared the tweet with a caption saying, "The world is fighting COVID-19 together. Humanity will surely overcome this pandemic."



As the world grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, Switzerland has been sending out messages of hope, love and empathy. The daily projections have been illuminating the mountain since the end of March.

The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 480 and the number of cases to 14,378 in India on Saturday, according to the Union Health Ministry. The country has extended the nationwide lockdown till May 3 to stem the spread of coronavirus.

According to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University, a total of 154,142 people have died and 2,242,868 people have been infected by the novel coronavirus that originated in China in November last year.

Over 35,000 people have died in the US and the country has 701,131 infections, the highest in the world.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The NSW government won't yet commit to assisting in a bailout for Virgin, despite Queensland offering a potential lifeline to the embattled airline amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Virgin is 90 per cent owned by Singapore Airlines, Etihad Airways, the Chinese conglomerates HNA and Nanshan, and Richard Branson's Virgin Group. Credit:Wolter Peeters

Australia's second largest carrier, which has been in a trading halt since Tuesday, has grounded almost its entire fleet and is drowning in close to $5 billion of debt.

Asked whether the NSW government would follow their northern neighbours in helping Virgin, Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said the state was working to keep people employed during the COVID-19 pandemic, but stopped short of committing to financial assistance for the airline.

Meanwhile the Victorian government outright rejected calls from Queensland for "all governments" to lend a hand to Virgin.
This article is part of the Free Speech Project , a collaboration between Future Tense and the Tech, Law, & Security Program at American University Washington College of Law that examines the ways technology is influencing how we think about speech.

The coronavirus pandemic is spurring social media companies to implement some of the most aggressive misinformation policies yet. On Thursday, Facebook announced that it will start notifying users if they have liked, reacted to, or commented on harmful misinformation about COVID-19 that the company has since removed. Examples of such posts include claims that social distancing is ineffective or that drinking bleach will cure the disease. These notifications will also connect users to COVID-19 myths debunked by the World Health Organization. The goal is essentially corrective: Alert users of fake news theyve encountered, then steer them toward the truth.

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Facebook plans to unveil this new feature in the coming weeks, but its still testing how the notifications will look, a Facebook spokesperson told Axios. The company has also added a new Get the Facts section to its COVID-19 Information Center at the top of the news feed that features fact-checked articles that disprove misinformation about the disease.

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This is the latest step in Facebooks efforts to counter coronavirus misinformation. In the past month, the company has grown its fact-checking program, which works with a network of over 60 fact-checking organizations around the world. Facebook attached warnings to about 40 million coronavirus-related posts in March alone, and the company said its removed hundreds of thousands of posts with false claims that could lead to imminent physical harm since the start of the pandemic. So far, over 350 million people on Facebook and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) have clicked through pop-ups and the COVID-19 Information Center to learn more about the disease.

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Facebook is not the only social media platform to expand its policies amid the pandemic. Last week, WhatsApp imposed strict limits on forwarding messages to slow the spread of misinformation, though it cant flag or remove specific information like Facebook, its parent company, since its end-to-end encryption blocks moderators from seeing users messages. On March 18, Twitter created a policy to combat COVID-19 misinformation that includes removing tweets with content that increases the chance that someone contracts or transmits the virus. But a study by the Reuters Institute at Oxford University found last week that almost 60 percent of false claims about COVID-19 remain on the platform without a warning label. YouTube has been removing thousands of COVID-19 videos, including some from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaros channel, for spreading medical misinformation.

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Yet some of these plansincluding Facebooks misinformation notificationmay not be as foolproof as social media companies hope. Facebook said that users who encounter warning labels dont go on to view the original content 95 percent of the time. But misinformation warnings and notifications dont always have the intended effect: They can lead to what researchers have called the implied-truth effect, where the selective labeling of false information makes all unlabeled content seem legitimate. This is a huge problem, because fact-checking is hard and slow, whereas making up fake stories is fast and easy, David Rand, an associate professor of management science and brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, told Intelligencer.

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In Facebooks case, 24 percent of the platforms false or misleading content has remained up without a warning as of last Tuesday, according to the Reuters Institute study. While Facebooks latest policy will help to fix the damage done by posts that have now been removed, it doesnt address the harmful content that still exists, unlabeled, on its platform. According to a recent study on false news labels, which Rand co-authored, that might require labeling verified content true to eliminate ambiguity, or employing more fact-checkers to assess every single piece of COVID-19-related content on the platform. But it will be difficult to fully address: After all, social media platforms were designed to increase engagement and traffic, accuracy notwithstanding. As the director general of WHO put it, were in a middle of an infodemic, where informationfalse or notspreads faster and more easily than this virus.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
Health officials have refused to say how many Northern Ireland care home residents have died from Covid-19. (Yui Mok/PA)

Health officials have refused to say how many Northern Ireland care home residents have died from Covid-19.

The extent of the spread of the deadly virus through care homes here remains unclear despite an earlier commitment by the Health Minister to provide clarity on the matter.

According to figures released on Friday, 26% or 41 of the 157 deaths involving Covid-19 here since the beginning of the pandemic up until April 10, happened in 23 care homes and hospices.

However, the statistics do not identify the deaths that occurred solely in care homes.

They also do not identify how many of the 109 people who have died in hospital contracted the virus in a care home, and it is unclear whether the information is being collected by health officials.

There were also 7 at private addresses.

It comes as it can be revealed that three of the 10 residents of Owen Mor Care Centre in Londonderry, where there is currently a coronavirus outbreak, who died between March 28 and April 14 passed away in hospital.

This means that their deaths are not included in the figure of 41 that was released by officials on Friday, while health officials have also been unable to state how many care home residents or staff have been diagnosed with Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.

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There are serious concerns over the measures that have been put in place to protect care home residents and a leading dementia charity has also called for diagnostic tests to be carried out on all residents and staff at care homes where 10% of people are known to have Covid-19 - a measure that is not currently in place.

Paula Bradshaw, Alliance Party health spokeswoman, said: "It would be very useful for a whole host of reasons to know the scale of infection in care homes. We need to know this first and foremost for families. However, we also need to know so that we can identify patterns and clusters to help us bring down the virus infection rate."

Ms Bradshaw has also raised concerns about the level of funding being made available to independent care homes - a sector that was already struggling to provide services prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Royal College of Nursing estimates there is a shortage of more than 2,600 nursing staff in the independent sector in Northern Ireland, while it is not uncommon for care homes to operate with unsafe staffing levels due to the recognised workforce shortage.

Ms Bradshaw continued: "The pressures on our care homes are immense and consideration needs to be given urgently to providing them with emergency financial support to ensure patient and staff safety."

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Health Minister Robin Swann has given an assurance that the safety of care home residents is a priority, and on Friday his Executive colleagues Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill expressed their sympathies to the bereaved families of care home residents.

First Minister Foster said: "We think particularly of all those who have passed away in care homes and I want to send a very clear message to their families that your precious loved ones will not be forgotten."

The Department of Health declined to comment on the collation of Covid-19 cases in care homes.

The Public Health Agency said officials are not "currently publishing detailed information relating to individual care homes due to patient confidentiality issues", with a spokeswoman adding: "However, as the situation progresses we hope to be able to produce more in-depth reports, which will include more detail."
Exports earnings would drop by $7 bln this year By Sunimalee Dias View(s): View(s):

Sri Lankas total exports are to see a significant drop this year amounting to a US$7 billion loss in earnings with the revised targets set to achieve $10.75 billion in earnings.

This would mean Sri Lanka will see a drop of about 42 per cent of its targeted export volume which was previously forecasted at $18.5 billion. Compared to last year when Sri Lankas export earnings topped $16.2 billion, this years forecast would see a 33 per cent drop in value, Export Development Board (EDB) Chairman Prabash Subasinghe told the Business Times.

In this respect the EDB has revised its export target for merchandise segment to be approximately $7531 million and $3219 million for the services segment.

Commenting on job losses, he explained that this is certain to happen however, no figures of job losses have been calculated as yet.

With the apparel, rubber and gem and jewellery sectors particularly affected as a result of the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic the global sales have reached zero level and the industries are struggling to survive.

The local rubber industry is adversely impacted since the global demand for solid tyres has been affected in addition to the new industries that commenced production like boat building, ornamental fish and certain electronic and electrical products, Mr. Subasinghe noted.

Government moves are underway to ensure the sustenance of the exports sector, he said adding that it is of paramount importance that the exports sector is a national priority right now.

With just about 10-15 per cent of the factories in all sectors currently operational, plans are underway to ensure that this needs to increase to at least 50 per cent, the EDB chairman said.

In this respect, even during curfew hours the government would ensure that workers would be allowed to travel to their respective workplaces to ensure continued production, he noted.

Mr. Subasinghe explained that factories would be advised to ensure they comply with the necessary Ministry of Health guidelines in resuming work and with the authorisation of the relevant Public Health Inspector of each area the factories would be made operational.

The EDB and the Board of Investment are authorised to inform the Police to issue curfew passes to these companies.

He noted that the biggest exports in seafood are carried out by air and these continue to be exported and exports continue to happen daily from Sri Lanka.

Currently the highest demand globally is for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for medical, food and beverage sectors and in this respect, the apparel sector could look at production in PPE, Mr. Subasinghe said.

In addition, the demand for soap and hand sanitizers could increase the production of these items.

Moreover, some of the agri foods and coconut-based products and other food items and certain petroleum products were likely to have just a marginal impact.

Mr. Subasinghe noted that conversely the agriculture exports was likely to increase due to the increased demand in food items globally.
India faces a tough challenge against the coronavirus pandemic, but with people staying strong and united, there is no reason why this obstacle can't be overcome.

People have being chipping in with whatever little contributions they can to help in fight against COVID-19. Now, a family in Maharashtra's Latur district have done something remarkable - they got their daughter married in a simple ceremony and donated the money saved for the occasion to fund the local administration's fight against coronavirus.

Representational Image

Vilas Boke, a resident of Udgir, donated Rs 51,000 he had saved for his daughter Geetanajli's wedding, along with 125 kits containing essentials, to the local administration.

Geetanjali married Swapnil Reddy in a simple ceremony in the presence of a few family members and officials from the local administration on Thursday, in keeping with the norms of social distancing.

AFP

The wedding was scheduled to be held on April 9, but when the coronavirus lockdown was announced, the ceremony was postponed to April 16.

Deputy collector Pravin Mengshetti, who attended the ceremony, told PTI, "The family's decision to help the needy at a time like this, is commendable. I hope this motivates more people to help others."

The number of coronavirus cases in India has climbed to 14,792, which includes 488 deaths, Union Health Ministry said on Saturday, adding that 957 new cases and 43 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.
Tiearra Sampson and her 4-year-old son, Zaiden Miles, on the front steps of her mother's West Philadelphia rowhouse on Easter. Sampson, who is 28 weeks pregnant, is among a growing number of local women who are seeking home births because they fear being exposed to coronavirus during labor and delivery at hospitals. Read more

Tiearra Sampson described the hospital birth of her son nearly five years ago as the worst delivery ever.

They gave me morphine. The morphine didnt work. They gave me an epidural. It didnt work, Sampson recalled. I still felt pain. I was throwing up."

After 12 hours in labor, she ended up having an emergency cesarean section at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP).

Still, Sampson, who is expecting her second child this summer, said shed rather have a home birth  though she is aware of the risks  than take the chance of exposing herself or her baby to coronavirus during a hospital delivery.

Sampson is one of a growing number of Philadelphia women who are seeking home births, even after a prior hospital delivery did not go smoothly. Whats more, theyll have to pay roughly $5,500 for a midwife, who is highly trained but whose fee is not covered by insurance.

The difficult decisions are being fueled by a lack of answers, compounded by a pandemic-era disconnect. Pregnant women such as Sampson say that virtual prenatal appointments  conducted by video or phone  havent helped to calm their unease. Obstetricians cant guarantee that laboring women wont contract the virus at the hospital. And its too early to know how the new disease might affect pregnant women and their babies.

Obstetricians and pediatricians have cautioned against home birth, advising women, especially those late in their pregnancy or at higher risk for complications, to stick with their initial birth plan.

Pregnant women need to know that hospitals continue to be a safe place for delivery. In fact, theyre still the safest place for delivery, Sindhu Srinivas, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist and HUPs director of obstetrical services, wrote in an Inquirer op-ed. It would be much more dangerous for a patient that is not a suitable candidate for an out-of-hospital birth to proceed with that option if it is not appropriate.

Yet expectant mothers are struggling to reconcile limits on prenatal appointments due to social distancing with assertions by doctors that hospitals are safe.

Its not like I get to teleport onto the labor and delivery floor when I go into labor, said Port Richmond mother Careen Goebig, who is nine months pregnant with her second child.

Its a mess

Sampson, 29, said she hasnt seen her obstetrician in person in more than a month. HUP staff canceled her previous two prenatal appointments. She said shes had appointments by phone, but its not the same.

We can talk about whatever, but its nothing like being there in person to check my blood pressure or to measure my baby, Sampson said. Ill send an email to my doctor, and Ill get an email back in two days, but a lot can happen in those 48 hours. Its a mess."

Sampson said she recently had a consultation with a midwife whose relaxed demeanor and attentiveness quieted her fears. Shes certain that she wants to try for a natural birth at her West Philadelphia home, even if theres a chance shell have to be rushed to the hospital for another C-section.

Sampson said she believes that the birth of her son in September 2015 at HUP ended in a C-section because the obstetrician did not give her body enough time to delivery vaginally. Everything was forced. I wasnt being heard, she said.

At 28 weeks pregnant, Sampson, a social worker with the city Department of Human Services, and her longtime fiance, who works in waste management, are scrambling to come up with money for a home birth. They have a little savings, but shes worried theyll need that rainy day money as ballast in the battered economy, she said.

God forbid we shovel out the money for a home birth and something happens, and we dont have the money we need to live, Sampson said. That stresses me out.

She said shes frustrated that her health insurance plan wont cover the cost of a certified professional midwife, or CPM, because the state only licenses midwives who also are registered nurses.

Its like, why? Why jeopardize two human beings when you could do something about it," Sampson said of the virus risk. Were not considered in this at all.

Holding my breath

Hospital administrators say theyre taking precautions to protect laboring women and their newborns from exposure to coronavirus. For example, hospital staff are required to wear masks at all times and are screened for virus symptoms daily. The same goes for pregnant women and their partner or other support person.

Women who have tested positive for coronavirus give birth in isolated rooms, and labor and delivery staff don higher-grade personal protective equipment (PPE), such as N95 masks.

But Philadelphia-area hospitals do not yet have the capability to test every expectant mother and all staff for coronavirus to screen for asymptomatic cases. That may change as rapid, point-of-care testing becomes more universally available," said Aasta Mehta, an obstetrician-gynecologist and womens health policy advisor for the city Department of Public Health.

That said, Mehta, who practices at Penn, added, Pregnant women who are afraid to deliver in a hospital should know that hospitals are taking really strict precautions to help prevent the spread of the virus from one person to another. ... Theres no guarantee, but there are a lot of precautions being taken.

Goebig, now 38 weeks pregnant, had planned to give birth at Pennsylvania Hospital. Then she went to one of her final prenatal appointments on March 25. Her husband and son, almost 4, stayed in the car. She intentionally left her sweater and purse behind to avoid any contamination.

When she walked into the hospital lobby at Eighth and Spruce Streets, she was greeted by a post-apocalyptic world." Staffers wearing masks and gloves took her temperature and asked whether she felt short of breath, a signature of coronavirus. She pointed to her bulging belly and joked about how, nowadays, shes always huffing and puffing. Mostly to hide her fear. At the elevator doors, that fear shot up, she said.

Im like, Oh, my God, how am I going to press the button?" Goebig said. I didnt have a tissue or anything so pressing the button was like terrifying. I was holding my breath on the elevator because you never know who was in there before you.

Things only got worse from there.

I was scared to sit down, said Goebig, 26.

 HELP US REPORT: Are you a health care worker, medical provider, government worker, patient, frontline worker or other expert? We want to hear from you.

She had an appointment with one of Penns certified nurse midwives and was surprised to be seen instead by a nurse practitioner, who explained that only one midwife was scheduled to work that day and she was busy. Goebig said she grew increasingly concerned that a hospital birth wasnt going to work for her. She asked to talk to the midwife to get her opinion on a home birth.

I expected her to kind of instill some fear in me, to say, You should still be coming to the hospital, Goebig said. Instead she took a seat and started naming some midwives she would recommend for home births.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has stressed that hospitals and accredited birth centers are the safest settings for birth. Although carefully planned home births result in fewer medical interventions, such as C-sections, ACOG cautions that home births are associated with more than twice the rates of deaths in infants and an increased risk of neonatal seizures or neurologic problems.

A relief

The birth of Goebigs son at Penn in August 2016 was not ideal, with Pitocin to induce labor, an unwanted epidural and vacuum suction to get the baby out.

Switching to a home birth  thats scary. God forbid something goes wrong, and you are not in a hospital," she said. Every single [decision] feels scary, and we just have to choose which one feels the least scary.  At least in my house, I know who cleaned it, and I know who was there before I gave birth."

Cost was another consideration. Goebigs husband, a steam fitter, was recently laid off.

Home births generally cost $5,500, though some midwifes are offering discounts because of the pandemic. Health insurance plans, including Medicaid, will not cover a home birth in Pennsylvania if the provider is not a certified nurse-midwife, most of whom work in hospital settings. A Philadelphia-based midwife, Asasiya Muhammad of Inner Circle Midwifery, has started a petition urging state lawmakers to enact an emergency measure to extend health insurance coverage to certified professional midwifes. So far, Gov. Tom Wolf has only relaxed some requirements for nurse-midwives, such as making it easier to reactivate their medical licenses.

After agonizing deliberations, Goebig and her husband made a decision: They will have a home birth with a certified professional midwife (CPM) and pay out of pocket.

Were doing it, Goebig said Monday night. A relief.

Only five CPMs, including the one Goebig selected, perform home births in Philadelphia; all carefully screen clients and dont take on high-risk pregnancies, according to interviews with several midwives. Midwives said they approach birth as a natural process, giving a womans body time to push out a baby and avoid medical interventions, unless absolutely necessary.

Im sure its going to be extremely difficult, especially if its anything like the first time, Goebig said, then paused.

Not difficult. Challenging. Im willing to ride through the pain that eventually will be over to make sure that Im doing the safest thing for my baby. Im not worried about myself at this point.
Ambuja Cements is planning to start manufacturing in phases at its plants across India from April 20 and is seeking approval from the relevant government authorities.

The company is taking all necessary steps to adhere to the standard operating procedure for social distancing mandated by the government in the new guidelines issued by the government on April 15, Ambuja Cements said in a regulatory filing.

"The company is seeking necessary permissions/approvals from the relevant government authorities for resumption of operations at various locations from April 20, 2020, in a phased manner.

"The operations at various locations will be resumed in full compliance of the said order and conditions/directives as may be mentioned in the approval by the relevant government authorities," it said on Friday.

On March 23, Ambuja Cements temporarily suspended its operations at various locations, in compliance with the direction issued by the government in view of the pandemic.

Ambuja Cements is part of global conglomerate LafargeHolcim.

It has a cement capacity of 29.65 million tonnes with five integrated cement manufacturing plants and eight cement grinding units across the country.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The novel strain of coronavirus responsible for the current pandemic may have evolved to infect domestic cats and many species of farm animal  potentially creating a vast haven from which it may repeatedly invade humans, new research has found.

A scientific report, submitted to a journal run by the world-renowned Pasteur Institute, in Paris, has been seen by the Daily Mail prior to publication.

Researchers at the University of Hunan have studied the lung structures of 251 different animals to determine which could be infected with Covid-19 through contact with either bats or humans.

Cows are on the danger list after the virus evolved the ability to infect animals (file picture)

Their findings suggest that, beyond infecting bats, pangolins and humans, the virus has evolved the ability to infect at least ten other creatures. The danger list includes cats, cows, goats, pigs, sheep, buffalo and pigeons.

This raises the possibility that, having jumped from humans into these mammals, the virus might mutate into new, even more lethal forms that could then emerge to infect people again.

The study team is led by Xing-Yi Ge, a virologist who previously worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology's Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases.

The virologists' report is due to be published in the journal Microbes And Infection. It warns that 'interspecies transmission is believed to be a major cause of coronavirus epidemic'.

The report adds that this happened in the 2003 Sars epidemic, when the virus moved from bats into humans via infected civet cats and raccoons.

One victim of the coronavirus has been a tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York. Pictured are the zoo's tiger twins Nadia (front) and Azul (rear). Nadia, who is four, has contracted the virus

To create their species risk-list, the scientists studied the structure of a protein receptor on animal cells called ACE2  the same receptor through which Covid-19 enters human cells and takes over the cell's machinery to make copies of itself that infect other cells.

The new research indicates that dogs, unlike cats, should not be susceptible to Covid-19 because they do not have the same vulnerable entry point in cells.

Covid-19 originated in horseshoe bats, but the new study says bats are unlikely to have passed it to humans through direct contact because that is so rare.

There are two main theories to explain how Covid-19 entered humans: that it was passed on via an intermediary animal, such as a pangolin sold at Wuhan's food market, or that a sample of the horseshoe bat virus escaped from one of two laboratories in Wuhan that were studying the creatures.

The ability of Covid-19 to infect animals that share space with people may create a real, long-lasting threat.

Covid-19 originated in horseshoe bats (file picture), but the new study says bats are unlikely to have passed it to humans through direct contact because that is so rare

One of Europe's foremost virology experts, Simon Wain-Hobson, of the Pasteur Institute, says the new Chinese study may have alarming implications.

He told the Mail: 'If they had recently isolated a novel coronavirus from a mammal in the list, then I'd gulp.'

The study's author, Xing-Yi Ge, told the Mail the research is in its preliminary stages, adding: 'No living virus has yet been isolated from any of the animals on our list. However, some early studies have reported animals such as cats with positive blood tests for coronavirus.'

Indeed, one such victim has been a tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York.

The peril of pandemics caused by viruses that have jumped from animals to humans looks set to grow, according to a report this month led by Bernard Bett, a senior scientist in Kenya. He warns the danger is increasing due to population growth and increased urbanisation, with human settlement expanding into areas once occupied only by wild animals. Increased proximity fuels the transfer of viruses.

'Already three quarters of emerging human infectious disease outbreaks originate from animals,' he warns.

Recent examples include HIV and Ebola, which both emerged in Africa.

Climate change is another factor, according to respiratory disease researchers at the University of Miami.

Variations in rainfall and temperature may cause food scarcities for animals such as bats, chimps, pangolins and deer, which can all carry dangerous infections. A search for food is liable to bring such creatures into closer contact with humans, they say in the journal Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

Furthermore, if crops fail and livestock die due to increased flooding, droughts, heatwaves or pests, we may start hunting more animals for food.

One Ebola outbreak in 1996, for example, is believed to have been the result of villagers eating a chimpanzee.
Replenishing both the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan funds needs to happen right now. We cant afford to let partisan politics continue to impact the fate of Hoosier small businesses in desperate need of this financial lifeline, Indiana Chamber President and CEO Kevin Brinegar said. This critical support needs to be made available as soon as possible, be of an appropriate amount to meet surging demand and, perhaps most importantly, streamlined to get into the hands of the true small businesses so they can weather this crisis.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 09:16:10|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The following are the updates on the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

- - - -

NEW YORK -- Global confirmed COVID-19 cases topped 2.2 million on Friday afternoon, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

The fresh figure reached 2,204,511 with 149,378 deaths as of 2:30 p.m. (1830 GMT), the CSSE said.

- - - -

NEW YORK -- Global COVID-19 deaths surpassed 150,000 on Friday afternoon, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

A total of 150,948 people have died of the disease as of 3:30 p.m. (1930 GMT) among 2,214,861 cases worldwide, the CSSE data showed.

- - - -

STOCKHOLM -- The Swedish government said Friday it will significantly expand COVID-19 testing to ensure that key workers outside the healthcare system will also be able to get access.

Johan Carlson, director-general of Sweden's Public Health Agency, and minister for health and social affairs, Lena Hallengren, at a joint press conference outlined the new strategy, which extends testing to police, emergency service personnel and other key workers.

- - - -

SINGAPORE -- Singaporean government began to implement stricter measures to minimize the COVID-19 spread last week. These measures, called as Circuit Breaker, include closing of most workplaces except for essential services. However, the number of newly confirmed cases has been hitting new daily records this week.

Singapore's National Development Minister Lawrence Wong said Tuesday that the city-state was dealing with two infections in Singapore, which are the infections in the foreign worker dormitories and the infections in the general population.

- - - -

LAGOS -- China on Friday handed over 91,000 U.S. dollars and protective medical supplies to the government of Lagos, Nigeria's economic hub to help the state to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in Lagos in partnership with the Overseas Chinese Association in Nigeria donated 12,000 face masks, 100 protective clothing, 2,000 forehead thermometers, 2,000 surgical gloves, 1,550 hand sanitizers, and one ventilator.

- - - -

SANTIAGO -- The Chilean Ministry of Health reported on Friday that the country has registered 9,252 cases of COVID-19, with 116 deaths.

Chilean Vice Minister of Health Paula Daza said that 3,621 people have recovered from the virus.

- - - -

BEIJING -- Chinese health authority said Saturday that it received reports of 27 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the mainland Friday, of which 17 were imported.

The other 10 new cases were domestically transmitted, the National Health Commission said in a daily report, noting that seven cases were reported in Heilongjiang Province, two in Guangdong Province and one in Sichuan Province. Enditem
Opposition leader Sharad Yadav on Saturday alleged that migrant labourers were facing discrimination as they were not allowed to travel to their native places while the Uttar Pradesh government was allowed to bring back state students studying in Kota in Rajasthan.

Politics is being played even in imposing lockdown measures, he said.

"As a matter of fact, there should have been the same treatment for the students and the labourers," the Loktantrik Janata Dal leader said in a statement, adding that the central government should take the responsibility for everyone stuck in different parts of the country.

Even weddings are taking place at some places, he noted and highlighted the plight of migrant labourers who have been stopped in states like Maharashtra and Delhi from trying to reach their native places.

"This is height of discrimination which is intolerable... The most perturbing part is that the central government has brought back people from abroad in flights because they belong to well-off families. Some states are bringing their students and others in luxury buses, and there are labourers who have been forced to proceed to their states on foot while facing police action like baton charge in many places," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Even 24 hours after the Delhi BJP issued a helpline number for the poor and the needy of the city under the 'feed the needy' programme, people on Friday complained that the number provided remained switched off all the time.

The Delhi BJP in a statement on Thursday said that with the aim that no needy or poor families should be deprived of food during the lockdown due to novel coronavirus, food and ration items are being provided to millions of people daily by BJP workers under the leadership of Delhi party chief Manoj Tiwari.

It said that a helpline number 9625799844 has been issued so that people in need can inform about food issues.

'Feed the needy' programme convenor and Delhi BJP State General Secretary Kuljeet Singh Chahal said that in this crisis every party worker is giving the necessary assistance to those in need.

However, when IANS tried to use the helpline, it was found to be switched off. Even the SMS dropped on the helpline number remained unanswered.

IANS also tried to connect with Chahal to get a comment on the same, but he did not respond to the call and message sent to him.

However, Delhi BJP workers in several parts of the city have been providing food and ration to the needy and poor. Several BJP leaders including Tajinder Bagga have also been providing food.

On Friday the total number of Covid-19 patients in India rose to 13,387 with 437 people losing their lives due to the pandemic. In Delhi, 1,640 people have been affected with Covid-19 with 38 deaths.
LONDON, April 17 (Reuters) - London Mayor Sadiq Khan called on the British government on Friday to make face masks compulsory for people travelling around the capital or shopping.

The mayor said that evidence from around the world was that face coverings help stop the spread of the virus.

New York has ordered residents to wear masks or substitute face coverings when in any public situation that may not allow them to be at least six feet away from others.

"In those circumstances where its not possible for us to keep our social distance, think of public transport usage, think of when you're in a shop, we should be using non-medical facial coverings like bandandas, like scarves, like reusable masks," Khan told the BBC.

The United Kingdom's social distancing guidelines do not mention the wearing of face masks, but Khan said that should change.

Britain's lockdown was extended by at least three weeks on Thursday as its death toll rose to 13,729, and the opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has cautioned that the country risked becoming the worst hit in Europe. (Reporting by Sarah Young; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to yield under pressure. That is a matter of pride for Putin himself and a key aspect of his appeal to Russian elites and the public alike. The trick is preserving that reputation in the real world, where leaders routinely miscalculate and pivot while remaining loathe to admitting mistakes. The plunge in oil prices because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the collapse of the OPEC+ agreement on production cuts provide the most recent test.

In early March, the Saudis called for a meeting of the OPEC+ group to agree on further drastic production cuts of 1.5 million barrels a day to support oil prices as COVID-19 spread, crushing economic activity and demand. The Russians balked. According to the spokesperson of Rosneft, Russias oil-sector national champion run by Igor Sechin, a close associate of Putins: This deal made no sense from the standpoint of Russian interests. By removing cheap Arab and Russian oil from our own markets, we open up the way for expensive American shale oil. Moscow wanted to maintain current levels of production for a few months to get a better sense of the economic consequences of the spreading pandemic before deciding on further cuts. And, when those cuts came, it wanted to make sure that the United States bore its fair share.

Moscow also had other reasons for wanting to strike a blow against the American energy sector. Late last year, Washington levied sanctions against Nord Stream 2, a strategic gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, pushing back its completion date by at least several months and raising costs, at a time when American shale gas was entering European markets. More recently, the United States sanctioned a Rosneft subsidiary, Rosneft Trading, for assisting the Maduro regime in circumventing US restrictions on Venezuelan oil exports.

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But Moscow did not anticipate the Saudi reaction to its refusal to agree to further cuts. The Saudis threat to open the spigot and offer steep discounts on their oil exports pushed oil prices down to lows not seen in decades. The price war had begun, even if only the Saudis were prosecuting it robustly: The Saudis had the capacity to add 2.5 million barrels a day, the Russians, 300,000. True to form, Moscow was defiant. Despite Russias dependence on oil for two-thirds of its export earnings and 40 percent of its budget revenue, the Ministry of Finance announced that Russia could withstand prices as low as $25 a barrel for up to ten years. It would draw on its $150 billion National Wealth Fund to cover gaps in the budget, currently based on an oil price of $42 a barrel. That was certainly an exaggeration, and the Russian oil industry itself would suffer significant damage in the short term if wells had to be capped. Still, the ministry sent the unequivocal message that Moscow would not back down.

Downward slide: Many governments slow economic activity in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, yet an OPEC+ agreement to slash output may not lift prices to early March levels (Source: Investing.com)



Despite such rhetoric, the collapse in oil prices raised grave domestic challenges for Putin. Earlier this year, in Russias analog to the State of the Union address, Putin stressed his determination to stimulate the economy and raise living standards, which have largely stagnated for the past six years. The bleak socioeconomic conditions were fueling discontent across the country, as Russians protested over educational, health and ecological matters, as well as official corruption, callousness and incompetence. The unrest has not risen to levels that threaten Putin, but the Kremlin has historically been wary of mass discontent  workers protests after all played a role in the overthrow of Russian autocracy in 1917 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

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Now, the global economic consequences of COVID-19 would inevitably slow Russian economic growth. A prolonged collapse in oil prices would almost certainly push the economy into recession. Putins promises evaporated. In these circumstances, Putin needs to raise and stabilize oil prices. The question was how to do that without appearing to yield to Saudi or American pressure.

US President Donald. Trump gave Putin the opening he sought. Trump initially greeted the price collapse as a big tax cut, but by the end of March, he changed his tune under pressure from the domestic oil sector. He set about trying to persuade the two strongmen he had cultivated since assuming office, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Putin, to agree to major production cuts.

On March 31, Trump called Putin to discuss the novel coronavirus crisis and oil markets. Kremlin statements routinely note who initiates the call when Putin talks to foreign leaders, and the Kremlin readout makes it clear that Trump made the call  the inference was that Trump, not Putin, urgently needed relief from the price war and the pandemic. The next day Russia sent a planeload of humanitarian assistance to New York, underscoring again that the United States, not Russia, was in need. Three days later, Putin announced that Russia was prepared to work with its partners, the United States and Saudi Arabia, to stabilize oil markets. Production, he said could be reduced by up to 10 million barrels day. He supported another meeting of OPEC+ to work out the details. As far as Moscow was concerned, cuts in US production, a key Russian goal from the outset of the crisis, would have to be part of the deal.

As Putin was pivoting, two narratives for the oil price war gained greater prominence in Russian media. One presented the Saudis as determined to drive American shale oil off the market by cratering oil prices. The other suggested the price war was, from the beginning, a US-Saudi conspiracy to undermine the Russian oil sector through a combination of production cuts and sanctions. The first narrative absolved Russia of any ill will against the United States, and the second portrayed Russia as an innocent victim. Both reinforced standard Kremlin tropes of Russian goodwill and victimhood.

Where oil prices will settle in the next few months is far from certain. Daniel Yergin, a leading expert on the global energy sector, has noted in Foreign Affairs that prices will likely plummet in late April and May as demand plunges and storage capacity is depleted. The cuts OPEC+ agreed to this weekend  9.7 million barrels a day  are insufficient to stave off the decline in price. In this environment, US production will inevitably drop, as Moscow wants, but so will Saudi and Russian production, beyond what was already negotiated, if not through further negotiations then through market dynamics. No matter what Trump, MBS and Putin do, tougher times lie ahead. But, for Russians, despite the initial miscalculations, Putin will appear as a decisive and constructive leader in battling the crisis, playing a stronger hand than Trump. More important, Putin, and Russia, did not yield.

By Yale Global Online

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
San Antonio's seven-month wait for Fiesta falls short of the five years the party was put on hold during World War II.

Fiesta 2020, originally scheduled for April 16-26, will now take place Nov. 5-15. The March 13 decision to hold off on the event due to the coronavirus pandemic was the first postponement in a history dating back to 1891. Previous global events and emergencies, like both World Wars, canceled celebrations altogether.
At least 37 police personnel,



including eight officers, across Maharashtra have tested coronavirus positive since the outbreak, an official said on Saturday.

These police personnel, including 29 constables, possibly came contact with the COVID-19 patients while performing their duty during the lockdown.

Most of these patients are from Mumbai, the official said.

"Ever since the lockdown came into force, the police are working round the clock to ensure that people are following the prohibitory orders. While performing their duty in crowded areas and some vulnerable places, these police personnel must have come in contact with the infected persons," the official said.

"Till Saturday, 37 police personnel across the state have tested positive for coronavirus," he added.

Meanwhile, as many as 52,625 offences have been registered against those found violating the prohibitory orders during the lockdown, in which 10,729 people have been arrested so far, another official said.

At least 102 cases of assault on police were registered, in which 162 accused have been held, he said.

Police also apprehended 563 persons, who were found moving out despite the instructions to remain home- quarantined, he said.

Police have seized 33,984 vehicles, which were brought on to the streets illegally during the lockdown, and a fine of Rs 1.91 crore has been collected from the violators, he said.

At least 1,047 cases of illegal transportation have been reported in state so far, the official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Shaheed Al-Hafed, 18 April 2020 (SPS) - The Permanent Office of the National Secretariat of the Polisario Front has warned about the situation in which Sahrawi citizens are living in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, owing to the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic.



The Permanent Office, in its meeting chaired by the President of the Republic, Secretary-General of the Polisario Front, Mr. Brahim Ghali, warned against the dangerous situation in which the Sahrawi citizens are living in the occupied territory of Western Sahara and southern Morocco, especially the Sahrawi civilian prisoners in Moroccan prisons, with the spread of Coronavirus pandemic and lack of sanitary conditions, calling on the United Nations to intercede to protect them and follow up on their situation and release them immediately.



The Permanent Office held the Moroccan occupation state fully responsible for all risks to their lives that might result from this situation.



The Permanent Office, in view of the worsening of the Coronavirus pandemic in the world and the imminent danger it posed, appealed to the masses of the Sahrawi people, in all their locations, to enhance response to the efforts made at the national and global levels. (SPS)



062/SPS/T
Taia Kakahi, 38, was stopped by police for suspicion of breaching COVID-19 restrictions on the M1 Motorway at Figtree in Wollongong about 8.30pm on Thursday

A SUV driver was allegedly found with three bottles of liquid ecstasy and party drugs after she was pulled over.

Taia Kakahi, 38, was stopped by police for suspicion of breaching COVID-19 restrictions on the M1 Motorway at Figtree in Wollongong about 8.30pm on Thursday.

After searching her vehicle, police allegedly found and seized three glass bottles containing a clear glittery liquid and a glitter purse containing drug paraphernalia.

Kakahi was arrested and taken to Wollongong Police station where she complained about suffering from a cough and sinus.

Police took extra safety measures when dealing with her and charged her with drug supply and breaching COVID-19 legislation.

According to court documents, there were three other passengers in the vehicle and they were found to have 'no reasonable excuse' to be out and were not family.

Kakahi allegedly admitted that inside the a 375ml 'Voss' brand water bottle found in her car contained GBL, also known as liquid ecstasy.

Two other bottles containing the illicit drug were allegedly found in the driver's side door, the Illawarra Mercury reported.

A drug ledger, digital scales, measuring cups and spoons a glass pipe and glitter kit were also allegedly found in the car.

Police estimated the GBL had a potential street value of a staggering $14,400.

They allege she used the glitter as a 'personal trademark' to entice potential buyers to her product.

The 38-year-old was charged with drug supply and breaching COVID-19 legislation

Her lawyer Matt Ward told the court that his client would be 'better to have her isolating at home' rather than in jail.

He said she was found to not have a temperature and was not diagnosed with the deadly virus.

Magistrate Michael Love refused Kakahi bail saying the case against her is a strong one.

'She's facing a very extensive prison term if convicted. It's not the case in my assessment that any remand period would be in excess of the ultimate penalty that would be imposed.'

The case was adjourned to June for mention.
Anti-hero crime television series Power is full of interesting villains such as Kanan Stark and Tony Teresi. Additionally, many fans felt like Andre Coleman could have been the next James Ghost St. Patrick and would have watched a spinoff based around his story. However, the majority of viewers seemingly think Felipe Lobos was the best villain from the series as the first three seasons revolved around him, and he had a high ranking FBI agent in his pocket.

Enrique Murciano | Paul Zimmerman

Fans enjoyed Milan but think his story ended too soon

Cannibalistic Serbian drug lord Milan (Callan Mulvey) entered the Power universe in Season 3 when James Ghost St. Patrick (Omari Hardwick) hired him as security, believing he was a man named Dean. Fearing Felipe Lobos (Enrique Murciano), James employed Milan to protect him, and Milan and his men watched the club owners every move.

Therefore, when partner Tommy Egans (Joseph Sikora) girlfriend, Holly Weaver (Lucy Walters), paid the Jamaicans to murder James, the drug lord swiftly intervened and killed them instead.

The move strengthened the club owners trust in his security, and he chose to continue working with Milan. Once Tommy and Ghost killed Felipe, he tried to fire Milan.

However, the drug lord, who knew of the club owners illegal activities, blackmailed and threatened him into getting back into the drug business. Additionally, he took over the friends operation and forced James to sell inside his club.

Milan then kidnapped Tommy and chose to make the drug dealer his apprentice. The two hatched a plan to kill James after a party at his club, but Tommy betrayed Milan and warned his friend.

When the Serbian drug lord arrived, the club owner had his men secretly surround Milans bodyguards and hold them at gunpoint. Tommy and Ghost then shot and killed Milan in a warehouse.

One fan thought the Milan reveal was extremely well-executed and thought the character should have stretched across multiple seasons rather than having Ghost clean it all up in one episode.

Another Reddit user pointed out that Milan was only meant to show the longtime friends that they needed to put their issues aside and work together to take him down. Despite the drug lords short-lived presence in the show, many fans enjoyed him as a villain.

Fans think the show died with Felipe Lobos

Of all the villains in the show, none were more captivating than Mexican drug trafficker and cartel leader Felipe Lobos as the first three seasons centered around catching him.

Viewers were introduced to Lobos in the first season when he revealed his displeasure with Ghosts services. Then, a hitman from the Jimenez cartel attempted to kill him. However, Lobos returned fire and shot the man, successfully escaping.

In the second season, the drug trafficker arrived in New York to retrieve money from Ghost, where another Jimenez cartel member tried to murder him. Lobos killed him and then met up with Ghost, who he wanted to become a head distributor.

Later, the drug trafficker, alongside Tommy, were arrested in an FBI raid, which also resulted in the death of Javier (Lucas Salvagno), his bodyguard. Ghost then arranged for a contact to stab Lobos in his cell, but the drug trafficker survived his injuries.

High ranking FBI agent and head of the Lobos task force, Mike Sandoval (David Fumero), revealed himself as the wanted mole when he gave the trafficker a phone. Lobos contact then informed Tommy that he needed to kill Ghost and become the main distributor, or the cartel leader would kill Tommy and his family.

In the third season, the friends, alongside some of Lobos men, including Mike, worked together to break the drug trafficker out of jail. Tommy and Ghost eventually took Lobos to the woods to execute him, but he escaped. After a brief chase, Ghost caught up to him and shot and killed the cartel leader.

For Lobos, it's all about having friends in the right places. #PowerTV pic.twitter.com/XujEONmqrH  Power (@Power_STARZ) August 21, 2015

Several fans thought Lobos was the best villain from Power because the majority of the show centered around trying to catch him. Additionally, the FBIs only link was an unknown person named Ghost.

Another user included he had an inside man, which made him more dangerous. Others felt like he was a fully realized and dimensional character, as well as the most threatening and entertaining in the show.

Finally, many fans are convinced the show died with Lobos as they think the quality of the show dropped off after his death.
Mizoram Chief Minister



Zoramthanga on Saturday thanked the Karnataka and Telangana governments for providing relief to the stranded Mizos in their states.

"Big round of applause to the government of Telangana for being one shining quantum of hope for the stranded Mizos. I truly thank Shri Chandrashekar Rao Ji for being an ambient tower of relief for the needy in these trying times," Zoramthanga said in a tweet.

The Mizoram chief minister also thanked the Karanataka government for helping the stranded Mizos. "Thanking you from the bottom of my heart Shri @GovindKarjol Ji, Honble Dy CM, Karnataka for your kind gesture in bringing relief aids to stranded Mizos in Bangalore. Mizoram will forever be grateful for your kind act of generosity," he said in a tweet.

At least 2,391 people from Mizoram are currently stranded in different parts of the country due to the nationwide lockdown imposed to control the spread of COVID-19.

Apart from the 2,391 people, 185 Mizos are also stranded abroad due to the outbreak of novel coronavirus.

The Mizoram government on April 15 had launched a website tankhang.mizoram.gov.in. for stranded Mizos to report to the state government.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A study by the Global Firepower Index revealed that Mexico has one of the world's most powerful army, according to a recently published article.

A Brief Background On the Global Firepower Index

The Global Firepower Index has been providing a unique analytical display of data since 2006 that includes 138 countries when it comes to modern military powers.

They based the ranking on the nation's potential war-making capability across land, sea, and air fought by conventional means. Moreover, the results of their study include the nation's manpower, equipment, natural resources, finances, and geography.

A nation's ranking when it comes to military strength is essential because it shows how the government is investing money to protect its land and people to the unprecedented terror attacks. The nation's army is its strength and power.

International Ranking of Mexico in the Global Firepower Index

Mexico ranked 38th out of 138 nations since the Global Firepower Index began assessing nations' army capabilities that encompass weapons, military budgets, number of military, active personnel, civilian reservists, air, and naval force status.

During the time of Felipe Calderon, the Mexican Army has received an astounding budget of more than 932 million pesos while during the time of Enrique Pena Nieto they received an amount of more than 649 million pesos to reinforce their military power.

In general, it was found out that during the six years of Calderon's presidency, the army, airforce, and navy received an amount of more than 354 billion pesos while in Nieto's period, they have received an amount of more than 578 billion pesos.

It is not a surprise anymore why the country has placed 15th out of 138 countries in the world with the most powerful armies. However, during its annual review, the country has fallen from 15th place to 38th, according to the 2020 Military Strength Ranking.

The country was above Canada, Iran, Egypt, and even North Korea between 2007 and 2009. But this time, the Armed Forces of the country have to slow down their institutional dynamics and developments because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

They are now in charge of managing different hospitals in the country that are receiving COVID-19 patients. However, it is expected that the country's Armed Forces will back in its shape once this pandemic is over.

Here are the Top 10 2020 Military Strength Ranking:

United States Russia China India Japan South Korea France United Kingdom Egypt Brazil



Moreover, 2020 is not yet over, and Mexico still has the chance to have its spot again once this pandemic is over.

While it is true that the country has one of the most powerful armies in the world, it is, for this reason, the surge of violence in March of this year will plummet once Mexican armies and other law enforcement bodies are reinforced.

It can be recounted that part of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's plan for the country is to stabilize the country. He even said that he has radical ideas on how to control different cartels in the country that are creating violence. This can only be achieved by utilizing the country's elite Armed Forces.

Read related article: 5 Safest Tourist Spots to Visit in Mexico
Many investors are still learning about the various metrics that can be useful when analysing a stock. This article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE). We'll use ROE to examine Shanghai Gench Education Group Limited (HKG:1525), by way of a worked example.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

View our latest analysis for Shanghai Gench Education Group

How Is ROE Calculated?

ROE can be calculated by using the formula:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations)  Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Shanghai Gench Education Group is:

12% = CN125m  CN1.0b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2019).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. So, this means that for every HK$1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of HK$0.12.

Does Shanghai Gench Education Group Have A Good Return On Equity?

Arguably the easiest way to assess company's ROE is to compare it with the average in its industry. The limitation of this approach is that some companies are quite different from others, even within the same industry classification. You can see in the graphic below that Shanghai Gench Education Group has an ROE that is fairly close to the average for the Consumer Services industry (12%).

SEHK:1525 Past Revenue and Net Income April 18th 2020

That isn't amazing, but it is respectable. While at least the ROE is not lower than the industry, its still worth checking what role the company's debt plays as high debt levels relative to equity may also make the ROE appear high. If true, then it is more an indication of risk than the potential. To know the 2 risks we have identified for Shanghai Gench Education Group visit our risks dashboard for free.

How Does Debt Impact ROE?

Story continues

Companies usually need to invest money to grow their profits. That cash can come from issuing shares, retained earnings, or debt. In the first two cases, the ROE will capture this use of capital to grow. In the latter case, the use of debt will improve the returns, but will not change the equity. That will make the ROE look better than if no debt was used.

Shanghai Gench Education Group's Debt And Its 12% ROE

Shanghai Gench Education Group clearly uses a high amount of debt to boost returns, as it has a debt to equity ratio of 1.11. There's no doubt its ROE is decent, but the very high debt the company carries is not too exciting to see. Investors should think carefully about how a company might perform if it was unable to borrow so easily, because credit markets do change over time.

Summary

Return on equity is a useful indicator of the ability of a business to generate profits and return them to shareholders. Companies that can achieve high returns on equity without too much debt are generally of good quality. If two companies have the same ROE, then I would generally prefer the one with less debt.

But ROE is just one piece of a bigger puzzle, since high quality businesses often trade on high multiples of earnings. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth -- and how much investment is required going forward. So you might want to take a peek at this data-rich interactive graph of forecasts for the company.

If you would prefer 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.

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.
Britain has given regulatory approval to a ventilator which will be made by a group of companies including Airbus, Ford and McLaren, the first such go-ahead as part of efforts to combat the coronavirus.

Governments around the world are trying to boost the number of available mechanical breathing devices that can supply air and oxygen, crucial for the care of people who suffer lung failure, which can be a complication of COVID-19.

The modified version of an existing design by medical devices company Penlon will join a product from Smiths, which is already being built by a consortium of aerospace, engineering, Formula One and automotive firms to fulfil a government order.

We are working closely with our supply chain partners to rapidly scale up production to achieve our target of at least 1,500 units a week, said Dick Elsy, chief executive of the VentilatorChallengeUK consortium.

The government said on Thursday it wanted 15,000 Penlon devices and thousands from Smiths.

The initiative comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson called on industry to help combat the pandemic, with several manufacturers switching from their normal day-to-day activities to contribute to the project.

Fords Dagenham plant in east London, Britains biggest automotive engine factory, is now testing and assembling some components for ventilators.
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The Chinese Communist Party hasnt let scientists from around the world into the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is being probed by American officials as a possible source of the CCP virus, according to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

We know that theyve not permitted the worlds scientists to go into that laboratory to evaluate what took place there, whats happening there, whats happening there even as we speak, Pompeo said during an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt.

We still have not had Western access to that facility so that we can properly evaluate what really has taken off all across the world and how that began.

American authorities said in January and February that they offered to send public health teams to China to help respond to the outbreak and analyze aspects of the virus, including its transmissibility, but were rebuffed each time. China eventually allowed a World Health Organization team into the country. Two American scientists were part of the team. A report issued jointly by China and the team repeatedly praised the Chinese response.

The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, a novel coronavirus, emerged in mainland China last year before spreading around the world, becoming a pandemic. The virus causes COVID-19, a disease that kills a small percentage of patients, especially among the infirm.

Chinese officials early in the outbreak looked into whether the outbreak originated at the Wuhan lab, The Epoch Times found.

We dont know the answer to the question about the precise origination point, Pompeo told Hewitt. But we do know this: We know that the first sightings of this occurred within miles of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We know that this, the history of the facility, first VSL-4 lab where theres high-end virus research being conducted took place at that site.

Top American officials in recent days confirmed for the first time that the United States is looking into whether the CCP virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Asked about the theory, President Donald Trump told reporters Friday: Were looking at it.

A lot of people are looking at it. It seems to make sense, the president said during the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing at the White House. There is a lot of investigation going on and were going to find out.

Chinese officials worked to cover-up the true nature of the virus for months, according to internal documents obtained by The Epoch Times. The World Health Organization, which is closely aligned with China, has drawn increasing criticism from American officials for repeatedly promoting statements from China and ignoring warnings from Taiwan. Trump this week said U.S. funding for the United Nations group was being put on hold, pending an investigation into what happened.

All I can say is wherever it came fromit came from China, in whatever form184 countries are suffering because of it. And its too bad, isnt it? It could have been solved very easily when it was just starting, the president said on Friday.

From The Epoch Times
A woman whose friend found signs of breast cancer on an ultrasound two years after the scan was done is now suing medical staff she alleges cleared her.

Mozdeh Golabi says she was sent for an ultrasound in 2014 after she complained to doctors about a sore lump on her right breast.

The 46-year-old claims if she was told the lump on her breast was early-stage cancer she could have avoided stage three cancer and a mastectomy.

Ms Golabi says that in January this year she showed the ultrasound to her friend, a sonographer, who told her that the images showed something wrong, her court documents allege.

Mozdeh Golabi says she was sent for an ultrasound in 2014 after she complained to doctors about a sore lump on her right breast

The friend then advised her to seek legal advice.

Doctors who originally viewed the ultrasound, however, told her there was no indication of anything abnormal, she alleges according to The Courier-Mail.

It was not until 2016 that she was told that she had cancer, which by that stage had progressed beyond treatment by a lumpectomy.

She has now lodged a lawsuit for $3.58 million in damages in Queensland's Supreme Court.

Because of the late diagnosis and treatment of Ms Golabi's cancer, specialists gave the then 43-year-old a life expectancy of 15 years from 2016 and her treatment involved a mastectomy.

Her court documents show that Ms Golabi is suing Brisbane gynaecological oncologist Dr Piksi Singh, radiologist Patrick Bergin, and radiology clinic Queensland Diagnostic Imaging.

She is suing for damages for breach of contract, alleged negligence, and other alleged breaches.

Her claim reportedly states the lump was visible on the April 2014 ultrasound.

Documents then go on to allege the radiologist did not detect the lump and advise a biopsy, and that Dr Singh, despite consulting with Ms Golabi on three other occasions that year told her the ultrasound had not detected anything.

Ms Golabi's claim says that if the lump had been detected at that time, she would have likely been cured by a lumpectomy.

Dr Singh, Mr Bergin and Queensland Diagnostic Imaging are yet to respond to the claim.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that there is no evidence to prove that patients who have recovered from coronavirus have immunity to the disease. Senior epidemiologists while speaking at a WHO press conference said that it is not known if people who have survived the deadly virus can be infected again. The clarification came as governments across the world are rushing to buy antibody tests that can measure the levels of seroprevalence, antibodies the body uses to fight the virus.

Read: Coronavirus: Switzerland's Matterhorn Mountain Lights Up To Send Message Of Hope

Speaking at a WHO press conference in Geneva, Dr Maria van Kerkhov reportedly said that the tests can measure antibodies but that doesn't mean a person is automatically protected. Maria said that these tests can measure the level of antibodies but that does not mean that somebody with antibodies is immune to the disease.

Read: COVID-19: UK Doctors Advised To Wear Aprons Amid Shortage Of Protective Gowns

According to reports, the United Kingdom has bought 3.5 million serology tests that are used for measuring antibodies in blood plasma. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had earlier described the serology tests as 'game-changer' in the fight against coronavirus. However, Dr. Michael Ryan of WHO said that there are serious ethical issues surrounding serology tests and warned against using it for now. Ryan said that the tests raise ethical issues and could create risk if people falsely believe they have immunity. Countries across the world are trying various methods to contain the spread of coronavirus including blood plasma therapy, prescribing hydroxychloroquine, etc.

Read: European Countries See About 50% Drop In Pollution Amid COVID-19 Lockdown

Coronavirus outbreak

The coronavirus pandemic has infected over 2.25 million people globally and has killed nearly 1,54,000 patients since it first broke out in December 2019. The virus is believed to have originated from a seafood market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the initial epicentre of the disease, where animals were reportedly being traded illegally. Currently, the United States, Italy, Spain, France and the United Kingdom are the most affected countries in the world with a recorded death toll of 14,000 and above.

Read: Mike Pompeo Dials Top Chinese Diplomat To Seek Transparency On COVID-19 Pandemic

(Image Credit: AP)
Coronavirus Outbreak updates:Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Saturday said airlines are advised to open bookings only after the government takes a decision on starting domestic and international commercial passenger flight services.'The Ministry of Civil Aviation clarifies that so far no decision has been taken to open domestic or international operations,' he wrote on Twitter.

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The total number of confirmed cases in the country rose to 13,835 on Friday with toll from COVID-19 disease at 452, as per the last update released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW). Of the total cases, 11,616 are active while 1,766 have been cured/discharged and one has migrated.

The Union health ministry claimed a decline in the rate of doubling of infections in the last one week even as India witnessed a surge in cases with 1,076 infections and 32 fresh deaths in the last 24 hours, and Gujarat becoming the sixth state to cross the 1,000 mark in confirmed coronavirus cases.

District Magistrate South Delhi B M Mishra said a zone in Sangam Vihar was contained on Friday after a total of four cases in one house related to the March Nizamuddin congregation were traced.

With four more fatalities reported, the death toll from COVID-19 in Delhi has jumped to 42, while the number of coronavirus containment zones here were increased to 68. New zones were added in various areas, including in Malviya Nagar and Jahangirpuri, the authorities said.

The number of novel coronavirus cases in the national capital rose to 1,707 on Friday, with 67 fresh cases and four deaths being reported in a day, according to Delhi government authorities.

The tally of the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country climbed on Friday to 7,260 with 137 deaths. In Punjab, the number of such cases is 3,300.

"Out of some 4,692 Tablighi Jamaat members in the province, tests have been carried out on some 4,653 so far," he told PTI.

He said the members who have tested positive for COVID-19 have been kept in isolation to control the spread of the virus.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said 429 members of the religious group had attended the annual congregation in Raiwand in Punjab province and all of them have had tested positive so far.

A total of 429 members of a Tablighi Jamaat group have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Pakistan's Sindh province.

"Two more persons tested positive for COVID-19 today. They were infected after coming in contact with positive patients. Further contact tracing is underway. Total positive cases in the state stand at 85," said Sanjay Kumar, Principal Secretary Health, Bihar.

The contact tracing of two new cases, who were infected with the virus after coming in contact with corona positive patients, is underway.

With two more COVID-19 cases reported on Friday, the total number of positive coronavirus cases in the state climbed to 85, reports ANI.

The US Agriculture Department is partnering with regional and local distributors to purchase $3 billion in such farm goods to be distributed to food banks, churches and aid groups as millions of Americans face unemployment with much of the US economy shut down.

President Donald Trump on Friday announced a $19 billion relief program to help US farmers cope with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, including $16 billion in direct payments to producers and mass purchases of meat, dairy, vegetables, and other products.

While hearing two Public Interest Litigations pertaining to the issue through video conferencing, a bench of Chief Justice Geeta Mittal and Justice Rajesh Oswal directed that the matter of insufficient testing be urgently examined by the Chief Secretary, UT of Jammu and Kashmir as well as Secretary, Health and Medical Education.

Regarding lack of efficient internet facilities in the UTs of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the high court directed the Secretaries of the respective Home departments to file reports by the next date of hearing, an official release said.

The Jammu and Kashmir High Court Friday directed the union territory administration to urgently examine the issue of insufficient testing facilities while passing a slew of directions regarding the measures to be taken in the battle against the COVID-19 disease.

The application also contains relevant information on the preventive and safety measures regarding COVID-19 pandemic to create awareness among people, they added.

The mobile application is based on integrated information available on Google maps. It also contains information about the red zones, the officials said.

COVID-19 Helpline Jammu and Kashmir application will provide useful real-time information to people about the location and contact number of hospitals, control rooms and rapid response teams in their vicinity, they said.

The Army has developed a mobile application to strengthen the efforts of Jammu and Kashmir administration to contain the spread of coronavirus, officials said on Friday.

The first case was reported on 7 April at the INS Angre base there. All other persons who came in contact with these affected personnel have also been tested, Navy officials told ANI.

They stayed in the same block at INS Angre and are said to have been infected by a navy official who tested positive a week ago.

INS Angre is a shore-based logistics and shore-based support establishment of the Western Naval Command. All the 20 sailors are asymptomatic and have been moved to INHS Asvini in Colaba and are in quarantine.

About 20 sailors of the Indian Navy have tested positive for COVID-19 at INS Angre in Mumbai, News18 reports.

The number of deaths linked to the novel coronavirus reached 150,000, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally. The death toll is still far short of the so-called Spanish flu, which began in 1918 and is estimated to have killed more than 20 million people by the time it petered out in 1920.

All the seven persons, including the drivers of the trucks, were coming from Delhi and they managed to evade police at the Lakhanpur checkpost, they said.

They were apprehended by a police team at the Battal checkpost in the Majalta belt of the district after two trucks were intercepted, the officials said.

Police have started the process of sending them into quarantine as a COVID-19 prevention measure, they said.

Seven people were detained while they were trying to reach their homes by hiding in trucks amid the COVID-19 lockdown and booked for concealing their travel history in Jammu and Kashmir's Udhampur district on Friday, officials said.

The closing of the surveillance for the clusters could be independent of one another provided there is no geographic continuity between clusters. However, the surveillance will continue for severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) and influenza-like illness (ILI).

According to the ministry's "Updated containment plan for large outbreaks COVID-19", a containment operation (large outbreak or cluster) is deemed to be over 28 days from the date the last case in that zone tests negative.

Containment operations will be scaled down if no secondary positive case of COVID-19 is reported from a quarantine zone for at least four weeks after the last confirmed test has been isolated and all his contacts have been followed up for 28 days, the Union Health Ministry said.

The Navy is looking into the possibility of the men having moved around within the Navy facilities for essential duties even though the city is otherwise under lockdown.

The sailors were staying in the residential accommodation facilities of INS Angre - a shore-based depot that provides logistical and administrative support to naval operations of the Western Naval Command.

20 sailors of the Indian Navy in Mumbai have been tested positive for coronavirus. The sailors have been quarantined at a naval hospital in Colaba, reports NDTV.

Three new cases each were found in Matunga labour camp, Muslim Nagarand Indira Nagar, two at Social Nagar and one each at Dr Baliga Nagar,Laxmi Chawl, Janata society and Sarvoday Society on Friday, said the BMC official.

A 62-year-old COVID-19 patient from the area died at Sion hospital, he added. A total of 10 coronavirus patients from this densely populated area have died so far.

The number of coronavirus cases in Mumbai's Dharavi slum area reached 101 on Friday with 15 new patients being detected, said an official of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

All primary contacts (though asymptomatic) were tested for COVID-19. The entire in living block was immediately put under quarantine, containment zone & INS Angre under lockdown. "Action being taken as per established protocol. No cases of infection onboard ships ad submarines," said Navy officials.

21 serving personnel tested positive for COVID-19 within naval premises at Mumbai. This number includes 20 sailors of INS Angre, a shore establishment at Mumbai. Most of these are asymptomatic and have been traced to a single sailor who was tested positive on 7 April, reports ANI.

President Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday that to date the US had conducted more than 3.78 million coronavirus tests, by far the most in any country.

New York, the financial capital of the world, has emerged as the epicenter of the pandemic. More than 14,000 people have died in the city and over 200,000 lakh people have tested positive so far. Neighbouring New Jersey has more than 78,000 cases and 3,800 deaths.

The number of the coronavirus cases in the US crossed 700,000 on Friday, while over 35,000 people have died from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University, as President Donald Trump assured his people that America was "very close" to seeing the light "shining brightly" at the end of the tunnel.

"The IMF's policy tracker shows that fiscal measures so far have amounted to about USD 8 trillion and liquidity injections by central banks amounting to over USD six trillion," Kganyago told reporters during a news conference on Friday.

Observing that the coronavirus disease has presented all with significant and potentially daunting challenges, Lesetja Kganyago, chairman for the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), said the international community was far from declaring victory on the outcomes or the outlook.

Countries have taken fiscal measures and central banks together injected a whopping $14 trillion as part of their efforts to mitigate the challenges posed by the novel coronavirus pandemic, the International Monetary Fund has said.

Coronavirus cases in India have reached 14,387 with 480 casualties reported, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The number of active cases stand at 11,906 with 1991 recoveries.

It is aimed at coordinating efforts to discover a vaccine, funnel resources and support to industry and research institutions and review regulations to remove any blocks in scaling it up, he said.

Addressing the daily Downing Street briefing, UK Business Secretary Alok Sharma said on Friday the new Vaccine Taskforce, led by the government's Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, is a collaboration between business and industry and academia.

The UK has set up a taskforce to urgently find a coronavirus vaccine and prepare the industry to manufacture it at scale once it is developed, as 847 fresh death were reported due to the COVID-19, taking the death toll in the country to 14,576.

Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the coronavirus pandemic was a huge challenge but was also an opportunity. He said scientists, data experts, and engineers needed to be mobilised to fight COVID-19.

With this, the number of coronavirus positive cases in Indore has gone up to 892. Of the 69 COVID-19 deaths in the state so far, as many as 47 people have died in this city alone, they said.

As 50 more persons tested coronavirus positive in Indore on Friday night, the number of COVID-19 cases in Madhya Pradesh has climbed to 1,360, health officials said. So far, 69 persons have died due to the infection in the state, the officials said on Saturday.

The toll due to novel coronavirus has risen rose to 480, with 28 more fatalities reported on Saturday, while the number of cases saw a jump of over 500 to go up to 14,378, according to the Union Health Ministry data.

991 new COVID-19 cases and 43 deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours, said Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday.

"They talk about a certain kind of bat, but that bat wasn't in that area if you can believe this," he claimed. "That bat wasn't sold at that wet zone.... That bat is 40 miles away."

"We're looking at it, a lot of people are looking at it. It seems to make sense," Trump told reporters at a White House news conference on Friday when asked if there was an investigation into whether the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China.

The US has been conducting a full-scale investigation into whether the deadly virus "escaped" from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Fox News said in an exclusive report, adding that intelligence operatives were reportedly gathering information about the laboratory and the initial outbreak of the pathogen.

The US is looking into reports that the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 150,000 people globally, "escaped" from a virology laboratory in China's Wuhan city, President Donald Trump has said.

With the new cases, total positive cases have been found in six of the 12 districts of Himachal Pradesh -- Kangra, Una, Solan, Chamba, Sirmaur and Hamirpur.

Hamirpur deputy commissioner Harikesh Meena confirmed that two cases tested positive from the district on Friday. Their contact history was being ascertained, he added. Till Thursday, there was no COVID-19 positive case in Hamirpur district.

Three more persons tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, taking the total number of coronavirus cases in Himachal Pradesh to 39, officials said. Two persons from Hamirpur district and one from Chamba district tested positive, they added.

Of the 2 deaths reported on Satuday, one patient had chronic kidney disease and the other had acute diabetes, said state Health Department.

On Saturday, 41 more COVID19 cases and 2 deaths from Jaipur were reported in Rajasthan. The total number of positive cases in the state rises to 1270 and 19 deaths, reports ANI.

An antibody is a protein produced mainly by plasma cells that are used by the immune system to neutralize bacteria and viruses.

In this treatment, the plasma extracted from the blood of a fully recovered COVID-19 patient is injected into the critical patient to help his body generate antibodies to fight the virus.

The Gujarat government has decided to carry out plasma transfusion treatment on COVID-19 patients in the state, particularly those in critical condition, to boost their immunity, health officials said.

With 201 death out of 480 accounting from Maharashtra, the state accounts for almost 41 percent of the total deaths in India.

According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Maharashtra continues to be the worst-affected state with a total of 3,323 cases. While 331 patients have recovered, 201 deaths have been reported.

The petitioner has cited various reports suggesting that there is a rise in domestic violence cases since the COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown.

The plea, which was filed by advocates Mithu Jain, Arjun Syal and Vidisha Kumar has requested the court to intervene and protect women and children suffering from domestic violence across the country.

The court on Saturday will hear the plea filed by the NGO, All India Council of Human Rights, Liberties & Social Justice (AICHLS) seeking direction to all concerned authorities to implement effective measures for victims of domestic violence and child abuse amidst COVID-19 lockdown.

The Delhi High Court has agreed for an urgent hearing of a petition on a report of an increase in domestic violence cases during the lockdown.

The total number of positive cases in Nagpur district climbed to 63 including 1 death, 12 discharged after four fresh cases were reported from the district on Saturday, reports ANI.

Not just NCW, social activist Linda Newmai also tweeted about the incident. Following this, the Mumbai Police lodged a first information report (FIR) against the accused. A case was then registered under the Epidemic Diseases Act and sections 270 and 352 of Indian Penal Code (IPC).

According to the victim's complaint, the incident occurred when she went to buy groceries with her sister when Elias approached them on a bike, took off her mask and spat on her near Kalina signal.

The incident came to light when after National commission of Women took cognisance of it and formed three teams to investigate the matter. "Yet another case of racial discrimination amid COVID-19 outbreak, a miscreant spat on a north-eastern girl at Kalina Market area in Mumbai. NCW is looking into this matter for appropriate action," the commission tweeted.

A 23-year-old man, who allegedly spat on a woman from Manipur in Mumbai's Kalina area on 6 April, was arrested by the Mumbai Police on Friday. The accused has been identified as Mohammed Amir Mohammed Elias, a native of Kurla.

The SCRB has contacts of women who had experienced domestic violence in the past, and they will be contacted to find out their present condition, a senior officer of the state police headquarters said.

The initiative will be implemented with the help of the State Crime Record Bureau, the official said.

The special drive "Phone-Up Programme" has been launched across the state to deal with the problems of domestic violence in the crisis period, he said.

The Odisha police have come out with an initiative through which policemen will contact women who had earlier reported domestic violence to inquire about their condition over the phone during the ongoing lockdown, an official said on Saturday.

On Friday, Wuhan's officials announced that as of April 16, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases was raised by 325 to 50,333 and the number of fatalities up by 1,290 to 3,869.

As per the new figures, the overall confirmed cases on the mainland reached 82,719 by Friday, including 4,632 deaths. As many as 1,058 patients are still being treated and 77,029 have been discharged from hospitals.

The country's National Health Commission (NHC) announced the revised national figures of coronavirus, taking note of Wuhan's new data.

China's imported cases of coronavirus increased to 1,566 with 27 fresh ones, while its revised death toll stood at 4,632 with 50 percent jump in fatality figures from the epicentre Wuhan, health officials said on Saturday.

The coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent lockdown have delayed the cabinet formation and the BJP-led government is drawing flak from the opposition Congress for not having a dedicated health minister at this critical juncture.

The state does not have a council of ministers ever since senior BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan took over the chief minister on 23 March.

Under fire for not having a full-time health minister amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh has constituted an advisory committee, comprising Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi and 12 others, to deal with the crisis.

Dr V Kashyap, Medical Superintendent RIMS said that the baby is under proper care and all precautions are being taken. "A detailed discussion was held by experts and doctors, and the baby has been allowed to be fed by mother, after proper sanitization. Baby's sample will be sent for testing today." he further added.

A woman who had delivered a baby two days ago in Ranchi's Sadar Hospital, has tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday. Her child has been admitted to the isolation ward at RIMS hospital. "The Sadar Hospital staff members who had attended to the woman are now undergoing tests," ANI quoted Ranchi Administration in Jharkhand as saying.

Balsing Rajput, Superintendent of Police, Maharashtra Cyber, said, "The fraudsters place some malware on porn websites. When someone accesses such a site, the fraudsters manage to breach the data of that person. The browser then starts working as a remote control desktop, using which they access the visitor's display screen and get the contact numbers of his friends, his contacts on social media and e-mails."

The cyber wing of the state police said that the fraudsters are sending e-mails to those viewing porn content on such websites, asking them to make payment in bitcoins, failing which they would make public their video of using adult websites.

The Maharashtra Police said that they have observed an increasing trend of cyber fraudsters sending extortion e-mails to those visiting porn sites.

The demand for the drug has swelled rapidly in the last few days after India decided to lift a ban on its export.

Hydroxychloroquine has been identified by the US Food and Drug Administration as a possible treatment for the Covid-19 and it is being tested on more than 1,500 coronavirus patients in New York.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres salutes countries helping others in the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, his spokesman has said, days after India sent supplies of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine to several nations, including the US, reports PTI.

Sonko, the governor of the Kenyan capital city, Nairobi, confirmed in a media briefing on Tuesday that his care packages include a few small bottles of the cognac, Hennessy, reports CNN. The governor justified the inclusion of alcohol as "throat sanitizer."

Recipients of Nairobi politician Mike Sonko's COVID-19 care packages can expect to receive the typical food staples except for one item: alcohol.

With this objective, the ministry has written to various state governments and port authorities to identify land parcels of 50-500 acres for setting up such parks, it said.

"MNRE has initiated action in a big way towards setting up new hubs for manufacturing renewable energy equipments in the country to meet both domestic and also cater to global demand," the ministry said in a statement.

The MNRE has offered many incentives to states to set up such parks at a time when numerous international firms are looking to move their production base out of China after the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has urged states to set up renewable energy (RE) equipment manufacturing parks to meet domestic demand as well as make India a global production hub.

A total of 176 new cases of the novel coronavirus disease have been reported in Gujarat in the past 12 hours. Ahmedabad alone reported 143 cases, reports ANI. The total COVID-19 cases in the state now stand at 1,272. Seven people have died due to COVID-19 in the last 24 hours as the total toll climbed to 48.

He clarified that it was not a COVID-19 related death. According to the protocol, two samples have to be taken. However, in this case three were taken and all were negative. "It is a normal death," he said.

Noting that the elderly patient was suffering from kidney-related ailment and was diabetic, the collector said, "He was under observation in the ICU and in the last two days there were lot of complications. Due to his age and earlier diseases, the doctors tried their best but he expired at 4 in the morning."

K V Nandakumar, Superintendent of the Government Manjeri Medical College hospital, where he was admitted said, "The man was in ICU and was undergoing treatment for coronary artery disease kidney ailment and diabetes."

The patient was declared cured of the viral infection after his last three samples taken on 7, 10 and 13 of April came out negative, Malappuram District Collector Jafar Malik told PTI.

An 85-year-old coronavirus patient, who was declared cured and was under treatment for kidney and heart-related ailments died early Saturday at a hospital Malappuram.

All the infected sailors were serving at the INS Angre, a shore-based logistics and support establishment, and they are undergoing treatment at a Navy hospital, official sources said.

At least 26 Indian Navy personnel have tested positive for coronavirus at the Western Naval Command in Mumbai, in the first case of a major outbreak of the disease in the Indian armed forces.

"The patient had a medical history of co-morbid conditions, including high blood pressure, diabetes and pneumonia," he said.

The woman was referred to the GMCH from a private hospital on 13 April and her swab samples were sent for testing, following which she was reported positive three days later, GMCH nodal officer Dr Arvind Gaikwad said.

A 65-year-old COVID-19 patient died at the Government Medical College and Hospital in Maharashtra's Aurangabad city in the early hours of Saturday, an official said. This is the third coronavirus-related death in Aurangabad district, he said.

Government Medical College PRO Puja Tripathi Pandey said the man was initially admitted to Jaitipur health centre after he complained of fever and cough but was then moved to the medical college earlier this week and quarantined. "He died late Friday night after vomiting," Pandey said.

A 20-year-old man who showed symptoms of coronavirus infection and was quarantined for two days at a hospital in Shahjahanpur has died, an official said on Saturday.

"We have received 42,000 rapid kits, they will be used in containment zones starting from tomorrow," said Jain.

After 67 fresh COVID-19 cases were reported in Delhi on Friday, the overall tally in the National Capital climbed to 1,767. "There have been 42 deaths in the Delhi while, 911 patients are admitted at hospitals. Of the 911 positive cases, 27 are in ICUs and six are on ventilators," said Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain.

In March, Netflix announced it had established a $100 million fund to assist the hardest-hit workers on its own productions and others in areas where Netflix has a large production base.

Netflix Inc has increased the amount of money in its coronavirus emergency relief fund by $50 million, bringing the total for displaced production workers to $150 million, a company spokeswoman said on Friday.

The NGO - All India Council of Human Rights, Liberties and Social Justice (AICHLS) - in its plea has sought safeguarding measures for the victims of domestic violence and child abuse amid the lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus, which has infected 14,378 people and claimed 480 lives in India.

The submission was made before a bench of justices JR Midha and Jyoti Singh which was hearing via video conferencing an NGO's plea claiming that there was an increasing in number of domestic violence incidents since the nation was put under lockdown and sought an urgent intervention by the court.

The AAP government and the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) have told the High Court that there are sufficient measures in place to safeguard victims of domestic violence and child abuse amid the lockdown in the country.

"Of the 12 new cases, 11 have contact history and one has a history of Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI)," informed the state government.

The confirmed positive cases also include the 92 patients who have been discharged. So far the state has reported 13 deaths.

With 12 more individuals testing positive for the novel coronavirus in Karnataka, the overall tally in the state on Saturday climbed to 371, said chief minister BS Yediyurappa. The fresh cases were reported from 5 pm Friday till 12 pm Saturday.

In addition, Walmart Foundation is donating a total of Rs 7.7 crore to Goonj and Srijan - NGOs supporting vulnerable communities through the crisis.

Walmart Inc and e-commerce major Flipkart will spend Rs 38.3 crore towards in-kind donations into India to help with the front-line response efforts, a statement said.

Walmart Inc, Walmart Foundation and Flipkart on Saturday said they are are supporting India's COVID-19 response by donating personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers and funds for organisations providing essential relief materials to farmers and small businesses.

The appeal to maintain social distancing was also reiterated and the need to avoid religious congregation.

In the Group of Ministers (GoM) meet conducted on Saturday, the management strategy for coronavirus hotspots and clusters was reviewed. In the meet, suggestions to enlist services of retired doctors, health professionals and medical students in the final year of graduation were examined.

The guidelines to allow limited activities and the measures announced by RBI were also appreciated, Singh further said.

After the Group of Ministers (GoM) on Saturday, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, "Interacted with the GoM on the COVID-19 situation. We discussed ways to mitigate the hardships faced by the people and the role ministries can play in providing relief to people."

As per Fridays directive, the managing directors of the sugar mills will list the native village, tehsil and district of the labourers and their families living in the shelter for more than 14 days. "They will have to undergo a medical check-up and the list sent to the collector of their present residence and to the collector of the native district," it said.

As per the guidelines signed by Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta, over 1.31 lakh migrant labourers and their families, who work in 38 sugar factories, are unable to go to their native districts due to the nationwide lockdown imposed in view of the novel coronavirus.

In a major relief which could be seen as the biggest evacuation plan within the state, the Maharashtra government on Friday decided to allow over one lakh migrant sugarcane workers to return to their native villages, said media reports.

The infant is one of the three new coronavirus cases detected in Uttarakhand on Friday. The number of cases in the state after these fresh infections has risen to 40, a health department spokesperson said.

They did not say where the congregation was held or when the infant's father had tested positive.

A nine-month-old infant who is among the latest coronavirus cases detected in Uttarakhand contracted the infection from his father after he returned from a Tablighi Jamaat congregation, officials said on Saturday.

In a video that surfaced online, in a criminal wastage of food, the authorities can purportedly be seen overturning the vegetable cart following which the hawker attacked the policewoman.

A scuffle broke out between a vegetable vendor and police personnel on Friday in Mumbai's Mankhurd area after the woman was not allowed to hawk her wares in the containment zone.

In this treatment, the plasma extracted from the blood of a fully recovered COVID-19 patient is injected into the critical patient to help his body generate antibodies to fight the virus.

The Gujarat government has decided to carry out plasma transfusion treatment on COVID-19 patients in the state, particularly those in critical condition, to boost their immunity, health officials said.

"He is a senior doctor who attended to COVID-19 patients at Sassoon. A couple of days ago, he complained of breathlessness and got himself admitted at the hospital," an official from the hospital said.

Sassoon Hospital is the designated COVID-19 critical care centre in Maharashtra's Pune city and so far, over 40 coronavirus-related deaths have been reported from the state- run facility.

A 52-year-old senior doctor from Pune's Sassoon General Hospital has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, an official said on Saturday.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to chair a Cabinet meeting at 4 pm over the situation regarding coronavirus in the national capital. The government has identified over 40 containment zones and sanitisation is underway.

This is the second COVID-19 death in Ludhiana in the past two days and the fifth since the pandemic struck.

He was admitted to the Satguru Partap Singh (SPS) Hospital after he tested positive on 13 April. Hospital sources said he died due to multiple organ failure.

Assistant commissioner of police, Anil Kumar Kohli, died of the novel coronavirus in Ludhiana on Saturday afternoon, taking the COVID-19 toll in Punjab to 16. He succumbed to the infectious disease at the age of 52.

Therefore, all government and private colleges, state-based universities and their constituent colleges should start conducting regular online classes according to a timetable from 21 April, the order said.

A government order dated 17 April said the closure of schools and educational institutions to stop the spread of COVID-19 is badly affecting the studies of college students.

All government and private education institutions in Uttarakhand have been asked to start regular online classes from 21 April to ensure studies are not affected.

"Being a part of India team is a matter of great pride. But today we are going to create a bigger team, Team Mask Force," Indian captain Kohli said in the video.

The ''Team Mask Force'' has been created to spread awareness about wearing masks in public places.

Featuring Indian cricketers such as Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar, the BCCI has created a new video to promote wearing masks in public places and help the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The press note stated that this review of is for curbing opportunistic takeovers or acquisitions of Indian companies due to current COVID-19 pandemic.

Also, transfer of ownership of any existing or future FDI in an entity in India, directly or indirectly, resulting in beneficial ownership falling within this restriction will require government approval.

The department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade on Saturday issued a press note stating that foreign investments from countries with which India shares land border shall be under approval route.

As many as 43 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 480. Meanwhile, the recovery rate in India is at 13.85 percent with nearly 2000 patients having recovered from COVID-19, says Health Ministry's Lav Aggarwal.

The Union Health Ministry on Saturday reported that no new COVID-19 cases were reported in 22 districts in the past two weeks.

Giving an age-wise analysis, Lav Agarwal, Health ministry joint secretary, said that 14.4 percent deaths have been reported in the age group of 0-45 years. He said that 10.3 percent coronavirus deaths have been reported in the age group of 45-60 years, 33.1 percent in those who fall under the age bracket of 60-75 years and lastly he said that 42.2 percent deaths are reported in the age group of 75 years and above.

The ministry also said that of the coronavirus deaths in the country, 83 percent cases have been reported to have co-morbidities.

During the routine media briefing on coronavirus, the health ministry said that 75.3 percent of the COVID-19 deaths in India have been recorded in those who are 60 years of age and above.

The Jamaat linked cases were found in 23 states, the heath ministry further said

Of the 14,378 positive COVID-19 cases, 4,291 of them have been linked to Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi's Nizamuddin Markaz in mid-March, said Health Ministry

"Bookings for select domestic flights for travel from 4 May, 2020, and for international flights for travel from 1 June, 2020 onwards are open," it stated.

"In the light of the ongoing global health concerns, we have currently stopped accepting bookings on all domestic flights for travel till 3 May, 2020, and on all international flights for travel till 31 May, 2020," a notification on Air India's website said on Saturday.

Air India on Saturday announced it has opened bookings on select domestic and international routes from 4 May and 1 June, respectively.

The amendment specifies that transfer of ownership of Indian companies arising out of FDI investments from neighbouring countries will now also be subject to government approval. Similar FDI restrictions were earlier placed on Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The government has amended the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy to discourage opportunistic investment in Indian companies by neighbouring countries in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Madhya Pradesh BJP President V D Sharma also said that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan did not immediately expand his council of ministers because the "top- most priority" for the administration was to tackle the pandemic and not "waste time" on any other issue.

The COVID-19 cases have exponentially gone up in Madhya Pradesh as the previous Congress government did not get the Tablighi Jamaat members tested and was busy organising a film awards event in the initial days of the outbreak, a top BJP leader, who is convenor of state's health task force, claimed.

Tamil Nadu has reported 15 deaths while Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have reported 14 fatalities each. Punjab and Karnataka have reported 13 deaths each. Rajasthan has registered 11 deaths while West Bengal has reported 10 deaths fatalities.

Of the total 480 deaths, Maharashtra tops the tally with 201 fatalities, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 69, Delhi at 42, Gujarat at 41 and Telangana at 18.

About three lakh Rapid Antibody Test kits were airlifted to Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu from the Chinese city of Guangzhou, Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri said.

China has dispatched three lakh more Rapid Antibody Test kits being used for quick detection of the COVID-19 to India, the Indian envoy said on Saturday.

Gujarat reports 104 new COVID-19 cases, taking the total to 1,376, PTI quotes Health department official as saying. With 12 deaths, the toll due to the diseases rose to 53. These deaths were reported from Ahmedabad (5), Surat (2), and one each from Panchmahal, Anand, Gandhinagar, Bhavnagar, and Vadodara, said Principal Secretary (Health) Jayanti Ravi. Most of the deceased suffered from comorbidities like hypertension, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

With 186 new cases, the number of coronavirus cases in Delhi mounted to 1,893 while the death toll rose to 43, according to a bulletin issued by the CMO. Of the total cases, 207 have recovered and the number of active cases stands at 1,643. 874 tests have been conducted today and a total of 2,22,83 tests have been conducted in the National Capital, it said, adding that the number of tests done per million was 1,103.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation clarifies that so far no decision has been taken to open domestic or international operations. Airlines are advised to open their bookings only after a decision in this regard has been taken by the Government. @MoCA_GoI @DGCAIndia @AAI_Official

Earlier in the day, Air India said it has opened bookings on select domestic flights from May 4 and on select international flights from 1 June.A few days ago, IndiGo had announced that it would start flight operations in a phased manner from 4 May.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Saturday said airlines are advised to open bookings only after the government takes a decision on starting domestic and international commercial passenger flight services."The Ministry of Civil Aviation clarifies that so far no decision has been taken to open domestic or international operations," he wrote on Twitter. "Airlines are advised to open their bookings only after a decision in this regard has been taken by the government," Puri added.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation clarifies that so far no decision has been taken to open domestic or international operations. Airlines are advised to open their bookings only after a decision in this regard has been taken by the Government. @MoCA_GoI @DGCAIndia @AAI_Official

Earlier in the day, Air India said it has opened bookings on select domestic flights from May 4 and on select international flights from 1 June.A few days ago, IndiGo had announced that it would start flight operations in a phased manner from 4 May.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Saturday said airlines are advised to open bookings only after the government takes a decision on starting domestic and international commercial passenger flight services."The Ministry of Civil Aviation clarifies that so far no decision has been taken to open domestic or international operations," he wrote on Twitter. "Airlines are advised to open their bookings only after a decision in this regard has been taken by the government," Puri added.

The Assam government has decided that all departments in the state secretariat will start functioning from 21 April, reports PTI. The head of the administrative department will ensure that officers of the rank of deputy secretary and above shall attend office regularly and other Grade-I and Grade-lI officers may attend office as required from 21 April , an official order said.

"A 62-year-old man had died in KEM hospital on April 16 due to acute respiratory failure. His samples tested positive on Friday. Another 58-year-old man died in Poona Hospital on April 17 due to viral pneumonia. His report was also positive," the official said. The third victim was a 75-year-old man who died at the state-run Sassoon Hospital here on Friday. He had respiratory tract infection.

official as saying. Three deaths due to coronavirus were also reported during the day, said an official of the Pune Municipal Corporation, taking the toll to 51

Forty-seven new cases of coronavirus were reported in Pune on Saturday, taking the number of COVID-19 patients in the district to 612, PTI quotes a health

The minister announced a 1.6-billion pound cash boost for local councils around the UK to help them cope with the COVID-19 response. Today we are providing 1.6bn of new funding to support councils with the pressures they face as they respond to the crisis," he said. Jenrick said it would help adult services, children's services, the most vulnerable and waste collection services.

"It is correct that the hard work and forbearance of the British public is paying off. The rates of transmission are falling. But the number of deaths remains sobering. It reinforces the need to consider this the moment to keep going and keep following the measures," Jenrick said, as the country's overall official toll soared by 888 on Saturday to 15,464.

Britain's death toll in the coronavirus pandemic registered another big daily spike of 888 to hit 15,464 on Saturday. Addressing the daily Downing Street briefing, UK Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said that 4,60,437 tests for the deadly virus have now been carried out across the country, with 1,14,217 people tested positive and 17,759 in hospital  down from 18,711.

New York City, the epicenter of coronavirus outbreak in the US, has 1,22,148 confirmed virus cases and more than 7,890 COVID-19 deaths and another 4,309 probable deaths, people who did not have a positive COVID-19 laboratory test, but their death certificate lists as the cause of death "COVID-19" or an equivalent.

"If you look at the past three days, you could argue that we are past the plateau when we're starting to descend, which would be very good news. Again, it's only three days but that's what the numbers would start to suggest, he said, while cautioning that even if the state is not at a plateau anymore, we're still not in good position.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state appears to be past the plateau on the coronavirus infection curve and is "starting to descend, as hospitalizations continue to decline and the daily death toll dropped under 550 for the first time in almost two weeks, reports PTI. "Hospitalization numbers are down (and that is) good news, Cuomo said at his daily coronavirus press briefing on Saturday, noting that the number of people getting hospitalized from the virus continues to fall from around 18,000 to currently 16,000, the emergency rooms have fewer people in them and the ICU admissions and intubations continue to be down.

Manipur's second COVID-19 patient has tested negative for coronavirus on Saturday, PTI quotes the director of of Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Prof Ahanthem Santa Singh as saying. Singh told PTI that he 65-year-old patient, who is undergoing treatment at RIMS tested negative for COVID-19 in the third test. In the earlier two tests he had tested positive. The second COVID-19 patient was admitted in RIMS Hospital on 31 March. The COVID-19 Common Control Room (CCCR) of Manipur government in a press release said the patient will be discharged if the next test result is negative.

Since in Chandigarh corona outbreak is scattered and not confined to a specific pocket,area,village or cluster ,entire district has been declared as containment zone.

Manoj Parida, Advisor, Chandigarh Administration said that the district of Chandigarh had been declared as a containment zone as the virus outbreak is scattered and not confined to clusters or pockets.

The chief minister also directed to release a sum of Rs 1,000 per head for those belonging to weakers sections. In addition, he has also directed to provide Rs1,000 to the leftover families of the urban and rural areas who have not been covered so far in any welfare scheme.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday directed officials concerned to ensure that temporary and outsourced employees get their honorarium without any cut for the lockdown period, reports PTI. In a meeting with senior officials, the chief minister directed that in case of any temporary or outsourced employee working in educational institutes, hospitals or offices not being able to attend the office due to the lockdown, his honorarium should not be cut, said Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Kumar Awasthi. "Such employees should be paid honorarium without any cut, he said.

Coronavirus Outbreak updates: Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Saturday said airlines are advised to open bookings only after the government takes a decision on starting domestic and international commercial passenger flight services."The Ministry of Civil Aviation clarifies that so far no decision has been taken to open domestic or international operations," he wrote on Twitter.

43 new coronavirus cases were detected in Telangana on Saturday, taking the state total to 809. While 186 patients have been discharged till date and 18 deaths have been recorded, the number of active cases stands at 605.

With 125 fresh cases, the number of people infected with the coronavirus went up to 974 in Uttar Pradesh. According to a health department bulletin, 108 COVID-19 patients have been treated in the state so far and the number of active cases is 852. Of the 125 cases reported on Saturday, 86 are linked to last month's Tablighi Jamaat in Delhi's Nizamuddin, the bulletin said.

Gujarat reported the highest single-day spike of 280 in COVID-19 cases, taking the total number of the infected people in the state to 1376, a Health department official said. Ahmedabad alone accounted for 239 coronavirus positive cases. The city now has 862 such cases, the official added.

Uttar Pradesh reported 44 fresh coronavirus cases and one death on Friday, taking the total number of COVID-19 positive cases in the state to 849 and the death toll to 14, an official said.

During the routine media briefing on coronavirus, the health ministry said that 75.3 percent of the COVID-19 deaths in India have been recorded in those who are 60 years of age and above.

The ministry also said that of the coronavirus deaths in the country, 83 percent cases have been reported to have co-morbidities.

As many as 43 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 480. Meanwhile, the recovery rate in India is at 13.85 percent with nearly 2000 patients having recovered from COVID-19, says Health Ministry's Lav Aggarwal.

Assistant commissioner of police, Anil Kumar Kohli, died of the novel coronavirus in Ludhiana on Saturday afternoon, taking the COVID-19 toll in Punjab to 16. He succumbed to the infectious disease at the age of 52.

He was admitted to the Satguru Partap Singh (SPS) Hospital after he tested positive on 13 April. Hospital sources said he died due to multiple organ failure.

A nine-month-old infant who is among the latest coronavirus cases detected in Uttarakhand contracted the infection from his father after he returned from a Tablighi Jamaat congregation, officials said on Saturday.

They did not say where the congregation was held or when the infant's father had tested positive.

As 50 more persons tested coronavirus positive in Indore on Friday night, the number of COVID-19 cases in Madhya Pradesh has climbed to 1,360, health officials said. So far, 69 persons have died due to the infection in the state, the officials said on Saturday.

With 12 more individuals testing positive for the novel coronavirus in Karnataka, the overall tally in the state on Saturday climbed to 371, said chief minister BS Yediyurappa. The fresh cases were reported from 5 pm Friday till 12 pm Saturday.

The confirmed positive cases also include the 92 patients who have been discharged. So far the state has reported 13 deaths.

After 67 fresh COVID-19 cases were reported in Delhi on Friday, the overall tally in the National Capital climbed to 1,767. "There have been 42 deaths in the Delhi while, 911 patients are admitted at hospitals. Of the 911 positive cases, 27 are in ICUs and six are on ventilators," said Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain.

"We have received 42,000 rapid kits, they will be used in containment zones starting from tomorrow," said Jain.

A 65-year-old COVID-19 patient died at the Government Medical College and Hospital in Maharashtra's Aurangabad city in the early hours of Saturday, an official said. This is the third coronavirus-related death in Aurangabad district, he said.

The woman was referred to the GMCH from a private hospital on 13 April and her swab samples were sent for testing, following which she was reported positive three days later, GMCH nodal officer Dr Arvind Gaikwad said.

A total of 176 new cases of the novel coronavirus disease have been reported in Gujarat in the past 12 hours. Ahmedabad alone reported 143 cases, reports ANI. The total COVID-19 cases in the state now stand at 1,272.

A total of 176 new cases of the novel coronavirus disease have been reported in Gujarat in the past 12 hours. Ahemdabad alone reported 143 cases, reports ANI. The total COVID-19 cases in the state now stand at 1,272.

A woman who had delivered a baby two days ago in Ranchi's Sadar Hospital, has tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday. Her child has been admitted to the isolation ward at RIMS hospital, reports ANI.

The Delhi High Court has agreed for an urgent hearing on a petition on a report of an increase in domestic violence cases during the lockdown on Saturday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Maharashtra continues to be the worst-affected state with a total of 3,323 cases. While 331 patients have recovered, 201 deaths have been reported.

991 new COVID-19 cases and 43 deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours, said Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday. Meanwhile, three more persons tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, taking the total number of coronavirus cases in Himachal Pradesh to 39.

As 50 more persons tested coronavirus positive in Indore on Friday night, the number of COVID-19 cases in Madhya Pradesh has climbed to 1,360, health officials said. So far, 69 persons have died due to the infection in the state.

Coronavirus cases in India have reached 14,387 with 480 casualties reported, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The number of active cases stand at 11,906 with 1991 recoveries.

21 serving personnel tested positive for COVID-19 within naval premises at Mumbai. This number includes 20 sailors of INS Angre, a shore establishment at Mumbai. Most of these are asymptomatic and have been traced to a single sailor who was tested positive on 7 April.

20 Navy personnel have tested positive for COVID-19 at a naval base in Mumbai. The first case was reported on April 7 at the INS Angre base there. All other persons who came in contact with the affected personnel have also been tested: Navy officials

Meanwhile, the number of deaths linked to the novel coronavirus reached 150,000, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally.

The Union health ministry claimed a decline in the rate of doubling of infections in the last one week even as India witnessed a surge in cases with 1,076 infections and 32 fresh deaths in the last 24 hours, and Gujarat becoming the sixth state to cross the 1,000 mark in confirmed coronavirus cases.

The total number of confirmed cases in the country rose to 13,835 on Friday with toll from COVID-19 disease at 452, as per the last update released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW). Of the total cases, 11,616 are active while 1,766 have been cured/discharged and one has migrated.

However, according to a PTI tally based on reports from states, the total number of confirmed cases in the country is 14,173 while the toll stands at 479.

Meanwhile, even as the Union home ministry updated its containment plan for coronavirus hotspots, Maharashtra, the worst-affected state in the country, relaxed restrictions on sugarcane workers as well as released plans to allow some industrial and commercial activities, including MNREGA works from 20 April in areas that are not marked as containment zones.

Activities related to supply chain of essential goods, whether in manufacturing, wholesale or retail trade of essential goods through local stores, large brick and mortar stores or e-commerce companies, will be also allowed, except in containment areas.

On Friday, the number of confirmed cases in the state crossed the 3,000 mark and toll from the virus inched closer to 200.

Mumbai, Indore worst hotspots

Mumbai once again remained the worst-affected hotspot in the Maharashtra (and the country), with 77 more people testing positive in India's financial capital on Friday. According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the city has 2,120 confirmed cases as on Friday. The number in Dharavi, Asia's largest slum, reached 101 with 15 new infections reported on Friday, PTI reported.

Indore, which is the second worst-affected city in the country (and the worst affected city in Madhya Pradesh), the number of confirmed cases were at 842 while 47 patients have died since the outbreak began less than a month ago. At 5.58 percent death rate, Indore's coronavirus mortality is above the national average, state health officials said.

Gujarat becomes sixth state to cross 1,ooo mark

While Maharashtra continues to lead in terms of total confirmed cases at 3,205 infections, Delhi is the second worst-affected state with 1,640 cases, followed by Tamil Nadu with 1,323 cases, Rajasthan with 1,193 cases and Madhya Pradesh with 1,164 infections.

In Gujarat, the total number confirmed cases reached 1,021 after 92 new cases were reported on Friday, while the death toll reached 38 (the third highest in the country and same as that of Delhi) with the addition of two fatalities, health officials said in Ahmedabad.

State officials attributed the sudden spurt in the cases in Gujarat to intensive surveillance and testing in coronavirus hotspots, including those which have been placed under curfew till 21 April in the walled city of Ahmedabad.

Meanwhile, Karnataka, which recorded 38 new positive cases, its highest single day tally so far, on Friday has scaled up the number of coronavirus tests by five times, state officials said. The state has 353 confirmed cases so far.

Of the total 452 deaths listed by the health ministry on Friday, Maharashtra tops the tally with 194 fatalities, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 57, Gujarat and Delhi at 38 each and Telangana 18.

Tamil Nadu has reported 15 deaths while Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh reported 14 fatalities each.

Punjab and Karnataka reported 13 deaths each.

Rajasthan has registered 11 deaths while West Bengal reported 10 deaths fatalities. Some states have reported less than 10 deaths.

As per the latest updated data from the health ministry, the rate of recovery of COVID-19 patients in India is at 12.7 percent, while the mortality rate of 3.27 percent.

Rate of doubling of cases has slowed, says health ministry

At a daily media briefing about updates on COVID-19 situation, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal maintained that there had been a 40 percent decline in the growth of new cases.

The average growth factor of cases from 1 April stood at 1.2, whereas between 15 and 31 March 15 it was 2.1.

This decline of 40 percent was due to increase in testing, including that of cases with severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and influenza-like illness (ILI). he said.

The health ministry official also said that the rate at which coronavirus cases were doubling has come down.

"Before lockdown, the doubling rate of coronavirus cases was 3 days. Going by the number of cases in the last seven days, the doubling rate has been 6.2 days. In 19 states and Union Territories the doubling rate is less than the national average." he said

Agarwal also claimed that India has been doing better than many other countries on the outcome ratio, which is the number of recoveries from coronavirus infection versus the number of deaths.

"If 80 percent of the patients in India are recovering and in 20 percent cases deaths are being reported, then by that standard India has been doing a little better than many other nations on the outcome ratio," he said.

He also informed reporters that 1,919 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals with 1.73 lakh isolation beds and 21,800 ICU beds have been readied till now.

In a letter to all chief secretaries and principal secretaries (health) of states, ICMR Director General Dr Balram Bharagava listed the protocol for using the rapid antibody test' in hotspot area for epidemiological studies and surveillance.

India received five lakh rapid antibody testing kits from China on Thursday and these, health ministry officials, said are being distributed to states for districts with high burden of infection.

In case, the state does not have a hotspot, these tests may be used for: any hotspot which may emerge in future or as a surveillance tool for epidemiological purpose in such areas where cases have not emerged so far, the ICMR said.

The ICMR said that 28,542 samples were tested on Friday with the total number of samples tested so far at 3,32,583.

The ICMR also said that it will conduct a study to find the efficacy of BCG vaccine against COVID-19 and till any definitive result is reached it will not recommended the vaccine even for healthcare workers, officials said on Friday.

Maharashtra seeks relief from Centre, allows conditional travel for sugarcane workers

The Maharashtra govt on Friday sought financial aid from Centre. While Maharashtra finance minister Ajit Pawar has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a grant of Rs 10,000 crore for five months, state revenue minister and Maharashtra Congress chief Balasaheb Thorat on Friday demanded a package of Rs 25,000 crore from the Centre to help the state tackle the coronavirus outbreak.

Thorat said that the state is taking care of 7.5 lakh poor and migrant labourers in 6,500 camps.

"We have demanded PPE kits from the Centre but are yet to get them. We want the Centre to give us a package of Rs 25,000 crore as well as Rs 16,500 GST refund to tackle the outbreak," he added.

On Friday, the Maharashtra government relaxed some of the restrictions placed on movement of people, including allowing over one lakh migrant sugarcane workers to return to their native villages amid the lockdown subject to the carrying out of medical tests in connection with the coronavirus outbreak.

A statement released by the office of Social Justice Minister Dhananjay Munde said that the decision will benefit sugarcane workers from Beed and Ahmednagar who are stranded in western Maharashtra, the border areas with Karnataka and other parts of the state.

The statement said those operating these factories will have to get workers and their kin tested and certified, and inform authorities, including gram panchayats, and then obtain requisite permissions for their safe return.

Health ministry updates containment plan, extends wait period to four weeks

The Health ministry said on Friday that containment operations will be scaled down if no secondary positive case of COVID-19 is reported from a quarantine zone for at least four weeks after the last confirmed test has been isolated and all his contacts have been followed up for 28 days.

According to the ministry's "Updated containment plan for large outbreaks COVID-19", a containment operation (large outbreak or cluster) is deemed to be over 28 days from the date the last case in that zone tests negative.

The plan said the authorities will do extensive contact tracing and active search for cases in containment zone, test all suspect cases and high-risk contacts, isolate all suspect or confirmed cases, implement social distancing measures and intensive risk communication as part of the cluster containment strategy.

"The objective of this containment plan is to stop the chain of transmission thus reducing the morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19," the ministry said.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan also said that the Thiruvananthapuram-based Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Science and Technology in Kerala has developed a low cost diagnostic test kit that can confirm COVID-19 infection in two hours.

The kit can detect coronavirus in 10 minutes, and the sample to result in time will be less than two hours, Vardhan tweeted.

A total of 30 samples can be tested in a single batch in a single machine, he added.

Meawnhwile, Union home minister Amit Shah said the Modi government is leaving no stone unturned to tackle the coronavirus crisis.

"Modi government is leaving no stone unturned in this fight against COVID-19, ensuring minimum disruption in people's lives while planning for a strong and stable India in days ahead," he tweeted.

With inputs from agencies
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police are asking for the publics help locating a West Brighton girl who has been missing since Tuesday morning.

Imani Kollie, 16, was last seen at her Barker Street home around 9 a.m. The NYPD released a photo of her Friday night.

Police described Kollie as a black female, approximately 5 feet 5 inches tall, and 108 pounds with brown eyes and black hair. She was last seen wearing a blue denim jacket and gray pants.

Anyone with information in regard to this missing person is asked to call the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM, on Twitter @NYPDTips.

All calls are strictly confidential.
Police are investigating the death of a male nurse at Liverpool Hospital on Friday following reports the young and healthy mental health nurse died after an incident with a patient.

The 49-year-old highly experienced mental health nurse educator died at the western Sydney hospital about 11am on Friday.

The nurse died at Liverpool Hospital on Friday. Credit:David Porter

Paramedics responded to reports that a staff member had suffered a medical episode but were unable to revive him, NSW Police said.

Sources familiar with the case said that in the moments before the nurse died there was an incident involving a patient at the nurses station on the mental health unit.
Pelosi Satisfied with Biden Campaigns Response to Sexual Assault Allegation

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), one of the top Democrats in Congress, said she accepted a statement from presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Bidens campaign in response to a sexual assault allegation made by a former Biden staffer.

Tara Reade, 56, filed a lawsuit against Biden, 77, last week accusing him of sexually assaulting her at the U.S. Capitol in 1993. Reade said her impetus for filing the suit was the harassment she received since coming forward in April 2019 with allegations against her former boss.

In a statement sent to news outlets, Biden campaign spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield said: Women have a right to tell their story, and reporters have an obligation to rigorously vet those claims. We encourage them to do so, because these accusations are false. Biden himself has not addressed the matter and has not been asked about it by reporters yet.

During an appearance on MSNBCs The Beat on Friday night, host Ari Melber asked Pelosi about the accusation of misconduct. Was she satisfied with the response?

Yes, I am, Pelosi said.

I am very much involved in this issue. I always want to give the opportunity that women deserve to be heard. I am satisfied with his answer, yes.

Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden during a virtual town hall on April 8, 2020. (JoeBiden.com via Getty Images)

While Biden has been able to avoid questions on Reades suithis campaign has ignored multiple requests for comment from The Epoch Timesformer rivals Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)both of whom have endorsed Bidenwere asked about the allegation during interviews.

He has said, and I agree with this, Youve got to get to the bottom of every case and all allegations,' Klobuchar said during an appearance on Melbers show.

She said that viewers should read a New York Times story about the matter before adding: I think this case has been investigated. I know the vice president as a major leader on domestic abuse, I worked with him on that. And I think that, again, the viewers should read the article. It was very thorough.

The article in reference originally stated: No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reades allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses, and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.

The second sentence was removed after Bidens campaign contacted the paper, executive editor Dean Baquet admitted.

Biden appeared on MSNBC on Thursday but was not asked about Reades accusation.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) speaks at a press conference in the Capitol on July 15, 2019. (Holly Kellum/NTD)

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said during a forum Tuesday that Reades accusation was legitimate to talk about.

If we want, if we again want to have integrity, you cant say, you knowboth believe women, support all of this, until it inconveniences you, until it inconveniences us, she said, referring to assertions from Biden and others that all women should be believed.

Sanders, appearing on CBS This Morning this week, was asked if he agreed with Ocasio-Cortez, one of his proteges.

I think its relevant to talk about anything. And I think any woman who feels that she was assaulted has every right in the world to stand up and make her claims, Sanders responded. I think that she has the right to make her claims and get a public hearing and the public will make their own conclusions about it. I just dont know enough about it to comment further.

Reade has said she filed a complaint about what Biden allegedly did to a Senate office. If the complaint was filed and still exists, it is likely part of Bidens archive, the Washington Examiner reported.

The archive was donated to the University of Delaware in 2011 and was supposed to be made public last year, but the university pushed back the date until whichever is later between two years after Biden retires from public life or two years after Dec. 31, 2019.

Reade told the magazine that shes putting together an official request to gain access to any of her own records that are part of Bidens Senate archives.
Old shrine surfaces as Bang Wad reservoir hits bottom

PHUKET: Heavy isolated showers this week have helped restore some water back into Phukets main reservoirs, but more is needed, Provincial Waterworks Authority (PWA) Chief Graisorn Mahamad has told The Phuket News.

Water-Supplyweather

By The Phuket News

Saturday 18 April 2020, 12:20PM

The water situation according to the PWA as of yesterday (Apr 17). Image: PWA

The water situation according to the PWA as of yesterday (Apr 17). Image: PWA

The water level at Bang Wad reservoir has fallen so low that the original Toh Tha Mee Shrine has become visible again. Photo; via PR Dept

The water level at Bang Wad reservoir has fallen so low that the original Toh Tha Mee Shrine has become visible again. Photo; via PR Dept

As of Mar 24, Bang Wad reservoir, the islands main water source, contained just 850,000 cubic metres of water  or 8.3% of its full capacity. At that time, the water in the reservoir was expected to last just 17 days. (See story here.)

Now the reservoir contains just 80,000m3 of water, Mr Graisorn has confirmed.

Previously we used about 20,000m3 of water from the reservoir per day. That was reduced to 10,000m3 a day, which means we will be able to use water from the reservoir for about eight [more] days, he explained.

If the rains continue [like this week], we would be able to continue to use water [from the reservoir], Mr Graisorn said.

Water levels at Bang Wad have fallen so much that an old shrine at the bottom of the reservoir has become visible.

Photos of the shrine posted online this week prompted Pairote Khamthon, chief of the Phuket Irrigation Office, which is responsible for maintaining water reserves on the island, to go public with information about the water level at Bang Wad on Thursday (Apr 16).

The Toh Tha Mee Shrine was there when the dam was built. When the reservoir was flooded, a new shrine was built on a hill in the centre of the reservoir and the gods were invited there, Mr Pairote said.

During [the drought of] 2002 - 2003, the water level at the Bang Wad reservoir was even less than it is now, but no one noticed the shrine, Mr Pairote noted.

The reason the water level was so low was because of the volume of water that the PWA needed to draw from the reservoir in order to serve island residents and businesses, and because of the lack of rain the island has had since the drought began, he said.



Photos of the dry, cracked ground at the reservoir were no cause for alarm, Mr Pairote assured

This is because there is little water and the sun burns [the earth] until it cracks. That is a normal condition and does not adversely affect how much water is left. It is not a danger sign, he added.

Meanwhile, Phuket PWA Chief Mr Graisorn explained that the water serving residents now is being provided from private water sources, which his office has been orgainsing since last year.

While not acknowledging that those sources may have been running dry, the PWA late last month announced two new sources had been sourced to supply water. (See here.)

Mr Graison told The Phuket News yesterday, If the situation does not improve, the PWA will use water from other private water sources, which have now been negotiated and we have started to use two such sources, and we will find more.
Chinese vice premier Liu He holds phone talk with EU official over COVID-19

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He held a telephone conversation on Friday night with Valdis Dombrovskis, executive vice president of the European Commission.

Liu, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and head of the Chinese side of the China-EU High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue, conducted constructive communication with Dombrovskis, head of the EU side of the dialogue, Xinhua News Agency reported.

They discussed measures to step up epidemic prevention and control cooperation, enhance macro-policy coordination and push forward the negotiations of the China-EU investment agreement.
A leading industry body fears as many as 7,500 people have died after contracting coronavirus in care homes across the country.

Care England, which represents independent care firms, said it had collected data which suggested fatalities are far higher than those released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS)  who recorded 217 care home deaths from the virus up until April 3.

Chief executive Prof Martin Green told the Telegraph: If we look at some of the death rates since April 1 and compare them with previous years rates, we estimate a figure of about 7,500 people may have died as a result of Covid-19.

But he added that without testing, it was very difficult to give an absolute figure on care home deaths.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has promised data on residents who die with the illness will be available very shortly.

The pledge comes after experts called for care home deaths to be included in the daily tally amid fears they are going under the radar.

They currently are not listed every day and there have been lags in reported figures for several weeks because the process relies on death certificates, which must be registered and processed.

Earlier this week, the head of Public Health England, Professor Yvonne Doyle, said agencies were working towards producing much more rapid data, preferably on a daily basis.

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Public Health England said there were 3,084 care homes with Covid-19 outbreaks in England, as of April 15.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) began collecting data on deaths linked to Covid-19 which occurred in both hospitals and care homes on Thursday, Mr Hancock said.

TODO: define component type apester

He told the Health and Social Care Committee on Friday: Im concerned about this as well; I asked CQC to make sure that we record the data in care homes specifically, of those who are residents of care homes, whether they die in hospital or in the care home, and they started collecting that data yesterday and it will be published very shortly.

Mr Hancock did not specify precisely when, or how often, this data will be published.

The news comes after ministers forbid the use of "blanket" Do Not Resuscitate agreements that were seen as condemning elderly people to die without proper treatment for coronavirus.

The CQC was instructed to contact homes urgently telling them to tear up any agreements that would stop residents getting access to full healthcare if they choose it.

The World on Coronavirus lockdown 1 /60 The World on Coronavirus lockdown Getty Images A UK government public health campaign is displayed in Piccadilly Circus Reuters Chinese paramilitary police and security officers wear face masks to protect against the spread of the new coronavirus as they stand guard outside an entrance to the Forbidden City in Beijing AP A usually busy 42nd Street is seen nearly empty in New York AFP via Getty Images Bondi Beach, Australia Getty Images Military vehicles cross Westminster Bridge after members of the 101 Logistic Brigade delivered a consignment of medical masks to St Thomas' hospital Getty Images View of the illuminated statue of Christ the Redeemer that reads "Thank you" as Archbishop of the city of Rio de Janeiro Dom Orani Tempesta performs a mass in honor of Act of Consecration of Brazil and tribute to medical workers amidst the Coronavirus (COVID - 19) pandemic Getty Images Rome AFP via Getty Images An Indian man paddles his bicycle in front of a mural depicting the globe covered in a mask, as India remains under an unprecedented lockdown over the highly contagious coronavirus Getty Images Aerial view of the empty 9 de Julio avenue in Buenos Aires in Argentina AFP via Getty Images A view of an empty Grand Canal Reuters Las Ramblas, Barcelona, Spain Getty Images Aerial view of the empty Central cemetery in Bogota, Columbia AFP via Getty Images The facade of the Palacio de Lopez (seat of the government palace) AFP via Getty Images Miami, Florida AFP via Getty Images Aerial view of the empty Simon Bolivar park in Bogota AFP via Getty Images An LAPD patrol car drives through Venice Beach Boardwalk AP Venice Beach, California Getty Images Los Angeles, California Getty Images Surfers Paradise is seen empty in Australia Getty Images Many shops stand shuttered on the Venice Beach boardwalk Getty Images Empty escalators are seen at a deserted train station during morning rush hour after New South Wales began shutting down non-essential businesses Reuters A nearly empty Times Square in New York AFP via Getty Images Caracas AFP via Getty Images Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador AFP via Getty Images A general view of an unusually quiet Midland Park in Wellington, New Zealand Getty Images A general view of an unusually quiet Civic Square at lunchtimein Wellington, New Zealand Getty Images A policeman rides his motorcycle wearing a face mask in front of a closed shopping mall in Buenos Aires, Argentina AFP via Getty Images Florida Keys AP The historic Channel 2 Bridge closed to fishermen, bikers and pedestrians in Florida Keys AP The Beach on Scenic Gulf Drive near Seascape Resort in south Walton County, Florida sits empty of tourists AP Surfers Paradise is seen empty in Australia Getty Images A deserted Rajpath leading to India Gate in New Delhi AFP via Getty Images A general view is seen of a closed Luna Park in Sydney, Australia Getty Images A general view is seen of a closed Luna Park in Sydney, Australia Getty Images Empty roads are pictured following the lockdown by the government amid concerns about the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Kathmandu, Nepal Reuters An empty New York Subway car i AFP via Getty Images The empty pedestrian zone is seen in the city of Cologne, western Germany, AFP via Getty Images Place de la Comedie in the city of Montpellier , southern France AFP via Getty Images An empty street in Kuwait city AFP via Getty Images A building is covered by the Portuguese message: "Coronavirus: take precaution" over empty streets in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil, AP A general view shows an empty street after a curfew was imposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Reuters Parliament of Canada is pictured with empty street during morning rush hour AFP via Getty Images A near empty beach on Southend seafront in England PA Near empty Keswick town centre in Cumbria, England PA

A Government spokesman said every death from this virus is a tragedy, and said people were working around the clock to give the social care sector the equipment and support they need.

The Department of Health statement added: As a Government, we have a duty to report verified information.

It is important that we have the best possible reliable data to know how many deaths there are, wherever they occur.

In an important step forward, ONS are now providing a breakdown of deaths by place of occurrence.
A multitude of factors led to the decision made by ReedPop last week to cancel the 2020 editions of BookExpo, BookCon, and Unbound, according to Jenny Martin, director of the events. Questions about the feasibility of holding the publishing industrys most important American conference at New York Citys Javits Center at the end of May began to surface in mid-March, when Penguin Random House said it would not attend the events due to concerns about the continued spread of the new coronavirus. In its announcement, PRH cited New York City and New York State guidance, which, at the time, called for substantially limiting the number of participants in public gatherings.

Hoping that the outbreak might abate over time, ReedPop shifted BookExpo and BookCon to July 2226, but in the meantime the number of people infected by the virus has soared in New York and throughout the U.S., the Javits Center has been converted into a temporary hospital, much of the country has been placed on lockdown, and the economy has cratered. As a result, the remaining Big Five publishers, as well as Ingram Content Group, pulled out of the shows. In doing so, all pointed to uncertainty over business conditions caused by the spread of Covid-19, saying that it was impossible for them to plan to attend the fair.

Martin acknowledged that the withdrawal of many of the events biggest exhibitors played a role in the decision to cancel the conferences, but she said the most important factor was the deterioration of the nations economy. With many independent bookstores closed and independent presses focused on keeping their lights on, it became clear, she noted, that many guests may not have the discretionary income to make the trip to New York for the events.

ReedPop explored the possibility of finding other dates after July, Martin said, but none met the needs of the industry. Given the circumstances, she felt it best to cancel the events and give all participants, especially booksellers, time to focus on their businesses. Pulling the plug more than three months before BookExpo and BookCon were scheduled to take place will prevent exhibitors from incurring costs, she noted, adding that no one has made any shipments to Javits yet. And ReedPop will refund tickets already purchased.

Martin said ReedPop plans to hold BookExpo, BookCon, and Unbound next spring, but she didnt rule out the possibility of moving the shows to somewhere other than New York. We were planning to shake things up in 2021, she said, adding that the cancellation will give the organizer and all those involved in the events more time to plan. First order of business, she noted, is to form an advisory committee to begin exploring which changes will make the most sense.

Asked if she felt that the growth in virtual events, after the widespread cancellation of conferences and fairs across the industry, has endangered physical events, Martin said she believes there is room for both. While she acknowledged that virtual fairs and conferences have their place, and may change the shape of physical fairs, she added that they cant replace the face-to-face communication provided by in-person events.

Martin said Reed is exploring some new ventures to fill the void left this summer by the cancellation of BookExpo and BookCon, noting that plans are in the early stages. ReedPop hosted a virtual Read-a-Thon on April 11 as part of its new BookCon Virtual Author Tour Series, which will run through the spring. The Read-a-Thon, Martin noted, raised about $6,000 for the #SaveIndieBookstores campaign.

The cancellation of BookExpo and BookCon are the latest in a string of cancellations affecting the biggest conferences and fairs in the book business worldwide, including the London Book Fair, the Bologna Childrens Book Fair (which is planning a virtual fair beginning May 4), and the ALA Annual Meeting. The next major publishing event is the Frankfurt Book Fair, set for October 1418. In a note sent out last week, Frankfurt organizers said thatbased on current information availablethey expect the fair to proceed as planned.
India is set to produce 10 lakh testing kits from May as the demand for RT-PCR is on a rise. In doing so, India would reduce the dependency on other nations. Health Secretary Lav Agarwal also stated that along with indigenously developed RT-PCR testing kits, India is also actively working on developing a vaccine to fight coronavirus.

Agarwal said by May, India will be able to produce 10 lakh RT-PCR testing kits. The real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction is considered to be one of the most accurate tests to detect, test and study the virus. The ministry said that they are prioritising the production of kits that can yield results in 30 minutes.

Also read: Coronavirus India Live Updates: 6 states past 1,000-mark; Maharashtra tops the list with 3,323 COVID-19 cases

Lav Agarwal also added that India is accelerating the vaccine-development process and is working with global partners. "Under a multi-pronged strategy, we are working -- taking into account India's indigenous knowledge -- to boost the immune system. We have partnered with WHO to determine different drug therapies. A scientific task force is working to re-evaluate the existing drugs, and if required, these drugs could be re-purposed for COVID-19 use. We are working on the indigenous synthesis of anti-viral drugs," said Agarwal.

"Production of ancillary support devices such as personal protective equipment, oxygen concentrators, ventilators, CSIR engineering labs is being augmented by indigenous designs of Sree Chitra Tiurumalai Institute of Medical Science and Technology (SCTIMST) under Department of Science and Technology," said Agarwal.

Currently, India has 11,906 active cases, while 1991 people have been cured or discharged. A total of 480 people have succumbed to the pandemic.

Also read: Local sanitiser brands flood market after lockdown; HUL, Reckitt Benckiser lose market share

Also read: Infographic: How coronavirus has hurt Indian economy

INDIA CORONAVIRUS TRACKER: BusinessToday.In brings you a daily tracker as coronavirus cases continue to spread. Here is the state-wise data on total cases, fatalities and recoveries in one comprehensive graphic.
Resumption of toll at the national highways on April 20 may bring some respite to tolling companies, which are reeling under financial stress due to suspension of the levy. However, experts say that overall toll collection at the plazas will decline by 60 per cent.

Since coronavirus is a pandemic, it falls under the category of non-political force majeure where the compensation is much lower or negligible. "The traffic will be lower than normal and will be borne by tolling companies. Even though the non-political force majeure will be invoked it will not cover the decline in ...
Mayor Andy Ezard said Friday that staying patient, healthy, safe and diligent is still the key to overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ezard, speaking during a weekly update with the Morgan County Office of Emergency Management, also said Gov. J.B. Pritzker reached out to him Wednesday for a perspective on how downstate Illinois is faring.

He said he was appreciative of the governors time and concern.

If we do have a more regional base approach moving forward, that will help things, because downstate is a lot different than upstate, Ezard said.

While the majority of the states 27,575 COVID-19 cases and related 1,134 deaths have been in Chicago and its suburbs, the outbreak has touched 92 counties in Illinois as of Friday, according to the state health department.

Ezard said that moving forward, he hopes the governor can address the way to get people back to work. He also hopes there will be some guidance about gatherings  which are now on hold statewide as part of the governors stay-home order.

Gatherings downstate are different than they are upstate, Ezard said.

We kind of touched on that and said theres more space in this area, he said. We think we can get it done and asked him to be more definitive on gatherings.

Ezard said their discussion also touched on rural healthcare, which is a big concern.

Sometimes, we feel forgotten in a local setting and its not just the big health systems that need to be driving this. I think hes going to address some of those things, Ezard said.

The mayor said he hopes restrictions will eventually ease and while its tough for people, its the right thing to do.

I think we forget those who are not working right now, so we thank you for your patience. We have to get you back to work and we must get you back to work, but we have to stay safe, too, and thats the goal, he said. If we rush back into this, I dont want in a month or two to come back to this.
Gold traders and dealers quoted massive discounts of about $50 to $70 over benchmark spot prices in China, the biggest on record as per data going back till 2014.

Bengaluru/Mumbai: Physical gold demand in China continued to be in the doldrums this week as the coronavirus-led restrictions stalled activity, with dealers in the top consumer offering massive discounts.

Traders and dealers quoted massive discounts of about $50 to $70 over benchmark spot prices in China, the biggest on record as per data going back till 2014.

In the short-term, until the coronavirus disappears, I dont see any physical demand in China, said Peter Fung, head of dealing at Wing Fung Precious Metals.

Spot gold prices traded between $1,672.69 and $1,746.50 an ounce this week, a peak since 2012.

I heard jewellery stores stocked up in January so theyre now stuck with all of that and this week, could be more interested in selling for cash, said Samson Li, a Hong Kong-based precious metals analyst at Refinitiv GFMS.

The Hong Kong market, however, did exhibit some signs of steady activity, with premiums around $0.50-$1.00.

We resumed operations so were getting better but on the economy side, most shops are still closed, said Dick Poon, general manager at Heraeus Metals Hong Kong Ltd.

Singapore saw premiums of $1.50-$3 an ounce, although restrictions strained supply and reduced retail activity, traders said.

Bullion sales remain very high as clients scramble to protect their wealth in physical gold and silver amidst the crisis in the real economy, said Vincent Tie, sales manager at Silver Bullion, adding customers were opting for online purchases.

Singapores annual exports growth accelerated in March, driven by a jump in shipments of pharmaceuticals and gold.

However, high premiums on retail gold has slowed physical demand, said Spencer Campbell, director at Precious Metals Consultants SE Asia Consulting in Singapore.

In the worlds second biggest bullion consumer, India, an extended lockdown kept physical gold trading suspended while local prices soared to a record.

Bullion industry is not expecting any kind of respite from the lockdown in near future, said a Mumbai-based dealer with a bullion importing bank.

Indias gold consumption in 2020 could fall as much as 50 percent from last year as the lockdown has closed jewellery stores during key festival and wedding seasons.
The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 488 and the number of cases climbed to 14,792 in the country on Saturday, registering an increase of 36 deaths and 957 cases since Friday evening, according to the Union Health Ministry.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 12,289 while 2,014 people have been cured and discharged, and one had migrated, it said.

The total number of cases includes 76 foreign nationals.

Thirty-six deaths have been reported since Friday evening -- 12 from Madhya Pradesh, 10 from Gujarat, seven from Maharashtra, four from Delhi and one each from Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir.

Of the 488 deaths, Maharashtra tops the list with 201 fatalities, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 69, Gujarat at 48 and Delhi at 42 and Telangana at 18.

Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have reported 15 deaths each while Uttar Pradesh has reported 14 fatalities.

Punjab and Karnataka have reported 13 deaths each.

Rajasthan has registered 11 deaths while West Bengal has reported 10 fatalities.

Five people have lost their lives in Jammu and Kashmir while Kerala and Haryana have recorded three deaths each. Jharkhand and Bihar have reported two deaths each.

Meghalaya, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Assam reported one fatality each, according to the health ministry data.

However, a PTI tally of the figures reported by various states as on Saturday showed at least 14,848 confirmed cases and 503 deaths.

There has been a lag in the Union Health Ministry figures, compared to the number of deaths announced by different states, which officials attribute to procedural delays in assigning the cases to individual states.

According to the ministry's data updated in the evening, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 3,323 followed by Delhi at 1,707, Madhya Pradesh at 1,355 and Tamil Nadu at 1,323.

COVID-19 cases have gone up to 1,272 in Gujarat, 1,229 in Rajasthan and 969 in Uttar Pradesh.

Telangana has 791 cases, followed by Andhra Pradesh at 603 and Kerala at 396.

The number of novel coronavirus cases has risen to 371 in Karanataka, 328 in Jammu and Kashmir, 287 in West Bengal, 225 in Haryana and 202 in Punjab.

Bihar has reported 85 infection cases, while Odisha has 60 coronavirus cases.

Forty-two people were infected with the virus in Uttarakhand, while Himachal Pradesh has 38 cases. Chhattisgarh has 36 cases and Assam has registered 35 cases each.

Jharkhand has 33 cases, Chandigarh has 21 cases and Ladakh has 18, while 12 cases have been reported from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Meghalaya has reported 11 cases while Goa and Puducherry have reported seven COVID-19 infections each. Manipur and Tripura have two cases each, while Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have reported a case each.

"State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation," the ministry said on its website. The website also mentions that the patient from Nagaland has been shifted to Assam.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
State-owned gas utility GAIL India Ltd on Saturday said it is in readiness to resume construction of various hydrocarbon infrastructure projects of national importance post lifting of the COVID-19 lockdown.

"In order to kick start the crucial infrastructure projects to enable expansion of the gas based economy, GAIL along with its subsidiary and joint venture companies has chalked out catch-up plans for various locations and work fronts to ensure timely completion and avoid any slippages," the company said in a statement here.

Before the March 25 nationwide lockdown stopped all construction activities, GAIL was building multi-crore gas pipelines to connect fuel sources with consumption centres as well as setting up city distribution networks to sell CNG to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households.

"Graded measures in the short to medium term shall be rolled out starting from April 20 with the support of local administrative authorities across the states," the company said, adding it has facilitated arrangements for continued stay of the migrant labourers working at various sites/camps during the lockdown period for ensuring safety of all concerned.

Detailed SOPs / protocols have also been devised for ensuring hygiene and social distancing norms, promoting use of masks at the project sites and work stations in compliance with the instructions/ guidelines issued by the Government of India, it said.

In parallel, GAIL has also maintained safe and uninterrupted supplies of LPG to oil marketing companies and natural gas to the crucial downstream utilities such as fertilizer, power, refineries and city gas distribution, the statement said.

"Management of the company is in regular communication with the nodal ministry to seek guidance on issues requiring support for resuming full-fledged activities, post the phase of lockdown. Key stake holders are also kept informed on the current developments as well as the proposed line of action under GAIL's complete readiness plan for returning to normalcy in the near term," it said.

Besides ensuring operational commitments, GAIL and its employees have been at the forefront in fighting this disease by contributing about Rs 54 crore to the PM CARES Fund.

In addition, GAIL has so far provided support aggregating over Rs 3.5 crore to various district administrations across the country for procuring PPE, ventilators, masks and other medical equipment.

Distribution of food packets and ration kits are also being undertaken for extending immediate support to the marginalised and needy sections of the society at many locations, it added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
New Delhi, April 18 : The Tablighi Jamaat religious congregations held at its headquarters in Delhis Nizamuddin area last month and at other places are taking a toll on its members across the world after it became the super spreader of the deadly Covid-19 virus.

Sources said the chief of Tablighi Jamaat in Faisalabad, Pakistan, Maulana Suhaib Rumi, 69, has died of coronavirus on Friday. Over 1,100 members of the Jamaat have tested positive for the contagious disease in Pakistan's Punjab province.

The preacher of the Islamic missionary had attended a Tablighi gathering in Lahore's Raiwaind last month. Five members of his family, including two grandchildren, have also been infected with coronavirus, sources said.

As per a last week's report in Dawn newspaper, which quoted the Punjab Special Branch, around 70,000 to 80,000 members of the Jamaat had attended the religious congregation at the Raiwind Markaz on March 10.

The Jamaat in Punjab, however, had claimed that more than 250,000 people had participated in the event. Though most people left by March 13, 5,000 members are still there, including 3,000 from 40 countries, including the US, England and the Philippines.

After Pakistan suspended all international flights, all of them were quarantined at the Raiwind Markaz, the Dawn report said.

Over 10,200 people, who attended the congregation in March, have been quarantined in all 36 districts of Punjab. Till last week, over 540 of them had tested positive for the virus with the highest number recorded at Raiwind Markaz.

The Raiwind city with a population of 200,000 has been placed under a complete lockdown.

The Pakistan government has said that the Tablighi Jamaat went ahead with its annual congregation in Raiwind in March against its advice and its request to cancel the event.

The Jamaat congregations emerged as viral vectors not just in India and Pakistan, but also in Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and other places.

The Tablighi Jamaat Asia congregation held in end February at Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur is likely to have infected 40,000 people with coronavirus.

According to Singapore's Straits Times, which quoted a news agency, the number was based on the data analysed by an investigation team of the Malaysian police. Around 16,000 people, including 1500 foreigners, had participated in the event and also visited the Jamaat headquarters in Delhi.

Around two weeks ago, a Tablighi Jamaat cleric from Johannesburg, South Africa, Moulana Yusuf Tootla (80), died due to Covid-19 after his return from India. Even as his family had advised him not to travel, he visited India to attend the Nizamuddin Markaz congregation from March 1 to 15.

Over 2,700 people in South Africa have tested positive for coronavirus and 50 have died so far.
(Photo : www.pexels.com)

Hackers, scammers, and con-artists are going after your coronavirus stimulus checks. But you shouldn't worry about it because the government, specifically the IRS, now has a tracker in place to help prevent that.

Read More: Identity Thieves Are Stealing Unemployment Benefits from Laid Off Workers

Your COVID-19 stimulus check could be stolen from you; But there's a tracker to prevent that

There are hundreds of domain names related to the $2 trillion stimulus package that have been registered over the past month alone, according to reports coming from Tessian.



The domain names, however, are being used for a variety of purposes. It appears that some might lead to educational websites, others offer consulting services, assisting in obtaining stimulus checks, or applying for business loans.



Be warned that some are not what they seem to be--especially too good to be true deals that you might see in those websites.



Tim Sadler, CEO of Tessian, said in a statement to Mashable that "Cybercriminals will always follow the money, and look for ways to take advantage of the fact people will be seeking more information or guidance on this scheme."



There are shady internet rackets that mainly use trending topics for their money-making schemes. For weeks, Google Trends data has shown that stimulus-related questions, as well as search queries, have been booming.



Scammers can use these domains to fool people possibly and portray their fake sites as an actual authority on the said stimulus package. They also use game search engines to promote their pages and improve the odds of people choosing their site over real ones.



Mashable even tried to search for websites with keywords such as "stimulus" and "COVID-19" in the URL, and it attempted to install a browser app upon loading. The site in question is only a single-page website that offers very little than a few paragraphs of copy-pasted material, and also has an email list sign up form. Fishy? Without question.





Read More: Clearview's A.I. Massive Leak Open To Potential Hacking Attacks





Here's what you should know

There are a total of 673 non-governmental, stimulus-related domains registered between the dates of March 17 and April 13. There is still no telling what's legit or not.



The IRS has created a tracker to keep you informed if the site is indeed legit or not. You only need to click here.



Tessian discovered that there are over a quarter of stimulus-related domains offering resources from consultants, lawyers, and various experts. That doesn't mean that the site is legitimate.



A few of the registered domains have a "calculator tool" for people to be able to check their stimulus check eligibility. Be very careful using this tool because it requires you to personal input information like your salary and address.



Sadler warned users against this tool specifically. He also said, "Cybercriminals could use the information you shared to craft targeted phishing emails that include the 'results' of your assessment, tricking you into clicking on malicious links to steal money, credentials or installing malware onto your device."





Read More: The Dark Side of 'Fun Quarantine Games' on Facebook

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Several Indians were not in India when COVID-19 created a scare, prompting a lockdown, that is currently underway. While some like Anupam Kher and the Mohan sisters decided to come back home and self-quarantine themselves, many like Mouni Roy, Shweta Pandit decided to stay at the countries they were in at that time. Another name in the latter category is Rituparna Sengupta, who is in Singapore at the moment.

READ: Cong Urges Kejriwal Govt To Help Migrants, Daily Wagers In Distress Due To COVID-19 Lockdown

Despite not being able to travel back to the country, the actor is still trying her best to help those who are facing a hard time amid the pandemic. The National Award-winning star is helping the underprivileged with essential items like groceries and hygiene kits with the help of an NGO Kolkata Endeavour Society. The Main Meri Patni Aur Woh star was quoted as saying that she is missing her city in the time of crisis, and felt like contributing in whichever way she could.

She said that she was overwhelmed to be a mentor of the NGO, and encourage and support those initiatives that seek to save humanity. Rituparna credited her manager for overseeing the initiative with a lot of care and conveyed her gratitude to all who supported her in the mission.

READ: Richa Chadha Donates Groceries To A Gurudwara Feeding Daily Wage Workers

The actor is quarantining with her family at the moment. She has also contributed to the PM-CARES relief fund, and the West Bengal CMs fund. Rituparna regularly takes to Twitter to urge all to follow the instructions of PM Narendra Modi and stay at home.

READ: Arjun Kapoor's Virtual Date Raises Funds To Feed Families Of 300 Daily Wage Workers

READ: Digvijaya Singh Relieved As PM Modi Highlights Plight Of Daily Wage Workers Amid Covid

Get the latest entertainment news from India & around the world. Now follow your favourite television celebs and telly updates. Republic World is your one-stop destination for trending Bollywood news. Tune in today to stay updated with all the latest news and headlines from the world of entertainment.
YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. An extraordinary Cabinet meeting was held today, chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the PMs office told Armenpress.

The Government decided to extend the state of emergency, which was declared on March 16, 2020 for 30 days from April 14 through May 14, 2020, 17:00 local time. As part of the proposed amendment, Chapter 7 of the above decision on state of emergency that dealt with media activity restrictions shall be declared invalid.

The following change concerns the Compulsory Enforcement Service: during the entire period of emergency, the Service will not apply administrative measures in connection with non-payment of parking fines and administrative fines.



Touching on this decision, Nikol Pashinyan noted: Epidemic statistics evidence that we currently do not have an uncontrollable situation. The range of authorized economic activities was expanded in accordance with the Commandants decision, based on a number of factors: first of all, to reboot economic life and alleviate the social situation. However, we all understand that this can lead to increased health risks, should our citizens fail to strictly comply with the anti-epidemiological safety measures. The restrictions may obviously trigger other risks. In view of the above, we must maintain the state of emergency so that the Commandant's Office could quickly respond to the situation.

With reference to media restrictions, the Prime Minister emphasized that monitoring will be carried out to this end: Should we see any risks in this field, we will amend the governments decision and reinstate the previous regime.

The Government approved its eleventh anti-crisis action, which seeks assist those who faced welfare bottlenecks due to the spread of the coronavirus. The program addresses those natural gas and electricity customers, whose bills did not exceed the threshold of 10,000 drams in February 2020 for natural gas and 5,000 drams for electricity. Each subscriber will be supported at the rate of 50% for natural gas and electricity consumed in February, 2020. The funds will be transferred to the utility operators, subject to further transfer to subscribers who are considered to be program beneficiaries. In case of arrears, this amount will be used to pay off the subscribers debt, and in the absence of it, an advance payment will be issued.

The Public Services Regulatory Commission suggested launching the program by this April 15. PSRC Chairman Garegin Baghramyan noted that the 11th activity affects 220 thousand resident subscribers: Considering that we have an average of 3 residents per subscriber in the country, some 660 thousand citizens turn out to be beneficiaries of assistance.

Nikol Pashinyan explained the decision on reimbursement of utility bills: Armenia has a very high culture of paying utility bills. We want to pursue a policy that does not harm this culture, because it is very important, and that is why we reimburse 50 percent of the cost of gas and electricity.

The Prime Minister underscored that the beneficiaries of this program can take advantage of other activities as well.


Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reiterated the message that the coronavirus pandemic will be defeated and that the world will see the end of it soon.

READ: COVID-19 Cases In India Soar Past 14,000-mark, Maharashtra Continues To Be Worst-hit

'Will overcome the pandemic'

The world is fighting COVID-19 together.



Humanity will surely overcome this pandemic. https://t.co/7Kgwp1TU6A  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 18, 2020

In a tweet on Saturday, PM Modi shared an image of the Indian tricolour projected on Matterhorn mountain in Switzerland. The flag projected was more than 1000 meters in size and was a gesture to show solidarity with all Indians who are fighting the virus.

READ: LPU Served Show Cause Notice For Violating Lockdown Orders Amid COVID-19 Crisis

PM Modi said that the "world is fighting the virus" together and that humanity will overcome this pandemic together.

The virus has infected 14,378 people in India and 480 people have lost their lives. Globally, more than 2249700 people have been infected and 1,54,271 people have lost their lives.

On Friday evening, the Indian Council for Medical Research released data stating that 3.35 lakh tests had been conducted till 9 pm, of which 14,098 people had tested positive. The Council conducted 31,083 tests on Friday, and reported 1,443 positive cases of the virus. The Council has been testing at the rate of roughly 9% of the total tests every day.

In other developments, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has given a go-ahead to interested institutes for conducting the clinical trial with convalescent plasma in COVID-19 patients, as per the protocol developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). It said that the ICMR has given a list of institutes to CDSCO which have shown interest in the conduct of the said trial.

The country is currently in the second phase of the nationwide lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 14 and will go on till May 3.

READ: Prashant Kishor Slams Bihar CM For 'lockdown Lessons' Instead Of Helping Stranded Migrants

READ: Indian Navy Issues Detailed Statement As 21 INS Angre Sailors Test Covid Positive
Nutritionist Elena Solomatina, speaking at the Moskva Govorit radio station, told how to cheer up without damaging the nervous system.

Natural energy drinks and foods are coffee and green tea, cocoa and chocolate. The doctor also recalled the importance of water - dehydration leads to a loss of strength and lethargy. Water can be replaced with a dried fruit cocktail.

"Tomato juice without salt will not allow red blood cells to stick together, providing better blood rheology. The better the blood circulates, the better we think. You can make smoothies from frozen berries, mix them with fermented milk products. This drink protects cells from damage and gives energy, " Solomatina said.
The Culture Secretary has told Britain's 100 biggest brands including Amazon, Sky and Tesco to allow their adverts to appear next to coronavirus news stories.

Oliver Dowden has urged the firms in a letter to end 'ad-blocking' on online articles about the pandemic and 'play their part' in supporting the UK news industry.

Online readership has soared as the public search for information on the crisis, but publishers are finding it tough to generate significant revenue from this.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden (pictured at the Cabinet Office in London on March 12) has urged top businesses to allow their adverts to appear next to online coronavirus stories

That is because many top brands are banning their adverts from appearing alongside stories mentioning the words 'coronavirus' and 'Covid-19'.

Mr Dowden also urged people to continue buying newspapers - which he called the UK's 'fourth emergency service' - as they suffer from a drop in advertising and sales.

He said the Press is 'grappling with arguably the biggest existential crisis in its history' with national, regional and local papers all under huge financial pressure.

The news industry has warned that titles stand to lose 50million during the crisis, with Reach and the Press Association agency already forced to furlough staff.

Mr Dowden wrote in The Times today: 'These are exceptional circumstances and the wide-scale blocking of advertising appearing next to Covid-19 related stories cannot be right at a time when there is a clear public interest in people having access to reliable, trusted news content.

Mr Dowden said in a tweet yesterday that major national and regional papers have partnered with the Government to reinforce the message of #StayHome

'An irreversible decline in news publishing would have far-reaching implications for everyone.

'I urge you, as a responsible business at this crucial time, to play your part in supporting the news sector by reviewing the guidance and your business's application of it.'

The minister also encouraged readers to 'do their bit for democracy' by buying a newspaper.

He said: 'Newspapers are at heart of the British media and essential to its vibrant mix. People across the country are rising to the coronavirus challenge and I suggest we all add one small thing to our to-do list: buy a paper.'

Mr Dowden had said in a tweet yesterday that major national and regional papers have partnered with the Government to reinforce the message of #StayHome.

The 41-year-old politician added that this was another example of 'the vital role trusted new organisations are playing in our response to the crisis'.

Newsquest, one of the largest regional news publishers in the UK, has put a 'significant number' of its staff on furlough and warned others will face wage cuts.

In London, City AM halted its daily print edition for commuters and put the majority of its staff on furlough.

The London Evening Standard reduced its daily print run and will also furlough some staff and cut pay because of a fall in advertising revenue.

The Press Association, an agency which supplies copy to newspapers, has furloughed 44 of its sports and racing journalists.

Earlier this month, newspaper publishers warned in a letter that they face losing 50million during the lockdown because of advertising 'blocklists'.

Tracy De Groose, executive chair of the trade body Newsworks, who wrote the letter on behalf of the industry, said it was vital that advertisers removed coronavirus from their blocklists.
General Elections amidst COVID Pandemic? You must be joking! SLPPs Prof Peiris claims opposition parties trying to chicken out using the coronavirus as excuse and points to South Koreas election example View(s): View(s):

If all had been hunky dory and had events trotted to plan, the nation would have gone to the polls this coming Saturday morn to elect a new government.

All the necessary constitutional steps to give birth to a new parliament had been effected. Even the three month labour period had been induced by a presidential gazette notification on March 2 which dissolved Parliament at the midnight hour. The nominations were to be held between the 12th and 19th of March. The elections were to be held on April 25. And a new parliament to be delivered to the nation on the 14th of May.

But, alas, it was not to be. The hell raising coronavirus swiftly blotched the best laid plans of the Government and the Election Commissioner to hold polls in a COVID pandemic.

Initially, even after the first Lankan on Lankan soil tested positive for COVID on March 11 and another local also tested positive the following day and another 41 had tested positive by March 17, the Government did not seem unduly perturbed at the growing tide but appeared hell bent on maintaining course toward April 25 election day.

But as daily reports alarmingly indicated that the coronavirus was no easy customer but mowed down all who crossed its path, the Government wisely shelved its elections schedule and creditably concentrated its energies on curbing COVIDs continuous rampage.

On March 19, the Elections Commissioner announced at a press conference that the general election scheduled for April 25 was to be postponed. He said, I have taken this decision considering the prevailing situation in the country owing to the threats posed by the coronavirus outbreak.

He said he had discussed with the Health authorities, the WHO, National Operation Centre for Prevention of COVID 19 and all other relevant agencies and officials before taking the decision to postpone the election.

The Election Commission is authorized to postpone the election, as per the provisions of Section 24 (3) of Parliament Elections Act, which states that in the event of any emergency or unforeseen circumstances the election cannot be taken on the day specified in the notice relating to the election then it is required to be held after 14 days from the date of postponement.

Though the Election Commissioner is required by the same act to hold it after 14 days from the day of postponement, Polls Chief Deshapriya said: In this situation none can decide on a date. The day to hold the election will be decided by COVID 19 itself and the National Operation Centre for Prevention of COVID 19.

On March 31st the Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya wrote to the Presidents Secretary stating: Accordingly, if for some reason the present situation does not improve completely then it will not be possible to hold the elections before the end of May; and as a result a new parliament will not be able to sit before June 2 which may lead to a constitutional conundrum, the Election Commission has observed.

On April 6th, the Presidents Secretary P.B. Jayasundera replied to the Elections Commissioner in respect of letters sent by him to President Rajapaksa regarding Parliamentary Election 2020 and Date of Summoning of the New Parliament dated 31st March and 1st April.

In a terse letter which pulled no punches, it noted that the Election Commission had issued a gazette on 21st March whereby the polls scheduled to be held on 25 April had been announced. Furthermore therein it had been stated that the Commission will appoint a day coming after 14 days from 30.04.2020 as the day of taking of the poll.

The Presidential letter then states: Regrettably, it is necessary to point out that in terms of Section 24[3] the Commissioner is obliged to specify another day for taking such poll in the Gazette issued under section 24[3], if the poll could not take place on 25.04.2020, and also that the day for taking such poll has to be 14 days after the day on which the date of the gazette published under section 24[3] of the Parliamentary Elections Act.

The letter, after having observed that as per the Presidents advice it is not possible at this point of time to state that the election cannot be held on or before 28 May 2020, neatly and squarely puts the ball into the Election Commissioner Deshapriyas court by bluntly stating that the date for fixing the poll is the responsibility of the Election Commission and His Excellency has no wish to interfere with duties and obligations of the Election Commission.

The letter also ruled out the possibility of the President seeking an opinion from the Supreme Court while suggesting that in terms of Section 24[3] of the Parliamentary Elections Act, the time period giving notice of adjourned poll is not less than 14 days which implies that the poll which was postponed, could be held even on 15th day.

The Election Commission which has still not formulated a response to the Presidents stance, announced on Thursday it will meet on Monday April 20 to explore the possibilities of conducting the postponed general elections due to the coronavirus outbreak in the country.

But though the letter has clearly spelt out the legal position and the untrammeled right of the Election Commissioner to be the sole decider of the election date, the practical ground situation, no doubt, will dictate the feasibility of the Polls Chiefs choice. And the advisability to hold a poll with the coronavirus still running riot, when the mass health of the nation is under major threat and no sign in the horizon except forlorn hope that its reign in Lanka would soon be at an end and that we would see the last of it somewhere in May, would be determined by Executive action in consultation with health specialists.

Though the legal onus for deciding the date of elections falls on the Elections Chief, the constitutional duty of implementing it lies with the President.

Article 33 of the Constitution as amended by the 19th Amendment states:

33. (1) It shall be the duty of the President to (d) on the advice of the Election Commission, ensure the creation of proper conditions for the conduct of free and fair elections and referenda.

Though in his letter to the Election Chief, Mr. Jayasundera states that as per the Presidents advice it is not possible at this point of time to state that the election cannot be held on or before 28 May 2020, it is clear that, given the overall foreboding situation, it may be also not possible, as the polls date nears, to state at that point of time that the elections can be held on or before 28 May 2020.

For such a decision will be at the mercy of the coronavirus; and until and unless COVIDs strangulating grip round Lankas throat is dislodged, it will be near impossible for any government to create proper conditions to hold elections without risking a massive outbreak of the infectious disease and sending more scalps to COVIDs altar.

For even as P.B Jayasundera says in his presidential reply to the Elections Commissioner, I need hardly emphasise that it is the right of the people of this country to exercise their franchise, which is their sovereign right, it cannot be stressed too vigorously that all rights stand dwarfed next to the god given towering right to life, for sans the supreme right to life, does it matter that a thousand sovereign rights lie enshrined in the statute books?

And how does the COVID besieged landscape present itself to public view today? The countrys capital district Colombo along with Gampaha, Kalutara, Puttalam and certain districts in the Northern Province have been under a continuous curfew for over three weeks since March 24 and Kandy and Jaffna too have been added as high risk zones and placed under curfew with no respite in sight. No strategy to exit the curfew syndrome has yet been announced except to state that the authorities are still mulling over how best to quit.

The Epidemiologic report as at 11am on April 15 show there are 233 coronavirus positive patients with Colombo heading the list with 47. Kalutara is next with 45. In quarantine camps scattered around the countryside, there are 37. Puttalam is next with 35. Gampaha has 26, Jaffna has 13, Kandy 7 and Ratnapura 5.

The districts of Kurunegala, Kalmunai, Matara, Kegalle report 2 each while Galle, Batticaloa and Badulla districts report 1 each. The districts of Matale, Nuwara Eliya, Hambantota, Kilinochchi, Mannar, Vavuniya, Ampara, Trincomalee, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Moneragala districts boasts zero cases.

Out of the 233 cases, 3 are foreigners and 4 are under close observation. Out of the total of 233, it is glad to note 63 have recovered while, sad to say, 7 have die. As of April 15, there are 163 positive corona cases in Lanka while there are 144 suspected cases.

It is to the credit of the Government that the COVID threat that has so far claimed over 30,000 lives in the USA and over 13,000 lives in Britain, has so far been contained and that the medical system has so not been subjected to the maximum strain it can withstand. If this threshold is crossed, then, as it has happened in Europe and in the States, the chances are there will be a mass increase in the number of deaths in Lanka. In recognition of the timely action taken by the Government, Sri Lanka was included in countries that rated highly in giving proper leadership in the Global Response to Infectious Diseases (GRID) index which is designed to rank how efficiently and effectively the leadership of the country and the preparedness of its health system were in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.

But in spite of the results, published in a paper titled GRIDTM Index: Tracking the Global Leadership Response in the COVID-19 Crisis by the Institute of Certified Management Accountants Australia, the question to ask is  Are we out of the woods yet?

Is the time right to drop our guard and put at risk the nations health when the COVID virus is still active and still in our midst? Has the social distancing policy, the enforced stay at home policy, the shortage of food and the lack of money, all borne by the people with patience and fortitude, all designed to stifle the spread of the coronavirus and which upto now have proved encouragingly successful as the numbers show, to be abandoned and the barricades erected torn down in May just two weeks away for the sake of an election that can wait; and for which there has been no mass public clamour?

For the people know the time is not opportune to demand the holding of elections. They know it is a moment when there is a life and death battle on the nations hands. They know that to create a row over the polls postponement and demand a new one to be held in the midst of chaos, panic, fear and death would be folly; even as they dont protest over the three week long curfew but, nevertheless, understand it is a sound necessary measure taken to minimise the COVID spread, done in the public interest to contain the body count.

But apparently all do not hold this view. For them there are opportunities to make political pickings even in a nations swan song. And some are quite prepared to angle the bait and fish for political gain in Lanka troubled waters.

On Wednesday, the chairman of the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) Prof. G.L. Peiris fired the first volley to flatten the ground of curves and prepare it for a possible general election in May by accusing the opposition parties of trying to chicken out of the grand hustings by using the coronavirus as a feeble and sorry excuse.

While assuring  of course, of course  that the government wouldnt do anything to endanger the lives of the people or undermine the ongoing battle to bring covid-19 epidemic under control. Prof. Peiris, who heads the SLPP National List, seemed raring for battle when charged the opposition of cowardice and declared: The divided UNP have taken cover behind COVID 19 and are afraid to face the electorate. They would do anything to delay the election.

But why shouldnt the opposition groups take cover behind the COVID face mask and urge the government to desist from holding polls in an atmosphere heavy with a pandemic theat. After all, has it  and quite correctly too  not been the Governments own mantra to ward off the COVID devil by religiously practicing social distancing and taking Chinas practical advice of no mingling?

Surely, its one thing to hide behind a non-existent COVID threat in fear of being humiliated at the polls and quite another thing altogether to ask for a delay in holding election when the entire nation is currently under COVIDs deadly spell?

Does it display signs of the opposition having got cold feet trying to chicken out of the race? Or, on the contrary, reveal that the Opposition is conducting itself sensibly and acting realistically? As evidenced by the Governments own creditable decision to have made the triumph over the coronavirus the No 1 priority and that all else must be secondary.

With the task still to be achieved and miles to go before the all clear can be given, is the SLLP Professor Peiris, heady, perhaps, with a surfeit of optimism, being rash to espouse the holding of elections, implying that all will soon be well? Is he recklessly raising the hopes of the masses that the worst is behind them, when it is not, and unwittingly encouraging them to let slip their guard and to be less cautious? Is he asking us all to join in the chorus whenever he strikes Whos Afraid of the Big Bad COVID?

Furthermore, hes all for a South Korean type election, done perhaps, Gangnam Style.

Prof. Peiris said that he perused a spate of reports pertaining to South Korean elections and it was clear President Moon Jae-in took necessary measures to conduct the poll. In fact, they made special arrangements for coronavirus affected persons, too, to exercise their franchise.

True. The voters were all hand sanitized and given gloves and facemasks to wear at the booths where they voted. Immediately after each had cast the vote, the cubicle was sprayed with disinfectants and made sterile for the next voter. Can Lanka have the wherewithal to provide the necessary protection?

And what of the social mixing outside the polling booth before and after voting where on the appointed date, over 15 million registered voters emerge from their homes to cast their vote and to hobnob with their peers. And stand exposed to the infection, however briefly?

Furthermore, does Professor Peiris think the election is only about voters trudging to the polling booth, casting the vote and exiting? Has he given no thought to the immense logistics involved in the very holding of an election, before and after voting time?

Thousands of public servants will be commandeered for election duties, assembled at a common point, and transported to man hundreds of polling booths scattered countrywide. Thousands of party agents from each political party contesting will have to be present at the booths while election monitors and foreign observers, too, will have to be accommodated at each polling booth. Once the voting time is over the scene of action will move to the counting centres which would also be manned by hundreds of public servants. Security will have to be provided to ensure no vote rigging takes place.

To conduct an election at a normal time is a stupendous task as the Elections Chief Deshapriya will vouch. But to suggest that one can be conducted with the coronavirus running amok in the country without a virus fallout  for there is nothing to suggest yet that the pandemic will take a breather in May for Lanka to vote  you must be bally joking, mate!

Professor Peiris also said that South Korea was the first country to hold countrywide poll amidst the pandemic. South Korea reported over 200 covid-19 deaths and over 10, 500 of its citizens had tested positive.

Well, good for them. Merely because the South Korean government cast caution to the winds and held general elections to give a boost to its flagging popularity, does it mean that sovereign Lanka must ape South Koreas reckless attitude to its citizens health and life and hold elections here?

The Friday update for South Korea is: Coronavirus infected cases, 10, 635. Recovered cases, 7829; Deaths, 230; New cases for the day 22; New deaths; 1.

And has the Professor of Law, apart from questioning his own expertise to opine on medical matters, asked himself whether it was correct of him to have passed judgement on the success of the South Korean Elections, held during a pandemic, before the 14 day incubation period following the elections had lapsed?

Meanwhile, CNN reported on Thursday, a total of 141 South Koreans who had apparently recovered from Covid-19 have tested positive again, South Koreas Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday. KCDC deputy director Kwon Joon-wook said the agency did not know what caused the people to re-test positive and was investigating. Kwon also said that the government is studying cultivated samples from the patients to determine whether the cases could be contagious. Kwon said the study will take about two weeks from today.

Professor Peiris was also asked whether the SLPP was trying to justify parliamentary election amidst crisis caused by the highly contagious virus. His reply was that he merely pointed out nationwide polls was conducted in a country that had been severely affected by the deadly virus.

The answer to this maybe found why the South Korean Government of Mr.Moon was desperate to seek a new mandate two years ahead of its time.

As the New York Times reported on Wednesday:

The prospects for Mr. Moons party did not look good until less than two months ago. He and his partys approval ratings had been slumping over a decaying job market, stalled diplomatic efforts with North Korea and scandals involving Mr. Moons closest allies. The coronavirus had initially appeared to work against Mr. Moon and his party, as they were criticized for underestimating the threat.

But their political fortune shifted once President Moons government began testing large numbers of people in February to screen out patients for isolation and treatment. South Korea, was once home to the worlds second-largest outbreak, with as many as 813 new cases a day has reported fewer than 40 new patients daily.

Perhaps Professor Peiris, instead of sitting on the fence and saying he is not trying to justify parliamentary election amidst a crisis caused by the highly contagious virus but was merely pointing out that nationwide polls was conducted in a country that had been severely affected by COVID, should spend his time more profitably studying how Mr. Moons ruling party overcame its initial unpopularity over their faulty handling of the crisis by shifting gear and beginning aggressive testing, enabling it to romp home to a landslide win. Perhaps, the same formula could be applied to his own partys approach to ensure that, when the right time dawns for elections to be held, the two third majority win it so desperately seeks, is in the bag.

One way out of the polls impasse is for the President to issue a gazette proclamation revoking the Gazette proclamation he issued on March 2 dissolving Parliament and announce the new Parliament will meet before the three months is up on June 2. If the President revokes the dissolution order, the life of the 2015 parliament will automatically be extended to the date it first met after the2015 August 17 election which is September 1st.

This is expressly provided by the 19th Amendment which states that: Article 62 of the Constitution is hereby amended by the repeal of paragraph (2) of that Article, and the substitution therefor of the following paragraph:- (2) Unless Parliament is sooner dissolved, every Parliament shall continue for five years from the date appointed for its first meeting and no longer, and the expiry of the said period of five years shall operate as a dissolution of Parliament.

Revoking the original March 2 dissolution order and recalling Parliament to pass money bills and give a legal basis to certain anomalies prompted by the crisis and contemplating holding elections in the extended time period automatically provided maybe a far better way out of the current impasse than going to the polls in May. All opposition parties have called for the polls to be delayed on account of health grounds. Civil rights group PAFFEREL, too, has called for elections to be put on hold. So has the Arch Bishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcom Ranjith joined in the call to echo his flocks concerns. He said this week that on no account should the general elections be held until the coronavirus is completely eradicated from Lanka and a reasonable period of time has passed thereafter.

The exit strategy formulated to revive the economy and to ensure the return of civilian life to normalcy which is in disarray due to the COVID  19 pandemic is to be announced during the weekend. On Wednesday, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa discussed rebuilding the economy in the face of the current challenges with the secretaries to the ministries where the focal point of the discussion was on returning to normalcy. President emphasized the need for the public and private sectors to recommence its business activities. The responsibility of ensuring the public adhering to safety regulations and preventing large gatherings was entrusted on the secretaries to the ministries as well as heads of institutes once the curfew is eased.

The task of returning to normalcy is still in the discussion stage. But, no doubt, Lanka is on the march. No need to spur it into a sprint and jeopardise the carefully laid exit strategies by holding polls in the rush.

Lanka, which reported 5 more COVID cases on Friday after reporting none on Thursday, is still not out of the woods. Before getting bogged down in the everglades, it is necessary to exercise an abundance of caution and possess a stockpile of patience. Remember that this thrice blessed island has been relatively fortunate compared to other countries hit by COVID. Since the first local was detected on March 11, there have been only 7 deaths in five weeks. Contrast this with countries like Italy, Spain, Britain and America where each nations death toll has surpassed over 1000 a day.

When we should be counting our blessings that we have been thus spared the full force of the COVID invasion, Professor Peiris is counting the number of seats his party, the SLPP, can muster at a snap May election with the coronavirus still stalking the land with its scythe. Such self-confidence, such arrogance, such a loss of contact with reality is to invite hubris  the anger of the gods. It is wise to note that once the sluice gates are open and the nation is swamped by a deluge of coronavirus infections, there can be no turning back to shut it.
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Congo-Brazzaville has been under night curfew since March 31. A measure associated with lockdown to block the way to the spread of Covid-19.

However, during the past few days, tradesmen have been surprised to find that their shops have been looted at night.

Among the many measures enacted by the authorities to deal with the coronavirus, the curfew is scrupulously respected. Every evening, Brazzaville looks like an abandoned city with the inhabitants holed up in their homes. Only the defense and security forces keep watch. They organize pedestrian and mobile patrols.

For a while now, when they wake up, a few shopkeepers find their shops decayed, their goods ripped open or taken away.

While some residents point the finger at idle young people who are working in the informal sector and find themselves today stuck at home, others believe that security forces may be involve in the robberies. The shopkeepers are suspicious. There are many cases of theft. In the Ngamakosso district, in front of shops that were robbed, the prints of the rangers were found. At the time the police were there, everyone was in their houses observing the curfew. So! Who robbed? denounces a shopkeeper on condition of anonymity to RFI reporter.

The issue of shops that have broken down at night has been on the menu of an interpellation of the executive by Parliament over the past week. The government wanted investigations to be carried out to shed light on the matter.

Prime Minister Clement Mouamba warned that any man in uniform who had turned into a burglar would be removed from the police force if his guilt was established.

The Congo Traders Union said Thursday that it was working to make a list of all the shops that had been ripped apart. The list will be submitted to the task force, the structure in charge of managing the response to Covid-19, for possible compensation for damages.
The Las Chinas valley near the southern tip of Chile, dubbed the Rosetta Stone of palaeontology in the southern hemisphere, is proving to be a treasure trove of fossils.

Located in this valley, Estancia Cerro Guido is one of the largest estates in the country. While dedicated to cattle farming, its mountains are also home to important dinosaur fossils. Findings here include the well-preserved remains of vertebrates, invertebrates and plants from the Cretaceous period. They could be the key to unlocking significant tracts of the common past of South America and Antarctica.

Every year the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) and the University of Chile organise a palaeontological expedition to shed light on the end of the Cretaceous period, when the dinosaurs became extinct. To mark the 10th anniversary of the expedition, a group of 20 researchers from various disciplines embarked on a two-week journey to this region deep in the heart of Chilean Patagonia.

This team, along with another group of palaeontologists, has discovered duck-billed dinosaurs (Hadrosauridae) as well as armoured dinosaurs (Ankylosauria) and even parts of large predators. These complement earlier findings and are allowing scientists to fill in the gaps of what we know about the period.

EPA
Those that have an issue with trying to follow the traditions for Easter due to the Coronavirus may follow the following

On the Great Saturday before Easter, Orthodox Christians traditionally go to the temple and consecrate (bless) Easter cakes, Easter and eggs. But this year, due to the coronavirus epidemic, many will not have such an opportunity. Therefore, His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill blessed to allow home consecrate of the Easter meal for those who so desire.

Heres how to do it: sing the troparion of Easter Christ is risen from the dead, / amends death by death / to those who give life to the grave in tombs three times, then sprinkle it with consecrated water (if any) with the words: In the name of the Father and the Son and Of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

https://www.mk.ru/video/2020/04/17/svyashhennik-pokazal-kak-osvyatit-kulichi-i-paskhi-doma.html
Ron Reagan appears in a 30-second TV ad for the Freedom From Religion Foundation. (Freedom From Religion Foundation)

Years ago, the exchange might have played out differently: A letter critical of a prominent atheist activist is published in the paper, and readers send perhaps a few approving and disapproving responses. After all, ours is a country where a sitting vice president in our lifetime once said, "I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots."

This week, however, in an era when "nones" make up the second-largest religious group (for lack of a better classification) in the country, the dynamic was far different: In response to a letter that excoriated "unabashed atheist" Ron Reagan for being too on the nose about his lack of faith, more than a dozen readers wrote in defense of the late president's son's advocacy for the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Here is what some of them said.

Cathy Goldberg of Seal Beach clarifies a few facts about nonbelievers:

One letter writer criticizes Reagan for speaking up about his belief in "nothing." Atheists, agnostics and others believe in many things, including most of the basic moral precepts shared by religious people; they just don't believe a supernatural power is behind it all.

He also makes the claim that keeping your beliefs to yourself is "how it works in America." I personally have seen no surfeit of people reluctant to express their religious beliefs, right up to our highest offices. The writer's statement is antithetical to everything that makes us truly American as codified in the 1st Amendment.

There is so much pressure to express a belief in God that it takes some courage to take a public stance of nonbelief.

David Sheehan of Redlands compares the activism of the faithless and the faithful:

In fairness to Reagan and other atheists like me, we do not blame all of the world's problems on religion, just the many problems attached to religion. True, some of the most murderous men in history were confirmed atheists. On the other hand, some of the most murderous men in history were devoutly religious. That's a dubious scorecard.

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If my religious neighbors kept their beliefs to themselves, as the letter writer wants Reagan to do with his atheism, then we wouldn't have much of a problem. But as we well know, that is not the way it is. In many states, women's reproductive rights are abridged solely for religious reasons. Our gay and lesbian community is seldom treated with the utmost kindness and respect by the various religions of the world.

Reagan and the Freedom From Religion Foundation do want you to keep your beliefs to yourself -- because that's how it's supposed to work in America.

Elliott Rothman of Santa Monica mentions the current pandemic:

Keep your beliefs to yourself? Does the word "missionary" have any meaning?

Save your resentment for those who are currently suing for the right to put themselves and others at risk by continuing to assemble for worship.
A week ago, The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE:BK) came out with a strong set of quarterly numbers that could potentially lead to a re-rate of the stock. It was overall a positive result, with revenues beating expectations by 6.2% to hit US$4.1b. Bank of New York Mellon reported statutory earnings per share (EPS) US$1.05, which was a notable 17% above what the analysts had forecast. This is an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance in its report, look at what experts are forecasting for next year, and see if there has been any change to expectations for the business. Readers will be glad to know we've aggregated the latest statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their mind on Bank of New York Mellon after the latest results.

See our latest analysis for Bank of New York Mellon

NYSE:BK Past and Future Earnings April 18th 2020

Taking into account the latest results, the current consensus, from the 14 analysts covering Bank of New York Mellon, is for revenues of US$15.5b in 2020, which would reflect a noticeable 6.1% reduction in Bank of New York Mellon's sales over the past 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are expected to crater 23% to US$3.58 in the same period. Before this earnings report, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$15.0b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$3.50 in 2020. So there seems to have been a moderate uplift in sentiment following the latest results, given the upgrades to both revenue and earnings per share forecasts for next year.

Althoughthe analysts have upgraded their earnings estimates, there was no change to the consensus price target of US$42.47, suggesting that the forecast performance does not have a long term impact on the company's valuation. That's not the only conclusion we can draw from this data however, as some investors also like to consider the spread in estimates when evaluating analyst price targets. Currently, the most bullish analyst values Bank of New York Mellon at US$54.00 per share, while the most bearish prices it at US$38.00. Analysts definitely have varying views on the business, but the spread of estimates is not wide enough in our view to suggest that extreme outcomes could await Bank of New York Mellon shareholders.

Story continues

These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Bank of New York Mellon's past performance and to peers in the same industry. These estimates imply that sales are expected to slow, with a forecast revenue decline of 6.1%, a significant reduction from annual growth of 1.5% over the last five years. Compare this with our data, which suggests that other companies in the same industry are, in aggregate, expected to see their revenue grow 3.4% next year. It's pretty clear that Bank of New York Mellon's revenues are expected to perform substantially worse than the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The biggest takeaway for us is the consensus earnings per share upgrade, which suggests a clear improvement in sentiment around Bank of New York Mellon's earnings potential next year. Fortunately, they also upgraded their revenue estimates, although our data indicates sales are expected to perform worse than the wider industry. The consensus price target held steady at US$42.47, with the latest estimates not enough to have an impact on their price targets.

With that in mind, we wouldn't be too quick to come to a conclusion on Bank of New York Mellon. Long-term earnings power is much more important than next year's profits. At Simply Wall St, we have a full range of analyst estimates for Bank of New York Mellon going out to 2022, and you can see them free on our platform here..

Plus, you should also learn about the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Bank of New York Mellon (including 1 which is concerning) .

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.
The five new languages added to Microsoft Translator include Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam and Punjabi. This takes the total number of Indian languages supported to 10.

Microsoft India has announced that Microsoft Translator will now offer real-time translation in five additional languages. The newly added languages include Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, and Punjabi. This takes the total number of Indian languages supported to 10, including Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. With this, the service will now allow over 90% of Indians to access information and work in their native/preferred languages, making computing language-agnostic and more inclusive in the country.

According to Microsoft, Language translation is a core part of Microsoft products and services. Users can avail the benefits of AI and Deep Neural Networks-enhanced, real-time translation in all these languages while using Bing and the Microsoft Translator website, as well as the Microsoft Translator App for Android, IOS and Windows. The Microsoft Translator app can recognize and translate languages from text, speech and even photos. Microsoft is also rolling out support for these languages in the Microsoft Office 365 and the Swiftkey keyboard.

Sundar Srinivasan, General Manager, Microsoft India(R&D) Pvt. Ltd., said, Were committed to empower every Indian and every business in India by bringing the power of AI into their daily life. Microsoft celebrates the diversity of languages in India and wants to make the vast Internet even more accessible. We have supported Indian languages in computing for over two decades, and more recently have made significant strides on machine translation across languages. With this release, we are bringing in cutting edge machine learning tech to democratize access to information for everyone in India,

Microsoft has been working to provide local language computing in Indian languages for over two decades since the launch of Project Bhasha in 1998, allowing users to input localized text easily and quickly using the Indian Language Input tool. Microsoft also announced support for email addresses in multiple Indian languages across most of its email apps and services. Through its global Local Language Program (LLP), Microsoft provides people access to technology in their native language.
Bello El-Rufai, one of the sons of Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has apologized over a tweet suggesting the rape of a Twitter users mother.

Bello El-Rufai, 32, on Sunday threatened to pass to his friends the mother of @thanos_zer after a Twitter disagreement escalated.

Oh and tell your mother Im passing her to my friends tonight. No Igbo sounds please! Mr. El-Rufai had said in a private message to @thanos_zer.

READ ALSO  15-Year-Old Girl Narrates How She Was Raped By Her Father And His Friends

The private message was later made public and elicited outrage on social media, with several civil society groups calling for Mr. El-Rufais prosecution under the Cybercrime Act.

His mother, Hadiza, also appeared to condone her sons behavior after she responded to the tweet saying all is fair in love and war.

Mrs. El-Rufai later apologized for her tweet, saying she would never condone sexual abuse in any shape or form.

Bello, however, after much pressure, sent out an apology as she said his comment was made in the heat of the moment.

See Photo Here:
But realistically, youre going to want to tell your boss well before your third trimester, and research suggests that it may be a good idea to have the conversation early on. A 2017 University of Memphis study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology found that women who concealed their pregnancies at any stage reported more anxiety and distress during interactions with colleagues than those who shared the news. Most women end up sharing the news with their bosses around the end of the first trimester, when they may be starting to show and the risk of miscarriage has decreased, said Emily Martin, J.D., vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Womens Law Center in Washington, D.C. Your boss will most likely appreciate being told as soon as youre comfortable, so that they can start thinking ahead to your maternity leave, she said.

[How to ask for parental leave when youre an hourly worker.]

Some women may need to inform their bosses before that. If youre experiencing severe morning sickness, that may mean youre getting into work late or need to work from home a few days a week, or will be out a lot for doctor appointments, then youll need to break the news even earlier, Martin stressed. Just make sure you explain to your supervisor that youre not going public with this information for a few more weeks, so he doesnt accidentally announce your pregnancy at the next staff meeting.

If you worry that your boss wont be happy with your news, or if for other reasons you dont want to reveal anything yet, then dont. But also make sure youve been tight-lipped with colleagues and arent posting ultrasound pictures on social media. When you notify your boss first, it demonstrates respect, advised Daisy Dowling, founder and CEO of Workparent, a consulting firm in New York City. If youve told other co-workers and they end up hearing about it through the grapevine, it looks like youre deliberately hiding something from them, which may lead them to question your commitment to the company and also your own professional relationship.

Do your homework beforehand.

Before telling your boss, make sure you review your states policies on pregnancy and parental leave. The federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act ensures that pregnant women who work for an employer of at least 15 people must be provided with the same benefits and accommodations as nonpregnant workers. Twenty-seven states, the District of Columbia and four cities have additional laws that offer further protections. The work-life advocacy organization A Better Balance has specific state and local information on its website.

You should review your companys policies as well. Under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, or F.M.L.A., public agencies, and private employers with 50 or more employees, must provide new or expecting parents 12 weeks of leave over a 12-month period to care for themselves and/or their baby. Some states, like California or New York, even require companies to provide a certain amount of paid leave. But if your company is too small for F.M.L.A., then you may not qualify, in which case pregnancy leave will unfortunately be up to your individual employer, Martin said.

Keep the initial news short and sweet.

When you walk into your bosss office, you may think its better to snap right into planning mode, informing your employer about exactly when you plan to take off on maternity leave and how you plan to fill gaps in your absence. Dont. You want to immediately begin with the happy news: Youre expecting, and youre due on a certain date, Dowling said. It gives your employer an opportunity to feel good about the fact that youre sharing exciting personal news with them. Youre not talking to an institution or a machine  youre talking to another human being who may also be a working parent or want to become one themselves.

[How to ask for maternity or paternity leave when your company has no policy.]

If your boss responds with excitement, then the rest of the conversation should flow easily. Its fine to say, You probably have a lot of questions about how we will cover my workload while Im on leave, but trust me, Im committed to figuring out solutions with you in the months to come, Dowling said. This is a subtle way to let your boss know that youre still focused on your job, and that you plan to return to it after your baby arrives. No matter how great a boss you have, and how understanding they are, there is often an unconscious belief that once a woman has her baby, shell no longer be reliable or committed to her work, Morris said. Its important to address those assumptions up front. Say, My family relies on my paycheck, so Im definitely planning on returning after this baby. I love this job, Im grateful to have it, and I am looking forward to continuing projects when I get back. 
The '90s reboot has proven a successful formula for Hollywood in past years, with Will & Grace, Charmed and Full House all making recent comebacks.

But it appears that nostalgia alone isn't enough to keep an audience's attention these days, as another show bites the dust.

Freeform has cancelled their reboot of the hit '90s family drama Party of Five due to low viewership, after the 10-episode first season ended back in early March.

Cancelled: Freeform has cancelled their reboot of the hit '90s family drama Party of Five due to low viewership, after the 10-episode first season ended back in early March

With an average of 250,000 live same-day viewers, it didn't justify Freeform paying a licensing fee to air the Sony-produced series, according to THR.

It also comes as Freeform searches for a new network president, Tom Ascheim announcing his exit last week.

The show featured a more timely twist on the plot, in which five brothers and sisters are left on their own after their parents are deported back to Mexico.

It starred Brandon Larracuente, Emily Tosta, Niko Guardado and Elle Paris Legaspi as the Acosta siblings.

Low viewership: With an average of 250,000 live same-day viewers, it didn't justify Freeform paying a licensing fee to air the Sony-produced series, according to THR

Timely twist: The show featured a more timely twist on the plot, in which five brothers and sisters are left on their own after their parents are deported back to Mexico

Despite its low viewership, the series received mostly positive reviews since it premiered in January.

It currently holds a 96 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with 63 percent among viewers.

The reboot was adapted by Amy Lippman and Chris Keyser, who created the original series back in the '90s, also with Sony.

The parent show aired from 1994 to 2000 on Fox, starring Neve Campbell, Scott Wolf, Matthew Fox, Lacey Chabert and Jennifer Love Hewitt.

It followed the Salinger siblings, who are left to raise themselves and run the family restaurant after the death of their parents in a car crash.
US Quietly Withdraws All Bombers From Guam, No Replacements in Sight

Sputnik News

22:09 GMT 17.04.2020

The US Air Force has quietly ended its 16-year-long continuous bomber deployment to the western Pacific island of Guam. When five B-52 Stratofortress bombers returned to the US on Thursday, no aircraft arrived to replace them. The Pentagon has offered no explanation.

Since 2004, the Pentagon has carried out what it calls the Continuous Bomber Presence (CBP) mission, in which it maintains a wing of strategic bombers on the Philippine Sea island. However, for the first time in 16 years, there are no US bombers on Guam.

Online aircraft tracker AircraftSpots reported the departure of five B-52H Stratofortress bombers from Andersen Air Force Base on Thursday, but according to The Drive's The War Zone, no aircraft have yet arrived to replace them. Alongside B-52s, the Air Force has previously stationed B-1B Lancers and B-2 Spirit bombers, the latter of which is capable of carrying nuclear weapons, as is the B-52.

The incident is all the more remarkable since the huge jets participated in an "elephant walk" show of force earlier this week - albeit without the one-by-one rapid takeoff.

US Air Force Major Kate Atanasoff, a US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) spokesperson, told The War Zone that US bombers would continue to "operate forward in the Indo-Pacific region from a broader array of overseas locations  at the timing and tempo of our choosing."

When the CBP mission began in 2004, the US was dedicated to waging a global War on Terror and had invaded Iraq the previous year, which then-US President George W. Bush identified as part of an "Axis of Evil" spreading terror around the world alongside Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The US was also applying extensive pressure to the DPRK via the Six-Party Talks in an effort to halt that country's burgeoning nuclear weapons program. Just two years later, the DPRK tested its first nuclear weapon.

However, in 2018, the Pentagon outlined a new strategic shift away from the War on Terror and toward "inter-state strategic competition" with Russia and China, and just months later, an unprecedented thaw in relations with the DPRK saw Pyongyang and the US begin to talk seriously about peace for the first time in decades.

According to Atanasoff, the shifting of bombers away from Guam is in line with that new National Defense Strategy as well as "Dynamic Force Employment," as Air Force Global Strike Command calls it, in which the Pentagon makes sudden and unannounced shifts in force deployments to keep adversaries on their toes.

 Sputnik

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On Thursday, March 12, Kenneth Green complained to his brother about some pain in his back.

The 85-year-old had dementia and lived on a special floor at Plantation Manor Nursing Home in McCalla but enjoyed good physical health and frequent visits from family. He still recognized his grandkids and great-grandchildren, laughing and joking with them during a visit in early March.

His health took a sharp turn on Monday. That morning, he choked on his juice, said his granddaughter, Dena Marshall. The nursing home said he appeared to be struggling to breathe. That afternoon, they transferred him to the hospital, where he was admitted to the ICU.

Marshall said by then he had pneumonia and kidney failure. Marshall worked as a nurse in the hospital where he was admitted. She donned a mask and gown for protection and held Greens hand as he died on Tuesday.

It took several days for a COVID-19 test to come back positive. Green may be one of the earliest people in Alabama to die after contracting COVID-19, which has now taken the lives of 16 people living in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health. Due to privacy concerns, its difficult to verify cases of coronavirus, and Plantation Manor did not respond to requests for comment.

For Green, the end came quickly. Marshall said the home should have seen it coming.

You dont get double pneumonia and kidney failure in 24 hours, Marshall said. Why didnt they contact the family when he started having breathing problems earlier in the day?

Early warnings

It didnt take long for COVID-19 to show up in nursing homes after the first positive U.S. case. A rash of influenza-like illness swept across a suburban Seattle nursing home in early February. By the time the first tests came back positive for COVID-19, dozens had been infected.

That first outbreak of COVID-19 infected almost 200 people and killed more than three dozen, according to health officials. Investigators later found that staff members unwittingly spread coronavirus from one patient to the next, and into other facilities where they worked.

It hit first in the nursing homes and it will last longer in the nursing homes, said Joe Perkins, a spokesman for nursing home operator NHS Management.

Brandon Farmer, president of the Alabama Nursing Home Association, said his members have watched this play out in other states. Hundreds of residents in New York nursing homes have died from the virus. Investigators found 17 bodies in a New Jersey nursing home overwhelmed by illness. And in California, staff members refused to work, forcing the evacuation of a nursing home hit with an outbreak.

We certainly are making preparations to try to prevent what has happened nationally, Farmer said.

Nonetheless, COVID-19 has continued to spread in Alabama, from two cases in two Jefferson County nursing homes in mid-March to hundreds of cases in 54 different homes in 30 counties, almost a quarter of the states total. The Alabama Department of Public Health said 469 residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities have tested positive for the virus.

Read more about COVID-19 in Alabama

Perkins said its extremely difficult to keep the virus out. One of their nursing homes, South Haven Health and Rehabilitation in Hoover, found 27 COVID-19 positive residents and 19 staff members when it tested everyone inside the building. More than a dozen had no symptoms.

This virus is insidious, Perkins said. As long as it exists outside the nursing home, there is a chance it will come in with a visitor, with a staff member, with a delivery person, and it will spread.

This is a battle

Containing it once it gets inside can be difficult. Nursing homes have struggled to obtain protective masks and gowns needed by staff.

A resident that tests positive and remains in the building, they are immediately on full isolation, Farmer said. Any person who enters that room must have the full PPE on, the masks, gloves and isolation gowns. On average, a caregiver interacts with them 22 times over 24-hour timeframe. Multiply that and you can see how quickly they can go through it.

Unlike large hospitals, nursing homes usually have little ability to sterilize and reuse equipment. Perkins said nursing homes have had to pay a premium to obtain masks and gowns that are in short supply all across the country.

You end up finding whatever vendor wherever you can and you are at their mercy for their prices, Perkins said.

During the first few weeks of the outbreak, nursing homes struggled to get test results from backlogged laboratories. That left them blindfolded as they tried to isolate and contain outbreaks.

For the longest time, skilled nursing patients and skilled nursing employees were not considered priority one, Farmer said.

Perkins said it absolutely critical to determine which staff and residents have the virus.

Heres the biggest obstacle any of the facilities face, and this is a battle, this is an absolute war, Perkins said. 25 percent of people who contract this virus show no symptoms, but they can spread it.

Families in the dark

Alabama only publishes the total number of positive cases and deaths for all nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Some facilities announce cases publicly, but others dont  leaving families frightened and bewildered as information trickles out.

Family members have reported hearing about outbreaks from the media before the nursing home reached out. Or not hearing anything at all.

Jewell Emerson, pictured here with her grandson, lives in a nursing home battling an outbreak of COVID-19

Rick Emersons mother, Jewell, lives at the Marion Regional Nursing Home in Hamilton. Several nurses there have reportedly tested positive for COVID-19, including one who died. A few residents recently died and Emerson said he was told 12 tested positive. But administrators at North Mississippi Health Services, which runs the home, have made few public statements about the situation.

Emerson said he has heard that many residents might be infected, and that nurses worked while they were sick. So far, he said the owners have not been up front with families.

I cant verify the information I receive, Emerson said. I dont have the confidence to believe what they are telling me is true.

A letter from North Mississippi Medical Center-Hamilton acknowledged COVID-19 cases but didnt provide a number of positive tests or deaths.

We have had employees, patients and nursing home residents test positive for COVID-19, it read. We have mourned those who lost the battle with this disease in our community.

After Jewell Emerson tested positive for COVID-19, her son consulted a lawyer who helped him draft a letter requesting specific information about her care. The 93-year-old has several underlying health conditions and is susceptible to complications from the virus. Emerson said the nursing home never replied.

Teams from the Alabama Department of Public Health investigate positive cases at nursing homes, but they have not published any findings about how the illness is spread inside facilities.

National Guard deployed

Members of the Alabama National Guard have been deployed to disinfect nursing homes and assist with staff training. In addition, nursing homes and hospitals have been working together on a plan to create alternative sites where COVID-19 positive residents could recover.

The nursing home association objected to a March request to send patients back to nursing homes after they were discharged from hospitals, arguing the plan endangered residents who hadnt been infected.

The arrival of COVID-19 also exposed some of the struggles nursing homes already had with staffing. Many nursing assistant jobs have low pay and can be difficult to fill. As staff members become sick and unable to work, care can suffer.

Farmer said nursing homes have been able to fill the gaps with nurses furloughed from hospitals and medical centers. When elective medical surgeries resume, those positions may become more difficult to fill.

The workforce shortage is a primary concern within a nursing home facility, Farmer said. When they start showing symptoms, we immediately send them home and isolate them for testing. It can create staffing concerns.

Farmer said the growth of coronavirus cases has not slowed in Alabama nursing homes. The association is encouraging all facilities to test as many staff members and residents as possible to determine which ones carry the virus.

The virus, as reported, is extraordinarily contagious, Farmer said. Our residents are the most vulnerable of our population as a whole. Its a crisis on day one for us as far as trying to isolate those residents.

Nursing homes have taken different approaches to testing. Some require all staff members and residents to be tested, while others only require it for those who were directly exposed.

Before the state ended visitation, Emerson said nurses and Marion Regional Nursing Home didnt wear masks and gloves. He said he understands how overwhelming it must be to deal with such an aggressive virus, but says the home should have done more.

Its a disease that people werent prepared for, Emerson said, but that doesnt excuse them from not handling it properly.
Paedophiles and child abusers may be using the coronavirus lockdown to target vulnerable children, according to a child protection expert.

The chilling warning comes as it was revealed the Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland (SBNI) has seen a dramatic drop in the number of referrals about children at risk of harm.

The organisation has said that the closure of schools and social distancing measures mean that children may become the "unintended victims of coronavirus".

Bernie McNally, independent chair of the SBNI, said it is important that people remain vigilant to the possibility that children may be coming to harm. She stressed agencies such as the police and social services are available to respond to concerns.

"One trust has reported that since the lockdown has come into place, referrals to child protection services are down by 40% compared to the same period last year," said Ms McNally.

"Another trust has said its referrals are down by two-thirds.

"We believe this is because of a number of factors, including the fact that the schools are shut and a lot of referrals would be made by teachers.

"Also, fewer parents are taking their children to the hospital and a lot of referrals would come from doctors.

"There is also a perception that everyone is too busy dealing with coronavirus to respond to safeguarding concerns, but that isn't the case.

"There is an awful lot of good work being done out there, by the statutory and voluntary agencies, including the likes of Women's Aid.

"We want people to know that those organisations are all still open for business and take child safety very seriously."

Even though referrals have dropped significantly compared to the same period last year, Ms McNally said there is no reason to believe that levels of abuse have dropped.

She said children may actually be more at risk during the lockdown.

She said protection plans, such as when children of addicts spend time stay with grandparents, have been suspended due to the social distancing measures.

At the same time, she said parents with pre-existing mental health conditions and addictions may be finding it more difficult to cope under the current conditions.

Ms McNally continued: "This pandemic is disproportionately affecting those who are in poverty.

"If you can imagine what it is like for a single parent with five children who already has addiction issues, and who can't afford to stockpile food.

"Then you have people in an abusive relationship and they can't go to work or get out of the house at all, there is the potential for a lot of harm to be happening.

"At the same time, paedophiles strike when people are vulnerable, predators strike when they think there are no eyes on them.

"That's why it's so important that we keep our eyes on vulnerable children and certainly the police are keeping an eye on sex offenders, but we all have a role to play.

"We are telling people to do whatever they would normally do - if you would normally visit a vulnerable child, you can still keep in touch by phone or by FaceTime."

Ms McNally's calls for the public to contact authorities with concerns have been echoed by Sean Holland, Northern Ireland's chief social worker.
YEREVAN, APRIL 18, ARMENPRESS. At the proposal of ICOMOS - International Council on Monuments and Sites, April 18 is celebrated as International Day for Monuments and Sites since 1983. The aim is to promote awareness about the diversity of cultural heritage of humanity, their vulnerability and the efforts required for their protection and conservation.

On the occasion of this day Deputy Minister of Education, science, culture and sport Narine Khachaturyan gave an interview to ARMENPRESS, stating that Armenia has a rich cultural heritage which needs to be preserved, restored and properly presented to the Armenian and international community. According to the deputy minister, not only the state but also the society have a great role to play in this process.

Mrs. Khachaturyan said numerous actions are being taken for the preservation of monuments, but if there is no public perception and understanding, no love towards the homeland and the historical-cultural heritage, no major result will be achieved regardless of the efforts made by the state.

We have a huge heritage, part of which is under land. There is still a lot to do for the next generations, but due to financial reasons completely restoring all monuments is just impossible. The state is ready to cooperate with the private companies, communities, but the community residents consciousness should be raised, because in many cases monuments are not destroyed in a natural way, but due to the human factor, which is very sad, she said.

As for the legislative gaps of the field the deputy minister said they are working currently on these issues, have prepared changes in articles which soon will be circulated.

The ministry was conducting awareness-raising campaign both in Yerevan and the communities. But due to the current situation in the country these campaigns were suspended. Community leaders were listening to us with a great interest, but then we were again informed that illegal building was being constructed in the territory of a monument, etc. I suppose that in addition to administrative fines, criminal responsibility is also needed, but the most important change will be when we teach our children to understand the value of culture, including that of the monuments. For this purpose we have launched a program aimed at discovering the homeland which we will implement and which will bring change in the consciousness, she added.

The deputy minister informed that the ministry attaches great importance to the digital domain for popularizing the historical-cultural heritage. A multi-lingual portal for presenting the monuments, archaeological field will be prepared. Our culture is rich and attractive, we just need to properly present it. Now these steps are being taken, the Armenian deputy minister said.

Interview by Angela Hambardzumyan

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
Dip investors should check these tech stocks.

While the S&P 500 is up 12.9% since April 1, many stocks remain well off their recent highs in the aftermath of the recent sell-off. Given the stock market is a leading economic indicator, the market could recover long before the economy does. In fact, the 2020 bottom could already be in. Fortunately for technology stock investors looking to buy the dip, here are seven tech stocks to buy that are still down at least 30% year-to-date, according to Morningstar.

Blackbaud (ticker: BLKB)

Blackbaud is a cloud-based software company specializing in fundraising and financial applications used by nonprofit organizations. Analyst Dan Romanoff says Blackbaud is a clear market leader in the niche fundraising business, and its transition from a perpetual license to a subscription model should pay off in the long term. The company's aggressive acquisition strategy has spurred growth and eliminated top competitors. Romanoff says Blackbaud has been gaining traction with religious organizations as well, and the education industry could be its next major growth lever. Morningstar has a "buy" rating and $87 fair value estimate for BLKB stock.

Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD)

Cornerstone OnDemand develops software used to automate employee recruiting, performance management, compensation management and employee turnover. In February, Cornerstone announced a $1.395 billion buyout of talent experience software company Saba. Analyst John Barrett says the acquisition has created a cross-selling opportunity for Cornerstone. Barrett says Cornerstone is best-in-class in enterprise learning software, and it has had success in getting customers to adopt multiple products. Roughtly 79% of customers use two products, and approximately 40% use three or more. Morningstar has a "buy" rating and $55 fair value estimate for CSOD stock.

Infineon Technologies (IFNNY)

Infineon Technologies is an integrated semiconductor producer that has a top-three market share in its major end markets, including automotive, power and smart card integrated circuits. Analyst Brian Colello says growth will be hard to come by in the near term due to illness disruptions and subsequent caution on behalf of Infineon's customers. In addition, lower oil prices could negatively impact demand for electric vehicles, one of the company's prime growth markets. Still, Colello says Infineon is well-positioned for the long term and undervalued at today's prices. Morningstar has a "buy" rating and $27 fair value estimate for IFNNY stock.

Story continues

Microchip Technology (MCHP)

Microchip Technology is another specialized semiconductor stock that has taken a beating in 2020. The company's top products include microcontroller, mixed-signal, analog and flash memory solutions. Colello says Microchip is the market leader in both microcontrollers and analog chips, and its diversified customer base insulates it from risks associated with any one customer. Colello says fiscal 2021 could be difficult, but the company is making the right moves in managing and reshuffling its debt and is well-positioned for long-term secular growth in the critical microcontroller industry. Morningstar has a "buy" rating and $108 fair value estimate for MCHP stock.

NXP Semiconductors (NXPI)

NXP Semiconductors has been hit hard by the illness-related downturn. The tech company specializes in high-performance mixed-signal semiconductors, and its leading end markets include automotive, identification, wireless, lighting and industry. Colello says NXP is not immune to the near-term semiconductor slowdown, but much of the risk has already been priced into the stock. Prior to the outbreak, NXP was putting up strong numbers and issuing impressive guidance for 2020. Colello says NXP's competitive advantages in the automotive and industrial markets will produce excess returns over the next decade. Morningstar has a "buy" rating and $130 fair value estimate for NXPI stock.

Sabre Corp. (SABR)

Sabre is a technology platform that connects travel agencies to airlines to make seat reservations. Given the world's travel restrictions, it's understandable that Sabre's stock has been the hardest hit of all seven stocks mentioned. Shares are down 72.2% in the past three months, and Morningstar is projecting a 36% revenue drop in 2020. Analyst Dan Wasiolek says there is certainly risk in Sabre's leverage and credit headwinds in the near term, but he expects the company's competitive advantage will remain intact throughout the downturn. Morningstar has a "buy" rating and $19.50 fair value estimate for SABR stock.

Xerox Holdings Corp. (XRX)

Xerox is a printing and digital document services company. Analyst Mark Cash says Xerox has ample liquidity to navigate the market downturn. Cash says the print industry is in secular decline, but Xerox has a lifeline in the emerging digital packaging industry. In addition, emerging markets could help with legacy print demand, and Cash says Xerox should still increase capital returns over the next several years. Cash says Xerox shares are undervalued, but there are also many higher-quality, lower-risk stocks within the technology sector that investors should be buying. Morningstar has a "buy" rating and $30 price target for XRX stock.

Oversold tech stocks to buy on the dip:

-- Blackbaud (BLKB)

-- Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD)

-- Infineon Technologies (IFNNY)

-- Microchip Technology (MCHP)

-- NXP Semiconductors (NXPI)

-- Sabre Corp. (SABR)

-- Xerox Holdings Corp. (XRX)





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Like many families social distancing at home amid the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Chris Hemsworth is having to juggle work and parental duties.

On Wednesday, Hemsworths son hilariously crashed the actors interview with Australian radio station Triple M.

Hemsworth, 36, was in the middle of discussing his upcoming Netflix film Extraction when his kids erupted in chatter off camera.

Hemsworth shares 6-year-old twin sons Tristan and Sasha and daughter India Rose, 7, with wife Elsa Pataky.

Thats my kids in the background! Hemsworth told host Luke Darcy while telling his kids to hush.

One of his sons, however, had other plans and promptly joined his dad on camera. It is not immediately clear if the child in the clip is Tristan or Sasha.

The young boy smiled into the camera briefly before making an exit after Hemsworth whispered something in his ear.

The kids continued to steal the show as Hemsworth said later on, Sorry, my son is throwing pillows at the computer.

Buddy, just hang on. Its going to knock off the [monitor], Chris said while trying to re-adjust the screen.

The cameo proved to be the highlight of the interview as Darcy said, Im enjoying this interview already because Im watching Chris, who can do anything, Hollywood star, lifes going beautifully, but like all of us, cant keep his kids under control.

Extraction will premiere on Netflix on April 24.

Earlier this year, Pataky shared a rare glimpse into how she raises her three kids with Hemsworth.

RELATED: Elsa Pataky & Chris Hemsworths Action-Packed Family Photos

The actress starred alongside her brood for the February cover of Vogue Australia.

The cover, which was shot in Byron Bay, Australia where they now live, marked a rare occurrence for the couple, who are often private about sharing their children on social media.

In the cover story, Pataky opened up about why she and Hemsworth decided to leave Hollywood for the actors native country of Australia.

Story continues

James D. Morgan/Getty Chris Hemsworth

My daughter started to get scared of photos, actually, the mom of three, 43, explained of the effect that the paparazzi had on their family life. So we realized this is not a way to live, because you just become enclosed in a house. I love nature and I love to be outside, and I wanted my kids to have that freedom, so we decided to leave.

RELATED: All the Photos from Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Patakys Family Vacation in Thailand

The Fast and Furious star added that she went through a big change after moving to Australia and giving up acting opportunities in Los Angeles.

My goal was always, when I have kids, to be in a place thats not the city. I want them to grow up in nature, because I crave that, she said. But that step did take me away from one of my big passions in life: acting, and it was a big change. But I changed my life to be a mum, which I think is just the most amazing thing in the world.
Canadian politicians, ex-diplomats, and academics are playing a leading role in an international campaign to blame China for the global coronavirus pandemic. This reactionary initiative has a two-fold purpose: to divert public attention away from Western capitalist governments disastrous response to the pandemic, which has manifestly prioritized investor profit over human lives; and to further expand Canadian imperialisms military-strategic partnership with Washington in preparation for intensified great-power conflict, including war, with China.

US President Donald Trump led the way this week with his denunciations of China, blaming Beijing for allegedly failing to inform the international community quickly enough about the coronavirus. Trump also gave succour to conspiracy theories about the virus having been released from a Chinese high security lab and accused the World Health Organization of being under Beijings thumb. He used this latter claim to justify his criminal decision to slash Washingtons contributions to the WHO in the middle of a pandemica decision that risks the lives of millions of people worldwide.

Just hours before Trump launched his attack on the WHO, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI), an Ottawa-based think-tank with close ties to Canadian policy-making circles, published an open letter that asserted the current global crisis has been caused by the (Chinese) regime. The letter, signed by right-wing East European and British politicians and dozens of so-called China experts, was published by the MLI in conjunction with the London-based Henry Jackson Society, notorious for its ties to US intelligence agencies, and the Prague-based European Values Center for Security Policy. It termed the coronavirus Chinas Chernobyl moment, adding, The roots of the pandemic are in a cover up by CCP (Chinese Communist Party) authorities in Wuhan.

There are undoubtedly criticisms to be made of Beijings response to the coronavirus. But the reality is that it is the criminal negligence of the major imperialist powers, Canada included, that is responsible for a pandemicboth long foreseeable and long foreseenhaving a catastrophic impact on the lives and livelihoods of working people across Europe and North America.

If the pandemic has spread so rapidly, it is because the Trump administration, the Trudeau Liberal government, and the European powers failed to respond in a timely manner to the early warnings issued by China and the WHO. The Chinese authorities released the full sequencing of the virus on January 13, just two weeks after the first cases of an unknown lung disease were reported to the WHO. Although cases were reported in over a dozen countries by the end of the month, both the Trudeau and Trump governments continued throughout February to downplay the threat of a pandemic.

Only when it became clear in March that the coronavirus was spreading out of control in North America, and a number of strikes and protests by workers demanding more protection on the job had broken out, did Ottawa and Washington adopt social distancing measures and Canadian provinces and US states begin to order school shutdowns, later expanded to non-essential businesses. However, there was no emergency investment made by either Ottawa or Washington in strengthening their countries dilapidated and overstretched health care systems, or even anything comparable to the resources mobilized in China, where new hospitals were built in a matter of days to treat the sick.

As soon as the open letter was released, interim Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer, the two leading candidates to succeed him, Peter MacKay and Erin OToole, and Conservative defence policy spokesman James Bezan rushed to sign it. From the start, a leading promoter of the letter was former Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler. Two days before the open letter was officially launched, an article Cotler co-wrote with his former chief of staff and fellow letter endorsee, Judith Abitan, appeared in the Times of Israel, under the title Xi Jinpings China did this.

These right-wing figures are attempting to use the pandemic as a pretext to intensify a long-running anti-China campaign that is intimately connected with the Trump administrations aggressive anti-Beijing policy, but which enjoys widespread bipartisan support in Washington and increasingly in Canada.

This is underscored by a conveniently timed interview with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that also appeared this week in the hard-right Toronto Sun. Pompeo decried Chinas handling of the coronavirus, before getting down to what was his real concern. He urged Canada to follow Trumps America First lead and reduce its reliance on supply chains dependent on Chinese-based production.

He then turned to the issue of Chinese tech giant Huaweis involvement in Canadas 5G network. We think that installing Huawei equipment in a countrys telecom infrastructure presents an enormous national security risk, he declared. This is an entity controlled by the Chinese government. Pompeo went on to warn that the US would only transfer intelligence to allies through networks they know are secure, an implicit repetition of the threat to downgrade US-Canada intelligence sharing if Ottawa does not exclude Huawei from Canadas 5G network.

While the Trudeau government has repeatedly delayed issuing a final ruling on Huawei, it has consistently lined up behind Washingtons ever more aggressive economic and military-geostrategic offensive against Beijing. In 2017, the Liberal government declared China to be one of the principal global threats confronting Canada in the 21st century, alongside Russia, as it announced plans to increase military spending by more than 70 percent by 2026.

The Liberals, with pivotal support from the trade unions, also negotiated an updated version of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Trump so as to consolidate North America as a US-dominated trade war bloc against China and the other overseas rivals of US and Canadian imperialism. The Trudeau government has also overseen the expansion of Canadian Armed Forces involvement in the US provocative military build-up in the Asia-Pacific region.

Moreover, Trudeau personally approved the RCMPs Dec. 2018 arrest and detention of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou at Washingtons behest on trumped-up charges of breaching its illegal economic sanctions against Iran.

Underscoring Trudeaus determination to preserve Canadian imperialisms strategic partnership with Washington at all costs, the Prime Minister deliberately avoided making any criticism of Trumps criminal decision to suspend funding to the WHO. Instead, he uttered a meaningless phrase about Canadas determination to promote international collaboration in combatting the virus. It was left to the Minister of International Development, a second-rank figure in the government, to meekly note Canadas disappointment at the White Houses move.

Notwithstanding the Trudeau governments firm commitment to the Canada-US strategic partnership, sharp differences persist within the Canadian bourgeoisie over its China policy. The support of virtually the entire leadership of the Official Opposition for the open letter castigating Beijing is part of a long-running campaign of anti-China agitation that has also targeted the Liberal governments supposed failure to adopt a hardline stance towards Beijing.

Prior to last years federal election, Scheer delivered a keynote foreign policy address, received with enthusiasm in ruling circles, that called for a total reset of Canada-China relations. He demanded Ottawa withdraw from the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank; pledged, a la Trump, to file a complaint against Beijing at the World Trade Organization for unfair trading practices; and vowed Canada, under a Conservative government, would join the US-led ballistic missile defence shield. The aim of this shield is to enable US imperialism to wage a winnable war against its nuclear-armed rivals, above all Russia and China (see: Canadas Conservative leader lays out right-wing economic and foreign policy agenda).

From the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, the Conservatives and their accomplices in right-wing media outlets like the National Post sought to foment anti-China sentiment in their criticisms of the Trudeau government. While they have railed against the Trudeau government for not joining Trump in imposing a travel ban on China in late January, they have, naturally enough, scrupulously avoided mention of the austerity policies, pursued by federal and provincial governments of all stripes for decades, that have ravaged the health care system and left it totally unprepared to deal with the pandemic. Nor have they made an issue of the astonishing fact that the federal government only bothered to write the provinces on March 10, over two months after China notified the international community about the virus, to inquire about their medical supply inventories and possible shortages.

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US ramps up attacks on China over COVID-19

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Trump defunds the World Health Organization: A crime against humanity

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'How can you tell if there are sharks?"

Visitors to Hawai'i want to know lots of things. Which bar does the best mai tai? How can we see volcanoes? Where's Barack Obama's favourite plate lunch place?

But swimmers and surfers have another concern. Hawai'i is shark heaven, with some 40 species cruising its islands - from blacktips to hammerheads. Most steer well clear of humans (and we are, of course, a far bigger threat to them). But still, unplanned encounters are best avoided.

There's a simple way to tell if there are sharks about, one islander told me: "Put your finger in the water. Swirl it counter-clockwise. Then taste it."

He paused for effect.

"Does it taste salty? Then, there are sharks."

There are always sharks. I love these creatures, their perfect evolution, their cold eyes, their stunning movement in water. But I also know there are occasional accidents and incidents, and that's the first thing that sprung to mind when three divers surfaced beside me in Maui last year.

I caught just three words from their spluttering conversation - "tiger shark" and "shadow".

We were a few hundred yards offshore in Honolua Bay, a cove in the northwest of the island. Its remoteness, and the short hike through creeper-dripping trees required to get there, meant few other people. I had the reefs almost to myself. Then it started to rain. Clouds moved across the sun, and the water grew dimmer.

Named for their stripes, tiger sharks can grow over 20 feet long, have jaws strong enough to crack sea turtle shells, and are indiscriminate eaters. The last place you want to be is in murky water with one nearby.

Expand Close Honolua Bay, Maui, Hawai'i. Photo: Deposit / Facebook

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Part of me wanted to panic, driven by a thumping heart and clutching stomach. But another part stayed calm. Without thinking, the swimmer in me zeroed in on the shore, plotted a route as close to rocks as possible, and set off with a calm stroke and minimal splash. The journey took several minutes, but thankfully, the only fins were my own. I hauled myself on to the rocks, steam rising from my body in by then torrential rain. I hardly felt a drop.

'When you're in, you're in...'

As a travel writer, I've been lucky to swim in some of the world's most beautiful waters. I've tracked manta rays in the Maldives, swum with sharks (deliberately, this time) in the Philippines and through kelp in crystal clear water off West Cork. I've snorkelled around a shallow shipwreck off the coast of Tanzania and squeezed through a hairline crack into a cave pool in Oman.

But it's not just exotic swims that matter to me - 99pc of my immersions are at my local pool in Co Wicklow, plodding up and down a 25m lane.

It's not sexy. There are Speedos involved (Speedos are life's great leveller nobody can keep up a pretence in a pair of those). I don't always want to go. It can be too dark, too busy or early. But once I hit the water and unwrap those first strokes, that's it.

When you're in, you're in.

If you're a swimmer, you'll know the feeling. There's a science to it - the flow of blood and oxygen, the endorphins - but there's a magic, too. Breaking that surface, hitting the cool water, jolts you out of whatever fug you're in. There's a meditative rhythm to the strokes, a drift similar to a long hike, when your body is occupied with a basic, mechanical function and your mind wanders freely. There's a druggy weightlessness to it. But you think creatively, too.

I'm not a year-round sea swimmer (too cold). I don't have a sunrise tribe (too early). But like all swimmers, I love what happens to me in the water, how it soothes stress and takes me momentarily out of life. Even after a bad swim, my skin feels warm. My mind is alert, but also calm.

Swimming is my reset button. I love it.

Expand Close In the swim: Pol O Conghaile on his travels / Facebook

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Whatsapp In the swim: Pol O Conghaile on his travels

Today, of course, that button is out of reach. As Covid-19 spreads across the planet, pools have closed, wild swims are outside many 2km radiuses, and swimmers all over the world - like everyone else - are staying home to curb the spread of coronavirus. Clearly, it's a small price to pay to help our frontline heroes, but I miss it.

'Hot chips, and a kick of chlorine'

My first swim memory isn't good.

I remember sitting on the edge of an old-school public swimming pool in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, where I grew up. I was maybe five years old. A beginners' lesson began with dozens of us sitting around the shallow end, instructed to kick our legs and splash. I remember the first drops hitting my skin; the roar of our thundering churn.

Then we were told to get in.

I remember flailing about. I could sense other legs and arms beside me, knew I was in trouble, but didn't have a skill to reach for to push off the floor, pull with my hand or kick with my legs. I couldn't see like I did on land.

A rough arm grasped me and pulled me to the surface. I gulped a lungful of air. The blur fell back into focus.

The instructor checked in. I thanked the boy who had hauled me up. Tom was his name. I was shocked, upset, mystified. But I didn't want to get out.

I (and my parents) stuck with it. Passing through the grades, I slowly found a feel for the water. Other friends played rugby or GAA; I learned the strokes, won medals and, by my early teens, was schlepping through 5,000m or more in training sessions under a big Speedo clock.

I remember long trips to faraway pools where our swim club spent the day cooped up in hot, crowded viewing galleries for just a few minutes in the water. You might get a final; you might not. You might get a PB (Personal Best) by tenths or hundredths of a second; you might not.

There were hot bags of chips afterwards, their vinegary whiff mingling with the kick of chlorine.

I quit racing when I was around 15. Lots of competitive swimmers do. As a sport, swimming is nuts. To compete properly, you need to be in the water for at least 10 hours a week, most of them with 5.30am or 6am starts. It's hell for parents, too. And then the school day starts.

Through Leaving Cert and college I swam on holidays or occasionally in the pool, but it wasn't until later in my twenties that the gra started to return. I found groups to go lane training with. I bought a decent facemask and a long pair of fins, and started taking them with me on trips for swims and snorkels. The break gave me perspective. I realised that not every journey was from A to B.

'It was pathetic. But it was a baseline'

Today's break is enforced by coronavirus (and hopefully a lot shorter). But it's made me think, too - about what swimming has taught me, what water means to me, and how immersions have marked moments in my life.

Expand Close Keem Bay, Achill Island. / Facebook

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I asked the love of my life to marry me on a sandy beach in Co Wexford. Our little girl played nearby. My now wife said yes, and we kissed. Then, I went for a swim.

Hitting those icy waters, feeling the waves slap me in the face, going from bone-dry to cold and wet and ultra-alert was perfect. A new chapter. A reset.

Last year, I had a surgery. The recovery was complicated and my first swim, several weeks later, was an important point for me in marking where my body was at, how much I felt like 'me'. I managed a single, painful length of bad breaststroke, with my 10-year-old son minding me.

It was pathetic. But it gave me a baseline.

One rainy day, I took my then seven-year-old daughter for a snorkel in Achill Island's Keem Bay. It was freezing, but we wore wetsuits. The water was clear, she held my hand and the rocks were teeming with gobies and wrasse. When we got out, warming ourselves with towels and getting treats from the boot of the car, we met a lifeguard. "Did ye see the basking shark?" he asked.

A sea-kayaker had spotted one earlier, he told us. Basking sharks are the world's second-biggest fish (after whale sharks), but they are plankton feeders, and harmless to humans. Seeing one would have spooked us. But the fact that we could have sealed the adventure, too.

There will always be sharks.

'How's he gonna breathe?'

Feargus Callagy shared a similar memory with me.

He's a freediver from Co Sligo and, in 2012, I made a RTE radio documentary that told the story of how he had taught himself to hold his breath for over five minutes and dive to depths of 40m or more without oxygen.

When he wanted to relax, to get in the zone before a big dive or immersion, Feargus told me, he often recalled a day spent surfing with his daughter on Achill.

"Nothing momentous happened," he said. "I just know in 50 years' time I'll remember that day."

Wishing to understand how and why he swam (40m is the equivalent of a 15-storey building, and that's not counting the swim back to the surface), I followed Feargus from the frigid April waters of Mullaghmore to the Red Sea resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt. I cobbled together makeshift waterproof sheaths for portable Zoom mics, got into the water with him and floated by the guide rope, watching him disappear down into the ether.

It reminded me of The Big Blue (1988); the moment when Rosanna Arquette's character first sees a freediver, played by Jean-Marc Barr, drop into the water.

"How's he gonna breathe?" she asks.

"He isn't," is the reply.

Expand Close Deep dive: Pol with freediver Feargus Callagy in Egypt's Red Sea / Facebook

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Whatsapp Deep dive: Pol with freediver Feargus Callagy in Egypt's Red Sea

Feargus taught me about the 'dive reflex' - an instinctive, physiological response triggered in mammals when we are immersed in water and hold our breath. Inherited from aquatic ancestors, it causes our heartbeat to slow, and the flow of blood to vital organs like the brain and heart to be prioritised over limbs (if you dip your face in cool water, and hold your breath, you'll feel it kick in). Zeroing into an almost zen-like state before a dive is part of the addiction of freediving, and people like Feargus - as well as spear fishermen and pearl divers - have learned to harness it, along with breathing, yoga and ear-pressure-equalisation techniques to swim longer and deeper underwater.

Of course, breath-hold diving can be dangerous. When freedivers make stupid decisions, chase crazy depths or dive alone, they can black out and die (many have). But when they swim responsibly, they pass through a looking glass. Scuba divers can go deeper for longer, but liberated from tanks, regulators and buoyancy vests, freedivers swim in silence and get closer to marine life. They float, momentarily cutting the cords with life on land.

In Egypt, I read the theory, sat in on classes and spoke to world-famous freedivers like Italy's Umberto Pelizzari. But Feargus left the deepest impression.

"It's literally just you and your thoughts," he said. "It's wrong to say time stops, but it's that kind of sense you get. It's a little bit on the spiritual side, a little bit hippy-trippy, but it's something that I really do enjoy."

My own swimming journey took a leap forward that spring. I could never do what Feargus did, but I learned how to better control my breathing, to lean into the mindfulness of freediving, and was able to stretch my time swimming underwater to 90 seconds or so.

The practical tips were liberating, but it also felt good to be given a vocabulary for what swimming made me feel. The sense of peace, the way entering the water allowed me to slip out of life for a while, however briefly. In moving up and down the pool, or finning through the sea, swimmers are also travelling inwardly. It's hard to see a parallel on land, but I find similar sensations when I listen to a favourite piece of music. You're at once cut loose from everything, and strangely hyper-present.

Of course, not all swims or dives are transcendental experiences. Very few dips take place in Hawai'i; and I've had plenty of forgettable days on the Wild Atlantic Way.

Sometimes, you push off perfectly, eat up the metres. The water feels sensual, almost silky around you. Other swims are just sh*t. You feel useless, like a sick thing, the water slipping through your fingers. I've learned that good swimmers respect the water, know their limits and listen to their bodies. They share the freedivers' mantra. "The ocean will be there tomorrow."

'All good writing is swimming underwater'

Humans are drawn to water. Simply looking at the sea, a lake or river can have a hypnotic effect (especially in today's frenetic, 24/7 world). The healing powers of swimming have been heralded for millennia, and you can see why it inspires so many parables and expressions, too - we talk of deep dives, of being out of our depth, of treading water or swimming against the tide.

"All good writing is swimming underwater and holding your breath," F Scott Fitzgerald wrote. As a writer, I'm naturally drawn to that. But it's not just the romance that appeals to me (the immersion, the similarities between unentered water and blank sheets of paper).

It's the drudgery, too. Like writing, every swim involves a ritual. It starts with gathering together your gear. You travel to your pool or piece of coast, you get changed, leave dry land for the jolt of cool water, roll out the first few strokes or finned kicks, and gradually - all going well - start to warm up and work out. There's therapy in it.

Expand Close Into the blue: Pol (back right) swimming with manta ray at Hanifaru Bay in the Maldives / Facebook

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Whatsapp Into the blue: Pol (back right) swimming with manta ray at Hanifaru Bay in the Maldives

But there's more. Non-swimmers are bemused at the apparent boredom in pounding out length after length or churning through cold water. Swimmers see it differently. Stroke after stroke, breath by breath, swimming not only creates space to think, it imbues a discipline.

Thousands of hours of swimming have stitched a self-drive into my DNA. I trust the process. I know my body. I got out of Honolua Bay. I finished nasty training sessions. I can get through what life throws at me, too. When I feel anxious, depressed, frustrated or overwhelmed, I know where I can go to start the process, to reset.

When you're in, you're in.

Of course, today, I can't get in. One irony of Covid-19 is that it has taken away the very thing that thought me these lessons. The coronavirus is first and foremost a public health crisis, and an economic catastrophe (in calibrating Ireland's restrictions, I'm not sure Dr Tony Holohan and NPHET have my ablutions front of mind). But I also know there are millions of stories like mine out there. A regular swim is what I need. I miss it.

'The sea is so wide'

Several years ago, on Mayo's remote Mullet Peninsula, I stopped at a small plaque in Scotchport.

"Dear Lord, be good to me," it said simply. "The sea is so wide, and my boat is so small." It made me think of a swimmer, suspended briefly in the vast ocean. Today, it makes me think of my family in this unnerving pandemic. For now, just thinking of my swims is a tonic, a distraction. And there's that old mantra, too.

The water will be there tomorrow.

Top 3: Swimming Reads

Swim: Why We Love the Water sees Lynn Sherr celebrate the sport, history and lore of swimming (Public Affairs Books, 2012)

sees Lynn Sherr celebrate the sport, history and lore of swimming Wild Swimming in Ireland lists 50 great places to swim in the sea, river and lakes of Ireland for when lockdown ends (Gill Books, 2016)

lists 50 great places to swim in the sea, river and lakes of Ireland for when lockdown ends Blue Mind by Wallace J Nichols explores the science behind water's effects on our brains, bodies and moods (Little Brown, 2014)

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Like what you're reading? Subscribe now to our free travel newsletter. 'Travel Insider' is written by our award-winning Travel Editor, Pol O Conghaile.
HDFC Bank on Saturday said its board has finalised three candidates, in order of preference, to succeed CEO and MD Aditya Puri, but did not disclose the names, saying they will be communicated to the RBI.

Puri has been the head of the lender since its incorporation 25 years ago and has led it to be the largest and most valuable bank, on the back of a strict hold over asset quality.

It is one of the most coveted jobs in the Indian banking sector and market watchers are keenly awaiting who will be the chosen appointee.

The HDFC Bank board had appointed a search committee and also engaged external headhunters to help it zero in on a candidate.

"The Board of Directors of the Bank has today (Saturday) finalised the names of three candidates, in the order of preference, for the position of the managing director and chief executive officer (MD & CEO) of the bank," the bank informed the bourses in a statutory filing.

It did not elaborate on who the three were.

A media report in the run up to the board meet had mentioned the names of Sashidhar Jagdishan, Kaizad Bharucha and Sunil Garg as the ones who had made the cut.

Jagdishan and Bharucha are internal candidates, while Garg is working with American banking major Citigroup.

Garg is the chief executive of Citi Commercial Bank, while Jagdishan is an additional director who heads the finance, human resources, legal and secretarial functions at HDFC Bank, and Bharucha is an executive director responsible for wholesale banking.

Earlier this month, the Reserve Bank had asked for the appointments of both Jagdishan and Bharucha to be kept in abeyance, asking for the new chief executive to take a call on it.

Puri had recently told reporters that his successor will be announced before April. "...the recommendations are with the search committee and before April, an appropriate person who will take the bank into the future will be announced," he had told reporters over a conference call last month.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Speaking with a good friend recently, I realised just how dark things have become since COVID-19 integrated itself into every thought, dream and sigh.

I told my husband that if the pandemic gets any worse, Im going to give our family an early Christmas and then run away, she told me over a wine-soaked FaceTime session. Do you know what his response was? He produced a bag of new toys hed purchased from an adult website and said there was a silver lining to every one of lifes toughest moments, and that maybe this was just natures way of telling us to have more sex.

Maybe this is a time to ponder what needs to change when we come out the other side. Credit:Stocksy

Obviously my friends situation is an extreme case, and perhaps her husbands unbridled optimism

is gravely misplaced (he didnt get lucky that night  or any night since, Im told) but theres something to be said about opting to focus on the positive sides of trying times.

Decades of scientific research shows that optimism is a potent health tonic, with various studies linking those who have a glass-half-full mentality with improved physical and mental health and a heightened likelihood of recovery after a period of prolonged stress or a traumatic event.
N HS frontline workers continue to fight to save the country from scourge of coronavirus, despite protective equipment shortages and sobering statistics.

An acute care nurse, a long-serving paramedic and a healthcare assistant are among the latest health workers to have lost their lives to Covid-19.

At least 56 NHS workers are known to have died after contracting the disease  although the Department of Health sets the official death toll at 43.

Here, the Standard remembers some of those who have died, with tributes from those who knew them

Michael Allieu, staff nurse

The vibrant 'larger-than-life' nurse died on Saturday / @NursingNotesUK

Homerton University Hospital NHS Trust confirmed that Staff Nurse Michael Allieu died on Saturday at Homerton Hospital.

Mr Allieu, who worked at the hospital since 2007 and was a key member of the team in the Acute Care unit, had been in the hospital suffering from coronavirus for several days.

Homerton chief executive Tracey Fletcher said: Michael was a vibrant, larger-than-life character on our acute care unit, and was well known and very well liked throughout the hospital.

He will be greatly missed by all his colleagues both in the ACU and the wider Homerton Hospital community.

Our thoughts and condolences are with his family at this sad time.

Unnamed paramedic for North West Ambulance Service

A paramedic, whose family has asked not to be named, died on Friday, North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) confirmed.

The trusts chief executive Daren Mochrie said: Our colleague was married with children and had worked for the trust for a considerable number of years

On behalf of everyone here at NWAS, including our patients and the communities we serve, I would like to offer our sincere condolences to the family.

We would also like to thank our NHS colleagues for their professionalism and the compassionate care they have shown for our friend.

This will deeply affect many people within the trust and we are supporting our staff during this very sad time.

UK landmarks light up blue for NHS staff fighting coronavirus 1 /25 UK landmarks light up blue for NHS staff fighting coronavirus The Shard in London is lit up in blue in a gesture of thanks to the hardworking NHS staff fighting against coronavirus Tower Bridge in London is lit up in blue in a gesture of thanks to hardworking NHS staff PA Tower Bridge in London is lit up in blue in a gesture of thanks to hardworking NHS staff The London Eye is pictured lit blue in support of the NHS Reuters London's Piccadilly Circus saluting local heroes during Thursday's nationwide Clap for Carers NHS initiative to applaud NHS workers fighting the coronavirus pandemic PA Selfridges lit up in blue in a gesture of thanks to the hardworking NHS staff fighting coronavirus on the frontline PA Fulwell Windmill in Sunderland is lit up in blue in a gesture of thanks to the hardworking NHS staff fighting coronavirus PA MediaCityUK in Manchester lit up in blue in a gesture of thanks to hardworking NHS staff PA Northern Spire Bridge in Sunderland is lit up in blue in a gesture of thanks to hardworking NHS staff PA Belfast City Hall is lit up in support of the NHS Reuters The SSE Arena, Wembley, is seen with a lit up sign for the Clap For Our Carers campaign REUTERS Tawstock Court in Barnstaple lit up in blue PA Ashton Gate, the home of Bristol City FC is lit up in blue in a gesture of thanks PA Wembley stadium is seen lit up blue REUTERS Wembley Arch in London is lit up in blue PA The Lowry lit up in blue in a gesture of thanks to the hardworking NHS staff who are trying to battle coronavirus. PA The Tyne Bridge in Newcastle is lit up in blue in a gesture of thanks to the hardworking NHS staff PA People applaud infront of big screen in Piccadilly Circus during the Clap For Our Carers campaign Reuters The Shard in London is lit up blue

Simon Guest, radiographer

University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust confirmed the death of radiographer Simon Guest from Furness General Hospital.

The trust said it was announcing the death with the full blessing of Mr Guests wife Nicky, who wanted to pay tribute to the staff at Furness General Hospitals Intensive Care Unit.

She said: We are all overwhelmed with grief at the loss of our beloved Simon to Covid-19.

Simon was special, a true gentleman and a great role model to all.

He was a gentle soul and so very caring with both his patients and NHS colleagues.

Simon worked tirelessly on the front line, always helping others, a dedicated professional in every sense of the word.

She said he had a fantastic sense of humour, adding: His work ethic and personality were like sunshine and light even in the darkest of times.

Lead radiographer for the Furness General Hospital Rose Byron said it was an honour and a privilege to have worked with Mr Guest, adding: He had a great passion for life and enjoyed motorbikes, nice cars, guitars and music.

Simon will be greatly missed and fondly remembered by all who knew him. He is forever in our heartsa true hero.

Jenelyn Carter, healthcare assistant

Swansea Bay University Health Board announced that healthcare assistant Jenelyn Carter, who was being treated for Covid-19, died.

She worked on the admissions ward at Morriston Hospital  and was well loved by all her colleagues and patients, the board said.

Mark Madams, Morriston Hospitals nurse director, said: Jenelyn would go the extra mile for anyone, and was a lovely caring person inside and out, with a heart of gold.

We are devastated by her death and offer our sincere condolences to her family and friends.

Linda Clarke, community midwife

Wigan Today reported the death of Linda Clarke, a 66-year-old community midwife at Royal Albert Edward Infirmary.

According to the news outlet, Silas Nicholls, chief executive at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust, said: We can sadly confirm that a member of our staff, Linda Clarke, a community midwife, tragically passed away on April 17.

Linda was 66 and worked in our maternity service for 30 years, bringing many new lives into our borough and caring for expectant mums in our community.

Linda had underlying health conditions and tested positive for Covid-19.

Professor Mohamed Sami Shousha, researcher

Professor Mohamed Sami Shousha, 79, who had worked at UK cancer research laboratories at Londons Hammersmith and Charing Cross hospitals since 1978, died on April 2.

Imperial College London, where Professor Sami Shousha also taught and inspired many people, said: His kind, self-effacing personality was an example to all of us.
A 47-year-old Indian worker has allegedly committed suicide by jumping from the third floor of a building here, according to a media report.

Ashokan Purushotaman, a native of Kollam in Kerala, cut the arteries in his legs and jumped from the third floor of a building in the city's Jebel Ali area on Friday, the Gulf reported.

Purushotaman succumbed to his injuries in Rashid Hospital.

Meanwhile, Dubai Police has rejected reports that Purushotaman killed himself because he had coronavirus. Personal reasons were cited as the cause for suicide.

His suicide is not related to COVID-19. The building is clean and there are no infection cases there. He committed suicide due to personal reasons, director of Jebel Ali police station Brigaider Adel Al Suwaidi told the Gulf

Consul-General of India Vipul confirmed Purushotaman's death. We are yet to get more information. Considering the death was of unnatural circumstances, authorities will conduct due forensic tests and provide us with more details," Vipul told the daily.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court on Saturday sought responses of the Centre and the Delhi government on a plea seeking measures to safeguard victims of domestic violence and child abuse amidst the COVID-19 lockdown.

A bench of justices J R Midha and Jyoti Singh issued a notice to the ministries of Women and Child Development, Health and Information and Broadcasting, as well as the Delhi government and the women commissions here, seeking their stand on the petition by an NGO.

The lawyers who appeared for both sides in the proceedings held via video-conferencing said the notice was issued in the matter to the Centre, the Delhi government and the women commissions.

However, the detailed order is yet to be made available on the high court website.

The NGO, All India Council of Human Rights, Liberties and Social Justice (AICHLS), has claimed that there were increasing number of domestic violence incidents since the nation was put under lockdown and sought an urgent intervention by the court.

The bench, in its order, also directed the setting up of a high-level committee to look into the issues raised in the NGO's petition and submit a report by April 24, the next date of hearing.

On Friday, the Delhi government and the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) had told the court that there are sufficient measures in place to safeguard the victims of domestic violence and child abuse amidst the COVID-19 lockdown in the country.

The Women and Child Development department, represented by Delhi government additional standing counsel Sanjoy Ghose and advocate Urvi Mohan, told the court that sufficient facilities were available to house victims of domestic violence and children in need of care and protection.

The department had also said there were 24x7 helplines in place and when a complaint was received, rescue of victim(s) was carried out immediately.

The DCW, represented by advocate Rajshekhar Rao, told the court that the volume of calls on its helpline - 181 - has gone down after April 1.

However, there was a spike in the call volume between March 26 and March 31, but it was largely for seeking clarity in relation to the imposition of the lockdown.

Normally, on an average, the DCW receives around 1500-1800 calls, it told the court.

The DCW also said that an analysis of the calls received on its helpline during the lockdown indicated no rising trend in domestic violence cases.

"On the contrary, the number of cases reported to the helpline have decreased. While no definite conclusion can be drawn, this is probably due to the circumspection on the part of victims in reporting such incidents due to the presence of the perpetrators in the house and the fear of further violence if such attempt to report were made known to the perpetrator," the commission said.

It also said that the cases of molestation, sexual assault, stalking etc., "have decreased manifold presumably since a large number of these incidents take place outside the domestic setting and by third parties".

"The reported cases of rapes have also decreased by 71 per cent (approx.), again presumably due to the perpetrators being third parties and the location of the attacks being outside the household.

"Kidnapping cases reported to the helpline have also seen a fall of more than 90 per cent," the commission said.

AICHLS, in its plea, has contended that incidents of domestic violence and child abuse have gripped not only India but countries such as Australia, the UK and the USA, and the reports suggest that countries are witnessing a horrific surge in domestic violence cases since the COVID-19 outbreak and lockdowns.

The plea has claimed that the helpline numbers across the country have received about 92,000 calls on domestic abuse and violence in the first 11 days of the lockdown alone and sought to appoint nodal officers to attend to such distress calls.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 19:12:28|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the African continent reached 1,016 as the number of confirmed cases hit 19,895 as of Saturday, the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.

The Africa CDC, a specialized agency of the 55-member African Union (AU) Commission, in its latest situation update issued on Saturday also revealed that the number of confirmed positive cases across the continent rose from 18,333 on Friday to 19,895 as of Saturday morning.

The virus has so far spread into 52 African countries, it was noted.

Figures from the Africa CDC also show that amid the rapid spread of the virus across the continent, the highly COVID-19 affected African countries include Egypt with 2,844 confirmed cases, South Africa with 2,783 confirmed cases, Algeria with 2,418 confirmed cases, as well as Morocco with 2,564 confirmed cases.

The death toll due to the COVID-19 pandemic across the African continent also surged from 962 on Friday afternoon to 1,016 on Saturday morning, according to the Africa CDC.

The continental disease control and prevention agency also said that some 4,642 people who had been infected with the COVID-19 have recovered.

The Africa CDC also disclosed that the Northern African region is the most affected area across the continent both in terms of positive COVID-19 cases, as well as the number of deaths.

The Northern African countries have so far registered more than 8,746 positive COVID-19 cases as well as 743 deaths due to the pandemic, according to the Africa CDC.

According to the Africa CDC, the three Northern African countries Algeria, Egypt and Morocco also registered 364, 205, and 135 COVID-19-related deaths respectively.

John Nkengasong, Africa CDC Director, told a virtual press conference on Friday the crucial need to strengthen COVID-19 precautionary measures across the continent so as to halt the spread of the virus.

"Movement restrictions imposed by countries may be inconveniencing and may have socio-economic effects, but the long-term gains are incomparable. It will save lives and help bring this pandemic to an end quicker," the Africa CDC director stressed. Enditem
The number of novel coronavirus cases in the national capital rose to 1,707 on Friday, with 67 fresh cases and four deaths being reported in a day, according to Delhi government authorities.

With four more fatalities reported, the death toll from COVID-19 in Delhi has jumped to 42, while the number of coronavirus containment zones here were increased to 68.

New zones were added in various areas, including in Malviya Nagar and Jahangirpuri, the authorities said.

District Magistrate South Delhi B M Mishra said a zone in Sangam Vihar was contained on Friday after a total of four cases in one house related to the March Nizamuddin congregation were traced.

By Thursday night, the number of cases of the deadly virus in the city stood at 1,640, including 38 deaths.

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

Out of the total cases, 72 have been discharged and one has migrated out of the country, authorities said.

The Delhi government said during the lockdown period private schools in the national capital will not be allowed to increase fees without its approval and only the tuition fee can be charged till the time schools reopen.

Also, schools cannot withhold salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff or collect fee quarterly, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said.

Schools found not following the directive have been warned of action under the Delhi School Education Act and National Disaster Management Act.

"We are receiving complaints from many parents that private schools have increased their fees. These schools have also not notified the Delhi government. Costs like transportation fees are being added and demanded by the schools.

"And those students who are failing to pay the fees on time are being dropped from online classes. Private schools should not stoop down to this level," Sisodia said addressing a digital press conference.

Sisodia, also the education minister of Delhi, clarified that charges such as transport fee, annual fee or any other miscellaneous head cannot be levied during the lockdown.

The nationwide lockdown has been in force since March 25. During this period, the national capital also saw a decline in the crime rate.

Sharing data, the Delhi Police said heinous crime was down by 70 per cent in national capital.

The data showed that 221 cases of heinous crimes were registered in 2019 from April 1 to April 15, while in 2020, 66 such cases have been registered.

Last year from April 1 to April 15, total 10,579 cases were registered, while the number of cases reported in 2020 during the same time period was 2,574, police said.

Reports of cases of murder and rape have reduced by over 75 per cent, they said.

In the last two weeks, four cases of murder and 21 cases of rape were registered in Delhi. Last year, total 19 cases of murder and 93 cases of rape were registered during the first two weeks of April.

Cases of robbery and snatching have also gone down by 62 and 79 per cent respectively, police said.

Last year, eight cases of extortion and 13 cases of abduction were recorded in two weeks of April.

This year, no case of extortion was recorded and only one case of abduction was reported, they added.

Amid the lockdown and demand for essentials, Chief Secretary Vijay Dev directed the excise commissioner and drug controller to ensure enough supply of hand sanitiser in the national capital amid the coronavirus outbreak, an official said.

Dev directed the excise commissioner to ensure adequate availability of ethyl alcohol and ethanol to hand sanitiser manufacturers. He also told the Delhi drug controller to augment market linkages of hand sanitiser from distilleries and other units to ensure its availability at all medical and grocery stores, the official said.
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A bearded Orthodox priest carefully assembles a plastic visor as he works with a group of volunteers to provide Ukrainian medics with much-needed personal protective equipment. The group is working in a shed in the grounds of Kiev's green and blue-domed Vydubychi monastery, which was founded in the 11th century. Their mission is a vital one: to protect medics in the fight with the novel coronavirus. In the small makeshift workshop, Father Mykolai, still wearing a black cassock and a large gold cross on a chain, fixes straps to a visor using an electric screwdriver. The coronavirus "is testing our ability to cooperate around the world, to help one another," says the 46-year-old priest, raising his voice against the sound of a cutting machine. The project manager, 30-year-old Roman Kholodov, tries on one of the face shields over his bushy beard. "You can adjust the height and width. And most importantly, they are light," he says enthusiastically. With his trendy hairstyle and plaid shirt, Kholodov has a hipsterish air. He is not a priest himself but heads the social services department of the newly created independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He and the group of volunteers at the picturesque monastery started out by making high-alcohol hand-sanitiser that they bottled and gave out to parishioners and doctors. After making 20,000 bottles and running out of ingredients, the small team bought a laser cutting machine to produce the plastic face shields that doctors wear over facemasks as an additional layer of protection. - Infected medics - Their small workshop has already made around 50 face shields and they have delivered some to a Kiev hospital. "The doctors were so happy!" Kholodov said with a smile. "The life of every doctor is vitally important. A ventilator is no use if there are no staff to operate it." Doctors are struggling to cope with the pandemic in the post-Soviet country that is one of the poorest in Europe. A lack of personal protective equipment means medics are at high risk of infection and make up almost 20 percent of confirmed cases. To make the situation even worse, government purchases of protective equipment were blocked for weeks due to infighting between officials. And when the authorities finally managed to obtain limited supplies from China, private donors had to cover most of the costs. Andriy Levkivsky, the head doctor at a clinic in Irpin, a small town outside Kiev, is one of the few medical professionals to have spoken out in public about the problems. - Deja vu - In late March, his clinic, which has 30 medics on staff, received a delivery from the authorities comprising simply of five mercury thermometers, two bottles of toilet cleaner and five hazmat suits. "We have a problem with state supplies and therefore we are asking for help from volunteers and the local authorities," Levkivsky told AFP. This week, a charitable foundation called Svoi, or Ours, gave the clinic 500 hazmat suits, enough to last them almost a month. "Some doctors are happy just to receive simple surgical masks," said Iryna Koshkina, who heads the foundation. The foundation has spent 30,000 euros ($32,600) in a month to buy protective equipment for five hospitals. When the ongoing war with the Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country began six years ago, Koshkina was among thousands of volunteers who helped to buy equipment for the underfunded Ukrainian army. Helping doctors fight a very different battle, she says she feels a strange sense of deja vu. "In 2014, the whole country was collecting money to buy helmets and bullet-proof vests for soldiers." "Today, we are collecting money to protect doctors." Ukrainian doctors are struggling to cope with the pandemic The small workshop has already made around 50 face shields and they have delivered some to a Kiev hospital The volunteers distribute the equipment to medics
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has attributed the steep rise in reported coronavirus cases partly to vigorous contact tracing efforts by its health workers.

The coronavirus pandemic has posed an unprecedented public health challenge to authorities in Mumbai, the city the most severely affected by the disease in the country. Till 16 April, Mumbai reported 2,043 cases, and the infection also appears to be spreading at a rapid pace. The city reported over 1,000 new infections in just six days between 11 April and 16 April.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has attributed the steep rise in reported coronavirus cases partly to vigorous contact tracing efforts by its health workers. However, civic authorities and voluntary organisations leading the process of contact tracing are having to contend with enormous challenges, including staff shortages, risks due to inadequate personal protective equipment (PPEs) and the population density.

Daksha Shah, deputy executive health officer with the BMC, said, As per the official protocol, if a person tests positive for COVID-19, we test all the high-risk contacts of the patients for the disease. Low-risk contacts are tested only if they develop symptoms. This process is more challenging in densely-populated areas such as slums, as it is difficult to ascertain who came in contact with whom.

As per the health ministrys guidelines, high-risk contacts broadly include family, caregivers and people who came in contact with a patient for a prolonged period (more than six hours). Low-risk contacts are those who have shared the same space as the patient (such as colleagues, classmates or those who travelled in public transport along with the patient).

Official guidelines further state that all high-risk contacts of confirmed coronavirus cases need to be home quarantined for 14 days, and health workers are expected to follow up with them for 28 days.

Health workers apprehensive

Implementing the protocol is not an easy task, as public health professional Dr Vaishali Venu emphasises. Dr Vaishali works with NGO Doctors For You, which is presently involved in contact tracing efforts in slum clusters in Govandis Shivaji Nagar and Bandras Behrampada.

Speaking to Firstpost, she noted, There have been several instances recently in which entire hospitals have had to be sealed off because a few doctors tested positive for coronavirus. Due to this, some medicos are apprehensive about working on tracing contacts of COVID-19 patients. Similarly, while on contact tracing, there is an apprehension that the team might also get infected with the disease. Also, the shortage of medical protection gear in the market adds to the prevailing sentiments among the team. In such cases, we cannot really force them to do the required work.

Describing challenges that are unique to slum communities, Dr Vaishali said, As of now, public transport is closed, as are other public spaces such as schools and colleges and many workplaces. However, there are several public places in slum communities where there is a risk of catching the infection, as people continue to gather at such places. For example, in Shivaji Nagar and Behrampada, an average of about 5,000 people use the same public toilet, and it is not possible to know who comes in contact with whom at such places.

She added, However, such areas can be turned into containment zones to ensure that if some people have the infection, they do not spread it beyond a particular geographical area. Also, if some people do display symptoms of coronavirus, testing can be carried out in that community. Considering the huge population of Mumbai, it is not possible to test each and every person. Therefore, keeping in mind the resources at hand, this seems to be the best option.

Speaking about the sections of society that are more vulnerable to contracting and spreading the COVID-19 infection, Dr Vaishali said, Self-employed people such as vegetable vendors, who still need to be out and about, are at a greater risk, since they come in contact with more people. The same goes for people who are working on essential services and going out of their homes. Further, even if such people experience symptoms such as cough or fever, there is a possibility that they may hide them, since it is a question of their livelihood. This increases the risk for those people as well as the ones around them.

Till now, 38 people have tested positive for coronavirus in Shivaji Nagar and one person has tested positive in Behrampada. These clusters have emerged as new areas of concern after Dharavi, the citys biggest slum. Till 16 April, 71 cases were reported from Dharavi.

Staff shortages

Another concern in carrying out contact tracing to combat coronavirus is that there simply arent enough front line personnel. Speaking about this, Mathew George, professor at the Centre for Public Health, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, said, The healthcare work force that is meant to do the actual task of house-to-house contact tracing is woefully inadequate. In urban areas, health posts constitute the most local units of the public health system. As per norms, there should be one health post for every 50,000 people, but in reality, some parts of Mumbai have one health post for over 3 lakh people.

The recommendation for a primary urban health centre, with outreach and referral facilities, for an average of 50,000 people was made by the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) in 2008.

Mathew also noted, Further, the staff members from the health posts work mostly with slum communities, and not with middle class and affluent people. The existing mechanisms are curative in nature, and we do not have enough infrastructure to take preventive measures.

Speaking about research that needs to be conducted on the spread of coronavirus, Mathew said, For any infectious disease, possible sites of transmission would include families, workplaces, public transport, essential services and recreation. In the context of coronavirus, it is important to identify exactly which sites of transmission among these are more responsible for the spread of the disease.
State-owned Power Finance Corporation (PFC) has provided another financial assistance of Rs 1 crore to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

It is in addition to the Rs 50 lakh assistance provided to the Red Cross Society in Rajasthan for arranging medical equipment and Rs 200 crore donation to the PM-CARES Fund made last month, the non-banking financial company (NBFC) said in a statement.

"PFC has provided financial assistance of Rs 1 crore to combat the COVID-19 spread -- 50 lakh each to district collectors of Bulandshahr and Siddharthnagar," it said.

The financial aid will be used for distribution of masks and hand sanitisers to prevent the spread of the highly contagious virus, PFC said.

Power Finance Corporation, under the administrative control of the power ministry, is the largest NBFC in the power sector.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sneezing is an involuntary action.

It is the act of expelling a sudden and uncontrollable burst of air through the nose and mouth. Sneezing can occur for a variety of reasons that have in common an irritation of the lining (mucous membranes) of the nose or throat. It is rarely a sign of a serious illness. Many environmental triggers can lead to sneezing, including air pollutants, pollen, dry air, and dust. Spicy foods scientists say can sometimes cause sneezing.

Allergies, colds, and the flu are common causes of sneezing. Some people may sneeze as a reaction to exposure to bright light (known as a photic sneeze reflex).

Depending upon the reason for the sneezing, symptoms can include burning, itchy, or watery eyes. I have seem some people who would sneeze when they are hungry or annoyed.

Since the onset of the Coronavirus disease which had its origin in Wuha in the republic of China, sneezing as an involuntary action can attract public beating. In fact, it is now a risk to try to sneeze in the public without caution. It is no longer seen as an involuntary action. It is now regarded as an atomic weapon for mass destruction via COVID-19, which if given the patent I would like to call, for the records COVID-20, for it was around February, 2020 or thereabouts that the pandemic was imported into Nigeria via an Italian businessman

Prof Chukwuma Charles Soludo,a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria took that risk of sneezing in the public recently in Anambra State, his home state.

Soludo was not wearing any facemask when the involuntary action occurred. .

Soludos case was caused by an environmental trigger as a result of the call by the Anambra State Government for donations to assist the state to prevent the spread COVID-19 in the state. Soludo patriotically answered the call and donated N10 million in that direction.

His name came second on the donation chart after the corporate donation of N28.5 million by the United Bank for Africa.

That patriotic involuntary action has turned out to be Soludos big sneeze that was later subjected to the laboratory for viral and bacterial analysis cum testing. The result came out in some hours and Soludo tested POSITIVE in the opposition partys laboratory diagnosis  he was accused of misappropriation of an action that happened in 2008 or so.

The allegation came from one Ikechukwu Onyia, a media aide to a 2021 governorship aspirant in the state, Chris Azubogu.

Onyia called to question Soludos donation, asking him to account for donations made to him in 2008 by individuals and organisations to build a medical facility in memory of his late mother, Madam Mgbafor Soludo in Isuofia, Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State.

Onyia alleged, In 2008, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, the then Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, assembled high profile individuals and corporate organisations for the purpose of celebrating his late mother, Mgbafor Soludo who died in 1968 and also raising fund to build an internationally rated hospital in the memory of the late mother, Mgbafor Soludo. During the fund raising, banks donated about N100 million each, governors and so many high profile individuals also donated.

Soludo raked in about N2billion for a Mother and Child Hospital which was to be built at Isuofia. On 26th December, 2008, Soludo again moved high profile individuals to his village for a memorial church service and foundation laying ceremony for the hospital, officiated by the Catholic Bishop of Awka Diocese, Bishop Rt Rev, Paulinus Ezeokafor at St Theresa Catholic Church, Isuofia. According to Soludo that day ( 26th December, 2008), the Hospital was a way of paying back his mother and in fulfillment of her wish for improved healthcare services, which she never had the privilege to enjoy  the hospital was also meant to support the Governor Obis efforts in that sector.

Twelve years after raising this fund for the international standard hospital in Isuofia, Soludo could not produce this hospital. Imagine a world class hospital built with about N2billion in 2009 and the impact it will have today as we get battle-ready to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today, our dear Soludo has donated N10million for fight against COVID-19 pandemic in Anambra State and also promised to mobilize friends to also donate. I thank Soludo for doing that, but the question remains, are we building a society where there is no consquencies for bad behaviour/fraud and I believe that we should stand up and question actions/inactions of public office holders if we must build a society that can take care of itself.

But facts have emerged that the reason the multimillion hospital project initiated by Soludo has not been finished after 12 years of commencement was because most of the people who made pledges did not redeem them.

Despite the hiccup, few gigantic structures have been completed through personal efforts of Soludo and there are indications that the hospital might serve as the teaching hospital for a university that would soon take off in Anambra State.

A public affairs analyst, Mr. Joe Anatune described as unfortunate, an attempt to politicize the hospital project by those who were already becoming jittery of Soludos popularity as the November 2021 governorship election approaches.

Soludo is among those said to be aspiring to govern Anambra State after the expiration of Governor Willie Obianos tenure in 2022.

Soludo has lived a quiet life, minding his business as we say it in Nigeria, after some attempts in the past to play major political roles to lead Anambra State.

Even when he had good chances to contest the outcome of some electoral decisions in the state he declined in the overall interst of the state.

Rather from the background, Soludo has been assisting the government in Awka with his ideas and knowledge that made him the best graduating student at the University of Nigeria where he made a super first class degree in economics and later became a professor of economics in the institution before the age of 38.

Now that only sneezing is causing this hyper flu in Anambra State, what will become of the situation when Soludo may decide to inject cough and catarrh into the whole political environment in the state? Time will tell.
Food banks may help some families stay afloat while they seek government food assistance  which may take a while, as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) agencies are likely to be inundated in the coming weeks. Fortunately, Congress took some steps to adapt benefits for the coronavirus crisis, including temporarily suspending the three-month time limit on SNAP benefits for unemployed adults without minor children. In the next covid-19 relief bill, Congress should tie this suspension to economic indicators, rather than the public health emergency, since the economic downturn may well outlast the pandemic. Congress should also boost SNAP benefits, as it did during the Great Recession. Expanding online SNAP purchasing would save unnecessary and increasingly dangerous trips to the grocery store. Industry could help here, too  online grocers should waive delivery fees and minimum purchases for food bought online with SNAP funds, especially since those funds cant be put toward shipping and delivery fees.
The first of three men who pleaded guilty to attempted murder and other charges stemming from a July 31, 2019, incident in Painesville has been sentenced.

Lake County Common Pleas Court Judge Eugene A. Lucci on April 17 sentenced 21-year-old Mentor resident David C. Stanley to between 23.5 and 29 years in prison. He has 259 days of jail credit.

Stanley, along with Michael Joyce and Patrick Spurrier, previously pleaded guilty to first-degree felony attempted murder, first-degree felony aggravated robbery, counts of third-degree felony tampering with evidence, and fourth-degree felony grand theft of a motor vehicle.

Painesville police responded at 10:45 p.m. on the night of the incident to an apartment in the 200 block of Mentor Avenue. The 39-year-old victim was found inside the apartment and was transported to TriPoint Medical Center in Concord Township and then by medical helicopter to MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland with stab wounds and blunt force trauma.

Lucci said the Lake County Prosecutors Office has reserved the right to charge Stanley with additional homicide charges should the victim die of his injuries.

Stanley will be on five years of post-release control following his release from prison. He must also enroll and re-register each year for 10 years in the Ohio Violent Offender Database. Stanley was twice found competent to stand trial before pleading guilty to charges in the case.

Stanley and Joyce were arrested Aug. 3 by Painesville police in connection to the incident. On Aug. 5, Niles Police Capt. James Villecco identified the victims stolen car being driven by Spurrier. Spurrier allegedly fled and struck other cars, including Villeccos cruiser. Spurrier ultimately totaled the stolen car after colliding with a pole on North Road in Niles.

Joyce, 20, was set to be sentenced April 16, but that hearing was continued. A new sentencing date has not yet been set. A new date will be selected on April 20. Joyce is being sentenced by Lake County Common Pleas Court Vincent A. Culotta. Joyce is homeless according to court records. All three men have been held in the Lake County Jail in lieu of bond since their arrests.

Spurrier, 19, of Painesville, is being sentenced April 23 by Lake County Common Pleas Court Judge Pat Condon. Spurrier had three competency evaluations before entering his guilty plea, according to court records.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-17 20:29:36|Editor: huaxia

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TALUQAN, Afghanistan, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Two militants were killed and six others including three police wounded as clash erupted in Farkhar district of the northern Takhar province on Friday, provincial government spokesman Mohammad Jawad Hajari said.

The clash erupted after a group of Taliban militants attacked a police convoy in Doshakh area of the restive Farkhar province early morning and police returned fire killing two militants on the spot and wounding three others, Hajari said.

Three police including an officer were wounded in the firefight lasted for a while, the official further said.

Taliban outfit has not made comment. Enditem
KAMPALA Celebrations to mark International Labour Day on May 1 have been cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development Frank Tumwebaze has announced.

International Workers Day, also known as Labour Day or May Day, is a celebration of labourers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labour movement which occurs every year on May Day.

I am writing to notify all workers and fellow citizens that due to the social disruptions caused by the COVID19 pandemic and in pursuit of the national coronavirus prevention guidelines in place, Ministry of Labour will not organise International labour day celebrations on 1st May 2020, earlier planned to take place in Mbarara, Mr. Tumwebaze wrote.

He said that just as all social gatherings were prohibited, Labour day celebrations too cant continue.

We request for understanding of the situation from our clients the workers and their respective leaders, Minister Tumwebaze noted.

He noted that Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development and the leaders of workers working together with Ministry of ICT and National Guidance and Uganda Media Center shall arrange to have key messages of the day to be communicated via mass and digital media.

The day has come at time when a total of 81% of the global workforce of 3.3 billion people have had their workplace fully or partly closed.

Restrictions on daily life have led to the closure of many companies and the laying off of staff  either permanently or temporarily.

The International Labour Organization (ILO), an agency of the United Nations, has been looking at the global impact.

Their work shows the global scale of the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

The outbreak is expected to wipe out 6.7% of working hours across the world during the second quarter of 2020.

That is the equivalent of 195 million full-time workers losing their jobs.

The worst-hit region is predicted to be the Arab states, with an 8.1% decline in working hours (five million full-time workers).

The ILO says it is the most severe crisis since World War Two.

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Namibia has opened up its borders to Angola for Angolans seeking medical attention, on humanitarian grounds amid the COVID-19 outbreak, the Ministry of Home Affairs, Immigration, Safety and Security said on Friday.

Namibia is currently on lockdown until May 4.

The ministry's spokesperson Sakeus Kadhikwa said both governments agreed to assist on humanitarian grounds, notwithstanding the dangers posed by COVID-19.

He said there are strict measures in place to only allow those that are classified as border residents to seek for medical attention by proof of submitting their health cards.

"They will go through the health officials for screening as well as immigration inspection for legal/valid travelling documents. Most importantly, the police will be closely monitoring these people as they go through roadblocks," he said.
True Zion Missionary Baptist Church and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Help COVID-19 Patients

True Zion Baptist Church and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity (Western Province), in partnership with BestBuy, are donating hundreds of phone chargers to two local hospitals to provide a way for patients to stay in contact with friends and family.

The distributions are set for Monday, April 20, at 10 a.m., at Centinela Hospital Medical Center, 555 E. Hardy St., in Inglewood. At 12 p.m., chargers will be contributed to Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital, 1680 E. 120th St., in Los Angeles.

Explaining how the donation came about, the Rev. Doug Nelson, pastor of True Zion Missionary Baptist Church and a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, said, What brought this need to light was I received a call from one of my members who had just been checked in to the hospital with the virus. We were praying and she explained to me she was in the hospital without her Bible and as we were praying, the phone died.

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After a week of calling her and trying to connect, I finally heard back from her. She had been released from the hospital and was sent home to finish up her quarantine. She said she did not have a charger and as a result had no way to stay in touch with anyone, he said.

The experience made the pastor realize that there was a need that no one was addressing or even considering. When you go to the hospital to get checked, you dont do it with the intention of being hospitalized and thus dont take much, if anything, with you, said Nelson. So, he reached out to a number of other churches and fraternity members asking, How Do We Address This Need?

As a result, Nelson, and Pastors Gregory Perkins of The View Church, Robert A. Williams of McCoy Memorial, J. Benjamin Hardwick of Praises of Zion, along with Erik Dickson of Kappa Alpha Psi connected with Best Buy to donate the phone chargers to the hospitals.

In a statement released by the group, the pastors and fraternity stated, Local and statewide faith and fraternity leaders have come together to respond to the disproportionate number of African American and Latino community members being impacted by the coronavirus.

We have partnered with Best Buy, through True Zions Stay Connected Life Ministries, to provide cell phone chargers to hospitals serving COVID-19 patients to ensure that they stay connected to family, friends and loved-ones. The chargers provide a virtual lifeline for patients as they are literally disconnected from the world during the quarantine and beyond.

Perkins of The View Church added, Each of our organizations members have been ravaged by this virus, so through Pastor Nelsons leadership, we partnered with Best Buy, who provided their products at a discount, so we could ensure our COVID-19 patients stay connected with their family, friends and loved-ones.
In a tweet, Ologbondiyan wrote: My condolences @MBuhari. May Allah forgive the shortcomings of Mallam Abba Kyari, grant him Aljanat Firdausi and give his family the fortitude to bear the pains of this loss.
At least 26 Indian Navy personnel have tested positive for coronavirus, in the first case of the major COVID-19 outbreak in country's armed forces, even as the Centre asserted that 30 percent of the total cases reported in the country till Saturday morning are linked to the Tablighi Jamaat event at Delhi's Nizamuddin.

As the country completed 25 days of the nationwide lockdown on Saturday, with 15 more days to go till May 3, Union Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed the situation across India, including taking stock of the supply of essential commodities even as state governments continued to take steps to mitigate the hardships arising due to the shutdown.

Amidst spiralling numbers of coronavirus cases in India with 14,792 confirmed infections and 488 deaths on Saturday, Union health ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal said positive trend has been noted in 47 districts across 23 states and UTs, and also there are 22 new districts in 12 states that have not reported any fresh cases during the last 14 days. All these are the 170 hotspot and 207 non-hotspot districts identified by the government.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal also said there has been a "slight decrease" in the number of COVID-19 cases in the national capital in the last three days, but appealed to people living in containment areas to follow rules and don't step out of their homes as he noted that 26 members of one family tested positive for coronavirus in an area in Jahangir Puri, declared as containment area.

At a daily media briefing about the COVID-19 situation in the country, Agarwal said, "a total of 4,291 COVID-19 cases or 29.8 per cent of the 14,378 coronavirus infections reported till Saturday morning are linked to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation."



Most of the Tabligihi Jamaat event-related cases have been found in states with high burden of the disease, such as Tamil Nadu (84 per cent), Telengana (79 per cent), Delhi (63 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (59 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (61 per cent), he said, adding some states which have reported fewer COVID-19 infections, also had cases with links to the Nizamuddin event.

The only coronavirus case reported in Arunachal Pradesh till now is related to the Nizamuddin event. Similarly, 32 of the 35 cases reported in Assam and 10 out of 12 cases from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are linked to the same congregation, he said.

"The reason I drew your attention to this event is to highlight that even if one person does not follow the guidelines of social distancing and the lockdown, the entire country has to suffer the consequences," Agarwal said.

The outbreak of coronavirus at a key naval shore-based facility in Mumbai where 26 sailors have tested positive for the virus may also impact the overall growth rate of cases in the country as sources indicated that the numbers are likely to go up.

The incident is a wake-up call for stricter implementation of all laid down norms to insulate around 15 lakh armed forces personnel from the pandemic, military officials said.

All the three forces have already enforced a "no movement" policy under which almost all their bases have been put under total lockdown barring the wings handling key operational matters and strategic surveillance, they said, adding the top brass in the defence ministry is reviewing the overall preparedness of the armed forces to deal with the pandemic.

While the union health ministry placed the total number of coronavirus cases in the country at 14,792 and the death toll at 488 in its Saturday evening update, according to a PTI tally based on figures from states, the total number of cases was 14,848 with 2,067 recovered while the death toll crossed the 500-mark.

According to Agarwal, the mortality rate due to COVID-19 in the country was around 3.3 percent, while the recovery rate stood at 13.85 percent with 1,992 people cured of the total tally of 14,378 cases.

Meanwhile, the Maharashtra government decided to pay Rs 2,000 each to over 12 lakh registered construction workers in the state who have lost their livelihoods due to the ongoing coronavirus lockdown, the Uttar Pradesh sent buses to get back students stranded in Rajasthan's Kota area.

Nearly 3,000 students stranded in Kota due to the ongoing lockdown left for their home in 100 buses sent by the UP government but another 7,000 were waiting for their turn in the Rajasthan city on Saturday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
LATAM airlines logo, is seen inside of the Commodore Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport in Santiago

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Chile's LATAM Airlines <LTM.SN>, South America's largest carrier, will cancel 95% of its scheduled flights in May, the company said on Friday, maintaining similar levels to its current operations due to the coronavirus crisis.

LATAM said it will keep minimal domestic flight schedules in Brazil and Chile. The airline will also resume two international routes, from Santiago and Sao Paulo to Miami, after canceling all international flights in April.

(Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun; Editing by Christian Plumb)
Two Chinese international students who were taunted about coronavirus and attacked by a white woman have spoken out about the brutal bashing.

Disturbing footage showed the two university students being yelled at and physically attacked by two other women near the Queen Victoria Markets in Melbourne's CBD on Wednesday.

'She started saying ''get the f*** out of our country - you don't belong here'',' one of the students told Nine News.

'I'm really scared they think it's OK to do [this] to other people,' the other student said.

A teenage girl was dragged to the ground by her hair and kicked and beaten in an alleged racially-motivated attack

A man holding a dog intervened after the student being attacked dropped to the ground and the woman began to knee her in the face.

'You're a f***ing imbecile. Don't f***ing hit me,' the attacker shouted after the bystander stopped her.

She then apologised to the man before walking away.

Both students received minor injuries.

During the attack, one of the victim's Air Pods was dropped and stolen by a man who was nearby, but not involved in the fight.

Victoria Police released images of the two women who they believe can help with the investigation.

They described one of the women as Caucasian in appearance, about 20 years old and approximately 150cm tall with a skinny build and shoulder length brown hair.

She was wearing a dark top with a light-coloured skirt.

The second woman was described as Caucasian in appearance, about 20 years old with a skinny build and shoulder length blonde hair.

She was wearing a pink jacket.

'She started saying ''get the f*** out of our country - you don't belong here'',' one of the students said.

Victoria Police released images of two women who they believe can help with the investigation

The video was published on YouTube but was said to have first started circulating on the Korean Kakaotalk group chat.

A caption accompanying the footage suggests the attack was a blatant act of racism.

'Two white Australian girls were following two Asian girls, constantly swearing,' a message on the video read.

'Finally when they turned back to talk to them to stop they started to assault them.'
By Trend

The European Investment Bank (EIB) supports Georgia in the fight against coronavirus, the bank said in a statement on Twitter, Trend reports.

"As a part of Team Europe, the European Investment Bank is fully committed to support Georgia's need regarding the short and mid-term response to the COVID-19 crisis: support to Georgian business, help to the health sector and acceleration of implementation of existing projects," said Lilyana Pavlova, Vice-President of EIB.

The bank intends to allocate 200 million euros for the development of healthcare infrastructure in Georgia, along with addressing fiscal and other needs experienced as a result of a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic in the country.

Pavlova added that EIB closely follows the current efforts taken by the authorities in the fight against the global pandemic in the country and deems Government of Georgia in tackling the COVID-19 are impressive.

As of now, Georgia has confirmed a total of 370 cases of COVID-19 since February 28, including 77 recoveries and three deaths.

Starting from April 17, it is mandatory to wear face masks at all closed public spaces. Otherwise, the relevant legal entities will be fined for violation of the state of emergency regulations.

During ten days from April 17, restrictions also are imposed on visiting cemeteries in all cities throughout the country.

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China's coronavirus ground-zero city of Wuhan on Friday admitted missteps in tallying its death toll as it abruptly raised the count by 50 percent -- and as world doubts mounted about how transparent China has been during the crisis. The United States has led the charge in questioning Beijing's handling of the pandemic and how much information it has really shared with the international community since the virus emerged late last year. Authorities in Wuhan initially tried to cover up the outbreak, punishing doctors who had raised the alarm online in December, and there have been questions about the government's recording of infections as it repeatedly changed its counting criteria at the peak of the outbreak. Wuhan's epidemic control headquarters said in a social media posting on Friday that it had added 1,290 deaths to the tally in the city, which has suffered the vast majority of China's fatalities from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. That brings the total number of deaths in the city to 3,869. But the city government only added 325 cases, raising the city's total number of infections to 50,333. The change also pushes the nationwide death toll up by nearly 39 percent to 4,632, based on official national data released earlier on Friday. The official toll in the country of 1.4 billion people, however, remains well below the number of fatalities in much smaller countries such as Italy and Spain. - Pressure mounts - China has come under increasing pressure from Western powers, with Washington and others raising doubts about transparency, and the US probing whether the virus actually originated in a Wuhan laboratory. US President Donald Trump said China's death toll was "far higher" that it had admitted -- even after the new numbers were issued. Chinese scientists have said the virus emerged from a Wuhan food market whose merchandise reportedly included exotic wild animals sold for human consumption. "We'll have to ask the hard questions about how it came about and how it couldn't have been stopped earlier," British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Thursday. French President Emmanuel Macron told the Financial Times it would be "naive" to think China had handled the pandemic well, adding: "There are clearly things that have happened that we don't know about." Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian acknowledged that the virus's rapid spread had contributed to undercounting, but added: "There has never been any concealment, and we'll never allow any concealment." There however has also been some domestic discontent over the authorities' handling of the outbreak, especially in Hubei province and its capital, Wuhan. A civil servant in Yichang, which is in Hubei, said he had filed a lawsuit against provincial authorities for covering up the epidemic. "Someone must be held accountable for this," Tan Jun, the civil servant, said on social media. He later said police ordered him not to talk about the matter. - Data flip-flops - State-run nationalistic tabloid Global Times defended the revision in an editorial, saying it was a "responsible correction" based on "facts" and that some in the West were "hyping" speculation. "It is hoped the veracity of the data can put all controversy surrounding it to rest," it said. Joseph Kam, professor of emerging infectious diseases at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said local authorities may have been asked to hit a certain target in their reporting of deaths and confirmed cases. "Given the naivety of these numbers, it seems very likely that this timing is to try to ameliorate foreign anger and distrust amidst the high infection and fatality rates we've seen," Kam told AFP. Wuhan cited several reasons for the missed cases, including that medical staff were overwhelmed in the early days as infections climbed, leading to "late reporting, omissions or mis-reporting". It also cited insufficient testing and treatment facilities, and said the deaths of some patients at home were not properly reported. Hubei health authorities have previously flip-flopped on their figures. Officials abruptly added nearly 15,000 cases to their count in mid-February, counting those who were diagnosed through lung imaging in addition to those who underwent lab tests. Later, the National Health Commission removed 108 deaths from the toll after discovering that some fatalities were double-counted in Hubei. Authorities changed their methodology again in late February, no longer adding cases identified through lung imaging. More recently, China started counting asymptomatic cases. Zhang Hai, a 52-year-old Wuhan man who has sought official answers after his elderly father died from the virus following unrelated surgery, said the revision was an "improvement". "The number revision shows the local government can take into account the problems brought up by the relatives of the deceased, and this can bring some solace to grieving families," he said.
Vietnam has recorded no new cases of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) for 48 hours  for the first time in more than 40 days  keeping its tally at 268 as of Saturday morning.

The Ministry of Health announced on Saturday morning there has been no new case since Thursday.

The total number of cases stays at 268, with no deaths, and 198 patients have recovered and been discharged from the hospital.

Only 70 active cases, or about 26 percent of the total, are still under treatment at hospitals nationwide.

Of these 70 patients, 66 are Vietnamese and the rest are foreigners.

Seventeen patients have tested negative for the virus at least once.

This is the first time since March 6, when Vietnam reported its 17th patient  a woman returning to Hanoi from London  that the Southeast Asian country has gone two days straight without adding a new case.

As of Saturday morning, 69,045 people remained in quarantine in Vietnam for having close contact with COVID-19 patients or entering the country from abroad.

Among them, 324 were isolated at hospitals, 11,549 quarantined at centralized facilities, and 57,172 undergoing home quarantine.

Globally, over 2.24 million people have caught COVID-19 while more than 154,000 have been killed by the disease, according to statistics. About 570,000 have recovered.

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Thiruvananthapuram, April 18 : The Psycho Social Support Team attached to the Kerala health department has by now given online support to over 4.5 lakh people, since February, after Covid-19 was first reported in the country at Thrissur on January 30.

Psycho Social Support Teams have been constituted in all the 14 districts in the state and comprising of 3633 people which include psychiatrists, psychiatric social workers, clinical psychologists, social workers and counsellors.

The counselling was given to 2.08 lakh people who were at one point under observation after turning a possible suspect for coronavirus and in all close to 4.50 lakh people got the benefit of this facility.

The department pointed out that by now they have conducted 4,45,734 telephonic counselling besides 1,25,890 follow up calls. A total of 11,319 incoming calls came to their helpline.
Farmers, workers, women and youth organisations linked to CPI(M) have given a call for a nationwide protest on April 21 charging the Narendra Modi government of being "totally apathetic and insensitive to the miseries" of the workers and farmers.

Raising the slogan "Bhashan Nahi, Ration/Vetan Chahiye" (Enough of the hollow speeches! Give us food, jobs, wages and safety), the organisations have asked people to protest in front of their houses showing placards and raising slogans for five to ten minutes by observing physical distancing and following guidelines issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

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The call has been given by the centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU), All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) and Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI).

The demands include stopping retrenchment of all workers, ensure wages, transfer of not less than Rs 7,500 to non-income tax-paying families for three months, expanding MNREGA and paying pending wages, providing financial support to micro, small and medium enterprises and interest-free bank loans to Self Helf Groups.

"The BJP government has been totally apathetic and insensitive to the miseries of the workers, particularly the unorganised sector workers, migrant workers, contract workers etc...Instead of providing adequate financial resources, the Prime Minister is limiting himself to only words and 'pravachans' (prophecy). None of the issues of the migrant workers are addressed, letting them die out of hunger," CITU said in a statement.

"The peasantry, agricultural workers and even MSMEs are being neglected. The poultry sector faced complete collapse since the price has been crashed from Rs 85 to Rs 27 per kilo live weight. The dairy farmers are unable to sell milk even at half of the price. The impact on vegetables, fish and all other perishable products is extremely severe. In other crops, farmers have lost their income heavily due to lack of workers to harvest the crop and total disruption of transportation and close down of shops and restaurants," AIKS said.

The organisations accused Modi of being silent on how his government will ensure food, shelter and income support to people to sustain life. "The government which has given out around Rs 15.62 lakh crore to the corporates is not ready to even give Rs 7,500 per non-income tax-paying families," the CITU said.

"The danger of hunger and impoverishment is looming large in front of crores of people, especially the daily wagers including the vast majority of the migrant workers, rural and urban poor and the poor peasantry," the AIKS said
Of the 14,378 coronavirus infections reported in the country till Saturday morning, 4,291 cases in 23 states and Union Territories are linked to the Markaz event held in Delhi's Nizamuddin area in March, the Union health ministry said.

By Saturday evening, the death toll due to coronavirus infection rose to 488, while the number of cases climbed to 14,792, according to data provided by the Centre.

However, a PTI tally of figures reported by various states as on Saturday evening showed 14,848 infections and at least 503 deaths.

There has been a lag in the Union Health Ministry figures, compared to the number of deaths announced by different states, which officials attribute to procedural delays in assigning the cases to individual states.

At a daily media briefing about the COVID-19 situation in the country, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said most of the Markaz event-related cases have been found in states with high burden of the disease, such as Tamil Nadu (84 per cent), Telengana (79 per cent), Delhi (63 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (59 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (61 per cent).

"A total of 4,291 COVID-19 cases or 29.8 per cent of the 14,378 coronavirus infections reported till Saturday morning are linked to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation," he said.

The health ministry official also said in some states which have reported fewer COVID-19 infections, also had cases with links to the Markaz event.

The only coronavirus case reported in Arunachal Pradesh till now is related to the Markaz event. Similarly, 32 of the 35 cases reported in Assam and 10 out of 12 cases from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are linked to the same congregation, he said.

"The reason I drew your attention to this event is to highlight that even if one person does not follow the guidelines of social distancing and lockdown, the entire country has to suffer the consequences," Agarwal said.

The mortality rate in COVID-19 cases in India has been around 3.3 per cent, he said, adding 14.4 per cent of the deaths are between 0-45 years, 10.3 per cent between 45- 60 years, 33.1 per cent between 60-75 years and 42.2 per cent fatalities among people aged 75 and above.

"We see that 75.3 per cent deaths have been among those aged 60 or above and in 83 per cent cases there were co-morbidities," Agarwal said and reiterated the elderly and those with co-morbid conditions are at high risk.

About containment strategies implemented along with the lockdown, Agarwal said field-level actions are fetching positive results in several places.

"A positive trend has been noted in 47 districts of 23 states and UTs. Kodaggu in Karnataka is a new district added to this list along with Mahe in Puducherry that has not reported any fresh cases during the last 28 days," the official said.

Twenty-two new districts in 12 states have not reported any fresh case in the last 14 days. These districts include Lakhisarai, Bhagalpur and Gopalganj in Bihar, Udaipur and Dholpur in Rajasthan, Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir, Rohtak in Haryana and Vishakhaptnam in Andhra Pradesh, Agarwal said.

He, however, stated that Patna in Bihar, Nadia in West Bengal and Panipat in Haryana where there were no COVID-19 positive cases in the first two weeks, have now reported incidents of the infection.

"We have to be on continuous vigil to fight this battle," the official said.

The joint secretary also said protocol for using rapid antibody test kits have been shared with the states by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

"Rapid antibody test kits are to be used in hotspots. It can also be used for surveillance and for epidemiological purposes in such areas where COVID-19 cases have not emerged so far.

"RT-PCR test is the gold standard for frontline test and antibody test cannot replace this. Utility of rapid antibody test is primarily for assessing prevalence of infection in a particular area," he said.

According to the ICMR protocol, the official said, only those showing symptoms of influenza-like illness such as fever, cough and cold for a week or more in hotspot areas should be made to undergo rapid antibody test.

Those found positive must be quarantined for at least for seven days and contact tracing should be initiated. Those who turn out negative should be in home quarantine for a week.

"RT-PCR test should be done to confirm COVID-19 if clinical suspicion is high," Agarwal said.

Asked if ICMR was doing a randomised control trial to assess the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in COVID-19 treatment, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable diseases at ICMR Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar said it is an observational study, not trial.

Around480 patients will be enrolled and it will go for eight weeks, he said.

Dr Gangakhedkar said the ICMR has launched a study on the side-effects of HCQ using data from some health care workers who used the drug.

"The average age of the workers was 35 and the most visible side effects abdominal pain (10 per cent), nausea (6 per cent) and hypoglycemia (1.3 per cent).

"Twenty-two per cent of these healthcare workers who took HCQ had diabetes or blood pressure, vascular or respiratory illnesses. They started taking the drug out of the fear of contracting the disease," he said.

Dr Gangakhedkar said AIIMS is conducting studies to assess the prevention and healing impact of HCQ on COVID-19.

"In some places HCQ consumption is not that high. So it impacts the study design and collection of data. We are facing difficulty in finding a homogenous population," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
T he Government has pledged an extra 1.6 billion in funding to councils to help them tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

Local Government Secretaty Robert Jenrick announced the new funds at Saturday's Downing Street press briefing, as he hailed council workers as being the nation's "unsung heroes."

The Covid-19 crisis has heaped pressure on local services, including social care support for the vulnerable, prompting warnings from the Local Government Association (LGA) that some councils were considering taking extreme cost-cutting and rationing measures"  soon.

However, Mr Jenrick insisted the cash boost would help authorities to support their communities through this challenging time."

The Government has so far provided councils in England with more than 3.2 billion to see them through the pandemic.

An extra 300 million will also go to devolved administrations, with Scotland getting 155 million, Wales 95 million, and Northern Ireland 50 million, Downing Street has confirmed.

Mr Jenrick said: I promised local government would have the resources they need to meet this challenge.

We stand shoulder to shoulder with local government and my priority is to make sure they are supported so they can continue to support their communities through this challenging time.

Up and down the country council workers are the unsung heroes as we tackle this virus.

They are in the front line of the national effort to keep the public safe and deliver the services people need.

Coronavirus hits the UK - In pictures 1 /81 Coronavirus hits the UK - In pictures A deserted Westminster Bridge PA A man wearing a face mask or covering due to the COVID-19 pandemic, walks past customers sat outside a restaurant AFP via Getty Images Boris Johnson addresses the nation on the Coronavirus lockdown Andrew Parsons Runners pass cardboard cutouts of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William during the London Marathon in London AP An empty escalator at Charing Coss London Underground tube station Jeremy Selwyn Electronic bilboards displays a message warning people to stay home in Sheffield PA A sign is displayed in the window of a student accommodation building following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Mancheste Reuters People take part in a 'We Do Not Consent' rally at Trafalgar Square, organised by Stop New Normal, to protest against coronavirus restrictions, in Londo AP People sing and dance in Leicester Square on the eve on the 10PM curfew Reuters Hearts painted by a team of artists from Upfest are seen in the grass at Queen Square, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Bristol Reuters Graffiti reads 'good luck and stay safe', as the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases grow around the world, under a bridge in London Reuters A sign is pictured in Soho, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London Reuters Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures, during a coronavirus briefing in Downing Street, London AP A person runs past posters with a message of hope, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in Manchester REUTERS Riot police face protesters who took part in a 'We Do Not Consent' rally at Trafalgar Square, organised by Stop New Normal, to protest against coronavirus restrictions in London AP An image of The Queen eith quotes from her broadcast to the UK and the Commonwealth in relation to the Coronavirus epidemic are displayed on lights in London's Piccadilly Circus PA Military vehicles cross Westminster Bridge after members of the 101 Logistic Brigade delivered a consignment of medical masks to St Thomas' hospital Getty Images Durdle Door in Dorset Reuters Captain Tom Moore via Reuters Mia, aged 8, and Jack, aged 5, take part in "PE with Joe" a daily live workout with Joe Wicks on Youtube to help kids stay fit who have to stay indoors due to the Coronavirus outbreak PA An NHS worker reacts at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital during the Clap for our Carers campaign in support of the NHS Reuters Goats which have taken over the deserted streets of Llandudno @AndrewStuart via PA Tobias Weller PA Novikov restaurant in London with its shutters pulled down while the restaurant is closed London Landscapes: Hyde Park and the Serpentine, central London. Matt Writtle A newspaper vendor in Manchester city centre giving away free toilet rolls with every paper bought as shops run low on supplies due to fears over the spread of the coronavirus PA Theo Clay looks out of his window next to his hand-drawn picture of a rainbow in Liverpool, as the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continue Reuters A young man cuts another man's hair on top of a closed hairdresser in Oxford Reuters General view of the new NHS Nightingale Hospital, built to fight against the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London via Reuters Jason Baird is seen dressed as Spiderman during his daily exercise to cheer up local children in Stockport, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues Reuters A woman wearing a face mask walks past Buckingham Palace Getty Images A man holds mobile phone displaying a text message alert sent by the government warning that new rules are in force across the UK and people must stay at home PA Medical staff on the Covid-19 ward at the Neath Port Talbot Hospital, in Wales, as the health services continue their response to the coronavirus outbreak. PA Prime Minister Boris Johnson taking part in a virtual Cabinet meeting with his top team of ministers PA A shopper walks past empty shelves in a Lidl store on in Wallington. After spates of "panic buying" cleared supermarket shelves of items like toilet paper and cleaning products, stores across the UK have introduced limits on purchases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have also created special time slots for the elderly and other shoppers vulnerable to the new coronavirus. Getty Images People on a busy tube train in London at rush hour PA Mia, aged 8 and her brother Jack, aged 5 from Essex, continue their school work at home, after being sent home due to the coronavirus PA Children are painting 'Chase the rainbows' artwork and springing up in windows across the country Reuters Social distancing in Primrose Hill Jeremy Selwyn A general view of a locked gate at Anfield, Liverpool as The Premier League has been suspended PA Homeless people in London AFP via Getty Images A piece of art by the artist, known as the Rebel Bear has appeared on a wall on Bank Street in Glasgow. The new addition to Glasgow's street art is capturing the global Coronavirus crisis. The piece features a woman and a man pulling back to give each other a kiss PA The Queen leaves Buckingham Palace, London, for Windsor Castle to socially distance herself amid the coronavirus pandemic PA A general view on Grey street, Newcastle as coronavirus cases grow around the world Reuters Matt Raw, a British national who returned from the coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan in China, leaves quaratine at Arrowe Park Hospital on Merseyside PA Britain's Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty (L) and Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance look on as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures as he speaks during a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) news conference inside 10 Downing Street Reuters The ticket-validation terminals at the tram stop on Edinburgh's Princes Street are cleaned following the coronavirus outbreak. PA Locked school gates at Rockcliffe First School in Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear PA A sign at a Sainsbury's supermarket informs customers that limits have been set on a small number of products as the number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases grow around the world Reuters Jawad Javed delivers coronavirus protection kits that he and his wife have put together to the vulnerable people of their community of Stenhousemuir, between Glasgow and Edinburgh AFP via Getty Images A sign advertising a book titled "How Will We Survive On Earth?" Getty Images A man who appears to be homeless sleeping wearing a mask today in Victoria Jeremy Selwyn A pedestrian walks past graffiti that reads "Diseases are in the City" in Edinburgh AFP via Getty Images Staff from The Lyric Theatre, London inform patrons, as it shuts its doors PA A quiet looking George IV Bridge in Edinburgh PA A quieter than usual British Museum Getty Images A racegoer attends Cheltenham in a fashionable face mask SplashNews.com A commuter wears a face mask at London Bridge Station Jeremy Selwyn A empty restaurant in the Bull Ring Shopping Centre Getty Images A deserted Trafalgar Square in London PA Passengers determined to avoid the coronavirus before leaving the UK arrive at Gatwick Airport Getty Images

In a letter to Mr Jenrick before the extra funding was announced, the LGA said radical action to prevent councils rationing spending was needed.

The organisation said that unless more funding was received, the situation would end up harming both the long-term continuity of existing services and the Covid-19 response at a time when both are so vitally needed, something we all wish to avoid.

The letter also stressed the loss of income being generated by councils.

It said: Local authorities are suffering severe income loss from a range of services from leisure, parking, bus operations, planning and commercial waste.

Many councils rely heavily on this income to fund their annual expenditure  on average, 10 per cent of total gross service costs are funded through fees and charges, going up to 25 per cent on average for shire districts in particular.

During Saturday's press conference, Mr Jenrick said the Government will pay out 850 million to councils this month to help the most vulnerable.

He told reporters from Downing Street: We are also helping councils with inevitable cash flow challenges by deferring 2.6 billion in business rate payments to central government, and paying them 850 million in social care grants upfront this month.

Working with councils and charities, we have made huge progress in protecting the most vulnerable during this national emergency.

Mr Jenrick also made it clear that parks should remain open, as "people need parks". But he said people must observe social distancing and not congregate in groups.

He said funerals should go ahead with close family present to say a "respectful goodbye" to those they love, adding that he had asked councils to keep cemeteries open to allow families to grieve for their loved ones.

He pointed to the death of 13-year-old Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, from Brixton, who died after contracting Covid-19.
Government ministers are now considering beginning a phased reopening of schools next month amid the worsening coronavirus pandemic. This follows a study by university researchers released earlier this month calling for schools to reopen as soon as practical.

According to the Times, the plan is for primary schools to start reopening along with nurseries in a regionalised approach, starting with those in areas outside coronavirus hot spots such as London and Birmingham. Gavin Williamson, the Conservative governments education secretary, wants schools to reopen in tandem with changes to government advice about people going back to work. But there are reports that some ministers are pushing for pupils to return before half-term next month.

This week, Denmark became the first European country to start reopening its schools, despite parents refusing to send their children into an unsafe environment.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has weighed into the debate and said that school re-openings should be prioritised in any end to the lockdown. The new leader cites concerns regarding the widening gap between disadvantaged pupils and the more privileged. The real concern, however, is that Labour be seen to be in the forefront of calls to end the lockdown so as to revive the economy and restore Labours reputation as the friend of business and finance.

The safety of teachers continues to be ignored by politicians. The National Education Union wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling for an end to speculation on school reopenings, knowing that no answer will be forthcoming. Dr. Patrick Roach, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said that people would be horrified if schools were used as a testing ground for the easing of restrictions.

Teachers need protection more than ever after reports of three teacher deaths from COVID-19. Primary head teacher Wendy Jacobs died at the end of March in Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria. Last week, a 35-year-old secondary teacher, Emma Clarke, contracted the virus and died in Runcorn, Cheshire. Neither had previous complications. Kate Fox, 56, a literacy teacher from Birmingham, died after complications. This is despite government guidance stating, The scientific advice indicates that educational staff do not require personal protective equipment.

The current UK guidance states that PPE is needed by medical and care professionals providing specific close contact care, or procedures that create airborne risk, such as suctioning and physiotherapy, for anyone who has coronavirus (COVID-19) and is displaying symptoms.

The guidance adds, If you are not providing this care to someone with the virus and displaying symptoms, PPE is not needed. Asymptomatic people (people with the virus but not displaying symptoms) have a reduced viral load and so risk of transmission is considerably reduced.

None of these assertions matches the experience of workers in public roles. Even medical and care professionals have not been provided with the correct equipment to combat the disease and are dying by the dozens as a result. Public transport workers and postal workers are also dying, even as the government and the employers insist that PPE is not needed. Royal Mail workers have had to fight for PPE and take independent strike action as the unions look on.

Teachers will have to do the same to protect their health. As a result of the changing evidence and deaths, teachers are demanding PPE and insisting that they should not be guinea pigs for a lockdown exit strategy.

The advocates of a reopening of schools often cite a preliminary study led by University College London (UCL) researchers on the impact of school closures on limiting the spread of COVID-19, which looked at the previous virus spread of SARS and MERS. The report was published in the Lancet Child and Adolescent Health. Following its publication, Send the pupils back for the good of the economy, was the message peddled by the media outlets.

One co-author of the study, Russell Viner, who is president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, stated that the benefit gained from closing schools had to be weighed against the costs. Childrens education is damaged and their mental health may suffer, family finances are affected, key workers may need to stay home to look after children and vulnerable children may suffer most.

The study found that school closures markedly increased the economic cost to the nation, in particular through forced absenteeism by working parents, in the UK, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Costs have been estimated to be as high as 0.21 percent of UK national gross domestic product (GDP) per annum for school closure for 1213 weeks, or up to 3 percent of GDP for an eight-week closure in US studies.

Instead of closing schools, the study suggested that head teachers suspend affected classes or year groups, or changing the school organisation structure to reduce student mixing (e.g., by closing playgrounds, cancelling non-essential activities and meetings, keeping students in constant class groups or classrooms, increasing spacing between students in classes, shortening the school week, and staggering school start and lunch or break times across year groups or classes).

Some of these points are included in the advice that the UK government is giving schools that are currently looking after key workers children and ministers believe they can now be implemented in the phased return.

Despite the report being largely inconclusive due to a lack of scientific evidence on the spread of Covid-19, it didnt stop the media latching onto the headline that schools should reopen.

Robert Dingwall, a professor of sociology at Nottingham Trent University, told the BBC, This is an important study that confirms what many of us suspected, namely that the public health benefits of school closures were not proportionate to the social and economic costs imposed on children and their families. It also underlines how the assumptions used in modelling the pandemic may rest on very flimsy foundations in terms of scientific evidence.

This work suggests that UK schools could, and should, begin to reopen as soon as practicable after the initial wave of cases has passed through.

This led to uproar and despair from teachers, who have been struggling with the challenge of continuing classes while working from homewith teachers taking to social media and sharing their concerns with the online community. On Twitter @AlwaysComputing wrote, What have I just seen on the BBC??? Shutting schools isnt helping apparently. Forget about teachers health as well as the children and families. Their suggestion of what we should be doing is just mind blowing.

@BadleyThomas tweeted, Why even give this quarter-baked slip of an idea any air time?

@LanghoLynne10 said: Not a teacher but a Chair of Govs who cares about the health and well-being of all staff and children this is madness #notonmywatch

@simonrenshaw wrote, That report today was crackers. Its like they didnt look at the initial report from Imperial. Their modelling was pretty clear what happens when schools reopen. Why anyone would suggest this after such a short period is baffling.

Teacher and parent Jeremy Taylor wrote to the Guardian asking, How are pupils meant to travel to school? On crammed buses needed by key workers to get to work, driven by bus drivers, who once again will be put at risk. Its important that the education community debunks this nonsense.

Secondary School teacher Caiti Walter wrote, [A]s long as the advice to the general public remains that we all stay at home, it would be nonsensical to remove social distancing expectations for school staff only.

Teacher Kate Stockings told ITN news it wouldnt be realistic and would be impossible in any school to expect students to stay two metres apart. It is dangerous to explore the possibility of opening schools again whilst social distancing measures are firmly in place across society.

Head teachers have called for an end to the pretence that social distancing in schools is possible. Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, a headteacher of a London school said, Schools will open at some point. But what I dont want is for people to perpetuate the lie, and it is a lie, that social distancing [in schools] is possible, it just isnt.
Indian national Subramaniam Pugalandi, who was diagnosed with coronavirus earlier in the month in Singapore, fought fear, thoughts of his family and even boredom to finally be in a condition from where full recovery is in sight.

The 35-year-old worker cried in the wee hours during his quarantine period in S11 Dormitory at Punggol, one of the worst virus-hit hotspots in the island-nation.

When he was being tested at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, Pugalandi thought of his wife and four-year-old son in India.

Pugalandi felt there was a "question mark" over his future, reported Channel Asia (CNA) on Saturday.

Pugalandi is now at the Singapore Expo which is set up for coronavirus patients. He has a cough and a slightly low potassium level, but fever, runny nose and body aches have gone.

He says the Singapore Expo has helped in his recovery, especially the airy hall where he can walk around.

"It looks like a luxury hotel. Everything's okay. It's better than the hospital, and better than the quarantine room," the report quoted him as saying.

Singapore reported 942 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday out of which 928 are foreign workers. There are 43 purpose-built dormitories housing 200,000 foreign workers in the city-state and these are the worst virus-affected locations.

Around 7,000 foreign workers have been moved out to military camps and floating accommodations. The latest facilities to be activated as an alternative living area are sport halls, the channel reported.

Tabitha Lim, who manages human resources at Jerevin Industrial, said testing has been stepped up in the dormitories.

"Everyday, I am updated on their (workers) temperatures. So hopefully from there we'll be able to see who's sick. But I know not everyone has the symptoms as well," said Lim.

She said seven of her company employees tested positive for coronavirus on Thursday.

The CNA's viewers have posted messages of support for the workers after reading articles on the foreign workers.

Pugalandi said he wants to thank the people for their support. "I want to thank brothers and sisters who pray for me. Just pray. Very soon, I can get well, Pugal told the Channel.

The coronavirus, which originated in China's Wuhan city in December last year, has claimed over 150,000 lives across the world so far. In Singapore, the disease has killed 11 people with 5,992 infections.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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Millions of Indians have to pop pills daily to keep their blood pressure intact, glucose under control, fight infections, keep check on growth of their cancer cells and importantly, carry on with their lives.

To get a pill from lab to medicine cabinet, is a complex operation even in normal times. The measures deployed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic over last one month, has threatened to undermine the entire pharma supply chain, starting from sourcing raw materials to manufacturing, logistics and supply chain.

Yugal Sikri, Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences narrated the unprecedented chaos and disruption his company has to go through to bring a life-saving medication Azathioprine to patients in India.

To be sure this could may well be the story of many other pharma companies who were trying to ensure patients get their medicines. The government extended lockdown up to May 3, but will be relaxing some restrictions in areas with no new cases from April 20 onwards.

Azathioprine sold in India by RPG Life Sciences under brand name Azaron is also its flagship product having a dominant share in the market.

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

Azathioprine is decades old immunosuppresant drug, that's given to patients who have undergone organ transplant. The drug prevents the body from rejecting the transplanted organ, and has to be taken by the patient for months. Azathioprine is also prescribed to patients suffering from autoimmune diseases like such as rheumatoid arthritis.

Follow our LIVE Updates on the coronavirus pandemic here

Raw material sourcing problem

Like most other Indian drug makers, RPG Life Sciences too depends on China for its raw materials. In this case the intermediate of Azathioprine comes from suppliers based in Hubei province - where the epicentre of the novel Coronavirus outbreak, Wuhan city, is located.

Indian companies typically stock-up on raw materials before the Chinese Lunar New Year. The Lunar New Year is a major holiday season in China, when factory workers return to homes. The holiday season typically begins on January 25 and will last to February 8, for about 15 days in total. This time due to COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent countrywide lockdown, several provinces in China extended holiday season and workers did not return to the factories. Hubei, which is also a major hub for pharmaceutical manufacturing, was the worst hit.

Back in India, with every passing day, the inventories of Azathioprine were dwindling. With Hubei province seeing no signs of coming to back to normalcy - the senior executives at RPG started to worry.

This is when India started reporting cases. Italy, Iran and South Korea were firefighting rising coronavirus infections. Indian government on March 24 declared nationwide lockdown to contain the pandemic.

Sikri recollects the first thing that the company's management did was to call a series of virtual townhall meetings of its 1,100 odd employees and contractors who supply labour and other services to factories.

"We told our employees that we are not like any another company, we are a pharmaceutical company. We are essential part of healthcare services and staying home isn't an option. We are dealing with organ transplant medicines and these patients are also vulnerable to COVID-19 infections. Our duty is to ensure medicines we are manufacturing should reach patients," Sikri said about the broad message they were trying to drill in their employees in those townhalls.

"We explained our employees about social distancing and personal hygiene measures, and assured that the organisation will take care of their safety," Sikri added.

Sikri told that the pep talk did help employees to lift their morale and made them feel that they are part of a larger healthcare ecosystem.

Soon Sikri and his crack team rolled up their sleeves and jumped into action.

While RPG had some raw materials, packaging material in hand, but it was clearly short of key materials needed to make the drug.

"We got in touch with raw material suppliers in China, we apprised them about the situation. They put us on priority list. When Hubei province began to ease restrictions, we were the first to get the intermediates," Sikri said.

There were issues at ports, but we managed to get shipment of our raw materials to India. Lockdown in Hubei province was eased on March 24.

Manufacturing issues

RPG Life Sciences has two manufacturing units. One in Navi Mumbai that makes Azathioprine active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and the other is a formulation plant that makes finished dosages in Ankleshwar, Gujarat. Both the factories are little over 200 miles apart.

"The biggest problem we faced was getting workers to the factory. Some workers were stopped and a few were beaten up by police. This was happening despite government allowing pharmaceutical factories to function. Some workers stopped coming fearing police action," Sikri explained.

He added, "We took necessary permissions from authorities, arranged transport, gave employees copies of government notification exempting pharma operations from lockout to show it to police. We devised shifts in a way that, an employee works two shifts continously, and takes a full day off. This cut the number of times that the employee had to commute to work place. We spoke to contractors, and ensured that contract workers stayed at the factory. They were provided accommodation and food," Sikri explained.

The company finally managed to produce the APIs. Then the crucial step is to get the API batches tested for quality.

To test the API batches, RPG Life Sciences relied on outside pharmaceutical services provider. But that company wasn't functioning due to lockdown. "We managed to get that company open, and got the quality personnel with great difficulty. Finally the batches were cleared," says Sikri.

Now the API had to be shipped to Ankleshwar plant. Transporters were unwilling to move the material. "We pleaded transporters to help us. They agreed but were charging three to five times more than the original transportation cost," Sikri said.

The API material started its journey to Ankleshwar plant. Here again getting workers was an issue.

Anlkeshwar plant is located in a rural area. This time the problem was with gram panchayats. They were not letting people in their villages to step out for work, fearing infections.

"Our managers reached out to panchayats, showed them the videos of our factory and the social distancing and safety measures we took. Finally they relented. There was a problem with availability of packing materials like cartons, strips because those manufacturers were also not functioning. We managed with whatever inventory we had," Sikri said.

Finally the Azathioprine API was converted into tablets and ready for consumption.

Distribution in haywire

Here comes the most important phase - distribution. The finished product now had to be distributed across the country.

There are about 20carry and forwarding( C&F) agents across India. But a few of the C&F agents were located in the containment zones. A containment zone is a specific geographical area where positive cases of COVID-19 are found. Strict movement restrictions were imposed in such zones to prevent further spread of the virus. "It was like siege," said Sikri.

From C&F agents - the medicines had to move to stockists.

"We deal with 1,300-1,400 stockists across length and breadth of India. We need to ensure the goods need to reach stockists, if they have to reach the last mile retailer. Again transport was a big issue, but we were able to deliver medicines to stockists," Sikri said.

After medicine reached stockist, the responsibility falls on company's field force to take orders from retailers and pass it on to the stockist. It was a challenge for the management to motivate them to go on field to take orders.

"The regular pep talks by senior management helped. Some went out on their motorcycles to take orders, some booked order over telephone. But there were instances where the stockists were not able to deliver orders, because their employees were unable to reach the warehouses due to restrictions of lockdown," Sikri said.

Reaching out to patients directly

Meanwhile RPG Life Sciences started seeing surge in enquiries from patients, who were concerned whether they would be getting their medicines or not. Some started calling, some reached out through their website.

The company collected contact numbers and addresses of patients, and passed it on to the concerned field force person.

"I told my guys now here's the opportunity to prove that we really care for our patients, we made sure that the medicine is hand delivered at the patient's doorstep," Sikri said.

Sikri said as token of appreciation, we created a nice template with a photograph of the employee who delivered the medicine and circulated instantly across our whatsapp groups.

"We faced hundreds of hurdles in the journey, but what makes me really proud that every single person who wrote to us got his medicine," Sikri said.
The San Antonio Food Bank and Haven for Hope will receive $250,000 each from the Hearst Foundations to help them cope with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The two nonprofits are among more than 100 U.S. medical, humanitarian and cultural organizations that will receive emergency grants from the Hearst Foundations totaling more than $50 million.

The Food Bank and Haven for Hope, a provider of shelter, medical and other services for the homeless, have been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis. Haven had to stop accepting new clients when its campus filled up, and the Food Bank has been overwhelmed by needy families.

Before COVID-19, the organization fed 58,000 households per week. Now, it is supplying free groceries to 120,000 per week. The Food Banks plight drew national attention last week when the San Antonio Express-News published a front-page photograph showing thousands of cars lined up for a food distribution.

The emergency grants were announced Thursday by William Randolph Hearst III and Virginia Hearst Randt, presidents of the William Randolph Hearst Foundation of California and the Hearst Foundation of New York, along with Frank A. Bennack Jr., chair of the gift committees of the two foundations.

Bennack, a San Antonio native, is executive vice chairman of Hearst Corp. and a former CEO and chief operating officer of the company.

The announcement said the grants were in addition to the two foundations regular annual contributions to hundreds of nonprofit organizations.

These actions are being taken early in the crisis and in recognition of the critical and immediate need for the funds, which are expected to be received by the organizations within the next 10 days, the announcement said.

Grants totaling $2.5 million were made to Houston-area organizations, including the Houston Food Bank, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Houston Symphony Society and the Memorial Hermann Foundation.

The Hearst Foundations are national philanthropic resources for organizations working in the fields of culture, education, health and social services. The foundations have made more than 21,000 grants totaling more than $1.2 billion to nearly 6,000 organizations.

The foundations are independent of Hearst Corp., a privately owned, diversified media, information and services company with more than 360 businesses, including the parent company of the San Antonio Express-News.
Turkey overtakes Iran after health minister says confirmed infections in excess of 82,300.

This blog is now closed. For the latest updates, follow our new blog here.

Below is a summary of key developments on Saturday:

The number of deaths linked to the novel coronavirus has crossed 156,000 worldwide, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally. The number of deaths in the United States has exceeded 31,000.

Turkeys health minister has said the countrys confirmed coronavirus cases rose to 82,329, overtaking neighbouring Iran for the first time to register the highest total in the Middle East.

Washington state Governor Jay Inslee has accused US President Donald Trump of fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies after the latter urged supporters to LIBERATE three states led by Democratic governors.

The United Kingdoms health ministry has said hospital death toll from COVID-19 in the country rose by 888 to 15,464 as of 16:00 GMT on April 17.

Saturday, April 18

23:30 GMT  Trump warns China could face consequences for virus outbreak

Trump said China should face consequences if it was knowingly responsible for the coronavirus pandemic.

If it was a mistake, a mistake is a mistake. But if they were knowingly responsible, yeah, I mean, then sure there should be consequences, Trump told reporters at a daily briefing.

The US-China relationship was good until they did this, he said, citing a recent first-phase agricultural deal aimed at quelling a trade war between the two countries.

The question now was whether what happened with the coronavirus was a mistake that got out of control, or was it done deliberately? he said, adding: Theres a big difference between those two.

Trump previously said his government is seeking to determine whether the virus emanated from a Chinese lab.





23:05 GMT  Protesters in US rally against stay-at-home orders

Hundreds of people demonstrated in cities across the US calling for an end to the coronavirus-related stay-at-home rules.

An estimated 400 people gathered in Concord, New Hampshire, according to the AFP news agency, while a similar rally outside Marylands statehouse in Annapolis drew about 200 protesters. In Austin, the capital of Texas, more than 250 people showed up.

Read more here.

20:55 GMT  Indonesias real coronavirus toll likely 1,000 already

Indonesias death toll from the new coronavirus has likely reached 1,000, nearly double the official figure of 535, Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) chairman Daeng Faqih was quoted as saying.

There is a discrepancy between official figures and IDIs estimate, as official data did not include the death of patients suspected to have coronavirus but still awaiting tests.

Those who were yet to be confirmed with COVID-19 were also reported by hospitals as death by coronavirus, Daeng told local media.

20:30 GMT  Coronavirus cases in Brazil rise to 36,599

Cases of the new coronavirus in Brazil rose by 2,917 to 36,599, the health ministry said.

Brazil has more coronavirus cases than any other country in Latin America. Deaths rose by 206 to 2,347, the ministry said.

20:10 GMT  Netanyahu: Israel to ease some coronavirus restrictions

Israel will gradually ease its coronavirus lockdown from Sunday by letting some businesses reopen and relaxing curbs on movement after a slowdown in infection rates, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Authorities have steadily tightened a partial lockdown imposed on March 14, shuttering offices, closing schools and ordering people to stay mostly at home.

The measures have battered Israels economy, forced many businesses to close and sent unemployment above 25 percent.

But in televised remarks, Netanyahu said Israel had succeeded in [its] mission so far in combating the pandemic and argued that the restrictions had proven themselves in a slowdown in infection rates.

Netanyahu says Israel succeeded in its mission so far in combating the pandemic [Reuters]

19:40 GMT  Number of coronavirus cases in Egypt passes 3,000

Egypt confirmed 188 new cases of the novel coronavirus, bringing the total to 3,032, according to a health ministry statement.

Nineteen new deaths caused by the illness were reported, raising the total to 224.

Egypt has imposed a night curfew since March 25 and will halt public transport on Monday during a public holiday to contain the spread of the virus.

19:20 GMT  Denmark increases economic support to businesses hit by lockdown

Denmarks government announced about 100 billion Danish crowns ($14.6bn) worth of measures to support businesses struggling during the coronavirus lockdown.

The measures include direct economic aid to businesses, state-guaranteed loans and extended deadlines for tax payments, the government said.

With this agreement, we are sending 100 billion crowns to companies to help them and their employees get through this, Finance Minister Nicolai Wammen told state broadcaster DR.

The extra liquidity comes on top of an already announced 287 billion crowns worth of measures for businesses.

19:00 GMT  Spains PM to ask for extension of lockdown to May 9

Spains Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he would ask parliament for a third 15-day extension of the lockdown imposed to curb one of the worlds worst outbreaks of the new coronavirus, taking the restrictions up to May 9.

Sanchez said he wanted to relax restrictions on children, who would be allowed out of their homes after April 27, though that allowance would be limited and subject to conditions to avoid contagion. He did not go into further details.

Spain has begun to ease a strict lockdown imposed on March 14 and this week opened up some sectors of the economy, including manufacturing. But most people are still confined to their houses except for essential outings including shopping for food.

18:20 GMT  France coronavirus death toll increases, at slowing rate

France registered 642 more deaths from coronavirus infections, bringing the total to 19,323, the fourth-highest tally in the world, although the number of people in hospital declined for the fourth day running.

Frances public health authority said in a statement that the total number of people in intensive care units also fell for the 10th day in a row, to 5,833  the lowest level since March 31.

France has been in virtual lockdown since March 17 as part of efforts to curb the outbreak.

France has been in virtual lockdown since March 17 as part of efforts to curb the outbreak [Reuters]

17:50 GMT  Morocco extends coronavirus lockdown till May 20

Morocco will extend lockdown measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus for another month until May 20, the government has said.

The decision was made by the government council as the number of coronavirus cases rose to 2670, including 137 deaths and 298 recoveries as of Saturday morning.

Lockdown conditions imposed on March 20 mean people are only allowed to go out to buy food or medicine and to staff some key jobs. Schools, mosques, non-essential shops and entertainment venues have all been closed.

Morocco has made wearing masks mandatory with those who fail to do so risking jail terms and fines.

17:30 GMT  Turkeys coronavirus cases overtake Iran, highest in Middle East

Turkeys confirmed coronavirus cases rose to 82,329, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said, overtaking neighbouring Iran for the first time to register the highest total in the Middle East.

An increase of 3,783 cases in the last 24 hours also pushed Turkeys confirmed tally within a few hundred of China, where the novel coronavirus first emerged.

Koca said 121 more people have died, taking the death toll to 1,890.

A total of 1,822 people have recovered from coronavirus so far, and the number of tests carried out over the past 24 hours came to 40,520, the minister said.

17:15 GMT  UK has to do more to get equipment to health workers: Minister

The United Kingdom needs to do more to get personal protective equipment (PPE) to healthcare workers on the front line, housing minister Robert Jenrick said on Saturday after criticism about shortages in hospitals treating COVID-19 patients.

Weve got to do more to get the PPE that people need to the frontline, Jenrick said, adding that a consignment was due to arrive from Turkey containing equipment including 400,000 protective gowns.

We are trying to do everything we can to get the equipment we need.

16:50 GMT  New York coronavirus daily death toll at two-week low

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said 540 people died across his state over the last 24 hours due to the novel coronavirus, marking the lowest daily tally in more than two weeks.

Speaking at a daily briefing on Saturday, Cuomo also said new hospital admissions stayed around the 2,000-patient mark, which he said was still an overwhelming number.

16:30 GMT  Putin orders daily coronavirus projections as Russias tally nears 37,000

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the government to provide daily forecasts of the spread of the novel coronavirus as Russia recorded almost 5,000 new cases in a single day.

Coronavirus infections in Russia began rising sharply in April after reporting far fewer infections than many western European countries in the outbreaks early stages.

Russias official tally of coronavirus cases is 36,793, a record overnight rise of 4,785, and the death toll rose by 40 to 313.

Russias official tally of coronavirus cases is 36,793, a record overnight rise of 4,785 [AP]

16:15 GMT  Nigerian presidents chief of staff dies from coronavirus

The Nigerian presidents chief of staff died from COVID-19, the presidency said on Friday, making him the most high profile person in the country to die in the coronavirus outbreak.

Abba Kyari had acted as the gatekeeper to 77-year-old President Muhammadu Buhari. After his re-election last year, Buhari ordered ministers to channel all communications through him.

Kyari had underlying health problems including diabetes. His age was not officially disclosed, although two presidency aides said he was 70. It was reported on March 24 that he had contracted the disease.

15:50 GMT  Pakistan lifts limit on mosque congregations

Pakistan lifted restrictions on congregational prayers at mosques but put in place a host of safety conditions to avert the further spread of the coronavirus in the country.

The South Asian nation, the second most populous Muslim country in the world, imposed the restrictions less than a month ago, allowing only three to five people at mosques for prayers.

The decision to lift restrictions, taken in a meeting between Pakistani President Arif Alvi and religious leaders, comes less than a week before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, in which the size of congregations typically increases.

The government had been under pressure to reverse the congregation restrictions, and clashes between mosque attendees and police had been reported in Karachi, the countrys largest city.

At this mosque in Islamabads F-8 neighbourhood, normally packed for Friday midday prayers, worshippers were advised to maintain at least six feet of distance between themselves [Al Jazeera]

15:35 GMT  Algeria extends coronavirus lockdown to April 29

Algeria will extend a lockdown by 10 days until April 29 as it tries to limit the spread of the coronavirus amid increases in deaths and confirmed cases, the prime ministers office.

The government had imposed a full lockdown in the Blida area, south of the capital Algiers, and a night curfew in the countrys remaining 47 provinces until April 19.

Algeria has so far reported 2,418 infections and 364 deaths.

15:20 GMT  UAE announces $5,500 fine for coronavirus fake news

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will fine people up to 20,000 dirhams (approximately $5,500) if they share medical information about the coronavirus that contradicts official statements, state news agency WAM reported.

The move appears to be aimed at containing the spread of misinformation and rumours related to the COVID-19 outbreak that has claimed 37 lives in the country, with 6,300 confirmed infections as of Friday.

It is forbidden for any individual to publish, re-publish or circulate medical information or guidance which is false, misleading or which hasnt been announced officially  using print, audiovisual or social media, or online websites or any other way of publication or circulation, WAM reported, citing the government directive.

Read more here.

The move appears to be aimed at containing the spread of misinformation related to the COVID-19 [Christopher Pike/Reuters]

15:05 GMT  Indigenous women make face masks with palm leaves in Mexico

Indigenous women in Mexico have been making face masks against the coronavirus, using palm leaves native to the region.

They say that masks made from palm leaves are cheaper than the medical masks that have been scarce because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Mexico declared a state of emergency on March 31 to battle the pandemic.

Its faster and cheaper because now the masks are very expensive to buy." Indigenous women in Mexico make face masks from palm leaves during #coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/ugx5913GiN  Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) April 18, 2020

14:45 GMT  Uzbekistan prolongs coronavirus-related restrictions

Uzbekistan decided to prolong restrictions imposed to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus until May 10, the Central Asian nations government said.

The social distancing measures were set to expire on April 10. The Tashkent government has locked down all provinces and some major cities, closed some businesses and ordered citizens to only leave their homes for work or essential shopping.

14:20 GMT  Croatia extends lockdown until May 4

Croatia is extending its coronavirus lockdown for another 15 days, Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said, but added the government was looking at whether it was possible to gradually ease restrictions on movement.

A month ago, the government closed all the shops, bars, restaurants, schools and public transport leaving open only food stores, pharmacies and petrol stations.

Croats have been allowed to leave their homes to buy essentials or seek medical treatment, go for a walk or do an exercise, but not in a group and avoiding social contact. Many people have been working from home.

Croatia has recorded 1,832 cases of COVID-19, with 39 deaths. On Saturday, the number of new infections rose by 18 which is the lowest daily increase registered since March 17.

Croatia has recorded 1,832 cases of COVID-19, with 39 deaths as of Saturday [Anadolu]

14:00 GMT  UK coronavirus death toll exceeds 15,000

The UKs hospital death toll from COVID-19 rose by 888 to 15,464 as of 16:00 GMT on April 17, the health ministry said.

357,023 people have been tested, of which 114,217 tested positive, the health ministry added.

12:55 GMT  Traffic heavy in capital as Iran allows some businesses to reopen

Iran allowed some businesses in the capital and nearby towns to reopen on Saturday after weeks of lockdown aimed at containing the worst coronavirus outbreak in the Middle East.

Iran was slow to respond to the pandemic and held off on imposing widespread restrictions even after other countries in the region with far fewer cases forced most businesses to close. Iran has reported more than 80,000 confirmed cases and over 5,000 deaths.

Gyms, restaurants, shopping malls and Tehrans grand bazaar will remain closed. Shrines and mosques are also shuttered, and a ban on public gatherings remains in place. Government offices have reopened with a third of employees working from home, and schools and universities are still closed.

Traffic was heavy in Tehran early Saturday, the first day of the workweek. Authorities allowed businesses outside the capital to reopen a week ago.





12:45 GMT  First death in East Jerusalem amid Israeli neglect

An elderly Palestinian woman has become the first fatal victim of the coronavirus disease, COVID-19, in occupied East Jerusalem, health officials have said.

Nawal Abu Hummus, 78, died on Saturday, said Palestinian Authority (PA) spokesperson Ibrahim Milhem in a statement. Abu Hummus, from the Issawiyah neighbourhood, had pre-existing chronic illnesses, he added.

Read more here.





12:30 GMT  Spotlight on hard-hit elderly homes as toll emerges

Authorities in several countries, including the United States, Italy, Spain, France and Canada, have launched inquiries into how elderly care facilities have responded to the coronavirus crisis after reports emerged of high death rates at those facilities.

The pandemic has put a spotlight on nursing homes across the world, where thousands of elderly residents, who are most vulnerable to the disease, are believed to have died after contracting it.

Read more here.

Elderly care homes have been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic [Christian Hartmann/Reuters]

12:20 GMT  Dutch infections reach 31,589, 142 new deaths: Authorities

Confirmed coronavirus infections in the Netherlands have risen by 1,140 to 31,589, Dutch health authorities have said.

The death toll among people known to have been infected with the novel coronavirus increased by 142 to 3,601, the Dutch Institute for Public Health (RIVM) said in its daily update.

12:10 GMT  Swiss death toll reaches 1,111, confirmed infections hit 27,404

The Swiss death toll from the new coronavirus has reached 1,111 people, the countrys public health agency said, rising from 1,059 a day earlier.

The number of people showing positive tests for the disease increased to 27,404, the agency said, up from 27,078.

12:00 GMT  Violating lockdown, over a hundred thousand gather at a Bangladesh funeral

By Faisal Mahmud

Over a hundred thousand people gathered at the funeral of a renowned Bangladeshi Islamic preacher on Saturday, breaking the lockdown that the government of the South Asian nation imposed to avert the threat of coronavirus pandemic.

The funeral of Maulana Zubayer Ahmed Ansari took place at Sarail Upazila of Brahmanbaria district, some 100 kilometres away from the capital Dhaka. Ansari, a leader of the Islamic political party Khelafat Majlish, died on Friday evening. He was 59.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, officer-in-charge of Sorail police station Shahadat Hossain Titu said: We couldnt control the crowd. Over one lakh [hundred thousand] people gathered at premise of Jamia Rahmania Madrasa established by the late Maulana Ansari.

The funeral was attended by thousands in Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh [Tareq Ahmed/Al Jazeera]

The funeral crowd extended up to nearby Dhaka-Sylhet highway, said Titu, Even people from capital Dhaka came to attend the funeral.

Like other parts of Bangladesh, the district of Brahmanbaria also went into lockdown since March 26 up until April 25. On last Thursday, the Bangladesh government declared the entire country at risk of the coronavirus pandemic.

As of Saturday, Bangladesh has 2,144 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 84 deaths. Mahbub Kabir Milon, a secretary with Bangladesh government called the gathering devastating.

The funeral for Maulana Jubayer Ahmed Ansari was attended by thousands in Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh [Bishwajit Paul/Al Jazeera]

11:40 GMT  Christian pastor who defied Myanmar law tests positive

I had a conversation with someone yesterday, who told me that thanks to God, there is not a single Christian who has been infected with the virus, Pastor David Lah declared, wagging his finger at the audience in a recorded sermon posted on social media.

I can guarantee that the church that goes by Jesuss teaching, there will be no infection, added Lah, as he waved a bible in the air at an event held earlier this month, in defiance of the Myanmar governments order banning religious gatherings due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Days later, Lah tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the rapidly spreading coronavirus. He and three other people have also been charged with violation of the countrys Natural Disaster Management Law.

Pastor Lah and three of his companions, who were charged for violating government restrictions, have all reportedly tested positive for COVID-19 and were receiving treatment, and legal action would be pursued upon their recovery [Child of God YouTube channel via Reuters]

11:20 GMT  Amazon deploys thermal cameras at warehouses to scan for fevers faster: Report

Amazon has started to use thermal cameras at its warehouses to speed up screening for feverish workers who could be infected with the coronavirus, employees told Reuters news agency.

The cameras in effect measure how much heat people emit relative to their surroundings. They require less time and contact than forehead thermometers, earlier adopted by Amazon, the workers said.

Cases of the virus have been reported among staff at more than 50 of Amazons US warehouses. That has prompted some workers to worry about their safety and walk off the job. Unions and elected officials have called on Amazon to close buildings down.

11:00 GMT  Spain death toll surpasses 20,000

Spains death toll from the coronavirus has risen 565, down from a rise of 585 on Friday, the health ministry has said, bringing the total to 20,043 deaths in one of the worlds hardest-hit countries.

The number of overall coronavirus cases rose to 191,726 on Saturday from 188,068 on Friday, it added.

10:30 GMT  Fears for African refugees in crowded Rome squat

Selam Palace is the largest building in Rome to become a squat for refugees and migrants, who struggle to afford the Italian capitals rental costs. Experts estimate there are another 110 occupied buildings in the Eternal City.

The president of the local municipality, Monica Lozzi, confirmed to Al Jazeera that all residents had been tested for coronavirus, and 50 were found to have contracted it.

Read more here.

The locked-down, quarantined Selam Palace, is home to around 500 people in southern Rome [Valerio Muscella/Al Jazeera]

10:20 GMT  Guatemala: Many migrants on US deportation flight infected

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei has suspended all flights of deportees from the United States after a large number of migrants who were flown back this week were found to be infected with the novel coronavirus.

Giammattei said on Friday that 12 randomly selected people from the Monday deportation flight had tested positive for coronavirus when examined by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after their arrival. He suggested more on the flight had tested positive as well.

The flight has been at the centre of a political storm since Guatemalan Health Minister Hugo Monroy this week said up to 75 percent of passengers on a deportation flight in March had been infected with the virus.

Read more here.

Government officials stand next to a plane carrying migrants deported from the US at La Aurora International airport, in Guatemala City [File: Luis Echeverria/Reuters]

10:10 GMT  Spanish death toll may be much higher than officially reported

Fears of an underestimation of Spains coronavirus death toll have risen sharply this week, amid emerging evidence that mortality rates could be much higher than anticipated.

As of Thursday, Spain already had the greatest total of confirmed coronavirus infections in Europe, with 188,068. It also had Europes second-highest death toll, after Italy, with 19,478 fatalities.

But while Spains central government has previously defended its criteria for its published figures as following World Health Organization guidelines, for days multiple media reports  as well as the opposition  have suggested that the real toll is more severe.

Read more here.

A woman waves a Spanish flag from the window of her house in support of healthcare workers, during lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic in Ronda, southern Spain [Jon Nazca/Reuters]

10:00 GMT  Irans total death toll rises to 5,031

Irans death toll from the new coronavirus has risen by 73 in the previous 24 hours to reach 5,031 on Saturday, health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpour has said.

The number of death recorded daily is one of the lowest in recent days, he said. The total number of people diagnosed with the COVID-19 disease caused by the new virus reached 80,868, he said.

A parliamentary report released earlier this week said the coronavirus death toll might be almost double the figures announced by the health ministry, and the number of infections eight to 10 times more.

09:40 GMT  Queen Elizabeth cancels gun salutes for her birthday

Britains Queen Elizabeth has asked that there be no gun salutes to mark her birthday on Tuesday, ITV reporter Chris Ship said on Twitter, adding that it would be the first such request had been made in her 68-year reign.

09:20 GMT  Malaysia reports 54 new cases, 2 new deaths

Malaysian health officials have reported 54 new coronavirus cases, the lowest daily increase since the government imposed curbs on movement and business on March 18, taking the cumulative total to 5,305.

The health ministry also reported 2 new deaths, bringing total fatalities to 88.

09:00 GMT  Indonesia reports 325 new cases

Indonesia has reported 325 new coronavirus cases, taking the total number of infections in the worlds fourth most populous country to 6,248.

Health ministry official Achmad Yurianto also reported 15 new deaths, taking the total to 535.

On Friday, Indonesia surpassed the Philippines to become the country with the highest number of infections in Southeast Asia. It has the most number of deaths in Asia outside of China.





08:40 GMT  Taiwan to quarantine 700 navy sailors

Taiwan will put 700 navy sailors into quarantine after three cases of the new coronavirus were confirmed among sailors who had been on a goodwill mission to the Pacific island state of Palau, the government has said.

Three Taiwan navy vessels visited Palau  one of only 15 countries to maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan  in the middle of March, before returning to Taiwan a month later, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told reporters.

The three confirmed cases had all shared quarters on the same ship, but all 700 sailors on all three ships were being recalled and would be put into quarantine, he said.

The president of Palau, Tommy Remengesau, told Reuters news agency in an interview on Wednesday that his country of 20,000 people had not had a single case of the coronavirus and he was going to shut it off from the outside world to keep the virus out.

08:20 GMT  Russia says death toll rises to 313

Russia has said its death toll from the novel coronavirus had risen to 313, an overnight increase of 40, as it posted a new record daily jump in new cases.

The authorities reported 4,785 new cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number to 36,793.

Moscow, which became the epicentre of Russias coronavirus outbreak and was also the first region in the country to introduce a lockdown, recorded 2,649 new cases, and 21 new deaths, the Russian coronavirus crisis response centre said.

Coronavirus infections in Russia began rising sharply this month, although it had reported far fewer infections than many western European countries in the outbreaks early stages.





08:00 GMT  Philippines records 10 new deaths, 209 more cases

The Philippiness health ministry has reported 10 new coronavirus deaths and 209 additional infections.

In a bulletin, the health ministry said total infections have risen to 6,087, while deaths have reached 397. It added that 29 more patients have recovered, bringing the total to 516

07:40 GMT  Singapore reports 942 new cases in biggest daily jump

Singapores health ministry has confirmed 942 new coronavirus infections, a new daily record, taking the total number of COVID-19 cases in the city-state to 5,992.

The vast majority of the new cases are of work permit holders living in foreign worker dormitories, the health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.





07:20 GMT  Confirmed Japan cases hit 10,000

The number of confirmed novel coronavirus cases in Japan has risen to 10,000, NHK public broadcaster has said, just days after a state of emergency was extended to the entire nation in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday appealed to the nation to stay indoors as new cases hit a record in the capital of Tokyo and fears medical services could fail in rural areas that are home to many elderly prompted the expansion of the state of emergency from an original seven areas.

Just over 200 people have died from the virus in Japan, but Tokyo remains the hardest-hit area, reporting 201 new infections on Friday alone  a new record. Tokyo reported 181 new cases on Saturday, NHK reported.

07:00 GMT  US senator tells VP failed testing is dereliction of duty

Frustration boiled over into anger on a private call with Vice President Mike Pence as Democratic senators questioned administration officials about coronavirus testing plans but left without adequate answers, according to reports.

At one point in the Friday call, Maine Senator Angus King, an independent and former governor, told Pence the administrations failure to develop an adequate national testing regime is a dereliction of duty, a person who joined the hour-long call but was unauthorised to discuss it told the Associated Press News agency.

I have never been so mad about a phone call in my life, King told the administration officials, the person said.

The plea for more testing before implementing President Donald Trumps new guidelines to ease stay-home restrictions is a top priority for Democrats. They are heeding the warnings of health officials worried the virus will simply boomerang into a prolonged national crisis.





06:20 GMT  China mandates tests for key public workers leaving Wuhan

China ordered on Saturday that anyone in Wuhan working in certain service-related jobs must take a coronavirus test if they want to leave the city.

The order comes after the central city, where the coronavirus emerged late last year, lifted a 70-day lockdown that all but ended the epidemic there.

People in Wuhan work in nursing, education, security and other sectors with high exposure to the public must take a nucleic acid test before leaving, the National Health Commission said in an order.

The government of Hubei province, of which Wuhan is capital, will pay for the tests, the commission said.

Since the city relaxed its lockdown restrictions people who arrived in there before Chinese New Year, when the virus was peaking in China, are allowed to go back to their homes.





06:00 GMT  Australia sees three new deaths as govt urges app installation

Australias coronavirus-related death toll rose by three to a total of 68 on Saturday, health data showed, with the government stepping up its calls for people to sign up for a controversial movement-tracking mobile phone app.

Australia and neighbouring New Zealand have shown early success in potentially stopping COVID-19 after closing their early and imposing strict curbs on public movement. Australia recorded 36 new cases on Saturday, bringing the total to 6,533 cases, according to the health ministry data.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Saturday that downloading a movement-tracking up, which would enable the government to detect potential new outbreaks and which has been criticised as an invasion of privacy, would not be mandatory.

A worker cleans the mostly deserted waterfront area of the Sydney Opera House [Loren Elliott/Reuters]

05:40 GMT  Trump accused of fomenting rebellion after LIBERATE tweets

Washington Governor Jay Inslee on Friday accused Donald Trump of fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies after the United States president urged supporters to LIBERATE three states led by Democratic governors.

The presidents statements this morning encourage illegal and dangerous acts. He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting COVID-19, Inslee said in a series of tweets on Friday afternoon.

Inslees tweets came after Trump apparently encouraged the growing protests against the stay-at-home restrictions aimed at stopping the coronavirus.

Read more here.

LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020

05:20 GMT  Thailand reports 33 new cases, no new deaths

Thailand has reported 33 new coronavirus infections, bringing the nations total to 2,733 cases, a senior official has said.

Eleven of the new cases were in Bangkok and had a history of going to public areas, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, a spokesman for the governments Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration.

No new deaths were reported and 1,787 people have recovered, he said.

Thailand has reported 47 fatalities since the outbreak escalated in January.

Hello, this is Joseph Stepansky in Doha taking over from my colleague Ted Regencia.

04:55 GMT  Germanys coronavirus cases rise by 3,609 to 137,439: RKI

Germanys confirmed coronavirus cases have risen by 3,609 to 137,439, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Saturday, marking a fourth straight day of a spike in new infections.

The death toll has risen by 242 to 4,110, the tally showed.

04:05 GMT  South Korea shows lowest daily jump in virus cases since February 20

South Korea has reported 18 new cases of the coronavirus, its lowest daily jump since February 20, continuing a downward trend as officials discuss more sustainable forms of social distancing that allows for some communal and economic activity.

Figures released by South Koreas Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday brought national totals to 10,653 cases and 232 virus-related deaths, The Associated Press news agency reported.

At least 993 of overall infections have been linked to arrivals from overseas.

03:33 GMT  Japan to expand testing amid rising infections

Japan, alarmed by rising coronavirus deaths and the spectre of the collapse of the medical system, is scrambling to expand testing with drive-through facilities and general practitioners helping to collect samples, according to Reuters.

The decision to expand testing came as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this week expanded a state of emergency, originally issued for Tokyo and six other areas, to the entire country, and warned of the growing burden on health facilities

Japan conducted about 52,000 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests in March, or just 16 percent of the number carried out in South Korea, according to data from Oxford University.

03:01 GMT  China reports new cases coming from Russia

China has reported 27 new confirmed cases of coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, as it tries to stem an upsurge in infections in a northeastern province bordering Russia.

Twenty of the new cases were in Heilongjiang province, including 13 Chinese nationals who had returned recently from Russia. The land border with Russia has been closed.

The confirmed cases brought the total to 82719, of which 77,029 have recovered. Meanwhile, Chinas official death toll rose sharply to 4,632, reflecting a major upwards revision the previous day by authorities in Wuhan, the nations hardest-hit city.

02:35 GMT  Indonesia records highest number of cases, deaths in Southeast Asia

From zero reported infections and deaths in January and February, Indonesia now has the highest number of cases and deaths in Southeast Asia.

Indonesia has reported nearly 6,000 cases surpassing the Philippines. The death toll in Indonesia as of Friday was 520.

More than 46,700 people have been tested and 842 people had recovered [Achmad Ibrahim/AP]

02:28 GMT  Canada requires air passengers to wear masks to curb coronavirus

Canadas transport agency has announced that all airline passengers would be required to wear a non-medical mask or face covering during travel to curb the spread of coronavirus.

The regulator said travellers must cover their mouth and nose during the boarding process and flights. The rule goes into effect on Monday.

Air Canada, the countrys largest carrier, had previously recommended that customers wear a face-covering over their mouth and noses while onboard its flights.

02:00 GMT  Many migrants on US deportation flight had coronavirus  Guatemalan president

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei has announced that a large number of the migrants on a deportation flight from the United States to Guatemala earlier this week were infected with the novel coronavirus.

Earlier, it was reported that at least 44 of the 77 Guatemalans deported on Monday were infected with the coronavirus.

01:21 GMT  Trump wants to return to campaign trail

US President Donald Trump says he remains hopeful that he will be able to resume campaign rallies ahead of the November election.

Trump said that he does not want social distancing at his rallies, which typically draw big crowds, because doesnt want attendees to miss the flavour of the experience. Trump stopped holding his big stadium rallies in early March because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The president predicted that when the rallies resume theyll be bigger than ever. He plans to travel to the US Military Academy in New York next month to deliver the commencement ceremony.

00:40 GMT  Nigerian presidents chief of staff dies from coronavirus

Abba Kyari (standing) served as the chief of staff of Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari (seated) since 2015 until his death on Friday [File: Aghaeze/Nigeria State House via AFP]

The Nigerian presidents chief of staff, Abba Kyari, died on Friday after contracting the new coronavirus, two presidency spokesmen said on Twitter.

Kyari, who was in his 70s and had underlying health problems including diabetes, was the top official aide to 77-year-old President Muhammadu Buhari and one of the most powerful men in the country, Reuters news agency reported.

The Presidency regrets to announce the passage of the Chief of Staff to the President, Mallam Abba Kyari, said presidency spokesman Garba Shehu in a tweet, using an honorific title for Kyari.

Kyaris was the highest-profile death due to the disease in the West African country, which has 493 confirmed cases and 17 deaths, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

Read more here.

Mexico has declared a mandatory use of face masks= inside trains and subway stations, as a measure to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease [Edgard Garrido/Reuters]

00:18 GMT  Mexico reports 570 new coronavirus cases, 60 new deaths

Mexican health officials have reported 578 new cases of the novel coronavirus and 60 new deaths, bringing the countrys total to 6,875 cases and 546 deaths.

Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said on Thursday the country might have nearly 56,000 people infected with the fast-spreading coronavirus.

Citing government models, Lopez-Gatell has said many who are infected likely did not have symptoms or were not diagnosed.

00:10 GMT  Mexico: Trump promised to sell 1,000 ventilators

Mexicos president says that United States President Donald Trump has promised Mexico will be able to buy 1,000 ventilators and other intensive-therapy equipment used in treating severe cases of COVID-19.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says he spoke with Trump about Mexicos request to purchase the machines, relatively few of which are available in Mexico.

Lopez Obrador said on Twitter that Trump guaranteed me that by the end of this month Mexico could buy 1,000 ventilators and possibly more.

Lopez Obrador calls it a new gesture of solidarity with Mexico. He says he suggested a meeting with Trump in June or July to personally express the countrys appreciation.

______________________________________________________________________

Hello, Im Ted Regencia in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with Al Jazeeras continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. You can find all the updates from yesterday, April 17, here.
Washington: US President Donald Trump has announced a $19 billion financial rescue package to help the struggling agriculture industry amid the coronavirus crisis.

In a press conference on Friday (April 17), Trump said that the government "will be implementing a $19 billion relief program for our great farmers and ranchers as they cope with the fallout of the global pandemic."

The program includes direct payments to farmers, ranchers and producers who Trump said have experienced "unprecedented losses during this pandemic."

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said US farmers have been hit hard by a sharp shift in demand, as schools and restaurants close and more Americans eat at home. That has disrupted the food supply chain, forcing farmers in many places to destroy dairy output and plough under crops that no longer have buyers.

"Having to dump milk and plough under vegetables ready to market is not only financially distressing, but it's heartbreaking as well to those who produce them," Perdue said.

The US farm and food industry has been hit in numerous ways by the coronavirus epidemic. Farmers are having trouble finding seasonal labourers to prepare and harvest crops. But the change in the way consumers eat has had a huge impact. "Shuttered schools, universities, restaurants, bars and cafeterias are no longer buying milk, meat, fruits, vegetables and other food, causing a downward spiral in crop and livestock prices," the American Farm Bureau was quoted as saying.

Trump also announced, that 80 million Americans have received their coronavirus relief money. "The Treasury has sent out economic relief payments to more than 80 million Americans," Trump said on Friday.

Last month, Trump had signed into law a $2.2 trillion economic rescue package to combat the coronavirus outbreak and send economic relief to workers and businesses squeezed by restrictions meant to stop the spread of the deadly virus.

Meanwhile, United States has announced an aid of $8.4 million to Pakistan in its fight against coronavirus. The announcement was made by the United States Ambassador to Pakistan, Paul Jones, on Friday.

"With more than $8 million in new contributions, the United States is collaborating with the government of Pakistan to help stop the spread of coronavirus nationwide and to care for afflicted people," Jones said in a video message.

The total number of COVID-19 cases across 185 nations spiralled towards 2,204,511 and the death toll stood at 149,378 at 11.45 pm (IST) on Friday (April 17), with the highest numbers both in positive cases and death toll, the US continues to remain the worst-hit with a total of 679,374 cases and death toll at 34,180.
Paul ONeill, a former Treasury secretary who broke with President George W. Bush over tax policy and then produced a book critical of the administration, died Saturday. He was 84.

O'Neill's son, Paul O'Neill Jr. confirmed that his father died at his home in Pittsburgh after battling lung cancer for the last couple of years. After a few surgeries and chemotherapy, he decided against any further intervention four or five months ago, he said.

"There was some family here and he died peacefully," the son said. "Based on his situation, it was a good exit."

Tony Fratto, who served as O'Neill's Treasury spokesman, posted on Facebook, "Very sad that our friend Paul O'Neill passed away today. He was a friend, a good man, and I loved working with him."

A former head of aluminum giant Alcoa, O'Neill served as Treasury secretary from 2001 to late 2002. He was forced to resign after he objected to a second round of tax cuts because of their impact on deficits.

After leaving the administration, O'Neill worked with author Ron Suskind on an explosive book covering his two years in the administration. O'Neill contended that the administration began planning the overthrow of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein right after Bush took office, eight months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

O'Neill depicted Bush as a disengaged president who didn't encourage debate either at Cabinet meetings or in one-on-one discussions with Cabinet members. He said the lack of discussion in Cabinet meetings gave him the feeling that Bush "was like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people."

When the book, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul ONeill came out in early 2004, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan discounted ONeills descriptions of White House decision-making and said the president was someone that leads and acts decisively on our biggest priorities.

O'Neill said his purpose in collaborating on the book, for which he turned over 19,000 government documents to Suskind, was to generate a public discussion about the "current state of our political process and raise our expectations for what is possible."

After leaving the Cabinet, O'Neill returned to Pittsburgh, where he had headed Alcoa from 1987 to 1999. He resumed working with the Pittsburgh Regional Health Care Initiative, a consortium of hospitals, medical societies and businesses studying ways to improve health care delivery in Western Pennsylvania. The subject had interested him since his days as a budget analyst in Washington with the Office of Management and Budget.

He also devoted time in retirement to projects that would deliver clean drinking water to Africa. As Treasury secretary, O'Neill had focused attention on poverty and combating diseases such as AIDS in Africa, touring the continent with Irish rock star Bono.

Before joining Alcoa, O'Neill had been president from 1985 to 1987 of International Paper Co., a firm he had joined in 1977 after leaving OMB.

ONeill is survived by his wife, four children, 12 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren.

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER and RON TODT, The Associated Press
While medical device manufacturer B. Braun works on supplies to battle the coronavirus, seven of its employees at a Lehigh County manufacturing site have tested positive for the virus, a spokeswoman said Saturday.

Some of the seven at the facility at 901 Marcon Boulevard in Hanover Township have recovered and returned to work, company spokeswoman Allison Longenhagen said. B. Braun says it employs over 1,000 there.

Safety measures already in place at the site have included temperature screening, wearing masks, social distancing and contact tracing, in addition to heightened cleaning and disinfecting procedures, she said.

Individuals who had prolonged and close contact with a COVID-19 positive employee are directed to quarantine. Longenhagen said many co-workers have completed quarantine without coronavirus symptoms or illness, and were medically cleared to return to work.

All indications are the B. Braun cases are the result of community spread, as B. Braun has not had an outbreak at the facility, Longenhagen said.

On Monday, the Bethlehem-based company received emergency authorization from the FDA to allow an infusion pumps it manufactures to be used with nebulizers to treat coronavirus patients.

The infusion pumps with nebulizers provide steady, controlled delivery of nebulized medication to patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome, found in some critical COVID-19 patients, the company said in a news release.

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.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. If theres anything about this story that needs attention, please email her. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Jamie Dornan contemplates the mischief he's going to get upto next (Image by Universal)

Having shot to fame as Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades trilogy, you might think that Jamie Dornan would be a little scared about being typecast as the character.

But it turns out that the Northern Irish actor isnt worried about playing a similar character to Grey, as there are not any other films that require a business magnate with a penchant for BDSM.

Read More: Movie Rights to Fifty Shades of Grey Authors The Mister Land at Universal (EXCLUSIVE)

Dornan admitted as much to Variety, explaining, It always felt like it was this sort of one-all situation. Ive never done anything close to since and probably never will again, because its kind of its own thing. Its like we did it; it lived in its own world and it was a very big world and a lot of people cared about it. But its kind of like, That was it.

Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan prepare to smooch in Fifty Shades Of Grey (Image by Universal)

Theres another reason why Dornan is unlikely to be typecast as Christian Grey. He is constantly looking to challenge himself as an actor, adding that he wants to take on a variety of different characters.

My whole thing of being an actor is that we get to embody all these different worlds, and thats what excites me. Im not closed off to being in an action movie. I just dont want to do four a year. If one comes along and speaks to me, then  yes, sure. And I think Ive been lucky in everything post-Fifty Shades.

Read More: Fifty Shades Of Grey Is 'Rudest Film In A Decade' With 20 Minutes Of Sex Scenes

Theres a lot in the market of the $5 to $15 million budget movie. And I personally believe thats where the best scripts are. Ive done things like Anthropoid or A Private War, and some of these movies, Im really proud of. Im just lucky they came my way because of the box office success of Fifty Shades.
Parts of Delhi have been sealed. Others will open up slowly, as the lockdown continues in its second phase. But it will move into a lower gear soon with some services resumed and some mobility restored. How will the citizens of Delhi respond as this unfolds? Will there be a replay of some of the misanthropic acts that marred Delhis image in the days before the lockdown or will it be a more encouraging story?

A quick recap of the lockdown media reports preceding and just following the first lockdown and into the second one reveals distressing stories of doctors, nurses, lab technicians and airline crew being turned away from their rented accommodations, heart-rending visuals of migrant workers and their families trudging many long miles on foot because their employers and landlords turned them out and appallingly xenophobic assaults on people from the Northeast. Those were the shameful pictures of a warped urban conscience that emerged in those days. While sporadic incidents also occurred in other cities, Delhi reported each of these types of inhumane behaviour in shocking synchrony of misanthropic misconduct.

Health care providers being denied entry into their residential accommodation is mindless stupidity apart from the meanness of the act. Dont the landlords or neighbours who deny entry into the colonies or homes realise that these are the persons they have to turn to for care when someone in their family has to deliver a baby, get a child vaccinated, seek lifesaving treatment for a heart attack, get serious trauma repaired after a road accident or get any other kind of medical attention and care? Ironically, returning family members from Covid-19-affected countries were warmly welcomed but those who strive selflessly to save lives were treated as a threat to health when they returned from a neighbourhood hospital.

The airline crew members who ran relief missions to bring back Indians stranded in Covid-19-affected countries were denied entry into their homes by the self-appointed guardians of their colonys health. What if one of their loved ones was trapped in a foreign country? It should not even require an element of self-interest to appreciate the dedication of those who undertook humanitarian missions. Common decency will do.

The plight of the migrants was far worse. Their eviction from their homes and shelters was an inhuman act of heartless cruelty, at a time when they had lost work and wages. Their trek on foot, seeking safety and social support in a faraway home, was a sight that tore into the conscience of any sensitive viewer who saw the pictures. The stoicism of these poor people was saintly in comparison to the churlish conduct of those who tossed them out when solidarity was most needed. The cruelty of some police personnel berating and beating them, as they wended their weary way to a distant destination, was shocking. It was a malevolent abuse of police power directed at the homeless and helpless who were also guiltless. When they return, they should not be treated as virus carriers as they are coming back from a low-exposure zone to a high-exposure zone.

The xenophobia against anyone who looked Chinese was not only a display of ignorance about Indias geography and diverse population profile but also a criminal act of discrimination. Physical assaults against such persons amplify the criminality but even racist verbal abuse is culpable. I was dismayed by the fact that bystanders did not intervene, though some of them recorded and posted the shameful episodes on social media, for the rest of us to watch with mounting revulsion. Discrimination and recrimination against fellow Indians, based on ethnicity, social class or religion must be cast away when the need of the hour is unity.

What had happened to the capital of India? Dilli, tumhara dil kahan gaya tha? (Delhi, where has your heart gone?) This is a city where many families which relocated from Pakistan after Partition found new homes and opportunities to rebuild their lives. They were then received with care and compassion. Has there been a generational change since then? Or is it that this city bade goodbye to humane conduct in 1984 when rioting mobs savagely set upon innocent Sikhs? Why is it that those who live in houses built by the poor offered no shelter to them when they were trapped by a lockdown? Have the middle and upper classes of Delhi socially distanced themselves from the poor to such an extent that empathy has been extinguished?

No. I would like to believe that these acts were aberrations. Many who live in Delhi were distraught at these incidents which brought shame to the city. The Sikh community repeatedly came forward with laudable acts of social solidarity and provided admirably egalitarian support to the poor and vulnerable. Other citizens spoke up in public to decry the abhorrent acts. The media reported the incidents prominently and conveyed the collective outrage of decent citizens. The central and state government authorities set about the task of protecting health care providers, relocating migrants to shelters and warning louts against xenophobic acts. They also initiated disciplinary action against errant police personnel. Can we hope that by the end of the lockdown, Delhi will have rediscovered its soul? Even if it has a limited statehood status, it must become the capital of social solidarity.

K Srinath Reddy is president, Public Health Foundation of India.

The views expressed are personal
Nick Cordero's wife Amanda Kloots revealed this Saturday that the Broadway star is having a leg amputated amid his fight with COVID-19.

The actor has been hospitalized with the illness for more than two weeks and Amanda, 38, previously revealed there were 'blood flow issues' in one leg.

On Saturday she posted her latest message to well-wishers on her Insta Stories and informed them that 'the right leg will be amputated today.'

'Difficult news': Nick Cordero's wife Amanda Kloots revealed this Saturday that the Broadway star is having a leg amputated amid his fight with COVID-19

As seen in better times: The actor has been hospitalized with the illness for more than two weeks; he is pictured at the New Dramatists' Spring Luncheon in New York in 2017

'So we are on day 18 of Nick being sedated in the ICU. It is April 18. We got some difficult news yesterday,' she began.

'Basically we've had issues in his right leg with clotting and getting blood down to his toes and it just isn't happening with surgery and everything,' Amanda shared.

'So they had him on blood thinners for the clotting and unfortunately the blood thinners were causing some other issues - blood pressure and some internal bleeding in his intestines,' she said.

Details: 'Basically we've had issues in his right leg with clotting and getting blood down to his toes and it just isn't happening with surgery and everything,' Amanda shared

'So we took him off the blood thinners but that again was gonna cause some clotting in the right leg, so the right leg will be amputated today.'

As the day wore on she shared 'A PLEAD...' on her Insta Stories, writing: 'I KNOW THIS ISN'T POSSIBLE BUT TODAY IS MIRACLE DAY SO WHY NOT ASK?'

The fitness trainer wrote: 'I just wish I could see him. Hold his hand. Touch his face. I do believe this would help him WAKE UP!'

Trying: Doctors attempted to break the clotting with blood thinners but those began 'causing some other issues - blood pressure and some internal bleeding in his intestines'

Amanda's latest update comes just two days after she revealed that her husband may never walk again.

She took to her Instagram Story on Thursday as she said Nick had surgery to remove the ECMO machine that he was on and it went well.

She explained: 'The doctor said for Nicks heart and lungs right now theyre in the best condition that they could be. The fact that hes off (the ECMO machine) is great.'

Update: Amanda's latest update comes just two days after she revealed that her husband may never walk again

However it wasn't all great news as she said: 'His right leg is still an issue. here has been some blood flow issues coming down to his foot.'

There could be a long road of recovery ahead for the Broadway actor.

Kloots said: 'We dont know if hell be able to walk again. We dont know if he can walk again  what thatll look like.

Positive: The 38-year-old fitness trainer took to her Instagram Story on Thursday as she said Nick had surgery to remove the ECMO machine that he was on and it went well

Oh no: However it wasn't all great news as she said: 'His right leg is still an issue. here has been some blood flow issues coming down to his foot'

'I think that there will definitely be a lot of rehab and definitely physio in order for that leg to get working again. But the good news is that blood is finally running down to his toes.'

Just a day prior, Kloots had 'really, really good news,' the fitness trainer said Nick's 'heart and lungs are getting stronger.'

The turn for the better comes after Nick had to be resuscitated on Saturday after undergoing emergency surgery to alleviate a blockage of blood flow to his leg.

Good news: Nick Cordero's wife Amanda Kloots has delivered another update on the Broadway star's medical condition

'They're weaning him off the ECMO machine,' continued Amanda, referring to the apparatus which helps support the heart and lungs.

She then said that if all went according to plan, doctors would be able to remove the ECMO machine on Thursday, allowing Nick's heart and lungs to operate on their own.

'Big win,' exclaimed the mother-of-one.

However, 'we still need him to wake up,' continued Amanda, imploring fans to sing and dance for Nick at 3pm PST.

The viral movement even swept up model Devon Windsor, who posted a video of her performance in honor of Nick on Tuesday.

Fighter: However, 'we still need him to wake up,' continued Amanda, imploring fans to sing and dance for Nick at 3pm PST

Stars align: The viral movement even swept up model Devon Windsor, who posted a video of her performance in honor of Nick on Tuesday

Kloots teared up on Monday while sharing an update on her husband of two years, Tony nominee Nick, who's battling COVID-19 at the ICU in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

'He's doing okay guys. He's fighting,' the 38-year-old fitness trainer said via Instastory from their Laurel Canyon home.

'FaceTiming him has been wonderful, for me at least. Me and his mom have gotten to FaceTime him now a couple times. It's very special and I can see him fighting [while unconscious]. Today is a big day and we really need some heart and lung strength to come through...so keep sending up those prayers, guys.'

'He's doing okay guys. He's fighting': Amanda Kloots teared up on Monday while sharing an update on her husband of two years, Tony nominee Nick Cordero, who's battling COVID-19 at the ICU in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles

Amanda then recalled a romantic story from when they started dating in 2014 about how the Canadian 41-year-old secretly mastered jumping rope in her honor while he was visiting his sick father in Ontario.

'He told me, "When I was taking care of my dad, I would go to the gym every morning and I taught myself to jump rope so I could win you back,"' Kloots smiled.

'I love this story, obviously because it's about jumping rope, but just a cute story to give you a little insight into what a special guy he is and who he is and the kind of heart he has.'

Nick is on a ventilator, a dialysis machine, and he had to be resuscitated on Saturday after undergoing emergency surgery to alleviate a blockage of blood flow to his leg.

The 38-year-old fitness trainer said via Instastory from their Laurel Canyon home: 'FaceTiming him has been wonderful...I can see him fighting [while unconscious]. Today is a big day and we really need some heart and lung strength to come through' (pictured March 19)

'Keep sending up those prayers, guys!' Amanda then recalled a romantic story from when they started dating in 2014 about how the Canadian 41-year-old secretly mastered jumping rope in her honor while he was visiting his sick father in Ontario

Kloots smiled: 'I love this story, obviously because it's about jumping rope, but a cute story to give you a little insight into what a special guy he is and who he is and the kind of heart he has'

'I got to FaceTime with him today it was the first time I'd seen him since dropping him off at the ER 12 days ago,' The Irishman dancer revealed on Sunday.

'I told him he had to fight. I told him he is strong and can do this...The doctors are still concerned about his right leg and we need him to start making small responses off sedation. These are the next two goals that need to happen.'

Amanda and Cordero - who are parents to 10-month-old son Elvis - originally met while performing in the musical Bullets Over Broadway together at the St. James Theatre in Manhattan.

Kloots has urged her 98K Instagram followers to 'keep playing and dancing' to Elvis Presley's 1957 song Got a Lot o' Livin' to Do in honor of the Mob Town star.

'The doctors are still concerned about his right leg': Nick is on a ventilator, a dialysis machine, and he had to be resuscitated on Saturday after undergoing emergency surgery to alleviate a blockage of blood flow to his leg (pictured February 14)

Castmates: Amanda and Cordero originally met while performing in the musical Bullets Over Broadway together at the St. James Theatre in Manhattan

Show business couple: The Inside Game actor and The Irishman dancer are parents to 10-month-old son Elvis (pictured February 1)

Oscar nominee Florence Pugh took note and shared a video on Monday of herself dancing up a storm to Got a Lot o' Livin' to Do and asking her 1.4M followers to do the same.

'I was wondering if I could ask a huge, huge favor of you all,' the British 24-year-old said via Instastory.

'Our good friends Nick Cordero and Amanda Kloots are suffering at the moment. Nick has been battling coronavirus for the past two weeks and he's been in critical condition for the past week and he's in hospital every day fighting for his life. And it's really f***ing scary.'

The Ohio native - who used to be a Radio City Rockette - has launched a $9.99/month subscription service for her workout videos via her website as a way to make money.

Going viral: Kloots has urged her 98K Instagram followers to 'keep playing and dancing' to Elvis Presley's 1957 song Got a Lot o' Livin' to Do in honor of the Mob Town star

'I was wondering if I could ask a huge, huge favor of you all!' Oscar nominee Florence Pugh took note and shared a video of herself on Monday dancing up a storm to Got a Lot o' Livin' to Do and asking her 1.4M followers to do the same
LONDON  When Queen Elizabeth II turns 94 on Tuesday, for the first time in her nearly seven-decade reign her birthday will not be marked by a gun salute  another longstanding ritual lost to the grim siege of the coronavirus.

The queen requested that no special measures be put in place for artillery guns to be fired from multiple sites around London, according to Buckingham Palace, because she did not feel it appropriate in the current circumstances. She also instructed that flags should not be flown in her honor unless it could be done while observing social distancing restrictions.

Buckingham Palace said the queen, who has sequestered herself at Windsor Castle since mid-March, did not plan to mark her birthday in any special way. She might speak to members of the royal family, who are scattered across the country, by video call, a palace official said, but the conversations would be private.

The palace had already scrapped the queens birthday parade, known as Trooping the Color. That elaborate military procession is traditionally held in June and draws thousands of spectators to the wide avenue in front of the palace, where she waves from the balcony, as fighter jets roar overhead.
Bahrain will join the Arab world in celebrating the 45th edition of the Arab Deaf Week under the theme the Right of the Deaf to an Easy Marriage Supported by Social Institutions.

The event is observed the last week of April every year as a reminder of the deaf in the society, in line with the recommendations of the second conference of the Arab Federation of Deaf Organizations, which was held in Damascus from 24 to 26 April 1974.

The event aims to raise awareness of the deafs rights and capabilities and ways of preventing this handicap.

It also seeks to cast light on ways of enabling the deaf and the associations in charge of them t play and active and positive role in comprehensive sustainable economic and social development.

Labour and Social Development Minister Jamil bin Mohammed Ali Humaidan stressed the great care accorded to the deaf by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and the government, led by His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa.

He also commended the support of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Premier. He pointed out concerted efforts to provide this category of people with the needed care and assistance to help them implement projects that are consistent with their capabilities.
Kerala is preparing for the return of at least two lakh expatriates, mainly blue-collar workers, from West Asia by creating quarantine facilities for them even as the state has reported a slump in the Covid-19 cases while they mount across the country. Officials said it will be a huge challenge given over half of the total Covid-19 cases in Kerala have been traced to those who had returned from the region.

Kerala on Saturday reported four cases that took the states Covid-19 tally to 399 while at least seven patients were discharged from hospitals. The number of people under observation in the state is now down to 67, the state health department said.

The state expects the expatriates to return in batches after the extended lockdown imposed to check the Covid-19 spread ends on May 3. They will be lodged in quarantine homes before they will be allowed to return to their homes only when it is confirmed that they have not contracted the disease, the officials cited above said.

Many Covid-19 quarantine centres have come up near international airports in the state. But the officials said they are not sufficient and vacant flats, houses and houseboats were being considered for quarantining them. Work is in progressing in Alapuzha to convert houseboats into quarantine homes and makeshift Covid-19 hospitals.

Around half of the two million people from Kerala working in West Asia live in the United Arab Emirates, which has threatened to impose restrictions on workers from the countries that refuse to take back their citizens from the country.

Kerala is really indebted to its expatriate population for its development and progress. We will try our best to bring them back. We know they are going through distressing times. We are with them. Once they return, we will screen and quarantine them, said chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. He has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi twice seeking his intervention in bringing the expatriates back.

Irudaya Rajan, a migration expert at Thiruvananthapurams Centre for Development Studies, said the state faces three issues of retaining migrant workers from other parts of India, return of the expatriates from West Asia and the remittances that will go down. It has to do a fine balancing act. Migration is there in the DNA of Keralites. If not the Gulf, they will find another place. But at least six months, it has to struggle, said Rajan.

In 2018-19 alone, remittances from expatriates amounted to Rs 88,000 crore. Keralas Gross State Domestic Product that year was 7,72,894 crore.

K C Sajith, a Non-Resident Indian from Kerala in Bahrain, said many countries have evacuated their people from West Asia. We know Indias numbers are large. But at least the country could have airlifted patients and pregnant women who are stranded. Some of us really feel we are in no mans land. We hope post-lockdown, it [evacuation] will be expedited, he said.

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Ruth F.: Happy to, and thanks for your readership. Readers, there are several reasons this is a terrible idea. The dog could fall out of the vehicle or be struck by rocks and other road waste, which can cause an eye injury. The dog also could be struck by road signage or branches, and the wind whipping in their delicate and sensitive ears can cause harm.
In massive development, the Centre on Saturday, amended the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy to ensure no hostile takeover of firms facing stress due to ongoing COVID-19 lockdown. Sources report that according to the amendment, neighbouring countries - including China, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan will require government approval for investing into Indian companies. Centre has also prohibited Pakistan from investing in Indian sectors of defence, space, atomic energy and sectors/activities prohibited for foreign investment. Apart from India, EU, US, Australia have checked Chinese FDI amid COVID-19 crisis.

Coronavirus LIVE Updates: 21 Navy personnel test positive;1991 cured, total cases at 14378

India amends FDI policy to protect Indian companies

"Government has reviewed the FDI policy for curbing opportunistic takeovers or acquisitions of Indian companies due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, reads the press release issued by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). It adds, "A non-resident entity can invest in India, subject to the FDI Policy except in those sectors/activities which are prohibited. However, an entity of a country, which shares a land border with India or where the beneficial owner of investment into India is situated in or is a citizen of any such country, can invest only under the Government route.

Rahul Gandhi warns Centre of 'foreign interests taking over Indian cos' amid COVID crisis

PCOB picks up 1% of HDFC Ltd.

This move occurred after People's Bank of China (PBoC) on April 12, had bought a 1% stake in India's largest housing finance lenders - HDFC Ltd. This investment amounts to 1.75 crore shares in HDFC, which has reportedly been facing a receding trend in its shares since January. Reports state that the share purchase is likely to have happened between January and March. HDFC shares closed at Rs 1,701.95 on April 10, as per market reports.

People's Bank of China buys 1% stake in HDFC Ltd, picking up 1.75 crore shares

Coronavirus hits global economy

The fear of the virus has disrupted business supply chains, while the number of positive cases has hit 22,63,739 cases and 1,54,829 deaths. Moodys have estimated that coronavirus has increased the risk of a global recession as advanced countries United States, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Britain, and Korea battle the virus, but the UN has claimed that India and China may be spared. Analysts have said that as China is the largest supplier of raw materials and manufacturing hub for different industries - core industries like automobiles, metal and pharmaceuticals' trade were brought to a standstill due to China closing off its borders, but now is seeing action as China picks up manufacturing. Currently, the Indian economy is at a standstill, as the nation is at a lockdown till May 3.

ACCESSED: Permission letter for Kumaraswamy wedding, listing guidelines for ceremony
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 17)  After a long battle for accreditation, the COVID-19 testing facility in Marikina City may finally start operations next week, the Department of Health said on Saturday.

The department said the testing center only has a few requirements left to accomplish before it can begin accepting samples. Health Secretary Francisco Duque himself inspected the facility on Friday.

Almost complete at ready na po ang pasilidad. Kinakailangan na lang po ayusin ang ibang aspeto ng laboratoryo katulad ng proficiency tests ng mga technicians, said Health spokesperson Ma. Rosario Vergeire in the DOH daily online briefing.

[Translation: The facility is almost complete and ready. They only need to fix other aspects of the laboratory such as the proficiency tests of its technicians.]

Mayor Marcy Teodoro initially proposed in March to set up the testing center on the sixth floor of the City Health Office, but the DOH turned down its accreditation saying it did not pass space and biosafety guidelines. The mayor found a new location for the testing center four days later.

After another inspection on the new location on April 14, the laboratory was still not allowed to operate, with the DOH saying its laboratory personnel still needed to be trained.

Teodoro made known his keen sentiment on starting mass testing in the city and vowed to operate the laboratory with or without the nod of the health department. He said he was ready for any legal consequences.

Marikina Citys COVID-19 testing laboratory is capable of processing up to 400 samples daily.
BLOOMINGTON  Bob Stewart of Bloomington loves locally grown fruits and vegetables. When the coronavirus threat hit, among his first concerns was the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market.

I figured it would be canceled, he said.

But local vendors and city leaders vowed to not let that happen. On Saturday, the market's outdoor season opened with a new look, abiding by the shelter-in-place and social distancing orders put into place a month ago.

We really didnt have a lot of time to get something in place, said Melissa Hon, the city's economic development director. But some great people working together made it happen.

The market, in addition to its weekly summer schedule, features one indoor market per month from November through April at Grossinger Motors Arena. When the March market was canceled, vendors worried about how to get products to their customers and the effect on their businesses.

Immediately, preparation began for an online curbside pickup market, with 14 vendors participating in Saturday's program. Available products included vegetables, fruit, pork, beef, free-range poultry and eggs, flowers, plants, herbs, and more.

In the week prior to each market, customers need to pre-order at http://downtownbloomington.org/farmers-market/. Those wishing to pay onsite will be available to do so using credit, debit, or LINK. The order site went live April 8.

Just getting out of the house and doing anything feels good, said shopper Lynn Ziegler of Bloomington.

Curbside pick-up took place on Lee Street along the back of the arena. On Saturday, the market's Facebook page offered a live-streamed session from musician Emily Hope.

We are extremely pleased with the opportunity to continue to connect with our customers and provide them with local healthy food, said farmer and long-time vendor Katie Bishop of PrairiErth Farms of Atlanta. Our sales are up nearly 30% compared to the 2019 April farmers market, which is a testament to this community's love for their local farmers. This is a really big endeavor that the Bloomington farmers market leaders have chosen to take on and we applaud them for their hard work and vision.

Candice Hart, owner of Pollen & Pastry of Bloomington, said her sales doubled from last years April market and the curbside pickup means she's been able to keep an employee on full time.

The decision of the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market to go online and offer curbside pickup has been a total blessing for our company, Hart said. The community has really stepped up to support local businesses and we really appreciate the city for allowing the market to move forward with new and innovative methods of making a farmers market work during these times."

The idea is not necessarily new, Hon said.

We had looked at doing something like this and as resources became available, we were waiting for the right time to roll something like this out, she said. With everything going on with COVID-19, this just became a great time to do it. We think this will make for a better experience for our vendors and our customers.

The outdoor market will return in its original form when the shelter-in-place orders are lifted, Hon said.

Contact Kevin Barlow at (309) 820-3238. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_barlow

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A Dallas homeless shelter was evacuated on Friday after 38 residents tested positive for the coronavirus, another example of the pandemic sweeping through one of the nations most vulnerable populations.

City officials said 164 residents at the privately run shelter, Dallas Life, were taken by bus to a hotel on Friday, and would be isolated in individual rooms for two weeks while the shelter was cleaned. Nobody was hospitalized, according to the shelters director, Bob Sweeney.
Its a sweet 16-second scene, and I was glad that many of my neighbors found some joy in it, especially during this time when thats harder to come by. But my family has seen foxes in our yard before, including one I wrote about after its mysterious death, so I didnt give the sighting much thought or consider why I felt compelled to share a video with people I have never met on a site I rarely use.
Emory University will celebrate the accomplishments of the Class of 2020 next month with a series of Commencement experiences designed to unite graduates separated by a global pandemic in new and innovative ways.

At the same time, in response to student requests for an on-campus celebration, planning actively continues for a future in-person event  on a date still to be determined  that will invite graduates back to commemorate their achievements along with family, friends and the Emory community.

This years Commencement activities were reconfigured to comply with physical distancing requirements that emerged in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the cancellation of traditional on-campus ceremonies and related events.

Emorys 175th Commencement ceremonies will take place Monday, May 11, in an online format that blends some of the universitys most cherished traditions with digital experiences designed to celebrate graduates in new ways, including customized video content that tells the story of the Class of 2020 through the voices and personal reflections of students and faculty members.

We recognize the important symbolic and emotional role that Commencement plays in the lives of our students, their families and the larger university community. Despite the restrictions of a global pandemic, we were committed to finding a way to celebrate the Class of 2020 in ways that honor some of Emorys longstanding traditions while adapting to the limitations of social distancing, says Debby Morey, vice president of business operations at Emory, who led campus efforts to redesign the annual event.

Central to this years Commencement experience is the launch of the Y/our Moment website, which will feature online event coverage, including opening remarks and the official conferral of degrees by President Claire E. Sterk, presentation of select university honors and awards, and a special interactive keynote address by acclaimed social justice advocate and honorary degree recipient Bryan Stevenson, who  in a Commencement first  will also use his time to personally respond to student questions.

Beginning Monday, May 4, this new digital hub will also provide special Class of 2020 video content, messages and interactive activities designed to allow students, family, faculty and alumni to share congratulatory notes, memories, photos and video clips.

Leading up to May 11, students will also be able to watch video coverage of special award presentations and other student-generated content, including Baccalaureate reflections and performances. On Thursday, May 7, the site will feature a special online presentation by Comedy Central comedian and actor Ronny Chieng, the scheduled keynote speaker for Class Day, a longstanding undergraduate tradition. The presentation will include a recorded Zoom conversation that features Chieng answering student questions.

In addition, Emorys nine schools will recognize a wide range of individual student achievements; details about those events will be released by each school.

For graduating senior David Kulp, who was scheduled to present the Jewish benediction at Emorys traditional campus Commencement ceremony, moving to an online format represents one more adjustment within a semester that has required many abrupt changes.

Its not going to be your typical Commencement, acknowledges Kulp, an interdisciplinary studies major with post-graduate plans to attend the University of St. Andrews in Scotland as a 2020 Bobby Jones Scholar.

We dont know what the state of the world will look like a day from now, much less a month from now, he says. But the hope that there will be both an online and in-person celebration for graduating students in the future is something Im really grateful for.

Celebration shaped by student input

Although this isnt the only time in Emorys history that global events have interrupted Commencement exercises  during the Civil War, for example  it will be the first time the official conferral of degrees has been presented in an online platform.

The new format is intended to commemorate the academic journey of Emorys resilient graduates  and soon-to-be alumni  in ways both meaningful and inclusive, even as plans are being explored for an on-campus celebration to be held once restrictions on public gatherings are lifted.

Commencement recognizes years of dedication and hard work, challenges and sacrifices, and, most important, growth. For most students, the event represents a once-in-a-lifetime moment. For many families, it represents the fulfillment of the hopes and dreams of generations. Emory will honor the Class of 2020 and recognize the unique obstacles its members have overcome throughout the current semester, says Enku Gelaye, vice president and dean of Campus Life.

Revised plans for this years Commencement celebration emerged from the work of Emorys Commencement Committee Task Force, which spent weeks gathering input from students to create a celebration tailored to meet current physical distancing requirements.

Navigating those demands, along with being required to move home and complete studies through remote learning, creates unique challenges for the Class of 2020, acknowledges Pamela Scully, vice provost for undergraduate affairs, who served on the task force.

We are very aware that this has been a disruptive and challenging semester for all students, one with a particular emotional resonance for our seniors and even more so for our first-generation graduates and their families, says Scully, who sought input from the provosts Undergraduate Student Leadership Council, among other groups. We wanted to find ways to acknowledge the importance of bringing their era at Emory to a close.

Responding with creativity, resilience

In the end, the task force developed a hybrid approach  a plan that offers both online participation in a May 11 ceremony along with the option of attending a future, on-campus event.

Students have been at the center of all of the planning, acknowledges Michael Kloss, executive director of Advancement and Alumni Engagement events, who co-chaired the task force. They were so generous with their time in the midst of transitioning to remote learning, providing candid input about the loss that they felt around Commencement.

We knew that there are important aspects that could be celebrated now and creative ways to utilize technology to commemorate this auspicious moment of academic achievement for students until the time comes that they can again return to campus for those important hugs and cap-and-gown photos, Kloss says.

In an online survey conducted by Emory students, an overwhelming majority of current graduates supported providing an on-campus experience to celebrate Commencement in person, when possible. For others, who are transitioning to jobs, internships or advanced degrees, it was also important to find some way to commemorate the official conferral of degrees in May.

Its exciting that there will be an online platform, providing its accessible to everyone. For me, it doesnt replace that in-person moment  I look forward to that in the future, says Kulp, whos already recorded the Jewish benediction for Emorys Multifaith Baccalaureate Ceremony, which will be presented online.

For Emory College senior Ben Palmer, president of Emorys Student Government Association, graduation is more than just receiving a diploma and leaving. Its a long process of saying goodbye to the people and places who made you who you are, he says.

While Palmer appreciates efforts to design this years Commencement as a shared online experience, he also credits his peers for their ongoing resilience in adapting to unprecedented circumstances. Im just really proud of my class, the people Ive grown up with over the last four years. Ive always known they were exceptional. This is showing it in practice.
When pandemic restrictions are lifted, Phillip Adams aims to be back in his South Melbourne studio with colleagues, reviving a dance practice from a few years ago. It entails lying down, embracing and tumbling across the floor together. Its strictly a non-COVID-19 thing to do.

Adams has done this "rolling embrace" before, in front of an audience. In the development stage for his 2017 Melbourne Festival performance Ever, he and other dancers remained in this close embrace as they rolled over each other and around a room for spectators at the Abbotsford Convent. Some in the audience were moved to tears.

"The [practice] sessions would drop our bodies into a place of trust, this moment of release into the arms of an old lover, a lost friend, the comfort of intimacy," Adams says now. "The feeling of rolling as a group in this convent space was one of euphoria."

BalletLab's 2017 Melbourne Festival performance Ever included very un-COVID-19 embraces. Credit:Igor Spaina

To physically connect in such a way seems unimaginable right now, especially for a public performance. But Adams, artistic director of dance company BalletLab, is looking beyond the present crisis: "To merge in a super-intimate embrace. No talking, just rolling. It would be the most wonderful gift I could give back to the virus, as a retort. It goes well beyond emotion."
China's imported cases of coronavirus increased to 1,566 with 27 fresh ones, while its revised death toll stood at 4,632 with 50 per cent jump in fatality figures from the epicentre Wuhan, health officials said on Saturday.

The country's National Health Commission (NHC) announced the revised national figures of coronavirus, taking note of Wuhan's new data.

As per the new figures, the overall confirmed cases on the mainland reached 82,719 by Friday, including 4,632 deaths. As many as 1,058 patients are still being treated and 77,029 have been discharged from hospitals.

On Friday, Wuhan's officials announced that as of April 16, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases was raised by 325 to 50,333 and the number of fatalities up by 1,290 to 3,869.

No deaths due to COVID-19 were reported on Friday.

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

The latest revision of figures came amidst sharp criticism of China by the US, the UK and other countries for its alleged under-reporting of the coronavirus cases, lack of transparency and cover-up of the origin of the viral strain, which emerged in Wuhan in December last year, reportedly from the local Huanan sea food market.

The way COVID-19 cases were counted in China was changed in January and February, leading to widespread confusion over the extent of the health crisis in the world's most populous country.

But China denied that it had covered up the extent of its COVID-19 outbreak.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that the virus's rapid spread had contributed to under-counting that resulted in China raising its death toll earlier in the day. However, he emphasised that "there has never been any concealment, and we'll never allow any concealment."

On Saturday. the NHC said 27 new confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported of which 17 were imported.

The other 10 new cases were domestically transmitted.

This included seven new cases in Heilongjiang province, bordering Russia where cases went up following return of large number of Chinese nationals from various Russian cities and two in Guangdong province and one in Sichuan province.

No death was reported on the mainland, the NHC said.

As of Friday, the mainland has reported a total of 1,566 imported cases, it said.

Also 54 new asymptomatic cases, including three from abroad, were reported, taking their total to 1,017.

Asymptomatic cases refer to people who are tested positive for the coronavirus but develop no symptoms such as fever, cough or sore throat. They are infectious and pose a risk of spreading to others.

By Friday, 1,021 confirmed cases including four deaths had been reported in Hong Kong, 45 confirmed cases in Macao and 395 in Taiwan including six deaths.
The British-Iranian woman jailed in Iran on sedition charges must wait another day to hear whether her furlough from prison will be extended.

At the end of last month, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe said her temporary leave from prison in Iran had been extended to April 18.

Richard Ratcliffe said his wife's father had been told her temporary release from Evin prison in Tehran - granted in response to the Covid-19 pandemic - had been extended by two weeks but that was set to end today.

The family have since been left uncertain as to whether the furlough will be extended or not.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the Britsh-Iranian woman jailed in Iran, who has had her leave from prison extended by two weeks, according to her husband

Mr Ratcliffe has previously stated that his wife's file has been put forward to the Iranian Prosecutor General to be considered for clemency.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested at Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport while travelling to show her young daughter, Gabriella, to her parents in April 2016.

She was sentenced to five years in prison over allegations, which she denies, of plotting to overthrow the Tehran government.

She was later afforded diplomatic protection by the UK Government, which argues that she is innocent and that her treatment by Iran failed to meet obligations under international law.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her husband Richard Ratcliffe and their daughter Gabriella

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been living in relative isolation at her parents' house in Tehran while the country struggled to deal with the outbreak.

She has had to wear an ankle tag during the furlough, and can only go within a 300-metre range of her parents' home.

Responding to news that the British national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe will have to wait until tomorrow (19 April) for an update on whether her furlough is to be extended beyond this weekend, Kate Allen, Amnesty International UK's Director, said:

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her daughter Gabriella. The British-Iranian woman has been living in relative isolation at her parents' house in Tehran during her release from prison

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and inset, her husband, Richard Ratcliffe

'That Nazanin and her family must wait another day in limbo for a decision is deeply disappointing.

'There should be no question of her being sent back to Evin Prison - not in a few weeks' time, not ever.

'Nazanin is a prisoner of conscience, convicted after a deeply unfair trial, and she should never have been behind bars at all.

'It is time for Nazanin to come home. We're urging the Iranian authorities to do the right thing tomorrow and free Nazanin.'
Omjasvin MD By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government will be using the 36,000 rapid test kits that have arrived in the state to test people with influenza like illness (ILI) in hotspots, Health Secretary Beela Rajesh told The New Indian Express.

The distribution of the kits across the state has begun and district administrations will start testing on Saturday, said Rajesh.

She clarified that the rapid tests are more of a surveillance tool rather than an early diagnostic tool. After seven days of a person being infected with an ILI, this antibody test would indicate the patient's immunity. If someone turns out to be positive in this test, it means they have a strong immunity to fight the virus, she said.

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Rajesh added that the health departments of the civic bodies will be conducting the tests based on the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines.

It would be used in hotspots and if someone from a non-hotspot area comes with ILI, they too will be tested, she said, adding that RT-PCR testing would still be the primary mode of testing.

The ICMR had recommended the use of antibody rapid testing for COVID-19 in high containment zones on April 2.

ICMR guidelines say antibody tests should be done after seven days of illness, as it takes seven days for antibodies to develop after an infection.

Five lakh rapid kits arrived in India on Thursday and a second batch is awaited. Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary K Shanmugham had earlier said that the state has placed an advance order for four lakh rapid test kits.
A study published in the journal Archives de Pediatrie found that very preterm infants held skin-to-skin every day were less likely to acquire infections than those held every few days. In her own research, Dr. Vittner has found that skin-to-skin holding increases the levels of oxytocin in parents and babies saliva and reduces cortisol in babies saliva. The increased oxytocin, she said, also helps parents bond with their infants in what can be a very stressful environment.

Just be there.

Most babies have a small world at first, meeting a handful of close family and friends. But, because of NICU shift changes, a preterm infant may encounter up to six new people every day in his first few weeks. Thats why its so important to have parents partnering with us and have parents be the constant in that babys life, Dr. Vittner said. Maybe its a hand hug, maybe holding your hands around the baby as the nurse is doing her caregiving. You can also let your baby know youre there by talking to him, touching him as much as possible, changing his diaper, taking his temperature and helping with baths.

If you can be present for daily medical team rounds, be there. Its a great time to check in with your babys doctor, make observations about your childs progress and ask questions.

Trust your instincts and speak up.

Parents should consider themselves vital members of their preemies care team, Dr. Vittner said. She encouraged parents to ask lots of questions and get to know their babys temperament and cues so that they can advocate for the baby when needed. For example, she said, dont be afraid to turn down the lights in your NICU room or ask others to speak quietly if you feel your baby needs to relax. And dont be afraid to speak up. Many times, she said, when parents have a feeling that something is off, it turns out that they are right.

Provide breast milk.

Younger preemies, especially those born before 29 weeks, will likely have to be fed through a tube or an intravenous line at first. Very preterm infants dont have the sophisticated oral motor skills needed to breastfeed, and sucking can cost them a lot of energy, said Dr. Tsu-Hsin Howe, Ph.D, an occupational therapist at New York University. Sometimes its just not a realistic goal for small, fragile premature babies, she said.

But moms dont have to completely give up the idea of breastfeeding. In fact, its more important now than it ever was before, because now your baby needs the benefit of breast milk more than ever, Dr. Bell said. The difference is that it might have to be collected by pump and given by tube.

Breast milk reduces the chances of developing necrotizing enterocolitis, a gastrointestinal condition affecting as many as 10 percent of preterm infants, in which inflammation damages portions of the babys bowels.
The county committee chairwoman, who works for the Pittsburgh city controller, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. In a news conference after the Kass endorsement, Kelly said, There are no Trump supporters in the committee. She dismissed the Anesin photo, too. Well, you have to know this gentleman, she said. He was doing it out of fun.
19.04.2020 LISTEN

Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) on Thursday, April 16, 2020, handed over food items to the Subin Sub-Metro for distribution to support the vulnerable in the electoral areas that have been locked down due to coronavirus.

The items were made up of bags of rice and gari, boxes of tomato paste, boxes of frytol cooking oil, boxes of sardines, crates of eggs, and bags of beans.

The support was to ensure that vulnerable people in areas under the restriction of movement directive live in comfort.

The support was also to ensure that people were not too burdened by the closure of businesses and trade activities, which might have been their source of daily income before the issuance of the directive.

The Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), Hon. Osei Assibey Antwi, handed over the items to the ten assembly members in the sub-metro at the St. Cyprians Anglican Church at Bompata, in Kumasi.

Addressing the assembly members before the handing-over, Hon. Osei Assibey advised them to distribute the foods to the homes of the needy to comply with the social distancing protocol.

In order to observe social distancing while implementing the distribution of the items, I will urge you to send them to the homes of the needy to avoid overcrowding that promotes the spread of the coronavirus, he said.

Hon. Osei Assibey also commended the President for the intervention to prevent hardships to the people whose movements have been restricted due to the partial lockdown in some parts of the country.

The Presiding Member for the KMA, Hon. Stephen Ofori promised to adhere to the social distancing protocol and pleaded with the beneficiaries to stay at home while the distribution goes on.

Present at the handing over exercise were officials National Disaster and Management Organization(NADMO), Assembly Members, Unit Committee Members, and the clergy.

---OtecfmGhana.com || Francis Appiah
The Queen has asked that there be no gun salutes to mark her birthday on Tuesday for the first time during her 68-year reign amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The monarch, who is set to turn 94 while residing at Windsor Castle, has also said Government buildings will be exempt from flying flags if it creates a problem.

Elizabeth II said she did not feel gun salutes would be appropriate in the circumstances of the crisis, which has claimed more than 15,000 lives in Britain.

Gun salutes, in which blank rounds are fired across the UK, are typically used by the Royal Family to mark special occasions such as anniversaries and birthdays.

The Queen makes a TV address to the nation about coronavirus from Windsor Castle on April 5

The Honourable Artillery Company fire a 62-round gun salute from the wharf at the Tower of London on February 6 to mark the 68th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne

The idea of looking at an alternative Trooping the Colour event to mark her official birthday in June has also been dropped as the UK continues in lockdown.

A Buckingham Palace source said her birthday will not be marked in any special way, adding that any phone or video calls she has with family will be kept private.

The source said: 'There will be no gun salutes - Her Majesty was keen that no special measures were put in place to allow gun salutes as she did not feel it appropriate in the current circumstances.'

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has issued flag-flying protocol guidance which includes the following addition: 'In the current circumstances we are not expecting everyone to be able to follow this advice and you should continue to adhere to social distancing guidelines as set out by the Government.'

The King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery fire a 41 Gun Royal Salute to mark Queen Elizabeth II's 93rd birthday at Hyde Park in London on April 22, 2019

The 105 Regiment Royal Artillery fire a 21 Royal Gun Salute from the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle in honour of The Queen's 93rd birthday on April 22, 2019

The source said: 'As has already been announced, there will be no Trooping in June and there are no plans currently for any alternative marking of her official birthday.'

Over the Easter bank holiday weekend, the Queen stressed the importance of maintaining the lockdown, saying 'by keeping apart we keep others safe'.

With the outbreak making church services impossible, the Queen delivered what was believed to be her first Easter address, which had the resolute message: 'We know that coronavirus will not overcome us.'

The Queen will mark her birthday privately in Windsor, where she has been with her 98-year-old husband Prince Philip since leaving Buckingham Palace on March 19.

Members of the Kings Troop Royal Horse Artillery fire a 41-gun salute to mark the 92nd birthday of the Queen at Hyde Park on April 21, 2018

Gunners from 105th Regiment Royal Artillery fire a 21-gun royal salutes at Edinburgh Castle on April 21, 2014 at midday to mark the 88th birthday of the Queen

Her grandson Prince William said in an interview with the BBC yesterday that he was concerned for their health while they stay at the castle as a precaution.

In a joint interview with his wife Kate, the Duke of Cambridge said: 'Obviously I think very carefully about my grandparents - who are the age they're at, we're doing everything we can to make sure that they're isolated away and protected from this.'

Buckingham Palace previously said the parade to celebrate her official birthday would not go ahead in its traditional form amid restrictions on social gatherings.

The Queen's son Prince Charles caught coronavirus but has since recovered from a mild form of the illness following self-isolation at his Scottish residence of Birkhall.

The Queen and Prince Philip at Princess Eugenie's wedding at Windsor Castle in October 2018

In the Daily Mail today, Saturday diary editor Richard Eden reported how this will not be the first time the Queen has had to cancel her birthday celebrations.

One of her two surviving bridesmaids, Lady Pamela Hicks, who turns 91 on Sunday, revealed she also once called off a party because it clashed with Hitler's birthday.

Lady Pamela, daughter of the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, said: 'She was living with us when Prince Philip was serving in the Navy and we decided, as mine is the 19th and hers is the 21st, 'Why don't we have a joint birthday party and a dance?'

'Then we thought, 'To be fair, we'd better have it on the intervening day, on the 20th.' Unfortunately, when we looked further, that was Adolf Hitler's birthday, so we cancelled that date.'

On April 5, the Queen urged the country to pull together to fight coronavirus in a TV message, saying: 'If we remain united and resolute, then we will overcome it.'

Her historic  and emotional  intervention was only the fifth time she has addressed the nation in a TV broadcast, apart from at Christmas, during her reign.

Britain is at or near the peak of an outbreak of the virus in which 15,464 people have already died - the fifth highest national death toll of the global pandemic.

There have been 114,217 cases across Britain and the country will remain in lockdown until at least May 7, the Government announced on Thursday.
The Pioneer Woman star Ree Drummond loves to share slices of her life with her fans. Heres a rundown of five of the Food Network stars favorite things.

1. Ranch dressing

Ree Drummond | Tyler Essary/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Ree Drummond is a big fan of ranch dressing. In The Pioneer Woman magazine, she says she enjoys ranch partly because of where she lives. She says its hard not to fall in love with ranch dressing when you live in Oklahoma. Heres what she told a reader who asked what her favorite dressing is:

I live in Oklahoma, so I have to say ranch because its impossible to be here and not get brainwashed by ranch dressing. Oklahomans put it on everything! Ranch is like Cheetosits so wrong, its right. I use it like I imagine most people do, on salads, but my boys will put it on pizza and burgers not on hot dogs yet, but give them time! Ive made several variations on my cooking show; you can find the recipes at foodnetwork.com. (I also love a really herby vinaigrette!)

2. Basset hounds

Just one look at a basset hounds adorable face, and youll understand why Drummond loves these dogs so much. She often posts pictures of her pups on social media. Her book series and her ice cream shop are even named after her late basset hound Charlie.

In fall 2019 issue of The Pioneer Woman magazine, Drummond says shes fond of basset hounds because they remind her of her childhood. My first dog, when I was 3 years old, was a basset hound, wrote Drummond. And a basset hound was the first dog Ladd and I got as a married couple. Ive loved Basset hounds all my life! Their excess skin, floppy ears, droopy eyes and hilarious personalities keep me entertained and make my heart leap.

3. Eyeliner

Eyeliner is a favorite of Drummonds. She often jokes about wearing too much eyeliner. In one of her Instagram posts, Drummond says shes going to visit Ladd. In the photo, its clear she has a lot of eyeliner on, but she jokes she didnt wear enough. Heading to see Ladd at the pens, wrote Drummond. I dont think I have on enough eyeliner for this occasion.

4. Butter

Butter is a well-known favorite of Drummonds. She once told her blog readers she loves the creamy condiment because it brings her joy. My fridge is filled with not sticks of butter, but pounds, wrote Drummond. As an ingredient, I believe in butter. Butter is a church of which I am a member. If butter ran for president, I would vote for it. It adds color, flavor, beauty, and joy to absolutely everything I cook.

5. Ladd Drummond

Ree and Ladd Drummond | Monica Schipper/Getty Images for The Pioneer Woman Magazine

Ladd Drummond, also known as Marlboro Man, isnt a thing, but he sure is one of Drummonds favorites. She never misses an opportunity to talk about her husband and everything she loves about him. She even dedicated one of her Pioneer Woman shows to him.

The episode was appropriately titled 10 Things I Love About Ladd, which aired during season 22, episode 2. This episode focused on the things Drummond loves about her husband. She says some of the things she loves about him include his eyes, his laugh, his parenting, and his good looks.

Read more: The Pioneer Woman Ree Drummonds Macaroni and Cheese Recipes

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18)  Major liquor makers in the country appealed on Saturday for the government to lift the total ban on alcoholic beverages amid the COVID-19 quarantine.

In a letter addressed to Department of Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez, the Center for Alcohol Research and Development Foundation Inc. said the alcohol beverage industry now bears the negative impacts in their businesses and among their workers.

We plead that you take into consideration the plight of our workers and the benefit that our industry provides to our nations economy, said in the letter signed by the foundations president Gerardo Tan Tee of Absolut Distillers Inc.

The declining market demand in alcohol, aggravated by the imposition of sin taxes or higher excise taxes on these products, also worsened when some local government units imposed their own total liquor ban.

We are pleading to let us thrive as a business, by allowing our products to exist in the market, with the same freedom of trade given to other goods and products, the statement reads.

The cities of Manila, Mandaluyong, Quezon City, and Muntinlupa and La Union province are some of the LGUs in the country which imposed a total ban on alcoholic beverages during the ECQ.

READ: Manila City imposes liquor ban during Luzon quarantine

The liquor makers recognized the governments concern on preventing alcohol intoxication amid the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine, which seeks to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the country. But they maintained that people can drink in moderation.

"The state of intoxication however is caused only when alcohol consumption is considered abusive, that is, consumption of higher amount of alcohol than the normal. Alcohol consumption can be taken in moderation by responsible individuals of the society who are accustomed to drinking alcohol," the group said in the letter.

CARD suggested a partial ban on sale of alcoholic beverages, which imposes a particular time when alcoholic products can be sold.

We are a legitimate business enterprise and banning the existence of our products in the market will only proliferate the existence of bootleggers who would take advantage of the prohibition by selling alcohol of inferior quality and standards, or of illegal drugs in place of our alcoholic beverages, further endangering the lives and health of the public, the letter noted.

The alcohol industry has been slapped by hefty taxes in the past years, especially under President Rodrigo Dutertes tax reform programs.

Last January, Duterte signed Republic Act 11467, which raises the excise taxes on alcohol products.

Under the law, distilled spirits like brandy, gin, vodka, tequila, and whiskey would be charged a specific tax of 42 per proof liter, on top of a 22 percent tax representing excise and value-added taxes. The duty will rise to 47 per liter next year, 52 per liter in 2022, 59 per liter by 2023, and 66 pesos by 2024.

For beer and other fermented liquor, the specific tax will rise to 35 per liter this 2020, and will add 2 per liter each succeeding year until 2024.

By January 1, 2025, the specific tax for these drinks will increase by 6 percent per year. Meanwhile, the tax on wines will rise to 50 per liter effective this year, and would add 6 percent per year, starting 2021.
A Gorey man is spearheading several research projects designed to combat the threat of Covid-19.

Dr Mark White is the Vice President of Research, Innovation and Graduate Studies at Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) and is working closely with researchers to address the challenges presented by the virus.

One of the more innovative measures Dr White has been involved in has been the creation of specialist masks for staff at University Hospital Waterford (UHW).

'We've got a few large projects in operation at the moment,' said Dr White. 'And the researchers at the South East Applied Material Centre (SEAM) are involved in the most exciting project.

'They've used 3D printing technology to develop a sealed face-mask prototype for clinicians in UHW, the mask filters out bacteria and viruses. These guys are really advanced in what they do, they've worked with Boston Scientific, Abbot, Schivo Medical. The masks are currently being trialled by Schivo and we hope to have them in the hospital soon.'

Researchers at SEAM have also manufactured visors for staff in the National Ambulance Services (NAS), an item of PPE which is already being put to good use.

'They've created a perspex face protector for the NAS, it can be worn over the head, and it prevents coughs or bodily fluids from landing on a person.'

Made using 3D printers, the first delivery of these masks has been made to ambulance crews at UHW and they are now in use.

In addition to stopping the spread of the virus, Dr White and his teams are looking at ways to help those who have been infected.

'Our nutritional researchers at WIT are part of an international consortium which is looking into the nutritional requirements of elderly patients who are in the rehabilitation phase of COVID-19,' explained Dr White.

Having already given away its entire supply or the reagent required to test for Covid-19, Dr White and the researchers at The Department of Science and the Pharmaceutical and Molecular Biotechnology Research Centre (PMBRC) are now looking into new methods to increase the speed of testing for the virus.

Furthermore, a research proposal submitted to Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) could see researchers at WIT create a phone app which outlines the user's 'immunological passport'.

'We want to produce an app like the one in China which provides a immunity passport,' Dr White explained. 'This app enables others to see whether you've had the virus or not and is used when entering restaurants or other public spaces. We believe we could create that app within a year.'

And with a background in nursing, Dr White is fully aware of the sacrifices being made by those on the frontline right now.

'It's really, really difficult for the nurses right now, these people are afraid to bring Covid home to their families, it's a living nightmare. I've been involved in healthcare for more than 30 years and I haven't seen anything like this.

'But I'm optimistic that the protocols being put in place will work. There's only two ways to overcome this: either keep self-isolating until a vaccine comes out, or get the virus and become immune.'

'I think our government has done extremely well, they've helped flatten the curve. UHW and Wexford General Hospital are not currently under the kind of pressure we thought they would be, which is an indication of our success and that we're doing the right things.'
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.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 12:25:15|Editor: huaxia

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by Tichaona Chifamba, Zhang Yuliang

HARARE, April 18 (Xinhua) -- China and Zimbabwe celebrate 40 years of diplomatic relations on Saturday, the same day that the southern-African country commemorates its 40 years of independence.

China became the first country to open a diplomatic mission in the newly independent state in 1980, and the relations between China and Zimbabwe were upgraded from all-weather friends to a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2018.

The 40 years have seen both countries standing together not only on the political front, but also in other fields.

"China and Zimbabwe are good friends, good brothers and good partners. The two countries always stand together firmly when facing challenges," Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe Guo Shaochun said in a recent interview.

In the face of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, China has provided assistance to the African country and mobilized the Chinese community there to help rehabilitate the country's quarantine and treatment facility.

Wilkins Hospital in the capital Harare has been modernized and with assistance from Zimbabwean companies, individuals and the local Chinese community, it can now accommodate 60 COVID-19 patients and has 10 intensive care unit beds, which can handle most of the country's COVID-19 cases.

"We are now happy that we have proper ICU beds and proper state-of-the-art ventilators ... we can save more lives now," said Health Director of Harare City Council Prosper Chonzi.

In the past two decades, China and Zimbabwe have enhanced cooperated under such frameworks including the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation, and engaged in projects on a win-win basis.

China has cooperated with Zimbabwe in infrastructural projects in various sectors of the Zimbabwean economy, which have advanced the wellbeing of Zimbabweans.

An upgrade project at Kariba South Hydro Power Station was completed in 2018. The expansion of Hwange Thermal Power Station will add nearly 700 megawatts into the national power grid by 2022.

Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport, the country's biggest airport, has been upgraded and will boost its annual passenger handling capacity to 6 million from the current 2.5 million. The upgrading of Victoria Falls International Airport in 2016 with China's help has increased the airport's annual passenger handling capacity to 1.5 million from 500,000.

"The ongoing work at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport is also testimony to win-win cooperation and good relations between our two sister countries," Zimbabwean Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Development Joel Biggie Matiza said at a bilateral training seminar on aviation held in Harare recently.

Moreover, China has built schools in some communities and has always been ready to help drought and flood victims throughout the country by providing food and other technical support.

The upgrading of China-Zimbabwe Friendship Hospital in Mahusekwa, Marondera District, has become one of the best symbols of China-Zimbabwe friendship and cooperation. The 129-bed facility, which started receiving patients in 2013, is now being expanded to offer more services to patients, including specialist referrals.

Since Zimbabwe joined the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by China in 2013, the African country has benefited from the opening up of participating economies and the creation of trade links and networks with the rest of the world.

Pro-Vice-Chancellor of University of Zimbabwe Pedzisai Mashiri said that the BRI has provided equal and inclusive opportunities for Africa and Zimbabwe.

"The BRI is not simply a policy but it's a policy based on very solid principles of international cooperation and some of the principles are those of equality, transparency and universal recognition of international market norms and values," Mashiri said. Enditem
Many doctors across the United States have closed their offices amid stay-at-home orders to protect patients and staff from infection and have turned to telemedicine to offer treatment. A physician in New York City explains that telemedicine is useful for patients to stay in contact with their doctor and to reassure people who are concerned they may have the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

Most of the work we do on telemedicine is reassure people that they are okay, that they will be ok. Also, because of the confinement, its very important that we are all in touch with family, friends, colleagues, and your doctor, Dr. Albert Levy told NTD.

Levy says most people who get the virusand are not in high-risk groups, such as the elderly and those with underlying health conditionswill be okay, with only about 20 percent of victims needing to go to the hospital.

Levy does about a dozen video-conferences every day with his patients and most of them are concerned they have the virus, and some without good reason.

Ninety-nine percentthe majority of patients, if they have something like a problem in their small index finger, they think its corona, he said.

The CCP virus is taking a toll on him as he has had to lay off some employees and needs to de-stress from absorbing many of his patients problems on a daily basis.

People think that we as doctors or police or nurse or whatever, that we are superhumans, said Levy. Were not. We have the same feelings as everyone, we suffer the same way. Were isolated the same way. I cant go out the same way. When I go out I have to put [on] the maskits difficult.

Levy said its difficult to handle the volume of issues his patients talk about every day and that it adds up. He is constantly trying to make others feel good and be reassured, and he said he would like some reassurance, too.

Furthermore, the pandemic has caused him to feel rejected when he was turned down as a volunteer to help in hospitals because of his age. At the end of March, the state of New York reached out to medical professionals to help staff hospitals during the pandemic.

They said, No, no, you will be a liability. I understand, but I felt rejected, he said. Im a high risk to go to hospitals. So I cannot help that way, I just can help with telemedicine.

His office remains open virtually, with his receptionist taking calls during business hours and with Levy and his nurse practitioner available for emergency calls as well. As soon as the crisis is over, Levy plans to re-hire his employees that he had to lay off.

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A coalition of EU scientists and technologists that's developing what's billed as a "privacy-preserving" standard for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking, as a proxy for COVID-19 infection risk, wants Apple and Google to make changes to an API they're developing for the same overarching purpose.

The Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) uncloaked on April 1, calling for developers of contact tracing apps to get behind a standardized approach to processing smartphone users' data to coordinate digital interventions across borders and shrink the risk of overly intrusive location-tracking tools gaining momentum as a result of the pandemic.

PEPP-PT said today it has seven governments signed up to apply its approach to national apps, with a claimed pipeline of a further 40 in discussions about joining. (Update: Although at least two of the confirmed governments backers have specified they want a decentralized implementation, including Switzerland and Spain.)

"We now have a lot of governments interacting," said PEPP-PT's Hans-Christian Boos, speaking during a webinar for journalists. "Some governments are publicly declaring that their local applications will be built on top of the principles of PEPP-PT and also the various protocols supplied inside this initiative.

"We know of seven countries that have already committed to do this -- and we're currently in conversation with 40 countries that are in various states of onboarding."

Boos said a list of the governments would be shared with journalists, though at the time of writing we haven't seen it. But we've asked PEPP-PT's PR firm for the info and will update this report when we get it.

"The pan-European approach has worked," he added. "Governments have decided at a speed previously unknown. But with 40 more countries in the queue of onboarding we definitely have outgrown just the European focus -- and to us this shows that privacy as a model and as a discussion point... is a statement and it is something that we can export because we're credible on it."

Story continues

Paolo de Rosa, the CTO at the Ministry of Innovation Technology and Digital Transformation for the Italian government, was also on the webinar -- and confirmed its national app will be built on top of PEPP-PT.

"We will have an app soon and obviously it will be based on this model," he said, offering no further details.

PEPP-PT's core "privacy-preserving" claim rests on the use of system architectures that do not require location data to be collected. Rather devices that come near each other would share pseudonymized IDs -- which could later be used to send notifications to an individual if the system calculates an infection risk has occurred. An infected individual's contacts would be uploaded at the point of diagnosis -- allowing notifications to be sent to other devices with which had come into contact.

Boos, a spokesman for and coordinator of PEPP-PT, told TechCrunch earlier this month the project will support both centralized and decentralized approaches. The former meaning IDs are uploaded to a trusted server, such as one controlled by a health authority; the latter meaning IDs are held locally on devices, where the infection risk is also calculated -- a backend server is only in the loop to relay info to devices.

It's just such a decentralized contacts tracing system that Apple and Google are collaborating on supporting -- fast-following PEPP-PT last week by announcing a plan for cross-platform COVID-19 contacts tracing via a forthcoming API and then a system-wide (opt-in) for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking.

That intervention, by the only two smartphone platforms that matter when the ambition is mainstream adoption, is a major development -- putting momentum behind decentralized contacts tracing for responding digitally to the coronavirus crisis in the Western world, certainly at the platform level.

In a resolution passed today the European parliament also called for a decentralized approach to COVID-19 proximity tracking.

MEPs are pushing for the Commission and Member States to be "fully transparent on the functioning of contact tracing apps, so that people can verify both the underlying protocol for security and privacy and check the code itself to see whether the application functions as the authorities are claiming." (The Commission has previously signaled a preference for decentralization too.)

However, backers of PEPP-PT, which include at least seven governments (and the claim of many more), aren't giving up on the option of a "privacy-preserving" centralized option -- which some in their camp are dubbing "pseudo-decentralized" -- with Boos claiming today that discussions are ongoing with Apple and Google about making changes to their approach.

As it stands, contacts tracing apps that don't use a decentralized infrastructure won't be able to carry out Bluetooth tracking in the background on Android or iOS -- as the platforms limit how general apps can access Bluetooth. This means users of such apps would have to have the app open and active all the time for proximity tracking to function, with associated (negative) impacts on battery life and device usability.

There are also (intentional) restrictions on how contacts tracing data could be centralized, as a result of the relay server model being deployed in the joint Apple-Google model.

"We very much appreciate that Google and Apple are stepping up to making the operating system layer available -- or putting what should be the OS actually there, which is the Bluetooth measurement and the handling of crypto and the background running of such tasks which have to keep running resiliently all the time -- if you look at their protocols and if you look at whom they are provided by, the two dominant players in the mobile ecosystem, then I think that from a government perspective especially, or from lots of government perspectives, there are many open points to discuss," said Boos today.

"From a PEPP-PT perspective there are a few points to discuss because we want choice and implementing choice in terms of model -- decentralized or centralized on top of their protocol creates actually the worst of both worlds -- so there are many points to discuss. But contrary to the behavior that many of us who work with tech companies are used to Google and Apple are very open in these discussions and there's no point in getting up in arms yet because these discussions are ongoing and it looks like agreement can be reached with them."

It wasn't clear what specific changes PEPP-PT wants from Apple and Google -- we asked for more detail during the webinar but didn't get a response. But the group and its government backers may be hoping to dilute the tech giants' stance to make it easier to create centralized graphs of Bluetooth contacts to feed national coronavirus responses.

As it stands, Apple and Google's API is designed to block contact matching on a server -- though there might still be ways for governments (and others) to partially work around the restrictions and centralize some data.

We reached out to Apple and Google with questions about the claimed discussions with PEPP-PT. At the time of writing, neither had responded.

As well as Italy, the German and French governments are among those that have indicated they're backing PEPP-PT for national apps -- which suggests powerful EU Member States could be squaring up for a fight with the tech giants, along the lines of Apple versus the FBI, if pressure to tweak the API fails.

Another key strand to this story is that PEPP-PT continues to face strident criticism from privacy and security experts in its own backyard -- including after it removed a reference to a decentralized protocol for COVID-19 contacts tracing that's being developed by another European coalition, comprised of privacy and security experts, called DP-3T.

Coindesk reported on the silent edit to PEPP-PT's website yesterday.

Backers of DP-3T have also repeatedly queried why PEPP-PT hasn't published code or protocols for review to-date -- and even gone so far as to dub the effort a "trojan horse."

#DP3T entered as a candidate to so-called PEPP-PT in good faith, but it is now clear that powerful actors pushing centralised databases of Bluetooth contact tracing do not, and will not, act in good faith. PEPP-PT is a Trojan horse.  Michael Veale (@mikarv) April 16, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

ETH Zurich's Dr. Kenneth Paterson, who is both a part of the PEPP-PT effort and a designer of DP-3T, couldn't shed any light on the exact changes the coalition is hoping to extract from "Gapple" when we asked.

"Theyve still not said exactly how their system would work, so I cant say what they would need [in terms of changes to Apple and Google's system]," he told us in an email exchange.

Today Boos couched the removal of the reference to DP-3T on PEPP-PT's website as a mistake -- which he blamed on "bad communication." He also claimed the coalition is still interested in including the former's decentralized protocol within its bundle of standardized technologies. So the already sometimes fuzzy lines between the camps continue to be redrawn. (It's also interesting to note that press emails to Boos are now being triaged by Hering Schuppener, a communications firm that sells publicity services, including crisis PR.)

"We're really sorry for that," Boos said of the DP-3T excision. "Actually we just wanted to put the various options on the same level that are out there. There are still all these options and we very much appreciate the work that colleagues and others are doing.

"You know there is a hot discussion in the crypto community about this and we actually encourage this discussion because it's always good to improve on protocols. What we must not lose sight of is... that we're not talking about crypto here, we're talking about pandemic management and as long as an underlying transport layer can ensure privacy that's good enough because governments can choose whatever they want."

Boos also said PEPP-PT would finally be publishing some technical documents this afternoon -- opting to release information some three weeks after its public unveiling and on a Friday evening (a seven-page 'high level overview' has since been put on their GitHub here [this link has since been deleted - Ed.] -- but still a far cry from code for review) -- while making a simultaneous plea for journalists to focus on the "bigger picture" of fighting the coronavirus rather than keep obsessing over technical details.

During today's webinar some of the scientists backing PEPP-PT talked about how they're testing the efficacy of Bluetooth as a proxy for tracking infection risk.

"The algorithm that we've been working on looks at the cumulative amount of time that individuals spend in proximity with each other," said Christophe Fraser, professor at the Nuffield Department of Medicine and Senior Group Leader in Pathogen Dynamics at the Big Data Institute, University of Oxford, offering a general primer on using Bluetooth proximity data for tracking viral transmission.

"The aim is to predict the probability of transmission from the phone proximity data. So the ideal system reduces the requested quarantine to those who are the most at risk of being infected and doesn't give the notification -- even though some proximity event was recorded -- to those people who're not at risk of being infected."

"Obviously that's going to be an imperfect process," he went on. "But the key point is that in this innovative approach that we should be able to audit the extent to which that information and those notifications are correct -- so we need to actually be seeing, of the people who have been sent the notification how many of them actually were infected. And of those people who were identified as contacts, how many weren't.

"Auditing can be done in many different ways for each system but that step is crucial."

Evaluating the effectiveness of the digital interventions will be vital, per Fraser -- whose presentation could have been interpreted as making a case for public health authorities to have fuller access to contacts graphs. But it's important to note that DP-3T's decentralized protocol makes clear provision for app users to opt-in to voluntarily share data with epidemiologists and research groups to enable them to reconstruct the interaction graph among infected and at risk users (aka to get access to a proximity graph).

"It's really important that if you're going to do an intervention that is going to affect millions of people -- in terms of these requests to [quarantine] -- that that information be the best possible science or the best possible representation of the evidence at the point at which you give the notification," added Fraser. "And therefore as we progress forwards that evidence -- our understanding of the transmission of the virus -- is going to improve. And in fact auditing of the app can allow that to improve, and therefore it seems essential that that information be fed back."

None of the PEPP-PT-aligned apps that are currently being used for testing or reference are interfacing with national health authority systems, per Boos -- though he cited a test in Italy that's been plugged into a company's health system to run tests.

"We have supplied the application builders with the backend, we have supplied them with sample code, we have supplied them with protocols, we have supplied them with the science of measurement, and so on and so forth. We have a working application that simply has no integration into a country's health system -- on Android and on iOS," he noted.

On its website PEPP-PT lists a number of corporate "members" as backing the effort -- including the likes of Vodafone -- alongside several research institutions including Germanys Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute for telecoms (HHI) which has been reported as leading the effort.

The HHI's executive director, Thomas Wiegand, was also on today's call. Notably, his name initially appeared on the authorship list for the DP-3T's white paper. However, on April 10 he was removed from the README and authorship list, per its GitHub document history. No explanation for the change was given.

During today's press conference Wiegand made an intervention that seems unlikely to endear him to the wider crypto and digital rights community -- describing the debate around which cryptography system to use for COVID-19 contacts tracing as a 'side show' and expressing concern that what he called Europe's "open public discussion" might "destroy our ability to get ourselves as Europeans out of this."

"I just wanted to make everyone aware of the difficulty of this problem," he also said. "Cryptography is only one of 12 building blocks in the system. So I really would like to have everybody go back and reconsider what problem we are in here. We have to win against this virus... or we have another lockdown or we have a lot of big problems. I would like to have everybody to consider that and to think about it because we have a chance if we get our act together and really win against the virus."

The press conference had an even more inauspicious start after the Zoom call was disrupted by racist spam in the chat field. Right before that Boos had kicked off the call saying he had heard from "some more technically savvy people that we should not be using Zoom because it's insecure -- and for an initiative that wants security and privacy it's the wrong tool."

"Unfortunately we found out that many of our international colleagues only had this on their corporate PCs so over time either Zoom has to improve -- or we need to get better installations out there. It's certainly not our intention to leak the data on this Zoom," he added.
L.A. COVID-19 Update on testing; Now Accessible for Vast Majority. Over 11,000 tests available per day.

Friday, April 17. The Emergency Operations Center announced a partnership with Airbnb, this private factor has partnered with L.A. county to service frontline workers. The Director of Public Health provided an update behind the statistics surrounding the coronavirus. Medical Director, Clayton Kazan shared news around the progress on testing.

Assessing COVID-19 among the nation is of high priority, testing holds the key to the pathway to recovery. Kazan explained the significance in the testing protocols and the new COVID-19 testing locations that will be coming online. The more that is known about the virus, the closer the nation is to flattening the curve.

The city of Los Angeles partnered with Airbnb to supply 1,000 free housing facilities for people working on the frontlines. LA County workers and first responders will be able to stay at no charge; they will be able to work close to their patients and be at a safe distance from their families. This is an example of the power between public and private sectors working together.

Barbara Ferrer, Director of Public Health shared the latest updates on the COVID-19 Virus. Ferrer shared Friday, April 17. there were 40 additional deaths, 28 of these individuals were between the ages of 65 and over, 19 of them with underlining health conditions. This brings the total COVID-19 related deaths in the L.A. County to 495. Barbara disclosed as of April 17. There are 567 new COVID-19 reports. In summary, there is a total amount of 11,391 coronavirus cases in the Los Angeles region.

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In the last 48 hours, there have been 966 new positive coronavirus reports. These numbers reflect 406 positive cases in Long Beach and 198 COVID-19 reports coming from Pasadena. Approximately 26% of those infected with COVID-19 are hospitalized at some point. 87% of positive cases that died, had underlining health conditions. Data is reflecting 4.3% of carriers of the coronavirus have died, which is higher than the general mortality rate for influenza related deaths in the United States.

The ethnicity correlation with coronavirus death rates was also disclosed; 16% were African American, 18% were Asian, 34% were Latin, 29% were white, and 3% identified who passed away, were from a different ethnicity. The disproportionate death rate within the African American community was acknowledged. The Public Health Services are working with community partners to address issues related to access to testing and providing accurate information around COVID-19. This includes more accessibility to testing and accurate and updated information available immediately.

Medical Director of L.A. County Fire Department, Clayton Kazan disclosed news around the progress on coronavirus testing. Kazan has been on the assignment to scale up COVID-19 test accessibility since March 18. At the time, there were very limited access to testing, and results had to be processed out of state. Doctors couldnt order the tests, making it difficult for patients to get access to the needed assessment.

Under Clayton Kazans guidance, within the following weeks a coalition was built between the L.A. Unified Coordination Group, Los Angeles public officials, local political board offices, and the Fire Department Incident Management team, along with healthcare stake holders across the L.A. region. With this team in a months time, 30 mobile testing sites became available with the capacity of 11,000 tests being issued per day; majority of assessments are processed in the Los Angeles region. Turnaround time is still in progression, but testing is now available to the vast majority. The collaboration will be transferred over to the Los Angeles Public Health Department, now that a solid system is in place.
The 25-year-old was confronted by the home owner as attempted to gain entry to his garage (PA)

A man allegedly attacked a home owner as he tried to get into what he drunkenly thought was his friends house, a court has heard.

Kelvin James Kane may also face a charge of breaching coronavirus restrictions over the the drunken episode.

The 25-year-old was confronted by the home owner on Thursday as attempted to gain entry to his garage.

Belfast Magistrates Court was told on Saturday the man was in bed when he heard the back door of his house and garage trying to be opened.

He went down and restrained Kane until the police arrived after which he was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and criminal damage.

A possible additional charge of breaching lockdown restrictions is being considered by the Public Prosecution Service.

Kane (25), a groundsman, has been living rough on the streets, according to his lawyer.

He told the court Kane was disorientated at the time and thought he was at his friends house and started flailing his arms when the man went to restrain him.

Asking for Kane to be released on bail, his solicitor told the court it had been a rude awakening for him and he knows he cant carry on like this now the Covid-19 restrictions are in place.

District Judge Mark McGarrity refused to release Kane, of Cliftonville Court in north Belfast, citing a risk of further reoffending.

He is due to appear again via videolink on May 11.
Lego Masters Australia returns for its second season tonight with returning host, Hamish Blake, and the judge, Ryan Brickman McNaught.

Eight teams of pairs will compete in different challenges and face elimination as they compete for the $100,000 prize.

Season stats:

1,320,000 more bricks were added to the Brick Pit.

Plus an additional 1,000 unique new parts.

Each team in the Grand Final will have spent 147 hours building Lego throughout the series.

20 different cameras film the competition.

60 people make up the show.

The show is filmed over 107 days.

Andrew (49) and Damian (43)

Queensland

For best friends and Lego lovers Andrew and Damian, Lego Masters could not have been a more fitting competition to take part in  theyre two big kids who are absolutely in it to win it, and they plan on being extremely strategic with their builds.

Andrew and Damian are a team to watch, as they are sure to come up with an intricate and complicated game plan when it comes to their masterpieces, discussing every little detail before embarking on their creations. They love being able to put their creative minds together to design new builds.

Although he can find multi-tasking difficult, Damian is determined to be working to the best of his ability, taking advantage of his eye for detail and desire to have a job well done. A lifelong Lego builder, Damians earliest memories revolve around what has become a lot more than just a hobby. The bricks have been his favourite toy since he was six years old, and he remembers some of his treasured sets including a mechanics workshop, a snack bar and a roadworks digger.

For Andrew, Lego has always been a huge part of his life, a source of happiness he can share with his family: his wife and five children, who were all adopted from Taiwan and are now Australian citizens. Andrew, a music teacher, began building as an adult after his piano teacher encouraged him to take up a hobby which would help him to focus when composing his own music.

Annie (30) and Runa (29)

Victoria

These two Lego-loving friends could not be more different, yet they have more in common than first meets the eye.

Runas first interaction with Lego came in 2016 when she attended Brickvention with her younger brother, and shes been hooked ever since. Annie, on the other hand, was struck down with a rare brain infection at 15, and during her long recovery she turned to Lego as her rehab.

No stranger to complicated health problems herself, Swedish-born Runa had to undergo brain surgery, and she says Lego building helped to retrain her brain. Runa believes that the creative challenge of Lego gave her a chance to practise her fine motor skills and recover.

Self-described spooky Annie is a fanatic. Lego makes her feel calm and creative in her crazy life of being a mother to two young children. After being diagnosed with her brain infection, which led to being told that she wouldnt make it to her 18th birthday, Annie now says she is living her best life, as 10 years after the diagnosis she is married to her best friend, sharing her health story, playing with Lego, and raising two perfectly healthy humans.

Jackson (29) and Alex (29)

Western Australia

Jackson and Alex have been best friends since high school.

They both fell in love with Lego at a young age and have managed to use their favourite hobby to influence their careers. Jackson is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and Alex is an environmental engineer.

Jackson has lived, worked and travelled around the world, including the United States, South-East Asia, India and Japan. A true artist, he seeks creative inspiration everywhere he looks. Finding comfort in Lego building, Jackson often lets the Lego take control, allowing it to give him a sense of relaxation. He says: When I have a great idea and all the pieces on hand I can get into a very relaxed, meditative state of flow when building.

A fellow creative, Alex too allows Lego to transport him to a relaxed place, believing that the build itself is a hugely rewarding process as it plays to his strengths. A problem solver and creative thinker, Lego is his perfect pastime.

Jay (42) and Stani (41)

New South Wales

Jay and Stani have shared a passion for Lego since they were seven and now work as a team to expand their collections.

Jay digs anything that incorporates moving parts or technic. He loves to get stuck into the details of the build, while Stani is definitely the bigger picture guy, with the ability to foresee how a build will turn out.

Jay is obsessed with all things Lego, and as an illustrator by trade he relishes the ability to be able to create something purely out of his own imagination. This confident and chatty father likes to be challenged in a build and performs best when pushed out of his comfort zone to think on his feet and use his technical mind. That makes him the perfect foil for Stani.

Stani takes Lego to the limit, and as a builder and collector has an entire Lego world (complete with airport and bridge) taking up his two-car garage. A perfectionist, he never considers a build complete until every minute detail has been perfected. Stani and Jay complement each others skills perfectly, as Stani says that Jay helps to balance my perfectionist side while were building.

Jennifer (31) and Jodie (38)

Queensland/South Australia

Jennifer and Jodie plan on combining their skills to make Lego sculptures unlike anything ever seen. They will be creating builds that showcase their love of playing with textures and using different bricks in weird and wonderful ways.

Jennifer is a researcher and program coordinator whose love of Lego is supplemented by creative activities such as knitting and other crafts. She appreciates the way Lego sparks a childlike enthusiasm in people, creates wonder and encourages creativity. She describes her strengths as being intuitive, playful, and awesome at problem solving.

Stay-at-home mum by day and Lego Batman by night, Jodie is a member of Southern Bricks in South Australia. She is such an expert that she was recently on the committee for  and displayed one of her builds at  Brixpo, her Lego User Group sold-out event, where she dressed up as Lego Batman to excite all the children in attendance.

Summer (19) and Iona (18)

South Australia

Despite their different dispositions, the aptly named Summer a sunny extrovert and Iona a deep-thinking introvert, these two have been best friends their whole lives.

They have extensive experience in building Lego as both competed in the First Lego League, making robots. Summer competed nationally, while Iona reached an international level.

Although super-extroverted, Summer is the logical and level-headed one. Shes studying engineering at university and says that being in a male-dominated field empowers her. Her favourite build is the Mindstorm robots she created and went on to use in robotics competitions.

Iona is the one more likely to be indulging in creative activities. She loves Lego because it makes her feel calm in an otherwise hectic life, and says she knew Lego Masters was the perfect competition because of all the time she spent at school letting her imagination run free.

Tim (25) and Dannii (26)

Victoria

High school sweethearts Tim and Dannii met when they were 12 and have been by each others side ever since. Though polar opposites they are a perfect team, regardless of the fact that they often question why that really is so.

For furniture salesman Tim, Lego was a crucial aspect in his recovery after being diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2014. It motivated and inspired him to get better, set goals and undertake tasks he wouldnt usually commit to.

This young couple are now parents of two, which is perfect for Tim, who Dannii describes as Peter-Man like Peter-Pan, but hes had to grow up. Tim is a big kid with an overactive imagination. When hes not playing with Lego, hes into role playing games (RPGs) on various video consoles.

Straight-shooter Dannii is taking part in the experience of a lifetime with Lego Masters to support her husband. Shes bringing her superb problem-solving skills to the contest to give them a competitive edge. When she isnt busy building unusual creations like a life-sized axolotl or a handheld music box complete with spinning dancer, Dannii does pole fitness and realism art to pass the time.

Trent (38) and Josh (27)

South Australia

Big kid Trent and primary school chaplain Josh are an unlikely duo sure to build some out-of-this-world creations.

These fanatics were lovers of Lego before it was cool, and with Trents feel for the 80s and Joshs love of fantasy, their talent will certainly make for some intricate and complex builds.

Though he is an accountant by trade, Trent loves to create builds that are big and bright with fun characters. He says of his sets, the more hilarious the better! If he could have any job in the world, Trent would be a professional Lego designer, the curator of a toy museum, or a TV host discussing the latest in the toy and pop culture worlds. In fact, he has a whole room at home dedicated to housing his vast toy collection.

Josh, from Adelaide, is a school chaplain and childrens ministry worker who spends a lot of time with kids. He gets a kick out of seeing his hard work coming to fruition, especially when it involves problem-solving skills to build something special. (He also has the secret skill of representing South Australia in netball, competing in tournaments all around Australia.)

Sunday  Tuesday on Nine.
The United States Air Force has stopped its uninterrupted rotation of bombers in Guam, ending a more than 15-year presence in the area.

Five B-52H Stratofortresses left the Andersen Air Force Base on Wednesday, just days after the aircrafts participated in a military might 'elephant walk' exercise aimed at China.

The planes' flights were first reported by @AircraftSpots.

No replacement aircraft was seen, bringing an end to the Continuous Bomber Presence Mission, the War Zone reports. The program started in 2004.

Five B-52H Stratofortresses left the Andersen Air Force Base on Wednesday, just days after the aircrafts participated in a military might 'elephant walk' exercise aimed at China

The planes' flights were first reported by @AircraftSpots. No replacement aircraft was seen, bringing an end to the Continuous Bomber Presence Mission

'In line with the National Defense Strategy, the United States has transitioned to an approach that enables strategic bombers to operate forward in the Indo-Pacific region from a broader array of overseas locations, when required, and with greater operational resilience, while these bombers are permanently based in the United States,' U.S. Air Force Major Kate Atanasoff, a U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) spokesperson, said in a statement.

'U.S. strategic bombers will continue to operate in the Indo-Pacific, to include Guam, at the timing and tempo of our choosing.'

Under the Continuous Bomber Presence Mission, the Air Force deployed B-52s, b-1B Bone supersonic bombers and B-2A Spirit stealth bombers for six-month stints to Andersen.

The program ensured that at least one task force of long-range heavy bombers would be ready to respond to potential issues in the Pacific Region.

On Monday, the Andersen Air Force Base, which is about 1,800 miles east of China, flexed its military strength with an elephant walk of at least a dozen aircraft from the US Navy and Air Force

Earlier this month, the Air Force had indicated that it wanted to implement shorter duration bomber deployments to Guam.

The U.S. military has also been implementing the Dynamic Force Employment operations, which aims to make major deployments less predictable.

By making them less predictable, potential opponents - like China and Russia - would feel on edge.

The Air Force has been experimenting with sending bombers to new or less common deployment locations in the Pacific and in Europe.

There are still very serious problems that could erupt in the region, as seen in the need for the military to perform an 'elephant walk' of bombers on the base.

On Monday, the Andersen Air Force Base, which is about 1,800 miles east of China, flexed its military strength with at least a dozen aircraft from the US Navy and Air Force.

A U.S. Navy MH-60S Knighthawk, U.S. Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk, Navy MQ-4C Triton, Air Force B-52 Stratofortresses, and KC-135 Stratotankers stationed at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, perform an 'Elephant Walk' April 13, 2020

The elephant walk came just days after China sent its aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, and fighter jets close to Taiwan (depicted above)

An elephant walk is a procession of military aircraft taxiing close in formation right before a minimum interval takeoff.

According to The Aviationist, the procession included a Navy MH-60S Knighthawk, Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk, five Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers and six KC-135 Stratotankers.

The elephant walk came just days after China sent an aircraft carrier and fighter jets close to Taiwan.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry said the Liaoning, China's first operational aircraft carrier, and five accompanying warships passed first through the Miyako Strait, located between Japan's islands of Miyako and Okinawa, to the northeast of Taiwan, on Saturday.

U.S. Navy Air Crewman 2nd Class Zach Morrissey, assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25, prepares to travel over Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, during an 'Elephant Walk'

Morriseey travels over Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, during an 'Elephant Walk'

On Sunday, the carrier group, which included two 052D guided-missile destroyers - the Xining and Guiyang - two 054A guided-missile frigates - the Zaozhuang and Rizhao - and supply ship, the Hulunhu, sailed in waters on Taiwan's east coast and then into seas to the south of Taiwan, carrying out exercises, the ministry said.

Taiwan's armed forces monitored the carrier group's progress throughout and 'completed relevant actions in response to ensure national security and protect regional peace and stability'. There was no immediate response from China's Defense Ministry.

The USS Roosevelt and USS Ronald Reagan are the only two US carriers in the Pacific, but both have been forced to dock due to confirmed coronavirus cases onboard, which effectively gives China free range in the region.

The Elephant Walk showcases the 36th Wing's readiness and ability to generate combat airpower at a moment's notice to ensure regional stability throughout the Indo-Pacific

A U.S. Navy MH-60S Knighthawk, MQ-4C Triton, U.S. Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk, B-52 Stratofortresses, and KC-135 Stratotankers stationed at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, perform an 'Elephant Walk'

Taiwan's Defense Ministry said the Liaoning (file image), China's first operational aircraft carrier, and five accompanying warships passed first through the Miyako Strait, located between Japan's islands of Miyako and Okinawa, to the northeast of Taiwan, on Saturday

The Liaoning, which can carry up to 24 J-15 fighter jets, is currently the only aircraft carrier active in the western Pacific.

The USS Roosevelt, which is currently docked in Guam, reported its first death of a sailor who previously tested positive for the virus on Monday.

Nearly 600 sailors on the aircraft carrier have now tested positive for COVID-19 with about 92 per cent of the ship's crew having been tested.

Officials said the USS Reagan is currently docked in Yokosuka, Japan, for maintenance, but crew members have also reported coronavirus cases onboard.

The US military has also been active in waters near Taiwan recently.

A US Navy guided-missile destroyer sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Friday, the same day that Chinese fighter jets drilled in waters close to the island.

Last month, US warship USS McCampbell sailed through the Taiwan Strait.

The guided missile destroyer had transited the strait on a 'routine mission' through the waterway, according to Taiwan's Defense Ministry.

The potential crippling of the US Navy in the Pacific is alarming news given escalating tensions between Beijing and Washington in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Beijing and Washington have traded barbs over the origin of the coronavirus, with President Donald Trump angering Beijing by calling it the 'China virus'.

Senior Chinese officials have also spread conspiracy theories about the virus' origin.
Bengaluru, April 18 : Random tests would be conducted in 10 districts across Karnataka, which have been coronavirus-free till date, to ascertain the health status of their residents, a senior official said on Saturday.

The 10 districts, considered as green spots, are Chamarajanagar, Chikkamagaluru, Hassan, Haveri, Kolar, Koppal, Raichur, Ramanagara, Shivamogga and Yadigiri.

"We have directed the Deputy Commissioners of the 10 virus-free districts to conduct about 100 random tests daily on people living in their respective areas to ensure they do not have even symptoms like severe acute respiratory illness (SARI)," said state Chief Secretary T.M. Vijay Bhaskar in a statement here.

"According to health experts, the people are prone to Covid-19 even if they don't show symptoms, as the virus is suspected to be around," said Bhaskar in a letter to the district officers.

The samples will be tested at the state-run approved labs.

Of the 30 districts across the southern state, about 10, including Bengaluru and Mysuru have been declared hotspots or red zones with 12-80 positive cases.

Another 10 districts have been identified as orange spots with 1-10 positive cases.
How tens of thousands in Mexico City are dealing with life under quarantine, without access to running water.

Health officials in Mexico are increasing their calls for people to wash hands regularly with water and soap to counter the spread of coronavirus.

But tens of thousands of people in the capital Mexico Citys poorest district lack even running water in their homes.

Al Jazeeras Manuel Rapalo reports from Mexico City.
In 2016 a Navy satellite called MUOS-5 wasn't doing well. Partway to its intended orbit, it simply stalled out  but because the spacecraft was already so far away, the dilemma's details were hard to discern. That's where the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program came in: GSSAP satellites can sidle up to and take pictures of other orbiters, beaming the portraits back to Earth. So from Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado, operators maneuvered the agile GSSAP satellite close to the inert MUOS-5 to inspect it. Although we don't know exactly how GSSAP's data helped, MUOS-5 zipped up to its orbit a few months later.

This zoom-in approach is GSSAP's special power  for helping U.S. satellites and spying on foreign ones. According to data for a report from the Secure World Foundation, a space-centric think tank, the GSSAP satellites had close encounters with eight international orbiters between 2016 and mid-2018.

The satellites' primary job, though, is actually to watch others from a safe distance, keep tabs on space traffic and ensure things are flowing smoothly, securely. They also keep track of the space junk that can slam into and damage said satellites.

Right now four GSSAP satellites are in orbit, with two more launching this year. They're part of an increasingly intense stare at the space beyond low-Earth orbit: from geosynchronous orbit, or GEO, out to the Moon.

The satellites out there because they provide things like communication and have become necessary to the way the world turns. And during the Covid-19 pandemic, tracking and protecting them  from accidental crash or purposeful meddling  has grown even more critical than usual. "During times of crisis, timely communication, much of which is reliant on space, is of utmost importance," says Diana McKissock of the Space Force's 18th Space Control Squadron, which tracks and catalogs satellites.

As commercial traffic escalates, officials worry about political conflict in deep space. Programs like GSSAP aim to ensure that all systems are on track.

And GSSAP isn't alone: Back on the ground, agencies like the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity  the intelligence community's DARPA doppelganger  hope to create optical telescopes so powerful they can take geosynchronous pictures from Earth. That's useful when GSSAP satellites aren't conveniently close to the shot you'd like to take.

"Just because your satellite is in GEO doesn't mean it can immediately toodle over to the right part of GEO," says Jonathan McDowell of Harvard-Smithsonian's Center for Astrophysics, who publishes catalogs of space launches, satellite orbits and their reentries into the atmosphere. "Plus, you might not always want [another country] to know you're peeping at their goods, which they absolutely would if you toodled over."

"There's always been a sensitivity about going up next to other satellites and spying on them," says McDowell.

The Space Force's 18th Space Control Squadron also tracks and catalogs far-out satellites from both the ground and space. Lots of communications equipment live in GEO, says the squadron's McKissock. "They're critical to the things we enjoy on Earth," she says.

Certain "assets" up there are also critical to the American defense and intelligence communities. And keeping them in good working order is more complicated than it used to be: There's more debris; private industry has hugely increased the number of active satellites, so the number of potential collisions, and actual country-on-country threats, exist.

"It's not the benign environment that it was when I started this job in 2010," says McKissock. To keep track of the action, the unit uses data from satellites, like the ORS-5; turns on ground-based radar; and points planet-planted telescopes toward orbit. Recently, it spooled up the so-called Space Fence, a powerful radar system that tracks not just GEO satellites but also the smaller pieces of debris many thousands of miles from Earth.
18.04.2020 LISTEN

To all my fellow Kumawuman citizens the world over, I pray for the protection of God upon you as I do for all Ghanaians and everyone in the world found themselves faced with the deadly novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Death is at the moment staring everyone in the face but as there is time and season for everything in the world, this COVID-19 will pass, it will not come to stay forever to continually torment humanity.

Again, I invite my Kumawuman citizens worldwide to bear in mind that God is able to deliver Kumawuman from the oppression, harassments and daylight robbery the citizens and their locality have been subjected to by those traditional overlords using politicians and government apparatus since the demise of Kumawuhene Barima Asumadu Sakyi II, in year 2007, and the ensuing Kumawu chieftaincy dispute.

Some greedy self-styling traditional overlord who believes he is mightier than Ghana and everyone therein has collusively teamed up with some earthly powers that be, to be precise, some Ghanaian politicians, court judges and security personnel, to intimidate with the aim not only to force Kumawuman under his rule contrary to existing conventions but also, to plunder Kumawuman to the hilt.

God has punishment prepared for him and his accomplices. Surely, my faith in God tells me that they will never escape punishment should they persist in their criminal enterprises to steal from Kumawuman, as though so doing is their inalienable right.

Let me today encourage my fellow Kumawuman citizens to seek the face of God through prayers, faith and works, for Him to demonstrate His power through the manifestation of His promise to liberate Kumawuman from the hands of the traditional rogues for Kumawuman to take her eminent position in the history of the Asante Confederacy, now Asanteman.

Please, ask God in your prayers that if indeed He has promised to set the Kumawuman captives free from the criminal, obstinate and inhuman rule of Kumawuhemaa and her associates, for how long will He tarry for these criminals to have a field day as though He, God, does not exist?

I believe that as He did for Nana Akufo-Addo who entrusted his contest for the presidency of Ghana into His able hands saying, The battle is the Lords, and did same to scupper the evil intents by Madam Berhene from the Kumawu Ananangya royal family who was sabotaging her family by aligning herself with Asantehene and Kumawuhemaa and Co. to thwart the wish of God and that of the Kumawuman citizens from coming to pass, so shall He do for Kumawuman on this last leg of their court battles.

It is no longer a contest between you and the so-called powerful chiefs with their conniving accomplices in higher positions of authority in the country but between them and God Almighty, the Maker of Heaven and Earth and everything therein.

Please, impress upon God the urgency to act or else, these mortal human beings are going to claim His power and glory for the unbelievers to make mockery of Kumawuman by questioning, where is your God that you so trusted and relied on to liberate you from the strong hands of the traditional tin gods?

Stand on Gods promises and words as are in the bible, powerful bible verses and psalms to wage this battle against all those adversely fighting against the interests of Kumawuman contrary to Gods own wishes. Pray for God to strike them down however He sees fit for all eyes to see, and all ears to hear, and all tongues to declare, that He is God who enviously does not share His glory with anyone.

This is a fierce battle that we are waging. The abuse of power that we are seeing today, oh Kumawuman people, we shall see it no more. The powerful traditional overlords, the government accomplices and the conniving and condoning judges that we see today who are resolutely determined to prove God a liar, through intimidations and twisting of justice, we shall see them no more. They will be history. They will soon be like the morning dew that evaporates with the rising Sun.

Take heed, God is with you always and will soon answer your prayers same as He did for others before you when the situations had become critical with almost every hope lost.

By the grace of God, Kumawuman shall be free and free forever!

Rockson Adofo

Saturday, 18 April 2020
China revises up death toll in Wuhan by 1,290, up 50%

Iran Press TV

Friday, 17 April 2020 10:34 AM

The city of Wuhan in central China has revised its official death toll of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Wuhan officials on Friday upped the fatalities attributed to the pandemic by 1,290 to 3,869, raising the total death toll for all of China to 4,632 out of 86,629 confirmed cases across the country.

The Chinese officials explained that the increase in the city's official death toll was because some hospitals had incorrectly reported, delayed reporting, or omitted cases after being overwhelmed by patients during the early stages of the outbreak.

Last week Chinese authorities lifted the lockdown in Wuhan, signaling a gradual return to normality.

Experts concurred with one another that the total lockdown of Wuhan had been an effective measure in stopping the rampant spread of the disease to other cities which would have led to a higher number of fatalities.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, spoke over phone on Thursday night, reaffirming mutual support in the fight against COVID-19 and rejecting politicization of the pandemic.

As the coronavirus disease is spreading around the globe, Xi said, all countries are faced with the arduous task of tackling the epidemic.

Putin and Xi rejected as counterproductive attempts to blame Beijing for delaying informing the world about the coronavirus, the Kremlin said.

They also stressed the two countries' "strategic partnership" and said Russia and China were ready to help each other during the pandemic by exchanging specialists and supplying medical equipment, protective gear and medicines.

Their conversation came as US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that the novel coronavirus had been developed at a lab in Wuhan.

China's foreign ministry dismissed the remarks, quoting a statement by the World Health Organization (WHO) rejecting such unfounded claims.

The WHO has declared "multiple times there is no evidence the new coronavirus was created in a laboratory. Many well-known medical experts in the world also believe that claims of the so-called laboratory leaks have no scientific basis," ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing.

The spokesman urged Trump and Pompeo not to comment on the origin and means of transmission of the novel coronavirus and leave such matters to the scientists.

"We always believe this is a scientific issue, which should be studied by scientists and medical experts," he said.

Trump has said that he wants to get to the bottom of a conspiracy theory that the novel coronavirus had natural origins, but it leaked accidentally from a lab in the Wuhan Institute of Virology which both the United States of America and Canada had been funding for research.

Covid-19 has spread across the planet, sending billions of people into lockdown as health workers struggle to treat those infected by the deadly virus. The US with 667,225 cases and 33,286 deaths is the worst-hit country.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blamed Trump personally for directly costing American lives through his constant denials and delays in responding to the coronavirus outbreak.

"The president's denial at the beginning was deadly," she told CNN's State of the Union. "His delay in getting equipment to where it's needed is deadly  As the president fiddles, people are dying."

Trump has also blamed the WHO for mishandling the coronavirus pandemic, cutting the international organization's funding in what is believed to be an effort to deflect attention from his own mishandling of the crisis.

In Europe, the rise in Britain's novel coronavirus infection rate was highlighted as another example of delays and mismanagement by state leaders.

Austria's Health Minister Rudolf Anschober said the growth in UK cases was "frightening" to other EU leaders.

Britain has has been described by the WHO as a "dark cloud", while British officials have suggested that the lockdown in the UK be extended till June to stop the further spread of the virus.

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It was a good time to own a bar in southwest Brooklyn; the vibe didnt accommodate restraint. But even as moods and tastes shifted, JJ Bubbles and Joe Joyce largely thrived  a son sent to Harvard, a daughter to graduate school at Brown, a getaway place bought in New Hampshire  until the cruelest interventions of the pandemic, last month.

I have heard about Joe Joyce for as long as I have known his oldest son, Eddie, a neighbor and friend, a lawyer turned novelist who was at odds with his father politically but grateful for his contradictions. Joe Joyce was a Trump supporter who chose selectively from the menu of current Republican ideologies, freely rejecting what didnt suit him. He didnt want to hear how much you loved Hillary Clinton, as one regular at his bar put it to me, but he was not going to make the Syrian immigrant who came in to play darts feel as if he belonged anywhere else.

Last year, Vice Media went to JJ Bubbles and other bars in Bay Ridge to talk to supporters of the current president and landed on some of these ambiguities, discovering for instance the guy who admired Pete Buttigieg as much as he loved Donald Trump. Where these kinds of voters align is not in the rights hatred of the marginalized but in its distrust of the news. If the liberal media was telling us that a plague was coming and that it would be devastating, why should anyone believe it? Joe Joyce had his skepticism.

The longevity of a bar in New York can almost always be tracked in inverse proportion to its snobbishness. Those that cater to the well paid and highly self-regarding rarely survive consecutive presidential administrations. Novelty compels, and the caravan invariably moves on.

JJ Bubbles became an institution for those who remain: transit employees, ironworkers, teachers, sanitation guys, cops, firefighters, civil servants, accountants, retirees from all those occupations who, for the most part, sought their pleasures close to where they lived and in many cases where they had grown up. Neighborhood bars are places of consistency. For the near entirety of its existence, JJ Bubbles kept only two kinds of beer on tap: Bud and Bud Light. Every fourth drink was free.
(Photo : REUTERS/Adnan Abidi/File Photo) FILE PHOTO: A woman walks past the logo of Google during an event in New Delhi, India, August 28, 2018. Picture taken August 28, 2018.

Google is reportedly checking out its very own Google-branded debit card to help customers make and track purchases made online and in stores.

The project is supposed to be a new centerpiece for Google's current Google Pay system that could be used for a wider variety of purchases.

An increased debit card presence could permit Google to be more beneficial in retaining records of payments and purchases, and provide the enterprise with valuable perception on purchaser spending.

A "Google Pay Card," according to TechCrunch, might vastly expand the app's use cases, and Google's capacity as a fintech large. Google has additionally partnered with Citi and Stanford Federal Credit Union for the brand new feature.

Google, as a financial service company?

By creating a smart debit card, Google can free up new streams of revenue and statistics. Google could potentially charge interchange fees on purchases made with the cardboard or other bank account costs then split them with its banking partners. Depending on its privacy decisions, Google may want to use transaction records on what people purchase to enhance ad campaign measurement or even targeting. Brands might be willing to buy more Google ads if the tech giant can show they pressure an income lift.

The long-time period implications are more significant. A smart debit card and checking accounts may want to pave the way for Google supplying banking, inventory brokerage, financial advice or robo-advising, accounting, insurance, or lending.

Google told The Wall Street Journal in November 2019 that the company was experimenting in the checking account space. The tech giant previously said it's exploring how it could partner with banks and credit score unions in the United States to offer smart checking accounts through Google Pay.

Google Pay, according to TechCrunch, has been supporting its customers benefit from budgeting tools, while preserving their cash in an FDIC or NCUA-insured account.

For now, Google would allow its partnered banks and credit unions to offer economic infrastructure and navigate regulation while building smarter interfaces and consumer experiences.

ALSO READ: Apple Pay, Google Pay Begin Rollout To Most 7-Eleven Stores In US

However, Google's debit card seems to be a more convenient (and potentially) more steady face on existing debit card options from banks. Reports don't seem to tell yet whether Google will be giving any perks or benefits for using its system, such as cashback offers.

Google has yet to mention when it would launch the debit card or if the test will ever get a full consumer release.

First look

Google launched a Wallet debit card in 2013 as an extension of its old charge app Google Wallet but shut the cardboard down in 2016. Given Google's inclination for renaming or shutting down previously reviving products, building a new debit card feels on-brand.

The Google Card - with the Google Pay app - would permit a review of in-depth transaction data at a glance, perfect with swift action for unrecognized charges.

According to SlashGear, the card would include a contactless card reader chip - and the capability to switch off access to the said chip in the Google Pay app. The leak confirmed the app has easy switches for contactless card payments, locking the physical card, and securing one's very own financial institution account in general.

This app will allow the user to entirely reset their debit card when they believe it's been compromised-no more waiting three weeks to get a contemporary physical card to get a single account modification. The app leak show a button to quickly lock a card as one orders a substitute card - easy.

ALSO READ: Google Pay Guide: How To Use The New Payment System, How To Add Cards, And More

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Roshina Gautam, a 71-year-old resident of Greater Kailash, was on Saturday serenaded on her birthday by the police.

They came into the colony with sirens blaring and then proceeded to play music outside her home, much to her surprise.

She isn't the only one. Hoping to infuse some cheer in the lockdown to stem the spread of COVID-19, police officials are wishing residents on their birthdays and anniversaries in the south Delhi locality.

Gautam said she was really surprised when the cops landed up.

"Around 12, I got a call from the police and they reached my society around 1.30 pm. Initially, the sound of the sirens scared us as we thought somebody had tested positive for coronavirus..

"Later, policemen came in front of my house and called my name. They played beautiful musicand wished me on my 71st birthday. They also gifted me a plant," she said.

Gautam, too, did her bit by baking a cake for them and thanking them for the gesture.

I am a member of the GK residents association and they might have got information about my birthday from there, she said.

Police personnel also landed up outside the home of Greater Kailash residents Rajat and Vartika Juneja on their 25th wedding anniversary.

"I am on the group of GK residents. A friend of mine, who was also in the group, informed the SHO of Greater Kailash about my marriage anniversary. The SHO, along with five-six other policemen, came around 1 pm.

They did not enter the house and maintained social distancing. They placed a pre-recorded message that was very nice and gifted us a plant, Varika said.

Jairam and Varsha Tekwani said a friend informed the police about their wedding anniversary.

"We have a resident group in which the SHO is also there. They ask about birthdays, anniversaries and other celebrations daily. My friend told them about my anniversary, Jairam said.

"They called me around 12.30 pm and said that they want to come and wish me. They were at my place within half an hour. It is my 24th anniversary and they played a pre-recorded message on a speaker. They maintained social distancing and were wearing masks. Everyone in the area appreciated their move," Jairam said.

Greater Kailash Station House Office Som Nath Paruthi said police officials have several WhatsApp groups with residents, including senior citizens.

"We have a list of senior citizens and their dates of birth. During the lockdown, people are inside their houses. Through these initiatives, we cheer them and celebrate their special day, he said.

Several residents, he said, had put out videos on social media platforms and they sometimes get requests from people too.

Like a call from a resident asking them to wish a 15-year-old who didn't have any friends who could come to him.

The SHO also sends personal messages.

"On the occasion of your special day, the police station Greater Kailash, south district and Delhi Police, we want to congratulate you. We wish for your healthy life and happiness. We want to be safe and inside your houses. You can call Delhi Police at any time at 100 and 112," Nath says in the messages.

There are other instances too in other parts of the city.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (south) Atul Kumar Thakur said that they celebrated the birthday of a child in e Fatehpur Beri area.

"On the birthday of a four-year-old girl, the daughter of a labourer and a resident of Chandan Hola Village, the staff of Fatehpur Beri police station arranged a cake for her and celebrated her birthday with her friends in community kitchen started in labour camp Chandan Hola," Thakur said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Matthew Stuart died in motorcycle accident in Co Down

The family of a man who tragically lost his life in a motorcycle accident in Co Down has said his death has left a "massive hole in all our hearts".

Matthew Stuart (36) from Ballynahinch died following a collision on Spa Road outside the town.

Police said the crash happened around 1.10pm on Thursday. It was reported that a motorcyclist had left the road and lost his life at the scene.

The road was closed for several hours following the crash.

Mr Stuart is survived by his father Terry, mother Liz, fiancee Lisa White, brother Richard, sister Fiona and wider family circle.

In a statement the family explained that Mr Stuart would have turned 37 today and had overcome cancer earlier in his life.

Mr Stuart and his fiancee were due to get married on September 25, 2021.

"They were so unbelievably happy together and we loved the beautiful couple that they were," the Stuart family said. "They had the best time making their little home together and all their wonderful adventures together.

"He had such a love for life and just breezed through with a cheeky grin and a twinkle in his eye.

"He had already overcome so many things in his life from cancer to other accidents that he shouldn't have been able to walk away from.

"He always bounced back. But this time it's different. He has left a massive hole in all our hearts."

Mr Stuart loved cars, motorbikes and "anything fast", but most of all he loved his friends and relatives, his family continued.

"He had the biggest heart and always made time for people," they said. "Mum and dad loved him so much. He was their precious baby boy and our Peter Pan. They built such a beautiful life for us and made sure we knew we were truly loved.

"We have so many happy childhood memories together - where there was one, the other two were close behind. We were the three amigos through thick and thin and always looked out for each other."

Strangford DUP MP Jim Shannon said the local community had once again been plunged into grief amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"To the family of Matthew Stuart and all of his connections, we convey our sincere sympathies at this time of grief," he added.

Assembly Member Peter Weir appealed for anyone who witnessed the accident to contact police.

"I send my sincere condolences to all of Matthew's family and friends," he said.

Meanwhile, local UUP councillor Alan Lewis commended those who came to Mr Stuart's aid.

"The community are thinking of the family at this difficult time and will be keeping them in our prayers," he said.

Inspector Brian Mills also appealed to anyone who was in the Spa Road area and captured the incident on their dash-cam to contact police on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference number 990 16/04/20.

Mr Stuart's funeral will be strictly private due to the current virus restrictions. Donations in lieu, if desired, can be made to NI Cancer Fund for Children via Douglas Funeral Directors, Ballynahinch.
Nearly 1,300 people who died of the coronavirus in the Chinese city of Wuhan, or half the total, were not counted in death tolls because of lapses, state media said on Friday, but Beijing dismissed claims that there had been any kind of cover-up.

The central city where the outbreak emerged late last year added 1,290 more fatalities to the 2,579 previously counted as of Thursday, reflecting incorrect reporting, delays and omissions, according to a local government task force in charge of controlling the coronavirus.

Reflecting the additional deaths in Wuhan, China revised its national death toll later on Friday up to 4,632.

The revision follows widespread speculation that Wuhan's death toll was significantly higher than reported.

Rumors of more victims were fuelled for weeks by pictures of long queues of family members waiting to collect ashes of cremated relatives and reports of thousands of urns stacked at a funeral home waiting to be filled.

"In the early stage, due to limited hospital capacity and the shortage of medical staff, a few medical institutions failed to connect with local disease control and prevention systems in a timely manner, which resulted in delayed reporting of confirmed cases and some failures to count patients accurately," state media cited an unidentified Wuhan official as saying.

Suspicion that China has not been transparent about the outbreak has risen in recent days as death tolls mount in many countries, including the United States, with President Donald Trump on Wednesday expressing skepticism about China's previously declared death figure of about 3,000.

"Do you really believe those numbers in this vast country called China, and that they have a certain number of cases and a certain number of deaths; does anybody really believe that?" he said.

'Responsibility to history'

Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Friday that while there might have been data collection flaws earlier during the outbreak, China has "a responsibility to history, to the people and to the deceased" to ensure numbers are accurate.

"Medical workers at some facilities might have been preoccupied with saving lives and there existed delayed reporting, underreporting or misreporting, but there has never been any cover-up and we do not allow cover-ups," he said.

Wuhan's total number of cases was revised up by 325, suggesting that some of the new deaths had been recorded as cases but not confirmed as fatalities, taking the total number of cases in the city of 11 million people to 50,333, or about 60 percent of mainland China's total.

The topic "Wuhan revises its death toll" was one of the most read on China's Weibo microblogging platform, which is heavily moderated.

Many commentators praised the government for admitting its mistakes and correcting them, although some still questioned the numbers and one urged other provinces to reassess their data.

Doctors and government officials in Wuhan have been repeatedly questioned about the accuracy of the death toll by journalists on government-arranged trips.

Chaotic early days

Some of those officials acknowledged that people may have died without being counted in the chaotic early days of the outbreak, before testing was widely available.

"There couldn't have been many because that was a very short period," Wang Xinghuan, head of one of two field hospitals built for the outbreak, told reporters in Wuhan on April 12.

He stressed that he was not speaking for the government.

It is not unusual in epidemics for case and fatality numbers to be revised after authorities carry out retrospective re-testing or reclassify the cause of infection or death.

The Spanish region of Catalonia on Wednesday announced an additional 3,242 coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic, nearly doubling its previous tally, citing a change in methodology to include data from funerary services on suspected and confirmed COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes and private homes.

Before the revised Wuhan numbers were released, China said it had recorded 26 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday, down from 46 cases a day earlier, according to the National Health Commission.

It brought the total number of cases in mainland China to 82,367.

Of the new cases, 15 were imported infections, the lowest since March 17.

The remaining 11 confirmed cases were locally transmitted, down from 12 a day earlier.

The number of new asymptomatic cases increased to 66 from 64 a day earlier.

China does not include patients with no clinical symptoms such as a cough or a fever in its tally of confirmed cases.

No new deaths were reported.
Coronavirus India Lockdown Latest News updates: India registered 991 fresh COVID-19 cases and 43 deaths in 24 across the country, the Health Ministry said. Addressing a daily briefing on Saturday, Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry said that the total number of confirmed novel coronavirus cases in India stand at 14,378 of now, while the death toll has risen to 480.

A total of 6 states have the COVID-19 positive cases' tally past the 1,000-mark in India, with Maharashtra at the top. The other five states are Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, while, Maharashtra topping the charts with 3,323 cases. Delhi is the second-worst affected state with 1,707 coronavirus cases and 42 deaths. Tamil Nadu is the third on the list with 1,323 COVID-19 cases and 15 deaths. Madhya Pradesh- 1,310 cases, death toll at 69, Rajasthan- 1,229 and 11 deaths, Gujarat- 1,099 cases, death toll at 41. India registered 991 fresh COVID-19 cases and 43 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to latest data by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases stand at 14,378 after as many as 1,000 cases were recorded for the fourth straight day on Friday. This figure includes 11,906 active cases, 1991 cured and discharged, 480 deaths and 1 migrated, according to the ministry.

Also Read: Coronavirus in India: COVID-19 cases crosses 13,000; check state-wise cases, deaths, list of testing facilities

Follow BusinessToday.in for live updates on coronavirus in India and world:

9:35 pm: Karnataka coronavirus news

Cases have been registered agasint 5 people at Roza Police Station for flouting lockdown norms in Kalaburgi. Around 80-100 people gathered for the cremation amid the lockdown.

9:32 pm: Oberoi Apartment in Civil Lines containment zone

Oberoi apartment in Delhi's Civil Lines has been identified as a containment zone. Eight people including family members and house help have been tested positive.

9:29 pm: India's death rate 3.3%

The government today said that the country's death rate is 3.3 per cent, nearly 20 times less than the global figures. The government said that 75.3 per cent of the people who have died are over 60 years of age.

9:24 pm: Madhya Pradesh coronavirus cases

The state health department said that no deaths were reported in Madhya Pradesh today. There are 1,402 positive cases in MP out of which 127 have been discharged. So far 69 deaths have been reported in the state. The department said that 59 people were cured and discharged in the last 24 hours.

9:20 pm: Noida coronavirus cases

Thirty four people were booked and 237 vehicle owners penalised in Noida and Greater Noida area for flouting lockdown norms. Noida has emerged as a hotbed of coronavirus in Uttar Pradesh. Section 144 has also been imposed in Noida. The police said that 11 FIRs were registered on Snday and 34 people arrested. A total of 776 vehicles were checked across all check points.

9:15 pm: Coronavirus cases worldwide

More than 2.26 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 154,613 have died, according to a Reuters tally. Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.

9:10 pm: Pakistan lifts restrictions on mosque gatherings

Pakistan has lifted restrictions on congregational prayers at mosques, but put in place a host of safety conditions to avert the further spread of the coronavirus in the country, a statement said on Saturday.

9:00 pm: Visuals of flamingoes from Maharashtra

#WATCH Maharashtra: A large number of migratory Flamingo birds seen at the creek in Navi Mumbai. pic.twitter.com/2FT0D0WXcW  ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

8:53 pm: Goa coronavirus news

The Goa government has begun scouting for places to quarantine seafarers when they are brought back from abroad. The coastal state has among the highest number of seafarers stranded on foreign shores due to the coronavirus outbreak with officials putting the numbers at between 7,000- 10,000. "The state executive committee overseeing efforts to combat the outbreak is looking at hotels, hostels and rooms owned by religious groups for seafarers to be quarantined," an official said.

8:47 pm: Discharged patient booked in Nagpur

In Mahaarashtra's Nagpur, a patient who was discharged was booked for flouting rules. The individual was found roaming outside before he was booked for violating norms. The individual has been put in the quarantine facility again.

8:45 pm: Prohibitory orders in Madhya Pradesh

Prohibitory orders have been issued in Madhya Pradesh's Dhar due to the increase in coronavirus cases. The prohibitory orders will be in place from 12 am and continue for three days.

8:40 pm: Amid coronavirus lockdown, migratory pink Flamingos return to Mumbai

After dolphins, large number of migratory pink flamingos have returned to Mumbai as people continue to live inside due to the coronavirus lockdown.

Maharashtra: Large number of migratory Flamingo birds seen at the creek in Navi Mumbai. pic.twitter.com/CQCHfqNQ4i  ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

8:35 pm: Coronavirus lockdown: Kerala to implement 'odd-even' system for private vehicles after April 20

Kerala police chief Loknath Behera on Saturday said that the state will implement an "odd-even" system for private vehicles with partial restrictions after April 20. "By implementing the scheme, we can reduce the number of vehicles on road by 40%. 3 persons can travel in a car, including driver. Relaxation will be given to women driven vehicles and govt vehicles," said state's police chief.

Odd and even scheme will be implemented in the state from 20 April. By implementing the scheme,we can reduce the number of vehicles on road by 40%. 3 persons can travel in a car,including driver. Relaxation will be given to women driven vehicles&govt vehicles: Kerala Police Chief pic.twitter.com/vPnCg4DCBE  ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

8:30 pm: 5 more deaths reported in Gujarat, total toll rises to 53

Gujarat on Saturday reported 5 more deaths due to COVID-19, taking total toll in the state to 53. Total number of active cases in the state stands at 1376 including 93 cured, following 104 new cases were reported, says Gujarat Health Department.

8:25 pm: 8 new hotspots identified in Delhi, total containment zones increase to 76

The total number of coronavirus containment zones in Delhi rose to 76 on Saturday after 8 new areas were added to the list. "Whole Gali H No. 48 to Chaupal) A Block, Khazirabad in New Friends Colony, Israel Camp in Rang Puri Pahari & its adjoining area of buffer zone, Budh Nagar in Inderpuri & its adjoining areas of buffer zone, Oberoi Apartments, in & around area G-1 2nd Floor Mansarovar Garden," added to the list.

The total number of containment zones in Delhi increases to 76 after 8 new areas were included in the list today. #Coronaviruspic.twitter.com/zoZy23heCZ  ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

8:18 pm: Punjab govt announces Rs 50 lakh ex-gratia for families of ACP Kohli, Kanungo Gurmel Singh

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday announced Rs 50 lakh ex-gratia for the kin of ACP North Ludhiana Anil Kohli and Kanungo Gurmel Singh, both of whom had fallen victim to COVID-19.

"The CM said a similar amount will be paid to the family of any officer who dies in the line of duty due to the Coronavirus," according to Punjab Chief Minister's Office.

8:12 pm: Coronavirus update: Kerala CM on how his state 'flattened the curve'

Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan said that selfless cooperation of general public has played a major role in keeping Kerala safe so far, and it needs to be acknowledged. "However it's too soon to assume that we're out of danger...," he said.

"Kerala stood in unison and wholeheartedly adhered to directions issued by state govt. Many went into quarantine voluntarily, many assessed risk on their own and contacted control rooms. Others volunteered to assist Health department and local self-governments in their respective interventions," ANI quoted Vijayan as saying.

8:05 pm: National Disaster Management issues guidelines for relaxation of lockdown

National Disaster Management on Saturday issued guidelines for relaxation of coronavirus lockdown. Necessary offices can function with the minimum number of staff, says Kerala Police Chief Loknath Behera.

8:00 pm: HC issues notice to Centre, Delhi govt on rising domestic violence during coronavirus lockdown

Delhi High Court on Saturday issued notice to the Central, Delhi government and others on a plea regarding the increase in domestic violence cases during coronavirus lockdown. It also asked National Commission of Women & Delhi Commission of Women to file reply and status report on the matter.

7:50 pm: Maharashtra reports 328 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday

Maharashtra on Saturday reported 328 new coronavirus cases, taking the total number of cases to 3,648 in the State. Highest 184 of the new cases recorded in Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai area followed by Pune at 78 cases, says state health department.

328 new #COVID19 cases have been recorded today in Maharashtra, taking the total number of cases to 3648 in the State. Highest 184 of the new cases recorded in Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai area followed by Pune at 78 cases: State Health department pic.twitter.com/d6ynCFk3m5  ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

7.17 pm: Delhi govt demarcates 8 new containment zones, total list grows to 76

Delhi govt has added eight new regions to the list of containment zones in the national capital. This takes the total number of containment zones in the city to 76.

The total number of containment zones in Delhi increases to 76 after 8 new areas were included in the list today. #Coronaviruspic.twitter.com/zoZy23heCZ  ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

7.14 pm: Coronavirus in India: No need to panic, assures PM Modi

In a tweet on Saturday, PM Narendra Modi assured that there is no need to panic, adding that people should kep taking precautions. His tweet was in response to details of foodgrains supply shared by Conumser Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan.

There is no need to panic.



Please keep taking the proper precautions. Together, we all will certainly defeat the COVID-19 pandemic. https://t.co/7sUpNo9Vo9  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 18, 2020

6.56 pm: Amit Shah meets senior officials to take stock of coronavirus outbreak

Delhi: Home Minister Amit Shah is chairing a meeting with top officials to take stock of the current situation regarding #COVID19. pic.twitter.com/7rdYmdCwAF  ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

6.51 pm: Air India airlifts 3 lakh rapid test kits from Guangzhou, China

Air India has airlifted nearly 3 lakh rapid antibody test kits from Guangzhou in China, news agency ANI quoted Vikram Misri, Indian Ambassador to China, as saying. These test kits will be supplied to Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.

6.40 pm: Air India to open bookings on select domestic routes from May 4

National carrier Air India will accept bookings for select domestic routes after May 4. Booking for international routes will begin from June 1.

6.31 pm: Corona in Delhi: Rs 1 crore ex-gratia for doctors, nurses, health workers

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal annouced compensation of Rs 1 crore for families of doctors, nurses, sanitation workers and lab technicians who lose their lives due to COVID-19 while attending to patients. It will be extended to other essential workers too, including police officials, civil defence volunteers and teachers, he further added.

6.20 pm: India Coronavirus Tracker: BusinessToday.In brings you a daily tracker as coronavirus cases continue to spread. Here is the state-wise data on total cases, fatalities and recoveries in one comprehensive graphic

{moismage}

6.11 pm: US Army finances ventilator designs in 'Shark Tank'-style competition

US Army is holding a 'Shark Tank'-like competition for innovators with plans to develop ventilators amid the coronavirus pandemic. The US Army is offering $100,000 intial investment to winning innovators under this competition, CNBC reported.

5.50 pm: Corona in Odisha: One more COVID-19 case in Bhubaneswar

One more #COVID19 case has been reported in Bhubaneswar, taking the total number of cases to 61 in Odisha. 24 patients have been treated while one person has succumbed to the disease: Odisha Health Department  ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

5.37 pm: Corona in Delhi: 67 test positive out of 2,274 tests conducted yesterday, says CM Arvind Kejriwal

2274 samples were tested yesterday out which 67 cases tested positive. In last 2-3 days the number of cases have gone down. I hope that the cases will go down even more in the coming days: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal #Coronaviruspic.twitter.com/4n1QlsRY2T  ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

5.09 pm: Coronavirus updates: Govt announces Rs 10 lakh ex-gratia for postal employees

Ministry of Communications has announced compensation of Rs 10 lakh for postal service employees, including Gramin Dak Sevaks who succumb to novel coronavirus while on duty. The guidelines will come into effect immediately and continue till the COVID-19 crisis is over, the ministry said in a statement.

5.02 pm: Coronavirus update India

Watch: Kolkata Police arrested Left Front Chairperson Biman Bose and other party workers on Saturday in the capital city who were protesting alleging improper distribution of ration and low percentage of COVID-19 testing in West Bengal.

#WATCH West Bengal: Police detained Left Front Chairperson Biman Bose and other party workers today in Kolkata who were protesting alleging improper distribution of ration and low percentage of #COVID19 testing in the state pic.twitter.com/4fF5UpaISq - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

4.57 pm: West Bengal coronavirus latest news

Chief Discipline Officer, Ashim Acharya said that a clash broke out between the police and prisoners at Jalpaiguri Central Correctional Home on Saturday allegedly because they were not able to get bail amid coronavirus lockdown. "They pelted stones on prison guards and locked entry gate. Police on spot," he added.

West Bengal:A clash broke out between police&prisoners at Jalpaiguri Central Correctional Home today allegedly because they were unable to get bail amid #COVID19 lockdown."They pelted stones on prison guards&locked entry gate.Police on spot,"Ashim Acharya,Chief Discipline Officer pic.twitter.com/jjZM20mIsP - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

4.51 pm: India coronavirus status

Health Ministry said on Saturday that 75% of COVID-19 deaths in India have been recorded in patients aged 60 year and above adding that 83% cases have co-morbidities.

4.46 pm: Uttarakhand coronavirus latest news

The state police said on Saturday that 1,758 cases have been recorded and 7,220 people detained so far in regarding the coronavirus lockdown in the state.

4.39 pm: Health Ministry on coronavirus

Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry said on Saturday that "a positive trend has been noted in 47 districts across 23 states. No positive cases have been reported in the last 28 days in Mahe of Puducherry, and Kodagu of Karnataka." He added that no new COVID-19 positive cases have been reported in 45 other districts in last 14 days.

4.34 pm: Karnataka coronavirus latest news: HD Kumaraswamy son's wedding was a simple affair, says CM Yediyurappa

Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa said on Saturday that HD Kumaraswamy's son's wedding was held in a simple manner. No need to discuss the issue.

4.24 pm: Coronavirus India updates

Regarding the Hydroxychloroquine, we are studying the drug on 480 patients, it will take 8 weeks to reach any findings, says Indian Council of Medical Research.

4.19 pm: Coronavirus news India

Air India opens bookings for a few domestic flights May 4 onwards and international flights June 1 onwards.

4.13 pm: Health Ministry on coronavirus

Only PCR test for confirming COVID-19 cases, says Health Ministry

4.11 pm: Coronavirus cases- Tablighi Jamaat connection

4,291 cases linked to talblighi kanaat. Jamaat linked cases found in 23 dstates, says Health Ministry

4.09 pm: Coronavirus briefing

No cases reported in 22 districts in past 14 days, says Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry

4.06 pm: Coronavirus in India news:

991 new COVID-19 cases, 43 deaths in 24 hours, 1,992 cured so far, says Health Ministry.

4.03 pm: Government briefing on coronavirus

The Health has begun its daily briefing on COVID-19 along with Indian Council of Medical Research and Home Ministry

3.58 pm: Coronavirus Mumbai latest news

Minister of State for Defence Shripad Naik said on Saturday that 20 COVID-19 positive cases have emerged from INS Angre depot in Colaba where 30 people were kept under isolation. The patients have been shifted to the India Navy's hospital and are being treated, meanwhile, others have been quarantined.

20 #COVID19 positive cases have emerged from INS Angre depot in Colaba where 130 people were kept under quarantine. Patients have been shifted to the Indian Navy's hospital and are being treated. Others have been quarantined: Minister of State for Defence Shripad Naik pic.twitter.com/b8AstAX5Jy - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

3.53 pm: India corona live updates: Govt amends FDI rules amid coronavirus crisis

The central government has reviewed the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy for barring opportunistic investment by neighbouring countries comprising China.

Govt of India reviews Foreign Direct Investment policy for curbing opportunistic takeovers/acquisitions of Indian companies due to #COVID19. A non-resident entity can invest in India, subject to FDI Policy except in those sectors/activities which are prohibited:Govt of India(1/3) - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

3.46 pm: Lockdown in Indore

3 women health workers were allegedly assaulted by a man in Vinoba Nagar on Saturday while they were conducting a survey on COVID-19. Vinod Dixit, SHO, Indore said, "The men were fighting and thought that the workers have recorded the incident and will send it to the police."

Madhya Pradesh: 3 women Asha workers were allegedly assaulted by a man in Vinoba Nagar today while they were conducting a survey on #COVID19. "The men were fighting and thought that the workers have recorded the incident and will send it to the police," Vinod Dixit, SHO, Indore pic.twitter.com/FH6rIMHI6N - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

3.37 pm: Assam cronavirus updates

Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma took to Twitter to say that 1 more COVID-19 patient- Sajibur Rahman is discharged from Silchar Medical College & Hospital after 3 successive tests reported as negative. He is being sent for home quarantine. This takes the total number of cured patients in the state to 12.

Good news! One more #COVID patient - Sajibur Rahman is discharged from Silchar Medical College & Hospital after 3 successive tests reported as negative. He is being sent for home quarantine. Total cured patients - 12#AssamCares@Pijush_hazarika@drrajdeeproy@ParimalSuklaba1pic.twitter.com/Ns5ibtuw2s - Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) April 18, 2020

3.27 pm: Delhi coronavirus updates

New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has issued a public notice announcing a fine of Rs 1,999 for spitting or urinating in public.

3.18 pm: India corona cases: Zomato introduces contactless dining and payment service

Online food ordering and delivery platform Zomato has introduced contactless dining and payment service for customers. Here's how:-

Contactless menu- scan a QR code on the table to explore the menu of a restaurant.

Contactless ordering- Order through the app.

Contactless payment-Once you place the order, pay the bill via the app and leave the restaurant premises

3.07 pm: Ludhiana ACP passes away

Ludhiana Assistant Commissioner of Police Anil Kohli passed away due to coronavirus. He was at the SPS Hospital in Ludhiana. Punjab had 202 cases of coronavirus till 8am on April 18.

Punjab: Ludhiana Assistant Commissioner of Police Anil Kohli passes away due to #COVID19 at SPS Hospital in Ludhiana, says District Public Relations Office pic.twitter.com/C0bW62J9MO - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

3.05 pm: Rajasthan coronavirus cases

Rajasthan reported 12 more coronavirus cases in the state. Eleven of these cases emerged in Nagaur and one is Jaipur. Till April 18, 8am, Rajasthan had 1,229 coronavirus cases.

3.00 pm: Gujarat coronavirus updates

The Gujarat government will provide Rs 1,000 to 66 lakh families under the National Food Security Act, said Principal Secretary Ashwini Kumar.

2.55 pm: Maharashtra to help migrant workers

Maharashtra government will provide Rs 2,000 each to 12 lakh construction workers through direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme. This will ensure some help to migrant workers who have been rendered jobless and are unable to return to their homes as well.

2.50 pm: Maharashtra coronavirus updates

Maharashtra Police has arrested 10,729 people and seized 33,984 vehicles over violation of lockdown norms. The police has registered 52,626 cases under Section 188 of IPC. The police also said that eight police officers and 29 other police personnel have contracted the virus.

2.40 pm: Delhi Cabinet Meeting

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will chair the Cabinet Meeting at 4pm. The cabinet will discuss the coronavirus situation in Delhi.

2:37 pm: DGCI to conduct drug surveys

Health Ministry has asked the Drug Controller General of India to monitor and conduct surveys with regard to coronavirus drugs, says govt.

2.33 pm: Coronavirus in Manipur

Officials of health dept were booked after substandard N95 masks were seized in a raid. The raid was conducted by a special team of the Vigilance and Anti-corruption Police Station on Friday after allegations were levelled that substandard masks were supplied to the district hospital in Churachandpur, they said. The team seized 1,250 N95 masks and samples of other medical protective gear, police officials said.

2.30 pm: Coronavirus in Haryana

Haryana State Health Department has said that there are 227 cases of COVID-19 in the state. Out of the case, 137 are active and 88 have recovered. The government said that two people have died in Haryana.

2.28 pm: AIIMS to advise non-COVID patients

AIIMS has said that allnon-coronavirus patients who were undergoing treatment there can now register online for follow-up appointments. On the given date, doctors would call the patients up and advise them.

2.22 pm: Coronavirus impact in India

Flipkart and Amazon are gearing up to increase their deliveries but they have been facing logisitical challenges. Firstly, they require approval from states. They also need to ensure social distancing measures, which means that full staff cannot work at fulfillment centres. Moreover, workers are also not keen on joining back as they fear they might not be allowed to enter their villages and towns.

2.19 pm: Coronavirus in Delhi

Delhi Police has caught absconding man who visited Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital to get tested. He ran away from there. The police is also ensuring that all who came in contact with the man are being tested.

2.17 pm: Coronavirus in West Bengal

People at Ramgarh market of Kolkata buying essentials amid COVID-19 lockdown. The countrywide lockdown will be in effect till May 3, 2020.

West Bengal: People at Ramgarh market of Kolkata buy essentials, amid #CoronaLockdown. The nationwide lockdown imposed to combat #COVID19 will last till 3rd May 2020. pic.twitter.com/OzSeatVTAx - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

2.11 pm: India coronavirus news

Congress leader Manish Tewari writes to Parliamentary Standing Committee of Finance's Chairperson, Jayant Sinha, requesting him to explore the feasibility of convening the committee virtually to take stock of the economic situation in the country amid the lockdown due to coronavirus.

My letter to @jayantsinha Hon'ble Chairperson Parliamentry Standing Committee of Finance requesting him to explore the feasibility of convening the Committee virtually to take stock of the Economic Situation in the Country in the wake of the Lockdown due to COVID-19 pic.twitter.com/PueEj13EOZ - Manish Tewari (@ManishTewari) April 18, 2020

2.05 pm: Coronavirus latest news

A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking to allow migrants across India to return to their homes adding that the state should make necessary arrangements for their travel.

1.57 pm: Mangaluru coronavirus news

A case has been registered against 2 foreign citizens who were under home quarantine in Kodailbail in Mangaluru for allegedly spitting in the lift in their apartment building on Friday. The 2 foreign nationals and their 3 room-mates have been sent to an isolation facility.

Mangaluru: Case registered against 2 foreign nationals who were under home quarantine in Kodailbail, for allegedly spitting in the lift in their apartment building yesterday. The 2 foreign nationals and their 3 room mates have been sent to a quarantine facility. #Karnatakapic.twitter.com/3IkgFuSgt0 - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

1.49 pm: Delhi receives 42,000 rapit testing kits, Rajasthan first state to conduct rapid tests

Delhi has received 42,000 rapid testing kits which will be used in containment zones beginning from April 19, state Health Minister Satyendar Jain informed. Meanwhile, Rajasthan is the first state to conduct rapid tests with the arrival of 10,000 kits from Delhi.

1.42 pm: Delhi lockdown news

Delhi government has directed the officials to move all non-COVID-19 patients from dedicated hospitals to other facilities by Sunday. (PTI report).

1.36 pm: Coronavirus lockdown in Gujarat

The Gujarat government has finally got the permission for plasma therapy to treat critically-ill coronavirus patients in the state.

1.30 pm: Japan coronavirus updates

The total tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Japan climbed to 10,000 on Saturday, NHK public broadcaster said. This came just days after emergency was extended to the entire country in order to prevent the further spread of novel coronavirus.

1.24 pm: Tamil Nadu coronavirus news

Vasanthamani, Dean, Kilpauk Medical College & Hospital in Chennai said on Saturday that 19 coronavirus patients who have completely recovered are being discharged adding that, "13 were discharged earlier, out of which 5 are interested in plasma donation, 4 are not fit, while we are motivating rest."

Today, 10 #COVID19 patients who have completely recovered are being discharged. 13 were discharged earlier, out of which 5 are interested in plasma donation, 4 are not fit, while we are motivating rest: Vasanthamani, Dean, Kilpauk Medical College & Hospital in Chennai. #TamilNadupic.twitter.com/fUvBHaWdKR - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

1.16 pm: India corona cases: Unfortunate that people not being given PPE kits, says Ajay Maken

Congress leader Ajay Maken said on Saturday that it is unfortunate that people are not being provided with PPE kits. He added, "We got also know that doctors are getting bad quality kits. A large number of health workers are getting affected."

1.09 pm: Coronavirus in Mumbai

Watch: A scuffle broke out between a hawker and police personnel on Friday after the hawker was not allowed to sell vegetables in a containment area in Mankhurd. The police has registered a case in the matter.

#WATCH Mumbai: A scuffle broke out between a hawker and police personnel yesterday after she was not allowed to sell vegetables in a containment area in Mankhurd. A case has been registered in the matter by police. (Source - Amateur video) #Maharashtra#CoronaLockdownpic.twitter.com/NGhaUypxIx - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

12.59 pm: GoM on coronavirus over: Discussed ways to mitigate the hardships faced by people, tweets Rajnath Singh

Taking to Twitter after heading a Group of Ministers' meet (GoM) in Delhi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, "Interacted with the GoM on the COVID-19 situation. We discussed ways to mitigate the hardships faced by the people and the role ministries can play in providing relief to people. The guidelines to allow limited activities and the measures announced by RBI were also appreciated."

Interacted with the GoM on the COVID-19 situation. We discussed ways to mitigate the hardships faced by the people and the role ministries can play in providing relief to people. The guidelines to allow limited activities and the measures announced by RBI were also appreciated. pic.twitter.com/xUGfaSmV8L - Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) April 18, 2020

12.49 pm: Coronavirus India live updates: 6 states past 1,000-mark, Maharashtra tops the list

A total of 6 states have the COVID-19 positive cases' tally past the 1,000-mark in India, with Maharashtra at the top. The other five states are Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, while, Maharashtra topping the charts with 3,323 cases. Delhi is the second-worst affected state with 1,707 coronavirus cases and 42 deaths. Tamil Nadu is the third on the list with 1,323 COVID-19 cases and 15 deaths. Madhya Pradesh- 1,310 cases, death toll at 69, Rajasthan- 1,229 and 11 deaths, Gujarat- 1,099 cases, death toll at 41.

12.39 pm: Gujarat coronavirus news

7 more die due to COVID-19 in Gujarat. With this the death toll in the state has risen to 48.

12.35 pm: World economy bound to suffer severe recession due to COVID-19, says IMF

International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva has cautioned that the world economy is bound to suffer a "severe recession" in 2020, due to the coronavirus crisis. (ANI reports)

12.29 pm: Madhya Pradesh coronavirus updates

The total number of COVID-19 positive cases rose to 1,355 in the state, whereas, death toll stands at 69, said MP's Health Department.

12.24 pm: Delhi coronavirus news

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Saturday that 42,000 Rapid Test kits are available across the national capital now. "Currently, training for using the kit is going on and soon we will begin with Rapid Tests for Covid-19. We will first conduct these tests in hotspot areas," he added.

12.19 pm: Karnataka latest updates on coronavirus

12 fresh COVID-19 cases have been registered in Karnataka since Friday evening. This takes the total count in the state to 371, including 13 deaths and 92 discharges as of now.

12.15 pm: Meghalaya coronavirus news

Meghalaya registered 2 more fresh COVID-19 cases on Saturday, taking the total count in the state to 11.

12.10 pm: PM Modi on coronavirus

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday took to Twitter to laud "all those working round the clock, across the nation, to ensure India's energy needs are met."

Kudos to all those working round the clock, across the nation, to ensure India's energy needs are met. https://t.co/52SxN97j6n - Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 18, 2020

12.05 pm: Tamil Nadu coronavirus news

Watch: Tiruppur police in Tamil Nadu has released a video showing cops operating a drone to monitor the general public and request them to stay at home.

11.57 am: Coronavirus in Lucknow

Lucknow's King George's Medical University (KGMU) said that the report of 64 patients came out to be positive on Saturday. Out of these 53 were new cases and 11 other people were tested for the second time.

11.48 am: Coronavirus latest news

A Group of Ministers (GoM) meet is underway to track the developments related to coronavirus situation in the country. The meetin is headed by Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. Other ministers such as Smriti Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan and Ram Vilas Paswan are also attending the session. The meeting is expected to discuss the way forward, after the easing of restrictions in some areas post April 20.

11.38 am: China coronavirus updates

Imported COVID-19 cases in China reach 1,566, with 27 new ones. While, the death toll is at 4,632 with 50% jump in fatality numbers from Wuhan, which is the epicentre of the virus, health officials said on Saturday.

11.27 am: Delhi coronavirus news

A COVID-19 patient, who had escaped from LNJP hospital in Delhi, was arrested by the Delhi Police from Rai village in Haryana. The police has registered a case and is in the process of making a list of people who might have come in contact with the said patient while his duration of escape.

11.17 am: Coronavirus in Gujarat: Sharpest rise in COVID-19 cases in 12 hours

Gujarat saw the sharpest rise in the number of novel coronavirus cases in 12 hours with 176 new cases reported since Friday evening, the state health department said. The total number of COVID-19 cases have now reached 1,275 in Gujarat now.

11.03 am: UN chief salutes countries helping others fight novel coronavirus pandemic

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres salutes nations like India in helping others fight COVID-19 pandemic world over, his spokesman said. This came days after, India sent supplies of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), an anti-malaria drug, to several countries, including the United States.

10.55 am: Coronavirus in Andhra Pradesh

31 new COVID-19 cases and 1 death were reported in Andhra Pradesh in the last 24 hours, taking the total tally in the state at 603 and death toll at 15. There are 546 active coronavirus cases in the state as of now.

10.45 am: Nagpur coronavirus news

The Nagpur Municipal Corporation said that 4 new COVID-19 positive cases were registered in Nagpur on Saturday. (ANI reports).

#Maharashtra Four new COVID19 positive cases reported in Nagpur today: Nagpur Municipal Corporation - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

10.36 am: Coronavirus news: Donald Trump urges US states to lift restrictions imposed over COVID-19

US President Donald Trump has appealed the supporters to "liberate" 3 states led by Democratic governors, encouraging protests against stay-at-home mandates which are aimed at stopping COVID-19.

10.29 am: Coronavirus in Gujarat

State government has decided to conduct plasma transfusion treatment on COVID-19 patients in Gujarat, especially on those in critical condition, to boost their immunity, health officials said. This treatment entails plasma extraction from the blood of a fully recovered COVID-19 patient which is injected into the critical patient to help his body generate antibodies to fight the virus.

10.23 am: Punjab coronavirus news

Punjab Department of Higher Education has issued a show cause notice to Lovely Professional University in Jalandhar for "violating government orders and endangering around 3,200 people" by "not shutting down completely".

Punjab Department of Higher Education has issued a show-cause notice to Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar for 'violating government orders & putting in danger lives of about 3200 people' by 'not shutting down completely'. #CoronaLockdownpic.twitter.com/qnoFkJmVum - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

10.17 am: Rajasthan coronavirus news

2 more people died of COVID-19 at a state-run hospital in Jaipur. With this, the death toll in Rajasthan rose to 19 on Saturday, an official said. Meanwhile, the total number of coronavirus cases in the state have climbed to 1,270 after 41 more people tested positive for the respiratory infection.

10.09 am: India lockdown news

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan warned on Friday that action will be taken against hospitals if they turn away patients needing immediate attention and treatment. "We need to take a serious view against this denial of treatment to patients who have been visiting hospitals in case of emergency and are being forced to visit a number of hospitals, one after another resulting in denial of immediate medical attention which may result in loss of their lives," the minister said.

10.01 am: Coronavirus cases India

India registered 991 fresh COVID-19 cases and 43 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to latest data by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

9.55 am: Coronavirus pandemic a big challenge but also an opportunity: Rahul Gandhi

Taking to Twitter on Saturday morning, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said, "The Covid-19 pandemic is a huge challenge but it is also an opportunity. We need to mobilise our huge pool of scientists, engineers and data experts to work on innovative solutions needed during the crisis."

The #Covid19 pandemic is a huge challenge but it is also an opportunity. We need to mobilise our huge pool of scientists, engineers & data experts to work on innovative solutions needed during the crisis. - Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 18, 2020

9.48 am: Coronavirus in Kerala

An 85-year-old person, who was earlier tested positive for COVID-19 and later tested negative, passed away due to cardiac arrest early Saturday in Kerala. The patient was from Keezhattur, Malappuram and was admitted to the Manjeri medical college in Gujarat after testing positive for the virus.

9.42 am: Coronavirus vaccine: CSIR to start trial on anti-leprosy drug

As the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) announced that it will start with the study of the immune-boosting BCG vaccine, Council of Science and Industrial Research (CSIR) is going to begin clinical trials of Mw (Mycobacterium w) drug, an anti-leprosy vaccine to see if it can be used as a vaccine to treat COVID-19 patients. CSIR and Gujarat-based pharma company Cadila Healthcare Ltd would be working on Mw vaccine for COVID-19.

9.32 am: Karnataka coronavirus news

Additional Commissioner of Police, Crime Branch said on Saturday that a raid was conducted at Ramamurthy Nagar from where 1,000 tetra packs of whiskey were confiscated. The police also carried out another raid at Kengeri from where the officials confiscated cigarettes and tobacco products.

9.24 pm: Coronavirus cases live updates

In Pics: People at Ghazipur market come out to buy essentials amid lockdown.

Delhi: People at Ghazipur fruit & vegetable market to buy essentials, amid #CoronaLockdown. The nationwide lockdown imposed to combat #COVID19 will last till 3rd May, 2020. pic.twitter.com/yLIqdRPSuH - ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

9.15 am: Coronavirus cases United states

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the US has cross 7 lakh and over 36,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. The country has clocked the highest number of cases and deaths in the world. The US has registered 7,00,282 coronavirus cases and 36,773 deaths as of 8:30 pm (0030 GMT Friday), according to the Baltimore-based university. (Agency)

9.00 am: Number of coronavirus cases rise in India

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases jumped to 14,378 in the country, according to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. This figure includes 11,906 active cases, 1991 cured and discharged, 480 deaths and 1 migrated. Maharashtra remains the worst-affected state in India with 3,323 cases and 201 deaths followed by Delhi and Tamil Nadu.

8.45 am: Coronavirus scare in Navy

Over 25 Navy personnel have already been tested for COVID-19, many have been found positive aboard INS Angre, docked in Mumbai. The first cases was reported on April 7. Meanwhile, there is no confirmation on the exact numbers of positive cases as many suspects' results are still awaited.

Read more here: Coronavirus: Over 20 Indian Navy personnel tested, several feared positive

8.30 am: India lockdown news: GoM likely at 11 am on Saturday

A Group of Ministers (GoM) meet is expected to happen at 11 am on Saturday to track the developments related to coronavirus situation in the country. The meeting will be headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other ministers such as Smriti Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan and Ram Vilas Paswan are likely to attend the session. The meeting is expected to discuss the way forward, after the easing of restrictions in some areas post April 20.

8.15 am: Coronavirus cases in India: Cases near 14,000-mark

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases stand at 13,835 after as many as 1,000 cases were recorded for the fourth straight day on Friday. The death toll also jumped to 452, according to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Indore in Madhya Pradesh recorded a very high jump in death toll. Rajasthan became the first state in the country to conduct rapid tests for COVID-19 as 10,000 testing kits.
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

COVID-19 is affecting Native Americans in disproportionate ways.

Native Americans make up almost 37% of all the positive COVID-19 cases in the state. By comparison, the Native population in New Mexico is 11% overall.

The Indian Affairs Department, other state departments and the Navajo Nation have teamed up with New Mexico PBS for a virtual town hall to address COVID-19 concerns.

The broadcast will air at 6 p.m. Sunday, April 19, on New Mexico PBS and live on its Facebook page. Acoma Pueblo member Conroy Chino will moderate.

Those expected to participate are Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland, state secretaries, and Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and J. Michael Chavarria, chairman of the All Pueblo Council of Governors.

Keegan King, policy and communications bureau chief for the Indian Affairs Department, said one reason for having the virtual event is so that tribal communities arent forgotten.

He said COVID-19 is bringing to light a lot of the inequities that still exist in tribal communities.

There is also real concern about the number of Native Americans who have died from the disease compared with the general population. The reasons for the disparity are many, including underlying health risks, shortages in funding for Indian Health Service and even the lack of running water in many homes in Indian Country, which makes the basic preventative practice of hand washing difficult.

King said internet access is typically seen as an amenity and at times during a public health emergency, its needed for the health and welfare of people.

We need to have broadband access as a key component, King said.

A lot of the vital information hasnt been there for the everyday working man, King said. We will be able to talk about food and water deliveries.

King said the state has been working well with tribal leadership. In turn the leadership communicates with their citizens.

With Zuni Pueblo, they are using their radio station to communicate this information, King said. With communities with no radio, theyve placed flyers on doors. In some places canvassing had been done.

Teaming up with New Mexico PBS gives the message a bigger reach.

King said most Native Americans access information through mobile devices and rely on using a signal in the smartphone to use social media.

The town hall is the latest in a string of developments for tribal communities.

The state has delivered over 10,000 boxes of food this week, King said. Weve continued to deliver water tankers to many tribal communities. Our state agencies are working with National Guard and emergency operations to get help in.

King said the conversation needs to continue with tribal communities included.

Every day, there are new needs and the crisis shifts, King said. We cant lose this urgency and have to continue to build momentum in making changes for tribal communities.

Franz Joachim, NMPBS general manager and CEO, said the station worked quickly to make the town hall available to a wider audience.

NMPBS covers the majority of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico.

We know how much of a challenge it is in the Navajo Nation, Joachim said. These are very challenging times and going virtual is one of the ways we are working with these conditions. The broadcast will give more reach to get the pertinent information to New Mexicans.
When Zahras (name changed) two daughters, aged 4 and 7 years, were tested positive for Covid-19 last month and put in isolation, she vowed to not leave their side till full recovery.

During quarantine at the hospital, when the girls started asking her mother why she was maintaining physical distance with them, the mother convinced them saying it was her who was ill and needed to take precautions, while pointing towards her personal protection equipment set.

I knew there was high risk of getting infected myself, but how could have I left them alone? All I wanted was to take care of my children, give them clean food, hot water, maintain their hygiene and leave the rest to God, said the 32-year-old mother.

Throughout the isolation period, the girls father was in a different hospital tending to his dad, who had initially tested positive for the disease.

Now both cured and home, the girls had contracted coronavirus from their grandfather, who had returned from Saudi Arabia in March. Except the three, no other family members have contracted the infection.

Zahra, a homemaker from uptown Srinagar, said the news of the three testing positive devastated the whole family. It is now we know that people can recover as well, but three weeks ago we knew the disease was nothing but fatal, she said.

The 21 days of quarantine with her daughters in the hospital was a life-changing experience for Zahra. Though in same room, she kept distance from her children, wore protective suit day and night, and maintained constant hygiene. My children would ask me to hug them, sleep beside them, but I would tell them that I was sick and needed to avoid contact. The younger one was difficult to pacify at times, she recollected, adding that she would weep at times, but hide it from the kids.

The girls tests came negative for fifth times and were discharged on April 13.
There has been widespread media coverage of the possible protection of the BCG vaccine, given to children in Ireland for generations, against coronavirus.

While the World Health Organisation has warned of the pitfalls of reading too much into studies into such protection provided by the BCG vaccine, a number of reputable researchers and professors from Ireland have suggested it could be a mitigating factor in Ireland's lower death rate compared to other countries.

The BCG vaccine was given to children in a national programme in Ireland until 2015. It started being given to babies in the 1930s and was introduced and administered as protection against tuberculosis. It was stopped here in 2015 by the Department of Health due to a global shortage. It was stopped in countries like the USA, Italy and the UK far earlier. The programme for BCG in the UK started later in the 1950s and ended in 2005.

A University of Texas study revealed last week that countries with longstanding vaccination programmes for the BCG had ten times fewer coronavirus cases than countries without such programmes. WHO has warned against taking explicit findings from studies like this with a wide range of confounding factors, including population age and testing capacity and rollout.

The Texas study also pointed to a lower death rate by a factor of 20 in countries with a BCG programme compared to those countries without.

Urologist Paul Hegarty of the Mater Hospital, Dublin, has said they did not expect to see such a difference in these results. He said results were similar in a recent New York study and that he was "heartened" by such findings. Clinical trials targeted at healthcare workers are already underway in Australia and the Netherlands.

It is not recommended that whole populations are given the vaccine until further testing has been done.

Having not been endorsed by WHO for the treatment of coronavirus, it is not clear if the vaccine will be rolled out, although these reputable studies appear to show it may have some effect in stemming the impact of coronavirus.

The WHO has issued a strong warning against the use of the vaccine for coronavirus until detailed studies have been carried out on its effectiveness.

The search for a global vaccine for coronavirus continues and could take between 12-18 months to reach populations.
Scientists want to find out if vaccines already in existence might provide protection against COVID-19.

The idea does not seem to make sense. Vaccines are designed to target a single virus or bacterium. But vaccines made using active strains of bacteria or viruses seem to help the bodys natural defenses, called the immune system, fight non-targeted diseases as well.

There is no evidence yet that such vaccines could improve the immune system enough to resist the new coronavirus. But, a COVID-19 vaccine is expected to take 12 to 18 months. So, some researchers say it is time to test a tuberculosis vaccine for possible effects on the new coronavirus.

Dr. Mihai Netea is with Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands. He says if the TB vaccine works, it could be a very important tool to bridge this dangerous period until a COVID-19 vaccine is available.



The World Health Organization on Monday strongly warned against the use of the tuberculosis vaccine against COVID-19 until studies prove it works. Neteas team is leading such a study already involving almost 1,500 Dutch health care workers as subjects. The researchers are treating some of the workers with the TB vaccine called BCG. It is made of a live but weakened bacterium related to TB bacteria. The other study subjects are treated with a placebo, an inactive substance.

Another study of BCG is taking place with 4,000 hospital workers in Australia. Similar research is being planned in other countries, including the United States.

Another possibility for treatment is a polio vaccine made of live but weakened polio viruses. The Global Virus Network in Baltimore, Maryland wants to begin studies with that vaccine, which is taken by mouth. Dr. Robert Gallo, a founder of the group, told The Associated Press that he is discussing the idea with health officials.

Jennifer Routh of the U.S. National Institutes of Health also said researchers there are discussing TB and polio vaccines as a possible COVID-19 defense.

Live vaccines, however, are risky for people with weakened immune systems. They should not be tried against COVID-19 outside of a research study, said Dr. Denise Faustman. She is immunobiology chief at Massachusetts General Hospital and is planning a TB vaccine study.

She added that her study provides a good chance to prove or disprove this off-target effect.

Early evidence

Years ago, scientists began noticing that people vaccinated with some live vaccines had improved immunity to non-targeted sicknesses.

The TB vaccine, for example, is given mostly to babies in developing countries. It offers only partial protection against bacterial TB. But studies suggested that the vaccinated babies had better survival rates and resisted lung infections better.

In 2018, Neteas team published a more direct test. It showed that BCG vaccine increases immunity overall. In fact, it was good enough to at least partly block another virus given experimentally a month later.

There has been a report that researchers in the former Soviet Union found that influenza cases dropped after polio vaccinations in the 1970s.

And in 2015, Danish researchers found similar results with polio vaccinations given by liquid drops through the mouth. These are still used in developing countries, while the U.S. and other areas use the inactivated shot for childhood vaccines.

Immunity from live vaccines

The goal of a vaccine is to prepare the body to recognize a targeted health threat. Vaccines cause the body to make antibodies, products in the blood that fight bacteria and viruses. BCG appears to influence immune cells so they can more readily remove germs in general, said Netea, the Dutch researcher.

Scientists not involved in the effort to try these vaccines against COVID-19 told the AP that such studies are worthwhile.

Im Mario Ritter, Jr.

Lauran Neergaard reported this story for the Associated Press. Mario Ritter Jr. adapted it for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

strain n. a group of closely related living things
There is no evidence to support the belief that people who have recovered from coronavirus will not catch it again, the World Health Organisation has said.

WHO chiefs have warned world leaders against investing too heavily in the tests to show if a person has already had the virus, because they do not guarantee immunity.

The UK Government has bought 3.5million serology tests, measuring antibodies in blood plasma, but they are not definitive in proving if someone has had the virus.

Many tests being developed are pin prick blood checks similar to widely used instant HIV tests and measure raised levels of the antibodies the body uses to fight the virus.

It comes as a top health official said the coronavirus 'immunity passports' plan is doomed to fail after only 10 per cent of Italians developed Covid-19 antibodies.

And a study by scientists at Stanford University in the US found as much as 4 per cent of California's population may have already been infected with the virus.

Meanwhile Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche said it has developed an antibody test that it hopes to roll out in May to detect people previously infected with COVID-19, even those who displayed no symptoms.

A doctor shows a negative quick coronavirus test in a tent set up at a hospital in Caracas on Wednesday. Venezuela has rolled out the mass deployment of a rapid blood antibody test from China that checks for proteins that develop a week or more after someone is infected

A woman undergoes a serological test during the coronavirus lockdown in Milan on Tuesday

Britain and many countries had hoped antibody tests would allow those who can prove they have had the virus  and therefore thought to be immune  to return to work and stabilise the economy.

But Dr Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's emergencies programme, said there was limited evidence that coronavirus survivors were guaranteed future immunity to the disease.

This means those who have already had the virus could be at risk of being reinfected.

He added: 'Nobody is sure whether someone with antibodies is fully protected against having the disease or being exposed again.

Scientists still don't know if developing antibodies means lifelong immunity and whether tests will ever be accurate Does everyone who has survived coronavirus develop antibodies? When someone is exposed to coronavirus, the body begins making proteins known as antibodies which fight the infection. If these antibodies can successfully contain the virus and stop it spreading within the body, symptoms will normally start to reduce in patients. The immune system will then completely destroy all the virus in someone's body - leaving them with no long-term health effects if all goes well. Everyone who develops Covid-19 will produce these antibodies, but small amounts of the virus may remain in the body for a few days after they feel fully recovered  hence the importance of self-isolation. Scientists are unclear whether developing antibodies means immunity will be lifelong - and they may only last an average of two years Once someone has recovered from a viral infection, their body will retain cells known as lymphocytes in their system. These effectively remember viruses the body has previously encountered, meaning it should quickly fight them off again. This means your antibodies will probably stop the virus before it causes any noticeable symptoms - also known as 'immunity'. However, immunity can decrease over time for some viruses, which is why some people get revaccinated with 'boosters' which can prompt the immune system to make more antibodies. The issue with Covid-19 is that because it is so new, scientists are currently unsure whether people who recover from the infection are immune to catching it again. Furthermore, the World Health Organisation has warned there is limited evidence that coronavirus survivors were guaranteed future immunity to the disease. Some early animal studies suggested that antibodies could block reinfection for at least two weeks. But research on the new coronavirus' closest relative - SARS - shows a patient generates antibodies that last an average of two years. Tom Duszynski, an expert in epidemiology at Indiana UniversityPurdue University Indianapolis, said: 'Doctors are finding antibodies in ill and recovered patients, and that indicates the development of immunity. 'But the question remains how long that immunity will last. Other coronaviruses like SARS and MERS produce an immune response that will protect a person at least for a short time. 'I would suspect the same is true of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus strain that causes Covid-19), but the research simply hasn't been done yet to say so definitively.' Once the test is developed, are they accurate enough to see people who have antibodies? Guidelines from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that a person has recovered from Covid-19 when they have been fever-free without medication for three days in a row. They must also show an improvement in other symptoms such as coughing and shortness of breath - as well as testing negative for the virus twice in two tests taken at least 24 hours apart. As for the antibody test, government officials in the US and UK are yet to find one that is good enough for widespread use. Columbia University expert Dr Susan Whittier has admitted it could take years to find a test which will be accurate enough, although scientists are trying to find a blood-based test within a few months. The main issue is within identifying the exact antibodies produced by a body with a healthy immune system to fight the infection, which scientists are divided on. This means antibody tests have been produced with various designs so far, some of which have failed to work with enough accuracy because they are not specific enough for SARS-CoV-2. Viruses are made up of many proteins, called antigens, of which some are shared with other viruses  but only a few may be unique to Covid-19. The proteins specific to the virus will trigger the production of antibodies that neutralise the virus, stopping it from replicating. Dr Whittier said: 'We have to figure out what part of the virus is going to be really specific for that virus.' NHS England national medical director Professor Stephen Powis said today that officials 'don't have the perfect test for antibodies yet', but the UK is working on one which will assess the real number of infections in the community. He said: 'What's important now as we are a few weeks further on is actually getting the real number on infections in the community and that is best done by testing antibodies i.e. testing people who have caught the virus, and then developed an immune response and then have antibodies in their blood. 'We are beginning to see some studies from other countries that are doing that, it's not straightforward, firstly because the tests are still being worked out and we don't have the perfect test for antibodies yet. 'We don't know how many people produce antibodies when they have the virus and when they produce it and how long they last for. 'That's the important information that will give us an actual figure that is much more closer to the number of infections. 'That work is ongoing in the UK at the moment so we can have that information in the UK rather than relying on other countries.' Advertisement

'Plus some of the tests have issues with sensitivity  they may give a false negative result.'

Coronavirus 'immunity passports' plan is doomed to fail after only 10% of all people in Italy have developed Covid-19 antibodies, says top health official The coronavirus 'immunity passports' plan is doomed to fail after only 10 per cent of all people in Italy have developed COVID-19 antibodies, a top health official has said. The head of the civil protection agency Silvio Brusaferro said that the 'target is far off' and the concept is unfeasible. The announcement however has not stopped many regional governments - which have control over their own healthcare - from rolling out antibody blood-testing schemes. The national government also has plans to launch a programme. The region of Lombardy plans to start conducting immunity tests next week in the hope of issuing 'licences' to people found to be resistant. Lombardy has been by far the worst-affected region in Italy, piling up more cases and deaths than many countries have done. Health care workers will be first in line for Lombardy's antibody tests but the regional government hopes to expand the tests to the general public. The provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona and Lodi will have particular priority after their health systems were overwhelmed by the crisis. Italy has registered 575 deaths over the past 24 hours, taking the total to 22,745, the second highest after America. Advertisement

Dr Ryan also warned that the antibody tests raised ethical questions.

'There are serious ethical issues around the use of such an approach and we need to address it very carefully, we also need to look at the length of protection that antibodies might give,' he said.

'You might have someone who believes they are seropositive (have been infected) and protected in a situation where they may be exposed and in fact they are susceptible to the disease.'

Dr Ryan said the tests had to be used as part of a coherent public health policy.

His colleague Dr Maria van Kerkhove said: 'There are a lot of countries that are suggesting using rapid diagnostic serological tests to be able to capture what they think will be a measure of immunity.

'Right now, we have no evidence that the use of a serological test can show that an individual has immunity or is protected from reinfection.'

She added: 'These antibody tests will be able to measure that level of seroprevalence - that level of antibodies but that does not mean that somebody with antibodies means that they are immune.'

Dr van Kerkhove said it was 'a good thing' that so many tests are being developed.

But she cautioned: 'We need to ensure that they are validated so that we know what they say they attempt to measure they are actually measuring.'

The WHO is due to issue updated guidance on the issue this weekend.

The Government has already invested in 3.5million tests, but has not yet found one reliable enough to roll out.

It was thought that the tests would allow ministers to aim for 'herd immunity', in which most Britons are resistant to Covid-19.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, pictured at a Downing Street press conference on March 12, said a working antibody test would be a 'game-changer' in the fight against coronavirus

A preliminary study of Chinese coronavirus patients in Shanghai found some had 'no detectable antibody response' to the disease  meaning they may be vulnerable to reinfection.

Stanford University antibody testing finds California virus infections are 50 TIMES higher than reported - suggesting COVID-19 is more widespread across the US than previously thought As much as 4 per cent of California's population may have already been infected with coronavirus, results of antibody testing there suggest. Scientists from Stanford University developed an antibody test for coronavirus, which detects when someone has already been infected and their body has produced immune cells that may offer protection against reinfection. They found that between 2.5 and 5.2 percent of the people they tested were positive for antibodies. That would mean that far more people have caught coronavirus than are accounted for in the state's official tally which, at 28,324 cases as of Friday, comes to about 0.07 percent of the stat's population. However, questions remain about the accuracy of antibody tests, as well as whether the sample of people recruited to the study via online ads might draw 'random' test volunteers who suspect they've been infected. The Stanford team has developed the equivalent of a highly 'accurate' test, in immunological terms. According to their validation process, the test is between 95 and 100 per cent specific - meaning that it's excellent at detecting antibodies developed in response to the virus that causes COVID-19, and only that virus. The odds that it would falsely identify someone as having coronavirus when they actually have a different infection, are slim. It's about 80 per cent sensitive, the researching heading up the work, Dr Eran Bendavid, told DailyMail.com. That means that 80 per cent of the time that the blood of someone confirmed to have coronavirus is run through the test, it identifies the antibodies. Despite the 20 per cent of people that suggests it might miss, these pair of measures make it a relatively good test, compared to others and under the difficult circumstances of making a test for antibodies for a virus we know so little about. Advertisement

However, the same study showed other participants had a very high antibody response.

WHO doctors say increased antibodies do not guarantee a second infection.

South Korea has identified a growing number of people who have had two separate coronavirus infections.

More than 100 tested positive for the virus having apparently already recovered from it  a shock to a country that appeared to have contained the virus through prolific testing.

The UK government pounced on an early offer of potential tests produced in China with the New York Times reporting officials agreed to pay about $20million (16million) to secure the home testing kits.

However, when the antibody tests were put through their paces they were found not to be sufficiently accurate and as a result could not be used.

Officials are now scrambling to try to get the money back.

Downing Street did not deny the claims but the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman said he was not aware of the specific 16million figure.

The spokesman said: 'Where tests are shown not to have any prospect of working then we will seek to recover as much of the costs as we can.'

Officials have previously insisted that they had only purchased the minimum number of antibody test needed to conduct initial trials with full orders contingent on the kits actually working.

The coronavirus 'immunity passports' plan is doomed to fail after only 10 per cent of Italians have developed COVID-19 antibodies, a top health official has also said.

The head of the civil protection agency Silvio Brusaferro said that the 'target is far off' and the concept is unfeasible.

The announcement however has not stopped many regional governments - which have control over their own healthcare - from rolling out antibody blood-testing schemes.

The national government also has plans to launch a programme.

Mr Johnson spoke about the importance of antibody tests on March 19 as he revealed the UK was in negotiations for the kits.

He said at the time: 'We are in negotiations today to buy a so called antibody test, as simple as a pregnancy test, that could tell whether you have had the disease.

'And it's early days, but if it works as its proponents claim then we will buy literally hundreds of thousands of these kits as soon as practicable because obviously it has the potential to be a total game-changer.'

Professor John Newton told the Science and Technology Select Committee on April 8 (above) that none of the antibody tests assessed by the government so far were up to scratch

Coronavirus testing can currently be split into two types: Antigen and antibody.

Roche eyes antibody test launch in May Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche said it has developed an antibody test that it hopes to roll out in May to detect people previously infected with COVID-19, even those who displayed no symptoms. Roche said it had developed the Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 immunoassay, which using a blood sample can detect antibodies to determine the body's immune reaction to the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Research teams around the world have been racing to develop such so-called serology tests for the virus, known as SARS-CoV-2, that has sparked the global pandemic. A Roche spokesman said: 'Antibody testing is central to help identify people who have been infected by the virus, especially those who may have been infected but did not display symptoms. The company added that such tests could also allow screening within high risk groups like healthcare workers to determine if they may already have developed a certain level of immunity. 'Once we understand more about the immunity of COVID-19, it could also help society return faster to normality,' the spokesman said. Roche said it was working with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ensure 'emergency use authorisation' to bring its test to market, and said it would also be made available in markets that accept the European CE-mark certification. The company said it aimed to produce tens of millions of the new test by June, and said it would subsequently 'further scale up production as fast as possible.' Roche said the tests can be processed using multiple models of its analysers already in use in hospitals and reference laboratories around the world. Advertisement

The antigen test is the one currently being carried out across the nation which shows if someone has coronavirus.

It was hoped that antibody tests would be able to show if someone has already had the disease and if they have some resistance to it which would allow that person to return to normal life.

Mass produced antibody tests had until now been seen by many as the key to restarting the UK's creaking economy.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced at the start of April that he had appointed Professor John Newton as the UK's testing tsar.

Professor Newton has been tasked with ramping up the government's testing operation.

He told MPs on April 8 that none of the antibody tests assessed by the government so far had worked well enough to be rolled out.

He said experts had set a 'clear target' for the reliability of the tests but that of the devices assessed to date 'none of them frankly were close' to hitting it.

Despite the bleak outlook, Professor Newton insisted he and his scientists were still 'reasonably optimistic' of a breakthrough in the near future.

Meanwhile a key adviser to the Government on coronavirus has said trials for a vaccine for the disease could be completed by mid-August.

Professor Sir John Bell, a member of the Government's vaccine task force and adviser on life sciences, said human testing began at Oxford University last Thursday.

Asked about the possibility of a vaccine being produced by the autumn, Sir John told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'The real question is will it have efficacy?

'Will it protect people, and that has not been tested and it will only be tested once you have vaccinated a significant number of people and exposed them to the virus and counted how many people have got the virus in that population.

'So, we won't even get a signal for that until May.

'But if things go on course and it does have efficacy, then I think it is reasonable to think that they would be able to complete their trial by mid-August.'
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In this unique time where church is done largely online, its important to keep our fellowships strong by incorporating ways to increase a sense of trust and an emotional connection between leaders and group members. Why? Because strong relationships between brothers and sisters is what God designed for His church, especially through tough times like this pandemic season.

This is why the apostle Paul told the Thessalonians to encourage one other and build one another up (1 Thessalonians 5:11). Its because he knew that a threefold cord is not quickly broken (Ecclesiastes 4:12), and that, together, brothers and sisters  will prevail against whatever the future holds.

In that spirit, here are a couple of tips that will aid us in keeping our fellowships strong:

1. Spend time with group members

Time is an essential ingredient in building trust and an emotional connection with our group members. Jesus spent time with His disciples, both individually and corporately, as He traveled with them, ate with them, and taught them. In other words, He wasnt always talking about the Scriptures, oftentimes He was spending time doing daily life with them.

In this new environment, we can still reflect that dynamic in our interactions with our group members by ensuring that we consistently call them and talk to them about their daily lives. This is time spent outside regular bible study discussions.

Whats God teaching you this week?

What is your family doing to pass the time?

How are you doing?

How are you REALLY doing?

Whether we ask these questions in individual phone calls or corporately (on Zoom, for example), these are questions we can ask in order to get our members to open up and talk about themselves. And when they do, and we actively listen and affirm them, we are continuing to develop trust and an emotional connection, which, in turn, maintains strong fellowship.

2. Affirm and encourage group members whenever possible

Many times Jesus affirmed and encouraged the people He was talking to. The first time Jesus saw Nathanael, He said to him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit! (John 1:47). When Peter correctly identified His divine identity, Jesus said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! (Matthew 16:17).

I believe He did these things because He knew that, deep down, all human beings desire to be affirmed and recognized. Not only that, but when we are affirmed, it inspires us to continue on. The bottom line is: If Jesus thought it was important enough to do for the people around Him, then we should also do it for the people around us.

Some of us are already really great at affirming and encouraging others, and some of us need a little practice. What it really boils down to is having the proper perspective. If the goal of group leaders is to grow up their members in the ways of Christ then identify and praise those qualities whenever possible.

For example, we can say things like:

What a great job leading your family this week! It sounds like the Lord is growing you mightily through this time.

Your obedience is inspiring! Im blessed to see you shine in this area.

You handled yourself really well and I want to congratulate you on that! Keep doing what youre doing, because God is using you through it.

Take courage because God chooses to see Christs strength and character in you! And He will continue to sanctify you through this.

There are many different ways to affirm and encourage our members. Just remember, when we do so, were following Christs example.

3. Say more words in texts and emails

A leaders typical method of communication is in a face-to-face group setting. This trades on body language and other nonverbals that develop a more relational feeling in meetings, which in turn builds stronger relationships. Smiling and making eye contact in a face-to-face environment sets our group members at ease and increases trust and comfort in our relationships with them.

Tone of voice is also crucial, simply because the proper tone conveys a friendly and supportive attitude, even when challenging someone. For example, saying the phrase, What did you yesterday? can be communicated either in a friendly or hostile way depending on the tone of voice used.

The problem right now is: We cant smile, make eye contact or convey a tone of voice when we text or email our group members. To fill that void we should say more words. The more words we communicate, the better sense a person gets of how we feel towards them. Consequently, writing What did you do yesterday through a text message can easily be received as cold and accusatory. But notice the difference when more words are used: Youve been on my mind lately and I just wanted to reach out and see how you and your family are doing. So what did you yesterday? A once cold and accusatory text or email now reads like a warm and caring question from a close friend.

Remember, in this time of online fellowship during the coronavirus pandemic, spend time with group members, affirm and encourage them whenever possible, and say more words in texts and emails. If we can do these things, well keep our fellowships strong.
One more person has been added to the mortality rate in Ghana's confirmed Coronavirus cases bringing the total deaths to nine(9).



This was confirmed by the Ghana Health Service on its official COVID-19 update page.



In addition, they confirmed the country's case count is now at 834, this including 99 recoveries, 4 moderate to severe cases as well as 234 are well and responding to treatment.



These are the details as put on the Ghana Health service page:





SITUATION UPDATE, COVID-19 OUTBREAK IN GHANA - 18 APRIL 2020





The Ghana Health Service is supervising the completion of a backlog of laboratory samples which have been picked for testing as part of the COVID-19 testing exercise. This is after some 57,000 samples have already been successfully tested as of April 15th 2020.



In the first batch of this backlog, an additional 198 have been found to be positive. This will bring Ghanas total case count to 834 at the moment. The general public is however advised that this does not represent new infections that are occurring. It represents results from tests of a backlog of samples.



The laboratories have been working day and night to test this large number of samples. Hopefully in the next few days, all the testing would be completed.



Total samples tested so far now stands at 60, 916 with 1.37 % testing positive. The results of these backlog of samples when released does not mean the number of new cases recorded on the day of the report.



Regions that have reported cases are Greater Accra, Ashanti, Eastern, Northern, Volta, Upper East, Upper West, Central, Western and North East.





Ghana Extends Lockdown For One More Week



Restriction of movement in Greater Accra, Kumasi and Kasoa has been extended for one more week.



This was announced by President Akufo-Addo during his 6th address to the nation on the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday, April 9.



A 14-day restriction was imposed with the aim of controlling the spread of the novel Coronavirus and according to the President, "it is important that we stay the course".



Regional Breakdown



Greater Accra  685



Ashanti  59



Eastern  51



Northern  11



Volta  9



Upper West  8



Upper East  8



North East  1



Western  1



Central  1

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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
All eyes were on the minister Friday afternoon inside Mission Park Funeral Chapels South.

People listened closely to the somber eulogies as they remembered the departed. Some mourners stopped at the casket to pay their respects, recounting old memories.

They did all this without ever leaving their vehicles after pulling in from South East Military Drive.

Funerals can get crowded, but they have been reinvented during the coronavirus pandemic by Mission Park Funeral Chapels & Cemeteries, which offers a drive-in funeral service  allowing family and friends to come together to support each other and grieve but still practice social distancing.

On ExpressNews.com: Get the latest update on coronavirus and a tracking map of U.S. cases

A funeral is the beginning of the healing process for people, said Kristin Tips, the president and funeral director of the funeral home chain. Delaying it can make it even harder on people.

The Texas Department of State Health Services recommends funerals be limited to private viewings for only immediate family members, with a memorial service held at a later date, to limit large gatherings that could allow the spread of COVID-19.

I cannot even imagine having to sit there and wait to have a funeral or memorial service, said Dick Tips, the chairman and CEO of Mission Park and the husband of Kristin Tips.

So, about a month ago, he bought a 25-by-14-foot screen, set it up on beside his South Side funeral chapel and created the worlds first drive-in funeral theater.

People park and watch the funeral service live-streamed on the screen, and tune in to hear the service on a radio station.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio funeral homes offering virtual services, drive-thru visitation during coronavirus pandemic

Mourners are even able to drive up to a window, view the departeds casket or urn and pull up to a microphone stand to leave a message for the family.

This is just bringing so much hope and so much comfort to these families, Tips said.

The chapel is hosting three services a day, some attracting hundreds of vehicles  the largest numbered more than 500, Tips said.

If guests cant make the service, they can watch it online, where they can also send virtual hugs and messages and sign a guestbook. all from their home.

The Tips said their goal with each service is to be able to celebrate the life of the person lost  no different from the purpose of the cemetery started by Dick Tips great-great-grandparents in 1907.

In fact, Tips forebear and founder of the business witnessed another pandemic  the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed millions  and donated cemetery spaces for its victims.

Mission Park is helping pandemic victims today by offering financial assistance, the Tips said.

I think it gives families hope, Kristin Tips said. And the opportunity to still show support, even from a car, and comply to social distancing standards.

Each funeral ends with drivers honking their horns three times  once as a form of comfort, a second to show their support and a third to convey their love.

sara.cline@express-news.net
The UK Ambassador to Peru has been slammed for 'abandoning' Britons, after flying home while 11 people are still stuck in the South American country under military lockdown.

The group was left in tears after being told at the last minute that they would not be able to board a repatriation flight on Wednesday.

The Britons - half of whom have tested positive for Covid-19 - say they were abandoned at their hotel.

And they were shocked to find out the UK ambassador Kate Harrisson had flown home, despite their terrifying situation.

The UK Ambassador to Peru, Kate Harrisson (pictured), has been slammed for 'abandoning' Britons, after flying home while 11 people are still stuck in the South American country under military lockdown

Kate Harrison tweeted: 'I will be working from the UK over the next few weeks in order to spend time with my three young children'

Ms Harrison tweeted: 'I will be working from the UK over the next few weeks in order to spend time with my three young children.

'The Embassy's full consular team remains in place and will be led temporarily by Andrew Soper an experienced Ambassadorial level diplomat who arrived in Peru on Tuesday.

'Specialist UK Government support teams have travelled to and from Peru to assist with the repatriation effort over the last three weeks.

'The last of these travelled back to the UK on yesterday's BA plane to support repatriations of British Nationals elsewhere in the world.'

But the 11 Britons trapped in the city of Cusco, in the Peruvian Andes near Machu Picchu, say they feel abandoned by Ms Harrison.

The group, which includes Chris Ramsay (pictured) - one of those who has tested positive for COVID-19 - was left in tears after being told at the last minute they would not be able to board a repatriation flight on Wednesday

Mr Ramsay said: 'Surely the UK ambassador could do five more days work, before spending time with her family.' Pictured: Pariwana Hostel, in Cusco, Peru, which Mr Ramsay is staying in at the

They've watched dozens of people fly home with no idea when they'll be able to leave.

'I'm scared,' said Chris Ramsay, who has tested positive for Covid-19.

'There's five days until Peru stops allowing repatriation flights.

'Surely the UK ambassador could do five more days work, before spending time with her family.

'I don't care if she's working from the UK.

'I feel completely abandoned by the embassy and the Foreign Office.

'Not only have they left us here, after they flew home, they left us in the hotel lobby with nowhere to stay that night.

'They've botched this whole situation from the start.

'While some people have been able to get out, we've been left here to contract coronavirus.

'I've got no faith that they will get us home in the next five days.

'We've had poor communication the whole time.

'The Dutch consulate has done more and showed more compassion in five minutes than the embassy has done in a month.'

Mr Ramsay, of Salisbury, Wiltshire, explained a Dutch official took pity on the group when he saw them crying in their hotel lobby.

Picture of the 96 a night hotel room Mr Ramsay has been forced to pay for after the government backtracked, refusing them from a repatriation flight on Wednesday

He helped them reach a cheaper hotel, where they were allowed to leave their rooms and go into a courtyard.

Mr Ramsay, a former research engineer for Range Rover, had been travelling around South America since the start of the year.

He arrived in Cusco in early March, but was left trapped when the Peruvian president announced the borders were closing with just 24 hours notice.

The 29-year-old has now spent 33 days in lockdown in Peru.

The Britons are threatened with up to 10 years in prison if they leave their accommodation, so for much of it he has been unable to leave a cramped hotel room for 24 hours a day.

'Taking that first step outside, after a week locked up, even just to get in a car to the new hotel was just an absolute relief,' he said.

Picture of the Pariwana Hostel Courtyard where Chris was forced to stay after being 'abandoned' by the British Government

'A bit of fresh air and some sunlight.'

Mr Ramsay also blasted the embassy for leaving them in a hostel where people had tested positive for Covid-19.

It was first revealed in late March that two travellers had contracted the virus at the Pariwana Hostel.

The group were kept there for a further two and a half weeks, before moving.

'That was one of the first of many points we were completely abandoned by the embassy,' Mr Ramsay said.

'That was an environment which was prime for a virus to spread.

'Had they gotten us out of there sooner we might not have got Covid-19.'

Now half of the group have tested positive, which is one of the reasons they've been stopped from flying home.

Mr Ramsay claims the embassy backtracked after offering to pay for the 96-a-night hotel room, leaving his group with a massive bill.

Mr Ramsay said he's spent 1,100 on accommodation and food during lockdown and is fast running out of money to feed himself

He said he's spent 1,100 on accommodation and food during lockdown and is fast running out of money.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: 'We can confirm that, unfortunately, a dozen passengers were refused access to the military flight from Cusco to Lima that was due to join up with the flight to London.

'The Peruvian authorities denied them boarding following health screening.

'We recognise this is deeply disappointing for these passengers and a worrying time.

'We will continue to do all we can to support them and other British nationals who remain in Peru.'

The spokesman said Ms Harrisson had returned home to her family after four weeks of working hard getting Brits home.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 20:30:39|Editor: huaxia

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Video: U.S. mulls reopening economy as its COVID-19 cases top 700,000 on April 17, 2020. (Xinhua/Tan Yixiao, Hu Yousong)

"I think we do have sobering guidance, but I think some things are too tough. It's too tough," Trump says.



WASHINGTON, April 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's call for lifting restrictions on several states has sparked controversy.

In a series of tweets on Friday, Trump urged "liberating" Virginia, Minnesota, and Michigan, three political swing states that now have Democratic governors, throwing his support behind protesters opposing restrictive measures there imposed to slow the spread of the COVID-19.

A group calling itself "Liberate Minnesota" staged a protest Friday afternoon outside the residence of the state's governor, Tim Walz.

Live-streamed video of the event showed many people were packed closely outside the residence, waving pro-Trump signs and flags. Few participants appeared to be wearing masks or other protective gear.

Similar protests, with some attendees armed, took place in Virginia, Michigan, and other states this week.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, tweeted as well on Friday, accusing Trump of "encouraging citizens to engage in armed rebellion."

Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a former Democratic presidential contender, tweeted on Friday that he thinks Trump's remarks "encourage illegal and dangerous acts."

"The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies - even while his own administration says the virus is real, it is deadly and we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted," Inslee added.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before leaving the White House in Washington D.C. Sept. 12, 2019. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

During a press briefing at the White House on Friday, Trump defended his tweets, saying that he feels some state orders are "too tough."

"I think we do have sobering guidance, but I think some things are too tough. It's too tough," Trump said.

The president also said he wasn't concerned about protesters spreading the coronavirus among those attending demonstrations calling for states to reopen.

"No, these are people expressing their views. I see the way they are and I see the way they're working and they seem to be very responsible to me, but they've been treated a little bit rough," he said.

The remarks came a day after the White House issued guidelines that defer to states on reopening decisions, but recommended a three-phase approach, as the administration has been eager to put the nation's economy back on track, which has been hit strongly by business closures and job losses.

Vice President Mike Pence and other officials said Friday that they believe that there is enough testing in place for states to begin moving to the first phase of reopening, as health experts called for cautions.

Lawrence Gostin, director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, warned in a tweet on Friday that "relaxing too early could cause exponential spread."

According to a tally from Johns Hopkins University on Friday, the number of COVID-19 infections in the United States has topped 700,000, with nearly 37,000 deaths. The Trump administration declared this week that the country had "passed the peak" of infections.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before leaving the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on Aug. 21, 2019.(Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

In another tweet on Friday, Trump urged states to step up testing.

Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, the largest epicenter of the nation's coronavirus outbreak, on Friday chided the federal government's failure to provide enough support for testing.

"Large-scale testing is a massive undertaking," Cuomo tweeted. "We need the private sector to work with government to meet this enormous challenge. And we need the federal government to act."

The Democrat also said the pandemic in New York isn't over. The state has reported more than 230,000 confirmed cases and over 17,000 deaths.

(Article by Xinhua Reporter Sun Ding) 
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 05:39:27|Editor: huaxia

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SANTIAGO, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The Chilean Ministry of Health reported on Friday that the country has registered 9,252 cases of COVID-19, with 116 deaths.

Chilean Vice Minister of Health Paula Daza said that 3,621 people have recovered from the virus.

The ministry's undersecretary of assistance networks, Arturo Zuniga, told a press conference that 385 patients are currently in intensive care units, 316 of whom are on ventilators, with 97 in critical condition.

The undersecretary said that there are currently 579 ventilators available in the public-private health network, distributed in hospitals across the country, and that the goal is to increase the number of ventilators to 3,315 in the near future.

Zuniga added that there are 727 health workers in quarantine, while a "significant number of health workers have completed their quarantines and have returned to work."

The Chilean government ordered this week the mandatory use of face masks in elevators and public spaces where there are more than 10 people, such as supermarkets. Schools, cinemas, restaurants, shopping centers and other venues remain closed. Enditem
Patna, April 18 : Coronavirus cases in Bihar rose to 85 on Saturday, with Begusarai and Nalanda reporting fresh cases.

Bihar Health Department Principal Secretary Sanjay Kumar said that two people were found positive for Covid-19 in the state on Friday night. They hail from Nalanda and Begusarai districts. Both of them came in contact with a coronavirus infected person. History of other travel is being ascertained.

So far, Bihar has reported two deaths from Covid-19.

While, Siwan reported highest number of cases at 29, Munger 17, six from Patna, five from Gaya, nine from Begusarai, three from Gopalganj, seven from Nalanda, two from Buxar and three each from Nawada, Saran and Lakhisarai, and 1 case each from Vaishali and Bhagalpur.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
President Donald Trump has urged supporters to "LIBERATE" three states led by Democratic governors, apparently encouraging protests against stay-at-home mandates aimed at stopping the coronavirus.

At least two states under Republican leadership took their first steps toward easing restrictions.

A day after laying out a road map to gradually reopen the crippled economy, Trump tweeted the kind of rhetoric some of his supporters have used to demand the lifting of the orders that have thrown millions of Americans out of work.

"LIBERATE MINNESOTA! LIBERATE MICHIGAN! LIBERATE VIRGINIA, he said in a tweet-storm in which he also lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for criticizing the federal response. Cuomo should spend more time 'doing' and less time 'complaining,' the president said on Friday.

Responding to pleas from governors for help from Washington in ramping up testing for the virus, Trump put the burden back on them: "The States have to step up their TESTING!" Trump claimed Friday that very partisan voices had spread false and misleading information about the nation's testing capacity. But he said "we'll help New York and all of the other states get even better on their testing. At the same time, at least two states took their first steps toward easing the restrictions.

In Florida, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis said municipalities could reopen beaches and parks if they could do so safely. In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said stores could begin selling curbside, nonessential surgery could resume and state parks could reopen.

Sensitive about persistent questions about the capacity for testing, Trump had his health team lead an extensive briefing Friday outlining that adequate capacity exists to get states through the first phase of the White House guidelines for how they should reopen.

Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to see businesses reopen quickly and claimed earlier this week that he had total authority over the matter, even though the lockdowns and other social-distancing measures have been imposed by state and local leaders, not Washington.

We may be opening but we're putting safety first, Trump said.

On Thursday, he outlined a three-step set of guidelines for easing restrictions over a span of several weeks in places that have robust testing and are seeing a decrease in COVID-19 cases, assuring the nation's governors: "You're going to call your own shots." But governors of both parties suggested Friday that they would be cautious in returning to normal, with some warning that they can't do it without help from Washington to expand testing.

The federal government cannot wipe its hands of this and say, 'Oh, the states are responsible for testing,'" said Cuomo, a Democrat. We cannot do it without federal help. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican ally of Trump's, said he would listen to medical experts in deciding how to move forward.

I am not going to do something that I feel in my heart is the wrong thing that's going to endanger our people, he said.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, said Trump's tweets about liberating states put millions of Americans at risk of contracting COVID-19.

"The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly, Inslee said.

Even in largely rural states with small populations, such as Wyoming, Maine and South Dakota, governors said they were not anxious to quickly resume business as usual.

Until we've got the testing up to speed which has got to be part of the federal government stepping in and helping we're just not going to be there, said Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican.

The University of Washington, whose computer models have frequently been cited by health officials at White House briefings, predicted Friday that Vermont, West Virginia, Montana and Hawaii could open as early as May 4 if they restrict large gatherings, test widely and quarantine the contacts of people who test positive.

Iowa, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Utah, Arkansas and Oklahoma, however, are among states that would need to wait until mid-June or early July.

About half the states should wait until at least early June to reopen, and all should gauge the capacity of their public health systems to handle outbreaks, the institute said.

Worldwide, the outbreak has infected more than 2.2 million people and killed over 150,000, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally based on figures supplied by government health authorities around the globe, though it has becoming increasingly clear that the true numbers are much higher.

The official death toll in the US neared 35,000, with about 685,000 confirmed infections.

The shutdowns have inflicted heavy damage on economies around the world. In the US, the crisis has cost at least 22 millions Americans their jobs, pushing the unemployment rate toward levels not seen since the Great Depression.

California lost nearly 100,000 jobs in March, state officials announced Friday, signaling a sudden end to a record 10-year streak of job growth. We are now in a pandemic-induced recession here in the state of California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Carl Schurz

Carl Christian Schurz (March 2, 1829-May 14, 1906) emigrated to the United States from Germany. After arriving in the United States, he settled in Watertown, Wisconsin in 1852. He was admitted to the Wisconsin bar, and then established a law practice in Milwaukee. Being a strong anti-slavery advocate he joined the newly organized Republican Party.

After serving a brief time as United States ambassador to Spain, Schurz served as a general in the American Civil War, fighting with the Union soldiers in the Battle of Gettysburg and other major battles.

After the war, Schurz established a newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri, and won election to the United States Senate. Distancing himself from the Republican Party Schurz helped to establish the Liberal Republican Party.

Schurz unsuccessfully challenged President Grant in the 1872 presidential election.

After Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the 1876 presidential election, he appointed Schurz as his Secretary of the Interior. Schurz sought to make civil service based on merit rather than political party connections and helped prevent the transfer of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the War Department.

After Hayes term of office expired, Schurz moved to New York City in 1881 and briefly served as editor of the New York Evening Post and The Nation. Later, he would become a writer for Harpers Weekly.

Remaining active in politics in 1884, he was a leader in the Independent movement against the nomination of James Blaine for president and supported the election of Grover Cleveland. From 1888 to 1892, he was a representative of the Hamburg American Steamship Company. In 1892, he succeeded George William Curtis as president of the National Civil Service Reform League and held the office until 1901.

Schurz also succeeded Curtis as editorial writer for Harpers Weekly in 1892 and held the position until 1898.

True to his anti-imperialist convictions, Schurz urged McKinley to resist annexing land following the Spanish-American War.

Schurzs wife, Margarethe Schurz, was instrumental in establishing the kindergarten system in the United States.

During Schurzs time in politics he is famous for the saying, My country, right or wrong, if right, to be kept right, and if wrong, to be set right.

Dont we wish that our elected representatives in Washington would accept Schurzs philosophy?

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A federal appeals court last week denied challenges from Montana-based environmental groups over two projects in the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Forest Service complied with environmental laws when it approved the Johnny Crow Wildlife Habitat Improvement Project near Townsend and the Moose Creek Vegetation Project near White Sulphur Springs. Both projects were approved in 2017 and upheld by district court judges in 2018 after initial legal challenges.

We are pleased that our decisions and analyses were upheld and to be able to move forward. I want to acknowledge the importance of these projects and the amount of work our folks put into them, Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest Supervisor Bill Avey said in a statement. We want to thank our partners, including the Elkhorn Restoration Committee/Big Elk Divide Collaborative and Broadwater County for their continued support to improve wildlife habitat on the Johnny Crow project, and Meagher County and State of Montana DNRC for their backing to improve forest health through the Moose Creek project.

The 13,500-acre Johnny Crow project in the Elkhorns includes prescribed fire, and cutting and burning of small trees in an effort to expand grasslands. The Forest Service said the project would increase forage for wildlife and use a categorical exclusion, meaning it would be exempted from further environmental analysis if the project does not significantly affect the environment.

In 2017 Native Ecosystems Council and Montana Ecosystem Defense Council filed the lawsuit, saying among several points that the Forest Service erred in categorically excluding the project and that it warranted more robust study. The groups argued that the project would be more valuable to livestock interests than promoting wildlife habitat.

In 2018 a district court judge ruled in favor of the agency, and last week the Ninth Circuit agreed.

The record confirms that (Forest Service) considered the appropriate factors when determining whether to proceed by way of categorical exclusion, the circuit court wrote.

Native Ecosystems Council director Sara Johnson said the project would cause more environmental damage than it would provide in grass for wildlife and livestock.

The Forest Service is burning juniper and sage in that (Elkhorns) wildlife management area for 20 years and never any public involvement and yet the court just gives them a pass, she said. Im a strong advocate for wildlife and juniper trees are incredibly important for a lot of wildlife. They call it habitat improvement and what theyre really doing it for is the cows.

The area also holds a number of noxious weeds that are likely to spread after the fire, Johnson added.

The 2,700-acre Moose Creek project located about 20 miles north of White Sulphur includes a includes a variety of moderate thinning to clearcutting, and prescribed burning in heavily beetle-killed forests.

Under the 2014 Farm Bill, Gov. Steve Bullock nominated and the federal government accepted about 5 million acres in Montana as in critical condition due to insects and disease. The designation allows the Forest Service to expedite work primarily through categorical exclusions for those acres deemed critical, and the Helena-Lewis and Clark approved the project under that designation.

Native Ecosystems Council and Alliance for the Wild Rockies sued over the project, saying the projects must still be analyzed for their cumulative impacts as well as impacts to wildlife after a federally protected grizzly bear took up residence in the Little Belts.

In 2018, like Johnny Crow, a district court judge ruled in favor of the agency. The council was the only one of the two groups to appeal, and last week the Ninth Circuit upheld that ruling. The circuit court found that 2019s Center for Biological Diversity v. Ilano ruled that designated acres could be legally categorically excluded and the same precedent held for Moose Creek.

"Because Ilano controls the outcome on this issue, NECs challenge must be rejected," the circuit court wrote.

The circuit court focused a portion of the decision on the councils contention that logging of old growth should be considered cumulatively as the forest overall was not meeting its standards for maintaining old growth trees.

Theres not enough old growth but the court is basically saying that it doesnt matter, if its 20 acres or less it doesnt count, Johnson said. Its really discouraging when theyre violating the forest plan and the courts still wont make them do it.

As neither project was halted during the litigation, work at both Johnny Crow and Moose Creek has been ongoing.

The Forest Service has been thinning small trees and is preparing to begin prescribed burning next year on Johnny Crow, Avey said.

On Moose Creek, there are two ongoing timber sales that are roughly 80-90% complete and prescribed burning scheduled over the next several years, he said.

Reporter Tom Kuglin can be reached at 447-4076 @IR_TomKuglin

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A panel of medical experts from across the country recently answered people's questions about the coronavirus.

Chief National Investigative Correspondent Mark Albert hosted another nationwide Facebook Live event with medical experts to get the facts on COVID-19.

Is there going to be a second or third wave of this virus in the fall or winter?



"Until we get a vaccine, it's very likely we will see recurrence at least for another year or so," Dr. Stephen Blatt, of TriHealth, said.



What happens with health care for heart attacks, strokes, and other complications during this time?



"Overall, we've seen about a 30% reduction in our volumes. I asked them, 'Why did ... you wait? 'And a lot of them will tell me that they were afraid of coming to the hospital because of the virus. Don't wait! Come to the hospital because we're there to take care of you," Dr. Claudette Rodriguez, of HonorHealth, said.

Does the coronavirus affect people differently depending on their blood type?



"There is some early data suggesting that particularly perhaps patients with type A blood may have more severe illness when they come down with COVID infection," Blatt, of TriHealth, said.

Watch the entire one-hour Coronavirus: Answers with Experts show in the below video player.
During this visit your doctor will most likely perform a transvaginal ultrasound, using an internal probe to assess the size of the baby, view the location of the pregnancy, measure the size of the gestational sac and confirm the babys heartbeat. Your doctor might also discuss the importance of prenatal vitamins and the types of medication that are dangerous to take during pregnancy.

During follow-up exams, your doctor will typically check your weight and blood pressure, measure the growth of your belly and listen to the fetal heartbeat. Your doctor may also check your urine and, in later stages of the pregnancy, feel your belly to check the position of your baby. Starting in the second trimester, most women will typically receive at least one transabdominal ultrasound, in which a probe is pressed against the skin of the belly to view and measure the fetus.

And as you approach your due date, your doctor may examine your cervix to see if it is beginning to soften and dilate. Some women choose to avoid the cervical examinations during routine visits toward the end of their pregnancy.

During your pregnancy, you may decide to do genetic testing, or your doctor may recommend other types of diagnostic testing like amniocentesis, which is usually performed after getting a worrisome result from a prenatal screening test. Regardless of what types of tests or exams are needed, your doctor should always explain them fully and give you the opportunity to ask questions.

What red flags should you look out for?

The overwhelming majority of physicians are decent, caring human beings who would never dream of engaging in behavior like this, said Dr. Reshma Jagsi, an oncologist and the director of the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine at the University of Michigan.

But sexual misconduct can and does happen. We need systems in place that protect women, said Dr. Jagsi, who has examined gender harassment and sexual assault among physicians.

Regardless of your doctors gender, his or her office ought to have a policy in place to include a chaperone in every exam room where a sensitive medical exam or procedure will take place  that includes transvaginal ultrasounds and Pap smears. If your doctor doesnt follow this protocol, that is a potential red flag, she said.
By Associated Press

TORONTO: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday the US and Canada have agreed to keep their border closed to nonessential travel for another 30 days.

Trudeau said it will keep people on both sides of the border safe amid the pandemic.

"The agreement is the same terms. It's just extended for another 30 days. It will ensure we continue to get essential goods and services back and forth across the border," Trudeau said.

US President Donald Trump said this past Wednesday that the US-Canada border will be among the first borders to open and said the US and Canada are doing well in handling the pandemic.

The US has more confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19 than any country in the world.

The US and Canada agreed last month to limit border crossings to essential travel amid the pandemic, but that agreement was due to expire this coming week.

Nearly 200,000 people cross that border daily in normal times.

Essential cross-border workers like healthcare professionals, airline crews and truck drivers will still be permitted to cross.

Truck drivers are critical as they supply grocery stores and medical goods in both directions.

Much of Canada's food supply comes from or via the US.

Canadians who live in the US for part of the year and are returning to Canada are among those who are also exempted from the current travel ban.

Canada sends 75% of its exports to the US and about 18% of American exports go to Canada.

The US-Canada border is world's longest between two nations.
WOOD RIVER  The only way to obtain an approved coronavirus test is through your primary care provider, according to Amy Yeager with the Madison County Health Department.

She said that, although there are drive-through testing sites such as one at Anderson Hospital in Maryville and another in East St. Louis, people still need an order from their primary care physician.

Even to do a drive-up, a physician has ordered that, said Yeager, the director of community health and public information for the county health department.

Yeager said the test currently available for public use can determine if a person has COVID-19, but not if they are a carrier for the new coronavirus.

There is no test to see if youre a carrier without symptoms, she said. Globally we are trying to save peoples lives when symptoms are hitting.

Yeager said most people who contract COVID-19 will experience mild symptoms and a physician must determine the cause of those symptoms. A physician also determines if a person gets the current RT-PCR test, which is different than an antigen test, of which researchers and scientists have not developed an accurate test.

The antigen tests still produce a high number of false positives and have yet to be perfected, she said. So health departments are advising people to assume everyone is a carrier.

This is all new, testing supplies have to be created, said Yeager, whos been with the Madison County Health Department for 20 years.

If a person is approved for the RT-PCR test, a physician will tell them where to go to get tested. There are different places of authorization which can quickly change, Yeager said.

The RT-PCR test is prioritized by criteria, such as if a person is in a high-risk category, including age and underlying conditions, she explained.

In certain high-risk categories, our physicians are deciding all this, Yeager said. That hasnt changed. From the beginning, it has been that you have to call your health care provider.

Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security said there is a demand for viral serology testing, which monitors the immune systems antibody response to viral antigen exposure to better quantify the number of COVID-19 cases, including those who may be asymptomatic or have recovered.

Serology tests are blood-based and can identify if people have been exposed to a particular pathogen by looking at their immune response. In contrast, the RT-PCR tests currently used at drive-through testing sites can only indicate the presence of viral material during infection and will not indicate if a person was infected and subsequently recovered.

The drive-through testing sites do limit human traffic to hospitals and clinics, preventing unnecessary exposure to patients and caregivers.

At Anderson Hospital, you have to meet certain criteria and have a physicians order to complete the test, Yeager said.

Yeager likened the current situation to a time when rubella and polio first occurred in the U.S. and testing had to be developed.

Theres no test for (novel coronavirus), not yet, she said. Its a brand new virus. Public health and the medical field are learning about this as we go. Rubella and polio moved slower, but public health and the medical field had to look at those viruses and it took time.

Were trying to do this at mach speed, she said. It would be great if we could do this quickly. But thats not the reality of where we are today.

Yeager said she is seeing progress.

I feel like we are flattening the curve, she said. I see people are getting it, social distancing. But the days of running to the grocery store just because you forgot one pack of hot dog buns are over at this time. Please dont risk exposing someone or being exposed for a pack of buns.

For more information, visit https://www.co.madison.il.us/departments/health/corona_virus.php.
VICTORIAThe City of Victoria is calling for the British Columbia government to take over its empty hotels and motels as a solution to housing the homeless during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Victoria council passed an emergency resolution calling on the provincial government to use its powers to house those without homes in empty hotels across the region.

There are a number of hotels and motels fully closed that may welcome some source of revenue from the provincial government, Mayor Lisa Helps said on Friday. I dont care how people get inside; if its hotels, motels, arenas, community centres, it doesnt matter to me.

Housing those people would provide them with a safe place to protect themselves from COVID-19, she added.

If the government doesnt want to wade in, then the city wants to be able to declare a state of emergency and requisition the properties themselves, Helps said.

The request was a surprise for hotel operators.

We were caught off guard for sure, said Bill Lewis, the chairman of the Hotel Association of Greater Victoria. For the most part, every hotelier I spoke to yesterday had no idea this was coming and wasnt consulted.

The hotels are still trying to operate and asking them to house the homeless would place more stress on staff, he said.

I think theres a huge question mark on how you would house homeless people in buildings that are still housing the general public and employing people who have no training or experience dealing with the homeless community.

Instead, the association is advocating allowing hotels to negotiate on an individual basis.

Helps said shes waiting to see if the provincial government will intervene.

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing said in a statement that it is working with Victoria to find potential solutions for its homeless populations housing needs.

Victorias request comes as cities across the country grapple with the issue of looking after the vulnerable section of residents.

BC Housing has found a place in hotels, motels and community centres for over 900 homeless people who needed to self-isolate across the province.

Its a similar story in Alberta, where a Calgary hotel has been converted into an isolation site for people without a home.

Toronto is working to buy and lease hotels to house its estimated 8,000 nightly homeless population.

If all we do is provide a short-term relief during the COVID-19 pandemic, only to return people back to their shelters after the fact, we will have recreated the same dangerous circumstances that we had before, said Coun. Joe Cressy, the chair of the citys board of health. The objective here, if we do this right, is to not only provide immediate housing for those at risk of COVID-19 in the homeless community, but also permanent housing solutions so that we solve homelessness afterwards as well.

Purchasing or renting hotels provides a safe space for people without a home and helps the citys economic picture, he added.

Hotels are empty to begin with, but also a lot of potential development sites or sites that were slated for development with the uncertain financial market right now, many of those owners are keen to sell, Cressy said in an interview Friday.

The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness said an estimated 35,000 people live on the streets and in shelters across Canada every night.

The group praised Victorias resolution, saying it has been pushing various levels of government for over a month for a dedicated solution for homeless populations across Canada.

The thing weve been observing across the country is that provincial public health officials have been very, very slow to respond to the needs of people experiencing homelessness across Canada, said Tim Richter, the groups president.

Victorias resolution makes sense, he said, and he hopes more communities look at using space that isnt being used to house people experiencing homelessness.

 By Nick Wells in Vancouver.

Read more about:
An aerial view of San Francisco is seen on October 5, 2017.

Stephen Lam/Reuters

San Francisco can commandeer privately owned property to use during an emergency, including this coronavirus pandemic.

The city would need to compensate property owners, and violation of a commandeer order issued by the mayor or county health officer could be punishable by $1,000 in daily fines, jail time, or both.

City officials continue to debate how best to house and protect those on the frontlines of the pandemic who need isolation housing, as well as its homeless population.

An emergency measure passed Tuesday would require the city to find and rent 8,250 hotel rooms for that purpose, with 7,000 allocated to protect its entire homeless community.

The mayor will decide whether or not to sign it, but if she opts to veto the measure, using emergency power to commandeer private property could be an alternative means of emergency housing.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The city and county of San Francisco could use privately owned land and buildings for emergency housing during the coronavirus outbreak.

As Curbed SF's Adam Brinklow reports, City Attorney Dennis Herrera published a memo Monday detailing the city's power in commandeering private property for emergency purposes.

Mayor London Breed holds the power to commandeer property, according to the memo, but she would also need to have the approval of the Board of Supervisors before doing so. The county health officer would also have the emergency power needed to commandeer property and wouldn't need the board's go-ahead.

The city would need to pay "fair value" for the property it commandeers and would need to sufficiently justify why such drastic measures would need to be taken.

The city would issue a commander order and notify property owners well ahead of time to give them due process for objection if they wish. However, according to the memo, violation of a commandeer order is punishable by fines of up to $1,000 a day, imprisonment, or both.

Story continues

Among the city's myriad privately owned buildings are the headquarters of the region's tech giants, like Salesforce Tower in its East Cut neighborhood and the Twitter building in Mid-Market.

The memo was issued just a day before the city's Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to pass an emergency ordinance that would require San Francisco to rent 8,250 hotel rooms as emergency housing units, with 7,000 allocated for the homeless population.

Since the outbreak hit San Francisco, a citywide effort has attempted to prioritize housing for those on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as those who are homeless, who are in need of self-isolation. Since the city's travel and tourism industries have been hit hard amid the coronavirus pandemic, the thousands of empty hotel rooms have become a viable solution.

The City Controller has placed the estimated cost of renting the 7,000 hotel rooms for 90 days at $105 million, although much of that would likely be refundable. The mayor now has to either sign or veto the emergency ordinance that passed, though the board could override that ruling.

But if Breed does decide to veto it, the prospect of exercising emergency power to commandeer private property in the city for the same purpose could be an alternative.

As the plan previously stood, those who are homeless in San Francisco who would be moved to the hotel rooms are those who have tested positive for COVID-19 or who have been tested and are waiting for results to return. The most vulnerable within the homeless community, people over the age of 60 with underlying health issues, also qualify to be housed in a hotel room designated for this purpose.

But some officials and homeless advocates have been calling for the city to house its homeless residents in individual hotel rooms for weeks as a preventive measure during the coronavirus outbreak, a course of action that Breed has not been on board with.

On April 3, Breed said despite the pandemic, there are limits to how officials can house people. "We are not going to be able to solve our homeless problem in San Francisco with this crisis," the mayor said.

In addition to the cost of filling hotel rooms with the homeless community, efforts would also need to be expended for the proper resources needed to care for residents while housed in hotels.

An outbreak has already hit the homeless community.

On April 2, the first positive case in a San Francisco homeless shelter was found at the city's Division Circle Navigation Center. And on April 6, two more cases were confirmed at MSC South, the city's largest homeless shelter. Then on April 10, 70 people at that shelter were reported to have tested positive, a number that has since swelled to at least 100.

At least 23 residents living in SRO hotels have also tested positive.

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In the UK, one in 20 people have lost a job because of coronavirus. (Getty)

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the world upside down in just a few weeks. Millions of people around the world are facing job loss as a result of countries having to shut down to contain the virus. In the UK, one in 20 people have lost a job because of coronavirus, according to a YouGov poll, while almost one in 10 have seen their hours reduced.

Britains economy could shrink by 35% this spring, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility  and unemployment could rise by more than 2 million because of the coronavirus crisis.

Losing your job can be a huge financial hit, affecting your ability to pay your rent or mortgage, bills and your mental health. If you believe you might be at risk of being made redundant, there are certain things you can do.

Know your rights

If you are worried about being made redundant, make sure to check your employment contract, which will let you know what your rights are regarding pay and notice.

You can work out how much redundancy pay you might get by visiting the Direct.gov website. Its based on age, weekly pay and number of years in the job. In the UK, youll normally be entitled to statutory redundancy pay if youre an employee and youve been working for your current employer for two years or more.

Read more: How to job hunt when businesses aren't hiring

Youll get half a weeks pay for each full year you were under 22, one weeks pay for each full year you were 22 or older but under 41, and one and half weeks pay for each full year you were 41 or older. Your employer cant pay you less than the statutory minimum, but they may pay you more if your contract stipulates this.

You should also find out what your employer must legally do before making you redundant, so you can be sure you are being treated fairly.

Go through your finances

Its also important to take a look at your finances and create a breakdown of everything you spend money on. This includes your rent or mortgage, all of your bills including internet and other monthly outgoings, food and other expenditures.

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Next, work out how much money you need for the following few months and how much you have in your bank account. If you do lose your job, you may be able to cover your living costs with redundancy pay or with your savings.

There may be ways you can save money too. For instance, check if you could save money by switching energy suppliers or you may be able to reduce the amount you spend on food shopping. If youre worried about getting into debt after your redundancy, Citizens Advice has a budgeting tool to see exactly where your money goes each month.

Seek support

Redundancy can take its toll on your emotional wellbeing in many ways, whether its the pressure to provide for your family or a loss of confidence and self-esteem. Its important to seek support from trusted family and friends, as well as professional help if you need. The charity StepChange can provide information and advice.

Read more: How to cope with losing income because of coronavirus

Pick up the phone and lean on friends, family and colleagues to voice your concerns and whether they have been in a similar position themselves. They might be able to reassure you or put things into perspective, says Roddy Adair, director at the recruitment firm Hays.

Perhaps they might even be having similar thoughts themselves, so you could provide mutual support to each other. It helps to know that youre not the only one struggling. If you do choose to confide in your colleagues, try not to instill doubt into them or spread any rumours.

Look after yourself

Investing in your wellbeing will also help you manage any negative thoughts about losing your job, Adair says. This may involve exercising, eating well and getting plenty of sleep. Even if the worst happens and your employer has no other choice but to let you go, looking after yourself means that youll be able to handle this outcome much more constructively and make rational decisions.
This story was originally published on Nov. 8, 2019 in NYT Parenting.

Until the last half-century, if you were biologically unable to have children, you had no recourse  which is why the technological advancements of recent decades have felt almost magical. It has been just 33 years since the first baby was born from a frozen egg, and today the procedure is so mainstream that fertility clinics in America host Cocktails and Cryo egg-freezing parties to drum up new business.

Despite these casually liberated offerings, there are still unmovable barriers to having children for a huge majority of infertile people on the planet. Thats because these treatments are so hard to access  because of cost, geography and stigmatizing laws.

Take, for example, in vitro fertilization. Studies have found that cost is the biggest barrier to I.V.F. treatment worldwide. In the United States, the average cost per cycle of I.V.F. is over $10,000, and most infertile couples pay that fully out of pocket, as fertility treatment is not a benefit health insurance tends to cover. In countries like Australia, fertility treatment is partly subsidized with public funding, but couples must pay a hefty fee  and when that fee went up by 1,000 Australian dollars in 2010, the number of I.V.F. cycles went down by almost a quarter across all socioeconomic groups.

[Read about how to bring down the cost of I.V.F.]

In countries where a cycle of I.V.F. may be fully covered by the state on paper, complete coverage is patchy, says Dr. Joo Teoh, who has studied the costs of I.V.F. across nations. He gives the example of Britain, where two couples living 30 minutes apart may be subject to different rules for I.V.F. subsidies: Though infertile women under 40 may get three cycles of I.V.F. treatment through the most generous version of the National Health Service, local clinical commissioning groups may set stricter rules on age. They may also place other restrictions on coverage, requiring women to be at a healthy weight and have no children from previous relationships.
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Jondhi Harrell posed for a portrait outside of his home in Philadelphia, Pa. on Thursday, April 16, 2020. Harrell was hospitalized for nine days with the coronavirus. Read more

Jondhi Harrell spent nine days in the hospital after testing positive for coronavirus.

A lot happened in that time. His fever spiked, his chest throbbed from violent coughing fits, his mind  usually racing from one task to another  could focus only on his next breath, except for when his thoughts turned to his family.

This wasnt some TV-news tragedy that happens to "other people."

This was his terrifying reality.

Life-changing, he said when we spoke.

But, as the well-known community activist drove away from Jefferson Hospital last week, he realized something hadnt changed.

Either by choice or by circumstance, too many people in Philadelphia werent protecting themselves or one another against the virus, even as data show that the coronavirus is disproportionately affecting the poor.

Harrell, who shared his ordeal inside the hospital with live Facebook updates, turned the camera on himself as he drove to his North Philly home.

Im cruising down Allegheny Avenue, I just got off of 95 and I see so many little kids walking around with no mask and no gloves. It seems as though people think that everything is OK. Well, I can testify that it hasnt been OK, because for the past nine days Ive been fighting a serious battle and it wasnt until the last couple of days that I finally got back to feeling like myself.

Even before he started showing symptoms, Harrell was wearing a mask and gloves to protect himself and his family, including his 93-year-old father.

Harrell, who runs the Center for Returning Citizens, was working from his fathers home when he noticed one of his fathers health-care workers didnt look well. Harrells daughter, a nurse, sent the worker home. While Harrell cant be sure where he contracted the virus and his father has not shown symptoms, Harrell later learned that the caretaker tested positive.

By then, Harrell was lying in a hospital bed. Alone, he began to post updates of his condition for friends and family. But he was also sharing his frightening battle in hopes of showing nonbelievers that the virus was real.

With the historic losses of lives and jobs, its inconceivable to me that anyone still isnt taking the coronavirus seriously. Even as I write this, I can see it outside my window: people walking around with no masks, standing and walking too close to each other.

Its also beyond disturbing to watch willfully ignorant and armed protesters at anti-quarantine rallies who think they can bully a virus into submission, as if bullets can kill a virus.

It feels like one big repeat of 2016, except now its #fakenews and #fakevirus, with the biggest cheerleader of both sending dangerous tweets from the White House to LIBERATE MINNESOTA! LIBERATE MICHIGAN! LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!

All while the total number of cases worldwide has surpassed two million.

But there are other reasons for the disconnect, especially here in Philadelphia.

When people are living through visible epidemics of gun violence and drugs, its hard to believe how a mostly invisible virus could walk freely down the streets, board the bus, and take up residence.

When whole communities have felt diminished or ignored by the messengers of record, whether in newsrooms or government agencies, its easier to brush off their warnings  whether its about dangers to our democracy or our lives.

This isnt just about a digital divide. Its about inequality and invisibility.

Which might explain why some of the messages that seem to have the most resonance are the unfiltered ones from those on the front lines: the nurses and doctors and grocery clerks and bus drivers and, increasingly, the people fighting for their lives, like Harrell.

Im doing this so that people who are out there on the street, who are not wearing masks, who are not hand-sanitizing, who are not taking this serious, understand that this is real, Harrell said in one of his posts. I really was extremely careful. I wore a mask and gloves and followed the social distancing rules, but I still got it. Be careful with your life and the lives of those around you.

Harrell is quarantining for 14 days as he monitors his recovery. The other day he gratefully accepted a friends offer to pick up some groceries for him. Then that friend told him he wasnt wearing a mask. Harrell threw his hands in the air.

But he didnt give up. He joined a Facebook group called Coronavirus Warriors. That afternoon, he was back on Facebook, sharing his story.
Pakistani troops on Saturday shelled forward posts and villages along the Line of Control in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, a defence spokesperson said. There was no immediate report of any casualty in the shelling, he said.

"At about 8.30 pm, Pakistan initiated unprovoked ceasefire violation by firing with small arms and intense shelling with mortars along the LoC in Degwar sector," the spokesperson said.

He said the Indian Army retaliated befittingly and the cross-border shelling between the two sides was going on when last reports were received.
BETHESDA, Md., April 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Northwest Biotherapeutics (OTCQB: NWBO) ("NW Bio"), a biotechnology company developing DCVax personalized immune therapies for solid tumor cancers, today announced that its CEO, Linda Powers, will discuss the projected schedule for reaching data lock, unblinding and reporting of top line data from its 331-patient Phase 3 trial of DCVax-L for Glioblastoma brain cancer at the Company's 2019 Annual Meeting. The Meeting is being held virtually due to the current public health crisis.

The Company has been working since last year with the contract research organization (CRO) that managed the trial and numerous independent service companies to make the final in-person monitoring visits to all the clinical trial sites (hospitals) across the US and Europe, and to finish collecting and confirming the Phase 3 trial data and resolving queries.

Despite nearly two months (during March and April to date) in which hospital trial sites stopped allowing in-person data monitoring visits and became too overwhelmed to continue helping with data confirmation, the Company's data collection and confirmation process has continued moving forward in part through workarounds.

The data collection process is including certain epigenetic and genetic information that is recognized as important in Glioblastoma, such as MGMT methylation status. As part of this process, the Company has also identified a method that can potentially enable an additional important genetic factor -- IDH mutation status -- to be analyzed using bio samples collected years ago during the trial, and to be analyzed in the same timeframe as the data lock. This IDH mutation factor was unknown when the Company's trial began and through much of the trial period, but has become recognized as very important in recent years.

After factoring in the March and April shutdowns, and the additional genetic analysis, the Company believes it can reach data lock by approximately the end of May.

Upon reaching data lock, the data will be unblinded to the independent statisticians (i.e., the statisticians will be given access to the trial database containing all of the raw data points). The Company will not yet become unblinded at this time.

The independent statisticians will then use the raw data to calculate the relevant measures, such as median survival times and survival percentages at various time points. The statisticians will also calculate various statistical measures and prepare graphs and tables. This work is anticipated to take several weeks. The Company will become unblinded when it receives these results from the statisticians.

The Company will then discuss the information from the statisticians with its expert advisors, including its Scientific Advisory Board and the Steering Committee of the Phase 3 trial. Any questions or comments raised by the experts will be addressed and the results will be prepared for public announcement.

Based on these expectations, and taking account of the two months lost in March and April, the current estimate of public disclosure of top line data would range from the end of June to early July.

About Northwest Biotherapeutics

Northwest Biotherapeutics is a biotechnology company focused on developing personalized immunotherapy products designed to treat cancers more effectively than current treatments, without toxicities of the kind associated with chemotherapies, and on a cost-effective basis, in both the North America and Europe. The Company has a broad platform technology for DCVax dendritic cell-based vaccines. The Company's lead program is a 331-patient Phase III trial of DCVax-L for newly diagnosed Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). GBM is the most aggressive and lethal form of brain cancer, and is an "orphan disease." The Company is also pursuing development of DCVax-Direct for inoperable solid tumor cancers. It has completed a 40-patient Phase I trial, and is preparing for Phase II trials. The Company previously conducted a Phase I/II trial with DCVax-L for advanced ovarian cancer together with the University of Pennsylvania.

Disclaimer

Statements made in this news release that are not historical facts, including statements concerning future treatment of patients using DCVax and future clinical trials, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "expect," "believe," "intend," "design," "plan," "continue," "may," "will," "anticipate," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. We cannot guarantee that we actually will achieve the plans, intentions or expectations disclosed in our forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement. Specifically, there are a number of important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated, such as risks related to the Company's ability to enroll patients in its clinical trials and complete the trials on a timely basis, uncertainties about the clinical trials process, uncertainties about the timely performance of third parties, risks related to whether the Company's products will demonstrate safety and efficacy, risks related to the Company's ongoing ability to raise additional capital, and other risks included in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") filings. Additional information on the foregoing risk factors and other factors, including Risk Factors, which could affect the Company's results, is included in its SEC filings. Finally, there may be other factors not mentioned above or included in the Company's SEC filings that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement. The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or developments, except as required by securities laws.

CONTACTS

SOURCE Northwest Biotherapeutics

Related Links

http://www.nwbio.com


Karnataka to undertake Triaging: What does it mean and how do you pronounce it

Delhi to ease restrictions, if Covid cases come down in next 2-3 days: Health Minister

Lata Mangeshkar health update: Doctor says,'She in ICU with Covid-19 and pneumonia, will be under observation'

Containment ops to be scaled down if no secondary coronavirus case is reported for 4 weeks

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Apr 18: Containment operations will be scaled down if no secondary positive case of COVID-19 is reported from a quarantine zone for at least four weeks after the last confirmed test has been isolated and all his contacts have been followed up for 28 days, the Union Health Ministry said.

According to the ministry's "Updated containment plan for large outbreaks COVID-19", a containment operation (large outbreak or cluster) is deemed to be over 28 days from the date the last case in that zone tests negative.

PMO meets, discusses easing of lockdown from April 20

The closing of the surveillance for the clusters could be independent of one another provided there is no geographic continuity between clusters. However, the surveillance will continue for severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) and influenza-like illness (ILI).

States shall ensure that all required steps are taken to contain clusters within the large outbreak and chain of transmission is broken, it said.

The document stated that in India also, clusters and large outbreaks have been noted in parts of the country and unless they are contained in time, the risk of further spread remains very high. A large number of cases has been reported from Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

The Centre has declared 170 hotspots ---123 hotspot districts with large outbreaks and 47 hotspot districts with clusters. Besides, it has identified 207 non-hotspot districts with clusters.

In a bid to utilize the extended lockdown period to the maximum extent to contain the spread of coronavirus, states have been asked by the ministry to classify districts witnessing higher number of cases or high growth rate as hotspots, districts where some cases have been found as non-hotspots, and those which have reported no cases as green zones.

According to the Health Ministry's document, "containment for large outbreaks through geographic quarantine strategy calls for near absolute interruption of movement of people to and from a relatively large defined area where there is single large outbreak or multiple foci of local transmission" of COVID-19.

In simple terms, it is a barrier erected around the focus of infection. Geographic quarantine shall be applicable to such areas reporting large outbreak and/or multiple clusters of COVID-19 spread over multiple blocks of one or more districts that are contiguous based on the distribution of cases and contacts.

According to the plan, the authorities will do extensive contact tracing and active search for cases in containment zone, test all suspect cases and high-risk contacts isolate all suspect or confirmed cases, implement social distancing measures and intensive risk communication as part of the cluster containment strategy.

For large outbreaks amenable to containment, the documents stated that the strategy will remain the same but vary in extent depending upon spread and response to be mounted to contain it.

Geographic quarantine and containment strategy will include defining the area of operation, active surveillance for cases and contacts in the identified geographic zone, expanding laboratory capacity for testing all suspect cases, high risk contacts and SARI cases and operationalising surge capacities created for isolation (COVID-19 hospitals/blocks) to hospitalise and manage all suspect or confirmed cases.

It will also include implementation of social distancing measures with strict perimeter control, providing chemoprophylaxis with hydroxychloroquine to all asymptomatic healthcare workers and asymptomatic household contacts of laboratory-confirmed cases and further intensification of risk communication through audio, social and visual media.

"The objective of this containment plan is to stop the chain of transmission thus reducing the morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19," the ministry said.

The death toll due to coronavirus rose to 420 and the number of cases in the country climbed to 13,387 on Friday, according to the Union Health Ministry.

However, according to a PTI tally based on reports from the states, the total number of cases was 13,201 while 1,594 patients had recovered. The death toll stood at 444.

There has been a lag in the Union Health Ministry figures, compared to the number of deaths announced by different states, which officials attribute to procedural delays in assigning the cases to individual states.
Photo: Pexels

In the coming weeks, Canadian Liberator tulips will be blooming throughout the province.

More than 740,000 tulip bulbs were planted last fall across Canada by the Dutch Liberation 2020 Canadian Society.

The society initiated the Canadian Liberator program to honour fallen Canadian men and women, and to thank families and Canada for their contributions to end the Second World War, 75 years ago.

Pop up Thank you Canada posters may be seen at tulip plantings.

During the past 18 months, the society built a strong bond with more than 40 branches of the Royal Canadian Legion in British Columbia planning to mark the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands and the Victory in Europe with candlelight tributes and a commemoration service.

However, the tributes had to be cancelled due to COVID-19.
Air filters are going be installed on patient transport vehicles in a bid to protect drivers and patients, it has been revealed.

The technology will be installed on 100 of the vehicles which are used to ferry patients to and from hospitals, according to The Times.

The AirBubbl air filtration system supplied by technology company AirLabs can remove more than 95 per cent of harmful particles that pass through the filter.

It is hoped the move will minimise the risk of exposure to the virus for staff who will come into close contact with infected patients in confined spaces.

This comes after London Mayor Sadiq Khan called for compulsory masks to be worn on tubes and buses after 26 Transport for London (TfL) staff members died of coronavirus.

Commuters in London were seen using the tube network with many covering their faces with masks

Commuters Travel on London's underground network. One is seen using a mask and another has his scarf around his face

A bus driver wears a face mask as he sits in the driver's seat on a bus at Victoria Station, central London, on Friday

Almost half of Britons want compulsory facemasks after lockdown A poll for MailOnline by Redfield & Wilton strategies this week found 48 per cent of Britons wanted the government to make wearing a facemask compulsory when lockdown is eased. Some 54 per cent thought the policy had not been put in place because ministers did not believe it was effective. However, 37 per cent suggested the government was not implementing the move because there are not enough masks in the UK. Advertisement

Ashley Stowell, advanced paramedic practitioner and clinical director for HATS, said: 'We originally decided to install air filtration to protect our patients and our crews from London's air pollution, as part of our ongoing commitment to the health and wellbeing of our staff. As the pandemic hit, it quickly became apparent that we could repurpose our vehicles to help transport patients infected by SARS-CoV-2.

'In order to do this we decided to ramp up installation, along with the rapid deployment of extra vehicles for a number of additional services, including ITU transfers of COVID-19 patients and maternity services to a number of Hospital Trusts across London, in a bid to help reduce the cross infection on this mountain we are all having to climb.'

By using air filtration in an enclosed space and reducing the airborne virus load, there is a potential to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2 where people are in close proximity, such as ambulances, patient transport and other service vehicles.

Matthew Johnson, professor of chemistry at University of Copenhagen and chief science officer at AirLabs, said: 'Our focus here is on reducing exposure for workers who cannot avoid close contact with coronavirus patients, and for anyone working in essential jobs in enclosed spaces.

'The science shows that by installing air filtration devices in vehicles, it is possible to remove more than 95% of airborne particles. By decreasing the concentration of airborne particles that could contain the virus being breathed in by workers in critical environments, we reduce the risk of them being infected.'

Khan also said that once the lockdown is lifted 'all of us' may need to wear face masks in order to stop the spread of Covid-19.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast yesterday morning Khan said he is lobbying the Government to change its advice on wearing face coverings to add 'another layer of protection'.

Khan said that wearing a non-medical facial covering makes it less likely you may inadvertently give somebody else Covid-19.

He also confirmed bus travel would be free from Monday as passengers are forced to board using only side doors to protect drivers

Responding to Khan, Grant Shapps said on LBC it was 'not the right moment' to ask people to wear masks and said the government would continue to be guided by scientific advice when it came to implementing any recommendations on the use of masks for the general public.

As many as 16 London bus drivers have died after contracting the coronavirus and the families of the drivers have previously complained about the conditions.

In total 26 TfL workers have died after testing positive for Covid-19 and one 63-year-old bus driver recently said the network was 'putting her life at risk' due to the conditions.

Khan said that commuters using the underground will 'not be required to touch in' with their payment card or device. This is to avoid passengers approaching the driver's cab, where all buses have a card reader.

The new measures introduced by the London network come as Khan continues to face increased pressure from Londoners.

He added: 'It's heartbreaking, I've had 16 bus drivers who have lost their lives, it's personal to me. It's really heartbreaking and my condolences to those families.

'We've gone above and beyond advice we've been given by the experts.'

He continued: 'The evidence I've seen is if you wear a non-medical facial covering it doesn't necessarily limit your changes of catching the virus. What it does do, if you yourself are pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic, it reduces the chances of you giving the virus to somebody else.

'And so wherever you can't keep your social distance you should be wearing a facial covering.'

Medical guidance around wearing masks has been unclear and many have been left wondering whether or not they are an effective tool.

Scientists are split on masks. Some believe they may help stop asymptotic patients spreading the disease before they know they're ill.

Others say surgical masks - the most popular - are too thin, loose-fitting and porous, which make it easy for the tiny viral particles to pass through.

In terms of other ways TfL was trying to protect workers on the network, aside from wearing masks the London Mayor said authorities had introduced protective glass, anti-viral cleaning and passengers sitting away from the driver to keep staff safe, as well as middle-door boarding which will be rolled out from Monday.

He added: 'I'm confident working with the excellent trade unions, we've made sure our public transport is as safe as it can be for both passengers and also our staff as well, who deserve a huge credit for keeping public transport running in these difficult times.'

THE TRUTH ABOUT FACE MASKS: WHAT STUDIES HAVE SHOWN Research on how well various types of masks and face coverings varies but, recently, and in light of the pandemic of COVID-19, experts are increasingly leaning toward the notion that something is better than nothing. A University of Oxford study published on March 30 concluded that surgical masks are just as effective at preventing respiratory infections as N95 masks for doctors, nurses and other health care workers. It's too early for there to be reliable data on how well they prevent infection with COVID-19, but the study found the thinner, cheaper masks do work in flu outbreaks. The difference between surgical or face masks and N95 masks lies in the size of particles that can - and more importantly, can't - get though the materials. N95 respirators are made of thick, tightly woven and molded material that fits tightly over the face and can stop 95 percent of all airborne particles, while surgical masks are thinner, fit more loosely, and more porous. This makes surgical masks much more comfortable to breathe and work in, but less effective at stopping small particles from entering your mouth and nose. Droplets of saliva and mucous from coughs and sneezes are very small, and viral particles themselves are particularly tiny - in fact, they're about 20-times smaller than bacteria. For this reason, a JAMA study published this month still contended that people without symptoms should not wear surgical masks, because there is not proof the gear will protect them from infection - although they may keep people who are coughing and sneezing from infecting others. But the Oxford analysis of past studies- which has not yet been peer reviewed - found that surgical masks were worth wearing and didn't provide statistically less protection than N95 for health care workers around flu patients. However, any face mask is only as good as other health and hygiene practices. Experts universally agree that there's simply no replacement for thorough, frequent hand-washing for preventing disease transmission. Some think the masks may also help to 'train' people not to touch their faces, while others argue that the unfamiliar garment will just make people do it more, actually raising infection risks. If the CDC does instruct Americans to wear masks, it could create a second issue: Hospitals already face shortages of masks and other PPE. Advertisement

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said it was important to follow the scientific advise when it came to issuing the pubic with guidance for things such as wearing face masks in public.

Speaking on Good Morning Britain he said: 'The Sage committee has a subcommittee working hard on this to weigh up evidence.

'Some say it can do more harm than good. But this needs to be on medical advice, not what a politician has woke up and thought that day.'

Speaking to the BBC he later said: 'I think that we need to be completely guided by the evidence on this as the Mayor acknowledged in the letter he wrote to me.'

He added 'it looks like the advantages might be marginal and there can even be times when it's disadvantageous if they're not used properly'.

Khan had previously penned a letter to Shapps proposing that the public should wear face masks on public transport.

He claimed Khan admitted that such a measure could be 'counterproductive' at the moment .

Shapps said he had been 'confused' by Khan's admission, and said he would be writing back to the London Mayor and highlighting the work Sage is currently doing in its sub committee on this.

'Let them tell us which is the best scientific approach because there are pluses and minuses to wearing masks.'

A poll for MailOnline by Redfield & Wilton strategies this week found 48 per cent of Britons wanted the government to make wearing a facemask compulsory when lockdown is eased.

Some 54 per cent thought the policy had not been put in place because ministers did not believe it was effective.

However, 37 per cent suggested the government was not implementing the move because there are not enough masks in the UK.

This is while Dr Rachel Clarke yesterday claimed that the use of masks could be dangerous as people may becoming infecting if they touch their masks all of the time.

Khan also highlighted that masks may have to be used by everyone once lock down restrictions were lifted, but Shapps said that any lockdown review would have the science in mind.

'We've said now that this three-week period will contain a review by the scientists at the end of this month, so that's actually only two weeks away, whilst they'll be reviewing this.

'And I hope we'll be in a position to provide, well I know we'll be in a position to provide, greater clarity.'

When it comes to new restrictions in place across the TfL network, the organisation said the drivers were 'pivitol' in ensuring that critical workers were able to perform vital roles.

Despite their 'pivitol role' the mother of one bus driver who died from Covid-19 said her son had complained about the conditions he was forced to work under.

Emeka Nyack Ihenacho was a bus driver in Holloway and his mother Anne Nyack said TfL told him his pay would be cut if he missed work.

The 36-year-old, who drove the number four bus from Blackfriars to Archway succumbed to the disease at the end of March after fighting it for two weeks.

Speaking on Good Morning Britain, Shapps said that all guidance involving the use of face masks for the general public would come from scientific evidence

TfL's director of bus operations Claire Mann said: 'Their efforts are nothing short of heroic, and it is essential that we leave no stone unturned when looking to protect them.'

TfL trialled the boarding change on 140 buses across nine routes, with the operator saying it was 'confident' that the low number of people travelling meant people could keep a safe distance between each other.

Khan had been slammed for the trial period, with many claiming he was 'wasting time' by introducing the measure.

The Mayor of London has faced a barrage of criticism in recent weeks from transport workers who say they are working in dirty conditions while 90 per cent of the capital's buses and more than half of Tube services continue to run.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan last night called for it to be made compulsory for people to wear masks in public while the Covid-19 epidemic continues.

Royal Society scientists launch probe into how UK can end lockdown Royal Society scientists are launching an urgent investigation into how to end the UK's draconian lockdown and get the country up and running again. World-leading experts from the prestigious scientific academy will review how other nations have dealt with the pandemic to help come up with its strategy for Britain. They will review the benefit of face masks, the dangers of letting children go back to school and whether the virus will wane in the warm summer months. Analysis like this would normally take months, if not years. But the scientists will offer advice to the Government in a matter of weeks. Advertisement

He said: 'I am hopeful that the advice from scientists will change. The evidence around the world is that this is effective.

'I am lobbying our Government, our advisers, to change their advice and I want us to do that sooner rather than later.'

Earlier this month Khan also insisted bus drivers did not need to wear personal protective equipment.

The Mayor's decision infuriated the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, who said transport staff should stop working if they are not provided with adequate safety equipment.

Limited use of London's buses by essential workers had led the number of people travelling to 'plummet' by about 85 per cent, TfL added.

Passengers will not need to touch in after boarding and are asked not to approach the driver.

Existing measures to protect drivers and passengers include signage directing people away from seats near drivers, improved protective screens around the cab and regular announcements reminding those on board of the need to maintain social distancing.

TfL said it was also considering creating a 'completely sealed partition' between drivers and passengers.

Earlier, a trade union official called for drivers to be issued with personal protective equipment.

And a South London bus driver identified only as Lorraine, 62, said last week in an online video she was 'proud to do her job' but 'frightened to die' as she begged the Government to do more to help protect transport staff.

Emeka Nyack Ihenacho, left, was a bus driver in Holloway, but died with Covid-19, his mother said he had complained about the conditions he had to work under. Bus driver and church deacon Kenneth Yeboah, right, died from coronavirus on April 1

It comes as Royal Society scientists are launching an urgent investigation into how to end the UK's draconian lockdown and get the country up and running again.

World-leading experts from the prestigious scientific academy will review how other nations have dealt with the pandemic to help come up with its strategy for Britain.

They will review the benefit of face masks, the dangers of letting children go back to school and whether the virus will wane in the warm summer months.

Analysis like this would normally take months or years but the scientists will offer advice to the Government in a matter of weeks.

Plateauing infection rates and growing alarm about the economic consequences of lockdown has put pressure on ministers to start phasing out social restrictions.

But Dominic Raab, stepping in for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, last night declared the draconian curbs will stay for at least another three weeks.

The Royal Society has set up the Data Evaluation and Learning for Viral Epidemics (DELVE) multi-disciplinary group to come up with the exit strategy.

On its website, it said the investigation had 'been discussed with and welcomed by Government'.

DELVE, made up of 14 leading experts from the country's top universities, will give input to the Government through SAGE, its scientific advisory group for emergencies.
France defended its handling of the spread of the coronavirus through its flagship Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier fleet, after 1,081 out of 2,300 sailors tested positive for COVID-19. So far about 300 results are still to be finalized.

The ship, France's biggest carrier and the flagship of its navy, is undergoing a lengthy disinfection process since returning to its home base in Toulon five days ago.

Twenty-four crew members were in hospital, including one in intensive care, and 545 showing COVID-19 symptoms were being monitored.

Two of four U.S. sailors serving aboard the Charles de Gaulle as part of an exchange program also tested positive, according to a U.S. Navy statement. A British sailor was aboard another vessel, Lavault said, without revealing the sailors health status.

The rapid spread of the disease on board the 42-tonne warship has raised questions similar to those that arose from an outbreak on board the U.S. carrier Theodore Roosevelt, where 10 percent cruise members tested positive for the virus. The later led to the firing of its captain who had called for more help, and the resignation of the navy secretary who sacked him.

The French navy has been spared major controversy so far, but the defense minister and the head of the French military's health service arm were questioned Friday about the infections at parliamentary hearings.

Several French media outlets have quoted crew members saying there was tension on board the French carrier as the disease spread, after it stopped last month in the French Atlantic Ocean port of Brest and was sent back out to sea.

On Friday, Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly denied one report that a crew member claimed the captain had offered to halt the mission in Brest, but the ministry had ordered the ship to keep sailing.

"This rumor is false," Parly told during the parliamentary hearing, indicating that as soon as cases were detected on April 7 she took the decision to end the mission.

After the stop in Brest, the ship remained at sea for several more weeks until returning to its Mediterranean home port, Toulon, two weeks ahead of schedule, with 40 sailors on board already showing signs of COVID-19.

"People have to understand that it is out of question to put in danger the crew. Without a crew, it is nothing," Navy spokesman Eric Lavault told RTL radio late on Thursday.

"The command took all the protective measures and from the Brest stopover there were temperature checks twice a day and questionnaires to trace contacts. But this is not a cruise ship. Its a warship that wages war against Islamic State," he said.

Crew from the Charles de Gaulle, its planes and helicopters and the accompanying frigate Chevalier Paul are now in quarantine. The carrier is being disinfected and will sail again in June, Parly said.

This photo provided by the French Navy (Marine Nationale) on April 10 shows sailors wearing face masks aboard the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, April 8, 2020 in the Atlantic Ocean. /AP

The army has already been forced to bring back some soldiers from operations in Africa after they tested positive for the virus, although Parly said only a mission in the Gulf of Guinea had been suspended.

The military is investigating how the coronavirus arrived on board the carrier.

Officials say the March 13-16 stopover in Brest may have been to blame. The stopover allowed sailors to meet their families on land and visit the restaurants and cafes before returning to the ship. Fifty new sailors also boarded the ship.

The defense minister defended the decision to allow the stopover, even though France had already ordered all schools closed to fight the virus and the government was preparing confinement measures at that time. Hours after the ship left, President Emmanuel Macron announced a nationwide lockdown, among the strictest in Europe.

"We still don't know if the virus was already on board before its stopover on March 13," Parly said.

She added that a stopover in the Cypriot city of Limassol on Feb 20 to 21 was also being investigated.

(With input from agencies)
MBABANE  A police officer and a nurse are two women that have tested positive for COVID-19, raising the total number of cases in the country to 19.



One of the two is a 35-year-old nurse at the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital (RFM), while the police officer works in the Nhlangano Traffic Department and is aged 39. The Minister of Health Senator Lizzie Nkosi said the nurse came in contact with a person who had also tested positive for COVID-19, but did not elaborate.



Eswatini News gathered that the nurse was related to the patient who died from coronavirus related complications at the Lubombo Referral Hospital on Thursday. After her partner tested positive, the nurse was subsequently taken into isolation.

The minister said she would soon be admitted to the Lubombo Referral Hospital where other patients are being treated for COVID-19.



Minister Nkosi said the Shiselweni woman had no history of external travel, which made it difficult to ascertain how she got infected with the virus.

During an update of coronavirus cases at Cabinet Offices yesterday, the minister revealed that there were 116 test results that were received yesterday.

Of these 114 were negative while two were positive.

This has brought the total number of people who tested positive for COVID-19 to 19, She said.

The minister also said the two would add the number of patients currently admitted to the Lubombo Referral Hospital to 10.



Recuperated



Currently, we have eight patients admitted to the hospital and receiving treatment. Eight others were discharged and have recuperated. One died this week, while two others will be taken to the hospital today where they will also undergo treatment.



The minister said the nation was being reminded to continue observing the health guidelines to avoid contracting the coronavirus.

If you tested positive for coronavirus we ask you to cooperate with the health warnings. Go for treatment and support, stay at home, and practise social distancing, she said.



Meanwhile, the Deputy Director of Public Health Rejoice Nkambule said people must not panic during the screening process which is done in health centres.

We ask questions and look for symptoms of the coronavirus, after which we may recommend isolation, based on the screening process, she said.
Bob Ross was probably the nicest person who ever lived, and it showed through in his work. Most of America knows him as the host of the long-running show, "The Joy of Painting," but a select few know him better as an Air Force military training instructor -- a drill sergeant, for you non-Air Force types.

Raised in Orlando, Florida, Robert Norman Ross was always a gentle person. As a kid, he would nurse injured animals back to health, even going so far as to raise a baby alligator in the family bathtub. He never graduated from high school and went to work with his dad as a carpenter. Viewers may not have noticed part of his left index finger is missing on the show as a result of that work.

Related: Create a personalized transition plan for yourself and find transition guides and checklists, at the Military.com Transition Center

He enlisted in the Air Force in 1961 at age 18 and spent 20 years in the service, rising to the rank of master sergeant. He was even a first sergeant at the base clinic at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska. That's where he saw snow and mountains -- frequent features of his painting work -- for the first time.

It's hard to believe that there are some former airmen out there who first met Ross, of all people, while he was shouting at them in a Smokey Bear campaign hat. While it's true he taught basic training, that was not the career path he wanted for himself.

"I was the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work," Ross later said. "The job requires you to be a mean, tough person, and I was fed up with it. I promised myself that if I ever got away from it, it wasn't going to be that way anymore."

How Bob Ross Started Painting

The Air Force is also where he picked up his "happy accident" of a post-military career in art.

Ross enjoyed painting so much, he took art classes at the base USO offices. But he was frequently frustrated at the instruction, recalling "They'd tell you what makes a tree, but they wouldn't tell you how to paint a tree." Like any good airman, he didn't just notice problems. He came up with solutions. One of those was a way of teaching people how to create a complete work of art within 30 minutes.

In order to paint as much as he wanted, he picked up a centuries-old, quick-painting technique now known as wet-on-wet oil painting. Ross credited William Alexander, a German-born artist and host of a TV show, "The Magic of Oil Painting." with teaching him the style. He also improved on that and developed his own style of creating quick landscapes.

This is how Ross not only completed an entire painting in one show, but also an estimated 25,000-30,000 paintings over the course of his lifetime.

Related Video:

''I developed ways of painting extremely fast,'' Ross said. ''I used to go home at lunch and do a couple while I had my sandwich. I'd take them back that afternoon and sell them.''

Veteran Bob Ross Post-Military Career

Ross began his artistic career by painting on the bottoms of gold pots, which he would sell for $25 each. Eventually, he moved on to canvases. When he eventually was earning more selling paintings than he made in the Air Force, he decided to call it quits for his time in the military and retired in 1981.

He would begin working with Alexander, no longer just watching his show, but working as the artist's apprentice. He taught the technique to others, and when Alexander retired, he dubbed Ross his successor.

In 1983, he began painting on television from Muncie, Indiana's WIPB PBS affiliate. His now-famous program, "The Joy of Painting," featured him painting one work per episode, explaining his work in a calm, relaxing tone. He dedicated the first episode to his mentor.

"Years ago, Bill taught me this fantastic technique," Ross told viewers. "And I feel as though he gave me a precious gift, and I'd like to share that gift with you."

"The Joy of Painting" ran for 11 years on PBS, and Ross did every episode for free, cranking out a 13-episode season in just two days. His real income generator was teaching painting and selling art supplies through the Bob Ross Company. After two days on set, he could get back to his real work.

Somewhere in that time, 93 million viewers came to know him through his iconic perm hairdo, which is one he hated. But he kept the style because it was so integral to the brand.

Ross died in 1995 from lymphoma after creating tens of thousands of paintings -- two exact copies of each painting featured on the show -- and never sold any of them. He either sent them to charities, or they were kept by PBS.

-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on Facebook.

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A Stamford attorney has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Ned Lamont contending that the governors response to COVID-19 infringes on individual liberties.

In his lawsuit, Lindy Urso, a Greenwich resident, challenges Lamonts executive order requiring residents to wear face coverings in public spaces where close contact is unavoidable. The measure, which Lamont announced Friday, is slated to take effect at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

The order is intended to [build] upon [Lamonts] efforts to encourage mitigation strategies that slow down transmission of the virus, according to a press release.

Max Reiss, a spokesman for the governor, said Lamont would not comment on Ursos lawsuit.

Urso, who has a history of vehemently opposing legislation that would require vaccinations among school-bound children, provided a copy of the lawsuit to Hearst Connecticut Media. He filed it in federal court on Saturday and is the sole plaintiff, he said.

Overall, Urso disapproves of the state shutdown, he said.

This measure [the masks order] has pushed me over the edge because I dont wear a mask and I dont think I should be forced to wear a mask, he said.

The lawsuit alleges that Lamonts executive orders represent ever-increasing encroachments to individual freedoms and liberties and demands that Connecticut District Court rule the mask order unconstitutional.

The state confirmed 50 new COVID-19 deaths on Saturday, bringing Connecticuts death toll up to 1,086, according to Lamonts office. The number of residents who have tested positive for COVID-19 continues to climb, according to state data, which shows it hit 17,550 Saturday, up by 741 from Friday.

However, statewide hospitalizations related to COVID-19 decreased by eight people, state data shows. It was the first time since the start of the pandemic that the number went down, Lamont said on Twitter, adding that the decrease provided some hope.

But 1 day of data alone does not mean we are out of the woods and can return to life as normal, he wrote. Many of our hospitals and nursing homes remain under stress, and front line workers continue to battle around the clock. But with proper measures in place, we can slow down its spread.

When Lamont declared a public health and civil preparedness emergency on March 10, he invoked sections 19a-131a and 28-9 of Connecticut general statutes.

The first section enables the state to quarantine or isolate individuals it reasonably believes have been exposed to a communicable disease, according to the language in the statute.

Section 28-9 does not specifically address quarantine measures, but it does say that the governor may take such other steps as are reasonably necessary in the light of the emergency to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people of the state.

Ursos lawsuit contends that the latter portion of section 28-9 is too broad and asks the court to rule it unconstitutional.

Moreover, Urso argues that neither statute authorizes quarantining healthy people and contends that as the plaintiff, he is a healthy individual.

Urso sees requiring healthy people to wears mask in the same context as he sees quarantining healthy people, he said, adding that he believes both measures infringe upon individual freedoms.

Ursos lawsuit argues that Lamonts order is a violation of the attorneys right to make personal medical decisions, alleging that being forced to wear a mask restricts his access to fresh air, which he believes will help him fight the virus.

Ursos suit also cites a CBS report from March 3. In the report, a Health and Human Services official cautions that if your mask isnt well-fitted, you could fumble with it and touch your face, increasing your risk of contracting the virus.

Official guidance on mask wearing has since changed drastically, however.

Ryan Steele, an immunologist and allergist at Yale School of Medicine, said basic masks can help curb the spread of the coronavirus, but only if enough people use them.

Whats more, they do not work by protecting the person wearing it. Instead, they keep the wearer from infecting others.

As compared to N95 masks, cloth and surgical face coverings do not provide sufficient protection for the wearer because they fail to filter out aerosolized coronavirus particles, according to Steele.

But that doesnt make the masks useless. Instead, they help prevent the wearer from giving the virus to others by catching most of the droplets the wearer expels, Steele said.

Besides the medical aspect of the order, Urso contends that it violates his right to privacy, his right to move freely and his right to expression.

For example, by not wearing a mask, Urso says he is protesting alleged fear-mongering, exaggeration, misinformation and other perceived misdeeds by our state and federal governments and our media in connection with this viral outbreak.

Thus, the order requiring him to wear a mask interferes with his ability to protest, he argues.

Ursos opposition to the masks order lies in the same vein as his opposition to mandated vaccinations he sees both measures as infringements on individual liberties, he said.

meghan.friedmann@hearstmediact.com
Since the detection of the first case in Manipur on March 24, when a 23-year-old student who had returned from the UK was found positive, the number of Covid-19 cases in the seven states in the northeast has now risen to 50.

Assam with 35 cases has the most number of patients of the coronavirus disease. The state had its first case on March 31.

Apart from a Guwahati businessman and a person from Nagalands Dimapur, who got tested in Assam and is under treatment in Guwahati, all other cases in Assam have links with the Tablighi Jamaat gathering at Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi last month.

A 65-year-old patient died at the Silchar Medical College Hospital last week, making him Assam as well as the regions first fatality. Till Friday, nine patients who have recovered from the disease have been discharged from three different hospitals while 25 others are under treatment.

Also read: After lockdown, Covid-19 case doubling rate dipped from 3 to 6.2 days, says govt

Manipurs first patient has recovered and been discharged from hospital. The only other patient in the state who had attended the Nizamuddin Markaz last month is still undergoing treatment in Imphal.

Mizoram was the second state in the region to record a Covid-19 case with a 50-year-old pastor who had returned from the Netherlands last month testing positive. No other case has surfaced in the state this month.

In Tripura, the first positive case was a Nizamuddin Markaz attendee followed by a 45-year-old woman who had visited Guwahati. She has since recovered while the first patient is still in the hospital.

Arunachal Pradesh has recorded just one case till date and the patient also has links with the Nizamuddin Markaz. Results of his third and fourth tests have come negative and he was discharged from the hospital on Friday evening.

A businessman from Dimapur was recorded as Nagalands first positive case this Sunday. But since he was tested in Guwahati and is undergoing treatment here, he has been included in Assams tally by the Union ministry of health and family welfare. The state has now gone from one to zero cases.

Meghalaya was the last state in the region to join the list with a 69-year-old Shillong doctor testing positive on Monday.

Also read: Meghalayas first Covid-19 patient dies, could have got infected from asymptomatic son-in-law

He died on Wednesday but eight other members of his family, including his helpers, have been detected positive since. The state has nine Covid-19 cases, the second-highest in the northeast.

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US President Donald Trump points to China's mortality rate from coronavirus at a White House briefing, a number he described as "impossible" (AFP Photo/Sarah Silbiger)

Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump warned on Saturday that China could face consequences if it was "knowingly responsible" for the coronavirus pandemic.

"It could have been stopped in China before it started and it wasn't," Trump told reporters at a White House briefing. "And now the whole world is suffering because of it."

Trump was asked whether China should suffer consequences over the pandemic which began in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December and has left more than 157,000 people dead around the world.

"If they were knowingly responsible, certainly," he said. "If it was a mistake, a mistake is a mistake.

"But if they were knowingly responsible, yeah, then there should be consequences," Trump said.

"Was it a mistake that got out of control or was it done deliberately?" he asked. "That's a big difference between those two.

"In either event they should have let us go in," he said. "We asked to go in early. And they didn't want us in. I think they knew it was something bad and they were embarrassed."

"They said they're doing an investigation," the president continued. "So let's see what happens with their investigation. But we're doing investigations also."

The Trump administration has said it doesn't rule out that the novel coronavirus was spread -- accidentally -- from a laboratory researching bats in Wuhan.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian -- who previously alleged that the US military may have brought the virus into China -- has rejected US media reports on the subject and said there is "no scientific basis."

Trump also cast doubt on official Chinese figures showing the country has suffered just 0.33 deaths per 100,000 people.

"The number's impossible," he said. "It's an impossible number to hit."

The United States, according to a chart displayed at the briefing, has had 11.24 deaths per 100,000 people while France has had 27.92 and Spain 42.81.
Uttar Pradesh reported 20 fresh coronavirus cases, taking the total number of such cases in the state to 869, an official said on Saturday.

"The number of active coronavirus cases in the state is 869. Some districts in the state have successfully beaten the disease and this is a positive step, Principal Secretary Health Amit Mohan Prasad said.

He said the cases of infection had been reported from 49 districts of the state, adding some districts have successfully flattened the COVID-19 curve.

"All cases in Pilibhit, Hathras and Maharajganj have been treated. Similarly, Allahabad and Bareily have also discharged all its infected persons after treatment," the official said.

Prasad, however, said six districts--Gautambudh Nagar, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Meerut, Agra and Saharanpur-are a cause of worry as these are the main centers of the infection.

Nevertheless, he asserted that the northern state was showing considerable progress in its fight against the deadly disease.

The principal secretary said the districts with few infected persons have been able to control the disease effectively.

He said hotspot areas are either shrinking or an entire district is becoming infection-free which is a positive step.

Uttar Pradesh has so far recorded 14 deaths -- the maximum five from Agra, two each from Moradabad and Meerut and one each from Lucknow, Kanpur, Basti, Bulanshahr and Varanasi.

As of now, there are 1,025 people in isolation wards, while the number of those in quarantine is 10,814 in the state, Prasad said.

The official also stressed on the need to take proper care of the aged as they are more prone to catching infection.

Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi said some districts are gradually turning out to be coronavirus-free.

"After Pilibhit, Hathras and Maharajganj, now Allahabad has become coronavirus-free. The district magistrate of Bareilly, which had one hotspot, has declared that the cases there are turning out as negative, he said.

Awasthi said all of this has been possible only because of the collective efforts of state employees and public cooperation.

The state with such a large population has lesser number of COVID-19 cases. The growth rate and the death rate here is also lesser than the national average, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Politicians including Barnaby Joyce are refusing to use the official COVID-19 contact tracing app, while Liberal MPs are demanding data privacy guarantees, as the government tries to convince Australians the software is key to the nation's coronavirus recovery.

The wariness from Coalition MPs highlights the challenge facing the Morrison government as it seeks to assuage concerns, ruling out the possibility of the phone-based tracing software being mandatory and promising technical details will be available for public scrutiny.

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce says he will refuse to download the official COVID-19 app. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared on Saturday the "COVID trace" app, set to be launched in the coming weeks, would be voluntary and he was seeking people's cooperation "to help our health workers, to protect our community and help get our economy going again".

But the assurances may not be enough to convince many Australians, including the former deputy prime minister, Mr Joyce, who told The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age he would not be downloading it out of privacy concerns.
Spring has sprung! Unfortunately, with it along came COVID-19, an uninvited guest that has wreaked havoc with our world, country, small and large communities and our family dynamics.

The new terms social distancing, zooming and distance learning have not crept but leaped into our vernacular.

As my family and synagogue community celebrated Passover last week (of course by Zoom) our thoughts turned to the importance of the Passover message which is to remember the Israelites fleeing ancient Egypt and slavery on their journey to freedom. The words in the Haggadah, the book we use to retell the Passover story, remind us of liberation from bondage. We should never forget our history remembering our ancestors who struggled to be free and those who still struggle to be free; refugees from around the world.

It is times like these which we are living through that make us question our faith. Why? Why now? Why us? How did we get here? Where is God?

These are all poignant questions when directed to the religious leaders who are trying to answer them. As we struggle to survive during this new normal, I am questioning my core beliefs and I am wondering if there really is a merciful and benevolent God. God, are you listening to my prayers? My personal faith relies on the basic tenants that as Jews we pray to remember, reflect and to hope.

Observant Jews recite the Shema twice a day at the evening and morning service. It is based on Deut 6:7 when you lie down and when you rise up.

In English we say, Shema Yisrael. Here O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. This is considered the most important Jewish prayer and the essence of Judaism: To love and obey one God.

So, is God listening to us now during this pandemic? Just as we Jews faced hardships when escaping Pharaohs armies, while the Egyptians were facing 10 plaques, civilization today is facing a modern plague, the coronavirus.

In the days ahead, despite the isolation, the loneliness, the fear and uncertainty, we remember Spring is the time of renewal, rebirth and hope. I am hopeful we can use this time to reflect and emerge with new values for our families and ourselves, recognizing that the time spent together is a respite from running ourselves ragged with the business of our former schedules. We are vulnerable yet this is an opportunity for us to re-examine, evaluate and reset our priorities.

As Jewish people say at the end of their family Seders Next year in Jerusalem, let us hope in 2021 at our Passover Seders we can be together in the same room, hugging and kissing, eating a festival meal, welcoming strangers to our table, and sharing our thanks and appreciation for good health, freedom and belief in one God.

I would like to share a final thought connected with COVID-19 and the Passover Seder. Near the beginning of the Seder we are asked to wash our hands as part of the service. When we do this we are cleaning not only our hands prior to eating, but washing away the impurities of our daily life. I especially like this poem as it captures the connection of this act, Passover and the current world situation.

As I take up my hands

to wash them and

reassure my heart,

I pray for healing and wholeness

for the whole world.

I remember that every life

is unique and of infinite value:

from those living

on the most remote part of the globe

to those in our cities

to our neighbors and family members.

Let me use my hands for good

to help bring love

and compassion to others.

Let us lift up

our hearts and hands

to the Eternal. (Lam 3:41)

Lisi Green Marcus is the president of the United Jewish Center Danbury. She can be reached at president@unitedjewishcenter.org.
Shriya Saran is currently facing a tough time in Spain, as her husband Andrei Koscheev showed symptoms of COVID-19 but he wasn't admitted in the hospital. Due to this, Shriya and Andrei had to sleep in different rooms. But now, he is feeling better and the Drishyam actress thanked god for that.

Amidst all, a troll passed a derogatory comment about Shriya Saran on social media. In an 'Insta live' session with dear hubby Andrei Koscheev, a social media user commented on her b**bs. A user wrote, "Nice B**bs".

Shriya Saran ignored the comment but Andrei Koscheev didn't as he responded to the user sportingly. In a Q&A session, he wrote, "I agree with you guys, more comments on her please." Well, this is indeed a perfect example of how a husband should be. Andrei's protective nature towards his wife Shriya is praiseworthy.

For those who are unversed, Shriya Saran and Andrei Koscheev got married in a hush-hush ceremony in Rajasthan in 2018. She lives in Spain with her husband, and constantly updates her fans with her interesting social media posts.

In an interview with a leading daily, Shriya Saran praised her hubby, Andrei. She said, "God has been kind and I'm blessed to have such a supportive partner like Andrei. I somehow like the word partner more than the husband. Because Andrei is like my partner-in-crime, partner-in-fun and everything else. He's really proud of me and my work. Whenever I'm stressed or worried about what I'm doing, he always tries to calm me down. He's the best thing that's happened to me and I'm loving every minute that I spend with him."

Also Read : Shriya Saran On Living In Barcelona Amid Lockdown: My Husband & I Slept In Different Rooms

On a related note, Shriya Saran will next be seen in a Tamil film, Sandakkari, which will release in 2020.
Suspect still at large in fatal shooting of 20-year-old man in Clifton

A 20-year-old man was shot and killed in Clifton Tuesday afternoon, according to police.

Sources have identified the victim as Vincent Witt, 20, of Concord.

Witt's father was talking to the victim Tuesday afternoon when the cell phone suddenly went silent amid sounds from a possible struggle.

Click here for the full story.

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Viral social media video shows alleged assault of RUMC hospital workers

Viral video posted on social media shows the moment a 23-year-old man allegedly assaulted two female emergency medical technicians at Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton at about 5:05 a.m Easter morning.

The video, which was posted on Facebook and has amassed over 25,000 views as of Wednesday morning, shows a man standing with his hands raised above his head in the hospital before he suddenly swings at a nearby medical worker.

Seconds later, he turns to another staff member and winds back up for another strike, the video shows.

Click here for the video.

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Alleged mob-boss killers court case adjourned to June

The pretrial conference for alleged mob-boss killer Anthony Comello has been pushed back six weeks.

The conference was originally scheduled for Monday in state Supreme Court, St. George.

However, since mid-March, efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) disease have severely curtailed court operations in cases considered non-essential. There have been no new jury trials.

Click here for the full story.

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Alleged South Shore domestic violence victim settles lawsuit against boyfriend for $100K

A woman who sued her boyfriend, a Tottenville man, alleging he assaulted her in her home two years ago, has taken a legal bite out of him.

Steven Valenza, 59, has agreed to settle the civil lawsuit against him for $100,000, online court records show.

The woman sued Valenza last June in state Supreme Court, St. George, stemming from the July 21, 2018 incident.

Click here for the story.

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Pair charged in ATM theft; one previously convicted of manslaughter

The get-rich-quick scheme of two ex-convicts, one of whom was convicted of manslaughter in Brooklyn decades ago, was foiled early Friday morning after they were caught stealing an ATM in Stapleton, said authorities.

Almando Pumarejo, 58, and Frank Perez, 57, broke the lock on a grocery store at 226 Van Duzer St. at about 2:30 a.m., a criminal complaint said.

The defendants, who live nearby in the same building on the 400 block of Van Duzer, left and returned about a half-hour later, said the complaint.

Click here for more details.

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Cops: 17-year-old accused in stabbing in Clifton

A 17-year-old male was arrested after a man was stabbed in Clifton on Friday morning, according to police

The incident was called at about 10:10 a.m. on the 100 block of Park Hill Avenue.

A man was stabbed in the shoulder and arm, but was in stable condition at Staten Island University Hospital in Ocean Breeze, according to police and FDNY sources.

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NYPD touts gun seizure on North Shore

The NYPD confiscated a gun on the North Shore of Staten Island, according to a post on social media.

Officers were praised for their courage and hard work even during these unprecedented times getting a violent criminal and illegal gun off the streets in a great team effort, according to a post on the 120th Precinct Twitter feed.

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Self-swab coronavirus testing sites are coming to Rite Aid stores across New Jersey, as testing remains a crucial weapon in the fight against the pandemic.

On Saturday, a self-swab testing site opened at the Waldwick Rite Aid store, on Franklin Turnpike, Rite Aid announced in a statement. Another testing site is scheduled to be opened April 20 in South Jersey, at the Barrington Rite Aid, on Clements Bridge Road.

A testing site at a Toms River Rite Aid in Ocean County will open Wednesday, Governor Phil Murphy said at Saturdays press briefing. Rite Aid, in conjunction with Health and Human Services, plans to expand and open more testing sites in New Jersey and neighboring states New York and Pennsylvania.

From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. everyday, without leaving their cars, people can drive into the parking lot of a Rite Aid conducting tests, where pharmacists will be waiting to direct them, said Christopher Savarese, Rite Aid spokesman. Grabbing one of the swab kits on a table by their window, an eligible person will administer the nasal swab test themselves, as a pharmacist guides them through the process.

Once a person administers the test, they return the specimen to the pharmacists, who will send in the swabs to BioReference Laboratories, which will provide results within seven days, he said. Results will be delivered via email, text, phone call or through an app or web portal, according to the Rite Aid website.

The sites are expected to conduct as many as 200 tests a day, according to the statement. People eligible for the tests according to CDC guidelines will need to pre-register and schedule their testing appointments on the Rite Aid website. The tests are free and do not require a prescription or a doctors referral, said Savarese.

Rite Aid operates a COVID-19 testing site on Linglestown Road in Susquehanna Township. Testing takes place in the store's parking lot and people remain in their vehicles for the entire testing procedure. April 17, 2020. Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.com

As the pandemic continues to tear through New Jersey, with 81,420 positive cases of the virus as of Saturday, including 4,070 deaths, testing remains a crucially important tool.

Earlier in the month, numbers appeared to level out, creating a glimmer of hope for New Jersey, the state with the second-most cases of the coronavirus in the country. But a NJ Advance Media analysis from early this month showed that New Jersey had not significantly increased the number of test results its reporting each day.

The limit in available tests coupled with a lag in widespread results could mean that there are substantially more people infected with the coronavirus than the numbers reflect.

As of Saturday afternoon, there were roughly 70 testing sites, state and privately run, available in New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy said.

We continue to work aggressively to ramp up testing capabilities as we know having a strong testing regime in place is critical for us moving forward, as we begin to plan at some point  whenever that is  to reopen our state, said Murphy.

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.

If you would like updates on New Jersey-specific coronavirus news, subscribe to our Coronavirus in N.J. newsletter.

Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rodrigotorrejon.
He attacked allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and wrote a book and produced a documentary during impeachment that were both titled "The Ukraine Hoax." He has accused former Vice President Joe Biden's son of profiting off his father's name.

Now Michael R. Caputo, a longtime Trump loyalist who made a cameo in the Mueller report, has been installed as the public face of the Health and Human Services Department in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

"I'm delighted to have Michael Caputo join our team at HHSGov as our Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs," the department's secretary, Alex Azar, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday with a photograph of the two men already at work together, "especially at this critical time in our nation's public health history."

Caputo, 58, has no background in health care. But what he lacks in expertise, he makes up in loyalty to President Donald Trump, a critical attribute as a superstitious commander-in-chief has sought to recreate some of the team he assembled for his election victory  and as he has expressed distrust of Azar.

Caputo had been passed over for a job early in the administration, according to a person with knowledge of the process, but he contacted administration officials in the past month expressing renewed interest in a position. Caputo, who is from western New York, has remained friendly with Dan Scavino, a New Yorker and one of the few original campaign aides still on the White House staff. Scavino played a role in reconnecting Trump and Caputo last year, people familiar with the discussion said.

Trump allies heralded the move as in line with the hiring the administration should have done from the beginning: appointing officials devoted to Trump and his agenda. They described Caputo as a media-savvy operative who credits himself with good relationships with many journalists.

Critics said a pandemic was no time to rely on hyperpartisans.

"In a crisis, the public is looking for credible, nonpartisan voices with real expertise," said Dan Pfeiffer, a former White House communications director for President Barack Obama. "Picking a partisan loyalist with a history of promoting conspiracy theories is the exact opposite of the right thing to do but it is very much on brand."

Caputo declined to comment for this article, which is based on interviews with six administration officials and others with knowledge of his hiring.

A protege of the operative and self-described "dirty trickster" Roger Stone, Caputo has known Trump since the 1980s, when he worked for a lobbying and political consulting firm started by Stone and two other Republican operatives, Charlie Black and Paul Manafort. Manafort went on to run Trump's campaign and was sentenced last year to more than seven years in prison on financial and tax fraud convictions.

The firm worked for Trump in the '80s and '90s, fighting Indian casino expansions that threatened his gambling business in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and pushing to change the flight path of planes near his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. At one point, Caputo even served as Trump's driver, delivering him to a congressional hearing on the casino expansions.

Manafort, whom Caputo regarded with awe, primarily handled that work. Caputo was more closely allied with Stone, whom he considered a mentor, and who remained close to Trump, pushing him to run for president for years before he finally did.

By 2010, Caputo had resettled in the Buffalo area where he grew up, joined by his second wife, whom he met while working for Stone in Ukraine advising a parliamentary campaign. He found work that year in local Republican circles, running the campaign for governor of Carl P. Paladino, a wealthy real estate developer who secured the Republican nomination in an upset before losing to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in the general election.

Caputo then volunteered his service to Trump in 2014, first advising him as he explored a potential bid for New York governor, and then working with him on an unsuccessful effort to buy the Buffalo Bills of the NFL.

Caputo encouraged Trump for more than a decade to run either for president or governor of New York, and Trump drafted him in late 2015 to help run his presidential campaign's effort in the New York state primary.

The hiring served as a homecoming of sorts after a peripatetic career that took Caputo from Washington to Moscow, where he immersed himself in former Soviet culture and politics, met his first wife and worked for American and Russian nonprofit groups and campaigns, advising Russian politicians.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Caputo also reunited with Manafort, who asked Caputo to stay on after the New York primary as a communications adviser working out of Trump Tower.

But Caputo was forced to resign in 2016 shortly after celebrating the firing of Trump's first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, by tweeting a celebratory "Ding Dong the witch is dead." After leaving the campaign, however, he helped to raise money for a super PAC supporting the campaign, despite having clashed with Trump advisers.

Caputo came under scrutiny from Robert Mueller, special counsel who investigated links between Trump's campaign and Russia. A Russian who was directed by a Caputo business associate contacted Caputo in 2016, saying he wanted to help provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton, according to the Mueller report, citing interviews with both men. Caputo directed the Russian to Stone.

Throughout the investigation, Caputo echoed Trump's claims that the inquiry was a politically motivated witch hunt. Caputo compared his questioning by investigators to a "proctology exam," and he and Stone have claimed that the contact with the Russian was a setup by federal law enforcement officials to entrap them. But Caputo was never charged with a crime, and Stone, who lost a retrial bid on Thursday, was convicted on charges unrelated to the meeting.

The attention incited threats against him and his family, Caputo has said, while the legal fees forced him to drain his children's college tuition fund.

During impeachment, Caputo sought to forcefully defend Trump by attacking their perceived enemies. In his book, he drew on his experience in Ukraine to try to undermine the case against Manafort and impeachment, while raising questions about the overlap between Biden's diplomacy in Ukraine and his son's position on the board of a gas company there.

White House officials said that they have been looking for a spot for Caputo for some time.

"Michael possesses two of the most important attributes to succeed in this administration: The president trusts him, and he's able to communicate complex policies in a digestible way," said Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to Trump.
Keep up the great work, were all working together, and at the end of the day we will get through this, said Deputy District Chief John Giordano, as he stood with several other firefighters in front of the hospital.
Jetstar Pacific Airlines (JPA), the low-cost Vietnamese air carrier, is moving ahead with the third restructuring, expected to be carried out after the epidemic ends.

A local newspaper has quoted sources as reporting that the Australian Qantas airline and Vietnam Airlines, the two biggest shareholders in JPA, are conducting the transfer of Qantas 30 percent of JPA shares to Vietnam Airlines.





When the deal is wrapped up, Qantas will officially leave the Vietnamese market after 13 years of cooperation.



On the last day of March, JPA provided the last flight between Hanoi and HCM City before halting its operation as per the request from the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) on cutting the number of domestic flights during this period.



CAAV decided that from April 1, airlines can only provide flights on three air routes, namely Hanoi-HCM City, Hanoi-Da Nang and HCM City-Da Nang. There are two flights between Hanoi and HCM City each day: Bamboo Airways and Jetstar Pacific fly on odd days while Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet Air on even days.

CAAV decided that from April 1, airlines can only provide flights on three air routes, namely Hanoi-HCM City, Hanoi-Da Nang and HCM City-Da Nang. There are two flights between Hanoi and HCM City each day: Bamboo Airways and Jetstar Pacific fly on odd days while Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet Air on even days.

Meanwhile, the Hanoi-Da Nang and HCM City-Da Nang will be exploited by Vietnam and Vietjet in shifts.



However, JPA has not provided more flightd since April 1. The flight on March 31 could be the last one of the air carrier under the name Jetstar Pacific.



For many months, Vietnam Airlines, which is holding 68.85 percent of capital, and Qantas Asia Investment Company, which is holding 30 percent, carried ou meetings to make important decisions for the third restructuring campaign of JPA over the last 15 years, since its establishment.



A source said the departure of Qantas would be taken soon, from June 30. However, the two sides still have not made a final decision about the time to leave.



For Vietnam Airlines, the air carrier will also organize more meetings before drawing a final plan to be submitted to the Committee for Management of State Capital at Enterprises (CMSC).



In 2007, the Australian partner bought JPA shares from SCIC in a plan to develop it into a low cost carrier in the domestic market.



However, JPA has been taking losses continuously over many years because of the 2008 global economic crisis, the increased fuel costs, the old fleet with aircrafts older than 15 years, and the limitations in organization. The total accumulative loss in 2005-2011 reached VND2.1 trillion.



In 2011, when JPA was on the verge of bankruptcy when it fell into insolvency with stockholder equity of minus VND600 billion and accumulative loss of VND2.5 trillion, the Prime Minister asked Vietnam Airlines to take over SCICs capital in JPA and conduct the second restructuring.

Kim Chi

Vietnam Airlines shares unavailable for margin lending Vietnam Airlines is among 51 stocks that had been barred from margin lending in the second quarter, according to the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE).
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Linkedin Sarah Frier and Emily Chang (Bloomberg)  Sat, April 18, 2020 20:02 633 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2c7d99 2 Science & Tech Instagram,website,coronavirus,COVID-19,pandemic,Kevin-Systrom,Mark-Zuckerberg,Facebook Free

Instagrams founders, who have been mostly out of the public eye since leaving Facebook Inc. in 2018, introduced a website that gives live state-by-state updates on the spread of Covid-19.

RT.live uses a statistic called an effective reproduction number, which tracks the average number of people who catch the virus from a single infected person.

If its above one, that means its growing very quickly, and if its below one, that means things are under control, Kevin Systrom, the co-founder and former chief executive officer of Instagram, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. Were trying to take what is a complex topic and boil it down to a simple number that anyone can view from their home.

According to the RT.live site, the data come from The Covid Tracking Project, a volunteer organization started to help collect and visualize testing and infection rates for Covid-19.

Read also: Italy reveals first details of virus tracing app

While the pandemic is global, Systrom said its more useful to look at the infection rate from a local angle. According to the ranking, Vermont is much safer than Georgia, for instance. He hopes RT.live helps citizens understand whether they are in danger as parts of the economy reopen. Thats why this dashboard is so important -- because it gives you live insight into the effects of the choices we all make, he added.

Systrom and Mike Krieger, the Instagram founders, left Facebook in late 2018 after clashing with CEO Mark Zuckerberg. While neither man has a background in health or epidemiology, the same statistical modeling that applies to fast company growth might also be useful for tracking virus growth, Systrom said.

He doesnt expect to turn the new site into a company, though. Well see where it goes, he said.
Gilmer Barrios only grabbed a sweater, his cellphone, an expired ID, mask and gloves and went to the border Thursday after spending 21 days in Tijuana, Mexico. U.S. officials who had deported him under irregular circumstances were waiting for him on the other side.

"I've been told that the immigration agents have been waiting for me since 3:30 p.m. at the guard post," he said over the phone, before getting in a car to meet with them.

Carlos Rafael Oliva Calderon, the Guatemalan consul in Tijuana, was going to accompany him to the border.

In a matter of hours, Barrios went from having "no new information and locked away for fear of the virus" in Tijuana to being able to return to the country where he left behind an American wife and two children on a Monday after he went out to work trimming trees.

Barrios, 28, was arrested March 23 by immigration authorities in southern California and was deported four days later. After Telemundo News reported on Barrios' deportation under irregular circumstances, Oliva Calderon sought out his counterpart in Los Angeles, contacted the federal government and warned Mexican immigration authorities.

Equipped with gloves and masks, Barrios reached San Ysidro, the largest immigration checkpoint between Tijuana and San Diego, Thursday afternoon, according to the Guatemalan consulate in Tijuana.

Border Protection agents with new powers

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has been given the authority to bypass immigration laws and immediately deport migrants who cross the border, part of emergency measures during the coronavirus pandemic. But Barrios' case suggests that border agents used the emergency powers to deport an immigrant who had been living in the U.S. and who had a case that was open in American courts.

Barrios said he doesn't recall any contact with agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement  who are responsible for carrying out deportations. He also doesn't recall seeing an immigration judge, who is responsible for issuing orders to return to one's country of origin. In addition, Barrios is from Guatemala but he was taken to Mexico  where he doesn't have permission to live.

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After multiple requests for comment, CBP told Telemundo News it is still looking into the Barrios case.

Jose Barillas Trennert, the Guatemalan consul general in Los Angeles who negotiated Barrios' reentry to the U.S., told Noticias Telemundo: This person was expelled without due process. We asked Border Patrol authorities for an explanation and they told us that, if we located the family, they could accept him back to continue with his immigration process in the United States."

Barrios was transferred to a Border Patrol station in Chula Vista, California, after being readmitted into the U.S., according to his legal representative and relatives.

"I feel very relieved that he is already on this side, in the United States; it was scary in Tijuana," his wife, Kimberly, said.

Emilio Amaya, Barrios' legal representative, hopes to have him released on bail soon. He said his client doesn't have a deportation order. He does, however, have a pending case in immigration court to remain in the country legally, in part thanks to his wife, who is a U.S. citizen.

Investigative reporter Damia Bonmati first reported the story for Noticias Telemundo.

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Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Friday said 4,000 Covid-19 rapid test kits have been allocated to Meghalaya as the health authorities are battling to zero in on the carrier into the state.

The wife of the first Covid-19 patient and six others of her family members are under home quarantine, while their maid who also tested positive is undergoing treatment at a hospital, he said, adding that they all are stable.

The state has been allocated 4,000 rapid test kits.

We are trying to get more, he said in an address to the press.

The chief minister said that 140 primary contacts of John L Sailo Ryntathiangs family and those at Bethany Hospital have been identified, and 4,755 secondary contacts have also been traced.

Sailo, 69, died on Wednesday of the infection.

Sangma said samples collected from 541 persons have so far tested negative and the reports of 67 persons are awaited.

A total of 23,382 persons have been screened till date and 2,557 are observing quarantine, he said.

In his address, the chief minister said that over 9,300 labourers were provided Rs 3,000 each under the Building and Other Construction Workers Act and over 25,800 farmers in the state have been given Rs 2,000 each under the PM Kisan Yojana since the lockdown began.

Over 1.36 lakh labourers have registered for special assistance grant of Rs 2,100 and 1.16 lakh labourers have been verified for the same, he said.

Over 6,000 persons from the state stranded across the country have registered for the CMs special grant and the authorities have verified 458 persons so far, he said.

Sangma said that the state has received 3.65 lakh reusable masks, 15,072 N95 masks and 29,084 PPEs for the frontline health workers.
(Newser)  President Trump, in a roller-coaster week of reversals and contradictions, told governors to "call your own shots" on lifting stay-at-home orders once the coronavirus threat subsides, the AP reports. But then he took to Twitter to push some to reopen their economies quickly and tell them it was their job to ramp up testing. "This is mayhem," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday. "We need a coordinated approach between the federal government and the states." In the absence of one, Cuomo and sixteen other governors representing half the nation's population have organized three separate clusters of states each committed to working together on the details of relaunching businesses, schools, and events while avoiding a resurgence of infections.

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The pacts have formed among states mostly with Democratic governors on the West Coast, around the Great Lakes, and in the densely populated Northeast, covering several big metropolitan areas that cross state lines, including New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Others are going their own way, including Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott said Friday that he would ease some pandemic-related restrictions next week. Florida, another state with a huge population, is also not in an alliance. California, Oregon, and Washington state have teamed up, and pacts have formed among Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island as well as Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

(Read more coronavirus stories.)
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Linkedin Ghina Ghaliya and Budi Sutrisno (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, April 18, 2020 13:01 634 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2b18aa 1 City coronavirus,anies-baswedan,Jakarta-COVID-19,PCR-test,BNPB Free

The bodies of more than 1,000 people have been buried according to the coronavirus health protocol in Jakarta as laboratories battle a backlog in COVID-19 testing for suspected cases.

As of Friday, 246 patient deaths had been confirmed as COVID-19 cases in the countrys capital, the epicenter of the outbreak in Indonesia. The figure represents almost half of all deaths reported nationwide.

But the Jakarta administration has instructed that the bodies of patients under surveillance (PDP) and persons under monitoring (ODP) be buried according to the established health protocol for burying patients who had died of COVID-19.

The protocol requires both the body of the deceased and their coffin to be wrapped in plastic. Both funeral and cemetery workers must wear personal protective equipment (PPE) including gloves, masks and coveralls when handling the body.

Dharma (not his real name) lost his mother, who was admitted as a PDP for treatment at Persahabatan Central General Hospital in East Jakarta.

The 21-year-old resident of Kampung Melayu, East Jakarta, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday that the cause of his mother's death was recorded simply as "respiratory failure", because the hospital was still waiting for the results of her COVID-19 test from the Health Ministrys Health Research and Development Agency (Balitbangkes).

"The hospital said that the results will arrive in two to 10 days," said Dharma. "[But] It has already been 10 days counting the weekends, or eight working days."

He said that the hospital had explained the details of the burial procedures for his mother's body.

Dharma's mother was buried on April 9 at Pondok Rangon Public Cemetery in East Jakarta, but he still hoped that the government would release her test results.

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan said that the interment protocol for PDPs who had died before their tests results had been issued was a precautionary measure to prevent the virus' transmission. The protocol was being applied in the absence of the test results.

"I just came from Pondok Rangon cemetery," he said on Wednesday. "The number of burials adhering to the protocols for probable COVID-19 deaths has reached 1,000 already."

The administration's website recorded that 1,114 burials have been conducted under the health protocol as of Saturday.

According to the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology, which has compiled the Health Ministry's daily log of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests performed at designed COVID-19 labs, Indonesia has been testing just 1,000 to 2,000 samples per day over the past two weeks. This is far below President Joko Widodo's target of 10,000 tests per day.

The number of tests increased to above 7,000 on April 12, but three days later on April 15, the daily average had declined to a little over 3,000 tests.

Jakarta recorded on Friday a cumulative total of 2,865 PDPs, of which more than 1,400 patients (48.9 percent) had recovered.

Our low testing capacity has resulted in unconfirmed [coronavirus] deaths among PDPs, and the central government has yet to recognize the [actual] number of deaths [in Jakarta], said Iqbal Ridzi Fahdri Elyazar, a researcher at Eijkman's disease surveillance and biostatistics division.

Many problems are behind the delay in test results, including a shortage of the reagents needed for the PCR test. The government said on Wednesday that its current stock of reagents would last only a week.

Another issues is that even after hospitals and local health agencies had received individual test results, they are not allowed to inform the patients' families or the public before the government announces the latest COVID-19 figures.

Read also: In major policy shift, Jokowi orders transparency in pandemic fight

National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesman Agus Wibowo, who is also on the national COVID-19 rapid response task force, acknowledged that the government had been unable to identify probable coronavirus deaths because of the delay in testing.

"It still takes about five days for the results [...]. Indeed, many people are dying before [their] test results arrive. We need more testing kits, said Agus.

Meanwhile, national COVID-19 spokesman Achmad Yurianto said he did not want to conclude prematurely that the bodies buried according to coronavirus protocol in Jakarta were related to COVID-19.

"Some time ago, a member of my staff died due to Stage IV cancer. [But] Everyone said it was COVID-19. I'm speaking based on the [available] data on confirmed deaths from the coronavirus," he said. "Not all of the 1,000 [buried in Jakarta] were COVID-19 deaths.
During the mid 14th century, the virus, which became known as the Black Death, ravaged Europe, Asia and Africa resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of people; figures show that as a result of this catastrophe more than a quarter of the population of Europe was wiped out.

During the period of 1347/48 twenty-five Franciscans died in Drogheda as a result of the virus having been carried into the town on merchant ships arriving at the medieval port adjacent to the Franciscan Friary, located in the area of what is known today as Merchants Quay on the north-side of the River Boyne.

Subsequent epidemic and pandemic plagues and viruses occurred in Ireland during the 17th century, both during and in the aftermath of the Cromwellian period. Gerard Boate, who was a personal friend of Oliver Cromwell and Chief Physician to the Puritan Army in Ireland in 1649, mentions the virus that was rampant across the country during this period. The virus that Gerard had written about was that of Typhus and it took many more lives in Ireland than that of Cromwell and his New Model Army.

The Cholera epidemic in Ireland during the summer months of 1832 once again ravaged the country with tens of thousands of people passing away as a result of this disease. The local newspapers record a staggering amount of people dying across the greater Drogheda area particularly during the months of June and July of 1832 and weekly reports in the Drogheda Argus and Conservative newspapers record a list of many prominent people who had passed away.

The virus, which became known as the Spanish Flu, swept across Europe, Asia and America from 1918 through 1919 with the death toll again reaching tens of millions of people; it was, without doubt, one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. In Ireland it affected in excess of 800,000 individuals and took the lives of some 23,000 souls. The Drogheda Independent newspaper of the day recorded the first outbreak of this pandemic in the north-east area with soldiers having been affected who were patients in the Navan Union Workhouse in July of 1918.

Schools and cinemas were closed as a result and public places were sanitised, however hundreds of people were still attending funerals of those who had passed away resulting in the spread of this particular virus. Calls were made in the Drogheda Independent for extra space being badly needed in Union Workhouse hospitals to care for the victims of the virus and for unqualified people to volunteer in helping the nurses manage the crisis.

In October of 1918, the S.S. Dundalk steam ship was torpedoed by the Germans in the Irish Sea en-route from Liverpool back to Dundalk with the result that the Captain and some twenty crew members lost their lives. Ironically, eight members of the original crew didn't travel on the ship, having been laid up in hospital in Dundalk with the flu pandemic, three of whom subsequently died from the virus.

The Spanish Flu was so called due to the fact that Spain, being a neutral country, was the first place to report the virus in early January 1918; the movement and demobilisation of thousands of soldiers in the aftermath of the First World War also helped spread the disease across Europe. The pandemic finally abated in the greater north-east area in April of 1919 and a report in the Drogheda Independent of April 19th 1919 stated that `no new cases of the virus had been reported`; perhaps ironic as we are heading for that same particular deadline now with the Corona virus of April 19th 2020!

Tuberculosis, otherwise known as TB and/or Consumption also killed tens of thousands of people from the 1920`s to the later 1950`s and there are many of today`s senior citizens in the midst of our communities who would well remember this dreaded virus, but, alas, few of them have ever been recorded.

The likes of the Spanish Flu and Tuberculosis had never been fully recorded throughout the remainder of the 20th century; of people`s personal experiences, of the loss of loved ones and neighbours and it was only towards the close of the 1990`s and into the early years of the 21st century when scholars began to record the devastation that these particular viruses had on families, communities and Irish society as a whole.

That is why it is so significant and important to record as much local details as possible during this very troubling period in which we all now find ourselves as a result of Corona- virus, COVID-19.

Young teenagers and youths can play a huge role in their personal accounts of today`s pandemic by perhaps keeping a daily diary of their thoughts, fears, anxieties and of their hopes, etc., of how they fulfil their days and interact with family and friends.

Photographic images and other audio/visual recordings should also be recorded, of their housing estates, the empty streets, roads, towns, villages, school-yards, shops & businesses closed etc. as a reminder of what this period in our lives was like amidst all the 21st century technology that is available to us and to depict that, with all the recent talks on climate change and the Brexit issue; everything takes a back-seat and is put on hold as a deadly virus emerges from China in December 2019 and has crippled the entire globe within 10 weeks or so.

Students could also become the current `family journalist` by perhaps recording the concerns and personal thoughts of their extended family members, by interviewing family, neighbours and friends using phones and Skype and thus creating a networking bond across different age groups. Such recordings will become invaluable to future generations. For instance, personal diaries, which are looked back upon, take you closer to the event and to the thoughts, feelings and hopes, etc. of the ordinary and real people.

There is an openness and transparency about personal diaries concerning a period or an event in time which is often in contrast to the more `official` and often bland documents in history and that is why personal diaries are so significant and important to future historians; as they turn each page they are reliving the event with the original diarist day-by-day as the event unfolded.

It is therefore worth remembering that all historical evidence begins its life in the present!
The spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York

(Reuters) - Reported cases of the coronavirus have crossed 2.26 million globally and 154,613 people have died, according to a Reuters tally as of 1400 GMT on Saturday.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

* For an interactive graphic tracking the global spread, open https://tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.

* For a U.S.-focused tracker with state-by-state and county map, open https://tmsnrt.rs/2w7hX9T in an external browser.

AMERICAS

*As some U.S. states look to start reopening their coronavirus-battered economies amid protests from supporters of President Donald Trump anxious to get back to work, hardest hit New York state began mandating the wearing of masks or face coverings in public to contain the pathogen's spread.

*An official charged with overseeing how the U.S. government handles $500 billion in bailout funds said he will also monitor how companies use the cash, including for share buybacks, dividends and staff compensation.

* The U.S. coronavirus crisis took a sharp political turn as President Donald Trump lashed out at four Democratic governors over their handling of the pandemic after having conceded that states bear ultimate control of restrictions to contain the outbreak.

* U.S. coronavirus deaths topped 35,400 on Friday, rising by more than 2,000 for the fourth day in a row, according to a Reuters tally, as some states announced timetables for lifting restrictions aimed at blunting the pandemic.

* Better-than-expected social distancing practices have led an influential research model to lower its projected U.S. coronavirus death toll by 12%, while predicting some states may be able to safely begin easing restrictions as early as May 4.

*Some of the neediest residents of Colombia's capital Bogota have started receiving food donations, while dozens living on the street were given a chance to shower and change clothes, as the city rides out a five-week lockdown to contain the coronavirus.

* Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said a large number of migrants on a deportation flight to Guatemala from the United States this week were infected with the coronavirus, adding that U.S. authorities had confirmed a dozen cases.

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EUROPE

* France will try to avoid setting different rules for older people and other forms of discrimination once the government starts easing its coronavirus confinement measures, the French President's office said.

* Spain's death toll from coronavirus rose at a slower pace but surpassed 20,000 fatalities as the government mulled whether to ask parliament for a third extension of the confinement imposed in one of the world's hardest hit countries.

* Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy rose by 575 on Friday, up from 525 the day before, while the number of new cases declined slightly and scientists warned that infections were now mainly happening among family members.

* Doctors and health workers criticised the British government for suggesting that gowns used to protect them while treating coronavirus patients could be re-used, as supplies run low across the country.

* Russia said its death toll from the novel coronavirus had risen to 313, an overnight increase of 40, as it posted a new record daily jump in new cases.

* France said there was no evidence so far of a link between the new coronavirus and the work of the P4 research laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the current pandemic started.

ASIA-PACIFIC

*Pakistan has lifted restrictions on congregational prayers at mosques, but put in place a host of safety conditions to avert the further spread of the coronavirus in the country, a statement said.

*Hundreds of workers poured onto the streets of Bangladesh's port city of Chittagong, flouting social distancing rules to demand work and wages during the coronavirus shutdown.

* Japan, alarmed by rising coronavirus deaths and the spectre of the collapse of the medical system, is scrambling to expand testing with drive-through facilities and general practitioners helping to collect samples.

* Singapore's health ministry confirmed 942 more coronavirus infections, a new daily record, the vast majority of which are among migrant workers living in dormitories.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* The Nigerian president's chief of staff, Abba Kyari, died on Friday from COVID-19, making him the most high profile person in the country to die in the coronavirus outbreak.

* Iran's death toll from the new coronavirus rose by 73 in the previous 24 hours to reach 5,031 on Saturday, health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpour said on state TV.

* Saudi Arabia's grand mufti said Muslim prayers during Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitr feast should be performed at home if the outbreak continues.

* African leaders, the IMF and the World Bank appealed for rapid international action to help African countries respond to the coronavirus pandemic that will cause the continent's economy to shrink by 1.25% in 2020, the worst reading on record.

* Dubai has extended by one week a 24-hour-a-day curfew imposed as part of a sterilisation drive to control the spread of the coronavirus, the government said in a Twitter post.

* The Holy Fire ceremony symbolising Jesus' resurrection was lit in a deserted Jerusalem, without the joyful throng of Orthodox Christian pilgrims who normally attend a spectacle that brings the Easter season to a colourful climax.

ECONOMIC FALLOUT

* Canada will invest C$2.5 billion ($1.8 billion) in measures to help the hard-hit oil and gas industry during the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed 1,250 people in the country, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.

* Global stocks rallied on President Donald Trump's plans to revive the coronavirus-hit U.S. economy and a report about a clinical trial for a potential drug to treat COVID-19.

* Gold dropped about 2% on Friday after President Donald Trump's new guidelines to re-open the U.S. economy and encouraging early data related to a potential COVID-19 treatment drove investors towards riskier assets.

* Some moderate Democrats key to their party's control of the U.S. House of Representatives are urging Speaker Nancy Pelosi to move quickly to replenish a fund to help small businesses hurt by the coronavirus pandemic, saying other party priorities can wait.

* China's economy contracted for the first time on record in the first quarter as the coronavirus shut down factories and shopping malls and put millions out of work.

(Compiled by Sarah Morland and Devika Syamnath; Editing by William Maclean)
The global biotechnology reagents market is expected to grow by USD 37.87 billion as per Technavio. This marks a significant market slowdown compared to the 2019 growth estimates due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the first half of 2020. However, steady growth is expected to continue throughout the forecast period, and the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 8%. Request free sample pages

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Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Biotechnology Reagents Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Read the 120-page report with TOC on "Biotechnology Reagents Market Analysis Report by Technology (chromatography, in-vitro diagnostics, polymerase chain reaction, cell culture, and others) and Region (APAC, Europe, North America, and ROW), and the Segment Forecasts, 2020-2024".

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The market is driven by the presence of high-throughput and novel technologies. In addition, the increasing R&D investments by federal agencies and biotechnology firms is anticipated to boost the growth of the biotechnology reagents market.

The availability of novel technologies such as highly personalized and predictive throughput screening, pre-disease and biomarker identification, gene therapy and genome editing for earlier disease detection, and rapid POC diagnostics is driving the demand for reagents. The popularity of DNA chips, proteomics, and combinatorial chemistry in drug discovery area will further boost reagent usage. Reagents are also being used as contrast enhancers or biosensors in spectroscopic methods such as fluorescence and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) for measuring the chemical and molecular dynamics of the cells. In addition, healthcare researchers are also conducting regular studies for the development of highly effective reagents which can be used in novel technologies, thus positively impacting the growth of the global biotechnology reagents market.

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Major Five Biotechnology Reagents Companies:

Abbott Laboratories

Abbott Laboratories has business operations under various segments, such as established pharmaceuticals products, nutritional products, diagnostic products, and medical devices. The company's key offerings include Multigent Reagent Architect, which is used for therapeutic drug monitoring lithium for Architect c16000 Analyzer.

Agilent Technologies Inc.

Agilent Technologies Inc. operates the business through various segments, such as life sciences and applied markets, diagnostics and genomics, and Agilient CrossLab. The company's key offerings include miRNA qPCR Detection Reagents, which contain specific forward primers and microRNA qPCR MM detection reagent used for polyadenylation of microRNAs from total RNA.

Becton, Dickinson and Co.

Becton, Dickinson and Co. has business operations under various segments, such as BD Medical, BD Life Sciences, and BD Interventional. The company's key offerings include CD20 PE Clone L27 (ASR), which contains phosphate buffered saline with gelatin and sodium azide used in flow cytometers.

Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc.

Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc. operates its business through two segments: life science and clinical diagnostics. The company's key offerings include iScript RT-qPCR Sample Preparation Reagent, which is a sample preparation reagent used for isolating total RNA from cultured cells to use for RT-qPCR.

Danaher Corp.

Danaher Corp. has business operations under various segments: life sciences, diagnostics, and environmental and applied solutions. The company offers a wide range of genomic reagents developed with solid phase reversible immobilization technology, which is used for nucleic acid extraction from cells, tissue, and blood.

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Biotechnology Reagents Technology Outlook (Revenue, USD billion, 2020-2024)

Chromatography

In-vitro diagnostics

Polymerase chain reaction

Cell culture

Others

Biotechnology Reagents Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD billion, 2020-2024)

APAC

Europe

North America

ROW

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While it certainly feels like the world is falling apart, its nice that weve got solid continuity from the various late night hosts who are helping us put the coronavirus pandemic in perspective while also making us laugh. And Seth Meyers, who is arguably the best of the lot, devoted a 14-minute A Closer Look segment on Thursdays Late Night to making fun of Donald Trump for trying to pretend he didnt say all those things he said in the early stages of the spread in the U.S.

Since before Trump was even considered a serious candidate for president, its always been clear that hes worshiped authoritarians and sought to emulate them. For one thing, those are the world leaders he gets along with best, Meyers began. For example, hes repeatedly heaped praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping including during the coronavirus outbreak.

Trump tweeted, China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the Virus, and, China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. Trump wants us to forget all that now, because he thinks our brains are like his, but theyre not. Most of us can form and retain memories, while Trump has the memory of a goldfish who smokes weed.

Also Read: Seth Meyers Rips News Networks for Continuing to Air Trump's Coronavirus Briefings (Video)

Later in the segment, Meyers went back in on Trump for that disconnect, saying that Trump seems intent on repeating all the same mistakes he made at the start of this crisis.

For example, Trump has repeatedly bragged about his China travel ban, Meyers went on. Even though the New York Times reported that 430,000 people have traveled from China to the US since coronavirus surfaced, and that according to a genetic study most New York coronavirus cases came from Europe. New research indicates that the coronavirus began to circulate in the New York area by mid-February weeks before the first confirmed case. And that travelers brought in the virus mainly from Europe not Asia.

Story continues

All of this was Meyers setting up an amusing time travel joke.

Also Read: Colbert Is Unimpressed by Trump's Claim That He Has 'Total Authority' Over State Governors (Video)

And that would probably come as a shock to Trump, who tweeted in 2014 about the Ebola outbreak, If this doctor, whos so recklessly flew into New York from West Africa, has Ebola, then Obama should apologize to the American people & resign.' And its true, Trump really did.

You know how people always say If you could travel back in time, where would you go? And some people say ancient Rome or the Wild West? Id go back six years and introduce 2014 Donald Trump to current Donald Trump just so he can see how much of a hypocrite he is.

Of course, I understand it would immediately backfire.

Meyers then continued in with a lengthy impression of how such an encounter would play out, playing both himself and Trump in the performance.

Also Read: Dr Phil Downplays Pandemic, Incorrectly Claims 360,000 People Die Yearly In Swimming Pools (Video)

Meyers: Before you send that tweet, I think you should know that in six years from now you will be doing something very similar as president.

Trump: Holy s, Im gonna be president?

Meyers: Yeah, yes, but thats not the point I was trying to make.

Trump: President in the United States? What happened?

Meyers: Look, no, I have brought you here to prove youre a hypocrite.

Trump: I think you mean President Hypocrite.

Read original story Seth Meyers: Trump Has the Memory of a Goldfish Who Smokes Weed (Video) At TheWrap
Ms. Hameed told Mr. Graham during their initial conversation at the nightclub that she would be traveling to Atlanta from her home in Prince Georges County, Md., the following month to attend the wedding of a college sorority sister.

In the three weeks before she boarded a plane for Atlanta, Ms. Hameed and Mr. Graham video-chatted for five to six hours a night. He was sweet, he was authentic, he was real, she said. He was the best part of my every night, especially after a long day at work.

They began dating in Atlanta, though their long-distance relationship did not last too long. Mr. Graham moved back to Mitchellville in March 2018 to be with Ms. Hameed.

I had no job there and went back to live with my parents, he said But it was all good, because Anique was there, and that was all that mattered.

He proposed Feb. 2, 2019, while the pair sat together on the Ferris wheel at the National Harbor in Washington, and planned to be married April 18 at Camelot by Martins, a caterer in Upper Marlboro, Md., but those plans changed because of the coronavirus.

They still had not rescheduled when they learned, on March 30, that stay-at-home rules would become Maryland law that night at 8 p.m. At 5:30 that same evening, just two and a half hours before the deadline, the couple called their pastor, the Rev. Lloyd Gaines, a Lutheran minister from nearby Peace Lutheran Church, who had been on standby. They asked if he could go to the backyard of the Graham family home, where a wedding ceremony was soon underway with seven people in attendance, including the bride and groom, as well as Ms. Epps, the matron of honor, and Mr. Crawford, the best man.
Not a single foreign Tablighi Jamaat member should leave India without informing the investigative team, Commissioner of Delhi Police S.N. Shrivastava issued directions to his unit heads associated with a case filed against the religious group.

A total 1,306 foreign nationals were Tablighi Jamaat participants, out of which 250 were found in Delhi.

The foreigners, who have been quarantined and are associated with Markaz, "should not be allowed to leave" without notifying the probing team, Shrivastava issued direction during a meeting with the senior IPS officers heading various units of Delhi Police last week.

He also has told the Crime Branch unit head Praveer Ranjan to ensure to seize travel documents and other evidences of the foreigners associated with Markaz. Deputy Commissioner of Police Joy Tirkey of Crime Branch is probing the incident.

Both Ranjan and Tirkey were unavailable for comments.

Shrivastava, a 1985-batch IPS officer who also had headed anti-terror unit in Delhi Police five years ago, also roped in Cyber Unit of Special Cell to help Crime Branch to gather evidence in the case and help in the investigation.

It has been found that 1,306 foreign Tablighi Jamaat activists, including those from the US, France and Italy, who took part at a congregation in Delhi's Nizamuddin, have been identified in different parts of the country and most of them have been put in quarantine.

A total of around 9,000 people, including the 1,306 foreign nationals, had participated at the March congregation of the Tablighi Jamaat, a Sunni organization. The congregation had sparked off a nationwide search for its attendees with reports emerging from various states of new clusters of coronavirus-affected people linked to the event.

On April 2, under the directions of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had blacklisted 960 foreigners, present in India on tourist visas, for their involvement in Tablighi Jamaat activities.

The MHA had also directed Director Generals of Police all concerned states and union territories and Commissioner of Police, Delhi Police to take necessary legal action against all such violators, on priority, under relevant sections of the Foreigners Act, 1946 and Disaster Management Act, 2005.

These directions were issued after the Delhi Police had registered a case against seven people, including Tablighi Jamaat Markaz chief Mohammad Saad, under stringent sections for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. They have also been booked for violation of Epidemic Act and Disaster Management Act on March 31. The case is registered under various sections of Epidemic Act and Disaster Management Act and Indian Penal Code.

Saad, the organizer of religious event wherein thousands of people from India and 41 foreign countries gathered amid the COIVD-19 outbreak is still to be questioned as he was in self quarantine.
The international community must intervene because this is about the expansion of authoritarianism everywhere.

Joshua Wong is a Hong Kong student activist and the Secretary-General of the Demosisto party.





The summer of 2019 in Hong Kong was one of protest; an unprecedented local movement with global effects that took to the streets to demand an end to the now-withdrawn extradition bill, which would have allowed for defendants to be extradited to mainland China, and an end to Chinas authoritarian war against freedom and democracy.

The world watched as waves of public anger flooded Hong Kong. Police officers unlawfully assaulted bystanders and protesters, arresting almost 7,000 people since protests began in early June. The coronavirus has halted our rallies temporarily but support for our demands, including for the resignation of Hong Kongs leader, Carrie Lam, rises.

Rounds of rubber bullets being fired indiscriminately, the smell of tear gas and the scenes of bloodshed became this generations defining memory. We were bitterly reminded of the bloody crackdown at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

But our strong sense of justice demands that we stand up, defend our freedoms and protest against unchecked police violence, which has claimed the lives of four citizens and left more than 2,000 injured.

The call for an independent inquiry into the polices use of force remains one of the key demands of the people of Hong Kong, and has been echoed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights who called for an effective, prompt, independent and impartial investigation.

Yet, the Hong Kong government has nonetheless continued to resist establishing a separate investigation mechanism, according to Amnesty International.

The government claims the existing Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC), appointed by the Hong Kong government, is adequate to investigate allegations of police violence and other misconduct.

This is not true. This is a body that the UN Human Rights Committee in its Concluding Observations on Hong Kong in 2013 said had limited powers and lacked independence. It cannot subpoena documents nor summon witnesses. Between 2010 and 2018, it has only referred one case of police misconduct for prosecution.

The death of Chow Tsz-lok, a 22-year-old university student, on November 8, 2019, could have been a moment for the government and police to allow people to mourn. Instead, we were faced with ongoing police violence.

Over the past nine months, the Beijing and Hong Kong governments have intensified their strong-arm policies towards the people of Hong Kong.

Reuters reported last month that Beijing has ramped up the presence of security forces in Hong Kong to as many as 4,000 personnel.

Along with Chinese troops, 12,000 personnel are now stationed in the city  most likely the largest Chinese security deployment ever in Hong Kong.

Beijings top officials have urged Hong Kong to speed up the passing of national security legislation in Hong Kong to tackle political dissidents, blaming lax implementation of existing laws by government officials for the unrest.

Wang Zhenmin, director of Tsinghua Universitys Centre for Hong Kong and Macau Research, argued it was an essential task for the city government to put Article 23 legislation on the agenda.

Article 23 is a clause under the Basic Law of Hong Kongs mini-constitution, which stipulates that the city must enact its own national security law  a proposal that prompted mass protests in 2003 over fears about the loss of freedom of speech and other civil liberties.

Under this clause, national security laws must ban seven types of activity; treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the central government, theft of state secrets, the hosting of political activities by foreign political organisations or bodies, and the establishment of ties between local and foreign political organisations.

But it does not end there. In February, the Hong Kong government approved the expenditure of an extra 25.8 billion Hong Kong dollars [$3.3 billion] on police forces, with its budget on tear gas and rubber bullets tripled, according to official data.

All of these clues, I believe, suggest that China plans another crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

China has continued to intensify its suppression of critical voices inside and outside of its borders.

Since 2015, human rights groups, civil rights lawyers and religious groups have been the prime targets of Chinas political persecution.

Leaked documents revealed that more than one million Uighurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in China, had been detained in re-education camps in Xinjiang and assigned to factories for forced labour.

Big companies like Blizzard, Disney and many airlines have caved in to Chinese pressure by shutting down criticism of Chinese politics, banning support for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and removing references to autonomous territories like Hong Kong and Taiwan.

And for the first time, China has openly breached the promise of press freedom enshrined in our one country, two systems framework. The Beijing government announced in March that it will expel all US journalists and bar them from reporting in China, Hong Kong and Macau.

What followed was an open letter in which the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post urged China to reconsider the move, saying it was uniquely damaging and reckless at a time when the world is sharing the burden of fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

To this, China gave an icy response, reiterating in an official statement that it did not accept the arrogance and prejudice it said was revealed in the letter.

And now, more than ever, Hong Kong finds itself under Chinas growing shadow.

To prevent China from further trampling on civil liberties and silencing those it deems too critical of its governance, we need human rights sanctions as weapons.

This is why I urge the US State Department to include effective sanction mechanisms in the forthcoming report on Hong Kongs autonomy.

I also call upon the European Union to pass the Magnitsky Act, which would require sanctions to be imposed against China and Hong Kong officials responsible for human rights abuses.

This fight is not just about Hong Kong.

This fight is a global resistance to the worldwide expansion of authoritarian regimes.

When the freedom and democracy of future generations are at stake, we ask the world to stand with us and join our fight!

The next episode of #AJOpinion will air soon, in which Lawrence Ma, barrister and chairman of the Hong Kong Legal Exchange Foundation, will shed light on Beijings and the Hong Kong governments stance towards the unrest.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
KYODO NEWS - Apr 18, 2020 - 19:17 | World, All, Coronavirus

North Korean state media reported Saturday that all foreigners in the country who had been subject to measures aimed at preventing a local outbreak of the new coronavirus have been released from quarantine.

The Korean Central News Agency also said that the country's borders would remain completely closed until COVID-19 infections are curbed globally.

North Korea had as of late February reportedly quarantined some 380 foreigners, including diplomats stationed in the capital Pyongyang.

Related coverage:

Japanese customs: a guide in brave new coronavirus world?

Japan enters 1st weekend under nationwide state of emergency

New coronavirus cases in S. Korea fall below 20

The country continues to insist that it has no cases of the deadly virus, but some international experts are skeptical of the assertion.

KCNA also said that there is no longer anyone under medical monitoring in South Pyongan Province and Rason city bordering Russia. Of the country's nine provinces, only two apparently still have people under medical observation.
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Meghan Markle is set to give her first television interview since she and Prince Harry stepped down from their roles as senior royals and moved to Los Angeles.

It is thought that the 38-year-old will appear on ABC's Good Morning America to discuss Elephant - the documentary film she recently narrated.

A recent television advert for the talk show revealed a snippet that showed Meghan as a special guest.

Meghan Markle is set to give her first television interview since she and Prince Harry stepped down from their roles as senior royals and moved to Los Angeles

The voiceover on the advert said: 'On GMA Monday, Meghan Markle with an exclusive first look at the Disney documentary Elephant.'

The new feature length film, which is now available on Disney+, follows a herd of elephants on their 1,000-mile journey through Zimbabwe and Botswana.

Harry reportedly joined Meghan in the recording story as she performed her voiceover but left 11-month-old Archie at home.

The Duchess signed the voiceover deal in return for a donation to wildlife charity Elephants Without Borders.

The new feature length film, which is now available on Disney+, follows a herd of elephants on their thousand-mile journey through Zimbabwe and Botswana

It comes after Harry joked to Disney CEO Bob Iger about a potential role for his wife as they attended the premiere of the Lion King UK last July.

The chat was captured on video as Prince Harry said: 'You know she [Meghan] does voiceovers.'

He went on to say that Meghan would be interested in a future collaboration before Mr Iger replied and said: 'Sure. We'd love to try.'

Good Morning America is a live two-hour program anchored by Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos and Michael Strahan.

The interview comes as the couple continue to forge out new lives for themselves in America.

The Sussexes initially moved to Canada after stepping down as senior working royals on March 31 before setting up home in California.

In the past week, they were spotted on their first public outings since moving to their new city as they carried out charity deliveries and walked their two dogs.
The Ontario government is offering a cash advance to doctors worried about making rent on their clinics and paying staff as patient visits decline in the COVID-19 pandemic, the Star has learned.

While doctors were given new fee codes to bill the Ontario Health Insurance Plan for virtual and telephone consultations in the era of physical distancing, those payouts were not going to be made until June.

We know theres a problem right now, Health Minister Christine Elliott said Friday, acknowledging the Ontario Medical Association had raised concerns some clinics would be forced out of business, leaving patients in the lurch.

Doctors will get monthly payments in May, June and July topping them up to 70 per cent of their average billings in the previous 12 months, a senior government source told the Star.

In addition to our considerable efforts to provide doctors with increased flexibility and expanded opportunities to support patientsthese advance payments to doctors, which will be reconciled against future earnings, will ensure stability of our physician services as we continue our battle against COVID-19, said Travis Kann, Elliotts director of communications.

Doctors will be asked to pay back the advances starting in November, with no interest charges, submitting five equal monthly payments by March 2021. If that is not done the money will be deducted from future billings.

An allergist and immunologist in Mississauga took to social media earlier this week to sound the alarm about her situation after opening a new clinic that is at risk after a considerable investment was made in the premises and equipment.

Our number of patients started to drop significantly each day after physical distancing and stay-at-home guidance was issued in mid-March, said Dr. Zainab Abdurrahman.

Other clinics are in the same predicament and if a large number of clinics cannot remain open this will significantly impact patient care within and beyond our specialty, she added.

Now, like many others we are scrambling, trying to find ways to be able to pay our rent.

Kann said there has been significant uptake on virtual and telephone visits and noted physicians left underemployed by the pandemic can sign up on a government portal to be matched with hospitals and other health-care employers looking to fill gaps in care.

Doctors can also apply in many cases for federal programs to supplement income.

Read more about:
" " Researchers opening King Tutankhamen's sarcophagus in 2007 to study the Egyptian pharoah's mummy. Ben Curtis/AFP/Getty Images

A famous pharaoh, a mysterious name written on all of his burial treasure, and a possible secret tomb hiding in plain sight for almost a century  all the makings of a great ancient Egyptian mystery. And it gets better: this tomb might contain the remains of one of the only women to rule over ancient Egypt.

Admit it  you're interested.

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Last year, British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves of the University of Arizona published a paper online titled "The Burial of Nefertiti?" Using high-resolution scans of the walls of King Tutankhamen's tomb, Reeves discovered irregularities in the walls that suggest doorways that were blocked up and plastered over before the burial of the famous pharaoh. King Tut's tomb is something of an anomaly, due to the fact that the layout and art seem to have been designed for a queen rather than a king. In his paper, Reeves suggests this might be because it was originally designed for Tut's stepmother, Nefertiti, whose tomb has never been found.

King Tutankhamen was actually a lesser pharaoh of ancient Egypt, but these days he's a pretty big deal. Rising to power at just 9 years old, and dead by 19, he probably wasn't a very influential king, but due to his relative political insignificance and sudden death, his mummy was interred in a small tomb, which was buried in rubble a few hundred years later by workers carving out a site in the Valley of the Kings for the tomb of Ramses IV. As a result, Tut's tomb was overlooked by grave robbers for over 3,000 years until its discovery by archaeologist Howard Carter and his patron Lord Carnarvon in 1922, making it the first intact royal Egyptian tomb discovered in modern times. It contained thousands of pieces of art, furniture, and jewelry, many of which bore the name of Tutankhamen. But what's always puzzled Egyptologists is why King Tut's name was painted over that of another pharaoh: Smenekhkare.

"It's possible there's a whole story within a story that was right under our noses," says Egyptologist Stephen Harvey, director of the Ahmose and Tetisheri Project. "It took many years to dig out and prepare one of these tombs, along with all the golden objects, the coffins, the thrones and chariots and everything else. When a pharaoh died unexpectedly, they'd have a problem. What seems to have been done is a lot of material was actually reused  not just once, but some of them over and over again."

" " A stele showing Akhenaten, Nefertiti and their three daughters. Anders Blomqvist/Getty Images

Nicholas Reeves has been looking closely at Tutankhamen's burial for decades, and when the Getty Museum in Los Angeles made full-scale scans of the wall decoration in King Tut's tomb, Reeves was able to virtually zoom in super-close on the murals, and even to remove the paint to examine the wall itself. When he removed the paint, Reeves found what looked like blocked-up doorways.

"Let's just say if all Reeves found was a blocked up doorway in Tutankhamen's tomb, that's still pretty exciting," says Harvey. "But he ended up published an article arguing that the original tomb equipment was made for Queen Nefertiti, who was, in his opinion, briefly on the throne of Egypt as a pharaoh, which was a male gender identity."

Though there's significant debate among Egyptologists about the issue, it's Reeve's opinion that Smenekhkare was the masculine name adopted by Nefertiti when she rose to the throne, and that her reign directly preceded Tutankhamen's. When Tutankhamen died before his any of his funerary equipment was ready, they just repurposed Nefertiti's equipment and walled off her burial chamber, burying the boy king in the other side.

In 2015, thermographic and radar scans done on the walls of the tomb suggested there might be a hidden chambers behind the wall, and that the chambers might contain metal and organic material. In March, however, a team of National Geographic radar specialists were unable even to replicate results that said there was a chamber behind the wall.

"The Valley of the Kings is made of limestone, and the ancient Egyptians dug down through different strata until they got to the purest, whitest stone," says Harvey. "Sometimes they had to dig past layers of flint, which is a really hard stone. From what I understand, this flint can make radar or sonar results very hard to read. Maybe we should just hold out for when we have better technology."

In just a few months, what was at first a theory set forth by a respected Egyptologist has become a hot political issue. Since Reeves' article was published last year, the Egyptian minister of antiquities has changed, from Mamdouh Eldamaty, who was very pro-Reeves, to Khaled El-Enany, who recently declared at the Second Annual Tutankhamen Grand Egyptian Museum Conference in Cairo that "no physical exploration will be allowed unless there is 100 percent certainty that there is a cavity behind the wall."

The conference included a yelling match between Eldamaty and the former antiquities minister under President Hosni Mubarak, Zahi Hawass (who is something of a celebrity in Egypt, with his own clothing line and reality show).

"When this first came out and I read [Reeves'] article, I had to fan myself," says Harvey. "It would be one of the most extraordinary stories in history: we have what we think is the greatest treasure ever found, and there's a whole other one behind it. It's like something out of a movie. But if you ask me today if I think we'll have any clarity on this in the coming year or two, I'd probably say no."

" " A fresco from Tutankhamen's burial chamber depicts the young king with his ka standing before Osiris, and in front of the goddesses Nut and Ay performing an opening-of-the-mouth ceremony. DeAgostini/S. Vaninni/Getty Images

Now That's Interesting Almost 80 years ago, French Egyptologist Pierre Montet discovered intact tombs of three pharaohs ( Psusennes I, Amenemope, and Shoshenq II) in Tanis, Egypt. The treasure found there rivaled that of what was found in King Tuts tomb, but the beginning of World War II meant the excavation got very little attention.
Every year, area middle and high school students get excited about creating history projects for National History Day, a nationwide academic program and contest whose Wisconsin regional event is held each March at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Students are required to use primary documents for their projects, so during the research process teachers encourage work at local archives, a new experience for many. But problems arise.

Despite school field trips to UW-L and other area archives, students struggle to locate and navigate sources. Time is of the essence, and often finding and understanding primary sources takes more time than the young scholars have.

Parents and older siblings can sometimes help with additional trips to archives and research guidance, but not every student has that option.

Patricia Stovey, assistant professor of history and Southwestern Wisconsin Regional coordinator of National History Day, notes that as the contest tiers advance  through school, regional, state and national  the demographic mix of students competing looks less and less like the schools and communities the students represent.

Beginning in 2013, Stovey sought out area NHD teachers to address this problem and make UW-Ls Western Regional Contest a celebration of area talent.

Her goal was to provide for students who may get only one trip to the archives the information they needed to efficiently find documents with a compelling narrative.

But Stovey also recognized the opportunity to begin a high-impact practice in her own classes on campus.

Many of the skills undergraduate history majors and minors learn in the gateway course, HIS 200, Historiography and Historical Methods, aligned with the needs of National History Day. The result: the National History Day in Wisconsin Friendly Finding Aid website.

Finding aids are the organizational key to primary collections, a road map researchers use when reviewing a collection.

Identifying primary sources is a first step, but finding aids are often geared toward older advanced scholars, as well as those with more time to spend in the archives.

Friendly Finding Aid website, therefore, is a friendlier version of a traditional finding aid, Stovey says, because it directs students to documents they need to follow for a given narrative.

As a semester-long project, HIS 200 students review and contextualize a collection of their choosing.

They find a narrative, or limited number of narratives, then communicate their findings to a younger scholar. Ultimately, the Friendly Finding Aid website improves the discoverability and usability of primary sources for middle and high school National History Day students while giving undergraduates an authentic audience for their work.

Collaboration is at the heart of the Friendly Finding Aid. In addition to NHD teachers, Stovey also reached out to Laura Godden, historian and archivist in Murphy Library Special Collections and Area Research Center. They, along with an Eagle Apprentice and another UW-L student (funded through a CASSH Small Grant), created a prototype website.

In fall 2015, Stovey piloted the first semester of Friendly Finding Aid research in HIS 200.

Her students wrote collection reviews and received feedback on their work from NHD teachers and students. Then in 2016, Stovey earned a $10,000 Wisconsin Humanities Council Grant to hire a local agency to create a website.

Since then, numerous semesters of HIS 200 students  taught by Stovey, Tiffany Trimmer and John Grider  have learned the research process and published their work on the site.

The idea for a friendly, historical finding site is innovative, Godden says. As far as I know, the FFA is a unique idea, she says. I personally dont know of any other archives that create finding aids specially tailored for younger scholars in middle and high school.

Godden says the website has made a big difference. Without the FFA, the students might otherwise never discover that these primary sources exist, she notes.

Stoveys work with the Friendly Finding Aid website has continued. In spring 2018, a UW-L Margins of Excellence grant allowed her class to travel to the UW-Platteville ARC to create Friendly Finding Aid guides for NHD students there.

Additionally, research that Stovey and Trimmer did using the Friendly Finding Aid website and HIS 200 will soon be published in the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

While COVID-19 stopped this years NHD competitions on campus, Godden says the research and findings middle and high school students complete  online and in the library  are long-lasting. She remembers a student who discovered a letter penned by Susan B. Anthony.

This student could not contain her excitement, let out a loud shriek of pure joy, and then elatedly remarked that she could not believe she was touching something that Anthony held in her hand over one-hundred years prior, Godden recalls. There is just no other way for students to experience moments like this without visiting an archive.

Find more information at www.friendlyfindingaid.com.

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Up to 90,000 prisoners will be released, including paedophiles and sexual offenders. An organised crime boss is already free. The amnesty excludes people convicted or awaiting trial in connection with the failed 2016 coup or for criticising the country's leaders.

Istanbul (AsiaNews/Agencies)  The Turkish Parliament on Tuesday passed a bill that will allow some 90,000 prisoners to walk free as part of the governments fight against the COVID-19 epidemic.

The beneficiaries include dangerous criminals, like multiple killers and organised crime bosses but no one convicted of "political crimes" or held in connection with the failed coup of July 2016.

A thousand prisoners have already been freed, including Alaattin Cakc whose release has already sparked controversy and a wave of protests.

A notorious mafia boss in the 1980s, he was convicted of setting up a criminal organisation, masterminding several murders (including his wife in front of her son), and insulting the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The decision to release inmates to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus in the countrys overcrowded and unhealthy prisons has been hotly debated in parliament but also in wider society. a debate

Parliament approved the bill tabled by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), amid opposition parties complaints that it excludes thousands of people jailed for terrorism, activism or criticism of the current ruling party and president.

The coronavirus issue is a delicate issue around which a political struggle is taking place, in particular between President Erdogan and the mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu, of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).

In late March, the authorities arrested and held for a few days a doctor who had reported "thousands of infections, a claim that did not correspond with official figures.

Tens of thousands of political prisoners, already sentenced or awaiting trial for "terrorism or subversive activity" are excluded from the amnesty. They are in jail for criticising Erdogan himself or for having links with the movement of exiled Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, a former Erdogan ally, considered the mastermind of the 2016 "coup".

Those tried for opinion-related offences remain in the cell, but people like Emre Esmer, a drunk driver who got nine years for killing a 19-year-old man in March 2019, are out. People convicted of sex crimes and paedophiles are also likely to come out if they served three quarters of their sentence.

So far, three inmates have died from the novel coronavirus in Turkish prisons. According to official sources, just under 75,000 people have tested positive for the virus, with the official death toll at 1,600.
A group of thirteen countries including Britain, Brazil, Italy and Germany is calling for global cooperation to lessen the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a joint statement the group said it is committed to ``work with all countries to coordinate on public health, travel, trade, economic and financial measures in order to minimize disruptions and recover stronger.''

The countries emphasized the need to maintain ``air, land and marine transportation links'' to ensure the continued flow of goods, including medical equipment and aid, and the return home of travelers.

They want key transport hubs around the world to remain open and for airlines to maintain major routes.

The group also including Canada, France, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, South Korea, Singapore and Turkey stressed ``the importance and critical role of the scientific community in providing guidance to governments'' and suggested pooling scientific resources.

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Short link:


The Chhattisgarh government has



struck a deal to buy coronavirus rapid testing kits from a South Korean firm with facilities in India, state health minister TS Singh Deo said on Saturday.

He said 75,000 kits will be bought at a benchmark price of Rs 337 per piece plus 12 per cent GST, adding that the company proved to be the lowest bidder.

"We were in constant touch with the Indian ambassador in South Korea and that nation's ambassador here and finally the deal took place," he said.

"Chhattisgarh has been meticulously planning its fight against COVID-19. We now are equipped with 5666 beds for Corona patients. With the hard work and dedication of our healthcare workers and the cooperation of the people we are going to defeat this virus," he tweeted.

A health official, meanwhile, said,of the 6144 samples sent for screening until now in the state, 36 tested positive while 5734 came out negative, and reports of 374 are awaited.

So far, 25 have been discharged after recovery while, 61,780 people are in home quarantine as a precautionary measure, the official added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Vivo Energy Ghana ( Shell licensee) has donated some Personal Protective Equipment (PPES) to the National COVID-19 Management Team to help frontline workers especially those who work in the health sector in the fight against the outbreak.



They include 4000 Examination and surgical gloves, 1000 N95 Respirators, 1000 Goggles, and 500 Coveralls.



Presenting the items, the Managing Director of Vivo Energy Ghana, Mr. Ben Hassan Ouattara lauded governments efforts in providing PPEs to all health sectors and promised that their outfit will also continue to support the government.



In line with our vision of becoming Africas most respected energy business, we have been at the forefront of supporting the governments efforts in fighting COVID-19 through our community investment initiatives. We funded an e-learning application for our students at home and donated hand sanitizers and liquid soaps to some major bus terminals and our retail stations, he said.



Adding that to ensure the decentralization of our COVID-19 prevention support, the company together with its retail business partners has launched the Retailer Sustainability Programme to ensure that our communities get the needed resources to fight COVID-19.



The Coordinator of the National COVID-19 Management Team, Dr. Ali Samba who received the items expressed his appreciation and commendation to the management and staff of Vivo Energy Ghana for the gesture.



On behalf of the team, we wish to express our profound gratitude to you for this timely and much needed intervention. We are excited about these items and we wish other organisations will continue to follow this gesture to ensure that we have more PPEs to protect our frontline workers, he said.



Dr. Samba advised everyone to observe the safety protocols and the Presidents directives on the lock down.

Source: Professor Douglas Boateng









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.

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A caravan of cars, truck and motorcycles swarmed the streets of Annapolis, Maryland, on Saturday demanding an end to coronavirus-related restrictions in Maryland, while a group of the state's Republican politicians encouraged Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, to reopen the rural areas they represent first, even if the harder-hit urban centers need to remain shut down to prevent the spread of the virus.

The protest and the push from politicians come as groups around the nation have become more vocal in recent days about prodding state governors to reopen for business, even as the number of people testing positive for covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, increases.

The region recorded 73 additional deaths as of Saturday morning, and the number of fatalities is now nearing 900. The number of infections has surpassed 23,000.

Health officials added 40 people to the death toll in Maryland on Saturday morning, 28 victims in Virginia and five in the District of Columbia. The 73 total fatalities for the region are roughly the same as the two previous days, when 67 and 68 deaths were recorded. Virginia's death total rose for the third straight day, while Maryland has reported about 40 deaths daily since shifting to reporting probable and confirmed fatalities this week.

State and city officials have said they expect the peak to arrive and then decline in the coming weeks, a key to reopening some businesses and services.

For more than two hours on Saturday, however, drivers honked their horns and crowded the streets of the state capital to let it be known that they want the stay-at-home orders to end sooner rather than later. They waved American flags while holding up signs out of their car windows: "Let me work so I can feed my kids." "Quarantines are for sick people." "We are all essential." "I need a haircut."

Traffic along Main Street in downtown Annapolis was at a standstill as dozens of cars waited to drive around Church Circle for the protest, organized by a group called Reopen Maryland. More than 1,275 people signed an online petition demanding that Hogan immediately reopen the state's business, educational and religious institutions.

Caryn Abbott, a 58-year-old registered nurse from Pocomoke City, Maryland, and a spokeswoman for the group, said she helped organize the protest to urge the governor reopen businesses, schools and churches by May 1 - while still following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and protecting the vulnerable from contracting the virus.

Others who protested didn't want to wait that long; they urged the governor to lift the restrictions immediately.

"I don't think it's right to limit the rights of the many to protect the few," said Rob Dahl, a 37-year-old from Baltimore who was holding a sign that said "Legalize hugs."

"This has been a planned-demic all along," another man shouted from a megaphone through his car window. "For forced vaccinations . . . I'm not wearing masks to show my submission."

Greg, a 49-year-old contractor for Pasadena, Maryland, who declined to give his last name, stood on the sidewalk holding a sign that read "Let my people go."

"I fought for my freedom, I'm not going to give it up now," added the Army veteran. "I'd rather die than give up my freedoms." He said he's not afraid of contracting the virus.

On the opposite side of the circle stood the sole counter-protestor of the day: Amy Windham, a health researcher from Annapolis, wearing a mask and a rainbow "Annapolis Pride" T-shirt and holding a sign that read "Go home."

She showed up to protest "this craziness," she said, motioning to the drivers honking their horns in the circle. She worried about her friends and family who are health-care workers.

"Why don't you stay home?" a man walking by asked her.

Reopen Maryland joins a number of groups that have sprung up at state capitals in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Minnesota, and also outside the capitol in Richmond, Virginia, on Thursday. President Trump on Friday voiced his support for the protesters, as he attempts to push state governors to reopen for business.

On Friday, Hogan said he, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, and District Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, agreed it would be premature to lift any restrictions now. "We're all in some part of a phase of talking about the gradual reopening but not able to start that right yet. And we all are in agreement that we want to do that in a way that's cooperative," Hogan said.

The Maryland House Minority Caucus sent a letter to the governor on Saturday letting him know that gradual may not work for everyone in the state.

"While a one-size-fits-all approach may work in some instances," the Republican members wrote, "the industries, geography, and clearly infection and hospitalization rates differ greatly in the various areas of the state; particularly the westernmost counties, the Eastern Shore, and Southern Maryland . . . We believe moving forward in a cautious and gradual approach in regional areas would strike the right balance between public health and economic well-being."

The governor aggressively implemented social distancing rules to slow the spread of the virus last month. That meant closing businesses deemed nonessential. Since then, more than 295,000 people filed for unemployment in just four weeks, smashing all previous records.

Hogan plans to release his "Maryland Strong Roadmap to Recovery" late next week, but said it is premature to implement any reopening plans while the state's daily death toll, hospitalizations and ICU bed use continue to rise. He said Friday he would not reopen anything until each of those numbers have declined for 14 consecutive days. Additionally, Hogan said the state would not reopen until it more than triples daily testing capacity, has hospital systems fully ramped up, acquired millions of pieces of personal protective equipment and hired an army of contact tracing workers who can track - and isolate - any newly infected patients.

Elsewhere in Maryland, Calvert County is asking residents to limit shopping trips to every five days and to go on certain days according to their last names. The measures, which are voluntary, are designed to reduce chronic overcrowding in grocery and convenience stores, according to the county's health department.

Customers whose last names start with A-C should shop on dates ending with 0 and 5, D-G on dates ending with 1 and 6, H-L on dates ending in 2 and 7, M-R on dates ending in 3 and 8, and S-Z on dates ending in 4 and 9. But the county's board of commissioners reminded that the designated days were a suggestion, not a requirement.

At some groceries in the Washington suburbs, all limits were off as huge crowds appeared Friday afternoon at a number of MegaMart Latino supermarkets, after the stores advertised free necessities for people struggling financially. Photos and footage from TV news helicopters showed lines wrapping around stores in Takoma Park, Riverdale and Arlington, including customers who weren't socially distancing, and traffic backing up into nearby streets.

Gerson Lopez, general manager of the Takoma Park store, said MegaMart gave out 4,900 bags of food and $30 store vouchers at its four Prince George's locations. He said he didn't have the figures for other locations, including in Montgomery County and Northern Virginia.

Customers were given vouchers after the bags of food ran out, he said. The bags contained rice, beans, cornmeal, oil, sugar, salt and other staples.

"The community gives us a lot," Lopez said, "so we have to give back."

But Lopez said he and other store officials were surprised and overwhelmed by the response. While the stores have private security and some police for help, he said, the giveaways had to be suspended because many people were standing too close to each other.

Lopez said he called in additional security to the Takoma Park location Saturday morning when he discovered about 100 people waiting in line before the store opened. All of them had vouchers from the day before.

"This means people are hungry and need food," Lopez said. "We're looking for better ways to help people in the future."

In Baltimore, the city reported the first death of a city employee attributable to covid-19. Michael Baptist, a contract services specialist in human resources at the Baltimore Police Department, passed Friday evening. He had begun his career as an officer, retired as a sergeant and later rejoined the department as a civilian investigator, the city said. His age was not released.

But the virus was not attacking only the elderly. In Chesterfield County, Virginia, outside Richmond, authorities reported that 25 youths held at the Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center had tested positive for the coronavirus.

The facility has about 280 residents, from 11 to 20 years old. The Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice said 21 of the 25 who tested positive had exhibited no outward symptoms, and 13 had already been released from medical isolation.

And in the District, four youths in the custody of District's Department of Youth and Rehabilitation Services tested positive for covid-19 this week at two of the agency's housing facilities, officials said. Two of the youths are housed at the New Beginnings Youth Development Center in Laurel, while the other two juveniles are located at the Youth Services Center in Northeast Washington, according to a statement from agency director Clinton Lacey.

The latest confirmed cases raise the total number of positive cases to eight for juveniles in agency custody, officials said. The agency placed those youths into isolation at the respective facilities, the statement said.

- - -

The Washington Post's Fenit Nirappil and Clarence Williams contributed to this report.
Front page fame: Pauline Goodwin and her dog at the gardens in Royal Hospital Kilmainham in late March. Photo: Steve Humphreys

Pauline Goodwin found out she was famous when her phone was ringing non-stop.

Friends and relatives had seen a picture of Ms Goodwin (74) and her dog, Pixie, on the front page of the Irish Independent on March 26.

The picture had been taken the day before, when Ms Goodwin had been out for a walk with Pixie at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham.

The picture now holds a bit more sentimental value for Ms Goodwin, who has been temporarily separated from Pixie.

"They say that pride comes before a fall," joked Ms Goodwin, who lives in Dublin.

"Two days after that picture was taken I fell and broke my hip. I've had to ask a neighbour to look after Pixie while I recover, and hopefully when I'm better I'll be able for her."

Ms Goodwin, originally from Newcastle West, Co Limerick, said she wanted a dog "my whole life" and went to the Dogs Trust to adopt a rescue pet last November. She said she got a shock when she first saw Pixie, who was then known as Buttons.

"She was like some little creature that had come out of a famine. She scared me, she was so thin and miserable-looking. She was like a phantom," she said. "I said yes to her."

Pixie had been rescued in Co Mayo before being sent to Dublin. When she was first found, vets had to perform gum surgery on her.

Pixie, roughly four years old, had been sleeping on Ms Goodwin's bed the night she fell. "The night the ambulance came Pixie ran down the stairs after me, she got a terrible fright. There was such confusion in her eyes," Ms Goodwin said.

While she was recovering in hospital, she arranged for a neighbour to adopt Pixie.

"I miss her desperately. I miss her terribly. I only got to see her once and she looked so confused, she was afraid of my crutch. I think it might have reminded her of some abuse she suffered."

Ms Goodwin said she was now looking forward to being reunited with Pixie again.

The Irish Independent has provided her with a copy of the photograph of the two of them, which Ms Goodwin said was a "lovely memory".

Later on the same day, the Royal Hospital was closed to the public as part of Covid-19 restrictions.

Because of her age, Ms Goodwin, who lives alone, has also been cocooning because of Covid-19. She said she had been "blessed" with good neighbours and nieces and nephews who had been looking after her and sending her food.
The coronavirus pandemic may be keeping school children apart physically for now, but the crisis has brought a ray of sunshine to Adams Elementary kindergartener Grant Maciag and his class.

After not seeing his school buddies for almost three months, Grant has been reunited with them through their teacher Sue Price's classroom Zoom meetings.

Grant, who has been out of school since just before Christmas while battling acute lymphoblastic leukemia, didn't expect to be able to see his class for the rest of the school year.

He's been getting weekly chemotherapy treatments in Ann Arbor, part of a scheduled three-year cycle of treatments, and his immune system is too weak for him to be in school.

But then, circumstances took another turn when all Michigan school buildings were closed starting on March 16.

Now, it's not just Grant who can't be at school. It's all of his 20 classmates and his teacher as well. They're all in the same boat in that regard.

And now, thanks to technology, Grant is back with his class and his teacher as often as six times a week  four class sessions and two evening meetings when Price reads stories to the kids, who are typically in their pajamas.

Grant's mom, Kelli Maciag, said it was a joyful moment when her 6-year-old son logged on to the first bedtime story session in that third week of March.

"It was just exciting that he could participate and see his class," Kelli said. "He was really excited to see all his friends. He probably didn't want to listen to the story that much  he just wanted to talk with his friends and wave.

"This gives him a little bit of normalcy," Kelli continued. "There are so few people he can be around because he is immunocompromised. And this gives him something to look forward to, for sure, (in terms of when he is able to return to school)."

And for Grant's classmates and Price, it's been equally uplifting to be able to see Grant on a daily basis again.

"I just can't tell you how much the kids missed him in the classroom," Price explained. "I always give the kids time to talk about their day, and they always wanted to know how Grant was doing. They still thought of him as part of their classroom, which made it natural for him to be in our Zoom time. He fit back in so easily."

By the accounts of both his teacher and his mom, Grant is the type of kid whose absence from a class leaves a big void.

"He is just like a ray of sunshine  he just lights up a room," Price said of Grant. "And we just really missed that once he wasn't in our classroom. Right away, you could tell that that little spark was not in our room."

"He's just a people kid," Kelli said. "He just loves (other) kids. He's just a social guy. It's a blessing that he's able to participate and not fall as far behind (as he had been), and just see his friends and have that to look forward to."

Back in February, once it was clear Grant wouldn't be returning to school for the rest of the school year, Price began making twice-weekly visits after school to Grant's house to tutor him.

Price and Grant's parents decided it was best to discontinue those visits once the schools had closed and coronavirus was spreading in Michigan.

But thanks to the online meetings, Grant has continued to connect with his teacher  and now with his classmates as well.

"When we were told (on April 2) we were not going back to school at all, I just was heartbroken, thinking I would never see this class in person again," Price said.

"But I felt exactly the opposite emotion when I saw all those little kids in the Zoom boxes (on my computer screen), including Grant," she continued. "I thought, there's the silver lining  that we get to have Grant back in the class. Just when you're feeling despair, you get this extra boost of awesomeness."

Kelli said Grant will soon have to spend some extended time at the hospital in Ann Arbor, so she's grateful he can connect with Zoom wherever he is.

"This will be a way we can have some kind of normalcy, because we can call into the Zoom meetings from Ann Arbor, provided he's not sick," Kelli explained.

"For (his classmates) to be able to see him and see that he is able to be his goofy self, that makes them happy, too, because there's a lot of worrying (when a child has cancer)," she added.

Since Grant's diagnosis, the Adams School community has held numerous fundraisers for the Maciag family, which includes his father, Jon, and sister, Ivy, who is a fifth-grader at Adams.

"His family is one of the most awesome families I know," said Price, who has taught kindergarten at Adams for 12 years. "They are so supportive of him and of everything he needs to get through this. They're a wonderful family. They've been awesome.

"The Adams School family has been amazing through this, too. The encouragement they've sent to that family just has taken my breath away."

Grant is scheduled to get treatments for three years, and Kelli said she hopes he will be able to return to school in person at some point next school year.

"What he misses most about school is lunch. He loves hot lunch," Kelli said with a laugh.
Were on the frontline too, were doing our share to assist these small businesses the best we can, big-small across the board.

Its been over a month since the government ordered all non-essential businesses to close, leaving many concerned business owners wondering when they can get back to work. For Andy Glatz, Senior Managing Director and Head of SBA Lending at Peapack-Gladstone Bank, the work never stopped. Richard Santore, Vice President of Bielat Santore & Company sat down with Glatz to discuss how the bank is assisting their clients through the global pandemic and the steps small businesses should take to ensure economic relief.

With 25 years of experience working in SBA Lending and five years with the NJ-based commercial bank, Glatz is at the frontline aiding struggling businesses affected by the closures. We have approved about 900 loans for a little under $350 million, said Glatz. It was a tremendous number for a small NJ bank like ourselves. However, this week, the Small Business Administration announced the Payment Protection Program (PPP) hit its $349 billion limit, making them unable to accept new applications. Unfortunately, the program has run out of money now, said Glatz. We were running pretty much 24/7. We knew this day would come. We knew there was a limited amount of funding available. Since the closures began, the bank has received about 2,000 applications from business owners looking for financial aid.

Working tirelessly around the clock, Glatz and his team are doing everything they can to assist their clients during this difficult time. Were on the frontline too, were doing our share to assist these small businesses the best we can, big-small across the board, said Glatz. Whatever the business is, its important to them, so we try to assist the best we can to that business.

But there is still hope for those still in need of financial relief. Other programs available to help are the SBA Disaster Relief and NJEDA program. These arent bank funded, theyre bank assisted, said Glatz. These are programs that are set up directly through the SBA or the EDA. Now that the PPP is exhausted, these other two I think will be a little more active. For more information about these programs, visit https://www.sba.gov/ and https://www.njeda.com/.

As for future lending of government backed funds, Glatz isnt worried about replenishment. The PPP did 14 years worth of loans in 14 days, said Glatz. It was an amazing number and it shows youd be surprised what they can do.

To view the full video interview, visit Bielat Santore & Companys website at http://www.123bsc.com and Facebook page, and stay tuned for next weeks Thursday Restaurant Rap interview.

About Bielat Santore & Company

Bielat Santore & Company is an established commercial real estate firm. The companys expertise lies chiefly within the restaurant and hospitality industry, specializing in the sale of restaurants and other food and beverage real estate businesses. Since 1978, the principals of Bielat Santore & Company, Barry Bielat and Richard Santore, have sold more restaurants and similar type properties in New Jersey than any other real estate company. Furthermore, the firm has secured in excess of $500,000,000 in financing to facilitate these transactions. Visit the companys website, http://www.123bsc.com for the latest in new listings, property searches, available land, market data, financing trends, RSS feeds, press releases and more.
Updated April 19 with results.

Joe Biden won Wyoming's Democratic caucuses with 72.2% of the vote; Bernie Sanders received 27.8%.

The state's presidential nominating contest was originally to be in-person caucuses on April 4. Due to the coronavirus, the party transitioned to running the event entirely by mail. Ballots needed to be received by Friday, April 17.

Biden will win 12 pledged delegates, Sanders 2. The 14 pledged delegates is tied with North Dakota as the smallest allocation across the 50 states.




Three decades after opening-up, Shanghai's Pudong New Area has transformed from paddy fields to a bustling urban area of glistening skyscrapers, achieving many firsts and leading the transformation of the municipality and even the entire nation.



The State Council announced in April 1990 the launch of Pudong and implemented policies designed for economic and technological development zones and also utilized some measures practiced in special economic zones.

The China (Pilot) Free Trade Zone in Pudong, which was the country's first FTZ, was officially unveiled in September 2013. Up to 100 policies first tested in Pudong, such as the negative list mechanism for foreign investment, have now been promoted nationwide.

During a forum in September, Shanghai Party Secretary Li Qiang described the Shanghai FTZ as a platform through which world leading innovations will be incubated.

The bustling 31-square-kilometer financial district of Lujiazui in central Pudong is another major feature. Official statistics show that more than 870 domestic commercial banks, securities firms and insurance companies have set up branches or subsidiaries in Pudong.

Meanwhile, up to 41 percent of the foreign banks and over 90 percent of the foreign private equity firms registered with China's financial regulator have set up offices in Pudong. Of the world's 10 largest asset management firms, nine of them have a presence in Pudong.

In December 1996, Pudong became the first area to allow foreign banks to carry out renminbi services.

"As the functions of each part of Pudong were defined by that timesuch as Lujiazui assuming financial functionscombined with the fact that People's Bank of China Shanghai branch moved to Lujiazui in June 1995, many foreign banks began moving to Lujiazui in 1997," said Pei Yigen, former deputy head of Citibank in China.

Saxo Bank opened its China office in Lujiazui in 2015. Although a comparative latecomer, the Danish bank understood that the phenomenal development of Pudong not only underpinned Shanghai's status as a financial center in China, but also globally, according to the bank's China CEO Xu Fan.

Pudong has also been a magnet for multinational companies. The area attracted $8.6 billion in foreign investment in 2019, up 10.2 percent year-on-year. By the end of March, a total of 730 multinational firms had set up regional headquarters in Shanghai, half of which are in Pudong.

In 2003, Honeywell moved its Asia Pacific headquarters to Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Pudong. The United States conglomerate increased its investment in China in 2016 to expand its office area.

Honeywell's presence in Pudong has been conducive to the company's sustained development in China, said Scott Zhang, president of Honeywell China.

"China is now Honeywell's largest market outside the US. It is our hope to carry out more profound cooperation with Pudong-based Chinese domestic companies, such as Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China. The solid groundwork that we have laid in Pudong will continue to drive our development in China, playing a crucial role in our integration into the country's digital economy," he said.

The growing number of commercial properties has also indicated how Pudong has prospered over time. According to global property services provider Jones Lang LaSalle, there were about 1.52 million square meters of class-A office space available in the central business area of Pudong in 2009. The number exceeded 3 million by the end of 2018.

Eddie Ng, managing director of JLL East China, said that although global economic uncertainties have multiplied due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, Pudong has been quite experienced in tackling crises.

"In the long run, the accelerated financial opening-up and the upgrading of technologies will help to navigate the development of various industries," Ng said.

Pudong's 2019 GDP rose 7 percent year-on-year to top 1.27 trillion yuan ($179.36 billion), which was about one third of Shanghai's total GDP. But the city has even higher goals for Pudong. Shanghai Development and Reform Commission Director Ma Chunlei said at a news conference in June that Pudong's GDP will exceed 2 trillion yuan by 2025.

"The reforms underway in Pudong have been more integrated and focused. Therefore, efforts should be made to build Pudong into a benchmark of China's deepened reform and opening-up as well as innovative development," said Ma.
Citing "late detection" of the first confirmed coronavirus case in Madhya Pradesh's Indore last month and low capacity for conducting tests, a top state government officer on Saturday said the city remains a challenge for the health department and all possible efforts are being taken to detect, quarantine and treat' the infected there.

He said the Madhya Pradesh government has followed a strategy of IITT-- to first Identify coronavirus-affected areas, Isolate them, Test the people and then Treat the patients once they are found positive.

Interacting with a select group of Delhi-based journalists via video conferencing, Additional Chief Secretary (Health) of Madhya Pradesh government, Mohammed Suleman said over 12,000 high-risk cases have been identified by 2,000 teams that are conducting door-to-door surveys in the state to detect coronavirus infected cases.

"We detected our first case in Indore on March 24. I feel it was a very late detection considering the situation there. Suddenly from the first case on March 24, today there are 900 cases in Indore. So the growth (of cases there) is very fast. If we see a growth pattern, there would have been more cases (in Indore) on March 24," he said.

Suleman also pointed to possible unidentified "gaps" that resulted in non-development of the relationship of trust between the administration and people, and thus detection and treatment of infected persons.

"It is a fact that Indore is a challenge. Indore has been number 1 in cleanliness and it is a very good city. It is a big setback for us (that Indore is reporting a large number of cases), he said.

We are regularly trying to evaluate the situation and if there are any lacunae, we will overcome it. Today we have a strong support from the people of Indore to the state administration. Indore is now fully aware of the challenge and facing it efficiently," the officer said.

Madhya Pradesh has reported 1,360 positive cases with 892 of them in Indore alone.

The state's commercial city was in the recently for reporting a sudden hike in the COVID-19 cases.

Suleman said 97 per cent of the total cases are in western Madhya Pradesh comprising Indore, and only 41 cases have been reported from the northern and eastern parts of the state.

"Three districts of Chhindwara, Shivpuri and Gwalior have not reported any positive case in the past 12 days. There also has been no positive case from Vidisha, Morena and Sagar districts since the last week, he said.

The senior official said over 420 contaminated areas in the state with a population of 24 lakh have been identified, and 2,000 teams have been put in place to do door-to-door surveys to identify high-risk people.

"They have done a survey of the 20 lakh population and identified 12,000 people as high-risk cases. Now, the next challenge for us is to collect samples of these (high-risk) people," he said, adding the same was being done at a fast pace.

Suleman, a 1989 batch IAS officer, said another challenge for the administration is to augment capacity to test the samples.

"Our testing capacity during the first week of March was about 150 samples in our laboratories. We have increased it to 1,250 samples. We will be reaching a target of 2,000 samples by this month end and we are keeping a target of 5,000 tests by May 15," he said, quickly adding, "God forbid, we reach a situation by then where we are required to conduct such a large number of tests".

The officer said over 20,000 samples have been collected and test reports of 14,500 samples have been received. Of these cases, 1,360 have tested positive, he said.

"Our success rate to identify positive cases out of high-risk people is 9 per cent which is the highest in the country," he said, adding the state has sufficient capacity to treat the infected people.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bala Chauhan By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: Alcohol-based hand sanitisers are meant for hand hygiene, especially in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. But some desperadoes are drinking the sanitiser in the absence of IML.

In the absence of licit liquor, people have reportedly resorted to consuming alcohol-based hand sanitisers, said a highly placed source. Some incidents are being reported in Dharwad district, where people are consuming hand sanitisers after diluting them with water, he added. Alcohol-based hand sanitiser contains 70% alcohol, glycerine and hydrogen peroxide.

Whisky contains 40% alcohol. People are diluting hand sanitiser with water, which works out cheaper. Hydrogen peroxide is dangerous for the liver and kidney, said the source.

Sale of hand sanitiser needs to be regulated before it becomes a health hazard, he added. Meanwhile, illegal sale of liquor, including beer, is flourishing in Karnataka, said the source.

The state excise department, between March 24 and April 15, seized 32,508.305 litres of illegal liquor and 22,208.275 litres of beer and arrested 417 people, said a senior excise officer. This is the tip of the iceberg. People are selling Indian Made Liquor (IML) and beer at grossly inflated prices in the grey market.

This is not possible without a nexus between some CL2 licensees, agents and law enforcement agencies, he added.

It is a bootleggers market. A bottle of 650ml of beer, which is priced at Rs 160, is being sold for Rs 600 and branded whisky with an MRP of Rs 1,600 is being sold at Rs 4,500 in Bengaluru, he said.

During lockdown 1.0, the department registered 923 cases out of which 717 cases are heinous, involving illegal transportation and sale of IML.

The deputy commissioners, revenue officials of concerned districts have suspended 44 licences.

They can be cancelled even, said the officer. The highest number of heinous cases are reported from Belagavi (204), followed by Kalaburagi (136), Hospet (131), Mysuru (95), Mangaluru (85) and Bengaluru (66).

The department has seized 266 vehicles transporting illegal liquor. The total worth of seized materials including IML, beer and vehicles is Rs 39,732.556, said the officer.

On a daily average, the department is losing around Rs 60 crore revenue due to the lockdown, he added. Besides illegal liquor, the bigger danger is from illicit distillation (ID) of liquor. Sources said people in the Malnad region are fermenting ID in iron barrels and selling at a premium price.
A woman was charged Friday for organizing a protest in Trenton of the stay-at-home orders instituted last month by Gov. Phil Murphy to help slow the spread of the coronavirus in New Jersey.

Kim Pagan, of Toms River was charged by the New Jersey State Police with violating the emergency orders, according to a release from New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal and Colonel Patrick J. Callahan, Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police.

The protestors gathered outside the Statehouse and other locations in Trenton on Friday afternoon as Murphy and state health officials held their daily coronavirus press briefing.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Businesses that are open | Homepage

A video taken by a woman who was live streaming the protest on Facebook showed people driving by the Statehouse honking their horns with American flags waving from their windows and others holding signs and flags on the sidewalk in front of the building.

A woman holding a megaphone could also be seen among the relatively small crowd along with a group of masked New Jersey State Police troopers that the woman filming kept panning over to during the course of the nearly 10-minute long video.

Elsewhere in New Jersey, William J. Hayden, the president of the Skylands Tea Party, told NJ Advance Media that he considered gathering with 10 to 20 others on the Sussex County-owned Newton Green to protest Murphys executive orders. Hayden said he opposes closing the parks, in addition to other restrictions imposed by the governor.

A quarter-mile from where @GovMurphy and health commissioner told reporters that social distancing was working, this maskless, open-Jersey demo popped up. Peak has yet to hit Central/South. Movement using these hashtags: #ReopenNewJersey #ReopenAmerica pic.twitter.com/plkdjDeoEr  Elise Young (@EliseOnDeadline) April 17, 2020

Across the country, protests against stay-at-home orders have taken place in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina and Utah, according to CNN.

New Jersey, a state of 9 million residents, has now seen at least 78,467 confirmed cases and 3,840 deaths of COVID-19. Only New York has more cases and deaths among U.S. states.

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.

Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrsheldon Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.
 136 UK nationals airlifted by a British Airways Special Relief Flight

 RGIA has handled 8 evacuation flights so far

 Operating cargo services to keep the vital link of essential supplies fully alive and operational

With the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 taking its toll across the globe and India being under lockdown; GMR led Hyderabad International Airport is operating round the clock in the service of the nation on humanitarian grounds helping stranded passengers, beyond boundaries, reach their homes through seamless handling of relief and evacuation flights.

The Hyderabad International Airport handled one Special Passenger Relief flight of British Airways to repatriate UK nationals from Hyderabad city in Telangana State. 135 UK nationals to Ahmedabad, from where few more UK nationals were to be airlifted to Bahrain and then onwards to London.

All these passengers were serviced through the fully-sanitised Interim International Departures Terminal (IIDT) of GMR Hyderabad International Airport, which has been kept ready for evacuation operations. In coordination with the British Deputy High Commission Hyderabad and the Telangana State government, the UK-bound passengers arrived at the airport from from various parts of Hyderabad City.

Also Read: Industry gives thumbs up to RBIs repo rate reduction and other announcements

Mr. SGK Kishore, CEO, GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd. (GHIAL), said, The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has left many people stranded in various parts of the globe, away from their families and loved ones and there are many foreign nationals who have been stranded here in India. We appreciate the efforts by the Government to repatriate these stranded people and we are committed to working with all stakeholders to ensure a smooth and safe passage for these travellers.

Today, we have partnered with the British Deputy High Commission in Hyderabad and the Government of Telangana to support the operation of a special flight to evacuate UK citizens stranded in this region. As always, Hyderabad Airport stands ready to do its duty in service of the nation and society and I would like to express my gratitude for the efforts by all involved including our staff, airport community members, the British Deputy High Commission and the state government officials who have been working for many days to ensure that todays flight could go ahead as planned despite the challenging circumstances

Also Read: Opposition doubts COVID-19 testing data in Andhra Pradesh, BJP asks for white paper after one lakh kits imported from South Korea

Mr. Andrew Fleming, British Deputy High Commissioner to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, said, I am pleased to see over 130 British nationals and their close dependents from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh on their way back home this evening. We are extremely grateful for the support provided by both state governments and police departments, British Airways, staff at the Hyderabad airport for their fantastic support in making todays operation possible. I am delighted weve so far been able to help more than 4,000 British travellers return home from across India.

Special screening and safety measures were in place during the flights handling to protect against the COVID-19 threat including thermal screening prior to terminal entry, mandatory social distancing enforced through special queuing arrangements at all passenger processing points.

To meet this emergency requirement, a select group of personnel from GHIAL Terminal Operations, Airside Operations, AOCC (Airport Operations & Control Center), ATC (Air Traffic Control), IT Team, CISF (Central Industrial Security Force), Immigration, Customs, Landside Security, Airline Ground Handlers, ARFF (Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting) services, RAXA security, Trolley Operators, Housekeeping Staff, among others were available to ensure safe and seamless departure of the passengers.

Till 17th April, 2020, Hyderabad International Airport has served over 600 foreign nationals, who were repatriated by various special relief flights from Hyderabad city to the countries viz. the UK, the US and Germany.

While RGIA is handling the evacuation flights as and when a request comes their way, its cargo terminal is also fully operational to keep the vital link of essential supplies completely alive. The cargo terminal is working round the clock in close coordination with the Customs, Ground Handlers, Forwarders, CHAs (Customs House Agents), Regulators, State Police, Cargo Trade associations, to keep the critical chain of essential supplies viz. Medicines, Vaccines, Medical equipment, Pharma raw material, Defense Goods, Bank related goods etc. moving seamlessly.

Also Read: Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal urges private schools not to hike annual fee

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With an aim to isolate people with symptoms of coronavirus, Ludhiana police has urged the residents to provide facilities for accommodating such people during quarantine.

According to the police, they may need facilities for more than 1,000 people in single rooms with attached toilets. The police have also promised the residents that they would help in managing the accommodations and pay their cost of running, if required.

FACILITIES SHOULD HAVE MINIMUM 10 ROOMS

Commissioner Rakesh Agrawal said they are looking for institutions such as hotels, rest houses, hostels, inns, paying guest facilities and hospitals. The facilities should have a minimum of 10 rooms, he said, appealing to the people that this is the right time to serve the nation.

An online form is available for the people who are willing to rent out their properties for the cause. Agrawal said that they arranged 100 rooms at six locations within hours of making the public appeal.
The Maharashtra Union of Working



Journalists (MUWJ), Nagpur Union of Working Journalists (NUWJ) and Patrakar Club of Nagpur on Saturday condemned the Uddhav Thackeray government for not allowing door-to-door delivery of newspapers and magazines in view of the coronavirus outbreak.

State Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta issued an order which stated that "the print media is exempted from the lockdown from April 20, but, given the extent of spread of COVID-19, door to door delivery of newspaper and magazines is prohibited".

In a press statement, the media associations said, " People look for and information that affects their lives and find newspapers as the most authentic source. It is nothing short of sounding a death knell for the enormously reliable source of information dissemination and happenings, impacting everyone's life. This order tantamount to gag on media freedom.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 90-year-old woman has raised more than 200,000 by attempting to climb the height of a mountain on her stairs to garner funds for the NHS.

Margaret Payne, from Ardvar in Sutherland, Scotland was inspired by 99-year-old Captain Tom Moore, who has raised more than 21 million for the NHS.

The 90-year-old pledged to climb the height of Suilven, which is around 2,398 ft tall, amid the coronavirus pandemic. The climb is expected to require 282 trips up the stairs.

Mrs Payne told BBC Breakfast: Its been amazing, I cant really believe its true.

She first climbed Suilven in 1944 aged 15 with her sister Elizabeth during the Second World War.

Her daughter Nicky McArthur, who is staying with her mother during the lockdown period, said the generosity shown was extraordinary.

Mrs Payne also said her reasons for stepping up and raising funds for the health service were threefold.

Margaret Payne is raising funds by climbing the equivalent of a Highland mountain on her stairs / PA

She said: (Captain) Tom partly  I think its amazing what hes achieved.

My husband died at Christmas time, with us here in the house, and he was looked after so well by the National Health Service, its by way of a little thank you.

TODO: define component type apester

Mrs Payne added: Its also for all our nursing staff, the doctors and the nurses, its a thank you for that.

Mrs Payne also said it was a disgrace that we werent more prepared for the coronavirus outbreak.

Staff praised Mrs Payne's fundraising efforts and said everyone at Highlands Hospice in Inverness were cheering her on.

Including gift aid, Mrs Payne had raised more than 211,000 for the health service in her climb, as of Saturday morning.

She added that she expects the 282 trips up the stairs to take her until the end of June to complete.
Graduating law students in Ohio have petitioned the state Supreme Court and its bar office to let them skip the July bar exam this year and instead be licensed to practice law under a mode known as diploma privilege -- essentially, their Juris Doctor degree from an accredited law school would confer the automatic right to practice law. (Wisconsin has long used this practice, but its not common.) The letter was signed by 400 graduating law students and the student bar presidents at all nine of Ohios accredited law schools.

In support of this idea the students note :

The July 28 bar exam might not go forward because of corona unknowns.

The state could impose continuing legal education requirements on top of the diploma privilege, plus require a certain GPA threshold.

Utah has recently made this move.

A recent Ohio State University Moritz School of Law working paper by 11 prominent legal scholars around the country, including the dean of City University of New Yorks law school, strongly supports taking action to replace the bar exam this year, listing a number of possible courses of action. The paper doesnt specifically endorse a diploma privilege, or one augmented by continuing legal education, but argued it would be easy to implement, with low risks to the public.

An alternative proposed by that working group was for expanded supervised practice, extending this to law school grads (its used with advanced law students now), allowing them to work under the supervision of a licensed attorney. They would receive their license to practice after 240 hours of such supervised work, presuming an affidavit from their supervising attorney supported that. This option would offer a particularly rigorous assessment of graduates competence because it would require demonstration of a wide range of knowledge and skills required for practice, the paper found.

The experts argued that simply delaying the July 28 bar exam to the fall offered no guarantee that the exam could proceed then, especially if theres a resurgence of coronavirus cases in the fall. As well, they note the legal profession relies on this annual infusion of new lawyers and would stumble if theyre all denied a license or another way to practice.

So what does our editorial board roundtable think about this quandary? Should a JD earned in 2020 automatically translate into a license to practice law in Ohio in these emergency circumstances; are there better ways to approach this; or should the 2020 law grads be required to take the bar exam, whenever that becomes possible?

Thomas Suddes, editorial writer:

Why not let them practice with their law degrees? If theres a need (and there is), the legal establishment should agree.

Ted Diadiun, cleveland.com columnist:

One thing this state has no shortage of is lawyers, and unleashing a tidal wave of barristers upon us, freshly minted but unconfirmed by the bar exam, is a bad idea. There surely are ways to conduct the exam that would satisfy social-distancing guidelines. Eliminating it would put a capital P on practicing law.

Eric Foster, editorial board member:

Diploma privilege makes sense with a GPA requirement. Wisconsins is a 2.0. For those who dont meet the GPA requirement, expanded supervised practice would be appropriate. Ohio already allows third-year law students to practice under the supervision of a licensed attorney. The final year is better spent practicing law than being in a classroom anyways.

Mary Cay Doherty, editorial board member:

Dad often joked, I passed the bar in 1965; after that, if I passed the bar, it was because I misunderstood the question. Like Dad, todays law school grads must pass the bar exam. Likewise, teachers, accountants, and doctors must pass their respective exams. Testing environments can be adapted for social distancing. Life goes on.

Lisa Garvin, editorial board member:

One could argue that bar exams dont protect us from incompetent attorneys, but letting unlicensed lawyers practice feels wrong, even limited to 2020 graduates. Concerns about debt and emotional stress are tone-deaf, as millions of people face similar or worse fates. Diploma privilege is a stopgap, and passing the bar should still be required.

Victor Ruiz, editorial board member:

Tests do not determine someones capacity to be effective, just their ability to memorize. There are plenty of bad lawyers who scored well on the bar exam, and plenty of potential good ones who were excluded from the profession because of their inability to pass the test. Let the industry determine what it means to be an effective practitioner, not some multimillion-dollar organization that has a lot to lose.

Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, cleveland.com:

This years law grads should not be penalized because of coronavirus, which means an accommodation should be made. The simplest way forward would seem to be diploma privilege for those with a decent GPA along with extra legal education requirements, and supervised practice for the rest.

Have something to say about this topic?

* Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication.

* Email general questions about our editorial board or comments or corrections on this editorial board roundtable to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com.
Blaster Corporation Donates Hand Sanitizer to Local First Responders







Cleveland, Ohio, April 9, 2020  The Blaster Corporation  makers of the #1-selling penetrant, PB Blaster  announced today it is donating cases of hand sanitizer to dozens of local police and fire departments. The Company recently began sourcing and producing hand sanitizer in response to requests from its essential hardware retail customers and decided to manufacture additional sanitizer for donation. In total, the Company will produce more than 22,000 bottles of sanitizer specifically earmarked for donation.

Police officers and firefighters are among those on the front lines of the pandemic here in Ohio, said Randy Pindor, President & Chief Operating Officer. They are our fellow Rust Belt Warriors and true heroes in crisis moments. Many departments indicated they have been struggling to find hand sanitizer for their first responders. Its our honor to help them in any way we can.

Blaster is producing the donated sanitizer at its Valley View, Ohio, production facility, and its staff is delivering it across the Northeast Ohio region. In addition, Label-Aid (Huron, Ohio) donated the labels, and Jamestown Container (Macedonia, Ohio) provided boxes at no charge.

We appreciate all of our suppliers that stepped up to help make this a reality, Pindor said. It was truly a group effort. Our customers value our ability to be flexible, and Im so pleased we were able to leverage that strength in support of our first responders.

Of note, the Company donated 100 cases to the Cleveland Police Union. As of this release, the list of cities receiving support is as follows (in most cases, both the police and fire departments):

Valley View



Medina



Bainbridge



Bedford



Berea



Brecksville



Broadview Heights



Brooklyn



Brooklyn Heights



Brookpark



Chagrin Falls



Cleveland



Cleveland Heights



Cuyahoga Heights



Fairview Park



Garfield Heights



Independence



Lakewood



Macedonia



Maple Heights



Middleburg Heights



North Ridgeville



North Royalton



Parma Heights



Port Clinton



Russell Township



Shaker Heights



Strongsville

Each Blaster employee is being sent home with a case as well. If any other cities are looking for hand sanitizer, they should email info@blastercorp.com.

About Blaster Corporation

Since 1957, Blaster Corporation has manufactured penetrants, lubricants, rust inhibitors and a full line of specialty, highly concentrated formulas for the automotive, industrial and hardware industries. Known for PB Blaster, the #1-selling penetrant, Blaster delivers products born from professional

applications where only the strongest survive. As Rust Belt Warriors, we can promise that by the time a Blaster product ends up in your hands, its only because the pros have confirmed its the best.
- Commotion and disorder ensued in Jubilee Party after changes were made to its National Management Committee (NMC)

- Deputy President William Ruto and his allies objected the decision by writing protest letters to the registrar of political parties

- Anne Nderitu, the registrar, confirmed she had indeed received 350 protest letters which had valid concerns

- She forwarded the objections to the party to be dealt with in accordance with the constitution and the outfit's structures

- Senate Majority leader Kipchumba Murkomen and his National Assembly counterpart Aden Duale slammed Jubilee SG Raphael Tuju for allegedly trying to run the party as a private property

The political dispute simmering in Jubilee Party took a different trajectory on Friday, April 17, after registrar of political parties bowed to pressure from Deputy President William Ruto's allies and returned the ball to the outfit's internal structures.

Political whirlwinds started rocking Jubilee's boat immediately it announced changes in its National Management Committee (NMC) without following due process, according argument by Ruto allies.

READ ALSO: Bobi Wine offers to fly home Kenyans, other Africans suffering in China

Deputy President William Ruto speaking in a past function. Photo: William Ruto.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Abel Mutua afichua alivyomtamani msanii Sanaipei Tande na alichokifanya

After a week of commotion and political chest-thumping pitting DP's allies against those supporting the party's decision as effected by Secretary-General Raphael Tuju, Registrar of Political Parties Anne Nderitu returned the dispute back to the party.

"At the end of the seven days, the office of the registrar of political parties received 350 written objections from members of Jubilee Party concerning the intended changes to the National Management Committee of the party.

Subsequent to an analysis of all objections, it is noted that they relate to the procedure and processes within your party. Consequently, these written objections are forwarded to Jubilee Party to be addressed in accordance with your party constitution and structures," read the statement from the registrar of political parties.

Following the announcement, a section of Ruto allies trooped to social media sites to call out Tuju claiming he was running the party as though it was private property.

Senate Majority leader Kipchumba Murkomen and his National Assembly counterpart Aden Duale castigated Tuju for disregarding the constitution of the party and sidelining other stakeholders in making crucial party decisions.

"The Jubilee SG has been running affairs of the Party like his restaurant. From now a letter from the Party must be sanctioned by the relevant Party organ. I saw letters written to Kajiado, Kirinyaga and Nairobi county assemblies. Where did Tuju get the authority to write them? tweeted Murkomen.

Through his Facebook page, Duale called for order in the party and appealed to the SG to adhere to the constitution in discharging his mandate.

"Let's put our House in Order. We owe it to the people of Kenya. Tuju and his cabal must be told to their face, jubilee is not their personal property and all decisions going forward must be made by the party respective organs in accordance with the party constitution and relevant laws," said the Garissa Township lawmaker.

According to minutes that were presented to registrar of political parties, five officials of the Jubilee party led by Tuju met on February 10 and effected the changes.

Jubilee Party Secretary-General Raphael Tuju. Photo: Jubilee Party.

Source: UGC

Others who were in the meeting include Nelson Dzuya (Chairman), David Murathe (Vice-chairperson), James Waweru (Executive director) and Abdi Haji (Member).

Ruto who is the party's deputy leader was the first to raise alarm after learning of about the changes which he claimed were fraudulently done by "shadowy characters".

His troops followed suit with letters of protest starting to stream in demanding the decision to be quashed.

In his defence, Tuju said he did proper consultations and even reached out to the president before effecting the changes.

Initially, the registrar of political parties had indicated all the documents she received from the party were genuine and met the threshold of adopting the intended changes.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly.

Ruth Matete is not telling the truth about her husband's death - Pastor John's manager | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 07:52:35|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Early treatment with the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir significantly reduced clinical disease and damage to the lungs of rhesus macaques infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a release of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Friday.

The study, conducted by NIH scientists, was designed to follow dosing and treatment procedures used for hospitalized COVID-19 patients being administered remdesivir in a large, multi-center, clinical trial led by NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

The study involved two groups of six rhesus macaques. One group of monkeys received remdesivir and the other animals served as an untreated comparison group.

Scientists infected both groups with SARS-CoV-2. Twelve hours later the treatment group received a dose of remdesivir intravenously, and then received a daily intravenous booster dose thereafter for the next six days.

The scientists timed the initial treatment to occur shortly before the virus reached its highest level in the animals' lungs.

Twelve hours after the initial treatment, the scientists examined all animals and found the six treated animals in significantly better health than the untreated group, a trend that continued during the seven-day study.

They reported that one of the six treated animals showed mild breathing difficulty, whereas all six of the untreated animals showed rapid and difficult breathing.

The amount of virus found in the lungs was significantly lower in the treatment group compared to the untreated group, and SARS-CoV-2 caused less damage to the lungs in treated animals than in untreated animals, according to the study.

The scientists noted that the data supports initiating remdesivir treatment in COVID-19 patients as early as possible to achieve maximum treatment effect.

They also noted that while remdesivir helped prevent pneumonia, it did not reduce virus shedding by the animals.

"This finding is of great significance for patient management, where a clinical improvement should not be interpreted as a lack of infectiousness," said the study.

The study has been posted on the preprint server bioRxiv. The findings are not yet peer-reviewed and should not be considered clinical advice, but are being shared to assist the public health response to COVID-19, said the NIH. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 19:14:21|Editor: huaxia

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Members of an anti-COVID-19 medical team from China to Malaysia pose for photos with Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia Bai Tian (5th L) and Fabian Bigar (5th R), official from Malaysia's Ministry of Health, at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Selangor, Malaysia, April 18, 2020. A team of medical experts sent by the Chinese government arrived at Malaysia on Saturday to help the country fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The eight-member expert team was received by Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia Bai Tian and officials from Malaysia's Ministry of Health upon their arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei)

KUALA LUMPUR, April 18 (Xinhua) -- A team of medical experts sent by the Chinese government arrived here on Saturday to help Malaysia fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

The eight-member expert team was received by Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia Bai Tian and officials from Malaysia's Ministry of Health upon their arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

During the contingent's two-week stay in Malaysia, they will share experience and expertise on fighting COVID-19 with their Malaysian counterparts, which may help Malaysia's efforts against the pandemic, said the Chinese ambassador.

"This is the time when governments and the people of China and Malaysia work together and look after each other to overcome the difficulties. It also demonstrates the deep and warm relationship between China and Malaysia," Bai added.

Malaysian Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said the Chinese expert team and Malaysian experts would share and exchange experience and views regarding COVID-19.

"We will discuss with our colleagues from China and we will see how we can cooperate, to improve our virus detection, our treatment and public health, and how we can work together with China," he told a daily press conference.

The number of COVID-19 cases in Malaysia rose to 5,305 after 54 new cases were recorded on Saturday. Enditem
Rajasthan has begun rapid testing for the Covid-19 infection with the help of newly-acquired rapid antibody testing kits which will help speed up the testing time and detect carriers or superspreaders of the Sars-Cov 2 virus who could potentially infect others.

Rajasthan acquired 10,000 rapid testing kits on Friday and 52 samples were tested, all of which were negative. On Saturday, 5000 tests were conducted in the walled city and other areas.

The health department is going beyond random sampling to detect carriers of the Covid-19 virus who pose a risk to others. The ICMR has also advised antibody tests in hotspots of the coronavirus which will ensure faster detection of cases and give more time to authorities to contain community spread. Once a person tests positive after the antibody test, the PCR test has to be done to confirm the result.

The random sampling done in clusters in Ramganj to detect Covid-19 cases has shown that 6 to 10 percent of people are infected, said Ajitabh Sharma, the nodal officer for Covid-19 prevention in Jaipur district.

He said to prevent the spread of the virus; the focus is on identifying the asymptomatic carriers who can spread it further.

He said the government has identified superspreaders such as provision store owners, dairy booth owners, milk suppliers and health workers and random tests will be carried out on them to find if any of them is a superspreader.

Rohit Singh, additional chief secretary, health had said on Friday that 5000 rapid tests would be done in Ramganj on Saturday in addition to the ongoing PCR based tests. This will help us in the ongoing containment exercise as the people who test positive will be quickly isolated to prevent further spread. This is part of our strategy to use an optimal mix of both types of tests for effective containment in an aggressive manner, he said.

With these kits, more than 500 samples can be taken in a day. Dr KK Sharma, director, public health said the kits will help doctors speed up the process of testing. Since the test results are known in 15-20 minutes, it will save time and more people can be tested, he said.

He said the rapid test will detect asymptomatic persons who have developed antibodies against the virus and can become carriers and pose a threat to other vulnerable people.

He said in the containment zone in Ramganj, spread in a 1 km radius of a hotspot, random sampling and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing will be continued as it is being done. In the 5 km buffer zone outside Ramganj, the antibody tests will be done to detect carriers who can then be confirmed through a PCR test.

Rajasthan became the first state to conduct the rapid tests on Friday as 52 people in the walled city were tested with these kits. All of them tested negative. The state will get 1 lakh testing kits soon, said health minister Raghu Sharma.

Meanwhile, 100 kits were handed over to the SMS medical college on Friday for testing their reliability. After the virology department approves the kits, a report will be given to the health department which will give the go-ahead for their distribution throughout the state.

Due to a shortage of testing kits, around 5000 of samples have piled up and reports could not be given. Since there are many people in quarantine and some could be in serious condition, it is important the doctors get reports so they can act accordingly.

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PMO meets, discusses easing of lockdown from April 20

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Apr 18: A preparatory meeting was held with officials by the Prime Minister's Office to discuss issues relating to the partial relaxing of the lockdown from Monday onwards.

The meeting was chaired by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi's Principal Secretary, P K Mishra. The meeting focused mainly on getting workers to factories. It also discussed the systems and processes the states would need to put in place for the effective implementation of the guidelines to be followed for a partial exit from the lockdown.

Fresh exemptions for lockdown period: MHA allows construction in rural areas

The Ministry of Home Affairs had issued guidelines during the lockdown period. It said from April 20 onwards, industries in rural areas and special economic zones could resume.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

It also permitted services such as e-commerce outside the hotspots and containment zones declared by the respective states and Union Territories.

The primary discussion revolved around ensuring foolproof ways to transport the workforce that would return to the industries. Workers would have to be ferried in dedicated vehicles in the absence of public transport. Meetings are also being held with the state officials to ensure that the guidelines are strictly implemented. After all, it is the states which have to enforce these guidelines, an official present at the meeting told OneIndia.

More stress, suffering for migrants as lockdown is extended

The states have also been advised to keep in touch with the PMO, where issues such a law and order are concerned. Law and order is a state subject and states would need to ensure that there is no eventuality. The states with the PMO will assess the situation and directions would also be issued.
As one of the longest-running and most popular medical dramas on television, General Hospital has been entertaining viewers for well over forty years. Although the show has gone through numerous changes in the format and casting over the years, one thing has remained consistent  the characters of General Hospital all thrive on drama. Jordan Ashford is one character, in particular, who always seems to be involved in some sort of scandal. Recently, she took it to another level, involving several other characters in the process  and fans were none too thrilled.

Briana Henry | JC Olivera/WireImage/Getty Images

When did General Hospital premiere?

Can Curtis keep Jordan from letting Cyrus get the better of her? Click to watch today's all-new #GH  RIGHT NOW! https://t.co/1JebpZITZx  General Hospital (@GeneralHospital) April 7, 2020

General Hospital first premiered on television in 1963 and has been running ever since. In fact, the show has made history as the longest-running daytime drama that has ever been produced on the West Coast. Although the show has experienced its fair share of ups and downs, it has consistently been able to return to form and recapture viewers.

General Hospital has enjoyed a number of high-profile guest stars over the years, including Elizabeth Taylor, Roseanne Barr, and James Franco. The show itself has been awarded numerous accolades, and somehow, producers manage to reinvent the series every few years, finding new ways to keep storylines fresh, relevant, and entertaining. The creative minds behind General Hospital also know how to keep fans engaged, involving them in the show through extensive social media campaigns, contests, and celebrations. Still, none of these tactics would work to maintain viewers unless the characters featured in the show werent entertaining and well-written  and General Hospital boasts some of the best character development on daytime television.

Who plays Jordan Ashford on General Hospital?

TJ has been going THROUGH it. https://t.co/uiOAfW3oME  Tajh Bellow (@TajhBellow) April 7, 2020

In 2014, the character of Jordan Ashford was introduced to General Hospital. Jordan Ashford, as originally played by Vinessa Antoine, was first introduced to fans as the Commissioner of the PCPD, and the mother of TJ Ashford, another prominent character on the show. Jordans troubled past has frequently led her to have conflicts within her own family unit, as well as with the other characters on General Hospital.

After four years of starring as one of the leads in General Hospital, Vinessa Antoine left the show in late 2018. She was replaced by actress Briana Henry, who has continued playing the character of Jordan Ashford to this day. Several years ago, Jordan went through a difficult time as it was revealed that her sons father is not who TJ thought he was  which in turn led to Jordan acting out and exposing several other characters flaws in a big way.

What was Jordans recent drama about?

WATCH: TJ holds onto hope for a future with Molly as her night with Brando burns a hole in her conscience. @haleypullos @TajhBellow #GH pic.twitter.com/xfNuavMPVA  General Hospital (@GeneralHospital) April 8, 2020

One of the most popular recurring characters on General Hospital is Molly Lansing, as portrayed by actress Haley Pullos. Molly and TJ Ashford have been romantically involved in the series, which has led Molly to have several unpleasant confrontations with Jordan Ashford, TJs mother. Needless to say, Jordan does not approve of Molly and is notoriously critical of anyone that her son gets involved with. However, in a recent episode, Jordan took things a little too far when confronting Molly, and fans arent happy about it.

Following TJs mysterious disappearance, Molly goes to Jordans apartment to talk to her about what might have happened. Jordan was not at all receptive to Mollys questioning and turned the blame around on her. At one point during the heated exchange, Jordan tells Molly You did this! Fans took to social media to express their disappointment with Jordan, commenting on one of the shows Tweets that nobody treats Molly like that! and that Jordan was far too harsh with the young woman.

Fans of General Hospital will have to stay tuned to see what happens next between the two women and whether or not they are ever able to resolve the tension between them.
A MAN who is accused of sending sexually explicit messages to a juvenile via social media is to face trial before the circuit court.

The 28-year-old, who cant be named for legal reasons, faces charges under the provisions of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 relating to offences which are alleged to have happened at a location on the outskirts of the city over a three day period in 2018.

It is alleged that he sent sexually explicit material to a young girl via the Facebook Messenger App and that she received them on a tablet device.

The alleged recipient was aged under 17 at the time and the DPP previously directed that the matter should proceed on indictment.

During a procedural hearing at Limerick District Court, Judge Carol Anne Coolican was told the book of evidence had been completed and that a copy had been served on the defendant.

Sergeant Michelle Leahy confirmed the Director of Public Prosecutions was consenting to the matter being sent forward for trial to the next sitting of Limerick Circuit Court.

Solicitor Sarah Ryan, who was previously assigned to represent the defendant, said her client was not seeking bail and he was remanded in continuing custody pending his appearance before the circuit court.

If convicted of the charges, the accused man faces a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment.
Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, center, who founded local newspaper Apple Daily, is arrested by police officers at his home in Hong Kong on April 18, 2020. (Vincent Yu/AP Photo)

Hong Kong Police Detain Veteran Democracy Activists in Raids

Hong Kong police arrested 14 activists in raids on Saturday on charges of illegal assembly during protests in 2019, in the biggest crackdown on the citys pro-democracy movement since the outbreak of mass protests last year.

Among those detained in the swoop were prominent Democratic Party founder and senior barrister Martin Lee, 81, millionaire publishing tycoon Jimmy Lai, 71, and former legislator and barrister Margaret Ng, 72, according to media and political sources.

In all, nine former legislators were arrested.

Democratic legislator Claudia Mo, who was not among those arrested, said the city government, led by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, was trying into introduce a ring of terror in Hong Kong.

They are doing whatever they can to try to silence, to take down, the local opposition, Mo said, pointing to upcoming legislative elections in September in which democrats hope to win back veto power in the city assembly.

Pro-democracy lawmakers Ted Hui (C) of the Democratic Party and Claudia Mo (center R) of the Civic Party hold signs reading ceding land with co-location puts Hong Kong in danger at the Legislative Council building in Hong Kong on Aug. 3, 2017. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP/Getty Images)

Hong Kong police superintendent Lam Wing-ho told reporters that 14 people aged between 24 and 81 were arrested on charges of organizing and participating in unlawful assemblies on Aug. 18 and Oct. 1 and 20 last year. He did not identify the 14.

Those days saw big and at times violent protests across the city.

Five of the 14 were also arrested for publicizing unauthorized public meetings on Sept. 30 and Oct. 19, Lam said.

They were all due to appear in court on May 18, but Lam said more arrests were possible. It is not known whether any of those arrested on Saturday were being held in detention.

The raids mark the biggest crackdown on the pro-democracy movement since the beginning of the anti-government protests across the former British colony in June last year.

Hong Kong media tycoon and founder of Apple Daily newspaper Jimmy Lai (C) leaves the Kowloon City police station in Hong Kong on Feb. 28, 2020. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images)

New Push for Security Law

Marchers initially targeted a now-scrapped bill proposing to send suspects to mainland China for trial but protests broadened into demands for full democracy and a public investigation of the use of force by police.

Lai was arrested on similar charges in late February, along with veteran activists Lee Cheuk-yan and Yeung Sum, who were also arrested on Saturday.

After his release on Saturday afternoon, Martin Lee said he felt relieved to be listed as a defendant because I have seen many brilliant young people being arrested but I didnt.

I dont regret what I have done, he added. Im proud to have the chance to walk our democracy road with Hong Kongs excellent young people.

Former lawmaker and pro-democracy activist Martin Lee (C) talks to members of the media as he leaves the Central District police station in Hong Kong on April 18, 2020, after being arrested and accused of organizing and taking part in an unlawful assembly in August last year. (Photo by Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images)

The arrests come after several months of relative calm amid a partial Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus lockdown but just as Chinese and city government officials launch a new push for tougher national security laws for Hong Kong.

The Asian financial hub returned to Beijing in 1997 under a one country, two systems formula that guarantees it broad freedoms not seen in mainland China, and a high degree of autonomy.

A previous attempt to draft a national security law for Hong Kong, known as Article 23, was met with mass protests in 2003 and abandoned.

Authorities in Hong Kong have arrested more than 7,800 people over their involvement in the last years protests, including many on rioting charges that can carry jail terms of up to 10 years.

It is not clear how many of them are in custody.

By Jessie Pang

Epoch Times staff contributed to this report.
BOSTON, April 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- American Jewish Committee (AJC) praised the U.S. Attorney's Office for successfully appealing a judge's decision to allow a man accused of plotting a violent attack on a Jewish assisted-living facility to stay at home until his trial.

Federal judge Mark G. Mastroianni's order that Rathbun be detained reversed the earlier decision by judge Katherine A. Robertson to release him to home confinement in East Longmeadow, Mass., over the objections of prosecutors.

"Expeditious action by U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling and his colleagues corrected one judge's mistake and provided some assurance of security for the Longmeadow Jewish community," said Robert Leikind, Director of AJC New England.

John Michael Rathbun has been charged with two counts of attempted arson after he allegedly tried to ignite a five-gallon plastic gas canister outside Ruth's House, an assisted-living center in Longmeadow, on April 2.

Following Rathbun's release on Wednesday, AJC New England sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney's office, expressing dismay over the decision, and asking that "your office move expeditiously to appeal this action."

"In the current climate Jewish people face real threats from people who mean them harm. Releasing someone who is alleged to have participated in a crime that could have resulted in more loss of life is deeply concerning," wrote AJC New England President James Kaufman and Director Robert Leikind. "The fact that Rathbun has been released to a home very near the assisted living facility where the attempted attack took place, a community that also includes three synagogues, only amplifies the depth of our concern. The decision to release Rathbun to home confinement appears to give no weight to these well-founded fears."

Recent posts on social media platforms operated by an unnamed white supremacist group had called for a mass killing of "that jew nursing home in longmeadow, Massachusetts," and established April 3 as "Jew killing day." The FBI is investigating any connections between Rathbun and the hate group.

https://www.ajc.org/news/ajc-welcomes-decision-to-remand-man-for-plotting-to-bomb-jewish-assisted-living-home

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


"The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Minister, August 1, 1914

The events leading up to the First World War, and its subsequent execution, have produced a voluminous literature. Approximately 40,000 books have been written in the English language on the subject, some multi-volume tomes. Add the foreign language contribution and the number grows even larger. The "causes" of the war invariably figure prominently in the historical literature, with a recurring theme being the question of "blame." At first glance cause and blame might appear to be the same thing. It is not. Blame means a tort. Blame goes beyond cause. Implicit in the idea of blame is a responsibility and an obligation to make amends.

Who was to blame for the First World War? The history books offer us no shortage of candidates. It was the arrogance and belligerence of Kaiser Wilhelm, the stubbornness of the Austrian government, it was Russia's unwillingness to back down in its support of Serbia. It was Berlin's refusal to pressure Vienna to moderate its demands, France's refusal to rein in its Russian ally. It was Great Britain's lack of forcefulness in dealing with Germany. It was the "generals," intent on going to war. It was the very process of mobilization; a process that once started could not be stopped until the bloodletting was inevitable.

It was the industrialists hungry for the profits that building the machines of war would bring them. It was the cobweb of alliances and treaties that robbed the European powers of diplomatic flexibility, forcing them to march in unison over the cliff face of war. It was the age-old lust for empire. The list seems endless, as each generation of historical revisionists find yet another slate of candidates on which to pin blame. Ironically, the one person who rarely is held responsible is Gavrilo Princip, the teenager whose actions on that summer day in Sarajevo precipitated the avalanche of war.

The question of blame was more than an issue of historical interest. The war was incomprehensibly expensive. German reparations for civilian damages were originally estimated by the allied powers at 269 billion gold marks. In the Treaty of Versailles, damages were set at 132 billion gold marks. Only 50 billion of that was expected to be paid, the so-called Schedule A and Schedule B obligations. The balance, listed separately on Schedule C, was never intended to be collected on and was included strictly for public consumption. In 2013 dollars, 269 billion gold marks would represent a sum of approximately seven trillion dollars. Moreover, that sum only reflected the damage done to civilian property on the Western Front. Additionally, the value had been set based on the Allies' assessment of Germany's ability to payan amount that was progressively reduced.

The fact is no one really knew what the total value of the damage to civilian property was. Those numbers did not take into consideration the cost of prosecuting the war by the allies. Nor did it take into consideration the cost of civilian damages on the Eastern Front, nor the costs to Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey or Russia, not to mention the smaller powers, of fighting the war as well. Finally, there was no way of quantifying the "value" of the staggering loss of life nor the continuing costs of caring for the wounded and maimed.

The "cost" of World War I is a highly subjective measure. The total cost of fighting the war by all sides has been placed at $186 billion. Another $151 billion is attributed to indirect costs, including the damage to civilian property. These figures are often cited, although it is not clear how they were determined. The total of $337 billion converted to twenty-first century dollars, depending on the conversion rate used, would place the cost in current dollars between $17 trillion and $35 trillion. In reality, we will never really know what the total cost of the war actually was. Regardless of the number used, it was a staggering amount.

It is a truism of military conflict that the victor writes the history. Given the frightful cost of the war, and the determination of the winners to recover as much of the cost of fighting as possible, it was a forgone conclusion that the loser would have to acknowledge culpability for "causing" the war -- a fact amply well documented in historical accounts, especially those written by British and French writers.

The undue emphasis on blame, and therefore culpability, led to a bias toward identifying a single cause. It is easier to assess damages when there is only one guilty party. Multiple defendants meant varying degrees of culpability and responsibility, and made it correspondingly harder to fix damages on each of the parties in question. This was manifestly clear at the Versailles Peace Conference where the payment for "war guilt" was placed entirely on Germany, even though it had been Austria that had issued the first declaration of war and triggered the various mutual support provisions that tied the members of the two alliances together.

History in general, and military history in particular, lends itself readily to a discussion of the "what ifs." Any suggestion of blame, especially when that blame is primarily fixed on a single cause, must perforce beg the question "what if" that particular party had acted differently? Under what conditions might war have been avoided? Would a different set of decisions have yielded a vastly different outcome?

This essay marks the beginning of a new series on World War I. I will examine three events: the formation of the alliances that ultimately went to war; the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophia in Sarajevo and the "July Crisis" that followed; and Germany's decision to attack France first (Schlieffen Plan), which had a profound impact on the nature and scope of World War I. All three events could easily have evolved differently; indeed, historical precedent would have suggested that the final outcomes had been anomalous.

The events that led to the outbreak of World War I, and the range of actors involved, were far too complex to be reduced to a single cause, that does not mean, however, that a different set of decisions would not have yielded a different result. The calculus that spawned the war was the product of the interaction of a broad range of variables. Even slight changes in any one of them might have affected the outcome in ways we can't always surmise. There is a huge number, perhaps an infinite number, of possible scenarios. The road that led to war had many exits along the way; any one of which would have averted the catastrophe, or at the very least reduced the scope of the destruction. In the end, tragically, none of those exits were taken.

Joseph V. Micallef is a military historian, bestselling author, keynote speaker, syndicated columnist and commentator on international politics and the future.
Ex- Bigg Boss Contestant Ajaz Khan Arrested For Posting Objectionable Content On Facebook
She's gone from being a little-known society model to a Hollywood star with a staggering 45 million followers on Instagram.

But Cara Delevingne, who has a fortune of more than 20 million, is about to establish what every global figure needs these days: her own charity.

I can reveal that the 27-year-old godchild of Dame Joan Collins is to launch an organisation with the ambitious title Initiative Earth. It will seek to influence public opinion and to influence governmental and other bodies, according to official documents.

To achieve this, it will hold festivals, seminars, conferences, lectures, tours and courses. One of her friends tells me: Cara knows she has a lot of influence and is determined to use it for the wider good.

Cara Delevingne, the 27-year-old godchild of Dame Joan Collins, is to launch an organisation with the ambitious title Initiative Earth and wants to bring about big change

Caras social media influence (currently at 44.5million) dwarfs even that of Prince Harry and Meghan, who have a relatively meagre 11million followers on Instagram

The daughter of Chelsea property developer Charles Delevingne and his wife, Pandora, Cara is already the third most popular British figure on social media, after David Beckham and Harry Potter star Emma Watson.

Caras influence dwarfs even that of Prince Harry and Meghan, who have a relatively meagre 11million followers on Instagram, and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, with 12million.

And Caras romantic relationship with American actress Ashley Benson has helped to change attitudes to bisexuality. With a squad of glamorous friends, such as model Kendall Jenner and pop superstar Taylor Swift, Cara will have no shortage of prominent backers for her charity projects.

Cara has recruited two key lieutenants for the coming crusade, one of them being Jack Harries (seen right), the son of film-maker Rebecca Frayn and grandson of acclaimed novelist and playwright Michael Frayn

Cara declines to comment on Initiative Earth ahead of its big launch, but I can reveal shes recruited two key lieutenants for the coming crusade.

They are trilingual Deepa Mirchandani, 40, a specialist in sustainable businesses, and Jack Harries, 26, the son of film-maker Rebecca Frayn and grandson of acclaimed novelist and playwright Michael Frayn.

But Cara wont take a back seat. Documents lodged at Companies House emphasise that shes very much in control, with 75 per cent or more of voting rights.

Thats exactly as she likes it. After deciding to concentrate on film roles instead of the catwalk, she reflected: Its about being in control and not being a puppet.
Trump has denied that the U.S. has fallen short, asserting that the nation has the most expansive and accurate testing system anywhere in the world. Only in recent days has the U.S. surpassed the testing rate in South Korea, which has conducted about one test for every 100 people. Vice President Mike Pence boasted Thursday that the U.S. had completed more than 3 million tests, but in March he promised 5 million would be distributed by the middle of that month. Pence told reporters Monday that if governors would simply activate underused high-capacity testing machines, we could double the amount of testing in the U.S. literally overnight.
RED BLUFF, Calif. - It's not business as usual for people in Red Bluff. The Red Bluff Police Department and city sent non-essential businesses a letter, asking them to follow the state's at home order.

Police say, they are not looking to punish businesses. But if businesses do not comply, they will issue warnings.

People in Red Bluff tell say obeying the stay at home order helps flatten the curve.

We need to be safe, said Karen Thomas, a long time Red Bluff resident. I think this stay at home thing is helping and if we break it too early we're in trouble.

Both the Tehama County District Attorneys Office and the Red Bluff Police Department say they dont want businesses to full shutdown and close. Instead, they urge businesses to adapt and transition services online or offer curbside pick-up and delivery.
In a Wednesday press conference, Stitt said he is making decisions about public-health guidelines "based on what's happening in Oklahoma, not what's going on in a different state or different city." And in early April, Noem suggested her state did not need such tough restrictions because South Dakota is "not New York City."

But while the American heartland is far less dense than New York and other cities and states on the coasts, it is home to much of the country's agricultural and manufacturing base. The threat coronavirus poses to those sectors of the economy has begun to arrive.

In Iowa, for instance, two separate Tysons food processing plants have also closed due to outbreaks that have so far caused the deaths of two workers.

And in South Dakota a large pork processing plant owned by Smithfield Foods has been closed after experiencing a massive outbreak among workers there that has contributed to the explosion of coronavirus cases in Sioux Falls. (Noem has insisted a stay-at-home order "would NOT have prevented Smithfield from happening.")
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- At least 44 people have died as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) at a Dongan Hills nursing home, according to a state survey released Friday.

Carmel Richmond Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center is the only Staten Island facility on the list, and is tied for the third-highest death total in the state, according to data compiled as of 2 p.m. Thursday. Cobble Hill Health Center in Brooklyn had the most with 55.

However, Borough President James Oddo, who has called for more action to protect nursing homes, said in an interview with the Advance that hes worried the list could paint an inaccurate portrait of how the virus is affecting the states most vulnerable.

I dont think that number, in a vacuum, and having Carmel Richmond alone on that list, is fair to those heroes that work in that facility and run that facility and are doing their very best under circumstances that they did not create, said Oddo, who added that he had only positive experiences when his loved ones were in that nursing home.

A spokesperson for the state Department of Health said the list was compiled using numbers submitted by nursing homes and assisted-living facilities -- some of which included presumed deaths.

The state omitted facilities reporting five or fewer deaths because of privacy concerns. No other Staten Island facility reported more than five deaths.

In March, Gov. Andrew Cuomo mandated that nursing home residents who are taken to a hospital and test positive for the virus must be allowed to return to the facility to self-quarantine.

He ordered Thursday night that nursing homes and adult care facilities must notify next of kin within 24 hours if a family member tests positive for COVID-19 or dies due to the virus.

70 Coronavirus in NYC: Photos show the fight against the pandemic

*** CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE COVERAGE OF CORONAVIRUS IN NEW YORK ***

ArchCare, which operates Carmel Richmond, issued a statement defending the work it has done during the coronavirus outbreak, and partly attributed their facilities high number of COVID-19 deaths to increased testing.

ArchCare has remained steadfastly committed to testing as many residents and staff members as available testing supplies will allow, and we continued doing so even after new government guidelines were issued that allowed nursing homes to stop or drastically curtail testing, the organization wrote in their statement.

As a result, Carmel Richmond and other ArchCare facilities appear to have had more deaths than facilities that have done little or no testing and sent residents presumed to be infected to the hospital. This would allow them to keep their infection rates artificially low and report that patients who in fact succumbed to COVID-19 died of other causes, their statement continued.

All five of the facilities operated by the organization, which is affiliated with the Archdiocese of New York, made the states list. The San Vicente de Paul residence in the Bronx counted 13 deaths, the Ferncliff Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center in Dutchess County counted six, the Mary Manning Walsh Home in Manhattan counted 31, and the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center -- also in Manhattan -- counted 18.

Oddo and his offices director of health and wellness, Dr. Ginny Mantello, said Carmel Richmond was one of the few Staten Island nursing homes with the capacity for testing, and that they expect numbers to increase at other facilities now that the state is also asking for presumed COVID deaths.

Each nursing home will tell you that there are many people that have died that were presumed COVID; We just were not reporting it, Mantello said.

Cuomo has referred to nursing homes as ground zero for the effects of the virus, and had promised a list of the death totals at nursing homes.

As of Tuesday, the state counted more than 3,000 deaths in New York nursing homes -- 117 of which were on Staten Island.

The virus is nothing to be underestimated and the virus is very good at killing and the virus is very good at killing older people and people with compromised immune systems, Cuomo said at his Friday press briefing. Thats why the virus seeks out nursing homes.

Oddo said he raised his concerns about Carmel Richmonds presence on the list during his call with the state, and continued to call for more support for the states nursing homes.

On Tuesday, Oddo and the rest of Staten Islands delegation of elected officials sent letters to the governor and Mayor Bill de Blasio calling for the creation of a nursing home task force. Their letter calls out the facilities needs for more testing, personal protective equipment, and staffing.

The last thing that these fatigued warriors need is a public perception that somehow theyre doing less than what they could, and thats led to all these fatalities, Oddo said.
A 35-year-old man in Jharkhand tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Saturday, taking the total number of such cases in the state to 33, an official said.

The man from Hindpiri locality, a 'COVID-19 hotspot' in Ranchi city, was quarantined and is now undergoing treatment at a hospital here, the official said.

Of the 93 samples tested on Saturday, report of one came in as positive, Director of Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) Dr D K Singh said.

Three people, all from Hindpiri locality, have tested positive for the virus on Friday, the official said, adding the number of positive cases in Ranchi now stands at 18 -- all of which are from Hindpiri area.

Bokaro district reported nine cases and Hazaribagh two, while one case each has been from Dhanbad, Simdega, Koderma, and Giridih districts. Two persons in the state, one each from Ranchi and Bokaro, have died of the disease.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 14:51:34|Editor: huaxia

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Members of Chinese anti-COVID-19 medical team to Malaysia pose for a group photo with people seeing them off in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, April 18, 2020. The eight-member expert team, organized by the National Health Commission and selected by the health commission of Guangdong Province, left for Malaysia Saturday morning. (Xinhua/Deng Hua)

KUALA LUMPUR, April 18 (Xinhua) -- A team of medical experts sent by the Chinese government arrived at Malaysia on Saturday to help the country fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

The eight-member expert team was received by Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia Bai Tian and officials from Malaysia's Ministry of Health upon their arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

During the expert team's two-week stay in Malaysia, they will share experience and expertise on fighting COVID-19 with their Malaysian counterparts, which may help Malaysia's effort against the pandemic, said the Chinese ambassador.

"This is the time when governments and the people of China and Malaysia work together and look after each other to overcome the difficulties. It also demonstrates the deep and warm relationship between China and Malaysia," Bai added. Enditem
Acrid smog resulting from the burning wildfire near the difunctional Chernobyl nuclear plant has covered Ukraine's capital city, Kyiv making it the city with worst air pollution in the world. According to the Swiss monitoring group, IQAir reports, the city pollution level currently matched that of many Chinese cities. In addition to that, the monitoring agency also reported that at one point on April 15, it topped the list of most polluted cities.

Most of the cities have stopped economic activities and movement as governments have imposed draconian measures, thereby, making Kyiv appear more polluted. However, this does not pose much threat to the residents who do not step out as a result of lockdown imposed to stem coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, the countrys health ministry has reportedly announced that the wrecked Chernobyl plant does not face any immediate threat and radiation level continue to remain normal.

Read: All Travellers Thermal Screened Before Being Allowed Into Kyiv

Read: Ukrainian President Rejects Trump's Claims Of Kyiv Being 'corrupt'

Radiation risk

Earlier this week, Greenpeace Russia reportedly warned that the forest fire that has been burning in Ukraine posed a radiation risk. According to media reports, a 2,600-square-kilometer (1,000-square-mile) Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was established after the April 1986 disaster at the plant that sent a cloud of radioactive fallout over much of Europe. However, the Ukrainian emergency situations services have said that the radiation levels in the exclusion zone have not changed. The department further said that, however, radiation levels in nearby Kyiv, the capital city have "not exceeded natural background levels."

Speaking about the spread of radiations, Rashid Alimav, head of energy projects at Greenpeace Russia reportedly said that fire, fanned by the high-speed wind, could disperse radionuclides, atoms that emit radiations. He added that a fire approaching a "nuclear or hazardous radiation" facility was always a risk. In the latest development, three new wildfires have started in the radiation-contaminated evacuation zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, International media citing emergency officials. A statement from the Emergencies Ministry said the fires were small and posed no threat to facilities holding radioactive waste. The statement did give an area for the fires or say how they started but said they were being fanned by gusty winds.

Read: Ukraine's President Vows To End War, Invites Trump To Kyiv

Read: New Wildfires In Area Round Ukraine's Chernobyl Plant
The Reserve Bank of Indias booster shot helped Sensex, and Nifty50 climb crucial resistance levels in the truncated week, but the real action was seen in the small and mid-cap space.

The S&P BSE Sensex rose 1.38 percent while the S&P BSE Nifty50 gained 1.7 percent for the week ended April 17 compared to 4.9 percent rally seen in the S&P BSE Smallcap index and the S&P BSE Midcap index was up 3.96 percent in the same period.

As many as 133 stocks in the S&P BSE 500 index rose 10-40 percent in a truncated week. This included names such as Deepak Fertilisers, Supreme Industries, Shree Cement, Sun Pharma, Finolex Industries, Axis Bank, PVR, Equitas Holdings, and NCC.

In the S&P BSE Smallcap index, there are more than 260 stocks that rose 10-70 percent in the week gone by that include names such as Force Motors, Rain Industries, Jindal Saw, Bajaj Consumer Care, DCB Bank, BEML, Shakti Pumps, and Andhra Bank among others.

Note: Here is a list of top 100 stocks from the S&P BSE 500 index out of 133 that rose 10-40% for the week ended 17 April

Small and mid-cap stocks have been gaining traction largely on account of stimulus measures that are being announced by the government and the RBI to cushion the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.

However, experts advise caution while investing in the broader market at current levels even though they might look attractive at current levels after the recent fall.

"Buying is more event-driven in small and mid-caps at this point in time. A number of consolidated factors including the stimulus measures by the government and the RBI are impacting buying behaviour in these stocks," Umesh Mehta, Head of Research, Samco Securities told Moneycontrol.

"Investors are following the buy on dips strategy but in the process are forgetting that companies that have performed in the past are not necessarily going to emerge winners post this pandemic," he said.

Mehta further added that it is extremely essential to analyse the impact of lockdowns and restrictions in trade on businesses before buying them.

Technical Outlook:

Equity benchmarks extended gains for the second week in a row amid firm global cues. The broader market outperformed the benchmark indices as Nifty mid-cap and small-cap gained 4 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

Sectorally, all major indices ended in green led by financials, Metals, Infra, Auto and Pharma.

The Nifty extended gains, on an expected line, as it formed a weekly bull candle with lower shadow indicating elevated buying support at 8,800 mark, which is 38.2 percent retracement of the most recent up leg (8,055-9,261).

During the week, Nifty hit an intra week high of 9,324, and the next possible target for the index is placed at 9,950-10,000 levels, suggest experts.

We are, therefore, of the opinion that a sustained close above 9,500 levels would further accelerate the positive momentum thereby leading Nifty towards the psychological mark of 10,000 levels over the coming month, Dharmesh Shah, Head  Technical, ICICI direct told Moneycontrol.

In the process, we do not expect Nifty to breach strong support at 8,500 levels which is 80 percent retracement of last two weeks up move (8,361-9,324). Thereby we advise investors to capitalise any dip from here on towards 8,800 levels as an incremental buying opportunity, paving the way to challenge the upper band of consolidation of 9,500 in the coming week, he said.

: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on Moneycontrol.com are their own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18)  The inter-agency task force on the coronavirus disease has empowered local government units to lead the countrys battle against the pandemic.

The IATF adopts the national government-enabled, local government-led, and people-centered response to the COVID-19 health event, Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases spokesperson Karlo Nograles said in a televised briefing.

The IATF tasked all agencies to recommend sector-specific plans, strategies, and targets and directed its implementing arm, the National Task Force Against COVID-19, to develop the necessary operational plans.

Consistent with the latest policy, Nograles said the DILG, in coordination with LGUs, will now take over the governments contact tracing efforts, a role previously held by the Office of Civil Defense.

For this purpose, the Department of Health and the DILG are directed to enter into a data-sharing agreement in accordance with Republic Act 10173 or the Data Privacy Act, Nograles said.

Contact tracing tool

To make contact tracing easier, the Department of Science and Technology, together with researchers from the University of the Philippines-Manila and the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City, have developed a tracking system called TanodCOVID.

TanodCOVID is a self-reporting application, allowing constituents to report COVID-19-like symptoms to local health authorities by sending text messages to their LGUs verified mobile numbers.

Officials will then call concerned locals to verify the reports and ask for additional information, which might help the DOH, the DOST said in a statement.

Specifically, the TanodCOVID will enable LGUs to access report summaries, visualization, mobile numbers and addresses of those who reported symptoms, it added.

LGUs interested to use the tracing tool can send a letter of intent to the fassster.covid@gmail.com, the DOST said.
Members of the state Cannabis Control Commission have penned a letter to the Massachusetts congressional delegation, asking that the lawmakers advocate for marijuana businesses that are seeking financial assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic, as such businesses already face limited access to capital.

While marijuana is legal in Massachusetts, it remains illegal on the federal level. Marijuana businesses are not able to benefit from financial assistance available through the Small Business Administration.

We request that you advocate for cannabis businesses licensed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to be able to apply for and receive the same or analogous assistance as other state-recognized businesses that have been or expect to be negatively impacted by the declared COVID-19 federal emergency, members of the commission wrote in the letter, which was sent to the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Friday.

Marijuana shops in Massachusetts have suffered major financial losses over the last few weeks. Gov. Charlie Baker has issued an order banning all non-essential businesses from operating through May 4. While medical marijuana is considered essential, recreational pot stores had to close.

Many Massachusetts cannabis businesses are small businesses. Like small businesses across many sectors, they now face an uncertain future, the letter reads. What differentiates state-legal cannabis businesses, however, are restrictions on both basic business banking and, now, disaster relief options, not faced by others. For this reason, we request your consideration and advocacy for assistance that is inclusive of these Massachusetts businesses in any forthcoming COVID-19 stimulus legislation.

The commissioners, Chairman Steven Hoffman, Kay Doyle, Jennifer Flanagan, Britte McBride and Shaleen Title, wrote that 300 licensed marijuana businesses, which employ more than 3,2000 people, are not able to receive assistance through the SBA.

With access to capital through traditional means already limited for state-legal cannabis businesses by federal banking restrictions, the path ahead for many of these Massachusetts businesses looks even less clear than for other businesses. For any other business, such limited access to capital would work in favor of the business when it came to eligibility for federal SBA assistance, the commissioners wrote.

The Small Business Administration emergency loan program ran out of money Thursday morning, leading Baker to say it would be up to Congress to extend benefits to help small business owners in Massachusetts. As of Tuesday, the SBA had approved 27,315 loans from Massachusetts applicants, distributing more than $7 billion, spokesman Norman Eng said.

Cannabis commissioners noted in their letter that licensed marijuana businesses pay local, state and federal taxes, adding that in 2019, adult-use marijuana businesses generated more than $80 million in tax revenue.

That number was projected to be exceeded this year, with the Massachusetts Department of Revenue estimating tax revenues between $93 million and $172 million, the letter reads.

The regulators also reminded the congressional delegation that Massachusetts was the first state to pass equity measures in the adult-use cannabis industry, an effort to help farmers, veterans, women, minorities and people disproportionately harmed by drug laws.

As recreational stores closed, the CCC reported a spike in medical marijuana patient registrations. To help support the medical supply chain, the commission has allowed wholesale transfers of existing adult-use marijuana to medical operators.

Related Content:
One man was sent to local hospital with a laceration to his neck and two women were issued summonses for hosting a party  in violation of coronavirus gathering orders  at a Downtown Jersey City high-rise early Friday, police said.

Police responded to 425 Washington Blvd., the Marbella and the Marbella II, just after 1 a.m. on the report of a stabbing.

After an investigation police determined that a party with multiple attendees had taken place prior to their arrival. Due to state of emergency rules about the size of gatherings, two women issued summonses for disorderly conduct.

One of the party-goers was treated at the Jersey City Medical Center for a laceration above his collarbone, an injury that was not considered life-threatening.

Police said that a fight between the party guests stemmed from a verbal argument, but it was unclear how the victim was injured.
Military medical staff airlifted by eight large transport planes of the air force of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) arrive at Tianhe International Airport in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Feb. 2, 2020. (Xinhua/Cheng Min)

BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the People's Republic of China, has signed an order of commendation to honor all the military personnel undertaking the mission of COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the whole military has resolutely carried out the decisions and commands of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the CMC and shouldered heavy responsibilities, making outstanding contributions to winning the people's war against the epidemic, according to the order.

Party organizations and members at all levels in the troops undertaking the mission have played an exemplary role, and military medics have worked day and night to battle the virus, functioning as a mainstay force in the anti-virus war, the order reads.

Scientific researchers in the military have raced against time in their emergency research efforts to provide strong scientific and technological support for the epidemic prevention and control. Journalists have braved hardships to tell the army's anti-virus stories, boosting the morale and confidence of China and the world, according to the order.

Military medics salute to the Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, April 15, 2020.(Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

The personnel charged with work coordination, transportation, security, logistics and other tasks have also worked hard to support the epidemic prevention and control efforts, the order reads.

The coronavirus outbreak is a great battle and a major test for the whole armed forces, the order said, noting that all participants of the mission have demonstrated firm confidence and dedication, made great sacrifices and have successfully completed the mission.

Putting people's life and health as the greatest priority, all the honored personnel have implemented the overall principle of shoring up confidence, strengthening unity, ensuring science-based control and treatment and imposing targeted measures.

"They have displayed the dauntless spirit of the Chinese military," the order reads.

The order called on the whole armed forces to learn from the participants of the mission and make further progress in building a powerful military.
COVID-19 was closing in on Christopher Johnson.

Johnson, an inmate at Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro, said he could hear the prisoner in the bunk next to his coughing all night long. He could hear the inmate in the bunk below him getting the symptoms - runny nose and sneezing.

Im just kind of sitting around, waiting to get sick, he told a Charlotte Observer reporter during a telephone interview. ....Theres definitely a war out here. Thats how it feels. Its kind of ground zero.

That was a week ago.

Now, more than 280 of 770 inmates at the Eastern North Carolina prison have tested positive for COVID-19, making it one of the hardest-hit prisons in the nation. State officials are now testing every inmate there, and more results are pending.

As cases soar at Neuse, interviews reveal that some inmates are living in fear  and asking whether enough was done to protect them from the outbreak.

Up until Thursday afternoon, only 55 of the inmates at the prison in Goldsboro had been tested, according to state data.

Christopher Johnson

Doing time for auto theft and other offenses, Johnson, 33, is scheduled to be released from prison this summer. He told the Observer he was living in a dorm with about 50 other inmates, who all slept in bunk beds about three feet apart from one another. Some of the inmates, he said, had runny noses, coughs and glassy eyes.

By Friday, Johnson himself was coughing and appeared to be among those who were sick, his brother, Ron, said.

He said, Im sick. Everybodys sick now,  Ron Johnson said.

State officials say they are doing all they can to curb the spread of the coronavirus at Neuse and the states other 52 prisons.

At Neuse, they are separating inmates who test positive from those who test negative. All of the prisons staff members and inmates have been issued masks, they say.

Inmates at the Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro, N.C. move between buildings Sunday morning, April 19, 2020. Some are wearing masks, but incorrectly. more than 280 of 770 inmates at the Eastern North Carolina prison have tested positive for COVID-19, making it one of the hardest-hit prisons in the nation.

And they have offered testing to all 250 of the prisons staff members. Eight staff members at Neuse have reported that theyve tested positive so far, state Department of Public Safety officials say.

Story continues

Scott Davenport, another inmate at Neuse, suffers from the lung disease COPD, high blood pressure and other ailments. Now 56, he has served most of his sentence for murder.

Im worried about dying before I get out of here, he told the Observer Monday. I have about 18 months left on my sentence. Id like to go home to my family. Ive worked really hard to stay out of trouble.

About three weeks ago, Davenport said, the prison moved a number of inmates from another dorm into his.

It doesnt make sense that theyd keep moving people around during a pandemic, Davenport said.

Scott Davenport

On Tuesday night, Davenport called his daughter, Destiny Akers, with unsettling news. He was sick, too. He was exhausted, short of breath and had a 102-degree fever.

After several anxious days, Akers got a report on Friday from the lab, which said that her father had tested negative. Still, shes unhappy with the way public officials are handling the epidemic.

This is a public health crisis thats being pushed under the rug, Akers said. I dont think the government is putting a lot of attention on these inmates.

The origins of an outbreak

State officials say its unclear how the coronavirus entered Neuse. But Akers said she heard from her father that the first inmate to be diagnosed at the prison was transferred there in late March. The inmate reportedly had a fever while he was on the transport bus to the prison, she said.

Asked about Akers account, a spokesman for the state prisons did not comment.

On March 27, prison officials said, two inmates living in the same housing unit reported to medical with symptoms of a viral infection. They were quarantined and tested.

And on April 2, the test results came back: positive.

Early that afternoon, after learning that the two inmates had been diagnosed, prison officials placed new restrictions on the inmates at Neuse to try to contain the virus. About 200 inmates in the prisons recreation yard staged a protest, refusing to go back to their dorms.

Some of the inmates threatened violence, state prisons commissioner Todd Ishee told the Observer. Prison officers, assisted by outside law enforcement, used force to return the inmates to their dorms.

Prison officials identified 36 ringleaders, Ishee said, and determined that they needed to be moved to a maximum-security prison. (Neuse houses minimum- and medium-security inmates.)

Prison officials didnt test the 36 inmates for COVID-19 before transferring them. But after taking their temperatures and asking them screening questions, prison officials determined they had no symptoms. They were put on a bus that evening and shipped to Pasquotank Correctional Institution, about 140 miles to the northeast.

The inmates were quarantined at Pasquotank, which at the time had no COVID-19 cases. Four of the prisoners subsequently tested positive for COVID-19.

One staff member at Pasquotank, who asked not to be named because of concerns for his job, questioned why prison officials ran the risk of importing the coronavirus to a new prison.

I think it just increases the spread of the virus, he said. Staff members may get it now and possibly bring it home to their families.

His wife agreed.

Why bring in inmates that were exposed to it to a prison that didnt have any? she asked.

Back at Neuse, the number of inmates diagnosed was gradually climbing.

But on Thursday, after state officials ordered testing for all inmates at Neuse, the number of cases there exploded. By Saturday, there were 281 cases, according to the Wayne County Health Department.

State officials say they are working as rapidly as possible to curb the spread of the virus in Neuse and all the other state prisons.

Theyve suspended visitation. Theyve begun releasing some inmates early. And they say they are taking the temperatures of all staff members before they enter prisons each day.

But state officials are under no illusion the battle will be easy.

Said prison spokesman John Bull: This is a pretty insidious virus.

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Anthony Joshua claims he will not have any problems in once-again defeating old rival Dillian Whyte should a long-awaited rematch between the two take place.

There is no love lost between the London-born pair who first fought as amateurs in 2009 before a feisty first professional encounter in 2015 in which Joshua claimed the British title in round seven.

Promoter Eddie Hearn is desperate for Joshua, who now holds three of the four world heavyweight titles, to face off against Tyson Fury, leaving White with a chance to face the winner for the title.

Antony Joshua says he is ready to face off against rival Dillian Whyte but it will be one-sided

The pair last fought in a thrilling British title encounter in 2015 with Joshua claiming the win

Joshua has now revealed he would relish the chance to face off against old nemesis White in a future world title bout.

'I know he's been chasing a world title shot. I offered him a world title shot last year in April, he refused it', AJ told The Sun.

'Maybe he wants his hand on the WBC, but if me and Tyson Fury fight, then I know he didn't want to fight me last year, but he'll definitely have to fight me this time, if he wants his hands on the WBC belt.

'Once I've beaten Tyson Fury, Dillian Whyte can come and get this work as well. It won't be that good, it will be one-sided.'

After White's crushing defeat to AJ in 2015, the Brixton Body Snatcher has rebuilt and is on an 11-match winning streak and is long overdue a world title shot, but rejected a short-notice offer from AJ in April 2019 after failing to lure Deontay Wilder to Wembley.

White is on an 11-match winning streak and is set to face the winner of Joshua vs Tyson Fury

Joshua's much anticipated opponent Fury claimed the WBC title in February after a thrilling defeat of Deontay Wilder and the pair were set for a third clash in June before the coronavirus outbreak, with October now mooted as the earliest date the fight will take place.

The Watford-born was set to fight Bulgarian Kubrat Pulev in June before it being scuppered by the Covid-19 outbreak.
There is now a widespread awareness that things cannot go back to normal because normal is part of the problem, said Clare Daly MEP, when she addressed Sligo's Easter 1916 Commemoration ceremony online on Easter Sunday.

The ceremony, which was held under the auspices of People First and Independents4Change, traditionally took place at the Republican Plot in Sligo cemetery on Easter Sunday. However, this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ceremony was held online.

Ms Daly, who was introduced by Cllr Declan Bree, said it was an absolute privilege to participate in a very unique 1916 commemoration.

"A commemoration against the backdrop of the world in lockdown, billions of people in isolation in their homes, tens of thousands dead, millions losing their jobs, the army on the streets in parts of Europe, mobile phones being used to track peoples movements in the interest of public health, airlines grounded, and all in the space of a couple of weeks.

"It's like an Orwellian nightmare. But we're not reading it, we are actually living it.

"There is now a widespread awareness that things cannot go back to normal because normal is part of the problem.

"So we, who gather here in respect, for the men and women of 1916, have to seize this moment with the same determination and courage, that they showed, that Easter 104 years ago today.

"We have seen measures taken in the last few weeks that the powers that be have repeatedly told us could never be done. Emergency payments to all workers, rent and mortgage freezes, eviction outlawed, bailouts for small businesses.

"Of course it's not enough and it pales into insignificance in comparison to the trillions being pumped into the banks. But it's a graphic example of what Connolly pointed out that the ruling class "will and do laugh and scorn every scheme for the amelioration of workers" as long as the rights of property are respected but when they are "alarmed for the safety of their booty, they yield reform after reform to prevent revolution"

"So we have to ask ourselves the question, what is the point in having an economic crisis every 10 years when the misnamed "norms" of production are suspended so that the state can play a role in distributing wealth and delivering socialism for the rich.

"When so many people clearly see that, of course, the virus is a problem but the real problem is the way in which society is organised which has prevented us from dealing with it and from saving lives.

"The 40 years of rootless neoliberalism which have stripped our health services and prevented our ability to respond. Even here in the European Union, sixty-three times in the last years the EU commission has demanded that member states cut their health budgets.

"But we have to remind ourselves, that globally, even before the virus, 10,000 people die every day as a result of their lack of access to adequate health care.

"We have had the assault on organised labour and working conditions, where the idea of a permanent pensionable job has become a thing of the past and now we have the gig economy and casualisation being the order of the day where people go into work sick and spread disease because it's either work or starve

"How could we be so crazy as to allow the return of this so-called normal?

"How could we allow the idea that the victims of this crisis are going to be made to pay for it through another round of vicious austerity.

"The men and women of 1916 understood that the Irish people will only be free as James Connolly said, when they own everything from the plough to the stars.

"Not on our own of course, but as part of the international community of ordinary people.

"Understanding, that the interests of labour all the world over are identical and their demands are modest we only want the earth.

"A spirit embodied by the 26,000 Cuban doctors sent from that tiny sanctioned country, sent around the globe to assist fight the pandemic. Our solidarity, as Fidel Castro said, to our country, is not just Cuba, our country is also humanity.

"In that spirit we must build a grassroots movement internationally to socialise the means of wealth that exist in abundance for the interest of the billions rather than the billionaires.

"That is our modern 1916 goal, that is where the leaders of 1916 would be today." Ms Daly said.
New Delhi, April 18 : A Group of Ministers' meeting chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday reviewed the situation in the wake of extension of lockdown due to Covid-19 up to May 3, in New Delhi. The meeting examined suggestions received to enlist services of retired doctors, health professionals and medical students in the final year of their graduation, government sources said.

The GoM noted that these measures will allow resumption of graded economic activity keeping in view local conditions "within the ambit of measures to prevent the spread of the virus".

The members deliberated on allowing partial economic activity in non-hotspot zones from April 20, as proposed by the Centre, sources said. The GoM obtained feedback from various Ministers on the COVID-19 situation.

The GoM unanimously appreciated the decision of gradual opening up of economic activity in areas which have not reported any Corona cases in line with the MHA guidelines issued on April 15.

During the meeting, the disbursement of Rs 31,000 crore to more than 33.25 crore beneficiaries under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana to mitigate the problems of economically weaker sections of population was "strongly appreciated", sources said.

All GoM members felt the need to reiterate an appeal to fellow Indians to observe strict social distancing norms and refrain from participating in mass prayers or religious congregations.

Earlier Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Indians to make contributions in feeding the needy people, making face masks at home and maintaining social distancing. The Rajnath Singh-led GoM reiterated that appeal on Saturday.

This is the fifth meeting of the GoM on COVID-19 since March 25. All inputs, suggestions and feedback from the discussions held at these meetings are conveyed to the Prime Minister by Singh.

The other ministers who were part of the meeting on Saturday were D.V. Sadananda Gowda, Ram Vilas Paswan, Smriti Irani, Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Pralhad Joshi, Giriraj Singh, Santosh Gangwar, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Hardeep Puri, G Kishan Reddy among others.

The nationwide lockdown was extended till May 3, in view of the rising COVID-19 cases, on April 14, the day the first lockdown was to end.
Boris Johnson has been in contact with ministers while he continues 'resting and recuperating' from coronavirus at his country residence of Chequers.

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick provided an update on the Prime Minister's health during the daily press conference at Downing Street in Westminster.

Mr Johnson was released from St Thomas' Hospital in London last weekend following treatment in intensive care as his symptoms worsened after being admitted.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson records a video message on Easter Sunday at 10 Downing Street in Westminster after being release from St Thomas' Hospital before leaving for Chequers

Mr Johnson is recovering at the PM's country residence of Chequers, pictured on April 13

Asked about how Mr Johnson is, Mr Jenrick said this afternoon: 'He's resting and recuperating at Chequers. He's taking his doctor's advice.

'He has had some contact with ministers, but mostly with his private office here at Downing Street and that's absolutely right.

'We all wish him well and hope that he takes the time to get better as quickly as he possibly can in the interim.'

It follows reports that Mr Johnson has spoken to his deputy Dominic Raab by phone as he recovers from the virus and is 'keen to get back to work'.

The Prime Minister's spokesman said he was in touch with the Foreign Secretary from Chequers on Thursday - but is not doing any government work.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson with his pregnant fiance Carrie Symonds in London on March 9

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick speaks at Downing Street in London this afternoon

Sources have told MailOnline that Mr Johnson is eager to get back to Downing Street next week, especially as the Commons recess is due to come to an end.

However, his pregnant fiancee Carrie Symonds and doctors are said to be concerned that might be too soon.

The news comes amid claims of drift at the heart of power while Mr Johnson gets over his stay in intensive care.

The lockdown measures were extended for at least another three weeks yesterday, with scientists still not confident the outbreak is under control.

But there is growing anger about the lack of an 'exit strategy', with the curbs wreaking havoc on the economy.

Labour's Keir Starmer accused Mr Raab of being 'reluctant' to sign off a plan while Mr Johnson is still absent.

The PM's spokesman dismissed that idea as 'just wrong' yesterday, adding of Mr Johnson: 'He continues his recovery at Chequers,'

'He's not doing government work... He is focused on his recovery, he is not doing government work.'

Mr Johnson has not had any conversations with foreign leaders - although Ms Symonds did get a call from US First Lady Melania Trump this week.
Sometimes, while directing pandemic operations from CrowdSource Rescues war room  which is to say, from his desk at home  Matthew Marchetti slips up. He means to say volunteers or drivers. But what he actually says is rescuers.

Its easy to see why. CrowdSource Rescue was born during Hurricane Harvey when Marchetti headed out in a boat, helping members of his church, Chapelwood UMC, to ferry members to dry land. They could help even more people, he thought, if only they knew who needed rescuing.

He and his best friend, Nate Larson, write real-estate software. Theyre good at map applications. So that night, in about six hours, they wrote a simple platform: one form for people who needed help; one for rescuers; and a map showing where help was needed. They added information for about 20 people and went to bed.

The floodwaters were still rising. 9-1-1 was overwhelmed.

The next morning, Larson woke to 1,300 people on the little site hed built for church members. He watched as the number rose to 3,000. Then 7,000.

By Harveys end, the platform had helped coordinate the rescues of roughly 25,000 people. And CrowdSource Rescue was a thing.



When Hurricane Irma roared into Florida a couple of weeks later, CrowdSource Rescue was there. And then for floods and hurricanes in Louisiana, Florida, Puerto Rico and North Carolina. They handled the earthquake in Mexico City.

MORE FROM LISA GRAY: At one Houston highrise, coronavirus has set off a court battle over lives vs. livelihoods

Their calling, as Larson saw it: To help a ragtag volunteer army respond, at Zero Hour, to any apocalyptic-vibe crisis. To be there in that moment when 9-1-1 is overwhelmed, but before the bigger, stronger organizations can arrive  before the National Guard, before the Red Cross, before all the others.

Marchetti and Larsons lives began to revolve around emergency response. They wrote code during the cool months of the year, and saved up so theyd be free for hurricane season. When they see a storm about three days from landfall, they make their best guess about where its heading and go there.

Its sexy, exciting, adrenaline-junkie work. CrowdSource Rescue is basically a bunch of tech nerds and response cowboys  people who come in with chainsaws and boats, Marchetti says. Were not especially refined. On the comms, I swear a bunch.

In December, Larson  a germphobe, Marchetti calls him  was getting apocalypse vibes from the coronavirus in China.

Nah, Marchetti told him.

Besides, what could they do in a pandemic?



As the crisis grew grimmer, and people vulnerable to the virus were advised to stay home, Marchetti called Katherine Tong, a Houston Food Bank manager that hed met at a conference. Houston Food Bank, to his mind, was a big, grown-up, professional nonprofit  not like his ragtag bunch.

He asked Tong if maybe it might perhaps be a little useful if he and Larson could adapt their platform to connect people who needed food to people who could deliver it.

Yes, she told him. Can you come in this afternoon?

CrowdSource Resource activated in mid-March. Marchetti had a bad bout of impostor syndrome: Who were they fooling? What was the plan? Shouldnt someone else be doing this? Some bigger, stronger, more grownup organization?

To his amazement, volunteers showed up  a different crew than the usual CrowdSource bunch. College students. A deacon. People from NASA. At first, CrowdSource tried not to accept drivers over 60  they didnt want to put them at risk  but a couple of stubborn seniors didnt take no for an answer.

The first weeks startup chaos made Marchettis impostor syndrome worse. There was paperwork. There were protocols. He felt like a jerk, telling volunteers to stop, stop, stop letting little old ladies hug them.

MORE FROM LISA GRAY: Communities must come together to protect their own: Lessons from one of Houstons first coronavirus victims

He worried the volunteers would all leave. Delivering groceries isnt sexy work. And unlike even the longest hurricane  even Harvey  there was no end in sight.

In a training the first week, someone asked, When do the bigger organizations come in?

Marchetti paused. With coronavirus hitting all across the globe, the usual federal groups and nonprofits were going to be stretched thin.

I got bad news, he said. We are the response. Its just us. Houston vs. the coronavirus. There are no white horses.



But heres the thing: On CrowdSources map, the red pins keep turning to green pins. People who need food become people who have food.

As of Wednesday, CrowdSource volunteers had fed more than 20,000 people. That blew Marchetti away.

The startup chaos is subsiding, but he still struggles not to cuss. He hasnt gotten over his impostor syndrome. He still worries he wont be able to recruit enough volunteers to keep up with the growing need.

Hes stopped trying to guess when CrowdSource will be able to demobilize. With normal apocalypse-vibe disasters, CrowdSource gets in and out. But not this time, not with this long, wearying, invisible disaster.

Its been Day Three of the hurricane for the last 15 days, he says.

But he figures that Houston will, once again, show up to rescue its own.

He has, after all, seen it before. I love Houston, he says. Resiliency is in our bones.

Here, you see trouble, and you think, Someone needs to help. And then you realize: You might need to be that person.

To sign up for help or to help, go to crowdsourcerescue.com/covid

lisa.gray@chron.com, @LisaGray_HouTX
Burundi's Foreign Ministry says the Electoral Commission is unable to organise for Burundians living abroad to vote in next month's polls because of the coronavirus pandemic.



"It is not possible for the Electoral Commission to reach embassies for elections," it said in a letter to Burundi's embassies.



Several Burundians in the diaspora have told the BBC this is a violation of their rights, and are determined to find a solution.



About 13,000 citizens living abroad had registered to vote in presidential and parliamentarians polls scheduled for 20 May.



Burundian officials recently told the BBC they hoped the COVID-19 outbreak would not affect the election calendar.



Five people are reported to have contracted the virus in the country, one of whom has died.



Manampa, a Burundian living in Kenya, told the BBC it would be sad if he was led by a president he had not voted for over the next seven years.



He suggested that the government use new technology to allow Burundians abroad to vote without queuing in embassies, or simply postpone the elections until after the pandemic.



Five male candidates are running to replace President Pierre Nkurunziza, who has been in power since 2005.

Source: GNA









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.

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The rate of growth of the Covid-19 infection is slowing but this means little in India with its vast population and limited testing. But now much of the focus is shifting to how the government plans to cope with the economic disruptions caused by the pandemic. The expansion of the welfare state may not be the answer, given Indias low per capita income.

Either way, as T N Ninan points out here but it must be recognised that nothing will be enough. In other views, columnist examine aspects of the post-Covid-19 world. Kanika Datta sums up the views India is by no means going ...
Taiwan will put 700 navy sailors into quarantine after three cases of the new coronavirus were confirmed among sailors who had been on a goodwill mission to the Pacific island state of Palau, the government said on Saturday.

Three Taiwan navy vessels visited Palau - one of only 15 countries to maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan - in the middle of March, before returning to Taiwan a month later, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told reporters.

The three confirmed cases had all shared quarters on the same ship, but all 700 sailors on all three ships were being re-called and would be put into quarantine, he said.

Taiwans presidential office said that President Tsai Ing-wen had been at the ceremony to welcome back the ships but had only waved to the sailors from the shore and had not been exposed to the risk of infection.

These are the first coronavirus cases reported in Taiwans military. The navy was carrying out a deep clean of the three ships to disinfect them.

Taiwan has only reported 398 coronavirus cases and six deaths, a far lower number than many of its neighbours due to strict measures taken in the early stages of the outbreak to contain its spread.

The president of Palau, Tommy Remengesau, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that his country of 20,000 people had not had a single case of the coronavirus and he was going to shut it off from the outside world to keep the virus out.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard Editing by Robert Birsel)
Resident doctors, faculty members



and other staff at the government-run Sassoon General Hospital here are sporting black ribbons on arms to protest the transfer of its Dean, Dr Ajay Chandanwale.

Dr Chandanwale was transferred on Thursday by the state government.

The coronavirus death count in Pune district, the second-worst affected by the pandemic after Mumbai in Maharashtra, has gone up to48, of which over 40 patients died at Sassoon.

"Since Friday we are working with a black ribbon on our arms to protest the transfer. We have given a memorandum to the state government, asking it to revoke the decision," said Dr Prashant Munde, secretary of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD).

On Friday, representatives of MARD, nurses and Class III and IV employees assembled in the main building of the hospital and staged a protest.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Coronation Street star Beverley Callard has revealed that soap bosses are 'panicking' about running out of episodes during COVID-19 lockdown.

The ITV soap halted production last month just hours before Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the country in lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic.

And the actress, 63, who plays Liz McDonald, says the soap's producers and writers are fearful that their reserved set of episodes could be used up before restrictions are lifted.

'Panic': Coronation Street star Beverley Callard has revealed that soap bosses are 'panicking' about running out of episodes during COVID-19 lockdown

Beverley and her co-star Jennie McAlpine who pays Fiz Brown opened up about the problem during an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live.

Jennie, 36, said on the programme: 'I keep putting it on at half eight, but then I think, "Oh no, Corrie's not on".

'Theyve limited our Corrie output now, so theres only three on instead of six.'

She added: 'I know people might be missing those three episodes but at least it means we've got a bit more time.

'I know our bosses are working really hard every day assessing the situation.'

Beverley then gave her own opinion, chiming in: 'And theyre panicking like mad aren't they? But, of course, you can't not.'

Suspended: The ITV soap halted production last month hours before Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the country in lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic

Episode drama: Beverley and her co-star Jennie McAlpine who pays Fiz Brown opened up about the problem during an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live

Thoughts: 'I know people might be missing those three episodes but at least it means we've got a bit more time. 'I know our bosses are working really hard every day assessing the situation'

She continued: 'Even if it does come to an end and we run out of episodes, the writers will be going mad, they'll be excited to create new storylines and everything.

'Because we've got a massive team of writers, so theyll keep it going.'

MailOnline have contacted representatives of Coronation Street for comment.

Amid the suspension of filming, Coronation Street, as well as Emmerdale, have been cut down to just three episodes a week, airing just one episode on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Worried: Beverley then gave her own opinion, chiming in: 'And theyre panicking like mad aren't they? But, of course, you can't not'

Filming for Coronation Street was halted last month just hours before the government placed the UK in lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, with an end date to restrictions yet to be confirmed.

It comes after their fellow Corrie star Andy Whyment warned the soap could go 'off air' unless filming recommences by June.

The actor, who plays Kirk Sutherland, admitted the soap potentially has until the beginning of July until they run out of episodes to broadcast.

Off air? It comes after their fellow Corrie star Andy Whyment warned the soap could go 'off air' unless filming recommences by June

Speaking on the United Podcast, the actor said: 'I think we've got until the beginning of July in the can.

'So we need to get back hopefully by the middle of June with a bit of luck, otherwise it's going to go off air.

'We've cut down from six episodes a week to three episodes a week, obviously to stay, but hopefully we'll get back.'

No more scenes? The actor, who plays Kirk Sutherland, has admitted the soap potentially has until the beginning of July until they run out of episodes to broadcast

He continued: 'A lot of the airlines have announced they're going to start flying again mid-June, so I'm presuming if that's going to happen then hopefully we should be able to get back to work with a bit of luck, so fingers crossed.'

A Coronation Street representative told MailOnline: 'We have always stated that with the new scheduling pattern we have enough episodes to keep the show on air into the summer. It is too early speculate beyond that.'

Coronation Street continues Monday at 7:30pm on ITV.
Arrested Top Ukrainian Security Officer 'Planned Interior Minister's Assassination'

April 17, 2020

A top security official in Ukraine who was arrested for alleged collaboration with Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) is suspected in plotting the assassination of Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.

Avakov's deputy, Anton Herashchenko, said in a televised interview late on April 16 that Major General Valeriy Shaytanov of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is suspected in planning to murder Avakov and Adam Osmayev, the leader of Chechen volunteers who fought alongside Ukrainian soldiers against Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine's east.

Earlier in the day, the SBU said it detained an unidentified former officer also suspected of collaborating with the FSB along with Shaytanov.

Shaytanov was detained on April 14 on suspicion of high treason and terrorism.

A day later, the FSB announced that it detained a Russian servicewoman and a Ukrainian national in the annexed Crimea region for alleged espionage for Ukraine.

Ukrainian-Russian relations have been strained since 2014, when Russia seized Crimea after sending in troops and staging a referendum deemed illegitimate by at least 100 countries.

In April that year, Russia threw its support behind armed separatists in Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where some 13,200 people have been killed in the ongoing conflict.

Based on reporting by Ukrayina 24, Ukrayinska Pravda, and UNIAN

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/arrested-ukrainian- top-security-officer-planned-interior- minister-s-assassination-/30560940.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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In contrast with other genres in literature, in crime fiction, which mainly started in the mid-19th century, women writers (and even women sleuths) became active around the same time as male writers and sleuths in their stories.

By some accounts around the middle of 1860s, both the first modern detective novels (by female as well as male writers in US, UK and France) and the first professional female detectives in them (one Mrs G  in one case, Mrs Paschal in another, both working for the British police) appeared. Most of us, of course, are more familiar with characters in the ...
Woolworths has announced they are expecting an influx of pasta and hand sanitiser to hit the shelves this week.

CEO Brad Banducci announced there would be 1.5 million units of hand sanitiser and 500,000 packets of pasta in stores across the country this week.

'These are big quantities but with demand still high, supply will remain patchy in parts,' he said.

He also gave an update on the supply of toilet paper.

Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci announced there would be 1.5 million units of hand sanitiser and 500,000 packets of pasta in stores across the country this week. Shelves were stripped bare across the nation as people stocked up in fear of a coronavirus lockdown

He said supply isn't returned to normal but there is a drop in how much people are buying

'Supply isnt back to normal yet, but it continues to improve as demand tapers, with only 11.5 million rolls sold this week,' he said.

The week before stores sold 15 million rolls of toilet paper and 20 million the week before that.

Mr Banducci's update comes as Woolworths lifts restrictions on two serves of canned vegetables and legumes, canned tomatoes, serviettes and most baby products, however wipes are still excluded.

'With shopping habits beginning to return to more regular levels and product availability getting better and better every day, limits were lifted on the products yesterday,' a spokesman told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday.

Mr Banducci was forced to introduce buying limits on basically every in-store item on March 18 as hysteria surrounding COVID-19 encouraged people to buy up certain products in bulk.

But he said last week spending habits finally appeared to be stabilising.

Last week stores sold 15 million rolls of toilet paper and 20 million the week before that

Stores were forced to introduce customer limits and buying limits to keep shelves stocked - but some restrictions have now been lifted

Pictured: One man took extra precautions before shopping in Woolworths amid the coronavirus pandemic by wearing full protective gear

Supermarkets throughout the nation have been scrambling to increase supply from manufacturers to keep up with the demand.

And while Woolworths is starting to get on top of the frenzy, Mr Banducci discouraged people from using it as an opportunity to begin stockpiling again.

'Like every week so far, I'd still ask you to only buy what you need,' he said.

Buying limits remain in place for flour, dried pasta, rice, pasta sauce and toilet paper for the foreseeable future.

On April 3, Coles lifted restrictions on all meat products and fresh milk.

People are seen queued up outside a Woolworths in Melbourne before it even opened hoping to get their hands on supplies

A man wears a face mask at a checkout in a Woolworths supermarket in Coburg, Melbourne to slow the spread of COVID-19

People are seen queued up outside an Aldi store before it even opened hoping to get their hands on supplies

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

Coles Meat General Manager Charlotte Gilbert said the supermarket had worked with farmers to double meat supplies in the two weeks prior to lifting restrictions as Australians continue to stock up at unprecedented rates.

'We have seen demand for meat increase astronomically as customers need to cook at home more often, with over 5 million packs sold over the past four weeks,' Ms Gilbert said.

The Australian government has indicated it will look at slowly loosening restrictive social distancing measures in some parts of the nation if the curve continues to flatten.

But the government wants a sustained period of low transmission and has made clear the hard border closures will remain in place for the foreseeable future.
When Alicia Taylor was laid off the week of March 20, she was concerned claiming employment insurance would eat into the maternity leave she was planning to take in May.

My biggest concern (was) am I losing my maternity leave because I was laid off because of this pandemic? she said.

However, on March 25, the Canadian Emergency Relief Benefit was announced, and Taylor is now receiving CERB as she waits to apply for maternity leave.

This worked out well for Taylor because she was laid off after March 15. If Taylor had been laid off just a week earlier and claimed EI, she would be getting that benefit instead of CERB and her concerns would be justified.

Receiving CERB does not affect entitlement to maternity and parental benefits, but EI does, said a spokesperson for Employment and Social Development Canada in an email.

Employment experts say navigating this new mix of worker benefit programs could leave some pregnant parents to fall through the cracks.

Lara Speirs, executive vice-president at human resources consulting firm Randstad Canada, and Toronto employment lawyer Madeleine Loewenberg are just two experts who hope the government can iron out the details so that expecting Canadians on EI or CERB dont have to worry about getting their full maternity and parental benefits when the time comes.

They have identified two ways in which the pandemic could be throwing a wrench in maternity and parental leave plans.

The first problem, says Speirs, is the one Taylor narrowly avoided.

EI, maternity and parental benefits are all administered through the same program. A person is entitled to a total of 50 weeks, regardless of the combination  meaning for every week of EI they take, theyll get one less week of maternity or parental leave.

When a person combines regular benefits, maternity benefits and standard parental benefits in one claim, there is a limit of 50 weeks in total, confirmed the government spokesperson.

The spokesperson also noted that there are options for extended parental benefits. However, Loewenberg pointed out that while you can extend parental leave to get up to 18 months off, you wont get any more money  youll just get less per week.

Regular maternity or parental leave is calculated like EI  55 per cent of insurable earnings, up to $573 per week, said Loewenberg. If you extend that leave, which is possible for up to six extra months, youll get 33 per cent of insurable earnings, up to $344 per week.

So, if someone lost their job because of the pandemic, applied for EI before March 15, and then later applies for maternity leave, they will be eligible for fewer weeks of maternity/parental leave, and less money even if they extend their leave.

Speirs thinks this gap could be fixed by either removing the arbitrary March 15 date, or by allowing parents-to-be already on EI to switch over to CERB.

Youre effectively penalized for being pregnant and for the timing of your layoff, she said.

Loewenberg understands the government had to set a deadline, but she thinks expecting Canadians in this position shouldnt lose their benefits because of it.

The second issue, said Speirs, is the fact that depending on an individuals previous employment situation and when they got laid off, they might lose their eligibility for maternity or parental leave.

You need to accumulate 600 insured hours of work in the 52 weeks before you start your maternity or paternity claim, she said.

So, while someone may have CERB to tide them over after losing their income, they might find themselves ineligible for maternity or parental leave when they apply.

The longer someone is on CERB and the fewer hours they worked in 2019, the more likely this will affect their maternity claim, Loewenberg said.

The weeks of insurable earnings start to fall away the longer you wait from the loss of your employment to the date of your application, she said, adding that she sees this as a hole that has yet to be filled by the government.

There are a few other things expecting Canadians should know if they plan to go on maternity/parental leave, or are just coming off of it, said Speirs and Loewenberg.

Canadians have the option of applying for maternity leave early, within 12 weeks of the expected birth date.

If you were temporarily laid off at first, and then find yourself permanently laid off during your maternity or parental leave, you are entitled to severance by the end of your leave, said Speirs.

And, if you just got off of maternity or parental leave and are now out of work because of COVID-19, youre eligible for CERB, she said.

Speirs noted that in Quebec  a leader when it comes to parental leave  a parent can pause the maternity or parental leave to go back to work for a brief period of time.

Both Loewenberg and Speirs recommend those waiting for maternity leave should take CERB in the meantime, even though there are a few unanswered questions.
New Delhi, April 18 : Twenty-six naval sailors have tested coronavirus positive in Mumbai and are now placed in isolation, according to the Navy on Saturday. They belong to INS Angre, a shore establishment.

There has been no case of Covid-19 onboard any ship, submarine or air station of the Navy. "Our naval assets continue to be mission-deployed in three dimensions, with all the networks and space assets functioning optimally," the Navy said in a statement.

The Covid-19 cases have been detected through aggressive screening, testing and meticulous contact tracing by Western Naval Command after a sailor tested positive on April 7.

"All these sailors continue to remain asymptomatic and are being monitored at INS Asvini, under the care of the best medical professionals, " the force said.

Since the sailor tested Covid-19 positive, the Unit's entire premises have been sealed, containment zones and buffer areas designated and frequent "disinfection continues to be carried out as per protocol to contain spread of transmission", it said.

All other areas within naval premises are under strict lockdown and stringent quarantine and safety protocols are being enforced for personnel and their families. All missions for coastal and offshore security continue as before, it added.

Several quarantine facilities have been set up at naval premises in Mumbai, Goa, Kochi and Visakhapatnam. Naval aircraft have undertaken many missions, flying supplies and personnel aiding state governments.

"Our assets continue to remain on patrol covering a vast oceanic swath from the Straits of Malacca in the East to Bab-el-Mandeb in the West, including undertaking operation Sankalp to provide reassurance and protection to our merchant vessels and Anti-piracy patrols in Gulf of Aden," the force said.

On April 10, Indian Navy chief Admiral Karambir Singh had said the force would have to redouble the efforts in fight against coronavirus. "We are really the last bastion in the national effort against the pandemic," Admiral Singh said addressing his men.

For the Navy, Admiral Singh said they had taken certain measures in consonance with the government, including stoppage of recruitment and training, freeze on movements and transfers, stoppage of work, except those related to national security, health and essential services.

While this is the first reported case of Covid-19 in the Navy, the Army has reported eight cases.

"We have only eight positive cases in the Army. Of the eight, two are doctors and one nursing assistant. Four are responding well to the treatment," Army Chief General M.M. Naravane said on Friday.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
(Corrects zinc balance graphic, no changes to text)

* Graphic: https://reut.rs/2xC6XCf

* Zinc treatment charges fall, pressuring smelters

* Low prices could cause more supply cuts

By Zandi Shabalala

LONDON, April 17 (Reuters) - Collapsing demand for zinc caused by the novel coronavirus will swamp supply cuts from major producers Peru and India this year and leave the market with a massive surplus that will weigh on prices of the material used to galvanise steel.

The coronavirus, which has infected nearly 2 million people globally, has roiled global markets and hit demand from zinc-intensive industries such as construction and transport.

This has pushed benchmark zinc prices down about 18% this year to around $1,920 per tonne.

"With zinc you have a big demand problem and unless you see far more cuts in supply we are still expecting a healthy surplus this year," said Colin Hamilton, analyst at BMO Capital Markets.

Hamilton said zinc was currently at levels that would likely force more supply out of the market.

BMO estimates global zinc demand will fall by about 6% this year compared to a roughly flat year in 2019. This assumes a recovery in the global economy in the second half of the year, Hamilton said.

It forecasts a 335,000-tonne surplus in the 14-million-tonne zinc market this year, up from a previous estimate of 150,000 tonnes. The new forecast is in line with expectations in a Reuters poll.

Governments around the world have imposed lockdowns and closed non-essential businesses such as mining to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Peru and Mexico, which together account for 16% of global zinc mine supply, have seen mines including BHP and Teck Resource's Antamina and Newmont-Goldcorp's Penasquito mines temporarily close.

Nexa Resources also shuttered three zinc mines in Peru, while Sumitomo's San Cristobal in Bolivia is closed.

Hindustan Zinc's operations in India, which produces about a million tonnes a year, are ramping up operations after shuttering for a few weeks, a company spokesman said.

Story continues

Tighter mine supply has pushed spot treatment charges, which are paid by miners to smelters to turn ore into metal, in China to a one-year low of $255 a tonne from levels near $300 a tonne earlier this year <AM-TC50-ZNCON>.

A shortage of concentrates from local Chinese mines is also putting pressure on smelter margins, raising the chances of output cuts, said CRU senior base metals analyst Paul Wiggers De Vries.

Tumbling zinc prices have put miners' margins under pressure.

Citi estimates that about 25% of zinc miners are loss-making at current prices and expect about 800,000 tonnes is at risk of closure from the second half of this year.

"At these levels, either you are going to see a big player make proactive cuts to supply because of margins or you are going to see smaller miners forced out," said Citi analyst Oliver Nugent.

On-exchange inventories point to a well-supplied market, with stocks in China surging in middle of March to over 169,000 tonnes before easing to about 158,000 tonnes last week.

"So far, hopes for zinc are pinned on infrastructure investment, but demand growth will still be outpaced by supply this year, leading to a market in surplus," said ING analyst Wenyu Yao.

(Reporting by Zandi Shabalala; editing by Pratima Desai and Kirsten Donovan)
Parents and students have tried to defend the University of Texas, Austin, students from angry backlashes they have received do to their spring break trip to Cabo San Lucas where 53 people were infected with coronavirus. Supporters have threatened to call cops on anyone with an angry message to wards the students on social media.

There was a total of 211 students (all in their 20s) who traveled to Cabo San Lucas from March 14 to 19 using both commercial and private flights and now the university's own West Campus outside of Austin has reported 53 members positive when returned to the United States.

The backlash moved swift as actor Matthew McConaughey records a video that urged students to quarantine saying "sorry you've got these responsibilities on you at this time." The Austin group was dubbed as the Cabo 211 and is currently the largest identified group of infected college students who ignored the social-distancing guidelines of Spring Break.

The University of Texas' response

The university had to cancel classes on March 31 and instruction resumed online right after Spring Break. By this time, the UT students went to Cabo and not only was the campus shut down, the City of Austin had then been declared a local state of emergency.

After two weeks from their trip, the west campus was then identified as a hotspot and received harsh criticism online. The UT professor Matthew McConaughey was then forced to intervene with a video posted on April 2, just after the students started testing positive.

The criticism was circulating Kappa Alpha Theta sorority members who were among those who traveled. The members were easily identified by posting on social media with the hashtag #springbreak. The sorority's social media accounts have then been switched to private due to the many comments.

Read Also: [VIDEO] Three Armed Robbers Try to Break Into Home But End Up Being Shot Five Times: One Suspect Injured and Sent to Hospital

The shocking reaction

"EAT THE RICH" was spray painted along one of the walls of the Texas Kappa Alpha Theta sorority house. pic.twitter.com/2ViTTSs2H1 April 14, 2020

A certain tweet has even shown "eat the rich" was sprayed right outside the wall of the Texas Kappa Alpha Theta Sorority house. The conflict escalated as the spring breakers answering back and a parent even threatening to use legal action against those bashers.

According to Jonathan Valdez, 18, in an interview with Vice, he received a direct message after his tweet "2020 sucked A-S-S, then Texas Theta and their selfish members decided to exist," that stated "We have contacted the Austin police and our attorney!!! These Theta girls DID NOT CHARTER A PLANE!!! Our daughter has been in quarantine for 13 days now."

Read Also: [VIDEO] Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Spotted Distributing Facemasks and Sanitizers in LA While Walking Ther Two Dogs Despite Pandemic

The very same woman the contacted other UT students in defense of the Texas Theta girls. She has now made her own profile private but the students have been reporting that the woman actually had pictures with the students whose post he commented on.

According to officials from UT, 83 students have tested positive or have been presumed positive for COVID-19. Eight employees have also tested positive for the disease.
Taking umbrage at the stopping of Punjab-based Sikh pilgrims in Indore, Akal Takht acting jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh on Saturday asked the Centre and the Punjab government to ensure their return.

The pilgrims had been stranded at Takht Hazur Sahib, Nanded, in Maharashtra for at least a month amid the lockdown and were trying to return home by road.

I have learnt that 90 pilgrims returning from Takht Sri Hazur Sahib have been stopped on the outskirts of Indore in Madhya Pradesh. They are stranded there and in trouble. Since the administration has made no arrangements for them, the pilgrims are struggling with hunger and facing a tough time, Giani Harpreet Singh said in a statement here.

He said the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada and Malaysia had taken back their citizens from India through special flights. So, its the moral responsibility of the Indian government to ensure that people stuck at different places due to the countrywide lockdown, returned to their homes on priority, said the head of the highest temporal seat of the Sikhs.

WANTS PASSES FOR THE STRANDED

He demanded that the Centre and the Punjab government issue passes to the sangat stuck in Indore and that concrete steps should be taken to bring back thousands of pilgrims stranded at Nanded.

Nearly 2,500 pilgrims, mostly from Punjab, are stranded at Takht Hazoor Sahib, one of the five Sikh temporal seats.

A few days ago, some pilgrims had attempted to return to Punjab by road, but the Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan governments did not let them enter their states.

The shrines management board also raised their plight but in vain.

SGPC CHIEF WRITES TO AMIT SHAH

Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) president Gobind Singh Longowal on Saturday wrote a letter to Union home minister Amit Shah requesting him to ensure homecoming of the pilgrims stranded at Nanded. He said the letter has also been marked to Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh and his Maharashtra counterpart Uddhav Thackeray. He said the SGPC is ready to cooperate the government in this matter and send its vehicles to ferry them.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Full overnight service on the Staten Island Ferry could be restored before the summer of 2021 if the boroughs elected officials get their way.

Earlier this week, Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled his Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) budget proposal, including a reduction in overnight service on the Staten Island Ferry that would save the city $5.5 million and could potentially last until July 1, 2021.

What we found, of course, was a massive drop in ridership in the midst of this crisis. I mean, its truly massive and they were running boats with very few people on them. So, were trying to just create a consistent schedule that will be the one people can depend on going forward, de Blasio said.

However, while noncommittal, the mayor did not shut the door on the possibility of restoring full overnight service before the end of FY21.

I dont think we can yet say through 2021 at all on anything. My hope is that, you know, were able to do something better before 2021. If we can handle this disease properly and only restart when were ready, you know, its conceivable for sure to start bringing some things back to normal piece by piece carefully, he said.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) -- responsible for operating the Staten Island Ferry -- has said it will monitor ridership levels in the coming months and review the possibility of restoring full overnight service before the end of FY21, but could not commit to early service restoration at this time.

With ridership down 85-90% we expected it to take a while to get back to normal rates. We will continue to post updates while ridership remains at these low levels and we remain committed to transparency, a DOT spokesperson said last week, when the proposed reductions were first reported.

The cuts could impact thousands of riders a day once New York City has been reopened and residents start returning to work.

In 2019, the Staten Island Ferry provided overnight service to 1,551,177 riders, approximately 4,250 per day, according to city data.

Staten Islands elected officials have acknowledged the current need for the reductions, given the dwindling ridership and lack of crew availability, but have repeatedly stated that full service must be restored in short order.

I dont want to see long term cuts, but were facing a critical lack of riders and healthy licensed crew members. Its just the plain truth, said Councilman Joseph Borelli (R-South Shore).

Ferry reductions are tied to massive ridership drops and the DOTs ability to staff. Understandable. But the moment Stay Home is lifted and ridership increases is the time Ferry service reductions must be rescinded," said Borough President James Oddo.

Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore) noted the importance of overnight service for off-peak workers, assuring residents that the Staten Island delegation is working hard to restore service as soon as possible.

Overnight service is a crucial connection for many workers who dont adhere to the traditional 9-to-5 schedule. This cut will be a significant inconvenience for Staten Islanders, and my colleagues and I have been fighting and will continue to fight to ensure this is reversed as soon as possible. Frequent service is a necessity, not an amenity, Rose said.

Councilman Steven Matteo (R-Mid-Island) referenced reported issues of overcrowding once the city reduced service to hourly intervals last month, stating that local lawmakers will work tirelessly to ensure full service is restored upon reopening the city.

I understand the reasoning behind reducing ferry service, but as a consequence, riders were not able to properly practice social distancing and my colleagues and I had to ask the city for additional boats. Once the city reopens, however, I expect full service on the Staten Island Ferry to resume," Matteo said.

I believe the city does not have the legal authority to make these service reductions on the ferry permanent, and my colleagues and I will vigorously oppose any service changes that do not adhere to the letter of the law. Staten Islanders absolutely deserve this modicum of transportation equity, he continued.

CONCERNS ABOUT HOURLY SERVICE REDUCTION

Restoring and maintaining around-the-clock half-hour service on the Staten Island Ferry has been a priority of Borough President Oddo, who authored the bill mandating 24/7, half-hour service back in 2013.

Earlier this month, Oddo told the Advance he is deeply concerned about the mayors ability to unilaterally override the legislation, as he has done by reducing service to an hourly basis during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Its a secondary issue for now, in the midst of a pandemic, but its an important issue for Staten Island because the precedent is one that Im concerned about -- the notion of invoking emergency provisions to undo a local law, Oddo said.

In late March, de Blasio announced that the Staten Island Ferry would be shifting to hourly service due to declining ridership and lack of staffing during the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

The news troubled Oddo, who voiced concerns regarding unilateral executive action being used to undercut legally-mandated service for Staten Islanders.

"I get it,'' Oddo said. "I understand were in a war. I understand were in a pandemic. I understand it makes no sense to have that level of service when ridership is decreasing. But I worry about, and I think Staten Island always has to worry about, allowing unilateral action by an executive.

A representative from the mayors office told the Advance/SILive.com that the mayor is legally permitted to induce service reductions in the event of an emergency and that the office is working with Oddo to ensure the safety of Staten Island commuters.

The law very clearly gives us the power to change the schedule during an emergency,'' said mayoral spokeswoman Olivia Lapeyrolerie. "We will continue to work with the borough president to determine the best ways to protect Staten Islanders health and safety.

DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said her agency understands how important it is for half-hourly service to be restored once the pandemic has passed.

We know what a priority it is, Trottenberg said. We recognize we have a legal obligation once this emergency is over to pick back up to regular operations. For now, we just have to get through this crisis, but were certainly aware of what an important priority it is for the borough president."

Staten Island Ferry riders struggling to maintain social distancing during the unboarding process. (Staten Island Advance/Jason Paderon)

SAFETY ISSUES

Despite repeated reminders from the DOT, Staten Island Ferry riders are still struggling to maintain a safe social distance during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Since service shifted to hourly, there has been some concern among commuters that the remaining boats are more densely crowded, making it difficult to practice social distancing, particularly during the boarding and unboarding process.

Late last month, Oddo issued three requests to the DOT to improve safety on the Staten Island Ferry amid the service reductions, including calls for a redesigned boarding process that could alleviate such issues.

The biggest challenge in terms of social distancing is the boarding process and, frankly, were not particularly thrilled that there hasnt been a better process put in place, but its limited, Oddo said. We asked about the ability to open and have boarding on more ramps, but didnt get an answer that was satisfactory."

The department said there is little that can be done to physically change the boarding process, but announcements are being made regularly and NYPD presence has been increased, both on boats and within the terminals, to enforce social distancing.

Were making announcements in the terminals, were probably going to have someone out there with a bullhorn tomorrow, said Capt. Jim DeSimone, chief operations officer of the Staten Island Ferry. We have the NYPD helping us and theyre making announcements on the ferry.

With the department running various announcements and NYPD enforcement in place, DeSimone placed some responsibility on the ferry riders themselves to be more conscious of social distancing.

Having said that, I saw pictures yesterday when that hospital ship pulled in to Manhattan and there were crowds of people as if it was some kind of tourist event. You know, theres a point in time where we can only do so much, DeSimone continued, imploring riders to do their part in maintaining social distance.
World coronavirus deaths surged past 150,000 Friday as US President Donald Trump accused China of continuing to cover up its toll, even after Beijing revised figures sharply upward for Wuhan, the original epicenter of the global pandemic. COVID-19 fatalities mounted in the United States and hard-hit Western Europe countries, but fresh data on rising infections and deaths in Africa showed the virus is leaving no continent uscathed in its global march. More than half of humanity -- 4.5 billion people -- were confined to their homes, with evidence mounting of social distancing's success in slowing the pandemic. But widespread nervousness remained over when and how to ease confinement measures to revive the world economy, battered by what the International Monetary Fund has dubbed the "Great Lockdown." - 2.2 million cases worldwide - More than 2.2 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported in 193 countries and territories, according to figures collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO). The figures probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections however, because many countries are testing only the most serious cases. For example, a new Stanford University study testing Silicon Valley residents for viral antibodies suggested that the true number of COVID-19 infections was at least 50 times higher than the official figure. The daily number of confirmed deaths across the globe remained high at over 8,800. Out of more than 150,000 total deaths since the outbreak erupted, the United States has recorded 36,773, Italy 22,745, Spain 19,478 and France 18,681. Illustrating the increasing threat in countries less in focus, Africa reported its 1,000th death on Friday. China meanwhile raised its estimate of deaths to 4,636 on Friday. That came after it increased the official toll for the city of Wuhan by 1,290 -- a precise 50.0 percent -- to 3,869. Trump, who has been accused of reacting too slowly to the coronavirus threat, alleged that Beijing's numbers were still not accurate. "It is far higher than that and far higher than the U.S., not even close!" Trump tweeted. Trump did not offer evidence, but pressure has mounted in recent days on Beijing to come clean over its handling of the original outbreak. US media has reported suspicions that the virus came not from a Wuhan wet market as first claimed, but from a poorly managed nearby research facility studying bat-related diseases including coronaviruses. Leaders in France and Britain have also questioned China's management of the crisis, and French President Emmanuel Macron said it would be "naive" to think Beijing had handled the pandemic well. Beijing hit back earlier Friday, insisting there had been no cover-up. "There has never been any concealment, and we'll never allow any concealment," a foreign ministry spokesman said. - Life-and-death balance - Governments around the world are grappling with the question of when to reopen society, seeking a life-and-death balance between unfreezing stalled economies and preventing a second deadly coronavirus wave. Germany became the latest country to unveil plans to lift some restrictions, taking on the delicate task of reopening without triggering a new wave of infections. The government declared its outbreak "under control" and said select small shops will be allowed to reopen Monday and some children would return to school within weeks. Infection rates there "have sunk significantly," Health Minister Jens Spahn said Friday. Switzerland, Denmark and Finland were also gradually re-opening shops and schools, and even in hard-hit Italy, people began emerging from lockdown, with Venice residents strolling around quiet canals stripped of their usual throngs of tourists. But Japan, Britain and Mexico all expanded current restrictions. And in Russia, recorded infections topped 32,000 as President Vladimir Putin warned that "the risks surrounding the epidemic's spread are still very high, not just in Moscow but in many other Russian regions". In the United States, a more complex picture was emerging. Trump, whose reelection in November could hinge on how fast US life returns to normal, appeared to endorse protests against stay-at-home orders in several states -- although he has officially left it to governors to decide when to lift lockdowns. In Florida the governor, a close Trump ally, gave a green light to reopening some beaches and parks. But in New York state, with its namesake city the hardest hit in the world by the coronavirus, Governor Andrew Cuomo extended a shutdown order until May 15, as he accused Trump of not helping in efforts to expand testing. - Vulnerable economies - Signs of the economic damage of the pandemic also mounted. China reported Friday its GDP shrank 6.8 percent in the first quarter, the first contraction since quarterly growth data started in the early 1990s. Lockdown measures were starting to pinch some of the world's most vulnerable economies. Tobacco farmers in Zimbabwe fear a delayed start to the normally busy auction season, the lifeblood for thousands of growers in impoverished rural regions, due to lockdown measures. "This year our harvest hasn't been good at all," farmer Shaw Mutalepo told AFP, as workers in face masks crunched cured leaves into large bales. In Washington, the Trump administration announced another $19 billion in relief for farmers, who have been hit by a massive shift in food consumption with schools and restaurants shuttered across the country. "Having to dump milk and plow under vegetables ready to market is not only financially distressing, but it's heartbreaking as well to those who produce them," Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said. Some $3 billion will be used to buy up surplus dairy products and produce that farmers have been destroying, unable to get it to consumers or food processors. Meanwhile the IMF and World Bank said that Africa needs another $44 billion to fight the pandemic, even after a freeze in debt payments for many countries and massive support pledges. The IMF also warned the virus could spark another "lost decade" in Latin America, with debt moratoriums said not to be enough support.
With growing income inequality and wealth disparities it is critical, now more than ever, for the government to get resources to the communities that need them most. As state treasurer and a member of Congress, we are sounding the alarm on the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) and the federal governments small business response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has provided essential relief to many, but has altered the landscape for the worse of what our small business landscape looks like for the next generation.

Despite longstanding challenges, the face of American business ownership has changed. Where we once saw a lack of diversity, new small business start-ups from women, minority, and native-owned entrepreneurs outpace all other demographics in the last few years. What were hearing is borne out by the facts. American Expresss 2019 State of Women Owned Business reports that women owned business startups have increased at twice the rate of all new businesses. And half of those women owned businesses are also minority owned. Here in Connecticut, weve spent years building these small business ecosystems because they employ those in our communities and provide important services.

PPP is essential to the survival of small businesses and to ensuring our local economies can recover quickly from this crisis, but only if funds go to the people who truly need them and not just to the well-connected. We fear that many minority and women owned businesses will end up shut out of the Small Business Administrations PPP. We are hearing time and time again of underserved communities lacking access to these lending programs - partially because they didnt have access before this crisis.

The original intent of the PPP was to quickly put funds in the hands of small business owners to keep employees on the payroll, but, just last week, Ruths Chris Steak House and its 5,000 employees announced that they had received $20M from the program. How is it possible that Ruths Chris can receive these funds but a mom-and-pop restaurant on Main Street would be left to struggle?

Our small businesses in this country and in Connecticut face a disparity in how they are banked and treated daily. Many minority and women owned small businesses have never worked closely with an SBA bank lender and dont have traditional access to capital. Without proper protections, first-time borrowers are at the back of the line and shut out of PPP funds.

Now with the initial allocation of PPP funds exhausted, negotiations are underway to assist these under-resourced and unbanked communities in the next round. Connecticut leaders on the state and federal level must stand up now and demand fairness and smart economic policy.

In Congress, we must have a more focused program to get capital into the hands of community banks, non-bank lenders, and smaller institutions focused on lending to underserved communities. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are right to call for leveling the playing field for women and minority owned businesses.

Here in Connecticut we must ensure our state programs provide equal access to underserved communities. We must ensure that our banks bring access to capital to Main Street. Were going to work directly with consumer banks to encourage the opening of more branches in underserved communities so we can begin to build vital relationships on the front lines.

The Paycheck Protection Program is leaving too many businesses behind in its current form. Putting more money into the program without essential reforms is not the most effective use of taxpayer dollars. Small business owners in this state and country face an inequality that has been exacerbated by this pandemic. Together, we need to do everything we can to make sure we dont lose these businesses, the backbone of our communities. We have a unique second chance here to make things right. Lets not squander the opportunity.

Jim Himes of Greenwich represents Connecticuts Fourth District in the U.S. House of Representatives and Shawn Wooden is Connecticuts state treasurer.
There is one stabilizing force for agriculture amid the uncertainties as the effects of pandemic management ripple through the food chain like an electrical shock to everything it touches.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 18/4/2020 (633 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

There is one stabilizing force for agriculture amid the uncertainties as the effects of pandemic management ripple through the food chain like an electrical shock to everything it touches.

The recently released Farm Credit Canada report on land values, based on 2019 transactions, shows the value of farmland in Canada continues to rise, albeit at a slower pace than in the past.

What the corporation characterizes as "modest" growth of 5.2 per cent nationally  higher in some provinces, lower in others would make most investors ecstatic in todays climate.

Granted, these are historical numbers. FCCs chief economist JP Gervais says its possible theyll decline, but adds there is no indication, even with the COVID-19 crisis, that they will.

Land values have continued to appreciate for 27 years in Manitoba, and at a pace that is out of step with farm incomes since about 2015. Its evidence that besides its productive value, land is increasingly seen as a secure investment.

For farmers, this is a double-edged sword. They dont capture the value of that asset appreciation until they sell it, so for many its their retirement plan.

In the meantime, it is a stabilizing force in the farm economy.

The cost of growing a crop is such that few can do it these days without borrowing money every year to operate. Land ownership is the foundation of their equity position with their creditor and inherently tied to their liquidity.

So even though farm incomes have suffered in recent years, most recently due to last autumns harvest from hell on top of trade disruptions that affect export sales, farmers are more able to access the credit they need to plant a crop because of equity in their land.

However, acquiring farmland has never been more expensive for young or beginning farmers; even renting land is becoming cost-prohibitive based on its ability to generate revenue. This is a problem for an industry on the cusp of perhaps the largest intergenerational transfer in Canadian history as the average age of farmers moves closer to senior citizen with each census.

It also creates an issue of optics as farmers reach out, as they did this week, with an appeal to governments and Canadians in general for additional support through the COVID-19 crisis.

Make no mistake. The issues raised by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and other farm organizations, including Manitobas Keystone Agricultural Producers, are real concerns.

As noted in an earlier column, Canadians have for the first time since the last world war experienced limited supplies of foods they would normally take for granted. Most of these shortages are related to pinch points in the supply chain caused by sudden shifts in demand and processors that have run into issues with the virus affecting their workforce.

In the livestock sector, this creates a scenario in which farmers may have to dispose of livestock ready for market because there is no place to send it. At the very least, it means producers have to keep animals on feed for longer.

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There are no reports of this happening yet in Canada, but poultry operations in the U.S. have had to euthanize healthy birds.

Farmers who produce fruit and vegetables, both domestically and elsewhere, are having a hard time getting the workers they need to grow these labour-intensive crops.

Although there are major logistical hurdles to overcome, it would be a fantastic life-altering experience for Canadian university students to have a summer job in the fresh air and sunshine that connects them in a very tangible way to their food supply.

But as real as these issues are for farmers, as they are for all of Canada trying to ensure its food supply is secure, the industry needs to be sensitive to the realities facing households across the nation.

With more than one million Canadians out of work, families at risk of losing their homes, and retirement savings slashed by the pandemic fallout, farmers must tread lightly and carefully in presenting their case for more aid.

Laura Rance is vice-president of content for Glacier FarmMedia. She can be reached at lrance@farmmedia.com
Breaking with Gov. Phil Murphy, Jersey City Superintendent Franklin Walker says schools should remain closed for the rest of the school year

Murphy announced Thursday that schools would stay closed until May 15, at which point the state would reassess whether they could reopen if the coronavirus pandemic abates.

Murphy said the mid-May date gives the state at least one more shot to reassess whether schools can open their doors again.

But Walker said Friday he doesnt think schools will be ready to reopen at that point, as many decisions have yet to be made about transitioning back to a traditional learning environment.

A lot of the decisions have not been made, especially when it comes to transitioning large crowds back in an environment like that, especially in terms of schools, Walker said. Are we going to require students wear masks when they come back?

Whats the circumstances? Do we reduce class size? Are we still going to be involved with physical distancing?

Walker noted that its been a difficult year for the states second largest school district. The citys children were left shaken by the deadly shooting at a kosher market in December, which sent schools into a terrifying lockdown that lasted hours.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought a new challenge to the community. As of Thursday, Jersey City had nearly a third of Hudson Countys COVID-19 cases (3,194) and 231 deaths.

Murphy initially ordered all schools in the state, including pre-K and colleges, to close by March 18 for at least two weeks. He later extended the school closures to April 17, saying he would not reopen schools until medical experts tell him its safe.

Walker, who thinks Murphy will ultimately close schools for the year, isnt alone in his disagreement with the governor over not taking that step now.

Jersey City spokeswoman Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione said Mayor Steve Fulop agrees with Walker. She said the city believes it makes little sense to reopen schools only to close them a month later for the summer.

At this point, the state would be better served by providing more resources for teachers, parents, and students to learn from home for the duration of the school year, Wallace-Scalcione said. Closing for the duration of the year is not only the best option at this point in time for learning, but it's also the safest option for students and teachers. 

Weehawken Superintendent Eric Crespo said he understands Walkers reasoning, as there are many variables to consider, but he also understands Murphys hesitance to close schools for the year.

We understand that this is something that is unprecedented that has never happened, so to not want to go to far or just do incrementally, I understand it is a tough position he is in right now, Crespo said of Murphy. I dont think theres a short term solution to the virus ... We are hoping for the best but we know the realities and are planning for the worst.

Jersey City Education Association President Ron Greco said his instinct is to trust Walker because while Murphy is deciding what is best for the state, Walker can better assess the needs for the district.

Board of Education trustees Mussab Ali and Alexander Hamilton both said they agree with their superintendent. Ali said he doesnt understand what is keeping Murphy from making the decision to close schools as it leaves parents in limbo.

To me obviously, its all about safety first. I dont even know if a few weeks is long enough to see what we need to see to open schools, Hamilton added.
Supermarket shelves might be empty, but there are other places too buy loo paper. (Images: Getty)

In every country around the world, the same curious phenomenon occurred when the coronavirus arrived.

Shoppers pillaged supermarket shelves of toilet paper, even though COVID-19 is a disease of the respiratory system  not the digestive.

Australia was no different, with chaos at the toilet tissue aisles in all the supermarkets in March as panic buying set in.

In response, production went into overdrive  but even after seven weeks of madness the retail appetite for the everyday commodity has not waned.

"Supply isnt back to normal yet, but it continues to improve as demand tapers, with only 11.5 million rolls sold this week (versus 15m last week and 20m the week before) and lots more coming," said Woolworths chief Brad Banducci on Friday.

So if you're running low, what do you do?

Here are five alternative places where you might be able to find the white stuff:

1. Officeworks

As Yahoo News reported back in March, stationery giant Officeworks sells a wide variety of loo paper. A quick search though the online store on Saturday suggested plenty were still available.

The retailer also offers free delivery to metropolitan addresses for purchases over $55, so you don't even have to break lockdown to get that sweet action.

But one word of caution is that most of the rolls on offer are giant  300m to 650m typically. It's the sort of paper you see in office bathrooms that roll out of those big dispensers.

Better than nothing though.

Officeworks can directly deliver toilet paper to homes. (Image: Yahoo Finance screenshot)

2. Bunnings

The hardware chain sells similar sort of gear to Officeworks  massive rolls that are hundreds of metres long.

Unfortunately, Bunnings is currently not allowing online purchases of toilet paper. So you'll have to brave the crowds and infection  and risk seeing an empty shelf  to take up this channel.

3. Pubs and restaurants

The government's restrictions on gatherings mean pubs and restaurants are currently unable to ply their usual trade. The hospitality sector, as a result, has already seen a horrific number of temporary and permanent job cuts.

Story continues

But some enterprising businesses are trying to keep their heads above water by selling household supplies.

Some pubs, for example, are selling pantry items (like pasta), toilet paper and, of course, bottled wine and beer. They might be selling off the toilet paper they already had for their customer bathrooms, or they could be restocking from wholesalers.

Toilet rolls on sale at Fratelli Fresh's grocery delivery website. (Image: Yahoo Finance screenshot)

Some eateries are also doing the same. Italian restaurant chain Fratelli Fresh, for example, is now running a grocery delivery service, which includes toilet paper.

This isn't the cheapest way to get loo tissue though. For instance, Fratelli Fresh is selling 400-sheet two-ply rolls at an eye-watering $3 each.

But you'll be helping a local business in need.

4. Online bulk-buy merchants

Online merchants that bulk-sell items like cleaning supplies or nappies likely also offer toilet paper.

Queensland family business House of Nappies, for example, is selling huge boxes of 48 rolls of toilet paper. Two-ply 400-sheet rolls are on offer for $40 while single-ply 1000-sheet rolls are going for $57.

These are excellent prices and one purchase should keep you going for quite a while.

But before purchasing, please do your research on independent merchants to make sure they're not scams. A quick Google search for comments from past customers should shed some light.

Toilet paper on offer on the website of Queensland business House of Nappies. (Image: Yahoo Finance screenshot)

5. Amazon or eBay third-party sellers

This is the last resort. You are down to your last square and none of the other channels have worked.

Ecommerce platforms like eBay and Amazon both list plenty of third-party sellers offering loo paper. But it's a minefield to try not to overpay for an everyday commodity and make sure the seller is genuine.

This is where professional hoarders could be trying to make a buck off everyone's misfortunes.

If the merchant is based overseas, be especially careful. Toilet paper takes up a lot of volume in shipping for very little margin  economically it's not viable to air mail such products across international borders.

"It's likely that you will never receive your toilet paper," founder of e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse, Juozas Kaziukenas, told the LA Times.

"I would not bet on it. Or you will receive a product that is not what you are expecting  specifically a lower-quality product or a different product altogether."

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Mexico delayed a historical agreement to stabilize global oil markets for three days by avoiding to acknowledge an offer from the Organization of Petroleum Producing Countries to reduce oil production by 350,000 barrels per day.

As a result, the strategy played off; the Latin American community won commitments to reduce merely 100,000 BPD with the aid of United States President Donald Trump.

Yet, according to experts, the expense of AMLO's unexpected triumph could be an undisclosed favor for the United States.

According to the World Factbook, Mexico is one of the leading 13 oil manufacturers around the globe, and Pemex is one of the world's largest oil corporations.

The economic condition is so disastrous that ever since AMLO came to power, credit ratings for Pemex have declined.

Standard & Poor's not only brought down the government debt of the nation but also that of Pemex, leaving international investors much more reluctant to venture into Mexico.

A decline in fuel usage, combined with an overproduction of oil, intensified by a fight for a share of the market between Russia and Saudi Arabia, decreased oil rates to lows that have not been seen in 18 years.

OPEC+ required all its members to cut their production by 23 percent, which would have been 400,000 BPD for Mexico, to fix the price decrease. However, AMLO's administration declined to the proposal.



Check these out!

Trump's Intervention

Trump was the unexpected partner of AMLO on this negotiation, promising a slight reduction in U.S. oil production to compensate for Mexico's failure to decrease its production proportionately by just about as much as many OPEC+ participants.

The United States not only managed to save the historical agreement in this manner but also helped AMLO save his credibility.

Thanks to Trump's interference, OPEC+ approved the joint deal between the U.S. and Mexico and was able to push ahead with a reduction in output of 9.7 million BPD for the duration from May until June.

The record contract is equivalent to 10 percent of world production.

As the media asked him on Tuesday morning about the alleged mystery surrounding the agreement, AMLO adamantly denied this.

Neither Trump nor AMLO disclosed the specifics of their partnership, but experts suspect it might leave Mexico vulnerable to the United State's collective interest.

"There wasn't, like some adversaries have said, any secret deal or compromises. Nothing like that," said AMLO.

Lourdes Melgar, a retired Mexican under-secretary of energy, claims that Mexico is likely to be stuck settling for the excess oil reductions that the U.S. has created on its behest, not through money, but by surrendering on immigration as well as other controversial matters.

The Oil Industry in Mexico

Statistics from the Finance Ministry of Mexico display that in January, the oil sector produced around 17 percent revenue for the government.

Before the coronavirus crisis decreased Mexico's economic growth, petroleum usage was projected to grow by 40 percent between 2015 and 2029, a non-partisan think-tank as per the Wilson Center.

Despite his being extremely controversial, AMLO is going ahead as planned to construct a refinery to fulfill the production goals in its home state, Tabasco.

He claims that the emphasis on preserving and increasing the state oil company is the right approach for job creation and boosting the economy of the Latin American country.

Mexico has a reservoir of assets that it utilizes to meet the void among expected oil revenue and current sales, a so-called "hedge," which insulate it from declines in oil prices and thus government revenues. Experts believe Mexico has been empowered by the strength of the hedge throughout OPEC+ discussions.
18.04.2020 LISTEN

One of the stories I remember hearing when I was a kid was about Kwaku Ananse, at a time of terrible famine.

He told his family that he knew a deity that could save them from famine. But in order for the deity to save them, they had to put food for it, every day, in a special hole in their farm.

Since Ananse was the big man of the family, what he said was followed to the letter. Every day, the children's mother took a large portion of their meal and placed it inside the hole, in the pious hope that the bigger her sacrifice, the more the deity would be pleased and thus reward the family with bountiful returns,.

One day, the mother made a very delicious groundnut soup. And, as usual, she went and left a large portion of it for the deity.

Now, the next morning, Ananse's eldest son, Ntikuma, was sweeping his father's bedroom when he smelt something like groundnut soup. It seemed to be coming from the direction of his father's bed!

Curious, Ntikuma went to the bed. He bent down and sniffed all around it. His nose led him to his father's cover-cloth!

Ntikuma, a very clever boy, became extremely suspicious at this point. He remembered that every evening, shortly after the family had partaken of their evening meal, his father would say he was going out for a walk. Never in the morning. Never in the afternoon. Only after dinner! Why?

Well, Ananse had gone for a walk, as usual, the previous night. And now, there was his cloth reeking strongly of groundnut-soup.What was going on?

Ntikuma tentatively worked out what his dad was doing. But he didn't say anything to anyone.

That evening, he invited his three brothers to come into the bush with him to do night-hunting for birds and squirrels to supplement the family's meagre food supplies. They all readily agreed to join Ntikuma.

Now, Ananse's children had very peculiar names, given to them by the neighbours, in relation to "oddness" they observed in the physical characteristics of each boy.

Tikenenkenen was thus named because his head was so misshapen that it knocked into things, kenen!--kenen!-- as he walked about!

Afurudohwedohwegot his name from the enormously extended stomach he bore: it was so bloated up that the skin covering it was thin and shiny and reflected sunlight back on it: dohwe!--dohwe!.

As for Nyaankrohwea, it was his legs that gave him his name: they were so thin and elongated that they looked more like blades of elephant grass than human legs! (Nyaa=nnyuwa=legs; nkrohwea=elephant grass).

This assorted group it was that made its way into the bush. Ntikuma took them all around the bush and manoeuvred things so cleverly that they came, by accident, to be at exactly the spot where the deity's food was placed daily. They arrived there shortly after the food had been brought and left there by their mother.

Let us keep watch on the food so that no silly animal comes and disturbs it before the deity comes to eat it! Ntikuma told his brothers. We can't be sacrificing our food for some stupid animal to come and eat it, can we?

His brothers agreed with him. They hid in the bushes and waited.

They waited. And waited. And waited.

Then, as it began to get really dark. they saw a figure walking furtively towards the hole with the food in it. They all hushed their breathing. It was the figure of a man, but because of the darkness, they couldn't see the face clearly.

The man began to eat the food left for the deity.

Ntikuma immediately signalled to his brothers to go on the attack.

Afurudohwedohwe fell on the man as he was eating, and pinned him fast to the ground. Under his enormous stomach, the man could hardly budge.

Then, Tikenenkenen came and knocked his head gboooorah! into the man's head, as he to struggle in an attempt to get free. To curtail the man's struggles, Nyaankorowheatwisted his long thin legs around the man's own, tying both of the man's legs with his own into an unbreakable knot.

The knotted-up man lay on the ground, pressing his face hard into the earth, in the hope that he could not be recognised.

The brothers didn't mind. They just pinned him down and waited.

Soon, it was dawn.

The man now pleaded to be allowed to go, as sunshine would change him from a deity into a man.

The children did not mind him.

Finally, the man yelled in desperation: If you don't release me to go right now, I shall turn into  into  YOUR F-F-F-F-F-F-FATHER!

The boys didn't move from him.

Next, the sun rose.

They turned the man round and looked at him --full in the face.

With great shock, they saw that it was, indeed, their own father, Kwaku Ananse!

The brothers were so disgusted that they took him as a prisoner to the chief's palace. They lodged a complaint against him for cheating on the members of his own family by selfishly and secretly eating the food to which they were all entitled, during a time of such a great famine.

Ananse felt so ashamed when the details of his actions were revealed to the public that he jumped very very high off the ground.

His head went and hit the roof of the palace and pang! -- It got completely flattened. The rest of his body too underwent changes that turned him into  a spider!

Does that remind you of some current happenings in the world? On 17 April 2020, the leading news item on the BBC's flagship channel in the UK, Radio 4, was about doctors complaining that the British Government's claim that it had been sending Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to hospitals, was a fantasy. Many hospitals were having to rewash and reuse protective gowns (for instance) although this was dangerous and therefore not supposed to be done.

On the same day, it was reported that China had said that it might have under-reported by 50%, the deaths that had occurred at Wuhan, in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak.

How can we trust Governments, when they seek to deceive us, for propaganda purposes, at a time when we face life and death?

Let them learn from Ananse  lies will always be uncovered!
A member of Donald Trumps task force to reopen Americas economy has compared protesters calling for an end to coronavirus shutdowns to the civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

Stephen Moore, a conservative economist and longtime advisor to the president, made the comparison to three different news outlets as small-scale protests spread across the country.

I think theres a boiling point that has been reached and exceeded, Mr Moore, who has been outspoken in his desire to relax stay-at-home orders, told the Washington Post.

I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks  they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties, Mr Moore said of the protesters. He made similar remarks to the New York Times and CBS News.

Protests calling for an end to stay-at-home orders have broken out in a number of state capitals across the US in the past week, in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina and Utah - states led by both Republican and Democratic governors. Mr Trump had given his tacit support to the protesters.

When you look at what theyve been through, when you look at all of the death and all of the problems and all of the sickness, when you look at whats happened, I just think the American people have been incredible, he said at a White House briefing on Friday.

They seem to be protesters that like me and respect this opinion, and my opinion is just the same as about all of the governors. They all wanna open  nobody wants to stay shut, but they wanna open safely, he added.

Stephen Moore, a conservative economic and author of 'Trumponomics' (Getty Images)

Mr Moore, who wrote a book called Trumponomics on the economic policies of the president and was considered to sit on the board of the Federal Reserve in the Trump administration, has come under fire in the past for making controversial comments about race.

"There's that great cartoon going along, that The New York Times headline: 'First thing Donald Trump does as President is kick a black family out of public housing,'" Mr Moore said at a 2016 event shortly after Trump's election. "And it has Obama leaving the White House. I mean, I just love that one."

One of the largest of the protests, organised by a hard-right grassroots group called the Michigan Conservative Coalition, saw crowds of people tote guns and block the state capitals streets to demand stay-at-home orders be lifted.

Thousands assembled outside of the Michigan state capitol building on 15 April, many displaying firearms and wearing Make America Great Again hats or waving Trump flags.

They claim Michigan's lockdown has gone too far and say they are fed up with Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmers radical, progressive agenda, which they say has allowed dope stores to stay open while small businesses remain closed.

Michigan is one of the hardest-hit states in the US, with nearly 30,000 cases and more than 2,000 deaths confirmed so far. Governor Whitmer has become something of a bete noire on the right since she imposed some of the countrys strongest social distancing orders, which members of the protest group have described as tyranny.

Ms Parks, often described as the mother of the civil rights movement, sparked a nationwide movement when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955, violating US segregation laws.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Apr. 18

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Turkeys export of leather goods to Russia dropped by 22.3 percent from January through March 2020, amounting to $41.1 million, Turkeys Ministry of Trade told Trend on April 18.

In March 2020, Turkeys export of leather goods to Russia decreased by 33.2 percent compared to March 2019 and amounted to $13.7 million.

From January through March 2020, export of leather goods from Turkey to world markets dropped by 5.4 percent compared to the same period of 2019, amounting to $415.2 million.

Turkeys export of leather goods amounted to 1 percent of the countrys total export from January through March 2020.

In March 2020, Turkey exported leather goods worth $130.2 million to world markets, which is 26 percent less compared to the same month of 2019.

Turkeys export of leather goods in the reporting month made up 1 percent of the countrys total export.

During the last twelve months (from January through March 2020), Turkeys export of leather goods amounted to $1.6 billion.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Reese Witherspoon is a widely celebrated actress whose career spans over two decades. But her career hasnt been blemish-free. One of the darker moments came in April 2013 when Witherspoon was arrested for disorderly conduct after absolutely losing it on a police officer. Speaking about the ordeal in a new interview, Witherspoon shared how ashamed she came to feel and the one good thing that came out of it.

Reese Witherspoon on the red carpet at an award show in January 2020 | Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images for Turner

Looking back at Reese Witherspoons 2013 arrest

Witherspoon was driving in Atlanta with her husband, Jim Toth, when he was pulled over for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol, per People. After Toth was placed under arrest, Witherspoon sprang from the car and confronted the officer.

She was instructed to return to their vehicle but instead continued to berate the officer, telling him she had the right to ask whatever she wanted before pulling the do-you-know-who-I-am card. After a brief back-and-forth, Witherspoon was placed in handcuffs and put into the back of a squad car for obstruction.

Reese Witherspoon and her husband avoided serious time

Speaking about the arrest in a 2013 interview with Good Morning America, Witherspoon admitted that she and Toth had one too many glasses of wine at a dinner and didnt realize they werent OK to drive home. She also acknowledged that she was totally disrespectful and had said all kinds of crazy things to the officer, including that she was pregnant.

I saw him arresting my husband and I literally panicked, Witherspoon explained. I told him I was pregnant. Im not pregnant. I said all kinds of crazy things.

Its just completely unacceptable and we are so sorry and embarrassed, the Sweet Home Alabama star continued. I think we made a mistake and it was something that will absolutely never happen again.

Fortunately for them, they were able to get off with a slap on the wrist. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Witherspoon was fined $213 while Toth was ordered to perform 40 hours of community service and attend an alcohol education program. He was also put on probation for a year.

Reese Witherspoons latest comments about her arrest

In April, Witherspoon spoke with Jameela Jamil for her podcast, I Weigh, where Jamil praised the actress for the way she apologized.

You apologized and shamed yourself in a way that was so f*cking refreshing to me, Jamil said (via People).

But I did something really stupid, Witherspoon replied.

Although she is ashamed of the arrest and thinks it was so embarrassing and dumb, Witherspoon told Jamil that it turned out to be a learning moment for the world.

But, you know what  [it] turns out I breathe air. I bleed the same way. I make dumb decisions. I make great decisions. Im just a human being, she continued. Were all just the same as each other and were all trying to find what our special skills are. My special skill is storytelling but that doesnt mean Im a special person.

True that, Reese.

Its common to think that celebrities are so different from us regular folks. But there are moments like these that remind us that we really are all just people at the end of the day.
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Ministers are underestimating the public by refusing to discuss exit strategies for ending the coronavirus lockdown, senior Tory MPs have warned.

The Government has set out what needs to happen before it will consider lifting the measures, but there has been no detail on how the easing of restrictions will take place.

Tory backbenchers and former ministers say there needs to be 'strategic clarity' and that the argument put forward by the Government about not wanting to 'confuse the message' is not the right way forward.

Former Brexit secretary David Davis said: 'Other countries have been very open about what they've done.

'There's really no reason, there's no argument for not debating and discussing with all the facts available.

'There are lots and lots of benefits of being open about this. The argument that was put, that we don't want to confuse the message, I think is just wrong. It underestimates the public. The public understand that there are phases to this.'

Former Brexit Secretary David Davis (pictured left) has accused minister of 'underestimating the public', whilst Tobias Ellwood (right) has said speculation by the public over the plans could be 'dangerous'

Mr Davis said the data underlining the strategy should also be put in the public domain.

Reflecting on how much is going on - teams working on a vaccine and some working on other aspects of the next stage of the pandemic - he said: 'There's actually comparatively little data in the public domain, and there should be much more.'

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the Government should stop treating people 'like children' by refusing to discuss exit strategies.

He told The Times: 'The Government is going to have to accept and admit we are coming out of lockdown.

'We need to trust the British people and not treat them like children. We must respect their common sense. They need to know that the sun is rising at some point, in an economic sense.'

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said the Government is not being more forthcoming about an exit strategy because Boris Johnson is absent, continuing his recovery at Chequers.

The Prime Minister's spokesman said that claim was 'just wrong'.

In the wake of the calls for more discussion, a Cabinet Office spokesperson said on Saturday: 'The Government has already set out five clear tests to consider before making any adjustment to its approach.

'At all times we have been consistently guided by scientific advice to protect lives.

'The current advice from Sage is that relaxing any of the measures could risk damage to public health, our economy, and the sacrifices we have all made.

'Only when the evidence suggests that it is safe to do, and the scientific advice provides for it, will we adjust these measures.'

Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the Commons Defence Select Committee, said: 'Command and control at any time, but particularly during a crisis, is invaluable in keeping the hearts and minds and support in place.

'You want people rallying behind government, working with government, not acting against it.

'The best way to do that is to ensure that they are as best informed as to what's coming round the corner, and therefore fewer surprises, or guessing what might happen next, or speculating, which can be more dangerous.'

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (left) has said the Government is not being more forthcoming about an exit strategy because Boris Johnson (right) is absent, continuing his recovery at Chequers

He said a 'general road map' spelling out the conditions - without putting a timetable on it - would be 'well received' by the nation.

Asked if Mr Johnson's absence due to being ill with Covid-19 is a factor in ministers' reluctance to talk about what they plan to do next, Mr Ellwood said it has been 'a real setback', adding that the PM is the best communicator in Government.

He added: 'I think you'll see a step change in communication when he does return, but ultimately his health must come first, and that's recognised.'

Asked when he thinks the PM will return, Mr Ellwood said: 'I think it's going to be a few more days. He was clearly hit badly and they want him back in full health, and so he's following doctors' orders at the moment.'

Mr Ellwood said there is 'no major decision' needed in the next three weeks.

'What we need is strategic clarity as to what happens next, and that's what I'm calling for,' he said.

Mr Ellwood said maintaining public support is 'absolutely critical', adding: 'My concern has been that there has been a clarion call for an exit strategy when the Government must make clear there is no exit from this until a vaccine is procured and delivered to a sizeable proportion of the population, therefore the longevity of this needs to be managed.

'Letting the nation know what is coming round the corner helps keep minds focused and people on board.

'So I fully understand the concern of diluting that central message during the lockdown, but I see three phases to this.'

Mr Ellwood has already posted on Twitter about the three phases: a continuation of the lockdown; a post-lockdown pre-vaccine period in which there is a phased easing of restrictions in some sectors and reopening of schools; and a vaccine rollout.

It comes as Scotland's first minister Nicola Surgeon promises to set out an exit strategy next week.

Alok Sharma, the business secretary, claimed that discussing an exit plan detailing how restrictions may come to an end with the public would only 'muddy the waters' and undermine the 'stay at home' message, April 17

Alok Sharma, the business secretary, claimed that discussing an exit plan detailing how restrictions may come to an end with the public during the daily coronavirus briefings would only 'muddy the waters' and undermine the 'stay at home' message.

It comes amid reports of frustration in the Cabinet over a lack of debate on the issue as the damage to the economy mounts.

The Office for Budget Responsibility warned earlier this week that curbs stay in place for three months it will slash GDP by 35 per cent, with unemployment soaring to 10 per cent and the government's deficit hitting 273billion - the highest level since the Second World War.

It emerged on Friday night that ministers are considering two possible strategies, which are being discussed by their scientific advisers.

The first involves extending the full lockdown well into early summer to 'push the numbers right down'  although this would risk further damaging the economy.

The second could see restrictions lifted much earlier, potentially after the current three-week extension expires on May 8  even though it could risk a second virus 'peak'.

Ministers are torn over which strategy to follow and it has led to a lack of clarity among the public. Sir Iain Duncan Smith told the Times: 'The Government is going to have to accept and admit we are coming out of lockdown.

Frustration grows in the Cabinet over whether to lift the lockdown in May or wait until summer Ministers are torn over whether to lift the lockdown at the start of May or wait until the summer. Frustration is growing in the Cabinet over a lack of debate on the issue as the damage to the economy mounts. It emerged on Friday night that ministers are considering two possible strategies, which are being discussed by their scientific advisers. The first involves extending the full lockdown well into early summer to 'push the numbers right down'  although this would risk further damaging the economy. The second could see restrictions lifted much earlier, potentially after the current three-week extension expires on May 8  even though it could risk a second virus 'peak'. It came as a minister warned businesses they would have to adapt to a 'new normal' after the crisis has passed. This led to concerns restrictions could continue until a vaccine is ready or even afterwards  with more working from home and possible staggered work starts to try to cut the impact of the rush hour. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced on Thursday that the lockdown would continue for another three weeks, as he unveiled five tests ministers would use before deciding if it is safe to lift the restrictions. It is believed some ministers are unhappy that there has not been a proper debate in Cabinet about when the lockdown could end. On Friday Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said departments had been asked to come up with exit proposals in two weeks. The Government was forced to deny claims by Labour that it was in 'limbo' while Boris Johnson was recovering from the virus. Although the Prime Minister spoke to Mr Raab on Thursday, he has not been working on his government boxes. Scientists say extending the lockdown into the summer would drastically reduce transmission rates and the 'extremely low' level of cases would make it easier for health officials to manage the pandemic. Advertisement

'We need to trust the British people and not treat them like children. We must respect their common sense. They need to know that the sun is rising at some point in an economic sense.'

According to the Daily Telegraph, ministers have not agreed on which strategy to follow and will not formulate a plan until Boris Johnson resumes his duties as Prime Minister.

Mr Johnson is continuing his recovery at Chequers and is not doing Government work, according to a Government spokesman.

Other cabinet ministers are said to agree privately with Sir Iain Duncan Smith's view that the government will lose the public's support if they continue to play their cards to close to their chest, reports The Times.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps revealed yesterday that Britons should hold off booking summer holidays until the 'trajectory' of the coronavirus outbreak is clearer - as he admitted an 'exit plan' from lockdown will not be unveiled for at least two weeks.

He said he had no intention of lining up a break himself amid fears that travel curbs could drag on for months to come.

And Mr Shapps raised fresh fears about drift in the government by revealing that medical and scientific advisers have been asked to present their options for easing the draconian social distancing measures in a fortnight's time.

The extraordinary schedule emerged despite mounting pressure to show how the country can get out of the crisis that is threatening to tear the economy to shreds.

It is believed some ministers are unhappy that there has not been a proper debate in Cabinet about when the lockdown could end.

On Friday Mr Shapps said departments had been asked to come up with exit proposals in two weeks. The Government was forced to deny claims by Labour that it was in 'limbo' while Boris Johnson was recovering from the virus.

Although the Prime Minister spoke to Mr Raab on Thursday, he has not been working on his government boxes. Scientists say extending the lockdown into the summer would drastically reduce transmission rates and the 'extremely low' level of cases would make it easier for health officials to manage the pandemic.

This is because they would have the capacity to isolate anyone who tests positive, as well as tracing and testing their contacts.

However, such an approach would mean that the economy would continue to stall. The second option could see the lockdown lifted in as little as three weeks. But the rate of community transmission would still probably be relatively high at this point, and it would not be possible to individually track all cases.

This could risk a dangerous resurgence of the disease. A source close to the Government confirmed that, whichever option is followed, the plan is to lift the lockdown in stages  with outdoor spaces likely to be first and pubs last.

Under plans being drawn up, certain social distancing measures, including working from home where possible, will stay in place until there is a vaccine. Some experts believe this to be at least a year away.

Labour leader Keir Starmer accused Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab of being 'reluctant' to sign off a plan while Boris Johnson is still recuperating from his own infection at Chequers.

Sir Keir Starmer accused Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab (pictured) of being 'reluctant' to sign off a strategy while the PM is still recuperating from his own infection at Chequers

Britons should hold off booking summer holidays until the 'trajectory' of the coronavirus outbreak is clearer, Grant Shapps suggested yesterday

Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon fueled the row by insisting she is 'treating the public like grown ups' by unveiling her own 'framework' next week for how lockdown could be phased out.

Mr Shapps told LBC radio: 'We've said now that this three-week period will contain a review by the scientists at the end of this month, so that's actually only two weeks away, whilst they'll be reviewing this.

'And I hope we'll be in a position to provide, well I know we'll be in a position to provide, greater clarity.'

Announcing in Downing Street that the curbs will stay for at least another three weeks, Mr Raab said there was 'light at the end of the tunnel' and the outbreak was coming under control.

But he rejected calls for an 'exit strategy' to be unveiled now, amid fears that the public would assume the restrictions are about to be lifted. 'We are being as open as we responsibly can at this stage,' he said.

But Ms Sturgeon struck a notably different tone.

Raab's five criteria before loosening lockdown Dominic Raab batted away calls to to set out an 'exit strategy' from lockdown tonight. Instead he merely offered five criteria for when the lockdown could start being loosened. # They are: 1. Ensure NHS can provide enough critical care treatment 2. A 'sustained and consistent fall' in daily death rate 3. Reliable data showing rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels 4. Testing capacity and PPE supply are ready to meet future demand 5. There is no risk of second peak to overwhelm the NHS Advertisement

Speaking on the BBC's Coronavirus Newscast podcast Sir Keir said: 'I think that throughout this they've struggled with taking decisions quickly enough...

'It feels as though they've been in a position probably for a week or 10 days now where it's been difficult for the Government to make big decisions. And I think there's a bit of that lying behind this as well.

'I suspect, although I don't know, that Dominic Raab is just reluctant - he probably does know that it's time for an exit strategy - but he's probably reluctant to sign it off without the Prime Minister and I think there's a bit of that in the mix.'

'I'm not going to set out next week the date on which lockdown will be lifted,' she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme

'What I'm going to try to do is set out the decision-making framework that we're operating in, so that we are treating the public like grown-ups that they are.'

In what might be the first glimmerings of a plan, Mr Shapps speculated that in future businesses could help reduce risks by allowing staff to come in at different times.

Asked whether passenger numbers could be restricted during rush hour after lockdown measures are removed, Mr Shapps said: 'It may well be in the future companies say actually it's worked pretty well having some of our staff working from remote locations, why don't we carry on doing that?

'Actually why does everybody have to get up and travel during the rush hour at a particular time in the morning?'

Around half the public are now resigned to the draconian 'social distancing' curbs being in place into June

He added: 'There may be different ways to help, both in terms of businesses and organisations making those decisions, but also to do with the way that Government responds to spread the load better.'

Mr Shapps also warned people off planning summer holidays - as the crisis threatens to drag on through the middle of the year.

He said 'clearly people will want to see what the trajectory of this disease is in the next few weeks'.

He told Today: 'I won't be booking a summer holiday at this point, let's put it that way.'

Asked about the comments, Downing Street pointed to the lockdown restrictions in force making clear that they meant people should not go on holiday.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has advised against all but essential international travel since March 17.

These measures have hit travel firms hard, with trips being cancelled and many people - such as Mr Shapps - delaying making future bookings.

A number of companies have furloughed staff due to the sector grinding to a halt.

WHAT IS R0? AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN IF IT IS LESS THAN ONE? Every infectious disease is given a reproduction number, which is known as R0 - pronounced 'R nought'. It is a value that represents how many people one sick person will, on average, infect. WHAT IS THE R0 FOR COVID-19? The R0 value for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is estimated to be around 2.5. But some experts analysing outbreaks across the world have estimated it could be closer to the 6.6 mark. Estimates of the R0 vary because the true size of the pandemic remains a mystery. HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO OTHER VIRUSES? It is thought to be at least three times more contagious than the coronavirus that causes MERS (0.3 - 0.8). Measles is one of the most contagious infectious diseases, and has an R0 value of 12 to 18. Chickenpox's R0 is estimated to be between 10 and 12, while seasonal flu has a value of around 1.5. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO HAVE A LOW R0? The higher the R0 value, the harder it is for health officials control the spread of the disease. A number lower than one means the outbreak will run out of steam and be forced to an end. This is because the infectious disease will quickly run out of new victims to strike. HOW IS IT CALCULATED Researchers take into account several factors when assessing an infectious disease's R0. They include how long patients stay infectious for, contact rate and the mode of transmission. INFECTIOUS PERIOD For instance, some strains of influenza and the common cold are contagious for up to eight days. Experts say COVID-19 is infectious up to three days before symptoms begin until three days after symptoms end. But one Yale University study found that patients were still infectious up to eight days after symptoms vanished. NUMBER OF CONTACTS Another factor depends on how many people the infected come into contact with that aren't vaccinated or immune. If the infectious disease causes severe symptoms early, many patients would stay at home and have little contact. For example, Ebola is known to have a low R0 (2) because it tends to develop before tell-tale symptoms appear. But if it had a longer incubation period - the length of time before symptoms begin - then it would have a higher R0. This is because the infected would come into contact with more people, allowing the virus to spread. TRANSMISSION MODE Transmission mode can also play a role, with viruses spread through the air known to be more contagious. With COVID-19, evidence shows that it can be caught by breathing near an infected patient. The virus can also live on surfaces, meaning it can be picked up without ever touching someone. But Ebola is spread through bodily fluids, making it harder to catch the virus. HOW DOES A LOCKDOWN BRING DOWN THE R0? The UK's draconian lockdown imposed on March 23 has slowed Britain's coronavirus crisis, studies show. Scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine last month analysed the virus in the UK. They estimated each infected patient may now only be passing COVID-19 on to 0.62 others, down from 2.6. The team said the virus was struggling to spread because people were having less contact with others. They used a survey of 1,300 people who were asked to list what human contact they had in the past 24 hours. This was compared to a similar survey done in 2005 to give an idea of how it had changed because of lockdown. Advertisement

Instead of an exit plan, Mr Raab has merely offered five criteria for when the lockdown could start being loosened. They are certainty that the NHS will not be overwhelmed, a consistent reduction in the death rate, evidence that transmission is at manageable levels, capacity for wide scale testing and PPE provision, and low danger of a 'second peak'.

In a sombre speech in Downing Street, Mr Raab - who is deputising during Mr Johnson's recovery - said: 'Overall, we still don't have the infection rate down as far as we need to.

'As in other countries we have issues with the virus spreading in some hospitals and in care homes and in sum, the very clear advice we have received is that any change to our social distancing measures now would risk a significant increase in the spread of the virus.

'That would threaten a second peak of the virus and substantially increase the number of deaths.

'It would undo the progress we have made to date and as a result would require an even longer period of the more restrictive social distancing measures.

'So early relaxation would do more damage to the economy over a longer period and I want to be really clear about this.

'The advice from SAGE is that relaxing any of the measures currently in place would risk damage to both public health and our economy.'

He added: 'Based on this advice which we very carefully considered the government has decided that the current measures must remain in place for at least the next three weeks.'

Mr Raab said the public needed to show 'patience' and stick with the restrictions to stop the spread of the virus.

'There is light at the end of the tunnel but we are now at both a delicate and a dangerous stage in this pandemic,' he said.

'If we rush to relax the measures that we have in place we would risk wasting all the sacrifices and all the progress that has been made.

'That would risk a quick return to another lockdown with all the threat to life that a second peak to the virus would bring and all the economic damage that a second lockdown would carry.'

Mr Raab said when the government has met its criteria it will look to adjust the measures to make them 'as effective as possible in protecting public health whilst allowing some economic and social activity to resume'.

'But we will only do it when the evidence demonstrates that it is safe to do it,' he said.

'It could involve relaxing measures in some areas while strengthening measures in other areas.'

Government adviser James Rubin, who sits on the behavioural insights group, told MPs that openness on the plan was crucial and it was 'very important that people have their expectations set on this'.

In a bad-tempered interview this week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he recognised that 'everybody wants to know what the future looks like'.

But he flatly dismissed calls for the government to flesh out how the restrictions will finally be eased, despite mounting fears that they are wreaking havoc on the economy.

Mr Hancock said the 'clarity of messaging' had a 'direct impact on how many people obey' social distancing rules.

As pressure grows, a think-tank warned today that Britain's fiscal watchdog has 'downplayed' the crippling long-lasting effects on the economy.

The Adam Smith Institute accused the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) of underestimating the long-term hit from the lockdown and closure of a third of the economy.

It said the analysis released earlier this week did not factor in the risk of systemic economic decline if Britain's lockdown is sustained.

The OBR predicted the economy could shrink by 35 per cent and unemployment rise by two million if the lockdown continues for three months followed by a partial lifting for three months - but its analysis did not assume any lasting economic consequences.

The institute warned the UK was falling behind other countries that already have reopening strategies and timelines in place, such as Germany, Italy, Norway, Austria, Spain, Denmark and the Czech Republic.

It said this was holding UK businesses back from being able to plan for recovery once lockdown restrictions are eased.

Matthew Lesh, head of research at the Adam Smith Institute and co-author of the report, said: 'The limbo must come to an end.

'The closure of one-third of the economy has been necessary to slow the spread and protect the health service - but it cannot last forever.

'We need a route out of this mess: a strategy to protect from this virus while allowing life to progressively return to normal.

'This will mean testing and tracing capabilities ramped up, maintaining physical distance in shared spaces, but allowing as many businesses as possible, as quickly as possible, to reopen their operations.'

Britain should consider prepping for a phased reopening and scaling back of state support for the economy, according to the free market think-tank.

One of the government's own key experts warned this week that curbs cannot be eased until mass testing is in place.

Professor Neil Ferguson insisted schools and more shops should not be open until everyone with symptoms, and everyone they have come into contact with, can been screened. Even then, he warned there is no possibility of the country returning to 'normal' until a vaccine is produced.

The epidemiologist - who has been modelling the outbreak for the government - delivered a withering verdict on the performance of ministers, urging them to 'accelerate action'. He suggested the organisation in Whitehall was not on the same scale as the effort on Brexit, despite the crisis being much bigger.

Discussing whether lockdown measures could be eased after another three weeks, Professor Ferguson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I think that will very much depend on quite how quickly case numbers go down, and that does require us to get on top of things like transmission rates in hospitals and care homes.

'I think the other thing I would say is that it really requires a single-minded emphasis in Government and the health system on scaling up testing and putting in place the ability to track down cases in the community and contact-trace.

'Because without that, our estimates show we have relatively little leeway; if we relax measures too much then we'll see a resurgence of transmission.

'What we really need is the ability to put something in their place. If we want to open schools, let people get back to work, then we need to keep transmission down in another manner.

'And I should say, it's not going to be going back to normal. We will have to maintain some form of social distancing, a significant level of social distancing, probably indefinitely until we have a vaccine available.

Asked whether the Government is moving towards having an exit strategy in place, Prof Ferguson said: 'I'm not completely sure. I think there's a lot of discussion. I would like to see action accelerated.

'We need to put in place an infrastructure, a command and control structure, a novel organisation for this.

'I'm reminded by the fact we had a Department for Brexit for Government - that was a major national emergency, as it were - and we're faced with something which is, at the moment, even larger than Brexit and yet I don't see quite the same evidence for that level of organisation.'

Prof Ferguson added: 'There needs to be more co-ordination I think, yes. That may be going on, I don't have unique insight, but I think it could be enhanced.'
Irwin H. Siegel was an attorney and educator.

Siegel, 66, died April 12 in Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.

He was a 1971 graduate of Cedar Crest High School, received a bachelors degree in English ion 1975 from Lebanon Valley College, his juris doctorate from Dickinson School of Law in 1980, his LL.M from Weidner University of Law in 1996, and his doctorate in education from Penn State University in 2002.

He served as in-house counsel and manager for the former Commonwealth National (Mellon) Bank, Harrisburg, and also for the former Farmers First Bank (now BB&T), Lititz.

Siegel taught for more than 40 years, beginning with Palmyra Area School District in 1975. He also taught at Penn State Harrisburg, Lebanon Valley College and the Pennsylvania College of Technology, where he was named recipient of the Master Teacher Award in 2006.

After retiring from Penn College, he served as campus outreach coordinator at HACCs Lebanon campus and taught classes at New Covenant Christian School.

He served with the Coleman Memorial Park Board of Trustees, was a member of Trinity United Methodist Church in Lebanon and a member of the American, Pennsylvania and Dauphin County bar associations.

Surviving are his twin sister, Susan E. Hinkley, wife of James C. Hinkley, Lebanon.

From his guest book:

I have fond memories and laughs about attending Lebanon Valley College with Irv. He was an excellent student who progressed well in life. I am sorry to learn he left us so soon.

-- Ken Seyfert, Warsaw, Ind.

His enthusiasm for education was infectious, opening learning doors for so many at NCCS.

-- Priscilla Glovier

Dr. Siegel was a friend and teacher to our whole family.

-- Micah

Irv was a wonderful friend and co-worker. I will miss his friendship very much.

-- Edward Balderston, Lancaster

To read more obituaries, click here.

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.
A crowd of onlookers gathered, defying lockdown rules, to watch a huge fire at a landfill site on the outskirts of Szombathely on Wednesday night.

Plant waste was burning on an area of three hectares, requiring the participation of several fire brigades from the surrounding region to control the flames.



Szombathely mayor Andras Nemeny and deputy mayor Soma Horvath also appeared at the scene.



Police had to intervene, because, despite the lockdown, the area was immediately flooded with large numbers of disaster tourists.



The many onlookers gathered in the area were sent home by the police and the civil guards.
A Maine lawmaker is planning to join protesters next week who are demonstrating against the states stay-at-home order as similar protests play out across the country against state and local social distancing measures.

State Rep. Chris Johansen (R) said he wants to Gov. Janet Mills (D) to ease some of the restrictions she put on local businesses that have been forced to close after being declared non-essential.

Johansen is currently hosting an event on Facebook calling Mainers to circle the governor's residence in Augusta to join the Re-Open Maine Convoy and Parade.

The 1st amendment enshrines our Right to peaceably assemble, our Right to freedom of speech, and our Right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, he wrote on the page. Lets peacefully assemble to speak and petition Gov. Mills with this message: We are ready to Re-Open Maine and Get Back to Work.

Johansen told The Press Herald that as many as 200 people have said they want to join him in his march to the state house. The Republican lawmaker said he thinks Millss restrictions are no longer needed in rural areas of the state that have minimal COVID-19 cases.
Q: I own a small Brooklyn apartment building with two residential units and a ground-floor commercial space. The business is temporarily closed because of the coronavirus shutdown, and both tenants have lost their jobs and are unable to pay rent. I dont have a mortgage on the property, but I have to pay property taxes in July and utilities to maintain the building. I understand that these are terrible times, and agree that tenants should get rent relief. But what are landlords to do?

A: In April, as many as 40 percent of New Yorkers were unable to pay their rent. Landlord and tenant groups expect May to be worse, as scores of New Yorkers continue to lose their jobs and businesses remain closed. For now, the relief for tenants and landlords is limited. Evictions are halted until mid-June, but your tenants are still responsible for their rent, and as a landlord, you are still responsible for your bills.

There is no pathway for landlords to get any relief, said Michael Johnson, a spokesman for CHIP, a landlord advocacy group. Weve been tracking several bills that have been introduced, but its unclear if any of them are moving at all.
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U.S. President Donald Trump's call for lifting restrictions on several states has sparked controversy.



In a series of tweets on Friday, Trump urged "liberating" Virginia, Minnesota, and Michigan, three political swing states that now have Democratic governors, throwing his support behind protesters opposing restrictive measures there imposed to slow the spread of the COVID-19.

A group calling itself "Liberate Minnesota" staged a protest Friday afternoon outside the residence of the state's governor, Tim Walz.

Live-streamed video of the event showed many people were packed closely outside the residence, waving pro-Trump signs and flags. Few participants appeared to be wearing masks or other protective gear.

Similar protests, with some attendees armed, took place in Virginia, Michigan, and other states this week.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, tweeted as well on Friday, accusing Trump of "encouraging citizens to engage in armed rebellion."

Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a former Democratic presidential contender, tweeted on Friday that he thinks Trump's remarks "encourage illegal and dangerous acts."

"The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies - even while his own administration says the virus is real, it is deadly and we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted," Inslee added.

During a press briefing at the White House on Friday, Trump defended his tweets, saying that he feels some state orders are "too tough."

"I think we do have sobering guidance, but I think some things are too tough. It's too tough," Trump said.

The president also said he wasn't concerned about protesters spreading the coronavirus among those attending demonstrations calling for states to reopen.

"No, these are people expressing their views. I see the way they are and I see the way they're working and they seem to be very responsible to me, but they've been treated a little bit rough," he said.

The remarks came a day after the White House issued guidelines that defer to states on reopening decisions, but recommended a three-phase approach, as the administration has been eager to put the nation's economy back on track, which has been hit strongly by business closures and job losses.

Vice President Mike Pence and other officials said Friday that they believe that there is enough testing in place for states to begin moving to the first phase of reopening, as health experts called for cautions.

Lawrence Gostin, director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, warned in a tweet on Friday that "relaxing too early could cause exponential spread."

According to a tally from Johns Hopkins University on Friday, the number of COVID-19 infections in the United States has topped 700,000, with nearly 37,000 deaths. The Trump administration declared this week that the country had "passed the peak" of infections.

In another tweet on Friday, Trump urged states to step up testing.

Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, the largest epicenter of the nation's coronavirus outbreak, on Friday chided the federal government's failure to provide enough support for testing.

"Large-scale testing is a massive undertaking," Cuomo tweeted. "We need the private sector to work with government to meet this enormous challenge. And we need the federal government to act."

The Democrat also said the pandemic in New York isn't over. The state has reported more than 230,000 confirmed cases and over 17,000 deaths.
As several countries prepare to ease sweeping restrictions put in place to slow the coronavirus pandemic, experts say the openings should be enacted with extreme caution to avoid sparking a fresh wave of infection -- and another painful lockdown. Many governments, faced with exponential growth of cases of COVID-19, have ordered people to stay in their homes as they try to reduce hospital admissions and prevent intensive care units from becoming overwhelmed. But the measures have taken a painful toll, both on economies and society itself. "When the decision (to lock down) was taken, it was our only weapon with any hope of beginning to control the epidemic," French epidemiologist Dominique Costagliola told AFP. But she said the measures in France, which are expected to begin lifting next month, were taken in an "emergency" and were "not bearable in the long term, either for the people or for the country". Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva said lockdown was "a Chinese invention". "The effectiveness of the Chinese version applied with rigor and force in Wuhan meant the least prepared countries -- most Western countries -- had no choice but to apply an adapted version when they found themselves facing the pandemic wave," he said. In Britain, where restrictions are due to last at least several more weeks, the population is broadly supportive of the lockdown, according to Linda Bauld, a professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh's Usher Institute. "Compliance is generally good and concern about the virus is at the forefront of people's minds," she said. "But this won't last. The social, economic and health effects of lockdown are accumulating. There will come a tipping point when the cost of the current restrictions outweighs the benefits." Most experts agree that the lockdowns have saved thousands of lives. But they have given rise to a punishing worldwide economic slowdown. The International Monetary Fund's chief economist Gita Gopinath has dubbed the crisis the "Great Lockdown" and said it is expected to be the "worst recession since the Great Depression". In a blog this week, she said the loss to global output over 2020 and 2021 could be around $9 trillion, greater than the economies of Japan and Germany combined. Specialists also fear growing risks to society: increases in inequality, domestic violence, mental health problems, alcohol consumption and the neglect of serious non-coronavirus health problems. - Balancing act - As the epidemic slows in some countries, governments are looking at ways to ease the economy back onto its feet, with measures such as the reopening of schools and shops and the loosening of confinement rules. In Europe, Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Italy and Spain among others, are on track to ease or consider easing restrictions by mid-May. In the United States, which has not yet passed the peak of its epidemic, Donald Trump has already said it was time to "restart America". Whatever the country, the exit route for lockdown measures will look more like a tightrope than a highway. The balance will depend on a simple number -- the reproductive rate of the virus, or the number of people each infected person will spread the virus to. Before the lockdown measures were put in place, this rate was around 3.5, according to Jean-Francois Delfraissy who advises the French authorities on the virus response. France and Germany have seen this rate drop below 1.0 thanks to weeks of containment, meaning the epidemic is under control. This week German Chancellor Angela Merkel explained that the decision to inch the country out of lockdown was a result of data showing each COVID-19 sufferer was, on average, infecting fewer than one other person. But she warned that even if the rate just went up to 1.1, the country's health system would be overwhelmed by October. If the rate was 1.2 that date would be brought forward to July, and at 1.3 it would be June. "You can see how little margin for error we have" when tweaking the step-by-step lockdown exit, Merkel said, adding that "caution should be the watchword, not over-confidence". French epidemiologist Laurent Toubiana, who was opposed to the country's lockdown, told AFP that "the exit automatically brings us back to the starting point: the situation before the confinement". - Warning signs - The experience of South Korea has been frequently cited as an example. The country implemented mass testing, quarantined positive cases, tracked the contacts of those infected and then tested them as well. But this strategy is impossible to implement "without the necessary means being in place", said Costagliola. This requires a sufficient number of tests and the logistics to enable tracing with digital applications. But even that might not be enough. South Korea also had some 20,000 people to carry out its contact tracing efforts, said Delfraissy, warning that an all-digital approach was a "fantasy". Even when they initially work well, light-touch restriction strategies may not be enough in the long run. After at first controlling its epidemic with a policy similar to that of South Korea, Singapore is now fighting a second wave of infections. This forced the government to decide to use harsher measures, including the closure of most workplaces. "Singapore should be a warning to us," said Vincent Rajkumar, a professor at the US hospital network Mayo Clinic, on Twitter. An American study published this week in the journal Science said it will probably be necessary to alternate between lockdowns and periods when restrictions are eased until 2022 -- hopefully buying time to find effective treatments or a vaccine. Delfraissy said without a permanent solution, countries will probably have to "release a little, tighten, release, tighten".
Hong Kong, April 18 : Hong Kong managed the first wave of coronavirus infections without resorting to a complete lockdown, opting for an increase in testing, contact tracing and changes in the behaviour of the population, according to a study.

The study published on Friday by The Lancet Public Health maintains that these measures create less disruption in society and the economy than a strict lockdown, but they are effective in controlling the spread of COVID-19, reports Efe news.

"By quickly implementing public health measures, Hong Kong has demonstrated that COVID-19 transmission can be effectively contained without resorting to the highly disruptive complete lockdown adopted by China, the USA, and Western European countries," research leader Professor Benjamin Cowling from the University of Hong Kong said.

The research indicates that, as of March 31, it appeared that city's authorities had averted a major outbreak of coronavirus after making decisions "far less drastic" than most countries.

In addition to the aforementioned measures, they also applied border entry restrictions, quarantine and isolation of cases and contacts, while introducing "some degree" of social distancing.

The authorities, according to the study, in late January carried out intense surveillance for infections on travellers who entered the territory and also in the local community, with daily tests in early March on around 400 outpatients and 600 inpatients.

"Extensive efforts were also made to track down and quarantine all close contacts an infected person had seen two days before becoming ill," it said.

In addition, all those arriving in Hong Kong from mainland China and from infected countries had to observe a 14-day quarantine at home or in designated facilities.

The city's government also encouraged the adoption of social distancing through work flexibility arrangements, the closure of schools and cancellation of large events.

As of March 31, Hong Kong had 715 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 94 asymptomatic infections and four deaths, in a population of 7.5 million. It now has 1,022 cases and four deaths.

The authors also highlighted that COVID-19 has changed the habits and behaviors of individuals, according to several telephone surveys carried out once a month from January to March with around 1,000 people each time.

The most recent in March reveals that 85 per cent of respondents reported avoiding crowded places, and 99 per cent reported wearing face masks when leaving home - up from 75 per cent and 61 per cent respectively from the January survey.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The study is also supposed to help members of government take evidence-based decisions in the upcoming weeks.

The COVID-19 task force of the "Research Luxembourg" initiative has announced the start of CON-VINCE, a scientific study which is supposed to assess the spread of COVID-19 among the population in Luxembourg.

The goal is to perform screening tests for SARS-CoV-2 on approximately 1,500 people (randomly selected, but representative for the population of Luxembourg) as well as to monitor people showing little or no symptoms.

The study will provide precise data on the transmission of the illness, and help the government to take decisions based on scientific knowledge in the upcoming weeks.

Why this study is important

Asymptomatic people  also called "healthy carriers"  and carriers with mild symptoms play an important role in the spread of the virus. However, most of these cases are not being diagnosed at the moment because screening tests are mainly being performed on people displaying distinct symptoms of the disease.

It is important to perform systematic tests on a representative sample of the population in order to identify all carriers of SARS-CoV-2 regardless of their symptoms. This in turn allows decision-makers to take effective measures against the spread of COVID-19. Based on the results of this study, it will also be possible to estimate the number of unidentified cases in Luxembourg.

Professor Rejko Kruger, Director of Transversal Translational Medicine at the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) and coordinator of the CON-VINCE study, stated: "We are planning large-scale recruitment and analysis phases every two weeks. The first phase will of course already provide the main information about the spread of the virus among the Luxembourgish population".

Goals and course of the study

The CON-VINCE study was started on 9 April with the goal of performing screening tests on a group of approximately 1,500 adult participants and identifying the three main groups of people showing little to no symptoms.

These groups are:

non-infected people and therefore without symptoms;

currently infected people, showing little or no symptoms;

people who were infected, but are now cured of the virus.

Market research institute TNS Ilres selects participants in such a manner that the sample will be representative for the country. Participants will then be examined for SARS-CoV-2 using molecular biological technology.

First, analyses will be carried out on samples of the nasopharynx followed by blood tests or other types of samples.

Participants who have been tested positive, but are showing mild or no symptoms, as well as non-infected people will be observed over a one year period. People displaying symptoms, however, will be excluded from the study and receive the usual treatment.

An interesting study for national and international decision-makers

Thanks to its small size and good resources, the Grand-Duchy is in the privileged position of being able to carry out such an analysis relatively fast. It is the first country in the world to systematically carry out such a scientific study on a representative sample of its entire population.

According to Prof. Dr. Rejko Kruger, the results of this study will not only be very important and interesting on a national scale, but also on an international one: "As far as we know, none of the countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic are currently monitoring asymptomatic carriers. This is why there is no comprehensive data about epidemiology and dynamic at the moment. The CON-VINCE study is supposed to close that gap by supplying reliable information about the nature, spread, and transmission methods of COVID-19 in the Grand-Duchy. This information then helps national and international decision-makers to take efficient steps from a political, economic, and sanitary point of view".

Prof. Prof. Ulf Nehrbass (General Director of the LIH and speaker of the COVID-19 task force of Research Luxembourg): "This project allows us to simultaneously evaluate the psychological and socio-economic repercussions of long-term containment measures on the general population. It will help us to define a clearer time frame for lifting the strict containment strategies currently in place". Study participants have the option to fill in a standardised online questionnaire about psychological and socio-economic topics.

Researchers work together in the fight against COVID-19

The CON-VINCE study is carried out by a consortium of Luxembourgish research institutes, among them the LIH and the Luxembourg Center for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) from the University of Luxembourg. Market research institute TNS-Ilres as well as the laboratories Ketterthill, Laboratoires Reunis, and BioneXt Lab act as associated partners in the study. This project is part of several initiatives started under the patronage of the task force in order to contribute to the containment of the pandemic.

Minister of Higher Education and Research, Claude Meisch: "Thanks to the task force, set up two weeks ago, public research institutes in Luxembourg have come together in the fight against COVID-19. They can offer significant support and knowledge, which allow us to take decisions based on scientific data. The CON-VINCE study will be a key element of an empirical basis for overcoming this crisis".

Further information about the study (in English) can be found on the website of Research Luxembourg.

Press release of the Ministry of Health / Ministry of Higher Education and Research / Research Luxembourg

Editor: Michele Weber (FNR)
By Yesim Dikmen and Tuvan Gumrukcu

ISTANBUL/ANKARA (Reuters) - Demet Isil Yilmaz was halfway through a debilitating chemotherapy course when the coronavirus pandemic erupted, intensifying her struggle for health which she has chronicled for her thousands of Instagram followers.

With her immune system weakened, the 31-year-old Turkish mother worries about the path ahead as she prepares for radiotherapy in three weeks, uncertain how she will be able to attend sessions and protect herself from the virus.

"I was caught up with COVID-19 at the worst moment at a time when everyone is screaming to take care of your immune system," she said in a video recorded for Reuters.

Despite the additional danger, she is determined to survive the outbreak, which she likens more to a shared challenge than a military campaign.

"I don't think corona is my enemy. I don't think it's any of ours. We must learn to live with it. Nobody experiences it by choice, we will learn," Yilmaz said.

She also plays down the threat of the pandemic to her, compared to her breast cancer: "If cancer is an ocean, coronavirus is a stream for me," she said.

The virus has so far killed more than 1,500 people in Turkey, and the number of registered cases is over 70,000.

The Health Ministry has told hospitals treating cancer patients during the pandemic to use separate wards to limit contact, and ensure that medical staff in areas where coronavirus patients are do not engage with cancer patients.

WORRIES

Despite the measures, some patients worry that hospital trips also put them at risk.

"There are those whose doctors are telling them they need to come in for chemotherapy, but they do not feel comfortable going to hospitals any more," said Asli Ortakmac, chairwoman of the Cancer Warriors Foundation.

Aysel Pesen, who has been receiving treatment for several types of cancer since 2002, said she was worried about intensive care units where those suffering from COVID-19 and other patients are treated together.

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"With chemotherapy, the side-effects sometimes cause us to go into the ICU and that is worrying," Pesen, who lives in the southern province of Antalya, told Reuters.

Despite the determined attitude she displays for her Instagram followers, Yilmaz said she still fears the unknown period ahead.

"I cried a lot, felt so much pain and groaned a lot, but this will pass. I believe that," she said. "My fear is that I don't want to leave my son, I don't want to give up on my dreams, I've got many things to experience and do."

(Additional reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Dominic Evans and Gareth Jones)
Zimbabwe, on April 18, celebrated its 40th independence day. However, this years celebration was marked with silence and empty streets in contrast to the usual pomp and show as the country continues to grapple with COVID-19 threat. The African nation is currently under lockdown and has reported 24 positive cases and three deaths till now.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa who addressed the nation talked about how they have been successful in containing the spread of COVID-19 infection. "We celebrate our milestone 40th anniversary in the context of unprecedented times, that of the pandemic," he said noting that the pandemic had, for the first time, ruined plans to host celebrations in the second city of Bulawayo.

Usual celebrations in Harare

Zimbabwe usually commemorates its independence from the British colonial rule with rallies across the nations ten provinces with the main event held in a 60,000-seater stadium in the capital city, Harare. The regular celebrations include martial displays, acrobatics and live music performances. Speaking to the nation, Mnangagwa said that the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic was seeing us endure a necessary lockdown in our homes. He then added that that way they were saving lives and their economy. He also thanked citizens and donor countries "for the collective response" in trying to fighting the pandemic.

Read: Bangladesh Vs Zimbabwe Live Streaming, Pitch And Weather Report, 1st ODI Match Preview

Read: Zimbabwe Banned From Hosting Games Because Of Poor Stadiums

In his speech, Mnangagwa reassured people that his government would not go back on controversial land reforms launched by his predecessor Robert Mugabe which aimed at confiscating white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks. He elaborated that the land reform programme remained a fundamental "cog to our independence and sovereignty".

Read: Coronavirus: Fear Of Widespread Hunger Looms Large As Zimbabwe Enters 21-day Lockdown

Read: In Zimbabwe, 'you Win Coronavirus Or You Win Starvation'

Imager: AP
By David Ljunggren and Kelsey Johnson

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will invest C$2.5 billion ($1.8 billion) in measures to help the hard-hit oil and gas industry during the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed 1,250 people in the country, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday.

The sector, which accounts for 10.6% of Canada's gross domestic product, has urged Ottawa to free up credit and cash to tackle the effects of the pandemic and rock-bottom oil prices.

Trudeau said energy sector workers have faced "layers of calamity" and Ottawa would invest C$1.7 billion to clean up orphan and abandoned wells in three provinces.

"Our goal is to create immediate jobs in these provinces while helping companies avoid bankruptcy and supporting our environmental targets," he told reporters, saying the measures would maintain 10,000 jobs.

Ottawa is also setting up a C$750 million fund to provide repayable loans to companies so they can cut emissions of gases such as methane.

The government said later that Business Development Bank of Canada will offer energy companies commercial loans, worth C$15 million to C$60 million each, to supply cash flow for 12 months.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney thanked Trudeau and said Ottawa was still looking at backstops to enable access to commercial borrowing rates for "sideswiped" industries of energy, aviation and tourism. He estimated the need for liquidity at C$15 billion to C$30 billion.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau told a separate briefing that companies were not interested in Ottawa taking equity stakes. He said more needed to be done to ensure large businesses had access to credit, and promised details soon.

Finance Ministry officials told unions representing airline workers on Wednesday they are mulling whether to provide low-interest repayable loans to companies, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Funding to clean up orphan wells - those without a legal owner - is welcome news for farmers who lease land to oil companies, said Todd Plandowski, owner of a company that negotiates the agreements.

Story continues

"They're concerned about farming around these things," he said.

Trudeau also said Ottawa would give C$962 million to regional development agencies to help small businesses and invest C$500 million to support arts, culture and sports.

Ottawa has unveiled C$115 billion ($82.08 billion) in direct spending to help companies and individuals deal with shutdowns. Officials said Canada's death toll had hit 1,250, up from 1,048 on Thursday.

Many of the country's 30,670 confirmed coronavirus cases have been recorded in seniors residences. Trudeau said 125 troops with medical experience would help staff in long-term care homes in the province of Quebec.

British Columbia released its most recent forecast model, showing that the number of hospitalizations due to the coronavirus is leveling off.

The province may begin to reopen schools and workplaces in mid-May, Health Minister Adrian Dix said.

Shutdowns will extend to the July 1 Canada Day celebrations on Ottawa's Parliament Hill, officials said.

The Transport Ministry said it would require air travelers to wear a mask or face covering at screening points starting on Monday.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren and Kelsey Johnson in Ottawa; Additional reporting by Jeff Lewis and Moira Warburton in Toronto, Allison Lampert in Montreal and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Leslie Adler)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 18:34:28|Editor: huaxia

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RAMALLAH, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian government officials announced on Saturday that six new cases infected with COVID-19 were recorded in Palestine.

Ibrahim Melhem, spokesman of the government, told in the daily news briefing in Ramallah that a 78-year-old woman from the neighborhood of Al-Isawiya in East Jerusalem died from the pandemic in an Israeli hospital.

He added six new cases were recorded in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Keileh said that the number of cases infected with coronavirus in the Palestinian territories has reached 418 cases since March 5.

She clarified that 313 cases were recorded in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, while 105 cases were recorded in East Jerusalem, adding that 69 cases have recovered.

Three Palestinians so far have died from COVID-19, including two women from East Jerusalem and one man from Tulkarem, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The state of emergency declared by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the precautionary measures are still valid, as the Palestinian Authority is exerting intensive efforts to combat the spread of the virus. Enditem
DUDLEY  A Mill Road man was arrested and charged in connection with a 4-year-old sexual assault of a teenager.

The Worcester District Attorneys Office announced that Jose A. Herrera, 52, of 13 Mill Road in Dudley, was arrested in Connecticut and turned over to Dudley police. He was arraigned by video from the Dudley Police Department in Dudley District Court.

Herrera entered not guilty pleas to four counts of rape of a child aggravated by more than 10 years age difference, two counts of indecent assault and battery on a person 14 years or older and a single count of witness intimidation.

Judge Robert Pellegrini ordered Herrera held in lieu of $10,000 cash bail. However, if Herrera is able to make bail, Pellegrini ordered him to wear a GPS monitor and only leave his home for medical or legal meetings. Herrera must stay away from and have no contact with the alleged victim and any witnesses, and to have no unsupervised contact with children under the age of 18.

The Dudley Police Department and the Child Abuse/Sexual Assault Unit of the District Attorneys Office are investigating the case.
Ningo-Prampram MP Sam Nartey George has described as mercenary journalism, TV host Paul Adom-Otchere polemic against fellow Minority MP Dr Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings concerning the Klottey-Korle MPs claim that government's free food for some 400,000 vulnerable people in Accra, Tema, Kumasi and Kasoa, is being distributed on a partisan lines.

Justifying his rant against the opposition MP on his Good Evening Ghana programme, Mr Adom-Otchere told Accra-based Citi FM on Friday, 17 April 2020 that Dr Agyeman-Rawlings unsubstantiated claim could have incited violence from members of her National Democratic Congress (NDC) against members of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), which could have degenerated into a Rwanda genocide-like war.

The comments of Mr Adom-Otchere followed the expression of an intention by the Minority in Parliament, to drag him to the National Media Commission (NMC) and the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) over what they deem his attack on one of their own, who happens to be the first daughter of the partys founder, former President Jerry John Rawlings.

In his Thursday night tirade, Mr Adom-Otchere admonished the first-time lawmaker to stop misbehaving and making unsubstantiated allegations against her political opponents at a time that the country needs unity to fight COVID-19.

Despite an initial denial by the government, the medical doctor-turned-politician, in a statement, asked President Akufo-Addo to probe the matter.

In his editorial, however, Mr Adom-Otchere, a member of the Board of the National Communication Authority (NCA) described the allegation of the opposition legislator as wrong and called on her to behave properly.

That is a serious allegation to make against an opposing political party or to make against a government or to make against a municipal assembly or to make against any other politician This is very wrong; members of parliament cannot do that. Dr Rawlings, youre an elected member of parliament, you cannot do that. You cannot hide behind paper and camera and make baseless accusations against your opponent, that is the kind of politics we want to stop in this country, that is not the kind of politics we want to encourage, the kind of politics we want to stop in this country is what you have done, Mr Adom-Otchere said.

Using Dr Agyeman-Rawlings own statement against her, the TV host said: In your statement, you said: My colleague MP in the Ablekuma South Constituency, Dr Oko Vanderpuije, had to also go public about how food intended for the poor was being distributed in NPP vehicles under the direct supervision of the NPP candidate for that constituency. Dr Oko Vanderpuije, before speaking to the press about the unfortunate development, had called Mrs Cynthia Mamle Morrison on phone to bring the matter to her notice and to register his protest.

This is what you do as a member of parliament, let it get into your system Dr Rawlings, let it get into your system; you come from a privileged place, we respect you, we respect your father, behave properly, stop misbehaving. How can you even issue such a statement for what you have doneweve been charitable to you because of who you are

Look at Oko Vanderpuijes behaviour you are quoting; why didnt you behave the same way? Are you better than Oko VanderpuiJe, no, no one is better than anyone, youre all members of parliament. But yes, you come from a great place that all of us wish we could come from. You are carrying the political heritage of Flt. lieutenant Rawlings, you cannot behave the way youre behaving

Mr Adom-Otchere quizzed: Who told you to issue this statement? Herrr, I dont even know what to say withdraw this statement before the lions chew you on social media. How can you tell us how Oko Vanderpuije behaved and you cannot behave that same way; how John Dumelo behaved and you cannot behave the same waythis your statement is completely flawed, never issue such a statement again, youre a great woman, a fine politician, we want you to stay in politics

In a response to Mr Adom-Otchere, Mr Nartey George said: Yesterday [Thursday] was an eyesore and it did do a lot of erosion to the confidence that Ghanaians have in the media fraternity.

According to him, When you see the kind of mercenary journalism, journalism-for-hire that was done by Paul Adom-Otchere, its shameless and reprehensible, adding: I struggle to call what Paul Adom-Otchere did yesterday as journalism; you know a one-man monologue where he goes on running people down without giving them a fair hearing.

 This is not the first time, Mr George said, noting: Paul Adom-Otchere has very little currency when it comes to credibility in this country and journalism.

---classfmonline
A group of migrated Pakistani Hindu doctors with MBBS degrees from different medical colleges from the neighbouring country have sought permission from the Indian government to join the medical workforce here amid the COVID-19 crisis.

These doctors are not allowed to practice in India until they pass a bridge exam by the Medical Council of India (MCI), which is mandatory for all doctors with overseas degrees to pass to practice in India.

But considering the spread of the pandemic, these doctors have sought relaxation in this condition and have appealed to the government to grant them the permission to join India's anti-pandemic battle.

M L Jangid, who had migrated to India over 20 years ago, has an MBBS degree from Sindh Medical College, Karachi.

For latest updates on coronavirus outbreak, click here

But in absence of the Medical Council of Indias permission to take the mandatory examination, which is open only for Indian citizens having MBBS degrees from abroad, he and 300-odd others like him are not able to practice in India, he said.

If the government of India, takes up the matter seriously and gives permission to us as qualified medical doctors, we can be of some help in dealing with this COVID-19 pandemic, Jangid said.

Another doctor, Anila Sharda, who had migrated to India in 2007, has a medical degree from a medical college of Hyderabad in Pakistan.

After coming to India, it takes us at least 11 years to obtain the citizenship of India and after that, we are supposed to appear in an examination by MCI to attain the qualification to practice in India, which is again a herculean task. Most of us could not appear in this exam due to age and other factors, said Sharda.

Coronavirus India update: State-wise total number of confirmed cases, deaths on April 18

Hindu Singh Sodha, president of Seemant Lok Sangthan, has also written to the government, drawing its attention to this group of 300-plus MBBS doctors belonging to Pak Hindu refugee families, who reached India after 2000.

We have already taken up the matter with the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Law and Justice during the past few years, said Sodha.

But the final step leading to allowing them to practice in India is yet to be taken. Sodha said all the stakeholders are convinced in principle but a final decision on permission to these doctors to practice in India is yet to come out.

If the timely permission is granted to these Pak Hindu refugee doctors in this time of crisis, with the qualification and experience, they could prove to be an asset to their Indian fraternity, waging a relentless battle to save lives said Sodha.
 Recommendations are independently chosen by Revieweds editors. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission.

To help slow the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are recommending people wear homemade face coverings when in public. While homemade masks are not as effective as medical-grade and N95 masks (which should be left for health care workers due to scarcity), experts agree that wearing a cloth face covering could help minimize the spread of the Coronavirus.

While weve provided readers with instructions on how to make face masks at home, along with where to buy the materials to do so, we understand that DIY craft projects are not for everyone. Luckily, there are many options to buy homemade masks from retailers, designers, and DIYers popping-up online. But with so many to choose from, which ones are worth buying?

Not all fabric face masks are created equal.

After spending many years working in the apparel and textile industry, doing everything from design to material development to evaluating textiles (most recently at Nike before joining the team at Reviewed), I can confidently say that not all cloth face masks are created equal. A quality mask should be made of tightly woven dense fabric and fit snugly on your face. This means the fabric and fit can make all the difference.

While it is easier to click-and-purchase than make your own mask at home, its important to be sure you are buying a quality product, and Im here to help you do just that. After browsing dozens of masks being sold at different stores and what fabrics they are made of, I narrowed it down to nine homemade masks that are worth buying online.

1. Take Care: The Precision 2 Mask

Keep your glasses fog-free with this mask.

Take Care has multiple versions of their masks. The Precision 2 is the latest one, offering a tighter fit around the face. According to the website, the fit of this mask means your glasses wont fog up. The mask is made from high thread count quilters cotton and has an adjustable tie elastic strap. These masks also have a filter pocket, and their website states, Several health professionals recommended dried, unscented baby wipes as appropriate for filters in fabric masks.

Story continues

Get the Precision 2 Mask, 3 Pack at Take Care for $37.50

2. Etsy: Organic Cotton Face Mask from ShiitakeCreek

This mask offers sizes Child/XS Adult, S/M Adult, L Adult.

Etsy has endless options to choose from when it comes to face masks, this mask meets all the requirements. Its double-layered, made with densely woven material, and has organic cotton lining. What really sets it apart? It comes in 3 different sizes for a better fit. The fabric has also been pre-washed so theres no surprise shrinking when you wash it.

Get the Organic Cotton Canvas Face Mask at Etsy for $25

3. Aplat: Organic Cotton Mask

For every mask purchased, one is donated to a medical worker.

This is another mask that fits all of the requirements. Its a double-layer mask made with densely woven cotton fabric. It covers the mouth and nose well and has an adjustable tie strap for a better fit. It also has an insert for a filter (Aplat specifies a coffee filter). As a bonus, for every mask purchased, they are donating one to a healthcare worker.

Get the Organic Cotton Mask at Aplat for $28

4. Hedley & Bennett: The Wake Up and Fight Mask

This apron company teamed up with a surgeon to create masks.

Its no surprise these masks are great quality, seeing as the well-known apron company, Hedley & Bennett, teamed up with pediatric orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Robert Cho (you might know his wife, Joy Cho, from the famous brand Oh Joy!) to create these masks. These masks have a snug fit to the face, and unlike others, they dont have a metal nose-piece because they feel it decreases durability. According to Dr. Cho, even in the operating room, tape is the preferred seal because having a good seal is critical for a functioning mask. One drawback to these masks, as stated on the website, is the fabric can change as supplies change so youre not guaranteed a specific material, but since it has a pocket for a filter you could add in the material of your choice.

Get the Wake Up and Fight Mask at Hedley and Bennett for $22

5. Plover: Organic Cotton Mask

This mask meets the strictest organic standards.

GOTS-certified is one of the hardest certifications to meet for organic textiles. To get this certification, manufacturing practices are verified, as well as social and environmental standards. That being said, you can feel good about purchasing anything that is GOTS-certified. These masks are made from double-layered heavy cotton twill with elastic ear loops.

Get the Organic Cotton Mask at Plover for $20

6. Avocado Green Mattress: Organic Cotton Mask

Buy these masks in a family pack.

These organic cotton masks are a good choice for the individual or family. They are made of a thick weave cotton canvas and are double-layered. These masks are also made of GOTS-certified material. Avocado sells these in a pack of four or a family-pack that includes four adult masks and four childrens masks. They do limit one family-pack per household, though, so if you have more than four children or want spares, you wont be able to order extra.

7. T-Masks: T-Mask

T-shirts turned into masks.

If you have breathing concerns when wearing a homemade mask, you might want to consider this one. Based on research, t-shirt masks potentially offer less filtration than other types, but they are easier to breathe in. This face covering is one of the better masks made of t-shirt material. It offers a double-layer and is made of material following Kaiser Permanentes recommendations for face masks.

Get the T-mask at T-Masks for $10

8. Alice and Olivia: The Staceface mask and Limited Edition masks (Better as mask covers for healthcare workers)

A runway-ready mask that will donate a mask for every one purchased.

All of us could use a little cheering up right now, especially those in essential jobs and on the front lines. Its the little things that can make a difference, and a fun print mask could brighten someones day. Alice and Olivia are selling tons of masks in different, trendy printsand for every mask sold, theyre donating one to a community in need. These are great for someone who wants to have a little fun with their mask. However, this mask may not be as effective as the other ones highlighted in this list. Its better suited for a medical worker who wants to cover their N95.

9. Mask Club: Printed Mask (Better as mask covers for healthcare workers)

Just in case a health care worker needs a reminder they're a superhero.

While we dont recommend these masks to the everyday person, Mask Club masks are perfect for healthcare workers looking for a fun way to cover their N95 masks. Tell the medical professional in your life they are a superhero by sending them one of these masks. They have all sorts of prints available from Batman to Superman to Wonder Woman to Hello Kitty and more. The masks also have an insert for a filter that could be used for more protection in a pinch.

Get the Mask Club masks from Mask Club for $13.99

The product experts at Reviewed have all your shopping needs covered. Follow Reviewed on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the latest deals, product reviews, and more.

Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.

This article originally appeared on Reviewed.com: Where to buy homemade face masks: 9 retailers selling fabric face coverings worth buying
Bill Gates has become a target of coronavirus conspiracy theories.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Conspiracy theories linking Bill Gates to the coronavirus pandemic have surged online, an analysis by The New York Times suggested.

The newspaper's analysis found more than 16,000 Facebook posts linking Gates with the virus, as well as 10 YouTube videos espousing the conspiracy theories that had garnered 5 million views.

Gates has been vocal about taking measures to combat the spread of the virus, and his foundation has poured $250 million into response efforts.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Bill Gates' vocal stance on how to combat the coronavirus has made him a massive target of online conspiracy theorists, a New York Times analysis suggested.

The media analysis company Zignal Labs found that posts on social media falsely claiming that the Microsoft founder engineered the virus had exploded since the beginning of this year, The Times reported. In total, Zignal Labs found that conspiracy theories involving Gates and the virus had been mentioned 1.2 million times on social media and TV broadcasts, The Times said.

The Times said its analysis found more than 16,000 Facebook posts about Gates and the virus that had garnered about 900,000 likes and comments. It said the 10 most popular YouTube videos in March and April spreading misinformation about Gates had attracted 5 million views.

The newspaper said it traced the theories back to a tweet in late January by a YouTube personality linked to QAnon claiming that Gates knew about the pandemic ahead of time, citing a vaccine patent filed by a British group called the Pirbright Institute that had received funding from the Gates Foundation. The theory was picked up two days later by Infowars.

However, the vaccine was not related to the novel coronavirus but a different coronavirus that affects poultry, The Times said. In late January, the fact-checking site Full Fact debunked rumors circulating on social media that the Pirbright Institute had filed for a patent related to the novel coronavirus in 2015.

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According to The Times, the surge in conspiracy theories blaming Gates seemed to correlate with prominent right-wing and anti-vaccination figures picking up the narrative. Roger Stone, Trump's former campaign adviser who earlier this year was sentenced to 40 months in prison, suggested on a radio show this week that "whether Bill Gates played some role in the creation and spread of this virus is open for vigorous debate" the New York Post reported.

Gates' philanthropic organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has pledged $250 million toward fighting the coronavirus pandemic, including developing and manufacturing a vaccine. Gates has appeared on TV and written op-ed articles voicing his opinions about how to fight the virus, and he recently criticized President Donald Trump for withdrawing US funding for the World Health Organization.

Gates is not the only focus of conspiracy theories about the virus. In Britain, over 50 phone masts have been targeted by arson attacks linked to a popular conspiracy theory about the coronavirus and 5G technology.

There is a degree of crossover between these theories. Full Fact has also debunked a popular Facebook post that circulated in mid-March claiming both that the coronavirus was a fiction designed to disguise physical damage being done by 5G and that Gates created the virus to control the world and create a vaccine.

Read the original article on Business Insider
As pressure mounts to reopen Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf on Friday offered his six-point plan on what needs to occur before that happens, which included requiring a monitoring and surveillance program that allows the state to deploy swift actions for containment or mitigation if its necessary.

The governor provided no timetable for this process and added that more specifics will be forthcoming next week.

Meanwhile, the Pa. Gaming Board issued its numbers for March, and they werent pretty. Overall, revenue from the states casinos was down 51 percent for the month.

One thing that isnt a gamble is that the heavy dose of news will continue next week, and it might start Monday in downtown Harrisburg. At noon that day, an array of groups who are bashing the governors quarantine and business closure orders are vowing to rally outside the now-empty Capitol complex. One oft he rally organizers, Matt Bellis, said we can no longer live under a lockdown. We need to do everything we can to reasonably and responsibly reopen the state. We cant hamper the economy anymore.

That said, Pennsylvania reported today that its coronavirus numbers now include 29,441 positive cases of covering all 67 counties as of noon. At least 756 people have died from the virus.

Heres a list of other coronavirus stories today that we dont want you to miss:

Stocks rally worldwide as investors start to see light at the end of the tunnel

Gov. Wolf shares guidelines for reopening the state: Today in Pa.

Self-employed, independent contractors, gig employees soon to be eligible for unemployment benefits in Pa.

Heres how you can donate food to staff at the Hershey Medical Center

Death toll at Pa. nursing homes nears 400, thousands more infected

Sheetz employee in Harrisburg tests positive for coronavirus

Rite Aid Foundation to donate $5 million to various charities in response to the coronavirus pandemic

Coronavirus mask-making facts and myths: Does a coffee filter help? Best, worst materials to use, more

Live webinar offered to help businesses prepare for post-coronavirus rush of consumer spending

Busch giving a year of free beer to couples whove postponed wedding plans due to the coronavirus pandemic

Two of Penn State Healths sickest COVID-19 patients await experimental cure which may provide best option

Colin Kaepernick donates $100,000 to coronavirus relief Know Your Rights fund

Coronavirus forced schools to go online, but many students arent showing up

Watch: Lloyd Big Cat Hill talks coronavirus diagnosis, what the test is like, quarantine, and more
Fighting between Myanmar military, ethnic rebels kills 32: UN rights office

Iran Press TV

Friday, 17 April 2020 1:47 PM

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) says at least 32 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in the restive Rakhine and Chin states in western Myanmar amid an escalation in fighting between the country's military and ethnic rebels.

"Myanmar's military has been carrying out almost daily airstrikes and shelling in populated areas, resulting in at least 32 deaths and 71 injuries since March 23, the majority [being] women and children, and they have also been destroying and burning schools and homes," OHCHR spokesman Rupert Colville said at a news briefing in Geneva on Friday.

Myanmarese troops have been engaged in fighting with ethnic rebels in Rakhine and Chin for more than a year.

Colville said it had been "very difficult to get precise information from Rakhine on whether the [new] reported casualties are the result of targeting or were caught in the crossfire between the Arakan Army and Myanmar army."

Two local officials and a resident told Reuters that shelling in Rakhine's Kyauk Seik Village on Monday had left eight people dead, but the army dismissed reports about civilian casualties as "fabricated."

The rebels, along with two other ethnic armed groups, announced a month-long ceasefire for April, citing the coronavirus epidemic, which has infected 85 people in Myanmar and killed four. But the army rejected the truce, with a spokesman saying a previous truce declared by the government had not been respected by the insurgents.

The Arakan Army consists of Buddhist rebels calling for greater autonomy for Rakhine. The state was the scene of an organized deadly crackdown on minority Rohingya Muslims by the country's military and Buddhist mobs.

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Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday ordered schools throughout the state closed for the rest of the semester because of the lingering threat of the coronavirus.

Pritzker announced the move during his daily briefing in Chicago, extending school closures past the April 30 date he had set earlier. As of Friday, Illinois had recorded 27,575 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 1,134 deaths.

In issuing his latest order, Pritzker acknowledged the disruption it would cause to students and their families.

But my priority remains unchanged. How do we save the most lives during this very difficult time? Pritzker said. The answer to that question leaves us with only one path forward.

The governor closed schools March 17 amid growing concern over the virus, idling more than 2 million children midway through the spring semester, including 355,000 in Chicagos public school district, which is the third largest in the nation. A week later, he issued a statewide stay-at-home order, restricting people from going out except for necessities such as groceries and medicine.

The stay-at-home order was to last through March, but with the disease spreading rapidly, Pritzker extended it and the school closures through April. The Democrat has repeatedly dodged questions about whether he will extend the stay-at-home order beyond this month.

Chicago schools, whose post-Labor Day start is among the latest in the state, also lost classroom time because of a 14-day teachers strike last fall. Even before the virus outbreak, Chicago schools wouldnt have recessed until June 18.

Students in many parts of the state dont have internet access at home. Pritzkers office released a map showing public wi-fi hotspots  for schoolchildren who dont have home internet access.

Republican state Rep. Ryan Spain, whose Peoria-area district reaches counties that educate more than 25,000 pupils, noted the equity issues with e-learning and said Pritzker must make clear that the semester will continue online.

I worry about the lost development for this generation of students, said Spain, who has a daughter in first grade. Remote learning is a far cry from in-person school, but we need to keep students engaged to retain as much knowledge as possible.

Child care presents another problem if parents are allowed to return to work, Spain said.

The order came a day after President Donald Trump issued guidance for states to reopen the countrys economy, which has been rocked by widespread shutdowns of nonessential businesses and 22 million people filing for unemployment. Pritzker has said hes waiting for the number of new COVID-19 cases in Illinois to start dropping before hell loosen the states social-distancing restrictions.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.

The disease is particularly hard on the elderly, and the mayor of Joliet said Friday that he has asked the governor to launch an investigation into the coronavirus-related deaths of 22 residents and a staff member at a nursing home in the northern Illinois city.

A spokeswoman for the facility, Symphony of Joliet, announced the deaths on Wednesday. The facility had reported a total of three deaths as recently as last week.

Joliet Mayor Bob ODekirk said that he had asked Pritzkers office late Thursday to initiate an investigation by the Illinois Department of Public Health and to start untangling the mess of what happened inside that nursing home.

We dont have the answers right now, but were going to get the answers, he said. Certainly Joliet families (and) people who lost their loved ones inside the nursing home have a right to get those answers.

Spokeswomen for the governors office and nursing home, and officials from the health department didnt immediately reply to Friday emails seeking comment about the mayors request.
On Saturday night, as the county prepared for an Easter holiday like no other, Fingal County Council lit up six iconic buildings across the county as part of the national initiative to ;Shine a Light' for all the sick, frontline workers and anyone affected by COVID-19.

The buildings lit up included four heritage properties - Swords Castle, Bremore Castle, Ardgillan Castle and the Casino in Malahide - as well as County Hall in Swords and the Civic Offices in Blanchardstown.

The Mayor of Fingal, Cllr Eoghan O'Brien, who attended the lighting up of Swords Castle along with the Director of Economic Enterprise and Tourism Development, Emer O'Gorman, and members of Fingal County Council's Emergency Management Unit, praised the initiative.

The Fingal Mayor said: 'I think the idea of shining a light for everybody affected by the COVID-19 pandemic is an excellent idea and it sends out the message that across Fingal and across Ireland we are all united in the fight against this virus.'
Forty per cent of more than 650 nursing homes nationwide with publicly reported cases of the coronavirus have been cited more than once by inspectors in recent years for violating federal standards meant to control the spread of infections, according to a Washington Post analysis.

Since 2016, the nursing homes accrued hundreds of deficiencies for unsafe conditions that can trigger the spread of flu, pneumonia, urinary tract infections and skin diseases. Dozens were flagged by inspectors only months before the coronavirus pandemic struck the US.

Among the facilities with infection-control infractions: the Pleasant View Nursing Home in Mount Airy, in the state of Maryland, where 24 people had died as of Thursday the 16 April; the Canterbury Rehabilitation & Healthcare Centre near Richmond, Virginia, with 49 deaths as of Thursday; and the Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Centre in southwestern Pennsylvania, where officials have warned that all 750 residents and staff members could be infected.

It is difficult to say whether past violations contributed to current outbreaks or whether any level of preparation would have been enough to protect against a previously unidentified pathogen, but nursing home watchdog groups say the breakdowns have endangered older, vulnerable residents already more at risk of dying from the highly contagious virus.

Nursing home residents had targets on their backs the moment the virus hit our shores, said Mike Dark, an attorney with the nonprofit California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. There is an inertia about infection control and its too late to catch up.

Thousands of coronavirus-related deaths have been linked to nursing homes; the state of New York alone earlier this week reported more than 2,400. At a nursing home in northern New Jersey, police found more than a dozen bodies in what was described as a makeshift morgue".

The federal government and many states have not released the names of affected facilities.

Through state and county health departments and media reports, The Washington Post was able to identify 662 Medicare-certified nursing homes that have had publicly reported cases of the virus and analyse their track records.

The homes with a history of infection-control deficiencies span 35 states, with dozens in California, the state of Washington and Connecticut, according to inspection data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that regulates nursing homes.

The hardest-hit state, New York, on Friday released only a partial list of nursing homes that have been affected by the coronavirus. Without a full list, The Washington Post has been able to identify only a dozen nursing homes in New York with repeated infection deficiencies.

The hundreds of citations touch on all areas of infection control, inspection records show. Some facilities failed to track residents with symptoms of infections. Others did not ensure that staff members changed soiled gloves, washed their hands or wore personal protective equipment. In some cases, providers used dirty or unsanitised equipment.

At Pleasant View nursing home, staff failed to put dates on oxygen equipment that requires regular changing or store personal urinals in a sanitary manner in a bathroom shared by eight residents, records show. At Brighton, in Pennsylvania, according to inspectors, officials failed to ensure that caregivers properly cleaned wounds, washed their hands or wore personal protective equipment. One aide left a wet sheet under a resident whose catheter was leaking.

When the coronavirus struck the nursing home, Keri Boyer said she braced for bad news.

Baltimore City Firefighters load a patient they picked up from The FutureCare-Lochearn facility in Northwest Baltimore, Maryland where over 100 residents have Covid-19 (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

Once we got the phone call that there was a positive case, I told my husband, My dads going to get it. I have no doubt in my mind', said Ms Boyer, whose 73-year-old father, a Pittsburgh Steelers fan who retired from his job at a cement plant, was one of at least five Brighton residents who died from the virus.

They had four people in a room, Ms Boyer said. Thats how my dad lived, with three other men in a room that was as big as a hospital room, separated by curtains. I sometimes feel like they were the dispensable ones.

An official at Pleasant View said the nursing home declined to comment, and Brighton administrators did not respond to emails. An official with Canterbury nursing home said ownership of the facility changed in January.

In the months prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, there were significant improvements in virtually every aspect of operations ... and there were also significant changes in facility leadership, Canterbury administrator Jeremiah Davis said in a statement. There has been material focus on placing the right people in the right positions, and a significant influx of new protocols prior to the outbreak.

Industry leaders say even the strongest infection-control measures could not have prepared nursing homes for the onslaught of coronavirus and that facilities with limited personal protective equipment are doing what they can to protect and treat residents.

Outbreaks are not the result of inattentiveness or a shortcoming in nursing homes, David Gifford, chief medical officer at the American Health Care Association and the National Centre for Assisted Living, said in a statement. Its the combination of the behaviour of this virus and the unique threat it presents to the people we care for  older adults with multiple underlying health conditions.

With fragile populations, shortages of personal protective equipment and staff members forced to juggle front-line work with the needs of their own families, nursing home residents were essentially sitting ducks, said Karl Steinberg, a San Diego-based geriatrician and palliative care specialist and president-elect of Amda: the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.

A lot of facilities could do better, he said. But this virus is different. Its insidious. We dont know who has it. We dont know who doesnt have it. It could live in the air. It could live on surfaces. Its highly improbable that ... the best in planning would have prevented this.

Nursing home watchdog groups, however, say warnings went unheeded for years, even after the Obama administration in 2016 moved to strengthen infection-control practices in nursing homes.

In the past four years, infection-control problems were the most common deficiencies identified at 15,000 nursing homes nationwide, federal records show.

Three-quarters of nursing homes were cited at least once for infection-related infractions since 2016. Four in 10 were repeat offenders, flagged at least twice.

In Florida last year, a nurse failed to disinfect a blood-glucose meter in a facility with 23 diabetic patients; an inspector found one of the devices sitting on a cart, soiled with what appeared to be blood, federal inspection reports show. In California last year, administrators failed to screen dozens of staff members, including 15 licensed nurses and 13 nursing assistants, for tuberculosis and flu vaccinations. In Wisconsin in 2017, a quarantine was lifted and residents allowed to mingle even though a gastrointestinal outbreak had sickened dozens of people.

Even as the coronavirus swept hundreds of nursing homes, inspectors continued to cite breakdowns.

The Centres for Medicare & Medicaid Services last month postponed routine inspections to focus solely on infection control. In a first-round of inspections during the week of 30 March, officials found that one in three nursing homes did not follow proper hand-washing guidelines and one in four failed to demonstrate the proper use of personal protective equipment.

As of 10 April, the agency had inspected 96 facilities, finding 12 that did not follow proper hand-washing guidelines and 18 did not properly use personal protective equipment.

As the death toll continues to mount, nursing homes are struggling to account for what happened.

Believe me, facilities are scrambling to have these [infection-control] processes as airtight as they can, said Dr Steinberg, the California doctor. They really didnt know what was going on until it was too late.

The federal government started taking a hard look at infection control four years ago when the Obama administration pushed to require facilities to bring on specialists focused on preventing the spread of illness. More than 3,000 people were trained by the American Health Care Association, which represents thousands of skilled-nursing centres, assisted-living communities and other facilities.

The new regulation, however, did not become effective until this past November, only weeks before the coronavirus started spreading in China.

And even before the requirements took effect, the federal government had put in motion plans to change the rule, striking the mandate for at least a part-time infection specialist and instead relying on nursing homes to ensure that specialists had sufficient time at facilities. The proposed changes, criticised by patient-watchdog groups, are still pending.

CMS Administrator Seema Verma told The New York Times last month that the changes, meant to give nursing homes more freedom from federal rules, could mean that providers focus even more on infection control.

With nursing homes now at the center of the pandemic, CMS has renewed calls to nursing homes to comply with federal rules for infection control.

Inspectors have documented the problems for years, but the agency classifies nearly all infection-control deficiencies as a low-level concern, which means they do not trigger penalties or fines. Dark, with the California watchdog group, calls them paper violations".

Of more than 20,000 infection-control infractions since 2016, only 151 were classified as higher-level violations that caused significant harm or immediate jeopardy to residents.

In mid-March, federal inspectors went to the Life Care Centres of Kirkland, the Washington state nursing home linked to more than 40 deaths and more than 100 cases of coronavirus infection. They found the facility had failed to properly identify and manage sick patients or alert authorities to an outbreak of respiratory illness.

State inspectors also investigated, finding the lack of care had resulted in hospitalisations and resident deaths and that an ineffective infection-control system resulted in a widespread and unmanaged respiratory outbreak".

CMS threatened to cut off Medicare and Medicaid funding if the deficiencies are not corrected by September. The agency also fined the facility more than $600,000 (480k) though the amount could change if Life Care complies with a correction plan. The state banned Life Care from accepting new admissions until fixes are made, including training staff in infectious disease management.

Candace Goehring, Washington state director of residential care services, said state agencies now know more about controlling and responding to outbreaks. Im sure we will all be going back . . . to understand how do we better prepare, she said.

A year ago at Life Care, records show, inspectors found respiratory equipment mixed in with bed covers and socks, kitchen staff who handled clean dishes with soiled gloves and a staff member who failed to wear personal protective equipment while caring for a resident with a suspected respiratory infection.

In a laundry room, inspectors noted that clean linens were at risk of being contaminated by air blowing in from a dirty utility room with a broken exhaust fan. Two outbreaks of the flu had affected at least 17 residents and seven staff members.

The infection-control citation that followed was classified as low-level. Life Care corrected the deficiencies, state records show, and went on to receive an overall rating of five stars, the highest rating from CMS.

Theres no teeth, Toby Edelman, senior policy attorney with the nonprofit Centre for Medicare Advocacy, said of the infractions. [CMS] could . . . actually do something about it  take action. They could treat these problems as the serious problems they are.

Tim Killian, a public information liaison for Life Care Centres of America, said the nursing home has followed all guidance from the state and federal government. The facility regularly makes adjustments to improve patient care based on feedback from CMS, he said.

No amount of preparation, he said, could have prepared the facility for a virus that started spreading from patient to patient before staff even knew it was there.

This is an unprecedented viral outbreak, Mr Killian said. It is outside the scope of anything that we had seen, anything that federal agencies had seen, anything that our . . . public health departments had seen, and no agencies had given us specific guidelines or provided . . . additional resources to us to prepare our facility.

Cami Neidigh said she is just grateful to have her 90-year-old mother home.

After developing a fever at Life Care, the great-great-grandmother was sent to an isolation room in a Seattle hospital, diagnosed with covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Ms Neidigh and the rest of the family, draped in protective gear, were called in to say goodbye.

Seeing family likely helped, Ms Neidigh said. Within 24 hours, her mother rallied and soon insisted on a bowl of potato soup, served for years in the family as an antidote to the common cold.

Billie Namath looks out of the window of her daughters home (Justin Merriman/The Washington Post)

When she ... was taken out of that facility, it saved her life. It gave her a fighting chance, said Ms Neidigh, whose mother is now recovered and once again living in her own apartment.

Northeast of Nashville, Tennessee, the Gallatin Center for Rehabilitation and Healing has also struggled with infection control, federal records show. In recent years, inspectors found that staff did not follow hand-washing procedures, properly dispose of wound care materials or appropriately handle soiled linens.

More than 100 residents and staff at the centre have been infected with the coronavirus, according to local media reports. Late last month, the facility was temporarily shut down and sanitised.

Officials at the nursing home provided a written timeline to The Washington Post noting that the facility in February and March conducted additional training on hand-washing techniques and infection control, restricted visitors and screened staff for fevers. At an inspection earlier this month, inspectors did not find deficiencies related to Covid-19, records show.

A state health department representative declined to discuss conditions at the facility. At a news conference, Tennessee Department of Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey called the nursing home an excellent partner.

More than 10 people linked to the Gallatin centre have died from the virus, including 80-year-old Homer Barr, a father of four and retired fire captain.

I let my dad down and I cant go back, said Mr Barrs daughter, Deneen. I pray to God that he didnt have to suffer.

In Beaver County outside of Pittsburgh, the Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Centre was cited multiple times in recent years for infection-control lapses. In January 2019, inspectors also reported that Brighton had no heat, with indoor temperatures as low as 58 degrees. One resident reported that she used her oxygen mask to breathe beneath six blankets, records show.

Tamera Witherspoon, a 41-year-old licensed practical nurse who logged 50-hour weeks at the centre, said staffing shortages were also a problem. During some shifts, she said, there were dozens of patients who needed tending. She barely had time to wash her hands, she said.

Tamera Witherspoon, a nurse at Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Centre, stands in front of her home in April in Aliquippa Penyslvannia (Justin Merriman/The Washington Post)

In March, the virus swept the nursing home. During an early-morning shift, Ms Witherspoon, a mother of three who earns $26 (21) an hour, said she did not have enough medical equipment or an N95 mask, which experts say provides the highest level of protection.

She said she told her supervisors that she would not be returning until she got a mask. Ms Witherspoon decided to self-quarantine, and after she spoke out publicly, she received a donation of eight masks from a local business owner. She gave one to a neighbour in a wheelchair and one to another nurse at the facility. She said she is still waiting for an apology from Brighton.

Im sitting at home, not compensated, she said. Im just in a limbo.

Nate Wardle, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Health, said Brighton was on a provisional license, with inspections twice a year because of prior health deficiencies. Mr Wardle said health officials have so far found no breakdowns in the days leading up to the outbreak.

Mr Wardle said health officials have been in touch with Brighton and have so far found no breakdowns in the days leading up to the outbreak.

We are not aware of anything that has been done that would be of serious concern to the department, he said. But of course were not in the facility every day observing everything thats going on.

We are not aware of anything that has been done that would be of serious concern to the department, he said. But of course were not in the facility every day observing everything thats going on.

Connie Sluzynsky said her 83-year-old mother was one of the lucky ones.

Connie Sluezkey outside her home in Monaca Pennsylvania in April 2020 (Justin Merriman/The Washington Post) (The Washington Post)

The retired courthouse clerk and great-grandmother was living at Brighton when officials locked down the facility to stop the spread of infection. Ms Sluzynsky said she spent days calling for updates and finally reached a nurse.

She said, I will tell you with 100 per cent certainty that everybody here is going to get that virus', Ms Sluzynsky recalled.

On 30 March, Ms Sluzynsky pulled her mother out of the nursing home. A week later, with multiple deaths and dozens of cases, Brighton officials announced they would stop reporting a count of new cases because it was possible that all residents and staff had contracted the virus.

At home after two weeks in self-quarantine, in a bedroom with family photos and a television tuned to Dr. Phil", Ms Sluzynskys mother has shown no signs of infection.

When I see how people are taken care of there ... and when I look at my mom, I think, Is this what your life has come to? Is this it? Ms Sluzynsky said. I just didnt want to see my mothers life come to this.

The Washington Post
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 01:07:13|Editor: huaxia

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Members of a Chinese medical team check the list of medical supplies at Tashkent International Airport in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, April 17, 2020. A Chinese medical team arrived in Tashkent Friday to assist Uzbekistan's efforts to fight COVID-19. The 15-member team brought to Uzbekistan medical supplies donated by east China's Jiangxi Province, including surgical masks, N95 respirators, medical protective suits, nucleic acid testing kits, goggles and non-invasive ventilators. (Photo by Zafar Khalilov/Xinhua)

TASHKENT, April 17 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese medical team arrived in Tashkent Friday to assist Uzbekistan's ongoing efforts to fight COVID-19.

The 15-member team also brought medical supplies donated by east China's Jiangxi Province, including surgical masks, N95 respirators, medical protective suits, nucleic acid testing kits, goggles and non-invasive ventilators.

The experts specializing in various areas including traditional Chinese medicine, intensive care, hospital infection control and emergency treatment are from several hospitals in Jiangxi and the provincial center for disease prevention and control.

"All the team members are with firsthand experience in treating COVID-19 patients or controlling the epidemic," said team leader Luo Lisheng.

"We will share China's experience in fighting COVID-19 and offer training on disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment with our counterparts in Uzbekistan," Luo added.

"China will never forget the Uzbek aid when China was badly hit by the virus. I hope that the work of Chinese experts will be useful to the Uzbek side to achieve a final victory in fight against COVID-19," said Jiang Yan, Chinese ambassador to Uzbekistan who greeted the Chinese experts at the airport.

"We have been looking forward to Chinese experts for a long time. I believe that their valuable experience in treating COVID-19 patients or controlling the epidemic will help Uzbekistan overcome the epidemic as soon as possible," Uzbek Deputy Health Minister Bahodir Nizomov said.

The medical team will also provide necessary medical supplies, training and consultation service for overseas Chinese in Uzbekistan.

Late last month, China donated protective medical supplies to Uzbekistan to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Uzbekistan now has 1,390 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and has effectively locked down all major cities including its capital city Tashkent. Enditem
The Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Abba Kyari, is dead. His age is unclear at this time.

Mr Kyari died of coronavirus. He received treatment at a private hospital in Lagos.

His death was announced by presidential spokesperson, Femi Adesina, in a Tweet early Saturday.

Chief of Staff to the President, Mallam Abba Kyari, passes on. May God rest his soul. Amen. Funeral arrangements to be announced soon, Mr Adesina wrote.

Mr Adesina later sent PREMIUM TIMES a short statement, saying, The Presidency regrets to announce the passage of the Chief of Staff to the President, Mallam Abba Kyari. The deceased had tested positive for the ravaging COVID-19 and had been receiving treatment. But he died on Friday, April 17, 2020. May God accept his soul. Funeral arrangements will be announced shortly.

Mr Kyari had on March 23 tested positive to the novel coronavirus. On March 29, Mr Kyari issued a statement on his decision to move to Lagos for further test and observation.

The statement was the first official confirmation of his COVID-19 status since he was confirmed positive six days earlier.

In his statement, he said; I have made my own care arrangements to avoid further burdening the public health system, which faces so many pressures.

This is a precautionary measure: I feel well, but last week I tested positive for Coronavirus, the pandemic that is sweeping the world. I have followed all protocols the government has announced to self-isolate and quarantine.

The perceived secrecy surrounding the management of Mr Kyaris medical condition further heightened the agitation by Nigerians for information on the whereabouts of arguably Nigerias most powerful presidential aide.

Some Nigerians on social media also speculated that Mr Kyari was flown abroad.

Although Mr Kyari and the government he served did not disclose the hospital where he received treatment, some sources suggested that he was treated at First Cardiology Consultant (FCC), a highly-sought-after private health facility located in Ikoyi, Lagos.

One of the sources who did not want to be named due to patients confidentiality guideline and sensitivity of Mr Kyaris case told one of our reporters that the chief of staff later became very sick.

PRESIDENT BUHARI RECEIVES AFENIFERE 10. R-L; Chief of Staff Mallam Abba Kyari, Asiwaju Senator Bola Ahmed Tinunbu and Foremr Governor, Chief Segun Osoba during the Visit of the Afenifere to congratulatio him on his reelection for a 2nd term in office held at the Council Chamber, State House Abuja. PHOTO; SUNDAY AGHAEZE. JUNE 25 2019

But First Cardiology Consultant Hospital was evasive when PREMIUM TIMES contacted it on Friday.

While Mr Kyari received treatment at a private hospital, the Minister of Health, Osagie Enahire, warned private hospitals against treating COVID-19 patients in their facilities. He said instead they should promptly refer suspected cases to the various public facilities across states dedicated to the management of the disease.

It is unclear Saturday morning if Mr Kyaris death is among the four new deaths announced by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) late on Friday.

The NCDC said Nigerias death toll increased to 17 on Friday from 13 on Thursday.

Nigeria has 493 confirmed cases of COVID-19 including the 17 deaths while 157 people have recovered and have been discharged.

Mr Kyari had travelled to Germany on March 7 and returned about a week later. He is suspected to have contracted the disease while there.

The chief of staff, who was in Europe alongside the power minister, Saleh Mamman, returned to the country on March 14.

The duo had travelled to Germany to meet with officials of Siemens AG in pursuit of the deal recently signed between the Nigerian government and the energy company towards improving electricity supply in the country.

Mr Kyari was first appointed chief of staff to the president in 2015 when Mr Buhari came to power. He was reappointed last year after his principal won reelection.

Pic 13. From left: President Muhammadu Buhari; FCT Minister, Malam Bello Mohammad; Gov Ibrahim Damkwambo of Gombe State and Chief of Staff, Alhaji Abba Kyari during the departure of the President to New York, USA for the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja on Sunday (17/9/17) 49635/17/9/2017/ICE/NAN

According to a statement by the presidency when he was first appointed, Mr Kyari held Bachelors and Masters Degrees from the University of Cambridge and the University of Warwick in Law and Sociology.

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He worked with the New Nigeria Development Company, New Africa Holdings, African International Bank, the United Bank for Africa, Unilever, and Mobil in various capacities over the years.

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Police in Hong Kong have arrested at least 14 pro-democracy activists in connection with the mass protests that rocked the Asian financial hub last year.

Among those targeted on Saturday was media tycoon Jimmy Lai, founder of anti-establishment tabloid Apple Daily, who was arrested at his home, according to local media reports.

The group also included former legislators 81-year-old Martin Lee, Albert Ho, Leung Kwok-hung and Au Nok-hin, who are accused of organising and taking part in unlawful assemblies in August and October, according to several current Hong Kong legislators. In all, nine former legislators were arrested.

Lee is a prominent Democratic Party founder and senior barrister, who is known as the founding father of Hong Kongs democratic movement as well as one of the architects of the citys Basic Law, the mini-constitution under which Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Lai was also arrested in February, along with veteran activists Lee Cheuk-yan and Yeung Sum, over their involvement in a mass anti-government demonstration on August 31 last year.

Al Jazeeras Divya Gopalan, reporting from Hong Kong, said the police will be releasing a statement to give more details about the latest arrests.

But, according to one of the those legislative councillors who has been arrested, he posted on social media saying that it is most likely due to their involvement in protests in the past year, particularly the one on August 18 which was against Hong Kongs extradition law that has been removed since, she said.

The raids mark the biggest crackdown on the pro-democracy movement since the outbreak of large and sometimes violent anti-government protests across the former British colony in June last year.

Marchers initially targeted a now-scrapped bill proposing to send suspects to mainland China for trial but protests broadened into demands for full democracy and a public investigation of the use of force by police.

Ring of terror

Saturdays arrests come after several months of relative calm amid a partial coronavirus lockdown but just as Chinese and city government officials launch a new push for tougher national security laws for Hong Kong.

Democratic legislator Claudia Mo, who was not among those arrested, said the government, led by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, was trying to introduce a ring of terror in Hong Kong.

They are doing whatever they can to try to silence, to take down, the local opposition, she said, pointing to upcoming legislative elections in September in which democrats hope to win back their former veto power in the city assembly.





The pro-democracy protests and movement has recently died down, partly due to exhaustion and arrests but also because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Hong Kongs autonomy has been a point of renewed concern after Beijings top office in the territory said it has the right and responsibility to be involved in the citys affairs.

Hong Kongs mini-constitution restricts Beijing from interfering in local affairs.

But on Friday, Beijings top office in Hong Kong said it was not bound by Hong Kongs laws and therefore has the right to supervise how the one country, two systems principle is being implemented.

The unprecedented statement came after the liaison office accused opposition politicians of abusing their power in the legislative council.

Al Jazeeras Gopalan said the crackdown was very timely since it will not spark much reaction amid the lockdown restrictions.

This is a particularly useful time for them to do it because people are not allowed on the streets and are not allowed to protest and the pro-democract camp basically says that this is governments attempt at completely shutting down any democratic movements in the city.

Chinas leaders have refused to accede to the protesters demands, which include fully free elections in the city of more than 7 million, an inquiry into alleged police misconduct during the protests and an amnesty for more than 7,000 people arrested during the movement.
New Delhi April 18 : Battling in a 24x7 mode against the spread of COVID-19 in one of largest Hindi heartland states, Madhya Pradesh Chief Shivraj Singh Chouhan told IANS that after taking responsibility of MP, late last month, he had to start the war against the virus from scratch.

"I do not want to make any political comment on this sensitive issue but still want to add that the previous government did not pay much attention to the COVID-19 situation," said Chouhan, who is fighting the virus along with a dedicated team of officials and experts.

With Indore, becoming the biggest hotspot of COVID-19 in the state, the Chief Minister, in this interview said that the earlier government should have taken precautions to contain the spread of the virus in the city. However all efforts are now being made to control the pandemic, and he assured that in the coming days the situation will improve in Indore.

Here are excerpts of the interview.

Q: You took responsibility as a Chief Minister of the state at a very crucial moment. What was the situation in the state related to Covid-19 preparedness? A: I took oath as a Chief Minister on the evening of 23rd March and the first thing on my agenda was to attend to the emerging Covid19 situation in Madhya Pradesh. I don't want to do any politics on this subject, but my predecessor and his government did not pay any attention to Covid19 situation. They had 'zero' preparation.

I started from the scratch and worked on a war footing to make things happen for Madhya Pradesh. The situation is under control and we are in a much better position to handle Covid19 today.

Q: During your earlier tenure Indore emerged as the cleanest city of India and it still maintains that crown, how come it has emerged as one of the biggest hotspot of Covid19 in the state? A: Indore is the crowning jewel of Madhya Pradesh. People of Indore are known for their commitment and dedication to the cause. Securing and maintaining the crown of the cleanest city in India is a matter of pride for each 'indori' and everyone in MP.

As you know, Indore is one of the busiest cities of the country. From January to early March there were so many people who travelled from international destinations to the city. As per our estimate there were more than 6000 people, who entered the city using air transport and without any kind of screening. Apart from that we had so many people coming in by trains, and roads from across the country for various events and festivals. The earlier government did not take any precautions and most of them arrived unchecked and many of them were Corona positive.

The population density also played a major role in the spread of this highly contagious virus. However, our first priority was Indore and we addressed it immediately and continue to fight the spread. We are seeing the early sign of success and in the next few days, Indore will emerge much stronger and better than what it was a few days back.

Q: How strong is the medical/healthcare infrastructure of Madhya Pradesh? Are you prepared for the worst? A: Due to sustained efforts of the government and under the dynamic leadership of our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, India has emerged much stronger and I strongly believe that the worst is behind us. However, the healthcare infrastructure Madhya Pradesh is well equipped to handle any kind of emergency around Covid19.

As per our IITT strategy - (Identify, Isolate, Test, and Treat) - we have identified more than 27 lakh 54 thousand people, who are part of the containment areas across the state; out of which we have screened 18 lakh 14 thousand people and isolated 11,163 high risk individuals, who have been exposed to Coronavirus due to travel history or contact history with the Covid19 patients. Out of 13,492 test reports, we got 11,010 negatives and just 1307 positives, which is an excellent result. Just today from Bhopal, we have tested 99 samples and 98 came negative, which is the sign of what I said about leaving the worst behind.

We have more than 246 Covid19 care centres, 63 Covid19 Health Centres, and 25 dedicated Covid19 hospitals with a total capacity of 29,975 isolation beds with 840 ICU beds. We have more than 993 ventilators and I am happy to share that not more than 40 are being used on any patients as of now. We have more than 83 thousand PPE kits, 1,65,000 N95 masks, more than 53 lakhs three-layered masks, and 33,70,000 doses of HQCN tablets.

We are prepared but I am sure that we won't need these resources.

Q: People always talk about Bhilwara model, but not many talk about Jabalpur model. What do you have to say about that? A: As soon as we identified MP's first and Jabalpur's first four positive cases in the last week of March, the administration followed the established protocols and isolated them, traced their contact history and quarantined more than 25 people. To avoid any panic, they did everything in consultation with people and by keeping them updated regularly to avoid any kind of rumour mongering. The citizens supported the administration in lockdown and all patients were kept under isolation and vigil using the Sarthak App. The police team tracked down the contacts and worked with them as part of IITT strategy to control the spread by keeping them under required quarantine. The model we deployed across Madhya Pradesh is showing results and I am sure that after Jabalpur the next case study would be of Indore.

Q: What is your strategy for Lockdown 2.0? What happens post 20th April? A: We will follow the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs regarding that.

Q: MP emerged as an agricultural powerhouse during your earlier tenure, today what are the plans for wheat procurement during this Covid19 situation? A: Our PM Shri Narendra Modi has always kept the interests of farmers at heart. We have already started procuring wheat from farmers using Mandis and other allied infrastructure and we have procured close to 72% of the last year's procurement as on 16.04.2020, that too in such a trying circumstances. Farmers are advised to come to nearest Mandi or procurement centres based on the time communicated to them by SMS based appointment system maintaining the safety and set social distancing norms.

We are always with our farmers. They are my priority.

Q: Anything else, you would like to add? A: We will be victorious and we will defeat Coronavirus. Madhya Pradesh is in safe hands. Do not believe in rumours. We are much stronger and better prepared to fight this pandemic.

As a goodwill gesture, I have decided to pay honorarium of Rs 10,000/- per month to the front line healthcare workers, who are serving the Covid19 patients. I have also decided that the other administrative team members such as police, municipal workers etc., who come in contact with Covid19 patients and catch this virus, will also be given one time honorarium of Rs, 10000/- for their service.
Larissa and Nick Lewis wanted to help neighbours share their home cooking when they launched their small business Cookaborough in February this year, but coronavirus changed their plans.

"We just thought 'Gosh isn't it nice to have someone else cook for you occasionally?'," Larissa says. "Then suddenly COVID-19 hit and we started getting interest from chefs that have lost their jobs and want to start up their home-cooked meal businesses, and from customers that want to support locals."

The couple shifted their plans to focus on those struggling businesses and have seen strong takeup as the coronavirus pandemic continues to change the way people live their lives, and the way they use technology.

Larissa and Nick Lewis with co-founder Lyndon Galvin started the Cookaborough platform with the idea of sharing meals among neighbours. Credit:Simon Schluter

Practising social distancing and bunkering down at home has meant a boom for food delivery giants Uber Eats and Deliveroo, streaming services such as Netflix, online retail, telehealth and remote learning, but platforms like Cookaborough that emphasise community and "supporting someone you know" are also taking off. Apps that allow users to see and speak to each other, like HouseParty and Zoom, are popular too. Zoom jumped from 10 million users a day last year to 200 million users a day across the world in March.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 20:49:30|Editor: huaxia

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SHANGHAI, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The Global System for Mobile Communications Alliance (GSMA) has canceled the Mobile World Congress (MWC) Shanghai 2020, which had been scheduled to be held between June 30 and July 2 in Shanghai.

The organizer of the conference announced the cancellation in light of the current government guidance, the global concern regarding the COVID-19 outbreak, travel restrictions and other circumstances.

The GSMA said it will work with the government and health authorities to find a suitable date and venue to hold regional conferences in China in the latter half of 2020.

Since the first edition of MWC in China, MWC Shanghai has grown to a three-day international event that attracts senior executives and companies from a wide range of vertical industry sectors to the region, the GSMA said.

Over 4,000 insiders of the mobile industry and related industries participated in the MWC Shanghai 2019, among whom 60 percent were senior executives from the world's leading enterprises like Huawei, Qualcomm, JP Morgan and China's three major mobile operators, including more than 350 CEOs. Enditem
A health worker wearing a protective medical equipment extracts a blood sample from a patient's finger to make an antibody test for patients suspected of being infected with for the coronavirus (COVID-19) (Photo by Luis Alvarenga/Getty Images/Getty Images)

Mathilde Dumont, a 27-year-old nurse, tends to a patient, during her night shift in the intensive care unit exclusively for COVID-19 patients at the Ixelles Hospital in Brussels. Getty Images

Keep informed of these unprecedented times with the latest coronavirus updates on Independent.ie's live blog.

18.05 18/04/2020

Coronavirus Ireland: Death toll rises by 41 to 571 with 778 new cases

Alan O'Keeffe

A further 41 people have died of coronavirus in Ireland, rising to 571 deaths in total. The National Public Health Emergency Team confirmed a further 778 cases in Ireland.

There has now been 14,758 cases of Covid-19 across Ireland.

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre said yesterday 35 deaths were located in the east, two in the north west and four in the west of the country. The deaths included 23 females and 18 males and the median age was 83.

There have now been 571 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said: "This week the National Public Health Emergency Team emphasised the importance of testing in interrupting the transmission of COVID-19 in community residential settings including nursing homes.

This sector remains a priority for our focused attention and we will continue to monitor and support them through this outbreak.

As of 11.15am yesterday, the HPSC were informed that:

 An additional 630 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported by Irish laboratories

 An additional 148 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported by a laboratory in Germany

With the latest figures from Germany included, there are now a total of 14,758 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

The HSE is working to identify any contacts the patients may have had to provide them with information and advice to prevent further spread.

Saturdays data from the HPSC related to the position as of midnight on Thursday (13,746 cases) which revealed:

 44% are male and 55% are female, with 454 clusters involving 2,964 cases

 The median age of confirmed cases is 48 years

 2,168 cases (16%) have been hospitalised

 Of those hospitalised, 296 cases have been admitted to ICU

 3,573 cases are associated with healthcare workers

 Dublin has the highest number of cases at 6,934 (50% of all cases) followed by Cork with 979 cases (7%)

 Of those for whom transmission status is known: community transmission accounts for 52%, close contact accounts for 43%, travel abroad accounts for 5%

ends





15.50 18/04/2020

Coronavirus Ireland: All nursing home staff and residents to be tested within days

All residents and staff in nursing homes and other long-stay care facilities are to be tested for the coronavirus in the next seven to 10 days.

It comes as the spread of the infection in nursing homes has led to 245 deaths.

A census of all deaths in nursing homes and long-stay facilities is also to be carried out this weekend, dating to January 1.

The aim is to determine what level of excess mortality has occurred since the beginning of the year and the onset of the coronavirus crisis.

Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said the National Public Health Emergency Team endorsed a proposal to increase testing of staff and residents across all long-term residential care settings.

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'Words exchanged but no embrace': A coronavirus victim is laid to rest

'So what do we do now?" Mark Tyrrell looked across the grave of his father Austin in a deserted Bohernabreena cemetery in Dublin.

My lifelong friend, along with his wife Caroline and brother John Paul, had just completed what is now becoming an all-too-common task of saying goodbye to a loved one as a result of Covid-19.

They did so in silence, isolated from the comforting words and the embrace of loved ones.

The sad journey that brought me to that graveside began last Thursday with a phone call from Mark that I answered in the usual cheery manner. The tone on the other end was empty.

Read More

14.50 18/04/2020

Death toll in UK rises by 888

A total of 15,464 patients have died in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Friday, UK's Department of Health has said, up by 888 from 14,576 the day before.

England: NHS England has announced 784 new deaths of people who tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 13,918.

Of the 784 new deaths announced on Saturday, 150 occurred on April 17, 320 occurred on April 16 and 101 occurred on April 15

The figures also show 187 of the deaths took place between April 1 and April 14, and the remaining 26 deaths occurred in March, with the earliest new death taking place on March 14.

The figures published on Saturday by NHS England show April 8 currently has the highest total for the most hospital deaths occurring on a single day - 799 - although this could change in future updates.

Northern Ireland: A further 17 people in Northern Ireland have died in hospital settings with coronavirus in the past day, the Public Health Agency said.

This brings the total number of confirmed deaths in hospital settings in the region to 193.

Wales: Public Health Wales has announced 28 new deaths of people who tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of confirmed fatalities in Wales to 534.

Scotland: A total of 893 people who tested positive for coronavirus in Scotland have died, a rise of 56 on Friday's figure, according to the Scottish Government.

The Department of Health said, as of 9am on Saturday, 357,023 people have been tested of which 114,217 tested positive.

Overall, 460,437 tests have concluded, with 21,389 tests on Friday, excluding data from Northern Ireland.





14.24 18/04/2020

Getting more sleep during the lockdown but not feeling the benefits? Here's why...

Lockdown has afforded many people extra time in bed but strange dreams and late night twisting and turning are robbing us of the benefits.

Despite all the lie-ins a lot of people are still feeling tired and lacking in energy - but why are adults and young people across the country complaining of poor sleep, having frighteningly vivid dreams and of struggling to get up in the morning?

"It's safe to say what's happening right now is having a bearing on what we're dreaming about," said Motty Varghese, a respiratory therapist and licensed sleep technologist in Dublin.

"We're getting a bit of extra time to sleep in the morning too. But waking at 8am or 8.30am, rather than the usual 7am, could result in an extra cycle of sleep and more rapid eye movement (REM). That could be why people are having strange dreams.

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Three Insomnia coffee shops open across Dublin from today with limited services

Coffee chain Insomnia has opened three of its coffee shops across Dublin today with takeaway services as part of phased re-opening.

Despite coffee shops not being on the governments list of essential services which are allowed to stay open during the lockdown, the coffee shop franchise re-opened its Dun Laoghaire, Portmarnock and Blackrock shops today.

However, keeping with government restrictions, the coffee shops will be operating with a takeaway service only.

In a statement to Independent.ie, a spokesperson for the franchise said: "As a registered food business with ancillary takeaway, we are permitted under government guidelines to operate as a takeaway."

Read More

WATCH: Dog shelter empties all kennels after rise in adoption during pandemic

12.44 18/04/2020

Latest updates from around the world

China

China on Saturday reported 27 new confirmed cases of Covid-19, as it tries to stem an upsurge in infections in a north-eastern province bordering Russia.

Twenty of the new cases were in Heilongjiang province, including 13 Chinese nationals who had returned recently from Russia.

The land border with Russia has been closed.

China's official death toll rose sharply to 4,632, reflecting a major upwards revision the previous day by authorities in Wuhan, the nation's hardest-hit city.

The latest confirmed cases brought the total to 82,719, of which 77,029 have recovered and been discharged, the National Health Commission said.

Italy

Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy rose by 575 on Friday, up from 525 the day before. The number of new cases declined slightly and scientists warned that infections were now mainly happening among family members.

The daily tally of new cases now stands at 3,493, down from a previous 3,786, with both deaths and infections extending the broadly stable situation in place over the last 12 days.

It has the third highest confirmed cases in the world, with 172,434 cases and 22,745 deaths.



Spain

Spain has the second highest number of cases in the world, with around 188,000 cases and 20,002 deaths.

Spain's overnight death toll from coronavirus was 585 on Friday, a rise from 551 the previous night but far off early April peaks as the country starts to loosen the terms of its lockdown.

Overnight figures of more than 900 were registered at the height of the outbreak in Spain, among countries worst-hit by the novel coronavirus which causes respiratory disease COVID-19.

Africa

Africa now has more than 1,000 deaths from Covid-19, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

A total of 52 of the continent's 54 countries have reported the virus, with the overall number of cases more than 19,800 as of Saturday morning.

The World Health Organisation has noted a 51pc increase in cases in Africa and a 60pc jump in deaths.

But the WHO chief has warned that because of a shortage of testing "it's likely the real numbers are higher than reported".

UK

Reuters report that the British government was too slow to react on several fronts to the novel coronavirus outbreak that could cause the deaths of 40,000 people in the United Kingdom, a leading public health professor told lawmakers on Friday.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson initially refrained from approving the stringent controls that other European leaders imposed but then closed down the country when projections showed a quarter of a million people could die in Britain.

A total of 14,576 deaths have been recorded with 108,692 confirmed cases.

United States

The United States has recorded the most confirmed cases of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus, with more than 680,000 detected infections.

A total of 32,823 deaths have been recorded with 712,184 confirmed cases.

10.45 18/04/2020

Coronavirus survivors' stories: from Betty's Blitz spirit to the Leaving Cert student

An elderly woman who survived the Blitz during World War II, rationing and repeated economic depressions says she is planning her 97th birthday party after beating Covid-19.

Betty Moody (96) celebrated an heroic homecoming to her adopted home at Moyvane in Kerry after being released from hospital.

Now she is planning an even bigger party to mark her 97th birthday in June. She had spent two weeks in hospital fighting the virus  and issued a brave message of hope that Covid-19 can be beaten.

When anyone is sick, it is in the mind whether or not they are going to survive, she said.

If it is in the mind that they are going to survive, they will survive  that is what I did."

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WATCH: Barman drops special surprise pint to 83-year-old regular in Drogheda

08.32 18/04/2020

Trump: China 'must have' the most coronavirus deaths of any country

President Donald Trump has insisted deaths from Covid-19 are much higher in China than in the US, despite official statistics painting a far different picture.

China has more than four times the population of the US but has reported far fewer deaths, around 4,600 compared with more than 32,000 in the United States as of late Friday afternoon.

"When I listen to the press every night saying we have the most (deaths) - we don't have the most in the world," Mr Trump told Friday's White House briefing.

"The most in the world has to be China. It's a massive country. It's gone through a tremendous problem with this, a tremendous problem. And they must have the most."

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'There's been less interest from Irish people in this work' - Keelings respond to criticism after flying in 189 workers

Since the late 1990s there has been a significant fall-off in interest among Irish people Irish fruit and vegetable season from April to October, Keelings have said.

It has come as the companies decision to fly in 189 seasonal workers on a charter flight from Sofia to Dublin during the Covid-19 pandemic sparked a torrent of online abuse.

On Tuesday, the Farming Independent reported that chartered flights could be used to transport up to 1,500 seasonal workers into Ireland to pick fruit and vegetables through the summer and early autumn.

Last night, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar ordered an 'urgent review' of rules involving workers being flown into the country.

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Health staff pay terrible price in race to stop virus

The fragility of Ireland's health service has been laid bare as understaffed hospitals struggle with the spread of Covid-19 among workers.

Newly obtained figures show how healthcare workers now make up more than one-quarter of all diagnosed cases.

It comes at the end of a week when two healthcare workers tragically died after testing positive for Covid-19.

Staff shortages have forced some hospital units across the country to close, and officials warn the virus has compounded what was already a serious issue.

Read More




Ghanas Ambassador to China, Mr Edward Boateng, says no Ghanaian in China has tested positive for the Coronavirus (COVID-19).



According to him, reports of alleged Coronavirus-related discrimination against Africans in the Chinese city of Guangzhou was as a result of miscommunication.



A large number of Africans living in Guangzhou were last week subjected to forced coronavirus testing and 14-day self-quarantine regardless of recent travel history, amid fears of imported infection.



Some Africans were also left homeless, after being evicted by landlords and rejected by hotels in the city.



But speaking on Accra-based radio station, Citi FM, on Thursday, Mr Boateng said normalcy had returned to Guangzhou after several engagements between the African authorities and the local authorities.



Giving a genesis of the event, Mr Boateng said whereas Ghana issued an early alert in January, preventing travels into China, Nigeria did not.



According to him, between March 22 and 23, some Nigerians arrived in Guangzhou and failed to self-quarantine even though they had been directed to do so.



He said the hotel authorities where they lodged informed the Guangzhou authorities and in an attempt to get them to self-quarantine, a scuffle happened and they were thrown out of the hotel.



He said when they later subjected themselves to be tested for the virus, their results proved positive and further contact tracing led to an African restaurant owned by a Nigerian who was married to a Chinese.



Mr Boateng explained that the Chinese woman had also visited her hometown for holidays and upon her returned failed to self-quarantine.



He said later tests on the couple came out positive, causing the authorities in Guangzhou to panic.



So the authorities in Guangzhou panicked in my view and took a knee jerk reaction to test all black Africans regardless of nationality. They were on assumption that most Africans probably go and eat from that restaurant, he said.



According to Mr Boateng, although the attempt by the Chinese authorities to test Africans for the virus was good, miscommunication on their part led to the alleged discrimination of Africans.



It was the landlords who were leading the evictions, not the authorities. Now, the landlords fear that if the authorities got to know that they had rented to people without legal status, they will be in trouble. And then, communities started telling people who were living in their neighbourhoods that this person also leaves here and the police will turn up. In that process, I must say that maybe some of the authorities then started implementing it in a very harsh manner. There was a backlash from some of the Ambassadors after these videos started going viral.



It then came to the attention of the authorities in Beijing so the authorities immediately dispatched a team to Guangzhou to go and find out what was going on. So as we speak, people are in quarantine, people are being taken care of, some of the people who are in their own flats alone were allowed to stay in their flats alone. I have information from some of my colleagues and compatriots in Guangzhou that they have asked to go home. So the situation is settled, he said.



Mr Boateng noted that the situation had been brought under control.

Source: Daily Graphic









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A young man questioned about a stolen mobile phone told the investigating garda he "had a bullet for him", a court heard.

Alex Karaffa (20) also snatched 70 in cash from an elderly woman's hand after asking her for spare change in a Dublin city centre car park.

The case against him was adjourned at Dublin District Court after he admitted a litany of public order and theft offences.

Judge Bryan Smyth ordered a pre-sentence probation report.

Karaffa, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour, theft and other charges.

On December 2, 2018, a member of the public alerted gardai after Karaffa was seen acting in a threatening manner on Grafton Street.

Gardai found the accused trying to open the packaging on a mobile phone. He told them he had bought it but could not say where it came from.

Restrained

Karaffa then threatened the investigating garda, saying he "had a bullet for him", and he would "get him and he would not forget his face", a garda sergeant said.

The accused tried to kick and lash out at gardai as he was restrained and arrested.

Separately, a 70-year-old woman was in Fleet Street car park on March 10, 2019, when the accused approached her and asked for spare change.

He then snatched 70 from her hand and fled. He was later identified on CCTV.

On September 19, 2019, Karaffa asked a man on D'Olier Street for a cigarette and when he gave him one, the accused reached into the victim's pocket and took 180 in cash. Karaffa fled, but the victim chased him and 170 was recovered.

A motorist at Temple Bar on January 18, 2019, said Karaffa opened his vehicle and stole a 1,000 iPad.

Karaffa put his hand into a tourist's handbag at Stephen Street Lower on March 10, 2019, but she pulled away and the accused was intercepted by gardai.

On March 9 last year, he was seen using drugs at Meeting House Square, Temple Bar.

Defence solicitor Tracy Horan said a psychological report was sought.
A leading coronavirus forecasting model - used by the White House - predicted Friday that some states may be able to ease social distancing restrictions and reopen as early as May 4.

But on the same day those projections were issued by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington - giving recommended dates for reopening all 50 states - a consortium of experts in Texas released a competing model that points out what they call flaws in the IHME model and analysis showing instances in which IHME's projections have fallen short of reality.

The clashing data and projections highlight the uncertainty U.S. leaders will face in coming months as they grapple with how to reopen the country and its economy without risking a resurgence of viral infections, overwhelmed hospitals and deaths.

The creator of IHME's model, Christopher Murray, said his group retooled its model to be able to recommend specific dates because of intense debates in recent weeks over when and how to reopen states.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly declared he wants states reopened as soon as possible, declaring in back-to-back tweets Friday: "LIBERATE MINNESOTA," "LIBERATE MICHIGAN" and "LIBERATE VIRGINIA." Also Friday, the governors of Texas and Vermont announced dates for easing certain restrictions.

The IHME model projects that at least four states could ease restrictions as early as May 4: Hawaii, Montana, Vermont and West Virginia. But other states need to wait as late as June or early July: Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Utah.

The new dates recommended by the IHME represent when states can shift from reliance on drastic restrictions to other strategies such as testing, contact tracing and targeted quarantines to keep the virus in check.

The key measurement IHME modelers used in determining the date is when they believe infections in a state will drop below 1 infection per 1 million people. But that measurement is imperfect because many other factors that go into deciding to lift restrictions - including whether a state has enough testing or enough public health workers to do the labor-intensive work of contact tracing. Testing capacity remains woefully lacking across the country, and local health departments lack the necessary staff, money and training to do contact tracing called for in most experts' plans to reopen.

Murray said his IHME modelers tried to include such factors in their models but could not find data that could be used empirically. Instead, they decided to use the 1 infection per 1 million cutoff with the assumption that, at that low level, states would be more readily able to do the necessary testing and contact tracing.

Many epidemiologists and modelers have expressed growing concern over the IHME model. While it is one of the only models that offers projections state-by-state on exact dates for projected peaks and national forecasts on deaths, its projections have often clashed with other models. Its projections for equipment shortages and deaths are often below other models. The White House has at times used the model's more-optimistic estimates to deny equipment requests.

On Friday, a few hours before the IHME announcement, a consortium at the University of Texas at Austin released a model that takes the IHME forecast as a starting point but tries to correct what the Texas researchers see as flaws.

One of the biggest flaws the Texas experts point out is that the IHME model claims more certainty as it moves further into the future, with a shrinking margin of error. That runs counter to how most models work, because the future almost always becomes increasingly uncertain in long-range forecasts. In weather forecasts, for example, predicting rain tomorrow is easier than predicting rain a month out.

"The motivation for creating our model was a concern about the certainty people may be attributing to the IHME model," said Lauren Ancel Meyers, who led the Texas team of researchers.

Other critical differences: The IHME model predicts the United States already passed its peak of deaths this week. The Texas model takes a different approach, attaching probabilities to dates. There is only a 17 percent chance that the peak has already passed, it found, and an 80 percent chance the peak will happen by May 7.

The Texas researchers' paper also included analysis of IHME's past predictions compared with actual deaths per day and found, for example, that the model underestimated deaths in Italy and Spain. The number of deaths in recent days, in fact, did not fall within IHME's projected margin of error.

Meyers said the IHME model has much value and pointed out her model would not exist if Murray did not create the IHME model.

"This is not a competition. We're standing on their shoulders," she said. "But like many modelers, we are continually trying to improve our methods and make our projections as reliable as possible. With cities and states making life and death decisions based on these models, the stakes are high."

Murray similarly cautioned, "If I were a governor of a state, I would not make the decision to reopen based on just our model. We are trying to give governors and others a sense of when the risk of resurgence is going to get lower. . . . I would recommend looking at these types of models, but also a range of indicators like the capacity of your public health workers and whether your cases and deaths have fallen to a low enough level."
Sales revenue from these potent plant extracts in the United States increased by nearly 40 percent from 2014 to 2018. By 2025, theyre projected to reach more than $5 billion in total sales, according to market research firm Grand View Research.

But theyre not just being sold in shops and online. Ms. Sheie said that shes increasingly had to politely sidestep sales pitches from people in her social circles who are selling the oils for two of the largest essential oil companies, doTerra and Young Living. These manufacturers use multilevel-marketing strategies, where the people who sell their products profit from their own sales as well as those of others they recruit (think Avon or Herbalife). I most often run into it at church and on social media, especially in my mom groups, she said.

But can they improve your health?

Some sellers  along with particular social media posts and websites that expound the oils benefits  attest with a kind of evangelical zeal that certain essential oils can help treat a range of ailments, from attention deficit disorder and depression to Alzheimers disease, cancer, skin abrasions, infections, teething pain and more. Companies commonly market essential oils to parents for their purported ability to boost kids immune systems and to improve focus, mood and sleep.

But the bulk of the research done on essential oils has been performed in petri dishes and on rodents. There are few human studies, and they are mostly small and of low quality, Dr. Smith said.

And of the research that has been done on humans, said Dr. Smith, the bulk of the studies on essential oils effectiveness and safety has been performed on adults. A few studies in children suggest that inhaling lavender oil can have a calming effect; that topical applications of tea tree oil may be useful against acne, lice and warts; and that peppermint oil capsules may help with irritable bowel syndrome and abdominal pain.

However, theres no evidence to support essential oils more common uses, such as for treating fever, cough, congestion, allergies, teething symptoms and (the one that makes me the most frustrated) behavior problems, Dr. Smith wrote in a column for Cook Childrens Health Care System in 2015.

Unlike with prescription and over-the-counter drugs, the makers of essential oils do not have to prove to the Food and Drug Administration that their products are safe and effective for certain conditions, or even that they contain what they say they do on the label. And by law, oil makers are not allowed to advertise that their products can prevent or treat disease.
Protests come as US deaths exceed 31,000; survey finds most Americans worry about virus restrictions lifted too soon.

Hundreds of people have demonstrated in cities across the United States against coronavirus-related stay-at-home rules  with the explicit encouragement of President Donald Trump.

Some Americans, who live in parts of states with lower infection rates, have been made restless by restrictions that have more than 90 percent of the country under stay-at-home orders.

An estimated 400 people gathered in Concord, New Hampshire, according to an AFP news agency photographer, while a similar rally outside Marylands statehouse in Annapolis drew about 200 protesters.

More than 250 people showed up in the Texas capital of Austin, as such protests continued to spread and drew encouragement in certain Democratic-led states from tweets by Trump  who has said he favours a quick return to normal practices.

Protests have also taken place in Republican-led states like New Hampshire.

Their common demand was that the stay-at-home order for the state of 1.3 million people be called off before its scheduled May 4 end date.





Earlier this week, similar protests erupted in the capitols of Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia.

The demonstrations, which also featured large crowds of people neither practising social distancing nor wearing face coverings, angered governors who have been trying to bring coronavirus outbreaks under control.

As of Friday morning, New Hampshire had reported 1,287 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 37 deaths.

The US has by far the worlds largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 706,000 and at least 31,000 deaths. New York state accounts for nearly half of those deaths.

Most Americans  by a two-to-one margin  worry about virus restrictions being lifted too soon, not too late, a recent Pew survey found.



But demonstrators found encouragement on Friday from the president himself, who in a series of tweets called to LIBERATE Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia  all states with Democratic governors  from stay-at-home orders.

While Trump agitates to get the country back up and running sooner rather than later as he faces re-election in November, the Pentagon announced on Saturday it was extending travel restrictions for its personnel until the end of June.





Trump has repeatedly called for the earliest possible return to normality as virus-related closings have had a crushing effect on American workers and businesses.

But health experts have cautioned that to avoid a second wave of infections as people return to work, extensive testing must be available to track infections, as well as contact tracing and antibody testing to learn who had been previously infected and might have some immunity.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  The owner of one of the oldest bars in Clevelands western suburbs said frustrations about the financial toll that Ohios coronavirus restrictions placed on his business spurred his incendiary and now-deleted Facebook post that called for a protest at the Statehouse.

Angelo Lauria, the owner of The Five OClock Lounge perched right on the suburban side of the Cleveland-Lakewood border, said in an interview that his post from the previous day was a misstep.

Lauria, 67, continued, the emotion of everything thats going on got to me, and I regret aspects of it, but I do not regret what its based on.

The post was directed toward fellow neighborhood taverns, restaurants and service industry employees and said most would receive no money from the Congressional stimulus bill because the money has run out. It said the side effects of measures like Gov. Mike DeWines stay-at-home order will ruin more lives than the number of people who will be affected by the coronavirus.

Many of our businesses will not survive a governor using dictatorial powers based on projections that have been grossly exaggerated and proven incorrect time after time, the post on the bars website said. Lauria asked if people would be willing to drive to Columbus on May 1 and surround the Statehouse in their cars to make sure we are heard.

We cant wait for the ballot box, the post concludes. His idea echoed a protest in Lansing, Michigan that took place this week.

While some were supportive of the sentiment, the backlash from others was swift, and Lauria engaged with many of the commenters.

So youll remain in your cars while protesting to avoid a crowd of people while at the same time wishing to reopen ASAP so a crowd of people can come sit at your bar? wrote Laura Wimbels, a Cleveland photographer.

HOLY CRAP! How irresponsible! Thanks for speaking out so those of us with a modecum (sic) of intelligence dont ever patronize your bar again! wrote one user.

Another pointed out that two hospitals were near the Statehouse and that a vehicle-based protest could block ambulances.

One person, though, perhaps put it best.

This is not going well, wrote Stevie Verlie.

Lauria agreed and said he took it down. Later, he replaced the controversial post with something more simple, yet mainly making the same point:

All they have to do is give to small businesses what they gave to big businesses and banks, and there would be no need for protest.

Again, he received some backlash, but as of now, the post remains.

So do Laurias regrets. His father Rosario opened the bar in 1933, and it quickly became a haunt for blue-collar workers. The occasional notable figure, such as Untouchables leader and Cleveland Safety Director Eliot Ness, also came in to relax and grab a drink.

Rosario Lauria sold the bar in 1964, but his son repurchased it in 1987.

The last thing Angelo Lauria needed right now was another way to affect his bar financially, which he said was a big reason why he took the post down. Ohios restrictions, similar to ones imposed in other states to prevent the spread of the virus and the number of hospitalizations, are taking a significant toll on Laurias business, and he said he hadnt received any of the federal help called for in the Congressional stimulus bill.

The margins for so many restaurants and taverns are so small that they cant take hits like this, Lauria explained.

He is not alone in this sentiment, as many owners and independent restauranteurs have expressed frustration that money from the stimulus bill went to some big chain restaurants but not their businesses.

There was more behind the post, though, and the tavern owner expressed a deep skepticism as to whether DeWine and Health Department Director Dr. Amy Acton are doing the right thing by taking such drastic measures to close so many businesses. The governor has said the need for people to remain far away from others is paramount.

He questioned why DeWine took so many restrictive measures and said the number of cases was expected to peak in Ohio in mid-May when a model put out by the University of Washingtons Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said the virus would peak earlier and not overwhelm the states health system.

Lauria got the sense that the governor, who has said his and Actons actions were made after consulting health experts, was acting based solely on a feeling.

Im sitting in my chair going are you s-----g me? Basing this on your gut feeling? he said.

His feelings are not unique though perhaps not prevalent. Groups of right-wing protesters have taken to the streets in many states to protest coronavirus restrictions. Small clusters have gathered in Columbus, including on Saturday.

But polling shows many Americans dont think its soon enough to lift restrictions. Gallup said Tuesday that only 20 percent of people it recently polled said they would return to life as usual immediately. The rest expressed reservations.

In the end, Lauria said the vitriol against the post made it difficult to get across any cognizable point. When asked if he still planned to travel down to Columbus on May 1, Laurias answer was simple and delivered with a bit of a laugh.

No, he said. The masses have spoken.

Read more:

Hundreds protest in Columbus against Ohio coronavirus restrictions

University of Washingtons accuracy in forecasting the coronavirus in Ohio likely due to underlying variables, experts say

Gov. Mike DeWine extends Ohios stay-at-home order until May 1

All Ohio bars, restaurants to close 9 p.m. Sunday due to coronavirus - carryout still allowed: Gov. Mike DeWines Sunday briefing

Lakewood bar Five O Clock Lounge to celebrate 84-year history at anniversary event
Two felons who broke out of a maximum-security Wisconsin prison showed up at a center for the homeless more than 100 miles away in Illinois, where they were recognized and captured, authorities said Friday.

The founder of Miss Carly's homeless services center in Rockford quickly identified the men, James Newman, 37, and Thomas Deering, 46, as the escapees and called police, official said.

Both escaped inmates from the Columbia Correctional Facility in Portage, WI are now in custody. They arrived at Miss Carlys and were recognized from their posted pictures. More details to follow. #rockfordilpolicedepartment  RockfordILPolice (@RockfordPD) April 17, 2020

"We're just extremely happy that two extremely violent individuals were apprehended," the Rockford police chief, Dan O'Shea told reporters.

Newman and Deering are prisoners at the Columbia Correctional Facility in Portage, Wisconsin, about 40 miles north of Madison. Miss Carly's is about 105 miles south of the Wisconsin state prison, a straight shot down Interstate 90.

The pair were allegedly helped out of their lockup by kitchen employee Holly Marie Zimdahl, 46, of Pardeeville, the Columbia County Sheriff's Office said on Friday. She was arrested on suspicion of being a party to the crime of escape, officials said.

Newman and Deering got out of their prison at about 4:30 a.m. Thursday and eventually got a ride, meeting a driver outside a Piggly Wiggly in Poynette, about 14 miles away, a little before 6 a.m. on Thursday, authorities said.

The sheriff's statement did not detail how Newman and Deering traveled 14 miles in 90 minutes, or if the kitchen employee is the suspected driver.

"Our focus is finding everyone that helped them escape from both inside and outside of the prison," the sheriff said. "As the investigation continues, additional arrests are expected."

Story continues

Holly Marie Zimdhal (Columbia County Sheriff's Office, Wisc.)

The escape unraveled not long after they showed up at the Rockford homeless center at 8:30 a.m. Friday, police said.

"Two men showed up at our door shivering, frozen," the center's founder, Carly Rice, wrote in a statement on Facebook. "They had emergency blankets stuffed under their clothing. They looked just like the kind of people we want to help ... but they weren't."

Rice told NBC News that when Newman and Deering asked for fresh clothes, she noticed they were both wearing thermal underwear tops and gray sweatpants  classic prison garb.

"I have a lengthy criminal record myself, so I'm familiar with the clothes," Rice told NBC News.

The homeless advocate doesn't have a television but recalled seeing a Wisconsin friend's social media post on Thursday night about the escape.

So while a center volunteer served the men coffee and cigarettes to stall their departure, Rice excused herself to another room to call 911.

She said she also reached for a donated fur coat for herself, so that the long jacket could cover her hands while she waited for the police.

"I was trembling, I was scared and I didn't want them to see my hands trembling," she said.

When officers arrived after about five minutes, the men surrendered without incident, according to Rice.

O'Shea said one of the pair insisted he was not one of the wanted men, though the police chief said photographs and records of tattoos clearly identified him.

"It's a picture, and by gosh we can all look at a picture and say that, 'You sure that's not you, because it sure looks like you?'" he said.

O'Shea praised Rice for her quick thinking.

"It does take a lot of courage to recognize that somebody there could be dangerous" and call police, O'Shea said. "That's what we want every citizen to do. I'm not saying every citizen would do that, but we applaud her and her staff."

Friday's capture brought back sad memories for Rice of her mother's 2003 slaying in Los Angeles when they were both homeless and living on Skid Row, she said.

"See, my mom was homeless and she was kidnapped, raped and murdered years ago," Rice wrote on Facebook. "So, these guys faces stuck in my memory after seeing their photos and reading about their charges."

Newman has firearm, kidnapping and theft convictions. Deering has been convicted for sexual assault, kidnapping and battery.They are off the streets now.

Rice thanked Rockford police for handling "the situation with professionalism and cool heads."

"I have a huge heart for the unloveable and the lost, but I will always fight to keep our city safe," she concluded her post.
Interested in some used toilet paper?

Thatd be $200, on Facebook Marketplace. The online ad was probably a joke  or maybe not. Toilet paper has been hard to come by these days after panicked shoppers emptied grocery store shelves of bathroom tissue. The toilet paper shortage became a meme on social media, and came to symbolize consumer hoarding during the coronavirus pandemic.

So, what happened to all the toilet paper? We asked two academic experts  Deborah Small, a Wharton School psychologist, and Subodha Kumar, a Temple University professor of supply chain management  to explain this strange side effect of the coronavirus crisis.

Their responses were edited for length and clarity.

Q: Why the panic over toilet paper?

SMALL: Maybe there was one stock (of toilet paper) out somewhere and then it hit the news and hit social media, and then it kind of spiraled out of control from there. People start hearing, Oh my gosh, other people are over-buying toilet paper. That means that I might not be able to get it when I need it. And so when they go shopping, they buy more of it. Then if everybodys doing that, then we have this stock out situation. So my sense is, its not anything about the product per se. Its more just this herd behavior of focusing, fixating on a particular product. Theres general panic, and then theres panic over other peoples panic.

Q: Has something like this happened before?

SMALL: The general phenomenon of stocking up in some uncertain time is that we all have this fundamental motive to maintain control over our environments. Thats fundamental in psychology, the need to have control. And when we go about our daily lives, most of the time we feel pretty in control, right? We have freewill. Most people can purchase things that they need when they want to. Theres not this kind of looming fear thats at the back of their minds all the time. But when something extraordinary happens like this, then we feel out of control, and purchasing and having lots of stuff around us is one way that we can feel in control.

Q: So, why is there still a shortage?

KUMAR: We have seen these kind of shortages in many different situations, like whenever we have a hurricane, but this is more global so its everywhere. Its not concentrated in one region. So, I think that is making the biggest difference in terms of the supply chain of the items. Most of the time when we see this kind of crisis in Asia, the whole supply chain tries to move their inventory around. For example, they will move from one distribution center to another and they will try to fulfill the demand in that particular area. And that diverting sometimes comes with the cost. But in this case, they cannot do that.

Q: So theres just too much demand everywhere at once?

KUMAR: Most of the problem that is happening is because of the demand issue, not as much of the supplies, but theres something in the supply that we need to consider.  One thing that people sometimes dont know is the difference between the commercial demand vs. the consumer demand. Theres predictions that households will use around 40% more toilet paper just because they are at home, not using it anywhere else. So a lot of business demand has shifted to consumer demand, because businesses dont need it right now but consumers need it much more.

Q: Can we move the business inventory to consumers?

KUMAR: Its not the same product. There are several companies who only supply to businesses. They dont supply to the consumer market at all. So thats the first part of the problem.  Now there are some other companies who work in both markets, like Georgia Pacific.  But even Georgia Pacific, the material they use for the commercial brands is different from what they use for consumer brands. They use mostly recycled fiber, but for the consumer brand, they dont use that. They use 100% virgin fiber. People are looking for what they want in the consumer market. Theyre not going to get commercial product, which is available in the market. So because of all this complexity, as soon as the demand increased, they just cannot fulfill that.

Q: Are commercial suppliers sitting on unused toilet paper?

KUMAR: The demand for toilet paper is very stable. So they dont account for a lot of variations in the supply chain, because everything is almost fixed. The producing is a very fixed process. So what has happened is that for commercial supplies, they already have some over supply. But the good part is that because the demand is so certain, they dont keep lot of buffer. So even though they have stopped, they have some extra, but it is not too much extra. Theyre not keeping buffer for six months, right? Because they dont have to.

Q: Why does it take so long to get toilet paper back on shelves?

KUMAR: The biggest problem why, in this kind of situation, companies are not able to fulfill is because theres that delay on how information is transmitted from the retailer level to the supplier level. There is always an information gap because information is not visible in real time.  This gap could be up to 50 days or even longer in many supply chains. Because of these delays of the 30 days or so, by the time they start producing more and coming to market you see a gap.

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A British man and a Brazilian couple were discharged Saturday from two HCMC hospitals specializing in treating Covid-19 patients.

The three are among 19 patients linked to the city's largest Covid-19 hotspot, Buddha Bar & Grill in District 2's Thao Dien Ward, home to a major expat community.

The British man, "Patient 97," is a 34-year-old English teacher who resides in Ho Chi Minh Citys District 4. He contracted the virus after going to the Buddha bar on March 14 with "Patient 91," a British pilot with Vietnam Airlines.

He was discharged from the Covid-19 Treatment Hospital in Can Gio District after more than three weeks of treatment. With his departure, the hospital has no Covid-19 patient left.

However, the field hospital, which was set up March 16 to use facilities of the Can Gio Districts hospital for treating Covid-19 patients and quarantining those suspected to have the disease, will remain ready to receive any new cases that might be detected.

"Though the last patient has been discharged, the hospital still maintains its operation with enough staff on duty to stand ready for any situation that could happen in coming days. Were running out of patients for today but our duty is still there," said hospital deputy director Le Manh Hung.

The two Brazilians, Patients 151 and 207, are a married couple residing in Thao Dien District.

The wife, "Patient 151" is a 45-year-old employee of the Gia Dinh shoes company, which has two branches - one in Dong Nai Province's Vinh Cuu District and the other in District 2's An Phu Dong Ward. As a colleague, shed was in contact with "Patient 124," a 52-year-old Brazilian man who got infected after going to the Buddha Bar with another infected man.

The husband, "Patient 207," is also an employee of the Gia Dinh shoe company.

The two were hospitalized at the citys field hospital in Cu Chi District. Following their discharge, the hospital has four Covid-19 patients under treatment.

Each of the discharged patients will be placed under medical monitoring at home for another 14 more days, as required by the Health Ministry, to prevent risks of further transmission in the community.

The latest updates have brought HCMCs total discharges to 49. The city has five Covid-19 patients in hospitals and it has not reported any new infections for the past 11 days.

Nationwide, the number of discharges has been gone up to 201 and active cases brought down to 67. The nations Covid-19 tally has been kept unchanged at 268 since Thursdays morning.
Tiruchy: Institutional responses to human predicaments in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic is throwing up stories of contrasts.

Two recent examples involving some policemen in Tiruchy district has brought such paradoxes to the fore, more so with the cops over-stressed, having to work 24x7, taking the sultry heat and mosquito bites.

A police constable attached to the Manaparai police station in the district turned a model policeman the other day. On security duty at the Kovilpatti check-post near Manaparai recently, he noticed a weary couple - a man and his pregnant wife- ambling across helplessly and crossing the post.

Making enquiries, Abhu Dhageer, the constable learnt that the couple- Ezhumalai, a daily wage earner from Reddiyapatti village, and his wife Sulochana had visited a private nursing home in Manaparai for her child's delivery.

However, due to the lockdown, the hospital pleaded helplessness to perform a C-section surgery on the expectant mother as they did not have blood for transfusion.

They asked the couple to first arrange for the blood and then come back to the hospital.

When Abhu Dhageer, with a little more prodding, found that his blood group matched with that of the expectant mother, he readily offered to donate blood to her.

The constable took them to the hospital again, donated his blood and with the help of which doctors performed a C-section on the expectant mother and she delivered a baby girl.

Both mother and child are doing fine and even the State DGP, J K Truipathy, on hearing of this story, had a special word of appreciation and incentive for the constable Abhu Dhageer, while the general public and social activists of Manaparai appreciated the cop's noble gesture.

However, an ageing and sick retired clerk of the sub-court in Lalgudi in Tiruchy district, struggling to handle cash transactions at the local SBI branch - locals aver he was single and had quite a bit of balance in his savings bank account from his pension money-, was not so lucky recently.

The visibly ill man, Pitchai, had reportedly some Rs.1.50 lakh cash in his hands and his bank passbook, but he swooned and fell to the ground.

Two local police constables on noticing him attempted to shift the ailing man to a hospital but allegedly left him near the bus stop, informed the 108 ambulance and left the place.

When Pitchai recovered shortly later, he lamented that his cash and bank passbook were "missing", even as passersby brought it to the notice of the Lalgudi police station.

As this incident went viral in social media on Friday, Lalgudi police are investigating as to what actually happened.
World coronavirus deaths passed 150,000 Friday as US President Donald Trump accused China of continuing to cover up its toll, even after Beijing revised figures sharply upward for Wuhan, the original epicenter of the global pandemic.

COVID-19 fatalities mounted in the United States and hard-hit Western Europe countries, but fresh data on rising infections and deaths in Africa showed the virus is leaving no continent untouched as it marches around the globe.

More than half of humanity -- 4.5 billion people -- were confined to their homes, with evidence mounting of social distancing's success in slowing the pandemic.

But widespread nervousness remained over when and how to ease widespread confinement measures to revive the world economy, battered by what the International Monetary Fund has dubbed the "Great Lockdown".

2.2 million cases worldwide

More than 2.2 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported in 193 countries and territories, according to figures collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO).

The numbers probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections however, because many countries are testing only the most serious cases.

A woman wearing a face mask and a plastic bag pulls a cart loaded with bags of recyclables through the streets of Lower Manhattan. By Johannes EISELE (AFP)

Out of more than 150,000 total deaths, the United States has recorded 34,614, Italy 22,745, and Spain 19,613.

Illustrating the spread, Africa reported its 1,000th death on Friday.

China has recorded 4,636 deaths, on Friday increasing the official toll for Wuhan city by 1,290 -- a precise 50.0 percent -- to 3,869.

Trump, who has been accused of reacting too slowly to the coronavirus threat, alleged that Beijing's numbers were still untrue.

"It is far higher than that and far higher than the U.S., not even close!" Trump tweeted.

Trump did not offer evidence, but pressure has mounted in recent days on Beijing to come clean over its handling of the original outbreak, as US media reported suspicions the virus came not from a Wuhan wet market as first claimed, but from a poorly-managed nearby research facility studying bat-related diseases.

Leaders in France and Britain have also questioned China's management of the crisis, and French President Emmanuel Macron said it would be "naive" to think Beijing had handled the pandemic well.

Beijing hit back earlier Friday, insisting there had been no cover-up.

"There has never been any concealment, and we'll never allow any concealment," a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Life-and-death balance

COVID-19 and the immune system. By (AFP)

Governments around the world are grappling with the question of when to reopen society, seeking a life-and-death balance between unfreezing stalled economies and preventing a second deadly coronavirus wave.

Germany became the latest country to unveil plans to lift some restrictions, and the first major European nation to take on the delicate task of reopening without triggering a new wave of infections.

The government declared its outbreak "under control" and said select small shops will be allowed to reopen Monday and some children would return to school within weeks.

Infection rates there "have sunk significantly", Health Minister Jens Spahn said Friday.

Officers patrol the streets of Venice, which saw some stringent lockdown measures eased this week. By ANDREA PATTARO (S fornasier/AFP)

Switzerland, Denmark and Finland were among those gradually re-opening shops and schools, and even in hard-hit Italy, people began emerging from lockdown, with Venice residents strolling around quiet canals stripped of their usual throngs of tourists.

But Japan, Britain and Mexico all expanded current restrictions.

And in Russia, recorded infections topped 32,000 as President Vladimir Putin warned that "the risks surrounding the epidemic's spread are still very high, not just in Moscow but in many other Russian regions".

In the United States, a more complex picture was emerging.

Trump, whose reelection in November could hinge on how fast US life returns to normal, appeared to lend support to protests against stay-at-home orders in several states -- although he has officially left it to governors to decide when to lift lockdowns.

In Florida the governor, a close Trump ally, gave a green light to reopening some beaches and parks.

But in New York state, with its namesake city the hardest hit in the world by the coronavirus, Governor Andrew Cuomo extended a shutdown order until May 15, as he accused Trump of not helping in efforts to expand testing.

Vulnerable economies

Signs of the economic damage of the pandemic also mounted.

China reported Friday its GDP shrank 6.8 percent in the first quarter, the first contraction since quarterly growth data started in the early 1990s.

A rickshaw driver carries passengers wearing face masks in New Delhi during a government-imposed nationwide lockdown. By SAJJAD HUSSAIN (AFP)

Lockdown measures were starting to pinch some of the world's most vulnerable economies.

Tobacco farmers in Zimbabwe fear a delayed start to the normally busy auction season, the lifeblood for thousands of growers in impoverished rural regions, due to lockdown measures.

"This year our harvest hasn't been good at all," farmer Shaw Mutalepo told AFP, as workers in face masks crunched cured leaves into large bales.

A woman grades cured tobacco leaves at a farm in Zimbabwe, where growers fear this seasons's sales will be hit by the pandemic. By Jekesai NJIKIZANA (AFP)

The IMF and World Bank said that Africa needs another $44 billion to fight the pandemic, even after a freeze in debt payments for many countries and massive support pledges.

The IMF also warned the virus could spark another "lost decade" in Latin America, with debt moratoriums said not to be enough to support them.
It's not just the drop-dead fashion choices of assassin-for-hire Villanelle (Jodie Comer) that make Killing Eve such compulsive viewing, says director Shannon Murphy.

"It's tonally unique, out of the box and bonkers, and the reason it's so bold is because the people behind it are bold, they take risks," says the on-the-up Australian who directed two episodes in the show's third season, which begins on ABC on Sunday.

Villanelle (Jodie Comer) is famous for her style... and being a ruthless killer in Killing Eve. Credit:Des Willie/BBCA

Murphy, who is spending lockdown at her parents' place on the Gold Coast, shot episodes five and six in October and November last year, but has only just put the final touches on them. And given the current state of the industry  virtually all scripted film and television production in Australia, the UK and Hollywood is in shutdown  she knows how lucky she is.

"We just slipped through," she says. "It was all finished just three or four days ago. It's amazing, really."
Dublin, April 16, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "The Clothing Industry in Mozambique 2020" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



This report focuses on the Clothing Sector in Mozambique and includes country information and research into major players, the state of the industry and the factors that influence it. There are profiles of nine companies including South African companies operating in Mozambique such as Mr. Price, Woolworths and Pepkor, major local manufacturers such as Moztex and Mozambique Holdings, and retailer Grupo Intermoda.



The Clothing Industry in Mozambique

Mozambique presents mixed opportunities for those looking to enter the clothing sector. While the outlook for clothing retailers over the next decade or more looks promising, given expected economic growth on the back of new gas finds, things are less certain for clothing manufacturers struggling to compete against a flood of imports of new and second-hand clothing as well as challenges such as expensive electricity and a challenging labour environment. While the country has a large number of retailers the informal and formal sectors, there are only a handful of manufacturers, most of whom use imported textiles to produce finished products.



High Cost

The sector faces a number of challenges including rising wages, electricity, water and transport costs and long delivery times. Manufacturers rely on imported textiles because of the shortage of quality local cotton. Challenges to retailers are lack of disposable income and competition from second-hand clothing and illegal clothing imports. A significant amount of used clothing is sold informally in markets. A key challenge in the clothing sector is the exclusion of small- and medium-sized manufacturers as well as the informal sector.



Government Support

Mozambique has significant trade imbalance when it comes to clothing and textiles. In a bid to revitalise clothing manufacturing, the government has proposed creating the special economic zone of Chimoio, in Manica province, and South African companies linked to the textile sector have shown some interest.



Story continues

Key Topics Covered



1. Introduction



2. Country Information

2.1. Geographic Position



3. Description of the Industry

3.1. Industry Value Chain



4. Size of the Industry



5. State of the Industry

5.1. Local

5.1.1 Regulations

5.2. Continental

5.3. International



6. Influencing Factors

6.1. Government Support

6.2. Economic Environment

6.3. Technology, Research & Development (R&D) and Innovation

6.4. Labour

6.5. Illegal Clothing Imports

6.6. Marketing



7. Competition

7.1. Barriers to Entry



8. SWOT Analysis



9. Outlook



10. Industry Associations



11. References

11.1. Publications

11.2. Websites



Company Profiles



Edcon Ltd.

Grupo Intermoda Ltda

Judy's Pride Fashions (Pty) Ltd.

Mozambique Holdings Ltda

Moztex S.A.

Mr. Price Group Ltd.

Nova Texmoque Ltda

Pepkor Holdings Ltd.

Woolworths (Pty) Ltd.

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/cmcv2z

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

CONTACT: CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.com Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager press@researchandmarkets.com 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
WESTVILLE, N.J., April 17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PrimoHoagies Franchising, Inc. ("PrimoHoagies" or the "Company") announced today that it had suffered a data security incident, enabling unauthorized parties to access payment card information. Immediately upon discovering this, PrimoHoagies worked with industry-leading cybersecurity firms to assist with an investigation. The Company also contacted payment card brands so steps could be taken to prevent fraudulent activity on any affected cards. In addition, the Company notified law enforcement about this criminal activity and will continue to provide whatever cooperation is necessary to hold the malicious actors accountable.

PrimoHoagies has been working closely with cybersecurity experts and the payment card brands to protect its customers' payment cards. The incident was limited to payment cards used for online purchases only and did not impact cards used for in-store purchases. The issue has since been resolved. PrimoHoagies has also adjusted the payment platform.

Based on the Company's investigation, it appears that payment cards used by customers for online purchases between July 15, 2019 and February 18, 2020 may be involved. The affected payment card information may have included names, addresses, payment card numbers, expiration dates, and security codes.

PrimoHoagies encourages customers to carefully review and monitor their payment card account statements. If a customer believes his or her payment card may have been affected, the customer should immediately contact his or her bank or card issuer. PrimoHoagies has notified payment card networks so that they can coordinate with card issuing banks to monitor for fraudulent activity on cards used during the identified timeframe. PrimoHoagies is offering complimentary identity protection and credit monitoring services for its customers. Further information for customers including how to enroll in these free services can be found at the PrimoHoagies website at https://www.primohoagies.com/orders/important-privacy-notice.php or by calling its dedicated call center at 1-833-979-2218, Monday through Friday (except holidays) between 9am - 9pm Eastern Time.

About PrimoHoagies:

PrimoHoagies is an Italian specialty sandwich shop headquartered in Westville, New Jersey, with restaurants in eight states across the East Coast.

SOURCE PrimoHoagies Franchising, Inc.
Self-acclaimed investigate journalist, Kemi Okunloyo has described the late Abba Kyari as the unsung hero Nigerians dont know of.

Read Also: Rema Is Bigger Than Drake, He Will Revive Beyonces Career  Kemi Olunloyo

Speaking via her official Twitter handle shortly after the news of his demise broke out, she lister freeing Omoyele Sowore, maintaining sanity in Aso Rock among others as some of the rare feat recorded by the late politician.

She said:

#BREAKING

Remembering Abba Kyari

NIGERIAS Chief of Staff who died of #COVID19. Met him in UK days #Cambridge. He was a Shuwa Arab NOT Fulani. Kyari is an unsung hero NIGERIANS dont know. He was responsible for FREEING Sowore and maintaining sanity in Aso Rock.

Mr Abba Kyari PREVENTED critical country stability issues in 2018 after I returned from prison. While I commend #KingB @MBuhari for corruption cracking down on past leaders, I felt that some things need to be left alone. Abba Kyari PREVENTED the arrest of OBJ and help release TY

Kyari as the hero I knew him of being, also handed this letter to @femigbaja WARNING lawmakers to go through airport checks for #COVID19. He knew he had it and wanted to prevent the spread.

I, therefore, want to urge NIGERIANS especially @aishambuhari to pray for Abba Kyaris soul.

https://twitter.com/KemiOlunloyo/status/1251406468466847744?s=19

Mr Abba Kyari PREVENTED critical country stability issues in 2018 after I returned from prison. While I commend #KingB @MBuhari for corruption cracking down on past leaders, I felt that some things need to be left alone. Abba Kyari PREVENTED the arrest of OBJ and help release TY  Kemi Olunloyo Pharm.D (@KemiOlunloyo) April 18, 2020
WASHINGTON - Seeking to avoid the bitter feelings that marred the 2016 Democratic convention, Joe Bidens campaign is angling to allow Bernie Sanders to keep some of the delegates he would otherwise forfeit by dropping out of the presidential race.

Under a strict application of party rules, Sanders should lose about a third of the delegates hes won in primaries and caucuses as the process moves ahead and states select the actual people who will attend the Democratic National Convention. The rules say those delegates should be Biden supporters, as he is the only candidate still actively seeking the partys nomination.

Quiet talks between the two campaigns centre on allowing Sanders to keep some of his delegates, essentially a goodwill gesture from a presumptive nominee seeking to court Sanders progressive supporters and unite the party. It is not yet settled how many.

We feel strongly that it is in the best interest of the party to ensure that the Sanders campaign receives statewide delegates to reflect the work that they have done to contribute to the movement that will beat Donald Trump this fall, said a Biden official, who wasnt authorized to discuss private negotiations publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. We are in discussion with them now on how to best accomplish that.

Sanders campaign declined to comment on the talks. Nothing to add from us, said Sanders spokesman Mike Casca.

In some ways, the delegate count is a moot point. While he has yet to formally win the 1,991 delegates needed to claim the Democratic nomination on the first ballot at the party convention, Biden is the Democrats presumptive nominee. All of his rivals  including Sanders  have endorsed him after ending their own campaigns.

But with the nomination essentially decided, who has how many delegates takes on a new meaning. In 2016, rowdy Sanders supporters booed some speakers and any mention of nominee Hillary Clinton at the partys Philadelphia convention. The disruptions were so embarrassing to the party that Sanders pleaded with his supporters not to stage protests on the floor.

By claiming the delegates that ought to belong to him under party rules, Biden could cut down on the number of Sanders backers  some of whom have been slow to embrace the former vice-president  who could stage a replay of that divide. Instead, hes decided to try to attract Sanders supporters rather than silence them.

For his part, Sanders wants as many delegates as possible to help shape the partys platform and get Biden and the Democratic Party to embrace his democratic socialist agenda.

It is not unusual for rival presidential campaigns to negotiate over delegates once the nominating contest is over. In 2008, Clinton and Barack Obama fought over how to divvy up delegates from disputed primaries in Michigan and Florida. Clinton won both states. However, the states had violated party rules by holding their primaries too early in the calendar and were therefore to be stripped of all their delegates.

Clintons supporters were furious over the outcome, which saw Obama getting delegates from both states even though he wasnt even on the ballot in Michigan. But at the national convention that summer, it was Clinton who made the motion during the roll call vote to nominate Obama by acclimation.

Democratic candidates win convention delegates based on their share of the vote in the partys primaries and caucuses. To date, Biden leads Sanders 1,293 to 937.

Nearly two-thirds of delegates are won based on results in individual congressional districts and they stay with the candidates all the way to the convention.

Its the other third of delegates  won based on statewide results  that are at issue. To keep these delegates, candidates must still be running for president when the people who will serve as convention delegates are selected, usually at state party conventions, according to the partys delegate selection rules.

Those rules say Biden should get 346 delegates won by Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Mike Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. Sanders delegate count would fall to 628.

Most states have yet to select the people who will attend the convention as delegates, and The Associated Press has not yet updated its delegate count to reflect the shift in delegates from Biden to Sanders that should take place under party rules. But some states, including Colorado, have updated their delegate counts based on those rules.

Sanders won the Colorado primary on March 3 and took the most delegates from the state. But after he quit the race, the state party announced that Biden  the only candidate left  will end up with the most delegates from Colorado.

Biden will take 34 delegates from Colorado to the Milwaukee convention, including all those awarded statewide. Sanders, meanwhile, will get 16, with Bloomberg getting nine and Warren eight.

___

Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.

___

Stephen Ohlemacher is The APs Election Decision Editor.
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They first laid eyes on each other in torts class.

It was 1923, a period of prosperity before the Great Depression.

He was the son of Walter Rauschenbusch, a prominent theologian and key figure in the Social Gospel movement. She was the daughter of Louis Brandeis, the progressive Supreme Court justice and the most famous Jew in America. Each inherited their parents' zeal for social justice.

At the University of Wisconsin Law School, these two idealists - Elizabeth Brandeis and Paul Raushenbush - noticed each other immediately. She was brainy and shy, her hair long and dark. He was handsome and outgoing. On hikes and canoe outings, they fell in love romantically and intellectually - a partnership instrumental in passing the nation's first unemployment compensation law.

The story of how they did it is largely forgotten, but the 22 million people who have applied for unemployment during the coronavirus pandemic - and, of course, the millions before them - have this unlikely couple to thank. The law they conceived of and helped pass in Wisconsin laid the foundation for unemployment insurance throughout the country.

"Their story is absolutely staggering to think about right now," said their grandson Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, a Baptist minister and senior adviser for public affairs and innovation at Interfaith Youth Core, a nonprofit organization. "It was their life's work to make laws like this available to everyone."

Raushenbush, who lives in New York, has spent the last few years writing a history of his family, including interviewing his father, Walter, who is 92 and lives in McLean, Virginia. Raushenbush was working on the unemployment insurance section as the coronavirus pandemic arrived in America.

As part of his research, Raushenbush has been reading a privately published book his grandparents wrote based on interviews they gave to a Columbia University oral history project. The book is the story of the legislation - where the idea came from, the characters involved, how the law was ultimately passed.

"It really reads like a novel," Raushenbush said.

The main characters, of course, are his grandparents.

And Wisconsin.

His grandmother moved there to attend law school. She had lost her job as a researcher for the D.C. Minimum Wage Board following the Supreme Court's ruling that the minimum wage for women was unconstitutional. Justice Brandeis, who as a lawyer and jurist was renowned for his progressive stance on social issues, did not cast a vote because of his daughter's job.

E.B., as she was known to family and friends, wanted a career at the intersection of economics, labor and the law. She hoped to attend an elite East Coast law school, but those programs, including Harvard, where her father studied, didn't accept women. With her father's approval, she chose the University of Wisconsin, where the "Wisconsin Idea" - fusing academic research to solving social problems - was flourishing.

"I have no doubt that the Wisconsin Law School is good enough for your purposes," E.B.'s father wrote to her, "and should think it probable that you would find economics instruction, and doubtless, other considerations more sympathetic there than at Yale."

Her future husband chose Wisconsin for the same reason. There, the couple studied under professor John R. Commons, an influential social economist who crafted Wisconsin's workers' compensation law. Commons tried and failed several times to pass legislation protecting unemployed workers, whose numbers were soaring, especially after the stock market crash in 1929.

Commons took a particular interest in his graduate students, inviting them for regular dinners on Friday nights to discuss societal problems.

"I suppose the characteristic thing about Commons was that he was trying to use his brains and enlist the brains of his students in attempting solutions of economic problems," Raushenbush said during the Columbia University oral history interviews. "This was no ivory tower guy. Sure, he did research and wrote books, but perhaps the main interest that attracted his students was that they were being invited to participate in an attempt to deal with difficult problems on an intelligent basis."

By 1930, E.B. and her husband both were teaching economics at the University of Wisconsin. They had become friends with Philip La Follette, the local district attorney, whose parents were friends with Justice Brandeis. One day in June, La Follette invited the couple, along with another Wisconsin economist, Harold Groves, to his house in Madison.

La Follette told them he planned to run for governor, that he planned to win, and that he wanted to pass legislation instituting unemployment compensation. He asked the trio to come up with a plan.

And did they ever.

They spent the weekend hiking along the Wisconsin River batting around ideas. Their key idea - one that survives today - was that the benefits should be funded entirely by employers, thus giving them the incentive to maintain steady levels of employment or bear the cost of not doing so. The economists also decided that Groves, who grew up on a Wisconsin farm, should run for the State Assembly and introduce the legislation.

Everything clicked.

La Follette and Groves were elected, and the legislation was introduced in 1931.

The bill came under intense criticism from employers, who balked at providing 100% of the funding. E.B. at one point wavered on this idea, according to her grandson's research, wondering if passage would be more assured if employees also contributed. Her husband disagreed and wrote to Justice Brandeis for his advice.

"I agree with you," the Justice replied. "Think the suggestion would be dangerous."

The legislation passed in early 1932. Along with Commons and Groves, E.B. and her husband stood by La Follette as he signed the measure into law. Raushenbush became director of the Wisconsin's unemployment department, a position he held until 1967. He issued the first unemployment check to Neils B. Ruud, an engraving company employee left jobless by the Great Depression, for $15.

A few years later, Congress approved a national unemployment insurance policy as part of the Social Security Act of 1935. It was modeled on the Wisconsin program, and the Raushenbushes helped write the language.

E.B and her husband never sought acclaim for their work.

"They were both raised in families that were extremely practical," their grandson said. "There was never any bravado about them. They were very much about the work."

They had one child, Walter, who became a law professor at the University of Wisconsin. His son, Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, remembers the simple pleasures they all enjoyed together. Games of bridge. Sailing. Croquet.

"They taught us a certain kind of life that was about service," their grandson said. "And they were just wonderful, wonderful mentors."

In 1966, at E.B.'s retirement party, Groves summed up their careers, noting how they had long been known as "Mr. and Mrs. Unemployment Compensation."

"They well deserve the title," Groves said. "They were partners in the conception of the idea, delivered the child at birth, defended it in childhood and nourished it to manhood."
President Emmanuel Macron has said France will grant special financial aid to protect the most vulnerable people in India amid the Covid-19 crisis.

The financial aid figured during Macrons last telephone conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which also focused on collaboration in the fight against the Coronavirus, French ambassador Emmanuel Lenain said on Saturday

President Macron confirmed that France would grant exceptional financial aid for protecting the most vulnerable people in India, Lenain said.

People familiar with developments said further details about the aid programme are expected to be presented at the end of April.

Lenain said the political authorities of the two countries have been working closely together from the beginning of the Coronavirus crisis. Its during tough times that the full significance of our partnership comes to the fore, he said.

Macron and Modi had a long telephonic meeting on March 31 and fixed the areas of collaboration, discussed best practices, shared the latest information, particularly on research on a vaccine, and coordinated their international initiatives, the envoy said.

The foreign ministers of India and France regularly discuss the global situation and that of our two countries in the face of this pandemic, he added.

The cooperation at all levels between the two countries amid the Covid-19 crisis facilitated the return of more than 2,200 travellers to France since the suspension of international flights, Lenain said.

These high-level discussions were backed by work on the ground for repatriating French citizens visiting India. Within a few weeks, thanks to the excellent cooperation of Indias central and local authorities, we were able to organise the departure of French travellers from Kolkata, Kochi, Goa, Bengaluru, Chennai and Mumbai, he said.

But to reach these cities, we first chartered buses to bring them from Pushkar, Rishikesh, Dehradun, Manali, Mandi, Amritsar, Varanasi, Amritsar, Ahmedabad, Pune, Surat, Cochin, Hyderabad and Trivandrum, he added, giving details of the major logistical exercise involved in repatriating French citizens.

India has so far facilitated the return of some 35,000 foreign nationals from 48 countries who were stranded in the country due to travel restrictions.

France is also among the more than 50 countries for which India has cleared supplies of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, described by some as key to treating Covid-19 cases. These countries will be provided the dug either through commercial sales or grants.

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Pakistan Criticizes Proposed Sale of US Missile Systems to India

By Ayaz Gul April 17, 2020

Pakistan said Friday that a proposed new multimillion-dollar sale of American missile systems to Islamabad's archrival, India, would destabilize an already "volatile" situation in South Asia.

The U.S. Department of State on Tuesday cleared the delivery of 10 AGM-84L Harpoon Block II air-launched missiles,16 MK 54 lightweight torpedoes and related equipment to India.

New Delhi has not commented on the $155 million deal, which is still subject to congressional approval.

"Pakistan has articulated its concerns regarding the sale of sophisticated weapons to India, which would further destabilize the region," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aisha Farooqui told her weekly news conference.

The deal is "particularly disturbing" at the time when global efforts are focused on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, Farooqui said, while responding to a question from VOA.

"There is a high possibility of India conducting a false flag operation while global efforts are directed towards combating the pandemic."

Tensions are high

Pakistan's military tensions with India remain high and both nuclear-armed nations have been locked in intense skirmishes across their border in the divided region of Kashmir. The tensions over the Himalayan territory have sparked two of the wars between them and continues to be the primary source of bilateral tensions.

Pakistan accuses the Indian armed forces of staging fake militant operations on India's side of the border and using them as an excuse to orchestrate cross-border military attacks on the "baseless" grounds that the militants were sent and backed by Pakistan. New Delhi denies the accusations.

Farooqui said Islamabad has repeatedly "alerted" the international community about India's "aggressive designs" toward Pakistan and other neighboring countries in South Asia.

U.S. defends proposed sale

Washington, however, says, "The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the basic military balance in the region."

It said the weapon systems will be integrated into the Indian Navy's Boeing P-8I advanced maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare aircraft to improve India's capability to meet current and future threats from enemy weapon systems.

"This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to strengthen the U.S.-Indian strategic relationship and to improve the security of a major defensive partner, which continues to be an important force for political stability, peace, and economic progress in the Indo-Pacific and South Asia region," a U.S. statement said.

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'I'll survive for a month, but worry about what will happen if the lockdown isn't eased after that.'

Geetanjali Krishna reports.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

The country has been forced to become aware of the plight of thousands of migrant, daily wage labourers during the lockdown in the country's metros.

However, as a lifelong supporter of India's craft sector, I have been equally concerned about the plight of craftspeople across the country during this time.

For craft is largely a rural livelihood; craftspeople have limited direct access to the market and most of them live off only what they can make and sell.

Small, mostly self-employed and dependent on seasonal exhibitions in cities or larger companies for orders, craftspeople have received a huge blow during this ongoing lockdown.

Yet, in spite of being a sector that supports so many sustainable rural livelihoods, the government has made few provisions for craftspeople to help them tide over the COVID-19 pandemic.

I had the opportunity to speak to 28-year-old Laddu Mahto of Bihar's Darbhanga district, who weaves hand-knotted carpets in a village at Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh.

"I have been weaving carpets here for the last five years and earn on a piece-rate basis," he told me. "All the money I earn is sent back to support my family back home."

Before the lockdown, he'd notch up about Rs 6,000 per month, sometimes more, depending on how productive he was.

Mahto is the only wage earner in his family comprising his wife and four school-going children.

"So far, my wife is somehow making ends meet from the money I'd last been able to send her a month ago," he said.

How long did he estimate he could manage like this, I asked.

"I guess I'll survive for a month, but worry about what will happen if the lockdown isn't eased after that," Mahto said.

The day we spoke, the company he weaves carpets for, sent him a food packet that he reckons would sustain him for a month.

But Mahto was worried about what would happen if the lockdown is extended and he's unable to earn any money.

"What will happen to my family back home?" he said.

"As I don't have any savings and neither do I have any land to sell... I don't think they will survive for long if I don't earn."

Mahto was one of the few migrant weavers who decided to stay in Mirzapur when the lockdown was declared.

Many others have returned to their villages and the fear in the carpet industry is that they might not return once things normalise.

In fact, craft sector activists fear that across India, craftspeople are going to be forced into other occupations to tide over the huge financial crisis created by the lockdown.

Demonetisation, the Goods and Services Tax and now this pandemic have demonstrated the lack of economic security provided by the government to this sector.

For years, the crafts lobby has been advocating that the government help vulnerable craftspeople by enabling them to practise their craft under its employment guarantee schemes and also enable them to gain direct access to the urban markets.

Since the implementation of the new GST regime, they have further argued for the urgent need for the craft sector to be made tax-free.

Perhaps this is the last window of opportunity for the government to take measures to aid this beleaguered sector.

Else much of India's rich and diverse craft tradition could join the COVID-19 pandemic's growing list of casualties.
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain launched a new coronavirus taskforce on Friday to support efforts to make a vaccine available to the public as quickly as possible. The government said 21 new research projects would get funding from a 14 million pound investment pool 'to rapidly progress treatments and vaccines'. The taskforce will include AstraZeneca and research charity the Wellcome Trust

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain launched a new coronavirus taskforce on Friday to support efforts to make a vaccine available to the public as quickly as possible.

The government said 21 new research projects would get funding from a 14 million pound investment pool "to rapidly progress treatments and vaccines".

The taskforce will include AstraZeneca and research charity the Wellcome Trust.

A million doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine being developed by British scientists at Oxford University are already being manufactured, even before trials prove whether the shot is effective, the team said on Friday.

"UK scientists are working as fast as they can to find a vaccine that fights coronavirus, saving and protecting peoples lives. We stand firmly behind them in their efforts," business minister Alok Sharma said.

"The Vaccine Taskforce is key to coordinating efforts to rapidly accelerate the development and manufacture of a potential new vaccine, so we can make sure it is widely available to patients as soon as possible."

A vaccine against the novel coronavirus is seen as key to defeating the COVID-19 pandemic which has killed over 100,000 globally and delivered a large blow to the global economy.

But timeframes for its development vary.

While the Oxford scientists said their vaccine would be available by September, GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Sanofi SA , who earlier this week said they would develop a vaccine, forecast that it would not be available until the second half of 2021.

Britain's government said it wanted a vaccine to be available as quickly as possible but did not give more details on an expected timetable for development.

The taskforce will be led by Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance and Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan van Tam, and will aim to make sure regulations and manufacturing capacity are such that the production of a vaccine can be quickly scaled up when one is successfully developed.

Britain said it would identify ways to fast-track clinical trials and also continue to support international efforts to find a vaccine.

Among the projects to receive funding include a test of a vaccine at Imperial College, London that aims for the body to produce more protective antibodies; Public Health England's efforts to develop a new antibody to protect from COVID-19 and a University of Oxford trial of an anti-malarial drug to see if it could prove effective against COVID-19.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout; editing by Stephen Addison)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
When The Raceway last hosted live harness racing it did so without fans, spectators and horseplayers on track, but they were still there...cheering, watching and playing somewhere, whether it was through HPI, TVG, an OTB or tuning in online for the live video feed.

One of Western Fair's biggest off-track racing fans is Andrew Herpy, 53, of Dayton, Ohio. First introduced to thoroughbred racing as a child, he really enjoyed those majestic animals but he quickly fell in love with harness racing because those horses raced more frequently and he got to know them better.

After a while, I didnt even need to look at a program to know who they were, Herpy told Shannon 'Sugar' Doyle. Their characteristics told me who they were. For example their colour, gait, head and just the way they went over the track. I just knew who they were. At the end of the day, though, I have a deep respect for all breeds of horses.

Herpy describes himself as "the biggest horse race fan in the world" and he still remembers when and where it all began.

I was just six years old, at River Downs, near Cincinnati, Ohio. My family had box seats and dad would put me on his shoulders so I could see the stretch runs. Looking back I can still remember a turf race, with the bright colours of the jockey silks contrasting against the lush green grass and the excitement of the crowd...I was hooked right then and there!

While Herpy's been a fan, horseplayer and online supporter for horse racing, he feels there could be more involvement for him down the road. Ive always wanted to be a part of racing, but Ive never owned or raced horses. Many time, Ive thought that theres likely more for me in this business...well have to see. I still have a lot of friends that race and I do enjoy giving them my best wishes and cheering them on whenever theyre in to go.

When asked to recall his favourite racehorse, the answer came quickly and decisively. Artsplace period, stated Herpy. He was prolific on the racetrack and legendary in the breeding shed. It also helped that he was trained by Gene Reigle, who happened to be from Greenville, Ohio -- which was very close to my parents house. I used to ride my bike to go see [Artsplace] when he was there. It wouldnt have been too many times though...he was a busy horse back then. He was amazing!

With the advent and proliferation of simulcast wagering, the Buckeye gained an interest in Canadian harness racing.

When I lived in Ohio, we were likely one of the last places to bring in simulcasting of other tracks from across North America. We started going to Hoosier Park for both live racing and simulcasting, this wouldve been when I was first introduced to some of the other tracks in Canada. It opened up a whole new racing world for me.

His favourite competitors at Western Fair are 2019 Horse of the Year Blue Moose and a driver that doesn't make as many appearances in London as he used to, Trevor Henry.

"My favourite horse is easy: its Blue Moose all the way, hes so honest," said Herpy. "And for drivers its Trevor Henry. Before he moved on to the big track, he dominated Western Fair. Hes aggressive, but has a great sense of pace. I knew hed make his way to Woodbine and hes done great there too. Ive loved all the aspects of racing at Western Fair.

As a horseplayer, Herpy enjoys chasing after the Pick-4 plays in London. I had a great run with them last year, cashing eight in a row. Some were big and some were small...I remember playing a Pick-4 ticket there six years ago and getting back almost $2,000 with a 19/1 single to complete it. The ticket cost just $3.60, so thatd be my best score ever in London.

With no on-track harness racing action in North America due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Herpy has stayed occupied by studying a different side of the industry.

Over the past five years, or so, Ive really been interested in bloodlines, so Ive now been dragging out my sales/auction books every day and reviewing every page. That definitely keeps me busy. You can likely tell, by now, that I have a great passion for the sport. Ive always wanted to be more involved somehow and maybe Ill get that chance to bring it to another level at some point - I would really like to be an advocate for the sport on any level. Time will tell and I have lots of it!

I would just like to extend my best wishes to all horsemen and women, across the world, during this tough time. One of my best friends, Jeremy Day from Daydream Racing, has a two-year-old trotter in training -- Muscles Frankee, a well-bred Southwind Frank colt. I wish him and all the connections good luck. Heres hoping we get to see that colt and all the other harness horses in action soon!

(Shannon 'Sugar' Doyle for The Raceway)
The Andrews government has rejected Queensland's call for "all governments" to help fund embattled airline Virgin Australia through the coronavirus crisis.

Australia's second largest carrier has been in a trading halt since Tuesday, has grounded almost its entire fleet and is drowning in close to $5 billion of debt.

Virgin is 90 per cent owned by Singapore Airlines, Etihad Airways, the Chinese conglomerates HNA and Nanshan, and Richard Branson's Virgin Group. Credit:Wolter Peeters

The Annastacia Palaszczuk government in Queensland has offered Virgin a partial lifeline of $200 million on the condition it restructured its debt, continued regional flights and kept its headquarters in Brisbane.

"If we're going to get through this pandemic with two national airlines ... then all governments need to come together to ensure that is the case," Queensland's State Development Minister Cameron Dick said.
The Southeastern Veteran's Center, in Spring City, Chester County. Records and interviews show 10 residents at the home have died this month from coronavirus. Read more

At least 10 residents of a state-run nursing home for veterans and their spouses in Chester County have died of COVID-19 this month, and dozens of other residents and staffers have tested positive for the disease or exhibited symptoms, according to the county coroner and an internal report obtained by The Inquirer.

Officials in Pennsylvania have generally refused to disclose the number of COVID-19 deaths and cases at individual hospitals, nursing homes, and other care facilities. But a report circulating within the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (DMVA) indicates a dire situation inside the Southeastern Veterans Center, a department-run facility in East Vincent Township.

The coronavirus death toll at the nursing home climbed from one to nine between April 9 and Wednesday, the report shows. Chester Countys coroner said Friday that a 10th resident who had tested positive died in the hospital. Even the infection-control nurse there tested positive for COVID-19, according to one staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their job.

In response to the crisis, body bags have been sent to the facility by the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in nearby Coatesville. The National Guard sent about 30 of its members on Wednesday to assist with nursing, housekeeping, and other activities. Additional emotional support services have been requested for staff.

But the scope of the outbreak inside the 238-bed nursing home isnt entirely clear.

The staffer said the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths could be higher. Under the protocol at the home, when two or more residents in one unit test positive for COVID-19, testing ceases in the rest of that unit. Others there who display symptoms of the virus  which can include fever, nausea, shortness of breath  are automatically treated as probable positives, according to the internal report.

Were all freaking out. How do you know who has it and who doesnt? asked the staffer. This is bad.

 READ MORE: Philly-area veterans find that healing moral injury helps with recovery from PTSD, depression, addiction

The Southeastern Veterans Center, one of six extended-care facilities run by the DMVA, was rated this year by Newsweek as one of the best nursing homes in the state.

But as in other long-term-care facilities around the country, the coronavirus moved quickly through its elderly population as well as staff. At least 19 workers have tested positive for COVID-19, the report shows.

Were just a step behind, the staff member said.

 Help us report about the coronavirus: Do you have a loved one in a long-term care facility for seniors in the Philadelphia region? We want to hear from you about what youre seeing, how this is affecting you and your families

Nationwide, at least 6,900 people living in or connected to nursing homes have died of the coronavirus, according to a New York Times tally published Friday.

Christina VandePol, Chester Countys coroner, confirmed the information contained in the internal report about COVID-19 deaths at Southeastern, one of several long-term-care facilities in the county that have reported a significant number of infections. Of Chester Countys 52 coronavirus deaths as of Friday, 14 have been patients in such facilities, she said.

There has been some tension between VandePols office and state officials regarding testing. The coroner wants all those who died from presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 to be tested.

We have to certify cause and manner of death, and put our name on the ruling that it is our best judgment, VandePol said Friday. Given our responsibility and our role, testing should be done regardless of whether other people in that facility have tested positive.

If families have questions, telling them that someone died of a presumptive diagnosis when a test couldve been done isnt enough, she added. It shouldve been done.

VandePol acknowledged that a shortage of tests may prevent her preferred approach at the veterans center, and understands the state Department of Healths reliance on epidemiological links, or cases in which people who have died are presumed to have the disease because they had face-to-face contact with someone who tested positive and displayed symptoms of the disease.

These facilities may want to test everyone, but they may not be able to, she said. From a medical standpoint, I would prefer to see everyone who is presumed to have COVID-19 to be tested for it.

The Chester County Health Department said in a statement Friday that it could not provide information on COVID-19 cases as they relate to specific hospitals or care facilities. The Southeastern Veterans Center has been focused on proactive measures to try and prevent the spread of COVID-19, and has been taking ongoing guidance, and continues to work with the Chester County Health Department in this matter," it said.

Joan Zlogar Nissley, communications director for the DMVA, confirmed that as of Thursday there had been nine deaths among the departments six veterans homes. The internal report obtained by The Inquirer showed that at the states other five veterans homes, 12 residents had been tested and no test came back positive.

When the concerns over COVID-19 first surfaced, staff at DMVAs six veterans homes reviewed and updated infection prevention and control plans in preparation for a possible outbreak, she said in a statement. DMVA also implemented heightened safety measures to include restricting visitors, canceling outings, discontinuing group activities, ceasing the use of volunteers, conducting daily health screenings for employees, and putting new admissions on hold.

The state barred visitors on March 12 at the six homes. Besides the Southeastern center, they are: Delaware Valley Veterans Home in Philadelphia; Gino J. Merli Veterans Center in Scranton; Hollidaysburg Veterans Home near Altoona; the Pennsylvania Soldiers and Sailors Home in Erie; and the Southwestern Veterans Center in Pittsburgh.

Nissley declined to discuss any possible explanation for the concentration of cases at the Chester County home. She said officials at DMVA homes report positive test results to county, state, and federal public health agencies, and make sure that follow-up protocols are accomplished.
Police are looking for seven men and one woman in a roofing scam that left a number of Toronto residents with holes in their roofs.

Police report that, between January and February, residents in Toronto were approached by a group of men and a woman claiming that they were roofers and City inspectors.

They used the company names, PROfix Roofing and T-CITY Property Maintenance.

Police say they told the residents that their roof needed to be fixed or they would face property fines from the City.

The group obtained an initial deposit from the residents and began the work on the roofs.

After completing the work, they approached the residents again stating that the roof needed more work and requested more funds, police report.

Explations they provided included the assertion that there were structural issues with the roof, or that a crane was required to complete the job.

Police say the group obtained as much money as they could, then vanished.

Residents were left with holes in their roofs and several suffered financial losses.

Police say the vehicle used was a red Ford F150 pickup truck, with the Ontario license plate number BB10569.

Toronto police are asking the public for help and have released pictures of seven men and one woman, with their descriptions.

The group is wanted for theft over $5,000, fraud over $5,000, and possession of property obtained by crime.

Toronto police are asking homeowners to be cautious when dealing with contractors who solicit business door-to-door in neighbourhoods.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-1200, or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-8477.
William Bailey, whose pristine, idealized still lifes and female nudes made him one of the leading figures in the return of figurative art in the 1980s, died on April 13 at his home in Branford, Conn. He was 89.

His death was confirmed by his daughter, Alix Bailey.

Beyond his painting, Mr. Bailey influenced generations of students in his many years as a teacher at the Yale School of Art.

In some of his best-known work, Mr. Bailey arranged simple objects  the eggs, bowls, bottles and vases that he once called my repertory company  along a severe horizontal shelf, or on a plain table, swathing them in a breathless, deceptively serene atmosphere heavy with mystery.
As the country marks 40th independence anniversary, its journey towards reconciliation and healing is not yet over.

Bulawayo, Zimbabwe  The bones of the young couple lay mingled in an open pit near the railway tracks. In one corner, a male skull stuck out of the earth while a soiled pinkish dress nearby covered some of the other remains.

They belonged to Justin Tshuma, 34, and his pregnant wife Thembi Ngwenya, 21, who were shot dead by soldiers in 1983 while trying to flee their village during Zimbabwes first post-liberation conflict.

Robert Mugabe, the elected prime minister of an independent Zimbabwe in 1980, had claimed dissidents and fighters loyal to a rival liberation movement were threatening the countrys newly found freedom. An elite unit, the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade, was deployed to the southwestern regions to fight the alleged dissidents, in a military campaign that killed more than 20,000 people  mostly ethnic Ndebele  between 1982 and 1987, according to rights groups.

Saturday marks 40 years since Zimbabwe gained independence from British and local white minority colonial rule. But four decades since its founding on April 18, 1980, Zimbabwe is a fractured nation whose journey towards reconciliation and healing from past atrocities is not yet over.





In April last year, the remains of Tshuma and Ngwenya were the first to be discovered in Tsholotsho district following a government pledge to exhume and rebury those killed in the 1980s purge, known as Gukurahundi, a Shona word that translates to the rain that washes away the chaff from the last harvest, before the spring rains.

Exhumations have since continued but are no longer open to communities nor the media, with just a few family members and officials allowed to attend. Once unearthed, the skeletal remains are taken to a forensic laboratory for identification and determination of the cause of death, a lengthy process that can take months. Subsequently, the bones are given back to the family for re-burial at the homestead or a chosen location.

One year since the first public exhumation, Beauty Ngwenya, Thembis older sister, said the disinterment, along with prayer, had helped the family in their pursuit for healing.

I feel the pain Ive carried in my heart for so many years has subsided, the 48-year-old told Al Jazeera. I hope others who are suffering will see that its possible to be free of this pain. Now that we know the truth about Thembi, I can forgive those who did this if they seek forgiveness from me.

Yet for others, the memory of Gukurahundi remains hard to erase.

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I was a young man then, but I still have the scars of what they did to me, said Simeon Ncube, now 58.

Ncube had joined the liberation struggle as a teenager but was later accused of being a dissident fighter.

He said he was captured by soldiers in August 1982 after his older brother, also a liberation fighter, escaped to South Africa. Ncube said he was taken to Bhalagwe, once a military base south of Bulawayo, Zimbabwes second city. Thousands of civilians were detained and brutally tortured there, and many were killed.

I was tortured at Bhalagwe, said Ncube, alleging that he was beaten and given electric shock treatment.

What kind of freedom is this if people have to live with their pain and those who tortured us wont tell us why they did it? Its hard for me to forgive and forget, I cant do it, he added.

There is still no public acknowledgement of the Gukurahundi atrocities, which were once described by the late Mugabe as a moment of madness. Meanwhile, the findings of the two commissions of inquiry conducted decades ago are not publicly accessible even under a different leader.

Following 37 years of Mugabes rule, former aide Emmerson Mnangagwa took over in a de facto coup in November 2017, promising a new era for Zimbabwe. However, despite making efforts to reconcile and heal the wounds of the past, the new presidents government has also cracked down on citizens  rights groups have accused state security forces of using excessive lethal force to quell protests last year.

Simeon Ncube: Its hard for me to forgive and forget [Zinyange Auntony/Al Jazeera]

A muted anniversary under lockdown

Ordinarily, the celebration of independence would have culminated with a stadium commemoration featuring live music, an army parade and liberation war veterans recounting their role in the armed struggle against colonial rule.

But this year, it will be a low-key affair that will find Zimbabweans, most of whom struggle under the weight of a protracted economic crisis, under lockdown as the country tries to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Zimbabwe has so far registered 24 cases and three deaths associated with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus

200414215412998

Earlier this week, Kembo Mohadi, the second vice president who chairs the inter-ministerial taskforce for COVID-19, said Zimbabweans should draw inspiration from the bush war victory against the British in order to succeed in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

It was through the resilience of Zimbabweans that we have this independence, and we got it without assistance from Europe and the US. We did it ourselves, he said during a meeting with government stakeholders, chiefs, religious leaders and business people on Wednesday.

Let us forget the political bickering we might have. Its [COVID-19] our war together, and we have to fight it together.

President Mnangagwa during his inauguration after a disputed election victory in 2018 [Tendai Marima/Al Jazeera]

Justice Sello Nare leads the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC), a nine-member body constitutionally mandated to ensure post-conflict justice, healing and reconciliation.

Amid reports of rights violations during the enforcement of the lockdown, Nare said the commission has urged security forces to show restraint and encouraged mutual cooperation between the state and citizens.

He also promised that exhumations would continue, even as some in the region remain sceptical about the efforts of the government and the commission  NPRC-led community consultations in the past have been disrupted by angry protesters.

The situation has improved reasonably in the reception we have received in this area. There were a few disturbances last year, but we have found a way to relate on this issue, Nare told Al Jazeera.

Thereve been a lot of conflicts in this area because of Gukurahundi, but were here to assure our people that they must tell the truth and make peace. We want to carry out exhumations freely so people mustnt be afraid.

Follow Tendai Marima on Twitter @i_amten
Lisa Smith at an earlier court date  she was unable to attend yesterday due to Covid-19 restrictions

A book of evidence has been completed in the case against Lisa Smith on charges of Islamic State membership.

However, she did not attend court to be sent for trial yesterday due to the coronavirus crisis.

The former Irish Army soldier was due to have the book served on her but Dublin District Court heard her lawyers had sought an adjournment.

Judge Grainne Malone said there was "no difficulty" with Ms Smith not attending and remanded her on continuing bail in her absence, to appear in court again on July 17.

The Co Louth mother-of-one, who left Ireland and married after converting to Islam, was returned here from Turkey last December after spending time in a Syrian refugee camp.

Denial

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She is charged with being a member of a terrorist group outside the State between October 28, 2015, and December 1, 2019.

The charge alleges she was "a member of a terrorist group styling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) also known as Dawlat al-Iraq al-Islamiyya, Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Dawlat al Islamiya fi Iraq wa al Sham, otherwise known as 'Da'esh' and the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham".

She denies the allegations.

The case was before the court yesterday for the serving of a book of evidence, which is required before the accused can be sent for trial to a higher court.

Neither Ms Smith nor her Belfast-based lawyers were present when the case was called. A State solicitor said the book was ready but Ms Smith's defence had indicated they were writing to the courts service to seek an adjournment.

The prosecution had "no difficulty with that", he said, and asked the judge to extend the time required for the service of the book.

"They are looking to have it adjourned to save them coming down and the client attending court in light of the Covid restrictions," the State solicitor said.

The prosecution had "no issues with the accused not being present".

Judge Malone said the book could not be served in the accused's absence and she had no note of any correspondence from the defence lawyers seeking an adjournment. However, the judge said there was no difficulty with Ms Smith not being present in light of court directions that people were not required to attend.

The State solicitor said he would notify the defence of the next court date.

Anxious

Ms Smith was arrested at Dublin Airport last December 1, charged on December 4 and denied bail at the district court before she was granted it later in the High Court. She remained in custody before taking up bail on December 31.

She has since been before the district court several times, and the court has heard it is a "complicated, substantial case".

Her lawyer has previously asked for the case against her to be reviewed and for the charge to be discontinued, but a judge has said this was a matter for the DPP and not the courts.

Ms Smith is also anxious to "prove her innocence", her lawyer has said.
Live at the Shrine, Governor Linda Dessau will lay wreaths on behalf of Victorians and veterans. Mr Shinkfield, 94, and his wife Betty, 100, will be in their driveway paying their respects, differently, but in the same spirit they always have. "It's a very important day to me," Mr Shinkfield said. "It's important to remember those who lost their lives ... and I knew so many of them." Desmond Shinkfield: ready to remember Credit:Jason South While the pandemic has halted decades of tradition, he said social restrictions were the right thing to do.

"I think what weve learned is that you cant put these things aside. You have to face them," he said. "Thats what the government has been doing and Im glad it is doing it. This, you cant fight it with guns. Its got to be medicine to get rid of the jolly thing. It was bad enough in wartime, but this is a nasty thing. Mr Shinkfield, who joined the HMAS Australia (II) in 1944, just before the Battle of Leyte Gulf, is qualified to talk about guns, war and nasty things.

He was a midshipman on The Aussie, one of Australias most-famous warships, when it was attacked repeatedly by Japanese suicide pilots in the Philippines. The HMAS Australia II in Sydney Harbour Credit:RAN The first hit on October 21, 1944 killed 29 Australians. At Leyte, the chap who was in the fore directory, he was decapitated, Mr Shinkfield said. The gunnery officer said to me: I want you to take so and sos job, how do you feel about it? I said: I dont, sir. If I get through, I get through. If I dont, I dont.

But I had one request. That was if the Japanese came strafing then I want permission not to stick my head out. He said permission granted. So I kept my head down when they came around and Ive still got my head today, fortunately." After the ship was repaired, Japanese kamikaze planes attacked again on January 5, 6, 8 and 9, killing a further 44. But the head that kept down in that hell is filled with its horrors. He was eventually diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in the 1980s, when the condition was still little understood. Like the coronavirus, he said, it is a problem to be faced head-on. "Its a psychological thing and you cant get through it by drinking or anything like that, youve got to face it yourself," he said.

He has written stories and books, including the HMAS Australia: The Lucky Ship about the war and his comrades, who he said had made him a better person. Betty has been beside him the whole way. She first saw him in Darjeeling after the war, where they worked at a missionary language school, Betty as nurse and her future husband as a teacher. They learned Bengali together. "I saw the back of his head the first time," she said. "I thought what a smart young man he was. He always had his hair parted and always had a clean shirt. Oh yes, very pucker." 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.
In a country facing its worst health and economic crisis in decades, a call to support our speciality cheesemakers can sound tone deaf  perhaps even frivolous.

Yet while by no means the most pressing demand on the national purse right now, this rallying cry concerns far, far more than your sandwiches or which cheese goes best with which wine.

Its about history: Britains venerable tradition of transforming surplus milk into something nutritious, tasty and unique to the place which produced it.

Its about our soil and our climate, which together create the best possible conditions for lush pastures and  in the hands of careful, low-impact farmers  meadows replete with wild flowers.

And its about people the first, third, fifth generation farmers and cheesemakers who put the environment, the welfare of their staff and their animals and the quality of their produce at the heart of their businesses; and who, without the custom of restaurants and events caterers, face mountains of unsold cheese and with it the real chance of bankruptcy.

Recommended How restaurants are having to adapt to being posh takeaways

For many of our producers these few months will prove the most pivotal in their histories, says Jason Hinds, director of Neals Yard Dairy.

A lot of them face the prospect of throwing cheese away if they cant find homes for it soon.

Soft and blue cheese producers are particularly vulnerable, because their cheeses cant be matured for long without going far past their best  but even hard cheese producers are going to struggle, as storage rooms reach capacity and demand dwindles.

Cheesemaking is often handed down through generations, like Kirkhams Lancashire (Kirkham Cheese) (Kirkham cheese)

Graham Kirkham, the third generation cheesemaker behind the last remaining raw milk farmhouse Lancashire cheese, reckons he has little more than two weeks before his store room reaches capacity and he has to throw milk away.

About 75 per cent of the cheese we sold was food service  so when that all shut, it was like an atom bomb going off, he says.

Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans Show all 25 1 /25 Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans A view of empty Bourbon street in the French Quarter amid the coronavirus pandemic in New Orleans, Louisiana Getty Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans Nyla Clark, 3, accompanied by her mother, Chavonne Clark, sits in a baby stroller at a corner in New Orleans, hoping to get a few dollars from an occasional passerby. Clark was a phlebotomist with a local company until she lost her job because of the coronavirus pandemic. She is waiting for unemployment The Advocate via AP Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans A man boards a streetcar Reuters Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans Jackson Square, normally bustling with tourists, is seen deserted AP Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans Words from Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" are painted onto plywood covering the window of a closed business AFP via Getty Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans Street performer Eddie Webb looks around the nearly deserted French Quarter looking to make money AP Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans Boarded up businesses Reuters Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans The normally bustling tourist mecca of Bourbon Street lies deserted in the early afternoon Reuters Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans A sign along I-10 informing persons who travel from Louisiana to quarantine AP Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans A man cycles along Jackson Square AFP via Getty Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans Elena Likaj, prevention department manager at Odyssey House Louisiana (OHL) which runs a drive-through testing site, takes the temperature of New Orleans resident Peyton Gill Reuters Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans A man walks his dog past a boarded up business on Frenchmen Street Reuters Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans An empty Bourbon street Getty Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans A meal is distributed at the Lantern Light Ministry at the Rebuild Center Reuters Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans A woman walks in the French Quarter Reuters Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans People practice social distancing as they queue up for a meal at the Lantern Light Ministry at the Rebuild Center Reuters Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans French Quarter Getty Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans A sign is pictured in the French Quarter amid the outbreak Reuters Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans A view of Bourbon Street Reuters Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans National Guard members walk down Rampart Street AFP via Getty Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans A man rides his bicycle in front of a boarded up French Quarter restaurant Reuters Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans A shuttered business is pictured on Decatur Street AFP via Getty Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans The normally bustling tourist mecca of Bourbon Street lies deserted Reuters Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans A view of Canal Street Reuters Impact coronavirus is having on Louisiana and New Orleans A New Orleans firefighter works to contain an early morning fire Reuters

Existing orders disappeared and wholesalers who were holding cheese started sending it back. Specialist cheesemakers by definition depend on special occasions: We are unique and different. You dont go to a restaurant or deli for Cathedral City, do you  so the sudden death (well, deep-freeze) of restaurants, not to mention weddings, food festivals, shows etc left producers like the Kirkhams hugely exposed.

Theyre finding new routes  mail order through cheesemongers like Neals Yard Dairy and the Courtyard Dairy, or the little farmshop hes created at his gate  but 350g cheese sold here and there doesnt begin to fill the hole of whole wheels of Lancashire, he points out.

When we started selling to larger shops, we felt the best way to sell our cheese was in the deli counter, because its face to face  more personal, Mary Quicke, a 14th generation cheesemaker and farmer based in Devon, says wryly. Now of course the deli counters are all closed and any producer who isnt on an industrial scale and on the main shelves is struggling.

So far, so specialist food. Cheesemakers arent the only artisans to be derailed by coronavirus. Yet the perishable nature of their product, the means of its production, and the psychology of panic buying in the midst of a pandemic makes them particularly vulnerable. Its not like a pub, where I can turn the lights off and furlough my staff. Ive animals to feed and vets bills to pay.

Its not like a pub, where I can turn the lights off and furlough my staff. Ive animals to feed and vets bills to pay

Sales from his farm shop feed his family, and his faith in human nature. Its amazing how local people have come out to support us. But those sales dont begin to cover the big costs of farming.

Then theres the milking. Lactating cows and goats need to be milked otherwise theyll die on me. And that will be a big pile of mess, says Kirkham bluntly. Reducing the milk is possible, but far from ideal: Theyre on a lactation curve, and if you drop them, you cant go back, says Quicke.

Fortunately for her, shes based near a large cheese factory  the one behind industrially produced, supermarket brand cheddar blocks  which can take excess milk off her hands, but most small scale cheesemakers have no such luck: supply chains are such that redirecting surplus toward the shops is nigh on impossible, and with services and coffee shops all shut there are even fewer routes for it to go.

Stichelton, is cut in vats, but its nature as a soft blue means it cant be kept for long (Stichelton) (Stitchleton)

It just shows you how broken our food system is says Joe Schneider, who makes Stichelton  a stilton-like blue cheese made with raw milk  in Nottinghamshire. Within a month all the cheese hes sitting on will be past selling, and bound for the muck heap.

There are farmers with excess milk. We have rooms full of great tasting cheese. And people either cant get to us or dont know. Like soft cheese, blue cheese is all the more vulnerable to this state of affairs for being both highly perishable, and more commonly associated with fine dining than basic sustenance.

Yet now that the interest in what Schneider has called apocalypse cheese  grateable, freezable slabs of cheddar and parmesan for stockpiled pasta  appears to be waning, and the feeling we will need some treats to see us through this period is growing, Neals Yard Dairy and some of their fellow cheesemongers are set to help makers like Schneider sell their cheese while it at its tasting its very best: a message reinforced in Jamie Olivers Keep Cooking and Carry On programme earlier this week.

I dont want to sound too dramatic, but there isnt a long list of young people looking to be farmhouse cheesemakers... If we lose these skills, they wont come back again

Mountains of unsold cheese aside, Schneider is one of the (relatively) lucky ones. He doesnt own his own farm, so he can  and has  stopped making cheese for the time being. His fear is for people like Kirkham: producers with whole farms resting on them and who, if they go under, cannot easily come back and start again. I dont want to sound too dramatic, but Graham is the last person on earth making farmhouse Lancashire cheese. There are three traditional west country cheddar makers left. There arent a long list of young people looking to be farmhouse cheesemakers, he continues. If we lose these skills, they wont come back again.

Losing these doesnt just mean losing cheese. The tradition of binding cheddar wheels in muslin, or of combining curds from several days of milking into a finished Lancashire, have been handed down over centuries. Buying this cheese isnt just about sustaining the land, animals and the people that make it: Its history, says Schneider.

[Producers like this] didnt invent this cheese, they inherited it. Its Neals Yard Dairy who, over the past 40 years, have revived British farmhouse cheese, and become its backbone says Kirkham. They have built these great names up again: West Country cheddar, Colston Bassett Stilton, Kirkhams Lancashire.

If they are to survive, we need to support this rich, delicate ecological web of specialist makers which weve built up, says Quicke, because if we lose it, our food system will become more uniform, more barren. A dairy of some size and renown and 480 years standing, Quickes itself will probably survive.

Her fear is for smaller, more vulnerable cheesemakers: those who built themselves up on the farmers markets which are no longer running, sold the majority of their cheese to restaurants and caterers which are no longer open, and whose future now rests in the hands of retailers, and the choice of cheese we buy. 
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-17 23:12:22|Editor: huaxia

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People work on the production line of a factory of Harbin Pharmaceutical Group in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, March 16, 2020. The pharmaceutical enterprise speeds up its production to help the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic. (Xinhua/Wang Jianwei)

A Chinese expert said that traditional Chinese medicine has demonstrated its unique advantage in reducing the fatality rate and improving the recovery rate in the face of COVID-19 epidemic.

BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has played a significant role and is irreplaceable in treating viral infectious diseases from the experiences drawn from the COVID-19 epidemic, said a Chinese TCM expert Friday.

TCM has its unique advantage in the face of such a new and unknown disease, said Wang Wei, deputy head of the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, at a press conference in Beijing.

TCM can conduct pathogenesis analysis based on the symptoms, onset time, region, season and other factors and carry out the treatment based on TCM's syndrome differentiation, said Wang.

TCM can come up with a treatment plan very quickly for clinical use, Wang noted.

"Many classic TCM books have very rich experience in fighting against epidemics, and we should dig deep into these books," said Wang, who suggested that the scientific laws and basis of TCM treatment should be further studied in national science and technology projects.

TCM pays special attention to three aspects, namely the environment, the toxicity and the people, explained Wang Qi, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, at the press conference.

"In the COVID-19 outbreak, TCM has demonstrated its unique advantage in reducing the fatality rate and improving the recovery rate," said Wang Qi, noting that it is necessary to summarize the experience of TCM's use in fighting the epidemic to prepare for the next outbreak of infectious disease.

Stressing updating the diagnosis and treatment protocol for COVID-19 with the combined use of TCM and Western medicine, he urged efforts to study the medicinal properties and clinical applicability of prescriptions that had been proved effective in curing COVID-19 patients.

Wang Qi also called for establishing an information-sharing platform to support frontline medical staff. 
Phanindra Pradhan By

Express News Service

SAMBALPUR: As the nation has come forward to join the fight against coronavirus, tribal villagers from a remote part of the State have shown they are not to be left behind. Setting an example, every household of the tribal-dominated Dangapal village under Jujumora village on Friday contributed money to the PM-Cares Fund. The villagers have contributed Rs 27,000 from their own little savings.

A cheque for the amount would be handed over to Jujumora BDO on Saturday. Located 35 km from Sambalpur, the village comprises of 300 households, 200 of whom are tribals. While most depend on agriculture and collection of non-timber minor forest produce, others work as daily labourers to eke out living. Their low economic status, though, did not deter them from contributing whatever they could muster.

Members of Utsav Parivar Social and Cultural Trust of the village visited every house in the village on the day and collected money from people who had voluntarily agreed to contribute. A villager Jayant Pradhan said the country is passing through a crisis due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

As its citizens, it is our duty to help the country tide over this crisis. We cannot do much except adhering to social distancing and contributing to the national cause, he said. He said around 30 members of the Trust including women visited every household in Dangapal besides, three hamlets of the village to collect the donation. Each household came forward and contributed as per its might. While the lowest donation was `2 by a villager, another local handed over a maximum `2,222, he said.
The house of a sanitation worker in the President's Estate was sealed on Saturday and he, along with his entire family, was kept in government isolation after his relative died of the coronavirus COVID-19. Another 30 families living in the President's Estate were also sent to self-isolation. An officer of Rashtrapati Bhavan is also in self-isolation.

The family of the sanitation worker had visited the coronavirus patient in a Delhi hospital and had also attended the funeral. So far, no members of the entire family of this sanitation worker have symptoms of coronavirus.

The 30 people of Pocket-A were sent to self-isolation near Gate No 17 of the President's Estate. It is completely forbidden to visit this area.

This sanitation worker had also done cleaning work in the office of the Rashtrapati Bhavan officer after which he was sent to self-isolation.

The Rashtrapati Bhavan Secretariat got the sanitation done by sealing the entire area according to the WHO guidelines.
Damn fly.

I was sitting in my car Wednesday afternoon in the Dodd Animal Hospital parking lot. On the passenger seat, in a blue pet carrier, was my tannish-white cat, Sinatra.

A fly darted in and out, circling the carrier, resting on a vent, then circling the carrier again.

Damn fly, I repeated, swatting it away, annoyed and resenting what the fly might sense.

In the carrier, Sinatra pushed his head against the netting and meowed weakly. I scratched his head through the netting and stopped, but when he meowed again I continued scratching.

Two Sundays ago, I wrote about my two cats, Sinatra and his sister, Raskolnikov (Rasko), who were born in the summer of 2006 and whom Ive had since they were 3 months old. I preferred dogs, and I gave the cats their names not as much to illustrate their toughness but to give myself an appearance of toughness.

Both were polydactyls, meaning they had extra toes on their paws. I couldnt understand why the drawers in my kitchen would be open when I came home from work, until the day I walked in and saw Sinatra on the counter easily opening one with his big white paw.

Id assumed both cats were female until Rasko gave birth to a pair of kittens.

As I noted two weeks ago, Sinatra and Rasko have been with me through moves, job changes and relationships.

A few days ago, Sinatra stopped eating, lost weight, grew quieter, began acting strange, like standing in one spot and not moving, and started sleeping in places he never had before. He gave off a terrible odor, leading me to suspect kidney problems.

Id pick him up to hold him and rub his head. I used to only feel fur, but I now felt his frame.

On Wednesday, he was curled up in a Central Market paper bag under the kitchen sink and didnt put up his usual resistance when I put him in the carrier to take him to the veterinarian. Rasko watched from the bedroom. I walked out of the house with Sinatra, thinking he might not be coming back.

Because of COVID-19, customers and their pets wait in Dodds Animal Hospital parking lot while employees bring the paperwork to fill out before taking in your pets to be examined.

At one point, Sinatra went into such a deep sleep I had to shake the carrier to rouse him and make sure he was still alive. He began meowing, stopping only when I unzipped the carrier to scratch behind his ears. A couple of times he tried to get out, but I gently pushed him back in.

While waiting in my car, I scrolled through Twitter and saw that New York Times Pulitzer-winning editorial writer Brent Staples had posted a Frank Sinatra song, Nice and Easy.

That seemed appropriate, so I played it. As Sinatra lay down in his carrier, I then played his namesake singing Luck Be a Lady, There Used to be a Ballpark, Very Good Year and My Way. I took a picture of him.

Seeing that the sun was in his face, I moved the carrier to the back seat and sat with him. My cloth mask was no defense from my cats terrible odor. The fly was gone, but a bee flew in. I grabbed a small can of Axe body fragrance I keep in the car and sprayed the scent out of the bee.

It didnt seem to faze it, but it made the car smell better.

After a technician took Sinatra to be examined, I walked around the parking lot for more than a half hour until the veterinarian called to say Sinatra had kidney failure and that at his advanced age, he wasnt going to get better. He said hed hospitalize Sinatra and do what he could, if thats what I wanted.

I thanked him for his honesty and gave him permission to put Sinatra to sleep. He said I could be with Sinatra during the process. I declined.

Ive gone to wake up one of my grandmothers only to learn shed crossed over in her sleep; Ive held my other grandmothers hand as she passed; I told my grandfather to let go four hours before he did; Ive been in the presence of friends when they drew their last breath; and Ive brushed the cheek of a child minutes after shed lost her battle with cancer.

Yet, for some reason, being with my cat as he died was too much for me.

When I got home and reached into the back seat to get Sinatras carrier, another fly flew in.

Damn fly.

Cary.Clack@express-news.net
A Chinese writer who published an online diary about her life in Wuhan during the Covid-19 lockdown is facing a nationalist backlash on social media with people accusing her of empowering Western critics of Beijings handling of the crisis.

Fang Fang, an award-winning poet and novelist, was called a traitor after it emerged that her book, simply titled Wuhan Diary, would be published in English and German. Observers said the controversy reflected the rising nationalism in mainland China, especially among the younger generations.

Fang began writing her diary on January 25, just two days after the central China city in which the coronavirus outbreak was first identified, was put under lockdown.

In it she describes the difficulties of life in quarantine, as well as the spread of the disease and how it wreaked havoc, taking lives and breaking up families and homes.

Her work quickly attracted a large following but she also came under heavy fire, with people accusing her of betraying her country and trying to stir up trouble by giving Chinas critics ammunition with which to attack it.

He Weiheng, a 19-year-old university student in Beijing, though critical, was more concerned about the authenticity of the translations than Fangs writing.

If the content of the diary is real, it is reasonable to write it and publish it, he said. But if the diaries have been translated without guaranteeing the authenticity, some people in China are concerned the book will have a detrimental impact on our national image and national interests.

Another social media user composed a rap, containing some of Fangs own words, which accuses her of trying to be a spokeswoman for the truth and influence public opinion.

What kind of person keeps a diary on the internet, it said. She puts every word into the national scars.

It goes on to say that Chinas young people will shoulder the responsibility of developing a strong nation.

Despite the online criticism, Fang has also received plenty of support, from at home and abroad.

Story continues

Yue Zhongyi, a 63-year-old resident of Wuhan, said a lot of the criticism represented nationalist sentiment rather than the views of the citys people.

I asked all of my neighbours and friends and all of them said they support Fang Fang, he said. Her diaries represent our experiences and our feelings.

The writers critics misunderstood the notion of patriotism, he said.

Everyone loves his country, but the country and the government are two concepts. If someone criticises the government, you cant say that person is a traitor.

US publisher Harper Collins said an English-language version of Fangs diary would be available for sale online in June, while Hoffmann and Campe will publish a German-language version.

US publisher Harper Collins said an English-language version of Fangs diary would be available for sale online in June. Photo: Weibo

While some have been quick to criticise Wuhan Diary, the Chinese government and Communist Party have been more restrained, with only a handful of state media commentators expressing an opinion.

Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the nationalistic tabloid Global Times, urged people to respect the sentiments documented in the diary.

[We] should not exaggerate their meaning, nor should we amplify the significance of the diary as well as the resonance it draws [from the public], he said last month on Weibo, Chinas Twitter-like platform.

Wu Qiang, an independent political analyst based in Beijing, said the coronavirus pandemic had created a schism, with nationalism at its core. Despite the country now being the worlds second-largest economy, some people were still haunted by Chinas past humiliations at the hands of foreign forces and felt they must rise up to defend their country, he said.

These young people are still sharing the thinking and ideas of conservatism, xenophobia, and being easily offended, Wu said.

But the attack on Fangs work might also be an attempt by Chinas authorities to divert the publics attention away from an in-depth reflection on the outbreak, he said.

Channelling peoples attention into nationalistic sentiment can effectively offset people questioning what is the real social justice after such a severe disaster.

Wuhan was placed under lockdown on January 23. Photo: AFP

Also, despite the backlash she had faced, Fang  who is a former president of the officially affiliated Hubei Writers Association  was still considered a politically trustworthy figure, Wu said, and her work was still available on Chinas internet.

Many voices from Wuhan have been silenced. The fact that her work was allowed to survive is the art of censorship: to let out a relatively moderate voice to avoid the embarrassment of a completely blank canvass, he said.

In an interview with the Chinese social media account Scholar, Fang said it was childish to describe publishing the book overseas as an act of treason, and called for greater tolerance.

There is no tension between me and the country, she said.

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This article Coronavirus: Chinese writer hit by nationalist backlash over diary about Wuhan lockdown first appeared on South China Morning Post

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Workers using picks to cut ice blocks from the frozen Songhua river for the annual Ice Festival in Harbin, China's northeastern Heilongjiang province, Dec. 12, 2019.

An accident at a Chinese mineral ore processing plant in northeastern China recently released large quantities of industrial waste into a tributary leading toward a border with Russia.

Although Chinese officials immediately informed Russia of the accident, the spill has the potential to revive long-standing Russian fears of a growing Chinese presence near and inside the Russian Far East.

On April 7, Paul Goble, a U.S.-based expert on Eurasia who writes for The Jamestown Foundation in Washington, provided details of what could prove to be one of the biggest industrial accidents in recent Chinese history.

Goble said that so far the Chinese have responded in the same way that they did to the coronavirus outbreak in the city of Wuhan.

Officials have downplayed the threat both locally and at the national level, suggesting that they have already contained the problem, Goble said.

But hundreds of Chinese specialists were reported to be on their way to the region and appear to be considering measures that they took in November, 2005, following a similar industrial spill from the same mine processing plant. At that time, they built a dam to prevent rare earth metals spilled into the river from moving downstream toward the Chinese city of Harbin.

With a population of more than 10.6 million people, Harbin is the provincial capital of Heilongjiang Province. Located on the Songhua River with the largest inland port in northeastern China, Harbin provides a major gateway for Sino-Russian trade.

Large quantities of toxic waste reaching Harbin would create a disaster.

The recent spill, which occurred on March 28, involved more than 2.5 million cubic meters of highly poisonous industrial waste.

The waste flowed into the Sungari River, which flows into the Amur River. The Amur forms the border between northeastern China and the Russian Far East.

According to Goble, Russians in the region are likely to fear that even if the Chinese react quickly, theyll be unable to deal effectively with the spill.

Goble cites three reasons for Russian skepticism:

 First, the Chinese government initially ignored warnings and downplayed the severity of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan early this year. Officials claimed, at first at least, that everything was under control. So Russians are increasingly skeptical about any claims made by the Chinese government.

 Second, in the case of industrial spills, China has been reluctant, just as in the case of COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, to allow outside experts to come in and see whats actually happening.

 Third, Russians know that the real threat from the recent industrial spill will come later, when floods dramatically increase the water flow through the watershed and push the chemical toxins downstream more rapidly. The floods are now only weeks away.

Yevgeny Simonov, a Russian environmental activist with ties to the international nonprofit group Rivers Without Borders, who is cited by Goble, said that he sees genuine reasons for concern about the spill but that not enough is known about what is happening to justify panic.

The problem began two days ago, Simonov said, at Chinas giant Yichun Luming Molybdenum Plant, which processes 50,000 tons of ore every day. The plant has maintained production despite falling demand.

Molybdenum is a metal that is highly resistant to corrosion.

Extracting the valuable Molybdenum mineral from the ore produces huge quantities of toxic byproducts. These are contained by what are often referred to as tailings dams.

At the end of March, piles of the toxic byproducts reached 196 meters high--or more than 643 feet highand suddenly collapsed and slid into the river, presumably killing any animals there and making the nearby water dangerous for human consumption

It took three days to plug all the leaks in the collapsed dam.

According to the Reuters News Agency, tailings dams are often used by mining firms to store waste remnants of ore. But they have come under closer scrutiny since the collapse of one in Brazil last year that killed more than 250 people.

The Yichun Luming Mining Company, which owns the Chinese processing plant, is a subsidiary of the state-run China Railway Resources Group. The company didnt immediately respond to requests for comment.

Since the Chinese havent provided many details, Simonov concludes that a similar accident that occurred at the same mine in 2005, may provide a model of what will happen.

At that time, the contamination of the river with poisonous minerals from China caused panic in Harbin and prompted Beijing to institute new monitoring methods. Fearing that poisons were spreading to the shared Amur River, Russia demanded precise information on the accident.

Russia later sought and then signed with China a bilateral agreement on environmental monitoring of trans-border rivers like the Amur.

Beijing has imposed fines on plants in the region for improperly handling waste products, including most recently a fine imposed only eight days before the Yichun Luming accident occurred.

On April 8, the Reuters reported from Beijing that the emergency management bureau in the city of Yichun will temporarily withhold the Yichun Mining Companys safe product license.

Citing a provincial government website, Reuters also said that restrictive measures had been taken against Yichun Lumings managers.

A long history of industrial accidents

As the BBC once noted, China has a long history of industrial accidents, ranging from factory explosions and mudslides to mine collapses.

This commentator can remember a deadly series of explosions that occurred in the city of Tianjin five years ago in August of 2015. A blast in a warehouse containing large quantities of flammable chemicals in one of Chinas largest cities had been improperly stored. The fires set off explosions that killed 173 people, including many brave firefighters. Hundreds of other people, many of them residents of the city, were injured.

Following an investigation, it turned out that Yu Xuewei, the chairman of a logistics company, had bribed Tianjin port administration officials who had allowed him to store the hazardous chemicals at the warehouse. Yu received a suspended death sentence.

Its now quite possible that investigations held in northeastern China that will reveal similar lax supervision of the handling of hazardous wastes due to behind-the-scenes corruption.

But given the Chinese leaderships current aversion to bad news involving the handling of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, among other things, its not clear how many details of any investigation will be made public.

Meanwhile, its difficult to say what the impact might be on Sino-Russian relations.

Russia and China share a common interest in containing any expansion of U.S. power and influence in the world. They have what amounts to an alliance, although it isnt a formal one.

And the two countries leaders, President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping, also have what appears to be a close personal friendship.

Both are authoritarian leaders who promote nationalism and imprison their critics.

But Chinas trade with Russia is estimated to come to only two percent of its total trade, while China is Russias second largest export destination.

So its sometimes said that Russia needs China more than China needs Russia. Or that Putin is the junior partner in the relationship.

Russian Fears

Russian officials are concerned about Chinas growing influence in Central Asia, a region where Russia has traditionally held sway.

And Chinese investment in Russias Far East has stoked Russian fears of China gaining more influence in that region.

The congressionally-funded U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) described the situation as it stood in 2019.

Russia seeks to develop its resource-rich Far East, but is hobbled by a lack of capital and labor resources, the USCC said in an annual report to the U.S. Congress.

High-level Russian officials have complained for years that the region could become dependent on China as a result of excessive Chinese expansion into the region.

Chinas exploitation of the region could be seen in Chinese plans to bottle water from Russias Lake Baikal and to build a water pipeline back to China, where freshwater is scarce.

Russian media reports note that some Chinese businesses consider Lake Baikal as a Chinese Lake, a notion which relies on Chinese historical claims that are dubious at best.

Meanwhile, Dmitry Kobylkin, Russias Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, complained in August 2019 that Chinese loggers were buying illegally produced timber and warned that Russia could ban timber exports if China didnt take steps to resolve the issue.

According Goble, Russian media in the region already see Chinese occupation as a fact because of  visible natural resource exploitation.

More than three decades ago, this commentator traveled as a reporter up to Chinas border with what was then the Soviet Union. I met with a Russian mayor who had crossed over with a delegation to China that was seeking help from China in developing Siberia, one of the worlds least developed frontier regions.

Yuri G. Lyashko, the mayor of Blagoveshchensk, revealed feelings of ambivalence.

He needed help from the Chinese but also showed concern about having large numbers of Chinese move into Soviet territory to develop the border region.

As China expert Sun Yun told me years later, the relationship between Russia and China can be best understood as a genuine convergence of national interests despite powerful centrifugal forces.

Dan Southerland is RFA's founding executive editor.
The vice presidents trip comes as he and Trump are encouraging states to reopen some businesses, shuttered facilities and public spaces, with the White House providing nonbinding guidance on that process. But many states have warned that it will be difficult to lift restrictions and return to a more normal way of life until more testing is available to accurately gauge the viruss spread. Trump has put the onus of testing on governors.
A number of Trump supporters rally on Main Street in Huntington Beach against business closures due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

A group of more than 100 protesters demanded that California ease stay-at-home restrictions that have helped slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The demonstration Friday in Huntington Beach generated national headlines and come amid similar protests elsewhere in the country.

But they don't necessarily represent the majority view. In fact, several polls have found wide support for the social-distancing rules despite the economic carnage they have caused.

Here is what we know.

Polling

Ninety-five percent of respondents say they supported Los Angeles elected officials decision to implement a stay-at-home order for all but essential personnel, a Loyola Marymount University poll released last week found.

Those who identified as politically conservative tended to be more skeptical both of the stay-at-home orders and of the level of threat posed by the virus.

Kira Beattie, in white T-shirt, joins a rally against stay-at-home orders. A number of Trump supporters gathered on Main Street in Huntington Beach against business closures due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

Only 76% of them viewed the virus as a real threat, compared with 91% among liberals. Conservatives also saw themselves as less vulnerable, with 74% saying they worried they would catch the virus, compared with 85% of liberals.

The poll surveyed 2,000 households in Los Angeles County. It had a margin of error of 2.2%.

A Quinnipiac University poll released last week also showed wide support for stay-at-home orders on a national level. "While most states have issued their own stay at home orders, 81 percent of voters say they would support a stay at home order on a national level," the pollsters said.

A Politico/Morning Consult poll found that the vast majority of Americans would prefer to keep stay-at-home rules if the alternative meant more spread of the coronavirus.

Protester voices

The protesters claimed the dangers of the coronavirus and benefits of social distancing are overblown, despite scientific evidence to the contrary.

Benny White, a 33-year-old Compton resident dressed in a faux white hazmat suit with goggles and a Trump 2020 hat, bounced around from corner to corner, often drawing a sizable crowd. The suit had hand-written Sharpie messages that included the name of an extreme right-wing website and China Lied People Died.

Story continues

White accused China of constantly attacking our president. White was also angry about social-distancing guidelines and hugged other protesters.

Its not dangerous out here. Its not, White said. Ive seen plenty of people out here. The beaches are open. Its a nice beautiful day. What are we doing? Stop being a germophobe.

Some of the signs included:

COVID-19 A test run at socialism

Liberate Huntington Beach

OPEN CALI NOW

We deem our governor non-essential. Stop the tyranny

Its time that California opens back up, organizer Lisa Collins said. We cant [complain] about our freedoms and liberties being taken away if we arent willing to do something.

Now is the time, she said. Weve complied ... Its time for America to get back to work.

Expert voices

Both political leaders and health officials say stay-at-home orders have saved lives.

Californias relatively quick action to close businesses and order residents to stay home has tamped down the coronavirus pandemic and left many hospitals largely empty, waiting for a surge that has yet to come. California has seen far fewer deaths than New York and other coronavirus hot spots, and experts believe early social distancing was a big factor. Here is a breakdown of deaths:

New York 17,131



New Jersey 3,840



Michigan 2,227



California 1,057

The initial success of the unprecedented shutdown of schools, businesses and other institutions has pleased experts and public health officials, prompting calls to keep the restrictions in place at least into May to help cement the progress.

Social distancing will be a critical factor. Lifting restrictions too early would likely lead to dangerous new jumps in coronavirus cases.

During the 1918 flu pandemic, more than 20 U.S. cities that relaxed physical distancing orders too quickly  even as the flu virus was still circulating  soon saw a new rise in cases. There will continue to be a threat of the coronavirus being reintroduced in areas where the outbreak has eased.

Campa is a Times staff writer. Sclafani writes for Times Community News.




Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 14:12:36|Editor: huaxia

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File photo shows Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meeting with Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 5, 2018. (Xinhua/Huang Jingwen)(mcg)

On the 40th anniversary of China-Zimbabwe diplomatic relations, Xi suggested:

- the two sides jointly promote the development of the Belt and Road;

- synergize the implementation of the outcomes of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the realization of Zimbabwe's "Vision 2030";

- expand practical cooperation in various fields;

- offer each other stronger support on issues involving their respective core interests and major concerns.

BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Zimbabwean counterpart, Emmerson Mnangagwa, exchanged congratulatory messages Saturday on the 40th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relations, vowing to further cement the partnership between their countries.

Over the past four decades, Xi pointed out, China and Zimbabwe have always adhered to mutual trust and mutual support, and their relationship has withstood the test of time and the vicissitudes of the international situation.

Noting that he and Mnangagwa have reached important consensuses on establishing and developing the China-Zimbabwe comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, Xi said he attaches great importance to bilateral ties and stands ready to work with his Zimbabwean counterpart to take the 40th anniversary as an opportunity to push for more progress.

A visitor views an artwork at the second Belt and Road Afro-Sino Art Exchange Exhibition in National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare, Zimbabwe, April 29, 2019. (Xinhua/Chen Yaqin)

He suggested that the two sides jointly promote the development of the Belt and Road, synergize the implementation of the outcomes of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the realization of Zimbabwe's "Vision 2030," expand practical cooperation in various fields, and offer each other stronger support on issues involving their respective core interests and major concerns.

Under current circumstances, China stands ready to boost cooperation with Zimbabwe to overcome the ongoing challenge of the COVID-19 epidemic, added the Chinese president.

Senior officials from Zimbabwe's Ministry of Health and Harare City Council participate in the China-Africa Video Conference on COVID-19 in Harare, Zimbabwe, March 18, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Yuliang)

Mnangagwa, for his part, said that the past 40 years have demonstrated that sincerity, solidarity, mutual benefit and mutual trust are the prominent features of the brotherly friendship and high-level relationship between the two countries.

Zimbabwe is steadfast to the one-China policy and keen on Belt and Road cooperation, he said, adding that the Zimbabwean side will continue to resolutely push for deeper development of the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries.

In face of the grave challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zimbabwe is willing to strengthen solidarity and mutual support with China and jointly cope with the effects of the coronavirus disease on bilateral cooperation. 
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Two men are accused of attempted murder after one of them shot a firearm multiple times inside a Clifton apartment building, according to police and the criminal complaint.

Richard McCrimon, 33, of Comstock Ave in Graniteville, and Keyshawn Williams, 18, of the 700 block of the FDR Drive in Manhattan, entered the building at 260 Park Hill Ave. at around 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday and knocked at a door of an apartment they had reason to know was occupied, police and the criminal complaint said.

Behind the door there was a 38-year-old woman, who reported the incident to police, saying an individual knocked on the door and asked to come in, police said.

She did not open the door -- the individual fired his firearm through the door while she was on the other side, an NYPD spokeswoman said.

The man who fired the shots was McCrimon after Williams led him to the door and pointed at it, the criminal complaint against both men alleges.

McCrimon fled the location, but was arrested shortly after, meanwhile Williams was arrested on Thursday afternoon, police said.

The case is about being in the wrong place, at the wrong time particularly during this pandemic, McCrimons lawyer Todd Spodek said in a statement to the Advance/SILive.com. Mr. McCrimon has plead not guilty and looks forward to clearing his name at trial.

A lawyer representing Williams did not respond to the Advances request for comment Saturday morning.

Both men are facing multiple charges, including attempted murder, attempted assault, criminal possession of a firearm, criminal possession of a weapon, according to the complaint.

Williams is also charged with criminal facilitation, the complaint said.

McCrimon and Williams were arraigned in St. George criminal court on Friday before judge Gerianne Abriano, according to public records.

Williams is currently held on a $500,000 bond and McCrimon on a $2,000,000 bond, public records indicate.

Neither of them have posted their bonds, according to public records.
Remember the You and I in this beautiful world advertisement where a pug follows a little kid everywhere? People absolutely loved that ad, not just because of the awesome lyrics but due to its catchy tune too. Mumbai Police has now used a part of the tune to create an awareness tweet and we wont blame you if you keep humming the jingle after seeing the post.

Making slight changes to the original lyrics, the department tweeted, You and I - Will meet again in this beautiful world. Then to drive home the message they added, Until then, stay home and stay safe. Alongside, they also shared a video in which a pug is sitting inside a red dog house as a part of the jingle is heard in the background.

You and I-

Will meet again in this beautiful world.

Until then, stay home and stay safe.#TakingOnCorona#lockdown pic.twitter.com/iWqbv3tCNU  Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) April 18, 2020

Since being shared a few hours back, the post has already gathered over 800 likes. While some appreciated the creativity of the department, others were simply happy to get a glimpse of the old advertisement. A few, added optimistically that once the crisis is over they will surely meet their friends and loved ones.

Am also praying for Mumbai Police that asap this corona leaves this entire world and allows police to stay home with family and friends and take necessary care of loved ones and most importantly take rest, wrote a Twitter user. Love Mumbai police, expressed another. Everyday @MumbaiPolice tweets bring a smile on my face! Not only you guys are risking your life for us but along with that bring humor as well! Thanks for everything, may God bless you and your beloved ones who are waiting for you at your home, praised another. Cute, great work I always loved this ad, wrote a fourth.

What do you think of Mumbai Polices latest tweet?

Also Read | Mumbai Police tweets Main Hoon Na scene to emphasis on the importance of wearing masks
Governments around the world are wrestling with when and how to lift economically painful virus-control measures as unemployment rises and rent payments come due.

Many places have mandated strict restrictions on movement to try to stop the spread of a new coronavirus that has infected more than 2.2 million people and for which there is no vaccine.

The debate in the U.S. has taken on political tones. Republican President Donald Trump urged supporters to LIBERATE three states led by Democratic governors, tweeting the kind of rhetoric some have used to demand an end to stay-at-home orders that have thrown millions out of work.

Most governments remain cautious, even as the economic toll rises. Public health experts warn that easing shutdowns must be accompanied by wider testing and tracing of infected people to keep the virus from coming back.

South Koreas Health Minister Kim Gang-lip said Saturday that new guidelines could be issued soon that officials have said would allow people to engage in certain levels of economic and social activity. Americas largest state, California, lost nearly 100,000 jobs in March.

We are now in a pandemic-induced recession, Gov. Gavin Newsom said. Texas and Florida, which both have Republican governors, took first steps toward easing restrictions.

Top leaders of Chinas ruling Communist Party called for deficit spending and a more flexible monetary policy after the economy shrunk 6.8 percent in the first three months of the year.

The outbreak has killed more than 150,000 people worldwide, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally based on figures supplied by government health authorities around the globe. The number all but certainly underestimates the actual toll.

Authorities said that almost everywhere, thousands have died with COVID-19 symptoms  many in nursing homes  without being tested for the virus, and have thus gone uncounted.

In Britain, with an official count of about 14,600 dead, the countrys statistics agency said the actual number could be around 15% higher.

An Associated Press tally from news media reports and state health departments indicates 6,912 U.S. deaths have been linked to coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes and long-term care facilities. The U.S. government has not been releasing a count.

China reported Saturday a nearly 40% increase in its death toll to 4,632 victims, reflecting a major upwards revision made the previous day by authorities in Wuhan, the nations hardest-hit city.

The official death toll in the U.S. has topped 35,000, with more than 700,000 confirmed infections.

Protesters fed up with the economy-strangling restrictions have taken to the streets in several U.S. states. In Idaho, where the governor is a Republican, scores of protesters not wearing masks stood shoulder-to-shoulder Friday. Some carried signs claiming the coronavirus is a hoax.

LIBERATE MINNESOTA! LIBERATE MICHIGAN! LIBERATE VIRGINIA,  Trump said in a tweet-storm in which he also lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, for criticizing the federal response. Cuomo should spend more time doing and less time complaining, the president said.

Governors of both parties suggested they would move carefully, with some warning that they cant do it without help from the federal government to expand testing for the virus.

The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly, Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington state, said.

Responding to pleas from governors for help in ramping up testing, Trump put the burden back on them: The States have to step up their TESTING! The American president, who has repeatedly expressed his desire to see businesses reopen quickly, had his health team lead an extensive briefing outlining that adequate testing capacity exists to get states through the first phase of White House guidelines on how they should reopen.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said stores could begin selling curbside, nonessential surgery could resume and state parks could reopen. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis said municipalities could reopen beaches and parks if they could do so safely.

But in Iowa, more than a dozen elected officials implored Tyson Fresh Meats to close a pork processing plant, saying the virus is spreading among workers and endangering employees and the surrounding community.

Company spokeswoman Liz Croston said worker temperatures are taken before entering the plant, masks are required and cleaning has been increased as has distancing between workers. She said the company is focused on protecting workers and continuing to fulfill our critical role of feeding families in this community and around the nation, while providing market continuity for hundreds of area hog farmers. In Hawaii, Gov. David Ige ordered a moratorium on evictions of people from their homes for failure to pay rent in a state where more than one-third of the labor force has applied for unemployment benefits. Schools will remain closed through the summer, officials said, with plans undecided for the next school year. (AP) IND IND
Bells will be ringing from Catholic churches around the Capital Region at 7 p.m. Monday in solidarity with those suffering with COVID-19 as well as families separated from loved ones because of the disease, and the health care workers and first responders caring for patients.

"There are so many ways we can show solidarity with people who are suffering," said the Rev. Joseph O'Brien, pastor of Blessed Sacrament Church at 607 Central Ave., Albany. "When you hear the bells, remember we are with you and praying for you."
The Harris County Public Health Department has begun to release a heat map showing the number of confirmed coronavirus cases by zip code, giving a better picture of where the pockets are that have the most confirmed cases.

With that new information, Harris Country Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia gives his take on where things stand right now with regard to the response to the coronavirus pandemic. Precinct 2 includes much of Atascocita in addition to Crosby, Huffman and Pasadena.

What was your reaction to seeing the case by zip code map?

Getting this data gave me mixed feelings. On one hand, more information leads to better decision making, and we are actively using this regional breakdown to send resources to areas that need it most. However, on the flip side, its worrisome that some of the municipalities in my precinct have the highest rates of infection. Thats why Ive been fighting to get more testing done in my precinct. I know the state of vulnerability that was already existent in Precinct 2.

Map of confirmed coronavirus cases: ZIP code data helps Harris County residents determine coronavirus cases in neighborhood

What is the status of/plan for testing sites in Precinct 2?

The original testing site in Baytown just doubled in capacity, which is a welcome bit of news, but we need more. In addition, we opened our first mobile testing site in Precinct 2 this week, and so far, the process has gone off without a hitch.

These mobile test sites are alternating among precincts, so after being moved to a location in Precinct 1 over the weekend, our next location will begin operations the first half of next week. If we had more resources available, this could be done sooner or we could simply add more fixed testing sites.

I am glad that one of only 2 Walgreens rapid testing sites in the entire state of Texas starts operations Friday in Pasadena. The tests being administered there have the ability to return results in 24 hours or less, which is huge. However, it is a form of testing that I had already been urging the Harris County Public Health Department to do.

Maybe now that the state has begun to use these rapid testing kits, our local health officials will be more inclined to do so, as well. Also, the Walgreens test facility will be a long term asset which is important, and I expect that it will make a big difference in our ability to determine just how many people have the virus. I am also hopeful that once we feel that as many symptomatic people have been tested as possible, we will quickly shift to testing asymptomatic persons. As I mentioned earlier, more testing data is the key to making smart decisions.

What else do you want people to know?

The Stay-at-Home order made by Judge Hidalgo has been instrumental in limiting the spread of the virus, but we must not stray from the guidelines now. I know many businesses and their employees are anxious to get back to work. However, if we attempt to return to normalcy too soon, all of our progress could be for naught. The reason we havent seen an outbreak here like in other parts of the country is because we reacted quickly. Harris County residents are showing great resiliency and discipline in following the order, but opening things back up too soon could lead to a much worse second wave of the virus.

I, too, am anxious to get the economy back up and running again, but I would never advise that the county go that route, if it means putting our neighbors in more danger than we are already facing. If businesses want to reopen then they need to make the necessary commitments to their employees and customers that they will be taking all necessary precautions like testing their employees at their expense, dispensing PPEs to their employees and customers as appropriate, along with other possible measures.

elliott.lapin@hearst.com
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A police constable on Friday dressed up as Yamraj, the God of death, appealing people to stay at home during the COVID-19 lockdown here in Indore.

Police Constable Jawahar Singh dressed in black with a golden headgear shouted slogans on the streets making people aware of the dangers of stepping out of homes during the lockdown.

With 50 new COVID-19 cases reported on Friday, the total number of coronavirus positive patients reached 892 in Indore.50 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Indore on April 17. Total positive cases in the district stand at 892, said Indore Chief Medical and Health Officer Dr Praveen Jadia told ANI.

#WATCH Madhya Pradesh: A Police Constable in Indore dressed up as 'Yamraj' to spread awareness on #Coronavirus in the city. He is appealing to people to "stay at home". (17.4.2020) pic.twitter.com/1sfBaiYATF  ANI (@ANI) April 17, 2020

Netizens found this effort highly creative. Heres how they reacted

creative effort  Aparna  (@AppeFizzz) April 17, 2020

creative effort  Aparna  (@AppeFizzz) April 17, 2020

I saw many creative attempts by police to aware people but this is one of the best one   Mittul Bakshi (@mittulbakshi) April 17, 2020

The total number of coronavirus cases in Madhya Pradesh has surged to 1,310, said State Health Department on Friday.
New York

A leap in U.S. unemployment has thrown a spotlight on one type of work in high demand during the coronavirus pandemic: Gig work delivering groceries, meals and packages.

Some app-based delivery companies have announced hiring sprees to cope with a surge in online shopping. That comes as 16.8 million Americans have filed for unemployment aid in just the past three weeks.

Many gig jobs in delivery are relatively easy to get, often requiring little more than the ability to carry heavy loads, access to a bike or car and passing a background check. But they also come with the risk of exposure to the coronavirus, which has killed more than 22,000 in the U.S. Most such jobs come with little to no access to benefits like health insurance and paid sick leave.

Here are some things to know about applying for gig jobs during the pandemic.

Who is hiring delivery workers?

The biggest hiring companies? Delivery services for groceries and other essentials including San Francisco-based Instacart, Target-owned Shipt, Philadelphia-based startup goPuff and New York-based FreshDirect. Amazon is also adding independent contract drivers through its Flex program.

Restaurant delivery apps are not hiring as quickly, with many of their small business partners struggling under shutdown orders. DoorDash, however, has launched a "priority access program" to help laid off restaurant employees sign up for delivery work. Uber has an internal app that helps its ride-hailing drivers find work for Uber Eats and other jobs. Lyft is partnering with government agencies, nonprofits and health organizations to help its out-of-work drivers find jobs delivering essentials to people in need.

Beyond gig jobs, Domino's, Pizza Hut, Papa John's and Little Caesar's are also hiring more delivery drivers.

Is gig work paying more during a pandemic?

Some delivery work has become more lucrative because of a rise in orders and bigger tips. Instacart and Shipt say tips have risen 30 percent on average in recent weeks. DoorDash says courier earnings have increased by $5 per active hour compared to this time last year.

Most app-based companies, however, are not directly boosting pay for their workers. Instacart and Shipt have offered bonuses that depend on the amount or type of orders completed, but workers who have staged walkouts are demanding hazard pay of $5 per order.

Those considering gig work should do their research. Does the company offer a guaranteed minimum per order? Does that guaranteed minimum include tips? Does the app default to a certain tip percentage?

Payment systems are also subject to change, often without warning for workers.

Some Shipt workers don't like a new pay structure being tested in some markets that takes into account the time and distance it takes to complete an order and other factors. Willis Solis, a worker who helped stage a walkout last week, said the original system is more transparent, with a $5 minimum per order plus 7.5 percent of the order amount. Solis said the new system often results in lower pay for larger orders, but Shipt says it allows shoppers to maximize earnings. Both systems allow workers to keep 100 percent of tips.

Have the jobs become more difficult during the pandemic?

Yes, especially for gig shoppers. Workers must stand in long lines to enter many stores because of distancing rules. Panic shopping and higher demand has sometimes cleared shelves of essentials, making it almost impossible for shoppers to meet efficiency goals for speed and order accuracy.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Some companies have temporarily eased their performance standards for workers. Shipt and Instacart are forgiving late deliveries and waving reviews lower than five stars.

Julie Sweder, who has worked part-time for Shipt for more than three years in Detroit, said she often has to find substitutes for a third of items on her orders, requiring more painstaking communications with clients, especially those using the service for the first time. But Sweder, who was made available by Shipt for an interview, said it is taking fewer jobs to reach her weekly earnings goal of at least $300 because the tips are larger and orders are bigger.

What protections are gig workers getting from the virus?

Most delivery apps have introduced a "contactless delivery," although the decision is generally up to the customer, not the worker. Instacart, Shipt and DoorDash have made "leave at door" the default setting.

Some companies are working to supply delivery workers with gloves, sanitizer and masks. But many workers have yet to receive protective equipment amid supply constraints. DoorDash charges a $5 shipment fee for workers who request supplies.

Most companies are temporarily offering 14 days of financial assistance for workers who are diagnosed with coronavirus or are placed in quarantine by health authorities. Instacart and Shipt workers who have staged walkouts want the policy expanded to include workers who are at high risk for contracting the virus or who exhibit symptoms, citing difficulties in getting tested.

Does taking a gig job disqualify you from applying for unemployment insurance?

Gig work does not automatically disqualify you from applying for unemployment insurance, said Jeremy Glenn, a labor and employment lawyer with Cozen O'Connor. Gig work will likely reduce the amount of weekly benefits you receive from your state, but you will still be eligible for $600 in extra weekly federal unemployment benefits under the pandemic relief act, known as CARES, Glenn said.

Whether it makes sense to supplement unemployment benefits with gig work depends. People must decide whether the extra pay is worth the risk of exposure to the virus. They may need child care. Because gig workers don't get hourly wages, it could be difficult to calculate whether it makes sense to give up the full amount of weekly state benefits.
President Donald Trump said Friday that U.S. intelligence officials are investigating whether the novel coronavirus began spreading after an accident at a Chinese high-security biomedical laboratory in Wuhan.

Trump offered no evidence supporting that scenario. And aides stressed there have been no conclusions from the ongoing investigation, which ultimately may never resolve questions that have surfaced.

"Were looking at it," Trump told reporters Friday during a COVID-19 briefing at the White House. "A lot of people are looking at it  it seems to make sense."

Since January, theories about a possible leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology have circulated largely among right-wing bloggers, some conservative media pundits and pro-Trump hawks on China.

One scenario in circulation claims the virus was man-made and was linked to a Chinese biowarfare program, but that idea has been widely dismissed by experts and critics as a conspiracy theory. Another scenario maintains that the virus, while being kept in the lab in a natural state, accidentally escaped due to poor safety protocols.

Anthony Fauci, the U.S.'s top infectious disease expert, was dismissive of the theory of an accidental escape.

"A group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences in bats as they evolve. The mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now are totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human," he said Friday in the White House press briefing in response to a reporter's question on the theory.

But two administration officials with knowledge of the investigation, speaking to USA TODAY on condition of anonymity because it is classified and sensitive, said they have always questioned China's account of how the virus originated and have taken seriously suggestions that it may have resulted from a lab accident that the Chinese are covering up.

"There's a high level of suspicion," one official said.

Story continues

But the officials emphasized that no conclusions have been drawn from the investigation and that it is not a primary focus right now for Trump and his top aides, whose concern, they said, is to stop the spread of the virus in the U.S., re-open the economy and government and try to return to some semblance of normalcy.

There will be plenty of time to review China's actions down the line, the two officials said. Diplomacy, with trade relationships at stake, is one reason the probe requires delicate handling, they said.

Chinese officials and scientists have repeatedly dismissed the allegations

China believes the origin of the virus is a scientific issue that has to be seriously handled," Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Thursday. The World Health Organization said there is no evidence proving that it is made in a lab. And many renowned medical experts have also said that the claim that the virus leaked from a lab has no scientific basis.

China will continue to work with other nations and support each other."

In an interview Saturday with the state-run China Global Television Network, Yuan Zhiming, the Wuhan Institute of Virologys Communist Party chief, said: "There is absolutely no way the virus originated from our institute."

But China's lack of transparency over its COVID-19 outbreak has helped give oxygen to theories about the origin of the virus.

"Until the Chinese government convinces me otherwise I'll continue to argue that the most likely explanation is that this virus was one of thousands of viruses that were being kept in bio labs in Wuhan and that a lab worker got infected," said Steven Mosher, a China expert and president of Population Research Institute, a Virginia-based pro-life advocate whose blog posts and opinion columns in the New York Post and elsewhere were among the first to float uncorroborated theories about an accidental leak.

"It's also possible an infected animal was sold from the lab  a horseshoe bat, probably  to the nearby wet market for a very good price. It was then butchered on the spot, bloody and dripping, and wound up on someone's dinner table and the virus infected somebody in that process," Mosher said, describing a purely theoretical scenario.

Mosher conceded he can't prove anything and that his ideas are based on conjectural factors such as Wuhan being a center for coronavirus research in bats, China's reported dangerous lab safety record and Beijing's obfuscation on the pandemic.

President Donald Trump speaks about coronavirus in the press briefing room of the White House, on April 17, 2020.

Beijing has clouded and revised information about its infections and deaths and detained medical workers who blew the whistle over concerns about China's handling of its response. An Associated Press investigation found China didn't inform the public about the virus for nearly a week, enabling it to spread undetected at a vital moment. China's foreign ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao has also pushed a false counter-narrative that coronavirus originated with the U.S. military.

In late January, Dany Shalom, a former Israeli military intelligence officer, said in a Washington Times newspaper article that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is linked to a Chinese covert bio-weapons program. He did not provide any evidence. He noted the relative proximity  about 20 miles  of the institute to Wuhan's seafood market, which China originally pinpointed as the possible origin of the virus.

Shalom did not want to comment further on his claims when contacted by USA TODAY.

On March 25, the Washington Times appended an editor's note to its story in which Shalom appears saying scientists outside of China concluded that COVID-19 "does not show signs of having been manufactured or purposefully manipulated in a lab."

Analysis: Trump halts funding to WHO.Experts say we need it now more than ever

But the exact origins of the virus remain murky.

In a March 11 interview with Scientific American, Shi Zhengli, one of China's leading experts on bat coronaviruses and deputy director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, said that when her team sequenced the genome of the new coronavirus in Wuhan it did not match any of the bat coronaviruses her laboratory had previously collected and studied.

A research paper by a group of Chinese scientists published in January by The Lancet, a well-respected British medical journal, revealed the first COVID-19 patient, identified on Dec. 1, had no apparent connection to Wuhan's wet market. Nor did about a third of the initial large cluster of confirmed cases, a revelation that's raised eyebrows.

Further muddying the picture, Nobel Prize laureate Luc Montagnier, co-discoverer of HIV, released a statement Friday claiming that according to his analysis COVID-19 was the result of an attempt to manufacture an AIDS vaccine that escaped a lab. Montagnier's analysis has not been peer-reviewed. In recent years the Frenchman has been involved with controversial research that's been shunned by mainstream scientists.

Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin reported this week that two years before the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. embassy officials visited a Wuhan lab and sent cables back to Washington about inadequate safety standards at the research facility, which was studying coronaviruses from bats. Rogin said that while the cables have prompted discussion within the administration, "conclusive proof has yet to emerge."

US Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas who is a staunch China hawk, has floated claims about a "cover up" by Beijing.

"The Chinese Communist Party has continued to lie about this from the very beginning, as if they have something to cover up," Cotton said in an interview on the Fox & Friends television program on Friday morning. "If that's the case, it really is the biggest, the costliest, the most deadly cover up in the history of mankind," he said.

Former White House advisor Steve Bannon, another strident China critic, has repeatedly validated unproven claims and theories about the covert biological weapons program origins of coronavirus in "War Room: Pandemic," his daily radio broadcast.

Steve Bannon: Fired architect of Trump's campaign insists he's still relevant

U.S. military planners have been non-committal about the coronavirus investigation.

"There's a lot of rumor and speculation in a wide variety of media, the blog sites, etc. It should be no surprise to you that we've taken a keen interest in that and we've had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that," Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a Tuesday briefing at the Pentagon.

"And I would just say, at this point, it's inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural. But we don't know for certain," said.

At Friday's coronavirus briefing,Trump also appeared to take a more circumspect stance.

"A lot of strange things are happening," he said. "Were going to find out."

Contributing: David Heath

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump says US investigating if coronavirus spread from China lab
[Read more about states that have faced resistance when attempting to limit vaccination exemptions.]

Which states are seeking to limit vaccine loopholes?

Although several states have proposed legislation this year to curb vaccine exemptions, many of these bills have not advanced.

In California, however, a new and widely-debated bill that aims to give the state more control over medical exemptions passed the Senate in May. California has one of the strictest vaccine laws in the country, and requires children to be immunized when attending public or private schools. It does not allow religious or personal exemptions.

But like every other state, it does allow families to avoid vaccinations for medical reasons. Proponents of the bill are concerned that unethical doctors may be approving exemptions for patients for unnecessary reasons, such as a family history of asthma or diabetes. The proposed legislation would require the states Department of Public Health to decide whether a childs exemption meets the guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Opponents of the California bill have called it a crime against humanity and threatened to leave California if it passes.

Elsewhere, in Colorado, the governor sought middle ground in the contentious debate over proposed vaccine legislation by signing an executive order on Thursday directing the states public health department to study areas with low vaccination rates to better understand why parents are choosing not to immunize their children, and to better educate parents about the importance of vaccination.

[Enjoying this article? Sign up for the NYT Parenting newsletter to get real stories like this, evidence-based guidance and more in your inbox every Wednesday.]

Why are states changing their laws?

In short, doctors say nonmedical exemptions can put unvaccinated people at risk.

A 2018 study published in PLOS Medicine identified 15 urban areas  including Seattle, Houston and Detroit  as hotspots for their high rates of nonmedical vaccine exemptions for philosophical beliefs. The study found lower rates of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine coverage among kindergartners in states with higher overall rates of nonmedical exemptions.
A Nigerian taxi driver who stripped himself naked on the highway to protest his arrest by security operatives has been sentenced to six months in prison.



Officials had arrested Emmanuel Imhoudu in Abuja for flouting a ban on non-essential movement in the city where there is a lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus.



On Thursday, a magistrate court in the city found him guilty of three charges brought against him and sentenced him to jail, but gave him the option of paying $78 (62) as fine and an apology on national television.



It is not clear if any of the charges was for his protesting naked, but the Nigerian newspaper Premium Times, quoting an eyewitness in court, said he chose the option of a fine.



In a video posted on social media, the visibly upset driver could be seen crying as he stripped himself of clothes to protest his arrest.



"I have children, I have a wife to feed, its money I came to look for," he said in Pidgin.



"You kept us at home, what do you want us to do. Hunger virus is more than coronavirus."



He said he had achieved what he wanted by taking off his clothes as he wanted the world to see his nakedness.



Stripping naked is a trick that has been used by some taxi and commercial bus drivers in Nigeria to evade arrest as security operatives are usually reluctant to seize naked people.



There have been extreme instances of drivers stripping naked and smearing themselves with their own excrement to stop state officials from arresting them.



On Monday, President Muhammadu Buhari announced an extension on a lockdown in three states including Lagos and Ogun, to stop the spread of coronavirus.

Source: BBC









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Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 17:27:25|Editor: huaxia

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HAVANA, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Close to 100 health professionals have tested positive for COVID-19 in Cuba, the country's Minister of Public Health Jose Angel Portal Miranda said on Friday.

Among Cuban health workers infected with the virus, there are 47 doctors, 30 nurses, four health technicians, five medical students as well as 11 people from other fields of medicine, he said on state TV.

Portal Miranda also said Cuba's frontline health workers in hospitals and isolation centers have been provided with protective medical equipment during the pandemic.

"We all are vulnerable to contract COVID-19," he added.

Cuba has reported 31 deaths from COVID-19 as confirmed cases so far stand at 923.

The country has sent 21 medical brigades with about 1,200 Cuban doctors and nurses to curb the virus's spread in neighboring Latin American and Caribbean countries as well as in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Enditem
Anaheim, CA  In the summer of 2018, officers Sean Staymates and Kevin Pederson were filmed on their own body cameras in a wild pursuit in which they fired over 70 rounds at a mentally ill man, killing him. Eliuth Penaloza Nava, 50, was holding a BB gun, that looked real, according to police, while trying to get away from them. Now, because of the crazed actions of these cops, the taxpayers of Anaheim will be shelling out $2.9 million.

According to the OC Register, U.S. District Judge David Carter has signed off on the $2.9 million settlement between the city of Anaheim and Penalozas family members, according to federal court records. Officials representing the city, and an attorney representing the family, confirmed Thursday that the settlement has been approved.

Any loss of life in our city is tragic, and our hearts go out to the family, Anaheim Spokesman Mike Lyster said. We hope this brings some closure.

The (officers) know better  It looked like Bonnie and Clyde,Jerry Steering, one of the attorneys who represented the family, said of the video footage. Whatever danger (Penaloza) posed to the public that day was greatly exceeded by the dangers the police posed to the public.

According to police, Navas family members called 911 and told them he was on some sort of drug hallucinating and acting erratically.

When Staymates and Pederson showed up to the scene, Nava was sitting in a truck parked in front of his parents house. Police then pulled out their guns and pointed them at Nava, demanding he exit the vehicle.

Not surprisingly, the hallucinating man did not comply and instead started the truck and drove off. According to police, it was at this time they observed Nava reach down toward the floorboard. Police then claim that Nava pointed what appeared to be a black semi-automatic pistol out of the window in the direction of the officers as he drove off. At no time did Nava discharge the firearm.

Although police thought the gun was real, it was actually a CO2-powered BB gun.

It was black in color and extremely similar in appearance to an authentic 9mm Luger pistol. There was no orange tip on the gun, and no other markings to readily distinguish this air pistol from a real firearm, said the report.

Officers Pedersen and Staymates both feared Nava was going to shoot and kill them, according to the report.

When the two officers initiated the pursuit, a scene resembling a Hollywood movie began to unfold as both cops begin shooting through their own windshield in their attempts to kill Nava. Pederson is seen reloading his pistol multiple times as Staymates tries to keep up with his AR-15.

Pedersen, who was driving, fired his handgun 64 times, according to the report. Staymates, who was on the passenger side, fired 12 shots from a rifle, the report said.

Out of the 76 shots fired, nine of them entered Navas body, killing him.

While the idea of firing through the windshield of a police cruiser may seem insane to many, apparently it is not against department policy.

We highly discourage shooting through a windshield but our policy does not state that you cannot, there could be incidents or actions at times where that would be permissible, Anaheim Police Chief Jorge Cisneros said during news conference at the time.

Despite endangering the entire town by driving down the road firing through the window to kill a man armed with a BB gun, neither of the officers were charged with a crime.

It is our legal opinion that there is a lack of sufficient evidence to show beyond a reasonable doubt criminal culpability on the part of Officers Staymates and Pedersen when they fatally shot Nava on July 21, 2018, the Orange County District Attorneys Office said in a letter to Cisneros, providing details of the investigation, according to CNN.

Both Officer Pedersen and Officer Staymates were justified in believing that Nava posed a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to both officers and to others, the letter said. Even though they werent charged, the DAs letter called their conduct alarming and irresponsible.

According to the report, because Pederson was a probationary officer, meaning he didnt have the job protection of veteran officers, he was fired. Staymates did have job protection and so he was disciplined internally, according to the department.

As you watch the video below, remember that these cops couldve caused a massive accident by shooting at a moving vehicle, shot an innocent bystander, or wrecked themselves from being unable to see through the window they filled with bullet holes. Reckless indeed.
A captain and his crew pleaded guilty to attempted murder after throwing two terrified stowaways into a shark infested ocean to avoid catching coronavirus from them.

Skipper Cui Rongli watched as his crew built a makeshift raft roping together sealed plastic drums and plywood then stopped his ship to dump the petrified pair overboard in waters off South Africa.

Distraught Amiri Salamu, 20 and Hassani Rajabu, 30, were given just a life jacket and two bottles of water each and told which way to paddle with their hands to reach the nearest land.

The MV Top Grace bulk carrier which police intercepted, seen here coming into dock in Richards Bay, South Africa, to arrest the captain and crew who have now been charged with attempted murder after casting two stowaways adrift in the Indian Ocean

The two life jackets the stowaways were given along with a couple of bottles of water as they were placed in a makeshift raft

The two Tanzanian stowaways cast adrift at sea being taken by ambulance to hospital (both centre in green and red overalls) at Zinkwazi Beach in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa

With no food to eat and at the mercy of the wind and sea currents they were cast adrift on the high seas fearing being swamped by the waves or their raft falling apart at any moment.

Three days and two nights later the Tanzanian stowaways were washed up exhausted onto a tourist beach at dusk on the KwaZulu-Natal coast of South Africa 50 miles north of Durban.

They had drifted through one of the most shark infested areas of the North Coast by the Tugela River mouth where Great Whites, Hammerheads, Tiger and Bull Sharks all gather.

They had been buffeted by strong winds but sea currents had carried their flimsy raft to the safety of Zinkwazi Beach, although they had to swim the last stretch over a rocky reef.

Shocked locals saw them pair wading through the surf and paramedics said they were suffering from hypothermia, thirst and hunger having been given no food and little water to survive.

Zinkwazi Beach where the two stowaways were washed up half way between Durban and Richards Bay on the KwaZulu-Natal coast

The MV Top Grace bulk carrier which police intercepted as it is seen here coming into dock in Richards Bay, South Africa, to arrest the captain and crew who have now been charged with attempted murder after casting two stowaways adrift in the Indian Ocean. The police are seen heading towards the ship

The police launch sent to intercept the MV Top Grace at Richards Bay, South Africa. The 600 foot long ship was impounded when it docked at Richards Bay further north up the coast where a police launch took officers on board who arrested the ship's captain

When the South African Maritime Safety Agency received news of the stowaways being abandoned to their fate in the Indian Ocean they contacted the bulk carrier MV Top Grace by radio.

The castaways had remembered the name of the ship and that the crew were 'Chinese looking'.

The 600 foot long ship was impounded when it docked at Richards Bay further north up the coast where a police launch took officers on board who arrested the ship's captain.

The Chinese skipper and six crew Lin Xinyong, Zou Yongxian, Tan Yian, Xie Wenbin, Xu Kun and Mu Yong all admitted attempted murder at Durban Magistrates Court yesterday.

The Master of the ship Captain Rongli was fined 4350 and each of the crewmen 2175 in a plea bargain agreement which was ratified by the magistrate Garth Davis.

The MV Top Grace bulk carrier which police intercepted as it is seen here coming into dock in Richards Bay, South Africa, to arrest the captain and crew who have now been charged with attempted murder after casting two stowaways adrift in the Indian Ocean

Captain Rongli was fined a further 2175 for misconduct and 435 for not reporting the stowaways. He was told he would be sent to prison for four years if he did not pay up.

Prosecutor Vishalan Moodley said the seven men pleaded guilty in terms of 'dolus eventualis' in that they knew there was a possibility the stowaways might die or perish at sea.

The court heard the bulk carrier built in 2016 arrived at Durban harbour from Singapore and while at anchor the two Tanzanian's climbed the anchor chain and stowed away.

The 35,000 ton Hong Kong registered ship sailed on March 26 and the following day when 25 miles out to sea to the two stowaways 'popped up' on the main deck.

The magistrate heard that the stowaways refused to give their nationality but were given food and water and isolated in a room while the crew worked out what to do.

National Police Authority spokesperson Natasha Cara said: 'The accused were wary of the men and asked them to wear face masks in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.

'The men refused to wear the face masks so were put in a separate room as their Covid-19 status was unknown and there was a fear by the crew about the virus'.

File image of a Great White Shark in the Indian Ocean. The stowaways had drifted through one of the most shark infested areas of the North Coast by the Tugela River mouth where Great Whites, Hammerheads, Tiger and Bull Sharks all gather

The court was told the following day a decision was taken to throw them off the ship and the crew built a makeshift raft made out of plastic drums and plywood and rope.

The MV Top Grace sailed to within three nautical miles off the South African coast and lowered the pair by ladder into the flimsy raft rocking in the seas 60 feet below.

The NPA spokesman added: 'They provided the men with life jackets and the crew acted in a threatening manner banging the vessel's decks as they descended into the raft.

'The ship pulled away leaving them once they were on board the raft. The accused admitted that their actions could have resulted in serious injury and even the loss of life' she said.

It was said the coast was visible to the two men who drifted for three days and two nights before they washed up on the tourist beach having avoided deadly man eating sharks.

Durban Magistrates Court. The court was told the following day a decision was taken to throw them off the ship and the crew built a makeshift raft made out of plastic drums and plywood and rope

Defence advocate Willie Lombard said in mitigation Salumu and Rajabu had been given life jackets and water and could see land when cast adrift and suffered no external injuries.

He said: 'There were many mitigating factors and if the crew had wanted to be cruel they could have dropped them in the high seas much further out without life jackets'.

The stowaways have been detained by the South African immigration authorities and are awaiting the results of Covid-19 tests and still face possible criminal charges.

It is believed the Chinese captain and crew have paid their fines and are free to sail back to China having arrived in Durban last month with a full cargo from Singapore.

Under Maritime Law any stowaways must not be mistreated and must be landed at the next port of call and the shipping company is responsible for all the costs of repatriation.
A five-star hotel in Beirut that once hosted royalty and survived the civil war has been forced to close over Lebanon's economic crisis and coronavirus lockdown, its manager said Saturday. Lebanon is grappling with its worst financial crunch since the 1975-1990 civil war, now compounded by a nationwide lockdown since March 15 to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus. The crisis has pushed the owners of Le Bristol to close down the landmark hotel after almost seven decades in business, its general manager Joseph Coubat said. "It's because of the economic situation which has become unbearable," he said. "Now with the coronavirus, and with the financial problems we are going through in the country, the level of occupancy has fallen very low," he told AFP, saying it was less than 10 percent. He said the owners had decided to shut the hotel "while waiting for better days", but that for the moment the closure was definitive. Designed by French interior designer Jean Royere, Le Bristol was first opened in 1951. It boasts the oldest ballroom in Beirut and once housed Lebanon's first ever skating rink before it was turned into a conference room. Its guests have included the late shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his wife Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari, American jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and former French president Jacques Chirac. Le Bristol never closed during the civil war, when it hosted foreign journalists, though it was shuttered for refurbishment between 2013 and 2015, when owners poured millions of dollars into its renovation. Between 2004 and 2005, the political opposition met there in what was the first large gathering against the then Syrian presence in Lebanon. The group was dubbed the "Bristol meeting". Occupancy at the hotel started dropping from October last year, Coubat said, when a crumbling economy and frustration with the political elite led to an unprecedented anti-government street movement. After the COVID-19 pandemic reached the country, the airport's closure from March 19 as part of measures to halt the spread of the virus dealt a further blow to the hospitality sector. Many hotels have zero occupancy at the moment, the head of the hotel owner syndicate has said. "It's catastrophic. Those in charge now need to really think up a rescue plan," Coubat said, referring a new government struggling to redress the economy since January. Over the past months, tens of thousands have lost their jobs or part of their salaries in various sectors due to the economic crunch, even as the cost of living has soared. The value of the Lebanese pound has plummeted by half on the parallel exchange market, and poverty has risen to 45 percent, according to official estimates. With a debt equivalent to 170 percent of its gross domestic product, one of the highest in the world, Lebanon defaulted on its payments for the first time last month. The country has registered 672 cases of COVID-19, including 21 deaths. Le Bristol hotel in Beirut has been in business for almost seven decades and even stayed open during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The U.S. has surpassed 28,000 dead from Covid-19, which is almost certainly an undercount, and is bracing for more. President Donald Trumps partisan and incoherent response  the sum of his positions is that he has both total authority and zero responsibility  has made the crisis more political than it might have been. Multiple governors have shown a better way.

Yet mass death, whether from disease or war, inevitably causes political tremors. And when the landscape resettles, it doesnt always look the same.

In her gripping history of death in the Civil War, Drew Gilpin Faust recounts American efforts to cope with death on an unprecedented and unimaginable scale, leading to behaviors and strategies that would have been unthinkable in the hours before the conflict began. Civilian relatives searched battlefield gore in pursuit of identifiable parts. Businessmen developed a lucrative trade in private body retrieval and shipment. Decorum was sometimes abandoned altogether, and at other times desperately observed amid devastation and madness.

And everywhere, the living sought to make sense of their loss. Southerners and Northerners alike elaborated narratives of patriotic sacrifice that imbued war deaths with transcendent meaning, she writes. Soldiers suffered and died so that a nation  be it the Union or the Confederacy  might live; Christian and nationalist imperatives merged in a redemptive vision of political morality.

A cataclysmic war lends itself to such efforts. Personal loss was rendered ordinary by constant repetition, by death as omnipresent and unyielding to human design as weather.

Yet unlike the weather, the killing was entirely man-made, a product of political will and deliberation. All those deaths were, in a very real sense, planned. Knowing that must have required extra helpings of rationalization to process the bitter losses.

Mass death via pandemic is different. But the scale of it raises uncomfortable questions similar to those faced by a nation at war. The principal one faces America now: How much death is society willing to accept? Because the topic is discomfiting, the question is subsumed in other discussions; the current talk is about reopening the economy.

Story continues

The public tolerates different amounts of death at different times. No one can know what the limits are or how they will evolve. In Vietnam, the limit was eventually exceeded and the public demanded an end. In the Civil War, resistance to the war ebbed and flowed with the course of battles. Yet despite the astonishing toll, it never broke the killing machine.

After mere weeks of this pandemic, America has already reached half the death toll from nearly two decades of war in Vietnam. At the same time, millions are suffering from job loss and insecurity in the wake of precipitous economic decline. What bargains are Americans willing to make, and on whose behalf? Could anyone in this White House be trusted with such delicate, complex decisions?

Even thoughtful people get death wrong. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross taught a generation how to die. Her 1969 book On Death and Dying, was a landmark. The five stages of death she described  denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance  became embedded in popular culture. Her own death, however, was fraught with bitterness and regret.

There is no comparable figure today telling us how to manage  what the price of death should be or who should bear it. There is just an insidious virus, a morally bankrupt president, struggling governors, valiant health-care workers, mounting pressure.

I saw a stunned friend on the street last week who told me hed just lost his best friend to the coronavirus. Even in normal times such a death ripples across a wider community. Now, every death seems communal. Brooklynites cringe at the sound of ambulance sirens without knowing who, exactly, is gasping for air en route to the hospital.

Only the body public can properly resolve weighty decisions about death on such a scale. Without national leadership, others are filling the void. Governors are striking out on their own. Philanthropists are setting agendas. Cities are improvising. Public health experts and economists are modeling. Duties and expectations shift. Not everything bounces back to where it was. It is by now a cliche to say that America will be a different nation when this is over. Sometimes cliches are right.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Francis Wilkinson writes editorials on politics and U.S. domestic policy for Bloomberg Opinion. He was executive editor of the Week. He was previously a writer for Rolling Stone, a communications consultant and a political media strategist.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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Dr. Sean Lin, former lab director of the viral disease branch at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. (Courtesy of Epoch Times)

Facebook Places Wrong Fact Check on CCP Virus Documentary by The Epoch Times

After a documentary on the CCP virus origins went viral, Facebook labelled it False Information based on an article that not only wasnt talking about the documentary, but contained incorrect information itself.

The documentary was produced by The Epoch Times and NTD television and delved into the origins of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also called novel coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2.

The documentary, which has attracted more than 70 million views across different platforms, discusses, among other matters, the possibility that the virus came from a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), nestled at the ground zero of the pandemic in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. The documentary doesnt make a definitive conclusion on the matter.

U.S. authorities recently publicly acknowledged that they have been exploring this possibility.

We are still asking the Chinese Communist Party to allow experts to get in to that virology lab so that we can determine precisely where this virus began, State Secretary Mike Pompeo told Fox News.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said on April 14 that U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating whether the virus may have leaked from the lab, The Washington Times reported.

Facebook claims that the documentary was Checked by independent fact-checkers and The primary claims in the information are factually inaccurate.

It links to an article by Flora Teoh, science editor at Health Feedback website. The article, however, doesnt pertain to the documentary. It was last updated on March 20, more than two weeks before the documentary was released.

The article takes issue with a Feb. 22 New York Post op-ed by Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute.

The evidence points to SARS-CoV-2 research being carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Mosher wrote, noting that Chinese leader Xi Jinping recently called for a new biosecurity regime and that Peoples Liberation Armys top expert in biological warfare, a Maj. Gen. Chen Wei, was dispatched to Wuhan at the end of January to help with the effort to contain the outbreak.

He also mentioned that theres a phenomenon in China of research facilities selling lab animals for meat.

The virus may have been carried out of the lab by an infected worker or crossed over into humans when they unknowingly dined on a lab animal, he speculated.

Teoh called Moshers claims inaccurate and misleading based on responses from Duke University virologist Danielle Anderson and Prof. Marc Lipsitch, a Harvard epidemiologist.

According to both the experts, the call of Chinese authorities for increased biosecurity was innocuous as Chinese laboratories were expected to deal with the new virus.

Teoh doesnt address the appointment of the top expert in biological warfarea claim that originally comes from an article in an official Chinese military outlet. The article has since been deleted.

Teoh further said that there is no evidence supporting claims that biosecurity is poor in the Wuhan Institute of Virology or that lab animals are being sold or consumed.

The first part of her claim is based on a response from Anderson, who said shes worked at the institute.

I will disclose that I am a scientist trained to work in high containment and have collaborative projects with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), she said. I have worked in this exact laboratory at various times for the past 2 years. I can personally attest to the strict control and containment measures implemented while working there. The staff at WIV are incredibly competent, hardworking, and are excellent scientists with superb track records.

This assertion has been undermined by a recent article in The Washington Post, which says that 2018 State Department cables warned of safety issues at the Wuhan lab.

Accusations about the selling of lab animals, including at WIV, have circulated on Chinese social media.

An online profile using the name and photos of WIV researcher Chen Quanjiao accused the director-general of the institute, Wang Yanyi, of frequently reselling lab animals at the nearby wet market and thus possibly leaking the virus from the lab.

Wang denied it and Chen put out a statement saying her identity has been stolen and rejected responsibility for the online posts.

The Epoch Times/NTD documentary mentions Xi Jinpings biosecurity directive, the involvement of Gen. Chen Wei, as well as a social media post by Chen Quanjiao. Thats, however, a fraction of the information it provides, which includes interviews with several virologists as well as experts on China and security issues.

The documentary calls doubtful Chinas official explanation that the virus naturally jumped from bats to humans. It stops short, though, of reaching a definitive conclusion on its origins.
Circumcision has been shown reduce the risk of some sexually transmitted infections, including herpes, syphilis and H.I.V. However, the H.I.V. studies were done in Africa, where overall H.I.V. rates are much higher, and where, unlike in the United States, heterosexual sex is the main mode of transmission. (Studies investigating whether circumcision helps protect against H.I.V. in men who have sex with men have been inconclusive.) Researchers dont yet fully understand the mechanism by which circumcision reduces H.I.V. transmission; some have suggested that tiny abrasions in the delicate foreskin, combined with a warm, moist environment, may leave uncircumcised men more vulnerable to infection. Circumcising to prevent H.I.V. in the United States doesnt make sense from a cost and risk standpoint, said Dr. Timothy Johnson, M.D., a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan Von Voigtlander Womens Hospital. Dr. Laurie Schulwolf, M.D., a pediatrician at Tribeca Pediatrics in New York City, put it even more bluntly. For H.I.V. and S.T.D.s, Dr. Schulwolf said, a condom goes so much further than a circumcision.

Understand that the risks of circumcision are low.

Only about 1.5 percent of circumcised infants experience complications during the five years after the surgery. Bleeding and infection are the most common complications, and must be addressed by a doctor right away, Dr. Freedman said. Adhesions, which occur when skin from the shaft of the penis sticks to the tip, are also common; these often resolve on their own, but may require treatment with a steroid cream, such as betamethasone, Dr. Shapiro said. An untreated adhesion can go on to form a thickened band of skin called a skin bridge, which may need to be surgically removed. Another less common complication of circumcision, meatal stenosis, occurs when inflammation and scarring compress the urethra, making urination difficult.

Overall, circumcision is a safe, low-risk procedure for newborns, said Dr. George Mussalli, M.D., an obstetrician at Village Obstetrics in Manhattan and an associate professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology and womens health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Consider the non-medical aspects of circumcision.

Globally, circumcision rates vary widely. Since both Jewish and Islamic religious traditions promote the procedure, circumcision rates are over 95 percent in parts of the Middle East. In Western Europe, where non-medical infant circumcision has become increasingly controversial, and childrens rights groups have proposed banning the circumcision of minors, rates are under 20 percent. In much of the world, newborn circumcision is not primarily a medical decision, wrote Dr. Freedman, in a 2016 paper on the circumcision debate. Even in the United States, he noted, where parents may use the conflicting medical literature to buttress their own beliefs and desires, most parents ultimately decide whether or not to circumcise for non-medical reasons. There can be no doubt that religion, culture, aesthetic preference, familial identity and personal experience all factor into their decision, Dr. Freedman wrote.

It may be helpful for parents to consider their cultural context, said Dr. Allan Jacobs, M.D., director of gynecological oncology at Coney Island Hospital and a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive medicine at Stony Brook University School of Medicine. Someone might think, If Im living in Sweden, maybe I wont circumcise, but if Im living in Israel, I will.

I try to get parents to say why they are doing it, said Dr. Freedman, who advises parents to weigh the cultural, medical and other aspects of the decision and then to do what they believe is in the best interests of their child. If it is important for you to do it for non-medical reasons, you should be allowed to do it, Dr. Freedman continued. You shouldnt feel pressured either way.

If you decide to circumcise, take steps to minimize complications.

Before being circumcised, an infant must be cleared by a doctor; he should not be underweight, and should not have a bleeding disorder or other serious medical issues. To reduce complications, the circumcision should be done by a trained practitioner  typically an obstetrician, sometimes a pediatrician  who uses sterile techniques. The procedure is quick, lasting only 10 to 15 minutes, and parents may be present if they wish. In the past, babies were often circumcised without anesthesia, but most providers now use some form of pain relief. Your doctor may apply a topical anesthetic cream, or inject a local anesthetic, to numb the penis before the procedure. If you plan to circumcise your son, it is best to do it before 6 weeks of age; afterward, circumcision must be done with general anesthesia in an operating room. In addition, the risk of complications increases with the age of the baby.
The first warning of the devastation that the coronavirus could wreak inside US nursing homes came in late February, when residents of a facility in suburban Seattle perished, one by one, as families waited helplessly outside.

In the ensuing six weeks, large and shockingly lethal outbreaks have continued to ravage nursing homes across the nation, undeterred by urgent new safety requirements. Now a nationwide tally by The New York Times has found the number of people living in or connected to nursing homes who have died of the coronavirus to be at least 7,000, far higher than previously known.

In New Jersey, 17 bodies piled up in a nursing home morgue, and more than one-quarter of a Virginia homes residents have died. At least 24 people at a facility in Maryland have died; more than 100 residents and workers have been infected at another in Kansas; and people have died in centers for military veterans in Florida, Nevada, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington.

On Friday, New York officials for the first time disclosed the names of 72 long-term care facilities that have had five or more deaths, including the Cobble Hill Health Center in Brooklyn, where 55 people have died. At least 14 nursing homes in New York City and its suburbs have recorded more than 25 coronavirus-related deaths. In New Jersey, officials revealed that infections have broken out in 394 long-term facilities  almost two-thirds of the states homes  and that more than 1,500 deaths were tied to nursing facilities.

Overall, about one-fifth of deaths from the virus in the United States have been tied to nursing homes or other long-term care facilities, the Times review of cases shows. And more than 36,500 residents and employees across the nation have contracted it.

In interviews with more than two dozen workers in long-term care facilities as well as family members of residents and health care experts, a portrait emerged of a system unequipped to handle the onslaught and disintegrating further amid the growing crisis.

Story continues

Theyre death pits, said Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York who founded the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, an education campaign aimed at stopping hospital-acquired infections. These nursing homes are already overwhelmed. Theyre crowded and theyre understaffed. One COVID-positive patient in a nursing home produces carnage.

It is a tragedy that is continuing to unfold, and one that even the dire figures that are known only partially capture. The number of cases at these facilities  which include nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, memory care facilities, retirement and senior communities and long-term rehabilitation facilities  is almost certainly still higher since many facilities, counties and states have not provided detailed information. The outbreaks have been spread across the sprawling senior-care industry, including at publicly run facilities, those run by nonprofit groups and others managed by large corporations. Some nursing homes with clusters have a history of safety violations, persistent staffing problems and limited amenities. Other hard-hit facilities have sterling health records, luxurious living arrangements and pricey rents.

The virus is known to be more deadly to aging, immune-compromised people; and small, confined settings like nursing homes, where workers frequently move from one room to the next, are particularly vulnerable to spreading infection. But oversights and failures also have contributed to the crisis.

Virus tests and protective gear have been scarce inside many of these facilities, which are among the most overlooked players in the health care system. These homes, with staff members who receive less extensive training than those in hospitals, tend to struggle to slow infectious diseases. Employees are often poorly paid workers who move between multiple jobs and return home to communities at risk of contracting the virus.

All of these factors have allowed the virus to thrive, making its way into at least 4,100 US nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, despite increasingly desperate efforts to stop the spread.

Facilities were late to require workers and residents to wear masks  and some were still not enforcing such policies, workers and family members said. Facing shortages of tests and masks, homes often waited, they said, until residents were showing symptoms of COVID-19 before testing them for the virus and isolating them from others, even if they had contact with people who had been infected.

Employees at some facilities have stopped coming to work. In California, 83 patients with the virus had to be evacuated from a nursing facility in Riverside County after only one of 13 scheduled certified nursing assistants appeared at work, public health officials said. Sixteen employees and dozens of patients had tested positive days earlier.

Even now, protective gear is in short supply at many homes. One nursing assistant at a Detroit nursing facility said she had been issued an N95 mask but had to make it last three weeks. With no gowns available, she said she and her co-workers were being told to suit up in the same gowns that patients sleep in.

In Miami, Rosa Mercedes, a certified nursing assistant at a residential facility, waited in line in her car for a coronavirus test Thursday at the Hard Rock Stadium. She said her facility, which she declined to name, provides her with one mask each day as she feeds, bathes and helps multiple patients use the bathroom.

Nursing home industry officials acknowledged this week that many of their facilities were in crisis and said they lacked the protective equipment and testing that hospitals have received.

We dont have what we need to stop this, said Mark Parkinson, president and chief executive of the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living, a trade organization that represents skilled nursing facilities and assisted-living homes that house more than 1 million people. We have got to have masks, and we dont have masks.

Parkinson said that federal health authorities have designated nursing homes and long-term care facilities at a lower priority level than hospitals, meaning a longer turnaround times for test results  a significant problem for slowing spread.

He said that many employees dont have the option of isolating themselves from sick patients.

The cavalry hasnt arrived, Parkinson said. People will end up blaming nursing homes and talking about how terrible we are, but it is the complete lack of prioritization that has put us in the position that we are in.

Nursing home facilities have borne the brunt of a structural shift: Hospitals, seeking to keep costs down, send more vulnerable patients into a growing industry of nursing homes. Even before the pandemic, 380,000 people died each year from infection at long-term care facilities, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which regulates the nations more than 15,000 nursing homes, issued new guidance last month, telling administrators to restrict all visitors, cancel group activities, shut down dining rooms and screen all residents and staff members for fevers and respiratory illnesses.

Families of nursing home residents said some of the new restrictions were enforced unevenly in some homes; unlocked front doors in some places, for instance, have failed to stop visits. And even where enforcement has been strict, staff members could still unwittingly carry the virus inside.

Even in the best of times, the facilities struggle to retain staff, and families of residents of some facilities heaped praise on staff members for risking their own lives to keep working.

The situation has led anxious families to agonize about whether to try to bring their loved ones home. But many cannot provide the extensive medical care that is required and fear exposing others to the virus. As they wrestle with what to do, many say that they are being given little information about what is happening inside the homes.

Some facilities have found creative ways to combat the virus. At the Park Springs Life Plan Community in Stone Mountain, Georgia, four staff members and one resident have tested positive for the virus, but they have fully recovered. The facility decided to take a rare step: It asked staff members to volunteer to live on the campus to avoid inadvertently carrying the virus into the facility from home. Sixty workers volunteered. Ginger Hansborough, the facilitys accounting director, who normally lives with a partner and his octogenarian mother, moved in, not only to protect residents at the facility but also to protect her family.

I didnt want to be the reason that anything happened to them, she said.

Farah Stockman, Matt Richtel, Danielle Ivory and Mitch Smith c.2020 The New York Times Company
Japanese Ambassador to Pakistan Matsuda Kuninori Saturday expressed deep grief and sorrow over the sad demise of the chairman of Indus Motor Company Limited, Ali Suleman Habib

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 18th Apr, 2020 ) :Japanese Ambassador to Pakistan Matsuda Kuninori Saturday expressed deep grief and sorrow over the sad demise of the chairman of Indus Motor Company Limited, Ali Suleman Habib.

The ambassador paid a rich tribute to the deceased and his services in promoting and strengthening economic partnerships between Japan and Pakistan, especially in automobile industry.

"I feel deeply saddened over the sad demise of Mr. Ali Suleman Habib and greatly eulogize his distinguished achievements on establishing automobile industry in Pakistan as well as on developing a very close economic relationship between Japan and Pakistan. He was in a true sense a great and longtime friend of Japan", said Ambassador Matsuda in his condolence message.
A man in his 40s has been found inside his northwest London home with gunshot wounds after an alleged shooting last night.

MPS Brent said the incident occurred at 7.47pm on Nicoll Road. The victim was taken to hospital. His condition is not considered to be life-threatening.

No arrests have been made, the force added.

Harlesden Police imposed a Section 60 order in the area, effective from 4pm today until tomorrow morning to prevent further violent incidents.

A Section 60 order is used by police to help them carry out stop and search - a tactic which helps them remove weapons from the streets.

MailOnline has contacted the Met Police for further information.

A man in his 40s has been found inside his northwest London home with gunshot wounds after an alleged shooting (pictured, police at a block of residential flats on Nicoll Road)
Nollywood actress, Destiny Amaka has lamented her concerns on the scary spread of deadly Coronavirus across the globe as well as the lockdown extension in Nigeria. Bemoaning her loneliness, the curvy media personality told Sun News that sadly she had deposed all her s3x toys before the pandemic.

I feel so lonely this lockdown period. I think I feel it more because we know we cant go out to get anything even s3x. But, truly Im sure weve all been without s3x longer than these few weeks.

I dont even own any more sex toys, I got rid of them, but I definitely need to stack back up. I have to look for ways to get boldly contact or wait till we come out of this. It is really aint that serious yet.

On the other hand, I think its a blessing that I am single during this time. I cant imagine having boyfriend issues during this time, it wont be a funny encounter. Im really happy I get to spend all the lockdown weeks with myself and put all the energy I need to become a better me, she said.

On marriages possibly packing up within these trying times, Destiny Amaka maintained that marriages are unique and, what will crash will crash with our either it this quarantine. It might fasten the process but what will be will be. Two people have to chose to make it work or simply walk way.

The pretty actress also noted that she actually panicked when it was officially announced that a celebrity who attended African Magic Viewers Choice Award 2020, tested positive to Coronavirus.

I was at the AMVCA and when I got to know about the Coronavirus issue, I wasnt so worried after all, I didnt mingle too much as I wasnt feeling too well. However, I was more concerned about an event I went to later that week. With all these going on, I think celebrities should abide by the laws and regulations put out by the government, she added.

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Oregon could consider relaxing social distancing measures by May 25, a week later than other West Coast states, according to first-of-their-kind projections from University of Washington researchers.

The dates are intended as a guide, said Christopher Murray, the director of UWs Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and are likely to change.

If I were a governor of a state, I would certainly not make a decision based just on our model, Murray said. Leaders should also rely on the number of new deaths, hospitalizations and positive cases, he said.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Tuesday released a framework for reopening the state but didnt set any dates, saying she would gradually reopen the states economy using an approach rooted in science. She said she wants to see a declining growth rate of active cases, sufficient personal protective equipment, surge capacity in hospitals and increased capacity for testing and tracking positive cases.

Asked about the IHME estimate, Browns spokesman reiterated what the governor said earlier this week -- that Oregons reopening will be contingent on slowing the spread of the coronavirus.

Timelines for reopening communities will be driven by solid data on the spread of COVID-19, county by county as necessary, said her spokesman, Charles Boyle.

The researchers May 25 projection assumes that by then Oregon will have implemented a strategy to test, track and isolate coronavirus carriers and that a tiny number of active cases will remain  1 in every 1 million residents.

Oregon today doesnt yet have a plan for testing, tracking and isolating, though its being drafted. But the state is nowhere near the 1-in-a-million target.

State health officials are using estimates that show there could currently be about 7,600 active infections in Oregon  roughly 1,900 per million people. Less than a quarter have been found, the result of Oregons lagging test capacity.

The estimates being used in Oregon project more than 2,000 infections will remain by May 22, far higher than 1-in-a-million.

The UW institutes modeling has increasingly been criticized by scientists, who say its widely cited projections have been flawed and arent accurate enough to use in decision-making.

This appearance of certainty is seductive when the world is desperate to know what lies ahead, a group of researchers wrote Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. However, the underlying data and statistical model must be interpreted cautiously.

The institutes initial forecasts for Oregon were more dire than what unfolded, though Murray said frequent revisions have been driven by far better, nuanced data on the effectiveness of social distancing. The institute now projects Oregon will peak in two days, echoing the model the state is using that shows cases are plateauing.

But the institute shows a sharp drop-off, while the model Oregon is using projects positive cases remaining elevated for weeks to come.

Murray said deaths in the United States may have peaked two days ago, but that the death toll could still be as high as 60,000 people, down from 68,000 estimated earlier in the week.

The suggested date comes as a nationwide battle has begun unfolding about when to ease unprecedented social distancing measures that have left millions unemployed while successfully driving down the transmission of a virus that has killed more than 34,000 in the United States, including 70 in Oregon.

Patrick Allen, director of the Oregon Health Authority, said the state was likely to see infection and death rates begin to drop in coming weeks. But we need to know we can keep a lid on new infections before we can fully re-open the state economy and return to normal life, Allen said.

The authority is drafting plans for reopening sectors of the economy. Brown told OPBs Think Out Loud Friday that Oregon was being held back by its inadequate testing capacity.

The state is currently testing about 9,000 a week and is still encouraging doctors not to test those with mild symptoms. Brown told OPB that capacity should reach a target of about 15,000 a week. Other public health experts have said states should be able to test about 1% of their population weekly. In Oregon, that would be more than 40,000 a week.

Brown demurred when asked which sectors may reopen first.

 Rob Davis

rdavis@oregonian.com

503.294.7657; @robwdavis

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SPRINGFIELD  The organization that oversees the Friends of the Homeless shelter in Springfield is keeping its hopes up as COVID-19 testing is set to begin next week at the citys new triage tent complex.

Karin Jeffers, CEO of Clinical & Support Options Inc., praised the three-tent facility Friday. It was recently erected on Worthington Street across from the Friends shelter and resource center.

There is no evidence of a spike in coronavirus cases among the homeless in Springfield, Jeffers said, and the people staying in the shelter and staff have worked to follow guidelines for safety.

I can tell you at the shelter itself there has been widespread use of hand sanitizer and hand washing, social distancing, Jeffers said. They had to adapt a lot of their routines around getting meals and access to the resource center to ensure that social distancing to the best of their ability has been put in place.

Generally, between 130 and 160 people stay overnight at the Friends of the Homeless shelter, Jeffers said. The number spikes higher in the winter.

There is only one known case of a homeless resident contracting COVID-19, she said.

Despite the lack of testing so far, the tents have been fully operational and have provided quarantine and isolation for suspected and possible cases, Jeffers said. About 12 homeless individuals who may have the virus have been staying in the tents since they opened April 11, she said.

Jeffers said she hopes the early efforts for safety, started nearly a month ago, are part of the reason for the lower incidence.

But we also need so much more testing to learn more about the population, Jeffers said. I think its too early to say there wont be a larger outbreak just because of the nature of how many people are in one place.

The city received 300 COVID-19 test kits for the tent complex on Thursday, aided by U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, officials said.

Medical personnel at the triage tents should be ready to begin testing the homeless on Wednesday, pending advance preparations and finalized policies, said Helen R. Caulton-Harris, the citys commissioner of health and human services.

The city built the tent complex at a cost of nearly $400,000 and is providing maintenance. Police and the Massachusetts National Guard are assisting with monitoring and security, officials said.

There are doctors, nurses and medical technicians on site. Friends of the Homeless provides nurses and medical technicians and some project management, Jeffers said.

Caulton-Harris said the first group set to be tested is expected to be from the womens facility, followed by the men.

The citys partners in the tent complex include the local hospitals and Health Services for the Homeless.
Aaron Smith, 17, died on Friday after being hit by a motorbike the previous day (Picture: GoFundMe)

A teenager has died after being hit by a motorcycle at a funeral that had 150 guests.

Dad-of-three Aaron Smith, 17, was airlifted to hospital after suffering head injuries on Thursday morning in Murston, near Sittingbourne in Kent.

He is understood to have died late on Friday night.

Another 17-year-old boy attending the funeral was also seriously hurt after being hit by a motorbike.

Police confirmed two men aged 24 and 32 were arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving and driving without a licence and remain in custody.

Tributes have been paid to Aaron by his family via social media, and a Gofundme page has been launched to raise money for his wife and children.

He was believed to have been attending the funeral of Bill Rye when the accident happened at 10.40 am.

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The Gofundme page titled For Aaron states: "We are raising money for his family.

"He was taken too soon and left behind three babies and a loving wife. We need to do this in his memory."

A family member posted: "I'm going to miss you singing to me Aaron. I still can't believe it."

Another relative added: "Can't believe dear little Aaron Smith gone. Love him.

"Always loved listening to him sing and play guitar. Always would help anybody. A lovely young fella and old-fashioned boy."

The incidents are being investigated by Kent Police's Serious Collision Investigation Unit (Picture: Getty)

A Kent Police said they attended the funeral due to "concerns about social distancing" during the coronavirus pandemic after they were unable to speak to organisers the night before.

Chief Inspector Neil Loudon said: "Officers' priority was to maintain a presence while offering protection to the wider community around any health concerns they may have had.

"Those who have been identified as attending the ceremony and not adhering to the public health advice will be contacted in due course and reminded of their personal responsibilities during these unprecedented times."

Story continues

He added they had received reports about the gathering due to "anti-social riding" among large numbers of bikers at the funeral.

The incidents are being investigated by Kent Police's Serious Collision Investigation Unit.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 17:50:00|Editor: huaxia

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DENVER, the United States, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Scientists on Thursday released a study showing America's West is experiencing its worst drought in more than 1,000 years.

"Global warming has pushed what would've been a moderate drought in southwestern North America into mega-drought territory," scientists at Columbia University said in the report, published in the journal Science.

"This appears to be just the beginning of a more extreme trend towards mega-drought as global warming continues," the study noted, saying that the period from 2000 to 2018 was "the driest 19-year span since the late 1500s and the second driest since 800 CE."

The scientists studied tree rings from around 30,000 trees in 1,586 locations to measure the amount of rainfall and soil moisture over the centuries, according to the study.

"Across the broad American West, the last two decades have looked as bad as the worst in the last millennium," said Park Williams, a Columbia bioclimatologist and lead author of the study.

"The severity varies throughout the region," he added. "But when you look at the region as a whole this is truly a monumental event."

Ironically, the study found that the 20th century was the wettest century in the entire 1,200-year record.

However, in the new millennium, California's devastating five-year drought was called over in 2017 by former Governor Jerry Brown, when reservoirs filled after huge storms.

Until recently, scientists thought that over the past 20 years, California has had three stretches of short-term droughts: between 2000-2003, 2007-2009, and 2012-2016.

"In California, it looks more like three individual droughts, but when we look at the larger scale we can see it's really one," Williams said.

The most severe conditions over the past two decades have occurred in the states of Arizona and California, according to research.

The droughts have produced record numbers of wildfires, hundreds of millions of dead trees, declining ground water levels, and drying soil moisture levels, the researchers said. Enditem
The streets of London have been left deserted. (PA)

The UKs coronavirus lockdown is to be extended for at least another three weeks.

The foreign secretary Dominic Raab warned lifting restrictions now would risk a dangerous second peak of COVID-19. He said the original three-month timeline set down by Boris Johnson to come through the peak of the virus was broadly still the outline.

He acknowledged the measures despite all the economic and social impact the current measures are having.

In recent days, the government has thanked the British public for largely staying at home.

NHS England chief Professor Stephen Powis has urged people to keep up social distancing, which was impacting on the infection rate. This is evidence that is now accumulating that the benefit of that social distancing and reducing transmission is now beginning to be manifest in a stabilisation in hospital admissions, he said. We are beginning to see the benefits of the undoubted hardship that we have all been asked to go through in terms of social distancing, in terms of not meeting with friends and family.

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However, the UKs extension of lockdown measures is in contrast to other European countries - including other badly hit nations such as Germany, Italy and Spain - who have already begun to ease restriction.

So just how much has the British public responded to government requests to Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives - particularly in relation to others?

According to Googles mobility report, which shows changes in movement in terms of transport, public spaces (such as parks and beaches) and retail stores, the UK is operating at a similar level to other major European countries in terms of mobility reduction.

The report shows that in terms of retail, transport and workplace mobility, the UKs reduction has been at a similar level to that of Spain, Italy and France, but its reduction in mobility of public spaces has been significantly less  37% compared to around 80%.

Story continues

For the USA its 16%, and for New York, just a 12% drop. Over the same time period, Germanys rate has increased by over a third, but with a significantly lower number of recorded deaths.

The UK

A view along Regent Street, London, as the UK continues in lockdown. (Credit: Jonathan Brady/PA Images)

The UK was one of the last European countries to got into lockdown. It did so on Monday 23 March, with prime minister Boris Johnson announcing at the time that businesses were to close and members of the public were to stay in their homes. In both instances, essential use would be allowed to continue, including one form of exercise per person, per day.

On the day the lockdown was enforced there were 6,650 confirmed cases in the UK, with 335 deaths. The rate in both has continued to rise until April 10th, 18 days after the lockdown begun, when the country experienced its highest daily cases and deaths; 8,681 cases and 910 deaths.

According to Google, the UKs restrictions on retail and transport have been far more successful than parks and grocery/food shops, expected given the governments instructions.

UK retail mobility rates

UK transport mobility rates

UK parks mobility rates

Rest of Europe

What do the decisions of other countries in regards to lockdown rulings, and their relationship with rise and fall in cases show us?

Italy was the first European country to impose a lockdown. Since then, the UK, Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland and the United States have all followed suit.

Italy, Spain, France and Germany have all experienced over 100,000 cases, with Spain set to top 200,000 within the next few days. It was approximately a month after imposing restrictions that some of the worst-affected areas in Spain and Italy began to reduce the number of new cases and deaths.

Italy

General view of il Duomo, Milan during the lockdown (Credit: Mairo Cinquetti/Getty Images)

Italy went into lockdown on March 9, when their total cases had exceed 9,000 and deaths had reached 463  both higher than when the UK did the same.

Stricter procedures meant that the fall in mobility within the parks has been at a similar level to that of retail, transport and work.

The country experienced its higher daily rate of cases 11 days after lockdown, with the average daily number falling steadily since.

Italy retail mobility rates

Italy transit mobility rates

Italy parks mobility rates

Spain

The beach in Sant Pol de Mar, Catalunya, Spain. (Credit: Miquel Benitez/Getty Images)

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez placed the country under lockdown five days after Italy, on March 14. In the last couple of days, some non-essential workers have been allowed to return to work.

It experienced its peak 12 days later, but the initial drop-off took longer than Italy to take effect. The country has also recorded more confirmed cases than any other in the world, with the exception of the United States.

Spain retail mobility rates

Spain transit mobility rates

Spain parks mobility rates

France

Parc de la butte de Montmartre, Paris, France. (Credit: Emeric Fohlen/Getty Images)

France will remain in lockdown until at least May 11, says president Emmanuel Macron.

It began its period of restriction on March 17, with daily cases falling since on average since April 3. Police and the army have patrolled streets, with strict rules on food shopping instilled and even daily exercise eventually banned.

While daily cases has begun to drop, the number of recorded daily deaths has yet to properly do so, despite the regulations imposed.

France retail mobility rates

France transit mobility rates

France parks mobility rates

Germany

Bags with clothes and food placed in a park for the homeless in Friedrichshain neighbourhood, Berlin. (Photo by Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

Like its major European counterparts, Germany has over 100,000 confirmed cases, but its number of total deaths is significantly lower  less than 5,000.

The decrease in retail mobility or workplace mobility hasnt been as sharp as its neighbours, while its mobility trends for parks and public spaces has actually increased since Bavaria became the first German state to go into lockdown, doing so on March 20.

The number of daily cases began to fall within eight days of that. As of next week, rules will be relaxed and small shops will be allowed to open once again.

Germany retail mobility rates

Germany transit mobility rates

Germany parks mobility rates

New York

A temporary field hospital to treat covid-19 patients set up in Central Park, New York City. (Credit: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)

With different US states adopting different strategies, New York governor Andrew Cuomo told all non-essential workers to stay home on March 20.

Despite that, the mobility rates, particularly for public parks and grocery stores, hasnt dropped nearly as much as European countries (Germany aside), and the same time period has seen the city become the new epicentre of the outbreak.

USA retail mobility rates

USA transit mobility rates

USA parks mobility rates

NY retail mobility rates

New York has over 200,000 confirmed cases and 16,000 deaths (nearly half the cases for the entire country).

The first set of charts shows the US as a whole, while below are the mobility rates for New York.

USA:

NY transit mobility rates

NEW YORK:

NY parks mobility rates

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Thiruvananthapuram, April 18 : Kerala Health Minister K.K. Shailaja on Saturday said that four new coronavirus positive cases were reported in the state, taking the total number of active cases under treatment to 140.

In all, the affected and cured cases total 399 in Kerala.

"There are 66,686 people under observation at homes and 504 at various hospitals in the state," said Shailaja.

Based on the performance of 14 districts on how these tackled Covid-19, four zones have been announced, that would come into effect from April 20.

While Kottayam and Idukki will get the maximum relaxation, subject to all the national guidelines, the other 12 districts will get scaled-down relaxations.

Earlier in the day, Shailaja said that the state is reaping the rewards of the hard work that has gone into overall containment of the spread of Covid-19.

She told the media that in no way can the Kerala government relax because "things can go haywire anytime, if we are not alert. But at the same time, life has to go on. If not there will be other issues.

"It should not be like 'we saved people from Covid, but people die out of hunger'. So whatever relaxations are now announced to be effective from April 20 should not be an occasion to forget the alertness that we have maintained. Instead, the relaxation should be used to revive the state economy and it should happen by keeping all the rules and regulations of maintaining social distancing," said Shailaja.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 18

Trend:

Turkmenistan and the Republic of Korea have discussed cooperation in shipbuilding and marine technology, Trend reports with reference to Turkmenportal informational portal.

The meeting of the Turkmen-South Korean Business Council was held in a videoconference format in Ashgabat, the Turkmen capital, on April 17, 2020.

The parties also discussed further development of bilateral economic relations including cooperation in the field of construction of large gas chemical and sea water desalination plants.

The participants talked about holding seminars for railway specialists.

They also exchanged views on topical issues on the international agenda.

Constriction of Galkynysh plant for sweetening of natural gas field, the modernization of the oil refinery in Turkmenbashi, construction of a gas chemical sector for production of polyethylene and polypropylene in the Kiyanly village of Turkmenistans Balkan region might be considered as biggest Turkmen-Korean projects.

President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov approved the composition of the Turkmen-South Korean Business Council from Turkmens side on October 15, 2019, to develop trade and economic relations between Turkmenistan and Korea, as well as to promote mutually beneficial partnership between Turkmen and Korean businessmen.
Minister Paul Kehoe has stated that the government decision to provide a 15 million 'emergency package' to ferry operators to ensure the continuation of four sailing routes out of Rosslare Europort is vital to 'ensure food and medical supplies remain on our shelves'.

It was announced last week that the 15 million fund was being made available to ferry operators, after they requested government assistance, stating that due to a sharp decline in passenger travel, they could no longer continue to operate. Of the five routes cabinet agreed to designate as 'public service obligation routes' nationwide, four of them operate out of Rosslare - Stena Line's routes to Cherbourg and Fishguard, Irish Ferries' service to Pembroke and Brittany Ferries' route to Bilbao.

The funds will cover a minimum three month period in order to ensure continuity of these services and at the time of the announcement Minister Kehoe stated that 'this emergency measure is extremely welcome, given the huge collapse in tourism that is affecting the entire industry.'

Although the move was seemingly taken with a view to maintaining a sustainable future for Rosslare Europort, it also generated some criticism. Owners of other businesses affected by Covid-19 closures felt that the government was taking the decision to bail out Swedish (Stena Line) and French (Brittany Ferries) companies while many Wexford businesses are faced with a very real threat of being unable to re-open when restrictions are lifted.

'I do understand the frustration, 100% I do,' Minister Kehoe said. 'But the fact is, that we import a huge amount of our foodstuffs and medical supplies and the vast majority comes in via ferry. It's vital. We need food and medical supplies. This is not about foot passengers or cars, it's about haulage and it's about exports which pass through the Europort too. If these companies go bust, then these vital supply lines won't be available to us when we're recovering from this.'

Last week, Stena Line announced that they intended to furlough 600 staff and make 150 redundant across the UK and Ireland, meaning that they've already made cuts ahead of this injection of government funding. Knowing the strategic importance of keeping these Rosslare routes operational and how vital they are to the future of the Europort, some have suggested that the ferry operators have the government over a barrel, something which Minister Kehoe denies.

'I wouldn't say that no,' he replied. 'These operators have been given strict conditions and for the three months they are seen as public service operators. They haven't been able to call this all their own way and they had to sign up to conditions imposed by the government as well.'

While welcoming any form of investment in Rosslare Europort, Chairman of the Rosslare Municipal District Cllr Ger Carthy was a little sceptical of the move. 'I don't think we can hand over the chequebook to private companies,' he said. 'Especially when only a few days beforehand one of those companies has laid staff off. Having said that it is of vital importance to keep trade links open. Providing some money for Rosslare is the least the government can do and I'd hope for further investment when all of this is over.'

Minister Kehoe added that he will also be urging the government and the Department of Transport to provide assistance for hauliers who, with the decline of Irish exports during the crisis, are being forced to send empty trucks out to collect vital goods on the continent.
Authorities in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining), in northwest Chinas Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), have sentenced a Uyghur taxi driver to more than 16 years in prison for transporting an illegal religious figure and jailed his mother for a decade, according to sources in the region.

Shireli Memtili, a 28-year-old father of two, was detained in November 2018 and sentenced to 200 months in jail in May 2019 for driving the religious figurelikely a non-state-sanctioned imamand receiving illegal religious education from him, members of his family recently told RFAs Uyghur Service.

Memtilis relatives said they only learned about his sentencing when they spoke with officials at their local community administrative center, suggesting that there was never a publicly held trial for the taxi driver.

While they never received official sentencing documents, the administrative official told them Memtili had also been convicted of illegally gathering and disturbing the social order, as well as endangering national security.

RFA spoke with a Uyghur police officer in the Ghulja neighborhood of Hanbing who confirmed that Memtili is under his jurisdiction and had been sentenced but did not respond when asked where the taxi driver is being jailed.

A Uyghur employee at the command center of the Ghulja city Public Security Bureau (PSB) refused to answer when asked why Memtili had been detained and referred further questions to his superiors.

But a Uyghur archivist at the Ghulja city Ministry of Justice confirmed that he had been sentenced to 200 months and said he is serving his sentence in a prison in Shikho (in Chinese, Wusu) city, in Ili Kazakh (Yili Hasake) Autonomous Prefectures Tarbaghatay (Tacheng) prefecture.

He received illegal [religious] education and incited ethnic separatism, said the employee, who declined to be named.

When asked who Memtili had given a ride to that led to his sentencing, the archivist handed the phone to a Han Chinese superior at the department who referred further questions to the local PSB.

Sentenced for moving

Meanwhile, RFA learned from a source who spoke on condition of anonymity that Memtilis 49-year-old mother Aygul Turahan was sentenced in early 2019 to a decade in prison after she was detained for moving her household registration, or hukou, from Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefectures Tekes (Tekesi) county to Ghuljas Hanbing neighborhood nine years earlier.

Authorities in in the XUAR are believed to have detained up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities accused of accused of harboring strong religious views and politically incorrect ideas in a vast network of internment camps since April 2017.

When the camp system was first launched, Uyghurs who had changed their hukous were targeted on suspicion of extremism, and Turahanwho had moved to Hanbing in 2010 with Memtili and her husband, a butcher named Memeteli Abdureshitwas detained.

RFA spoke with a Uyghur police officer in Hanbing who provided contact information for the Han Chinese officer who was responsible for Turahans case but said he did not know why she was detained.

The Han Chinese officer refused to answer any questions about Turahan when contacted by RFA.

But a Uyghur cadre from a village near Hanbing told RFA by telephone that Turahan had been detained on June 15, 2017, and that while in detention she was accused of distributing materials containing religious content to others.

They said she spread illegal religious educational materials, incited ethnic extremism, gathered [illegally], and endangered the country, the cadre said, adding that authorities sentenced her to 10 years.

Later, a little while later, [her family] came to the village asking for the sentencing papers.

According to the cadre, Turahans husband was detained at the same time as she was, but later released.

Memeteli Abdureshit got out [of an internment camp] after one year and four months  and is still working as a butcher, she said. Aygul Turahun is in  a prison in [Ghuljas] Baykol [village].

It was not immediately clear if Turahun had ever been given a trial, although Uyghurs in internment camps are regularly given sentences without going through any formal proceedings.

Reported by Shohret Hoshur. Translated by Elise Anderson and Shahrezad Ghayrat. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 04/17/2020



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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

alum Chris Soules reportedly sparked a romance with Victoria Fuller by sliding into her direct messages on Instagram.Victoria, a Virginia Beach resident who finished in third place on Peter Weber 's season, has been spending time with Chris in his home state of Iowa during the coronavirus pandemic this week, Reality Steve spoiler blogger Steve Carbone reported Wednesday.Victoria, 26, and Chris -- a 38-year-old farmer who starred on 's 19th season -- recently began following each other on Instagram, and according to Us weekly, social media is how the pair first connected."Chris slid into Victoria's DMs," a source told Us. "He apparently DMs a lot of people."Eagle-eyed fans believe they have proof Victoria has been staying at Chris' home in Arlington, IA.A screenshot of Victoria chatting with fellow alums Lexi Buchanan Sydney Hightower and Victoria Paul on Zoom featured a background that strongly resembles the inside of Chris' house.Victoria was sitting in front of a tan leather couch with ivory and black throw pillows, and the living room-set matches Chris' couch on which he had posed for a picture in April 2017."I don't know how long this has been going on or how serious it is, but I can confirm that Victoria Fuller is currently together in Iowa for the week with Chris Soules . Discuss," Carbone tweeted earlier this week.Victoria has coincidentally been quiet on social media since April 3, when she last posted a photo of herself in a white bra and matching sweatpants."Day 87 of quarantine. I now live in these sweat pants," she captioned the image."Tried to organize my closet. Failed. Thought with all this extra time I would finish my book or take up dusting. I have not. Turns out I am just lazy. What is makeup? Buxton is over me. I am over me. Help."And Chris last shared a photo of himself over a month ago."Just waiting for spring to get here so I can plant corn," he captioned a March 12 photo showing the former star bending down in his cornfield.Chris told Us in December 2019 that he had "given up" on finding his perfect match."I just think you know when you know, when you find it. I'm getting old enough to kind of learn that it's just about, like, when it's time, it will occur," Chris said, adding that he didn't have a timeline for settling down."As time goes by, I'm healthy, I'm semi-young, and when I meet the right person, it will be the right time."It's possible Victoria and Chris may have bonded over negative press and being involved in controversy.Victoria has been accused of being self-centered and attention-seeking , and while she came across shy and sometimes insecure on 's 24th season, Peter's ex-girlfriend Merissa Pence argued it was all an act.Merissa, who lives in Victoria's Virginia Beach hometown and previously hung out with her considering they have mutual friends, told the magazine that Victoria broke up four marriages by having affairs with the married husbands.Victoria also missed out on gracing the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine's March digital issue because she had Instagram photos showing she had modeled "Marlin Lives Matter" merchandise created by White Marlin Marina, a marina in Maryland.The merchandise promoted conservation awareness of marlin fish in 2016, USA Today reported, but Cosmo's editor-in-chief Jessica Pels said the slogan is "problematic" because she believes it's rooted in racism and her magazine stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.In addition, Victoria was admittedly emotional and dramatic on , and she and Peter bickered more than they got along while dating.As for Chris, the former star was charged with a felony of leaving the scene of a fatal accident in which he had rear-ended a farm tractor with his pickup truck in April 2017 in Iowa, resulting in the death of 66-year-old Kenneth Mosher at the hospital.TMZ had obtained the recording of Chris' 911 call , proving the reality TV star at least checked Mosher's pulse at the scene of the accident and waited for emergency responders to arrive before taking off and avoiding authorities.Prosecutors argued, however, that Chris should only have left the scene to seek necessary aid or report the accident to law enforcement authorities, neither of which he allegedly did.Chris was arrested at his home several hours after the crash, after he allegedly refused to come outside and police were forced to obtain a search warrant, The Des Moines Register previously reported.Chris was released from jail shortly afterwards on $10,000 bond and feared spending up to five years in prison.Chris -- who was not charged with driving under the influence -- entered a not guilty plea in May 2017 to the charge of leaving the scene of the fatal accident.His legal team's motion to dismiss the charge was reportedly denied in January 2018 before being brought to the Iowa Supreme Court, who then declined to hear Soules' appeal in February of that year.Chris subsequently pleaded guilty in November 2018 to a reduced charge of leaving the scene of an accident, according to a local Des Moines news outlet.A judge reportedly approved a plea deal in August 2019 that imposed two years of probation for Chris and a suspended prison term.In addition to starring on , Chris also competed for Andi Dorfman on ette's tenth season as well as Season 20 of Dancing with the Stars and the Food Network's Worst Cooks in America: Celebrity Edition.Interested in more news? 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Former President John Mahama is asking government and property owners to come to some agreement to give respite to tenants and put a freeze on evictions as part of measures to mitigate the hardship on Ghanaians.

He said the move will help the country in the lockdown period to curb the spread of the coronavirus

Mahama said: On Thursday, I spent the afternoon visiting one of the communities on the outskirts of Accra to present food items to some households.

From my interactions with the people, one that struck me most was the concern of a young woman that her landlord is demanding the rent for February and March or she faces [eviction].

Shes been home for a while due to the lockdown and cannot raise the funds to pay. Rent, as we have learnt from other countries, is one of the key areas government intervention is required in mitigating the impact of COVID-19, the flag bearer of the National Democratic Congress said.

Taking cognisance of the fact that: In Ghana, properties are privately-owned and rent is paid for several years in advance, Mr Mahama said: The government and property owners would have to devise a scheme to come to the aid of tenants who are unable to pay their rent.

In his view, A moratorium on evictions, as a first step, will be helpful to many who have lost their daily income as a result of the lockdown.

In return, he proposed: I believe the government can compensate landlords and landladies for any income lost through tax reliefs, exemptions among others.

---with files from classfmonline
JUBA  Authorities in South Sudan has released 143 prisoners in an effort to combat the spread of the new coronavirus disease in crowded jails.

Martin Maciec Kuc, the secretary general of the defunct Western Lakes State, told Radio Tamazuj on that the decision was taken to reduce the overcrowding in Rumbek prison.

We have released 143 prisoners from Rumbek main prison, particularly those with minor crimes. They will be released for 30 days. As a matter of fact, the prison is too congested, Kuc said.

He pointed out that the released inmates would have an opportunity to resolve issues that saw them arrested and detained.

If you are required to pay one cow, go and pay it and if you were required to pay a fine, then go and bring money for the government. If you complete 30 days minus paying fines or resolving reasons of your imprisonment, we will re-arrest you, Kuc explained.

For his part, Malok Maduldit, the prison director, also stressed that those released from prison were only inmates with minor crimes.

He said the remaining inmates are facing murder and rape charges.

Major Gen. Yoasa Lujang Kamba, the police commissioner for the defunct Yei River State, said efforts are underway to decongest prisons and move inmates to spacious wards.

We will not release these people because some of them committed murder, but we will keep them in safe places by ensuring that if 50 of them are sleeping in a single ward, they are reduced to 20, he told Radio Tamazuj.

South Sudan has reported four cases of COVID-19 so far.

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The delivery of 250,000 surgical gowns to Northern Ireland is facing delay as England has been hit by severe shortages of the PPE. (Justin Kernoghan/PA)

The delivery of 250,000 surgical gowns to Northern Ireland is facing delay as England has been hit by severe shortages of PPE.

It emerged on Wednesday that the health service here has sent 250,000 gowns to England over the past two weeks.

Health Minister Robin Swann told MLAs the health service here "will be immediately reimbursed" once stocks arrive in England.

However, it emerged last night that the shortage of gowns in England has become so serious that hospital staff are being advised to reuse surgical gowns.

Public Health England, the organisation that issues guidance on the use of PPE, last night provided updated guidance to NHS staff on what they should do in the event of acute PPE shortages.

The document states: "Some of the PPE in the NHS Covid-19 Ensemble is designated by the manufacturers as being single use. However, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) recognises that some compromise is needed to optimise the supply of PPE in times of extreme shortages.

"These are exceptional circumstances and do not reflect HSE's standard approach. The reuse of PPE should be implemented until confirmation of adequate re-supply is in place."

It goes on to explain how best to reuse gowns and masks as safely as possible.

There are concerns that staff in Northern Ireland may be asked to follow the advice if similar shortages of gowns happen here in the coming days and weeks.

Former health minister Jim Wells said the shortage of gowns in England is a concerning development that has the potential to impact on the supply in Northern Ireland.

"I heard a statistic today that the UK has used a years' supply of gowns in just under two weeks, therefore what worries me slightly is that something is going to give and we're going to be short and staff will be forced to reuse gowns with all the dangers that go with that," said the DUP MLA.

"This comes despite a commitment from Matt Hancock and Robin Swann that issues about PPE had been sorted and it turns out that they haven't.

"It does undermine the assurances that have been given.

"It certainly seems that the prospect of us getting our 250,000 gowns back anytime soon is very slim. It really is a nightmare situation."

Meanwhile, the Department of Health has set up a new email contact for health and social care staff to raise PPE concerns.

The address - Covid19PPE.queries@health-ni.gov.uk - will be checked every day and the anonymity of staff using it will be protected.

Why PPE is in short supply, page 13
A s the coronavirus pandemic continues, the NHS is erecting Nightingale hospitals across the UK in order to cope with the influx of patients.

The first of these seven new hospitals was opened in London earlier this month at the ExCel Centre with the capacity to look after 4,000 patients in the new state-of-the-art facility. A combination of NHS staff, contractors and up to 200 military personnel constructed the hospital in only nine days.

From creating connected beds, to a new 111 telephone system dedicated for the hospital and food delivery apps, heres a look at the tech behind the NHS Nightingale London.

Communication is key

When building the hospital, allowing all the different groups and partners to communicate with one another was key. This is where Cisco came in: the tech conglomerates WebEx video conferencing platform was instrumental in helping co-ordinate the collaboration between all the different entities to get the facility built. The platform is end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) -- this means everything on the platform, from video calls to shared documents, are all encoded so only the person sending the message and the one receiving it can see what it says. If anyone else tried to look at it, they would only see a garbled mess and letters.

The new hospital is an extraordinary example of teamwork, the likes of which Ive never seen before, Cisco UK and Ireland CEO David Meads told the Standard. The collaboration thats been going on, with volunteers, the NHS, contractors, the armed services and our own teams as well.

Special look inside the NHS Nightingale Hospital - In pictures 1 /20 Special look inside the NHS Nightingale Hospital - In pictures The ICU wards at the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre Matt Writtle Portrait of Matthew Trainer, Deputy Chief Executive Officer at the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre Matt Writtle The ICU wards at the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre Matt Writtle The ventilator that will helps save lives at the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre Matt Writtle The map of the identical layout of each ICU station on the wards at the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre Matt Writtle Portrait of Dr Alan McGlennan, Medical Director of the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre Matt Writtle The ICU wards at the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre Matt Writtle The ventilator that will helps save lives at the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre Matt Writtle The ICU wards at the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre Matt Writtle The ICU wards at the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre Matt Writtle The ventilator that will helps save lives at the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre Matt Writtle The ICU wards at the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre Matt Writtle The ICU wards at the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre Matt Writtle The ventilator that will helps save lives at the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre, Matt Writtle The ICU wards at the newly created Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre Matt Writtle

Cisco wasnt the only company involved with the communications side of things. Vodafone was called on to increase the capacity and reach of its network at the newly established hospital, as well as the other Nightingale facilities being set up across the country, in order to keep NHS staff and patients connected.

The company has also set up a dedicated 111-style telephone system at the hospital in order to direct calls across the facility more easily. Vodafone is here to support the NHS in any way we can and keep the UK connected, said chief executive Nick Jefferey.

A new connected hospital

The aim for the new London Nightingale Hospital was to create a completely connected hospital.

According to Meads, normally this would take many months to achieve but the Cisco team was tasked with achieving this in seven days in order to be ready for the first 500 beds.

As a result, every bed in the hospital is connected to Wi-Fi, so patients can be treated either in-person or via video calls. This means you can provide patient care at the bedside, at the nursing stations, or even back at the Barts NHS Trust itself. Its a fully connected, medical-grade IT infrastructure in just seven days, says Meads.

Taking it national

The blueprint Cisco created for the London hospital with NHSX, the health services innovation arm, is now going to be used for the other Nightingale hospitals which are being set up in places such as Sunderland and Exeter. The same design and same solution allows us to make sure we have the equipment available and the skills available to support these other facilities.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the e-commerce giants cloud platform, is also working alongside NHSX to support the national response to Covid-19. AWS is helping to launch a secure Covid-19 response platform for critical public services by providing the underlying infrastructure tech that will enable the NHS to aggregate information across the health service as well as other partner organisations.

The new temporary NHS Nightingale Birmingham Hospital at the NEC on the outskirts of the city / PA

The idea is that this new response platform will be able to offer more visibility on things such as occupancy levels at specific hospitals, and the capacity and waiting times at A&E departments in order to help coordinate how the nation responds to tackling the virus.

AWS stated: This information will lead to a better understanding of how coronavirus is spreading, when and where the healthcare system will face the most strain, and which interventions are proving more effective than others in helping to mitigate the crisis  helping the NHS to decide where best to allocate resources.

Supporting the staff

All the doctors, nurses and staff working in the new hospital need support too during the pandemic. Tech companies are working together to ensure they can get the food supplies they need in particular.

Salesforce has created a new app named Pop-Ups for Heroes alongside Ocado and Fresh Direct which aims to help NHS staff get the food essentials they need to the hospital where they work. Using this app, hospital workers can purchase and collect pre-packaged boxes containing enough food to feed a family of four for two days for 30. Currently being trialled at the NHS Lister Hospital in Stevenage, there are plans to launch subsequent pop-ups at 40 NHS hospitals, include Nightingale if its successful.

Given the sacrifice that doctors, nurses and other NHS workers are making for us, we wanted to do what we can to help them get the essentials they need, said Paul Smith, executive VP and general manager of Salesforce UK and Ireland.

Over the past two weeks, Deliveroo has raised over 1.5 million from customer donations and corporate funding to deliver free meals to NHS hospitals across London, including at the new Nightingale hospital, using its Deliveroo for Business services. Staff at hospitals across the city have received meals from the likes of Dishoom, Itsu, Leon and Pizza Hut.

Listen to The Leader: Coronavirus Daily podcast


Defense minister:US inflames insecurity in Persian Gulf

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, April 17, IRNA -- Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami said on Friday that the illegal and aggressive presence of the US has unsecured the Persian Gulf as they create problems for the people of the region through threatening and imposing sanctions."

He made this remarks on Friday, on the sidelines of the "Parade of Services" on the occasion of National Army Day of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Speaking to reporters on the Americans' claim about their clash with the Iranian Armed Forces in the Persian Gulf, he said the Americans have created insecurity alongside the Iranian borders and are making such unfounded claims.

He added: "The Iranian people are insightful and see who is right; we are at home and they have come from the other side of the world to create problems for the countries of the region through threatening and imposing sanctions."

Instead of holding military parades to celebrate the Army Day and the Ground Force Day, the Iranian military units held "Parade of Services" across the country on Friday to express readiness to assist the medical society in the battle with the novel coronavirus.

The "Parade of Services" was held in Tehran and 24 other provincial capitals on Friday morning to commemorate the National Army Day of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Entitled "Guardians of Homeland, Health Assistants", the parades included various Army units displaying a range of public health equipment, including disinfection gear, mobile hospitals, special vehicles for disinfecting and sanitizing the public places, as well as the humanitarian aids provided by the Army personnel.

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A 20-year-old man who showed symptoms of coronavirus infection and was quarantined for two days at a hospital here has died, an official said on Saturday.

Government Medical College PRO Puja Tripathi Pandey said the man was initially admitted to Jaitipur health centre after he complained of fever and cough but was then moved to the medical college earlier this week and quarantined.

He died late Friday night after vomiting, Pandey said.

His samples are being tested for COVID-19 and any confirmation can be given only after the report comes, she said.

The man's brother had returned from Delhi about 15 days ago and the possibility of he carrying the infection is being ascertained. Meanwhile, the family members have been quarantined, Pandey said.

The official said the body will be handed over to the family after the test report comes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
From celebrities writing pandemic-inspired tracks to choirs and NHS staff recording rousing covers, there is definitely a soundtrack to lockdown emerging.

While the coronavirus -inspired new material is a mixed bag, there are some really brilliant covers that have been released, too. And they're all raising money for charity.

From Bono to Pitbull, here is the soundtrack to a world in COVID-19 lockdown.

New tracks

Pitbull

"You know what spreads faster than any virus? It's fear."

So says Pitbull, real name Armando Christian Perez, as he opens his new track, I Believe That We Will Win (World Anthem).

The rapper says he wants to uplift fans around the world.

"This is a record that I want you to tune in to," he says. "Just to give you that strength to be able to continue to move forward. Because that's what we need to do."

All of the proceeds will go to charities Feeding America and the Tony Robbins Foundation.

Fleur East

"We can all fulfil our dreams, you can sit in your pants and have a work conference on Teams."

The X Factor star has released Not Alone in aid of the COVID-19 Appeal, with all proceeds going to help NHS workers.

"ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of all money made from my charity single 'Not Alone' is going directly to the NHS Covid 19 appeal," the star said on Twitter. "Helping support NHS workers and volunteers working to save our lives everyday! Please download here and help us give back to them."

Bono

Initially posted in a homemade clip on Instagram last month, Let Your Love Be Known has since been picked up by will.i.am, given some slick production and a video, and retitled #Sing4Life.

The reworked version also features Jennifer Hudson and Yoshiki.

When Bono first posted the song, he said he was inspired by Italy, where residents have been filmed singing together from windows and across balconies during lockdown.

"For ANYONE who this St Patrick's day is in a tight spot and still singing," Bono said. "For the doctors, nurses, carers on the front line, it's you we're singing to."

Story continues

Will.I.Am says the song was created "to bring joy".

Jack Savoretti

In collaboration with some of his Italian fans, Jack Savoretti has released his first Italian track, Andra Tutto Bene (All Will Be Fine).

This is the current slogan that Italians are sharing across the country, which is one of the hardest-hit by the crisis.

Savoretti co-wrote the song with some of his fans during a live Instagram writing session in the early stages of the lockdown.

All proceeds will be donated to one of the worst affected hospitals in Northern Italy, San Martino di Genova.

Brian May and Kings Daughters

Queen's Brian May has teamed up with up-and-coming British band Kings Daughters to record uplifting track, Get Up.

The guitarist says he hopes the single, which features people from 50 different countries living in lockdown in the video, will provide a bit of cheer for those stuck indoors.

The song is raising money for mental health charity Mind.

Covers

McFly

McFly have recorded a new video for their 2005 chart-topper It's All About You, filmed during lockdown with kids and partners joining in.

"We wanted to say thanks to the NHS the only way we know how, through music," the band say. "So we have recorded this whilst on lockdown, something to keep you entertained at home and that you can sing along to whilst raising money."

NHS Charities Together is going to receive 100% of the royalties.

Beverley Knight, Joss Stone and other performers

Beverley Knight and TV doctor Ranj Singh have set up NHS Relief, a music project to support frontline NHS workers.

To raise funds, Knight, Joss Stone and a host of other musicians have recorded a cover of Lean On Me, the classic Bill Withers song about friendship that has become all the more poignant during the pandemic following his death at the beginning of April .

All of the proceeds will go to NHS Charities Together and You Okay Doc, a charity for the mental health and well-being for doctors and healthcare professionals.

Dame Vera Lynn and Katherine Jenkins

Wartime classic We'll Meet Again feels particularly apt during lockdown, and sales of the original began to soar after the Queen quoted the lyrics in her lockdown speech.

Now, Katherine Jenkins has joined forces with Dame Vera for a duet - which has already topped the iTunes chart.

This is another one raising funds for NHS Charities Together, and Jenkins is asking for help to make an official video.

"Please share a pic of you holding a message to your loved ones, showing them that you're thinking of them which we'll include in the video," is the message.

Breathe Harmony NHS choir

Members and friends of Breathe Harmony, the Guy's and St Thomas' NHS staff choir, have recorded their version of Mariah Carey 's 1993 hit Anytime You Need A Friend.

Home recordings have been filmed on mobile phones during lockdown, put together to create a rousing and emotional single and video .

All proceeds from the single will be divided between Breathe Arts Health Research and MyCool Foundation to deliver arts and health projects to patients and NHS staff, and support the NHS with arts services.

Matt Lucas

Little Britain star Matt Lucas has updated a song he performed years ago on comedy quiz show Shooting Stars.

Money raised by Thank You Baked Potato will go towards FeedNHS, an initiative set up to raise 1m to get 6,000 meals per day into London hospitals for critical care staff working during the pandemic.

"Some of our heroes are already working 20-hour shifts and these hours will only get longer as the crisis worsens," Lucas says. "With cafes and eateries all shut there is a real need to get healthy hot food to the hospitals."

And a special mention to Cardi B, who has seen an Instagram video post about coronavirus remixed and turned into a track by DJ iMarkkeyz.

Coronavirus (featuring Cardi B) is out now.
A female leopard was captured alive by the wildlife department near Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said on Saturday.

The movement of the leopard along with two cubs was reported in Katra town, the base camp for the pilgrims visiting the famous shrine, and nearby Tarakote track over the past one week, following which the wildlife department laid down cages at various places, they said.

The officials said the female leopard was found trapped in one of the cages near the town on Friday and was subsequently shifted to Manda Zoo in Jammu.

The efforts are on to capture the cubs who avoided the trap and are believed to have fled towards the forest area, they said.

The pilgrimage to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine has been suspended since March 18 as a precautionary measure in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
TDT | Manama

Bahrain yesterday confirmed the recovery of twenty-three more people from Coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the Kingdom, bringing the total number of recovered cases here to 726. The Kingdom, which has one of the highest testing rates per capita in the world, tested a total of 79,612 people for COVID-19 symptoms as of yesterday.

Methods employed include selecting citizens and residents randomly to test for the Coronavirus (COVID-19), on a daily basis, as part of a comprehensive national response to the global spread of the virus. Out of the 1011 confirmed COVID-19 cases reported, 1008 individuals are stable, while three are in critical condition. Total recorded deaths from Coronavirus infection, as of now, are seven.

The Ministry of Health statistics also indicates that Bahrain, which recorded its first COVID-19 case on February 24, when a school bus driver who had recently travelled home from pilgrimage in Iran by way of Dubai tested positive, is highly successful in limiting the spread of the virus, even as the world battles rising number of cases. Bahrain also garnered the recognition of the World Health Organisation for its agile response. According to Johns Hopkins University data, Governments throughout the GCC  Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates  have enacted some of the worlds strictest measures, including suspending passenger flights and imposing curfews on citizens to put brakes on the number of new cases of COVID-19 that currently total over 2 million globally.

A CNBC report credits Bahrains success not only to the lockdown measures employed but also to the deployment of sophisticated technology, ensuring that movement is limited and social distancing is in place. The report also states that Bahrains BeAware, which allows residents to track proximity to someone with COVID-19, are contributing greatly to the governments effort to battle the virus. The application uses location data to alert individuals in the event they approach an active case.

The stringent measures, which have slowed down the rate of infection, had also made Bahrain one of the first few nations in the world to ease restrictions, allowing some of the stores and malls to reopen. Shoppers and employees are required to wear masks while outside, a Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism statement said. Failing will attract a fine of BD 10,000 and a three-month jail term. Public gatherings over more than five people are also prohibited, and everyone is urged to stay at home unless necessary, the ministry added. Among Bahrains neighbours, Saudi Arabia, which reported the highest number of cases in the GCC (7,142) is on an indefinite curfew.

The United Arab Emirates is using AI to limit the movement of residents with police in Dubai using a programme called Oyoon to monitor the situation through a network of cameras. UAE, as of yesterday, had over 5,800 COVID-19 cases. Kuwait reported 1,658 cases and Oman 1,069 cases. Bahrain was also the first Arab country to join the WHOs Solidarity Trial to find effective treatment for the virus.

Seize the opportunity: WHO

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation yesterday urged the Middle East and North African governments to seize the opportunity to combat the coronavirus while numbers of cases in the region are still relatively low.

We have to seize the opportunity to act in the region because the rise in cases was not so rapid, Yvan Hutin, director of the communicable diseases department at WHOs Eastern Mediterranean office in Cairo, said in an interview.

In the region at large, which for WHO stretches to Afghanistan, around 111,000 cases of the novel coronavirus have been recorded and more than 5,500 deaths. That accounts for a small proportion of the more than two million cases and over 150,000 deaths declared worldwide from the pandemic. Hutin said it is hard to pinpoint a specific reason for the discrepancy. There may be demographic factors at play because we are dealing with youthful populations in the region, he said, referring to the heavier death toll from COVID-19 among the elderly.

In conflict-ridden countries or emergency situations such as Libya, Syria and Yemen, low numbers have been reported. But according to the epidemiologist, just because we avoided a difficult situation the first time around, that doesnt mean that it will stay like this. In Egypt, where Hutin led an assessment team last month, it is clear that we have more transmissions now than a few weeks ago. But it still hasnt reached an exponentially proliferating rate of transmission.

Avoiding explosion

To avoid a situation comparable to Europe or the United States with tens of thousands of deaths, Hutin said several inter-related responses were needed. These include community engagement, mobilising entire health systems and preparation of hospitals for the arrival of severe cases.

The things that can be done are not necessarily very complicated, he said, such as isolating patients with mild symptoms in hotels, schools or army dormitories. For severe cases, there is a lot that can be done such as transforming conventional hospital beds into intensive care ones.

Another measure to avoid an explosion of COVID-19 cases in the region would be to increase the capacity for testing. This can be done with small machines that can give quick test results. With the holy month of Ramadan starting next week, when people gather to break daytime fasts, WHO has published a string of recommendations urging that social distancing be maintained.
Washington: A Pakistani doctor was arrested in the US for trying to help the terrorist organization ISIS and expressing his willingness to attack. Minnesota District Attorney Erica McDonald and US National Security Assistant Attorney General John Demers have reported that Mohammad Masood (28) is loyal to ISIS. Between January and March, Masood made several statements and the Pakistani doctor had also expressed his desire to go from Syria to Syria to fight for the terrorist organization.

Giving information, officials said that Masood had also expressed his intention to carry out 'Lone Wolf' (meaning let alone carry out a terrorist incident) terrorist attack. Masood was arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Masood is a licensed physician from Pakistan and has also served as a research coordinator for a medical clinic in Minnesota under an H1B visa.

The FBI began an investigation in January 2020. It was an investigation into how encrypted social media platform (SMP) user 'BB' plans to provide content and support to ISIS. User BB had requested help in creating Hijr (migration) to show his loyalty to the ISIS group and its leader. Later, during the investigation, it was found that the user named 'BB' was none other than Dr. Masood.

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Florida's governor on Friday gave the green light for some beaches and parks to reopen if it can be done safely, and north Florida beaches became among the first to allow people to return since closures because of the coronavirus.

Mayor Lenny Curry said Duval County beaches were reopening Friday afternoon with restricted hours, and they can only be used for walking, biking, hiking, fishing, running, swimming, taking care of pets and surfing.

The beaches will be open from 6 to 11 a.m. and 5 to 8 p.m., Curry said in a video posted to social media. Gatherings of 50 or more people are prohibited and people must still practice social distancing.

"Folks, this could be the beginning of the pathway back to normal life, but please respect and follow these limitations," Curry said. "We'll get back to life as we know it, but we must be patient."

Florida officials were criticized for leaving beaches open during part of the spring break period last month. Most counties closed their beaches in response or kept them open under very restrictive conditions. Other more high-profile beaches in South Florida  including Miami Beach  were closed by state order.

At a news conference in Fort Lauderdale, Gov. Ron DeSantis said some municipalities should feel free to start opening up parks and beaches, if that can be done safely, with distancing guidelines remaining in place.

The governor said it was important for people to have outlets for getting exercise, sunshine and fresh air.

"Do it in a good way. Do it in a safe way," DeSantis said.
Three BJP leaders including Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) Deputy Mayor Purnima Sharma and a former MLA were booked on Saturday for allegedly violating prohibitory orders issued as part of the lockdown enforcement in view of the coronavirus pandemic, officials said.

The FIR was registered against Sharma, former MLA Rajesh Gupta and JMC Corporator Sandhya Gupta under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in the city police station, the officials said.

The action against the BJP leaders was taken after they visited Hari Theatre near Raghunath Bazar to distribute relief materials among several hundred people staying there, they said.

The officials said the leaders did not follow the guidelines on social distancing while carrying out the relief work, causing hardships to the policemen to maintain order.

When contacted, the deputy mayor expressed surprise over the registration of the First Information Report (FIR) and said she was outside the venue and had no idea what happened inside.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US Air Force F-15s operating along with Iraqi government forces carried out airstrikes on suspected Islamic State (IS) targets in the countrys Kirkuk Province, video taken during operations on April 13 show.

This footage was released by the US-led anti-ISIS Coalition which operates in Iraq (CJTF-OIR).

In a statement, the Coalition said: Through close collaboration with the Joint Operations Command  Iraq, the Coalition provided ISF-requested close air support, including surveillance aircraft to aid ISF troops battling ISIS holdouts in the austere terrain of Wadi Ashai near Kirkuk.

In a separate statement, the government-run Iraqi Media Cell stated that 23 IS fighters were killed during the operation. There were no immediate reports of civilian casualties from the attacks.

Kirkuk Province has seen several attacks in April believed to have been carried out by the group. Credit: CJTF-OIR via Storyful
Shweta Bhandral

When stone-pelting began in north-east Delhis Maujpur area on February 23 this year, 26-year-old Sukirti Dwivedi was one of the first reporters  and the only woman  on location. As multiple waves of bloodshed, property destruction and rioting were unleashed, and the police stood by doing nothing, all the television correspondents there began to fear for their lives. It was unsafe for everyone, not just girls, says the firebrand NDTV correspondent.

At one point, she found herself in the midst of a group of young boys, barely 17 or 18 years old, with stones and rods in their hands, their faces covered, and she noticed with a sense of foreboding that she was the only girl around. Thats when I got scared, she admits, adding that some senior citizens nearby came to her rescue.

After two days, as soon as the situation was under control, Sukirti  who was raised in Kanpur and had wanted to be a television journalist ever since she was 13 years old  was back in the field. What she saw in the aftermath of the riots made her cry. I broke down when I saw the school there completely burned down. The thought that there would have been children in there left me shuddering.

Seven days of covering this kind of crisis can take a toll on anyone. In many situations, being male or female doesnt matter, says Sukirti, adding that many of her male colleagues covering the riots had sleepless nights just as she did.

Related stories

Broadcast journalism has seen more women joining its ranks in the past few decades, with women reporters now in parliament, covering elections, rallies, crime, corporate affairs and travelling far and wide to the interiors of the country for human-interest stories.

Most media headquarters are located in big cities, and while the job comes with its fair share of challenges even for seasoned metro-dwellers, girls from smaller towns appear to have more fire in their bellies.

Archana Shukla, Associate Editor at CNBC TV18, was the first girl in her family to move out of Jamshedpur and start working as a journalist in Mumbai. It was a tough call for her parents 15 years ago when the microbiology student first made the move.

My parents had their doubts. It didnt help that the Bollywood film Page 3 starring Konkona Sen Sharma had just released and they were concerned about the safety of this profession, she smiles.

Over the years, Archana made it a habit to call her mother at least once a day wherever she was. The 36-year-old eventually made her parents proud by winning six awards for excellence in journalism.

But its one thing to allay your parents fears and another to deal with your own. A job such as this puts you in harms way more often than others, and Archana has learnt to keep her wits around her especially when she travels to the interiors of the country to cover social and political issues. Phone networks are often sketchy and places to stay are ill-equipped for women.

Its there at the back of your mind, a little fear when there is unrest. But news-gathering in television is teamwork, and we move as a crew, which is safer, she shares.

While covering stories in far-flung areas of Bastar and Marathwada, Archana also had the experience of being mobbed, with people outraging and saying, Media-wale kharab hote hain (mediapersons are bad).

She has now devised her own way to deal with them: I take time, I listen to them, and then I explain myself. I remain sensitive to their concerns even while I tell their stories to the world.

For correspondents covering politics, the playing field is still uneven. But Pallavi Ghosh, senior editor  politics at CNN News 18, who has been covering Congress news for the past 18 years, sees positive signs of change. From two or three female journos covering Parliament 18 years ago, there are about 25 now whenever Parliament is in session. Its no longer lonely out there, she informs.

Besides broadcast, the digital medium has also given women more avenues to step out and report news. There are now hundreds of women reporters across the country, working full-time or as stringers for websites, YouTube channels and social-media platforms, including bilingual ones.

For Pallavi, covering politics is exciting even if its not always smooth. My first brush with a mob was in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, at an election rally in 2004. It was a huge, unruly crowd, and they went crazy to see a woman reporter amongst them. Things went out of control but my cameraman pulled me out of it, she narrates. After that, she says, she was not scared anymore.

On the day we speak to her, she is busy following Madhya Pradesh politics as former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia joins the rival BJP. Quickly checking facts before going on air, she is collected and in control. Her years of experience have taught her a thing or two about dealing with male politicians.

Some of the netas (political leaders) are very condescending and they think we women are just trying to earn some extra pocket money by stepping out to work! says the 44-year-old indignantly.

They even ask me, do I earn so that I can shop? So, yes, initially it was tough, but over the years more women have come into the field and that has helped. Also I think its important not to smile at their sexist jokes. You have to make it clear to them that you mean business.

But the biggest challenge that on-field reporters face in India is not mobs or sleazy politicians but toilets! While Sukirti has learned to control her bladder until she finds a petrol pump when she is travelling, Pallavi carries a packet of Pee Safe in her bag.

In contrast, Archana, who often goes to villages, says, Travelling has taught me lots of lessons in survival. Indians are hospitable people. I have made friends in several towns, and I use their toilets!

The times are tough, and its physically a challenge, but these ladies are out there with vigour and resilience. After years of reporting and seeing things for what they really are, do reporters still remain idealistic about the profession?

I was very idealistic when I began, shares the young Sukirti. I used to think, Sarkar sunti hai (the government listens). For instance, if I report on street lights missing in a certain place, I thought the government would take action. But three years in journalism and my idealism is in pieces now.

The thought that journalists could make a big difference has faded over time, adds Pallavi. I am more pragmatic and less idealistic now, she says.

Despite their own disillusionment with the system, their value systems make them walk on the path of unbiased and credible reporting. As Pallavi puts it, You should be able to look into the mirror and say, I did my job well.
For weeks, the authorities have evaluated the health of deportees arriving at the airport in Guatemala City to screen for possible infection. Those who have a higher-than-normal temperature or other potential symptoms are whisked to a special hospital and tested for Covid-19, officials said.

This past week, Guatemalas health minister, Hugo Monroy, said American deportation flights were aggravating the outbreak in Guatemala by returning people already infected with the virus, and the foreign minister, Pedro Brolo, repeated the complaint on Friday.

The United States, Dr. Monroy said, has practically become the Wuhan of America.

Various Guatemalan officials have put the number at between 30 and 43, most of them apparently aboard two flights that arrived on March 26 from Mesa, Ariz., and on Monday from Brownsville, Texas.

In a televised speech late Friday, President Alejandro Giammattei of Guatemala weighed in, saying that technicians from the C.D.C. had randomly tested 12 deportees who had arrived on the Monday flight and that all the tests had resulted positive on Friday.

He said that a suspension of deportation flights that began on Thursday would continue until the United States was able to assure Guatemalan officials that deportees were being returned free of the coronavirus.

Mr. Giammattei said he was allowing one exception to the suspension: a deportation flight that would return 12 unaccompanied minors who had been caught trying to cross the southwestern border of the United States.

ICE officials said the agency was conducting a visual screening of all deportees and checking temperatures before boarding on chartered deportation flights. Under new guidance announced on Friday, the agency said, any detainee with a temperature of 99 degrees or higher would be immediately referred to a medical provider for further evaluation and observation.
It's not only Boris Johnsons health thats giving his father, Stanley, a headache  I hear hes had to cancel a keenly anticipated holiday with his bouncy friend Georgia Toffolo, 25.

The pair, who have been chums since they were in the jungle on Im A Celebrity in 2017, were to travel to Uganda later this year.

Much to the disappointment of Stanley, 79, their African adventure has been called off because of flight restrictions. 

Boris Johnson's father Stanley has shelved plans for a trip to Uganda with his I'm A Celebrity pal Georgia Toffolo amid the coronavirus crisis

All travel plans are postponed, he confirms. Its a great shame, of course, but then, all life is postponed.

When the crisis is over, former Made In Chelsea star Toff may be more concerned about a honeymoon: she recently became engaged to Nigel Farages former aide George Cottrell.

Sophie shows off her booty

The worlds richest artist Damien Hirst said this week that the secret of his success was to make bigger paintings. And the bigger, the better.

His girlfriend, Sophie Cannell, is certainly learning from the master: shes livened up lockdown by wearing the most enormous red boots while riding on a swing.

A former ballerina, Sophie, 26, has been going out with one-time enfant terrible Hirst, 54, since 2018. Lets hope she never gives him the boot.

Sophie Cannell, girlfriend of British artist Damien Hirst, livened up lockdown by wearing the most enormous red boots while riding on a swing

After 26 days in isolation, who do you miss more: your lover or your hairdresser? In Dame Judi Denchs case, its her crimper James Dodkins, according to friends.

The Oscar winner has been squired by conservationist David Mills for ten years, but Dodkins has been a regular visitor to her Surrey home for three decades.

Shes missing James desperately, whispers a pal. Dame Judi, 85, has said she refuses to contemplate marrying or living with Mills, 77, who founded the British Wildlife Centre: We are much too independent, and he is very busy  he has a business to run.

Spending lockdown on Ibiza has proved a rather painful experience for shoe designer to the stars Patrick Cox.

Hes suffered a detached retina and has had to fly to neighbouring Majorca for surgery because the party island lacked the laser machine needed to re-attach it.

Lockdown was getting dull, so I thought Id liven things up, jokes the cobbler, 57. My surgeon said my one crazy dilated eye looked like Id only taken half an ecstasy.

Home alone? It's left chef Blanc in a bit of a stew

Two Michelin-starred chef Raymond Blanc is heartbroken after being forced to live apart from his much younger girlfriend, Russian born doctor Natalia Traxel.

Ive got to be separated from my Natalia because I have bad asthma  Im always on antibiotics  so I cant be put at risk by being with other people, the 70-year-old tells me from their London flat.

Celebrity chef Raymond Blanc is heartbroken after being forced to live apart from his much younger girlfriend, Russian born doctor Natalia Traxel

Meanwhile, Natalia, 47, is at the couples home in Oxford with her daughter from a previous marriage.

They sometimes go out, they shop, which would be dangerous for me. So it makes sense for me to be alone for a while. We have long conversations, at least an hour a day.
Michigan Millers Insurance has recognized the Ieuter Insurance Group agency as one of its Preferred Agency partners for 2020. Ieuter Insurance Group joins an elite group of Michigan independent agencies that represent the top 10% in terms of production, profitability, and professionalism with the company.

"The company continues to grow, and we value the trust that our agents and policyholders put in us to provide for their insurance needs and promptly settle policyholder claims," said Russell Clark, vice president of sales and marketing. "We are very pleased and proud to be represented by the Ieuter Insurance Group agency. They have demonstrated their professionalism and commitment to their customers. We look forward to continued success and congratulate them on being included in our exclusive group."
Salim Parray gone: Cops gun down Kashmirs most dreaded terrorist

Former Jammu and Kashmir CMs to lose SSG security cover

Sidharth Sathoo a Fitness Model and a Body Builder of Par excellence in Jammu

3 jawans martyred in terror attack In Jammu and Kashmir's Sopore

India

oi-Deepika S

Srinagar, Apr 18: Three jawans were killed in a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir today. The terrorists had attacked a joint party of the CRPF and police personnel at Sopore in Baramulla district.

A search operation to track down the terrorists has been launched.

"A terrorist fired from close quarters killing three jawans and injured two others including the driver of armoured vehicle," a police officer said.

Officials say the injured personnel have been shifted to the Army's 92 base hospital in Srinagar.

This is the third attack against the paramilitary in the Kashmir valley within a week. A CRPF trooper was injured on Friday after terrorists fired at a similar check post in Pulwama.
Although no minister or adviser wants to think too far ahead, the concern is that the border may have to remain shut, or tightly controlled throughout 2021, and into 2022 while the world waits for a vaccine for COVID-19, or failing that, an effective treatment. Some skilled migrants and international students could feasibly be allowed into Australia during an extended period of national self-isolation. However, they would first have to undergo a 14-day quarantine. That might not matter if the final destination was Sydney or Melbourne. But if they moved to another state, they might need to isolate for a further 14 days. Another option is to allow for the free movement of all people between New Zealand, including tourists, assuming both countries can satisfy one another that the virus is suppressed within their respective borders. In this scenario, travel would be plane only, not cruise ship. Either way, Australia faces the prospect of two, or even three years without the stimulus of mass migration.

To place this shock in context, consider the population story of the past three years. Australia grew by almost 1.2 million people between 2016 and 2019. Net overseas migration was responsible for 63 per cent, or 741,000 of that figure. The remaining 433,000 came from net natural increase (births minus deaths). More than half a million migrants, or 73 per cent of the total intake, settled in the three largest cities, Sydney (243,000); Melbourne (241,000) and Brisbane (55,000). One of the little-appreciated benefits of migration for the big three is it has reversed the ageing process in each. In Sydneys inner city, inner south, inner south-west and Parramatta; in Melbournes inner city and inner south, and in Brisbanes inner city, the share of the population that is aged 65 and over is smaller today than it was in 2001. Almost 3 million people live within these charmed cosmopolitan circles. Sydney is the most vulnerable of the trio because it already loses a significant number of locals to other parts of Australia. Elevated property prices and congestion are the key factors behind these departures. Over the past three years, 71,000 more people left Sydney than came the other way. Most settled in Brisbane, which gained 44,000 people from internal migration over the same period. An empty Bent Street in Sydney's CBD. Credit:Kate Geraghty Recovery from lockdown would be tricky for Melbourne and Brisbane without overseas migration; for Sydney it would be next to impossible. The way to see this is to take last years population growth rate for each and then remove the overseas migration component.

Loading All three grew faster than the national average of 1.5 per cent in 2019; in fact they were the three fastest-growing areas in the country. Melbourne was the boom capital with a growth rate of 2.4 per cent, followed by Brisbane (2.1 per cent) and Sydney (1.7 per cent). Without overseas migrants the national growth rate is reduced by almost two-thirds, to 0.6 per cent, and the top three switches. Brisbane is now fastest with a modest growth rate of 1.4 per cent, followed by the rest of Victoria (0.9 per cent) and Canberra (0.8 per cent). Melbourne is still a fraction above the average at 0.7 per cent. But Sydney drops to the bottom rungs, with a growth rate of just 0.3 per cent. Of the capitals, only Adelaide (0.1 per cent) and Darwin (where the population would fall by 1.1 per cent) are worse off. A nightmare scenario for Australia during the health crisis is that the property bubble bursts in one or more of the big cities. No amount of federal government intervention in the economy would restore confidence at that point. And the states would not have back-up finance to deploy because their budgets would have been stripped of stamp duty revenue. The experience of past recessions is that the toxic mix of rising unemployment and falling house prices triggers an exodus from the worst-affected capital. That was Melbournes fate in the early 1990s, as retrenched manufacturing workers relocated to Queensland. The electoral map was rewritten to accommodate the population shift through the redistribution of boundaries. Over the course of the 1990s, Victoria lost two seats in the House of Representatives while Queensland picked up three. An almost deserted Melbourne CBD street earlier this month. Credit:Scott McNaughton

The fallout from recession this time will be profound if Sydney continues to shed people, thus ceding a greater share of electoral power over the course of this decade to its rivals to the north and the south. The parliament may be permanently polarised as a result, between conservative voters in Queensland and progressive voters in Victoria. Loading A related problem for Sydney is the rush of migrants, international students and tourists who have already returned to their mother countries before borders closed around the world. Official data supplied to The Australian newspaper this week showed the number of temporary visa holders in Australia dropped by 260,000 in the first three months of this year, with a further 50,000 departing in the first two weeks of April. A large number of Australians will have come home during the same period, so it's not yet clear if the exchange of expats will wash out as an increase or decrease in our total population. Suffice to say, once this process is exhausted, net overseas migration will be close to zero for the remainder of this year. The government has encouraged the exchange by telling those on temporary visas who cannot look after themselves to leave now. But this is a short-sighted response. The permanent migration program typically recruits half its intake each year from people who were already in Australia on student or temporary work visas. Why should Australia deny itself the option to continue converting visitors into settlers? Especially when there will be a global scramble for skilled migrants when the health crisis is finally over? The prime minister and the premiers are understandably focused on the short term at the moment. The national cabinet will not have given serious thought to the migration question because the trajectory of the virus is still not clear. First, they have to satisfy themselves that it is safe to reopen parts of the domestic economy, starting with agriculture, construction and manufacturing. Then they have to sequence the reopening of offices, then schools, and eventually those activities that involve crowds. The virus would have to be largely contained to complete the journey. No politician would want to reintroduce a lockdown after the street party was thrown.
A medical team conducts a swab test at an urban health centre during lockdown to control the spread of the new coronavirus in Ahmedabad, India. PTI Photo

Ahmedabad: With the death toll due to Covid-19 shooting up to 48 on Saturday, a note of desperation has crept into voices of frontline medics in Gujarat.

Seven fatalities were recorded on Saturday, five of them from Ahmedabad, and one each in Vadodara and Surat, Principal Secretary (Health) Jayanti Ravi said.

All of them were in the senior age category: a 68-year-old woman with hypertension and TB; a 72-year-old woman with renal complaints; a 65-year-old woman with hypertension; a 50-year-old woman with mental illness, and a 70-year-old woman with a heart ailment.

The arrival of fresh coronavirus positive cases too has picked up, rising to 1,272 after 176 new cases were reported on Saturday.

Of these, Ahmedabad reported 142 new COVID-19 cases, and a majority of these are from the city's COVID-19 hotspot areas, Ravi said.

In desperation, the Gujarat government has decided to carry out plasma transfusion treatment on COVID-19 patients in the state, particularly those in a critical condition, to boost their immunity.

In this treatment, the plasma extracted from the blood of a fully recovered COVID-19 patient is injected into the critical patient to help his body generate antibodies to fight the virus.

An antibody is a protein produced in the human body by plasma cells that is used by the immune system to neutralize bacteria and viruses.

The civil hospital in Ahmedabad and the civic body-run SVP Hospital here have prepared a detailed proposal on plasma transfusion for coronavirus patients and submitted it to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for approval, principal secretary (health) Jayanti Ravi said.

Gujarat is encouraged by ICMRs approval to the Kerala government for plasma transfusion treatment.

Both the Ahmedabad civil hospital and SVP Hospital ready to start it. They have already sent their proposals for approval," Ravi added.

"An antibody is generated by the human body to fight a virus. Those who are fully recovered have such antibody protein in their blood plasma. We will take it from them and transfuse it into those who are critical and on ventilator support.

"That plasma will help the patient to generate antibodies to fight coronavirus," she said.

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, which runs SVP Hospital, has already taken consent of some plasma donors.

"SVP Hospital is ready to start plasma treatment once we get permission from ICMR. We have also convinced some donors, who are fully recovered from coroavirus infection, to give their plasma for treatment of others," Ahmedabad

Municipal Commissioner Vijay Nehra said.
Sales to restaurants made up 11% of their revenue. They lost most of it. They are still shipping to a handful of butchers and grocers in California, but online orders from home cooks have risen so fast its been a scramble to keep up. They spend their days and nights packing meat with dry ice and trying to navigate the strain on their system, which includes overwhelmed processors who cut and wrap their beef.
Despite Scott Morrisons reassurance that it is safe for parents to send their children back to school amid the coronavirus pandemic, many remain skeptical or confused by conflicting advice.

The prime minister said it was decided during a cabinet meeting on Thursday that education is best delivered face-to-face in the classroom and medical advice suggests there are no health implications.

That call was backed up on Saturday by Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Nick Coatsworth.

Mum-of-two Zoe Collins, from Brisbane, told the Today Show she and her husband will be keeping their kids at home despite medical advice. Source: AAP

It is clear this is a virus that more readily transmits between adults than it does from child to child. or from child to adult, Dr Coatsworth told the Today Show.

The doctor went on to address the very low transmission rates within a school environment and said teachers and principals had been given clear guidance on how to keep schools safe for students and staff.

But with the decision to open schools left up to officials in individual states, and residents being told not to leave their homes except for essential reasons, Dr Coatsworth said he could see why there is confusion among parents.

I think the real question needs to be - unfortunately needs to be placed to those with accountability for those decisions who are under State and Territory Premiers and Education Ministers, he said.

The doctor also said he agrees the Federal Government needs to get the messaging out there a little more so parents will feel comfortable sending their kids back to school.

Despite Scott Morrisons reassurance that it is safe for parents to send their children back to school amid the coronavirus pandemic, many remain skeptical or confused by conflicting advice. Source: AAP

There is no decision

Mum-of-two Zoe Collins, from Brisbane, told the Today Show she and her husband will be keeping their kids at home despite medical advice.

It's not just about home schooling. It's about the fear of whatever else is going on in the world and the real sadness that people that I know have parents and high risk people around them and people I know have friends who died, she said.

So, for me and my husband there is no decision. I am a nonessential worker. I'm staying at home with my kids.

Story continues

And we're just going to have to focus on our family and that's - you know, for us the relationships of our family are far more important than the formal learning. The formal learning will have to come second.

There are very low transmission rates of coronavirus within a school environment. Source: Getty

NSW Schools to roster on students

President of the NSW Teachers Federation, Angelo Gavrielatos, told the program teachers were struggling under the weight of contradictions.

We're told it's not ok for kids to play in a public playground yet it's ok for kids to be in a school playground literally on the other side of a fence. We're told it's not ok for kids to be cared for by their grandparents yet it's ok to be taught by teachers who may also be grandparents. It's important to note that our schools are very complex places, Mr Gavrielatos said.

The NSW premier is looking into a rostering system for schools to return to face-to-face learning as the number of new COVID-19 cases in the state continues to remain low.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said more school students would be back in classrooms from the third week of term two on May 11, with children to stagger the days they attend school.

Voluntary attendance in WA

Meanwhile in Western Australia, schools will reopen for term two but parents won't be obligated to send their students.

The decision has been panned by teachers as lacking clarity.

The state government announced staff will return to public schools on April 28 - a pupil-free day - before students resume on April 29.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Nick Coatsworth said it's safe for kids to go back to school. Source: Today

Parents can choose to keep their children at home and resources will be provided for such students, including online learning where possible.

In order for schools to be a safer environment, Dr Coastworth said the government needs to apply pressure to follow the guidelines advised by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC).

What we said to government is you must apply the guidelines. The guidelines say that the 1.5m distancing must be observed. The four square metres per person in an enclosed room must be observed, he said.

The guidelines also go on to say toilets need to be cleaned after each recess break. Playground equipment, computer - keyboards, door handles need to be cleaned frequently throughout the day.

with AAP

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Los Angeles is ramping up efforts to protect people experiencing homelessness from the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed some 500 county residents.

At least 33 unsheltered people had tested positive for COVID-19 as of Thursday, according to Barbara Ferrer, director of the L.A. County Department of Public Health. The majority of those cases are people living on the streets, not in shelters.

In an effort to prevent that number from going up, Los Angeles will deploy medical street teams to known encampments and set up trailers throughout the city to get people off the street, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Friday.

This is in addition to statewide efforts to fast-track placing some of Californias 151,000 homeless residents in temporary shelters through Project Roomkey.

With this virus touching every part of our community, were doing whatever we can to keep those without a home safe, Garcetti said.

Starting next week, street teams will conduct rapid-result COVID-19 field tests, health and wellness screenings, offer counseling for effective social distancing and provide access to shelters or other temporary housing.

Image: US-VIRUS-HEALTH-EPIDEMIC (Apu Gomes / AFP - Getty Images)

The Los Angeles Fire Department is also setting up a high capacity pop-up testing clinic in Skid Row, which has one of the highest concentrations of unsheltered residents in the county. This site will include transportation to isolation and quarantine beds for people who test positive, Garcetti said.

Individuals experiencing homelessness often lack a safe space to self-isolate or practice physical distancing, and many are older adults or suffer from underlying medical conditions that would leave them particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, said Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis. Through this coordinated effort ... we will make sure no one is forgotten during this public health crisis.

Los Angeles is also launching a program to house at-risk homeless people inside trailers provided by the state. These temporary shelters will be reserved for residents without homes who are 65 and older or have pre-existing health conditions. Garcetti said he anticipates 300 trailers will be available in the coming weeks.

Story continues

While we continue to work on long-term housing solutions for our most vulnerable populations, the medical teams will go a long way in getting services on the street where our unhoused neighbors live to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and keep them safe during this pandemic, said council member Jose Huizar. This outreach approach along with providing more sanitation stations and preventive resources will go a long way in assisting a population that needs all of our assistance through this crisis.

On Friday, Garcetti called on hotel and motel owners to participate in Project Roomkey, which provides temporary shelter to high-risk people without stable housing. The county has secured 2,400 rooms and is negotiating with more than 24 additional hotels and motels, the mayor said.

Previously, the county announced a goal of securing 15,000 rooms to house some of the regions 60,000 people experiencing homelessness.








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The Trudeau government doesn't have enough money to help redress poverty among people earning less than $5000 per year.





That's the cut-off of his COVID-19 "wage subsidy" plan. But, the Trudeau government seems to have plenty of money to give to the alleged source of the coronavirus in China though.









The lab receiving the money is the same lab that US intelligence sources believe is the source of the coronavirus outbreak, reports



On Canada's government website, they provide details on the research grant.



The The Trudeau government is giving part of an $828,046 grant to a lab in China for a coronavirus research project.The lab receiving the money is the same lab that US intelligence sources believe is the source of the coronavirus outbreak, reports Rebel News On Canada's government website, they provide details on the research grant.The website documents : This research addresses the urgent need of rapid point-of-care diagnostics of COVID-19. The collaborative research is conducted by a multi-disciplinary team of virologists, chemists, infectious disease specialists, front-line practitioners, and public health researchers from the University of Alberta, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and Wuhan Institute of Virology (China).





Doesn't Communist China already have plenty of their own money? Is this the best way for the Trudeau government to spend our money?





How about giving some of that money to the newly homeless people in Canadian cities that I see looking for food in garbage cans?






STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- A police investigation into the disappearance of a 37-year-old Port Richmond woman remains ongoing, as of Saturday, according to an NYPD spokeswoman.

Jasminda Suarez was last seen leaving her residence on Simonson Place at about 9:30 p.m. on March 27, according to a previous statement from the NYPDs Deputy Commissioner of Public Informations office.

Her sisters, Jennie and Stefanie Rivera, said Suarez was staying at their mothers house in Port Richmond on the night she disappeared. Suarez left, saying that she was going to a deli near her home, and thats the last time she was seen by family.

We just want our sister back, Jennie said. Something happened, there is no way possible that she would disappear. She has a 2-year-old boy. Easter is her favorite holiday, there was no phone call, nothing.

Police are asking the publics assistance in locating Suarez, who is described as 5-feet-3-inches tall, about 135 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair. She was last seen wearing pink leggings, a dark colored t-shirt, a green jacket and black boots.

Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-8477 (TIPS) or for Spanish, 1-888-577-4782 (PISTA). Tips also can be submitted on the CrimeStoppers website or by texting tips to 274637 (CRIMES), then entering TIP577. Police say all calls are confidential.
Mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter Xu Xiaodong on launched a blistering attack on a Beijing-based tai chi teacher he defeated in 2017, uttering a string of obscenities after he called on Wuhan's martial arts community to attack the 60-year-old author of the controversial "Wuhan Diary."



Beijing-based martial artist Lei Lei had earlier piled on to a storm of online abuse with physical threats against writer Fang Fang, whose diary from under lockdown during the COVID-19 outbreak in the central Chinese city is being published outside China later this year.



"She wrote a diary which has become a tool used by foreigners to attack China," Lei said in a video he posted to social media, and called on martial artists to "use their fists for justice" and punish Fang Fang.



Xu said Lei was a stupid c*** whom he had allowed to get off too lightly in their short-lived fight in 2017, during which Lei was quickly overpowered and pinned to the floor, where Xu repeatedly pummelled his head, according to online footage of the duel.



"Fang Fang is a petite woman of fifty-something; she's not very strong," Xu said in a video. "I've read [Wuhan Diary]. It's mostly full of praise and encouragement. There's just a small amount of criticism and complaint, and that is all true and realistic."



"It truly never occurred to me that so many people would start abusing her," he said.



"Let's face it, the martial arts world is full of stupid c***s, but for you, Lei Lei, to call on Wuhan martial artists to go and attack a woman in her fifties for writing something, have you no shame?"



No censorship of violence-inciting video

Lei said his defeat at Xu's hands on , 2017 had changed the world of martial arts in China.



"It ushered in a new era, and meant that there wasn't a member of the martial arts world willing to stand up for their country," Lei Lei said.



"Now, I am calling on the Wuhan martial arts community," he said. "Fang Fang hasn't left China yet, and she hasn't left Wuhan, so you should denounce Fang Fang."



"Please use your fists for justice and punish this Chinese traitor."



A lawyer surnamed Zhang told RFA that it was significant that Lei's video hadn't been deleted by government censors, given that it incites violence against another person.



"Anyone threatening or insulting another person online ... is liable to be charged with picking quarrels and stirring up trouble, according to an interpretation issued by the Supreme People's Court in 2013," Zhang said.



"This kind of speech act should have been flagged up, deleted and dealt with, but it hasn't so far," he said on , laying the blame squarely with the ruling Chinese Communist Party.



"They don't want to do anything themselves but they are allowing this to spread online so that people who are much dumber than they are will [attack Fang Fang]," he said.



"Whose fault is that?"



Online abuse

Repeated requests for comment made to the Beijing municipal police department went unanswered at the time of writing on .



Lei's incitement to violence against Fang Fang comes after the author warned that she faced a torrent of online abuse as a result of "Wuhan Diary."



"I'm being subjected to abuse for everything I say now," Fang Fang wrote on the social media platform Weibo earlier this month. "I have really had a lesson in online violence."



"The extreme left is really powerful," she wrote, comparing the attacks against her to the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).



"It's like a virus itself, which spreads from person to person."



Fang Fang began the diary on Jan. 25, day three of the city-wide lockdown that left millions of people confined to their homes.



She talked about her friends and family, how uncomfortable it is to wear a mask, and the deaths of coronavirus patients, as well as poking fun at her nationalist critics who crowded onto Maoist platforms to criticize her.



It was updated almost daily until , when she finished it with the words "I have fought the best battle of all."



"Without their encouragement," she wrote of her critics, "someone lazy like me might have let far more time elapse before writing [the diary]."



She took a further potshot at her detractors on , asking rhetorically "So what did you do during the great catastrophe of 2020? Oh, I went crazy attacking Fang Fang."



Wuhan Diary will be published in English by Harper Collins in August, translated by Michael Berry, according to a pre-order page on Amazon.com.



Wang Fang graduated from the Chinese department of Wuhan University. She chaired the Hubei Writers Association from 2007 to 2018, and won the prestigious Lu Xun Literary Prize in 2010.



Reported by Wong Siu-san and Sing Man for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Hong Kong: Hong Kong police arrested 14 activists in raids on Saturday on charges of illegal assembly, in the biggest crackdown on the city's pro-democracy movement since the outbreak of mass protests last year.

Among those detained in the swoop were prominent Democratic Party founder and senior barrister Martin Lee, 81, millionaire publishing tycoon Jimmy Lai, 71, and former legislator and barrister Margaret Ng, 72, according to media and political sources.

Former pro-democracy lawmaker Martin Lee, 81-year-old, centre, leaves a police station in Hong Kong, Saturday, April 18, 2020. Credit:Kin Cheung

In all, nine former legislators were arrested.

Democratic legislator Claudia Mo, who was not among those arrested, said the city government, led by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, was trying "into introduce a ring of terror in Hong Kong".
The whole world is bearing with the global crisis and it is difficult to find a safe, isolated place to avoid the COVID-19 threat other than indoors.

The safest place in the United States could be a small town on an off-the-beaten-path peninsula connected to Canada located in the south of Vancouver.

Point Roberts is an area of Washington state but not directly connected to the U.S. mainland. The 1,300 or so residents have not been affected by the novel coronavirus pandemic so far.

The tiny town on a 5-square-mile peninsula is a geographical anomaly because it is linked solely to Canada, but it extends just below the 49th parallel which makes it part of the U.S.

To arrive at Point Roberts from Washington, the nearest American state, you can travel by private boat, fly into its single-runway airport or drive 27 miles through the south-west corner of Canada, then pass through two international border crossings.

The town dubbed itself "Little America" and it endures being shut off from the outside world with a rigid lockdown on its border.

The community is following the safety rules imposed by the Washington State by Gov. Jay Inslee, despite their isolated position, as the town's aging population could experience tribulation if a pandemic were to hit.

The town is also located 135 miles northwest of Seattle.

According to Pamala Sheppard, 65, who has been living there since 1989, said, "Because our borders are shut, we're like an island right now. We're like an island with no boats."

Also Read: COVID-19 Patients Recover Quickly After Getting Remdesivir

The coronavirus outbreak has 2.1 million people confirmed cases and 140,000 fatalities, as tallied by Johns Hopkins University.

The limited point of entry helped alleviate the coronavirus, as well as the "non-essential" travel between America and Canada was temporarily suspended last month.

About 2,000 cars normally travel on a weekend over the town's border, according to Christopher Carleton, Point Roberts fire chief, but only less than 100 is seen as of now.

The protection to the town is needed since Carleton said about 70 percent of the town's residents are 60 years old or older. There is a shortage of medical facilities as the town only has a clinic with a nurse practitioner and physician's assistant. Residents in critical condition would have to be transferred to the mainland U.S. for hospital treatment via ground transportation or helicopter.

Residents are still allowed to cross the border for important travel, including for hospital appointments and picking up prescriptions, but outsiders attempting to enter the town would find it difficult getting past border agents, Carleton said.

Carleton pointed out the trade-off amid the coronavirus pandemic. "Economically it's hurting our community, as with any community that's going through this at this point, but it is in a sense also protecting our community."

Fuel, food, and other goods can still get through the borders between the U.S. and Canada.

The closing of the borders largely cut off the already fairly remote town from Canadian visitors, but also from the rest of its country.

Related Article: Woman Stayed at Home in Three Weeks But Still Tested Positive for COVID-19

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking quashing of a government order asking employers to pay full salary to staffers and contract and casual workers during the lockdown to combat the coronavirus outbreak.

The petition filed by Nagreeka Exports Limited, engaged in manufacture and export of cotton yarns, fabric and textiles, stated in its plea that because of stoppage of operations since the lockdown began on March 25, it has suffered losses to the tune of Rs 1.50 crore till the filing of the plea.

"On top of that, as per the said orders dated March 29, 2020 and March 31, 2020, petitioner had to disburse full salaries to all its employees on its payroll, which amounts to approximately Rs 1.75 crore," the petition said.

The plea has challenged the constitutional validity of the Government Order dated March 29, 2020 issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs only to limited extent being that "all the employers, be it in the industry or in the shops and commercial establishments, shall make payment of wages of their workers, at their work places, on the due date, without any deduction, for the period their establishments are under closure during lockdown period."



It has also challenged subsequent Government Order dated March 31, 2020 issued by the Maharashtra government, only to the limited extent of compelling the petitioner to pay full salary to all its staff, workers, contract workers, casual workers during the period of lockdown, when its factories are not operational.

The petition has sought to adjudicate whether the Centre and the Maharashtra government are empowered to issue direction to private establishment, like the petitioner, to pay 100 per cent wages under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

The textile company said that with the lockdown now being extended, its losses will be multiplied and if it has to follow the government orders in their entirety, its business will become unsustainable.

The orders will have "more far reaching consequences, affecting the livelihood of more people, the plea said.

The plea states that the government orders passed by the MHA and the Maharashtra government are "illegal, unconstitutional" and violative of Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution of India.

The petitioner has asked the Court to set aside both the Centre's order and the order by the Maharashtra government to the extent that payment of full salaries were mandated.

The plea further prays that during the pendency of the plea, the petitioner be allowed to pay only 50 per cent of the salaries to its workers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Private diagnostic laboratories have already approached the respective state governments and the municipalities where they are operating to approve protocols for such testing in clusters, reports Sohini Das.

IMAGE: A doctor collects swab sample of a person at a newly installed walk-in sample kiosk for Covid-19 test at a government-run hospital in Chennai. Photograph: PTI Photo

As cases continue to surge in India even during a nationwide lockdown, plans are afoot to expand the scope of screening potential coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients by reducing expenditure on reagents required to do the tests.

An option to do screening using faecal samples is also being considered.

The idea is to minimise reagent wastage by testing Covid-19-negative patients.

The country's apex health research body, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), has already advised that a new testing strategy be adopted in specific clusters where the 'positivity rate' (percentage of cases turning out to be positive upon testing) is less than 2 per cent.

This approach will help to ration the number of real-time (RT)-PCR kits.

It would also help to conduct more tests quicker. The idea is to use 'pooled samples' to do the initial screening before RT-PCR tests are done on individual cases.

Let's say a cluster has 100 people to be tested. The samples could be divided into groups and a sample containing specimens of multiple people can be run through the PCR system simultaneously.

If the collective sample tests positive, individual samples in that group will be taken up for testing. If the collective sample tests negative, it can be assumed that no one in that group is Covid-19-positive and there is no need to run individual tests.

Such a methodology helps to save reagents used for testing.

A Velumani, chairman of Thyrocare, said, "Reagents comprise around 30 per cent of the test cost."

He felt there can be savings of 70 per cent of the reagent cost when testing in a random population, while when testing in a suspect population, the savings on reagents would be around 20 per cent or so.

The private diagnostic laboratories have already approached the respective state governments and the municipalities where they are operating to approve protocols for such testing in clusters.

Velumani said that Thyrocare and Mumbai's Kasturba Gandhi Hospital are already working on the same and a protocol is in place.

He added that in this case, however, the testing methodology and protocol can be different for different clusters.

"In hotspots, we cannot take large sample pools as we cannot afford dilution," said Velumani.

Executives at private labs feel this is one of the best ways to expand testing into the hinterland.

"In a village of a few thousand people, the testing can be done on sample pools of 15-20 people or more. This would save time and cost of tests," said an executive at a private diagnostic chain.

The ICMR, on its part, has suggested that pooling of samples of more than five people should be avoided, as there is a possibility that the effect of dilution will lead to false negatives.

In simpler terms, positive samples with low viral load can be missed out if the sample pool is more than five. The ICMR has tested this method at its labs in Lucknow.

Another method of testing the government is considering is faecal screening. Several studies done globally have indicated that testing excrement can help detect Covid-19 in patients much before they show symptoms.

Researchers in Australia and the Netherlands, for example, have found that people infected with the virus start excreting traces of Covid-19 almost a week before their flu-like symptoms emerged.

An industry source said the government is considering the same as a screening tool here.

"Testing from sewage samples of housing colonies can be done. The sewage samples from each building in a housing colony can be tested. The pooled sample testing can be done for people living in the identified building," explained an industry official.

In cities like Mumbai which have been badly hit, such a screening is likely to be implemented soon, as the government runs dry of test kits and reagents.
Venice Canals in 2019, left, and 2020, right

European Space Agency

Satellite images released by the European Space Agency show a change in Venice's canals from 2019 to 2020.

The photo from April 19, 2019, shows the tourist hot spot's canals filled with boats.

The photo from April 13, 2020, shows Venice's waters are a darker blue, and the canals are less trafficked.

The change is likely because of Italy's coronavirus lockdown that went into effect in March to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Less boat traffic during the lockdown has allowed sediment to settle at the bottom of the waterways.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Satellite images released by the European Space Agency show how clear Venice's canals have become since the city went under lockdown amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The ESA released images of Venice on Tuesday taken by Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission  one from April 19, 2019 and another from April 12, 2020 for comparison.

The Grand Canal and the Giudecca Channel appear nearly empty in the 2020 photo, compared to the year prior, where boats filled the waterways. Further from the islands, Venice's waters appear to be a darker blue hue this year.

Italy announced a country-wide lockdown in March, to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The country, which is one of the hardest-hit in the world, has faced 168,941 COVID-19 cases, and 22,170 people have died from the virus.

Venice lagoons after in 2020, top, an 2019, bottom.

European Space Agency

Venice is usually a highly-trafficked tourist location in the spring, but since going under lockdown, the city has been quiet. The lockdown drastically reduced movement on the area's waterways, which are usually filled with gondolas, water taxis, and cruise ships.

According to the Italian news agency, ANSA, Venice was almost empty over Easter.

In March, residents started sharing photos of the clear canals, saying were seeing fish, seaweed, and swans on the waterways.

Here's what the canals looked like in December 2019, before the the coronavirus lockdown went into effect:

Story continues

A group of scuba divers from Venice's gondolier association collect waste from the lagoon city's canals as part of a clean-up operation in Venice in December 2019.

REUTERS/Manuel Silvestri

Here's what the waterways looked like in March 2020, just weeks into the coronavirus lockdown:

A general view shows clear waters of the Grand Canal near the Rialto Bridge in Venice on March 18, 2020, as a result of the stoppage of motorboat traffic, following the country's lockdown within the new coronavirus crisis.

ANDREA PATTARO/AFP via Getty Images

The office of Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro told CNN in March that less traffic on the waterways drastically altered the color of the water in the canals, likely because sediment has finally been able to settle.

"The water now looks clearer because there is less traffic on the canals, allowing the sediment to stay at the bottom," a spokesman said. "It's because there is less boat traffic that usually brings sediment to the top of the water's surface."

The spokesman said the air quality has increased, too, thanks to fewer motorboats on the canals.

According to the ESA, the lockdown has helped improve air quality across Europe.

Read the original article on Insider
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 11:57:35|Editor: Lu Hui

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BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- "Hunting," a TV drama spotlighting Chinese police officers for economic crime investigations, has been well-received by audiences in China since its Tuesday release via TV channels and online platforms.

Co-produced by the economic crime investigation bureau of China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the action drama follows a multi-year-long police manhunt for fugitive criminals fleeing overseas.

The show made it into the top five on the Maoyan daily TV drama online popularity rank from Wednesday through Friday and currently boasts a score of 8.0 out of 10 on review platform Douban based on more than 10,000 reviews.

It stars Wang Kai as a police officer who grows to be an outstanding economic crime investigator and helps bring home the boss of a criminal group from overseas.

The cast also includes popular actress Wang Ou and actor Hu Jun. Much of the shooting took place in foreign countries.

Focusing on economic crime investigation police, a type of police officers that is less known to the public, "Hunting" depicts their daily work and life and their pursuit after fugitives hiding overseas, said Liu Xin, the drama's director.

The show's Chinese name translates to "Fox Hunting," which is also the name of an operation launched by the MPS in 2014 to target economic crime suspects fleeing overseas. Enditem
People who took part in the funeral of the chief of staff to President Buhari, Abba Kyari, will be isolated, the federal capital territory authorities have said.

The acting secretary of the FCT health secretariat, Mohammed Kawu, said workers at the cemetery had been identified and will be isolated and tested for coronavirus.

This comes amidst outrage over the disregard for social distancing and other health advisories at Mr Kyaris funeral on Saturday.

The announcement also followed a trending video showing one of the burial attendants taking off his protective gear and disposing of it indiscriminately.

The video posted on Twitter showed the unidentified middle-aged man throwing glances around the vicinity, apparently to be sure nobody was in sight, as he slowly pulled off his coverall near the cemeterys perimeter fence. He left the coverall on the ground, entered his SUV and drove away.

Experts say the carelessly discarded coverall could help spread the coronavirus if picked up and probably taken home by some ignorant persons.

The PPE, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), should always be removed under the guidance and supervision of a trained observer (colleague) and properly disposed of in infectious waste containers.

In a 43-second video sent to PREMIUM TIMES, Mr Kawu said all those who were active at Mr Kyaris burial had been identified and will be isolated and tested.

I also saw the video trending. I promptly contacted the department of health secretariat. They have gone there and taken the bag of the PPEs and disposed it professionally, Mr Kawu said.

The gentlemen that are working in the cemetery have been identified and we are going to follow them up, isolate them, test them and do what is right so that they wont infect other people, he said.

A senior official of the FCT also confirmed this to PREMIUM TIMES.

He said 11 persons who participated in the burial have been identified and will be isolated tomorrow.

Please lets encourage people to remain calm. A breach has happened but we are on top of it.

The official also frowned at the presidential aides who announced the funeral arrangement as he said standard protocols do not provide for an elaborate funeral.

What the recommendation is is for five persons to prayer over the body which should be inside a vehicle, he said.

Mr Kyari died on Friday at a private hospital in Lagos, about four weeks after he was confirmed positive for COVID-19 after he returned from a trip to Germany.

He was buried at the military cemetery in Abujas Gudu neighbourhood.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 09:54:54|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- China's postal industry registered higher revenue and business volume in the first quarter despite impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, official data showed.

From January to March, the business revenue of the sector totaled 219.22 billion yuan (about 31.18 billion U.S. dollars), up 0.8 percent year on year, according to a statement released by the State Post Bureau.

Business volume expanded 7.5 percent from the same period last year to 347.59 billion yuan in Q1, the statement said.

In March alone, business revenue and business volume of the sector jumped 13.4 percent and 23.8 percent, respectively.

During the same month, China's express delivery firms handled 5.98 billion parcels, up 23 percent from one year earlier, with their business revenue surging 12.3 percent year on year to 66.91 billion yuan.

The total revenue achieved by the express delivery firms reached 153.4 billion yuan, down 0.6 percent from a year ago, the statement added. Enditem
There was also, I dreamed of demons laughing at me. He feared he was going to hell. Sometimes he told me, I wasn't a good father. I wasn't a good father. I'm sorry. He was losing faith in his survival. That made me feel useless that my caregiving was never enough.

Yet, my father insisted I list caregiving on my resume. Caroline, you must put that. You have to tell people you took care of me. He knew I was at the age where college applications and career prospects were urgent. He wanted my caregiving position to secure me in the future.

How do I put on my resume that I witnessed how deep the pain and shame wore and tore at his soul? Insurance paid over $2 million for the medical bills. He apologized that I had to see him like that, apologized for being my burden.

He never wanted to be a victim of anything. He survived the communists of the Vietnam War, he survived the racists in his childhood when he moved to America. He believed in hard work, pushed me to become valedictorian (I never became one). He was miserable that he never matched up to the glorified image of the fighter, the one who could beat the disease.

But the truth is, many patients never overcome and have no control. He didn't have control. I had little control. My task was to make his circumstances less discomforting, whether it was boiling him pasta or bringing him water.

By the end days, he did have a nurse, which freed me from the labor. The nurse grimaced as she watched me and my brother hold my father's hand when his coherent words faded into agonized groans. I remember the nurse's pouty expression as she watched. I realized that even a professional has it hard.

At age 44, Vu Cao passed away, surrounded by his sisters and holding my hand. My last act of caregiving was reading him a book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, since he never finished the Harry Potter series.

Despite his insistence, I never put caregiving on my resume. I didn't feel worthy of it. I never felt the need to bring up caregiving at a job interview, save for the one time I applied to be a medical scribenot out of interest in the medical field but out of need for money.

I said to the interviewer: It should be known I was a caregiver for my father when he was dying of liver cancer. I was terminated within five days of floor training as a scribe. The chief scribe told me, You regressed on your fifth day. We must part ways. I could see my father's disappointment.

I could have done more. That's the painful echo. I can hear his walker screeching across the floor, flinching up at every imagined squeak. Could I have done more as Daddy's caregiver?

Sometimes my best isn't even enough. No matter if you know you did your best, you'll still feel disappointed. What did caregiving teach me? Did it prepare me for hardships in life? Would I end up caregiving for my mother if she were to grow infirm?

I think about how I read to him, how I baked pies for him. I can conclude: Caregiving for my father made his end less painful, even if I'm left with memories that eat me away.

This story is a winning essay from the AARP and AAJA Caregiving Contest. Learn about the contest and the other winners >>
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Provided by Covenant Health Plainview

Covenant Health Plainview is happy to welcome Michael Lara as the hospitals new overnight security officer. Originally from Plainview, Lara has spent the last two years working as a security officer at the Covenant Medical Center in Lubbock. Before that, Lara was a lieutenant with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and served 22 years before retiring from the Plainview units. Lara is a licensed security officer and will work overnight providing security throughout the facility. Lara is the first member in Covenant Health Plainview's effort to grow its campus security team.
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Linkedin Robert Burnson (Bloomberg) Washington, United States  Sat, April 18, 2020 10:45 634 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2acb00 2 World Twitter,transparency,FBI,lawsuit Free

Twitter lost its six-year legal battle to let the public know exactly how many requests it received from the FBI to snoop on private user accounts.

A federal judge said Friday the government convinced her that granting the request would be likely to lead to grave or imminent harm to the national security.

Twitter broke ranks with other large internet companies, including Facebook and Google in 2014 when it balked at the governments order that it only reveal the number of national security letters -- basically search warrants -- in aggregate numbers of 1,000.It sued to be allowed to publish the precise number as part of a planned transparency report and argued that being prohibited from doing so violated its free speech rights.

After years of litigation that spanned the tenures of four US attorneys general -- Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Jeff Sessions and William Barr -- US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers granted the governments request to dismiss the lawsuit.

She wrote in an 11-page ruling that the Justice Department had shown  in part through the use of confidential declarations  that releasing the precise number of national security letters from 2014  which is what Twitter wanted to do  posed a national security risk.

Topics : Twitter transparency FBI lawsuit
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18)  Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III disclosed Saturday that his sister died of the coronavirus disease after more than three weeks in the hospital.

In an online Laging Handa media briefing, Bello said Catherine was admitted on March 25, and that "she was about to recover, I don't know kung anong nangyari, nagrelapse."

"Then just this morning we received the news that my sister, my favorite, dear sister, Cathy already left us," he said, adding that she was "the first to die among ten children."

Communications Secretary Martin Andanar and Undersecretary Rocky Ignacio expressed their condolences and thanked the Labor chief for joining the virtual briefing despite his loss.

Nationwide, the number of coronavirus disease cases rose to 5,878 on Friday, with 387 deaths and 487 recoveries.

The country has a case fatality rate of 6.6 percent, the Department of Health said. This is slightly higher than the global average of 6.4 percent. The agency said most of the deaths are 50 years old and above.
Andrew Harnik, STF / Associated Press

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, had some choice words for President Donald Trump over a political advertisement that was tweeted out by a Twitter account managed by the Trump campaign.

In the meme-like ad, two alleged MS-13 gang members are photographed next to verbiage saying they are supporting Trump's likely democratic opponent Joe Biden for not deporting them.
As much as four percent of California's population may have already been infected with coronavirus, results of antibody testing there suggest.

Scientists from Stanford University developed an antibody test for coronavirus, which detects when someone has already been infected and their body has produced immune cells that may offer protection against reinfection.

They found that between 2.5 and 5.2 percent of the people they tested were positive for antibodies.

That would mean that far more people have caught coronavirus than are accounted for in the state's official tally which, at 28,324 cases as of Friday, comes to about .07 percent of the stat's population.

However, questions remain about the accuracy of antibody tests, as well as whether the sample of people recruited to the study via online ads might draw 'random' test volunteers who suspect they've been infected.

Stanford University scientists used the antibody test developed in their lab (pictured) to screen 3,300 Californians for possible coronavirus immunity. About 4% were positive

The Stanford team has developed the equivalent of a highly 'accurate' test, in immunological terms.

According to their validation process, the test is between 95 and 100% specific - meaning that it's excellent at detecting antibodies developed in response to the virus that causes COVID-19, and only that virus.

The odds that it would falsely identify someone as having coronavirus when they actually have a different infection, are slim.

It's about 80 percent sensitive, the researching heading up the work, Dr Eran Bendavid, told DailyMail.com.

That means that 80 percent of the time that the blood of someone confirmed to have coronavirus is run through the test, it identifies the antibodies.

Despite the 20 percent of people that suggests it might miss, these pair of measures make it a relatively good test, compared to others and under the difficult circumstances of making a test for antibodies for a virus we know so little about.

Dr Bendavid and his team tested about 3,3000 people in Santa Clara, California.

The test analyzes a drop of blood taken from a finger-prick, which is placed on a paper strip with lines of antibodies combined with another element - often gold - along it.

Scientists across the US, from California to Massachusetts (pictured) are rolling out antibody blood tests to screen Americans for possible coronavirus immunity using a finger prick

If someone has developed antibodies for coronavirus, their blood will react with the strips along the paper, making their colors change.

As of Friday, about 1,800 people in Santa Clara had tested positive for coronavirus, according to data from tracker 1point3acres.com.

But if the Stanford testing is an indicator of the infection rate, any where between 48,000 and 81,000 people there might have already caught coronavirus.

Scientists in the US and around the world widely agree: coronavirus cases are almost certainly undercounted.

However, the results of the Stanford study must be interpreted with caution.

For one, someone who suspects they've had coronavirus might be more likely to respond to an online ad for getting tested than someone who doesn't think they've contracted the virus, Dr John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston's Children's Hospital told ABC News.

Although lab tests suggest that Stanford's antibody test is fairly reliable, relatively little is known about the coronavirus or the antibodies humans make in response to it, and only the results of much broader antibody testing will give a clear picture of how well they're really working, paradoxically.

Plus, even if a test was 100 percent specific and sensitive - correctly identifying antibodies against the virus in every single person who had had contracted it - we don't yet know what, if any, protection those antibodies provide.

Lab studies suggest people develop antibodies against the virus within a couple of weeks, and that these last a couple of weeks.

But we don't know yet what level of antibodies is necessary to offer immunity, and the duration of that immunity can't be measured until enough people are identified as having antibodies and tracked of the course of weeks, months or even years.

Dr Bendavid told DailyMail.com that he and his team would counsel anyone they tested about the ambiguity of the results.

Government officials have touted antibody testing as the key to getting Americans - at least those who have been infected and developed some immunity - back to work.

On a positive note, if Dr Bendavid and his team's study is representative of the larger US, and antibodies do prove to confer robust immunity, many Americans may soon be safe to go back to work.

But on the other hand, Dr Bendavid told ABC News their data also suggest that some 95 percent of the population still are not protected from coronavirus.

Regardless, the more people tested by researchers like Stanford's, the more quickly scientists and policy makers will have answers to desperately awaited questions about the pandemic.
Coronavirus cases in Haryana rose to 227 on Saturday as worst-hit Nuh and Palwal together reported three fresh cases.

The cumulative positive cases in the state include those of 24 infected foreigners.

The total active Covid-19 patients in the state were 137, the state health department's daily bulletin said, adding the total positive cases discharged so far are 88.

The state has so far recorded two Covid-related deaths.

Among the fresh cases, Nuh has reported one and Palwal two.

Another case was reported from Panchkula which has seen a surge after nine members of a family earlier tested positive.

The worst-affected districts of the state with maximum number of positive cases are Nuh (57), Faridabad (33), Gurugram (32) and Palwal (32).

Panchkula district has reported 17 coronavirus cases.

As many as 8,971 samples have been tested so far, out of which 7,223 have tested negative. However, test reports for 1,535 samples are awaited.

Among the 24 infected foreign nationals, 14 were Italian tourists. Thirteen of them were discharged later while an elderly woman of the group passed away recently despite recovering from the Covid infection.

The ten other infected foreigners are from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, South Africa and Indonesia.

Sixty-four other patients are from other states, as per the bulletin.

Health Minister Anil Vij on Saturday praised doctors, nurses and paramedical staff who are in the frontline of battle against coronavirus.

It is heartening to know that majority of the coronavirus patients are making a good recovery and only one has needed oxygen support. The efforts being made by doctors, nurses and paramedical staff are commendable. They are giving their best in these times of crisis, said Vij.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
 Flash

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Zimbabwean counterpart, Emmerson Mnangagwa, exchanged congratulatory messages Saturday on the 40th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relations, vowing to further cement the partnership between their countries.





Over the past four decades, Xi pointed out, China and Zimbabwe have always adhered to mutual trust and mutual support, and their relationship has withstood the test of time and the vicissitudes of the international situation.





Noting that he and Mnangagwa have reached important consensuses on establishing and developing the China-Zimbabwe comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, Xi said he attaches great importance to bilateral ties and stands ready to work with his Zimbabwean counterpart to take the 40th anniversary as an opportunity to push for more progress.





He suggested that the two sides jointly promote the development of the Belt and Road, synergize the implementation of the outcomes of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the realization of Zimbabwe's "Vision 2030," expand practical cooperation in various fields, and offer each other stronger support on issues involving their respective core interests and major concerns.





Under current circumstances, China stands ready to boost cooperation with Zimbabwe to overcome the ongoing challenge of the COVID-19 epidemic, added the Chinese president.





Mnangagwa, for his part, said that the past 40 years have demonstrated that sincerity, solidarity, mutual benefit and mutual trust are the prominent features of the brotherly friendship and high-level relationship between the two countries.





Zimbabwe is steadfast to the one-China policy and keen on Belt and Road cooperation, he said, adding that the Zimbabwean side will continue to resolutely push for deeper development of the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries.





In face of the grave challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zimbabwe is willing to strengthen solidarity and mutual support with China and jointly cope with the effects of the coronavirus disease on bilateral cooperation.




Three Alabama state prison inmates have tested positive for COVID-19, the first to do so since the pandemic began, and one of them has died.

Department of Corrections officials on Friday night announced the positive test results. Two of the inmates were incarcerated at the St. Clair County Correctional Facility in Springville and the other at Bullock County Correctional Facility in Union Springs, said spokeswoman Samantha Rose.

Inmate Dave Thomas, a 66-year-old terminally ill man serving a life sentence for murder out of Randolph County, died Thursday. Rose said Thomas on April 4 had been transferred to a local hospital from St. Clair to receive care for critical pre-existing conditions. He died, presumably from a cardiovascular event, 24 hours after he tested positive for COVID-19, Rose said. Thomas exact cause of death is pending an autopsy, she said. The ADOC extends its sympathies to the Thomas family and his loved ones during this difficult time affecting so many across the world.

The second inmate who tested positive for COVID-19 at St. Clair is a 52-year-old man serving a 17-year sentence for manslaughter. He has been transferred to a local hospital for treatment. The inmate who tested positive at Bullock, a 33-year-old serving a 10-year sentence for theft of property, is being treated and carefully monitored by his physicians.

Immediately following confirmation of the positive tests among ADOCs inmate population at St. Clair and Bullock, a rapid response team was deployed to interview and follow up with staff and inmates who may have had direct, prolonged exposure to the positively tested inmates, Rose said.

ADOCs Office of Health Services consulted with Wexford Health Sources state medical director and proceeded to quarantine a group of inmates out of one dormitory at St. Clair and quarantine an entire dormitory at Bullock. The dedicated quarantine zones at each of these facilities are fully operational.

Correctional staff and quarantined inmates at St. Clair and Bullock have been provided necessary guidance and health education, as well as appropriate referrals to the Alabama Department of Public Health and other healthcare providers in the event they become symptomatic.

In addition to the numerous, system-wide preventative and precautionary measures instituted to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our facilities, the ADOC has been aggressively preparing for this day, which was an inevitability based on what we are seeing across the country and world, said ADOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn. Weve planned extensively, weve trained thoroughly, and now we are activating the containment strategies outlined in our Pandemic COOP to slow the spread of this virus and ensure we continue to protect all those who live and work in our facilities to the best of our ability.

The ADOC continues to distribute face masks across the correctional system to staff and inmates and anticipates by April 24 each inmate will have two masks. We intend to continue production of face masks at our factory plants at Holman Correctional Facility and Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women until all inmates have been provided a total of four, Rose said. We are continuing to source additional hygiene supplies and work with advocacy groups to obtain more hand sanitizer, among other needed items. Inmates also currently have access to liquid antibacterial soap. 

Rose said the ADOC will continue the implementation of all current preventative measures, and will consider all new recommended guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other state and federal agencies as the COVID-19 situation evolves.
Catherine Herridge confirmed recently that the FBI ignored warnings that the primary evidence used in securing a FISA warrant against Carter Page, Christophers Steeles dossier, is unreliable Russian disinformation. Herridge is as fine an investigative reporter as they come, but my gut reaction was, Havent we known that for years now?

Then reality smacked me in the face, and I remembered: were still pretending as a country that Barack Obamas FBI and CIA didnt work with Fusion GPS, Hillary Clinton, and the Democrat party to frame Donald Trump as an agent of the Russian government.

I suppose the longer the attempted coup against the president has endured, the easier it is to forget that the U.S. government has done everything in its power to cover up the criminality of its intelligence agencies and preferred political players, while obfuscating the public record with a steady stream of disinformation from the corporate news.

From the points of view of the DC Leviathan and its complicit praetorian press, if there is no signed statement or recorded confession from Obama, Clinton, Brennan, Comey, Lynch, Yates, McCord, McCabe, Nuland, Rice, Strzok, Simpson, Steele, either Ohr, or any of the other countless conspirators involved, then nothing nefarious happened. (Funny how the crimes against Donald Trump require overwhelming intent and evidentiary proof in triplicate form, while every scurrilous allegation against him becomes front page news in the New York Times and is chased down by criminal investigators at every jurisdictional level.)

Away from the Potomac, though, normal Americans have a pretty good idea what transpired during and after the 2016 election, even though the branches of the federal government and all the papers of record pretend not to know a thing.

Sometime before Donald Trump even became the Republican nominee, Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, and the rest of her campaign brain trust planned to neutralize her biggest vulnerabilities: (1) a lifetime of corruption highlighted by Peter Schweizers Clinton Cash, and (2) the risk that some person or entity (like Wikileaks) not under her control would release embarrassing correspondence or incriminating evidence either obtained from her unsecured, compromised email server or from some other long forgotten trove of secrets in her past. They would lay the groundwork to implicate the eventual Republican nominee as a conspirator with a foreign adversary in the theft of her emails, so that she could inoculate herself from the fallout of any damaging revelations contained therein. Pay no attention to the pay-offs and scandals about which youre reading; whats important is that the Republicans have committed Watergate-level political theft in digital form. That was always the plan.

While the Clinton campaign and the Democrat party (whose finances Hillary contractually controlled) used Perkins Coie as a cut-out to hire Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS to begin seeding disinformation that would evolve into the Steele Dossier and be used against the eventual Republican nominee, Obamas government was conducting a parallel counterintelligence operation. Their goal was to use confidential sources and spies (like Joseph Mifsud, Stefan Halper, and Alexander Downer) to entice and coax low-level and naive Trump campaign associates (first, George Papadopoulos and then, Carter Page) into painting Donald Trump as a witting or unwitting agent of a hostile foreign power (eventually settling on Russia) and triggering a full-blown counterintelligence operation and broad FISA Section 702 warrantless surveillance of his campaign, so that either (1) the Republican nominee would be caught up in some to-be-determined criminality or so tarnished with the appearance of impropriety that he was permanently damaged and unelectable before voting ever commenced; or that, at the very least, (2) Hillarys liabilities could be blunted by recasting any unexpected revelations from her past as part of a campaign of foreign espionage against her candidacy. That was always the plan.

The shared goals of Clintons campaign and Obamas intelligence agencies were to (1) create compelling disinformation against Donald Trump, (2) utilize political surveillance to their advantage, and (3) create plausible counterintelligence pretenses as part of the cover up of their illicit operations. In this way, the mainstream press has always told the story backwards, that it was never Russia using disinformation to interfere in Americas 2016 election.

It was Hillarys campaign and Obamas CIA and FBI that fabricated a Russian conspiracy theory in order to justify their political spying and eventually cover their tracks. This is why Robert Mueller spent two years and over thirty million dollars investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and never once scrutinized whether the Steele Dossier was explicitly based on Russian disinformation. That was always the plan.

Caricature by Donkey Hotey

Christopher Steele and Nellie Ohr and Glenn Simpson at Fusion GPS all worked for Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and likely used his phony kompromat in return for working to weaken or overturn the Magnitsky Acts sanctions against wealthy Russian nationals and the freezing of their substantial assets. This is the same Deripaska that McCabe solicited for incriminating information on Paul Manafort and candidate Trump. And this made-up kompromat is what Brennan fed to his assets in Europe (Mifsud, Halper, and Downer) to dangle repeatedly before Papadopoulos and Page.

In fact, it is entirely likely that we will one day learn that Brennan, Lynch, and Comey used similar operations to ensnare General Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort, too. If we still lived in a country with due process and without secret Star Chambers, we would probably discover that far from Carter Page alone being caught up in FISA Court abuses, Flynn, Manafort, Papadopoulos, and others were also illegally targeted. Since the feds couldnt find anything with which to criminally indict these men except for an odious and bogus Section 1001 making false statements charge (in the cases of Flynn and Papadopoulos) and a decade-old tax-dodging complaint (for Manafort), its safe to bet that Brennan and Fusion GPS-created propaganda, and not blind, disinterested application of the law, led the Department of Justice to pursue Americans for purely political purposes.

In the end, this American-made Russian disinformation has caught almost everyone in its web. Consider just how much of DC ended up taking part in the lie.

Brennan and the CIA constructed fake Russian spy rings throughout Europe;

Nellie Ohr passed this same imaginary Russian intel to her husband, Bruce, and the FBI;

Lynch, Comey, and McCabe used this elaborate but fake Russian conspiracy to file fraudulent FISA applications and pursue Section 702 bulk surveillance on anyone and everyone who ever worked near or for Donald Trump;

Robert Mueller used all this American-made kompromat to bully Trump campaign associates into accepting unethical plea deals, while hiding real Russian collusion by the Clinton campaign;

Senator Feinstein repeatedly covered for Fusion GPSs perjury by leaking confidential transcripts, while her former intelligence staffer, Daniel Jones, worked to raise funds for Fusion GPSs defense and continued counterintelligence operations against President Trump;

Richard Burr joined Mark Warner on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to give our intelligence agencies cover by justifying their illegal spying on a domestic political campaign;

Adam Schiff spent the last four years doing the Russians bidding by further dividing the country with reckless and wholesale lies that the sitting president is a Russian agent; and

the whole apparatus of the American press spun this fantastic tail of Russian collusion, while giving each other First Amendment prizes for their bravery, acumen, and Jayson Blair-like persistence.

Only in Obamas America could a hoax as fraudulent and unsubstantial as this one come to fruition.

And after everything, we are left with only one final damning question: were Donald Trump and his associates the only people in Washington not to engage in Russian collusion?

H/t: C. Herridge, L. Smith, S. Davis, M. Cleveland, J. Dunleavy, J. Carlson, C. Ross, P. Schweizer, D. Bongino, G. Jarrett, M. Hemingway, Sundance, and all the other real truth tellers.
Shutdown of economy may cause more harm than COVID-19, Dr. Phil says

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The shutdown of the economy could cause more poverty and mental health-related destruction than the new coronavirus that originated in China, according to television personality Dr. Phil McGraw.

In an interview with Fox News opinion host Laura Ingraham Thursday night, McGraw noted that many other factors contribute to large numbers of fatalities every year but the nation doesn't go on lockdown.

This is invisible. I cant show you an X-ray of depression, I cant show you an X-ray of anxiety, but the fact of the matter is, the longer this lockdown goes on the more vulnerable people get, and its like theres a tipping point, McGraw said.

Theres a point at which people start having enough problems in lockdown that it will actually create more destruction and actually more death across time than the actual virus will itself. Two-hundred-and-fifty people a year die from poverty. And the poverty line is getting such that more and more people are going to fall below that because the economy is crashing around us, and theyre doing that because people are dying from the coronavirus, I get that.

His comments come as the White House sets in motion its multiphase plans to reopen the economy after weeks of being shut down, except for services states have deemed "essential."

McGraw went on to explain that approximately 45,000 people die from car accidents annually, about 480,000 die from cigarette smoking, around 360,000 a year from drowning in swimming pools, yet the economy is never shuttered for any of those reasons. But the actions taken because of COVID-19 will have long-lasting repercussions because peoples lives are being destroyed, he said.

While McGraws stats on smoking deaths in the U.S. were accurate and his numbers were close on fatalities caused by car accidents, his numbers were significantly off regarding drowning, The Daily Wire noted. Deaths in the U.S. caused by drowning in swimming pools is only around 3,500 per year, not 360,000. However, drowning accidents are the cause of some 320,000 deaths worldwide annually, according to the World Health Organization.

Critics of McGraw took to social media to both point out the incorrect number of drowning deaths and to argue that his words were not responsible, especially given that none of the causes of deaths he mentioned are transmissible and spread quickly like the COVID-19 disease and was thus a faulty comparison. Others also pointed out that he is not a medical doctor.

McGraw wasn't the only television personality to stir controversy on Fox News Thursday night.

Dr. Mehmet Oz of "The Dr. Oz Show" has also been sharing health advice since the pandemic broke out, advising Americans to increase their personal hygiene practices and take practical precautions when in public and before entering the house after going to the grocery store or picking up take-out meals.

He told Fox News opinion host Sean Hannity that at this point in time he believes schools ought to consider reopening, citing a journal article in the Lancet which asserts that doing so might only lead to 2% to 3%, in terms of total mortality. However, amid a flurry of online criticism, Oz apologized for his remark, saying he misspoke.

Both McGraw and Oz rose to prominence and have become household names as a result of their years spent alongside Oprah Winfrey on her television show.
DUBAI (Reuters) - Dubai, the United Arab Emirate's business hub, has extended a 24-hours-a-day curfew imposed as part of a sterilisation drive to control the spread of the coronavirus by a week, the government said in a Twitter post on Friday.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Dubai, the United Arab Emirate's business hub, has extended a 24-hours-a-day curfew imposed as part of a sterilisation drive to control the spread of the coronavirus by a week, the government said in a Twitter post on Friday.

The UAE has imposed a nationwide nightly curfew since March 26 for the disinfection campaign, but Dubai on April 4 expanded it within the emirate to a 24-hour lockdown for two weeks.

The country on Thursday reported 460 new cases and two more deaths from the virus, taking its tally to 5,825 with 35 deaths. It does not give a breakdown for each of the seven emirates.

The Emirates Red Crescent humanitarian organisation will "foster and care for" the families of those who have died in the UAE from the COVID-19 lung disease caused by the virus, the federal government said in a Twitter post on Friday.

The UAE has the second-highest infection count after its much larger neighbour, Saudi Arabia, among the six Gulf Arab states, where the total infection count has surpassed 22,000, with more than 140 deaths.

Saudi Arabia has installed thermal cameras to monitor the body temperature of the limited number of worshippers allowed to enter the Prophets Mosque in Medina, media said.

Gulf states have taken drastic containment measures but seen a spread among low-income migrant workers living in cramped quarters. Several countries have offered free testing to foreign workers, who make up the bulk of the labour force, and taken steps to rehouse thousands in schools or dedicated centres.

Qatar, which has locked down part of an industrial zone where many migrant workers live and work, on Friday announced 560 new cases, mostly among expatriate workers quarantined due to exposure to COVID-19 cases.

(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell, Lisa Barrington, Marwa Rashad and Hesham Abdul Khalek; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Nick Macfie)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
KAMPALA  A group of human rights activists in Africa have called on African Union to conduct an independent Investigation into xenophobic attacks inflicted on Africans in China.

Through their continental body, African Defenders, with Chapter Four representing Uganda, the team addressed their letter to Moussa Faki, The Chairperson, African Union Commission.

The team welcomed such condemnation statements from the African governments, but argued that there is a need to transform these statements into practical action that puts an end to the horrendous dehumanisation of Africans in China.

The team noted, We now urge your good offices and African leaders to demand a full and independent investigation into the violations and immediate remedial action is taken. At the very least, we believe that the spirit of solidarity and partnership demands that China apologises and makes good the grave offence to the African Peoples. We believe that China understands that we, as African people, deserve respect and equal treatment.

The Human Rights activists accused Chinese authorities of allegedly forcefully testing, quarantining and inhumanely treating African people in Guangdong Province, with the discrimination and stigmatisation of Africans involving forcing Africans to undergo epidemic investigation and Nucleic Acid Test forcefully.

Africans are also subjected to fourteen (14) days quarantine even if they have not travelled outside their jurisdictions or come into contact with infected persons, or had close contact or showing any symptoms of the COVID-19, describing such treatment as violation of international human rights laws and principles.

It is inhuman and against all principles of dignity and shared humanity that should ideally guide China-Africa relations. Singling out only Africans is a xenophobic and racist act. Africas strong cooperation economic ties with China, should not thrive at the cost of human rights and human dignity, read in part the statement.

The activists added that the despicable events and other recurrent complaints regarding illicit activities by Chinese businesses in Africa, call for the framework of cooperation to establish clear standards of mutual accountability and must be formulated with active participation of African citizens.

We believe that without strong mutual accountability frameworks, the message of solidarity preached by China towards Africans, will ring hollow. The participation of African people in defining the framework of partnership will ensure that going forward China-Africa partnership has a human face and is reflected in Chinese business conduct in Africa, the statement read in part.

The team argued that if the framework is put in place, it will address the imbalance in trade; ballooning debt; restrain dumping of inferior quality goods by strengthening standards monitoring and control illicit financial outflows and corrupt practices by Chinese businesses operating in Africa.

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Two men were seriously injured when the car they were in crossed into the opposite lanes of traffic, left the road and hit an embankment in Seneca County on Thursday, according to New York State Police.

Nicholas Roof, 29, of Geneva, and Aden Blevins, 32, of Seneca Falls, were each ejected from the car, police said.

Troopers responded to the crash at 9:50 p.m. on Thursday night, police said. They found that the car Roof had been driving westbound on West River Road in Fayette crossed into the eastbound lanes and hit an embankment, police said.

Roof and Blevins were taken to Strong Hospital, where they are currently being treated.

Police are still investigating the crash.

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Chris Libonati via the Signal app for encrypted messaging at 585-290-0718, by phone at the same number, by email or on Twitter.
April 18, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - President Trump this week said no-one believes Chinas official figures on Covid-19 casualties. Along with his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump accused Beijing of a cover-up on the scale of the disease.

Almost in the same breath, the White House has also accused the World Health Organization of colluding with China in deceiving other nations about the pandemic danger. To supposedly prove his point, Trump cut off US funding to the WHO.

China has slammed claims of it conducting a cover-up, saying it provided early warning to the rest of the world about the deadly outbreak.

Part of Trumps skepticism towards Chinas data appears to stem from the countrys relatively low numbers of infection cases and deaths. This week, Chinas infection cases were about 82,000 while its deaths numbered over 4,000. That was after an upward revision on earlier data concerning the city of Wuhan where the new coronavirus disease erupted in December. Beijing says such revision is normal practice by all countries as mortality information is gathered. In Britain, for example, it is reckoned that deaths have so far been greatly underestimated due to lack of counting deceased in elderly care homes. Is anyone accusing the British government of a cover-up?

In any case, what seems to be bothering The Donald and other Western leaders is just how low Chinas pandemic figures are by comparison with their own.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

In the US this week, the infection cases and death toll are upwards of 700,000 and 34,000, according to this global counter. Thats massively greater than figures in China. Likewise the casualty rates in Italy, Spain, France and Britain are way out ahead of what China has reported.

That huge disparity has led Western politicians to accuse China of a cover-up or at least not coming fully clean with evidence. Because to reflect on the enormously discrepant figures it otherwise makes the Western countries look extremely bad in their mishandling of the public health crisis. The exploding casualties indicate gross ineptitude and dereliction of public health services (which is correct). In which case, it is politically expedient, and indeed imperative, to find a scapegoat in order to cover-up for the monumental incompetence of Western leaders. Ironically, its not China which is doing the covering up. It is the West and their criminally incompetent governments and their slavish adherence to capitalist priorities. Private profit before people.

The US and President Trump are potentially most acutely exposed for their ineptitude in coping with the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic ripping through American society is down to Trumps callous complacency which was displayed for weeks after both China and the WHO explicitly warned of a public health crisis as far back as the end of January.

The American crisis is also down to the perilously insecure state of American workers living on the edge of financial ruin and an underfunded crumby health care system that puts corporate profit before human need.

Same goes for Britain and many other Western states. The fact is that the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed all their chronic failings to protect public health. Thats why it is imperative for the Western culprits to blame China for allegedly deceiving them into supposedly not being able to make adequate preparations.

The Western inference that Chinas Covid-19 figures are unreliable are contradicted by data from South Korea. It was one of the first countries outside China to be put on alert over the epidemic. But it was early and rapid action by South Koreas government that ensured the impact was kept relatively low. Out of a caseload of 106,000 infections, some 230 South Koreans have died from the disease. Compare that with Britain, where the caseload as of this week is similar, but the death toll stands at over 14,000, two orders of magnitude greater.
-PHOTOS: Documenting COVID-19 in the Pikes Peak region

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis declared Friday that all employees deemed essential and still working during the coronavirus pandemic must wear masks while on the job.

The new executive order mandates that critical employees working in places such as senior care facilities and grocery stores will be required to wear either medical or nonmedical masks.

"We don't want to prolong the pain for everybody else just because some people aren't (wearing masks)," Polis said at his daily news conference.

The governor also announced that long-term care faculties will be required to develop an isolation plan and submit it to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment by May 1.

"We're going to be a lot more focused on compliance and enforcement" at nonhospital senior care facilities, Polis said. "The protocols that we're putting in place are really about providing additional education and training to staff to keep the facility safe."

New protocols included temperature readings, wrist bands that mark approval for entrance and a short questionnaire about symptoms, the governor said.

Here are more updates on what the governor spoke about Friday:

- "We know that facilities that serve seniors are particularly vulnerable," Polis said. The governor added that a recent discussion with the governor of Washington state, a hot spot of the coronavirus, revolved around how Colorado can "step up" to protect the most vulnerable.

- The Colorado National Guard will be deployed to conduct testing at nursing home facilities across the state to help prevent outbreaks, Polis said.

- The state has made the first round of grants in coronavirus relief funds, Polis said.

Colorado received $21 million in grant applications, Polis said. He added that $4.8 million is "going out immediately" to organizations and counties that have applied for it.

-MAP | Coronavirus cases in Colorado

The money will go toward front-line workers impacted by the virus, older Coloradans whose income is jeopardized, homeless populations, tribal governments and others, Polis said.

- Starting Monday, gig workers and independent contractors can begin to apply for unemployment benefits, Polis said.

- The governor addressed recently released racial statistics regarding the coronavirus, and said the state is launching a task force to address "all of the inequities in this COVID-19 crisis."

- Polis reiterated the state's guidelines for outdoor recreation for the upcoming weekend.

He asked that Coloradans wear face masks at parks or trails with other people present, "not out of anxiety or fear, but out of caution."

- "There are more deaths ahead of us than there are behind us,"Polis said.

-The state health department reported Friday that 391 Coloradans have died of the coronavirus, more than 9,000 have tested positive and 1,755 remain hospitalized.

- The governor reiterated that "life will be different" even once the stay-at-home order is lifted.

"We all are excited (for the recovery phase)," Polis said. "Most of you are going to be just fine, but because the mortality rate is so high, that's why we have to take these precautions."

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Candlewood Valley Health and Rehabilitation in New Milford has announced the five winners of its Win a Bunny for Your Grandchild contest.

The contest was promoted on social media via Facebook and community groups, as well as throughout the community in local papers, during the COVID-19 shelter in place.

The winners were asked to share a special memory or story about their grandchild.

The winners are Mary Apodaca, Dale and Bob Hanna, Stephanie McGuire, Stanley Everest and Marjorie Wentworth.

We received nearly 50 emails with a wide spectrum of different stories about grandchildren of all ages, said David Segal, CVHR administrator. Many stories were themed around the virus and were full of hope and love.

This was a way to put a positive spin on Easter since many families will not be able to have their traditional celebrations, said Melissa Marici, community outreach director.

Jo-Ann Durdock, a member of the therapuetic recreation staff, worked with resident Frances Szweda to select the five winners through a raffle system.

Grandparents are the family historians, the memory keepers, said Kathleen Horvath, recreation director. Blest is the grandparent who can see a grandchild grow to be an adult.

Szweda was chosen to help with the contest because she is one of our most active and helpful residents, Horvath said.

Most recently, she organized our library better than most professional librarians would, she said. She is a vital part of our community and has helped us pull throughout.

Heres a sample of one of the beautiful submissions we received:

My little grandson was born on Sept. 19, 2019. He came into the world looking just like my son his Dad but with his Mothers dimples. Cute as can be. My hopes and dreams for this little man is to be the best he can be and for him to grow into a young successful young man like his father. Unfortunately, with whats going on with the virus Im unable to give him real hugs and kisses. I pray that all the children parents and grandparents be safe during this crisis and we soon can give our love and kisses to all our children and grandchildren real soon. Happy Easter everyone. May God watch over each and every one of us especially my little grandson, Michael Paul.

The staff at Candlewood Valley Health & Rehabilitation echoes these sentiments for our residents, many of whom will be missing their grandchildren as well, but whom understand the importance of putting safety first, Segal said.

Admissions Director Georgia Epting emphasized how Candlewood is trying to keep loved ones safe and healthy at this time.

We thank everyone for being so understanding, Epting said. We are keeping families connected by FaceTime and Skype.

Please call to set up a time for you and other family members to see and talk to one another, she suggested. Its the little things that keep us going. We are here for you now more than ever and will continue to give 100 percent every day.
Protesters at state capitols across the country this week expressed their deep frustration with the stay-at-home orders that are meant to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, pushing a message that is rapidly coalescing among the nation's conservatives: reopen the country.

Groups rallied in at least six states this week, and protests are planned in four more in coming days. On Friday, President Donald Trump encouraged protesters in Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia who this week violated stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines to march against Democratic governors.

"LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" Trump tweeted. "LIBERATE MINNESOTA," he continued. "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!"

Trump's tweets come as the right-wing media has amplified the protests and conservative groups have formed plans to jointly press for a reopening of the economy. The groups include several veterans of the tea party era, activism that was powered by a network of right-wing and corporate financiers interested in reducing taxes and regulations on industry.

Protesters railed against policies that call for nonessential businesses and schools to be closed, restaurants limited to carryout service and people to stay largely in their homes except for emergencies. They argue that the nation has sacrificed the economy, with unemployment at record levels, and people have upended their lives for something many do not see as an existential threat to society.

"I think there's a boiling point that has been reached and exceeded," said Stephen Moore, a conservative economist. Moore is a member of both the White House council to reopen the country and a coalition of conservative leaders and activists seeking to push government officials to relax stay-at-home orders.

"I call these people the modern day Rosa Parks - they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties," Moore said of the protesters.

Moore said the protests have been spontaneous and organized at the local level, but he said his group has been offering them advice and legal support should protesters be arrested and prosecuted.

The protests come as governors in Texas, Minnesota and Vermont on Friday announced dates to ease certain restrictions.

In Michigan, hundreds of people clogged traffic in cars or marched in the snow to protest Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, who last week added additional restrictions to the state's stay-at-home order. Protesters waved American flags, Trump flags and an occasional Confederate flag. Many screamed "Lock her up!" and "We will not comply!"

Protest leaders said the demonstrations evolved organically into a collective call for rolling back emergency measures that they think infringe on personal freedoms and further decimate the economy.

"I feel terrible about the lives lost, but at some point we have to say 'mission accomplished' and come up with the next phase of this that doesn't have us continuously locked inside our homes," said Matthew Seely of the Michigan Conservative Coalition, which organized the protests.

Michigan has been one of the states hardest hit by the virus, with more than 30,000 confirmed cases and over 2,200 deaths.

State incorporation records show the nonprofit coalition also goes by another name: Michigan Trump Republicans. The group's president, Rosanne Ponkowski, identified herself as a homemaker last year in federal campaign finance records. But the group's other directors are longtime GOP insiders, according to state records. They include Marian Sheridan, the state Republican Party's vice-chair of "grass roots" efforts.

Sheridan has "worked in Michigan grass roots for the last 10 years" and started her political career as a tea party leader and organizer, according to the state GOP's website.

Sheridan, Ponkowski and the Michigan Republican Party did not respond to messages.

Social media accounts show that part of the group's goal was to damage Whitmer. A day after the protest, the Michigan Trump Republicans posted a conservative opinion writer's column on its Facebook page. The column, which appeared in The Washington Post, asserted that the protest had all but killed Whitmer's chances to be vice president.

"Mission accomplished?" the group wrote above the link to the column.

Nicole Hemmer, a scholar at Columbia University and author of "Messengers of the Right," about the right-wing media, said the anti-government signage and argument that stay-at-home orders infringe on personal liberty hark back to a prior conservative movement.

"In my mind it looks a lot like the tea party," she said. "It almost seems like an excuse for getting out and rallying against politicians they oppose."

Some politicians believe Trump's egging on of the protesters is dangerous.

"The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly and that we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted," Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, said. A protest against his stay-at-home order, which lifts May 5, is scheduled in Olympia this weekend.

Tyler Miller, who organized the Washington state protest, said he is urging attendees to wear personal protective equipment, practice physical distancing and not attend if they are in a high-risk category or feeling sick.

Public health experts have said any premature easing of stay-at-home orders could lead to a second wave of pandemic, erasing the social distancing progress, returning the population to quarantine, deepening the economic turmoil and resulting in more lives lost.

Some said they are protesting mainly because of the severe economic impact caused by the virus. More than 22 million people have filed for unemployment since Trump declared a national emergency last month.

In Ohio, where 100 protesters did not practice social distancing as they pushed up against the glass doors of the statehouse this week, Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, announced he was assembling plans to safely reopen the economy ahead of the expiration of his stay-at-home order May 1. DeWine and Amy Acton, director of the Ohio Department of Health, have said reopening will come in phases.

State Sen. Andrew Brenner, a Republican, said DeWine was right to close schools and businesses early, decisions that Brenner said are bringing the state closer to reopening.

Brenner's district near Columbus is one of the fastest-growing areas of the state. He said the pandemic has wiped out its economic gains.

"People are calling me crying because they've lost their jobs, and the government stimulus checks are not going to keep people going long," Brenner said, adding more people will need government assistance. "The next thing that's going to happen is that revenue needed to maintain vital services, such as education and Medicaid, will plummet."

Business owners in Oklahoma and Ohio have filed lawsuits, bemoaning the economic costs of sheltering in place. In Michigan, Michael Lackomar called a lawyer after a run-in with state troopers.

Lackomar said he and his wife have left their home in the Detroit suburbs for their solitary second home on the shores of Lake Huron. But when Lackomar visited this week, two state troopers pounded on the door.

"You know you're not supposed to be here," Lackomar recalled the trooper saying as he explained Whitmer's new order, which prohibits people from traveling between a primary residence and vacation home. The troopers told the couple to stay put or risk a $1,000 fine or misdemeanor charge.

The interaction led Lackomar to rant on Facebook and then contact a lawyer.

"Sometimes you feel like you have no voice against the big monolithic government," said Lackomar, who is one of several Michigan residents suing Whitmer. "They are trying to contain the infection, but there is a line. I'm sorry, my rights as an individual don't always take a back seat to someone else's fears."

Lackomar's lawyer, David Helm, is arguing in federal court that the government owes his clients compensation because regulations have rendered their properties and businesses useless. The statewide restrictions, he said, violate property and due process rights because most of Michigan's coronavirus cases are limited to two hard-hit counties in metro Detroit.

"The entire state of Michigan is on house arrest. That's a problem," said Helm, who has heard from other firms contemplating class-action suits in Tennessee and Oregon. "We know there is a pandemic and government action needs to take place, but you have to tailor those actions to minimize constitutional infringements. If left unchecked, it can lead to more dramatic regulations down the road. We don't want the governor to be in a position to make precedent here. We want the court to set precedent."

Whitmer's office did not return a request for comment on the lawsuits.

In states including North Carolina, activists are organizing through closed Facebook groups that have grown quickly.

Ashley Smith, the founder of ReOpenNC, believes stay-at-home orders are not the right way to fight the virus.

"We've dropped an atomic bomb on a knife fight," she said. "Yes, there are risks, but the Constitution does not guarantee us a risk-free existence."

Michael Morgan of Westfield, North Carolina, who has been battling cancer for three years, sent the group a private message to try to understand its point of view. He said he was blocked and started his own group: Stay Home N.C. It now also has thousands of members. He does not believe economic concerns should dictate when stay-at-home orders are lifted.

"This has become a battle between money and life. And people really value their money," Morgan said. "I completely understand not being able to pay your bills and the pain of losing a business, but wouldn't you rather be alive? Believe me, we will work through this."

- - -

The Washington Post's David Weigel and Robert Costa in Washington and Gregory Scruggs in Seattle contributed to this report.
Italian military has locked down a nine-storey squat, where 18 people share one toilet, after residents tested positive.

Rome, Italy  Volunteers unload stuffed-full plastic bags from the back of a car while two women from the Horn of Africa wait for their groceries behind the fence of Selam Palace, home to as many as 500 asylum seekers and refugees from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan.

They have been living behind closed doors since April 6, after two coronavirus cases were found inside their nine-storey squat. The army has closed the road to the main entrance, fenced off the whole area, and is patrolling all ways in or out.

We just saw the police coming. Nobody notified us of anything, 40-year-old Eritrean refugee Bereket told Al Jazeera.

Selam Palace is the largest building in Rome to become a squat for refugees and migrants, who struggle to afford the Italian capitals rental costs. Experts estimate there are another 110 occupied buildings in the Eternal City.

The president of the local municipality, Monica Lozzi, confirmed to Al Jazeera that all residents had been tested for coronavirus, and 50 were found to have contracted it.





They are mostly asymptomatic and have already been transferred to other facilities, she said.

Two women with their children have been admitted to a local paediatric hospital, but aid organisations are furious about the way authorities have handled the crisis.

Ive been repeating for years that people cannot live in these conditions. It was crystal clear that this was going to happen, Donatella DAngelo, a family doctor and president of the charity Citizens of the World, told Al Jazeera.

Citizens of the World have been providing a weekly health and social counselling service to the refugees, who first occupied the building in 2006.

Palace of shame

The glass-covered Selam Palace was once an office building belonging to the University of Tor Vergata on the southern outskirts of Rome, surrounded by parking lots and office blocks.

Many occupants spend their days in the courtyard, since the facility cannot cope with the hundreds of people in it.

Overcrowding, a lack of ventilation and of any means to heat and cool these spaces render the environment unhealthy  and a perfect ally in the transmission of COVID-19 [the disease caused by the virus], Dr DAngelo said.

In early 2012, Nils Muiznieks, the then-commissioner for human rights for the Council of Europe, paid a visit here and met its residents. Places such as Selam Palace should not exist, he wrote afterwards.

There is one toilet for every 19 people, and a shower for every 33 people, Citizens of the World reported in 2018. Residents have divided the office spaces with plasterboard to construct more rooms, but five or six still share each bedroom.

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At the beginning of March, the aid organisation wrote to local health authorities, the president of the municipality and the regional governor. But its warnings remained unheeded until residents found out about the first infection.

And when they finally listened to me, they sent the army, said Dr DAngelo. Thats outrageous.

The aid organisation cast doubts over the measures to limit the infection here.

Testing with swabs started last week, but then they stopped for Easter, notes social worker Guendalina Curi. Are we sure that those deemed as negative have not been infected in the meantime?

Residents are worried too, since authorities did not evacuate the relatives of some of those who tested positive, and social distancing here is practically impossible.

Failure of the system

In Italy, the coronavirus pandemic has further exposed the state of emergency refugees and migrants live in every day.

Selam Palace represents the blatant failure of our reception system, because people accept to live in these conditions just to have a roof over their head, said Dr DAngelo.

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Despite some successful examples of residents travelling to other European countries and beginning a new life there, Dr DAngelo says at least half of the residents have been stuck here since 2006. Most barely speak Italian.

Bereket works as a porter in a delivery company and is a union activist. But finding accommodation has proved hard for him, too.

You have no permanent contract, and you are a foreigner and Black; its not easy to rent a room, he said.

Before moving to Selam Palace, he lived in an occupied office block in Via Curtatone, with another 800 Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees.

Law enforcement emptied the building in August 2017. The images of the Italian police using water cannons to disperse the ensuing protest sparked international indignation.

Looking to the future, it is discrimination that scares Bereket more than coronavirus.

If they say that this is a red zone, he says, how would people react when we finally get out to go to the supermarket?
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Md. residents face imprisonment, fines up to $5k for not wearing face coverings

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Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan issued an executive order Wednesday requiring all residents to wear a face masks or face coverings when they're in public places.

Hogan's executive order, which goes into effect on Saturday, states that a person who knowingly and willfully violates this order is guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction is subject to imprisonment not exceeding one year or a fine not exceeding $5,000 or both.

Residents are required to either wear masks, scarves or bandanas that cover the nose and mouth.

Those specifically listed in the order are all riders and operators on any public transportation unless it is an operator who works in a secluded compartment, and all customers over the age of 9 at a retail establishment, and employees of any businesses still open to the public.

Wearing a medical-grade mask satisfies any requirement  to wear a face covering, but all Marylanders are urged to reserve medical-grade masks for use by healthcare workers and first responders, the order adds.

The order also called upon businesses to enact means to foster more social distancing among customers, including sanitizing of carts and baskets made available to patrons and making sure people in line are far apart from each other.

The latter would include designating with signage, tape, or by other means at least six-foot spacing for persons in line wherever any queue is expected to form.

The order is stated as being in effect until Maryland has rescinded its state of emergency and proclamation of the catastrophic health emergency, or until rescinded, superseded, amended, or revised by additional orders.

In a statement posted to his official Twitter handle, Hogan called the new order an important step in our immediate efforts to protect public health and safety, adding that the wearing of masks is also something that we may all have to become more accustomed to in order to safely reopen our state.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose state is considered the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, said Thursday that his stay-at-home order has been extended through May 15, at least.

On Wednesday, he also issued a similar order as Maryland's, set to go in effect on Friday.

Cuomo also announced the state will begin conducting antibody tests, prioritizing frontline health care workers, first responders and other essential workers, beginning this week. Using a new finger prick method the state will test up to 2,000 New Yorkers per day, the New York governors office said.

The state is also asking the FDA for expedited approval of a finger prick antibody test that could test up to 100,000 New Yorkers a day. Additionally, the state is continuing to engage with other partners including hospital labs and private companies to bring mass antibody testing to scale statewide.
The coronavirus disease (Covid-19) can, in some instances, lead to disorientation or delirium, say neurologists treating Covid-19 patients. While the focus has so far been on the effect of the disease on the respiratory system, as doctors treat more patients, they are beginning to notice and document new patterns.

Neurologists are worried that some patients may be showing only neurological symptoms -- not other common symptoms such as fever and cough. If they are not monitored, diagnosis may be delayed. Elderly patients with an infection, any infection including urinary tract infection, can develop delirium. The general symptoms with fever could be confusion (delirium, encephalopathy). Loss of taste and smell are likely at the level of receptors in the mucosa, said Dr Vivek Mathew, professor of neurology at Christian Medical College, Vellore which is treating Covid-19 patients.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on April 10 based on data collected from January 16 to February 19 at three Covid-19 care centres in Wuhan -- it included 214 hospitalised patients -- found that 36.4% showed neurological manifestations. Compared to patients with non-severe infection, patients with severe infection were older and had more underlying disorders. These patients showed fewer typical symptoms such as fever and cough but more neurologic symptoms.

Global trends seem to bear out the truth of those findings.

In Covid-19, we have so far seen primarily respiratory symptoms or primarily gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms but in the past 10 days, cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome (a condition in which a persons immune system attacks the peripheral nerves) have been documented in other parts of the world , Mathew added.

Dr Col JD Mukherji, principal director and head of neurology at Max Super Speciality Hospital who is treating some Covid-19 patients says its still early days for India . The general symptoms of the disease are headache, loss of smell and taste, fever, confusion. In China, cases of strokes, seizure and muscle injury have also been documented. We are on a learning curve in India. All of us will start seeing these cases as the numbers rise, said Dr Mukherji.

He listed the four ways in which the virus can affect the brain: direct viral injury, causing symptoms like viral encephalitis; an excessive immune response called cytokine storm which can damage the brain; unintended host-immune response where the immune response damages some other structure altogether like the five cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome documented in Italy; and indirectly, in those whose immune response has been deliberately reduced through medication due to conditions such as myasthenia gravis (a neuromuscular disease) or multiple sclerosis.

There are no medicines for these neurological symptoms yet. If the entire body is in a cytokine storm, a monoclonal antibody can be used but they are expensive and may not be made available widely. In an Indian setting, some steroids can be used which needs to be studied and decided, said Dr Shamsher Dwivedee, chairman, PSRI Institute of Neurosciences.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  A homeless man will spend some time in a city jail cell after admitting to attempted robbery and drug possession.

David Drago, 30, was charged with a string of minor crimes  mainly misdemeanor cocaine possession  dating to Nov. 20, court records show.

The defendant was also accused of damaging a drive-through speaker box at a Wendys restaurant on Nov. 27 and stealing beer from a Key Food supermarket on Jan. 24, said an indictment.

His final offense occurred on Jan. 27.

Drago tried to snatch property from a victim near the corner of Bay and Hannah streets in Tompkinsville, according to the indictment and a law enforcement source.

The indictment did not say what the defendant attempted to swipe.

Police list Dragos address as the Project Hospitality homeless drop-in center on Central Avenue in St. George.

On Thursday, Drago pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court, St. George, to attempted third-degree robbery, a felony, which was the highest charge against him.

He also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance, criminal mischief and petit larceny.

In exchange, he was sentenced to six months in jail and five years probation on the felony conviction.

He also received concurrent one-year conditional discharges on the misdemeanor convictions.

His lawyer did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the case.
Pennsylvanians got to hear for the first time on Friday glimpses of what Gov. Tom Wolf wants in a plan for reopening the state and addressing the crippling blows to the economy.

In his Plan for Pennsylvania, he calls for a $15 hourly minimum wage, expanded sick and family leave and strengthening the unemployment and the workers compensation plans. Wolf wants rapid re-employment programs for laid off workers, tax credits for manufacturers that produced personal protection equipment for front-line workers during the outbreak, financial support for small business, expanded access to broadband and student loan relief, among other aspirations.

We need to make smart data-driven decisions and we cant be impulsive. We cant be emotional. We need to follow the science," Wolf said.

In a statewide address, Wolf touched on the framework and standards upon which economic recovery and reopening decisions will be based. He hasnt disclosed any target dates for reopening the state. Wolf said its not time yet for a wide reopening of businesses.

The Democratic governor indicated that next week more details will be forthcoming.

Wolf said his plan calls for a phased-in reopening with no date certain when the economy will be reactivated. Pennsylvania remains under a stay-at-home order until April 30.

Wolfs recovery and reopening vision struck mixed chords with legislative, business and union and civic leaders. Some found it disappointing while others voiced confidence in the direction Wolf is heading.

Still, all expressed a hope and willingness of working with the Wolf Administration in filling out the framework of his plan and tweaking it to better suit the needs of those they serve.

House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny County, called it more of an ideological map instead of a plan that addresses more immediate needs to ensure Pennsylvania can make a safe economic comeback.

The speaker said he would have liked to see it include a plan for protections to better ensure the safety of people in nursing homes and assisted living facilities and to allow hospitals to resume elective procedures. He also wants to address the ongoing needs for personal protection equipment for health care and front line workers.

Turzai also wants to find out why given the financial resources provided, so many schools were caught flat-footed when they were forced to switch to an online platform. And the House Speaker wants to hear when business activities, such as construction, could resume.

It was not what Pennsylvanians wanted to hear," Turzai said of the governors plan. We have got to come out of this beating COVID and saving our economy and they are not mutually exclusive.

Senate Republican leaders, likewise, expressed disappointment with the lack of specifics. They said they had hoped to see a real plan to move Pennsylvania forward from the damage this virus has caused.

We have said from the beginning that any recovery plan should include transparency, common sense, clear standards and benchmarks to advance, and the input and cooperation from all branches of government. None of those principles were addressed by Governor Wolf today, and Pennsylvania will be worse off as a result," said Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, and Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre County, in a statement.

Meanwhile, Democratic legislative leaders found optimism in the plan set form by the governor of their same party.

He is showing strong leadership by following the science and the hard data. We all want to reopen the states economy but only when it can be done safely. A key benchmark for that will be widespread availability of testing, which we dont have yet," said House Democratic Leader Frank Dermody of Allegheny County.

Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa called it a robust, thoughtful plan forward."

The Allegheny County lawmaker said he appreciates the governors ongoing consultation with public health experts, including Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, and said that is clearly reflected in his plan.

We need to prioritize health and safety as we look toward economic recovery, and the treatment of our front-line workers is a large part of that, Costa said. "We all want to get back to a semblance of normal business operations, but rushing into it would undo all of the progress weve made in flattening the curve.

Wolf hailed Pennsylvanians for making progress in slowing the spread of the virus. Still, he noted nearly 30,000 people in Pennsylvania have contracted the virus. More than 750 have died.

Business community reacts

Representatives from the states large and small businesses found only slight glimmers of hope in their initial glances at the governors plan. Some clearly were dismayed by his renewed call for raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and expanded sick and family leave.

"Businesses, particularly small business and particularly restaurants, have been absolutely decimated by whats happened and thats not at all the best signal to send that were going to be pushing for greatly expanded labor costs, said Gene Barr, president of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry.

While understanding of the uncharted waters the governor must lead the state through, Barr added he was encouraged to see the governor is willing to look at licensing issues and eliminate some red tape there to bring the economy back. He also thought the comments on tele-health were positive.

Gordon Denlinger, state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said the governors plans to add labor costs are the wrong ideas at the wrong time. He said the governors proposals would put a number of businesses out of business.

Denlinger further faulted the plan for failing to take into consideration the needs small businesses will face as they reopen including sanitation, transitioning to an online platform, and physical alterations of their businesses that this crisis has proven will be necessary to make.

This program that he put together reflects a lack of input by small business owners, Denlinger said.

David Taylor, president & CEO of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association, wanted to see a date when the states economy would reopen.

Nothing else matters, he said. "It looks like theres no structure for reopening and a lot of wishful thinking. Its another regrettable failure of the governor to lead.

Taylor has been critical of the governors refusal to rely on the U.S. Department of Homeland Securitys guidance that most other states have used in determining which businesses could remain open during this crisis. He predicts that will result in lost business for Pennsylvania manufacturers, inflicting more economic damage on the state.

Chance for a new beginning

Union leaders applauded Wolf for committing to a data-driven approach to addressing Pennsylvanias public health and economic well-being. They also hailed its focus on helping workers recover from the financial hardships theyve endured.

They said elements in the plan such as better access to health care and a living wage are what their members needed to hear.

We wholeheartedly support the expansion of unemployment insurance and workers compensation, paid sick leave, healthcare access that doesnt bankrupt working people, reemployment protections, and childcare support for working families," said Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Rick Bloomingdale. Unscrupulous employers must be held accountable. The health and safety of workers, especially those on the frontlines, must come first, not the bottom line.

A statement from Service Employees International Union Pennsylvania State Council said the governors plan outlined strides the state government must take to put working people on the right path.

Others, including Pennsylvania Voice, also saw the plan as a path to a new beginning for the minority, young and single female populations it represents.

As eager as we are to reopen the state, we need to be sure that we dont simply go back to the way things were, because this crisis has revealed far too many inequalities, said Erin Casey, the groups executive director.

PA School Works, a group that represents educators and families in the southeast, supported the governors proposal for funding flexibilities to provide students with continuous education opportunities, including active distance learning and increased flexibilities for students with disabilities who may have challenges learning remotely. This will be an important step to keep students from losing too much ground while school facilities are closed.

Hospital administrators would love to know when they could resume elective surgeries, said Andy Carter, president and CEO of The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania. But Carter hailed Wolfs leadership in protecting healthcare workers. He lauded Wolfs call for more tele-health services and his focus on ensuring that people have places to go when they no longer need hospital care but arent ready to go home.

While we look forward to a day when we can return to our new normal, we know we still have a long road ahead, Carter said.

Knowing all the varied interests at play in reshaping Pennsylvanias economy as it moves into a post-COVID-19 era, Wolf said, Were going to make sure we have a plan that respects the reality on the ground and works with our local, regional and federal partners."

The governor added, "All of us, all of us are anxious to reopen the commonwealth.

Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy.

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It is with mixed emotions that I share with you the resignation of Anita Rosa, the chambers vice president of finance & operations. Anita has played a pivotal role throughout many years and will leave an indelible mark on the chamber.

Anita began her career at the chamber in 1988 under president Michael Witte-Meredith. She was a senior at Torrington High School and participated in the work release program. Following graduation, she accepted a full-time position as the receptionist. Her duties included everything from typing, filing, answering phones to working with the chamber staff in preparing for many events and programs.

A story from former president Bill Harding, told only as Bill could tell it, was that there was a change in staff under his leadership. One morning he walked into her office and informed her that she would be taking over the finances of the organization.

Not to be overcome by a surprising challenge, Anita, possessing the talent and ability to get things done, quickly learned what she needed to do to work with the chamber leadership, staff, board and volunteers, to keep the chamber moving forward financially. In this capacity, she has never waivered.

In recognition of her efforts, dedication and hard work, she received the title of vice president of finance and operations in 2008. Working with the staff and outstanding volunteers during the Rebranding of the Chamber three years ago, she successfully communicated the chambers role to the entire membership and the business community through social media, Constant Contact, the Chamber Exchange, the Leads Groups and Newsletter.

Together with the staff and interns, the goal was providing outstanding customer service, creating valuable benefits for our members and getting things done in a timely fashion. This was accomplished professionally by Anita, with thoughtful consideration and discussion, a vast knowledge of the ever-changing Chamber World and always with intregrity.

For me, through my 18 years at the Chamber, it has been a privilege to work with Anita Rosa. On behalf of the Chamber staff, Board of Directors and our members, thank you, Anita, for your nearly 32years of service and dedication. Best of luck in your new role but always know that you have a special place in our hearts and the Chamber world. We will miss you.

JoAnn Ryan is President & CEO of the NW CT Chamber of Commerce. You can reach her by email: joann@nwctchamberofcommerce.org or phone: 860-482-6586.
"The evil that men do live after them." -- William Shakespare

I am aware that this is breaking with the conventional wisdom. I am conscious that this is a rebuke of tradition. I am not oblivious to the fact that it is against the norm. I am not unaware that this is not in tune with the mainstream. I am aware some would loath me for it. Some would deride me. Others would call me names. Those who really never liked my guts, would have this reinforced it for them. But those who have the objective ability to see things the way they are and are able to call them as exactly as they should, would see some sense in this.

The idea of not speaking ill of the dead is not a good idea, especially if the dead person did nothing deserving of praise. The idea of praising the dead, regardless if the dead, during his or her life was mean spirited, greedy, selfish, inconsiderate, odiously acquisitive, ruthless and disdainful, is totally unacceptable. It is wrong and should be done away with. We should be able to say exactly what kind of person someone was during his or her life.

I have been reading in the media unbelievable eulogies about the late Chief of Staff to President Mohammadu Buhari, Mr. Abba Kyari. I have been reading some hypocritical praise - singing of this man who, to many Nigerians who celebrated his infliction a couple of weeks back, was no less a monster, because he has become the casualty of the Coronavirus 19. I have read from those who hated him saying embarrassingly 'nice' things about him. What a fraud. What a dishonesty.

It is a sad day when people cascade into casual casuistry with unbridled audacity. It is an act of deliberate undermining of the societal values to heap praises on someone whose remains ought to be used to cast away evils from the entire society. To project a mean - spirited public office holder as a saint when he is not, is a sin in itself.

I take serious objection to the rain of praise that has been raining down on the corpse of the late Abba Kyari. Though, this is a matter of choice to which we are all entitled depending on the way we see it. In my own view, Kyari is not deserving of any praise whatsoever. It is alright for President Buhari to cry himself hoarse. Kyari was his Chief of Staff and his relative. It is okay for his goons in Aso Rock, his partners in crime to weep without end. It is okay for those who are beneficiaries of his corrupt practices, his impunities to gnash their teeth to numb. It is their loss. His immediate and extended family members reserve the inalienable rights to mourn him infinitely and indefinitely.

I also believe that it is alright for the rest of us who are victims of the first family and their collaborators in Aso Rock, to acknowledge the loss of a soul, not because of any other reason other than the fact that we are all human beings. And this is where it ought to end. No more, no less.

For those who are Buhari's sycophants and who still hope to benefit from the misery he is visiting on Nigeria, it might be acceptable to them to shed their crocodile tears even if they really did not like the man when he was alive. They are welcome to do so.

Here is a man, who never got a single vote, whether rigged or not, from the Nigerian people, but who hijacked the executive powers of the Presidency. He held Nigeria and Nigerians to ransom since 2015. He rode roughshod over the people of this country. He appropriated all the appurtenances of power for his personal idiosyncrasies.

Abba Kyari never cared. He never gave a damn. Yes, he did not give a damn how many Nigerians died. He did not care how many Nigerians went hungry. He did not care how much injustice was perpetrated. He did not give a damn how many innocent Nigerians were murdered. He did not give a damn how many Nigerians were chased off their ancestral lands. He did not care how many of our daughters were raped. He did not give a damn how many were maimed by his tribesmen.

He was a perniciously greedy soul. He was remorseless in his ways. The 500 million naira bribe he took from the MTN was emblematic of his innate rapacity. It was emblematic of his bloated edacity. He appointed himself to the Board of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). It was the first time in the History of Nigeria for an incumbent Chief of Staff. It was against the norm of decency and restraint. It was impunity at its worst.

Kyari relentlessly harassed the Vice President, licentiously anchoring Professor Osinbajo's deliberate disempowerment. He unabashedly intimidated the Ministers and prevented them from meaningful collaboration with the man who appointed them, or whom he helped appointed. With a mien akin to that of a dove, he was a heinous hawk, a vicious vulture that is egregious and atrocious in its debauchery and cupidity.

He was mindless and mean. He was cruel and cold. He was crude and callous. His greed was congenital. His insouciance encrypted his guiled mendacity. He was hung up on power hunkering. He had disdain for the rules. Like his principal, Buhari, he believed and acted above the law. His arrogance was horrifying. His condescension, sardonically sickening in the way and manner he exercised unmerited power.

Yes, the idea of not speaking ill of the dead is a VERY WRONG one, especially if that dead person never did anything to deserve it. If this practice was to continue, it means every criminal in our midst should look forward to being praised after he/she was dead regardless of the crimes committed. This would also mean a genuine disincentive for those who strive to do positive things and improve their communities.

It is very important to ensure that dead people's memories be imbued with their acts of omissions and commissions when they were alive. It is an act of injustice to arrogate false achievements, fake qualities to monstrous figures more notorious for their kleptomania as they gallivant through the inner rooms of power.

Hopefully, when I die, people would have the unburnished courage to say exactly what they feel about me and not deodorize my omissions and imperfections. Hopefully, those who would feel the need to mourn me would not see the need to be hypocritical and dishonest in their elegies.

In all this, what became clearer is the vanity of vanity itself. It brought to the fore the cliche popularized by the Broadcasting Corporation of Oyo State in the early 1980s, ",,, vanity upon vanity, all is vanity." It underscores the ephemeralness of not just power, but of all things that are human, except our deeds. This probably informed William Shakespeare's ageless rumination captured in the phrase, " The evil that men do live after them."

We should not praise villains when they are dead. It is a great disincentive to those who laboured to be above board and did the right thing. You don't have to agree with me. You don't have to like me. Please, don't like me, just respect the truth.

The world tells us to seek success, power and money; God tells us to seek humility, service and love. - Pope Francis

Lies never last, History never dies and the TRUTH is always constant.

Remi Oyeyemi
In Parliament today: Bill to amend CVC and Delhi Police Special Act to be tabled today

Delhi riots: Police slaps sedition charge against Sharjeel Imam for provocative speeches

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

New Delhi, Apr 18: The Delhi Police has slapped sedition charges against Sharjeel Imam and alleged that his speech "promoted enmity" between people that led to riots in and around Jamia Mila Islamia University in the national capital on December 15.

The chargesheet against Sharjeel Imam has been filed in the Saket district court in Delhi.

Sharjeel Imam feels India should be an Islamic State: Delhi Police sources

Speaking to reporters, Sharjeel Imam's lawyer Ahmad Ibrahim said, "We have not gone through the complete charge sheet that was filed on 17th April 2020 by Delhi Police. After going through it, we will take the appropriate measures."

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

On December 15, 2019, the Delhi Police said that clashes broke out in consequence to the protest march organised by the students of Jamia Millia Islamia University against the Centre's decision on Citizenship Amendment Act. The Police also said these riots broke out in New Friends Colony and Jamia Nagar areas, both adjacent to the university.

"The mob indulged in large-scale rioting, stone pelting and arson and in the process destroyed many public and private properties. Cases of rioting, arson and damage to public properties were registered. Many policemen and public persons were injured in the riots," the Delhi Police said.

Sharjeel Imam was allegedly arrested based on the charges of "instigating and abetting riots" in Delhi, due to his "seditious speech delivered on December 13, 2019".
Walmart Inc, Walmart Foundation and Flipkart on Saturday said they are are supporting India's COVID-19 response by donating personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers and funds for organisations providing essential relief materials to farmers and small businesses.

Walmart Inc and e-commerce major Flipkart will spend Rs 38.3 crore towards in-kind donations into India to help with the front-line response efforts, a statement said.

"The companies will focus on providing PPE, such as N95 masks and medical gowns, for distribution by non-government organizations (NGOs) to public healthcare workers.

"Walmart and Flipkart have already secured 300,000 N95 masks and 1 million medical gowns, and they will continue to leverage their global supply chains to source these critical necessities for medical workers...," it added.

In addition, Walmart Foundation is donating a total of Rs 7.7 crore to Goonj and Srijan -- NGOs supporting vulnerable communities through the crisis.

The funds will be used to support the procurement of essential relief materials, such as food, medicine and hygiene items, for distribution by the organisations to support farmers, rural communities, and the micro-businesses, the statement said.

"Our customers and associates in India have been deeply impacted by COVID-19 and our hearts continue to be with them. In times like these, we all need to come together to support our communities and the efforts of healthcare workers, NGOs and government organisations," Walmart Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer, and President of Walmart Foundation Kathleen McLaughlin said.

The statement noted that Walmart and Flipkart are making various efforts, including following enhanced hygiene practices across the supply chain and delivery network, insurance and health benefits for workers, contactless deliveries where possible and supporting cashless payments.

"Our Flipkart teams are working around the clock to respond to the COVID-19 crisis with care and compassion...The emergency relief efforts we are announcing today underscore our commitment to continuing to work with the private and public sector in India to respond to this unprecedented challenge, Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said.

Corporate India has been rushing in to help the government and citizens fight the pandemic.

Tata Trusts and Tata group together have pledged Rs 1,500 crore, while Wipro Ltd, Wipro Enterprises Ltd and Azim Premji Foundation have together committed Rs 1,125 crore. A number of other companies have extended support by providing sanitizers, masks and meals to people.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Four hundred fifty-one people in Ohio are dead from the novel coronavirus, the Ohio Department of Health announced Saturday, including 17 considered probable deaths -- just a day before the state projected to hit its pandemic peak.

Ohio now has 10,222 cases, including 283 probable cases.

This is up from Friday, when there were 418 deaths and 9,107 total cases.

It appears that Sundays peak that the Ohio Department of Health forecasted to occur on Sunday, with approximately 1,607 new cases, will come and go without the state hitting that level.

In fact, some Ohio physicians and nurses have left the state to help out in worse hit areas.

Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Department of Health Dr. Amy Acton said that Ohioans have abided by the stay-at-home and other public health orders restricting movement and public gatherings, resulting in the state dodging the severe predictions.

The state has flattened the curve, theyve said, and officials hope the number of new cases each day soon starts to decrease.

DeWine did not schedule a daily coronavirus briefing for Saturday.

They have now turned their attention to incrementally restarting the economy. On Thursday, Gov. Mike DeWine said that some businesses will be allowed to reopen May 1, with restrictions.

On Friday, he provided a glimpse into how that may look at some companies -- including cautioning that employees who can work remotely will have to continue doing so.

Also on Friday, DeWine acknowledged Ohio lacks the widespread testing capacity to get a sense of how many people are carrying the virus. He had previously said that reopening Ohio was dependent on testing. Now hes saying that people, when theyre out and about, need to assume everyone they come in contact with are infected.

We dont know the answer to how soon we will have more (testing capabilities,) Acton said.

Other coronavirus coverage:

How will reopening Ohio businesses look? Gov. DeWine provides details.

Ohio now has 418 coronavirus deaths, cases top 9,100: Gov. Mike DeWines Friday, April 17 briefing

Cleveland Clinic to send healthcare workers to New York, Michigan to help in hospitals with surge of coronavirus cases
In C-sections, it is safe to give antibiotics to mothers after umbilical cord clamping, to avoid exposure of the newborns to the antibiotics, stated study by Dr Rami Sommerstein, Bern University Hospital, Bern, Switzerland, and colleagues from Swissnoso, the Swiss National Centre for Infection Control. The research has been presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID). The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends** administration of surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis (SAP) in Caesarean section prior to incision to prevent surgical site infections (SSIs), including endometritis, one of the most common types of these infections. However, SAP may disrupt the baby's developing gastrointestinal microbiome if given before umbilical cord clamping. The authors thus studied whether giving antibiotics before or after clamping of the umbilical cord had any effect on the rate of SSIs in the mothers.

The risk of surgical site infection for mothers in C-section is not increased if antibiotic prophylaxis is given after umbilical cord clamping, compared to before incision.



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A total of 55,901 patients met the criteria: SAP was administered before incision in 26,405 patients (47.2%) and after clamping in 29,496 patients (52.8%). Overall, 846 SSIs were documented, of which 379 (1.6%) occurred before incision and 449 (1.7%) after clamping, with no statistically significant difference between the two methods, proving them to be equally safe. Supplementary and subgroup analyses supported these main results.



Given the latest research on the potentially detrimental effects of early-life antimicrobial exposure, guidance regarding optimal SAP timing should be re-evaluated."



Source: Eurekalert The study used data from the Swissnoso national SSI surveillance system, from 2009 to 2018. The study included mothers from 178 hospitals. The researchers included all Caesarean section patients that were given the SAP agents cefuroxime, cefazolin, amoxicillin/clavulanate or ceftriaxone, either within 60 minutes before incision or after clamping. Data from 30-day post-discharge follow-up was available in 89% of cases, allowing the researchers to assess the association between SAP administration relative to incision and clamping and the SSI rate, using computer models. The data was then adjusted for patient characteristics, procedural variables, and health-care system factors.A total of 55,901 patients met the criteria: SAP was administered before incision in 26,405 patients (47.2%) and after clamping in 29,496 patients (52.8%). Overall, 846 SSIs were documented, of which 379 (1.6%) occurred before incision and 449 (1.7%) after clamping, with no statistically significant difference between the two methods, proving them to be equally safe. Supplementary and subgroup analyses supported these main results.Given the latest research on the potentially detrimental effects of early-life antimicrobial exposure, guidance regarding optimal SAP timing should be re-evaluated."Source: Eurekalert

The current practice to give antimicrobial prophylaxis before incision was introduced in around 2012, after various evidence was published, and this was when many obstetricians switched to 'before incision' practice. WHO then published guidance in 2015. However, not all hospitals switched to the new practice (in Switzerland or other countries). As a result, it is possible to compare the outcomes of women who were given the antibiotics before incision with those given antibiotics after.
The Nigerian Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Yusuf Buratai, who recently relocated permanently to the North East is reportedly planning a major offensive against the Boko Haram Terrorist group.

Editor-in-Chief at HumAngle, who disclosed this in a tweet, on Friday, said the Chadian operations led by Presidemt Idris Deby may have triggered a fire never seen before.

The Chadian Soldiers had killed 1,000 BH fighters during an operation against the Boko Haram armed group in the Lake Chad border region in a retaliation attack.

Lieutenant General Buratai in the trenches preparing for a major offensive against #BokoHaram. The Chadian operations may have triggered a fire never seen before. May this effort bring lasting peace to my home state and Nigeria as a whole. pic.twitter.com/qOvjzfcr4B  Ahmad Salkida (@A_Salkida) April 17, 2020

Recall that in March, Boko Haram fighters killed at least 50 Nigerian soldiers in an ambush.

The ambush occurred near the town of Goneri in eastern Borno State.

The terrorist group inflicted heavy casualties by firing on the vehicles with rocket-propelled grenades and assault weapons.

Boko Haram has killed tens of thousands in its 10-year armed uprising in northern Nigeria.
A group of 47 unaccompanied children evacuated from refugee camps in Greece arrived in Germany on April 18, German officials said.



The children come from Afghanistan, Syria, and Eritrea. Four are girls and there are several siblings among the group. Some of them have families waiting for them in Germany.



They were previously housed at refugee camps on the Greek islands of Lesbos, Samos, and Chios that have been criticized by rights activists as unsuitable for children.



Germany's Interior Ministry said the children arrived in Hanover, Germany early on April 18 on a flight from Athens.



The ministry said they were all tested for the coronavirus before departure and would remain in a two-week quarantine before moving on to other parts of Germany.



Germany's interior minister, Horst Seehofer, said the evacuation was the result of months of preparation and intense talks with our European partners."



Seehofer expressed hope that other countries would also begin taking in refugee children soon.



"The Greek government has been trying to sensitize other EU countries to the plight of the young children, who have fled war and persecution, to find new families and start a new life," Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotsakis told reporters at the Athens airport where he met the departing children.



"Im glad this program is finally being implemented, Mitsotsakis said, adding that he hopes more than 1,500 children would be relocated from Greek refugee camps during the coming months.



Germany pledged in March to take in at least 350 children living in Greek refugee camps as part of a joint European effort.



But the plan has stalled in some countries due to the pandemic.



The flight to Germany was the second airplane that carried unaccompanied refugee children to another European country. On April 15, 12 children traveled from Greece to Luxembourg.



Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General, said in early April that there were more than 5,200 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Greece.



Dujarric said the children were in urgent need of durable solutions, including expedited registration, family reunification, and relocation."

With reporting by Reuters and AP
Inmarsat has joined forces with APEX, the leading international airline association dedicated to advancing passenger experience, to connect the global aviation industry during the most challenging time in its history. A unique online broadcast event, to be held on 29th April, will bring together aviation leaders, experts and analysts to debate the critical questions facing the industry today and looking ahead to the challenges the entire aviation sector will face.

FlightPlan: Charting a Course into the Future will examine the current state of the aviation market and the latest predictions for recovery, while also driving debate on wider industry issues, from next generation passenger trends and the future of air travel technology to short and long-term solutions for tackling aviation sustainability. In addition, the livestreamed event will include global and regional news updates, as well as a state of the industry analysis.

Keynotes featured at the event will include airlines leaders such as Avianca CEO Anko van der Werff, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian, and Virgin Atlantic COO Juha Jarvinen. Trade bodies speaking at the event include Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX), European Space Agency (ESA), and International Air Transport Association (IATA). Ecosystem partners featured include Airbus, Collins Aerospace, Deutsche Telekom, Honeywell, Panasonic Avionics, and Rolls Royce. Media partners include Air Transport World (ATW), APEX Media, Inflight Magazine, Paxex.aero, and Simple Flying.

Philip Balaam, President of Inmarsat Aviation, said: The global aviation industry is facing its darkest hour, with COVID-19 having far reaching implications for airlines, air travel infrastructure and the broad ecosystem that supports them. According to the latest guidance by IATA, passenger revenues and traffic are both expected to halve in 2020 compared to last year. Aviation leaders and experts will take part in FlightPlan to discuss pertinent topics such as the crisis, uncertainty around the timeframe for disruption and recovery, the long-term economic impact, and how we can improve resilience and accelerate recovery.

FlightPlan will comprise streamed interviews, virtual panels, live discussion and interactive Q&As at a time when sharing information and views has never been more important. The full agenda includes a number of short segments, allowing viewers to conveniently watch the sections that are most relevant to them, at timings that can work around their schedules.

Dominic Walters, vice president of Inmarsat Aviation, said: The COVID-19 pandemic has turned aviation on its head  changing the way it operates in a very short space of time and impacting the estimated 10 million people that work in the industry worldwide. Inmarsat and APEX have developed FlightPlan as a platform that brings these people together to share information, insight and direction at this pivotal moment. It has already received an extremely positive response and we look forward to welcoming anyone that works in the industry or has an interest in aviation to register their interest online and join us on the day.

APEX, the only non-profit membership trade organisation comprised of the world's leading airlines, industry suppliers, media groups and related leaders, has taken an active role in representing the aviation industry with governments and authorities such as the United Nations and US Congress during the current pandemic. Its involvement in FlightPlan is part of a concerted effort to provide support to APEX members and the airline industry during this critical moment of crisis.

Dr. Joe Leader, CEO of APEX, said: Our airline industry has faced countless challenges in the past, coming back with more strength, resolve, and innovative advances each and every time. We face an enemy in COVID-19 unlike any other, but our industry will flight back for our future with a tenacity that will keep our world healthy and interconnected. FlightPlan is a great example of finding innovative new ways to connect our industry and encourage a meaningful debate on the unparalleled challenges faced. We are delighted to collaborate with Inmarsat, one of our close partners, and believe FlightPlan will create real value for all of our airline and supplier members in this moment of need.

Register interest now at flightplan.wavecast.io
P Thiruselvam By

Express News Service

ARIYALUR: "Doctors helped me, so I recovered from the coronavirus soon," said the girl who was discharged from the Ariyalur GH isolation ward on Friday. She added she would utilise her account on TikTok to spread awareness about coronavirus.

The first positive COVID-19 case in Ariyalur was a 25-year-old woman from Ariyalur town, an employee of a shop at Phoenix Mall in Chennai.

She returned from Chennai to Ariyalur district on March 19.

The following day, she had a fever and was admitted to Ariyalur District Headquarters Government Hospital for treatment. Later, she was taken to the isolation ward. Her test returned positive on March 27.

She was in the isolation ward from March 20 to April 17. While she made good progress in recovery, her result showed negative on April 5 and April 6. On Friday, she was sent home.

As she was thanking doctors, several officials stood and applauded as she left for home.

They gave her a sheet of advice containing guidelines she needed to follow. Ariyalur RDO Balaji and District SP R Srinivasan offered her fruits.

Later, Ariyalur Medical College Dean Muthukrishnan gave her a medical certificate and her reports. The woman said, "I am so glad I returned to my house after recovering from coronavirus. My father brought me home from the hospital. Loneliness is very difficult for everyone. No one would enjoy it. If we all follow the government's advice, we can escape the deadly virus. Otherwise, there will be a need to undergo loneliness."

She added, "The nurses and doctors helped me out of loneliness. In the isolation ward, I spent time learning to draw. Coronavirus patients should cooperate with doctors to fully recover. Doctors provide healthy food. It will help us get out of it."

She said that she was raising awareness about coronavirus to her followers on TikTok and would continue to do so.
Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu is all set to collaborate with Baahubali director SS Rajamouli in a new project, and fans are delirious.

Over the last couple of months, there have been multiple reports that the two powerhouses would be coming together.

Putting the rumours to rest, Rajamouli confirmed the news in an interview.

"There are no rumors. The fact is that I will direct Mahesh Babu and it will be produced by KL Narayana. This will be my next after RRR'," the filmmaker said.

The untitled movie will officially be announced next year and hit the floors in 2022.

Mahesh Babu's fans are excited about the collaboration. "ssmb gonnna set the box-office on Fire soon @urstrulyMahesh," wrote one Twitter user. Another wrote: "Finally waiting is over @ssrajamouli and @urstrulyMahesh combo Fire. This is Massive." Another tweeted: "This is gonna be interesting...lets see how rajamouli utilises mahesh babu."

The actor's last release Sarileru Neekevvaru was a hit.

Follow @News18Movies for more
Members of the US Army's 21st Theater Sustainment Command at a rehearsal of concept drill at Rhine Ordnance Barracks to discuss the redeployment of participating units of Defender-Europe 20, March 10, 2020.

US Army/Pfc. Katelyn Myers

Defender-Europe 20, meant to be the US Army's largest exercise in Europe since the 1990s, is going forward in a smaller form because of coronavirus-related restrictions.

Despite the truncated form, the US military is still aiming to get as much out of the exercise as it and its allies can.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Preparations for Defender-Europe 20, which was supposed to be the US Army's largest exercise in Europe in 25 years, were upended in mid-March, when the coronavirus prompted a halt to movement of personnel and gear to Europe.

The exercise was supposed to involve 20,000 US soldiers and thousands of pieces of equipment deployed from the US, but only about 6,000 soldiers and about 3,000 pieces of gear made it to Europe between January and March.

Plans have shifted so the exercise can go forward in a truncated form and with the proper health safeguards. The US military still wants to get as much as it can out of the exercise, according to the head of US European Command.

"We're adjusting every day," Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters said Thursday, adding that Defender-Europe 20 is "the classic US example" of what has been lost from a training perspective.

"As a result of reducing the number of US troops that we brought from [the US] to Europe, we had a reduction" in the number of countries participating, Wolters said. "Instead of having 18 nations involved ... it's much, much less."

US Army Reserve soldiers check vehicles at Fallingbostel, a former British army base in Germany, in preparation for Defender-Europe 20, February 8, 2020.

US Army/Maj. Joseph Bush

"But with each and every passing day, we're looking for the opportunity to take those 5,700 to 6,200 US soldiers that we have on European soil to make sure that they get as much of the pre-prescribed Defender-Europe 20 training as they can possibly get," Wolters added.

"Will they get it all? No, and it'll be with a smaller footprint," Wolters said, "but we're trying as hard as we can to squeeze out every second of the day and ensure that each and every one of the troops that we have invested already in Defender-Europe 20 can maximize their training."

Story continues

US Army Europe said in mid-March that exercises linked to Defender Europe, like this year's Saber Strike, would not be conducted.

The pandemic is also likely to affect this year's iteration of Baltic Operations, a maritime exercise focused on interoperability and flexibility.

Baltops, as it's known, is ongoing, Wolters said, but "it's a classic case where we have an exercise on the horizon in the June and July timeframe, and with each passing second of the day we're taking a look at each and every one of our activities to make sure that we can preserve, potentially, as many as possible."

"We will be constantly adjusting the scope and scale of our exercises, as we have been for the last 70 to 80 days, to make sure if there is an ability to execute the exercise in its totality, we will attempt to keep it on track, and if there is no ability to do so, we'll look at cancellation or postponement," Wolters added. "Depending upon, again, the size, the cost, the location, we will continue to adjudicate."

Innovative ways to squeeze

A C-17 Globemaster cargo plane in Bucharest, Romania, with 45 tons of medical supplies, including 100,000 protective suits, from South Korea, March 28, 2020.

Romanian Ministry of National Defense

Wolters, who is also NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said the alliance's critical missions  including air policing and enhanced forward presence battle groups in the Baltics and Poland  remain intact.

"We're working very, very hard to squeeze as much as we can out of what we have available, but we have preserved all of the operational missions," Wolters said. "Those exercises that we've had to postpone or cancel, we're looking at the innovative ways that we can squeeze as much learning out of each and every one of those events as possible."

Wolters also said it was his goal to review "the critical objectives" of postponed or canceled exercises and make sure field commanders are aware of what lessons were expected to be learned.

"We'll try to pull out of them what we thought we would have pulled out of them to make sure that we can remind all of our forces of all the things that are involved to ensure that we can adequately deter and defend," Wolters said. "That's the purpose of having those exercises  to improve our deterrence and defense posture."

Wolters also said the US and its European allies are supporting coronavirus response efforts through NATO and bilateral mechanisms.

US Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, right, with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at NATO headquarters, March 18, 2020.

Jens Stoltenberg/Twitter

Early on Friday, a C-17 Globemaster transport plane landed in Bulgaria with medical equipment from China, made possible by the NATO-supported Strategic Airlift Capability, under which NATO and partner countries own and operate three C-17s, sharing flying hours and costs.

Through that and other programs, "we're able to lift and shift critical assets and get them to the vital point of need," Wolters said, adding that the US has provided medical equipment and supplies to locations across Europe and this week, in a first for the Pentagon, moved three Americans from Kabul to Germany for coronavirus treatment.

Wolters also addressed disinformation regarding the coronavirus response in Europe, saying Russians have "attempted to insert themselves" into reporting on the delivery of medical goods and to "downplay the importance of one nation in NATO providing [personal protective equipment] to another."

Wolters said his command's reaction to that disinformation effort was two-pronged, consisting of recognizing and correcting falsehoods and of promoting allies' own activities and investments.

"We want to make sure that we continue to stick with our democratic values and stay very, very laser-focused on the facts so that our forces understand exactly what we're doing," Wolters said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
New Delhi: Five of the most visited monuments in the national heritage donned a little different look on Saturday (April 18) as they were illuminated in a special manner on the occasion of the World Heritage Day.

The Red Fort, the Qutub Minar, Humayun's Tomb, Purana Qila and Safdarjung's Tomb are illuminated everyday. But the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) decided that there will be special lighting of diyas and candles at these monuments on April 18.

Taking inspiration from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's '9pm9min' event, in which crores of Indians across the country switched off lights at their homes and lit diyas and candles, the ASI decided to light candles and diyas at these monuments in the national capital to express solidarity to the 'corona warriors'.

"ASI Delhi Circle will also organise `diya lighting ceremony` at Red Fort and Candle lighting ceremony at Qutub Minar and Humayun`s Tomb to express our solidarity with all `CORONA WARRIORS` like sanitation workers, doctors, police officers and Civil administration," it said.

At Humayun's tomb, the ASI lit at least 41 diyas to symbolize the 41 days of lockdown period.

Here's below a picture from Red Fort where earthen lamps were lit on World Heritage Day:

The message written below India's map 'Hum Jitenge' is a message against coronavirus.

The ASI India has also decided to organise online pledge taking ceremonies wherein school students will be administered oath online. The students will read a pledge to safeguard and respect the monuments and their heritage.
Restrictions on the movement and assembly of people in Kashmir to contain the spread of coronavirus entered the second month on Saturday, even as authorities have announced free ration for families living below the poverty line in Srinagar due to the prolonged lockdown, officials said.

They said security forces have sealed off main roads in most places in the valley and erected barriers at several other places to check the unwanted movement of the people and to enforce the lockdown.

Only persons with valid movement passes were allowed passage, they added.

The declared containment or red zones across the valley have been sealed to ensure strict adherence to the standard operating procedure.

The officials said there were 80 red zones in the Kashmir valley and all such areas would remain as red zones up to 42 days, unless no new positive case of COVID-19 is detected.

If any new case is detected in those areas, then the area will remain a red zone for another 42 days, they added.

The markets across the valley were shut and public transport was off the roads with only pharmacies and groceries allowed to open, the officials said.

Educational institutions across Kashmir are closed, while all public places, including gymnasiums, parks, clubs and restaurants, were shut down more than a week before the nationwide lockdown was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

While the prime minister declared a country-wide lockdown on the evening of March 24, the Union Territory administration on March 22 had announced a lockdown across Jammu and Kashmir as part of its efforts to curb the spread of coronavirus.

The administration said the essential services, including healthcare, have been exempted from the restrictions.

Restrictions were first imposed in many parts of the valley on March 19 to contain the spread of the deadly disease. The measures were taken after the detection of the first positive case of coronavirus in the valley.

The total number of positive cases in the Union Territory has risen to 328. Five patients have died in Jammu and Kashmir and 42 have recovered.

More than 59,000 people have been kept under surveillance, including those who are either in government established quarantine facilities or in home isolation.

"Till date 59,205 travellers and persons in contact with suspected cases have been put under surveillance which include 7,631 persons in home quarantine, including facilities operated by government, 260 in hospital quarantine, 281 in hospital isolation and 27,366 under home surveillance. Besides, 23,662 persons have completed their surveillance period of 28 days," the officials said.

In view of the prevailing situation and the restrictions, below poverty line (BPL) families in Srinagar will be provided free foodgrains for as long as the situation remains as it is, the officials said.

They said the distribution of foodgrains for the current month starts on Saturday and will be completed within two weeks.

Under this initiative, around 30,000 quintals of foodgrains will be distributed free of cost to over 1.4 lakh BPL families in the district, the officials said.

The initiative will benefit about six lakh people who will be provided five kg rice per person per month, they said.

The initiative is a recognition of the need for support and an attempt to reach out to impoverished residents of the district, the officials added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A group of 44 suspected members of Boko Haram, arrested during a recent operation against the jihadist group, have been found dead in their prison cell, apparently poisoned, Chad's chief prosecutor announced Saturday. Speaking on national television, Youssouf Tom said the 44 prisoners had been found dead in their cell on Thursday. An autopsy carried out on four of the dead prisoners revealed traces of a lethal substance that had caused heart attacks in some of the victims and severe asphyxiation in the others, he said. The dead men were among a group of 58 suspects captured during a major army operation around Lake Chad launched by President Idriss Deby Itno at the end of March. "Following the fighting around Lake Chad, 58 members of Boko Haram had been taken prisoner and sent to Ndjamena for the purposes of the investigation," said Tom. "On Thursday morning, their jailers told us that 44 prisoners had been found dead in their cell," Tom said, adding that he had attended the scene. "We have buried 40 bodies and sent four bodies to the medical examiner for autopsy." An investigation was ongoing to determine exactly how the prisoners had died, he said. - 'It's horrible' - A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP that "the 58 prisoners were placed in a single cell and were given nothing to eat or drink for two days". Mahamat Nour Ahmed Ibedou, secretary general of the Chadian Convention for the Protection of Human Rights (CTDDH), made similar accusations. Prison officials had "locked the prisoners in a small cell and refusing them food and water for three days because they were accused of belonging to Boko Haram", Ibedou told AFP. "It's horrible what has happened." The government denied the allegations. "There was no ill-treatment," Chad Justice Minister, Djimet Arabi, told AFP by telephone. "Toxic substances were found in their stomachs. Was it collective suicide or something else? We're still looking for answers," he said, adding that the investigation was still ongoing. One of the prisoners was transferred to hospital on Thursday, but he was "faring much better" and had rejoined "the other 13 prisoners still alive and who are doing very well," the minister said. - Major operation against Boko Haram - Earlier this week, the minister told AFP the captured men had been transferred to Ndjamena on Tuesday evening and handed over to the court system for trial. The military operation against Boko Haram killed more than a thousand of the group's militants and cost the lives of 52 soldiers, a Chadian army spokesman said. The operation ran from March 31 to April 8. It was launched in response to a devastating attack on Chadian troops on March 23 on a base at Bohoma, in the Lake Chad marshlands, that killed 98 soldiers. It was the largest one-day loss the army has ever suffered. Since then, Idriss has warned his allies in the region that Chad's army will no longer take part in operations outside the country. The force, considered one of the best in the region, has fought Boko Haram in the Lake Chad region as part of the Joint Multinational Force with Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger. But on Friday, French Defence Minister Florence Parly said Chad remained committed to the G5 Sahel anti-jihadist force operating in the region.
In such a time of crisis, actor Urvashi Dholakia recently expressed her concern regarding how sky-rocketing price of vegetables could lead to hunger issues for several people.

In a strongly worded tweet, Dholakia recently questioned the rising price of essentials.

Are we supposed to help each other or kill each other ?? 150/- per kg for vegetables!! Thats insane @OfficeofUT @AUThackeray #juhumarket @Dev_Fadnavis @dhruvwadhwa #cheats #loot #mumbai virus may not kill us but hunger surely will kill everyone!  Urvashi Dholakia (@Urvashi9) April 3, 2020

Talking to us, the actor explains, Were constantly discussing ki yeh sahi hai, yeh galat hai. Come to think of it, how are we trying to balance this whole situation out? Just because Im an actor, it doesnt mean I can afford such high rates. Lets consider the whole practicality behind the situation.

Dholakia says she felt it was the need of the hour to highlight how people are looting others. Times like these need all-round cooperation. Rather than aggravating problems for others, should we not help them? I tagged some important people because theyre the people weve chosen, so they would be able to help, asserts the 40-year-old.

Meanwhile, Dholakia is enjoying some quality time at home with family, especially with her twin sons, Kshitij and Sagar. Their funny videos have been gaining attention. She has also launched her online chat show.

Amid the stress, we need to laugh for a few seconds. Thats what were also trying to do To be honest, after my Bigg Boss stint in 2012-13, I had consciously decided to give more time to family, so this lockdown isnt affecting much, says Dholakia, who is both happy and proud that her shows Dekh Bhai Dekh and Shaktimaan are being re-run on TV.

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Linkedin Ary Hermawan (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, April 19, 2020 09:03 633 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2c113d 1 Opinion COVID-19,mass-testing,pandemic,infectious-diseases,rapid-testing,#commentary Free

Its been 47 days since the country officially admitted it was not immune to the coronavirus. Since the first patients were confirmed, things have only worsened, with scientists and economists pronouncing only doom and gloom about the days ahead.

The silver lining is that the government now takes the pandemic seriously. Partial lockdowns are in place in Greater Jakarta and other cities considered red zones, while the state budget has been revised to weather the COVID-19 storm.

Now it is no longer relevant to ask whether the government is being transparent about the outbreak. President Joko Jokowi Widodo has made it clear that everything should be made transparent and accessible for all to see. If anything, with the news about people dying of the coronavirus spreading fast via text-messaging applications and with many people already staying home to stay alive, there is no point for the President to withhold information to prevent people from panicking.

The question that we should be asking right now is not whether the government is willing to be fully transparent, but whether the country will ever know the true scale of the pandemic within its borders.

Alas, citizens arent the only one casting doubt on official figures. Officials, governors and even those leading the national COVID-19 task force have publicly acknowledged that the real number of cases out there could be higher than official tallies.

The real problem now is that we have legitimate concerns that Indonesia may not have the capacity to conduct enough testing to implement an effective trace and isolate strategy. Without mass testing, to quote World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, virus-stricken nations are moving blindfolded.

Until only recently, Indonesia had relied on antibody test kits for mass testing. As the test kits are unreliable, the results are not included in the official count. Meanwhile, the government had been extremely selective in using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to examine patients with COVID-19 symptoms. The PCR test results, which are more reliable, are included in the official coronavirus tally.

That is why Indonesia remains on the list of countries with woefully low testing rates, with only 136 tests per 1 million people, according to pandemic data released by Worldometer. For comparison, Malaysia and Singapore, two of our closest neighbors, have tested 2,988 people and 16,203 per 1 million people, respectively.

The government is aware of the problem and decided to conduct more PCR tests, with the President calling for 10,000 PCR tests per day, or around 300,000 per month.

Yet, we do not know if we have the ability to do that.

On April 15, Achmad Yurianto, the governments spokesman for COVID-19 affairs, said the Health Ministry was scrambling to procure reagents  the substance used to conduct swab tests from other countries as Indonesias stock of reagents would only last a week. The supply, he said, would only be enough for 35,000 tests.

The government estimates 1.2 million tests are needed by the end of May  a conservative figure. With effective policies to control peoples mobility, the coronavirus could infect some 500,000 people and kill almost 12,000, while the absence of such policies might lead to some 2.5 million positive cases by April, according to an estimate by University of Indonesia experts.

Indonesia had already tested 42,108 samples as of Friday. With the current supply only enough for 35,000 tests for the next few days, how could we fill the gap?

Due to a global shortage of reagents, the government is now asking countries with an oversupply of kits if they want to sell them. The Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) is trying to produce reagents locally, but it is unlikely that it will make them on time.

While Indonesia still needs to train more people and acquire better lab equipment, no doubt the availability of reagents is the most crucial issue for Indonesias mass testing drive. Yurianto said the 34 local labs tasked with conducting the PCR tests used open-circuit machines that needed reagents for ribonucleic acid (RNA) extraction.

Indonesia is not alone. Hospital labs in the United States are also reportedly competing with other American labs to get reagents, according to The Oakland Press. The Nigerian Center for Disease Control has blamed the shortage of reagents for its low testing rate in the country, which only tests 35 per 1 million people.

It does not help that residents in Greater Jakarta are still ignoring physical distancing measures, while the central government and the local administrations appear to have little confidence in imposing a stricter lockdown for fear of social unrest. With millions of people expected to leave Greater Jakarta to celebrate Idul Fitri in their hometowns across Java from April to May, it wont be easy to track the spread of the disease on the island.

Indeed, things would have been different if the government had acted faster. But, to be fair, no country, with very few exceptions, was ready for a pandemic of this scale. We just hope that the government is fully aware of its mistakes and can fully grasp the known unknowns to anticipate the worst possible scenarios.

It must use all resources available to procure the much-needed reagents to ramp up mass testing while also fine-tuning its lockdown policies to slow down the spread of the virus. But we the people should know that this is our war, not just the governments. It takes the whole community, the whole nation, to band together to defeat this invisible enemy, especially when we may be marching into this battle blindfolded.
The Vietnam-Germany Innovation (VGI) Network held a teleconference in Berlin on April 17 to discuss the COVID-19 situation, with law, immunology and bio-technology experts taking part.

At the teleconference in Germany (Photo: VNA)

Speaking in the event, Dr. Hoang Xuan Chien, a biotechnology expert, said scientists and research institutes worldwide are striving to develop test kits, medicines and vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19. According to the preliminary statistics, over 100 kinds of medicines and vaccines are being developed across the world, with some now in the clinical trial phase.

Vice Chairman of the Vietnamese Business Association in Germany (VBAG) Nguyen Xuan Hoang said the VBAG has informed Vietnamese firms about the host governments relief packages and necessary information via forums.

Minister Counsellor of the Vietnamese Embassy in Germany Dang Chung Thuy said Vietnam and Germany have been working closely together during the pandemic, including offering medical supplies and conducting joint scientific researches in the field.

Meanwhile, overseas Vietnamese in Germany have also produced face masks and offered free meals to German medical staff, who are front-line workers in the fight.

A similar event was also held in Moscow, Russia, on the same day, attracting a number of foreign diplomats and doctors from leading Vietnamese hospitals.

Deputy head of the Bach Mai Hospitals Resuscitation and Emergency Department Pham The Thach advised Vietnamese nationals in Russia to follow treatment regimes at home offered by doctors there because they have proved effective, thus easing overload in hospitals and preventing the spread of the virus.

Vietnamese doctors also offered precautionary measures and necessary advice in case pregnant women or children are infected with COVID-19.

Vietnamese medical students and trainees were also advised how to offer necessary support to overseas Vietnamese in Russia.

Talking with the Vietnam News Agency (VNA)'s reporter in Russia, First Secretary of the Vietnamese Embassy in Russia Ly Tien Hung said the COVID-19 Prevention Network in Russia has received the participation of doctors from the two countries, who he said, are ready to assist the Vietnamese community in Moscow and other Russian regions in COVID-19 treatment at home.

Following the teleconference, Vietnamese doctors will continue offering treatment advice to COVID-19 patients in the Vietnamese community in Russia via telephones, viber, zalo and whatsapp, he said.

Overseas Vietnamese preserve traditional culture Vietnamese people, no matter where they live, always turn their heart to the homeland.
Vietnam has only 268 COVID-19 cases and no deaths. The secret of its success lies in the speed of intervention. Like Chinas, Vietnams communist regime has used its vast surveillance system. The country's economy is among the few that will grow in 2020. Multinationals are leaving China.

Hanoi (AsiaNews/Agencies)  Vietnam is winning the war against the COVID-19 virus. So far, it has 268 confirmed cases with no deaths. According to experts, its secret lies in the speed of its intervention.

On 1 February, the authorities suspended air links with China and shut down all schools and universities. Then they quarantined Vinh Phuc province, home to many migrants who worked in Wuhan (Hubei), the epicentre of the pandemic. They also imposed a mandatory 14-day quarantine on anyone arriving in the country from a risk area.

Unlike South Korea and Taiwan, two other successful examples of the fight against coronavirus, Vietnam is not in a position to carry out mass testing since its healthcare system is not well developed. For instance, Deutsche Welle reports that Ho Chi Minh City (ex Saigon), a metropolis of eight million inhabitants, has only 900 intensive care beds.

Its approach is closer to Chinas draconian method, with the Communist Party controlling the whole decision-making process and implementing the measures military style.

To this end, the regime relies on an extensive surveillance system to contain the pandemic, imposing severe penalties on offenders. However, as with its Chinese neighbour, Vietnams data need to be viewed with some caution.

Vietnam has one of the most dynamic economies in the world. According to the World Economic Forum, 45 million Vietnamese came out of poverty between 2002 and 2018. Per capita GDP is 2,500 dollars; life expectancy went from 71 years in 1990 to 76 in 2015. It has eight doctors per 10,000 people.

Although the pandemic has hit the economy hard, especially the tourism sector hard; the country appears to have absorbed the recessionary effects of the crisis better than many others.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that its GDP will grow 7 per cent in 2021, but this year, it will be limited to 2.7 per cent, a sharp drop over 2019 (7,02 per cent), but the best result in the region. By comparison, Philippines and Indonesia are expected to grow by 0.6 and 0.5 per cent respectively; Malaysia and Thailand are in a recession.

Much of Vietnam's future success will depend on the "great escape" from China. Thanks to the incentives of their governments, some US, Japanese, South Korean and European companies are moving production from mainland China to other countries that offer a cheaper labour force.

Among these, Vietnam appears to be the best placed to welcome companies leaving China. China Briefing notes that this process had already started 15 years ago. It then took greater importance with the onset of the trade war between China and the United States.

Samsung for example has moved part of its operations to Vietnam; Google and Nintendo have started doing the same, like many other large multinationals.
If your business is thinking about the possibilities of setting up a call center to empower your sales team or as an enhanced support resource, what are the kinds of things you should look for, and which providers would equip you with the best solution?

The technology used to equip call centers are as diverse as they are numerous, and they vary a lot in terms of quality and value for money, and in terms of the scope of what they can provide for you. So which phone systems would work best for your own needs?

The phone systems currently available comprise much more than the operator and management staff; their unified combination of hardware and software run the whole show, and can govern the interface between your business, your staff and your customers, so that they can be instrumental in helping to shape your brand.

Phone systems govern all aspects of communications, including call routeing and screening, call logging and call data collection, the agent-to-customer interface itself and such details as predictive dialing and other facets of enhanced software processes which can inform both the sales and the research side of your business. Monitoring of agents' productivity, quality control, opportunities for multilingual delivery and support, customer relations and database building can all be integrated into your telecoms system of choice.

With such a vast selection of possibilities, which phone system is best for your business?

Call Center Phone System Major Players

1. Nextiva

Nextiva Inc. is a provider of VoIP and cloud based applications, based in Arizona. Founded by Tomas Gorny, the tech entrepreneur and philanthropist, Nextiva claims to have over 100,000 business clients, and its many call center features include IVR/auto attendant, automated call distribution, queuing and call monitoring, together with the ability to connect to remote or mobile call agents.

2. Avaya

Avaya Inc. is a multinational business telecoms provider based in California which can provide VoIP, CRM integration and data services. With more than a million customer all across the globe, Avaya is a major player in the telecoms sector. Avaya provides customers with its own bespoke call center facilities called Avaya Aura Contact Center and Avaya Aura Contact Center Elite.

The software which comprises their standard Avaya Aura Contact Center uses Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) to facilitate teleconferencing, and this may be used in conjunction with a client's existing databases and call center software applications to enhance customer support. Their multimedia communications may be integrated with business applications.

The Elite version of this software is, according to Avaya's own publicity, the most widely used call center software system in the world today. It boasts an array of features including automated call routeing and distribution and an "intelligent" operation which is able to match customers and their queries with the staff who are best able to handle them. This can all be integrated into any client business of whatever size.

3. Mitel

Mitel is headquartered in Ottowa, Ontario, and is another global telecoms provider which started out as a supplier of TDM and PBX solutions and which, since 2001, has been providing integrated business telecoms systems.

Mitel offers a branded business telecoms platform called MiVoice Business Call Service, which is able to provide mobile integration to multi-channel telecommunications and seamless operation with third party products, catering for any size of business and capable of handling as many as 65,000 users.

Mitel's MiContract Center Enterprise is an enhanced version which claims to be more comprehensive in scope as it integrates voice, SMS and social media together. It has real-time and historical reporting and provides analysis which purports to enhance both agent efficiency and user experience of the customer.

4. VoIP Logic

VoIP Logic is owned by BroadSoft Inc., and provides PaaS (platform-as-a-service) facilities. VoIp Logic provides what it calls the Call Center with Call Recording PaaS, which is a highly flexible platform which comprises over 15 distinct partners allowing its users multiple service options. Among its many proprietary features are Overflow Call Routeing, Skills Based Routeing, Call Escalation, Priority Queuing and Real-Time Dashboard.

5. Asterisk

Asterisk is an open source software which is free to use. Developed by Digium computer engineer Mark Spencer, it purports to allow any business level computer to be used as a robust communications server, running on Solaris, MacOS, NetBSD, Open BSD or a variety of other operating systems.

Among its own proprietary PBX attributes are IVR, conference calling, voice mail and automated call distribution options. A wide range of functionality and features are possible because it is open source, and this is made possible by using Asterisk's own extension languages. In this way, users can develop bespoke call center solutions in-house or they can easily migrate to new telecoms technology to match whatever needs they may have.

6. Allworx

Allworx provides VoIP technology aimed at small to medium sized businesses, and is based in New York. Originally an engineering company with several blue-chip clients, Allworx created their own in-house phone system out of sheer necessity as there was nothing suitable which was available at the time; the result, an early foray into VoIP, was so good that they decided to market it as a service to outside clients in 2003.

Allworx Automatic Call Distribution is the company's proprietary call center system. It is able to monitor individual call center agents and their productivity, and has advanced queue management, linear priority, a visual alarm warning system and round-robin call methodologies

7. Elastix

Elastix, like Asterisk, is open-source and it also makes use of Asterisk in its software, together with HylaFAX, Postfix and UpenFire. It offers PBX, email, fax and IM utilities and is pitched as an enterprise level solution.

One of its most popular versions is Elastix 2.5, which has gained its devotees due to its flexibility and inherent ability to work with a number of different telecoms brands and systems. Its call center core has predictive dialing proficiency and can be used in both outgoing and incoming phone campaigns.

8. NEC

NEC is a well-known multinational player. Originally Japanese, it now provides a broad diversity of IT technology, electronics and network systems to its many users worldwide. Its recognisable and multi-function phone console units, including the Aspire, DXE, and the SV, XN and SL series, are widely used in call centers globally, as is the UNIVERGE range of phones, virtual handsets and wireless systems which collectively have done so much to make the call agent's work easier and much more productive.

9. RingCentral

Headquartered in California, RingCentral is an innovative communications and collaboration solutions provider founded by Vlad Shmunis in 1999, who sought the innovation of cloud-based products as a flexible and inexpensive alternative to what was then currently available. Business messaging, teleconference utilities and team collaboration are all hallmarks of RingCentral products.

RingCentral's own Contact Center package, which was developed in collaboration with inContact, has historical and real-time reporting capabilities, IVR, multichannel connectivity and a variety of innovative call agent monitoring and management attributes.

10. Shoretel

Shoretel is also a very large telecoms business service provider which uses cloud and hybrid products in its business telephony range. Based in California, its mission was to improve user experience and lower costs, and it has won several awards in doing so.

Shoretel's Connect Cloud is, as the name suggests, a cloud-hosted call center system, while its Connect Onsite is an all-in-one solution which is fixed very much to the ground.
President Trump has pulled a Houdini, slipping free from responsibility of having to manage the damned if you do, damned if you dont call on restarting public life.

But at the same time, hes kept the door open to take credit if it all turns out OK in the coming months.

Trump first insisted that he alone had the power to declare when the country would reopen for business. Many of the nations governors, particularly Democratic governors, countered that it was their call.

Trump was smart enough to say, Fine, if you want to make the call, its all yours.

Trump then laid out broad guidelines for Opening Up America Again that include proposed state or regional benchmarks on testing and the like. But he left getting the job done to the governors.

Its now up to the locals to weigh the health risks of reopening too early against the economic risks of reopening too late. Trump gets to step back from what would have been the toughest decision of his presidency. He also retains control of the federal relief funds the states will need.

By restraining his usual bullheaded self, Trump changed the national conversation from his failure to deal early on with the coronavirus crisis to the issue of how and when we can go back to work.

His overarching message to voters is: I want you to go back to work. You want to go back to work. But its up to your governor to decide.

If the governors succeed, Trump will claim credit and take his typical victory lap.

If the economy stays in the tank and youre out of a job, its the governors fault.

Kamala comeback: After months of relative silence, Sen. Kamala Harris is back.

Shes doing a full slate of interviews, including on The Chronicles Its All Political podcast, sounding much less staged and more measured than when she was trying to out-progressive Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on her presidential run.

Shes also helping to raise money for Democratic nominee-in-waiting Joe Biden.

Its like shes running again. And maybe she is.

For vice president.

Holy City: I went out to Clement Street looking for the old Holy City Zoo comedy club where Robin Williams got his start. Its long gone, replaced by what looks like a restaurant bar.

But along the way, I did get a glimpse of what the city may look like for the next couple of years.

Everyone was wearing a mask, from the old Chinese ladies in the markets to the Millennials looking at the menu at the Sushi Bistro.

And hardly anyone was talking.

I got another look at the future when I rode through the Tenderloin.

The place has become a tent city, with scores of homeless people sheltering in place along the sidewalks. As The Chronicle has reported, many of them do not appear to be 6 feet apart.

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 question is, will the city make them move once the coronavirus passes?

I dont think so.

Big heart: It takes more than a pandemic to keep San Francisco down.

At noon next Saturday, we want everyone in the city to sing out Tony Bennetts classic I Left My Heart in San Francisco.

The sing-out is the brainchild of our own cheerleader in chief, Charlotte Shultz. The idea is to let everyone know that well be back soon and how grateful we are to all our medical professionals and first responders.

People are encouraged to post their performances on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Be sure to use the hashtag #SingOutSF.

Cabin fever: I am getting seriously burned out watching Netflix. Ive gone from Tiger King to Ozark. Both seem to feature little more than white people using the F word.

The other day I was so bored that I listened to a robocall all the way through.

Another time I found myself on the line for a good five minutes talking with a guy who had dialed a wrong number. And he was just as glad as I was to be talking with someone.

Want to sound off? Email: wbrown@sfchronicle.com
Hailey Bieber doesn't appear to be in a rush to have kids right now with husband Justin Bieber.

But the young model is celebrating becoming another new addition to her family as she gets ready to become an aunt.

She took to Instagram Friday to celebrate the news that her sister Alaia is pregnant and is having a girl.

Aunt Hailey: Hailey Bieber took to Instagram Friday to celebrate the news that her sister Alaia is pregnant and is having a girl

The 23-year-old expressed her excitement in the comments of Alaia's announcement, writing 'my niece' and 'Screaming!!!!'

Alaia, 27, posted a black-and-white photo of husband Andrew Aronow kissing her bare baby bump, revealing: 'It's a girl.'

The model married Andrew in 2017 during a New York ceremony, in which Hailey served as maid of honor.

She wrote: 'I made something extra special for @andrewaronows birthday this year..... #BABYARONOW coming to ya August 2020.'

Big news: Alaia posted a black-and-white photo of husband Andrew Aronow kissing her bare baby bump, revealing: 'It's a girl'

So excited: Hailey expressed her excitement in the comments of Alaia's announcement, writing 'my niece' and 'Screaming!!!!' (pictured in May, 2019)

Little endive: Their cousin Ireland Baldwin, 24, also commented on the announcement, writing: 'My little endive'

Their cousin Ireland Baldwin, 24, also commented on the announcement, writing: 'My little endive.'

The news was also met with congratulations from the likes of Tish Cyrus, Christie Brinkley and Bijou Phillips.

Hailey recently squashed any potential pregnancy rumors of her own with Justin, 26, while giving a glimpse at her skincare routine.

She told Glamour UK: 'I'm on a birth control now where I dont have a period, but I still feel symptoms of PMS and this can also affect my skin too.'

The Drop the Mic host has been enjoying some quality romantic time with Justin as they quarantine in Canada.
A Baton Rouge lawyer who visited Life Tabernacle Church on two occasions was hospitalized with COVID-19 on April 16.

Before he became ill, Jeff Wittenbrink, 59, was helping put together a legal defense of the church and its pastor on anticipated charges of defying Louisianas social-distancing order and its ban on large gatherings.

The Rev. Tony Spell has defiantly refused to follow those mandates despite one arrest and repeated warnings. He drew a large crowd on Easter Sunday, which was captured on video.

John Bel Edwards, Louisianas Democratic governor, issued the state's safer at home orders on March 22. Similar to those in Wisconsin, the orders require social distancing and remaining at home except for essential reasons, such as going to the grocery store or pharmacy. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have adopted such measures to reduce contagion and save lives.

But Spell believes that "true Christians do not mind dying. They fear living in fear, according to TMZ. He's also been reported saying that devout Christians need to congregate in order to worship. Otherwise, he said, billions of dollars would not be spent on building churches.

'The bad thing is I might have spread (it) to somebody'

Wittenbrink became ill less than two weeks after attending events at the church, which is located in the city of Central, about 70 miles northwest of Baton Rouge.

Speaking with The Advocate by phone from his hospital bed, Wittenbrink declined to tie his illness to Life Tabernacle Church. He told the newspaper that he might have been infected at a number of places.

"I went to Albertson's twice a day. I went to Sam's. I went to Walmart. I went to Lowe's. I used the gas pumps. I mean I just wasn't careful. God knows where I got it. The bad thing is I might have spread (it) to somebody. I feel bad about that, " he told The Advocate.

Wittenbrinks is not the first COVID-19 case associated with the church. Harold Orillion, 78 died April 15 from the coronavirus, according to the parish coroner. Orillion was a church regular.

Spell said the coroners finding was a lie.

Spell has spurred more controversy by telling his followers to donate their stimulus checks to evangelical churches through a new online challenge he created that uses the hashtag #PastorSpellStimulusChallenge.

Pull Quote 'Christians don't mind dying.'

Donate it to evangelists, North American evangelists who havent had an offering in a month; missionaries, who havent had an offering in a month; music ministers, who havent had an offering in a month, Spell said in a video on YouTube.

Controversy within controversy

Witternbrink had been working with notorious Alabaman Roy Moore on a legal defense strategy for Spell and the church.

Moore, a former justice on the Alabama Supreme Court, was ousted twice from the bench. The first time was in 2003, for refusing to remove a 5,200 lb. granite statue of the Ten Commandments from courthouse property. He had paid for the biblical monuments creation and installation.

Moore was reelected in 2012, but ordered to leave the court permanently in 2016 after reportedly telling Alabama judges to defy the US Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. Moore has compared homosexuality to bestiality and called it an inherent evil against which children must be protected, according to Time magazine.

Moore made national headlines in 2017 when he lost a US Senate race to Democrat Doug Jones. His defeat came after he was hit with multiple and credible accusations of assaulting and making unwanted sexual advances toward women when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s.

Jones, a prosecutor known for going after domestic terrorists such as the Ku Klux Klan, is the first Democrat whom Alabama has elected to the US Senate in 25 years.

Moore blamed LGBT people and socialists for spreading the misconduct charges, which he dismissed as lies.

Louisiana has become an epidemic hotspot. As of 2 p.m. April 17, the state reported 22,532 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,156 deaths associated with the virus, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct an error. Wittenbrink is hospitalized, but he has not died.
President Donald Trump has announced a USD 19 billion financial rescue package to help the agriculture industry weather the staggering economic downturn sparked by measures to defeat the coronavirus.

Trump told a press conference on Friday that the government "will be implementing a USD 19 billion relief program for our great farmers and ranchers as they cope with the fallout of the global pandemic."



The program will include direct payments to farmers, ranchers and producers who Trump said have experienced "unprecedented losses during this pandemic."



Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said US farmers have been hit hard by a sharp shift in demand, as schools and restaurants close and more Americans eat at home. That has disrupted the food supply chain, forcing farmers in many places to destroy dairy output and plough under crops that no longer have buyers.

"Having to dump milk and plough under vegetables ready to market is not only financially distressing, but it's heartbreaking as well to those who produce them," Perdue said.

Perdue said some USD 3 billion of the money would go to buying produce and milk from such farmers, and redistribute it to community food banks. Millions of Americans have recently turned to food pantries for meals and groceries after losing their jobs.

The US farm and food industry has been hit in numerous ways by the coronavirus epidemic. Farmers are having trouble finding seasonal labourers to prepare and harvest crops; some meatpacking plants have been hit hard by COVID-19 outbreaks.

But the change in the way consumers eat has had a huge impact. "Shuttered schools, universities, restaurants, bars and cafeterias are no longer buying milk, meat, fruits, vegetables and other food, causing a downward spiral in crop and livestock prices," the American Farm Bureau said recently.

Perdue praised farmers, who have enjoyed billions of dollars in support payments over the past two years due to the impact of Trump's trade war with China, as "heroic."



"Our farmers have been in the fields planting and doing what they do every spring to feed the American people, even with a pandemic, as we speak.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
~Audit will be conducted on companies that receive stimulus.~

PHILIPSBURG:--- Several employers such as hardware stores, and beauty stores have informed their employees that since they were not allowed to open their stores during the shutdown since the State of Emergency was declared on the Dutch side they will not be paying salaries at the end of April.

Some employees that prefer to stay anonymous said that the owner of Five Star Hardware opened his doors on Friday and was ordered closed by authorities. They said after the store ordered closed their employer informed them that he will not be paying salaries at the end of April because he does not have the money to do since the store could not open its doors throughout the lockdown.

The owner of Beautylicious sent out a voice note to his employees informing them that they must report to work as he would not be accepting any excuses from his workers. The employer made clear that he will not be responsible for the workers that did not show up to work. He said that doctors' offices were able to work from online but he was not able to that therefore he would not be accepting sicknotes either. Beautylyciious opened its doors on Thursday but was ordered closed by the Department of Economic Affairs and was issued a fined for opening since they are not selling essential items. The voice note sent to the employees can be found

The Minister of Finance Ardwell Irion announced that the government will be paying 80% of salaries for all businesses that were not able to operate during the State of Emergency. Irion said that the government will start the payout with the NAF50M deposited on the Central Bank accounts by the Dutch Government. That money is what was owed to St. Maarten since 2018 and 2019.

The Minister of Finance told SMN News that the government has a number of plans in place to ensure that employees are paid. Those companies that apply for the stimulus will have to comply with the demands of government one being that they will be audited to ensure the money they received as salaries go to their workers, besides those employees that are not paid April 2020 also could lodge a complaint with the government since these mechanisms will be put in place as early as Monday.
As India fights coronavirus pandemic, actor Richa Chadha said she is donating food to a local Gurudwara, to help the needy people.

The actor recently made a donation to a local Gurudwara and urged her fans to do the same.

"When I contacted the people at Gurudwara, they said they will accept ration and not money. So I went with the amount of groceries I could procure nearby, which was little, like 10-20 kgs. Now I have learnt that they need as much as 250 kgs every single day, so I am figuring out a wholesale place that can get me food grains and pulses in that large quantity," Richa said in a statement.

She said while it's not possible for everyone to donate large sum of money, that shouldn't stop people from doing their bit.

"Even if you can support one person, or one family at this time, that's good. People may say how does it make a difference? It's just one person. But it makes a difference to that one person, because that person is no longer hungry. We must be kind to each other in these times," she added.

Richa is also supporting grass root level NGOs and volunteer groups in fundraising efforts.

The actor added that the coronavirus crisis has brought out both the best and worst in human beings.

It's the time when our humanity is being tested and I believe in the goodness in people. People have really come together. This pandemic is bringing out the worst and best in humans.

"While some are making racist, communal comments, civil society is going out of its way to care for animals, along with humans.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Police cordoned off all the entrances of the Pechersk Lavra Church in Kyiv on Saturday after multiple cases of the new coronavirus were confirmed inside the monastery next to the church.

Around 100 people gathered in front of the church to celebrate the Orthodox Easter and for the lighting up ceremony of the Holy Fire - a key part of the Orthodox Easter ritual.

Police were allowing people to enter the church one by one.

Earlier on Saturday, at least eight ambulances were seen entering and leaving the monastery within two hours.

Orthodox churches in Russia and Ukraine have sent mixed signals to congregations over whether or not they could attend Easter services this weekend, amid government efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Earlier this week authorities of the Moscow-affiliated Orthodox Church in Ukraine urged worshipers to stay at home and watch the Easter services online or on television.

But they also said that those who really wanted to could come and pray outside churches while maintaining social distancing.

Leaders of the rival Orthodox Church in Ukraine criticised the advice saying that it's a "Christian duty" to take care of others and stay home amid the pandemic.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, that clear up in two to three weeks.

For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and could lead to death.

(Image Credit: AP)
New Delhi: The Group of Ministers (GoM) on Saturday (April 18, 2020) chaired a meeting headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to assess the impact of lockdown extension and allowing partial economic activity in non-hotspot zones amid COVID-19 outbreak.

The government in its statement said that the GoM obtained feedback from various Ministers on the COVID19 situation and it appreciated the decision of gradual opening up of economic activity in areas that have not reported any corona cases in line with the MHA guidelines issued on April 15. The statement further said that these measures will allow for the resumption of graded economic activity keeping in view local conditions within the ambit of measures to prevent spread of the virus.

The meet held at Singh`s residence had in attendance Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers D V Sadananda Gowda, Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Zubin Irani, Railways and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, Environment and I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi.

The others minister present in the meeting involved Minister for Animal Husbandry Giriraj Singh, Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Minister of State of Housing and Urban Affairs (Independent Charge), Hardeep Puri, HRD minister Ramesh Pokhariyal, MoS for Home Affairs G Kishen Reddy and Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar.

The GoM appreciated disbursement of Rs 31,000 Crore to more than 33.25 crore beneficiaries under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana to mitigate the problems of economically weaker sections of population and also examined suggestions received to enlist services of retired doctors, health professionals and medical students in the final year of their graduation.

In the meeting, the GoM reiterated its appeal to people to observe social distance norms and refrain from participating in mass prayers or religious congregations and appealed people to

to follow Prime Minister Narendra Modi's suggestion by making contribution in feeding the needy people, making face masks at home and maintaining social distance.

This was the fifth meeting of the GoM on COVID-19 since March 25. Inputs, suggestions and feedback from the discussions held at these meetings are conveyed to Prime Minister by the Defence Minister.
- President Uhuru Kenyatta announced a voluntary reduction of salaries for senior state officers owing to unprecedented economic times resulting from the coronavirus pandemic

- The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) set the stage for borrowers to access cheaper loans after it lowered the Central Bank Rate (CBR) lending rate from 8.25% to 7.25%

- Uhuru also formed the COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund Board which had collected nearly KSh 1 billion by mid April towards fighting the virus

The Kenyan government has supported Kenyans in many ways since the first case of coronavirus was confirmed on Friday, March 13.

From senior executive officials taking pay cuts to the Central Bank lowering lending rate and Kitui county manufacturing and donating personal protective equipment (PPEs') , the state has somehow managed to reduce faster spread of COVID-19.

READ ALSO: Ruto wins round one as registrar returns dispute over new officials to Jubilee Party

President Uhuru Kenyatta formed the national coronavirus taskforce and the COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund Board to deal with the disease. Photo: State House.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Coronavirus kills Nigeria president Buhari's chief of staff

TUKO.co.ke lists a few actions both the national and county governments took towards fighting the highly contagious disease.

1. President, DP, CSs, CAS' and PSs pay cut

President Uhuru Kenyatta announced a voluntary reduction of salaries for senior state officers owing to unprecedented economic times resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.

As a result, Uhuru and his deputy William Ruto took a 80% pay cut each while Cabinet Secretaries and Chief Administrative Secretaries (CASs) had their pay deducted by 30% with Principal Secretaries foregoing 20% with the funds being channeled to the COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund Board.

2. CBK lowered lending rate to 7.25%

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) set the stage for borrowers to access cheaper loans after it lowered the Central Bank Rate (CBR) lending rate from 8.25% to 7.25%.

The decision by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) was aimed at easing access to credit and stimulating the economy following the COVID-19 crisis slowed operations.

The Central Bank of Kenya building. Photo: Daily Nation.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Watu 16 wapatwa na coronavirus, idadi yafikia 262

3. Cash transfer programmes for the vulnerable

Uhuru announced on Thursday, April 16, that the government had initiated an elaborate plan to pay vulnerable families a weekly stipend of KSh 2000 to help them cope up with prevailing tough times.

4. Good relations with billionaires who donated masks, testing kits

Chinese billionaire Jack Ma donated 20,000 test kits, 100,000 masks to Kenya, the government received 18,000 kits on Wednesday, April 15.

In Kenya Devki Mills chairman Narendra Raval donated oxygen worth KSh 100 million to government hospitals.

5. Kitui county donated PPEs to KNH

Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) received samples of locally made personal protective equipment (PPEs) for use by medics in handling coronavirus patients.

The equipment was presented by Governor Charity Ngilu to the hospital's chief executive officer Evanson Kamuri in presence of Kenya Medical Supply Authority CEO Jonah Manjari.

6. Formation of COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund Board

President Uhuru Kenyatta directed the National Treasury to set up the COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund .

The team led by EABL managing director Jane Karuku had managed to mobilise nearly KSh 1 billion to combat COVID-19 three weeks since it took oath of office.

7. Governor Joho donates masks to police officers masks to distribute to residents instead of arresting them

Mombasa Governor Ali Hassan Joho gave police officers free face masks to distribute to county residents who would be found without one.

Joho's move came after Inspector General of police (IG) Hillary Mutyambai directed his officers to start arresting individuals who would be found in public places without the protective gear.

8. Safaricom donations worth KSh 5.5 billion

Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said the funding was part of programs the telco had initiated to cushion vulnerable Kenyans from prevailing tough economic times.

The telco which is partly owned by the state, had also donated thermal cameras worth KSh 10 million to the Ministry of Health which were installed at border points.

The giant telecommunications company said all the initiatives it had launched to support the government in the war against coronavirus were valued at KSh 5.5 billion.

9. National Assembly, Senate Speakers pay cut

Senate Speaker Ken Lusaka and his National Assembly colleague Justin Muturi agreed to take a 30 % pay cut for three months due to the COVID-19 situation in Kenya.

10. Co-oop Bank donated KSh 100 million to fight COVID-19

Co-operative Bank of Kenya was the first corporate institution to donate KSh 100 million to the country's coronavirus management kitty after government's plea to companies.

The lender said the contribution was expected to support the sourcing of critical life-saving medical supplies and equipment especially ventilators.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly.

He took his own life because of hunger in Kenya | Tuko TV

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China has reported 27 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus as it tries to stem an upsurge in infections in a northeastern province bordering Russia.

Twenty of the new cases were in Heilongjiang province, including 13 Chinese nationals who had returned recently from Russia. The land border has been closed.

China's official death toll rose sharply to 4,632, reflecting a major upward revision of the previous day by authorities in Wuhan, the nations hardest-hit city.

Twenty of the new cases were in Heilongjiang province (pictured, a hospital in the city of Suifenhe), including 13 Chinese nationals who had returned recently from Russia

The land border between China and Russia (pictured at Suifenhe) has been closed due to the virus

In a social media post, the city government added 1,290 deaths to the tally in Wuhan, bringing the toll to 3,869.

Officials said many fatal cases were 'mistakenly reported' or missed entirely in an admission that comes amid growing global doubts about Chinese transparency.

The global pandemic originally emerged in Wuhan. The city went on to suffer the vast majority of China's fatalities from Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.

The change also pushes the nationwide death toll up by nearly 39 percent, based on official national data released earlier on Friday.

Numbers of total cases in the city of 11million were raised by 325 to 50,333, accounting for about two-thirds of China's total 82,367 announced cases.

In a social media post, the city government added 1,290 deaths to the tally in Wuhan (pictured, today), bringing the toll to 3,869

China has come under increasing pressure over the coronavirus pandemic from Western powers led by the US. Pictured: In Wuhan

China has come under increasing pressure over the coronavirus pandemic from Western powers led by the US.

It has raised doubts about Chinese transparency and is probing whether the virus actually originated in a Wuhan laboratory.

China has said the virus emerged from a Wuhan food market whose merchandise reportedly included exotic wild animals sold for human consumption.

Wuhan's epidemic prevention and control headquarters cited several reasons for the missed cases, including the fact that the city's medical staff were overwhelmed in the early days as infections climbed, leading to 'late reporting, omissions or mis-reporting'.

Medical staff in Wuhan are seen removing the body of a person suspected to have the coronavirus in February at the height of the crisis

This photo taken on February 28, 2020 shows medical staff transferring a patient infected by the COVID-19 coronavirus at the Red Cross hospital in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province

It also cited insufficient testing and treatment facilities, and said some patients died at home and thus their deaths were not properly reported.

Top leaders of Chinas ruling Communist Party called for steps to pump up the economy after the biggest downturn since the 1960s in the first three months of this year.

A Politburo meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping said yesterday the government must offset the impact of the pandemic with deficit spending and special bond issues.

The worlds second-largest economy shrank by 6.8 per cent from a year earlier in the first quarter of 2020.
Amid the unprecedented coronavirus outbreak, the United Kingdom government, on April 17, announced a 'Vaccine Taskforce'. While speaking at the daily COVID-19 briefing, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Alok Sharma said that the taskforce will drive forward, expedite and co-ordinate efforts to research and then produce a coronavirus vaccine.

He said that it will bring together people from academia, the government and the industry.

"The government has set up a vaccines taskforce, to coordinate the efforts of government, academia and industry towards a single goal: to accelerate the development of a #coronavirus vaccine."  @AlokSharma_RDG, Secretary of State @beisgovuk pic.twitter.com/NZtNNg7Sys  UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) April 17, 2020

READ: UK Fundraiser Helps Indian-origin COVID-19 Victim With Funeral Costs

According to the official UK government website, the taskforce will be led by Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance and Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam. The authorities will be supporting efforts to rapidly develop a coronavirus vaccine as soon as possible by providing industry and research institutions with the resources and support needed. They will be reviewing regulations and scaling up manufacturing so that when the vaccine becomes available, it can be produced quickly and in mass quantities.

Sharma said, UK scientists are working as fast as they can to find a vaccine that fights coronavirus, saving and protecting peoples lives. We stand firmly behind them in their efforts. The Vaccine Taskforce is key to coordinating efforts to rapidly accelerate the development and manufacture of a potential new vaccine, so we can make sure it is widely available to patients as soon as possible.

READ: UK Warned About New Wave Of Virus Infections

Vaccine Taskforce

As per the website, the taskforce will be focusing of five strands of activity including, supporting the discovery of potential coronavirus vaccines by working with the public and private sector, preparing the UK as a leader in clinical vaccine testing and manufacturing working with companies. The taskforce will further review government regulations to facilitate rapid and safe vaccines trials, developing funding and operational plans for the procurement and delivery of vaccines. Last and foremost, it will be building on the UKs research and development expertise to support international efforts to find a coronavirus vaccine.

READ: UK Health Secretary Questioned Over Virus Response

The Vaccine Taskforce will coordinate the rapid development & manufacture of a potential new vaccine, so it is widely available to patients as soon as possible.https://t.co/zhe74Eq051 pic.twitter.com/k5mK5r9vXO  Alok Sharma (@AlokSharma_RDG) April 17, 2020

The UK government has also announced that 21 new coronavirus research projects will benefit from funding worth around 14 million. The authorities have also invited GP surgeries to take part in the ground-breaking trial, to ascertain whether it could reduce the need for affected patients to go to the hospital and speed up their recovery. Furthermore, the government also announced one new project led by the University of Oxford, in which they will trial anti-malarial drug to determine whether it could diminish the effects of COVID-19 on people in high-risk groups.

(Image source: rickstudly/Twitter)

READ: Expert Says UK Likely Has Europe's Highest Virus Death Rate
Photo: (Photo : pixabay.com)

The hair is a person's crowning glory. It is one of the very first things that a person sees when they look at someone. Aside from the essential function of protection and temperature regulation, the hair also has its aesthetic value.

Still, some mothers who are especially concerned about their children's hair, that fixing the hair even becomes a struggle between mother and child. Some moms would want to rule over the look of their children's hair, but why? Here are some of their answers:

Hair is a parent's effort

Lizzie Skurnick, a writer of the New York Times, shares her experience growing up. Her mother always looked after her hair, combing her hair, braiding it, or curling it. Her mom did this herself until such time Skurnick was finally brought to a salon.

Skurnick thinks that her mom's concern about her hair was always superb, but now that her little boy chose to have his hair long, she realizes how the hair is also a source of judgment on parenting. People would ask her why her son's hair is long as if the hair is an indication of her efforts as a parent. That is like telling everyone that because the hair is tangible, the intangible, like a child's behavior, only comes next in terms of determining parents' efforts.

Moms are afraid their kids are making a bad hairstyle choice

In some parenting forums, mothers ask about what to do with their children who want specific hairstyles. Usually, mothers do not allow their children to change hairstyles, thus causing disagreement between them. Hesitation on a new hairstyle is often because moms are afraid of their children making a bad choice. Also, it is the fear of judgment from others that makes it difficult for some moms to allow their kids to try a new hairstyle.

Moms feel responsible for their kids' hair

For parents, deciding for their children is their primary job while. Parents' decisions prevail even in a child's hairstyle. Regardless of the child's age, the mom would always tend to comment about the child's hair.

In an essay written by Deborah Tannen, she shares her countless experiences with her mom expressing concern about her hair. While writing, she also met women who have the same experiences, even an Arab woman whose hair is not seen because of her hijab. The mom's comment would be about how hair is seen peeking from her hijab.

Hair is always a mother's concern because they feel they are highly responsible for it. Sometimes they feel the way their child looks like is a reflection of who they are as well.

Moms had the same treatment from their moms

In Tannen's essay, she also shared a story from one of her cousins, Elaine, who also had few experiences on the mother and daughter's hair scuffle. It was about Elaine's mom hating her hair because of a comment from Elaine's grandmother. What Elaine's mother would like to happen is for Elaine to avoid experiencing her fate of losing self-confidence.

However, even though being concerned is not a bad thing, other moms would say that it should be noted that aside from the hair becoming someone's crowning glory, it is a huge part of someone's identity.
By Express News Service

SALEM: While Tamil Nadu got its first batch of 24,000 rapid test kits on Friday, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has asked the Centre to provide an additional 50,000 units from its share to boost the fight against the virus in the State. The State government has paid China for 1.25 lakh kits of which 24,000 have arrived. The Centre is giving us only 12,000, and we have asked for 50,000. We had a word with the Union Health Minister, and he promised to consider our request, the CM told reporters on Friday.

Palaniswami was addressing the media after chairing a review meeting with officials in Salem. It is our duty to save the people and the AIADMK government has acted exceptionally well during various natural calamities. The spread of COVID-19 is under control owing to various steps taken by the government. As on Thursday, a total of 180 persons have recovered and been discharged. Only those who were admitted with the infection in an advanced state are taking time to recover, he said.

On allowing industries to start functioning after April 20, he said, The Union government has given permission to run some industries. However, industries located in places announced as prohibited areas are not allowed to function. We have constituted a panel headed by the Finance Secretary to select which industries can be allowed to function. The government will announce it on April 20.

On providing welfare assistance to unorganised workers, he said they will receive the benefits in the next five days. We have instructed all Amma Unavagams to function during the lockdown. Till date, a total of 2.51 lakh people have been served by these canteens in Salem. Groceries have been delivered at the doorstep of 23,000 people through 78 departmental stores in the district. He said 98 per cent of ration card holders have received the `1,000 relief assistance announced by the government.

We also announced essential commodities including rice, dhal and oil for migrant workers. In Salem, majority of the workers have received it. Others will receive it within four days, he added. Responding to criticism by DMK chief MK Stalin, he said: I am not going to care about what Stalin says. We are fighting to save lives. The Opposition leader should act in a responsible manner and not play with the lives of people.
GLEN CARBON  HSHS St. Elizabeths Hospital on Friday held a celebration to commemorate the discharge for a positive COVID-19 patient now well enough to go home.

Clifford McIntyre, 49, of Glen Carbon, was admitted to St. Elizabeths on April 9. He spent five days in the Intensive Care Unit where he was intubated for two days. After showing improvements, McIntyre was moved to the Medical/Surgical floor for the rest of his stay.
An automotive high-speed transmission is a machine that consists of gears and gear trains in a power transmission system of a vehicle to provide controlled application of the power to make sure that the right amount of power goes to the wheels of a vehicle to drive at a given speed.

Growth by Region

Asia-Pacific region leads the market due to increasing government incentives for the manufacturing industry, availability of cheap labor and OEMs taking advantage of the rising demand for the automatic transmission system of vehicles in the region. North America, on the other hand, holds the second position due to a large number of sales of automobiles with automatic transmission systems in the region. Europe is also expected to grow in terms of revenue due to the presence of major automobile manufacturers and rapid technological developments in the region

Get More Information: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/3938

Drivers vs Constraints

The market is mainly driven by a rise in the demand for automatic transmission system vehicles globally. Also, a large number of sales of automobiles in developing countries such as China and India are also propelling the growth of the automotive high-speed transmission market. However, the growth is hindered by the high cost of manufacturing and issues with proper packaging.

Request for Discount: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/discount/3938

Industry Trends and Updates

Toyota, Aisin and Denso, a global leader in automobile and auto parts manufacturing has planned to invest USD 2.8 billion to accelerate its efforts in advanced development of fully-integrated and quality software for automated driving using high-speed transmission system in automobiles globally.

ZF Friedrichshafen, a German-based company that manufactures automobile parts is planning to invest  800 million in hybrid transmission technology. The  800 million for its primary plant located in Saarbrucken, Germany will also go towards production systems, infrastructure, and ZF's supplier network.

Make an Inquiry before Buying: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/checkout/3938/Single
Several clinical trials of drugs including one of the first to be identified as a potential anti-Covid-19 medicine, remdesivir, have been cancelled in China because of the lack of testing candidates.

As of Thursday, 598 novel coronavirus-related clinical trials had been registered in China but some 40 had been cancelled.

According to a state news agency, Xinhua report earlier this week, in all three have been allowed to go ahead with clinical trials including one, which is now in the second stage.

The application for these trials were withdrawn ahead of the deadline to register them earlier this week, Zhong Nanshan, who is leading the team of experts advising the Chinese government on Covid-19 outbreak was quoted by the China Science Daily.

Zhong said the lack of available testing subjects was because the outbreak had passed its peak in China and the government had been able to contain the spread.

The Chinese mainland reported a total of 26 new cases including 17 new imported cases of the novel coronavirus disease Friday, bringing the total number of imported cases to 1,566, the national health commission (NHC) said Saturday.

Overall China has reported 4632 deaths and nearly 82800 cases of Covid-19.

Since the third week of March, Chinas daily increase in Covid-19 cases has been in the dozens with imported cases accounting for most new ones.

The sharp drop in patients has hampered trials, Zhong said.

According to Zhong many studies had to be cancelled because no one expected that China would control the epidemic so quickly.

Now there is no opportunity for large-scale clinical drug or treatment research in China, he said.

The clinical trial of remdesivir for treatment of Covid-19 involving mild or moderate cases has been suspended in China for the reason that the waning outbreak made it impossible to enroll enough eligible patients, according to clinicaltrials.gov, a website maintained by the US government.

A separate trial of the experimental drug for patients with severe symptoms in China was terminated Friday for similar reasons, said Daniel ODay, CEO of the American drugmaker, in an open letter.

The publication of data from the China remdesivir trials rests with the Chinese investigators, but we have been informed that the study in patients with severe symptoms was stopped due to stalled enrollment, ODay said.

Seven clinical trials on the drug were initiated, the CEO said.

An US health news website said the initial results from the drugs trial have been positive.

A Chicago hospital treating severe Covid-19 patients with Gilead Sciences antiviral medicine remdesivir in a closely watched clinical trial is seeing rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms, with nearly all patients discharged in less than a week, STAT news reported.

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This is a special episode of Today in Pa dedicated to the coronavirus pandemic. Today in Pa will be doing these evening updates every weekday throughout the pandemic. You can listen to the latest episode at this link, or on your favorite app including Alexa, Apple, Google, Spotify and Stitcher. Episodes are available every weekday on PennLive. Subscribe/follow and rate the podcast via your favorite app.

Today in Pa. Daily Podcast | Coronavirus Update April 17, 2020

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf releases criteria for reopening the state as the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the state continues to rise. China raises the death toll in Wuhan by 50 percent and we have a warning about a new text message scam exploiting peoples coronavirus fears.

Those are the stories we are covering in the latest bonus episode of Today in Pa, a daily weekday podcast from PennLive.com and hosted by Julia Hatmaker. Today in Pa is dedicated to sharing the most important and interesting stories in the state, but our bonus episodes about the coronavirus also look at how the disease is impacting the nation and the world.

Todays bonus episode refers to the following articles:

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The Ruby Princess will stay docked in Australia until health authorities can work out how to get the crew safely home.

The cruise ship is quarantined at Port Kembla in Wollongong and was supposed to set sail by Sunday, exactly a month after its fateful arrival.

About 1,100 crew members are still on board, 153 of whom have coronavirus, and rigiourous medical checks have delayed its departure.

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller was been negotiating with the crew's home countries for the past week about mass repatriation on chartered flights.

Ruby Princess (pictured on Sunday morning) is held in quarantine at Port Kembla in Wollongong until health officials work out how to get everyone home safely

The Ruby Princess would then be sailed back to its port of origin by a skeleton crew who are immune to the virus having already recovered from it.

An antibody test developed by Westmead Hospital in Sydney is being used to screen crew members for signs they once had coronavirus.

However, they are struggling to find enough of them to pilot the ship home, which is further delaying its departure.

All other cruise ships moored off NSW left earlier this month after crew were swapped between the vessels by police boats in the dead of night.

More than 600 infections and 21 deaths are linked to the Ruby Princess after almost 2,700 passengers were allowed to disembark in Sydney Harbour on March 19.

The ship, currently being held in quarantine at Port Kembla, New South Wales, was supposed to set sail on Sunday under a police order

Giselle O'Meara (pictured) is a performer on the Ruby Princess cruise ship and appealed for help with the deteriorating situation on board with 153 crew members infected

No health checks were done on any of the passengers and many got on domestic flights or cross-state trains while unknowingly infected.

Coronavirus spread quickly and easily on board as passengers said they were not told it might be on board or that social distancing was necessary.

Photos also showed hundreds of passengers crowding together to applaud kitchen staff, and crew partying with passengers the day before it docked in Sydney.

This was despite the crew taking dozens of swabs from passengers with flu-like symptoms to be tested after the ship returned to port.

Three patients who died in Tasmania are believed to be the source of an outbreak that infected 45 medical staff and shut down two hospitals in Burnie last week.

Others had to be tracked down all over Australia and some even flew home overseas.

Passengers Steve Lazaru and Chung Chen, 64, died after returning to the U.S. and Mr Chen's family is suing the ship's operator Princess Cruises.

Hundreds of holidaymakers can be seen crammed together applauding the staff from the gold-trimmed staircase on board the Ruby Princess, unaware of the fact coronavirus had already made its way onto the liner

NSW Police are conducting a homicide investigation into the fiasco, raiding the ship and surveying passengers on two recent cruises.

They were asked whether they saw signs of anyone with coronavirus symptoms on board, about cleaning standards, and if they have videos from the voyage.

Mr Fuller said his team had already identified the likely source of the virus on the ship.

'At this stage, we would think that it was probably a crew member working in the galley,' he said earlier this week.

However, legal experts told Daily Mail Australia the investigation would not lead to any criminal charges and it was unclear why police were investigating at all.

There are three cruise ships in quarantine in Australian waters - the Ruby Princess, the Artania, and the Caledonian Sky.

Chung Chen, 64, died on April 4 in Los Angeles from COVID-19 after travelling on the Ruby Princess, which finished it's voyage in Sydney. Pictured with his wife and daughter

Timeline of Ruby Princess fiasco March 18: The Ruby Princess issues an urgent mayday call for an ambulance for two of its passengers presenting with coronavirus-like symptoms 24 hours before the ship is allowed to dock in Sydney. March 19: The Ruby Princess arrives in Sydney Harbour. More than 2,700 guests are allowed to disembark without adequate health checks. March 25: Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram says New South Wales Health is responsible for letting coronavirus patients disembark the ship. March 29: Several crew members are evacuated and taken to hospital after being diagnosed with coronavirus. April 2: A 66-year-old crew member is taken off the Ruby Princess for medical treatment. More than 200 crew members are sick and in self-isolation. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian defends the actions of NSW Health and the Australian Border Force and points the finger at the Ruby Princess. She claims staff onboard may have misled NSW Health about the extent of illnesses in passengers. April 3: Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton alleges Ruby Princess' operators weren't transparent about the health of crew: 'It was 'clear that some of the companies have been lying about the health of passengers and crew on board'. April 4: Leaked emails show NSW Health knew of the coronavirus risk on board the Ruby Princess before allowing its thousands of passengers to disembark. April 5: A criminal investigation is launched into how passengers were able to disembark without health checks April 8: A team of 30 detectives from state crime, counter terrorism and marine area command start investigating the handling of the Ruby Princess coronavirus scandal. The first briefing into the investigation is held. April 9: NSW Police clad in PPE equipment raid the vessel, questioning its captain and searching for evidence in a rapid escalation of the criminal investigation. April 11: NSW Health confirms that at least 46 crew members of the Ruby Princess cruise ship have contracted COVID-19 April 13: NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller says patient zero on board may have been a crew member serving meals to hundreds of passengers April 15: NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian announces an independent special commission to investigate the Ruby Princess fiasco April 23: With 500 crew left on board, the Ruby Princess left Australian waters to sail to Manila in the Phillipines Advertisement




Calcutta High Court said on Friday it will monitor the West Bengal governments preparedness in fighting the Covid-19 outbreak on a regular basis and asked the state to submit reports without waiting for its order.

The division bench of chief justice TBN Radhakrishnan and justice Arijit Banerjee, while passing a long order after hearing arguments on a writ petition, asked the government to inform what action was being taken to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.

The government, it said, will inform the court how it was determining the cause of deaths, stopping the spreading of the disease and protecting medical staff and doctors following guidelines of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and World Health Organization (WHO).

The writ petition was filed by Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Fuad Halim, who is also a practising doctor.

Also read: Mamata Banerjee govt plans ramping up Covid-19 testing

The bench dismissed advocate general Kishore Duttas argument that the petition could not be treated as public interest litigation (PIL) since Halim is a politician.

We are of the view that this is not an occasion or time for us to consider the maintainability of this writ petition and this is not a matter which should be thrown out at the threshold, since the question raised and which may arise on the basis of the material on record prompts our conscience to have a deeper look into the materials that are being produced on behalf of the State Government in form of affidavits..., the bench said in its order.

We proceed keeping open all issues for consideration as and when it becomes relevant to be dealt with in the form of adjudication, the judges added.

Halims lawyer and former Kolkata mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya argued that the government is not following the guidelines of WHO and ICMR. He also criticised the manner of certification and auditing of the reason for death before issuing death certificates.

Also read: Community transmission threat looms, no crowding in markets, says Bengal CM

We would not venture to say anything on that aspect now. We are aware of various possibilities relatable to the cause of death and the necessity to identify the reason behind a particular death. However, we expect the government to place their response in this regard with the views of the health personnel concerned, the order said.

The advocate general placed before the court some reports filed by state health secretary Dr Soumitra Mohan.

Further reports and materials as may be necessary and relevant shall be placed on record by the state by way of an affidavit from time to time without awaiting further orders of this Court, the bench said in its order.

In its report, the government said, The state government has issued an advisory on April 13, 2020, in which testing of samples, as per the ICMRs latest testing protocol, has been advised to the health authorities. In the said advisory, all symptomatic contacts, whether primary or secondary and all asymptomatic primary contacts of COVID-19 positive patient, have been advised to be tested.

Bhattacharya told the court that there was lack of adequate quarantine facility for doctors, nurses, para-medical staff and other people coming in contact with patients and suspected patients and there was a deficit in their protection and safety norms.

This is a concern which obviously has to be addressed by the concerned authorities. We expect the state government to place a report in this regard as well, the bench said.

We are of the view that WHO and ICMR being expert authorities in the field, their guidelines and advisories are required to be followed by all stakeholders, including the state administration, and we are sure the same shall be done, said the order.

Also read: On April 20, about 45% of economy will resume operations

A further direction on the respondent authorities is sought for taking an immediate step to convert Calcutta Medical College for use only to house Covid-19 patients and also for improving health infrastructure by arranging sufficient test kit and/or protection measures for doctors to make it compatible to combat the present pandemic situation, it said.

The hearing was held through video conferencing in keeping with safety norms during the lockdown.

The Bharatiya Janata Partys state secretary Ritesh Tiwari and a lawyer who wrote separate letters to the chief justice, demanding the courts intervention and seeking the same data, were also made parties in the hearing.

In my petition, I raised several issues, including the unclear status of Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata which the state government earlier said would be turned into the countrys biggest hospital for Covid-19 cases with more than 3000 beds, Halim said while speaking to HT.

The Bengal government has come under criticism in recent weeks as, unlike other states in India, it is against outright linking deaths of people with conditions such as diabetes, heart ailments, kidney disease etc to Covid-19 even if they have the infection.

According to experts, such conditions make the disease deadlier. Such deaths are being treated as results of co-morbidity in which a person suffers from one or more conditions in addition to a condition.

We have formed a committee of five doctors who will decide the actual cause of death. They are the experts, I am not. We do not want to create panic among people. Please trust the doctors, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said last week.

We list all deaths and these are sent to the audit committee of doctors. We are not aware how many deaths the audit committee has reviewed so far and how many it has marked as not Covid related, chief secretary Rajiva Sinha said at a media conference at the state secretariat on Thursday in presence of the chief minister.

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The Holiday Guru is always on call to answer your questions.

This week a reader asks if, in light of the coronavirus pandemic, she should cancel her holiday to Spain in June, and another asks what a holiday 'refund credit note' is.

Q. I booked a package in Spain for June, but Im worried about coronavirus. Can I cancel and get a refund?

Jennifer Browning, via email

One reader asks if she can cancel her package trip to Spain for June and still get a refund

A. If you cancel you will lose what you paid as your tour operator will regard your decision a disinclination to travel.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises against non-essential travel abroad indefinitely so your instinct is not unfounded.

However, operators say this advice could change, so they are only cancelling trips two to three weeks before departures.

Q. Our package trip to Cyprus in a fortnight has been cancelled. We are being offered a Refund Credit Note. What is this?

Peter Williams, Cardiff.

A. Refund Credit Notes can be exchanged for future bookings for a period set by each tour operator, at the end of which  if you have not re-booked  you can claim cash.

By law, operators should provide refunds within 14 days, but due to the pandemic, new rules have been introduced with the blessing of the Association of British Travel Agents.

Q. I heard easyJet could start flying again soon  is this true?

Sam Peters, London SW15

No exact date has been given on when easyJet will start flying again after being grounded because of the coronavirus crisis

A. No exact date has been given, but this week the airlines chief executive said he is considering this and that it is possible that flights will be loaded so that middle seats are empty when services resume.

WERE HERE TO HELP

If YOU need advice, the Holiday Guru is here to answer your questions. Please send questions to holidayplanner@dailymail.co.uk  and include your contact details.
PARIS  French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday in a televised address that one of the strictest coronavirus lockdowns in the world, in place since March 17, will continue until at least May 11. Macron then prematurely blamed the French people for his potential failure to adhere to that end date.

May 11 will only be possible if we continue to be civic, responsible, obey the rules and if the spread of the virus has actually continued to slow, Macron said.

Much of the foreign media misread Macrons speech, failing to capture the subtleties of the French language and Macrons communication style. They took May 11 to represent a hard deadline for ending the lockdown, but it was little more than the carrot incentive. The stick would come shortly thereafter, as it always does, from a member of Macrons entourage.

What the president announced was not deconfinement on May 11, it was confinement until May 11, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said Tuesday morning. There are conditions so that we can deconfine May 11. Its not a certainty, but an objective.

These people would be more adept at raising caged chickens than managing this national crisis of their own creation. Macrons speech inadvertently revealed that the impetus for the continued lockdown is invalid when he said that as of May 11, France would finally be in a position to provide face masks to all citizens  which, in certain situations, such as riding public transport, could be mandatory.

If were just waiting on masks in order to come out of lockdown, then its possible to unlock right now. Anyone in the streets can see that French people have already procured their own masks or have created improvised versions without waiting for the ill-prepared state to get around to it.

Spain has already eased its lockdown by having police provide face masks at subway entrances. The use of face masks is a form of ambulatory self-isolation long practiced in some of the countries least impacted by this virus, such as South Korea. Cover your respiratory passages with this new medical burqa and you dont need to hide in your house from a respiratory virus.

Instead of acknowledging that people didnt wait around for government to act and are now taking their own precautions, Macron is going to keep everyone imprisoned for at least another month as he sits at the controls like a kamikaze pilot and plunges the entire country into a suicide spiral thats sure to cause mass casualties from destitution, unemployment, domestic abuse and suicide across all demographics.

Aware that parents struggling to home-school multiple children with a single computer while working from home urgently require some encouragement, Macron said that starting on May 11, he will progressively reopen daycares and schools. Really? Are the kids also going to be manning the shops to get the economy going again so the country doesnt continue to bleed an estimated 100 billion to 150 billion euros a month?

The French nanny-state has completed its transformation into the schoolmarm state, infantilizing citizens, feeding them platitudes and lies in order to keep them in line. Macron and his handmaidens have destroyed the moral fabric underpinning France ever since Jean-Jacques Rousseau intellectually spearheaded the French Revolution, pointing out that man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

Another revolution is exactly what the French state fears. The newspaper Le Parisien obtained confidential memos from French domestic intelligence fearing a post-lockdown radicalization of social protest.

Why the wait? Even before the lockdown, middle- and working-class yellow vest protesters were out in the streets at least once a week for nearly a year and a half to demonstrate against excessive government tax grabs, wearing gas masks to protect themselves from police tear gas. Im pretty sure those could double as face masks.

Theres one reason these normally brave protesters are sitting at home watching their bank accounts shrink and their livelihoods slip away: fear. Somehow the government they have long distrusted has managed to convince them that protests cant possibly resume until that same government gives them the magic green light. Imagine if King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had sold the French revolutionaries on the idea that their beheadings would have to be delayed indefinitely because a virus might be circulating among the crowd gathered around the guillotine.

Had the French been scared into trading all their basic freedoms back then, the country might have looked exactly like it does right now, as we all sit home suffering, waiting for a royal decree.

Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and host of an independently produced French-language program that airs on Sputnik France. Her website can be found at www.rachelmarsden.com.

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Lack of funding, lack of space, lack of testing and little to no personal protective equipment.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/4/2020 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Lack of funding, lack of space, lack of testing and little to no personal protective equipment.

Thats the reality the local homeless community was facing when it became clear it was just a matter of time before the novel coronavirus pandemic washed up in Winnipegs streets.

And so, the leadership of Winnipegs three shelters  Main Street Project, Salvation Army and Siloam Mission  got to work, scrambling to pool resources and advocate for the most vulnerable and at-risk segments of the population.

"This is the most complicated health care you can offer next to probably running an emergency room. And yet its the least funded, its the least considered, and in this pandemic, it wasnt considered at all," said MSP executive director Rick Lees.

"Its only on the radar now because the three shelters came together and said, This is not acceptable. And we yelled, and we put ourselves at risk when we did that, because sometimes it can cause an opposite reaction where people will say, Alright, well pull your funding."

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Rick Lees, executive director of Main Street Project (MSP), and Dawn Cumming, acting director of detoxification and stabilization for MSP, look through a suite that will be converted into an isolation suite.

Practically overnight, they have created a model for how other cities can manage the needs of the homeless amid the COVID-19 pandemic. And their work hasnt gone unnoticed.

"Weve had Thompson calling up, so were advising them on how to do this. Weve had a call from Toronto. Weve had a call from Calgary," Lees said.

In the coming weeks, Winnipeg will have a broad system in place for the homeless in response to the pandemic, including expanded shelter facilities, a testing centre, isolation units, a quarantine space for those with the virus, and transportation to and from various locations.

Lees said the amount of work to pull it all together has been immense.

"The thing I want people to understand is setting up a shelter is a complex business. It isnt opening a gym and throwing some mats on the floor and getting some volunteers and saying, OK weve got a shelter," Lees said.

"If you want to do a shelter right, its a complicated business built around life safety, safety for staff, how people flow through a building, how you manage people who are in throes of addiction and dealing with mental health, and when youre homeless sometimes people are very desperate."

This is the most complicated health care you can offer next to probably running an emergency room. And yet its the least funded, its the least considered, and in this pandemic, it wasnt considered at all.  MSP executive director Rick Lees

The progress on developing the model and getting preparations in place has been swift.

On April 10, the MSP  in partnership with Manitoba Housing and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority  opened the doors to a low-barrier isolation facility for people awaiting test results.

So far, at least 11 people have spent time at the space, which is a formerly vacant six-storey apartment complex with 39 single units.

For weeks, MSP had been preparing to open such a facility despite not having secured a location or funding.

The agency finally managed to secure a property April 6. On April 9, the provincial government informed Lees they expected the site to be up and running the following day.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Lees looks through the work that is being done in a borrowed building to help expand their shelter facilities.

"That day from noon until midnight and later, we had furniture being delivered, people running up and down the stairs, an elevator guy fixing the elevator. We managed to get 10 rooms opened by 8:30 a.m. Friday," Lees said.

Official titles and roles went out the window, according to Lees, who said it was an all hands-on deck effort.

That night, the agencys budget manager purchased 10 TVs on his personal credit card for the rooms, the director of development helped set up and build furniture, and staff were asking to be assigned new tasks each time they completed one.

"It didnt matter what your title was, we just had to get it done. Thats how something like this happens," Lees said.

Clients at the facility get their own rooms, clothing, medical care, and three meals per day as they await their test results. So far, all of them have tested negative, Lees said.

Since the site opened, a silver lining of the crisis has emerged: At least two people have used their time in isolation to begin withdrawal from drug use and have been transferred into a withdrawal management program run by MSP.

"If you want to do a shelter right, its a complicated business built around life safety, safety for staff, how people flow through a building, how you manage people who are in throes of addiction and dealing with mental health, and when youre homeless sometimes people are very desperate."  Rick Lees

Lees said the agency hopes to use the isolation space as an opportunity to help people overcome their addictions or transfer them into transitional housing as opposed to having them return to life on the streets.

The Salvation Army has offered up its emergency response vehicle  a former ambulance the provincial government donated to the non-profit  to transport people from testing sites to the isolation facility.

MSP is also busy converting the former Mitchells Fabrics building on Main Street into a 120-bed quarantine facility for people who are homeless and have tested positive for the virus. That site is expected to be up and running within a month.

And by the end of the week, MSP is expected to open its new 170-bed shelter at 190 Disraeli Freeway, a former guitar strap manufacturing facility donated to the agency by owner Dan Levy.

Meanwhile, street outreach teams from multiple agencies have begun collaborating to provide around the clock coverage throughout the city, End Homelessness Winnipeg said in a statement.

A community testing site for the homeless will soon open at Thunderbird House, located near the citys three shelters, which will limit the amount of space people have to travel to get tested.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS MSP is also busy converting the former Mitchells Fabrics building on Main Street into a 120-bed quarantine facility for people who are homeless and have tested positive for the virus.

None of this would have been possible, Lees said, without funding from the provincial and federal governments, as well as donations from a number of community partners and businesses.

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This influx of support is allowing the agency to provide the quality of care theyve wanted to for years.

But Lees said the scramble to prepare for the impact of the virus underlines the fact the sector has been underfunded for a long time, resulting in a critical lack of quality infrastructure.

Throughout history, pandemics have disproportionately impacted and spread through those without the ability to protect themselves. In Winnipeg, the homeless were overlooked during initial stages of preparation, Lees said.

"When someone living in Tuxedo is pounding the desk because they cant get a ventilator for their parent or their grandparent, or the hospital beds are full, and they look around and realize theyre full of homeless people, because they get the sickest because theyre immunocompromised, then theyll realize we should have looked after the homeless," Lees said.

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @rk_thorpe
President Trump said Friday he'd like to see 14-year-old Barron back in the classroom - and he'd like to travel outside the White House, as he lamented coronavirus closures.

'I have a young boy who goes to school, I'd like to see him go to school, as good as home is it's very nice but we'd like to see him go to school,' the president said at Friday's press briefing.

He had been asked by a reporter what the government planned to do in the scenario that workers are allowed to start working again but schools remained closed.

President Trump said Friday he'd like to see 14-year-old Barron back at school - and he'd like to leave the White House

'It's very nice,' President Trump (right) said, that Barron gets to be at home, 'but we'd like to see him go to school'

'I think the schools are going to be open soon,' Trump optimistically answered.

The three-phase plan the White House rolled out Thursday keeps schools closed through phase one of the plan being deployed, but workers are able to slowly return to workplaces.

This could cause a headache for working parents who usually have children in school during the work-week.

The president never specifically answered the question, segueing to talk about an economic rebound instead.

While Barron's been stuck at home the president has been too.

'I've been in the White House for months,' he said. 'I don't know what it is but it's been months.'

'Other than I did leave to, to say goodbye to a beautiful ship,' the president said.

Trump last left Washington on March 28 to watch the USNS comfort depart for New York City, where it's stationed now, from Norfolk, Virginia.

Before that, Trump had spent a weekend away at Mar-a-Lago and then a day in Orlando for fundraising and returned to the White House on Monday, March 9.

Since then he's been focused on combating the coronavirus pandemic.

On Friday he expressed he'd like to go back on the campaign trail soon, but didn't divulge a timeline.

'It's great for the country,' he said, adding, however, that he wasn't a fan of doing rallies with social distancing practices. 'It loses a lot of flavor.'
Just a heads up: Physical therapy often includes an internal exam, with the therapist inserting a finger in your vagina while you contract and relax your pelvic floor. (If thats an issue for you, tell the therapist ahead of time, Dr. Pagliano said.) Sometimes therapists will use (painless) internal or external electrodes or ultrasound to gather visual feedback on how effectively youre performing the exercises, she said.

A physical therapist will also talk to you about your day-to-day movements and teach you how to lift things, exercise and breathe while properly using the abdominal and pelvic floor muscles. I put them through a sequence thats very similar to the developmental sequence of a child, including lessons in how to roll over, progress to a plank position, crawl and work up to standing activities, said Dr. Rhonda Kotarinos, M.S., D.P.T., a physical therapist in Chicago who specializes in pelvic floor dysfunction. All that is an interaction of core strength and the pelvic floor. Shell also recommend a full fitness program with strength, flexibility and aerobic activity. She and Dr. Pagliano said a straightforward case of stress incontinence typically needs about four to six regular weekly visits before therapy tapers off or ends; more complicated cases may require more sessions.

Consider other nonsurgical options.

An incontinence pessary is a removable device thats inserted into the vagina and provides support to the urethra through the vaginal wall in order to prevent leakage. Pessaries come in different sizes and need to be fitted by a trained practitioner. (A 2014 review of eight research trials found that the medical grade devices might be better than no treatment at all but that the evidence behind them isnt that strong.) Theres also an over-the-counter, disposable bladder support product called Impressa that is inserted in the same way a tampon is. These support devices can be particularly helpful for women who have mild or moderate incontinence symptoms under specific circumstances, such as a high-impact exercise class, Dr. Lukacz said.

Collagen injections to bulk up the urethra are also an option, though they arent likely to be as effective as surgery, according to a 2017 JAMA review of treatments by Dr. Lukacz and colleagues, and must be repeated to maintain the effects. (There are no drugs approved in the United States to treat stress incontinence, though there are options for urge incontinence.)

Understand the implications of surgery.

Surgery is another option when stress incontinence is affecting your quality of life. Its generally intended for women who have fully healed from their last pregnancy and arent planning another one, Dr. Schimpf said. Some patients want to try the least invasive, nonsurgical options first, while others want to go directly to surgery to deal with the problem definitively, she said.

The most common procedure is called a midurethral sling, a minimally invasive procedure that uses surgical mesh to support the urethra. No surgery is without risk, but the procedure is the least invasive, the least risky, and takes 20 minutes to do in the operating room, Dr. Lukacz said. The physicians I spoke with emphasized that the procedure is different  and uses a much smaller piece of mesh  than the transvaginal mesh surgeries that were used to repair pelvic organ prolapse and have been the subject of Food and Drug Administration scrutiny over complications. Its a huge misperception we are constantly trying to fight, Dr. Schimpf said. (In April, the F.D.A. ordered the remaining manufacturers of mesh for prolapse to stop selling the products, which were implanted in the vaginal wall.)

Some plaintiffs lawyers have called on the F.D.A. to extend the ban to include mesh for stress urinary incontinence; the agency has said that follow-up data shows multi-incision surgery using mesh slings is successful in 70 percent to 80 percent of cases, with safety and efficacy well-established in clinical trials that followed patients for up to one year. A 2017 review of the midurethral sling procedure, covering 81 trials, found that 80 percent of women were cured or had significant symptom improvement up to five years later but highlighted the need for longer term data. Rates of mesh erosion in the midurethral sling procedure were about 2 percent.
Three

By the time of my arrival, in the summer of 1960, my father had been at work on his encyclopedia for nearly a decade. If I had to associate a smell with childhood, it would be the scent of buckram and papernot the innocuous kind found in stationers, but from moldy manuscripts piled up in every corner of his office, the largest room in our small apartment on Pahlavi Street. My mother, who still only half-jokingly called herself Monir Farahani Ed Dowlehthis last obsolete suffix a reference to her supposed aristocratic heritageendured his mania with the pragmatism of a jockey putting up with her thoroughbreds quirks. Though she claimed she was from old money, she had reconciled herself to the fact that having married an academic, the best she could now hope for was not wealth, but recognition from the band of university highbrows she couldnt tolerate. Her father, Ardeshir Khan Farahani, a man with a Shah Abbasstyle mustache who was our familys supplier of French porcelain, had cut off all financial support, as he had never cared much for his impractical son-in-law likening him to Don Quixote and calling him Don Mozaffarian, man of Shatt al-Arab. This moniker, a reference to the circumstances of my fathers birth, was an unconcealed attempt to estrange him: my father had been born two weeks early on a ferry crossing the contested river named Shatt al-Arab by our Arab neighbors and Arvand Roud by us. The exact spot of the birth, as the ferryman later described it, was past the juncture with the Karun but before the fork of the Tigris and the Euphrates, leaving my grandparents, who in those days lived in my grandmothers province of Khuzestan, with a harrowing story and a stateless baby. And even though the matter was eventually resolved and a birth certificate was issued, my father, throughout his life, was branded with a fishy provenance teetering on the border of an Arab land.

To all appearances my father ignored my mothers peacockish family and labored on his encyclopedia with the precision of a scribe, becoming, over the years, the mythical simorgh toward whom art history disciples, like Attars fabled birds, made their pilgrimage. In 1972, four years into his stint at the Ministry of Culture, he received an endowment from the government. He expanded his study to the apartment above ours and hired three scholars who showed up with their Samsonite briefcases every morning at seven oclock with the fidelity of the three magi bearing gifts. I had nicknames for all three: the bumbling Frenchman with a penchant for Pierre Cardin trench coats became Monsieur Hulot, the stout Englishman with the bulbous nose was the Earl of Sandwich, and the Persian reputed to be a genius who consumed copious amounts of marzipan became Yasser Maghz-Pahnbig-brained Yasser.

[ Return to the review of Man of My Time. ]

Seven years later, when everything came to an end, M. Hulot and the Earl packed up and returned to their respective homes, but Yasser Maghz-Pahn, who maybe wasnt such a genius after all, decided to remain because, he said, he had been only a scholar and had committed no crime. He must have forgotten that before becoming my fathers minion he had for years been a critic denigrating the artists of the Saqqakhaneh school, who integrated in their works local motifs from mythical lore, religious symbols, or objects found in the bazaarsamulets, zodiac signs, astrolabes, and even the lowly aftabehthe toilet ewer. Marcel Duchamp, the eminent Yasser had written in 1964 following the Fourth Tehran Biennial, born in the land of Moliere, Montesquieu, and Voltaire, could permit himself to proclaim a urinal as art, but we, already regarded as Hajji Babas on flying carpets, can hardly afford to do so. I suggest we let the toilet ewer do what it was designed to do: wash our behinds. The poor fool is buried in Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, in an unmarked grave not far from the old prime minister Amir Abbas Hoveydas.

Four

Looking at me now, one wouldnt guess that I started out in this world as the kind of boy who would crouch in a corner of the kitchen, softly biting into a cookie and catching crumbs in my cupped hand. That I arranged my colored pencils according to shadelight to darkand my books according to size, the spines aligned and facing the same direction like a field of sunflowers. That going to sleep I counted to ten to keep death at bay, and upon waking each morning I placed one hand on my heart to make sure it was still beating and the other on my penis to make sure it was still there, a habit that earned me a few slaps from my mother.
Can Americans still have a sensible and friendly political discussion across the partisan divide? The answer is yes, and we intend to prove it. Julie Roginsky, a Democrat, and Mike DuHaime, a Republican, are consultants who have worked on opposite teams for their entire careers yet have remained friends throughout. Here, they discuss the weeks events with Tom Moran, editorial page editor of The Star-Ledger.

Q. President Obama and Sen. Elizabeth Warren endorsed Joe Biden, so the fat lady has sung. Now, what advice to you have for Biden on a VP pick that would help him most in November?

Julie: Bidens team will do research to determine what kind of person he needs to be pick to shore up support. If we are looking at where the Democrats fell short in 2016, communities of color stayed home at higher rates than in 2012. Biden has also done relatively poorly with younger voters in the primary contests. So he and his team will have to assess who can best motivate both those demographics. My personal preference is a Generation X-aged woman of color to help him drive out the vote he needs, but thats just because Im well past ready for Boomers to move over and let my generation finally fix the mess youve created for us.

I love this woman. She doesn't wait for somebody to invite her to the dance. She knows her mind, she is relatable, she is unafraid. #StaceyAbrams https://t.co/qEAd7hhmLK  Julie Roginsky (@julieroginsky) April 15, 2020

Mike: Joe Biden should pick someone who can be President. All the political calculations Julie cited will happen, but the most important decision Biden will make between now and November is his VP pick. On the heels of the pandemic, the most important box to check is can be president. I dont doubt Biden can find one who also fits the political desires Julie lays out, but whoever he picks  no matter gender, color, religion, age or sexual orientation  will go through quite a vetting process on their ability to handle a crisis. Too bad Andrew Cuomo doesnt fit any of the must-check Democrat party boxes right now. Hed probably be pretty good.

In extended fiery remarks, Gov. Andrew Cuomo responds to attack from Donald Trump: "First of all, If he's sitting home watching TV, maybe he should get up and go to work, right?"



Watch his full remarks: https://t.co/nndWs059NF pic.twitter.com/QTOnAItR5W  ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 17, 2020

Q. President Trump is moving to cut funding to the World Health Organization during the pandemic, saying it was bias in favor of China. Did he have a political motive? Will it undercut global effort to fight the pandemic?

Julie: Of course the president has a political motive. Its to project blame for his own failures onto someone else and who better that a faceless, bureaucratic, globalist organization? The United States contributes about a fifth of all funding for the WHO. It isnt a perfect organization by any means, but, for starters, it did provide testing to people all over the world  something that the Trump administration has notably failed to do here in the United States, even after they rejected using the WHOs COVID-19 tests.

China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 24, 2020

Mike: It would be smart to continue to fund the WHO because it is one way we maintain our positive influence in the world. But they are not above criticism, and like many global organizations reliant on the US taxpayers for funding, they sometimes take us for granted and could use a reminder once in a while.

Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds. Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them. The world needs @WHO now more than ever.  Bill Gates (@BillGates) April 15, 2020

Q. Were seeing a political divide on stay-home orders, with Republicans more likely to protest them, as in Michigan this week. How did this become a partisan fight? How will it affect the effort to contain the virus?

Julie: Its unfortunate and shortsighted and it is that way because, as always, the right-wing media tail is wagging the dog. When Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and others consistently denigrate the severity of this crisis, their political acolytes fall in line. Meanwhile, the nations pork supply is at risk because the Republican governor of South Dakota refuses to issue stay at home orders, which resulted in a COVID outbreak at a pork processor there. When you see Tucker Carlson absurdly claiming that Governor Murphy violates the Bill of Rights because he smartly prohibits mass gatherings in his state, other governors who actually care about Tuckers opinion fear that they are next to be targeted by talk show hosts who care more about ratings than they do about lives. The result? More deaths that could have been avoided if science, rather than dogma, ruled the day.

Mike: It goes beyond blaming Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. Thats way too simplistic. It is human nature that is battling right now. We have 22 million people out of work in the last 4 weeks. 22 Million! That is a staggering number. Of course people in Michigan, many who live hundreds of miles from the COVID hotspot of Detroit, can believe she has gone too far in her restrictions. Not every restriction is smart. And not every person who fears losing all they have in life is somehow foolishly anti-science. There are real people out there without jobs, afraid for their homes, afraid for their food and afraid for their families. The left too easily dismisses the fears and beliefs of working people as dogmatic, and it is happening again. It is why working people abandoned Democrats and voted for Donald Trump in 2016.

Julie: Let's not confuse white working class people, who voted for Trump, with working people of color, who voted for the Democratic Party because they understand that the Republican Party and their media enablers have consistently left them behind. In fact, when I have gone to the supermarket, it is men of color stocking the shelves and women of color at the register, risking their lives by covering their face with inadequate, diaphanous scarves or flimsy cloth masks.

Julie: But to your larger point, no one is callous about the economy. Im sure everyone here has already suffered financially. There is not one person reading this column who is not scared about the economic outlook for his or her family. Unless you are someone who is making a living off the carried interest loophole that was miraculously rammed through this most recent bailout, you are likely going to have a much worse year financially this year, regardless of whether you earn a salary or live off dividends. But if there is one thing that is more precious than money, it should be the health and safety of our residents. Without that key ingredient, the economy is shot anyway because not enough people will be willing to risk their lives to return to work.

Mike: My point is that it is OK for people to think differently about the economic recovery. There are 50 counties in Michigan with fewer cases than the NJ county with the fewest cases (Salem). There are dozens of counties with less than 10 cases and zero deaths. It is okay for them to look at things differently than New York and New Jersey.

Julie: It is OK for them to look at it but unless they set up border patrol upon entry to their counties, any COVID-infected person can drive from Detroit to cough on them.

Q. Hospitals in New York and New Jersey report that the crush of Covid-19 patients is not as bad as feared, so far. Will that fuel calls to reopen the economy before were ready?

Julie: Lets be very clear: We dont have adequate testing, as a baseline. We have no idea who is infected, who is infectious, who has developed immunity and who has yet to be infected if he or she rides a crowded NJ Transit train. Logically, there can be no way to reopen the economy until we at least have those basic answers. You cant reopen an economy if your workforce is sick and dying.

Mike: We cant get back to normal, whatever the new normal will be, unless we have the testing Julie states, or the number of new infections is so low that we are back to a scientifically negligible level that suggests it no longer will spread. It wont be at zero, and we cant keep everyone home until we get a vaccine (I dont think), so I wish good luck to our leaders who must figure this out.

My story about #COVID19 and why prolific testing is so critical:

1. Around March 20, I started to feel ill. Symptoms ranged from body aches to difficulty inhaling to feeling like someone was punching me in the wind pipe when I took a deep breath to loss of taste/smell.  Julie Roginsky (@julieroginsky) April 16, 2020

Q. Gov. Phil Murphy is drafting plans to cope with catastrophic revenue shortfall by using emergency power to borrow money, and pay it back by raising the sales tax, according to a report from Bloomberg News. Hows that going to fly?

Julie: I get where the governor is coming from. He desperately needs the revenue and he wants it to get him through the next two budgets. But the devil is in the details and that is where the legislature comes in. For instance, the governors plan raises the possibility of a property tax hike, which is like getting blood from a stone, since millions of many newly unemployed property taxpayers are even more broke than the state is. So its too soon to see how it will fly with the legislature, which is charged with raising revenue.

Mike: I dont know where the state gets the money. A broad-based sales tax will hurt everyone, and will raise less because we are telling people not to go out and spend money. Income tax increases will raise less because so many will be out of work. Property tax increases are political suicide. And if tax increases are part of the solution, we better also see real spending cuts Every spending program cannot be sacrosanct in a global economic crisis. Everything has to be on the table. No easy answers here.

N.J.s Murphy Pitches Borrowing to Plug Budget Holes From Virus https://t.co/Bu9HcmMgLT  Elise Young (@EliseOnDeadline) April 16, 2020

Q. Finally, some rank speculation: The pandemic has given us all a crash course on the importance of low-wage workers, from grocery store cashiers to farm workers. When this is all over, will our thinking about inequality change?

Julie: Most of us who care about more than just stock dividends have long understood the crisis facing low-wage workers  the people who farm our food, who stock supermarket shelves, who care for our elderly parents and our small children. Thats why progressives have long fought for a minimum wage hike and for equal pay. Sadly, fiscal policy coming out of Washington for more than four decades has long favored the wealthiest among us, while growing income inequality. This was true after the 2008 crash and it was true a few weeks ago. I wish I could be optimistic about this changing but that would require a wholesale change in who goes to Washington and who funds elections. When the typical American member of Congress is worth 12 times the average American, for whose benefit do you think policy is created?

We have the Hunger Games for young people and the Hallmark Channel for large companies.



Companies should be allowed to fail.



w/ @SRuhle @msnbc pic.twitter.com/xXY4bHC9co  Scott Galloway (@profgalloway) April 16, 2020

Mike: Our feelings on inequality have evolved over the 250-year life of our country, just like our feelings on inequality likely change over the course of our individual lives. Powerful moments force many to confront our own preconceived notions about groups of people different from themselves. The Holocaust, the Civil Rights Movement, the AIDS crisis, are just a few examples of periods of time that opened the eyes of many to plights they didnt see or could all too easily ignore about others they thought were unlike them. This is a moment where there will be focus on the heroes of the front lines like doctors and nurses, but I, too, hope we will long remember to cheer for the grocery store workers and the sanitation workers to name just a few. If they couldnt work, we would not survive this crisis as a country.

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A note to readers: DuHaime and Roginsky are both deeply engaged in politics and commercial advocacy in New Jersey, so both have connections to many players we discuss in this column. Given that, we will not normally disclose each specific connection, trusting that readers understand they are not impartial observers. DuHaime, a principal at Mercury Public Affairs, was chief political advisor to former Gov. Chris Christie, and has worked for Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and President George W. Bush. Roginsky, a principal of Optimus Communications, has served as senior advisor to campaigns of Cory Booker, Frank Lautenberg and Phil Murphy. Henceforth, we will disclose specific connections in the text only when readers might otherwise be misled, at the discretion of the editors.

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The past two weeks saw a reversal of fortune for Tesla (TSLA) shares. The stock has rallied 10 trading days in a row, and is up nearly 65%.

Theres one reason why investors are particularly bullish on Tesla -- success in Shanghai.

Recent drone footage displays recent manufacturing capacity expansion at the firms new, highly anticipated Shanghai location. In addition, the plant will be producing and offering a longer-range/deluxe edition of its Model 3 strictly for Chinese customers. This redesigned version is already instilling hype among consumers and, according to Bloomberg, could be rolled out as early as this week. For the tech titan, this international expansion is exciting and rather promising in pursuit of some of its longer-term goals such as gaining foreign market share.

However, while all may be well in China, the US is a different narrative. Similar to almost every other large corporation, Tesla is currently having difficulty generating sufficient revenues. So much so, in fact, that the company was unable to pay monthly rent on its premier Fremont manufacturing facility in March. In order to achieve long-term success, Elon Musk disclosed that TSLA will be reducing [its] monthly rent obligations effective immediately" without uttering a word of negotiation. The production site has already been closed for nearly a month, and the earliest it could possibly reopen is likely mid-May.

For 5-star Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives, its evident that Tesla currently boasts two very different sides of the same coin. Ives recognizes the fact that although the company is demonstrating efficient mobility into a foreign market and recently beat Q1 delivery guidance, TSLA has nevertheless been unable to pay rent on its main factory and will face serious revenue cuts throughout ensuing months. While Teslas long-term goals may still be intact, more uncertainty looms in the near future than ever before.

For the time being, it appears that the companys strengths are outweighing its weaknesses. However, Ives begs to differ, forecasting the stocks price to be a meager $425 one year from now, which would represent a 45% decline from its current rate. (To watch Ives' track record, click here)

Story continues

Until Teslas Battery Day is held and Model Y demand trajectory is announced, both of which will likely occur next month, Ives is staying sidelined on Tesla. Wall Street at-large exhibits a similar consensus. Out of the 29 analysts tracked by TipRanks (in the past 3 months), 6 rate the stock a Buy, while 14 maintain a Hold, and 9 issue a Sell. With an average price target of $520.75, TSLA suggests 31% downside from current levels. (See Tesla stock analysis on TipRanks)

To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights.

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It might not have been quite how Listowel's John McAuliffe envisaged his new book being released but, then again, right now under lock-down could also be seen as the most ideal time to release some writing - what with the copious amounts of free time on everyone's hands.

John's latest work, entitled 'The Kabul Olympics', has seen its official launch celebrations put on hold for the time being, at least until such a time that it's safe to do so.

But that has not stopped the book being released on sale online by Gallery Press or indeed it has not stopped John himself from taking to YouTube to read a selection of poems to whet the appetite.

Now living in Manchester, it makes sense that one of John's latest poems, 'City of Trees' conjures an alternate, parallel Manchester in the aftermath of the Arena bombing.

"This is vivid poetry which pits individual lives and ordinary days and hours and minutes against the historical events and catastrophes which would blow them away," is how the book is described by Gallery Press.

For anyone interested in getting their hands on the book for themselves, then they can head over to the Gallery Press website, where it is on sale for 11.95 paperback or 18.50 for a hard back edition.

One can also see John reading from the book on the Gallery Press YouTube channel.
Connecticuts bouncing presidential primary, already pushed from April 28 to June 2 in the public health crisis, will now be August 11, six days before Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee.

The new date that Lamont agreed upon with Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, coincides with other primaries, including General Assembly, congressional and local offices.

To protect the health and safety of voters, poll workers, and the most vulnerable populations, it just makes most sense to extend the date out to August, Lamont said in a statement. I appreciate the continued contact with Secretary Merrill, as well as all of our town clerks and registrars whove worked with us each step of the way through this crisis to respond and make necessary adjustments.

This date change will allow us to make it easier to protect the health and safety of voters and local election officials, prepare for the anticipated increase in demand for absentee ballots, save towns money, and let voters make their voices heard in the presidential primary process, all by holding one primary instead of two, Merrill said.

Early Friday evening, Lamont finally issued his executive order requiring cloth face masks in public when close contact is unavoiable, such as supermarkets and mass transit. It takes effect at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, April 21 and applies to occasions when the six-foot social distancing requirement cannot be met.

Nothing in this order shall require the use of a mask or cloth face covering by anyone for whom doing so would be contrary to his or her health or safety because of a medical condition, anyone under the age of 2 years, or by an older child if the parent, guardian or person responsible for the child is unable to place the mask safely on the childs face, says the order.

During the governors daily briefing, Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, commissioner of the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services warned that the individual isolation forced on people by the pandemic can put a lot more stress on those with alcohol and substance-abuse issues. She said that the agencys website has tools for people to find tele-meetings.

In other developments on Friday, its a relatively minor issue in the coronavirus pandemic, but in an incident that might highlight the need for a regional approach to address the public health crisis, New Yorkers are apparently taking their watercraft to Connecticut, because marinas here are open, while theyre closed in the Empire State.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday raised the issue, telling reporters in Albany that he fielded a complaint from Connecticut officials over the migration of boaters because of a pandemic shutdown in New Yorks marina industry.

Cuomo, then Gov. Ned Lamont later in the day, used the incident to underscore the importance of a regional cooperation and planning, including the slow reopening of businesses.

He was just saying what sense does it make if Connecticut leaves its marinas open and New York keeps them shut? Then everyone in New York will take their boats to Connecticut, Lamont said. What good does it do if I keep our bars shut and he opens them up, because everyone drives back and forth? Were trying to do everything we can to not give anybody an incentive to drive around.

Connecticut officials said later in the day that there doesnt seem to be much of an influx of out-of-staters.

During his daily news briefing in Albany, Cuomo said that the issue came up Friday morning, because Connecticut has not shut down its marina activity, so New Yorkers with watercraft are moving them to Connecticut.

So weve been flooding their marinas with our people, Cuomo said. It sounds like a silly, small issue, but these things are all interconnected. We should have the same policy, otherwise, people want to get out of their house. Its now summer. They want to go boating. While you cant do it in New York, theyll go to Connecticut. Then Connecticut then says well this doesnt help us, we dont want all of these New Yorkers coming up here to do boating.

Cuomo said that coordinating efforts on a regional basis, such as the seven-state effort to plan on reopening as the health crisis wanes, is crucial.

We are all have to cooperate and yes, well make decisions, well make the decisions, but they have to be uniform on a state level, Cuomo said.

Kathleen Burns, executive director of the Connecticut Marine Trades Association, said Friday Friday night that Connecticut boatyards are focusing on the needs of in-stater boaters and doesnt see what Cuomo calls flooding..

We are not seeing a rush of boats arriving in Connecticut from New York, she said in an email. It is early season for Connecticut marinas who have been focused on their repair and service operations, building in extensive safety protocols, as directed by the states business guidelines. They are to trying to safely take care of existing customer orders. Arriving boaters would have had to been launched from New York facilities who we understand are not currently open to do so.

Will Healey, spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said the agency has heard of only a few out-of-state boaters heading to Connecticut in hopes of finding moorings.

We have directed them to contact Connecticut Marine Trades Association or individual marinas to determine what marinas are accepting transients, Healey said. In addition, we are recommending these boaters follow Gov. Lamonts guidance of a 14-day self-quarantine. Marinas and boat yards have been deemed essential by Gov. Lamont and many have remained open to their customers at their own discretion.

kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT
The growing global oil and gas glut, partly caused by the coronavirus global lockdown but also due to mismanagement of the US shale sector and the OPEC+ price war fall-out, is causing mayhem in all energy sectors.



Most of the medias attention goes to upstream oil and gas operators and financial institutions. As US shale companies drown in debt, bankruptcies are expected to pile up within the next months. US shale, offshore oil and gas operators and most non-OPEC producers are going to be struggling to keep some air in the balloon that was filled the last years.



In the next couple of months, due to OPEC++ production cuts and bankruptcies, a vast part of the overproduction will be removed, shrinking the glut to a much more acceptable level. Some analysts are even expecting growth before the end of 2020, based on misconceptions that oil prices could be even hovering around $40 per barrel at that time. Optimism based on simple Excel equations or mathematics are most probably going to be proven wrong.



As long as the impact of the extended Covid-19 crisis on energy and on the global economy is not fully visible, and storage volumes are still building up, oil prices will probably stay low. At the same time, even if all goes back to a pre-corona normal, the normal will be different if nothing will have been learned from history.

A demand collapse such as we are witnessing at present has never been seen before. Demand destruction to the tune of 20-25 million bpd is a giant shock to the total energy system. Market watchers, however, are focusing too much on E&Ps. The current financial situation of most NOCs, IOCs and large independent producers is not yet dire, while smaller drillers are already on life-support. The industry will, in the end, find the right balance again as much production from smaller producers will be shut in or disappear for good.



The main objective for many producers is to be able to produce significant volumes at the end of the crisis. This is partly misunderstood in the media, as most operators are not the ones directly responsible for the production of hydrocarbons. The main players here are the oilfield services, the companies with the technical know-how and tools to produce a barrel of oil.

Premium: Oil Storage Nears Its Limit



Oilfield service companies offer technologies and equipment to oil and natural gas drillers and are crucial in the exploration and completion process, but are also responsible for the manufacturing and mending of equipment. Overall, the fate of all oil service firms is positively correlated to crude prices and also to the capital investment decisions of E&P operators.



The current correlation however is very negative, as low oil prices hit oilfield services exponentially harder. Its strange to see that non-oil and gas analysts are understanding the threat better for other sectors, than oil and gas does. The threat to the survival and revamp of the automotive sector worldwide is not the cash-flow and debt levels of VW, Mercedes, Toyota or GM, but the survivability of the automotive part suppliers. Without automotive suppliers, no car or vehicle will leave the factory in Stuttgart or Detroit.

The situation is no different for the oil, gas and energy sector. Without oilfield services, production will stall and decline within months. The situation is dire for mainstream independent oilfield services companies, not only in US shale, where giants like Schlumberger, Halliburton or National Oilwell Varco are cutting their investments and workforce, but also in other non-OPEC and OPEC regions.



One Oil & Gas UK (OGUK) report already stated that the financial contagion triggered by historically low oil prices will threaten North Sea jobs, shrink its economic contribution and undermine energy security.



According to Energy and Restructuring law firm Hayes and Boones, last year already a grand total of 50 energy companies filed for bankruptcy, including 33 oil and gas producers, 15 oilfield services companies and two midstream companies. The law firm warns that as the crisis in 2020 continues, they fear that the ax could now fall on debt-ridden oilfield services companies. Just in North America, oilfield services companies debt is said to reach $32 billion which is coming due between 2020 and 2024.



The poor financial state of the industry is well represented by the sectors favorite benchmark, the VanEck Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEARCA:OIH), which is down more than 70% YTD, considerably lower than the 30% plunge by the S&P 500. Rystads report last month that 20 percent of global oilfield services workers could be laid off this year has been undervalued as a real threat for the future. The firing of 1 million or more experts, drillers, engineers and workers means a possible productivity loss at the end of the year that will constrain a possible upsurge in demand and supply.

Premium: The Oil Sector That Will Suffer The Most

Former oil and gas crises in the 1980s or 2010s have shown that knowledge destruction because of layoffs can significantly slow down a recovery in the sector. Taking into account that the average oil and gas worker is above 45 years of age, a large part of those becoming unemployed will never come back again. Additionally, the possible bankruptcy of small specialized oilfield services also will destroy specific knowledge not easy to be regained if demand is growing again. Former oil price collapses have led to a strategy change at IOCs, removing part of their inside capabilities in engineering and operations, cutting costs meant handing over project implementation to independent oilfield services. IOCs and NOCs are now doing the same again, putting most of the current crisis fall-out on oilfield services companies that will have no other option than to cut their workforce. Oilfield servicing margins, even in good times, have been under pressure.

Oil & gas future faces several threats and lack of human capital is a very underestimated one that threatens profitability of the sector going forward. Without human capital, which in most cases is being provided by oilfield services, less oil and gas will be able to be produced, refined, stored or processed.

By Cyril Widdershoven for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
KINDERHOOK  Saturday was supposed to be opening day for the 2020 season at the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site and the festive start of National Park Week until the coronavirus pandemic struck, leading the 419 parks run by the National Parks Service to suspend most operations until the crisis is over.

The Lindenwald mansion where the nations eighth president lived is shut tight, as is the visitors center and park offices a short walk away. The grounds of about 125 acres are open, drawing visitors seeking to get outside on a break from stay at home orders.

Its definitely been an adjustment. The lack of being on site is a little challenging, said Megan OMalley, superintendent of the Martin Van Buren NHS, who is one of the 12 year-round employees at the site.

A list of the current status of New Yorks 22 national parks compiled by the National Parks Conservation Alliance, a non-profit independent organization that advocates for the parks, shows that nearly all are shut down. Martin Van Buren NHS is one of the two exceptions, according to the list.

Visitors can walk the grounds where Van Buren lived and enjoy the surroundings. The mansion is closed and no park rangers are available to give tours or provide information. Theyre all working from home with just a maintenance staffer stopping by to make sure everything is OK (as in Old Kinderhook) at the site.

The National Park Services decisions on park closures vary from park to park and take into account local and state guidelines for dealing with pandemic. The parks in New York are closed with staff working from home. Saratoga National Historical Park didnt open its tour road on the usual date of April 1. The Home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt National Historic Site closed its grounds and parking lots on April 11 due to crowds visiting. The site was closed for this past weeks 75th anniversary of Roosevelts burial at Hyde Park.

Saratoga Superintendent Amy Bracewell said hikers and bicyclists can use the park although its listed as closed. Acting Chief of Interpretation Allan Dailey at the FDR site said people can walk on to the grounds, but cant park, which was done to discourage violations of social distancing. FDR's site serves as the headquarters for the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site and Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site. About 40 people work at the sites.

It was a pretty emotional decision to close the visitors center to restrict people from gathering, said Bracewell. About 25 people work at the Saratoga Battlefield.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

The ties the parks have to their host communities is accented during National Parks Week, which runs from April 18-26. This years celebration is generally off-limits. NPS and the National Park Foundation have been promoting online activities to take the place of a park visit.

Its a big week. We had planned a couple of events on site, said Rebekah Oakes, chief of interpretation at Martin Van Buren. The Earth Day and Junior Ranger programs have been modified moved online.

As the summer season approaches, the parks are preparing to reopen, although they dont know when conditions will permit it and what guidelines they will have to follow.

Our broad sense is there will be delays, Bracewell said. Were going to working on guideline for responsible opening of the visitors center.

That means new protocols for such things as viewing the film explaining the Battles of Saratoga, going into the visitors center and using the tour roads. Each park will have its own decisions to make.
Chief of Police, Jennifer Tejada, proudly flying the Wexford flag in the US

A Co Wexford born police chief in America has told this newspaper that the problem faced by US citizens in the fight against Covid-19 is being compounded by a 'complete lack of guidance' from the White House.

Jennifer Tejada is the Chief of Police in Emeryville, which is a small city about 30 minutes from San Francisco.

Originally, a Stacey from New Ross, she emigrated to America in 1987 and although she originally intended to stay in the States for a short period, as she told this newspaper, 'life had a different path' for her.

Chief Tejada is recognised state-wide across California as a strong advocate for community outreach work and in 2013, she was the recipient of the James Q Wilson award in Community Policing.

Throughout her career, she has created programmes and worked in a leadership capacity in several specialised areas, including threat management, emergency and disaster preparedness, workplace violence prevention, domestic violence and sexual assault prevention, and hostage negotiation.

She has also served on several violence prevention and victim services committees, boards and commissions, both locally and regionally in the State of California.

Responsible for policing a population of around 40,000 people, she said the police force in America is under severe pressure at the moment and is not receiving any support from President Trump.

'The way I would put it is that America is facing two pandemics at the moment,' she told this newspaper.

'We have the coronavirus pandemic and we also have a pandemic of stupidity from the White House,' she said.

The area over which Chief Tejada has responsibility stretches from Berkeley to Oakland and she said that the onset of Covid-19 has placed enormous pressure on resources.

'We have confirmed cases here and one of the challenges placed on law enforcement is that we do not know who has it or not when responding to a call,' she said.

'We are not entitled to know who or where in the city we have confirmed cases because of privacy laws,' she added.

She highlighted one incident where officers were tasked to check on a relative of a person who expressed concern for the relative's welfare and when the officers arrived at the house, the relative told them she had tested positive.

'Another lady called but also told us that she had tested positive just so we knew before responding,' said Chief Tejada.

She said the stress of not knowing if a person they are responding too is Covid-19 positive or not is compounding the stress that officers already experience.

'First responders have additional stress on them because of that,' she said.

'I am very proud of my workforce and what they are doing in very difficult circumstances,' she added.

With the inherent attention to detail and the high level of professionalism that has seen her rise through the ranks of policing, Chief Tejada implemented measures to counteract the threat posed to the safety of her officers by the coronavirus before President Trump finally began to do likewise across the country.

'I divided up my district in half on March 16 and put some of them on paid leave for 14 days,' she said.

'The other half worked 12 hours on and 12 hours off and they did that for 14 days and then they switched around last Monday,' she added.

However, before the incoming crew walked through the door of the police building, they were preceded by a sanitising crew.

'The crew going off duty went out the back door and the incoming officers came in through the front door but we made sure that the whole building was sanitised so they were coming into a clean working environment,' said Chief Tejada.

'We sanitised the department from the front ahead of the crew coming in so they were walking into a sterile environment,' she added.

'We are doing everything we can to keep our station a sterile environment.'

With regard to changes in policing that have been necessitated as result of the coronavirus, Chief Tejada said her officers only respond to 'Priority 1' calls at the moment.

'Those would be serious crimes in progress but say if your car has been vandalised, we will not call out to that,' she said.

However, there are phone mechanisms in place for the force to deal with such incidents from members of the public.

'We have reduced person-to-person contact as much as we can,' said Chief Tejada.

'There are multiple layers to the challenge we face,' she added.

'We do not know anything about this virus and we didn't have instructions on whether or not to wear face masks until a few days ago.'

Chief Tejada said the slow response from the federal government in dealing with the crisis has made the situation more serious that it should have been.

While President Trump, erroneously, boasts in his press briefings that America is carrying out more tests than any other country in the world the reality on the ground for first responders is far different to that portrayed by the country's Commander-in-Chief.

'People are asymptomatic and there are no tests available, so people could be carriers and that, for me as leader, is one concern,' said Chief Tejada.

'Another challenge is to keep people motivated and to make sure they know I have their wellbeing front and centre of my priorities,' she added.

'I am here for them and to keep them informed; they know my first priority is to take care of them.'

She went on to comment that is what's expected from a leader but it's something that President Trump is not doing.

'We have two pandemics,' she said.

'The first is Covid-19 and the second pandemic is the stupidity of the federal government because that is a pandemic of stupidity,' she added.

'I have no qualms about criticising the way this was all mishandled by Trump and his inept cabinet.'

Chief Tejada feels very strongly about the steps that should have been taken but weren't by the American government.

'He [President Trump] could have taken action last December but was incompetent and didn't do anything,' she said.

'I do not call him a leader because I don't think he's worthy of that word,' she added.

Chief Tejada said there have been many consequences because of what she described as 'a lack of effective leadership'.

She said it's 'extremely frustrating' from a policing perspective and that positive and pro-active measures should have been taken months ago.

Chief Tejada then revealed that the police force had received no direct communication from the White House and have been effectively left to their own devices.

She gave an example of when she sought some non-touch thermometers for her officers.

'I had to go on my own Facebook page asking if anyone had some we could borrow,' she said.

She found two in a location 'five cities away'.

'I had to drive there to pick them up,' said Chief Tejada.

While President Trump busies himself with giving his followers the impression that the world is looking to America for help in fighting the pandemic the truth is that the lack of resources and basic equipment for first responders on the ground appears akin to a third world country.

When other agencies found out Chief Tejada had secured some non-touch thermometers, they contacted her and asked if they could get a lend of one.

'I gave one away to another agency because they needed it,' she said.

However, a local medical centre then contacted her to say they had some of the thermometers which she gratefully accepted.

In the interim, she has been contacted by agencies in places like Tucson, Texas and Arizona - places in different states that are in excess of a thousand miles away from where she is.

'Every police agency in this country is on its own at the moment,' said Chief Tejada.

A police chief in Florida asked Chief Tejada for assistance and she was also contacted by people in Colorado seeking help.

She said she tunes into Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo's daily briefings to keep herself informed as to what is happening in New York.

She said it was incredible that a tiger tested positive for coronavirus in an American zoo - not because of the fact an animal tested positive but that it was tested in the first place.

'They can test a tiger for it but they have no test kits available for my cops on the front line; that is just ridiculous,' she said.

'They [the officers] are out in the community and I would love to be reassured that they are safe and not infecting others,' she added.

Chief Tejada said test kits should be available to all frontline workers.

Within her own city area, there is one testing centre but to get tested people have to have all of the symptoms associated with the virus and be referred from a physician.

She is also very critical of the fact that someone has 'be on their last gasp breath' before they get tested.

'That blows my mind because if someone has a fever and a dry cough it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that it is likely the coronavirus,' she said.

'It's the people who do not have all the symptoms that I want tested and we have to make the tests more widely available,' she added.

'We are a first world country but it doesn't seem like it.'

While she is obviously worried about her family and friends in America, for Chief Tejada there is the double whammy of being away from her family in Wexford during the crisis.

'I am worried about my family there as well,' she said.

'I am saddened by the fact I don't know when I will get to go back to visit,' she added.

While her original intention was to stay in America for a short period after she arrived in 1987, she said she has no complaints about how things turned out and she feels privileged to be in the position she is in as the country fights 'two pandemics'.

Chief Tejada also feels that ironically people are coming together through technology because the current situation is forcing people to think outside the box.

She is organising conference calls to let the community know the police force is still there for people and to reassure the public.

'I think this might change some of the ways we do things,' she said.

She also feels that people are making an effort to embrace technology more to reach out to each other within the community and even within some of her own social circles that's also happening.

'I think, in some ways, the way people are interacting with each other now is even more meaningful because of the way they are having to do it.'

Chief Tejada also feels it's important to keep positive because everyone is under a lot of pressure and stress because of the virus.

'It's a global pandemic and that's what so different about this because it's something that is affecting the entire world,' she said.

'We are all in this together and by working together and helping each other and supporting each other, we will get through it.'
Far from being a rainforest and vast wilderness, certain Amazonian areas were cultivated by people for crop-growing. Scientists has discovered that humans residing in remote regions of now present-day Bolivia were planting crops such as cassava, squash, and maize. (Photo : Pexels)

Far from being a rainforest and vast wilderness, certain Amazonian areas were cultivated by people for crop-growing. An international team of scientists has discovered that humans residing in remote regions of now present-day Bolivia were planting crops such as cassava, squash, and maize. Inhabitants also developed thousands of "forest islands" which are small mounds of lands, and where there is proof of plant cultivation.

One of the most relevant results of the end of the last ice age almost 12,000 years ago was a change in the lifestyles of early civilizations. Nomadic hunter-gatherers started to live permanently, and they cultivated plants for food. The Holocene epoch was a relatively warm period after the ice age that saw the increase in human activity.

Researchers have discovered evidence that early civilizations cultivated crops for food in four primary locations: China produced rice, grains were grown in the Middle East, maize in Central America and Mexico, and potatoes and quinoa in the Andes region. Scientists now claim that the Llanos de Moxos, the southwestern part of Amazonia, should be identified as the fifth.

This area in Amazonia is a savannah but is dotted with around 4,700 forest islands where humans once lived. These are raised areas of land that are now covered with trees, and approximately 70 meters in diameter. These areas are flooded during the year's rainy season, but these small mounds of land remain above the waters.

The region's inhabitants developed these small islands. The people would drop their rubbish in these areas, and over time they have grown, according to the lead author from the University of Bern - Switzerland, Dr. Umberto Lombard.

Waste is extremely rich in nutrients, and as these mounds grow, they slowly become higher than the flood level during the rainy months. These became excellent places to settle with fertile soil, so people come back to these areas most of the time.

Scientists have examined 30 of these forest islands to search for evidence of crop cultivation. They have discovered fragments of silica called phytoliths, which are little pieces of glass that develop inside plant cells. Depending on which plants they come from, the shape of the glass fragments varies.

The researchers were able to determine evidence of cassava, yucca, and squash more than 10,000 years ago, while maize appeared more recently, almost 7,000 years ago.

Dr. Lombardo said that this turned out as a surprise because people have always regarded Amazonia as a virgin, untouched forest. However, unearthed evidence proves that people were living in the region some 10,000 years ago, and these inhabitants practiced cultivation. Researchers also believe that people who lived at this period most probably ate sweet potatoes, peanuts, fish, and large herbivores for sustenance.

The researchers also believe that their study is an illustration of the global impact of environmental changes, particularly the warming up of the world at the culmination of the last ice age.

This study confirms once more that domestication and plant cultivation began at the onset of the Holocene period, where a pivotal change in world climates and temperatures started, and where the ice age ended.
More than 50 helplines have been started across India to provide succour to women facing domestic violence during the ongoing lockdown, officials said on Saturday.

Anyone can call up on these helplines to lodge complaints of domestic abuse against women anywhere in the country.

"Fifty-two helplines have been started in different parts of the country to help women facing domestic violence during the lockdown," a home ministry official told PTI.

While some of these helplines are active nationally, some are state specific and others were set up at district level.

The helplines are run by police, women welfare departments and NGOs working for the rights of women, the official said.

The domestic abuse national helpline number is 181 while women police helpline numbers are 1091 and 1291.

There are two numbers to provide help to the women through psychologists -- 9000070839 and 0402760531.

While some of the helplines have been operational for a long time, others have been set up temporarily for helping women during the lockdown.

There have been reports of domestic violence in different parts of the country during the lockdown and police have intensified vigil to check such incidents, another official said.

The Pune Zila Parishad has reportedly decided to put men in quarantine if there is any complaint of domestic abuse against them.

There have been reports of growing incidents of domestic violence globally, especially in places like Paris.

During the lockdown, women can't go out to lodge complaint if they face any harassment at the hands of the men at home.

The helplines are expected to provide succour to all such women in distress, the official said.

The lockdown was first announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24 for 21 days -- till April 14 -- in a bid to combat the coronavirus pandemic. It was later extended till May 3.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
UGC to consult medical experts before taking decision on reopening universities View(s):

The University Grants Commission (UGC) is to have a round of consultations with medical consultants, to take a final decision regarding the reopening of universities.

Among the issues to be considered will be, the health precautions that need to be taken and the manner the universities should be reopened, UGC Chairman Prof Sampath Amaratunga said.

He said one of the plans currently under consideration is the allowing of about 20 per cent of the university students to return for lectures in selected universities, initially.

The Vice Chancellors of the 15 Universities have been invited for the consultations.

The UGC said one of the other plans it will propose the opening of universities in three stages.

The move comes in the wake of the Federation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA) urging the UGC to reconsider its previous decision to reopen the universities in May.

Though the COVID-19 situation in the country appears to be under control compared to other countries, the daily patient count is still on the rise, and more importantly the epidemiologists and medical experts have not ruled out the possibility of a surge in patient numbers yet, the Union said in a statement.

The Union said the UGCs announcement regarding a three phase reopening of state universities from May 4 onwards, came as a surprise to the entire country.

Though all of us would like to see this crisis brought to an end and work resumed as soon as possible, the decision to reopen the universities even before the Government eases the restrictions on social movements seems a bit premature and irrational, the statement said.

Prof Amaratunge said a group of professors and senior lecturers from the different universities had been appointed to determine how best the universities could be scientifically re-opened with the students protection in mind.

Next Wednesday, (April 22) we are meeting and discussing many things, he said.

Not all staff members have to report to work, only those living near the University premises and those who have private transport, he added.

He said priority will be given to academics involved in technology and research.

We got many requests from senior academic staff to allow the labs to function, Prof Amaratunga said.

Most of them are engaged in high end research, in partnership with several other countries and we cannot afford to let the work collapse.

Prof Amaratunga also said the lockdown has made a positive impact with the university online platform becoming popular among students. He said more students are now engaged in online studies, through this platform.

Meanwhile the UGC had directed the different universities chemistry labs to assist in the production of surgical masks which can be sold at a nominal price to students. The students will be requested to wear masks while in the university premises.

Universities are filled with academics, and they dont need to be told how to protect themselves, Prof Amaratunge added.

DW/CC
He's never been shy of getting involved during the auditions.

And Britain's Got Talent judge David Walliams suffered a close call during Saturday's auditions, after nearly getting his manhood destroyed by daredevil motorcyclist Jack Price.

The comic took to the stage during the heart-stopping performance where he was tasked with lying down on the stage, while Jack performed an array of dangerous stunts around him.

Tense: Britain's Got Talent judge David Walliams suffered a close call during Saturday's auditions, after nearly getting his manhood destroyed by daredevil motorcyclist Jack Price

At the start of his audition, Jack used his motorbike to perform an array of different stunts, before asking David to join him on stage.

Fitted with a helmet and protective clothing, hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly then handed David a piece to preserve his manhood.

Clearly nervous by the prospect of the challenge, David lay himself down on the floor, and Jack then continued to perform biking stunts around him.

Dramatic: The comic took to the stage where he was tasked with lying down on the stage, while Jack performed an array of dangerous stunts around him

Exciting: At the start of his audition, Jack used his motorbike to perform an array of different stunts, before asking David to join him on stage

Protection: Fitted with a helmet and protective clothing, hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly then handed David a piece to preserve his manhood

Terrifying: Clearly nervous by the prospect of the challenge, David lay himself down on the floor, and Jack then continued to perform biking stunts around him

Luckily he managed to avoid any unexpected accidents, and as Jack finished his array of stunts, the crowed erupted into cheers at the stellar audition.

Returning to his seat, David couldn't contain his relief, joking: 'I've never had a motorcycle tyre touch my **** before!

'You not only risked your own life, you risked your life of the nation's favourite TV judge.

Dramatic: Returning to his seat, David couldn't contain his relief, joking: 'I've never had a motorcycle tyre touch my **** before!'

Worried: Even Amanda couldn't contain her horror as she watched the audition, shielding her eyes

Alesha Dixon praised: 'I love that you brought David into it you were winding him up the whole time. It was really cheeky, just made the whole thing more interesting.'

Simon Cowell admitted he found most of the enjoyment in the audition from watching David come dangerously close to getting hurt, saying he 'absolutely loved it.'

Of course this meant that Jack was awarded three yeses by the judges, earning him a spot in the next round.

Jack was one of several daredevil acts that viewers couldn't look away from, as former marine James Stott also used his military skills to perform an explosive magic trick.

Using five plungers, James used his military skills to guess which ones were not filled with explosive, and at one point even risked his life by placing it in his mouth.

Luckily he escaped the challenge unharmed, and Simon praised him for his 'incredible showmanship,' earning him a spot in the next round.

Blowing it up: Jack was one of several daredevil acts that viewers couldn't look away from, as former marine James Stott also used his military skills to perform an explosive magic trick

Tense: Wesley Williams also wowed the judges with his own daring display, vowing to break the world record by riding the world's tallest unicycle

Wesley Williams also wowed the judges with his own daring display, vowing to break the world record by riding the world's tallest unicycle.

Placing himself at the top, the Florida native rode the cycle which was a staggering 22 feet high, and left the entire audience stunned into silence, after host Declan Donnelly warned them to hold applause until the attempt was over.

Despite a shaky start, Wesley managed to ride the unicycle from a staggering height, and let out a cry of relief once he returned to the nearby ladder.

Britain's Got Talent continues next Saturday at 8pm on ITV.
U.S. President Donald Trump released Opening Up America Again guidelines on Apr 16. The latest protocols suggest a phased opening of the U.S. economy that has been battered by coronavirus-induced lockdowns and restrictions on businesses and citizens. Trump earlier had suggested May 1 as a probable date to lift embargos from several states.



Moreover, reversing his earlier approach, Trump now put the onus on governors to decide a date of reopening their respective states. States are asked to follow a list comprising six criteria, upon adherence to which, governors can consider reopening their respective states in a three-phased manner.



Three-Phased Approach to Curb Coronavirus Resurgence



The first-phase suggests reopening of gyms, restaurants, movie theaters and places of worship with strict physical distancing and sanitation practices to follow. The guidelines indicate schools to remain shut and continuation of work from home.



States can proceed to phase two if there is no evidence of rebound in coronavirus cases over a 14-day period. Schools and youth activities can resume so are public venues by complying with moderate social distancing protocols.



However, employers should continue to encourage remote working system wherever possible. Moreover, under both phases, the elderly and individuals with serious health conditions should continue to stay at home.



After another 14 days, states can proceed to the third phase that suggests much-relaxed rules and limited physical distancing protocols at restaurants, bars, movie theaters, sporting venues and places of worship.



Trumps Phased-Opening Raises Optimism



Notably, the United States now reels under the burden of maximum coronavirus cases in the world, per the Johns Hopkins University data. Total infected persons in the country now scale to 671,425.



Moreover, the imposition of lockdowns in a bid to curb the coronavirus spread is taxing the U.S. economy. New claims of joblessness in the past month hit 22 million, wiping out almost all the U.S. job gains in the past decade.

Story continues







Further, consumer spending activity, which remains a key driving force for the economy, shrank drastically, per the latest March retail sales data. (Read More: Coronavirus Hits Spending Activity: March Retail Sales Crash)



Nevertheless, Trumps phased-guidelines related to the reopening of the economy are expected to raise investor morale amid a grim economic data and an uncertain business environment.



Below we discuss five stocks that are expected to benefit the most from this staggered reopening of the U.S.-economy. These fundamentally strong stocks have outperformed the S&P 500 composite on a year-to-date basis.

Year-to-Date Performance







Our Picks



Zoom Video Communications ZM is undoubtedly one of the biggest gainers of the coronavirus-induced remote working trend. Demand for this Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) companys cloud-native unified communications platform is expected to remain solid owing to extended work-from-home suggestions in the first and second phases. As schools remain closed, online learning wave will also continue, much to the benefit of Zoom Video. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.



The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2021 earnings is pegged at 42 cents per share, suggesting 20% growth from the figure reported a year ago. Long-term earnings growth rate stands at 26.6%.



Regeneron Pharmaceuticals REGN will most likely introduce a coronavirus treatment. The company identified hundreds of virus-neutralizing, fully human antibodies from which it will select the top two antibodies to develop a cocktail treatment for addressing the COVID-19 cases or preventing the contraction of infection. This Zacks #1 Ranked stock plans to initiate large-scale manufacturing with antibody cocktail therapy by mid-April.



Meanwhile, Regeneron and partner Sanofi began phase II/III studies both in and outside the United States to evaluate IL-6 inhibitor Kevzara for treating patients hospitalized with severe infection due to COVID-19.



The consensus mark for fiscal 2020 is pegged at $3.55 per share, indicating 11.1% growth from the year-ago reported figure. Long-term earnings growth rate stands at 23.3%.



Masimo Corporation MASI recently announced the full market release of Masimo SafetyNet, an economically scalable cloud-based patient management solution, created to enable clinicians to provide care for patients in hospital settings and non-traditional settings remotely. This innovative solution is now available globally and is likely to aid clinicians and health workers in fighting the global COVID-19 pandemic.



The Zacks Consensus Estimate for this #1 Ranked company's 2020 earnings is pegged at $3.55 per share, suggesting 10.3% growth from the figure reported a year earlier. Long-term earnings growth rate stands at 19.1%.



Netflixs NFLX solid content portfolio cushioned it successfully against the coronavirus-led stock market rout. Courtesy of its diversified content portfolio, which is attributable to its heavy investments in the production and distribution of localized, foreign-language content and an expanding international footprint, Netflix is well-poised to benefit from a phased reopening of the U.S. economy.



Further, launch of affordably rated mobile plans across India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand is expected to boost this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) companys subscriber base in APAC.



The consensus mark for 2020 earnings is pegged at $6 per share, implying 45.3% growth from the prior-year reported number. Long-term earnings growth rate is pegged at 30%.



Meanwhile, a steady revival of the economy bodes well for Amazon AMZN. Based on its massive supply chain, the company has been able to dispense necessary household items to its users during shutdowns. The companys aggressive hiring reflects solid demand for its services.



Moreover, this Zacks Rank #3 companys cloud computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is instrumental in supporting the work-from-home routine. This apart, the industry participant announced the AWS Diagnostic Development initiative wherein it is investing $20 million. The program aims at accelerating the development of a faster COVID-19 testing.



The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2020 earnings stands at $28.07 per share, indicating 22% growth from the preceding years reported number. Long-term earnings growth rate is pegged at 23.2%.







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The United States is one of the worst-hit countries by the coronavirus pandemic. The US on Friday passed 700,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to a tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University and coronavirus deaths topped 35,400 on Friday, rising by more than 2,000 for the fourth day in a row, according to a Reuters tally. The first known case of COVID-19 in the United State was confirmed on January 20, 2020, a 35-year-old who had returned from Wuhan, China. Now New York City is the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in the US where the city alone accounts for over 17,000 deaths, which puts in perspective the devastating effect it has had on the state. Look how New York City nurses are fighting for survival during the pandemic.
With coronavirus cases rising in Pune, the state government does not plan to ease restrictions in the city as planned in other parts of the state from April 20.

Speaking at a meeting held with officials of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), district administration and police department at divisional commissionerate on Saturday, Ajit Pawar, deputy chief minister, asked officials to strictly implement the lockdown measures in the city.

The rising Covid-19 cases in Pune are a matter of concern. There is need for police department to strictly implement lockdown for the next eight days, said Pawar. Besides Pune, Pawar also asked stringent implementation of lockdown in Pimpri-Chinchwad and the three cantonments in the district.
What looks like a rolling picnic cooler stops at the crosswalk, waits for a car to pass and then navigates its way at a leisurely pace down the sidewalk in suburban Washington. Three blocks away, Jake Williams and his three-year-old daughter Emilia wait for the delivery robot and take out bags with pizza, fresh fruit and a loaf of French bread from the nearby Broad Branch Market.

"We can't go into the shops now," says Williams, among those locked down due to the virus pandemic. "And it's fun for her." The Starship delivery robots have seen surging demand in dozens of cities around the world, with consumers staying home and virus risks growing for both shoppers and delivery workers.

Starship began working with the Broad Branch in early April when the corner store was forced to close to shoppers because it was too small to ensure proper social distancing. Store owner Tracy Stannard said a fleet of up to 10 robots each day, managed by Starship, helps the market meet demands in the neighbourhood. The store handles 60 to 70 deliveries daily, half by a robot.

"Some people request the robot, they don't even care about the groceries," Stannard said. "It's cute to see them roaming the neighbourhood and it makes people happy." Robot deliveries from Starship and a handful of other companies meet only a tiny fraction of food deliveries but highlight a need in a time of social distancing and pandemic fears.

The jump in demand comes as consumers see a trip to the grocery store as a perilous adventure, and retail employees are scrambling to keep safe. More than 40 grocery store employees in the US have died from the virus, according to a Washington Post tally. And delivery workers around the US have staged protests to press safety demands.

Expanding demand

San Francisco-based Starship Technologies, created by two Skype founders, is gearing up to operate in other areas around Washington and recently launched with retailers in Tempe, Arizona, and in cities in Britain and California. The rolling devices operate autonomously at a speed of around six kilometres (four miles) per hour and can carry about three bags of goods.

"The demand for contactless delivery has expanded exponentially in recent weeks," said Ryan Tuohy, vice president of Starship. "Our robots are doing autonomous deliveries in five countries and we're grateful that our robots can make life a little bit easier for everyone." A handful of other companies also has been stepping up.

Silicon Valley startup Nuro recently began delivering groceries in the Houston area in partnership with grocery giant Kroger with its R2 autonomous robot, which travels on streets at speeds up to 40 kilometres (25 miles) per hour and can transport some 190 kilos (400 pounds). Nuro is moving to expand its service and has received approval in California to operate on public roads.

"We did not foresee our service helping to keep Americans safe from contagion. But the COVID-19 pandemic has expedited the public need for contactless delivery services," Nuro's David Estrada said in a blog post. "Times like these reinforce the need for autonomous delivery services like Nuro, and how they can benefit communities."

Delivery robots from Postmates, a delivery startup, have also been seen on the streets in California. And similar autonomous robots are being tested by Amazon.

Above the fray?

Drone delivery is another area where interest is growing due to the pandemic. Wing, the drone startup created by Google parent Alphabet, has seen a jump in demand in its pilot projects in rural southwestern Virginia  where it delivers non-prescription medicines and other items from the Walgreens chain  and in Australia and Finland, a company spokesman said.

"While we recognise that this service will be a small relief during this time, we hope it means one less trip to the store for items our customers may need and provides an efficient way for local businesses to reach their customers in a time when limiting human-to-human contact is important." Wing CEO James Ryan Burgess said.

Amazon and others have continued testing drone deliveries, but these systems are subject to regulatory barriers which have prevented deployment. Zipline, a California startup which has been delivering medical supplies by drone in Africa, has indicated it wants to offer similar services in the US once it gets regulatory approval.

"Zipline is helping other countries mount their national response efforts to #COVID19," the company said in a tweet. "As an American company in a time of crisis, we want to help our country as well."
South African data centre operator and telecoms company Dimension Data has seen a significant increase in peering traffic following the implementation of the national lockdown.

The lockdown was implemented to curb the spread of the coronavirus in South Africa and requires citizens to stay at home.

Workers employed in essential service industries are still allowed to travel to and from work.

The increase in people staying at home has resulted in a big spike in local Internet traffic, as well as the consumption of media across major platforms such as Netflix, YouTube, and Facebook.

MyBroadband spoke to Dimension Data about this change in traffic and how it has been affected by the lockdown.

Traffic increase

Dimension Data told MyBroadband it has recorded a significant increase in Netflix and Facebook traffic, as well as increased traffic during addresses by the president.

We have seen a 25% overall increase in the amount of peering traffic exchanged to and from our content delivery nodes  a clear spike in content-based application consumption, Dimension Data said.

On-net content delivery to subscribers and peers through our open peering policy has increased by 40% for Netflix and Facebook.

On average, we see a 30Gbps spike in content delivery network traffic when President Cyril Ramaphosa addresses the nation, and it was interesting to note a 40% increase in GGC traffic during Andrea Bocellis free Easter concert over the weekend.

Effect on business

Dimension Data said it has successfully implemented remote working and enabled its clients to continue operating their businesses with certain priority procedures in place for those classified as essential services.

Our peering, transit, national, and international networks have had sufficient additional capacity to cater for the increased demand without needing to make any significant networking changes for our corporate clients, Dimension Data said.

Where consumer demand has seen an uptick in last-mile upgrades and consumption of broadband and fibre services, we have upgraded our IPC to cater for these increases.

The company said it has measures in place to ensure that its business remains stable and ready to respond to the changing nature of the pandemic.

These include the freezing of all hiring and back-filling of roles, stopping all property refurbishments, and curtailing all discretionary spend.

The ability to work, and to continue to work, from home relies on the technology and systems we have in place, Dimension Data said.

We are well-positioned in terms of our robust network infrastructure, data, and system security along with the required collaboration and communication technologies to continue delivering enterprise-level solutions for remote workers and supporting our clients evolving needs.
Granada, Spain  In mid-March, Spain and Portugal both declared states of emergency, just a few days apart, to step up their fights against the coronavirus pandemic. But one month later, the two countries of Europes Iberian Peninsula seem to be facing very different situations.

The full extent of the pandemic in both countries, as is the case with most nations worldwide, has yet to be established. But there is a striking difference between Thursdays total of 182,816 registered infections in Spain  the highest in Europe  and the coronavirus toll in Portugal, which, despite having around a fifth of Spains population, had 18,841 infections as of Friday, roughly a tenth of Spains number.

The contrast is much more stark when it comes to death tolls. Spains total confirmed coronavirus deaths reached 9,130 on Thursday. Portugal had registered just 629 by Friday  three percent of its neighbours fatalities. Socially and culturally at least, Portugal and Spain are often credited with having more in common than just a 1,200 kilometre (745-mile) border and currently having a centre-left government in power.

Attempting to grasp why the two neighbouring nations fortunes in the coronavirus battle have varied so greatly  at least from what limited data we have  is not straightforward, or 100 percent certain.

The most important point to raise is that the first registered case in Portugal was a month later than the first case in Spain: March 2 versus January 31, argues Guillermo Martinez de Tejada de Garaizabal, professor of microbiology and parasitology at the University of Navarra in northern Spain.





In fact, Portugal was the last country in Europe to register its first case of COVID-19. That gave the Portuguese an enormous advantage over the Spanish. They could thoroughly prepare their containment strategy regarding the pandemic, he told Al Jazeera.

We also have to applaud the rapid, decisive action by the Portuguese government, which decreed a total lockdown when it only had a handful of cases, he said.

Portugal had just over 100 confirmed cases when restrictions on movement were put into place.

Spain, on the other hand, took that decision at almost the same point [in time] as Portugal, when it had more than 5,000 cases and 133 deaths. Without any doubt, that was key in Portugals obtaining such low levels of mortality.

Manuel Carvalho, director of Publico, one of Portugals best-selling daily newspapers, agrees.

The fight against coronavirus has had quite good results mainly because the government acted quickly, he told Al Jazeera.

Schools were closed around 12 days after the first case and the state of emergency declared 14 days after.

To gain that kind of 'community spirit' reaction, the consensus between political parties, the government and the president was very important. Manuel Carvalho, Publico

Highlighting a positive grassroots nationwide reaction to the lockdown, Carvalho continued: To gain that kind of community spirit reaction, the consensus between political parties, the government and the president was very important.

Rui Rio, the leader of the main opposition party, the PSD [Social Democratic Party], said we are not going to cause problems for the country just to cause problems for the government.

Carvalho contrasts that attitude with the situation in Spain, where the governments main ally, Podemos, are seen by the main opposition party, the Partido Popular [PP], as radical extremists.





Yet across the border, and despite a poll showing 87 percent of Spaniards believe the opposition parties should drop their criticism of the government, as the crisis deepens, the political divisions show no sign of lessening.

On Thursday, Pablo Casado, head of the PP, accused Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of only caring about power, while we only care about Spain. He then postponed attending the governments cross-party talks on a united front for the coronavirus crisis until at least next week.

And Spains hard-right party, Vox  the countrys third-largest parliamentary grouping  accused Sanchez of imposing a totalitarian Communist regime, and refused point-blank to attend the talks.

Meanwhile, Madrids long-troubled relationship with the Catalan separatists, which dominated the political agenda prior to the coronavirus crisis, rumbles on. Recent bones of contention range from Catalan president Quim Torras serious reticence over the relaxing of lockdown for non-essential workers to a protest from the regions interior minister, Miquel Buch, over Spain sending exactly 1,714,000 face masks to Catalonia  which he claimed could be a deliberate coincidence with the defeat of separatist forces in Barcelona back in 1714. Dont play with our history, Buch snarled in a press conference on Monday.

Fragmentation

Over the past three or four years theres been an increasing fragmentation both of the Spanish regions and politics in general, notes Jose Hernandez, assistant professor of sociology and a specialist in social health policies at the University of Cordoba in southern Spain. So now, rather than trying to build consensus, the rival parties are trying to wear each other out.





Also, this is a minority government with fragile parliamentary support, and which lost votes in Spains last elections  unlike in Portugal, where the ruling party was strengthened in the most recent ballot. So it tends to impose measures, rather than risk negotiations it might lose. That lack of consultation only fuels the oppositions anger.

On the medical front, the courage and resilience of Spains health workers when faced with overflowing hospital intensive care units as the coronavirus cases mounted has rightly drawn widespread praise, but depleted medical resources after years of austerity policies in public health have left them hamstrung. In comparison, Portugal has yet to hit such difficulties.

We havent reached our full capacity yet, the countrys health director, Graca Freitas, said a few days ago, referring to hospital occupation levels. Right now, were on a plateau and no expansion [of hospital capacity] has been necessary.

Hernandez points to differences in the two nations human geography. Portugals public health system works well partly because of the countrys demography, he said. The urban areas are not so densely populated, with people spread more evenly through the countryside, and that has forced the health service to retain a broader network.

Portugals greater recent investment in public health and a much more centralised health service have all helped, while greater levels of mass tourism in Spain and the high degree of mobility that goes with it could have encouraged the spread of coronavirus.

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Spains current total of recovered patients, 74,797, is proportionally far higher than Portugals current total of 493. However, that may well be partly down to Portugal being hit later by the epidemic, and for patients to make a full recovery from coronavirus can take weeks. But in either case, both Portugal and Spain are continuing to take major precautions.

In Spain, the lockdown is currently due to end on April 26, although Prime Minister Sanchez has already warned that further extensions will be required. In Portugal, the countrys health minister announced this week that face masks should be worn by everyone in enclosed public spaces such as buses and shops, and President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa confirmed on Thursday that the state of emergency would be extended to May 2.

We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, Rebelo de Sousa said with cautious optimism on Wednesday. In Spain, too, the national conversation is turning slowly towards the idea that that the worst of the pandemic may have passed. But on current evidence, Spains next challenges may well prove considerably more complex to resolve.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Whos up for breakfast during these endless coronavirus quarantine weekends?

The chef and owner of Js on the Bay, Joe Salimeni, is ready to batter up in Rosebank (JsontheBay.com) with short stacks and silver dollar pancakes. His platters come with a choice of bacon, ham, sausage, turkey bacon, or chorizo for an average of $8 an order.

J's on the Bay's pancakes. The Rosebank restaurant delivers Island-wide. Staff-Shot

We are serving pizza only on Fridays and Saturdays, says Joe. And all pies are $10 a piece except for his Angry Lobster Pie. Js on the Bay delivers Island-wide with an $80 minimum for mid-Island and South Shore patrons. Joes pandemic hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. although hell be closing on Mondays starting April 20 as the staff needs a break.

Vino di Vino's Rob Rispoli in Charleston, who does curbside pickups every Saturday in the pandemic. Staff-Shot

In the mood for wine? Good, because Rob Rispoli, winemaker and proprietor of do-it-yourself Vino Di Vino in Charleston, has a surfeit of the stuff. And hes happy to get out of the house on Saturdays for a change of pace. Call him a 718-227-9463 and place the order with a credit card over the phone. Merchandise will be brought to the curb. Robs inventory includes Chilean Malbec, South African Cabernet Sauvignon, Amarone and his Opus One Blend, a combo of Cabernet, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Black Malvasia and Petit Verdot.

Im going to be open every Saturday until the pandemic is over from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for individual bottles and cases, said Rispoli. He has grapes coming in on May 10 to make vino with Chilean and South African product.

Going forward his new winemaking format will feature one two-hour session to crush the grapes. He will allow in one group at a time to allow for proper social distancing. Gloves and masks are a must. Vino Di Vino recently made the news when it merged with Staten Island Winery, formerly of Travis.

Our condolences to Rob who lost his mother, Arlene Rispoli, 84, to complications from the coronavirus (COVID-19.) Her Mass will be at a later time.

On the subject of wines, I heard from three salesmen in the industry who report most restaurants are on C.O.D. In the last six weeks reps, all who work on commission, say there have been no sales.

The yeast shortage continues in the region, thanks to home bakers, those experimenting with the cozy project of bread-making and celebrants of Greek Easter looking to make family recipes. Yeast can be found at Met Foods in Castleton Corners (MetFoods.com.) In addition to using a sourdough starter Michele Froehlich-Perosi of West Brighton recommends using baking soda and lemon juice instead of yeast. Thats new to me -- good to know.

St. George Greenmarket on Saturday, April 18, 2020. It is open until 1 p.m. (Gail Middleton)

Readers have asked about ramps, these delicate, scallion-ish looking things with floppy leaf ears that taste similar to a delicate leek. They are a sure sign of spring with a brief growing season (about two weeks) and in very short supply this year. Dan Torrison of Rabbit Run Farms of Pennsylvania used to be a prime source of them on Staten Island. He tends a stand at the Saturday St. George Greenmarket and explained, Ramps for us are probably a thing of the past. I believe we over harvested a few years ago, and it is taking a long time for them to re-establish.

Rabbit Run Farms, by the way, will return to the Greenmarket each Saturday going forward. The Key Stone State producers were coming every other week in an effort to self-quarantine after their visit to New York City during its time as epicenter in the pandemic.

And whats up with HoBrahs new venture in New Dorp at the site of former Dominicks Bakery? We are told the project is in its final stages before the pause. Delivery continues from the West Brighton location to all points on the Island from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. daily, (HobrahTacos.com.) The restaurant is also opening on the South Shore in Richmond Valley. That endeavor is also on pause until construction work can continue around the city.

In reader mail, Christine of New Brighton sent an email regarding my use of the word Snug in a story about the Heritage Farms new Community Supported Agriculture project. She wrote, As a child some eighty and more years ago, my father and most the neighbors in our New Brighton community were employed in Sailors Snug Harbor, a haven for retired seamen.

"If I, or my brothers would ever, as some other boys had, referred to those gentlemen as Snugs we would be immediately chastised and told to address them as either captain, sailor, or Sir...To my dad, Snug, was a insult to those seamen.

So noted, Christine. That word as an adjective is struck from this native Islanders lexicon going forward -- thank you for pointing that out.

So a little bunny update: We had three bunnies sharing one pen and turns out Dominica should have been called Dominic. Anyway, what came of the collaboration was two pregnant rabbits, then separated from the others. One mother lost her litter. The other had five kittens (we originally thought seven) which are much bigger than usual for this age at about 14 days old.

It turns out that the bunnies are co-mothering the kits -- each nursing them -- and this might explain why the offspring are so big. The upshot of this phenomenon: the babies have good temperaments, are super friendly and not skittish as rabbits can be. Mother Nature is amazing.

Two female bunnies together nurse five bunnies.

Keep in touch.

Pamela Silvestri is Advance Food Editor. She can be reached at silvestri@siadvance.com.

**** FULL CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE IN NEW YORK *****

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's absence from an important anniversary event this week has rekindled speculation over his potential health problems, analysts said yesterday.

On Wednesday, North Korea marked the anniversary of the birthday of its national founder and Mr Kim's grandfather, Kim Il-sung, as a national holiday known as the Day of the Sun.

Senior officials paid tribute to the embalmed body of Kim Il-sung, which is enshrined in the Kumsusan Palace of Sun, state media KCNA said on Thursday.

But it did not mention Mr Kim as part of the delegation, unlike in the past.

He was also absent from photos that were released by the party mouthpiece Rodong Sinmun.

His purported absence has triggered speculation among experts that Mr Kim, who is 36 and is overweight, might be suffering from health problems.

A spokeswoman at Seoul's Unification Ministry, which handles North Korea affairs, said on Thursday that it was aware that state media has not reported on Mr Kim's visit to the event.

But she declined to provide any analysis.

Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at South Korea's Sejong Institute, said that it was the first time in years that Mr Kim's visit to the palace on that holiday was not reported by the state media since he took power in late December 2011.

"He has been going there on the birthdays of his grandfather and father to flaunt his royalty to them and sacred bloodline," Mr Cheong said.

"It is possible that there was a problem with his health or safety even if temporary, though it is difficult to assess how the situation might be," he added.

Pyongyang had fired multiple short-range missiles on Tuesday which Seoul officials said was part of the celebration.

Such military events would usually be observed by Mr Kim.

But this time there was no KCNA report on the missile test at all.

Mr Kim was last publicly seen when he was presiding over a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party's politburo last Saturday.
Jayanth P By

Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: In a move set to ramp up community screening for Covid-19 in Andhra Pradesh, the state on Friday received one lakh Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) kits from South Korea. These kits will help identify the presence of IgG and IgM antibodies within 10-15 minutes. The kits were unveiled by Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, and the first test in the state was conducted on him. The result returned negative.

The CM has given his specimen to send across a message that people can get tested without any apprehensions. If anybody tests positive, they dont need to panic as we have a good team of doctors and healthcare workers at Covid-19 hospitals and quarantine centres, said Dr Rambabu, who conducted the test. According to the Chief Ministers Office, Andhra Pradesh is the first state in India to have imported RDT kits from South Korea. They were manufactured by Seoul-based firm SD Biosensor Inc and presented to the Chief Minister by the companys Indian partner Sandor Medicaids Pvt Ltd.

As of Thursday, AP conducted 331 tests per million people, and stood fourth in the country in terms of the extent of testing. The top three spots were taken by Rajasthan (549), Kerala (485) and Maharashtra (446). With the RDT kits, the number of tests conducted in AP is expected to shoot up from 2,200 to 10,000 per day. The kits were brought to Vijayawada from Hyderabad by road, and will be sent to all AP districts within three days. They reached Hyderabad via New Delhi from South Korea on a special flight. RDT kits will be used for community testing in city clusters where there are many cases, for symptomatic cases identified in the fever survey, and in high-incidence clusters in Krishna, Guntur, Kurnool, Prakasam, Nellore and Kadapa districts, an official said.

Community screening for COVID-19 to be ramped up as 1L test kits arrive

However, results from the RDT kits, which have been approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), are not confirmatory in nature. If the antibody test result returns positive for coronavirus, the sample will again be tested using the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method in a laboratory. The health department aims to conduct up to 15 lakh tests of various types, such as RT-PCR, Truenat PCR and RDT antibody tests, in the next 28 days based on the risk profile of the clusters.

This also depends on when we get the ordered Truenat and remaining RDT kits, said an official, adding, But if we get the kits as planned in the next four weeks, we would be able to do over 50,000 tests a day, and the number of tests per million would shoot up to 1,000. Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL) swab tests would be conducted on high-risk persons within containment clusters, while Truenat/modified PCR/clia tests (intravenous blood) would be done on moderate-risk persons in containment clusters with mild symptoms and those in quarantine centres. RDT tests will be done on those who seem to be at a low risk (asymptomatic) and others.

We planned to do 79,025 tests this week, and have done about 17,600 so far. Since the RDT kits have arrived, we will exceed the target, the official said. The health department has already started training staff on how to perform the rapid tests. However, officials pointed out that RDT kits can only detect antibodies a few days after one has contracted the virus. A negative doesnt mean you are not infected. It means antibodies are not present at the time of testing. Hence, we planned the testing strategically so we dont use the available kits at random, another senior official observed.
Thousands more Oregonians could get tested for coronavirus right now but state leaders arent ready to ease restrictive screening guidelines that could help them identify additional infections and better understand the breadth of the disease.

The tight controls on who should get tested have frustrated people who have symptoms but arent part of the highest-risk groups. Some sick residents are left to fend for themselves and risk infecting others, unsure if they actually have the virus, even as tests sit unused.

Oregons limited testing criteria have created an access imbalance. Doctors and nurses generally follow state advice but exercise discretion, allowing some people with symptoms to get tested at one place after being turned away by another.

One Oregon county with the highest rate of infections statewide is doing fewer total tests than a county with a smaller population and a fraction of the total infections. The state lab isnt using its largely untapped testing capacity to fill that gap.

Seven weeks into the states coronavirus outbreak, testing remains a confounding puzzle to the average Oregonian. There appears to be pent-up demand for more widespread testing  and the ability to provide it  yet the states per-capita testing rate ranks in the bottom half nationally.

Chunhuei Chi, director of the Center for Global Health at Oregon State University, said testing more people in Oregon now could help prevent the spread of the virus among people within a household or when someone whos infected but has mild or no symptoms visits a grocery store.

That in turn could help reduce the number of active cases and speed up the timeline for trying to reopen parts of the economy.

In the absence of increased contact tracing, the second best we can do is to ramp up testing by loosening the criteria, he said.

Relaxing testing constraints to allow doctors to include mild symptoms will likely happen eventually, said Dr. Dean Sidelinger, the states epidemiologist and health officer.

But first, Sidelinger said, the state needs to build the capacity to test up to 15,000 Oregonians per week  not necessarily to actually test that many people  to soften social-distancing restrictions. Sidelinger said officials dont know how close they are to that goal.

It appears Oregon may already have reached it.

The state has reported an average of 1,300 test results a day over the past three weeks. The Oregonian/OregonLive found in a sampling of about a half-dozen hospital systems and health care providers that their staff and labs could handle at least 1,000 more tests each day.

Add them together and that tops 2,300 a day or more than 16,000 tests a week.

Sidelinger said it makes sense for the time being to reserve testing for people who have symptoms and fall into certain categories. Those include first responders or health care workers, nursing home residents, people 60 years old and over, Oregonians whose symptoms are getting worse and those with underlying medical conditions.

Testing people with mild symptoms risks exposing medical workers to the virus and uses supplies that may become scarce, according to guidance from the Oregon Health Authority. But limited access to tests or supplies is no longer an impediment, Sidelinger acknowledged.

If we made an explicit recommendation to test all mildly symptomatic individuals and asked them to go in for testing, yes, it would likely increase testing, he said. But I dont know if that would change the situation here in Oregon.

It remains to be seen whether Oregons capacity goal of 15,000 tests a week, or the equivalent of 60,000 tests a month, is an adequate benchmark, however. Oregon is one of about only a dozen states nationwide that lacks the ability to test at least 100,000 people a month, according to data collected by federal officials.

On a per-capita basis, Oregons capacity looks even worse -- drawing a direct mention by Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, during a briefing Friday in Washington, D.C.

Those are the three states that were working on building capacity in, she said, referencing Oregon, Montana and Maine by name.

To be sure, Oregon has not been hit as severely by the coronavirus as many other states. The stay-at-home order announced by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on March 23 has unquestionably helped bend the curve of infections, preventing a surge in hospitals and a rapid increase in deaths.

And expanded testing has shown the rate of infection is low when Oregon is compared nationally, with just one out of every 20 Oregonians tested finding theyre infected. Officials dont expect that to dramatically change with more testing.

But more infected Oregonians could be found  and other states, such as Utah and New Mexico, have loosened criteria to do just that.

A 36-year-old teacher who lives in Northeast Portland is among those left dismayed by Oregons mixed messaging on testing.

The teacher developed a dry cough in the center of his chest April 6. Over the Easter weekend, his fever reached the low 100s and he felt fatigued. He wondered if it could be coronavirus but doubted whether he could get tested.

An online assessment through Kaiser Permanente told him that, despite his symptoms, he was at low risk for coronavirus. He called a nurse, pre-emptively hoping to get his name on a list in case his symptoms worsened.

The big message was, you dont qualify for testing, dont come in, he said.

A spokesman for Kaiser said people with coronavirus symptoms are screened for testing under nine defined criteria, none of which included non-essential workers or those without underlying health conditions.

The teacher asked for anonymity to shield his family from possible social reprisal. Given the uncertainty of his illness, his wife has still been leaving the house for work or to pick up groceries for the couple and their two kids.

He eventually found a different provider who tested him Thursday and is awaiting results.

If you dont know, you dont know what to do, he said. Its really hard to be in the gray area.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced Tuesday that schools will remain closed for the rest of the academic year. April 8, 2020 Beth Nakamura/Staff

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR TESTING

Coronavirus testing has expanded immensely since Oregon became one of the first states in the country to identify its first infection.

When a Lake Oswego elementary school janitor tested positive for the virus Feb. 28, his test went to the state health lab  the only place in Oregon with the necessary technology. In the two weeks that followed, the state lab remained essentially the only game in town and the Oregon Health Authority reported fewer than 100 test results a day.

But then national labs and hospital systems came online. Oregon, like the rest of the nation, saw a seismic shift in how many people could be tested  although the United States still lacks the per-capita capacity of other countries.

Oregons governor was clear not every resident could get tested but emphasized the importance of getting more tests.

Its critical for us to increase our capacity so that we can fully assess the spread of COVID-19 in Oregon, Brown said March 18, a week before the state regularly began reporting test results for more than 1,000 people a day.

Coronavirus testing increased quickly but has since appeared to plateau, with daily averages between 1,200 and 1,400 results in each of the past three weeks. Its possible testing has inched up recently, but it takes time for results to get reported to the state health authority.

As of Saturday, the state reported 72 deaths and 1,844 infections out of 37,583 Oregonians tested. Oregons ranking a day earlier stood at 31st nationally, including Washington, D.C., with 8.6 people tested per 1,000 residents.

The states instruction continues to discourage the testing of everyone with fever, cough or shortness of breath  three hallmark signs of coronavirus.

In bold letters, the health authoritys guidance to doctors and nurses says: Asymptomatic persons and those with symptoms that do not necessitate medical evaluation are not recommended for testing at this time.

Sidelinger said he realizes hospitals and other private labs could handle additional tests if they were received.

But confirming additional mild cases now through testing may have little value in how doctors would otherwise treat presumed infections, he said, given that Oregonians are all under stay-home orders to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Clinically, if its not going to change what the provider tells them to do, or how they treat them, that provider might not be ordering that test, he said. And were hearing that from multiple providers.

The state of Utah is now encouraging testing for anyone with one of six symptoms.

TEST ALL INDIVIDUALS WITH SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS

Some states comparable to Oregon are far more aggressive at testing for infections.

Utah and New Mexico stand out. Both match Oregons low rate of infections, finding about one in 20 tested residents have the virus.

Both are testing about twice as many people per capita as Oregon.

Its not only that Utah and New Mexico have large laboratories that almost immediately boosted testing availability. They also have relaxed restrictions.

Officials in New Mexico on April 1 greenlighted testing for people without symptoms who had close contact to a known COVID-19 case or those who live in nursing homes or homeless shelters. The state also said people with a fever, cough or shortness of breath who didnt necessarily need a doctors care could be considered for testing.

I dont want to make it sound like were geniuses here. Were not, said state spokesman David Morgan. The math has worked for us, as well as the desire to pursue aggressive testing.

New Mexico now has the capacity for more than 21,000 tests per week, he said. Through Friday, it had tested about 35,000 people.

TriCore Reference Laboratories is processing more than half of all tests in New Mexico and the state public health lab is taking about one-quarter. The rest of the tests have been analyzed by private companies such as Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, according to state data Morgan shared.

Utah, meanwhile, welcomed tech entrepreneurs who developed a website to assess residents symptoms and direct them to testing locations. Public health officials also launched an aggressive media campaign to encourage testing as capacity increased.

Healthcare providers and testing sites should test ALL individuals with signs and symptoms (fever, cough, or shortness of breath), no matter how mild the symptoms may be, the states official Twitter account for coronavirus news announced last week.

COVID-19 testing capacity in Utah has expanded! Healthcare providers and testing sites should test ALL individuals with signs and symptoms (fever, cough, or shortness of breath), no matter how mild the symptoms may be. https://t.co/UD7KnLyY5x pic.twitter.com/c7kaxJGMUK  Utah COVID-19 Community Task Force (@UtahCoronavirus) April 10, 2020

By Tuesday, the guidance had been revised again to include any of those three symptoms, plus three more: muscle aches and pains, decreased sense of taste or smell or sore throat.

Have a symptom? a catchy graphic asked. Get tested.

Nearly 60,000 people in Utah have now been tested. More than half of the states tests have been analyzed at a local lab, ARUP Laboratories, while a large hospital chain has completed about a quarter, according to data provided to the newsroom.

Officials loosened restrictions when they realized many tests werent being used each day.

The fact that we have this unmet demand is concerning for everyone, said Tom Hudachko, a state spokesman. If we can test 5,300 people, wed like to test 5,300 people.

Dana Pharr tests for coronavirus at Providence Health & Services drive-thru COVID-19 testing. The testing is conducted by appointment. March 30, 2020 Beth Nakamura/Staff

Really restrictive guidelines

Health care professionals across many parts of Oregon say they have coronavirus tests that arent being put to use.

It appears easing restrictions could increase screening, although other factors may be at play, including the possibility that fewer Oregonians are sick or overarching confusion among residents about whether they should seek testing.

In southern Oregon, the hospital system Asante helped propel testing in Jackson County to enviable levels by opening a drive-through location in mid-March, where more than 2,100 people have now been tested.

At its height, nurses were collecting nasal specimens from about 200 people per day, said Lauren Van Sickle, an Asante spokeswoman. Now its about 60 people.

I would say the novelty wore off pretty quickly, she said of the buzz over the drive-through, set up in a strip-mall parking lot.

Van Sickle couldnt pinpoint what caused the drop off but suggested the number of county residents seeking testing may have dropped because fewer people have symptoms.

Oregons largest health care system, Providence Health & Services, is also seeing a slowdown.

The in-house lab has processed about one-quarter of all tests for Oregonians, according to data provided by spokesman Gary Walker.

But Providence could run samples for about 600 people a day collected from tests at its hospitals and drive-through clinics. Instead, its about half that a day on average.

Walker said Providence would like to get much closer to its full capacity and were looking for the ways to do that, including how to loosen the criteria for testing.

Legacy Health can process about 750 coronavirus tests a day between its in-house lab and using new Abbott ID Now rapid tests at urgent care locations. But over the past week, total tests have averaged about 270 a day, spokeswoman Sarah Ericksen said.

Its a similar story for the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, albeit on a much smaller scale. Drive-through locations in Washington and Yamhill counties are testing about 20 people a day, below the goal of 28. Officials have now taken out targeted advertisements hoping to encourage testing among their mostly Latino clientele.

That is something we discuss every day, spokeswoman Kasi Woidyla said. How do we get the word out to everybody?

Same goes for Oregon Health & Science University. Two drive-through locations could each accept samples from 100 patients a day, spokeswoman Tamara Hargens-Bradley said. Instead, its been averaging about 35 people daily.

Were trying to make it available to as many people as we can without getting overwhelmed, she said, adding that some non-OHSU network patients have even been accepted.

Erik Vanderlip, chief medical officer for ZOOM+Care, said the companys clinics in Oregon are sitting on under 1,000 test kits that could be put to use at a drive-up collection site.

Loosening guidance on who should be tested would enable the company to test more people, he said, expressing optimism that changes would come soon.

We are under really restrictive guidelines as to who can get tested, he said.

State epidemiologist Dr. Dean Sidelinger fields questions from local journalists during a tour of the Oregon Health Authority's newly configured operations center in Portland. March 3, 2020. Beth Nakamura/Staff

MORE INDIVIDUALS SHOULD BE GETTING TESTED

As Oregon looks to reopen parts of its business sector, perhaps as early as next month, it appears even more testing options will be available.

This past week, the University of Oregon announced it provided equipment so McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center in Lane County could run tests, beginning with 100 tests a day and ramping up to 300.

Oregon State Universitys veterinary lab has launched a partnership with WVT Laboratory in Benton County to run up to 1,000 tests per day, according to The Lund Report.

Oregon State is also launching a four-week effort to collect samples at random from nearly 1,000 residents in Corvallis. The study will gauge the spread of the virus and get a baseline for the rate of people who are infected without symptoms  which will be a major, eye-opening finding.

State officials also say they, too, are looking to improve testing capacity at the public health lab, which now has the ability to test up to 200 people per day. One day this week, state officials completed just 20 tests.

Extra testing by the state could conceivably help address testing challenges across the state, such as in Marion County.

Data show that one out of every 10 people tested there has the coronavirus  the highest rate in the state  although some of that is due to outbreaks in nursing homes. Marion County has identified 335 infections but fewer residents have been tested there than in Jackson County, which had only 49 infections through Saturday.

Marion County health officials didnt agree to be interviewed or address what challenges local providers are facing in expanding testing.

We do think more individuals should be getting tested in Marion County and the state as a whole, county spokeswoman Jenna Wyatt said in a statement.

Oregon Health Authority officials said theyre not aware of inadequate testing availability in Marion County but would evaluate how to help if the county makes a request.

Sidelinger said testing capacity will play a key role in when and how the state eases Oregons stay-home order. He acknowledged that the 15,000-per-week testing capacity figure is a rough estimate of what state officials believe is needed.

Some of that is back of the envelope, but it is also our goal, he said. Part of our planning now is to see how close we are and see what additional capacity we need.

Public health officials would like to see the number of active infections and hospitalizations decrease before unwinding stay-home restrictions, so theres fewer people at risk of spreading the virus. The latest modeling suggests that may not happen until the end of May at the earliest.

The plan is to have a more robust effort in place to test not only people believed to be infected, but also do a much better job identifying their close contacts for testing and quarantine.

Thats why we want to have the testing capability, Sidelinger said,  so that we can identify people early, do the contact tracing, hot spot analysis, and see whos potentially exposed and keep them home  so we can limit the spread.

Mark Friesen contributed to this report.

Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect that the University of Oregon provided equipment to McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center so the hospital could process lab results itself.

-- Brad Schmidt; bschmidt@oregonian.com; 503-294-7628; @_brad_schmidt

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
The private facility where he received care until his death also received special attention from the Presidency, which ensured that all needed items for his recovery were in place. All these, according to the official, ran into several millions of naira.

Against the notion presented to the public that the now late Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Abba Kyari, deployed personal funds in seeking a viable treatment for his Coronavirus infection, SaharaReporters can confirm that the Presidency actually made huge sums from the public treasury available in trying to save his life. 

Kyari died on Friday, exactly 26 days after SaharaReporters first broke the news of him being severely ill and in fact suspected of contracting the deadly virus after trips to Germany and Egypt where the pandemic had claimed hundreds of lives.

Upon his return to Nigeria from those countries, it was reliably gathered that Kyari, who had a history of diabetes and was in his 70s until his death on Friday, refused to observe the mandatory 14-day self-isolation period, instead going about his normal activities and subjecting dozens of persons including ministers, state governors and Aso Villa staff to the risk of contracting the virus.

Three of his staff were shortly afterwards confirmed to have contracted the virus while some state governors, who had contact with him were also infected.

After being denied the usage of the Presidential Intensive Care Unit at Aso Villa, Abuja, which was kept for the use of President Buhari in case there was an emergency around him, and considering the Gwagwalada Specialist Hospital isolation unit too low for his standard and or liking, Lagos was considered the best place to find cure for Kyari.

In the face of a global lockdown and with many countries with functional health systems closing their borders to international visitors, the Lagos Infectious Diseases Centre was one of the few places that could successfully deal with his case especially after it treated an Italian man, who first brought the virus into the country at the time, with great success.

But rather than check into the facility of the Lagos State Government, Kyari violated the Quarantine Act to embark on a private treatment for his Coronavirus infection against the directive and recommendation of senior government and Ministry of Health officials.

According to a senior government official, his move to Lagos and choice of a private treatment facility cost the Nigerian Government huge sums in public funds especially in taking care of the upkeep and general welfare of the large number of security guards, medical staff and other categories of care givers that were always on the ground to ensure everything around him was fine.

This was aside the amount spent on their accommodation and providing relevant safety items to ensure all persons looking after the late Chief of Staff to President Buhari were not infected with the virus.

The private facility where he received care until his death also received special attention from the Presidency, which ensured that all needed items for his recovery were in place.

All these, according to the official, ran into several millions of naira  the exact amount which could not be confirmed at the time of this report.

Forget what they are saying in top government circles, the Presidency actually spent big in trying to save Kyaris life. They spent some good millions of naira in attempting to save his life.

He is one of the persons President Buhari trusts the most in this world and he was willing to do anything to save Kyaris life.

Throughout his stay in Lagos, the Presidency ensured that he got all the support he needed to defeat the virus by ensuring that funds were made available to foot any type of cost around his treatment and also ensure the safety and welfare of all those looking after him.

As a prominent member of the cabal, there is no way the President or anyone in that circle was going to watch him spend personal funds to get a viable treatment for his situation. All needed support came from government, the official, said.

Until his death, Kyari was one of the most influential and powerful figures in President Buharis government.

Governors, ministers and other important personalities all had to first win him over before gaining access to the President.

There is nothing happening around President Buhari that he was not involved in.

He was a pillar of support to Buhari in too many ways. Both of them had come a long way.

His death is a huge personal loss to Buhari, he is going to feel his absence a lot, the official said.

SaharaReporters also reliably gathered that the Nigerian Government made attempts to fly the late Kyari to London, United Kingdom, for treatment but had to shelve that idea especially after Coronavirus deaths rose astronomically in that space.

The UK has 14,576 deaths from 108,692 confirmed cases of the virus at the moment.

Kyari, like Buhari, had jetted out to the UK in the not too distant past to seek treatment for his health.

The doctors in the UK understand his medical history and know how to handle his case but the situation in Britain had prevented him from being flown there for attention.

Buhari on his part has a yet to be disclosed medical ailment and in fact spent five months in London in 2017 for treatment.

He has visited the UK several times more since that period for treatment.

Following Kyaris death on Friday, officials of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control are now saddled with the responsibility of tracking down any persons, who may have had contact with him.

The agency earlier said that at least 6,000 Nigerians, who had contact with persons already infected were on the loose and being tracked.

I dont think the NCDC can trace everyone who shook hands with or met him at meetings and functions and that is why we asked everyone who were at those gatherings to self-isolate even if they dont display any symptoms at all, the official told SaharaReporters.

On Friday night, the NCDC announced that the country now had 493 confirmed cases of Coronavirus and 17 deaths.

Already, experts have warned that there could be an explosion in these figures in the coming weeks especially with many Nigerians deliberately flouting the stay-at-home order put in place to curb the spread of the virus in many parts of the country.

However, following Kyaris death and importance in the decision making process of the President Buharis administration, there are already concerns that governance may be gravely affected in the coming days and weeks  at a time Nigeria desperately needs quality and responsive leadership.

Source: Saharareporters

The post Abba Kyari: How FG Spent Millions Of Naira In Trying To Save Buharis COS appeared first on .

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The pandemic has made the privileged generous and a lot of people have come forward to help the needy. While all of us continue to stay in lockdown, our brave cops brave the virus and the heat as they guard the country ensuring we stay safe. These real heroes also need some protection and relief from whatever is going on in the world. As a gesture of gratitude, the Producers Guild of India has decided to donate fully equipped tents and Bollywood stars vanity vans to the police personnel. The name of the initiative is Mission Suraksha.

 BCCL

The vanity vans will be provided to the female cops and will be available across 22 locations in Mumbai to make things easier for our police force in the scorching heat. A statement released by the Guild says, "We are delighted to launch ''Mission Suraksha'' to protect our caretakers, especially women cops on bandobast duty. Fully equipped tents and vanity vans used by cine stars have been provided across 22 key locations as restrooms for break-time.



Recently, many Bollywood stars took to their social media to express how grateful they were to the Mumbai Police for their efforts amid the on-going lockdown. This move can turn out to be wonderful for our female cops who can take a break from duty and rest in these vanity vans.

 BCCL

After all, what are we without them? The frontline workers are the real warriors during the lockdown. Even before the lockdown was announced the Guild had announced a relief fund for the daily wage earners so that it becomes easier for them to sustain the Coronavirus outbreak. Reportedly, they helped the daily wage earners of the film fraternity by direct bank transfers into their accounts.

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The Coronavirus has crossed the 15000 mark in India, so far and the virus has claimed around 480 lives. The death toll is dismally increasing and it calls for people to come forward and help the ones in need.


HARTFORD  Louis Bascetta met the love of his life in high school. He went off to serve in Japan in World War II. He came home, raised two sons, and shared many happy days after retiring.

Bascetta, 91, died April 13 at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford due to complications of coronavirus, his family said in his obituary.

He was born on Sept. 21, 1928, the son of the late Louis and Lucy (Vella) Bascetta, and grew up in Hartford, where he met his wife, Shirley, at Hartford High School.

He served during World War II, came home, and worked as a Manufacturing Engineer Supervisor for Hamilton-Standard in Windsor Locks for 35 years before he and Shirley retired to Rhode Island, where they shared many happy days.

Lou, affectionately known as Fodsie to his family and friends, had a magnetic personality, contagious laugh and quick-wit. He enjoyed beach days with family, Jazz music, especially Benny Goodman, and scenic drives to the Watch Hill Lighthouse and the Weekapaug overlook. His easy, easy approach to life, and knack for story telling made him a joy to be around, family members said in his obituary.

Lou will be deeply missed by his two sons; Gene Bascetta and his wife, Jody; Glen Bascetta and his wife Roberta; six granddaughters; Meghan and husband Andy, Ashley and husband Tim, Kasey, Abby, Jill and husband Brandon, Hillary and husband Nick; and eight great-grandchildren; Grant, Finn, Reid, Maeve, Colton, Brady, Natalie and Jacob. In addition, Lou is survived by his sister-in-law Lynn Podkulski and husband, Tom; nephews, Tom and his wife Lise, and Mike Podkulski.

The Bascetta family offered their thanks to Brookdale Senior Living in West Hartford, CT for their care of Lou for the last few years, and for the kindness and compassion of the medical staff at St. Francis Hospital during his final days.

A celebration of Bascettas life will be held at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, the family indicated that memorial donations can be made to the VFW: Veterans of Foreign Wars, 113 Beach Street, Westerly, RI 02891. Those wishing to share a condolence or memory with the family can visit www.rushlowiacoifuneralhome.com.
 Flash

As worldwide confirmed coronavirus cases top 2 million, the international community needs to make concerted efforts to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, said Wei Qiang, the Chinese ambassador to Panama, in a recent interview with China.org.cn.

"This is a global fight that the world will win together, because the virus knows no borders and every country is just one part of the global battlefield," Wei said.

According to the latest data from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University, the coronavirus pandemic has now claimed the lives of more than 150,000 people worldwide.

The ambassador called on all countries, big and small, to stand together in this battle for the health and safety of their people.

China has worked with the international community, including Panama, to deal with the challenge, Wei said.

Since Panama recorded its first case of coronavirus on March 9, the local government has issued a variety of prevention measures in a row to encourage people to stay at home as much as possible in a bid to cut off the spread of the virus at an early datesaid Wei.

Panama has so far confirmed more than 4,000 infections and reported 109 deaths, according to the country's health ministry.

Facing the sudden appearance of such a severe pandemic, Panama was in short supply of medical resources due to the tropical country being seldomly hit by fulminating pandemics. The country is better equipped to deal with tropical infectious diseases such as malaria, yellow fever and dengue fever, according to the envoy.

The Chinese Embassy in Panama has extended a helping hand to the central American country.

The embassy initially coordinated a video meeting attended by doctors of both countries to share their experience in fighting the disease. It also united with local Chinese companies to provide the government of Panama and the local medical authorities with medical supplies including test kits, surgical masks, protective suits, disinfectants, temperature detectors, rapid detection devices and tablet PCs, according to the ambassador.

"This is a move to return a favor with a favor," said Wei. Earlier before, the government of Panama and their people had given China strong support and assistance during the hard time of China's fight against COVID-19.

The ambassador said the joint effort made by the two countries in the pandemic fight was an example of the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind.

He believed that any attempt to stigmatize and politicize the pandemic, as well as assigning blame rather than cooperating, is shameless, ignorant and incompetent.

According to the ambassador, there are roughly 300,000 Chinese people living in Panama. Since the COVID-19 outbreak in Panama, they moved immediately to donate medical supplies and food to local people.

Speaking of the pandemic's economic impact, the ambassador said the pandemic is wreaking havoc on the global economy and will inevitably negatively impact bilateral economic ties.

Panama is the first Latin American country that has signed into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with China. The ambassador believed that the two sides would be able to extend post-pandemic cooperation by seeking opportunities during the current challenges.
By Trend

Azerbaijans Cabinet of Ministers approved Instruction on the movement of people working in the agricultural sector, Deputy Executive Director of Azerbaijan's Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communication Ramil Huseyn said, Trend reports.

According to him, this guideline sets the rules regarding the actions of persons involved in the production, processing and sale of agricultural products during the period of special quarantine regime. Consequently, work is underway in the agricultural sector to ensure the continuity of production.

"Moreover, according to the decree of the head of state, it is important to allocate 30 million manat [$17.6 million] to the Agency for Agricultural Lending and Development to issue interest-free microloans in the agricultural sector. They will be aimed at covering production costs and the needs of agricultural producers during the pandemic and consequent period," he said.

Huseyn emphasized that in the conditions of a pandemic or any emergency, the creation of the State Grain Fund is a timely solution to ensure the food security.

On the other hand, Azerbaijan also imports part of food wheat from Russia and Kazakhstan. As for potatoes, the available resources of our country are quite enough to meet demand. The situation with the production of onions and other vegetables is also under control, the deputy director noted.

"The volume of actual sugar reserves in our country, according to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan, is 395,000 tons, which indicates there will be no problems with paying for domestic consumption in the coming months," he said.

According to Huseyn, in January-February 2020, 7,800 tons of rice were imported into Azerbaijan. Currently, rice stocks are sufficient to meet the demand for about five months, whilst meeting of demand for meat and dairy products is ensured mainly through the local production. Work is also underway to provide the population with other food products.

As a part of the Action Plan for the implementation of the presidents decree on a number of measures to reduce the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic dated March 19, 2020, the issue of early VAT-exemption of imports of certain products required for the populations food and medical needs will be considered.

He also said that the setup of a commission to ensure the efficient use of water resources will contribute to the development of agriculture.

The choice of the development of agriculture and processing industry as the main priority of the state economic policy will assist in the growth of local production and increase of the food security and import substitution level, the deputy director added.

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Lawyers in the US have launched a landmark legal action to sue China for trillions of dollars over the coronavirus pandemic, accusing its Communist leaders of negligence for allowing the outbreak to erupt and then covering it up.

The class action, which involves thousands of claimants from 40 countries including Britain and the US, was filed in Florida last month.

A second case launched this month on behalf of healthcare workers accuses China of hoarding life-saving medical supplies.

The legal challenges  set to be followed by another from Israeli human rights lawyers who specialise in suing states for terrorism  ramp up the pressure on President Xi Jinping to account fully for his countrys actions.

President Xi Jinping must answer tough questions over Chinas actions on Covid-19, as lawyers in the US prepare to sue the nation for 'trillions' of dollars over the coronavirus outbreak

There are calls also for the United Nations to set up an inquiry to establish how the coronavirus broke out in the city of Wuhan and then spread so fast around the world.

This follows a warning last week from Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is running the Government while Boris Johnson recovers from the virus, that it could not be business as usual after the crisis.

We will have to ask the hard questions about how it came about and how it couldnt have been stopped earlier, he said.

China faces accusations that it suppressed data, blocked several outside teams of public health experts and silenced doctors trying to warn about the epidemic when it broke out late last year.

BRITS FEEL CHINA SHOULD PAY Nearly three-quarters of Britons think the UK should sue the Chinese Communist Party for compensation over its handling of Covid-19, a poll reveals. The survey also finds that only a quarter support the Governments plans to allow controversial Chinese tech giant Huawei a role in building Britains 5G network. In the Survation poll of 1,001 people last week, 71 per cent said Britain should pursue China through the international courts. Calls for an international inquiry into Chinas handling of the outbreak were backed by 83 per cent, while 74 per cent blamed China for the pandemic. On a future role for Huawei, 40 per cent of those surveyed opposed the move, with just 23 per cent in favour. Advertisement

It has also not been established if the source of the virus was a market selling live exotic animals, as first claimed, or if it is linked to research laboratories in Wuhan.

The US legal claim was launched by Berman Law Group, a Miamibased firm that employs the brother of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as an adviser.

Chief strategist Jeremy Alters said: Chinas leaders must be held accountable for their actions. Our goal is to expose the truth. Three years ago, the firm won a $1.2 billion (960 million) case against China over the manufacture of defective building materials.

Lawyers argue that although nations have legal immunity, there are exceptions under US law for personal or property damages and for actions abroad that impact on businesses in their own borders.

Plaintiffs include Olivier Babylone, 38, an estate agent from Croydon, South London, whose income has fallen by two-thirds and who was treated in hospital earlier this month for the virus.

He said: I have been financially hurt, but many people have lost their lives so I was lucky, and the NHS was fantastic. We need to know who is responsible.

Joining him in the class action is Lorraine Caggiano, an administrator from New York who caught the virus along with nine other family members after attending a wedding.

Her father and aunt both died last month. She said: I am not expecting money. It is a symbolic gesture that we are fighting back.

A woman wearing a protective mask is seen past a portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping on a street as the country is hit with fresh accusations

I want to know how the world has been turned on its head, with people dying and companies going down the drain. We must make sure it never happens again.

A second legal case is being prepared by Shurat HaDin, an Israeli law centre that has represented victims of terrorism around the world. The centres Aviel Leitner said it would also launch its legal action in the US since most other countries would be scared of Chinas economic weight and retribution.

The lawyers will argue that Beijings negligence and reckless behaviour was so bad that, as with terrorism, the state cannot hide behind sovereign immunity.

China will fight it tooth and nail. If proved negligent, it would be catastrophe for them, said Mr Leitner.

Meanwhile, leading British human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson has called for the United Nations to set up an inquiry into the origins of Covid-19. This follows claims that the World Health Organisation, its public health body, failed in its duty by slavishly following China, which has led President Donald Trump to cut all US funding.

Mr Robertson, a former UN appeal judge, said the consequences of not tackling the virus at an early stage had been calamitous and facts were being distorted by propaganda and political point-scoring.

Our international well-being demands an independent and objective report into this disaster, not to allocate blame but to write its truthful history and learn lessons, he said. He added that Britain should use its influence as a permanent UN Security Council member to urge a formal inquiry, forcing the WHO and China to co-operate.

He said: China would suffer international hostility and perhaps economic sanctions if it refused to explain all that had happened. It has a duty to tell the truth to a world that has suffered so much.

Dr Yang Jianli, a leading Chinese dissident, called on democratic nations to back an inquiry, but doubted that the UN would have the guts.
RICHMOND (BCN)  The suspect in an attempted murder shot and killed by police Thursday in Richmond following a vehicle pursuit from Oakland to Richmond has been identified as 24-year-old Juan Ayon-Barraza, 24, of Vallejo.

On Thursday at 8:08 a.m., the Vallejo Police Department received a call about a missing at-risk 29-year-old woman.

Concerned family members reported the woman was last seen at 7:35 a.m. in the 900 block of Kentucky Street in Vallejo with Ayon-Barraza.

The victim told family members she was going to have breakfast with him, but a short time later Ayon-Barraza called the victim's family and made an "unsettling comment," Vallejo police said.

The victim's family contacted Ayon-Barraza in person at 8 a.m. and confronted him in an attempt to find out where the victim was, but he was evasive with the family and fled.

That same day at 6:45 p.m., the Oakland Police Department, the Moraga Police Department and the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office responded to a 911 call reporting a body being abandoned on the side of the road in the area of Pinehurst Road and Skyline Boulevard along the border of Contra Costa and Alameda counties in unincorporated Moraga, according to the Richmond Police Department.

The woman was suffering from at least one gunshot wound and was unresponsive. Investigators determined she was the same woman reported missing earlier from Vallejo.

She was transported to the hospital and listed in critical condition Friday night.

A witness described the suspect vehicle involved in the incident as a white Chevrolet Astro van. Responding officers from Moraga located the vehicle and attempted to pull it over, but the vehicle did not stop, police said, and a 20-minute pursuit ensued into Oakland and then Richmond.

Richmond police said the suspect traveled to the area of South 37th Street and Stege Avenue, where he pointed a firearm in the direction of officers while making a U-turn at South 37th Street and Carlson Boulevard. Multiple Oakland and Richmond police officers shot at the suspect in response, according to police.

The vehicle then crossed over into traffic on Stege Avenue and hit an Oakland police car as two officers were exiting their vehicle, according to police. The suspect suffered a fatal gunshot wound and died at the scene.

Two Oakland police officers were injured when the suspect's van crashed into their police vehicle. The officers were transported to the hospital with injuries that were not considered life threatening, police said.

Multiple agencies are investigating the incident including the Oakland Police Department, the Richmond Police Department, the California Highway Patrol, the Moraga Police Department, the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office and the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office.

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.
Actor Sonam Kapoor has shared a post originally written by her sister Rhea Kapoor on how one must not judge the other person.

Sharing the post on her Instagram story she said, Well said @rheakapoorlet people be, judginess is so not cool

Rhea in her post has mentioned about how one must let people be the way they are. Whether it be working or not, cooking or not being lazy or not. She has emphasised on how it is important for people to not judge one another during this time of crisis.

A part of her post reads, If people wanna work out during this time let them, if they want to bake and cook and make friggin eclairs from scratch let them, if they wanna stay in bed for 22 hours let them. If people wanna work from home 9-5 on zoom let them.

Everyone lets just be kind and good natured and considerate and loving. We should only feel gratitude if we are safe and surrounded by family. As of now, Sonam Kapoor is staying in Delhi with her husband Anand Ahuja and in-laws. The couple has quarantined themselves after returning from London. The Veere Di Wedding actor was last seen in the film Zoya Factor. The movie which was released in the year 2019 also starred actors Angad Bedi and Dulquer Salman.

The movie directed by Abhishek Sharma is based on Anuja Chauhans novel The Zoya Factor.

Follow @News18Movies for more
Prince Charles and Princess Diana tied the knot in 1981 during a lavish ceremony. One year later, they had Prince William followed by Prince Harry in 1984.

The princess said that after their second child her marriage to the future king really fell apart. There have even been claims that Charles told Diana his work was done when she gave birth to Harry. Heres more on that, plus the reaction Charles had to Prince Harrys appearance that angered Diana.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana | David Levenson/Getty Images

Charles told Diana his work was done after their second child

Paul Burrell worked as Princess Dianas butler from 1987 till her death in 1997. He has previously said that Diana described him as the only man she could trust, and over the years he has dropped a number of bombshells that he says happened during the princess life.

One claim he made is that after the Princess of Wales had Harry, Prince Charles told her his work was done then because she had produced an heir and a spare. Burrell relayed the story Diana supposedly told him about that during filming for the Australian edition of Im A Celebrity in South Africa.

She said, Are you pleased? [Charles] said, Im delighted. I now have an heir and a spare, Burrell claimed. She said, Well, its an odd thing to say. Why are you dressed up? He said, My work is done now. Im off to the theatre with Camilla. Diana said, I cried myself to sleepknowing my marriage was over.

Prince Charles, Princess Diana, and Queen Elizabeth II | Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images

Prince Charles joked about Prince Harrys appearance

In her secretly recorded tapes sent to Andrew Morton, Diana actually said her husband wasnt so pleased when Prince Harry was born because he really wanted a daughter.

I knew Harry was going to be a boy because I saw on the scan, Diana admitted. Charles always wanted a girl. He wanted two children, and he wanted a girl. I knew Harry was a boy and I didnt tell him.

The princess also stated that Charles even made a comment about Harry not being a girl after the birth remarking, Oh God, its a boy.

He followed that up with a joke Diana did not find funny about the babys appearance when he exclaimed, Hes even got red hair!

Prince Charles and Princess Diana holding Prince Harry | Terry Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images

According to Diana, Charles did, however, want to pick out their second childs name but the princess was set on doing that. In fact, she said she chose both of their childrens names.

He wanted Albert and Arthur, and I said no. Too old! Diana revealed. She added that the Prince of Wales did have some say though explaining, I chose William and Harry but Charles did the rest.

Prince Williams birth name is William Arthur Philip Louis while Prince Harrys is Henry Charles Albert David.

Read more: The Heartbreaking Thing Prince Harry Saw Before He Knew Prince Charles Was Cheating on Princess Diana With Camilla
Significant numbers of nurses, including some in the most high-risk environments, have felt pressure to work with inadequate protection, a union has claimed.

High-risk environments include areas where patients with or suspected of having Covid-19 were being treated on ventilators.

Nearly half of those surveyed from Northern Ireland (42%) helping patients in such areas reported being asked to reuse items of protective equipment marked single-use by manufacturers. Of those treating Covid-19 patients elsewhere, over a third (38%) said they were being asked to reuse.

Pat Cullen, director of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in Northern Ireland, said: "We all know that nursing staff have been under enormous pressure during this pandemic.

"However, it is shocking to find that nurses are feeling pressurised to work without the protection they need."

The findings are from a survey conducted by the RCN to provide a snapshot of PPE shortages over the Easter weekend.

Health chiefs here say they have secured millions of items from international and local suppliers.

Ms Cullen added: "This is an anxious and worrying time for staff, and they must have the reassurance that they can do their jobs with all of the equipment necessary.

"Time and time again we have been on record as saying this.

"It is very disappointing to find that there are still problems.

"Nurses carry out the majority of direct patient care and, while we acknowledge that these are extremely challenging times, we must resolve these issues. If we don't, this will inevitably lead to further problems."

The survey of local nursing staff said:

Almost a quarter of nursing staff treating Covid-19 positive patients not on ventilators report an immediate lack of face and eye protection.

Less than half of nursing staff (48%) believe they have enough alcohol hand rub.

One in 10 nurses is relying on face or eye protection they have bought or homemade.

Over half did not have access to either suitable changing facilities (51%) or washing/showering facilities (58%).

Meanwhile, the NI Blood Transfusion Service came under fire from trade union Unison, which claimed front line staff in the vital service were concerned that they were not being given an adequate level of PPE to do their job safely during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Unison's Marianne Buick said: "Staff working with blood donors feel they should have masks and visors to provide reassurance and protect both the public and the transfusion staff.

"What I want for our membership is that they are provided with the proper PPE to enable them to have confidence in doing their job. Not just for them, but also to reassure the blood donors who want to help the NHS during this crisis."

Matt Gillespie of the NI Blood Transfusion service said that his organisation had been following World Health Organisation guidelines on PPE provision, but was moving to address the staff concerns.

"We will be meeting the union early next week to revise our risk assessment and see what measures we can put in place to alleviate the stress and fears that staff have," he said.
NAVFAC Southwest Battles COVID-19 with $2.6 Million for Disinfecting Services

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS200417-15

Release Date: 4/17/2020 4:11:00 PM

By Lee H. Saunders, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest Public Affairs,

SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Southwest awarded a not-to-exceed $2.6 million contract March 19 for critical cleaning and disinfecting of areas with confirmed COVID-19 cases at military facilities in the NAVFAC Southwest area of responsibility.

"Requests for cleaning and disinfecting of confirmed COVID-19 cases have been fast and furious," said Alan Lacuesta, NAVFAC Southwest Facility Support Contracts Product Line director. "We have processed 43 requests since the blanket task order was awarded, an average of nearly two per day. It's definitely a unified effort between NAVFAC Southwest, EWA Direction and our military installations."

The indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity blanket task order was awarded to EWA Direction of Honolulu, Hawaii.

Requests for cleaning are typically processed in less than 3 hours and EWA Direction, a certified service disabled veteran owned business, has consistently mobilized in under 24 hours. EWA Direction had an existing biomedical waste disposal contract with NAVFAC Southwest and was selected to provide COVID-19 cleaning services because of its proven ability to safely handle hazardous cleaning situations.

"Our main objective is to ensure the safety of our military, civilian and contractor personnel and we are proud to support the global battle against this invisible enemy," said Lacuesta.

NAVFAC Southwest, located in San Diego, California, is the contracting activity. NAVFAC Southwest personnel support our clients with services in planning, design, construction, real estate, environmental and public works support for U. S. Navy shore facilities, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force, and other federal agencies in California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, and Colorado.

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Just a month ago Washington had something rare in its grasp. There was an all-sides agreement on locking in a conservation fund in the nations spending plans. President Trump was on board, beaming out friendly tweets. Congress overwhelmingly liked the idea.

Then the pandemic hit.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund has long led a charmed political life, up to this point. Authorized in 1965, its taken in billions in revenue paid by energy companies drilling on offshore government leases. The concept delights nearly every lawmaker: Oil money goes to benefit the environment, especially name-brand parks and beaches.

In California, the benefits flow from cities to the Sierra. Golden Gate Park receives dollars as does Lake Tahoe and Point Reyes. In Southern California, the sand and cactus expanse of Joshua Tree National Park benefits as do surf beaches in Orange County. Nearly all of these spots are off-limits now, but when and if stay-home mandates ease, there will be a rush to get outdoors, relax and enjoy nature.

Thats where the fund will be needed.

Still, the money flow isnt guaranteed. The kitty has been raided in the past, and federal lawmakers may be tempted to do so again under cover of the pandemic. The decision making is approaching a fever pitch as leaders in Congress  meaning Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the House and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Senate  bang heads on a second economic stimulus package. They and the rest of Capitol Hill should remember past pledges of support and enthusiasm.

There are practical reasons to stick with the fund, especially at this precarious time for the economy. The money generates work and jobs in public spaces, the very definition of infrastructure spending. Every dollar from the fund produces $4 in economic benefits, according to a study by the Trust for Public Lands. The fund collected $900 million in the last budget cycle, meaning $3.6 billion in value spun off.

The push to safeguard the fund is picking up steam. The Surfrider Foundation, Outdoor Afro and the California League of Conservation Voters are behind the push, a reflection of the span of interest.

Washington needs to act confidently. Even in a dark time, support for a treasured program cant be forgotten. California and the rest of the country need to support the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.
Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has added his voice to those calling for motor insurers to offer refunds to motorists.

There has been a dramatic drop in the numbers driving during the coronavirus pandemic.

American insurers are offering discounts and credits to motorists.

The Consumers' Association of Ireland wants insurance firms in this country to do the same.

It comes as insurance experts said claim volumes had collapsed, a development that would save insurers millions of euro.

Mr Donohoe said drivers in this country were due a break. He was speaking after a teleconference with Insurance Ireland.

He called for motor insurers to be "proactive and generous in relation to their treatment of motor insurance policyholders".

The minister told Insurance Ireland the motor segment of the insurance market was very profitable over the last year.

And he said there had been a reduction in claims.

This, he said, "provided a strong case for some type of refund of the premium package".

He said this would provide some financial relief to their customers in this extraordinary time.

In response to the minister's statement, Insurance Ireland said it would reflect on the call to offer refunds to motorists.
London, April 18 : The UK's Queen Elizabeth II has asked to cancel the traditional gun salutes to mark her birthday for the very first time during her 68-year reign amid the coronavirus pandemic, it was reported on Saturday.

The Monarch, who is set to turn 94 on April 21, has also said government buildings will be exempt from flying flags if it creates a problem, reports The Daily Mail newspaper.

The Queen said that she did not feel gun salutes would be appropriate in the circumstances of the crisis, which has claimed 14,607 lives in the UK and infected a total of 104,769 people.

The idea of looking at an alternative Trooping the Colour event to mark her official birthday in June has also been dropped as the UK continues in lockdown.

"Her Majesty was keen that no special measures were put in place to allow gun salutes as she did not feel it appropriate in the current circumstances," the Daily Mail report quoted a source as saying.

The Queen will mark her birthday privately in Windsor, where she has been with her 98-year-old husband Prince Philip since leaving Buckingham Palace on March 19.

On April 5, the Queen urged the country to pull together to fight coronavirus in a TV message, saying: "If we remain united and resolute, then we will overcome it." Her historic intervention was only the fifth time she has addressed the nation in a TV broadcast, apart from at Christmas, during her reign.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
A man who spat at and tried to bite police officers, a woman who called officers pigs" and removed her mask to blow at EMTs, and a man who was rescued while kite-surfing are the latest New Jerseyans charged with violating Gov. Phil Murphys stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic.

Or, as Murphy says, they are the latest inductees into the knucklehead hall of shame.

Among the new people charged, according to state authorities Saturday:

Wadim Sakiewicz, 73, of Sparta, entered a Stop & Shop in town without a face mask Wednesday, officials said. And when an employee escorted him out of the store, Sakiewicz allegedly said he had the virus and began to cough on the employee, officials said. Then, when police on Friday located him, Sakiewicz resisted arrest and tried to spit on and bite officers, officials said. And while he was being processed, he spat all over the holding cell and urinated on it, officials said. Sakiewicz was charged with terroristic threats during an emergency, aggravated assault on an officer, resisting arrest, obstruction, criminal mischief (, and violating Murphys emergency orders.

Amy Bosco, 47, of Point Pleasant Beach, was being unruly in a lobby and yelled Pigs! Oink, oink! as she entered the towns police station Thursday, while also screaming obscenities and claiming she had a fever and cough, officials said. She was arrested and taken to the hospital but continued to curse and removed her mask to blow on EMTS in the ambulance, officials said. Bosco was charged with charged with terroristic threats during an emergency, disorderly conduct, and violating Murphys orders.

Jose Lopez, 27, of Irvington, lunged at an officer while police tried to break up a group in the city, officials said. He also allegedly spat at an officer, yelling, Corona (expletive)! Lopez was arrested and charged with throwing fluid at a police officer, endangering, and violating Murphys orders.

Katie Orszulski, 29, of Parlin, got into a dispute with a woman Wednesday over a man they both were dating, going to the womans home, dragging her outside, and beating her in the street, officials said. She was charged with with burglary, simple assault, criminal mischief, and violating Murphys orders.

Franklin Moore, 62, of Cape May Court House, was found to have heroin in his vehicle after he was involved in a car accident in Port Norris and found unresponsive. He was charged with possession of heroin, DWI, motor vehicle violations, and violating Murphys orders.

Geoffrey T. Vonderlinden, 51, of Basking Ridge, was rescued while kite-surfing off Normandy Beach in Toms River on Friday, officials said. Police and rescue crews responded after he was found in distress 50 yards off shore, with strong winds and current, officials said. He returned to shore safely but was charged with violating Murphys orders, officials said.

Four people face charges after holding a 15-person party Friday inside an AirBnb rental in Jersey City, officials said. Isaiah M. George, 33, of Jersey City, Jabril Corley, 28, of Jersey City, and Megan Stoddart, 29, of Howell, were charged with violating Murphys orders. Corley and another man, Marc Y. Bruny, 33, of Jersey City, were charged with disorderly conduct.

Four people face charges for gathering in an apartment building in Passaic, officials said. Mauricio Mejia, 19, of Clifton, Irbin Martinez, of Passaic, 24, Everardo Almonte, 23, of Passaic, and Sergio Bernal, of Passaic, were charged Friday with violating Murphys orders. They do not reside in the building and had no legitimate purpose for being there, officials said.

Eight people in Elizabeth were found loitering on a corner after police warned them about Murphys orders, officials said. Edwin Alerte, 30, Pearl Moore, 54, Larhonda Burgess, 57, Kevin Lewis, 65, Tyshawn Jones, 44, Thyshon Orr, 36, Arthur Johnson, 64, and Eguane Robinson were charged with violating the orders. All are Elizabeth residents except Robinson, who lives in Paterson. Moore, Burgess, and Lewis all received summonses for violating the orders Thursday, as well.

Tivon Davies, 20, of Morristown, was found to be part of a disorderly group that gathered Thursday outside an apartment in town, officials said. He was charged with violating Murphys orders, in addition to three other men who were previously charged.

Meanwhile, Col. Patrick Callahan, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, said a woman in Southhampton charged with a DUI was spit, coughed, and vomited at the police station.

And while the trooper was escorting her to the vehicle, she subsequently punched the trooper in the face, Callahan added during the states daily coronavirus press briefing in Trenton on Saturday.

He did not release the womans name or age.

Callahan and authorities release violations of Murphys orders each day, but the superintendent said some Friday were fairly egregious.

The defendants charged with only violating the orders were not arrested. The others will face court proceedings.

In an effort to curb the virus spread and preserve hospital capacity, Murphy has ordered residents to stay at home, banned social gatherings, and closed nonessential businesses until further notice.

On Saturday, the governor said most of New Jerseys 9 million residents have been following the lockdown.

Notwithstanding some of those extraordinary lack of compliance stories, the compliance overall in this state is extraordinary, Murphy said.

New Jersey has now seen at least 81,420 confirmed cases and 4,070 deaths of COVID-19, officials announced Saturday. Only neighboring New York has more cases and deaths among U.S. states.

Murphy said Saturday the rates of infection and hospitalizations are flattening in New Jersey. But he stressed the lockdown needs to continue, possibly into the summer, and residents must continue to practice social distancing to make sure the numbers dont surge.

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.

If you would like updates on New Jersey-specific coronavirus news, subscribe to our Coronavirus in N.J. newsletter.

Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01.

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A Walk by the Mill Pond

A nonmotorized path for Saline's largest park

by Sheila Beachum Bilby

Published in April, 2020

Under threatening skies, dozens of wandering geese in Saline's Mill Pond Park erupted into startled flight, winging quickly to the open dark water of the pond, its edges laced with ice.



The geese had the expansive fields of Mill Pond, the city's largest park at fifty-four acres, mostly to themselves on this winter day, but that could soon change. Thanks to a $40,000 Washtenaw County grant, the city will seek bids to evaluate and design a nonmotorized pathway to run the length of the pond, from the park's Bennett St. parking lot south to Michigan Ave.



The proposed pathway has been on the city's park master plan wish list for a decade. Saline mayor Brian Marl, who has pitched the pathway in his annual State of the City addresses for the past two years, says, "The Saline River and Mill Pond are the city of Saline's greatest natural assets, and we should do more to leverage that."



Jeff Fordice, the city's director of public works, says the pathway will probably be about eight feet wide, with the first phase likely to begin in the summer of 2021. Total construction costs are still to be determined. "This will create a nice walking loop--down the park, up Michigan Avenue, up Mills [Rd.], and back to your car."



The project also will include an observation deck that will extend over the twenty-acre pond, as well as a pedestrian crosswalk to Curtiss Park on the south side of Michigan Ave.



"A lot of people want to sit and watch the water," says Carla Scruggs, director of the city's parks and recreation department. "It's very calming. There's a lot of birds down there. Blue heron. Geese, of course. Kingfishers. [It's] really interesting bird watching."



Marl is thrilled that Saline has snagged funds from the county's Connecting Communities program for the Mill Pond project, especially since city taxpayers have contributed significantly to the county parks system. He says he plans to "aggressively compete for these dollars in the

...continued below...

future." The city will also seek grants from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, other agencies, and local foundations to pay for construction on the new pathway.The work will involve mostly grading and paving, but recent flooding at Mill Pond could complicate things. "Mill Pond Park doesn't typically flood," Fordice says, "but, because the water level is so high there, we have to look at the stability of the soil and design a pavement system that will work."Fordice notes that future plans could allow walkers to use sidewalks and pathways from the city's border with Pittsfield Township "all the way through to Saline Township.""Mill Pond Park is arguably one of the nicest parks in the city of Saline," Marl says, "and a completed river walk would be scenic and well-used by residents and visitors."One of those residents, Don Dickinson, was walking his collie Foggy on a recent afternoon over the frozen fields along the water. He especially likes the idea of a pedestrian crossing to get safely across Michigan Ave. to Curtiss Park, where he also often walks."If there was a paved pathway, I might use it," he says. "That would be really nice, I think." [Originally published in April, 2020.]
Mallam Kyari was a man of accomplishment. We know not why Almighty Allah has taken him at this time. Allahs will is supreme and there is no questioning it. Yet we must learn from Mallam Kyaris passing. We must honour the departed by doing all we can to defeat the virus so that we safeguard the health of the nation that Mallam Kyari loved so deeply.
Dear Bel,

I read Glyniss hope-filled letter on April 4, little thinking that just 24 hours later I would be in the same situation.

My husband, who has struggled with ill health for many years, was taken into hospital early that Sunday morning and was ultimately diagnosed with Covid-19.

In our early years he was opinionated, intelligent, funny and plain bloody at times. We clashed a lot, especially about my faith and his lack of it.

Many a time hed roll his eyes and mock me on many aspects of my Roman Catholic Church. He was quite jealous that I held it so central to life, but after 19 years grew to accept it was something I would not relinquish.

In the last years, illness made him sad, angry, resentful and diminished and I lost a lot of the man I first loved, becoming more and more of a carer  tired, put upon, under-appreciated. Sometimes Id read your column and think Ouch because I could have walked away so many times.

It was the sickness and health bit that kept me there, some days hanging on by my fingernails. I wasnt noble, I hated illness, and the constant need to be everything. But I stayed and we muddled along, with happiness here and there.

Now hes gone. I promised he would not die alone, that I would be with him.

The three days by his bedside became a time of calm and grace. I told him over and over I loved him and that he was a good man. He told me he loved me, I held his hand, read to him, helped him to drink and stayed silent, too.

I asked him three times if he wanted me to get a chaplain and each time the answer was no. So I blessed him myself with a sign of the cross on his forehead, chest and hands. He let me. He died peacefully, I told him he could go, and that Id asked his late parents to come to meet him and I believe they did.

And now Im alone, isolating, thinking about a fitting humanist funeral. I want to respect his wishes for a non-religious ceremony. But how can I, as a Christian, not be true to my own belief that this isnt the end? Good Friday makes no sense without Easter Sunday. Would it be wrong to talk about hope?

ANN

Dear Ann,

I am so sorry for your loss and your pain, expressed first in private messages and then in this email. So many readers will be reaching out towards you in imagination, just as they did to Glynis.

But, truly, as you face life alone and struggle through the coming weeks, I dont think you should add to your grief by excessive agonising over form. There are many, many ways of loving and you have experienced the range, havent you? Similarly, there are many, many paths to God and some do not have any signposts.

As a Roman Catholic, you have been sustained by your faith  even though it irritated your husband. I feel I understand you both.

There is Catholicism in my blood (my great-grandfather Mooney was a Dubliner), but I was raised with little religion, went to congregational church from time to time in Liverpool with my grandmother, became an excited Methodist at 15, then a born-again atheist, mellowing to agnosticism, until the day (angry at the marginalisation of Christianity) I decided to stand tall and proclaim that the glorious message of Jesus just rocks. Yes, it does!

Thought of the day He says, it will be all right ...and somehow I am comforted. He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive. From Circe by Madeline Miller (U.S. author, born 1978) Advertisement

I have visited Hindu and Buddhist temples, wept at the awe-inspiring, sacred beauty of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, and made many television and radio programmes about death  and faith.

My quest to understand the various names of God continues  and I happen to believe that humanist ceremonies conducted with real love can contain a more profound meaning than a church service that rattles through.

So Im glad you intend to respect your husbands wishes for a non-religious ceremony and believe that your cherished Lord will be present at the same time, simply because you are.

I understand that the hope of which you speak is that of a life to come: the risen Lord on Easter Sunday promising that death is not the end.

You hope and trust that your husbands parents will have greeted him in an afterlife of which we understand little or nothing.

Your husband rejected all that, and yet after that last precious healing time he allowed you to make the sign of the Cross on his forehead. You may disagree, but I believe that was a sacrament equal to (if not surpassing) that of any chaplain.

You see, in the end your sign of the Cross was an act of faith, while his receiving it was a recognition of pure love. Is the distance between the two so great? I dont think so. To me they are two sides of the same coin: indivisible.

Many people wonder about what comes after death  they consult mediums, read books, talk each day to their beloved dead. This is part of the eternal quest to find meaning in life and death. You are lucky to have a solid faith to stand with you in these dark days.

But for those of all faiths and none, the word hope is surely central to the beating heart of humanity. Hope is the prayer we all utter.

Dear Bel,

I wrote to you in September 2017 about my estrangement from my son and three grandsons, which you printed.

Galvanised by your support, I founded the Oxfordshire Grandparents Support Group then wrote a book, Beyond All Belief: A Living Bereavement  Understanding Estrangement And How To Survive It (by Diana Dunk).

Now, all our lives have changed and we have descended into fear and uncertainty as coronavirus spreads. Families are forced apart. Grandparents who normally see their grandchildren are unable to. They miss the hugs, but can at least have online virtual meetings or telephone.

What about estranged grandparents who find this crisis even more distressing? We have no way of knowing how our families are.

In times of adversity its always family we turn to  the people closest who love us. The ones we can depend on most for support.

But this is not true for about two million grandchildren in the UK estranged from their grandparents.

We remain alone and forgotten with no word from our adult children. Many of us have sent messages only to be ignored, leaving us not knowing whether our precious family remain safe or whether they have caught the deadly virus.

To be denied any contact at such a time is hideously cruel and can surely never be justified  no matter what previous disagreements there were before the pandemic.

Surely this is the time to end the silent treatment. There has never been a better time for a short text to ask how were doing. Isnt it just simple human kindness?

DIANA

Your letter  so very sad and true  makes me wonder if human kindness is always simple.

Yes, we can give to charities and (if we go to the supermarket) pop a couple of tins into the food bank basket. But does giving to strangers  when little is required of us but entering bank details or (in those days when there was street life) passing a coin or two to a beggar  make us feel good about ourselves?

Yes  and why not? May we all show genuine charity, remembering that the other meaning is love.

But how much more complicated is the kindness that wrenches deep, painfully complicated feelings from our innermost selves. This is the kindness which says we have hurt each other so much and now the silence between us stretches as if from one side of the globe to each other.

So now, in this dark time, let us hold out a hand to each other. Let us forgive. Let us realise that when death takes one of us, the other may weep bitter tears at what has been lost.

Such compassion is very hard indeed when a family is estranged. But surely one of the whole points of walking this earth as a human being is to display qualities which make us rise above our worst selves? I have no doubt of it. You, Diana, write: There has never been a better time for a short text to ask how were doing.

And another grandmother who has contacted this page before, Lorraine Bushell, founder of the Hendon Grandparents Support Group, writes: Only one of my families so far has been able to speak to her grandchild. But none of the others have heard from their children or grandchildren.

Its such an ongoing tragedy. I am so disheartened as I thought perhaps in this terrible time of self-isolation more of my grandparents would have heard from their children.

Well, so would I, Lorraine and Diana. What can I say? Honestly, Id actually test my dodgy right hip and go down on my knees and beg the younger generation who cherish their grievances to be better. Yes, older people can be difficult. Tempers might have flared. In-law issues often grate. Harsh words might have been said. Jealousy might have caused nastiness.

Dont think you can tell me anything about any of that! I know it  and yet I still beg: show pity in the time of coronavirus. If there is somebody youre estranged from, please melt the chip of ice in your heart. Even a short text will be an act of love. Please.

And finally... In darkness, we all need a chink of light

Last weeks letter from Valerie inspired a wonderful response. She was the nurse who longed to buy some red suede shoes seen online, but felt guilty at thinking of such a thing at a time like this. I said go for it  and she did!

So many of you loved her letter and agreed with me, writing jolly emails of support.

Contact Bel Bel answers readers' questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT, or email bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. A pseudonym will be used if you wish. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Advertisement

In fact, three lovely readers begged me to contact her to say they wanted to buy her the shoes. So kind. I assured them the happy deed was already done. Perhaps they could give a donation to a charity instead, as Valerie would want.

There were two dissenting voices. One was a postal worker who complained that all this unnecessary online shopping is making more work for posties. But its one way we can keep our economy ticking over. Im not a great online shopper normally but if it cheers and keeps business afloat...

Then, Amy (from Scotland) was very disapproving. Let me stress that she loves the column and wrote with a sincere motive. But she says for the first time I was disappointed this letter was even printed, let alone replied to.

Amy believes that we should be rethinking our habits of consumerism: I actually think it morally indefensible to just buy stuff because we want it, rather than actually need it. Most of it goes to landfill.

I reckon shes quite right to stress that we should be thinking about where and how things are made. Our on-going destruction of eco-systems is damaging us as well as the millions of species we are destroying in the process. We must understand this and not continue to be disconnected from nature.

As somebody whos been acutely aware of environmental issues for the past 35 years, I cant disagree. But when Amy rebukes me for encouraging some frivolous spending spree she so misses the point I want to weep! In the darkness you desperately need moments of light and joy. End of.
By PTI

KATHMANDU: Authorities in Nepal's Sunsari District on Saturday sealed 14 mosques and quarantined 33 Indians and seven Pakistanis taking refuge there, amid a surge in the coronavirus cases in the country, according to a media report.

The mosques were sealed in Itahari Municipality in eastern Nepal.

Thirty three Indian nationals and seven Pakistanis taking refuge in these mosques have been quarantined, according to Avenues Television, a private news channel.

The move came a day after 12 Indians were tested positive for COVID-19, nearly doubling the number of infected persons in the country.

The Indian nationals tested positive have been staying at a local mosque in Udayupur district of Eastern Nepal.

They have been admitted to Special Corona Hospital in Biratnagar of Eastern Nepal for treatment.

Sixteen Nepalese nationals who were staying in the same mosque were also quarantined.

On Friday, the number of COVID-19 patients rose to 30 with 14 new covid cases registered in a single day.

Meanwhile, main Opposition party Nepali Congress has demanded that the government form an all-party mechanisms in each of the local units to monitor the distribution of relief materials to the needy during the lockdown imposed to control the coronavirus outbreak.

Nepal will under lockdown until April 27.

The party also alleged discrimination by the local government while distributing relief materials to the needy people.
on Saturday said its board has approved various proposals to facilitate debt and bond restructuring.

Recently, the company got approval from lenders as well as bondholders to restructure outstanding debt and bonds dues.

A company official said the company's outstanding debt is close to Rs 12,500 crore, while due bonds are worth USD 172 million.

The board in its meeting held on Saturday also approved a proposal to conduct postal ballot for seeking the approval of the shareholders for various matters, including restructuring of debt and bonds outstanding, according to a BSE filing.

Earlier this week, informed the BSE it would decide on April 18 on convening a fresh extraordinary general meeting (EGM), which was to be held April 15.

The company's EGM scheduled on April 15 was cancelled, in view of the extension of the nationwide lockdown till May 3, to contain the spread of coronavirus.

The EGM was originally scheduled to be held on March 24 and was subsequently postponed to April 7 and was further postponed and rescheduled to April 15.

The board in its meeting decided issue of securities on a preferential basis to lenders under a debt resolution plan.

The board gave approval for issue of up to 100 crore equity shares with a face value of Rs 2 each at an aggregate consideration of Re 1 for each lender (around Rs 1,900 crore for 19 lenders). State Bank of India-led consortium of lenders have 19 lenders.

The company will also issue up to Rs 4.1 lakh 0.01 per cent secured optionally convertible debentures (OCDs) having a face value of Rs 1 lakh each to be issued at face value aggregating to Rs 4,100 crore to lenders as per board decision.

The company will also issue up to 50 crore warrants of Rs 2 each convertible into one equity share of a face value of Rs 2 each at an aggregate consideration of Re 1 for each lender (Rs 950 crore for 19 lenders).

The board also approved an enabling resolution for issuance of equity shares on conversion of loan or debentures into equity.

The also approved issuance of equity shares or equity-linked instruments to an extent of Rs 1,000 crore for restructuring of the existing foreign currency convertible bonds.

The board also approved issuance of equity shares on a preferential basis to certain persons or entities, including promoters, to an extent of Rs 363.50 crore at an issue price of Rs 2.45 per share.

The board also approved issuance of compulsorily convertible debentures of the company of Rs 1 lakh each on a preferential basis to certain persons or entities as mentioned to an extent of Rs 50 crores at the conversion price of Rs 2.45 per share.

The board also approved amendment to the company's Articles of Association to incorporate certain terms of the restructuring of debt of the company and its certain identified subsidiaries.

The board also approved the proposal to increase in the authorised share capital and alteration of the capital clause of the company's memorandum of association.
Dear Annie: In a future column, please stress that when someone is cheating (or being cheated on), they should be tested, along with everyone else involved -- and the sooner the better. -- JP

Dear JP: Great advice. I hope this isn't a lesson that you had to learn the hard way. Being cheated on is bad enough.

Readers can visit gettested.cdc.gov to find nearby facilities that will conduct testing free of charge.

Dear Annie: Your referral of the International OCD Foundation to "Outside the Bubble" for treatment options regarding OCD that manifests itself as religious scrupulosity was well directed. I highly recommend them, as someone who has attended their annual conferences and whose family member has used their references, materials and member services. OCD manifests itself in many forms to prevent "normal living" activities. Religious scrupulosity as OCD goes further in preventing the victim from experiencing the truth, beauty and peace offered by their faith and can affect people of all faith traditions.

Your letter writer was Catholic, and therefore I would recommend further an organization called Scrupulous Anonymous. They are run by a Catholic priest, Father Thomas Santa, CSSR, and offer comforting and good advice through newsletters, retreats and workshops. He does not hesitate to advise victims to seek professional therapy when it is called for. They can be reached at ScrupulousAnonymous.org.

There is hope and healing available, and I encourage anyone serious about their Faith to seek it out. -- Family of an OCD Survivor

Dear Family: Thanks for sharing your experience and these additional resources. I heard from others who thought I was too hasty to take on the letter writer's point of view, and I'd like to share some of that feedback in the interest of examining the whole picture.

Dear Annie: I was surprised and disappointed at your response to "Outside the Bubble." The writer of the question appears to me to be looking for reasons for excusing his/her attitude toward the Catholic Church, into which he/she was raised, by finding fault with siblings who take their faith seriously.

What is wrong with religion becoming an all-important part of one's daily life? I believe that is what our faith is supposed to be. Catholics have an obligation to attend Mass on Sunday and on certain Holy Days, among other obligations. This might make it necessary, if one is traveling, to find a nearby Catholic Church to attend. This may be inconvenient, but I do not see that as "compulsive behavior."

If these siblings are intolerant of people of other faiths, that is not an attitude consistent with Church teachings, as certainly our Pope Francis has made clear. But as for our Church a "filling a void" in our lives or giving us "a spiritual high," isn't that what our faith is supposed to do? Especially, in the times we currently live in, with all our health uncertainties, we need more than ever for our faith to fill those voids.

If the writer feels that relatives are intolerant of her attitudes, she could try to find it in her heart to realize that her siblings may be acting out of love and concern for her. Perhaps she should find it in her heart to be a more loving and tolerant person herself. -- Person of Faith

Dear Person of Faith: There are two sides to every story, and yours sheds some light on the flip side of "Outside the Bubble's" situation. Faith is indeed an essential part of life for many of us, and I'd never intentionally discount that. I appreciate your writing.

"Ask Me Anything: A Year of Advice From Dear Annie" is out now! Annie Lane's debut book -- featuring favorite columns on love, friendship, family and etiquette -- is available as a paperback and e-book. Visit http://www.creatorspublishing.com for more information. Send your questions for Annie Lane to dearannie@creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2020 CREATORS.COM

Read more advice:

Ask Amy: Separated soulmates are eager to connect

Dear Annie: Looking to hop off the hamster wheel

Dear Abby: Children cut off stepmother with dads power of attorney
In the photo gallery above, see the face coverings residents of the Bay Area have fashioned.

Six Bay Area counties have issued orders requiring face coverings in public to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Sonoma counties are asking their residents to take this extra step in public settings to support the well-being of their communities. The city of Fremont also has its own mandate in effect.

In all of these locations, the requirement is enforceable by law and people who violate the rule can be cited and fined.

Santa Clara County is "strongly urging all individuals" to wear face coverings when out of their homes to perform essential activities, but has yet to issue an official requirement that's enforceable by law. In a statement, the county noted "enforcement resources across the county are limited" and the public has generally followed past guidance without enforcement.

The orders in all jurisdictions are generally the same, requiring people to wear coverings in public places, especially indoor spaces, where they're unable to physically distance. The mandates also include rules around wearing coverings.

The reason for the new rules is that research shows a cloth covering the nose and mouth can help prevent the spread of respiratory droplets that are the main way the coronavirus is transmitted between people.

In all jurisdictions, the coverings can be manufactured or handmade or simply any type of cloth fabric or soft material such as a bandana, scarf or neck gaiter. Medical masks aren't necessary and should be prioritized for healthcare workers.

Here's a quick overview of the orders in each jurisdiction.

Alameda: The order went into effect midnight on Friday. The county is requiring members of the public and workers to wear face coverings while inside of or waiting in line to enter essential businesses, when seeking healthcare, and when waiting for or riding on public transportation. Read the full order.

Berkeley: Anyone out in public visiting essential businesses, seeking healthcare or using public transportation, are required to use a face covering. Workers at essential businesses are also required to cover their face. The order goes into effect April 22 at 8 a.m. Read the full order.

Contra Costa: Anyone working at or visiting an essential business, such as a grocery store or gas station, is required to wear face coverings. The order does not require children 12 and younger to wear masks. The order goes into effect April 22. Read the full order.

Fremont: The East Bay city of Fremont is requiring workers and customers at essential businesses to wear face coverings amid the COVID-19 emergency. An employee can deny service to an individual who is not wearing a face covering. Read the full order.

Marin: Residents are being asked to wear a face covering when they are interacting with others who are not members of their household in public and private spaces. Children aged 12 years old or younger are not required to wear a face covering. The requirement goes into effect noon, April 22. Read the full order.

San Francisco: Residents and workers in SF will be required to wear face coverings at essential businesses, in public facilities and on transit. The rule took effect Friday night but officials will not begin enforcing it until 8 a.m., April 22. Read the full order.

San Mateo: The order mandates members of the public and workers at essential businesses to wear face coverings outside the home for certain activities and in places of business. The order took effect Friday night but will not be enforced until 8 a.m. on April 22. Read the full order.

Sonoma: All people must wear facial coverings before they enter any indoor facility besides their residence, any enclosed open space, or while outdoors when the person is unable to maintain a six-foot distance from another person at all times. Children over the age of 2 are being asked to wear face coverings. The requirement went into effect Friday. Read the full order.

MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE:

Sign up for 'The Daily' newsletter for the latest on coronavirus here.

Amy Graff is a digital editor with SFGATE. Email her: agraff@sfgate.com.
Inside Weekend TV: In a special edition of OWN Spotlight: Black Women Own the Conversation (Saturday, 10/9c, OWN), OZY journalist and CEO Carlos Watson interviews Good Morning America's Robin Roberts, New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell, medical experts and activists to examine the medical and financial impact of the pandemic on the African-American community In advance of Thursday's second-time-around series finale of NBC's Will & Grace, COZI TV celebrates with a daylong marathon of first-season episodes (starting Sunday at 11 am/10c), concluding at 10/9c with a broadcast of the original's 2006 series finale, which hasn't been seen in syndication because of the reboot's revamped storylines Tune in to Fox's The Simpsons (Sunday, 8/7c) for another inspired couch-gag opening from anime graphic artist Michal Socha. Then, when the network's "Animation Domination" lineup ends, head to caffeine.tv for the first Anidom Beyond Show (10/9c). Andy Richter hosts a new interactive after-show program featuring episode recaps and interviews with creators, writers and casts of the long-running animation lineup As ABC's American Idol (Sunday, 8/7c) prepares for its first live-by-remote shows next week, the second "This Is Me" special will end with Ryan Seacrest revealing whether America voted for Grace Leer or Lauren Mascitti to advance to the Top 20 Looking up at the stars more these days? Check out Science Channel's Hubble: Thirty Years of Discovery (Sunday, 8/7c), which explores how our understanding of the universe has expanded since the Hubble Space Telescope was launched by the space shuttle Discovery 30 years ago this month.
A 32-year-old man wanted in connection with the death of his mother was arrested at about 10:30 a.m. April 18.

Mohamed Ali Saad, the primary suspect in his mothers, 64-year-old Fatme Saads, murder, was apprehended on the run from authorities, who wanted to question him, according to the Dearborn Heights Police Department.

The arrest was made in coordination with the United States Marshalls Office, the Wayne County Prosecutors Office and the Tennessee Highway Patrol.

The Michigan State Police is now handling the investigation, which started at about 7 p.m. April 16 when police and rescue were called for a woman needing medical attention.

Police responded to a house in the 27000 block of Simone Street and found the woman dead inside.

Police quickly identified Mohamed Saad as a person of interest and said he may be in need of medication. He was last seen driving a 2018 Silver Jeep.

 Jessica McLean contributed to this story
A resident of a nursing home where a staff member worked for six days while infectious with COVID-19 has reportedly passed away, bringing the nations death toll to 70.

The resident of Anglicare's Newmarch House in Caddens, Penrith, west of Sydney, died on Saturday morning, according to ABC News.

A total of 30 people connected to the facility have now contracted COVID-19, with at least 20 of those having been in contact with the female employee who worked while having a sore throat.

Three other cases connected to the home were acquired overseas, Dr Chant said.

The Anglicares Newmarch House in Western Sydney where 30 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed and one resident has died. Source: AAP

It comes as a sixth Queenslander died overnight after contracting the virus on the Celebrity Eclipse cruise, Health Minister Steven Miles said on Saturday.

There were eight new COVID-19 cases diagnosed in the state overnight, bringing the total number of people infected since the crisis began to 1014. Of those, 738 people have recovered.

A man in his 80s died in hospital in Victoria, taking the state's toll to 15. Nine new cases have also been confirmed after 17 new cases were reported on Saturday.

Seven of the new cases are Greg Mortimer cruise ship passengers flown in recently on a flight from Uruguay.

Strict isolation protocols were implemented at Anglicare's Newmarch House nursing home after it was revealed the woman worked while infectious, but cases were expected to increase.

Dr Chant reiterated aged care workers needed to take particular care because COVID-19 was extremely infectious in institutional settings such as nursing homes.

A female employee worked for six days at this facility while infectious with COVID-19. Source: AAP

Aged care workers with any respiratory symptoms should seek COVID-19 testing.

"We see this amplification in institutions and that explains the very strong messages we're giving," Dr Chant said on Friday.

"Anyone in an institution who has lots of contact with lots of people poses significant risks if anyone is unwell and transmitting. It's not unexpected."

Most cases at Newmarch House, which has 96 residents, remain mild and Anglicare says they are being cared for by a specially trained team.

Story continues

As a precaution, residents who tested negative are being re-tested, Anglicare said in a statement on Friday.

with AAP

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How many of us would put our lives in danger just to fulfil a promise made to a stranger ? Delhi businessman Hemant Bhayana drove his car non-stop, covering about 1326 km in 24 hours from Delhi to Bhagalpur, Bihar to help a migrant in distress. He wanted to ensure that Tipu Yadav, a 19-year-old daily wager, attends his mothers cremation.

Tipus mother had died a tragic death after getting trapped into a threshing machine. Some thoughtless relatives had sent Tipu extremely distressing pictures of his mothers body which has caused him a nervous breakdown. The boy has stopped eating completely and he was crying inconsolably. He somehow wanted to reach his village in time to be able to cremate his mothers body, but it seemed impossible due to the nationwide lockdown in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Hemants sister, Delhi based activist Yogita Bhayana managed to get a permit letter from the government for Tipu to travel via roadways from Delhi to Bihar. But no one was willing to take up the highly arduous and risky journey to drive Tipu all the way home during the lockdown. The administration could not provide them a vehicle and a driver to carry out the mission. But Yogita was adamant to send Tipu home to be able to perform the last rites of his mother and share his old and ailing fathers grief.

Thats when Hemant, 40, volunteered to drive all the way in his sisters car along with Tipu and two more daily wage earners from Bhagalpur. He took along his friend Rohit Kumar to help him in this unique mission. I cant bear to see any one in painTipus agony left me perturbedtheres was boy in front of me crying because his mother had met such a horrific death, and he was away from his father. I just had to help him, he says.

Covering a distance of around 1,326 km in almost 24 hours in his sisters car, Hemant dropped Tipu and his friends to Bhagalpur, and after resting for just a few hours, started his journey back to Delhi. By the time he reached home, he could barely stand. I was extremely exhausted, but the peace and satisfaction that I got after fulfilling this task made up for everything, he says.

But there were a few sights that he witnessed during this journey that torment him even now. As I drove through Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, I saw so many dead bodies of stray dogs, who apparently could not survive due to starvation. I could do nothing about that. I hope people come forward and ensure that no more voiceless beings bear the brunt of the lockdown, says the dog lover who feeds stray dogs daily in Model Town.

Its been almost eighteen days that Hemant returned from Bihar but he has kept in touch with Tipu over phone. A few days ago, Tipu informed him he is trying his best to cope up with the tragic loss. He is keeping himself busy by working in the fields, helping his father cut wheat. Tipu says he cant thank Hemant enough, for what he did for him. The two have made a unique bond, one that reinstates our faith in humanity.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 12:19:38|Editor: Lu Hui

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BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- China's procuratorates filed 16,173 public interest litigation cases and brought 568 such cases to courts from January to March, according to statistics released by the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP).

A total of 11,762 cases were handled through pre-litigation procedures in the first three months, involving issues of environment protection, resource conservation, food and drug safety, and state-owned asset protection, among others, said the SPP.

A total of 87,000 mu (5,802.9 hectares) of polluted or damaged forests, wetlands, grasslands and water areas were repaired or cleared as a result of the handling of the cases, the SPP said.

Procuratorates facilitated the clearing of 179,000 tonnes of household and solid waste and urged the shutdown of 228 businesses in violation during the period.
The UK is facing the highest coronavirus death rate in Europe and the government was too slow to act to tackle the epidemic, a former WHO director has told MPs.

Professor Anthony Costello said that the UK was facing probably the highest death rates in Europe, and that the harsh reality is that the response was too slow.

He has predicted that there will be 40,000 deaths in the UK by the end of the first wave of the virus. So far the UK has recorded more than 13,000 deaths from COVID-19.

The UK is facing probably the highest death toll in Europe, a former WHO director has warned. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

Giving evidence to parliaments health and social care committee, Professor Costello said the UK is facing further waves of the virus.

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He said: If were going to suppress the chain of transmission of this virus in the next stage we all hope that the national lockdown and social distancing will bring about a large suppression of the epidemic so far  but were going to face further waves.

And so we need to make sure that we have a system in place that cannot just do a certain number of tests in the laboratory, but has a system at district and community level.

He warned in a previous interview that there could be up to ten waves before herd immunity  the point at which enough people have had the virus and gained immunity to stop it spreading  would be achieved.

Professor Costello has been an outspoken critic of the governments approach to the coronavirus pandemic, condemning the failure to carry out mass community testing.

He has advocated contact tracing and quarantining like that which has been carried out in South Korea, where people who have come into contact with someone with coronavirus are alerted and put in quarantine.

On Friday he suggested offering incentives to some parts of the population to stay socially isolated in order to get the economy going again.

Story continues

He said: We have to get the economy going and if it means locking down 10% of our population, even giving them incentives to stay in quarantine and with digital apps to help monitor their symptoms and give them support, thats the way to really keep this going until we get a vaccine and safe herd immunity.

Coronavirus: what happened today
Migrant worker associations express their concern View(s):

The Voice of Migrant Workers (VoMW), an umbrella group of over 10 organisations engaged in the rights of migrant workers, has presented a set of recommendations to the government to protect Sri Lankan workers abroad.

In a statement, it said that migrant workers based in countries of destination are perhaps the most vulnerable of all. In the Gulf corridor, countries are making changes to their policies towards migrant workers as the COVID-19 infection rates increase.

As uncertainty prevails some destination countries are contemplating amnesties while other countries are already implementing wage reductions and worker retrenchment. The question we must ask ourselves is how ready are we to respond if these migrant workers return to the country, the statement said.

The recommendations are:

1. Each of our organisations will have one or more hotline numbers which can be shared widely, that will accept migrant workers and left-behind family concerns and refer them to the national system.

2. We urge the government to negotiate with destination countries on the following:

a. Conduct the COVID-19 antibody test on all migrant workers who are due to return to the country on completion of their contract and those deciding to take the amnesty. Those found to be infected should be given priority medical treatment and attention prior to the repatriation process, assisted by our mission and consular offices.

b. Migrants whose contracts are yet to be completed and who are infected with the COVID-19 virus, undergo the quarantine and hospitalisation period in the destination country and that they resume work at the appropriate time as advised by the healthcare authorities.

c. Migrant workers are paid their wages during the lockdown period.

d. Migrant workers are provided decent and healthy living conditions and that they can exercise social distancing and other preventive methods.

e. Mission and consular offices in destination countries set up hotline numbers and are constantly in touch with migrant workers promoting effective prevention practices.

3. The government to accept all migrant workers irrespective of their migration status (undocumented, irregular forced labour, trafficked labour, detained workers) in these stressful times and offer them assistance without discrimination or exclusion.

4. In the post-quarantine period as returnee migrant workers reunite with their families, we urge the government to make available social welfare and relief packages through the SLBFE Welfare programme.

5. Many migrant workers fall into a debt bondage trap in attempting to secure a job overseas. Their situations get worse when their wages are delayed or deducted for various reasons. We urge the government to assess their debt status and consider a waiver if they have loans with state banks.

6. We also urge the government to offer stimulus packages to people, small businesses, migrant returnees and families left behind of migrant workers based on a systematic assessment considering their living and working situations, without bias or exclusion.
Maharashtra on Saturday registered a sharp rise in the number of Covid-19 cases as 328 people tested positive for the disease and took the states tally to 3,648, the state government said. The number of people tested positive was more than double of those diagnosed with Covid-19 on Friday--118.

Of the new cases recorded on Saturday, 184 were from Mumbai, which now has a tally of 2,268, followed by Pune with 78. This is the third time this month that the state has reported over 300 cases in a day. Maharashtra also reported 11 Covid-19 related deaths on Saturday, taking the toll from the disease to 211.

Officials said the trajectory of the cases needs to plateau by April 21 for it to remain under control. We expect the cases to dip after the two 14-day incubation cycles, which began on March 22 when over 2.20 lakh people arrived at the Mumbai airport, end. If the containment is good, it would go down, said T P Lahane, director, directorate of medical education and research.

Officials said the mortality rate in Maharashtra has also undergone a gradual decline even as it is still double that of the country. After touching the 7%-mark on April 12, the mortality rate is decreasing primarily due to early admission of Covid-19 patients to hospitals and also due to concentrated efforts to treat patients with underlying illnesses, officials said. The mortality rate on April 14, 15, 16 and 17 was 6.84%, 6.61%, 6.41% and 6.05%.

Lahane said the mortality rate is slowly decreasing because of early admissions of patients to hospitals. Earlier, most patients died between the first day and third day of admission. Now, it happens after six to seven days after admission in critical cases. When they are in the hospital, we can monitor their lungs, blood-pressure etc.

A health department official also attributed the reduction in deaths in the last few days to a more focused approach of treating patients with comorbidities. More attention is being given to patients with underlying illnesses with early admissions. It helps hospitals to treat them well so that they do not become critical cases, an official said requesting anonymity.

The state government on Saturday started 25 more dedicated hospitals for treating Covid-19 patients. With this, the number of such facilities has gone up to 55 with a total capacity of 6,660 beds, said Rajesh Tope, state health minister.

The state government has also got permission from the Indian Council of Medical Research to start six new laboratories for Covid-19 tests, state medical education minister Amit Deshmukh said.

The total number of laboratories in the state has now gone up to 42 that with a capacity of 7,600 tests daily.

The Maharashtra government also on Saturday issued orders that its employees will start working from Monday with 10% strength. The new order also made attendance of secretaries, joint or deputy secretaries, mandatory. Women officers can be exempted from it by orders of the departmental heads. On March 23, the state government had issued orders that it would operate with only 5% of the staff.

The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation or municipal corporation buses will be used to ferry government employees from Monday. With the suburban railway network shut due to the lockdown, the buses will be operational between 7 am to 11 am and 4 pm to 7 pm, a state government order state.

The state government has also decided to provide financial assistance of Rs 2,000 to all the registered construction workers for them to tide over hardships caused by the lockdown. An order in this regard came days after hundreds of migrant workers gathered outside the Bandra railway station demanding they be sent back to their homes last week.

The one-time monetary help will be credited into the bank accounts of over 1.2 million workers, officials said. The assistance will cost the state government around Rs 250 crore.

The state on Friday allowed construction work in cities, including Mumbai and Pune, with a rider that prior permission from civic authorities will be mandatory.
Court awards atheist group $456K over public school graduation prayer lawsuit

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A court awarded an atheist group approximately $456,000 after they won a years-long lawsuit against a South Carolina school district for holding graduation ceremonies with prayer and hymns.

Last year, the American Humanist Association won a lawsuit against Greenville County School District for their practice of holding graduation ceremonies with sectarian religious elements.

The U.S. District Court for South Carolina awarded AHA $446,466 in attorney fees and $9,776 in other expenses on Tuesday, which was below the previous requested amount of $584,026.

Greenville County Schools told local media outlet Fox Carolina that they are probably going to appeal both the fee and decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Throughout this case, the School District has argued that students, like other citizens, have the right to free speech, including that of a religious nature, stated the school district.

On this main point, Greenville County Schools successfully convinced the Court to uphold its consistent position on the central issue of protecting student speech and supported the districts belief that students should be allowed to speak from a religious or secular perspective at a graduation.

Greenville added that they will continue to remain committed to protecting students rights to free speech, while remaining neutral to religion.

In 2013, the AHA sued the school district on behalf of an anonymous family whose child attended a graduation ceremony that featured Christian prayers delivered by students and religious music.

In July 2019, District Court Judge Bruce Hendricks issued a permanent injunction against the school district, ordering that the school district, among other things, could not include a prayer as part of the official program for a graduation ceremony.

The district also shall not include an obviously religious piece of music as part of the official program for a graduation ceremony, wrote Hendricks.

The district and/or school officials shall not encourage, promote, advance, endorse, or participate in causing prayers during any graduation ceremony.

Hendricks also ruled that students could, under certain circumstances, include religious content in their speeches provided that no one else was asked to participate.

The judge further ordered that any programs or fliers for a ceremony with a student speaker include a disclaimer saying that the students remarks did not reflect the opinions of the school district.

We are thrilled that the court is finally putting an end to flagrant school-sponsored prayers and Christian hymns at public school graduation ceremonies, said Monica Miller, AHA senior counsel, in a statement last year.

This was a long fight for justice for students who do not wish to encounter government-sponsored religion at their own graduation ceremonies.
At midnight on April 18, bells throughout the cathedrals and sanctuaries of the Orthodox Christian world will toll, devout Christians will cross themselves and rush to kiss holy icons as priests chant "Christ has risen" and mark the beginning of the holiest day of the Orthodox calendar.



April 19 is Easter, celebrated with centuries-old rituals marking the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.



This year, it's different.



For epidemiologists and medical experts, the holiday is potentially shaping up to be a critical moment for curtailing -- or the opposite, fueling -- the spread of the pandemic that is wreaking havoc across the globe.



Just as many governments have struggled to respond to the infection, Orthodox leaders across the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have also struggled, trying to balance the exacting demands of religious rituals with the realities of medical science.

A week earlier, Roman Catholicism and most Protestant denominations marked their Easter holidays with televised services, and shuttered churches. At the Vatican, Pope Francis broke with centuries of tradition by celebrating Easter Sunday mass on April 13 via livestream from a nearly empty St. Peter's Basilica. Russia



In Orthodoxy's largest denomination, in Russia, church leaders hesitated to impose restrictions as the coronavirus danger built in February and March, and in some cases gave conflicting guidance.



St. Petersburg church officials on March 26 announced a ban on parishioners from attending services, but that was then overruled by the Russian Orthodox Church's headquarters in Moscow.



The Russian church also moved weeks ago to impose stricter hygiene measures: for example, restricting people from kissing holy icons or from reusing a special communion spoon used to give people sanctified wine.

But some local priests have spurned the advice, both from public health workers and from their church superiors.



On March 29, Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian church, publicly urged believers to "strictly obey the regulations imposed by the health authorities," refraining from physically going to church, and not to listen to priests who opposed social-distancing and self-isolation measures.



He also cited the unusual example of a 4th-century prostitute, now a saint, who sought to pray in a church in Jerusalem but was blocked as if by some unseen force. According to legend, the woman managed to enter after praying before an icon of Jesus's mother, Mary, and then spent years wandering in the desert.



"That's exactly how we should live now. And do not listen to other kinds of sermons, including those coming from unreasonable clergy. Listen to what the patriarch told you today," Kirill said. "And not just from myself: from the great ascetic feat of the holy Reverend Mary of Egypt, who saved the body and soul by going into the desert, in complete isolation from the people around her."

For Orthodox Easter, leaders have called for people to stay home to pray, and not go to churches during Easter services, which typically include people staying up all night and praying as part of the ritual known as the Easter Vigil.



Local governments and local church leaders also plan on televising Easter services from parishes around the country, according to officials.



And a survey conducted by the state-funded Public Opinion Foundation, published April 17, found that a majority of Russians believed that Easter services should be held this year without parishioners.



Still, as many as 43 of Russia's 89 regions expect to have church buildings open to parishioners on April 18, Easter eve, the newspaper RBC reported.



As of April 18, Russia had reported more than 36,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, and 313 deaths. There are suspicions that the official figures are lower than the real ones, and Moscow's mayor suggested days earlier that the country was just at the beginning of a steep upward trajectory for infections.



Ukraine



In Ukraine, the situation is complicated by the existence of rival Orthodox Christian churches.



Metropolitan Onufriy, leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox branch that is affiliated with Moscow, echoed the Russian church leaders, calling on people to stay home and watch Easter services on TV.



But Onufriy also said that those who wanted attend services in person could come and pray outside church buildings as long as they maintained distance from one another.



That brought a rebuke from Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which formally broke away from the Moscow Patriarchate and was recognized as fully independent last year.



It is "a Christian duty" to stay home during the pandemic, Metropolitan Epifaniy said in an interview with RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.

Adding further to the drama: an outbreak of coronavirus cases at the 1,000-year-old KyIv Pechersk Lavra, a labyrinthine monastery complex built into the hillside overlooking the Dnipro River.



City officials this week sealed off the famed monastery, which is controlled by the Moscow Patriarchate-affiliated church, after two priests died of the disease, and dozens were infected.



Ukraine had reported more than 5,100 confirmed coronavirus cases as of April 18, including 133 deaths.



Georgia



In Georgia, where the local Orthodox Church plays an outsized role in the country's social and political life, priests have been at the forefront of unscientific efforts to stop the spread of disease.



Last month, a convoy of clergy drove through the capital Tbilisi, sprinkling holy water on drivers and brandishing icons in an effort to bless the city and protect it from the coronavirus.

Earlier this week, after reportedly tense negotiations with political leaders and public health officials, church leaders were permitted to allow parishioners to attend dusk-to-dawn Easter vigil services despite a curfew and other restrictions imposed on Tbilisi and elsewhere.



Under the agreement, worshippers will be allowed to attend services in large cathedrals, provided they maintain a distance of 2 meters. Those who attend small churches are to remain outside their church building.



The agreement also says parishioners should arrive for the services before 9 p.m. and leave after 6 a.m.



Church spokesman Andria Jagmaidze said the measures would ensure services would continue, while complying with public health recommendations. He said nothing, however, about the communal spoon used for communion



Georgia had reported 370 coronavirus cases and three deaths as of April 18, according to the Johns Hopkins University database.
Naval Facilities Engineering Command Pacific Awards First Construction Contract in Japan

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS200417-12

Release Date: 4/17/2020 2:38:00 PM

From Krista Cummins, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Pacific Public Affairs Office

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii (NNS) -- Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Pacific awarded a $128 million firm-fixed price contract to Penta-Ocean Construction Co., Ltd. of Yokohama City, Kanagawa, Japan April 14 for the construction of a concrete fixed single pier at Command Fleet Activities Yokosuka, Japan.

"We are pleased to announce the first military construction contract (MILCON) award in Japan for NAVFAC Pacific and Far East," said Capt. Tres Meek, NAVFAC Pacific operations officer.

Due to the significance and technical nature of this project, the Army Corps of Engineers, who normally services this region in Japan, reached back to NAVFAC to execute this MILCON.

"The existing Pier 5 has exceeded its service life and can no longer support the Navy's mission," said Aaron Kam, NAVFAC Pacific senior project manager. "This new pier will provide the Navy with the operational capability needed to support current and future operational requirements within a region that holds high interest for our country."

The work to be performed includes, but is not limited to, a concrete fixed single deck pier that includes concrete deck and utility trench, pile foundations, fender system, mooring hardware, deck ramp and utility support crossing, mechanical utility piping, electrical distribution system, lighting, transformer substations, power mounds, communication distribution system and communication risers.

Work will be performed in Yokosuka, Japan with an expected completion date of September 2022.

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Coronavirus FAQ

What is the coronavirus?

The coronavirus outbreak started in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 and has spread worldwide. The new virus causes a disease known as COVID-19. The virus is part of a larger family of coronaviruses, which can lead to illnesses ranging from a mild common cold to more severe respiratory diseases such as SARS and MERS.

Who is at risk and what are the symptoms?

Public health experts say the new coronavirus is more contagious than the seasonal flu. The majority of people who become sick experience mild symptoms, but some become more seriously ill. People who contract the virus can develop pneumonia, and some have died. People who are elderly or have underlying medical issues are at greater risk of becoming more severely sick. Symptoms of the virus include a cough, fever and shortness of breath.

What should I do if I develop symptoms?

The North Dakota Department of Health advises that people call their health care provider to tell them about recent travel or exposure, and to follow their guidance. Try to avoid contact with other people in the meantime.

What can I do to prevent the virus from spreading?

The health department advises that people wash their hands with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand sanitizer for at least 20 seconds. People who are sick should stay home from work or school, both to protect themselves and others with whom they would come in contact. Avoid touching your face, cover a cough or sneeze with a tissue or an elbow, clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces, and avoid contact with people who are sick.

Where can I find more information?

People with coronavirus-related questions can call the state health department hotline at 866-207-2880. Those who need medical advice should contact their health care provider.

The health department's online coronavirus page: www.health.nd.gov/coronavirus

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's online coronavirus page: www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov
BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 18

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Export of grains and legumes from Turkey to Iran decreased by 44.9 percent from January through March 2020 compared to the same period of 2019, making up $19 million, Turkeys Ministry of Trade told Trend .

Turkeys export of grains and legumes to Iran amounted to $1.4 million in March 2020, which is 90.3 percent less compared to March 2019.

From January through March 2020, Turkey exported grains and legumes worth $1.8 billion to world markets, which is 5.8 percent more compared to the same period of 2019.

According to the ministry, Turkey's export of these products made up 4.2 percent of the countrys total export in the 1st quarter of 2020.

In March 2020, Turkey exported grains and legumes worth $633.4 million to world markets, which is 7.9 percent more than in the same month of 2019.

Turkeys export of grains and legumes in March 2020 made up 4.7 percent of the countrys total export.

Over the last 12 months, i.e. from March 2019 through March 2020, Turkey exported grains and legumes worth $6.8 billion.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
OTTAWAIts the question weve all been asking.

When can life in Canada return to something resembling normal?

Public health experts have been categorical: countries should not stop social distancing and self-isolation until they can conduct widespread testing for COVID-19. Another key component is improved contact tracing, the practice of identifying infected Canadians and tracking back to others who they may have interacted with.

Its unlikely governments will allow most citizens to be phased back to public life until those measures are in place and working. And both are areas where provincial and local health officials have struggled to keep up with the pace of the pandemics spread.

How soon the lockdown is lifted may depend on how quickly governments can build capacity in these two areas.

Contact tracing

Some countries have employed aggressive  and invasive  methods of tracking their citizens contacts, including the use of cellphone location data. The idea is if you can identify those who came in contact with the virus, you can directly intervene  warn them to self-isolate and target your testing.

As of Friday afternoon, 36,000 volunteers had signed up to a federal program to support provinces and territories with contact tracing efforts.

(Provinces and territories) have identified contact tracing and case recording as areas where they require assistance, wrote Natalie Mohamed, a spokesperson for Health Canada, in a statement on Friday.

As needs evolve, support in other areas requiring assistance will be provided.

The federal minister of science and industry, Navdeep Bains, said that the federal government is already talking with companies promising technological solutions for contact tracing.

Were looking at other jurisdictions, we want to make sure that if we are moving forward in that area that we also deal with issues with respect to privacy in a meaningful way, Bains told a press conference in Ottawa.

Its still early stages, and weve been engaged with a robust group of people across the country that are working on some early stage technology projects, but we havent made any final determination in terms of what we want to support and move forward with.

Contact tracing has been employed by some countries in order to limit the spread of COVID-19. In a handful of Asian countries, the practice has been a marriage between tech  such as an app that uses Bluetooth technology to measure the distance between people and track contacts  and a level of government intrusion Canadians arent used to.

But the use of cellphone data has raised privacy concerns in democratic states.

The federal privacy commissioner, Daniel Therrien, told the Star Friday that while citizens might be more accepting of invasive methods of surveillance during a crisis, those exceptional measures should be limited to the crisis.

Privacy is not an impediment to saving lives, Therrien said.

Even though were applying what were calling a flexible and contextual approach to the interpretation of privacy laws, the context does not said aside privacy altogether.

Therriens office released a framework for governments on respecting privacy rights despite provincial declarations of emergencies and the interest in surveillance to combat COVID-19.

It includes making sure proposed policies have a clear legal basis, that theyre necessary and proportionate, and to have a time limit for exceptional measures, with the collected data being destroyed when the pandemic passes.

Some tech companies are already turning to the next set of questions facing the government after the peak of COVID-19s first wave recedes in Canada  how to safely get people back into public spaces.

Leah Hanvey, the business development manager at Urban Logiq, said the company is working with municipal and provincial governments to combine government-held data with publicly-available information to map out a post-pandemic plan.

While most attention has been focused on government collecting cellphone data like locations visited and contacts, Hanveys company is looking at things like traffic patterns to map out what a recovery could look like.

Urban Logiq is currently in talks with the B.C. government to provide analysis of mapping data  how people move around cities like Vancouver or Surrey  to inform plans on how to re-introduce citizens to spaces outside their homes.

The conversation has moved decidedly to recovery, Hanvey, a former federal Liberal staffer, said in an interview.

Widespread testing

Testing has been the topic of much debate throughout the COVID-19 battle and some argue a national consensus is needed before strict public health measures can be eased.

Each province and territory seems to define widespread testing in different ways  each employs its own testing strategies targeting certain high-risk populations, such as front-line health workers and residents of long-term care facilities.

Reporting of test results is also not uniform; for example, Alberta reports both the number of samples collected and persons tested, whereas Ontario this week switched from reporting the number of patients tested to simply the number of samples tested.

Experts agree more testing is required. But some argue that no feasible amount of testing of the population at large would be widespread enough.

Testing everyone is an unrealistic goal, said University of Montreal epidemiology professor Jack Siemiatycki.

Siemiatycki and others say there may be another solution: random sampling that is representative of the Canadian population on a national and regional basis.

The approach, akin to scientific polling, could give a more accurate assessment of COVID-19 infections and help offset shortages of testing equipment.

It would actually take very few tests per day to provide a quite accurate estimate of the prevalence of the virus infection in Ontario, and its trajectory over time, Siemiatycki said. If the authorities choose a representative sample of about 100 to 400 people in total  and I think this should be initially limited to residents of the urban centres in which current testing procedures are conducted  and if this were repeated with a new sample every day for as long as the epidemic lasts in Ontario, then we would have an excellent estimate of the extent of the epidemic and its trajectory over time.

Siemiatycki added that the widely published daily counts of confirmed cases, deaths and hospitalizations are vulnerable to all kinds of biases and distortions.

The number of cases that are confirmed is just a function of how many test kits there are in the country or province, he said, adding that varying criteria among provinces for testing can also make the data problematic, as well as the fact that the criteria change frequently.

In some places you have to be deadly sick to get tested. In other places, mild symptoms can get you tested, he said. So those counts are pretty useless actually for this purpose.

Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, said testing strategy is whats important, rather than the sheer number of tests. Furness said jurisdictions like Ontario appear to design their testing approach around those who show virus symptoms even while a segment of the infected population shows none.

The single-minded focus on a number of tests without articulating a strategy to combat asymptomatic transmission is a problem, Furness said.

The appropriate strategy for asymptomatic spread is to target those who are most likely to get (or be) infected, based on sheer amount of contact with people (such as grocery store clerks) and those who have contact with vulnerable populations (such as long-term care staff and homeless support workers), he continued, adding he would test these kinds of workers frequently, as often as every other day.
AUSTIN, Texas  Dave Litrell stood at a socially un-distant length from his fellow protesters on Saturday.

Some shook hands. Others hugged. More than a hundred people rubbed elbows and shoulders, their signs and flags touching, many with their faces unmasked. Mr. Litrell, 46, held his 6-year-old daughter as those surrounding him chanted to reopen the American economy outside the State Capitol building in downtown Austin.

I dont fear a potential pathogen, he said of the fast-spreading coronavirus that had compelled most governors to shut down their states, including the closing of nonessential businesses. I think theres potential pathogens around us all the time, and for the most part, were healthy.

Mr. Litrell, wearing a MAGA-style red cap reading Make Austin Weird Again, is a bartender in Texas capital city. At least he used to be. The restaurant where Mr. Litrell works has cut his shift to five hours a week, from 35. He started getting unemployment.
Sam Heughan attends the premiere of Sony Pictures' "Bloodshot" on March 10, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

Outlander hunk Sam Heughan has spoken out on social media after suffering years of what he calls bullying and harassment thrown his way by online trolls.

The award-winning actor has played the role of warrior Jamie Fraser in the time-hopping show which is based on US writer Diana Gaboldons series of novels which started with 1991s Outlander.

Heughan has played the character since 2014 and has won plenty of admirers along the way, but his stardom has also lead to more negative attention.

Read more: Outlander star laughs off ever returning after recent season 5 exit

In an biting and honest social media post, he wrote: After the past six years of constant bullying, harassment, stalking and false narrative I am at a loss, upset, hurt and have to speak out.

Its affecting my life, mental state and is a daily concern. My costars, friends, family, myself, in fact anyone Im associated with, has been subjected to personal slurs, shaming, abuse, death threats, stalking, sharing of private information and vile, false narrative.

Recently, these false claims vary from me manipulating fans, being a closest homosexual, trying to mislead or exhort fans for money and disregarding Covid advice. Ive done none of the above.

Im a normal guy and nothing like the characters I play. Most recently, some of you may know Im currently self isolating in Hawaii. I came here before the travel ban.

Addressing those who had said otherwise, he continued: None of us knew how bad things would get but as the situation worsened, upon the advice of everyone I trust, I decided to remain in a safe environment.

Read more: Outlander conference among latest events called off

I was a good decision. Im safe, isolated, putting no one at risk and am not a burden to the locals We have not been asked to leave.

He went on to say he will not entertain it anymore saying: These bullies have created a false narrative, sharing private information and abused my loved ones and I consistently for the last six years on blogs and social media.

Heughans looks, charm and acting chops have put him in line to take over Daniel Craig as James Bond, with Paddy Power currently having him down as 6-1 to be the new 007.
All states and Union territories have activated 'emergency operation centres' across districts to address issues faced by people due to the ongoing lockdown, a senior official said on Saturday.

During a daily briefing, Punya Salila Srivastava, a joint secretary in the Union home ministry, said a control room set up in the MHA is providing round-the-clock assistance to people and helplines 1930 and 1944 are resolving their grievances.

She said the availability of essential goods and services in the country was satisfactory.

Single emergency response number 112 is operational in all states and UTs, she said. The 112 mobile app tracks location and provides highly prompt services. This has been extensively used by pregnant women, elderly and specially-abled during the lockdown, the joint secretary said.

"We hope that with the help of all these services, we will be able to resolve your issues during the lockdown period," she said.

The officer said visas of foreigners who are stranded in India due to the coronavirus lockdown will be extended till the midnight of May 3 upon receiving an online application.

Exit to such foreign nationals, if so requested by them during this period, will also be granted up to 14 days beyond May 3 without levy of overstay penalty, she said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)




Meek Mill

American rapper, songwriter, and activist, Robert Rihmeek Williams, known professionally as Meek Mill, has donated his 2018 Rolls-Royce Phantom reportedly worth half-a-million dollars (193 million) to help raise funds to feed the hungry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The rapper made the donation after Fanatics executive chairman and Philadelphia 76ers partner, Michael Rubin, launched the All In Challenge with the goal to raise tens of millions of dollars to help those in need.

Michael Rubin in an instagram post that:

You need to give away one of your most cherished possessions or create a once-in-a-lifetime fan experience,

The statement to give away one of your most cherished possessions prompted Meek Mill to donate his 2018 Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Meek Mill said in an instagram post that:

Ive accepted the #ALLINCHALLENGE from @MichaelRubin.

Go to the link in my bio to get in on the auction & bid on my own 2018 Rolls-Royce Phantom that Im putting up to help feed the hungry and those who need it during this wild time.

Also, James Harden @KingJames @floydmayweather I challenge you to be ALL IN.

But it seems Meek Mill is already missing his custom matte black 2018 Rolls-Royce Phantom that is reported to worth half-a-million dollars (Ndffgghhhhh).

He tagged the picture of the luxury ride with:

THIS MY BABY IMA MISSSSSSSS YOUUUUUUUUUU ???????? papers signed!! #donated  my dream car that motivated me to chase success!! #allinchallenge.

Yeah I be snapping with helping people too ?

The 2018 Rolls-Royce Phantom is one of several luxury cars in Mills garage. The 32 year old also boasts of a white Rolls-Royce of SUVs, the Cullinan.
The beacon market size is expected to grow by USD 15.99 billion during 2020-2024. The report also provides the market impact and new opportunities created due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact can be expected to be significant in the first quarter but gradually lessen in subsequent quarters with a limited impact on the full-year economic growth, according to the latest market research report by Technavio. Request a free sample report

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200417005376/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Beacon Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

The sales of premium smartphones are expected to grow during the forecast period, owing to the rise in disposable income of consumers and increasing household spending power in emerging economies. In addition, premium smartphone vendors are offering various advanced features, such as AI, triple camera options, full-screen displays, and high memory configurations. This enables smartphone vendors to quote a premium price for their products. These smartphones automatically connect with beacons installed in nearby places. These beacons have specific IDs that are registered in their dedicated apps. As soon as the smartphone is near any beacon, the smartphone app recognizes the incoming ID and location. The beacon then sends notifications, offers, discounts, messages, as per its programming. Thus, the growing adoption of premium smartphones will drive the beacon market growth during the forecast period.

To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR40392

As per Technavio, the emergence of Industry 4.0 will have a positive impact on the market and contribute to its growth significantly over the forecast period. This research report also analyzes other significant trends and market drivers that will influence market growth over 2020-2024.

Beacon Market: Emergence of Industry 4.0

The emergence of Industry 4.0 or the fourth industrial revolution is expected to boost the demand for beacons during the forecast period. It involves digitalizing and linking the industrial sector to a connected network. This, in turn, creates the need for GPS devices, smart devices, and improved high-speed network connectivity. This will again lead to the deployment of more digital infrastructure, thus converting the entire mechanized value chain (including manufacturing, procurement, and sales) into a digitalized process with the help of beacons. Bridging the gap between the physical and digital interfaces, the beacon technology will facilitate exchange of up-to-date information instructions across the entire value chain.

"Factors such as the increasing adoption of beacons in logistics and transportation, and the rising adoption of IPIN systems will have a significant impact on the growth of the beacon market value during the forecast period," says a senior analyst at Technavio.

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Beacon Market: Segmentation Analysis

This market research report segments the beacon market by type (iBeacon, eddystone, and others) and region (North America, Europe, APAC, MEA, and South America).

The North American region led the beacon market in 2019, followed by Europe, APAC, MEA, and South America respectively. During the forecast period, the North American region is expected to register the highest incremental growth due to factors such as the presence of well-established vendors, and increased adoption of beacons in the retail sector.

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report, such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Request a free sample report

Some of the key topics covered in the report include:

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Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Competitive scenario

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Switzerlands Matterhorn mountain lit up with an image of the Indian flag to express solidarity as the world fights the coronavirus pandemic which has killed more than 1.5 lakh people globally

Switzerlands Matterhorn mountain lit up with an image of the Indian flag to express solidarity as the world fights the coronavirus pandemic which has killed more than 1.5 lakh people globally.

The official page of India in Switzerland, The Holy See & Liechtenstein posted the image on Twitter.

Indian Tricolor on the Matterhorn Mountain: Indian Tricolor of more than 1000 meters in size projected on Matterhorn Mountain, Zermatt, Switzerland to express Solidarity to all Indians in the fight against COVID 19. A big Thank You to @zermatt_tourism for the gesture. @MEAIndia (Sic), read the caption of the post.

The image was soon shared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who wrote, The world is fighting COVID-19 together. Humanity will surely overcome this pandemic.

The world is fighting COVID-19 together. Humanity will surely overcome this pandemic. https://t.co/7Kgwp1TU6A  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 18, 2020

Matterhorn is one of the highest peaks of the Swiss Alps, located near the resort town of Zermatt.

Gurleen Kaur, an Indian Foreign Service Officer in Geneva, too tweeted images of the Matterhorn alongside the caption. Switzerland expresses solidarity with India in its fight against #COVID19. Swiss mountain of #Matterhorn lit in tricolour. Friendship from Himalayas to Alps, she wrote.

For the unversed, Switzerland is illunimating the famous peak every day with messages like #hope, #solidarity, #thankyou to show their support to countries across the world and the people fighting the pandemic from the frontlines. Over the last few days they have projected the flags of UK, US, Germany, Spain and Portugal.
Macroom film-maker Donal O Ceilleachair is offering viewers an oportunity to watch one of his award-winning movies, 'From Coolea to Iona', free on his online cinema portal.

The documentary charts the journey taken by Cor Chuil Aodha to Iona, the monastery built by St Colmcille, in 2014 along with President Michael D Higgins to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the choir by Sean O Riada.

The film can be accessed on www.anupictures.com with the key word 'HOPE'.
A former Lord Mayor is appealing to the Chief Medical Officer to have Dublin Fire Brigade personnel prioritised for Covid-19 testing.

Dublin Central Independent councillor Christy Burke revealed that he has been approached by a number of employee and union representatives saying they are concerned for the health and safety of fire services personnel, as they are not on the priority testing list, despite being frontline workers.

Up to 30 of male and female firefighters, which is 10% of entire personnel, who provide fire and paramedic services, are currently self-isolating due to the virus.

Currently, 11 employees have tested positive for the virus and 85 are in self-isolation, out of a workforce of 850 firefighter paramedics.

Cllr Burke said: I have been in contact with Dublin City Council officials and HSE management when I was informed about this by several fire service personnel representatives who are extremely concerned about the situation.

So far I havent been given any guidance or reassurance over how they are being treated. There is a lot of worry there that they are not on the priority list for Covid-19 testing.

These men and women are frontline workers and do so much for the people of Dublin. To not be treated as such, when it comes to testing for the virus, is unbelievable.

I, like everyone else, presumed they would be considered and treated as priority frontline workers, by health authorities, but obviously they are not.

"The Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan needs to address this issue and put them on the priority list.

Cllr Burke added: Im bewildered that these men and women are being treated like this.

"They put their lives on the line for others, and are called to situations where they have to give CPR to seriously ill people, and in the current climate, what they are doing needs, to be recognised.

Having so many firefighters taken away from dealing with day-to-day emergencies other than Covid-19 is putting a lot of extra stress and pressure on other employees who are battling to cope with this pandemic.

The turnaround on testing has been taking two weeks, it has reduced somewhat but its taking too long for them to get back to work due to their testing not being prioritised.

Retired personnel and staff working longer hours is helping to maintain operations the extra burden the pandemic is causing as they work flat-out.

Chief Fire Fighter Dennis Keeley has said the brigade recorded a 21% increase in calls to the emergency service in March compared with the same period last year as the pandemic started to kick in.

Dublin City Council which operates the fire service have been contacted for further comment.

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And as individuals, every person will be playing Russian roulette every minute of every day: Do I get on this crowded bus to go to work or not? What if I get on the subway and the person next to me is not wearing gloves and a mask? What if they sneeze? Do I get in the elevator at the office if there is another person on it? Do I go into the office lunchroom or not? Do I stop for a drink at this bar, where the stools are six feet apart, or that crowded one my friends chose? Do I use this toilet or that drinking fountain? Do I send my kid back to school or not? Do I stay in a hotel? Ride an airplane? Let the plumber in? Do I go to the doctor to check that strange lump or not?

What will be so cruel about this American version of Russian roulette is how unfair it will be. Some people will have no choice but to take the subway or the bus to work. Some people will have to send their kids back to school because they cant afford to stay home from work. Some bosses will demand that their employees show up to reopen their workplace, but some of those employees may be afraid to come back. Do you fire them? Do they bring a lawsuit against you if you do, or do they go on Twitter and post a picture of how closely together you forced them to work  six inches apart, not six feet?

This is the state of play when you have a president who one minute is responsibly issuing sober guidelines for when and how people should go back to work, and the next minute is telling states that they are responsible for getting the testing, tracking and tracing units that we need in place and then, in the third minute, is inciting people on Twitter to liberate their workplaces, cities and beaches  even though none of the conditions are in place to do so safely.

Liberate? Think about the use of that word. We were not in jail! We were not doing something wrong! We were doing what our president, governor, mayor, and national epidemic experts told us to do: behave responsibly and shelter in place to break the transmission of this virus.

Trump was cynically trying to curry favor with his base by implying that the Democratic governors, following his own national guidelines, were unfairly locking people up, depriving them of their livelihoods. Is there anything more irresponsible that this president could do, after weeks of complimenting the American people for how they pulled together and sacrificed to shelter in place  patriotically doing their part to bend the curve of this virus?
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-19 01:40:57|Editor: huaxia

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HONG KONG, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The Office of the Commissioner of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) late on Saturday expressed firm opposition to the unwarranted remarks by a British Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesperson and some other politicians on Hong Kong police's arrests of major instigators of the Hong Kong riots and several more anti-China troublemakers in Hong Kong earlier in the day.

According to reports by Hong Kong media, the arrested include Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, Martin Lee Chu-ming, Albert Ho Chun-Yan and Lee Cheuk-yan. This is the second time in less than two months for Lai to be arrested by the Hong Kong police for his role in the riots.

The spokesperson of the commissioner's office said that the Hong Kong police were enforcing the law in taking legal action against those suspected of organizing and participating in unauthorized assemblies, and foreign countries have no right to interfere.

"It is completely wrong that the UK Foreign Office spokesperson has distorted the truth by painting unauthorized assemblies as 'peaceful protests', in a bid to whitewash, condone and exonerate the anti-China troublemakers in Hong Kong."

The spokesperson of the commissioner's office pointed out that Hong Kong is a region governed by the rule of law, where laws shall be strictly observed and lawbreakers prosecuted.

"Everyone shall abide by the law, and nobody is above the law. The UK side has fully exposed its double standards in that it frequently pays lip service to the rule of law, but drops mention of the principle once anti-China troublemakers in Hong Kong are involved."

Hong Kong affairs are completely China's internal affairs, the spokesperson emphasized. "We urge the UK side to respect the Hong Kong police's law enforcement efforts, and immediately stop meddling with Hong Kong affairs." Enditem
Bengaluru, April 18 : Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on Saturday announced relaxation in lockdown from April 21, but late in the evening rolled back certain provisions. He announced reimposition of ban on motorbike rides and IT-BT employees working from offices across the state, especially in Bengaluru.

"The decision to allow 2-wheeler rides in non-Covid-19 zones and permitting 33 per cent of IT-BT employees to go to office from April 1 is withdrawn on public demand," said Yediyurappa in a press note.

Earlier in the day, the chief minister announced that the extended lockdown would be partially relaxed from April 21 across the state, excluding coronavirus hotspots, to restore normal life gradually, after a meeting with some senior ministers and officials here.

Criticism of the 'hasty' decision, taken without consulting all, by some ministers and opposition Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar forced the chief minister to withdraw it as 'public demand.' The partial relaxation will, however, allow for plying of cars already issued passes. No new passes will be issued till May 3, when the extended lockdown ends.

"Only IT-BT employees of essential services will be allowed to go to office, while others will work from home," the note clarified.

Extending the 21-day lockdown from April 15 to May 3, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 14 said that areas not in the hotspot category would be allowed to open for necessary activities from April 20.

Construction activities will be allowed, except in hotspots, with the condition that workers will have to stay at the site with all facilities, including food, water and shelter.

"Malls, showrooms and cinema theatres will remain closed during the extended lockdown. New shops will not be allowed to open till May 3," said the statement.

Inter-district travel will also not be allowed during the partial lockdown.

"Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural and Ramanagara will be considered as one district for the movement of industrial workers," noted the statement.

Ban order under Section 144 of the CrPC will remain in place till May 3.

Wearing of face masks in public will be mandatory. Spitting in public places will be banned and violators fined.

In the hotspots, where the number of positive cases has been high, an incident commander will be appointed in each containment zone, who will be assisted by the local police and health officials.

"The commander, with magisterial powers, will be responsible to contain crowds and provide basic amenities in the contained zones," asserted the statement.

People in the buffer zones of 3km radius will be subjected to medical check-up to ensure they are healthy and virus-free.

"Senior citizens and persons vulnerable to diseases should remain indoors for the next three months," added the statement.
The President, Nana Akufo Addo, has cut sod for the construction of the first-ever 100 Bed Isolation and Treatment Facility in the country funded by the COVID-19 Private Sector Fund.

The project which is located at the Ga East Municipal Hospital and Ghanas National Coronavirus Treatment Centre is going to further strengthen and enhance the Governments ability to deal with the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

The President who joined Trustees of the Private Sector Fund and other stakeholders of the project online from the Flagstaff House said:

Citizens must stand out to support the government in times of a national crisis and the COVID-19 Private Sector Fund has shown a clear example by bringing different professionals together within the shortest possible to execute this project, adding that, for the Private Sector Fund to assist in this fight is an excellent initiative and tremendous demonstration of their commitment to the welfare of this country.

The COVID-19 Public Trust Fund set up by the government is up and running and I want Trustees of the Private Sector Fund to liaise and share ideas with the board of the Public Trust Fund on how to effectively deploy the monies that come into the COVID-19 Public Trust Fund, the President stated.

The President thanked the Private Sector Fund for this project and assured them of his full support. He stated:

I am very happy that you are going to replicate this project in three other regions. Your contribution to Ghanas health sector will not be forgotten. As a strong advocate of the private sector, you have indeed vindicated my position and made this initiative a permanent feature of the private sector in Ghana.

On his part, the Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Fund and Fidelity Bank's Chairman, Mr. Edward Effah, disclosed that, this 100 Bed Isolation and Treatment Facility which cost $3.5m is the first-ever Specialist Infectious Disease Centre to be built in the country, adding that, the Fund will build similar facilities in Kumasi, Takoradi and Tamale to deal with other diseases like Meningitis, SARS, and Ebola aside the coronavirus.

According to Mr. Effah, the project will be completed in record four weeks time in order to augment the countrys health infrastructure as we fight the coronavirus disease.

"We are counting on the public to contribute towards the Fund since we have put in place adequate measures to ensure maximum transparency and accountability. We have therefore appointed Stanlib Ghana Ltd as the Fund administrator, responsible for administering the Fund. Fidelity Bank and Ecobank will serve as the Fund custodians and Ernst & Young as the Fund auditors," he disclosed.

Mr. Effah added that "for complete transparency, all donations and disbursements will be published on the Fund's website"

According to Mr. Tony Oteng Gyasi, Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Fund and Chairman of Tropical Cable and Conductor, The Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund was established by 10 private businessmen and women to raise GHC100m to complement governments efforts to combat the spread of the coronavirus in the country. The 10 trustees have each donated GHC100, 000 into the fund, with the promise of raising more from their networks.

Other institutions who are supporting the building of this facility are GNPC Foundation, Fidelity Bank, Ecobank, Ghana Association of Bankers, The Built Environment Professionals of Ghana, The Ghana Army.

The trustees of the Ghana Covid-19 Private Sector Fund are Mr. Anthony Oteng-Gyasi (Chairman - Tropical Cable & Conductor), Edward Effah, (Chairman - Fidelity Bank Ghana Ltd), Mr. Kwaku Bediako (Director - CH Group), Mr. John Taylor (CEO - Woodfield Energy Resources Ltd), Mr. Omane Frimpong (Chairman - Wilkins Engineering Ltd), Mr. Kwame Ofosu Bamfo (MD - Bamson Group), Mr. Kwabena Adjei (Group Chairman - Kasapreko), Mr. Thomas Svanikier (Chairman - Svani Group), Mr. Kwasi Twum (CEO - Multimedia Group) and Mr. Senyo Kwasi Hosi (CEO - Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors).
She previously described him as a bit of 'unexpected magic' in her life.

And Helena Bonham Carter and her boyfriend Rye Dag Holmboe made the most of their daily exercise by enjoying a dog walk in London on Friday during the UK's current lockdown.

The Crown star, 53, put on a casual chic display in a puffy black jacket and a bright pink skirt as she walked beside her writer beau, 32.

Outing: Helena Bonham Carter, 53, and her boyfriend Rye Dag Holmboe, 32, stepped out for a stroll with their dog as they enjoyed exercise in London on Friday amid the UK lockdown

Helena completed her outfit by wearing a chic black T-Shirt that was adorned with a white lace pattern across the front.

She wrapped up warm in a blue striped scarf, while she completed the look by wearing a pair of black tights and comfy walking shoes.

The actress pulled her brunette locks back in a messy bun atop her head, and she used a light palette of make-up for the outing.

Meanwhile, Rye kept his look simple as he donned a navy blue longline coat over black trousers, and wore socks with sandals.

Keeping it casual: Helena completed her outfit by wearing a chic black T-Shirt that was adorned with a white lace pattern across the front

After meeting the writer, Helena gushed in late 2019 that their romance has been 'a bit of unexpected magic in my life'.

Helena shares son Billy, 16, and 12-year-old daughter Nell with her ex Tim Burton, 61.

The Cinderella star had a famously unconventional 13-year relationship with director Tim which ended in 2014.

Stepping out: On Thursday, Helena enjoyed a walk with her 12-year-old daughter Nell

On finally moving on from Tim, the Enid star - who previously dated Irish actor Kenneth Branagh between 1994 and 1999 - admitted she grew tired of 'grieving' their relationship, and now leads a 'happy' life with her new boyfriend.

Speaking to Harper's Bazaar UK, the thespian shared: 'You break up, you grieve, you get bored of grieving. And then you finally move on.

'I'm very happy with someone else. It's been a bit of unexpected magic in my life.'
18.04.2020 LISTEN

On March 24 2020, Pastor Brian Amoateng, a renowned preacher and founder of Brian Jones Ministries was given a cyber crucifixion for certain comments he made in one of his regular Facebook live videos.

Pastor Bright Amoateng in the said video is heard saying "....and let me tell you, its not the responsibility of the church to buy hand sanitizers for you because you give offering. It is not. You give offering to God to receive a blessing. Its not compulsory that the church has to bring you hand sanitizers,.

To further explain his point, the renowned Pastor added that "the bible says that God loves a cheerful giver. It should be out of a cheerful heart. You shouldnt give to the church and expect favour in return.

The comments from the pastor, which many described as reckless and insensitive, triggered the anger of many Ghanaians as they jumped on social media to express their disappointment.

The pastor in a quick U-turn apologized to Ghanaians for his unsavory comments.

Few weeks after Pastor Amoateng's "insensitive" comments and apologies, another renowned televangelist, Prophet Dr. Kofi Oduro of the Alabaster Ministries, went viral with a video in which he aggressively condemned calls for churches to support the congregation in these trying times. As quoted by the prophet, "The church is not an NGO to provide free food for its members".

The man of God supported his argument with a biblical quote from Mathew 6:25 which read Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not eternal life more than food and the body more than clothing"?.

A lot of people have expressed their disappointment in the comments of the revered Prophet with some giving him a backlash on social media. Unlike Pastor Amoateng, Kofi Oduro is yet to apologize. Per his demeanor and justification of his argument, he is highly unlikely to apologize.

PRESSURE ON CHURCHES TO SUPPORT VULNERABLE MEMBERS

The church is under pressure to support its members (the poorest of the poor) in this pandemic season for these few reasons;

1. Society feels the church has made a lot of money from its members through the sale of miracle items in astronomical amount i.e anointing oil, holy water, special soap etc. Payment of seed offering, regular offering on Sundays and weekdays, tithes, special offering etc. cannot be left out

2. The luxurious lifestyle of most pastors. Society cannot fathom why pastors drive expensive cars, live in plush apartment but fail to support the poor members in their church, especially in this season of COVID-19.

3.Most churches have welfare policies which require members to pay an amount of money every month or week. It is believed that this is the time the church can use the money to support the poor members.

Present day churches focus so much on the spiritual needs of its members without paying attention to their emotional, occupational, physical, social and financial needs. If churches are unable to help its members, then there's no way it can help the vulnerable in society.

WHAT SUPPORT CAN CHURCHES OFFER?

As the entire world battle the novel COVID-19, churches can support their vulnerable members and the immediate society by:

Mobilizing and helping in the distribution of food to the under privileged in society.

Providing a complementary education (regularly) on the novel Corona virus pandemic. Those with TV channels can halt the continuous telecast of miracles and engage health personnel to educate their large congregants regularly on the safety measures. Those with huge online platform can do same

Providing help for the homeless in this trying time.

The Bible teaches us in Matthew 25:35-42 the essence of helping others who are less fortunate. Whatever we do for the less fortunate, we do it for Christ.

Instead of the churches displaying and announcing their account details for members to pay in their offering and tithe  even in this difficult moment, let's (churches) also make it a point to support the members when they call on us.

By

Alpha Osei Amoako

Freelance Writer, Inspirational Speaker and Teacher

Email: [email protected]
CHICAGO  President Donald Trump on Friday announced a US$19 billion relief program to help U.S. farmers cope with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, including $16 billion in direct payments to producers and mass purchases of meat, dairy, vegetables and other products.

The U.S. Agriculture Department is partnering with regional and local distributors to purchase $3 billion in such farm goods to be distributed to food banks, churches and aid groups as millions of Americans face unemployment with much of the U.S. economy shut down.

"American agriculture has been hard-hit, like most of America, with the coronavirus, and President Trump is standing with our farmers and all Americans to make sure that we all get through this national emergency," Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said at a White House news conference.

The agency said it will make monthly purchases totaling about $100 million each of fresh produce, dairy products and meat products.

Perdue said USDA will work with companies like Sysco Corp to help procure, package and distribute food boxes.

Long lines have formed at U.S. food banks in recent weeks.

Farmers and ranchers have struggled to get their goods to market because of disruptions caused by the pandemic, forcing some to throw out food supplies and call for government help.

"Having to dump milk or plow under vegetables ready to market is not only financially distressing but it's heartbreaking as well for those that produce them," Perdue said.

A woman and her daughters pick up green beans in a field open for people to harvest for free, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Homestead, Florida, U.S., April 17, 2020. Photo: Reuters

Direct payments will be sent "as quickly as possible" as farm commodity producers have experienced "unprecedented losses," Perdue said.

He told reporters he hoped checks could be sent by the end of May.

Perdue did not say how the direct payments would be allocated by crop.

The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), which represents corn-based ethanol producers that have suffered due to lack of demand for motor fuels as Americans stay home, was quick to criticize the package.

"USDA missed a crucial opportunity to lend a helping hand to an industry that is suffering the worst economic crisis in its history," RFA President Geoff Cooper said in a statement.

Perdue acknowledged that constituents may consider the direct payments "insufficient" and said USDA is trying to cover "small farmers as well as larger farmers."

Funding for the immediate aid program will be pulled together from a number of sources, including recent coronavirus-related aid laws passed by Congress and other funding authorities that USDA has access to, according to Perdue.

But going forward, he said, "I anticipate we will need additional money."
Police in Hong Kong carried out a sweeping operation against high-profile democracy campaigners on Saturday, arresting 15 activists on charges related to massive protests that rocked the Asian financial hub last year.

Among those targeted was media tycoon Jimmy Lai, 72, founder of anti-establishment newspaper Apple Daily, who was arrested at his home.

The group also included former lawmakers Martin Lee, Margaret Ng, Albert Ho, Leung Kwok-hung, Au Nok-hin and current lawmaker Leung Yiu-chung.

They are accused of organising and taking part in unlawful assemblies in August and October, according to the police.

Five were arrested on suspicion of publicising unauthorised public meetings in September and October.

"The arrestees were charged or will be charged with related crimes," superintendent Lam Wing-ho said.

All 15 are due to appear in court mid-May.

Media boss Lai was previously detained in February over his participation in another August rally that was banned by police for security reasons.

"Finally I've become a defendant. How do I feel? I'm very much relieved," Lee, known as the father of democracy in Hong Kong, told media after he was bailed.

"For so many years, so many months, so many good youngsters were arrested and charged, while I was not arrested. I feel sorry about it," the 81-year-old barrister and founding chairman of the city's first political party said.

He added he does not regret his actions and is proud to walk with Hong Kong's youngsters in their fight for democracy.

The semi-autonomous city was shaken by widespread and sometimes violent street protests in 2019, sparked by a now-abandoned proposal to allow extraditions to the authoritarian Chinese mainland and its opaque judicial system.

"Today's arrests of pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong is another nail in the coffin of 'one country, two systems'," China director at Human Rights Watch Sophie Richardson said, referring to the principle that guarantees freedoms in the city not seen on the Chinese mainland.

"It's hard to know Beijing's next precise move, but it seems Hong Kong officials will further enable abuses rather than defend Hong Kong people's rights."



Last year's rallies morphed into a wider movement calling for greater freedoms in the most concerted challenge to Beijing's rule since the former British colony returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

The protests and clashes with police have since died down, partly due to exhaustion and arrests but also because of the emergence of the deadly coronavirus.

China's leaders have refused to accede to the protesters' demands, which include fully free elections in the city, an inquiry into alleged police misconduct during the protests and an amnesty for more than 7,000 people arrested during the movement -- many of them under the age of 20.

Pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo said Saturday the local government "is trying very hard to introduce a reign of terror".

"They are doing whatever they can do to try to silence, to take down the local opposition, but then united we stand," she said.

"It's so obvious they're choreographing all their acts." Chris Patten, Hong Kong's last colonial governor before the 1997 handover, said the arrests were another step towards burying the city's autonomy.

"This is not the rule of law. This is what authoritarian governments do," he said. "It becomes ever more clear, week by week and day by day, that Beijing is determined to throttle .

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bob Hawke's widow Blanche d'Alpuget has been diagnosed with breast cancer

Bob Hawke's widow Blanche d'Alpuget has been diagnosed with breast cancer less than one year after the death of her 'soulmate'.

The 76-year-old revealed she is undergoing chemotherapy at The Kinghorn Cancer Centre in Darlinghurst, Sydney.

'I detected the lump in my left breast about six or seven weeks ago,' Ms d'Alpuget told The Sunday Telegraph.

The cancer diagnosis comes as Mr Hawke's daughter Rosslyn Dillon, 59, prepares to to seize $4.2million from the Labor prime minister's estate.

Ms d'Alpuget will face her stepdaughter for a private mediation on May 7 - less than two weeks before the first anniversary of Mr Hawke's death.

The former prime minister, who held office from 1983 until 1991, died aged 89 on May 16, 2019.

Ms d'Alpuget urged all older women to get their breasts checked regularly after finding the cancerous lump by 'accident'.

Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke died on May 16, 2019. The couple are pictured together in 2013

'You never think you're going to get cancer  not at my age, but it happens. I'd like to encourage all older women to have their breasts checked. I found the lump by accident,' she said.

Ms Dillon, Mr Hawke's youngest daughter, is contesting his will and claiming the $750,000 he left each of his children isn't enough.

Ms Dillon has demanded funds to buy a $2.5million house in Sydney - furnished with towels worth $4,000 - and wants $30,000 for a new set of teeth.

Ms Dillon's challenge to the will was mentioned briefly in the New South Wales Supreme Court on Tuesday, where Justice Philip Hallen heard a planned mediation late last month did not go ahead as the mediator could not travel from South Australia.

The court was told that mediator and former District Court judge John Sulan QC had been unable to travel from SA to New South Wales due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Lawyers for the parties went ahead with a settlement conference on March 31 but did not reach an agreement.

Ms d'Alpuget (pictured with Mr Hawke in 2008) urged all older women to get their breasts checked regularly after finding the cancerous lump by 'accident'

Former prime minister Bob Hawke's daughter Rosslyn Dillon wants $4.2million from her father's estate

Both parties sought to adjourn the matter until Mr Sulan could mediate via video conference at a later date. A mediation will occur on May 7 and the matter will return to court on May 22.

According to The Sunday Telegraph, Ms d'Alpuget has asked Ms Dillon's sister Sue Pieters-Hawke to serve as a proxy if she is too unwell to attend due to the side effects of cancer treatment.

Ms Dillon's mother, Hazel Hawke, died eight years after Mr Hawke married Ms d'Alpuget, his biographer and long-time mistress.

Ms Dillon's affidavit, filed in the Supreme Court in December, reveals she is on welfare, lives in a squalid flat, and has had all her teeth taken out.

Her list of demands, itemised in a claim originally obtained by the New Daily, begins with $2.5million to buy a house in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

Ms d'Alpuget (left) and Mr Hawke (right) arrive for his 80th birthday party at the Sydney Opera House

Ms Dillon's eldest sister Sue, 62, and brother Stephen, 60, were left the same amount as Ms Dillon, as was Ms d'Alpuget's son Louis Pratt.

Ms d'Alpuget received the bulk of his estate including the $9.2million proceeds of selling their Northbridge mansion months before his death.

She now lives in a $3.9million flat in One30 Hyde Park she and her late husband bought in her name.

Mr Hawke married Ms d'Alpuget, with whom he had conducted a long-running affair, in 1995 after divorcing Hazel, his wife of 38 years.

Mr Hawke was Australia's longest serving Labor prime minister.
Staying productive while working from home By Ruqyyaha Deane View(s): View(s):

The onset of COVID- 19 worldwide has seen an unprecedented disruption to our daily routine and as easy as it sounds, working from home can be challenging, as most of us have discovered.

The commute to work is shaved off so you can get an early start to your day; maybe breakfast with your family and do an early morning workout before you actually sit down to work. But what about making sure you stay productive and engaged right through the day?

Here are some tips on how to make the best of working from home.

Business development analyst Naadira Jumat tells us that this phase we are going through now is a good learning for companies to evaluate if most functions can be made a work from home experience as time and money is saved on office space, commuting and resources.

To stay productive a routine must be followed, says Naadira. She wakes up to her usual weekday alarm, attends to her personal routine, then checks her emails, schedules meetings via Skype and corresponds with her team.

An hours lunch break and a nap (if work isnt urgent) can also be availed of, she says, highlighting that clocking out at 5.30 p.m. is needed because working from home doesnt change your availability to 24/7.

Dressing up as if you are actually going to work while it may seem pointless is more likely to see you stay focused rather than lounging about in your pajamas.

Working in bed is a bad idea. You can get nothing done. Set up a work station -a dining table or any table would be ideal, advises consultant Taahera Cuttilan.

Make sure you can keep your laptop, phone and other essentials at hand. Otherwise, the excuses you will find to wander about your house (or to your fridge) is frankly concerning.

The daughter of the family being expected to do a lot of chores can be the most stressful part of working from home for some. Factor in having to warn the whole household when a work call is about to happen so that colleagues dont realise how loud your family is, she says.

Architect Tammy Bohoran highlights the importance of keeping essentials handy and your workstation equipped. Plenty of food, hydration and the most uncomfortable seat at home would do to focus.

Her dog Chloe distracts her the most, she chuckles. So make sure that your distractions (no matter how adorable they are) are sated with attention during breaks.

Waruni Batugahage and Bani Chandrasena highlight another factor about working from home  the presence of children.

Childcare solutions will be critical at home or in the neighbourhood to make parents productive, Bani shares. With kids also being cooped up at home, the temptation is to just leave everything and spend time with them; in this situation striking the right balance is imperative which comes back to having a strict routine.

As a mum, working from home is beneficial (although sometimes you want to just hide in your room), because you can take care of your kids and not need strangers to look after them, Waruni tells us adding that she keeps her children occupied by giving them arts and crafts to do or making them work as well by sitting next to her and learning their alphabet.

Its all about time management For Varuni Seneviratne and Riyaza Jaffar, co-founders of the digital marketing agency, Moms Do Digital working from home was already the norm. Dont waste your data and time on facetime or video conferencing; you dont need to see each other to get work done or even discuss matters, they say, stressing that sticking to basic communication resources such as Whatsapp saves a lot of time and energy especially when it comes to sharing files, discussing concepts and more. As working mums they recommend parents always keep a kit of new or hardly played with toys or a favourite movie for kids when attending to urgent work. Take advantage of the time when the children are playing, napping or even watching a cartoon, they add. Keep all the brainstorming, discussions and researching for the night when everyones in bed. We usually have our discussions and conceptualize campaigns at night, they say adding that tea and a snack by the side helps. Director of Operations and Projects at AmPark Consulting Services (Pvt) Pavithri Attanayake-Meepegama says, Its important to stick to your timetable but in the event there are important deliverables, you will have to work extra and thats just a given. Its about time management and knowing what you can do and when you can do it. Having a list of personal and corporate goals also helps Pavithri focus on staying on top of things both in her home life and work life.

Connectivity the key Chief Executive Officer of Hutchison Telecommunications, Thirukumar Nadarasa explained some of the protocols they have put in place. What we have actioned is for all the managers and critical operational staff to be connected through an established VPN (Virtual Private Network) connectivity so that our key operational staff (engineer, IT, technicians, etc) can login to our network online from home through a secure connection, Mr. Nadarasa said. Their managers and executives are all equipped with laptops that have the software Microsoft Teams. This allows members to hold virtual meetings from remote locations, upload presentations, documents and more which can be viewed and worked on by different people at the same time; ensuring cohesive collaboration and input by team members. Their contact centre enables agents to work from home by establishing special Whatsapp, Viber, SMS and email channels for continued handling of urgent inquiries. Susiko Bakers CEO Suwimal Rupasinghe has a different challenge as most of their team needs to operate by going in to work. By ensuring that their accounting and procurement teams are fully productive whilst being at home, it cuts the time that other employees are out in the field. Our accounting staff and procurement team coordinate with suppliers that are operating and find a way to get the ingredients to the main bakery every day for the production team to work on, Mr. Rupasinghe said. Investing in ICT and logistics is the way forward, he believes. Many companies in developed countries or tiger economies like Taiwan and South Korea have no issue with lockdowns due to the advancement of the delivery systems, ICT apps and facilities being a norm, he said.
Midland County on Saturday recorded its second coronavirus death since the pandemic broke out, according to data from mich.gov.

The county is not releasing any information about the deceased.

"It's certainly unfortunate to have any deaths. Our thoughts and prayers go out to that individual's family," said Fred Yanoski, Midland County Public Health director/health officer. "However, with such a small sample size, one death skews our statistics tremendously. We're happy to report the majority of the individuals reported are doing well."

Midland County had one new coronavirus case reported on Saturday, and the local total stands at 43.

Bay County saw an increase of 10 reported cases, but no deaths, bringing its total to 79. Gladwin's case count increased by one, totaling 9. The number of reported cases in Isabella County rose by five, with the overall total being 51. One death was reported Saturday for Isabella, bringing its total to seven. Saginaw County's reported cases increased by 25, bringing the total up to 394. No new COVID-19 related deaths were reported for Saginaw.

The state added 768 new cases on Saturday, April 18, and 81 deaths. Overall, Michigan is at 30,791 cases and 2,308 deaths.

The average death age is 73.8, according to the state website, mich.gov, with the deceased ranging in age from 20 to 107. The state lists 38% of the deceased as 80-plus and 28% age 70-79. State statistics show 56% of coronavirus deaths are male and 44% are female.

The state lists the total recovered at 3,237 cases, as of April 18, which represents COVID-19 confirmed individuals with an onset date on or prior to March 11, 2020, according to the state website.

During this response, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is reviewing vital records statistics to identify any laboratory confirmed COVID-19 cases who are 30 days out from their onset of illness to represent recovery status, according to the state website. The numbers will be updated every Saturday.

The state lists the majority of races in positive cases as 33% Black/African American; 30% Caucasian and 26% unknown, and the top three races in deaths as 41% Black/African American; 43% Caucasian and 11% unknown

The total positive cases are 45% men, 54% women and 1% unknown.

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.

We cannot stress enough how important it is for our community to be diligent in their community mitigation efforts," Yanoski said. "We know that COVID-19 is in our community, and our residents can make a huge impact on slowing the spread of disease by following the recommended precautions."

If you think you've been exposed to COVID-19 and develop a fever and symptoms such as cough or difficulty breathing, call your health care provider for medical advice. If he/she isn't available, call MidMichigan Urgent Care in Midland at 989- 633-1350 or MidMichigan Medical Center's Emergency Department in Midland at 989-839-3100.

MidMichigan Health has a COVID-19 informational hotline with a reminder of CDC guidelines and recommendations. The hotline can be reached toll-free at 800-445-7356 or 989-794-7600. Michigan Department of Health and Human Services also has a hotline number for Michigan residents for questions about COVID-19. The number is 1-888-535-6136 and is available seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents can also e-mail COVID19@michigan.gov. E-mails will be answered seven days a week between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

If you are feeling anxious, stressed, depressed and feel you need to talk to someone, reach out to Community Mental Health for Central Michigan by calling 800-317-0708.
Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapakses government and big business are demanding the resumption of major business activities, including export industries and construction work, ending the current COVID-19 lockdown.

This means sending hundreds of thousands of workers back into unsafe factories and workplaces as the deadly coronavirus surges around the world. The government has already allowed the largest plantation companies to restart production.

The pandemics global death toll is now over 155,000, with more than two million people infected. There is no sign of the disaster being brought under control. Sri Lankas official death toll is seven and the number of infections almost 240, but these low figures are mainly the result of grossly insufficient testing. So far, hospitals have conducted only 5,000 tests.

Colombo is using these low numbers to claim that situation is easing enough to implement an exit strategy to reopen the economy. It has decided that schools and universities will begin opening in early May. This decision has met with resistance from teachers.

On Wednesday, Rajapakse told a high-level meeting of top bureaucrats, including the army commander, that the public and private sectors needed to recommence their business activities. He declared that ministry secretaries had to emphasise the responsibility of ensuring the public adhered to safety regulations. This is to blame the public, that is, working people and the poor, for the spread of the coronavirus.

A few days before Rajapakses meeting, Export Development Board chairman Prabash Subasinghe urged exporters to resume activities immediately, despite the national curfew. It is important that the export industry understands that it is a national priority for us to export and bring in foreign revenue and rescue Sri Lanka from this COVID-19 crisis, Subasinghe said.

The Joint Apparel Association Foruma garment industry lobby groupwarned that its international competitors would marginalise Sri Lankan producers in the shrinking world market. [U]nless factories are re-opened, a very serious trade shift that may take place in favour of our competitor countries Competitors like Vietnam and Cambodia are open. Vietnam is actively tracing contacts, it declared.

This is a desperate call to revive profits, already battered by the pandemic crisis. The government, teetering on the brink of defaulting on foreign loans, is equally desperate to shore up foreign reserves.

Rajapakse is echoing ruling class voices internationally. Donald Trump made a criminal call, on behalf of the US financial elite and big corporations, for moves to open the economy with a big bang. European governments have issued similar statements.

As our sister party, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in the US, explained: The aim of the Trump administration and the American ruling class as a whole is to normalize the pandemic, that is, to acclimatize the population to the fact that large numbers of people will die for some time to come. Workers are supposed to accept it as something inevitable, with the death toll attracting less and less attention in the news.

There is a deeply sinister class logic at work in this demand. Workers are to be treated as expendable. If they die, this is just a cost of doing business, with those who succumb to the disease replaced by others.

The World Health Organisation and medical experts have cautioned against such highly irresponsible calls to return to work. WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday that the virus is 10 times deadlier than the 2009 flu pandemic. He added: Infection accelerates very fast and it decelerates much more slowly That means control measures must be lifted slowly, and with control. It cannot happen all at once.

The criminal actions of the Rajapakse government and big business will accelerate the spread of the deadly virus and lead to a further loss of workers lives. No medical experts have supported the governments move.

This government has no concern for the wellbeing of ordinary people. It did not take the warnings of a global pandemic seriously. When the first coronavirus-affected Chinese tourist was detected in Sri Lanka during January the government boasted about her recovery.

Even weeks later, Rajapakse rejected calls for a total lockdown, claiming: Other countries may have the best medical facilities but we managed to cure infected people with our efforts.

A few days later, a total lockdown was declared without a proper plan to distribute food, medicines and other essentials. This pushed tens of thousands of workers into the countryside, many without even their monthly wage. Thousands more were stranded in free trade zones for weeks. When mass protests were on the verge of erupting, the government sent the remainder back to their home towns.

What will happen to the workers when they return to work?

In garment sector alone, more than 400,000 workers are employed at low wages. Companies are preparing to wipe out jobs and cut wages.

During the 200809 global financial crisis, under the previous regime of President Mahinda Rajapakse, more than 500 garment and other factories were closed, with the sacking of hundreds of thousands of workers. The present crisis is far worse.

Apparel companies have applied to suspend their contributions to workers pension fundsthe EPF and ETFfor six months and impose a three-month temporary lay off of employees. They cited Vietnams suspension of social security contributions for all workers.

Brandix, an apparel company that employs 47,000 workers, has cut wages and welfare funds by 5 to 30 percent and sacked temporary workers.

Softlogic and John Keels, two other blue-chip companies engaged in a range of industries, have announced similar wage and benefit cuts.

Workers will face unsafe workplace conditions. There is no mandatory requirement for employers to provide the necessary safety gear to workers. Keeping safe distances will be impossible in crowded transport services and factories.

The countrys dilapidated health service is already having difficulties handling the pandemic. A new wave of infections could create a catastrophic situation. Despite the danger, Rajapakse regime has announced no additional public health funding which currently stands at just 1.2 percent of the gross domestic product annually.

By contrast, billions of rupees have been pumped into big business by the Central Bank on the presidents orders, and bank rates have been lowered.

Sri Lankan garment companies supply giant retailers in the US and Europe that have cancelled many orders already. Likewise, Unilever dominates the world market for tea, Sri Lankas main export commodity.

In Bangladesh, which also depends on garment export earnings, big business and the government called back the industrys 4.5 million workers last week. But tens of thousands were immediately thrown out of work and hundreds of thousands more will lose their jobs. Workers protests have continued since last week against these sackings.

The Colombo government, like other regimes, will impose the burden of the deepest global crisis since the 1930s Great Depression on the backs of workers and the poor. While South Asia as a whole will experience low economic growth of 1.8 to 2.8 percent this year, according to the World Bank, Sri Lanka faces a 3 percent contraction.

In preparation to suppress workers resistance, Rajapakse has intensified the militarisation of his administration.

The trade unions are gearing up to enforce the governments measures. The Free Trade Zones and General Services Union and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-controlled Inter-company Employees Union have formed a tripartite alliance with the companies and the government.

JVP union leader Lal Kantha has asked the government to convene a National Labor Councilan alliance of companies, unions and the stateto strike a balance, which means impose jobs and wage cuts.

All the capitalist parties have supported the governments move to reopen the economy.

Workers must unite with the working class across South Asia and internationally to defeat these attacks.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) calls on workers to oppose any return to factories or workplaces without safety precautions as guaranteed with independent scientific appraisal.

No to job, wage and pension cuts! Workers must receive full wages and allowances and compensation for job losses.

Billions of rupees must be utilised, not to save rapacious big business but to rapidly develop the public health service by building fully-equipped hospitals, launching a massive testing program, and providing the equipment needed for health workers and patients to eradicate COVID-19.

Workers must organise their own factory and workplace action committees, independent of the trade unions, to fight for these demands.

These urgent tasks can be achieved only by seizing the means of production from the capitalist class and re-organising them rationally for the interests of the majority of the society.

To implement these measures requires the fight for a workers and peasants government as part of the struggle for socialism in South Asia and internationally.

We urge workers to initiate the discussions with the Socialist Equality Party about how to fight for this socialist program without delay.
DECATUR  The average cost of gasoline declined in the past week statewide, with the cost for a gallon of regular in Decatur hitting $1.804 Friday, according to AAA.

The Macon County average for the same gas was $1.79. The statewide average was $1.851.

The drop is mirrored nationally. AAA said "growing domestic gas supply and lower demand, as Americans practice social distancing, and low crude prices due to COVID-19 continue to push pump prices down."

The Decatur cost for a gallon of regular gas was $1.844 a week ago and $2.145 a month ago. Decatur since 2016 has had a $.05 per-gallon-tax on non-diesel fuel and a $.01 per-gallon-tax on diesel fuel.

Other area averages for a gallon of regular gasoline were:

McLean County: $1.662

Bloomington-Normal: $1.684

Sangamon County: $1.438

Springfield: $1.432

Champaign County: $1.878

Champaign-Urbana: $1.877

Piatt County: $1.854

DeWitt County: $1.812

Christian County: $1.591

Shelby County: $1.572

Moultrie County: $1.629

"With Americans following stay at home orders and refiners producing excess gasoline, growing gasoline inventories and low demand will continue to push pump prices lower," AAA said.

Consumer advocates argue that insurance rates should be reduced because of the decline. The Consumer Federation of America reports that many insurance premiums are based on driving 1,000 miles per month, but customers may be driving only one-tenth of that.

The risk exposure is not nearly the same now as when the policy was first priced, Doug Heller, an insurance expert with the federation, said Monday.

Companies that sell 82% of the auto policies in the U.S. have announced refunds or credits to drivers worth more than $6.5 billion during the next two months, the federation said.

Some, like Bloomington-based State Farm, the countrys largest auto insurer, are giving credits starting in June that amount to a 25% reduction in bills from March 20 through May 31. Thats about $20 per month per vehicle, the company says.

Thats the kind of immediate relief that all companies should offer because so many people have lost their jobs due to stay-at-home orders from state governments, according to the federation. Yet many are offering only 15% discounts and one, Geico, wont get the money to customers until their policies are renewed.

Along with American Family Insurance, the federation gave State Farm an A for its credit program.

But Geico got a D-minus. Messages were left Monday seeking comment from Geico.

The only company ranked worse was Erie Insurance, according to the federation. Erie only promised to reduce rates in the future, the federation said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Auto insurers are issuing $7 billion in coronavirus refunds. See if your company is on this list.

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Here's a list of the top 10 stocks which moved the most this week:

Motherson Sumi Systems | Stock price jumped 54 percent for the week on fundraising plans. The board of auto components major has given in-principle approval to raise Rs 1,000 crore to enhance liquidity during uncertain times of coronavirus pandemic, according to a company statement.

Tata Communications | Share price surged 41 percent after the company approved raising up to Rs 650 crore through issuance of non-convertible debentures (NCDs).

Shriram Transport | Share price jumped 34 percent after Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued an order allowing to function during the lockdown period after April 20 with bare minimum staff. Also, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said, "Targeted Long term repo operations (TLTRO) worth Rs 50,000 crore will be conducted to begin with, in tranches of appropriate sizes. The funds availed by banks should be invested in investment-grade bonds companies and at least half of the funds should go to small NBFCs and MFIs."

Oberoi Realty | Stock price jumped 26 percent after the company repaid non-convertible debentures (NCDs) ahead of schedule. "Oberoi Realty through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Incline Realty, has prepaid 125 listed NDCs of Rs 10,000,000 each, aggregating to Rs 125 crore, and its interest payment," the Mumbai-based real estate company told the BSE on April 16.

Hindalco Industries | Share price gained 22 percent after the company-owned Novelis Inc acquired US-based Aluminium rolled products manufacturer Aleris Corporation. The deal, which marks Novelis' entry into the high-end aerospace segment, has been closed at an enterprise value of $2.8 billion, the company said in a statement.

Axis Bank | Stock price was up 22 percent after the Reserve Bank of India relaxed NPA classification norms and announced more liquidity measures to support NBFCs, HFCs, and MFIs on April 17.

IndusInd Bank | Share price was up 19 percent after Goldman Sachs Singapore Pte picked up shares worth over Rs 176 crore through an open market transaction. According to the bulk deal data on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), Goldman Sachs (Singapore) Pte-ODI bought 14 lakh shares of the private lender, at an average price of Rs 430.3 apiece.

Lupin | Share price gained 16 percent after the company received Establishment Inspection Report (EIR) from the USFDA of its Mandideep Unit II facility, classifying the inspection as Voluntary Action Indicated. Also, its Nagpur facility received an EIR from the US health regulator.

Larsen & Toubro | Stock price gained 15 percent after the heavy engineering arm of the company won significant contracts in Q4 of FY20. The company received two contracts from National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC).
Taliban Says It Released 20 More Afghan Government Prisoners

By RFE/RL April 17, 2020

The Taliban says it has released a second group of Afghan security forces it has been holding captive as part of a delayed swap considered key to paving the way for peace talks between the two sides.

Suhail Shaheen, the spokesman for the Taliban's political office in Qatar, said on Twitter late on April 16 that 20 Afghan soldiers and police officers were set free in the eastern province of Laghman earlier in the day.

Another Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said in a tweet on April 16 that the prisoners were handed over to representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Neither the ICRC nor the Afghan government have confirmed the release.

If confirmed, it would bring the total number of prisoners released by the militants to 40.

The Taliban released 20 Afghan troops in the southern province of Kandahar on April 12.

The Kabul government has released a total of 300 Taliban inmates since April 8.

A pact signed by the United States and the Taliban on February 29 calls for the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban fighters as a confidence-building measure ahead of formal peace talks aimed at ending the 18-year conflict in Afghanistan.

The Taliban has vowed to release some 1,000 Afghan government troops and civilian workers it is holding.

The prisoner swap was scheduled to be completed by March 10, before the start of intra-Afghan peace talks. But it has been delayed by disputes between the sides.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/taliban-says- it-released-20-more-afghan-government -prisoners/30560860.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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A group of 13 countries including Britain, Brazil, Italy and Germany is calling for global cooperation to lessen the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a joint statement the group said it is committed to work with all countries to coordinate on public health, travel, trade, economic and financial measures in order to minimize disruptions and recover stronger.

The countries emphasized the need to maintain air, land and marine transportation links to ensure the continued flow of goods, including medical equipment and aid, and the return home of travelers.

They want key transport hubs around the world to remain open and for airlines to maintain major routes.

The group  also including Canada, France, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, South Korea, Singapore and Turkey  stressed the importance and critical role of the scientific community in providing guidance to governments and suggested pooling scientific resources.

The group  also including Canada and France  stressed the critical role of the scientific community in providing guidance to governments.

SPAIN

National death toll surpasses 20,000

Spain has reached 20,000 deaths for the coronavirus pandemic and total infections increased to more than 190,000 on Saturday.

Spains health authorities reported 565 deaths in the last 24 hours. Only the United States and Italy have more deaths.

Last week, health authorities said there were discrepancies in the statistics of virus deaths and infections reported by regional administrations. The central government has ordered regions to give more precise data and use the same parameters.

As the outbreaks spread slows, pressure on hospitals has eased. Authorities have closed one part of a huge field hospital with thousands of beds set up by the military in a convention center in Madrid. But strict confinement rules are expected to be extended beyond April 26.

SINGAPORE

Health authorities confront surge

Singapore has reported a daily record of 942 infections that saw its total surge to 5,992.

The sharp one-day spike in the tiny city-state of nearly six million people is the highest seen in Southeast Asia.

The number of cases more than doubled this past week amid an upsurge among foreign workers staying in crowded dormitories, who constitute 60 percent of Singapores COVID-19 infections.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong wrote on Facebook that the vast majority of cases among migrant workers were mild as the workers are young.

Although cases in the dorms are expected to continue to rise, Lee said the government is increasing healthcare and isolation facilities to handle the load. More than 200,000 migrant workers from Bangladesh, India and other Asian countries live in dormitories housing up to 20 people to a room with shared facilities.

ISRAEL

Holy fire ritual attended by few

A small group of Christian clerics celebrated the Holy Fire ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on Saturday as the coronavirus pandemic prevented worshipers from taking part in the ancient ritual.

They entered the Edicule, a chamber built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was buried and rose from the dead after being crucified. They emerged with candles lit by a fire that the faithful view as a divine message. The source of the flame is a closely-guarded secret.

In previous years, the church would be packed with pilgrims, each holding candles and passing the light around until it illuminated the centuries-old walls. The ceremony, along with other events in the Holy Week leading up to Easter, was scaled back in line with a ban on public gatherings.

CANADA

Border closure extended 30 days

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday the U.S. and Canada have agreed to keep their border closed to nonessential travel for another 30 days.

President Trump said last week that the U.S.-Canada border will be among the first to open and says the U.S. and Canada are doing well in handling the pandemic.

The existing agreement to limit border crossings to essential travel was due to expire this week. Nearly 200,000 people cross that border daily in normal times.

Truck drivers and Canadians who live in the U.S. for part of the year and are returning to Canada are among those who are exempted from the current travel ban.

Chronicle News Services
Walmart Employees Will Be Required to Wear Face Coverings From Next Week

Americas largest retailer will require all workers to wear face coverings starting Monday as the CCP virus pandemic ravages communities nationwide.

The CEOs of Walmart and its Sams Club wholesale stores made the announcement in a statement Friday.

We will begin requiring that associates wear masks or other face coverings at work. This includes our stores, clubs, distribution and fulfillment centers, as well as in our corporate offices, it said.

Customers look on as a Walmart cashier rings up their purchases at a Walmart store in California in a file photograph. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Customers will also be encouraged to cover their faces, although it will not be mandatory. Walmart will provide all employees with a face covering, or they can bring their own.

We hope this step will promote safety and consistency across all of our facilities and be of comfort to our customers and members. However, its important to remember that face coverings are simply an additional health precaution. They do not guarantee against the spread of this virus, the statement said.

Workers at grocery stores and warehouses deemed essential businesses amid the COVID-19 outbreak have expressed concern that showing up to work puts them at risk of contracting the disease. Just this month, two workers at a Chicago-area Walmart store died from the coronavirus.

In recent weeks, a number of retailers have said they will provide workers with masks, but sourcing such protective equipment has proved difficult as hospitals and health workers also struggle to get their hands on such gear.

Walmart, the largest private employer in the United States, has waited to secure protective gear to avoid limiting equipment that could go to strained health workers, Dan Bartlett, the companys vice president of corporate affairs, previously told reporters. The company will need more than seven million masks each week for its employees, he said.

The company has also reduced the number of customers who can enter stores at one time, using floor markers to enforce social distancing and establishing designated entrance and exit doors. Walmart previously announced measures including paid leave for workers amid the coronavirus outbreak, employee temperature checks and limited store hours to allow for cleaning and restocking.

The CNN Wire and Epoch Times staff contributed to this report
The White House on Friday rejected criticism that the country has not ramped up its testing capacity enough to begin safely reopening state economies shuttered to slow the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

The remarks came a day after President Donald Trump unveiled new guidelines for U.S. states to emerge from the shutdown in a staggered, three-phase approach that relies on robust testing capabilities.

'We believe today that we have the capacity in the United States to do a sufficient amount of testing for states to move into phase one in the time and manner that they deem appropriate,' Vice President Mike Pence said at the daily White House briefing.

Vice President Mike Pence (on Friday) said the White House believes there are enough coronavirus tests available for states to begin Phase One of reopening

Dr. Deborah Birx (on Friday) said that it's unclear if there is enough coronavirus testing capacity for begin Phase Two, however, and that they'd be watching how Phase One goes

However, Dr. Deborah Birx, a coronvirus task force member, said during the same briefing that it's unclear whether there is enough coronavirus testing capacity in the US for phase two of the administration's guidelines for opening states.

'What we will be doing is monitoring how much we have to use in phase one to really help inform phase two,' Birx said, according to CNN. 'The really unknown in this, to be completely transparent, is asymptomatic and symptomatic spread.'

Phase One of the plan calls for vulnerable people to continue to follow stay-at-home measures, while other people practice social distancing in public, avoiding groups of more than 10 people.

Businesses would close common areas and restrict non-essential travel, while movie theaters and churches maintained strict physical distancing rules. Schools and bars would continue to remain closed.

President Trump (right) said that it's up to states to boost testing, not the federal government

Governors and lawmakers said that testing should be more widespread and that the federal government should continue to pitch in, before they can begin to think about reopening

A drive through coronavirus testing facility in Shawnee, Kansas, is pictured on Friday

Phase Two, would continue to see social distancing rules applied, but the number of those allowed to gather in groups would be increased to up to 50 people. Workers who do not have coronavirus symptoms would then be allowed back on the job.

Non-essential work travel could then ramp back up, while schools, daycare centers and gyms could reopen. Bars could also open with limited standing-room capacity, while sit-down dining could shift to moderate distancing guidelines.

Phase Three of the plan would see 'unrestricted' staffing at work sites and the resumption of visits to senior care facilities. Bars could then move to 'increased standing room' capacity and large venues could reopen with limited physical distancing.

Despite mounting coronavirus deaths, Trump has been under pressure to reopen the economy, as businesses closures have driven 22million Americans to seek unemployment benefits and fueled protests in some states by demonstrators calling for the lockdowns to be lifted.

Trump, who hoped to base his campaign for reelection in November on a strong economy, on Friday reiterated his insistence that the burden was on states to boost testing, saying: 'It's going to be up to the states to use that capability.'

'The states have local points where they can go and the governor can call the mayors and the mayors can call representatives and everything is perfect and that's the way it should work and always should work,' Trump said.

Governors and lawmakers have pushed back, arguing that testing should be more widespread and that the federal government should continue to pitch in, before they can begin to think about reopening.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said earlier on Friday that he needed federal help to ramp up testing and reopen his state's economy, criticizing the Trump administration for failing to support expanded testing or provide enough funding to states.

'Is there any funding so I can do these things that you want us to do? "No,"' Cuomo told a daily briefing. 'That is passing the buck without passing the bucks.'

According to the new federal guidelines, states must have 'robust testing' programs in place for at-risk healthcare workers before reopening.

Even as some states have seen a decline in new cases and deaths, the outbreak has sickened nearly 700,000 people and killed more than 35,000 people in the United States alone.

Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious diseases expert, said on Friday that Senate Democrats asked a lot of reasonable questions in a call earlier in the day including whether there were enough tests to go through this first phase.

Fauci acknowledged there are still areas to improve on testing, but a lot of the issues have been corrected or will be corrected. 'We have to figure out how do we close that gap,' he said.

'Testing is a part - an important part - of a multifaceted way that we are going to control and ultimately end this outbreak ... But the emphasis that we've been hearing is essentially "Testing is everything." And it isn't,' he added.
In their public lives, Live Oak Councilman Anthony Brooks and businessman Phillip Tsai-Brooks were a well-known couple, dedicated community leaders proud to contribute to the suburb they called home.

In private, theirs was a late-blooming romance that was supposed to have a happily ever after ending, growing old together.

It was not to be.

The couple, married barely five years, died within days of each other in the same hospital, victims of the deadly novel coronavirus.

Family members see it as a cautionary tale.

We urge EVERYONE to stay home! Stop the spread! You dont want to go through what we are going through. Rest in peace, Tony and Phillip. Still in disbelief, reads a Facebook post by Anthony Tsai, one of Tsai-Brooks four brothers. He lives in San Antonio.

Brooks, 52, an Air Force veteran, was a resource analyst at the Army Medical Command at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston. He first was elected to the Live Oak City Council in 2015 and was re-elected in 2017 and 2019.

Tsai-Brooks, 42, was the owner of Extreme Opulence Hair Studio just outside Shavano Park. He was on the board of the Live Oak Economic Development Corporation and previously had served on the suburbs zoning board of adjustment.

Brooks and Tsai met at a friends party in Houston and hit it off from the beginning, family members recalled. On March 29, 2014, they were married in San Francisco.

They settled into their home in Bridlewood subdivision in Live Oak. Tsai-Brooks mother, Pacita, moved in and, by all accounts, the three got along famously.

Its so amazing to see how impactful Phillip and Tonys love (was) for the community, friends, and all those people that crossed their path, said Alfred Tsai, another of Tsai-Brooks brothers. Alfred lives in Malpitas, Calif.

The family traces the start of this difficult time to mid-March, when Brooks returned from an out-of-town conference, feeling sick. But he already was depressed and upset because his ailing father, James Brooks, had just died March 12  his mother, Littie Brooks, had died Jan. 21  and he wasnt paying much attention to his health.

A few days later, Tsai-Brooks started feeling sick, too. But there were work responsibilities and family duties to carry out. He and his mother helped make funeral arrangements for his father-in-law, and a viewing was held at the funeral home March 18.

Tsai-Brooks already was keeping up with news about the pandemic, noting developments and posting memes on his Facebook page, talking with his family and friends about how it was affecting business.

On March 20, he went to the Northeast Methodist emergency room, suffering chills and body aches.

The doctor thought he might be having a bad reaction to a whooping cough vaccination he had recently had and gave him medications, ordering him to lay off for 11 days  no work, quarantine for those days, as Tsai-Brooks noted on Facebook.

But on March 26, he was back at the hospitals emergency room with a fever of 102.9, short of breath, vomiting blood. This time, he was given a test, and it was positive for novel coronavirus.

Be here for a couple of days, Tsai-Brooks wrote in his last Facebook post, then quarantine 14 days.

He never came home.

Brooks had continued to feel poorly. At one point, he did go see a doctor, his in-laws said. He was diagnosed with pneumonia and given medication. But after that, Brooks refused to seek medical treatment, his in-laws said, even after Tsai-Brooks was diagnosed with COVID-19.

Despite multiple attempts to get Tony to go to the ER, he refused to go, said Robert Tsai, another one of Tsai-Brooks brothers, who lives in San Jose, Calif. I dont know if he thought he could fight through his symptoms.

Neither Robert nor Alfred could come to Texas because of coronavirus travel restrictions.

On March 31, Brooks wasnt responding to calls from his Fort Sam colleagues, so they called police and requested a welfare check. Officers found him unconscious on a living room sofa, Tsai-Brooks brother said. He was rushed to Northeast Baptist Hospital, where he tested positive for novel coronavirus.

He was in a critical state and admitted to their COVID-19 ICU, Robert Tsai said.

The next two weeks were a blur of talking with doctors and nurses by long distance, because Alfred had Brooks power of attorney, arranging for transfers for each of the men to Methodist Hospital Metropolitan downtown, and approving of rare medical techniques in hopes of saving their lives.

Both men were on ventilators and were given the hydroxychloroquine cocktail, Robert said, referring to an experimental coronavirus treatment. Brooks underwent ECMO, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, an advanced life support technique used for patients with life-threatening heart and/or lung problems.

Meanwhile, Pacita Tsai was back at the Brooks home, where she had self-isolated in her bedroom because of her sons illness since late March. She, too, has felt ill but has not had a fever, her sons said. Her other sons would bring her food and leave it outside her door.

Difficult Easter

Easter morning, Robert Tsai said, his brother seemed to be progressing.

He was responding to the nurses and seemed to be in good spirits. Overall, we thought he would make it, Robert Tsai said. We were given the opportunity to video chat with Phil on Sunday early evening. By the time I was able to join the video chat Phil had a little trouble breathing so the nurse cut the session short.

But Brooks wasnt doing well.

Later that evening, Robert Tsai fielded a phone call from the hospitals night shift doctor, sparking concerns about Brooks.

I immediately thought something happened to Tony, Robert Tsai recalled. It was actually about Phil.

The doctor told him that when he made his early rounds, Tsai-Brooks had given him a thumbs-up sign.

A bit later, Phils heart stopped. They tried for 38 minutes to resuscitate him, but werent able to do so.

Tsai Brooks died Sunday night.

Brooks, who had improved some after the ECMO treatment and a plasma transfusion, stopped responding. He died Tuesday night. Alfred Tsai said he doesnt know whether Brooks knew that the love of his life was gone.

His brothers-in-law and mother-in-law, they say, take solace in the thought that the two men are together.

Tony Brooks and Phillip Tsai loved each other so much, and they left this world together, Alfred Tsai said. Its a love story that ended too soon in this world, but in heaven, it will last for eternity.

A thank you

Alfred Tsai said the city of Live Oak has been exemplary with the family, especially his mother, who remains isolated in the house as she recuperates.

Live Oak has stepped up, they really have, theyve helped us in every way they can, Alfred Tsai said. They are proof that Live Oak is an amazing place to live.

Live Oak City Manager Scott Wayman said Brooks served the city well during his terms on the council.

Anthony had worked for the city of San Antonio for several years, for the budget office, Wayman said. He was someone who knew his way around a budget. He had a good idea of how cities function, because he knew of those intricacies from his time in San Antonio.

Wayman said Tsai-Brooks had served on the Economic Development Corporation for nearly four years.

Being a small business owner himself, he was always insistent on helping small businesses in the city, Wayman said.

Phillip Tsai is survived by his mother and four brothers, Alfred, Robert, Edwin and Anthony Tsai.

An only child, Brooks only survivors are in his in-laws.

Services are pending with M.E. Rodriguez Funeral Home in San Antonio.

Tsai-Brooks brothers seek to remind others about the importance of trying to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Its just so sad that Phil and Tony died without loved ones there with them. Its sad that even though my mom feels better, my brothers who live in San Antonio cant go to her and give her a hug, Robert Tsai said. Its sad that my family and Alfreds family cant just jump on a plane and be with them. Its just the reality we live in today.
Michelle Mone has revealed she's been in secret talks to join Dragons' Den.

The underwear tycoon admitted she turned down appearing on the show several times, but hinted she would be open to appearing on the show to 'inspire people' following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Michelle, 48, became one of the UK's top businesswomen after founding underwear brand Ultimo in 1996, and is thought to be worth around 50 million.

Plans: Michelle Mone, 38, has revealed she's been in talks to join the lineup of Dragons' Den, but turned it down despite numerous big money offers (pictured in January 2019)

Speaking to The Sun, Michelle said she had been approached to appear on Dragons' Den several times, and had turned it down despite numerous big money offers.

She said: 'In the past, I've been offered Dragons' Den and I've turned it down due to business commitments.

'But I just feel that after this whole coronavirus crisis is over, we need to be lifted up as individuals  we need to feel there is a real purpose in life and what we're going to do with our lives.

'I might be open to something that might help to give people inspiration.'

Gorgeous: The underwear tycoon (pictured in 2010) said she would open to appearing on the show to 'inspire people,' after making millions through lingerie brand Ultimo

Dragons' Den sees budding entrepreneurs pitch their products to a panel of businessmen and women who are looking to invest their millions in return for a percentage of their business.

The current lineup consists of Peter Jones, 54, plus long-serving Deborah Meaden, 61, Sara Davies, 35, Tej Lalvani, 45, and Touker Suleyman, 66.

Michelle went onto speak about her aspirations to become Britain's answer to Oprah Winfrey through some form of magazine-style TV programme.

The business mogul is currently self-isolating with her fiance Doug Barrowman, after the couple announced they've postponed their summer wedding indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Iconic: Dragons' Den sees budding entrepreneurs pitch their products to a panel of businessmen and women who are looking to invest their millions

In a statement Michelle said: 'Doug and I were very much looking forward to getting married in the coming weeks but are equally aware of the need to avoid undertaking any unnecessary risks in the current circumstances.

'We are particularly conscious of government advice in relation to both the well-being of older family members and large gatherings of people.

'So in line with that advice for the UK and beyond we are postponing our wedding and have set a new date. It's been two years in the planning and of course we're disappointed but safety comes first.'

She added: 'I feel for everyone who is in the same situation and hope that they, like us, will be looking forward to a celebration in the future.'

Michelle announced her engagement in December 2018 after Doug romantically proposed with a stunning eight carat diamond ring at their London home.
New York (April 17, 2020)In a new series of letters sent yesterday to Congressional leaders, Vice President Pence, and White House Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Deborah Birx, MD, experts at the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) continued to reinforce the need for medical supplies, telehealth, expertise in older adult care, and a range of other priorities as the federal government plans the next phase of Americas response to COVID-19. As diverse as these important focal points are, they highlight a key theme that crosscuts the pandemic: Building momentum for older adult care builds momentum for us all.

This virus affects everyone, regardless of age or any other characteristics, notes AGS CEO Nancy Lundebjerg, MPA. By advancing supports that serve the most vulnerable, including older people, we can build better treatment and prevention for all Americans.

The guidance comes at a critical time for the pandemic response in the U.S. At present, 31 percent of all cases, 45 percent of hospitalizations, 53 percent of ICU admissions, and 80 percent of deaths have occurred among adults over age 65, with the highest percentage of severe outcomes among persons aged 85 years or older. In its letters, the AGS outlined several time-sensitive on mission-critical priorities for older adults, caregivers, and the health professionals who keep them healthy and safe. These include:

Ensuring Access to Needed Medical Supplies: Health professionals are our first line of defense against COVID-19, and their first line of defense rests on testing kits, masks, gowns, gloves, respirators, and other supplies that make care safe and person-centered. The AGS urged the federal government to make full use of the recently invoked Defense Protection Act and move quickly to ramp up production and distribution.



Health professionals are our first line of defense against COVID-19, and their first line of defense rests on testing kits, masks, gowns, gloves, respirators, and other supplies that make care safe and person-centered. The AGS urged the federal government to make full use of the recently invoked Defense Protection Act and move quickly to ramp up production and distribution. Further Expanding Telehealth Services: Like many U.S. health professionals, geriatrics experts now must balance the importance of continued care with options that prevent the spread of disease. Telehealth (health services provided virtually using technology) remains as an invaluable tool on this front. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) already has done much to increase telehealth availability. In its letters, the AGS commended these actions and suggested other steps, including changes to ensure expanded telehealth services are embraced more permanently.



Like many U.S. health professionals, geriatrics experts now must balance the importance of continued care with options that prevent the spread of disease. Telehealth (health services provided virtually using technology) remains as an invaluable tool on this front. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) already has done much to increase telehealth availability. In its letters, the AGS commended these actions and suggested other steps, including changes to ensure expanded telehealth services are embraced more permanently. Advancing Paid Leave and Support for Caregivers: Under current policy, most American workers remain without access to paid family leavea key social support as more people help manage family health concerns. The AGS reiterated its long-standing belief that federal protections must empower employees to recover from serious illnesses and care for newborns, newly adopted children, or seriously ill family members. In particular, the AGS urged Congress to expand paid family, medical, and sick leave to all health professionals and direct care workers on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis. The AGS also advised Congress to implement tax relief for clinician practices, hospitals, post-acute care facilities, skilled nursing homes, and assisted living facilities, as well as home care agencies that provide the workforce for older adults and people with disabilities. This relief would offset the expense of paid family leave for employers, allowing them to support our frontline healthcare professionals.



Under current policy, most American workers remain without access to paid family leavea key social support as more people help manage family health concerns. The AGS reiterated its long-standing belief that federal protections must empower employees to recover from serious illnesses and care for newborns, newly adopted children, or seriously ill family members. In particular, the AGS urged Congress to expand paid family, medical, and sick leave to all health professionals and direct care workers on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis. The AGS also advised Congress to implement tax relief for clinician practices, hospitals, post-acute care facilities, skilled nursing homes, and assisted living facilities, as well as home care agencies that provide the workforce for older adults and people with disabilities. This relief would offset the expense of paid family leave for employers, allowing them to support our frontline healthcare professionals. Financial Support for Clinicians: During these challenging times, AGS experts believe its critical that our healthcare professionals and facilities remain equipped to operate during and after the public health emergency. Many frontline healthcare professionals caring for patients with COVID-19 may experience additional financial strain as they work to protect their loved ones. The AGS is also concerned that smaller medical practices may be at greater risk for economic distress with less access to capital and lean margins, while larger practices with 500 or more employees may not qualify for the financial relief loans recently made available by the federal government.



During these challenging times, AGS experts believe its critical that our healthcare professionals and facilities remain equipped to operate during and after the public health emergency. Many frontline healthcare professionals caring for patients with COVID-19 may experience additional financial strain as they work to protect their loved ones. The AGS is also concerned that smaller medical practices may be at greater risk for economic distress with less access to capital and lean margins, while larger practices with 500 or more employees may not qualify for the financial relief loans recently made available by the federal government. Supporting Charitable Organizations: Many older adults and other vulnerable people rely on nonprofits for food, transportation, and other important needs. The AGS advised doing all America can to help this safety net operate effectively, meet increased demands, and weather the financial implications of COVID-19. Among other priorities, the AGS suggested including charitable nonprofits in emergency loan and assistance programs comprising the more than $1 trillion stimulus package now under debate.



Many older adults and other vulnerable people rely on nonprofits for food, transportation, and other important needs. The AGS advised doing all America can to help this safety net operate effectively, meet increased demands, and weather the financial implications of COVID-19. Among other priorities, the AGS suggested including charitable nonprofits in emergency loan and assistance programs comprising the more than $1 trillion stimulus package now under debate. Empowering Other Health Professionals: As COVID-19 continues to strain the American health system, the AGS urged CMS to utilize other experts, such as clinical pharmacists, to address workforce shortages across professions. Pharmacists can play an invaluable role with point-of-care testing, vaccination, and time-sensitive treatment.



As COVID-19 continues to strain the American health system, the AGS urged CMS to utilize other experts, such as clinical pharmacists, to address workforce shortages across professions. Pharmacists can play an invaluable role with point-of-care testing, vaccination, and time-sensitive treatment. Supporting Direct Care Workers: Direct care workers (those who provide primary, hands-on care across our health systems) are essential to our care as we age, especially during public health crises. The emergence of this new and deadly coronavirus has significantly exacerbated existing gaps in expertise and systemic weaknesses in health care service delivery for older Americans, particularly when we consider our vital direct care workforce. As we continue to learn and grow from this emergency, the AGS urged Congress to provide educational and grant opportunities for direct care workers across different professions and areas of expertise.



Direct care workers (those who provide primary, hands-on care across our health systems) are essential to our care as we age, especially during public health crises. The emergence of this new and deadly coronavirus has significantly exacerbated existing gaps in expertise and systemic weaknesses in health care service delivery for older Americans, particularly when we consider our vital direct care workforce. As we continue to learn and grow from this emergency, the AGS urged Congress to provide educational and grant opportunities for direct care workers across different professions and areas of expertise. Expanding Geriatrics Experts: Now more than ever, we need to provide guidance and instruction so that all health professionalsnot just geriatrics expertsunderstand the health conditions older adults face, and how those conditions may impact COVID-19, AGS experts advised. Among opportunities for advancing age-friendly care, the AGS noted the importance of new opportunities, such as loan forgiveness programs, as well as existing platforms like the Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP) and the Geriatrics Academic Career Awards (GACAs). The GWEP provides support for the current transformation of primary care, while the GACAs develop the next generation of innovators to improve care outcomes and delivery. Together, they educate the workforce we all need in times of crisis and calm, added Lundebjerg.

In addition to its letters, the AGS created information hubs for health professionals (AmericanGeriatrics.org/COVID19) and older adults (HealthInAging.org/COVID19) looking for guidance and expert insights on COVID-19.

About the American Geriatrics Society

Founded in 1942, the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) is a nationwide, not-for-profit society of geriatrics healthcare professionals that hasfor more than 75 yearsworked to improve the health, independence, and quality of life of older people. Our nearly 6,000 members include geriatricians, geriatric nurses, social workers, family practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, and internists. The Society provides leadership to healthcare professionals, policymakers, and the public by implementing and advocating for programs in patient care, research, professional and public education, and public policy. For more information, visit AmericanGeriatrics.org.
After Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, explained the White House's new guidelines for states to slowly reopen their economies in a three-phase process, Fox News host Laura Ingraham sought another opinion later in the show.

She turned to Phil McGraw, better known as Dr. Phil, television psychologist to the masses.

He acknowledged that the novel coronavirus is killing Americans - more than 33,000 as of early Friday - but also wondered why the economy would shut down over the pandemic but continues to function as people die from lung cancer, car crashes and pool drownings. (Unlike coronavirus, none of the causes of death listed by Dr. Phil are contagious.)

"We don't shut the country down for that," said Dr. Phil, after he cited inaccurate statistics on accidental deaths. "Yet we are doing it for this and the fallout is going to last for years because people's lives are being destroyed."

The conflicting views, one from the most qualified source available on the topic and the other from a talk-show host with questionable credentials, highlighted again how expert advice on the novel coronavirus has frequently been undermined by celebrity doctors with little to no infectious disease experience.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, urged a cautious approach on Ingraham's show Thursday night. His advice was quickly undercut by Dr. Phil in a following segment, when he argued states should reopen their economies even if lives might be lost to the virus to prevent anxiety and depression.

"People are dying from the coronavirus," Dr. Phil said. "I get that."

Then, he launched into his theories about what might happen if people don't return to work and school soon. In doing so, he cited incorrect statistics and repeated talking points Fauci and other experts have disputed.

The conversations came after President Donald Trump released new federal guidelines on Thursday that lay out a three-phase plan to eventually return to normal in places with minimal cases of the coronavirus. The recommendations place the onus on governors and mayors to determine when and how to return to normalcy.

Dr. Phil joins other social distancing naysayers, like Mehmet Oz, another TV doctor who told Fox News' Sean Hannity on Tuesday that an unmitigated coronavirus death toll might be a "trade-off" worth making to reopen schools. Drew Pinsky, known for his 30 years as host of the radio show "Loveline" and as a reality TV regular, also sparked controversy when he compared the coronavirus to the flu. (Unlike Dr. Phil, both Dr. Oz and Dr. Drew are physicians, though neither is an expert in infectious diseases.)

Fauci, who is a licensed physician and immunologist, joined Ingraham to discuss the guidelines he helped write for slowly reopening the economy. He ended up having to dispute questionable claims the Fox News host repeated that compared the novel coronavirus to HIV and SARS and downplayed the need for a vaccine. Fauci and others have suggested some level of social distancing guidelines may need to remain in place until a vaccine is developed.

"On the question of a vaccine, we don't have a vaccine for SARS," Ingraham said. "We don't have a vaccine for HIV, and life did go on, right? So the idea that we're definitely going to have a vaccine, we didn't really approach much else in the same way as we're pegging going back to normal with a vaccine, did we?"

Fauci responded by pointing out the stark differences between HIV, the virus that caused SARS and the novel coronavirus. He said HIV was "entirely different" because researchers developed effective treatments that allow people to live with HIV/AIDS. And SARS, he said, disappeared on its own, which ended efforts to develop a vaccine.

"I think it is a little bit misleading, maybe, to compare what we're going through now with HIV or SARS," Fauci told Ingraham. "They're really different."

"But, we don't know," Ingraham said in response. "This could disappear. I mean, SARS did pretty much disappear. This could as well, correct?"

"You know, anything could, Laura," Fauci said. "But I have to tell you, the degree of efficiency of transmissibility of this is really unprecedented in anything that I've seen. It's an extraordinarily efficient virus in transmitting from one person to another. Those kind of viruses don't just disappear."

Fauci spent the rest of his time on "The Ingraham Angle" explaining the need for a piecemeal approach to reopening the economy. He stressed that states should meet all of the criteria in each phase of the White House's guidelines before moving on to the next and remaining vigilant, and willing to close down again, for renewed outbreaks.

Minutes later, Ingraham welcomed Dr. Phil to her show.

Dr. Phil, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology but is not licensed to practice medicine, spoke about the mental toll of isolation under the stay-at-home orders aimed at slowing the spread of coronavirus. He suggested more people will suffer mental-health issues, like anxiety and depression, because of job losses and economic impacts of the pandemic than will catch the virus.

That's when the TV psychologist compared coronavirus deaths to those caused by automobile accidents, smoking and drowning. Fauci has criticized the comparison to car accidents in the past, calling it a "false equivalency."

"We have people dying, 45,000 people a year die from automobile accidents, 480,000 from cigarettes, 360,000 a year from swimming pools, but we don't shut the country down for that," Dr. Phil said.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, swimming pool-related deaths are much lower than the figure offered by Dr. Phil on Fox News. About 3,500 people unintentionally drown each year in the U.S., and not all of them drown in pools, according to the CDC.

At least 33,286 people have died of the novel coronavirus and more than 671,000 people have been diagnosed with covid-19 in the U.S. as of Friday morning.

After Ingraham's show aired, many people expressed dismay at Dr. Phil's segment.

Among them was Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., who pointed out that about 4 percent of reported covid-19 cases have ended in a death (although experts believe the actual fatality rate is far lower because of the number of untested people who likely have a mild or asymptomatic case of coronavirus).

Covid-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, has rapidly become a leading killer of Americans. Between April 6 and April 12, the virus killed more people in the United States than any other cause of death except heart disease.

"The case fatality rate of #COVID19 is over 4% in US," Lieu wrote on Twitter. "If 4% of people who routinely went swimming would die & 15% would end up in the hospital, I guarantee Dr. Phil would not go swimming."
Across the US, the number of people traveling by plane has dropped significantly as the coronavirus pandemic has forced millions to stay indoors -- and the mayor of Los Angeles says 95% of air travel has stopped in his city.

Mayor Eric Garcetti said it's the biggest drop in flights in Los Angeles International Airport's (LAX) history. Los Angeles has the fourth busiest airport in the world, according to Garcetti. LAX is the number one busiest airport in this country of origination and destination, he said during a news conference Thursday.

He talked about how devastating this will be for the city and recalled how during 9/11, plane travel dropped about 55% and it took 10 years to come back.

Last week, Transportation Security Administration officers screened just shy of 95,000 people at airport checkpoints across the US, a dramatic drop from the 2.3 million who passed through on the equivalent day in 2019. The numbers are at a 10-year low, according to the agency.

The drop in passengers and orders across much of the country to stay at home have caused airlines to cut 71% of their capacity, according to Airlines for America, an industry group that represents carriers such as American, Delta, Southwest and United.

Only about one in every 10 seats on the US domestic planes that do fly are occupied, the group says.

How will LA recover?

The City of Los Angeles is expected to receive more than $323 million from the CARES Act. This will help maintain the vital infrastructure and keep employees on the job as the city recovers from this crisis, Garcetti said.

In addition, airlines and their contractors are receiving $29 billion in federal funds from the legislation. Garcetti explained that a condition of these funds will be to retain almost all of their employees through September 30.

Los Angeles has expanded its coronavirus testing capacity and is now able to test 11,000 people per day. By the end of Thursday, approximately 61,000 people across all testing sites will had been tested.

"We have the capacity today to do more than half the tests that California did in the last 24 hours. That's something Los Angeles and Southern California can be very proud of," the mayor said.

"We get the job done and we do it ahead of schedule," he added. In a week from Thursday, 90,000 people will have been tested.

Testing is important as the number of cases and deaths continue to rise in Los Angeles. The county has seen record deaths for three days in a row.

"Just because the curve is bending, it doesn't mean that we're not adding new cases and deaths," Garcetti said.

During Thursday's news conference, which was held at a testing site in South Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Fire Department announced the launch of a new telemedicine program.

Through this program, the emergency dispatch center is able to screen coronavirus patients and other individuals who call 911 with non-life threatening issues.

Mayor Garcetti explained that this has two benefits. It reduces potential emergency room crowding that a transport who may not have the virus might bring to a hospital. In addition, this decreases the chance of exposure to the virus for first responders.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  The number of traffic tickets issued in Northeast Ohio and across the state plummeted in the weeks after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWines stay-at-home order, according to statistics gathered by cleveland.com.

Law enforcement administrators attributed the jarring drop in citations to fewer drivers commuting and efforts to protect officers from coming into contact with people who might have the coronavirus. Cleveland.com requested the number of traffic citations from the date of DeWines order through Thursday and compared them with the same time frame in 2019.

Citations from the Ohio State Highway Patrol are down 92 percent statewide from the March 22 compared with the same dates in 2019. Cleveland police issued 71 percent fewer traffic tickets than the same time frame last year. Some suburban police departments issued more than 90 percent fewer tickets.

Fewer people are driving because of the order and closure of non-essential businesses, causing thousands to be out of work and others to work from home. And some police agencies are focusing less on minor violations and more on serious crimes and flagrant speeders to avoid exposing officers to the virus.

Were trying to balance keeping our officers safe from being exposed to the virus and to keep them from potentially spreading it, Rocky River Lt. George Lichman said. Theres not really a way to issue a ticket without getting close to someone. At the same time, were worried that a sustained reduction in enforcement efforts would lead to people speeding or driving recklessly. Fortunately, we havent seen that yet.

Some of the most well-known cities for traffic tickets  Parma, North Olmsted and Rocky River among them issued significantly fewer tickets. Those cities and municipal courts across the county rely on the hundreds of thousands of dollars sometimes millions from traffic fines and fees to help balance budgets.

Most city budgets rely less on traffic fines than income tax, but the revenue generated by traffic fines also plays a role.

I think this topic, I think, affects everybody, whether youre a big city, medium or a small village, Parma Mayor Tim DeGeeter.

DeGeeter said his city is bracing for a $5.5 million reduction in revenue overall, including income tax, which accounts for about two-thirds of the citys general fund. Parma in 2018 collected $3.79 million on fines and fees, which includes traffic tickets, according to a state auditors report.

Garfield Heights took in $2.8 million in fines and fees in 2018, and Rocky River $3.7 million in fines, fees and permits in 2017, according to the most recent audits by the state. Linndale reported to the state auditor they received $1.3 million through fines, licenses and permits.

North Royalton Mayor Larry Antoskiewicz said the fines are a piece of the pie of all the revenue the city is losing from the coronavirus and the governors orders. He said its still too early to tell how hell make budget cuts, but that he does not plan to lay off any employees.

We knew we were going to take a loss on that, Antoskiewicz said. Year to year that number fluctuates so we plan for that.

State troopers issued 2,925 traffic tickets since the stay-at-home order, down from 38,899 in 2019. Tickets in Cuyahoga and Lake counties are down 95 percent and 93 percent in Summit County.

Speeding tickets, the most common traffic ticket issued by police and state troopers, are significantly down.

Statewide the state patrol issued 95 percent fewer speeding tickets when compared to the same time frame in 2019, from 23,150 in 2019 to 1,142 this year.

Tickets from state troopers in the seven-county area around Cleveland also dropped 96 percent during that time frame. Troopers issued 14 tickets in Cuyahoga County compared with 659 last year; in Medina County, only three speeding tickets were issued, compared to 283 the year before.

In Parma, the second-largest city in Cuyahoga County, police issued 37 citations since the governors order. Parma police issued 1,066 during the same time frame in 2019.

North Olmsted similarly issued 96 percent fewer traffic tickets; 1,105 in 2019 to just 38 since the governors order.

Rocky River issued 19 tickets since the order, down from 379; North Royalton issued 80 percent fewer.

Two of the most notorious communities for traffic tickets in Cuyahoga  Linndale and Newburgh Heights  did not provide information on the number of traffic citations in their city, either from officers or speed cameras installed in those cities.

Ohio State Highway Patrol spokesman Sgt. Ray Santiago said a sharp drop in traffic led the troopers to perform different tasks while on-duty, including helping with humanitarian efforts like delivering food to people who need it and assisting local police departments in conducting criminal investigations.

Very early on, the patrol and other police agencies did set parameters to those that pose an immediate threat to public safety, Santiago said. Traffic types of minor speed violations, or certain types of equipment violations, were not necessarily taking proactive measures at the moment. Were looking for those who present an immediate risk. Fortunately, we havent seen too much of that.

Read more from cleveland.com:

Cuyahoga County Jail coronavirus cases rise to 34 in two weeks, adding to state-leading total for jails

94-year-old beaten to death in Cleveland

Cleveland City Councilman attacked while passing out food on street in Hough neighborhood
China provides mental health service for troops stationed on Nansha Islands

PLA Daily

Source: China Military Online

Editor: Chen Lufan

2020-04-17 22:48:47

By Hong Xue, Li Youtao and Guo Meng

NANSHA ISLANDS, April 17 -- On April 7, Jiang Chunlei, a psychology professor of the PLA Naval Medical University, set foot on the Yongshu Reef to provide mental health counseling for soldiers. Since then, the first batch of metal health service stations established by the PLA troops stationed on the Nansha Islands was put into operation, in a bid to provide professional and systematic mental health services for service members stationed on the islands and reefs.

The Nansha Islands is far away from the Chinese mainland. Despite improved living conditions in recent years, the garrisons always faced challenges and trials both physically and mentally due to arduous tasks and long-term combat readiness. Thus, such mental service stations are set up to help the officers and soldiers disperse loneliness and boost morale.

It is learnt that these stations are mainly built by the military hospitals on various Nansha Islands and reefs, each equipped with a counseling room, an anger-venting room, and a psychological evaluation and training room, etc. The staff includes professional psychologists and part-time counselors from the troops.

These stations have also established online liaison mechanisms with experts from the PLA Naval Medical University, the PLA Dalian Naval Academy, etc., to provide psychological evaluation, counseling, training, and other services through hotline and regular expert site visits.

It is said that during the current pandemic prevention and control period, a round of psychological evaluation and counseling has been fully carried out for all the military members stationed on the Nansha Islands.

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The Arole Oduduwa and Ooni of Ife, Ooni Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II has described the death of Chief of Staff to the president of Nigeria, Mr Abba Kyarias as an unfortunate surprise.

The Ooni expressed this through his Director of Media and Public Affairs, Comrade Moses Olafare in a statement released at the early hours of Saturday.

Ooni Ogunwusi who is the natural father of the Oduduwa race worldwide described late Kyari as a coolheaded fine gentleman and great respecter of traditional institutions who had until his death handled his position as a public servernt with dignity and dedication arising from his fervent belief in and his incorruptible patriotism to the Nigerian project.

"The House of Oduduwa under the leadership of the Arole Oodua Olofin Adimula, Ooni Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II, Ooni of Ife has received news of the death of Alhaji Abba Kyari with a rude shock and he sees it as a very unfortunate surprise.

"Late Abba Kyari was a detribalized Nigerian and coolheaded fine gentleman who had treated traditional institutions with love and respect and who had until his death undoubtedly dignified public service as Chief of Staff with dignity and dedication motivated by his fervent belief in and incorruptible patriotism to the Nigerian project".

"Kabiyesi Ooni immediately after the news was confirmed, made a phone communication to the wife and children of the late Chief of Staff in which he prayed for the gentle soul of the deceased and the fortitude for the family to bear the irreparable loss". Olafare said.

The concluding part of the statement quoted Ooni Ogunwusi, Co-chairman of National Council of Traditional Rulers of Nigeria(NCTRN) urging Nigerias to take the ongoing fight against the global coronavirus pandemic more seriously, saying the virus is a ruthless enemy of humanity that must be collectively defeated.

The Ooni also prayed for the souls of the thousands of victims around already killed by COVID-19 around the world and charged the Nigerian citizens to keep the rules and regulations already set by the government as measures to combat the pandemic.
UN, EU, US Welcome Release, Exchange of Prisoners in E. Ukraine

By VOA News April 17, 2020

The United Nations, the European Union and the United States welcomed the release and exchange of prisoners in eastern Ukraine, which has been torn by a 6-year-old armed conflict.

The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he remained hopeful this "humanitarian action" ahead of Orthodox Easter "will serve as a positive step toward more progress, including a permanent cease-fire," his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

"Further disengagement of forces and unimpeded humanitarian access across the contact line is expected as part of ongoing peace efforts of international actors," added Dujarric.

Guterres urged all parties engaged in the conflict "to take further measures in order to enable progress" in the implementation of peace agreements.

"Full implementation of the Minsk agreements is the only way to reach a sustainable and peaceful solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine," said Peter Stano, lead spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the EU.

"Russia and the armed formations that it backs must also ensure freedom of movement across the contact line for the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission" and other humanitarian actors, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, to reach all those still in detention, the statement reads.

The EU also reaffirmed its strong support for Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Foreign ministers of France and Germany said in a joint statement that the release and exchange of prisoners related to the conflict in eastern Ukraine "represents significant progress" for the implementation of the Minsk agreements, and the conclusions of the summit in Paris on December 9, 2019, "with respect to upholding the cease-fire, mine clearance, the opening of new crossing points and the identification of new disengagement zones."

In a Twitter message, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine welcomed the move and commended the country's government on its "continued efforts to achieve a diplomatic solution to the Russia-instigated conflict in Ukraine."

It is also called on Russia "to immediately release all other Ukrainians who remain unjustly imprisoned and fully withdraw its forces from Ukrainian territory."

Thursday's prisoner exchange was the third since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was elected in a landslide last year on promises to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which began in 2014. More than 14,000 people have been killed, and it has heightened tensions between Russia and the West.

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The National Coordinator of the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO), Mr Albert Arhin, has suggested that the Electoral Commission (EC) should develop an alternative plan (plan B) on how it is going to conduct this years elections.



That, he said, was as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) which had led to the imposition of restriction on movements of people and lockdown in certain parts of the country.



Option



According to him, it is time to come out with an option, especially when the EC had postponed indefinitely the registration exercise which was scheduled to commence from April 18 for the compilation of a new voters register.



The coronavirus situation is fluid and it is good to have an alternative because of the time we have available. By now, they should have started the registration but see the time we are in, Mr Arhin told the Daily Graphic yesterday.



Some weeks after the President placed a ban on public gatherings as part of measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus, the EC said it was postponing the registration exercise.



The President also announced a partial lockdown of Greater Accra, Tema, Greater Kumasi and Kasoa.



Restriction



The restriction on movements of people has been extended and is expected to end on April 19.



But for Mr Arhin, he asked, among other things, whether or not the EC was going to use the old register which was used for the 2019 District Level Election, or conduct the registration in the non-lockdown areas and then later go back to locked-down areas to conduct the exercise?



He said even if the registration exercise was going to be conducted in the areas that are not under lockdown, the restrictions on those places would have to be lifted.



The EC should think about this by now in view of the time frame between now and the conduct of the general election on December 7, 2020.



BVMS



The EC has indicated that it was going to conduct a new credible Biometric Voter Management System (BVMS) to replace the old voters' register.



Its decision has, however, been challenged by a coalition of political parties, including the main opposition National Democratic Congress.



Among other concerns, the party has questioned the ECs decision on the compilation of the new register, insisting that the old register which was used, for instance, for the conduct of the 2016 general election and the 2019 District Level Election be maintained.

Source: Daily Graphic









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
Orthodox churches throughout Eastern Europe and Russia are prepared to celebrate Easter Sunday on April 19 amid coronavirus restrictions that will curtail ceremonies normally steeped in symbolism and tradition.



The Easter holiday is the most significant date on the calendar for the worlds 300 million Orthodox Christians.



Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the worlds Orthodox Christians, has urged the faithful to adhere to government measures and World Health Organization guidelines to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. But keeping people out of churches hasn't proved easy.

In Moscow, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced on April 18 that President Vladimir Putin will not attend a traditional Orthodox Easter vigil at Christ The Savior Church because of the pandemic.



Peskov said Putin would stay at his home, the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence, and light a candle at a chapel on the property.



The Russian Orthodox Church, which observes Easter Sunday on April 19, ordered churches to close their doors to large groups during the week leading up to the holiday.



While church leaders in Romania and Serbia have accepted bans on public gatherings, prominent Orthodox figures in both countries have implored the government to allow exceptions.



Some clergy members in Serbia balked at restrictions after authorities extended a curfew to run for 84 hours starting on April 17 -- an attempt to limit contacts during the weekend.



Following the announcement, the conservative Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) Synod requested a five-hour break in the curfew to allow believers to attend the morning liturgy.



That forced Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to telephone the head of the SPC, Patriarch Irinej, and press him to make the clergy comply with restrictions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged Ukrainians to celebrate from home out of concern that the disease that has killed 133 people in the country will spread further.



Most church leaders in Ukraine have complied, agreeing to broadcast their services online and on television.



The government has not opted to close churches but effectively barred attendance by not allowing services with more than 10 people and by only allowing people to travel in public places alone or in pairs.



The Bulgarian government has urged people not to attend services though it hasnt banned them.



Churches remain open in Bulgaria even as the government banned traffic from entering and leaving the capital Sofia.



The most contentious debate over Orthodox Easter has occurred in Georgia, where church leaders and the government agreed to allow parishioners to attend dusk-to-dawn Easter vigil services.



The agreement provides worshippers a way around a curfew and other restrictive measures.



Worshippers in Georgia are allowed to attend services in large cathedrals on April 18 and April 19, provided they maintain a distance of two meters. Those who attend small churches are to remain outside their church building.



The agreement says parishioners should arrive for services before 9 p.m. on April 18 and leave after 6 a.m. on April 19.

With reporting by Reuters, AP and dpa.
Steve Leader, for years a fixture on the Portland news radio scene, aired his final broadcast as host of the KXL-FM (101) morning news on Friday. On Facebook today, Leaders FM News 101 KXL colleague, Pat Boyle, posted photos and a tribute: Legendary news guy Steve Leaders last day! Thanks Steve for keeping Portlanders informed for more than 30 years. You are a huge talent and will be greatly missed. Enjoy your retirement; you deserve it

On the air this morning, Boyle introduced a variety of salutes to Leader, from colleagues past and present. They thanked Leader for his professionalism, wished him well, joked about Leaders love of tuna fish, and encouraged him to keep playing the guitar, sleep in, and spend time with his family in retirement.

Among those who joined in were Leaders boss, Bruce Collins, KGW-TV weather anchor Rod Hill, and Leaders former morning news cohost, Rebecca Marshall.

Marshall, who left KXL in March for a job with the American Red Cross, told Leader that working with him for 20 years was the highlight of her career, and read a poem she had written for her work husband.

Leaders wife and family also called in to mark his last day, and welcome him to retirement.

Toward the end of the segment, which you can listen to here, Leader-- who noted he was in his 35th year of working at KXL -- thanked listeners and supporters, and offered this thought to anyone who had tuned in: Be kind. If you want to say a nice thought, dont hold back."

Leader is leaving KXL at a time when media companies, including The Oregonian/OregonLive, are taking measures to control costs, as the coronavirus pandemic has impacted business and revenue. As Inside Radio reports, Alpha Media, the Portland-based parent company of KXL, has recently taken steps to reduce costs, including implementing temporary furloughs and eliminating some positions.

We have reached out for comments, and will update this story if more information is available.

-- Kristi Turnquist

kturnquist@oregonian.com 503-221-8227 @Kristiturnquist

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
The OGBL (Independent Luxembourg Trade Union Confederation) confirmed the news on Friday.

The different parties have reached an agreement concerning the extension of collective contracts for employees of the ISL, the International School of Luxembourg.

The new agreement will start on 20 April 2020 and is to remain valid until 31 August 2021.




Haiti - Covid-19 : Taiwanese doctors advise their Haitian counterparts





Thursday at 8:30 a.m. (Haiti time, 8:30 p.m. in Taiwan), the Government of Taiwan (Republic of China) through its Embassy in Haiti initiated a video conference in Natcom premises, in the context of the fight against the pandemic du Covid-19, together with the Ministry of Public Health and the Chi-Mei Medical Center, one of the major renowned teaching hospitals in Taiwan on April 17, 2020 at 8:30 a.m.



This video conference was opened by Chi-Chih Shin Charge d'affaires ai of the Embassy and Dr. Laure Adrien, Director General of the Ministry, in the presence of 14 participants : officials from the Ministry, medical specialists from various centers and medical institutions responsible for dealing with this pandemic and a team of 13 doctors and nursing staff from Chi-Mei, chaired by Deputy Chief Superintendent Dr. Lin, Hung-Jung.



The Chi-Mei hospital gave a global presentation on all the measures for the care of people affected by the coronavirus Civid-19. The participants then exchanged views on the treatment of infected persons and the protective measures for the nursing staff. The video conference lasted approximately 90 minutes and allowed Haitian professionals to better understand the devices deployed by hospitals and health authorities in Taiwan to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30551-haiti-taiwan-strengthening-of-the-bilateral-cooperation.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Logistics Victory Los Angeles (LoVLA.org) is receiving a donation of 160,000 face shields from Apple Inc. Donated through Apples Giving program, the face shields will assist in L.A.s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Los Angeles thanks Apple for this generous donation of face shields that are critical to frontline health care workers battling the COVID-19 pandemic, said Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka, the Citys Chief Logistics Officer during this crisis. There are numerous private sector entities that have supplies or know of suppliers that can help during this time of need, and our City team is here to facilitate that process.

The donation comes on the heels of the launch of Logistics Victory Los Angeles, a new City program created to identify and match available medical supplies in the private sector with the health care providers in need of them. Procured or donated supplies will be allocated to area medical facilities in need of them and used to replenish the Citys stockpile.

Seroka was appointed Chief Logistics Officer by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti in March while continuing his role as chief of Americas top port. With a team of 18 City employees, Seroka has assembled a response effort focused on medical supply chain optimization and direct procurement of supplies through purchases and donations like the face shields donated by Apple.

Like other areas across the nation right now, caregivers in Southern California are running low on certain supplies, including isolation gowns, examination gloves, face shields, medical ventilators, N95 masks, IV drip apparatus used on COVID-19 patients as the pandemic spreads in Southern California.

Suppliers of Personal Protective Equipment and entities in need of supplies during this health emergency are encouraged to register their resources and needs at www.LoVLA.org.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200417005533/en/
Last week, American Thinker published NPR proves true AG Barrs claim the media is on a jihad against hydroxychloroquine. Subsequent events have proven how wrong NPR was when it used a Houston doctor's reliance on hydroxychloroquine as a vehicle to attack the drug.

If you don't want to read the post linked above, here's a quick summary: Laura Ingraham interviewed Attorney General Bill Barr. In addition to calling the Russia hoax one of the greatest travesties in American history, Barr touched on COVID-19.

One thing Barr found bizarre was how the media ignored informing Americans in favor of discrediting President Trump. Barr specifically noted the medias response to Trumps hope that hydroxychloroquine might stop the Wuhan viruss malignancy. Hydroxychloroquine has been approved for decades as a treatment for malaria, lupus, and arthritis. The media, though, isn't giving Americans objective information about the drug. Instead, Barr said (accurately), the medias been on a jihad to discredit the drug.

Immediately after Barrs interview, NPRs Vanessa Romo wrote about Robin Armstrong, a Houston doctor, who was treating nursing home patients with hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and zinc. Romo implied that, because the doctor is a Republican (even scarier for Democrats, hes a black Republican) and used his political connections to get hydroxychloroquine, that meant he was a veritable Dr. Mengele, the Nazi who experimented on prisoners in Auschwitz. Her article, entitled, COVID-19 Patients Given Unproven Drug In Texas Nursing Home In 'Disconcerting' Move, painted the treatment in dire terms:

Concern is mounting after a doctor at a Texas nursing home started giving the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to dozens of elderly patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and tracking the outcomes in what he's calling an "observational study." Use of the drug to treat coronavirus infections has set up a heated debate between the Trump administration and leading health experts over its efficacy against COVID-19.

Romo even implied that Armstrong was experimenting on patients without proper authorization. Then, almost reluctantly, she acknowledged that most patients did give their permission. In any event, because the drug is FDA approved and because the FDA authorized using hydroxychloroquine off-label, Armstrong didnt need the patients explicit permission.

The Houston Chronicle (which endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016), wrote in the same apocalyptic tones and directly accused Dr. Armstrong of unethical behavior:

The problem is that Armstrong disregarded proper protocol and administered the drug without permission from family members. While this unprecedented pandemic may call for urgent action, it doesnt condone irresponsible acts. Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug often used to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, is not a proven miracle drug  no matter what President Donald Trump says.

NPR and the Houston Chronicle weren't the only outlets making (or implying) that Armstrong is an evil Republican doctor, even though his behavior was entirely within the bounds of law and ethics. All those outlets should be eating crow now. Despite being a vulnerable cohort for COVID-19 mortality (since theyre all elderly), Armstrong's patients are recovering:

What happened at a Galveston County nursing home over the last week was one of the first big tests of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients in Texas. I thought the risk of seeing 15% of that nursing home die was just not an acceptable, said Dr. Robin Armstrong, MD, medical director at The Resort at Texas City. Fifty-six residents at this senior facility in Galveston County contracted the novel coronavirus. Dr. Robin Armstrong said 39 of them gave him permission to treat them with hydroxychloroquine pills. Most of the patients have done well. And, you know, and I think that that is suggestive that the medication is helpful, Armstrong told WFAA. [snip] Well, I would say I would say all the patients have done well, Armstrong added. On Sunday, those 39 patients finished five days of treatment with hydroxychloroquine. Dr. Armstrong said no one experienced any side effects. We've got one patient now that kind of goes back and forth, said Dr. Armstrong, He's an older gentleman, but we're kind of nursing him through the process, but he's getting better. Two patients receiving hydroxychloroquine have had to go to hospital for unrelated conditions, Armstrong disclosed; a woman had a fall and a man got dehydrated in his room because he was not eating and drinking. But for the first time since this treatment began, many of those who have recovered from the virus have been able to go outside and get some fresh air over the last 48 hours, Armstrong said.

What Dr. Armstrong did doesnt sound like Dr. Mengele to me. It sounds like a doctor who stayed well within the law and, ignoring the medias politically-motivated jihad against hydroxychloroquine, saved peoples lives.
Chennai: The nearly 40-day lockdown (March 25 to May 3) in India as a part of preventive measures against COVID-19 has meant that all domestic and international aircraft operations would be suspended. But special flights have been evacuating and repatriating foreign nationals, while cargo aircraft have been hauling essential equipment and cargo that help in the countrys fight against the deadly pandemic.

To aid Indias effort against the coronavirus, various types of essential cargo are being brought in by International cargo flights. During the 21-day lockdown period, 42 International flights arrived at the Chennai airport, ferrying critical consignments such as components of ventilators, defibrillators, face masks, thermometers and other personal protection equipment (PPEs).

The bulk of the medical goods are imported from China, South Korea, Hong Kong, USA, Taiwan, Malaysia and Germany. On their return journey the fights ferry goods from India, including perishables and export items among others.

We are working round-the-clock with adequate staff to facilitate the expeditious Export and Import of consignments under the prevailing lockdown. Our staff at seaport, Aiport, Air cargo, Courier terminal and foreign post office are functioning with appropriate precautions against Covid. We specially ensure rapid clearance of parcels bound for India that contain life-saving drugs, non-contact thermometers, N-95 masks and medical equipmentRajan Chaudhary, Commissioner of Customs, Chennai International Airport told WION.

The Chennai Customs has facilitated the smooth clearance of passengers who were to travel on 14 such special International flights ferrying expatriates to their respective countries. Over the 21-day lockdown period (Phase 1), 2173 foreign nationals have travelled to their respective home countries. The relief aircraft were operated by Air India and other foreign carriers to major destinations such as Paris, Frankfurt, Muscat, Bhutan, Singapore and Tokyo.

Sanmina SCI, a firm that provides design, manufacturing and logistics support to Original Equipment Manufacturers had pointed out that health care and medical customers are focussed on increasing production capacity to meet the massive demand for Covid-19 Essential medical devices. They include, ventilators, patient monitors, ultrasounds, CT scanners , X-rays among others.

They highlighted and commended the expeditious clearing of consignments at Chennai, which enabled them to continue their effort in making the necessary medical equipment available during this unprecedented crisis.
Chhattisgarh will start pool sample testing for COVID-19 in a couple of days, state's Health Minister T S Singh Deo said on Friday, while ruing the Modi government's "conservative" testing strategy instead of an "aggressive" approach, which would have put the country in a much better position to fight the pandemic.

In an interview to PTI, Deo also said the Chhattisgarh government is in the process of procuring 75,000 rapid testing kits on its own and has also asked the Centre for providing some.

"We have re-tendered for 75,000 kits on Thursday. We have also appealed to the Central government (for giving us kits) which I hear is to get a tranche of about 6,40,000 kits from abroad. Chhatisgarh is one of those states where we don't have even a single kit today," Deo said.

The Centre is likely to send rapid testing kits to the state by Saturday, he said. However, he was not aware of the number being sent.

He also asserted that the personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical personnel, including doctors and nurses, dealing directly with COVID-19 patients was in short supply.

On the state set to adopt pool testing, Deo said, "We were one of those states asking for it. On Tuesday, the ICMR cleared this. We have talked to the laboratories at AIIMS and the medical college (Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru Memorial Medical College) in Raipur. They are in agreement that they will be able to do it," he said.

AIIMS Raipur has a capacity of 350-400 sample tests in a day and with pool testing it can go up to 2,000, while the Raipur medical college has about 100-120 samples capacity which would be able to go up to 500-600 in a day, he said, adding that "the pool testing would start within a day or two."

Pooling of samples involves testing them in batches and when pooled sample tests positive, then individual samples are assessed. Pool testing reduces the number of test kits used, and therefore, increases testing capacity.

Asked about former Congress president Rahul Gandhi's assertion on ramping up testing, Deo said it has to be the way forward because if one is not testing aggressively then it is like being in a "dark room" and working on speculation.

He said different protocols are being followed around the world and while one advocated a lockout, the other was testing and regulating movement.

"Between South Korea and India, South Korea has tested about 7,000 per million, while India, I dont think it would have touched even 200 per million, so that is the gap....It is easier not to have a lockdown if you have a more aggressive testing protocol. Then you are more aware of where to prevent people from moving around and where to allow people to be much freer to move around," Deo said.

"The testing protocol (adopted by the Centre) was very conservative. The entire testing protocol in the country was with only one facility initially, NIV (National Institute of Virology), Pune. Now we have 220 labs. So either the government was not prepared or not planning," he alleged.

Deo said that selective testing created a "big gap" between the asymptomatic population and those tested, and that was one of the reasons for the spread of the virus.

On Chhattisgarh having fewer number of cases and zero death, the minister said the key was that the state started preparations early and then luck also played its part.

"We did start early, that is true. We started on January 27 by putting in the rapid task force headed by the district collectors so that the inter-department coordination would be there as just the health department would not have been able to ensure compliance (of protocols) beyond a point," he said.

"We are fortunate to have had only 33 cases, so I would give a lot to chance, a lot to luck, maybe our people have been alert. We have had a large population that has been under quarantine, Wednesdays figures were 94,795 in home quarantine and 242 in government quarantine facilities," he said.

Malls, cinema halls, and other business institutions were also asked to regulate activities or close down early in the state, he said.

"Between January 27 to March 24, we had tried to put an administrative system in place which had identified COVID dedicated facilities and training of manpower.We started screening people coming in at the airport from January 28," he said.

"It was very difficult at the bus stand and railway stations so we went for hoardings, billboards and jingles (for COVID-19 precautions). The idea was to educate the people because from day one it was absolutely clear that there was no cure, no medicine, that we could provide to the people," he said.

The government had to try and contain the virus' spread, he added.

According to the state government, there were 33 cases of coronavirus, out of which 23 people have been discharged or cured and there have been zero fatalities due to the pandemic in the state.

The death toll in the country due to COVID-19 has risen to 437 and the number of total cases to 13,387 on Friday, according to the Union health ministry.

The minister also said there was no early standardisation of the PPE kits for COVID-19 and the Indian Council of Medical Research ( ICMR) published its standard for such kits only on March 24.

"We had placed our orders on March 5 for PPEs to government subsidiary HLL for 7,000 kits and subsequently for another 7,000 kits on March 16. Out of those 14,000 kits we ordered, the firm could supply us only 3,000," Deo said.

These items are in short supply and it is not clear to manufacturers in the country as to what standard of PPE kits they have to supply for COVID-19, the senior minister in the Chhattisgarh government said.

Asserting that the pandemic should serve as a wake up call for governments across the globe and they should commit at least 3 percent of the GDP to the health sector, he said there must be a sustained investment in the public health sector, he said.

Deo also said the state government has asked the Centre for an automated DNA/RNA machine for sample procurement, noting that currently it is being done on a manual basis. If they provide us with this machine then the capacity doubles, the minister added. PTI ASK PYK PYK
In a humiliating incident for the government of the United Kingdom, a group known as 'Led By Donkeys' on April 17 projected a desperate message by NHS staff on the walls of the Houses of Parliament. The group, which had previously taken on the Conservatives with its anti-Brexit campaigns has now turned its attention to the government's response to coronavirus. The group projected footage of NHS workers pleading Prime Minister Boris Johnson to save their lives by providing more PPE kits.

Read: COVID-19: WHO Warns There Is No Evidence That Antibody Tests Can Show Immunity

The video of the incident was shared by the group from its Twitter handle where one can see footage being projected on the walls of the Houses of Parliament. The projected video featured doctors and nurses from across the country calling on the government to do more for the frontline staff. The video starts with one of the workers pleading with Boris Johnson, saying, "The NHS saved your life, now we need you to save ours." While another worker says, "This week we've seen health care assistants, nurses and doctors in the NHS losing their lives to this deadly disease. We need personal protective equipment now."

A message to the government.

Houses of Parliament - SOUND ON. pic.twitter.com/LnXRFQ49ud  Led By Donkeys (@ByDonkeys) April 17, 2020

Read: Coronavirus: Switzerland's Matterhorn Mountain Lights Up To Send Message Of Hope

According to reports, 52 medical staff members that include both doctors and nurses have lost their lives in the United Kingdom due to COVID-19 so far. Health experts say the deaths could have been avoided by providing proper PPE kits to carers. According to data by worldometer, the United Kingdom has recorded more than 1,08,600 cases of coronavirus, of which over 14,500 people have lost their lives. There are currently 93,772 active cases while 1,559 remain under critical condition.

Read: COVID-19: UK Doctors Advised To Wear Aprons Amid Shortage Of Protective Gowns

Coronavirus outbreak

The coronavirus pandemic has infected over 2.25 million people globally and has killed nearly 1,54,000 patients since it first broke out in December 2019. The virus is believed to have originated from a seafood market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the initial epicentre of the disease, where animals were reportedly being traded illegally. Currently, the United States, Italy, Spain, France and the United Kingdom are the most affected countries in the world with a recorded death toll of 14,000 and above.

Read: European Countries See About 50% Drop In Pollution Amid COVID-19 Lockdown


The coronavirus may have started spreading as early as mid-September and Wuhan may not have been where the pandemic started, British scientists believe.

A team of University of Cambridge researchers are trying to trace the source of the virus by mapping its genetic history to identify the first person who was infected.

Geneticist Dr Peter Forster and his team have also gathered data that the outbreak appears to have started at some point between September 13 and December 7.

The reserachers have been able to chart the spread of the virus, including genetic mutations, as it moved from China to Australia to Europe and the rest of the world, according to Newsweek.

They mapped the genetic history of the infection from December to March and found three distinct, but closely related, variants  A, B, and C.

A woman stands near the Han River in Wuhan, China, on Friday. British scientists say there is a possibility that the coronavirus did not originate in the city

Type A is believed to be the closest variant to that which was found in bats and is thought to be the original human virus genome.

This variant was found in both Chinese and American patients, though mutated versions of this strain was reported in Australia and the United States.

While Australian authorities are struggling to find a cure for the original virus which developed from animals, they're also battling a mutation known as strain C.

Type A is the most prevalent in Australia, however Type C has also been recorded in Sydney, according to the experts.

Dr Peter Forster of the University of Cambridge found that coronavirus had three strands - Type A, Type B, and Type C

Analysis of the strains showed type A - the original virus that jumped to humans from bats via pangolins - was not China's most common.

Instead, the pandemic's ground-zero was mainly hit by type B, which was in circulation as far back as Christmas Eve.

Type B was also the dominant strain across large parts of the United Kingdom and Europe.

According to Forster, type B was also the variant that was found in most cases of infection reported in Wuhan.

The genetic history of the coronavirus was mapped from December 24 to March 4, revealing three distinct, but closely related, variants. Scientists believe the virus may be constantly mutating to overcome differing levels of immune system resistance in different populations

Research suggests that there was a founder event for type B in Wuhan.

In biology, a founder event is when a new population is established from a small number of individuals drawn from a large ancestral population.

According to Dr Forster, up until January 17, nearly all of the coronavirus variants found in Wuhan were type B.

The researchers found that in Guangdong, a province about 500 miles from Wuhan, seven of the 11 samples found in patients were type A.

Type C was an offshoot of type B, mutating from the secondary strain and spreading to Europe and Australia via Singapore.

Scientists believe the virus - officially called SARS-CoV-2 - is constantly mutating to overcome immune system resistance in different populations.

The data gathered by Dr Forster and his team indicate that the coronavirus outbreak apparently started sometime between September 13 and December 7.

This assumes a constant mutation rate, which is admittedly unlikely to be the case, and the time estimate could therefore be wrong, Forster told Newsweek.

But it is the best assumption we can make at the moment, pending analysis of further patient samples stored in hospitals during 2019.

A team of researchers at the University of Cambridge found evidence suggesting that the coronavirus may have started spreading as early as September. A woman in Maryland (above) tends to the body of a COVID-19 victim at a morgue in Montgomery County on Friday

The academics' published work - which has been scrutinised by fellow scientists - only traced the samples of 160 patients across the world, including many of the first cases in Europe and the US.

Methods used to trace the prehistoric migration of ancient humans were adapted to track the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19.

The team have now updated their analysis to include more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases up to the end of March to provide a clearer snapshot.

The smaller snapshot, published in the journal PNAS, initially suggested that type C was the most common in Europe.

Animal viruses can mutate or combine with other viruses to create new strains capable of being passed to people.

Scientists say the new coronavirus originated in bats and then passed to humans, possibly via an intermediary animal species.

The broad scientific consensus holds SARS-CoV-2, the virus official name, originated in bats.

Scientists suspect, but have not proven, that the new coronavirus passed to humans from bats via pangolins, a small ant-eating mammal whose scales are highly prized in traditional Chinese medicine.

Some of the earliest infections were found in people who had exposure to Wuhans seafood market, where bats, snakes, civets and other wildlife were sold.

China temporarily shut down all such markets in January, warning that eating wild animals posed a threat to public health and safety.

The first known coronavirus case was reported on November 17, when a 55-year-old from Hubei province near Wuhan was diagnosed with COVID-19.

Experts, however, still do not know for certain where and how the virus made the leap from animals to humans.

China pushes back on Trump administration coronavirus theory that pathogen originated in Wuhan lab

China is pushing back against President Donald Trump and some of his officials, whove flirted in recent days with an outlier theory that the coronavirus was set loose by a Chinese lab that let it escape.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman on Friday accused the US administration of attempting to shift the focus from its own missteps in dealing with the pandemic by talking up a theory that it was started by a pathogen from a laboratory in Wuhan, the city where the global outbreak began.

But that spokesman, Zhao Lijian, has demonstrated that China, too, is not above sowing confusion in the face of the pandemic.

He tweeted in March the falsehood that the virus might have come from the US Army.

A scientific consensus is still evolving, but the leading theory is that infection among humans began at an animal market in Wuhan, probably from an animal that got the virus from a bat.

Without the weight of evidence, Trump and some administration officials are trying to blame China for sickness and death from COVID-19 in the United States.

American officials have raised the possibility that the coronavirus originated inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan (above)

'More and more, were hearing the story,' Trump says. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo adds, 'The mere fact that we dont know the answers  that China hasnt shared the answers  I think is very, very telling.'

On Friday, Pompeo said the US is pressing China to let outside experts into the lab 'so that we can determine precisely where this virus began.'

Asked on Fox Business Network about whether China might have manipulated the virus for sinister purposes, he said, 'It is completely appropriate that the world ask the right questions,' then diverted to another subject.

Trump officials have largely been steering clear of baseless conspiracy theories in circulation that the virus was intentionally set loose by China, even as some give weight to the unsubstantiated idea the virus mistakenly spread from a negligent lab in Wuhan.

Experts overwhelmingly say analysis of the new coronaviruss genome rules out the possibility that it was engineered by humans, as some commentators have suggested.

Nor is it likely that the virus emerged from a negligent laboratory in Wuhan, they say.

'I would put it on a list of 1,000 different scenarios,' said Nathan Grubaugh of Yale University, who studies the epidemiology of microbial disease.

Even so, Pompeo and others are pointing fingers at an institute that is run by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and has done groundbreaking research tracing the likely origins of the SARS virus, finding new bat viruses and discovering how they could jump to people.

'We know that there is the Wuhan Institute of Virology just a handful of miles away from where the wet market was,' Pompeo said.

The institute has an address 8 miles, or 13 kilometers, from the market.

US officials say the American Embassy in Beijing flagged concerns about potential safety issues at the lab in Wuhan in 2018, but stressed theres no evidence the virus originated there nearly two years later.

The episode shows that both world powers  the country where the virus originally spread and the country with the most sickness and deaths from it  are willing to use shaky theories and propaganda to divert attention from problems in their pandemic response.

At a briefing Friday, Zhao asserted that suspicions about the lab were generated by the US 'simply to confuse the public, divert attention and shirk responsibility.'

President Trump (above) has turned to blaming China and halting US contributions to the World Health Organization, accusing it of parroting misinformation from Beijing

He added: 'We have said many times that tracing of the viruss origin is a serious scientific issue and requires scientific and professional assessment.'

Yet on March 12, he tweeted: 'It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!'

Lea Gabrielle, head of the State Departments Global Engagement Center, said in late March that China was heavily pushing the fabrication that the virus came from the US, especially to its online audiences in Africa.

China dropped the claim late that month because people werent buying it.

China and the US both wasted crucial time responding to the outbreak.

More than 3,000 people had been infected before Chinas government told the public what it had concluded six days earlier  that a pandemic was probably coming.

Beijing muffled early warnings, such that the Chinese were assured the risk of sustained human-to-human transmission was low even as infected people entered hospitals across the country and the first case outside China was found, in Thailand.

The United States, also late to take the threat seriously, has lagged a number of other countries in the thick of the pandemic when it comes to its response.

Trump failed to live up to his early promises to have ample testing, a key factor in containing disease.

The US still struggles to supply hospitals, front-line workers and patients with necessities in a climate of confusion spilling into chaos.

More than 670,000 people in the US have been sickened with COVID-19, not counting large numbers whose illnesses are not being registered, and more than 33,000 have died, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Against that backdrop, the pressure for scapegoats is strong.

After weeks of elaborate praise of Chinese President Xi Jinpings performance in the pandemic, Trump has turned to blaming China and halting US contributions to the World Health Organization, accusing it of parroting misinformation from Beijing.

In the US, claims that the virus was created in or released from a Chinese lab emerged just weeks after the outbreak began and quickly spread from fringe internet sites to the wider public.

The reality is more mundane, said Dr. Gregory Poland, head of vaccine research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

'This virus is a typical bat coronavirus that has developed the capacity to infect other mammals, and bats are mammals, too,' he said.

'Whats becoming evident is that the natural origin of this fits with the transmission dynamics and biology of it all.'
Joe Biden has committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. He's vowed to nominate an African-American woman to the Supreme Court. And now, he's toying with the idea of creating new Cabinet posts and possibly even naming potential agency secretaries before the election.

The presumptive Democratic nominee is sketching out an increasingly detailed portrait of the kinds of people he would surround himself with if he became president. At a moment when the coronavirus pandemic has shaken the country's faith in government and frequently rendered Biden's candidacy a lonely pursuit, his campaign is emphasizing what would happen after the election - were he to win - more so than what he will do in the nearly seven months of campaigning before the November vote.

He is also making his pitch as much about his allies as about him, presenting himself as the conductor of an orchestra whose individual players might appeal to the disparate elements of a party Biden is seeking to unify.

His moves reflect a campaign trying to project know-how and preparedness, qualities it hopes will contrast in the minds of many voters with President Donald Trump, whom Biden is casting as chaotic and woefully unreliable in moments of crisis.

Voters "need reassurance delivered in specific information," said Henry Munoz, a former Democratic National Committee finance chairman and an informal Biden adviser. "The best form of leadership is a person who is willing to surround themselves with diverse, strong voices."

The strategy is also driven by the practical problem of mounting a campaign in the era of the coronavirus. When the former vice president hits the trail these days, it means beaming into people's living rooms from his makeshift basement TV studio, piping into their headphones with his new podcast and schmoozing with donors on Zoom, all from a safe social distance that has isolated him from the country he wants to lead.

Some Democrats worry about Biden being eclipsed by Trump, whose White House pandemic briefings are carried live and whose hourly battles with political rivals have been splashed across newspaper front pages.

Biden's slow rollout of a growing army of high-wattage surrogates offers the potential, at least, of breaking through the din.

"It's difficult because he's not a public official now, and he's in this period of time when he's a candidate when we're in the middle of a worldwide pandemic," said Sen. Robert Casey Jr., D-Pa., a close Biden ally who said the "physical limitations" of campaigning from home also present a challenge.

Biden, speaking at a virtual fundraiser, said Thursday that he has started constructing a presidential transition team, a process he said has been underway for several weeks.

Discussions are in progress about the prospect of elevating some White House offices to Cabinet-level positions, Biden said. Among those under consideration: the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the global health security pandemic office and a separate climate change operation that "goes beyond the EPA," he said.

Biden said he "would consider announcing some Cabinet members before the election," a move that would be highly unusual, but he clarified that he hasn't "made that commitment" yet. Still, he signaled that he has a good idea of who would fill the positions.

"If the Lord Almighty said: 'Joe, I tell you what. You have to decide in three hours what your Cabinet is or you're going to be bounced out of the race,' I could write down who could be in the Cabinet," he said. "There are at least two or three people qualified for every one of those positions."

In contrast with the vision of firm leadership that the former vice president is seeking to put forward, Trump and his allies are casting Biden as shaky and unprepared, and calling attention to his verbal stumbles. "No more late night television Sleepy Joe!" the Trump campaign tweeted this week, with a clip of Biden appearing to look down at his notes during a long-winded comment on CNN.

Many Democrats recognize that Biden's status as a 77-year-old white man at the head of a diverse party has made the question of whom he will pick for his administration more significant, and his running mate choice more consequential. Some say they want to see evidence that Biden would put together a government that reflects the country.

Biden has been offering hints about who would serve in his government for months. At the final debate of the primary race in mid-March, he said he would choose a woman as his running mate, setting off a spirited discussion in the party over whom he ought to select.

The declaration focused media attention on several women seen as potential picks, including Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada; Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer; and former Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, among others.

Even that discussion, however, has received little public attention. Some Democrats from competitive swing areas have said Biden needs to find a fresh way to stand out against Trump in the weeks ahead.

"The president is on TV every day. He's coming to us into our TV screens every day from his news conference," Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said in an interview last week. "So it's going to be important for the [former] vice president to be visible and to use this time in key states like Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, to really rethink creatively what a campaign looks like in an era of social distancing."

Trump had a head start in his outreach, although his pitches have been aimed more at reminding supporters of their affection than at seeking out new acolytes. Every time the president tweets - such as on Friday, when he used misleading information to call President Barack Obama and Biden "a disaster" in their 2009 response to the H1N1 influenza - his message goes to more than 77 million Twitter followers. Biden has just under 5 million followers.

Over the past several days, Biden has made this most of his circumstances. He won the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Monday, joining his former rival in a live-streamed discussion that conveyed a warmer relationship between the two men than Sanders ever had with Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The next day, Obama bestowed his support on Biden, and the day after that Warren endorsed him. The campaign rounded out the week with endorsements from leading Muslim and Jewish organizations, highlighting the diversity in his coalition.

The new alliances are expected to pay off in multiple ways: On May 1, a network of influential Obama alumni is planning to participate in a virtual fundraiser for Biden, according to a person with knowledge of the event. Ticket prices will range from $250 to $2,800.

But the credibility transfer from his endorsers to Biden has limits. That is why the candidate, seen in some quarters of the party as unappealing to younger voters and facing challenges with Latino voters, also has been willing to make pronouncements that have gone beyond what past nominees have guaranteed.

"I'm looking forward to making sure there is a black woman on the Supreme Court," Biden said at a February debate, drawing loud applause.

The creation of his Cabinet - and more broadly his view of himself as a transitional figure who can help build the next generation of Democrats - has been on Biden's mind for a while. During an April 3 virtual fundraiser, he said he was committed to selecting diverse personnel.

"Men, women, gay, straight, center, across the board. Black, white, Asian. It really matters that you look like the country, because everyone brings a slightly different perspective," said Biden.

Presidents-elect typically tap experienced government hands to help them evolve from candidate to officeholder. Cabinet nominations - such as secretary of state and attorney general - are normally announced beginning in the two-month period between the election and the inauguration.

Biden would not say who is heading his transition team, but he vowed that those who will take part will be "first rate." He also argued that there is no shortage of qualified people who could serve.

"I have had literally several hundred serious, serious players who have held positions in every department in the federal government who have said, including some Republicans, who have said: 'If you win, I want to come back. I'm ready to serve,' " he said.

The words sought to offer a measure of clarity at a time when there is little certainty about the future of the country's economy, its health and its mind-set. By Biden's own estimation, the election itself is not even set in stone.

Biden said at the Thursday fundraiser that the recent Wisconsin primary led him to question how efficiently states can hold elections during the coronavirus crisis, particularly as Trump and other Republicans have fought a transition to mail-in ballots. When asked whether he believes the public can trust that the November election will be held as expected, Biden replied, Right now they cant trust that.
18.04.2020 LISTEN

I thank God for your lives and also tap you on the back for being on the frontlines making sure Social distancing is adhered to in vehicles, market places, etc.

Company, you know what, civilians may see you and try to run or devise other means to answer your probing questions as to why they can't stay home, but the coronavirus isn't scared of that uniform!

The uniform only gives you an identity but it doesn't work as a PPE; so please 'perform magic' to stay alive for us and the family.

Few days ago, I was at KATH and a High Fever patient came out threatening Doctors, we could've helped hold him down, but I told my colleagues not without surgical gloves!

Some Doctors got themselves gloves before coming to take him in. We are all at risk.

Company, don't touch ID cards with your bare hands, don't take vehicular documents without gloves, stop talking to drivers and passengers without a nose mask!!

Now, when you're detailed to control crowd, senior; maintain some distance for you aren't a cyborg that is immune to a virus.

Listening to some international news, I hear Jihadists are asking their people who have tested positive to cough on officers! Yes, that's how scary the thing is getting.

Please, don't forget to practice social distancing in the operational vehicles.

Gentlemen, we always sacrifice but these are not normal times to loose guard.

Ghana needs you... Your Service needs you... Your family loves you.

Your colleague,

2CO Emmanuel Agyemfra Boateng

Manhyia Local Prison

Kumas,Ghana.
Slate is making its coronavirus coverage free for all readers. Subscribe to support our journalism. Start your free trial.

Beaches around Jacksonville reopened Friday afternoon, and Floridians were quick to get back to the sand even as the state reached a record number of coronavirus cases. The hashtag #FloridaMorons started trending on Twitter Saturday amid photos of crowded beaches in the Jacksonville area. Although Gov. Ron DeSantis gave the green light to reopen some of the beaches and parks that had closed during the coronavirus crisis, it is up to local governments to make the final decision.

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Duval County decided to open its beaches Friday evening, saying people would be allowed to go between 6 to 11 a.m. and from 5 to 8 p.m. with restrictions, including a prohibition on sunbathing and any type of group activity. People were supposed to keep distance from one another, but it appears that the stir-crazy crowds werent following the social distancing rules, reports the Miami Herald.

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I live in Florida & am not one of the #FloridaMorons that are flocking to the beaches.. I have family that are nurses and have told me this is a real dangerous virus and to practice safe social distancing still. In the same day we set record new cases we open beaches? pic.twitter.com/i4mb88Bjfu  Anthony Rubino (@palmersacdcbag) April 18, 2020

While many tweeted photos of the packed beaches, others were quick to see the glass half full and insisted people were keeping appropriate distance and following the rules. One of those was Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, who retweeted an aerial photo that showed a pretty empty beach. Other residents who went to the beach agreed with that assessment. People were in constant movement. I saw everybody walking and moving and minding their six, seven, 10 feet away from each other. It was certainly not chaos by any means. It was exactly what you would have wanted to see on your beach if you decided to open the beaches today, one resident who went to St. Augustine Beach on Saturday told the Associated Press. There were no beach chairs.

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Thank you Jacksonville. I appreciate your social distancing and responsible behavior as we opened our beaches for walking, swimming, running etc. No groups congregating. 5 pm to 8pm opening tonight. This is the 7pm shot from Councilman Diamond from the beach. Well done Jax https://t.co/VPVrhG40zC  Lenny Curry (@lennycurry) April 18, 2020

Some Floridians were extremely eager to get back to the beach. In St. Johns County, for example, people were parked waiting for the beach to reopen at 6 a.m. Officials said the beaches there would be open from 6 a.m. until noon only for physical activity. Hundreds were on the beach by 7 a.m., according to local reports. And just because beaches were closed doesnt mean that some people didnt go anyway. COVID-19 is not here, bro, a surfer told News4Jax as he left the beach Friday night. Weve been out here the whole time, just having fun, man.

The restrictions on Florida beaches were being lifted as the state saw its highest number of new COVID-19 cases since the outbreak began. But the number of new cases declined again Saturday. Across the state, there are a total of 25,492 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, and 748 have died from the virus.
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Linkedin (Kyodo News) Tokyo, Japan  Sat, April 18, 2020 11:30 634 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2ae581 2 World Shinzo-Abe,WHO,funding,COVID-19 Free

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Friday that the World Health Organization, which faces criticism over its response to the coronavirus pandemic, is in need of reform but stressed that Japan has no plan to stop funding the UN agency.

"There are views that it is politically not neutral," Abe told a press conference, in an apparent reference to criticism including from US President Donald Trump that the WHO has taken stances favorable to China, where the new coronavirus was first reported late last year.

While noting that the WHO has problems and challenges, however, the prime minister said, "I am not considering slashing Japan's funding (to the agency) at all."

His stance is a stark contrast with Trump, who said earlier this week that the United States will halt its funding to the WHO due to its perceived failures and mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic.

Following the US move, WHO Director General Tedros Ghebreyesus on Wednesday expressed regret over Trump's decision and stressed the importance of international cooperation in fighting against the global health crisis.
Alcohol is considered a hindrance to the fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has told an industry group that was lobbying for the lifting of restrictions that prohibit the sale or transporting of liquor during the lockdown.

Ramaphosa was responding to a request from the Gauteng Liquor Forum for its members to sell alcohol during the declared national state of disaster, which resulted in a 21-day lockdown and has been renewed on Friday for two weeks.

"The restriction on the sale of liquor will remain," the presidency said in a statement. "The President has carefully considered the representations made by the Gauteng Liquor Forum."



"As such, alcohol is not considered an essential good or item. It is, in fact, considered a hindrance to the fight against the coronavirus," it said.

The president has also considered representations from other stakeholders, who had pointed to the causal relationship between alcohol intoxication and abuse, and risky behaviour.

"There are proven links between the sale and consumption of alcohol, and violent crime, motor vehicle accidents and other medical emergencies at a time when all private and public resources should be preparing to receive and treat vast number of COVID-19 patients," it said.

The presidency said the position of the forum, representing members from the province that is South Africa's economic hub, was not shared by all industry stakeholders; and that a number of other organisations in the liquor industry had rejected the call for the restrictions to be lifted.

Responding to claims by the forum that small business in the liquor trade, such as taverns in townships, might suffer financial loss during this period, the presidency reminded it of special funds and institutions that had been set up to provide capped grant assistance to small, micro and medium enterprises to ensure sustainability during this period, as well as to support employees of these enterprises who were without an income.

It is common cause that the containment of the coronavirus has resulted in financial strain for many businesses across all sectors, and not just those in the liquor industry. The government stands ready to assist them within the available means to alleviate this hardship, the statement said.

The liquor prohibitions have led to widespread break-ins and thefts from liquor stores, including by police personnel in some instances, colluding with owners.

In one case, a police vehicle was intercepted escorting three vehicles laden with liquor which were owned by a tavern entrepreneur. They as well as the drivers of the vehicles were arrested and charged.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Yuri Gripas/REUTERS

Its alarming enough that tens of thousands of reporters, editors, researchers, and photographers, among others, are losing their jobs as more and more news outlets are being forced to shut down amid the economic carnage of the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected and even killed a growing number of journalists.

All of which is hardly cause for the news medias alleged glee and delight at the nationwide spread of COVID-19the offensive claim of failed Republican presidential candidate-turned Donald Trump devotee Marco Rubio.

But a just-released report by the Committee to Protect Journaliststitled The Trump Administration and the Mediaprovides even more bad news for a profession under fire.

Im very concerned about the future of American public support for fact-based journalism, the reports author, former Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., told The Daily Beast. Im really worried that whats going on really is an existential threat to press freedom in the United States.

President Donald Trumps relentless denigration of journalistscalling them scum, lowlifes, corrupt, dishonest, fake news, and other choice epithetshas been largely effective, Downie said.

He is doing this, as he has said [to CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl], in order to convince the public that they should not believe anything thats written about him that he doesnt like, said Downie, whose report cites a recent Pew Research Center study showing that Trumps attacks have had the most success in eroding the credibility of the American press among his many millions of supporters.

Hes convincing a large part of the American population not to believe the press at a time when the news media is so important as a conveyor of information about what is going on in the pandemic and the response to the pandemic, Downie said. It is very dangerous to American democracy if a large part of the population never believes what the press is doing, and particularly doesnt believe the press when they are trying to hold the government accountable.

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Downie, a professor at Arizona State Universitys Walter Cronkite School of Journalism (and this writers former boss at the Post), added: The corollary to that is many of those people who do not believe the fact-seeking press do believe right-wing media that are not telling the truth.

He said the presidents penchant for fabricating alternative facts (as his senior adviser Kellyanne Conway infamously defended then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer) or simply uttering outright liessurpassing the 18,000 mark this week, according to the Posts running counthas become a hallmark of an administration that has little regard for facts and truth.

You can find falsehoods in every administration, but it is so much more prolific in this administration, said Downie, who as a young journalist participated in the Posts Watergate coverage during Richard Nixons presidency. And its not just the president. Its everybody who speaks for the president in the White House. The new press secretary [Kaleigh McEnany] has only been lying in her career so far. And so many lies come out of the rest of the administration as well. Its much more pervasive than weve ever seen before.

The CPJ reportfor which Downie received research help from Stephanie Sugars, a reporter for the U.S. Press Freedom Trackerdocuments a host of disturbing developments that originated during the 2016 presidential campaign and accelerated after Trump took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2017.

The Trump administration has stepped up prosecutions of news sources, interfered in the business of media owners, harassed journalists crossing U.S. borders, and empowered foreign leaders to restrict their own media, Downie writes. But Trumps most effective ploy has been to destroy the credibility of the press, dangerously undermining truth and consensus even as the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to kill tens of thousands of Americans.

The CPJ report continues: In response to Trumps steady stream of verbal attacks, members of the press were regularly booed at Trump rallies, and reporters named in his tweets have been repeatedly harassed online. There also have been credible threats to news organizations, with CNN frequently targeted.

The presidents press secretaries, other White House aides and administration officials, along with Trumps allies in Congress also repeatedly attacked the press, often parroting the presidents language. Along with Trumps thousands of documented false statements and his promotion of discredited conspiracy theories, the administrations attacks on the credibility of the news media have dangerously undermined truth and consensus in a deeply divided country.

In addition, the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency has questioned journalists at border posts, searched their electronic devices, and monitored their movements in a secret database.

The report adds: Trump himself has called for boycotts of news organizations and changes in libel law to punish the press. His re-election campaign sued The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN for libel for opinions expressed by their columnists and contributors. He tried unsuccessfully to take away White House press credentials from journalists and news organizations whose questions and stories he did not like. He encouraged federal government interference in the businesses of the owners of CNN, the traditional broadcast networks, and The Washington Post.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has escalated an alarming trend of prosecuting confidential sources under the 103-year-old Espionage Act, a trend which began under George W. Bush and accelerated under Barack Obama.

Trump and his attorneys generalJeff Sessions and William Barrhave refused to rule out prosecuting reporters themselves, the report states.

Despite his claims of transparency, President Obama was no friend of the press, as Downie documented in an October 2013 report for CPJ. Trying to plug leaks, the Obama administration scoured the phone records of Fox News national-security correspondent James Rosen and cited him as a possible criminal co-conspirator; Obamas attorney general, Eric Holder, came close to jailing New York Times investigative reporter James Risen in an effort to force him to reveal confidential sources.

Yet unlike the Trump administrationwhich basically stonewalled Downie, ignoring his interview requests (with the notable exception of a Pentagon spokesperson and former White House Communications Director Mike Dubke)top officials of the Obama White House clearly respected the role of the news media, spending many hours engaging with Downie in an attempt to influence his 2013 conclusions.

Everybody was cooperative then actually. It didnt mean they were nice, Downie recalled. Jay Carney [the White House press secretary] spent a lot of time with me. He argued with me a lot and raised his voice, etc., Downie added with a laugh. But it was a great conversation, and I was able to put his views in the report.

While an exceedingly grim picture emerges from the current CPJ report, Downie did find a few bright spots:

The quality of American journalism continues to improve. We now have some of the best news organizations that the world has known, Downie quotes ProPublica founder and former Wall Street Journal Editor Paul Steiger.

Because of an unprecedented proliferation of leaks from Trump administration insidersmany of them disgruntled and eager to drop a dime on their colleagues and bossesreporters have been able to ferret out compelling details of the internal workings (or, more likely, the dysfunction) of the Trump White House.

Ajit Pai, Trumps appointee as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has displayed a refreshing streak of independence in the face of the presidents saber-rattling to challenge the licenses of broadcast outlets that displease him. I believe in the First Amendment, the report quotes Pai. The FCC, under my leadership, will stand for the First Amendment.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Cathay Pacific will lay off almost 300 employees in the United States and close its cabin crew bases there, in its biggest cutback of employees during the coronavirus pandemic.

Hong Kongs flag carrier will also furlough 129 pilots in Australia and 72 in Britain with similar plans under consideration in the US and Canada for cockpit crew.

In a memo seen by the Post, the airline told staff on Friday it had to make tough decisions amid the worsening economic impact, and employing US-based flight attendants was no longer viable.

Cathay has virtually grounded all passenger services, operating 3 per cent of its schedule in April and May, with just two flights a week to Los Angeles instead of the about 120 it would usually fly weekly to the US.

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic which has virtually halted global travel, Cathay Pacific has made the difficult decision to close its US cabin crew bases, an airline spokeswoman said.

The move affects 286 staff working across bases in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and follows the closure of its Vancouver base in March, affecting 147 jobs, and Toronto the previous year when another 120 people lost their jobs.

The airlines Australian Airbus pilots would be stood down from May 1 until June 30 and, similarly with London-based Boeing pilots, the company said it would seek to put aircrew on job protection schemes involving the respective government paying a portion of a workers salary per month.

In Hong Kong, the government rolled out an HK$80 billion employment support scheme on April 8 paying up to HK$9,000 per month towards an employees salary for six months on the proviso companies could not undertake redundancies. Cathay has not said whether it would tap the scheme for help.

Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents Cathay crew in the US, said: We are devastated. These flight attendants are cherished members of our union.

We will be working to achieve severance and continued health care for as long as possible. And we will work to support them in every way we can.

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In total, Cathay Pacific employs about 13,000 flight attendants. Outside Hong Kong, it has bases employing cabin crew in London, Bangkok and Singapore.

A flight attendant based in LA, who did not wish to be named, said: Unfortunately its tragic, an end of an era. Deep down weve always had a feeling this announcement would come.

Jeanette Mao, general manager for the in-flight service delivery department, said in the memo: We have considered a number of different options however, as the crisis continues to deepen after the most thorough of considerations this very difficult decision has been made.

A timeline for recovery still remains impossible to predict, with the current challenging business environment, Im afraid that it is no longer viable to sustain the US bases.

The Post has been told the last day at work for US-based flight attendants will be on June 20.

In recent years, the airline has not replaced cabin crew who left their roles, leading to a decline in headcount.

Cathays US cabin crew in 2017 voted to unionise for better pay and conditions, following a dispute during which the airline stopped pension contributions, leaving staff facing the loss of government retirement payouts and post-retirement health insurance protection.

Last year it ratified its first three-year contract with the company, which at the time included immediate pay increases, back pay, schedule flexibility and retirement security for flight attendants.

On Thursday, the airline reported a 90 per cent fall in passenger volumes in March, to 311,000 passengers. The company said it expected to carry less than 1 per cent of its normal traffic this month.

More from South China Morning Post:

This article Cathay Pacific to lay off nearly 300 cabin crew in US, calling bases in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles no longer viable first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2020.
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC), on Friday night, honored Brian Dennehy, a versatile stage and screen actor, who died of natural causes in Connecticut (where he was born) on Wednesday, with a special episode of The Blacklist.

Dennehy, who was known for action movies, comedies and classics, recurred as Dominic Wilkinson, the father of infamous Russian spy Katarina Rostova (Lotte Verbeek) and the grandfather of Elizabeth Keen, played by Megan Boone, in the series starring James Spader and Boone.

The network adjusted its schedule to re-air the Rassvet (Dawn) episode, which originally aired on April 26, 2019, at 9 Pm last night.

TVline.com disclosed the re-airing, at exactly 10:29pm, yesterday in a tweet via its Twitter handle.

TVline.com tweeted:

In honor of Brian Dennehy, who passed away on Wednesday, NBC will re-air #TheBlacklists Rassvet episode  which featured Dennehy prominently  tonight at 9/8c (after a new episode of the show at 8 pm).

In honor of Brian Dennehy, who passed away on Wednesday, NBC will re-air #TheBlacklists Rassvet episode  which featured Dennehy prominently  tonight at 9/8c (after a new episode of the show at 8 pm). pic.twitter.com/bT2OTjDA6D  TVLine.com (@TVLine) April 17, 2020
The healthcare sector has drawn the largest share of Oregon complaints about working conditions during the coronavirus outbreak, with medical professionals concerned about their own potential exposure.

More than 2,700 Oregon workers have submitted complaints to the state expressing concerns about their working environment.

Some concerns appear minor  a complaint about cold water in the bathroom sink, for example  but others make serious allegations about inadequate protective gear or inherently unsafe conditions that put people in close proximity for long periods of time.

An analysis by The Oregonian/OregonLive shows complaints are highly fragmented, with nearly every industry in the state generating some level of concern. Complaint volumes were highest in healthcare organizations, restaurants, grocery stores and construction.

Gov. Kate Brown has allowed most Oregon businesses to continue operating, provided they take steps to ensure worker and customer safety. Notable exceptions include shopping malls, barbershops, salons, bars and restaurants  though eateries may continue providing takeout and delivery service.

Health care workers around the state have expressed concern about potential exposure since the beginning of the outbreak and lamented a shortage of protective equipment to keep them safe. Statewide, 263 health care workers have tested positive for COVID-19.

The states Occupational Safety & Health division (Oregon OSHA) began surprise inspections last month and added spot checks this past week. It has at least 75 compliance officers working through the complaints and had conducted a dozen on-site inspections at the start of last week.

OSHA said it is working through the administrative process for issuing citations in at least a few instances but wont disclose who may be cited until it takes action.

Complaint volumes against individual organizations roughly parallel the states roster of largest private employers. Fred Meyer (35), Providence Health & Services (32), Kaiser Permanente (32), Wells Fargo (30), Intel (30) and Safeway (23) are among those atop the list.

Dutch Bros. Coffee, a drive-through coffee specialist, was also near the top with 33 complaints.

-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Russian Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko will take part in the G20 meeting on coronavirus that will take place on Sunday.

"Mikhail Murashko will speak at a meeting of the G20 health ministers. The event will be held on April 19 in the video conference format under the chairmanship of Saudi Arabia," the press service of the Ministry of Health informs, RIA Novosti reports.
18.04.2020 LISTEN

About 63 New Patriotic Party (NPP), polling station Chairmen of the Gushegu Constituency in the Northern region of Ghana have petitioned President Akufo-Addo over the disqualification of Mahama Osman, an aspirant in the upcoming Parliamentary primaries in the constituency.

In a statement issued and signed by the 63 polling station Chairmen and copied to the Vice President, Alhaji Mahamadu Bawumia, National Chairman of the NPP, Freddy Blaye, former Northern Regional Chairman of the NPP, Bugri Nabu, Northern Regional Chairman of the NPP as well as Gushegu Constituency Chairman of the NPP expressed their displeasure over the disqualification of Mr. Mahama which they said happened under strange circumstances.

According to the the polling station Chairmen, the strange disqualification of the popular and dedicated candidate, Osman Mahama in the Parliamentary election can lead to the party losing the Gushegu seat to another party.

"With the knowledge of your impeccable democratic credentials, we strived very hard to persuade our disenchanted members that the said disqualification would be rectified and that it did not have your tacit approval". They stated.

"Our great father of our great NPP Party, despite our unshakable believes that the said disqualification would be resolved with dispatch, our constituency is now surrounded by a thick cloud of electoral uncertainty". They added.

The statement noted that failure to quickly resolve the disqualification impasse would have serious ramifications for the party in the Gushegu constituency adding that; threats of impending protests votings are already rife in the air.

The statement concluded that; "Your excellency, It is for this reason that we wholeheartedly appeal to you, your excellency to personally intervene, albeit with fiat to have Parliamentary primary to be conducted in Gushegu constituency for a popular candidate to be selected".

---Thepressradio.com || Paul Mamattah
A day after asking the Tamil Nadu



government to expedite rapid testing for coronavirus in the state, DMK president M K Stalin on Saturday demanded that it disclose the pricing of kits purchased from China.

Stalin, the leader of opposition in the Assembly cited Chattisgarh Minister T S Singh Deo's twitter post on the price of kits his State has bought and sought a similar disclosure from the AIADMK-led government.

The Chattisgarh Minister has transparently announced the number of kits purchased, and its low price, the DMK chief said in a Facebook post.

"Similarly, the Tamil Nadu government should transparently announce the number of kits bought and its price.

I am urging disclosure as there should be tranparency in government administration," he said.

The Dravidian party leader also tagged Deo's post which said: "We are procuring 75,000 high quality rapid testing kits at a benchmark price of Rs 337 + GST from a South Korean company based in India, which has proven to be the lowest bidder.

The rate we have been able to close at is the lowest in India."



On April 17, Stalin had hit out at Chief Minister K Palaniswami for his expectation that the number of fresh coronavirus cases will slide to zero and demanded expeditious steps to procure equipment, carry out rapid testing besides measures for treatment, relief and rehabilitation.

Palaniswami had said Tamil Nadu has received 24,000 rapid test kits from China.

As a precautionary step, the government had already placed orders for 1.25 lakh kits from China and remitted payment for it also, the CM had said adding the 24,000 kits were part of this.

Noting that there was some delay in getting the consignment from China, he assured all measures to quicken the rest of the shipment from the dragon nation.

Besides, orders have been issued for procuring four lakh kits and steps were being taken, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Arrow Electronics, Inc. (NYSE:ARW) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 24% in the last month. But that is minimal compensation for the share price under-performance over the last year. In fact, the price has declined 35% in a year, falling short of the returns you could get by investing in an index fund.

View our latest analysis for Arrow Electronics

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.

Arrow Electronics fell to a loss making position during the year. Some investors no doubt dumped the stock as a result. We hope for shareholders' sake that the company becomes profitable again soon.

You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

NYSE:ARW Past and Future Earnings April 18th 2020

Dive deeper into Arrow Electronics's key metrics by checking this interactive graph of Arrow Electronics's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

A Different Perspective

We regret to report that Arrow Electronics shareholders are down 35% for the year. Unfortunately, that's worse than the broader market decline of 0.8%. Having said that, it's inevitable that some stocks will be oversold in a falling market. The key is to keep your eyes on the fundamental developments. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 2.2% over the last half decade. We realise that Baron Rothschild has said investors should "buy when there is blood on the streets", but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality business. 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. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Arrow Electronics (of which 1 makes us a bit uncomfortable!) you should know about.

Story continues

We will like Arrow Electronics better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US 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.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 18

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Citizens of Iraq purchased 1,781 real estate properties in Turkey in the first quarter of 2020, which is 75 more compared to the same period of last year, Trend reports referring to the Turkish General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadaster.

According to the directorate, in March 2020, citizens of Iraq purchased 426 real estate properties in Turkey, which is 122 less compared to March 2019.

In March 2020, 108,670 real estate properties were sold in Turkey, which is 3.4 percent more compared to the same period of 2019.

Some 3,036 real estate properties were sold to foreigners in Turkey in the reporting month, which is 3 percent less compared to the same month of 2019.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Centre has tightened its foreign direct investment (FDI) policy to restrict Chinese firms from acquiring stake in Indian companies.

In a press note issued on April 17, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has said the revision of the FDI policy is meant to curb "opportunistic takeovers/acquisitions of Indian companies due to the current COVID-19 pandemic". The fact that the revision is specifically meant to have a control on FDI from entities or citizens of any country that shares land borders with India makes China its prime target.

Of late there has been several instances where Chinese investments in India were opposed by Indian companies and groups like RSS-affiliate Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM). People's Bank of China's investment in HDFC, the promoter entity of HDFC Bank, to raise its stake to one per cent early this month had resulted in lot of hue and cry from various quarters. The fear is partly due to the concerns arising from other countries where Chinese investments in the time of COVID-19 are seen as an attempt to take over national assets at a time of crisis.

The tweaked portion of the FDI policy states that a non-resident entity "of a country, which shares land border with India or where the beneficial owner of an investment into India is situated in or is a citizen of any such country, can invest only" with prior government permission. India has opened up most of the sectors for FDI investments through automatic route, but has kept certain sectors like defence, space and atomic energy restricted or prohibited. Even before the revision, investments from Bangladesh and Pakistan, which share borders with India, had to undergo government scrutiny. By expanding this restriction to all countries sharing borders with India, the government has now ruled out investments from China, direct or surrogate, without scrutiny.

The revised position also mentions that government's nod is required for every type of FDI - green field or brown field - as it says that for any transfer of ownership to these entities, subsequent change in beneficial ownership will require government approval.

Associations representing MSMEs have been urging government to stop Chinese investments into domestic firms. There is an increasing interest among Chinese firms to invest in Indian MSMEs as the changing global supply chain dynamics - which began to gather strength in face of retaliatory tariffs during the US-China trade war - necessitate alternate supply sources to serve global locations. Indian MSMEs in engineering sector have been seen as an attractive target for such firms.

A legal expert said that the government decision will have a lot of downside too. According to him, the restrictions on green field investments will impact India's Make in India plans as the country has been wooing Chinese firms like mobile manufacturers to set shop in the country and reduce imports from China.

"There are no exemptions allowed either. For example, what happens to AIDs and other funds that has elements of Chinese investments? Beneficial ownership test is a difficult one. Approvals are going to take significant amounts of time", the expert said.

India has been increasingly becoming an attractive destination for Chinese investors. China investments in India spans across sectors with significant ones in mobile and related technologies and products, automobiles, and financial technologies. Indian start up ecosystem is also seeing lot of Chinese investments.

The decision will be a dampener for all such initiatives, but will allow India to be one among several other countries that are resisting Chinese investments and acquisitions in times of novel coronavirus pandemic.

Also read: Coronavirus India Live Updates: 991 new cases, 43 death in 24 hours, says Health Ministry; total count- 14,378

Also read: Coronavirus lockdown: Amazon, Flipkart gear up to increase delivery but face logistical challenges

Also read: Coronavirus: 'Additional measures, economic stimulus to be provided soon,' says Sitharaman

INDIA CORONAVIRUS TRACKER: BusinessToday.In brings you a daily tracker as coronavirus cases continue to spread. Here is the state-wise data on total cases, fatalities and recoveries in one comprehensive graphic.
Seeking to avoid the bitter feelings that marred the 2016 Democratic convention, Joe Bidens campaign is angling to allow Bernie Sanders to keep some of the delegates he would otherwise forfeit by dropping out of the presidential race.

Under a strict application of party rules, Sanders should lose about a third of the delegates hes won in primaries and caucuses as the process moves ahead and states select the actual people who will attend the

Quiet talks between the two campaigns center on allowing Sanders to keep some of his delegates, essentially a goodwill gesture from a presumptive nominee seeking to court Sanders' progressive supporters and unite the party. It is not yet settled how many.

We feel strongly that it is in the best interest of the party to ensure that the Sanders campaign receives statewide delegates to reflect the work that they have done to contribute to the movement that will beat Donald Trump this fall, said a Biden official, who wasnt authorized to discuss private negotiations publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. We are in discussion with them now on how to best accomplish that.

Sanders campaign declined to comment on the talks. Nothing to add from us, said Sanders spokesman Mike Casca.

In some ways, the delegate count is a moot point. While he has yet to formally win the 1,991 delegates needed to claim the Democratic nomination on the first ballot at the party convention, Biden is the Democrats presumptive nominee. All of his rivals 

But with the nomination essentially decided, who has how many delegates takes on a new meaning. In 2016, rowdy Sanders supporters booed some speakers and any mention of nominee Hillary Clinton at the partys Philadelphia convention. The disruptions were so embarrassing to the party that Sanders pleaded with his supporters not to stage protests on the floor.

By claiming the delegates that ought to belong to him under party rules, Biden could cut down on the number of Sanders backers 

For his part, Sanders wants as many delegates as possible to help shape the partys platform and get Biden and the Democratic Party to embrace his democratic socialist agenda.

It is not unusual for rival presidential campaigns to negotiate over delegates once the nominating contest is over. In 2008, Clinton and Barack Obama fought over how to divvy up delegates from disputed primaries in Michigan and Florida. Clinton won both states. However, the states had violated party rules by holding their primaries too early in the calendar and were therefore to be stripped of all their delegates.

Clintons supporters were furious over the outcome, which saw Obama getting delegates from both states even though he wasnt even on the ballot in Michigan. But at the national convention that summer, it was Clinton who made the motion during the roll call vote to nominate Obama by acclimation.

Democratic candidates win convention delegates based on their share of the vote in the partys primaries and caucuses. To date, Biden leads Sanders 1,293 to 937.

Nearly two-thirds of delegates are won based on results in individual congressional districts and they stay with the candidates all the way to the convention.

Its the other third of delegates  won based on statewide results  that are at issue. To keep these delegates, candidates must still be running for president when the people who will serve as convention delegates are selected, usually at state party conventions, according to the partys delegate selection rules.

Those rules say Biden should get 346 delegates won by Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Mike Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. Sanders delegate count would fall to 628.

Most states have yet to select the people who will attend the convention as delegates, and

Sanders won the Colorado primary on March 3 and took the most delegates from the state. But after he quit the race, the state party announced that Biden  the only candidate left  will end up with the most delegates from Colorado.

Biden will take 34 delegates from Colorado to the Milwaukee convention, including all those awarded statewide. Sanders, meanwhile, will get 16, with Bloomberg getting nine and Warren eight.
First Coast Home Pros Makes Face Shields for Health Care Workers During this unprecedented time in history, we want to help people working with COVID-19 patients said Josh Kennedy, president of First Coast Home Pros.

First Coast Home Pros (https://www.firstcoasthomepros.com/), Jacksonvilles premier full-service specialized home services company, has started making face shields to help health care workers on the front lines. First Coast Home Pros is donating all the masks to UF Health Jacksonville.

During this unprecedented time in history, we want to help people working with COVID-19 patients said Josh Kennedy, president of First Coast Home Pros. We started making cotton masks for our customers, employees and others in need earlier in the crisis and shifted to face shields as soon as we heard health care workers were low on supply.

First Coast Home Pros started in 2008 as a window cleaning company. Since then, First Coast Home Pros has added a variety of services including housekeeping, carpet cleaning, pressure washing, handyman services, painting and other home care services.

This generous donation is another example of how our community is coming together in this time of uncertainty, said Leon L. Haley Jr., M.D., MHSA, CEO of UF Health Jacksonville and dean of the UF College of Medicine  Jacksonville. Finding as many resources as possible in this fight against COVID-19 is challenging, so we are incredibly grateful to Josh Kennedy and his team.

First Coast Home Pros expects to make at least 650 face shields to donate to UF Health. They hope to deliver the face shields the week of April 13. First Coast Home Pros already has made and donated more than 1,000 washable fabric masks to the community and continues to put its employees to work making even more. The company is making both the face shields and masks at their Arlington headquarters.

We want to do all we can to help keep our community stay as safe as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Kennedy. We are still offering many of our regular home care services and taking additional measures to ensure the safety of our employees and customers.

About First Coast Home Pros

First Coast Home Pros is Northeast Floridas only full-service specialized home services company offering maid services, window cleaning, pressure washing, roof and gutter cleaning, air duct and dryer vent cleaning as well as carpet, rug, tile and upholstery cleaning in addition to handyman services, screed enclosure repair and more. First Coast Home Pros employs highly trained professionals and takes pride in offering unsurpassed service. More information about First Coast Home Pros is available at https://www.firstcoasthomepros.com/.

About UF Health

UF Health Jacksonville (https://ufhealthjax.org/) is a private, not-for-profit hospital affiliated with the University of Florida Health campuses in Jacksonville and Gainesville. In Jacksonville, UF Health includes University of Florida faculty, residents and fellows within the UF College of Medicine  Jacksonville, who team up with outstanding caregivers and other employees to provide state-of-the-art services at two hospitals and more than 60 primary care and specialty practices throughout northeast Florida and southeast Georgia. This academic health centers mission is to heal, to comfort, to educate and to discover in an environment where exemplary medical care is complemented by outstanding service.
A worker walks by rows of beds in a convention hall at the Suburban Collection Showplace, which is being converted into a field hospital to treat CCP virus patients in Novi, Michigan on April 11, 2020. (Elaine Cromie/Getty Images)

Army Engineers Building Fewer Hospitals Than Anticipated

Army engineers say they are building fewer hospitals than anticipated, with some governors and mayors scaling back plans as the virus curve flattens and allows extra time to assess the situation.

The virus gets a vote, said Lt. Gen. Todd T. Semonite, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, saying that demand had been lower than anticipated, with the virus curve changing and varying from state to state.

We thought this would be a much steeper spike, and straight down. So we didnt think we would have as much time, Semonite told reporters at a Pentagon briefing, adding, We are bringing some of the numbers down.

The Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is coordinating the conversion of stadiums, convention centers, and dormitories into makeshift hospitals to accommodate CCP virus cases.

USACE is currently building 28 alternative care facilities, and there are just seven more contracts pending, as of April 17. There are another 41 other facilities that have been designed by the army engineers and are being built directly by local authorities.

The total bed capacity for the armys builds is 14,808. The state builds have a total capacity of 17,061 beds.

The conversion of the Javits Center in Manhattan into a 1,900-bed facility is almost complete, and in Chicago, the conversion of Americas largest convention center, McCormick Place, is 94 percent of the way toward its 3,000-bed capacity.

An improvised hospital room is seen during a daily coronavirus press conference by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which is being turned into a hospital to help fight coronavirus cases, in New York City on March 27, 2020. (aMunoz Alvarez/Getty Images)

Bed demand has been lower than anticipated in some places, with the makeshift hospitals being underutilized and some builds being canceled.

The engineers, working with local authorities, use models to predict both the spread of the virus and when different areas will be hit by peak bed demand.

A week prior, Semonite had said he thought there was little time left for new builds.

Semonite said today that when they started the project a month ago, the expectation was that the peak would be April 24.

But the virus hotspots have always appeared as anticipated, and overall the curve is flatter than expected, allowing more time.

Semonite said some mayors are now signing longer leases as an insurance policy against a possible spike in infections later in the year.

We want to be very agile, said Semonite, noting that the real decision-maker here is that mayor or governor.

Semonite said they had fielded over 1,000 requests for assessments of potential sites. If suitable, the engineers produce a design that was then discussed with local authorities.

The facilities include built-in pharmacies, and in some cases X-ray facilities, depending on the decisions of the local officials.

Semonite said that in addition to having to plumb in water and waste for nurses stations, they also have had to figure out how to plumb in oxygen lines.

Oxygen is a very important capability, he said. Right by the bed, just the same as would be in a hospital room, theres a place for the nurse to be able to plug in and to be able to get oxygen.

In one site in Denver, he said that they had laid six miles of pipe for the oxygen.
President Trump said on Friday he's heading to West Point next month to give its commencement address and admitted he's ready to get back on the campaign trail after being shut in the White House because of the coronavirus.

He told reporters at his daily press briefing he's going to West Point for its graduation ceremony, which takes place on May 23 according to the military academy's website.

He added the cadets will be social distancing during the ceremony.

President Trump said Friday that he planned to go to West Point's graduation on May 23 to give a commencement address - and he wanted to soon resume his 2020 re-election rallies

Trump said his rallies are 'great for the country.' Here he attends a March 2 Keep America Great rally in Charlotte, North Carolina

The president said graduation at West Point would look a little different this year due to social distancing practices thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. Graduates stood in close confines and tossed their hats at the school's 2019 graduation

West Point graduates in 2019 were given an address by Vice President Mike Pence. This year President Trump said he'll attend

'I understand, they'll have distancing. They'll have some big distances so it'll be very different than it ever looked,' he said.

'Do I like the look? No, I don't,' he admitted.

The state of New York, where West Point is located, is under lockdown until May 15, which means, at best, it would be in phase one of the administration's reopening plan on the date of the academy's graduation.

That phase still bans gatherings of more than 10 people.

Vice President Mike Pence heads to Colorado on Saturday to speak to the Air Force Academy graduates.

President Trump said that ceremony will also have social distancing  which recommends people be at least six feet apart.

'They're going to be very far apart. That'll be very interesting. I think I'm gonna watch that one,' he told Pence.

The president also admitted he's looking forward to getting back on the campaign trail  although he didn't give a date as to when  and complained he's been locked up in the White House for 'months.'

'I've been in the White House for months. I don't know what it is but it's been months,' Trump said.

'Other than I did leave to, to say goodbye to a beautiful ship,' he said referring to his trip to Norfolk, Virginia, on March 28 to watch the USNS Comfort leave for New York.

The president returned from a weekend at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, March 9, and has been in Washington D.C. ever since dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

He said he is ready to campaign for re-election and argued rallies are 'great' for the country.

'We can do rallies. It's great for the country,' he said.

His last campaign rally was Monday, March 2, in Charlotte, N.C.

'If you look at our success rate we've had tremendous success - we win where we have rallies,' he said.

'So I certainly hope we can have rallies. We'll find out,' he noted.

Trump's campaign rallies tend to draw thousands of people.

'I hope we can resume rallies because I think they're an important part of politics actually,' he said.

His campaign also is preparing for rallies to return as the administration pushes states to reopen as their coronavirus cases go down. Governors will decide when to begin the reopening process.

The Trump administration on Thursday revealed its three phases of recommendations. It isn't until stage three that 'large public venues can operate under limited social distancing rules.'

During a digital campaign event earlier this week, campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told a supporter to 'never fear' and that the president was 'certain; rallies would return.

'We will get back to those rallies. Never fear, the president is certain that we're going to be back out there speaking directly to the American people,' Murtaugh said, according to ABC News.
The last line of the mans obituary seemed utterly out of place.

Anthony Jim Kelly was only 58 when he died  Much too young," Mary Sears thought to herself.

But there was more to Kellys story, something that resonated with the The Star-Ledger obituary writer beyond his age as she crafted the coronavirus victims death notice.

He was Uncle Jimmy," one of his family members told her. Kelly would open his beach-community home to all. And the airline mechanic of four decades took joy in driving loved ones in his boat to the Old Barney" lighthouse in Barnegat.

Everybodys special, but some of the stories really stay with me, like the guy who loved taking everybody out on his boat," Sears said. You can picture them living their lives. Once we get back to normal, Im looking forward to raising a glass down at the Shore for him.

Normally, hundreds of people from Kellys native Fair Lawn and his adopted Manahawkin would need the details of his funeral services so they could pay their final respects.

But that last line in his obituary  much like the thousands of others Sears has written since the coronavirus pandemic began wreaking havoc on New Jersey  noted that a memorial service will be planned at a later date. All those friends and loved ones will have to wait to mourn a man who brought people together because funeral homes and cemeteries are overwhelmed with the deceased.

Its just one of a legion of cruel twists that obituary writers notice in this time of plague.

The coronavirus pandemic has been a challenging time for Sears and the other nine writers who work at Dorf Feature Service, a company that provides the obituaries for The Star-Ledger, NJ.com and Advance publications around the state.

Sears has been writing obits for nine years and has never seen anything like" the volume of death notices that arrive at the Mountainside office each day, she said.

People may die of the flu or from other issues," Sears said. But its never been in numbers like this."

All one needs to do is pick up The Star-Ledger on a daily basis to understand theres not a hint of exaggeration in her statement.

The April 12 edition included 109 obituaries spread across nine pages of the Sunday newspaper. The Star-Ledger Sunday edition from a year earlier had just 17 obits spread over a page and a half.

In February, we started seeing glimmers of it," Sears said. March is when it really started to hit, and it really hasnt stopped."

But the people featured in those obits are more than just victims of a pandemic.

The little touches bring their stories to life. Who they were. What they loved. The tender memories. The intimate details. The personal reflections family members share with a complete stranger over the phone.

It happens to me a lot, where Ill see a picture a family submits, the way somebodys eyes are smiling and hear the way the family talks about him," Sears said.

Jeannie Tomaselli has been writing obits since the summer of 2001  just a few months before 9/11," she said.

Weve never experienced a volume like this before, not even after 9/11," Tomaselli said. Back then, 40 obits or so might be a lot for a day."

A total of 704 New Jerseyans died in the 9/11 attacks. As of Saturday, the statewide number of COVID-19-related deaths stands at 4,070.

As soon as we get caught up on the obits we had to start our day, 20 more flood in," Tomaselli said. Its hard to wrap my head around it when I come in and see 40 obits waiting for us. Its definitely unprecedented. It almost makes me speechless because I cant comprehend what Im seeing."

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Trying to connect

Before the pandemic, the obituary staff would receive all their information from funeral homes.

Now, its different.

Were getting more and more phone calls from families," Tomaselli said, because the funeral directors are so busy its falling on the families to get their loved ones stories out. And because of that, the obits seem to be more personal. ...

Theyre telling us stories, and theyre trying to connect to somebody."

Tomasellis typical 9-to-5 shift is a thing of the past. The phone calls have gotten longer. The obits now take more time to write, even if her deadline remains the same.

I drive home from work every day thinking, Oh my gosh, did I do every family proud? Did we hit the wrong middle initial or something that might be minor, but to them, its not minor?'" Tomaselli said. And I get choked up thinking about it because its so heartbreaking.

Weve been working some extra hours because theres no way Im going to tell somebody on the phone, Im sorry, youve just given me four and a half minutes and now I have to go help someone else.

No, they want to let families "get it all out, she said.

The stories of the dead stay with the writers who document them. For Sears, who previously wrote for decorating, family, beauty and travel magazines, theres no way to avoid it.

We like to take time with each person, with each family," she said. And you do take it home with you after the days done."

Each detail elevates an obituary, giving human dimension to a person captured merely in print.

The granddaughter of a man who died recently called from Staten Island, praising his culinary skills. But it was about more than just food. It was about family.

She talked about his calamari red sauce, Sears said. "I had to talk to her about whether to put a hyphen between the calamari or if it was just a typical red sauce. And she said, Oh, that was his special dish  calamari red sauce.

Those kind of things just really touch your heart, and you feel like you know that grandpa who made Sunday dinner.

Documenting history

Death has always been a part of life. But these days, death is everywhere, Tomaselli says.

A lot of the families are starting to say, Died of COVID-19 or 'the coronavirus. At first we werent getting that, she said. We were just wondering, How many of these people did die of the virus? I think more and more people are coming to grips with it and wanting it to be known for the greater good.

Its a sad part of history, but it makes me think theyre a part of this big historical thing that hopefully well only see once in our lifetime.

More families are looking to the future  a time when they can properly memorialize their loved one in a mass gathering, Sears has noticed.

There are no funerals, so the obit is whats giving people that peace right now," she said. Its probably five times more the number of people that wed normally write about, so its a very sensitive time for everyone. Were here to help people. Its very touching."

The job can be difficult. Obituary writers understand theyre talking to people during a difficult time.

But this time, more than ever, theres just a real feeling of solidarity among people," Sears said. Most everybody ends a call with these two words: Be well. We say it to each other, and they say it back.

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President Donald Trump on Friday announced a $19 billion relief program to help US farmers cope with the impact of the coronavirus, including $16 billion in direct payments to producers and mass purchases of meat, dairy, vegetables and other products. The US Agriculture Department is partnering with regional and local distributors to purchase $3 billion in such farm goods to be distributed to food banks, churches and aid groups as millions of Americans face unemployment with much of the economy shut down. American agriculture has been hard-hit, like most of America, with the ...
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Three more people -- one in Noida and two in Greater Noida -- tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday, taking the tally in Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Buddh Nagar district to 95, officials here said.

The district administration has ordered temporary sealing of the areas linked to the new patients, including Noida's posh sector 15A, where Gautam Buddh Nagar MP Mahesh Sharma also resides.

The administration has strictly restricted the movement of people into or out of sector 15A till May 3, except for emergency cases, the officials said.

Meanwhile, two other patients, who were undergoing treatment for the disease, were discharged after being cured, they said.

"Three new cases have been detected on Saturday. A 70-year-old woman from sector 15A in Noida and a 39-year-old man and a 35-year-old woman from Acchar village in Greater Noida have tested positive for the coronavirus," District Surveillance Officer Sunil Dohare said.

The elderly woman is a resident of Delhi and was visiting her son in Noida, Dohare said, adding she was tested at a private lab.

"Eighty-two reports have been received in the last 24 hours, of which 79 resulted in negative and three positive. Total cumulative positive cases of coronavirus in Gautam Buddh Nagar so far is 95," the surveillance officer said in a statement.

The officer said 34 patients have been cured and discharged from hospitals in the district so far, leaving 61 cases of COVID-19 active.

According to the Health Department, 2,005 samples were taken for COVID-19 test till Saturday. Currently, 1,119 people across Noida and Greater Noida are under surveillance, while 500 are in institutional quarantine, the department said.

On cluster containment activity, the officials said 4,212 teams were deployed for gathering information and raising awareness in a concerted door-to-door campaign.

These teams have visited 4,15,369 houses so far and screened 12,24,278 people. They have identified 1,045 people who had travelled abroad in recent months. All travellers have been put under surveillance, the officials added.

Meanwhile, the district administration has temporarily sealed sector 15A in Noida till May 3, in compliance with protocols in a bid to contain the spread of the virus, Deputy Collector Rajiv Rai said.

During the period, entering or exiting the sector will remain banned, except in emergency cases, for which residents can inform the Health Department's control room on 8076623612 or 6396776904 or contact the chief medical officer, he said in an order.

Similarly, Acchar village and a private firm in Greater Noida's Kasna industrial area -- where one of the two new patients worked -- have been sealed until further orders, Deputy Collector Prasun Dwivedi said.

Violation of sealing orders will invite legal action, the administration warned.

Gautam Buddh Nagar, adjoining Delhi, in western UP is among the districts worst-hit by coronavirus in the state but has a better recovery record, according to statistics.

Uttar Pradesh has so far recorded 974 positive cases, with Agra (199) and Lucknow (163) on the top two positions, followed by Gautam Buddh Nagar (95), the statistics released by the state government on Saturday showed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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NEWSALERT-PD-PM 2 Revising women's marriage age to 21 years done for "our daughters' betterment," ensure them a career: PM Modi at National Youth Festival.Revising women's marriage age to 21 years done for "our daughters' betterment," ensure them a career: PM Modi at National Youth Festival.

NEWSALERT-PD-PM Over two crore children in the 15-18 years age group vaccinated with Covid-19 doses, says PM Modi at National Youth Festival.Over two crore children in the 15-18 years age group vaccinated with Covid-19 doses, says PM Modi at National Youth Festival.

Hate speech case: SC permits petitioners to give representation to local authority against holding of future Dharam Sansad'.
EDUCATION

SUNY POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE

SUNY Polytechnic Institute has appointed Mark Montgomery as its chief diversity officer to deploy strategic and sustained approaches to further advance a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion for the institution's students, faculty and staff.

A native of the Oneida County hamlet of Bridgewater, he earned his associate degree in human services from Mohawk Valley Community College, where he received awards for academic excellence. In 2000 he earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from SUNY Poly. Montgomery continued his education at the University of New England, Biddeford, Maine, where he earned a master's degree in education with a focus in academic motivation, specifically related to inmates. He received his Ph.D. in education in February 2014, focusing on how systemic influences impact student motivation and performance.

Montgomery is scheduled to join SUNY Poly July 1, in advance of the class of 2024's orientation.

RUSSELL SAGE COLLEGE

The Sage Colleges has named Doug Gruse as senior director of marketing and communications.

Gruse joins Sage from SUNY Adirondack, where he led marketing and communications projects that received Best of SUNY awards from the State University of New York Council for University Advancement, as well as awards from the national Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. He is an award-winning journalist who has held editorial and writer roles at The Post-Star in Glens Falls; The Daily Advertiser and The Times of Acadiana, both in Lafayette, La.; and at the Philadelphia Gay News. Gruse also served as promotion manager at Louisiana State University Press in Baton Rouge, La. He holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Louisiana State University.

NONPROFITS

UNITED WAY OF THE GREATER CAPITAL REGION

Casey Madsen joined United Way of the Greater Capital Region as director of strategic communications. Madsen will oversee United Way's marketing and communications and will work to broaden awareness of programs and initiatives and increase visibility of UWGCR's support across the local community.

Jane McKenna joined United Way of the Greater Capital Region as United Way's resource development activities including fundraising strategy, workplace campaigns, affinity groups and events.

McKenna comes to UWGCR after six years in the real estate sector, and brings 20 years of experience achieving aggressive growth targets, communicating value propositions, and creating buzz and momentum.

PROFESSIONS

MOSAIC ASSOCIATES

Mosaic Associates Architects has added three new professionals to the firm, headquartered in Troy. Russell Brady joined Mosaic as an architect, Maria Thompson has been hired as an interior designer, and Malina Valentine joined the firm as an architectural designer.

Brady is working on projects for the Glens Falls City School District and the Enlarged City School District of Troy. He previously worked as a project manager at SEI Design Group in Albany for 13 years. He also served as an intern CAD draftsman at Boswell Engineering, also in Albany.

Brady is a graduate of the State University at Farmingdale and holds a bachelor's degree in architectural technology. He also earned an associate's degree in construction technology from Hudson Valley Community College.

Thompson is working on projects for the Shenendehowa Central School District and the Salem Central School District. Previously, she worked as a senior interior designer at WeWork in New York, where she served as the lead interior designer for a 35-story new building project in Seattle. She also has worked in design at Studio Tack in Brooklyn and at Tom Delavan, also in New York.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

A graduate of the Eugene Lang College at New School University in New York with a bachelor's degree in liberal arts, Thompson also has completed coursework in interior design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York,

Valentine's role at Mosaic includes working on projects for the Cairo-Durham Central School District and the Glens Falls City School District. She comes to Mosaic from a position as an Auto/CAD.Revit technician at Taconic Engineering in Chatham.

Valentine is a graduate of SUNY Delhi with a bachelor of technology degree in architectural design and build.

O'CONNELL AND ARONOWITZ

O'Connell and Aronowitz has expanded its Business Law and Commercial Litigation Department with the addition of five attorneys. Peter A. Pastore, Kevin Laurilliard, Francis J. Smith Jr., and Paul C. Pastore, will join as Partners and Leonard A. Weiss will join as Of Counsel. All five attorneys are coming from the McNamee Lochner law firm.

Peter A. Pastore's practice concentrates on bankruptcy and banking and includes the areas of commercial litigation, creditors' rights, and banking law. He represents secured lenders in Chapter 11 bankruptcies, as well as commercial landlords, financing companies, and unsecured creditors' committees. Pastore is a graduate of Albany Law School and earned his bachelor's degree at Stanford University, where he was Phi Beta Kappa.

Laurilliard practices in the areas of construction and surety law, commercial law, bankruptcy law and creditors' rights law. Laurilliard previously served as an Appellate Court attorney with the state Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department; and for several years, he was an adjunct professor at Russell Sage College. Laurilliard is a graduate of Albany Law School and earned his bachelor's degree at the state University at Albany.

Smith's practice areas include appellate practice, commercial litigation, commercial mortgage foreclosures and workouts, and commercial bankruptcy. Smith handles all types of state and federal court litigation, representing creditors and lenders. He previously served as confidential law clerk to A. Franklin Mahoney, presiding justice of Appellate Division, Third Department. Smith is a graduate of Albany Law School and earned his bachelor's degree at Siena College.

Paul C. Pastore's practice concentrates primarily on creditors' rights and focuses upon bankruptcy, contract disputes, general commercial litigation and loan workouts. Pastore also has extensive experience in municipal law, including land use issues. He is a graduate of Albany Law School and earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Notre Dame.

Judge Weiss is the former presiding justice of the Appellate Division, Third Department, having retired in 1994, and he concentrates his practice on alternative dispute resolution. Weiss acts as a mediator and arbitrator and is a judicial hearing officer for the state Supreme Court. Weiss is a graduate of Albany Law School and earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Oregon and the University of Buffalo.

Eric Anderson
Even a sustained reduction in community transmission of the coronavirus in coming weeks would not be enough to let bars and pubs reopen, with venues likely to stay shut throughout winter, experts have said.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt also played down expectations of weekend drinks at the pub resuming any time soon, saying "even when that decision is made, there may still be significant measures to maintain social distancing and to support good hygiene".

Pasan Wijesena, bartender owner operator of Jacobys Tiki Bar in Enmore and Earls Juke Joint in Newtown. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

Peter Collignon, a professor of microbiology at the Australian National University who opposes the harsher lockdown seen in New Zealand, said he expected pubs to remain closed until spring.

"Unfortunately I don't think until September this year at the earliest," he said. "Winter is coming and that is our next big risk time  for all respiratory viruses, including this one.
Philip Martin Rosoff, an emeritus professor at Duke University School of Medicine who headed the hospital ethics committee there, said that hospitals had become more corporate over the decades and that their executives consequently had the same impulses as other executives to control the narrative. However, he said, hospital officials have other reasons to be wary of doctors and nurses who take matters into their own hands, such as patient safety. He cited the refusal of some surgeons to treat HIV-positive patients at the height of the AIDS epidemic.
(Bloomberg) --

New York reported the fewest new coronavirus deaths in almost two weeks. Italy announced the least in almost a week. France had the smallest increase in five days.

Spain will extend a lockdown for two weeks after joining the U.S. and Italy with more than 20,000 deaths. U.S. cases rose 3.4%, slower than the average over the last week.

As the U.S. and Canada agreed to extend border limits to May 20, Israel planned to ease some limits.

Key Developments

Virus Tracker: Cases top 2.3 million; deaths exceed 158,000States dont share Trumps confidence in a quick reopeningWhat a return to work will look like in officesMilans virus trend threatens plan to restart ItalyOne restaurants story shows how recession spreadsA wild ride for global supply chains captured in seven charts

Subscribe to a daily update on the virus from Bloombergs Prognosis team here. Click VRUS on the terminal for news and data on the coronavirus.

California Not Close to Reopening: Governor (4:20 p.m. NY)

California reported 87 deaths, one of the highest daily counts so far, as Governor Gavin Newsom said the state may not be close to loosening measures imposed to curb the spread.

Total deaths rose to 1,072, Newsom said in his daily briefing. The number of cases climbed 5.3%, while patients in intensive care fell by a modest 0.1%, he said.

For those that think were out of the woods, those who think weve turned the page, those who think we can go back to the way things used to be, I caution you on the basis of that 87 number, Newsom said.

South Africa Has Biggest Rise in Cases (4:15 p.m. NY)

South Africa reported 251 new infections on Saturday, its biggest daily increase, bringing the total to 3,034. Thats as community screening is rolled out, increasing the number of tests. About 7,194 tests were conducted in the past 24 hours.

Health Minister Zweli Mkhize told reporters one person is testing positive for every 38 checked. Deaths climbed by two to 52.

Story continues

U.S. Cases Climb at Slower Pace (4 p.m. NY)

U.S. confirmed cases rose 3.4% from Friday, below the average daily increase of the past week, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg News. The national daily increase has been 4.9% in the past week.

New Yorks cases jumped 5.2% from the previous day, data showed. Delaware had a 12% increase in cases. Fatalities almost doubled to 37,079 from 18,769 a week ago, according to the data.

Deaths rose by more than 20% in West Virginia and Montana, and by more than 10% in New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Rhode Island, Delaware and New Mexico, according to data as of 9:30 a.m. Saturday.

Brazil Cases, Deaths Rise (3:36 p.m. NY)

Brazil reported 2,917 new cases and 211 deaths in 24 hours, according to the nations Health Ministry. Total deaths rose to 2,352 from 2,141 on Friday. Sao Paulo state, epicenter of the nations outbreak, had 13,894 cases and 991 deaths, the government said.

Spain to Extend Lockdown 2 Weeks (3:05 p.m. NY)

Spain plans to extend a nationwide lockdown through May 9. The government will submit the proposal to Congress before the current state of emergency expires April 25, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said. While the government will not relax confinement, it will seek to allow children to leave their homes under strict rules, he said.

Israel Eases Restrictions (2:30 p.m. NY)

Israel will ease the lockdown imposed on the economy as the virus outbreak showed signs of slowing. Starting Sunday, offices can double the number of workers they use to 30% of staff, and stores selling goods likes home furnishings and electronics can reopen, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address Saturday night. Malls will remain closed.

Israel has 13,265 confirmed cases and 164 people have died.

N.J. Hospital Data Improves (2:15 p.m. NY)

New Jersey reported signs the coronavirus curve is flattening, with hospital discharges outpacing admissions and a slower rate of growth in cases and deaths. Governor Phil Murphy said new cases increased by less than 10% for a 12th straight day -- 3,026 for a total of 81,420. The 231 additional fatalities follow four straight days of more than 300 deaths. Deaths have passed 4,000.

Turkey Extends Quarantine Steps (2:10 p.m. NY)

Turkey extended quarantine measures in major cities for another 15 days as the spread of the coronavirus shows signs of slowing. The rules announced earlier this month apply to Istanbul, which has the bulk of reported cases, and 30 other cities.

New cases increased by 4.8% on Saturday, compared with a 12% increase 10 days earlier, according to Bloomberg calculations based on Health Ministry data. Another 121 deaths were reported Saturday, raising the total to 1,890.

French Death Rate Slows (1:50 p.m. NY)

Deaths in France rose by 642 to 19,323 fatalities, the Health Ministry said in an emailed statement, the smallest increase in five days. The number of infections rose by 5,715 to 173,956. Only the U.S., Spain and Italy have more fatalities.

The number of people hospitalized fell for a fourth day to 30,639, the biggest decline yet. Patients in ICU beds, an indicator of the outbreaks intensity and its impact on the hospital system, fell for a 10th day to 5,833, the lowest since March 31, according to health ministry data.

South Africa to Speed Reforms (1:40 p.m. NY)

South Africa will gradually ease regulations in various sectors to restart activity after the five-week national lockdown ends, and will work on fast-tracking some structural reforms to help the recovery.

A group led by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday agreed on the need for a risk-adjusted approach to the resumption of economic activity. The nation is on day 23 of the shutdown. While the restrictions halted all activity except essential services, the government this week said mines can resume work at 50% capacity.

The groups recommendations will be considered by the Cabinet on April 20, the presidency said.

Read the full story.

Italy Has Fewest Deaths Since April 12 (12:20 p.m. NY)

Italy reported the fewest deaths in six days as new cases remained stable. The country registered 482 fatalities down from 525 a day earlier, the lowest since April 12. Total deaths are 23,227. There were 3,491 new cases compared with 3,493 a day earlier, with the total now 175,925. Patients in intensive care fell for a 15th day.

Pennsylvania Reports Most Daily Deaths (12:17 p.m. NY)

Pennsylvania reported 80 new deaths, the most on a single day, taking statewide fatalities to 836. A day earlier, the state had 49 deaths. The health department had 1,628 new cases, bringing the states total to 31,069.

Denmark Extends Aid Programs (12:15 p.m. NY)

Denmark extended aid programs to businesses and workers by a month, to July 8, and added new measures to increase spending by about 100 billion kroner ($15 billion), according to a statement.

The government said companies that pay dividends, buy back shares or are registered in tax havens wont be eligible for the programs, which now amount to 400 billion kroner with loans and guarantees.

N.Y. Deaths Lowest in Almost Two Weeks (11:45 a.m. NY)

New York reported 540 deaths in the past 24 hours, down from 630 the previous day, Governor Andrew Cuomo said. The states death toll is now 13,362. Its the first time the daily toll dropped below 600 in 12 days. The state reached a peak of 799 deaths on April 9.

Cuomo said new hospitalizations fell slightly, but for a third straight day the daily admissions remained higher than 1,900.

Canada-U.S. Extend Border Restrictions (11:30 a.m. NY)

Canada and the U.S. will extend the closure of their shared border to non-essential travel for another 30 days, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.

Both countries agreed to close the border to most travelers in March. Trudeau said the extension has the same terms as before and allows essential goods and services to move between the countries.

U.K. Deaths Over 800 for Third Day (9:06 a.m. NY)

The U.K. reported more than 800 deaths for the third day in a row. Fatalities rose by 888 to 15,464. The number of cases reached more than 114,000, the health ministry said on Saturday.

Netherlands Hospital Admissions Slow (8:07 a.m. NY)

The Netherlands reported 129 new hospital admissions, up just 1%, marking a record low since the daily statistic has been reported since late March. Total confirmed cases grew 4% to 31,589, in line with recent trends. Fatalities rose to 3,601, also in line.

General practitioners in the country will also be able to fill out short questionnaires about patients suspected of having the virus. The gathering of this information is intended to better map the spread of the virus in the country.

Portugal also reported a bigger number of new confirmed coronavirus cases on Saturday, while the number of hospitalized patients fell. There were 663 new cases in a day, taking the total to 19,685, the government said on Saturday.

Amazon Uses Thermal Cameras for Fever Scans: Reuters (7:47 a.m. NY)

Amazon.com is using thermal cameras at its warehouses, Reuters reported, citing staff. The aim is to speed up temperature checks to find workers who might be infected with the coronavirus. The move comes after employees in more than 50 Amazon warehouses were reported to be infected with the virus, and unions called on Amazon to close buildings down.

Spanish Deaths Pass 20,000 (7:55 a.m. NY)

New coronavirus cases in Spain rose by 4,499 in the last 24 hours, pushing the total to 191,726 as the government reviews the way it reports its figures.

Authorities reported a total of 20,043 deaths from the illness since the outbreak started, with 565 people dying in the last 24 hours. Thats roughly in line with this weeks data, although the ministry hasnt clarified discrepancies in the number of deaths reported yesterday. Spain is now the third country after Italy and the U.S. to suffer more than 20,000 deaths.

13 Nations Flag WHOs Critical Role (7 a.m. NY)

Germany, Canada, France, the U.K., South Korea and eight other nations issued a joint statement noting the critical role of the World Health Organization in tackling the virus outbreak.

The so-called Ministerial Coordination Group on COVID-19 said a strong and coordinated global health response is needed. The U.S. is not a member of the group. President Donald Trump has criticized the WHO and ordered a halt to contributions to the organization.

The 13 nations also agreed that emergency measures to tackle the virus must be targeted, proportionate, transparent and temporary. They must not create unnecessary barriers to trade or disruption to global supply chains and must comply with WTO rules.

Iran Deaths Pass 5,000 (5:37 p.m. HK)

Fatalities in Iran rose to 5,031 as the countrys daily death toll from the virus fell to the lowest in over a month with 73 deaths in the past 24 hours. Total known cases reached 80,868 with 1,374 new infections since Friday.

Iran is seeking $50 million from the World Bank to help it fight the pandemic, marking the first time since 2005 that the country has applied for such a loan from the Washington-based institution, a deputy health minister said on state TV. Iran has also requested a loan of 130 million euros ($141 million) from the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank, of which it is the largest stakeholder after Saudi Arabia and Libya.

Nigerian Chief of Staff Dies (4:56 p.m. HK)

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buharis chief of staff died on Friday after contracting the coronavirus in Germany. Abba Kyari, whose age wasnt disclosed, was regarded as one of the most powerful politicians in the West African country and a strong supporter of state intervention in the economy.

Russia Reports Biggest Case Increase (4:35 p.m. HK)

Russia recorded its largest daily increase in coronavirus infections, with new cases rising by almost 5,000 in a single day.

New infections jumped by 4,785 to 36,793, the official Russian coronavirus information center reported on its website. Forty people died in the past day, including 21 in Moscow, bringing the number of fatalities to 313. The pace of new cases increased 17.6% after slowing to less than 15% in the previous two days.

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I am 74 years old and retired. I am on a Commonwealth super pension of $1450 a fortnight and a Telstra super pension of $1750 twice a month. I own my own home, which is valued at $1 million. I also have an investment property which I acquired in 2007 at a cost of $400,000. I am thinking of selling both properties and moving to Sydney to buy a property there. I know when I sell my home I dont have to pay Capital Gains Tax (CGT). The question I have is, if I sell my investment property for, say, $1 million, what are my options to reduce the CGT on the investment? Is my following assumption for the calculation of CGT correct? $1 million (selling price)  original cost $400,000 = $600,000 profit. Half of $600,000 is subject to CGT, which is $300,000. If my tax rate is 49 per cent, then my CGT is 0.49 x 300,000 = $147,000. Can you advise if there is any other option, for example, if I sell and put the money straight into another home in Sydney, can I reduce the CGT? S.L.

It is a question that is becoming increasingly common as people who bought a property before the boom are now selling at inflated prices, having forgotten that high capital gains means high CGT.

The best way to reduce a capital gain is to ensure that you have packed every possible capital expense accumulated over the period of ownership into your cost base. Credit:Fairfax Media

Unless you are carrying forward a capital loss from a previous investment, the best way to reduce a capital gain is to ensure that you have packed every possible capital expense accumulated over the period of ownership into your cost base, and have the receipts to prove them.

Then, if you are not over 65 and retired, make sure your tax deductible concessional contributions are as close to $25,000 as possible. In your case, being over 65, you cannot make a super contribution without meeting the work test of 40 hours in 30 days (more difficult while staying at home these days), so that latter option is not available.
After Pilibhit and Maharajganj, Hathras, Prayagraj and Pratapgarh districts of Uttar Pradesh have been declared coronavirus-free. The three got the corona-free tag on Friday. In all, the state now has five Covid-19-free districts.

Principal secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Amit Mohan Prasad said the second report of four Covid-19 positive patients in Hathras district was negative. Hathras district magistrate Praveen Kumar Laxkar said all the four patients were discharged from hospital and shifted to a quarantine centre. There is no positive case in the district, he said.

As for Prayagraj and Pratapgarh, the two districts got the corona-free tag after seven patients, including one of Prayagraj and six of Pratapgarh tested negative for the third time on Friday.

One of the two patients of Kaushambi also tested negative in the third sample on Friday, according to district administration officials.
It was supposed to make everyone's life easier and better.

Already available in parts of Irish cities, 5G can turn your phone into an ultra high-speed broadband device. But it is currently being cited as an excuse to attack telecoms masts by fringe activists touting conspiracy theories that range from Covid-19 to cancer.

This newspaper has covered the damage in depth over the last week: hundreds of masts around Europe vandalised and at least two attacks here, the most serious being a suspected arson attempt to an Eir mast in Letterkenny on Easter Sunday.

Yesterday, Facebook reacted to Irish Independent reports of Irish anti-5G comments threatening to "burn down" masts and advising on which kinds of weapons can "sort out" telecoms maintenance crews.

The social media giant took down such comments from the Stop 5G Letterkenny group page and has promised to do more. Some of the remarks taken down by Facebook were made days before the attack on the Eir mast in Letterkenny.

Why is this sabotage happening?

The answer lies in a mixture of extreme conspiracy theories and decades-old suspicions of health threats that are based on largely debunked theories.

At the extreme end, some Irish anti-5G commenters have suggested the current Covid-19 pandemic lockdown may have been "pre-planned" to allow for an obstacle-free 5G rollout.

A more widely held view among activists is that radiation from phones, and phone towers, can be bad for human health. This latter fear is a powerful political agent in some Irish county councils. Five councils - Clare, Wexford, Wicklow, Sligo and Leitrim - have passed resolutions calling for a halt to 5G rollouts on health grounds.

Yet scientists and regulators have repeatedly said 5G differs little from current 3G or 4G mobile signals when it comes to radiation levels. Their voices are added to those of Irish and European safety authorities, who say 5G radio waves are well within what is considered safe to human health.

From a medical perspective, the issue appears to be settled: 3G, 4G and 5G signals are not dangerous to human health.

Any claimed evidence to the contrary tends to be sourced from the outer fringes of the scientific community or based on isolated incidents of political officials pausing a 5G rollout for further testing.

In researching this issue over the last year, I've attended regional anti-5G protest meetings. When I put it to organisers that 5G is deemed to be within safety limits, organisers often reply that regulatory and scientific bodies are either lazy, corrupt or haven't tested thoroughly enough.

Alternatively, they claim even if the safety and regulatory bodies are bona fide, the technology is still too recent for any definitive long-term studies.

This point is also rejected by authorities, who cite successive studies over 20 years. Echoes of this last argument can be heard on prime-time television.

Earlier this week, Eamonn Holmes, the Northern Irish anchorman of the ITV 'This Morning' programme, was forced to apologise after suggesting mainstream media was wrongly "slapping down" 5G healthscare stories because they "suited a state narrative".

On unproven fears linking 5G to health problems, Mr Holmes claimed the mainstream media "does not know that they're not true". Although he later acknowledged "there is no connection" between Covid-19 and 5G, he left the door ajar on the issue of whether 5G might still be bad for your health, adding "many people are rightly concerned and are looking for answers and that's simply what I was trying to do".

Other than talk of radiation and safety, how is 5G different to 4G or 3G? Why is it called 5G?

'G' stands for 'generation'. '5G' simply means 'fifth generation' in mobile phone technology evolution.

On your smartphone's 'signal bar' symbol, you'll typically see a number, followed by the letter 'G'.

If it's 3, that means you only have a basic signal - good enough for calls and basic online activities like a Google search or a WhatsApp message, but not enough for a YouTube video.

If you see '4G', your phone should be able to run a Netflix film on its screen, as well as other online activities.

The idea with 5G is that your phone or laptop will be able to run much faster online applications, like ultra high-definition video or games. Or it will be able to connect other things, like a car or medical equipment.

Only two operators in Ireland offer a 5G service: Eir and Vodafone. And because they are only six months into the rollout process, it remains confined to parts of cities.

Three, Ireland's second-largest mobile operator, is yet to launch.

Most new flagship phones have 5G capability, although Apple won't launch its first 5G iPhone until this September.

In time, the operators intend to roll it out as widely as economically possible. Rural areas protesting against it may find themselves having the worst mobile coverage in years to come.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- As New Yorkers continue to seek safe ways to get around the city amid the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, one e-hail company is expanding its partnerships with local nonprofit organizations to provide free rides and deliveries.

On Friday, Lyft announced that it has partnered with six more New York-based nonprofit organizations to offer free rides to essential workers, seniors, patients with medical appointments and others in need, bringing the total number of local partnerships to 13.

As part of the companys LyftUp initiative -- a comprehensive effort to provide free rides to support job access, grocery access, voting access, bike share access and disaster response -- free ride codes are given to the companys nonprofit partners, who distribute them directly to residents in need of rides.

"We are diligently working to expand our partnerships to increase multiple avenues of access to ensure reliable transportation for those who need it most,'' said Jen Hensley, Lyfts senior director of public policy, New York. "By activating LyftUp, were able to work with more diverse local partners to fill mobility needs and increase food access for our community.

Lyft has partnered with the following new nonprofit organizations:

Good+ Foundation, to ensure the delivery of essential items like diapers, wipes, thermometers and cleaning supplies to families in need

Island Harvest NY, to provide rides to Long Islanders to access feeding programs in Nassau and Suffolk counties

NY Cares, to provide rides to volunteers delivering food to seniors and food-insecure New Yorkers

NY Common Pantry, to provide rides to employees traveling from their homes to safely deliver food to vulnerable New York City residents

Brooklyn Laboratory Charter Schools (LAB), to ensure the delivery of essential school supplies and technology resources to students

Asian American Federation, to provide access to and reliable rides to Asian American seniors, essential workers and vulnerable community members

Earlier this month, Lyft announced the first group of New York City-based nonprofits to partner with the company, including:

Invisible Hands, to provide rides for volunteers delivering food to seniors

National Supermarket Association (NSA) and Older Adults Technology Services (OATS), to provide rides for seniors to get groceries during designated senior/elderly hours"

Queens Community House (QCH), to provide rides for employees working in its senior center and food pantry

Ronald McDonald House New York, to provide rides to patients to get to necessary medical appointments

Women in Need (WIN), to provide rides for women in shelters to grocery stores and their places of employment

World Central Kitchen (WCK), to provide rides for staff and volunteers who run satellite food distribution points around the city

Were grateful to all those who drive with Lyft for helping provide rides for those in need,'' Hensley said. Lyft is committed to supporting drivers by creating new opportunities to help them earn additional income through the Lyft app, while continuously working to protect driver safety.
TAMPA, Fla.

April 17, 2020

Jose Tirado, Jr.

Florida

the United States

/PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- AdventHealth hospitals in the West Florida Division are now providing rapid testing using the Cepheid Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 device for patients who are in our care and meet the evaluation criteria for coronavirus (COVID-19) testing. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA gave emergency authorization for the device and its specialized cartridges to be used for rapid laboratory testing. The testing device, which is standard in all AdventHealth West Florida Division hospitals, can provide rapid detection of COVID-19 in approximately 45 minutes, improving the turnaround time on test results.The new rapid testing will launch in two phases. Phase one will launch immediately at AdventHealth Tampa, AdventHealth Ocala and AdventHealth Sebring hospitals. Phase two will launch with all remaining AdventHealth West Florida Division hospital locations by the end of April."AdventHealth is aggressively pursuing and implementing the best testing options available in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic," said, Division Director of Laboratory Services, AdventHealth West Florida Division. "This new rapid test is an important tool, and advantage, for our physicians and providers who need expedited lab results in order to provide immediate treatment to patients and improve clinical outcomes."By implementing the new rapid testing, AdventHealth is helping to alleviate the burden on private labs that are inundated with COVID-19 test samples for processing. Last month, AdventHealth Tampa began in-house testing for patients who meet evaluation criteria for COVID-19 in. Both the rapid testing and standard in-house testing can only be facilitated with a physician's order for patients who meet the evaluation criteria as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Frequently Asked QuestionsQ: Where do I go if I want to be tested?If you are sick and exhibiting symptoms (fever, cough, shortness of breath), you should seek treatment with your primary care physician. Existing AdventHealth Medical Group patients can call DOC-2DAY to set up in-person or video visits with a physician. The public can also call the free AdventHealth Coronavirus Information Hotline at 1-877-VIRUS-HQ ( Call1-877-847-8747) which is open 24/7.*Please note: Currently, the public is not allowed to order their own COVID-19 test at an AdventHealth hospital, physician practice or Centra Care urgent care. The test must be ordered by a physician.Q: I have questions about COVID-19 or AdventHealth's testing capabilities, how can I learn more?To ask general questions about COVID-19, get screened, find testing locations, or speak to a nurse, you can call the free AdventHealth Coronavirus Information Hotline at 1-877-VIRUS-HQ ( Call1-877-847-8747) which is open 24/7. Learn more, take an online screening assessment or connect to a doctor video visit online at CoronavirusResourceHub.com.Q: Can I get a coronavirus test at AdventHealth if I am not sick?Not at this time. Currently all tests are designated for those who are exhibiting symptoms and meet the testing criteria.Q: I have a fever and cough. Will I be automatically tested for COVID-19?No. Fever and cough are common symptoms for other illnesses, including the flu. Physicians will evaluate your symptoms, travel history, potential for exposure and other factors and determine if a COVID-19 test is appropriate for you. They will also test you for other viruses, including the flu.Q: How can I be tested?A physician must order a COVID-19 test based on testing criteria guidelines.Q: Does AdventHealth share test results with the Florida Department of Health?Yes. AdventHealth shares COVID-19 test results with the Florida Department of Health as required by regulation.About AdventHealth West Florida Division The West Florida Division of AdventHealth has some of the nation's brightest medical minds making lifesaving breakthroughs with surgical pioneers, scientists and researchers using leading edge technology and innovation to deliver our brand of whole-person care. Our network of care includes AdventHealth Carrollwood, AdventHealth Connerton, AdventHealth Dade City, AdventHealth Lake Placid, AdventHealth North Pinellas, AdventHealth Ocala, AdventHealth Sebring, AdventHealth Tampa, AdventHealth Wauchula, AdventHealth Wesley Chapel and AdventHealth Zephyrhills, as well as five freestanding offsite Emergency Rooms including AdventHealth Brandon ER, AdventHealth Central Pasco ER, AdventHealth Palm Harbor ER, AdventHealth TimberRidge ER, and AdventHealth Westchase ER. We are more than hospitals, as we have a robust system of care including long-term acute care, over 200 primary care and specialty employed physicians, Express Care at Walgreens clinics, Centra Care urgent care centers, wound care, physical therapy, home care, mobile mammography and more. AdventHealth is a faith-based not-for-profit health care system with a mission of Extending the Healing Ministry of Christ. AdventHealth has hundreds of care sites and nearly 50 hospitals across. For more information about AdventHealth, visit AdventHealth.com, or Facebook.com/AdventHealth.SOURCE AdventHealth
Young Australians flouting coronavirus restrictions have been warned they aren't invincible to the virus after cases soared among those younger than 40 years old.

On Friday, a seven-week old baby tested positive to the virus in New South Wales and a 42-year-old man from the Philippines died in a Perth Hospital.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard revealed that 42 per cent of all cases within the state are now under the age of 40, with those aged 20 to 29 making up the majority.

Young Australians have been warned they aren't invincible to coronavirus as cases soar under those aged under 40 (pictured: girl in Sydney's eastern suburbs)

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard revealed that 42 per cent of all cases within the state are now under 40, with those aged 20 to 29 making up the majority (pictured: crowds at Bondi Beach)

'For those of you that think you can't get COVID-19 because you're younger, well the answer is you absolutely can,' he said.

'You've got to get the message guys, that this is actually not the time for partying.

'Social distancing is what is keeping us safe.'

Australians have been urged to stay inside and only leave the home for essential reasons such as exercise, food and medical appointments.

But a string of young people have been caught ignoring the rules.

Earlier this month a couple were fined $2,000 for violating coronavirus laws after police caught them sitting in their car on a quiet suburban street.

NSW Police are seen asking people to move that were sitting on a hill in Bondi on Easter

Another group of young people are seen being told to go elsewhere in Sydney's eastern suburbs on Saturday

The 32-year-old woman and the 27-year-old man were parked on a wide and grassy street in the NSW Hunter Region.

Another group of young people were hit with more than $6,000 in fines after they were caught having a noisy party at a hotel.

Staff at the Rhythm on Beach apart-hotel in Maroochydore, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, reported the gathering to police on Tuesday night.

The five revellers were visited by police who issued each of them with a $1,334.50 fine for breaching social distancing rules.

Australia's death toll from the killer disease rose to 69 on Saturday.

A resident at Anglicare's Newmarch House in Caddens, western Sydney, died 'peacefully' on Saturday morning.

Mr Hazzard on Saturday confirmed an 83-year-old Queensland man and a 58-year-old woman died.

He said he just 10 new cases of the virus were diagnosed in the state in the 24 hours to 8pm Friday, despite an increase in testing.

After 26 cases were recorded the day prior, it takes the total number of cases in the state to 2,936.
Arts leaders have warned that Australia's performing arts industry is at risk of hemorrhaging due to the "steady demise" of theatre for young people.

Several high-profile theatre groups that train aspiring actors and create work for young audiences have been stripped of long-term funding in the latest round of Australia Council grants.

The companies include St Martins Youth Arts Centre in Melbourne, which counts Rachel Griffiths among its alumni, as well as Sydney's Australian Theatre for Young People which helped shape the careers of Nicole Kidman, Rebel Wilson and Rose Byrne.

Australian actor Rachel Griffiths started out performing to young, regional audiences. Credit:Jason South

Polyglot Theatre in Melbourne and Perth's Barking Gecko, both of which cater to young audiences, have also lost four-year funding.
As unemployment rises and many around the world face the first rent payments after losing their jobs, governments are wrestling with when and how to ease restrictions designed to control the coronavirus pandemic.

Mandatory lockdowns to stop the spread of the new virus, which has so far infected more than 2.2 million people and for which there is no vaccine, have brought widespread hardship.

In a joint statement Saturday, a group of 13 countries including Canada, Brazil, Italy and Germany called for global cooperation to lessen the economic impact of the pandemic.

It is vital that we work together to save lives and livelihoods, they said.

The group, which also includes Britain, France Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, South Korea, Singapore and Turkey, said it was committed to work with all countries to coordinate on public health, travel, trade, economic and financial measures in order to minimize disruptions and recover stronger. The countries emphasized the need to maintain air, land and marine transportation links to ensure the continued flow of goods including medical equipment and aid, and the return home of travelers.

In the United States, the debate has taken on partisan tones ahead of this fall's presidential elections. Republican President Donald Trump urged supporters to liberate three states led by Democratic governors, tweeting the kind of rhetoric some have used to demand an end to stay-at-home orders that have thrown millions out of work.

Most governments remain cautious, even as the economic toll rises. Public health experts warn that easing shutdowns must be accompanied by wider testing and tracing of infected people to keep the virus from coming back.

Singapore, which has been held up as a model for other nations after taking strong measures to clamp down on the virus, reported a new daily record of 942 infections Saturday that saw its total surge to 5,992.

The number of cases in the city-state has more than doubled just this week alone amid an explosion of cases among foreign workers staying in crowded dormitories, that now make up 60% of Singapore's infections.

Japan also reported a fresh surge of 556 new cases Saturday, pushing its total to over 10,000. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed concern Friday that people were not observing social distancing and announced a 100,000-yen ($930) cash handout to each resident as an incentive to stay home.

In Africa, the pandemic is only just getting underway.

The continent now has more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fifty-two of the continent's 54 countries have reported the virus, with the total number of cases more than 19,800 as of Saturday morning.

Top leaders of China's ruling Communist Party called for deficit spending and a more flexible monetary policy after the economy shrank 6.8 percent in the first three months of the year.

France's lower house of parliament approved an emergency budget overnight that takes into account the government's 110 billion euro ($120 billion) plan to save the economy from virus-related collapse.

The government has warned that France's economy, one of the world's biggest, could shrink 8% this year and see its worst recession since World War II.

South Korea's Health Minister Kim Gang-lip said Saturday that new guidelines could be issued soon that officials have said would allow people to engage in certain levels of economic and social activity.

The East Asian country was among the 13 nations to issue the joint statement on protecting global trade. The declaration also stressed the importance and critical role of the scientific community in providing guidance to governments, and suggested pooling scientific resources and efforts to tackle the pandemic.

While most of those sickened by the virus recover, the outbreak has killed at least 154,000 people worldwide, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally based on figures supplied by government health authorities around the globe.

The number all but certainly underestimates the actual toll.

Authorities said that almost everywhere, thousands have died with COVID-19 symptoms many in nursing homes without being tested for the virus, and have thus gone uncounted.

In Britain, with an official count of about 14,600 dead, the country's statistics agency said the actual number could be around 15% higher.

China on Saturday reported a nearly 40% increase in its death toll to 4,632 victims, reflecting a major upward revision made the previous day by authorities in Wuhan, the nation's hardest-hit city.

An Associated Press tally from media reports and state health departments indicates 6,912 U.S. deaths have been linked to coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes and long-term care facilities. The U.S. government has not been releasing a count.

The official death toll in the U.S. has topped 35,000, with more than 700,000 confirmed infections.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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Aligarh: It looks incredible that an alumnus of Aligarh Muslim University has developed the first indigenous coronavirus testing kit in response to World Health Organisation (WHO)s call to all countries to ramp up coronavirus testing.

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Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) alumnus from the Department of Biochemistry, Mr Nadeem Rahman, Director, NuLife Consultants and Distributors Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi has developed Indias first Antibody based testing kit which takes less than 15 minutes to yield accurate result. Its cost is 500 rupees at present and the labs charge 4500 rupees for it. The new kit will provide the general population in India with adequate access to cost-effective testing.

Mr Rahman was permitted by the government authorities during the nation-wide lockdown to reopen the NuLife Consultants and Distributors Pvt. Ltd lab, where he developed Indias first Anti-Body based Testing Kit to do finger-prick tests, which only takes nearly fifteen minutes to yield accurate results.

The testing kits launched in just a span of two weeks have been approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and soon the regular production will start, said Mr Rahman.

We are confident of churning out one lakh kits a day to bring a faster and suitable solution for large-scale screenings, he added. Thanking the Government of Uttar Pradesh and ICMR for putting the trust in his team, Mr Rahman pointed out that a set of the testing kit will cost around 500-600 Rupees and the price is likely to further go down.

The best part of this rapid and lesser time-taking kit is that it is economical to produce unlike the expensive RT-PCR testing kits, he said. Mr Rahman added that the anti-body based kit will ease the pressure on the pathology services struggling with COVID-19 detection in the Country.

We are proud that an AMU alumnus has developed the much needed affordable testing kit when we see the surge in the number of coronavirus cases despite stringent measures are being implemented in the country. It is a major cause of worry, said AMU Vice Chancellor, Professor Tariq Mansoor, while praising Mr Rahman for his invaluable contribution to Indias fight to curb COVID-19.

Prof Qayyum Husain, Dean, Faculty of Life Sciences who taught Mr Rahman when he was pursuing BSc and MSc in Biochemistry at AMU said that the launch of first anti-body based testing kit in India is an extra-ordinary achievement in the public interest.

AMU and its alumni are at the forefront of Indias fight against coronavirus. The Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College of the University has already conducted 2500 free-of-costs tests.
There was great sadness at the news that the woman affectionately known to all as 'Mam' had passed away recently.

Local woman Mrs Cathy Kehoe, wife of James 'Jim' Kehoe, Cametigue, Bunclody, passed away peacefully at her home on Thursday, March 26, surrounded by Jim and their children.

Cathy (nee Doyle) was born in 'The Lane', Ballindaggin, to a farming background. She married Jim Kehoe on October 19, 1955, and celebrated over 64 years of wedded bliss.

Jim and Cathy always worked hard to provide for their family. Cathy wasn't afraid of hard work, whether it was inside or outside, herding cattle or herding children.

They had many wonderful trips abroad, visiting their children and grandchildren in America, Canada, Scotland and England. But their favourite trips together were always Lourdes.

She spent over 50 years with her ICA friends and was a regular participant on their trips to Our Lady's Island and Knock.

In later years she joined the Bunclody Active Retired and Bunclody Day Care, who she also travelled the country with. She loved these trips and outings and she loved the many friends she made along the way. Some of her most enjoyable nights out were with her bingo friends. Cathy was also a lifelong pioneer.

She reared ten children - Jimmy (RIP), Eamon, Joan, Michael, PJ, Mairead, Martina, Pauline, Colette and Colm - who in turn gave her 33 grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren, with more on the way. Her grandchildren are scattered all over the world, London, America, Australia and Holland.

Cathy devoted her life to her children.

She lived and enjoyed a simple life, she was humble to a fault, neither did she brag nor want praise. She was fun to be with, fun to be around, she loved a good yarn and good company, she just loved people. She always had a smile and a greeting for everybody she met, whether she knew them or not.

Without doubt Cathy's faith is what made her the woman she was.

Her character and belief enabled her to get out of bed one stormy Sunday morning in August 2018 when Pope Francis visited Ireland. Her beloved sister had passed away the day before, but Cathy knew she wanted to see the Pope and pray for her sister Marie.

She is now reunited in heaven, in the arms of her eldest son, Jimmy, who died seven years ago. May she rest in peace.

A Memorial Mass to celebrate Cathy's life will be offered when the present restrictions are lifted.
FREMANTLE, AUSTRALIA - MARCH 28: The MV Artania is seen with "Thank You Fremantle" banners at the Fremantle Passenger Terminal on March 28, 2020. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

Plagued Artania Ship Sets Sail From West Australia

The plagued Artania cruise ship is finally departing Western Australia after a three-week stay during which three people on board died of COVID-19.

The German liner began its journey from Fremantle back to Europe on April 18, keeping to its scheduled 1pm departure time.

It will comes as a significant relief for the WA government, who has made no secret of wanting the ship to leave as soon as possible.

A total of 79 crew and passengers from the Artania have tested positive to COVID-19 in WA.

They include a 42-year-old crewman from the Philippines who died in a Perth hospital on Thursday, taking the states toll to seven.

The ships captain, Morten Hansen, said the crew member had been with the company since 2006 and most recently served as a motorman, describing his death as heartbreaking.

Two other people from the Artania died last week, one a passenger aged in his 70s and the other a 69-year-old crewman.

Some of the crew who are expected to return home on a charter flight were removed from the ship on Saturday and transferred to a Perth hotel.

Its understood the ship will make stops in Indonesia and the Philippines en route to Germany.

The ship had been scheduled to depart earlier this month before being granted an additional 14-day quarantine period by the Australian Border Force.

Some 219 of WAs 541 cases have been among people linked to cruise ships.

Perth
Medics discovered the coronavirus in the lungs of a 30-year-old woman who did not display symptoms days after one of her relatives died with Covid-19.

The patient was given a chest scan by radiologists in Iran, who discovered patches on her lungs typical of coronavirus-triggered pneumonia.

Her CT scan was uploaded to an Australian-based medical website, Radiopaedia.org, by Dr Bahman Rasuli, a radiologist living in Tehran.

Dr Rasuli said patients would not normally be given a CT scan immediately, but that the team - working from home - made an exception to her.

The patient was given a chest scan by radiologists in Iran, who discovered patches on her lungs typical of coronavirus-triggered pneumonia (pictured)

'The physician saw her worry about the person who died and we just did the CT scan to relieve her mind,' Dr Rasuli said. 'She insisted on taking a CT scan because she was very worried'

Dr Bahman Rasuli, a radiologist from Tehran

'The physician saw her worry about the person who died and we just did the CT scan to relieve her mind,' he told ABC News. 'She insisted on taking a CT scan because she was very worried.'

The discovery of the coronavirus in lungs where patients do not present symptoms is being 'increasingly recognised' by health professionals around the world since the pandemic spread out of China.

Dr Andrew Dixon, a radiologist at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, told ABC News: 'It's something that's being increasingly recognised... that people can have Covid-19 changes in their lungs and be asymptomatic.'

'This is something that's really important for health care professionals and radiologists to be aware of, because we may incidentally find cases of pneumonia on the scans that we're performing for other reasons,' he added.

Iran was slow to respond to the pandemic and held off on imposing restrictions even after other countries in the region with fewer cases forced most businesses to close.

The discovery of the coronavirus in lungs where patients are asymptomatic is being 'increasingly recognised' by professionals since the pandemic spread out of China

The WHO said that over 2.2million people worldwide have been infected with Covid-19

Iranians, some wearing protective gear amid the coronavirus pandemic, shop on a street by the Grand Bazaar market in Tehran. The bazaar will remain closed (April 18, 2020)

Tehran has reported more than 80,000 confirmed cases and over 5,000 deaths.

Some businesses in the capital and nearby towns are allowed to re-open today after weeks of lockdown aimed at containing the worst outbreak in the Middle East.

Gyms, restaurants, shopping centres, shrines, mosques, and Tehran's grand bazaar will remain closed. A ban on public gatherings remains in place.

Government offices have reopened with a third of employees working from home, and schools and universities are still closed.

The coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 2.2million people worldwide and more than 150,000 deaths have been recorded to date.
Launching EPIC Kansas City Cash Prizes For Creatives

KC artists eligible for stimulus from a $120k relief fund ArtsKC, Charlotte Street, and the Spencer Museum of Art have set up a relief fund to support local artists who have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Artists are encouraged to apply for this interdisciplinary grant beginning now. Starting May 1st, ten artists will be chosen each week as recipients of a portion of the fund.

Cowtown Sign Of The Times

Sign shops stays busy during COVID-19 pandemic BLUE SPRINGS, Mo. - Russ Pence is getting a lot of business he didn't expect and didn't really want because it means we're in the midst of a pandemic. The owner of Vital Signs in Blue Springs, Missouri, said since stay-at-home orders went into effect across Jackson County last month, he has received calls from several businesses looking for new signage.

Helping Kansas City Students Cross Digital Divide

KCPS students get technology with help of local nonprofits With schools shifting online during the COVID-19 crises, having internet access is more important than ever. Nonprofit agencies are making sure Kansas City Public Schools students have the technology they need.Computers and WiFi hotspots, free of charge. "Didn't believe it," parent Paul Byrd said.

Doctors Conduct Social Science

Doctors discuss ways to safely reopen Kansas and Missouri KANSAS CITY, Kan. - As discussions begin about reopening the country, doctors with the University of Kansas Health System are making suggestions on how to stay safe. Dr. Steven Stites, chief medical officer of the health system, said it's important that people continue to follow infection control measures, including social distancing and proper hand washing.

Prez Trump Talks Liberation

Trump demands states 'LIBERATE' after he issues new coronavirus guidelines and protests pop up President Donald Trump on Friday urged Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia to "LIBERATE," compounding the pressure on state leaders to start loosening their strict social distancing measures amid the coronavirus pandemic. The president's exhortations on Twitter came a day after the White House issued new federal guidelines on "reopening" the economy, providing states and regions with a broad pathway toward easing their restrictions on businesses and individual residents.

Wuhan Part Deux

China increases death toll in outbreak city by 50% The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus originated last year, has raised its official Covid-19 death toll by 50%, adding 1,290 fatalities. Wuhan officials attributed the new figure to updated reporting and deaths outside hospitals. China has insisted there was no cover-up. It has been accused of downplaying the severity of its virus outbreak.

Candidate Biden Disappoints

The More Anger at China, the Worse for Biden | RealClearPolitics For months now, it has been clear that Biden family corruption will be a campaign issue. The impeachment focused attention on ties between the vice president's son, Hunter, and the corrupt Ukrainian oil and gas giant Burisma. But Hunter had equally close, equally profitable ties to Chinese state-owned banks.

Push Back Against Veep

Senate Democrats grill Pence on coronavirus testing and Trump tweets in tense phone call Senate Democrats grilled Vice President Mike Pence over coronavirus testing and President Donald Trump's tweets during a tense phone call Friday afternoon on the pandemic response.

American Comeback In Doubt

Most Americans doubt the coronavirus crisis will end soon, poll says More Americans are pessimistic about when life will return to normal amid the coronavirus crisis, according to a poll released Friday. The ABC News/Ipsos poll said that among Americans who said their daily routine had changed due to the coronavirus, just 31 percent believed life would be back to normal by June 1, compared to 44 percent who felt that way in a poll earlier this month.

Golden Ghetto Produce Fix

Overland Park Farmer's Market to open April 25 as drive-thru OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - The Overland Park Farmer's Market will open this month with a few tweaks to improve social distancing. The market will now open April 25 in a drive- thru format in the parking lot of the Overland Park Convention Center. The drive thru- will be a one-way path through the parking lot [...]

NextGen Kemper Offers Hope

C2FO's Sandy Kemper: Remote work has potential to strain communication, but fosters empathy But perhaps more impactful, the veteran entrepreneur said, is the shutdowns potential for transformative impact on company culture  especially for a startup with about 260 workers at its Kansas City headquarters.

Chill & Then Springtime

After chilly start, temps climb into low 60s Saturday Hide Transcript Show Transcript AT 41 AND STILL UP TO TRENTON 39 FIRST ALERT FORECAST WILL HAVE TEMPERATURES DROPPING BACK IN THE 40'S. COOLING DOWN CALMER WINDS WHAT WE SAW AND BREAKS IN THE OVERCAST FOR LATER ON THIS EVENING. CHECKING OUT THE WEEKEND. IT STARTS OFF COLD. FREEZE WARNING.

Playboyand herinspires this update that include pop culture, community news and info from across the nation and around the world . . .was the song of the day and this is thefor right now . . .


Many people in Abuja, Nigeria have grown tired of staying inside during the countrys lockdown to limit the spread of the new coronavirus.

As a result, hundreds of people are doing group exercises on one of the Nigerian capitals highways. They seem to have little concern for the COVID-19 disease that has killed at least 10 and infected at least 300 others in Nigeria.

Akinyemi Busayo is a trader. Recently, he was doing aerobics and other exercises in a group. He said, Since the lockdown, we are just at home doing nothing, no work, no food, nothing, nothing, so we decided to come and exercise our body instead of us sitting at home and just getting fat.

Behind Busayo was a group of people on a bridge going across one of Abujas large highways. They were doing sit-ups, as a group of runners ran between them.

The government has ordered people to remain indoors and isolate themselves unless they need necessary goods such as food, water or medical services.

But enforcement of the order has been mixed. Some security officials have beaten and arrested people found outside, even health workers. Other officials have done nothing, as with the crowds of people exercising in Abuja.

Agboola Sabinat is a student. He told Reuters that he does not believe the new coronavirus has reached the area.

He added, Everyone is scared, like my mom she is scared, she is like I should not go out for this work-out, that they said everybody should be at home, that we should just keep cool and stay at home, but I cant.

Im Jonathan Evans.

Abraham Achirga reported on this story for the Reuters news service. Jonathan Evans adapted this story for Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

lockdown n. confinement for a temporary period as a security measure

aerobics n. a system of exercises often done by a group of people while music is playing; a system of aerobic exercises

isolate v. to put or keep someone or something in a place or situation that is separate from others
Stating that Pakistan was exporting terror at a time when India is sending medicines to other countries to fight COVID-19 pandemic, Army Chief General MM Naravane Friday confirmed that eight positive cases of coronavirus have been confirmed among Indian army.

While India is sending out medical teams to other countries and exporting medicines, Pakistan is only exporting terror, he told a selected group of reporters in frontier Kupwara district while concluding his two-day visit to Kashmir.

For latest updates on coronavirus outbreak, click here

While referring to recent ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC) by Pakistan Army, the General said it is unfortunate that while the world has got together to fight COVID-19, Pakistan has resorted to firing heavy calibre artillery and killing innocent Kashmiris to garner international attention.

Talking about the recent infiltration bid, he said earlier this month, a group of militants infiltrated into this side and there was an encounter in which a junior commissioned officer and four soldiers were killed.

Coronavirus India update: State-wise total number of confirmed cases, deaths on April 17

We were able to foil the infiltration attempt. The operation was conducted in very difficult conditions amid snowfall in the area, the Army Chief said. The route infiltrators had taken would not have been possible without the support of the Pakistani army.

He confirmed that there were eight positive COVID-19 cases among the Indian army. So far, we have only eight positive cases in the entire Army, of which two are doctors, one nursing assistant, he said.

General Naravane said that the morale of soldiers is very high despite lockdown. Soldiers are doing an excelling job. I want to compliment them not only those who are in J&K but those guarding northern borders and northeast also, he said.

Meanwhile, on the second day of his two-day visit to Kashmir, General Naravane continued to review the security situation along the LoC, a defence spokesperson said. The Army Chief accompanied by the Northern Army Commander Lt Gen YK Joshi and Srinagar based 15 Corps Commander, Lt Gen BS Raju visited the formations and units, wherein the local Commanders briefed the army chief on the existing security situation and the measures instituted so that infiltration bids by terrorists are foiled.

He said that the army chief was briefed by the local Commanders on the situation on the LoC, ceasefire violations, retaliation, counter-infiltration operations and operational preparedness being maintained.
US goods exports to Chinaimportant to states' economies and jobscontracted by 11.4 percent in 2019 amid tariffs and business uncertainties, and worse may be in store this year with COVID-19, a leading trade association said in a report on Thursday.



The "2020 State Export Report", released by the US-China Business Council, or USCBC, also indicates a 10 percent drop in the number of US jobs supported by exports to China in 2017 and 2018, a trend that is likely to get worse as the coronavirus shows no sign of abating in many parts of the world.

The annual report of the trade body, which represents more than 200 US companies doing business with China, offers a perspective from the US side of how trade and jobs had been affected in a nearly two-year bruising trade battle between China and the US. The two sides reached a phase-one trade deal in mid-January.

Over the past two years, tariffs and an uncertain business environment have prompted "precipitous declines" in US exports to China that have not been fully made up by its export growth to other markets, the report noted.

In 2017, 30 US states exported more than $1 billion of goods to China; in 2019, only 27 states were able to do so. In 2017 and 2018, only 15 states managed to export more than $1 billion in services to China. Policies affecting travel and student visas may have resulted in lower numbers for 2019, according to the report.

In all, the US exported nearly $105 billion in goods to China last year, marking a continued slide from a high point in 2017, when US firms sent $127 billion worth of goods to the Chinese market, resulting in a two-year contraction of 18 percent, according to the report.

In addition, in 2018, trade tensions with China played a role in the loss of more than 100,000 jobs that were supported by exports to China.

The downward trend in exports is likely to be reversed in the short term, thanks to the committed purchase of huge amounts of US goods and services this year and next as part of the US-China phase-one trade agreement.

But the deal does not eliminate many of the tariffs already in place, which will continue to hurt US exporters and importers, the report said.

Earlier reports said that under the phase-one trade deal, the 25 percent punitive import taxes on $250 billion in Chinese goods that started in 2018 have remained intact.

The data in the USCBC report do not reflect possible effects on trade due to the novel coronavirus, which flared up in December.

135,000 deaths worldwide

The pandemic had infected 2,034,802 people and claimed 135,163 lives worldwide as of noon on Friday, the World Health Organization said.

The US has more cases and deaths than any other country, with more than 660,000 diagnosed cases and at least 32,000 deaths as of Thursday.

US President Donald Trump unveiled new guidelines on Thursday aimed at reopening the nation's economy amid the pandemic by putting the responsibility on governors to decide how and when to restart their states' economies. "We are not opening all at once, but one careful step at a time," he said on Thursday in Washington.

The non-mandatory guidelines are broken into three phases. Each phase requires a 14-day period of "downward trajectory" of COVID-19 cases to move on to the next phase.
New Delhi: The Centre has allowed the NHAI to start toll collection on national highways from April 20. The tolling operations were earlier planned to resume from April 15, a day after the end of the first phase of the lockdown. However, the lockdown was extended till May 3.

Nevertheless, the Home Ministry has given relaxations to many essential industries to commence operations from April 20.

"It has been further highlighted that user fee collection contributes to the government exchequer and also provides financial strength to NHAI in terms of budgetary support," the ministry said in a letter to the NHAI.

"In view of the relaxations provided by the Ministry of Home Affairs for the inter-state and intra-state movement of all trucks and other goods or carrier vehicles and further the relaxations... NHAI should take actions necessary for compliance of the orders.. and `tolling operations be resumed w.e.f. 20 of April 2020`."

Meanwhile, the All India Motor Transport Congress has asked the Centre to reconsider the decision to start toll collection.

"The government must reconsider its decision before putting any financial burden on this sector, which has already crumbled due to the `Economy under lockdown`" AIMTC President Kultaran Singh Atwal said in a sta tement.
The world was rightly shocked when rumors of an affair between Prince William and his wifes former friend Rose Hanbury came to light. Neither the Duchess of Cambridge nor the future king ever validated the rumors by addressing them, even for a denial. But even so, their perfect-looking marriage suddenly didnt appear so impenetrable after all.

No one besides the involved parties will ever know for sure if Prince William did step out on Kate. But if she married Prince William thinking that hed remain monogamous forever, then its clear she hasnt been studying the history of the British monarchy too closely. Most reigning monarchs engaged in affairs either secretly or openly.

Why would Prince William be any different?

Prince William and Kate Middleton | Stephen Pond/Getty Images

Prince William comes from a long line of cheaters

From his ancient ancestors to his own father, the Duke of Cambridge certainly has a lot of philandering men in the family. Prince Charles engaged in a not-so-secret tryst with former girlfriend Camilla Parker Bowles while he was still married to Williams mother, Princess Diana, and the whole event had disastrous results. And hes not the only one. The Princess of Wales also carried on affairs while she was still married.

There are rumors that Prince Philip cheated on Queen Elizabeth though theyve never been proven. Meanwhile, Elizabeths uncle King Edward VIII kept mistresses openly, including married women, before abdicating the throne to marry Wallis Simpson in 1936.

King Edward VII, William IV, George IV, and way too many more to mention were unfaithful to their spouses. This type of behavior has always been accepted as a privilege of being the king or queen.

Prince William and Prince Charles | Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

Will William cheat on Kate?

One argument against Prince William taking a mistress now or when he ascends the throne is that times are different and that sort of behavior isnt accepted the way it used to be. But its vital to remember that as the king, Prince William will be able to keep certain parts of his private life hidden. In other words: we would never know if he did have an affair.

Rumors of Prince Williams so-called wandering eye abounded while he was in college, and his getting a little too close with another female in a club is part of what made him and Kate break up in 2007. But besides the Rose Hanbury rumors from 2019, so far their marriage has not been marred by infidelity rumors. At least, not yet.

Prince William and Kate Middleton | Kirsty Wigglesworth  WPA Pool/Getty Images

No one would necessarily know if Prince William did cheat on Kate Middleton

The bottom line is, even the age of technology, the Duke of Cambridge could probably manage to keep any future affairs hidden from both his wife and the public. Just like he did if he really engaged in a dalliance with Hanbury. Hes mastered the family motto of ignoring rumors he doesnt want to address rather than denying them.

He and Kate appear happy and secure in their relationship, which could mean hes going to remain completely faithful to her for the rest of their marriage. But if he does, hed be one of the first British kings to do so.
Authorities in US, Canada, Italy, France and Spain launch investigations into response of several nursing homes.

Authorities in several countries, including the United States, Italy, Spain, France and Canada, have launched inquiries into how elderly care facilities have responded to the coronavirus crisis after reports emerged of high death rates at those facilities.

The pandemic has put a spotlight on nursing homes across the world, where thousands of elderly residents, who are most vulnerable to the disease, are believed to have died after contracting it.

To date, more than 2.25 million people have been infected worldwide with COVID-19 and at least 154,000 have died due to the pandemic.

As governments continue the struggle to bring the pandemic under control, the accounting of the elderly residents of nursing facilities who have been infected or died from COVID-19 remains fragmented  the result of overburdened health authorities and a dearth of widespread testing early on in the outbreak.

In March, Spains state prosecutor launched an investigation after soldiers found elderly patients abandoned or dead in retirement homes in the country.





In the US, the governor of the state of New Jersey on Thursday ordered a probe into a nursing home in the town of Andover, where 17 bodies had been found in a makeshift morgue.

In the Canadian city of Montreal, officials are investigating after health authorities were called to the Residence Herron elderly home, which had been largely abandoned by the staff.

Responders found residents dehydrated, unfed for days and lying listlessly in bed, some covered in excrement. The deaths of two residents had gone unnoticed for several days.

Moira Davis, whose father Stanley Pinnell died at the facility on April 8, told the AFP news agency she was sick to her stomach when she learned of the conditions.

All of a sudden these questions started flying through my head: What could we have done differently? Why did nobody tell us?' she said. Why, why, why?

Partial picture

Marylouise McLaws, an infectious disease expert and professor at the University of New South Wales, told Al Jazeera the toll on residents of elderly homes globally is only just coming to light.

[Elderly home residents] are incredibly vulnerable because theyre within a situation that we would call a super spreading environment: Being kept inside an age care facility, often sharing rooms, having common dining rooms, she said.





We really need to look after our most vulnerable in the community, regardless of which country were talking about. There is no acceptable explanation for this.

A report released by academics at the London School of Economics (LSE) on April 15 said between 42 percent and 57 percent of deaths from the coronavirus in Italy, Spain, France, Ireland and Belgium have been linked to care homes for the elderly.

The report notes those figures are based on partial data. Meanwhile, several countries had no such data available, researchers said.

In Italy, the countrys National Institute of Health estimated that 40 percent of the 6,773 residents in elderly care facilities who have died since February 1 had been diagnosed with COVID-19 or were showing symptoms. That number is only a fraction of the countrys nursing home death total, as the survey was based on data from a third of some 3,000 nursing homes contacted.

In a dramatic scene on Friday, the Italian military blocked off one facility in Rocca di Papa outside of Rome after 118 patients and 30 healthcare workers tested positive for the coronavirus. At least five patients had died there.

An ambulance passes a roadblock leading to San Raffaele healthcare and hospice facility in Rocca di Papa, near Rome [Andrew Medichini/The Associated Press]

Inside its a ghost town, Luciano Bambino, a funeral home worker who emerged from the home with a body in the back of his hearse, told the Associated Press news agency.

In neighbouring France, the regional public health authority has launched an investigation into why so many people died at a nursing home in Cote DAzur.

At the La Riviera nursing home, 36 of the 109 residents had died from coronavirus-related illnesses after the first infection was confirmed at the home, according to the local mayors office, which registers the deaths.

Experts have said the deaths underline the need for blanket testing at such facilities, where staff attempted to isolate those believed to be infected, but where systematic testing was not implemented for 20 days.

Maybe if we had been able to test from the beginning, everything would have been different, Florence Arnaiz-Maume, an official with the National Union of Private Homes and Facilities for the Elderly (SYNERPA), told the Reuters News Agency.

Death toll will never completely be known

The first two deaths reported in the US from the coronavirus were residents at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, an elderly home in Washington state.

Since then, officials have said at least 35 coronavirus deaths have been associated with the facility, which faces a federal fine of more than $600,000 after investigators determined the home did not have a proper system in place to deal with the outbreak and did not respond properly.

While the federal government has not released a national tally, a count by the AP news agency has linked 6,912 coronavirus deaths to nursing homes in the country.

To date, more than 37,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the US, among 706,700 cases.

A report released by authorities in New York on Friday, which according to the AP news agency tally accounts for 40 percent of coronavirus deaths linked to elderly homes in the country, said at least 55 residents at one nursing home in Brooklyn had died from COVID-19.





Four other facilities reported at least 40 deaths related to coronavirus, while 19 listed at least 20 deaths.

Every death is heartbreaking, Dr Roy Goldberg, medical director at Kings Harbor Multicare Center, a 720-bed home in New York City borough of the Bronx which reported 45 fatalities, told the AP news agency. These have been surreal times.

In neighbouring Connecticut, a similar list released on Thursday said nursing home residents account for 375 of the states 971 deaths as of that point.

McLaws said even after the government completed their initial count, the toll in nursing homes is likely to rise further, while many coronavirus deaths will never be properly reflected.

Often after an epidemic or a large pandemic, each country will revise their numbers, they will look at their deaths which have been put aside  due to old age, maybe heart disease, or influenza  and then assess the likelihood that it was COVID-19, McLaws said.

Many of these deaths will not have a forensic investigation to identify actually how they did die. So the number will never be perfect for how many of them died from COVID-19, she said.
Married At First Sight intruder KC Osborne has revealed she will launch her own beauty line.

The 31-year-old dancer told fans on a lengthy Instagram video she was 'moving on' after being on the controversial dating experiment and will develop her own makeup brand.

In the footage, she fought back against trolls calling her a gold digger after she started dating her millionaire co-star Michael Goonan, explaining she was a 'hard worker' and found her own opportunities.

'I'm excited for the next chapter': Married At First Sight star KC Osborne (pictured) announced she is launching her own beauty line in an Instagram post on Saturday

'I don't need a man, I don't need Michael to get me nice things. I'm a hard worker,' KC said.

She went on to explain: 'I have a beauty line coming out which I will talk more about on Tuesday on Kyle and Jackie O at 8AM.

'I'm really excited to launch and I'm so excited to be a part of this brand. The lady who I've become business partners with is such an inspiration to me and I love what she stands for. So I can't wait to talk more about that.'

Exciting news! The 31-year-old dancer told fans she was 'moving on' after being on the controversial dating experiment and will develop her own makeup brand

She also raved about her new relationship with the show's villain, Michael.

'This is the happiest I have ever been with someone. We are so alike, we are a team.

'For all those gold digging comments that I do get, that's cool, have your say. They're words. They make me upset at the time, but guess what? When I do get upset, it just makes me stronger.'

Thrilled: 'I'm really excited to launch and I'm so excited to be a part of this brand,' she gushed

The dance teacher went on to say the 28-year-old businessman treats her well.

'I didn't plan for it to be this way, but I do believe that god has a plan and I am so grateful for Michael being in my life.

'We are a team, we are a partnership and I absolutely love how that boy treats me. I'm just happy.'

Outspoken: In the footage, she fought back against trolls calling her a gold digger after she started dating her millionaire co-star Michael Goonan (right). 'I don't need a man, I don't need Michael to get me nice things. I'm a hard worker,' KC said

Michael and KC have received criticism for their romance, which they debuted after MAFS concluded airing earlier this month.

On the show, Michael was 'married' to Stacey Hampton, who was friends with KC before she found out she was dating her ex.

The couple started dating around eight weeks ago, after Michael's split from Stacey, which happened on January 16 in between filming the MAFS reunion dinner party and the finale.
THE Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) has commended the Tanzania Horticultural Association (TAHA) for striking an innovative cargo deal with the Ethiopian Airlines under which Tanzanias horticultural exports will be ferried to Arabian, European and American markets thrice a week.

Speaking at a function, TPSF Chairman Angelina Ngalula praised TAHA for pioneering the deal which she said would preserve international markets of Tanzanias horticultural exports and bring to the fore Tanzanias contribution to stabilisation of the global economy currently battered by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

TPSF, through the agriculture cluster, congratulates TAHA on its fruitful efforts and getting an alternative way of serving its European and world clients.

This move will help preserve jobs of farm workers, will be of benefit to the entire chain value, big and small farmers who depend on farming for their livelihoods, she told her audience.

She reminded that for a long time TAHA faced difficulties in taking its floral cargoes to Europe via the Nairobi route, explaining that a solution to that problem might have come because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Ms Ngalula called on Tanzania to produce many horticultural products because they had a big market in and outside Tanzania.

She thanked the government for support to TPSF members and called on transportation agencies to offer efficient services so that Tanzania could benefit from the opportunity that had presented itself.

Ms Ngalula named the current three main tasks of TPSF members as providing education on how to avoid contracting the disease, keep jobs intact and ensure essential services, especially the flow of foodstuffs to members of the public remain undisrupted.

The chairman called on other TPSF clusters to conceive strategies that would help members of the business community to continue having some incomes during the current trying period.

TAHA CEO, Dr Jacqueline Mkindi, said Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner cargo plane, expected to carry a minimum of 15 metric tonnes, would airlift exports from Kilimanjaro International Airport to foreign markets.

She described the availability of the cargo plane as a golden opportunity for preserving overseas markets.

She said when airlines suspended flights worldwide, Tanzanian horticultural producers were dispirited and depressed. Now that TAHA has planned to export 55 metric tonnes weekly, she called on TAHA members to increase production and make the most of the opportunity.

She said the deal would not only preserve external horticultural markets, but would also preserve jobs of Tanzanians in other branches of the national economy.

Dr Mkindi was grateful for the support the association received from the Ministry of Agriculture, the European Union, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the Global Alliance of Agricultural Agencies (Agri-Cord) and the FFD.

Kilimanjaro Airport Development Company Managing Director Christopher Mkoma urged horticultural farmers to double their efforts to benefit more from the opportunity.
The plan since 2018 has been to expand Wilder Park, a square along Lake and River streets where the Aurora Police Station used to be, to meet with a park along the river. River Street would be closed off for one block, redone with permeable pavers and form a place where city celebrations or other events could take place. The plan also includes restrooms that could be used by walkers and bikers along the trail system.
The coronavirus lockdown across the globe has brought a looming doom on humans at the moment. As we continue to stay in quarantine, the world is divided in several categories of lifestyle. On one hand we have the privileged lot which is trying hard to make it look like one long vacation, and on the other hand are people who cannot afford a single meal. Talking about first world problems in this pandemic, Indians are dying for thekas to open so they can fill up their booze stock at home and continue having a quarantined life in peace. However, as per new guidelines, sale of liquor and cigarettes is banned, and maybe rightly so. The governor of Nairobi in Kenya has been the target of some flak after the COVID-19 care packages that are being given by the government include alcohol as well.

We will have some small bottles of Hennessy in the food packs that we will be giving to our people - Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko



Note: WHO warns that drinking alcohol does not protect you against COVID-19 and can be dangerous pic.twitter.com/vuSuVAb8dy  Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) April 14, 2020

When the governor was questioned, he agreed to the claim and actually had an explanation for the same. He explained that alcohol is in fact a throat sanitiser although according to WHO, alcohol doesnt protect you from COVID-19 nor is consumption recommended. The video went viral on social media and people had many opinions around this move.

Creative politician award to Mike Sonko governor of #Nairobi, #Kenya He distributed #COVID19 care packages included food, other needs & cognac, #Hennessy. Sonko suggested the #WHO suggested alcohol helps kill #Coronavirus, the Hennessy would serve as a Throat Sanitizer. ...  Delrish Moss (@Delrish_M) April 18, 2020

People actually want to vote for him and wish every government was this cool.

Everyone is hating on the governor of #Kenya for giving out bottles of Henny in Rona relief packages but come on, I want my government to be this cool...@MikeSonko hook it up!!!!  Bill Tracy (@BillTracyIV) April 17, 2020

Not sure about his choice of outfit here, but he had me at HENNESSY! pic.twitter.com/XRKvdyU6zz  Shawnasaurus Rex (@ShawnG927) April 18, 2020

Jokes apart, some people didnt find it cool and called him out for this health hazard.

There is alot of ignorance as regards preventing COVID19 in Africa, just heard a governor in Nairobi Kenya shared cognac to his people claiming it kills coronavirus, some Men for Naija go like that kind Governor ooooo  Owen Gee (@OfficialOwenGee) April 17, 2020

His hand sanitizers are pretty cool actually with all that customisation included. I wonder if it has a personalised not as well?

 Twitter/ _Kimenyi

All things said and done, hope you are staying indoors and adhering to the government rules.



source: CNN
A real estate developers'



association in West Bengal has sought permission from the state government to bring labourers back at the project sites after the Centre allowed to resume construction works with some restrictions during the ongoing lockdown, an official said on Saturday.

The industry body urged the state government to allow movement of workers from their home towns and native villages after the Centre had given its nod to restart construction activities from April 20 on those projects where labourers are already available at the sites.

"We have written to the state government seeking permission to start works at the construction sites and reopening offices in a partial and phased manner," Credai West Bengal president Sushil Mohta told PTI.

But the challenge with most of the projects has been availability of workers as many labourers hailed from districts and they left for their homes immediately after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced the lockdown, he said.

"We have also urged the state to allow us to bring labourers back from their home districts such as Medinipur, Murshidabad, Bankura and other areas," Mohta, also chairman of the Merlin Group, said.

Citing a similar experience, National Real Estate Development Council, Maharashtra vice president Ashok Mohanani said majority of workers are migrant labourers and have returned to their native places at this time.

"Reverse migration has hit the real estate sector which has resulted in a labour shortage," he said.

There are 8.5 million workers in India engaged in building and other construction activities.

The guidelines issued for restarting economic activities during the lockdown "do not allow travel of labourers to construction sites", an industry expert said.

Labourers available at construction sites can commence work from April 20 in strict adherence to social distancing norms, he said.

"We have committed to undertake sanitisation exercise at sites and ensure that social distancing norms are followed," Mohta said.

The industry has also sought permission to bring construction materials at the sites during the ongoing lockdown imposed to check the coronavirus outbreak, he said.

Real estate sector has been passing through a challenging time due to financial crisis, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
President Donald Trump declared that he wants Americans to start their lives again during his press briefing on April 16. He gave governors a road map for recovering from the economic pain of the pandemic and he laid out a phase and deliberate approach for restoring the normal activity in America.

Trump plans to open US in phases

The new guidelines were aimed at easing the restrictions in areas with low transmission of the coronavirus, but it will still hold the line in areas that were hit hard. The administration made it clear that the return to normalcy will be a longer process than what President Trump envisioned, as federal officials warned that some social distancing measures may need to remain in place through the end of 2020 in order to prevent the 2nd wave of the coronavirus outbreak.

The administration added that the plans are already reinforced by the governors. Trump stated that the governors are going to call their own shots and that the Trump administration will be standing alongside them. The audio recording of the call was obtained by The Associated Press.

Also read: America's Stimulus Checks: When Will It Arrive and Who Are Eligible?

The states with declining infections and strong testing are the places that would begin a three-phase gradual reopening of schools and businesses.

In phase one, the guideline recommends strict social distancing for all people in public. Gatherings larger than 10 people are not allowed and nonessential travel will be discouraged.

In phase two, people are encouraged to practice social distancing and gatherings of more than 50 people will be limited. Travel could resume but precautionary measures will be taken.

In phase three, the return to normalcy for most Americans is envisioned, with a focus on identification and isolation of any new infections.

President Trump stated that the recent trends in some states were positive, which means that they can immediately being taking the steps laid out in phase one if they wish to do so. The guidelines recommend that each state need to pass checkpoints that review new cases, undergo testing and submit surveillance data for 2 weeks before advancing to the next phase.

Partial reopening of businesses

The guidelines given by the Trump administration also include general recommendations to businesses as they plan for reopenings. Temperature-takings should still be done and rapid COVID-19 testing will still be held. Widespread disinfection efforts in workplaces will continue.

Those who are considered as high risk are advised to still self-isolate until the state that they are in enters the final phase. Even after phase three, people are still encouraged to take precautions to avoid any close contact with other people.

As for the governors of each state, they have been moving ahead with their own plans for how safely they can move to normal activities in their respective areas. Seven governors from the Midwest announced on April 16 that they will coordinate on reopening their economies. Similar pacts were announced earlier in the week in the Northeast and the West.

According to a Pew Research Center survey, two in three Americans are concern that the restrictions meant to slow the spread of the virus would be eased too quickly. More than 30,000 people in America have died from the virus.



Related article: Pres. Trump Announced He will No Longer Fund WHO, Here's Why

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
This story was originally published on June 26, 2019 in NYT Parenting.

A New York bill to legalize paid surrogacy was the subject of intense debate this year. For supporters, it was a no-brainer. Embracing surrogacy was beneficial to infertile couples and meaningful to the L.G.B.T. community, they argued. And it is already permitted in 47 other states. Why should New York be an outlier?

Not so fast, said prominent academics and doctors, who insisted the bill did not do enough to protect the health and rights of surrogates. Some opponents also said that it should not be considered a gay rights issue.

The legislation passed in the New York State Senate in June, but quickly stalled in the Assembly.

Under current New York law, paid surrogacy is punishable by a fine. Unpaid surrogacy agreements are not legally binding or enforceable. Last Thursday, Carl E. Heastie, the Assembly speaker, indicated in a statement that the bill would not be brought to a vote this session.

We must ensure that the health and welfare of women who enter into these arrangements are protected, and that reproductive surrogacy does not become commercialized, the statement said. I look forward to continuing this conversation in the coming months with our members and interested parties to develop a solution that works for everyone.
A major part of combatting the coronavirus pandamic is the united feeling of solidarity, belonging and positiveness. As we are all locked up indoors, it can be easy to feel depressed. Well, here is a piece of good news that will motivate you right away. Not long ago, the Indian flag was projected on the Matterhorn mountain on Switzzerland. The official handle of India in Switzerland, The Holy See and Liechtenstein on Twitter put out the news along with an image of the projection.

The Indian tricolour projected on the mountain was over 1000 metres in size. The Ministry of External Affairs attained this in cooperation with Zermatt Tourism. Isnt it a magnificent gesture to demonstrate solidarity to all Indians fighting coronavirus? Check it out:

INDIAN TRICOLOR ON THE MATTERHORN MOUNTAIN: Indian Tricolor of more than 1000 meters in size projected on Matterhorn Mountain, Zermatt, Switzerland to express Solidarity to all Indians in the fight against COVID 19. A big Thank You to @zermatt_tourism for the gesture. @MEAIndia pic.twitter.com/y4diNDSlT9  India in Switzerland, The Holy See & Liechtenstein (@IndiainSwiss) April 17, 2020

The tweet was captioned, INDIAN TRICOLOR ON THE MATTERHORN MOUNTAIN: Indian Tricolor of more than 1000 meters in size projected on Matterhorn Mountain, Zermatt, Switzerland to express Solidarity to all Indians in the fight against COVID 19. A big Thank You to @zermatt_tourism for the gesture. @MEAIndia

Official twitter handle of Zermatt also shared the photo and wrote, The Indian flag on the Matterhorn, Switzerland's landmark, is intended to express our solidarity and give hope and strength to all Indians. #Hope #Zermatt #Matterhorn

The Indian flag on the Matterhorn, Switzerland's landmark, is intended to express our solidarity and give hope and strength to all Indians. #Hope #Zermatt #Matterhornhttps://t.co/qFjiKuZNsE@MySwitzerlandIN pic.twitter.com/C8Ut0kqfZ1  Zermatt - Matterhorn (@zermatt_tourism) April 18, 2020

Many Indians took to twitter to laud the gesture. They were extremely glad with it.

Have a look:

Matterhorn is almost 15000 ft height. On that a Kilometre size projection. Some serious light , that is. Amazing!!! https://t.co/vX2Fs19ni7  Bibhu Ranjan Sarangi (@BibhuRanjan) April 18, 2020
Nicholaus Shackleton, 39, met Eric Johnson, 37, in October 2017 while halfheartedly looking on the mens dating app Scruff, while he was away for the weekend in Denver.

I was living in Seattle and flew in for a Broncos game, said Mr. Shackleton. I didnt have my search parameter on. Eric caught my attention. We started texting before I realized he lived in Utah.

The texting lasted for three hours. Phone numbers were exchanged. Texting continued the following day while Mr. Shackleton, a senior project manager at the cutting-machine company Cricut, returned home to Seattle. A two-hour FaceTime call followed the next night. More calls ensued. Three weeks later, Mr. Shackleton flew to Salt Lake City to meet Mr. Johnson, an accountant at Priority Dispatch, a distributor of emergency dispatch technology.

Eric offered to pick me up at the airport, Mr. Shackleton said. To be waiting for me inside with a sign and flowers told me he would be someone special in my life.
The two Chinese companies were offering a risky proposition: 2 million home test kits said to detect antibodies for the coronavirus for at least $20 million, take it or leave it.

The asking price was high, the technology was unproven, and the money had to be paid upfront. And the buyer would be required to pick up the crate loads of test kits from a facility in China.

Yet British officials took the deal, according to a senior civil servant involved, then confidently promised tests would be available at pharmacies in as little as two weeks.

As simple as a pregnancy test, gushed Prime Minister Boris Johnson. It has the potential to be a total game changer.

There was one problem, however. The tests did not work.

Found to be insufficiently accurate by a laboratory at Oxford University, half a million of the tests are now gathering dust in storage.

Another 1.5 million bought at a similar price from other sources have also gone unused. The fiasco has left embarrassed British officials scrambling to get back at least some of the money.

They might perhaps have slightly jumped the gun, said professor Peter Openshaw of Imperial College London, a member of the governments New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group. There is a huge pressure on politicians to come out and say things that are positive.

A spokesperson from the Department of Health and Social Care said the government ordered the smallest number of tests allowed by the sellers and that it would try to recover the money, without specifying how.

The ill-starred purchases are in some ways a parable of the risks in the escalating scrum among competing governments racing for an edge in the fight against the pandemic.

The still-emerging tests for antibodies formed in response to the virus are the next stage in the battle. By enabling public health officials to assess where the disease has spread and who might have some immunity, widespread use of the tests is seen as a critical step in determining how and when to lift the lockdowns currently paralyzing societies and economies in much of the world.

You cant lift the lockdown as long as you are not testing massively, said Nicolas Locker, a professor of virology at the University of Surrey. As long as the government is not testing in the community, we are going to be on lockdown.

The gamble on the Chinese antibody tests, though, is also a barometer of the desperation British officials felt as public pressure has mounted over their slow response to the virus.

One prominent expert, Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust, a British nonprofit that is a major funder of medical research, recently warned that the U.K. is likely to be certainly one of the worst, if not the worst affected, country in Europe.

Long before the development of an antibody test, Germany, for example, the continents leader in containing the virus, began conducting as many as 50,000 diagnostic tests a day to help trace and isolate cases. That rate is now nearly 120,000 a day.

As of Wednesday, Britain was still conducting less than 20,000 diagnostic tests a day. Having missed a previous target of 25,000 diagnostic tests a day by the middle of April, officials are now promising to reach 100,000 a day by the end of the month and as many as 250,000 a day soon after that.

British officials have said that they started out behind because they lack major private testing companies of the sort found in Germany and the United States, which are capable of manufacturing and performing tens of thousands of diagnostic tests.

But by the time Britain began pushing in earnest to expand its capacity, it was also trailing behind most of Europe in the competition to buy up the limited supply of compounds, tubes and even swabs needed for diagnostic tests to determine a current infection with the virus.

So when the Chinese offers of antibody tests arrived, the officials knew that almost every government in the world was hunting for them, too. Nationalists like President Donald Trump were pressuring domestic suppliers not to sell outside their borders. Oil-rich Persian Gulf princes were bidding up prices.

Medical companies in China, where the virus first emerged, seemed to hold all the cards, typically demanding yes-or-no decisions from buyers with full payment upfront in as little as 24 hours.

The two Chinese companies offering the antibody tests, AllTest Biotech and Wondfo Biotech, both said their products met the health, safety and environmental standards set by the European Union.

Public health officials reviewed the specifications on paper while the British Foreign Ministry hurriedly dispatched diplomats in China to ensure the companies existed and to examine their products.

Representatives of both AllTest and Wondfo declined to discuss prices.

Within days of the deal, enthusiastic health officials back in London were promising that the new tests would vault Britain into the vanguard of international efforts to combat the virus.

Appearing March 25 before a parliamentary committee, Sharon Peacock, a professor of public health and microbiology at Cambridge University who is the senior public health official overseeing infectious diseases, testified that the tests would require only a pinprick in the privacy of ones home and would soon be available at minimal cost from either local pharmacies or Amazon.

Testing the test is a small matter, Peacock assured lawmakers. I anticipate that it would be done by the end of this week.

After quietly admitting last week that the testing had in fact proven unsuccessful, health officials are now defending the purchase as prudent planning and valuable experience.

It was to be expected, professor Chris Whitty, Britains chief medical officer, said in a news conference. It would be very surprising if first out of the gate we got to the best outcome that we could for this kind of test, he said. It made a lot of sense to get started early.

But Greg Clark, chairman of a parliamentary committee examining the coronavirus response, said the governments promises appeared unrealistic.

There is no country in the world that is able to operate in massive scale antibody tests yet, he said in an interview.

I think its now clear, he added, that we should have moved earlier and more expansively to make use of all of the testing facilities that we could have.

After British complaints about the test kits surfaced, both Chinese companies blamed British officials and politicians for misunderstanding or exaggerating the utility of the tests.

Wondfo told Global Times, a Chinese newspaper, that its product was intended only as a supplement for patients who had already tested positive for the virus.

AllTest said in a statement on its website that the tests were only used by professionals, not by patients at home.

Do-it-yourself pinprick tests like the ones the British government ordered from China are far more complicated and much further off than such laboratory tests, researchers say. It is not yet certain what degree of immunity recovery from a past infection may confer, either.

Rapid antibody tests have limited utility for patients, the World Health Organization warned in an April 8 statement, telling doctors that such tests remained unfit for clinical purposes until they were proved to be accurate and effective.

British officials, though, were eager for a breakthrough.

Even in late March, as the pandemic overwhelmed hospitals in Italy and Iran, British officials brushed off the advice of the WHO to expand diagnostic testing as quickly as possible.

By the time Britain began pushing in earnest to expand its testing, every country in the world was competing for the same materials.

To make up the shortfall, academic research laboratories have sought to convert themselves into small-scale clinical testing facilities, typically focusing on the needs of local hospitals.

If it comes around from the government, all well and good, said Ravindra Gupta, professor of clinical microbiology at Cambridge Universitys department of medicine, but we have to prepare for nothing to come. It would be crazy to wait.

David D. Kirkpatrick and Jane Bradley c.2020 The New York Times Company
The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig  and the deaths, destruction and environmental disaster it caused  spurred new rules aimed at preventing similar tragedies, protecting natural resources and reining in what was a lightly regulated industry.

But a decade later, many of those rules were rolled back under the Trump administration, which heeded complaints by the industry that the regulations were cumbersome and expensive. Some of the fundamental regulatory reforms put in place under former President Barack Obama were eliminated or weakened, including stricter standards for blowout preventers, a key piece of safety equipment that failed in the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

The relaxation of the rules, which came as the Trump administration was trying to expand oil and gas drilling off the nations coasts, was a victory for the offshore energy industry, which is expected to save more than $800 million in regulatory costs over 10 years. The Department of the Interior has defended the new regulations as common sense measures that reduce unnecessary burdens on offshore drillers while still protecting natural resources.

Health and safety experts, however, warn that the rollback of the Obama-era rules put the needs of business ahead of worker safety and environmental protection. Among other changes, the Trump administration reduced reporting requirements for operational failures, weakened mandates to maintain onshore monitoring stations and eliminated requirements that independent, government-certified inspectors regularly examine safety equipment.

These changes are tantamount to saying, Eh, its not going to happen again, said Victor B. Flatt, an environmental law professor at the University of Houston.

But, Flatt added, that is what we had before.

Celebration to tragedy

The Deepwater Horizon platform was built in 2001. It was owned by the Swiss drilling contractor Transocean, which in turn leased it to the British oil major BP in the Gulf of Mexico.

On April 20, 2010, there was cause for celebration. Managers of BP and Transocean gathered on the rig platform to celebrate seven years without a lost-time injury. Three days earlier, the rig had finished drilling the Macondo well; crews were getting ready to begin commercial production.

That night, Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank after both the cement plug intended to cap the flow of oil and blowout preventer that was supposed to control the flow of high pressure oil and natural gas failed. A surge of natural gas rushed up the drill pipe to the surface, where it ignited.

TEN YEAS AFTER: The tragedy of Deepwater Horizon

Eleven workers were killed. Some 3.2 million barrels of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico over 87 days, fouling Gulf waters, beaches and marshes and killing birds, mammals and marine life.

Once the well was capped, investigators worked to figure out what happened and how it could be prevented from happening again.

Widespread problems in the offshore industry and the agency meant to regulate it, the Minerals Management Service, had been identified a decade before Deepwater Horizon. In 2008, the Interior Departments Inspector General published a report on the Minerals Management Service, detailing a culture of corruption in an agency that let industry have its way.

The IG report found that oil industry representatives were allowed to fill out their own safety inspection reports. Regulators were given meals, tickets to sporting events and gifts from oil industry employees, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in California by several environmental groups. Government inspectors were negotiating for energy consulting work with the very companies they were inspecting.

The investigation into Deepwater Horizon uncovered additional problems, including equipment design failures and poor drilling practices that were allowed to continue with little or no oversight.

Several other investigations were launched by government agencies including the U.S. Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service and by industry groups such as the National Academy of Engineering. A month after the explosion, Obama signed an executive order to form a bipartisan national commission that would focus on the root cause of the disaster.

Their reports and other studies found a lack of government oversight, a lackadaisical attitude about safety among drillers, and last-minute drilling changes.

It was a wake-up call to the federal government that more needed to be done to monitor what was happening out in the field, said Stella Pulman, an environmental lawyer with the Pillsbury law firm in Houston who represents energy clients.

New agency

In the wake of Deepwater Horizon, a new agency was created  the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement  to oversee the offshore industry. In 2016, the agency issued a new well control rule that set specific drilling margin parameters so pressure created by drilling fluids dont cause fractures in the well  the source of the gas leak that caused the explosion  and required periodic third-party inspections of blowout preventers to prevent avert failures.

Deepwater Horizon also spurred the oil industry to re-evaluate its practices. The American Petroleum Institute, the industrys biggest and most influential trade group, set up task forces to examine underwater oil control and containment, offshore operating facilities and offshore equipment. The industry set new standards and updated existing ones including safer designs of deep-water well construction and safe transfer of work duties between onsite managers and contractors.

It also established a center for offshore safety so industry members could report accidents and near misses as a way to identify root causes to the problems and improve safety, said Debra Phillips, senior vice president of global industry services for API. The industry trade group embraced third-party oversight.

We do believe there has been good change over the past 10 years on both the regulatory side and on voluntary industry action and standard setting, she said.

LASTING LEGACY: A decade later, the oil spill still threatens a way of life in coastal Louisiana

But the industry believed rules imposed by the Obama administration were too cumbersome. One required oil companies to hire independent auditors to examine blowout preventers and other equipment. But the auditors had to be selected from a government approved list  even though the list was never developed, Phillips said.

The industry, meanwhile, was already using independent auditors.

Last year, the Trump administration rescinded many of the new regulations, a move government officials said would save the energy industry about $824 million over the next decade.

The rule eliminates unnecessary regulatory burdens while maintaining safety and environmental protection offshore, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said in a statement.

Fading legacy

The tragedy and its images  the platform aflame, beaches fouled, dying birds and mammals covered in black crude, a well spewing oil for nearly three months  remain scarred in the memory of the nation.

But despite the magnitude of the accident, the public reaction to the Deepwater Horizon tragedy doesnt seem to have generated long-lasting changes, at least compared to another environmental disaster two decades earlier. The 250,000 barrels of oil that spilled into pristine waters and beaches when the oil tanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef in Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989 spurred tighter federal and state regulations.

Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act a year after the spill, requiring tankers to have double hulls to provide an additional layer of protection. The governor of Alaska ordered tugboat escorts for every loaded tanker.

A year after struggling to recover from the Deepwater Horizon, the nations worst oil spill and one of the deadliest oil industry accidents, Congress created a new federal agency, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

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But other measures went nowhere. A bill to improve rig worker safety and remove liability caps so drillers would be responsible for paying the entire cost of economic damages caused by oil spills died in Congress.

After passing the House, Gulf Coast lawmakers stopped the bill in the Senate, arguing it could hurt the oil and gas industry on which the regions economy depends, said Athan Manuel, director of the land protection program for the environmental advocacy group Sierra Club.

Its a really sad lesson that we did not learn, Manuel said. Were 10 years out but were still in the same place essentially.

lynn.sixel@chron.com

twitter.com/lmsixel
Donald Trump has said China 'must have the most' coronavirus deaths worldwide not America - while official figures show the US death toll is seven times higher.

Speaking during his daily coronavirus White House briefing Friday, Trump denied the US has taken the deadliest hit from the pandemic of any nation as he hinted that China hasn't revealed its true numbers.

The president's claims came the same day China increased its death toll in hard-hit Wuhan by 50 percent because of 'mistakes' in reporting and it emerged American intelligence services have launched a full-scale investigation into concerns the pandemic originated in a Wuhan lab.

In his latest attack on the nation where the outbreak originated, Trump said China 'must have the most' coronavirus deaths because it had a 'tremendous problem'.

Donald Trump said Friday the US does not 'have the most in the world deaths' from coronavirus in his latest hint that China could be lying about its figures

'We don't have the-most-in-the-world deaths. The most in the world has to be China,' he said.

'It's a massive country. It's gone through a tremendous problem with this, a tremendous problem. And they must have the most.'

In the US, 37,308 people have been killed in the pandemic, seven times higher than official figures coming out of China which place its death toll at just 4,632.

China revised its death toll in the coronavirus ground-zero Wuhan Friday, adding an extra 1,290 deaths to the tally, bringing its total to 3,869.

Wuhan's epidemic prevention and control headquarters claimed many deaths had been 'mistakenly reported' or missed entirely.

Officials blamed insufficient testing and treatment facilities, some patients dying at home meaning they were not counted in the toll, and medical staff being overwhelmed by cases for the 'late reporting, omissions or misreporting'.

Deep-cleaning in Wuhan in March. In the US, 37,308 people have been killed in the pandemic, seven times higher than China's official figures of 4,632

The change also pushes the nationwide death toll up by nearly 39 percent to 4,632, based on official national data released earlier on Friday.

Total confirmed cases in the city of 11 million also rose by 325 to 50,333, accounting for about two-thirds of China's total 82,367 announced cases.

But many feel that this rare admission of mistakes in China's documentation of the pandemic is only the start in what people fear to be a widespread cover-up of mass fatalities.

'That's only in Wuhan. They're not talking about outside of Wuhan,' Trump said of the correction Friday, before slamming China's alleged dishonesty 'a sad state of affairs.'

US officials have repeatedly raised doubts over the numbers of fatalities and infections coming out of China.

On Thursday, Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also cast doubt on the data coming out of Beijing and said he doesn't 'feel confident at all' that China's 'low number' of cases and deaths are accurate.

'I mean I think any of us who have been dealing with this now for the last few months don't feel confident at all that we have all of the data of the originally infected individuals, how long there were people in the circulation or even now, how many deaths there really are in China,' Fauci told Fox News.

'That number's really rather a low number, that number surprises me that that number is so low.

'But then again you know it is what it is, it's behind us, let's move ahead and address our own problem.'

He also raised questions over when the virus was discovered, fueling growing suspicions that China covered up the scale of its early outbreak.

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper also said Thursday he does not trust Chinese leaders are being truthful about the global crisis even now.

The Pentagon chief accused Beijing of misleading Washington, in an NBC interview Thursday.

'They've been misleading us, they've been opaque if you will from the early days of this virus. So I don't have much faith that they're even being truthful with us now,' he said.

Suspicions are also mounting over the virus's origin, with many growing skeptical of China's claims it came out of a Wuhan 'wet market' where wild animals are sold for human food

Suspicions are also mounting over the origin of the virus.

The global pandemic originally emerged in Wuhan, with Chinese officials maintaining that it came from a 'wet market' where exotic wild animals are sold for human consumption.

But Trump announced Wednesday the US is investigating claims the virus could have originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology Lab.

A growing theory has emerged that 'patient zero', who worked at the Wuhan lab where experiments were being carried out on bats, contracted the infection in a lab accident and then spread the virus into the local population after leaving work.

US intelligence officials have launched a full-scale probe into the matter and are updating lawmakers on their findings, according to a CBS report this week.

China has denied speculation that the pathogen originated inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab, though US government agencies are now said to be piecing together a timeline of what authorities in Beijing knew so as to 'create an accurate picture of what happened.'

Sources told Fox News on Friday that American analysts will present their findings 'in the near term' to President Trump, who will then huddle with aides in order to determine how to hold China accountable for the pandemic.

The American intelligence sources told Fox News that analysts in Washington have ruled out the theory that the coronavirus was engineered by Chinese scientists as a bioweapon.

US intelligence officials have launched a full-scale investigation into claims the outbreak originated from a botched experiment at the Wuhan Institute of Virology Lab (pictured)

China has repeatedly refuted claims the virus originated in the lab and hit back at the US Friday telling it to mind its own business and to stop putting a political spin on the global pandemic.

Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said China had an 'open, transparent and responsible' attitude to the pandemic and praised the country's 'most comprehensive, strictest and most rigorous' prevention measures, during a daily briefing in Beijing on Friday.

He slammed the theory that the virus originated in the Wuhan lab: 'Anybody with any sense would know that [America's] aim is to muddy the waters, divert people's attention and evade its responsibilities.'

Political tensions between China and the US have escalated after the two countries both accused each other of being the origin of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump initially showered praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping for the country's response to the crisis, before he began placing blame on the nation.

Chinese officials responded by shifting blame back to the US, with foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian tweeting in March: 'It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.'
The world has changed beyond recognition since Aisling Carthy travelled to Thailand last August to complete her training as a yoga teaching.

The 21 year old spent five weeks studying at 'The Yoga Mat' in the Banburee resort in Koh Samu, Thailand and began giving classes from her Dawestown home.

Now, with the COVID-19 restrictions, Aisling has decided to move her classes on-line as people can't travel to her home.

'A number of other yoga teachers and fitness instructors are giving classes on-line so I decided to do the same,' she says.

She is offering classes for both adults and children, and stresses that they are suitable for people who are beginners as well as those who have done yoga previously.

As many people are suffering from stress and anxiety because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Aisling believes that yoga is the perfect way to help them relax and cope with their fears.

'The breathing exercises and posture make people feel a lot more relaxed. It's the perfect way for people to reap benefit when they are in lockdown, which is quite challenging for everyone.'

She started yoga when she was very young, first doing it as a child with Miriam Fox, and later attending classes with Mia Mullen of Elevate Yoga Studio with her mother.

'It's really a major part of my life and helped in a big way after my Dad died,' she says.

'It's very important to look after your mental health and to get into good habits which will stay with you.'

Aisling says she is offering the classes for free as she would feel bad charging for them with so many people out of work.

She posts details of the class times on her Facebook page, Aisling Carthy Yoga.
Iranian Navy Floats Creation of Long-Range Nuclear-Powered Subs Amid Renewed Gulf Tensions With US

Sputnik News

14:06 GMT 17.04.2020(updated 14:08 GMT 17.04.2020)

Iran's defence minister blasted the US over its 'illegal' presence in the Persian Gulf this week after the US Navy accused Iranian Navy gunboats of engaging in "dangerous and harassing" behaviour against large US surface ships during drills.

Iran is considering building a new class of long-range nuclear-powered submarines to help its Navy project a presence in international waters, commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi has announced.

"It would be negligence on the part of Iran if it fails to consider using submarines with nuclear propulsion. Therefore, we are thinking about it," Khanzadi said, his remarks cited by Press TV.

The commander noted that many sea-faring powers including the United States already have nuclear propulsion capability for their submarines, which enables them to forgo the need for frequent refueling and considerably expands their operational range.

According to Khanzadi, Iran's defence industry already has the capability to produce subs larger than the Fateh-class, "and certainly, the development of submarine propulsion is on the Navy's agenda."

Iran's Navy commissioned its first Fateh or 'Conquerer' class submarine in early 2019, with a second vessel undergoing sea trials and two more under construction. The 593 tonne diesel electric subs are armed with traditional anti-ship torpedoes, naval mines and domestically-developed sea-launched cruise missiles, and have a reported endurance time of 35 days. The new class of vessels is a marked cut above other Iranian sub designs, including the Ghadir class of midget subs intended for coastal defence, as well as three Soviet-era Project 877 subs the country procured from Russia and modernized.

Khanzadi did not give any indication about the possible characteristics of an Iranian-made nuclear-powered submarine, or any timeframe for construction. He stressed however that in light of recent events, Iran will need to maintain its deterrent capabilities for regional peace to be guaranteed.

"When there is no deterrence and readiness for defence, there will be no peace, consolidated and maintained, and, for this reason, the armed forces of the country are present to maintain this peace."

The rear admiral's comments come in the wake of renewed Iran-US tensions in the Persian Gulf this week following grievances by the US Navy about Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy gunboats "harassing" US warships by zipping around them as they engaged in exercises in the Persian Gulf. On Thursday, Iranian Defence Minister Amir Hatami insisted that Iran had done nothing wrong, and accused the US of coming "from the other side of the world to create a problem for the countries of the region by threatening and sanctioning them."

The US began its latest military manoeuvres in the Persian Gulf in late March. Before that, Washington and its allies upped their military presence in the region last year after a series of incidents involving tanker sabotage attacks, ship seizures and drone shootdowns sent tensions soaring.

A Sputnik

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The UK government on Thursday said that it will be launching a review into the disproportionately greater impact of COVID-19 among black and minority ethnic (BAME) communities, including those of Indian origin.

Downing Street said that Public Health England and NHS England will be leading this probe into the factors behind the higher death rates among these communities as well as more severe symptoms of coronavirus.

This is a really important piece of work which I have commissioned. We have seen, both across the population as a whole but in those who work in the NHS, a much higher proportion who've died from minority backgrounds and that really worries me, said UK health secretary Matt Hancock.

"I pay tribute to the work they've done, including those who were born here, moved here, and given that service to the NHS. It's a really important thing that we must try to fully understand," he said.

For latest updates on coronavirus outbreak, click here

The Opposition Labour Party, which had joined the medical communitys calls for such a review, said it welcomed the initiative into the disturbing impact of COVID-19 on BAME communities but called for more details.

It is not yet clear whether it will be independent, when it will be concluded and who will be leading it, said Marsha de Cordova, Labours Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary.

She stressed that the government must ensure the review is robust and looks into the underlying structural economic and social inequalities that have affected BAME communities in this crisis.

It must also urgently record data broken down by ethnicity on the number of people who have died as a result of COVID-19. The devastating effect of COVID-19 on BAME communities cannot be overstated. This review must be the first step in ensuring that all communities are equally protected from this virus, she said.

A report by the UKs Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) last week revealed the countrys ethnic minority population is more likely to require intensive care admissions, nearly triple the 13 per cent proportion in the UK population as a whole.

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Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the Indian-origin Council Chair of the British Medical Association (BMA), had also called for the authorities to urgently investigate the factors behind the "disproportionate" numbers of BAME doctors among the frontline fatalities from the deadly virus.

We have heard the virus does not discriminate between individuals but theres no doubt there appears to be a manifest disproportionate severity of infection in BAME people and doctors. This has to be addressed  the government must act now, he said.

The British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO) had taken steps to conduct its own research into the issue and reached out to the health authorities for more data because Indian-origin doctors, who make up a large chunk of the NHS workforce, are already among the victims of the deadly virus in the UK.

The reasons behind this trend will not be any one thing but a complex set of factors, be it Vitamin D deficiency, the lack of social distancing measures within a large Indian family household set up or a genetic predisposition. We will know only once we have the relevant data to analyse, said Dr Ramesh Mehta, President of BAPIO.

It is important to analyse the factors behind these differentiating factors so that communities can put additional preventive measures in place, he said.
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: Hinting at community transmission of COVID-19 in Vijayawada, the city's top cop Ch Dwaraka Tirumala Rao on Saturday said there are cases where they could not ascertain how the patients contracted the virus. In another case, a person with a history of foreign travel contracted the virus after 28 days of quarantine, he said.

Sending a clear and loud message to the people to be cautious about the spread of virus and not venture out till May 3, Rao said initially cases were recorded among those who returned from abroad or the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi. "Till then, we had an idea about how the virus was being transmitted," he said, adding that now it was not so clear.

"In some cases, people claim that they only visited rythu bazaars (to purchase vegetables) or kirana shops. In another case we analysed, a man visited hospitals and medical shops to supply saline bottles. We are yet to track how he got the virus," Rao said.

CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW CORONAVIRUS LIVE UPDATES

Announcing these details on a day when 17 more cases were recorded in the district taking the total number of cases to 70, of which 59 are in Vijayawada city alone, Rao said people need not panic but should be careful. "When one cannot establish how a person contracted the virus, people should be extra-cautious and take all precautions. Do not move out as you cannot come to the conclusion that you are safe," he said.

Explaining another case, Rao said a man who returned from abroad contracted the virus after 28 days of quarantine. His mother and 10 people in the area where he was staying subsequently got the virus too. "This shows that the virus affected him after 28 days," he said, adding that people should not come out of their homes in red zone areas as this might lead to the virus spreading.

Cautioning the public, particularly youth, not to venture onto the streets, the city top cop said they will seize vehicles and start registering cases against violators. "We will register criminal cases which means that your name will enter police and court records. Later, you will face difficulty in securing jobs,'' he warned.

"We are not intimidating you but this is a fact. We are going as per legal provisions," he said and asked parents to control their wards.

Rao also appealed to people with symptoms of the virus to report voluntarily to 104 or dial 100 so that they can be sent to quarantine centres. He further said that the lockdown will be enforced till May 3. "The relaxations after April 20 would be given only to some specific sectors and not the general public," he said.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in all of Spain is now at nearly 190,000. The figure, updated on a daily basis by the Health Ministry, includes everyone who has tested positive for the virus. But there is another data set that helps give an idea of the dimension of the pandemic in Spain: the number of possible cases.

These include people who have not been given any kind of test, but whose symptoms correspond to a patient who is suffering from the Covid-19 disease caused by the coronavirus. The 10 of Spains 17 Spanish regions who are tracking this data have detected at least 419,000 possible cases, according to the information that EL PAIS has compiled. Madrid and Catalonia account for 73% of them.

The Health Ministry defines possible cases as patients who have a mild acute respiratory infection but have not been given any kind of test

The Health Ministry defines possible cases as patients who have a mild acute respiratory infection but have not been given any kind of test, whether it be the more reliable PCR test or a rapid test used to detect antibodies. These tests are prioritized for the more serious cases who require hospital treatment and personnel from essential services, such as health workers.

In a situation such as the current one, where there is transmission of the virus in the community, primary healthcare centers consider patients with mild acute respiratory infections to be possible cases, without carrying out any kind of test.

The Health Ministry protocols for dealing with these cases were updated on April 11, and detail how such cases should be tracked  whether by telephone, or directly in primary healthcare centers. Those diagnosed as possible cases have to stay isolated in their homes for at least two weeks, while healthcare centers carry out a check-up via telephone after 24 and then 48 hours to check whether the symptoms continue to be mild. If they get worse, or the patient is considered to be within a risk group, they are taken to hospital where, in principle, they are subject to a test.

The number of possible cases is proving of great importance in terms of how the regions are responding to the virus

The figure of possible cases varies faster than that of confirmed cases, given that it depends on a diagnosis that may be made over the phone. This is well reflected in the figures from the Madrid region: the possible active cases (those that are still being monitored) were 45,000 on April 7, and after 10 days, by Thursday, they had fallen to 21,164.

The number of possible cases is proving of great importance in terms of how the regions are responding to the virus. This activity from primary healthcare has been fundamental until now for early detection [of cases], for appropriate care, isolation and home monitoring or referral to other levels of care, explains Rafa Cofino, the general director of Public Health in the northern Spanish region of Asturias. And it will continue to be important in the new transition phase of the pandemic, when we will have to be very strict with early detection and the study of contacts.

Ildefonso Hernandez, the spokesperson for the Spanish Public Health Society (Sespas), agrees that monitoring possible cases will be decisive in the coming stages of the pandemic. During the exit phase not all territories  rural areas, for example  will have the same diagnostic capabilities in order to identify a case, he explains.

Identifying a coronavirus case via PCR testing, for example, requires a microbiology laboratory with specialized equipment, something that small hospitals lack. Imagine that someone calls from their home in Bielsa or any other isolated place, they go to the doctor, they have compatible symptoms and they have had contact with a case, Hernandez explains. They can carry out a first antibody test, and that comes back negative. But if they return in a few days and the symptoms continue, it is very reasonable to consider it a possible case. Its very likely to be Covid-19.

Every Friday, Spains 17 regions must send a weekly summary of possible cases to the central government. In Spain, healthcare systems are devolved to the regions, and work independently from one another. The lack of coordination in terms of the collection of the data means that not all healthcare systems are collecting the information in the same way, something that, Hernandez explains, may depend on the capacity of primary healthcare doctors to send reports or because this reporting has started later in some territories.

Unpublished figures

Andalusia, Galicia and Valencia are not making this figure public. Castilla y Leon, meanwhile, has been among the first regions to publish a daily figure of cases diagnosed at primary healthcare centers: there are 38,444 people with compatible symptoms, more than 44,000 total cases so far, and the curve has begun to flatten. Extremadura and Asturias are also updating the data on their webpages on a daily basis.

In the Basque Country, these possible cases are tracked via a cellphone application. Until this Thursday, 3,502 people reported possible symptoms, while 615 are being monitored by the application itself, and are being considered possible cases.

In the Madrid region, monitoring is being carried out via primary healthcare services, with a current registration of around 26,164 people. In Catalonia, a change in criteria of the collection and distribution of data has seen the number of possible cases included in the daily report. On Thursday, the figure for the northeastern Spanish region was 55,195 people.

As well as monitoring the number of possible cases, there are also regions, such as Asturias, that are monitoring the contacts of confirmed Covid-19 cases. Castilla-La Mancha, for example, is tracking such contacts. Until now, more than 20,000 close contacts have been identified, and they have been advised to spend 14 days in quarantine. In Murcia, via the network of local health centers, more than 26,000 people have been identified as close contacts of positive cases since the crisis began.

The objective is to get an idea of the circle of contacts of each person with coronavirus in order to understand the reach of the epidemic. The contacts are usually the carers of people with symptoms, as well as the partners or close family members who have been in the same place while the person in question presented symptoms, and have been at a distance of under two meters for more than 15 minutes. All of these contacts also have to isolate at home for a two-week period.

English version by Simon Hunter.
The immediate tariff elimination applies to certain fish and shrimp, honey, some kinds of fruit such as pineapple, avocado, guava and mango, cement, chromite, disinfectant and protective suits.

Tariffs on sugar and unprocessed tobacco will be cut to 15% over the next four years while cigarettes and cigars will see tariffs reduced to 70%.

Vietnam will also lower tariffs on Cubas alcoholic drinks to 20% over the next four years.

The tariff cuts on Cuban imports are part of an agreement signed between the two countries in November 2018 to replace an earlier agreement inked in 1996.

The new pact is expected to elevate Vietnamese-Cuban economic, trade and investment cooperation to a level commensurate with their fine bilateral relationship.

Under the agreement, the two sides pledge to eliminate or reduce tariffs on almost all goods imported from the other country in five years.
In a phone call with an undercover F.B.I. agent, according to court records, Dr. Staley said he was selling antimalarial medication that cures the disease, and identified the medication as hydroxychloroquine.

Its preventative and curative, Dr. Staley said, according to prosecutors. Its hard to believe, its almost too good to be true. But its a remarkable clinical phenomenon. During the phone call, they noted, he also mentioned another antimalarial drug  mefloquine  that he said he would sell to the undercover agent if he ran out of hydroxychloroquine.

Dr. Staley, according to prosecutors, said both drugs would totally cure Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, and that taking the treatment before getting sick would make one immune for at least six weeks. According to prosecutors, Dr. Staley guaranteed that the treatment would cure virus, though he later seemed to couch that statement, telling the undercover agent: There are no guarantees in life. There are no guarantees of anything.

When Dr. Staley was interviewed by the F.B.I. the following week, according to prosecutors, he said it would be foolish to tell patients that the treatments are a 100 percent effective cure for the coronavirus.

We will not tolerate Covid-19 fraudsters who try to profit and take advantage of the pandemic fear to cheat, steal and harm others, Robert S. Brewer Jr., the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, said in the statement. Rest assured: those who engage in this despicable conduct will find themselves in the cross hairs of federal prosecutors.
Agricultural land accumulation for large-scale production has been facing many obstacles, although the Government has pushed up the process by implementing several policies.

Agricultural land accumulation helps expand large-scale production.  Photo tapchitaichinh.vn

The market for agricultural land is at an early stage of development, with many barriers in terms of land management and incentive policies.

In fact, the Government had introduced incentive policies which attracted many businesses to invest into agricultural production and helped increase economic efficiency.

The mechanism of flexible conversion of agricultural land use purpose, especially the regulations related to changing crops on rice fields, had contributed to improving the effectiveness of cultivated land.

Issuance of land use rights to agricultural land had created favourable conditions for the land owners to participate in the market, which was an important factor to promote agricultural land accumulation.

Complicated procedures

However, there have still been some shortcomings in the process of land accumulation.

Overlapping laws and legal documents and cumbersome administrative procedures had hindered businesses.

Dau Anh Tuan, an expert from the Vietnam Chamber for Commerce and Industry (VCCI), said that the biggest concern of businesses in accessing agricultural land was administrative procedures.

The main reason was that the accessibility and accumulation of land by enterprises was limited. It was because domestic businesses were only allowed to lease land for agricultural production.

Meanwhile, foreign-invested businesses were also not permitted to receive transfers of agricultural land use rights, Tuan said.

Capital contribution by land use rights was not feasible at the moment, because the capital protection policies of investors were not clear and complete, he said.

Additionally, land prices set by the Government were lower than the real prices in the market.

They were only 20-30 per cent of the market prices.

Notably, the information on land use planning and mechanisms for calculating land prices was still unclear and not transparent, which easily leads to land disputes.

The legal documents were overlapping and inconsistent, confusing enterprises, said the expert.

This also delayed agricultural projects, which caused high costs and risks for investors, he said.

Policy system needs improving

Hoang Vu Quang, vice director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (Ipsard), said: In order to establish and develop a market of agricultural land, the Government should have sufficient land laws and supporting policies.

Besides, as per experiences of countries with fully-developed agricultural land markets, Vietnam needed institutions to provide infrastructure for transactions, such as an effective management system, funds and banks which have sufficient capacity for land fund development, Quang said.

It was necessary to increase the public land lease term from five years to 20 years to encourage businesses to invest in long-term production, Quang said.

The Government should consider reducing or exempting taxes and fees for agricultural land use rights transfer and simplifying administrative procedures in agricultural land transactions, as well as setting up a monitoring mechanism for the land pricing and profit sharing between businesses and farmers in accordance with laws, he said.

Meanwhile, Tuan said: The Government should develop an agricultural land market where rights and interests of sellers and buyers are guaranteed and information is transparent.

The Government also needs to complete and update the land registration system and speed up an establishment of the national agricultural land database, Tuan added.

Nguyen Trung Kien, the Ipsard expert, said: In many countries, they had institutions and organisations supporting the agricultural land market.

The organisations rented land from farmers and then leased it to farms and businesses, Kien said.

In other countries, farmers had to pay high taxes for abandoned land or have unused land revoked, he added.

Thus, Vietnam should complete a system of agricultural land registration to help effectively manage the resource, the expert said.

A legal mechanism of capital contributions or bank mortgaging by land use rights must be set up soon, he said.  VNS

VN needs policies to develop agricultural land market Vietnam was in urgent need of policies to develop a transparent and sustainable agricultural land market to attract more investment in the farming...
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / April 18, 2020 / Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Sterling Bancorp, Inc. ("Sterling" or the "Company") (SBT). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888-476-6529, ext. 7980.

The investigation concerns whether Sterling and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices.

[Click here for information about joining the class action]

On November 17, 2017, Sterling commenced its initial public offering ("IPO"), offering 15 million shares of common stock priced at $12.00 per share.

On June 21, 2019, Sterling disclosed in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") filing that it had entered into an agreement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to enhance its anti-money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act compliance. Later that day, Sterling announced the resignation of Jon Fox, a member of the Company's Audit and Risk Management Committee, from its Board of Directors.

Then, on December 9, 2019, Sterling disclosed in an SEC filing that it was suspending its Advantage Loan Program until "management is confident its stated policies and procedures are being followed," citing an internal review of documentation on past loans. On this news, Sterling's stock price fell $2.16 per share, or 22.86%, to close at $7.29 per share on December 9, 2019. Since the IPO, Sterling's stock price has closed as low as $7.01 per share, representing a decline of 41.58% from the offering price.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com.

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SOURCE: Pomerantz LLP





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/585726/SHAREHOLDER-ALERT-Pomerantz-Law-Firm-Investigates-Claims-On-Behalf-of-Investors-of-Sterling-Bancorp-Inc-SBT




A lady, Tola Azeez, was flogged by policemen in Iwo for allegedly violating the coronavirus lockdown in Osun State.

Azeez, who made this known on Twitter on Saturday, said the incident happened on her way to get drugs.

This is me being beaten by the police today on my way to get drugs and some relief materials for my people, she wrote while she retweeted a video posted by a Nigerian musician, @Ruggedybaba.

In the video, two police officers were seen lashing a lady with whips. See the very disturbing video below



This is me been beaten by the police today on my way to get drugs and some relief materials for my people. https://t.co/jtBikePIgp  Tola Azeez (@fabhally) April 18, 2020

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
Fifty-three positive cases of Covid-19 were detected in Rajasthan on Saturday, taking the tally to 1,282, but no deaths were reported.

Bhilwara, which had emerged as a hotspot is free of the virus now. The last Covid-19 patient was discharged on Friday. Bhilwara had 28 cases and reported two deaths.

Rohit Kumar Singh, additional chief secretary, health said that 27 were reported from Bharatpur, 12 from Nagaur, five from Kota, two each from Jodhpur Ajmer and three from Jaipur. One case each was reported from Banswara and Jaisalmer.

Jaipur remains a hot spot with 498 cases, of which 343 are from Ramganj. After Jaipur, Jodhpur has the highest number of 156 cases.

Health minister Raghu Sharma said the situation in the state is under control and the state has taken all measures to prevent spread of the virus.

We want to strengthen the health infrastructure and testing facilities in the state permanently so that we are ready for future challenges because diseases will keep coming. But if we have the infrastructure then we can tackle them better, he said.

Sharma said he along with the chief minister held a VC with collectors, CMHOs, principals of medical colleges and other officials and have asked for suggestions to improve the infrastructure. We want to take this opportunity to improve the CHCs, PHCs, sub-centres, district hospitals and medical colleges. We asked them to tell us what infrastructure is needed such as ventilators, ICU beds, x-ray machines, sonography machines, equipment in pathology labs so we have adequate infrastructure at the district level.

He said the government would provide budget from any means available, from SDRF, MLA LAD or CM relief fund.

Rohit Kumar Singh said of the 1282 cases, 53 are evacuees from Iran who are housed in the Army wellness centre in Jodhpur and Jaisalmer. The total tests conducted in the state are 47,197 of which 39,092 have tested negative.

He said 183 people have been cured and 93 have been discharged.
Mervyn Binns July 8, 1934-April 7, 2020

Mervyn Binns, well-known Melbourne bookseller who specialised in science fiction, fantasy and counter cultural literature, has died aged 85.

Binns was a life-long booklover who developed an early interest in fantastic literature, and was the proprietor of Space Age Books, a landmark in Swanston Street from 1970 to 1985.

In 1952, he and his friends Race Mathews (later a noted Labor politician), Lee Harding (award-winning author) and Dick Jenssen (academic at the University of Melbourne) formed the Melbourne Science Fiction Group, later the Melbourne Science Fiction Club. Around this time, Binns joined the staff of McGills Newsagency in Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, where he worked until the end of the 1960s.

He was a stalwart of the club and served in all its key roles, particularly as librarian. Through McGills and his overseas contacts, he was able to import books that were not otherwise available in Australia and established a nationwide clientele for science fiction.
Paris, Friday 17 April 2020, 8.00 am CET

BNP Paribas REIM France, on behalf of its managed fund Accimmo Pierre, has acquired the Influence 2.0 office building delivered by Nexity in late 2019 and developing 25,000 sq.m. This iconic building is located within Les Docks de Saint-Ouen, at the foot of line 13 and very soon line 14 of the Paris subway, and hosts the headquarters of the Conseil Regional dIle-de-France (the regional authority for the Greater Paris area), already renting the adjacent building Influence 1.0 since 2018.

Sigrid Duhamel, CEO of BNP Paribas REIM France, said:  Gateway for the eco district Les Docks de Saint-Ouen, Influence 2.0 is an emblematic and high-quality building offering large floor space of more than 2,900 sq.m each. We are proud of this acquisition, particularly secured in the current context, with a prestigious and sustainable tenant and its location in a neighbourhood undergoing considerable change benefitting from a double subway service with lines 13 and 14. 

Veronique Bedague, Chairwoman and CEO of Nexity Immobilier dentreprise added:  We are very proud to have been able to carry out this project in the current context of global economic slowdown. It shows the recognition of the quality of the building designed by Jacques Ferrier Architectures and occupied by the Conseil Regional dIle-de-France in Saint-Ouen, and validating the attractiveness of this territory at the eastern edge of Paris. Its also showing the trust of BNP Paribas REIM in our know-how, by acquiring a sustainable building entailing stringent environmental performance (HQE Excellent, BREEAM Very Good, RT 2012 -40%) .

Nexity was advised by Nexity Conseil et Transaction and lEtude Chevreux.

BNP Paribas REIM was advised by lEtude Thiberge, Allen et Overy and Etyo





About BNP Paribas Real Estate Investment Management

BNP Paribas REIM, a business line of BNP Paribas Real Estate, provides a wide range of real estate funds and investment solutions for international investors across all assets classes and all countries in Europe. With a local presence in eight countries (France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg), BNP Paribas REIM employs more than 350 professionals who provide solutions to over 100,000 clients, both institutional and private investors. At the end of 2019, BNP Paribas REIM managed  30.1bn of assets in Europe.

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BNP Paribas REIM is the business line dedicated to Investment Management within BNP Paribas Real Estate consisting of various legal entities: France: BNP Paribas Real Estate Investment Management (SA); Italy: BNP Paribas Real Estate Investment Management Italy (SGR); Germany: BNP Paribas Real Estate Investment Management Germany (GmbH); UK: BNP Paribas Real Estate Investment Management UK (Limited); Luxembourg: BNP Paribas Real Estate Investment Management Luxembourg S.A.

The respective legal entities responsible for offering clients products or services are named in the respective product documentation, contracts and information material.

Press contacts:

Nicolas OBRIST  Tel: +33 (0)1 55 65 21 15 Mobile: +33 (0)6 77 21 27 55  nicolas.obrist@realestate.bnpparibas

Amira TAHIROVIC  Tel: +33 (0)1 55 65 22 08 Mobile: +33 (0)6 37 78 12 17 - amira.tahirovic@realestate.bnpparibas

Charlotte REMOND  charlotte.remond@realestate.bnpparibas





AT NEXITY, WE AIM TO SERVE ALL OUR CLIENTS AS THEIR REAL ESTATE NEEDS EVOLVE

Nexity offers the widest range of advice and expertise, products, services and solutions for individuals, companies and local authorities, so as to best meet the needs of our clients and respond to their concerns.

Our business lines  real estate brokerage, management, design, development, planning, advisory and related services  are now optimally organised to serve and support our clients. As the benchmark operator in our sector, we are resolutely committed to all our clients, as well as to the environment and society as a whole.







Nexity is listed on the SRD and on Euronexts Compartment A

Nexity is included in the following indices: SBF 80, SBF 120, CAC Mid 60, CAC Mid & Small and CAC All Tradable

Ticker symbol: NXI  Reuters: NXI.PA  Bloomberg: NXI:FP

ISIN code: FR0010112524

______







CONTACT

Domitille Vielle  Head of Investor Relations / +33 (0)1 85 55 19 34  investorrelations@nexity.fr

Geraldine Bop  Deputy Head of Investor Relations / +33 (0)1 85 55 18 43  investorrelations@nexity.fr





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A yacht suspected to be carrying a commercial quantity of drugs has been intercepted south of Newcastle as part of an investigation into organised drug crime.

Two men have been arrested and are in police custody for "charging processes", a statement from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said.

Australian Federal Police, New South Wales Police Force and Australian Border Force are investigating a yacht that was intercepted south of Newcastle. Credit:Edwina Pickles

The boat is part of an ongoing investigation and subject to forensics procedures, the AFP said, "where the drugs will be unloaded and the full volume of the importation will be known".

A multi-agency operation involving the AFP, NSW Police and Australian Border Force is underway in Sydney.
Recently Dr. Alister Martin faced his patient, a Hispanic man who spoke no English, and broke the news that he would have to be intubated. Struggling to keep his voice calm, Martin, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, suggested that the man call his wife. And he told the patient, a bus driver and a father of three, that he should give her his love and say goodbye, just in case.

This exchange is now part of the fabric of Martins daily routine, but it never gets easier. Making it all the more difficult is that each piece of information is repeated at least twice: Most of Martins COVID-19 patients dont speak English, so he communicates through a language interpreter on the phone.

Because personal protective equipment is in short supply in hospitals across the country, few clinical interpreters are able to work in person with COVID-19 patients, as they normally would. Most language interpretation is done remotely. Communicating through an interpreter doubles or triples the length of a medical exchange, adding new confusion and anxiety to situations that are already stressful for patients and their families. And the conditions of COVID-19 care  the rapid pace at which cases evolve, the desire of hospital workers to limit the duration of their exposure to patients  create numerous obstacles to effective interpretation.

We are seeing an overall degradation in the quality of care given to patients who dont speak English as their first language, Martin said.

Martin said the coronavirus outbreak has multiplied the logistical barriers for medical interpretation. The hospital rooms are loud, filled with buzzing oxygen tanks and urgent staff conversations. Everyone is masked, their voices muffled. Medical workers are trying to stay 6 feet away from their patients whenever possible.

Someones oxygen can be dropping, and I have to get an interpreter on the phone, wait on hold, put in an access code, tell them where I am, Martin said. Its hard for the patient. Imagine youre in a loud room with a mask blowing oxygen in your face at 15 litres a minute and you feel crummy. You cant comprehend things as much.

Typically, he explains to patients the precise medical process before intubation and instructs them to think of their happiest memories, what he calls the vacation before sedation. With an interpreter on the phone, he and his team are pressed to use their words more sparingly.

Interpreters, too, say, that their quality of work suffers when they communicate with patients remotely instead of in person and cant use body language or read facial expressions. Little things like a tap on the shoulder or holding the patients hand usually makes a big difference, said Cinderella Lee, a Cantonese interpreter for Sutter Health in San Francisco.

Lee said that under normal circumstances, patients who arent English-language proficient have family members help with translation and serve as advocates. But because hospitals have barred visitors, patients are on their own. Some patients Lee works with are elderly and dont understand why their loved ones dont visit them, she said.

David Velasquez, a medical student at Harvard, said he has often been called on to translate for Spanish-speaking patients while on clinical rotations. Having witnessed lapses in communication with patients who are not proficient in English, he fears for his immigrant family members outside Los Angeles, one of whom has already contracted the new coronavirus.

Most doctors dont speak their language, Velasquez said. Id worry about the discharge process. Its one thing letting them know what they have to do in the hospital. But its another thing to educate patients on precautions to take after leaving and how to protect their loved ones.

The challenges in treating COVID-19 patients who are not English-proficient are especially troubling to physicians because of the disproportionate hospitalization rates for blacks and Hispanics.

Hispanics make up 34 per cent of the coronavirus deaths in New York City, according to data released by the city last week, but just 29 per cent of the citys population. City leaders have suggested that this partly reflected Hispanic overrepresentation among essential workers; a study from the city comptroller found that minorities make up 75 per cent of the front-line workforce, including grocery clerks and janitors.

Massachusetts has released only limited racial and ethnic data on the virus, but large clusters of infection have been reported in immigrant-heavy Chelsea and in Bostons predominantly black, Latino and immigrant communities, including in Hyde Park and Mattapan. Roughly 40 per cent of COVID-19 in-patients at Massachusetts General Hospital are Hispanic, according to hospital officials, 80 per cent of whom are primarily Spanish-speaking.

This has become a black and brown epidemic across the country, said Dr. Joseph Betancourt, chief equity and inclusion officer at the hospital. Thats all the more reason we have to pay attention to language.

At Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts, nearly half of the 126,000 patients in its primary care system have limited English proficiency. The Alliance has 100 staff interpreters who usually work in its emergency rooms and community clinics. Vonessa Costa, director of multicultural affairs and patient services, said that roughly 99 per cent of the interpreting work is now remote, with the interpreting staff fielding upward of 1,300 calls per day.

Those circumstances place tremendous stress on the medical interpreters, Costa said, especially those who live in Bostons immigrant communities hard-hit by the outbreak. Last week, she heard from a distraught interpreter who had just spent 45 minutes on the phone helping a young Spanish-speaking woman communicate with hospital staff about two critically ill family members: her partner and her mother.

There is a trauma in interpreting trauma, Costa said. Quite a few interpreters in our department have family members who have been hospitalized too. Theyre shell-shocked by the situations theyve had to interpret and the devastation in their communities.

Dr. Jorge Rodriguez, a physician at Brigham and Womens Hospital, said that the coronavirus pandemic is exposing, and exacerbating, a pre-existing condition in the countrys health system: disparities in care for non-English-speaking patients. A 2015 study from the Joint Commission showed that patients with limited English proficiency experienced adverse health outcomes at markedly higher rates than English speakers.

We knew that limited-proficient-English patients had decreased access to care, more emergency department visits, longer in-patient stays and worse clinical outcomes, Rodriguez said. He added that he hoped the pandemics disproportionate effect on Hispanic populations would push medical institutions to consider the ways that language barriers affect patient care.

Some medical institutions have already begun to rethink their interpreting services amid the coronavirus outbreak. Betancourt said that in the last month Mass General has created a registry of front-line staff members who speak multiple languages. The hospital now aims to assign a Spanish-speaking doctor to each medical team whenever possible, so that patients can rely on their physicians to interpret rather than having to use remote services.

Costa said that Cambridge Health Alliance has identified all patients who require in-person rather than remote interpretation, such as individuals who are hard of hearing and do not use American Sign Language, and has allocated personal protective equipment for their on-site interpreters. The health care provider has begun offering discharge instructions in Arabic, Nepali and other languages, expanding beyond the Spanish, Portuguese and Haitian Creole translations already on offer. And they are considering distributing microphones to patients when necessary to amplify their words for interpreters.

But as Costas organization races to better its interpreting services, she worries about the millions more patients across the country who are non-English-proficient and struggling to access care. A pandemic is not the time to build working systems, she said.
As a retired physician, I am so appreciative of those in the medical field who are still accepting enormous personal risk by caring for us during this pandemic. Those include not only physicians and nurses, but also the check-in clerks, maintenance people, and even housekeeping. They literally put their lives on the line every day. You've all heard it before, but not enough. Thank you.

When Gov. Whitmer's administration attempted to restrict doctors from prescribing hydroxychloroquine and pharmacists from fulfilling their prescriptions, I was truly concerned. Physicians use medications for off-label treatments "all the time." This means that although a drug is approved for certain conditions, it is used for a different disorder if it appears it might work. It is absolutely legal to use it in this way. Obviously, the prescriber incurs more liability, but it is a common practice for all clinicians. There are many drugs used that way. I myself developed a treatment for the common wart using candida antigen "off label" to often obtain phenomenal results. Although rigid studies have not been done, it has been accepted across the US as an appropriate off-label treatment.

Hydroxychloroquine has been used for over 50 years to treat malaria and conditions like lupus. It's not approved for the current coronavirus but many feel it would be of therapeutic or prophylactic benefit. Concerns about its use include possible side effects. However, one doctor, who has over 2,000 patients at any one time taking it long term, said that after using it for 40 years, he hasn't had even one patient with a complication significant enough to require hospital admission.

I'm not sure then why the governor attempted to limit physicians and pharmacists like she did. Physicians make life-changing therapeutic decisions every day and are required to take many ethics courses during their training. We are accustomed to looking at the literature and deciding what drugs are useful or not.

There are now several studies showing the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine with azithromycin for the treatment of COVID-19. The most widely known one comes from the pre-eminent epidemiologist in France, Didier Raoult, and confirm how beneficial it is. We don't have the preferred large rigorous trials yet, but polls of physicians indicate 80-90% of them would take the combo if they became sick with the virus. With the Right to Try Law passed in Michigan in 2014, potentially terminal patients in Michigan are guaranteed the "right to try" any drug they believe may alleviate their suffering.

I wrote to the governor and to Rep. Annette Glenn and Sen. Jim Stamas about my concerns and how inappropriate the order was. The governor's office didn't respond. Glenn and Stamas responded immediately and went to work on changing things.

Interestingly, Rep. Karen Whitsett, a Democratic legislator from Detroit, had heard the president discuss hydroxychloroquine in one of his presentations. She herself had COVID-19 and was not doing well. She asked her physician to prescribe it but he withheld the drug initially for fear of fines and the loss of his license. Glenn, who is vice chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, pressured LARA to allow doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine. She then called Rep. Whitsett's doctor and told him he could do so without fear of repercussions.

Rep. Whitsett has spoken in many interviews that she feels the drug saved her life and thanked both the president for making her aware of it and Rep. Glenn for intervening on her behalf. In times like these, we need everyone we can to fight for each and every one of us. Glenn's actions may have indeed saved many lives, not just Rep. Whitsett's. Although supportive testimonials are not great science, they are plentiful when it comes to hydroxychloroquine.

It is great to have all of the people in the medical field to work for us. It is good to know that we have people in the legislature like Rep. Glenn and Sen. Stamas who are willing to listen and who are looking out for us too.

John L. Pfenninger is a retired doctor from Midland, and former columnist for the Daily News.
As the formal but ill-defined prime ministerial stand-in, Dominic Raab has sometimes appeared hesitant to take the kind of decisions that only prime ministers can and should take, such as extending the lockdown. However, this week, Mr Raab asserted something with real clarity that the world as a whole is only slowly coming to terms with: that there can be no return to business as usual with China when the coronavirus pandemic passes.

Perhaps China is sensing this too. The surprise revision of the latest death toll for Wuhan, whence the virus came, only lends weight to the suspicion that China has been massaging its coronavirus statistics for some time. Indeed, it is widely accepted that China underplayed the Covid-19 outbreak for too long, misleading the World Health Organisation and others about the ease of human-to-human transmission. Some of the doctors who attempted to warn the world have since died of Covid-19.

Regardless of how such early misunderstandings (to put it politely) about the disease arose, they have enraged Donald Trump, and cost the world dear. Questions are rightly being asked about the reliability of Chinese official data  and more fundamentally about why China and other countries still permit sometimes unsanitary wildlife markets, which have long proved to be incubators for zoonotic diseases.
(Newser)  More than 80 million people have already received their one-time payments from the IRS, mandated in the economic stimulus legislation, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said this week. Those are payments that the IRS was able to put directly into accounts. But there are issues in getting the payments to everyone else who is entitled to them, the Hill reports. "The easy part is the direct deposit payments, and the IRS deserves high grades for what they've done so far," said Mark Everson, a former IRS commissioner. "Now, it gets more complicated." That's true for Americans who don't have current addresses or bank information on file with the IRS, including those who don't usually file a tax return. They include low-income people.

story continues below

That leaves about 60 million waiting for their payments, which max out at $1,200 per adult and $500 per child, per CNN. Paying by direct deposit was the fastest method, so that's where the IRS started. Paper checks will go out next, starting next week, to those who haven't approved direct deposit in the past two years. That will take a while; the IRS can only send about 5 million checks per week. One snag was resolved Friday, when the government announced that veterans and their families don't have to do anything to make sure they'll be paid; those checks will go out automatically, per NBC. At least a few of the payments have gone to people who are no longer alive, per CNBC. "Were still working that issue," an IRS spokesman said. (An online tool lets people check on the status of their payment.)
Dear San Francisco:

In my seven years as a practicing physician, I have never taken care of more and sicker patients than I have now.

Caring for critically ill patients with COVID-19 is demanding and laborious. For many patients, even a ventilator does not provide enough support. Often, these patients can maintain adequate gas exchange only if they are positioned to lie on their fronts.

Turning critically ill patients from their backs to their fronts is no simple endeavor. In addition to the tube in their throats that is connected to the ventilator, these patients often have catheters in their veins, arteries, noses and bladders  all attached to lifesaving monitors, pumps or drains. None of these must snag or tangle.

Proning a patient requires multiple nurses and respiratory therapists  each in layers of personal protective equipment  to act in a synchronized and coordinated fashion. Once on their belly, a patient needs careful positioning and repositioning to prevent the bed sores on their face and elsewhere. A patients head is turned to one side. One arm is stretched up and one leg is slightly bent. A few hours later, the head is turned to the other side. The other arm is stretched and the other leg is bent. It is as if the patient is engaged in an hours-long, stop-motion forward crawl.

For this reason, the roving team of nurses and respiratory therapists who position and reposition patient after patient have earned a special respect and moniker. They are our COVID Swim Team.

Positioning patients on their fronts is one part of the manifold complexity of care for COVID patients in the intensive care unit.

At all hours of the day and night, the intensive care unit is a hive of activity. Everyone is in constant motion, deliberate and purposeful. It feels as if the entirety of the institution has a singular focus, and we are the tip of the spear. Everyone has stepped up their game: facilities and maintenance staff, supply chain managers, respiratory therapists, laboratory technicians, nurses, physicians, researchers and administrators.

The positive morale is tinged with darkness.

There is sadness and grief for those patients who have died and for their families who could not be at their side. There is also the sobering realization that things could have turned out very differently.

Unlike in China, Italy and elsewhere, our intensive care units, while busy, are not overwhelmed and overrun. We can dedicate maximal efforts to each patient  even turning them onto their fronts when they need it, and then repositioning them, again and again and again and again, until their lungs heal.

Much is being written about how San Francisco has, so far, flattened the curve. Undoubtedly, there is an element of luck. Certainly, bold and courageous decisions by our elected leaders have made a difference. But the most important person in this communal team effort? You.

To all of San Francisco, I write this missive to express my deep and abiding gratitude.

Many of you are suffering the consequences of the massive economic downturn. Others of you continue to staff our essential businesses  grocery stores, gas stations, nursing homes  with bravery and calm and grace. Over our ubiquitous masks, everyone has had to learn how to smize (smile with our eyes).

Everyone has had to endure the exquisite anxiety of not knowing exactly where we might find our next roll of toilet paper.

In your moments of frustration, sadness, anger and despair, I hope you remember this: From my view in the intensive care unit, your daily sacrifice has literally saved lives, especially among the elderly, the frail and the chronically ill.

These saved lives are counted in the number of people who never come to the intensive care unit in the first place, because they were never infected, because the chain of transmission was broken by the humble, heroic acts of social distancing and sheltering in place, which all of us San Franciscans have committed to, as a community.

We will soon enter a new phase of the crisis.

In some ways, what comes next may be even harder than what came before. Life may stutter and syncopate. We may take two steps forward, only to take one step back. And yet  in this city that has played an outsize role in the public health history of the United States  I am confident that we will do the right thing.

As we did before, some decades ago during the darkest years of the AIDS epidemic, so have we pulled together today. We have found  as the slogan goes  our Strength in Numbers. San Francisco, I could not be prouder to serve you and stand alongside you.

We will come out of this together, stronger than ever.

In solidarity.

Richard Wang is assistant professor of medicine at UCSF. He is an attending intensivist at UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco General Hospital and the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The views expressed above are his own and do not represent those of his affiliated institutions.
We are the left.

The sole reason for our existence is to see Donald Trump removed from office. We also intend to bring about his and his familys total personal destruction. He must be demolished. He is a man of the people, not one of us. He dwells not in our swamp.

The goals of our mission and the story of our execution of our mission are as follows:

We will fabricate any lie, any false narrative, to infect the minds of the American people to the degree they will not support President Donald Trump.

We endeavor to use the media to achieve our ends. As members in good standing, they will distort, edit, and dissemble any truths or facts that may reflect well on the president. They will disseminate the talking points we distribute to them.

We will enlist an array of billionaires to fund our overt and covert organizations aligned with our purpose: George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Tom Steyer, SPLC, etc. They have all been on board since the day the president announced his candidacy and have committed their fortunes to our cause.

We will embrace the aid and comfort of the CIA, the FBI and the DOJ, despite our historic animus against them. The president has foiled our efforts there to a certain degree, but we carry on. We thought we had him with our carefully-planned frame-up that he had colluded with Russia to win the election. That failed and it was a mighty expensive failure. Hillary Clinton paid millions of Clinton Foundation dollars to Christopher Steele for his phony, propaganda-infested dossier and hired a large group of like-minded members of our club to execute the deed, starting with Fusion GPS. She also aligned with James Comey, James Brennan, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Bruce and Nellie Ohr, the whiteshoe lawyers of Perkins-Coie, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Sally Yates, and a host of other former members in good standing. They failed in their mission and can no longer be members in good standing in the club.

We attempted to impeach Trump with that phone call to the president of Ukraine but House Democrats Adam Schiff and Speaker Nancy Pelosi royally messed up that plan. Schiff too has been removed from our membership roster for now, though he is trying to get back in. He made us all look bad, as did Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his incompetent team. What is it about a frame-up they failed to grasp? We had Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community's inspector general, also a member in good standing, on our side. Now hes been fired.

To our delight, COVID-19 has appeared on the scene. Damn if Trump wasnt on top of it from day one. We had to alter that perception from the outset. Joe Biden, who is too far gone mentally to be an authentic member our organization, caused a setback when he declared the president a xenophobic racist for banning those flights from China. But we got back on track; if only Dr. Anthony Fauci and the left-media were not minimizing the virus, too. And in fact, it hasnt killed as many people as the 2009-2010 H1N1 flu. President Obama barely gave a thought to all those hospitalizations and deaths.

We successfully engineered the total lockdown of the American economy. How brilliant was that? We coerced the president into accepting the advice of Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, even though their predictions were wildly off base. Trumps success with the economy and full employment had to be submarined somehow. The sudden loss of millions of jobs, the stock market crash, our media pals drumming up panic over a plague; it was a perfect storm. Surely this would seal Trumps defeat in November. But admittedly, Having lost sight of our objectives, we redoubled our efforts. (Walt Kelly).

For the past month, though, we have to endure those daily briefings with Trump and his task force. Damn hes good! We have our media plants in there doing their level best to trip him up, to make him say something we can use to make him look the fool. But the man has an amazing grasp of all the facts, not just about the virus but of every domestic or foreign policy question, industry, trade, etc. -- and them. The man is a walking encyclopedia. Our reporters end up the fools. But this virus thing, it will work, we are certain.

We had all our Democrat governors on board with this lockdown, but now that Trump has handed them guidelines for undoing it, we may be in trouble. Republican governors are all chomping at the bit to end it. Our members thought they could collectively drag this out until the people were craving rescue. Thats what we do, rescue people; we want them dependent on us. That is how we ensure they will vote for us. If they cant work, they need us, right? Now that ploy seems to be slipping away. The stock market even went up on Friday.

So we made an error in judgment. Americans dont like to shelter-in-place for long. Oh theyre willing to cooperate for awhile and follow basic guidelines but as the confirmed cases and fatalities have not remotely reached the numbers those computer models Birx and Fauci were using and that led to the shutdown, they are beginning to rebel. We forgot to remember the American revolutionary spirit that is part and parcel of these people; they dont like to be bossed around, told what they can and cannot do, especially with regard to church. That First Amendment is, we must admit, a problem. They also really like the Second Amendment. We fear our over-zealousness has thoroughly foiled our attempt at restricting that one.

It seems our mission statement has become an admission of defeat. Joe Biden cannot possibly be elected president; hes clearly suffering from dementia. Why his wife continues to let him make a fool of himself is a mystery. Meanwhile, President Trump has demonstrated an astonishing leadership quality and a mastery of the facts of all pressing issues. He has foiled us at every turn. We fear he may win in November. All of our plans have seemingly failed. The perpetrators of the Russia hoax are possibly about to be indicted. IG Michael Atkinsons treason has been exposed. If our fervent attempts to use the virus against him fail, Trump will surely be re-elected. If people are allowed by their governors to go back to work, our plan will have suffered a fatal blow. If only Democrat governors continue the shutdown, the difference between our agenda  total control over the population, and an end to their reverence for the Constitution and the freedoms it guarantees to all citizens - will be writ large. This does not bode will for our mission.

So it is with great sadness we must admit our own defeat. Americans are never going to submit to top-down authoritarian control. As it turns out, those millions of Americans between the coasts are familiar with the Constitution, unlike Gov. Phil Murhpy of New Jersey who said the Bill of Rights is above his pay grade. They are informed voters. They cant be fooled. They know all too well that Nancy Pelosi is a power-mad pol without a shred of concern for any people or persons. They know that Adam Schiff is pathologically obsessed with destroying Trump. They know the Democratic Party has morphed into something more like Castros or Maduros regimes. And they know that our media are as corrupt as Russias state-controlled press. It is our damnable First Amendment that has allowed all those upstart conservative media to thrive.
The government in Spain has alerted various sectors to the enormous problems caused by the coronavirus. Maria Jesus Montero, Minister of Finance, warned of the consequences in a press conference. Moreover, she has said that tourist activities will only resume when there is no danger. This is bad news for a possible Spanish Grand Prix.

"Spain will not resume tourist activities until there is a guarantee of exceptionally safe conditions, both for our citizens and for our visitors", she said in a press conference on Friday. This would mean that the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona will have to wait a long time, along with the four MotoGP events that were on the calendar for 2020.

Not safe until there is a vaccine

Spain is one of the worst affected countries in the world, with 20,000 dead and almost 200,000 infected. The cancellation of tourist activities by the government means that the chances of winning a Spanish Grand Prix have also become much less. The hope for many is still that a Grand Prix will be organized in Austria at the beginning of July.

Several researchers have already indicated that the virus can only be kept under control when there is a vaccine for it. "We don't even know if a recovered person is really immune to the virus and for how long the person is immune. For now, there's far too much uncertainty about the virus," American epidemiology expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said earlier. It will be a long time before an event can really be organized safely.
A Springfield police officer will return to work after a charge of her lying in connection with the brawl outside Nathan Bills involving off-duty officers was dropped.

Melissa Rodriguez, an officer with the Springfield Police Department, was charged last year with perjuring herself before a grand jury. She was one of eight current and former city officers accused of lying to investigators or the grand jury.

On Friday, the office of Attorney General Maura Healey said Rodriguez would not be prosecuted on the charge and the case was dismissed.

She is the fourth officer connected to the alleged beating to have charges dropped.

The charge stemmed from a 2015 alleged beating of four civilians by off-duty officers following an argument at Nathan Bills Bar and Restaurant, a popular bar in East Forest Park. More than a dozen current or former officers were accused of participating in the brawl or attempting to cover it up and indicted by the state attorney generals office.

She and the seven other officers were arraigned nearly a year ago.

As Rodriguez returns to work so will five other officers suspended in connection with the case.

Springfield Police Commissioner Cheryl Clapprood announced on Wednesday that the officers would return to active duty.

Now is the time to bring some of the officers who were not involved in the original altercation, who are in need of work, back to the department pending the outcome of their criminal case, Clapprood said. These officers have been suspended without pay for more than a year. Their cases have been continued again, possibly not resuming until 2021. Bringing back these five officers at this time is the right thing to do.

Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno said he supported the decision. Were in unprecedented times with all hands on deck needed to continue to keep all our residents and business community safe and sound."

City Council President Justin Hurst said the decision sends the wrong message to the community and disputed the need Sarno alleged as the city is receiving support from Massachusetts State Police and the National Guard.

They pose a risk to our residents as well as their colleagues and could subject the city to a myriad of lawsuits and cases being thrown out if these officers are ultimately convicted, Hurst said.

The officers who will be reinstated are Shavonne Lewis, Darren Nguyen, Derrick Gentry-Mitchell, James DAmour and John Wajdula. Each were accused of attempting to cover up fellow officers participation in the alleged beating.

Cases against Officer Igor Basovskiy, retired Sgt. Louis Bortolussi and former Springfield Police Officer and current state Trooper Nathaniel Perez were previously dismissed. Basovskiy returned to work last month.

Daniel Billingsley, Jose Diaz, Christian Cicero, Jameson Williams and Anthony Cicero remain suspended without pay.
Metro Manila, (CNN Phillippines, April 18)  Workers required to be physically present in their workplaces during the enhanced community quarantine period, usually under a no work, no pay scheme, should be tested first for the novel coronavirus before being allowed to get back to work, a lawmaker proposed on Saturday.

San Jose Del Monte City, Bulacan Rep. Florida Robes said prior testing is to "ensure their own safety and that of their co-workers and their clients."

She said these include people working in manufacturing firms, transportation, agricultural and construction sectors, food processing, warehousing and logistics among others.

These industries are among the ones Presidential Adviser on Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion earlier suggested to be allowed to operate as government officials and business sectors push for a gradual restart to support the local economy.

READ: Duterte adviser bats for gradual reopening of malls, restaurants, public transport after Luzon lockdown

Robes said the tests may be conducted by the Department of Health, Department of Labor and Employment with the help of local governments before the scheduled end of the Luzon-wide quarantine on April 30.

Meanwhile, workers with jobs that don't require physical presence in the office must be allowed to work from home to limit their chances of exposure to the deadly virus while a vaccine is still being developed, she said.

"The important thing is we gradually open the economy but also making sure that we dont have a resurgence of infections that we are forced to have another period of ECQ, she explained.

The Philippines currently has 6,078 confirmed cases of COVID-19. 397 have died from the disease, while 516 have recovered.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 00:12:26|Editor: huaxia

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File photo shows the national flags of China (R) and the United States on the Constitution Avenue in Washington, United States.(Xinhua/Bao Dandan)

Smearing China cannot help the U.S. side to cover up facts and shifting blame cannot drive the virus away, said a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman after U.S. Defense Secretary said that China "have been misleading the United States and opaque".



BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The United States should stop politicizing the COVID-19 pandemic and focus on defeating the virus and boosting the economy, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Friday.

Zhao made the remarks at a daily news briefing after U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper reportedly said that it is "difficult to believe information from the Communist Party of China" and that "they have been misleading the United States and opaque."

Zhao said China had taken the most comprehensive, rigorous and thorough prevention and control measures in an open, transparent and responsible way since the COVID-19 outbreak and had actively promoted international cooperation on controlling the pandemic.

"If the United States was misled or lacked sufficient information in the early days, how could the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issue precautions against the novel coronavirus-related disease on Jan. 15? Why did the United States announce a decision on Jan. 25 to close its consulate in Wuhan and withdraw all its staff? Why did it, on Feb. 2, ban the entry of Chinese nationals and foreign nationals who had been in China over the last 14 days?" Zhao asked.

Smearing China cannot help the U.S. side to cover up facts and shifting blame cannot drive the virus away, Zhao said, noting the international community could only win the battle against the pandemic through concerted efforts.

"We urge the U.S. side to focus more on defeating the virus and boosting the economy at an early date," he said. 
Mumbai, April 18 : Actor and former "Bigg Boss" contestant Ajaz Khan has been arrested for allegedly making objectionable remarks in a Facebook post.

The actor was arrested by Khar Police Station on Saturday after he made some objectionable comments during a Facebook live session, according to a report in timesofIndia.com.

The police have reportedly charged Ajaz with hate speech, defamation and violation of prohibitory orders.

This is not the first time the police have taken action against Ajaz, who shot to fame participating in "Bigg Boss 7". Last July, he was arrested by Mumbai Cyber Police for posting objectionable videos promoting communal hatred.
For years, I used to write a column on graphic novels (Cult Fiction) for Mint Lounge. Im also deeply into SFF  just the kind of thing you would expect of a person of my age (indeterminate but I feel as old as Methuselah) and background (engineer who went to college at a time when engineering colleges were more liberal-arts inclined than even top liberal arts colleges). But my real specialty is end-of-the-world books.

Given how popular the movie Contagion has become over the past few months, and the huge renewal of interest in the genre after the emergence of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), this Sunday column is dedicated to the huge volume of end-of-the-world fiction thats out there.

Youd be surprised at just how many respected writers (Nevil Shute, Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Atwood, to name a few) have written end-of-the-world books. Youd also be surprised at just how many excellent new writers also have (Emily St Mandel, Peter Heller, Cixin Liu).

In many of these books, the end of the world comes from a virus. In Stephen Kings The Stand, for instance, a virus called Captain Trips (also a nickname for Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia) kills 99% of the human race. Reacting to comparisons between Sars-CoV-2 and his fictional virus, King tweeted in early March: No, coronavirus is not like The Stand. Its not anywhere near as serious. Its eminently survivable. Keep calm and take all reasonable precautions. Michael Crichtons Andromeda Strain is another book about a virus (and has more science than The Stand); Atwoods Oryx and Crake is built around a human-created pandemic.

In others, the end comes from a nuclear war. In Pat Franks underrated 1959 classic Alas, Babylon, Russia launches a full-scale nuclear attack on the US (the US eventually wins the war but at great cost to life and the economy). Its understandable why a book written in 1959 would expect nuclear Armageddon to cause the end of the world. Nevil Shutes 1957 novel, On The Beach is again built around the premise that a nuclear war has destroyed most of the worlds population and that the fallout is gradually but surely killing the rest.

In still others  I am told these are particularly popular with survivalists in the US  the end of the world comes from a powerful electromagnetic pulse (EMP), which takes out all electric networks (and also all electronics) leading to the end of the world.

And in some, a cosmic event results in the end of the world. In Neal Stephensons Seveneves, the destruction of the moon causes a hard rain to fall on Earth, although, warned two years in advance, some of humanity is by then safety ensconced in arks in space  waiting for a distant future when return to Earth may be possible.

Of course, people who want a more non-fictional narrative of a pandemic could do worse than Daniel Defoes A Journal of the Plague Year (which is perhaps among the earliest non-fiction novels). It is set in London in 1665, the year the plague hit what was then one of the worlds greatest cities.

The term end-of-the-world books is actually a misnomer, because none of these books really deals with a complete end-of-the-world scenario  either the tragedy is averted or the survivors find hope (at the end). Which is just as it should be.
Pedestrians wear face masks on Fulton Street on April 17, 2020 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.

Democratic lawmakers want police departments to be vigilant about any racially biased policing during the coronavirus pandemic, as people in communities of color express fears of being profiled while wearing masks or other face coverings in public.

In a letter sent Friday to Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray, Sen. Kamala Harris of California and other Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee urged federal law enforcement agencies to provide anti-bias training and guidance to police officers. The officers may increasingly encounter masked residents as the nation weighs a gradual reopening of the economy in the coming weeks, the senators said.

"With the ongoing public health emergency, it is more important than ever for law enforcement to build trust with communities of color," the senators said in the letter, which was first shared with The Associated Press.

Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that people who go out in public wear a surgical mask or a cloth covering their nose and mouth to prevent the spread of the virus. And already, some black men have reported incidents of racial profiling while following the recommendations.

"If communities of color  especially African American communities  feel at risk of disproportionate or selective enforcement, they may avoid seeking help or adopting precautionary measures recommended by the CDC," the letter reads. "This, in turn, could have dire public health consequences."

The toll of COVID-19 on African Americans has been disproportionate, preliminary public health records show. The latest AP analysis of available state and local data shows that nearly one-third of those who have died from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, are black.

African Americans are roughly 14% of the population in the areas included in the analysis.
New arrival - In these tough times for all and sad reports of losing loved ones in difficult circumstances, nice to report news of a new arrival.

Lily Mae Kate Kelly made her grand entrance in the early hours of Saturday morning, eight days before she was expected but still at 8lbs 13oz and delighted to say, both mam Amie and Lily Mae are home and doing fantastic while Dad Craig is recovering from exhaustion.

Proud parents Amie Bradshaw Brierton and Craig Kelly are delighted with their first child's arrival and would like to thank you all for the good wishes. Lily - Mae on the other hand cannot wait to meet you all in safer times when it is possible. Congratulations to you all on this great news.

Baby monitors still needed

Thankfully, a good response has taken place so far but an appeal is still been made for any baby monitors/walkie talkies in an effort to help patients that are in isolation and to save on the limited amount of PPE available. A PPE is Personal Protective Equipment and means any device or appliance designed to be worn or held by an individual for protection against one or more health and safety hazards.

Garda Caroline Woods is a local resident and is kindly collecting them on behalf of Hospitals around Dublin including the proposed new isolation beds in City West and she hopes to collect as many as possible in the area.

If you have one to spare, you can contact Caroline personally and she will arrange collection during this lockdown so please phone her and leave a message at 087 6683563. All you have to do is provide her with your Eircode. Well done Caroline and indeed well done to all our Garda on their efforts in these unusual times.

History Society

In consideration of the emerging national trend in cases of Covid-19 viral infection and advice published by the HSE, the committee has decided to cancel the lecture for May and after that, the break for the summer starts.

Also, the committee have made the decision to not proceed with the annual outing in June.

It is hoped that the talks programme can resume as normal in October; notification about this will be circulated in September.

The committee wish health and safety to each of you, their members and supporters, and to your families and friends. Stay Safe.

Diary notes

If you want an item or a photograph of local interest to appear in the Kilmacanogue Diary, please contact Colm Mulligan at 086 8522653 or email colmulligan@eircom.net by midday on Sunday and a reminder that notes are submitted first thing Monday morning. Calls or emails on.Monday mornings are just too late to edit and submit for the deadline and we need original photo's only as with copies, the pixels can appear blurred.
The boss of the London Olympics has been drafted in to help ministers scrambling to solve the personal protective equipment (PPE) crisis in UK hospitals.

Unions warned NHS staff could walk out rather than work on coronavirus wards without gowns on Saturday, amid concerns supplies would not last the weekend.

As anger over the shortages grew, the Unite union suggested health secretary Matt Hancock should resign unless more PPE was urgently found.

Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, said during Saturdays Downing Street briefing that a large consignment, including 400,000 gowns, was due to arrive in the UK from Turkey on Sunday  due to high demand, this may only last a few days.

But he admitted ministers had got to do more to get protective kit to NHS staff.

Appearing alongside Mr Jenrick at the Downing Street daily press conference Professor Stephen Powis, the medical director of NHS England, made a plea on behalf of NHS staff.

He said he knew ministers were working incredibly hard, but he added: What I hear from my clinical colleagues is that what they need is PPE delivered to the frontline.

Lord Paul Deighton, the chief executive of the 2012 Olympic games, will drive a push to make more PPE available in the UK, amid a global shortage.

Mr Hancock compared Lord Deighton to Lord Beaverbrook, who spearheaded Britains wartime aircraft production, and said he would bring renewed drive and focus to this unprecedented peacetime challenge.

Lord Deighton said his single goal would be to get NHS staff the essential equipment they need.

UK companies including Rolls-Royce, McLaren, Ineos and Diageo have already started work to produce equipment including visors, gowns and hand sanitisers.

The government defended its record on PPE by saying it had already delivered almost 1 billion pieces of equipment around the UK since the outbreak began.

But amid growing concerns about NHS staff asked to risk their lives without proper protection, Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail said Mr Hancock should sort out the logjam in PPE supplies urgently, otherwise he may have to consider his position.

Workers would be quite right to refuse to put themselves in danger, she added, even though it went against every instinct in their body.

On Friday evening in a major shift, doctors and nurses were asked to treat patients without full-length waterproof gowns, where necessary, and even use plastic aprons as an alternative.

High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Show all 18 1 /18 High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Najaf, Iraq A man holds a pocket watch at noon, at an almost empty market near the Imam Ali shrine Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Bangkok, Thailand Wat Phra Si Rattana Satsadaram (The Temple of the Emerald Buddha, part of The Grand Palace) Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Prague, Czech Republic An empty street leading to the historic Old Town Square Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Washington DC, US Lawn stretching towards the Capitol, home of Congress Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Jerusalem's Old City A watch showing the time in front of Damascus Gate Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world London, UK The Houses of Parliament seen from Westminster Bridge Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Wuhan, China Empty lanes in the city that saw the first outbreak of disease Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Havana, Cuba The Malecon road and esplanade winds along the city's seafront Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Cairo, Egypt A little busier than elsewhere: midday traffic in Tahrir Square Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Berlin, Germany The Brandenburg Gate, the only surviving city gate in the capital Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Caracas, Venezuela Bolivar Avenue, opened in 1949 and the site of many demonstrations and rallies Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Moscow, Russia Spasskaya Tower (left) on the eastern wall of the Kremlin, and St Basil's Cathedral Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Istanbul,Turkey The harbourside Eminonu district is usually buzzing with activity Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world New Delhi, India Rajpath, a ceremonial boulevard that runs through the capital Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Amman, Jordan The Roman amphitheatre that dates back to the 2nd century AD Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world New York City, US The main concourse of Grand Central station in Manhattan Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Kiev, Ukraine Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the site of many political protests since the end of the Soviet era Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Accra, Ghana The odd walker out in the midday sun on Ring Road Central Reuters

But surgeons are among the health professionals that have been advised not to risk their health without adequate PPE.

The Royal College of Surgeons of England said it was deeply disturbed by the changes to the official guidance.

Sara Gorton, head of health at the union Unison, urged health managers to be honest with their staff in the coming days, adding: If gowns run out, staff in high-risk areas may well decide that its no longer safe for them to work.

Plans to increase production of PPE in the UK were outlined by Mr Hancock last week.
Several countries across Africa are struggling to get basic health supplies and ventilators as the number of coronavirus cases swells  highlighting how unprepared the continent is for the coronavirus pandemic.

Why it matters: The United Nations Economic Commission of Africa estimates that at least 300,000 Africans will die from the virus and 29 million could be pushed into extreme poverty, Reuters notes.

Unless there are major changes or an influx of cash soon, it's unlikely these projections will change.

52 of the 54 countries in Africa have confirmed coronavirus cases, with about 20,000 cases and 1,000 deaths.

Many nations have taken action, such as implementing curfews and travel restrictions. Most of the continent has ordered social distancing measures.

Nigeria imposed a travel ban on 13 countries in mid-March, CNN reports.

The big picture: "The brutal withdrawal of the U.S. of its contribution to the W.H.O., and the management of the crisis more globally, is a stark reminder that Africa's faith in multilateralism has become untenable," Amy Niang, an international relations lecturer at South Africas University of the Witwatersrand, told the Times.

The state of play: Less than 2,000 working ventilators are in place to serve hundreds of millions of people in public hospitals across 41 African countries, and 10 countries have none, The New York Times reports, citing WHO.

Even if hospitals can acquire new ventilators, they still have to worry about staffing, reliable electricity and sufficient oxygen supply.

There is widespread struggle to ensure people have access to necessities such as clean, running water and soap. Nearly 97% of homes in Liberia were without access to clean water and soap in 2017, per the U.N.

Yes, but: Major disparities exist among African nations. South Africa has more ventilators than others and a stronger economy, while Burkina Faso has 11 ventilators for its 20 million people, the Times notes.

Go deeper: Africa scrambles to contain coronavirus
Willow Creek selects megachurch pastor Dave Dummitt as new senior leader

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Two years after the tumultuous resignation of their longtime pastor and founder Bill Hybels under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations, Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago announced Wednesday that they have selected Michigan megachurch pastor David Dummitt to replace him at the helm.

Were thrilled to share that our Elder Board has selected Dave Dummitt as our new Senior Pastor! We can't wait to welcome him into the Willow family, the church announced on their website.

Dummitt, who has four children with his wife, Rachel, is the founding and lead pastor of the 10,000-member 2|42 Community Church in Southeast Michigan which he has been operating for more than 15 years.

David Dummitt is an innovative, entrepreneurial pastor and leader with a strong passion to help people take first and next steps with God. He is known for his collaborative leadership style and ability to develop strong teams, Willow Creeks Elder Board said.

The 2|42 Community Church, which was launched with just 35 people in Dummitts living room, now has seven different campuses that meet each weekend. Willow Creek meets in eight locations.

He is passionate about the kingdom of God advancing through church planting. Dave previously held the role of North American director of NewThing, a global church-planting organization. He also sat on the board of the Solomon Foundation, the fastest-growing church extension fund, for four years. Additionally, Dave partnered with two gifted technology developers to create Gyve, an innovative technology platform for churches and nonprofits, Willow Creek noted.

William Vanderbloemen of Vanderbloemen Search Group, which was retained by Willow Creek to assist in finding a successor to Hybels, said Dummitt is the right person to lead Willow in this moment.

Ive known Dave for many years. His humble spirit, and his focus on the local church  rather than a national platform  is one of many reasons we believe he is precisely the right person to lead Willow in this moment, Vanderbloemen said in a release.

Pastor Steve Carter of The Home Team podcast also praised Dummitt in a statement on Facebook.

Sarah and I want to extend our sincere congratulations to Dave and Rachel Dummitt and the entire Willow community in welcoming their new senior pastor. The people of Willow are some of the best on the planet. We have always wanted Willow to thrive and we believe God is actively empowering that reality. We believe Pastor Dummitt can help Willow rebuild and recast a new and vibrant future. And we continue to pray for the health, peace, and strength for the entire global Church as our world faces these unprecedented times. Now, more than ever, is a time for unity, grace, and the hope found only in Jesus. Cheering you all on, Carter wrote.

Dummitt, who attended Wheaton College and Asbury Theological Seminary, said he has admired the church, which he will begin leading in June, for a long time.

As a freshman at Wheaton College, Id heard about this church that was doing creative things to reach lost people. We attended, and I can almost point to the seats we sat in that day. The service opened with a Beatles song. I was a church kid who played in the handbell choir at my church. That service opened my eyes to new ways of doing church. I dont know of a pastor or leader in America that has not in some way been shaped by the ministry of Willow Creek, Dummitt said.

Hybels was forced to resign as lead pastor at Willow Creek Community Church after an extensive investigation published by the Chicago Tribune in March 2018 detailed a pattern of sexual misconduct allegations. He denied a number of the allegations, including a consensual affair with a married woman who retracted her claims. The Tribune report also alleged a pattern of behavior against Hybels that included suggestive comments, extended hugs, an unwanted kiss, and invitations to some female staffers to hotel rooms.

In July 2019, Willow Creek publicly closed the chapter on their flawed former leader while urging him to repent as needed.

God has blessed Willow Creek Community Church to have a profound impact for His kingdom. Bill Hybels served and contributed to Willow for more than 40 years. Simultaneously, unchecked sin and intimidating behavior resulted in harm that is still felt in this present day. Christ died to free us from the power of sin. It is in that spirit that we appeal to Bill to reflect on his years in ministry, repent where necessary, and seek to live out the ministry of reconciliation, the churchs new elder board led by Jeff Mason said in a statement.

That same year, an Independent Advisory Group that investigated the sexual misconduct allegations against Hybels called them credible and recommended counseling for him as well as a raft of changes to improve the organizational culture at the church and Willow Creek Association, rebranded as the Global Leadership Network.
The word unhinged has been invoked frequently during Donald Trumps mercurial presidency. Never was it more applicable than at a Monday news briefing in which he rolled out a campaign-style propaganda video, berated a CBS News reporter in the front row as a fake and disgraceful, called a New York Times story a total fake, hurled insults at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Sleepy Joe Biden and made the fatuous claim, When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total. And thats the way its got to be.

Oh, and he did manage to offer a critique of his own performance through the coronavirus crisis: Everything we did was right.

His 105-minute tirade was only the beginning of a most mercurial week.

It sent the fact checkers into overdrive, particularly the constitutional scholars who were aghast at Trumps argument that he, not the nations governors, could decide if and when to lift the stay-at-home restricts that the governors had instituted for their states. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley law, wrote on SFChronicle.com that Trump is simply wrong as a matter of constitutional law. Even a few Republicans, most pointedly Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, noted that the Constitution made clear that all powers not assigned to the federal government were reserved for the states.

Not to worry. The week was young. There was plenty of time for the president to pretend he never said what he said and tweeted.

It seemed likely that Trumps Monday mood was incited by two newspaper stories: a New York Times investigation that detailed his month of delay and denial after making the late-January move to curtail flights from China; and a Wall Street Journal editorial that suggested his combative sessions with reporters were a waste of time.

In what could only be described as a stunning lack of self-awareness, the Monday madness only confirmed the point of each piece. The campaign-style video was chock full of selective clips praising the presidents action  but was notably devoid of any meaningful action against the virus in February, which led to astute questioning from CBS reporter Paula Reid, prompting Trump to reply, Look, look, you know youre a fake. The rap against Trump, as chronicled by the Times, has been that the administration squandered a month that could have been used to ramp up testing and prepare the health care system for a deluge of patients. He did not declare a national emergency until mid-March.

As for the Wall Street Journal, Trump certainly confirmed its editorial boards argument that the briefings have become less about defeating the virus and more about the many feuds of Donald J. Trump.

On Tuesday, Trump remained in combat posture by announcing a cutoff of U.S. funding to the World Health Organization, accusing it of being too cozy with China and severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus. He ended Tuesdays briefing without allowing his science and health advisers to take questions.

On Wednesday, he issued a bizarre (albeit clearly empty) threat to unilaterally adjourn Congress so he could jam through some of his nominations that were languishing on Capitol Hill.

Then, in another dash of whiplash as if Trump had suddenly read up on the Constitution and Dale Carnegie, an actual president emerged in the briefing room Thursday.

Earlier in the day, he told governors on a conference call that the federal government would play a supporting role in reopening the economy.

Youre going to call your own shots, he reportedly told them.

For the White House reporters, Trump laid out criteria for a three-phase return to normality that followed the advice of his science and health advisers and generally emulated the road map outlined Tuesday by two multistate alliances of governors on the east and west coasts. Gone was his claim of total authority. Missing was his penchant for talking over questions, chastising reporters and their organizations, and filling the time in between with effusive praise for himself and gratuitous shots at his political rivals.

For a fleeting moment, it looked as though the president would overcome his insecurity long enough to help calm a nation that was at once anxious about the spread of a deadly virus, reeling from the loss of paychecks and commerce, and restless about being cooped up by shelter-in-place orders.

Oh, and then came Friday morning and a trio of Trump tweets.

The president seemed to offer comfort, if not encouragement, to the anti-government demonstrators who were pushing for a lifting of the restrictions.

LIBERATE MINNESOTA! LIBERATE MICHIGAN! LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege! he tweeted, the latter a reference to the commonwealths recent toughening of gun control laws. It also deemed that indoor gun ranges were nonessential during the coronavirus crisis, the subject of a lawsuit by gun rights advocates. At his Friday press briefing, Trump suggested that Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam should be under siege.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, tweeted that the presidents unhinged rantings could lead to violence. The small cadre of protesters includes right-wing extremists who have been agitating to open up America through civil disobedience.

On Friday, Trump seemed to empathize with protesters, saying some of the state restrictions were too tough. His leadership in this crisis continues to change direction day to day. His only consistency is that someone else is always to blame for anything that went wrong.

John Diaz is The San Francisco Chronicles editorial page editor. Email: jdiaz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnDiazChron
The number of children infected with the coronavirus is far more extensive than what is currently reported, according to a study that could help better estimate the demand on pediatric intensive care units.

The research, published in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, estimates that for each child who requires intensive care for COVID-19, there are 2,381 children infected with the virus.

According to the researchers, including those from the University of South Florida (USF) in the US, this calculation follows a report from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention regarding its clinical study of over 2,100 children with COVID-19.

Based on data from the North American registry, Virtual PICU Systems, the scientists said 74 children in the US were admitted to pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) between March 18 and April 6 for COVID-19 treatment.

This, they said, indicated that an additional 1,76,190 children were likely infected during this timeframe.

According to the PICU systems, children younger than two accounted for 30 per cent of the cases, 24 per cent were ages two to 11, and 46 per cent of the PICU cases were children between ages 12 and 17.

The researchers said that if as many as 25 per cent of the US population becomes infected with the coronavirus before the end of 2020, 50,000 children with severe illness will need to be hospitalized, with 5,400 of them critically ill and requiring mechanical ventilation.

Clinical reports, they said, indicated that the average length of stay for pediatric COVID-19 is 14 days.

According to a US national survey, aimed to evaluate the pediatric critical care capacity, there are approximately 5,100 PICU beds in the country.

"Although the risk of severe illness from COVID-19 is lower in pediatric cases than adults, hospitals should be prepared and have the proper equipment and staffing levels to deal with a potential influx of younger patients," said author Jason Salemi, associate professor of epidemiology from the USF.

"Government officials and policy makers should understand the likelihood of capacity challenges, which underscores the importance of effective mitigation strategies such as frequent and thorough handwashing and persisted social distancing measures," Salemi said.

According to the researchers, pediatric coronavirus is highly complex, as many hospitals are prohibiting visitors in order to implement social distancing and quarantine protocols.

They said a child may also infect a caretaker.

This may require logistical and infection control accommodations that place an additional strain on hospital resources, the researchers added.

The scientists added that young children after being discharged from hospitals may be unable to independently comply with home infection control and self-isolation recommendations.

Children in low-income families with parents in blue-collar and service jobs, which preclude the option of working from home maybe at higher risk of infection and transmitting the disease to others, they said.

The study noted that there's also an increased risk to children who live in urban public housing projects due to the close proximity of housing units and small communal recreation and commons areas.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hundreds of Chinatown residents along with local and state officials protest racism against the Chinese community during a march in San Francisco on Feb. 29. (Jessica Christian / San Francisco Chronicle)

Customers boycott a pharmacy. People scream at a family on the street. A man has trouble summoning an ambulance to his home.

There's a common thread linking all these stories: fear of COVID-19. In the face of a virus that is both deadly and highly contagious, it raises a question: When do social safeguards against the novel coronavirus mutate into their own contagion of fear and loathing?

The pandemic's origins in China have already given rise to a frightening spate of racist outbursts against Asian immigrants and Asian Americans. Beyond that, fear has led to a shunning of some of its victims, even when they needed help.

"It felt like we had the scarlet letter C on the house, Anne Edmunds Aguirre said after a traumatic night trying to summon help to her father's house in New Orleans.

J. Ollie Edmunds Jr., 79, survived COVID-19 and was sent home by a New Orleans hospital. When he fell and summoned help from the local fire department, the department refused to come. Aguirre said firefighters had been to the house before, and knew Edmunds' history with COVID-19. The family was told to dial 911, and then had to wait six hours for paramedics to arrive.

"The general public still has that fear," she said. "Unless they trust you, they are going to be reluctant  You had that virus, I dont want to come.'"

In San Diego County, the COVID-19 death of a young pharmacy worker touched off a wave of fear and rumors through a tight-knit Arabic community that the small pharmacy served. When the pharmacy owner announced he was ill, rumors surfaced on social media that he was infected with coronavirus, and even had died. He tried to dispel the rumors and reassure customers; the replies were heated and accusatory.

"Lets worry more about our health, especially the 'elders,' than worrying about reputation," read one of the more tempered posts on the pharmacy's Facebook page.

Story continues

"Go to my Facebook and see the fight, see the war against me right now," said the pharmacy owner, who spoke on the condition that he not be named for fear of further business losses. "It hit our business so bad. I lost half of my business."

Dr. Noori Barka was worried that the San Diego County pharmacy would infect other people. (Howard Lipin/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

A community leader, Dr. Noori Barka, told a local television station he "was trying to make a big deal" about his belief COVID-19 cases were connected to the pharmacy "because I felt something was wrong." He said he was afraid the pharmacy would infect other people.

These are hardly isolated instances of community fear.

A San Francisco area family that lost one member to COVID-19 and saw two others survive the virus kept that information to themselves. But taking a family stroll while wearing masks in mid-March, before such a sight became common, was enough to bring a woman out of her house, shouting.

"She started to yell at them," said one family member, who did not want to have his name published because of the sensitivity of the situation. "Something along the lines of, 'You're freaking us all out! Why are you wearing masks? Take your masks off!"

In Indiana, some police departments say they will no longer deliver lifesaving doses of Naloxone to those overdosed on opioids, because it is administered through the nose, though the state director of emergency medical services, Dr. Michael Kaufmann, issued a directive calling the risk of coronavirus exposure "unlikely."

At the same time, there are many instances of people and communities working together and overcoming biases, said Dr. Richard Marlink, director of the Rutgers Global Health Institute and a veteran of HIV/AIDS research and public policy. "How we respond to the pandemic is a measure of who we are, a measure of our goodness," Marlink said. "The pressure we should put on ourselves is, this is an opportunity to be human."

Indiana University sociologist Brea Louise Perry began studying public backlash in the early days of the pandemic, as politicians such as President Trump framed the global threat as the "Chinese virus" and Asian Americans found themselves isolated, pilloried and asked to sit apart in public restaurants.

As her team conducts a study of the stigmas surrounding COVID-19, Perry is already very familiar with the underlying emotional forces at play: fear, uncertainty, unpredictability and perception of danger. They also feed stigmas borne by those with mental illness, obesity, and especially threats to the public health, such as HIV.

"As humans, we try to manufacture a sense of control," Perry said. "We want to be able to attribute responsibility, because it's really disorienting and stressful to think that, 'Oh, just anything can happen to me ... or I could get this too no matter what I do to try to control it.'

"But then it goes wrong when we turn it on other people in the form of stigma," she said.

But stigmatization can also be a mechanism for social control.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, for instance, repeatedly has said he expects his orders for business closures, home quarantine and social distancing to be enforced by society at large.

"There's a social contract here. People I think recognize the need to do more and to meet this moment. People will self-regulate their behavior," he said at a March briefing outlining his reasons for not employing police or military enforcement. "We will have social pressure and that will encourage people to do the right thing.

"Social pressure is leading to social distancing, social recognition," Newsom said. "And the socialization of this disease is leading people to change behavior."

It can work in other ways.

Outside Baton Rouge, La., police have been unable to force a Pentecostal church to stop large services despite a statewide order prohibiting gatherings of 10 or more, and a pile of unheeded civil infractions.

A man takes temperature scans as congregants arrive for evening service at the Life Tabernacle Church in Central, La., Tuesday, March 31, 2020. Pastor Tony Spell held services despite being charged with misdemeanors today, for holding services against Gov. John Bel Edwards shelter-in-place order due to the new coronavirus pandemic. (Gerald Herbert/AP)

The Rev. Tony Spell, pastor of Life Tabernacle Church, accused police of public shaming, sending in a plainclothes officer with a body cam to record Easter services, then sharing that footage with a local television station.

He sends more than two dozen buses to bring worshipers to services from surrounding parishes. People are really being bullied and intimidated not to get on my buses," Spell said.

The church is not untouched by the virus. Head usher Harold Orillion, 78, died earlier this week of what the coroner said was COVID-19.

Now Spell's attorney is hospitalized, on oxygen and his lungs struggling after several days of fever. Jeff Wittenbrink, 59, didnt blame the church for his illness.

"I went to Albertsons. I went to Sam's, Walmart, Lowe's, my local hardware store, Sprouts, Rouses  I cant even tell you all the places before he got sick, Wittenbrink said Friday from his hospital bed.

He objected to efforts to pressure Spell to close the church.

Theyre doing the same thing they were trying to do to Trump initially, which is find some grandpa and try to pin it on him that he died, Wittenbrink said. Theyve been excoriating him from the beginning. Hes just a guy thats trying to feed his flock. Why do they want to shame people?

Perry cautioned that public pressure policies often fail, either turning out to be ineffective or backfiring so badly that individuals avoid the care and treatment they need. She pointed to the effect of public shaming surrounding obesity.

"If stigma worked to reduce obesity, there would be no more obese people because there's so much fat shaming, right?" Perry said. "But really, what scientific research suggests is that overweight people who feel more shameful and perceive themselves as more stigmatized are actually less likely to make behavioral changes."

In South Africa, already, public health officials have raised concerns that residents falling ill will avoid medical treatment for fear of being shunned as coronavirus carriers.

Global concern over COVID-19-associated stigmas prompted the science journal Nature to publish an editorial acknowledging and criticizing its own linking of the novel coronavirus with China and the harm in singling out any group or people. In particular, it bemoaned the treatment of some 700,000 Chinese students studying abroad in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.

"We must all do everything we can to avoid and reduce stigma; not associate COVID-19 with particular groups of people or places; and emphasize that viruses do not discriminate  we are all at risk," the journal editors wrote.
New Delhi, April 18 : Leading digital payments and financial services platform Paytm has announced to offer Rs 250 crore in ESOPs this year to high-performing employees and new hires.

Witnessing rapid growth in its financial services vertical, Paytm will also be hiring over 500 people for multiple roles, aside from continued hiring in product and technology, the company said in a statement.

"Paytm has a high-performance culture and follows a transparent process to evaluate & reward employees. We always ensure to provide ample growth opportunities and engage for feedbacks from time to time," said Rohit Thakur, CHRO, Paytm.

Paytm started a rigorous company-wide process of annual performance reviews in January 2020, to evaluate the performance of its workforce.

As part of the appraisal process, some employees were assessed to be at the lower end of the bell curve range.

"As a part of the year-end process, the company typically asks them to look for opportunities outside the organization. However, after analyzing the current scenario, Paytm has offered those employees to continue to be on the rolls of the company for another two months and receive all payments for this extended period," the company elaborated.

Paytm has over 300 million digital wallets users.
KUALA LUMPUR, April 18 (Xinhua) -- A team of medical experts sent by the Chinese government arrived at Malaysia on Saturday to help the country fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

The eight-member expert team was received by Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia Bai Tian and officials from Malaysia's Ministry of Health upon their arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

During the expert team's two-week stay in Malaysia, they will share experience and expertise on fighting COVID-19 with their Malaysian counterparts, which may help Malaysia's effort against the pandemic, said the Chinese ambassador.

"This is the time when governments and the people of China and Malaysia work together and look after each other to overcome the difficulties. It also demonstrates the deep and warm relationship between China and Malaysia," Bai added. Enditem
Press Release

April 18, 2020 Bong Go commends implementation of wage subsidy program benefitting small businesses, middle class Senator Christopher Lawrence "Bong" Go commended concerned government agencies over the implementation of a small business wage subsidy (SBWS) program for small businesses in an effort to support the middle class and cushion the economy against the adverse effects of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emergency. "Nagpapasalamat po tayo sa ating finance agencies dahil dininig nila ang ating apila na suportahan ang mga MSMEs. Tulungan natin ang mga ito na buhayin ang kanilang negosyo dahil sila rin ang bubuhay sa ating ekonomiya lalo na kapag natapos na ang krisis na ito," Go said. "Hindi lamang po ito malaking tulong sa ating maliliit na negosyo, malaking tulong din po ito para maiahon ang kanilang mga empleyado na karamihan ay galing sa lower middle class," he added. During a televised meeting presided by President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday, April 13, concerned agencies noted that some small businesses were forced to stop operations while many are only able to operate with skeletal forces as a result of the enhanced community quarantine. This prompted the government to undertake measures, including the SBWS program, to help small businesses weather the impact of the health emergency. The Department of Finance is setting guidelines that will determine which firms will be categorized as 'small business' eligible for the wage subsidy. The government will provide a wage subsidy of an amount between P5,000 to 8,000 per eligible worker of these businesses affected by the ECQ in Luzon and other parts of the country. The program is set to benefit 3.4 million workers whose MSME employers will be identified and assessed through the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Social Security System. DOF noted that workers of these small businesses belong to the low- to medium-middle class. According to DOF, the subsidy will be for up to two months, unless the ECQ is lifted earlier, and will cost a total of P51 billion. Presently, an online system for business owners to submit the names of their eligible employees through the SSS website is being pilot-tested and could go live within the week. To avoid duplication and to ensure that more Filipinos benefit from various government programs, Go said that the beneficiaries of the subsidy program for MSME employees must be different from the eighteen million poor families being assisted by the Department of Social Welfare and Development, and must not also overlap with those affected workers already being assisted by the Department of Labor and Employment. "Huwag natin pabayaan ang iba pang mga apektadong Pilipino na nangangailangan rin ng tulong," Go said earlier when he urged the DOF and other concerned agencies to immediately implement measures that would also help the middle class overcome this predicament. Aside from the wage subsidy program, the government, through Republic Act No. 11459 or the "Bayanihan to Heal as One Act", has also implemented measures to further aid small businesses, such as the granting of extensions on tax filing and payments, a minimum 30-day grace period on the payment of loans, and a minimum 30-day grace period in the payment of rentals. Senator Go, who also sits as a member of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee monitoring the progress of the implementation of the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, expressed the need for such additional support from the government, citing the important contributions of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to the country's economy. "Importante ang suporta na ito para mapagaan ang pinapasan ng mga negosyo at ng mga empleyado nila. Kung gusto nating mas mabilis manumbalik ang sigla ng ating ekonomiya, mas mainam na ngayon pa lang ay tulungan na natin ang maliliit na negosyante na makabangon," Go earlier said. "Sisiguraduhin din natin na walang maiiwan na Pilipino. Lahat ng apektado ay tutulungan natin sa abot ng ating makakaya. Magbayanihan po tayo. Together, we can heal as one," the Senator added.
We play Imperial March from Star Wars on Alexa and tell our daughter that she has to go upstairs/bed because Darth Vader is coming to clean the house.  Faye Silag, Vacaville, Calif.

My daughter washed (read: lathered) her hair in Aquaphor, which is nearly impossible to get out. My kid is not a fan of shampooing her hair on a regular basis, so a deep clean with dish soap was a tough sell. I showed her commercials of oil-slicked penguins being cleaned and told her the dish soap was penguin shampoo. Definitely made hair washing more tolerable for both of us.  Jennifer Horn, Arlington, Va.

We were getting tired of the mess and hysteria after our 2- and 4-year-olds kept knocking their cups off the dinner table. So we put foil stickers on the table to remind them where the cups should be placed after taking a drink, and weve had far fewer spills!  Lauren Himmel, Nashville, Tenn.

We had to embark on a sudden, white-knuckle potty training journey when my son started a new day care. After failing at every method of persuasion I could think of, I picked up his stuffed dinosaur and had the dino tell him how much fun it would be to go to the potty together. He smiled brightly at his toy, happily got up and went to the potty. I frequently used toys to convince him to go after that day, and it always worked!  Alison Bates, Avon, Ind.
US, Russian diplomats discuss bilateral issues

According to a statement, Pompeo and Lavrov discussed bilateral issues, including the detention of US citizens.

US State Secretary Mike Pompeo said Friday that any future negotiations on arms control between Moscow and Washington must include China.

The top diplomat's remarks came during a telephone call with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, State Department Spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

NUCLEAR ARMS AGREEMENT WAS ON THE TABLE

"The Secretary emphasized that any future arms control talks must be based on President [Donald] Trump's vision for a trilateral arms control agreement that includes both Russia and China," Ortagus said.

"Secretary Pompeo and Foreign Minister Lavrov discussed next steps in the bilateral Strategic Security Dialogue, taking into account the coronavirus pandemic," it added.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) is the last remaining nuclear arms agreement between Russia and the U.S. after Washington withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in August 2019, accusing Russia of violating the pact.

The Trump administration has said it wants an extension of New START -- which is set to expire on Feb. 5, 2021 -- to include China to the treaty that was signed in 2010. China rejected the offer later by saying the country was not interested in negotiations on such an agreement.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 05:12:22|Editor: huaxia

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A Falcon 9 rocket is launched with Spain's PAZ, a radar-imaging satellite, and two SpaceX test satellites for global broadband at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the United States, Feb. 22, 2018. (Xinhua/SpaceX)

SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft will carry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) next month, the first crewed mission since its founding 18 years ago.

WASHINGTON, April 17 (Xinhua) -- NASA announced on Friday to launch its first SpaceX crewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS) on May 27.

NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley will fly on SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, which will lift off on a Falcon 9 rocket at 4:32 p.m. EDT May 27, from Launch Complex 39A in Florida.

It will be the first time since 2011 that NASA astronauts launch on an American-made rocket from American soil, said NASA.

It will also be the first crewed mission for SpaceX since its founding 18 years ago.

The upcoming Crew Dragon mission, dubbed Demo-2, will be the final test for SpaceX, including the launch pad, rocket, spacecraft, and operational capabilities. This also will be the first time NASA astronauts will test the spacecraft systems in orbit, according to NASA.

The mission duration will be determined once on station based on the readiness of the next commercial crew launch, although the Crew Dragon being used for this flight test can stay in orbit about 110 days, said NASA.

Behnken and Hurley were among the first astronauts to begin working and training on SpaceX's next-generation human space vehicle, and were selected for their extensive test pilot and flight experience, including several missions on the space shuttle, according to NASA.

Behnken will be the joint operations commander for the mission, responsible for activities such as rendezvous, docking and undocking, as well as Demo-2 activities while the spacecraft is docked to the ISS.

Hurley will be the spacecraft commander for the mission, responsible for activities such as launch, landing and recovery.

Lifting off atop a specially instrumented Falcon 9 rocket, Crew Dragon will accelerate the two astronauts to about 27,200 kilometers per hour, and put it on an intercept course with the ISS.

In about 24 hours, Crew Dragon will be in position to rendezvous and dock with the ISS, according to NASA.

The ISS has continually hosted a rotating crew of astronauts from all over the world since 2000. Russia has been the only country capable of transporting astronauts to and from the ISS since 2011. 
Professor sues university alleging unlawful firing over criticism of microaggressions flier

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A fired math professor has sued a university in Texas, accusing it of unlawfully firing him over criticizing a flier listing microaggressions.

Nathaniel Hiers filed the suit on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against the University of North Texas, saying he was fired in an untimely and unconstitutional manner.

According to the complaint, last November, an unknown person had left a stack of fliers warning about microaggressions in the faculty lounge of the math department.

The fliers describe microaggressions as verbal and nonverbal behaviors that communicate negative, hostile, and derogatory messages to people rooted in their marginalized group membership (based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc.). The fliers offered examples of statements considered microaggressions  America is a melting pot, I believe the most qualified person should get the job, and America is the land of opportunity.

They also condemned as microaggressions sexist/heterosexist language, such as [b]eing forced to choose Male or Female when completing basic forms.

Hiers took issue with the claims of the fliers and proceeded to write the message Dont leave garbage lying around with an arrow pointing to the stack.

In response, says the lawsuit, the department chair scolded Hiers for his actions and then dismissed the professor the following week by canceling his contract to teach in spring semester.

By retaliating against Dr. Hiers for exercising his First Amendment rights, Defendants violated his First Amendment right to free speech, placed unconstitutional conditions on Dr. Hiers employment, deprived him of due process and equal protection of law, and breached its contract with him, reads the complaint, in part.

The University does not restrain the discretion of its officials or otherwise prohibit officials from punishing or retaliating against a faculty member for engaging in constitutionally protected conduct or expression.

Hiers is being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative law firm that has argued First Amendment cases before the United States Supreme Court.

The right to free speech is for everyonenot just those in power. Tolerance is a two-way street, said ADF Legal Counsel Michael Ross in a statement released Thursday.

Public universities cant fire professors just because they dont endorse every message someone communicates in the faculty lounge. By firing Dr. Hiers, the university sent an explicit message: Agree with us or else.

Hiers, the complaint says, "firmly rejects bias and prejudice against any person or group of people," but "believes that the concept of 'microaggressions,' while purporting to serve those ends, actually hurts diversity and tolerance.

"Dr. Hiers believes that many of the statements that the flier condemns as 'microaggressions' can (and should) be interpreted in a benign or positive manner. But the fliers teach people to focus on the worst possible interpretation of the statement, to disregard the speakers intent, and to impute a discriminatory motive to others."

Merriam-Webster defines a microaggression as a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority).

Jenee Desmond-Harris of the liberal news site Vox.com traced the term back to the 1970s and Harvard University professor Chester M. Pierce, who created the term to describe insults he had witnessed against African-Americans.

These [racial] assaults to black dignity and black hope are incessant and cumulative. Any single one may be gross. In fact, the major vehicle for racism in this country is offenses done to blacks by whites in this sort of gratuitous neverending way, wrote Pierce, as quoted by Vox.

These mini disasters accumulate. It is the sum total of multiple microaggressions by whites to blacks that has pervasive effect to the stability and peace of this world.

Critics of the term have argued that the concept of microaggressions, while real, is often misused to censor dialogue and to foster a culture of victimhood.

If you establish a positive right to be free from alienating comments, it's hard to restrict that right only to people who have been victimized in certain ways, or to certain degrees, wrote Bloomberg columnist Megan McArdle in a 2015 piece.

The result will be proliferation of groups claiming victim status, attempting to trump the victim status of others.
A sign demanding Gov. Tim Walz not to ban people from golfing is held through a sunroof during a "Liberate Minnesota" protest in St. Paul, Minn., on April 17. Read more

AUSTIN, Texas  Stores in Texas can soon begin selling merchandise with curbside service, and hospitals can resume nonessential surgeries. In Florida, people are returning to a few beaches and parks. And protesters are clamoring for more.

Governors eager to rescue their economies and feeling heat from President Donald Trump are moving to ease restrictions meant to control the spread of the coronavirus, even as new hot spots emerge and experts warn that moving too fast could prove disastrous.

Adding to the pressure are protests against stay-at-home orders organized by small-government groups and Trump supporters. They staged demonstrations Saturday in several cities after the president urged them to "liberate" three states led by Democratic governors.

Protests happened in Republican-led states, too, including at the Texas Capitol and in front of the Indiana governor's home. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott already said that restrictions will begin easing next week. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb  who signed an agreement with six other Midwestern states to coordinate reopening  said he would extend his stay-at-home order until May 1.

For the first time in weeks, people were able to visit some Florida beaches, but they were still subject to restrictions on hours and activities. Beaches in big cities stayed closed.

Meanwhile, infections kept surging in the Northeast.

Rhode Island, between the hot spots of Massachusetts and New York, has seen a steady daily increase in infections and deaths, with nursing home residents accounting for more than 90 of the state's 118 deaths. The state's death rate of around 10 people per 100,000 is among the nation's highest per capita, according to data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project.

Massachusetts had its highest number of deaths in a single day on Friday, with 159. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, citing the advice of health experts, said states should wait until infection rates and hospitalizations decline for about two weeks before acting.

Trump, whose administration waited months to bolster stockpiles of key medical supplies and equipment, appeared to back protesters.

"LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, " Trump said in a tweet-storm in which he also lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, for criticizing the federal response. Cuomo "should spend more time 'doing' and less time 'complaining,'" the president said.

At his Saturday briefing with reporters, Cuomo cited more progress. The daily increase in deaths in New York state fell below 550 for the first time in more than two weeks as hospitalizations continued to decline.

But the crisis is far from over: Hospitals are still reporting nearly 2,000 new COVID-19 patients per day, and nursing homes remain a "feeding frenzy for this virus," he said.

"We are not at a point when we are going to be reopening anything immediately," Cuomo said.

In Texas, several hundred people rallied on steps of the state Capitol to call for an end to social restrictions. Many protesters sought an immediate lifting of restrictions and chanted "Let us work!" in a state where more than 1 million people have filed for unemployment since the crisis began.

The rally was organized by a host of Infowars, owned by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who joined protesters on the Capitol steps. Jones is being sued in Austin over using his show to promote falsehoods that the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre in Connecticut was a hoax.

More than 200 people stood close together outside the governor's mansion in Indianapolis, carrying American flags and signs demanding that Holcomb lift restrictions. The state health department reported 529 new coronavirus cases between April 7 and midday Friday, raising the total to more than 10,600. The number of deaths rose by 26, to 545.

 FAQ: Your coronavirus questions, answered.Elsewhere, a few hundred demonstrators cheered and waved signs outside the Statehouse in New Hampshire, which has had nearly 1,300 cases of the virus and more than three dozen deaths through Friday.

"Even if the virus were 10 times as dangerous as it is, I still wouldn't stay inside my home. I'd rather take the risk and be a free person," said one of the protesters, talk show host Ian Freeman.

Trump is pushing to relax the U.S. lockdown by May 1, a plan that hinges partly on more testing.

Public health officials said the ability to test enough people and trace contacts of those who are infected is crucial before easing restrictions, and that infections could surge anew unless people continue to take precautions.

In Asia, some nations that until recently appeared to have the outbreak under control reported a fresh increase in cases Saturday.

Japan's total case number rose above 10,000. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said he's concerned that people are not observing social distancing and announced a 100,000-yen ($930) cash handout to each resident as an incentive to stay home.

Singapore reported a sharp, one-day spike of 942 infections, the highest in Southeast Asia, mostly among foreign workers staying in crowded dormitories. That brought the total to almost 6,000 in the tiny city-state of 6 million.

There have been tentative signs that measures to curb the outbreak are working, with the rate of new infections slowing across Europe.

France and Spain started dismantling some field hospitals, while the number of active cases in Germany has slowly declined over the past week as people recover.

France's national health agency said Saturday that the number of virus patients in intensive care dropped for the 10th day straight, and overall virus hospitalizations have fallen for three consecutive days. The country has seen almost 20,000 virus deaths.

The agency urged the French public to stick to the country's strict confinement measures, which have been extended until at least May 11: "Together, we will vanquish the pandemic. Don't relax our efforts at the moment when confinement is bearing fruit."

In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the government will seek to extend the state of emergency to May 9 but begin easing the total confinement of children beginning April 27.

Children are thought to be a major source of transmission even if they rarely fall ill from the virus. But they've been confined to their homes for five weeks, prompting parents to ask that they be allowed to at least take a daily walk.

Sanchez announced in a televised news conference late Saturday that the government would allow children "to get out of their houses for a period on a daily basis," but the specifics needed to be ironed out with experts.

The national lockdown would be rolled back only when the country's embattled health system is ready for a possible rebound of infections, he said.

The virus is believed to have infected more than 2.3 million people worldwide. While most recover, the outbreak has killed at least 155,000 people worldwide, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally based on figures supplied by government health authorities around the globe.

The number almost certainly underestimates the actual toll. Nearly everywhere, thousands have died with COVID-19 symptoms  many in nursing homes  without being tested for the virus, and have thus gone uncounted.

Jordans reported from Berlin. Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed to this report.
Loading Soon, coronavirus was running rampant on the second voyage around New Zealand, and when Princess Cruises became aware, it added insult to injury by failing to quarantine passengers. They didnt even bother to notify the passengers that there was an actual outbreak, allowing the sailing to continue as if it were a normal cruise, up until the time it returned to Australia three days early, the complaint says. Princess Cruises, which is owned by Carnival Corporation, has vehemently denied all of the allegations. As this is the subject of active litigation in another country, we do not wish to add further comment at this time, a spokesman said.

It has been reported that the ship was deemed medium risk by NSW Health because of 158 sick passengers on board when it docked on March 8. Loading However, according to a statement issued by Princess Cruises, there was no reason for the second voyage to be cancelled, because swabs taken by NSW Health from people on board had tested negative for COVID-19. In response to questions about what cleaning was carried out on March 8, a Princess Cruises spokesman said the ship was disinfected over and above already high standards based on the best international public health advice using a disinfectant that is known to kill coronaviruses in 30 seconds. Revelations of the US lawsuit came on the same day NSW Police sharpened their focus on the earlier of the two voyages as part of a criminal investigation into the embattled ship.

State Crime Commander and Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said passengers who travelled on an earlier voyage were being called on for the first time to assist with inquiries. Loading It means more than 5000 passengers, as well as crew members on both voyages, have now been asked to complete an online survey that includes questions related to health practices and any other information gleaned while on board. The ship is now marooned off the NSW coast with over 1000 crew members on board, but will soon be forced to depart for the Philippines. Two of the crew members told the Herald their biggest fear was falling ill and needing a ventilator during their 14-day journey to Manila.

The crew members, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they feared being further isolated on the ship if their names were published. "Essentially they are sending people to their deaths if they are sick when we are out at sea," one said. "We have a very small number of medical staff, roughly about seven, and no ventilators that I am aware of. "If we get sick, we can't get a helicopter to medically evacuate anyone because we will be in the middle of the sea and too far away."

The crew members said the majority of the crew from the Philippines and Indonesia were happy to be sailing to Manila, but those from Europe and Britain were worried the Manila port authorities would refuse them entry, leaving them to linger on the ship. The two crew members, who were among the hundreds from Europe and the UK, said they had not received fresh bed linen or towels for more than 10 days and could only hand wash smaller items in their hand basins. "You are living in your own filth," one said. "The food has been disgusting for eight or nine days. It's slightly better now. "I'm concerned that people who have tested positive are going to be serving our food while we are out at sea."

Both crew members said their families were worried about their safety. "I've been speaking to my family as much as I can. My mother is beside herself and the rest of my family want me home and are very disappointed about the way the Australian government is handling this," one said. The crew members said they had been cooped up in their cabins since late March and that there had been little public attention given to their plight. One said that while they were feeling frustrated with their lengthy isolation, they feared that others were not coping as well psychologically. "People are going to be very traumatised after this," the crew member said.

"It just seems the government here wants us out from the port. They want us gone. "I don't understand how we can send a ship out when there are infections on board. I have friends testing positive after being in quarantine for three weeks. "If we get sick out at sea and there is no help and you are all alone in your room, that's a huge concern." Do you know more? Email carrie.fellner@smh.com.au
The state moved over 1,000 deaths in the coronavirus pandemic on Friday. Sixty five new fatalities brought the total to 1,036, Gov. Ned Lamont announced, calling it a milestone, tragic day.

Lamont said he was encouraged by a net increase of 20 hospitalizations. Thats a low number, Lamont said during his daily news conference in the State Capitol. That shows again that maybe, just maybe social distancing is working, lowering the infection rate, lowering the hospitalization rate.
She's been in lockdown with her family at their home in Adelaide amid the coronavirus pandemic.

But on Friday, Australian actress Teresa Palmer was spotted taking her dog for a walk in Los Angeles, after jetting to the US.

The 34-year-old Ride Like A Girl star cut a casual figure on the outing and wore a black face mask.

Safety first! On Friday, Makeup free Teresa Palmer donned a face mask as she took her dog for a walk in Los Angeles amid the coronavirus pandemic

Teresa went makeup-free and looked comfortable in a long-sleeved shirt from Greek fashion label, Modus Vivendi.

She teamed the look with black leggings, which showed off her trim pins.

The blonde star wore her long locks in a high ponytail and wore a pair of silver headphones.

Casual: Teresa went makeup-free and looked comfortable in a long-sleeved shirt from Greek fashion label, Modus Vivendi. She teamed the look with black leggings, which showed off her trim pins

There are now 27,528 confirmed cases of coronavirus in California and 985 deaths.

In Los Angeles County alone, there are 11,391 confirmed cases.

Australians are banned from travelling overseas amid the crisis, but there are some exceptions. These include anyone who is a resident of a country other then Australia.

Teresa meanwhile has just released a parenting book, Zen Mamas, which she co-wrote with her friend Sarah Wright Olsen.

Success: Teresa meanwhile has just released a parenting book, Zen Mamas, which she co-wrote with her friend Sarah Wright Olsen

Earlier this month, the Hacksaw Ridge star shared a photo to Instagram of herself holding the book, alongside the caption: 'Our book is almost here.'

'So thankful to be hearing all the beautiful feedback from those of you with an early copy, it's been warming our hearts.'

Teresa said the book could not have come at a better time, with the coronavirus pandemic instilling fear and uncertainty in many.

'Especially now, realising how much we need to allow ourselves to have those moments of disappearing into a book, finding solace, support and connection in words,' she added.

Teresa and American husband Mark Webber share sons Bodhi, six, Forest, three, and daughter Poet, 11 months, together. Mark is also father to son Isaac from a previous relationship.
- Kenyan embassador in Beijing Sarah Serem said only those willing to be flown back to Nairobi will be considered

- The Kenyan embassy also issued health guidelines to the Kenyan nationals indicating only negative cases will be allowed on board

- Africans in China were being blamed for importing coronavirus into the Asian nation which reported first case in the world in 2019

Kenya has asked its COVID-19-free citizens who are stranded in China to file details so they can be evacuated as per their wish, but at their own cost.

Through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kenyan ambassador in Beijing Sarah Serem said only those willing to be flown back to Nairobi will be considered.

READ ALSO: Baba, send us a signal: Raila's meetings with Shahbal awakens Joho's succession talks

Kenya's ambassador Sarah Serem. The embassy will evacuate coronavirus-free Kenyans stranded in China. Photo: Daily Nation.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Tanzania records highest number of new COVID-19 cases in a day as 53 people test positive

If you are ready to travel under these conditions, fill the above QR code so that the bio data reaches the Embassy immediately. Please note that the departure will be from Guangzhou on a date to be determined immediately the above information is availed," the embassy said.

The embassy also issued health guidelines to the Kenyan nationals including testing to establish whether or not they had contracted coronavirus as only negative cases will be allowed on board.

The development followed a series of heightened acts of callousness and racial abuse meted on African nationalities caught up in China in the wake of global infection.

READ ALSO: Jamaa ababaika huenda mke anagawa asali nje

Foreign Affairs CS Omamo said Kenya was in engagement with China over claims they were being mistreated. Photo: Kenya Defence Forces.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Ruto wins round one as registrar returns dispute over new officials to Jubilee Party

Interestingly, the first case of the novel coronavirus was first discovered in the populous Asian nation in the sprawling capital of Wuhan city in Hubei province.

In unprecedented turn of events, Africans were being blamed for importing COVID-19 into China even though citizens from countries such as Kenya have not tested positive for the disease.

Kenyans in particular who spoke to Citizen TV on the night of Thursday, April 9, claimed their plight was aggravated by the fact Serem was not returning their calls.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Raychelle Omamo explained China had put in place very stringent measures including mandatory mass testing which resulted to unfair treatment of Africans.

"Unfortunately, these measures have in some instances precipitated unfair responses against foreigners particularly of African origin, from some members of the local community in Guangzhou, especially landlords," she said on April 10.

The situation in China saw many Africans being locked out of their houses and denied access to social emenities such as shopping malls and supermarkets.

In one viral video, a middle-aged woman got stopped stopped from accessing shelves inside a shop.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly.

Ruth Matete is not telling the truth about her husband's death - Pastor John's manager | Tuko TV.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Forty percent of more than 650 nursing homes nationwide with publicly reported cases of the coronavirus have been cited more than once by inspectors in recent years for violating federal standards meant to control the spread of infections, according to a Washington Post analysis.

Since 2016, the nursing homes accrued hundreds of deficiencies for unsafe conditions that can trigger the spread of flu, pneumonia, urinary tract infections and skin diseases. Dozens were flagged by inspectors only months before the coronavirus pandemic struck the United States.

Among the facilities with infection-control infractions: the Pleasant View Nursing Home in Mount Airy, Maryland, where 24 people had died as of Thursday; the Canterbury Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center near Richmond, Virginia, with 49 deaths as of Thursday; and the Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center in southwestern Pennsylvania, where officials have warned that all 750 residents and staff members could be infected.

It is difficult to say whether past violations contributed to current outbreaks or whether any level of preparation would have been enough to protect against a previously unidentified pathogen, but nursing home watchdog groups say the breakdowns have endangered older, vulnerable residents already more at risk of dying from the highly contagious virus.

"Nursing home residents had targets on their backs the moment the virus hit our shores," said Mike Dark, an attorney with the nonprofit California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. "There is an inertia about infection control and it's too late to catch up."

Thousands of coronavirus-related deaths have been linked to nursing homes; the state of New York alone earlier this week reported more than 2,400. At a nursing home in northern New Jersey, police found more than a dozen bodies in what was described as a "makeshift morgue."

The federal government and many states have not released the names of affected facilities.

Through state and county health departments and media reports, The Post was able to identify 662 Medicare-certified nursing homes that have had publicly reported cases of the virus and analyze their track records.

The homes with a history of infection-control deficiencies span 35 states, with dozens in California, the state of Washington and Connecticut, according to inspection data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that regulates nursing homes.

The hardest-hit state, New York, on Friday released only a partial list of nursing homes that have been affected by the coronavirus. Without a full list, The Post has been able to identify only a dozen nursing homes in New York with repeated infection deficiencies.

The hundreds of citations touch on all areas of infection control, inspection records show. Some facilities failed to track residents with symptoms of infections. Others did not ensure that staff members changed soiled gloves, washed their hands or wore personal protective equipment. In some cases, providers used dirty or unsanitized equipment.

At Pleasant View, staff failed to put dates on oxygen equipment that requires regular changing or store personal urinals in a sanitary manner in a bathroom shared by eight residents, records show. At Brighton, according to inspectors, officials failed to ensure that caregivers properly cleaned wounds, washed their hands or wore personal protective equipment. One aide left a wet sheet under a resident whose catheter was leaking.

When the coronavirus struck the nursing home, Keri Boyer said she braced for bad news.

"Once we got the phone call that there was a positive case, I told my husband, 'My dad's going to get it. I have no doubt in my mind,' " said Boyer, whose 73-year-old father, a Pittsburgh Steelers fan who retired from his job at a cement plant, was one of at least five Brighton residents who died from the virus.

"They had four people in a room," Boyer said. "That's how my dad lived, with three other men in a room that was as big as a hospital room, separated by curtains. I sometimes feel like they were the dispensable ones."

An official at Pleasant View said the nursing home declined to comment, and Brighton administrators did not respond to emails. An official with Canterbury said ownership of the facility changed in January.

"In the months prior to the covid-19 pandemic, there were significant improvements in virtually every aspect of operations . . . and there were also significant changes in facility leadership," Canterbury administrator Jeremiah Davis said in a statement. "There has been material focus on placing the right people in the right positions, and a significant influx of new protocols prior to the outbreak."

Industry leaders say even the strongest infection-control measures could not have prepared nursing homes for the onslaught of coronavirus and that facilities with limited personal protective equipment are doing what they can to protect and treat residents.

"Outbreaks are not the result of inattentiveness or a shortcoming in nursing homes," David Gifford, chief medical officer at the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living, said in a statement. "It's the combination of the behavior of this virus and the unique threat it presents to the people we care for - older adults with multiple underlying health conditions."

With fragile populations, shortages of personal protective equipment and staff members forced to juggle front-line work with the needs of their own families, nursing home residents were "essentially sitting ducks," said Karl Steinberg, a San Diego-based geriatrician and palliative care specialist and president-elect of AMDA-the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.

"A lot of facilities could do better," he said. "But this virus is different. It's insidious. We don't know who has it. We don't know who doesn't have it. It could live in the air. It could live on surfaces. It's highly improbable that . . . the best in planning would have prevented this."

Nursing home watchdog groups, however, say warnings went unheeded for years, even after the Obama administration in 2016 moved to strengthen infection-control practices in nursing homes.

In the past four years, infection-control problems were the most common deficiencies identified at 15,000 nursing homes nationwide, federal records show.

Three-quarters of nursing homes were cited at least once for infection-related infractions since 2016. Four in 10 were repeat offenders, flagged at least twice.

In Florida last year, a nurse failed to disinfect a blood-glucose meter in a facility with 23 diabetic patients; an inspector found one of the devices sitting on a cart, soiled with what appeared to be blood, federal inspection reports show. In California last year, administrators failed to screen dozens of staff members, including 15 licensed nurses and 13 nursing assistants, for tuberculosis and flu vaccinations. In Wisconsin in 2017, a quarantine was lifted and residents allowed to mingle even though a gastrointestinal outbreak had sickened dozens of people.

Even as the coronavirus swept hundreds of nursing homes, inspectors continued to cite breakdowns.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last month postponed routine inspections to focus solely on infection control. In a first round of inspections during the week of March 30, officials found that one in three nursing homes did not follow proper hand-washing guidelines and one in four failed to demonstrate the proper use of personal protective equipment.

As of April 10, the agency had inspected 96 facilities, finding 12 that did not follow proper hand-washing guidelines and 18 did not properly use personal protective equipment.

As the death toll continues to mount, nursing homes are struggling to account for what happened.

"Believe me, facilities are scrambling to have these [infection-control] processes as air tight as they can," said Steinberg, the California doctor. "They really didn't know what was going on until it was too late."

- - -

The federal government started taking a hard look at infection control four years ago when the Obama administration pushed to require facilities to bring on specialists focused on preventing the spread of illness. More than 3,000 people were trained by the American Health Care Association, which represents thousands of skilled-nursing centers, assisted-living communities and other facilities.

The new regulation, however, did not become effective until this past November, only weeks before the coronavirus started spreading in China.

And even before the requirements took effect, the federal government had put in motion plans to change the rule, striking the mandate for at least a part-time infection specialist and instead relying on nursing homes to ensure that specialists had "sufficient time" at facilities. The proposed changes, criticized by patient-watchdog groups, are still pending.

CMS Administrator Seema Verma told the New York Times last month that the changes, meant to give nursing homes more freedom from federal rules, could mean that providers focus even more on infection control.

With nursing homes now at the center of the pandemic, CMS has renewed calls to nursing homes to comply with federal rules for infection control.

Inspectors have documented the problems for years, but the agency classifies nearly all infection-control deficiencies as a low-level concern, which means they do not trigger penalties or fines. Dark, with the California watchdog group, calls them "paper violations."

Of more than 20,000 infection-control infractions since 2016, only 151 were classified as higher-level violations that caused significant harm or immediate jeopardy to residents.

In mid-March, federal inspectors went to the Life Care Center of Kirkland, the Washington state nursing home linked to more than 40 deaths and more than 100 cases of coronavirus infection. They found the facility had failed to properly identify and manage sick patients or alert authorities to an outbreak of respiratory illness.

State inspectors also investigated, finding the lack of care had resulted in hospitalizations and resident deaths and that an ineffective infection-control system resulted in a "widespread and unmanaged respiratory outbreak."

CMS threatened to cut off Medicare and Medicaid funding if the deficiencies are not corrected by September. The agency also fined the facility more than $600,000, though the amount could change if Life Care complies with a correction plan. The state banned Life Care from accepting new admissions until fixes are made, including training staff in infectious disease management.

Candace Goehring, Washington state director of residential care services, said state agencies now know more about controlling and responding to outbreaks. "I'm sure we will all be going back . . . to understand how do we better prepare," she said.

A year ago at Life Care, records show, inspectors found respiratory equipment mixed in with bed covers and socks, kitchen staff who handled clean dishes with soiled gloves and a staff member who failed to wear personal protective equipment while caring for a resident with a suspected respiratory infection.

In a laundry room, inspectors noted that clean linens were at risk of being contaminated by air blowing in from a dirty utility room with a broken exhaust fan. Two outbreaks of the flu had affected at least 17 residents and seven staff members.

The infection-control citation that followed was classified as low-level. Life Care corrected the deficiencies, state records show, and went on to receive an overall rating of five stars, the highest rating from CMS.

"There's no teeth," Toby Edelman, senior policy attorney with the nonprofit Center for Medicare Advocacy, said of the infractions. "[CMS] could . . . actually do something about it - take action. They could treat these problems as the serious problems they are."

Tim Killian, a public information liaison for Life Care Centers of America, said the nursing home has followed all guidance from the state and federal government. The facility regularly makes adjustments to improve patient care based on feedback from CMS, he said.

No amount of preparation, he said, could have prepared the facility for a virus that started spreading from patient to patient before staff even knew it was there.

"This is an unprecedented viral outbreak," Killian said. "It is outside the scope of anything that we had seen, anything that federal agencies had seen, anything that our . . . public health departments had seen, and no agencies had given us specific guidelines or provided . . . additional resources to us to prepare our facility."

Cami Neidigh said she is just grateful to have her 90-year-old mother home.

After developing a fever at Life Care, the great-great-grandmother was sent to an isolation room in a Seattle hospital, diagnosed with covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Neidigh and the rest of the family, draped in protective gear, were called in to say goodbye.

Seeing family likely helped, Neidigh said. Within 24 hours, her mother rallied and soon insisted on a bowl of potato soup, served for years in the family as an antidote to the common cold.

"When she . . . was taken out of that facility, it saved her life. It gave her a fighting chance," said Neidigh, whose mother is now recovered and once again living in her own apartment.

- - -

Northeast of Nashville, Tennessee, the Gallatin Center for Rehabilitation and Healing has also struggled with infection control, federal records show. In recent years, inspectors found that staff did not follow hand-washing procedures, properly dispose of wound care materials or appropriately handle soiled linens.

More than 100 residents and staff at the center have been infected with the coronavirus, according to local media reports. Late last month, the facility was temporarily shut down and sanitized.

Officials at the nursing home provided a written timeline to The Post noting that the facility in February and March conducted additional training on hand-washing techniques and infection control, restricted visitors and screened staff for fevers. At an inspection earlier this month, inspectors did not find deficiencies related to covid-19, records show.

A state health department representative declined to discuss conditions at the facility. At a news conference, Tennessee Department of Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey called the nursing home "an excellent partner."

More than 10 people linked to the Gallatin center have died from the virus, including 80-year-old Homer Barr, a father of four and retired fire captain.

"I let my dad down and I can't go back," said Barr's daughter, Deneen. "I pray to God that he didn't have to suffer."

In Beaver County outside of Pittsburgh, the Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center was cited multiple times in recent years for infection-control lapses. In January 2019, inspectors also reported that Brighton had no heat, with indoor temperatures as low as 58 degrees. One resident reported that she used her oxygen mask to breathe beneath six blankets, records show.

Tamera Witherspoon, a 41-year-old licensed practical nurse who logged 50-hour weeks at the center, said staffing shortages were also a problem. During some shifts, she said, there were dozens of patients who needed tending. She barely had time to wash her hands, she said.

In March, the virus swept the nursing home. During an early-morning shift, Witherspoon, a mother of three who earns $26 an hour, said she did not have enough medical equipment or an N95 mask, which experts say provides the highest level of protection.

She said she told her supervisors that she would not be returning until she got a mask. Witherspoon decided to self-quarantine, and after she spoke out publicly, she received a donation of eight masks from a local business owner. She gave one to a neighbor in a wheelchair and one to another nurse at the facility. She said she is still waiting for an apology from Brighton.

"I'm sitting at home, not compensated," she said. "I'm just in a limbo."

Nate Wardle, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Health, said Brighton was on a provisional license, with inspections twice a year because of prior health deficiencies. Wardle said health officials have so far found no breakdowns in the days leading up to the outbreak.

Wardle said health officials have been in touch with Brighton and have so far found no breakdowns in the days leading up to the outbreak.

"We are not aware of anything that has been done that would be of serious concern to the department," he said. "But of course we're not in the facility every day observing everything that's going on."

"We are not aware of anything that has been done that would be of serious concern to the department," he said. "But of course we're not in the facility every day observing everything that's going on."

Connie Sluzynsky said her 83-year-old mother was one of the lucky ones.

The retired courthouse clerk and great-grandmother was living at Brighton when officials locked down the facility to stop the spread of infection. Sluzynsky said she spent days calling for updates and finally reached a nurse.

"She said, 'I will tell you with 100 percent certainty that everybody here is going to get that virus,'" Sluzynsky recalled.

On March 30, Sluzynsky pulled her mother out of the nursing home. A week later, with multiple deaths and dozens of cases, Brighton officials announced they would stop reporting a count of new cases because it was possible that all residents and staff had contracted the virus.

At home after two weeks in self-quarantine, in a bedroom with family photos and a television tuned to "Dr. Phil," Sluzynsky's mother has shown no signs of infection.

"When I see how people are taken care of there . . . and when I look at my mom, I think, 'Is this what your life has come to? Is this it?'" Sluzynsky said. "I just didn't want to see my mother's life come to this."

- - -

Jacobs and Mulcahy are graduate students in journalism at Northwestern University's Medill Investigative Lab. The Washington Post's database editor Dan Keating and researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report, along with Sidnee King, Arnab Mondal, Areeba Shah, Alexa Mikhail and Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff at the Medill Investigative Lab.
London, April 18 : UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced that the governments furlough scheme will be extended by one month amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, it was reported.

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which sees the government pay furloughed employees 80 per cent of their wages up to a maximum of 2,500 pounds, will now continue until the end of June, the Metro newspaper reported.

It was originally open for three months and backdated from March 1 to May.

Addressing the media on Friday, Sunak said: "We've taken unprecedented action to support jobs and businesses through this period of uncertainty, including the UK-wide Job Retention Scheme.

"With the extension of the coronavirus lockdown measures yesterday (Thursday), it is the right decision to extend the furlough scheme for a month to the end of June to provide clarity." The scheme will continue to be monitored in hopes that it will help employees and businesses get back to work as soon as current lockdown measures come to an end, Sunak said, adding that the future decisions about the plan will depend on the government's future steps to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Earlier this week, the Indian-origin Chancellor had confirmed that the eligibility date for the furlough scheme had also been extended, meaning thousands more employees could access support, reports the Metro newspaper.

Individuals originally had to be employed on February 28 to qualify, but now this has been extended to March 19, the day before the plan was announced.




The Trump administration announced on Wednesday its plan to open up 2.3 million acres of land to hunting and fishing according to a recently published article. As a matter of discussion, people from hunting and fishing groups, as well as conservation groups, gave their opinion on the subject before the decision was made.



Opening of 2.3 Million Acres of Land to Hunting and Fishing

The plan of the Trump administration received praise from different hunting groups. The program aims to open up around 2.3 million acres of land to hunting and fishing on more than 100 national wildlife hatcheries and fisheries across the country.

For the first time, this will allow hunting and fishing at several national wildlife refuges from different parts of the country, and that includes San Diego Bay in California, Alamosa in Colorado, Bombay Hook in Delaware, New Hampshire, and Everglades Headwaters in Florida.

Moreover, alligator hunting at the three national wildlife refuges will also be allowed. The Umbagog Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Maine is also included in the list. Fishing will be allowed in the lake.

Moreover, there will be no not much difference in Umbagog Lake because it has been open for fishing and will remain open for the duration of the program.

Paul Casey, wildlife manager at Umbagig Lake, said that the visitors are accustomed to already seeing anglers every time. He also added: "Most of the refuge is the shoreline of the lake.

The lake itself is open to fishing. We are now officially facilitating the access to the lake for fishing. We have three boat launches on the refuge. Additionally, there are several ponds [on which] we own all the shoreline. We are officially opening these to allow fishing."

There are also other areas near the Umbagog Lake that are top-rated destinations for anglers. One of these is the Rapid River, which is about six miles from Lower Richardson Lake to Umbagog. The Rapid River is famous for its brook trout water that is a destination for traveling anglers.

Jeff Reardon, a Maine angler and fisheries conservationist, said that the plan of Trump administration to open up around 2.3 million acres of wildlife refuges would not make any changes. He said: "Umbagog Lake, the Rapid River, and the Magalloway River have all been popular places to fish for decades."

He also added: "They hold bass tournaments on Umbagog Lake. What I think is changing is that for the first time, the refuge will have an official 'fishing plan.' As far as I can tell, it just formalizes what's been allowed for a long time."

The Stand of Conservation Groups and Pro-Wildlife Organizations

As expected, there are some conservation groups and pro-wildlife organizations that criticized the plan of the administration, saying that its intent is not timely because the country is still struggling to face the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Jayson O'Neill, the director of Western Values Project, said: "Instead of responding to pleas by state and local officials for necessary agency resources, assistance, and help during this generational pandemic, Secretary Bernhardt made a tone-deaf announcement that by no means could ever make up for the hunting opportunities and wildlife lost as a result of Trump's deregulatory agenda decimating our public lands and environmental protections."

It can be recounted that David Bernhart, Interior secretary, said: "America's hunters and anglers now have something significant to look forward to in the fall as we plan to open and expand hunting and fishing opportunities across more acreage nationwide than the entire state of Delaware."

However, for O'Neill, Bernhardt needs to reassess his priorities to make sure the necessities of American families and workers are met first.

Last month, Bernhardt ordered to waive the tickets of national parks that remained open amid COVID-19 in an attempt to aid public social distancing.

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In a public show of disapproval, Iraqs Foreign Ministry summoned the Turkish ambassador over deadly airstrikes carried out by Ankara this week against suspected militants in northern Iraq.

In a statement on Twitter, Iraqs Foreign Ministry said it summoned Ambassador Fatih Yildiz on Thursday because of a Turkish army fighter plane violating Iraqi airspace, and bombing a refugee camp near [Makhmour] that claimed the lives of two women.

On Wednesday, news outlets in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq reported that one air attack killed three civilians near a refugee camp in the mountainous Makhmour region and another destroyed a shelter belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an armed insurgent group, in the city of Rawanduz.

Speaking to Kurdish news outlet Rudaw, the head of the Makhmour camp confirmed three women died in Wednesdays strikes.

Two women were killed immediately by the airstrikes, and another woman succumbed to her grave injuries and passed away later on, Bewar Amin said.

Turkey made no mention of civilian casualties in its version of events, which said the Turkish fighter jets had neutralized four PKK terrorists as part of a counterterrorism operation. The National Defense Ministry also said the airstrikes Wednesday occured in the Qandil region near the Iraq-Iran border, not Makhmour.

During their meeting in Baghdad Thursday, Ambassador Yildiz told Iraqi officials his country would continue to exercise its right to legitimate self-defense, according to state-run Anadolu Agency. Yildiz also said Turkeys military campaign in Iraq is in compliance with international law.

Under its Operation Claw military campaign, Turkey has targeted PKK strongholds in neighboring Iraq that it says are used by the militants to launch cross-border attacks inside Turkey. In January, Turkish airstrikes killed at least four Yazidi fighters affiliated with the PKK in northern Iraqs Sinjar Mountains region.

The PKKs decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state has left more than 40,000 dead on both sides. Turkey, the United States and the European Union all label the Kurdish group a terrorist organization.
NEW CANAAN  A town resident whose construction work won several awards died March 31 of COVID-19-related complications, his obituary said.

Robert Bob Jonathan Levine, 66, grew up in Stamford and married his childhood friend and schoolmate Eva Szekeres in 1984.
A worker at NYC-based tech company Adafruit makes a face shield during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Adafruit.com

Across New York City, businesses hardly resemble their pre-pandemic operations. Fashion designers are sewing face masks instead of garments, restaurants have transformed into grocery stores and distilleries are making alcohol that's too strong to drink. Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn is one of those businesses. It began making hand sanitizer after the federal regulators gave the OK in late March. "We kind of were playing around with the idea of doing it and it just felt in bad taste for a while," said the distillery's co-founder Colin Spoelman. "But then all the sudden things got so serious that in fact everyone got serious about it in a way that it was clear it would be helpful." To meet medical standards, the distillery had to make much higher-proof alcohol than the whiskey it was used to producing. That meant changing up the distilling process and slowing it down, Spoelman said. But the demand was there. Kings County produced 1,000 bottles of hand sanitizer in its first batch and sold out in four hours, according to Spoelman. Business owners like Spoelman have been pinpointing the places demand has shifted during the Covid-19 crisis and figuring out ways to move their businesses along with it. For many New Yorkers, it's a feeling that calls back to 9/11, when the entire city was thrust into a new reality and neighbors worked to figure out how to help one another. This time, New Yorkers are rebuilding from a safe distance apart and often over the internet.

Digital expansion

In addition to making hand sanitizer, Kings County Distillery recently started selling whiskey and "virtual tastings" online, after the New York state agency regulating alcohol sales loosened its restrictions on online transactions. "We had to pivot from being a government-mandated analog business to a government-mandated virtual business," Spoelman said.

Kings County Distillery has shifted its whiskey production to hand sanitizer during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Kings County Distillery

At Swerve, a New York-based spin studio, bringing together sweaty bodies in small classrooms felt untenable by the end of the second week of March, according to the studio's founders. The business decided to shut its doors shortly before the city mandated gym closures. These days, Swerve looks less like SoulCycle and more like Peloton, having rented out all 150 of its (sanitized) bikes to customers who agreed to pay $325 per month for the equipment and unlimited access to streamed classes. For customers who don't have access to a stationary bike, Swerve is also offering home workouts that don't require equipment. For those, users can choose what they pay starting at $10 per class, with most of the fee going to the instructors, the founders said. The crisis has given Swerve an opportunity to experiment with a new idea without sacrificing resources from its core business, and customers have been forgiving as Swerve has ramped up an entirely new product over just a few weeks, said co-founder Chelsea Kocis. "It kind of forced us to try something that we didn't really have the bandwidth to think about in the past," Kocis said. "We probably wouldn't have entertained this as soon as we did if it wasn't for the pandemic," agreed co-founder JH McNierney. "It forces us to be nimble and try things that we hadn't done in the past and receive feedback from riders." Junzi Kitchen has also expanded its reach during the crisis, delivering far beyond its Manhattan-based locations into the outer boroughs. The Chinese fast-casual chain served to a lunch crowd of students and office workers, but now is delivering bulk ingredients that customers can put together themselves, or combine with whatever they have in their pantry to stretch out their meals. Junzi co-founder and CEO Yong Zhao said he looked at how his friends in China were getting their meals shortly before the virus reached the tipping point in New York that forced residents to retreat to their homes. Those friends said they were placing larger orders to feed their families. "Home eating is a totally different experience," Zhao said. Junzi has also rolled out a series called "Distance Dining," converting its regular in-person chef-led dining experiences to an online experience. Junzi sends three-course meals to participants who later follow the chef's plating instructions and stories over a livestream on Instagram. In its first couple weeks, the program sold out even after expanding its supply to 125 meal kits in its second week.

Junzi Kitchen has introduced its Distance Dining series during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, where a chef directs plating instructions over a livestream on Instagram. Junzi Kitchen

Junzi is also giving customers the option to buy a meal for a hospital worker, which has allowed the company to maintain delivery work for its catering staff. "Every day it's tiring because of all the new things we need to do, but at the same time we're kind of excited to help make our contribution to society more than before because right now we have the capacity to make the changes," Zhao said. "Now it's kind of [like] all these side projects have become the main project and the main projects before have become the side project."

Making essential supplies

Some small businesses in New York have shifted nearly their whole operations to creating supplies needed by hospital workers or other essential services. Adafruit is one of those businesses. The tech company had already been deemed an essential service because it manufactures a computer component used in medical devices like ventilators, but it has since begun producing face shields as well. Of the company's 100 New York-based employees, it has about 10 on the factory floor at a time, though it says it has retained all its staff. For workers whose jobs don't require them showing up to the office, Adafruit is encouraging them to take part in skills-building and learning various internal systems. "You know how companies say, 'well, if we only had time to train everyone to do everything?'" said Managing Director Phillip Torrone. "Well, we do." Some employees are even developing an internal app so Adafruit workers can do their own contact tracing to keep track of where they have been in case they were near the source of an outbreak. Torrone said the company wanted to create a privacy-centric app so its employees wouldn't have to rely on a product from companies like Apple or Google, which have since announced plans to jointly launch tools to track the spread of the virus. Brooklyn and Staten Island-based crafting workshop MakerSpace has shifted its business to making face shields as well. The business typically conducts educational programs and maintains a membership of artists and craftsmen who rely on the facilities' industrial tools. Executive Director Scott Van Campen said 15% to 20% of their revenue usually comes over the next few months from educational programs which have since been suspended. In the meantime, like Adafruit, MakerSpace has been coordinating with the New York City Economic Development Corporation to manufacture face shields. The work has allowed them to maintain about half of its 10 or so shop tech staff and managers, according to Van Campen.

Workers at MakerSpace in New York City make face shields to assist with relief efforts during the coronavirus pandemic. MakerSpace
Malcolm Turnbulls publisher has fired off a legal warning to a top aide in the Morrison government claiming a massive breach of copyright over the former prime ministers new book.

Furious at the spread of pirated copies of the e-book to people within the government, publishing company Hardie Grant sent the demand on Saturday night claiming malicious conduct by the staff member in the Prime Ministers Office.

The move came hours after the publisher was alerted to the distribution of the electronic version of the book to government staffers and at least one Liberal MP, days before the e-book becomes available to paying readers on Monday.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne confirmed the existence of the leaked e-book during an interview on ABC's Insiders program on Sunday morning, saying she had "received and deleted" it.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump announced a new $19 billion relief package on Friday to assist American farmers who have been financially hurt by the coronavirus outbreak.

The aid package includes a mass government purchase of $3 billion in dairy, produce and meat products and $16 billion in direct payments to farmers and ranchers to bolster their income, according to Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

"This will help our farmers and our ranchers and it's money well deserved," Trump told reporters at a press conference at the White House Friday.

Perdue said while the aid program is not enough to address farmers' losses, the Agriculture Department will receive an additional $14 billion boost to help them recoup economic losses in July.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Friday, April 17, 2020, in Washington.

A decline in consumer spending and the shuttering of restaurants under social-distancing restrictions has upended the U.S food supply chain, while the pandemic has hampered exports of American agricultural products.

U.S. farmers, who've already been hurt by U.S. trade disputes, are projected to lose $20 billion in net income in 2020, according to an updated economics report published this month by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri.

The report indicates that in the short-term, the global pandemic will have a broad effect on all areas of U.S. agriculture, including crop and livestock prices and on fuel and ethanol demands.

The aid plan appears to mirror the $28 billion in bailout money already sent to farmers over the last two years to offset U.S. tariffs on imports.

The CARES Act, the coronavirus relief package passed by Congress last month, allocated about $48.4 billion for the USDA to address issues arising from the pandemic.

Zippy Duvall, the president of the American Farm Bureau, was quick to thank Trump and Perdue.

"This aid will help keep food on Americans' tables by providing a lifeline to farm families already hit by trade wars and severe weather," he tweeted.

Story continues

Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran pointed out on Twitter the U.S. coronavirus outbreak has caused more than $13 billion in economic damage to cattle producers alone.

"Given the level of hardship facing farmers & ranchers, more assistance will be required," he tweeted. "I will work to address the struggling [agriculture] economy and rural communities, including the need to keep food supply chains intact, meat processing plants open & ethanol facilities viable."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus: Trump announces $19 billion farmer relief package
When grade school teacher Zane Powles got wind of coronavirus-related shutdowns across the United Kingdom, he immediately jumped into action so his students wouldnt go hungry.

"My first thought was how are we going to get our children meals," Powles said. "We have vulnerable families that need help so we had to come up with a plan."

Powles, an assistant head teacher at Western Primary School in Grimsby, England, began mapping out where students on free school lunches live. Every day, he packs 78 meals prepared by the schools kitchen staff and stuffs them into several bags strapped to his arms, back and chest before embarking on a nearly three-hour journey around the neighborhood.

PHOTO: Zane Powles walks five miles daily to hand deliver lunch to 78 of his students. (Courtesy Zane Powles)

"By the end of this week, I'll have walked over a hundred miles," Powles said. "Im just glad Im able to step up and do my part."

MORE: These healthcare heroes were surprised with free groceries and we cant stop crying

The former soldier carries 40 pounds of food when he sets out on the 5-mile trek, stopping by home after home with a sandwich, two pieces of fruit, chips, dessert and much to the childrens dismay homework.

"The kids are really happy to see me believe it or not until they see all the papers in my hands," Powles laughed. "Its great because I can make sure all our families are okay and keep that connection to school for the kids."

PHOTO: Zane Powles walks five miles daily to hand deliver lunch to 78 of his students. (Courtesy Zane Powles)

Powles revealed he originally came up with the idea after the schools administration felt it didnt make sense to have families pick up the state-sponsored meals on campus. Additional faculty members deliver lunch by car to students who live farther than walking distance.

"We have some families that are quite scared to leave the house," Powles said. "Families that wouldn't get any food then. It's really helpful for our whole community and parents who want to keep their children safe from a terrible disease."

The latest tally from the World Health Organization reports over 13,000 deaths and nearly 100,000 coronavirus cases throughout the United Kingdom. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced Thursday the nation will stay on lockdown for at least three more weeks.

Story continues

MORE: 'Thanks for everything you do': Amid coronavirus, good news is happening

The deliveries are hard work for Powles, but what may make the whole trek worth it are the smiles and nods of gratitude he receives each day from parents and children alike.

PHOTO: Zane Powles walks five miles daily to hand deliver lunch to 78 of his students. (Courtesy Zane Powles)

"One of my students rushed to the door with his parents the other day and goes, 'Mr. Powles is here, he's saved the world,' which was lovely to hear," Powles said. "You can just tell how much this means to the parents and children. Its written on their faces."

Powles added he plans to continue the meal deliveries for as long as necessary.

This teacher delivers 78 free school lunches to kids every day originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
This comes as a setback for two crucial products for Jeep, one of which is brand new offering resurrected on a once-dead nameplate for the automaker. The Grand Wagoneer is perhaps the biggest hit, as a delay to the highly anticipated three-row family hauler rumored to be based on the same underpinnings found in the Ram 1500 means that Jeep will face even more months without much-needed sales. (That is, if anyone can afford to buy a new car amid this downturn--sales have been dismal lately and they may not recover at all for some time.)
Karnataka to undertake Triaging: What does it mean and how do you pronounce it

Delhi to ease restrictions, if Covid cases come down in next 2-3 days: Health Minister

Lata Mangeshkar health update: Doctor says,'She in ICU with Covid-19 and pneumonia, will be under observation'

COVID-19: Karnataka to partially relax lockdown from April 21

India

oi-Deepika S

Bengaluru, Apr 18: The Karnataka government on Saturday announced new measures to ease lockdown restrictions, including movement of goods vehicles, and cars (with passes) effective from April 21.

The decision was taken after chief minister B S Yediyurappa's meeting with senior ministers to review the COVID-19 situation in the state.

These relaxations, however, will be in places except the 32 containment zones in Bengaluru and eight hotspot districts in the state.

These include Bengaluru Urban, Mysuru, Belagavi, and districts with clusters including Dakshina Kannada, Bidar, Kalaburagi, Bagalkote and Dharwad.

In containment zones, a buffer zone within a three-kilometre radius will be subjected to medical check-ups.

Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural and Ramanagara will be considered as one district for the movement of industrial workers.

Alcohol in Karnataka: No booze until April 20

Yediyurappa's U-turn on two-wheelers and IT/BT

However, the government withdrew its earlier order allowing the movement of two-wheelers outside areas that are identifies as containment zones.

Yediyurappa had earlier said that there will not be any restriction on the movement of two-wheelers in areas that are not COVID-19 containment zones. Also, he said that 33 per cent of IT/BT employees will be allowed to go to the office from April 20.

"In the backdrop of public opinion and after discussions with senior officials, it has been decided that the prohibition on two-wheelers will continue throughout the lockdown period," a statement from the Chief Minister's Office said. "And in the IT/BT sector, only essential services will be allowed and the work-from-home policy will continue."

In hotspots, an incident commander will be appointed in each containment zone, who will be assisted by the local police and health officials.

The commander, with magisterial powers, will be responsible to contain crowds and provide basic amenities in the contained zones.

Construction activities will also be allowed across the state except in hotspots with the condition that workers will have to stay at the site with all facilities, including food, water and shelter.

Public trasport including buses, namma metro, trains and airlines will remain shut till May 3. Educational institutuions, religious places, malls, theatres, saloons, gyms and commercial activities will remain closed.

Inter-district travel will not be allowed during the partial lockdown.

Ban order under Section 144 of the CrPC will remain in place till May 3.

The government has also mandated wearing of masks and has asked senior citizens vulnerable to the disease to remain indoors for the next three months. Spitting in public places will be banned and violators will be fined.

Karnataka has reported a total of 384 positive cases as of Saturday, including 14 deaths and 104 recoveries.

Highlights of COVID-19 lockdown relaxation in Karnataka

Incident commander to be appointed to each containment zone, who will be assisted by police and health officials. They will be responsible for containing crowd movement and providing basic amenities in these areas. Incident commander will have magisterial power.

In Buffer zones with a 3 km radius will be subjected to medical check up.

Movement of goods vehicle will be allowed. Cars with passes are allowed. No more new passes will be issued.

Employees of IT, BT and other business activities should come to offices in hired buses.

IT BT employees should be encouraged to work from home.

Construction activities will be allowed to work but workers should be allowed to stay at contruction sites.

No more new shops will be allowed to open. Malls, showrooms will remain closed.

Inter district travel is not allowed. Ramanagar, Bengaluru Urban and Bengaluru rural district will be considered as one district only for movement of Industrial workers.

33 per cent workforce of Government Departments will be allowed to work and they should come in contract buses, that would be hired exclusively for them.

Prohibitary orders will be continued till May 3.

Wearing masks will be mandatory.

Senior Citizens and vulnerable persons to disease should remain indoor for next three months.

Spitting in public places banned.
Jammu: Pakistani troops on Saturday shelled forward posts and villages along the Line of Control in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, a defence spokesperson said.

There was no immediate report of any casualty in the shelling, he said. "At about 8.30 pm, Pakistan initiated unprovoked ceasefire violation by firing with small arms and intense shelling with mortars along the LoC in Degwar sector," the spokesperson said.

He said the Indian Army retaliated befittingly and the cross-border shelling between the two sides was going on when last reports were received.
Delhi police charged former JNU student Sharjeel Imam with sedition before a court here on Saturday, alleging his speech promoted enmity between people that led to riots in the Jamia Millia Islamia University area.

In its supplementary charge sheet, the police said serious riots had broken out in consequence to the protest march organised by Jamia students" against the amended citizenship law on December 15 last year.

The mob indulged in large-scale rioting, stone-pelting and arson, and in the process destroyed many public and private properties. Cases of rioting, arson and damage to public property were registered in both the police stations. Many policemen and public persons were injured in the riots, the agency told in its final report filed before the chief metropolitan magistrate court.

The cases were registered in New Friends Colony and Jamia Nagar police stations.

In the New Friends Colony case, Imam was arrested for instigating and abetting the Jamia riots, due to his seditious speech delivered on December 13, 2019. During investigation, on the basis of evidences collected, sections 124 A (sedition) and 153 A IPC (promoting enmity between classes) were invoked in the case," police said.

The police previously filed a charge sheet against the rioters arrested by the SIT.

Further investigation in the case is under way, they said.

Imam was arrested from Bihar's Jehanabad on January 28. He had been involved in organising protests at Shaheen Bagh but came into limelight after a video showed him making controversial comments before a gathering at Aligarh Muslim University, following which he was booked under sedition charges.

Delhi police had also booked him for an "inflammatory" speech on the Jamia campus.

Another case was filed against Imam in Assam under the stringent anti-terror law for his remark that Assam could be "severed from India, even if for a few months" as a result of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

Police in Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh had also lodged FIRs against the JNU scholar over his speech in which he threatened to "cut off" Assam and the rest of the northeast from the country.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Even in the best of times, social isolation is a significant problem. In Idaho, close to 115,000 people over the age of 50 live alone and are at higher risk of social isolation, which is now magnified by the social distancing requirements across the country.

Thats worrisome. In fact, the World Health Organization was so concerned that the social distancing directive was contributing to isolation that it has modified the wording of its guidance: It now urges people to practice physical distancing to prevent the spread of the virus.

The long-term effects of social isolation are very real. Over a prolonged period, the impact of social isolation is as harmful to an individual as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. In fact, isolation is more dangerous to ones health than obesity, and its linked to a greater likelihood of early death, accelerated cognitive decline, poor cardiovascular function, stroke and depression in adults 50 and older.

We may have all scaled back our personal interactions to stay safe, but that doesnt mean we have to be alone. Todays technology offers myriad ways to keep in touch with family, friends, neighbors and loved ones.

Here are some steps to stay connected:

Measure your risk for isolation  or that of your loved one  at AARP Foundations Connect2Affect.org. This platform also provides lists of community assistance programs for medical care, food and job training.

Plug into the growing number of mutual aid groups that organize volunteers to assist older neighbors by, for example, picking up prescriptions or going grocery shopping for them. AARP recently launched the Community Connections tool, also in Spanish aarp.org/MiComunidad, to help you find a group in your area. You can also request a friendly call from an AARP volunteer through the website or by calling 1-888-281-0145.

Go virtual. Many in-person activities are now being offered online. Your local fitness center, for example, might be offering virtual exercise classes. Or perhaps your book club now meets online. AARPs website, aarp.org/coronavirus, offers daily fitness videos, links to movies that stream online, and other ideas to stay active and engaged during this difficult time.

Volunteer to provide critical services. Its a way to assist others while also helping you find purpose and avoid isolation. Mentors and tutors, for example, are always in high demand and both roles can easily be filled remotely. You might also want to volunteer to answer helpline calls related to the pandemic. Visit createthegood.aarp.org.

Identify vulnerable older adults in your family or neighborhood and make a plan to have someone reach out to them on a regular basis by phone, text, email or virtual chat. This is an excellent opportunity to introduce someone unacquainted with Zoom, Skype or Facetime to this new method of communication.

If you are working from home, consider virtual lunches or happy hours. Its important to take time to catch up with your colleagues on a more informal level. (And you might even glean a few tips on successfully navigating the new world of telework.)

Go old school. Reach out to a family member or friend by sending a letter or postcard. Enclose a photo or two in the letter to spark a fond memory.

If there is one thing that this pandemic has made clear, its that personal connections are immensely valuable and sorely missed. But social distance doesnt have to be social disconnection. Lets resolve to keep those links strong and vibrant during this crisis, especially for our most vulnerable family, friends and neighbors.

Lupe Wissel is state director of AARP Idaho.

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Covid-19 deaths in the US spiked by a new record of 4,591 on Friday as President Donald Trump unveiled guidelines for reopening the country and appeared to practically lead, from his Twitter handle, the protests against the continuing lockdown in several states.

Trump hit out at his political rivals including Democrat state governors, the World Health Organization and asked for liberating locked-down states, some of whom had in fact extended the restrictions. He tweeted on Friday: Today people started losing their jobs because of Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Cryin Chuck Schumer, and the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats, who should immediately come back to Washington and approve legislation to help families in America. End your ENDLESS VACATION!

LIBERATE MINNESOTA!

LIBERATE MICHIGAN! LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!

Protests have broken out in Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, New York, Kentucky, Utah and Wyoming demanding reopening of the country.

On the WHO, Trump appeared to quote Lanhee Chen, a fellow at Stanford Universitys Hoover Institute, and tweeted: Why did the W.H.O. Ignore an email from Taiwanese health officials in late December alerting them to the possibility that CoronaVirus could be transmitted between humans? 

The US death toll as of Friday morning was more than 35,300 and confirmed cases topped 680,500. The number of cases increased in New York state, the epicentre of the American epidemic, to nearly 226,200 with more than 16,730 fatalities.

Were starting our life again, Trump said on Thursday. Were starting rejuvenation of our economy... in a safe and structured and very responsible fashion.

States were expected to announce their own reopening plans but New York extended its shutdown to May 15; Michigan and Missouri had also extended their stay-at-home orders. The guidelines provide that the reopening be spread over three phases and laid down gatekeeping criteria for progressing from one phase to another. A state could decide to open up entirely or partially, based on criteria that include infection rates and ability of hospitals to cope.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he needed federal government help to ramp up testing and accused Trump administration of failing to provide funding to states. That is passing the buck without passing the bucks, he said. Trump pushed back, tweeting it was up to the states to step up their testing, and went on to attack Cuomo.
By Maria Caspani and Nathan Layne

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday launched a blistering attack on President Donald Trump's response to the coronavirus crisis, accusing him of "passing the buck" to the states and favoring big business over communities hardest hit.

Cuomo, who had previously kept his criticism of Trump in check, unleashed a flurry of broadsides following a reporter's question about the president's comments suggesting New York had asked for too much aid that was never fully used.

The governor said the president should "maybe get up and go to work" instead of watching TV and accused him of favoring the airline industry and other business cronies in a recent bailout package that Cuomo said left little for the states.

Cuomo said that he had been quick to praise the president when the state was in dire need of hospital beds and ventilators and that his requests for help with those were motivated by the White House's own dire projections for the virus.

"We built more beds than we needed," Cuomo, said pointing to initial federal projections on the impact of the virus which predicted that as many as 2.2 million people could die. "Our only mistake was believing your numbers and your projections."

Cuomo, whose state is at the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, accounting for nearly half of the country's deaths, said the president had repeatedly refused to help states with ramping up testing because it was "too complicated."

He said he needs federal funding to significantly ramp up testing capacity and to fill a $10-$15 billion budget shortfall that is hampering the state's ability to fund such efforts on its own. He criticized the aid packages passed by Congress to date for a lack of funds to hard-hit states like New York.

"Is there any funding so I can do these things that you want us to do? 'No,'" Cuomo told a daily briefing on the coronavirus. "That is passing the buck without passing the bucks."

Story continues

He spoke one day after the Trump administration outlined plans for a phased reopening, starting with the states least affected by the virus.

'ZERO, ZILCH, NADA'

"The federal government has passed three bills to address this crisis. Of those three bills the state governments have gotten precisely zero, zilch, nada in unrestricted aid," Cuomo said.

"Okay, it's up to the states, but then don't ask the states, don't give them this massive undertaking that has never been done before and then not give them any resources to do it."

In a separate briefing, Governor Phil Murphy of neighboring New Jersey said he had been in constant contact with the White House to get "the right testing infrastructure and regime in place," a prerequisite for reopening the state.

Murphy avoided Cuomo's combative rhetoric, calling his teleconference on Thursday with Trump and other White House officials "a good discussion."

On Thursday, Cuomo extended the closure of businesses and schools in his state until at least May 15, but he has started to plan on a phased reopening that would hinge on keeping hospitalizations and other key metrics on a downward trend.

Cuomo said on Friday that a total of 17,316 people were hospitalized across New York because of COVID-19, down from 17,735 a day earlier and the lowest since April 5. Intubations and admissions to intensive care units also fell, he said.

Cuomo said that about 2,000 infected people were newly admitted to hospitals on Thursday, hovering at a high level, while the state recorded an additional 630 deaths, up from 606 deaths the previous day.

New Jersey, which is second after New York in coronavirus cases and fatalities, reported 323 new deaths on Friday for a total of 3,840, and 3,250 new confirmed cases for a total of 78,467.

But the rates of increase in the spread of the virus have "dropped dramatically" over the past several weeks, Murphy said. "This is what we've been working toward, and what we must keep doing," he added.

(Reporting by Maria Caspani, Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York, Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut, and Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Franklin Paul and Howard Goller)
Demonstrating harmony and hospitality, a Muslim family here opened its home and heart -- to a film team from Pune stranded after the nationide lockdown was imposed on March 25.

It's the true spirit of Kashmiriyat, said Nachiket Guttikar who has been staying at the home of Nazim Malik in Gatha village in Jammu and Kashmir's Doda district for several weeks and counting.

With him are his team members Shamin Kulkarni and Ninad Datar. The team reached here on March 15 to shoot for a documentary and was scheduled to board a flight from Jammu to Pune on March 25, the very day the lockdown came into effect.

The night before, on March 24, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a three-week lockdown to stem the spread of COVID-19. It was evident they had no option but to stay put.

"The situation was scary when the government announced the lockdown. We were in panic because surface as well as air traffic was suspended and all hotels were closed," Guttikar said.

Seeing that the travellers were in distress, Malik's family offered them their house.

'"We were so fortunate that this family graciously came forward and gave us the offer to stay with them," Guttikar said.

"It has been several weeks since we have been staying with this family. We are feeling at home because of the friendly nature of all the members," he said.

"I am quite sure this type of hospitality cannot be found anywhere. This is the real Kashmiriyat which we often hear about," he added.

The Malik family members also consider themselves fortunate, saying they have got an opportunity to help distressed strangers amid the unprecedented health crisis.

"It is not a favour we made to them. If tomorrow our children get stuck in the same situation, someone will surely extend a helping hand to them," Malik said.

"The guests are welcome to stay at my home till the situation demands," he said.

The lockdown has been extended till May 3. PTI CORR TAS AQS



Pune-based filmmaker Nachiket Guttikar was packing up things to leave for his home state Maharashtra when a nationwide lockdown was announced to combat the coronavirus threat.

Guttikar, along with his team members Shamin Kulkarni and Ninad Datar, had arrived in this picturesque town on March 15 to shoot for a documentary. They were scheduled to board a flight to Pune from Jammu on March 25, but the announcement of the country-wide lockdown on March 24 meant that they had to further spent at least the next three weeks at the place.

"The situation was scary when the government announced the lockdown. We were in panic because the surface as well as the air traffic was suspended and all hotels were closed," Guttikar said.

A Muslim family in Gatha village then offered them their house.

"We were fortunate enough that this family graciously came forward and offered us to stay with them," Guttikar said.

"It has been several weeks that we are staying with this family. We are feeling at home because of the friendly nature of all the members," he said.

"I am quite sure that this type of hospitality cannot be found anywhere. This is the real Kashmiriyat which we often listen to," he added.

The family of Nazim Malik considers itself fortunate that they got an opportunity to help distressed strangers in the wake of the crisis due to the pandemic outbreak.

"It is not a favour we had made to them. If tomorrow our children get stuck in the same situation, someone will surely extend a helping hand to them," Malik said.

"The guests are are welcome to stay at my home till the situation demands," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Mainland condemns Taiwan's DPP authority for using COVID-19 to seek independence

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 17:11, April 17, 2020

BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese mainland spokesperson Friday denounced the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority in Taiwan for taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to seek independence.

The DPP authority claimed that the island's epidemic prevention department had warned the World Health Organization (WHO) about the people-to-people transmission of the virus, said Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, calling such a claim "totally opposed to facts."

"Since the outbreak of COVID-19, we have provided timely information to the WHO and relevant countries and regions," Zhu said.

It is a clear fact that the mainland published the relevant information first, Zhu said, noting that the only source of the messages sent by Taiwan is the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission and Taiwan's health authorities just cited the mainland's information.

She stressed that it is a lie to claim that Taiwan reported the information first, adding that the message sent by Taiwan did not mention "people-to-people transmission."

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A Kenyan governor has been criticised after putting cognac in his coronavirus care packages and falsely claiming alcohol could help stave off the virus.

Mike Sonko, the governor of Nairobi, said he would include small bottles of Hennessy in the food parcels handed out to people during the pandemic.

I think from the research that has been conducted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and various health organisations, he said on Tuesday, while wearing a visor to cover his face, it is believed that alcohol plays a major role in killing the coronavirus or any sort of virus.

He then went on to speak about the alcohol content of sanitisers.

On a section of its website dedicated to busting myths about coronavirus, the WHO says: Drinking alcohol does not protect you against Covid-19 and can be dangerous.

Frequent or excessive alcohol consumption can increase your risk of health problems.

Sharing a video on Twitter of Mr Sonko speaking about the cognac in the food packs, the global CEO Amref Health Africa urged people to dump this the way you would dump your used Covid-19 mask.

Misinformation being spread by an elected leader, someone replied under the clip.

Hennessy has condemned the claim that the cognac can help protect people against coronavirus, local media reported.

Hennessy would like to stress that the consumption of our brand or any other alcoholic beverage does not protect against the virus, a company statement said, according to Nairobi News.

As well as disputing the idea alcohol can help people fight coronavirus, the WHO has called out other myths that have circulated during the pandemic, including the widely condemned conspiracy theory that 5G is linked to Covid-19.

There are around 240 confirmed infections of coronavirus in Kenya, which has imposed a curfew in a bid to tackle the outbreak.

The death toll stood at 11 on Saturday, according to a global count by Reuters.
Ten years after an oil rig explosion killed 11 workers and unleashed an environmental nightmare in the Gulf of Mexico, companies are drilling in deeper and deeper waters, where payoffs can be huge but risks are greater than ever.

Industry leaders and government officials say they're determined to prevent a repeat of BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster, which spilled 134 million gallons of oil that fouled beaches from Louisiana to Florida, killed hundreds of thousands of marine animals, and devastated the tourist economy.

Yet safety rules adopted in the spill's aftermath have been eased as part of President Donald Trump's drive to boost U.S. oil production. And government data reviewed by the Associated Press shows the number of safety inspection visits has declined in recent years, although officials say checks of electronic records, safety systems and individual oil rig components have increased.

Today, companies are increasingly reliant on production from deeper and inherently more dangerous oil reserves, where drill crews can grapple with ultra-high pressures and oil temperatures that can top 350 degrees (177 degrees Celsius).

Despite almost $2 billion spent by the industry on equipment to respond to an oil well blowout like BP's, some scientists, former government officials and environmentalists say safety practices appear to be eroding.

I'm concerned that in the industry the lessons aren't fully learned that we're tending to backslide, said Donald Boesch, a University of Maryland professor who was on a federal commission that found the BP blowout was preventable.

After the spill, oil giants created the Marine Well Containment Co., which has equipment and vessels ready to respond if another major spill occurs.

All of industry wanted to make sure that nothing like it could ever happen again, said company CEO David Nickerson at the company's complex, near Corpus Christi on the Texas coast. Industry leaders say the administration's rule changes allow companies to deviate from one-size-fits-all standards not always suited to water pressure and other conditions at individual wells. Companies also have a financial interest in avoiding a repeat of an accident that has cost BP more than $69 billion in cleanup expenses, fines, fees and legal settlements.

The rule changes under Trump, including less frequent safety tests, are projected to save energy companies $1.67 billion over a decade.

An AP review found inspection visits by the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement created in the 2010 disaster's aftermath went down more than 20% over the past six years in the Gulf.

Bureau spokesman Sandy Day said government inspection data AP gathered reflects visits by inspectors to rigs, platforms and other facilities. But Day said the data doesn't show electronic records reviewed remotely or the increased time spent at each facility and all the inspection tasks performed. Those, he said, have increased from 9,287 in 2017 to 12,489 last year.

While on the facility we did numerous inspections of different items, Day said, including equipment meant to prevent major accidents. He added that electronic records allow more work to be done from shore, rather than on site.

Industry advocates say the drop reflects greater emphasis on complex systems that influence safety and note that there are fewer, if much bigger, active oil platforms.

As wells close to shore run dry, the average drilling depth in deeper waters steadily increased, from about 3,500 feet (1,070 meters) beneath the surface in 1999 to more than 4,600 feet (1,400 meters) in 2019, according to AP analysis of data from the U.S. Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Drilling deeper makes well sites harder to reach in a blowout or other accident.

In the past year, the industry began producing crude from ultra-high pressure reserves in the Gulf, where well pressures can top 20,000 pounds per square inch, much more than Deepwater Horizon. Higher risk, higher pressure, higher temperatures, more reliance on technology it's just a tougher environment to operate in, said Lois Epstein, a Wilderness Society civil engineer who served on a government advisory committee formed to improve drilling safety after the spill.

The safety debate has recently centered on rules for keeping wells under control, such as requirements for blowout preventers that failed in the Gulf spill.

Under Obama, companies were required to test devices every 14 days. The Trump administration allowed companies upon approval to test every 21 days, saying more frequent testing would risk equipment failure under extreme conditions.

Inspection visits by the government's safety bureau fell from 4,712 in 2013 to 3,717 in 2019, according to data reviewed by AP. The decline coincided with increased focus on higher risk facilities, including those with historical problems.

Warnings and citations to companies for safety or environmental violations peaked in 2012 and have since fallen faster than inspection visits. The decline accelerated under the current administration. Fewer inspections and citations suggests safety improvements after the spill are unraveling, said Matt Lee-Ashley, formerly of the Interior Department.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
(Bloomberg) -- One of the most dramatic global oil production agreements in history has been left hanging on the approval of an unlikely character: Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

For weeks Russia and Saudi Arabia, two energy powerhouses, have been sparring over oil, with their dispute sending crude prices tumbling. That drew in U.S. President Donald Trump, with a strong interest in seeing prices stabilize and in supporting Americas shale industry as he campaigns for re-election in November.

And yet when Moscow and Riyadh finally seemed to have found common ground on production cuts, at a meeting on Thursday of OPEC+ nations that followed a flurry of diplomatic activity and high-level calls, it was Mexico that called time.

Lopez Obrador refused to sign off on the deal, even after the other 22 nations inked the pact to withdraw 10 million barrels a day from the market in a bid to tame a price plunge. From his office at the National Palace in Mexico City, the president known as AMLO was worried about only one thing: Pemex.

Mexicos national oil producer, with debt of more than $100 billion, is the centerpiece of his administrations efforts to become self-sufficient in energy generation and stem a 15-year decline in production. Slashing 400,000 barrels a day to comply with the OPEC+ deal would put on hold his ambitious plan to return Pemex to its past glory. It was also a response reflective of a leader who has stubbornly gone his own way, including an initial refusal to enact stringent lockdown measures in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

AMLO, a populist who spent his political career decrying the rich and powerful, has relied frequently on his reputation as a president who advocates for his people, especially poorer workers, and who eschews the trappings of high office including a private jet. Hes yet to travel overseas or attend multilateral meetings since coming to power in December 2018.

Long Call

Story continues

With Saudi Arabia making the whole deal dependent on the participation of the Latin American country and amid growing irritation by energy officials taking part in a call that dragged well into the night in many parts of the world, AMLO was only willing to offer a cut of 100,000 barrels, or about 5.6% of Pemexs production.

As the likelihood of a deal faded, Lopez Obrador received a call from someone with much at stake: His friend Donald Trump, with whom he has struck up an unexpected rapport.

Even so, when the U.S. president tried to convince AMLO to accept the OPEC terms, the Mexican leader insisted Pemex wasnt able to reduce its output that much, said presidential spokesman Jesus Ramirez. In the end, the U.S. seemingly agreed to shoulder an additional 250,000 barrels to cover for Mexicos position and in theory unlock the general agreement.

Andres Manuel made the proposal to Trump and Trump accepted it. It was completely cordial, Ramirez said.

Read more: Historic World Oil Talks Enter Third Day as Trump Seeks Deal

The OPEC+ alliance and Mexico made some progress in their discussions on oil-production cuts on Saturday, the third straight day of negotiations, but cautioned it was unclear whether the group would reach a final deal, delegates said. Saudi Arabia has insisted Mexico cut its production as much as everyone else in the group.

Trump had no choice but to absorb the production cut for Mexico because Lopez Obrador wasnt willing to budge, said a person familiar with the call who is not authorized to speak publicly. The U.S. president didnt ask AMLO specifically for anything in return, the person added.

The United States will help Mexico along and theyll reimburse us sometime at a later date when theyre prepared to do so, Trump said on Friday at a White House briefing. The president suggested that compensation from Mexico could be in the distant future while arguing there was no real cost of limiting U.S. production.

Its staying in the ground, you have it, you have it for another day, Trump said. Its actually cheaper than storing it when you take it out. He also took pains to refer to AMLO as someone with whom he has a great relationship, great friendship, saying he could understand where the Mexican president was coming from in his stance on the output cuts.

Mexicos Energy Minister Rocio Nahle told Radio Formula later on Friday that she didnt know exactly what Trump meant when he said the U.S. would be reimbursed for the agreement with Mexico to cut production. Its possible the U.S. president was simply referring to the close relationship the countries have, she said.

Read More: Mexico Refuses to Cut Oil Output and Is Running Up Huge Losses

Ramirez said that Mexico notified OPEC+ of the side deal with the U.S. after the call late Thursday. Still, a statement issued by OPEC afterward called the broader agreement conditional on the consent of Mexico. The compromise backed by Trump will be discussed between the Latin American country and Saudi Arabia on Saturday.

Additional Cuts?

On top of Pemex, AMLOs stance was probably influenced by his conviction that additional cuts will be needed in the future to halt an oversupply that saw oil prices tumble by half this year, said another person familiar with his thinking who asked not to be named. The president wanted to start the bargain from the highest possible base, the person said.

AMLOs position was also strengthened by its sovereign oil hedge, the largest of its kind, which protects the governments budget against crude prices falling below $49 a barrel this year.

We resisted until the end because it took us a lot of effort to boost production, AMLO explained Friday during his morning press conference, when he made the deal with Trump public. We already complied with this matter.

Still, the president called the production cuts temporary and said Pemex will continue extracting oil.

Bigger Plans

The episode highlights AMLOs willingness to defy conventional wisdom and put his domestic goals above all else, even if it damages his reputation in the club of oil producers. It comes as he rejects the need for massive stimulus measures to buffer an economy hit by the coronavirus, to the concern of some in Mexicos business elite.

Read More: Mexicos Low-Key Stimulus Plan Criticized by Business Groups

This administration has proven that everything that is market standard, internationally accepted, common sense, is not within their playbook if not in line with the presidents will, said Oscar Lopez Velarde, a law professor at Universidad Iberoamericana who specializes in energy and tax issues.

AMLO has sought to reverse a move by the previous administration to open the energy industry to private investors. Mexico is building the $8 billion Dos Bocas refinery even as international gasoline prices collapse. Nahle took part in the OPEC+ call from AMLOs home state of Tabasco, where the Dos Bocas refinery is being built, while Pemexs six loss-making plants are running at less than 30% of capacity.

AMLOs legendary obstinacy is likely to play well with voters who like his Mexican people first message. The hashtag #RocioNahleMeRepresenta, or Rocio Nahle represents me, was trending on Twitter on Friday.

Still, the nonsense is that this is a favor we didnt need, as Pemex will not even meet its production goals because of its critical financial situation and shouldnt be increasing production to avoid higher losses, Iberoamericanas Velarde said.

(Updates with Saturday talks in 11th paragraph)

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-19 05:17:16|Editor: huaxia

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BISSAU, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Guinea-Bissau received on Saturday afternoon a donation of medical supplies from the Chinese government, official sources told Xinhua.

Secretary of State for Hospital Management Cornelia Aleluia Lopes Man said this batch of equipment includes 2,000 protective masks, 10,000 surgical masks, 2,000 disposable coveralls, 500 infrared thermometers, 2,000 glasses, 1,000 pairs of disposable nitrile gloves and 10,000 pairs of disposable shoe covers.

"China is a very important and irreplaceable development partner, because it is always available and by the side of Guinea-Bissau," she said when receiving the materials.

The technical and logistical support to transport the materials to Bissau was provided by the World Food Programme (WFP) which organized the transport from Accra, Ghana.

"This is not the first time that the Chinese government and WFP have worked together to come to the aid of countries where the UN agency is carrying out development programs and humanitarian actions," the WFP representative in Guinea-Bissau said in a statement.

The WFP representative said China has provided donations to WFP for years and many countries have benefited from Chinese aid through the UN agency, adding that China is providing very important support to WFP in implementing food security and nutrition programs in different countries.

Guinea-Bissau currently has 50 cases of COVID-19, including three cured and 47 under treatment. Enditem
The widespread destruction wreaked by Tropical Cyclone Harold in several Pacific countries just days ago has been nothing short of heart-breaking claiming at least 32 lives, while more than 45,000 men, women and children in Vanuatus hardest-hit province, Sanma, are now homeless.

Powerful Category 5 cyclones  the strongest on the South Pacific scale  have descended almost every year since 2014, costing an estimated $2 billion in total damages.

But with the Covid-19 pandemic now contributing to a perilous combination of threats in the region, building long-term resilience on multiple fronts has become even more pressing, said Patricia Scotland, Commonwealth Secretary-General.

In Tonga, hundreds of businesses and homes were gutted, while Fiji has recorded more than $20 million worth of damage to crops, raising fears around food security. Sadly, such super storms are occurring with increasing and distressing frequency in the region, said a senior Commonwealth official.

Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 54 independent and equal sovereign states which is home to 2.4 billion people and includes both advanced economies and developing countries.

Not only has the cyclone exacerbated the risk of exposure to the disease, but measures to protect against Covid-19 are, in turn, hampering cyclone recovery.

In Vanuatu for instance, urgent relief supplies from overseas must sit untouched for three days at the airport to prevent possible contamination.

Meanwhile the storm has wrecked health centres across the country and damaged the water supply, hindering basic actions like washing hands, stated Scotland.

Fortunately, Vanuatu remains Covid-free, but with less than two doctors for every 10,000 people and only two working ventilators in the whole country, there is little room for error.

In Fiji, where 17 cases of Covid have alredy been reported, strict social distancing rules meant evacuation centres could only take a limited number of people during the storm.

Curbs on gatherings and movement have kept volunteers from mobilising to help those in need. There are only around eight doctors for every 10,000 Fijians (compared to 30 in neighbouring New Zealand), and rural areas remain vulnerable, said the official.

Scientists have long warned that the ferocity and frequency of extreme weather events such as cyclones can be fuelled by warmer oceans, as a result of climate change. Small island developing states are known to be especially vulnerable to climate-related disasters, which can cripple economies and thwart their ability to cope with other crises such as pandemics.

It is therefore extremely worrying that so many small states still find it difficult to secure funding to help reduce the risk of disasters and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Research shows that disaster risk reduction remains a low priority in terms of financing, said Scotland.

Over the 20 years from 1991 to 2010, just 0.4 per cent of international aid (or 40 cents for every $100) was spent on pre-disaster risk management. This despite evidence suggesting it is more cost-effective to tackle risks before a disaster strikes, than reacting afterwards, she noted.

Information on funding in this area is fragmented and complex, making it even harder for small and vulnerable states to tap into the limited money.

Similarly, for climate finance, smaller countries that lack manpower and expertise can spend many months or even years working through donors onerous conditions and lengthy processes, delaying climate action and putting communities further at risk.

For instance, Tonga is still awaiting the outcome of a proposal submitted to international agencies in 2017 to build 16 km of vital coastline protection. Since then, the country has endured not one, but two super storms (Gita in 2018 and Harold in 2020), while hoping to receive funds for the project this year, according to Commonwealth advisers on the ground.

Simple, easy-to-navigate ways to access money to cope with climate change and manage disaster risk are therefore crucial. Less red tape and better coordination amongst funders, leading to common templates for proposals, harmonised sets of conditions and a simplified approval system would no doubt make life easier for those vulnerable countries that need financing the most, said the top official.

In support, the Commonwealths Climate Finance Access Hub helps governments develop successful applications for international climate finance, backed by robust satellite data through the innovative Commonsensing project, remarked Scotland.

"Our forthcoming Disaster Risk Finance Portal will also provide valuable information on disaster risk funds through a single easy-to-use web-based platform," she stated.

"The reality however, is that multiple disasters is a risk for all countries, and the global community must respond by taking a coordinated, joined up and long-term approach to building resilience," she added.-TradeArabia News Service
Azerbaijani authorities have decided to extend the current special quarantine regime due to coronavirus outbreak until May 4.

Earlier it was reported that the regime will last until April 20.

"A decision has been made to extend the special quarantine regime in the country from 00:00 April 20 to 00:00 May 4," the Operational Headquarters under the Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan informs, TASS reports.
CHICO, Calif. - We spoke with the public works department about the sewer system and park updates, and the mayor touched on revenue loss due to the pandemic.

---

SEWER SYSTEM:

Public Works Director of Operations and Maintenance Erik Gustafson sais they have a special saying, 'wipes clog pipes', it's a phrase that will hopefully stick with you to help keep our drains working.

Gustafson says they've been monitoring the pipes and their system is looking good. Gustafson reminds people that items labeled flushable should still not be flushed.

"We continue to encourage people not to flush foreign debris down the sanitary sewer system again only human waste and toilet paper should be flushed down the toilet," he said.

Gustafson says the city maintains over 300 miles of underground piping that could cause a public safety hazard if they start clogging up.

The city thanks people for cooperating even with the limited supply of toilet paper out there.

---

PARKS UPDATE

Gustafson says Children's Playground and Caper Acres remain closed.

Gustafson says those parks are heavily used and for safety precautions, it was best to keep them closed for now.

Chico has 3,600 acres of parks, so they say rangers are monitoring the areas as best as they can.

"It's hard to keep eyes and ears on the entire park at all times but rangers are patrolling along with the chico police department to remind people to stay six feet apart and practice social distancing," he said.

Gustafson says no citations have been given out at this point, and everyone has been pretty compliant.

Trail systems are open and Upper and Lower Bidwell remain open to the public as well.

---

FUTURE OF REVENUE

The pandemic has forced many businesses to close with many still struggling to stay afloat.

We spoke with Mayor Ann Schwab about Chico's future economy. She says its really too soon to tell, but they're hopeful.

Schwab says the city is going to need to be very careful and conservative in the next budget forecast.

Schwab says the city manager has told the council to plan for a flat budget, if not a decreased budget.

"Chico is a strong community we have each other back when we open those doors I know our community is going to want to embrace the small businesses like we have in the past and as we will as we move forward," she said.

Schwab says the council is going to have to be very careful making sure the city continues to provide the services they need while staying in the budget.

The council needs to approve a budget by July 1st.
A second ward for Covid-19 patients has been set up at Wexford General Hospital ahead of a predicted spike in cases of the virus.

Inside the hospital, St Mary's Ward is now to become the second specialised ward, following on from St Bridget's Ward, to deal with coronavirus cases, while the former Medical Assessment Unit is in the process of being prepared to create additional intensive care unit spaces, which will become functional this week.

Hospital management have said that the initial Covid-19 unit at St Bridget's Ward and the specialised Respiratory Assessment Unit (RAU) are working very well at the moment and staff are doing a great job when it comes to taking all necessary precautions.

Last week, General Manager at the hospital, Lilly Byrnes expressed concerns that the number of people attending the Emergency Department were way down and pointed out that if people were in genuine need, they should still attend the hospital. The specially established Pod at the Emergency Department is 'successfully selecting referrals to the Emergency Department and to the RAU, and is proving a great help to completely separating patients for their assessment.

In addition to St Bridget's and St Mary's wards being commandeered for Covid patients, work is currently ongoing to prepare additional beds in Ely House in Ardcavan.

Similarly what are termed 'step-down facilities' are available in Gorey District Hospital for patients who have recovered from the virus but need additional care before they are discharged home. It's also been noted that after patients are discharged, there is a process in place to support them for the early days of recovering post-Covid.

Issuing a rallying message to staff, hospital management noted that the number of cases diagnosed in Co Wexford remains quite low and is consistent with other counties outside of the major urban areas which are experiencing far higher numbers.

Staff were praised for working together so effectively in the face of this major threat and for adapting so quickly to the new measures put in place to ensure the hospital is in the best possible position to respond.

Over the past week, the hospital has welcomed several new employees, as well as retired colleagues who have returned to ensure that the hospital is well staffed in the event of a spike. Again, the people of Wexford are asked to do their part and adhere to all of the guidelines circulated by the government and the HSE - mainly, continuing to wash hands thoroughly and to avoid all unnecessary contact for the next few weeks.
We in the West are rightly angry at Chinas secrecy and the World Health Organizations timidity on COVID-19. But for the wrong reasons.

We may never know whether the novel coronavirus emerged from a notorious animal market in Wuhan, or escaped from a secretive Chinese-funded SARS research lab located in the vicinity. No matter the cause, it was assuredly an accident  but an accident waiting to happen.

We should have seen it coming, as others surely did. The onus was on us because we had seen and suffered from SARS before, as others did not; and we have felt the sting of Beijings aggression bilaterally, as many others have not.

The conspiracy of silence over COVID-19 allowed the virus to spread beyond Wuhan. Despite the coverup, it cut a swath that soon put it in plain sight, yet still we closed our eyes to it.

Continuing to criticize Chinas cult of secrecy is like forever faulting Russias duplicity for the election of Donald Trump. As a democracy that depends on information, Canada can never leave itself dependent on disinformation.

We dragged our feet about restricting (or at least inspecting) passengers coming off flights from China. We failed to clamp down even after the WHO belatedly proclaimed a pandemic and European countries fell victim to it.

We cannot control Chinas behaviour internally  repressing its front-line physicians and whistleblowers. But we do have influence over its behaviour internationally.

Beijing not only tried to suppress news of the novel coronavirus within its own borders, it also attempted to thwart the sharing of life-saving information multilaterally by the WHO to neighbouring Taiwan. That is something Canadians should not remain silent about.

With 23 million people, Taiwans population is comparable to Australias. Imagine our outrage if a vital United Nations agency tried to exclude Australians, and yet that is precisely what China and the WHO have done in real time, time and again, to the Taiwanese.

Unlike Toronto, which was an epicentre of SARS, Taiwan did not bear the brunt of the 2003 outbreak, but it too was a victim when mainland China worked hard to keep Taiwan out of the WHOs vital information-sharing network at the time. Again in 2020, Beijing tried to impose its One China policy on Taiwan (just as it has tried to intimidate Canada in the past year over the Huawei affair).

Endless disputes over the islands sovereignty and governance are best left to global diplomacy without threatening our common humanity. The primacy of ideology over epidemiology is as puzzling as it is self-defeating.

Bad enough that Beijing imperils the Taiwanese people (whom it sees as Chinese compatriots), it has also failed to protect its own mainland citizens from infectious diseases. Chinas Communist Party leadership has done itself enduring damage.

The SARS virus that wreaked such havoc in Toronto in 2003, after being transmitted here from Hong Kong, also originated in the wet markets of mainland China. Seventeen years later, we know the Chinese authorities failed to eradicate those markets in Wuhan, where exotic animals are in proximity to their human keepers and buyers, leaving them vulnerable to cross-species contamination and infection; we also know that two laboratories in Wuhan handled dangerous iterations of those viruses, and that there were documented concerns about lax safety procedures, as reported by the Washington Post.

The world can only hope that next time, Chinas government will learn the lessons it failed to fully absorb after SARS. While there is little we can do about Beijings opacity and oppression within its own borders, we can refuse to be Chinas enablers abroad. Instead of behaving like boy scouts at the multilateral level  deferring to diplomacy and authority  we should be shoring up Taiwans position at the WHO (as we did in the past with the World Trade Organization, where the islands economic heft ensured it a place at the table).

Beyond lending assistance to Taiwan, we can learn from the island nation to avoid repeating our own mistakes. Despite being excluded by the WHO, Taiwan relied on its own vigilance to safeguard itself from COVID-19, screening direct flights from China long before anyone else and testing its own citizens far more than most countries. It has suffered only a handful of deaths, compared to more than 1,300 in Canada.

We have every right to resent Beijing, but there will be no reckoning anytime soon, and so there is little point. It deflects from the accountability required of our own authorities, who ignored early warning signs long after word got out from Wuhan, and it distracts us from the mainlands punitive isolation of Taiwan, in which we are all complicit.

Ultimately, the Chinese leadership has paid a heavy price in human life for its lies incompetence on COVID-19, just as it did for SARS. China biggest mistake is that it didnt learn the lessons of containment, but then neither did we in Canada.

Read more about:
YEREVAN, APRIL 18, ARMENPRESS. Armenias defense minister Davit Tonoyan today had an informal meeting with newly-elected President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan, the defense ministry told Armenpress.

Davit Tonoyan congratulated Mr. Harutyunyan on election as President of Artsakh, wishing success.

The defense minister said the Armed Forces of Armenia, together with the Defense Army of Artsakh, will continue ensuring and strengthening the security and peaceful development of the Artsakh people.

At the meeting the officials also discussed issues relating to the cooperation in the defense field and the implementation of several programs.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
Jock Zonfrillo has made quiet the impression on MasterChef Australia fans, with viewers going wild over his rugged good looks.

And this week, the 43-year-old spoke about his new heartthrob status, after being dubbed the 'hot judge.'

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph this week, Jock admitted that he's a little 'embarrassed' about it all.

'It's very flattering but I'm Captain Awkward!' MasterChef's Jock Zonfrillo admits he's 'embarrassed' over his heartthrob status... after fans went wild over his brooding looks and dubbed him the 'hot judge'

'Listen, I'm in my mid-40s,' he told the publication.

The restaurateur went on to insist that he is 'awkward' in real life.

'I find it embarrassing. It's very flattering... but I'm Captain Awkward,' he said.

New lineup: Jock has made quite the impression on MasterChef Australia fans (Pictured left to right: Gordon Ramsay with MasterChef's new judges Andy Allen, Melissa Leong an Jock Zonfrillo)

Big fans! Earlier this week, he caught the attention of some MasterChef fans who couldn't stop gushing over his smouldering looks

Earlier this week, he caught the attention of some MasterChef fans who couldn't stop gushing over his smouldering looks.

One fan tweeted: 'Don't worry too much about the contestants, just focus on the hot judge Jock Zonfrillo...that's all you need for the whole season.'

Another added that Jock is 'so unbelievably hot,' saying they loved his tattoos and good looks.

Struggles: While fans may be falling in love with Jock, many would be surprised that the 43-year-old has a dark past and for many years had a crippling addiction to heroin which led to homelessness and financial ruin

While fans may be falling in love with Jock, many would be surprised that he has a dark past and for many years had a crippling addiction to heroin which led to homelessness and financial ruin.

Jock's life spiralled out of control when he tried the drug for the first time at the age of 15, while growing up in Glasgow, Scotland in the 1980s.

Within two years, his addiction had taken over his life and he found himself estranged from his family, homeless, broke and desperate for a job in the culinary industry.

He credits chef Marco Pierre White for saving his life, after he knocked on the British culinary king's door begging for work when he was 17 and had run out of options.

His story: He credits chef Marco Pierre White for saving his life, after he knocked on the British culinary king's door begging for work when he was 17 and had run out of options

'He arranged a youth hostel for me to stay in and lent me money that was to be paid back out of my wages. That sums up Marco - generous beyond measure,' Jock told The Advertiser in 2017, reflecting on all of Marco's help.

Jock continued to struggle with drug abuse until he moved to Australia in 2000.

He did drugs for the last time in Heathrow Airport before boarding a flight to Sydney with his first wife, saying his love of food helped him beat his addiction.

'A lot of my friends from my early days are dead now or in jail. The thing about being a junkie is that the only way you can get out is if there's something in your life more compelling than drugs,' he told the Financial Times in 2017.

'And for me, I had another addiction: to food and to cooking. That's what moved me on. That's how I survived.'

Jock is now happily married to third wife, businesswoman Lauren Fried, who is pregnant with their second child. He has two other children from his first two marriages.

MasterChef: Back to Win continues Sunday at 7:30pm on Channel 10
BARCELONA, SPAINPassengers on a luxury liners around-the-world cruise, begun before the globe was gripped by the coronavirus pandemic, are finally approaching the end of their odyssey after 15 weeks at sea.

The ship, the Costa Deliziosa, was heading Sunday toward a port in Spain before ending its journey in Italy  both countries devastated by the coronavirus outbreak.

Costa Crociere, an Italian cruise company, said that the Deliziosa, which set sail from Venice in early January with 1,831 passengers, had no cases of COVID-19 aboard.

The Deliziosa, a nearly 300-metre vessel, will disembark 168 Spanish passengers on Monday at Barcelonas port. Then the Deliziosa will head to its final destination, Genoa, Italy, where it is expected to let off the remaining passengers, Italians and those of other nationalities, on Wednesday.

A company spokesperson man said a passenger left the ship earlier in the week in Marsala, Sicily, for health issues and had a COVID-19 test, which was negative.

Being on the liner for weeks during the pandemic was not surreal, it was incredible, said passenger Carlos Paya, who lives in Valencia, Spain, and is sailing with his wife. He added that they have family members in Spain.

The news that was arriving from home was causing us all a lot of worry and grief,, he told The Associated Press by text message Saturday evening. For us it was a stroke of good luck to be where we were.

From Perth (Australia) given the growth of the pandemic, and of course for those of us who have children in Spain, we would have preferred to return, he added. Other passengers, on the other hand, given their old age, wanted to stay on board knowing that the boat was safe and secure.

French authorities had rebuffed a request by Costa for permission to disembark several hundred passengers from France and nearby countries at Marseilles. The health situation on board the ships, with 1,814 guests and 898 members of the crew, doesnt present any problem for public health and no case of COVID-19, Costas statement said.

While people infected with the coronavirus often experience mild or moderate symptoms, possible complications like pneumonia can put their lives at risk.

The Deliziosa was originally due to return to Venice on April 26. After the UN World Health Organization pandemic alert in March, the ship, which had just made a port call in Fremantle, Western Australia, made only technical and refuelling stops, before the journey back toward the Mediterranean, which took it through the Suez Canal, according to the company.

Passenger Jean-Pierre Escarras and his partner, from Marseilles, shot a video of their cabin that their daughters shared on social networks, in which he says: This is our place of confinement. We are lucky to have a window.

The couple said that after a stop in Sydney, the ships activities were reduced or sometimes cancelled. We havent been able to get out on land since March 14  thats 34 days.

The passengers said that ports in Oman, along the Suez Canal, as well as in the Seychelles and Indian Ocean ports, refused to let the ship dock.

The Spanish passenger, Paya praised the captain and crew.

Costa said the passengers were confined to their cabins only for the period until the ship heard back that the ill guest who got off in Sicily had tested negative. It didnt say how long that period lasted.

The company said, because the ship is Italian-flagged, it followed Italian precautionary measures used in the pandemic, including safety distancing between guests such as managing the numbers of who could enter food areas at any one time, and transmitting entertainment to cabin TV sets.

A French woman whose in-laws are aboard the Costa Deliziosa garnered about 100 signatures on an online petition to urge the French government to intervene to get them home.

But French authorities barred the Deliziosa from disembarking more than 1,000 passengers before its final destination in Italy.

The regional administration for Bouches-du-Rhone in southern France cited a nationwide ban on allowing foreign cruise ships to dock, as part of Frances virus-related confinement measures. Italy has also barred foreign cruise ships as it battles the virus outbreak.

The French administration has granted exemptions to six other cruise ships in recent weeks to allow French passengers to get off, but refused this time, saying the previous stops overstretched local police and health authorities already mobilized to fight Frances severe virus crisis.

Last month, two other Costa cruise ships pulled into Italian ports, including one that earlier had aboard passengers who tested positive for COVID-19 before being disembarked in France.

It was unclear if or where the passengers who were due to finally step aboard land after weeks of sailing aboard the Deliziosa would be quarantined as a precaution.
Russia said on Saturday its death toll from the novel coronavirus had risen to 313, an overnight increase of 40, as it posted a new record daily jump in new cases.

The authorities reported 4,785 new cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number to 36,793.

Moscow, which was the first region in the country to introduce a lockdown, recorded 2,649 new cases, and 21 new deaths, the Russian coronavirus crisis response centre said.

The city's mayor said that he had enough beds for two weeks but could not make predictions beyond this - even though Vladimir Putin on Friday unveiled a new 800-bed Covid-19 hospital built in a record 36 days.

Russia said on Saturday its death toll from the novel coronavirus had risen to 313, an overnight increase of 40, as it posted a new record daily jump in new cases

'The primary task for us today is to ensure the healthcare system's margin of endurance for the foreseeable perspective,' said mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

'For now, this has been accomplished. Today we can see that we certainly have additional capacities for this week and the next one.

He told Rossiya-1 television channel: 'I'm not going to make any predictions to the end.

'But, at least in the near future that we can foresee, we are convinced that the healthcare system will cope with the tasks that it is facing.'

On Saturday he extended temporary lockdown restrictions on people's movements in the city until 1 May.

'The temporary limitations imposed on April 13 this year are extended until May 1, 2020,' he said.

And he ordered free medications for those suffering from coronavirus.

Sobyanin also denied a claim by a leading virologist that Moscow - where 127 deaths are so far recorded - was heading to become the next New York, which has seen more than 235,000 cases and 17,131 deaths.

'The morbidity in the city is growing, but not exponentially and far from the worst-case scenario, as we see it, say, in New York, which is very similar to Moscow in terms of population size and structure,' said the mayor.

The authorities reported 4,785 new cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number to 36,793

Moscow's mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that he had enough beds for two weeks but could not make predictions beyond this

This contradicts Professor Sergei Netesov, a virologist and former head of Vector laboratory which is at the forefront of Russian testing and efforts to produce a vaccine, who warned Moscow can expect 'the same picture (as New York)'.

He stressed: 'I very much suspect this although I don't want it [to happen].'

Coronavirus infections in Russia began rising sharply this month, although it had reported far fewer infections than many western European countries in the outbreak's early stages.

On Friday, president Putin unveiled via video link a coronavirus hospital built from scratch on a greenfield site in 36 days.

The mammoth emergency 92 million complex, near Moscow, will initially hold 800 patients - 300 more than originally announced - and it comes amid fears of the city's capacity being overrun.

Putin opened the hospital - and another 60-bed army-constructed facility in Nizhny Novgorod, western Russia - by video-link.

This is despite the fact that Vladimir Putin on Friday unveiled a new 800-bed Covid-19 hospital near Moscow, which was built in a record 36 days

It will initially hold 800 patients - 300 more than originally announced - and it comes amid fears of the city's capacity being overrun

Like in many countries, health authorities in Russia are not carrying out mass testing

'Both centres were created from scratch over a very short time, just several weeks, which is unprecedented,' he said.

'I want to thank the civilian builders and the military personnel of the Defence Ministry.

'The centres have been fully staffed. 'Doctors, nurses and medical personnel are facing a period of hard and intense work.'

Russia is building 16 army hospitals from scratch from the Baltic to the Pacific to cope with the coronavirus pandemic. All will be functional by next month.

Like in many countries, health authorities in Russia are not carrying out mass testing.

Private testing results in Moscow among people without symptoms suggest the virus has penetrated more deeply into its population than official data shows.

After the latest coronavirus figures were released, Mr Putin ordered the government to provide daily forecasts of the virus's spread.

The government must 'provide a short-term prognosis of the number of citizens who may contract the new infectious disease (COVID-19)' and report its estimates on a daily basis, according to an order published on the Kremlin's website.

Putin opened the hospital - and another 60-bed army-constructed facility in Nizhny Novgorod - by video-link

Pictured: The military hospital in Nizhny Novgorod, western Russia, which was also opened by Mr Putin on Friday

Initially declared on March 30, the lockdown regime banned residents from leaving their homes unless they were going to buy food or medicines, get urgent medical treatment or walk the dog.

The authorities also introduced a travel permit system effective from April 15, and Sobyanin said on Saturday the authorities would use traffic cameras to catch drivers travelling without passes.

Authorities and clerics have urged Christians to stay home during the Orthodox Easter weekend, although a senior cleric urged police on Saturday to be lenient on those who still try to make it to their church.
Doctors in Japan have warned that the country's medical system could collapse amid a wave of new coronavirus cases.



Emergency rooms have been unable to treat some patients with serious health conditions due to the extra burden caused by the virus, officials say.



One ambulance carrying a patient with coronavirus symptoms was turned away by 80 hospitals before he could be seen.



Japan, which initially appeared to have the virus under control, passed 10,000 confirmed cases on Saturday.



More than 200 people have now died with Covid-19 and the capital Tokyo remains the worst-affected area.



Groups of doctors at GP surgeries in the city are assisting hospitals with the testing of potential coronavirus patients in order to ease some of the pressure on the health system, officials say.



"This is to prevent the medical system from crumbling," Konoshin Tamura, the deputy head of an association of GPs, told Reuters news agency.



"Everyone needs to extend a helping hand. Otherwise, hospitals would break down," he added.











Source: BBC









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Why isnt technology helping people keep government and business open for business? We are capable now to have a virtual private office in any location anywhere in the world. Yet, government departments are closed or closing because there isnt anyone around to work. What? Government and private employees are able to work from anywhere and have for a long time. Why arent they doing it now? Every government office has the capability now. Video/teleconferencing, email, phone and fax capabilities home or office today. Employees can keep their paycheques. If I can answer emails from home, so can they.

For instance, why does the Veterans Appeal Review Board (VARB) need to shut down? The board can and should meet via video conferencing to continue hearing appeals. Why do they need to evaluate going forward? They have a backlog of appeals they can be going through now because all the background and paperwork is already complete. Packages can be in the hands of board members by email. Veterans and their families have been waiting for results, some for years. There is no excuse for the VARB to close down. So why are they closed? Why?

Everyone has the capability to work remotely if they own a relatively new laptop/computer, tablet or smartphone and printer. Just doesnt make sense. So why arent they? Why? I can answer my emails, fax, tele/video conference and Im a senior. Why cant the government employees work from home thereby keeping their paycheque. Why arent VARB employees monitoring and answering emails in real time? What has the government done with the trillions and trillions of dollars they manage? The capability is there but they probably need a committee to study it for a few years before even responding. I bet that committee would meet remotely and get their paycheques by direct deposit.

How did Canada get to stupid so quickly? Theres another committee to be set up.

Patrick Olenick, West Kelowna
In Gaza, by contrast, long-standing deprivation has at least softened the blow: Unemployment was already more than 50%, and young people already complained that there was nothing to do. In my opinion, thank you, corona, because corona put the Gaza Strip equal with everyone outside, joked Rami Aman, an activist with the Gaza Youth Committee, on a Zoom call with other Palestinians and Israelis on Monday night.
Shehu Sani, former senator representing Kaduna central, says the late Abba Kyari, chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, took the bullets of his master with smiles, calmness & silence.

Kyari had died as a result of complications from COVID-19, and his death was announced by the presidency on Saturday.

Sani said Kyari the president has lost a trusted and loyal friend, and that he would be remembered as the punch bag.

Abba Kyari; The President has lost a trusted & loyal friend. A man who took the bullets of his master with smiles, calmness & silence, he said.

We knew his cap & his colors but never his mind or his own side of his story. He will be missed as a Punchman or a punch.

Bashir Ahmad, personal assistant on new media to the president, said Kyari will be buried today in Abuja, according to Islamic rites.
Fox News

Dr Mehmet Oz had called reopening schools amidst the coronavirus outbreak a very appetising opportunity, accepting there would be a two to three per-cent increase in deaths as a result.

I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing that the opening of schools may only cost us two to three per-cent, in terms of total mortality, Dr Oz said in an interview on Fox News.

The doctor did not make it explicitly clear whether he thought the increased rates of mortality would apply directly to school children or the entire general population.

Three per-cent mortality of all schoolchildren in America would mean the deaths of approximately 1.7 million children, based on calculations from the government statistics of the number of children attending elementary, middle, and high schools in America

The approximate mortality of three per-cent of the total population, not specific to schoolchildren, would mean the deaths of around 9.9 million Americans, based on statistics from the United States Census Buerau.

Dr oz said the loss of two to three per-cent of life in the process of reopening schools might be considered a worthwhile payoff.

I tell you, schools are a very appetizing opportunity, he said.

Talking to host Sean Hannity about how the US could go about restarting its economy, Dr Oz said the country should begin by re-opening things that would not get the nation into a lot of trouble.

We need our mojo back, the doctor said. Lets start with things that are really critical to the nation where we think we might be able to open without getting into a lot of trouble.

He went on to say that any life is a life lost, but to get every child back into a school where theyre safely being educated, being fed and making the most out of their lives, with a theoretical risk on the backside, that might be a tradeoff some folks would consider.

A paper published in The Lancet, a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal, stated: Recent modelling studies of Covid-19 predict that school closures alone would prevent only two to four per-cent of deaths, much less than other social distancing interventions.

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A total of 122 unlicensed taxi drivers were prosecuted last year.

They either had no driver or vehicle licence, or allowed an unlicensed driver or vehicle to operate as a taxi.

According to details released under the Freedom of Information Act, the figures for 2019 are down from 178 the year before.

But Vinny Kearns, a former vice-president of the National Taxi Drivers Union, claims many illegal taxi drivers are escaping punishment.

"I would believe that they are not a true indication of the figures that are out there because we don't have enough enforcement officers to adequately police that.

"On a Friday or Saturday night, I believe there are quite a number of illegal taxis operating, drivers who don't have a licence or vehicles that aren't licenced."

In 2017, there were 122 prosecutions against fraudulent operators. This rose to 178 in 2018.
Professional liberation isnt something Declan Breathnach is used to, but in the short time since his political downfall he has found himself putting his life into perspective.

Im enjoying my freedom, he tells The Democrat, and how I dont have to have a public representation booklet in my back pocket.

I can go and shop as Declan Breathnach and not Declan Breathnach TD or Declan Breathnach Cllr.

It would be imprudent all the same to suggest that hes content with his ballot box performances of the early months of 2020. He entered the campaign hopeful of re-election to Dail Eireann, but now faces political obscurity having lost his Louth constituency seat of four years and subsequently the contest for a berth in the Seanad.

Thus, the where to next question has been considered in-depthly. There was raw devastation in the immediate aftermath of both counts, yet now hes looking forward while wearing a determined guise.

Itd be wrong not to say it was difficult, but anybody who knows Declan Breathnach knows hes not a quitter, hes a fighter, the Knockbridge man insists.

The Covid-19 break has given me time to focus on my immediate environment, around my house and property. Ive occupied myself in working as hard as ever for myself and that keeps the mind and mental health in a good place.

I suppose when I was defeated, I was devastated for my staff, the canvass teams and those who put up posters and did all the unseen work. Maria McShane in the Dundalk office and Johanna Walsh in the Dublin office, I was devastated for them in that theyd worked extremely hard; we had dealt with over 6,000 representations over the four years that I was honoured to be in the Dail.

The obvious therapy personally was to look to run for the Seanad. Id hoped to be elected onto the cultural and education panel. It didnt happen, but I have enjoyed public life over almost 40 years.

Im now taking time out to reinvent myself. They say never say never in politics so while two defeats are hard to take in a short space of time, Im going to concentrate on looking after myself for a period and see what happens from there.

LOYAL

Despite his downgrading, Breathnach remains a convictionate ambassador of Fianna Fail, its leader Micheal Martin and the policies the party projects.

He takes solace from the outfits national recovery of the last decade, but he also recognises that their Louth vote continues to dwindle, as his demise is indicative of.

Fianna Fail failed to win a seat in this area nine years ago, when Breathnach ran, while their vote percentage has dropped from 22 percent in 2007, to just under a fifth four years later, to a severely-low 13 percent in the election just passed.

The percentages speak for themselves, he says. Fianna Fail has been in decline while Sinn Fein have been on a forward march.

But my loyalty to Fianna Fail is unceasing and I continue to believe that its the best party to represent the ordinary people of both the constituency of Louth and, indeed, the country.

I dont know whether Fianna Fail, again, will be forgiven for stepping up and putting the country first in making sure a proper government is formed. My concern would be that when it comes to the next election that we will be further punished for doing the right thing and whats right by the country.

But going back to the last election, a five-seater constituency requires a percentage vote of something like 16 to 17 percent. It was clear and obvious that the combined vote of James Byrne and myself was only coming in at around 13 percent - the initial feeling was that the tide was going out.

He added: The figures speak for themselves in that I dont believe Fianna Fail have been fully forgiven for the crash, but in addition to that, the false promises propagated by other parties, promising massive change, they havent stepped up to the plate yet and are whinging and crying that they havent been considered for government. Yet they havent been heard of since the election.

Ive absolutely no doubt that if the election were held tomorrow that there might be a different result. People inevitably elect people to stand up to the mark and to form a government.

I think people can see those who sat on their hands in 2016. While they doth protest too much and contest to being excluded, the reality is that they would run a mile from making decisions which would fall to some sort of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail government.

I think a lot of people are running for the hills. The Greens dont seem to want to be in government and Sinn Fein, the people Im referring to, doth protest too much. They fired the balls right through from 2016 to 2020 and yet sat on their hands. Despite the fact that they say they want to be part of government formation, they havent been seen since the election.

DEMOCRACY

The 61-year-old was confident of retaining his place among Louths chosen five prior to the Saturday ballot, after which it became clear that he may struggle. And the reality of the situation registered fully following an exchange with rivals at the Carnbeg count centre.

Nobody said to me beforehand that an arrangement had been made between the Labour Party and the Greens to make sure that at least one of the seats that could be got by the left would be won by them.

On the elimination of Mark Dearey, one of the senior tally men for Labour told me, Declan, were sorry, but its all over.

They kept their deal very much under their hat, but it was clear and obvious that the vast majority of the distribution of Mark Deareys votes were going to Ged Nash. While I wasnt willing to accept defeat, I could see it staring at me clearly.

Why did he fall?

Well, he contends that Brexit and other cross-border issues which he fought hard for are no longer at the forefront of peoples minds. His shy public persona may also have had a bearing. Not that he regrets any stances he took, including his opposition to the abortion referendum which stirred the nation.

Im very strongly of the same opinion as I was and have been all my life in relation to the right to life, but I respect democracy; the ballot box speaks.

I held the view of one-third of the population in the country, but when 66 percent of the population votes to amend the constitution, the Democrat in me would be fully accepting of it.

That doesnt take from my right, or, indeed, any individuals right, be it a politician or the ordinary citizen on the street, to have that stance. Im quite happy and proud that I continued to hold that stance.

Its about a moral belief and I believe its equally important to point out that I respect the people who hold a contrary view to me.

The debate, ultimately, has been settled. But it appears Breathnachs political future hasnt. He remains typically enthusiastic.
RACINE  John Hetland has had his name added to the Wall of Honor in the lobby of the Racine Police Department, 730 Center St.

Hetland, a 24-year veteran of the RPD, was killed while trying to stop an armed robbery at Teezers Bar and Grill, 1936 Lathrop Ave, on June 17, 2019.

His name is now the 13th name added to the wall of other Racine Police officers killed in the line of duty.

A display containing Hetlands photo, commendations, pins, a folded and framed American flag, and handcuffs is also now exhibited in the lobby as well.

Memorial for Hetland Slain Racine Police officer John Hetland's handcuffs and commendations, along with a folded and framed American flag, are now on display of th

An internal communication within the department Friday from Police Chief Art Howell said: "For his heroic and selfless actions performed in the line of duty on June 17, 2019, Officer John Hetlands name has been added to the Memorial Wall of Honor located in the lobby of the Safety Building. A new Memorial Display Case honoring Officer Hetlands service was dedicated at this time as well.

"The memorials will remain in place for years to come, ensuring that Officer Hetlands service and selfless sacrifice will never be forgotten.

"As we take time to reflect on Officer Hetlands exemplary service, we also pause to honor the sacrifice of all other members of our department  and the broader profession  who sacrificed their lives in the line of duty. We can best honor their service and sacrifice by continuing to serve with honor."

Trial

The trial for the man accused of killing Hetland  Dalquavis Ward, who faces life in prison  has been postponed, like all other jury trials in Wisconsin, due to COVID-19.

A five-day jury trial had been slated to begin on March 30. Now it cannot start until after May 22.

Other names on the Racine Police Departments Honor Wall:

Detective John Harms: Died Nov. 18, 1918

Officer Alvin B. Christensen: Died July 13, 1930

Officer Jacob A. Mauer: Died April 28, 1931

Officer Harry C. Breheim: Died Aug. 26, 1933

Officer John H. Anderson: Died March 10, 1935

Officer Frank F. Lenzke: Died May 13, 1936

Officer Arthur Lindstrom: Died Feb. 12, 1951

Officer Harold Worden: Died Aug. 25, 1955

Detective Lester McEachern: Died May 5, 1956

Detective James J. Hantschel: Died May 15, 1963

Detective Fred W. Lenzke: Died Feb. 15, 1966

Detective James R. Fine: Died Jan. 11, 1974

The 13 names are displayed underneath a sign that reads: Honoring Those Who Sacrificed All.

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The beleaguered Ruby Princess cruise ship will likely remain at Port Kembla until late next week, with authorities yet to deem the vessel's crew healthy enough to travel after more than 160 tested positive for coronavirus.

Despite the NSW Police chief last week saying he had "drawn a line in the sand" for the stricken ship to leave on Sunday, his colleague yesterday suggested the chances of that occurring were "remote" given the health of those left aboard.

Ruby Princess Cruise Ship docked in Port Kembla. Credit:Louise Kennerley SMH

Thirteen crew members of the Ruby Princess - which controversially sailed into Sydney Harbour last month laden with scores of passengers carrying COVID-19 - have now been taken off the ship for medical treatment.

A further 162 of the ship's more than 1000 crew left on board have tested positive for coronavirus.
by Vladimir Rozanskij

Petr Mansurov, Orthodox bishop of Kalachinsk, graduated in biology in Moscow. He calls on the faithful to accept isolation measures during Orthodox Easter. He cites past examples, like the blessed Admiral Fyodor Ushakov, who fought the plague in Crimea; and Patriarch Pimen, who acted to curb a cholera epidemic in southern USSR. For the prelate, "Nobody is attacking our faith"; the current lockdown of churches is not like church closing during the Soviet era.

Moscow (AsiaNews)  Before becoming a priest, the Russian Orthodox bishop of Kalachinsk, Petr (Mansurov), graduated in biology from the University of Moscow, and worked for a few years at the Omsk Scientific Research Institute of Natural Focal Infections (Siberia), where he obtained a doctorate in virology.

The Orthodox magazine Foma () talked to him to get his views, especially to encourage many reluctant believers to accept isolation measures during Orthodox Easter. In the interview, Bishop Petr said that even in the past, during the epidemics, it was necessary to close churches to fight plague, cholera and smallpox epidemics.

Now they talk a lot about the feat of Filaret of Moscow, who in the 19th century gathered the faithful to pray against cholera, said the prelate. It was precisely this that led to the death of another metropolitan by the same name who wanted to imitate him, Filaret of Chernihiv (Chernigov) who became infected praying and died of cholera in 1866.

According to the virologist turned bishop, the main podvig (heroic act) of priests during an epidemic is to visit hospitals full of patients, facing great risks like doctors and nurses, distributing communion under sterile protection.

The faithful should not act differently from other citizens. Let us remember the words of the apostles on obedience to the authorities. For Petr, contrary to what many Orthodox may say today, the current lockdown is not comparable to church closing during the Soviet period, quarantine measures are not a persecution of the Church.

The bishop cited a famous historical case, that of Admiral Fyodor Ushakov, who headed the Russian fleet and built the port of Sevastopol. The admiral won 43 naval battles defending the homeland and ended his days dedicating himself to prayer and charity. He was canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2001, and his figure is very popular among the faithful.

The blessed admiral saved the imperial fleet from the plague, and more. He organised the quarantine of the city of Kherson in Crimea, and forbade anyone from going to church, sending the military to check that no one left home. Once the outbreak over, the admiral was awarded the Order of Saint Vladimir.

Even one of the more recent patriarchs of Moscow, Pimen (Izvekov), who led the Church from 1971 to 1990, before his election to the patriarchal throne, had to act during a cholera epidemic in the southern regions of the Soviet Union (Caucasus, Caspian Sea, Odessa). He signed a decree prohibiting kissing icons, and communion was only allowed at home for the sick.

Looking at Orthodox history and doctrine, Bishop Petr notes that "current events force us to carefully re-read the history of Orthodoxy, precisely with regard to the topic of epidemics, and the concerns they arouse in the hearts of the faithful.

The prelate stresses the point that Nobody is attacking our faith. The unity of the Church is confirmed in another way: in the awareness that wherever we pray  in church during liturgies, at home, or in the monastic cell  Christ is among us. We are divided externally by the quarantine, but we can spiritually unite in prayer. We must not be afraid, because the Lord always unites us.

As a bishop and a scientist, Petr recommends to the faithful, and to everyone, not to believe too much in what is found on the Internet, or in the various statistics and comments that are often published in a confused and contradictory way. Instead, people should trust scientists.

"An epidemic like this one had not happened in a long while; it's a new and particularly troublesome virus . . . I too have had similar experiences, having to decide on extraordinary measures, and I tell you to trust the authorities around the world."
This story was originally published on July 23, 2019 in NYT Parenting.

The first thing Danielle Morin saw when she arrived to pick up her 18-month-old son, Deacon, from his at-home day care were the fire trucks. I sent him to day care just like any other day, Morin said. I did not know the nightmare that was ahead.

When she approached the Fontana, Calif., nursery that day in 2016, the firefighters and day care workers informed her that her son had been found unconscious and was rushed to the hospital. As Morin made her way to the emergency room, she learned that while Deacon was napping, hed been strangled by a string of smooth, golden-brown beads hed been wearing around his neck to relieve teething pain.

[The topics parents are talking about. Sign up now to get NYT Parenting in your inbox every week.]

The day care proceeded to tell me it was because of his necklace that got wrapped around his neck during his nap and that it was my fault, Morin said. Deacon was pronounced dead in the hospital five days later.

When amber teething necklaces first started popping up in parenting circles about a decade ago, they were most popular among homeopathic and New Age-leaning types. But now, thanks in part to their appeal among some celebrities and their widespread availability, this decidedly crunchy fad has seeped into the mainstream. Childrens stores, boutiques, big box stores like Walmart and online retailers like Etsy and Amazon sell various versions of the jewelry.
The perfect wine glass: 7 tips for matching shape to grape

The profile of your stemware can have a big impact on the taste of whats inside. A panel of experts reveals the best vessels for everything from bubbles to Barolo

1

Steer clear of goblets An ostentatious vintage goblet might look appealing, but it is actually a terrible way to taste wine. The classic goblet is straight-sided, conical, and flares out, because thats the easiest way to drink, says Martin Turner, Business Manager at Riedel, the company famed for creating a vessel to match every grape variety. But this shape is the worst thing for wine, because tasting is all about smell.

Your tongue has a fairly basic five-point system, so youre actually just confirming what you have smelled. In this kind of glass theres no way of containing the aromas, and you certainly cant swirl the wine; youre doing nothing for it. A good wine glass will always taper in at the top, to help enclose the aroma.

2

Try to be colour-blind As a general rule, rather than making assumptions based on colour, it is best to consider the overall style of your wine when choosing a glass. Sebastian Holian, an educator at Liberty Wines, has some advice. Imagine youre taking a photograph, he says. A large, balloon-shaped glass is like a panorama, whereas a smaller, bowled glass wants to zoom in for a close-up. The narrower container concentrates subtleties and keeps liquid cooler for longer.

Riedels Veritas Oaked Chardonnay wine glass glass is ideal for a Meursault, a Montrachet or a Pouilly-Fuisse

This is great news for neutral whites such as Pinot Grigio or Muscadet, but also suits lighter reds such as Beaujolais and Valpolicella. I will often serve these kinds of reds in a white-wine glass, slightly chilled, but Id prefer a larger, more open glass for flavoursome whites such as oaked Chardonnay or premium Viognier, says Holian.

A glass such as this one, designed by Riedel for Sauvignon Blanc or Riesling, can also be appropriate for a lighter, slightly chilled red such as a Beaujolais or a Valpolicella

3

For heavier wines, go big Farther along the spectrum are large, heavy reds that are high in tannin. This is a component found in grape skins and oak barrels that causes a drying sensation in the mouth, Holian explains. Red Bordeaux blends, Barolo, larger Riojas and Malbec all benefit from a big bowl because the larger surface area means more contact with air. The oxygen breaks down the tannin and makes the wine softer and easier to drink.

For a red Burgundy, this Old World Pinot Noir glass from Riedel is designed to deliver the best possible taste

The shape also provides enough space to enjoy a complex bouquet, which might be condensed and badly expressed in a narrower vessel.

4

Rethink how you drink Champagne The idea of drinking Champagne from a coupe might be romantic, says Christies Junior Wine Specialist Charles Foley, but the large surface area means you lose all of your bubbles almost instantly. Of course theres the lovely idea that the glass was modelled on Marie Antoinettes breast, and it looks great in a Champagne pyramid, but beyond that I wouldnt recommend using it.

The coupe was developed because the French found their Champagne much too lean, with too much acidity, explains Turner. They would even put pieces of sponge cake in the bottom to soften it up and make it more palatable!

Experts now favour a more traditional, white-wine-glass shape for sipping champagne

The saucer-shaped coupe was followed by the flute, which was designed to be stable on a crowded drinks tray. Unfortunately, this long, thin profile means that the first sip often offers nothing but an onslaught of bubbles. It is also much more conducive to being knocked back without proper consideration to bouquet or taste. For these reasons, many experts now favour drinking champagne from a standard white-wine glass. Riedel, for its part, has developed a Champagne-specific alternative. Maximilian Riedel [11th-generation CEO and current president of the company] has declared war on the flute, and hopes everyone will follow suit, reveals Turner.

5

When in doubt, keep it simple During a tasting at Christies we will only use a few different glass shapes with long, elegant stems  you dont want to complicate things, says Foley. Id choose a large bowl for a Burgundy or a Pinot Noir, and a funnel shape for a claret. Youll also have a different option for a port or sherry.

It also makes sense to choose your glassware based on your own spending habits. Turners advice is to spend on one glass what youd spend on a bottle, which is why Riedels entry-level pieces are the same price as a reasonable supermarket wine. We cant make a bad wine good, but the right choice can make something taste the best it possibly can.

6

Let your glass be invisible For wine appreciation a glass has to be unadorned, well-balanced and as thin as possible, Turner advises. A thin rim adds to a good delivery, meaning your wine will arrive on the right area of the palate. A heavy pub glass with a horrible rolled rim does exactly the opposite.

To enjoy a good claret, perhaps a St Emilion or a Pomerol, opt for something like Riedels Veritas Cabernet/Merlot glass

Technicalities aside, the sign of a great glass is that it isnt noticed at all, because everything is working in your favour. A light glass enriches the experience, because it's less of a distraction. You want as little as possible between you and the wine.

7

Experiment with stemless glasses

Traditionally a glasss stem has been considered vital for preventing heat transference, encouraging overall balance and adding aesthetic value. For years Riedel agreed, but in 2004 it released its first tumbler  a shape normally reserved for cheap table wines. Although many purists were shocked, others pointed out that this was the first good, storage-friendly wine glass you could take on a picnic.

Stemless glasses have the advantage of being more difficult to break
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By Ro Morse, WestKyStar

Apr. 17, 2020 | PADUCAH

By Ro Morse, WestKyStar Apr. 17, 2020 | 08:41 PM | PADUCAH

As blossoming dogwoods in Paducah reach their peak, windy days and rainy nights are nudging the showy petals to let go, making way for lots of fresh green leaves.



If you drove, rode or walked the 12-mile Dogwood Trail, you had to be inspired. Seeing an occasional green lighted dogwood was unusual, but we all knew what they represented. Even though this spring will be defined by a virus and how it changed lives, next spring our dogwoods will bloom again and hopefully we will have learned something monumental from this year's life-altering experience.



The one-week trail was unique this year in many ways. Several residents and local city, county and private businesses and churches lighted their entrances and lawns with green to remember those who lost their lives during the COVID-19 pandemic and to express appreciation to those on the front lines providing essential services and care for the sick. City Hall, County Court House and Carson Center are among those glowing green.



Civic Beautification President Cindy Jones said, "We thank everyone who took the time and effort to light their dogwoods, lawns and doorways. We especially appreciate those who responded to the Governors suggestion to use green lights to express their care and compassion for those who have been affected by COVID-19."



Jackie Smith, Dogwood Trail Co-chair, thanked our community, "This year, in lieu of rewarding our best dogwood presentations monetary awards, the Civic Beautification Board decided to use that money to help those most in need. A $500 contribution is being made to Community Kitchen to meet the needs of our most vulnerable citizens in this critical time. The 56th Annual Dogwood Trail will go down in history as one of the most beautiful trails ever. In a time where we longed for a sense of normalcy, our dogwoods produced exquisite beauty to inspire each of us to hold on for the better days to come. Thank you to Paducah Power for their generous contribution and to the citizens of our community who lighted their yards to provide hope."
By Hilary Russ

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warehouse, delivery and retail gig workers in the United States went on strike on Monday to call attention to safety and wage concerns for people laboring through the coronavirus crisis.

Among the strikers were some of the roughly 200,000 workers at U.S. online grocery delivery company Instacart, according to strike organizer Gig Workers Collective, founded earlier this year by Instacart worker Vanessa Bain.

Fifteen workers at an Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O> warehouse in Staten Island, New York, also walked off the job on Monday following reports of COVID-19 among the facility's staff.

Amazon said later it fired an employee who helped organize the action for alleged violations of his employment, including leaving a paid quarantine to participate in the demonstration. New York's attorney general said her office was "considering all legal options" in response to the firing, citing the right to organize in the state.

Workers have also protested in other countries. Dozens of Amazon workers at a facility near Florence, Italy, went on strike on Monday.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said last week that pressure on Amazon employees to work despite inadequate protections was "unacceptable."

From delivery drivers to grocery store clerks, shelf stockers and fast-food employees, workers have kept food and essential goods flowing to people who have been told by their governments to stay home to stop the spread of coronavirus.

More than 738,500 people have been infected across the world and about 35,000 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, said it has taken "extreme measures" to clean buildings and obtain safety gear and that "the vast majority of employees continue to show up and do the heroic work of delivering for customers every day." Less than half a percent of its more than 5,000-person workforce at the Staten Island site protested, it said.

Story continues

In statements on Monday, Amazon disputed comments from one of the striking Staten Island employees, Christian Smalls, who had accused the company of mishandling warehouse operations after a confirmed case of coronavirus.

Amazon said Smalls was on a paid quarantine after having close contact with a diagnosed worker, and had "received multiple warnings for violating social distancing guidelines," leading to his dismissal.

Smalls responded in a statement distributed by Athena, a labor and activist coalition.

"Im going to keep speaking up. My colleagues in New York and all around the country are going to keep speaking up. We wont stop until Amazon provides real protections for our health and safety," he said.

Letitia James, the New York Attorney General, issued a statement calling the firing "disgraceful" and also asked the National Labor Relations Board to investigate. Amazon did not immediately return a request for comment on the attorney general's statement.

HAZARD PAY, SANITIZER

San Francisco-based Instacart - which lets customers place online orders from grocers, retailers like Costco Wholesale Corp <COST.O> and CVS Health Corp's <CVS.N> CVS Pharmacy - said in a statement that the strike of its contractors had "absolutely no impact to Instacart's operations."

On Monday, Instacart said it had 40% more shoppers on the platform than on the same day last week and sold more groceries in the last 72 hours than ever before.

"The health and safety of our entire community - shoppers, customers, and employees - is our first priority," it said in a statement.

It was not clear how many Instacart workers were participating in the strike, Bain told Reuters. Bain has created a Facebook group with 15,000 members. She said hundreds more have reached out to her in light of Monday's campaign.

In posts on social media, people who said they were Instacart workers demanded hazard pay to account for the dangers of working while most people stay home to comply with state, local and federal government guidance.

They also asked for the company to provide hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes and soap to clean their cell phones, cars and shopping carts.

"We don't have to have 100 percent participation to ... force Instacart to maneuver on these issues," Bain said in a phone interview.

Instacart said on March 23 that it wanted to hire another 300,000 gig workers because of a surge in demand.

Staff in one supermarket of French retailer Carrefour <CARR.PA> will receive protective masks after some walked out over health risks, a union said on Monday.

Employees of McDonald's Corp <MCD.N>, as well as people who said they worked at Walmart Inc <WMT.N>, supermarket chain Harris Teeter, Waffle House, Family Dollar and Food Lion, boycotted work at North Carolina locations on Friday.

(Reporting by Hilary Russ in New York; Additional reporting by Krystal Hu, Anna Driver and Jeenah Moon in New York, and Jeffrey Dastin in San Francsico; Editing by Dan Grebler, Matthew Lewis and Sonya Hepinstall)
Bahrain's handling of the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic offers a beacon of hope to other countries wanting to emulate the kingdom's example, even as the world battles the rising numbers of cases, which has hit 19,20,618 according to a senior US diplomat.

"On February 24, the island state of Bahrain recorded its first Covid-19 case, when a school bus driver who had recently traveled home from pilgrimage in Iran via Dubai tested positive. Alarm bells immediately went off," said Adam Ereli, who was the US Ambassador to the kingdom from 2007 to 2011.

With a population of 1.5 million in an area the size of New York City (777 sq km), Bahrain is the world's third most densely populated country (after Monaco and Singapore). Significant numbers of its citizens travel regularly to Iran and Iraq, which are regional epicenters of the pandemic.

This combustible mix of exposure and crowding had the potential to decimate Bahrain's population. Yet after only five weeks, the Bahraini authorities have succeeded in containing the virus. So What is the secret to Bahrain's success?, asks Ereli.

His Majesty Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa took swift and prudent measures such as banning flights from Covid-hit countries as early as March 24; announcing a mammoth BD4.3 billion ($11.3 billion) economic package equivalent to 29.6% of Bahrain's annual GDP; compulsory testing for all who enter the country followed by quarantine besides setting up isolated Covid-19 camps and free Covid-19 testing and treatment for all citizens and residents.

The Royal directives to provide free testing and treatment to every resident in the kingdom was a major step in the battle against the deadly coronavirus.

This step will help save lives, ensuring all citizens and residents in need receive swift and comprehensive medical care, remarked the US diplomat.

Secondly, it will help to mitigate against the spread of Covid-19 as no-one need worry about costs associated with being tested or follow-up medical care. Without HM's intervention, some may have delayed seeking tests or treatment, he stated.

As per the directives of HM King Hamad, the Minister of Information Affairs declared that all GCC citizens will be treated as Bahrainis.

Another major step taken by Bahrain was the establishent of a comprehensive medical protocol based on guidelines set out by the Gulf Health Council (GHG) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Public health announcements were then circulated in different languages via national TV and broadcast channels, social media, and regular press conferences, he added.

According to Ereli, the National Task for Combatting the Coronavirus (Covid-19) is currently implementing the 'Trace, Test, Treat' strategy, which ensures a comprehensive approach to tracking and treating all active cases, under a specialised medical team.

No wonder, the WHO has commended the kingdom for enacting a comprehensive national strategy, led by HRH the Crown Prince and a dedicated Covid-19 response team.

Also Bahrain has become one of the first countries in the world to use Hydroxychloroquine to treat the Coronavirus (Covid-19), he added.

Stepping up the fight against Covid-19, the Ministry of Health has implemented a mobile testing process to test individuals returning from Covid-19-hit countries and provide them with the necessary care should they prove to carry the virus.

Field visits across the kingdom are also underway to collect random medical samples via mobile testing units, in order to safeguard the health and safety of the community, he pointed out.

A fully dedicated testing center has been set up at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Conference Centre.

The kingdom has one of the highest testing rates per capita in the world, garnering the recognition of the WHO for its agile response.

The Supreme Council for Women (SCW), meanwhile, has started field work as part of the "Together for Bahrain's Safety".

Basic commodities and health supplies were distributed to families supported by Bahraini women, based on the lists on needy households whose living conditions are being monitored by the council, said Ereli.

Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) has launched the home delivery service of prescribed medicines to ensure the health, safety and comfort of the patients as part of the precautionary measures implemented by the kingdom to curb the spread of the virus.

Bahrain was also the first Arab country to join the WHO's "Solidarity Trial" to find effective treatment for the virus.

As part of its immediate steps to contain the spread, a number of regional flights have been reduced or suspended.

Besides all educational institutions, including public and private schools and institutions of higher learning, have been closed until further notice, and remote teaching has been instituted.

Various government entities are providing their services online for citizens and residents

and detailed social distancing guidelines have been published.

Individuals are advised to remain at home, with the exception for those who commute to and from work, those buying medication or essential necessities or visiting a hospital

All citizens and residents are required to wear face masks whilst in public, stated Ereli.

The government recently permited commercial and industrial businesses providing goods or services directly to customers, to open and resume work on certain conditions such as:

*All employees and visitors must wear face masks

*The number of employees in any facility be reduced; no overcrowding in stores at all times.

*Stores must ensure continuous sterilization, including external premises, in accordance to guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health

*Queuing line-ups outside stores must be arranged in accordance to the social distancing measures issued by the Ministry of Health

The Ministry of Health, in coordination with the Ministry of Interior, has now begun announcing contact tracing information via the Ministry of Health's website.

Locations visited by contacts of active cases of Covid-19 along with dates and times, are listed to ensure other citizens and residents are able to identify whether they have been exposed to active cases.

The iGA has developed and released an app which advances contact tracing efforts by utilises location data to alert individuals in the event they approach an active case or a location an active case has visited and track the movement of quarantine cases for a duration of 14 days, said Ereli.

In line with the directives of HRH Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister for deployment of emerging technologies to help mitigate the spread of the Coronavirus (Covid-19), the Information & eGovernment Authority has begun distributing electronic bracelets compatible with the Kingdom's Covid-19 contact tracing app, 'BeAware'.

Medical examinations been conducted by Ministry of Health for all citizens and residents who have visited Iran during the month of February, as part of comprehensive precautionary measures that have been activated in light of the spread of the Coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

In a major economic boost, the Bahraini government unveiled a BD4.3 billion economic stimulus package, equivalent to 29.6% of Bahrain's annual GDP to help crisis hit businesses.

Also the government announced that all individuals and businesses's electricity and water bills will be paid for three months staring from April. Additionally, all individuals and businesses will be exempt from municipal fees, industrial land rental fees and tourism fees for these three months.

Bahrain also doubled the Liquidity Support Fund to BD200 million, while its labour fund Tamkeen has been redirected to support adversely affected companies.

Also it has terminated monthly work fees for three months besides the fees for issuing and renewing work permits.

Also the government has directed all banks in the country to delay loan installments of Bahraini nationals by six months.

The waiver is in line with the royal directives of His Majesty King to unify all national efforts to avert the spread of the global outbreak of Covid-19 in Bahrain and protect the health and safety of citizens and residents, said the top diplomat.

In a major move, the Health Minister has suspended the BD7 medical consultation fee, stipulated in edict 2 of 2017 on health fees for non-Bahrainis.

Also the Labour Market Regulatory Authority has introduced a 9-month grace period for all illegal workers in Bahrain. A humanitarian decision to help these workers legalise their status amid this pressing time, the government through this amnesty will allow undocumented foreign workers to either legalise their stay or leave as part of measures to offset the impact of Covid-19.

The International Covid-19 Repatriation Programme (ICRP) has been established to ensure citizens are repatriated safely and as quickly as possible. The ICRP has been in operation since March 11.

The ICRP is a clinically managed programme to safely repatriate citizens from Iran and other Covid-19 affected countries. Every step of the ICRP process is supervised by specialist medical officials, in line with WHO guidelines, explained Ereli.

The ICRP process includes the chartering of specialist aircraft, the provision of necessary medical equipment, and dedicated quarantine and isolation facilities to ensure returning citizens receive immediate medical care, he added.
TJ Sheil created this with his mam and dad while on lockdown

A dad in Co Wexford has made an appeal to people travelling into the county to visit holidays homes and caravans to stay away for the sake of his son's life and the lives of other vulnerable people around the county.

TJ Sheil from Oylegate has a condition called lissencephaly and, as a consequence, has numerous underlying health conditions including respiratory problems.

There was widespread criticism of the decision by some Dubliners and people from other parts of the country to leave the capital prior to last weekend and travel down to their holiday homes in Wexford and other areas of the south east, thereby ignoring the lockdown that other people all over the country are adhering to.

However, for TJ's parents, Darren and Julie Sheil, the actions of such irresponsible people is adding to their concern for the welfare of their son. Speaking to this newspaper Darren asked those who were breaching the movement restrictions to think about the welfare of others.

'The reality is that if TJ got the virus, he wouldn't survive. It would kill him,' he said.

'We went into lockdown at home before Leo Varadkar announced the countrywide measures because we had to for the sake of our son,' he added.

'I wonder how many of those people travelling down from Dublin to Wexford would do so if their son or daughter was the same as TJ?'

'If they had a child with a similar condition, they wouldn't travel because it would be putting their child's life in danger but by them coming down here at the moment, they are putting our son's life in danger,' said Darren.

'TJ needs a c-pap when he's sleeping because he needs oxygen and has respiratory problems and, if he gets a chest infection, it could kill him,' he added.

The Sheils are fully aware of the dangers of a coronavirus, Darren pointed out.

'TJ actually had a coronavirus in Dublin; obviously not Covid-19, but it nearly killed him,' said Darren. 'He has no immunity and there are other people in similar positions to us and we just don't go out at all.'

The Sheils get their groceries delivered to the house and the only time they have left their home in the last month was last Saturday week because TJ needed to be checked out in the hospital.

'TJ's grandad says hello to him through the window but we can't let anyone come through the door because the risk is there,' said Darren.

Such is the concern the Sheils have over the risk posed by people coming down to Wexford from other parts of the country, that Darren suggested if they are visiting caravan parks they shouldn't be allowed to leave them again until the pandemic is over.

'They shouldn't come down here and should stay at home but if they are here, then the gardai should be used to ensure that they do not move out again until this is over,' said Darren.

'Unfortunately, they won't stop to think about it until it hits their door.'

'They are putting everyone else's life at risk because they want to holiday. I want to leave the house too but I won't, because doing so could put my son's life at risk,' he said. 'We will get through this a lot quicker if people stay where they are.'

A range of medical supplies are required for TJ's care and wellbeing every day and, ordinarily, those supplies are ordered through the HSE and delivered from Wexford to Enniscorthy, where Darren collects them at the local health centre.

However, given the current pandemic and the threat posed to their son's health, Darren asked the HSE if the equipment could be delivered to their door, which is on the route the HSE delivery van takes.

The request was refused and Darren said he was told that no new house deliveries are being implemented at the moment. However, he said that, in the current situation, having to travel to Enniscorthy is increasing the risk posed to TJ.

'The equipment is brought from Ardcavan to Enniscorthy and goes literally within a few hundred yards from the entrance of our estate, so I don't understand why they can't drop it here,' said Darren.

'We have been on lockdown here for four weeks and we don't leave the house.'

Darren also highlighted the fact that Leo Varadkar has said that those who are vulnerable will be looked after. The Sheils' decision to lockdown their house a month ago was taken on the advice of the respiratory team that looks after TJ in Dublin. The family receive support from the Jack 'n' Jill Foundation, however, given the current crisis that support has also ceased for the time being.

'We came to an agreement with the Foundation for the safety of everyone involved,' said Darren.

'Leo Varadkar said that help would be there for people who need it but, when we asked the HSE to help us, they said they couldn't,' he added.

However, the Sheils have nothing but praise for their local HSE liaison nurses who provide great support to them and the HSE staff working on the frontline of the pandemic.

Through one of those nurses, Wexford County Council has come on board to help TJ get his medical supplies delivered through their team of volunteers, which means the Sheils shouldn't have to leave their home until the crisis is over.

They also expressed gratitude to local Councillor Willie Kavanagh, who picked up TJ's most recent consignment of equipment and delivered it to their door.

'The Government is encouraging people to self-isolate and cocoon and if the HSE could deliver the equipment to our door we wouldn't have to go out at all,' said Darren.

The HSE hadn't replied to this newspaper's request for a comment at the time of going to press.
Donald Trump has doubled down on his tweets calling for supporters to liberate three Democrat-led states under lockdown measures intended to slow the spread of coronavirus.

During a wild and at times incoherent press conference performance on Friday, the US president spouted a series of mistruths and false claims, including his justification for those tweets, which were branded by critics as a dangerous attempt at stirring rebellion.

LIBERATE MINNESOTA! Mr Trump tweeted on Friday, followed immediately by: LIBERATE MICHIGAN!

Three minutes later, the president tweeted: LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!

They came despite the advice of public health experts that stay-at-home orders and social distancing are necessary to slow the spread of the virus, which has already killed more than 36,000 in the US.

The extraordinary tweets followed a segment on Fox News, Mr Trumps favoured news broadcaster, showing a protest against the lockdown outside the Minnesota governors office.

Earlier this week, conservative protesters, many wearing pro-Trump gear, also stormed the state capitol in Lansing, Michigan, to demand leaders there open that state from a stay-at-home order.

Many of the protests were fueled by anti-vaccination and anti-government groups, according to NBC News.

Asked at Fridays White House press conference about his apparent change of heart  on Thursday he had urged supporters to listen to their governors  Mr Trump said: I think some things are too tough, and if you look at some of the states you just mentioned, its too tough.

Not only relative to this, but what theyve done in Virginia with respect to the Second Amendment is just a horrible thing. They did a horrible thing, the governor.

Mr Trump later escalated his attack on Virginia Democrats, suggesting falsely they were planning to strip Virginians of their second amendment rights entirely. In fact, governor Ralph Northams bill, which has been delayed for a year, would only ban the sale of guns defined as assault firearms.

What they have done to some people is very unfair. In Virginia, Im going above and beyond what we are talking about with this horrible plague. They want to take their guns away. They want to take their guns away. Thats the second amendment. Thats Virginia, Mr Trump said.

You have a governor  who really I guess he should be under siege. He seems not to be. If he were a Republican, he would be under siege, but he seems to have escaped something that was pretty bad.

Mr Trump later said he was unconcerned about the potential for coronavirus transmission among the protesters, despite health experts warning of the need for continued social distancing.

Mr Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to see businesses reopen quickly and claimed earlier this week that he had total authority over the matter, even though the lockdowns and other social distancing measures have been imposed by state and local leaders, not Washington.

We may be opening but were putting safety first, Mr Trump said.

On Thursday, he outlined a three-step set of guidelines for easing restrictions over a span of several weeks in places that have robust testing and are seeing a decrease in Covid-19 cases, assuring the nations governors: Youre going to call your own shots.

But governors of both parties suggested on Friday they would be cautious in returning to normal, with some warning that they cannot do it without help from Washington to expand testing.

The federal government cannot wipe its hands of this and say, Oh, the states are responsible for testing, said New York governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat. We cannot do it without federal help.

West Virginia governor Jim Justice, a Republican ally of Mr Trumps, said he would listen to medical experts in deciding how to move forward.

I am not going to do something that I feel in my heart is the wrong thing thats going to endanger our people, he said.

Washington governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat, said Mr Trumps tweets about liberating states put millions of Americans at risk of contracting Covid-19.

High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Show all 18 1 /18 High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Najaf, Iraq A man holds a pocket watch at noon, at an almost empty market near the Imam Ali shrine Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Bangkok, Thailand Wat Phra Si Rattana Satsadaram (The Temple of the Emerald Buddha, part of The Grand Palace) Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Prague, Czech Republic An empty street leading to the historic Old Town Square Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Washington DC, US Lawn stretching towards the Capitol, home of Congress Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Jerusalem's Old City A watch showing the time in front of Damascus Gate Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world London, UK The Houses of Parliament seen from Westminster Bridge Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Wuhan, China Empty lanes in the city that saw the first outbreak of disease Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Havana, Cuba The Malecon road and esplanade winds along the city's seafront Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Cairo, Egypt A little busier than elsewhere: midday traffic in Tahrir Square Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Berlin, Germany The Brandenburg Gate, the only surviving city gate in the capital Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Caracas, Venezuela Bolivar Avenue, opened in 1949 and the site of many demonstrations and rallies Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Moscow, Russia Spasskaya Tower (left) on the eastern wall of the Kremlin, and St Basil's Cathedral Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Istanbul,Turkey The harbourside Eminonu district is usually buzzing with activity Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world New Delhi, India Rajpath, a ceremonial boulevard that runs through the capital Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Amman, Jordan The Roman amphitheatre that dates back to the 2nd century AD Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world New York City, US The main concourse of Grand Central station in Manhattan Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Kiev, Ukraine Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the site of many political protests since the end of the Soviet era Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Accra, Ghana The odd walker out in the midday sun on Ring Road Central Reuters

The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly, Mr Inslee said.

Mr Northam said he and his staff are focused on fighting a biological war.

I do not have time to involve myself in Twitter wars, said Mr Northam, a medical doctor.

Also in Fridays press conference, which stretched to almost two hours, Mr Trump admitted he was hoping to restart his campaign rallies before November, said China has to have the most coronavirus deaths in the world, and repeatedly attempted to blame the Obama administration for his governments slow response to the pandemic.

On Friday afternoon there were just under 700,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the US and the death toll was approaching 37,000 people.

Additional reporting by AP
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Taipei, April 18, 2020The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Hong Kong authorities to drop all charges against Jimmy Lai, founder and chair of Next Digital, following his arrest this afternoon alongside other pro-democracy advocates on suspicion of participating in an illegal assembly. Lais media properties, including the Apple Daily, have actively and sympathetically covered the 2019 pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about the arrest of 14 prominent pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong, including Apple Daily media founder Jimmy Lai, said Steven Butler, CPJs Asia program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. Hong Kong authorities should end their repeated harassment of Jimmy Lai and drop all charges against him.

Police also arrested former lawmaker and activist Martin Lee and 12 other pro-democracy advocates on suspicion of participating in the illegal assemblies on August 18 and October 20, 2019, according to news reports.

Hong Kong Police Forces public relations branch did not immediately respond to CPJs email for comment.
The Jharkhand high court on Friday expressed concern over the spread of novel coronavirus infection in different parts of the state, observing that a war like situation has arisen.

Hearing a bunch of public interest litigations (PIL) on different aspects of Covid-19 pandemic, a division bench of chief justice Ravi Ranjan and justice Sujit Narayan Prasad wanted to know if the government was well prepared to deal with this situation.

Whether the government has a road map for this and sufficient man power and resources to handle the situation, the bench questioned.

It sought a detailed reply from the government by April 24, the next date for hearing.

The bench asked advocate general Rajiv Ranjan to file a detailed affidavit mentioning governments response on strict implementation of lockdown guidelines issued by the centre for Covid-19 hot spots.

The bench also wanted to know the states preparedness to deal with the pandemic, especially in the ensuing holy month of Ramadan.

It also took strong umbrage at news reports that highlighted how people were violating lockdown orders in Ranchis Hindpiri locality, the epicentre of Covid-19.

The bench read out excerpts from a letter forwarded by one Arun Kumar Dubey on violation of lockdown orders in Hindpiri. Treating Dubeys letter as a separate PIL, the court said that Hindpiris two contractors had attended a meeting of the water board at the Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC), while five residents of the area fled to Lohardaga when the entire locality was sealed.

How can people come out of their houses and wander on streets when the whole area has been sealed after being declared a potential hot spot?, the judges observed, seeking the governments reply.

Citing another news report, the court sought the governments explanation regarding action taken against Ranchi deputy commissioner for allegedly allowing buses to transport labourers to Sahebgunj and Pakur on instructions of a minister in the state government cabinet.

The court wanted to know that whether the people, who had escaped at the instance of the deputy commissioner, were traced and tested for Covid-19.

Advocate general Rajiv Ranjan, however, defended the government, arguing that Hindpiri has been sealed with corrugated sheets and all 15 entry and exit points have been blocked.

Ranjan said that demands made by the government from the Centre to send masks, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), testing kits, ventilators and rapid testing kits have not been complied with. The state has only 5,000 testing kits at its disposal, the advocate general said.

The bench also queried with regard to the preparedness of doctors and facilities available at RIMS and other government hospitals in the state.

While dealing with a PIL filed by Gulab Chandra Prajapati on the issue of cremation and burial of Covid-19 positive patients, the advocate general informed the court that a separate burial ground was identified in the citys outskirt area of Bundu.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Bedanti Saran Bedanti Saran is Special Correspondent in Jharkhand and has been handling legal beats, CBI, ED, Income Tax and other investigation wings for over a decade ...view detail
Mumbai, April 18 : Actress Esha Gupta is excited about her digital debut with "REJCTX 2", and says he had fun shooting for the series.

"Our 'REJCTX2' teaser looks fantastic! All the characters have done a fabulous job and I had a great time shooting with them and the entire crew," Esha said.

Esha will be playing the role of a Singaporean police officer. The second season of the series, directed and produced by Goldie Behl, promises to be high on action and drama. ZEE5 released "REJCTX2" teaser on Friday.

The teaser gives a glimpse of the "privileged rich kids of the Jefferson World School" from Esha's character's viewpoint.

"Goldie has been a delight to work with. My character is quite interesting. Even though I have played the role of a police officer before, this one is glamorous yet strong. I would like everyone to watch Season 1 on ZEE5 and catch up because Season 2 is coming soon. Can't wait to hear what everyone has to say about this one, god willing, the audience would give us as much love in this as they've given me all these years," she added.

The show will also feature Masi Wali, Anisha Victor, Saadhika Syal, Ayush Khurana, Ridhi Khakhar, Prabhneet Singh, Pooja Shetty and Tanvi Shinde besides Esha and Sumeet Vyas.

-- Syndicated from IANS
(Photo : REUTERS/Alberto Lingria) An empty beach is seen following the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Fregene, Italy, April 18, 2020.

The new coronavirus can continue to exist prolonged exposures to high temperatures of up to 140F (60C), according to an experiment by a team of French scientists.

Professor Remi Charrel and colleagues at the Aix-Marseille University in southern France heated the virus that causes COVID-19 disease for an hour. They determined that some groups were still replicating.

The scientists needed to bring the temperature to almost boiling factor to kill the virus completely, according to their non-peer-reviewed paper published on bioRxiv.Org. The results have implications for the safety of lab technicians working with the virus.

ALSO READ: Coronavirus: Scientists Report First Case Of COVID-19 Spreading From A Dead Body

Is the current heating system ineffective?

The group in France infected African green monkey kidney cells, a standard host material for viral activity assessments, with a strain extracted from an affected person in Berlin, Germany.

The cells had been loaded into tubes representing two different forms of environments. One is "clean," and the other is "dirty" with animal proteins to simulate biological infection in real-life samples, including an oral swab.

The viral strains in the natural surroundings have been thoroughly deactivated after heating. Some groups in the grimy samples, however, survived.

The heating system ended in a definite drop in infectivity. Still, enough living groups remained so that you can start another round of infection, stated the paper.

There has been a rapidly growing demand around the world to carry out tests on the brand new coronavirus. But some works had to be carried out in less protected laboratories.

Technicians in those labs were directly uncovered to the samples, requiring that they be "deactivated" before similar processing.

For the new coronavirus, scientists said this temperature could be sufficient for samples with low viral loads because it may kill a significant percentage of the traces. But it can be dangerous for samples with extremely excessive quantities of the virus, consistent with the researchers.

The French group discovered a better temperature should assist clear up the problem. For instance, heating the samples to 92 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes may want to render the virus completely inactive.

However, such excessive temperatures should also severely fragment the virus' RNA and decrease the sensitivity of the check.

ALSO READ: Coronavirus: Scientists Admit It Can Take Years to Work out Exact Antibodies to Treat COVID-19

Strike a balance between protecting workers and disinfecting virus efficiently

The researchers, therefore, recommended the use of chemicals in place of heat to kill the virus and strike a balance between protecting laboratory workers and disinfecting the virus efficiency.

"The results in this study should help [determine] the best-suited protocol for inactivation [to] prevent exposure of [workers] in [detecting] Sars-CoV-2 for diagnostic purposes," wrote the authors.

A microbiologist studying the coronavirus at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing said Chinese research at facilities were privy to the chance to lab employees and took extra precautions.

All workforce ought to dress in a complete hazmat completely when coping with the virus samples, even after deactivation, amongst other measures.

The French experiment furnished valuable facts, but the state of affairs in actual lifestyles could be a lot more complicated than the lab simulations, consistent with the scientist.

"The virus behaves quite differently with a change in environment. Many research projects are still underway to solve these puzzles," the researcher told South China Morning Post.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
President Donald Trump appeared to lend support on Friday to protestors in several US states who have been demonstrating against stay-at-home orders imposed because of the coronavirus pandemic. "LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" Trump tweeted. "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!"

The Republican president followed those tweets with another saying: "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!"

All three states -- Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia -- have seen demonstrations this week against the lockdowns imposed by their state governors in a bid to prevent the spread of the highly contagious virus.

All three states also have Democratic governors and Trump's tweets appeared to be politically motivated.

More than 40 of the 50 US states have imposed stay-at-home orders and about 95 percent of the US population is currently under some form of lockdown.

Trump unveiled guidelines on Thursday for states to reopen their economies but largely left the decision to the governor of each state.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer told reporters on Friday that she hoped Trump's tweets were "not encouraging more protests."

"There is a lot of anxiety and I think, you know the most important thing that anyone with a platform can do is try to use that platform to tell people, 'We are going to get through this,'" Whitmer said.

"We will reengage our economy when it's safe," she said.

While Whitmer reacted cautiously to Trump's tweets, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, was furious.

"The president's statements this morning encourage illegal and dangerous acts," Inslee said. "He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting COVID-19.

"His unhinged rantings and calls for people to 'liberate' states could also lead to violence," Inslee warned in a statement.

"The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies, even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly, and that we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted."

The Second Amendment reference in Trump's tweet refers to the part of the US Constitution giving Americans the "right to bear arms."

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam last week signed legislation enacting several gun control measures in the state.

The largest protest against stay-at-home orders was on Wednesday in Lansing, the state capital of Michigan, which with more than 2,200 deaths has the third-highest toll in the country.

There have been more than 230 COVID-19-related deaths in Virginia and more than 110 in Minnesota.

The Michigan protest in defiance of the stay-at-home orders imposed by Governor Whitmer attracted around 3,000 demonstrators, some of whom were armed.

It was organized by a coalition of right-wing groups calling themselves "Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine." "We Want to Work" and "End the Lockdown" read signs carried by the protestors, a number of whom wore red pro-Trump "Make America Great Again" hats and waved "Trump 2020" flags.
The moon, as seen by the United States' Clementine spacecraft in 1994.

A glimpse into China's readiness to handle samples from the moon reveals steps to be taken for storage, processing and preparation of the specimens.

China's Chang'e 5 robotic moon mission is scheduled to launch later this year. That venture represents the third phase of China's Chang'e lunar exploration program : returning samples from the moon.

The reported candidate landing region for Chang'e 5 is the Rumker region, located in the northern Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms"). The area is geologically complex and known for its volcanic activity.

The Chang'e 5 mission has four main parts: an orbiter, ascender, lander and Earth reentry module, which will contain up to 4.4 lbs. (2 kilograms) of lunar surface and subsurface samples.

Related: China on the moon! A history of Chinese lunar missions in pictures



China plans to launch the ambitious Chang'e 5 lunar sample return mission later in 2020. (Image credit: Used with permission: Loren Roberts/The Planetary Society at https://www.planetary.org/)

Sample history

The former Soviet Union successfully executed three robotic lunar sample return missions. Luna 16 returned a small sample (101 grams) from Mare Fecunditatis ("Sea of Fertility") in September of 1970; in February 1972, Luna 20 returned 55 grams of soil from the Apollonius highlands region; and Luna 24 retrieved 170.1 grams of lunar samples from the moon's Mare Crisium ("Sea of Crisis") for return to Earth in August 1976.

The United States brought back much more moon material. The six Apollo missions that touched down on the lunar surface from 1969 to 1972 collected 842 lbs. (382 kg) of lunar samples at different landing sites on the lunar surface, including rocks, core samples, lunar soil and dust.

China's moon rock plans

In a paper that was scheduled to be presented last month at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), which ended up being cancelled due to concerns about the novel coronavirus , lead author G. L. Zhang from the National Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, details the main tasks of the Ground Research Application System (GRAS) of the country's lunar exploration project.

These tasks include: receiving lunar samples from the spacecraft system; establishing special facilities and laboratories for permanent local storage of samples and backup storage at another location; and preparation and preprocessing of lunar samples.

According to the requirements of the mission, GRAS formed a complete lunar sample preprocessing, storage and preparation plan.

This plan mainly includes: handover and transfer of lunar samples from the spacecraft system to GRAS, unsealing of the sample package, sample separation (drilled sample separation and scooped sample separation), sample storage (scooped and drilled samples) and sample preparation.

Related: Latest news about China's space program

A lunar pipeline

A detailed pipeline for this plan is discussed in the LPSC paper.

First, the returned lunar samples will be divided into scooped samples and drilled samples after entering the lab. Both scooped and drilled samples will then be divided into four categories: permanent storage samples, backup permanent storage samples, scientific research samples and exhibition samples.

"All the tools that contact with lunar sample are made of stainless steel, Teflon, quartz glass or materials of known composition to strictly control the factors that will affect subsequent scientific analysis. The water and oxygen content in the glove box, filled with pure [nitrogen], will be strictly monitored to prevent the lunar samples from Earth pollution," the LPSC paper notes.

U.S. and China approaches

"They seem to be taking a very similar approach to how we have (and continue to) process and curate Apollo samples (and other astromaterials in our collection)," said Ryan Zeigler, NASA's Apollo Sample Curator and manager of the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office of the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"There are a few minor differences, but that is to be expected since each mission has unique characteristics," Zeigler told Inside Outer Space.

The Chinese are clearly taking seriously the handling, storage and preliminary examination of a potential set of new lunar samples. The technology described is in many ways similar to the technology in the NASA Lunar Sample Laboratory, noted Carlton Allen, a former NASA Astromaterials Curator. (He is now retired.)

"The use of a nitrogen atmosphere for preparation, subdivision and storage has proven both necessary and sufficient over 50 years of lunar curation at NASA," Allen said.

Glovebox photos show that the nitrogen is maintained at positive pressure with respect to the laboratory atmosphere, which has proven important for contamination control. The importance of restricting the materials that come into contact with the samples, another important aspect of contamination control, is also recognized.

The technology described by G. L. Zhang and colleagues "has the potential to make these future lunar samples directly comparable to Apollo and Luna samples, which could significantly increase the value of each sample set," Allen said.

Leonard David is the author of the book " Moon Rush: The New Space Race ," published by National Geographic in May 2019. A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook .
Several members of the heavily persecuted Early Rain Covenant Church(ERCC) were taken away from their homes while they were participating in the virtual Easter service on April 12, according to International Christian Concern(ICC).

ICC reported that the 5000-member Sichuan house church, led by pastor Wang Yi has not been able to gather since the government clamped down the church in September 2018 and arrested their pastor and other leaders. And they were gathering for online Worship service on Easter on Zoom when the Public Security Bureau detained six leaders of the church.

In addition to Wang, other key church leaders including Guo Haigang, Wu Wuqing, Jia Xuewei, Zhang Jianqing and Zhang Xudong were also taken away. "One member's home had its electricity cut off, while others received phone calls that police were coming to visit them soon," One member of ERCC told ICC.

"Since 8:30 a.m., some security officials have entered these Christian families' homes and pretended to be chatting with them casually. At 9:30 a.m., the worship began, and they were also invited to participate. Once they realized that the sermon was from ERCC's imprisoned pastor Wang Yi, they immediately shut it down." A supporter of ERCC also shared on Twitter.

Zhang Jiangqing, also echoed and shared that she was wanted by the police at his house, "Don't participate in already banned [religious] activities anymore! Don't listen to Pastor [Wang]'s sermons anymore! If you do this again, we will deal with it seriously and take you away!"

Early Rain Covenant Church was first raided during a Sunday evening service in December 2018 after authorities claimed it violated religious regulations because it was not registered with the government. Wang was detained along with his wife, Jiang Rong, and more than 100 members of his congregation, The Christian Post reported.

The six briefly detained Christians have since been released, and their electricity was restored in the afternoon, ICC noted.

Gina Goh, ICC's Regional Manager for Southeast Asia, said, "It is such a shame that the Chinese government has not once stopped its persecution of ERCC. Ever since the 1209 crackdown in 2018, local authorities have continued to monitor and harass ERCC members, with the hope that the church will disperse itself. In a time when the Chinese people are suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic, the heartless regime chose to inflict more trouble on its citizens. The UN should immediately suspend China's appointment to the Human Rights Council for its lack of respect for human rights."

China is ranked on Open Doors USA's World Watch List as one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to the persecution of Christians. It also has been labeled as a "country of particular concern" for "continuing to engage in particularly severe violations of religious freedom." by the U.S. State Department
The Last Full Measure director praises actions of COVID-19 responders risking their lives

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The Last Full Measure is being released in the midst of the new coronavirus pandemic and the films director says he's honored to see the actions of first responders who are serving their communities because their selfless sacrifice reminds him of the films Vietnam War hero.

The Last Full Measure, which is now available on Amazon and will be released on Blu-ray/DVD on April 21, tells the true story of William "Pits" Pitsenbarger, a U.S. Air Force pararescuemen who saved over 60 men in more than 250 combat missions during the Vietnam War.

Written and directed by Todd Robinson (Outsiders), the film centers around the Battle of Xa Cam My and Operation Abilene in which Pitsenbarger was killed. It details the government secrets that followed and his friends and family's 30-year battle to ensure "Pits" received the recognition he deserved, a Medal of Honor.

The movie features a cast of notables, led by Sebastian Stan (Avengers: Endgame), and Jeremy Irvine (War Horse). As well as Samuel L. Jackson, Ed Harris, William Hurt, Christopher Plummer, Diane Ladd, and taking his final bow, Peter Fonda.

The film is rated R and is set in two time periods. First, during a rescue mission in 1966, where viewers will see William H. Pitsenbarger is offered the chance to escape on the last helicopter out of a combat zone but instead he opts to stay behind to save and defend the lives of his fellow soldiers of the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division. And while he saved over 66 men, he was killed during the bloodiest battle of the war. The second part of the film happens three decades later when one Pentagon staffer fights to make sure his memory is honored.

The following is an edited transcript of The Christian Post's interview with Robinson who talks about the journey of making the film, what he hopes others will take away from it and how Pitsenbargers sacrifice is relevant to the current COVID-19 crisis.

CP: Tell us about The Last Full Measure film.

Robinson: The movie is about William Pitsenbarger, an Air Force pararescueman, who on April 11, 1966, and during the Vietnam War, volunteered to go in by helicopter and descend onto a jungle penetrator into Operation Abilene, about 40 miles north of North Saigon.

In one of the bloodiest battles where everyone was hurt and there were about 90% casualties, Pitsenbarger came down and triages and evacuates other soldiers. He was ordered to go back up but he refused.

He stayed on the ground to gather weapons, food, water and fight alongside these Army men, but he lost his own life by a sniper. The movie tracks the 34-year journey through the eyes of a young Washington bureaucrat who was tasked with the job of re-interviewing the soldiers about a posthumous Medal of Honor and put it before Congress.

Q: How is Pitsenbargers example of courage relevant to the COVID-19 crisis?

Robinson: Pararescuemen like William Pitsenbarger are very special people. Not only because of their vast life-saving skill sets, but because of their tremendous commitment to the well-being and safety of others. Their credo, These things we do, that others may live is taken quite literally. These men will trade their lives for yours.

In this moment of COVID-19, its difficult not to make comparisons to the heroes on the front lines in our medical communities. They inspire us with their courage and focus, pushing through their fear in order to save lives. William Pitsenbargers sacrifice is measured by the two-and-a-half generations he saved and their descendants.

Q: Where did the title of the film come from?

Robinson: The Last Full Measure title comes from The Gettysburg Address and it speaks to the last full measure of devotion and that speaks beautifully to Pitsenbargers valor. I also heard it from a newscast where Peter Jennings used that phrase to describe Pitsenbargers valor. When I heard that, it made sense to me and it really stuck with me. It is also chiseled on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial.

Q: What is the importance of telling William Pitsenbargers story?

Robinson: This is the ultimate story of valor and sacrifice of service over self. The story of William Pitsenbarger is one of the great untold stories of the Vietnam War. It took us 20 years to make the film and 32 years for the veterans he saved to get him the Medal of Honor.

Q: What is your hope for audiences who see this film?

Robinson: I hope audiences realize that even a random act of kindness placed decades before can have a true impact on other people and thats what really happened to William Pitsenbarger. He gave his life in 1966 and here we are today and we are still talking about him. He is an example of true valor and bravery for others and it is a tremendous example for us even now. For these men to put the story in my hands was a great responsibility and a great privilege.

Q: Was it difficult to get the cast on board for the film?

Robinson: All the actors were moved by the story and felt a connection to it because this is their generations war and they were available at the time. They were wonderful to work with and easy to direct because they are such fine actors. The cast were all of an age to be drafted during the Vietnam War, so when they signed on they knew they were paying tribute to the sacrifices that people they knew made on behalf of the rest of us.

Q: Why was it difficult for the U.S. government to award the Medal of Freedom to Pitsenbarger at the time?

Robinson: There was so much going on during that time during the middle of a war and recognizing one mans valor probably was not the foremost thing on the militarys mind.

Pitsenbarger was only the third enlisted airman to ever get the Medal of Honor. In context of politics at that time, they put him up to the medal and it went all the way to the White House. It was downgraded to an Air Force Cross and now 30 years later the mud soldiers, who were not even Air Force, realized he had not received the award and went to work to make sure his valor was ultimately recognized.

In April 2000, the ceremony was held at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio, with survivors and their families flown in from all over the world. The ceremony scene reenacted in the film featured survivors of the battle.
AMID the continued threat of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), the bishops of Bicol are set to lead the observance of the Solidarity Prayer on April 19, Sunday, at 6 p.m.

In their Message and Prayer for Solidarity, all seven bishops based in the archdiocese and dioceses of Bicol urged the faithful to join in the simultaneous activity aimed to counter the anxiety brought by the pandemic.

In the name of the Church in Bicol, we Bishops of Bicol, invite you all - clergy and faithful, to spend a moment of prayer together, simultaneously invoking the help of Our Ina, to beg Gods loving mercy, on April 19, 2020 - Divine Mercy Sunday, at 6:00 in the evening in your own parishes and homes, said the Bicol bishops.

We pray for our region, our country, and the world. We invite anybody, who is willing to participate, even those outside Bicol, to join us in prayer and spirit, they furthered.

This means that all parish priests are asked to ring the bells, open the loudspeakers, turn on the lights, lit the Paschal Candle while praying together.

On the other hand, the faithful and parishioners in their homes are encouraged to light candles, open the lights, connect via livestream if possible and pray with the Church, or pray on their own.

They said the call and request for common and united prayer is to express sincere appreciation and gratitude for the sacrifices of all frontliners.

They said it is also in support of the people showing acts of kindness and generosity to ease the pains brought by the crisis.

The bishops said it is also to express their closeness to the sick, those at risk, the vulnerable, and those in difficulty.

Finally, it is to remember and pray for the eternal repose of the souls of those who died because of Covid-19 as well as for the consolation and strength of their families.

As believers, prayer is our lifeline. In prayer, we entrust ourselves to Him, the All Powerful One. The sick, the dying and their families, the frontliners, decision makers, leaders, volunteers and fellow citizens need our prayers, they said.

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For many of us, observing protocols, staying at home and praying are our best contribution to this fight. And, praying together, as one region, can be more powerful and beneficial, added the bishops.

Leading the Bicol bishops is Caceres Archbishop Rolando Tria Tirona.

Other signatories of the statement are Bishops Joel Baylon of Legazpi, Jose Rojas of Libmanan, Jose Bantolo of Masbate, Manolo delos Santos of Virac, Andrew Alarcon of Daet, and Jose Dialogo of Sorsogon.

Based on the latest data from the Department of Health, the Bicol Region has 27 cases, including 1 death and 4 recoveries. (HDT/SunStar Philippines)
US based Gilead Sciences is likely to announce voluntary licence agreements with Indian medicine manufacturers to allow them to produce generic versions of Remdesivir, an experimental drug that is looked at as a potential candidate for the treatment of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) treatments. Mumbai based Cipla and Hyderabad based Dr Reddy's Laboratories are among the companies that could sign partnership agreements with Gilead, industry sources say.

The drug, undergoing clinical trials globally at the moment, is yet to be approved for COVID-19 treatment. Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had hinted that if the medicine proves effective, and if cost effective versions of the medicine can be made available through Indian generic companies, then it can be considered for treating COVID-19 patients in India too.

Recently, Mumbai-based civil society organisation Cancer Patent Aid Association (CPAA) had written to the government demanding the revocation of one of the patents on Remdesivir, citing India's strict innovative step and novelty requirements as eligibility criteria. The experimental drug, however, has a couple of undisputed patents also in India.

On April 10, Daniel O' Day, chairman and CEO, Gilead had stated that seven clinical trials are going on to determine whether Remdesivir is a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19 at the moment. The company anticipates that by May, the initial data from the placebo-controlled NIAID trial as well as data from the Gilead study of patients with moderate symptoms of COVID-19 will be available.

While the company has not said anything about its voluntary licensing plans, it has stated that it has supplemented its internal manufacturing with significant additional capacity from multiple manufacturing partners in North America, Europe and Asia. "Looking ahead, we are building a geographically diverse consortium of pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing companies to help us meet and exceed these production goals by expanding capacity for raw materials and production beyond what any company could do individually," the company has stated.

Gilead is also on record on its plans to implement 'expanded access programs as quickly as possible to help the most critically ill patients around the world'.

Company officials were not immediately available for comments.

Also read: Coronavirus India Live Updates: 5 more deaths in Gujarat; Kerala opts for odd-even rule after Apr 20

Also read: India needs 3% of GDP - not 5% - for coronavirus stimulus: Rangarajan
Rachel Young is the first lady of vegetation and a living encyclopedia of plant care. She opened The Living Room near downtown in December, and it quickly became a social media hit with shoppers snapping pictures of the space and posting them on Instagram.
The Lagos State government has reassured residents of its commitment to protecting lives and property, stressing that the responsibility will not be compromised.

The re-assurance came just as the State Police Command, acting on the orders of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, stepped up its surveillance, following the panic generated by threat letters purportedly written to some communities by a faceless criminal group, One Million Boys.

The group allegedly threatened that it would carry out armed robbery attacks in some listed neighbourhoods.

The police described the group as non-existent, adding it had strengthened its surveillance across neighbourhoods.

The Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, who led squadrons of anti-robbery policemen to various tension-soaked communities on Friday, allayed residents fear, saying the criminal gang called One Million Boys had been disbanded in several operations.

Mr Odumosu said a new set of criminally minded people may be hiding under the gangs name to scare the public, but he assured all that the police, in conjunction with other security agencies, would neutralise such threat.

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He said: Today, we have come out in full show of force to give you assurance that theres nothing like One Million Boys; they are criminals. Be assured that Government is out to protect you. The police are out there to guarantee your safety and we are doing this in conjunction with soldiers, Navy, Air Force and Department of State Services (DSS) operatives.

So, we are asking you not to panic. Go about your lawful engagements. When it is time for you to sleep, you should sleep without nurturing the fear that some faceless criminal gangs will come and attack you. Faceless people are sending letters around only to put fears in your mind. We will respond swiftly to any attack and we shall be patrolling round the State.

Mr Odumosu gave out emergency numbers to call in case of armed robbery attacks and cautioned residents not to burn tyres on roads because such acts damage and pose health risks to children and the sick.

The numbers are: 09010512385, 09010512286, 09010512287 and 09010512288.

The police chief said the security agencies had been carrying out land and aerial surveillance to ensure the safety of residents during the lockdown imposed by the Federal Government to tackle the Coronavirus (COVID-19).

Some of the areas visited by Mr Odumosu and his team of combat-ready policemen include Ikotun, Pako-Ijesha, Igando, Mushin, Surulere, Festac Town, Idimu, Ikeja, Ojodu, Berger, Ogba, Fadeyi, and Onipanu among others.
A 30-year-old history-sheeter



allegedly thrashed three health workers, including a woman, at Vinoba locality of Madhya Pradesh's Indore city on Saturday, police said.

Paras Bourasi, a repeat offender, spotted a team of health workers entering the locality and using their mobile phones to record details there, inspector Vinod Dixit of Palasia police station said.

The accused, who was in the middle of an altercation with someone, allegedly assumed that the health workers were shooting a video of him fighting, and proceeded to attack them, he said.

In fact, the health workers were conducting a survey in the area, when they were attacked, he added.

Bourasi snatched the woman health worker's mobile phone and smashed it on the ground, the official said, adding that the accused fled the scene after the attack.

The accused has been booked under section 323 (use of criminal force to deter public servant from performing duties) of the Indian Penal Code and a manhunt has been launched to nab him, he said.

As many as 892 COVID-19 cases have been reported in Indore and 47 patients have succumbed to the infection there.

Health workers have been surveying different areas in the city to stem the viral spread.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The US is looking into reports that the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 150,000 people globally, "escaped" from a virology laboratory in China's Wuhan city, President Donald Trump has said.

The US has been conducting a full-scale investigation into whether the deadly virus "escaped" from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Fox said in an exclusive report, adding that intelligence operatives were reportedly gathering information about the laboratory and the initial outbreak of the pathogen.

"We're looking at it, a lot of people are looking at it. It seems to make sense," Trump told reporters at a White House conference on Friday when asked if there was an investigation into whether the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China.

"They talk about a certain kind of bat, but that bat wasn't in that area if you can believe this," he claimed. "That bat wasn't sold at that wet zone.... That bat is 40 miles away."



Intelligence analysts are piecing together a timeline of what the government knew and "creating an accurate picture of what happened", the channel quoted sources as saying.

"A lot of strange things are happening, but there is a lot of investigation going on and we are going to find out," Trump said. "All I can say is wherever it came from, came from China in whatever form, 184 countries now are suffering because of it."



Trump added that the US would end its grant to a level-IV lab in Wuhan.

"(The) Obama administration gave them a grant of USD 3.7 million," the president said. "We will end that grant very quickly."



A group of more than half-a-dozen lawmakers sent a letter to House and Senate leadership, requesting them to ensure that no future coronavirus relief funds be appropriated to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Meanwhile, lawmaker James Smith accused China of indulging in covering up the issue of coronavirus.

"The communist Chinese government's cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak allowed this virus to spread unchecked, threatening the health and stability of the free world. They must be held accountable," Smith said.

"When people in Wuhan began to fall ill with a mysterious SARS-like illness, instead of working to contain the virus, the Chinese Communist Party ruthlessly worked to contain the spread of information. This secrecy endangered millions of lives, the Congressman said.

China has denied covering up the extent of its coronavirus outbreak and accused the US of attempting to divert the public attention by insinuating that the virus originated from a Wuhan lab.

The number of coronavirus cases in the US crossed 700,000 on Friday, while over 35,000 people have died of it, according to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As Texas continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, parts of the state that had been closed will reopen and some restrictions will be eased, according to a new order issued Friday by Gov. Greg Abbott.

A team of nationally recognized experts, business and community leaders called Strike Force will lead the efforts to reopen the state. Some of the high-profile Houstonians on the team include Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale, billionaire restaurateur Tilman Fertitta and philanthropist Nancy Kinder.

Here are the crucial dates for the reopening of Texas:

April 20, 2020:

Texas state parks reopen. Abbott added that visitors will not be allowed to gather in groups larger than five people and must maintain social distancing. Park visitors will be required to wear protective masks. "Your physical and mental health are important especially in times like these. Going to parks is an effective way to address those needs, so state parks will be reopened beginning this coming Monday," Abbott said.

>>> View all the significant dates for the reopening of Texas in the above gallery...

STRIKE FORCE: See who's who on Texas Governor Greg Abbott's Strike Force

April 22, 2020

Current restrictions on medical procedures will be loosened. "Adequate supplies of hospital beds and PPE must be maintained to ensure that all COVID-19 needs are met," Abbott said. Currently, hospitals and other medical specialists are not allowed to perform non-essential procedures such as diagnostics testing for cancer. This new change will allow doctors to treat patients without having to request state approval, Abbott said.

April 24, 2020

Retailers will now be allowed to offer "to-go" options for customers. "Retailers create so many jobs," Abbott said. "This temporary plan allows customers to access more retailers while minimizing contact with others."

April 27, 2020

Additional openings and restrictions are slated to be loosened. "We will introduce a phased-in strategy to open Texas in a safe way. It will require comprehensive testing and assurances of hospital readiness for COVID-19 patients," Abbott said. "It will focus on containing the risk of the surge of COVID-19 and protecting our most vulnerable residents."

DISASTER EXPERT: Dealing with Houston's fear of COVID-19 and a possible rebellion

Abbott added that revised plans will be announced on April 27. "We will consider the possibility of opening more businesses, like restaurants, movie theaters. We will also consider expanding elective surgeries."

April 30, 2020

The state's stay-at-home order is scheduled to expire.

Closure order for remainder of 2019-2020 school year

Abbott has extended the closure order for all Texas schools and colleges for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year.

"It would be unsafe for students to gather in schools for the foreseeable future," he said.

alison.medley@chron.com
For 3 weeks, a woman from Charlotte, North Carolina has not left her house, yet was still diagnosed with COVID-19 late Thursday.

Rachel Brummert, who already has an autoimmune disorder, said she is terrified. "This is the sickest I've ever been and it's the most scared I've ever been. From what I'm hearing about ventilators, it's scary stuff. I'm really hoping I can wait this out at home."

The situation poses a mystery because the virus is contracted through human-to-human transmission.

Because of her underlying illness, she is identified as a high-risk patient, so she made sure to listen to the experts and stayed indoors.

Brummert has not left her home since mid-March and also has restricted her exposure to be extra cautious, even temporarily staying in a separate room from her husband to practice social distancing.

She went to the pharmacy 3 weeks ago on around March 18 but has remained inside her house since.

She started experiencing symptoms including a fever, coughs, and a headache, then after several days, she met the criteria to undergo testing for the novel coronavirus.

According to Brummert, she does not know the root of her infection. "I really thought I was doing everything right," she remarked.

When getting mail from the mailbox, she always wears gloves.

Apart from the pharmacist and her husband, the only other person that Brummert had come in contact with was a woman who volunteered to deliver groceries at her doorstep. The woman later tested positive for the coronavirus.

Also Read: Does Cooking Food Kill Coronavirus?

However, the woman had no direct contact with her. "I barely had any contact," Brummert recalled. "I didn't even touch her."

In general, she steers clear of all external contact and would not even order take-out meals.

Now, Brummert is suffering from cough, headache, fever, difficulty breathing, loss of smell, and fatigue.

She also said that she did forget to put on gloves when moving packages from her porch.

"I've had the flu. This is not the flu. It's a whole 'nother monster," she said.

One netizen responded to Brummert's plight, "You are at risk with anyone who walks through your door."

Another user wrote, "Sanitize every item you bring home. The virus can live on plastic and cardboard for quite a while."

On Twitter, a user tweeted, "Like all viruses, it can live on surfaces for hours and days."

Irrespective of the source of her confirmed case, Brummert is aware that her diagnosis is another reminder that the coronavirus can be easily contracted and often hard to trace. This means it spreads at disturbingly high rates.

Her self-quarantine began on March 15. Symptoms first became apparent around March 22.

The United States currently holds the title for the world's largest number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus. It recorded 555,371 cases as of Monday on April 13.

Johns Hopkins University released the global death toll for the coronavirus on Saturday, indicating it now surpassed 101,000 amid around 1.6 million confirmed cases.

Related Article: Can Farts Spread Coronavirus? Here's What a Doctor's Experiment Reveal

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Sri Lanka on Saturday announced that the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic will be eased from next week to normalise public life and revive the economic activities in the country.

Health Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi said the government has been able to control the community spread of the virus. So now there is a need to reopen the country to normalise public life.

Sri Lanka has recorded 248 positive cases with seven deaths. More then 70 people have recovered.

The curfew for 19 districts where there is no threat from the virus will be lifted on April 20 at 5 am and will be reimposed at 8 pm, the minister said.

In the six high-risk districts, including capital Colombo, the curfew will be lifted at 5 am on April 22 and will be reimposed at 8 pm.

Health Minister Wanniarachchi said the government was keen to revive the economic activity after the continuous lockdown observed since mid March.

"The government discussed with all regional health officials and agreed on the need to revive the economic activities with a view to help people," Wanniarachchi said.

The government said the respective institutional heads are given the discretion to decide on the staff attendance.

Within the capital district of Colombo all institutions must have the presence of one third of the respective staff number.

All public transport must ensure that only a half of the capacity must be carried at any given time.

The public are advised to adhere to health protocols in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Analysts say the government by lifting the curfew appears keen to make the Election Commission set the date for the parliamentary election.

The election which was originally scheduled for April 25 was indefinitely postponed due to the coronavirus lockdown.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in a statement issued on Saturday said that the election commission cannot postpone the election indefinitely.

Most opposition political parties are of the view that COVID-19 must take precedence over the election.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Cease-fire from what, you ask? From armed conflict, though it would be largely symbolic, as the likely signatories arent, strictly speaking, even at war. Think of it as the first part of a more unified global campaign against the virus. The broad terms have been agreed to by France, the United States, Britain and China while the bigger fight against covid-19 continues. A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the Kremlin most likely will sign on, too. As the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, all five would have to agree for a cease-fire to work.
Several Indian doctors who arrived in the UK in March to appear for a test to qualify and take up jobs in the National Health Service (NHS) have been stranded after it was cancelled and are unable to return home due to lockdown in India and the UK.

Organisations supporting Indian and other international doctors are raising funds to meet food and accommodation costs of such doctors, who came to appear for Part 2 of the Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board (PLAB) test after clearing Part 1 in India.

Regulator General Medical Council (GMC) cancelled the Part 2 scheduled in Manchester in the week beginning March 18 as the coronavirus situation worsened in the UK. Passing both parts qualifies doctors gaining medical qualifications outside the UK and the European Union to register with GMC and take up jobs in the UK.

The stranded doctors have run out of money and are being supported by organisations such as the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (Bapio) and the British International Doctors Association (BIDA). Nearly 20,000 pounds have been raised.

Bapio president Ramesh Mehta said a group headed by Raka Maitra is helping the stranded doctors. The unregistered doctors can apply for support roles in hospitals, but Mehta said they did not have experience of working in the UK, particularly when the coronavirus pandemic is challenging health systems.

Jasvir Arora from Delhi, who graduated from Manipal said: This situation has been rather challenging. I resigned from my job in India and came here to give the PLAB 2 so I dont have any source of income at the moment.

It is very disheartening to not be able to work and help out when the people need us the most. The Indian high commission has enquired about our current situation and gathered data about visa validity etc. Were being generously supported by the Bapio group.

The GMC said it is aware of the situation in a statement to Hindustan Times: We know this is a challenging time for doctors who travelled to the UK for an exam. PLAB 1 is still running as normal, with the next test scheduled for June.

We also expect PLAB 2 exams will be back up and running in July - as long as it is safe to do so - with extra dates to maximise capacity for anyone who missed out. Those doctors whose exams were cancelled will have their fee returned to them, so there shouldnt be any financial penalty for cancelled sessions.

Were also encouraging as yet unregistered doctors to apply for NHS Englands new Medical Support Worker role, which doesnt require registration. This paid role allows doctors whove passed an English test (OET/IELTS) to do some clinical tasks under supervision, the spokesperson added.

Shiv Pande, former BIDA chairman, said since India also badly needs doctors to deal with the pandemic, Indian authorities may consider helping the doctors stranded in Manchester to return home, instead of depending on support here. Doctors gaining qualifications in India constitute the second largest group employed in the NHS after those with qualifications in the UK.

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After a three-week long treatment



for coronavirus, 32-year-old Safiya Yakoob, her brother and mother stepped out from the government medical college Hospital here on Saturday,being cured of the disease.

The family was all praise for the doctors,nurses and other staff for helping them recover from the infection.

The woman and her family members, hailing from Chullikkal in Ernakulam, had contracted the disease from her Gulf-returned 69-year-old father, Yakub Hussain Sait.

He succumbed to the deadly virus on March 28 while being treated.

He was the first person to die of COVID-19 in the southern state.

Safiya and her mother Sernea were allowed to see his body through a video call with the hospital before the body was wrapped up for the funeral held at the khabarstan of a mosque near Mattancherry.

"We lost our father (due to the coronavirus disease).We know the pain.

So everyone stay at home and stay safe," Safiya said as she left the hospital along with her 17-year-old brother and 53-year-old mother.

Sait was admitted to the isolation ward of the hospital on March 22 after his return from Dubai.

Two days later, Serena tested positive for the virus.

Their two children, Safiya and Hussain, were admitted to the isolation facility of the hospital on April 1 after their samples also tested positive.

The family, fully recovered from the disease, thanked the doctors, nurses and other staff of the hospital for bringing them back to life.

"All the doctors, nurses and cleaning staff, the district collector everyone helped us..very good service.

They took very good care of us," Safiya said.

A taxi driver, who ferried her father from the airport to his home on his arrival from Dubai on March 16, had tested positive for COVID-19.

He was discharged from the hospital on April 10 after his test results turned negative.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Ranjit Chowdhry, who appeared in two episodes of The Office, passed away earlier this week. He was 64.

Chowdhry died in India on April 15, according to the Time of India, after he traveled to the country several months ago. He planned to return to New York but was prevented from doing so because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Local theatre personality Dolly Thakore told the Orissa Post that Chowdhry suffered a ruptured ulcer on April 14 and was taken to a local hospital. Thakore said Chowdhry died during surgery.

Also Read: Brian Dennehy, Tony and Golden Globe Winning Actor, Dies at 81

Chowdhry played telemarketer Vikram who was recruited by Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell, to work at the Michael Scott Paper Company. He also appeared on shows like Prison Break, Girls, Bored to Death and NYPD Blue.

Director Sanjay Gupta paid his respects to Chowdhry on Twitter, writing, RIP my friend Ranjit Chaudhury. Had the pleasure of working with you in KAANTE. Thank you for the joy you gave us through your performances. KHATTA MEETHA is my favourite. Keep smiling wherever you are.

Read original story Ranjit Chowdhry, The Office and Prison Break Actor, Dies at 64 At TheWrap
Cambodia's Senate Approves State of Emergency Law as UN Expert Warns of its Risks to Rights

2020-04-17 -- Legislation authorizing a state of emergency to contain the spread of the coronavirus in Cambodia risks violating the right to privacy, free speech, and peaceful assembly, a United Nations expert said Friday, as lawmakers gave their final approval of the bill.

"Emergency measures must be necessary and proportionate to the crisis they seek to address," Rhona Smith, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, said in a statement.

"The broadly worded language on the protection of national security and public order, ostensibly aimed at addressing COVID-19 [the disease caused by the coronavirus], can potentially be used to infringe on the right to privacy and unnecessarily restrict freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly."

The "Law on Governing the Country in a State of Emergency" was unanimously approved by Cambodia's one-party National Assembly on April 10 and by the Senate within two hours of its introduction on Friday.

Under the billwhich will now be examined by the Constitutional Council before it is forwarded to King Norodom Sihamoni to be signed into lawCambodia's government can be granted sweeping powers for an initial period of three months, including restrictions and bans on the distribution of information, as well as "monitor[ing] and surveillance, by all means."

Smith said Friday that offenses such as "obstruction" or "staging an obstacle" to government operations were open to interpretation and penalties of up to 10 years' in prison and heavy fines were disproportionate.

"Penalties and fines should be commensurate to the seriousness of offence committed, with consideration given to the individual's economic situation," she said.

"This is particularly relevant for people already jobless and/or unable to generate income because of the emergency measures."

Instead, Smith said, Cambodia should be introducing laws that can be used to address public health needs while also protecting fundamental freedoms.

Authorities should take steps to ensure that everyone has access to adequate health care and adopt special measures for people in particular situations of vulnerability, including those with underlying illnesses, disabilities, the elderly, detainees, the rural poor, indigenous peoples, and ethnic minorities, she said.

Smith warned that the new law's penalties and criminal responsibilities could also be used to target civil society and human rights organizations, which she said "already operate within a highly restrictive environment" in Cambodia.

"A state of emergency should be guided by human rights principles and should not, in any circumstances, be an excuse to quash dissent or disproportionately and negatively impact any other group," she said.

The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Cambodia remained steady at 122 on Friday.

'Not necessary for public health'

Smith's statement follows earlier ones by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which said the law contained vague clauses that would provide Prime Minister Hun Sen with a means to "run the country by fiat," and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, which said it would lead to "gross violations of the freedom to inform and be informed that could have serious consequences during the coronavirus crisis."

On Monday, HRW's Asia director Brad Adams said the law gives Hun Sen "almost unlimited powers for an unlimited period of time."

"This includes martial powers. It also allows the government to read all emails and listen to all phone calls, which is not necessary for public health," he wrote in a commentary.

It also came days after Australia's former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans wrote in an op-ed in the Sydney Morning Herald that the law "should be ringing alarm bells for anyone anywhere concerned with the erosion of human rights and democracy," and called on his country's government to sanction officials responsible for rights violations in Cambodia.

On Friday, the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which was banned by the Supreme Court in November 2017 for its alleged role in a plot to topple the government, issued a statement denouncing the law as lacking benefits for Cambodians and aimed at maintaining power for the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP).

The ban on the political opposition, along with a wider crackdown by Hun Sen on NGOs and the independent media, paved the way for the CPP to win all 125 seats in parliament in the country's July 2018 general election.

"The CNRP believes that the draft law approved by the one-party National Assembly produced by a fake election aims to protect Hun Sen's power and his family members more than protecting the nation and the harmony of the people," the opposition said in its statement.

"The CNRP, which represents half of the population, would like to request that King Norodom Sihamoni refrain from signing the draft law."

U.S. Representative Alan Lowenthal of California, also responded to the approval of the law, calling it "appalling" that after initially dismissing the seriousness of the coronavirus, Hun Sen "is now using the pandemic as cover to push through emergency legislation that only increases his authoritarian hold over the people of Cambodia."

"This sweeping and draconian law only further empowers him to expand his consistent track record of human rights violations, all while claiming it is for the good of the country," the U.S. lawmaker said.

Hun Sen and others in his government have waved off concerns about the bill, and on Friday, Senate spokesman Mam Bunneang told RFA's Khmer Service that lawmakers "understand the necessity" for such legislation, which he vowed would "protect democratic principles."

He also said that the law will not grant absolute power to the government "because the National Assembly and the Senate will provide checks and balances."

"The rest of the world is using state of emergency laws, so we also need one to ensure the country doesn't fall into disaster," he said.

Ministry of Justice spokesman Chin Malin told RFA that international human rights principles allow for some limitations on people's freedom during a state of emergency for the sake of public health and said Cambodia's draft law complies with those principles.

"The CNRP's criticism runs contrary to the content of the draft law," he said.

Opposition targeted

The approval of the law comes a day after authorities in Banteay Meanchey province arrested the former CNRP chief of Svay Rieng province, Nhem Van, and sent him to the capital Phnom Penh for detention, making him the ninth member of the opposition taken into custody since the coronavirus outbreak was first confirmed in Cambodia in January.

His wife, Pao Sarann, told RFA that her husband had been on the run in Banteay Meanchey for the previous 10 days after authorities increased their surveillance of him. He had also gone into hiding in 2019 after police surrounded his home and only returned after Hun Sen ordered authorities to stop targeting the CNRP.

National Police Commissioner Chhay Kimkoeun police arrested Nhem Van based on a court order and that he was charged with "incitement to commit a felony."

Soeung Senkarona, spokesman for Cambodian rights group Adhoc, described the arrest as politically motivated and warned that such moves will draw condemnation from the international community.

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday also denied bail to seven CNRP activists recently arrested on treason charges.

Reported by RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18)  A month into the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine and similar lockdowns in other areas, nearly 30,000 violators had been arrested nationwide, according to data from the Philippine National Police.

From March 17, day one of the Luzon-wide lockdown, until April 17, a total of 29,632 individuals had been arrested, based on a document released by the PNP on Saturday.

Of this number, 6,616 underwent inquest, 23,016 were for regular filing, while 4,457 remain detained. The Department of Justice had previously issued general rules for the conduct of "e-inquest," or virtual inquest proceedings, to prosecutors through online and video platforms.

Those arrested were among the 126,302 total violators recorded by the PNP nationwide in the past 32 days. Some 70 percent or 91,225 of them were let off with a warning, while 5,445 were fined.

Luzon had the biggest number of recorded violators with 77,258, after President Rodrigo Duterte placed the entire island under enhanced community quarantine, ordering most residents to stay home to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Other local government units have enforced their own lockdown guidelines.

Some 23,221 individuals were apprehended in the Visayas and 25,823 in Mindanao.

Meanwhile, 9,245 public utility vehicles were apprehended nationwide amid the suspension of mass transport in Luzon and other areas.

The PNP also arrested a total of 713 people nationwide for hoarding, profiteering and manipulation of the prices of goods amid the coronavirus crisis.

The Luzon-wide quarantine has been extended until April 30 amid daily spikes in coronavirus cases. The number of COVID-19 cases rose to 5,878 on Friday, with 387 deaths and 487 recoveries.

Duterte earlier warned of a police and military "takeover" should people continue to break quarantine measures. The PNP and the military have expressed their readiness to follow the President's orders.

The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases plans to submit its recommended post-April 30 strategy to the President by next week.
Catch a glimpse of Katy Ayers paddling her canoe on a Nebraska lake this summer and you might do a double take.

At first glance, her 8-foot vessel looks much like any other canoe  same oblong shape, same pointed ends, same ability to float on water.

But upon closer inspection, its clearly anything but ordinary: Ayers canoe is made out of mushrooms.

More specifically, her boat is made from mycelium, the dense, fibrous roots of the mushroom that typically live beneath the soil. Ayers, 28, a student at Central Community College in Columbus, Nebraska, even gave her creation a fitting name: Myconoe.

Though Ayers has taken the canoe out for several quasi-recreational excursions  and plans to do so again as soon as the weather warms up in the rural part of Nebraska where she lives  her real goal with the eye-catching project is to raise broader awareness about mushrooms. She is part of a growing movement of mushroom advocates, people who believe these squishy, sometimes edible fungi can help solve some of our most pressing environmental problems.

Katy Ayers' 8-foot vessel is made from mycelium, the dense, fibrous roots of mushroom that typically live beneath the soil. (Courtesy Katy Ayers)

In addition to their ability to break down harmful pollutants and chemicals, Ayers pointed out that mushrooms can be used for everything from household insulation to furniture to packaging, replacing plastics, Styrofoam and other materials that are hard to recycle and harmful to the environment.

Mushrooms are here to help us  theyre a gift, Ayers said. Theres so much we can do with them beyond just food; its so limitless. Theyre our biggest ally for helping the environment.

Mushrooms aren't exactly mainstream, though citizen scientists like Ayers and some private companies hope to someday change that. The New York-based biotech company Ecovative Design, for instance, has made headlines for its mushroom-based packaging material, which has been deployed by companies such as Ikea and Dell. Mushrooms are being used at the local level to help clean up toxic debris and contaminated soil  a process known as mycoremediation  but so far have not been adopted on a larger scale.

Story continues

Ayers never paid much attention to mushrooms until she enrolled in 2018 at the college in Columbus, a small city with around 23,000 residents. During her first semester, an English instructor challenged students to find and study a potential solution to climate change.

During her research, Ayers came across a 2013 documentary called Super Fungi, which made the case for mushrooms as an environmental ally and highlighted some of their innovative uses.

Ayers was sold on the power of mushrooms instantly. Having learned that mycelium is buoyant and waterproof, she decided to try using it to create a boat.

I always have very big ideas, she said. So I see something and its small and I just want to make it bigger and better. Since Im from Nebraska, I love to fish. Ive always wanted a boat. Why not just grow it?

With a mini-grant from the college, Ayers got to work. She reached out to a mushroom company in nearby Grand Island for help, sharing her idea with owner Ash Gordon. He agreed to help immediately and offered her a summer internship so she could learn the ins and outs of fungi.

During the day, Ayers worked alongside Gordon at Nebraska Mushroom, doing lab work, creating spawn and harvesting, packaging and processing mushrooms.

After finishing their work for the day, the two turned their attention to the canoe project. They first built a wooden skeleton and a hammock-like structure to suspend the boat-shaped form in the air.

Katy Ayers and Ash Gordon sandwiched the boat's skeleton with mushroom spawn and let nature take over. (Courtesy Katy Ayers)

They next sandwiched the boats skeleton with mushroom spawn and let nature take over.

For two weeks, the fledgling canoe hung inside a special growing room in Gordons facility, where temperatures ranged between 80 and 90 degrees and the humidity hovered between 90 to 100 percent. The last step in the process was to let the 100-pound boat dry in the Nebraska sun.

All told, Ayers said she spent $500 on spawn, tools and equipment to build the canoe.

Ayers, who displayed her Myconoe at the 2019 Nebraska State Fair, has taken the canoe out for three test floats, including one in which two people comfortably sat inside. The boat is still alive, which means it fruits  grows mushrooms  each time they take it out for a paddle.

The successful mycelium canoe inspired Ayers and Gordon to experiment with making chairs, landscaping bricks and other items.

Though it started as a hands-on learning opportunity for Ayers in the course of her collegiate studies, the canoe has also served as a quirky conduit for conversations about mushrooms.

Its not just a piece of art, this is a functioning boat that works, Gordon, 39, said. It really helps bridge that gap between people who didnt have an interest in mushrooms  maybe they dont like to eat mushrooms and really havent thought about other potential uses for them. The boat gave them something to look at and think about.

Now Ayers is sharing her newfound fungi fabrication knowledge with other students at the community college. Shes part of Growing Pathways to STEM, a full-ride scholarship program funded by the National Science Foundation that aims to help low-income and underserved undergraduates studying science, technology, engineering and math.

Ayers is leading one of the cohorts main research projects: building bee hotels, small structures also called nests or homes, from mycelium.

Inspired by research from Washington State University, which found that honeybees who consumed mycelium extract had lower levels of a harmful virus, Ayers and her classmates hope to better understand the effects of mycelium on Nebraskas solitary bees.

Though the community college closed all campus buildings in early April to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Ayers is keeping the project alive in her basement while taking online classes.

In addition to her full-time course load, Ayers works as the community colleges sustainability intern, keeping tabs on energy use across the community college systems seven campuses and centers.

The internship, which Ayers has also been able to continue remotely, and self-led mushroom research projects are just the start: After graduating with an associates degree in science, Ayers plans to earn a bachelors degree in biology and, later, a doctorate in mycology.

And after that? Save the planet.

She has an innate desire to change the world, said Lauren Gillespie, a biological sciences instructor at Central Community College and Ayers adviser. She believes that she can do it, and I believe that she can do it.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 06:58:14|Editor: huaxia

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HOUSTON, April 17 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Friday issued a series of executive orders, setting timeline to reopen the state in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The three new executive orders issued by Abbott aimed at beginning the process of reopening the state while monitoring coronavirus trends.

According to the orders, retail businesses will be allowed to offer curbside pickup or delivery to their customers starting from next Friday. Abbott said employers who are required to be in a store should maintain strict social distancing and face mask standards.

Starting from next Monday, state parks will reopen but visitors must maintain social distancing standards and wear face masks.

Abbott also said that medical experts have concluded that schools cannot safely reopen at this time. Therefore, all schools, including higher-education institutions, will stay closed for the remainder of the school year.

"We have shown that Texas can continue our efforts to contain COVID-19 while also adopting safe standards that will allow us to begin the process of reopening Texas," said Abbott.

Within these orders, Abbott also established the Strike Force to Open Texas-a team of medical experts and private and public leaders who will advise the governor on safely and strategically reopening the state.

The strike force will immediately begin providing input on potential additional openings of activities and services in Texas consistent with guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Sylvester Turner, mayor of Texas largest city Houston, said Friday he and his top officials are assessing the guidelines from the state. According to local media, Turner is expected to name on Monday a local leader to see the reopening of the city through. Enditem
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA - NOVEMBER 12: Former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer speaks at National Press Club on November 12, 2019 in Canberra, Australia. (Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images)

Former Australian Officials Call for China COVID-19 Transparency

Two former Australian foreign ministers have weighed in about Chinas knowledge of the origin of the COVID-19 before it became a global pandemic.

Alexander Downer, who was foreign minister under the Howard government says China must come clean on COVID-19 or it will arouse the wrath of the world.

Downer says theres still speculation on whether the virus jumped from bats to humans directly, in wet markets or escaped from scientific labs.

He told the Australia-UK Chamber of Commerce that the world will demand answers from China after the pandemic.

For China this is a slow burn. So far China sending masks and testing kits, some of which apparently dont work to well, to other countries and saying, Oh look were here to help you, Downer told a webinar on April 17.

Come on guys, you started it in the first place, lets find out how that happened and lets do our best to make sure that can never happen again.

Downer says if China isnt transparent, some countries will try to counter its global influence which will be confrontational and prima facie not to be encouraged.

He said Chinese exporters could suffer as countries reviewed their supply chains for raw materials and essential products.

He also believes Australia and the UK in particular will mull their dependence on Chinese pharmaceuticals and rare earth metals like lithium.

China is Australias number one trading partner.

Julie Bishop. who was foreign minister under the Coalition Abbott and Turnbull governments, said Australias relationship with China is under constant review.

I think we will see a different world when we pass through this pandemic, she told Sky News.

Im sure many nations will be looking to diversify and perhaps bring a greater domestic focus on supply chains.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has also demanded China be more transparent about the origins of COVID-19.

Dutton said the families of more than 60 Australians who have died from the disease deserve answers about how the outbreak originated.

Downer called for China and World Health Organisation to lead a probe, but it must involve scientists from the international community, including the West.

There has to be a proper investigation into how this happened, where it came from, and China will be, I think in time, be put under huge pressure to agree to that investigation, he said.

By Colin Brinsden and Marty Silk
Students have been left dealing with mounting anxiety and depression over exam grades, it has been claimed.

The warning comes from Edith Bell, director of counselling at Family Works, which is responsible for the delivery of counselling in post-primary schools in Northern Ireland.

She said her team of counsellors are dealing with hundreds of pupils who could never have expected not sitting end-of-term exams.

"This has meant no real ending to 14 years of a school career," she said.

"For many the idea of predicted grades will add to uncertainty.

"Some pupils were really banking on the time after their mocks to study and improve their grades. Others were still working up to their full potential and those who worry at the best of times are feeling overwhelmed with fear and anxiety.

"Uncertainty provokes anxiety and depression and anxiety is a very overwhelming and messy emotion, particularly acute because of the loss of safety and control over their lives."

Ms Bell said the last six weeks had turned students' lives upside down.

She added: "Social interaction is the lifeblood of young people's routines but that's gone for now.

"They may have some very unspoken fears. Their feelings are understandably up and down. Some of them are feeling exhausted, low, demotivated, panicked.

"Young people who were about to take exams are especially vulnerable and they need people in their lives who will be there to steady them. We need to talk and listen to them about their emotions. It does no harm to ask if they're okay. That helps them know they're not alone.

"Exams are important but they are not the last word on anyone's life."

She urged young people to make an appointment to talk to their school counsellor to discuss worries or feelings, adding: "They don't have to deal with this alone."
A military transport plane loaded with Chinese humanitarian aid arrives in Minsk, Belarus, April 17, 2020. A military transport plane loaded with Chinese humanitarian aid arrived here from Beijing on Friday morning. The special flight, arranged by the Belarusian embassy in China, delivered 32 tons of humanitarian goods to Belarus, including rapid test kits, respirators, medical masks, pulse oximeters, medical protective suits, goggles, infrared thermometers and disposable medical gloves. (Photo by Henadz Zhinkov/Xinhua)
Bereaved families must be allowed to attend the funerals of loved ones, the Communities Secretary said last night.

In new government guidance, councils have been instructed to find innovative ways to enable many close relatives to attend funerals in person.

Robert Jenrick has also instructed local councils to open cemeteries so mourners can visit graves, adding: I believe we should trust people to do so responsibly.

The guidance comes after heavy-handed councils were accused of going too far with social distancing guidelines by banning all mourners from services.

The National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD) said such actions went way beyond government guidance and isnt in the interests of bereaved families.

In an op-ed for MailOnline, Mr Jenrick pledged: All families will be able to say goodbye.

Robert Jenrick has instructed local councils to open cemeteries so mourners can visit graves

He said it was important to ensure that people can be laid to rest with dignity and that their final wishes and beliefs are respected.

He added: It is only right that families have a final opportunity to pay their last respects to those they love at this incredibly difficult time.

Close family must be able to attend funerals in person during this pandemic and can safely do so by following in line with social distancing guidelines.

We will continue to work closely with councils to ensure that safe and sensitive measures are put in place all across the country.

He said his department had asked councils to work with faith groups and funeral directors to develop safe, sensitive and innovative ways for funerals to take place.

This included ensuring those funerals to be attended by many of those people who would wish to be there.

He also said he was asking local councils and others to open cemeteries and clarifying guidance which has erroneously led some to be temporarily closed.

Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, 13, from Brixton, south London, died in King's College Hospital on 30 March. His family were unable to attend his funeral as they were self-isolating

Mr Jenrick said this would enable those seeking the solace of visiting a grave privately could do so.

Local Government Minister Simon Clarke wrote to all councils in England yesterday to ensure that family members could attend the funerals of their loved ones.

Mr Clarke said: Nobody wants to have to consider funeral plans for themselves or a loved one at this difficult time. But its important that funerals are not delayed.

I want all councils to consider how best to hold funerals so bereaved families can mourn their loved ones in an appropriate way.

This will help to ensure that people can be laid to rest with dignity, and that their final wishes and beliefs are respected while we protect the public and the most vulnerable from the spread of coronavirus.

The government also published new guidance for councils outlining contingency measures set out in the Coronavirus Act.

Under the powers, which can be triggered in exceptional circumstances, councils can direct crematoria to operate longer hours and direct funeral directors to have shorter services.

Councils can also order instructions on whether people should be buried or cremated.

The guidance comes after a teenager was buried alone after testing positive for coronavirus.

Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, 13, from Brixton, south London, died in King's College Hospital on 30 March.

His family were unable to attend his funeral as they were self-isolating.

ROBERT JENRICK: Our loved ones should not, and will not, be laid to rest alone

Grief is the cost of commitment, the price of love as the Queen once eloquently said. It is the great leveller, the pain we all must feel at one time or another. But this pandemic has brought new challenges and made our oldest and most sacred traditions when we lose those we love difficult, at times impossibly so.

It has sometimes been impossible for loved ones to be by their side in hospital or a care home, to hold a hand or say goodbye. Many have had to part via Skype or by sending messages through our heroic NHS staff or carers.

And there have been stories of family members not being able to attend funerals of their loved ones that make our hearts break.

The tragedy of the death of Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, a 13-year-old boy from Brixton, was compounded by the fact that his family were unable to attend the funeral. As a father I cannot imagine how his family must have felt. That is not right and should not happen again.

Our loved ones should not, and will not, be laid to rest alone. Families must have the opportunity to pay their last respects to those they love.

While these necessary restrictive social measures are in place, the Government is determined that we make grief as humane as possible.

We have been clear that it is important that funerals are not delayed and take place in line with social distancing guidelines  to protect both mourners and funeral staff.

But its important to ensure that people can be laid to rest with dignity and that their final wishes and beliefs are respected. I am working with councils to ensure that no other family is separated in this way. All families will be able to say goodbye.

ROBERT JENRICK: We have been clear that it is important that funerals are not delayed and take place in line with social distancing guidelines  to protect both mourners and funeral staff

My department has asked all councils to work with faith groups and funeral directors to develop safe, sensitive and innovative ways for funerals to take place. And for those funerals to be attended by many of those people who would wish to be there.

Im pleased to say that many councils across the country have already introduced approaches to support the wishes of the bereaved. Their efforts are helping to create the closest experience to a normal cremation or burial as possible within safety guidelines.

Outdoor coverings are being provided for mourners to attend, with close family able to attend if they respect social distancing guidelines.

The guidance on social distancing will continue to be in place for the foreseeable future, and funeral services must go on.

I am also asking local councils and others to open cemeteries and clarifying guidance which has erroneously led some to be temporarily closed, not so that people can gather together - that would be dangerous and wrong - but so those seeking the solace of visiting a grave privately, can do so.

There have been moments in my life when Ive wanted to say a few words at the grave of someone Ive loved, to tell them something or to lay flowers. I want others to be able to do the same at this time too. I believe we should trust people to do so responsibly.

We know that this is far from perfect, or the way many planned to say goodbye to those that we loved. What pain this exceptional form of parting must bring.

But working together we can make sure that people are given a better way to say goodbye.

I would like to thank all organisations working to provide funeral services during the current pandemic.

When all of this over, when we able to hold wakes, levaya, memorial services and celebrations, we will also remember how people were supported in their most difficult moments, and that they did not grieve alone.
New Delhi: A 50-year-old doctor residing in the Deoli neighbourhood of south Delhi committed suicide on Saturday (April 18). In a four-page suicide note retrieved from the deceased's house, the doctor has accused Aam Aadmi Party MLA Prakash Jarwal and his aide Kapil Nagar for harassment and provoking him to take the drastic step.

According to a source, the doctor was found hanging from the ceiling fan of his house.

The Delhi Police has registered a case of extortion and abetment of suicide against the AAP legislator and his aide and others in the suicide case.

Delhi Police have taken the possession of the body and sent it for postmortem and an investigation has been launched into the matter.

The deceased, identified as Dr. Rajendra Singh, ran his clinic in Durga Vihar. For several years, Singh had leased out water tankers to Delhi Jal Board which were abruptly cancelled by the local MLA.

Refusing the allegations, the AAP MLA issued a statement on Saturday evening:

"I have received this information through media that a doctor, who used to have a business in water tankers, has committed suicide and has mentioned my name in his suicide note. I would like to state that I am innocent. I haven't met or spoken to him in the last 8-10 months. In 2017, Zee News and IBN7 had done a sting against tanker mafia which featured his name following which all their vehicles were blacklisted. I have full faith in the judiciary and I am ready to face any investigation. I would only like to say that there have been attempts to trap me in the past and similar attempts are being made now too. Just like I have proved myself innocent in the past and I will do so now too. I am ready to cooperate with police in any kind of investigation. Thank you."
Married At First Sight's Mikey Pembroke has stripped down for a raunchy new photo shoot to shed his '10 Second Mikey' image once and for all.

In one provocative shot, the 29-year-old poses completely naked with nothing but two bottles of BBQ sauce to protect his modesty.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, the aged care worker explained that his goal with the shoot was to get rid of his '10 Second Mikey' image from MAFS.

Baring all! Married At First Sight's Mikey Pembroke has stripped down for a raunchy new photo shoot to shed his '10 Second Mikey' image

The racy shots were taken by Zazakk.

During MAFS, Mikey was accused by his on-screen wife Natasha Spencer of only lasting 10 seconds in the bedroom.

'To be honest, I'm not at my fittest and like everyone I always feel I could be better, but this was about not taking things too seriously,' he said.

'As everyone knows, I was called '10 Seconds' on the show and this is my way of showing my real personality.'

He continued: 'MAFS portrayed me as awkward... I'm sure you can see I'm anything but!'

His reasoning: 'To be honest, I'm not at my fittest and like everyone I always feel I could be better, but this was about not taking things too seriously,' he explained

In addition to changing his image, Mikey has also launched a new venture on IGTV called #MikeyOnTV to give fans a chance to see his sense of humour.

When asked what the aim of the project is, he said: 'Quite simply making people laugh.

'In a time like COVID-19, the nation is in need of a chuckle,' he continued.

Insta-fame! In addition to changing his image, Mikey has also launched a new venture on IGTV called #MikeyOnTV to give fans a chance to see his sense of humour

'It's a bit of fun. I'm not a model but wanted to have some fun launching my IGTV #MikeyOnTV. They are funny Zoolander-like perfume campaigns and if you read the names you'll get it!'

The star - who is represented by The Mgmt - added that he was going to speak more about his stint on Married At First Sight through the new platform as well.

Making the most of his newfound fame, Mikey has also partnered with Fitness Playground's Virtual Playground app as part of a new promotion.

Stripping off: 'I'm not a model but wanted to have some fun launching my IGTV #MikeyOnTV,' he explained

'If you wanna see me get dressed up in 80s gear and bust some moves, next Friday I'm joining a virtual party for new fitness platform Virtual Playground Parties called #LIFTYOURMOOD,' he explained.

'Come join us all online get dressed up, there are prizes for the best looks!' he added.

You can learn more about the Lift Your Mood campaign over at Fitness Playground's official website.
Ronald Morris: The administration screwed up. These inmates were over the Covid-19 virus, but they werent supposed to be released back out there yet, and so when they realized this, they went back an hour and a half later and grabbed em and put them back in the isolation unit. And when they did that, that freaked those inmates out because theyre scared of getting this [expletive], and they thought theyd just released the virus into that unit and contaminated them. The problem was, they didnt educate the inmates on whats going on. Its basic corrections 101, communicating with the inmate population. Go down there and town hall them and educate them. They didnt do that  they kicked em out and then jerked them back up, and you think, Oh, hell, they just brought an infected person down here, and now were all going to get this [expletive].

Don Cain, via email: I know one thing is, if I do pass, my family has one heck of a suit.

On April 17, a Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman responded to a detailed request for comment with a statement: We want to point out that following a recent visit to F.C.C. Oakdale, the C.D.C. and the Louisiana Office of Public Health commended F.C.C. Oakdale staff and confirmed their compliance with current C.D.C. guidance for Covid management in correctional facilities. We direct you to our public website for detailed information about how the B.O.P. is taking aggressive steps to mitigate the spread of Covid in all of our facilities, including F.C.C. Oakdale.

Ronald Morris, via text, April 10: Another inmate death  six. Positive inmates: 49. Positive staff: 26.

Correctional Officer 1: You dont know. This could be the day that you have a temperature. Or this is going to be the day that you come in contact with somebody thats going to get you sick. Every day when I come home kind of starts my 14 days over, where I cant have contact with my family. Its weighing on my wife, and its weighing on me. Im starting to become a little withdrawn and short. I know that my stress rubs on to her and then rubs off to the kids. And its not just us. Im sure its the health care providers, Im sure its the local parish and state law enforcement, federal law enforcement, firefighters. I mean, we all probably feel the exact same way. We have no choice.

Mayor Paul: We dont have a morgue at the Oakdale hospital. They have run in a portable morgue. Its an 18-wheeler on the loading dock. I understand it is for all the surrounding hospitals if needed.

Correctional Officer 2: Were still releasing inmates if its time for them to be released. When theyre going to leave here, theyre going to get on a Greyhound bus, probably change two or three different buses. Ones going, lets say, to Houston, one is going to Georgia; we send inmates all over the United States. We send inmates to Puerto Rico. We send inmates everywhere. I have brought up that if we know that theyre getting out, then why are we not putting them in quarantine? Because an inmate could not have a fever 12 hours before he leaves, get on a plane or a bus, and as soon as he gets home, he tests positive. Well, then hes contaminated all those people.
New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday described the COVID-19 pandemic as a "huge challenge" and an "opportunity", saying there is a need to mobilise the country's scientists, engineers and data experts to work on innovative solutions to the crisis.

"The Covid19 pandemic is a huge challenge but it is also an opportunity," he said in a tweet.

"We need to mobilise our huge pool of scientists, engineers & data experts to work on innovative solutions needed during the crisis," the former Congress president said.

On Thursday, Gandhi had called for a united fight against the pandemic and said a lockdown is not the solution to defeat coronavirus.

He had asserted that aggressive testing is the "biggest weapon" to fight the virus.
But teachers said they were given little to do, and almost no guidance, for the first week after schools closed. Some tried to contact children by emailing and calling. The second week of the closure brought a handful of staff meetings. By the third week, teachers were taking brief trainings on how to use the video platform offered by Blackboard, an education technology company that Fairfax has contracted for about two decades.
Aijaz Ahmad Ahangar from downtown Srinagars Nawa Kadal had been a wanted man in Jammu and Kashmir for more than two decades. He was arrested once for terror links and released. This was sometime in the mid-1990s.

Nearly 25 years later, he was arrested early this month by Afghanistans National Directorate of Security (NDS) in Kandahar. No one really paid much attention.

The NDS had been far too focussed on its prize catch, Aslam Farooqui, the chief of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) who had claimed responsibility for the 25 March Kabul Gurdwara attack that killed 27 worshippers.

In the early rounds of his questioning, Aijaz Ahangar identified himself as Ali Mohammed from Islamabad. The sequence of events that blew away his carefully crafted cover is still not clear. Counterterror operatives in Delhi and Kabul told HT that it was much later they discovered that the April 4 raid had also netted Aijaz Ahangar, the 55-year-old chief recruiter of the Islamic State Jammu & Kashmir. It was a surprise, said an Afghan watcher.

Aijaz Ahangar, born in Bugam on the outskirts of Srinagar, wasnt the only one in his extended family to pick up the gun. According to security agencies, his father-in-law Abdullah Ghazali aka Abdul Ghani Dar was a Lashkar-e-Taiba commander and had played a role in the formation in 1990 of the Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen. Aijaz Ahangar married Ghazalis daughter Rukshsana much later.

After a brief association with the al Qaeda, Aijaz Ahangar joined ISIS. Later, he joined the Islamic State Khorasan Province.

His son Abdullah Umais joined the fighting in Afghanistans Nangarhar and got killed. His son-in-law, Huzafa-al-Bakistani, a top online recruiter of ISKP, was killed in a US drone attack in Afghanistans Nangarhar in 2019.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Shishir Gupta Author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (2011, Hachette) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (2014, Hachette). Awarded K Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 by Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) and the 2011 Ben Gurion Prize by Israel. ...view detail
Strains of Bizets Carmen reverberated around Dohas man-made Pearl island as members of Qatars philharmonic orchestra performed from balconies to punctuate the monotony of lockdown.

Bars, restaurants, cinemas and mosques are shut to contain the spread of coronavirus.

But those within earshot of the musical neighbours have been treated to renditions of numbers including Elton Johns Can You Feel the Love Tonight, both this Friday and last.

Everyone plays a bit. We are four in total, said Nicole Pressler, the QPOs principal flautist who was joined by a harpist, a trumpet player and a violinist.

Pressler lifted her son up to hear applause and cheers from residents and passersby during a break in the performance as a couple embraced and swayed on a nearby balcony.

More accustomed to playing to packed crowds at the ultra-modern Qatar National Convention Centre and the Katara Opera House, the artists decided to play from home very spontaneously, Pressler said.

But still it gives us joy to play. We come together as friends and colleagues with distance but united. In the same moment I even miss my orchestra more, she said.

The acclaimed orchestra, whose scheduled performances were among the first events to be cancelled as Qatar sought to contain the virus, was founded in 2007 and has since toured the world.

Theres not too much echo and the audiences are getting bigger and bigger. It was nice tonight, said the orchestras director Kurt Meister who attended the 30 minute concert.

Qatar reported its largest single-day jump in coronavirus cases with 560 confirmed on Friday, bringing the total to 4,663. Seven people have died and 464 have recovered, according to official statistics.

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LANSING, MI -- Gov. Gretchen Whitmer offered a hint of hope Friday morning during an appearance on Good Morning America when she suggested that Michiganders may see restrictions scaled back on May 1.

While she was clear that a lot still needs be considered, Whitmer said shes hopeful for the stay-at-home order to be relaxed.

I do hope to have some relaxing come May 1, but its two weeks away and the information and the data and our ability to test is changing so rapidly, its hard to tell you precisely where well be in a week from now, much less two, Whitmer said on GMA.

Meanwhile, debates continue on several topics surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak, including data reporting, the economy and more.

Below is a look at the most recent coronavirus developments.

Daily Michigan coronavirus deaths at lowest level since early April

Daily coronavirus COVID-19 deaths were down significantly Saturday, April 18, with the number of new cases below 800 for the third day in a row.

The updated numbers were posted at 3 p.m. by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

The data also shows 81 new deaths reported Saturday, down from 134 deaths the previous day. The new cases are at 768 for Saturday, up only slightly from 760 on Friday.

Total case count down, deaths still high

State officials reported 760 more confirmed coronavirus cases Friday, a drop of more than 400 cases from the day prior. The state now has 30,023 confirmed cases. However, death totals did not drop at the same rate. Officials reported 134 new deaths Friday, bringing the total to 2,227 in Michigan.

The state also says approximately 30 percent of tests issued in the last week have come back positive.

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Michigan Republicans introduce legislation to limit Whitmers authority

Republicans in the state legislature have introduced bills that would reduce the maximum length of a governor-issued state of emergency from 28 days to 14. Any extension beyond 14 days would require the legislature to approve it. Whitmer received approval to extend the emergency last week until April 30.

The bills were introduced in the House and Senate by Rep. Jason Sheppard, R-Temperance, and Sen. Tom Barrett, R-Charlotte this week, but would require Whitmer to sign them into law if approved by the House and Senate.

Whitmer hints at how Michigan can reopen on May 1

Whitmer on Friday also spoke to business leaders in Detroit on how the state can begin reopening the economy. The governor said it will have to start slow, with low-risk businesses opening while ensuring social distancing and safety guidelines.

I am hopeful that, come May 1, we will take some steps forward, Whitmer said. As we proceed, if that goes well and we continue to see progress, that we then go into a second phase.

What needs to happen to reopen Michigans economy?

While people continue to discuss when the economy can reopen, officials, medical experts, economists and others continue to lay out what will need to happen for the state to start getting back on its feet. From expanding testing to ensuring safety, these are the things that need to happen for businesses to reopen.

Trump calls for Michigan to be liberated

During a Twitter barrage Friday morning President Donald Trump tweeted the phrase LIBERATE MICHIGAN! echoing a sentiment expressed during Wednesdays stay-at-home protest in Lansing. Trump did not offer an explanation why he sent the tweet, but he also tweeted about Virginia and Wisconsin being liberated as well.

Both of those state also saw protests directed toward their governors this week as well.

Michigan sheriff criticizes Whitmers order on Fox News

During an appearance on Fox News Friday, Mason County Sheriff Kim Cole, said he thinks Gov. Whitmers stay-at-home order goes too far in some of its restrictions. He went on to say the majority of calls his department is receiving right now revolve around people concerned there are too many other people at a neighbors house.

I think thats a bridge too far, Cole said. Were being asked to go on peoples private property on anonymous tips and remove people from homes. Again, its a bridge too far.

Experts say state death count is way off, but by how much and why?

While its impossible to have an exact, up-to-the minute total of COVID-19 cases and deaths, health officials have been trying to keep the public informed with daily updates. However, some medical experts say the deaths total may not be as exact as what is being reported by the state.

Some experts believe the total is too high, while others say its low. Those same experts weigh in on how the numbers could be off and how they could be reported more accurately.

Whitmer partners with regional governors to ask for federal help

Gov. Whitmer along with the governors of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin sent a letter to President Trump Thursday asking for federal assistance as each of the states anticipate significant financial shortcomings as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

The governors said they each expect more reliance on social programs from their residents and with revenues expected to be way down, the states are concerned about the ability to fund the essential programs.

Fishermen challenge stay-at-home order

Three fishermen from the Holland area have filed a lawsuit against Gov. Whitmer over the stay-at-home order, arguing that it is overly broad, particularly in a county where relatively few been diagnosed with COVID-19.

The fishermen are asking a judge to issue an injunction on the enforcement that bans motorboat use during the state stay-at-home order.

I cant imagine a safer place to be than in a middle of a lake practicing social distancing, Holland attorney William Sikkel IV told MLive/The Grand Rapids Press on Friday, April 17.

Lansing Mayor says protestors will be ticketed for violating social distancing guidelines

Lansing Mayor Andy Schor says city police will be on the lookout during any future protests in the city for people violating social distancing guidelines and other safety measures in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lansing is proud to be the Capital City and I strongly believe in the right for people to protest their government. However, the right to protest does not include violating the rights of others or breaking local laws. Nor does it include preventing public safety from getting to emergencies, Schor said in a press release.

Mental health resources launched by the state

The state announced a partnership Friday with Headspace, an online health care company to provide some free programs to Michiganders who are in need of mental wellness guidance during the COVID-19 crisis. The partnership offers various meditations, home workouts, sleep sounds and content for children, and other mental health and substance abuse assistance.

Its been incredibly challenging for everyone, but we dont want anyone to feel alone in dealing with this crisis, Whitmer said.

Liquor buy back program extended for state bars and restaurants

Gov. Whitmer extended a program for bars and restaurants Friday that allows them to sell unused spirits back to the state until the businesses are able to reopen. Once they reopen, the businesses will be able to buy the liquor back from the state at no additional cost.

The extension will allow for eligible liquor licensees to apply for the program until Friday, April 24.

Ohio rolling back stay-at-home order on May 1

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced Friday his state will begin rolling back its own stay-at-home order on May 1 after residents have been under restrictions for several weeks. He admitted it will be slow and the Ohioians will still be in danger from the virus until a vaccine is approved, but the state cannot wait that long to reopen.

We have a plan to start opening Ohio back up, DeWine said on Twitter. Its going to be gradual- one thing after another. We want to do this in a thoughtful way that engenders confidence and ensures customers and employees are safe.

Experts clash on models predicting coronavirus peak

When will the COVID-19 pandemic peak in Michigan? Its a questions experts here at home and in Washington have been debating as the crisis continues. While the White House model suggests Michigan may have peaked last week, local experts disagree and say that model isnt truly reflective of how things are unfolding in Michigan.

Take a look at some of the models being used, how they differ and where the debate is at right now.

Michigan man with transplanted lungs shares his story on battling COVID-19

Living with a double-lung transplant hasnt been easy for Paul DeWyse. It was even tougher when he contracted the COVID-19 virus. Read as DeWyse describes how he dealt with the virus as he lives with a double-lung transplant.

I cant even describe the feeling when she told me youre positive for corona, DeWyse, 57, of Livonia, said. I thought that was gonna be the end because I didnt have an immune system and, oh my gosh, Ive already survived two other major operations and life-threatening things and now, you know, this could be it.
She's been keeping fans, friends and followers up to date regarding her condition since testing positive for Covid-19, the illness brought on by the novel coronavirus, last month.

And on Friday, Younger star Debi Mazar was spotted for the first time out and about in her hometown of New York City, as she ran errands with her husband Gabriele Corcos.

Mazar, 55, was wearing a large surgical mask that covered more than half her face as she went about her business, which included grabbing bagels and walking the dog.

Feeling and looking better: On Friday, Younger star Debi Mazar was spotted for the first time out and about in her hometown of New York City after testing positive for COVID-19 last month

The Jamaica, Queens native also had plastic gloves on.

Debi nonetheless was quite stylish for the outing, no doubt one of her first times out in months, as she wore a lovely plaid coat and silk green blouse underneath.

The actress, who got her start as a backup dancer or featured character in several of her friend Madonna's earlier music videos, also donned fancy black sandals and tights.

During her outing, Mazar also headed to a local pharmacy near her home in Brooklyn.

Tending to business: Mazar, 55, was wearing a large surgical mask that covered more than half her face as she went about her business, which included grabbing bagels and walking the dog

With her husband Gabriele Corcos: During her outing, Mazar also headed to a local pharmacy near her home in Brooklyn

Mazar's rich brown hair was perfectly coiffed and she wore gold earrings in the form of what appeared to be frogs.

On March 21st, the mother of two took to Instagram to share that she had tested positive for coronavirus, at the same time slamming the difficulty she encountered in procuring the test as well as the United States' response to the spreading pandemic.

At the time, the Entourage actress described her excruciating symptoms, which included body aches, ear ringing, a fever, sore throat and dry cough.

In addition to feeling a number of 'intense' ailments, she revealed her husband and two daughters  14-year-old Giulia and 17-year-old Evelina  had also felt struck by an 'odd bug' earlier in the month.

Bad news: On March 21st, Debi took to Instagram to share that she had tested positive for coronavirus, at the same time slamming the difficulty she encountered in procuring the test

Next to her glamorous Instagram selfie announcing her illness, Debi wrote, 'I have just tested positive for Covid-19. I AM OK!'

'I woke up with all those same symptoms but super intense body aches, and 102.4 fever,' she told her 402k followers. 'I figured maybe I got the flu orCorona?

Despite attempting to get tested, Mazar was told at the time she didn't meet the criteria because she hadn't traveled out of the country or 'been with someone who had actually tested positive.'

'I woke up with all those same symptoms but super intense body aches, and 102.4 fever,' she wrote at the time. 'I figured maybe I got the flu orCorona?'; seen here last June

'I found this kind of a CRAZY criteria for a NY'er,' she wrote, detailing how she 'had taken the subway, gone to the theater, the grocery store, the pharmacy, hair salon, etc.

'I was the Mom who was trying to prepare the home and get supplies & bleach wipes, dry goods, extra food etc.'

Debi continued by openly wondering about the slowness in proactive response she was seeing:

'Because we have Italian family in Italy and we follow the news closely, my biggest panic was why were they not closing schools in NYC & forbidding movement outside the home without permission, like China and all of Europe? Prospect Park yesterday, i hear was jumpin!'
Police discovered 17 corpses piled up in a New Jersey nursing home last Monday. The bodies had been stacked in a small morgue designed to hold a maximum of four bodies.

This ghastly discovery is symptomatic of the disaster unfolding at nursing homes in New Jersey, across the US and internationally. It is yet another stark indication of the reality of mass death from COVID-19 that dominates the lives of millions of workers, even as the Trump administration and capitalist governments in Europe beat the drums for a return to work and the reopening of the economy.

Last Saturday, an administrator of the Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center I and II in Andover, New Jersey, called US Representative Josh Gottheimer to request 25 body bags. The administrator him- or herself was infected with COVID-19. Police came to the facility unannounced at 2 a.m. on Easter Sunday to deliver the body bags and inspect the site. They saw five bodies crowded into the morgue.

On the following day, Andover police received an anonymous tip that a body was being stored in a shed outside of the nursing home. By the time the police arrived to investigate, the body had been moved, but the officers found 17 bodies in the morgue. First-aid squads moved 13 of the bodies to a refrigerated truck parked in front of a hospital in the nearby town of Newton, and a funeral home picked up the others.

Since March 30, 35 people have died at the nursing home, 19 from COVID-19, according to the State Department of Health. In addition, 103 patients and four employees have tested positive for coronavirus, and 133 residents and 48 staff members have flulike or respiratory symptoms.

At least 1,530 deaths in New Jersey have occurred in long-term care facilities like nursing homes. They thus account for well over one-third of the states total deaths of 3,840. Almost every single long-term care facility in the state has had at least one case, suggesting that it has spread extremely widely outside of these facilities. The total number of COVID-19 cases in New Jersey now stands at 78,467, the second highest number of any state in the US. In New York, the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, more than 2,400 patients in nursing homes and assisted living facilities have died from the coronavirus.

These numbers are likely but a pale reflection of the grim reality. New Jersey only announced that it would begin tracking deaths in nursing homes on Friday in the wake of the discovery at Andover. Thousands more deaths do not factor into the official death toll, as many die at home or are not brought to hospitals and are never tested for COVID-19. In recent days, New York City corrected its total death toll upward by 3,700 to well over 10,000, and the city now has a much higher per-capita death rate than Italy, the hardest hit country in Europe. Many nursing facilities still barely test either their patients or staff, and refuse to report even confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19.

The horrifying spread of the virus in nursing homes has been facilitated by the very poor conditions that prevailed at these facilities well before the outbreak. Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center I and II has 700 beds and is the largest licensed facility in New Jersey. Last year, Medicare gave Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation II a one-star rating, which designated the facility as much below average. The agency cited inadequate staffing, unsatisfactory inspections, inadequate hygiene, and poor patient care.

Staff have warned about lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) and infection control amid the pandemic. On Monday, a desperate employee at the facility posted the following message on Facebook: To all the people calling into the governors office, the congressmans office to help us tell them WE NEED HELP. The post was deleted on Wednesday. Across the United States, health care workers have been threatened with being fired for speaking out about the conditions they face at their job.

Several weeks ago, Lily Repasch, an 84-year-old woman with dementia, died at Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center I. Repaschs daughters said that after the facility stopped allowing visitors, administrators did not provide a way for them to talk to their mother. They also provided no information at all to Repaschs family. She was never tested for the novel coronavirus.

At a daily news briefing, Democratic Governor Phil Murphy declared himself outraged by the discovery of the pile of bodies. New Jerseyans living in our long-term care facilities deserve to be cared for with respect, compassion, and dignity. We can and must do better. He directed state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal to investigate all long-term care facilities in New Jersey that have experienced a disproportionate number of deaths during the pandemic.

Murphy also announced that the states Department of Health had sent representatives to the Andover facility to help workers and patients and ensure that critical safety measures and protocols are being followed. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid has sent surveyors to inspect the facility, said Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli. This response is too little too late, and many health care workers and family members of patients legitimately ask why much more was not done much earlier, before so many lives were lost.

Murphy is a multimillionaire and former executive at investment bank Goldman Sachs. He and the state legislature have governed New Jersey in the interests of its corporate and financial aristocracy, overseeing cuts in health care and other social spending. The current state budget cuts $48.5 million in education and hospital spending.

The staggering toll of deaths related to suspected or confirmed coronavirus infection among patients in nursing homes is not limited to the United States. At least 6,773 patients at nursing homes have died in Italy, the European epicenter of the outbreak, since February 1, according to a conservative estimate. This estimate likely understates the true toll, since it is based on a survey of only a fraction of Italys nursing homes, and few residents are tested for the virus. In France, deaths at nursing homes account for more than 30 percent of total coronavirus fatalities, a fact the French government only acknowledged after weeks of covering up the real death toll from COVID-19 at these facilities.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that a lot of strange things are happening regarding the origins of the novel coronavirus.

The source of the virus is a mystery. The broad scientific consensus is that the novel coronavirus originated in bats.

Fox News reported on Wednesday that the virus originated in a Wuhan laboratory as part of Chinas effort to demonstrate the capability of its efforts in identifying and combating viruses. Trump has said his government is seeking to determine whether the virus emanated from a laboratory in China.

Also read: Trump says Chinas Covid-19 deaths far higher after Wuhan toll revised up

A lot of strange things are happening but there is a lot of investigation going on. And were going to find out, Trump told reporters at the White House.

Trump also cast doubt on Chinas death toll, which was revised up on Friday. China said 1,300 people who died of the coronavirus in the Chinese city of Wuhan - half the total - were not counted, but dismissed allegations of a cover-up.

The US president said on Friday that many more people must have died in China than in the United States, which is currently the epicentre of the global pandemic and has reported the largest number of deaths in the world linked to the virus.

Also read: Trump calls for reopening US economy. Whats next?

We dont have the most in the world deaths. The most in the world has to be China. Its a massive country. Its gone through a tremendous problem with this, a tremendous problem - they must have the most, Trump told reporters.

China reported that 4,632 people have died of the novel coronavirus within its borders. US coronavirus deaths topped 35,400 on Friday, according to a Reuters tally.

Washington and Beijing have publicly sparred over the virus repeatedly. Trump initially praised Chinas response to the outbreak, but he and his top aides have also referred to it as the Chinese virus.

Click here for complete coronavirus coverage
Rains that lashed several places in Punjab in the last 24 hours have triggered fear among farmers that the standing wheat crop would get damaged.

According to farmers, the rains have also "exposed the tall claims" of the state authorities for making a foolproof arrangement for saving crops at mandis from showers.

Hailstorm hit fields in Muktsar district on Friday, an official said, adding that the assessment of crop loss in affected areas was done.

"Rains have damaged standing wheat crop at several places in the state. The government should compensate farmers for their crop loss," said Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan) general secretary Sukhdev Singh.

He claimed that there were not enough tarpaulins to cover produce which was brought to mandis by wheat growers in rain-hit areas.

The rains occurred at a time when the wheat harvesting was going on in the state.

Officials of the Punjab agriculture department said harvesting at some areas may get delayed due to rains.

"In some pockets of Muktsar district, hailstorms hit fields. We are assessing any damage to thecrop," Punjab Agriculture Department Director Sutantra Airy said.

Punjab Special Chief Secretary KBS Sidhu tweeted, "The Deputy Commissioners of Muktsar and Bathinda have already instructed the field revenue staff to assess the damage. Compensation, rather the relief, shall be distributed expeditiously out of this State Disaster Relief Fund (SDEF)".

Punjab is expecting the arrival of 135 lakh metric tonne of wheat in grain markets this season.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Man Who Tried to Feed the World was in PBSs lineup long before the coronavirus pushed the American food system into crisis, forcing farmers to get rid of foods they usually sell to the now-struggling restaurant industry and sparking unsettlingly empty shelves in a nation that produces more than it can consume. But the questions it provokes couldnt have come at a more fitting  or uneasy  moment.
Madam Aba Oppong, a child rights activist, has called for women and children to bold to report to the appropriate authorities any form of abuse they suffer during the period Ghanaians have been asked to shelter in place.



Victims of domestic violence, should refuse to suffer in silence and expose offenders.



She said the anxiety and frustration of many as a result of the imposition of restriction on movements could push them to maltreat their wives and children at the least provocation.



Madam Aba Oppong, who is the Executive Director of Rights and Responsibilities Initiative Ghana (RRIG), an NGO, working to promote the growth and development of children, made the call when she spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Kumasi.



She said although these were abnormal times that should sober everybody and bring the best out of our common humanity, issues of domestic violence will continue as long as abusers do not get a change of mind.



The battle against the flu-like pathogen, should however, not make the society to turn a blind eye to acts of abuse in a domestic setting.



Violence either physical, verbal, emotional, economic, religious, reproductive or sexual, could not, and must never, be overlooked, she added.



Madam Aba Oppong encouraged all Ghanaians to follow science and experts advie to prevent the spread of COVID-19.



She believed that the nation could win the battle against the virus of everybody adhered to prevention protocols  washing of their hands under running water, social distancing and respiratory hygiene.

Source: GNA









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.

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The UK on Saturday announced that it will provide 2.67 million pounds in funds to Pakistan for vital health support to combat the coronavirus pandemic and protect the poorest and most vulnerable people in the country.

According to a statement by the British High Commission in Islamabad, the funding is first in a series of measures to give wide-ranging support to help the poorest and the most vulnerable people in Pakistan during the Coronavirus outbreak.

It said that the 2.67 million pounds support will ensure funds for vital health support to Pakistan, build stronger systems to detect and test for COVID-19 and support communities to have the right information to protect themselves and others.

The statement read that the 2.67 million pounds funds will help people in 27 districts of Pakistan.

It comes alongside the Prime Minister Imran Khan's appeal to overseas diaspora to help fundraise for the COVID-19 response, and the UK's support for Pakistan's debt relief and loan postponements from the G20 group of countries, according to the statement.

The British High Commissioner to Pakistan, Christian Turner, said that across the world millions of people were being affected by COVID-19 and expressed confident in Pakistan's resilience and capability to defeat the pandemic.

UK health support of 2.67 million pounds will help the Government of Pakistan detect COVID-19, protect communities and help those most affected. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our friends in Pakistan at this difficult time, he said.

According to the statement, the wider package of support which the UK will roll-out over the coming weeks will repurpose Department for International Development's programme of assistance to ensure it helps those at risk and the most vulnerable, during the Coronavirus response.

The UK also announced to provide 1 million pounds for the rapid response of controlling locusts in affected areas in Pakistan, which were having a devastating impact on crops and livelihoods.

The funding came as the number of coronavirus cases rose to 7,638 in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of National Health Services reported that 143 people have died so far due to the coronavirus.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sydney-born infectious diseases expert Sotiris Tsiodras has become a national hero in Greece for helping control the spread of COVID-19 and avoid the tragically high infection and death rates experienced in Spain and Italy.

While some Greeks admit they do not typically like to follow rules, Greek Australians living in the country's capital cities and on islands have told The Age and The Sun-Herald they have embraced Dr Tsiodras' advice on strict infection control measures.

Infectious diseases expert and Greek health ministry spokesman, Sotiris Tsiodras. Credit:ANA-MPA

A professor of medicine and infectious diseases at an Athens university, Dr Tsiodras, 54, has been widely credited for alerting the Greek government of the need to act quickly to COVID-19 to avoid the plight of countries such as France, Italy and Spain.

Each night at 6pm, the professor appears on television screens to update Greeks on the latest infection rates, fatalities and outbreaks. The French newspaper Le Figaro called him the "new darling of the Greeks", while Melbourne's Greek newspaper Neos Kosmos described him Greece's "man of the moment". Greece's Ekathimerini publication named the softly spoken professor as the most popular person in Greece according to a poll conducted for Alpha TV.
The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles sent out a news release earlier this week to reiterate that no citations will be issued for expired vehicle registrations.

This is accordance with waivers granted by Governor Greg Abbot back in March. The waivers apply to the general rules requiring registration, delinquent registration, operating vehicles with expired license places and/or without registration insignia.
COVID-19: US announces USD 8.4M aid to Pakistan

International

oi-Briti Roy Barman

Islamabad, Apr 18: US has announced an aid of USD 8.4 million to Pakistan in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The announcement on Friday was made by the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Paul Jones.

US announces .4 million aid to Pak to fight coronavirus



Read @ANI story | https://t.co/dxIfODwU5C pic.twitter.com/OfXPTZAKEi  ANI Digital (@ani_digital) April 18, 2020

In a video message, Jones said, "With more than $8 million in new contributions, the United States is collaborating with the government of Pakistan to help stop the spread of coronavirus nationwide and to care for afflicted people."

Did coronavirus escape from a Wuhan lab? US looking into reports

Jones also said that all of these contributions are identified as top priority needs by the Pakistani authorities, and they are fully paid for by the American people.

According to Dawn, around USD 3 million from the total sum of aid will be used to provide three new mobile labs in Pakistan's coronavirus hotspots to increase it's testing and monitoring capacity.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

Meanwhile, Pakistan has reported 7,476 coronavirus cases so far following 143 deaths.
Knowing who has the disease is crucial before opening the US up to business as usual.

US President Donald Trump is resisting calls from state governors for the federal government to play a bigger role in ramping up coronavirus testing.

He says that is the states responsibility, and the federal government has been slow to deliver on promises of more test kits.

Al Jazeeras Kristen Saloomey reports from New York.
Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) Metropolitan Onufriy, Metropolitan Antoniy and Rector of the Kyiv Theological Academy at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Bishop Sylvestr became infected with the coronavirus and were secretly hospitalized, the Religious Truth online publication referring to the sources in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra said.

"According to our sources, Metropolitans Onufriy and Antoniy passed the test for coronavirus anonymously, and were hospitalized under a false name. They did this in order to protect the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine from accusations on the eve of Easter," the publication reports on Saturday morning.

"Most likely, Metropolitan Onufriy will not hold the Easter Liturgy, since for him the most important issue remains his own health, and not the reputation of the church," the source said.
The health ministry on Saturday said a positive trend was emerging in 47 districts from 23 states where not even a single case of coronavirus was reported in the last 14 days. The ministry added that 22 new districts from twelve states had joined this list which could bear witness to the success of Indias Covid-19 containment efforts. The government, however, added that the battle against the disease was a difficult one.

Our field-level action is yielding positive results. Along with Mahe in Puducherry, Kodagu in Karnataka too, has not registered any new case in last 28 days. Besides this, 45 other districts in 23 states have not registered any new case in last 14 days, said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary health ministry.

He added that three districtsPatna in Bihar, Panipat in Haryana and Nadia in Bengal-- which had earlier not shown any positive cases had registered new cases underlining the tough nature of the fight against the highly contagious disease.

Agarwal added that a total of 1,992 people have been cured of the disease so far, and the overall cure percentage stood at 13.8%. He said 991 new positive cases reported over the last 24 hours had taken the total number of infections to 14,378 including 48 new deaths, which raised the death toll to 480 in the country.

The overall Covid-19 mortality rate in India as on Saturday stood at 3.3%. The highest mortality rate of 33.1% was from 50 to 75 years age group, followed by 32% from 75+ age group, 14.4% from population up to 45 years of age and 10.3% from 45-60 years age group. 83% of fatalities also had comorbid conditions, he added.

Agarwal said that 4,291 of Indias 14,378 coronavirus cases were from a single source- Nizamuddin Markaz clusterwhich roughly translates into about 30% of all positive cases.

The updates were provided in the routine press conference held by the government of India.

The HT Guide to Coronavirus COVID-19
Todd McFarlane talks about his first Spawn team book and the culmination of the 'Year of Spawn'

The comic book icon looks back at the 'Year of Spawn' and forward to his first-ever team book The Scorched
Studies in China claim that traditional Chinese medicines seem to be working effectively on patients with mild or moderate symptoms of coronavirus.

Sheela Bhatt reports.

IMAGE: Workers prepare traditional Chinese herbal medicines at Beijing's Capital Medical University Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital in this photograph from May 25, 2011. Photograph: David Gray/Reuters

Scientists, doctors and researchers from the world of communicable diseases are impatiently waiting for China to share what formulations Chinese doctors applied to patients in Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Chinese government recently released a study claiming that some patients in Wuhan who had symptoms of COVID-19 were administered traditional Chinese medicines which yielded successful results.

Although the sample size of this clinical study is not large, the results are encouraging, Chinese researchers claim.

China claims that traditional medicines like Jinhua Qinggan granules, Lianhua Qingwen capsules, Xuebijing injections, lung cleansing and detoxifying decoctions, Huashibaidu formula and Xuanfeibaidu granules were part of the drugs protocol administered to COVID-19 patients in Wuhan.

According to data published by the Xinhuanet news agency in March, 'A comparative experiment of 710 cases jointly conducted by over 30 hospitals showed that the injection (Xuebijing)combined with regular treatment can reduce the mortality rate of severe patients by 8.8 percent and shorten intensive care unit hospitalisation by 4 days.'

Chinese doctors claim that in another project they found that the Xuebijing injection, applied clinically to severe and critical patients from the end of January -- in all numbering 156 patients in 32 hospitals -- achieved improvement in their condition.

The studies suggest that traditional Chinese medicines seem to be working effectively on patients having mild or moderate symptoms and the adverse reaction rate to Xuebijing was about 0.3 percent.

The Xinhuanet report says, 'In early February, 102 mild patients in Wuhan took Jinhua Qinggan granules in their treatment. Only 11.8 percent worsened and it took only one- and-a-half days for patients to reduce fever.'

Jinhua granules, which consist of 12 types of herbal elements, were developed in 2009 in China to combat the H1N1 influenza pandemic. The granule uses honeysuckle, mint and licorice among other herbs.

It has curative effects and claims to detoxify the lungs. It can also reportedly improve the recovery rate of lymphocytes and white blood cells as well as reduce the rate of patients turning more severe.

Lianhua Qingwen is a common traditional Chinese medicine used for the treatment of cold and flu.

In view of the death figures mounting every hour, the concern for life, and the desperation to defeat the deadly virus among the Chinese medical fraternity, the country seems to be reverting to centuries-old knowledge.

According to the report, a lung cleansing and detoxifying decoction was prepared on the basis of several classic recipes in a traditional Chinese medicinal work known as Treatise on Cold Damage Diseases, which was written by Zhang Zhongjing around 220 AD.

The decoction has 21 herbal components that are effective in treating fever, cough and fatigue as well as lung conditions.

The decoction mainly targets the lungs and has been administered to patients with a severe case of COVID-19.

The Xinhuanet report also claims, 'Tong Xiaolin, chief researcher of the Chinese Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences and also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said 1,261 novel coronavirus patients in 10 provinces took the decoction, with 1,102 recovering, symptoms no longer appearing in 29, a further 71 showing improvement and no cases deteriorating.'

The national traditional Chinese medicine team from the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences has developed another traditional medicine, Huashibaidu formula, comprising 14 herbal components. The formula takes into account experiences from clinical practice at the Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital.

Chinese 'studies on guinea pigs found the formula can reduce lung viral load by 30 percent'.

Xuanfeibaidu granule claims to detoxify the lungs and helps moderate patients from deteriorating further.

Given China's experience, it should not be difficult for India to develop traditional medicines to combat COVID-19 that could supplement modern medicines.

The Indian Institute of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine in Bengaluru, part of the Foundation For Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions Trust founded by Sam Pitroda and Darshan Shankar, is one such institute which has the world's largest collection of herbal medicinal plants and is working on its harmonious use along with modern medicines.
Press Release

April 18, 2020 De Lima urges Congress to review disparities in salaries and benefits of public health workers Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima called upon Congress to activate its special oversight commission to amend the 28-year-old Republic Act 7305, as some benefits specified therein are not all given to public health workers (PHW). Last April 16, De Lima filed Senate Resolution (SR) No. 358, urging Congress to immediately convene the Congressional Commission on Health (HEALTHCOM) to institute reforms to RA 7305, otherwise known as the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers. "[T]wenty eight years since the enactment of Magna Carta, implementation of the law has been generally weak and our PHWs still remain undervalued but overutilized," she said. "[T]here is an urgent need for HEALTHCOM to convene and to revisit the law and the revised Implementing Rules and Regulations to determine what provisions need to be amended in order to plug the loopholes and to bridge the statutory gaps," she added. HEALTHCOM, according to the law, has to meet every five years to conduct a periodic health human resource development study to upgrade and correct working conditions, reclassification of positions and salaries of public health workers and fix inequalities of salaries and benefits compared to other professions. Citing studies from the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), De Lima said that the government has failed to fully provide for the payment of benefits described in the Magna Carta, including: subsistence allowance, laundry allowance, longevity pay, hazard pay, night shift differential, free living quarters or quarters allowance, remote assignment allowance for doctors, dentists, nurses and midwives, free compulsory medical examination, higher salary grade upon retirement, salary step increment for completion of a post graduate degree and compensation for injuries. The PIDS study observed, that in many cases, only the subsistence and laundry allowances are given to the PHWs citing that the law "failed to specify source of funds for payment of all benefits". On top of this oversight, De Lima said that some municipalities also fail to give overtime and night shift differential pays to their healthcare workers. "Sadly, the inconsistencies and discrepancies in the payment of benefits prescribed in R.A. 7305 has also sown discontent to PHWs rather than empowerment," De Lima, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Social Justice, Welfare and Rural Development, said. "[I]n the advent of the COVID-19 outbreak and in anticipation of future virus contagions, Congress must ensure that health workers, our frontliners, are given well-deserved benefits and incentives to ensure delivery of quality and effective health care services to the public," she added. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed glaring gaps in the healthcare industry in the Philippines as reports of understaffing, overutilization and lack of protection equipment for PHWs have made it harder for the country to curb the infection rate in the country. As of April 18, the Department of Health (DOH) has reported 5,878 confirmed COVID-19 infections with 387 deaths, with at least 21 of them are healthcare workers, including doctors in specialized fields. Calls for donations for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) including medical scrubs and surgical masks have continued to come in from different hospitals and healthcare facilities around the country. Also, some hospitals, including major ones, have ceased to accept suspected COVID-19 patients citing the lack of manpower to care for them. This prompted the DOH to call for much needed volunteers to alleviate the burden. De Lima was among the first to point out that the government can conscript medical and nursing graduates to assist the frontliners. However, she stressed that they should be assured adequate protection and compensation for their efforts. She also urged the DOH to fill the thousands of permanent, contractual and job order positions dedicated for PHWs in its own ranks as corresponding funds have been appropriated for such in the national budget.
Everything has converged here all at once, said Jean-Pierre Oriol, commissioner of the territorys department of planning and natural resources, who has worked there for two decades. Ive never seen the volume here in the territory that we have right now.

At the end of March, New Jersey residents Carol and David Hewit were on their Island Packet sailboat, about a quarter mile from the Dutch island of Sint Eustatius, when, Mrs. Hewit recalled, we were greeted as we entered their only harbor with bullhorns and boats.

They turned around and sailed through the night to the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Now moored on Francis Bay in St. John, the couple, who are in their 60s, say they do not want to return home; the New York area is now the pandemics epicenter. Like many sailors, they do not want to leave their boats by flying home  if they could even get a flight out; theirs, for later this month, has already been canceled.

Their son, based in midtown New York, has moved his family, including their infant grandson, into the couples home, and the Hewits fear contracting the virus on the plane and passing it along.

Many mariners like the Hewits plan to ride out the pandemic on islands, choosing what appears their safest option in an ever-changing set of unknowns.

But Marvin A. Blyden, a territory senate leader who has drafted several pieces of legislation regarding the mariners since their arrival, worries that playing safe haven for guests will prove dangerous for residents.

We dont have the resources to deal with the large influx, he said. Yes, were an American system. Yes, we should look to help those in need. But at the same time we must protect our borders and we must protect our people.
The owners of 16 New Jersey malls are sending up an SOS in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and economic downturn.

Simon Property Group, which owns 13 malls in the state, and Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, which owns three, are both calling for federal financial help to survive a state of emergency from Gov. Phil Murphy, who closed all malls and dine-in restaurants on March 9, and similar orders nationwide.

Simon is backing a call for business interruption coverage for retailers, restaurants and landlords, according to NBC News. The coverage could pay rent for tenants and hold off creditors for landlords for up to 12 months. Simons malls include Gloucester Premium Outlets, Quaker Bridge and Menlo Park.

PREIT has gone a step further. It wants up to $10 million in forgivable Small Business Administration loans to keep its real estate company employees on the payroll, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. PREIT, which has seen its stock price decline by more than 75 percent since the beginning of the year, trading below $1 on Thursday, said it may also seek tax relief from municipalities where its malls are located.

It owns the Cherry Hill, Moorestown and Cumberland malls. In an earnings call with investors earlier this year, PREIT announced a plan to sell the Moorestown Mall and lease it back. The plan was a surprise to township officials, which had already granted PREIT a tax reduction that led to a property-tax increase and was in the process of declaring the mall an area in need of redevelopment that could have triggered additional tax incentives to attract new tenants.

Requests for comment from PREIT and Simon were not immediately returned Thursday. A request for comment from Moorestown Mayor Nicole Gillespie was also not returned Thursday.

Steven Maksin says some malls are a cancer on communities. Thats what he called the former Burlington Center Mall shortly after he sold it for $22 million last year. It is now being redeveloped into a mix-use site with some retail businesses in front and massive warehouses, primarily for e-commerce, in the back.

Maksin thinks this solution may be coming to a mall near you.

We have to accept the future, said Maksin CEO of Moonbeam Capital which still owns 10 million square feet of retail property nationwide. Its not about malls anymore. Its about replacement uses of the mall properties. Those that are flexible will be happier to approve redevelopment into something better, more useful, like mixed-use.

S&P Global Market Intelligence said that 42% of department stores nationwide are expected to default on loans over the next year, including PREIT tenants in Cherry Hill and other locations, the Inquirer reported.

Im not optimistic about the ones that were struggling beforehand, said Carol Kaufman-Scarborough, a professor of marketing at the Rutgers University School of Business, Camden. Going back to the old normal, especially with the downturn in retail, is not necessarily the best approach."

New Jerseys death toll from the coronavirus pandemic climbed steadily on Thursday, with state officials now reporting at least 3,518 dead and 75,317 total cases, with 362 new fatalities and 4,391 new positive in the last 24 hours the states largest single-day increase in cases.

This marked the third consecutive day that more than 300 new deaths were reported, though state officials have cautioned that there are some delays in confirming coronavirus in patients after they died.

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.

Bill Duhart may be reached at bduhart@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @bduhart. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.
HARARE, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Jiang Zhichao, head of the 17th Chinese medical team to Zimbabwe, had imagined many possibilities of public heath issues when he arrived in the country last year. But he has never expected to confront anything like the novel coronavirus disease, which has led to more than 146,000 deaths worldwide.

In Zimbabwe, the number of COVID-19 cases has risen to 24 after a new case was recorded in Harare on Thursday, the country's Ministry of Health and Child Care said Friday morning. The tally included two recoveries and three deaths.

A Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioner in a hospital in central China's Hunan Province, Jiang has been keen to promote and practice TCM overseas. Last year, he signed up for the medical team dispatched to Africa.

Zimbabweans, thousands of miles away, seemed unaffected by the COVID-19 outbreak in China in February and early March, when few people on the street wore masks, including doctors and nurses. It was not until March 20, when the authorities announced the first confirmed case of COVID-19, that the citizens began to realize the virus was hitting every corner of the world, including their country, Jiang said.

"The outbreak came as a big surprise to us, since we are planning to give full play to our know-how in the African country," said Jiang, who arrived in Zimbabwe along with nine other members in June.

The Zimbabwean government has taken a series of measures to contain the disease, including declaring a lockdown for 21 days on March 30. With the cases rising, the Zimbabwean government has also stepped up screening and diagnostic testing in all provinces.

As health professionals, the Chinese medical team members have prepared for rainy days in advance, Jiang said. In late January, the team leader started to record the temperature of the team members every day. Apart from going to and from the hospital where they work, the team members are required not to go out or participate in non-essential gatherings.

In order to help with a possible outbreak in Zimbabwe, Jiang said, the team received remote training on tackling COVID-19 provided by national and provincial health authorities in China, which has consolidated their knowledge and enhanced their prevention and control capability.

In addition to striving to implement their initial plans of medical service, Jiang led the team to focus on fighting COVID-19.

At the invitation of Zimbabwe's Ministry of Health and Child Care, Jiang Yuandong, a member of the Chinese medical team in Zimbabwe, has trained more than 140 health workers and introduced China's experience in containing the outbreak since last month. He also gave a lecture to Zimbabwe's health officials and medical personnel to improve their understanding of the disease.

Isaac Phiri, deputy director for epidemiology and disease control at the Ministry of Health and Child Care, took part in a video conference on the exchange of anti-epidemic experience between Chinese experts and their African counterparts, which was organized by China in March.

Phiri spoke highly of the training and experience sharing carried out by the Chinese medical team and the Chinese authorities, saying the events showed the country what to do and how to do in tackling COVID-19.

Zimbabwe Nurses Association President Enock Dongo hailed China for providing medical assistance to Zimbabwe in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Dongo told Xinhua recently that the assistance, including the revamping of the country's main isolation and treatment center, and medical equipment and supplies, had improved the medical personnel's capacity to respond to the pandemic as well as their working environment.

Chinese enterprises, working under the guidance and coordination of the Chinese Embassy in Zimbabwe, mobilized funds and upgraded Wilkins Hospital in Harare which has been designated as the country's main isolation and treatment facility for COVID-19 patients under the management of Harare City Council.

The council's health director Prosper Chonzi told Xinhua that the ergonomics of Wilkins Hospital had vastly improved following the renovation by the Chinese. The renovation work entailed repainting and habilitation of ablution facilities and the plumbing system.

The medical team was responsible for providing the list of equipment for the ICU upgrading, the amount and list of donated medicines and the list of personal protective equipment. "We are fully aware of the urgency of the assignment," the team leader said, adding they raced against time and within one day, they worked out the lists with the help from the authorities in China.

The hospital's upgrading was finished at the end of March thanks to the Chinese efforts. Apart from supplies from the Chinese government and foundations, the Chinese business community has halso donated medical equipment to the country.

"At the next stage, all the members of the medical team are ready to go to the clinic to fight the epidemic," the team leader said.

"After the emergency medical equipment and medicines arrive in Harare, we will train the medical staff of Zimbabwe and instruct them to make better use of the medical equipment and Chinese and western medicines donated by China."

According to China's National Health Commission, there are almost 1,000 Chinese medical personnel working in Africa on a long-term and the agency has directed them to help local health organizations stem the spread of the coronavirus.

China will continue to send medical teams to relevant African countries, continue to provide them with their needed anti-epidemic materials as much as possible, and support African countries and people in their fight against the epidemic, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Friday.

Two teams of medical experts sent by the Chinese government arrived in Ethiopia and Burkina Faso on Thursday.
A case was filed against some



officials of the health department of the Manipur government after substandard N95 masks were seized by police in a raid at the Central Medical Directorate in Lamphel, officials said on Saturday.

The raid was conducted by a special team of the Vigilance and Anti-corruption Police Station on Friday after allegations were levelled that substandard masks were supplied to the district hospital in Churachandpur, they said.

The team seized 1,250 N95 masks and samples of other medical protective gear, police officials said.

On April 14, 200 defective N95 masks were found to have been supplied to the district hospital, they said.

"The defective masks, supposed to be used in the isolation ward, were, however, returned on the same day and replaced with new ones" a senior official said.

Besides the Directorate of Health officials, proprietors of five firms and some unknown persons have also been booked, police said.

Further investigations are underway, they added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
We could be in a situation in a few months where we have an outbreak on our hands and were all desperately scrambling to get in more protective equipment, said Misty Buswell, policy and advocacy director for the International Rescue Committee in the Middle East. Were trying to prepare and preposition now as best we can to avoid that, but there are concerns about being able to access global supplies and the challenges of getting them into northwest Syria given covid-related restrictions.
In an undated image provided by Espen Finstad/Secretsoftheice.com, a distaff as it was found in a mountain pass, close to the melting ice, in Norway. Melting ice has receded from a mountain pass, unearthing pelts, shoes and stone structures from thousands of years ago. (Espen Finstad/Secretsoftheice.com via The New York Times) -- NO SALES; FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY WITH NYT STORY NORWAY VIKING ARTIFACTS BY LIBELL AND HAUSER FOR APRIL 16, 2020. ALL OTHER USE PROHIBITED. --

Henrik Pryser Libell and Christine Hauser

OSLO  Ice patches that melted from the slopes of a remote mountain pass in Norway have revealed artifacts that provide new insight into the livelihood of hunters, traders and travelers along a route thousands of years old, archaeologists said this month.

The relics of this distant past include tunics and mittens woven with wool, leather shoes, arrows still adorned with feathers, and snowshoes made for horses. Giant stone cairns mark old pathways once used by traders to find their way through fog and heavy snow. Antlers, bone and animal dung have also been found, the archaeologists behind the project said.

The discoveries, outlined in the scientific journal Antiquity, were made on the central mountain range in Norways Innlandet County by the Glacier Archaeology Program, one of many programs worldwide studying what glaciers and ice patches are laying bare as they shift and melt because of climate change.

Archaeologists said that the discoveries have contributed to evidence that a mountain pass at Lendbreen, on the Lomseggen ridge in north-central Norway, was part of a larger network connecting it to the wider Viking world, making it the first such ice site discovered in Northern Europe.

Previously, they said, the archaeology of glaciated mountain passes had been derived from research in the Alps.

The findings are rich, said Lars Holger Pilo, a Norwegian archaeologist working on the project. It is obvious that the mountains have been more actively in use than previously believed. Although covered in ice, they have used them to pass, from farms in the area or from one side of the mountains to the other.

The program started work on the ice patch at Lendbreen in 2006, but attention increased after a wool tunic, which later was dated to the Bronze Age, was found in 2011. That led to subsequent surveys and discoveries of artifacts such as pieces of sleds, remains of horses and kitchen utensils, suggesting the route was used for trade, hunting and farming.

The findings show the pass was used from about A.D. 300 to 1500, with a peak of activity during the Viking Age in the year 1000 that reflected its importance during a period of long-range trade and commerce in Scandinavia.

The items tell a story of how the route was used and reflect local priorities, such as how farming migrated from the bottom of the valley to higher elevations in summer to take advantage of long daylight hours. It was well-traveled, and it connected to other parts of the country and ultimately to ports for export.

The thing that was really revealing is when you look at the chronology of the artifacts, said Dr. James Barrett, a medieval and environmental archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, who has been working with Norwegian archaeologists on the project since 2012.

You can literally walk in the footsteps of the past, he said. It really is showing that in what would seem to be the most remote possible place, the highest elevation is caught up in broader world trends.

The research in Norway has contributed to the body of archaeological study centered on items found under ice, either in glaciers that rumble roughshod across terrain or in ice patches that are more stationary and commonly yield pieces that are intact.

These discoveries have illuminated scientists understanding of transhumance, which describes how, where and why people moved from one place to another for trade, food, marriage or customs  sometimes over icy mountain passes rather than through the easier terrain, but longer distances, of valleys.

In 1991, hikers accidentally discovered the remains of a man, later nicknamed Otzi the Tyrolean Iceman, preserved in 5,300 years worth of ice and snow in the Italian Alps. This marked the start of a promising period of archaeology that has gained pace as climate warming has revealed more artifacts, said Dr. Stephanie Rogers, a research assistant professor at Auburn Universitys department of geosciences.

Examination of bacteria from the Iceman has contributed to the understanding of human migration and the movement of pathogens, including the one that causes stomach ulcers, to other parts of the world.

Rogers, who has done research on glacier archaeology in the Alps, said the discovery of the Iceman really flipped a switch.

What was that person doing up there? she asked, adding that researchers realized that if we found something in this place, we are going to find something in other places.

The field of transhumance has gained momentum in the past 10 to 20 years as artifacts have been laid bare because of the warming climate melting ice patches and moving glaciers, Rogers said.

Perhaps this site in Norway had the perfect characteristics for transhumance across the border, she said. But maybe it was just the perfect setting, passed down for hundreds or thousands of years. It seems like this one in particular is a treasure trove in terms of artifacts.

Pilo said the Norwegian team did not find human remains, possibly because relatives of anyone missing likely would have come to rescue their family members. The tunic might have been flung off by a person in the irrational throes of hypothermia, he said.

Although ice patches move less than glaciers do, some of the finds on the Lendbreen patch were displaced vertically, and others were shifted by meltwater and strong winds.

The ruins of an undated stone-built shelter were situated near the top of the ice patch, making Lendbreen the only one of five mountain passes on the Lomseggen ridge to have such a shelter and a large number of cairns. Transportation-related artifacts, such as remains of sleds, walking sticks and pieces of a Bronze Age ski, were also laid bare.

The movement, or lack of movement, of some objects can also be telling. Iron horseshoes and nails are less likely to have been displaced than the lighter organic objects and should therefore provide a reliable indication of the route, the researchers wrote.

Although some of the artifacts were found in pieces, they do not obliterate what remains a clear trail of features and finds that delineate a short crossing place over the mountain ridge, according to the findings.

It was clearly a route of special significance, the researchers said.

c.2020 The New York Times Company
(CNN)  California Gov. Gavin Newsom responded Thursday to Tesla CEO Elon Musk's claim that the company had delivered more than 1,000 ventilators to the state's hospitals treating a surge of coronavirus patients.

In a series of tweets early Thursday, Musk asked Newsom to "please fix this misunderstanding" after the governor's office told CNN the state's hospitals had not received ventilators promised last month by the Tesla CEO. Included in the tweets from Musk was a partial list of hospitals that he said had been sent ventilators. In another tweet, he said the donations were "based on direct requests from their ICU wards, with exact specifications of each unit provided before shipment."

"I was not personally aware of that list," Newsom said at a press conference. "I'm very encouraged that he put out that list and those specific hospitals that's where he had been sending those resources and I look forward to learning more about where they went and am grateful for his support."

Ventilators? Or something else?

CNN contacted 10 California hospitals identified by Musk in the partial list of recipients he posted on Thursday. Of the four hospitals that responded, all said they had received bilevel positive airway pressure (biPAP) or continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines  devices that can aid breathing and be used for sleep apnea. None had received ventilators.

"We received six CPAPs and we are very grateful for the gift," said a spokesperson for Sonoma Valley Hospital.

Mammoth Hospital also said it received 10 bilevel machines from Tesla. "They're not full ventilators but there are lots of people that need breathing assistance," a spokesperson said, calling the donation "very gracious."

Los Angeles County officials said they received from Tesla 100 bilevel units manufactured by the company ResMed in late March.

"They have been distributed to hospitals in our system and are being used as intended," said Kathleen Piche, Director of Public Information for L.A. County Department of Health Services. "These units are used for breathing and airway support, reducing the need for certain patients to be placed on mechanical ventilation."

Musk's donation of medical devices to California hospitals mirrors his gift to New York hospitals. In that case, too, he sent biPAPs instead of ventilators, as first reported in the Financial Times.

CPAP machines typically start around $500, while biPAP machines can be had for about $1,200. Ventilators, however, range in price from $20,000-$50,000.

A "heroic" effort

On March 23, Newsom announced Musk had acquired 1,000 ventilators and would be distributing them to help California hospitals treating patients infected with the coronavirus, an effort the governor hailed as "heroic."

But on Wednesday, Brian Ferguson, the Deputy Director for Crisis Communication at Newsom's Office of Emergency Services told CNN that the governor's office had been speaking to hospitals in the state every day and to date had "not heard of any hospital system that has received a ventilator directly from Tesla or Musk."

In response to the confusion Thursday, an official in Newsom's Office of Emergency Services told CNN, "We wouldn't necessarily have visibility on every hospital, and based on the information we did have yesterday that statement remains consistent."

Tesla did not respond to repeated requests for comment from CNN.

The difference between a ventilator, a CPAP and a biPAP

In March, the US Food and Drug Administration sent a letter with guidance to health care providers treating coronavirus that said CPAP and biPAP machines "may be used to support patients with respiratory insufficiency provided appropriate monitoring (as available) and patient condition."

On its website, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, said in a statement that health care workers should be cautious when using bilevel or CPAP machines for coronavirus patient treatment because the devices could increase transmission of the virus.

"In patients with acute respiratory failure, it may be prudent to proceed directly to endotracheal intubation, because non-invasive ventilation (e.g. CPAP or biPAP) may increase the risk of infectious transmission," it says.

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Carlos Nunez the chief medical officer for ResMed, a manufacturer of ventilators, CPAP and biPAP machines, said CPAP devices are "the gold standard" for treating patients with sleep apnea.

"If someone drops off a CPAP as a gift [to a hospital], that's a nice gesture but those should be used for people with sleep apnea," Nunez said. "Hospitals will scratch their heads and not know what to do with them."

Bilevel devices, he said, are "capable of delivering ventilation" and can be used to support patients who need help with breathing and potentially "buy some time" for hospitals until a patient might need more critical care from a ventilator.

"There are some hospitals, like in hot spots, where in the worst case scenario if they run out of invasive vents they could use them," Nunez said of the bilevel machines. "I don't know if it's actually been used yet, maybe in isolated cases."

This story was first published on CNN.com "Elon Musk says he sent ventilators to California hospitals, they say they got something else instead."
Judge Dismisses Twitters Bid to Reveal US Government Surveillance Requests

A federal judge has blocked Twitter from revealing surveillance requests it received from the federal government, accepting the governments argument that the disclosures would likely lead to harm to national security.

Twitter had sued the Justice Department in 2014 in order to be allowed to publish in its Draft Transparency Report the surveillance requests it received. The platform argued that the prohibition violated its First Amendment free speech rights.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the District Court for Northern California on April 17 accepted the governments argument, writing that granting the social media platforms request would be likely to lead to grave or imminent harm to the national security.

The Governments motion for summary judgment is GRANTED and Twitters motion for summary judgment is DENIED, Rogers wrote in her 11-page order (pdf).

The court ruling said the governments use of confidential declarations sufficiently explained the gravity of the risks inherent in disclosure of the information that the Government has prohibited Twitter from stating.

A Twitter spokesperson said that they believe its vital that the public sees the demands the company receives in order to help the general public understand the extent of government surveillance.

Transparency is a key guiding principle in Twitters mission to serve the public conversation. Freedom of expression is the cornerstone of why we exist, and we strive at all times to help those who use our service and the general public understand how governments, including in the United States, interact with our company, the spokesperson said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

We believe it is vital that the public see the demands we receive, and how we work to strike a balance between respecting local law, supporting peoples ability to Tweet, and protecting people from harm.

While we are disappointed with the Courts decision, we will continue to fight for transparency. We encourage those who use our service and the public to review our biannual Transparency Report to learn more about our efforts.

The ruling on April 17 ends a six-year legal battle between the social media giant and the government. The lawsuit spanned the tenures of four U.S. attorneys generalEric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Syrita and Aaron Powers pose for a portrait with their daughters, Logan, left, Georgia, center, and Madison outside their home in West Philadelphia on Friday. The couple is unsure how they will be able to educate their children, who have different disabilities, and meet their varying needs while schools remain closed. Read more

Syrita Powers has advocated for her three daughters to get the resources they need in school. Her 11-year-old is autistic and works with reading and math specialists, while her 9- and 7-year-old sisters are nonverbal and have aides who even help them in the bathroom.

My husband and I had a plan, said Powers, of West Philadelphia. They told the schools: If you all just meet us halfway, we can see what theyre capable of.

They dont know how they will manage at home.

With schools closed for the foreseeable future due to the coronavirus outbreak, families across the region have been challenged to oversee their childrens education. But for parents of students with special needs, the task is more daunting. Many are unsure how to assume roles normally filled by teams of professionals while also managing disruptions to their childrens lives.

My worries are that  my children will regress, that it will take triple the support to get them back to their current level, Powers said. Im just concerned theyll lose everything we worked so hard to maintain."

About 300,000, or 17%, of Pennsylvania public school students have special needs. In New Jersey, the percentage is slightly higher.

How schools are providing them services during the closures varies, advocates say, ranging from direct instruction and therapies over Zoom video calls, to limited to no communication with families.

 READ MORE: I would call this emergency remote learning: How schools are adjusting during the coronavirus shutdown

Powers had yet to receive guidance last week from the Philadelphia School District  which launches its online learning program Monday  on instructing her daughters. Another Philadelphia parent, Anna Perng, said her 7-year-old autistic sons teacher had been e-mailing the boy, when I didnt even know he had an email account.

Perng, of Chinatown, said her son is nonverbal. When she asked about meeting his speech language needs, his teacher recommended the purchase of a $90 workbook.

Theres a pretty big gap" as to what districts are offering, said Mike Connolly, a lawyer with McAndrews Law Offices in Berwyn who represents parents of children with disabilities. Theres a concern that for most students, under this circumstance, theyre not going to get everything they would be entitled to in a classroom.

Federal law requires that school districts provide students with disabilities a free and appropriate public education," prohibiting their exclusion from educational programs.

 READ MORE: For people with special needs and their families, coronavirus restrictions add challenges

In Pennsylvania, some schools initially said they wouldnt instruct any students during the closures, after the state advised that districts couldnt offer remote instruction unless all students had equal access. Federal education officials rejected that approach, telling schools that concerns about compliance with special education law should not prevent them from providing remote instruction.

Advocates are concerned that protections for students receiving special education will be weakened based on the federal CARES Act, which could enable waivers of certain requirements.

School districts are trying to avoid litigation, and thats understandable, but were concerned if we start waiving protections for students, then the services they receive will diminish even further than whats happening now, said Phillip Lovell, a vice president at the Alliance for Excellent Education, a national policy and advocacy group focused on improving high schools.

 FAQ: Your coronavirus questions, answered

As some districts have faced challenges in transitioning to remote instruction, we have a deep concern that the children who are most educationally at risk, including students with disabilities, are falling further behind their peers, said Maura McInerney, legal director of the Education Law Center in Philadelphia.

Even in districts providing more extensive remote services to students with disabilities, we are seeing almost across the board a reduction in the frequency and intensity" of the programs, Connolly said.

Many students have special education plans that entitle them to receive therapies. In some cases, therapists are connecting with children over video; in others, parents have received worksheets with instructions to follow.

 READ MORE: For special-needs kids, post-graduation plans need to hatch in middle school

Patty Gibbs-Bilucks 17-year-old daughter, Rebecca, has autism and a panic disorder and is entitled to speech services five times a week. Initially, Delran High School sent home a packet for her to work on in lieu of services, which Gibbs-Biluck said was inadequate. Now, services are being provided remotely, via computer.

Why do we have to fight so hard to get what our children need? said Gibbs-Biluck, whose family has settled a lawsuit with Delran over Rebeccas services. Its not OK to just give her the bare minimum. We should be saying, How could we think outside the box to give her services?'"

The pandemic will likely erase months of progress, Gibbs-Biluck said. Quarantine has been hard for Rebecca, who pulls her hair out when shes anxious. Gibbs-Biluck and her husband are keeping Rebecca busy with literacy activities, word searches, reading online, arts and crafts, taking virtual tours of museums, and baking with her mom.

But there are things that we just cant provide," she said.

School leaders say they are working to get services to students. Sister Maureen Lawrence McDermott, superintendent for secondary schools for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, said teachers are working to provide services with technology and one-on-one supports.

Often, that means being available outside regular school hours to loop families into the learning. Were really looking at this time not as a cancellation, but as an adaptation, Sister Maureen said. Its so important to our families and to our students.

Still, parents said the switch to video lessons and therapies has been challenging.

Firdosh Shaikh can secure her son, who is 3 and has Down syndrome, in a high chair for virtual speech therapy. But that doesnt work for other sessions; during a recent attempt at physical therapy, "half of it was me chasing him all over the house and bringing him back to the screen.

Seeing therapists on a screen doesnt engage him as much, said Shaikh, of Wayne. Her son is in the states Early Intervention Program for young children with developmental delays, and before the closures had been spending three days a week in classrooms through the Chester County Intermediate Unit and two days a week in preschool.

Perng tried to do an activity with her son on a Chromebook that showed pictures  insects, numbers, stars  asking what belonged, what came next in the series. He had never used the computer before and became upset.

Normally a teacher would notice her sons frustration and direct him to use his communication device, Perng said. But with a website, they just keep prompting you to go to the next activity.

 READ MORE: Homeschooling a child with ADHD? Heres some expert advice

Remote instruction also doesnt allow for the socialization parents say is critical for their childrens development. While some of Nate Hoenigs classmates in the North Penn School District sent him a super nice video message, Michele Hoenig said her son, a seventh grader with Down syndrome, has lost out on peer modeling he thrives on for academic and social learning.

Its kind of heartbreaking, Hoenig said.

Syrita Powers, the West Philadelphia parent, picked up Chromebooks from the School District for two of her children last week, but isnt sure how to use them. She planned to ask Madison, her 11-year-old, for help.

Powers doesnt know how Madison will sit in front of a computer to work without her specialists. And she doesnt know how she and her husband are supposed to teach the younger, nonverbal girls, Georgia and Logan.

The girls make noise, they rock. They do what children of different abilities do, Powers said.

Were going to do our best, but its not easy. It wont be, Powers said. "Its kind of like, you have to be everything or you feel like a failure.  The weight of the world as far as your childrens skill or success or decline is in your hands.
Iran's Defense Minister on April 17 announced that a "massive number" of multirole, reconnaissance and combat UAVs, as well as Karrarr and Ababil-3 drones produced by the Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company (HESA), has been delivered to the Army's Air Force and Air Defense.

The announcement was made by Brigadier-General Amir Hatami at a ceremony on the occasion of the Army Day (April 17) who said these UAVs have been designed for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance use.

According to Brigadier-General Hatami the drones delivered to the Army's Air Force and Air Defense units include multirole UAVs, Karrar (also spelled as Karar "Strike") jet-powered target drones, and Ababil 3 (also known as Ababeel "Swallow") surveillance and reconnaissance drones.

The delivered drones will cover an important section of Air Defense and Air Force operations and can be used as target planes as well as for deception on the enemys air defense networks, he said.

Describing the multirole drones, Brigadier-General Hatami said the 470 kg drones, have a speed of 900 km/h and a range of 1000 km, and can be deployed for a duration of 180 minutes without interruption at an altitude of 40,000  45,000 feet.

Ababil-3 drones are mid-range combat drones with the capability of carrying various electro-optic and combat equipment, the Iranian Defense Minister said and added that the drones are mainly used for gathering and transmitting optical data and can also be deployed for combat operations with an operation range of 150 km.

According to Brigadier-General Hatami jet-powered Karrar drones have the capability of carrying and dropping loads and have been upgraded to add combat and self-destruction capabilities.

In August 2019 Iran unveiled three domestically-produced "precision-guided smart bombs" -- Yasin, Balaban and a new series of Qaem)  which the Defense Minister said could be installed on various kinds of drones.

In October 2019 Western powers and Saudi Arabia said Iran was behind the attack on Saudi oil installations with drones and cruise missiles.
(Bloomberg) --

Instagrams founders, who have been mostly out of the public eye since leaving Facebook Inc. in 2018, introduced a website that gives live state-by-state updates on the spread of Covid-19.

RT.live uses a statistic called an effective reproduction number, which tracks the average number of people who catch the virus from a single infected person.

If its above one, that means its growing very quickly, and if its below one, that means things are under control, Kevin Systrom, the co-founder and former chief executive officer of Instagram, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. Were trying to take what is a complex topic and boil it down to a simple number that anyone can view from their home.

According to the RT.live site, the data come from The Covid Tracking Project, a volunteer organization started to help collect and visualize testing and infection rates for Covid-19.

While the pandemic is global, Systrom said its more useful to look at the infection rate from a local angle. According to the ranking, Vermont is much safer than Georgia, for instance. He hopes RT.live helps citizens understand whether they are in danger as parts of the economy reopen. Thats why this dashboard is so important -- because it gives you live insight into the effects of the choices we all make, he added.

Systrom and Mike Krieger, the Instagram founders, left Facebook in late 2018 after clashing with CEO Mark Zuckerberg. While neither man has a background in health or epidemiology, the same statistical modeling that applies to fast company growth might also be useful for tracking virus growth, Systrom said.

He doesnt expect to turn the new site into a company, though. Well see where it goes, he said.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

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Nepal, which for decades has been a magnet for adventurers, thrill-seekers and mountain lovers, is now a preferred destination for some foreign tourists seeking protection from the deadly coronavirus that has been wreaking havoc across the globe.

Five foreign tourists, including an Indian doctor, have been staying together like a family at a guest house in the picturesque tourist hub of Pokhara in Western Nepal for more than three weeks as the Himalayan nation is going through a lockdown.

They were visiting the country when the lockdown was announced on March 24 and since then have been staying at Pushkar Guest House in Lakeside of Pokhara Municipality.

Talking to Nepali language online newsportal Setopati, Indian national Dr Akash Yadav says he is spending one of the "happiest moments" of his life in Pokhara during the lockdown.

Yadav, who recently joined Apollo Hospital after completing the MBBS and wanted to do Masters of Surgery at a medical college in Nepal, says he enjoys the company of other foreign travellers and feels safe in the country.

Originally from Gorakhpur, Yadav had moved to Hyderabad and arrived in Nepal just before the outbreak of the coronavirus for his admission either at Manipal Medical College in Pokhara or Institute of Medicine in Kathmandu.

Migyul is a French photographer and painter, who left his country two years ago, reached Pokhara just before lockdown after completing trekking near the Everest Basecamp.

He met Nata, a woman from Oman, in Kathmandu after returning from the trekking and the two made a plan to visit Pokhara together.

The lockdown was imposed just before they were about to embark on another trekking journey to the Annapurna Basecamp from Pokhara. Now, they are waiting for the lockdonwn to end to start their journey. The two are planning to visit India after life returns to normal.

Another tourist Kiran, from Scotland, UK, had arrived in Nepal on March 1 on a six-week visit and reached Pokhara last month for a trip.

He thinks Nepal is more safe than the UK during the coronavirus pandemic.

Dyamino, who is from Italy, does not want to go back even after the lockdown ends as he feels the country has been devastated by the pandemic.

The tourists are staying like a family and the guesthouse owner has waived their expanses for one week due to the lockdown imposed in response to contain the coronavirus, leaving many tourists stranded.

Nepal on Tuesday extended the nationwide lockdown until April 27 as part of measures to stem the spread of the coronavirus in the country.

The number of infected persons in Nepal jumped to 30 after 14 more people, including 12 Indians, tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday. The country has not recorded a single death so far.

According to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University, a total of 154,142 people have died and 2,242,868 people have been infected by the novel coronavirus that originated in China in November last year.

Over 35,000 people have died in the US and the country has 701,131 infections, the highest in the world. Italy and the UK are among the worst affected countries with 22,745 and 14,576 deaths reported respectively.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Last Monday, Rep. Theresa Manzella posted a note on Facebook looking for someone to come to her home to do her nails.

"Any !!!UN-LISCENSED!!! (sic) Nail Techs out there willing to make house calls while this 'emergency' is going on?"

That post created a dust-up that ended with an ethics complaint filed against the legislator by a beauty industry professional to the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices.

In a statement Friday, Manzella maintained her post was intended as a light-hearted plea for help after her nail lady canceled her appointment due to the closures following the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hamilton Republican also said she regretted making a subsequent post on the petitioner's Facebook page calling her "a raging, unbalanced liberal."

Janet Bierer, owner of Reds Hair Salon and Consignment Boutique in Hamilton, didnt see the original post as "light-hearted" but as offensive to people in her industry and also dangerous.

In her complaint mailed to the Commissioner of Political Practices on Friday, Bierer said Manzella attacked an entire cosmetology industry full of individuals who depend on their reputation and their license for their livelihood.

She chose to treat the industry like it was stupid and worthless, and that those who are in it are ridiculous for following the governors guidelines and those of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in order to keep themselves and others safe, Bierer wrote. And all because her precious nails are so much more important than her constituents and their lives/livelihoods.

In her response to Bierer's complaint, Manzella said she was surprised to learn that licensed cosmetologists were forbidden from offering their services in homes. After learning that home visits were illegal, Manzella said she edited her post to say unlicensed because she didnt want any licensed professional to compromise their business.

Manzella blamed the fear created by the current COVID-19 shutdown for the Facebook exchange.

Sadly, there are many people who are living in fear due to COVID-19; fear for their health, fear for their livelihoods, and fear of their government, and they seem more easily triggered because of it, Manzella wrote. I choose faith, judgment to mitigate the risks, and personal responsibility over fear.

Manzella said she would have been happy to have a civil discussion with Bierer about the governors directive, but said Bierer made multiple derogatory comments. Manzella said she blocked Bierer on her Facebook page and did make one stupid post on Bierers page that she now regrets.

That post read: Janet, honey ... you sound like a raging, unbalanced liberal. I didn't take you for one who would give up your rights and your livelyhood so easily ... without question ... because the Govornor cryed EMERGENCY and everyone said...'OH! OK! Let me close down my business and go broke whie you figure it out, oh Holy Monarch!' If the Governor tells you to get on the train for the concentration camps, will you be obidient without question? How 'bout mandatory vaccines? Are you good with those too? Do you think it's possible that I might....maybe...possibly...know things about the political landscape that you might not? Maybe? But ya know what...I can't fight harder to save your business and livelyhood than you're willing to fight for yourself....and it's quite obvious you're comfortable with socialism. So ENJOY it.

Bierers complaint said Manzella is telling people to ignore the governors order and go back to work.

Her complete lack of respect, insults, slander and threats are not acceptable behavior from a state representative, Bierer wrote. If a person disagrees, they get called a raging liberal (I couldnt be more conservative). People are dying. Here in Montana, people are losing their lives to this virus. The stay at home order reduces the amount of people who are going to perish from this virus.

By not following these stay at home measures, Ms. Manzella is contributing to the spread of coronavirus and the deaths of those who are elderly, immune-compromised or unlucky, she wrote.

Her selfish desire to get her nails done, by anyone, while all of our other clients are not able to get them done professionally, is an insult to our clients and our education, Bierer wrote. Insulting my industry, but asking licensed, or unlicensed individuals to provide services, is equivalent to saying all our training and education is worthless. Asking these people to break the stay at home order is an insult to our livelihood.

Bierers complaint and Rep. Manzellas response can be read in entirety at www.ravallirepublic.com
Amid that, the bureau has begun to lay plans for restarting parts of the count that have been stopped in their tracks. National field offices, shuttered in March, are slated to start reopening on June 1. Deliveries of forms and instructions to those five million households lacking addresses are now set to resume in mid-June, three months late. In-person visits by census takers to group quarters like nursing homes, once scheduled to begin at the start of this month, have been rescheduled to start July 1.

Some other aspects of the census  a count of roughly a half-million homeless people, pop-up centers that help people complete the census at places like grocery stores, the count of all 1.7 million households in Puerto Rico  remain on hold until the bureau can figure out how to conduct them safely.

Most important, the strategists are betting that the viruss grip will weaken enough by mid-August to safely deploy hundreds of thousands of temporary field workers to track down the millions who still have not sent in forms. Without the success of that exercise  known in census-speak by the acronym NRFU (ner-foo), for nonresponse follow-up  the census will be compromised.

Experts say that effort, which is set to run through October, is likely to be the diciest aspect of the entire reboot. The census is supposed to be a snapshot of the nation at the beginning of April; the door-knocking was originally supposed to begin in May. But by autumn, the national mosaic will have reshuffled.

The farther you get from April 1, the less accurate the data is, said Jeri Green, a veteran Census Bureau employee who now is the senior adviser on the census for the National Urban League. Imagine in October that a household gets a knock on the door and someone in a mask asks who lived there on April 1. In some communities people may be one stimulus check from getting off someones couch. Weddings are coming up. People are going to move out of their parents homes.

There are other concerns as well: The rescheduled follow-up would take place at the peak of summer heat in the Southwest and hurricane season in the South. A prolonged economic collapse could trigger huge migrations of job-seekers. And, of course, the pandemic may not abate enough to allow hordes of door-knockers to trek through neighborhoods, much less persuade residents to open their doors.

Mr. Cook, of the Census Bureau, said the agency was ready to change plans again if the need arises. Veterans of past censuses say doomsday scenarios are most likely just that. The pandemic could also fade. Local campaigns to drive up response could resume. And there are ways to discern who lives in households that do not respond  data from neighbors, government records and the makeup of nearby households  that would allow the bureau to at least make an educated guess.
With the ongoing COVID-19 crisis clearing calendars across the country, high school seniors in the class of 2020 will have a spring and summer like none in recent memory.

Senior proms, graduations, and the array of end-of-year events have been postponed or cancelled, with several local school districts taking different approaches.

Prom is unfortunately being cancelled. We are taking input from students and families about whether we should reschedule, if at all possible, said North Penn High School Principal Pete Nicholson.

Gov. Tom Wolf ordered on April 9 that all schools in Pennsylvania remain closed for the rest of the current school year, and Nicholson said the high schools planning for the future had begun well before then.

As of April 9, we were operating under the hope we would reopen this academic year, but also proactively planning for the situation we now face, he said.

The high schools graduation ceremony is still scheduled for June 11, Nicholson said this week, and high school staff are taking input from students and families about different options, including holding the commencement ceremony online and planning an in-person event later on.

We are receiving input and investigating how to hold altered forms of our senior events, including commencement, class night, reflections, et cetera, he said.

District staff and the school board have discussed for several years a plan to renovate and expand the high schools Crawford Stadium, and issued a notice to proceed in January that would have seen work begin soon after the class of 2020 graduation.

As of right now, work at Crawford Stadium will proceed as planned in June, Nicholson said.

Staff are planning an online community forum event to tell students and residents about the latest schedule changes, and anyone interested in feedback or suggestions can submit those to schoolclosure@npenn.org. The district is posting updates to an online page at https://resources.npenn.org, and Nicholson said any new developments will also go there.

Many, many decisions still need to be made, he said.

Souderton Area High School

Along with the schools being closed, all extracurricular activities have been canceled for the remainder of the school year, Souderton Area School District said on its website.

This includes all spring sports, musicals and performances, and senior prom. District schools have begun planning alternative ways to celebrate other traditional end-of-year activities, the district said in a Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Coronavirus School Closure section of the website.

A commencement ceremony is an important milestone for our graduating seniors. At this time Souderton Area High School is exploring options for honoring the achievements of our senior students, the FAQ page said. It is unknown what governmental guidance will be in place in June, and any commemoration will adhere to prevailing guidelines for ensuring the safety of all participants.

Pennridge School District

Pennridge School District has two primary goals in dealing with the school closure and the end-of-year activities, Pennridge High School Principal Stephen Cashman said.

One is to add closure to the 2020 school year, he said. The other is to insure that our students get the high school experiences that really make high school the special time that it is for students.

David Loboski, the house principal for 12th grade, is working with a group of students, parents and teachers gathering ideas for ways to do that, Cashman said.

Conference calls with members of the class of 2020 Executive Council and the class advisors were scheduled, to be followed by additional sessions including parents, students and teachers, he said.

Members of the senior class are also being surveyed, he said.

Pennridge graduation ceremonies are held at Lehigh Universitys Stabler Arena.

The school district recently was informed, though, that the Lehigh campus is now closed through the end of July, Cashman said.

While district classes are now online instead of in the school buildings, the schedule, including a June 11 graduation, remains the same.

We have to start really thinking about what are our options, Cashman said.

If anything, what can we do on June 11 or around June 11? he said. And then what kind of options do we have looking into maybe the summer or the fall when students are coming back from break or theyre home from college?

The house principals for each grade level at Pennridge High communicate each Wednesday with the families at the school including soliciting ideas for the end-of-year activities, Cashman said.

What are the pieces to both students and parents that we need to make sure we hold onto and we dont sacrifice, he said. And once we know that, how can we do it?

Wissahickon High School

Wissahickon High School has also been working to put together a virtual ceremony for the graduation night at 6 p.m. on June 4, according to Principal Lynne Blair. She added the event will feature a prerecorded video complete with speeches from adult and student speakers as well as a photo of each graduating member of the 2020 senior class.

Blair added that school officials are working to tentatively schedule an in person graduation ceremony for the students and their families sometime in July or early August. However, the situation could change depending on the state of the pandemic, she said.

Were trying to prioritize both celebrating all their accomplishments and everything that theyve achieved while also being mindful about their health and safety, she said.

Virtual events will replace several typical end-of-the-year activities for graduates including the Senior Awards and Scholarship nights.

Prom was no exception and was also canceled, according to Blair.

The facility isnt open so thats kind of a no brainer, Blair said. Were looking for a date in late July or early August to reschedule the prom, and then again well follow protocol at that time.

The previous venue was at a hotel in King of Prussia, and Blair anticipated it would be held on a new date at the venue or at the high school in Ambler.

Blair said she realize her students are missing out on typical senior year experiences due to the global pandemic.

My heart breaks for these kids, she said.

Hatboro-Horsham

The plan for nearby Hatboro-Horsham High School remains to be determined, according to Superintendent Curtis Green.

No final decision has been made about the suspension of commencement or when that ceremony will occur, Green said in a statement. The idea of holding a large gathering has, at present, been removed from our hands as a result of the states mandate regarding social distancing.

School officials are mulling over the idea of having a prerecorded virtual ceremony, which ideally, it will be the first phase of a two-phase celebration, Green said.

We admire and respect the Class of 2020 and will do everything we can do within the parameters of what is lawful and safe to celebrate each and every member of the graduating class, Green said. I give you my word on that.

Monday: Seniors reflect on making history.

Staff writers Bob Keeler and Rachel Ravina contributed to this report.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 15:48:35|Editor: huaxia

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People wearing face masks wait in line outside a grocery store in the Brooklyn borough of New York, the United States, on April 3, 2020. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

"The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies, said Washington Governor Jay Inslee, opposing Trump's call for lifting restrictions on several states.



WASHINGTON, April 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's call for lifting restrictions on several states has sparked controversy.

In a series of tweets on Friday, Trump urged "liberating" Virginia, Minnesota, and Michigan, three political swing states that now have Democratic governors, throwing his support behind protesters opposing restrictive measures there imposed to slow the spread of the COVID-19.

A group calling itself "Liberate Minnesota" staged a protest Friday afternoon outside the residence of the state's governor, Tim Walz.

Live-streamed video of the event showed many people were packed closely outside the residence, waving pro-Trump signs and flags. Few participants appeared to be wearing masks or other protective gear.

Similar protests, with some attendees armed, took place in Virginia, Michigan, and other states this week.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, tweeted as well on Friday, accusing Trump of "encouraging citizens to engage in armed rebellion."

Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a former Democratic presidential contender, tweeted on Friday that he thinks Trump's remarks "encourage illegal and dangerous acts."

"The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies - even while his own administration says the virus is real, it is deadly and we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted," Inslee added.

During a press briefing at the White House on Friday, Trump defended his tweets, saying that he feels some state orders are "too tough."

"I think we do have sobering guidance, but I think some things are too tough. It's too tough," Trump said.

The president also said he wasn't concerned about protesters spreading the coronavirus among those attending demonstrations calling for states to reopen.

U.S. President Donald Trump (Front) addresses a news conference at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on March 13, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

"No, these are people expressing their views. I see the way they are and I see the way they're working and they seem to be very responsible to me, but they've been treated a little bit rough," he said.

The remarks came a day after the White House issued guidelines that defer to states on reopening decisions, but recommended a three-phase approach, as the administration has been eager to put the nation's economy back on track, which has been hit strongly by business closures and job losses.

Vice President Mike Pence and other officials said Friday that they believe that there is enough testing in place for states to begin moving to the first phase of reopening, as health experts called for cautions.

Lawrence Gostin, director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, warned in a tweet on Friday that "relaxing too early could cause exponential spread."

According to a tally from Johns Hopkins University on Friday, the number of COVID-19 infections in the United States has topped 700,000, with nearly 37,000 deaths. The Trump administration declared this week that the country had "passed the peak" of infections.

In another tweet on Friday, Trump urged states to step up testing.

Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, the largest epicenter of the nation's coronavirus outbreak, on Friday chided the federal government's failure to provide enough support for testing.

"Large-scale testing is a massive undertaking," Cuomo tweeted. "We need the private sector to work with government to meet this enormous challenge. And we need the federal government to act."

The Democrat also said the pandemic in New York isn't over. The state has reported more than 230,000 confirmed cases and over 17,000 deaths. 




Good morning, Nigeria, welcome to Naija News roundup of top Newspaper Headlines in Nigeria for today Saturday, 18th April 2020.

Here Are The Major Nigerian Newspaper Headlines.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has confirmed Fifty-One new cases of the coronavirus in Nigeria on Friday. NCDC in a post on its official Twitter account around 10:10 pm on Friday noted that the total number of confirmed cases in the country now stands at 493, while 159 people have been discharged and 17 death recorded.

A section of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office in Abuja was on Friday morning gutted by fire. Naija News understands the fire started from the media centre of the office.

The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, has today, April 17, issued a fresh order of redeployment on Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Dandaura Mustapha. The development was disclosed in a statement on Friday (today) by the Nigerian Police Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba.

Former Anambra state governor and the vice-presidential candidate of the opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the 2019 elections, Peter Obi has asked for transparency from the President Muhammadu Buharis led administration over funds meant for Nigerians during this Coronavirus pandemic. Obi urged the Federal Government of Nigeria, agencies involved in the COVID-19 funds to be accountable in the use of the same.

The Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdulrasheed Akanbi is in for more trouble as his estranged queen, Chanel Chin, has accused him of rape.

The couple had a messy divorce in December 2019 and the king released a statement saying This is to inform the general public, most especially friends and associates of the Oluwo of Iwoland, His Imperial Majesty, Oba (Dr.) Abdulrosheed Adewale Akanbi, Telu I, that Ms Chanel Chin is an ex-queen of his majesty.

President Muhammadu Buhari-led government has revealed when lockdown would be relaxed, the Federal Government noted that this will happen if the success recorded in the fight to reduce the spread of Coronavirus. Recall that President Buhari on Monday in a national broadcast had extended the lockdown in Lagos, Ogun and Abuja by two-weeks.

The Lagos State Government has confirmed nineteen new Coronavirus cases in the state. The development was revealed by the Commissioner for Health in the state, Prof. Akin Abayomi, through his Twitter account on Friday.

The Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has noted that he does not receive orders from President Muhammadu Buhari regarding exempting oil companies from flying into his state. He stated that he is ready to protect the people of Rivers State rather than allow flights to enter Rivers state and endanger the lives of Rivers people by allowing oil companies and expatriates to enter the state.

Five new index cases of COVID-19 has been discovered in Kwara state. Naija News Understands that this was confirmed via the twitter handle of the Kwara State Governor, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq who advised all citizens to stay safe in their homes.

Nollywood actress, Toyin Abraham has distanced herself from a claim that she has been signed an ambassador for the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). It was rumoured yesterday that she was signed as a replacement for fellow actress Funke Akindele who was dropped following the illegal birthday party she had hosted during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Thats the Nigerian Newspaper headlines for today. Read more Nigerian news on Naija News. See you again tomorrow.

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Private hospitals taken over by the NHS at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds to fight the coronavirus pandemic are sinfully empty, medics have told The Mail on Sunday.

Senior clinicians at private hospitals claim hundreds of the countrys best doctors have been left twiddling their thumbs during the outbreak  putting peoples health at risk from other illnesses and postponed operations.

Last month, 8,000 beds in private hospitals across the country were taken under public control. NHS England said 20,000 fully qualified staff in the hospitals, including 700 doctors, were needed to battle Covid-19.

Private hospitals taken over by NHS at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds to fight the coronavirus pandemic are sinfully empty, claim medics

But on Saturday night, one London-based consultant orthopaedic surgeon said: What we are seeing at the moment is a sinful and shocking mass of empty private hospitals and empty beds.

Most of them are gathering dust, with a whole load of doctors twiddling their thumbs. And its costing the NHS millions.

The surgeon said only emergency and time-critical operations were being allowed at his hospital, adding: I have a waiting list of 25 people who need major operations right now. One with severe arthritis is crying out in pain every night, unable to sleep.

I was asked, Is there anything you can do? I had to say Nothing, and advised her to take painkillers.

A second medic said his hospital was fairly empty and under used while another said he was pretty bored. I am unsure if the hospitals are being used in the most efficient way, he admitted.

A fourth doctor said private hospitals in north London were largely empty despite repeated offers to help out with patients from overrun NHS wards.

Top ten highest UK daily death tolls so far 980 - April 10 938 - April 8 917 - April 11 888 - April 18 881 - April 9 861 - April 16 841 - April 17 786 - April 7 778 - April 14 761 - April 15 Advertisement

At least four private hospitals are currently treating coronavirus patients. But the numbers are likely to be very low as there have only been 15 Covid-19 deaths between them, according to official figures.

A month ago it appeared the NHS might need every ventilator and intensive care bed, with some scientists warning that tens of thousands would be dying every day.

It was the right thing to do at the time as we had to look at what was happening in Italy and Spain and react accordingly, said one medic.

Another doctor added: Preparing for an epidemic is a very difficult balance. If you get it right, its by pure luck.

However, he warned that more people could end up dying early of illnesses like cancer and heart disease: At what point does the cost of this medical lockdown to peoples health outweigh the benefits?

An NHS spokesman said private hospital beds had been requisitioned to offer a buffer capacity to the health service, adding: So it is a mark of success that that has largely not been the case.

The spokesman said that routine procedures in NHS and private hospitals will be resumed in coming weeks and months as anaesthetists and other key staff are released from looking after coronavirus patients as the number of new cases falls.
Joe Exotic, the former zoo operator and convicted felon whose life has become the subject of the hit Netflix show Tiger King, was reportedly granted an extension in his wrongful imprisonment federal lawsuit this week.

The controversial showman, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, requested an extension of at least 30 days in the suit, which seeks nearly $94m in damages from the assistant US attorney who prosecuted him and several witnesses, as well as the Fish and Wildlife Service and Department of Interior.

He was convicted last year of falsifying wildlife records, killing five tigers in his possession, selling off tiger cubs illegally and attempting to arrange the murder of an animal sanctuary founder in Florida named Carole Baskin.

While Maldonado-Passage often spoke about wanting to kill Ms Baskin, who was also featured in the Netflix show for publicly opposing his treatment of the animals at his zoo, he has maintained his innocence and claimed he was convicted based on perjured testimony.

A federal judge was set to dismiss the lawsuit, with a 28 April deadline for Maldonado-Passage to file an objection.

However, US District Judge Scott Palk extended the deadline an additional 30 days, according to E! News, after reportedly receiving a handwritten letter from Maldonado-Passage from the Federal Medical Centre in Fort Worth, Texas.

That letter claimed Maldonado-Passage lacked access to a computer, phone, email or library, as reports said he and others in the facilities were quarantined due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Sorry for the handwritten letter, he wrote. However I am being isolated at the Federal Medical Center [in] Fort Worth and have NO access to a computer, phone, email or libary [sic] to respond to the governments last request.

He added: I am asking for at least [a] 30-day extension to the deadline of April 28th, 2020 in hopes I am allowed access to use things in order to properly answer their request.

Maldonado-Passage has denied involvement in a murder-for-hire plot which he was found guilty of spearheading in April 2019. The former zoo operator was charged with paying a hitman $3,000 to murder Ms Baskin.








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Politicians and official agencies of government declare that "social distancing" will protect you from the coronavirus.



Then, why am I seeing more and more cases of people getting the "coronavirus" who have been in social isolation?



Weeks ago, I heard of a case of someone who had been completed isolated in the Ottawa Hospital is puzzled medical staff when they contracted the coronavirus.



Today, the New York Post reports that a North Carolina coronavirus patient said she was infected despite staying home for the three weeks leading up to her diagnosis.



This is the sickest Ive ever been and its the most scared Ive ever been, Rachel Brummert told WCNC. Im absolutely terrified.







Brummert, who suffers from an autoimmune disorder, told the outlet that she last left her Charlotte home for a trip to the pharmacy in mid-March.

Such cases merely reinforce Robert Kennedy Jr's recent article that COVID-19 is being spread by 5G through microwaves travelling over large areas and not as the result of a normal virus through close contacts.
Coronavirus deaths have surged past 150,000 worldwide with nearly a quarter of them in the United States, where President Donald Trump lent his support to protestors rallying against lockdown orders.

Evidence is mounting that social distancing successfully slowed the pandemic after more than half of humanity -- 4.5 billion people -- were confined to their homes.

Governments around the world are now grappling with when and how to ease lockdowns that have crippled the global economy, even as the COVID-19 death toll climbs further in hard-hit countries.

Demonstrators in three US states assembled in public this week to call for an end to the restrictions, with the largest protest in Michigan attracting 3,000 people -- some of whom were armed.

Trump has largely left decisions on easing lockdowns to state officials even as he outlined guidelines for a staged reopening of the national economy.

The US accounts for nearly a third of the 2.2 million coronavirus infections reported globally.

It has also recorded around 37,000 deaths, more than any other nation, followed by Italy, Spain and France which have all been ravaged by their own outbreaks.

However these figures likely reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections, because many countries are testing only the most serious cases. Virtually no corner of the world has been left untouched, with deaths in Africa passing 1,000 overnight.

Nigeria announced the death of President Muhammadu Buhari's top aide on Saturday, the highest-profile person to succumb to the virus in Africa's most populous nation.

China sharply raised its own death toll to 4,636 on Friday after adding another 1,290 fatalities for the city of Wuhan, where the respiratory disease first emerged late last year.

Trump, who has angrily shot back at claims he reacted too slowly to the virus threat, has accused Beijing of downplaying the impact of the virus within its borders.

Leaders in France and Britain have also questioned China's management of the crisis but Beijing hit back, saying it had not concealed information about the illness.

Signs that the outbreak could be easing in parts of Europe prompted Switzerland, Denmark and Finland to begin reopening shops schools this week. Germany's health minister said infection rates had "sunk significantly" after 3,400 deaths in his country, which is now beginning the delicate task of lifting some restrictions without triggering a secondary outbreak.

Some small shops will be allowed to reopen Monday, and some children would return to school within weeks.

Parts of Italy also began emerging from lockdown, with Venice residents strolling around quiet canals.

But Japan, Britain and Mexico all expanded their current movement



Signs of the economic damage of the pandemic are mounting, with China reporting its first contraction in GDP in several decades.

African state leaders and global financial bodies warned on Friday that the continent needed tens of billions of dollars in additional funds to fight the outbreak.

The IMF also warned the virus could spark another "lost decade" in Latin America and backed debt moratoriums to free up spending for the region's fragile economies.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
He noted that it is possible, but there is no need to take risks like that

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky compared living without money from the International Monetary Fund with living a week without water. He stated this during the political show Freedom of Speech by Savik Schuster.

Can a person live without water for a week? What for? The situation is the same with the IMF. Why should we take such a risk? Why should we bring the situation to default? Why do we need all these tests? There are so many of them ... But why, if we really have this support? It is important for us," the president said.

As we reported before, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that during the coronavirus pandemic in Ukraine, you dont need to talk about comfort, but you need to think about how to survive.

In Ukraine 501 people were infected with coronavirus per day - this is a new anti-record of morbidity rate of Covid-19. A total of 4,662 infected people in the country. 125 of them died, 246 recovered.
Zondervan publishing Quran with Christian commentary as ministry resource

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The evangelical publishing company Zondervan is releasing a guide carrying precise modern English translation of the Quran, with a Christian commentary alongside, to equip Christian ministers to interact with Muslims.

The Quran with Christian Commentary: A Guide to Understanding the Scripture of Islam by Gordon Nickel offers a unique introduction to the primary religious text of Islam, says Zondervan, a division of New York publishing giant HarperCollins, in a statement.

No one can understand the Muslim mind without some solid knowledge of the contents of the Quran, says Nickel, director of the Centre for Islamic Studies at South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies in Bangalore, India.

I knew from many years of studying and teaching the Quran that there are ways to read this scripture that allow readers to avoid confusion and rather to make sense of its main themes. I also noticed from my reading that the Quran often addresses non-Muslims directly and seems to demand a response to its claims, he adds.

The publisher says the commentary is factual, respectful of Muslims, and insightful on issues about which Muslims and Christians disagree. Its meant to equip Christians to interact more fruitfully with Muslim believers.

The commentary will be useful for those studying Islam and the Quran as well as for pastors and missionaries who minister among Muslims.

Alongside a precise modern English translation of the Quran, it carries in-text notes to explain the meaning of various surahs (chapters) and ayat (verses), their interpretive history and significance in Muslim thought, and similarities and differences when compared to biblical passages.

Written at a readable level, any Christian who wants to learn more about Islam and the Quran will find it to be a rich and informative introduction, the publisher says.

Most of all I wanted to comment on all passages related to Jesus and the Gospel, says Nickel, a former instructor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and the University of British Columbia. The apostle Paul wrote certain penetrating words about a different gospel. Christians are the custodians of the good news of salvation through the death of Jesus on the cross, the People of the Gospel as the Quran describes them. As such they have a stake in the portrait of Jesus offered by a scripture written 600 years after the New Testament.

The translation of the Quran is done by A.J. Droge, the author of Homer or Moses? Early Christian Interpretations of the History of Culture.

The pre-order of the commentary, which includes articles on important topics, has begun on Amazon for its April 28 release.
AIB has decided not to appeal a decision of the ombudsman to the courts and will pay out to thousands of homeowners caught up in the tracker scandal

THOUSANDS of mortgage customers are in line for pay-outs from their bank in the latest twist in the tracker scandal.

AIB has decided not to appeal a decision of the ombudsman to the courts and is to pay out to thousands of euro to homeowners caught up in the tracker scandal.

The bank had been resisting paying compensation in almost 6,000 tracker cases, until it lost a case with the financial services ombudsman in February.

Thursday this week was the last day it could have appealed ombudsman Ger Deerings decision to the courts.

Consumer advocate Brendan Burgess, who represented the women who took the ombudsman case, had feared the bank would appeal the decision to courts, delaying pay-outs for the thousands of people impacted.

But now the bank says it will pay the 5,900 customers affected refunds and compensation and write down their mortgages by 12pc, with the money paid in July and August.

The customers are in line for pay-outs that will be at least 10,000, with many much higher.

The bank has set aside 300m for the refunds and compensation, but some of that is made up of operational costs.

The customers impacted had been denied a return to a tracker rate, redress for overpaying interest and compensation.

The bank claimed they did not have the option of moving to a tracker rate when they came off a fixed mortgage rate.

Despite this, AIB had offered this group 1,615 for a service failure in late 2017.

It said that if they had been given a tracker on the prevailing rate back in 2008 it would have been 7.9pc. This is so high it is not regarded as a tracker rate.

This is much higher than the prevailing variable rate at the time, and it is believed Mr Deering found that the rate was far too high.

AIB had withdrawn its tracker mortgage products, which tracked the ECBs base rate, in October 2008 just before the customers emerged from their fixed-rate contracts.

Mr Burgess said he was appalled that AIB had stonewalled on the issue for so long.

The way they have handled this has been absolute disgrace. They have dragged it out for too long, using nonsense arguments. This should have happened 10 years ago.

Mr Burgess said it was going to take the bank too long to pay refunds, and said interim payments should be made.

The bank said it will compensate the customers by refunding them overcharged interest, paying compensation and writing down the value of their mortgages by 12pc from the time they came off the fixed rates.

And the bank will repay any interest paid on the difference in capital from that date to now. That means given the balance has been reduced, monthly payments will reduce.

However, it is not restoring them to tracker rates as the Ombudsmans decision in the case it lost did not tell the bank to do that.

Customers will be able to choose a fixed or the banks variable rate.

AIB is making payments to a previously identified group of customers who had an option of a prevailing tracker rate following a decision issued by the Financial Services and Pensions

Ombudsman.

Following administrative work by the bank, customers in this grouping will receive payment in July and August,  the bank said.

There are more disputed cases, which could see the overall numbers affected by the tracker scandal near 50,000.

There are another 1,500 disputed cases at Permanent TSB where mortgage holders are arguing they were put on the wrong tracker margin, according to tracker case expert Padraic Kissane.

KBC is disputing 400 cases where it is claiming trackers had been withdrawn by the time people came off fixed rates, and wanted to move to a tracker.




Outlander fans mourned the loss of Murtagh (Duncan LaCroix) along with Jacosta (Maria Doyle Kennedy) and Jamie (Sam Hueghan) in Famous Last Words. But as revealed by actress Sophie Skelton, the cast filmed a major funeral scene that was later cut from the episode.

[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for Outlander season 5, episode 8.]

Sophie Skelton | Michael Tran/Getty Images

What happened to Murtagh on Outlander?

In Outlander season 5, episode 7, The Ballad of Roger Mac, Murtagh leads his regulator army into battle against Governor Tryons (Tim Downie) forces. Jamie tries his best to save him, and even sends Roger across battle lines to warn him about the bloodshed to come.

But Murtagh sticks to his guns and goes to battle against the Red Coats. Jamie, who is the colonel of his militia, finds Murtagh in the woods toward the end of the battle. As the two begin talking, one of Jamies young militiamen shoots Murtagh.

Jamie carries Murtagh to Claires (Caitriona Balfe) medical tent and asks her to save him. But by the time she checks his pulse, Murtagh is already dead. Jamie is shaken and heartbroken at the loss of his godfather, and he tells Tryon hes done working with him.

Murtaghs funeral in episode 8 of Outlander

In episode 8 of Outlander season 5, Jamie and Jacosta finally put Murtagh to rest on Frasers Ridge. His grave is marked by a high circle of stones near Jamies house. Jacosta sings him a moving tribute, while Ulysses (Colin McFarlane) quietly stands behind her.

Later, while Jamie and his aunt talk about Murtagh, she says she wished she could have made him a proper headstone, but it isnt her place to do so. Murtagh and I were not husband and wife, Jacosta says. Neither were we father and son, Jamie replies, but it doesnt make the pain any less or easier to bear.

Sophie Skelton reveals details about the funeral scene that was cut

Many fans are probably wondering why they didnt get to see Claire and the rest of the Fraser clan pay their respects to Murtagh, who was undoubtedly a huge part of everyones life. Well, in an interview with TV Line, Outlander star Sophie Skelton revealed that the Fraser family  including Brianna, Claire, and Roger (Richard Rankin)  were filmed attending the funeral. But she said the scene was cut from the episode because of Rogers PTSD story arc.

We had the Murtagh funeral scene  all of those were actually in that originally, and we did a whole scene there with us all around his grave and laying stones for him and everything, Skelton told the outlet. Roger was in the scene, and when [the behind-the-scenes crew] looked back at it, they said actually him being there looks too engaged. We really want to show how disengaged he is and how little time hes spending with the family.

Its unclear if the funeral scene Skelton is talking about will ever see the light of day. But if showrunners release it as an extra bonus clip, fans would likely be thrilled to see the Fraser family gathered around Murtaghs grave, paying tribute to their departed friend.
President Donald Trump is ready to move past the coronavirus  and his most fervent followers are choosing whom to blame.

While the president spent the week teasing guidelines for restarting the countrys economy and belittling some states with strict lockdown measures, vocal Trump supporters coalesced around the people they are blaming for getting the world into the crisis to begin with: the World Health Organization, Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The through line is that each represents an element of the global and bureaucratic elite that Trumps more hard-line backers blame for overhyping the virus, forcing economically ruinous fixes and dictating medical cures that, they argue, will ultimately financially benefit the elite.

Specifically, they blame the WHO for downplaying the severity of the coronavirus and toting the Chinese government line. They blame Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist who is heavily funding the WHO and coronavirus research, for forcing on the world vaccines that dont even exist yet. And they blame Fauci, the governments top infectious disease expert, for contradicting the president, promoting strict social distancing guidelines and suggesting possible immunity papers that could help recovered Covid-19 patients move about freely.

Something like this hasnt happened in our lifetimes, so you cant blame people for being hyper on their guard. The question is  given so much misinformation out of China  where is the line? Who are the bad guys? Who do we trust? These are the things leading people to follow more out there theories, said Raheem Kassam, a former Breitbart editor and co-host of the Trump-friendly War Room podcast.

THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION

Trumps followers got what they wanted from the president this week when he halted funding to the WHO.

The move was a major blow to the organization because the U.S. contributes more to the international organization than any other country. While the medical community  and scores of leaders around the world  said the move would undercut global efforts to combat a pandemic reaching its peak, Trump and his more passionate backers said it would hold the institution accountable.

Story continues

The WHO was willfully working with the [Chinese Communist Party] to mislead the rest of the world as to what was going on, said Jason Miller, a 2016 Trump campaign senior communications adviser, who co-hosts the War Room podcast, which has been discussing the coronavirus outbreak since late January.

There is no proof the WHO was willfully working with China: During the first days of the pandemic, the organization was trying to get international experts, including Americans, into China to study the outbreak.

At the core of the anti-WHO argument is anger that the organization asserted in mid-January that there was no evidence suggesting a human-to-human spread of the coronavirus, citing data from the Chinese government.

As a result, we have tens of thousands of people all around the world  with almost 30,000 here in the United States who have died  when studies have shown if action was taken immediately, much of this could have been stopped, Miller argued.

While the WHO did say early on that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission, it was warning of sustained human-to-human transmission just days later. Moreover, when new viruses emerge, medical researchers are never immediately sure whether there is human-to-human transmission.

The organization was also consistent in raising early red flags about the coronavirus outbreak, weeks before the U.S. government was issuing grave public proclamations. It declared a public health emergency of international concern  its highest alert level  on Jan. 30.

Still, many Trump supporters argue the WHO should not get another penny until the organization's director, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, steps down.

More broadly, Miller noted, conservatives have always held a degree of suspicion toward international organizations that receive U.S. money  the United Nations, for instance.

Staying away from the conspiracy theories, I think the broader skepticism has been around for years, for a long time, he said.

BILL GATES

For Trumps hard-core online fanbase, Gates became the vehicle this week for their anger about any number of things: international institutions, the coronavirus, Big Government, vaccines.

In the wake of Trumps decision to halt WHO funding, Gates upped his pledge to the organization from $100 million to $250 million, making him its largest donor. Gates has also pledged considerable resources toward finding a vaccine for the novel coronavirus  possibly the only way to truly end the pandemic.

Together, the moves put him in the crosshairs of major conservative stars like Candace Owens, Laura Ingraham and a slew of other pro-Trump commentators and influencers.

Trump was right to defund the ABHORRENT World Health Organization, Owens, the former communications director of Turning Point USA who had previously downplayed the coronavirus as not much worse than the flu, wrote on Facebook. Their allegiance is to Bill Gates.

Gates Instagram comments section was barraged by waves of thousands of conspiracy-promoting accounts, claiming that he was trying to control the world with a vaccine.

While Gates WHO funding has long generated concern in the medical community about ensuring the organizations independence, the concerns of Trumps hardcore supporters are far more focused on alleged conspiracies, akin to the far-flung theories circulated about liberal philathropist George Soros and the Clinton Foundation.

The core theory about Gates posits that the billionaire somehow stands to profit from the creation of a coronavirus vaccine, either through raking in billions of dollars, or by creating some sort of global surveillance mechanism via a mandatory coronavirus vaccine. From there, the plots diverge, and the evidence grows wilder, pulling in fears about global surveillance and Gates previous comments about pandemic prevention and population control.

Theres a few different strains of the Bill Gates virus [theory], depending on your political leanings, said Lee Stranahan, who hosts Fault Lines for the Russian government-owned Sputnik Radio.

Its unclear how Gates would profit personally from the development of a vaccine. Vaccines help save lives. The WHO estimates that vaccines prevented at least 10 million deaths just from 2010 to 2015.

Ingraham has been perhaps the highest-profile Gates skeptic on Fox News, frequently devoting segments to criticizing Gates involvement, at one point implying Gates was hoping to use the vaccine to digitally track all human beings.

Some figures  like former Trump adviser Roger Stone and Emerald Robinson , White House correspondent for the conservative outlet Newsmax  are simply stating that theory explicitly, arguing Gates and other globalists are angling to use the vaccine as an excuse to microchip the worlds population.

Over my dead body. Mandatory vaccinations? No way, Jose! Stone told radio host Joe Piscopo.

Neither Gates nor the WHO could make a vaccine mandatory. Individual governments could, but there has been no discussion of that yet.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent lawyer who in recent years has become an anti-vaccine advocate, said in an interview that he had always criticized the Microsoft billionaire for his influence on the WHO, particularly for increasing its focus on vaccines.

If Im looking at Gates and seeing he has an attachment particularly to [genetically modified foods] and vaccines, he seems to have a very, very strong faith that technology can solve all problems and that he is ordained to bring life-changing technologies to the globe and that they're always good, he said.

High-profile Trump supporters like Diamond & Silk have claimed they would refuse a vaccine that Gates helped develop.

Kudos if you make your vaccines for people and you want to help people, Diamond said during her broadcast last week. But I have a problem receiving any vaccine from any entity, especially anybody like Bill Gates who pushed for population control.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI

Publicly, the speculation over Faucis job security ended Monday night.

But a group of anti-Fauci activists has become more emboldened than ever this past week, pushing theories that Fauci is working on behalf of pharmaceutical corporations and a shadowy global elite, Gates included, in order to vaccinate the world.

The wild and baseless accusations focus on a grant Faucis agency, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, gave to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2014. Thats the lab at the center of a highly disputed alternative coronavirus origin story: that an employee at the Wuhan virology research facility got infected and became patient zero for the city.

Kennedy said that, apart from his concerns over Faucis intentions, he feared for a world dictated by health experts: I'm worried as most people are about the loss of civil liberties, and what America may look like when we've come out.
A look back in time - Clonard Youth Club members James Flood, Ciaran Byrne and Sean Pailing took part in the FDYS Junior Variety Show at Bree Community Hall with their act Busted in 2004

Ballymore-Mayglass: Scouts - Beavers and Cubs have been very busy in the lead up to Easter by making Cards which were delivered to Knockeen, Kerlogue and Wygram Nursing Homes for the residents.

Following HSE guidelines the Homemade Easter cards were delivered to designated drop off points outside gates, then quarantined prior to delivery to the Nursing Homes. It was Beaver and Cub Scouts way of contributing to boosting the morale and putting a smile on the faces of older people who cannot receive family and friends visitors during the Coronavirus crisis.

Scout Leaders in different parts of the parish and surrounding areas have volunteered to be part of Community Support Scheme organised by Wexford Co Co. If anyone needs medicines, fuel or groceries collectedfelivered you can call the Helpline at 053 9196000 or 087 6858480 for assistance. Wishing all youth members, leaders and parents a very happy Easter.

Tomhaggard Social Centre

The Social Centre remains closed at the moment. We hope everyone is keeping busy, looking out for family, neighbours and friends. Please continue to follow HSE guidelines by social distancing, staying at home, and keeping within 2km for exercising. We are making a difference and Bending the Curve. Together we will prevail. Happy Easter and Stay Safe.

Alone support line

The charity Alone in collaboration with the Dept of health and HSE have launched a covid 19 support line for older people that may feel vulnerable at this time. Please contact Alone at 081 8222024 if you have concerns. Further information can be found on alone.ie.

Support Response

As a support response St Fintan's GAA Club have established a mechanism for community assistance for anyone who is self isolating or confined to their homes due to the covid 19 crisis.

We can assist in collecting fuel, food shopping, collecting of orders and collecting of prescriptions. In line with the NPHE team guidelines our volunteers will maintain the recommended social distance in all communications.

Our initial point of contacts should you require any assistance are: Robert O'Callaghan 086 0556257, Shane Sinnott 086 8139925, Eoin Cummins 087 3118847, Nicky Sinnott 087 2918020, Edward Goggin 087 2297337 and Shane Sinnott 085 7287257.

We have a list of volunteers who will assist our coordinators in helping out where requested. Our offer of assistance is open to everyone in the wider community and we ask anyone in need to please engage with us.

Local notes

If you require coverage of any important event within the parish of Ballymore-Mayglass ie: church services, club or families important occasions and events within the national school please contact Paddy McGuire by phone or text 087 9680419 or email conzarcat@hotmail.com on or before 7 p.m. on Thursday prior to the publication. There is no charge to include your item in the local notes and good news is more than welcome in these challenging times.

Parish Church notice

Due to the Covid virus restrictions, there will be no weekend or weekday Masses in the parish till further notice. However, the churches will be open during the day for anyone who wishes to spend some time in prayer. RTE News Now broadcasts Mass each day at 10.30 a.m. We encourage people of the parish to check on their neighbour and friends and together we will come through this crisis. We hope that everyone keeps well and does their part to ensure we all come safely through this.

Lotto

The club lotto draw has been postponed till further notice. Many thanks for your continued support and pleas mind yourselves and all your family over this worrying time and follow all government directives.

St Fintan's

Under instruction received from Croke park all GAA grounds are now closed for member and public use. We encourage all members, supporters and the wider community to follow all the advice that is been communicated by government.

Community Response

The Wexford County Council community response forum helpline 053 9196000 is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Seven days a week. If you are in need of assistance in any way contact the helpline number and you will be put in touch with someone in your area that has signed up to help out during the pandemic.

Clonard

Covid-19 restrictions

Day Chapel Opening Hours the Day Chapel will be open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. We ask that there are no more than four people in the Day Chapel at one time. The Main Church is closed till further notice. The community centre is closed till further notice.

There is no bingo till further notice. There is no lotto draw till further notice. Any tickets purchased for the draw on March 18 will be honoured for the next draw when it takes place. Tickets dated March 18 will be used for the next draw.

Clonard parish office is closed till further notice. We will continue to update our website clonardparish.ie and our Facebook page church of the annunciation-clonard parish with the latest news.

Clonard lotto

Jackpot for the next lotto draw to take place is 4,000.

Church notices

Clonard Parish Radio: Church services are broadcast on 92.9 FM Please inform people who are sick or housebound so that they can join us over the airwaves. Daily Mass is streaming live on facebook.com/church of the annunciation-clonard parish at 10 a.m.

We have had a few enquiries from parishioners as to what to do with their weekly envelopes as there are no public Masses. You can leave your weekly envelopes both the green and white ones in the letter box. The letter box is located at the entrance on the Wexford Park side of the church between the double doors. The letter box is securely locked and will be emptied daily. Alternatively, if you would like to set up a direct debit please contact the parish office at 053 9123672 or clonardparishoffice@gmail.com.

We realise that times are very difficult for everyone, but the Mission of the parish continues and your material support in making that happen is greatly appreciated. Prayers that can be said at home when unable to attend Mass.

Lockdown: Yes, there is fear. Yes, there is isolation. Yes, there is panic buying. Yes, there is sickness. Yes, there is even death. But they say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise you can hear the birds again. They say that after just a few weeks of quiet the sky is no longer thick with fumes but blue and grey and clear. They say that in the streets of Assisi people are singing to each other across the empty squares, keeping their windows open so that those who are alone may hear the sounds of family around them. They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound. Today a young woman I know is busy spreading fliers with her number through the neighbourhood so that the elders may have someone to call on.

Today Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples are preparing to welcome and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary. All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting. All over the world people are looking at their neighbours in a new way. All over the world people are waking up to a new reality to how big we really are. To how little control we really have. To what really matters. To Love.

So, we pray, and we remember that Yes there is fear but there does not have to be hate. Yes, there is isolation but there does not have to be loneliness. Yes, there is panic buying but there does not have to be meanness. Yes, there is sickness but there does not have to be disease of the soul. Yes, there is even death but there can always be a rebirth of love. Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now. Today, breathe. Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic. The birds are singing again. The sky is clearing, spring is coming, and we are always encompassed by Love. Open the windows of your soul and though you may not be able to touch across the empty square, Sing. Fr Richard Hendrick OFM.

Kilmore

Death

Sincere sympathy to the McKenna family Ballask on the passing of Ann last week. May she rest in peace.

Scouts

Beavers and Cubs have been very busy in the leadup to Easter by making Cards which were delivered to Knockeen, Kerlogue and Wygram Nursing Homes for the Residents. Following HSE guidelines the Homemade Easter cards were delivered to designated drop off points outside gates, then quarantined prior to delivery to the Nursing Homes. It was Beaver and Cub Scouts way of contributing to boosting the morale and putting a smile on the faces of older people who cannot receive family and friends visitors during the Coronavirus crisis.

Scout Leaders in different parts of the parish and surrounding areas have volunteered to be part of Community Support Scheme organised by Wexford Co Co. If anyone needs medicines, fuel or groceries collectedfelivered you can call the Helpline at 053 9196000 or 087 6858480 for assistance. Wishing all youth members, leaders and parents a very happy Easter.

Tomhaggard Social Centre

The Social Centre remains closed at the moment. We hope everyone is keeping busy, looking out for family, neighbours and friends. Please continue to follow HSE guidelines by social distancing, staying at home, and keeping within 2km for exercising. We are making a difference and Bending the Curve. Together we will prevail. Happy Easter and Stay Safe.

Baby boy

Belated congratulations to Mark Stafford and Joanne Doyle on the birth of a baby boy in recent weeks. A spot of good news at least!

Piercestown

ARA Club notes

Unfortunately due to the COVID 19 we are postponing our Day Trip to Banagher, Co Offaly on April 21 till a later date, the newly proposed date is June 16. if however, you cannot or decide not to travel on the new date, please call Ann at 087 6677411to cancel, and as soon as we are open again we will issue you with a refund if you have already paid. the programme will remain the same for the new date, Tullamore Dew Distillery, Lunch at O'Flynns Banagher followed by cruise on the Shannon with Silveriines Cruise Company.

We hope you are all keeping well and staying safe. this is a trying time for everyone but we will come back with lots of enthusiasm once the restriction is over. God Bless and stay safe. The committee.

Easter Draw postponed

Due to the essential lockdown of almost everyone, the ARA club will postpone their Easter Draw for Hampers till all restrictions are lifted, please continue to sell your lines and we will have our draw at Londis Piercestown at a date to be announced most likely in May now. Thank you for your support. Anyone, who still wishes to donate to the hampers can do so when the club re-opens.

Scout Group

Hi everyone in 25th Wexford Piercestown Beaver and Cub sections. we hope you are all staying safe and well.

We know you have some homework to do from the schools, but we have a few fun things and learning by doing things to do which we will be sending out to all your parents by WhatsApp over next short while. All of the work completed will result in a badge for you on completion, do keep all your work in a file/folder and bring back with you when we all return to scouting.if you need any help you can google scout work and you will find lots of helpful hints/demonstrations online to help you get the work done.

This is a trying time for everyone and we hope you are all coping well. see you soon and look after your parents and siblings.

Knockingall Org Community Centre

We were due to have a Line Selling event on April 3/4 at Londis Piercestown thanks to generosity of the management for a 100 Voucher for Londis, due to the lockdown this will now be postponed to a date to be decided once all restrictions are lifted. Please keep selling the lines, this draw will go ahead at a later date, and we thank everyone for their support in these trying times Stay safe everyone.
Jammu: At least three Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were killed and as many injured in a terrorist attack in north Kashmir's Sopore town on Saturday (April 18). The terrorists fired near Ahad Bab crossing in Sopore that was jointly being manned by troops of CRPF's 179th battalion and the Jammu and Kashmir Police.

In the incident, the paramilitary trooper who sustained injuries was evacuated to nearby SDH hospital. Two of the troopers were declared brought dead on arrival, said an official.

IGP Kashmir confirmed that CRPF jawans succumbed in the terrorist attack. Soon after the incident, security forces launched searches in the area to nab the terrorist.

The CRPF personnel who were martyred in the attack have been identified as Head Constable (GD) Rajeev Sharma (42) from Bihar's Vaishali, Constable (GD) CB. Bhakare (38) from Maharashtra's Buldhana and Constable Parmar Satyapal Singh (28) from Gujarat's Sabarkantha.

The two jawans who were injured are Constable/Driver Javid Ahmed Amin and Head Constable (GD) Biswajit Ghosh.

The police had earlier confirmed that two CRPF men were killed in the exchange of fire.

This is the third attack against the paramilitary force in the Kashmir valley within a week.

According to officials, the area has been cordoned off and search operation is on.
Press Release

April 18, 2020 Dispatch from Crame No. 772:

Sen. Leila M. de Lima's reaction on the Senate Resolution calling on DOH Sec. Duque to resign 4/18/20 I agree with my Senate colleagues. "Knowing fully well the danger posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in the beginning of the year," this administration's Health Secretary has "failed to put in place the necessary precautionary measures to lessen, if not at all prevent, the impact of this health crisis." However, primary responsibility for the failure of leadership and gross neglect of duties in our COVID-19 campaign rests not on Sec. Duque but on Mr. Duterte. "The buck stops, here", goes the phrase popularized by former US President Harry Truman. The chain of accountability lies in the head of government. Without his pro-China principal's blessing, if not explicit guidance, Sec. Duque could not have brassily rejected the then clear option (as of late Jan. 2020) of banning flights to and from China, warning of its repercussions on PH-China relations. The dismal and catch-up government response to and preparation for the COVID-19 crisis can only be attributable to the Office of the President. It is not only the DOH who is responsible for our efforts against COVID-19, it is the whole government. The DFA should have insisted on an early travel ban. The DSWD should have updated the list of vulnerable households in need of assistance. The DOTr should have prepared transportation protocols that allow social or physical distancing and transportation support for essential personnel. The DILG should have studied possible isolation centers per LGU. The DA should have increased our bufferstock once the effect of COVID-19 in Asia became apparent, as well as mapped the distribution lines to ensure the continuous supply of food. These departments do not answer to Sec. Duque. They report to Mr. Duterte. Mr. Duterte's late-night addresses have not been inspiring confidence on our government's program on the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of understanding the current measures implemented by the government, our country has been witness to the continuous ramblings of an old man barely in touch with reality, and hardly aware of what's required of the situation. The administration has asked our people to stay home but has failed to institute a timely mass testing program which would have given us a better picture of the gains of the quarantine. Instead of our people seeing how they are helping by staying at home, they are constantly threatened by imprisonment or bodily harm by Mr. Duterte. Maling-mali ito. Now, the new spokesperson has the gall to blame the pandemic on our citizens. They should look at themselves. Sa pamamahalang walang giya, nawawalan ng gana ang bansa. Sa pamumunong palpak, lahat tayo ay babagsak. Managot ang dapat managot. (Access the handwritten version of Dispatch from Crame No. 772, here: https://issuu.com/senatorleilam.delima/docs/dispatch_772)
How Did We Get Here?

For better or worse, the pandemic has sent many of us back to our family units, and this podcast could be a lifeline to those looking to detoxify dynamics at home.

Each week in this uplifting podcast psychologist Tanya Byron meets someone struggling with a relationship and then discusses her interview with friend Claudia Winkleman (both above)

Each week psychologist Tanya Byron meets someone who is struggling with a relationship, including a woman whose husband wants to transition, and a man who feels rejected by his dad.

As the conversation unfolds, Byrons friend Claudia Winkleman listens in another room, and they discuss the interview afterwards. The podcast is an uplifting reminder of how much we can learn about ourselves from others.

The Now Show

Controversial view klaxon: Ive always found Radio 4s The Now Show pretty grating, largely because of the quantity and volume of audience laughter that erupts at jokes that deserve a titter at best.

But now that the programme is being recorded from comedians homes, with no pesky audience interaction allowed, it has become more intimate and distinctively podcast-like. The format, however, hasnt changed and is as perfect as ever, comprising jokes about the news (also known as Covid-19), interspersed with sketches, songs and jolly anecdotes.

The Rachman Review

This podcast from the FTs foreign affairs heavyweight, Gideon Rachman, has become one of my weekly must-listens. Each week for about 20 minutes he talks to leading academics and decision-makers about stories that are unfolding abroad.

This podcast from the FTs foreign affairs heavyweight, Gideon Rachman (above), has become one of my weekly must-listens

His recent conversation with writer Anne Applebaum about how Viktor Orban is using coronavirus to clamp down on dissent in Hungary is fascinating.
Absurdly Driven usually looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.

I've been trying to resist.

I've been trying to shelter at home, look out at the world and hope to see a little sunshine.

But Starbucks has been my habit for a long time and, well, it was 7.53 a.m., the time when I used to go get an almond milk latte.

I turned to my wife and she said:

You need your fix, don't you? Let's go.

So we donned our masks and drove to the only Starbucks we know that's still open. The one with a drive-thru.

As we drove, I wondered about my relationship with the brand and why it's managed to endure when it would have been so much easier for it to be swallowed by a thousand pretenders.

What elements have contributed to its success? There are three.

A Core Idea, Adapted To Local Tastes.

It's odd to think the company just had its 49th birthday. Who'd have thought it's five years older than Apple?

While Cupertino had Steve Jobs from the very beginning, Starbucks' celebrated leader, Howard Schultz, didn't arrive until 1982. And then only as director of retail operations and marketing.

The Starbucks we see today didn't begin to materialize until 1985.

Schultz's inspiration was Milanese espresso bars. Yet he didn't try to replicate them, so much as adapt them to an American culture.

No Italian would have imagined that they were in Italy if they went to an American Starbucks. Then again, they'd be happy they weren't in a McDonald's. Actually, where did Americans drink coffee in those days? Dunkin' Donuts? That brand's been around since 1950.

Somehow, Starbucks managed to become shorthand for a decent standard of coffee.

Perhaps it wasn't quite the same level as how, for years, all tablets were known as iPads. It wasn't too far off, though, because Schultz had given Americans something they thought was new, theirs and something that could become a habit.

What's truly remarkable is that Schultz adapted a European idea and then managed to sell the American version back to Europe. It's a little like a Hollywood remake of an Italian movie. With all that implies.

The Product. The Product. The Product.

Sometimes forgotten is the sort of coffee Starbucks brews. For me, it has just the right level of bitterness to be the perfect kick in the mouth, first thing in the morning.

Yes, Starbucks branched out into all sorts of disgracefully sickly Frappuccinos and pastries, but something about its coffee makes me go back. And I'm clearly not alone.

The Staff. And The Experience.

The last element is perhaps the most important. By treating its employees well when few fast-food companies did -- many still don't -- Starbucks built a reputation as a decent place to work.

It was relatively revolutionary that Starbucks offered full health benefits to so many full-time and part-time staff -- benefits that covered domestic partners -- in 1988.

In essence, then, when the staff was at least a little happier than at, say, McDonald's they transmitted that to customers.

Indeed, the staff create the atmosphere and each Starbucks still has its own quirks. But go there regularly -- and that's what the chain really wants and needs -- and you become part of the experience yourself. Just as you would if you went regularly to your Milanese espresso bar.

And Still They Come.

Yes, I managed to think all these things in a six-minute drive. It was clearly a good morning. No one had yet tried to annoy me.

Suddenly, we turned the corner to enter the shopping mall where this Starbucks is located. But we couldn't enter.

The line of cars stretching from the drive-thru went all the way along the mall to the road.

It took us perhaps 20 minutes to get our coffees.

Yes, you might offer that when you're working at home, as so many people are, you still need your morning coffee.

Yet there are other places to get coffee around here. Local supermarkets and even restaurants are serving it. You could also make it at home. That way, you wouldn't even have to get dressed.

Something drove all these car-owners to this one place to experience this one brand. And to sit in their cars for many minutes and patiently wait.

Of course sales have dived exponentially. Half of America's Starbucks have been forced to close because of the virus. (The coffee chain is about to begin the process of reopening more fully).

Still, the Starbucks product and brand experience manage to be oddly alluring. These days, perhaps they're reassuring too.

We want to go to the place that's still there, that seems to have been there since the beginning and that has withstood the great changes.

I took my first sip and the familiar bitterness drifted around my mouth.
State Sen. Patrick McMath and State Rep. Mark Wright have teamed with the Northshore Community Foundation to start a fund called Feeding the Fight which will support local restaurants and hospital employees by having the eateries provide meals to workers on the front line of the COVID-19 battle.

Feeding the Fight will give work to local restaurants that have endured a significant loss of business during stay-home orders to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. The restaurants, in turn, will cook meals that will feed night-shift employees at St. Tammany Health System and Lakeview Regional Medical Center.

The first round donations provided 350 meals to workers at STHS.

"We're not the first to come up with the idea of feeding hospital staff," McMath said. "Fortunately, it's something taking place across the United States. As we looked into the most efficient way to help, we discovered there was a gap in support for the night-shift employees. So that became our focus."

"I'm grateful for the opportunity to help our local health care workers in their great challenge fighting coronavirus," Wright said.

For more information on the Feeding the Fight fund, go online to www.northshorefoundation.org/feeding-the-fight.

Recovered coronavirus patients may help save lives

South Louisiana residents who have recovered from the COVID-19 coronavirus could be the key to helping other patients fight it off.

On April 13, The Blood Center began to collect its first donation of COVID-19 convalescent plasma  or CCP  for use in treatment of seriously ill patients fighting the coronavirus. The plasma is being collected in New Orleans as part of an FDA-approved investigational study.

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Plasma from donors who have recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection may contain antibodies capable of neutralizing the virus, said Dr. Tim Peterson, medical director for The Blood Center. Studies suggest that the early transfusion of convalescent plasma in seriously ill patients has had a significant effect in decreasing ventilator dependency and length of hospitalization.

CCP donors must be 17 or older, in good health and have a documented positive laboratory test for COVID-19. They must also have been symptom-free for at least 28 days, although those who have been symptom-free for between 14 and 27 days can donate following repeat testing.

The Blood Center does not conduct COVID-19 tests.

Potential plasma donors should visit tbc.bio-linked.org to find out if they are a suitable donor and, if so, add their names to the Louisiana registry.

Once approved, donors will be contacted by The Blood Center to schedule a donation at a facility in New Orleans.

Each donor can provide up to three therapeutic plasma doses.

For more information on donating blood or plasma, whether as part of the COVID study or not, call 1 (800) 86-BLOOD or visit TheBloodCenter.org online.
The man alleged that Rangoli Chandel's tweet published in the wake of the coronavirus was targeted against a specific community

Aurangabad: A man in Aurangabad in Maharashtra has filed a complaint claiming tweets by wrestler-turned-politician Babita Phogat and actor Kangana Ranaut's sister Rangoli Chandel in connection with the novel coronavirus outbreak intended to create disharmony among communities, police said on Friday.

(Click here to follow LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak)

The man, associated with the Tablighi Jamaat, filed the complaint in City Chowk police station on Thursday, an official said, and added it would be forwarded through the Aurangabad commissioner to the police in the areas where the two reside.

"The complainant has cited tweets by Phogat on April 2 and April 15. He also alleged that Chandel's tweet on 15 April was intended to target a specific community and spread hate. He has demanded registration of a case against Phogat and Chandel under section 153A of IPC and the Information Technology Act," the official informed.

Twitter on Thursday suspended Chandel's account over her controversial tweet regarding the stone-pelting incident in Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad.

In the tweet, Chandel wrote of shooting people dead while referring to the incident wherein a medical team screening coronavirus suspects in Moradabad was attacked by some people.

According to India Today, the tweet said, "A Jamati died of Corona when police and doctors went to check their families they were attacked and killed, secular media, make these mullahs + secular media stand in a line and shoot them dead...f****k the history they may call us nazis who cares, life is more imp than fake image (sic)"

According to the policy of the micro-blogging site, tweets that propagate or incite violence, hatred, terrorism, abuse or harassment are subjected to be reported following which Twitter account of the user gets suspended.

Her tweet was flagged by filmmaker Reema Kagti and actress Kubbra Sait. Kagti urged the police to take action against Chandel for inciting violence and hatred.
PAEDIATRIC surgeons at Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) have for the first time saved the lives of two children born with abdominal wall defect (gastroschisis) by using silo bags to treat the condition.

According to the specialists, the new technology does not require a child to either be anaesthetised or undergo a surgical procedure.

MNH Paediatric Unit Surgeon, Dr Zaitun Bokhary, told reporters in Dar es Salaam on Thursday that before the new technology, the mortality rate for children born with the problem was 100 per cent, but with the new procedure patients could be cured by 100 per cent.

Before this technology, children born with gastroschisis had to undergo surgery and being inserted with normal bags whose efficiency was very low since the procedure needed a child to go through various surgical procedures, including being anaesthetised and the time used to restore the intestine, most of them develop various complications and they end up dying, Dr Bokhary said.

She noted that from now onwards, children born with gastroschisis would be inserted with a special bag while at the hospital and the health personnel would be gently pushing the intestine back into the stomach between three and five days until the intestine was back to its normal position.

Dr Bokhary, however, said to ensure the service was accessible in various parts in the country, MNH had started conducting special training to all zonal hospitals in Dar Salaam on how the health personnel could provide first aid services to children born with gastroschisis before being referred to MNH.

She added that MNH would continue providing training to other health workers in the country to save the lives of children born with the condition.

The ongoing health sector transformation has improved access not only to specialised healthcare, but also to routine medical services.

It has also cut down the number of Tanzanians seeking a similar service overseas while attracting patients from neighbouring countries.

For instance, MNH is currently conducting highly specialised services, including kidney transplant, cochlear implant and interventional radiology and plans are underway to introduce other services such as vitro fertilisation (IVF), liver transplant and bone marrow transplant.

MNH Executive Director, Prof Lawrence Museru, confirmed recently that his institution intended to build a transplant centre at MNH Mloganzila to ensure sustainability of all transplant services.
Bengaluru, April 3 (IANS) Karnataka government has launched 'Jagruti Karnataka', a Youtube channel to train grassroots level health workers in Covid-19 treatment, a top official said on Friday. Image Source: IANS News

San Francisco, April 18 : Netflix has released 10 of its educational documentaries for free on its Netflix US YouTube channel, to give teachers content to screen for their virtual classrooms.

Documentary films and series available includes 13th, Babies, Chasing Coral, Knock Down the House and Our Planet.

The other content offered is episodes from the series Abstract and Explained, as well as the shorts Period. End of Sentence, The White Helmets and Zion.

"For many years, Netflix has allowed teachers to screen documentaries in their classrooms. However, this isn't possible with schools closed," the company said in a blog post.

"So at their request, we have made a selection of our documentary features and series available on the Netflix US YouTube channel," the company added.

The documentaries are available in English, but subtitles in more than a dozen languages should be available later this week.

Netflix is also making educational resources, including study guides and Q&As, available for each documentary.

The documentaries are free for anyone to stream, unlike the documentaries found on its streaming platform, which requires a monthly subscription.
One of the most sacred Easter symbols of the Christian Orthodox faith - the Holy Fire - arrived in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Saturday.

But the coronavirus outbreak meant only a top group of Eastern Orthodox clerics were able to receive it.

In normal times, Bethlehem's Manger Square would be packed with thousands of pilgrims and worshippers who would pass the holy fire to each other to light their candles.

This year, crowds have been banned in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus.

The Holy Fire ritual, celebrated the day before the Orthodox Easter, marks the belief that a fire appears spontaneously every year from the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem.

The ritual dates back at least 1,200 years, and the precise details of the flame's source are a closely guarded secret.

From Jerusalem the fire is distributed to Bethlehem, where tradition says Jesus was born, and to a number of Eastern Orthodox countries.

As the coronavirus lockdown continues, Israel has said it is making arrangements to help church leaders transfer the flame to predominantly Orthodox countries including Greece, Russia and Romania.

(Image Credit: AP)
Hundreds protested Saturday in cities across America against coronavirus-related lockdowns -- with encouragement from President Donald Trump -- as resentment grows against the crippling economic cost of confinement. An estimated 400 people gathered under a cold rain in Concord, New Hampshire -- many on foot while others remained in their cars -- to send a message that extended quarantines were not necessary in a state with relatively few confirmed cases of COVID-19. The crowd included several armed men wearing military-style uniforms, with their faces covered. In Texas, more than 250 people rallied outside the State Capitol in Austin, including far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, founder of the Infowars site, who rolled up in a tank-like truck. "It's time to reopen Texas, it's time to let people work, it's time for them to let voluntary interaction and good sense rule the day, not government force," said Justin Greiss, an activist with Young Americans for Liberty. Stay-at-home mother Amira Abuzeid added: "I'm not a doctor but I'm an intelligent person who can do math and it looks like at the end of the day, these numbers are not that worrisome." Few if any observed social distancing recommendations. Demonstrators outside Maryland's colonial-era statehouse in Annapolis stayed in their cars but waved signs with messages like "Poverty kills too." Dolores, a hairdresser, told AFP she is not eligible for unemployment because she is a business owner, not an employee. "I need to save my business. I need to work to live. Otherwise I will die," she said. Other demonstrations took place across the country in cities such as Columbus, Ohio and San Diego, California, as well as the states of Indiana, Nevada and Wisconsin. Few practiced social distancing but many of the protesters waved American flags. - 'Live Free or Die' - Protesters have drawn encouragement in certain Democratic-led states from tweets by Trump, who has said he favors a quick return to normal, though protests have also taken place in Republican-led states like New Hampshire and Texas. The US has seen more coronavirus cases and deaths than any other country in the world -- with more than 734,000 confirmed infections and 38,800 fatalities as of Saturday evening. The vast majority of Americans are under lockdown orders restricting public movement and keeping all but essential businesses closed. In Concord, demonstrators carried signs with slogans like "The numbers lie" and "Reopen New Hampshire." Their common demand was that the stay-at-home order for the state of 1.3 million people be called off before its scheduled May 4 end date. Others, amid a sea of American flags, chanted the state's Revolutionary War-era slogan, "Live Free or Die." "People are very happy on a voluntary basis to do what's necessary," one demonstrator, 63-year-old Skip Murphy, told AFP by phone. He added, however, that "the data does not support the egregious lockdown we are having in New Hampshire." As of early Friday, New Hampshire had reported 1,287 confirmed coronavirus cases and 37 deaths. - 'Free country' - "All over the country, a lot of people are saying, 'We will do our part, but at the same time, this is supposed to be a free country,'" Murphy said. "When that gets transgressed, people start to say, 'Wait a minute, this is wrong.'" Most Americans -- by a two-to-one margin -- actually worry about virus restrictions being lifted too soon, not too late, a recent Pew survey found. But demonstrators found encouragement Friday from the president, who in a series of tweets called to "LIBERATE" Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia -- all states with Democratic governors -- from stay-at-home orders. Trump has repeatedly called for the earliest possible return to normality as virus-related closings have had a crushing impact on American workers and businesses. "I really think some of the governors have gotten carried away," Trump said at a White House news conference on Saturday. He welcomed the reopening of some businesses in Texas and Vermont on Monday "while still requiring appropriate social distancing precautions." The largest protest against stay-at-home rules so far took place Wednesday in the Michigan capital of Lansing, which drew some 3,000 people. Murphy said he had voted for Trump, but insisted his motives were not partisan. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu is a Republican, he noted. "This has nothing to do with Trump or the Democratic and Republican governors," Murphy said. "It is a case of one size not fitting all -- the lockdown should cease where it does not make sense." Hundreds of New Hampshire residents rallied outside the statehouse in Concord on April 18 to urge a quick end to the northeastern state's virus-related stay-at-home rule Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones addresses a "Reopen America" rally at the State Capitol in Austin, Texas Demonstrators protest from their cars in Annapolis, Maryland A protester holds up a sign during the "Reopen America" rally in Austin, Texas Protesters rally at the Ohio State House in Columbus A protester in Concord, New Hampshire waves a flag during a rally urging a quick end to virus-related confinement rules Some at the Concord, New Hampshire rally against home confinement rules wore masks or face coverings
Ranjit Chowdhry, who rose to prominence as a Bollywood character actor before his turn on The Office, has died aged 64.

He suffered a perforated intestinal ulcer this week and underwent emergency surgery at the highly regarded Breach Candy Hospital in his hometown Bombay.

'They operated on him but he died at the hospital yesterday at 4 in the morning,' said Indian stage actress Dolly Thakore according to the Orissa Post.

Dearly departed: Ranjit Chowdhry, who rose to prominence as a Bollywood character actor before his turn on The Office (pictured), has died aged 64

'He was so well loved and an adorable guy. I reached out to the family. He has a wife and 16-year-old son in New York,' said Dolly.

She explained: 'He had come to India for a dental treatment. He has been here since December-January. He was booked to go back April 8 and the lockdown came.'

Amid the coronavirus pandemic the Indian government grounded all international flights in late March, then expanded the measure to include domestic flights.

'He got a ruptured ulcer in the intestine which happened April 14. A physician was called who said he needs to go to the hospital and he was taken to Breach Candy hospital. They operated on him but he died at the hospital yesterday at 4 in the morning,' Dolly shared this Thursday.

Bereaved: His half-sister Raell Padamsee posted an Instagram tribute to Ranjit calling him by his nickname 'Chottu,' an Indian term of endearment meaning 'little one'

Dolly shares a child with Ranjit's onetime stepfather Alyque Padamsee, who played Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the Oscar-winning film Gandhi.

Before his relationship with Dolly, Alyque was married to Ranjit's late mother Pearl Padamsee, herself a renowned stage actress in India.

In the United States Ranjit is best known for his guest appearances on such shows as The Office, where he played opposite Steve Carell for two episodes.

He also had a recurring role on Cosby in the 1990s, as well as guest shots on shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Prison Break and Girls.

Throwback: Ranjit consistently worked with Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta, who directed him in such movies as Sam & Me, which they are pictured at a Toronto screening of in 2008

American audiences also got to see him in the 2006 film Last Holiday starring Queen Latifah as a terminally ill woman who goes to Europe for one last vacation.

Ranjit established himself as a Bollywood character actor in the 1970s and 1980s most famously in 1980 film Khubsoorat (Beautiful).

His first two films Khatta Meetha (Sweet And Sour) and Baton Baton Mein (By The Way) also featured Ranjit's mother.

He broke into western cinema with a leading role in the 1990 film Lonely In America directed by Spike Lee's longtime editor Barry Alexander Brown.

Throwback: Ranjit is pictured acting in Deepa's controversial 1996 lesbian drama Fire opposite legendary Bollywood actress Shabana Azmi

Ranjit consistently worked with Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta, who directed him in such movies as Sam & Me, Camilla and her controversial lesbian drama Fire.

His role in Deepa's 2002 romantic comedy Bollywood/Hollywood earned Ranjit a Genie Award in Canada for best supporting actor.

He also had a long working relationship with Monsoon Wedding director Mira Nair, who cast him in Mississippi Masala starring Denzel Washington among other films.

His work included a small role in the 1994 in the Nicholas Cage romantic comedy It Could Happen To You, which coincidentally got a Bollywood remake five years later.

Family business: Ranjit's mother was the stage star Pearl Padamsee (pictured), who acted with him in his first two movies Khatta Meeta (Sweet And Sour) and Baton Baton Mein (By The Way)

'Ranjit, my foster son, has always been a delightful sprite of a human being,' Alyque wrote in his memoir A Double Life: My Exciting Years In Theatre And Advertising.

His half-sister Raell Padamsee posted an Instagram tribute to Ranjit calling him by his nickname 'Chottu,' a Hindi term of endearment meaning 'little one.'

She announced 'a gathering to celebrate his life n share his stories on May 5th,' two days after the current official end date of India's coronavirus lockdown.
Medical technology is big business. Annual sales topped 350 billion even before the coronavirus pandemic, and Ireland is one of the foremost players in the field.

Activity is concentrated around Limerick, Galway and Athlone, which between them form the biggest medical technology hub in Europe.

Some firms are homegrown. Many more are multi-nationals, choosing Ireland as their European hub because the workforce is highly educated, the government is welcoming and taxation is low. These companies need decent, well-located places to work and Yew Grove, a Dublin and AIM-listed business, provides them.

Growing market: Jonathan Laredo, above right, has expanded Yew Grove, buying property in key Irish locations

The shares are denominated in euros, priced at 88 cents (77p) and should increase in value over the next few years. Importantly, too, Yew Grove pays quarterly dividends and last week directors approved a 1.2 cent payment for the three months to March.

Equivalent to 1.05p for UK investors, the dividend will be paid on May 6 to all shareholders on the register by April 24. Rising payments are likely during the year, with brokers expecting a total 2020 payout of at least 5.5 cents (4.8p), putting the stock on a yield of more than 6 per cent.

Yew Grove was founded in 2014 when chief executive Jonathan Laredo spotted a gap in the Irish market.

A former banker with 27 years of investment experience, he saw that professional property firms in Ireland focused almost exclusively on Dublin, even though half the multinationals in the country are located outside the capital.

With a group of like-minded individuals, Laredo started to buy commercial property in key locations around Ireland, creating a portfolio of assets before floating on the stock market in 2018. Today, Yew Grove owns 27 properties, with a combined value of over 100 million.

From the start, Laredo and his team were determined to focus on high-quality tenants who were likely to stick around and could be relied upon to pay their rent. The group has stayed true to that initial plan. Just over a quarter of Yew's tenants are government bodies, such as the Electricity Supply Board.

Most of the rest are major corporations, focused around medical technology, pharmaceuticals and healthcare more broadly. And small businesses make up less than 5 per cent of the rent roll.

This spread of tenants gives Yew Grove an edge in the current crisis. In the three months to March 31, every tenant paid their rent on time and in full and in the quarter to June, the group expects to collect more than 95 per cent of the rent on time, with a similar percentage forecast for the rest of the year.

Looking ahead, Laredo is ambitious. Initially, he hoped to more than double Yew's portfolio by the end of next year. That timetable will almost certainly be delayed, as Covid-19 has stopped property markets in their tracks, but the direction of travel remains the same.

There may even be some bargains on offer, once the virus has abated and, as the business grows, profits will rise and dividends increase.

MIDAS VERDICT: Yew Grove was founded primarily to provide investors with steady income, in the form of generous dividends. In today's markets, that focus is more attractive than ever. At 88 cents, the shares make for a solid, long-term investment.

Traded on: AIM Ticker: YEW Contact: ygreit.com or 00 353 1 485 3950
A ban on beef imports from outside the European Union must be one of the urgent measures to support food production by farmers during the Covid-19 emergency, according to a Laois Offaly TD.

Sinn Fein Agriculture Spokesperson Brian Stanley TD met with Agriculture Minister Michael Creed this week regarding necessary and urgent interventions needed in the sector to support primary producers.

At the meeting, Deputy Stanley said he raised the "dire situation" in the beef sector, the need for a halt on non-EU beef imports, the need to diversify food production, and to front-load CAP direct payments.

Speaking today, the Laois-Offaly TD said: "At our meeting, I made it clear to the Minister that our farmers and workers within the sector must be supported through state intervention if we want our food supply chains to continue to operate as normal.

"First of all, we need to see maximum flexibility regarding the front-loading of CAP direct payments. If we want to avoid cash-flow issues down the line then we will need to see greater capital provided to primary producers up-front. Minister Creed assured me that this was being pursued.

"Beef has dropped to 3.40 per kilo, a price which is below production cost and cannot be sustained. If we want to see this sector survive, and if EU countries also want a continued supply of beef from Ireland, we need a new emergency financial aid package to support the sector.

"We are still seeing a large amount of non-EU beef being imported into the EU. This makes no sense when beef farmers are under such serious financial pressure. I have called on the Minister to push for an EU-wide suspension of non-EU beef (excluding the North of Ireland) and it has been confirmed to me that this will be raised.

"Last of all, we need to protect workers' rights. This means that factories, producers and processors need to abide by the HSE guidelines regarding social distances and hygiene," he concluded.
P olice in Hong Kong have arrested at least 14 veteran pro-democracy activists accused of joining unlawful protests last year.

Among those arrested were 81-year-old activist and former parliamentarian Martin Lee, and democracy advocates Albert Ho, Lee Cheuk-yan and Au Nok-hin.

Police also arrested media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who founded the local newspaper Apple Daily.

Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan and Yeung Sum  a former MP from the Democratic Party  were charged in February over their involvement in a mass anti-government demonstration on August 31 last year.

Hong Kong Protests on 12 November 2019 - In pictures 1 /36 Hong Kong Protests on 12 November 2019 - In pictures Workers in the central business district took to the streets in protest today. AP Police fire tear gas towards protesters (back) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong AFP via Getty Images Protesters react after police fired tear gas at the Chinese University of Hong Kong ( AFP via Getty Images Office workers and pro-democracy protesters walk around bricks lying on a street during a demonstration in Central AFP via Getty Images Police used tear gas once more to clear the streets yesterday AFP via Getty Images Road blocks have been set up across the special administrative region. Reuters Office workers run away from tear gas as they attend a flash mob anti-government protest at the financial Central district in Hong Kong, Reuters A university students throws an object at riot police as they standoff during a protest at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Reuters The thousands of office employees were protesting after more violence yesterday, which saw a protester shot by police and a pro-China sympathiser set of fire. AFP via Getty Images A university student runs from riot police at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Reuters Students stand near a fire and a charred vehicle during a face-off with riot police at the Chinese University in Hong Kong AP Protesters and the police have been engaged in clashes across the former British colony. AFP via Getty Images University students were repeatedly tear gassed by the Hong Kong police. Reuters University students take cover as they standoff with riot police at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Reuters A university student runs from riot police at the Chinese University of Hong Kon Reuters An anti-government protester walks past a burning vehicle during a protest in Tseung Kwan O, Hong Kong Reuters A woman talks to the police as they question a school student (not in picture ) in the Sai Wan Ho district in Hong Kong AFP via Getty Images Students rest on campus of the University of Hong Kong AP Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has remained defiant despite the protests. AP A pro-democracy protester arranges bricks on a road to block traffic in Central, Hong Kong AP Student protesters sit outside a dormitory in City University in Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong Reuters Demonstrators carry umbrellas during an anti-government protest in Central, Hong Kong Reuters Police fire tear gas towards protesters (back) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong AFP via Getty Images Office workers and pro-democracy protesters gather during a demonstration in Central in Hong Kon AFP via Getty Images A woman looks at a police officer standing guard on a pavement after they dispersed protesters in Central in Hong Kong AFP via Getty Images Office workers and pro-democracy protesters raise their umbrellas for cover as they gather during a demonstration in Central in Hong Kong AFP via Getty Images A protester holds a Molotov cocktail as university students standoff with riot police at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Reuters

Hong Kong was gripped by protests for seven months months as those opposing extradition legislation would march through the streets and set up road blocks with cars and bricks.

Campaigners also called for voting rights and an independent inquiry into police conduct.

The protests in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory exposed deep divisions between pro-democracy Hong Kongers and the Communist Party-ruled central government in Beijing.

Protesters demonstrate in the district of Yuen Long despite a police ban over fears of violence. / AFP/Getty Images

The bill, which would have allowed Hong Kong residents to be sent to mainland China to stand trial, has been withdrawn. but the protests continued for more than seven months.

Hong Kong is run as part of the "one country, two systems" policy, where China allows certain areas to have a degree of autonomy from the autocratic control of the central government.

The area was run as a UK colony until 1997, when it was handed over China.

Authorities clash with protestors / AFP via Getty Images

While the protests began peacefully, they increasingly descended into violence after demonstrators became frustrated with the governments response.

The protestors feel that Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has ignored their demands and used the police to suppress demonstrations.

The League of Social Democrats wrote in a Facebook post that its leaders were among those arrested, including chairman Raphael Wong
Filmmaker SS Rajamouli, who is currently working on his upcoming magnum opus RRR, has confirmed in a television interview that his next project will be with actor Mahesh Babu. Talking to a leading Telugu television channel, Rajamouli clarified his next project after RRR wont be with Prabhas. He confirmed hes teaming up with Mahesh Babu.

This project has been in the pipeline for a long time. I already said that I will be doing a film for producer KL Narayana and this project will be with Mahesh Babu, Rajamouli said, clarifying hes not teaming up with Prabhas next.

If this project materializes, Rajamouli and Mahesh Babu will be joining hands for the first time. This film will most likely go on the floors towards the end of 2021 or in early 2022. Currently busy wrapping up RRR, which stars Ram Charan and Jr. NTR in the lead, Rajamouli will begin pre-production work on Mahesh Babus project next year.

Also read: Salman Khan sneaks up on Iulia Vantur at chat session, see her embarrassed reaction in new video

Mahesh will also soon commence work on his next Telugu project with director Vamshi Paidipally. The duo will be reuniting after the grand success of their previous film, Maharshi. The stars last release Sarileru Neekevvaru was a box-office blockbuster. The film, directed by Anil Ravipudi, raked in over Rs 200 crore at the box-office.

In the film, Mahesh Babu played a soldier who comes to a small town and saves a family from the clutches of a rowdy politician. The film also featured Prakash Raj, Rashmika Mandanna and veteran actor Vijayashanti, who returned to face the arc lights after 13 years, in crucial roles. Prakash Raj played the antagonist.

Meanwhile, Mahesh Babu might play a cameo in Chiranjeevis upcoming Telugu film Acharya, which is being directed by Koratala Siva. An official announcement is yet awaited on signing Mahesh for the role.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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Bertie Ahern used to be the master of the 'Ah Jaysus, somebody should do something about that' school of politics. The mantle has been taken over by Simon Harris.

Any problem, big or small, can be deflected to some other arm of the State, agency or quango - anybody bar the Government itself. The Health Minister's performance was so abjectly poor, the flimsy Confidence and Supply government collapsed prematurely over a vote of confidence in him back in January.

Now he remains in office because the Fine Gael and Fianna Fail parties that created the outgoing government haven't morphed into the incoming government yet as they seek a patsy to join their band.

In the Dail this week, he produced a fine display of the skill as the scrutiny of the Government's response to the crisis in nursing homes intensified.

The advice comes from the chief medical officer and the National Public Health Emergency Team. The implementation comes from the HSE.

When you can't point to them, fall back on another quango. Suddenly, the all-action minister wants Hiqa to "shine a spotlight".

"I would like to see a set of standards drawn up quickly by Hiqa to address Covid-19 preparedness, in addition to the work that is already going on. I want our staffing beefed up in line with the redeployment. I want testing expanded to include testing for asymptomatic residents of nursing homes and staff."

Harris didn't make this statement a month ago when the Taoiseach vowed to his Fine Gael TDs and senators to do everything possible not to allow what happened in Italy where elderly people from nursing homes weren't going to hospital when Covid-19 spread in their facility, just to the morgue.

Nor when Fine Gael TDs raised the nursing home staffing levels at two subsequent parliamentary party meetings.

Nor a fortnight ago when Stephen Donnelly used the Dail floor to reveal a nursing home with 200 staff had 70 positive tests for the virus, 19 of the 100 residents had tested positive and four have died.

Donnelly didn't get an answer. The official Government response was condemnation for the Dail sitting at all. "Shame on you," the opposition was lectured at by Cabinet minister Josepha Madigan.

Donnelly, whose party propped up Harris's ineptitude for the past three years, tried to pin him down a fortnight ago on the supports for nursing homes, and is now rightly fed up with the promises. Despite his party's pledge to hop into bed with Fine Gael for another five years, he's not holding back on his criticism, pointing out the funding and staffing for nursing homes was announced a fortnight ago and hasn't been acted upon.

What brought about the shift in the spotlight were revelations about the scale of the outbreak in residential care facilities, prompting the crisis to be labelled a national catastrophe.

Then suddenly, there's a plan to test residents and staff in nursing homes.

When we look back on this period, the protection afforded to our most vulnerable won't be viewed benignly.

The median age of those dying is 83 and two-thirds of the deaths are in care home settings. The full picture might not even be clear yet.

Dr Myra Cullinane, the Dublin coroner, has said she is concerned that not all Covid-19 deaths, whether proven or suspected, are being reported. The HSE now admits not all deaths in nursing homes from the coronavirus have been documented as such.

Success

Suddenly, we're being told that we're winning and the measures taken are a "huge success".

Apart from the 530 deaths.

Adopting the attitude of the Irish rugby fans in the 1990s, we're being told to cheer on a glorious defeat.

Pull on the green jersey.

Yes, the infection rates and deaths are being kept down, but let's keep an eye on the overall picture.

It's been the week when the spin got found out.

The nursing home catastrophe was not the only alarm bell going off this week.

Previously, you had the playing down of the dodgy PPE, which was so well heralded.

Then there was the false negative test results from the German lab we were told operated to the highest standards.

After repeated assurances the testing backlog was being resolved, Mary Lou McDonald's high-profile case blew that wide open as it showed the public what was really happening.

The Sinn Fein leader was waiting a whole 16 days to get the result of her test for the virus, 16 days for a mother of two children to be told if she has a deadly virus in her home.

Her case is not unique, or even the longest waiting period. The 15,000 tests a day we were promised a month ago is swept under the carpet.

After the previously dismissive attitude of the Government, Leo Varadkar adopted a respectful tone this week. Waiting in the wings, his putative successor, Micheal Martin surmised when the public loses confidence that it is being kept fully informed that unease and a refusal to follow advice are most likely to grow.

The lack of transparency is now catching the Government out and this is how it will lose the support of the public.

The Government is handling the crisis well, implementing policies effectively and calmly guiding the country through an unprecedented event.

But it can't afford to rest on the laurels of opinion polls.

In a rapidly evolving crisis, nobody expects the right decisions to be taken all the time. Mistakes will be made. The maturity to admit errors has to be shown to develop public confidence.

Transparency, scrutiny and accountability all help to build and maintain trust, leading to support for the measures you are introducing. From the last crisis, we know there is an inherent risk. Once people feel they are being spun, misled or just not being given the full picture, you lose that trust, making it even more difficult to implement policies.

In this case that's a life or death matter.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  The Ohio Health Department on Friday urged a federal judge to leave the states coronavirus stay-at-home order untouched, bucking assertions from a libertarian law firm that said the order gives business owners no way to fight if the government orders them to shut down.

The state Attorney Generals Office, which represents the Health Department and Director Dr. Amy Acton, said the lawsuit and request for a temporary restraining order filed in federal court Thursday by the owner of a Columbus bridal shop did not prove why the order should be tweaked or overturned.

The businesswoman, Tanya Rutner Hartman of Gilded Social: The Fancy Occasion Shop in Columbus, argued she should have a right to a hearing to prove why her business is essential and should be allowed to stay open during the pandemic. She argued that the power given to Acton is too broad and cannot be enforced, which the state says is not the case and was granted to her by the legislature to protect the publics health.

The states brief, written by Assistant Attorney General Katherine Bockbrader, also said its unfeasible to think every shop owner could receive such a hearing. She added that this specific situation does not warrant a hearing because businesses must follow Ohio law.

Obviously, there would be no way Ohio could offer a hearing to every non-essential business in Ohio (or even to a modest percentage of Ohios considerable population of business owners), the brief states.

Chief U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley will hold a hearing Monday on the case.

The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law represents Hartman in the lawsuit. It is in line with a small but vocal group of right-wing protesters, lawmakers and advocates who have called on Ohio officials to relax coronavirus-related restrictions. Acton and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said the measures are necessary to ensure more people dont contract the virus and overwhelm emergency rooms.

As of Friday, 8,858 people have tested positive for the virus, and 401 people have died.

Gilded Socials website says the store is closed until May 1, when Actons stay-at-home order expires, and that employees are only available for virtual appointments. Hartmans lawyer said his client closed the store on her own and had faced no action by local or state health officials.

However, he said he reached out to the health officials to see if there was a way to determine whether Hartmans store fit the definition of essential under the order, and was told there was not a forum to do so. He claimed that the state is forcing many businesses to choose between financial ruin or prosecution, as a violation of the order can result in a second-degree misdemeanor criminal charge.

The order includes a list with a broad array of stores and companies that may remain open, provided the employees can stay socially distant and adhere to guidelines to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The state wrote in its brief that Hartman and her business have been under the order for 25 days and that she has not shown why her store would undergo more harm if she abides by the order for another two weeks.

It also points out that Hartman claims the list is unclear but conceded that hers is not one of the essential businesses outlined in the order.

This argument fails because Plaintiffs are not arguing that they cannot determine whether the order applies to them, Bockbrader wrote, noting that clothing stores are not deemed essential. Plaintiffs simply disagree with the concluion (sic) that their business is non-essential.
Help India!

By Aas Mohammad Kaif, TwoCircles.net

Meerut: In India, the religion of Corona has been decided, and the proofs can be seen in lanes and corners. One fresh proof is reported from former BSP Minister, Kuldeep Ujjwals house in Meeruts Shastri Nagar. Early morning, a stranger outside Ujjwals residence was heard coughing badly, catching Ujjwal and his wife, Anshus attention. As responsible citizens during times of the deadly virus claiming thousands of lives worldwide, the couple immediately advised the stranger to cover his mouth while coughing. The reply to this simple advisory came, ..Main mazdoor hoon main toh kaam karne ja rahe hoon aur main toh Hindu hoon, Musalman nahi (I am laborer going for work, and I am a Hindu, not a Muslim).

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Later the worker was given a mask and sent away from the colony.

According to Kuldeep Ujjwal, also a professor of Political Science, the incident happened around 9 in the morning of April 17 while he was standing in the front yard of his house with his wife. Iss ghatna ke baad se mere ghar mein yehi charcha hai, meri patni keh rahi hai ki ye kya ho gaya (Since the incident occurred, it has been the only discussion in my house. My wife is shocked at what has happened), said Ujjwal.

His wife, Anshu, who is also a professor is worried about the sudden rise in communalism in the Indian society. No disease comes according to peoples faith. Desh mein turant nafrat parosne waale TV channel par rok lagani chahiye (TV channels that serve instant hatred to people must be banned), said Anshu, stating that the country is becoming poisonous due to extremists at both sides who are sickening the mentality of others because of such illiteracy.

However, this is not a first time it happened during Corona. In Hindu localities across the state, there are reports of Muslim vendors and laborers being banned from entering or selling goods. These areas are now mandating checking of Aadhar card of vendors before they are allowed inside Hindu residential spaces. Several incidents of violence against Muslim cleaners and vendors have also surfaced in the recent days. In Hindu dominated areas, Muslims have been asked by their Hindu landlords to even leave their rented houses. To distinguish Hindu from Muslim sellers, saffron flags are being hoisted in these makeshift stalls or carts of fruitsellers. Such incidents are coming in huge numbers from the entire state, especially from West UP.

When asked about the same, Ujjwal confirmed similar instances in his locality. Before asking for the price of vegetables, people ask sellers to show their Aadhar cards and ID proofs. Ujjwal feels saddened by the changing fabric of Indias social system, remarking that he comes from a secular and inclusive background where people are intolerant of any bias regarding faith. He expressed that he gives him immense pride that his wife shares the same idea, and in fact, Anshu was more affected by the whole incident that himself.

Mahamari ko dharm se nahi joda jaa sakta (A pandemic cannot be associated with any religious belief), Anshu had rebuked the laborer early morning. She hasnt been able to forget the response of the stranger because she herself has been teaching thousands of students as an English professor but has never discriminated anyone on the basis of their faith. Unity in diversity is the countrys pride for Anshu.

Ujjwal feels that it is the BJP governments failure to deliver promises of development that it aims to hide behind this venom of communalism and this is just another strategy of the government to make people forget of their failures and fight in the name of religion.

Ashish Tomar from Bagpat says similar incidents of communal hatred have been witnessed in his locality. A vegetable seller had visited the vicinity and he had no masks on his mouth. He refused to take sanitizers when he was offered one, saying that, Sahab, main toh Hindu hoon, Musalman nahi (Sir, I am a Hindu, not a Muslim).

Ashish says he was initially furious at the response, but later he felt sad for the poor man whose mind he opines has been hacked by extremists, just like the minds of lakhs of people in the country have been hacked through venomous content on TV and social media. This, he feels, is bad for the whole country.
Illinois needs more than $40 billion in relief from the federal government because of the coronavirus pandemic  including $10 billion to help bail out its beleaguered pension system, according to a letter the Illinois Senate president sent to members of Congress.

The letter, sent this week by State Senator Don Harmon, also seeks a $15 billion grant to stabilize the states budget, $9.6 billion in direct aid to Illinoiss cities, $6 billion for the states unemployment insurance fund, and hardship money for hospitals and nursing homes, among other things.

I realize Ive asked for a lot, but this is an unprecedented situation, Mr. Harmon, a Democrat, wrote in the letter to the states congressional delegation, a copy of which was viewed by The New York Times. A spokesman confirmed that Mr. Harmon had written the letter.

The letter was shared with Gov. J.B. Pritzker, also a Democrat, who said this week that the federal government should provide more funding to states. Messages left for State Senator Bill Brady, the minority leader, were not immediately returned on Friday evening. Democrats hold 40 of the State Senate's 59 seats.
KALAMAZOO, MI  The Kalamazoo City Commission has changed the format of its virtual meetings in an attempt to allow public participation while also adhering to requirements of the states Open Meetings Act and more recent executive orders.

The new format will allow the city to filter out any public comments that break the rules of commenting at a public meeting  determinations that will be up to city staff coordinating the virtual meeting.

Some advocates for government transparency are critical of the plan because it could prevent the public from hearing comments held back by city staff, and because of the time delay between when comments are made and when they are played at the meeting.

The Kalamazoo City Commission will meet virtually on Monday, April 20, to consider a number of action items.

The change is aimed at preventing off-topic, disruptive and profane comments, like the ones that bombarded the first virtual city commission meeting that allowed live audio commenting on the Zoom video platform. Instead, the format for Mondays meeting asks citizens to call in and leave their comment as an audio message, either beforehand or up to the time of the meetings public comment period.

Deputy City Manager Jeff Chamberlain said the city believes the new virtual meeting format complies with the Open Meetings Act and the requirements of Gov. Gretchen Whitmers executive order that allows government meetings to be held electronically.

Jennifer Dukarski, deputy general counsel for the Michigan Press Association, said if public comment is only allowed through via a phone recording played back at the meeting, then the format flies in the face of the spirit of the Open Meetings Act and the spirit of the governors executive order 2020-48. One portion of the order states:

A meeting of a public body held electronically must be conducted in a manner that permits two-way communication so that members of the public body can hear and be heard by other members of the public body and so that general public participants can hear members of the public body and can be heard by members of the public body and other participants during a public comment period.

Kalamazoos planned format would likely violate that provision, Dukarski said.

This doesnt appear to be a true telephone conference or video conference," she said. It looks like a video playback on YouTube or Facebook. The spirit of the order suggests that we need to maintain an open communication, hearing and being heard during the public meeting in real time even though were apart physically."

The adjusted format will allow city staff to chose not to play some of the comments received for the public meeting, Chamberlain said, but only if it is determined they violate fundamental rules of public comment at any public meeting that ban things like vulgarities and racist speech.

Those comments are not allowed at an in-person meeting and are also not allowed during a virtual meeting, Chamberlain said. He said the comments will be played on a time delay, and the action does not censor peoples speech.

We will listen to the comments. If it is in compliance with the rules, it will will be broadcast publicly, Chamberlain said.

The city managers office and the city attorneys office will determine if any of the comments do not meet the public meeting comment standards, he said. Comments will be played during a single comment period at the meeting, Chamberlain said, and any comments in compliance with the rules and received by that time will be played.

During the bodys previous virtual meeting on March 31, city commissioners heard several comments from internet trolls, or Zoom bombers, spewing hate speech and profanity and disrupting the meeting. The disruptions led the city commission to limit public comment to one part of the meeting, barring speakers from commenting before each agenda item.

This is all new," Chamberlain said on April 17 about the citys shift to a digital format after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recommended against holding gatherings in March, and gave governments the go-ahead to hold meetings in a virtual space instead.

The city plans to save all recorded comments received, including ones not played during the meeting, to include them as part of the official record, Chamberlain said.

Chamberlain said the city is holding the meeting because it needs to continue to move forward in several areas. Recreational marijuana ordinances and housing ordinances are some of the work underway that began before the pandemic forced changes throughout Michigan and beyond.

The main goal of virtual meetings is to keep the publics business happening in open view and the city of Kalamazoo is very committed to that," Chamberlain said.

Because there are no hard and fast rules on how to hold virtual public meetings amid the pandemic, municipalities have taken different approaches.

For example, Grand Rapids leaders did not allow public comment during a meeting on April 7, and likely violated the Open Meetings Act, according to the state Attorney Generals Office.

Pressing ahead with the business of the city while at same time working through this format of virtual meetings, we believe weve created a format that, if anybody wants to speak about the business at hand that night, they have the opportunity to do that, Chamberlain said.

In recent weeks, the city of Kalamazoo was giving input to the Michigan Municipal League for the leagues talks with the governors office about the possibility of updating the executive order in efforts to help cities address the issue of distributions caused by inappropriate comments.

However, the governors updated executive order related to the Open Meetings Act did not include any such changes, simply extending the end date of the original order.

Mondays Kalamazoo City Commission meeting will be streamed live on the citys Facebook page and its YouTube channel.

Members of the public without computer or internet access can listen to the meeting by calling 269-552-6425 and entering Meeting ID code 949 4973 0897, when prompted.

The agenda and other meeting documents can be found at https://kalamazoomi.civicclerk.com/web/home.aspx.

Anyone who wants to provide comment or input on items on the agenda may do so beginning at 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 20, by calling 269-226-6573 and leaving a recording. Comments will be played during the public comment portion, which takes place at the beginning of the meeting after public hearings and before commissioners consider items on the consent agenda.

Those with disabilities who need accommodations to effectively participate in city commission meetings should contact the Kalamazoo City Clerks Office at 269-337-8792 by 10 a.m. on the day of the meeting to request assistance.

Read more:

Zoom bombing causes chaos at Michigan government meetings; officials search for solution

See where recreational marijuana lounges, retail stores, could open in Kalamazoo

Kalamazoo city manager approves $7.2M in spending while commission does not meet

Coronavirus pauses major road project in Kalamazoo
Former Brazilian President Luiza Inacio Lula da Silva recently called Jair Bolsonaro a "troglodyte" in an impassioned interview with a local Brazilian news outlet.

Lula walked out of prison in November 2019 after serving a 12-year corruption sentence for his involvement in a massive Petrobras corruption scandal where more than a dozen people, including politicians and top executives, were arrested.

In the interview, Lula said Bolsonaro is leading Brazil and its people "to the slaughterhouse" due to inaction, dismissal of facts, and an overall irresponsible handling of the COVID-19 crisis.

He said Bolsonaro's continuous attack on social distancing measures and the firing of his health minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta increases the risk of Brazil resembling the tragic scene playing out in Ecuador where families leave their deceased loved ones in the streets due to a shortage in coffins.

The 74-year-old leftist believes Brazil will suffer a great deal as the people of Guayaquil did should Bolsonaro continue his recklessness. He urged local institutions to consider an impeachment "if Bolsonaro continues to commit crimes of responsibility."

"He's trying to lead us to a slaughterhouse," he said.

Jair Bolsonaro



Brazil's current president is known for being a staunch critic of COVID-19 and the guidelines presented by federal health organizations. Bolsonaro has proudly declared himself a homophobe.

In an interview with British actor Stephen Fry, the far-right president claimed: "homosexual fundamentalists" were forcing children to become gays and lesbians for their pleasure.

The former army captain is also despised for his hostility against preserving wildlife, honoring indigenous rights, and the art. He has repeatedly painted the media as a tool manipulated by the opposition to create panic and a narrative.

Since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in early March, Bolsonaro has, on more than one occasion, dismissed the need to observe distancing measures. In a press conference, he compared the coronavirus, which has killed 155,173 people across the globe, to a mere seasonal cold.

In the past week, Bolsonaro went for a walk and shook the hands of his followers against the advice of then-health minister Mandetta.

In March, the rightwing populist encouraged Brazil's people to bathe in excrement, claiming "nothing will happen."

Bolsonaro Jr.

Bolsonaro's son, Eduardo, received a tremendous amount of backlash after he claimed the Chinese government was to blame for COVID-19.

His remark drew a lot of ire from Chinese diplomats who demanded Brazil's de factor foreign minister to retract the statement and issue an apology for insulting the Chinese Communist Party.

The Chinese embassy hit back at Eduardo by claiming he contracted "a mental virus." They also said Eduardo lacked the international vision and common sense.

"The Bolsonaro family is the great poison of this country," they said.

Eduardo posted an apology in a series of tweets a day later. He claimed he did not mean to offend anyone, saying he was only criticizing the Chinese government for the way they handled the virus. He said his message was wrongly interpreted.

"I shared a post that would have been useful in prevention on a global scale," he added.
New Delhi, Apr 17 (UNI) Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Friday said that fee hike by private schools are not allowed without the Delhi Government's prior approval during the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown.

Addressing a digital press conference here, Mr Sisodia announced that private schools are allowed to charge only tuition fee on monthly basis from their students.

He said no other fees like annual fee or transportation fee or under any other head should be charged from them in wake of the pandemic COVID-19.
Ghana recorded its first two cases on March 11, 2020, and the numbers have escalated to hundreds of cases in the space of just a month.

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

What started as single numbers recorded in the country's capital has spread to other regions in the country with Greater Accra leading the charge with over 500 confirmed cases.

In other regions, the cases recorded are not that severe.

It is important for Ghanaians to know the regions where the cases have been recorded and the numbers on record so far.

COVID-19: Regional updates and cases recorded so far in Ghana Source: Ghana Health Service

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: COVID-19: Compile new voters' register in places with no lockdown  Okudzeto to EC

Out of the 16 regions in Ghana, cases have been recorded in 10 regions in the country. The affected regions include;

Greater Accra Region - 541

Ashanti Region - 53

Northern Region - 10

Central Region - 1

Upper East Region - 4

Upper West Region - 7

Eastern Region - 42

North East - 1

Volta - 1

Western - 1

READ ALSO: COVID-19 lockdown: Account for money used to feed Kayayei - Dr Zanetor angrily demands

Meanwhile, as the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic continues to spread around the world, a lot of eyes are on Africa  as a continent with existing issues of inequality and a lack of health infrastructure.

While cases in Africa remain comparatively low, the West African nation of Ghana reportedly has one of the highest number of confirmed cases in Africa, with 641 confirmed cases to date  the second-highest number in the sub-region, after neighbouring Ivory Coast.

Ghana has been praised for how she has responded to the virus  particularly in terms of testing, and as of April 15, 50,719 tests have been done so far.

READ ALSO: COVID-19: What you missed in the news on Thursday, April 16, 2020

51-year-old Fred Drah recovers from COVID-19 in Ghana | #Yencomgh

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Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page.

Source: YEN.com.gh
With three kids who are so little, I feel like going back right now would be punishing everyone. It would be difficult and expensive to have all three in day care. And then theres the knowledge that any job I did have would not get my full attention or time: Kids get sick, kids have doctors appointments, a tree falls in the front yard, the car needs an oil change. My husband has an all consuming job, and it is so helpful to have someone at home to take care of everything else.

We are lucky we can afford to do this, but I do feel guilty for not leaning in right now. I do, at times, resent women who get right back to their important work. I need to remind myself that this is a right now situation and that when we are ready as a family, I CAN go back. Ill never be a C.E.O. or the next R.B.G., and I need to be O.K. with that. My husband will laugh and ask me if I know how many people see their jobs as a drag and cant wait for retirement. Maybe I feel as a woman its important to be an inspiration for my daughters to do important work too. Isnt being a rock star mom important work? my friends will ask me, in an effort to validate my decision.  Jenn Tobia

Im not ready.

I gave up my career as a military officer to seek the glitz and glamour of a corporate America. Then I jumped off the ladder because I had a baby, and my husbands career increased in responsibility and time away from family.

After our second child was born, I attempted to re-enter the workforce after staying home for four years. I thought Old Steph was in that office building somewhere. But the meetings were arduous, the emails were endless and as my bank account bloated, my soul was drained by gray cube walls, fluorescent lighting and polite client lunches. I missed my kids!
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When film researcher Lillian Michelson was at DreamWorks Animation, shed bring her husband, famed storyboard artist and Oscar-nominated production designer Harold Michelson, to work with her.

He had to retire because he had many things wrong with him, said Michelson. I wouldnt leave him alone. All the artists found out who he was and theyd come in and talk with him about drawing. He was just beloved.

In fact, the couple were so beloved at the studio that the King and Queen in 2004s Shrek 2 were named Harold and Lillian.

Their remarkable lives and careers are the subject of Daniel Raims compelling new documentary, Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story, which opens in Los Angeles on Friday.

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Illustration by Patrick Mate in Daniel Raims film, Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story. (Adama Films / Zeitgeist Films)

The documentary features interviews with such filmmakers as Mel Brooks, Francis Ford Coppola and Danny DeVito (an executive producer of the documentary), as well as vintage interviews with Harold and Lillian, new interviews with her, Harolds artwork and storyboards and scenes from the films they worked on.

Raim first encountered Harold Michelson 20 years ago when he was a guest at production designer Robert Boyles class at AFI. He taught us storyboarding technique, recalled Raim. Michelson was also included in Raims Oscar-nominated 2000 short on Boyle, The Man on Lincolns Nose and his 2010 documentary Somethings Gonna Live.

Lillian and Harold nurtured me and took me under their wing and showed me Hollywood is also filled with very loving people, said Raim.

Harold Michelson died a decade ago at the age of 87. Lillian Michelson, now 88, retired in 2010 and lives in a comfy room filled with photos, drawings and other mementos at the Motion Picture and Television Fund in Woodland Hills.

The diminutive Michelson may use a walker with wheels, but shes still a vital powerhouse. And on this recent warm afternoon, she and Raim discuss the documentary over lunch in a private area off the dining room.

Lillian and Harold Michelson in Los Angeles in December 1947 in Daniel Raims documentary, Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story. (Adama Films / Zeitgeist Films)

Lillian Michelson grew up in orphanages outside of Miami. Harold was her friends brother who would joke around with her, but after he returned from World War II, he confessed he loved her. She accepted his invitation to come out with him to Los Angeles and the two married when she was 19 and he was 28.

She raised three sons in the 1950s; their eldest, Alan, was born autistic at a time when little was known about the disorder.

We were very lucky with Alan, she said. Hes such a gentle soul. Never, never angry. He would sit and rock and have all the classic symptoms, but he had the soul of an angel. (Alan Michelson would go on to graduate from college and have a successful career as a computer programmer).

While she was raising the children, Harold Michelson was building a reputation for himself as a storyboard artist who had an uncanny ability to turn the written word into innovative shot designs such as Moses parting the Red Sea in Cecil B. DeMilles 1956 The Ten Commandments or Mrs. Robinsons raised leg in the foreground with Benjamin in the background in 1967s The Graduate.

Can I ask a question?, Raim asked Michelson. How did Harold feel in 1967 when The Graduate comes out and the poster uses his image?

He was so thrilled, said Michelson, smiling. It was, like, huge. Just thrilled.

But he never really got credit for the work he did with his storyboards.

 Harold and Lillian exclusive clip, The Graduate.

He was a naturally humble person, a modest person, noted Michelson. He would never envision having his credits known. It just wasnt done in the Art Department. It was like a ceremony. When you finished your sketch you didnt hand it to the production designer or director. You handed it to the guy who managed the drafting room and he handed it to the production designer. It was that strict.

In fact, Michelson never met DeMille when he was working on The Ten Commandments.

Theres an excerpt in the film where he said the only time he ever saw DeMille was outside the window of the Art Department walking with his entourage, Raim said, laughing. It was a rabbi and a priest. They thought he [DeMille] was God. Thats Harolds joke.

Along the way, Michelson also did storyboards for the likes of Alfred Hitchcock (The Birds, Marnie) before he turned to production design, earning Oscar nominations for 1979s Star Trek: The Motion Picture and 1983s Terms of Endearment.

Lillian came into her own when she began working at the research library at Samuel Goldwyn studios in 1961, which had been run for nearly 30 years by Lelia Alexander. When Alexander retired in 1969, Lillian bought the library. The Lillian Michelson Research Library, which featured some 7,000 books and over a million clippings, first found a home at the American Film Institute and then in the early 80s at Francis Ford Coppolas Zoetrope Studio in Hollywood.

After Zoetrope closed, she and her library moved to Paramount and then to DreamWorks.

Classic Hollywood on Facebook 

Among the films she did research for over the decades are The Birds, Fiddler on the Roof, Rosemarys Baby, Chinatown, " the Rocky franchise and 1941, for which she received her first screen credit. She didnt just use her library to find information. When she was called to find out what type of undergarments Jewish women wore in Russia at the turn of the 20th century for Fiddler on the Roof, she went down to the Fairfax district and talked to elderly Jewish women. One woman not only remembered what she wore, she went home and quickly created a pattern for the clothing.

Michelson did get in a bit over her head when she talked to some shady characters doing research for the Brian De Palma film Scarface. One afternoon, federal drug agents dropped in. They were busy looking for these guys. And they sat and had tea and coffee and cookies. I was sweating until they left. I was fond of [the gangsters]. A person makes a mistake and hes labeled and pushed down a path that he never dreams of. You dont start out being a criminal.

Other than 20th Century Fox, all the studio research libraries have closed, but George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola bought them and moved them up to Northern California, she noted.

Like her husband, Lillian Michelson is modest about her accomplishments.

It was our job, she declares. We never thought that we were accomplishing anything because it was always another little problem to be solved the next day. Its like washing dishes. As soon as you get finished, well, you have another little problem. You have to eat breakfast.

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The Victorian government has refused to prop up embattled Virgin Australia, which is teetering on the brink of collapse due to the coronavirus crisis.

The company is drowning in almost $5billion worth of debt and bosses are reportedly in discussions with Chinese airlines, who are poised for a last-minute takeover.

The Queensland government threw the carrier a last minute lifeline and said it would offer Virgin $200million towards a bailout in the hope that other states will follow suit.

However these hopes were dashed on Saturday when Victoria said it 'had no 'plans' to prop up the flailing airline, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The Victorian Government has refused to prop up Virgin Australia (pictured)

The statement came after Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said the government had no further announcements to make on the aviation industry on Friday.

Queensland's State Development Minister Cameron Dick on Friday that two airlines were needed 'if we're going to get through this pandemic'.

'All governments need to come together to ensure that is the case,' he said.

'Queensland can't do this on its own. This is a national airline weathering a national crisis and it needs a national response which is why we're asking the Australian government to take the lead on this.'

The Federal Government has ignored the airline's pleas for a $1.4 billion loan but has offered $165 million to both Qantas and Virgin to keep the carriers operating essential domestic routes.

Chinese carriers (pictured) were reportedly in talks to purchase the struggling company

Yesterday it was reported that China Southern Airlines, China East Airlines and Air China were all in discussions about purchasing Virgin Australia in a last-minute takeover.

The Chinese government-owned airlines were yet to make a decision but have the power to stop the company's 'catastrophic' collapse.

Any offer could provide a much-needed lifeline to Virgin Australia and the market-led cash solution the Morrison government urged them to find.

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

Virgin Australia has already suspended all but one domestic route, stood down 8,000 workers and had its credit rating downgraded.

The airline also suspended its trading on Thursday.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack welcomed Queensland's $200 million commitment to ailing airline Virgin Australia and insisted the Morrison government is also exploring all avenues to keep two airlines in the air.

'Sustaining Australia's aviation industry is critical to protecting livelihoods and saving lives and the federal government is exploring all possible avenues to keep two airlines in the air, throughout this pandemic and on the other side of it,' Mr McCormack told AAP on Saturday.

'I welcome states and territories exploring ways to assist their local aviation businesses and welcome the Queensland government's commitment to Virgin.'

Labor's transport spokeswoman Catherine King said the Queensland government is demonstrating the clear national leadership needed to support Australia's aviation industry through the COVID-19 crisis.

'Scott Morrison must provide a lifeline to Virgin through extending or guaranteeing lines of credit and taking an equity stake,' Ms King said in a statement.

'Such an intervention will give the government the temporary ability to support the airline through this crisis before the industry bounces back - and it will - when the government can recoup its investment,' she said.
One person suffered serious gunshot wounds and several others were injured in a shooting incident that apparently stretched across the city early Friday evening.

Ryan Walsh, spokesman for the Springfield Police Department, said one person was transported by ambulance with serious wounds from a shooting scene on College Street in the citys Mason Square area.

Several other injured people were transported to area hospitals in private vehicles.

Dozens of cruisers flooded the area just seconds after the 7:00 p.m. incident. Walsh said one firearm was recovered and several people detained.

Witnesses said numerous shots were fired in the area at about 7 p.m. Police cruisers arrived seconds later and set up a crime scene on College Street. On parallel Maynard Street several gunshots were fired damaging one car and leaving a trail of spent shell casings in the roadway.

A third shooting scene was set up at the intersection of Page Blvd. and Berkshire Avenue minutes after the College Street shooting. Walsh said it is unclear if the injured parties were hurt at the College Street shooting or at the Page Blvd. Scene. He said all the shootings are connected.

The investigation into these incidents remains open and active. Additional details may become available and will be posted as we receive them.
As the coronavirus continues to spread, there is deep concern about the situation in our care homes, and there are still important unanswered questions. Of the 435 virus-related deaths in the week to April 10, people aged 75 and over accounted for almost 70% of the total figure.

The authorities are still unable to tell us exactly how many residents of care homes have died, or how many have been diagnosed with the virus. This surveillance is woefully inadequate.

Ten residents of the Owen Mor Care Centre in Londonderry lost their lives in an 18-day period recently. However, three died in hospital, and their deaths are not included in the 41 revealed by officials yesterday.

As one of our reports today highlights, it is not known how many more care residents have died in hospital, and the real figure may never be known. However, the public has a right to know what is going on.

The situation is also complicated by the lack of PPE for care workers, and the fact that some care homes were being asked to admit people being discharged from hospital, even though they had not been tested for Covid-19. The situation in the care sector is dire compared to the commendable efforts elsewhere.

However, we must not forget that each statistic represents a tragic human story. The elderly are among the most vulnerable in our society, and those staff looking after them have been doing an admirable job, but they need help.

Despite the best efforts of the carers, many older people feel isolated from their families, and their relatives are also distressed because they cannot be close to their loved ones.

Amid all this suffering, the authorities are honour-bound to do all they can to end this uncertainty, as well as making sure that the carers have proper protection, and that the victims receive as much help as possible. The Stormont authorities and health chiefs must not fail in this venture, or they will do so at their peril. Our care homes and the elderly remain a major challenge.
An official of the Revolutionary Guard in Fars Province on Saturday said the Guards' intelligence agents have seized a big quantity of limes "hoarded for sale at a higher price".

According to the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) Colonel Jalal Yar-Mohammadi said the IRGC Intelligence Organization has seized 1,200 metric tons of hoarded limes in Jahrom in Fars Province which is one of Iran's largest citrus-producing regions. The fruit kept in cold storage facilities was seized for redistribution across the country, he said.

The prices of limes, lemons, citrus limetta (sweet lemons), ginger, bananas, and garlic have increased considerably since February when the first cases of coronavirus deaths were reported in Iran. Besides culinary uses, these fruit and vegetables are thought to fortify the immune system against coronavirus while the juice of sweet lemons is also a traditional remedy for bringing down high fevers. Bananas and ginger are imported but citrus fruit and garlic are home-grown.

The rising price of some fruits and vegetables in the past two months has prompted government agencies, including the Judiciary, to intervene to regulate the market and make these items available to the public at reasonable prices.

According to Mizan Online, the news agency of the Iranian Judiciary, five wholesalers who have the monopoly for limes in Iran are releasing only 30,000 kilos of limes to the market daily instead of the usual 200,000 kilos, to keep the prices high.

In the case of limes the Consumer Protection Organization appealed to the Judiciary. By the request of the Chief Justice Ayatollah Ebrahim Raeesi the Revolutionary Guard undertook the task of locating the much-in-demand citrus fruit and seizing it for redistribution, Mizan Online reported. However, the quantity seized could supply demand for just a few days, per 200-ton daily consumption.

The Intelligence Organization of the Revolutionary Guard is a security-intelligence outfit which usually chases political dissidents but in some cases also carries out operations related to "economic corruption".

Prices of food items in Iran are highly regulated by the Consumer Protection Organization. In February 2007 an increase in the price of tomatoes, also an important ingredient in Iranian cuisine, caused a political uproar and the matter was even taken up with the Parliament. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President at the time, claimed that the "enemies" were responsible for the hike in the price of tomatoes.
To win and succeed in outer space combat, the U.S. Space Force will be armed and ready to defend America's interests in space.

According to reports, America's combat specialists in space will be armed with the latest weapons that can kill any satellite in orbit, and succeed to keep space free and uncontrolled by any superpower.

America's most advanced combat specialists

This branch of the American military has a new weapon to worry rivals in space. An offensive weapon called the Counter Communications System Block 10.2-was operational after a year-long testing period, and is ready to roll out in an all-out fight to protect all free nations.

This is developed with L3Harris Technologies that is one of the first techs that are "transportable space electronic warfare system that reversibly denies adversary satellite communications." In short, it will jam satellite communication of the other powers, denying them the use of satellite coms in a situation.

The delivery of the communication interdiction equipment will give the division in the air force with 16 units of unprecedented offensive capacity. Soon after the delivery of the first prototype, second that features improve will be out next.

According to Colonel Stephen Brogan, a unit head involved with procurement for the Space Force, in an interview with Bloomberg, the next upgrade will be "Meadowland" that will feature offensive capacity.

Also read: America's F-100 Supersonic Fighter Plane, China's JH-7A Fighter Bomber Comparison

He added the space force is there to have the unprecedented offensive capacity to deal crucial blows to adversaries of America and to make them stay down or get more. According to Lt. Brogan, four more models will be ready for delivery by October 2022. If the earlier models were transportable, a newer model will jam frequencies to disable more frequencies and will be lighter in weight.

Military officials explained that these ground-based jammers will be used to kill communication, give American assets time to kill orbit based equipment before enemies can react. They reassured that jamming interference can be reversed and is temporary to give assets the advantage in a knockout fight.

America's response to dominate in space

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had a warning last January that China and Russia are threats if they control outer space combat, and stressed that Americans must roll out countermeasures.

According to Newsweek, a research paper that lays out what needs to be done to illustrate the scenario says, "Chinese and Russian space surveillance networks are capable of searching, tracking, and characterizing satellites in all earth orbits."

The system supports space operations and counter-space systems. Russia and China have "jamming and cyberspace capabilities, directed energy weapons, on-orbit capabilities and ground-based antisatellite missiles that can achieve a range of reversible to non-reversible effects."

Gen. John W. Raymond, U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations, said Russia is not sincere and are still developing counter-space weapons programs, and use space arms control to limit US power in space.

He added that even in times of pandemics, developing these systems are crucial because it will be dangerous to be trusting. Last December, President Donald Trump made the National Defense Authorization Act 2020 into law creating the Space Force as the NDAA is in force.

Through the US Space Force, American will continue its roles into the next century.

Related article: U.S. Navy Live-Fire Missiles in Philippine Sea

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
ENFIELD  A town resident, known as a lover of music and advocate for equality, died earlier this month after she contracted COVID-19, according to her obituary.

Florence L. Wilhelmsen died on April 5. She was 90.

She is counted among the many victims of the coronavirus, her obituary said.

Wilhelmsen was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her obituary said she lived a full and diverse life.

During her years in high school, her obituary said, she contributed to the war effort by dancing in United Service Organizations shows to entertain the troops.

At the end of World War II, she married Jarl Wilhelmsen  a veteran of the United States Army. The couple had three children.

Wilhelmsen had a strong love for music and was known to be a successful flautist, playing in concerts and bands while also teaching flute, her obituary said.

When the couple moved to Connecticut in 1970, Wilhelmsen became a long-term performer in the Hartford Symphony Chorale.

Music was always an important part of her full life, according to her obituary.

She spent a majority of her professional career as an emergency dispatcher for the West Hartford fire and police response center.

Her obituary said she was a proponent of womens rights and was instrument in advocating for equality for women in the workplace.

She is survived by her three children, her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, her family asked individuals to make a donation her Wilhelmsens name to her favorite cause, the ASPCA.

Online condolences can be left at www.SheehanHilbornBreen.com.
No casualties were reported among Ukrainian troops over the past day.

Russia's hybrid military forces on April 17 mounted five attacks on Ukrainian positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine.

"Armed formations of the Russian Federation violated the ceasefire five times on April 17," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation said in a Facebook update as of 07:00 Kyiv time on April 18, 2020.

Read alsoMinister explains low number of captured troops in Donbas swap lists

The enemy opened fire, employing proscribed 120mm mortars, grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, and rifles.

Under attack came Ukrainian positions near the town of Avdiyivka, and the villages of Hnutove, Opytne, Starohnativka, and Pivdenne.

Joint Forces returned fire to each enemy shelling. According to intelligence data, two members of Russia-led forces were wounded on April 17.

The enemy did not attack Ukrainian positions from 00:00 to 07:00 Kyiv time on April 18.

No casualties were reported among Ukrainian troops over the past day.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Apr.18

Trend:

Ambassador of France to Azerbaijan Zacharie Gross has sent a letter to Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev.

Dear Mr. President of Azerbaijan,

Mankind is facing a serious problem caused by the coronavirus. The pandemic has put to test both France and Azerbaijan.

At this difficult time, lighting up the magnificent building of the Heydar Aliyev Center with the colors of the French flag on the evening of April 5 was highly appreciated in our country as a valuable gesture of solidarity.

On behalf of French President Emmanuel Macron and all French people, I express my gratitude to you for such an exceptional manifestation of this friendship.

Mr. President, please accept the assurances of my highest consideration, reads the letter.




Earlier, Naija News reported that the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Mallam Abba Kyari is dead.

Kyari died after battling the deadly coronavirus.

The news of his death was announced by the presidency in the early hours of today.

Meanwhile Nigerians have taken to Twitter to react to the development, see reactions below

The life of this world is nothing but an illusion.

RIP Abba Kyari pic.twitter.com/87CTVWwtwV

 Shettimah  (@IamShateemah) April 18, 2020

Abba Kyari was Buharis right hand man. Buhari will feel this in his soul. Thoughts and prayers are with him.  Dr. Dipo Awojide (@OgbeniDipo) April 18, 2020

Because he died two weeks ago and they announced today? Abba Kyari is a Muslim. https://t.co/curpoHD2PA  JJ. Omojuwa (@Omojuwa) April 17, 2020

Chief of Staff to the President, Mallam Abba Kyari, passes on. May God rest his soul. Amen. Funeral arrangements to be announced soon.  Femi Adesina (@FemAdesina) April 17, 2020

Breaking news: Abba Kyari is dead Entire population: pic.twitter.com/gq6HaJvnZg   (@_debayo) April 18, 2020

Kemi Olunloyo has done it again. She tweeted this weeks ago.. yall labelled her mentally unstable & called her names. They finally decided to break the news of Abba kyari death today. Nawa!! pic.twitter.com/Ng1UfSjZxS  U GOTTA BE CRAAY (@Iamkrey_) April 18, 2020

Whatever plans youve for this life better drop it man and face Allah SWA. Today is Abba Kyari, tomorrow might be me or you. May Allah take our souls when hes most pleased with us!! Allah ya gafarta ma Abba Kyari ya yafe masa dukkan zunubansa. Ameen  Uncle Rx (@Rx_Khaleel) April 17, 2020

May the Almighty Allah forgive and be Merciful to Malam Abba Kyari (Chief of Staff to the President). May He (SWT) bless us with a good end,  Isa Ali Pantami, PhD (@DrIsaPantami) April 18, 2020

Abba kyari was probably the second most powerful person in Nigeria after President Muhammad Buhari and today hes no more. This is further proof that death doesnt care about your wealth or how powerful you are. It takes you whenever it feels like  Sarki. (@Waspapping_) April 18, 2020

Abba Kyari to bubu when he gets to where hes going. pic.twitter.com/QzRcKKJWbI  KAYOBAE (@iam_malawi) April 18, 2020

OFFICIALLY may Abba Kyari RIP. UNOFFICIALLY I dont care as this crisis in Nigeria was worsened by the social irresponsibility of people like him and total neglect of our health sector by the government; a government he was part of. The chickens are slowly coming home to roost.  UG (@UgwunnaEjikem) April 18, 2020

Anybody thats happy about the death of Abba kyari is stupid , evil and inhumane Rest on Abba kyari.  Sarki. (@Waspapping_) April 18, 2020

It wasnt a guess work, It wasnt prediction Kemi Olunloyo did not just mention Abba Kyari ni She knew what she was saying. Do yall remember that even Yaradua wasnt announced immediately?? So, cut me the Muslim rites shiiii Rest on Abba Kyari, only God can judge you. pic.twitter.com/qfh3SkYvXE  YOUR OSOGBO BARBER (@Cheyih_Viktah) April 18, 2020

Abba Kyari, was tested positive for coronavirus after a trip to Germany & Egypt, to discuss about issues related to Nigeria. Unfortunately many people rejoiced & wish death upon him. He is no more now & neither u or ur father can occupy the position. Rest in peace Mallam.  My Deen My Swag (@AM_Saleeem) April 18, 2020

Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi Rajiun.

We are all on a queue, yesterday was someone, today is another, tomorrow could be us, we pray that Almighty Allah takes our souls when Hes most pleased with us. May the soul of Abba Kyari Rest In Peace, This is a great loss to the Nation. pic.twitter.com/AZKqIqNVQt  Aminu shagali PhD (@abumuhibba) April 18, 2020

Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi Rajiun.

We are all on a queue, yesterday was someone, today is another, tomorrow could be us, we pray that Almighty Allah takes our souls when Hes most pleased with us. May the soul of Abba Kyari Rest In Peace, This is a great loss to the Nation. pic.twitter.com/AZKqIqNVQt  Aminu shagali PhD (@abumuhibba) April 18, 2020

From Allah we come & to Him is our return. Those that left havent gone too soon. Those that are still alive have not delayed. Everyone will die at his or her appointed time. May Allaah Have mercy on your soul Malam Abba Kyari. . This too shall pass. pic.twitter.com/PXKBMxLzRr  Dr. Abubakar Umar (@Realoilsheikh) April 18, 2020

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PORT HURON, MI  A Canadian trucker has been arrested after allegedly trying to bring more than 80 pounds of suspected drugs out of the U.S. via Michigans Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron.

About 2 a.m. on Friday, April 17, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers were conducting outbound enforcement examinations on vehicles leaving Michigan for Canada. A Canadian truck driver was referred for a cab check by officers.

The commercial truck had been hauling a shipment of flavoring syrup originating from California.

The driver became increasingly nervous and visibly shaken as officers performed a physical inspection of his trucks cab, officials report. Officers eventually found several bricks of suspected cocaine and fentanyl, the latter being a synthetic opioid 100 times more powerful than heroin and can be lethal to humans at the 2-milligram range.

Federal officials arrested the driver.

CBP Officers, working to keep the nations economy moving, stopped this shipment of illegal drugs from reaching its destination, said Christopher Perry, director of field operations. I am grateful for their vigilance and attention to detail in this interception.

The arrested man faces federal prosecution related to exportation of illegal drugs, Perry said. Homeland Security Investigations Border Enforcement Security Task Force Port Huron is investigating.

Related:

Saginaw man gets 13 years for selling fatal heroin-fentanyl mixture to Bay County man

U.S. Customs seized $7.8M and enough Fentanyl to kill 1.5M people at Michigan border in 2019

3 million doses of fentanyl from California seized in I-94 traffic stop
Over 50 stranded Italians were repatriated from Vietnam Friday night, with the flight also carrying four tons of medical equipment to aid Italys Covid-19 fight.

Vietnamese authorities, in collaboration with the Italian Embassy in Vietnam and Italian oil and gas firm Eni, organized the flight that was operated by Vietnam Airlines, the Foreign Ministry said.

On board were over 50 Italians, four tons of medical equipment gifted by Vietnam to help Italy in its fight against Covid-19.

A Vietnam Airlines press release said that 22 crew members, including 14 attendants, six pilots and two technicians, all wore protective suits on the flight to prevent possible infections.

All passengers had their body temperatures checked prior to departure, and were requested to wear masks for the entire flight.

It was the first direct flight from Vietnam to Italy by the national flag carrier.

The return flight, which landed in Da Nang in central Vietnam Saturday morning, carried a number of Vietnamese citizens in areas badly affected by Covid-19 in Italy, who lack medical and other essential resources.

Vietnam Airlines has organized several flights to repatriate foreigners in Vietnam, including Germans, Brits and other Europeans.

Since March 22, Vietnam has prohibited entry for all foreign nationals. Only Vietnamese and foreigners carrying diplomatic or official passports are allowed in, and everyone is quarantined for 14 days. Vietnamese carriers also suspended all international flights on March 25.

Vietnam has confirmed 268 Covid-19 cases so far, of which 67 are active. The country has recorded no new infection in the last two days.

The Covid-19 pandemic has reached 210 countries and territories, and reported deaths have surpassed 154,300.
After the Enforcement Directorate registered a case against Tablighi Jamaat chief Maulana Saad and other members of the outfit, Uttar Pradesh minister Mohsin Raza urged the Centre to consider banning the Jamaat which was founded by Deobandi scholar and Saads great grandfather Mohammad Ilyas al-Kandhlawi in Mewat.

Raza, who is the minister of state for minority Welfare, Waqf and Haj, said he had demanded a probe into TJs activities and was happy that the central government had acted.

He said, I had urged the Centre to probe their funding because it needs to be known from where the religious society gets financial support. I am happy that an investigation is underway now.

The Jamaat has been in the news ever since several Jamaatis, including those from abroad who attended a congregation at Tablighi headquarters at Delhis Nizamuddin, had tested positive. Maulana Saad has already been booked by the Delhi police under the Epidemic Disease Act.

The Talblighi Jamaat members had spread out in different parts of the country, including Uttar Pradesh, after the Delhi congregation.

A senior cleric close to the Tablighi Jamaat said while the financial matters of the Jamaat were clean, their stress on religious preaching alone had led to divisions. He said the prominent Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband had banned activities of Tablighi Jamaat, its own ideological off-shoot, from the campus.

Its true that Darul Uloom had banned their activities after the Islamic seminary was split on ideological lines, said an influential cleric from Deoband, adding that the ban was largely to prevent Deoband students from being trapped in ideological differences. The ban still stays.

The Deoband cleric said Tablighis erred by not following the Covid-19 prevention protocol of social distancing though he blamed the media more for what he called was the systematic targeting of Muslims.

The cleric disagreed with the UP minister over his questioning the intentions of Jamaat and its leader Maulana Saad.

Maulana Saad is a pious man. We may differ ideologically but I will have to admit that there isnt anything wrong with his intention. Its just that we prefer ilm (knowledge) over purely religious matters, the cleric said.

Raza said it needed to be known how the headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat came up in Delhis Nizamuddin?

They have a grand building there and its time all of it is probed, he said.

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In Dagestan, the Insan Charity Fund distributed over 130 tons of food products to needy residents.

From the first days, when the situation in the country and the republic began to worsen due to the new coronavirus outbreak, we started compiling lists of people who needed help in the main office of our organization and its 50 branches, funds manager Muhammadrasul Akhmedov told TASS.

He explained that during the lockdown, many people had lost their livelihoods, so the foundation decided to help them with products. Today, we distributed over 130 tons of products throughout the region, he added.
BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The All-China Women's Federation has decided to honor five female medical workers who sacrificed their lives in the fight against the novel coronavirus epidemic as national-level female role models.

The honor was given posthumously to Wang Bing, Ruan Huifang, Zhang Kangmei, Liu Fan and Xia Sisi who had been working on the front line of the COVID-19 fight in Wuhan, the hardest-hit city in central China's Hubei Province, according to a statement released by the federation on Friday.

The five honorees had worked day and night to tend to and rescue patients before they themselves died from the novel coronavirus disease, the statement said.

They have demonstrated the lofty spirit of healing the wounded and rescuing the dying and the benevolence of doctors. They are the representatives of all the outstanding females who have made prominent contributions to the anti-epidemic fight in Wuhan and Hubei, according to the statement.

The federation called on women across the country to learn from the honorees in sharing their strong faith, noble spirit, excellent character and professional integrity and continue to strive for victory over the epidemic and the country's economic and social development.
On Friday, Manitobas provincial government announced it was devoting another $300 million to front-line pandemic needs, including the purchase of significant amounts of personal protective equipment (PPE) needed to protect health-care workers and help stem the spread of COVID-19. Thats an impressive pledge, albeit one based on a misleading premise.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/4/2020 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Friday, Manitobas provincial government announced it was devoting another $300 million to front-line pandemic needs, including the purchase of "significant amounts" of personal protective equipment (PPE) needed to protect health-care workers and help stem the spread of COVID-19. Thats an impressive pledge, albeit one based on a misleading premise.

Despite efforts by the Progressive Conservative government and public-health officials to deny what was happening, Manitoba is facing a critical shortage of PPE. When questioned, Shared Health Manitoba officials have downplayed concerns about the provinces stockpile of masks, gowns, gloves and hand sanitizer by pointing out that this province was the first to place an order with the federal governments central pandemic procurement effort.

Jon Super / The Associated Press Access to PPE is an urgent issue for health workers.

This, Premier Brian Pallister assured the province, was evidence that Manitoba is the "most prepared" province in the country. What has subsequently become apparent is that being the first to place an order was no guarantee that Manitoba would receive everything it requested.

Last week, Shared Health finally admitted that after ordering "millions" of dollars of PPE, Manitoba was only receiving "thousands" of dollars of actual protective equipment. Our supplies of gowns, N95 masks (which provide the highest level of protection for health-care workers) and hand sanitizer are dangerously low. Gloves, surgical masks and eye protection supplies are in better supply, but still declining.

This admission reveals a contradiction contained in Fridays announcement. The shortage of PPE is not related to spending; it is a reflection of the fact there is a global shortage of this equipment, and what supplies are coming into Canada are going, correctly, to the provinces that need them the most. Given Manitobas success to date at limiting the viruss spread, were not the province of greatest need  at least, not right now.

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Manitoba can hardly be faulted  in fact, should be applauded  for being one of the least-affected provinces. But it can be criticized for making misleading claims about our level of preparedness.

Manitoba can hardly be faulted  in fact, should be applauded  for being one of the leastaffected provinces. But it can be criticized for making misleading claims about our level of preparedness.

Even as politicians and public-health officials were denying there was a problem, there were signs that PPE was actually in short supply: public appeals for donations of PPE; rapid requests for local industry to re-tool to produce masks, gowns and hand sanitizer; guidelines for the use of PPE that dictated the re-use of certain kinds of masks.

Now, Manitoba finds itself in an awkward dilemma: desperate enough to issue broad, public pleas for PPE donations, but too tight-lipped to admit the magnitude of the problem. That is not a winning strategy to meet a pressing public-health need.

The provinces reluctance to be transparent about its PPE supplies now puts Manitoba in a very difficult position: one of the reasons we have been relatively successful at containing the COVID-19 outbreak has been the effective use of PPE in health-care facilities. However, as those supplies are reduced, so, too, is our capacity to contain the virus.

Currently, health-care workers in personal care homes and other non-hospital facilities, as well as community-based physicians working in private clinics, are having trouble getting PPE they need to protect themselves against the virus. That is a troubling scenario, made worse by the provincial government continuing to create the impression that if a problem exists, it can be solved by spending more money.

More money does not guarantee more PPE. The province and public-health officials should, at the very least, be up-front about the reality of PPE availability. False hope wont protect anyone from anything.
EVN wants to publish the list of planned solar power projects in Ninh Thuan

In addition, Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) proposed the MoIT to issue detailed guidance about which projects need to use MWac or MWp.

Previously, the government officially approved a new feed-in-tariff (FiT) mechanism to encourage the development of solar power in Vietnam.

Accordingly, EVN proposed unique mechanisms for this particular province. Notably, grid-connected solar power projects in the province that are included in the planning and are reaching commercial operation date before January 1, 2021 with the total cumulative capacity of not more than 2,000MW will be entitled to a preferential price of 9.35 US cents per kWh.

The reason for EVN"s proposal is that before the 450MW solar power project invested by Trung Nam Group was added to the power planning in January 2020, the prime minister and the MoIT approved to add numerous solar power farms with the total capacity of 1,966MW. Among these projects, Ninh Thuan Peoples Committee granted investment licenses for 31 projects with the capacity of 1,816MW and total investment capital of VND49.99 trillion ($2.17 billion). Thus, the capacity of added projects exceeded the permitted level of 2,000MW. As a result, there may be a number of projects which cannot start operation before January 1, 2021 but will still be able to enjoy the preferential FiT of 9.35 US cents per kWh.

As of the end of February 2020, 17 projects have come into operation with the capacity of 1,100MW.

During the wait for a guiding circular and a model contract, EVN will still be proactive and assign units to sign connection agreements as well as technical agreements with investors.

The government has fixed the tariffs for rooftop solar at 8.38 US cents, floating solar at 7.69 US cents, and ground-mounted solar power projects at around US 7.09 cents per kWh. Solar projects approved before November 23, 2019 and starting commercial operations between July 1, 2019 and December 31, 2020 will enjoy the new tariffs.
Bill Cosby has been denied early release from prison despite a COVID-19 outbreak inside the facility where he is housed

Bill Cosby has been denied early release from prison despite a COVID-19 outbreak inside the facility where he is housed.

The disgraced comedian, 82, is serving a three to 10 years sentence at SCI Phoenix in Skippack, Pennsylvania after being found guilty of aggravated sexual assault in 2018.

Last Friday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf revealed a plan to 'temporarily relieve' at-risk inmates in a bid to stop the spread of the coronavirus behind bars.

The announcement sparked speculation that Cosby could be freed, but the state's Department of Corrections crushed any hope for the elderly star ion Saturday.

'Sex offenders are not eligible under the reprieve criteria,' a department spokesperson bluntly told the media.

The star's rep, Andrew Wyatt, hit back, claiming it is dangerous to keep Cosby cooped up given his poor health and old age.

Cosby's rep says it is dangerous to keep him behind bars amid the pandemic, given his poor health and old age. Cosby is pictured in September 2018

Cosby is housed inside SCI Phoenix (pictured above). An inmate has died from COVID-19, and a further 21 prisoners and 13 staffers are infected

'All elderly inmates like Mr. Cosby could succumb to this virus. It seems it's more politically motivated and personally motivated to not let this man out. It's very upsetting and disappointing, ' Wyatt told Fox News.

Earlier this month, an inmate inside DCI Phoenix died from COVID-19.

Twenty-one other prisoners and 13 staffers at the facility have tested positive for the highly contagious virus.

Gov. Wolf says he could authorize the early release of up to 1,800 inmates across the state.

On Thursday, nine inmates from SCI Phoenix were among the first prisoners in Pennsylvania to be released.

A spokesperson said the prisoners are all non-violent offenders and have been tested to make sure they are not infected with COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Cosby's rep claims the star's risk of contracting coronavirus is growing by the day.

Cosby is assigned to the general ward of SCI Phoenix (pictured). His rep believes he is especially vulnerable to the threat of COVID-19

Cosby, who is now partially blind, is pictured back in 2016. He is set to turn 83 in July

'i'm very concerned for Mr. Cosby's health in prison during the coronavirus epidemic,' Wyatt told Fox News.

'The reason: Mr. Cosby is elderly and blind -- and always needs to be escorted around the prison by support service inmates, known as Certified Peer Specialists (CPI).'

'Those inmates could fall victim to the coronavirus and easily spread the disease to Mr. Cosby as they wheel him around in a wheelchair. Among their duties, the inmates bring Mr. Cosby to the infirmary for his doctor appointments and clean his cell.'

He was convicted of three counts of aggravated indecent assault in 2018 for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in his home in January 2004.

He has also been accused of rape and sexual assault by more than 60 women.

Despite Wyatt's claims that Cosby is in poor health, he last month told reporters that the star's experience behind bars has been 'amazing'.

'He said despite the circumstances, this is an amazing experience. He used the term amazing experience,' his spokesman Andrew Wyatt told NBC10 .

'He looks really amazing, He's down to 195 pounds, he hasn't eaten any bread, no dessert and he hasn't drank any coffee since he's been in there,' he continued.

Apart from his attorneys, Wyatt is the only person Cosby has allowed to come and see him in prison.

He said Cosby's wife, Camille, and their children have not visited. He speaks to his wife three times a day for three minutes each.
The debt Vietjet has secured a delay and moratorium on is one it took up to purchase aircraft. This postponement could ensure temporary liquidity for Vietjet amidst a jittery market.

Vietjet has reached agreements with domestic and international financial institutions to delay the payment for 70-80 per cent of our aircraft for 3-12 months, Vietjet said in a statement.

The budget airline also reaffirmed its plan of slashing operating expenses by 30-70 per cent in a bid to shore up capital. Deferring loan repayment is one of the ways.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, the global air industry is recalibrating its response to a threat that might be its worst since the financial crisis a decade ago.

This is part of our efforts to maintain normal operations and prepare for a strong rebound when the pandemic is over, Vietjet vice president Nguyen Thi Thuy Binh told Reuters.

Binh also said the companys cargo volume has increased significantly during the lockdown, including transporting medical supplies.

Domestic airlines on April 15 evening announced they are increasing flight frequency between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City from April 16 onwards.

Vietjet plans to operate two daily flights between the two cities, one daily flight each between Hanoi/Ho Chi Minh City and Danang.

The airline made up the largest portion of the aviation market at the end of 2019 with around 42.2 per cent. However, the escalating tensions of the outbreak have pushed Vietjet into financial struggles, with the number of flights in March dropping 39.3 per cent on-year.

Investors, on the flip side, cheered Vietjet's repayment postponement, as shares soared in recent days. Vietjet's ticker (VJC) closed higher, to reach VND117,400 ($5.10) as of April 17.

Earlier this month, local aviation market was bracing to welcome its fifth player named Vietravel Airlines with the total investment of $30.43 million. The airline will be headquartered at Phu Bai International Airport (the central province of Thua Thien-Hue).
As Virgin Australia scrambles to stay intact and afloat, more than a dozen private equity funds are hovering in the hope the airline will call it a day so they can pick up the carcass on the cheap.

The Australian Financial Review revealed on Friday that two private consortia, including BGH Capital, a private equity operator run by Ben Gray, were doing the numbers on the airline.

Virgin Australia is struggling to stay afloat. Credit:Rhett Wyman

The newspaper said their interest would take the pressure off the government to provide a $1.4 billion loan to the struggling airline. However, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald can reveal that numerous private equity operators and hedge funds would be interested in buying the airline if it was put into administration.

One big private equity operator said he knew of 20 funds looking at Virgin but a deal would only work if the airline was placed into administration due to its bulging $5 billion debt. Nobody will put money in and be behind the existing debt, he said.
Reno Omokri, a popular social media commentator has reacted to the demise of Abba Kyari by stating that anyone who has a friend as loyal as the deceased has been richly blessed by God.

Read Also: A Friend Who Stops Talking To You Because Of Money Was Never Your Friend: Omokri

Speaking via his official Twitter handle, hr further asked Nigerians to allow the deceased rest in peace.

Abba Kyari was not elected. He was selected by @MBuhari to serve him. He did a good job serving Buhari. Take your anger out on Buhari. He is the one you elected. Allow Kyari to RIP. If you have a friend as loyal as Abba Kyari, God has blessed you!, Omokri tweeted.
Like many people throughout the country, I am spending too much of my quarantine life obsessing about the future. What will our world look like once we are finally past this Covid-19 health crisis? Like everyone else, I long for a return to normal. But when we finally do step out from our stay-at-home orders, we will surely be stepping into a new normal, and one that will hold major implications for many institutions, including public libraries.

In a previous column, I wrote about the unprecedented library closures around the country in the wake of the pandemic. The value of public libraries is rarely questioned in times of crisisthink of the New Orleans Public Library after Hurricane Katrina, or the Ferguson Municipal Public Library during the unrest there. But this crisismore specifically, the social distancing required to address this crisisstrikes at the very foundation on which the modern public library rests. And as the days go by, I find myself increasingly concerned about how libraries come back from these closures.

For one, I suspect that Covid-19 will change some peoples perspective on what can and should be shared. I fear many people will begin to overthink materials handling and the circulation of physical library collections, including books. Its a reasonable assumption that people will emerge from this public health crisis with a heightened sense of risk related to germ exposure. How many of our patronsparticularly those with meanswill begin to question the safety of borrowing books and other items from the library?

In terms of our buildings, open access for everyone has long been a celebrated library value. Public libraries have evolved, survived, and have even managed to thrive through a digital transformation by reconfiguring our spaces to be more social, more functional, and by offering more programs and classes. Can we maintain that in an age of social distancing? Will libraries need to supply gloves for shared keyboards? Will parents and caregivers still want to bring their children to a Baby and Me program? Will seniors still find respite in a library community?

I question, above all, what this crisis will mean for the library/publisher relationship. With library buildings closed, and many librarians furloughed, how will public libraries continue to lead on book and author discovery? A number of librarians have taken to hosting Zoom chats. But with many library websites being refreshed less frequently, combined with canceled author tours and a diluted publishing schedule during the crisis, it is increasingly challenging for librarians to get out front about new books and authors.

Discovery of new books and authors will be also be impacted by the cancellations of the ALA Annual Conference, and BookExpo. These events have become premier opportunities for publishers to reach book-savvy librarians to encourage displays, hand-selling, social media, online reviews and author visits at local libraries around the country, in hopes that excited librarians will contribute to the making of a bestseller. In fact, my first book of the New York City lockdown was Weather by Jenny Offilla galley I collected at the ALA Midwinter Meeting. I am recommending it as widely as I can, but its not the same being stuck here in physical isolation.

 Librarians cannot sit back and wait to unlock the library doors again. We must take this time to begin thinking about how public libraries will function in a society that will certainly be changed for the short term, and may be changed forever. 

In terms of maintaining strong collections, many libraries have suspended purchases of print titles while they are closed during the crisis. This could have major implications going forward. How many libraries will be able to double back at some point to buy copies of print books published during the crisis for their collections? And, of course, without the proper logistic systems in place, some titles might not even appear in a library's catalog.

Predictably, e-books, digital audio, and other streaming services have become essential during this crisis. OverDrive has reported a surge in the number of libraries now offering instant library cards, and a massive increase in books borrowed. In the last week of March, after stay-at-home orders went in place around the country, an astonishing 250,000 readers installed OverDrives Libby app.

That growth trajectory is an opportunity, and is encouraging news for libraries that have tried for years to get more traction for their digital collections. However, the digital library market has been tenuous in the best of times, marked by high prices, lend limits, and other restrictions. And this sudden shift to digital now presents a whole new set of potential concerns, not the least of which is that this increase in digital usage does not automatically come with additional support for public library budgets. And, of course, users without good access to cell and Internet service are excluded.

Beyond cost and access, this new way of doing business could also impact a librarys relationship with their local community. What if readers begin to identify more with the brand delivering their servicefor example, the Libby appand less with their local public library?

The shift to digital may also blur the boundaries of public library systems. After all, if your e-books and digital audio comes through an app, why does it matter where you live? Will the sudden digital switch entice more libraries to merge collection development dollars in an effort to provide more access and shorter wait times? These are the kinds of questions that could further complicate an already tense relationship between the library and publishing communities.

Meanwhile, as individual libraries (and librarians) grapple with the pandemic, the American Library Association is dealing with its own challenges: an association-wide reorganization, and a serious cash shortfall. But whatever organizational changes follow, ALA has a critical role to play in support of Americas libraries as we emerge from this crisis.

For example, rallying support for universal broadband. If nothing else, the Covid-19 crisis has laid bare the need for the Internet to be treated as an essential utility. Online education should also be a new rallying cry for professional librarians. We need librarians to curate and present content as well as support students of all ages at school, at home, and in their communities. And at some point soon we must take up the question of equal accessall content, all providers, all available to libraries. Congress has much on its plate, but demanding action for the people must be at the top of the ALA agenda.

Some observers have dubbed this crisis The Great Pause. But I believe librarians cannot pause. Librarians cannot sit back and wait to unlock the library doors again. We must take this time to begin thinking about how public libraries will function in a society that will certainly be changed for the short term, and may be changed forever.

PW columnist Sari Feldman is the former executive director of the Cuyahoga County Public Library in Cleveland, Ohio, and a former president of both the Public Library Association (20092010) and the American Library Association (20152016).
On Thursday, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention toured the Sioux Falls plant, an eight-story facility that churned 24 hours a day alongside the Big Sioux River, producing 5 percent of the nations pork. The agency is expected to release recommendations in the next few days on how to prevent another outbreak when the plant reopens. The company has not given a date.

Before the plant closed this past week, the company had provided employees with face shields and masks and installed plexiglass barriers in certain areas to separate employees. But in reality, it may be difficult for any meat plant to accommodate social distancing and remain as profitable. Jobs with titles like gut snatcher require people to work closely, slicing open pigs and pulling out entrails.

It is not going to be easy to get workers six feet apart, said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt Universitys medical school. If you space people out, you reduce productivity.

Officials in the meat industry have also argued that South Dakotas decision to not issue a stay-at-home order may be contributing to the outbreak, because it has left relatives and neighbors of plant employees free to mingle. South Dakota officials have said residents should exercise personal responsibility and practice social distancing.

Thats a very, very high rate, Dr. Schaffner said of the infections at the Smithfield plant. But its difficult to know how much of the transmission occurred in the workplace or in the community.

Some meat companies have expressed reluctance to test workers, saying such targeted testing creates the false impression that meat plants are the main culprits for the spread of the virus. The more aggressively employees are tested, the more cases emerge, putting pressure on plants to shut down.

Everybody wants to test meatpacking employees, but nobody is testing the communities around them to show whats the baseline, said Steve Stouffer, the president of the fresh meats division at Tyson Foods. And until we know the baselines, my question has always been: Are we the cause or are we just the victim of our surroundings?
A section of inmates at the Jalpaiguri correctional home in West Bengal held a violent protest on Saturday, demanding that they be granted bail in the wake of coronavirus outbreak, officials said.

The correctional facility houses around 1,400 prisoners in eight wards, and of them, 550 inmates staged the protest citing a Supreme Court directive, they said.

The inmates pelted stones and indulged in vandalism, and the violent protest continued for five hours before senior officials held talks with the inmates and pacified them.

On March 23, the Supreme Court had directed all states and Union Territories to constitute high-level committees to consider releasing on parole or interim bail prisoners and undertrials for offences entailing up to seven-year jail term to decongest prisons in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Around 50-60 inmates led the others in the protest, said Chief Disciplinary Officer Ashim Acharya.

The troublr started in the morning but jail authorities were successful in pacifying the prisoners, he said, adding that they were then provided masks and sanitisers.

Around noon the protest started again and the prisoners shut the main gate of the facility from inside, officials said.

They then started hurling stones and damaged three CCTV cameras inside the prison complex, they said.

Hearing ,the prison siren locals gathered around the complex and fire tenders also rushed to the facility.

Taking advantage of the situation, some inmates tried to escape the prison, officials said.

A large number of police personnel, including those of the Rapid Action Force (RAF), were deployed around the complex to prevent any attempts of jailbreak.

The vandalism went on for five hours, following which Superintendent of Police Abhishek Modi, the correctional home's superintendent Shamik Sarkar and other senior officials met the inmates.

The agitation was called off after the meeting, officials said, adding that no policemen were injured in the violence.

Around 200 inmates of the correctional home have already been released on either parole or bail, following the Supreme Court directive, according to official sources.

Last month, clashes broke out at the Dumdum Correctional Home near Kolkata over the state government's decision not to allow the inmates to meet their families due to the coronavirus outbreak.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Some businesses in the capital reopen as the countrys daily death toll falls to lowest in more than a month.

Iran has allowed some businesses in Tehran to reopen as the countrys daily death toll from the new coronavirus fell to 73, its lowest in more than a month.

So-called low-risk businesses including many shops, factories and warehouses resumed operations in the capital on Saturday, a week after reopening in the rest of the country, state television reported.

However, the move was welcomed with scepticism by some among the public who preferred to remain home leaving most shops in northern Tehran and the city centre empty.

Although compared with recent weeks there was greater activity in the streets, few people were using public transport. Most in the city complied with the governments emphatic call to maintain social distancing including on public transport.

I was worried about public transport so I took my own car, supermarket manager Manijeh H told DPA news agency.

She decided not to take a taxi, as they are expensive and she was also afraid of becoming infected.

The day was not particularly profitable for taxi drivers and minibuses in the city, despite the reopening of businesses, and most remained parked at stands without any customers.

Store owners too complained of the lack of shoppers. If no one can go out, then no one is going to buy new clothes and shoes. Opening my shop isnt helping me much, Navid S, who owns a boutique in the northern Tajrish Bazaar, told DPA. At home, people are just running around in old T-shirts and tracksuits.

Many members of the public who did venture outside wore face masks and plastic gloves.

The reopening, announced earlier this month, came as official figures showed daily deaths from the new coronavirus fell to 73 on Saturday, the lowest since March 12.

That brought the total death toll to 5,031, health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpour said. Saturday marked the fifth consecutive day with a death toll under 100 in Iran, one of the worst-hit countries in the Middle East.

A parliamentary report released earlier this week, however, suggested the coronavirus death toll might be almost double the figure announced by the health ministry, and the number of infections eight to 10 times more.

There was some heavy traffic in Tehran on Saturday and people applying for state support crowded some offices, drawing warnings from officials about a resurgence of the virus.

The coronavirus is still in an epidemic stage in Tehran  and the heavy traffic is a cause of increased concern, state media quoted Alireza Zali, head of the government-run coronavirus taskforce in the capital, as saying.

Gyms, restaurants and shopping malls will remain closed. Shrines and mosques are shuttered, as well as schools and universities, and a ban on public gatherings remains in place.

Many government offices have reopened with a third of employees working from home. However, social distancing measures were not upheld in some offices, leading to furious protests by officials and members of the public visiting the offices, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Irans President Hassan Rouhani defended the governments decision to ease restrictions, saying the country needs to find a balance between protecting its peoples health and keeping the economy moving.





When the country reported its first coronavirus case in February, it was already facing an economic crisis, amid tough United States sanctions that were reimposed in 2018 after the US withdrew from Tehrans nuclear deal with world powers.

The World Bank said Irans gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 8.7 percent in 2019 compared with the previous year, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecasted a 6 percent drop in the GDP in 2020.

The countrys lockdown is to be lifted in three phases, with the easing of restrictions in Tehran the second, after shops deemed low risk were reopened in the provinces.

The government has said the timing of the third phase, under which schools, universities and remaining businesses would reopen and sport competitions would restart, depends on the success of the first two phases.
South Africa's ruling and the main opposition party have been accused of politicising the COVID-19 pandemic after protective masks with party logos embossed on them were distributed among the people.

While the ruling African National Congress (ANC) decried the printing of party logo on protective gear, the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) said the masks were distributed among the poor as a goodwill gesture.

The novel coronavirus, which originated in China's Wuhan city in December last year, has claimed 50 lives and infected 2,783 people in South Africa.

ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte condemned the use of the ANC name and insignia on coronavirus masks, manufactured by private businesses.

"We are making an appeal to those private sector individuals [manufacturing these masks] not to abuse the ANC emblem. And also we are asking the ANC membership to understand that COVID-19 affects everyone, irrespective of the political party you may belong to," Duarte told The Citizen newspaper.

"We cannot be selling masks that have political emblems on them and hoping that (party supporters) will support the private sector in this regard. This flies in the face of the unity (amongst all political parties) that is being forged in fighting against COVID-19. We urge these people not to sell masks with the ANC's emblem on it."



However, DA national spokesperson Solly Malatsi said the party was aware of the masks with party insignia that were used in two South African provinces.

Malatsi said members of the DA were "acting out of their goodwill to help the communities who could not afford masks," emphasising that the masks were only used by local party members and were not commissioned by the party itself.

"Those masks were meant to help towards providing protective gear to individuals who may not have the resources or the equipment to make their own masks," Malatsi said.

With a number of local elections pending across the country because of the national coronavirus lockdown, calls have also gone out for the Independent Electoral Commission to investigate the matter as a possible breach of electoral laws and regulations.

Corporate businesses who were reportedly planning to provide masks with their livery as promotional items for free distribution have also approached the issue with caution following legal advice.

A company whose logo or name appeared on a mask which could be proved to be inefficiently blocking the virus might be held legally liable for any hospitalisation costs or even death claims by surviving family members, said a lawyer, requesting anonymity.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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Joe Rogan has a wide and dedicated fanbase. However, many of these same fans arent afraid to call Joe Rogan out when they feel as if hes being hypocritical or unreasonable in some way. And based on the fan reaction to Rogan utilizing multiple COVID-19 tests on himself, this has not changed. Rogan recently discussed using coronavirus tests on himself and his guests, and also claimed that hes used several on himself already and will continue to do so.

Joe Rogan uses tests not approved by FDA

Joe Rogan | Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images

It seems as if Joe Rogan is rolling out coronavirus tests for his guest stars. However, it also seems theyre not FDA approved.

During a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience starring Chris DElia, Rogan revealed that he has a personal doctor on retainer to administer coronavirus tests. The podcast started out with Rogan crowing that Chris DElia tested negative.

DElia said, You know why I got the test? Because I know Joe Rogan. Because I came here and he had a doctor.

It seems Rogan has been utilizing a personalized concierge doctor from Concierge MD LA, which bills itself as a premium provider of high-end, on-demand, and personalized medical care in Los Angeles.

Dr. Abe Malkin, the doctor in question, told Vice, Theres about 70 companies producing antibody tests, and only one of them is FDA approved, thats Cellex. I dont know how the hell they got that contract that they got FDA approval, but its impossible to get those tests.

He added, I give everyone a disclaimer, its not FDA approved, you cant use this for diagnosis, its more for peace of mind, for epidemiologic data. But if they need a definitive diagnosis, they have to get a nasal swab. Ive tested about 300 [people] in the last week, about 5% of asymptomatic people turn up positive on antibody testing, and about 10 to 20% of symptomatic people have showed up positive on antibody testing. And everyone that was a known positive, has shown up positive on antibody testing.

How many times has Joe Rogan been tested?

Joe Rogans concierge doctor and subsequent tests are not cheap, to say the least. The nasal swab or the antibody test would cost $299 per go, based on the Concierge MD LA website.

On his podcast, Joe Rogan explained, I got tested yesterday, and I got tested two days before that. Im just going to test myself every three or four days. F*ck it.

So Im testing everybody. So the way were doing this here is when people come in to do the podcast, test them first, keep the f*ck away from them and then give them a hug, he added.

Fans lash out at Joe Rogan

Joe Rogan | Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images

During this time of crisis, in which the United States is experiencing a shortage of PPE, testing equipment, and things like respirators, some Rogan fans are feeling frustrated with the star for flaunting his ability to use multiple tests whenever he pleases.

One Instagram user wrote, Why are you still doing your podcast when theres strict rules to stay at home and social distance, dont you have any respect for the tireless health workers busting their a** day in and day out to keep people from dying?

How about you guys stop wasting much needed test kits and observe the quarantine like the rest of the country? asked another commenter.

One Twitter user joked, How do I get on Joe Rogans podcast? I dont need to talk to Joe Rogan I just want a coronavirus test.

Another user tweeted, Dont get me wrong. I love Joe Rogan but is anyone else really turned off by Rogan pulling strings to get all his rich comic buddies coronavirus testing?
Dubai: Iran has paraded disinfection vehicles, mobile hospitals and other medical equipment to mark its Army Day as the country's death toll from the coronavirus outbreak rose by 89 to 4958.

Disinfection trucks pass during a parade in Iran.

The total number of cases of infection in the Middle East country hardest hit by the pandemic rose to 79,494, of which 3563 were in critical condition, health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said on state television on Friday.

A parliamentary report released earlier this week said the coronavirus death toll might be almost double the figures announced by the health ministry, and the number of infections eight to 10 times more given a lack of widespread testing.

Friday's small "Defenders of the Homeland, Helpers of Health" army parade was held at a training centre before a group of commanders in face masks to underscore the military's role in battling the highly infections COVID-19 disease.
P eople flocked to beaches in Florida after the state lifted some of its coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

Earlier US President Trump appeared to endorse protests against lockdown measures in several tweets.

He wrote in a series of tweets: "LIBERATE MINNESOTA", "LIBERATE MICHIGAN" and then "LIBERATE VIRGINIA".

The three states that the Republican president referred to in Friday's tweets are all led by Democratic governors.

Floridas governor recently gave the green light for some beaches and parks to reopen if it could be done safely.

On Friday North Florida beach became among the first to allow beach-goers to return since closures because of the coronavirus outbreak.

People walk on Jacksonville beach during the coronavirus pandemic / AP

Mayor Lenny Curry said Duval County beaches were reopening with restricted hours, and they can only be used for walking, biking, hiking, fishing, running, swimming, taking care of pets and surfing.

Gatherings of 50 or more people are prohibited and people must still practice social distancing.

Folks, this could be the beginning of the pathway back to normal life, but please respect and follow these limitations, Mr Curry said. Well get back to life as we know it, but we must be patient.

Florida officials were criticised for leaving beaches open during part of the spring break period last month.

Most counties closed their beaches in response or kept them open under very restrictive conditions.

Other more high-profile beaches in South Florida  including Miami Beach  were closed by state order.

Delcia Dias, left, and Monica Dias celebrate the beaches opening on a limited basis / AP

At a news conference in Fort Lauderdale, Gov Ron DeSantis said some municipalities should feel free to start opening up parks and beaches, if that can be done safely, with distancing guidelines remaining in place.

The governor said it was important for people to have outlets for getting exercise, sunshine and fresh air.

Do it in a good way. Do it in a safe way, Mr DeSantis said.

In Texas, Republican governor Greg Abbott said stores could begin selling curbside, non-essential surgery could resume and state parks could reopen.

Surfers run into the waves at Jackonsville Beach in Florida / AP

Mr Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to see businesses reopen quickly and claimed earlier this week he had total authority over the matter, even though the lockdowns and other social-distancing measures have been imposed by state and local leaders, not Washington.

We may be opening but were putting safety first, Mr Trump said.

On Thursday, he outlined a three-step set of guidelines for easing restrictions over a span of several weeks in places that have robust testing and are reporting decreases in Covid-19 cases, assuring the nations governors: Youre going to call your own shots.
Vinod Nair

The bear rally is getting extended given the positive trend in the global market in expectation of further large stimulus package to be announced by Federal Reserve leading to reduction in selling by foreign institutional investors (FIIs).

This will limit the downside risk of the global equity market. At the same time, domestic market was gearing up for the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) monetary measures to support the financial market with additional set of cheap long-term loans for banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFC) via rate cut and long term repo operations (LTRO).

The domestic market is also positive in anticipation of second fiscal package to be announced by the Indian government soon. This time it is viewed that this package will be larger than Rs 1.7 lakh crore announced in March, which focused on providing free food, cash in hand and job safety for the below poverty line (BPL) section.

This time it may provide some tax benefits, support to medium and small enterprises (MSMEs), farmers and daily workers. Though no specific benefit is expected for corporates, the government's intention to relax economic restrictions and open the economy in a phase wise manner itself will provide a boost to the market.

As a result, we have been publishing positive view on domestic oriented stocks and sector with outperformance rating, especially for stocks with low debt/equity, strong reserves and brand name. Sectors which can do well could be FMCG, Staples, Chemicals, Pharma, Healthcare, large private banks, Agriculture and e-commerce.

The market has rallied well in the past three weeks, Nifty50 has moved up by 22 percent from four-year low of 7,610 dated March 23 to 9,266 on April 17. The sustainability of trend will depend on the probability and time of opening the economy. Today market hopes that economy will revert by July. The recent spurt of virus cases in domestic and continuity in rest of the world is a point of concern for the market.

Nifty50 is likely to trade in a broad range of 8,500 to 9,500 in the near-term. We suggest accumulation as a good strategy for the next two to three months, based on a best-case analysis that Q1FY21 will be the worst period for the domestic economy. If we have a successful lockdown we will see improvement in the economy on a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis.

The Q4 earnings season has started, we can expect mixed results with negative bias. Sales and profitability of the broad market will have limited impact from 10-day lockdown while full impact will be during Q1FY21. But due to supply chain issue in China and rest of the world during January to March some sectors will be highly impacted like Auto, Metals, Oil & Gas, Pharma, Consumer Durables and Chemical.

Nevertheless, Q4 number may not be very important for the market since it has factored in poor earnings of Q4FY20 and Q1FY21. It will focus to know what is the implication going forward, like is the outlook for Q2FY21 sustainable and what will be the changes in public preferences? The stimulus announced in the world will be able to sustain the economic outlook going forward, if we will be able to overcome the health crisis by the end of Q1FY21.

The author is Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

: The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on Moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
1. Testing & Contact Tracing

We take note of efforts made by government to scale up testing and contact tracing efforts as part of measures to identify and isolate persons who have contracted COVID-19. Concerns about the comprehensiveness of the strategy remain, and we list below related recommendations and those for the broader aims of COVID-19 testing.

1.1. There remains a lack of clarity on the definition of the tertiary contacts category employed in the enhanced contact tracing program. The current understanding is that these individuals are identified not because of their known interactions with secondary contacts, but rather by virtue of their coresidence in localities where index cases reside. It also remains unclear if this extends to primary and secondary contacts. This clarification would allow epidemiologists and statisticians around the nation to evaluate the practical utility of the definition for the efficient identification of cases and use of testing resources, and to assess its marginal benefits in ensuring comprehensivity of contact tracing.

1.2. While the volume of testing has increased, we continue to recommend the adoption of additional testing strategies to expand the scope of Ghanas testing program. The enhanced contact tracing model that has been used over the duration of the lockdown is still fundamentally rooted in a clinical approach to testing, as it is premised on index cases identified in facilities. A complementary program of community testing structured around the epidemiology of risk factors - as is presently in use in South Africa - would cast a meaningfully wider net and allow for the identification of cases resulting from missing links in the index cases transmission chains.

1.3. We encourage government communicators to desist from overinterpretation and extrapolation of the COVID-19 prevalence among the persons tested so far. Taking for granted the internal validity of the statistic, the narrow scope of the testing pool would appear to limit the generalizability of the prevalence. This is because the use of an overtly clinical approach as the basis for the tracing and testing may have resulted in the construction of a convenience sample rather than a representative one. Under those circumstances, it would be an error of external validity to conflate the sample-specific prevalence as an estimate of the true population-wide prevalence of COVID-19.

1.4. We urge government to take immediate steps to establish testing and processing facilities in each of the 16 regions in order to increase daily national throughput and to decentralize the testing process as much as possible in the interest of speed and efficiency. As part of these efforts, we recommend the establishment of a dedicated testing program for frontline health workers that allows for rapid assessment in a channel that is not constrained by the bottlenecks and backlog of the existing testing sites and processing laboratories.

1.5. It is important that government begin to roll out a strategy for consistent mass testing and aggressive contact tracing as part of its planning for the easement of the restrictions on movement in the designated hotspots. This must be done concurrently with the development of a plan to:

? Procure and undertake antibody testing in clinical staff and the general population as part of efforts to understand the true scale of the outbreak in Ghana and the local dynamics of immunity to the virus after infection.

? Procure reliable rapid testing kits and operationalize their use as a complement to the RT-PCR approach in order to increase access to COVID-19 testing and to boost the daily throughput as well.

? Engage ISO certified private laboratories in a strategic public-private program to increase national throughput as a means of scaling up testing by focusing on processing of voluntary tests or samples collected in the course of the contact tracing.

2. Community Impact Mitigation

The scenes reported at food distribution points in Accra and Kumasi over the course of the lockdown have been alarming, and threaten to defeat the underlying point of the social distancing protocols that have occasioned their necessity. The congested cues for cooked food, and its distribution in limited and overcrowded spaces, makes them a potential hub for COVID-19 transmission. Residents of the communities in question are low income, live in very close quarters, and have low rates of healthcare utilization; a combination of factors that would make local transmission within them as efficient as it would be hard to detect with a clinical testing model. We recommend urgent action to prevent this risk from manifesting itself as reality.

2.1. There is a pressing need for a consolidated strategic plan for food distribution to vulnerable groups including logistics, verification and evaluation protocols to ensure adequate coverage of the target population and accountability.

2.2. We recommend the immediate cessation of the distribution of cooked food, as the modality of its distribution presents a high contact situation that is ideal for COVID-19 transmission. The distribution of unprepared and nonperishable items is a preferable alternative because:

? It reduces the number of times persons must congregate to collect food, and reduces the number of members of a household that must be involved in the collection itself. This, in turn, reduces overall contacts during the lockdown period and opportunities for transmission.

? It allows households greater agency to manage their consumption and reduces wastage as a consequence of the inability to properly store excess cooked food. This has been a regular complaint by the target households, which we do not believe should be dismissed as ingratitude.

? Cooked food also presents a relatively higher risk of food poisoning or contamination if the food distribution chain is not properly managed and overseen.

2.3. Children in the most vulnerable and food insecure households (poorest of the poor) should also be targeted with nutrition supplements in order to stave off the risks of malnutrition and stunting.

2.4. The plight of head porters and other such economic migrants who are currently trapped in the lockdown areas without income or a guarantee of sustenance is a humanitarian crisis and a moral afront. We recommend the immediate development of an evacuation protocol for such persons. Such a protocol should involve double testing of candidates for evacuation, a mandatory pre-departure quarantine using empty facilities (e.g. at second cycle institutions, trade fair dome), and focused health education. These individuals may be leveraged as messengers to their communities on the risks and realities of COVID-19. The transportation logistics of this evacuation can take advantage of resources of the State Transport Corporation, the Ghana Armed Forces, and other state institutions. Organisations with capacity to aid this program should be actively encouraged to do so.

2.5. We draw your attention to the plight of persons with disabilities, and urge a strategic intervention contextualized to the various categories of persons within that community. They are doubly exposed to economic and social marginalization, and no specific programs appear to be in place to ensure their equal access to government interventions during this lockdown. This is especially true for those in this community who are homeless or abandoned, the children among them, and those who survive on already meager alms that are no longer available.

2.6. We also request an immediate probe into allegations of partisan consideration in the distribution of state-funded humanitarian aid. Such practices are unconscionable and morally reprehensible under the circumstances, and they are far beneath the dignity of the moment. A thorough investigation into these claims is absolutely essential to the preservation of trust in the goodwill of the state, which is an integral pillar of public confidence and buy-in for a crisis response.

3. Health System Strengthening

Concerns remain about the preparedness of Ghanas health care system to adequately deal with a surge in clinical cases of COVID-19 while effectively protecting the frontline health workers and other supporting and auxiliary clinical staff. Despite repeated assurances to frontline health workers about the supply of PPEs, complaints persist in several regional and district hospitals about the unavailability of protective gear. Recent revelations surrounding a high profile COVID-19 death also suggest that the processes for procurement of certain palliative pharmaceuticals are progressing at a worryingly slow pace. We recommend the following for immediate action.

3.1. Distribution of PPEs from central storage at regional and district hospitals to frontline departments and their staff must commence immediately to buttress the safety, confidence and motivation of clinical staff as the risk to them steadily increases.

3.2. Reconsideration of the specific definition of healthcare workers is emerging as a necessity. The present focus on staff with direct patient contact ignores the role of several categories of support staff in the case management process, the risks faced by auxiliary staff like janitors, and the modalities of COVID-19 transmission in that context. The risk of contracting COVID-19 extends beyond those professionals who have direct contact with patients, and planning for protective equipment should reflect that and make provisions for the various staff categories in accordance with their respective risk exposure.

3.3. An accelerated procurement protocol must be established for the supply of COVID-19 related pharmaceuticals to maximize the efficiency of care and avoid costly delays in access for patients. This would also support the flexibility of the clinical response component of Ghanas fight against COVID-19 by creating a mechanism that allows for the rapid inclusion of emerging therapies with proven efficacy into Ghanas treatment protocols. The rapid evolution of knowledge and perspectives about the virus and its physiological effects demands this kind of dynamic range in Ghanas clinical response.

3.4. Transparency in patient management is also key in reducing misconceptions about COVID-19 and the stigmatization of its sufferers and survivors. We recommend to government the full disclosure of the locations of all isolation and treatment centers around the country, as well as their respective capacities. Greater public knowledge of these locations may boost care-seeking behaviour as prospective patients will be reassured of treatment near their homes and loved ones or, at least, in their region or district of residence.

3.5. We reiterate our pressing recommendation from our previous document for the immediate settlement of NHIA debt to providers, the suspension of capitated outpatient payments, and the inclusion of COVID-19 testing and treatment to the NHIS list of essential health benefits. These will provide demand-side incentives for proactive care-seeking behavior, and eliminate the risk of perverse incentives created by supply-side cost-sharing. Altogether, this will afford health facilities greater flexibility and autonomy in preparing and equipping themselves to respond to the COVID-19 threat.

4. Health Education

It remains clear that information and education about the reality and risks of COVID-19 have failed to penetrate the public consciousness to a meaningful degree. There remains widespread doubt and denial of the virus itself, and skepticism about the necessity and usefulness of the public health interventions that have been enforced. This, if not addressed immediately and aggressively, will fundamentally undermine the national effort to flatten the pandemic curve.

4.1. A strategic plan for health education communication by Information Services Department vehicles in rural areas using trained health volunteers must be prioritized and adequately resourced. This plan should also pursue auxiliary resources available from political parties, religious organisations, and other such bodies who have existing infrastructure for information dissemination in the rural heartland.

4.2. Efforts to engage with and leverage the influence of traditional rulers must be accelerated. The cultural context in many rural areas reposes trust and a great deal of veracity in the judgement and pronouncements of local rulers, and the continued delays in creating a strategic national plan for harnessing this invaluable resource is hindering the penetration and acceptance of messaging around COVID-19.

4.3. It is important to be mindful of the fact that didactic information dissemination is not as effective as direct engagement with communities and their cultural and social leaders. Blanketing communities with messages carried by megaphone will not be sufficient to ensure practical appreciation and understanding of the issue. This must be the operational framework for the entire health education effort.

4.4. The usefulness of facemasks should be communicated in an objective and scientifically sound manner that is consistent with the best evidence about their effectiveness in reducing the likelihood of passing on or contracting the virus. There should be clear communication about the efficacy of the various commercial and home-made masks available, and on which specific types offer meaningful protection. This is to avoid the complications of false security among the general public. With respect to fabric masks in particular, it is important to note the paucity of evidence as to their protective effect and their largely anecdotal effectiveness in reducing viral transmission even though they do limit the spread of droplets from coughing or sneezing.

4.5. The issue of stigmatization is an emerging concern as risk perception increases, misinformation spreads, and more people in the community are affected directly or indirectly by the virus. The anxiety and panic among the public is translating into negative social attitudes, perceptions and biases against COVID-19 patients and their families. Health workers are increasingly experiencing this as well. We take note of the recent firsthand account given by a recovered patient at a media briefing, and wish to encourage government to persist in that course as much as possible while respecting the right to privacy of patients and families who may prefer to be excluded.

4.6. Coping with the stress and anxiety of the health risk caused by COVID-19 and its attendant economic devastation is placing a tremendous burden on the mental health of Ghanaians. Such sustained stressors are themselves known to have a serious adverse impact on health. We urge government to consider the establishment of a dedicated hotline for individuals in need of counseling or support in these difficult times, or to identify, approve and advertise qualified persons and organisations that are already filling this gap.

5. Data Release & Information Management

Consistency and factual accuracy are critical to preserving public trust in the management of the crisis. The data released from the Ghana Health Service and Ministry of Information must have epidemiological relevance to the COVID-19 outbreak, it must be presented in a consistent manner to allow for trend analysis by third-parties, it must be logically consistent, and it must have practical utility. We note concerns on all those fronts.

5.1. We recommend the scheduling of a fixed time for daily updates on the COVID-19 situation in Ghana to avoid the creation of an information vacuum that leaves the public vulnerable to speculation and false information. This refers to the updates on confirmed cases and the media briefings by government. These briefings should be focused on communicating the views of the public health, clinical and social welfare experts on the state of affairs. The use of the platform as an occasion for the presentation of donations, in particular, is unnecessary and is discouraged.

5.2. The sequencing of tests results by the actual sample dates is an important piece of information to assist in the determination of the true trend in confirmed cases, as the universally acknowledged backlog may bottleneck data releases in such a way as to give skewed data that better reflects timing of information publication than it does the actual trend in case emergence. The use of the former as the latter greatly jeopardizes our understanding of the dynamics of the disease within the population and renders it practically irrelevant for the interpretation and projection of the trajectory of COVID-19 in Ghana.

5.2. We request a clarification from government on the matter of test results from private institutions and whether those are included in the national tally. A breakdown of testing and results by facility and ownership type would be a useful statistic for understanding the pattern of care-seeking behavior during the pandemic and doubles as a verification of private hospital reporting.

5.2. We demand from government an immediate explanation for the drop in confirmed cases under the routine surveillance category between the April 13 (292) and April 14 (268) update. The disparity of 24 cases has now encoded systematic error in the national tally of cases, as the April 15 update added on 5 new confirmations to the total confirmed cases on the basis of the evidently inaccurate April 14 tally of 636. This begs an urgent review of the data management and dissemination process. This must be explained thoroughly and publicly corrected immediately.

5.3. An emerging concern in the management of information is the public understanding of the rules around funerals and burials. This has been highlighted by recent complaints by staff at various mortuaries about overcrowding of their morgues as families are either unsure of whether burials are covered by the restrictions on movement or choosing to delay funerals until the lockdown is lifted. This is a sensitive topic grounded in our sociocultural perspectives as a people, but it is important to consider the implications of overcrowded morgues given the harsh realities of the weeks ahead. We recommend urgent clarification of the matter, and subtle encouragement to families to consider early burials in advance of funeral rites and memorial services to be conducted after the lockdown.
"Do we really need our police force to worry about what's in someone's sippy cup as they are cruising Main Street?"

-- Bismarck City Commissioner Greg Zenker on a discussion about allowing restaurants to temporarily sell alcohol with carryout orders.

q q q

"We're scared, as the disciples were at the death of Jesus. We're isolated like they were when they hid away after his death in the upper room. We have an assured comfort that in the resurrection there is a tomorrow that is brighter and better and in which there is a great deal of hope."

-- The Rev. Leanne Simmons, of First Presbyterian Church in Bismarck, on her Easter message of hope, derived from the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

q q q

"Then, of course, this thing hits, and then the stock market hits, and the oil prices hit. It's going to be a tough April, and hopefully it's weeks and not months."

-- Scott Ritter, a commercial realtor with Aspen Group Real Estate, on interest from businesses in renting commercial property, which was incredibly encouraging moving into 2020.

q q q

This one is absolutely unprecedented in the way its reduced passengers to little or nothing.

-- Bismarck Airport Director Greg Haug describing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on air travel.

q q q

When you fly as much as I do, trying to go back and forth from D.C., its concerning that you might not have the ability to get back. Theyre not going to fly those flights if there are two or three people on board.

-- U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong, who recently had to catch a flight out of Minot to return to the nations capital because his flight from Bismarck was canceled due to a lack of passengers during the coronavirus pandemic.

q q q

Our goal is to meaningfully advance the science around COVID-19 so physicians can be better prepared to respond to and treat this novel virus in the future, especially for our populations most at-risk.

-- Dr. Allison Suttle, chief medical officer for Sanford Health, which is launching a clinical trial of the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus patients.

q q q

Were seeing more wells shut in every day. You can see the number of drilling rigs in the United States dropping, and youre going to see production dropping.

-- Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, describing the impact of low oil prices on the Bakken.

q q q

I feel bad because I dont have enough eggs for everybody who wants eggs, but I do my best.

-- Laura Filkowski, a rancher north of Belfield, describes how the 30 eggs her hens lay each day are in high demand as people stock up on food during the coronavirus pandemic.

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Community Assessment Hubs are being set up so that people who are confirmed as Covid-19 positive, and who require a face to face clinical assessment, can attend a community based unit as near as possible to where they live.

The aim of the units is to divert those who are mildly symptomatic and require medical assessment away from the acute hospital system by providing a facility in the community, where they can be seen and clinically assessed by a team of nurses, doctors and ailled health professionals including physiotherapist, occupational therapists and paramedics.

There will be a Community Assessment Hub in Sligo located at the Clarion Road but it is not expected to be operational until later this week with final preparations underway to open these centres.

People can only access these units for assessment by GP referral.

The standard telephone assessment will be completed by the patient's GP who can then refer patients to the local hub if there are clinical concerns about deteriorating symptoms.

Referrals to Assessment Hubs will be accepted from GP Out of Hours services also.

Referred patients will be assessed by nurses and GPs at the Hub and a clinical decision can then be made as to whether they can be supported to continue to recover at home or be referred to acute hospital for treatment.

Patients may also be referred to a self-isolation unit if they cannot self-isolate at home.

The Unit will provide service Monday to Sunday, with opening hours agreed locally and within the hours of 8am to 8pm as staffing and referrals allow.

Attendance at the unit will be by appointment only. There is no walk in capacity.

Each of the facilities has parking on site for staff and patients. Wheelchair accessibility is available on sites. Ambulance access can be facilitated on each site.

The HSE says this new service is being provided by Community Healthcare Organisations and represents a new way of working in response to the Covid-19 challenge.
Orem city manager objects to creation of new legislative counsel office

Over the weekend, new Orem Mayor Dave Young and city council members held a retreat in which they talked about the most urgent issues in the city and some immediate changes the majority of the group would like to make. According to Young, the top three most important issues on his plate are the State Street master plan, a new Office of Legislative Counsel and director thereof, and changes to how members of the Planning Commission are selected. These last two are what will comprise Tuesdays regular council meeting. The resolution on the Office of Legislative Counsel also names Jesse ...
About 20 workers in Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's palace have tested positive for the coronavirus, two officials told AFP on Saturday, but so far, there is no indication the president himself has been infected.

"Twenty-odd people are infected with COVID-19 in the presidential palace. However, it is (being) kept under wraps to ensure no panic is caused," one government official said.

A second official confirmed the number, and said an additional 12 people from the president's administrative office had also contracted the virus.

Ghani's spokesman Sediq Sediqqi declined to comment and referred questions to the health ministry, which also would not comment, saying it did not disclose the identity of its patients.

Ghani, 70, recently began his second term as president and faces multiple crises, including a floundering peace process and an attack on his authority by his bitter rival Abdullah Abdullah, who also has claimed the presidency.

Kabul is currently on a coronavirus lockdown, which authorities recently extended for three weeks, and all government offices are shut.

Afghanistan has officially reported only 933 cases of coronavirus, including 33 deaths.

But the impoverished nation has had only limited access to testing, and observers fear the real numbers are much higher. Ghani lives in a sprawling palace compound in central Kabul. Recent official photos have shown him wearing a mask and gloves, and mainly holding online meetings with officials.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Terrorists looking to sow fear and panic across the nation as it is weighed down by the coronavirus pandemic could strike gas stations, testing sites, supermarkets, and other areas, the federal government is warning.

Though such an attack is considered unlikely, authorities are nonetheless asking the general public to watch out for any suspicious activity.

'Now is the time to engage community businesses and other stakeholders to encourage vigilance and awareness,' a Department of Homeland Security official told ABC News on Friday.

The DHS's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a nationwide notice saying 'it is imperative that law enforcement be alert for potential individuals triggered by the pandemic to inflict further harm, and [that agencies] provide residents with information that can augment community safety and security.'

A healthcare worker in Shawnee, Kansas, administers a COVID-19 test to a local resident at a drive-in testing facility on Friday. The Department of Homeland Security is asking the public to be vigilant in case terrorists seek to strike places were people gather during the pandemic

Shoppers stand in line at a supermarket in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn, New York on Wednesday

DHS said that while 'there are currently no imminent or credible threats, there has been an increase in online hate speech intended to incite violence and/or use the ongoing situation as an excuse to inflict hate.'

The department warns that the 'potential threat environment' has changed as 'public gathering areas' during the coronavirus pandemic have come to include 'COVID-19 mobile screening stations, gas stations, still-open houses of worship, grocery stores, and other retailers that have been approved to do business.'

Two weeks ago, federal agencies including the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center warned of a proliferation of online hate speech by conspiracy theorists who say the pandemic is a 'government-perpetrated hoax.'

The federal government has warned against 'conspiratorial narratives assigning blame for the pandemic to a Jewish conspiracy or China' and that such chatter increases 'risk of retaliatory violence against Jewish Americans and Asian Americans.'

Federal agencies also warn that white supremacists and anti-government extremists are floating conspiracy theories online whereby the pandemic could 'hasten societal collapse' and 'lead to a race war.'

'[L]aw enforcement personnel enforcing stay-at-home orders or interacting with citizens, as well as soft targets such as grocery stores, hospitals, and other essential businesses, will probably remain potential targets for [domestic terrorists] during the course of the pandemic,' the bulletin said.

Neo-Nazis 'plan to weaponize coronavirus': Documents distributed by federal law enforcement reveal white supremacists want to wage germ warfare against law enforcement and non-whites by leaving saliva on door knobs at FBI offices

White supremacists discussed plans to 'weaponize' coronavirus by infecting non-whites and law enforcement agents through the use of spray bottles, laced items, or saliva, the federal government is alleging.

Federal investigators have reportedly been monitoring communications among white supremacist organizations through Telegram, an encrypted messaging app that has become popular among underground extremist movements.

'Violent extremists continue to make bioterrorism a popular topic among themselves,' according to an intelligence brief written by the Federal Protective Service.

'White Racially Motivated Violent Extremists have recently commented on the coronavirus stating that it is an 'OBLIGATION' to spread it should any of them contract the virus.'

The federal government said it is monitoring neo-Nazi chats online where extremists have talked about 'weaponizing' the coronavirus. The image above shows a member of the Ku Klux Klan during a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in July 2017

The report, a copy of which was obtained by Yahoo News, covered the week of February 17 - 24.

The Federal Protective Service is a law enforcement agency that operates under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security.

It is an agency whose main mission is to protect buildings owned or leased by the federal government.

According to the intelligence report, the white supremacist groups 'suggested targeting  law enforcement and minority communities, with some mention of public places in general.'

The chatter involved spreading coronavirus by leaving 'saliva on door handles' at local FBI offices, spitting on elevator buttons and spreading germs in 'nonwhite neighborhoods,' according to the document.

The document alleges that white supremacists were beginning to take the threat of a pandemic seriously even though the government kept downplaying the danger.

The federal government says that white supremacists on Telegram have been chatting about their devotion to a 'siege culture' inspired by neo-Nazi author James Mason.

In the 1980s, Mason wrote a series of newsletters titled 'Siege'. The writings called for racial terrorism as a means to speed up a war that would lead to the breakdown of society, also known as 'accelerationism'.

Mason's work has gained in popularity among violent neo-Nazi groups like the Atomwaffen Division.

Experts who have been tracking neo-Nazi movements say there is a danger that they could try to exploit the current coronavirus crisis by conducting attacks against minorities and law enforcement.

In recent months, the federal government has been urged to conduct more aggressive surveillance of far-right movements in the wake of several mass shootings by gunmen said to have been radicalized online.

The coronavirus has infected more than 2.2 million people worldwide and killed more than 154,000.

In the United States, more than 37,300 people have died as of Friday as the number of confirmed cases surged toward 709,000.
The Swiss Alps on Friday night dazzled in the colours of the tricolour after the Indian flag was projected onto the Matterhorn mountain to express solidarity between nations amid the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Renowned Swiss light artist Gerry Hofstetter has been projecting the flags of various countries since last month. The flags of the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), Japan, Spain amongst many others have also been projected onto the 14,690 feet mountain to instil a feeling of hope as the world faces a global health crisis in the hands of the deadly virus.

Read: Bollywood's Love For Switzerland And It's Alluring Landscpaes Has Only Increased With Time

Read: Germany To Seal Its Borders With France, Austria, And Switzerland To Prevent COVID-19

India's tricolor was the latest edition to the series by Gerry Hofstetter who projected the colors onto the Matterhorn mountain which lies on the Switzerland-Italy border on Friday night.

Gerry Hofstetter revealed that these beams of light express the idea of 'hope' during these dark times. "Light is hope. So if you do a message with light in such a situation as we are in now, you give that hope -- especially with this iconic, standalone, pyramid-shaped, incredibly strong mountain," he said. Thanking him for this lovely display of solidarity, Indian Foreign Service Officer Gurleen Kaur thanked the country for this gesture calling it a friendship between "the Himalayas to the Alps".

Read: Switzerland To Start 'gradual' Lifting Of COVID-19 Restrictions From April 27

Read: 'Stuck In Switzerland, But Proud Of Indian Govt': Monali Thakur On Coronavirus Outbreak
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 14:44:56|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, April 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's call for lifting restrictions on several states has sparked controversy.

In a series of tweets on Friday, Trump urged "liberating" Virginia, Minnesota, and Michigan, three political swing states that now have Democratic governors, throwing his support behind protesters opposing restrictive measures there imposed to slow the spread of the COVID-19.

A group calling itself "Liberate Minnesota" staged a protest Friday afternoon outside the residence of the state's governor, Tim Walz.

Live-streamed video of the event showed many people were packed closely outside the residence, waving pro-Trump signs and flags. Few participants appeared to be wearing masks or other protective gear.

Similar protests, with some attendees armed, took place in Virginia, Michigan, and other states this week.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, tweeted as well on Friday, accusing Trump of "encouraging citizens to engage in armed rebellion."

Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a former Democratic presidential contender, tweeted on Friday that he thinks Trump's remarks "encourage illegal and dangerous acts."

"The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies - even while his own administration says the virus is real, it is deadly and we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted," Inslee added.

During a press briefing at the White House on Friday, Trump defended his tweets, saying that he feels some state orders are "too tough."

"I think we do have sobering guidance, but I think some things are too tough. It's too tough," Trump said.

The president also said he wasn't concerned about protesters spreading the coronavirus among those attending demonstrations calling for states to reopen.

"No, these are people expressing their views. I see the way they are and I see the way they're working and they seem to be very responsible to me, but they've been treated a little bit rough," he said.

The remarks came a day after the White House issued guidelines that defer to states on reopening decisions, but recommended a three-phase approach, as the administration has been eager to put the nation's economy back on track, which has been hit strongly by business closures and job losses.

Vice President Mike Pence and other officials said Friday that they believe that there is enough testing in place for states to begin moving to the first phase of reopening, as health experts called for cautions.

Lawrence Gostin, director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, warned in a tweet on Friday that "relaxing too early could cause exponential spread."

According to a tally from Johns Hopkins University on Friday, the number of COVID-19 infections in the United States has topped 700,000, with nearly 37,000 deaths. The Trump administration declared this week that the country had "passed the peak" of infections.

In another tweet on Friday, Trump urged states to step up testing.

Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, the largest epicenter of the nation's coronavirus outbreak, on Friday chided the federal government's failure to provide enough support for testing.

"Large-scale testing is a massive undertaking," Cuomo tweeted. "We need the private sector to work with government to meet this enormous challenge. And we need the federal government to act."

The Democrat also said the pandemic in New York isn't over. The state has reported more than 230,000 confirmed cases and over 17,000 deaths. Enditem
Fires around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant and elsewhere pushed pollution levels in Ukraines capital Kiev to the worst in the world, giving inhabitants another reason to stay indoors on top of the coronavirus lockdown, Reuters reports.

According to Swiss monitor IQAir, Kiev had the highest level of air contamination of major world cities, ahead of Hangzhou, Chongqing and Shanghai in China.

Though the 1986 Chernobyl disaster sent clouds of nuclear material across much of Europe, there was no new radiation risk from the fires and pollution, Ukraines health ministry said.

Smog has been formed in Kiev and Kiev region. It does not carry a chemical or radiological threat, the radiation background is within normal limits, it said in a statement.

The citys roughly 3.7 million people were, however, urged to remain indoors - where most are anyway due to restrictions intended to contain the coronavirus - and close windows.

This smoke can cause headaches, coughs, difficulty breathing, eye irritation, inflammation of the mucous membrane of the nose and larynx, as well as a number of diseases and allergies, the ministry added.

Police said a huge fire was started by arsonists in the forests around Chernobyl earlier this month. It was put out this week, but new blazes broke out on Thursday evening, fanned by heavy winds.
Three Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were killed and as many injured in a terrorist attack in north Kashmir's Sopore town on Saturday, officials said.

The terrorists fired at a check post that was jointly being manned by troops of CRPF's 179th battalion and the Jammu and Kashmir Police.

This is the third attack against the paramilitary in the Kashmir valley within a week.

A CRPF trooper was injured on Friday after terrorists fired at a similar check post in Pulwama.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Nigerian government has threatened to close private healthcare centres and hospitals caught secretly treating coronavirus patients.



Some wealthy people are ignoring protocol by seeking private care instead of contacting the Centre for Disease Control, it says.



Nigeria's Health Minister said that private facilities must be accredited to treat highly infectious disease.



Officials have said the virus has spread in some states because of practitioners who continue to ignore those rules.



They also say that secretly treating positive coronavirus cases could be dangerous for health staff and other patients.



This is an issue that has been raised a few times during the daily presidential task-force briefings.

Source: BBC









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.

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Between surgeries one stressful morning, Ben Cayer and Mindy Brock  husband and wife, and fellow nurse anesthetists  peered through layers of protective gear, and locked eyes.

It was a lovers' gaze in the most unlikely situation. A co-worker was there to snap a picture.

Now the image, shared on social media, is inspiring people around the globe.

"Everybody's talking about the photo," says Cayer, 46. It strikes a chord "because we're all going through the same thing right now and it's a symbol of hope and love."

Brock, 38, adds: "What's important is that we stick together, we work together, and we always support each other. And not just Ben and I, but the human race right now."

The Florida pair share a home, a profession and, now, a mission  shouldering the high-risk duty of placing breathing tubes in surgery patients, any of whom may have COVID-19.

They didn't think twice about volunteering for Tampa General Hospital's new "airway team," Cayer says.

Placing a tube into a patient's mouth and down into their airway requires close contact  and because the virus spreads in droplets, the highest level of protective gear. To conserve gear and expose fewer health care workers, the hospital pared down staff to a minimum for intubations before surgery.

Their patients have been in car crashes, or needed brain surgery because of a ruptured blood vessel. As is the case at many U.S. hospitals, only emergency surgeries continue at the Tampa hospital, to make room as the pandemic continues to crest.

They met in nurse anesthesia school in 2007. In classes, they sat in alphabetical order. Brock next to Cayer, she says, "and it just took off from there."

They married five years ago and now work for TeamHealth, a medical staffing firm. But on the morning of the photo, they bickered during the drive to work. They disagreed about what to play on the car radio, and who was doing the dishes at home.

This April 2015 photo provided by Richard Bell Photography shows Mindy and Ben Cayer during their wedding in Charleston, S.C. They met in nurse anesthesia school in 2007. In classes, they sat in alphabetical order - Brock next to Cayer, she says, and it just took off from there. (Richard Bell Photography via AP)AP

The new COVID-19 procedures  it was Brock's first day on the new team  were making them both tense.

"We were arguing," she says. Later, they found each other between surgeries. The tension melted. "All those trivial things that we were arguing about that morning, in the grand scheme of things, aren't that important." The photo captures that moment.

He says they don't worry much about getting sick, although the virus has come close. Brock's mother has recovered from it. Co-workers fear catching it. Patients feel alone because visitors have been strictly limited.

"We have grown men bawling because none of their family can be there with them," Brock says.

It helps to be married to another nurse, because "unless you're here doing this, there's no way to describe it," she says. "He gets it."
The Canada Revenue Agency has joined the governments effort to combat the effects of COVID-19 on the economy. The agency is helping launch the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) for those who are out of work due to to pandemic. The agency has also increased existing benefits to help citizens in steering through this challenging financial time.

The CRA has also announced tax extensions that will interest investors particularly. Lets look at the tax reliefs rolled out in response to COVID-19.

You have until June 1 to file taxes

If you havent filed your taxes yet, you dont have to worry about penalties, because now you have one extra month to file without getting hit by a fine. If youre self-employed, you still have until June 15 to file your taxes.

You have until September 1 to pay taxes

The deadline for tax payment has also been deferred to September 1, and it is applied across the board. You can benefit from this tax payment extension whatever the source of your income.

A TFSA investor isnt affected by these new CRA rules as long as they are adhering to the contribution limits.

Its a tricky time for a TFSA investor to pick stocks. Right now, the best choices for stocks are those that will likely be around in 30 years. Case in point: Enbridge (TSX:ENB)(NYSE:ENB). The ongoing oil price war, coupled with the coronavirus pandemic, has hit Enbridges operations badly. Since mid-February, Enbridges stock has been down by over 30%.

Enbridge operates a crude oil and natural gas supply chain in North America with its pipeline network and cargo services. Lying at the midstream of the oil landscape makes Enbridge less sensitive to fluctuating oil prices than an oil producer.

This is the primary reason why Enbridge survived the 2008 recession as well as the 2014 crude price shock. However, we cant compare the ongoing crisis with the past ones. For starters, oil transport volume has also taken a hit this time due to the massive drop in demand at the downstream caused by lockdowns and travel restrictions.

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Moreover, if the oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia stretches out for long, it will hit the Canadian high-cost oil projects and affect Enbridges balance sheet. We have seen it before with the way entities struggle in generating cash flow despite having an investment-grade status, and Enbridge is no exception.

A bet on oil price war

The future of Enbridge greatly depends on how the ongoing oil price pans out. If Saudi Arabia is determined to keep oil prices low until other countries start rolling back high-cost oil projects, it may turn out badly for Enbridge. If you are going to add Enbridge to your TFSA portfolio, it might be better if you complement it with any other low-cost/low-risk stock.

The post Canada Revenue Agency: 2 Big COVID-19 Tax Changes to Be Aware of appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

More reading

Fool contributor Christopher Liew has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Enbridge.

The Motley Fools purpose is to help the world invest, better. Click here now for your free subscription to Take Stock, The Motley Fool Canadas free investing newsletter. Packed with stock ideas and investing advice, it is essential reading for anyone looking to build and grow their wealth in the years ahead. Motley Fool Canada 2020
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 19:45:58|Editor: huaxia

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- Ferrying medical supplies among others, China-Europe freight train service has resumed, boosting Europe's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic;

- With increasing transport frequency and volume, the steady and reliable service is helping sustain international trade and global supply chains at a tough time;

- China is making efforts to extend a helping hand and to restore and raise the production capacity of medical and anti-epidemic supplies;

- China-Europe freight train service is an important component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

by Xinhua writers Feng Yasong, Gao Wencheng, Zhu Sheng

BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- This week in the western German city of Duisburg, after the arrival of a China-Europe freight train from Wuhan, once the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, Chinese diplomats and local officials posed for a group photo while maintaining a safe distance from each other.

The train, which was loaded with medical supplies, auto parts, electronic products, and optical communication fibers, among others, was a stellar example of how China and Europe can stand together in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and challenges posed by the contagious disease.

Chinese and German guests attend the welcome ceremony of China-Europe freight train from Wuhan of central China's Hubei Province, in Duisburg, Germany, April 14, 2020. (The Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Dusseldorf/Handout via Xinhua)

Around the time the train arrived in Germany, another two China-Europe freight trains, under the operation of China Railway Express, one departing from southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, the other setting out from the eastern Chinese city of Yiwu, also rumbled across the Eurasian continent and arrived in Europe.

BUSINESS RESUMPTION

Since it resumed intercontinental train service on March 28, Wuhan, the capital city of the central Chinese province of Hubei, has seen the departure of four freight trains, loaded with 195 containers of goods for Europe.

According to Wuhan Asia-Europe Logistics, the operator of the trains in Wuhan, their loading rate is above 98 percent, and the goods, including face masks, surgical gauze and first-aid kits, were transported and then distributed to Germany, France, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland.

A China-Europe freight train bound for Duisburg of Germany pulls out of the Wuhan terminal of China Railway Intermodal in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, March 28, 2020. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

Gao Ruorui with the Wuhan operator said 90 percent of medical goods carried by the freight trains from Wuhan were produced by enterprises in Hubei, which have gradually resumed business after a lockdown to stem the virus's spread.

"In order to help Europe's fight against the pandemic, we have kept the transport price flat as that in the same period of last year," said Gao. "We will increase the shipment frequency according to the international market's demand, and help keep the global industrial and supply chains stable."

Trains from other parts of China have also been running steadily, with increasing transport frequency and volume, helping sustain international trade and global supply chains in tough times.

On Sunday, the "China Post" train, launched from Chongqing, arrived in Lithuania, opening a new logistics channel between China and Europe. By Wednesday, a total of 107 China-Europe freight trains had departed from Yiwu this year, which boasts the world's leading small commodities market in east China's Zhejiang Province.

Aerial photo shows a China-Europe freight train, also the "China Post" CR Express 1st block train, running under a bridge in Chongqing Municipality, southwest China, April 3, 2020. (Xinhua/Tang Yi)

Statistics from China Railway Group Limited showed that the first quarter of 2020 saw 1,941 China-Europe freight trains traveling from or to China, carrying 174,000 TEU containers, which represented growth rates of 15 percent and 18 percent, respectively, year on year. In March alone, a total of 809 freight train trips were made, delivering 73,000 TEU of goods, both setting monthly high records.

RELIABLE TRANSPORTATION

On April 8, mobile cranes loaded containers onto a cargo train at Shenyang East Railway Station in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province. Along with regular cargoes including machinery and small commodities, the train, destined for Germany, was also loaded with 200,000 sets of medical protective suits.

"Due to the epidemic, air freight is now facing strict restrictions and road freight came to a halt" in efforts to curb the contagion risk, said He Ruofan, a manager with the Shenyang branch of China Railway Container Transport, the company in charge of the China-Europe freight train operation. "Under such circumstances, the freight train is now favored by many enterprises as the most economical means of international transportation."

A China-Europe freight train carrying anti-novel coronavirus supplies departs for Madrid of Spain from the Yiwu West Train Station in Yiwu, east China's Zhejiang Province, March 21, 2020. (Photo by Gong Xianming/Xinhua)

Likewise, Juergen Friedrich, chairman and CEO at Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI), said that demand for train services to Europe has recently increased, as airfreight and shipping services are restricted.

Also, when explaining the advantages of train services, Feng Xubin, chair of the freight operator Yiwu Tianmeng Industrial Investment Co. Ltd., said "China-Europe freight trains offer a closed and safe transport environment with low risk of virus transmission."

As analysts have said, the short transportation time is also a significant strength of the China Rail Express, especially under the current conditions where certain materials, especially medical equipment that is critical for saving lives, require rapid delivery.

What made this possible is China's efforts to extend a helping hand and to restore and raise the production capacity of medical and anti-epidemic supplies.

Carlos Santana, who is responsible for the company which operates the Yiwu-Madrid line in Spain, told Xinhua that return to work in China and the increase in industrial activity have made it easier for the materials needed to fight the pandemic to arrive in a safe and rapid manner.

Aerial photo taken on March 28, 2020 shows a China-Europe freight train bound for Duisburg of Germany pulling out of the Wuhan terminal of China Railway Intermodal in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

Train transport between China and Spain is a reliable alternative means of transport that is cheaper than shipping by air, and faster than cargo vessels, Santana added.

CLOSE CONNECTION

During the welcome ceremony of the train from Wuhan in Duisburg, Transport Minister of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia Hendrik Wuest said that as people in Germany are also suffering from COVID-19, a steady restoration of normalcy is needed.

Therefore, the supplies transported from China by rail, especially medical ones, are of great significance, he added.

For Erich Staake, chief executive officer of Duisburger Hafen AG (duisport), the China-Europe freight train has also helped to further promote cooperation in the logistics field and promote the economic development of both sides.

Meanwhile, in a letter to Chinese Ambassador to Lithuania Shen Zhifei, the Lithuanian Minister of Transport and Communications Jaroslav Narkevic wrote that the train of a new postal rail service to Europe will bring new impetus for the further strengthening of a versatile partnership between the two countries.

"With this new route, especially during a difficult pandemic period, we are turning a new page towards closer cooperation to meet consumer expectations," wrote the minister.

Aerial photo shows a China-Europe freight train, also the "China Post" CR Express 1st block train, ready to leave the Tuanjiecun Station in Chongqing Municipality, southwest China, April 3, 2020. (Xinhua/Tang Yi)

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the China-Europe freight service, as an important component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has long been promoting global inter-connectivity, a function that industry insiders predict will continue.

The interest of German companies, first and foremost from Duisburg, in the railroad transport between China and Germany will also continue after the coronavirus crisis, and enhancing transport routes will remain an important topic in the future, Friedrich said.

China's engagement in the BRI will also induce the development of additional infrastructure initiatives on the part of other countries and regions in the future, which will additionally contribute to enhanced connectivity between China and Germany, he added.

(Xinhua reporters Li Shengjiang, Zhai Wei in Brussels, Yan Feng, Zhang Yuan in Berlin, Feng Junwei in Madrid, Guo Mingfang in Vilnius, Zhang Zhang, Chen Xu in Warsaw, Le Wenwan in Wuhan, Yin Xiaosheng in Hangzhou, Zhao Yufei in Chongqing, Xu Yang, Ding Feibai, Wu Ziyu in Shenyang also contributed to the story.)

(Video reporters: Wang Pinging, Shen Zhonghao, Guo Mingfang, Li Yibo, Zhao Yuchao, Zhao Xiaoshuai; Video editors: Peng Ying, Yang Zhixiang.)
Teenagers Lily Chen and Steven Song are among the rare few to have experienced the global COVID-19 pandemic from virus hot zones on two continents.

As the outbreak swept the U.S. in March, the Chinese high school seniors at an American boarding school evacuated their campus to eastern China, where their families were already on lockdown as infection rates peaked.

I was really worried about my parents, because my dad just came back from Wuhan before the outbreak, so he was quarantined at home and then nobody knew what was going to happen, Chen said in an interview from her home in Shanghai.

PHOTO: Lily Chen, a senior at Shattuck-St. Mary's boarding school in Fairbault, Minn., speaks with ABC News from his home in Shangahi, China. (ABC News)

Now, a month later, the students from Shattuck-St. Marys School in Fairbault, Minnesota, are giving ABC News an inside look at their Chinese hometowns in recovery, revealing a new normal for their communities emerging from quarantine.

Tune into ABC at 1 p.m. ET and ABC News Live at 4 p.m. ET every weekday for special coverage of the novel coronavirus with the full ABC News team, including the latest news, context and analysis.

Were seeing a bright side here in China right now. So, I bet theres going to be a bright side in the States. Definitely, its coming to you guys, Chen said.

From his home in Hangzhou, China, Song described a slow resumption of ordinary activity: haircuts at the barber, visits to Starbucks, and dinner out with friends. Everyone is now wearing a mask, he said.

PHOTO: Steven Song, a senior at Shattuck-St. Mary's boarding school in Fairbault, Minn., speaks with ABC News from his home in Hangzhou, China. (ABC News)

You still have the risks of getting [coronavirus], but there is no panic about it. Just wear a mask and just go back to normal life, instead of staying in quarantine at home, said Song.

But both students identified one big change to normal life across China: Residents in most major cities are now required to navigate a labyrinth of checkpoints and temperature checks.

PHOTO: High school senior Steven Song passes a medical checkpoint in his hometown Hangzhou, China, in April 2020, during the global coronavirus pandemic. (Courtesy Steven Song)

When were entering through shopping malls or Starbucks, they ask you to show your green code in order to enter, said Song.

Chinese authorities have implemented an electronic health status surveillance system that tracks personal COVID-19 testing data. A green code in the app indicates that a person has not tested positive for coronavirus, Song said.

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PHOTO: Steven Song, a high school student at Shattuck-St. Mary's School in Fairbault, Minn., shows his 'green code' health status at home in Hangzhou, China. The app tracks COVID-19 test results; residents are required to show their code at checkpoints. (Courtesy Steven Song)

Chen said some checkpoints involve the use of infrared thermometers to screen residents and identify people suspected of being sick who need to stay home.

I can basically go anywhere wearing a face mask, she said. I have walked the cherry blossoms with my parents, gone outside with my friends, stuff like that.

PHOTO: High school senior Lily Chen passes a medical checkpoint in her hometown Shanghai, China, in April 2020, during the global coronavirus pandemic. (Courtesy Lily Chen)

Like many high school students in the U.S., Chen and Song were abruptly disconnected from a traditionally celebratory right of passage across America: Senior seasons on the drill squad and basketball team cut-short; culminating coursework and exams forced online; and hopes of starting college in the fall potentially delayed.

When I left Shattuck, I was never prepared for it -- like leaving this fast. So I cried, actually, along with my friends and teachers as well. So it was pretty sad, said Song, who played for the schools basketball team.

PHOTO: The 2020 coronavirus pandemic forced an abrupt end to sports seasons nationwide. Shattuck-St. Mary's School senior Steven Song, center, played one of the final games of his high school career. (Courtesy Shattuck-St. Mary's School)

Chen, who is the captain of the Shattuck Wooden Soldiers drill team, says she has been going stir crazy at home with her parents. Its another different experience because there is just no way I can spend five months at home; like, I havent been here for like five years!

Both Chen and Song were accepted into U.S. universities this fall.

PHOTO: Students from Shattuck-St. Mary's School in Fairbault, Minn., complete semester classes remotely using online videoconferencing after evacuating campus during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. (Courtesy Lily Chen)

Tufts University, where Chen hopes to study biology and studio art, has warned new students that their start date may be subject to sudden or unexpected delays. Song intends to study nutrition at NYU, which says its planning on-time start to the school year, but is prepared to make the necessary adjustments for safety.

Most universities just like us are very optimistic and planning for a normal school year in the fall. We simply must. But everybodys talking about contingency plans, said Andrew Garlinski, Shattucks admissions director and dean of international students. I think were going to see a lot more education online. I think theres going to be a lot more options.

PHOTO: Andrew Garlinski, admissions director and international students dean at Shattuck-St. Mary's boarding school in Fairbault, Minn., speaks with ABC News about how Chinese students who returned home during the pandemic are completing their studies. (ABC News)

What to know about coronavirus:

How it started and how to protect yourself: Coronavirus explained

What to do if you have symptoms: Coronavirus symptoms

Tracking the spread in the U.S. and worldwide: Coronavirus map

High school seniors in China reveal signs of COVID recovery originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Crenshaws plan of action

Regarding Its to mobilize against the pandemic, (A14, April 17): Rep. Dan Crenshaws piece was spot on. There needs to be a reasoned strategy employed in the fight against this pandemic and our emergence from its grips. Suicides, financial ruin, etc. are casualties of this and have to be factored in now and long-term.

Our government on some levels seems to be semi-logical with its responses. However, tacking on millions for the Kennedy Center or giving money to those who have lost zero wages are nothing more than election year attempts to buy votes.

My hope is that more people like the Harvard professor cited will be included in the solution.

M Donnelly, Pearland

Everyone respects Rep. Dan Crenshaw, not just for his service as a Navy SEAL, but because he is the closest thing to a voice of reason on todays right. However, he is dead wrong about our response to the pandemic. He says that when SEALs are ambushed, they stage a tactical retreat and then go on the offensive. He says it is time to go on the offensive against COVID-19. However, the only way to go on the offensive against a deadly pathogen when there is no cure and no vaccine is to deny it food. We are the food. If we serve ourselves up to the virus by defying medical advice and ending the quarantine too soon, then cases will spike, deaths will spike and the economic effects will be truly devastating.

Keith M. Parsons, Friendswood

Rep. Dan Crenshaw describes a reasonable strategy for our economy to move toward normal. He also offers an interesting analogy based on his combat experience. His analogy states, It is a strategic effort to regroup, analyze our enemy, bolster our capacity to respond and then go on offensive. That last part is key  we never stayed in perpetual retreat. To do so would mean defeat. Easy to agree with his analogy. I just have one issue. Have we bolstered our capacity? The Houston Chronicle recently detailed how Texas is the second from last state for per capita COVID-19 testing in a country that ranks well behind most other developed countries. Additionally, what is Texas plan to provide appropriate contact tracing?

Like many, I am all for getting the economy restarted. I am not for going on the offensive when our federal and state governments have promised support or supplies (i.e. air cover, additional personnel or ammunition, or in our case, tests and contact tracing) and has a proven track record of overpromising and underdelivering. That would be an offensive doomed for failure. Unlike Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, I am not signed up for that plan. Lets see our government leaders truly lead and do the correct and complete actions, not just talk.

Crenshaw appears to be a man of action. Please go on the offensive for us and ensure the track record of empty promises is stopped. You would expect nothing less from your military leadership while on a mission.

Sheen Smith, Houston
Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz has asked an obvious question, one that has not come up at the daily White House coronavirus press briefing -- why is the Wuhan Virology Lab a grantee of the National Institutes of Health, whose National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) -- headed by one Dr. Anthony Fauci -- and a recipient of $3.7 million to study coronavirus in bats? Gaetz has gone beyond mere curiosity, writing a letter to HHS Secretary Azar demanding the grant be terminated:

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., called on Health & Human Services Secretary Alex Azar Tuesday to cease funding a research grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, telling "Tucker Carlson Tonight" the action could be accomplished "with the stroke of a pen." "I'm against funding Chinese research in our country, but I'm sure against funding it in China," Gaetz said. "The NIH [National Institutes of Health] gives a $3.7 million grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology [and] they then advertise that they need coronavirus researchers and following that, coronavirus erupts in Wuhan." "What's really troubling to me is either conspicuously or miraculously the Wuhan Institute of Virology is able to sequence the virus on January 2 but China doesn't admit to the virus existing until January 9 and then the Wuhan Institute of Virology doesn't release this important scientific information to the world until January 12," Gaetz said. "So at best, Americans are funding people who are lying to us and at worst, we're funding people who we knew had problems handling pathogens, who then birthed a monster virus onto the world," he added.

If you go to the Wuhan Institute of Virology website ad look under Partnerships you will see listed the National Institutes of Health of the United States along with the likes of the University of Alabama, the University of North Texas, Harvard University, EcoHealth Alliance, among others,* presumably interested in any connection between the horseshoe bat and coronavirus.

Yet, after the virus outbreak, China would not let U.S. health authorities in to examine the labs and their safeguards, to interview staff and collect samples, both from the animals used in tests at the lab or tissue samples from earl victims. Tissue samples were destroyed, bodies hidden and cremated and false statements made about the possibility of human-to-human transmission passed on to the world through Chinas sock puppet, the World (or is it Wuhan) Health Organization. To this day, serious access and scrutiny is barred.

How could the press not know about the NIH funding and be curious about it? Could the lack of notice and discussion concerning why we were funding the possible if not likely source of a global pandemic was because Dr. Fauci is somewhat of a media favorite for his ambivalence and cautiousness towards President Trumps virus response initiartives. Fortunately, the Daily Mail has provided us some fascinating information:

The Chinese laboratory at the center of scrutiny over a potential coronavirus leak has been using U.S. government money to carry out research on bats from the caves which scientists believe are the original source of the deadly outbreak. The Wuhan Institute of Virology undertook coronavirus experiments on mammals captured more than 1,000 miles away in Yunnan which were funded by a $3.7 million grant from the US government. Sequencing of the COVID-19 genome has traced it back to bats found in Yunnan caves but it was first thought to have transferred to humans at an animal market in Wuhan. The revelation that the Wuhan Institute was experimenting on bats from the area already known to be the source of COVID-19 - and doing so with American money - has sparked further fears that the lab, and not the market, is the original outbreak source  According to documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday, scientists there experimented on bats as part of a project funded by the US National Institutes of Health, which continues to licence the Wuhan laboratory to receive American money for experiments. As part of the NIH research at the institute, scientists grew a coronavirus in a lab and injected it into three-day-old piglets.

Say what? We helped fund this monster before it broke out of the lab? And we complain about China lying to us? We have been keeping the truth from ourselves. That NIH-funded research into piglets and coronavirus is worth a serious look:

Dr. Anthony Faucis National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) (a member of the NIH) actually funded a study on Bat Coronavirus, which was a project that included scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese lab at the center of controversy over their bat research. That study confirmed in 2018 that humans have died from coronavirus. Heres an excerpt from the April 4, 2018 NIAID website entry entitled New Coronavirus Emerges From Bats in China, Devastates Young Swine: A newly identified coronavirus that killed nearly 25,000 piglets in 2016-17 in China emerged from horseshoe bats near the origin of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), which emerged in 2002 in the same bat species. The new virus is named swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV). It does not appear to infect people, unlike SARS-CoV which infected more than 8,000 people and killed 774. No SARS-CoV cases have been identified since 2004. The study investigators identified SADS-CoV on four pig farms in Chinas Guangdong Province. The work was a collaboration among scientists from EcoHealth Alliance, Duke-NUS Medical School, Wuhan Institute of Virology and other organizations, and was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. The research is published in the journal Nature. The researchers say the finding is an important reminder that identifying new viruses in animals and quickly determining their potential to infect people is a key way to reduce global health threats.

Well, the road to pandemic hell was paved with seemingly good intentions, at least on our part. We were not only funding Chinese research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology but we knew the lab was a leaky, unsafe, ticking time bomb in 2018, according to leaked State Department cables:

Two years before the novel coronavirus pandemic upended the world, U.S. Embassy officials visited a Chinese research facility in the city of Wuhan several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats. In January 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing took the unusual step of repeatedly sending U.S. science diplomats to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which had in 2015 become Chinas first laboratory to achieve the highest level of international bioresearch safety (known as BSL-4). WIV issued a news release in English about the last of these visits, which occurred on March 27, 2018. The U.S. delegation was led by Jamison Fouss, the consul general in Wuhan, and Rick Switzer, the embassys counselor of environment, science, technology and health. Last week, WIV erased that statement from its website, though it remains archived on the Internet. What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington. The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the labs work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic. During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, they noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory, states the Jan. 19, 2018, cable, which was drafted by two officials from the embassys environment, science and health sections who met with the WIV scientists.  The Chinese researchers at WIV were receiving assistance from the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch and other U.S. organizations, but the Chinese requested additional help. The cables argued that the United States should give the Wuhan lab further support, mainly because its research on bat coronaviruses was important but also dangerous.

As it turns out, the NIH was funding dangerous research in Wuhan while the state Department was warning that a global pandemic could leak from the lab, something Chinese scientists said was likely in a South China University study paper. A pandemic study commission formed by the British government concluded that the lab leak could no longer be dismissed out of hand as just another tin-foil hat conspiracy theory. Neither should we.

Daniel John Sobieski is a former editorial writer for Investors Business Daily and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.

*Note: An earlier version of this piece listed the National Wildlife Federation as an organization affiliated with the Wuhan site. The National Wildlife Federation advises that that listing is in error. They have asked the Wuhan lab to remove it, but it hasn't been done, which sounds about par for the Chicoms.
As the head of the Faisalabad chapter of the Tablighi Jamaat died of coronavirus on Friday, the Pakistan government has said it is still trying to trace and isolate thousands of members of the organisation who attended a religious gathering on the outskirts of Lahore in mid-March.

This effort comes at a time when the Pakistan government and religious organizations, including the Tablighi Jamaat, are in talks over holding congregational prayers during the holy month of Ramazan that starts in about a week.

There is confusion within the Imran Khan government on how to proceed. While Prime Minister Khan has not spoken his mind yet, his cabinet colleagues are divided on the issue.

While de-facto health minister Dr Zafar Mirza has pushed for the ongoing restrictions on congregation prayers to continue, senior minister Shaikh Rasheed told the media on Saturday that he was not in favour of such a ban. Science minister Fawad Chaudhry, in a tweet, singled out the Tablighi Jamaat for the spread of the virus in Pakistan.

It is this confusion, say observers, that will push up the numbers of those infected by Sars-CoV-2 virus in the days to come. With over 7,600 confirmed cases and deaths nearing 150 count, experts have warned that numbers could balloon in days to come.

An important role in the spread is being played by the members of the Tablighi-Jamaat.

Police officials say that about 100,000 people attended the Raiwind Ijtema, which is an annual event, at a time when the coronavirus crisis was brewing. The Jamaat estimates over 200,000 attended the congregation.

This included the 3,000-odd people from abroad including China, Indonesia, Nigeria and Afghanistan, the organisers said. About half of them are now quarantined in Pakistan, the others left the country without being tested.

Gazas health ministry confirmed last month its first two cases of coronavirus were Palestinians who had attended the gathering.

On the whole, about 7,000 followers have been quarantined in Lahore, while all over Punjab 10,263 quarantined of which 539 have tested positive for the virus so far. Almost 600 members have been quarantined in Raiwind itself. In Sindh province up to 8,000 Tablighis have been quarantined.

Local media quoted health officials in Punjab as saying that that the coronavirus cases are rising in Punjab because of the carelessness of the Tableeghi Jamaat members who keep on meeting the public as a part of their preaching after their return to the areas they belonged to.

Looking back, many have questioned why the government allowed the gathering to take place in the first place. One reason for this could be the cozy relationship enjoyed by the Tablighi Jamaat and the Pakistani establishment.

The Jamaat has a big following within the Pakistan armed forces. A number of Generals have been members of the Jamaat. Many serving and retired officers attend the gathering each year. In the early 90s, the head of the ISI - General Javed Nasir, was also a Jamaat member. Given such influence, it is hard, say observers, to challenge the Jamaats decisions.

Some insist that the change would have to come from within the Jamaat. One of the leading figures of the Jamaat, Maulana Tariq Jamil, is considered a mentor by prime minister Imran Khan. The prime minister has repeatedly turned to the cleric for guidance on religious issues. It is believed that Imran Khans stance on the coronavirus is tempered by the statements made by Maulana Jamil.

After the Lahore event, Tariq Jamil gave a speech in which he said: God chooses who is infected and who is not, and God will save us.

By 1 April, Jamil had changed his views somewhat when for the first time he described the virus as life-threatening.

But Jamil and others continue to resist calls for restrictions on congregational prayers. In fact, some fear that Jamaat supporters would resort to violence if forced to stay away from mosques. In the Punjab city of Layyah, a member stabbed a police officer while trying to escape from a Tablighi Jamaat centre as quarantining measures were being enforced.

Negotiations have brought some results as well. Last week, Tablighi Jamaat elders sent out a letter to the movements followers instructing them to stop their door-to-door visits and not to congregate.

And yet the Pakistan government is shy of a complete lockdown on prayers and other activities that the religious organizations are calling for. Possibly if the situation deteriorates, the army leadership will once again have to step in to let sanity prevail, say some.
Hyderabad: A Hyderabad mosque bears a deserted look as people of Muslim community refrain from stepping out to offer Friday prayers to comly with the extended nationwide lockdown imposed to mitigate the spread of coronavirus, on Apr 17, 2020. (Photo: Image Source: IANS News

Hyderabad, April 18 : With the surge in COVID-19 cases continuing in Telangana and Hyderabad and seven other districts being the hotspots, the state is not likely to go for any relaxations in the ongoing lockdown despite the guidelines issued by the Centre to open up come sectors from April 20.

The state cabinet will be holding its crucial meeting on Sunday to take a final call but the indications are that the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government is not in favour of any relaxations in view of the positive cases being reported every day.

As many as 116 people tested positive for coronavirus during the last two days, taking the state's tally to 766. The ruling party leaders and officials feel that relaxations at this stage could prove suicidal and undo all the efforts put in so far to flatten the curve.

Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao is likely to go ahead with the strict implementation of the lockdown till May 3.

The state government circles have reacted with shock and disbelief over the guidelines issued by the Centre on Wednesday. According to these guidelines industries operating in areas outside urban areas will re-open. Similarly e-commerce companies can resume functioning while IT and ITES companies will also be allowed to operate with 50 per cent employees. As per the guidelines self-employed persons in service sectors like electricians, plumbers and carpenters will also be permitted.

Chandrashekhar Rao was one of the first leaders to seek extension of the lockdown at least by two weeks. He extended the lockdown in the state till April 30 even before Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced nation-wide extension till May 3.

KCR, as Rao is popularly known, had also stated that even after May 3 the restrictions will be lifted in a phased manner. However, the guidelines issued by the Centre are being viewed as a setback to the efforts.

One of the first to announce state-wide lockdown, KCR holds the view that in the absence of any vaccine or drug to cure COVID-19, lockdown is the only weapon available to combat the dreaded disease. "We can revive the economy but can't revive the dead," he stated on many occasions.

The KCR government is said to be of the view that once certain sectors are opened it could lead to chaos thus undermining the efforts to control the spread of virus.

Greater Hyderabad, home to almost the entire business and industry activity of the state, is already categorized as COVID-19 hotspot as it accounts for 417 out of 766 cases. The health and municipal authorities in Greater Hyderabad have created 146 containment centres to check the spread of virus.

Seven other districts in the state have also been categorized as the hotspots with large outbreaks.

KCR's son and minister for industry, information technology, urban development and municipal administration K.T. Rama Rao has been holding consultations with the industry leaders for the last two days to take their inputs and evolve a consensus on the exit strategy.

According to the minister's office, the industry captains suggested that the lifting of lockdown should be staggered and should include the concerns of the industry "These are unprecedented times and we are in uncharted territory," said the minister.

He stated that even governments are learning as days pass by. Rama Rao said that the state government's strategies are changing based on the trajectory of virus spread.
Chadian jet 'accidentally' drops bomb on senior army officer's house, killing four

Iran Press TV

Friday, 17 April 2020 6:33 PM

Four people were killed and two others wounded in Chad when a bomb "accidentally dropped" from a jet onto the house of a senior army officer near the capital, N'Djamena, a prosecutor and an air force officer say.

An AFP journalist said the bomb hit and destroyed the house of Mahamat Saleh Arim, deputy commander of the presidential guard and a close ally of President Idriss Deby Itno, which lies near the Adji Kossei airbase.

The house was just meters from the Chad headquarters of the French-led Operation Barkhane, which purportedly seeks to counter Takfiri militants in the African country. France is a former colonizer of the region.

"An investigation is underway to determine the circumstances of this incident," Youssouf Tom, the public prosecutor at the N'Djamena High Court, told AFP.

The strike claimed the lives of two women and two children, an air force official said.

"The plane was taking off when the bomb broke loose, and hit a private residence in the city that houses soldiers' families next to the airbase," an air force officer, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

Chad has used the Russian-made Sukhoi jets in airstrikes against Boko Haram militants in the Lake Chad region following the killing of 98 Chadian soldiers last month in an attack by the Takfiri militants.

Boko Haram's 10-year militancy in northeastern Nigeria is estimated to have killed 35,000 people and forced about two million others to flee their homes.

The militant group's sphere of activities spreads across Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. Those countries have created a joint military force to stop the terrorists from further spreading, but sustained efforts to eradicate the militants have failed and the military continues to suffer heavy losses.

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A Labor New South Wales senator rented out her beachfront house on AirBnb despite tough coronavirus restrictions in place urging people to stay at home.

Senator Deborah O'Neill allowed guests to stay in her $310-a-night beach house in Copacabana on the Central Coast from April 6 to 8.

Australians are only permitted to leave their homes for essential reasons like work, food, exercise and medical appointments and it's unknown why the guests were staying at Ms O'Neill's home.

Ms O'Neill has since said she would only be accepting essential workers into the home.

Senator Deborah O'Neill allowed guests to stay in her $310-a-night beach house (pictured) in Copacabana on the Central Coast from April 6 to 8

'All bookings made are clearly informed via automated-generated email response (Airbnb) and notice on websites (Stayz) that occupants must comply with the recent changes to the law due to COVID-19,' she said.

'Unless someone is an essential service worker, all future bookings have been cancelled'.

The $425,000 home was bought by Ms O'Neill and her husband Paul in 2001.

Documents suggest it is the sole residency of the couple but it's unknown if they were staying at the house at the same time as the guests, The Saturday Telegraph reported.

The one-bedroom home comes with a pool, hot tub, sauna and has a string of reviews from guests complimenting their stay - including reviews from this month.

Police Minister David Elliott said Ms O'Neill's actions were 'disappointing'.

'It's extremely disappointing that this Labor politician has refused to heed the ongoing warnings,' Mr Elliott said on Friday.

Senator O'Neill (pictured) has since said she will only rent out her beachfront home to essential workers

But Andrew Laming, a Liberal member of the House of Representatives said he 'backed' Ms O'Neill's decision.

'I'd back Deb O'Neill on this one. And I know this will surprise everyone and I am meant to take a free hit,' Mr Laming told the ABC on Saturday.

'But ultimately, it's up to the individual to make sure that if they leave their home it's for an essential purpose.

'There's no evidence that the person hiring this particular property wasn't following the Queensland Government advice about where they move, you're just assuming a holiday home means a holiday, and it may not.'

Mr Lamming said he also owned a rental property and urged those hailing criticism at Ms O'Neill to 'back off'.

The one bedroom home sits near the beach in the popular holiday spot Copacabana and boasts a pool and hot tub

He said there are no laws stopping people from renting out a home if their employment means they need to stay there.

It comes just a week after NSW Arts Minister Don Harwin was fined $1,000 after he was found to have breached COVID-19 restrictions by travelling to his Central Coast holiday home.

The coalition frontbencher was spotted at his million-dollar Pearl Beach house earlier in the week, which is more than an hour's drive from his east Sydney primary residence.

Mr Harwin offered his resignation to Premier Gladys Berejiklian a day after the news came to light.
While social distancing in New York, Justin Theroux has been treating his dog Kuma, to lavish meals.

The actor and rescue dog, who he rescued from the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey back in 2018, donned matching formal wear for a candle-lit dinner in photos posted to Instagram.

Theroux, 48, has been making mini versions of his meals for Kuma though he joked on Friday that they got into a fight 'but worked through it.'

Matching meals: Justin Theroux and his dog Kuma donned matching formal wear for a candle-lit dinner in photos posted to Instagram on Friday

In the photo, Kuma gives The Leftovers actor an adorable look, while sitting at the table with him.

She wore a white bib and a black bow-tie, while Theroux was in a suit jacket, white collared shirt and black tie.

'Day 97,' he wrote in the caption. 'We had a fight today...but worked through it.'

Adding: 'Oh... and dinner was spaghetti with pesto. Baby tomatoes. Salad. Kuma is wearing a bow tie and tux bib.'

Dressed to the nines: Kuma wore a white bib and a black bow-tie, while Theroux was in a suit jacket, white collard shirt and black tie

Fashion look: And she continued sharing pictures of Kuma on on Friday in a black and white striped Saint Laurent tee, and gold chain

And she continued sharing pictures of Kuma on on Friday in a black and white striped Saint Laurent tee, and gold chain.

She again sat at the table in front of a small bowl of food of Spanish paella.

He encouraged fans to support NYC health workers and the restaurant Smile, he ordered from.

Paella ready: She again sat at the table in front of a small bowl of food of Spanish paella

Support: He encouraged fans to support NYC health workers and the restaurant Smile, he ordered from

'Support your local health workers,' he urged with another snapshot of Kuma with her nose adorably under a white bowl, earlier in the month. 'And if they are open...your local businesses.'

His post praising essential workers marks the second night in a row he has documented an elaborate dinner sitting across from his pooch.

On Sunday night he gave a glimpse of their 'date night' and called his canine a 'dainty lady.'

While remaining under coronavirus lockdown in his NYC apartment, it appears the hunky animal activist is using his time to spoil his fur child.

Waiting: He shared Kuma sitting across from a 'we can wait, while u get a shirt and help'

Support restaurants: He shared an image of food and encouraged fans to support Smile, where he ordered food from

She first caught his eye after her picture was posted online with a message about needing a forever home.

At the time, Kuma was named Sylvia, and was suffering from multiple medical issues that caused her fur to fall out, revealing the pink skin underneath, according to The Dodo.

Ultimately, the local shelter got a message from the president of the Austin-based shelter Austin Pets Alive that a VIP client was interested in the dog, who was left homeless in Conroe, Texas.

Dog dad: Theroux shared footage from their date night to his Instagram Story

The VIP turned out to be Justin, who was in Texas at the time and made the multi-hour drive to visit Sylvia, whom he'd rename Kuma, which means 'bear' in Japanese.

The two have become inseparable since then, and the actor is regularly spotted out walking her.

She's also a visible symbol of his commitment to dogs and their rights, particularly Pit Bulls.

Needy: He barely got in two reps of push-ups, before Kuma leaned in to lick his face as he moved up and down

Last week, the Lady and the Tramp voice star filmed another hilarious set of Instagram Stories, as Kuma interrupted his workout.

He barely got in two reps of push-ups, before Kuma leaned in to lick his face as he moved up and down.

Eventually, the American Psycho actor stopped what he was doing to let her jump up on her hind legs for a hug and petting.
HDFC Bank on Saturday posted a 15.4 per cent rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 7,280.22 crore for the March quarter on healthy interest income, even as it faced a hit towards the end of the fiscal due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The private sector lender had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 6,300.81 crore in the corresponding January-March period of the preceding fiscal year 2018-19.

Consolidated total income grew to Rs 38,287.17 crore in the reported quarter, Rs 33,260.48 crore in the year ago period, the bank said in a regulatory filing.

On a standalone basis, the bank's net profit grew by 17.7 per cent to Rs 6,927.69 crore from Rs 5,885.12 crore. Income rose to Rs 35,917.63 crore as against Rs 31,204.46 crore earlier.

Net interest income -- the key gauge of profitability which is interest earned minus interest expended -- for the March quarter rose to Rs 15,204.10 crore from Rs 13,089.50 crore a year ago, driven by growth in advances of 21.3 per cent and a growth in deposits of 24.3 per cent.

The net interest margin for the quarter stood at 4.3 per cent.

On the asset quality front, the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) as a percentage of gross advances as on March 31, 2020 improved to 1.26 per cent from 1.36 per cent at end of March 2019.

In absolute terms, the gross NPAs or bad loans were worth Rs 12,649.57 crore, compared to Rs 11,224.16 crore a year ago.

The net NPAs were at 0.36 per cent (Rs 3,542.36 crore), slightly lower from 0.39 per cent (Rs 3,214.52 crore).

The provisions for bad loans and contingencies for March quarter of FY20 were raised to Rs 4,216.50 crore on a consolidated basis, more than double from Rs 2,063.52 crore for corresponding period of 2018-19.

In line with RBI directions, the bank did not announce a dividend payout.

The Reserve Bank on Friday asked banks not to make any further dividend payouts from profits pertaining to financial year 2019-20, until further instructions, with a view that lenders must conserve capital in an environment of heightened uncertainty caused by Covid-19.

"Accordingly, the board of directors of the bank, at their meeting held on April 18, 2020, has not proposed any final dividend for the year ended March 2020," HDFC Bank said in the filing.

Further, it said the extent to which the Covid-19 pandemic will impact the bank's results will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain, including among other things, any new information concerning the severity of the disease and any action to contain its spread or mitigate its impact whether government-mandated or elected by the bank.

The Mumbai-headquartered lender also said that it has extended the three month moratorium till May 2020, as per RBI instructions, to its borrowers for payment of installments or interest, as applicable.

For all such accounts where the moratorium is granted, the asset classification shall remain at stand still during the moratorium period.

HDFC Bank said it has also held provisions against the potential impact of Covid-19 in excess of prescribed RBI norms.

"The total provisions for the current quarter included credit reserve relating to Covid-19 in the form of contingent provisions of approximately Rs 1,550 crore," it said.

HDFC Bank said during the quarter, there was a considerable slowdown in economic activities following the outbreak of Covid-19.

"Furthermore, with the government initiating lockdown in the latter half of March, and our strict adherence to social distancing, not only did we see an impact on business volumes -- in terms of loan originations, distribution of third party products, and payments product activities, but we also could not optimise our collection efforts, and as a result of which fees/other income were lower by Rs 450 crore," it said.

On capital adequacy, bank said its total capital adequacy ratio (CAR) as per Basel III guidelines was at 18.5 per cent on March 31, 2020, as against a regulatory requirement of 11.075 per cent.

Tier-1 CAR was at 17.2 per cent as of March 31, 2020, compared to 15.8 per cent on March 31, 2019.

Risk weighted assets were at Rs 994,716 crore, as against Rs 931,930 crore earlier.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The exit of the controversial Ruby Princess cruise ship from Australian waters may be delayed.

The ship, currently being held in quarantine at Port Kembla, New South Wales, was supposed to set sail on Sunday under a police order.

The ship, with 153 crew members with COVID-19 still on board, was ordered to leave Australian waters on Sunday by NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller.

The ship was to be operated by a crew of 'immune' staff, however, health authorities are struggling to find the required crew numbers from workers who have recovered from coronavirus, according to News Corp.

NSW Police Rescue officers look on as the Ruby Princess, with crew only onboard, docks at Port Kembla, Wollongong, Monday, April 6, 2020

The ship has become notorious after sailing into Sydney in March and letting more than 2,700 passengers disembark without adequate checks - a flood of cases of COVID-19 were later confirmed on board.

NSW detectives have distributed a survey to Ruby Princess passengers and those on another earlier cruise asking whether they had seen signs of anyone with COVID-19 on board, about the cleaning standards, and if they have videos from on board.

Mr Fuller said his team had already identified the likely source of the virus on the ship.

'At this stage, we would think that it was probably a crew member working in the galley,' he said earlier this week.

There are currently three cruise ships in quarantine in Australian waters - the Ruby Princess, the Artania, and the Caledonian Sky.

The ship, currently being held in quarantine at Port Kembla, New South Wales, was supposed to set sail on Sunday under a police order

Timeline of Ruby Princess fiasco March 18: The Ruby Princess issues an urgent mayday call for an ambulance for two of its passengers presenting with coronavirus-like symptoms 24 hours before the ship is allowed to dock in Sydney. March 19: The Ruby Princess arrives in Sydney Harbour. More than 2,700 guests are allowed to disembark without adequate health checks. March 25: Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram says New South Wales Health is responsible for letting coronavirus patients disembark the ship. March 29: Several crew members are evacuated and taken to hospital after being diagnosed with coronavirus. April 2: A 66-year-old crew member is taken off the Ruby Princess for medical treatment. More than 200 crew members are sick and in self-isolation. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian defends the actions of NSW Health and the Australian Border Force and points the finger at the Ruby Princess. She claims staff onboard may have misled NSW Health about the extent of illnesses in passengers. April 3: Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton alleges Ruby Princess' operators weren't transparent about the health of crew: 'It was 'clear that some of the companies have been lying about the health of passengers and crew on board'. April 4: Leaked emails show NSW Health knew of the coronavirus risk on board the Ruby Princess before allowing its thousands of passengers to disembark. April 5: A criminal investigation is launched into how passengers were able to disembark without health checks April 8: A team of 30 detectives from state crime, counter terrorism and marine area command start investigating the handling of the Ruby Princess coronavirus scandal. The first briefing into the investigation is held. April 9: NSW Police clad in PPE equipment raid the vessel, questioning its captain and searching for evidence in a rapid escalation of the criminal investigation. April 11: NSW Health confirms that at least 46 crew members of the Ruby Princess cruise ship have contracted COVID-19 April 13: NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller says patient zero on board may have been a crew member serving meals to hundreds of passengers April 15: NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian announces an independent special commission to investigate the Ruby Princess fiasco April 23: With 500 crew left on board, the Ruby Princess left Australian waters to sail to Manila in the Phillipines Advertisement




A large global contraction in the first half of this year is inevitable, the International Monetary Fund has warned, asserting that the coronavirus pandemic has struck the world economy that was already in a fragile state as it was weighed down by trade disputes, policy uncertainty and geopolitical tensions.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Friday that the world economy was in a sluggish recovery before the coronavirus outbreak, warning that it is now bound to suffer a "severe recession" in 2020.

Addressing the Development Committee Meeting during the annual Spring Meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, a severe economic impact in the first half of 2020 was inevitable and the pandemic encounters weak public health systems.

"The global coronavirus outbreak is a crisis that is like no other and poses daunting challenges for policymakers in many emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), especially where the pandemic encounters weak public health systems, capacity constraints, and limited policy space to mitigate the outbreak's repercussions," Georgieva said.

She said the medium termed projections were clouded by uncertainities.

"Medium-term projections are clouded by uncertainty regarding the pandemic's magnitude and speed of propagation, as well as the longer-term impact of measures to contain the outbreak, such as travel bans and social distancing," she said.

However, most EMDEs are already suffering from disruptions to global value chains, lower foreign direct investment, capital outflows, tighter financing conditions, lower tourism and remittances receipts, and price pressures for some critical imports such as foods and medicines, she said.

"The world economy was in a sluggish recovery before the coronavirus outbreak and is now bound to suffer a severe recession in 2020," Georgieva added.

According to Johns Hopkins University data, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases surpassed two million globally and 144,000 people have died so far. The US is the worst hit with more than 700,000 COVID-19 cases and 35,000 deaths.

Rising malnutrition is expected as 368.5 million children across 143 countries who normally rely on school meals for a reliable source of daily nutrition must now look to other sources, the IMF official said.

Georgieva said that prospects had deteriorated sharply with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Countries that were affected earlysuch as China, South Korea, and Italyhave suffered large contractions in manufacturing activity and services, exceeding the losses recorded at the onset of the global financial crisis, Georgieva said.

She said retrenchments in activity have been accompanied by a sharp re-pricing of financial assets amid rapidly deteriorating risk sentiment, large equity sell-offs, widening risk spreads, and reversals of portfolio flows to EMDEs.

Many commodity prices have fallen sharply, notably for oil.

"A large global contraction in the first half of 2020 is inevitable. Prospects thereafter depend on the intensity and efficacy of containment efforts, progress with developing vaccines and therapies, the extent of supply disruptions, shifts in spending patterns, the impact of tighter financial conditions on activity, and the size of the policy response," Georgieva said.

There is an assumption the global economy would start recovering from the third quarteras public health measures are scaled back and the impact of policy support materializes.

"While the recovery is expected to pick up in 2021, by end-2021 global output would remain significantly below the pre-crisis trend," she said. The IMF Managing Director said that the immediate priority is to minimise the pandemic's human toll and economic disruption.

"Bold action from the international community is needed to help LIDCs cope with the pandemic and its economic and social repercussions," she said.

"The first priority must be to limit the human toll from the pandemic. Policymakers must use all instruments at their disposal to slow the pandemic's spread and prevent overloading their health systemsthe idea of a tradeoff between saving lives and saving livelihoods is a false dilemma," she added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Senior Congress leader M Veerappa Moily on Saturday said the government's economic relief was like "peanuts" when compared with the economic devastation in the country and asserted that it should have offered packages amounting to at least 9 per cent of the GDP to help the people amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moily's attack on the government came a day after RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das announced a string of relief measures for the stressed banking and financial sector.

"The RBI governor's second package announced is no doubt a welcome move. In the first package both the government and the RBI provided a package which was less than 1% of GDP. In the second package, the financial package is just about 0.7% of GDP," the former Union minister said in a statement.

"The conditions in India are harsher than any other country. The government should understand the gravity of the present situation and the multiple dimensions of the present crisis," he said.

Moily claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the government have "underestimated" the damage caused to the economy and also the suffering of the people.

"There is a big loss of jobs to the extent of 35 to 40 million. There is a direct loss of Rs 15 lakh crore due to the present lockdown. According to Nomura, it is estimated to be 7.7% of GDP," he said.

The collection of GST is down by 40 per cent and the state governments which took the mantle of handling the present crisis including the issue of migrant labourers are left to fend for themselves, he claimed.

"The government should have ensured at least a package of 9% of GDP which works to Rs 17.5 lakh crore. What the government and RBI has done is only peanuts which will not allow the economy to stabilise forget about taking-off," Moily said.

The RBI provided the second package to ease the liquidity, but it forgets that the recent merger of banks has demoralised the staff and officials and the banking machinery appears to have collapsed.

"State governments are not in a position to run normal budgetary programmes, forget about meeting the present war-like situation. The rural economy/agriculture has been totally paralysed," he said, adding that the state governments are not in a position to provide for any rescue operations.

"The country's economy has been put in a disastrous situation and hunger is haunting 60 per cent of the country's populace," he said.

The two packages announced reflect "lack of both seriousness and sensitiveness" of the government towards the plight of the people in the country.

The government should also think of taking appropriate measures of tax exemptions for companies, relax regulations and also give up over regulation in the development sectors to ensure that the economy is put back on track, he asserted.

Moily also suggested mobilizing funds and restructuring of loans to help needy companies and SMEs.

The RBI on Friday further eased bad-loan rules, froze dividend payment by lenders and pushed banks to lend more by cutting the reverse repo rate by 25 basis points, as it unveiled a second set of measures to support the economy hit hard by a coronavirus-led slowdown.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The pandemic has dealt a strong blow to forestry companies.

The northern province of Yen Bai has 463,139 hectares of forests, of which 217,537 hectares are planted forests and 245,602 hectares are natural forests.

There are 30,000 households living on forest planting, and 500 wood processing workshops. The province exports 300,000 tons of veneer and laminated board.



Yen Bais forestry economy is witnessing unprecedented growth. The planted forest area has been growing rapidly and forest coverage has reached 63 percent, the highest level among northern mountainous provinces.



Yen Bai every year exploits 550,000 cubic meters of timber, and processes and exports 300,000 cubic meters of veneer and hundreds of cubic meters of plywood and laminated board to China, South Korea and Taiwan.

The northern province of Yen Bai has 463,139 hectares of forests, of which 217,537 hectares are planted forests and 245,602 hectares are natural forests.

However, forest planters, wood processors and exporters in the province have been hit hard this year by Covid-19.



Vuong Quoc Dat, director of Thac Ba Forestry, said with 1,000 hectares of planted forests, the company is one of the five biggest forest planters in Yen Bai. However, the company is facing difficulties: it has exploited only 5 hectares of forests this year, because there are very few buyers.



In general, now is the time for wood processors to come and place orders. But things are different because of the pandemic.



Thac Bai exploits 100-120 hectares of forests each year, including 50 hectares in Q1, and has average revenue of VND7-8 billion. But only 10 percent wad exploited by the end of Q1.



Dat complained that there are very few buyers. Buyers only accept low prices. Many of them ask to buy wood on credit. So the company would rather keep planting than selling at such a low price.



Since the government released Instruction No 16, the company had asked its workers to concentrate on planting forests. About 50 hectares of eucalyptus (K3229 and CT3 UP54) have been planted.



Dat said Thac Ba and forestry companies have asked for permission to delay payment of taxes and land rent, or they will not survive the difficulties. The land rent alone costs the company over VND1 billion a year.



Yen Bai has 500 workshops that process planted wood, mostly located in the districts of Yen Binh, Luc Yen, Tran Yen, Van Yen and Van Chan. But many of them have shut down.



Hoang Van Tuyen, owner of a wood processing workshop in Phuc Loi commune of Luc Yen district, said his family last year collected 200 cubic meters of timber from planters to process. But he has bought only 20 cubic meters this year.

Thien Nhien

Kien Giang households allotted forests for conservation, exploitation protect them well Households allocated forest lands to exploit but also protect in Kien Giang Province have improved their income from harvesting trees and aquatic creatures and growing crops.
The San Antonio Food Bank came through for residents in the Southside Independent School District last week.

People living in the rural Bexar County district had serious concerns that no food would be available for the regularly scheduled distribution after the Food Bank was hit with an unprecedented demand from families suffering the economic consequences of COVID-19.

Many of the lower-income residents in the community depend on the school districts food pantry.

A scheduled distribution March 28 was canceled after the Food Bank required families to register online for its citywide distributions. Several SISD families who dont have internet access did not get notice of that cancellation and showed up, only to find no food available.

The week after that happened, I spoke to Pamela Allen of the nonprofit Eagles Flight Advocacy and Outreach. She said the organization had money to buy food to distribute from a separately run food pantry for residents of the district, but nowhere to buy from. Some of their usual sources, such as Sams Club, did not have the inventory to allow the school to buy in bulk. She was scavenging for food to fill the nonprofits pantry.

For these reasons, it brought a great sense of relief to see a Food Bank truck being unloaded when I drove up to SISDs Pearce Elementary School last weekend. Pallets of fresh vegetables, chicken and cartons of orange juice lined the curb.

The line of cars started forming around 5 a.m. Vehicles filled the parking lot next to the elementary school and snaked around back. The turnout was twice the usual size. The 18-wheeler packed with 14 tons of food provided much-needed help for 4,400 people, said Randy Escamilla, SISD spokesman.

Access to food may be a little easier for SISD in the future. In the past week, the school district has formalized an agreement to purchase food from the San Antonio Food Bank for its pantry. Its part of a growing effort by the Food Bank to work with school districts across the 16 counties it covers, including the 17 school districts in Bexar County, said Eric Cooper, president and CEO of the San Antonio Food Bank.

Some 500 food pantries in the region are served by the San Antonio Food Bank. They are run by school districts, churches, community organizations and other nonprofits. Cooper said as families continue to register for assistance they will be directed to the food pantries near them.

While the Food Bank will continue its mega-site distributions, Cooper said, the nonprofit is working to understand the demand and develop a strategic plan for getting food to those in need. When possible, the Food Bank will arrange pop-up food distributions where food pantries are located to meet the unprecedented demand.

The distribution at Traders Village this month was the largest the San Antonio Food Bank had ever done. There were 6,000 families registered, but 10,000 showed up. It was tough for the staff and volunteers, Cooper said. Families were in a panic. Moving forward, the Food Bank plans to keep distributions to about 2,000 families.

Thats welcome news to those who have less-than-reliable transportation and worry their cars might not make it through a daylong wait in a food-distribution line.

After my column about the lack of a grocery store and the endemic poverty and food insecurity in this rural community, I received an email from a reader upset by an accompanying photo of a long line of cars at a different food distribution site.

Per the photo on page 19  lined up for food bank with those cars all looking fairly new  who is paying for them?? the writer asked.

We should not judge people by the vehicle they drive. Many of those in line for food had jobs two weeks ago and needed those wheels to get to work.

Bexar County Clerk Lucy Adame-Clark, a longtime volunteer at the SISD pantry, said several former pantry volunteers who were financially impacted by the coronavirus were in the SISD distribution line April 11.

Four cars broke down as they waited. A young girl in pajamas walked up to adults in the front the school before the line started to move, asking for help. Her moms car, the 11th in line, would not start. An unemployed painter in a red truck, No. 10 in line, quickly pulled out some jumper cables and got the car going. Before picking up his food, he jump-started three other vehicles.

We should all be like that guy in the red pickup.

gpadilla@express-news.net
Seperation from family is proving difficult for many but for Polish native, Angelika Florkiewicz, family feels even further away.

Angelikas family are all in Poland, while she is here in Longford, having emigrated 13 years ago, but not being able to return home is taking its toll.

I am in contact with my family via facetime all the time, but feeling that you are not able to jump into the plane and go to your own country is terrible feeling. It truly feels like your freedom has been taken away and the worst part is that you do not know for how long, she told the Leader, adding that she worries for her mothers health - especially with the grief of losing the family dog.

As the number of cases of coronavirus increase in Ireland, Angelika is worried that people are still not taking it seriously enough.

I hope people will change their priorities and start taking this seriously, she said.

Go outside only if you have to. We need to stop spreading the virus to get rid of it quicker. Because when that happens, people like me will be able to return home.

Read also: Granard nurse diagnosed with Covid-19 is eager to recover and get back on the frontline
Ministers have been urged to let people list their ethnicity on the NHS coronavirus symptom tracker amid concerns about the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) communities.

NHS bosses are leading a formal review into whether Bame people are more likely to die from coronavirus after initial figures showed patients from ethnic minority backgrounds were overrepresented in intensive care units.

A report by the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre on the first 3,883 critically ill Covid-19 patients found that more than a third were non-white (33.6 per cent). Bame groups form just 18 per cent of the UK population.

While Bame staff make up around 44 per cent of NHS medics, the first 10 UK doctors who died from coronavirus were all from black and ethnic minority backgrounds.

Amid growing alarm about the lack of comprehensive data, Liberal Democrat MPs Layla Moran and Munira Wilson have called on the government to improve monitoring of the impact of the virus on certain communities.

In a letter to the health secretary Matt Hancock and the equalities minister Liz Truss, the MPs said patients should be given the option to disclose their ethnicity and gender on the NHSs online coronavirus symptom survey.

They said: This is all part of creating a strategy for addressing coronaviruss disproportionate impact on people who are Bame.

The review, led by Public Health England, must be open to scrutiny from MPs and given a firm timetable for completion, the Liberal Democrat MPs added.

Munira Wilson, the partys health spokesperson, told The Independent: The data from UK hospitals showing that Bame groups are disproportionately impacted by Covid-19 is alarming.

Yet we dont have a complete picture to confirm the extent of these trends in the UK as some key data simply isnt being collected.

That is why were asking the government to add a question on ethnicity to the official NHS coronavirus survey.

This data will be vital in informing our response to and management of this virus, making sure that all communities get the support they need.

Officials at Public Health England are reportedly gathering data about the ethnicity of patients who die in hospitals and other healthcare settings but this leaves a gap on how the virus is hitting people in the community.

Dr Zubaida Haque, deputy director of the Runnymede Trust, tweeted: If youre not disaggregating by ethnicity, that means we have no idea whether there is any racial disproportionality at all.

If you dont ask the questions in data, then you dont have answers. If you dont measure it, then that problem doesnt exist.

Chief medical officer Chris Whitty previously told a Downing Street press conference that it was less clear that ethnicity was a factor than other issues such as age, sex and pre-existing medical conditions.

High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Show all 18 1 /18 High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Najaf, Iraq A man holds a pocket watch at noon, at an almost empty market near the Imam Ali shrine Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Bangkok, Thailand Wat Phra Si Rattana Satsadaram (The Temple of the Emerald Buddha, part of The Grand Palace) Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Prague, Czech Republic An empty street leading to the historic Old Town Square Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Washington DC, US Lawn stretching towards the Capitol, home of Congress Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Jerusalem's Old City A watch showing the time in front of Damascus Gate Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world London, UK The Houses of Parliament seen from Westminster Bridge Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Wuhan, China Empty lanes in the city that saw the first outbreak of disease Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Havana, Cuba The Malecon road and esplanade winds along the city's seafront Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Cairo, Egypt A little busier than elsewhere: midday traffic in Tahrir Square Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Berlin, Germany The Brandenburg Gate, the only surviving city gate in the capital Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Caracas, Venezuela Bolivar Avenue, opened in 1949 and the site of many demonstrations and rallies Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Moscow, Russia Spasskaya Tower (left) on the eastern wall of the Kremlin, and St Basil's Cathedral Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Istanbul,Turkey The harbourside Eminonu district is usually buzzing with activity Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world New Delhi, India Rajpath, a ceremonial boulevard that runs through the capital Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Amman, Jordan The Roman amphitheatre that dates back to the 2nd century AD Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world New York City, US The main concourse of Grand Central station in Manhattan Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Kiev, Ukraine Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the site of many political protests since the end of the Soviet era Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Accra, Ghana The odd walker out in the midday sun on Ring Road Central Reuters

The coronavirus death rate for men was twice as high as that for women in England and Wales, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics released on Thursday.

Other factors such as increased risk of conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, socio-economic background or geographical location may also play a role in higher prevalence among Bame patients.

A recent BMG poll for The Independent revealed Bame households were being hit harder by lockdown measures, with 46 per cent saying their household income had reduced as a result of coronavirus, against 28 per cent of white British families.

Some 15 per cent of respondents from ethnic minorities said they had lost their job, compared with 8 per cent of white Britons.
Members of the Arklow RNLI who conducted a sea search on Saturday night following a reported sighting of a distress flare

Arklow RNLI and other emergency services responded to reports of a distress flare off the coast of Arklow on Saturday, which later turned out to be a false alarm.

Following reports of a distress flare being sighted off the coast of Arklow, Arklow RNLI volunteers' pagers were activated at 10.20 p.m. on Saturday night. Within a few minutes, the all weather lifeboat Ger Tigchlearr was launched and underway.

Initial reports suggested the sighting was South of Arklow and the vessel proceeded on a southerly track. With a number of fishing vessels working in the area, the crew checked with them if they had launched the flare and were in distress, None had but they reported a sighting further North.

In black dark night time-conditions, Arklow Lifeboat proceeded on a track North with full beam searchlights and all hands searching the darkness.

A decision was taken to deploy two white illumination flares to aid in location of any potential casualty vessel or persons.

Rescue 117, the Irish Coastguard Search and Rescue Helicopter from Waterford, which had been on scene at an incident in Wexford Harbour, later joined the search while Coastguard shore crews from Arklow and Courtown also joined the search on the land.

Following a lengthy search by all involved, nothing was located. The search was stood down and all hands returned safely.

Following the search, Mark Corcoran- Arklow RNLI Press Officer and Community Safety Officer said

'As always our volunteers responded quickly to the reported flare sighting, I'd like to pay tribute to all who responded and were involved in this search. Despite the current restrictions, all of our volunteers are continuing to put themselves on the frontline and putting others first. This sighting may have been a Chinese Lantern or indeed someone letting off a flare in good faith and while this would have been done with good intent, we would ask people to refrain from this to avoid further false alarms and the need for our volunteers to be put at risk.'
WASHINGTON  After an unexpected departure from the Trump administration in 2019, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner and Westport resident Scott Gottlieb has made a new name for himself as a coronavirus counselor for governors, Congress and the White House.

Gov. Ned Lamont counts Gottlieb as a friend and speaks to him frequently, said Max Reiss, spokesman for Lamont.

A former Stamford Hospital doctor and venture capitalist, Gottlieb is a member of an advisory panel helping direct the reopening of Connecticut. Hes also advised the governors of Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey on coronavirus response.

Its not going to be an on-off switch, Gottlieb said Thursday in a podcast episode released by the American Enterprise Institute, where he is a resident fellow. This is going to be a gradual transition. Thats the thing that I think some policy makers havent fully built into some of the policy assumptions.

In early January, Gottlieb began raising the alarm about the coronavirus outbreak in China. Since then, he has published several reports, written numerous op-eds and made countless television appearances to discuss the virus.

He briefed some members of Congress about the virus on Monday, as well as March 10.

Hes been really enormously helpful, said Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, who participated on a call with Gottlieb, earlier this week.

Hes also counseled senior administration officials on COVID-19, including a meeting with President Donald Trump on March 11, the Washington Post reported.

Rep. John Larson, D-2, highlighted Gottliebs work on a call between members of Congress and Trump Thursday, he said.

The input that I provided was that we also have a great Connecticut resident in Scott Gottlieb who has really taken the lead in both putting out a plan and essentially, what theyre calling the three Ts of testing, tracking and treatment, Larson said.

Gottlieb, a Republican, has written two reports outlining the path to reopening for the state and the nation. Containing the coronavirus requires widespread testing of people with COVID-19 symptoms and people in proximity to COVID-19 patients, along with widespread blood testing to identify community exposure and immunity, including among people who have been asymptomatic, Gottlieb wrote in a report published by Duke University last week.

Other keys factors will be using contact tracing to alert people who have been near coronavirus patients and having facilities available where individuals can self-quarantine if the live in close quarters where isolation is not possible, the report states.

The economy will reopen in phases with businesses, schools and gatherings slowly coming back online over time. This process can start 14 days after a state or region sees a substantial decline in new cases, Gottlieb said.

These ideas are commonly held among public health experts and generally reflect tried-and-true infectious disease strategies.

I think contact tracing could help us, said Sten Vermund, dean of the Yale School of Public Health. Another thing that could help us immensely is access to tens of thousands of test kits because were severely constrained... when we dont have the testing, we can only rely on the self-quarantine.

Gottlieb served as commissioner of the FDA from 2017 to March 2019, when he left the administration to spend more time with his family, after his wife Allyson was hit by a car in Connecticut, he told CNBC. Gottlieb, 47, has three young daughters.

He declined an interview for this story and did not answer questions emailed to him.

As commissioner, he pushed to eliminate teenage vaping and ban menthol cigarettes  a move that some conservative and tobacco groups opposed. Critics faulted Gottlieb for approving allowing a new potent opioid drug to go to market during the opioid crisis and rubberstamping medical devices approvals too quickly. Others praised his work to grow the medical device industry and track outbreaks of food-borne illnesses.

Former FDA Commissioner Gottlieb is an accomplished public health expert, and it is heartening to know that he will be assisting the State of Connecticut and other northeastern states as we deal with the biggest health and economic crisis our country has ever seen, said Rep. Rosa Delauro, D-3, who chairs the congressional subcommittee that funds the FDA. We did not see eye-to-eye on every issue, but his leadership on FDAs efforts on food recall transparency, implementing menu labeling, and addressing the youth vaping epidemic is commendable. He made a positive impact on peoples lives through his work.

Before becoming commissioner, he served in several other roles at the FDA, hopping back and forth between the private sector and the agency over many years.

He now serves on the boards of the drug company Pfizer and health technology companies Illumina, Aetion and Tempus Inc.

He worked as an internal medicine doctor at Stamford Hospital from 2007 to 2011.

He graduated from Wesleyan University, where he studied economics, before attending Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

emilie.munson@hearstdc.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson
MBABANE  Vice president of the Law Society of Swaziland (LSS), Lucky Howe, has described the decision to continue hearing cases at the High Court during the outbreak of the COVID-19 as total recklessness.



In an email he sent to all lawyers, Howe stated that: The government has made it clear that we are not essential and we should not be going to court. I asked the judge today why are we being called to court after the government has advised us to stay home. Do we need to see someone die before we follow instructions, please tell me.



A number of lawyers interviewed yesterday concurred with Howe, who said what was happening at the High Court was putting their lives and those of their families at risk.



The situation is bad, so we all need to take the precautionary measures as advised by government and the health experts. What exacerbates the situation is that at the High Court there is little or no precautionary measures that are in place for the containment of the spread of the virus, said a senior lawyer who preferred anonymity.



reminding



Meanwhile, Chief Justice (CJ) Bheki Maphalala recently issued a memo to all judges reminding them to report to work during this period. The directive was also extended to all members of staff. You are reminded to report to work timesouly and execute your duties accordingly. You are further advised to observe the necessary precautions in the practice directive, reads part of the directive.



According to the practice directive, only judicial officers who were lawfully on leave would be excused from reporting to work. In a previous statement issued by the LSS, Howe urged lawyers to close their offices in light of the statement that had been issued by government on the COVID-19 pandemic.



He said at the end of the day, the government was the ultimate authority and once it had spoken in this fashion, all of their rights were diminished to a great extent including the authority of the chief justice. He said the chief justice should understand that his powers had now been reduced immensely because of the situation.



comply



Howe went on to ask lawyers to comply with the decision of the government as they were not an essential service.

From our point of view, we are advising and reminding our members of the instruction from the government. The authorities have spoken and we have to follow that as the membership, said Howe.



He further warned members of the public not to be surprised when they find that their legal representatives had closed offices and that they were not present in court to represent them.



contact



The vice president urged litigants to contact their lawyers through emails or any other forms of communication until the situation has normalised.

The executive of the Law Society of Swaziland is calling upon all its members and legal practitioners during this period of the worldwide COVID- 19 pandemic to limit their social and human footprint and accordingly implement social distancing measures which include closure of their offices during this period, unless extremely necessary or where rights of persons have been infringed whereupon access to the courts is justified to defer all other ordinary matters to another date, reads part of the statement issued by the LSS vice president.



The law society further called upon the chief justice, judges of the Supreme Court and the High Court, magistrates and court personnel to join hands with them (legal fraternity) and the nation to contain the spread of COVID-19, which might include the cessation of all trial proceedings, motion proceedings save for urgent or exceptional circumstances where the rights of persons had been infringed upon and to maintain a minimum skeletal staff for such purpose.



Likewise, all lawyers are encouraged to scale down their legal practices to a bare minimum, to work from home, file pleadings electronically and where possible postpone all ordinary matters,  said Howe.
Without restrictions on gatherings, travel and the state borders, Queensland would have thousands of active novel coronavirus cases and dozens of deaths, according to state Health Minister Steven Miles.

As of Saturday, there were only 271 active cases in Queensland and the state's death toll only recently climbed to six, when a passenger from the Celebrity Eclipse cruise ship died on Friday.

Health Minister Steven Miles said grandparents were alive thanks to Queensland's strict COVID-19 measures. Credit:Jack Tran

The 83-year-old man died while in quarantine in Sydney after disembarking from the ship.

He lived in the Metro North health region, which covers all of Brisbane's north, a large part of Moreton Bay and Bribie Island, and extends into the Somerset region, west of the Sunshine Coast.
Fiona Kynes with some cute puppies. The centre never refuses an animal as long as they have room to take them in

Wicklow Animal Welfare (WAW) located just outside Rathdrum continue to take in vulnerable and abandoned animals, even in the middle of the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

However, the re-homing of animals remains on hold for the time being out of respect for social distancing protocols.

The organisation was established by Fiona Gammell back in 2006 after she had already worked as a cruelty inspector and held the position of the Vice-President of the Wicklow Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for a three year period.

Talking about the Covid-19 restrictions currently in place, Fiona said: 'These are tough times for everyone. Rescue work has always been tough and to think that it could get tougher probably never entered our heads. But we are still here and still taking in vulnerable and abandoned animals, which is a positive thing in this very worrying time. Some rescues have closed but we live and work on the premises so the animals are never left on their own anyway. We never refuse an animal here as long as we have room to take it in.'

'We are lucky to have some wonderful volunteers, like Hilary Fitzgerald who helps to foster dogs and gets them ready for their forever homes, and Miriam Peters of Minnie Peters Design who finds the best homes for them. Without support and backup from our brilliant team of volunteers, we could not do what we do. We are forever grateful for their support and to all those who help in any way with fundraising and home checking. I have to also mention Mairead Nolan in Avondale Vet Clinic in Rathdrum who knows what I need even when I forget.'

Fiona also hopes that the outbreak of Covid-19 worldwide helps change some peoples attitudes toward animals.

'I think this is a wake up call for us all. We cannot continue to treat animals in this world the way we have been. The virus reportedly came from a wet market in China where all kinds of animals are sold for human consumption. Animals are not here to be used and abused. They have a right to live on this earth as we do. We must not abuse our position but to use it instead to help animals whenever and where ever we can.'

WAW is geared towards rescuing and treating dogs and pups from all over County Wicklow, and also sees Fiona work closely with the Travelling community. Last year Fiona was awarded for 40 years of rescuing and rehabilitating dogs when she won the Charitable Contribution of the Year Award at the Ceva Animal Welfare Awards.

Waw also work closely with two UK rescues and send an average of twelve dogs to the UK every month.

'They are all fully vaccinated, wormed and de-flea treated, microchipped, rabies vax, neutered and pass-ported at a cost of 300 per dog. That's excluding feeding and looking after them whilst they are in our care before they travel on to their new homes,' explained Fiona.

'We are lucky to have rescues that will take our dogs as we could not hope to find homes for even half the dogs we take in here. Mostly working dogs, lurchers, Greyhounds, terriers, Collies and everything in between.'

Fiona also takes in large numbers of dogs from puppy farms, who often suffer from behavioural and psychological problems because of the conditions they were kept in.

She said: 'These dogs are usually traumatized and can take months if not years to come around to anything resembling normality. These are the mothers and fathers left behind when people 'insist on buying puppies' without seeing where the mum and dad came from. The buyers are the real problem here - no buyers, no profit, no breeders, simple. It's not so simple to rehabilitate and get a dog who has known nothing only the inside of a dark, dirty shed for the entirely of its life. Even though it's good to realise that there are kind people out there willing to give them a chance of a normal life. The ones we get are the lucky ones, some breeders 'dispose' of their used up breeding machines without ever giving them the chance of a decent life, even after all the money they have made from them.'

Fiona also feels people need to put more thought into plans to purchase a dog - such as is it a suitable breed of dog. She would also like more pet-owners to consider taking in a rescue dog to help open up shelter space for another animal who might desperately need it, rather than buying a dog.

'Around 50 per cent of dogs in rescues are 'bought' dogs. Usually they are dogs that were bought without due consideration of breed type, exercise requirements, time element and a myriad of things that will cause the dog to be abandoned in a rescue, a rescue that was there before they decided to buy their dog. I often remark that people claim 'not to have known the rescue was here, but know where to come when they want to get rid of their dog'. I might sound cynical but it's true.'

Any potential adopter of a dog is asked a number of pertinent questions to make sure they are a suitable owner. A number of people have also contacted WAW about adopting a dog to help cope with self-isolation measures brought about due to the Convid-19 crisis.

'We ask a lot of questions before we will consider a dog going for adoption,' said Fiona.

'We will try to match the right dog to the right family. That way a dog really is for life and not for a short time. Some people don't understand why we must make sure they are ready and willing and able to take on the responsibility of a rescue dog. The dog may have been let down in the past and will need that extra bit of time and direction to become part of a new family. We have had a lot of phone calls recently from people who find themselves at home now for the next number of weeks, and think a dog would be a good idea. But with social distancing regulations and the country in lockdown, we will be unable to accommodate them with regard to coming to see a dog here at the rescue centre.'

WAW recently ran two reduced price neutering schemes for cats and plan to introduce similar schemes for dogs.

'We had a huge uptake on the neutering scheme for cats. I just wish we had as many looking to help in our fundraising efforts. Our intention is to run a reduced neutering scheme for dogs in the future if we can get the funds. We are great believers that prevention is better than cure, and until all the animals born are wanted, we will continue to help to neuter as many as we can. We have been paying for neutering of dogs for years.'

Fiona is also quick to praise the many people who have visited WAW to provide a forever-home to one of the dogs being looked after by Fiona and her small but dedicated team.

'We have some of the most wonderful people in the World who come and adopt our dogs and puppies. We do have a strict re-homing criteria and do our best to make sure all involved are happy in the end. Without our supporters, we couldn't continue doing the work we carry out. We need help now more than ever. We don't get any tax payer or government money or county council grants. Instead, we rely 100 per cent on the generosity of our supporters. I often get the impression that people think we are like the RSPCA in the UK who have millions at their disposal, unfortunately that really isn't the case here.'

If you would like to help Wicklow Animal Welfare then please Text WAW 50300 to donate 4, Paypal or bank details can be provided.
In order to ensure that foreign companies do not take advantage of the economic slowdown resulting from the global coronavirus pandemic, the central government on Saturday revised its Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy.

According to the new policy, "an entity of a country that shares land border with India or where the beneficial owner of an investment into India is situated in or is a citizen of any such country can invest only under the government route".

Simply put, any country that shares a land border with India can only invest via the centralised route; direct investments will not be applicable for them. This list of countries includes China.

The nations sharing land border with India include Bangladesh, China, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar.

Earlier, similar restrictions were applicable to FDI investments from Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The decision was notified by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

The fresh policy states that government permission will also be needed to transfer ownership of Indian companies arising out of FDI investments from neighbouring countries.

Experts suggest that the move may have been made keeping China in mind.

Lt Gen (Retired) PC Katoch in an earlier article had pointed out why India needed to be concerned about China's growing investments.

Chinas Peoples Bank had bought 1.75 crore shares (worth about Rs 3,000 crore) of HDFC Bank between January and March. By March, China had invested more than $26 billion in India, up by more than $24.4 billion since 2014 when its investments were a mere $1.6 billion.

China has funded 30 Indian start-ups with a cumulative investment of about $4 billion -- this despite rhetoric at home about boosting start-ups and MSMEs. Multiple Chinese apps are raking in millions from India. Chinese businessman and former executive chairman of Alibaba Group, Jack Ma, made 40% investment in government-sponsored Paytm when he visited India in 2015.

The decision comes after small and medium industries wrote to the central government fearing possible hostile takeovers from Chinese investors at a time when they are facing survival issues and their valuations have taken a beating amid the COVID-19 crisis.

In a recent letter to the government, small-sized industries wanted the Centre to temporarily halt FDI through the automatic route, which was possible for over 1,000 industries with just 16 sectors, including defence and telecom, requiring government scrutiny.

The new rules say the government has reviewed the Foreign Direct Investment Policy to curb "opportunistic takeovers/acquisitions" of Indian companies due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

"Citizen of Bangladesh or an entity incorporated in Bangladesh can invest only under the government route. Further, a citizen of Pakistan or an entity incorporated in Pakistan can invest, only under the government route, in sectors/activities other than defence, space, atomic energy and sectors/activities prohibited for foreign investment," it added.

Nangia Andersen LLP Director Sandeep Jhunjhunwala said Chinese tech investors have put in an estimated $4 billion of greenfield investments into Indian start-ups as per estimates of the India-China Economic and Cultural Council.

"Such is their pace that over the last few years, 18 out of India's 30 unicorns are Chinese-funded. Overall, the time is right for India to safeguard longer-term considerations and protect its technology ecosystem by blocking hostile deals and effectively dealing with the looming challenge posed by Chinese tech companies," he said.

India's decision follows that of other countries enacting laws to protect weaker companies from being taken over by moneyed Chinese firms. The Australian government in March had tightened rules around foreign takeover and investment rules after growing concerns of predatory behaviour by Chinese companies.

Earlier in the month, Germany made it tougher for non-European Union companies to take over private German firms.

Media reports said the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had already stepped up vigil against China-based funds amid concerns over possible takeovers by them as deep-pocketed Chinese companies.

As of now, several Chinese venture capital funds are considering buying stakes in Indian start-ups, ranging from those innovating financial and education technology to e-commerce, content, and online classifieds platforms because Indias start-up environment is the third largest in the world and proves to be an exciting bet during the time of a global slowdown.

The Centre's decision to revise the FDI policy also comes after it allocated Rs 10,000 crore as "Fund of Funds", which would soon be approved by the government to buy up to 15% equity in these companies with high-credit rating that want to list on stock exchanges and raise money from the capital markets.
Ambassador of France to Azerbaijan Zacharie Gross has sent a letter to Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev.

Dear Mr. President of Azerbaijan,

Mankind is facing a serious problem caused by the coronavirus. The pandemic has put to test both France and Azerbaijan.

At this difficult time, lighting up the magnificent building of the Heydar Aliyev Center with the colors of the French flag on the evening of April 5 was highly appreciated in our country as a valuable gesture of solidarity.

On behalf of French President Emmanuel Macron and all French people, I express my gratitude to you for such an exceptional manifestation of this friendship.

Mr. President, please accept the assurances of my highest consideration, reads the letter.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
home exercise burpees

Halfpoint Images/Getty Images

Acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS, is a top cause of death among COVID-19 patients.

New research suggests exercise may protect against the complication by stimulating a particular antioxidant.

But the research didn't include COVID-19 patients. Instead, it reviewed past research on the topic, including research in animals, so it's too soon to know what that means for the current pandemic.

Regardless of its effect on ARDS, experts recommend regular, moderate exercise among people who aren't experiencing serious coronavirus symptoms.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Related Video: How to Treat Mild Coronavirus Symptoms

It's now common knowledge that to protect yourself from the novel coronavirus, you should stay home, keep at least six feet between you and non-family members when you must go out, wash your hands, and disinfect high-touch surfaces frequently.

But a researcher at the University of Virginia School of Medicine is proposing another key behavior is added to the list: exercise  and not just for its benefits to the lungs, immune system, and mood.

In a new review of past research, Zhen Yan, a professor of cardiovascular medicine who runs a molecular exercise physiology lab at UVA, showed that exercise boosts the production of an antioxidant known as "extracellular superoxide dismutase," or EcSOD, which in turn, protects against acute lung disease and other diseases.

In particular, Yan said, the antioxidant can protect against acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS, which is deadly in 45% of cases. ARDS affects up to 85% of patients in the ICU affected by COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.

Yan said the takeaway is that exercise (while keeping a safe distance from others) is a key strategy to protect against severe complications from COVID-19, should you fall ill.

"We cannot live in isolation forever," he said in a press release. "Regular exercise has far more health benefits than we know. The protection against this severe respiratory disease condition is just one of the many examples."

Story continues

The review included past animal and human research, but not coronavirus patients

Yan and a colleague looked at 120 past studies, many of them conducted in animals and some of them from his own lab, to see how, on a molecular level, exercise-prompted EcSOD protects tissues from oxidative stress, which contributes to the development of many diseases.

The pair was especially interested in the benefits of skeletal muscle EcSOD, which is produced naturally but boosted with cardiovascular exercise. Exercise can also help the antioxidant circulate through the body to other tissues affected by disease.

Yan said their findings "strongly support" the possibility that exercise can prevent or at least reduce the severity of ARDS. Even a single session, the press release said, can spur production of the antioxidant.

Yan told Business Insider that while aerobic exercise is best at stimulating EcSOD, weight-training is important too since "more muscle will likely lead to more EcSOD production, hence more benefits."

He recommended at least 30 minutes each day to reap the benefits  if you haven't been infected with COVID-19 yet. Those who are infected should try to move moderately, he said, since long-term bed rest can also exacerbate lung infection and cause other complications.

The review should be looked at cautiously because it only looked at past research, not necessarily in humans, and didn't compare ARDS outcomes among COVID-19 patients who exercise versus those who don't, Helen Kollias, director of science at Precision Nutrition, told Business Insider.

Plus, how EcSOD and antioxidants affect disease and inflammation has been "debated for decades," Dr. Craig Weinert, a pulmonologist and critical-care physician at the University of Minnesota, told Business Insider.

"I'd say that there is little evidence to support exercise as a preventive factor in the development or resolution in ARDS," he said.

medical coronavirus virus flu sick cold hygiene hand sanitizer clorox hands wash gym workout fitness cox 1

Crystal Cox/Business Insider

Exercise remains an important way to boost your immune system and keep your lung function healthy

Regardless of its effects on coronavirus patients, it's clear that staying active can keep your lungs and immune system healthy, which is especially important during the pandemic.

Just make sure you take a measured approach to your exercise in order to hit that immune-boosting sweet spot, Dr. Jebidiah Ballard, an emergency medicine physician, previously told Insider.

"Use common sense and assess how your workout makes you feel after," he said. "Are you more energized or do you feel wiped out? This is probably not the time to train for a personal best on a 10K."

Manage your expectations, too, Kollias said. While physical activity is associated with a reduced risk of many chronic conditions known to worsen COVID-19, "you can't exercise for a week and expect to see any reversal of any disease," she said. "It would take weeks to see any improvement."

She recommends people with underlying conditions, just like those who are healthy, exercise in a safe environment in order to improve their mental and physical health.

"Would it improve their chances if they get COVID-19? Not in a day or week, but if they can improve their overall health over weeks, then very likely," she said. "There is no magic mechanism that makes exercise work uniquely to this virus. It's the overall effect that moderate exercise has on health."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Scientists believe that community epidemiological research on anti-virus antibodies needs to be done to find suitable preventive measures to control the spread of COVID-19 before a vaccine is developed.

Prof Nguyen Thanh Liem, former director of the National Hospital of Pediatrics and of the Children's Health Research Institute, said that curbing the spread of COVID-19 is important so that the healthcare system has more time and is not overwhelmed with patients.



If Vietnam cannot control the speed of the spread and the peak comes too rapidly, this will be a catastrophe because the country's resources are much weaker than other countries.



Liem said if Vietnam succeeds with its strategy, it can curb the spread with a low rate of newly infected cases. Later, community immunity will occur step by step, or will come with a vaccine. By that time, the speed of the spread will have slowed.



With such a strategy, the fight against the epidemic in Vietnam has brought initial encouraging results, Liem said.



However, the expert warned that the epidemic in Vietnam has entered a new stage with cross-infection cases in the community.

Discovering the proportion of people in the community who now have immunity because of antibodies is a basic indicator to help predict the effects of COVID-19 in the future.

Discovering the proportion of people in the community who now have immunity because of antibodies is a basic indicator to help predict the effects of COVID-19 in the future.



There are two ways to discover so-called community immunity or herd immunity. The first is based on identifying patients who were positive for Covid-19 but subsequently recovered. The second is based on the number of positive cases who had no disease symptoms.



If the community immunity rate reaches 60 percent of the population, it will be possible to contain the epidemic.

As of 6 pm of April 17, Vietnam had recorded 268 COVID-19 cases, 198 of whom have recovered.

The Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) affirmed that the research on a test kit for early COVID-19 discovery has been successful. Vietnam can produce 10,000 kits per day, and can increase productivity by three times if necessary. The products can meet demand for the country and also for export .

The test kit can reveal test results after a little more than one hour.

Local newspapers quoted Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Pham Cong Tac as saying that many countries have placed orders for SARS-CoV-2 test kits produced by Vietnam.

Linh Ha

Virus divided into two different groups: Vietnamese scientists The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which has caused the COVID-19 pandemic, has evolved and divided into two different groups, according to the latest study of the Vietnam National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology.
By Giselda Vagnoni and Valentina Za

ROME/MILAN (Reuters) - Weeks into Italy's coronavirus lockdown, thousands of Italian entrepreneurs have been given a bureaucratic shortcut to market. The government last week extended non-essential business closures to May 3.

But more than 100,000 mainly small- and medium-sized companies have applied to keep going or partially reopen.

In principle, a key hurdle for companies to do business should be that they can prove they are part of a supply chain to businesses that are deemed "essential" in a government decree, such as food, energy or pharmaceutical companies.

But the government, facing a backlog of applications, has clarified Italy's lockdown laws to say no companies need to wait for government approval to go ahead.

More than 105,000 firms have applied to be considered part of essential supply chains, the interior minister said on Wednesday, in a guideline on its website to clarify the lockdown rules.

Of those, just over 2,000 have been turned down and told to suspend their business. More than 38,000 are being investigated and the rest are waiting to be looked at.

The ministry said on Wednesday businesses that have previously submitted such requests can now "benefit from an immediate start" to their business.

So unless companies have been told they are not critical, all they need to do is to inform their local authority that they plan to reopen. Then, without waiting for an answer, they can go ahead.

The flood of notifications by Italian companies underscores the desperation of corporations to restart production. This is especially true in Italy where nearly 4 million companies employing fewer than 10 people make up the fabric of the economy.

Italy's experience also highlights the challenge for governments across developed countries to oversee shutdowns that are crippling their economies.

The government will carry out inspections to make sure companies are not cheating the system, a spokesperson for the interior ministry told Reuters.

Story continues

Big swathes of Italy's economy are unable to get back to work. Almost half of the country's businesses from fashion to autos generating 1.3 trillion euros ($1.41 trillion) in annual turnover remain paralysed - the fashion industry, for instance, unable to claim an "essential" role, has taken out newspaper adverts to plead for a chance to reopen.

MASKS AND ONE-WAY PATHS

One company that has gone ahead is Gasparini S.p.A., a maker of metal processing machines in the northern region of Veneto where more than 14,600 people have tested positive for the virus.

Gasparini makes machines used to manufacture products from industrial shelving to components for electricity transmission and metal posts for vineyards.

It had to halt production for two weeks. But the company says some of its customers, which make power generation and distribution systems, are in "essential" supply chains. As a result, it has found a way back to work.

Its chief executive, Filippo Gasparini, told Reuters the company last week had sent a certified email to the Venice local authority or prefect, specifying the names of relevant clients and their sector of activity and saying it intended to resume supplies to them. "Then we went ahead with it without hearing back."

Gasparini employs 120 staff, and said roughly a quarter of them are now working on the factory floor. It has stepped up sanitising activities, equipped workers with masks and gloves and has staff monitoring workers to ensure they keep their distance from each other.

Union representative Leonardo Pattarello said he was satisfied by the steps. "I feel safer here than when I go grocery shopping," he told Reuters, referring to the lockdown rule which imposes staggered entry programmes for supermarkets.

"We've created one-way paths inside the company so that people can't run into each other, we all have masks and latex gloves, there are bottles of hand sanitiser next to where people get water or coffee. They take our temperature in the morning."

An official at the Venice prefect's office said there had been a large number of applications so it was not immediately possible to provide information about a specific company.

Gasparini and the more than 100,000 businesses that have tapped local authorities are adding to political pressure on Rome to reopen Europe's No. 3 economy for business as new cases of COVID-19 have started to plateau.

"I have the impression that at least 60% of companies have already opened," said Luca Zaia, governor of the Veneto region where Gasparini is based.

"It is useless that we continue to think of lockdown at a national level. We must not be hypocritical, the lockdown no longer exists."

COMPLEX PROCESS

More than 22,000 people in Italy have died with the virus, most in the wealthy north which makes up 45% of the country's economic output.

Last week, concerns that the disease could ravage Italy's poorer south, or afflict a new wave, led Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to resist industrialists' pressure to ease restrictions.

Instead he extended the lockdown and said that a new committee of experts, chaired by former CEO of British phone company Vodafone Vittorio Colao, would advise his government on how to waive them. Colao has made no public comment so far.

In the town of Padua in the Veneto region, prefect Renato Franceschelli said he had received 4,500 requests from firms wanting to be classified as part of an essential supply chain. Of these, 3,400 had been examined and only very few told to suspend activities.

"We expect many more to come," he said. Each case is complex and the supply chain is very long, he said: For example. It can include ink producers for labels for the pharmaceutical industry.

BIG BUSINESS CHAFES, MEDICS WORRY

Some big businesses are chafing. The fashion industry has said it has only a few days left to save its next season.

Home to the likes of Prada <1913.HK>, Armani and Moncler <MONC.MI>, Italy is second only to France among European countries for fashion and luxury goods sales. The business generated 90 billion euros ($98 billion) last year, or about 5% of GDP, according to the national fashion chamber, Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (CNMI).

It took out a full-page advert in the national press at the weekend to call for the government to allow it to resume business.

"If our factories do not reopen by April 20, we won't be able to deliver our Autumn/Winter collections which must be sent by July to our clients all over the world," CNMI head Carlo Capasa said in the advertisement.

On Thursday, fashion lobby Confindustria Moda said it had signed an accord with unions over safety procedures to restart activity, when the government agrees.

And carmakers are raring to go. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV <FCHA.MI>, which has around 55,000 employees in Italy, last week also signed a safety protocol with trade unions with the aim of being ready to reopen when the government gives the greenlight.

Data released by the national statistics office on Thursday highlight the impact on Europe's third-largest economy: some 2.1 million companies - just under half of the national total - employing 7.1 million people are shuttered.

Two-thirds of them make goods for sale abroad, mainly to China.

The figures do not take into account companies that are back to work thanks to the bureaucratic shortcut.

The timing of Italy's exit from the lockdown is also closely watched by Europe's biggest economy, Germany, whose automotive, pharmaceutical and food industries are intertwined with Italy's.

The Federation of German industries recently wrote to its Italian counterpart Confindustria calling for a coordinated resumption of production over the coming weeks.

"German entrepreneurs call me to find out how Italy is doing, what is happening with the Italian production we are also dependent on," German ambassador to Rome Viktor Elbling said. As companies return to business, their do-it-yourself approach is worrying medics.

On Tuesday, Massimo Galli, head of the infectious diseases at Milan's Sacco hospital, told Italian state broadcaster RAI he had received many requests for advice from companies on the use of instant test kits for coronavirus, hoping to check staff before allowing them to return to work.

"The number of requests ... is such that companies will organise on their own if (guidance) is not given," he said.

Next door to Veneto in Bologna, Marzocchi Pompe, a producer of high-performance gear pumps, said it was resuming production from Tuesday after receiving many requests from essential sectors such as manufacturers of machinery for hospitals.

It informed the local prefect and reopened. "We considered it not only necessary but above all dutiful to start again," said CEO Gabriele Bonfiglioli.

(Additional reporting by Riccardo Bastianello in PADUA, Stephen Jewkes, Elvira Pollina and Gianluca Semeraro in MILAN; Edited by Sara Ledwith and Josephine Mason)
Britain's Got Talent fans were moved to tears on Saturday following NHS nurse Beth Porch's emotional audition.

Viewers took to Twitter in droves to declare she'd 'done the National Health Service proud' after Beth wowed with her emotional ballad about saving lives in Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Bet, 25, earned a spot in the next round after wowing the judges with her audition filmed back in January. She has since returned to the frontline during the coronavirus pandemic.

Amazing: Britain's Got Talent fans were moved to tears on Saturday following NHS nurse Beth Porch's emotional audition

Beth wowed the judges with her emotional song You Taught Me What Love Is, which was inspired by her experiences over five years on the cancer ward at Great Ormond Street.

Already branded an inspiration by the judges, Alesha Dixon admitted she was moved to tears by the performance, as it made her think about her own daughters.

She said: 'I just want to say thank you so much, hearing what you do puts everything into perspective, I was thinking about my whole children I was choked up the whole time.'

Inspirational: Since her audition in January Beth has returned to work on the frontline as a nurse, and has released her audition song as a single to raise money for NHS charities

David Walliams added: 'We say on this show you've got two minutes to change your life, but you've touched all our lives with that song. It was truly staggeringly beautiful and you delivered it perfectly.'

Amanda Holden also praised: 'You have such a difficult job I don't know where you find the strength totally admire you, but also have this kind of talent, it's god given.'

Beth's audition also sparked a flurry of tweets from viewers who were moved to tears following the audition.

Beautiful: Beth wowed the judges with her emotional song You Taught Me What Love Is, which was inspired by her experiences over five years on the cancer ward at Great Ormond Street

Moving: Already branded an inspiration by the judges, Alesha Dixon admitted she was moved to tears by the performance, as it made her think about her own daughters

It seemed particularly poignant as NHS staff continue to put their lives on the line caring for others during the coronavirus pandemic.

One wrote: 'Beth needs to go global with that song!! That should be out NHS song!! What a special lady.'

Another added: 'Speechless... just wow,' with a third also tweeting: 'That should be the song of the NHS.'

In a poignant message one viewer wrote: 'it's a v emotional time in the world & the lovely people on @BGT make it possible to feel, believe and care.'

One viewer also posted: 'What a beautiful song. Having to fight back tears here. B****y hell.'

A fan added: 'Beth, you've got me in absolute bits here!! This song is so beautiful and so meaningful to many people.'

One viewer also wrote: 'That song was beautiful and has done the NHS proud,' with another tweeting: 'This song is amazing, got us transfixed, dungarees always a winner too. Beautiful song.'

Sensational: Beth's audition also sparked a flurry of tweets from viewers who were moved to tears following the audition

Following her audition, ITV revealed that Beth's ballad had been available to download online, to raise funds for NHS charities fighting coronavirus.

Beth recently had to take a few weeks off work when she tested positive for COVID-19 after experiencing mild symptoms.

She said to The Sun: 'I knew I had it as soon as I started coughing. A hospital tested me because I'm frontline staff... it felt like having the flu so I wasn't too badly off.'

The nurse was able to recover at home and is now back to normal and 'happy to be back at work helping look after everyone.'

The nurse explained that she decided to audition for BGT after a film of her playing ukulele and singing McFly's hit track All About You to patient Artie Vickerage, three, went viral last year
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar



on Saturday said practising social distancing during lockdown will not only protect people from COVID-19 but will also help protect them from other diseases.

Kumar was apprised of the latest COVID-19 situation in the state by officials at the meeting here.

The chief minister asked the officials to ensure the treatment of other diseases apart from COVID-19 at hospitals so that general patients do not face any kind of difficulties in treatment.

"We have full commitment to tackle COVID-19. Practising social distancing apart from enforcing lockdown will protect us from COVID-19 infections, Kumar said according to an official release.

Ensuring adequate arrangements of ambulance for COVID-19 positive patients was necessary but the general patients should also be provided the facilities of ambulance, Kumar said.

The chief minister said that people coming from other states must be tested for COVID-19 regularly and every family in the four affected districts must be screened for Coronavirus.

"The drive (door to door screening) is being carried out on the lines of Pulse polio to identify COVID-19 infected people in affected districts. Every family must be covered during the drive being carried out . District Magistrates to supervise it in the districts," he said



Kumar asked officials to ensure timely distribution of ration to ration cardholders.

The CM directed that dry milk powder be made available to the people at disaster relief camps.

The chief minister directed officials to start online classes for students of class 9 and 10.

Education Departments Principal Secretary R K Mahajan informed the CM that one hour slot has been booked on DD, Bihar for starting online education from April 20, while another slot for online education for class 11 and 12 has been sought for.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Have Sheriff Offices in North Carolina, possibly even Beaufort County's Sheriff Office, become too political in the discharging of their sworn constitutional duties?

No, the sheriff is a constitutional officer.

Yes, the Sheriff Office, on strong occasion, often reverts back to political patronage in the dispensation of their sworn constitutional duties.
The city of Cheyenne laid off 17 workers this week due to revenue declines from a lagging energy sector and the economic fallout related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The layoffs, which will take effect on May 1, were announced in a letter to employees on Friday, and will impact numerous departments within city government.

These have been some of the most difficult conversations and decisions we have had to face in recent times, Cheyenne Mayor Marian Orr said in a statement. These arent merely positions that are being cut. These are people who came to work for the City of Cheyenne to better their community.

My heart is heavy, she added, and we will provide each of those impacted with the resources they need to avail themselves of unemployment benefits, as well as re-employment opportunities through the Department of Workforce Services.

The downsizing will include:

2 positions within the Mayors office.

1 position within the City Clerks office.

4 positions in the Public Works Department.

2 positions within the Cheyenne Police Department, including the elimination of three additional, unfilled positions.

2 within the Cheyenne Fire Department

6 within Community Recreation/Events.

In an interview with the Star-Tribune, Orr said the layoffs were based on recommendations from department directors and who might be eligible for retirement. The jobs cut in the police and fire departments were largely administrative, she added.

The city had only about 60 days of operating reserves, so the cuts were necessary, Orr said. She added that the layoffs could be the first of numerous rounds of staffing reductions needing to take place as the city prepares its budget.

I anticipate that what we did today is probably the beginning of a phased approach for where were really going to have to end up, she said.

Cheyenne, due to its proximity to the commercial sectors of places like Fort Collins, Loveland and Denver, has already seen lagging revenues in recent months and had already planned on a number of reductions in staffing, including moving city employees to a 34-hour workweek or potentially offering an early retirement package.

We were discussing this long before COVID-19 hit, she said. Now, were very much laser-targeted in what it will look like to make the budget balance and still provide necessary services to our citizens.

The COVID-19 outbreak, however, has exacerbated that decline. According to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Cheyenne was already preparing to see significant hits to revenues in the coming months, particularly to its sales tax, which currently accounts for 37 percent of the citys budget. In recent days, the city also announced workers on administrative leave would no longer receive pay, citing COVID-19 related concerns.

Up-to-date statistics on the citys revenues will likely not be available until sometime next month, said Orr. Anecdotally, however, she anticipates significant hits from impacts to consumer confidence in large purchases  like automobiles  and patronage of things like pari-mutuel events, which she said generated approximately $800,000 in revenue for the city last year.

Were seeing a hit to all of the revenue sources we get, she said. $100,000 here or there adds up to real money. Its a dire time.

The news comes shortly after President Donald Trump released guidelines to state and local leaders to introduce a phased-in reopening of businesses in places that have demonstrable reductions in COVID-19 cases and expanded testing. However, the White House has largely put the onus for testing on state and local leaders, many of whom lack the capacity to do so on a wide-enough basis to safely lift stay-at-home orders and other social distancing measures.

While frustrating, Orr said, local leaders have no other choice but to stay the course.

When we do get back to opening up the economy, it needs to be in a measured approach. We cant just open up the floodgates  we have to bring people together in smaller settings. Were talking about it even with our Civic Center... you dont want to bring together 800 people at the beginning of May or June and have another wave come through.

We just havent flattened that curve, she added. We really have to do as much as we can to avoid that second wave and, right now, we havent even hit our peak.

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As tens and thousands of daily wage workers have flocked back to their home states amid the Covid-19 lockdown, the Centre is gearing up for a surge in demand for jobs in the employment scheme MGNREGS.

During fiscal 2020-21, the government made an initial provision for 280.76 crore persondays of work  the highest ever  to cater to jobless workers after the closure of many business establishments due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Last year, the MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) generated 276.76 crore persondays, which was attributed largely due to drought in vast stretches in India. This year, despite the predictions of a normal monsoon, the Union rural development ministry has arranged for more MGNREGS work.

Coronavirus outbreak: Full coverage

Between fiscal 2016-17 and fiscal 2018-19, the worlds largest job guarantee scheme generated 256.56 crore, 231.31 core and 220.93 crore persondays of work, respectively.

The higher persondays  or people demanding more jobs  may also push the government to inject more money into the scheme as it has to pay higher per capita wages due to an upward revision of wages from April 1.

The Centre has made an upward hike of between Rs 13 and Rs 34, the highest in the past six years. Last year, 10 states saw a zero hike and in one case, the wage rate was lowered. The new wages will help 12.8 crore MGNREGS workers.

It is clear that the government will require to pump in more funds as a huge section of the Indian workforce will see MGNREGS as their lifeline in this situation, said Himangshu, an economist at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Rural development minister Narendra Singh Tomar reviewed all flagship schemes of his ministry on Thursday, and also took into account the release of Rs 7300 crore under MGNREGS to clear pending dues of fiscal 2019-20 and to meet the wage dues for the first fortnight of 2020-21.

Tomar advised his ministry to assist 40 lakh beneficiaries of the rural housing scheme (PMAYG), who have received up to the third instalment of funds, to help them quickly complete their houses. The Centre has released Rs 800.63 crore to the states out of the budget of Rs.19,500 crore.

But as the focus remains sharply on MGNREGS, which provides employment in distress, the Centre has allowed rural jobs to resume from April 20 outside the Covid-19 hot spots.

Officials in the rural ministry indicated big construction projects that involve a large number of workers might be avoided for some time to adhere to social distancing rules, and smaller projects, such as building farm ponds, cattle shed or houses under PMAYG, will be pushed.

But as many workers may not be willing to come to work while ignoring health risks, economist Reetika Khera said the government should consider giving some wages even if they sit at home.

We also have to bear in mind that like us, MGNREGS workers will be nervous about joining works that involve gatherings. This will be an impediment to claiming their legal right. In this situation, the government should give 10 days of wages to every MGNREGS workers for three months. Further, the government must fix the issue of failed and diverted payments arising due to the Aadhaar-payment bridge system.

Meanwhile, the Centre has identified a host of best rural Indian practices and the Union panchayeti raj ministry is trying to see if other states replicate some of these models. These models include a postman taking micro-ATM to villages to provide cash at the doorstep amid the lockdown in Uttar Pradeshs Siddharth Nagar or villagers in a Kerala stitching and distributing about 18 lakh cotton masks through 300 tailoring units, while 21 micro firms prepared 2,700 litres of sanitiser.

In Meerut, more than 2,800 sanitation workers were provided masks, sanitisers, soaps and gloves to help them in their daily duty of keeping villages clean. In Dadra and Nagar Haveli, daily meals are provided to the needy and stray cattle and animals, according to an official communication.

The Union Territory has distributed more than 130,000 hand sanitisers and 17,000 masks free of cost in rural areas. Its gram panchayats are distributing handbills and pamphlets to create awareness among the public. The communique further said all high-rise building lifts are being sanitised and younger people are advised to let only senior citizens, pregnant women and disabled people use elevators.

The rural panchayat network in Andhra Pradesh has focused on door-to-door survey and distribution of masks. The state has set a target of distributing about 16 crore masks while it undertakes the third round of door-to-door survey, according to the government communication.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Saubhadra Chatterji Saubhadra Chatterji is Deputy Political Editor at the Hindustan Times. He writes on both politics and policies. ...view detail
The Resistant Front (TRF), allegedly an offshoot of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), on Saturday claimed the terrorist attack on the security forces in Baramulla district Jammu and Kashmir.

Three Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were martyred and two injured when terrorists attacked the 179th Battalion at a checkpoint near Ahad Bab crossing in Sopore of north Kashmir. Terrorists opened fire on a joint party of CRPF and Jammu and Kashmir Police at Noorbagh near Ahad Babs crossing.

In the incident, the paramilitary troopers who sustained injuries were evacuated to nearby SDH hospital. Two of the troopers were declared brought dead on arrival, said an official.

IGP Kashmir confirmed that CRPF jawans succumbed in the terrorist attack. Soon after the incident, security forces launched searches in the area to nab the terrorist.

The CRPF personnel who were martyred in the attack have been identified as Head Constable (GD) Rajeev Sharma (42) from Bihar's Vaishali, Constable (GD) CB. Bhakare (38) from Maharashtra's Buldhana and Constable Parmar Satyapal Singh (28) from Gujarat's Sabarkantha.

The two jawans who were injured are Constable/Driver Javid Ahmed Amin and Head Constable (GD) Biswajit Ghosh.

This is the third attack against the paramilitary force in the Kashmir valley within a week and second attack in two days.

In a similar attack on April 17, one CRPF personnel was injured when terrorists launched an attack on a joint camp of the CRPF and Jammu and Kashmir police in Pulwama district.

The unknown terrorists fired upon the troops of B/183 battalion of the CRPF on a mobile checkpoint established by security forces at the Newa area in Pulwamaat around 7.45 pm. One Ct/GD of CRPF sustained bullet injury on his ankle and was evacuated to the hospital. His condition was stable. The troops then carried out a search in the nearby areas and the entire area was cordoned off.
British scientists have said they hope to have one million doses of a covid-19 vaccine ready to be deployed by September this year.

The team at Oxford University will start the first UK study of an experimental vaccine against COVID-19 next week.

But so great is the need, and so high their confidence that it will work, that they will start large-scale production before the trials are even complete.

Professor Adrian Hill, director of Oxford Universitys Jenner Institute, said the world could not afford to wait for vaccines to be proven to be safe and effective in trials that would involve months of delay before production starts.

He told Sky News: While those trials are going on we have to start manufacturing, manufacturing at risk because if the vaccine fails nobody will want the doses.

But the hope is to have about a million doses by September ready for deployment.

Its a big ask, but not impossible.

The Oxford team say there is an 80% chance of success. If trials are positive hundreds of millions of doses could be ready by the end of the year.

The vaccine, called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, is made from a harmless chimpanzee virus that has been genetically engineered to carry part of the coronavirus. The technique has already been shown to generate strong immune responses in other diseases.

Deals have already been done with three UK manufacturers, and several more abroad, to make the vaccine.

The scientists have been awarded 2.2m to fund clinical trials by the governments new vaccine taskforce, which aims to speed up their development and manufacture.

A separate team at Imperial College London has also been backed by government money.

But no deal has been done by Whitehall to secure supply of any vaccine doses.

In answer to a question by Sky News at the daily virtual government news briefing, Sir Patrick Vallance, the UKs chief scientific adviser, said: Just to put some realism on vaccine development, each single project does not have a high probability of success.

So although everybody goes out with high enthusiasm and we hope they work its never the case that you know you have a vaccine that is going to work.

The vaccine could come from anywhere  most of the big (pharmaceutical) companies are doing vaccines.

We need to back lots of horses so we are in the position to access a vaccine when it occurs.

More than 70 experimental vaccines are in development around the world.

Two in the United States and one in China have already begun safety studies.

---citinewsroom
BRIDGEPORT  Tarek Sobh, a dean and executive vice president of research and economic development at the University of Bridgeport, was named Friday as interim provost of the institution.

Tarek takes the spot held by Stephen Healey, who was named interim president after Laura Trombley abruptly quit as president for a job in Texas. She had been president at UB for just 18 months.

I am delighted that he is serving in this capacity, Healey said in a message released to staff and alumni on Friday.

Tarek, who has been at UB since 1995, is a distinguished professor of engineering and computer science.

I am honored to be named the interim provost at the University of Bridgeport and look forward to working with university community, Sobh said. Having spent 25 years at the university in various roles, I know that this is a special place that has impacted the lives of generations of students and improved the world through scholarship, discovery, and community service.

He is excited, Sobh added, to work together with individuals across the university to help it realize its tremendous promise.

Sobhs disciplinary expertise is in the fields of computer science and engineering, STEM education, control theory, robotics, automation, manufacturing, artificial intelligence, computer vision and signal processing. He is internationally recognized as a scholar and contributor to his field.

He was one of the finalists for the job of UB president in 2018; Trombley was hired for the spot.

He joined UB as an associate professor of computer science and was the founding director of the CTech IncUBator, the UB research division, the Bauer Hall Innovation Center and the Interdisciplinary Robotics, Intelligent Sensing and Control (RISC) laboratory.

Many of his students have won awards in robotics, prototyping, computer vision, control and manufacturing.

Healey said in coming days, UB will select an interim dean of the College of Engineering, Business and Education.

Tarek received an engineering degree in computer science and automatic control from the Alexandria University in Egypt in 1988, and master of science and doctoral degrees in computer and information science from the University of Pennsylvanias School of Engineering in 1989 and 1991, respectively. He is a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences and a member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.

lclambeck@ctpost.com; twitter/lclambeck
The Kano State Government has arrested the Imam of Gwammaja Mosque.

He was said to have violated the COVID19 Lockdown order implemented in the state yesterday, by conducting Jummah prayers.

Special Assistant on Media and Publicly to Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, Salihu Yakasai, confirmed the Imams arrest in a tweet via his official Twitter handle, @dawisu, on Saturday.

He tweeted:

The Imam of Gwammaja Mosque that performed Friday Prayers tday in Kano despite the lockdown order has been arrested. The lockdown was with the full blessings of all the Imams in the State from the different islamic sects. The only way to enforce social distancing is lockdown.

The Imam of Gwammaja Mosque that performed Friday Prayers tday in Kano despite the lockdown order has been arrested. The lockdown was with the full blessings of all the Imams in the State from the different islamic sects. The only way to enforce social distancing is lockdown.  Peacock (@dawisu) April 17, 2020

As at 10:10pm, on Friday, 17th April, 2020, they were 27 confirmed cases of the virus in the state, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC)
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Saturday that his government took timely action, including an early lockdown, to contain the spread of coronavirus, even as the country reported 622 fresh cases taking the total number of COVID-19 patients to 7,638.

"The government enforced a lockdown in March when there were only a few cases. We also started screening people at airports and pilgrims returning through land borders, Khan said while addressing the media in Islamabad.

He, however, warned that numbers could increase by the middle of next month to pose a challenge for the government.

"Our initial projections said that we would have 50,000 cases by April 25. Thankfully that's not the case. Our new projections suggest that we will have 12,000 to 15,000 coronavirus patients. The pressure we expected earlier can now be felt next month," Khan said.

He also asked the people to continue following the official guidelines, otherwise it would be difficult to control the situation.

Khan said that there was no shortage of essential medical equipment and the government was procuring ventilators and personal protective equipment to prepare for the situation. He also rejected reports that the government was hiding the figure of fatalities and said some people were spreading "fake news" that more people died than reported.

He said that there was no shortage of any food item and warned hoarders and smugglers of strict action. The government will also announce an ordinance to crack down on smuggling soon, he said.

Meanwhile, the government succumbed to pressure from the hardline clerics and allowed conditional congregational prayers in mosques during the month of Ramzan, endangering the drive to curb the spread of coronavirus.

President Dr Arif Alvi, who met with religious leaders and political representatives of all provinces, said a 20-point plan has been agreed upon.

"It is an important agreement and it has been reached after consensus among all religious leaders, he said.

The clerics have agreed to follow the government guidelines on social distancing while praying in mosques.

The Pakistan Ulema Council (PUC) said it will follow the government's 20-point agenda for congregational prayers including taraweeh in Ramzan.

Alvi said if the government felt at any point that the guidelines were being violated or the disease was spreading, then it can re-consider its decision regarding the opening of mosques.

The Pakistan government had banned congregational prayers in mosques but the decision was only partly followed.

Minister for Religious Affairs Pir Noorul Haq Qadri also appealed to clerics to take the coronavirus threat seriously, warning them that they would be held accountable if the number of patients and death toll multiplied.

"If the situation goes out of hand, people will target religious scholars in their criticism, he said.

Several countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan, Kuwait, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt have stopped congregational prayers in mosques due to the virus outbreak.

Dr Faisal Sultan, the Prime Minister's focal person on the coronavirus crisis, said the government will probe 300 deaths in Karachi this week. Some 15 of the 300 deaths are suspected to be because of coronavirus. We are looking into it but cannot yet comment further on it, he said.

Planning Minister Asad Umar said that Pakistan was not out of danger despite lower number of patients. We need to increase our testing capacity at once. Our aim is to conduct 25,000 tests daily by the month's end, he said.

PM's Advisor on Security Moeed Yusuf said that the government was committed to bring back all stranded Pakistanis in a phased manner.

"We are trying to increase our quarantine and testing facilities so that we can bring them back as soon as possible. Our target is to bring back up to 7,500 people every week, he said.

Earlier this week, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said about 40,000 Pakistani wanted to come back but were stuck up in various countries.

Minister for Industries Hammad Azhar said that the government would bring a scheme for the payment of utility bills on installments to benefit the small businesses and shop owners.

He also said that more food items would be available at government-run utility stores during Ramzan and would be sold on controlled rates.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of National Health Services reported that 143 people have died so far including 8 in the last 24 hours. Another 1,832 had recovered, while 622 new patients were identified during the last 24 hours.

The worst-hit province of Punjab registered 3,410 patients, followed by Sindh with 2,355, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 1,077, Balochistan 335, Gilgit-Baltistan 250, Islamabad 163 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir with 48 patients.

The ministry showed that so far 92,548 tests had been conducted, including 6,416 in the last 24 hours.

The steady rise continued despite hectic efforts to contain the spread. One of the biggest hurdle faced by the authorities has been to convince clerics to stop congregational prayers in mosques of the country.

Meanwhile, it was reported that two women who returned to Pakistan from India via the Wagah border tested positive for the novel coronavirus. They were among 41 people who returned to the country on Thursday, according to The Express Tribune newspaper.
Securing personal protective equipment for frontline health care workers is forcing administrators to develop a new set of operating skills.

Dr. Andrew W. Artenstein, who heads Baystate Healths command center for COVID-19, described his experiences attempting to acquire N95 face masks and related gear for workers in a letter published by the New England Journal of Medicine.

In the past, getting needed face masks and supplies for Baystate was a relatively straightforward process. Amid the growing health care crisis, hospital workers were stymied by a lack of personal protective equipment, he said, and the cavalry does not appear to be coming.

Then, the hospital had a lead on equipment from an acquaintance of a friend of a team member" willing to take $5 per mask  five times the normal price. Still, even at that rate, the masks were a bargain in lives saved.

The first step was to make sure the alleged broker was, indeed, capable of getting the materials and in the quantities needed. It took hours to vet the supplier who, as it turned out, was a player at the level Artenstein needed.

Samples of the Chinese-made masks were sent via overnight express and were exactly what was needed for health workers in Western Massachusetts. Then, they had to find a way to get the pallets of masks to Springfield without losing it to the federal government.

Earlier deals had disappeared, Artenstein said when prohibitive counteroffers from other states or federal officials meant the supplies were not coming to Springfield.

Despite all the planning, just hours before the scheduled handover of the product, the Baystate group learned they would only get a quarter of what they ordered. The deal had to continue because the masks were desperately needed. Fewer masks were better than none.

Finally, Artenstein and his group met with the supplier in a warehouse and watched as pallets of the materials were unloaded. A final quality check made sure they were as advertised and the load was packed into the two tractor-trailer rigs disguised as food-service vehicles and bound for Massachusetts.

When fully loaded, the trucks would take two distinct routes back to Massachusetts to minimize the chances that their contents would be detained or redirected, Artenstein wrote.

Just then, two FBI agents walked into the warehouse. The short supply of PPE around the world has created a very lucrative black market for medical gear, and the agents wanted to know who was moving such a large quantity of masks.

A credential check and much cajoling worked for the group and the agents released the shipment. While the FBI was done with him, to his horror Artenstein found out the Department of Homeland Security was looking into redirecting the masks to federal use.

A quick call to congressmen who could help finally convinced DHS this particular shipment was more trouble than it was worth. The two trucks pulled out of the warehouse and on their respective ways.

Artenstein kept looking over his shoulder until both trucks pulled into Springfield and all the pallets were safely locked in a Baystate storage facility.

Did I foresee, as a health-system leader working in a rich, highly developed country with state-of-the-art science and technology and incredible talent, that my organization would ever be faced with such a set of circumstances? Of course not, Artenstein said. This is the unfortunate reality we face in the time of COVID-19.
We are engaged in an immense, unprecedented experiment made necessary by the COVID-19 crisis.

In Canada and many Western countries, millions of people now find themselves on a national government payroll, their wages and household income largely provided by the state.

Without it being described as such, that is an experiment in a type of Universal Basic Income (UBI), a concept championed by Thomas More in Utopia (1516) and by Pope Francis on Easter Sunday.

Canada has two main income-support programs for dealing with the coronavirus crisis. There is a huge wage-subsidy program and a smaller but formidable Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).

This article is focused more on the CERB, by which Ottawa for the first time is making income-replacement payments to part-time workers in the so-called gig economy of intermittent contract work. The CERB also covers seasonal workers, students and others deprived of income because of COVID-19.

Neither program is pure UBI, an unconditional annual income paid by the state, with no questions asked.

One has to apply for the CERB and qualify for its $2,000 monthly payments, showing that you have earned at least $5,000 in the past 12 months and have lost your employment income due to the pandemic.

That said, the CERBs eligibility requirements are less onerous than those of Employment Insurance and traditional provincial welfare and disability income-support programs.

And the CERB will have UBIs intended effect of maintaining a decent income and personal dignity in millions of households after a drastic loss of income.

As many as four million Canadians are expected to apply for the CERB.

The big question is: what happens after the pandemic ends?

And the answer, at this admittedly early stage, is that the CERB and Ottawas other emergency income-support programs will likely bring about a UBI-influenced overhaul of Employment Insurance, and significant reforms in welfare and disability income-support schemes.

The advent of UBI in its pure form is unlikely. It has its champions today as never before, but UBI is likely to fade as the pandemic does.

To start, the federal finance ministry, no fan of UBI, prefers to create targeted rather than universal programs. And never mind the streamlined efficiency of universal programs like Medicare.

Meanwhile, conservatives blanch at UBIs cost. And while studies show that UBI recipients continue to work and develop entrepreneurial instincts, conservatives fret over a weakening of the national work ethic.

And for their part, most social progressives wont stand for the dismantling of the existing social-assistance infrastructure, for all its shortcomings. They fought to build it, and it does provide income protections unimaginable in the not-so-long-ago Dark Ages.

But there is a strong likelihood that our current experience with UBI will see UBI principles and practices integrated into overhauled Employment Insurance, welfare, disability and other income-support programs as an outcome of the pandemic.

After all, about 70 per cent of Canadians polled on a universal basic income say they support it.

And Canadian UBI already exists in the form of the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) for seniors, which effectively doubles Old Age Security (OAS) payments for seniors below the poverty line.

And the Trudeau governments universal Canada Child Benefit (CCB) has made Canada the first country to reduce child poverty, by providing a substantial income supplement to families living below the poverty line.

The GIS and CCB kick in automatically, as OAS does, without onerous application paperwork and costly bureaucratic supervision of recipients to ensure compliance with eligibility requirements. Those are time-consuming and demeaning characteristics of existing provincial welfare and disability income-support programs.

As to cost, my Star colleague Laurie Monsebraaten, the papers social justice reporter, has recently noted that the Parliamentary Budget Office has calculated the cost of providing UBI to about 7.5 million low-income working-age Canadians at $43 billion.

Thats less than half Ottawas current costs of wage subsidies, the CERB and other emergency income-support measures.

When it cancelled Ontarios three-year UBI project in 2018 a year ahead of schedule, the Ford government claimed that rolling out UBI across the province would require a hike in the HST to 20 per cent from 13 per cent.

Norwegians pay a retail sales tax of 25 per cent. And they enjoy one of worlds highest standards of living, with 2018 GDP per capita of $114,533 to Ontarios $64,826.

So, the issue isnt affordability. Its culture. People either embrace or reject paying the freight for ensuring that everyone has a decent, dignified way of life.

Finally, there are the millions of Canadians currently experiencing the biggest income-protection scheme in our history.

Many of the CERB and federal wage-subsidy recipients are learning for the first time how precarious their employment income is, and that their federal government has the means and the will to cover a large portion of their massive income loss.

Thats likely to change more than a few minds about the need for adequate social protections for us all.

The COVID-19 crisis will pass.

But the crisis of income inequality, which the secretary-general of the UN has equated with climate crisis, will remain.

The widening gap between rich and poor is an ever-increasing drain on government treasuries, in the form of additional burdens on the welfare, health-care and criminal-justice systems.

And it is a prime culprit in Canadas chronic underperformance in productivity and global competitiveness, through worker absenteeism and high turnover.

It also fuels the crisis in skills shortages that holds Canada back in countless ways.

Most worrisome are estimates that one third of Canadas existing workforce will suffer job loss to a robot or other form of automation in the next decade.

Are there elements of Canadas current UBI-type experiment that would provide the same bridge for workers laid off by automation as now exist for workers laid off by COVID-19?

One has to think so.

With a simple CERB application, workers receive $2,000 a month for at least four months  a period likely to be extended for the duration of the pandemic.

By comparison, Employment Insurance payouts are paltry and bureaucratically cumbersome. And the monthly stipend for Ontario welfare recipients is a mere $733. For Ontarians with disabilities, the monthly payment is $1,169.

Also, payment amounts for welfare, disability and other income-support programs vary among provinces and territories. By contrast, UBI, as with Medicare and the CERB, are universal across the country. No worries if you live in a stingy province.

It is a curious and disturbing fact that unemployed Canadians are being much better treated than people on social assistance in this crisis.

Weaving elements of a streamlined UBI into the existing social safety net does not require a leap of faith. It is the logical next step in strengthening the country.




Bello El-Rufai, the son Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has apologized for his indecent tweets as he threatened to gang rape the mother of a Twitter user.

Bellos plead came after his mother berated him for his ungodly statement on the innocent mother last week were Bello threatened to rape one of his Twitter followers mother.

However, in a series of tweets, Bello apologized for his action as he noted that the comment was made during the heat of the moment.

A few days ago, I made a comment that was wrong, unbecoming and contrary to the values on which I was raised. I wish to withdraw the statement and apologise to the gentleman concerned for the hurtful comment. I also apologise for appearing to attack and entire ethnic group for the misdeed of one person, the statement read.

I regret the sexual innuendo in the private message and apologise unreservedly for it. I wish to state very strongly that the statement was made during the heat of the moment and I wish to put on the record that I do not condone sexual violence.

Bello noted that there can be no justification for gender-based crimes, adding that the experience had taught him how to behave better subsequently.

I certainly do not believe that there can be any justification for gender-based crimes. I am learning from the episode in the continuous journey of emerging as a better person. I have apologized to my mother in person, he added.

Here is Bello El-Rufais Apology via his twitter handle

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An assistant commissioner of police, who was undergoing treatment for COVID-19 at a private hospital in Ludhiana, died on Saturday.

"Sad ACP Anil Kohli passed away. Died of #COVID-19. Was admitted in SPS Hospital Ludhiana," Ludhiana district public relations office tweeted.

ACP Anil Kohli had tested positive for coronavirus a few days ago.

On Friday, the Punjab government had given its go-ahead to the hospital to conduct plasma therapy on the police officer.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
No evidence was collected at that time to state that such actions were being prepared.

Deputy Chief of the Main Directorate of the SBU Security Service of Ukraine Vitaliy Mayakov says there is no evidence that an assassination attempt was being prepared against Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.

Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko earlier claimed that SBU Major General Valeriy Shaitanov, who has recently been detained on suspicion of high treason, was involved in preparations for an attempt on Avakov's life.

"As for the other persons against whom assassination attempts were being prepared... I, as an investigator, work with evidence only. [Adam] Osmayev was a target with a certain deadline set and advance payment for the murder made," Mayakov said, according to Ukraine's media outlet news.liga.net. "There were no other targets at that moment, and no evidence was collected at that time to state that such actions were being prepared," Mayakov said.

Read alsoShaitanov, detained on treason charges, reportedly involved in preparing contract hit on Avakov

As UNIAN reported earlier, SBU counterintelligence agents detained Shaitanov on April 14. According to the materials of the case, Shaitanov, who is one of the former chiefs of the SBU's "A" Special Operations Center, was secretly working for Russian FSB Colonel Igor Yegorov.

Investigators have evidence that, acting as Russian special services instructed, Shaitanov planned to commit terrorist acts in Ukraine. He was promised a reward of US$200,000 and Russian citizenship. Shaitanov hired a former special forces member for the acts.

It was established that Shaitanov had collected information on secret operations in the Anti-Terrorist Operation/Joint Forces Operation zone in Donbas and about personnel involved in them for further sharing it with the FSB. He also informed the Russian side about Ukrainian special services' international security and defense cooperation; shared details about SBU and intelligence officers. What is more, he was involved in recruiting officers from Ukrainian special and intelligence agencies to work for the FSB.

In Ukraine, Shaitanov is suspected of high treason and terrorist attacks. In particular, he was engaged in preparations for the assassination of Adam Osmayev, the leader of Chechen volunteers fighting on the Ukrainian side against Russia-led forces in Ukraine's east.

On April 15, Kyiv's Shevchenkivsky district court ruled to remand Shaitanov in custody until June 14.
Joseph C. Townsend, one of the most familiar faces in Midland County, is that of the man whose name heads this sketch. From Saginaw to the northern frontier everyone knows "Uncle Jo," as he is familiarly called. Reared within the corporation of Midland, and living here continuously for more than 30 years, he is possessed of an intimate acquaintance with the growth and prosperity of the county he loves so well. The historian is under special obligation to him for information on many subjects.

He is the youngest of 11 children, of whom three survive. His parents, Joseph and Polly (Cronkright) Townsend, emigrated from Mount Norris, Livingston Co., NY, in 1842, and after residing a short time in Saginaw County, settled near the "Forks," now Midland City. Joseph was a lad 12 years old when his parents came to Midland and his schooling in New York to that date was very limited.

When Henry Ashmun taught the first school in the county, Joseph was one of the first scholars, nearly all of whom were Indians. In fact, for several years after coming here, Indian children were the only playmates the Townsend children had. Together they hunted, fished, swam the rivers, and played hide and-seek among the bushes, but a mere handful of the race yet remain that were the friends of his boyhood. Joseph was a great lover of the chase, and a number of his exploits are related in another part of this work.

As he grew to manhood, he wooed and married Miss Evaline Patterson, the daughter of Henry W. and Harriet Patterson. The former is one of the most influential and worthy citizens of Midland, who still resides near his daughter, and is fully satisfied with Midland County as a place in which to spent his declining years.

The marriage of Mr. Townsend and Miss Patterson was celebrated in 1856 by Charles Fitzhugh, Esq., who for many years was a resident of the township and one of the first settlers. Joseph and his wife have lived happily together for more than a quarter of a century, and have been the parents of 11 children. Harriet, the oldest daughter, wedded George Pick, and now resides at Tonawanda, NY. Iantha is the wife of Albert Sidelinker, and Angeline married John Bancroft. Both the latter live in Midland City, and the younger children, Chester, Sophronia, and Geneva are with their parents, thus forming an almost unbroken family circle. Five children are buried beneath the trees in the village cemetery, which is thus made the dearest spot on earth to the parents who loved them so dearly.

Joseph is a radical Republican ,but the Greenback and Independent parties have maintained him in office for a long term of years. Gov. Jerome appointed him a notary Public, and Gov. Begole, County Agent of the Board of Charities, which office he has filled acceptably for many years. He has been for 14 years Superintendent of the poor and county Coroner for 12 years.

Owning a dray line, and having a comfortable home in the suburbs, his days are passed in comparative ease and comfort. He is always the same jolly good fellow, and honest man, a courteous neighbor and an upright Mason.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Midland County Historical Society is partnering with the Midland Daily News for "A Window to Midland's Past," which will feature historical pieces in print and online at ourmidland.com. This particular piece was taken from the "1884 Portrait and Biographical Album of Midland County" and compiled by Gary F. Skory of the Midland County Historical Society, published Nov. 5, 1992.
N azanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family must continue their excruciating wait to find out if her temporary release from prison in Iran has been extended.

The British-Iranian mother was temporarily released from Tehrans notorious Evin prison in response to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Her period of relative freedom was extended by two weeks in late March, and she was scheduled to return to prison on Saturday.

However, her family has still not received a decision on whether her furlough is to be prolonged, the Free Nazanin Campaign said in a Twitter update.

They were simply told to try Irans Prosecutors Office again on Sunday.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the Britsh-Iranian woman jailed in Iran, who has had her leave from prison extended by two weeks, according to her husband. / PA

Nazanins family spoke with the Prosecutors Office today for an update on whether her furlough is to be extended beyond this weekend, or if she will have to return to prison, the tweet said.

They were told to come back tomorrow for an answer.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been living in relative isolation at her parents house in Tehran while the country gets to grips with the outbreak.

She has to wear an ankle tag during the furlough, and can only go within a 300-metre range of her parents home.

The former charity worker was arrested at Tehrans Imam Khomeini airport while travelling to show her young daughter, Gabriella, to her parents in April 2016.

She was sentenced to five years in prison over allegations of plotting to overthrow the Tehran government, which she categorically denies.
Despite the White House saying that anyone who wanted a coronavirus test could get one, only 1 per cent of the US has been tested in recent weeks, while officials across the US have reported significant shortages in testing abilities as Donald Trump grows impatient to "reopen" the economy.

Vice President Mike Pence claimed on Friday that the US has enough tests for states to begin "phase one" of the president's reopening guidelines, but the plan does not have a national testing strategy. Its criteria says states should have a "downward trajectory" in cases and flu-like symptoms over a two-week period.

The president boasted that the US has tested more than 3.7 million Americans, from a population of more than 320 million people, and has passed the buck to governors who will be "responsible for testing" under the White House plans to reopen states.

He also blamed "partisan" voices are spreading misinformation about testing abilities, but Democrat and Republican officials are reporting testing issues, and public health officials have warned that lack of widespread testing and contact tracing could open a second and third wave of infections.

On 6 March, the president said that "anyone" who wanted to get a test could get one. By then, the US had tested fewer than 20,000 people.

He also has repeatedly blamed his predecessor Barack Obama and his administration, though it was Mr Trump's administration that was responsible for the developing the tests.

Recently, he has said that widespread testing isn't necessary for "vast" parts of the country that have seen smaller outbreaks compared to some larger metropolitan areas.

He also has claimed that the federal government isn't responsible for "standing on street corners" to perform tests.

Admiral Brett Giroir says the US would need to perform 4.5 million tests a month to meet the criteria for a "phase one" of the White House plan to begin reopening states.

On Friday, Senate Democrats joined a call with the vice president, during which he reportedly failed to answer why testing is falling short across the US while the White House is pushing for states to "reopen"

Maine Senator Angus King told Politico "I have never been so mad about a phone call in my life" and called the federal government's inability to set up widespread testing a "dereliction of duty."

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren told the Boston Globe that the administration "doesn't even have a target for the number of tests we need to be able to manage this health care crisis."

"It's beyond unbelievable," she said.

Dr Anthony Fauci clarified that simply diagnosing Americans "isn't everything" and stressed that one negative test doesn't mean that person can't be infected again.

Dr Fauci said that the federal government had struggled to expand testing because of its reluctance to engage the "private sector, who clearly has the capability of making and providing tests at the level that we will need them."

The US Food and Drug Administration had reportedly been told by the administration in February to halt any efforts to work with companies on building test capacity.
In the very first scene of Peepli Live (2010), Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri)  a farmer and the protagonist of the film  asks his elder brother, Budhiya (Raghuvir Yadav): Zameen chali gayi to kya hoga? (What will happen if we lose our land?) The possibility of this calamity descending on the two brothers is alarmingly real  they have been served an ultimatum by a bank to repay a loan or give up their ancestral, agricultural land.

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Filmmaker Karan Johar also extended his helping hands towards saving the nation. Karan shares the news on social media that Dharma Production pledges to contribute to PM Cares, Chief Ministers relief fund, and NGOs to fight COVID-19.

During the coronavirus crisis, the government has been taking every action to combat the spread of the deadly virus, from social distancing to double up the testing process in each state. Meanwhile, Bollywood is playing a key role to create awareness among the people and supporting the nation by donating to PM CARES Fund. Filmmaker Karan Johar also extended his helping hands to the PM CARES and Chief Ministers relief fund.

Karan announced it on his Instagram and shared an emotional montage of visuals, where he narrates how Indians always stood solitary in the time of need, along with a note which reads: All are united in the fight against COVID-19. Its the responsibility of every citizen to do their bit as the nation is going through a tough phase. By looking at the unprecedented situation, Dharma production decided to support this notable cause with a mission to aid and provide relief. Lets Unite Against COVID-19.

On the other hand, other actors like Sonu Sood, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgn, Rohit Shetty, Akshay Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, TV czarina Ekta Kapoor and others came forward to save lives and nation, as PM Narendra Modi said, Jaan Bhi Jahan Bhi which means the run the nation life is also equally important.

Check the post here:

Whilst, Salman Khan who is always known for his Dabangg deeds, openly said in the public platform, that he is also scared of the current situation and he has no shame to admit it. The actor further said its no time to show bravery as it can keep their family lives at risk and of others too!

Mumbai sees the highest number of #COVID19 cases today as 184 people tested positive: Maharashtra Health Department pic.twitter.com/J3wLQFpl1H  ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2020

For all the latest Entertainment News, download NewsX App
With the recent announcements from Mayo Clinic regarding salary pay cuts and potential furloughs, it is unmistakable to this community that the world has changed, and the priorities of the Rochester City Council must also change to fit the current state of affairs.

We know how disruptive this virus has been to our lives. We know the pain the virus has caused to those infected by it. What is unknown is just how damaging the COVID-19 disease will be to our economy. I have heard firsthand from business owners who have laid off their entire staffs. The owners themselves have been foregoing paychecks for several weeks, and they have been working with banks to reset the terms of their loans. In short, they have directly felt the impact to their revenues and are working tirelessly to figure out a way to survive.

Nonprofits in our community are facing a similar fate, and they must navigate a new terrain to find different ways of doing business. These local businesses and nonprofits are the core of our community, and to allow them to suffer long-term consequences of this pandemic is irresponsible and contrary to the core objectives of the city, which is to make our community the best place to live in Minnesota.

City government needs to assess what we can do differently as well. Due to this shutdown, we are likely to take a revenue hit of anywhere from 20-40% in our annual budget. Prudence dictates that any changes we make to save money now will have significant positive impacts later. We should look very hard at any projects to ensure they are truly necessary, and if so, have been scaled down to the absolute bare minimum. If any project is negatively impacting a local business, we should strongly consider pausing it.

Our business owners have been nearly destroyed. If they can make it through this, it would be irresponsible for the city to do something to further impact their livelihood, such as a construction project that blocks peoples ability to reach their store. Our local government needs to look carefully and critically at what is essential for both today, and for the future, when we enter our period of recovery.

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Ideas that would be judicious to discuss include a temporary furlough of city employees, excluding fire and police, pausing contracts for consultants, and making any other necessary changes to ensure we share the burden our constituents are experiencing and help them recover as best we can.

The very first thing we should do as a city government is go back to our original salaries. It is at the least tone deaf, and at most insulting, to tell taxpayers they should continue to pay for our raises while they are struggling with cutbacks and unemployment.

We need to be innovative to help them survive. We should be eliminating any unnecessary fees, red tape or expenses that dont affect health and safety. I believe the best thing our city can do now is to focus on our top priorities.

In short, as a city, let us cut now to position ourselves for the future, just like every family and business in Rochester is doing.
A man was arrested in Portland after police said he pointed a handgun at a neighbor who was trying to break up a large outdoor party Friday night.

Around 7 p.m., officers responded to reports of a large gathering on the 2600 block of Southeast Stark Street, near the Lone Fir Cemetery. Several residents called police to report there were between 20 and 50 people playing loud music and drinking.

As police made their way to the scene, another neighbor called to report theyd tried to tell the partygoers to turn down their music, but a man from the gathering displayed a gun and pointed it at the neighbors face, officials said.

As the officers approached the group, they saw a man, later identified as Kneko Moore walk off in a hurry and get in a nearby vehicle. Police began to follow the driver, who committed several traffic violations and nearly crashed, according to police, before the car ultimately stopped.

Moore, 31, was arrested on suspicion of unlawful possession of a firearm, among other charges, and was being held at the Multnomah County Detention Center.

-- Kale Williams; kwilliams@oregonian.com; 503-294-4048; @sfkale

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The Union governments telecommunications department is offering states the ability to mass track people using mobile network tower data, offering a platform that can let ground-level authorities create virtual geo-fences for those meant to be in quarantine, as well as a second service that can let officials send out SMS messages to people in a specific area for Covid-19 containment efforts.

Officials in several states have acknowledged previously that they use mobile network information to monitor those meant to be under quarantine, but the Centres pitch to other states that are not using such services at present details how these tools work and the sort of legal authorization behind it.

The first service, a mobile device surveillance system called Covid Quarantine Alert System, uses cellphone tower  also called a base transceiver station (BTS)  data to determine the approximate location of a person. If this person has been put on a watch-list, the system throws up an alert if their phone goes out of that geographic area and connects to a different BTS, according to an official who asked not to be named.

To put someone on a watch-list, state authorities will need to send the persons phone number to the department of telecom (DoT). An alert will also be sent if a mobile number if switched off for too long, the official quoted above said, adding that the tracking will not work if people leave their phones behind.

As on April 16, we tracked the movement of 70,422 persons in states including Bihar, Telangana, West Bengal, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh. The service is authorised by the home secretary of the respective states and is allowed under the provision of section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraphs act for public emergency, the person quoted above said.

The law invoked, telegraph acts section 5(2), is used for legal interception of telecommunications that is allowed in the Indian constitution under specific conditions, such as for national security and to prevent a crime. Breaking quarantine is a criminal offence under Section 188 of the Epidemic Diseases Act, which has been invoked since India declared the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) a health emergency.

The second service, called Covid-19 Savdhan, too has been deployed by some states. Covid-19 Savdhan allows messaging in a targeted geographic area, we can send message to targeted groups, narrowing it down to one mobile tower. It is of great use in the hotspots and containment zones. This is again being done in Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Sikkim, Haryana, Arunachal Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the functionary quoted above said.

To get more states to start using these utilities, the Union government first reached out through the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). The DoT will now write to the chief secretaries of those that have not adopted it, the person quoted above said, adding that both services are free of charge.

The official also said that states will not be passed on the names of the mobile phone users. It is a non-intrusive way of checking if a person is within the tower area; we dont monitor the phone usage, this person added.

A second official who occupies a senior post in the telecom department, said the tools have been developed by C-DOT to help health and disaster management authorities. Covid Savdhan application, in particular, enables authorities to reach out to all mobile subscribers in any particular containment zone up to the level of individual mobile tower and convey targeted messages about health, well-being, water supply etc by means of SMS in local language, this person added.

The messaging service is available in all regional languages, and so far 26 million messages have been sent out through the platform for Covid-19 related communication till now.

C-Dot is a government agency that develops computer applications for use in telecommunications.

Experts said for the government legally use such surveillance mechanisms,there needs to be an order issued by the Union as well as the state governments. The systems of mass surveillance which are being deployed are being done without any clear legal authority or limits. While the Telegraph Act does permit the government to place people under surveillance, it also contains safeguards which must be followed. It also remains an open question how the Central governments cellphone tracking data will integrate with the data gathered by the Aarogya Setu app, said Apar Gupta from the Internet Freedom Foundation, who was one of the lawyers in a PIL filed by the PUCL that led to the codification of the guidelines under section 5(2).

While there is a concept in health about disaster and epidemic tracking, those are applied only to people who fall sick. These steps are larger in ambit and the fundamental right to privacy is breached. The government should be transparent and issue orders, while letting people know that this is a temporary measure, that a complaint officer will be instated, and talk about how the data will be dealt with once the pandemic is over, said Raman Jit Singh Chima of the digital rights group Access Now.

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The surge in parcel deliveries to locked-down consumers will accelerate the broader shift to online shopping even once the Covid-19 crisis is over, An Post CEO David McRedmond believes.

Parcel and package delivery is a key pillar of the State company's strategy for future growth and relevance.

An Post's partners include bookseller Easons and Smyths Toys, as well as Amazon. Some of those partners have seen dramatically large increases in demand since the shut-down of most bricks and mortar retailers.

As more people shop online the habit is likely to be sustained even when shops reopen, Mr McRedmond said.

"Once you've learned how to buy online you tend to stick there, and for others its a question of discovering new areas of online shopping," he said.

Increased parcel services will to some extent offset a drop in letters sent during the current crisis, because businesses are temporarily shut, and into the future.

However, An Post expects a material decline in revenues this year because of the outbreak and has had to carry one-off costs including 3m on personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff, who've continued to work throughout the period.

Mr McRedmond paid tribute to frontline An Post workers and trade unions yesterday after the group reported a third year of profit and revenue growth, boosted by the sale of the One4all gift vouchers business.

The financial results for the year to December 31, 2019, recorded profit before tax of 66m and a 2pc rise in revenues to 888m.

Like-for-like profits rose 40pc which was further boosted by a 40m profit on the sale of One4all cards.

That left An Post with cash of 143m on its balance sheet coming into 2020.
At many donation distribution sites in Vietnam, poor people crippled by Covid-19 are thankful and won't take more than they need.

Last Friday afternoon, two women walked to a charity booth at 420 Lac Long Quan Street in Hanoi.

One of them took the donated food items and walked off immediately.

The other, a slim woman in her mid-thirties, hesitated after receiving her gift pack.

She stood silently for a while, an envelope in her hand. After shed gathered enough courage, she walked towards Dao Tuan Hung, who was managing the booth. She pressed the envelope into his hand.

"I immediately told her it was a free present, but she said that it was not money. She left quickly after giving me the envelope," Hung said.

Inside was a handwritten letter.

"Dear ladies and gentlemen.

I have been an unemployed worker since the Covid-19 disease hit the country, the people and the governments 16th decree (national social distancing campaign) to ensure the lives of people and the community. I sold things for a living but had to stop and paying rent has become difficult. I came across Lac Long Quan Street and found this place which distributes rice and noodles.

I was moved to tears to receive the gift wrapped by compassion which feeds me through the day, I hope the disease is going to be over soon so I could start working. Once again, I would like to thank you for spreading love and support during this difficult time. I wish you good health and fortune to save many people in these difficult times. I would like to sincerely thank you very much.

Hanoi April 10, 2020

A citizen."

The letter was written in a clumsy manner with many grammatical mistakes, but its intent and purpose was clear.

Hung said that the letter "with so much affection" made him and his team feel that "we must continue to try not to let anyone down in our society."

Hung is one of 20 members of a volunteer group who met virtually on social media and got together to help people in need during the Covid-19 crisis. Apart from the one Lac Long Quan Street, the group runs eight booths across the capital city.

Dang Nhu Quynh, 40, one of the groups two co-founders, said the initiative has opened his eyes not only to the difficulties people face, but also their resilience and compassion even at such times.

Last Saturday, Quynh and his team members met a female scrap collector at their booth at 6 Phan Ke Binh Street in Hanoi. She did not want the gift pack, but wanted to buy the empty carton boxes piled on the sidewalk.

"She told me she hadnt collect anything the whole morning because all the shops and restaurants were closed," Quynh said.

The volunteers had an extra meal box that theyd bought for lunch that day, so they invited the woman to join them. After hesitating for a moment, she agreed.

A scrap collector shares a meal with Dang Nhu Quynh's group manning a charity booth in Hanoi. She refused to take the donation so others even more in need could have it. Photo courtesy of Dang Nhu Quynh.

After finishing the meal, the group agreed to give her the carton boxes she asked for and gave her a gift bag with rice and peanuts. The woman refused to accept it, saying it should be given to people worse off than her.

"If I cant collect anything tomorrow, then I will stop by," she said.

On Wednesday, Quynh met an old man in his 70s who asked for the gift bags for himself and two beggars on the street not so far from their booth at 54 Le Van Luong Street. One of the beggars had left, so the senior citizen walked back to the booth and returned one bag instead of keeping it for himself.

The volunteers have not only been touched by the honesty and compassion of those receiving their charity, but also by anonymous givers. An unnamed stranger phoned one of them at 5 a.m. and offered to make them banh cuon (rice paper rolls) for breakfast.

One elderly man delivered free rice to the group in the rain and several policemen pitched in, saying: "If everyone donates a little bit, people will benefit."

On Monday morning, a 60-year-old woman came to Quynh and donated VND500,000 ($21.33) that she did not use to shop for food.

"We can eat vegetables and eggs this week, so we still have money left to support poor families," she said. She even promised to come back to donate more when she received her pension, Quynh said.

The poor are generous

Nguyen Bao Chau, a Vietnamese organizer of a volunteer group in Melbourne, Australia, said many poor people have undeniable dignity, self-respect and generosity of spirit.

She said a single woman, one of the first to come to her group for help, got just five kg of rice and a few other items, because the group had received very little money from sponsors at that time.

When they managed to buy more rice later, she texted the single mother to come and collect more, but the latter declined, saying "when I run out I will ask, so other mothers can have the rice too."

Chau said many donors to her group are unemployed women, mothers with scarce resources, but they still support the cause.

"A woman who recently lost her job because of Covid-19 does not have a personal vehicle, but she still walked to the store to buy cloth to make face masks for giving them away.

"When she ran out of money, she told us to tell people that if needed, they can send the cloth to her and she will make the face masks for them," Chau said.

Across Vietnam, many initiatives have been established to help those in poverty to survive the epidemic, including rice ATMs which dispense rice for free and a supermarket selling essential items with a zero price tag.
More than 20 officials of the Indian Navy have been tested for coronavirus. While the test results are awaited, many are feared to have contracted the virus. The exact number of personnel is not known as of now.

Many aboard the INS Angre that is docked in Mumbai have tested positive for coronavirus. This is the first scenario of coronavirus spread in the Indian Navy fleet.

According to media reports, the first case was reported at the INS Angre on April 7. People who have come in contact with the infected person are being tested.

Most of the officials are asymptomatic and have been traced back to the first case of April 7. Following the Bhilwara model, all primary contacts even though asymptomatic were tested for COVID-19. Entire in-living block of INS Angre has been put under containment zone. INS Angre too is under lockdown.

This comes after reports stated that eight Indian Army personnel have tested positive for coronavirus. Army Chief Manoj Mukund Naravane on Friday said that of the infected, two are doctors and one is a nursing assistant. "So far, we have only 8 positive cases in the entire Indian Army, of which two are doctors and one nursing assistant, four are responding well to treatment and we had one case in Ladakh, now he is fully cured and has joined duty," news agency ANI quoted Naravane.

(This is a developing story)

Also read: PM CARES Fund: Cabinet Secy Gauba starts fund collection drive in ministries, PSUs

Also read: Coronavirus fallout: Retiree-investors, pensioners hit as RBI bans dividend payment by banks
Colorado Governor Jared Polis - a Jewish American - made a powerful statement knocking down Republican criticisms that likened coronavirus pandemic stay-at-home orders to Nazism.

During a press conference Wednesday, Democrat Polis was asked about criticism by state Republicans following lockdowns of non-essential activities and businesses in Colorado to help flatten the coronavirus curve.

'We're seeing a lot of rebellion out here against your orders, which have been called tyrannical against local health department orders, being equated to Nazism,' a reporter said during the press conference.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis said Wednesday he was 'offended by the comparison to Nazism' by state Republicans over the state's stay-at-home order during the coronavirus pandemic

'How do you react to that, what do you say to those people who are clearly getting frustrated with this stay-at-home order?'

Polis said: 'Well, first of all, as a Jewish American who lost family in the Holocaust, I'm offended by any comparison to Nazism.'

Then, Polis - who is also openly gay - choked up with emotion as he continued: 'We act to save lives  the exact opposite of the slaughter of six million Jews and many Gypsies and Catholics and gays and lesbians and Russians and so many others.'

Colorado's House Minority Leader Patrick Neville, a Republican, had said in a March 25 interview that the the stay-at-home order issued by the Tri-County Health Department in Denver, Colorado, led to a 'Gestapo-like mentality,' according to 9 News.

Polis (pictured Friday) also reminded residents that disobeying the stay-at-home order is 'not a contest to see what you can get away with'

Colorado's House Minority Leader Patrick Neville (pictured), a Republican, had said the Denver health department's stay-at-home order led to a 'Gestapo-like mentality'

The Gestapo was Hitler's secret police, who were responsible for eliminating opposition go the Nazi party and were involved in rounding up Jews and sending them to extermination camps.

During the interview, Neville complained that the stay-at-home order was unnecessary because 'something like 40 people, maybe its 80 people' had been hospitalized with coronavirus, according to the Colorado Times Reporter.

Less than a month later, Colorado currently has more than 9,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and 391 deaths, according to CBS Denver.

During the Wednesday press conference, Polis reminded Colorado residents that despite the difficulty of adhering to the stay-at-home order, 'it's not a contest to see what you can get away with. It's a contest to see how well you can stay at home.'

'By not staying at home, by having parties, by congregating, you're not sticking it to the government. You're not sticking it to Jared Polis. You're sticking it to yourself, because you're putting yourself and your loved ones in jeopardy, and you're prolonging the economic pain and difficulties that your fellow Coloradans face,' Polis said in the video shared by the Denver Post.

'Now's a time for us to act with unity, to act together, to do the best we can to stay at home except when absolutely necessary, so that we can open up sooner rather than later, so that we can have more freedom quicker rather than later,' Polis added.

The statewide stay-at-home order in Colorado went into effect March 26 and is currently extended through April 26.
American intelligence services have reportedly launched a full-scale investigation into a lab in Wuhan, China, over claims that scientists there allowed the novel coronavirus to escape as part of a botched experiment, leading to a global pandemic.

China has denied speculation that the pathogen originated inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab, though US government agencies are now said to be piecing together a timeline of what authorities in Beijing knew so as to 'create an accurate picture of what happened.'

Sources told Fox News on Friday that American analysts will present their findings 'in the near term' to President Trump, who will then huddle with aides in order to determine how to hold China accountable for the pandemic.

The American intelligence sources told Fox News that analysts in Washington have ruled out the theory that the coronavirus was engineered by Chinese scientists as a bioweapon.

The United States government has reportedly launched a full-scale investigation into whether the coronavirus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab in Wuhan, China

Spy agencies are expected to hand their conclusions over to President Trump (above) who will then decide on how to 'hold China accountable,' according to reports

Experts note that the genome mapping of the virus indicates that there were no genetic alterations made to it.

US sources told Fox News they believe that 'patient zero' became infected with coronavirus as it was being studied inside the lab.

The infected person then is believed to have spread the virus throughout the city and onwards.

The broad scientific consensus holds that SARS-CoV-2, the official name of the coronavirus, originated in bats.

The Wuhan lab is China's only bio-safety level four (BSL-4) facility, and has long been eyed with suspicion as scientists try to determine how the deadly virus crossed over into humans.

However, suspicion of the lab was quickly dismissed as a 'conspiracy theory' by some who insisted, like the Chinese leadership, that a wild animal market must have been the source.

Although the earliest confirmed case in Wuhan was a person who had no connection to the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market, Chinese officials quickly pinned the blame on the market, a talking point that was eagerly repeated by the World Health Organization.

'A large proportion of the initial cases in late December 2019 and early January 2020 had a direct link to the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market in Wuhan City, where seafood, wild, and farmed animal species were sold,' the WHO website says about the possible origins of the pandemic, while acknowledging the exact source of the outbreak has not been determined.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Thursday he doesn't believe the Chinese government has been transparent about the coronavirus

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News on Wednesday that Chinese officials need to 'open up' about how the coronavirus originated in their country

'Many of the initial patients were either stall owners, market employees, or regular visitors to this market. Environmental samples taken from this market in December 2019 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, further suggesting that the market in Wuhan City was the source of this outbreak or played a role in the initial amplification of the outbreak,' the WHO says.

Though scientists say that genetic evidence indicates the virus was not artificially engineered, likely originated in bats, and probably crossed over to a human in a single event, there is nothing in the genetic data to indicate exactly where and how the virus first crossed to humans.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Thursday was more cautious when asked by NBC News whether he believes that the coronavirus originated from the lab.

The Pentagon chief told the TODAY show that 'a majority of the views right now is that it is natural, it is organic.'

Nonetheless, Esper said he didn't believe the Chinese government was being forthright about the origins of the coronavirus.

'I find it hard to trust much of what comes out of the Chinese Communist Party,' Esper said.

'They've been misleading us, they've been opaque, if you will, from the early days of this virus.

Workers are seen next to a cage with mice (right) at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in a file photo. US officials reportedly believe coronavirus first crossed over to humans inside the lab

'So I don't have much faith that they're even been truthful with us now.'

Esper added: 'We can't have one of the largest nations in the world hiding information or not being transparent when it comes to helping us deal with this.'

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded that China 'come clean' about what it knows.

Trump said on Wednesday the U.S. is trying to determine whether the coronavirus first crossed to humans accidentally during experiments with bats at the Wuhan Institute of Virology Lab.

After word of the outbreak finally became public, Chinese leaders were quick to blame Wuhan's 'wet market' where wild animals -- though not bats -- are sold for consumption, leading one source to tell Fox News the debacle is the 'costliest government coverup of all time.'

'Patient zero' worked at the Wuhan lab, and spread the virus into the local population after leaving work, sources who had been briefed on intelligence told the outlet.

China has refuted claims that the virus may have originated in a laboratory near the city of Wuhan where contagious samples were being stored.

'What we do know is we know that this virus originated in Wuhan, China,' Pompeo told Fox News on Wednesday evening. 'We know there is the Wuhan Institute of Virology just a handful of miles away from where the wet market was. There is still lots to learn. The United States government is working diligently to figure it out.'

Asked about the new allegations at a White House press conference on Wednesday, Trump replied cryptically: 'More and more, we're hearing the story.'

'We are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation that happened,' Trump said.

Asked if he had raised the subject in his conversations with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said: 'I don't want to discuss what I talked to him about the laboratory, I just don't want to discuss, it's inappropriate right now.'

Pompeo said in the interview that 'one of the best ways they [China] could find to cooperate would be to let the world in and to let the world's scientists know exactly how this came to be; exactly how this virus began to spread.'

'[There were] a lot of cases [and] a lot of movement; a lot of travel around the world before the Chinese Communist Party came clean about what really transpired there,' the secretary of state continued. 'These are the kinds of things that open governments [and] democracies don't do. It's why there's such risk associated with the absence of transparency. We need it still today.'

US diplomats warned of inadequate safety at the Wuhan lab (seen in a file photo), including risky experiments being done to identify coronaviruses in bats

A colorized scanning electron micrograph of an apoptotic cell (red) heavily infected with SARS-COV-2 virus particles (yellow), isolated from a patient sample

In early 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the Wuhan lab, including that it was conducting risky studies on pathogens in the coronavirus family in bats, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the lab and proposed more international assistance.

The Wuhan lab was originally set up with assistance from the French and American governments, but in recent years the Chinese have rebuffed international assistance there and tried to prove their ability to work independently.

After the coronavirus outbreak began, officials at the lab destroyed samples of the virus, erased early reports, and suppressed academic papers, sources told Fox News.

China is refuting allegations that the coronavirus pandemic may have originated in a laboratory near the city of Wuhan where contagious samples were being stored.

Officials at the Wuhan lab have previously dismissed any allegation that the virus emerged from the facility, calling them baseless conspiracy theories.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian cited the head of the World Health Organization and other unidentified medical experts as saying there was no evidence that transmission began from the lab and there was 'no scientific basis' for such claims.

'We always believe that this is a scientific issue and requires the professional assessment of scientists and medical experts,' Zhao told reporters at a daily briefing on Thursday.

'Only with reasonable response can the international community win this fight,' Zhao said. 'China will continue to work together with other countries to help and support each other.'

China has also strongly denied claims it delayed reporting on the virus outbreak in Wuhan late last year and underreported case numbers, worsening the impact on the U.S. and other countries.

On Wednesday, it emerged that top Chinese officials waited six days to warn the public after becoming aware that a viral outbreak was causing a rash of deadly pneumonia cases in Wuhan.

In the meantime, residents in Wuhan hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people, and millions began traveling for Lunar New Year celebrations.

A worker is seen ninside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan. Chinese leaders waited six days after becoming aware of the outbreak in Wuhan to warn the public

Chinese President President Xi Jinping waited six days to warn the public after learning of the deadly outbreak in Wuhan that has gone on to kill 130,000 around the world

President Xi Jinping warned the public on the seventh day after top Communist Party leaders learned of the outbreak, January 20.

In the meantime, the Chinese government arrested or silenced doctors and citizens in Wuhan who tried to speak out about the disturbing new outbreak.

Even the mayor of Wuhan suggested in an interview with Chinese state television that Communist Party leadership prohibited him from warning the public until January 20.

By the time Xi issued the public warning, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence, according to internal documents and expert estimates based on retrospective infection data.

The delay from January 14 to January 20 by the first country to face the new coronavirus came at a critical time - the beginning of the outbreak.

China's delay set the stage for a pandemic that has infected more than 2 million people and taken more than 133,000 lives worldwide.

'This is tremendous,' said Zuo-Feng Zhang, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. 'If they took action six days earlier, there would have been much fewer patients and medical facilities would have been sufficient. We might have avoided the collapse of Wuhans medical system.'

Experts say that Chinas rigid controls on information, bureaucratic hurdles and a reluctance to send bad news up the chain of command muffled early warnings.

The punishment of eight doctors for 'rumor-mongering,' broadcast on national television on January 2, sent a chill through the citys hospitals.

'Doctors in Wuhan were afraid,' said Dali Yang, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Chicago. 'It was truly intimidation of an entire profession.'

Without these internal reports, it took the first case outside China, in Thailand on January 13, to galvanize leaders in Beijing into recognizing the possible pandemic before them.

It was only then that they launched a nationwide plan to find cases - distributing test kits, easing the criteria for confirming cases and ordering health officials to screen patients.

They also instructed officials in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, to begin temperature checks at transportation hubs and cut down on large public gatherings. And they did it all without telling the public.

The Chinese government has repeatedly denied suppressing information in the early days, saying it immediately reported the outbreak to the World Health Organization.

'Those accusing China of lacking transparency and openness are unfair,' foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Wednesday

US general admits 'we can't be certain' whether coronavirus originated at 'poorly run' lab in Wuhan

An Army general has said that the Wuhan lab cannot be ruled out as the source of the outbreak.

'There's a lot of rumor and speculation in a wide variety of media, the blog sites, etc,' Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said when asked if there was any evidence the coronavirus may have been developed in a Chinese laboratory.

'It should be no surprise to you that we've taken a keen interest in that and we've had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that,' he said.

U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman Army Gen. Mark Milley addresses a news conference as Defense Secretary Mark Esper listens at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia on Thursday

'And I would just say, at this point, it's inconclusive although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural. But we can't be certain.'

Other top experts have insisted that the truth needs to be pursued, wherever it leads.

'I don't think it's a conspiracy theory. I think it's a legitimate question that needs to be investigated and answered,' Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley told the Post.

'To understand exactly how this originated is critical knowledge for preventing this from happening in the future.'

China has not been forthcoming about many aspects of the early outbreak, and Trump recently said the country may not be revealing the whole truth about their rate of COVID-19 infections and deaths.

Trump and other officials have expressed deep skepticism of China's officially declared death toll from the virus of around 3,000 people, when the United States has a death toll of more than 20,000 and rising.

He returned to the subject on Wednesday, saying the United States has more cases 'because we do more reporting.'

'Do you really believe those numbers in this vast country called China, and that they have a certain number of cases and a certain number of deaths; does anybody really believe that?' he said.
As New York has become the epicenter of coronavirus pandemic in the US, Robert De Niro says the city feels the same as it did during 9/11.

The veteran actor, who has never minced his words while criticising President Donald Trump, said he was unimpressed by the delayed response of the federal government, reported Deadline.

I wish that people, the government had acted earlier. They had enough warning. Because we would not be at this stage of this pandemic, I think, if that had happened, De Niro said during an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper.

The New York native was asked how New York feels compared to after 9/11.

It feels the same, except this is like something we see in a movie. It happened so fast. It's unreal to see every big city in the world just sort of empty. You only see that in a movie, and it's happening to us, De Niro said.

The 76-year-old Hollywood star, however, praised the state's governor Andrew Cuomo for his great job.

It's so refreshing to see him speak and take charge, no matter what happens He took action.

De Niro also appreciated Dr Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

I think he's great. He's a New Yorker. Italian-American. I understand him without him having to say too much.

The official death toll in the U.S. has topped 35,000, with more than 700,000 confirmed infections.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The South-West Governors forum has announced a unanimous decision to shut down borders in all the six states of the region.

This was contained in a statement signed by the Chairman of the forum and Ondo state governor, Rotimi Akeredolu. The governors agreed on the following;

i. That as Owner State Governors we dissolve the Board of Directors of ODUA Investment Limited with immediate effect. The Group Managing Director should take charge of the conglomerate affairs pending the constitution of a new Board.

ii. That the Entry Points of our six States be closed forthwith to contain the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.

iii. That the State Governors agreed that people involved in essential services or dealing in medicine, water and consumable items in particular Traders and market men/women should endeavour to wear nose masks while outside plying their trade to minimize the spread of the deadly virus.

iv. The Governors further agreed that wearing of nose masks will be made compulsory for everybody coming out of their homes effective from Friday 24th April 2020 in their respective States.

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Bollywood actor Aamir Khan was mistakenly named a killer by a Pakistani TV channel and was heavily trolled online for it. Journalist Naila Inayat shared a screenshot of the channel when a news item about a murder accused named Amir Khan was run with the picture of the actor.

Inayat tweeted, Headline: After 17 years MQM leader Amir Khan exonerated in a murder case.Didnt know Indian actor Amir Khan was in Pakistan for the last 17 years..

Also read: Sergio movie review: Narcos star Wagner Moura, Ana de Armas add fire to Netflixs faulty biopic of fearless man

Headline: After 17 years MQM leader Amir Khan exonerated in a murder case.



Didn't know Indian actor Amir Khan was in Pakistan for the last 17 years.. pic.twitter.com/YcUmg6LKfk  Naila Inayat   (@nailainayat) April 16, 2020

The channel realised the mistake soon and fixed it but screenshots are already going viral online. A fan of the actor responded, Not sure about 17 years & physically, but for 55 yrs surely mentally and by heart !!

Aamir Khan was working on Laal Singh Chaddha before the lockdown was announced last month in wake of coronavirus pandemic. It is an official remake of Forest Gump and also stars Kareena Kapoor Khan. In the film, Aamir plays a Sikh man on a cross-country journey.

Desribing the character, Aamir had told Hindustan Times, This character is very lovable. Hes so innocent he has got this different way of looking at things. Hes someone you immediately empathise with when you connect. Unless I perform it badly (laughs), then its a different game. As a written character, its such that youd fall in love with him straightaway.

Aamir was last seen Thugs of Hindostan. He told Hindustan Times that he felt obligated to apologise to fans after it didnt work. I felt emotionally that I should address it and apologise to people for not living up to the expectations, he said.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
REDDING, Calif. - Redding Police Officials say they arrested a man just five days after he had been released from state prison because of coronavirus concerns.

Officials say this occurred on Saturday, April 18 at 2:21 a.m., officers from the Redding Police Department responded to the 800 block of State Street on the report of a white male subject prowling near a residence in the area.

Police say while officers were en route to the call for service, the reporting party informed the Shascom 911 dispatcher that the male subject was trying to get into the residence by repeatedly banging on the front door while aggressively manipulating the locked door handle.

Officers say they arrived on scene and located Anthony Parks, 31, of Shasta Lake City, in front of the residence. Officers immediately observed that Parks displayed the signs and symptoms of being under the influence of a central nervous system stimulant.

An investigation of the incident revealed that Mr. Parks had prowled through several residential yards prior to being contacted by the Redding Police Department. Officers further determined that Mr. Parks was on Post Release Community Supervision for violation of Penal Code 422- Criminal/Terrorist Threats and Penal Code 21310- Possession of Concealed Dirk/Dagger, and his release from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) had been expedited as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Officials say Anthony Parks had been out of CDCR custody for 5 days prior to this incident and is one of approximately 50 CDCR inmates who are in the process of being released to Shasta County from the state prison system as a protective measure to slow the spread of the Coronavirus within the state prison system.

Anthony Parks was ultimately booked into the Shasta County Jail for Prowling and for violating the terms of his Post-Release Community Supervision.
The mountains are high and the emperor is far away, goes the Chinese proverb. Over the years, the chorus of warnings on the wildlife trade and sale of live animals has steadily grown louder.

For too long, governments across the world have made overtures to curb this crisis of animal rights, but they have turned a blind eye to the continued growth of the industry in their own backyards. The threat to public health has been known to us for centuries, even since the Black Death.

But it is not going away. Rather it is becoming a more serious and sustained threat to the modern world. Indeed, zoonotic diseases are responsible for 2.5 billion cases of human illness and 2.7 million deaths every year around the world. As human civilisation expands into more animal habitats, and the exploitation of the natural world continues, these infectious diseases are likely to become ever more common.

Researchers and experts have been warning of the threat of zoonotic viruses from Asias wildlife trade for some time. One academic paper from 2017 warns that the rise of China, a cradle of such diseases since the Black Death, would almost certainly herald a new wave.

Recommended Banning wildlife markets will help protect us from the next pandemic

Income growth means more Chinese consumers can afford the rare meats seen as luxury, fuelling the demand that leads to smuggling, corruption and illegal markets. Urbanisation increases the risk of a disease becoming an epidemic. And globalisation brings China closer to the world. Just as the bubonic plague bacteria spread across the ancient silk roads to reach Europe, the coronavirus was carried from Wuhan across the globe in Boeing 747s and cruise liners.

While huge swathes of the rest of the world pull down the shutters on shops, businesses and markets, and impose lockdowns to halt the terrifying spread of the disease, there are markets in filthy conditions across China and southeast Asia selling live animals. The general trend is that territories further from Beijing and the east coast have more flagrant abuses.

Chinas growing international clout also threatens to ramp up the illegal wildlife trade. While it has traditionally relied upon its close neighbours, Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos, for certain animals such as pangolins and dogs, its global ambitions could change this.

Its Belt and Road Initiative, a massive state-backed programme of investment across 60 countries to stimulate growth and trade and cement influence, might ease the illegal wildlife trade and put habitats of rare species like Asian brown bears and Persian leopards within reach, according to an article in one nature journal.

 The WHO and governments globally are facing pleas to halt the sale of animals in unhygienic conditions and wildlife trade

China has taken steps to control the wildlife trade. In February, it instituted a temporary ban on selling and eating wild animals, and authorities moved to close markets across the country. At the beginning of this month, the Ministry of Agriculture hinted that the dog meat trade could be outlawed.

Jill Robinson, the founder of an organisation that runs animal sanctuaries in China and Vietnam for trafficked bears, warned me that we need a sea change in our attitude towards animals and the cultural practices surrounding their treatment.

Markets have unsanitary conditions, and vast amounts of antibiotics are being used simply to keep the animals alive. This latest outbreak calls for great change globally and no country is immune. Governments must now take the decision to make massive and sweeping change or risk the next deadly virus that is waiting in the wings.

Evgeny Lebedev is proprietor of The Independent and Evening Standard
Sgt Laura Bolger, Garda Alan Collins and Garda Elisha Doyle at a garda checkpoint at Toberduff, one of many checkpoints that took place across the district over the weekend

Fears that North Wexford would face an influx of holiday-makers over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend failed to materialise as gardai reported minimal activity at checkpoints throughout the area.

Having spent the week preparing for a wave of visitors and liaising with holiday park owners, Sergeant Stephen Ennis said the majority of people they encountered were locals going to and from their residences.

'The checkpoints were quiet over the weekend, it was just local traffic. We were very happy with the level of compliance and the message to stay at home is definitely getting though. It was very quiet in general throughout Easter,' said the Sergeant.

Although gardai turned some holidaymakers away on Wednesday and Thursday of last week, by Good Friday everything had gone quiet.

'We had been assessing the situation all week in the lead up, and engaged with different camp site owners. We were were happy with the compliance of the people as we had an awful lot of cooperation. It's something we hope to keep going over the next few weeks, to encourage people to stay at home,' said Sergeant Ennis.

'Over the weekend we had check points, foot patrols, mountain bike patrols and uniform patrols to deal with every situation. We have a number of steps we take, but when we turned people around, they've done what they were asked.

'We were concerned about the good weather initially, but the majority have taken the advice of the national public health emergency team. Closing the car parks at beaches and beauty spots was a good move, and we've been working in conjunction with Wexford County Council'.

Last week, John Breen, who runs Tara Meadows Holiday Park in Ballmoney, had warned that if holidaymakers came to Wexford they would 'jeopardise' the hard work of others. But he was happy to report minimal activity in both his holiday park and the region in general.

'It's been very quiet, we're happy,' John said. 'It seems that common sense has prevailed. 99% of people realised they have to stay at home, and we'd like to thank people for not coming and for staying away.'
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards toured a production center Friday at Louisiana State University's Pete Maravich Assembly.The center is making Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for those on the frontline of the fight against COVID-19.

"And one of the things that I appreciate most about it. It's very timely because we've actually seen some improvements in the full PPE from traditional vendors and distributors, but that mostly have to do with masks and gloves, not yet gowns," he said.

The state death toll hit, 1,213, up 57. But statewide hospitalizations were down to 1, 868 as of Friday.

There were over 1,900 reported hospitalized a day earlier and the figures were well over 2,000 last week.

The total number of known cases in the state surpassed 23,000 as of Friday.

The governor said the state might reopen slowly, but stressed on the need for social distancing if that were to happen.

"We have a significant issue with COVID in Louisiana and so things don't happen as fast here as they might happen in Idaho or Utah. That's for good reason. We're just we're just not in the same place here," he said.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough.

For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The vast majority of people recover from the new virus.

(Image Credit: AP)
Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB) and ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) dividends are now yielding the most they have in over 30 years, at 11.5% and 8.1%, respectively. At first glance, this makes now seem like an attractive entry point for two of the most well-known oil and gas companies. However, both Schlumberger and ExxonMobil have more aggressive strategies relative to their peers in terms of spending and debt, and their rising dividend yields have been fueled by their stock prices falling in response to the collapse of oil prices.

In this matchup, despite its lower yield, ExxonMobil is the better dividend stock due to its superior balance sheet, diverse business portfolio, and the ability to operate in lower oil environments. However, Exxon, like other strong oil and gas companies, faces its share of challenges in a $20 oil environment. A better understanding of both Schlumberger's and Exxon's hardships could indicate that many of the industry's dividend yields are at risk.

Schlumberger

In its heyday, Schlumberger and oilfield services peers like Halliburton and Baker Hughes were coveted oil and gas companies. From the dawn of the shale revolution in about 2005 to just before the oil crash of 2014, Schlumberger was front and center, supplying services and technologies to shale plays across America. Schlumberger was instrumental in developing, servicing, and supporting many of the onshore and offshore oil and gas fields that led to the U.S. becoming the leading oil-and gas-producing country in the world.

Since 2014, Schlumberger has been struggling to succeed in a lower oil price environment, and its stock has fallen over 80%. Compared to Baker Hughes, Schlumberger is more focused on the upstream segment of oil and gas, meaning drilling, exploration, and production, leaving the company vulnerable to falling oil prices. Schlumberger's core business depends on new activity in the oil patch and that isn't what we're seeing.

Since 2015, net income and free cash flow (FCF) have fallen off a cliff, although FCF has somewhat stabilized. Since increasing it in 2015, Schlumberger has not decreased its $0.50-per-share quarterly dividend, although this provides small consolation for shareholders who have lost much more on the declining stock price.

According to the Baker Hughes rig count, onshore crude oil rigs in the U.S. closed April 10 at 504. In April of last year, the number was over 800. Commodity traders are so desperate to avoid selling their oil that they are storing it in everything from tanks to supertankers to even rail cars. Research firm IHS Markit believes that the world will run out of storage by the middle of the year.

Low oil prices and declining rig counts are bad enough for the oil and gas industry as a whole, but they are even worse for Schlumberger, which has a weak balance sheet and debt to capital, financial debt to equity, and total net long-term debt near 10-year highs.

Oversupply in the oil market; the collapse in demand from coronavirus-related decreases in transportation and industrial production; and a two-month, 10-million-barrel-per-day (BPD) OPEC+ production cut that is too little too late will likely mean oil prices below $40 or $30 for, at minimum, the next quarter.

At $100 oil, Schlumberger is a cash cow that is arguably one of the best stocks in the market. At $50 oil, Schlumberger is barely getting by. At $30 oil and below, Schlumberger is in nothing short of a crisis.

ExxonMobil

ExxonMobil is an aggressive supermajor that prides itself on innovating to be the best oil and gas company in the world, whereas its competitors are more focused on renewables. The company's high capital spending program is focused on achieving the scale needed to lower costs and drive efficiency. During Exxon's 2020 investor day on March 5, as the coronavirus pandemic was taking form, CEO Darren Woods highlighted "the advantages we expect to gain from really leaning into this market when others have pulled back, and while saying that, [we] remain very mindful of the challenges of the current market environment."

Since then, the tone has shifted, to the tune of a 30% reduction in capital expenditures and a 15% reduction in cash operating expenditures that Exxon announced on April 7. That 30% reduction will mostly impact the company's Permian investments. As I noted in a previous article, Exxon's Permian investments stand out as something to trim during this time.

Note that Exxon has to invest in some sort of oil and gas project to avoid the depletion in its assets. So in a lower oil price environment, it's still cost-effective for Exxon to allocate resources toward its long-term investments in Guyana, Brazil, and other existing projects as they represent a better long-term return at this point in the project development stage than Permian shale assets. Though the Permian shale assets are flexible and offer a quicker return than starting a new megaproject, leaving Exxon in a position to quickly ramp up production if oil prices rise to profitable.

Aside from its production plans, Exxon remains committed to paying its dividend. "Our objective is to continue investing in industry-advantaged projects to create value, preserve cash for the dividend and make appropriate and prudent use of our balance sheet," said Exxon in its April 7 press release. It's worth noting that Exxon is a Dividend Aristocrat, having raised its dividend for 37 consecutive years, and hasn't cut its payout since 1948 (split-adjusted). This is no small accomplishment for Exxon considering the ups and downs that the oil market faced during that 37-year time frame.

But this also puts Exxon between a rock and a hard place. If it cuts its dividend, it will lose Dividend Aristocrat status and anger income investors. If it doesn't cut its dividend, it almost certainly has to fund it using debt, and that's a drag on the business long term.

The safer bet. But is it one you want to make?

Exxon's complete flip-flop from "leaning into this market" to massively cutting its capital spending is an indication that Exxon is admitting it was wrong and now recognizes the severity of this oil crash. This change of heart from ambition to prudence is a good sign for income investors who believe that Exxon is a solid long-term oil and gas play.

There's never been a better time to collect Exxon's dividend, but there also hasn't ever been an oversupply paired with a demand shock of this magnitude either. ExxonMobil is certainly a risky bet, but its stock and its dividend are loads safer than a company like Schlumberger that is struggling to stay afloat.
Actor and former Bigg Boss



contestant Ejaz Khan was arrested on Saturday for allegedly uploading an objectionable Facebook post, a Mumbai police official said on Saturday.

Khan was summoned to Khar police station in connection with the comment made during a Facebook live session and then placed under arrest, he said.

"He has been charged under section 153A and others of the IPC for promoting enmity among communities. Further probe is underway," he added.

Khan was arrested in July last year for posting objectionable videos that could allegedly have caused enmity among communities, police had said at the time.

In October 2018, he was held for allegedly possessing banned drugs, police said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The main Churches have thanked front line workers for their courage and compassion during the coronavirus pandemic.

Leaders from the Church of Ireland, Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian and Irish Council of Churches issued a joint statement on Friday after holding a weekly video call.

Church services remain suspended as coronavirus safety measures are due to continue for at least another three weeks.

Funeral services are permitted to take place, but only with small gatherings and those attending maintaining social distancing.

On Palm Sunday many churches also found new ways to reach members by streaming services live over the internet.

Following the latest Clap for Carers on Thursday evening, the joint statement praised the community spirit of those staying at home to protect one another from a terrible unseen enemy.

To be a community, in the real sense of the word, means that as individuals we acknowledge our interdependence and work together to achieve something for the greater good, which will benefit us all, the statement read.

In the last number of weeks we have witnessed the vast majority of people on this island working together in a way that has perhaps never been seen before, protecting one another from this terrible unseen enemy which is attacking our community. Deserted streets and roads are not signs of abandonment, but of love.

We have the greatest admiration for our healthcare workers who are literally serving on the front line in caring for the sick and dying, the statement read.

We offer our deepest thanks, commending them for their work, courage and compassion as we continue to remember them in our prayers. We also remember the countless others who are serving the community in ways, which in other circumstances, we would consider everyday  those involved in providing and selling food and essential items, pharmacists, and everyone working with the public for our wellbeing.

Church leaders said thanks was also due to individuals doing their part by staying home and abiding by the restrictions on normal life.

Promising that better days lie ahead, the statement called the weekly show of appreciation for carers as a wonderfully uplifting and meaningful act that was deeply appreciated by those on the front line.

The message concluded with the hope that once the pandemic had passed there would be a renewed strength of community and mutual appreciation across the island of Ireland.

When you go back into your homes each Thursday evening, may we encourage you to join with us in offering a prayer of thanksgiving to God for all those whom we have acknowledged in our round of applause. Please pray that they may know Gods strength and courage, safety, and blessing in their work. Pray too for those for whom they are caring  the sick, vulnerable, dying and all in distress, it added.
Masika Kalysha is known for being outspoken, especially during her time on the Love & Hip Hop franchise. She recently spoke out on social media, calling out Fabolous for using her name in a song. It all went down on Quarantine Radio, the Instagram live sessions that have been popularized by Tory Lanez.

Masika Kalysha in 2018 | JC Olivera/Getty Images

Masika Kalysha on Love & Hip Hop

Kalysha has been on three seasons of the show in total. She was a supporting cast member on the first season of the show. She returned to the show for the third season and was a main cast member. After this, she was in the fourth season as a supporting cast member again.

On the first season, most of her storyline was about the love triangle she was in with Mally Mall and Miss Nikki Baby. She also got thrust into a third love triangle, this time with Yung Berg and Hazel E. She remained in a feud with Hazel E over the situation with Yung Berg for much of her time on the show.

When she returned for the third season, her storyline mostly revolved around being pregnant with Fetty Waps baby and her feud with Alexis Skyy, an ex-girlfriend with Waps who he was allegedly with when Kalysha got pregnant.

Heres why Masika Kalysha is upset with Fabolous

In the latest Quarantine Radio live stream from Tory Lanez, Fabolous joined the musician to chat. During the session, Kalysha began watching and commented on the live, issuing a statement to Fabolous.

She wrote, Say my name one more d**n time in a song on some giddy s**t Fab and Imma RE-chip your tooth.

She didnt elaborate further about which lyrics she was talking about, especially as of recent, but Fabolous did reference Kalysha in a 2017 song. The lyrics actually referred to her drama on Skyy on Love & Hip Hop and their feud with Fetty Wap.

The song Theme Music was from Fabolous and Jadakiss. It also featured Swizz Beatz. Fabolous lyric included the lines, Any questions, asking above (woo!) / Any problems, mask and the gloves (ayy) / Jason and Freddy basically ready. Im like Masika and Alexis how Im chasing the fetti (G*****n!) Ugh.

Kalysha has yet to say anything else related to the matter. Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood returns later this year on VH1.
Oversight Members for CARES Act Announced, Chairperson Yet to Be Named

Republican and Democratic leaders have announced most of the members of a congressional panel to oversee the implementation of the CARES Act, a $2.2 trillion rescue package that provides economic relief amid the CCP virus pandemic. The chairperson of the panel is yet to be named.

President Donald Trump signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act or the CARES Act (H.R. 748) on March 27, 2020, amid severe economic disruptions caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as the novel coronavirus.

The five-member Congressional Oversight Commission is one of three mechanisms created by the CARES Act to oversee its implementation. Specifically, the commission will focus on the activities of the Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve, including a $500 billion fund to be distributed by the Treasury Department to distressed industries and businesses.

The panel will hold hearings and submit monthly reports of its findings to Congress.

The five-members are selected by Senate majority and minority leaders as well as the House speaker and minority leader.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced on Friday that Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) will be one of the five members, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced later on Friday Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.) to the panel.

Earlier Friday, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) named Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) to the panel, and last week, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) named Bharat Ramamurti, a former aide to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

McConnell and Pelosi will jointly select the fifth and final seat, the chair of the commission.

McConnell also announced on Friday that Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, will lead and coordinate the Senates oversight of the CARES Act.

The Members

Toomey, appointed by McConnell, had served in the House for three terms until 2005 and was elected to the Senate in 2010. He is a former chairman of the conservative economic organization Club for Growth. In a statement, McConnell said Toomey is one of the sharpest members of the Senate.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) leaves the Senate chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 30, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

He is a leader on economics and finance and a key member of the finance, banking, and budget committees, McConnell also said. The commission will benefit greatly from his expertise.

Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.) speaks during a House Rules Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 17, 2019. (Patrick Semansky, Pool/AP Photo)

Shalala, appointed by Pelosi, is the longest-serving health secretary in U.S. history, appointed by former president Bill Clinton in 1993. Pelosi in a statement called Shalala a deeply respected and highly accomplished leader in the Congress and country.

Her leadership as Secretary of Health and Human Services will serve the American people extremely well, as she works to ensure that this historic coronavirus relief package is being used wisely and efficiently to protect the lives and livelihoods of the American people, and not be exploited by profiteers and price-gougers, Pelosi said.

Hill, appointed by McCarthy, was a banker and served as a Treasury Department official before he was elected to the House in 2014.

French has been a leader serving his constituents in Arkansas and our nation as Congress crafted the most ambitious relief package in history, McCarthy said in a statement. His personal background  provides important expertise that will guide his advocacy of immediate and effective solutions for the American people struggling from the despair during this crisis. French will do a terrific job.

Ramamurti, appointed by Schumer, was the Deputy Policy Director for Economic Policy during Sen. Elizabeth Warrens presidential campaign.

Schumer in a statement said that Ramamurti is a ferocious advocate for consumers who will fight for transparency and hold bad actors accountable.

Im confident his experience and expertise will help ensure robust accountability, oversight, and transparency of the Treasury and Federal Reserves loan programs and protect the Congresss clear intent to have these funds go to companies that are committed to putting workers first, Schumer added.
<! Mallam Abba Kyari : body arrives Abuja >

The body of Mallam Abba Kyari has arrived Abuja from Lagos.

Mallam Garba Shehu, President Buharis spokesman announced this on Saturday.

But he said there would be no public burial for the chief of staff, who died Friday.

The funeral prayer and burial will be private, Shehu tweeted.

We just received the body of Abba Kyari the deceased Chief of Staff the President in Abuja.

In strict observation of the protocol put in place for the burial of Coronavirus victims by the @NCDCgov and the Federal Ministry of Health, the funeral prayer and burial will be private Shehu tweeted.

For the army of crocodile wailers, Shehu warned them to keep off the State House.

There will be no such ceremonies as condolence visits.

Well-meaning friends, family members and the general public are encouraged to pray for the repose of Abba Kyaris soul, Shehu added.
A 33-year-old man was killed in a three-vehicle crash Friday on the South Side.

San Antonio police said Levi David Anderton was driving a 2018 Dodge Challenger and was trying to follow friends across Texas 16 near Mission Gate at around midnight, when the crash occurred.

As he attempted to cross the highway, he was T-boned by a Dodge Ram and then again on the driver's side by a Toyota Camry, police said. Both vehicles were travelling southbound.

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Police said the Challenger's driver's side door was badly crushed and had to be cut open by the San Antonio Fire Department.

Police said Anderton died less than 30 minutes after they arrived.

No criminal charges are pending for the other drivers, police said.
Sheetz at 4651 Lindle Rd. in Harrisburg will close temporarily the company said Friday after an employee tested positive for the coronavirus.

The convenience store chain has closed store locations when they learn that an employee has COVID-19.

Nick Ruffner, public relations manager at Sheetz, released the following statement:

"Sheetz has been informed that an employee at our store location on Lindle Road in Harrisburg has tested positive for COVID-19. Since the beginning of this crisis, we have been focused on the health and wellness of our customers and employees. Because of this positive test, this store location is closed immediately and will be professionally deep cleaned and disinfected before reopening.

Our gas pumps will also be sanitized and cleaned. This employee last worked on April 4.

According to the Centers for Disease Control guidelines there are currently no customers or employees at risk. All employees will be fully paid while this store remains closed. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this closure and will continue to prioritize the well-being of our customers and employees as we join the nation in navigating this unprecedented health crisis.

Rite Aid Foundation to donate $5 million to various charities in response to the coronavirus pandemic

Live webinar offered to help businesses prepare for post-coronavirus rush of consumer spending

Gov. Tom Wolf unveils 6-point plan for reopening Pa.; heres his list
dusanpetkovic/iStock(WASHINGTON)  The Trump administration will spend $19 billion on a relief program for farmers struggling during the novel coronavirus pandemic, including a new approach to send billions of dollars of agricultural products to food banks and other organizations around the country.

Our farmers, ranchers, we have, these are great people. Great Americans. Never complain. They never complain. They just do what they have to do. The program will include direct payments to farmers as well as mass purchases of dairy, meat and agricultural produce, to get that food to the people in need, President Donald Trump said at Friday nights briefing.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said $16 billion of the program would be in direct payments to farmers who have experienced losses during the pandemic and will spend $3 billion to buy agricultural products. The program will begin by purchasing $100 million a month each in fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, and meat products.

Having to dump milk or plow under vegetables ready to market is not only financially distressing, but it's heartbreaking as well to those who produce them. This program will not only provide direct financial relief to our farmers and ranchers. Mr. President, it will allow for the purchase and distribution of our agricultural abundance in this country to help our fellow Americans in need, Perdue said.

In recent weeks, weve seen, all of us have seen the heroic patriotism of our food supply chain workers that have shown day in and day out, doing the work to serve the needs of fellow Americans, he said.

Perdue said the plan includes an out of the box solution to some of the disruptions in the supply chain by using commercial distributors like Cisco to package bulk products into a pre-approved box of dairy, meat and produce products. He said the approach hopes to use those companies employees to help take some of the workload from food banks that report they are short on volunteers to help with the incredible demand.

If you don't mind the pun, this is an out of the box example of what we're trying to do. It is new and different. We've never done this before but in realigning the supply. Much of the conversation you've heard about milk dumping has been to do with the dual processing system we have in this country, he told reporters on a call Friday night.

He did not directly answer if this was a version of the Harvest Box program the department has proposed in previous budgets, to significant scrutiny from lawmakers, advocates, and food bank operators, and if that will slow down the process.

Sen. John Hoeven, chairman of the Senate Ag Appropriations Committee, released more details on the breakdown of direct payments to farmers. He says payments will account for 85% of farmers and ranchers losses between Jan. 1 and April 15, 2020. Perdue said they are pushing to have those relief checks out by the end of May.

Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation and a newly announced member of the White House economic advisory board, praised the announcement.

Were grateful to President Trump and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue for working together to come to the aid of Americas farmers and ranchers. The coronavirus pandemic forced the closing of restaurants, schools and college cafeterias, causing commodity prices to fall off a cliff and serious disruptions to food supply chains," Duvall said in a statement. "This $16 billion in aid will help keep food on Americans tables by providing a lifeline to farm families that were already hit by trade wars and severe weather.

Farmers and ranchers proudly accept the responsibility of feeding this nation and it's heartbreaking to be forced to dispose of milk and plow under crops of fresh food at a time when others are going hungry. We also appreciate the additional funding from other sources to help deliver food from farms to food banks," he continued. We look forward to additional details about how the aid will be distributed.

The nation's largest operator of food banks, Feeding America, also applauded the announcement. Along with the Farm Bureau, the groups have asked the USDA to consider ways to get food directly from farmers to food banks more quickly and expand SNAP benefits to Americans so they can buy food from local retailers. SNAP programs provide nine meals for every one donation provided to a food bank.

We are still examining the details, but this effort has the potential to be a significant food resource for people facing hunger," Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, CEO of Feeding America, said. "This program is designed to ensure nutritious food from growers and producers makes it on to the tables of our neighbors now when they need it most. We look forward to working closely with USDA on how to most efficiently operationalize the plan in the coming days.

USDA has taken a number of other actions to expand food assistance including the Pandemic EBT program that provides cash assistance to families, allowing states to operate disaster school lunch programs to distribute meals to families outside of the school setting, and expanding the number of states where SNAP recipients can use their benefits to buy food online.

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
New Delhi: All the 17 Moradabad stone pelters, who are accused of attacking a frontline healthcare workers, were on Saturday (April 18) sent to 14-day police custody after an urgent hearing was arranged for the matter at 3 am on Friday (April 17).

The Uttar Pradesh Police produced all the 17 accused, including seven women, before the remand magistrate at his official residence at 3 am today after which they were all sent to 14-day police custody. At 5:00 am today, all the accused were taken to the Moradabad jail and put behind bars, almost within two hours after the matter was heard by the magistrate. All have been kept in a separate barrack at the jail, possibly in a bid to quarantine them from other prisoners.

According to the police, a doctor and four other health workers were injured after a mob tried to stop a team from taking a coronavirus COVID-19 infected man into isolation and hurled stoned at them. The incident took place on April 15 at Nawabpura area in Moradabad.

Moradabad Chief Medical Officer Milind Garg said the mob suddenly appeared as the ambulance was driving away with the coronavirus-infected man and started pelting stones.

A total of 17 persons were arrested for pelting stones on the ambulance carrying a quarantine team of medical personnel and police.

Moradabad District Magistrate Rakesh Kumar Singh said the situation has been brought under control and police deployed in large numbers in the area.
More than two-thirds of kindergarten suspensions involve students with a disability, and many of those kids were sent home more than once, new figures show.

The NSW Department of Education data shows there were 1252 suspensions of 626 kindy kids in 2018  an average of two each  while over the four years to 2019, about 70 per cent of kindy suspensions involved students with a disability.

Across all primary school stages over the same period, an average of 73 per cent of suspensions involved students with disabilities. Within the general population of NSW public schools, 20 per cent of students are registered as having a disability.

Disability advocacy groups say young kids are being sent home for behaviour they cannot control. Credit:Gabriele Charotte

The group with the most total suspensions in primary school was stage 3 (years 5 and 6), with an annual average of 8418 in the four years to 2019, according to the figures provided by the department to NSW parliamentary budget estimates hearings.
Simon Harris says the health service is doing "relatively well" when it comes to getting PPE for healthcare workers.

The health minister has been responding to reports that HSE supplies of masks, gowns and gloves to some nursing homes were being limited based on how many suspected and confirmed cases they had.

Nursing Homes Ireland says it amounts to "rationing".

The CEO of NHI has launched a scathing attack on the health minister, saying questioning his "commitment to his own claims of not wanting to leave anyone behind in this pandemic".

"Understandably, the State has leaned upon nursing homes in recent weeks to ensure older people are removed from acute hospital settings. Now it is excluding the costs entailed to encompass their care needs during Covid-19. This is blatant discrimination, Tadhg Daly, NHI CEO said.

Nursing homes continue to be the neglected frontline in this pandemic.

"We continue not to be prioritised for resources and only receive attention when we cannot be ignored due to the scale of our crisis which is not of our making, cannot be managed by any sector on its own and was never visualised by anyone within existing funding for residents," he added.

"All nursing homes need PPE immediately to ensure that the virus is not introduced to the 70% of homes that are Covid-19-free. The memo is a complete contradiction to State pronouncements.

We also require supplies of PPE for a family member to be with relative at end of life, the reality is that supplies for nursing homes are being rationed.

Earlier, Simon Harris has said the country must 

Read More:

Staff and residents in all long-term residential care settings in the country are to be prioritised for testing in the coming 10 days, the health minister said, amid ongoing concern about infection clusters.

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It is safe to say that for the next year or so, life will not return to normal for the world. Even if the Indian epidemic peaks around May , as some experts are now predicting, it will take several months for the deaths to stop. And in the interim, and perhaps for months afterwards, it will still be considered dangerous to go to the cinema, to attend large weddings, to shake hands with strangers, etc.

But eventually, the epidemic will have to end. It is sometimes hard to recognise this because things look so bleak right now. The truth is that all epidemics end sometime. And this not even the worst epidemic of the last century or so.

Consider the Spanish Flu pandemic. It lasted from January 1918 to the end of 1920. Over half a billion people (yeah,billion  not million) were infected and over 50 million people died.

You can argue about the number of infections. So, the number of deaths is often a slightly more accurate way of gauging the extent of a pandemic.

In contrast, the Covid pandemic has been relatively mild. (As bizarre as this may sound.) According to official figures there have been 450 deaths in India so far. Even assuming that this an underestimate and that more will die in the weeks ahead, the total deaths will be under ten thousand (nearer 5,000 at the most, unless there is an unforeseen event).

This sounds terrible. And yet, it is nothing compared to the Spanish Flu. One estimate has it that 5 percent of Indias population died --- around 17 million people. If five percent of our population died now, that would be several crores (around six or seven crores).

When you see these figures, the havoc, death and devastation caused by Covid pales in comparison. And yet, as terrible as the Spanish Flu pandemic was, it did end.

And it ended without a cure being found or without a vaccine being developed.

In the 21st Century, we believed that pandemics could never happen because modern medicine has advanced to the level where any disease can be cured. That is why we look for miracle drugs or wait for a vaccine. But it seems unlikely that a Covid vaccine will be widely available over the next 12 months (at least). And yet, it seems probable that the scale of incidence of Covid will have reduced significantly even before scientists can find a cure.

History shows us that this is likely.

There are broadly, three ways, in which a pandemic ends.

The first is herd immunity. This is probably how the Spanish Flu ended. Herd immunity means that a virus has spread so widely through a community (in the case of Spanish Flu, the whole world) that the people who have survived it have developed immunity.

This is a risky strategy but there is no doubt that the UK government at least toyed with the idea in the early stages of the pandemic. The reasoning was that just as most Brits have immunity to measles and many strains of flu, the same immunity to Coronavirus could develop among the larger British population.

It is a difficult strategy for the layman to understand. The reason we have immunity to measles is that most of us contracted it as children. With the flu, there is reason to believe that antibodies to flu, which are in the blood of anyone who has had a mild attack, will protect them from more virulent strains.

But as Covid-19 is caused by a new virus which few of us have been exposed to, how would herd immunity develop?

A more likely consequence is that the virus would kill off large sections of the population (starting with the elderly) before such immunity developed.

Though the UK government denies this, critics argue that the reason the UK did not start on social distancing measures till it was almost too late was because it believed in herd immunity. If the government had acted promptly critics say, the UK would have not been so badly hit by the virus. Britain has had nearly 15,000 deaths, a lot more than India or even China, countries with much larger populations.

Another approach, made possible by modern medicine, is to manufacture Covid antibodies in a lab and to give them to those at risk from the virus. So far, nobody has done this successfully but there are promising reports of such antibodies being created.

Alternatively, you could invent a Covid vaccine and vaccinate the general population. Several groups of researchers are working on such a vaccine (which would make the body create its own antibodies) but the earliest we can expect one to be widely available is the second half of next year.

Yet another solution would be to find drugs that can beat the virus. This is not as easy it sounds.

Take, for instance, AIDS. We now have many drugs than can beat the symptoms and help the body fight the virus. Life expectancy after infection has increased so much that AIDS is no longer the death sentence it was in the 1980s.

But no, we still dont have a single drug that knocks out the virus. So it is with Covid. Even if the drugs that are much hyped (such as Hydroxychloroquine) do work  and there is no hard evidence that they do they dont knock out the virus but at best, help with the symptoms.

In the absence of a silver bullet, most societies fall back on a simple strategy: stopping the virus from spreading.

Though we did not notice this because it was so localised, in the early part of the century, China beat SARS by using the same methods we are using to fight the Coronavirus (a cousin of the SARS virus). Flights were stopped, people wore masks, quarantine was ordered, etc.

The good news is that SARS has not been back. The bad news is that, by some estimates, Coronavirus is ten times more infectious than SARS. And they still havent found a vaccine for SARS.

But behavioural changes can control the spread of a deadly virus. In the 1980s, it was said that AIDS would devastate the world. In fact, the spread was controlled because people changed their behaviour: unprotected sex with a stranger is now relatively rare. Condom usage is now the norm for such encounters.

You can argue that while behavioural changes cannot fight the virus biologically, they reduce the danger posed by an epidemic as our experience with SARS and AIDS demonstrates. There is yet another view --- as yet not fully substantiated --- which says that as viruses cease to reproduce, they lose their potency. A team of British scientists claims that the HIV virus is weaker now than it was at the start of the epidemic.

The AIDS epidemic changed human behaviour forever. Will the same be true of Covid?

The short answer is: we dont know.

If, by next June, as some scientists are predicting, a vaccine has been developed then will we still be as nervous as we are now about going to concerts or attending parties? My guess is that we wont. Little by little we will ease the restrictions we have now placed on ourselves.

If a vaccine and antibodies are really on the way and will be here by next year, then I dont think social distancing will become the norm. It will be seen as a way of having bought time till medicine was ready to fight the virus.

And our children will remember this as a terrible time for the world which, fortunately, passed in a year or so. Our grandchildren will not remember it at all. And when they are asked what Covid was, they will respond with the same sort of incomprehension as most of us exhibit today when we are asked about the Spanish Flu.

But if by the middle of next year, medicine has not found a cure or a vaccine, then yes the world will change.

Perhaps, forever.

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EAGLEVILLE  Montgomery County officials reported seven more COVID-19 deaths in the county on Friday and revealed another inmate at the county jail has tested positive for the virus.

The countys death toll climbed to 135 with the deaths of the seven individuals whose ages ranged between 64 and 98. At least four of the individuals died in a hospital and one died at home, officials said.

To date, 73 men and 62 women have succumbed to the coronavirus. Officials said the racial breakdown for those that died included: nine Asian; two Asian Indian; two Asian Korean; 15 African American; and 57 white. Information about the ethnicity of the remaining 50 individuals was unavailable.

In addition to the seven deaths, officials reported 111 new positive cases of the virus on Friday, bringing the countys total number of cases to 2,423 since March 7, when the first cases of the virus were identified. The new positive individuals included residents from 32 municipalities. To date, Bryn Athyn is the only municipality that has not reported a case of the virus.

The new positive cases included 49 males and 62 females whose ages ranged from 5 to 99. Ten of the individuals are hospitalized, officials said.

County Commissioners Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh said officials also learned that another inmate at the county jail in Lower Providence tested positive for the coronavirus disease.

This brings the correctional facility to three inmates that have tested positive for COVID-19 and four individuals from whom we are waiting testing results. All of these individuals are in isolation and currently stable. No one has required hospitalization, Arkoosh said. The cellmates of these individuals are currently asymptomatic and also in quarantine.

As a result of potential exposure, and in an abundance of caution, 218 other individuals are in quarantine at the county jail and all are asymptomatic, Arkoosh added.

During the last month, court and jail officials implemented measures to mitigate the potential spread of COVID-19 at the jail, including previously declaring state of emergency operations and closing the facility to the visiting public and lawyers. Authorities have also tried to reduce the jail population without threatening public safety.

Since the March 12 emergency judicial order was enacted, the prison population, as of Thursday, had been reduced by 342 individuals, from 1,342 to 1,000, which is a 26-percent decrease.

The reductions were achieved by the courts through a combination of early parole for eligible inmates, electronic monitoring for those nonviolent inmates on work release, expediting administrative dispositions for probation violations and deferral of weekend sentences, officials said.

County officials also continue to monitor coronavirus data from the 75 long-term care facilities in the county that are licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Health as well as from other congregate care settings that have overnight services in the county, for a total of about 620 facilities.

As of Friday, 79 of the facilities reported positive COVID-19 cases among residents and staff. Specifically, officials reported there are 607 cases among residents of the facilities and 323 cases among staff at the facilities, for a total of 930 positive cases. Officials pointed out that not all of the individuals are from Montgomery County and that some came from other areas of the region.

But we are tracking these cases collectively to help the community understand some of the challenges that are currently being faced in our long-term care and other congregate facilities, Arkoosh explained.

Arkoosh said 91 of the countys total deaths were county residents who had been living at a long-term care facility, comprising about 67 percent of the total deaths.

The long-term care facilities where the deaths occurred were not identified, officials citing patient privacy concerns.

However, according to county statistics, Springfield and Upper Gwynedd townships have recorded the largest number of COVID-19 deaths, 30 and 19 respectively. Both townships are home to several long-term care facilities.

Both of those townships do have a number of long-term care facilities and some of those are bigger long-term care facilities, said Arkoosh, conceding its certainly possible that the elevated COVID-19 death figures in those townships could be tied to the fact that several long-term care facilities are located there.

As the sixth week of the COVID-19 outbreak came to an end, Arkoosh reminded residents of the need to continue mitigation measures, including social distancing.

Our hospital beds continue to be in stable condition, thanks to all of you staying home, said Arkoosh, continuing to emphasize to residents the benefits of social distancing, which health experts said can prevent the spread of the virus and prevent hospitals and first responders from being overwhelmed by a surge in cases. We have beds available in all of our hospitals both in the regular units and in the intensive care units. We also have ventilators that are available.

Arkoosh addressed the beliefs by some that the virus only affects the elderly, reminding residents that 33 percent of the individuals who died in the county were not residents of nor had any connections to long-term care facilities.

In fact, one individual was in their late 40s. Positive cases in Montgomery County have ranged in age from 1 month to 110 years old. But the average age of positive individuals is only 54, said Arkoosh, who was joined at the news briefing by fellow commissioners Kenneth E. Lawrence Jr. and Joseph C. Gale and Dr. Alvin Wang, regional EMS medical director, and Dr. Brenda Weis, administrator of the Office of Public Health.

So this isnt someone elses problem. We are all in this together and we all need to do our best to stay home, to minimize our trips, Arkoosh added. People can be contagious and not have symptoms and by going into a crowded location you have no idea whom you might be infecting.
The mother of an Instagram model is suing Woolworths and The Vege Chip Company after almost dying from a paper cut obtained while unpacking boxes of chips at her supermarket job.

Kim Maree Irby, who is the mother of Gold Coast Instagram model Karina Irby, got a staph infection that led to two rounds of open-heart surgery.

Ms Irby used her finger to open the serrated top of boxes to build an in-store promotional display at Woolworths stores in Helensvale, Pimpama and Ormeau in Queensland in April 2017.

The 51-year-old said she felt pain and swelling after cutting her hand while unpacking the boxes, before her entire body started aching.

The Woolworths employee claims the hospital sent her home after undergoing tests for a suspected kidney infection.

Kim Maree Irby, mother of Gold Coast Instagram model Karina Irby (left), is suing Woolworths after she almost died from a paper cut obtained while unpacking boxes of chips at her supermarket job

Kim Maree Irby is the mother of Gold Coast Instagram model and bikini designer Karina Irby

Ms Irby then started taking antibiotics, but collapsed says later and was rushed back to hospital.

Doctors said she had a Staphylococcus infection, which had spread through her lungs, spine, behind her left eye and in her heart valves, the Courier Mail reported.

Court documents state Ms Irby thought she could die before having open heart surgery to repair her damaged valves.

The mother was forced to wait a month for a mitral valve replacement because her private cover didn't cover the costs.

In May that year she had replacement surgery then had further surgery in October 2018.

Ms Irby was authorised to sue the Queensland-based chip company and Woolworths for damages caused by the cuts.

Doctors said Ms Irby (left) she had a Staphylococcus infection, which had spread through her lungs, spine, behind her left eye and in her heart valves

Ms Irby's (left) lawyer said the claim could be for between $150,000 and $750,000

'The boxes...you don't need a knife to open, they have a hole in the side around the size of a 10c piece, you put finger in, run finger around, the box opens and then put the contents on shelves,' she said according to a workers compensation application.

Court documents stated the boxes were allegedly dirty and dusty from being in storage.

District Court Judge Paul Sheridan earlier this month ordered Ms Irby be allowed to launch a claim for damages for negligence in a separate District Court case.

Ms Irby's lawyer said the claim could be for between $150,000 and $750,000.

The claim against Woolworths will allege a failure to have a process in place to ensure boxes are clean and free from the risk of infection.

The claim against Currumbin-based The Vege Chip Company - which specialises in gluten free snacks - will allege Ms Irby wasn't warned of the risk of infection from display boxes.

Karina regularly posts racy photos modelling her popular skimpy swimwear brand Moana Bikini.

She prides herself on promoting body positivity, and often shares her workouts to her 1.1million Instagram followers.

The 29-year-old took to social media before Ms Irby's May 2017 surgery to share a photo of her mother in hospital.

'She's had little time to mentally prepare and she had no idea that something so small and insignificant could affect her and her family in such a big way,' Karina wrote at the time.

'The pace at which life can change is staggering, but the way mum is facing her challenges head on is inspiring to say the least. We're with you every step of the way Mumma, we love you!'

Daily Mail Australia has contacted The Vege Chip Company and Woolworths.
Karnataka Health Minister B



Sriramulu drew flak from his own party the BJP as well as the Congress for allegedly letting hundreds of people throng the Rupangudi Road in Ballari to collect food packets from him.

Visuals showed that the people came in hordes and fell on each other to collect the packets Sriramulu was distributing to the poor and needy as relief measure in the wake of lockdown.

The videos showed the minister standing with his team by the roadside and spreading out tables all along to distribute the food kit to the poor people.

Those in the queue had elderly people too.

A majority of people who rushed to grab the food packets did not bother to protect themselves with a mask.

"Whoever has done he has committed a blunder whether it is Sriramulu in Ballari or Anand Singh in Hospet.

All these elected representatives want to show that they are serviing the people in their constitutuency," said Karnataka BJP spokesperson Go Madhusudana.

Flaying the leaders of all political parties for defying norms, Madhusudana sad this has become fashionable for the leaders to perform 'cheap shows'.

He advised Sriramulu that it should have been done with door-to-door delivery of food packets instead of arranging it at the public place.

Congress spokesperson K E Radhakrishna said a case should be registered for defying regulations.

"I am all appreciation for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Karnataka chief minister B S Yediyurappa who were the first to wake up and do something good for the people.

Now I feel sorry for them.

I wonder why they cannot control their own partymen.

People should file FIR against him (Sriramulu)," Congress spokesperson Prof K E Radhakrishna told PTI.

Slamming the alleged VVIP culture in the country, Radhakrishna said when the nation is facing a crisis, lavish marriages and grand birthday parties were organised. In the midst of all this health minister organises a food distribution mela, he added.

Attempts to reach the minister went in vain.

However, speaking to reporters at Ballari, Sriramulu admitted that the cases suddenly shot up in the state because of disregard to social distancing.

"People's support to lockdown is essential.

People have to maintain social distancing, without which we cannot control it," the minister said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Zelensky says Easter is a holiday of unity.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged Ukrainian citizens to comply with the quarantine and stay at home on Easter.

Read alsoZelensky, Metropolitan Epifaniy discuss Easter services amid quarantine in Ukraine

"Yes, we stay home. And after the weekend, after the quarantine, let us be scared by the figures on the bathroom scales, not by the figures on the thermometer," according to the president's Easter address.

Zelensky said "Easter is a holiday of unity. And today our entire country is united by one and only desire - to go out. I understand what it is, because I am in the office from morning till evening."

"Remember how parents didn't let us go outside when we were kids? And today is such a situation when we do not let our parents go outside. And this is not a revenge. This is our care. When we all stay home, it is truly a unity. Unity for the sake of doctors, for the sake of our nation's health, and therefore for its future," he said.

"Let us remember the wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount of Christ: do not show off your righteousness. The strongest faith is faith in our heart," the president added.
By Jan Strupczewski and Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union finance ministers agreed on Thursday on half-a-trillion euros worth of support for their coronavirus-battered economies but left open the question of how to finance recovery in the bloc headed for a steep recession.

The agreement was reached after EU powerhouse Germany, as well as France, put their feet down to end opposition from the Netherlands over attaching economic conditions to emergency credit for governments weathering the impacts of the pandemic, and offered Italy assurances that the bloc would show solidarity.

But the deal does not mention using joint debt to finance recovery - something Italy, France and Spain pushed strongly for but which is a red line for Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Austria.

It only defers to the bloc's 27 national leaders whether "innovative financial instruments" should be applied, meaning many more fraught discussions on the matter were still ahead.

"Europe has shown that it can rise to the occasion of this crisis," said French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, praising what he said was the most important economic plan in EU history.

Earlier on Thursday, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte warned that the EU's very existence would be under threat if it could not come together to combat the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus.

For weeks, EU member states have struggled to present a united front in the face of the pandemic, squabbling over money, medical equipment and drugs, border restrictions and trade curbs, amid fraught talks laying bare their bitter divisions.

While Le Maire said the Thursday agreement paved the way for debt mutualisation, his Dutch counterpart, Wopke Hoekstra, stressed the opposite.

"We are and will remain opposed to eurobonds. We think this concept will not help Europa or the Netherlands in the long-term," Hoekstra said after talks ended.

STRAINED SOLIDARITY

Story continues

Mario Centeno, who chaired the Thursday talks after sixteen hours of all-night discussions earlier this week failed to yield a deal, said 100 billion euros would go to a scheme to subsidise wages so that firms can cut working hours, not jobs.

The European Investment Bank would step up lending to companies with 200 billion euros and the euro zone's European Stability Mechanism (ESM) bailout fund would make 240 billion euros of cheap credit available to governments, he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier in the day talked on the phone with Conte and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, paving the way for the eventual agreement, which now awaits approval from the bloc's 27 national leaders in the coming days.

She said she agreed with Conte on the "urgent need for solidarity in Europe, which is going through one of its most difficult hours, if not the most difficult".

Merkel also made clear Berlin would not agree to jointly issued debt, but said other financial avenues were available.

Discussions on that have so far been fraught between the more fiscally conservative north and the indebted south, which has been hit hardest by the pandemic.

The package would bring the EU's total fiscal response to the epidemic to 3.2 trillion euros ($3.5 trillion), the biggest in the world.

But controversy remained over how to kickstart economic growth, with European Economics Commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni, saying the money for that could be raised against the bloc's next joint budget for 2021-27.($1 = 0.9205 euros)

(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski, Gabriela Baczynska, Michelle Martin, Toby Sterling, Joseph Nasr, Francois Murphy, Robin Emmott, Francesco Guarascio, Joan Faus, Gwenaelle Barzic and Leigh Thomas; Editing by Grant McCool and Diane Craft)
'So what do we do now?" Mark Tyrrell looked across the grave of his father Austin in a deserted Bohernabreena cemetery in Dublin.

My lifelong friend, along with his wife Caroline and brother John Paul, had just completed what is now becoming an all-too-common task of saying goodbye to a loved one as a result of Covid-19.

They did so in silence, isolated from the comforting words and the embrace of loved ones.

The sad journey that brought me to that graveside began last Thursday with a phone call from Mark that I answered in the usual cheery manner. The tone on the other end was empty.

Expand Close Silent goodbye: Austin Tyrrell / Facebook

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Whatsapp Silent goodbye: Austin Tyrrell

Mark, who grew up in Dublin suburb of Terenure, was already on his way to Dublin from Carrigaline Co Cork, along a deserted motorway. "Ger, it's Dad, he's gone, we lost him last night to the virus."

Austin had been receiving treatment for cancer in St James's Hospital when he was diagnosed with the Covid-19 virus.

That would be the last time they saw him

Mark and John Paul's mother Muriel, who also has an underlying health condition, is resident in a nursing home in Kildare. The nursing home has confirmed that the virus is present and Mark had to face the real possibility of losing both his parents to the virus.

At the hospital, the brothers were brought into a special room to say some prayers before their father was anointed. That would be the last time they saw him.

The procedure now is that all Covid-19 victims are placed in a bag before leaving the hospital. The remains are then placed directly into a coffin in the funeral home.

This means there is no wake, no open coffin and no chance for loved ones and friends to say their own personal farewell.

Expand Close Final journey: Gravediggers wearing masks lower Austin into the ground. Photo: Gerry Mooney / Facebook

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Whatsapp Final journey: Gravediggers wearing masks lower Austin into the ground. Photo: Gerry Mooney

When the Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan read out the number of deaths at his daily briefing that evening, I couldn't help but think of Austin.

The death notice said: "A private funeral will take place." It was the total opposite of what you would expect for Austin, a man who spent almost 20 years as a driver with CIE/Dublin Bus and subsequently with the Department of Consumer Affairs.

The one thing Irish people do well is funerals - but the virus has even robbed us of that

He was much-loved and respected in the south Dublin suburb.

The one thing Irish people do well is funerals - but the virus has even robbed us of that. Current restrictions prevent many loved ones and those who are close to the deceased from attending. For me, the opportunity to be there was a privilege.

At the funeral home, hand sanitiser took the place of tissues. A maximum of three people were allowed in at any one time.

As her boys did their best to ensure Austin got a dignified farewell, Muriel was in her nursing home unaware that her husband was about to be buried.

Expand Close Mark and John Paul stand alone following the burial. Pictures by Gerry Mooney / Facebook

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Whatsapp Mark and John Paul stand alone following the burial. Pictures by Gerry Mooney

The hearse began a journey lacking in tradition - but still filled with emotion and a different kind of togetherness.

It manoeuvred up St Enda's Road for one last stop outside Austin's home. The moment was marked by neighbours in the only way they could. Each and every one came to the front of their house to wave him off, escorted by his two sons. The stillness eventually gave in to applause. The cortege - a hearse and three cars - slid into Terenure village before pausing again outside St Joseph's Church. It should have been full of mourners but instead it stood empty and the gates locked.

Austin's final journey had one more poignant moment before Bohernabreena, a garda checkpoint. The officers waved us through, perhaps reminded of the importance of their work in helping to stop the spread of this deadly virus.

Austin's remains were taken from the hearse by gravediggers who wore face masks. Without pause, the coffin was lowered immediately into the ground. The priest, who stood away from the grave, then offered prayers. Mark, his wife Caroline and brother John Paul looked on, unable to even comfort each other.

And that was the end - no sooner than it had begun, it was over. The sense of isolation set in as those present made their departure, words exchanged but no embrace.
The West Bengal government has decided to start pool testing of samples to detect asymptomatic carriers of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). This will bolster the testing record of Bengal, which has been repeatedly drawing flak for its low number of tests for Covid-19.

Till April 17 in Bengal only 4212 samples were tested. Compared to this Karnataka, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh had done 17594, 18029 and 20298 tests respectively.

Bengals population is around 100 million. To date, 287 persons have been infected and 12 persons have died.

If a negative result turns up, all samples are assumed to be negative. This method reduces the number of test kits used, compared to testing individual samples. This helps to increases the testing capacities and saves time, money and manpower.

While pool sampling has already been started by the authorities in Uttar Pradesh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a few other states are also planning to start it. UP was the first state to start. Pool testing was used to contain the spread of the virus in Germany and Israel.

In order to increase the capacity of the laboratories to screen more numbers of samples it has been decided to use pooled samples for screening of suspected Covid-19 cases in West Bengal, said an order issued by the state government on Saturday.

A top official of the state health department said that pool sampling will be done for asymptomatic patients in those areas where prevalence of the disease is less than 2% of the population.

Samples will be collected from asymptomatic patients during community survey and surveillance. Those suspects who have come in contact with Covid-19 patients and are living in areas where the disease has spread will not be included, said the official.

Out of the 23 districts in West Bengal, at least 10 districts have not reported any case so far. Officials said that at least 81% of the cases are confined in urban areas with north and central Kolkata with the urban areas of Howrah reporting the maximum cases. There is also a high prevalence of the disease in North 24 Parganas.

We will take samples of five persons in one pool. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has already issued some guidelines for pool testing and those will be followed, the official said.

The more you test, the more you can detect asymptomatic carriers. Random sampling and pool testing are ways through which you can ramp up your testing record. This is a welcome step and the need of the hour, said Dr Kunal Sarkar, head of the cardiac surgery department at Medica Superspecialty Hospital, one of the doctors who raised the need for pool sampling.

This will help us cover more persons in less timewho are presently not showing any symptom but may be carriers. This is a big step taken by the government, said Dr Sukumar Mukherjee, a medical expert in the Covid-19 advisory panel set by the state government.

Saturdays order came a day after the division bench of Calcutta high court chief justice T B N Radhakrishnan and justice Arijit Banerjee heard arguments on a writ petition and asked the government to inform what action was being taken to tackle the outbreak and how it was determining the cause of deaths, containing the spread of the disease and protecting medical staff and doctors by following guidelines of the ICMR and World Health Organization.

The main contention of the petition is that the West Bengal government is not following the guidelines of the WHO and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on testing, data sharing and safety precautions

Governer alleges PDS scam

Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has alleged that there is a scam in the public distribution system (PDS) in the state, an allegation that was echoed by the leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Taking to social media, Dhankhar wrote on Saturday, Covid-19 has to be unitedly fought on the ground and not in media/public relations. No politics at all. Worried-PDS SCAM getting bigger by the day. PDS system is in virtual political hijack-a crime. Free ration for needy and not coffers. Defaulters be sternly dealt @MamataOfficial.

The BJPs Darjeeling MP Raju Singh Bista and Alipurduars MP John Barla have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging a scam in PDS. Bista has also spoken to Governor Dhankhar in this regard.

Dhankhars tweet came two days after chief minister Mamata Banerjee acknowledged deficiencies in delivering ration to the needy and also removed the state food and supplies secretary.

There is a problem with ration distribution in only about 10% of cases. We have to look into it and solve the problem, she had said on Thursday.

The state government has said that nearly 7.5 crore people will receive free ration for six months. The states population stood at 91.3 million, according to the 2011 census.

The BJP, however, has demanded the resignation of the states food and supplies minister Jyoti Priya Mallick.

Whats the gain in making the secretary a scapegoat? Its the minister who needs to be removed if he does not resign on his own, BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha said on Saturday.

Mallick refused to comment, saying that the chief minister had asked every leader and worker of the party to refrain from indulging in trading political barbs in the time of crisis.

On Saturday, Left leaders and workers, too, staged demonstrations in various parts of the state, including in the districts of Jalpaiguri, Nadia and Kolkata, alleging poor handling of relief work and PDS distribution.
The presumptive Democratic nominee is sketching out an increasingly detailed portrait of the kinds of people he would surround himself with if he became president. At a moment when the coronavirus pandemic has shaken the countrys faith in government and frequently rendered Bidens candidacy a lonely pursuit, his campaign is emphasizing what would happen after the election  were he to win  more so than what he will do in the nearly seven months of campaigning before the November vote.
Dear Reader,

More and more countries are gradually exiting their lockdowns. As the rate of addition to new cases comes down, the US and countries in Europe are taking baby steps to ease the lockdown in areas where the worst seems to be over. In India too, plans have been drawn up for a cautious return to normalcy. They are aimed at slowly restarting the economy, helping protect jobs and livelihoods, and arresting the deterioration in domestic demand and exports. As always, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

Many of the relaxations are aimed at re-starting work in rural areas, but here too implementation is the key. The forecast of a normal monsoon has lifted hopes of an increase in rural demand, but it is early days yet and we need to monitor the progress of the rains. And just in case you thought that brightens the prospects for consumer staples, the early earnings guidance issued by FMCG companies should serve as a reality check.

The Reserve Bank of India too has chipped in, offering what amounts to little more than a band aid, when what is needed is major surgery. This is not whatever it takes, despite RBI governor Shaktikanta Das saying so, its more take whatever little we give. While the liquidity support is welcome, will banks take the credit risk unless the central bank or the government provides a backstop?

Central banks in the advanced economies have opened the monetary spigots to junk bonds, they are monetising government deficits and here we have the RBI trying to make sure that banks create additional provisioning for the loans under moratorium. A report in the Financial Times says Covid-19 has shut down a quarter of UK businesses, with more than half a million companies reported to be in significant distress. What does the RBI think will be the number of distressed firms in India, where, unlike the UK, the government has given hardly any fiscal support? Chinas fall in GDP by 6.8 percent year-on-year in the March quarter is a clear indication of the woes in store for the Indian economy. Its worth noting that JPMorgan and Wells Fargo are making provisions to prepare for a wave of bad debt that is likely to sweep through the US economy.

Even after the lockdown is finally lifted, the social distancing norms will ensure that businesses function well below full capacity. Recall that the last RBI survey had showed that capacity utilisation in the manufacturing sector in the December 2019 quarter, at 68.6 percent, was the lowest since at least the first quarter of 2008-09. The question is: if capacity utilisation was already so low before the virus struck, what will it be after the lockdown is lifted, with demand badly affected? And how many firms can afford to keep their heads above water while functioning at capacity utilisation of, say 40 percent? It is no wonder then that debt funds are bleeding. Perhaps the RBI is keeping its powder dry, waiting for the lockdown to end. Or it may be waiting for the central governments next dose of fiscal stimulus.

Almost every economist has said the government needs to increase its fiscal support measures. We added our voices to the chorus, pointing out that Indias fiscal support so far has been very low compared to most other big economies. If the government is worried about too high a deficit, we helpfully pointed out how it could deliver the maximum stimulus with the minimum fiscal damage. Remember this is not actually a stimulus, it is just enabling people to survive this period of unusual stress. If the medical crisis is not to snowball into a financial one, these measures are an absolute necessity. Even the RBIs Monetary Policy Committee sees the existing fiscal sops merely as a measure of relief. And surely lower oil prices are a big help for the government?

The corporate results season is on and the March quarter results are largely expected to be a washout. The numbers for TCS and Wipro are already out and we give our recommendations on them here and here. We continued to search for companies best placed to prosper during the time of covid19, looking at pharmaceutical companies that can benefit from the demand for complex respiratory drugs, a public sector company relatively insulated from the macro uncertainty and one of the few companies that have benefited from the lockdown.

At the time of writing, markets across the world were surging on reports that a Chicago hospital treating severe Covid-19 patients with Remdesivir in a clinical trial is seeing rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms. Markets were anyway poised for a rebound, with lots of cash with fund managers. And the news of economies slowly re-opening has also helped.

With the bottom of the market in place, thanks to central banks in advanced economies planning to pay all the bills -- the Fed is now buying paper worth $70 billion a day, compared to $120 billion a month at the peak of quantitative easing under Bernanke -- its time for a bit of risk-on sentiment.

Cheers,

Manas Chakravarty
The Lagos State government has said the late chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Abba Kyari, died at First Cardiology Consultants, a private hospital located in Ikoyi.

This is a confirmation of PREMIUM TIMES earlier exclusive report on the development. But the hospital had refuted the claim, describing it as a false allegation.

The Lagos State commissioner for health, Akin Abayomi, on Saturday evening said the confirmation was in response to enquiries by concerned individuals and authorities on the health facility that managed the former chief of staff.

The commissioner said; Following enquiries on the passing away of the Chief of Staff to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Mallam Abba Kyari on Friday 17th April 2020, the Lagos State Government states that:

Mallam Abba Kyari died from complications of Coronavirus infection at First Cardiology Consultants in Lagos. This hospital is a Lagos State designated high care, biosecurity-compliant, COVID-19 facility, accredited by the Health Facility Management and Accreditation Agency (HEFAMAA) of the Lagos State Ministry of Health.

The statement added that as a basis for its accreditation, the private hospital established a separate specialist wing with staff dedicated to the treatment of complicated cases of COVID-19, under the supervision of the Lagos State COVID-19 emergency response team.

However, this is contrary to the earlier position of the health minister, Osagie Ehanire, in his response to enquiries on whether any private hospital had been accredited for the management of Covid-19 or not.

Osagie Ehanire [PHOTO CREDIT: @TheglobalhintC]

Mr. Ehanire said there was no private hospital managing confirmed cases of Coronavirus disease in the country.

Speaking on Friday on the matter during the daily press briefing of the presidential task force on Covid-19, the minister said the management of the disease is difficult and can overwhelm private facilities due to technicalities involved in the management of the pandemic.

He said; As at today, there is no private hospital that has been accredited to manage Covid-19 case in Nigeria. There is none in Abuja here that I know of. But I think Lagos is looking at some accredited hospitals and there is one large hospital in Lagos that has called me that it wants to become a Coronavirus treatment centre.

Now the structure of the hospital is that they are ready to remove all the present patients they have there and do nothing but Coronavirus. That will be good because they dont stand the risk of cross-infection. But if you as a private hospital want to run Coronavirus management, you have to show that you have a doctor who is an infectious disease specialist, nurses and even cleaners who are trained. This is because handling infectious hospital is different from handling others. They need to be trained in infection prevention and protocols.

The facility would then be inspected by a team of accreditors who will give you the go-ahead to do it. But while it is not prohibited, there is no hospital that has met those criteria at the moment.

Speaking earlier on Thursday, the minister had threatened that any private hospital found to be treating Covid-19 patients run the risk of being shut down.

Meanwhile, the Lagos State government had also been evasive in its response on the whereabouts of the former chief of staff. The government failed to respond to enquiries by our reporter on the matter.
Director general of police Sita Ram Mardi on Saturday issued a warning to those misusing curfew passes for transporting people from one place to another.

Appealing the panchayats to report outsiders, he said, Three people have tested positive today. The two people, who had tested positive in Hamirpur, had not stepped out of their houses, he said, adding that police were collecting cal details to ascertain how community spread took place in Hamirpur.

At present, there are 21 active cases in Himachal Pradesh.

He also thanked chief minister Jai Ram Thakur for releasing around 2 crore for purchasing PPE Kits, sanitisers and face mask for policemen.

TRAVEL AGENTS ASKED NOT MAKE BUS BOOKINGS

Mardi also warned agents against sending people links to bus tickets from Shimla to Delhi.

Meanwhile, the Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) spokesperson said public transport was not operating any transport services within and outside the state till further orders.

He said the general public was advised not to trust such rumors or information provided by any other sources or messages on social media.

He said all existing advance reservations have already been cancelled indefinitely and advance reservations on online booking portal www.hrtchp.com of the HRTC and other private booking portals had been stopped from 21 March until further orders.

He also clarified that HRTC does not ask for bank details, credit/debit card information, UPI information, passwords, mobile numbers or OTPs through phone calls, WhatsApp, SMS and emails for online bookings.

The corporation only allows advance reservations through its online booking portal, mobile app and the process of payment is only through the linked payment gateways, where the customer has to make the transaction on their own.
We had another warm day over Northern California with active conditions returning for your Friday afternoon. Temperatures mostly topped out in the mid to high 70's in the valley, in the mid to high 60's in the foothills, and in the 60's to 70's in higher elevations. Winds have been out of the South to around 15mph. Showers and thunderstorms returned to portions of our region late in the day and we'll have the potential for active weather lingering into your evening. Low pressure located in Southern California and another area of low pressure off the coast of our region have brought active weather back to our area today. We've been tracking thunderstorms in the upper foothills of Butte County into Plumas County with some modest hail being reported in Plumas County. Stronger thunderstorm activity has been observed in Trinity and Mendocino Counties, and hail has been reported in Mendocino County. Some showers from that active area have spilled into far Western Tehama, and Glenn Counties, and there will be a chance for some thunderstorm activity in those areas as well. Most of the active weather is expected to wrap up as the sun sets this evening.

Skies are expected to stay partly cloudy overnight, but will be mostly sunny on Saturday for the majority of Northern California as the low pressure moves off to our East. The exception will be in the Sierra, where we will continue to have partly cloudy skies and a chance for showers through your weekend. Another area of low pressure is expected to brush by to our North late Saturday into Sunday and that could potentially bring additional showers to areas closer to the Oregon and Nevada border as that swings through. We'll be mostly dry again on Sunday. Valley temperatures are expected to dip into the high 40's to low 50's and end up in the low to mid 70's in the afternoons this weekend. Mountain areas can expect low temperatures in the 30's to low 40's, and high temperatures in the 60's in the Sierra. Northern Mountain areas will still climb into the 60's to 70's for the afternoons. Foothill locations can expect Low temperatures in the upper 40's to low 50's and high temperatures in the low to mid 60's this weekend.

Low pressure moving into Northern California from the Eastern Pacific will bring a decent chance for light showers to our region on Monday. Temperatures on Monday will be similar to your weekend, but skies will be cloudy. High pressure off the coast of Southern California will bring mostly dry and warmer weather back to Northern California towards the middle of next week. Mostly dry and sunny conditions will return for your Tuesday and valley temperatures will end up back in the upper 70's to lower 80's through the middle of next week. Models are showing another area of low pressure heading through the Pacific Northwest on Saturday and that will bring a chance for showers to our region, with the best chance for wet weather in areas closeest to the Oregon border. Dry and warm weather continues through the end of next week.
After two months of being on lockdown, China finally lifted its restrictions, causing thousands of its locals to flood public places and go back to their normal routine. Wealthy businesses and their wives went to Guangdong to shop. Citizens went to tourist spots to relax and those in the provinces are back in the wet markets to buy and sell.

After a sharp contraction in its economy, China is now open for business. However, other countries in the world, especially those in the West, are still struggling and are still in lockdown, completely heading towards economic ruin.

Many are now speculating, did China hid the real number of coronavirus victims? Is the pandemic in the country over? Is the outbreak really under control or are the Chinese officials just covering up the total death toll?

Did the pandemic really begin in Wuhan or in the Huanan seafood market? Was the virus designed in the city's state-run Institute of Virology just like what some experts and President Donald Trump have implied? There are so many questions and speculations that the Communist Party in China refuses to answer.

In an attempt to piece all of the information and evidence together, the Daily Mail has spoken to virologists, economists, and activists in order to understand what China is hiding and how the COVID-19 came bout.

Also Read: U.S President Donald Trump Introduced 3-Phase Plan to Reopen Economy

The alleged source of COVID-19

According to Ma Jian, the author and human rights activities who are known as the "Chinese Solzhenitsyn", in 1977, a strange strain of flu started infecting people in Northern China. The symptoms duplicated those of the flu but it is not mostly fatal. The strange flu was last seen two decades ago and it was thought to be extinct.

Genetic tests done by virologists indicated that it was an extinct flu from the late 1950s. In its prime, the strain had been so widespread that anyone alive was likely to have been exposed to it and developed an immunity. What is notable about the virus is that it only survives in the middling temperature range, as though it was created to do this.

In fact, the virus had been scientifically selected to flourish in lab temperatures. Through gene testing, it showed that the virus had not mutated for over 20 years in the way that it would have done if it had been replicating for generations outside the lab.

According to a report by the University of California, San Diego, in the journal PLoS One in 2010, there is evidence shows that the virus had been frozen and stored in a lab for years. Then it had been thawed, and somehow escaped to prey on a new generation that had no natural immunity.

All fingers were immediately pointed to Chinese virology labs as the source of the virus. Investigators suggested that the virus may have escaped from a lab where researchers were working on a new vaccine. The story has chilling echoes today for experts who fear that the pandemic, COVID-19, emerged not from Wuhan's Huanan market, but escaped from one of the city's laboratories that are experimenting with bat coronaviruses.

The cover-ups

In December 2019, before the outbreak made its way into mainstream media, doctors at Wuhan Central Hospital posted a message alerting colleagues to the mysterious new disease. The doctors were then accused by security forces of making false comments and they were forced to sign statements agreeing not to discuss the disease.

In early April, Chinese authorities began to crack down on the publication of academic research about the origins of the novel coronavirus. Two Chinese universities published web notices requiring academic papers dealing with COVID-19 to be scrutinized first by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The research on the origins of the coronavirus is sensitive, and they are subject to checks by government officials, according to the notices posted by Fudan University and the China University of Geosciences.

According to Jane Duckett, a professor at Glasgow University's Scottish Center for China Research, it is a typical response by the Chinese authorities to try to control the narrative on any story that they might think threatens them. With coronavirus, it may be because they know that their initial response to the outbreak was not good enough and would cause dissatisfaction among the Chinese people.

Will the real nature of COVID-19 come to light?

Professor Eddie Holmes of Sydney University stated that there is no enough evidence to show that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China. Coronaviruses are commonly found in wildlife species and they jump to new hosts frequently. Animal to human transmission is the most likely explanation for the origin of COVID-19.

Several credible voices in the Western scientific community maintain their stance that the pandemic is a natural occurrence and not a scheme cooked up in a laboratory. But if there is one thing that everyone can agree on is that the inaction and secrecy of the Chinese authorities have lead Western intelligence services to determine the truth.



Related Article: China's Economy Shrank for the First Time in Decades Due to Coronavirus Pandemic

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Beijing: China's imported cases of coronavirus increased to 1,566 with 27 fresh ones, while its revised death toll stood at 4,632 with a 50 per cent jump in fatality figures from the epicentre Wuhan, health officials said on Saturday.The country's National Health Commission (NHC) announced the revised national figures of coronavirus, taking note of Wuhan's new data.

As per the new figures, the overall confirmed cases on the mainland reached 82,719 by Friday, including 4,632 deaths. As many as 1,058 patients are still being treated and 77,029 have been discharged from hospitals.

On Friday, Wuhan's officials announced that as of April 16, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases was raised by 325 to 50,333 and the number of fatalities up by 1,290 to 3,869.

No deaths due to COVID-19 were reported on Friday.

The latest revision of figures came amidst sharp criticism of China by the US, the UK and other countries for its alleged under-reporting of the coronavirus cases, lack of transparency and cover-up of the origin of the viral strain, which emerged in Wuhan in December last year, reportedly from the local Huanan sea food market.

The way COVID-19 cases were counted in China was changed in January and February, leading to widespread confusion over the extent of the health crisis in the world's most populous country.

But China denied that it had covered up the extent of its COVID-19 outbreak.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that the virus's rapid spread had contributed to under-counting that resulted in China raising its death toll earlier in the day. However, he emphasised that "there has never been any concealment, and we'll never allow any concealment."

On Saturday. the NHC said 27 new confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported of which 17 were imported.

The other 10 new cases were domestically transmitted.

This included seven new cases in Heilongjiang province, bordering Russia where cases went up following return of large number of Chinese nationals from various Russian cities and two in Guangdong province and one in Sichuan province.

No death was reported on the mainland, the NHC said.

As of Friday, the mainland has reported a total of 1,566 imported cases, it said.

Also 54 new asymptomatic cases, including three from abroad, were reported, taking their total to 1,017.

Asymptomatic cases refer to people who are tested positive for the coronavirus but develop no symptoms such as fever, cough or sore throat. They are infectious and pose a risk of spreading to others.

By Friday, 1,021 confirmed cases including four deaths had been reported in Hong Kong, 45 confirmed cases in Macao and 395 in Taiwan including six deaths.
The Centre has asked state governments and port authorities to identify land for creating new hubs for manufacturing renewable energy equipment as part of Indias efforts to attract firms shifting base from China amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Centre has written to the state governments and port authorities that the land identified by them should measure 50 to 500 acres and will be used for manufacturing hubs that will meet both domestic demand and seek global investments.

The new and renewable energy ministry said on Saturday that at a time when many companies are planning to shift their manufacturing base from China, it is [the] opportune time for India to bring policy changes for facilitating and catalysing manufacturing in India.

Tuticorin Port Trust and Madhya Pradesh and Odisha states have expressed keen interest in setting up renewable energy manufacturing parks. The Centre also plans to use Indian Railways vacant land to set up solar power plants of 30 gigawatt (GW) capacity. The railways plan to set up plants to generate 10GW in the first phase of the initiative.

According to officials aware of the development, the renewable energy secretary chaired a meeting with manufacturing companies last week, and the ministry has been in touch with trade commissioners and representatives of several countries to invite them to invest in India.

The Indian government also addressed the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum earlier this week and sought collaboration and investment by American firms, the ministry said.

These hubs will manufacture equipment like silicon ingots and wafers, solar cells and modules, wind equipment and ancillary items like back sheet, glass, steel frames, inverters and batteries, said one of the officials cited above.

India currently has the capacity to manufacture wind equipment of around 10GW, and it imports nearly 85% of solar cells and modules from abroad. To incentivise domestic manufacturing, Government of India [has] already announced provisions to enable levying of Basic Customs Duty on import of solar cells and modules, the ministry said.

The ministry has also set up a renewable energy facilitation and promotion board to facilitate investments.

The Ministry has also strengthened the clauses in Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) to boost investor confidence. The three power and RE sector NBFCs, namely Power Finance Corporation, Rural Electrification Corporation Limitedand Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency have reduced their repayment charges to 2% for enhancing the fund availability for new projects in the sector. IREDA has brought out a new scheme for project specific funding to promote RE manufacturing in India, the ministry said.

Indias renewable energy sector has been tasked to meet its 175GW target by 2022.
If you are not wearing a mask during the ongoing lockdown to control the spread of coronavirus, you may not be able to drive your vehicle anymore. Why? Thats because petrol pumps would refuse to sell you any fuel.

Worried about the safety of their staffers, more than 58,000 fuel retail outlets across India have decided to decline refills for those customers who are not ready to wear masks. The All India Petroleum Dealers Association (AIPDA) has already launched the No mask, No fuel campaign in this regard. Retail Outlets across the country have decided ...
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / April 18, 2020 / Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of LogicBio Therapeutics, Inc. ("LogicBio" or the "Company") (LOGC). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888-476-6529, ext. 9980.

The investigation concerns whether LogicBio and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices.

[Click here for information about joining the class action]

On February 10, 2020, LogicBio issued a press release announcing that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has placed a clinical hold on the Company's Investigational New Drug submission for its product candidate LB-001 for the treatment of methylmalonic acidemia pending the resolution of certain clinical and nonclinical questions.

On this news, LogicBio's stock price fell $3.34 per share, or 31.96%, to close at $7.11 per share on February 11, 2020.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com.

SOURCE: Pomerantz LLP





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/585732/SHAREHOLDER-ALERT-Pomerantz-Law-Firm-Investigates-Claims-On-Behalf-of-Investors-of-LogicBio-Therapeutics-Inc--LOGC




The economy hasnt stopped. Manufacturers are still churning out products. Distributors are distributing them. Even some retailers are selling.

But the businesses we cherish and identify with, the ones that make this community a community  theyre closed.

The coffee shops and restaurants, bars and movie theaters, bowling alleys and gyms. The places we go when were not at work or at home. The places we hang out. Theyre not just closed  many are endangered if the shutdown goes on too long.

Its the cruel nature of the pandemic. The places we gather to enjoy each other and ourselves are the places that raise the risk of transmission by our sheer proximity.

Equally cruel: These also tend to be businesses that are small and locally owned, financially fragile by their nature.

Anything that involves gathering together in groups, particularly larger groups, got hit hard and got hit first, said University of Arizona economist George Hammond, director of the Eller Colleges Economic and Business Research Center.

Places like Catalina Brewing Co., a bike-themed brewery near West Ina Road and Interstate 10, at 6918 N. Camino Martin. Theyre selling beer on a take-out basis, but its not the same, said co-owner Brian Vance.

The people that love coming here and miss being here are the ones who are coming in and getting beer, he said. They get their beer, with the little Xs on the floor 6 feet apart. Our regulars are in once a week, but its not enough.
A simple potato.

That was the dish that kicked off my last visit to a restaurant - my last trip of any kind, in fact - before lockdown.

A small Violetta spud from Co Louth's Ballymakenny Farm topped with pickled scapes and a dusting of Drummond House black garlic.

It wasn't as simple as it looked, of course.

Biting into the heritage potato revealed a magical filling of Boyne Valley Ban cheese and garlic - at once complex and so gooily addictive I could have popped a stash of them like Pringles on a Netflix night-in.

The restaurant was Aimsir, at Cliff at Lyons in Co Kildare.

As 2020 began, it was one of 18 with Michelin Stars on our island. The tally now looks like a high watermark for modern Irish food - dishes like this were elevating Irish ingredients to fine art, but they were just the start.

In the past decade, sizzling seafood, fast casual and cafe scenes had clicked. A bona fide Irish food story was emerging, Failte Ireland was driving our first food-tourism strategy, and we were travelling to eat like never before.

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Today, we're reeling. Netflix nights are the norm. Like many, I've been looking for ways to support Irish business (and scratch that foodie itch) - from takeaways to postponing rather than cancelling bookings.

Collections or deliveries from local farms, delis or producers are another option. Now that we're cooking more, why not use seasonal, healthy produce? It can help families learn about the ingredients that fuelled our revolution. And it's tasty, too.

In recent weeks, I've ordered a box of market vegetables (29.50 plus postage) from Great Northern Larder, with everything from Rock Farm Slane leaves to Kerrigan's mushrooms.

A market box from Airfield Estate in Dublin (pictured top, from 30, for collection) had organic spuds, beetroot, rhubarb, leeks and chard from its farm, along with eggs, milk and bread.

Clearly, meal planning is important to prevent waste when ordering like this - but that's a life lesson in itself.

"Following the sudden onslaught of travel restrictions, we started getting enquiries from loyal customers," says Siobhan Ni Gharbhith of St Tola Goat Cheese. She's teamed up with local businesses to produce a Burren Basket (from 50) crammed with cheeses, smoked salmon and chutneys.

This week's order?

For me, it's Ballymakenny Farm potatoes (to be cooked without Aimsir's alchemy, sadly).

For options near you, there's a brilliant list on GastroGays.com, or links just below this column. It's a small way to support Ireland's food story, eat healthy and well, and inspire future travel.

10 food delivery & collection options in Ireland

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Like what you're reading? Subscribe now to our free travel newsletter. 'Travel Insider' is written by our award-winning Travel Editor, Pol O Conghaile.
Chennai: I have had no income since the lockdown began and I have no money left. I have absolutely no idea as to how I will survive this, said Neelavathi.

As coronavirus victim tales go, this narrative is not entirely a unique one. Neelavathis trade, like most other trades, has been dealt a mortal blow, rendering her penniless.

But unlike other daily wage earners, who have social support systems, Neelavathi has no one to tell her story to. Shes a commercial sex worker (CSW). Though the problems she mentions are similar to anybody elses -- no transport, long queues at shops and police chasing her away in the street -- her lack of work is unique. Not only can she not work from home, theres no place where her clients can reach her.

On a normal day, Neelavathi steps out for work around 10 am and is back home by around 5 pm. She is one of the CSWs engaged to a house in Moolakadi, where she is paid Rs 300 for every client she services. At times she may go out with a client to a lodge or a guest house and make Rs 1000 or more. But that happens rarely.

Whatever it is, on an average she used to make Rs 500 per day, which was just enough to feed her two children and her. Since she commutes by bus and autorickshaw, the lockdown has left her immobile, confined to her house.

Besides, she has another worry: She has run out of condoms. As a member of the Red Hills Thai Vizhuthugal Nala Sangam, a community-based organisation (CBO) of CSWs, shes acutely aware of the need for condoms and regularly visits Red Hills to collect her quota of prophylactics.

The president of Red Hills Thai, Poongodi, said the lockdown came out of the blue. After the coronavirus scare began, at an annual meeting of the collective recently, they had discussed the precautions to be taken against the virus. But the lockdown caught them unawares.

The CBO has about 1300 members, all of them CSWs. Many of the women often turn to Poongodi for help but this time the CBO is not equipped to give them any.

The president of the Namakkal District Thai Vizhuthugal Womens Trust, Geetanjali, put out a message on her Facebook page on April 4 seeking help for the members of her trust, many of whom were going without food.

She said among her members were women who lived below the poverty line and those afflicted by HIV.

She told Deccan Chronicle that many of her members were having just a single meal a day and had no money for other basic needs. Some of the women were living alone with no family support and their plight was the worst, she said.

The Nammakkal-based CBO has about 1,500 members, living in villages around the town. Geethanjali fears that the coronavirus crisis might lead to a spread of HIV.

How so? She explained that CSWs pushed to the brink are at risk of giving in to sexual demands in lieu of minor financial or material favours in this time of distress and may thus indulge in risky behaviour due to the lackc of a prophylactic.

Agreeing with her, A J Hariharan of the Indian Community Welfare Organisation (ICWO) said CSWs were primarily responsible for containing the spread of HIV in the country in the past. Hariharan, who has been into AIDS/HIV prevention work since the early 1990s, said it was due to the insistence of these women on use of condoms that stopped the HIV infection.

Hariharan said there are 6,300 CSWs in Chennai alone and about 90,000 in the whole of Tamil Nadu. All of them have been hit by the lockdown. Even before the coronavirus, many of them lived in abject poverty. Now the loss of livelihood has affected them so badly they cry on the phone while asking for help.

We have a stomach to feed, says Latha, who has never faced a situation like this in her six-year career as a CSW. She has two children to take care of. Normally she would earn about Rs 1000 a day, serving an average of three clients. She used to work from 11 am to 5.30 pm at a house near Moolakadi.

Latha has not stepped out of street in Vyasarapadi since the lockdown began. But she has found an alternative career to make money from her house. She has started making tea and selling it on the street. She makes about Rs 100 a day. Something is better than nothing, she says.
Chilling tales for these humid, lockdown nights By Yomal Senerath-Yapa View(s): View(s):

Being cooped up at home can get dispiriting and claustrophobic  till you find some vicarious means to usher in some excitement.

For centuries, tales of supernatural terror have been the companions of people in dark snowbound regions, when winter means being self-isolated for weeks or months.

Even here in the April heat, a little bit of the ghostly and the spine-chilling can be a welcome diversion for your familyevenings, or devoured perched anywhere, alone on the phone.

Here we suggest some of the old masters of the frisson- whose works can be read online free. Even if a tad old fashioned, you will find them atmospheric and chilling- timeless whether they were told at an old Paleolithic fire, or on a night when theres nothing on the TV.

M.R. James

The sometime provost of Eton was a Cambridge scholar and antiquarian who created the classic English ghost story. He mingled his love for antiquarianism and academia- old manuscripts, old cathedrals and churches, lost crowns from Anglo-Saxon England even- with the supernatural.

Jamess spooks are traditional, subtle and sinister. A divinity scholar who loved old manuscripts, he wrote stories to be told by a Christmas fire in the company of other Cambridge dons. Most stories feature antiquarians who tumble into all kinds of terrors- from a devil from King Solomons time haunting an old scrapbook with illuminated medieval leaves of paper, to an old witch haunting an ash tree- and all kinds of creatures flitting through an ancient English landscape.

Often the stories have old Latin texts or parts of historical documents which the antiquarian protagonists discover on their quests- pastiched like authentic documents by James who was a great mimic. He created a deliciously sinister atmosphere that deepens as the story progresses. It is this haunting evil against a gracious- often English- old world setting and antiquarian detail that makes the stories so satisfying. Understatement and omission are the names of his game. The ghosts terrify with their half-formed creeping vagueness.

The graphic, sensational age we live in- with a murder in every other chapter- is all the more reason to return to the monastic M. R. James- whose subtle shivers of haunted dolls houses to wailing wells leave an afterglow like true stories with their historical detail- as if spirited from a real old antiquarians diary.

Read books and stories by M. R. James on Gutenberg.org and thin-ghost.org

Sheridan Le Fanu

This Irish Walter Scott gave the bat wings to Bram Stoker and Dracula: Le Fanus own vampire novel, called Carmilla, was in fact written 26 years before Dracula.

To read Le Fanu is also to break the code of good old M. R. James- because the former seems to have taught the latter all about tone and effect which James was to deploy so successfully.

Le Fanu avoided overt supernatural effects. In the best of his horror writing, the supernatural is implied, but a natural explanation is also possible. With this elegant ambiguity he was to influence later films as well.

Make a note to read In a Glass Darkly, which has a story about a demon monkey stalking an English vicar, and a dwarf haunting a sea captain.

Le Fanu can be read on Gutenberg.org, manybooks.net and freeditorial.com

William Hope Hodgson

The father of all ghost seers and ghost finders was Carnacki. This svelte Edwardian investigated hauntings, using pentacles as well as scientific methods.

His creator Hodgson was a prolific writer, who predictably sounds an incurable romantic- having run away from boarding school to be a sailor aged 13!

The Carnacki stories bring out a delicious blend of the Gothic detective yarn with all the supernatural thrills of expelling ghosts and demons from grand houses.

Hodgson also wrote horror stories of a different ilk. If you like the macabre cosmic kind of horror (the darkest chocolate you can get) there is The Night Land and The House on the Borderland. Feel free to lose yourself in a nightmare.

Books by William Hodgson are available on globalgreyebooks.com, manybooks.net, and Gutenberg.org

Bram Stoker- paled by Dracula

The count from Transylvania had many obscure siblings: Bram Stoker created other horror novels influenced by folklore, just as the aristocratic vampire was based on a bloodthirsty feudal prince from medieval Romania.

Stokers The Lair of the White Worm is a contemporary but classic adventure of a young heir coming to historic Mercia from Australia and having to battle many supernatural odds, including the worm who is a giant snake living under the earth. These worms, said to be kin to dragons, were superstitiously dreaded in ancient Britain.

The Jewel of Seven Stars in contrast is a horror story set against digs in Egypt, where a young man gets pulled into an archaeologists plot to revive the mummy of Queen Tera.

Fantastic or classic as they seem, be warned that they ramble a bit- having been written on the cusp of the twentieth century, when the fast paced thriller was unknown, and would have been rather a dizzying thing indeed.

Visit gutenberg.org, globalgreyebooks.com, manybooks.net and freeditorial.com for Bram Stokers dark fantasies.
Some apps to help you meet up virtually By Mahesh De Andrado View(s): View(s):

The implications of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 are seen in almost every country around the world. Businesses of all shapes and sizes have found themselves on lockdown with employees requested to work from home. Now to some, working from home may sound like a dream come true. You can wake up when you want, work when you want and take a break when you want. But that is not the case. In fact, its the exact opposite. Even when working from home, employees are expected to carry out their daily tasks with the same precise dedication they would give if they were at their physical offices.

As such, one important element to keeping track of employees and work orders is communication. With social distancing in effect, keeping up with employees can be tricky. Fortunately, video conferencing tools allow employers and employees to communicate with each other. Because these apps are platform independent, these meetings can take place anywhere at any time on almost any smart device, laptop, or desktop PC. Weve curated a listicle of such apps that you too may find useful.

Skype

Developed by Skype Technologies, Skype has withstood the test of time when it comes to communication. It was acquired by eBay in 2005 and then later acquired by Microsoft in 2011. Since then, Skype has played an integral part, even being added to installations of Microsoft Windows 10 automatically.



Skype allows you to stay in touch wherever you are (Image Credits: SlashGear)

The app is available for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and Linux and is completely free to use. You can make free unlimited Skype-to-Skype calls and call landlines and mobile numbers using Skype Credits. In addition, Skype also supports video conferencing for upto 20 members for free. However, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Microsoft increased the participant limit to 50 members. The app also includes a feature to record calls for future reference if needed as well. Fortunately, other participants on the call will be notified if and when the call gets recorded. The recordings can then be saved and shared for upto 30 days. You can also screen share with other participants on call.

You will need to create a Skype account in order to use Skype. However, if you have a Microsoft account, you can use those credentials to login and use Skype as well. You can check out and download Skype by visiting www.skype.com

Google Duo/Hangouts/Meet

Rather than having one app for video conferencing or calling, Google gives you a choice. Lets take a look at Google Duo for starters. Announced at Google I/O 2016, Google Duo was the companys entrant to high-definition (720p) video calls. Optimized for low-bandwidth networks, Duo also packs end-to-end encryption. Users are able to make group calls with upto 12 members to those in their contact list, rather than adding via a username. This makes the calling process more streamlined as theres no details needed to add a person. While on call, Google Duo automatically switches between Wi-Fi and cellular networks. Duos knock knock feature allows users to see a live preview of the caller before answering the call. As of April 2017, Duo also lets users make audio-only calls.



Google Duo in action (Image Credits: Hacker Noon)

Google Hangouts also allows users to chat with others via their Google account. Up to 150 people can participate in a text based Google Hangout (Think of it like a massive text group chat). As for video conferencing, youre limited to 25 participants. Users are able to join a Hangouts session via Gmail, the Hangouts mobile app, the Hangouts site directly, and also via a Chrome extension.



Google Hangouts; its not much but its honest work (Image Credits: Tech Radar)

Following a few developments at Google, the company launched Google Meet and Google Chat. Google Meet is the updated and upgraded version of Google Hangouts primarily for video conferencing. In fact, Google describes it as an enterprise-friendly version of Hangouts. Meet supports video conferencing with upto 30 people and features a web app as well as Android and iOS versions as well.



Meet Google Meet (No pun intended)(Image Credits: 9to5Google)

If youre a G Suite user, then you can have upto 100 members per call for G Suite Basic users, up to 150 for G Suite Business users, and up to 250 for G Suite Enterprise users. Features such as screen sharing and integration with Google Calendar are included as well. Calls are also encrypted to ensure security. In addition, Google Meet for G Suite also includes real-time AI generated closed captioning (its like having subtitles for your video chat).

Jitsi

You might have heard of Jitsi, or you might not have. Either way, what you need to know is that Jitsi is a collection of completely free open-source projects that allows users to quickly and easily launch secure video conferencing solutions. Video conferencing can be set up via their website (meet.jit.si) or by downloading the Android or iOS app to your smartphone or tablet.

Jitsi is a free to use, open source platform that you can use to host meetings. (Image Credits: MBC News)

Jitsi Meet includes features such as locking a room with a password, screen sharing, and an audio only mode. If configured, Jitsi Meet can also stream conferences to YouTube, dial out to telephone participants as well as have telephone participants join in the conference as well. Features such as push-to-talk, an audio-only option are also available along with a feature to play YouTube videos to participants. You can also integrate Jitsi into 3rd party apps and websites as well. This can be done via Jitsis External API which can be checked out at their GitHub page.

Zoom

An app that has been cast into the spotlight lately, Zoom was founded by Eric Yuan, who was a former Cisco Webex engineer. It is a Unicorn company which means it is currently valued at $1 Billion or more. As of April 2020, Zooms software has seen an increase in use due to the quarantine measures adopted by many countries due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The main reason that people opted for Zoom is because of the amount of participants who can join a meeting. While paid versions of Zoom also exist, the free version allows hosting of upto 100 participants, unlimited 1-1 meetings and 40 minut group meetings. It also supports most of the other video conferencing features such as screen sharing, raise hand, and the ability to record meetings. As for pricing, in addition to the basic package, Zoom gives you a choice of Pro, Business and Enterprise, billed at $14.99 and $19.99 respectively. All their plans are listed on Zooms website (https://zoom.us/pricing).



With Zoom, you can get a close up of your meetings (Image Credits: Computer World)

This was also the reason for it to fall into trouble. In March 2020, an inquiry into Zooms privacy and security practices led it to being banned from New York City schools. Zoom had a few security vulnerabilities that allowed 3rd parties to Zoombomb or allow hackers to gain access to a users personal information such as email account passwords. There were other instances where 3rd parties hijacked meetings such as classrooms and posted unsafe content. Since then, Zoom has amped up their security and claims that the app is completely safe to use. While the new security features do give assurance that meetings can be carried out securely, it should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Microsoft Teams

Another product of Microsoft, Teams is more or less a competitor to Slack. It offers a more holistic approach to collaborative working. As such, features include a workplace chat, video meetings, application integration as well as file storage facilities. It integrates with Office 365 subscriptions and can also integrate with non-Microsoft products as well.

Teams allows groups to join via a specific URL or invitation sent via the team administrator. Once the team is set up, channels can be created. Channels are essentially topics of conversation that allow team members to communicate without the need to call, message or email other team members. You can also reply with text, images, GIFs and even memes, to give things a humorous twist.

Team up with Microsoft Teams (Image Credits: Microsoft)

The app also allows users to send direct messages to a specific user rather than a group of people. Other functionalities include instant messaging, Voice over IP and video conferencing. Meetings can be scheduled or created on the go. Teams also includes a plugin for Microsoft Outlook so that you can invite other members for a meeting.
How Legacy Church Launched Streaming Services in the COVID-19 Crisis

Steve Nathans-Kelly: I'm Steve Nathans-Kelly, editor of Streaming Media Producer, and I'm here today with Jeff Leach from Legacy Church and Zak Holley from Apache Rental Group. Legacy Church is based in Downey, California and like like a lot of us, they've been moving things online: streaming their services, and getting the message out that way and trying to communicate and keep the community together in the crisis that we're going through now. Maybe Jeff, if you could just start off just talking a little bit about Legacy Church and how you've gotten involved.

Jeff Leach: Okay. Legacy Church is in Downey. On Sundays, we have a regular attendance anywhere from 200 to 250 people in-service. With the social distancing, quarantine, we decided to move our services online. We haven't historically published live streamed video of our services, and so this was a new challenge. It came up out of nowhere. It was a Wednesday night. I was asked what we would need to do to be able to do that for the next Sunday. That evening, I reached out to Zak, knowing that he had been working with a kit to live stream, and asked about its availability for that Sunday service. He had it ready for me to pick up on Friday, and we started installing the gear and we had a successful Sunday livestream.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: And so Zak, you run an A/V rental service, is that right?

Zak Holley: Yes, I work for an A/V rental service. I do live broadcast shows. I've not only worked for the service; I actually install the gear on the shows. And that's how I know Jeff. So I had been working on this streaming kit. I started putting it on paper in December, gathering the pieces together in January. By the time I had all the parts and pieces up and running, it was early February. It looked nice from the inside and outside. I could get it to work in my shop, but we were still working out the kinks and figuring out what worked for it and where it would fit and what the demand was for this. Crazy as it was, just as it started to be dialed in and working, this COVID thing started happening and I started losing all my work, and I've slowly watched everything turned to a streaming-based service.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: Makes sense. Even as weve seen more and more demand for streaming, obviously we're not having in-person events. We're not doing a lot of the stuff thats traditionally been the lifeblood of their livestreaming industry. So tell me a little bit about what's in the kit. And did you customize it for Legacy Church? What are they working with?

Zak Holley: I based the kit around the ATEM Mini, a new product from Blackmagic. It's a four-source switcher with HDMI inputs. So, my first thing coming around was, not all the sources we're going to use in the field are going to be HDMI. One of the first things I did in the chain outside of the switcher was I threw in the bi-directional converters by Blackmagic. I think they're great because they auto-select your source if you're feeding it SDI or HDMI in, it knows what it's taking and it'll auto-spit it out on the output side and an output it either/or. So I basically made harnesses from the switcher to four individual bi-directional converters. And then from the bi-directional converters, I ran an HDMI to a patch panel for each one and an SDI for each one. That gave me the ability to run four HDMIs or four SDIs or two and two--whatever made sense at the time. And then I kind of just went along with taking everything off the ATEM Mini and putting it on the back of the patch panel, getting it away from the router and keeping it all nice and clean in the back. I threw on a Blackmagic SmartView Duo, a dual-screen monitor on the front of the panel so we can physically see what we're doing in real time to see if things are working and talking. And then a couple little audio things we had to do to get the audio to be perfect where we wanted it to be. The network with it works great. The USB-C out to a computer works great and always sees it as a webcam. I've never had an issue with any computer not seeing it as a webcam. And really it's, it's given me the ability to offer a simple solution throw-down kit. Whether we're talking GoPros or Sony FS7 cameras--anything with an HD-SDI signal or an HDMI out--we can do a little live show.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: And then at Legacy Church, what are you shooting with?

Jeff Leach: So we started with some cameras that Zak provided to usMarshall CV-502s. And they were great for getting it out there and starting with just what we needed. It is a wide-angle lens and so up close, it would slightly distort and fisheye. It gave great full-sanctuary views of the church, but people didn't like to see an empty sanctuary with pews that were empty. And so that shot was cut out pretty quickly. We've now gone to a Canon DSLRs: a 5D Mark IV as our primary camera, and another EOS camera as a secondary if we're using a second source. At the beginning we were using three cameras and a computer input. But it was requiring us to run a heavy production staff. We had four or five people to operate between the switcher, the lights, and the slides. And so we've cut that down and gone to mostly single-camera shooting. The Canon DSLRs do better in the low light in our dark sanctuary, and they also allow for facial auto-focus. So it will track whoever's speaking if they're moving in and out and adjust for depth of field.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: I watched some of the Easter service that you put together. It seems like you're kind of going back and forth between the pastor and the worship band. Was all of that shot and streamed live or were there some prerecorded components? How are you doing that?

Jeff Leach: Everything now is prerecorded. When we were shooting live for the first two weeks, it took 4-7 people onsite, working in close proximity, to make it happen. And with where we are now there's a desire to not have that many people in a confined space. So we're it doing prerecorded. It's whoever's on stage and then a technician running the splitter and the cameras. And so we'll prerecord and then that is sent off to be cut up and put together for the service. And then we upload it as a live feed off of that recording. Where I work, my role is assisting in providing network infrastructure. It's not in the actual camera operation, switching, or editing. This has been all new to me since mid-March.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: Zak, in terms of your role, were you involved at the outset in installing, hands on with getting the kit running?

Zak Holley: I was actually walking off on another project up in Cupertino for Apple. So I had built the whole kit and I had it at my shop and Jeff had called me saying he needed it, and I had some people in my shop get him what he needed. I basically made them a full little flypack with everything I thought he could use. And like he said, for the first two weeks, they had the basic Marshall cameras. Their HD-SDI out is a simple way to see a feed. But they upgraded to nicer cameras, and the quality on the Easter service look great.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: With the ATEM Mini, one of the things that strikes me about it--besides being only $299, you've got the Software Control Panel, which is the same as in the higher-end models. Did you find it pretty easy to get started with?

Jeff Leach: It was pretty intuitive. There was a learning curve to start with, but it went pretty quick. I am still learning. It is very feature-rich. And so basic functionality was very simple. But I'm learning what different terms and functionalities mean on the audio engineering side. And then on the video side, I'm digging in deeper. It works out of the box pretty seamlessly. But once you want to get into the deeper functionalities it does take a little time and research, but it's very, very easy.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: In terms of getting the streams out, what platforms are you streaming to?

Jeff Leach: We're streaming to two Facebook pages and one you YouTube page as well. The church changed its name, first of the year, from First Baptist Downey to Legacy Church Downey. And so we still have an active First Baptist Facebook page. And so that is still receiving the live stream as well as the congregation moves from one platform or one page to the other. Wanting to cover both sides, I'm doing that through an Epiphan Webcaster X2, something that I had purchased and was playing with before the flight kit was delivered. That allows me a push to Switchboard, which is a third-party, cloud-based solution. It sends a single stream to Switchboard, and then you can pick your destinations and it will push them live for either. That's been nice. Our network there at the church is not very resilient and it's on the carrier side. And so if we tried to do three actual pushes or live streams at the same time, the bandwidth wouldn't support it. So third-party service is really necessary for that.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: That makes sense. I actually have a number of friends that are in the clergy that were asking me, What do we do? when all this social distancing started. It's interesting to hear you say that you switched pretty quickly to prerecording the video and then getting it online, because I had told one friend who wasn't confident in the bandwidth they had at the church, I said, There's nothing wrong with prerecording it and just making sure the congregation gets it when church is supposed to start. How has the reception been with the congregation? You mentioned seeing the empty seats the first week wasn't so great, but other than that, have they been taking to it? Has it been easy for them to watch it?

Jeff Leach: Most definitely, they've taken to it. The first week, we only streamed to YouTube, and we had about 350 views of that strea, by the end of the week. This morning, four days after our Easter service, we just over 10,000 views of that service across the three platforms. The livestream is seeing anywhere from 200 to 240 people actually watching it pretty sustained from start to finish. In the comment section there's a lot of welcomes, hellos, miss yous. And so it is giving people a way that they wouldn't necessarily have to reach out to an individual that they would see on a Sunday. They are able to interact with each other during the service. And I think that's been a huge benefit for them.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: And so do you get a sense that this has been challenging for the worship team? Ive talked to people who are doing this, and they say it's different preaching to a camera than preaching to a congregation.

Jeff Leach: Yes, it's most definitely different. They don't know where to look. You're looking into a room that seats upwards of 800 people and there's me, I'm sitting there at a table. And so that's kind of awkward. I asked our Lead Pastor, Shane Hicks, about this, because you asked the question what the adjustments are, and his response was, There's been a high learning curve that required a lot of agility from the leadership, and a transition from leading people physically to leading in physical separation. We've had to focus on learning from others who are more experienced. And this has helped us develop eye contact, creating energy and production skills that our church wasn't experienced in before this crisis. The shift online has required a forced mental, emotional, and purposeful response that has impacted every level of the churchs functioning. God has shown us how to use the crisis as an opportunity to reach thousands where we were unaware of our existence before the crisis. Most definitely, it's a conscious effort. We've joked about putting placards in the seats. It's difficult to get excited or to have some energy with an empty house.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: Do you think anything will change about how the church does things going forward?

Jeff Leach: Well most definitely continue the livestream. As we continue on, there's no question about that. We're in the process of sourcing and building a longterm system for the church to be able to do that. With what's going on in the world, it's difficult to find equipment in this kind of niche. And so we're building that out. I have since returned the flykit to Zak. Back in the middle of March, I purchased an ATEM Mini. They were backordered. I just got it this last Sunday. And so we're gonna use that in the interim. And the idea would be to go to one of Blackmagics larger boards that this is based off of, and then stay within the product line. It's very intuitive for a Sunday volunteer to come up and push buttons that are illuminated rather than having to try to learn an entire system that they touch very rarely. So we'll most definitely continue down this route, and it's been a good product for that. I'm actually using my ATEM mini now for this zoom call. And in my living room, so this is not on, let's see. This is the table that Im at now, and these are the bi-directional converters that Zak used. This is the Webcaster X2 that we use at the church, and it makes it very easy to switch between sources. That's the second computer I have at the table with me. It makes it very simple. I set this up in 25 minutes this morning in preparation for this interview. So I think that it's a good product for this. In small settings, it's most definitely an easy to use, resilient product. The only thing that I did have an issue with was audio. We were trying to get service out of our church sound system and the ATEM Mini has two 3.5mm jacks for audio up on top. And those were getting a ground loop or ground hum from the power board. And so we've gotten a Zoom recorder that gives our audio source. It's made for a webcam or podcast mic that is either USB-powered or battery-powered. We were not able to get it to work well with a powered external audio source that is AC-powered. That was the one complaint that I did have. But the Zoom works; it has XLRs on the bottom. So we can hook up other audio equipment for that. So that has been nice.

Zak Holley: I agree with him. I think one of the main downsides is that 3.5mm jack looking at the ATEM TV Studio HD compared to the ATEM Mini, the software is identical. It's very easy to learn the ATEM Mini. If you've already learned to use the software, it'd be even easier to learn the TV Studio if you began with the ATEM Mini. I love the picture-in-picture. I think the picture-in-picture is a great feature Blackmagic introduced that was done in the other products going forward. I'd love to see a solution similar to what the ATEM Mini provides in more of a TV Studio-style frame that's rackmountable. I do like that it's a keyboard-style switcher, but I am more fan of rackmountable gear for traveling. I just think it's easier to pack up if it's all set up. No one's touching wires and unplugging things for that reason. But like Jeff was saying, the 3.5mm ground on the board isn't isolated. So if you take an XLR input from a third-party console mixer directly from a mic even, there's a little crackle, a little hum. There are some forums I've found on Blackmagic stuff that I've addressed to Blackmagic and it seems to be that Blackmagics solution was that the audio has to be on the same ground as every HDMI input, so that the mic console or a mixer console has to be on the same power source as every camera's HDMI output. We can make that work in some situations, but it's not a common thing. It's something that if you're not familiar with, you're going to be scratching your head, why isn't it working? And I think that's why that Zoom recorder that he uses works great. I think they take a third XLR out of the console, put it in the Zoom, and the Zoom outputs 3.5 mm directly to ATEM, which is awesome.

Steve Nathans-Kelly: Thanks so much for your time, Jeff and Zak. Stay safe and healthy.

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As the second oldest child of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, royal expert Melanie Bromley believes Prince Harry has always grappled with his role in the royal family. Those struggles came to a head at the start of 2020 when Harry and Meghan Markle announced their exit from the royal family. With the Duke and Duchess of Sussex starting the next chapter in their journey together, here is a look at why their exit may have been long in coming.

Prince Harry | Joe Giddins  WPA Pool/Getty Images

Prince Harry opens up about struggles

Compared to Prince William, royal watchers have always considered Harry to be the more rebellious of the two.

Growing up, Harry gained a reputation for partying too hard and having a bit of a wild streak. For example, he was once caught wearing a Nazi uniform to a dress party, and in 2012 photos surfaced of a naked Harry playing games with several women in Las Vegas.

Harry may have been the most eligible bachelor in the United Kingdom, but his antics were a major headache for the royal family.

Video of Prince Harry saying, "I will always protect my family," resurfaces https://t.co/PqKxddaUZe  Newsweek (@Newsweek) January 13, 2020

In an interview with Newsweek in 2017, Harry opened up about his younger days and revealed that his behavior reflected an internal struggle with his own mental health. Harry admitted that he bottled up his emotions following his mothers tragic death and nearly had several breakdowns.

After consulting with his brother, Prince Harry reached out for professional help. He has since turned things around and has become a huge advocate in the mental health community.

My mother died when I was very young. I didnt want to be in the position I was in, but I eventually pulled my head out of the sand, started listening to people and decided to use my role for good, Harry shared. I am now fired up and energized and love charity stuff, meeting people and making them laugh.

Royal expert Melanie Bromley says Harry has always grappled with his role

Although Harry continued his charitable work after tying the knot with Meghan Markle in 2018, the couple announced their departure from the royal family at the beginning of the year. Their exit from the monarchy became official on March 31, and there is one royal expert who believes Harry has struggled with his role in the royal family for quite some time.

Royal expert Melanie Bromley, who is the E! News Chief News Correspondent, recently shared her thoughts on Prince Harrys dilemma. Bromley revealed that she believes Harry has always grappled with his place in the monarchy.

I think that its something that has been on my mind for a while, Bromley shared. His role in the royal family is something he has always grappled with and not made 100 percent comfortable with.

Bromley added that Harry has hinted about leaving the royal family before hed actually announced it. She also referenced a recent interview with Jane Goodall, who echoed her statements about Harrys decision.

Harry and Meghan start their new lives

In March, Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, officially moved to Los Angeles where they are currently living during the coronavirus pandemic. Although the pair had grand plans to start their new lives, the current crisis has pumped the breaks on their activities.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex would prefer that in the immediate weeks and months, the focus remains on the global response to COVID-19, a spokesperson for the couple shared.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle managed to sneak out and deliver meals to LA residents in need during the Covid-19 pandemic. https://t.co/co0ClJvTeO  CNN (@CNN) April 16, 2020

As part of their exit agreement, Prince Harry and Meghan will no longer use their royal titles. They have also deactivated their main charitable foundation, Sussex Royal, and will be launching their new organization, Archewell, in the coming months.

While Harry and Meghan are not using their titles, his place in the line of succession remains unchanged. The royals will also re-examine their exit in 12 months to determine if any adjustments need to be made.

How will Prince Harry and Meghan Markle earn a living?

In the coming months and years, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be seeking to become financially independent from the crown. It is unclear what they plan on doing for a living, but they certainly have several options to explore.

There has been plenty of talk about Meghan returning to acting. The Duchess agreed to narrate a documentary for Disney last year titled Elephants, so re-starting her old career is definitely on the table.

As far as Harry is concerned, he has already taken part in several public speaking engagements. He will also continue to be active on the charity front, though the couple has yet to reveal any specifics about that.

Prince Charles is also expected to give Prince Harry and Meghan Markle an annual stipend to help cover some of their expenses.
A LIMERICK TD feels under cyber attack after he was featured on a Facebook page called The Rathkeale Racist List.

Photos of Limerick Leader stories featuring Deputy Niall Collins have been posted on the site. The anonymous person behind the page wrote: It's not the Travellers that are ruining the town it is the publicity that Niall Collins is posting on the internet. The only reason I think he is doing this is because he is a racist. Members of the public have also been labelled as racists after they shared posts or made comments on social media.

Deputy Collins said he will not be gagged by a nameless, cowardly, keyboard warrior.

I will continue to speak up and stand up for the good people of Rathkeale who are frightened and scared by the actions of a small minority of the community. The majority are making massive sacrifices to prevent the spread of Covid-19. They are not seeing loved ones, are staying at home and obeying the HSE guidelines.

Yet they look out their window and see gangs of people strolling around the town. They hear music blaring from house parties. They see a video of a queue for an open air barbers. I will continue to do my job as a public representative; highlight the issues and concerns of my constituents and contact the authorities to act, said Deputy Collins. The Fianna Fail TD totally rejected the charge of being a racist.

I have never been accused of being a racist in my political career. This is a first for me and it is a new low. I am deeply hurt and offended to be labelled a racist. It is a smear campaign, said Deputy Collins.

He reported The Rathkeale Racist List page to Facebook and asked them to remove it. In reply, a Facebook spokesperson said: I have had my colleagues carry out an analysis of this page against our global Community Standards. Unfortunately they found this page to be non-violating.

They continued: I know this is not the outcome you will be satisfied with. Our Community Standards strive to strike the balance between users right to express themselves about matters of importance to them and other important matters such as safety and the potential for harm.

Deputy Collins said: It beggars belief that labelling somebody a racist is fine by Facebook. He has appealed the decision and is considering reporting the matter to gardai.

One of the people whose social media screenshots have been posted on the The Rathkeale Racist List spoke to the Leader.

"I only shared the Leader story about the influx of Travellers coming to Rathkeale. The next thing I started getting intimidating messages on my phone that I was a racist. I am not a racist. I have struck up great friendships with the local Travellers over the years. Whenever I go into Rathkeale I am looking over my shoulder. I rang the gardai but they didn't take me seriously.

A different person who is also on the list said: Im not a racist. When you see aerial images of Dublin and Waterford the streets are empty. On Good Friday in Rathkeale it was like the lockdown had finished and everyone was getting out all of a sudden. The ones having parties and are walking around in groups are only making a laugh out of us. I'm not going to turn a blind eye to what is going on. This virus could become rampant in Rathkeale, they said.

The person added: As far as the settled Travellers in Rathkeale are concerned, I have never had any problems with them. They get on with their business and they dont cause any problems. Its the people that come in for a month or so and take over the town. They are a law unto themselves.

The Leader contacted the person behind The Rathkeale Racist List to ask them about the page, why they set it up, and accusations of enflaming the situation.

He (Deputy Collins) is always on about Rathkeale, how bad it is, and the most of the stuff he says is lies. Why hasn't he contacted my page and speak up for himself, instead of spreading hate against the Travellers of Rathkeale, they replied.
(Bloomberg) --

Broadcom Inc. warned customers theyll need to place orders for parts at least six months ahead of time, a surprisingly long lead time that points to wider than anticipated disruptions to the tech industrys global supply chain.

Lockdowns in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines are closing or severely restricting business operations, according to a letter to customers from Nilesh Mistry, Broadcoms vice president of sales, dated April 13 and seen by Bloomberg News. He urged clients to put in their orders at least 26 weeks ahead of delivery -- meaning anything ordered now will get shipped right around the crucial holiday season. The typical lead time for deliveries is about two to three months.

The missive from Broadcom -- which makes crucial components for Apple Inc.s iPhone -- drives home concerns that Covid-19 is disrupting the tech supply chain well beyond China, where the novel coronavirus first emerged to impact global production lines. While Chinas recovering its footing, lockdowns and quarantine orders in crucial regions such as Southeast Asia are exerting a still-unknown impact on the supply of everything from Nintendo Switches to smartphones.

Air and sea transport options have become unreliable and become more expensive and have increased delays, Mistry wrote. His letter to customers didnt specify which products are experiencing delayed shipments and what Broadcoms normal lead time is between orders and delivery. We hope that as the global community finds better methods to address the Covid-19 pandemic, the conditions will abate and we will be able to resume our normal operations.

The San Jose, California-based company declined to comment.

Not Made in China Is Global Techs Next Big Trend: Supply Lines

Terry Gou, whose Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. makes many of the worlds most recognizable consumer electronics including the iPhone, said in March Chinas production restart had proven faster than expected. But he was worried that disruptions outside of China could become an issue as the coronavirus spreads globally.

Story continues

Broadcom is part of the same supply chain that most of the worlds chipmakers use to outsource production, testing and packaging of their products. Its a critical link for products from mobile phones to data-center hardware. Any delays in the delivery of its semiconductors could spread throughout that supply network, potentially leading to missed launches of some of the worlds most high-profile and widely used electronic devices.

Intel Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc. will report earnings next week, when theyre certain to face questions from investors about their ability to keep their factories running and fill customer orders. Products from companies such as Qualcomm Inc., Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. are built mostly by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., then tested and packaged by other companies in China and Southeast Asia. Some companies perform elements of the process in-house, and a shrinking group are capable of doing all the steps themselves.

Wireless customers include Apple and Samsung Electronics Co., which use Broadcom chips to add Wi-Fi and other connectivity to some of the worlds best-selling smartphones. In networking, Broadcoms switch chips are the market leaders, going into machinery thats used by all of the biggest equipment makers, including Cisco Systems Inc. and Huawei Technologies Co., and companies such as Amazon.com Inc. that build their own gear.

Read more: Nintendo Is Likely to Suffer Global Switch Shortages From VirusOn March 12, Broadcom withdrew its annual sales forecast and gave weak near-term guidance, citing the impact of the pandemic. Chief Executive Officer Hock Tan told investors that, while fundamental demand was still strong and he hadnt see any negative impact in the first quarter of the year, visibility was lacking.

As part of a bond offering last week, Broadcom warned investors it was experiencing some disruption to parts of its global supply chain. In the related risks section of a regulatory filing, the company highlighted that a main warehouse and a number of assembly and test subcontractors are in Malaysia, which has shut down all non-essential businesses. The warehouse is fully operational, but many of the facilities of our suppliers and service providers are not, the company said at the time.

An extended closure of these facilities may require us to move assembly and test services to providers in other countries, and may, eventually, lead to a shortage of some components needed for our products, Broadcom said. In the event restrictive measures in Malaysia are intensified and our warehouse is shut down or required to operate at a reduced capacity, our ability to deliver product to our customers would be severely limited.

The test and assembly of chips includes coating them in protective plastic, adding electrical contacts that let them communicate with the rest of the device, and making sure they function. Such work is less expensive and easier to conduct than the processing of silicon wafers that make up the fundamental circuits of the chips. Much of the packaging work was shifted to countries with lower labor costs decades ago.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

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Apple has reopened its first retail store outside of China in South Korea post the control of the coronavirus outbreak in the country. This is also Apples sole retail store in the country.

Apple had shut down all its retail stores worldwide outside of Greater China due to the coronavirus pandemic. It had initially closed its stores until the end of March before shutting them down indefinitely. The coronavirus outbreak has been contained in South Korea despite a rapid rise in the number of infected people in the country initially.

As a safety measure, Apple is now limiting the number of customers inside its South Korean store so that they can maintain a social distance of two meters between them. It has also put up a notice outside its stores where it has asked its customers some health-related questions and if the answer to them any of them is a yes, the customer wont be allowed to enter the store. The company is also providing hand sanitizers to customers inside the store for hygiene reasons.

Additionally, the company is checking the temperature of all customers and asking them to wear a mask before they are allowed to enter the store. It is also recommending its customers to order online or through its Apple Store. One thing to note is that Apple is not launching the 2020 iPhone SE in South Korea on April 24th.

It is likely that whenever Apple starts re-opening its retail stores across the globe, it will check the temperature of all the customers entering the store for safety reasons.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18)  Thousands of COVID-19 test kits that require a shorter processing time will be arriving in the country next week, the Department of Health said on Saturday.

The 3,000 kits, however, will still have to be validated first before they are sent to testing laboratories. The kits will be used on GeneXpert machines, which are usually used to diagnose tuberculosis.

Health spokesperson Ma. Rosario Vergeire said the validation process will take another two to three days.

Sa susunod na linggo pa ho dadating ang GeneXpert kits natin na tatlong libo. Ngunit hindi ito agad-agad ipagkakaloob sa ating mga certified laboratories dahil isasailalim pa ito sa validation, said Vergeire during the DOH daily online briefing.

[Translation: The 3,000 kits from GeneXpert will arrive next week but they will not be sent to our certified laboratories immediately because they have to undergo validation.]

She explained that the agency needs to check all procured or donated kits if they are compatible with the country's testing process and if they fit DOH standards.

The Food and Drug Administration said these were the same SARS-CoV-2 kits from GeneXpert it had approved last month.

The machines used to process the kits can show results in just 45 minutes, while the current reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) machines take about 24 to 72 hours, according to the DOH.

"Dahil automated ang GeneXpert machine, mas mabilis ang turn-around time nito o ang oras na kailangan upang makakuha tayo ng resulta matapos maproseso ang test, said Vergeire.

[Translation: Because the GeneXpert machine is automated, the turn-around time, or the time it takes to get results after processing, is shorter.]

The machines can also test more samples at a time, the spokesperson added.

According to the FDA, the GeneXpert test kits are PCR-based, meaning it can detect the novel coronavirus in the body. This is different from the rapid antibody tests that the DOH warned could produce false-negative results. The DOH has maintained that PCR tests are the gold standard for confirming if a patient has COVID-19.
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A Minnesota doctor is voicing his concern that the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) guideline on how to complete COVID-19 death certificates may influence medical certifiers to inflate the number of deaths from the disease.

The seven-page guideline received by Dr. Scott Jensen, a family physician and Republican state senator from Minnesota, explains how he may state a death to be a presumed COVID-19 death, even if testing was not done to confirm it. COVID-19 is a disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.

Physicians dont like it when political types try to impact what we do when it comes to patient care, Jensen said on the Don Giordano Program, And really, the last thing we do for our patient in many situations is appropriately and accurately complete the death certificate.

According to Jensen, a death certificate should be based on facts and not presumptions or biases. The CDCs guideline states: In cases, where a definite diagnosis of COVID-19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate as probable or presumed.

A hypothetical example given in the guideline is an 86-year-old woman who died after displaying symptoms of a high fever, severe cough, and difficulty breathing for five days. The woman, who suffered a stroke three years ago that left her nonambulatory, had the symptoms after being exposed to an ill family member who was subsequently diagnosed with COVID-19.

Although testing was not conducted to verify the disease, the CDC says probable COVID-19 may be listed as the underlying cause of death, given the patients symptoms and exposure to an infected individual.

White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said in an April 7 task force briefing that if someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.

Whereas in other countries, Birx said, if you had a pre-existing condition, and lets say the virus caused you to go to the ICU [intensive care unit] and then have a heart or kidney problem. Some countries are recording that as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death.

Those concerned with COVID-19 deaths being unduly inflated argue that differentiation between a person dying of the disease or with the disease should be a factor in determining the actual death rate of the CCP virus.

When asked on April 8 if CCP virus deaths were being inflated in cases where someone had the virus and may have died of other factors, Birx said, Those individuals will have an underlying condition, but that underlying condition did not cause their acute death when its related to a COVID infection. In fact, its the opposite. Having an underlying condition and getting this virus we know is particularly damaging to those individuals.

Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York City chief medical examiner, and Fox News contributor, told Fox News that it is acceptable to include someone who had the CCP virus and other health issues in the death count of COVID-19.

In the normal course, autopsies would then determine whether the person died of the effects of the COVID virus, whether the person had a brain tumor or brain hemorrhage for example that might be unrelated to it and what the relative significance of both the infection and the pre-existing disease is, Baden said.

Baden says that there may be a low number of autopsies being conducted due to the risk of getting infected.

Then you will include in those numbers some people who did have a pre-existing condition that would have caused death anyway, but thats probably a small number, Baden said.

Craig Barton, co-owner of Barton Family Funeral Service in Washington state, said in an email to The Epoch Times, My feeling is that in WA, there is a bias toward under-reporting because testing has not been widely used, and for cases that do not display classical symptoms but have the virus, the cause of death may simply be primary pneumonia based on a single chest x-ray.

Washington state had the first confirmed COVID-19 death in the United States back in February and an early community spread of the virus at the senior living center in King County. The state has 11,152 cases of the CCP virus and 583 deaths attributed to the disease as of April 16.

The Epoch Times reached out to the CDC for comment and was directed to contact the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a federal government agency that is part of the CDC. The NCHS provides data that guides policies and actions to improve American peoples health. NCHS did not reply to an email at the time of publication.

Probable Deaths Now Included in Death Toll

New York City public health officials revised its COVID-19 death toll (pdf) on April 14 by including more than 3,700 probable cases that have not been tested, raising the death toll from 6,589 to 10,367. The city said the deaths were backdated to March 11, when the first confirmed COVID-19 death was reported.

We wanted to make sure that every New Yorker is counted that has been taken from this vicious virus, said New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot.

New York Citys decision to include unconfirmed virus patients in the death toll is a step away from how U.S. health officials had generally attributed COVID-19 deaths, which was only when patients tested positive for the disease.

With its CCP virus death toll revision, New York City has paved the way for other states, as Wyoming and Ohio began including probable COVID-19 deaths and cases in its update on April 16. Wyoming reported two confirmed COVID-19 deaths, 287 cases that have been laboratory-confirmed, and 105 probable cases. Ohio said it had 16 probable deaths and 175 probable cases.

According to the CDCs Physicians Handbook on Medical Certification of Death 2003, death certificates are used to determine which medical conditions receive research and development funding, to set public health goals, and to measure health status at local, state, national, and international levels.

Hospital Incentives

Jensen says besides pushing back on the CDC guideline, he has also been vocal about the financial motives of hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients.

If I admit a patient, a medicare patient, to the hospital and just diagnose pneumonia, the diagnosis-related group payment, the lump sum payment the hospital will receive for that patient, will be about $4,500, Jensen said. But if I put pneumonia COVID-19, it triples, it goes to $13,000.

With regard to patients being put on a ventilator, then the hospital gets $39,000.

Jensen says when money is involved, I dont think theres any question that human nature will try to massage the numbers, statistics, to say what you want them to say.

Jensen, who is also an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School, said that someone had called on Twitter for his removal from the school for his speaking out. But the overall support he has received from other doctors has, been pretty heartwarming. Ive had physicians call from out of state, all over the country, reaching out and saying thank you for bringing the light of day to this process.

I mean, I take care of a lot of patients for decades and decades, and sometimes the last time I see their chart is when Im completing their death certificate, Jensen said. And to think that Im potentially being influenced by someone who has an underlying agenda, but I never meet that person, they just send me a link for a seven-page document, thats concerning. Now Im not saying thats intentional, but its concerning. Americans need to know that kind of stuff goes on.
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Google reportedly working on its own smart debit card



Google could soon follow Apple in launching its own branded payments card, according to TechCrunch. The tech giant is developing physical and virtual debit cards that would be co-branded with financial services players, including Citi and Stanford Federal Credit Union. These two firms were floated in a November Wall Street Journal report on a possible Google checking account, code-named Cache. Cache was initially expected to launch early this year but has yet to materialise and it is also unclear when the debit card could make its way into the wild.



The physical Google debit card will display the users name on top with the banks name at the bottom. Its a chip card and is powered by VISA. Users can load the card with money from their bank accounts to make purchases. Googles debit card will work through a Google app which is packed with transactional features like checking the account balance, locking the account and keeping a track of purchases. This isnt the Google Pay app though but the report suggests the debit card will most likely be integrated with it.



If and when it does, the card would let users make in-person, in-app and online purchases and strengthen Google Pay, helping the digital wallet in its fight with rivals from Apple, Samsung and Facebook. Read More...


Kolkata, April 18 : A 78-year-old man on Saturday claimed to have murdered his specially-abled middle aged son here over his apparent refusal to wear mask amid the Covid-19 induced lockdown, the police said.

Banshidhar Mallick, a resident of Shovabazar in North Kolkata, went to the Shyampukur Police Station at around 7 p.m. and said that he had murdered his son by strangulating him with a clothe strap.

The septuagenarian claimed that he committed the crime at about 5.30 p.m. after his son refused to wear a mask while going out of the house.

Mallick claimed that his son had been going out every evening without wearing a mask, despite being repeatedly told to put it on as per the lockdown protocol.

The verbal exchanges soon turned serious on Saturday and the old man claimed that he lost his cool and strangulated his son to death.

The officer-in-charge of the police station, along with officers, rushed to the old man's residence and found his 45-year-old son, Shirsendu Mallick, lying dead.

The body has sent to the hospital for post-mortem.

Officers from the city police's detective department also reached the spot and conducted initial investigation.

Mallick has been detained and a case of murder has been initiated, said city police Joint Commissioner (crime) Murlidhar Sharma.

"As far as the motive is concerned, the matter is under investigation," Sharma said.
The committee also approved amendments to the income tax law and an EGP 10 billion allocation to fight the coronavirus

The Egyptian parliament's budget and planning committee approved in an urgent meeting on Saturday a new batch of government measures to mitigate the negative impact of the coronavirus.

At first, the committee approved new government-drafted amendments to the real estate tax law (196/20080).

The committee met in the Shura Council hall, with all members wearing face masks and sitting at least one metre apart from each other.

Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait, who attended the meeting also wearing a face mask, told the committee that the legislative amendment aims to give exemptions to industries and businesses negatively affected by the precautionary measures taken to fight the coronavirus.

"These amendments were approved by the cabinet and aim to relieve industries and businesses of some of the tax burdens to help them weather the economic storm of the coronavirus," said Maait.

The amendment states that land owned by industries and businesses are exempted from the real estate tax provided that these lands are used in industrial and production activities.

The executive regulations will give the finance minister the power to estimate the value of the tax exemptions and determine how long they will be in place.

"And upon a report to be submitted by the finance minister, the cabinet will decide whether industries using their affiliated lands in industrial, strategic and service activities are eligible for real estate tax exemptions," said the government report on the amended law.

Meanwhile, the committee also approved government-drafted amendments to the income tax law.

Ramadan Seddiq, advisor to minister of finance, told MPs that the amendments aim to achieve social justice, particularly for low-income citizens and state employees.

"The amendments help these brackets relieve some of the income tax burdens, and I can say that these amendments will help a low-income state employee raise his salary by EGP 2,000 a month," said Seddiq.

The committee, however, decided to postpone taking a vote on the amendments until Tuesday and only after the finance ministry submits lists of the income tax brackets and the financial benefits which will be granted.

The budget and planning committee also approved a new budgetary allocation estimated at EGP 10 billion to be earmarked to mitigate the negative economic impact caused by the coronavirus.

Maait explained that due to the critical conditions imposed by the spread of the coronavirus, the government was forced to ask parliament to amend the 2019/20 budget to allocate the EGP 10 billion.

"This additional allocation aims to help the day and seasonal labourers who were very negatively affected by the precautionary measures taken to contain the coronavirus, not to mention that it also aims to push the wheels of production in many sectors," said Maait, also explaining that "the EGP 10 billion is part of an emergency plan estimated at EGP100 billion which was approved by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on 14 March to mitigate the economic cost of the coronavirus on Egypt."

"President El-Sisi asked me whether I can save EGP 100 billion from the budget's reserves to mitigate the economic cost of the coronavirus and I said yes I can," said Maait.

"Egypt's economy has shown a lot of resilience in standing up to the coronavirus storm, not to mention that most world financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF have agreed that the Egyptian economy will be the only one which will maintain a high economic growth even after the end of the coronavirus crisis."

"We are one of very few countries  and the only country in the Arab world and the Middle East  which will achieve a high economic growth," said Maait, insisting that "once the coronavirus is over, Egypt's economy will be quickly back to its normal high growth and strength."

"We implemented a very harsh economic reform programme and we do not want to be exhausted again and return to a vicious circle," said Maait.

The committee also approved a new government-drafted law on "financial measures necessary to contain the negative impact of the coronavirus on productive, economic and service sectors."

The law gives the cabinet the power to intervene to suspend the payment of certain taxes and other financial obligations such as social insurance or allow them to be paid in long-term instalments.

The law states that the postponement will be for a renewable three-month period, and stipulates that businesses are not to fire workers or even cut their salaries.

All of the above economic measures are expected to be approved by parliament in its plenary meetings scheduled for Tuesday.

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The Mumbai police on Saturday arrested actor Ajaz Khan and a case was registered for allegedly using abusive language, defamation, and hate speech. In a video, Khan had used abusive language against the media, including Zee News, and blamed them for targeting Muslims over coronavirus and other problems in India.

The case was registered in the Khar Police station against him under sections 153A, 121, 117, 188, 501, 504, 505 (2) under the Indian Penal Code (IPC). 153A is an offence for promoting disharmony.

Further investigation is going on in the case.
RICHMOND, Va. - Dr. Jeff Browns organs were on the brink of failure. The local vascular surgeon had tested positive for COVID-19, and after three days in the hospital his health was only getting worse. The oxygen level in his blood was low, a condition known as hypoxemia, and respiratory failure was a serious concern.

After the lungs go, oxygen cant be delivered to the rest of the body. Tissues will die and other will organs follow, like one domino knocking over another.

But thanks to some quick thinking by his doctor and a yet-to-be-approved treatment that is showing potential to stave off the most detrimental effects of the coronavirus, Brown made a swift and dramatic turnaround.

Within two hours, I felt like a new person, said Brown, 57.

The physician who treated Brown is a close colleague, Dr. Drew Jones. Maybe it was providence that the man entrusted with Browns well-being had spent years studying how the immune system reacts to disease in the lungs.

Jones, it turns out, was in the perfect position to save his colleagues life.

THE ILLNESS

On March 5, Brown flew to London to return his daughter to the U.S. from her semester abroad through New York University. He took precautions, wearing a mask on each flight and packing hand sanitizer in his bag.

He returned home the morning of Saturday, March 14, and when he entered the U.S. at the Detroit airport he wasnt required to undergo an enhanced screening.

Before returning to work at Bon Secours Memorial Regional Medical Center in Hanover County, he spoke with the administration and others to explain where he had travelled and when he would return. Many other doctors who had travelled recently went through the same process, and Brown was cleared to return.

We take this thing very, very seriously, he said. It was a very fluid situation in mid-March.

Any Bon Secours associate who is potentially exposed to the coronavirus is evaluated and monitored by the hospital network and the Virginia Department of Health, Bon Secours spokeswoman Jenna Green said. One other associate who worked directly with Brown did test positive, he said, though its nearly impossible to know where anyone got the virus.

He resumed work on Monday, March 16, and later that day the United Kingdom was added to a travel restriction list, which took effect at 11:59 p.m. that night. Among those restrictions: Any traveller returning from the U.K. would need to self-quarantine for 14 days. Having arrived just before the quarantine rule was enacted, Brown worked the entire week.

On Friday, March 20, Brown began feeling ill. He had typical flu symptoms  fever, shakes, aches and pains  so he stopped working, visited his hospitals emergency room and was tested for the coronavirus. He went home and awaited the results.

His entire practice was shut down for two weeks. All 11 employees in the Vascular Surgery Associates office in Hanover were sent home with pay. Each patient was contacted and monitored. Every inch of the office was thoroughly cleaned.

During the next week his condition didnt improve. His fever was unrelenting, his energy depleted. He couldnt eat. On March 24, he returned to the emergency room and was admitted to the hospital.

Visitors werent allowed during his stay so he kept his wife updated through phone calls and FaceTime. He spent large portions of the day doing breathing exercises, and when medical staff members entered the room they spent minutes just donning personal protective equipment to safely treat him.

The standard treatments were administered, including Plaquenil and azithromycin. Plaquenil is a brand of hydroxychloroquine, a drug typically used to treat malaria, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and other illnesses that President Donald Trump has lauded. Azithromycin is a common respiratory medicine.

Despite the medicine he was given, Browns condition didnt improve. Over the next four days his health deteriorated. Seven days after he was tested, results returned confirming what he already knew  he was positive for COVID-19.

THE TREATMENT

Jones, the pulmonologist who treated Brown, had already treated one COVID-19 patient. That man was 67 and had been in good health, yet the coronavirus had caused him to suffer cardiac arrest, liver failure and shock. He had been given the normal treatment and the virus had still ravaged his body. Earlier this month the man died.

Jones, 48, knew a change of direction was needed for other patients. He thought back to the years at the beginning of his career at VCU as a pulmonary and critical care fellow and faculty member. There he researched how the immune system functions in the lungs. He had watched how emphysema and asthma affected mice and rats. He knew that something needed to be done earlier in the sequence of infection to save the lives of COVID-19 patients.

Theres a growing belief in the medical community that it isnt the coronavirus itself that kills a patient, but the patients extreme inflammatory response. The immune system floods the cells with proteins called cytokines. When the body produces a rush of cytokines  known as a cytokine storm  blood vessels become weak, allowing fluid to leak in and fill the lung cavities. This can shut down organs and make recovery difficult.

Jones compares the bodys response to a forest fire. Its not too difficult to extinguish a match. But once the match has been dropped and the brush begins to burn and the fire spreads, the devastation is more extensive and the resources needed to stop the fire are more substantial.

Jones thinks the treatment many COVID-19 patients are receiving needs to occur in an earlier stage. On March 27, he administered to Brown a medicine called Actemra, a brand of tocilizumab, which disabled Browns inflammatory response by blocking specific cytokines called interleukin-6 or IL-6.

Actemra hasnt been approved to treat the coronavirus but it has shown promising results across the U.S. and in China. Roche, the Swiss maker of the drug, received $25 million from the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority last week to accelerate the drugs trial. The medicine is traditionally used to treat rheumatoid arthritis.

Brown was in Stage II of the disease, about to cross the line into Stage III, in which the viral response gives way to a dangerous inflammatory response. The forest fire was about to ignite.

So Jones infused the medicine in Stage II before Browns inflammatory response went haywire. The theories Jones had developed years ago as a fellow at VCU were being put to use and the results were dramatic. Work he had begun years ago was culminating in this case.

Its like the puzzle youve been working on all your life and you finally get all the pieces and they fall into place, Jones said. Which is amazing to me.

Understanding the intersection of the bodys immune system and its inflammatory system, Jones said, could be the vital link the health community has been missing for decades. Decades of trials hoping to treat acute respiratory distress syndrome resulted in few answers.

There are drawbacks to using Actemra. Its expensive, costing between $3,000 and $5,000 per dose, and its supply is limited. Much of what has been produced is delivered to New York and Italy, where it is needed most.

Jones prescribed one other unconventional treatment  intravenous vitamin C. He had called Dr. Alpha Berry Fowler, a professor of medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University who runs the lab where Jones was a fellow. Fowler suggested the vitamin C.

Vitamin C isnt an approved treatment for the coronavirus, either, and it isnt recommended by Bon Secours. But the playbook for treating COVID-19 is being written on the fly, and Fowler says theres a growing amount of anecdotal evidence that vitamin C might be effective in treating COVID-19. Fowler is hoping a clinical trial to approve the use of vitamin C in COVID-19 patients will begin this summer.

A large amount of vitamin C is injected  4,000 to 5,000 times the normal amount in the bloodstream. Whether it was the timing of the Actemra, the vitamin C or the combination of medicines that saved Brown is unknown.

There are a number of ways, I think, of getting at this virus, Fowler said. Dr. Jones pressed the right buttons.

THE RECOVERY

The drugs began to take their effect in Browns lungs, binding with the proteins and preventing inflammation. The response was nearly instantaneous.

In 45 minutes he began to feel a change. Within two hours his discomfort had subsided. His fever diminished and his heart rate slowed.

On March 28, Brown received a second dose of Actemra. A day later, a Sunday, he felt well enough to go home. The day after that he did go home. In three days he had gone from his body almost being overrun by the disease to leaving the hospital.

Ive never seen anybody recover as quickly as he did with that level of disease, Jones said.

Jones wrote up a case report detailing his treatment and the results. Bon Secours protocols for treating COVID-19 have grown to at least 51 pages.

Doctors are sharing what theyve learned, some using Facebook to update one another. Other doctors heard of Jones approach by word of mouth and theyre starting to follow his lead.

Physicians like Jones are fighting the virus on two fronts, treating the patients in front of them while also studying the disease in hopes of being more prepared for the next patient. He says hes cried as much in the past two or three weeks as he has in the past two or three decades. But Jeff Brown is a big reason for hope.

Im incredibly grateful I got the care that I got, both from the shift-to-shift bedside nursing and staff and from my physicians, Brown said.

While Brown was required to wait 72 hours without a fever before he could return to work, he delayed his return by an extra week. He was retested, as were all his family members, and all the tests came back negative.

His wife and daughter tested negative for the COVID-19 antibody, meaning they had never contracted the virus despite riding the same trains and planes from London to the U.S.

Itll be impossible for me to figure out where I got it, he said.

By April 9, Brown was back in a health care setting, but instead of being treated he was seeing patients of his own. Soon hell be able to donate his plasma and its antibodies to the American Red Cross.

Not long after his release from the hospital he felt so healthy he started to work on his taxes.
Colorado Springs City Council deadlocked Monday over the appointment of Stephannie Fortune to fill Councilman Richard Skorman's seat on the board. Who among the 7 finalists should be appointed?

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D etails have began to emerged on how Abba Kyari, the late chief of staff to Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari , died after contracting the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), reports The Nigerian Voice.

Abba Kyaris death which may have resulted from coronavirus related complications has increased COVID -19 death cases in Nigeria to 17. According to reports, his passage was said to have occurred on Friday, after battling with the disease for four weeks.

The Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, who broke the news of Abba Kyari's death late Friday night, did not go into details. However a reliable source informed our correspondent that Kyari may have died following some underlying medical conditions which he was battling with before contracting the deadly virus. The source added that other ailments may have hampered Kyaris recovery from the disease.

Its sad that we lost him, but the coronavirus disease may not have killed him if not for other ailments the presidents aide was battling with. May his soul rest in peace, the source said.

According to reports, doctors who were attending to Kyari, had obtained his medical records from Wellington Hospital, St. Johns Wood, London to ascertain his health status.

HIS LAST Testament

In a statement he personally signed six days after he went on self-isolation following the confirmation of his COVID-19 status, Kyari, had said he was looking forward to resuming at his desk.

The deseace had said: I am writing to let you know that on medical advice, I will transfer to Lagos later today for additional tests and observation. This is a precautionary measure: I feel well, but last week, I tested positive for coronavirus, the pandemic that is sweeping the world. I have followed all the protocols government has announced to self-isolate and quarantine.

I have made my own care arrangements to avoid further burdening the public health system, which faces so many pressures. Like many others that will test also positive, I have not experienced high fever or other symptoms associated with this new virus and have been working from home. I hope to be back at my desk very soon,.

KYARIS LIFE AND TIMES

Born into a Kanuri family from Borno, the young Kyari had a quiet upbringing as not much is known about his early life. In 1980, he graduated with a bachelors degree in sociology from the University of Warwick, and also received a bachelors degree in law from the University of Cambridge. In 1983, he was called to the Nigerian Bar after attending the Nigerian Law School.

The thirst for more education drove him to University of Cambridge where he obtained a masters degree in law in 1984.

He later attended the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland and participated in the Program for Management Development at the Harvard Business School, in 1992 and 1994, respectively.

Upon his return to Nigeria, Kyari worked for the law firm Fani-Kayode and Sowemimo for some time.

He will later become the Editor with the New Africa Holdings Limited Kaduna between 1988 and 1990.

In 1990, he served as a Commissioner for Forestry and Animal Resources in Borno State.

Kyari was also the secretary to the board of African International Bank Limited, a subsidiary of Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

Kyari was an executive director in charge of management services at the United Bank for Africa, and was later appointed the chief executive officer.

In 2002, he was appointed a board director of Unilever Nigeria, and later served on the board of Exxon Mobil Nigeria.

The office that will bring him to public limelight was his appointment as Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari in August 2015.

Undoubtedly, Kyari was an influential figure within the Buhari presidency as was responsible for implementing the Presidents agenda during the first term of President Buhari, operating mainly behind the scene

With Buharis re-election for a second term in 2019, the President instructed his cabinet to channel all requests through Kyaris office, further enhancing his influence within government circles.

In 2017, following a leaked memo, Kyari became enmeshed in a public argument with the then Head of Civil Service, Mrs Oyo-Ita who was later removed from office.

Another leaked memo in 2020, will place the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno and Kyari at loggerheads as accusation of meddling in matters of national security dominated public discourse.

On March 24, 2020, it was made public that Kyari tested positive for COVID-19 on March 23, following an official trip to Germany nine days earlier. It was also reported that Kyari had underlying medical conditions and was secretly flown out of the country. Claims that were vacated when it became official and public that he was moved from Abuja to Lagos due to medical conditions.
As India fights against coronavirus, there is a dire need of COVID-19 testing kits that can give results quickly.

The problem, it seems, might just have a solution thanks to a team of two Bengali-origin scientists and filmmaker Satyajit Ray's famous fictional detective Feluda.

Tumblr/Sahnatipal

Dr Souvik Maiti and Dr Debojyoti Chakraborty, at the Council of Scientific & Industrial Researchs Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB) in New Delhi, have reportedly come up with a 'strip-test' to check whether someone has COVID-19. And the test can apparently give results within minutes. It is named after the famous fictional Bengali detective Feluda.

Feluda is a paper-based test strip that can detect COVID-19 within an hour and could be the answer to Indias urgent need for rapid-testing.

According to a report, the test uses the cutting-edge gene-editing tool Crispr-Cas9 to target and identify the genomic sequences of the novel coronavirus in the samples of suspected individuals.

Representative Image/Science News

We have been working on this tool for around two years. But, in late January, when the outbreak hit its peak in China, we began testing it to see if it can work for Covid-19. It took us around two months to come up with these results," Dr Debjyoti Chakraborty, told Live Mint in an interview.

The Print reports that the testing might also be cost effective. Currently real-time polymerase chain reaction test (RT-PCR) that is used requires machinery worth lakhs of rupees. At private laps the price is Rs 4,500. The Feluda test might cost just Rs 500.

CSIR Campus/crispr.igib.res.in

This strip will be similar to a pregnancy test strip, and will not require any specialised skill and machines to perform, as is the case with other PCR-based tests. This strip will just change colour, and can be used in a simple pathological lab. The most important part is it will be 100 per cent accurate, CSIR Director-General Shekhar C. Mande told the publication.

This is the first of its kind approach to be developed in India. More information on this has yet to come in.




Zyad Elelaimy, a key figure of Egypts 2011 popular uprising, and Ramy Shaath, a prominent activist added to list.

Egypt has added 13 people, including former legislator Zyad Elelaimy, on the countrys terrorism list for collaborating with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

Saturdays decision, published in the official gazette, stated that their placement on the terrorism list will be for a period of five years.

Elelaimy, a key figure of Egypts 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime President Hosni Mubarak, was arrested in June 2019.

Also put on the list was Ramy Shaath, a prominent activist who holds Egyptian citizenship and was arrested two months after Elelaimy.

Since their arrest, the pair have been charged with joining a terrorist group, namely the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been outlawed following the 2013 overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.

In its ruling Saturday, the court said Brotherhood members had tasked other members of the group  including Ramy Shaath and Zyad al-Elaimy with carrying out activities against the state.

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Defence lawyer Khaled Ali told AFP news agency the decision was taken in the absence of the lawyers and would be appealed.

Hundreds of people have been added to Egypts terrorism list in recent years, including fugitives and people arrested by authorities.

The measure authorises the authorities to freeze their assets while those who are not behind bars are banned from travel.

Authorities have arrested thousands of Morsi supporters since his removal, as well as secular activists, journalists, lawyers and academics.
More than $200,000 in properly-packaged cannabis, vaping oil and marijuana shatter were seized during a police raid of an unlicensed but sophisticated online cannabis delivery service.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/4/2020 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

More than $200,000 in properly-packaged cannabis, vaping oil and marijuana shatter were seized during a police raid of an unlicensed but sophisticated online cannabis delivery service.

After being tipped off by the Manitoba Liquor, Gaming and Cannabis Authority and provincial justice department public safety investigators, Winnipeg Police Service officers searched a warehouse in Sargent Park that was being used to store cannabis for an online business operating as Dr. Kush. They arrested a 43-year-old man April 15 who faces charges under the Cannabis Act of illegally possessing and selling cannabis and possessing the proceeds of crime.

Two other suspects are still outstanding, police announced Friday.

The business was illegal, but was using government-regulated cannabis packaging and kept detailed accounting records, said Patrol Sgt. Jeffrey Norman, of the central division community support unit, during a WPS news conference that displayed the seized products Friday. Couriers working for Dr. Kush offered citywide delivery but camouflaged the drugs inside the same type of insulated bags used by local food delivery services, police said.

Despite the business being "well-organized," its site was dirty, lacked quality control and may have had rodents, Norman said.

"This warehouse was by no means clean. In and amongst the processing of putting these bags together was rodent feces, so obviously a legitimate business would not allow that to be introduced into the packaging and the delivery of a product. But this wasn't their concern. Their concern was obviously getting a product and making financial gains," Norman said.

He said the unlicensed operation came to light at the beginning of February and the WPS unit was notified last month. Police hadn't tested the seized cannabis, nor had they received any reports from customers who may have received tainted drugs.

"For most of the customers of this company, this is going to be their first announcement that there had been any type of trouble in respect to law enforcement investigating this business."

The Dr. Kush website was still running as of Friday afternoon, although products were listed as out of stock and its Instagram page had been deactivated. The website indicated the cannabis was grown under a medical marijuana licence "and gifted to us to share with you" -- something Norman said is clearly illegal under Canada's cannabis laws.

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Steven Stairs, a Winnipeg cannabis advocate, said he had been a customer of Dr. Kush since October 2018. The business, a fairly large and well-known online delivery service, was efficient and accepted e-transfers and cash, he said. Stairs said he was disturbed to learn Friday about sanitation and quality control issues in the warehouse.

"They had awesome customer service, same-day delivery, a large selection of product, friendly staff. It was a good company, the way it was run. Now, I have concerns about the back end, the warehouse with rodents," he said.

He said the legalization of cannabis still hasn't shut down the local black market, suggesting clients who purchased illegal cannabis are still doing so because they want a better-quality product at a lower price.

"With legalization, it didn't eliminate the black market. It created two separate markets," he said. "They don't compete with each other."

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay
NY Governor Fires Back at Trump

By Margaret Besheer April 17, 2020

New York's governor fired back Friday at criticism from President Donald Trump over whether the state had requested too much federal help to fight the coronavirus.

During his daily press briefing, a reporter asked Gov. Andrew Cuomo for his reaction to two tweets the president sent out during the briefing, which Trump appeared to be watching.

In one, Trump said the Democratic governor should spend more time "doing" and less time "complaining."

"We built you thousands of hospital beds that you didn't need or use," Trump said. The president also said New York received large numbers of ventilators that he believed the state should have had itself.

In a second tweet, Trump said, "We have given New York far more money, help and equipment than any other state, by far" and he complained that the governor never "says thanks."

New York is the U.S. state hardest hit by the pandemic. As of Friday, New York reported more than 223,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Nearly 13,000 state residents have died in hospitals from the virus, although numbers are expected to rise as "probable" COVID-19 deaths at home are added to the data.

"First of all, if he's sitting home watching TV, maybe he should get up and go to work," Cuomo fired back.

Cuomo added that he has repeatedly thanked the president for federal government assistance, including building a 2,500-bed field hospital at a New York City convention center and for sending the U.S. naval hospital ship Comfort to the city, which has more than half of the state's total COVID-19 cases.

"I don't know, what am I supposed to do, send a bouquet of flowers?" the governor quipped.

Cuomo emphasized that New York made its hospital capacity and equipment requests based on projections from the federal government  specifically from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the president's White House Coronavirus Task Force.

In March, they forecast that as many as 160 million to 214 million Americans could become infected with the virus without mitigation efforts, such as social distancing. They also warned that between 2.4 million and 21 million people could require hospitalization and a further 1 million to 2 million could die.

"The number came from a projection from him," Cuomo said of the president. "He should read the reports he issues."

Cuomo said if the president is not happy with the predictions, he should fire the heads of the CDC and his task force, as well as his senior aide, Peter Navarro.

Earlier in the week, Cuomo said he had no desire to fight with the president when Trump said it was in his power to decide when states would lift restrictions on businesses and reopen.

"The president will have no fight with me," the governor said on Tuesday. "I will not engage." But Cuomo appeared to have changed his mind by Friday, launching a series of criticisms that went on for nearly half an hour.

Trump did shift his position in line with the Constitution and said state governors should make decisions on reopening. Cuomo said without giving them funding and assisting with wide-scale virus testing, the president is "doing nothing."

"All he's doing is walking in front of the parade," Cuomo said.

The president also tweeted that states should step up their testing.

Cuomo has repeatedly said that individual states do not have the capacity to test on a mass scale. New York alone has a population of 19.5 million people.

"He's saying he doesn't want to provide funding to the states, and he doesn't want to help on testing," Cuomo said Friday. "And I can tell you the states can't do it otherwise. And if this testing doesn't work, that's a serious problem."

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18) - The government continues work to bring more Filipinos home amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) announced the arrival of 863 Filipino seafarers from Miami, Florida at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

The seafarers arrived Saturday morning aboard two Boeing-747 Wamos flights, chartered by Norwegian Cruise Lines Holdings, Miami.

This comes a month after the first Wamos repatriation flight from San Francisco, California.

The DFA assured that appropriate airport medical protocols and checks were conducted by the Department of Health and Bureau of Quarantine upon their arrival.

"The repatriates shall undergo a mandatory 14-day facility-based quarantine," the DFA said in a statement.

The Filipino seafarers are crew members of Norwegian Epic, Gem, Star, Dawn, Encore and Oceania's Sirena and Marina.

"This morning's arrivals push the number of our repatriated seafarers above the 12,600 mark and we expect more arrivals in the coming days," Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Sarah Arriola said in a statement.

The DFA has also coordinated the repatriation of some 3,159 land-based workers. As of Saturday, about 15,801 Filipino workers have been assisted by the department since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

The agency said five more flights are scheduled to arrive from the United States in the next two days.
Ontarios indecision over how to treat federal income support for workers on social assistance during the COVID-19 crisis has caused at least one person with disabilities to lose his benefits, including drug and medical coverage, the Star has learned.

Weve been warning the government this would happen, said Kyle Vose, co-chair of the ODSP Action Coalition which advocates on behalf of people receiving Ontario Disability Support Program benefits.

Thats why we issued our open letter April 7, urging Ontario to exempt CERB benefits from social assistance, he said Saturday.

Sault Ste. Marie mother Karen Andrews said she was shocked this month when her son was told by his ODSP worker that his benefits were being suspended because he received the $2,000 Canada Emergency Relief Benefit (CERB).

Doug Ford keeps saying nobody will be left behind, said Andrews, whose 27-year-old son has been receiving ODSP benefits for almost a decade due to a debilitating chronic pain condition that prevents him from working full time.

What about people with disabilities? she said in a phone interview.

Andrews asked that her sons name not be published because his employer doesnt know about his disability or that he receives ODSP.

A spokesperson for Ontarios children, community and social services ministry said the government does not comment on individual cases.

But as reported by the Star on April 16, the ministry directed all social assistance staff not to record CERB payments in the provinces computerized benefits system until further notice, so that no individuals will have their social assistance and related health benefits impacted, said Palmer Lockridge.

In the event that an individual had their CERB benefits entered prior to this direction, the ministry will work with the caseworker to ensure their health benefits are reinstated, Lockridge said in an email Saturday.

British Columbia announced April 2 it would be exempting EI and CERB benefits for three months for people on social assistance who had lost jobs due to the pandemic. For others, the province said it would be increasing social assistance benefits by $300 a month.

On April 13, Carla Qualtrough, the federal minister of employment, workforce development and disability inclusion, urged all provinces not to claw back CERB benefits to ensure vulnerable Canadians do not fall behind.

Ontario has yet to say how it will treat the CERB. But Lockridge said Minister Todd Smith had a productive discussion with Qualtrough on Friday and will be providing more information in the coming days.

Andrews son typically receives a monthly ODSP benefit of $1,169, which is reduced by a percentage of his earnings, leaving him a monthly total of between $1,850 and $2,000.

He lost his part-time job on March 14 and was told by his ODSP caseworker that he had to apply for EI to remain eligible for provincial benefits, Andrews said.

He applied in late March, just before Ottawa rolled pandemic-related EI applications into the CERB. The new temporary benefit provides $2,000 a month to anyone whose earnings have dropped below $1,000 a month and who made at least $5,000 in the past year. Benefits are expected to continue for four months.

Andrews son received his CERB payment on April 6 and reported the income  as required  to his ODSP worker. He was dumbfounded when the worker told him his benefits were being put on hold due to an overpayment of $800 and that he no longer qualified for drug and medical coverage, she said.

His medication costs $750 every other month and they are telling him he now has the money to pay for his own drugs, Andrews said.

Not only do I find this treatment unfair, but without warning as well, she said. He doesnt know how he is going to get his drugs and pay all his bills next month. I certainly hope they get this ironed out.
Tokyo: Hospitals in Japan are increasingly turning away sick people as the country struggles with surging coronavirus infections and its emergency medical system collapses.

An ambulance carrying a passenger from the Diamond Princess cruise ship arrives at a hospital in Yokohama, near Tokyo. Credit:AP

In one recent case, an ambulance carrying a man with a fever and difficulty breathing was rejected by 80 hospitals and forced to search for hours for a hospital in downtown Tokyo that would treat him. Another feverish man finally reached a hospital after paramedics unsuccessfully contacted 40 clinics.

The Japanese Association for Acute Medicine and the Japanese Society for Emergency Medicine say many hospital emergency rooms are refusing to treat people including those suffering strokes, heart attacks and external injuries.

Japan initially seemed to have controlled the outbreak by going after clusters of infections in specific places, usually enclosed spaces such as clubs, gyms and meeting venues. But the spread of virus outpaced this approach and most new cases are untraceable.
South Korean engineers wait their turn to submit health declarations on arrival at the Van Don Airport in the northern province of Quang Ninh, April 17. 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Binh Minh.

An Asiana Airlines flight carrying 308 South Korean engineers landed Friday afternoon at the Van Don Airport in the northern province of Quang Ninh.

The engineers, flying from Seoul, are employees of Samsung Vietnam who have been allowed into the country under an agreement between the governments of both countries.

All Samsung engineers coming in Friday have been issued with an official certificate issued by competent authorities of the South Korean government and approved by the Vietnamese government stating they are Covid-19 negative.

On arrival, all of them were required to make health declarations in accordance with health ministrys regulations. Then, the military command of Quang Ninh Province took all the engineers to facilities where their health will be supervised for 14 days before they can start working.

Earlier, the Vietnamese government had allowed Samsung Displays engineers to skip mandatory centralized quarantine required for anyone arriving from South Korea, but ordered strict medical supervision and isolation from other workers for 14 days.

Samsung, the worlds biggest smartphone maker, is the largest foreign investor in Vietnam, employing around 160,000 people.

Samsung Electronics accounts for a quarter of Vietnams exports, and the Southeast Asian country is South Koreas third-biggest export market, and the fifth-biggest source of South Koreas imports.

Starting March 22, Vietnam suspended entry for all foreign nationals, including those of Vietnamese origin and family members with visa waivers.

Only Vietnamese nationals and foreigners carrying diplomatic and official passports such as business managers, experts and high-skilled workers have been allowed to enter the country since, and all entrants will be quarantined for 14 days.
SANDY RUN -- A 761-acre industrial park is under development in the Sandy Run area.

The park straddles land at the Lexington County-Calhoun County line. It is already home to a new Zeus Industrial Products plant.

"Even as we deal with the severe but temporary measures related to the coronavirus, Calhoun County looks forward to the great potential of the development in Sandy Run Industrial Park once the virus is no longer a threat," Calhoun County Councilman John Nelson said.

"The future assembly of industry in this park will complement the new Zeus plant, a state-of-the-art facility providing high-paying jobs and significant tax base to Calhoun County, he said.

Red Rock Developments and NAI Columbia announced this week they are developing the park. Other investors include Calhoun Land Investors and Alliance Consulting Engineering.

The park is located off of U.S. Highway 21 on Interstate 26 (Exit 119) near the DAK Americas property, which was formerly home to Carolina Eastman.

About 580 of the 761 acres is developable, according to Calhoun County Administrator and Director of Economic Development John McLauchlin.

"This investment is a testament to our location, skilled workforce and pro-business environment, McLauchlin said.

The park has been entirely privately funded.

"We are assisting in the future some with funding," McLauchlin said.

McLauchlin said the park received some interest before the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It is fully served on the interstate and it has the Columbia market we can capture from a labor standpoint and livability standpoint," McLauchlin said. "Once the economy gets back going, I think the park will take off."

The park has access to all utilities, Interstate 77 and Interstate 20.

Red Rock Developments plans to complete over 5.9 million square feet of Class A industrial space in the park. Class A industrial space represents the newest and highest-quality buildings and infrastructure.

The park is near the Charleston port, Volvos new manufacturing facility in the Lowcountry and BMW in the Upstate," Red Rock Developments CEO Bill Smith said. "The location, coupled with the excellent highway system of the Midlands, makes this an excellent option for companies looking to locate in a Class A industrial park within the great labor shed of South Carolina."

NAI Earle Furman CEO Jonathan Good said, "We are fully vested and confident that Sandy Run Industrial Park is the best location as a Class A industrial park to serve Columbia and the Midlands market."

Red Rock Developments is a privately held real estate development and investment company. It has developed over 18 million square feet of Class A industrial space.

NAI Columbia, a full service commercial real estate firm, officially launched on Jan. 1, 2019.

The new company is a partnership with NAI Earle Furman and eight local principals, all of whom were senior brokers with NAI Avant, which has served the Midlands market for over 50 years.

A groundbreaking ceremony will be scheduled at a later date for the industrial park.

Zeus Industrial Products newly constructed, 148,000-square-foot manufacturing facility will eventually employ 350 people. The plant is not quite yet operational.

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ABUJA, Nigeria - Africa now has more than 1,000 deaths from COVID-19, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday, while Nigeria said the presidents chief of staff had died.

A total of 52 of the continents 54 countries have reported the coronavirus, with the overall number of cases surpassing 20,000 on Saturday.

Nigerias government said Abba Kyari, chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, died Friday of COVID-19. May God accept his soul, the statement said.

Kyari had been considered by some as Nigerias most powerful government figure, His infection had been one of the highest-profile in Africa. Several government ministers and a U.S. ambassador were infected with the virus earlier in Burkina Faso.

Kyari announced his illness last month, saying that I have made my own care arrangements to avoid further burdening the public health system, which faces so many pressures.

He was reported to have been infected during a visit to Germany. He was criticized for not isolating upon his return to Nigeria and accused of infecting other top government officials.

Nigeria currently has nearly 500 cases of the virus.

The World Health Organization on Friday noted a 51% increase in cases in Africa and a 60% jump in deaths in the past week. But the WHO chief warned that because of a shortage of testing its likely the real numbers are higher than reported.

The Africa CDC has said more than 1 million test kits will be rolled out starting next week.

___

Umar reported from Maiduguri, Nigeria.

___

Follow AP coverage of the pandemic at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
Police in Tan Binh District, Ho Chi Minh City are investigating a man found begging on the city's streets with 12 national ID cards in his possession, all of which bear the same personal data.

Nguyen Trung Son, chairman of Ward 4 in Tan Binh District, said officials encountered the beggar during a regular patrol for prevention and control of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic on Friday morning.

The cohort spotted a beggar near the intersection of Ut Tich and Hoang Van Thu Streets and brought him to the headquarters of the wards Peoples Committee.

The man was found carrying some VND50 million (US$2,150) worth of cash and 12 national ID cards bearing the same name, address, and date of birth.

Officials then summoned the beggar's relatives for verification and concluded that he was born in 1943 and is living in Ward 2 in Tan Binh District.

According to the man's account, he makes some VND500,000 ($22) per day from begging.

The stash of money he had with him was three months' worth of savings from panhandling, he said.

Ward 4 Police have confiscated the man's ID cards and held him for further investigation.

Tan Binh Police are working to verify the identification documents, while a report on the case is being made for submission to the Ministry of Public Security, a source told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Saturday.

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Covid-19 cases have been increasing at alarming pace in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits

Hyderabad: Health minister Etala Rajendar naming and dragging Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) returnees again in the context of Covid-19 is a continuous and systematic attack against the Muslim community, community elders said.

The minister's appeal on Thursday to 600 people who returned from the Tablighi Jamaat congregation or their contacts is being seen as an attempt to malign and typecast the people of the community as spreaders of the disease.

Mushtaq Malilk, president of the Tahreek Muslim Shabban, said, It is a systematic attack on the community in the name of the disease.

The government has not brought to light more than 200 Jamaat people who tested negative. They were kept in the Nature Cure Hospital and discharged. It is this behaviour of the government and administration which is leading to problems as they are being discriminatory. In the time of a pandemic, we have a government repeatedly attacking a group of people and they expect them to show confidence in them.

The manner in which the people from the community have been treated by police and the hospital administrations has been creating fear in them. Many of them are not willing to go to hospitals. Many of them complained of dirty, unhygienic conditions with no proper food being given to them.

Despite the World Health Organisation stating clearly that people, communities and localities must not be stigmatised, Muslims are being continuously maligned by the local administration right up to senior levels of government, said a community elder.

In the present case of tracking and tracing, health officials have complained of anger within the community which was not the case earlier.

A senior health official explained, Before politicising the issue, there was complete co-operation from every citizen. But after the Nizamuddin Markaz incident not only Muslims but even others are scared. There is anger and health workers are facing the brunt of people. Politicians and bureaucrats do not think about ground level workers while making these kind of statements.

Other senior members of community stated that they do not understand why only the case of Tablighi Jamaat returnees are being highlighted by the government. Prof. Abdul Majeed, a senior member of the community, said, There were many congregations in March but not a single community has been targeted in the manner in which Muslims have been. Again, the government is working on the same lines. They must seek the help of people which they have not done. Is there any dialogue that they have initiated? Why? What is stopping them?

Of the 750+ cases in the state only those with travel history abroad and the Markaz returnees have been documented while for the rest the list only says 'details awaited'. Health officials state that government does not want to record data of other transmission as they are still in denial of community transmission. For this reason, health workers have been strictly told that it will be other reasons or unknown reasons.

A senior health official said, Instead of following the right method of not stigmatising people and society, the government has succeeded in making Covid-19 a stigma. It only shows the mishandling of this government.
The income tax department has issued a clarification for those who want to opt for the new tax slabs as announced in Budget 2020 and which came into effect from April 1 this year.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has said in the circular that employers can seek a declaration from employees and deduct tax at source (TDS) according to the old tax regime or the new concessional tax rates, as opted by the employee.

Section 192 of the Income Tax Act, 1961, says that every employer has to mandatorily deduct tax while paying salary to the employee. The tax rate should be in line with the applicable income-tax slab.

However, with the dual income-tax slabs and rates available to the employees for the financial year 2021, there was confusion on how tax should be deducted on salary.

Also Watch l Should you opt for Modi govts new income tax regime introduced in Budget?

The old tax slabs will also continue and people will have a choice to opt either of them.

Whether an employee chooses the new tax regime or the old one depends on a case-to-case basis and they will have to give up on a lot of deductions that could help reduce taxable income.

Under the new tax rates, there is zero tax for income up to Rs 2.5 lakh; 5% for income between Rs 2.5 lakh and up to Rs 5 lakh; 10% for income between Rs 5 lakh and up to Rs 7.5 lakh; 15% for income between Rs 7.5 lakh and up to Rs 10 lakh; 20% for income between Rs 10 lakh and up to Rs 12.5 lakh; 25% for income between Rs 12.5 lakh and up to Rs 15 lakh; 30% for income above Rs 15 lakh.

Here are the clarifications by the income tax department:

* Employees, who do not have income from business or profession, will have to inform their employers about their intention to opt for the new tax regime for deduction of tax at source or TDS from their salaries

* They will continue to be taxed under the older slabs present in the IT act, if they do not exercise the option

* It will be applicable for the year and cant be modified once employees inform the employer about their intention to opt for the new concessional tax rates for TDS

* According to the IT department, an employee can change the option of tax structure at the time of filing income tax return and the amount of TDS payment will be adjusted accordingly

* The deductor shall compute his total income and make TDS thereon in accordance with the provision of Section 115 BAC of the (Income Tax) Act. If such intimation is not made by the employee, the employer shall make TDS without considering the provision of Section 115 BAC of the Act, the department said.

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Just weeks apart from one another, we learned not only that Aston Martin was working on its own hybridized V-6 and that the version found in the Valhalla supercar will be named TM01, after the great Tadek Marek. Now, thanks to a new interview between Aston CEO, Andy Palmer, and Autocar , weve learned even more about the sheer versatility of the TM01 and what the future holds for it. As it turns out, its going to be spread across the entire Aston range over the next few years  an important development, no doubt.

Heres How Aston Martins Hybrid Plan Unfolds

With Mercedes-AMG quite literally killing off the V-8 engine in an effort to populate most of its models with over-powered four-bangers, Aston Martin had to step up their game. This means, Aston  a company that has plenty of experience with inline-six engines  is forced to do something it has never done before: build a quality V-6 engine thats worthy of replacing all those AMG-sourced V-8s. In his interview with Autocar, Palmer explained whats going on behind closed doors.

Mercedes have made no secret of where their engine technology is moving to, and obviously we dont foresee four-cylinder engines in our Astons, so weve got to make our own journey.

We already knew that this new V-6 from Aston Martin would be a hybrid of some type, but there was a lot of concern swirling around how much power it will be capable of. Output for the Valhalla is expected to deliver a combined output of nearly 1,000 horsepower, and now we know that the very same Valhalla engine will be found under the hood of other Aston models too, albeit with less power, of course. In short, thanks to electrical assistance, Aston plans on the TM01 to be a modular replacement for the AMG V-8, and Plamer has even confirmed that its compatible with the brands current crop of transmissions.

As you move on, you normally expect a power increase, not a decrease, Palmer said. Youre supposed to do that even with a smaller power unit, so theres no way our customers are going to expect to step backward.

So, we know that the hybrid V-6 that will ultimately be detuned when its found in the Vantage, the entry-level DB11, and the upcoming DBX will be more powerful than the current AMG V-8, but can it live up to the expectations of Aston Martin customers?

The key is sound. Tuning the pipes to make it sound like an Aston. Obviously, we can use the hybrid system and the electric motor to fill in on torque, so you can compensate for the cylinder size with the electrical assistance.

And, thats the secret: as long as it feels like a V-8 and sounds majestic, it will fit in the lineup just fine. Palmer added that he feels its perfectly sensible and a lot more sensible than a [four-cylidner] would be.

With this in mind, the production version of the TM01 found in Astons main consumer cars will be built in the U.K by a supplier that has yet to be disclosed. Its been said that it doesnt involve Fords engine plant in Bridgend, though, so it sounds like some things are still up in the air. The companys current 5.2-liter V-12 will soon be built in the U.K. as well and is also on the docket to be electrified in the coming years. Theres still a demand for it, so the company isnt going to give up on it quite yet.

Either way, the point right now is that the same engine found in the Valhalla will actually be found in a lot of Aston vehicles  something that means there could be a lot of tuning opportunity when these models hit the road. Of course, a lot of power restrictions will come from the electric components, but the fact of the matter is that Astons main lineup will soon feature a supercar engine, even if it is in a detuned state. Thats pretty cool if you ask me.

Source: Autocar
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Scientists all over the world are working to understand, contain and cure Covid-19. Heres a quick look at four important advances that made headway this week.

A positive trial for an antiviral drug

Yesterday a rare bit of good news emerged from a clinical trial at the University of Chicago. STATnews reported that the antiviral drug Remdesivir appeared to have some fighting force against Covid-19. The trial included 125 people, 113 of them classified as having a severe case of the virus.

All got the drug; there was no placebo group. Most were released from the hospital less than a week later, and only 2 died  an unusually low number given how deadly the disease has been in those who get severely ill. Other trials around the world, if they go this well, should lead to quick FDA approval for the drug, manufactured by Gilead Sciences.

Long before the current Covid-19 pandemic, scientists at the University of North Carolina and Gilead began developing this drug in anticipation of new coronavirus epidemic. Two other deadly outbreaks that occurred this century, SARS and MERS, were both caused by coronaviruses from bats, as with Covid-19.

One of the developers of the drug, Timothy Sheahan of the University of North Carolina, told me in an interview last January that the drug was designed to interfere with enzymes SARS and MERS need to replicate themselves. At the time, his group had just started to see impressive results in animal studies of MERS.

The only human trials before the current outbreak were in Ebola patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While it didnt work against Ebola as well as other therapies, it did pass basic safety standards.

The drug has been given sporadically for Covid-19. Anecdotal reports abound of people near death bouncing back after getting the drug. And even this clinical trial has to be viewed with cautious optimism, since it was small, and wasnt compared with a placebo. But more trials are underway around the world  including 2,400 participants with severe disease and 1,600 patients whose symptoms are moderate.

Story continues

New clues to how the virus spread from China

Genetic sleuths are digging deep into the origin and early spread of the Covid-19 virus, tracking small mutations in its genetic material. One surprise is that the virus had already branched into two subtypes by the time it was isolated from the first patient in Wuhan on December 23, and this patient seemed to have the second subtype  not the original. Peter Forster, a genetics professor from Cambridge University, has dubbed the original variant A, and the one found in that Wuhan patient variant B. (B carries two mutations not found in A.)

Strain A is more than 96% identical to samples isolated from horseshoe bats, which he believes harbored the virus before it jumped to humans. A molecular clock technique puts that leap between September 18 and December 7, 2019.

Forster said he and his colleagues, who published their work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, used a collection of published viral sequences collected in an international database normally used to track influenza. The paper only included the first 160 viral genomes, but his group has now studied more than 1,000.

Looking at data from before January 17, which represents the earliest date people started travelling for Chinese New Year, Forster found that of 44 Wuhan samples, 42 were B and only 2 were A. There were more A strains in the Guangdong Province in southern China.

Some people have speculated that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which may have been experimenting on coronaviruses, but Forester says his data point to a jump from bats in Southern China that subsequently spread to Wuhan and other areas. The B strain might have branched off before it reached Wuhan, where the first major outbreak was noticed.

Meanwhile, he says, they find viruses from cluster A in Americans whod travelled from China to the West Coast of the United States between January and early March. Before March 24th, most U.S. cases were A.

B, however, quickly became the dominant type in Wuhan and across China. Another mutation in B led to a strain C, which is nearly absent in China, but is still spreading across Europe. Europe has also shown a lot of sequences from the B cluster. (Whether these mutations affect the behavior or lethality of the virus is yet to be determined, since mutations dont always lead to changes in function.)

Forster said the viral genetics show the first case in Italy in late January originated from an early spread in Germany, though Italian health authorities focused only on the patients possible connections to China. Meanwhile the disease is spreading uncontrolled across Italy.

Researchers at NYU and Mount Sinai used similar genetic information gathered later in the outbreak to determine that cases in New York City originated from multiple sources elsewhere in the U.S. and Europe, rather than directly from China, and that there had been local spread in New York for a month or so before it was officially first identified there at the end of February. Their paper is pending publication.

Forster hopes further work in sequencing genomes could help health authorities track new outbreaks without looking in the wrong place. And finding the true origin of the pandemic could help us avoid making the same mistake again.

Antibody studies are looking for more volunteers

Antibody tests have become a hot topic since people jumped to the conclusion that getting a positive test means you cant get or spread Covid-19. While standard tests detect genetic material from the virus itself, antibody tests can detect proteins the body makes to fight the infections.

New York Times tech columnist Kara Swisher wrote this week that she got one, because she knew a guy, but found it a moral dilemma to take a test so many others need.

It would have presented no moral dilemma had the guy been the head of a legitimate research project, because scientists still cant be sure antibodies from a previous infection always protect against a new one. Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch also warned that too little is yet known about post-infection immunity to assume people cant get re-infected.

Its hard to know what immunity to this virus looks like since its only been in humans since, maybe late 2019, says Harvard immunologist Duane Wesemann, who is collecting samples from volunteers to figure it out. Several other coronaviruses infect humans, causing a subset of common colds. Scientists want to know whether recent infection with these might affect the severity of Covid-19 infections.

The testing itself isnt rocket science, says Wesemann. But understanding the complex relationship between the virus and the human immune system is.

So far only about 6% of volunteers from around the Boston area were positive in a preliminary data set. Some reported a cold or sore throat in February or March, while others recalled no symptoms at all. But the sample is still small, and in a follow-up email, Wesemann explained that it may not be representative.

Antibody-rich blood could help protect health care workers

If antibodies do work, and you test positive for them, you may be able to share your protection with several other people. Already, patients whove recovered from documented infections are donating their antibody-rich blood to others.

Doctors in China have treated small groups of patients and reported promising results in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences. In the United States, some severely ill patients get the same treatment under compassionate use guidelines.

But those are the cases where its least likely to work, says Johns Hopkins immunologist Arturo Casadevall. By then the virus has already done too much damage.

The rule of antibody therapy, he says, is it always works best if used early or prophylactically. Earlier this month, he and his fellow researchers at Johns Hopkins got approval for a clinical trial giving donated antibodies to front-line health care workers to protect them from getting sick.

Casadevall says he started pushing to develop the technology early, before the disease started spreading in the United States. His enthusiasm, he says, is based on his knowledge of medical history. Similar convalescent serum treatments have been used since the early 20th century to prevent or treat measles, mumps, and polio.

Unlike a vaccine, borrowed antibodies from recovered patients would confer only temporary protection  starting to fade after a half-life of about 20 days. Still, thats long enough to help health care workers desperate to avoid getting infected.

The big limiting factor now is supply, he says. But that could change with more recovered patients and more antibody testing of people who had been only mildly ill. Donated blood can also be tested for antibodies.

Casadevall is optimistic that the biomedical research community will make quick inroads on this virus  between new treatments, new ways to speed up testing, and ways to protect people before a vaccine is close.

While this is the worst pandemic since 1918, and governments in many countries were slow to take precautions, he believes the international biomedical research community is a mighty force. Humanity has never been better prepared.

(Updates with additional information about Wesemanns research sample in the 22nd paragraph of the article published April 17.)

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Faye Flam is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She has written for the Economist, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Psychology Today, Science and other publications. She has a degree in geophysics from the California Institute of Technology.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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Tiger King has reportedly achieved more streaming minutes in its first full week of release than any other show.

The Netflix documentary explores the extraordinary story of Joe Exotic, who owned hundreds of tigers, lions, bears and other exotic animals at the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park (also known as the GW Zoo) in Wynnewood, Oklahoma.

Exotic, born Joseph Allen Schreibvogel, is currently serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted on charges including animal abuse and two counts of murder-for-hire, the latter for a plot to kill his rival, Big Cat Rescue CEO Carole Baskin.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, data from Nielsen shows that, despite only having seven episodes, Tiger King fans watched more than 5.3bn minutes of the show between 23 to 29 March.

The figure is more than 50 per cent higher than the next most-watched show, Ozark, which achieved 3.5bn minutes worth of streams.

Nielsen also revealed that viewers streamed 169.9bn minutes of content in the week of 6 April, the most since the coronavirus outbreak was declared a pandemic in mid-March.

Tiger King is, overall, one of Netflixs biggest shows to date and has been the subject of intense debate among fans on social media.

A number of the series stars have spoken out to offer their views on the show and the incidents it covers.

Exotic recently conducted an interview from prison, which you can read about here.
President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been in heavy talks throughout the month as the coronavirus pandemic rages on.

In the two weeks from March 30, the world leaders have spoken four times over the phone, with the most recent call on Easter Sunday.

It's an unprecented amount of contact for the two presidents, and CNN reports that Trump and Putin discussed the COVID-19 pandemic and the oil market war between Russia and Saudi Arabia.

While they appear to be easing relations between Washington and the Kremlin, political analysts are warning that this is all part of Putin's plan to undermine the United States.

Since March 30, President Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke four times over the phone as the coronavirus pandemic rages on

'Reaching out to the United States is part of part of Putin's long-term plan to basically undermine the credibility of the United States as an important stalwart player in the global system, to undermine our alliances, and then to create as many lasting sources of tension between Donald Trump and his own national security team,' Andrew Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told CNN.

'The more that Russia succeeds in doing that, the less pressure Russia itself is likely to face from a unified western camp,' he added.

After their final talk on Sunday, Donald Trump touted that a historic deal had been reached to stop the oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia and help shore up oil prices amid the coronavirus pandemic  thanking Vladimir Putin and Mohammad Bin Salman for working toward the agreement.

'The big Oil Deal with OPEC Plus is done,' Trump posted to Twitter Easter Sunday. 'This will save hundreds of thousands of energy jobs in the United States.'

'I would like to thank and congratulate President Putin of Russia and King Salman of Saudi Arabia. I just spoke to them from the Oval Office. Great deal for all!' the president praised.

Their last call came on Easter Sunday before Trump touted that a historic deal had been made between Russia and Saudi Arabia in their oil war

As part of the OPEC+ agreement, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and 21 other countries agreed to collectively reduce oil output by 9.7 million barrels per day between May and June, in a multinational effort to address a drop in global demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Days after their talks a Russian jet flew within 25 feet of a US surveillance plane during an 'unsafe' maneuver at high-speed over the Mediterranean Sea.

A Kremlin SU-35 carried out an 'inverted' intercept on a US P-8A Poseidon aircraft that lasted 42 minutes on Wednesday, according to the US Navy.

According to the statement one of the Navy's aircraft was intercepted by the Russian jet while flying in international airspace over the Mediterranean Sea.

It was claimed by the Navy that its aircraft 'was operating consistent with international law and did not provoke this Russian activity' when it was approached by the jet.
The United States has launched a 'full scale investigation' into whether COVID-19 escaped from a biolab in Wuhan, China, according to Fox News.

According to the report, US intelligence operatives are gathering information regarding the laboratory and the initial outbreak of the virus, which was found in a horseshoe bat specimen collected by scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2013 in a cave in Yunnan, China.

The investigation will help intelligence analysts piece together a timeline for what the CCP knew, as well as 'create an accurate picture of what happened.'

The findings, which aren't expected to take long, will then be presented to the Trump administration to determine how to hold China accountable for the pandemic which has killed over 150,000 people and infected at least 2 million as of this writing.

On Wednesday, Fox News reported that the virus likely originated in the Wuhan lab as part of an effort to prove that China's ability to identify and combat viruses is equal or greater to the United States, as opposed to the creation of a bioweapon. Although according to the Nobel Prize-winning professor who discovered HIV, SARS-CoV-2 is a manipulated virus which was accidentally released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Professor Luc Montagnier says that the virus was clearly being used to study an AIDS vaccine.

"With my colleague, bio-mathematician Jean-Claude Perez, we carefully analyzed the description of the genome of this RNA virus," explains Luc Montagnier, interviewed by Dr Jean-Francois Lemoine for the daily podcast at Pourquoi Docteur, adding that others have already explored this avenue:

"In order to insert an HIV sequence into this genome, molecular tools are needed, and that can only be done in a laboratory," he added.

Fox News, on the other hand, says that "sources point to the structure of the virus, in saying the genome mapping specifically shows it was not genetically altered," and that "initial transmission of the virus was a naturally occurring strain that was being studied there - and then went into the population in Wuhan."

Perhaps Fox, or their sources, are giving China a pass on the question of engineering.

Meanwhile, US officials are "100 percent confident that China went to great lengths to cover up after the virus was out," and that the World Health Organization (WHO) was either complicit in the coverup, or looked the other way.

The president hinted at an investigation on Wednesday when he told Fox News John Roberts: "More and more we're hearing the story...we are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation." Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday reiterated that the administration was eyeing the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and accused the Chinese government of stonewalling scientists from finding out what happened. -Fox News

"We know that the first sightings of this occurred within miles of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We know that this  the history of the facility, the first BSL-4 lab where theres high-end virus research being conducted, took place at that site," said Mike Pompeo on the Hugh Hewitt show. "We know that the Chinese Communist Party, when it began to evaluate what to do inside of Wuhan, considered whether the WIV was, in fact, the place where this came from."

"And most importantly, we know theyve not permitted the worlds scientists to go into that laboratory to evaluate what took place there, whats happening there, whats happening there even as we speak," he added.

There has been speculation for months, not just in the U.S., that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory. A February study on the origins of the virus from the South China University of Technology concluded: In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan." Should it turn out that the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory, the global pushback against the Chinese government could be significant. The virus has infected and killed hundreds of thousands of people and ravaged economies across the globe. Trump, who has frequently taken a hardline towards China even before the crisis, would be expected to lead calls to make Beijing face consequences. -Fox News

We await Fox News's Twitter ban.
Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday said he had not been confined to one place for a long time except during the Emergency, and described life during the ongoing coronavirus lockdown as a novel experience where he is trying to make the most of it by conditioning his mind to handle the uncertainty with equanimity.

In a Facebook post, Naidu said he is trying to use the time in a constructive manner and enhancing his perception by reading good books and sharing thoughts and ideas with near and dear ones.

"All this is made possible by making small and significant changes to my daily routine. No doubt my mobility is restricted, but my mind is brimming with new thoughts and ideas," he said.

He said he has not done anything special except for "reorienting my mind".

"I have never been used to this kind of confinement, except during the Emergency. This is a novel experience to me and I am striving to make the most of it by conditioning my mind to handle the uncertainty with equanimity," he wrote.

Every dark cloud has a silver lining and these testing times too have its advantages, he said.

"The first and foremost is the fact that I am able to spend significant time with my wife Ushamma, which was not the case since our marriage in 1970," he said.

His wife, Naidu said, in particular is savouring every moment of their togetherness. "Since our marriage, I did not spend even a week at a stretch at our home," the former union minister wrote.

After he is through with his official work, Naidu, who is also the Chairman of Rajya Sabha, uses time to speak with family members living in Nellore, Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad.

He said the lockdown has given him to speak with veteran leaders, including former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and HD Deve Gowda, and LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, AK Antony, Ahmed Patel and Motilal Vora.

"Such regular interactions, which otherwise are not possible, give great happiness to us," he said.

Naidu also shared details of how he spends his day -- waking up at 5 AM and retiring by 9 PM.

"Let us walk together on this difficult path with restraint and greater determination. Let's fight this pandemic head-on. Only a controlled and compassionate mind can achieve anything," he said.

Naidu said he wrote the post on request of his friends.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A plane carrying stranded Egyptians has arrived at Marsa Alam International Airport from Canada on Saturday morning

Related EgyptAir flight repatriates 216 nationals from Canada

Governor of Egypt's Red Sea governorate Amr Hanafy announced on Saturday that 323 Egyptians will travel to Cairo from Marsa Alam on Sunday after ending their 14-day quarantine period at a hotel in the Red Sea city.

According to a statement by the Red Sea governorate, Hanafy stressed that all precautionary and preventative measures have been taken for them in accordance with "the directives of the political leadership to provide all the necessary facilities for Egyptians returning from abroad."

The 323 Egyptians had arrived from Washington to Marsa Alam International Airport on board a plane carrying Egyptians who had been stranded abroad amid the coronavirus crisis.

This was the second plane returning Egyptians from Washington after a previous flight had returned 275 Egyptians from the US capital.

Hanafy said that the 275 Egyptians completed their quarantine period and returned to their homes on Friday morning.

The Red Sea city received a third flight on Saturday morning, the statement added.

"Today [Saturday], the third plane carrying stranded Egyptians has arrived at Marsa Alam International Airport from Canada, with 216 passengers, including 12 children," Hanafy said.

I follow up around the clock on the plan to receive the Egyptians returning from Canada, Hanady said, adding that he has facilitated the speedy completion of check-in procedures at the airport to directly take them to a hotel in the city to spend 14 days in quarantine.

"All the returnees underwent medical examination by quarantine doctors in the governorate," said the governor, thanking all the medical teams for their continuous efforts.

According to a statement by the Egyptian foreign ministry on Friday, the Egyptian ambassador in Canada said that some Egyptians were unable to get on the flight, including residents in remote areas in the Canadian west and students taking their final exams who were notified by their universities that they should leave their dorms after the exams.

"These stranded Egyptians will be taken into account when arranging other repatriation flights," said Egyptian Ambassador in Canada Ahmed Abu Zeid.

Hanafy added that the returnees will be provided with food and the hotels at which they are staying will be continuously sterilised.

On Saturday, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has ordered the government to continue with efforts to bring back home the Egyptians stranded abroad.

The presidency spokesperson said in a statement that the president issued his directives at a meeting with concerned ministers to discuss the situation of non-resident expatriates stranded abroad.

The government is requiring returnees to sign a written acknowledgement that they agree to remain quarantine before boarding their flights.

Last week, the president decided that the cost of their stay at hotels will be covered by the state.

On Saturday, the health ministry announced 188 new coronavirus infections, the highest single-day rise to date, bringing the countrys total number of confirmed cases to 3,032, including 701 recoveries. The total number of fatalities stands at 224, after 19 deaths were announced on the same day.

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As we are all only too well aware, we find ourselves living in chaotic times at the moment. There's a lot of fear and negativity out there and it can be hard to find a few moments of calm to soothe a restless mind. Enter Don Conroy.

A man with many strings to his bow - environmentalist, artist, broadcaster, author - he brings a palpable positivity and calm to everything he does. As calls regarding Covid-19 and it's frightening impact on our lives stack up on a daily basis, even hearing the dulcet tones of 'Uncle Don' on the other end of the phone has a calming effect.

'It's really great to talk to you,' he beams. 'It's amazing how this whole thing has taken off.'

He is referring of course to his newly launched YouTube channel, sparking a return for 'Draw With Don' - a segment which was a staple of RTE's 'The Den' and was a real favourite for kids across the country in the '90s as they tuned in and attempted to copy Don's drawing of some magnificent animal or other. Of course a lot of the children who tuned in with their pieces of paper and pencils at the ready in those halcyon days now have children of their own and Don's return is spreading a little bit of joy to a new generation, as well as a healthy dose of nostalgia for his fans from the past.

While it's been a busy year for Don, you get the impression that he's a man who doesn't stress. Life moves at it's own pace and we all must adapt accordingly. Having lived in Monart, just outside Enniscorthy, for many years, earning honorary Wexfordian status in the process, he spent a few months living in Greece recently before moving into his new home in Wicklow town.

'We're not that long living here actually,' he explains. 'Recently I spent a couple of months away in Greece. We have friends there and decided to spend some time there. It was wonderful. We were in a very remote area near this little fishing village. It was like walking into one of those wonderful impressionist paintings in spring time with all the lovely wild-flowers blooming. So I spent a bit of time there doing some painting and drawing and it was lovely.'

Although a fond one, that's now very much a distant memory for Don as the Ireland he has returned to is now one battling a crisis the likes of which we've never seen. Characteristically though, Don is upbeat.

'It's like everything, you have to turn a disadvantage into an advantage,' he said. 'It's a good time to be reflective and value each other and maybe be a bit creative. I'm trying to help with that a little with the YouTube channel.'

'I've been on, what I'd call, a creative journey since I was four years old. I would love to see more people looking at the world with creative eyes. When you start to look and understand the shapes and forms of things, it gives you a different perspective. You look at the world in a different way with fresh eyes.'

For Don, there isn't likely to be any boredom arising from spending more time at home.

'Well I'm busy making these shows and then I've been doing a lot of interviews about it like this one,' he laughs. 'I really am surprised by the amazing reaction it's received. People are really lovely. Over the years I've had people come up to me and say that I was the reason they passed their Leaving Cert art exams or what happened quite a bit was that I had young mothers coming up and asking me why I wasn't drawing on TV any more. A lot of them wanted their children to have the same experience that they had when they were children.'

It was here that the seeds for Don's new YouTube channel were sown. With more than a gentle prod from his daughter Justine, he had been seeking to make some videos anyway and with more people stuck at home and looking for something to do, the timing was perfect.

'This wasn't planned at all,' he says. 'I'm delighted people are taking a bit of pleasure from it at a difficult time. People are worrying about life. I would say to them, take in the information, because it's important. But don't overwhelm yourself with fear because eventually you'll implode. Try to stay positive about the situation. Read the book you've been meaning to read. Write some poetry or maybe do some drawing.'

With Don's first video 'Let's Draw a Clown' rocketing to nearly 45,000 views in just a couple of days, it's fair to say that the appetite is certainly out there among the general public, kids and adults alike. A second video was added inviting young and old to join in and draw a Barn Owl - giving all the nostalgic feels for rainy afternoons sat in front of 'The Den'.

'The painter Juan Miro said that we should all try to draw like children again,' Don says, reflecting on the enjoyment the kids get from his videos. 'I always liked that. The reason is that when children draw, they are telling a story. It's the joy of drawing. Miro believed that the joy was not in the result, but in the action.'

Don has some big ideas for the YouTube channel too. He hopes to add new videos every couple of days and he also hopes to add storytelling for the children, as well as workshops for adults too. When he's not doing that, he's putting the finishing touches to paintings and portraits that had been left to one side - heeding his own advice and turning disadvantage to advantage and taking stock.

Within a couple of days, the Don Conroy YouTube channel had over 8,000 subscribers and one would suspect that this will increase even further in the coming days as homes across the country welcome a familiar favourite back into their sitting rooms.
Late-night show host Jimmy Kimmel endearingly proved this week that hes just like us, taking care of his little ones during our current shelter-in-place era.

Jimmy Kimmel and family | Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images

Although life has become something of Groundhog Day times ninety, the comedian has shown hes an ingenious dad at getting his kids to eat nutritious food thats become one of their preferred dishes.

Kimmels daughter, Jane, calls her favorite meal Pasta Tina

The comedian of Italian and German descent makes a mean plate of pasta for his kids. He calls it Pasta Tina and its on the menu frequently at the Kimmel household, as his children, Jane, 5, and William, 2, love it.

They demand this every day, Kimmel explained in a remote appearance last week on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in which he chatted about his at-home chef duties.

Every single meal, he told the daytime talk show host. I say, What do you guys want? And every meal, they say, Pasta Tina. 

He later explained on Instagram exactly how to make the popular dish.

OK, so by request, this is my recipe for Pasta Tina, its one of the few things my kids eat. Its a name that they made up but its something called pastina, this is something that Italian families serve their babies. Its kind of a starter pasta. My daughter, Jane, called it Pasta Tina, which is cute, and it has evolved.

I now use a bigger pasta. But any small size pasta is fine. It really doesnt matter which one you use. You can use any kind, a cavatelli, which Ive found is a fun shape for kids.

Kimmel has been working from home, of course

Jimmy Kimmel Live! has been broadcasting from the home that the 52-year-old host shares with his wife, Molly McNearney and their children. Recently, he and Jennifer Aniston, remotely, had the opportunity to present a nurse who had contracted coronavirus (COVID-19) with a surprise gift.

Kimmels show learned of the Utah nurse, Kimball Fairbanks, who was furloughed from her job for two weeks after testing positive for the disease. With two young children at home, the medical professional was doing the best she could, but struggling financially.

The former Friends star spoke with Fairbanks by video chat, I just have to say, God bless you and all of you that are out there doing what youre doing. I dont even know how to express my gratitude to everything you guys are doing and putting your health at risk and all of that. Youre just phenomenal.

Kimmel and Aniston let the obviously delighted Utah resident know she would be receiving $10,000 of Postmates credit for food deliveries, and that, as well, her coworkers at her hospital would also be receiving gift cards.

Wow, thank you!, she said.

Make Jimmy Kimmels Pasta Tina

And now heres Kimmels recipe for Pasta Tina.

Start with a pot of boiling water, of course, for your pasta. Once you do that, Kimmel says, get started on your Pasta Tina sauce.

Now I wanted to make this kind of healthy and so I thought: Beans.

The father of four  Kimmel has two adult children, Katherine and Kevin, from his first marriage  recommends cannellini beans for this dish. Theyre soft and can be transformed into part of a velvety sauce.

The nice thing about cannellini beans in the can, he said, is they have this liquid, and that is useful.

Kimmel mashed the beans with a hand blender, but the beans can be placed into a bowl and mashed with a mashed potato masher, or even a fork. And thats the beauty of the recipe: the mashed beans become part of the sauce and as the Brooklyn-born Kimmel says, the children wont know theyre eating beans.

Saute three smashed whole garlic cloves in a good amount of olive oil over medium heat, and get them golden brown. Take them out once theyre light brown as their role is simply to flavor the oil.

Add the mashed cannellini beans and chicken base to the oil, salt to flavor. Drain the cooked pasta in a colander, and add it to the bean mixture, combining all ingredients.

Serve hot with, if you like, a good-quality Parmesan cheese, and there you have it, a simple, nutritious, and inexpensive meal: Pasta Tina.
Homicide Squad detectives last night charged a 27-year-old man from Victoria Park with the murders of a brother and sister whose bodies were found in a unit complex on Easter Sunday.

Maree Collins, 66, and her 62-year-old brother Wayne Johnson were found dead in a unit on Leonard Street after police were called there at about 4pm on Sunday.

Forensics and an ambulance at the crime scene. Credit:Kate Hedley

Police arrested a neighbour of the victims in the Perth CBD on Monday morning and last night charged him with two counts of murder. He is due to appear in the Perth Magistrates Court on Saturday.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro On April 17 reportedly called for the reopening of the countrys borders and also conceded that he may be blamed if the coronavirus outbreak worsens. Brazil, which is South Americas largest economy, pushes to restart as the lockdown measure has affected the economy of the country. Bolsonaro reportedly said that opening trade is a risk, but he added that if the outbreak gets worse, it will fall on his lap.

Earlier this week, the Brazilian President also fired his health minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, after disagreements with him over lockdown measures. Mandetta had been encouraging social distancing and supporting governors for imposing lockdown, however, Bolsonaro argued that it is overly damaging the economy. The President also discussed the possibility of reopening land borders, particularly those with Uruguay and Paraguay, with Justice Minister Sergio Moro.

READ: Lucas Di Grassi Tries To Help In The Fight Against Coronavirus In Brazil

Over 34,000 confirmed cases

Brazil closed its borders last month to nonresident foreigners. The country also withdrew all its remaining diplomatic staff from Venezuela. Meanwhile, coronavirus cases continue to rise in the country. Currently, Brazil has more than 34,000 confirmed cases and the deadly virus has claimed nearly 2,171 lives.

READ: Brazil President Fires Health Minister Over COVID-19 Response

The Brazilian medical experts reportedly said that the outbreak of the coronavirus is still far from its peak. Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria also extended the social isolation order in the state through May 10. Meanwhile, a recent study revealed that the country likely has 12 times more infections than are being officially reported by the government. The study estimates that only 8% of total cases are being officially reported in the largest South American country, hence, the death rate is higher than normal.

Coronavirus, which originated in China in December 2019, has now claimed over 154,000 lives worldwide as of April 18. According to the tally by an international news agency, the pandemic has now spread to 210 countries and territories and has infected more than 2.2 million people. Out of the total infections, more than 574,000 have recovered but the easily spread virus is continuing to disrupt many lives. Major cities have been put under lockdown in almost all countries including Spain, and the economy is struggling.

(Image source: AP)

READ: Brazil Has 'Bolsonaro-virus', Says Governor

READ: 99-year-old Who Also Fought In World War II Beats Coronavirus In Brazil; Gives Ray Of Hope
The Taoiseach has ordered an urgent review after a charter flight brought almost 200 seasonal workers into Ireland during the coronavirus lockdown.

The flight from Sofia arrived at Dublin Airport earlier this week, transporting 189 Bulgarian workers to be deployed on fruit farms owned by Dublin company Keelings.

Leo Varadkar has ordered a review into the rules and procedures around travel into Ireland during the ongoing health emergency.

Health Minister Simon Harris and chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan also expressed concern at the incident.

We need to keep travel to a minimum and ensure that passengers are interviewed on arrival and that quarantine is observed

Mr Varadkar said: I share the discomfort expressed by the chief medical officer about the report of a large number of people coming to Ireland earlier this week to work in the horticulture sector.

We need to keep our airports and ports open so essential goods and essential workers can get in and out of the country and Irish citizens and residents can return home.

However, we need to keep travel to a minimum and ensure that passengers are interviewed on arrival and that quarantine is observed.

I have therefore asked for an urgent review of the current rules and procedures to be carried out over the weekend.

That review will be considered by the Cabinet Committee on Covid-19 on Monday and any changes that are necessary in light of that review will be made.

Earlier, Mr Harris voiced concern in a Twitter video, saying: I feel deeply uneasy about this, I dont think the idea of chartering planes at this time to bring people into our country is a good idea.

Friday evening update on #coronavirus #Covid19 - National Public Health Emergency Meeting, ramping up testing, more measures for nursing homes & why we need you to #stayhome https://t.co/eqE53u0vc4  Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) April 17, 2020

At a time were asking people to socially distance, the idea that a chartered plane, on which you cant socially distance, would be coming into our country is something which makes me feel uneasy.

Chief medical officer Dr Holohan said companies flying migrant workers into the country was not currently consistent with public health advice.

Keelings has faced widespread criticism due to the strict public health measures in place to stop the spread of Covid-19.

Dr Holohan was asked about the incident at Fridays coronavirus briefing by the National Public Health Emergency Team.

He said he was not comfortable with companies chartering flights to bring large numbers of workers into the country.

He said he only found out about the Keelings flight after it had arrived.

It wouldnt really be consistent with the public health advice that weve been giving, he said.

And I think some of that advice does have implications in relation to travel and for people who are travelling and weve been very clear and consistent in what that advice is.

He said travel should be limited to Irish citizens returning home from abroad and to those engaged in keeping vital supply lines operating.

I dont want to be critical of any individual or any individual circumstance, I dont know the details of the circumstances, Im aware of in general terms whats been reported in the media, he added.




Early this April, Dallas hospital Tenet Healthcare furloughed 3,400 employees all across the United States to compensate for the loss of revenue from the suspension of discretionary procedures.

Seemingly against the current, medical facilities are asking the immediate employment of health workers in hospitals where the COVID-19 struck most. Recruitment centers in Mexico are flooded with applicants, but most of them come home empty-handed as the hospital management rejects their applications.

READ: Medical Staff Furloughed From New Mexico Hospitals





Furloughs

Tenet has a chain of 65 hospitals and 500 other medical offices and clinics. In Worcester, a union of medical employees contradicts the decision of the company.

Surgical nurse Marlena Pellegrino believed that most hospitals require more doctors and nurses during the pandemic, and criticized, along with the rest of the union of employees in St. Vincent Hospital, the way management was handling the situation. She said, "This is no time to be sending staff home."

A representative for Methodist Health System in Dallas Ryan Owens asserts that in health centers where operations are suspended, the management has rescheduled appointments and reassigned staff for the mobilization of progress across different departments or areas.

There are times when some of the staff must be sent home, but these are "rare" at most, Owens continues. He says that the hospital can "offer a plan that allows workers to be paid 75% of their standard weekly hours."

Of 113,000 Tenet medical staff, 3% of the number is affected by the 60-day furlough. As mentioned previously, discretionary procedures like surgeries and ultrasounds conducted in facilities are either suspended or operating under certain restrictions or limitations. Before this, there was a furlough of around 500 employees.

ALSO READ: COVID-19 Update: Recovered Patients Are Observed With Coronavirus 'Reactivation'





Applications Declined

As of Thursday, Mexico has over 6,000 patients positive for coronavirus and has 486 deaths, and Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said that hospitals in the country are incredibly understaffed. He adds, "That creates a challenge for us, and we need to recruit and train health personnel."

According to analysts from the Mexican Social Security Institute, 30% of the medical employees are furloughed because of the high risk they pose working on the front lines, either because of factors that compromise their immune systems like age and underlying health problems. There were 400,000 health workers laid off.

Even the military has been tasked by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to assist with the recruitment of front-line workers as there is a shortage of at least thousands of nurses and doctors.

However, over 800 applicants have been rejected by the management.

Medical school graduates believe this offers opportunities for others to gain employment and help in the pandemic, as this is "what they were trained for." However, many find themselves frustrated as their applications have been turned down, or they are yet to receive results. Some even claim there is a lack of contact with the recruitment centers during the application process.

READ MORE: How Did Ecuador Become the Epicenter of COVID-19 in Latin America?
As Nebraska enters what may be the two most dangerous weeks of its confrontation with the coronavirus, Gov. Pete Ricketts urged continued compliance with the state's social distancing plan while looking ahead to what may be a phased-in and even regional approach to a return to normal.

President Donald Trump's call for a "phased and deliberate approach" to restoring economic activity through a gradual process "aligns with what we've been saying all along," Ricketts said Friday during his daily coronavirus news briefing.

"We will construct a plan that is right for Nebraska (as) we tamp down that virus here in this state," the governor said.

Ricketts said he envisions loosening restrictions that he has put in place "a step at a time."

And, he said, "we may do it regionally in the state," matching future restrictions with evidence of the presence of the virus and its continuing threat.

In the meantime, the governor urged Nebraskans to "stay home, stay healthy, stay connected during the next two weeks" when the virus is expected to peak in the state.

Ricketts has directed that no more than 10 people can gather together at one time anywhere in the state, asked people to maintain 6 feet of physical distance between one another; closed schools; limited restaurants to pick-up, drive-thru and delivery services and bars to pick-up drinks; and closed some businesses, such as barber shops, where 6 feet of distancing is not possible.

But he has not issued a shelter-in-place order requiring people to remain at home.

Grand Island remains "the biggest hot spot" in the state, he said, but that outbreak is being managed without overwhelming its local health care system.

Many of the cases in Grand Island were generated at the JBS beef plant, where meatpacking workers labor virtually shoulder-to-shoulder on the production line. Other outbreaks of the virus occurred at long-term care centers in Grand Island.

"As long as we have (health care) capacity, we are managing the situation and not being overwhelmed," the governor said.

Ricketts has always kept his eye on that goal and he emphasized the same point Thursday night in what has become a weekly town hall appearance on NET.

"What Nebraskans are doing is making a difference," Dr. Ali Khan, dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said during that broadcast.

"But we're not out of the woods yet," he cautioned.

Khan said a new Medical Center model suggests that Nebraska may experience between 50 and 180 coronavirus deaths.

The University of Washington's oft-quoted national model Friday moved its number of projected deaths in Nebraska dramatically lower, reducing the figure from 281 to 127.

At Friday's briefing, Ricketts turned a spotlight on the mental health challenges associated with the threat of the virus and the isolation generated by weeks of staying at home.

Isolation and lack of social contact can lead to depression, he said, and "it's important to take care of your mental health" during this time of emotional stress.

Sheri Dawson, director of the division of behavioral health in the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, said isolation and economic challenges can lead to increasing anxiety and depression.

"Stay connected even while practicing social distancing," she advised.

"Reach out," she said. "It's OK to ask for help."

Annette Dubas, executive director of the Nebraska Association of Behavioral Health Organizations, said services are available throughout the state.

Reach the writer at 402-473-7248 or dwalton@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSdon
As a team of Irish doctors approached Bergen-Belsen, the Nazi concentration camp liberated 75 years ago this week, they became aware of "a disquieting aroma" that came to them in wafts, gradually filling the air in the truck around them.

"It was the Belsen smell of death and decay," paediatrician and former rugby international Dr Bob Collis later wrote in his autobiography, To Be a Pilgrim.

He went on to describe the unthinkable conditions: the British Army had discovered unburied bodies - 10-feet high in places - and thousands of starving people when it liberated "The Horror Camp", as it became known, in northern Germany on April 15, 1945.

When he saw emaciated adults and children in the most appalling conditions, dying at a rate of 1,000 a day from starvation and typhus, Dr Collis enlisted more help from the Netherlands.

Then, he set to work in Belsen with his fellow Irish doctors - surgeon Nigel Kinnear and paediatrician Patrick MacClancy - who had all volunteered with the British Red Cross.

Dr Collis was in charge of two blocks that housed a number of orphaned children. On his rounds one day, he recalled meeting the "most entrancing scrap of humanity" in the arms of Dutch volunteer Han Hogerzeil, who would later become his second wife.

He was describing a little boy called Zoltan Zinn, from Slovakia, whose smile seemed to be all there was of him - the rest of his body had been wasted by typhus, Dr Collis wrote.

Zoltan and his sister Edit, along with Hungarian siblings Suszi (Suzi) and Tibor (Terry) Molnar, became what Dr Collis described as "his special children".

When they went to Sweden to convalesce, he committed to taking them back to Ireland with any others who didn't have homes.

A year passed and when they had recuperated, Dr Collis made preparations to bring five children to Ireland and to care for them at Fairy Hill, an open-air hospital in Howth, Co Dublin.

He adopted Zoltan and Edit himself, raising them with support from his first wife, Phyllis, with whom he had two sons, Dermot and Robbie.

He arranged for the adoption of the others: Suzi and Terry were adopted by Elsie and Willie Samuels in Dublin, while Evelyn Schwartz went to Australia. She still lives there.

Looking back, Suzi Molnar (now Diamond) recalls the remarkable actions of a man who brought five children to Ireland and arranged for them to stay, even though they didn't have papers.

In recognition of his work, he was presented with a six-branched candelabrum, representing the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

Suzi says the inscription sums him up perfectly. "It read 'Healing requires to be inspired by love' and to me that is him to a tee. He wasn't looking for profit, or for recognition in any way."

To do what he did, though, required self-belief and conviction.

As Suzi recalls, he believed he was right and used that belief in his practice of medicine.

For instance, when Zoltan fell ill with tuberculous meningitis in Ireland, Dr Collis used a new medicine, streptomycin, which he had received only days before.

Dr Collis resumed his medical work as head paediatrician at the National Children's Hospital in the same pioneering spirit, focusing as he had done before on the plight of people living in the overcrowded slums of Dublin. He was particularly worried about the child mortality rate and tuberculosis.

He also did ground-breaking work on cerebral palsy and helped to found Cerebral Palsy Ireland.

Christy Brown, who suffered from the condition, was a patient, and Dr Collis encouraged him to write My Left Foot.

Indeed, Brown recalled that his doctor initially dismissed an early draft as "awful" but, while reading it, suddenly slapped the table and said: "Good!"

Dr Collis went on to explain: "You have written one sentence here that stands out like a rose among a lot of weeds, one shining little gem thrown in amongst stones. It shows me that you could write if you knew how. That's what I wanted to find out."

Robert Collis, as he was known when he wrote, was a gifted writer himself and wrote two plays: Marrowbone Lane, about life in a Dublin slum, and The Barrel Organ.

He also wrote several books, including his autobiography, a book on Bergen-Belsen and two on his experiences of working as doctor in Nigeria in the Fifties and Sixties.

When his sons were older, he divorced his first wife, though they remained on friendly terms.

He married Han Hogerzeil and they had two sons, Sean and Niall.

The couple retired to the Wicklow Mountains in the Seventies, where their nephew, Uto Hogerzeil, still lives.

Uto remembers Bob Collis as a larger-than-life figure with deep passions. He came from a line of Anglo-Irish gentry and was sent to Rugby School in England; he later studied at Cambridge.

When he got married, his father gave him a house at 26 Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin as a wedding present, so that he could set up his surgery.

Despite his background, he had a social conscience and, with Han, wanted to help others.

Their nephew recalls: "They were never interested in enriching themselves. They were desperately trying to do good. They were unselfish in their outlook on life. They didn't even have a pension."

The other side of that was he tended to be more interested in the big picture rather than the small details of family life.

In his memoir, Final Witness, his adopted son Zoltan wrote: "He was like Francis Drake, or Walter Raleigh - an adventurer. Great on an open sea with the wind in his hair; less great in the small pond of family life."

His nephew describes a man who could be impatient, but who had a great sense of humour and was endearingly eccentric. He might wear odd socks, or have a hole in his jacket, or, say, if he was given a biscuit for the dog, he might eat it himself, Uto laughs.

Uto believes it is very important to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen this week and to remember what his aunt Han and her husband, who died aged 75 in 1975, did to expose the horrors of the Nazi regime.

When Dr Collis left Bergen-Belsen in 1945, he described those degradations in a chilling passage: "On the day we burned down the Horror Camp with flame-throwers, a cloud of smoke and mist hung over the scene giving the spectacle of the jets of flying flames a diabolical appearance so that we felt the wickedness of that place existed as positive Evil, that in fact positive Evil really exists in the world and the old concept of the Devil may be true."

While it is hard to look back, it is vital we do so because, as Holocaust survivor Suzi Diamond says, history can repeat itself.

"Maybe not exactly in the same way, but we must be on our guard against bigotry, racism and anti-Semitism whenever they show their ugly heads."
Mumbai, April 18 : Actress Bhumi Pednekar has prepared a pizza to beat the lockdown blues, and she not surprisingly calls its her "comfort food".

Bhumi revealed that she has prepared the base as well as the toppings, and shared a video of the process on Instagram. The actress also called herself a "moody chef".

"Pednekar's Pizzeria (We made it from scratch and it tasted). #ComfortFood #pizza #instafood #food #BhumitheBaker #moodychef," Bhumi captioned.

Commenting on Bhumi's post, Ayushmann Khurrana's wife Tahira Kashyap asked for the recipe of the base. Bhumi shared the recipe and wrote: "I really feel like chef Bhumi." Actor-producer Jackky Bhagnani commented: "That looks great", in reply to which the actress expressed: "It tasted great too...am actually shocked with the way my foods been turning out." Recently, on Easter, Bhumi baked a walnut and dates cake. Sharing a photo of the cake on Instagram, the "Pati Patni Aur Woh" actress called herself "Bhumi the Baker".

Latest updates on Lockdown diaries
Houthis Say Saudi-led Coalition Launched 23 Airstrikes on Several Yemeni Provinces

Sputnik News

11:43 GMT 17.04.2020

CAIRO (Sputnik)  Air forces of the Saudi-led coalition have conducted 23 air raids on Yemen's northeastern and northwestern provinces despite the coalition announcing a halt of activities amid the COVID-19 crisis, the Houthi rebel movement said on Friday.

"The coalition's air forces conducted 16 air raids on the Yemeni northeastern province of Marib, 10 of which were launched on its Majzar district, and six on Medghal", the movement said via its Al Masirah TV broadcaster.

According to the channel, the coalition has also attacked the northwestern province of Jawf, which borders Saudi Arabia, by seven airstrikes.

On 8 April, the coalition announced that it would halt all military operations for a 14-day period in response to a UN call for a global ceasefire due to the worldwide crisis. Following that, the legitimate government's foreign minister, Mohammed Al-Hadhrami, said that the ceasefire had become a necessity, and called on the warring parties, the government forces and the Houthi rebels, to join the efforts in the fight against COVID-19.

Yet, on Thursday, a Yemeni military source stated that the Arab coalition had carried out several airstrikes on the rebel-held Yemeni capital of Sanaa and its suburbs. The coalition, in turn, accused the Houthis of 547 violations of the ceasefire, which was declared last week.

 Sputnik

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Seminal rock band Phish will be streaming a previously un-aired performance of their show at Connecticut's Mohegan Sun Arena from July 9, 2019.

The show will be broadcast on Tuesday as part of the band's ongoing "Dinner and a Movie" streaming series, which was introduced four weeks ago in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Proceeds from the broadcast will be made to Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, which has been assisting musicians who need help making ends meet, since 1994.
Comedian Chonda Pierce gets candid about depression, offers useful advice during lockdown

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Bestselling female comedian Chonda Pierce has been keeping her audiences laughing on social media during the quarantine and shared with The Christian Post her advice for anyone who's suffering from depression.

Mandated social-distancing, lockdowns and other life-altering changes caused by the coronavirus have folks stressed, depressed, and struggling with faith in God. People could use some laughs, Pierce told The Christian Post in an interview. Over the years, laughter has been good medicine that has helped me navigate personal pain, tragedy, grief and depression.

In fact, according to a 15-year Nord-Trndelag Health Study released in 2016, laughter decreases mortality rates on infection-related illnesses.

While Pierce had to postpone her comedy tour to safeguard her fans' health during the COVID-19 crisis, she told CP that shes keeping herself encouraged.

"I am blessed. If worst comes to worst, I'll sell my house and find a smaller spot. The good thing about growing up poor, you never forget being poor. So I've been poor before and I can be poor again if I have to. That's the silver lining of being poor. I know how to eat macaroni and cheese for a week. If I have to that's what we'll do, but I'm blessed that I won't have to, she said of having to cancel her tour.

The recently widowed Pierce said her husband was really smart about putting money aside before his death and now she's following the tradition.

"While I'm OK. I try to do my best at helping those that are struggling and right now my heart goes out to the small business owners, she said.

Pierce has been charitable during the quarantine and blessed people in her community by buying pizza for them from her favorite restaurant to help drive business to the pizza shop.

"My biggest sadness is there's going to be so many organizations and great restaurants and wonderful places [hurt financially], and this is gonna be a financial struggle for the whole world. Those are the scary things, she continued.

Throughout the years, Pierce has been transparent about her struggle with depression and the fact that she takes medication for clinical depression.

I'm blessed that the Lord has provided wonderful doctors for me and medicine and all that, but this is a time when Satan can use these days to just really play tricks on your mind, she maintained.

You'll feel like no one else is going through this. Well, to look on the bright side, the whole world is going through this. You're not alone down there. As much as the devil would like to trick you and make you think you're alone. The entire world is shut down.

Remember that nobody's picking on you. Heaven is not picking on you, the whole world is going through this together, Pierce stressed.

For those who might be suffering from depression during the coronavirus pandemic, the Christian comic shared her tips for coping.

"One of the things that I like to do  and I tell my friends who struggle with depression to do it all the time  and it's one of your best tools on the planet, is Post-it notes or just a piece of paper and a piece of tape, she said before elaborating.

"Every time a good day comes to mind, a memory of a wonderful day [write it down]. Maybe it was a birthday party you had, or a job that you've got that you never dreamed you were going to get. Maybe it was the day you got married, maybe that was the most beautiful day of your life. Whatever those days are, you write a word or the description or the date down on a Post-it note and you put it on your fridge or your mirror, a place that you're gonna look often and you just start filling up that mirror with good days and good memories and good thoughts, Pierce said.

"Before long you will step back and see this beautiful tapestry of what God's walked you through and all the fun things He's provided. If that has happened in the past, there's no reason to think He will stop doing that.

Pierce said the point is to realize the patterns of ones life and then use those memories as a weapon against the lies of the enemy.

You can tell the devil, 'Look here, Look what God did for me in the last two years of my life. Look, what I walked through, look what I did.' And you will see the hand of God in your life. It just kind of kicks the devil in the gut, she declared. You know what devil, this is not gonna last forever 'cause look at how many days I had good days.

"We're always lamenting about the past that we cannot change. I like to think about the joyful days that I've had and think on those things. The Bible says whatsoever's pure, [and] good, think of these things. If that pattern is true for your life, it will be true again.

Pierce believes that someday, overcoming COVID-19 will also be written on a Post-it note.

Remember when we went through that virus thing, and we got through it?'" she illustrated.

The Kentucky native said the first this shell do once the lockdown is lifted is hug people.

"I'm a hugger. I love hugging. I don't shake people's hands, I'm hugging. I will say, for people that think thats weird, the whole world will turn into huggers, she joked.

Lastly, Pierce encouraged everyone to pursue positive things during this time.

"Be intentional; it's easy to find the bad news. Be intentional about looking for the good news. Be intentional about finding funny stuff. Let's be intentional about what we're filling our minds up with. It's OK to stay informed, but once you are, turn that TV off. Turn the news off," Pierce said.

Pierce continues to be active on Facebook Live providing laughter for her of fans.
In a single day rise, Nepal has recorded 14 new cases of COVID-19 -- 12 are from Udaypur district of Eastern Nepal which includes Indian Muslims whereas two are from Chitwan having travel history to the United Kingdom.

"14 new cases have been confirmed, a single day rise. Out of which 12 cases are from Udaypur district whereas two are from Chitwan," Dr Khem Karki, Advisor at Nepal's Health Ministry, confirmed to ANI over the phone.

"Those infected Udaypur were residing in a mosque, where they were hiding from the police. Most of them are Indian nationals," added Karki. "All these cases are suspected to be imported cases," he said.

With the confirmation of 14 new cases, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the Himalayan nation has increased to 30.

Dr Bhojraj Adhikari, chairman of Bharatpur Hospital, Chitwan told ANI over the phone: "The report was positive on Thursday evening. We sent it to the central lab in Kathmandu and the report turned out to be positive. Both the patients have a travel history to the UK via Hongkong."

"Both of them -- mother and son -- is normal. They don't have any symptoms of COVID-19. Their samples were brought for testing after they tested positive while conducting the rapid diagnostic test (RDT)," Dr Adhikari added.

Nepal has tested 7,702 samples, out of which 7,672 turned out to be negative with 30 positive cases.

(ANI)

Also Read: Coronavirus: Canada reports 31,407 cases
The Ashanti Regional Police Commander, COP Kwasi Mensah Duku has disclosed that two courts have been established in the region to deal with people who flout COVID-19 directive especially the lockdown in Greater Kumasi.

COP Kwasi Mensah Duku disclosed that 144 people have been arrested in the Ashanti Region who would be put before the court.

He indicated that the law would not spare anyone who flouts it.

We are not in normal time so we would inconvenience many people we must abide by the lockdown directive. We should also obey the social distancing protocol, COP Duku noted.

COP Duku has noted that the fight against COVID-19 in the region and the rest of the country is a collective responsibility.

COP Duku called on opinion leaders including Chiefs, Queen mothers, and Assembly Members to support the security agencies to ensure that people comply with the lockdown directive.

He also urged people who have evidence against Police personnel extorting money from people to report to his outfit.

---First1News.com
A care worker in South Wales was abused in the street after she was wrongly accused of being a 'disease spreader' during the coronavirus crisis.

Abby Jones, 29, had been delivering toiletry supplies when she was squirted with water by a passing runner and abused.

Abby's bosses say staff have been suffered insults and abuse for wearing their uniforms in the street - with people fearing they may be carrying infections due to helping out the elderly and vulnerable during the pandemic.

Helen Vowles, managing director of the Trusting Hands care service said workers like Abby were risking their lives.

Abby Jones, 29, had been delivering toiletry supplies when she was squirted with water by a passing runner and abused because she was wearing her care workers' uniform

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She said: 'I'm asking my staff to go out and put their lives on the line to protect vulnerable service users.

'We are a poor relative to the NHS, but imagine if my staff decided this morning that they weren't going to go to work.

'It would be 170 vulnerable service-users in the community '

Abby works for the Ebbw Vale-based company in South Wales and Helen said other staff had been abused for not changing out of their uniforms.

She said: 'If you work in the hospital, you would change your uniform and come home in your 'civvies'.

Abby works for the Ebbw Vale-based company in South Wales, where it has been said other staff had been abused for not changing out of their uniforms

'When you work in the community, some people are misinformed and misled and think that we've got our uniforms on and that we're spreading the virus.'

Mum-of-one Abby said: 'It's unbelievable how pathetic and stupid some people are. I know it was only water but I keep thinking it could be much worse.'

Helen said Abby's abuse in Tredegar, South Wales, had been reported to Gwent Police.
Reportes indicate that people from the unorganised sector are running out of cash to meet their daily expenses. (Photo: Pritam Bandyopadhyay)

Bengaluru: Amid fears that people from the unorganised sector are running out of cash to meet their daily expenses, the Karnataka government said there was no data available for such labourers, who can be provided financial assistance under the direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme.

"The government does not have data of people in the unorganised sector such as drivers, farmers, domestic help and others. If we have to deposit directly into their account, we need data..," State Labour minister A Shivaram Hebbar told reporters.

The minister said a situation borne out of the COVID-19, where the entire nation has been lockdown was never anticipated.

To him, the pandemic has given an opportunity to gather information about the unorganised sector.

"This COVID-19 has taught the department and the workers a lesson that we should be prepared for a situation like this. We have learnt that all the information about labourers should be available with the labour department," Hebbar conceded.

The minister opined that the department should have had the list during the good times but nobody bothered to have it.

"During the good times nobody bothered about it -- neither they (beneficiaries) asked for it, nor we thought of it.," Hebbar said.

Now that the pandemic has struck, the government is focusing only on not letting anyone starve to death.

A three-level preparation has been made -- at the village level, Taluk level and the city level, the minister said.

Village anganwadis have been stuffed with food items to be cooked for the needy, whereas in Taluk level, government hostels have been turned into shelters for the labourers, he said, noting that lakhs of philanthropists in cities have come forward to feed the people from unorganised sector.

"The basic objective of our government is that no one should starve to death. The issue of organised or unorganised sector comes next," he explained.

On the fear of large-scale retrenchment, the minister said notices have been served on all the industries that no one should be expelled from the job.

However, Hebbar underlined that the industrialists today are as much in distress as the workers and his department was taking into account everyone's concern.

A decision will be taken in this connection by the government in the next two days, to provide assistance to small enterprises to keep them afloat.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-17 22:45:26|Editor: huaxia

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File photos of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and U.S. President Donald Trump. (Xinhua)

G7's European members voiced their backing for the WHO, and called for stronger international cooperation to contain the outbreak.

by Xinhua writer Shi Xiaomeng

BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Washington's irresponsible decision to suspend funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) seems to have rubbed salt in the already wounded partnership with its traditional allies at a time when the global combat against the COVID-19 pandemic has entered a critical stage.

Thursday's Group of Seven (G7) tele-summit ended without a joint statement. The bloc's European members voiced their backing for the WHO, and called for stronger international cooperation to contain the outbreak.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the virtual conference that the crisis can only be tackled with a strong and coordinated international response while expressing her full support for the world health body.

The transatlantic alliance was already in bad shape before the sudden outbreak of the pandemic. Since the current U.S. administration came to power, the U.S.-Europe bond has suffered a series of blows over the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)'s defense expenditures, trade conflicts, the Iran nuclear deal and the refugee crisis, among others.

In the eyes of some Washington decision-makers, their allies in Europe are more of a burden than an asset. As for the Europeans, they have been trying to handle frustration after frustration in the face of a capricious White House. Donald Tusk, former president of the European Union Council, once famously sighed "With friends like that, who needs enemies?"

During Europe's arduous battle against the deadly pandemic, Washington has hardly been helpful. According to earlier media reports, Germany has accused the United States of hijacking some of its urgently needed medical supplies like face masks and ventilators. Andreas Geisel, the interior minister for Berlin state, even called Washington a modern pirate.

This is a photo taken on March 27, 2020 shows the U.S. Capitol building in Washington D.C. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Undoubtedly, Washington's fund-freeze move will undermine the very international body that serves as the backbone in coordinating the world's pandemic containment efforts.

Without a fully functioning WHO, Europe's drive to end the outbreak will only become much harder as the WHO's European regional director Hans Kluge warned on Thursday "the storm clouds of this pandemic still hang heavily over the European region."

Irish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Simon Coveney tweeted: "This is indefensible decision in midst of global pandemic. So many vulnerable populations rely on (the) WHO -- deliberately undermining funding & trust now is shocking. Now is a time for global leadership & unity to save lives, not division and blame!"

As the confirmed COVID-19 infections have surpassed 2 million with the death toll topping 144,000, it is even more imperative for countries around the world to work together as closely as possible.

Clearly, the world's sole superpower has set a bad example by acting self-centered during a global public health crisis. For European countries, perhaps the pandemic offers another chance to reconfirm the true color of their ally on the other side of the Atlantic. 
Photo: VCG

Chinese experts including Yuan Zhiming from the Wuhan Institute of Virology have debunked claims the coronavirus was created by a lab at the institute amid another round of intense conspiracy theory hyping from some US media and a Nobel laureate in France.

For political purposes, some forces have colluded to fan conspiracy theories slandering China's anti-virus efforts in order to deflect blame, which may complicate China's vaccine development at the current stage, experts said.

Yuan Zhiming, an expert from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, said in an interview with CGTN that it is absolutely impossible for the virus to have been leaked from the institute. "We have strict rules and ethical codes to guide scientific research and development. We have confidence in our management."

But there are people who constantly create narratives and fabricate conspiracy theories for political purposes but have no proof to support their claims. "We hope such conspiracy theories will not affect the joint work of our scientists to combat COVID-19", Yuan said.

Professor Luc Montagnier, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2008 for discovering HIV as the cause of the AIDS epidemic, said in a recent media interview, claiming SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, "is a virus that was manipulated and accidentally released from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, in the last quarter of 2019." Montagnier said that Indian researchers have tried to publish the results of analyses that showed the coronavirus genome contained sequences from HIV virus.

The academic analysis by nine researchers from the India Institute of Technology was published on January 31 on website bioRxiv, titled "Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag."

However, the research article was withdrawn shortly after. BioRxiv wrote on its page that "these are preliminary reports that have not been peer-reviewed. They should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or be reported in news media as established information."

Montagnier's remarks on the origin of the coronavirus have been criticized by medical experts worldwide, and many prominent scientists signed a joint letter published on The Lancet in February, debunking his narrative claiming the virus has an unnatural origin.

Rao Yi, president of the Capital Medical University in Beijing, said in a WeChat article on Saturday that as a top scientist on viruses, Montagnier's claim can cause broad controversy. But as a matter of fact, many medical scientists have expressed the novel coronavirus does not contain the HIV sequence at all.

Montagnier has been criticised in France and the global scientific circle for practicing pseudoscience, Rao said, noting that he once vetoed a Shanghai University attempt to introduce Montagnier into China as a talent.

Le Parisien reported on Friday that these are not his "first baseless or even tinged words of conspiracy" by the Nobel laureate. Even before he received his award in 2008, Professor Montagnier supported the controversial theory of the "memory of water," which posits that water can hold the properties of substances it has been in contact with, and he recently even proposed autism could be treated with antibiotics.

The US's Fox News on Wednesday also released a report based on anonymous sources, claiming the novel coronavirus was made in a Wuhan lab.

However, an official at French President Emmanuel Macron's office said on Friday: "We would like to make it clear that there is to this day no factual evidence corroborating the information recently circulating in the United States press that establishes a link between the origins of COVID-19 and the work of the P4 laboratory of Wuhan, China."

As an expert from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Yuan Zhiming said during his interview with CGTN that the theories being cooked by some foreigners may aspire to shift public focus and disturb the global unified battle against COVID-19.

Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times that the US and some people in Western countries are making claims not for scientific purposes but to gain political points.

"They are trying to slander China's anti-virus efforts and current achievements, hoping to make more excuses to badmouth China after the end of the pandemic, including forcing China to make 'compensations,'" said Li.

Some forces hyping the conspiracy theories targeting China may aim to disturb the country's current COVID-19 vaccine development.

It has been announced that an inactivated vaccine for COVID-19 jointly developed by the Wuhan Institute of Biological Product Co Ltd and the Wuhan Institute of Virology would enter clinical trials on April 12. Among the five vaccines that have started clinical trials, China has developed three.

Hyping conspiracy theories could also help certain countries -- especially the US -- to shift people's focus from its failure in dealing with the pandemic to blaming China. And they are finding every possible scapegoat for that end, said Wang Hongwei, a professor at the Renmin University of China's School of Public Administration and Policy.

The novel coronavirus remains a mystery to the world. The international community should work together to battle the pathogen, while not hype conspiracies to distract scientists' efforts to tame it, Wang said.
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Linkedin Rizqy Rahmatyah (The Jakarta Post) Surabaya, East Java  Sat, April 18, 2020 11:24 634 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2adcfd 3 Opinion gejala-coronavirus,COVID-19,symptoms,pandemic,infectious-diseases Free

As the number of deaths caused by COVID-19 continues to rise, health workers in the frontlines are facing new challenges every day. As far as we know, COVID-19 manifests with a wide clinical spectrum ranging from patients with no symptoms to organ failure. The disease may be classified into mild, moderate, severe and critical categories, with the most common symptoms of patients including fever (almost 99 percent), fatigue (almost 70 percent), dry cough and diarrhea.



Recently, emerging studies have detailed new and uncommon manifestations of the novel coronavirus. Some describe eye-associated symptoms, such as conjunctivitis or red-eye, which was noticed since January, leading to suspicions that COVID-19 may be transmitted through the eye.



Later, the American Academy of Ophthalmology suggested a low risk of spreading COVID-19 through tears, but the virus can cause conjunctivitis and may be transmitted by aerosol contact with the conjunctiva.



Hopefully, these new studies will help ophthalmologists and other health workers around the world become aware and cautious regarding the ocular symptoms of COVID-19. In Indonesia, eye specialist Ferdiriva Hamzah has warned peers about this possible uncommon manifestation of COVID-19.



Another clinical feature found in a number of COVID-19 patients is a skin rash, which could mislead the diagnosis.



I believe there are still possibilities of unknown clinical manifestations related to COVID-19. This possibility poses a challenge for medical staff in handling COVID-19 in emergency and intensive care units, as it requires higher caution and vigilant of these new symptoms.



As a virus that had just been discovered at the end of 2019 and only found in Indonesia in February, it is certainly not easy to study the possible clinical manifestations in Indonesian society. This is mainly due to the lack of information or research so far, both domestically and internationally.



Unsurprisingly, there are many missed cases in emergency units because of the increasingly diverse symptoms that may be found in COVID-19 patients. Many COVID patients may come to the emergency room with no respiratory symptoms at all, making it hard to diagnose the patient.



One colleague cited a patient with a history of routine dialysis who came into the emergency room with shortness of breath. Shortness of breath in patients with kidney failure plus a history of dialysis is considered quite normal, so the patient was categorized as non-COVID but still handled with the standard precautions of using personal protection equipment (PPE), X-ray examinations and a swab. However, the patients swab tested positive!



This may be one of many stories that shows how complex the range of COVID-19 symptoms may have become.



The above example occurred in one of the referral hospitals for COVID-19 with adequate facilities. What if it happens in a hospital with limited facilities amid very limited PPE? Special attention must be paid especially to medical staff. At least, 24 physicians have died from COVID-19, as reported by the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI). Some of these doctors had tested positive for COVID-19, while others were patients under surveillance.



Also, there is a need for synergy between the government, related professional organizations such as IDI and physicians to stay cautious and always look for and disseminate the latest information regarding new and uncommon manifestations of COVID-19. The people also need to be encouraged to be honest in answering questions from medical staff; we suspect many are not forthcoming in describing their symptoms.



The public should not be afraid of the stigma surrounding COVID-19 because honesty assists health professionals in the process of handling and reducing the possibility of mistreating COVID-19 cases, which is now known to have such a variety of unique manifestations.



Lets help all health professionals in facing such challenges each and every day to flatten the curve by doing everything we can, including by staying at home as well as physical distancing, maintaining self-hygiene and honesty in answering their questions. Open and reliable information is key to solving these mysterious new manifestations of COVID-19.

***

Physician from Airlangga University (Unair), director of Kuliah Online

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
After reading Shadow Cabinet (Letters, April 17): I disagree with the letter. I agree with everything except the idea we should set up a shadow Cabinet. I also have become annoyed that the president is running a campaign ad every afternoon.

The American people need to have trust and respect for their leader, which President Trump has lost with his failure to take any responsibility for anything. When confronted with his administrations failure, he has blamed others and done nothing to fix the problem. I am aware that Trump supporters will continue to praise him and excuse his lack of responsibility, but the rest of us have grown tired of his act.

But I do not think we need Joe Biden to set up a shadow Cabinet, because we have governors that are making smart decisions during this crisis. I am following the lead of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has showed he wants to take charge, has a plan and takes responsibility.

Let us follow our state and local governments, because it is apparent that the federal government no longer has the ability to lead and has lost our respect.

John Denham, Reedley

Unworthy leader

Regarding Restore Capt. Croziers command (Editorial, April 17): President Trump, the so-called commander in chief, has shown that he is completely unworthy of that title by firing a well-regarded naval ship captain who tried to protect his crew from the ravages of the coronavirus, and by intervening in favor of a Navy SEAL who was charged with murdering a wounded prisoner and was convicted of posing with the corpse.

Trump, who received a questionable medical deferment from serving in the Vietnam War, slandered another decorated military veteran from that conflict, the late Sen. John McCain, by cruelly commenting, Hes not a war hero because he was captured. I like people who werent captured.

Whether or not Capt. Brett Crozier is restored to his position of command, those who are now honorably serving in our armed forces, those who are war veterans and those who have lost family members in military service need to remove this Bully in Chief from his command on election day.

Cheryl Lynn Hollander, San Jose

Clever writing

The editorial was brilliant, and I have been cheering out loud all day since reading it. The captain was fired after speaking out for his sailors as coronavirus swept through the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. Credit deputy opinion editor Josh Gohlke for his great writing: Restoring the captain to his command would begin to right the ship.

Jeannine Yeomans, San Francisco

In need of comfort food

Though Im respectful of vegetarians, this meat-eaters response to More stores get Impossible Burgers (Business, April 17), about the debut of soy burgers at Bay Area grocery stores is No, thank you. Ive tried an Impossible Burger, and didnt like the taste or the texture of its meatless meat.

During this time of shelter-in-place restrictions, consumers like me want tried-and-true comfort foods like macaroni and cheese, pizza and (when were cooking) real meat for sloppy joes and hamburgers.

Vernon Greene, Oakland

Water Wars

Regarding West on track to match worst droughts (April 17): If the American West is, indeed, on the verge of another mega-drought in which cities and farms compete for limited supplies while wildfires are raging, then filmmaker George Lucas might want to consider creating a new 21st century saga: Water Wars.

Richard Fairchild, Walnut Creek

Reckless action

My nomination for an Adding Insult To Injury Award goes to Mercury rollback (News of the Day, April 17). This news item describes the Trump administrations decision to gut a rule from the era of former President Barack Obama that compelled coal plants to cut emissions of mercury and other human health hazards.

This action is especially reckless and vicious during this coronavirus pandemic. Many people, myself included, already suffer from asthma and other breathing problems.

And since scientific research has established links between dirty air and COVID-19 death rates, President Trumps deregulation of air pollution rules will only make the current health crisis even worse.

Sasha Englander, San Rafael

Ruined naval career

After serving 23 years in the Navy and having command of a fighter squadron, I have been following the Theodore Roosevelt saga with great interest. I am left wondering how the Navy maintains good order, discipline and mission focus in todays social media world.

A world in which a text, a tweet or a Facebook post can result in millions of people questioning a command decision.

I am left wondering what would have happened if Capt. Brett Croziers letter had reached its intended recipient and him alone. I am left saddened that a really good naval officers career has been ruined.
- Raila Odinga met Mombasa politician and tycoon Suleiman Shahbal twice in one month to discuss "matters" of national importance

- The first meeting happened in Mombasa at Shahbal's home followed by a similar one at Raila's residence in Nairobi

- Already talks were in the air of Shahbal making unlikely switch from UhuRuto camp after failed attempts to unseat Joho

That Mombasa Jubilee Party politician Suleiman Shahbal is restrategising to take over from Governor Ali Hassan Joho cannot be gainsaid.

Joho is serving his second term which ends in 2022 and the Constitution will not allow him to defend the gubernatorial seat thus the ground is set for political machinations.

READ ALSO: Tanzania records highest number of new COVID-19 cases in a day as 53 people test positive

Shabhal (left) when he paid courtesy call to Raila and his wife Ida Odinga. Shabhal is looking to become Mombasa governor. Photo: Suleiman Shabhal.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Raila amtia nguvu Omtatah kwa msiba, asema anaelewa uchungu wa kumpoteza mwana

Already talks were in the air of Shahbal making unlikely switch from UhuRuto camp after his two failed attempts to unsettle Joho in 2013 and 2017 General Elections.

The Mombasa tycoon and phylanthropist is keen to write a new script full with new characters and not afraid to consult with people he accused of robbing him victory.

In 2013, during ODM party primaries, Shahbal was registered his name on the ballot for the first time. He contested for the Orange party ticket but no match to Joho, then Mvita MP.

READ ALSO: Bobi Wine offers to fly home Kenyans, other Africans suffering in China

Shahbal when he hosted Raila in Mombasa recently. He claimed they discussed matters of national interest. Photo: Suleiman Shahbal.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Desperate Kisii woman appeals for help to get cancer treatment

The businessman castigated the Orange party and its leader, Raila and other merchants whom he called out for shortchanging him, claiming he had beaten his competitors fair and square.

Out of frustration and anger, the politician then shifted loyalty to Wiper Democratic Movement, an affiliate of Orange party which formed Coalition for Reforms and Democracy.

Come 2017, he moved to Jubilee Party and was UhuRuto pointman at the coast region. Twice he had been unlucky.

Mvita MP Abdulswamad Shariff is well aware the ground could be shifting his opponent's favour. Photo: Abdulswamad Shariff Nassir.

Source: Facebook

But in what now appeared to be a grand master plan, Shahbal has held two known meetings with the ODM chief in less than one month, in Mombasa and Nairobi.

In fact, the Mombasa meeting happened on March 18 at Shabhal home which was followed by a similar one on April 16. In both meetings, he said they engaged on national issues.

"It was a pleasure to host PM RailaOdinga for dinner at Kilua, Mombasa county. We discussed matters of national issues, BBI, the referendum and the way forward for Mombasa. Interesting evening," he would tweet.

However, sources close to Mvita MP Abdulswamad Shariff who is also angling for the Mombasa top seat told TUKO.co.ke the April 16 meeting was the fourth one between Raila and Shabhal since the beginning of 2020.

To augment his presence, Shahbal's foundation joined forces with Joho to provide a free prototype of an automated sanitiser-spraying booth at Likoni ferry terminus.

They also made donation of other necessities and foodstuffs to cushion Mombasa residents against economic pang occasioned coronavirus.

Abdulswamad on the other hand appeared to have taken a back seat and opted to hold own pressers or sometimes with members of religious community.

The blue-eyed son of a former Nyayo erra minister Shariff Nassir has always projected himself as the next governor, but the ground could be shifting in his opponent's favour,

His father was the longest serving Mombasa KANU chairperson and represented Mvita constituency for 24 years.

Though little is know about his investments, Abdulswamad is believed to have inherited much of his wealth from his late powerful father known for wapende wasipende slogan.

Shahabl on the other hand owns two banks among them Gulf Africa Bank which he founded in 1990.

He also has other business interests in import and export industry as well as shareholding in many firms across Africa particularly in Zanzibar courtesy of his friendship with former island's president Amani Karume.

The politician also authored a book called Zanzibar, the rise and fall of an independent state.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly.

Ruth Matete is not telling the truth about her husband's death - Pastor John's manager | Tuko TV.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Butler was mistaken for a man being pursued in a possible interstate shooting. Officers from several law-enforcement agencies were pursuing the suspect  a black man suspected of firing a gun at a truck on I-80 in Henry County, then fleeing.

Illinois State Police have said they were looking for Frank Maquan Scott, 25, of Cedar Rapids, based on vehicle information from the shooting. He was taken into custody several hours after Butler was arrested, but he has not been charged with any weapons violations. While Scott was 6-foot-6 and weighed 230 pounds, Butler was 5-foot-10 and weighed 160 pounds.
Many people like the idea of looking into their family tree but often feel they don't have the time. As we face into further weeks of self isolation and social distancing, the time is ripe for dipping a toe in the genealogy pool.

With a number of important sources of information going online in recent years, it's never been easier to start tracking down your ancestors.

Before delving into the records, spend time compiling the information that's already available.

Call older relatives and see what details they can remember; in this time of isolation and distancing, it's a fantastic reason to touch base with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins or anyone else you may not have spoken to in a while. Write down any stories or family legends they can share; while these will no doubt have been embellished or confused over the years, there's normally a grain of truth at the heart of them.

If you know of any family graves, pay a visit to the graveyards and take down the information on the headstones (if they're outside your 2km limit, put it on the 'to do' list for when the current restrictions are eased). Also have a look at the graves nearby - multiple graves with the same surname side-by-side can indicate a family connection, while a headstone with different surnames within your plot may reveal some in-laws of long ago.

If there's someone in your family who kept hold of memory cards, you've hit the jackpot. Not only do these provide a date of death, they can also include where a person lived, where they are buried and/or a photo. Numerous cards with the same surname and from the same area could hint at a family connection, while very old cards must have been important to have been passed down from generation to generation.

If some old family photos have notes on the back, these can help put faces to names but may also give you a name or location of interest.

Armed with this information, it's time to start searching. Before you do though, an important tip: write down everything. Detailed notes will stand you in good stead further down the line and save you doing the same thing twice. Make a list of searches you've carried out; jot down baronies, electoral areas and townslands/streets; and take note of all results in a name search - you may not think they're related to you but, once you've gone back a few generations, you might discover a link. At worst, you'll get a picture of other families in the area sharing your surname.

Many people begin their search with the census returns from 1901 and 1911, which are available online through the National Archives (www.census.nationalarchives.ie). The search facility allows you to enter the details of a known ancestor while the browse function will let you look at the returns by townland and see all the families living there.

Finding your ancestor living with family members opens up a range of other investigative opportunities. If they are a child living with parents, you'll learn their parents' names and ages. A handy addition to the 1911 census was the inclusion of the number of years a couple are married, the number of children born and the number of children still living, although these are normally only filled in if both parents are still living. The age of your ancestor and their siblings means you can start looking for their birth cert which will provide an accurate date of birth as well as the mother's maiden name.

Other information included on the census include occupation, county/country of birth and, on the B forms, details about the dwelling.

Civil registration of all births, deaths and marriages began in Ireland in 1864 and the indexes to these records can be searched online at www.irishgenealogy.ie. The birth records cover the years 1864 to 1919, death records from 1878 to 1969 (they're working on adding the records back to 1864) and marriage records from 1845 to 1944, although Catholic records only begin in 1864.

To carry out a search in a specific area, you'll need to know the Civil Registration District/Office, but a list of these is available on the website.

If you have a list of children on a census, try looking for births of those with the most unusual names first. You could find 50 John Murphys but there may be considerably less Laurence or Nicholas Murphys.

At this point, it's also worth noting that ages were a bit more 'fluid' in times gone by. Don't be surprised if your 80-year-old ancestor who died in 1950 was actually born in 1867, or if that 23-year-old girl who got married in 1895 was born in 1870. It's also pretty common to see people age 12 or 15 years in between the 1901 and 1911 Census (though that might have something to do with the introduction of the old age pension in 1908). In any case, search two to five years either side of an expected date for a greater chance of success.

Aside from the obvious, these records can give details of addresses and professions, but perhaps the most valuable is the inclusion of the father's name and profession (and sometimes whether he's alive or dead) on the marriage records. It's also worth noting who registered a death - particularly with an elderly person, the death may have been registered by a child or grandchild you didn't know about or a married daughter, giving you their new surname.

To go back before the start of civil registrations, you need to search the parish records.

The Catholic parish records are available to view on the National Library of Ireland website (https://registers.nli.ie). Unfortunately, they are not searchable, so it's necessary to go through each page of the scanned books. Most registers extend back to the early 1800s, with a small number going back further. The earlier records are often written in Latin; while forenames are given their latin form (a search online can provide a list of common names in Latin), surnames are the same.

Typically, baptism records will provide the date of the ceremony, the parents names (including the mother's maiden name), their place of residence and godparents. Marriage records usually include the bride and groom's names and places of residence, the witnesses' names and, often, the names of the couple's fathers. It's worth noting that marriages usually took place in the bride's local church, rather than the groom's.

Burial records are patchy - some areas have full records, some areas have none and others have some but not for the full period. Where they do exist, they normally give the name and address of the deceased and the date of burial.

Unfortunately, Church of Ireland parish records are not so readily accessible. Many parish registers were sent to the Public Record Office (PRO) in Dublin after the Church of Ireland ceased to be the established church in 1871 and, unfortunately, these were lost when fire destroyed the PRO during the Irish Civil War.

Fortunately, some members of the clergy had made copies of their registers, while 637 parishes had not sent theirs to Dublin at all. These records are now looked after by the Representative Church Body Library (RCBL), while post-1900 records are still in local hands. The RCBL has a regularly updated list on its website (www.ireland.anglican.org/about/rcb-library/list-of-parish-registers) giving details of what registers survive and where they can be accessed. There is coverage of some on www.rootsireland.ie, a subscription service provided by the Irish Family History Foundation.

Typically, a baptism entry would state the child's name, the father's full name and the mother's forename (maiden surnames are not given in most cases). After 1820, the father's occupation was often included as well as the child's date of birth, which is helpful as sometimes families waited a number of months to baptise children.

Marriage records tended to be less detailed, with marriage entries often noting just the couple's names and the officiating clergyman. While the Church of Ireland was far more thorough in recording burials, the information usually includes the name, age and townland of the deceased.

Outside of the returns for 1901 and 1911, there are some census returns for 1821, 1831, 1841 and 1851 available through the National Archives, but these are extremely limited and don't cover the entire country.

To try locate family earlier than 1901, the Tithe Applotment Books and Griffith's Valuation are good census replacements. Unfortunately, they only give the name of the head of the household but do list how much land a person held.

The Tithe Applotment Books are a valuable pre-famine record and were compiled between 1823 and 1837 to establish how much those holding agricultural land should pay in tithes to the Church of Ireland. Almost all civil (Church of Ireland) parishes are covered but, as it only applied to agricultural land, urban areas are not included. These records can be searched on the National Archives website.

The Primary Valuation of Ireland, usually referred to as Griffith's Valuation, was an extensive property tax survey carried out in the mid-1800s under the supervision of the Commissioner of Valuation, Richard Griffith. The thorough valuation, which covers all counties in Ireland, was published between 1847 and 1864. It gives valuation of all taxable agricultural land and buildings, and therefore covers both rural and urban areas.

The records are available to search on askaboutIreland.ie and, as well as providing the name of the person leasing the land/building, give the name of the person the plot is leased from, a description of the property, the acreage and the valuation. The site also includes maps (from a slightly later period) which show where the property is.

After the initial survey was carried out, the details of Griffith's Valuation were updated over the years in revision books or 'Cancelled Land Books'. Unfortunately, these are not yet online but are available to view at the Valuation Office in Dublin. They allow you to trace who held a plot of land from about the 1860s up until the 1990s, with handwritten amendments made in different colours for different years. Not only can this throw up names of ancestors (land often passed from husband to wife or eldest son), but gives you an idea of when someone died or emigrated.

Once you fall down the rabbit hole of researching your family tree, prepare to spend hours upon hours searching through records. Expect frustration and elation in equal measure. This is merely a guide to kick-start your research, so it barely touches the sides of what is out there to help you track down your ancestors.

Two great sources of information, tips and observations on new or updated online records are the blogs of John Grenham (www.johngrenham.com/blog/) and Claire Santry (www.irishgenealogynews.com).

Once you've reached a certain stage with the free records, some may consider a subscription to the likes of www.findmypast.ie or www.ancestry.co.uk. These contain a wealth of information, including newspapers, petty court sessions, directories, dog licences, Poor Law Union documents and records of births, deaths and marriages.

Those with an unusual family history or a mystery they can't solve, may wish to seek help from a professional. Accredited Genealogists Ireland, the regulating body of professional genealogists, has a list of members who are available for commissions on its website, https://accreditedgenealogists.ie.

The Irish Family History Foundation is the co-ordinating body for a network of government approved genealogical research centres throughout the island of Ireland. A list of these centres can be found at www.rootsireland.ie/contact-irish-family-history-foundation-centres/
Rights campaigners are urging Mozambique's government to find a radio journalist who went missing last week.



"Ibrahimo Mbaruco's apparent forced disappearance is of grave concern, particularly given the Mozambican security forces' alarming record of wrongfully detaining journalists," Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement.



Mr Mbarauco was heading home after work on 7 April when he encountered a group of soldiers, his brother told the rights group.



The journalist then sent a text message asking a colleague to call him because the soldiers were harassing him, HRW says. But when the colleague called there was no answer.



It happened in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, parts of which have suffered a deadly three-year Islamist insurgency that has left hundreds dead and displaced thousands.



The silence coming from the highest authorities is extremely worrying and we fear that he [Ibrahimo Mbaruco] could suffer the same fate as other journalists, who were held incommunicado for months last year for covering the violence in northern Mozambique," said Arnaud Froger of press freedom group Reporters Without Borders.

Source: BBC









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.

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The global death toll from the coronavirus is more than 158,000 with over 2.3 million infections confirmed, causing mass disruptions as governments continue to try to slow the spread of the new respiratory illness.

Here's a roundup of COVID-19 developments in RFE/RL's broadcast regions.

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan has announced it is extending coronavirus restrictions by two weeks until May 4.



Baku also announced on April 18 that borders with Georgia and Iran will remain closed until May 4.



Azerbaijan, an energy-rich nation in the South Caucasus, has recorded a total of 1,373 coronavirus cases, with 18 deaths. Authorities said 590 patients had recovered.



Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Baku of "abusing" coronavirus restrictions to arrest government critics.



The rights watchdog said on April 16 that in less than a month at least six opposition activists and a pro-opposition journalist were sentenced to detention of up to 30 days on "spurious charges" that included breaking lockdown rules or disobeying police orders.



Most of them had criticized conditions in government-run quarantine centers or authorities failure to provide adequate compensation to people struggling financially from the consequences of the pandemic, it added.



The arrests "fall squarely within a longstanding pattern of political retaliation in Azerbaijan," said Giorgi Gogia, associate director for Europe and Central Asia at HRW.



He urged authorities to "stop using a public health emergency as a pretext to punish legitimate speech."



The government has put in place a series of social-distancing measures to combat the outbreak, including a ban on gatherings of more than 10 people.



Last month, parliament passed legal amendments providing for fines of up to 200 manat ($120) or detention of up to 30 days for violating the lockdown regime.



In March, 154 people were jailed and thousands were fined for violating the restrictions, according to the Interior Ministry.



Critics of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev say authorities frequently seek to silence dissent by jailing opposition activists, reporters, human rights defenders, and civil society advocates without grounds.

Afghanistan

Government sources in Afghanistan say at least 20 officials working at Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's palace have tested positive for the coronavirus, prompting the 70-year-old leader to limit most of his contact with staff to digital communication.



An official document delivered to the Presidential Palace in Kabul is thought to have infected staff, many of whom began feeling unwell and were tested earlier in April, a senior Afghan health official told Reuters on April 18.



"A contaminated document was sent to an office inside the palace from another government department and that's how the employees were infected," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.



"Some of the employees were still working in their offices when the results came out," the Afghan official said. "We had to quarantine them and their families, but the numbers could be higher."



Sediq Sediqqi, Ghani's spokesman, said the Civil Service Commission had already asked government employees to stay at home before the tests were conducted. Sediqqi said on April 18 that the order had been extended for another three weeks.

The Afghan president is said to be conducting most business through video conference calls and is meeting in person with only a handful in his inner circle.



Afghanistan, already experiencing shortages of food and medicine while violent clashes with the Taliban continue, had recorded 933 cases of coronavirus as of April 18.



Thirty people have died of the virus in Afghanistan, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University in the United States. Afghan health officials say the number of cases is likely to be much higher than reported due to limited testing.



The Health Ministry has warned that, unless containment measures are improved throughout the country, Afghanistan is heading for a catastrophe in which millions could be infected.

Iran

Iran is allowing some businesses in Tehran and nearby towns to reopen on April 18 after weeks of lockdown aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.



Iran initially was slow to respond to the pandemic and held off on imposing widespread restrictions even after other countries in the region with far fewer cases forced most businesses to close.

Authorities in Iran have reported more than 80,000 confirmed infections with more than 5,000 deaths. But many Iranians and international experts think the government has intentionally underreported the extent of the pandemic in the country.



According to a report by Iran's parliament, the country's published figures are based only on those hospitalized with "severe symptoms."



That report said the real death toll is estimated to be as much as 80 percent higher and infections "eight to 10 times" higher.



Iran's Health Ministry has confirmed the real infection rate and death toll may be higher due to limited testing in the country.

RFE/RL's Coronavirus Coverage Features and analysis, videos, and infographics explore how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the countries in our region.

Gyms, restaurants, shopping malls, and Tehran's grand bazaar remain closed on April 18.



Shrines and mosques, as well as schools and universities, are also closed and public gatherings are banned.



But government offices have reopened with a third of employees working from home.



Traffic was heavy in Tehran early on April 18, the first day of Iran's work week. Authorities allowed businesses outside the capital to reopen a week ago.

Iran's leaders say they must consider the economic consequences of quarantine measures. The country is struggling under tight sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump after he withdrew the United States from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers.

According to the International Monetary Fund, Iran's economy shrank by 7.6 percent in 2019 and is expected to contract a further 6 percent this year.

Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a fatwa, or religious ruling, that believers may abstain from fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan if it threatens their health.



"The fast is a religious necessity and a pillar of Islamic law and it is not permissible to abstain from fasting...unless one has a rational belief that fasting may cause a sickness, worsen a disease or prolong it," Khamenei said in the ruling published on his official website.



On April 17, human rights experts from the United Nations called on Iran to release political prisoners who risk becoming infected inside the country's crowded detention centers.

Tehran has temporarily released 100,000 prisoners. But Iran continues to detain many dual-nationals convicted on security charges.



The UN experts have highlighted the cases of human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and rights defenders Narges Mohammadi and Arash Sadeghi, as well as Ahmadreza Djalali , an Iranian-Swedish national; Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian-British-American national; and Kamran Ghaderi and Massud Mossaheb, who are both Iranian-Austrian nationals.



They said all seven have requested temporary release but have been rejected or not received a response.



Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili denied that nationality was a factor in determining whether a prisoner would be released.

Russia

Russian health authorities have reported 4,785 new cases of coronavirus, a record for a single day.



Authorities also said 40 people had died over the past 24 hours, bringing the overall death toll to 313. Some 36,700 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia.



Moscow accounted for more than half of the new infections and 21 of the 40 deaths, the Russian coronavirus crisis response center said.



Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the government to provide daily forecasts of the spread of the coronavirus.



Russia had reported far fewer infections than many Western European countries during the pandemic's early stages. But Russia's official tally began rising sharply in April.



Like in many countries, health authorities in Russia are not carrying out mass testing.



Private testing results in Moscow among people without symptoms suggest the virus has penetrated more deeply into the population than official data shows.



In Moscow, a city of 12.7 million people and hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak, cases jumped by 2,649 to 20,754.



However, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the lockdown measures first introduced in March were working.



"The disease rate in the city is growing but not exponentially, and far from the worst-case scenario," Sobyanin wrote on his website.



Declared on March 30, the lockdown regime banned residents from leaving their homes unless they were going to buy food or medicines, get urgent medical treatment, or walk the dog.



The authorities also introduced a travel-permit system effective from April 15, and Sobyanin said on April 18 that the authorities would use traffic cameras to catch drivers travelling without passes.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan, Current Time, TASS, and Interfax
Police in Hong Kong arrested 14 pro-democracy figures on , including Democratic Party founder Martin Lee, rights lawyer Albert Ho and media tycoon Jimmy Lai, for "illegal assembly" in connection with mass street protests last year.



Martin Lee is considered the grandfather of the Hong Kong democracy movement, while Lai owns the Apple Daily, the biggest pro democracy media organization in the city.



The group were arrested in a coordinated raid on , just days after Beijing dismissed a clause in the city's Basic Law proscribing Chinese government departments from interfering in the city's daily life.



The U.K.-based rights group Hong Kong Watch said the arrests were "politically motivated."



"The politically motivated arrests of 14 of the most prominent democracy campaigners in Hong Kong ... represents a concerted effort by the Chinese Communist Party to use the worlds focus on the COVID-19 pandemic to strangle dissent in the city," the group said in a statement on .



It said the group of prominent activists and former pro-democracy lawmakers were arrested under the city's Public Order Ordinance, which allows police to describe public protests as "unlawful assemblies" at will, and then arrest people for taking part in them.



The practice has consistently been described by the United Nations as a clear breach of human rights, it said.

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said China and its "representatives" in Hong Kong were violating the terms underpinning the 1997 handover to China of the former British colony.

"The United States condemns the arrest of pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong," he said in a written statement.

"Beijing and its representatives in Hong Kong continue to take actions inconsistent with commitments made under the Sino-British Joint Declaration that include transparency, the rule of law, and guarantees that Hong Kong will continue to 'enjoy a high degree of autonomy,'" added Pompeo.



Hong Kong police superintendent Lam Wing-ho confirmed that 14 people aged between 24 and 81 were arrested on charges of organizing and participating in "unlawful assemblies" on Aug. 18 and Oct. 1 and 20 last year, but declined to name any of the arrestees.



'Now I've finally become a defendant.'

Martin Lee, who was released on bail on , said he had no regrets.

Over the months and years, Ive felt bad to see so many outstanding youngsters being arrested and prosecuted, but I was not charged," Lee told journalists. "Now I've finally become a defendant."



"I'm proud to have the chance to walk our democracy road with Hong Kong's excellent young people," he said.



The arrestees stand accused of organizing a peaceful march on Aug. 18, 2019 against plans by Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam to allow extradition of alleged criminal suspects to mainland China that saw 1.7 million people take to the city's streets.



Pro-democracy figures Yeung Sum, Sin Chung-kai, Lee Cheuk-yan, long-time social activist Leung Kwok-hung, known as "Long Hair," former lawmakers Au Nok-hin and Cyd Ho, march organizer Figo Chan and rights activists Raphael Wong, Avery Ng and Richard Tsoi were also arrested, along with barrister Margaret Ng.



Some charges also related to rallies held on Oct. 1 and Oct. 20, 2019.



Democratic lawmaker Claudia Mo said the government is trying "to introduce a reign of terror in Hong Kong."



"They are doing whatever they can to try to silence, to take down, the local opposition," Mo told RTHK.



Civic Party lawmaker Alvin Yeung said the authorities are exacting political revenge on the protest movement while the rest of the world is focused on the coronavirus pandemic.



"The Hong Kong government is making mass arrests at a time when lawmakers ... are tied up with epidemic prevention work and its funding package," Yeung said.



"Everyone else in Hong Kong is fighting the coronavirus pandemic, and they're making delayed revenge arrests? We see what you're doing," he said.



Another step towards 'burying handover terms

Dozens of supporters and members of the Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU), Labour Party and League of Social Democrats protested outside Cheung Sha Wan police station, where some of the arrestees were taken, government broadcaster RTHK reported.



The U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it was watching the cases closely.



"The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to Hong Kongs way of life," it said in a statement, citing the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration and the city's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, as legal protection for those rights.



"It is essential that any protests are conducted peacefully, and that the authorities avoid actions that inflame tensions," it said.



Lord Patten of Barnes, the last British governor of Hong Kong, said China had taken another step towards "burying" the terms of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong.



"The arrest of some of the most distinguished leaders over decades of the campaign for democracy and the rule of law in Hong Kong is an unprecedented assault on the values which have underpinned Hong Kong's way of life for years," Patten said.



"This is not the rule of law. This is what authoritarian governments do," he said, adding that Beijing was determined to "throttle Hong Kong."



Former U.K. foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind said the arrests were an "appalling attack" on the rule of law in Hong Kong.



"I know some of them personally and I know these individuals are not radicals or rioters, they are highly-respected internationally renowned establishment politicians known for their commitment to the rule of law and basic freedoms," Rifkind said.



Reported by Wong Lok-to for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has rejected calls for a national inquiry into the treatment of trans and gender diverse children, acknowledging that it could further harm an already vulnerable group.

The senior government MP also wants young transgender people to have access to consistent standards of care regardless of where they live, paving the way for potential improvements to services around the country.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

It is important we have a nationally consistent standard of care that is evidence-based and with appropriate safeguards to protect the interests of the patient, Mr Hunt told The Sunday Age through his spokesman this week.

In recognition of the risks of further harm to young people, the government does not intend to establish a national inquiry on this matter.
Two high-school seniors in Carrollton, Georgia, were expelled from the school this week after posting a racist video to social media.

In a statement, Carrollton City Schools Superintendent Mark Albertus said the students' behavior was unacceptable and "not representative of the district's respect for all people." "The racist behavior observed in the video easily violates this standard," he said. "They are no longer students at Carrollton High School."

Just desserts for the racists, but the school's stated rationale for expelling them is meaningless officialese and could be (and will be) applied to any speech they don't like. The school should be made to explain what about the racist video goes beyond the diminishing free-speech protections students enjoy.

Another way of putting it: the authorities don't care about the racism, they care about not being held responsible for an environment where it thrives.
If Stock Investors Crunched Economic Data Like This Their Expectations Would Change Dramatically

New economic data being released as earnings start to hit may alter how investors perceive the recent price recovery in the US and global markets. Many institutional analysts began suggesting the bottom is in and recently began to issue stronger forward guidance. The new data suggests we are seeing an economic contraction that, in some cases, maybe 2x or 3x the contraction that took place in the 2008-09 Credit Crisis.

The US stock markets reacted to this news and earnings data by collapsing over -2% in early trading. Gold and Silver are both lower as we write this article which would indicate weakness across the broader market. We continue to believe a deeper price low will set up in the near future with the US and global stock prices attempting to retest recent price lows  possibly falling below these levels. We believe the collateral damage to consumer engagement, manufacturing, transportation, retail/leisure, real estate and other sectors of the economy is just now starting to become evident. What the economy may look like near Mid-May is anyones guess.

Manufacturing Output Index

One of the most interesting data items published recently in the US Manufacturing Output Index which reported at -6.3%. This is the largest downside (negative) print going back over 20 years. It is nearly 2x larger than the deepest levels from the 2008-09 Credit Crisis and nearly 6x the levels of the 2001 9/11 terrorist attacks. This time it really is different.

Before we continue, be sure to opt-in to our free market trend signals before closing this page, so you dont miss our next special report!

New York Empire State Manufacturing Index

The New York Empire State Manufacturing Index was no different  posting a level at -78.20%. This massive negative number is nearly 2x the deepest levels printed during the 2008-09 Credit Crisis and clearly illustrates how the COVID-19 virus event has disrupted manufacturing output across the globe. Depressed manufacturing translates into decreased shipping, decreased supply, decreased demand, and decreased overall economic engagement (employment, support services, taxes, and others). A number similar to the lows of 2008-09 would be sufficiently terrible. A number that is 2x below the lowest levels in 2008-09 is absolutely destructive to forward expectations.

NAHB Real Estate Index

Real estate is starting to feel the pinch too. The NAHB Real Estate Index came in at 30. The only times in history where this level has been reached were September 1990, October 2006, and June 2007. These areas in history clearly point to an early recession indicator in the markets. We found it interesting that September 2001 (9/11) didnt experience any major downside print in the NAHB index. The lowest level reached after 9/11 was 46 (November 2001). The current 30 level is shocking. If history is any indication of what to expect in the future, this real estate index may attempt to set up an extended bottom near or below 15 to 20 over the next 12+ months.

Redbook Index

Lastly, the Redbook Index  which printed a level of -8.3. This index of over 9000 retail locations is one of the broadest market indicators of consumer/retail-based activity in the US. Obviously, with the shutdown taking place within the US and across the globe, we were not expecting any type of fantastic number. Yet our concern is that consumer engagement continues to slowly emerge from the shutdown over the next 12+ months and the collapse in retail may become prolonged

Historically, this is the deepest level printed on the Redbook Index since 2008-09. We believe the continued shutdown and disruption to traditional manufacturing, supply and retail will continue to present very negative outcomes for global economic measures. Thus, we believe the risks to the US and global stock market are still very real for skilled traders.

Concluding Thoughts:

The US Fed and global central banks are doing everything possible to support a shocked global economy  yet they cant print enough money to replace the global activity of consumers, manufacturers, and traditional economic functions. They can just attempt to patch things up while they wait for consumers and manufacturers to begin operating near-normal levels.

It is very important for skilled traders to understand the bigger economic risks that are at play and to understand the process of price moves within the current market cycle. I was recently interviewed about my market opinions and stated very clearly how investors could fall into a suckers rally trap. Listen to my talk here.

Be prepared for more downside risks and a potential for a much deeper price bottom over the next 6+ months. Those individuals/firms suggesting the bottom is in are certainly jumping the shark, in our opinion, right now. Its a pretty big event to come out right now and tell investors buy these dips because we believe the US Fed has everything under control. Be cautious and use your own skills to wait for a proper bottom setup.

I have to toot my own horn here a little because subscribers and I had our trading accounts close at a new high watermark for our accounts. We not only exited the equities market as it started to roll over we profited from the sell-off in a very controlled way.

As a technical analyst and trader since 1997, I have been through a few bull/bear market cycles in stocks and commodities. I believe I have a good pulse on the market and timing key turning points for investing and short-term swing traders. 2020 is going to be an incredible year for skilled traders. Dont miss all the incredible moves and trade setups.

I hope you found this informative, and if you would like to get a pre-market video every day before the opening bell, along with my trade alerts visit my Active ETF Trading Newsletter.

We all have trading accounts, and while our trading accounts are important, what is even more important are our long-term investment and retirement accounts. Why? Because they are, in most cases, our largest store of wealth other than our homes, and if they are not protected during a time like this, you could lose 25-50% or more of your entire net worth. The good news is we can preserve and even grow our long term capital when things get ugly like they are now and ill show you how and one of the best trades is one your financial advisor will never let you do because they do not make money from the trade/position.

If you have any type of retirement account and are looking for signals when to own equities, bonds, or cash, be sure to become a member of my Long-Term Investing Signals which we issued a new signal for subscribers.

Ride my coattails as I navigate these financial markets and build wealth while others lose nearly everything they own during the next financial crisis.

Chris Vermeulen

www.TheTechnicalTraders.com

Chris Vermeulen has been involved in the markets since 1997 and is the founder of Technical Traders Ltd. He is an internationally recognized technical analyst, trader, and is the author of the book: 7 Steps to Win With Logic



Through years of research, trading and helping individual traders around the world. He learned that many traders have great trading ideas, but they lack one thing, they struggle to execute trades in a systematic way for consistent results. Chris helps educate traders with a three-hour video course that can change your trading results for the better.



His mission is to help his clients boost their trading performance while reducing market exposure and portfolio volatility.



He is a regular speaker on HoweStreet.com, and the FinancialSurvivorNetwork radio shows. Chris was also featured on the cover of AmalgaTrader Magazine, and contributes articles to several leading financial hubs like MarketOracle.co.uk

Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any securities mentioned. Technical Traders Ltd., its owners and the author of this report are not registered broker-dealers or financial advisors. Before investing in any securities, you should consult with your financial advisor and a registered broker-dealer. Never make an investment based solely on what you read in an online or printed report, including this report, especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isnt well known. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report has been paid by Cardiff Energy Corp. In addition, the author owns shares of Cardiff Energy Corp. and would also benefit from volume and price appreciation of its stock. The information provided here within should not be construed as a financial analysis but rather as an advertisement. The authors views and opinions regarding the companies featured in reports are his own views and are based on information that he has researched independently and has received, which the author assumes to be reliable. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content of this report, nor its fitness for any particular purpose. Lastly, the author does not guarantee that any of the companies mentioned in the reports will perform as expected, and any comparisons made to other companies may not be valid or come into effect.

Chris Vermeulen Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




The World Food Program (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have dispatched aboard an Ethiopian Airlines charter one million facemasks, along with gloves, goggles, ventilators and many other essentials destined to most vulnerable African countries.

In addition to face masks, gloves and goggles, other vitally needed personal protective equipment being transported includes face shields, medical gowns, aprons and thermometers.

The UN health agency said in a statement that the cargo also includes a large quantity of medical supplies donated by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and the Jack Ma Foundation Initiative, started by the Chinese billionaire who founded the Alibaba Group. The African Union, through the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), is providing technical support and coordination for the distribution of the supplies.

In addition to dispatching vitally needed medical equipment and workers across Africa as part of the COVID-19 response, the Addis Ababa Humanitarian Air Hub will also be ensuring medical evacuations for humanitarian workers.

The supplies will be distributed in five African countries initially  Djibouti, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia and Tanzania  as part of a wider effort to reach 95 countries most at risk from the new coronavirus with medical equipment and humanitarian workers.

WHO reported that its logistics hub in Dubai has been working tirelessly to dispatch more than130 shipments of PPE and laboratory supplies to 95 countries, across all six WHO regions.

To sustain such a massive logistical operation, WFP has appealed for $350 million, but it has so far only received a quarter of that amount.
THE Katavi Magistrate's Court in Mpanda Municipal Council has sentenced Swalehe Idd (29) and Meds Ntinka (23) to life imprisonment after being found guilty of raping a 15-year-old girl.

The accused committed the crime at the buildings of the main bus terminal - Mizengo Pinda located at Ilembo in the municipal council.

Resident Magistrate Emmanuel Ngigwana said the prosecution side, led by State Attorney Lugano Mwasubila, proved the case beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused committed the offence.

He further explained that the two men had been found guilty as per Section 131(1) & (131A)(2) (Cap 16) of Act (R.E. 2002).

Before passing the sentence trial Magistrate Ngigwana referred to the behaviour as dreadful that did not reflect a civilised society.

"The accused acted like wild animals...their behaviour is barbaric and inhuman...I therefore, hereby convict and sentence them to serve life imprisonment each of them," ruled the trial magistrate.

Earlier, State Attorney Mwasubila charged before the court that the duo committed the crime on January 24, this year, at Mizengo Pinda Main Bus Terminal located in Ilembo in municipal council.

It was further charged before the court that on the material evening the victim of rape who was travelling by a passengers bus arrived at Mizengo Pinda Main Bus Terminal from Songwe Region via Sumbawanga Town.

According to State Attorney Mwasubila, the girl was under the custodianship of a bus conductor working in the passengers' bus she travelled in from Songwe Region on her way back home in Kigoma Region.

It was further alleged before the court that suddenly the two men approached the bus conductor and introduced themselves that they were security officers serving at the main bus terminal.

They assured the bus conductor that they would take care of her until the next morning when she would travel by the same bus to Kigoma Region.

The bus conductor believed them and the men accompanied the girl to one of the unoccupied room inside the main bus terminal and turned violent and raped her repeatedly.

After committing the crime they threatened to kill her if she disclosed the incident to anybody.

Mr Mwasubila further told the court that after arriving to Kigoma the girl told her parents the whole story who reported the incident to the police station and subsequently the men were traced and arrested.

The prosecution side summoned four witnesses, including a medical expert and the girl who testified before the court.

On mitigation the accused prayed for mercy as they were first offenders and had a number of close relatives who depended on them.
Ola Group is strengthening its support towards relief efforts in the state by committing Rs 50 lakh to Haryana Chief Minister's Fund. The contribution aims to support the state's efforts to enable aid at the ground level, strengthen emergency response and also facilitate longer-term COVID-19 relief and recovery initiatives. Last week, the Ola Group contributed Rs 5 crore to the Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM CARES) Fund to help in the fight against COVID-19. The Ola Group comprises various business arms including Ola Mobility, its ride-hailing arm, Ola Financial Services, Ola Electric, as well as Ola Foods.

Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder and CEO of Ola Group says, "As India continues to address the COVID-19 outbreak, the State Governments are working tirelessly to ensure containment and relief work for affected citizens and communities. Through our humble contribution to the Haryana State Chief Minister's Relief Fund, we stand in support of these efforts in every way possible. The Ola Group hails the efforts of the state and the commitment of the thousands of healthcare workers and essential services staff on the frontlines who are selflessly serving citizens in these challenging times. We are also grateful to the Government for collaborating with us to enable emergency services for citizens in the state, to and from hospitals."

Ola had also recently launched 'Ola Emergency' feature on its app to enable essential medical trips on its platform in cities such as Bengaluru, Gurugram, Visakhapatnam, Nashik, and Bhubaneswar. This new category was designed to bring a much-needed mobility solution for many citizens who do not have any mode of transport to access a hospital in case of a medical emergency. Ola aims to introduce this service in more cities in the coming weeks ahead.

Other than the contribution, Ola has also undertaken several steps to reduce the strains faced by communities. For instance, through its social welfare arm, Ola Foundation, the company had launched the "Drive the Driver Fund". This is a crowdfunding initiative to help affected cab, auto-rickshaw, and kaali-peeli taxi drivers across India. The co-founder and CEO of Ola, Bhavish Aggarwal, pledged salary for a year towards the cause while Ola employees contributed Rs 20 crore. Providing additional financial relief, Ola is offering its driver-partners interest-free microcredit. Strengthening essential mobility for healthcare workers, medical and paramedical staff in Mumbai, Ola partnered with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to help ferry them to and from hospitals.

Also read: Coronavirus India Live Updates: 5 more deaths in Gujarat; Kerala opts for odd-even rule after Apr 20

Alo read: India needs 3% of GDP - not 5% - for coronavirus stimulus: Rangarajan
As Canadian harness racing continues to wait for the green light to resume activity, there are still a few pockets of the planet where charted lines and pari-mutuel action continue.

One of those locations is Southern Oaks Training Center in Florida, the winter training base of Dr. Ian Moore. Moore sent out a handful of notable performers during the Southern Oaks qualifying session on Friday (April 17).

The most accomplished of Moore's pupils is 2019 O'Brien Award winner Century Farroh, who was making his first appearance as an older performer. Moore at the controls behind Century Farroh, who was entered in a two-horse qualifier against stablemate Casimir Richie P. That 2019 open class winner was making his five-year-old debut for driver Dale Spence.

Casimir Richie P took advantage of a pocket ride and powered past his stablemate late to hit the wire first in a time of 1:53.1. Century Farroh was two-plus lengths back of the leader.

Owned by Moore and Michael Goldberg of Toronto, Ont., Casimir Richie P (Astronomical - Casimir Hugs) was a six-time winner in 2019, with three of those wins coming in the Preferred ranks at Woodbine Mohawk Park.

Voted Canada's Three-Year-Old Male Pacer of 2019, Century Farroh (Mach Three - Beachy Girl) won 12 of 16 sophomore starts and banked nearly $720,000 for Ratchford Stable NS of North Sydney, N.S.

A few races later, Moore debuted two of his three-year-old pacers that will look to follow in Century Farroh's footsteps -- OSS Super Final winner Tattoo Artist and Denali Seelster. Moore guided Tattoo Artist in the mile, which he timed in 1:52.4 and finished third by a half-length. Denali Seelster was charted as a neck short of Genius Man on the wire.

Tattoo Artist (Hes Watching - Stylish Artist) was a five-time winner as a freshman for Floridians Frank Cannon and Let It Ride Stables Inc. and banked more than $240,000.

The veteran horseman noted that none of his horses came into the qualifiers as sharp as they normally would if racing was active and a target date was imminent.

"We've been turning them out most everyday, all week, and they'd only been jogged four days this week," Moore told Trot Insider. "It's been 12 days since they've been training, no point in climbing them up and getting ready to roll because there's nowhere to roll."

Having said that, Moore had high praise for all of his horses noting that they've "been training fantastic." Track conditions weren't optimal at Southern Oaks as Moore reported that the area had rain overnight that pushed back the start of the qualifying session an hour.

The appearances this morning will be the only ones in Florida for the Moore armada as he, his wife Nancy and the horses will be heading back to Canada before the end of the month.
These two-legged dogs are seen thriving on video thanks to mechanical wheel devices that allow them to roam free. Three special pups are having the time of their lives with their machines - but they still find time to cheer up children in hospitals as therapy dogs. They can also be seen playing at their home in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, full of energy and fight. Owner Domenick Scudera is incredibly proud of his three pets and said they have "changed my life for the better". His dogs are Cyrus, a 10-year-old terrier mix from California, Lucky, a six-year-old Baladi dog and Deuce, a Kentucky brown dog who is three. They all have heartwarming and contrasting backstories about how they come to end up in Domenick's care as his pets. Cyrus was born without front legs while Lucky is believed to have lost them in an accident in Egypt. He was near death before a kind woman called Marwa rescued him and got his damaged legs amputated. She sent him to America for a better life. Deuce was found in a ditch with broken and infected left legs which later had to be amputated. Despite their hardship, the three life-affirming canines now regularly entertain hospital patients and owner Domenick believe they represent the journey of getting through tough times. "I adopted each of them so that I could bring them to inspire patients in the hospitals," he said. "I have trained all 3 of these dogs to be certified therapy dogs who visit patients weekly at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital (BMRH) which has an amputee clinic. "The dogs are symbols that tough times can be overcome and that you can thrive on the other side of adversity." He adds: "Of course, they are also my pets. Disabled animals are not always easy to place, and I am happy to be able to provide a loving home for them. "They have completely changed my life for the better. They mean the world to me." The 55-year-old Ursinus College theatre professor says he has come to be known locally as "the guy who adopts two-legged dogs" but insists he does not see them differently to able-bodied mutts. "Deuce is completely mobile and doesn't need any extra help at all - he is amazing. He defies logic. "Although he only has legs on the right side, he is very strong and stable and can walk and run just as steadily as any other dog with 4 legs. "The dogs are like celebrities wherever they go. People stop and stare and ask questions. "Children are very drawn to them. The dogs like the attention and are happy to meet everyone. "I know that they make people feel good and that they are very inspiring, so I am happy to be able to share them with the people I meet and with the people that follow them on social media @2legdogs."
A bottleful of love and heritage By Joshua Surendraraj Roshni Gunaratne who traced back the recipe of her familys famed chocolate biscuit pudding to her Burgher great grandmother Eleanor Agnes de Bond, is sharing this family favourite with the public View(s): View(s):

Over the years the Burghers have contributed to the rich fabric Sri Lankan society in many ways and among these would definitely be Burgher cuisine  an island favourite that has been passed down through generations.

Sir Richard Ottley, Chief Justice of Ceylon (1827-1833) in 1833, defined the Burghers as the descendants of the Dutch, Portugese and other Europeans born in Ceylon. And each Burgher family would have their own story to tell of their roots.

One such family is the de Bonds. Launching her own venture, Bonds Dutch Delicacies. Roshni Gunaratne, a de Bond from her mothers side, wanted to continue a proud heritage, while also giving others a chance to enjoy it. Roshnis sole specialty currently is a silky smooth chocolate biscuit pudding that comes in 120g miniature bottles. She hopes to introduce more temptations as things progress.

Roshni finds it interesting how her family members have latched onto some particular recipes. Her mother, Genevieve, had been making the chocolate biscuit pudding for years, when she finally taught Roshni how to make it. Just like the biscuit pudding in her household, her mothers younger sister perfected a Love cake recipe that was passed on by their grand aunt Vera Duckworth.

We didnt think much of it at the time, she says. However, as she grew up, Roshni realised the value of these recipes. Its kind of nostalgic and you want to hold on to these things because it has meaning for you, she says.

So she began digging more into the story of the chocolate biscuit pudding, to see if she could glean anything from the family history. She traced it back to her great grandmother Eleanor Agnes de Bond. The family believes that it was passed down to Eleanor by her mother, so the recipe goes back at least a century.

What Roshni loves about this recipe is that its not too sweet but rather, very smooth. Whilst Roshni enjoys the buttery recipes, she describes this recipe in particular to be more of an artisanal dessert. A lot of love and effort goes into making it, she says. And ever since she first began bottling it, Roshni has had her customers coming back with more orders.

These days the curfew, has made things a little difficult. Especially when it comes to getting all the ingredients and delivering orders to her regular customer base. However, Roshni still manages to meet a few orders from the apartment complex she lives in and is grateful to be able to continue operations.

Back in the day, her mother used to run the kitchen in her household. She recalls having people over for a meal and whilst theyd be busy chatting, her mother would have already served more food onto their plates.

It is perhaps this generous spirit that always made the Burgher recipes extra special to those who associated with them. As our research showed, the beauty of it all is some of these recipes have actually incorporated local flavours giving them their own Lankan twist today.

Roshni hopes to explore Burgher cuisine more, through the recipes that have been passed down. They still have a beautiful story to relate, she believes.

Box: Other well-known delicacies

Anyone whose had close associations with a Burgher family would know that its all about the cooking.A favourite among many is the Lamprais, derived from the Dutch word Lomprijst considered by many to be one of the cornerstones of Dutch Burgher cuisine.

As history goes, the recipe which was discovered by the Dutch during their travels, traces its way to Java, Indonesia, and not the Netherlands as one might think. While the contents of the Lamprais (that was tweaked by the Dutch) is still much debated, many Burgher households have their own recipe that has been passed down for generations.

Another interesting dish is the Dutch Breudher (dough cake), tracing its origins to the Malaka Dutch Eurasian community. Breudher is a popular delicacy in Sri Lanka, especially during Christmas and Easter. Though you could easily buy it off a local baker today, some households still prefer to stick to their Nanas old recipe. Most Burghers would also tell you that the Breudher is best eaten slathered with butter and jam or Edam cheese.

Interestingly, Breudher is also found in Kochi, south-west India where it is served by the Anglo-Indian community, seven days after a funeral.

Kokis though considered a local delicacy actually traces its roots to the Dutch. It also bears strong resemblance to the rosette cokies which are of European origin.

The Portuguese who came to the country back in the early 6th century, brought with them a cake called Bolo di Amor. As the story goes, this original recipe was fused with Sri Lankan flavours to become the cherished Love cake today, renowned for its delicious blend of locally sourced nuts, honey and spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, etc and even a splash of brandy or rum.

Though it sits well alongside the Rich cake at the Christmas table, Love cake is believed to have been made by the ladies to woo potential suitors.

The Portuguese legacy also includes Bolo Folhado (laminated cake or layered cake) that is traditionally filled with cashew nuts, a touch of toddy and a sweet filling.

Aside from these dishes, the introduction of chillies to the local cuisine also stems from the Portuguese.
Karnataka to undertake Triaging: What does it mean and how do you pronounce it

Delhi to ease restrictions, if Covid cases come down in next 2-3 days: Health Minister

Lata Mangeshkar health update: Doctor says,'She in ICU with Covid-19 and pneumonia, will be under observation'

Good news amidst the gloom: COVID-19 cases, 40 per cent down since April 1

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Apr 18: In some good news amidst the gloomy situation, India has witnessed a significant decline in the number of COVID-19 cases since April 1. India has witnessed a decline of 40 per cent cases since April 1, when compared to a fortnight earlier.

The doubling rate too fell from every three days to 6.2 days, the government said. This has been attributed to both the lockdown and social distancing measures.

Containment ops to be scaled down if no secondary coronavirus case is reported for 4 weeks

We have seen an average growth factor of 1.2 since April 1. Between March 15 and March 31, the growth factor was 2.1 and this means that an average decline of 40 per cent of COVID-19 cases, joint secretary in the health ministry, Lav Agarwal said.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

There has been an improvement in the recovery rate as well. As on Thursday, Kerala recorded the maximum recoveries at 245, followed by Telangana with 186. Tamil Nadu recorded 180 recoveries, while in the case of Maharashtra and Rajasthan, it was 164 each.

Delhi recorded only 51 or 3 per cent recoveries of the 1,640 cases. This is largely attributed to the outbreak thanks to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation.

Kerala reported just 32 cases between April 11 and 17, while 129 patients recovered during this period. Agarwal said that 19 states and Union Territories, including Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Bihar, Haryana and Ladakh recorded a doubling rate lower than the country's average. We need to be more vigilant to reduce the doubling rate, he also said.
By Jose Luis Gonzalez

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - A spate of suspected coronavirus deaths among workers for U.S. companies operating along the border in Mexico has triggered multiple protests in recent days, highlighting friction over which factories should remain open in the pandemic.

On Thursday, dozens of protesters demanded a Honeywell assembly plant in Ciudad Juarez be closed to prevent the spread of the virus after a colleague died.

The company told Reuters one of the plant's workers died this month after being sent to self-quarantine and receive medical attention.

Car seat maker Lear confirmed "several" of its workers had died in the city this month of respiratory illnesses, while technology company Poly, also known as Plantronics, told Reuters two workers in Tijuana died this week of unknown causes. Protesting workers in Tijuana said the deaths were related to the coronavirus.

Similar protests calling for safe conditions or shutdowns with full pay took place outside factories in border cities Mexicali, Matamoros and Reynosa in recent days after the Mexican government ordered non-essential industries to suspend operations.

"We want them to respect the quarantine," said Mario Cesar Gonzalez outside the Honeywell factory, which he said makes smoke alarms. "The manager said that we are essential workers. I don't think an alarm is essential."

Honeywell said its Ademco factory in Ciudad Juarez, where the protest took place, makes heating and ventilation controls for critical infrastructures such as hospitals and laboratories.

Lockdowns aimed at stopping the spread of the coronavirus are beginning to disrupt supply chains in the $1.2 trillion North American Free Trade Agreement region, with governments and companies disagreeing about which industries should operate.

On Wednesday, the U.S. National Association of Manufacturers wrote to the Mexican president lobbying for changes to the country's list of "essential" industries.

Story continues

A report from labor rights group the Border Committee of Workers (CFO) on Wednesday said some companies sent employees home on half salaries. Mexico has not yet implemented a universal payment system for furloughed or laid-off workers, but gives some loan assistance.

The report also criticized conditions, saying some factories did not have soap in bathrooms or in dining hall sinks at the end of March.

Mexico's coronavirus outbreak is well behind the U.S. epidemic, official data shows. However, the virus has killed more people per capita in several border cities than the Mexican average, government data analyzed by Reuters shows.

It was not immediately clear why.

"IN GREAT FEAR"

Although COVID-19 - the illness caused by the coronavirus - had not been confirmed as the cause of the death of its worker, Honeywell said the worker was turned away from work on April 2, after failing a medical screening.

The company did not give the date of the death, but said it closed the factory two days for cleaning after the worker went into quarantine.

Lear said in a statement to Reuters several employees at its Ciudad Juarez operations had died of complications from respiratory illness, but declined to say how many.

It said it halted all employee-related activities in the city by April 1.

That appeared to be in line with Mexico's declaration of a health emergency on March 30, requiring companies to cease operations if their activities are deemed non-essential.

The government is investigating why 15% of companies with non-essential activities had refused to stop work, deputy health minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said on Wednesday, warning that failure to comply could be a crime.

On Wednesday, workers protested outside an assembly factory in Ciudad Juarez run by Wisconsin-based Regal Beloit, which produces electric motors for household appliances, and demanded the plant close, saying a coworker had died.

Reuters was not able to confirm a death of a Regal worker. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

In Tijuana, a manufacturing hub across from San Diego that has registered 271 cases of coronavirus and is the region with the greatest viral transmission in Mexico, workers also protested this week after the Poly workers died.

Poly, a California-based maker of communications gear, told Reuters that the two deaths were from unknown causes and that one of the workers had not been at the plant in 30 days.

However, Poly said it had suspended operations at the plant for now. It said its products supplied essential government and healthcare businesses.

A 23-year-old Poly worker in Tijuana told Reuters that she was told to stay home this week, but that her husband keeps working at a different company that produces steel materials.

"There's no use in me staying home, if he's still putting himself at risk," said the woman, who declined to be named, fearing retribution. "We're having a really bad time. We're going to work in great fear."

(Reporting by Jose Luis Gonzalez in Ciudad Juarez; Additional reporting by Noe Torres, Abraham Gonzalez and Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel, Aurora Ellis and Gerry Doyle)
After COVID-19 began sweeping across the country earlier this year, thermal camera and sensor vendor FLIR Systems began marketing its products as a way to help screen people for fevers.The cameras, which can read heat signatures on people and objects, have traditionally been used in industrial and military settings, but FLIR believes they could be used to help organizations navigate the pandemic and evaluate illness "We've just seen an immense uptick in interest since all this started," said Chris Bainter, global business development director with FLIR, discussing the global interest from public and private organizations alike.FLIR is not alone. Thermal cameras are seeing an industry boom , and many other security firms across the globe have begun marketing their products as potential tools to deploy against the spread of illness. In the last few weeks, sales have been brisk, said Lisa Falzone, CEO of Athena Security, which recently launched its Fever Detection COVID-19 Screening System Much of this buying has been going on in the private sector: according to Bainter, his company has recently developed contracts with restaurant owners, grocery stores, events vendors, and others. Similarly, Falzone said her company has seen interest from all over.Last week was to a hospital, next is a 911 call center and an airport after that, but the orders are coming in from all walks of life, businesses large and small that want a pre-screening technology in place," she said, in an email.However, these cameras don't detect the virus itself, they merely measure whether a person has an elevated skin temperature or not, said Bainter. This means that they aren't a catch-all solution, but rather, could be integrated into a broader public health and safety process involving screening and diagnosis.Hypothetically, these devices could have many uses for governments. City halls and mayor's offices could identify sick staff before they entered a building; airports could screen passengers to cut down on the likelihood of national or international carriers; and jails and prisons might be able to prevent an outbreak before it occurs.In other parts of the world  such as Europe and large parts of Asia  this is already taking place. There, thermal imaging systems are being paired with other tech like facial recognition, movement predictive algorithms and data tracking to help contain the virus.At the pandemic's ground zero, in Wuhan, China, transportation hubs recently began rolling out thermal imaging systems designed to spot people with fevers. This system, which is designed to set off an alert when an individual's temperature rises above 37 degrees centigrade, also has an AI-driven facial recognition component that can identify specific individuals.For obvious reasons, federal or municipal deployment of such technology in the U.S. has had its detractors, and civil liberty activists worry that the tech goes too far in its pursuit of safety.The privacy-concerned Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently published a statement on thermal cameras, calling into question the accuracy of the technology, and arguing that the surveillance infrastructure being built up now might become permanent even if the virus goes away."After 9/11, we got the Patriot Act," said Matthew Guariglia, policy analyst with EFF. "A lot of times [after a large event] the initial public safety concerns allows people to ignore or disregard the long term civil liberties implications, because of the initial panic. Terrorism is one thing  because it's an ongoing problem. But there's no reason why this kind of technology would need to stick around after the COVID-19 crisis is over."This cautiousness when it comes to privacy is a style that many U.S. municipalities have begun to integrate into their local legal systems -- making swift deployment of such new, largely untested technology unlikely.In Seattle, for instance, a long-standing "surveillance ordinance" requires that any new technology operated by the city go through a rigorous vetting process that includes public comment and participation from the city's chief technology officer and the city council.Part of this process requires the city to develop surveillance impact reports (SIRs) that review any worrying social implications that the technology might pose for the community (this includes a "Civil Liberties and Privacy Assessment"), deliver the SIRs to the council, who then vote on whether to adopt the solution or not. If adopted, the technology is then committed to a "Master List" of surveillance technologies that any resident can look up online."If we're going to collect this type of information or if the city intends to do so, [the point of the ordinance] is that we're going to do so with the public's knowledge and approval," said Anthony Derek, digital associate with the Seattle Mayor's Office. "Technologies obviously come with a lot of inherent risks ... [any new surveillance technologies] wouldn't be adopted without strict review that shows the potential risks are either non-existent or outweigh the safety benefits."Derek said he wasn't aware of Seattle having been courted by technology firms like FLIR or Athena for thermal reading cameras. Even if it had, it's unlikely that the technology would make it through the city's vetting process in a timely manner. Currently, there are several surveillance products that are pending review, but they were introduced before the COVID-19 crisis took off and, given the city's focus on keeping things running smoothly amidst the virus, are unlikely to be vetted anytime soon, he said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan hosted an international media forum by videoconference dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Turkmenistans neutrality.

The forum participants included representatives of a number of ministries, departments, mass media of Turkmenistan, as well as foreign political scientists and journalists. The discussions focused on the importance of Turkmenistans permanent neutrality and experience gained by the country over 25 years of neutrality.

The media forum foreign participants were briefed on the major milestones of the 25-year-old history of Turkmenistans permanent neutrality, its key features and principles that have been translated and elaborated in the policies pursued by Ashgabat.

In general, the media forum participants emphasized that neutrality became ingrained in the minds of the people of Turkmenistan as a synonym for domestic stability, social solidarity and development. In international relations, neutrality stands as a symbol of cooperation between states on the basis of mutual respect, equality, mutually beneficial partnership.

 TURKMENISTAN.RU, 2022
Ha Jin went home after the incident with the stalker, while Ha Kyung went to the hospital to have her arm checked. Jung Hoon stayed at Ha Jin's house for the night to ensure her safety. While preparing tea, Yoon Taek called Jung Hoon from the metal facility. He told Jung Hoon to protect Ha Jin. Confused, Jung Hoon insisted on knowing how he got his number and learned about Ha Jin. The line was cut as Yoon Taek ended the call.

Il Kwon visited the hospital and stayed with Ha Kyung through the night. The next morning, Jung Hoon brought Ha Jin to the doctor to see Ha Kyung's test result. Jung Hoon left the hospital and drove to the mental facility.

Jung Hoon asked Yoon Taek to share his knowledge about the stalker. Yoon Taek shared that he misses Seo Yun and blamed Jung Hoon for her death. Suddenly, his temper changed and cried, lamenting for his feelings for Seo Yun.

Ms. Park convinced both sisters to report to the police about the current situation. Ha Jin agreed so they can know who the stalker is. The detectives went to Ha Jin's house and looked for the evidence to further trace the suspect. Reports flooded the news about Ha Jin's stalker. They chose not to reveal the photos Jung Hoon received to not involve himself.

Jung Hoon studied all the possibilities of the person who did this to Ha Jin. He went back to talk to Park Soo Chang, the persistent reporter who took pictures and sold them to an anonymous person. Jung Hoon recorded what Park Soo Chang mentioned the other day that he was not the "offender." Park Soo Chang escaped his house before the detectives arrived and caught him, but he surrendered after receiving Jung Hoon's letter about going to the public what he did if he wouldn't cooperate.

The detectives visited director Hyun Geun's house and asked a few questions about Ha Jin. He usually enjoys traveling overseas and saves a lot of Ha Jin's portrait. He also loves riding his bike around Seoul. Another suspect is Moon Chul, the former road manager who knew Ha Jin's house access. The detectives visited his place and discover that he holds gears with his bike and knows Ha Jin's schedule the whole time.

Ms. Park and Ha Kyung excited to prepare for Ha Jin's birthday in two days, and fans gave a lot of gifts for their favorite actress. Ha Jin hopes to celebrate with Jung Hoon but Ha Kyung advised her not to expect much. Ha Jin had a nightmare of Seo Yun with a motorcycle accident. She suddenly woke up seeing in her dreams that Seo Yun tried to call for help when she got hit.

Meanwhile, Jung Hoon received a call from his father and asked him to visit and pick up a few items. His father handed over a box full of memorabilia from his mother since he was young. He found a letter from his mother, which she wrote before her death. She praised Jung Hoon for a being a good son and wished him to be happy. He went back home, bringing the box with him.

Ha Jin prepared for a photoshoot and for other commitments. She felt happy as Jung Hoon called and set a dinner date with her. Ms. Park invited Ha Jin for lunch out at her favorite restaurant. Ha Kyung told them to meet her in front of the building while she gets their car.

In the basement, she realized that her car was moving towards the exit. Someone else took the car and drove it. Ha Kyung tried to call Ms. Park but the line was busy. She ran fast, following the vehicle on the street.

Ha Jin was standing in front of the building and saw the car. She looked at Ms. Park busy with her phone and went ahead to get inside the car. She tried to look at the driver seat and thinking it was Ha Kyung. A black bag covered her face.

A few minutes later, she felt dizzy and fell asleep. A syringe was injected in her, making her unconscious as the abductor took her away. Jung Hoon tried to contact Ha Jin but he wondered why the line was cut. He called Ha Kyung instead, and she told him that they just lost Ha Jin from the captor.
Other types of studies, which arent as rigorous as the above, include: cohort studies (which follow large groups of people over time to look for the development of disease), case-control studies (which first identify the disease, like cancer, and then trace back in time to figure out what might have caused it) and cross-sectional studies (which are usually surveys that try to identify how a disease and exposure might have been correlated with each other, but not which caused the other).

Next on the quality spectrum come case reports (which describe what happened to a single patient) and case series (a group of case reports), which are both lowest in quality, but which often inspire higher quality studies.

4. Statistics can be misinterpreted.

Statistical significance is one of the most common things that confuses the lay reader. When a study or a journalistic publication says that a studys finding was statistically significant, it means that the results were unlikely to have happened by chance.

But a result that is statistically significant may not be clinically significant, meaning it likely wont change your day-to-day. Imagine a randomized controlled trial that split 200 women with migraines into two groups of 100. One was given a pill to prevent migraines and another was given a placebo. After six months, 11 women from the pill group and 12 from the placebo group had at least one migraine per week, but the 11 women in the pill group experienced arm tingling as a potential side effect. If women in the pill group were found to be statistically less likely to have migraines than those in the placebo group, the difference may still be too small to recommend the pill for migraines, since just one woman out of 100 had fewer migraines. Also, researchers would have to take potential side effects into account.

The opposite is also true. If a study reports that regular exercise helped relieve chronic pain symptoms in 30 percent of its participants, that might sound like a lot. But if the study included just 10 people, thats only three people helped. This finding may not be statistically significant, but could be clinically important, since there are limited treatment options for people with chronic pain, and might warrant a larger trial.

5. Bigger is often better.

Scientists arguably can never fully know the truth about a given topic, but they can get close. And one way of doing that is to design a study that has high power.

Power is telling us what the chances are that a study will detect a signal, if that signal does exist, John Ioannidis, M.D., a professor of medicine and health research and policy at Stanford Medical School said via email.
Wuhan Raises Coronavirus Death Toll Amid International Criticism

2020-04-17 -- Authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on Friday raised the official death toll, where the coronavirus epidemic emerged last year, by 50 percent.

Officials at the city's epidemic control headquarters added 1,290 deaths to the number of officially recognized deaths, bringing the total figure to 3,869.

The revised death toll was released as new data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday showed China's economy shrank by 6.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, the first contraction since 1976 when China was emerging from the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. The data illustrated how much the coronavirus pandemic forced the world's second largest economy to shut down.

The death toll update comes amid growing criticism of China's handling of the outbreak in its initial stages, which included delaying the public announcement of human-to-human transmission in January even after it was known.

Eight doctors who tried to warn people of a new viral pneumonia similar to SARS were hauled in by police for questioning in December and accused in state media of "rumor-mongering."

Wuhan residents have also called the official toll into question, taking to social media with estimates based on round-the clock operation of cremation facilities in recent weeks, as well as the number of urns being handed out to grieving families.

These informal, collective estimates have led some to conclude that some 40,000 people died, many of them at home and without a formal diagnosis of COVID-19.

The official death toll is generally garnered from hospitals, and relatives have told RFA that many cases are simply being attributed to other causes, including "pneumonia."

China's Global Times newspaper, which is published by ruling party paper the People's Daily, said the revised toll was a "responsible correction" based on "facts."

"It is hoped the veracity of the data can put all controversy surrounding it to rest," it said.

International doubts about China

China has come under increasing pressure from the international community in recent weeks, with the administration of President Donald Trump and other world leaders raising doubts about its transparency, amid rumors that the virus actually originated in an Wuhan laboratory.

"We'll have to ask the hard questions about how it came about and how it couldn't have been stopped earlier," British foreign secretary Dominic Raab said Thursday, while French President Emmanuel Macron told the Financial Times it would be "naive" to think China had handled the pandemic well, adding: "There are clearly things that have happened that we don't know about."

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian acknowledged that the virus's rapid spread had contributed to undercounting, but added "there has never been any concealment, and we'll never allow any concealment."

But while residents of Wuhan have been reluctant to accept the official death toll, they have been far more willing to buy the ruling Chinese Communist Party's claim that the coronavirus was brought to China by U.S. soldiers, rather than emerging from wild species sold in a market in Wuhan.

Sources in the city told RFA on Friday that officials are repeating the idea that the coronavirus was brought to China by U.S. soldiers taking part in the 2019 Military World Games, which were hosted by Wuhan in October.

Wuhan resident Wang Zhigang said he had hear the rumor repeated by vegetable vendors on the city's street.

"If you talk to them or to any residents from around here about the [origin of the] epidemic, they will all say it was brought to China by U.S. soldier who came here to attend the military games," Wang said.

Several officials in the city told RFA that the story is being pushed around on social media by officials, most of whom believe it themselves.

State-sponsored conspiracy theory spreads

Wang said the fact that unofficial channels were being used to spread the idea had contributed to its popularity.

"Eighty or 90 percent of people believe in this propaganda, which says that the virus was brought by the U.S. military," he said. "Everyone, even very good friends of mine, is now thoroughly brainwashed, to the point where you can't discuss it with them."

A Wuhan resident surnamed Zhao confirmed Wang's account.

"Most people are saying that the five American soldiers who participated in the military games brought it here from the U.S., but officials won't say this publicly," Zhao said.

Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan said she has seen the same phenomenon.

"There are some workers who saying it was brought by Americans," Zhang said. "It seems that the propaganda machine is really very powerful. I have heard people from all levels of society saying this."

Zhang said that Wuhan is now in a "highly politicized" state, with Communist Party flags hung out in the streets, drawing a parallel with Germany under the Nazis.

"As I understand it, you display the party flag when you hold a meeting or carry out party activities, and it's hung indoors," Zhang said. "But they are hanging them on the streets right now, which is inappropriate."

Zhang, a rights lawyer from Shanghai who has been visiting hospitals in the city to report on the ongoing coronavirus epidemic there, said new fever cases are still arriving.

"I went to Tongji Hospital affiliated to Huazhong University of Science and Technology yesterday, and the doorman at the fever clinic said that there were new fever patients [on April 15]," she said.

She said there are still "hundreds" of patients who have yet to be discharged from respiratory disease wards, while experts have warned that there are still large numbers of asymptomatic patients in the city.

"There is no way to guard against asymptomatic infections, and the health code [used to allow the lifting of the lockdown] is discriminatory," Zhang said.

"The authorities in Beijing won't even recognize the health code, so people from Hubei province [of which Wuhan is the capital] can't go there."

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Copyright  1998-2020, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content April not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use.

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Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Saturday urged the students to devote their maximum on e-learning platforms which would help them to continue with their studies even while staying at home during the lockdown.

He said that to ensure that students of government and private schools in Haryana do not suffer academic loss in view of the nationwide lockdown, new classes for 52 lakh students have been started since April 15 through cable and DTH channels under the distance programme.

During his televised address to the people of the state on the COVID-19 situation, he interacted with students and teachers, and said uncertainty arising from the coronavirus-induced situation had greatly impacted the school and college students as they were not able to attend their classes.

He said that on March 18, the annual school examinations in the state were postponed and the schools were closed on March 19.

The new academic session generally starts from April 1 every year, but it could not be done this year due to the lockdown, so students had faced many uncertainties whether or not there would be exams or when they would get admission to the next class.

The chief minister said the state government had already decided to promote all the students studying from class I to XI grade to the next classes based on the results of the examinations that took place till March 18.

He said that after passing their Class X exams, each year the practice has been that in the month of July, about 60,000 to 70,000 students take admission in 172 government and 246 private Industrial Training Institutes of the state and the classes start from August month.

However, while on March 24, as all the ITIs were closed, theoretical studies were being conducted through phone and e-learning but classes for practical subjects will start after the lockdown, period ends, he said.

He shared that in ITI, there are total 81 trades, out of which in 30-35 trades there is a condition of passing the math and science examination in class Xth.

He said that if more time is takento conduct the science examination, then the government is considering to admit such students on a provisional basis, without appearing in science examination.

Khattar said that the final decision in this regard will be taken soon.

He said that private schools had been requested to take only one-month fee instead of three-month advance fees and also waive transportation charges in view of the lockdown.

He said that the teachers are distributing the dry ration to the children at their doorsteps under the mid-day meal programme.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  Despite calls from some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in the Roundhouse, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham does not plan to call a special legislative session anytime soon.

With New Mexicos Legislature lacking any easy way to meet remotely, bringing all 112 legislators back to Santa Fe is not a prudent idea during the COVID-19 outbreak, which has already killed 51 state residents, the governor said this week.

As soon as its safe to hold a special session, we will do so, but its clear that time is not right now, Lujan Grisham spokeswoman Nora Meyers Sackett said Friday.

The governor also believes there needs to be more consensus among lawmakers on targeted economic relief plans and a better grasp on what additional federal funding might be available before moving ahead with a special session, she added.

However, some legislators say a special session needs to happen as soon as possible to approve a relief package for businesses and employees hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak.

They say that could be done safely by having lawmakers gradually enter the Roundhouse, take necessary safety precautions and cast votes in waves so as not to violate social distancing guidelines.

I want to follow data as much as the governor does, said Rep. Daymon Ely, D-Corrales. But I do think we can have a safe session  especially if we get bipartisan support.

Ely, who is the Houses parliamentarian, said many businesses forced to close temporarily under state public health orders might not be able to survive if a special session is not convened until June, as some top-ranking lawmakers have suggested.

I think youve got to give the public some hope, said Ely.

House Republicans have also pushed for prompt legislative action.

Every day that ticks off the calendar, theres more damage thats being done, Rep. Alonzo Baldonado, R-Los Lunas, told the Journal.

Already, 24 states have adopted budget legislation in response to the coronavirus outbreak, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

That includes a $50 million crisis fund in Arizona and up to $24 million for disease response efforts in Utah.

In New Mexico, state agencies have launched relief efforts and the State Investment Council, which Lujan Grisham chairs, authorized a $100 million recovery fund to provide low-interest loans to businesses that meet certain qualifying criteria.

But the Legislature has not passed any specific coronavirus-related measures, since its 30-day session ended Feb. 20  or nearly three weeks before the states first confirmed case was announced.

The New Mexico Legislature has not met in special session since 2017, when then-Gov. Susana Martinez called such a session to revise certain spending provisions after axing large chunks out of that years budget.

Lawmakers will also have to address spending levels this year, as an approved $7.6 billion state spending plan for the budget year that starts in July will have to be revised  if not totally scrapped  due to plummeting oil prices and a broader economic downturn caused by the pandemic.

But some have suggested that budget work could be done during a second special session that could be held later this summer. The cost of a special session is roughly $50,000 per day, based on past averages.

Meanwhile, after a Supreme Court ruling this week that New Mexico could not conduct its June 2 primary election largely as a mail-in election, there had also been speculation Lujan Grisham could call a special session to quickly change the states election laws.

But thats not in the works, according to the Governors Office, and Lujan Grisham instead has urged eligible voters to use the absentee ballot method instead of voting in person.

Our focus right now is defeating this virus and disease prevention so state businesses can reopen broadly the moment it is safe to do so and stay open for longer  any premature action risks a potentially even more damaging situation where businesses reopen and are forced to close again, Sackett said in a statement. Thats untenable.

Some lawmakers have expressed views similar to the governors, with Sen. Steven Neville, R-Aztec, saying in a recent interview that holding off on a special session would give lawmakers and state officials more time to assess the new realities and take a necessary response.

That will give us a better feel for how dire the situation will be, Neville said.
Brazilian diplomats have left Venezuela, TASS reported referring to a joint statement issued by MFA and defense ministry.

The employees of the diplomatic mission and consular offices of Brazil in Venezuela, including diplomatic and other employees of the MFA, the military attaches apparatus, civilians and their family members - 38 people - will return to Brazil from Caracas on Friday.

In early March, Brazil announced the termination of the work of its foreign missions in Venezuela and the recall of employees. However, due to the subsequent aggravation of the epidemiological situation in connection with the spread of coronavirus in the Latin American region and the closure of borders, they were forced to stay in the Bolivarian Republic. Thus, Brasilia completely stops contacts with representatives of the official Caracas, whose diplomats are threatened with expulsion to leave Brazil before May 2, Inforel noted.

On January 23, the leader of Venezuelas opposition Juan Guaido, whose appointment as the parliamentary speaker had been annulled by the Supreme Court two days before that, declared himself as acting president.

On the same day, the US recognized him as acting head of state. So did the Lima Group countries except for Mexico, the Organization of American States, and several other countries.

Some European countries recognized Guaido as interim president after Maduro had refused to call an early election within eight days. Russia, Belarus, Bolivia, Iran, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Syria, and Turkey came out in Maduros support.
Google Search Shows Testing Locations Near You To Help Combat Coronavirus News oi-Sharmishte Datti

Coronavirus pandemic is spreading like wildfire across the globe. Presently, without a vaccine in sight, the only way to overcome the deadly virus is to increase the testing capabilities and quarantine positive cases. This is why Google Search will now show you the testing locations near you to better combat the COVID-19.

A report by The Verge notes the new feature is part of the revamped Google Search desktop experience that's dedicated to queries related to COVID-19. Here, there's a new Testing tab in the red sidebar. Some resources list a "Testing for coronavirus (COVID-19) cards. The effort also includes a testing program from Google's sister company Verily. Particularly in the US, there is something called the CDC Self-Checker to "help you make decisions about seeking appropriate medical care."

This is followed by a few general advises about contacting the user's healthcare provider as COVID-19 requires a doctor's order to be tested. Google next provides information from local health authorities and remind you about calling ahead.

Below these results, there is a new link to Google's coronavirus testing centers list. Like most of Google's Search queries, there is a map on the right side with locations on the left. The report notes that the Google Search view is personalized to where the user is and where they are tapping on a location.

The new Google Search listing of coronavirus testing centers also provides entry requirements, addresses, and the operating hours as part of the web results. The Verge further notes that the Google Search lists over 2,000 testing sites in 43 states in the US.

Here, Connecticut, Maine, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Pennsylvania are not included as "Google is only surfacing testing locations that have been approved for publishing by health authorities." Users in those states will only see the general information card.

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The State Department is commending China's ambassador to the U.S., Cui Tiankai, for distancing himself from a coronavirus conspiracy theory that the spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry has been pushing.

Driving the news: "We welcome Ambassador Cui's comments calling the Chinese Foreign Ministry's statement a 'crazy thing' that blamed the U.S. Army for the #coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan," the State Department's spokesperson Morgan Ortagus tweeted on Tuesday.

"Saving lives is more important than saving face."

Why this matters: China's pushing of this conspiracy theory has inflamed what is already an extremely fraught relationship between the superpowers amid a global pandemic. Ortagus' tweet, coupled with Cui's more conciliatory statements in an interview with "Axios on HBO," may signal the end of the fight over this conspiracy theory.

The backstory: In a rare interview, Cui told "Axios on HBO" that he stands by his belief that it's "crazy" to spread rumors about the coronavirus originating from a military laboratory in the United States.

Cui called this exact conspiracy theory "crazy" more than a month ago on CBS' "Face the Nation." But that was before the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhao Lijian, began publicly promoting the conspiracy.

The fact that Cui distanced himself from his colleague's statements sends an important signal from the top Chinese government official in the U.S.

Top Trump officials, including the president, have expressed their outrage at Chinese officials for trying to spread the theory that the U.S. military brought the coronavirus to China. The State Department even called in Cui to take him to task.

Reality check: There's not a credible epidemiologist in the world who has shown evidence that the virus originated anywhere but China. Scientists believe the virus emerged from animals sold in a market in Wuhan, where the first cases of the disease were discovered.

Go deeper: More highlights from the Chinese ambassador's "Axios on HBO" interview
Ever since World War I, superior force is no longer measured in terms of men or horses, but in the means to wreak destruction.

-- Saul David

Over a century ago, in 1914, war broke out on an international scale as 30 countries declared war or joined the war on behalf of an ally, resulting in the First World War. Although the United States initially declared itself to be neutral, it would enter the war after Germany's attempt at isolating Britain, one of the U.S.'s closest trading partners. On April 2, 1917, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress and asked for a declaration of war against Germany. "The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty," he said. Four days later, following votes by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the United States formally entered World War I as an associated power in support of France, Great Britain, and Russia.

The "war to end all wars" was not only memorable for the sheer geographical scale on which fighting took place, but also for the massive losses of life, and the role new technology played during the conflict. Reconnaissance reviewed photographs of enemy fortifications, better weapons drastically improved the ability to kill the enemy, and troops from opposing countries dug down into trenches for protection from new artillery. Flying aces took to the skies, and newly-formed tank battalions and battleships brought massive firepower.

The impact of the war was far-reaching. At the close of the war, formerly close countries like Russia and Germany were now enemies, and former enemies such as France and Russia were allied. The League of Nations, forerunner to the United Nations, was formed and later failed. The Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, and a wave of political revolutions would cover the globe, overtaking Russia, Germany and Hungary.

At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ended. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, short on manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiegne, France. The cost of the Great War was heavy for all the countries involved, with 16 million civilians and military members dead, and 21 million wounded.

For more features and veteran stories from World War I, see the links below.

World War I: The Question of Blame Who was to blame for the First World War? The history books offer us no shortage of candidates.

From Waterloo to the Marne: The Road to World War I Waterloo and the Marne are separated by 180 miles and a century of history and politics that eventually led to the outbreak of World War I.

World War I: The Schlieffen Plan The German strategy to fight on two fronts against France and Russia would determine the scope and intensity of combat in World War I.

World War I Commemoration Will Take Fresh Look at Gen. Pershing The centennial of the United States' entry into that war will be modestly commemorated this year, with a big Missouri twist.

Alvin York "God would never be cruel enough to create a cyclone as terrible as that Argonne battle. Only man would ever think of doing an awful thing like that."

John Cassell Henderson "Nature deals life and death in her own way, so when Gabriel blows his horn, I'm ready. Better men than I have gone long before me. But as long as I'm still here, I'll try to look at it as Jackie Gleason might say, 'How Sweet it Is.'"

Lloyd Staley "We are in the Army now. I am sitting inside our little old tent listening to the gentle patter of the raindrops on the canvas."

Sylvester Butler "Don't feel that you must get sweet chocolate and things to send every time; naturally I have enjoyed them very much."
At 3 p.m, Quynh Anh, a resident of District 5, Ho Chi Minh City, surfed the internet as she thought about dinner. She had never shopped online before, and was not sure how it would work out.

Eventually she placed an order through the online shopping platform Lazada.

Much to her surprise, the goods were delivered to her home in two hours. Fresh vegetables, frozen pork of assured quality, some ready-to-cook dishes such as spicy pickled chicken feet, she said, as she checked the carefully packed items.

"I have never tried shopping online before. It is very convenient. No feeling of waiting. Just order, turn to working from home and get the food delivered to the door".

More and more consumers like Quynh Anh are finding online shopping safe and convenient to meet their needs, especially when they have to limit going out during the social distancing campaign launched to prevent the novel coronavirus from spreading.

Amidst the booming in online shopping, some e-commerce players have intensified focus on fresh food items with a fast delivery commitment. Lazada, for instance, has launched it as a new category with a two-hour delivery service.

By strengthening cooperation with businesses and optimizing our logistics resources, we can bring fresh and clean foods like fruits, vegetables and fish to customers' homes quickly, within two hours, to ensure safety for shopping at home, said James Dong, General Director of Lazada, Southeast Asia's leading e-commerce platform.

Lazada has launched a new service category with delivery within two hours by cooperating with businesses and optimizing its logistics resources, catering to new online shopping demands.

In the initial stage of the new initiative, the company provides nearly 200 fresh food items, including fresh, imported meat from MEATDeli and Mega Viet Phat, as well as fresh vegetables; other Vietnamese agricultural products from Hiep Nong and Foodmap; and pasteurized milk from Lothamilk.

The program is being implemented in Ho Chi Minh City and it will expand to Hanoi and other provinces in the near future, Dong said.

Mai Thanh Thai, co-founder of Foodmap, said that cooperation with companies like Lazada helps the company's agricultural products reach more and more consumers.

Stimulating online consumption

Dong said that apart from consumers' convenience and safety, Lazadas e-commerce platform also aims to support partners in digital transformation and businesses on its e-commerce platform.

The company is introducing a stimulus package that targets traditional, small and medium enterprises. Running until the end of May, the package aims to reach 45,000 local SMEs.

The stimulus package will provide SMEs with a fast-track lane that shortens the time to set up their stores online and upload listings. This will enable the SMEs to quickly diversify their revenue streams and offset the decline in their offline sales.

New sellers will receive free support and a training course at Lazada Academy. In addition, partners can access more marketing activities to increase traffic like fast promotion campaigns (Flash Sale and livestream sales).

A training course at Lazada Academy.

"Local SMEs are the lifeblood of a countrys economy and essential to peoples livelihoods, and many are now suffering from the economic effects of the coronavirus outbreak. With this stimulus package, we hope to provide an online lifeline to small businesses. We want to protect the community, sustain jobs and businesses, and strengthen the Vietnamese economy," Dong said.

He added that Lazada expects to attract tens of thousands of SMEs to join their platform, especially for essential items like fresh food with safety certification like GlobalGAP and VietGAP.
A special court in Mumbai on Saturday extended till April 25 the National Investigation Agency (NIA) custody of Dalit scholar and activist Anand Teltumbde, arrested in the Elgar Parishad-alleged Maoist links case.

IMAGE: Activist and scholar Anand Teltumbde had surrendered before the NIA in connection with the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, in Mumbai, on Tuesday. Photograph: PTI Photo

Teltumbde was arrested by the NIA on April 14 after he surrendered before it following the Supreme Court's directives.

Teltumbde, the grandson-in-law of Dalit icon Dr B R Ambedkar, was produced before a special NIA court judge A T Wankehede after his remand ended on Saturday.

Special public prosecutor Prakash Shetty submitted that his custody for seven more days was needed as the agency was yet to complete its probe. The court allowed its plea.

The agency told thecourt that it wanted to verify with the accused the contents of his social media account.

Voluminous documents have been recovered from the co-accused in the case, which need to be verified with him, it said.

The agency said that the accused had received funds from the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and there was a 'deep-rooted conspiracy' between him and unidentified persons associated with the banned terrorist organisation, which needed to be probe.

Besides Teltumbde, civil rights activist Gautam Navlakha, a co-accused in the case, had also surrendered before the NIA in Delhi on April 14. His anticipatory bail plea was also rejected by the apex court.

He is currently in the custody of the investigating agency in the national capital.

Teltumbde, Navlakha and nine other civil rights activists have been booked under the stringent provisions of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for having alleged Maoist links and conspiring to overthrow the government.

The activists were booked initially by Pune Police following violence that erupted at Koregaon Bhima in the district.

According to police, the activists made inflammatory speeches and provocative statements at the Elgar Parishad meet held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which triggered the violence the next day.

The police also said that these activists were active members of banned Maoist groups.

The case was later transferred to NIA.
The Karnataka government is keen



that industries operating in rural areas reopen from April 20, Major and Medium Industries Minister Jagadish Shettar indicated on Saturday.

He told PTI that he held discussions with industrialists in the district headquarters town of Dharwad in north Karnataka on Friday and would so with Bengaluru-based ones on April 20.

Shettar noted that as per Central government guidelines, industries operating beyond city corporation and municipality areas have been allowed to reopen from Monday with certain norms and safeguards.

In this background, industries in rural areas can restart operations.

It will be helpful from economy point of view as well as employment to lakhs of workers, the Minister said.

When Industry Ministers from states were consulted by the Centre a few days ago, he had stressed the importance of reopening industries with some restrictions in rural areas.

He said the loss to various industries in the state because of the lockdown is yet to be estimated.

Certain demands of the industries have been forwarded to the Centre as those issues come under the purview of the Union Government, Shettar added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Wuhan Raises Coronavirus Numbers, Fueling Doubts

By VOA News April 17, 2020

China said Friday more people have died in Wuhan in its COVID-19 crisis than originally thought, fueling doubts about the accuracy of the country's coronavirus death toll.

Officials in Wuhan, the epicenter of the contagion in China, raised the city's death toll by more than 50%. Health officials said in a statement that 1,290 more people died in the outbreak, raising the death toll to 3,869.

The statement, which also said the number of confirmed cases was raised by 325 to 50,333, cited various reasons for the revised numbers, including "data discrepancies," a surge of cases that "overwhelmed" the health care system, and at-home deaths that were not included in the original tally.

Foreign health officials have been skeptical of China's initial reports of cases and fatalities, but Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian denied China engaged in a cover-up.

Spain's Health Ministry has also changed the way it counts deaths and confirmed cases of COVID-19 and is calling on officials in all areas of the country to use the same criteria.

Ministry official Fernando Simon said the change was made to correct inconsistencies in the way the information is reported. The country's official one-day death toll reported Friday was 585, a dramatic increase from the 348 deaths that would have been reported using the previous method.

Spain has been one of the world's hardest-hit countries, with more than 188,000 confirmed cases and nearly 19,500 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics.

There are now nearly 2.2 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and nearly 148,000 deaths worldwide, according to Hopkins.

The U.S. is by far the world leader in confirmed cases, with more than 672,300, nearly one-third of all cases worldwide. The U.S. also leads the world in fatalities, with more than 33,850 deaths. Spain ranks second with more than 19,400.

U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled a set of nonbinding guidelines Thursday for a gradual reopening of the country and returning Americans to work, while declaring the safety and health of Americans would be the top priority in his administration's move to reopen the country.

He said some parts of the country are ready to reopen and that at least 29 states will be ready to reopen "very soon." Trump said the decisions will be left to state governors and local leaders, a reversal from his previous position that he had "total authority" to decide when states could begin to lift restrictions.

U.S. stocks soared Friday following reports of a potential drug treatment for the COVID-19 disease from U.S. drug maker Gilead Sciences Inc. Gilead reported that patients with severe symptoms of the coronavirus responded well to the experimental drug. The company's trial was small, however, and the preliminary findings have yet to be reviewed by peers.

Impact on children

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that while children appear to be being spared from COVID-19's "most severe symptoms," their lives "are being totally upended."

He called for countries to "protect our children and safeguard their well-being." He said millions of children are missing school and the food they rely on at school.

He said the lockdown on populations around the world also means that children confined to their homes can be "both victims and witnesses of domestic violence and abuse."

Some countries in Europe also are making plans for a gradual return of their citizens to normal life, despite the continued rise of confirmed cases and deaths worldwide.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel plans to allow some schools to reopen beginning May 4, following similar plans in Denmark, Italy, Austria and Spain. Merkel said some stores could reopen next week.

The WHO said Thursday it would issue guidelines to countries next week as to how they can ease restrictions that were imposed in response to the pandemic while containing the spread of the deadly virus.

Extended lockdowns

But in the countries where the crisis is still growing, governments are forced to implement tougher measures.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday declared a state of emergency for the entire country, extending a partial April 7 state of emergency that covered Tokyo and six other regions. He said the new measure would remain in effect until May 6, with the intent of reducing traffic during the Gold Week holiday season, which begins in late April and extends into early May.

In Britain, Foreign Minister Dominic Raab, who is standing in for Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he recuperates from COVID-19, announced Thursday the country's nationwide lockdown has been extended by at least three weeks.

In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country is not yet ready to loosen restrictions. He urged Canadians to be patient, saying they are still "a number of weeks away."

Also Thursday, the White House released the administration's action plan to support the international effort to fight COVID-19, by fighting the outbreak at its source. The plan includes a comprehensive package of services to support U.S. international partners, which "builds on current, substantial, and longstanding U.S. government global health and humanitarian assistance of over $170 billion abroad over the past 20 years," according to the White House statement.

The announcement comes a day after Trump faced international criticism for suspending funds for the World Health Organization as it is dealing with a major global health crisis.

Trump has blamed the organization for failing in its task to inform the world of the threat of the coronavirus pandemic in a timely manner.

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Wind turbine makers are finding it increasingly difficult to get parts they need to build their machines, snarling progress on a global shift toward renewables at precisely the time scientists say it needs to speed up.Manufacturers including Vestas Wind Systems and Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy are wrestling with their own factory shutdowns and disruptions to suppliers after lockdowns related to the coronavirus spread worldwide. Delays at major ports, airports and border crossings have snagged deliveries of raw materials including steel and components from turbine blades to ball bearings. That will hamper completion of wind farms this year and next.

It's also a blow to efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions close to zero by the middle of the century, a deadline that the International Renewable Energy Agency says requires a rapid deployment of wind and solar technology.

"These delays are important," said Phil Taylor, professor of energy systems at Newcastle University in northern England. "We need to make great strides in decarbonization as early as possible to keep the total emissions during the transition period as low as possible."

In order to hit ambitious targets like the European Union's aim to have net-zero emissions by 2050, wind power must generate some 6,000 gigawatts of electricity -- over 10 times the current level, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, which is based in Abu Dhabi. It's that or pray for breakthroughs in so-far impossible-to-scale carbon-capture technology in cloudy places where solar is not an option.

Building wind turbines -- power generation units that range in size from small backyard models to giants as big as New York's Chrysler building -- rests on a complex network of raw material and component suppliers. Rotor blades, bearings, gearboxes, controls and generators are made up of around 8,000 parts that go into a typical utility-scale wind turbine, according to the U.S. department of energy. Supply chains can often stretch across several continents and include rare earth elements shipped from Asia and high-tech components from Europe.

Lockdowns designed to slow coronavirus as it spreads through the world's leading industrial powers are rippling through those intricate supply chains, with disruption worsening as the virus hops from country to country, forcing governments to act.

"Every part of the supply chain has been affected," said John Hensley, vice president of research at the Washington-based American Wind Energy Association. "Supply cuts in Spain, India and China have affected component availability in the U.S. We're also seeing slower construction and development activity."

He estimates that delivery delays caused by the virus shutdowns have put up to 25 gigawatts of U.S. wind farm projects at risk. "Major delays could cause economic damage," Hensley said on a conference call Thursday.

Among a wave of shutdowns: TPI Composites, a U.S. maker of turbine blades, last week said it slashed by 50% production at its plant in Izmir, Turkey. It's operating with just a skeleton staff in India, and both countries introduced restrictions on the movement of people. Navantia, a Spanish manufacturer of offshore wind components like protective jackets for nacelles and floating bases, said its factories will remain closed until the emergency lifts.

Those disruptions and others like them are hitting the biggest manufacturers. Siemens Gamesa said it's had to close factories in Spain and India, adding production in the U.S. was disrupted due to a lack of parts. Vestas said its factories in India and Brazil were closed due to parts shortages. That's starting to hamper maintenance and operation of wind farms, Vattenfall wind energy chief Gunnar Groebler told the industry journal Recharge news.

General Electric had some hiccups with its supply chain in China early on and has worked to contain them, said Jerome Pecresse, CEO of the renewable energy unit.

"We are monitoring closely the covid-19 situation," Pecresse said on a March 4 conference call. "We continue the positive recovery of our supply chain in China."

In China, lockdowns are exacerbating a shortage of ball bearings that help machine-parts move and balsa wood used in turbine blades, according to Leo Wang, analyst at BloombergNEF. Ecuador, exporter of 90% of the world's balsa wood, on March 15 issued a ban on ships and airplanes landing in its territory as authorities grapple with one of South America's deadliest Coronavirus outbreaks.

Plunges in the Australian dollar due to the outbreak are raising costs of imported parts, consultancy Rystad Energy said, casting doubt on whether projects will finish this year. The Australian dollar is viewed as a proxy for risk sentiment and China's economic outlook, both of which are dampened by the crisis.

---

In Japan, developers have had difficulties holding meetings to explain their projects to local residents, which may delay the process of getting local approvals, according to the Japan Wind Power Association.

Firms are fighting to keep production moving. Belgian dredging firm DEME -- which clears debris from the sea bed to make way for turbine bases -- will pre-quarantine staff on a hotel boat for two weeks before deploying them to projects, a move designed to avoid costly shutdowns if the virus spreads among workers. Others are re-organizing supply lines and production floors to increase social distancing, but warn the measures entail delays.Wind industry executives hope they can make up some of the shortfall next year when restrictions lift and are calling for governments to lighten tax and regulatory burdens to help the process. The Scottish government has extended planning permission for wind projects by six months to help developers cope with delays. But the moves won't be enough to slow wind construction in 2020. BloombergNEF, which had anticipated installations would grow 24% this year, now expect a more moderate 9% expansion.

"It will not be possible to make up the lost ground in wind energy installations in 2021," a spokesman for Wind Europe said.
New York voters will be able to apply by mail  and in many counties by email  to obtain an absentee ballot for the states primary elections on June 23.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order this month allowing all New Yorkers for the first time to vote by absentee ballot for safety reasons because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Onondaga, Cayuga, Oswego and Madison counties in Central New York will allow voters to submit an application for an absentee ballot by email.

To obtain an absentee ballot for the June 23 primary election, voters are asked to select temporary illness on the application as the reason why theyre unable to vote in person during the pandemic.

Onondaga County voters can download absentee ballot applications at onvote.net and email the completed form to absentee@ongov.net by the states June 16 deadline.

Voters can also mail applications to the Onondaga County Board of Elections, 1000 Erie Blvd W., Syracuse, N.Y., 13204. The last day to postmark an application is June 16.

Cayuga County voters can download applications from the Cayuga County Board of Elections. You can submit the application by email to elections@cayugacounty.us or by mail to the Cayuga County Board of Elections, 157 Genesee Street, Basement, Auburn, N.Y., 13021.

Madison County voters can download applications from the Madison County Board of Elections. You can apply by email to BOEcommissioners@madisoncounty.ny.gov or by mail to Madison County Board of Elections, P.O. Box 666, Wampsville, N.Y., 13163.

Oswego County voters can request applications and return the completed forms by email to Stephanie.Faul@oswegocounty.com or by mail to Oswego County Board of Elections, P.O. Box 9, Oswego, N.Y., 13126.

Cuomo postponed the April 28 presidential primary election in New York because of the coronavirus pandemic. The presidential primary will now be held on the same date as the congressional primaries, June 23.

Democrats Dana Balter and Francis Conole will appear on the primary ballot in Central New Yorks 24th Congressional District. Republicans Claudia Tenney and George Phillips will be on the primary ballot in the 22nd Congressional District.

In Onondaga County, June 23 is also the date for the special election in the 50th Senate District to fill the seat vacated in January by former state Sen. Bob Antonacci, R-Onondaga.

Democrat John Mannion of Geddes will face Republican Angi Renna of Manlius in the special election for the state Senate seat.

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Every Easter for the past 18 years, musicians and music lovers alike have flocked to the neighbouring Villages of Kiskeam and Ballydesmond for the hugely popular Maurice O'Keeffe Traditional Sliabh Luachra Festival.

This year, similar to shows across the world, the event fell prey to the Covid 19 lockdown.

However, Kiskeam musician Timmy Collins, who is a member of the Shandrum Ceili Band, and Scarra Darragh stepped up to the plate and organised a virtual festival. "I was saddened to hear that this year's festival wouldn't go ahead because of the lockdown. I asked local musicians to post a video of themselves honouring Maurice and people have really engaged with and enjoyed the project," Timmy told The Corkman.

"Of course, nothing beats the real deal of being in the company of all these fantastic musicians and Sliabh Luachra enthusiasts, but the online videos are also rewarding, for a few reasons," Timmy said. He went on to explain that people get to hear music from a wide range of musicians which might not be heard if multiple sessions were on at the same time. Also the music is saved online for people who might not have the opportunity to see it performed live, such as those living abroad, and vulnerable people who might not be able to attend live gigs.

Former Sliabh Luachra Musician in Residence Eoin Stan O'Sullivan from Newmarket also took part in the virtual concert. "I was delighted when I got a text from Timmy Collins, who organised everything. I thought it was a lovely idea and making the video inspired me to start posting a bit of work onto my YouTube Channel," Eoin said.

"When the lockdown was called and I lost my gigs and teaching work, I thought I would have lots of time for practicing and working on new music but having two young boys at home with me finished that idea," Eoin said with a smile.

Over the next few weeks Eoin intends to release video presentations he has made about Newmarket musician Timmy O'Connor and other video work and tutorials that he didn't get a chance to finalise because he was too busy.

Freemount musician and music teacher Alan Finn also stepped up to the plate in celebrating Maurice's musical legacy. "The festival committee organised a #MOKfestival, something along the same lines as the #Quarantunes, where musicians that would have normally attended the festival play a few tunes of the Sliabh Luachra (Cork and Kerry) region. Many musicians have been influenced by Maurice O'Keeffe (myself included) and these videos were a brilliant way to still celebrate the festival and the memory of Maurice," Alan said.

"Many, if not all, of these videos included at least one tune they had originally learned from Maurice, and the sessions they would have attended at the Maurice O'Keeffe festival throughout the years. Again, these videos were also very well received on the social media platform and brought the local music of Cork and Kerry to a wide audience through the social medium.

"Live gigs are currently a thing of the past, which many musicians are obviously missing and hoping to get back to again as soon as it is safe to do so," Alan added.

Maurice O'Keeffe often enjoyed a lively session with renowned accordion player Johnny O'Leary, therefore it was very fitting that Johnny's grandson, Bryan O'Leary from Tureencahill, was one of the participants in the online concert. "I released a video in honour of Maurice, it is very fitting that we played a few tunes in his honour and remembered him this past weekend. Maurice was a gentleman and always so encouraging to me growing up," Bryan said. "He played with my grandfather, Johnny O'Leary, at Dan O'Connell's bar in Knocknagree for many years, so I decided to play the great Sliabh Luachra anthem 'Sweet Kingwilliamstown' in my video, as it was always a great favourite of Maurice's. There is no doubt that Ballydesmond and that Song will always hold a very special place in my heart as well.

"I always enjoyed getting the opportunity to talk to Maurice and he was very generous to young musicians, both with his time and his tunes," Bryan added.

On a final note, organiser Timmy Collins thanked everyone who took part in the concert. "I've learned much from this project and I'm delighted how it went. I'm delighted that it was so well received, but nonetheless I'm very much looking forward to next year's non-virtual festival!" he said with a smile.

Maurice O'Keeffe's daughter, Sheila O'Shea, told The Corkman that the family was overwhelmed by the number of performers who streamed live shows in memory of Maurice and his outstanding musical legacy.
A man was tasered and held by police after he was found brandishing a knife on a south-east London housing block.

Officers rushed to the scene in Garter Way, Rotherhithe, just before 5pm on Saturday following reports of a man in his 50s behaving erratically.

When they arrived they saw the man was holding a knife.

The officers deployed a taser while trying to restrain the man but said the move was "unsuccessful."

The man then suffered a self-inflicted knife injury to his throat and was taken to hospital by air ambulance, Southwark MPS said.

His condition at this time is not thought to be life-threatening.

Two officers were also taken to hospital as precaution after he spat at them.

Police are treating it as an isolated incident and said there is no concern for any wider threat to the community.
This year, the main Orthodox holiday, Easter, will be celebrated online for the first time in history. Amid a pandemic, parishioners in many countries were banned from attending churches and services. The descent of the Holy Fire took place behind closed doors for the first time in 10 centuries.

Russians will be able to watch the live broadcast of the service from the Cathedral of Christ the Savior on several TV channels. The Orthodox were instructed how to consecrate Easter cakes, eggs and cheese paskha while maintaining social distancing.

The service will be conducted by Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus Kirill. The service will begin at 23.30, the broadcast will be conducted by the TV channels Pervyi, Russia 1, NTV and Spas and the website of the Russian Orthodox Church, RIA Novosti informs.

According to the tradition, the patriarch will conduct the Easter morning service and Divine Liturgy.

"Before the start of the service, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church will congratulate the viewers with the Holy Resurrection," the patriarchate specified.

In many Russian regions, including Moscow, Moscow Region, St. Petersburg, all churches are closed due to the coronavirus outbreak. The Russian Orthodox Church asked the congregation to pray at home and not to attend churches in connection with the epidemiological situation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who usually attends the solemn service, will stay at home this year.

In the evening, the Holy Fire from Jerusalem was delivered to Moscow. Despite the current obstacles, the shrine accompanies the holiday as usual.
J&J JNJ set in motion the first-quarter earnings season for the Pharma sector. It posted strong first-quarter results, beating estimates for both earnings and sales. However, J&J lowered its financial outlook for 2020 for coronavirus-related uncertainty. Meanwhile, Lilly LLY, Pfizer PFE, AstraZeneca AZN, Sanofi SNY and Glaxo GSK provided updates on their plans to make therapies/vaccines to treat coronavirus disease, COVID-19. The FDA approved AstraZenecas Koselugo (selumetinib) for the treatment of a rare genetic condition.

Recap of the Weeks Most Important Stories:

J&J Beats on Q1 Earnings& Sales, Cuts View: J&J kicked off the first-quarter earnings season for the Pharma sector. It posted strong first-quarter results, beating estimates for both earnings and sales and raised its quarterly dividend. Its blockbuster drugs, Imbruvica, Darzalex and Stelara pulled up sales of its Pharmaceuticals unit. Meanwhile, increased demand for basic medicines and products like Tylenol analgesics and Listerine mouthwash increased sales of its Consumer Healthcare segment. However, widespread decline in elective surgical procedures due to the coronavirus outbreak led to a decline in sales at its Medical Devices unit.

However, as expected, J&J lowered its adjusted earnings and sales outlook for 2020 for coronavirus-related uncertainty and costs related to investments that the company is making to combat the disease.

FDA Approves AstraZenecas Koselugo, To Begin Coronavirus Study on Calquence: The FDA granted approval to AstraZeneca and Mercks MRK MEK 1/2 inhibitor Koselugo (selumetinib) for the treatment of pediatric patients with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) related plexiform neurofibromas (PN), a rare and debilitating genetic condition. The approval was based on positive data from the SPRINT Stratum 1 phase II study. A marketing authorization application seeking approval of Koselugo for the same indication has already been submitted in Europe.

Story continues

AstraZeneca also announced that it will initiate a study (CALAVI) to evaluate the effect of its leukemia drug, Calquence on the exaggerated immune response of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 infection. The goal of the study is to demonstrate that adding Calquence to best supportive care reduces the need to place patients on ventilators and reduces mortality rates. Early clinical data from studies on Calquence, a BTK inhibitor, demonstrated that the protein BTK regulates inflammation and thus it appears that Calquence may reduce the severity of COVID-19-induced respiratory distress. This is the basis for initiating the CALAVI clinical study. The study will soon open for enrolment of patients in the United States as well as several European countries.

Calquence is approved to treat previously treated mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and chronic lymphocytic leukemia indication (in frontline as well as relapsed/recurrent disease setting).

Meanwhile, an Independent Data Monitoring Committee (IDMC) recommended earlier-than- expected unblinding on AstraZenecas phase III ADAURA label expansion study on its successful EGFR inhibitor, Tagrisso. The study, which tested Tagrisso for adjuvant treatment of early-stage EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), showed statistically significant and clinically meaningful benefit in this patient population. Tagrisso is presently marketed for first-line EGFR mutated advanced NSCLC. The study will continue to assess the secondary endpoint of overall survival.

Lillys Olumiant to Be Studied for Severe Coronavirus: Lilly announced that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will evaluate its JAK inhibitor, Olumiant (baricitinib), as a potential treatment for hospitalized patients diagnosed with COVID-19.The drug will be evaluated in one of the arms of NIAID's Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment study, which will evaluate Olumiant, now marketed for rheumatoid arthritis, as a potential treatment for hospitalized patients diagnosed with COVID-19. The study will first begin this month in the United States and then expand to additional sites in Europe and Asia. Data from the studies are expected in two months time.

Alongside, Lilly announced that it will advance LY3127804, its monoclonal antibody that inhibits Angiopoietin 2 (Ang2), to phase II studies in pneumonia patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who are at a higher risk of progressing to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Ang2 is found in high levels in ARDS patients and the study will test if LY3127804 can inhibit the effects of Ang2 and reduce the progression to ARDS or the need for mechanical ventilation in COVID-19 patients. The phase II studies will begin later this month.

Pfizer to Begin Clinical Study on COVID-19 Vaccine in April: Pfizer and BioNTech said that they expect to initiate clinical studies on their COVID-19 vaccine candidate by the end of this month. The companies will jointly conduct clinical studies on the vaccine candidate, initially in the United States and Europe and then increase manufacturing capacity to supply the vaccine globally. The vaccines candidate is presently in pre-clinical testing. Pfizer said it has potential to supply millions of vaccine doses by the end of 2020 if they receive the necessary regulatory approvals. Thereafter, they can rapidly scale up capacity to produce hundreds of millions of doses in 2021. For the collaboration, Pfizer will make an upfront payment of $185 million to BioNTech, which includes an equity investment of approximately $113 million in the Germany-based company.

Meanwhile, Pfizer is also working to develop an investigational antiviral compound to treat COVID-19. It has identified anti-viral compounds that showed activity against SARS-CoV-2 in preclinical screening. The company plans to start a potential clinical study of the lead molecule in the third quarter 2020, 3-4 months earlier than expected.

Sanofi & Glaxo Come Together for COVID-19 Vaccine: Meanwhile, two of the worlds biggest vaccine companies, Sanofi and Glaxo signed a letter of intent to combine their innovative technologies to develop an adjuvanted COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine candidate is expected to enter clinical studies in the second half of 2020. The vaccine, if successfully developed, will be available in the second half of 2021.

Sanofi also signed an agreement with Luminostics, a California-based startup for developing a breakthrough COVID-19 smartphone-based self-testing solution based on the latters proprietary technology.

The NYSE ARCA Pharmaceutical Index rose 4.1% in the last four trading sessions.

Large Cap Pharmaceuticals Industry 5YR % Return

Large Cap Pharmaceuticals Industry 5YR % Return

Large Cap Pharmaceuticals Industry 5YR % Return

Here is how the seven major stocks performed in the last four trading sessions.

Last week, all the stocks were in the green with AstraZeneca recording the highest increase (10%).

In the past six months, Lilly has risen the most (42.4%) while Merck declined the most (2%).

(See the last pharma stock roundup here: JNJ & SNYs Coronavirus Product Development, Other Updates)

What's Next in the Pharma World?

Watch out for Roche, Sanofi and Lillys earnings and regular pipeline and regulatory updates next week.

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Authorities have agreed to restore normal customs clearance time at the Tan Thanh Border Gate in Vietnam's Lang Son Province after nearly two weeks.

The agreement was reached following a call Friday between Vietnam's Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh and China's head of the General Administration of Customs Ni Yuefeng and Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan.

The senior leaders agreed that the time for processing customs clearance procedures at Tan Thanh Border Gate would be restored to 8-11 a.m. and 12-4 p.m., and the border gate would also be open for customs clearance on weekends.

In a previous decision issued April 5, authorities in China's Pingxiang City, Guangxi Province had reduced the time for customs clearance at the border gate to just five hours a day (8-11 a.m. and 1-3 p.m.) and stopped processing customs clearance on weekends as part of Covid-19 prevention measures.

The decision caused the number of goods stuck at the northern province's border gates, particularly Tan Thanh, to skyrocket. By the end of Thursday, the number of containers piled up at Lang Son's border gates had reached about 2,000, most of them carrying fruits and other agriculture produce.

Despite customs clearance activities at Tan Thanh Border Gate returning to normal, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has recommended that businesses avoid taking goods to the border for export through cross-border trade between local residents and quickly switch to exporting through official channels instead.

To continue promoting the export of agricultural produce, Anh has requested that China simplify inspection procedures for Vietnamese agricultural produce, redirect goods to other border gates and increase the import of agricultural produce through the Pingxiang-Dong Dang railway.

He has also asked China to expand the list of fruits and agriculture produce eligible for imports through the Dong Dang-Pingxiang railway, and to open the market for a number of Vietnamese agricultural produce and products including grass jelly, bird's nest, sweet potato and durian to be imported through official channels.

The trade minister has also requested that China extend the list of Vietnam's fishmeal exporters and restore exporter status to some Vietnamese businesses in the seafood and rice sectors.

First quarter fruit exports to China, the largest buyer of Vietnamese agriculture produce, fell 29.4 percent year-on-year to $300 million as the Covid-19 pandemic halted normal trade, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.


I got a bit nostalgic reading about people burning mobile phone masts in Donegal. It took me back to my youthful twenties when I encountered mast protesters all the time. I was a "site-finder" for Esat Digifone, the mobile phone company.

I remember once, when construction workers were using chainsaws to cut a tree that had been deliberately felled at the entrance to a site, and a man flung his small daughter in front of them. Since he was worried about health effects from mobile phone antennas but was willing to throw his child in the path of a chainsaw, it was a revealing moment in how people assess risk.

Despite the objectors, I never lost a site and I give "my" masts a little wave when passing them today.

It was my first encounter with irrationality and the way people's minds worked. That was 25 years ago and the patterns of thought I saw then have intensified and expanded into all kinds of areas, most sadly vaccination.

There were three kinds of protester: the concerned resident, the paranoid activist and the criminal element. The criminal types - and back then Donegal was the chief source of them - usually had some other agenda.

Sometimes we wondered if they feared us stumbling upon arms dumps. Others were afraid the masts would be used for military surveillance or by MMDS operators who were licensed by the Government to broadcast television signals in competition to illegal operators.

Meanwhile, the kind of thinking that creates the paranoid activist begins with the logical weaknesses of the normally civic-minded citizen. They believe that expertise resides within the individual, authority cannot be trusted and possess that strange inability to assess risk.

The cycle typically began by reading a paper on the internet claiming that non-ionising radiation from mobile phone antennas causes cancer. Governments and regulators will refer to thousands of peer-reviewed papers from credible scientists endorsed by global health and scientific organisations showing this to be false. But in the protester's mind, these official reports are nothing compared to the one they found on the web.

This is what happened to the MMR vaccine when Andrew Wakefield published a paper claiming it caused autism. It was completely discredited and Wakefield was discovered to be working for lawyers representing families suing vaccine makers. But the damage was done and children are now dying from measles. It's a terrible tragedy and stems from overconfidence of the individual in their personal expertise.

I'm a firm believer in questioning authority, especially medical authority. But, ultimately, you have to give credit to the body of expert opinion. Alas, everyone's an expert now and many truly believe their opinion should have equal weight with the scientist or doctor.

This overconfidence led Steve Jobs, Apple's founder, to delay chemotherapy for his pancreatic cancer while he experimented with alternative medicine. It's reported he later came to regret the delay, but it shows that intelligence and education provide no immunity against stupidity.

Most people link risk to control. Driving is clearly much more dangerous than flying, but some people who often drive are terrified of flying.

They feel in control of the car but not the plane, so they feel safer. Statistically, it's completely bogus but people trust their feelings more than evidence. Indeed, our modern culture actively encourages people to prioritise their personal feelings above all else.

I have to bite my lip when confronted with the "I Just Feel" school of argument in modern discourse. Facts hold no way to someone who "feels" they aren't true.

So they'll fear mysterious radio waves they can't see, but give a phone to their child - and let them keep it all night charging beside their bed. When I went to protest meetings back in the '90s, I'd point out to the concerned residents their mobile phones had the same power and frequencies as the antennas.

They instinctively thought the phone was small and the mast was big, therefore the mast was more dangerous and no scientist could convince them otherwise.

But these fallacies are in the ha'penny place when it comes to the paranoid activists currently burning masts around the UK, Europe and in that hotbed of traditional protest - Donegal.

These go way beyond the apologetic "legitimate concerns" and have merged with coronavirus conspiracy theories to give birth to the most spectacular plot yet.

They believe - wait for it - that 5G causes Covid-19, or in a variant, that 5G makes us vulnerable to Covid-19.

Needless to say, this is fuelled by crackpot videos on YouTube, Facebook and TikTok. The 35 most popular 5G conspiracy videos on YouTube have been viewed 12.8million times.

It makes you wonder if those stories of Russian campaigns to destabilise western society are true - although that's another conspiracy theory one probably shouldn't indulge.

Why are people so willing to believe these completely mad ideas? Galway Bay FM's Keith Finnegan asked Declan Ganley, telecoms entrepreneur, that question this week. "Because they are incurably thick," Ganley replied. "And I'm sorry to put it that way, but that's what they are."

It's an unpleasant conclusion, but sadly irrefutable.

Like vaccination, the problem is the harm this stupidity creates.

Ganley pointed out that masts being attacked hold equipment for ambulance and police services as well as normal mobile technology.

In this global crisis we need telecommunications more than ever and taking down a mast could have terrible consequences. Which just goes to show that while Covid-19 can kill, so can stupidity.
T he Government has been urged to stop "underestimating" the public and to disclose strategies for ending the coronavirus lockdown.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab extended the nation-wide lockdown for another three weeks last week and set out what needed to happen before the Government will consider lifting the measures.

But the Government is facing increasing pressure from MPs across the political spectrum who wish to see more detail for the plans.

Former Brexit secretary David Davis told the PA news agency: Other countries have been very open about what theyve done.

Theres really no reason, theres no argument for not debating and discussing with all the facts available.

There are lots and lots of benefits of being open about this. The argument that was put, that we dont want to confuse the message, I think is just wrong. It underestimates the public. The public understand that there are phases to this.

Mr Davis also said the data underlining the strategy should be put in the public domain.

European countries including the Czech Republic and Denmark, have already started to lift some of their lockdown measures.

Austria has rolled out a voluntary contact tracing app while France's central government has promised to make general-use masks available for each citizen from May 11 as part of its exit strategy.

Before and during Coronavirus lockdown - In pictures 1 /44 Before and during Coronavirus lockdown - In pictures AP Buckingham Palace AP Piccadilly Line tube AP Big Ben AP Millennium bridge AP Wembley Stadium AP St Pancras International train station AP Downing Street AP Victoria Station AP Regent Street AP The Mall leading to Buckingham Palace AP London's National Gallery in Trafalgar Square PA Edinburgh's Royal Mile PA Barry Island, South Wales PA Bath PA Bath PA London's Waterloo station PA London Bridge PA London's Canary Wharf Jubilee Line platform PA London's Canary Wharf Station PA London's Buckingham Palace PA London's Tower Bridge PA London's Leicester Square PA London's Millennium Bridge with St Paul's Cathedral PA London's Criterion Theatre PA London's Palace Theatre PA London's Phoenix Theatre PA London's Canary Wharf Station PA Bournemouth beach PA Bath PA Bath PA Barry Island, South Wales PA Bournemouth beach PA

Germany plans to let small shops reopen as early as next week after a month-long lockdown.

The European Commission has warned its 27 nations to move cautiously as they return to normal life and base their actions on scientific evidence.

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Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the Government should stop treating people like children by refusing to discuss exit strategies.

He told The Times: The Government is going to have to accept and admit we are coming out of lockdown.

We need to trust the British people and not treat them like children. We must respect their common sense. They need to know that the sun is rising at some point, in an economic sense.

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Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer suggested the Government is not being more forthcoming about an exit strategy because Boris Johnson is absent, continuing his recovery at Chequers.

The Prime Ministers spokesman said that claim was just wrong. Sir Keir has spoke of the need for a "light at the end of the tunnel" for those in lockdown.

The news comes after Health Secretary Nadine Dorries was forced to clarify her comments in which she said the "full lockdown" can only be lifted once a coronavirus vaccine has been developed.

Ms Dorries made the comments after suggesting journalists should stop asking questions about the Government's exit strategy.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma outlines five steps that must be satisfied before lockdown is relaxed

Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the Commons Defence Select Committee, suggested a "general road map" of how restrictions would be lifted could be useful.

He told PA: Command and control at any time, but particularly during a crisis, is invaluable in keeping the hearts and minds and support in place.

You want people rallying behind government, working with government, not acting against it.

The best way to do that is to ensure that they are as best informed as to whats coming round the corner, and therefore fewer surprises, or guessing what might happen next, or speculating, which can be more dangerous.

TODO: define component type apester

He said spelling out the conditions  without putting a timetable on them  would be well received by the nation.

Asked if Mr Johnsons absence due to being ill with Covid-19 is a factor in ministers reluctance to talk about what they plan to do next, Mr Ellwood said it has been a real setback, adding that the PM is the best communicator in Government.

He added: I think youll see a step change in communication when he does return, but ultimately his health must come first, and thats recognised.

What we need is strategic clarity as to what happens next, and thats what Im calling for."

Mr Ellwood said maintaining public support is absolutely critical, adding: My concern has been that there has been a clarion call for an exit strategy when the Government must make clear there is no exit from this until a vaccine is procured and delivered to a sizeable proportion of the population, therefore the longevity of this needs to be managed.

Letting the nation know what is coming round the corner helps keep minds focused and people on board.

So I fully understand the concern of diluting that central message during the lockdown, but I see three phases to this.

Mr Ellwood has already posted on Twitter about the three phases: a continuation of the lockdown; a post-lockdown pre-vaccine period in which there is a phased easing of restrictions in some sectors and reopening of schools; and a vaccine rollout.

Meanwhile the UK's death toll is nearing 15,000 after four weeks of lockdown. As of 5pm on Thursday, the death toll had risen by 847 to a total of 14,576.
(Newser)  The French navy is investigating how the coronavirus infected more than 1,000 sailors aboard the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, as pressure builds on the government to explain how it happened. The ship, the navy's biggest carrier and flagship, is undergoing a weekslong disinfection since returning Sunday to its home base in Toulon. One person is in intensive care and some 20 are hospitalized, the AP reports. Two of four US sailors serving aboard the carrier as part of an exchange program also tested positive, according to a US Navy statement. A French navy spokesman insisted the commander tried to increase the physical distance among the crew. The ship had no testing equipment and, for most of its three months at sea, no masks. It is "very difficult to apply social distancing measures  on a combat vessel," Cmdr. Eric Lavault said. But "security of the crew is the first concern. A combat ship, especially an aircraft carrier, is nothing without its crew."

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The defense minister told lawmakers that 1,081 of the 2,300 people aboard the Charles de Gaulle and its escort vessels have tested positive so farnearly half of the overall personnel. An investigation to retrace the paths of the personnel is in progress. Lavault noted that the aircraft carrier made a call in the French port of Brest, on the Atlantic Ocean; had been in the North Sea as part of a "naval diplomacy" mission with NATO partners, and stopped in Cyprus during an operation in the eastern Mediterranean Sea to join in the fight against the Islamic State group. Journalists had boarded the vessel at one point. "All hypotheses are on the table, Lavault said. (The US Navy has dealt with its own outbreak aboard ship.)
Google thanks all helpers in its final coronavirus doodle

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

New Delhi, Apr 18: The Google on Saturday in its final doodle honoured all the coronavirus helpers across the globe whose tireless work is what keeps us going as a community.

Today's doodle features a heart emoji for coronavirus helpers. As you hover over the illustration, the message "To all coronavirus helpers, thank you" pops up.

As the novel coronavirus continues to impact countries around the globe, people are coming together to help one another now more than ever, the search engine giant Google launched a Doodle series to recognize and honour many of those on the front lines.

COVID-19: Google Doodle thanks all teachers and child care workers

The Google doodle series thanking coronavirus warriors started on April 6 started with thanking public health workers and the scientific community.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

The California-based multinational technology company said, "As COVID-19 continues to impact communities around the world, people are coming together to help one another now more than ever. We're launching a Doodle series to recognize and honour many of those on the front lines."

"This week, we're beginning a series of Doodles to recognise the many people responding to COVID-19 from doctors and nurses caring for people on the front lines, to teachers and food service workers ensuring essential goods and services are still available," Google said in an official statement.

"The best way to say thank you to all those on the front lines is by staying at home. Together, we will move past this," Google India tweeted.

The best way to say thank you to all those on the front lines is by staying at home.



Together, we will move past this. #GoogleDoodle pic.twitter.com/EXSihXojhf  Google India (@GoogleIndia) April 17, 2020

The doodle series has shown gratitude towards those working in emergency services, sanitation services, farmers, doctor, nurses, food services professional, teachers and child care workers and medical workers so far.

Google doodle on Friday has paid tribute to teachers and childcare workers who are working under tough conditions amid the pandemic.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Saturday, April 18, 2020, 11:45 [IST]
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Geneva, Switzerland  Sat, April 18, 2020 16:09 633 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2bfa15 2 Entertainment Montreux-Jazz-Festival,jazz-festival,music-festival,music,coronavirus,COVID-19,pandemic,switzerland Free

The iconic Montreux Jazz Festival announced Friday the cancellation of this year's edition due to the pandemic, marking the first time since 1967 that the show can not go on.

"It is with deep regret that the organizers of the Montreux Jazz Festival must today announce that this years event, which was set to be held from 3 to 18 July 2020, will not take place," organizers said.

The program -- set to include Lionel Richie, Brittany Howard, Lenny Kravitz and Black Pumas -- "will be partly carried over to next year's Festival, which will take place from 2 to 17 July 2021".

The Swiss government announced on Thursday it would begin gradually easing some protective measures against the coronavirus, but stressed most of the hygiene and physical distancing measures would remain in place.

"As such, it is now impossible for us to consider holding an event on the scale of Montreux Jazz Festival in July," the statement said, pointing out that other festivals had also been called off across Switzerland.

Read also: Montreux Jazz Festival releases historic concerts for free

"Public health concerns naturally take precedence over all other considerations," it said.

This thus marks the first time in the festival's 53 years of existence that the event has been cancelled.

"Until the very end, all of us here in the festival team were still hoping to share these magical moments with everyone who, like us, cannot imagine a summer without the Montreux Jazz Festival," the organizers said

Montreux, which takes place in the idyllic Swiss town, on the shores of Lake Geneva, has over the past half century become a magnet for big names and rising stars alike.

The jazz label has been retained despite a dramatically expanding repertoire over the years.
PARMA, Ohio -- Rite Aid announced that it would expand its coronavirus self-swab drive-thru program to seven additional sites, including one at its store in Parma.

The location at State and Snow roads will begin testing Monday, according to a statement from the company. A Toledo Rite Aid also will offer the tests, as well as sites in Michigan, New Jersey and New York.

Pharmacists will oversee the drive-thru sites that will utilize self-swab nasal tests. But not everyone is eligible.

The company based eligibility for its testing program on guidelines established by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the tests are available at no cost to people who qualify, the company also requires people to pre-register online at the companys website to schedule a time slot.

Eligible people will take the test in the stores parking lot without getting out of their vehicle.

Rite Aid is providing the tests in a partnership with the White House and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at a time where growing criticism over a lack of testing is colliding with calls for states to lift stay-at-home orders to jumpstart the economy.

The Rite Aid sites will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week.

The company expects to have more testing sites in the state in the future, the company says.

Read more coronavirus coverage on cleveland.com:

Ohio Health Department responds to libertarian lawsuit over non-essential business closures

Ohios craft breweries face dire consequences if coronavirus shutdown lingers into summer

Will COVID-19 coronavirus fade away with warmth of summer? Research raises doubts

MetroHealth employees must wear masks, starting Monday

Dr. Phil admits he shouldnt have compared coronavirus to car accidents and pool drownings
Tens of thousands of people defied a nationwide coronavirus lockdown in Bangladesh on Saturday to attend the funeral of a top Islamic preacher, even as authorities battle a surge in virus cases. Police had agreed with the family of Jubayer Ahmad Ansari, that only 50 people would attend the funeral in the eastern town of Sarail because of the risk of spreading the disease. But local police chief Shahadat Hossain said officers were helpless to stop the crowds who came to honour the 55-year-old popular preacher and seminary head, who died on Friday. "People came in waves," he told AFP. Organisers said some 100,000 attended the funeral. Aide to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Shah Ali Farhad, also said more than 100,000 were present. Bangladesh imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 26 as coronavirus spread across the country of 168 million people. The health department said the number of cases had risen by more than 300 on Saturday to about 2,200, while nine more deaths in one day took the toll to 84. Authorities have conducted few tests and experts say the number of cases is higher than officially recognised. New rules ban more than five people taking part in prayers in the country's 300,000 mosques. The prime minister has called on Bangladeshis to pray at home when the Ramadan festival starts this month. But a group of influential clerics has called on Muslims to turn out in their masses for daily prayers. Last month at least 25,000 people attended a Muslim prayer meeting in a field in the southern city of Raipur to chant "healing verses" to rid the country of the deadly virus. Police say they were helpless to stop the crowds coming to the funeral of a 55-year-old Islamic preacher
Judge Orders Church to Stop Selling Bleaching Agent as COVID-19 Remedy

A federal judge in Florida has ordered a self-proclaimed church to stop selling a miracle cure it claims could prevent and treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP virus.

The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida has issued a temporary restraining order (pdf) against Genesis II Church of Health and Healing (Genesis) and its leaders from selling and distributing its Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), which is a chemical product marketed to treat a range of diseases including Alzheimers, autism, brain cancer, HIV/AIDS, and multiple sclerosis.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned about the cure since 2010 after receiving reports that the product made consumers sick. Some people had experienced respiratory failure, life-threatening low blood pressure, and acute liver failure after drinking the product, according to reports received by the agency.

The solution is made of sodium chlorite diluted in water. When combined with an activator, the mixture creates a strong chemical, chlorine dioxide, that is used as bleach. Both sodium chlorite and chlorine dioxide are active ingredients usually found in disinfectant products and arent meant for human consumption, the FDA says.

As the United States began its battle against the CCP virus pandemic, prosecutors said the organization, which is run by Mark Grenon, Joseph Grenon, Jordan Grenon, and Jonathan Grenon, started marketing the Miracle Mineral Solution as a treatment for the disease.

On April 8, the FDA and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent a warning letter to Genesis asking it to take steps to correct the violations. In response, the organization posted the letter to its website with a statement expressing that it would fight the warning letter and continue selling the solution, according to the complaint. Genesis also told the agency that it had no intention of taking corrective actions.

We DO NOT need your approval for any Sacraments or for anything we do in our Church, the statement said.

The Justice Department then asked the federal court to block the organization from selling the solution, arguing that the product was not approved by the FDA and was unsafe (pdf). The department also called the organization a secular entity in its complaint.

Despite a previous warning, the Genesis II Church of Healing has continued to actively place consumers at risk by peddling potentially dangerous and unapproved chlorine dioxide products. We will not stand for this, and the FDA remains fully committed to taking strong enforcement action against any sellers who place unsuspecting American consumers at risk by offering their unproven products to treat serious diseases, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a statement.

It is vital that sellers of drug products comply with the [Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act] and do not sell products with false and misleading claims, especially to treat COVID-19 and other debilitating diseases, such as autism and Alzheimers disease.

Genesis didnt immediately respond to The Epoch Times request for comment.

According to the organizations website, it refers to the products as church sacraments, selling them as sacramental kits that include a two-ounce bottle of sodium chlorite, which they refer to as MMS, and a two-ounce bottle of hydrochloric acid.

The FDA and FTC have also been cracking down on other companies that claim their products are able to cure COVID-19. In early March, the agencies sent warning letters to seven companies for selling fraudulent unapproved products claimed to cure, treat, or prevent diseases such as COVID-19. The products include teas, essential oils, tinctures, and colloidal silver.

The two agencies said these products pose significant risks to patient health and violate federal laws. They added that there are currently no vaccines or drugs approved to treat or prevent the outbreak and that vaccines and treatments are under development.
THE government says it will continue to give priority to the improvement of immunisation services, including health education and sensitisation, nutrition, prevention from communicable diseases, HIV/ Aids as well as maternal and child health care.

The Minister for Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, Ms Ummy Mwalimu, made the remarks at the launching event of guidelines of the community health services plan and use of dashboard indicators of public health education, held in Dar es Salaam yesterday.

The launching of this initiative will supplement efforts for reducing the burden of high medical costs to the people, which has been increasing able diseases, she said.

The minister said the importance of immunisation services is underlined in the National Health Policy 2007 and the Health Sector Strategic Plan of 2015-2020, that will also be included in the preparations of the new 2020 National Health Sector Policy.

The initiative of delivering health services at the community health workers level will enhance provision of immunity services at all community levels as well as providing health education as a means to prevent the community from diseases.

She pointed out that when community health workers have correct education on health related issues which in one way or the other affect their health, they are in a position to make appropriate decision on health issues.

This will ultimately result in creating a nation of healthy people who can contribute to their own development, as well as that of their families, the communities in which they live and the whole country at large.

Minister Mwalimu stressed that the government would continue improving health services in order to reach universal health coverage, whose aspects include all initiatives related to the provision of health education on nutrition, reproductive healthcare, youth and children as well as the outbreak of COVID-19.

Such efforts also focus on sensitising the application of health insurance that will enable people access more services.

For example, in the past three years, the number of people who got health treatment on non-communicable diseases rose from 3.4 million in 2016 to 4.2 million in 2018, which is equivalent to a 24 per cent increase.

Moreover, the number of deaths caused by non-communicable diseases was 33 per cent of all deaths in 2017 (134,600).

The number of deaths caused by heart diseases constituted 13 per cent of all deaths, which is higher than those caused by HIV/Aids, TB and malaria.

The minister noted that all these diseases can be reduced in the community by enhancing health education systems as well as providing correct education to the people on preventive measures and following best health practices.

The government intends that all these be done by healthcare providers (community health workers) at the community level where after evaluation, it emerged that some villages were too big to be served by only two healthcare providers.

The community health workers should provide awareness to the community to search for formal health services as well as use of health insurance services, she said.

Speaking at the same event, USAID Tulonge Afya Project Leader Mr Waziri Nyoni, commended the government for formalising the system of providing health services in the community.

Previously, each stakeholder followed ones own system that was marred by many challenges. He said the Tulonge Afya project uses community health workers in implementing most of its projects.

Mr Nyoni noted for example, that to-date, there are 2200 healthcare providers in 12 regions and 29 districts, who are engaged in the project.

The Research, Evaluation and Traceability Director of FHI360, Dr Joseph Msofe, said USAID Tulonge Afya has collaborated with the ministry of health to prepare the system of receiving and delivering information which is linked with the DHIS2 in the ministry.
Mouth masks now mandatory in Cancun, Riviera Maya with police providing for free

Cancun, Riviera Maya, Q.R.  Along with healthy distance, mouth masks are now mandatory when people are out in public and those who do not comply will be fined. The announcement was made by Alberto Capella, Secretary of Public Security of Quintana Roo, who says the move is to help strengthen the prevention of the spread of coronavirus.

He said the application of administrative sanctions with warnings, fines, temporary or definitive closure, which may be total or partial, and arrest of up to 36 hours will be made to the person who interferes or interposes the implementation of the present sanitary security measures, or that in absentia, refuses to comply with the requirements and provisions of the competent authorities causing with them a risk to peoples health.

Capella added we are giving mouth masks away for free because in the state of Quintana Roo it is now mandatory to use them in public places and in places where essential activities are carried out. These are the preventative measures that will be applied. Thank you.

Commander Jorge Robles noted that health filters in areas of greatest traffic will continue as will the mobility restrictions on roadways, the partial closure of city streets, the maintaining of health distances and the stay-at-home request to leave only for essentials. Citizens are being urged to join together to break the chain of infections and guarantee the safety and tranquility of all.

Earlier this week, Cancun was pinpointed as one of the most affected metropolitan areas in the country having 200 of the 280 positive cases recorded in the state of Quintana Roo (at the time of publishing, however, the Cancun figures have since surpassed 220). For this reason, the state, including the Cancun-Riviera Maya region, has had its quarantine extended to May 30 with activities reopening June 1. For more than 900 other municipalities in Mexico, the quarantine will be lifted May 17.
CAIRO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa expressed his appreciation for U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts in achieving stability in energy markets to boost global economy growth, state news agency BNA said on Saturday.

In a phone call between the two leaders, Bahrain's king also welcomed American efforts in maintaining security and stability in the region, and the active role of the American military "to protect international shipping in the Arabian Gulf, Arab Sea and Bab al-Mandab."

Al Khalifa also stressed the importance of international cooperation to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The White House confirmed the call and said the two countries would work together on the coronavirus.

"The president and the king will continue to work together to defeat the virus, minimize its economic impact, and focus on critical regional issues," it said in a statement.

"The president thanked the king for Bahrain's strong support for efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East, and for hosting the United States Fifth Fleet."

(Reporting by Samar Hassan in Cairo and Jeff Mason in Washington; Editing by Alison Williams and Sandra Maler)
Joe Biden has committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. Hes vowed to nominate an African-American woman to the Supreme Court. And now, hes toying with the idea of creating new cabinet posts and possibly even naming potential agency secretaries before the election.

The presumptive Democratic nominee is sketching out an increasingly detailed portrait of the kinds of people he would surround himself with if he became president. At a moment when the coronavirus pandemic has shaken the countrys faith in government and frequently rendered Mr Bidens candidacy a lonely pursuit, his campaign is emphasising what would happen after the election  were he to win  more so than what he will do in the nearly seven months of campaigning before the November vote.

He is also making his pitch as much about his allies as about him, presenting himself as the conductor of an orchestra whose individual players might appeal to the disparate elements of a party Mr Biden is seeking to unify.

His moves reflect a campaign trying to project know-how and preparedness, qualities it hopes will contrast in the minds of many voters with president Donald Trump, whom Mr Biden is casting as chaotic and woefully unreliable in moments of crisis.

Voters need reassurance delivered in specific information, said Henry Munoz, a former Democratic National Committee finance chairman and an informal Biden adviser. The best form of leadership is a person who is willing to surround themselves with diverse, strong voices.

Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Show all 15 1 /15 Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Joe Biden and Dr Jill Biden watch Barack Obama's farewell speech on 11 January. Obama called Biden his 'brother' Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years US President Barack Obama speaks alongside US Vice President Joe Biden about the Affordable Care Act AFP/Getty Images Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama Getty Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years President Obama listens to Joe Biden speak of his work on defeating cancer on 18 October in the White House Reuters Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years U.S. President Barack Obama is applauded by House Speaker Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden while delivering his final State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in Washington Reuters Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years U.S. Vice President Joe Biden interjects as President Barack Obama delivers remarks at a reception for the 25th anniversary of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics at the White House in Washington REUTERS Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Obama and Vice President Joe Biden react after a heckler was removed for their extended interruption (Reuters) Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with Speaker of the House John Boehner (R) as Vice President Joe Biden looks on Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Barack and Michelle Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden observing a moment of silence outside the White House to mark the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks Getty Images Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Barack Obama and Joe Biden putt on the White House putting green Getty Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years President Barack Obama and Joe Biden in April 2013 AFP/Getty Images Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years January 1, 2013: U.S. President Barack Obama winks as he arrives with Vice President Joe Biden (L) in the briefing room Reuters Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and others receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House May 1, 2011 in Washington, DC Getty Images Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Vice-President Joe Biden, right, confirmed that the US was looking at ways of taking legal action against Julian Assange - back in December 2010 GETTY IMAGES Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Joe Biden, left, and retired military officers watch President Barack Obama sign orders to close down the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in January 2009 GETTY IMAGES

The strategy is also driven by the practical problem of mounting a campaign in the era of the coronavirus. When the former vice president hits the trail these days, it means beaming into peoples living rooms from his makeshift basement TV studio, piping into their headphones with his new podcast and schmoozing with donors on Zoom, all from a safe social distance that has isolated him from the country he wants to lead.

Some Democrats worry about Mr Biden being eclipsed by Mr Trump, whose White House pandemic briefings are carried live and whose hourly battles with political rivals have been splashed across newspaper front pages.

Mr Bidens slow rollout of a growing army of high-wattage surrogates offers the potential, at least, of breaking through the din.

Its difficult because hes not a public official now, and hes in this period of time when hes a candidate when were in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, said Senator Robert Casey Jr, Democrat for Pennsylvania, a close Biden ally who said the physical limitations of campaigning from home also presented a challenge.

Mr Biden, speaking at a virtual fundraiser, said on Thursday that he had started constructing a presidential transition team, a process he said has been underway for several weeks.

Discussions are in progress about the prospect of elevating some White House offices to cabinet-level positions, Mr Biden said. Among those under consideration: the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the global health security pandemic office and a separate climate change operation that goes beyond the EPA, he said.

Mr Biden said he would consider announcing some cabinet members before the election, a move that would be highly unusual, but he clarified that he hasnt made that commitment yet. Still, he signalled that he had a good idea of who would fill the positions.

Recommended Trump using anger towards China over coronavirus to attack Joe Biden

If the Lord Almighty said: Joe, I tell you what. You have to decide in three hours what your cabinet is or youre going to be bounced out of the race, I could write down who could be in the cabinet, he said. There are at least two or three people qualified for every one of those positions.

In contrast with the vision of firm leadership that the former vice president is seeking to put forward, Mr Trump and his allies are casting Mr Biden as shaky and unprepared, and calling attention to his verbal stumbles. No more late night television Sleepy Joe! the Trump campaign tweeted this week, with a clip of Mr Biden appearing to look down at his notes during a long-winded comment on CNN.

Many Democrats recognise that Mr Bidens status as a 77-year-old white man at the head of a diverse party has made the question of whom he will pick for his administration more significant, and his running mate choice more consequential. Some say they want to see evidence that Mr Biden would put together a government that reflects the country.

Mr Biden has been offering hints about who would serve in his government for months. At the final debate of the primary race in mid-March, he said he would choose a woman as his running mate, setting off a spirited discussion in the party over whom he ought to select.

Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden delivers remarks in Los Angeles, California, on 4 March 2020 (Robyn Back/AFP/Getty)

The declaration focused media attention on several women seen as potential picks, including Democratic Senators Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada; Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer; and former Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, among others.

Even that discussion, however, has received little public attention. Some Democrats from competitive swing areas have said Mr Biden needs to find a fresh way to stand out against Mr Trump in the weeks ahead.

The president is on TV every day. Hes coming to us into our TV screens every day from his news conference, Representative Elissa Slotkin (Democrat for Michigan) said in an interview last week. So its going to be important for the [former] vice president to be visible and to use this time in key states like Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, to really rethink creatively what a campaign looks like in an era of social distancing.

Mr Trump had a head start in his outreach, although his pitches have been aimed more at reminding supporters of their affection than at seeking out new acolytes. Every time the president tweets  such as on Friday, when he used misleading information to call President Barack Obama and Mr Biden a disaster in their 2009 response to the H1N1 influenza  his message goes to more than 77 million Twitter followers. Mr Biden has just under 5 million followers.

Over the past several days, Mr Biden has made this most of his circumstances. He won the endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent for Vermont, on Monday, joining his former rival in a live-streamed discussion that conveyed a warmer relationship between the two men than Mr Sanders ever had with Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The next day, Mr Obama bestowed his support on Mr Biden, and the day after that Warren endorsed him. The campaign rounded out the week with endorsements from leading Muslim and Jewish organisations, highlighting the diversity in his coalition.

The new alliances are expected to pay off in multiple ways: On May 1, a network of influential Obama alumni is planning to participate in a virtual fundraiser for Mr Biden, according to a person with knowledge of the event. Ticket prices will range from $250 (200) to $2,800 (2,240)

But the credibility transfer from his endorsers to Mr Biden has limits. That is why the candidate, seen in some quarters of the party as unappealing to younger voters and facing challenges with Latino voters, also has been willing to make pronouncements that have gone beyond what past nominees have guaranteed.

Im looking forward to making sure there is a black woman on the Supreme Court, Mr Biden said at a February debate, drawing loud applause.

The creation of his Cabinet  and more broadly his view of himself as a transitional figure who can help build the next generation of Democrats  has been on Mr Bidens mind for a while. During a virtual fundraiser on 3 April, he said he was committed to selecting diverse personnel.

Men, women, gay, straight, centre, across the board. Black, white, Asian. It really matters that you look like the country, because everyone brings a slightly different perspective, said Mr Biden.

Presidents-elect typically tap experienced government hands to help them evolve from candidate to officeholder. Cabinet nominations  such as secretary of state and attorney general  are normally announced beginning in the two-month period between the election and the inauguration.

Mr Biden would not say who is heading his transition team, but he vowed that those who will take part will be first rate. He also argued that there is no shortage of qualified people who could serve.

I have had literally several hundred serious, serious players who have held positions in every department in the federal government who have said, including some Republicans, who have said: If you win, I want to come back. Im ready to serve,  he said.

The words sought to offer a measure of clarity at a time when there is little certainty about the future of the countrys economy, its health and its mind-set. By Mr Bidens own estimation, the election itself is not even set in stone.

Mr Biden said at the fundraiser on Thursday that the recent Wisconsin primary led him to question how efficiently states can hold elections during the coronavirus crisis, particularly as Mr Trump and other Republicans have fought a transition to mail-in ballots. When asked whether he believes the public can trust that the November election will be held as expected, Mr Biden replied, Right now they cant trust that.

The Washington Post
Amid COVID-19 crisis, Madhya Pradesh govt in talk with BJP leaders on cabinet formation

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Bhopal, Apr 18: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who is seen facing several criticisms for being a one-man show, has allegedly begun discussing the formation of his cabinet with the BJP's top leadership.

This move, by the BJP leader, comes 25 days after he was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and five days after he said the cabinet was not being formed as senior leaders were busy dealing with the novel coronavirus.

Coronavirus outbreak: Madhya Pradesh's Indore emerges as COVID-19 hotspot

It can be seen that Chouhan has come under fire from the opposition and on social media for handling the Madhya Pradesh's pandemic.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

Earlier, Congress leader and former leader of Opposition Ajay Singh said, "To become a one-man army, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan has put in peril lives of 7.50 crore people of Madhya Pradesh. Chouhan is busy in branding and publicity instead of protecting the people of Madhya Pradesh from coronavirus."

Since Shivraj Singh Chouhan took oath as the Chief Minister, half of the 52 districts in the state have been affected, it has 1,164 cases and 55 people have died.

Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath's media coordinator Narendra Saluja said, "The chief minister didn't form his cabinet as he wanted to present his larger than life image as a hero while thinking that he would be able to control coronavirus single-handedly. But the fact remains that the CM has failed miserably again."
RIDLEY TOWNSHIP- Boeing Co. production employees are expected to return to work Monday after a two-week paid hiatus while the facility underwent a deep clean.

Boeing, which employs more than 4,500 workers at the facility on Route 291, has been deemed essential critical infrastructure in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and allowed to continue operations while other businesses across the state have been shuttered.

Employees who can work from home have been directed to do so, but production workers still need to be at the physical plant itself to continue work for things like the V-22 Osprey and Chinook helicopters under military contracts.

Boeing suspended operations for two weeks April 3, during which the company took steps to disinfect the plant and implement enhanced safety features, according to a release. These included posting signs throughout the facility promoting hygiene, installing hand sanitization stations at entry points and requiring mask usage on site. Masks will be provided to employees who dont have one, according to the release.

The company is also reinforcing social distancing practices by continuing virtual meetings where possible, staggering shift times and moving work areas farther apart. Cafeteria areas will also be adjusted to allow for more physical distancing, the release says.

Boeing will additionally require temperature screenings at no-touch thermal scanners for all employees entering the facility daily before they come to work.

The number one priority is, and will continue to be, protecting the health and safety of our employees, their families and all of our stakeholders, the release states. Boeing Philadelphia site leadership will continue to monitor conditions, along with any new information related to COVID-19, including the latest federal and state health guidelines, so we can continuously implement new safeguards and procedures.
A furious Donald Trump berated then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull over a deal to resettle hundreds of refugees, only to joke about the agreement months later by claiming 2000 terrorists would come to America.

The US President swung wildly in the negotiations to resettle asylum seekers from Manus Island and Nauru, in a pattern repeated in volatile talks to give Australia valuable exemptions in Mr Trumps trade war with China.

US President Donald Trump speaks with Malcolm Turnbull on January 28, 2017. Credit:Bloomberg

Recounting the clashes and compromises in a new memoir, Mr Turnbull tells of a colleague going white with horror at Mr Trumps ferocity about the refugee deal in a notorious phone conversation in January 2017.

Mr Turnbull also reveals a conversation with Barack Obama in the White House in January 2016 when the then-president dismissed the chances of Mr Trump winning the presidential election in November that year.
The Delhi police on Saturday filed a charge sheet against Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Sharjeel Imam for his alleged role in instigating riots outside Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) by allegedly delivering a seditious speech during a protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in December last year.

Imam was arrested from Bihars Jehanabad on January 28 for the speech on December 13 two days after protesters outside JMI clashed with police during a march against the law. At least 100 people were injured in the violence while at least four buses were torched, over 100 two-wheelers and other vehicles damaged.

Delhi police spokesman Anil Mittal said they have filed a supplementary charge sheet against Imam for instigating and abetting the Jamia riots. During investigation, on the basis of evidence collected, sections 124 A IPC [Indian Penal Code] and 153 A IPC, for sedition and for promoting enmity between classes, were invoked. In this case, the first charge sheet was filed in February against the rioters arrested by a Delhi polices special investigation team that is probing the violence. A supplementary charge sheet in continuation of the earlier charge sheet has now been filed in the court of the metropolitan magistrate, Saket, Mittal said.

Days before his arrest, a video purportedly showing Imam talking about blocking the Siliguri Corridor, or Chickens Neck, in West Bengal to isolate the northeastern states from the rest of India for a month was widely circulated on social media. HT could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.

The speech led to registration of cases against Imam, who faces life imprisonment if convicted, in at least five states including Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

Imams mother, Agsan Rahim, had then said her sons speech was misconstrued and taken out of context and that he is innocent. However, she could not be contacted for comments over the latest development.

A 20-member group of scholars, filmmakers, advocates and writers released a statement on Saturday calling the recent arrests of scholars a witch-hunt. The group, which includes Manisha Sethi, advocate Yug Mohit Chaudhary and Delhi University professor Nandini Sundar, among others, said that instead of engaging with protesters, the state has chosen to detain and arrest them under harsh penal provisions. It said that while the crime branch is already probing the case of the riots in Northeast Delhi, the Delhi polices special cell has filed a separate First Information Report (FIR) under which the scholars were being arrested. This FIR has enabled the stitching together of a political narrative where a direct link is sought to be made between anti-CAA protests and the widespread violence that rocked the Northeast Delhi at the end of February, the statement said.

Earlier this month, Meeran Haider, 35, a PhD student and the president of Rashtriya Janata Dals youth wings Delhi unit, was arrested for his alleged role in instigating the Northeast Delhi riots. His party leaders have denied the allegations.

The CAAs passage in December to fast-track the citizenship process for non-Muslims, who have entered India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh before December 31, 2014, triggered protests across the country. Opponents of the law insist it is discriminatory and unconstitutional as it leaves out the Muslims and links faith to citizenship in a secular country. They say it could result in the expulsion or detentions of the Muslims unable to provide the documentation if the law is seen in the context of a pan-India NRC. A process carried out in Assam to detect undocumented immigrants led to the exclusion of around two million people from the NRC in 2018.

The Centre has maintained there were no immediate plans for implementing a pan-India NRC.
For the first time in ten centuries, the Holy Fire ceremony took place behind closed doors due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

The Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III passed the lit fire to the servants of the Greek Church and representatives of other faiths who own the church of the Holy Sepulcher. Usually, pilgrims and believers attend the ceremony, RIA Novosti reports.

Diplomats from other countries received a shrine at the Jaffa Gate of the Old City. The Russian ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Viktorov, got the fire and will hand it over to the delegation of the Andrew the First-Called Foundation, which will deliver the shrine to Moscow.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Saturday hit out public broadcaster Doordarshan saying it is not the "private property" of the ruling BJP that "it does their public relation" exercise.

For the last few days, state-owned Doordarshan (DD) has been broadcasting reports showing people across the country thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi and stating how they have benefitted from different schemes of the government.

"The public broadcaster runs on public money and is meant to perform public service. It is not private property of the BJP or Modi, where it does their PR. Those in charge must be held accountable for this deliberate distortion in these critical times of a public health emergency," Yechury said in a tweet.

Coronavirus India News LIVE Updates

He also accused the government of "benefitting rich cronies" at a time of crisis posed by the novel coronavirus outbreak.

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

In a tweet, Yechury said, "252 buses for free for the rich: Nothing except lathis for starving migrant workers -- another brutal reminder of how BJP has all along benefitted rich cronies at the expense of the many who need essentials. They bailed out rich borrowers by Rs 7.76 lakh crores  Rs 0 for the poor (sic)."

"If BJP govts can send luxury buses to get rich pilgrims from Uttarakhand and elsewhere back to Gujarat and UP sends 250 buses for 7,500 students of rich families from Rajasthan, Centre must arrange for stranded starving workers: Not doing so is criminal," he said.

The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 480 and the number of cases to 14,378 in the country on Saturday, according to the Union Health Ministry.

While the number of active cases of the infection stood at 11,906, as many as 1,991 people have been cured and discharged while one had migrated, it said.

Follow our full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here.
Two sanitation workers were



allegedly attacked with an axe at a minority-dominated area of Khategaon town in Madhya Pradesh's Dewas district and the police have arrested four persons in this regard, an official said on Saturday.

As a result, sanitation workers on Saturday struck work at Muslim-dominated areas of Khategaon to protest the attack, rural area additional superintendent of police (ASP) Neeraj Chourasia said.

Aadil Khan, a resident of Koyla Mohalla, allegedly attacked two sanitation workers with an axe when they were cleaning the locality on Friday, he said.

One of the workers sustained severe injuries and was admitted to a hospital, he added.

"I am heading to Khategaon to hold talks with a few sanitation workers (who have struck work) to ally their fears," the senior official told PTI.

Aadil, his father Habib and cleric Gop Khan, who allegedly instigated the attack, were arrested on Friday, while Aadil's brother Arif was nabbed on Saturday, Chourasia said.

During interrogation, Aadil claimed that he indulged in violence as Gop Khan had told them that since the lockdown, namaazees and followers of the Tablighi Jamaat were hounded by government workers, the ASP said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
We feel strongly that it is in the best interest of the party to ensure that the Sanders campaign receives statewide delegates to reflect the work that they have done to contribute to the movement that will beat Donald Trump this fall, said a Biden official, who wasnt authorized to discuss private negotiations publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. We are in discussion with them now on how to best accomplish that.
John Horgan hasn't said when the Canada-U.S. border will reopen between B.C. and Washington state, but regional planning around it is more important than a federal edict.

"We'll be making the best decisions in the interests of British Columbia, supported by the federal government," the premier told Matt Galloway, the host of CBC's The Current on Friday.

New modelling by health officials in B.C. shows that infections of coronavirus, which cause the respiratory illness COVID-19, have slowed to the point where it may be possible to lift some restrictions. That could mean the resumption of elective surgeries, economic activities and even possibly having students back at school.

On March 18, both Canada and the U.S. closed its shared border to non-essential travel. At the time, U.S. President Donald Trump said the measure could be in place for a month.

On Thursday, when asked about the border reopening, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it would not happen, "anytime soon."

On Friday, Trudeau also said that each region in Canada is facing different challenges from the coronavirus, which could mean some provinces may be ready to have their border opened before others.

B.C., for example, has had far fewer cases and hospitalizations than in Ontario and Quebec, though any decisions on reopening the border with the U.S. would come from collaboration and be based on science.

'It will not be ... the snapping of fingers'

Horgan said he is willing to work with Ottawa under the same principles and participated in a call with the prime minister and other premiers on Thursday night.

Horgan commended the leaders on their co-operation over the pandemic despite regional differences and spoke to the CBC's Galloway about the strong relationship between B.C., Washington State, Oregon and California.

He said that Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee has been doing a "spectacular job" at managing the pandemic in his state and that the two are working together with other region leaders to devise a "seamless reintegration of activities" in the weeks to come, such as cross-border travel.

Story continues

Horgan warned that it will not be all at once and not at the singular direction of Ottawa.

"It will not be ... the snapping of fingers and I think it will take guidance from Gov. Inslee rather than the federal government on these issues," he said.

Horgan did not say when he thought the border could reopen. On Thursday, B.C. extended its state of emergency for another two weeks until April 28.

The declaration gives the province the ability to restrict travel and set prices for essential goods like medical supplies and food.

Ten days ago, B.C. began requiring every traveller returning to the province from abroad to present a formal isolation plan before they are allowed into the province.
The Indian government has brought China under the ambit of regulations that would prevent takeovers and acquisitions of Indian firms amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and an official said on Saturday any Chinese investments will now require the governments approval.

The move follows concerns that China could take over Indian companies at a time when their valuation has taken a massive hit because of the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic that originated in Wuhan nearly four months ago, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The revision of the foreign direct investment policy to prevent opportunistic takeovers also follows Chinas central bank buying a 1.01% stake in HDFC in the first quarter of 2020.

Earlier, all investments from Pakistan and Bangladesh required the governments approval for security reasons. The scope of this existing policy has been widened to cover all neighbouring countries that share a border with India, the official said quoting a government order.

Without naming China, the order issued by the department for promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT) on April 17 said the government had reviewed the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy for curbing opportunistic takeovers/acquisitions of Indian companies due to the current Covid-19 pandemic and amended the FDI policy.

The change in policy will make it mandatory for all foreign investments from China, Pakistan and Bangladesh to go through the governments scrutiny. So far, government permission was mandatory only for investments coming from Pakistan and Bangladesh, the official cited above said.

According to the order, an entity of a country, which shares land border with India or where the beneficial owner of an investment into India is situated in or is a citizen of any such country, can invest only under the Government route.

Other than investments from countries that share a border with India, non-resident entities  foreign individuals or companies  can invest in India without the governments approval except in sectors where FDI is restricted, the order said.

The order also requires the governments approval for transferring ownership of an Indian company to any existing or future foreign investor belonging to the countries that share a border with India.

India has 15,106.7 km of land border. The country shares land borders with Bangladesh (4,096.7 km) China (3,488 km), Pakistan (3,323 km), Nepal (1,751 km), Myanmar (1,643 km), Bhutan (699 km) and Afghanistan (106 km),but there are some exemptions for Nepal and Bhutan-based entities, the official said.

Experts said the takeover threat is not completely ill-founded.

Vikram Doshi, partner (tax and regulatory) at global consultancy firm PwC India said, Covid-19 will impact several businesses, especially ones that are highly leveraged. It will open up takeover opportunities in many sectors.

This press note is an attempt to place a check and give the government an opportunity to review such takeovers and investments coming into India from specific jurisdictions, he said.

Atul Pandey, partner in the law firm Khaitan & Co, said, The notification by the government primarily intends to stem any attempts by Chinese firms to take control of Indian firms which have been affected and weakened by Covid-related lockdowns.

He added, Any fresh investments by Chinese firms or any transfer of investments by existing investors to Chinese firms will be covered under this notification, and will require government approval.

Pandey said the governments intention is clear in wanting to evaluate Chinese investments on a case-to-case basis. However it is important to note that this notification will have the force of law once necessary amendments are introduced to the relevant FEMA [Foreign Exchange Management Act] regulations. Similar steps are being taken by the European Union and other jurisdictions like Australia, he said.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi appreciated the move in a tweet: I thank the Govt. for taking note of my warning and amending the FDI norms to make it mandatory for Govt. approval in some specific cases.

On April 12, he had cautioned the government against takeover threats. The massive economic slowdown has weakened many Indian corporates making them attractive targets for takeovers. The Govt must not allow foreign interests to take control of any Indian corporate at this time of national crisis, he had said.
Roger Stone, former adviser to President Donald Trump, leaves the Federal Court after a sentencing hearing in Washington on Feb. 20, 2020. (Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times)

Roger Stone Says Hell Die in Jail Without Pardon, Trump Calls Situation Disgraceful

Roger Stone on Friday night said he believes he will die in jail unless hes pardoned by President Donald Trump.

Stone, a longtime friend and former adviser to Trump, was sentenced on Feb. 20 to three years and four months in prison.

Stone was convicted on charges including lying to a congressional committee that was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

Stone in recent weeks moved for a new trial, pointing out anti-Trump social media posts made by the jury forewoman, and tried getting the presiding judge to recuse herself after she praised the integrity of the jurors.

Both attempts failed. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia this week said Stone would not get a new trial after she refused to recuse herself. Stone, 67, was under a gag order throughout the ordeal. That order was lifted Friday, prompting an appearance on Fox News.

Roger Stone, former adviser to President Donald Trump, leaves the Federal Court after a sentencing hearing in Washington on Feb. 20, 2020. (Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times)

I was very hopeful that the motion for a mistrial in my casebased on flagrant and blatant, even egregious juror misconductwouldve won me a new trial. The U.S. Supreme Court has been very clear that all defendants are entitled to a jury that is impartial and indifferent. But in this case, it is indisputable that the jury forewoman attacked both me and President Trump in 2019 social media postings, lied about that during jury selection, and then later deleted her Facebook page to cover her trails, Stone said on the networks Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Host Tucker Carlson said he was confused about Stone not being pardoned by Trump, prompting the presidents former adviser to say a sentence would likely leave him dead.

Stone noted his age and said he has some underlying health problems, including asthma.

I believe with the coronavirus, it is essentially a death sentence, he said.

The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, a novel coronavirus that emerged from mainland China last year, has spread across the nation. Many states and cities have been releasing low-level inmates and prisoners who were soon up for release because of crowded conditions in jails that some experts say are ripe for an explosion of virus cases.

The CCP virus causes COVID-19, a disease that kills a small percentage of patients, primarily among the elderly and those with underlying health conditions.

Transmission electron micrograph of the CCP virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2, isolated from a patient. Photo published March 10, 2020. (NIAID)

Stone was ordered to surrender in two weeks.

Trump later Friday took to Twitter to share a post by Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, who noted that the judge was appointed by former President Barack Obama and made a number of claims, including ones about a stacked, partisan jury and a rigged, unfair sentencing process.

RT for a FULL PARDON of Roger Stone! Kirk wrote.

Trump quote tweeted the post, writing, This is a disgraceful situation!

The president said in February that Stone wouldnt be pardoned, though he appeared to leave open the possibility for later.

Im not going to do anything in terms of the great powers bestowed upon a president of the United States, I want the process play out, I think thats the best thing to do, Trump said in Las Vegas. Because Id love to see Roger exonerated and Id love to see it happen because I personally think he was treated very unfairly.

Jack Phillips and Janita Kan contributed to this report.
Scott Morrison has announced that the tracing app used to track people coming into contact with coronavirus patients will not be mandatory for all Australians.

Health officials are hoping the technology will allow them to check who has been in contact with infected people by using data from their phones.

Mr Morrison recently said at least 40 per cent of Australia would need to use the app for it to work sparking speculation it may be compulsory if not enough people used it.

But on Saturday, the Prime Minister confirmed this was not the case.

'The app we are working on to help our health workers trace people who have been in contact with coronavirus will not be mandatory,' he tweeted.

'We will be seeking the cooperation and support of Australians to download the app to help our health workers, to protect our community and help get our economy going again.'

Scott Morrison has confirmed the tracing app for people coming into contact with coronavirus patients will not be mandatory (people wearing face masks and gloves outside Sydney Fish Market)

The government recently said 40 per cent of Australians would need to use the app for it to have affect

On Friday, Mr Morrison said he hoped Australians would download the app voluntarily.

'My preference is to give Australians a go at getting it right. That's my plan A and I really want plan A to work,' he told Triple M on Friday.

'I know this would be something they might not normally do at an ordinary time but this is not an ordinary time. If you download this app you'll be helping save someone's life.'

Mr Morrison says the app won't be used by police as evidence to prosecute people for breaching social distancing requirements.

Minister for Government Services Stuart Robert said the app would not pose any risks to people's privacy.

'There is no geolocation, there is no surveillance, there is no tracking,' he said.

The app connects phones that are within 1.5 metres away and have been near each other for 15 minutes

'The app simply connects with another app if those two phones are within 1.5 metres for 15 minutes.

'It simply swaps phone numbers and names.'

Mr Robert said the government were trying to be as 'transparent' as possible and had enlisted the help of the Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Cyber Security Centre for security measures.

The source code for the app and a privacy impact assessment will also be published by the government.

Scott Morrison said he hopes Australians will volunteer to use the app to help 'save lives'

'We want to be as transparent as we possibly can,' he said.

'When this app is released in the next week or two, we really need every Australian to download it and to run it.'

The app is being developed based on a Singaporean version, TraceTogether.

It uses Bluetooth to trace people who had spent 15 minutes or more in close proximity to a person with coronavirus.

They then share the records with authorities when asked to be part of a tracing investigation.

In Singapore, 20 per cent of people have downloaded it.
The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 488 as the number of cases climbed to 14,792 in the country on April 18, registering an increase of 36 deaths and 957 cases since April 17 evening, according to the Union Health Ministry.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 12,289 while 2,014 people have been cured and discharged, and one had migrated, it said.

The total number of cases includes 76 foreign nationals.

Coronavirus deaths have surged past 1,56,000 worldwide with nearly a quarter of them in the United States, where President Donald Trump lent his support to protestors rallying against lockdown orders. The total number of COVID-19 cases has surged past 22,73,000, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Here are the key developments of the day:

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

> The US is looking into reports that the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 150,000 people globally, "escaped" from a virology laboratory in China's Wuhan city, President Donald Trump has said.

> Succumbing to pressure from the hardline clerics, Pakistan on April 18 allowed conditional congregational prayers in mosques during the month of Ramzan, endangering the drive to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Coronavirus LIVE updates

Pakistan's coronavirus cases on April 18 rose to 7,481 with 465 new patients even as the government struggled to control clerics flouting orders against congregations in mosques.

> UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres salutes countries helping others in the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, his spokesman has said, days after India sent supplies of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine to several nations, including the US.

> China's imported cases of coronavirus rose to 1,566 and the death toll jumped to 4,632 with a 50 percent spike in fatality figures from the epicentre Wuhan, health officials said on April 18.

> The world economy, already "sluggish" before the coronavirus outbreak, is now bound to suffer a "severe recession" in 2020, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva has warned and said the current crisis posed "daunting challenges" for policymakers in many emerging markets and developing economies.

> The UK has set up a taskforce to urgently find a coronavirus vaccine and prepare the industry to manufacture it at scale once it is developed, as 847 fresh deaths were reported due to the COVID-19, taking the number of fatalities in the country to 14,576.

(With inputs from PTI)

Follow our full coverage here
After launching this month, new Australian business I Do Drive Thru is giving couples the opportunity to get married in a quick, quirky way without breaking social distancing regulations during the coronavirus crisis.

Melbourne-based wedding and funeral celebrants Kate Morgan, Zena Lythgo, Mel Jacob and Klara McMurray devised the unique business model only three weeks ago, and have already received multiple booking inquiries from across the country.

The business was developed after the Australian Government imposed new regulations that limit weddings to only five people  indicating only the celebrant, the couple and two witnesses can attend.

'Weddings are still an essential service, despite the current circumstances. Some people simply want to get married, but for others it's more of a transactional approach that relates to visa approvals, wills or immigration reasons,' Kate told FEMAIL.

After only launching a week ago, the new Australian business I Do Drive Thru is now giving couples the opportunity to get married in a quick, quirky way without breaking social distancing regulations during the coronavirus crisis

The business was developed after the Australian Government imposed new regulations that limit weddings to only five people  indicating only the celebrant, the couple and two witnesses can attend

The business model follows a Vegas-style elopement in which the happy couple arrives at a chosen location in their car to meet the celebrant and the two witnesses.

The couple remains in their car throughout the ceremony and the paperwork is passed through the window to be signed and confirmed  the couple also often bring their own pens.

Prices start at $400 for weekday wedding and couples can choose from three different ceremony packages depending on their budget and style, though the total price often don't exceed $1,500.

The I Do Drive Thru team have prepared multiple additional packages including florists, car hires and photography services, but the inclusion of a photographer counts as a witness.

Couples can also choose to have the ceremony live streamed to family members back home.

The business model follows a Vegas-style elopement in which the happy couple arrives at a chosen location in their car to meet the celebrant and the two chosen witnesses

The business has launched in Melbourne and Adelaide and will soon arrive in Sydney.

'Not many people know that in Australia people can get married anywhere  at the beach, at the supermarket or in a driveway  but in other countries like England you have to get married in particular buildings,' Kate said.

'I think I Do Drive Thru gives couples the chance to do something different and quirky, and legally bind their love for one another.'

Couples have the option to choose from a range of stunning different locations including various beach and city scenes.

'I think I Do Drive Thru gives couples the chance to do something different and quirky, and confirm their love for one another.'

Co-founder Zena Lythgo also said a lot of people tend to focus on the details of the reception, rather than the ceremony, but I Do Drive Thru gives people the opportunity to plan the ceremony specifically and get creative.

'Elopements are always fun - they're creative, can be done nearly anywhere and you just focus on your partner and yourself,' she said.

In May 2019, prior to the coronavirus madness and the new business, Zena legally married a same-sex couple in the back of her van in a Lorne rainforest after it started raining heavily.

She said the couple eloped because their two families were spread across the world and it would've been difficult to arrange a wedding.

Zena Lythgo also said a lot of people tend to focus on the details of the reception, rather than the ceremony, but I Do Drive Thru gives people the opportunity to plan the ceremony specifically and get creative

Despite only launching a week ago, the business has had a positive reaction from both the public and the media, with additional people wanting to know more about the business every day.

Kate said above all else love prevails, even during difficult times like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Starting tomorrow, there will be couples saying 'I do' in the backseat of their car - which the four celebrants are very excited about.
PORTLAND, Ore.  Governor Kate Brown announced on Friday that she has issued a new executive order to bar creditors from garnishing federal stimulus funds bound for Oregonians' bank accounts.

Executive Order 20-18 prevents creditors or debt collectors from taking federal CARES Act recovery rebate payments. Brown's office said that it "corrects an oversight" in the federal bill, allowing Oregonians to use the funds in order to cover essential needs during the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis.

RELATED: Governor Brown orders that Oregon local governments work to continue public comment during COVID-19 shutdown

Many Oregonians, through no fault of their own, are struggling to pay their bills, their rent, or even buy essentials like groceries and prescription drugs, said Governor Brown. These recovery checks were meant to provide relief, not reward debt collection agencies for preying on Oregonians who have lost their livelihoods due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brown's office compared the order to similar protections that those who receive Social Security, disability, or veterans' benefits get  sanctuary from creditors.

RELATED: Oregon unemployment claims drop slightly over fourth week of COVID-19 rush

"The protection does not extend to garnishments due to criminal actions requiring restitution or civil judgments based on a criminal conviction," Brown's office said. "As provided by the CARES Act, past-due child support may still be deducted before rebates are deposited in bank accounts."

More guidance on the order will have to come from the Oregon Department of Justice, Brown's office concluded.
In this file photo, Camden School board president Martha Wilson, participates in a groundbreaking new school construction ceremony with a few current students from Camden High School. Read more

Camden School Board President Martha F. Wilson, 67, a longtime community activist remembered as a crusader for the citys children, died Friday, April 17, at Cooper University Hospital after suffering a heart attack at home.

She was the wife of Camden County Sheriff Gilbert Whip Wilson, a former assemblyman. Gov. Phil Murphy called the family to express his condolences, and her death sent shock waves through Camden.

Mayor Francisco Moran recalled her tenacity, integrity, and love for the city and her family. Martha was a pillar of our community  dedicated to our residents and of course our young people, Moran said in a statement.

My wife was a great lady, said Wilson, 73. This is going to be a big void for all of us.

Im proud that she was my wife. She made me look good. He said she always called him by his childhood nickname, Larry.

Mrs. Wilson served on the school board for many years, most recently as president of the nine-member advisory board that reports to state-appointed Superintendent Katrina McCombs under the 2013 state takeover of the troubled school system.

Mrs. Wilson backed a controversial $133 million plan approved by the state to tear down the iconic, century-old Camden High School and replace it with a modern school. Construction is ongoing. She helped draft policies credited with reducing the dropout rate and suspensions, and served on the Camden Education Fund, a nonprofit that raises funds for district schools.

She was a just a caring, warm person, said Jack Tarditi, chairman of the fund. She only missed events if she had something to do with her grandkids.

 READ MORE: Commentary: Camden High School long overdue for an upgrade

In a Facebook post, fellow board member Elton Custis called Mrs. Wilson Camdens Gem. County Freeholder Director Louis Cappelli Jr. said she was one of Camdens biggest boosters and a crusader for the citys children.

She was the cornerstone of our community and someone you could always count on to roll up her sleeves and get the job done, Cappelli said in a statement.

Mrs. Wilson and her husband were a Camden power couple. After serving as a city police officer, he was elected to City Council in 1997, the same year she was elected to the school board. He later was elected to the Assembly representing the 5th Legislative District for five years. He was elected sheriff in 2015.

The day before she died, Mrs. Wilson was preparing paperwork to seek reelection in November, her husband said. She especially enjoyed working with parents and students, who called her Mom, he said.

Born in Virginia, Mrs. Wilson moved to Camden as a teenager. She graduated from Camden High in 1970 and attended Camden County College and Rutgers University.

After college, she joined Campbell Soup Co. as the first African American employee in the medical department. She later worked at Radio Corp. of America in Cherry Hill in the accounting department.

In 2009, Gov. Jon S. Corzine appointed Mrs. Wilson to a five-year term on the Delaware River Port Authority.

Mrs. Wilson attended Nazarene Baptist Church and Kaighn Avenue Baptist Church. She taught adult Sunday school and vacation Bible school. She also was president of the Deaconess Board and served on the Womens Ministry.

In addition to her husband of 42 years, Mrs. Wilson is survived by six children, 10 grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.

A public viewing will be held on May 14 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the May Funeral Home, 4075 Haverford Ave., Philadelphia. All are asked to wear masks and gloves and practice social distancing. Services will be private.




New virus kills China's shrimps, alerts Indian producers

A new virus, known as Decapod iridescent virus 1, or DIV1, is destroying shrimp farms in Guangdong province in China, while Indian shrimp producers are also being put on high alert.

According to local farmers, the virus was first detected as early as 2014, but came back last spring and again in February, affecting about a quarter of the area under shrimp production.

The spread of the disease, has left the shrimp industry in Guangdong concerned it will face mass deaths of a similar scale to the African swine fever crisis, which wiped out as much as 60% of China's pig herd.

"The infection rate and lethalness of the virus are terrifying," said Wu Jinhong, a shrimp farmer in Da'ao township in Jiangmen city. "It only takes two or three days from detecting the first infection for all shrimp in the pond to be killed."

The first signs of infection are typically when shrimp begin turning a reddish colour, before their shells soften and they sink to the bottom of ponds, local farmers said.

Meanwhile India's Coast Aquaculture Authority (CAA) has distributed an alert to the country's shrimp producers.

To date, DIV1 has been detected in several farmed shrimp species, including vannamei and freshwater shrimp, said the CAA advisory.

All foreign exporters and Indian importers, including hatchery operators, have been advised by CAA to screen SPF broodstock and other live stocks, including artemia cysts used in hatchery feed, for the virus "for the safety of the shrimp aquaculture industry in India."


FRIDAY, April 17, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Few think of the toilet as a font of valuable information, outside what you might read while you're sitting on the throne.

But a "smart toilet" is being developed that will help track your health by analyzing your excretions, researchers say.

The toilet would be fitted with technology that can detect a range of disease markers in stool and urine, said Seung-min Park, a senior research scientist with the Stanford University School of Medicine, in California.

That data could be forwarded to your doctor, who would track changes that might provide clues to such diseases as cancer, kidney failure, diabetes or irritable bowel syndrome.

"We're trying to monitor every aspect of human health that can be detected from human excretion," Park said.

It might sound far-fetched, but such information would prove a boon to doctors and the patients they treat, said Dr. Brian Rubin, chair of the Cleveland Clinic's Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Institute.

"We currently don't have access to continuous genetic data that's pouring out of feces and urine," Rubin said. "But we do know that a variety of nucleic acids and proteins are secreted in urine and fecal material, and they do provide insight into what's going on in the human body. It's the kind of thing that could really take medicine to the next level."

Stanford's smart toilet design uses cameras, motion sensors and chemical tests to check different indicators of your health:

Urine flow rate provides information about a man's prostate health.

Stool shape and consistency could show whether someone has a bowel disorder.

Urinalysis tests your urine for signs of infection, bladder cancer, kidney failure and other illnesses.

Nearly two dozen volunteers have tested the toilet over the course of several months, according to a report published April 6 in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

The research team also surveyed 300 prospective smart-toilet users, and found that a little over half were comfortable with the idea of a toilet that analyzed them at their most vulnerable.

One potential reason for reluctance: to make sure your health markers are accurately tracked, the toilet has a couple of ways of identifying who is using it.

A fingerprint identification system on the flush lever provides one way to make sure no one mistakes your excretion for someone else's, Park said.

The other way the toilet tells you apart from family members and house guests is more potentially unnerving. There's no other way to say it -- a small camera scans your anus.

"We know it seems weird, but as it turns out, your anal print is unique," Dr. Sanjiv "Sam" Gambhir, senior researcher and chair of radiology at Stanford School of Medicine, said in a school statement.

Gambhir pledges that no one, not you or your doctor, will see either the fingerprint or the anus scans, which are used solely to match you with your data.

Park said his group is working with toilet companies to get this "smart toilet" to market within a year or two.

The "smart" aspect could either come with a toilet or be an add-on, something that you or a plumber would retrofit onto your own commode.

"It's sort of like buying a bidet add-on that can be mounted right into your existing toilet," Gambhir said. "And like a bidet, it has little extensions that carry out different purposes."

Right now the team is testing the toilet on more volunteers and refining the technologies equipped in the device.

They hope to individualize the tests deployed by the toilet, so that people with specific health problems like diabetes or cancer will get an analysis focused on their illness.

More information

The National Kidney Foundation has more about urinalysis.
Roger Stone's demand for a new trial has been ruled out in a judge's blistering opinion that the jury forewoman in Stone's trial was not biased against President Donald Trump's long-time political confidant.

District Judge Amy Berman Jackson decided that while the juror might have expressed strong opinions about Mr Trump on social media, she did not lie in answering a pre-trial questionnaire probing potential jurors for bias, nor did she have a prejudicial view of Stone.

The assumption that the forewoman could not fairly consider the evidence against Stone based on her views about the president "is not supported by any facts or data and it is contrary to controlling legal precedent," Judge Jackson wrote in an 81-page opinion. She called Stone's motion "a tower of indignation" with "little of substance holding it up".

"While the social media communications may suggest the juror has strong opinions about certain people or issues, they do not reveal that she had an opinion about Roger Stone, which is the opinion that matters," the judge wrote.

She also took Stone's lawyers to task for not doing basic research on the juror before she was allowed to join the panel.

"The information in the motion could have easily been found with the exercise of due diligence: by posing a few pointed follow-up questions in person, or by using the same search engines that quickly brought the public social media posts to light the day the juror identified herself to the rest of the world," Judge Jackson wrote.

"The evidence the defence claims was critical was never 'concealed' - it was a few clicks of a mouse away."

The ruling came months after Mr Trump issued public statements stoking controversy over Stone's case by attacking the integrity of the judge, jurors, federal prosecutors and the judicial system.

The attacks were punctuated by the president's blasting of the forewoman and Judge Jackson as biased before and during a February hearing - despite warnings by Attorney General William Barr to stop tweeting about criminal cases.

"There has rarely been a juror so tainted as the forewoman in the Roger Stone case," Mr Trump tweeted during a hearing earlier this year in which federal prosecutors were defending the jury verdict.

"Look at her background. She never revealed her hatred of 'Trump' and Stone. She was totally biased, as is the judge. Roger wasn't even working on my campaign. Miscarriage of justice. Sad to watch!"

Trump has hinted on Twitter that he might pardon Stone.

A jury convicted Stone in November of lying during testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in September 2017 to conceal his central role in the Trump campaign's efforts to learn about Democratic computer files hacked by Russia and made public by WikiLeaks to damage Mr Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Judge Jackson pointed out that during jury selection it was she who had pressed the potential juror about her ability to remain impartial, and Stone's lawyer said he had no questions.

"The defendant has not shown that the juror lied; nor has he shown that the supposedly disqualifying evidence could not have been found through the exercise of due diligence at the time the jury was selected," she wrote in her decision, which the defence is expected to appeal.

Judge Jackson also ordered that Stone must report to prison when he is notified to do so by the probation office. ( Washington Post)
A group of 44 suspected members of Boko Haram, arrested during a recent operation against the jihadist group, have been found dead in the prison where they were being held, Chad's chief prosecutor announced Saturday.

Speaking on national television, Youssouf Tom said the 44 prisoners had been found dead in their cell on Thursday. They were part of a group of 58 suspects jailed during a recent army operation in the Lake Chad zone.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Will always be with you to fight injustice: Rahul Gandhi to media

Rahul Gandhi sends truckloads of food material to Amethi

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Apr 18: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has sent several truckloads of food grains and other essential items for the people of Amethi to help them tide over their hardships during the lockdown, the Congress' district unit said here on Friday.

Amethi's former Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has sent five trucks each of rice and wheat besides one truck of pulses, cooking oil, spices and other material for distribution among people, said party's district unit president Anil Singh.

Coronavirus outbreak: Ten points Rahul Gandhi stressed upon during video conferencing

It is Rahul Gandhi's endeavour to ensure that Amethi people face no difficulty in meeting their daily needs during these difficult times, said Singh, adding a total of 16,400 ration kits have been distributed among people of 877 gram panchayats and seven Nagar panchayats here so far.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

For protecting people against coronavirus infection, 50,000 masks, 20,000 sanitizers, 20,000 soaps and other similar material have been distributed among "corona warriors" on behalf of Rahul Gandhi, said Singh.

Besides 'Congress fights Corona' group, being run under the guidance of Rahul Gandhi, is extending help to the Amethi natives living in other states, Singh said, adding that 91 people in Madhya Pradesh, 212 in Gujarat, 308 in Maharashtra, 52 in West Bengal and 308 in Punjab and Haryana have been helped by the group.

Containment ops to be scaled down if no secondary coronavirus case is reported for 4 weeks

Earlier too Rahul Gandhi had sent food grains for Amethi people.
Twelve more coronavirus positive



cases were confirmed in Karnataka on Saturday taking the number of affected people to 371, the health department said.

This includes 13 deaths and 92 discharges.

"12 new positive cases have been reported from April 17, 5 pm to April 18, 12 noon," the department said in its daily bulletin.

Of the fresh cases, three are from Mysuru, two each from Kalaburagi and Bagalkote and one each from Vijayapura, Hubballi-Dharwad, Hirebagewadi in Belagavi, Gadag and Malavalli in Mandya district, it added.

The department has appealed to the doctors who are willing to volunteer in the fight against COVID-19 to reach out to the government.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
French authorities have barred a cruise ship that's been at sea since early January from disembarking more than 1,000 passengers before its final destination in Italy.

The regional administration for the Bouches-du-Rhone in southern France cited a nationwide ban on allowing foreign cruise ships to dock, as part of France's virus-related confinement measures.

The French administration said that the Costa Deliziosa sought to make a stop in Marseille on Friday to disembark 1,400 passengers who wanted to get out before the final stop in Venice.

The administration granted exemptions to six other cruise ships in recent weeks to allow French passengers to get off, but refused this time.

The Costa Deliziosa left on an around-the-world cruise and is expected to reach Italy in the coming days.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Tablighi Jamaat congregation in its central Delhi headquarters, the Markaz, has been linked to over 4,000 Covid-19 cases in the country, the government announced on Saturday. The Jamaat has been linked to 4,291 of the countrys 14,378 coronavirus cases in the country; nearly three out of every ten cases.

But India isnt the only country in the world that has had to suffer due to Tablighi Jamaat workers unwittingly turning their sect into the countrys virus super spreaders.

In several countries - mostly in south and south-east Asia - the Tablighi Jamaat has been linked to 3,000 more cases, and counting.

Like neighbouring Pakistan where over 500 of the countrys 7,500-plus cases are prima facie linked to the Jamaat workers. One key hotspot in Pakistan was the Raiwind Ijtema, the annual event in March that, according to the police, was attended by about 100,000 people. The Jamaat puts the size of this congregation at twice as much.

Also read: As Tablighi Jamaat-linked cases rise, Delhi govt gives them a different name

But it is in Malaysia where a Tablighi Jamaat congregation at a sprawling mosque complex on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur is seen as the source of hundreds of new coronavirus cases in the country and far beyond. Malaysia has linked over 1,500 of its 3,500 Covid-19 cases to this congregation.

In February, the mosque complex hosted its annual congregation attended by over 15,000 people who dispersed before countries started ordering the shutdown. Some of them are presumed to have come to India.

It was only when Telangana confirmed that six people who had attended the Delhi event had tested positive that an alarm was sounded.

According to data compiled by Hindustan Times, Jamaat workers have been reported to have tested positive for the Sars-CoV-2 pathogen that causes the coronavirus disease. For example, 79 of the 5.900 Covid-19 cases detected in Indonesia are linked to the Jamaat.

Back in India, the Jamaat challenge appears to be finally in grips in national capital Delhi where the government has traced down hundreds of more people with links to the Jamaat and sent them to quarantine centres. The city hasnt reported a Jamat-linked positive case in two days.

Also read: At Delhis Covid-19 review, no answers to 2 crucial questions on Tablighi Jamaat

On Saturday, the union health ministry said the Tablighi Jamaat workers account for 63 per cent of the citys 1,700 cases. But it is worse in Tamil Nadu and Telangana where 84 per cent and 79 per cent of the states Covid-19 patients, respectively, are linked to the Markaz.

The health ministry said Tablighi Jamaat-linked Covid-19 cases had been reported from 23 states and union territories. In Arunachal Pradesh, the congregation has been linked to its only coronavirus case.

The headquarters of the religious sect had emerged as the biggest coronavirus disease hotspots last month after authorities discovered nearly 2,300 workers living in the building in circumstances that made social distancing impossible. Initial tests indicated 24 of them were already positive when officials moved them out, sending them to state-run quarantine facilities. A nationwide manhunt was also launched for the thousands of others who had been to the Markaz earlier and had headed back to the states for missionary work.

This week, the Home Ministry expanded this search to cover Rohingya as well after reports that some of them had also been associated with the Jamaat workers and attended the congregation.

Over the next few days and weeks, the Centre needs to decide how to proceed against the 854 foreigners who were evacuated from the Markaz and other places in Delhi. They have been blacklisted from returning to India for the next few years. But once they complete their quarantine, the government intends to hand them over to their embassy to deport them. It is not clear yet if foreign nationals who have had FIRs registered against them would be allowed to leave at this point.

Indian officials had recently prevented some Malaysians from leaving the country after their links with the Tablighi had surfaced.

Malaysian deputy foreign minister Datuk Kamaruddin Jaafar this week told reporters that 17 nationals who took part in the Tablighi gathering in Delhi had been detained by authorities in India. He said they had been charged under the penal code, the disaster management law and the Foreigners Act.

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The Union Jack is slowly lowered. An enormous clamour rising from across Salisbury's Rufaro stadium hits fever pitch as 36,000 people celebrate the hoisting of the new green-gold-red-black-white flag, marked with a star and a Zimbabwe bird, symbols of the new state.

The crowd roars to a 21-gun salute. The din of planes fills the night sky. The applause and cries of joy gradually subside and the singing starts.

It is shortly after midnight on Friday, April 18, 1980. Zimbabwe has just been born.

A new start

Ninety years of colonisation is brought to an end with Britain's granting of independence to its former rebel colony.

In front of the excited crowd, the heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, hands the text of the constitution to the president of the new state, Canaan Banana, in a symbolic transfer of power.

There are 100 foreign delegations in the official stands.

Apartheid South Africa and most of the countries of communist Eastern Europe are not represented.

However the continent's main liberation movements -- including those of South Africa, the Polisario Front of the Western Sahara, and the Palestine Liberation Organisation -- are in attendance, alongside Western countries.

Notably absent is the former leader of rebel Rhodesia, Ian Smith.

Rebel colony

Ian Smith, the former leader of rebel Rhodesia, pictured in July 1971. By PHILIPPE LEDRU (AFP/File)

Smith had on November 11, 1965 also declared independence, but unilaterally and against the wishes of London.

It was the first time a British Crown colony had broken away since the United States in July 1776.

His Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) led to a 15-year dispute with London during which black nationalists launched a guerrilla war against the white regime in Salisbury, today's Harare.

Smith made the bold move to put an end to long independence negotiations with Britain and to prevent blacks -- who numbered six million against the white population of 250,000 -- from coming to power.

Previously the colony of Southern Rhodesia, the rebel country took the name Rhodesia, after British explorer Cecil Rhodes who claimed the region on behalf of the Crown in the late 19th century.

It was immediately condemned by African and foreign states.

Internationally isolated and under British and UN sanctions, Smith's regime soon had links only with South Africa and Portugal and its colonies.

London believed it would eventually cave in under the pressure. But it underestimated the determination of Rhodesia's whites who benefited from an abundant reserve of black manpower to build a self-sufficient and prosperous nation.

Guerrilla war

From the mid-1960s Rhodesia was faced with insurrection.

The decisive phase in the conflict came at dawn on December 21, 1972 when a small commando launched a rocket attack on a white-owned farm in the northeastern locality of Centenary.

A girl was wounded and windows broken, and the white community saw it as a one-off incident.

It turned out to be the start of seven years of conflict called the Bush War, which would leave more than 27,000 dead. The guerrilla force strengthened from year to year and clashes intensified, especially after neighbouring Mozambique obtained independence in 1975.

Robert Mugabe, who ruled Zimbabwe from independence for 37 years, pictured in 2016. By Jekesai NJIKIZANA (AFP/File)

However the black movement was divided, with rivalry developing between the ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People's Union) faction led by Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe's ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union).

While both followed a socialist ideology, the more moderate ZAPU wanted negotiations with the authorities for a transfer of power.

ZANU was more radical, favouring armed struggle.

A third player was the United African National Council of Methodist Bishop Abel Muzorewa, which rejected violence while demanding "one man, one vote".

Amid the infighting, Mugabe emerged by 1976 as the leader of the overall 12,000-strong guerrilla movement.

Minority rule ends

Under pressure from the escalating war and waning support from Portugal and South Africa, Smith opened negotiations on a transfer of power.

The white regime met with black nationalists for a first time on August 25, 1975 in a train on a bridge over Victoria Falls bordering Zambia after demands for a venue on neutral territory.

While that first meeting failed, it launched a process that culminated in a 1978 agreement on a political transition.

In April 1979 elections were held for the 100-seat parliament with a majority of seats allotted to blacks, but some still guaranteed for whites.

Muzorewa's party won and he became prime minister of the state of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, proclaimed in June 1979.

White minority rule had ended.

Settlement

But the guerrillas did not halt their insurgency and the new nation was also rejected on the world stage.

Britain called Muzowera and nationalist leaders including Mugabe and Nkomo to talks on reaching internationally recognised independence, reaching on December 21 the Lancaster House Agreement, named after the venue of the talks.

1980 elections were won by Mugabe, who became prime minister and then president.

He first won praise for his policy of reconciliation but went on to set up an authoritarian regime which brutally repressed opponents and implemented a land reform programme that resulted in economic collapse.

Forced to resign in 2017, aged 93, and after 37 years in power, Mugabe died two years later

His successor Emmerson Mnangagwa has promised to fight corruption, revive the moribund economy and reduce poverty.
VPBank reports encouraging business results in the first quarter in credit growth, revenue, and consolidated profit

Nguyen Duc Vinh, CEO of VPBank has just sent a letter to shareholders, detailing the unprecedented adverse impacts the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has cast across the board.

Vinh noted in the letter that despite the pandemic, VPBank has managed to post encouraging business outcomes in the first quarter of this year in credit growth, revenue, and consolidated profit.

However, he warned that as the pandemic remains a significant and unpredictable variable, reaching the full-year business targets would be a challenging task for the bank and that he expects COVID-19 to be contained in the second quarter.

Do Anh Tuan, deputy chairman of Techcombank, another privately-held bank, disclosed that despite COVID-19, the bank has been honing on quarterly projections.

Tuan said that the pandemic began in February and the bank saw fair credit growth in January by virtue of soaring customer demand ahead of the traditional Lunar New Year, and this would make up for the remaining months of the first quarter.

Techcombank posted nearly VND13 trillion ($565.2 million) in pre-tax profit last year. However, it will not diclose its profit targets for 2020 until its annual general shareholders' meeting which was delayed to June 2020 instead of the proposed late March.

Leveraging the recently-released banking sector perfomance assessment report by SSI Research, a subsidiary of SSI Securities Corporation, TPBanks pre-tax profit in the first quarter was forecast at about VND1 trillion ($43.48 million), a 17.3 per cent jump on-year which came by virtue of raising credit and deposit by 9 and 6 per cent, respectively, compared to early 2020.

According to SBV preliminary assessment, as COVID-19 became complicated from mid-March, its impacts on the performance of most banks would not be big in the first quarter.

Meanwhile, also according to SSI Research, the pre-tax profit of state-owned Vietcombank was forecast to reach VND6.1 trillion ($265.2 million), up 3 per cent on-year, after gaining 3 and 2 per cent in credit and deposit volumes compared to early 2020.

Taking the lead with a forecast 30 per cent on-year growth in first-quarter pre-tax profit is privately-held Vietnam International Bank (VIB), surpassing VND1 trillion ($43.48 million).

Meanwhile, with fair credit growth of nearly 6 per cent in the first quarter and earnings from its bond investment portfolio in the first two months of this year, VPBank is expected to post double-digit profit growth in the first quarter.

SSI Rearch has also estimated the pre-tax profit in the period of Ho Chi Minh City-based commercial lender ACB at about VND1.8 trillion ($78.26 million), up 5 per cent on-year.

For Military Bank (MB Bank), SSI Research forecast an increase in provisioning in the first quarter this year to create a safe buffer for operations in the subsequent quarters. This would lead to 30-35 per cent hike in provisioning. The banks pre-tax profit in the period, therefore, is foreast to remain almost unchanged or see a slight decrease of 0.5-0.7 per cent compared to the corresponsing period last year.

Banks are expected to deliver their official reports on first-quarter business results later this month or at their upcoming annual general shareholders' meetings which might include new business indexes to supersede ones which were established at the beginning of the year when the COVID-19 situation was not too critical.

According to Nguyen Quoc Hung, head of the Credit Department of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), the banking sectors credit expanded by 1.3 per cent as of March 31, 2020. Earlier, the sectors credit growth was just 0.06 per cent, a six-year record low due to the COVID-19.

According to the SBV's preliminary assessment, as COVID-19 disruptions unfolded in full from mid-March, its impacts on the performance of most banks will not be felt in the first quarter.

SSI Researchs update report on the implications of COVID-19 on the banking sector has revised the pre-tax profit prospects of 10 large-scale banks in a negative direction.

Along with this, in the base scenario, if the pandemic was brought under control late in the second quarter, the pre-tax profits of these banks would jump 7.2 per cent on-year, and in the worst scenario that the pandemic remains out of control until the end of the year, the growth level would be 0.8 per cent only.
Laura Ashley Ireland Ltd, which is part of the Laura Ashley group and employs 76 people here, sought the winding-up order arising out of its UK parents decision to enter administration there. Photo: Martin Rickett/PA

The High Court has appointed joint provisional liquidators to the Irish arm of fashion retailer Laura Ashley, which operates five stores in Ireland.

Laura Ashley Ireland Ltd, which is part of the Laura Ashley group and employs 76 people here, sought the winding-up order arising out of its UK parent's decision to enter administration there.

The group, which sustained loses in recent years, entered administration after the outbreak of Covid-19 ended its attempts to raise third-party investment it said it required in order to continue to trade.

At the High Court yesterday, Mr Justice Michael Quinn said he was satisfied to appoint experienced insolvency practitioners Ken Tyrell and Declan McDonald of PWC as the company's joint provisional liquidators.

The evidence before the court was that the company was insolvent.

The judge, after confirming the provisional liquidator's appointment, adjourned the matter to a date in early May.
Afghanistans President Ashraf Ghani has reportedly limited most of his contact with staff to digital communication as at least 20 officials working at his palace have been tested positive for coronavirus. A senior health official reportedly said that an official document delivered to the Presidential Palace in Kabul has infected staff. While speaking to an international media outlet, the health official said that a containment document was sent to the office inside the palace from another government department and that is how the employees were infected.

The official added that some of the employees were still working in their offices when the result came out and the authorities had to quarantine them and their families. He also said that the number of infected people could be higher. Meanwhile, Ghanis spokesman, Sediq Sediqqi said that the Civil Service Commission has already asked government employees to stay at home before the tests were conducted. Sediqqi added that order has also been extended for another three weeks.

READ: India Sends 1 Lakh Paracetamol, 5 Lakh Hydroxychloroquine Tablets To Afghanistan

India ships wheat, HCQ to Afghanistan

Currently, Afghanistan has more than 900 confirmed coronavirus cases and the deadly virus has claimed nearly 30 lives in the country. Meanwhile, in a bid to help Afghanistan and ensure food security, India shipped the first consignment of 5,022 metric tonnes (MT) of wheat and further also plans to ship more in the days to follow. India also sent 1,00,000 paracetamol and 5,00,000 anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine tablets to the country.

READ: Jaishankar Holds Telephonic Talks With US Special Envoy For Afghanistan Khalilzad

Afghanistan's Health Minister, Ferozuddin Feroz, had earlier expressed concerns about the countrys healthcare system in shackles that might fail to administer patients in case 80 per cent of the population got infected. It sought help stating that at least 1,10,000 people in Afghanistan might succumb to the deadly COVID-19 disease.

Meanwhile, coronavirus, which originated in China in December 2019, has now claimed over 156,000 lives worldwide as of April 18. According to the tally by an international news agency, the pandemic has now spread to 210 countries and territories and has infected more than two million people. Out of the total infections, more than 582,000 have recovered but the easily spread virus is continuing to disrupt many lives. Major cities have been put under lockdown in almost all countries including Spain, and the economy is struggling.

(Image source: AP)

READ: India Ships 'first-of-many' 5000-tonne Wheat Consignment To Covid-shackled Afghanistan

READ: Pakistan Seeks Extradition Of IS Leader From Afghanistan
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced a $125-million relief effort for illegal immigrants in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

California will offer $500 each to 150,000 adults living in the country illegally who were not included in the $2.2-trillion stimulus package passed by Congress, The Associated Press reported.

We feel a deep sense of gratitude for people that are in fear of deportation but are still addressing the essential needs of tens of millions of Californians, Newsom said.

A total of $125 million to provide individual assistance of $500 and household assistance up to $1,000 for those individuals that are quite literally putting themselves on the line in helping support this economy and those most in need at this moment.

According to the Democratic governor, 10 percent of the states workforce are illegal immigrants who paid over $2.5 billion in state and local taxes last year.

Newsom announced he would spend $75 million of taxpayer money to create the Disaster Relief Fund for illegal immigrants. Nonprofit organizations have pledged to raise an additional $50 million for the fund.

This is a recognition of the fact that immigrant families are essential to our state, Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, told the Los Angeles Times.

Their economic and labor contributions are keeping us going.

Immigrant rights activist Jose Antonio Vargas praised the governors announcement on Twitter.

Thank you for remembering that undocumented Californians are an inextricable part of our state, he tweeted.

Dear Gov. @GavinNewsom:



As an undocumented immigrant who was raised in California and call the Bay Area my home, thank you. Thank you for remembering that undocumented Californians are an inextricable part of our state.



cc: governors across the country, especially @NYGovCuomo https://t.co/RLatFGg5q6  Jose Antonio Vargas (@joseiswriting) April 15, 2020

State Senate Republican Leader Shannon Grove was not impressed with the action and said the governor should be spending the money on food banks, equipment for online education and local governments instead.

Instead of meeting these urgent needs, Governor Newsom has chosen to irresponsibly pursue a left-wing path and unilaterally secured $125 million for undocumented immigrants, Grove told the AP.

As of Thursday morning, there are 26,686 cases of COVID-19 in California and 861 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins.

Newsoms Wednesday announcement brings the amount of money he has committed in response to the coronavirus to over $2 billion.

State lawmakers are scheduled to have their first oversight hearing on the spending on Thursday.
Household items such as furniture and televisions may be subject to supply shortages in the next year as the coronavirus pandemic affects Chinese exports.

Usually this is the time of year when furniture store retailers are in China and India sourcing new stock for the next 12 months.

Because of travel bans, however, buyers are unable to source stock firsthand - meaning customers may see stocks dwindling.

Retailers are warning that there may be shortages of larger household items such as furniture and televisions in the next year because of supply issues with China

Some items that may be in demand from Australians who are being advised to stay indoors during lockdowns are lounges, dining tables, and TVs

Stock levels currently remain normal but, if travel bans continue, the numbers of big ticket items could begin to run low.

This includes items that may be in demand from Australians who are being advised to stay indoors during lockdowns such as lounges, dining tables, and TVs.

One furniture retailer, John Sadler, who runs a store in the Perth suburb of Osborne Park said even ordering remotely from Australia he had noticed there may be supply issues.

'[China is] very unorganised, I'm finding, and they don't give you the shipping dates they used to,' Mr Sadler told 7News.

He said he has stock in the warehouse at the back of his store that should see him through any delays, however, those who order furniture on demand will probably have difficulties.

'They're going to be waiting,' he said.

'China is more interested in just doing their bulk orders and shipping them out.'

Shipping schedules will also be affected, however, as the Australian government has ordered that ships, including freight vessels, must be in quarantine for 14 days before making port in Australia.

Currently stocks are unaffected, according to Mr Sadler, with many bargains to be found as retailers struggle to make sales.

Freight ships have been ordered to quarantine for 14 days before arriving at port in Australia
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated unity in the fight against the deadly coronavirus on Friday during his phone call with Emmanuel Bonne, diplomatic counselor to French President Emmanuel Macron.

The senior Chinese diplomat called on China and France  both permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)  to play a role at this "crucial time that will decide the destiny of mankind."

Wang also expressed confidence to the French government under the leadership of President Emmanuel Macron, "the series of measures taken by the French government are making positive effects," he said.

Bonne, on his part, first appreciated medical supplies dispatched by the Chinese government. The French official also voiced firm support to the World Health Organization (WHO) and its chief Tedros Adhanom.

The French side would like to strengthen cooperation with China in international epidemic control and explore a plan for the world to work together, he said.

The same day, Wang also spoke to officials from Senegal and Cyprus.

China to send more supplies, medical experts to Africa

Mentioning the deep brotherhood China shared with the people of Africa, Wang told Senegalese Foreign Minister Amadou Ba China is now planning to dispatch another round of medical supplies, along with experts, to the virus-hit hard African countries.

Earlier, China has sent out two groups of medical experts to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso, respectively, under the request of the WHO and the African Union. In addition, China has been actively sharing information with African medical workers, with a total of 14 video conferences made so far.

"China has kept its promise, treating Africans staying in the country as family members," Wang said in the phone call according to a news release.

Ba appreciated China's assistance during this hard time. He touched on the severe situation Africa is going through right now, and hoped for continuous support from China.

China will share its COVID-19 experience thoroughly

In his conversation with Cypriot Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides, Wang vowed to share its experience of known COVID-19 cases thoroughly, while actively providing support to the country.

Wang also discussed the recent distorted remarks that looked to discredit China's assistance to the international community, and said those statements "will not win support."

Christodoulides spoke highly of China's efforts, calling it "a model for the world in epidemic prevention."

The Cypriot official told Wang that his country hopes to strengthen its friendship with China.
Liu Dufeng leaving the State Courts on Friday (17 April) after he was charged. (PHOTO:Yahoo News Singapore/Wan Ting Koh)

UPDATE: Story updated with details from the Ministry of Health



SINGAPORE  Two foreign nationals were each charged on Friday (17 April) with violating their quarantine orders (QO) in February.

Chinese national Liu Dufeng and Indian national Vardireddy Nageswara Reddy turned up in the State Courts to receive their charges under the Infectious Diseases Act. The two work permit holders are believed to be the first persons to be charged with leaving their respective places of isolation without official permission.

Liu, 49, faces two counts of leaving his place of isolation on 19 and 21 February without the permission of permission of the Ministry of Healths Director of Medical Services despite being a suspected contact of the COVID-19 virus.

According to a Ministry of Health press release on Friday, Liu was issued a QO to be isolated at his residence at 45 Genting Road from 12 to 24 February. He had acknowledged the contents of the QO but relocated to 14 Genting Road on 19 February to continue his isolation under the instructions of his employer.

MOH said that Liu failed to inform his employer that he was not supposed to be relocated while under quarantine and failed to seek official permission for his relocation. Lius charge sheet states that Liu left his residence at about 7pm on 19 February.

MOH investigations also revealed that Liu had left his residence on 21 February to find a bank at MacPherson Road. He allegedly left at around 10.30am to 12pm.

In court, Liu said through a Mandarin interpreter that he was merely following his companys instructions as he was asked by his firm to move from one location to another as there was no space for him at the first location.

A Ministry of Health prosecutor handling the case replied that the prosecution was aware of the details but that the Attorney-Generals Chambers would have taken this into consideration if it had decided to charge him.

Liu indicated that he wished to claim trial to one of his charges. His case has been fixed for a pre-trial conference on 8 May.

Story continues

Vardireddy, 35, was charged with one count of leaving a place of isolation without the permission of the Director of Medical Services on 24 February between 8.10 pm and 8.35pm.

According to the press release, Vardireddy was issued with a quarantine order on 17 February. He was required to be isolated at home from 16 to 20 February but had the quarantine extended to 25 February, 12pm.

Vardireddy had acknowledged the contents of the QO but left his home to buy some items at the neighbourhood shopping mall on 24 February.

The prosecution said that it was ready with Vardireddys plea but was awaiting the outcome of another case before proceeding. Vardireddy told the court that he intends to plead guilty. His next court hearing has been fixed for 23 April.

If convicted of their breaches, each man may face up to six months jail and/or a fined of up to $10,000.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, April 18, 2020 14:35 634 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2b90f4 1 National Greater-Jakarta,Luhut-Binsar-Pandjaitan,commuter-line,commuter-trains,Maritime-Affairs-Investment-Coordinating-Ministry Free

The government has decided to allow the Commuter Line rail service to continue operating during the large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) in Greater Jakarta (Jabodetabek).

Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, who is also acting transportation minister, has taken the decision despite growing calls from all regional administrations to temporarily halt the service to "flatten the curve" of COVID-19 transmission.

Media spokesman Jodi Mahardi of Luhut's office said that the Commuter Line would still operate, but with a restricted schedule and reduced passenger capacity.

Minister Luhut has received reports that the majority of commuter train passengers are workers. We dont want those who work in the health sector affected if its operation is halted, Jodi said in a statement on Friday.

The health sector is among the eight sectors deemed "essential" and thus still permitted to operate while the PSBB is in effect. Other essential sectors include the retail food and services sector, energy, logistics and communications.

Read also: Satellite cities demand that commuter trains stop running during PSBB

Jodi said that the office of the coordinating minister was concerned that halting the Commuter Line service that connected Jakarta and its satellite cities would only create new problems.

He added that Luhut had called on the regional administrations of Greater Jakarta to restrict public activities to ensure that the PSBB policy ran effectively during its 14-day period.

The [PSBB] regulations must serve as the [legal] grounds for supervising and taking actions against companies that violate the PSBB, Jodi said.

Read also: COVID-19: Confusion in Jakarta on first workday under partial lockdown

Some regional heads have called for the suspension of the Commuter Line while the PSBB was in effect, as passengers were still crowding Commuter Line stations to travel to the capital for work.

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan, Bogor Regent Ade Yasin, Bekasi Regent Eka Supria Atmaja, Bekasi Mayor Rahmat Effendy and Bogor Deputy Mayor Dedie A. Rachim had all called on the central government and state-owned train operator PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI), which runs the Commuter Line, to temporarily halt the commuter rail service.

Regent Ade even alleged that the majority of Bogor residents who had tested positive for COVID-19 had contracted the virus aboard the Commuter Line.

She also cited data from the Bogor COVID-19 task force that the "red zones" of COVID-19 transmission in districts such as Cibinong and Bojonggede were located near railway stations.

We beseech the central government to listen to our aspirations, as we only want this for the sake of breaking the chain of COVID-19 transmission, she said as quoted by tempo.co on Friday.
LEWISBURG  Two Pennsylvania Republican congressmen are asking the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to address staffing issues at the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary.

U.S. Rep. Fred Keller, in whose district Lewisburg is located, and Rep. Daniel P. Meuser voiced their concerns about the arrival of 985 inmates from the tornado-damaged Estill prison in South Carolina.

They told BOP Director Michael Carvajal in a letter Friday the rapid increase in the inmate population will create challenges for staff because there have been significantly smaller number of prisoners the past several years.

To protect the staff and local community they requested the BOP:

Immediately recall the more than 30 Lewisburg staffers who have voluntarily been deployed to prisons with shortages due to the coronavirus.

Deploy staff from central office, regional offices and training centers to Lewisburg. Reservation housing is available at Lewisburg for staff members at a minimal cost.

Develop a plan to deploy Estill staff to either Lewisburg or to replace Lewisburgs staff currently at other prisons.

Establish a field hospital at Lewisburg with medical professionals so ill inmates can be treated on site instead of taken to local hospitals.

Asked for a comment, a spokesman said the BOP responds directly to members of Congress and does not share that correspondence with the media.

The congressmen pointed out with the addition of the Estill inmates that 80 percent of Lewisburgs 1,831 beds will be filled, an increase from 30 percent a week ago.

The letter expressed concern about the potential of a COVID-19 outbreak but the latest BOP statistics show no inmates or staff at either Lewisburg or Estill have tested positive for the virus.

The U.S. Marshals Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS) completed the transfer of the 985 Estill inmates in 80 hours, according to spokesman Dave Oney said. The inmates were flown into Pennsylvania and bused to Lewisburg.

This was the fourth time in the past six years JPATS was called on to transport a significant number of inmates on short notice, Oney said.

Estill, a medium-security prison that opened in 1993, took a direct hit by a tornado Monday morning damaging several buildings. No staff or prisoners were injured, the BOP reported.

Lewisburg, which had been a maximum-security prison since it opened in 1932, was officially designed a medium-security institution on March 17, 2019.

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More than 7,500 care home residents are now feared to have died from coronavirus, according to new data.

Care England, the country's largest representative body for care homes, said the number of residents dying from the illness far surpassed government estimates.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) earlier this week showed only 237 care home coronavirus deaths had been recorded in England and Wales up to April 3.

The Daily Mail revealed on Wednesday that care home providers suspected at least 4,000 care home residents had died from Covid-19.

But Professor Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, said yesterday the figure had likely now reached 7,500.

More than 7,000 care home residents are now feared to have died from coronavirus, according to new data. Pictured: Medics outside Berelands Care Home, Prestwick, where 20 of its residents died due to suspected coronavirus

Speaking to the Telegraph, Professor Green said: 'Without testing it is very difficult to give an absolute figure.

'However, if we look at some of the death rates since April 1 and compare them with previous years' rates, we estimate a figure of about 7, 500 people may have died as a result of Covid-19.'

The latest figures come after a total of 20 residents at a single care home in Scotland were reported to have died due to suspected coronavirus.

The Berelands Care Home, in Prestwick, Ayrshire, saw four of those deaths take place in the past 24 hours.

It comes after Health Secretary Matt Hancock (pictured) told a select committee yesterday he was 'absolutely sure' the number and proportion of deaths was larger than reported

QUARTER OF ALL CORONAVIRUS DEATHS IN SCOTLAND OCCUR IN A CARE HOME Official figures revealed yesterday a quarter of all coronavirus deaths in Scotland have been in care homes. Data from the National Records of Scotland showed 962 people diagnosed with, or suspected of having, COVID-19 had died. Of those, 237 (24.6 per cent) were in care homes, 586 in hospitals, 128 in homes and one in an undisclosed location. The figure was five times higher than the 5 per cent number given by the Office for National Statistics, which collates data in England and Wales. The ONS statistics also showed that another 5 per cent of deaths had been recorded outside of hospitals, such as in hospices. The Department of Health figures are affected by a backlog in hospital recordings, meaning that hundreds of deaths are not registered to be counted. Advertisement

A spokesman for Berelands Care Home said: 'We are deeply saddened to confirm that four more residents have died from what we believe to be Covid-19.

'Three of our residents passed away yesterday, and one this morning.

'This is profoundly upsetting, and our deepest sympathies are with their families and friends.

'We are entirely focused on caring for, and protecting, all our residents and are extremely grateful to our dedicated staff who are doing their absolute best at this extraordinarily difficult time.

'We are closely monitoring the health of residents and staff, and supporting the families of those who have died, while continuing to follow all official guidance.'

Public Health England said there were 3,084 care homes with Covid-19 outbreaks in England, as of April 15.

In a poll of 2,800 care home owners, managers and staff, 28 per cent said they were looking after residents who had tested positive for the disease.

More than 40 per cent said they had seen suspected outbreaks of Covid-19.

And despite a government pledge and significant pressure from the Daily Mail, 80 per cent of carers in the carehome.co.uk and ITV news poll said staff had not been tested at all.

It comes after Health Secretary Matt Hancock told a select committee yesterday he was 'absolutely sure' the number and proportion of deaths was larger than reported.

A spokesman for Berelands Care Home said: 'We are deeply saddened to confirm that four more residents have died from what we believe to be Covid-19'

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) began collecting data on deaths linked to Covid-19 which occurred in both hospitals and care homes on Thursday, Matt Hancock said.

He promised data on residents who die with the illness will be available 'very shortly'.

He told the Health and Social Care Committee on Friday: 'I'm concerned about this as well; I asked CQC to make sure that we record the data in care homes specifically, of those who are residents of care homes, whether they die in hospital or in the care home, and they started collecting that data yesterday and it will be published very shortly.'

It comes as more than 40 per cent of nursing homes may have cases of coronavirus , a nationwide poll of thousands of carers suggests. (A visitors' notice stating cases of COVID-19 within Coplands Nursing Home in Wembley, northwest London)

Hundreds of unpaid carers are finding emotional support through the lockdown period by joining a new virtual community More than eight million unpaid carers in the UK have been helping alleviate pressure on hospitals by looking after sick, elderly and disabled relatives, according to Mobilise, an emerging online community of carers. Launched last month in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Mobilise is an online forum where carers can meet for a chat over a 'virtual cuppa' and access vital information about the outbreak from their homes. There are currently more than 500 carers registered on the website. Darren Smith, 50, has been caring for his sister Sharon Smith, 43, who has severe learning difficulties, since their mother died in September, and does everything from washing her, making her meals and keeping her entertained. Mr Smith, from south Wales, said social isolation as a sole full-time carer can be emotionally draining, but he has been keeping spirits up by crocheting, sewing and watching TV series Little House On The Prairie with his sister. He described their life in lockdown as 'very isolating, and quite lonely', but said Mobilise has given him 'the chance to have a conversation with people in similar situations'. Mr Smith said: 'One of my biggest worries is that something happens to me, because I'm a lone carer. 'I'm really quite terrified about how we would cope if I caught the virus. And if I went to hospital, about what would happen, because our relatives live too far away.' He added: 'For me it's very helpful to talk to other people in the Zoom Cuppa (on Mobilise). 'Some people have elderly relatives they care for, and there are regular people who attend the Cuppa. 'It's fun and it's something I look forward to. And if you're not there, somebody will email to check you're OK.' Mr Smith said there should be more recognition of unpaid carers, adding: 'Carers are doing a great deal that would normally fall to the local authority or the state, and they are not recognised for it.' Suzanne Bourne, head of carer support at Mobilise, who is also an unpaid carer for her husband Matt, agreed carers 'deserve recognition and support'. Ms Bourne, who uses Mobilise herself, said: 'Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, it's been amazing to be able to connect with other carers around the country, all of whom are facing unique challenges due to the current restrictions. 'Seeing the incredible ways these people are overcoming these obstacles is truly inspiring.' Chief executive and co-founder of Mobilise James Townsend said he wants carers to know there is an online community available for them. He said: 'At a time when we're all worried about health, caring for someone you love is extremely stressful. 'We aim to provide a space where it's OK to cry, but where you can also find something to laugh about with other people who understand.' Advertisement

Mr Hancock did not specify precisely when, or how often, this data will be published.

A Government spokesman said 'every death from this virus is a tragedy', and said people were 'working around the clock to give the social care sector the equipment and support they need'.

The Department of Health statement added: 'As a Government, we have a duty to report verified information.

'It is important that we have the best possible reliable data to know how many deaths there are, wherever they occur.

'In an important step forward, ONS are now providing a breakdown of deaths by place of occurrence.

'We are currently working with CQC and other organisations to understand how to best to provide up to date information about deaths in care homes and elsewhere.'

The data specifically on the deaths of care home residents is published at a lag of several weeks because it relies on death certificates which must be registered and processed, and until now has been the only official source for deaths outside hospitals.

The pledge comes after experts called for care home deaths to be included in the daily tally amid fears they are going 'under the radar'.

They currently are not listed every day and there have been lags in reported figures for several weeks because the process relies on death certificates, which must be registered and processed.

Earlier this week, the head of Public Health England, Professor Yvonne Doyle, said agencies were working towards producing 'much more rapid data, preferably on a daily basis'.

The latest poll provides the biggest snapshot yet of the impact of COVID-19 on the sector and suggests the care home crisis is deeper than the Government is willing to admit.

Almost all (94 per cent) of those asked felt that the government should be doing more to test clients and staff in care homes.

Access to personal protective equipment, or PPE, was also of concern to respondents.

Half said they had not received sufficient quantities of PPE, whilst 59 per cent felt the PPE they received was not safe or did not offer the necessary levels of protection.

Eighty-three per cent of carers said they were worried about transmitting COVID-19 to their family after working in the homes.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock's view of the care home situation has been in stark contrast to what care providers have said.

Mr Hancock said on Thursday that 15 per cent of care homes had two or more cases of the virus - one in seven.

He appeared to deny claims made by the care home executives that up to two thirds of all care homes have outbreaks when asked about the validity of claims on Good Morning Britain.

He described the 15 per cent figure as 'robust' and said Number 10 has 'high confidence' in it.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, a quarter of all coronavirus deaths in Scotland have been in care homes, according to official data.

The National Records of Scotland showed 962 people diagnosed with, or suspected of having, COVID-19 had died.

Of those, 237 (24.6 per cent) were in care homes, 586 in hospitals, 128 in homes and one in an undisclosed location.

The figure was five times higher than the 5 per cent number given by the Office for National Statistics, which collates data in England and Wales.

17 residents die at care home in Luton after five tested positive for coronavirus Two more residents have died at a Luton care home taking the total number of deaths there during the coronavirus pandemic to 17. Last week it was announced that 15 residents at the Castletroy Residential home in Luton had died. Five of those who died had tested positive for Covid-19. A spokeswoman for Luton Borough Council said the two further residents who had died had not been tested for Covid-19. The home has 69 beds for elderly people with nursing or personal care needs. The two new deaths were announced after the government said earlier that all UK care home residents and staff with Covid-19 symptoms are to be tested. In a statement, Luton Borough Council said: 'We are sad to report that 17 residents of the home have passed away since 28 March. Of these five had tested positive for Covid-19. 'Our thoughts are with the friends and family of the residents, as well as the staff of the home who are working in extremely difficult circumstances.' The statement added: 'We share the frustration of many over the delay in equipment being made available from the government to those in front line roles. 'Following a letter from Leader of the Council, Hazel Simmons, to Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock, Bedfordshire received a supply of PPE last week. 'The distribution of this, along with other supplies, is being coordinated by the council to go to those settings working directly with residents, in line with national PPE guidance. 'We have been working closely with all Luton care homes to ensure they have the right PPE in place at a time when supplies are limited. In some cases, this has meant sourcing our own supplies where government delays meant staff would otherwise have been left without. 'The team at Castletroy have been provided with a supply of adequate PPE including gloves, aprons and face masks throughout. 'We are still having to work extremely hard to ensure that services and providers have access to appropriate and timely PPE when needed. We understand there will be more equipment arriving shortly which will be prioritised according to need across Bedfordshire. 'We continue to work closely with the team at Castletroy to see what additional support to staff and families might be helpful at this particularly difficult time.' Advertisement

NHS frontline staff are told to 'wear aprons' to treat coronavirus patients and reuse PPE as hospitals come within hours of running out of gowns

NHS frontline staff have been told to 'wear aprons' to treat coronavirus patients and reuse PPE as supplies at some hospitals are set to run out within hours.

New guidance was issued last night amid reports at least 60 NHS trusts were expecting to exhaust their stocks of gowns. This includes all hospitals in London, which reportedly need tens of thousands of gowns delivered urgently.

Unison, which represents many medical staff, warned tonight that doctors and nurses may stop turning up for work if there are no gowns available.

The guidance from Public Health England sets out what front-line staff should do when there are no gowns left.

Options include borrowing from other hospitals with supplies, wearing coveralls or using flimsy plastic aprons instead of full-length gowns that protect against infections.

Nurses and doctors have been advised to weare 'non-fluid repellant coveralls' with aprons and to wash their forearms after work. Nurse pictured at MOT testing centre in Northern Ireland

It is a significant U-turn from previous PHE guidance, which required full-length waterproof surgical gowns for all high-risk hospital procedures. The move will prompt fears more doctors and nurses will become infected due to a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE).

At least 50 NHS staff members have died from the virus. They include consultant urologist Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, 53, who had warned a lack of PPE put medics at risk.

An NHS worker in an ambulance outside St Thomas' hospital in Westminster, London

The guidance was issued in response to acute shortages of PPE. It said the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) had approved reusing items and sessional use  where one health care worker uses the same PPE for a whole shift. It said that even though items were designed for single use, HSE recognises that some compromise is needed to optimise the supply of PPE in times of extreme shortages.

Responding the advice Unison's head of health, Sara Gorton, said: 'If gowns run out, staff in high risk areas may well decide that it's no longer safe for them to work.

'Health managers must be truly honest with staff and their union representatives over the weekend.'

She said this is an 'absolute worst case scenario measure' that 'staff hope their organisations won't have to implement'.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth called on the government to fix the 'ongoing failure' in the PPE supply.

'Week after week, we hear of problems in PPE getting to the front line despite what ministers tell us at Downing Street press conferences,' he said. 'This ongoing failure needs fixing and ministers must explain how they will fix it urgently.'

Medical staff are pictured above being trained how to put on personal protective equipment (PPE) at the Nightingale hospital in Manchester's Central Convention Complex

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts, said some could run out of gowns this weekend despite 'carefully managing' remaining stock and collaborating with neighbouring health organisations where possible.

'We all hope that this temporary disruption to supply will be short-lived and that the gowns that were ordered a long time ago, and should have already arrived, start arriving consistently and reliably rather than in the current fits and starts,' she said.

A Department of Health spokesman said: 'New clinical advice has been issued today to make sure that if there are shortages in one area, frontline staff know what PPE to wear instead to minimise risk.'

It comes after Health Secretary Matt Hancock admitted he couldnt guarantee hospitals wouldnt run out this weekend. At a briefing yesterday, Mr Hancock said 55,000 more gowns were arriving but admitted the UK was tight on supplies.

He told the Commons health select committee: The challenge of getting protective equipment out to everybody who needs it is an incredibly difficult one. As of this weekend we will have shipped one billion items of personal protective equipment across the UK. I take responsibility for getting PPE out to everyone.

Asked if he would get gowns to those who needed them this weekend he said: That is what we are aiming to do.

Almost all the gowns used by the NHS are made in China and the Far East. The UK needs around 150,000 a day, meaning the 55,000 due to arrive yesterday equates to only around eight hours worth. They need to be water-resistant material and have long sleeves.

Yesterday it emerged one hospital trust boss was so desperate he called the BBC asking for phone numbers for Burberry and Barbour. He said his trust, in the South East, had less than 24 hours supply and [with the] weekend coming up was hugely concerned.

Fashion companies have turned over production lines to producing equipment for the NHS. Fashion-Enter in Haringey, London, has started stitching together medical clothes for the NHS.

A Royal College of Nursing (RCN) survey found half of 14,000 nursing staff on duty at Easter  including those in the most high-risk areas  felt under pressure to work without PPE.

Almost a third of nursing staff treating Covid-19 patients not on ventilators reported a lack of face and eye protection while only half said they believed they had enough alcohol hand rub.

Fashion-Enter in Haringey, London, has started sewing together medical clothes for NHS workers to help combat shortages during the coronavirus outbreak

One in ten nurses said they were relying on face or eye protection that they had either bought themselves or which was homemade. Donna Kinnair, RCN chief executive, said: All decision makers involved here need to get an urgent grip on the situation. Nursing staff must be given protection.

The problems in Britain's PPE supply come as nurses in Tor Vergata, Rome, were seen wearing full protective kits. The country is one of the worst hit by the pandemic in Europe.

Leading physician warned that Britain will face 'further waves' of Covid-19 and will probably have the highest death rate in Europe because the Government was 'too slow' to act.

Nurses in Tor Vergata, Italy, were pictured today wearing long-gowns and full protective equipment. Italy has faced one of Europe's worst outbreaks of coronavirus

Professor Anthony Costello, of University College Londons Institute for Global Health, said the 'harsh reality' is that 'we were too slow with a number of things' and deaths could reach to 40,000.

The Department of Health said a total of 14,576 patients have died in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Thursday, up by 847 from the day before.

The Government also faced further criticism over a gulf between those being tested and the testing capacity, with just 18,665 tests being conducted in the 24 hours up to 9am on Thursday, despite 38,000 tests being available.

Mr Hancock announced on Friday that testing would be expanded to those in the police, fire service and prisons, as well as critical local authority workers, the judiciary and Department for Work and Pensions staff where required.

In other developments, the hunt for a coronavirus vaccine was given a boost by the launch of a Government taskforce.

Nurses pictured wearing full protective gear at a hospital in Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy, today

Led by chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, and deputy chief medical officer Professor Jonathan van Tam, it will support efforts to rapidly develop a vaccine as soon as possible.

As well as providing industry and research institutions with the resources and support, the group will review regulations to allow quick and safe vaccine trials.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma told the daily Downing Street press conference: 'The taskforce will support progress across all stages of vaccine development and at pace.

'It will back Britains most promising research, positioning the UK as a leader in clinical vaccine testing and manufacturing.

'The taskforce will co-ordinate with regulators to facilitate trials which are both rapid and well supervised and it will work with industry in the UK and internationally so were in a position to manufacture vaccines at scale.'
Just as climate change finds itself at the center of the left/right divide, so today, coverage of COVID-19 -- both in major and minor news networks --points to a similar fissure in American perceptions of this worldwide pandemic. Those on the ideological left forecast a doom and gloom scenario as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Alternatively, those on the right are less alarmist, questioning the science and data behind these dismal data projections. A logical question ensues: why such a divide? What is it about left and right ideologies that produce such stark differences in perception? Below are three theories:

Those on the political right believe in the freedom of the individual to wield his fate and are wary of the government. The saying, the bigger the government, the smaller the individual emblematizes the conservative position on government. Consequently, because those on the ideological right cherish the individual over the collective, they do not feel powerless. In contrast, those on the left value the government and would like to see its expansion into societys economic, social, medical, and private realms. The individual is not free, but rather imprisoned by societys constructs of say, gender and race. As such, government must step in to foster equilibrium. Because government is the antidote to chaos, the individual is powerless: he must wait for the government to fix the world. Ipso facto, doom and gloom. The worrisome element of this dual perception is the Overton window which presents a limited, binary prescription for policies: draconian vs. lenient measures. We either shut down all of America or business as usual. In Gods absence, science prevails! Reductive as this may be, and in no way do I suggest that everyone on the left is atheist, for those on the ideological left, science replaces Gods role. The left reminds us that doctors and scientists hold the monopoly on truth. Never mind that the data projections compiled by these scientists have been inaccurate or that, as we all know, science is always evolving . And yet, for those on the left, laboratories are holy chapels and scientists, priests donned in laboratory coats. To be sure, science is great and without it, we would be quite tragic. No one on the right, however, denies its importance. What they dare do, is question its assumptions and predictions. But, dare to question the legitimacy of climate change and you are denounced an apostate of all that is progressive and socially just. The big T word: if we couldnt get Trump on collusion, well definitely get him now! As one individual who loathes Trump said to me when I asked if he, too, notices a difference in how the left and right view COVID-19: Yea, theres a difference. Left: Facts, truth, both good and bad. Right: gibberish, conspiracy theories, lies, Trump bootlicking. Or more alarming, a recent thought experiment posited to individuals in New York: more severe Corona and more deaths, and in exchange Trump is no longer in office. The response: hell yeah!

These three reasons -- the role of the individual, the God of science, and loathing for Trump -- amount to why those on the right and those on the left have such drastically differing views of a world plagued by COVID-19. Moreover, it may help to explain why conservatives are, by and large, happier and more fulfilled than their left-leaning counterpart. In a 2008 study conducted by the American Psychology Association, researchers found that conservative ideology serves a palliative function to explain why conservatives are happier than liberals. More specifically, studies found that right-wing orientation is indeed associated with greater subjective well-being (Napier, J. L., & Jost, J. T., 2008).

The idea of pulling oneself by your bootstraps demonstrates how those on the right confront adversaries in life by redirecting responsibility to the self. To be sure the task is grand and at times, agonizing, and yet, it may be just the answer to why when you turn on or read left-leaning media, headlines read something like this: How the Coronavirus May Radically Transform Society The Absolutely Deadly Coronavirus Mistakes Trump is Repeating (The Huffington Post), The Enemy Isnt Going Anywhere (The Atlantic), Trump is the Obstacle to Defeated Coronavirus (The Atlantic), Im an E.R. Doctor in New York. None of Us Will Ever Be the Same (The New York Times), and The Last Words of a Healthcare Worker Who Dies of Coronavirus (The New York Times). Meanwhile, opinions on the right erode at the panic induced by left-leaning media by asking more questions about whether the cure may be worse than the disease. A cursory look at some of headlines from the right reveal not only questioning, but more significantly, a suspicion of authoritarianism: Here the People Rule (National Review), Coronavirus Authoritarianism is Getting out of Hand, (National Review) and The Thin Facade of Authority (American Greatness).

Perceptions bias is nothing new. It is what makes us human and for that, we truly do live in a post-facts world: one where ideology shapes our assessment of reality. What is novel, however, is the backlash those on the right receive for daring to question a mainstream worldview: to suggest that one has joined a death cult or promoted the personality cult of Trump does not do favor to anyone. We truly must ring the alarm bells when, for merely questioning science, God, our leadership, or journalism, we become outcasts and a danger to the world.
Lance Corporal Matthew Croucher was on a mission to investigate a Taliban compound near Sangin in Afghanistan in 2008 when he accidentally triggered a booby-trapped grenade.

He and his men were heading back to base under cover of darkness when he stumbled into a four-metre tripwire linked to the explosive.

Instead of running for cover, the Royal Marine threw himself on to the device, dropping down backwards and praying his backpack and body armour would absorb most of the blast  an act of supreme bravery that saved the lives of the three other members of his patrol.

In the military, some 37,000 volunteer Reserves (and a further 40,000 former Armed Forces personnel who are still liable to be recalled) play a crucial role for the nation, countering security threats and supporting humanitarian and peacekeeping missions

In a final briefing before the Afghanistan mission, Lance Corporal Croucher and his fellow servicemen had been warned against taking unnecessary risks.

No heroics, lads, OK? were the troop commanders final words. All that was forgotten in the heat of the moment, as the young Reservist willingly risked his life to save others.

It was an action that not only saved Lance Corporal Crouchers comrades, but  remarkably  ensured the 24-year-old would survive with just minor injuries. His bravery would later be recognised with the George Cross.

Lance Corporal Matthew Croucher was on a mission to investigate a Taliban compound near Sangin in Afghanistan in 2008 when he accidentally triggered a booby-trapped grenade

Today, thousands of other selfless men and women are also performing heroics, this time in the mission to save victims of the coronavirus pandemic.

The front line of this new war is in our NHS hospitals where, despite a huge procurement operation, many doctors, nurses and healthcare assistants are still working without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE). Tragically, several doctors and nurses have already paid the ultimate price.

Among those engaged in the extraordinary operation to save the lives of the public are thousands of retired healthcare workers who responded to an appeal from Health Secretary Matt Hancock to return to work.

Like Lance Corporal Croucher, who had left the Royal Marines for a quieter life after several operational tours but returned to Afghanistan as a Reservist, these doctors and nurses had hung up their boots. Yet, when their country needed them, they answered the call.

This got me thinking: when this crisis is over, could the NHS create its own reserve force?

In the military, some 37,000 volunteer Reserves (and a further 40,000 former Armed Forces personnel who are still liable to be recalled) play a crucial role for the nation, countering security threats and supporting humanitarian and peacekeeping missions.

Among those engaged in the extraordinary operation to save the lives of the public are thousands of retired healthcare workers who responded to an appeal from Health Secretary Matt Hancock to return to work. A soldier is pictured above being trained by a paramedic

Volunteer Reserves commit themselves to up to 27 days training a year. They are paid for their time and they do not need to give up their day jobs, except when they are deployed.

If the health service could draw on a similar force of retired healthcare professionals and volunteers with other valuable skills, it could dramatically ease the pressure during future healthcare emergencies.

The pandemic has underlined just how much people in this country love the NHS and how ready they are to support the service in its hour of need.

Within 48 hours of Mr Hancocks call, some 500 retired doctors and 4,000 nurses volunteered to go back to work. They are now making a remarkable contribution to the national effort and, when this misery is over, some might be willing to do so again.

In addition to retired medics, more than 750,000 individuals from all walks of life have so far volunteered to help the NHS during the pandemic  three times the Governments initial target.

These numbers are astonishing. If just a fraction of these volunteers were willing to be mobilised in the event of another healthcare emergency, the NHS might be able to avoid its annual winter crisis. It would also be in a better position to swing into action at the first sign of another pandemic.

Pandemics aside, one of the key problems facing the health service is a shortage of staff. This is a global issue. All over the world, healthcare systems desperately need more doctors and nurses.

The workforce has simply not expanded rapidly enough to keep pace with ageing populations with complex medical needs.

Across the NHS there are currently more than 100,000 unfilled posts, including 44,000 vacancies for nurses and 9,000 for doctors. This is desperate. No wonder the existing workforce was exhausted, even before this disease hit.

It is obvious that, when this battle is over, there will be no return to business as usual. There will barely be time for staff to draw breath before tackling the huge waiting lists for routine consultations and planned operations that have built up during this period.

The world has changed. We are now under no illusion about how fast and hard pandemics can hit, and the NHS needs to be prepared to do it all again.

We now know that when the chips are down, thousands of people are willing to roll up their sleeves and help out for no material reward. This is a huge untapped resource and could form the basis of a formal health service reserve.

This is a global issue. All over the world, healthcare systems desperately need more doctors and nurses. The workforce has simply not expanded rapidly enough to keep pace with ageing populations with complex medical needs

The crisis has also highlighted the value in one of the very features for which the NHS is most often criticised: the extent to which it remains under Government control. This has enabled the whole system to come together to fight coronavirus.

The mobilisation of the entire NHS for a common cause has been remarkable to behold and is in stark contrast to what is happening in America, where its fragmented privatised system is structurally incapable of pulling together in such a way.

In this country, many lives have been saved by a coalition of the willing. I have no doubt that the next time disaster strikes, many of those who are not NHS regulars will be ready to play their part again.

Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For information on Lord Ashcrofts work, visit www.lordashcroft.com. Follow him on Twitter @LordAshcroft
Bypassing F.D.A. requirements

It is unclear whether any American infants have become ill after consuming European infant formula because products that are not registered with the F.D.A. are not monitored by the agency. However, in 2016 and 2017, the F.D.A. was notified of six adverse events linked to imported European formulas: three from HiPP, two from Holle and one from Lebenswert. The complaints included fever, vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy and salmonellosis. While there is no conclusive link between these products and the reported illnesses, the adverse events were concerning to Dr. Dina M. DiMaggio, the lead author of a recent study that compared European formulas with F.D.A labeling and nutrient requirements.

In the study, published in May in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Dr. DiMaggio and her colleagues contacted third-party vendors selling to United States consumers to determine their most popular European infant formulas. They then examined 14 of the most frequently purchased European powdered formulas imported into the United States, including ones distributed by HiPP, Holle, Lebenswert and Topfer. None of the 14 formulas studied met all of the F.D.A.s labeling requirements: nine of the formula labels, for example, were not written in English and 10 of the 14 formulas did not have all of the required nutrients listed on their labels.

Parents should turn to their pediatricians to find out whats the best formula, she said. Were finding that thats not the case. A lot of pediatricians dont know that parents are using European formula.

The study also noted another potential problem: European formulas labeled hypoallergenic, like HiPP HA Combiotik, contained partially hydrolyzed milk proteins. Although these proteins were once believed to prevent food allergy, they are not meant for children with cows milk allergies and would not be labeled hypoallergenic in the United States.

In the U.S., for a formula to be considered hypoallergenic it has to undergo clinical research trials and be able to demonstrate that 90 percent of those with cows milk allergies will tolerate it, said Marion Groetch, the director of nutrition services at the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. These formulas, which are either extensively hydrolyzed or amino acid-based, are usually only available via prescription in Europe, Ms. Groetch added.

Parents are being misled

The F.D.A. maintains a red list of international infant formulas that will be detained if they are imported into the United States because they fail to meet the F.D.A.s nutrient and labeling requirements. It includes formulas from HiPP and Holle.

But third-party vendors keep bringing them into the country. The formulas can be found on eBay, European websites that ship to the United States and American websites that import the formula for commercial use despite the F.D.A.s restrictions. And once this formula leaves a companys official distribution channel, the chain of control is lost, said Dr. Anthony F. Porto, a pediatric gastroenterologist and associate professor of pediatrics at Yale University who was one of Dr. DiMaggios co-authors.
The troubled segment of the test was not critical to detecting the novel coronavirus, experts said. But after the difficulty emerged, CDC officials took more than a month to remove the unnecessary step from the kits, exacerbating nationwide delays in testing, according to an examination of federal documents and interviews with more than 30 present and former federal scientists and others familiar with the events. Many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
Araceli Herrera set out to organize her fellow housekeepers the most pragmatic way possible. She boarded VIA Metropolitan buses and stood at bus stops, where women from the East, West and South sides congregated.

While they waited to transfer onto buses headed north, Herrera handed out flyers about the membership organization she founded, Domesticas Unidas. Its Spanish for united domestic workers.

The coronavirus pandemic has sent such workers home, unpaid. Most cant file unemployment claims, and might be ineligible for federal stimulus checks and protections afforded other U.S. workers.

Theyre low-wage workers, many of them unbanked  that is, without checking and other accounts. Among them are U.S. citizens, legal residents and undocumented immigrants. Some file and pay taxes; some dont.

They may be among the most vulnerable San Antonians, their alienation compounded by COVID-19. Even a food giveaway, for example, can be far more difficult to navigate for those who depend on public transportation.

Over the past few weeks, Herrera has been fielding numerous calls from the groups 400 members. She has posted information on its Facebook page, sharing whatever information is available in Spanish.

The pages latest posts offer numbers to the San Antonio Food Bank and Metro Health; news of the suspension of CPS Energy disconnections; and information about bus schedules and food for children at school campuses.

A couple of years ago, a few of its members gathered on the sidewalk in front of H-E-Bs Central Market and held signs advocating for a living wage, demanding respect for the contractual work arrangements on which housekeepers depend.

They picked the spot in hopes employers might notice, but the reality is such workers are invisible, even to many of those who employ them.

Besides invisible, they feel excluded and abandoned, too.

Las mujeres, as Herrera says, are growing more desperate.

They hardly make enough to survive, says Teresa Barajas, a former leader of the group.

Domesticas Unidas did get some good news recently. The National Domestic Workers Alliance, with which its connected, awarded it $20,000 in emergency aid. The local group received 50 credit cards each loaded with $400. Theyve been distributed.

Domesticas Unidas asked the city Friday not to forget its housekeepers who clean and cook and care for children and the elderly.

In a letter translated from its original Spanish, the group asked Mayor Ron Nirenberg and the City Council for help. The letter cites the yellow fever scare in Laredo in the early 1900s. Affluent families fled the city and housekeepers were left behind, the letter says.

As history repeats itself, dont leave us out of the share of resources, the letter says. We need help as much as other workers, perhaps more so because we are poorer.

A city spokeswoman said such workers will be eligible to tap into additional Risk Mitigation Funds that will cover rent and household expenses.

Immigration status will have no bearing on aid, the spokeswoman said.

The citys Immigrant Services Office works with individuals and families to identify available resources, she said. They should call 311. Immigrants who access any of these benefits will not face negative consequences for using these services.

The council will vote on an additional $16 million next Thursday. It may help 10,000 families with an average of $1,500 each.

We already know its not enough.

Other organizations will press city government for a separate fund aimed at those who wont receive a federal stimulus check. This push is evolving.

I watched Herrera do outreach work to the citys housekeepers many years ago, near Travis and East Pecan streets, a busy tersection. She told me to be there at 6 a.m., the best time to catch housekeepers on their way to work.

It was a vivid scene that showcased a citys extraordinary work ethic. Still, the collection of tired bodies showed their days start early and end late.

What Herrera said then stays with me.

The women carrying their supplies in tattered plastic shopping bags were headed to work in Alamo Heights, Olmos Park, Monte Vista and other northern reaches of San Antonio.

eayala@express-news.net
The governor of Kaduna state, Nasir El-Rufai has expressed his sadness over the death of Abba Kyari, President Muhammadu Buharis Chief of staff.

The Kaduna state governor, who is also a coronavirus (COVID-19) patient described Kyaris passing as shocking.

He said via his Twitter handle on Saturday that Kyari died in the service of President Buhari and Nigeria, while praying that his family have the fortitude to bear the loss.

Read Also: BREAKING: Chief Of Staff To The President, Abba Kyari Is Dead

He said: This is absolutely shocking but From God we came, & to Him we shall all return. May the soul of Abba rest in perfect peace. May Allah Accept his martyrdom as he died in the service of PMB & Nigeria. May Allah give Aisha, her siblings & family the fortitude to bear the loss. NAE.
The Health Department would



launch close monitoring with necessary standard operating procedures at all hospitals here to contain possible spread of COVID-19 from April 20 when lockdown relaxations are relaxed, Puducherry Health minister Malladi Krishna Rao said on Saturday.

He said restrictions would be relaxed from Monday and this would pave the way for influx of large number of people from neighbouring states to Puducherry for health care services.

"We should be very careful and vigilant as any imported infection would be a great problem for Puducherry which now has established an encouraging record of containing the spread of the infection," Rao said.

He said the turnout at the out-patient departments in hospitals would be high following relaxation of the lockdown restrictions.

"We face no problem within Puducherry but once people from outside the Union Territory surge into Puducherry we will face certain difficulties and hence a close monitoring would be necessary in a coordinated manner," he added.

He said Puducherry had eight positive cases.

Of them six were in the Indira Gandhi Government General Hospital and Research Institute in Puducherry and two of these patients had already been discharged following recovery.

Mahe,an enclave of Puducherry in Kerala, reported discharge of one person and death of another in neighbouring Kerala hospital recently.

He said that door-to-door surveillance had also been launched by teams of health professionals to assess the health status of the people.

So far 2,35,324 houses were surveyed by the teams covering around 8.96 lakh people.

"The surveillance would continue to cover the entire population in the Union Territory," he said.

Secretary to Health Prashant Kumar Panda, who was also present,said the strict adherence to the norms of social distancing and voluntary isolation on the part of the people had been chiefly responsible for keeping the spread of the virus at bay in the union territory.

"Of the total 1184 samples tested under the RTCRT system 1017 people tested negative," he said.

Director of Health and Family Welfare Services S Mohan Kumar said the government hospital here,which has been designated as COVID-19 institution, is fully equipped to meet any exigency.

There were 35 ventilators and 25 more ventilators would be available in the next few days.

He said no new case of COVID-19 had been reported during the last 15 days in the union territory.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US 'black hands' behind HK education shows need for national security law

Global Times

By Chen Qingqing and Wang Wenwen Source:Global Times Published: 2020/4/17 22:02:13

The Fulbright Program - a flagship interna-tional educational exchange program of the US Department of State in China's Hong Kong Special Administration Region (HKSAR) - has become a major platform for training students as part of anti-mainland forces while intervening in local education and manipulating important courses of higher education, local media reports said, reflecting "black hands" of the US behind of chaos in the city and that passage of the national security law is highly necessary, analysts said.

As early as 2012 when HKSAR conducted 334 curriculum reforms, the US Consulate sent 25 Fulbright scholars in the name of assisting the reform to the city, advising and helping design a liberal studies curriculum and relevant training, which has become a major way of manipulating the important courses of higher education in Hong Kong, local news site wenweipo.com reported on Thursday.

While the Fulbright Program was originally designed to be an academic exchange platform between the Chinese mainland, the US, and HK and Macao SARs, after the US regarded China as the number one opponent, the US-Hong Kong exchange platform that has been established and operating in Hong Kong for many years has now turned into an anti-mainland tool, the media report said.

Hong Kong school students were major groups in anti-extradition bill protests since June 2019, which have become street riots and lasted for months, dragging the once-prosperous Asian financial hub into long-term stagnation.

Black-clad rioters even turned some Hong Kong universities into war zone in November, forcing hundreds of students to flee from uni-versities such as the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the City University of Hong Kong following clashes between rioters and police at the campus.

Wong Kam-leung, chairman of Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers, told the Global Times Friday that since Hong Kong's return to the Chinese mainland in 1997, for-eign interference in Hong Kong's affairs has been visible and Hong Kong's higher educa-tion has been affected profoundly.

He noted that during the Occupy Central movement in 2014, university students held protests under the incitement of Benny Tai Yiu-ting who now teaches law at the University of Hong Kong.

Tai has been alleged of receiving funds indi-rectly from the US government and was seen attending forums and activities hosted by the National Endowment for Democracy and the National Democratic Institute.

Tai also compiled and reviewed Hong Kong's general education textbooks.

"Hong Kong's young people can easily be in-fluenced by local forces while foreign funds and support are behind these local forces," Wong said.

The Hong Kong-American Center led by the US Consulate in Hong Kong implemented brainwashing education as scholars participated in Hong Kong's liberal studies planning and enjoyed high salaries and free accommodation, wenweipo.com said, noting that from 2006 to 2012, 25 Fulbright program scholars helped fund liberal studies program.

The entire first-hand general education project planned by Washington received a grant of HK$96 million ($12.4 million), and three scholars were assigned to each university, according to the report, indicating that these scholars are responsible for the general education of eight universities in Hong Kong, and work closely with Hong Kong scholars in various fields such as curriculum design, effectiveness of general planning programs and evaluation methods, influencing local education with American ideas.

While external forces have utilized the free-dom in Hong Kong to concoct many anti-government protests to render Hong Kong anarchy and materialize it as a base for destabilizing the central government's rule of the whole of China, more calls for supporting the national security law emerged, as the special administrative region needs to improve the legal system for safeguarding national security.

"Hong Kong cannot be a place posing latent danger to national security. Education about national security is necessary, and enactment of article 23 is of great urgency," Wong said.

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Occupying 131 acres in Long Island Sound, off the Bronx shore, Hart Island is the largest public burial ground in the United States. It has been New York Citys public burial ground for more than 150 years, and it is the final resting place of more than 1 million individuals  mostly bodies that went unclaimed or those whose families were not able to afford a burial.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, it is being pressed into service as a temporary resting place for deceased New Yorkers whose internments have been postponed.

Coronavirus deaths in the city reached a total of more than 11,000 this week. This spike in mortality has overwhelmed city-run morgues, funeral homes, crematoriums and private cemeteries. The disease has disproportionately affected low-income and minority communities, leading to more burials on Hart island.

Not all of those buried at Hart Island during the pandemic are people who had no next of kin or could not afford a funeral. Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters last week that temporary burials may be necessary until the crisis passes. Families that have a loved one buried at Hart Island who were unable to retain a funeral home and choose a city burial will have the opportunity to disinter and relocate their relatives remains.

According to the citys Department of Correction, which has been running burial operations on the island since 1869, employing inmates at the nearby Rikers Island jail, burials on the island have increased to about 24 a day, up from three or four before the pandemic hit.

For now, the use of inmates to dig graves has been discontinued.

The process used to bury the unclaimed on Hart Island is not new. It just has become more visible during this crisis, since the city has shortened the length of time it will hold unclaimed remains in morgues, from 30 days to 14.

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 09: Burials take place on Hart Island on April 9, 2020 in the Bronx borough of New York. Hart Island's potter's field has experienced an influx of burials during the Coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Andrew Theodorakis/Getty Images)

There is no federal law regarding how to treat unclaimed bodies, and the procedures vary by state. In New York, these bodies cannot be cremated, based on the centuries-old common-law principle of right of sepulcher, which gives the next of kin the right to choose and control the final disposition of the deceased. A violation of these rights could lead to a lawsuit.

Story continues

This is not the first time that Hart Island has been used in this capacity. Since the mid-1800s, it has served as a burial ground for victims of epidemics, including the Spanish flu and AIDS.

De Blasio took to Twitter last week to respond to concerns over possible mass burials on the island due to the pandemic.

The heartbreaking numbers of deaths were seeing means we are sadly losing more people without family or friends to bury them privately. Those are the people who will be buried on Hart Island, with every measure of respect and dignity New York City can provide.  There will be no mass burials on Hart Island. Everything will be individual, and every body will be treated with dignity.

One of the reasons some people expressed concern about the way COVID-19 victims were being buried on Hart Island is because of drone footage that circulated recently. The images and videos show burial crews in freshly dug trenches, stacking bare wooden boxes on top of each other. For many, this method of burial, paired with the stigma associated with inmate labor, did not seem a dignified way to lay these victims to rest.

Melinda Hunt, founder and director of Hart Island Project, a nonprofit organization that has supported families of the buried and advocated for public access to the site, told Yahoo News that people should not fear this process.

Theres no reason to look at this as a dark place.  After 150 years, its no longer inmates burying the dead on Hart Island.The Department of Correction has transferred jurisdiction to [the Parks and Recreation Department, which has] now hired contractors to bury all of the bodies due to COVID-19.

Related Video: Web AR CoronaDaily

Last winter, the New York City Council passed legislation to make Hart Island a public park, where citizens can freely visit graves. The citys Parks and Recreation Department assumed jurisdiction shortly after and will be taking over the islands management by July 1, 2021.

Its really a wide open, natural landscape, full of deer and birds. Its really a beautiful and peaceful location, said Hunt.

She also says that the system used by the city to bury the dead may look shocking, but it is efficient and carried out respectfully.

The medical examiner handles all of the bodies that are sent to Hart Island. Theres a lot of paperwork. Those refrigerator trucks that youre seeing at hospitals, those dont go straight to Hart Island, Hunt said. Each box is an individual, the family is contacted. If a funeral director does not show up [at the morgue] within 14 days to receive the body, then this is the only thing that the city can do with the body.

Hunt says Hart Island has always been misunderstood, but that New Yorkers should know it is an honorable place to be buried.

It is such a terrible time that people cannot be with their relatives at the end of life and say goodbye, and theres so much tragedy, but this is one thing people should not fear what the city is doing. This system of burials has been used ... and it works quite well. she said.

_____

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Grade school students will not return to their campuses this year.

Gov. Greg Abbott announced that school closures will be extended through the end of the school year while putting forward a plan to limit social distancing measures on Friday. In addition to closing schools, the plan will allow retailers to open drive-up operations this week, doctors in non-frontline specialties to resume some procedures beginning Wednesday and reopen state parks.

Public school districts, including Humble ISD, will continue to provide online instruction through the remainder of the school year to avoid losing state funding and extending their calendars.

The decision also ensures the states 350,000-plus high school seniors will not return to class before graduation.

Many districts have pushed back graduation ceremonies into the summer, though it remains to be seen whether public health officials will advise against holding those gatherings. Humble ISD officials said they will try to have a graduation ceremony.

It is our goal for our seniors to have the opportunity to wear their caps and gowns, and hear their names called in front of their families when it is safe to do so, the district said in a letter to parents. While we cannot finalize plans with the current limitations in place, please know that we intend to communicate potential dates next week.

District officials also updated plans for distance learning and said construction on bond projects continue. Students will not have to make up days while the building is closed and grades accrued during the final nine-week stretch of the school year will not negatively impact students. However, students can improve their semester course average.

There will be no final exams this semester. Elementary teachers will provide feedback and record completion of selected learning opportunities. Elementary teachers will not record numerical grades, the statement said. These grading procedures are designed to provide flexibility and balance as families navigate the challenges of working and learning from home.

Additionally, the district announced Foster Elementary School as the seventh location for meal distributions and said elementary school grounds and middle school tracks will remain open, allowing parents and students an opportunity to work out or use district WiFi to complete online assignments. Free curbside carry-out meal locations now include Elm Grove Elementary, Oaks Elementary, Ridge Creek Elementary, River Pines Elementary, Humble Middle School, Foster Elementary and Ross Sterling Middle School.

Please continue to contact campus administrators, your child's counselor or teachers, with any questions or concerns you may have. We are focused on supporting your childs well-being, learning and success, the statement read.

chris.shelton@chron.com
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > Release Dr. G. N. Saibaba from Nagpur Central Jail

Committee for the Defence and Release of Dr. GN Saibaba

11th April 2020

Press Release

Over the last six years, the health of Dr. G. N. Saibaba, incarcerated in Nagpur Central Jail, has deteriorated alarmingly. Prof. Saibaba is a teacher of English at the University of Delhi and is a human rights activist. Due to post-polio residual paralysis of his lower limbs, he is over ninety percent physically disabled and wheelchair bound. Since incarceration, he has developed severe additional ailments that have resulted in irreparable loss to his health. On May 9th 2014, he was abducted from Delhi by the Maharashtra Police and charged under several sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). None of the electronic documents supposedly seized from G.N. Saibabas house were displayed in the court or tested through any witness or made part of the course of evidence. These electronic documents were directly brought only as part of 313 statement, and not the main course of evidence. The judge rejected all Supreme Court judgments regarding bringing these documents which were not part of the course of evidence as part of 313. These documents used were not a part of the trial. Gadchiroli Sessions court gave life imprisonment on March 7th 2017 to Dr. GN Saibaba along with five others. Excluding a brief reprieve in 2016, he has been kept in the solitary anda cell of Nagpur Central Jail since arrest. With Indian jails filled beyond capacity and lacking in basic medical facilities, and with the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the country particularly affecting the aged and those with serious pre-existing medical conditions, Dr. G. N. Saibabas future looks exceedingly bleak.

Throughout his political life, Dr. G. N. Saibaba has been a vocal advocate for the rights of Adivasis, Dalits, Muslims and other oppressed communities. He has spoken against the state sponsored attack on people in Central India under Operation Green Hunt. He stood by his students and advocated for democratic principles and social justice within the university. He has never shied away from speaking his mind and has worked tirelessly to uphold the spirit of democracy. While hospitals in Nagpur and jail authorities have stated that they lack of facilities needed to care for a person with such severe disabilities and ailments, he remains incarcerated, untreated and denied bail. Nonetheless, he retains the spirit of struggle, even when dehumanised by the lack of medical facilities and denied the basic fundamental right of a life with dignity.

Dr. G. N. Saibaba suffers severe physical pain caused by the degeneration of muscles in his hands. He is plagued by pancreatitis, high blood pressure, Cardiomyopathy, chronic back pain, immobility and sleeplessness. The weather conditions of Nagpur, magnified by the windowless solitary anda cell have even strained the functioning of his heart. Consequently, his physical ailments intensified while the lack of pain relief and neglect due to inadequate medical facilities further debilitate his already fragile health. Despite interventions made by the National Human Rights Commission and authorities of international human rights organisations, the Courts have repeatedly denied him bail.

The Supreme Court of India has upheld the right to life and reflected on prisoners observing that the treatment of a human being which offends human dignity, imposes avoidable torture and reduces the man to the level of a beast would certainly be arbitrary and can be questioned under Article 14. India is also a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which recognises the inherent dignity of human beings and the ideal of free human beings enjoying civil and political freedom. Furthermore, India has ratified the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on October 1st 2007. India has even adopted the United Nations Resolution 70/175 on Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (also known as the Nelson Mandela Rules). These covenants, conventions and resolutions ensure life and dignity to all persons, prisoners and persons with disabilities and layout the essential parameters necessary for its implementation. When the National Crime Records Bureau states that prisons across the country prison are filled at 117% with Maharashtra exceeding the average at 149%, the impact of the spread of the COVID-19 virus in such a space is likely to be a death sentence for Dr. Saibaba.

The Committee for the Defence and Release of Dr. GN Saibaba fears for his life and appeals to the Government of India and the Government of Maharashtra for the immediate release of Dr. G. N. Saibaba, in light of the impending threat to his life from the COVID-19 virus. The committee urges all democratic organisations and individuals to appeal for the release of all political prisoners.
The broad scientific consensus holds that SARS-CoV-2, the official name of the coronavirus, originated in bats.

Paris: France said on Friday there was no evidence so far of a link between the new coronavirus and the work of the P4 research laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the current pandemic started.

We would like to make it clear that there is to this day no factual evidence corroborating the information recently circulating in the United States press that establishes a link between the origins of COVID-19 and the work of the P4 laboratory of Wuhan, China, an official at President Emmanuel Macrons office said.

The broad scientific consensus holds that SARS-CoV-2, the official name of the coronavirus, originated in bats.

In 2004, France signed an agreement with China to establish a research lab on infectious diseases of biosafety level 4, the highest level, in Wuhan, according to a French decree signed by then-foreign minister Michel Barnier.

US president Donald Trump said on Wednesday his government was trying to determine whether the coronavirus emanated from a lab in Wuhan, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Beijing needs to come clean on what they know.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that US intelligence indicates that the coronavirus likely occurred naturally, as opposed to being created in a laboratory in China, but there is no certainty either way.

The Washington Post said this week that national security officials in the Trump administration have long suspected research facilities in Wuhan to be the source of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

As far back as February, the Chinese State-backed Wuhan Institute of Virology dismissed rumours that the virus may have been artificially synthesized at one of its laboratories or perhaps escaped from such a facility.
NORTHWEST ANGLE 33 FIRST NATION, ONT.At a reserve in Ontario on the corner of Manitoba and Minnesota, surrounded by lakes and vast swaths of boreal forest, Lara Stovern collects water from a pump house in case her reserve runs out of clean drinking water and needs to start boiling it again.

Stovern is a band councillor for Northwest Angle 33 First Nation who lives in an old house with no running water. She and other residents depend on bottled water. All of them are now preparing for an extended period of isolation, as they try to keep COVID-19 at bay. They have no dedicated grocery store, so rationing the clean drinking water they have has become a priority.

Stovern sits at her kitchen table talking to the reserves security team, who turn away people who are not from the reserve. Beside her sits a binder titled Pandemic Plan & Protocols. The lake, which acts as the communitys ice road, is starting to melt and she is bringing the security team back closer to land.

You imagine the worst-case scenario and then you think this probably wouldnt happen, and then it does, says Stovern.

Remote Indigenous communities with poor infrastructure and a lack of access to clean drinking water are particularly susceptible to an outbreak of a virus or disease.

Before the Assembly of First Nations declared a state of emergency over the COVID-19 pandemic, Northwest Angle 33 had already implemented a shutdown due to the excess strain on band resources. Access to the community is now limited to band members, their family members and a construction crew working on a new water treatment facility.

Right now the big concern is our drinking water, never mind the (new water treatment) plant itself, says Stovern. Its unknown what thats going to play out like moving forward.

In February 2019, Northwest Angle 33 received $9.7 million for a water treatment plant as part of the federal governments commitment to end long-term drinking water advisories in Indigenous communities by spring 2021. COVID-19 has put that deadline at risk.

Other First Nations have also implemented community shutdowns. And as at Northwest Angle 33, concerns over access to clean drinking water have surfaced, especially for those reliant on bottled water and awaiting the construction and maintenance of water treatment facilities.

Stovern says the main thing is protecting band members and their limited resources, such as bottled water.

During his recent press briefings in Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has commented that we live in unprecedented times, that the country has never had to make the kinds of decisions it is making now. Its the same conversation Stovern had with other council members.

As the federal government prepares to send $305 million in COVID-19 aid to First Nations, Inuit and Metis Nation communities, there is much uncertainty about the fate of infrastructure projects.

Indigenous Services Canada Minister Marc Miller said it isnt known how the pandemic will affect the deadline for lifting long-term drinking water advisories.

A spokesperson for Indigenous Services said the COVID-19 pandemic is having impacts on the progress of major projects and that they are monitoring and are working with First Nations to mitigate the effects. The financial implications are also unknown.

The AFN has pressed the federal government to work with provincial officials to extend use of winter roads during this difficult period. The roads are critical infrastructure for the transfer of goods and services.

On the Angle Inlet reserve in Northwest Angle 33, residents are regularly isolated each spring and fall before the lake either freezes or melts, becoming their road, the only access for supplies, including water.

Northwest Angle 33 Chief Darlene Comegan has been lobbying for a road for years.

If only we had a road, we wouldnt be worried about access to the basic necessities like water, food or transportation for our people, says Comegan. We wouldnt worry about crossing the border or losing a life from unstable ice.

COVID-19 has exposed even more infrastructure concerns on the reserve, such as no professional health and nursing services, or food security.

We dont have the infrastructure to set up an operations centre in the event we come in contact with the virus, says Comegan. No one listens.

Comegan says Kenora, Ont., MP Eric Melillo is currently lobbying for a road on their behalf.

The AFN has said it has been assured that Indigenous citizens, who have distinct treaty rights, will not be affected by the current U.S.-Canada border closures.

In early April, the mayor of Kenora called for an end to non-essential travel between Manitoba and Ontario. And as the virus spreads, more services and stores in cities and towns close and more band members return home to Northwest Angle 33s Angle Inlet reserve.

Security checkpoints are set up on the lake, the reserves winter road, to deny access to those who are not from the reserve. The panic buying in Kenora came at a particularly bad time for this remote community, which was already planning for its few weeks of isolation during the spring break-up of the ice road.

Jonathan Mallet and Victoria McPherson, water haulers for Angle Inlet, planned ahead. They hauled water across the frozen lake from Kenora for 20 days straight to stockpile the reserve with jugs of clean water.

The journey to fetch clean water normally takes eight hours, in which this family must cross through the U.S. border to reach Manitoba, and then re-enter Ontario.

We were planning for March Break and started ahead of time, says Mallet. They saw the virus coming and worked every day for a while.

As of March 18, Mallet says the community had 400 jugs of water. But the company they purchase water from in Kenora is in high demand right now and has experienced bottle shortages. Now, an empty bottle must be exchanged if you are to receive another full jug.

The bottled water is stocked and rationed at the community hall, which is uphill from the lake and farther along a dirt road. Mallet says the floors bend under the weight of the water. During winter freeze-up and fall break-up, the water jugs replace the furniture in the community hall, a few hundred jugs for the weeks during which they remain stranded.

Mallett has been hauling water since 2014, shortly before his daughter was born. A year later, he asked for assistance and the reserve started paying his fiancee to help. The reserve does not have specific funding to pay for the water haul and was forced to take money from the budget for their decaying water systems.

Lili Sioui is the Angle Inlet reserves only water operator and has been the point of contact for the construction team that has been hauling equipment across the lake over the past month.

Sioui says the plan is to have the contractors continue working on the water treatment plant. The construction company has included safety measures such as keeping away from community members, she says.

But the future is uncertain. Sioui says they are working with the Kenora Chiefs Advisory to ensure they have food, water and medical supplies.

With the ice (road) about to go and our boundary issues its been quite a learning experience for everyone, says Sioui. I would like to think our emergency planning will now take a leap to the front of our concerns.

Sioui hopes that this experience draws attention to her communitys need for an all-season road.

This would bypass the border issues and improve the overall services to members, she says.

A spokesperson for the Canadian Border Service Agency said in a statement that at this time, healthy, non-symptomatic people for whom crossing the border on a day-to-day basis is essential for work and daily life will still be permitted to cross the border.

All health screening at the border is based on queries and questionnaires.
Following are the latest Corporate Social Responsibility news releases and story ideas available from Business Wire. These recaps, curated by Business Wire, provide reporters and bloggers around the globe instant access to the latest news releases, providing relevant and trending content to share with their audiences. Discover more news via Business Wires Hot Topic recaps or create a custom news feed specific to your needs here. This service is provided at no charge to members of the media and financial communities.

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TORONTO -- Facedrive Announces Partnership with Middlesex-London Health Unit to Offer Transportation Assistance Amid COVID-19 Pandemic Source: Facedrive Inc.

NEWARK, Del. -- Sallie Mae Issues Inaugural Corporate Social Responsibility Report Source: Sallie Mae

WASHINGTON -- Siemens Foundation Provides $1.5M Across 12 Community Health Centers to Support COVID-19 Response Efforts Source: Siemens Corporation

BOSTON -- ezCaters Feed the Front Line Program Sends Over 20,000 Meals to Hospitals Nationwide Source: ezCater

JEFFERSON, La. -- MaxHome Announces They Are Honoring Health Care Professionals and First Responders for Their Service During COVID-19 Source: MaxHome

NEW YORK -- PVH Corp. Pledges $2M Toward COVID-19 Relief Efforts Source: PVH Corp.

TORONTO -- Facedrive Launches Health Initiative to Assist Frontline Healthcare Workers in COVID-19 Response Source: Facedrive Inc.

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J. -- Hellmanns Establishes Food Relief Fund to Help Feed Frontline Workers & New Yorkers in Need Source: Unilever

PARIS -- Teleperformance Receives 10th Employer Recognition Award in 2020 Source: Teleperformance

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The New Normal: Homes As Safe Sanctuaries for Living, Playing, Working and Learning - Lessons from Burh Becc at Beacon Springs Source: Architectural Resource

PITTSBURGH -- PPG commits more than $1.5 million to support global COVID-19 relief efforts Source: PPG

PRINCETON, N.J. -- NRG Energy Joins Forces with Project HOPE to Deliver Protective Gear to Americas Frontline Health Workers Source: NRG Energy

READING, Pa. -- UGI Energy Services, LLC Develops Virtual Food Drives in Partnership with area Food Banks Source: UGI Energy Services, LLC

DALLAS, AMSTERDAM & SHANGHAI -- Celanese Launches Sustainability on Celanese.com Source: Celanese Corporation

CLEVELAND -- Eaton and Regional Manufacturing Partners Support Ohio Medical Workers with 360,000 Face Shields in Battle Against New Coronavirus Source: Eaton

DENVER -- Newmont Establishes $20 Million Community Support Fund Source: Newmont Corporation

EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- Berry Global Ahead of Schedule for Impact 2025 Sustainability Strategy Source: Berry Global Group, Inc.

NEW YORK -- Voya Foundation Announces Distance Learning Funding for COVID-19 Relief Source: Voya Financial, Inc.

TORONTO -- Facedrive Announces Closing of Acquisition of HiRide Source: Facedrive Inc.

PARIS -- Teleperformances achievements in the fight against COVID-19 Source: Teleperformance

NEW YORK -- spare Launches New Solution to Assist New Yorkers in Crisis Source: spare

NEW YORK -- Pfizer and The Pfizer Foundation Donate $40 Million in Charitable Grants, Expand Product Access and Mobilize Colleagues to Combat COVID-19 Pandemic Source: Pfizer Inc.

TORONTO -- HiRide Launches New Product Extension, HiRide Social Source: HiRide Share Ltd

MONTVALE, N.J. -- Benjamin Moore & Painting Contractors Association Join Forces to Combat COVID-19 Source: Benjamin Moore

NEW YORK -- Colgate Supports the World Health Organization (WHO) #SafeHands Effort to help stop the spread of COVID-19 Source: Colgate-Palmolive

JACKSON, Miss. -- Molpus Woodlands Group Purchases 66,946 Acres in Southeast Mississippi Source: The Molpus Woodlands Group, LLC

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Horace Mann showcases commitment to stakeholders as company reflects on 75 years of serving educators Source: Horace Mann Educators Corporation

NEW YORK -- Digimind Offers Free Access to its Solution to Help NGOs and Governments Manage the COVID-19 Crisis Source: Digimind

PRINCETON, N.J. -- NRG Energy, Inc. Pledges $2 Million To COVID-19 Relief Efforts Source: NRG Energy, Inc.

TORONTO -- Facedrive Expands Green Ridesharing Network to Ottawa, Canadas Capital Source: Facedrive Inc.

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China has dispatched three lakh more Rapid Antibody Test kits being used for quick detection of the COVID-19 to India, the Indian envoy said on Saturday.

About three lakh Rapid Antibody Test kits were airlifted to Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu from the Chinese city of Guangzhou, Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri said.

Nearly 3 Lakh Rapid Antibody Tests have just been airlifted by @airindiain from #Guangzhou | Supplies are headed to Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. Great work on ground by our team at @cgiguangzhou Misri tweeted.

This is in addition to 6.50 lakh Antibody Tests and RNA Extraction Kits sent from here.

India is procuring the medical supplies from China in recent weeks to ensure availability of adequate supplies.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Australian Labor Senator Rented Airbnb During Lockdown

Australian Senator Deborah ONeill says all future bookings for her coastal NSW Airbnb property have been cancelled, except for those by essential workers, amid a report that guests stayed there this month.

A spokeswoman for the federal politician confirmed to The Daily Telegraph that guests stayed at the Central Coast home from April 6-8.

Senator ONeill told the newspaper all bookers were informed that occupants must comply with the COVID-19 changes to the law.

The senator later told the newspaper unless someone is an essential service worker, all future bookings have been cancelled.

Non-essential travel to regional towns in NSW has been banned to curb the spread of coronavirus.

NSW Liberal MP Don Harwin resigned from his post as arts minister and was fined $1000 this month after it was revealed he had moved to his Central Coast holiday home.

NSW Police Minister David Elliott said all landlords have a responsibility to adhere to the Health Act and also the spirit of the law.

Its extremely disappointing that this Labor politician (Senator ONeill) has refused to heed the ongoing warnings, he said.

Sydney
A company or an individual from a country that shares land border with India can invest in any sector here only after getting government approval, according to DPIIT.

The decision, which is likely to impact foreign investments from countries like China, has been taken to curb "opportunistic takeovers or acquisitions" of domestic firms due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Currently, government permission is mandatory only for investments coming from Bangladesh and Pakistan.

"An entity of a country, which shares land border with India or where the beneficial owner of an investment into India is situated in or is a citizen of any such country, can invest only under the government route," according to a press note by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

It said the Government of India has reviewed the Foreign Direct Investment Policy to curb "opportunistic takeovers/acquisitions" of Indian companies due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

A company can invest in India, subject to the FDI policy except in those sectors or activities that are prohibited.

"Citizen of Bangladesh or an entity incorporated in Bangladesh can invest only under the government route. Further, a citizen of Pakistan or an entity incorporated in Pakistan can invest, only under the government route, in sectors/activities other than defence, space, atomic energy and sectors/activities prohibited for foreign investment," it added.

Commenting on this, Nangia Andersen LLP Director Sandeep Jhunjhunwala said Chinese tech investors have put an estimated USD 4 billion of greenfield investments into Indian start-ups, as per the estimates of the India-China Economic and Cultural Council.

"Such is their pace that over the last few years, 18 out of India's 30 unicorns are Chinese-funded. Overall, time is right for India to safeguard longer-term considerations and protect its technology ecosystem by blocking hostile deals and effectively dealing with the looming challenge posed by Chinese tech companies," he said.

DPIIT also said that in the event of the transfer of ownership of any existing or future FDI in an entity in India, directly or indirectly, resulting in the beneficial ownership falling within the restriction, "such subsequent change in beneficial ownership will also require government approval".

India received FDI from China worth USD 2.34 billion (Rs 14.846 crore) between April 2000 and December 2019.

The countries sharing land border with India include Bangladesh, China, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
There is a staffing crisis inside New Jersey nursing homes that Gov. Phil Murphy could address by sending in the National Guard to bolster the thinning ranks of employees infected by the coronavirus, a prominent geriatric physician said Friday.

The governor already has dispatched the the National Guard to distribute personal protective equipment and food and help assemble field hospitals. Last week, 75 medics were sent to the state veterans homes in Edison and Paramus as an increasing number of employees are out sick.

With nursing home residents making up 40 percent of all COVID-19 deaths in New Jersey, its time to deploy the national guard to any long-term care facility in peril, according to an open letter from David Barile, the medical director of Geriatric and Palliative Services at UPENN Hospital of Princeton and founder of Goals of Care Coalition of New Jersey, which promotes palliative care.

Most of our frail elders in nursing and assisted living facilities require hands on assistance with basic functions such as eating, toileting and bathing. In the current lock-down environment where all are kept in their rooms (or should be), elders are not being fed, cleaned, nor cared for with regard to their basic needs,'' Barile wrote in his letter.

Many are left bedbound for days, likely to result in bedsores and subsequent illnesses such as pneumonia and fractures due to falls."

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Businesses that are open | Homepage

Bariles said he based his recommendation on what he has observed with his own patients. One COVID-19 positive patient he visited at an assisted living facility was not wearing a mask and sitting in the common area.

"When I inquired how this could possibly happen, the response was due to lack of staffing, " Bariles letter said.

Guardsman and guardswoman who lack medical training may help feed residents or deliver medication, under the health departments supervision, the letter said.

The staffing crises impacts care for those not only presently suffering from COVID, but all residents of elder care facilities, Barile said.

During his daily briefing on the outbreak, Murphy on Saturday said deploying members of the national guard to nursing homes continues to be an option on the table.

In all, New Jersey, a state of 9 million residents, has now seen at least 78,467 confirmed cases and 3,840 deaths of COVID-19. Only New York has more cases and deaths among U.S. states.

Of those, there have been at least 9,094 cases and 1,530 deaths within 384 longterm care facilities in New Jersey reporting at least one positive COVID-19 case, officials said Friday.

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.

If you would like updates on New Jersey-specific coronavirus news, subscribe to our Coronavirus in N.J. newsletter.

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio.
Daraz donates more than 20,000 COVID19 testing kits View(s):

Alibaba Group, the parent company of Daraz Sri Lanka, has been one of the groups at the forefront in the worldwide fight against COVID-19 through continuous supplies of medical support to Asia, Africa, Europe and North America.

Following the donation of 100,000 masks two weeks ago, the Alibaba and Jack Ma Foundations donated 20,064 COVID-19 test kits to the Ministry of Health on Wednesday. The donation was handed over by the Managing Director of Daraz Sri Lanka, Rakhil Fernando on behalf of the donor foundations to the Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, Daraz said in a media release.

The test kits that were flown down to Sri Lanka from Shanghai on a special flight, will help the government in identifying potential COVID-19 patients more efficiently, thereby allowing the frontline medical teams to provide immediate care to reduce the spread and help in flattening the curve. The kits are produced by DAAN Gene Co. a globally renowned listed company focused on R&D and manufacturing of in-vitro diagnostic products. The estimated total donations and healthcare support value from Darazs parent company to Sri Lanka has been Rs. 50 million so far.

Mr. Fernando also discussed the current situation of the country with the Prime Minister and emphasised on Darazs capacity to serve around 15,000 households daily through their extended seller base and large logistical network.
Schlumberger, the largest oil field service company, said Friday it lost $7.4 billion in the first quarter. Then its CEO said the second quarter will be worse.

The company attributed the loss to writing down the value of assets by $8.5 billion because of oil prices at 20-year lows and the collapse of demand created by shutdown orders during the coronavirus pandemic.

In response, Schlumberger during the quarter laid off 1,500 people in North America, cut executive pay and put most of its remaining employees on furloughs. The company also slashed its dividend by 75 percent, paying 12.5 cents compared with its previous payout of 50 cents. Yet CEO Olivier Le Peuch said the second quarter will be the most uncertain and disruptive quarter that the industry has ever seen.

Although OPEC, its allies and other oil-producing nations agreed this month to cut global oil production by 10 million barrels a day, the pandemic is reducing global demand by at least double that amount, according to some estimates. As a result, Schlumberger isnt offering specific guidance to investors on the companys second-quarter financial performance.

First, it is very difficult to model or predict the frequency or magnitude of the COVID-19 disruption on field operations, Le Peuch said. Second, it is too early to judge the impact of the recent OPEC+ decision on the level of international activity as well as its repercussion on storage levels globally and related risks of production shut-ins.

More Information Layoffs in the Oil Field Nearly a dozen oilfield service companies that have confirmed laying off at least a combined 8,700 people in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and elsewhere during the first two weeks of April. Weatherford 6,000 Halliburton 1,172 Turner Industries 645 Zachry 288 Baker Hughes 234 NexTier Oilfield Solutions 88 Pacific Drilling 82 STEP Energy Services 76 Universal Pressure Pumping 70 Capital Sand Permian 50 ProPetro 39 Total 8,744 Source: Texas Workforce Commission, Oklahoma Office of Workforce Development, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission See More Collapse

Downturn: Oil & gas industry sheds more than 6,000 jobs in one day

Still, the company appears to be taking steps to prepare. The dividend reduction saves the company an estimated $500 million per quarter, which it will use to pay down about $2 billion of debt due over three years, said Vebs Vaishnav, an analyst with the investment arm of Scotiabank. The company, he said, also stands to save $25 million a quarter from first-quarter layoffs.

Schlumberger, one of the first publicly traded energy companies to report quarterly earnings, sets the tone for the industry and in particular the oil field service sector, which includes drilling rig operators, equipment manufacturers and hydraulic fracturing crews.

Houston oil field service company Halliburton reports earnings Monday, and competitors TechnipFMC and Baker Hughes will report Wednesday, but there are already signs of strain.

On top of budget cuts and other cost-reducing measures, Halliburton and Baker Hughes were among nearly a dozen oil field service companies that have confirmed laying off a combined 8,700 people in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and other locations during the first two weeks of April.

Meanwhile, TechnipFMC is postponing plans to split into two companies until economic conditions improve. But that could be a while, as exploration and production companies slash drilling and completion budgets. The number of active drilling rigs in the United States fell by 73 to 529, according to data released Friday by Baker Hughes, a level not seen since the most recent oil bust four years ago.

Fuel Fix: Get energy news sent directly to your inbox

Among the biggest challenges facing oil field service companies are the frac holidays, temporary halts to shale drilling, that exploration and production companies are taking during the second quarter, said Byron Pope, who analyzes the oil field service sector for Houston investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.

Producers typically slow down or take a break from hydraulic fracturing from Thanksgiving until a few days after New Years Day. But taking such a break during the second quarter, Pope said, is unusual and speaks to the unprecedented nature of the current oil downturn.

We have never seen a quarter like this in terms of a cliffdive or a nosedive in terms of completions activity sequentially like were looking at during this quarter, Pope said. Youd probably have to go back to the mid-1980s to find a decent comparison.

Oil prices collapsed in 1986 to about $10, creating a colossal bust burned into the memories of those in the industry. In Houston, 225,000 people lost their jobs during that crash as office vacancies jumped above 20 percent and thousands of homes were lost in foreclosures.

Houston oil giant ConocoPhillips, one of the top 10 drillers in Texas, has said it will take a frac holiday. The company said it intends to keep four drilling rigs operating in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas, two in the Bakken Shale of North Dakota and one in the Permian Basin of West Texas, but suspend the work of its five fracking crews.

The frac phase of a well typically costs twice that of drilling yet it only takes half the time, Fox said. Stopping completions while continuing some drilling was the most rational thing to do.

The Pledge: Wall Street analyst pushes to reforms in struggling OFS sector

There are glimmers of hope for the oil field service companies in Schlumbergers earnings. Guyana, Qatar, Australia and Russia will offer long-term natural gas development projects both onshore and offshore, the company said.

And while some in the industry fear that the number of hydraulic fracturing crews in U.S. shale plays could fall below 100, Le Peuch pushed back against those predictions.

We dont believe this will be the case, at least to what we see and the indication we have, Le Peuch said. We are aiming to maintain 10 to 15 or 10 to 12 fleet as a minimum operating in that environment.

sergio.chapa@chron.com
There are many stars in Bollywood who are famous for their excellent acting. These include Aamir Khan but what the Pakistani media has done recently has surprised everyone. Pakistani media has always been in the discussions due to its misdeeds and this time too it has come in the discussions and that is why it is being trolled on social media. This time he has said something about Bollywood actor Aamir Khan that he has come under the trolls' target.

This action scene of Prabhas sets new record

Headline: After 17 years MQM leader Amir Khan exonerated in a murder case.



Didn't know Indian actor Amir Khan was in Pakistan for the last 17 years.. pic.twitter.com/YcUmg6LKfk  Naila Inayat   (@nailainayat) April 16, 2020

Kartik Aryan interviewed Police officer from Madhya Pradesh



Recently, a Pakistani news channel showed Bollywood actor Aamir Khan as the killer and after that his picture is going increasingly viral on social media. After 17 years, a Pakistani court has acquitted a leader named Aamir Khan of the political party Muhajir Qaumi Andolan-Haqqi (MQM) in a double murder case, but Pakistan has run this news during breaking An Urdu channel made a big mistake and instead of the leader's picture, the channel replaced the picture of Bollywood actor Aamir Khan.

Abhishek Bachchan shares fun story of shooting of film 'Guru'

After all this, the channel rectified its mistake, but the breaking of the picture of Aamir Khan was made viral by many people on social media. After all this, Pakistan's Urdu channel has been a big troll on social media. Social media users shared Aamir's picture on their account from the channel on their account and started trolling Pakistan. Talking about Aamir Khan, he will soon be seen in the film 'Lal Singh Chaddha', which has been reported that it will be released in 2021.

Neetu Kapoor shares son Ranbir's picture with Sachin Tendulkar
Governor Nyesom Wike has announced that 22 staff of ExxonMobil who flew into Rivers state on Thursday April 15, in violation of a lockdown order he issued will be prosecuted.

Asides disclosing that the 22 oil workers will be prosecuted in court just like the 2 Caverton Helicopter pilots, Wike also said that the state is prepared to test the laws on its ability to shut its borders and protect the lives of its people in view of the widespread COVID-19 pandemic.

The Governor said;

ExxonMobil brought in 22 persons without telling us so that they can be quarantined and tested. I will fight this on my own; the security agencies have orders from Abuja (not to be involved) but we will go to court. We (Rivers) and ExxonMobil, we will test the law; the law must be tested. We will do same thing to ExxonMobil as we did to Caverton Helicopter. They will not be treated differently, just because they are a foreign company and the other a Nigerian company. These people dont want to respect the laws just because they are ExxonMobil but this will expose those in Abuja because nobody can use Rivers as you. They should not kill Rivers people because they hate Wike.

Wike maintained that the law is not practiced on the pages of newspapers but in court, as he lashed out at persons and unions who have taken up the state on the face-off with the indigenous air shuttle company.

He added;

People in Abuja are not happy (because of the low infection rate in Rivers state). They are not happy that there are no reports of new cases every day.

Reacting to the Rivers State Governors threat of prosecution, ExxonMobils Media and Communication manager, Oge Udeagha said:
 

1
Editor's Note: The science and understanding of COVID-19 is steadily evolving. For the latest and most up- to-date information, please see the Stars latest coverage of COVID-19.

VANCOUVERDarren Campbell wouldnt wish COVID-19 on anyone. Having lived through it, he knows the horrors of the disease better than most.

At Campbells low point with the coronavirus in late March, the 43-year-old from Ottawa was in the intensive-care unit, struggling to breathe and wondering how it had become so bad.

I really thought: Theres a chance I might not get through this, he said. When someone says, Weve got to move you to the ICU  it kind of freaked me out.

Now that hes recovered, theres another idea that Campbell finds concerning: Before Canadas COVID-19 pandemic can end, more people will have to get sick with the disease that threatened his life.

Thats because the only way to beat COVID-19 is for a massive part of the population to become immune to the virus.

Scientists and public health officials agree that the best road to mass immunity is an effective vaccine, which is likely a year or more away. In the meantime, public health officials are grappling with how and when to reopen parts of society, with B.C. on Friday announcing the first steps in its plan.

Since the virus is already in the community, this involves deciding who can most safely be exposed, and under what circumstances, without unduly risking lives and instigating major outbreaks that overwhelm the health-care system. Theres another consideration, too: Scientists believe those who get sick and recover will be immune, which would help to slow the spread of the disease.

So who are the best candidates to wade into the coronavirus fire?

Its believed that Campbell and others who have recovered are about as low risk for contracting and passing on the coronavirus as its possible to be. Having had COVID-19, their bodies have developed antibodies adept at fighting it off  like blood-protein foot soldiers trained in the absolute defeat of a particular deadly foe.

If COVID-19 acts like SARS, scientists expect that those who recover from it will stay immune  they wont get the virus again or pass it on. And if enough people are immune, the virus will spread more slowly, and it will die out. A Harvard epidemiologist has estimated that COVID-19 could be beaten if half the worlds population were immune.

But not all forms of immunity are equal.

Getting immunity from infection is not optimal and it will happen over a longer period of time, B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Friday. Our goal is to control the transmission and growth of COVID-19 cases while continuing to monitor and minimize the unintended negative consequences of (public health) measures.

She said teams of public health professionals are contemplating a variety of strategies to gradually reopen society and the economy, and that they havent yet landed on exactly what measures will be lifted and when.

Businesses that are able to maintain social distancing could open again, Henry suggested, and workplaces and schools may begin running on rotating schedules that allow participants to keep their distance from one another.

As case numbers in B.C. decline, the province is contemplating loosening these restrictions even as cases continue to grow elsewhere  especially Ontario and Quebec.

But there are signs that the growth of the disease even in Ontario and Quebec may be levelling off, raising questions about how each jurisdiction will tackle who will be allowed to interact and when.

Dr. Greg Poland, a professor of medicine and an immunology expert with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., imagines the easing of COVID-19 restrictions like a target: You start by opening up society for the people inside the bullseye, and progress slowly to opening up the concentric circles around the bullseye, monitoring the situation over several incubation periods to make sure the virus doesnt spread too quickly.

The bullseye, the easiest one, is people who have already been infected, he said. Thats because scientists expect they are immune. The next ring is people whose risk factors are the lowest, pretty much people up to age 30 or so.

From there, Poland said, the task of public health officials would be to allow certain groups of people to gather in limited contexts. Perhaps young adult workers can be together in offices, or cafes can begin serving at tables spaced apart  the specifics havent yet been determined.

Scientists and health officials would observe what happens beyond the two-week incubation period, then decide whether to tighten restrictions again, or open up a bit more and repeat the cycle.

Its almost the canary in the mine, Poland said. Who can you afford to put in the mine? Probably schoolchildren, because the chance of communicating the disease is low.

Photos of Denmark this week showed Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen speaking to a class of children with desks spaced two metres apart. Parents formed now familiar social distancing lines to drop their kids off at school, and yoga classes were conducted in parks, with participants spaced several arm lengths apart.

Poland said that if infection rates remain low after those bullseye groups return to interacting with one another, health officials could reintroduce young, healthy adults to work as a next step. The most vulnerable  the elderly and immunocompromised  would likely stay isolated the longest.

B.C.s Henry has spoken about a similar concept as a roller-coaster, suggesting that when the province does start lifting restrictions, it may not do so in a straight line.

The hope is that building a ring of people within a population who are immune to COVID-19 could help protect the most vulnerable, too, because the virus will have fewer bodies available to infect and spread.

Youre trying to create herd immunity by having people slowly develop the disease, said Andrew Shih, the medical director of transfusion medicine at Vancouver Coastal Health.

Once people have the immunity, they by-and-large protect the more immunocompromised and (people at) higher risk.

Poland sees the introduction of a vaccine as a step that would be introduced along with the various reintroduction measures  not as a be-all and end-all.

You would hope that a vaccine would be introduced in the process of forming these concentric circles, he said.

The other method scientists hope will boost immunity to COVID-19 is taking blood plasma donations from people like Darren Campbell, who had the virus, recovered, and are expected to be immune.

Currently, there is a cross-country trial of convalescent plasma therapy, being led by Dr. Donald Arnold of McMaster University and co-ordinated by Canadas two blood services. In the trial, people who have recovered from COVID-19 will be asked to donate blood plasma. Since it contains antibodies that fight the virus, it will be administered to COVID-19 patients, or to those who come into contact with the virus, in the hope that it will boost immunity.

Still, much is unknown about how effective antibodies will be at warding off the virus  and for how long.

Shih, who is co-ordinating the trial on the West Coast, said it will take months before the result will be known, but about 1,600 coronavirus patients in Canada will get access to the experimental treatment in the process, and doctors believe it to be very safe.

Specifically, if you have a patient who is ill with COVID-19 but hasnt had the most serious illness, Shih said, If we transfuse them convalescent plasma can we stop them from going to that (serious disease)?

Its a hopeful prospect for Campbell, who wishes for as much immunity as possible without anyone else having to endure the ordeal he went through. Hes encouraged, for example, by the fact that neither his wife or kids ever displayed COVID-19 symptoms, even though they were in proximity to him.

If we can donate blood that could help some people  I havent yet heard a call for volunteers, but Id be willing to do that as well, Campbell said.

Having fully recovered, Campbell is just grateful to be with his family  all of them healthy  working from home, and waiting for the snow to stop in Ottawa so they can spend a bit more time outdoors.

Clarification - Sept. 23, 2020: The headline on this article was edited from a previous version.
Just as millions of Americans are receiving $1200 emergency coronavirus relief checks from the IRS in their bank accounts, many are facing an unwelcome surprise: Debt collectors can take the money to satisfy certain types of debt.

Experts estimate that millions could see their stimulus checks taken by creditors in the coming weeks, a process known as garnishment, just as the need for the relief money becomes dire.

MORE: Cash advance apps like Dave, Earnin see use surge amid COVID-19

"The folks who owe people money, who are disproportionately poor, are the ones at greatest risk. Ironically, those are the same folks who are most in need of the checks and may be most in need of assistance to provide their families shelter, food and medicine," said Brent Adams of the Woodstock Institute, a Chicago-based economic development agency.

MORE: As stimulus checks hit bank accounts, many encounter roadblocks

While the CARES Act, the $2 trillion emergency relief package passed by Congress in March, protects borrowers with federal student loans or unpaid taxes from having their stimulus checks garnished, it does nothing to stop private lenders.

"We are seeing debt collectors and creditors trying to seize bank accounts, because they know money is coming in," said Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center. "Policymakers should have been more clear that this money is intended to go to people who are struggling. They should have made clear to people its for their basic needs, and it's not intended to feed debt collectors, or defeat overdraft fees."

A group of 25 attorneys general wrote Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin a letter this week, urging him to exempt the stimulus payments from garnishment for those types of debt.

"Unfortunately, in what appears to be a legislative oversight, the CARES Act does not explicitly designate these emergency stimulus payments as exempt from garnishment, as similar government payments (such as social security, disability and veterans benefits) are," the letter says. The AGs cite a line in the CARES Act that they say would allow Mnuchin to direct banks to refrain from garnishing the payments: "The Secretary shall prescribe such regulations or other guidance as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this section," referring to the distribution of the payments.

Story continues

MORE: Who will get what and when from the $2 trillion relief package

Lawmakers have been fighting to stop the practice as well. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) says he called Mnuchin on April 1 to urge him to use his authority to exempt the payments from private debt collectors. Brown followed up with letters from Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-WA) as well as a bipartisan effort with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO). Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) also wrote a letter to the Treasury Friday, asking Mnuchin to provide a remedy timeline for the issue by April 24.

PHOTO: Sen. Sherrod Brown speaks during a press conference, Dec. 18, 2019 in Washington. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images, FILE)

So far, Mnuchin has not acted to change the guidelines. The Treasury Department did not respond to ABC News inquiries.

Tune into ABC at 1 p.m. ET and ABC News Live at 4 p.m. ET every weekday for special coverage of the novel coronavirus with the full ABC News team, including the latest news, context and analysis.

The senators are now appealing directly to banks and credit unions. "While Treasury has refused to follow congressional intent, that does not give banks license to steal the stimulus payments from customers," Brown and Warren wrote in a letter directed to banks trade associations. "We ask that your member banks do the right thing -- for their customers, our country, and our economy -- and publicly commit that they will not offset their customers stimulus payments to pay for any fees, charges, or allegedly past due debts."

Some banks have complied. Wells Fargo said in a statement the bank is "pausing for 30 days the collection of negative balances existing at the time when stimulus payments are deposited." CitiBank has adopted a similar policy.

But some banking and finance trade associations say the onus is on Congress, not the Treasury Department, to protect borrowers relief payments from debt collectors. Several groups, including the Bank Policy Institute and the American Bankers Association, wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, asking congressional leaders to fix the issue.

PHOTO: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, April 13, 2020, in Washington. (Alex Brandon/AP, FILE)

"Under the CARES Act, Congress exempted these payments from offset for debts owed to federal and state agencies, except in the case of child support, but did not exempt them from court-ordered garnishment to pay creditors," the letter says. Unless Congress takes action to provide legal certainty, banks are legally required to provide garnishments to third-party creditors. We urge Congress to provide this certainty to ensure that American families are receiving these benefits as intended."

MORE: Student loans get put on hold in coronavirus stimulus bill. Here's what to know.

On the local level, some governors have also acted to protect borrowers. Governor Pritzker of Illinois announced Tuesday he would suspend the laws that allow garnishment. Massachusetts and Washington D.C., have also issued orders to shield checks from debt collectors.

Another issue for some recipients of the stimulus checks: overdrawn accounts. Charlie Chadwick, a corrections officer from Arizona, told ABC News his bank account balance was negative when his stimulus payment arrived due to auto payment of bills. While Chadwick is still working and considered essential, his girlfriend, who works in retail, is out of work, leaving Chadwick supporting them both.

PHOTO: A man uses an ATM machine at a TD Bank branch in New York, March 22, 2020. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images, FILE)

"I knew that as soon as the check got here, that it would be ... gone, Chadwick told ABC News Steve Osunsami.

"Whatever the number of people who are over-drafting would be, its going to be higher after March because the ramp up of layoffs and furloughs was really rapid and really fast," said J. Michael Collins, the faculty director of the Center for Financial Security at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

On Thursday, the Department of Labor announced over 5 million Americans filed for unemployment in the past week, bringing the total for the month to 22 million.

ABC News's Steve Osunsami and Stephanie Wash contributed to this report.

What to know about coronavirus:

How it started and how to protect yourself: Coronavirus explained

What to do if you have symptoms: Coronavirus symptoms

Tracking the spread in the U.S. and worldwide: Coronavirus map





Millions could see their coronavirus stimulus checks taken by debt collectors originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Director-General of the Ghana Standards Authority, Professor Alex Dodoo, says eight candidate vaccines for treating COVID-19 are being evaluated for its safety and will be ready before the end of 2020.



According to him, two out of the eight vaccines have already begun human trails in different laboratories around the world.



Prof Alex Dodoo who is also a Clinical Pharmacologist and currently serves on a United Nations and World Health Organisation vaccine board said; There are already vaccines in the works and I am serving on one committee looking at the safety of the vaccine as far as I can say, let's face it, safety is number one and currently most of the vaccines we have I will say we are evaluating the safety without saying too much. There are at least 8 vaccines in different laboratories.



Explaining the development in an interview on JoyNews Prime on April 16, Prof. Dodoo indicated that the boards will in the next three weeks evaluate the vaccines that will grant permission for further works.



These are being evaluated and one or two have started human trails but the issue is that you want to be sure they are safe. When you look at their safety it is more complex, are they safe on their own? Are they safe when you add other vaccines? Are they safe under all conditions of use? And who do you give them to. Within the next three weeks, we should conclusively say which ones will go further, he added.



Globally, drug manufacturer Gilead is set to release a clinical trial data in the next couple of weeks for a potential coronavirus treatment.



The development is expected to be the next big benchmark in the race to produce a drug that will aid in the coronavirus fight.

Source: ghanaweb









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Usually magazine photoshoots, designer campaigns and look book shoots need a whole team of art directors, makeup artists,stylists and photographers to bring a concept to life.

But with staying and working from home, along with social distancing becoming the new normal, the fashion industry had to find out a smart way to organize such shoots without involving a whole bunch of people.

So when a lot of magazines including Vogue Italia virtually came on stands with their April issue, it was exciting to see how supermodel Bella Hadid posed from her home while in quarantine. The editorial shoot was done via facetime, with photographer Brianna Capozzi and stylist Haley Woolen virtually directing her. The supermodel did her own hair and makeup. The result was as good as what we see otherwise in such shoots.

Supermodel Cindy Crawford too shared on Instagram her new facetime shoot with New York based photographer Kat Irlin. She wrote, Theres a first time for everything! FaceTime photoshoot with @kat_in_nyc  Fashion and photography are going to be different for a while, but that doesnt mean we need to stop being creative.

There are a lot of photographers like Alessio Albi and Kat Irlin who are creating art in times of corona. The demand for photographers with live-in model partners have also increased in west.

Back home, a leading fashion magazine featured actor Sobhita Dhulipala in their special work-from-home issue. In this too the actor styled her own look, did her own hair and makeup and even decided her own concept. The result was appreciated by everyone in the fashion frat. While sharing the cover picture on her Instagram, Sobhita Dhulipala also wrote, Not only did I thrive in the creative stimulation but also had fun because I didnt need to be anything but truthful and relevant.

And its not just with editorial shoots. High street brands like Zara is also following the same module. There latest campaign features models posing from home in the brands latest collection which was sent to their houses. In short models have now become stylists, makeup artists and even creative directors doing everything from home.

During these challenging times, shoots like these are cost saving and you also tend to maintain a social distance, which is the need of the hour, says designer Jenjum Gadi.

Om Panwar, owner of a leading modelling agency in Delhi and Mumbai called Purple Thoughts India says, We got one or two enquiries regarding models who can conduct a shoot on their own from their home by some brands. Because of lack of finances too, the designers are not willing to shell out a lot of money for shoots at this time. So I guess this would be the new way ahead for a lot of them.

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After five weeks of lockdown, more than 22,000 deaths and some 170,000 positive cases of coronavirus it seems Italy is preparing for phase two. However, what that will look like is anyone's guess.

There can be no cause for celebration or even to breathe a sigh of relief as the situation remains serious and the threat of an even worse outbreak remains very real.

The danger is still a spread of the disease to the south on the same scale the north has experienced.

Alessandro Vespignani, an expert on epidemiology and the spread of disease, said that this year Italians would be facing a summer "without travel". Cancellation of the usual seaside holiday in August is unthinkable for most Italians and may well prove problematic for the government to enforce.

What we do know is that the lockdown restrictions remain in place at least until May 3, after which we are expected to move fully to phase two. This week some shops were allowed to reopen, bookshops, stationary shops and children's clothing shops, which posed a low risk of attracting crowds. A plan to open businesses and factories where social distancing can be implemented is currently under consideration by the Ministry of Economic Development. The plan proposes a reopening of industry as early as April 22. The regions, particularly Lombardy, where 50pc of the deaths have occurred, are agitating for a return to work and to set the wheels of commerce going again.

The lockdown has been mostly well observed by Italians, however, away from the eerily quiet streets, many businesses have tried to find any loophole in the restrictions to continue working. Any business connected to the food industry or deemed to provide 'essential services' has been allowed to remain operating and the vagueness of the decree has allowed them to exploit it. There have been no food shortages.

The economic effects of this pandemic are, and will continue to be, dire. Italy needs to get back to work. Goldman Sachs has predicted that Italy's GDP will fall by 11.6pc in 2020.

Italy is traumatised. With the death toll in the city of Wuhan having been officially revised upwards 50pc it is expected that once the dust settles in Italy, a jump in figures is expected. Almost everyone has been touched by the virus in some way and in a country where the elderly are so cherished and family's intergenerational relationships are integral to the way of life, the losses are devastating. The very fabric of Italian society, the weave of close-knit families has been loosened and will not recover quickly. That said, Italians are resilient and remain committed to whatever restrictive measures that will come. Testing and tracking will be more important than ever.

"In phase two, we would like to extend the testing across the country to find those who are infected as early as possible - including those without symptoms," said ISS public health institute director Silvio Brusaferro.

The government is in the process of rolling out an app called Immuni, which people can download voluntarily.

While the initial outbreak was characterised by a tsunami of Covid-19 cases, the second phase will, hopefully, be a steadier stream of cases that minimises the death toll. There will be no respite for Italy's heroic frontline medical staff, only an upswing in resources. To date 127 doctors have died due to the disease.

The political fallout has already begun. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who won the admiration of Italians for the way he handled the emergency, is feeling the heat from all sides with regard to the EU's offer of help through the European Stability Mechanism. The president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday apologised to Italy for the EU's failure to support the country during the early stages of the crisis.

The Democratic Party (PD) is seeing a rise in its popularity, partly because the opposition, the League's (Lega) Matteo Salvini, has been so inconsistent in his messaging throughout the crisis. But Italy does not need a general election any time soon. As Italians begin to venture into the outside world over the course of the next month, they'll begin to pick up the pieces of their broken country.

There will be time for pointing fingers and recriminations later.
Spaniards have been in lockdown, confined to their residencies for over a month and unsurprisingly spirits are beginning to flag.

But the upbeat volunteers of Spanish Civil Protection are doing their best to cheer-up the residents of a small town just outside Madrid.

Civil Protection volunteers Carmen and Alvaro suggested to Grinon town hall that with some pumping music and an almost choregraphed dance they could spread some positivity to cabin-fevered residents. The pair also realised that lots of children were celebrating birthdays in isolation.

For the last few weeks at 8 o'clock every Friday they chose a new spot for some lively antics. The caravan of Civil Protection vehicles then goes around to all the youngsters who have had a birthday in previous week.

Each child is given a special birthday certificate, a dedicated birthday song and a warm round of applause from neighbours.

Spain has recorded 188,167 coronavirus cases and 19,631 death, according to a running tally kept by John Hopkins University.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks.

For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.
Astrophotographer Chris Schur captured this view of Comet Atlas on April 9, 2020, from Payson, Arizona. "The comet appears quite diffuse now, hopefully there will be something left to see near perihelion!" Schur told Space.com via email. (Image credit: Chris Schur (http://www.schursastrophotography.com))

As I write these words, Comet ATLAS, which a month ago looked like it might evolve into the first really bright naked-eye comet in a decade, is now falling apart. It has fragmented into several pieces, quickly dispersing and not leaving behind enough material to produce any kind of significant display.

Soon after this comet was discovered near the end of 2019, it brightened at an almost furious pace. That combined with the fact that it was traveling in the same orbit as the "Great Comet" of 1844 suggested that it might be a fragment of that famously spectacular comet, and that by the spring it might evolve into a beautiful celestial showpiece that could possibly excite the world as well as inject some new interest and exposure to the science of astronomy.

Sadly, those expectations will not be met.

Once again, the fickle, unpredictable nature of comets came into play as we here at Space.com couched our initial projections as to what might  or might not  happen concerning the future of Comet ATLAS.

Related: The 9 most brilliant comets ever seen

Back in another time, astronomers probably would have relied on one particular set of predictions as to how bright the comet might ultimately get. However, during February and especially March, in this age of an internet run amok, we were seeing radically conflicting information and opinions from both bona-fide and "wannabe" experts. Some had suggested that ATLAS might rival Venus or even the moon in brightness!

Lacking a crystal ball, we felt it best to convey the full range of possibilities, from a bright naked-eye comet adorning the western evening sky in late May, to an object that might completely fizzle out. Unfortunately, ATLAS decided to pursue its own agenda, befuddling even veteran comet observers and not behaving like any previous comet. Despite claims to the contrary by some in the mainstream media, nobody knew for certain exactly what ATLAS was going to do.

Breaking up wasn't hard to do

The Virtual Telescope Project captured this view of Comet Atlas' shattered nucleus on April 11, 2020. (Image credit: Gianluca Masi/Virtual Telescope Project (www.virtualtelescope.eu))

We had sounded an alarm in a column about the comet on April 6, when we pointed out that the amazing brightening trend of Comet ATLAS "hit a wall" on St. Patrick's Day (March 17) and by early April it actually began to fade. Prophetically, well-known comet expert John Bortle had suggested to Space.com that ATLAS could be "several magnitudes fainter than we currently assume it to be and may or may not, be large enough to survive perihelion passage."

And at the same time that our story was published, astronomers Quanzhi Ye (University of Maryland) and Qicheng Zhang (Caltech) submitted a report to The Astronomer's Telegram (a bulletin board of astronomical observations posted by accredited scientists) titled "Possible Disintegration of Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS)." Their findings showed that the comet's head, or coma, of the comet was rapidly elongating, suggesting that the comet nucleus was beginning to fragment.

Confirmation of this came on April 11, when images of ATLAS revealed that its nucleus had broken into at least three pieces. It is not yet clear exactly what caused the comet to break apart, but this is likely the beginning of the end for ATLAS. The comet continues to show indications of breaking up as well as slowly fading away. Indeed, as Bortle had suggested, there may be nothing left when ATLAS makes its closest pass at the sun on May 31.

But even as Comet ATLAS slowly goes to pieces, another comet has moved in to take its place.

Enter Comet SWAN

On April 11, the same day that ATLAS broke into three pieces, amateur astronomer Michael Mattiazzo discovered a new comet while looking at data from NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

Michael Mattiazzos new SWAN comet (C/2020 F8?) is surprisingly bright and visible in 15x70 binoculars, despite the moon. Here is an 6 minute exposure. Image Terry Lovejoy pic.twitter.com/Jb38RwiiYLApril 11, 2020 See more

The comet suddenly appeared in images from SOHO's Solar Wind ANisotropies instrument, which goes by the acronym "SWAN." Mattiazzo has discovered eight comets since 2004 by carefully checking SWAN data most every day.

SOHO's SWAN instrument was not designed to find comets; its job is to survey the solar system for hydrogen. But because the comet is spewing a fairly significant amount of hydrogen in the form of water ice, it was picked up by SWAN.

Coincidentally, Mattiazzo lives in Swan Hill, Victoria, Australia.

A prehistoric visitor

The new comet appears to be traveling in a very elongated ellipse. For fun, I fed its orbital elements, which includes the eccentricity of its path around the sun, into an orbital simulator.

My simulation suggests Comet SWAN is traveling around the sun in a period of about 25 million years. This means that the last time it swept through the inner solar system may have been during the Oligocene Epoch, when Paraceratherium, a genus of hornless rhinoceros and one of the largest terrestrial mammals, was walking the Earth.

Future developments

This 3D orbit animation shows the path that Comet C/2020 F8 (SWAN) will take around the sun between April 2020 and March 2021. Comet SWAN is expected to reach perihelion, its closest point to the sun, around May 27, 2020  two weeks after its closest approach to Earth. The comet's steep orbit is inclined 111 degrees relative to the ecliptic plane. (Image credit: NASA JPL)

Currently, Comet SWAN is only accessible to those south of the equator. It is currently located in the faint constellation of Sculptor, not far from the first-magnitude star Fomalhaut. As of April 16 it was shining at magnitude +7.8  easy enough to pick up in good binoculars  and displaying a head roughly one-sixth the apparent width of the moon.

The question is, will SWAN evolve into a bright object? The consensus is: "maybe." Like ATLAS, Comet SWAN appears to be a relatively small comet. It will pass closest to Earth on May 12 at a distance of 51.8 million miles (83.3 million kilometers), and it will be at its closest point to the sun (called perihelion) on May 27, when it will be 40 million miles (64.4 million km) away from our star.

Assuming Comet SWAN continues to brighten at its current pace, it could reach third magnitude during the final week of May. That would make it bright enough to be visible to the naked eye just when those of us in the Northern Hemisphere might have an opportunity to see it, both very low in west-northwest sky after sunset and again very low in the east-northeast sky before sunrise.

But the fact that the comet appeared quite suddenly suggests that it might be undergoing an outburst in brightness and that after a few days or weeks, SWAN might undergo a fade-down  or even possibly break up in much the same fashion as did Comet ATLAS.

In other words, SWAN ultimately could end up as an "ugly duckling."



We will be monitoring Comet SWAN closely in the coming weeks and will provide another update regarding its development next month. So stay tuned!

Editor's note: If you have an amazing comet photo you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, you can send images and comments to spacephotos@futurenet.com.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmers' Almanac and other publications. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
People are killed by guns on nearly every episode of The Blacklist. But this time, for Raymond Reddington, it's personal. And it's not simply because he saw a young woman with whom he'd made a personal connection be shot and killed in senseless act of violence right in front of him; it's not even because of Red's personal feelings about gun regulations, as it might first seem on the surface. No, it's even deeper than that. This week's Blacklister is personal because the way that Raymond Reddington takes him on offers a clearer look at Raymond Reddington's own personal criminal ethos than we've seen in quite some time on this series.

I've written a number of times in the last few weeks that the back half of season 7 has felt like a return to basics for The Blacklist in many ways. The Blacklisters have still been dynamic, but their ultimate function has been to reveal more to us about the characters we meet back up with each week. Late in this week's episode, after the Post Office has been unable to exact the kind of justice Reddington deems necessary, he explains to the Blacklister he's holding at gunpoint that in his world, the are no laws to hide behind. "You can act in bad faith," he tells this man he's deemed guilty, "as long as you're willing to accept the consequences."

Reddington might be considered by the outside world to be a lawless criminal, but he considers himself to be highly principled. He is a man of great conviction and very little tolerance, which means going against Red's principles and convictions  two highly subjective things, for what it's worth  is mighty dangerous territory. "I object to what you're doing, and I dont need to convince any court to agree with me," Red tells the Blacklister. "In my world, if I think you're guilty, I just execute a sentence."

Will Hart/NBC

Reddington may not subscribe to laws, but he does subscribe to morality, the framework of which he just so happens to have made himself the sole arbiter. Because you may have noticed that our guy's got a bit of a god complex. Which means Reddington can be benevolent to the righteous  and vengeful to the wicked. That's how a scene like the final one in tonight's episode can go from the warmth of Red telling Liz that he finds her perception of right and wrong "increasingly clear-eyed" (conveniently, because they share the same opinion of this particular Blacklister), to a sudden and terrifying chill with the realization that Red now knows Liz has been lying to him.

Story continues

I wonder what her sentence will be

GORDON KEMP, NO. 158

And all these existential Reddington reckonings come by way of a chance encounter.

Red and Dembe, looking dapper in tuxes, are on their way to a retirement party that already includes Cher, but still requires a large amount of ice. They stop in at convenience store, where the young clerk is focused on her phone. When Red is unable to get her help with the ice, he asks what kind of tweeting or texting requires so much attention, but when she finally looks up, she has tears in her eyes. Reddington immediately eases up, but it turns out the news is good! The girl, Sophia, just got accepted into college, and she starts happily rambling to Reddington that she has to call her mom because her dad died last year, and her mom will be so happy, and this is so exciting, and

I immediately write in my notes: DON'T LET ANYTHING HAPPEN TO SOPHIA!

And just as immediately, a sketchy looking guy enters the store and puts a gun on her, demanding the cash in her register while Red and Dembe are in the back of the store. Sophia calmly pushes the alarm button under the counter as she goes to get the cash, and when the guy hears sirens approaching moments later, he shoots Sophia. As soon as Red and Dembe hear the gunshot, they return fire on the man, but it's too late  Sophia is on the ground, dead. Dembe drags a stunned Red out of the store as the sirens draw closer.

And that's how the members of a FBI special task force find themselves investigating the armed robbery of a minimart. But Reddington doesn't need help finding the robber, as he tells Liz: "We killed the man who committed the crime, but not the man I hold responsible for it." No, that would be Gordon Kemp, the head of Fine Caliber Arms International, a 100-year-old gun manufacturer Kemp inherited from his father (gun restrictions, inherited wealth this episode really has all the fun, casual social issues!). With the younger Kemp's takeover came a new gun, the FineCal9, which Ressler calls "the gun of choice for violent young criminals." It's the cheapest 9mm gun available, and Reddington says Kemp has been flooding already high-crime markets with them, making them readily available and affordable to street-level criminals like the one who killed Sophia.

Cooper questions the Task Force's right to target a company that's not committing any crimes, but Liz points out that it's a crime to sell a gun to a criminal, which Reddington believes Kemp is knowingly doing. After all, the man who killed Sophia had a long rap sheet, so he should have never been able to buy a FineCal9 in the first place. So Ressler and Park track down the man who sold it to him illegally, who is also a criminal with a record.

As it turns out, the seller had his girlfriend with no rap sheet buy 30 FineCal9s at a gun show in West Virginia, which he then sold on the street. And while she would have passed the background check no problem, the fact that she was a 23-year-old with an address in the city who suddenly decided she wanted to "start a collection" with 30 of the same cheap guns should have signaled to any firearm dealer that she was a straw purchaser. Still, Cooper tells Reddington those facts alone aren't enough to convict anybody of anything, and certainly not Gordon Kemp. However, if the same young woman were to buy from the same dealer a few months later and not be flagged, that might actually be something.

And when the Task Force send the woman in undercover at a gun show the next day, they get lucky sort of. Because Gordon Kemp is attending that very gun show in order to push Fine Caliber Arms' PR talking points following the outcry over Sophia's death. Now, we know that Kemp is an ahole because even though his PR people advise against it, he insists putting out into the press that an ex-boyfriend of Sophia's allegedly had some gang affiliation, as if that makes her any less of a victim. (He also has a treadmill desk, so, y'know, he all-around sucks.)

At the gun show, when the woman goes to the same dealer and asks to buy 30 more guns, the dealer hesitates because she seems visibly nervous. When she begins raising her voice, Kemp comes over to see what's going on, and even though the dealer seems to be warning him that she might be a straw dealer, Kemp says he doesn't see the issue. "She's a collector," he says shiftily. "It's your job to run a background check, and if she passes, make the sale."

The FBI agents are listening in from a surveillance van outside and decide that this is enough to potentially convict Kemp, so Liz and Ressler swoop in, arrest him, and take him back to the Post Office for not so much an interrogation, but more of a scolding. "Is that your vision for the world?" Liz asks him. "That we only care about human life when the law specifically tell us we have to?" And ultimately, the judge of the hearing that Kemp's lawyer swiftly arranges is kind like, Yeah, the law is all we care about.

The judge calls Cooper into an off-the-record mediation to figure out why he made a controversial arrest with so little evidence. Cooper says he believes they have enough to convict Kemp of conspiring to sell to someone who was prohibited from buying his weapons. But the audio from the gun show is unclear on what Kemp actually said, and most of the other signifiers that Kemp was acting in bad faith would just be assumptions. The judge finds the evidence insufficient to sustain the charges and dismisses the case, which Cooper has to accept. Cooper may have his own morals and principles, but occupationally he's bound by the law.

Virginia Sherwood/NBC

You know who's not bound by the law? Of course you do  h's already been discussed at length in this recap. It's Raymond Reddington, who asks Cooper what he plans to do about the huge shipment of FineCal9s Gordon Kemp is planning to send to Chicago the next day specifically because demand for guns in high-crime areas goes up after viral shootings like Sophia's. Cooper tells Red there's nothing he can do, because the law says Kemp can ship those guns. "How did Dickens put it?" Red says. "If the law says, then the law is an ass."

You know what that means: RED VS. POST OFFICE FACE-OFF. Cooper knows Reddington is going to try to hijack Kemp's shipment, and legally, that means he has to try to stop it. So while Red works on his hijacking plan, Cooper convinces a very begrudging and still very ass-y Kemp to let the FBI help him, even though nobody wants to, especially not Liz, who is morally opposed to the whole thing. But this is her job, and part of that job means escorting the Kemp shipment to Chicago to make sure Reddington can't hijack it. Cooper assigns Liz to the truck carrying the guns, telling her that Red might have more hesitation with her in the escort, and he assigns Park and Ressler to the two empty decoy trucks they're sending out at the same time.

But Red wasn't anticipating the decoy trucks, so when Dembe gives him the intel that three trucks are being sent out, he calls Liz to ask which truck he should follow. He tells her to stay on the phone through his count of 10 if hers is the truck with Kemp's gun inside

And she does. Red's team stages a car crash on Lizzie's route, holds her at gunpoint, opens the back of the truck  and there are no guns inside. Cooper lied to her, knowing she might tell Red which truck had the guns inside. And she has the nerve to come into Cooper's office all angry about him not trusting her, which he was correct in not trusting her! Cooper is angry right back, telling her she chose Reddington over them, over her job, and over the law. "Some laws deserve to be broken!" Liz cries back, seeming to realize what she's said once it comes out of her mouth.

"Not by you," Cooper tells her. "Not when you're carrying a badge."

But Reddington doesnt carry a badge. No, Reddington sits in dark rooms with his gun out and waits to exact his own justice. When Kemp returns home after a long day of not caring about how many innocent lives he's been complicit in ending, there Red is, waiting to tell Kemp it's time to face the consequences of the careless way he puts guns in the hands of criminals. "What consequences?" Kemp asks. "The wrath of men like me," Reddington replies.

As Kemp begs Red not to shoot him, he tells Kemp he recently heard another person plead for her life when faced with a FineCal9 gun. And he understands that it can be difficult to understand a tragedy like Sophia's murder for what it really is until a similar tragedy has befallen you or your love ones. "Well, I'm here to tell you, that's happening to you," Red continues. "About an hour ago, a violent criminal bought one of your FineCal9s in the street for $100, and now that criminal is going to shoot you with it."

We don't see the fallout of the Post Office finding out Red killed Kemp, because something else much more important has been brewing throughout this episode: Ilya Koslov has been seeing the same car outside his apartment every day, and while his wife and Red and Dembe are all sure he's being paranoid, it turns out he's not. Someone has been outside his apartment, watching him. But it's not one of Katarina Rostova's people

It's one of Lizzie's: the private investigator she hired a few weeks ago. And just as Red is congratulating Liz on Cooper's distrust signifying that she's "a person of conviction and principle," and telling her how much it meant to have her on his side today, he gets the call from Dembe telling him who's been watching Ilya. He looks across the table at Liz, hands her a glass of wine, and they toast: "To being on the same side."

A FEW LOOSE ENDS:

For the record, Bremley finds out that the P.I. has been working for Liz via board game torture: "The real breakthrough actually happened during Oregon Trail, and then there was such a great feeling of comfort and familiarity during Chutes and Ladders, a real sense of nostalgia!" Poor lady.

Shortly before he witnesses a senseless murder, Red informs Glenn on the phone that there will be no unplanned Cher requests at the retirement party  no matter how badly he wants to hear "Half-Breed."

Red makes his initial guess that Liz's truck will have the guns because he thinks Cooper would have assigned them to "the badass in the bunch." You just know she loved that.

Oh, what will we do with these two?

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A GREEN Party activist and local geographer has warned the anti-incineration lobby they risk damaging their own cause through hyperbole

It comes after Limerick Against Pollution (LAP) member Mary Hamill took issue with a claim made by Breandan MacGabhann that dust particles had travelled to Limerick from the Sahara Desert.

She said the former local election candidate is wrong, and she said the dust was very similar to dust coming from the Irish Cement plant in Mungret.

Although there is no evidence to suggest it was the case on this occasion, Irish Cement has in the past admitted dust has blown from their factory onto cars and house windows in the environs.

Ms Hamill pointed to contact made with Met Eireann which said there was no evidence the dust came from Africa either.

She wrote: On the day of the dust deposit members of Limerick Against Pollution along with residents brought the incident to the attention of the EPA. It was requested that the EPA take samples of this dust from the cars of residents and from the Irish Cement plant in Mungret for analysis and comparison as the dust was very similar to what came from the plant in the past.

LAP are locked in a long-running battle against Irish Cements 10m plan to switch away from fossil fuels to solid recovered waste and used tyres, a plan the company says is vital for its survival.

Mr MacGabhann says he supports the group in their aim, but maintained the dust did blow from the desert: The dust had a reddish hue, as expected for sand particles from a desert location like the Sahara. The Barcelona Dust centre said on March 19 its modelling suggested Saharan dust would reach Ireland in the early morning of March 21, consistent with the timeline.
M embers of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) have joined in solidarity and remembrance to mark the first anniversary of the murder of Lyra McKee.

The NUJ said the virtual commemoration is to celebrate the journalists life and legacy.

The 29-year-old was shot in the Creggan area of Londonderry by dissident republican group the New IRA while observing clashes with police.

Colleagues and friends used the hashtag #WeStandWithLyra on social media to pay tribute.

Lyra McKee was killed in a shooting on April 19 last year / Getty Images

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said: Lyra was a journalist who represented the best of Northern Ireland with a future ahead that reflected her optimism, her confidence, her ambition and her strong sense of social justice and commitment to equality.

As we remember Lyra today, and think of her partner and family, we also think of journalists elsewhere who put their lives on the line when they get up and go to work each day.

The greatest tribute we can pay Lyra is to find ways to encourage and promote the kind of imaginative, insightful and brave journalism for which she will be remembered.

The NUJ journalists gathered via zoom as coronavirus travel and lockdown restrictions prevented them from holding a public event.

Journalist Siobhan Fenton paid tribute on Twitter saying: "Northern Irish journalism is much poorer without [Lyra's] smart, compassionate and determined reporting."

Patrick Corrigan, the head of Nations and Regions at Amnesty UK joined people who are remembering Lyra by sharing the message #WeStandWithLyra online.

Lyra was a gay rights activist and an articulate advocate of a new and more tolerant Northern Ireland. She wrote for publications including Private Eye and Buzzfeed.

Seamus Dooley, NUJ Irish secretary, said: Lyra had an unrivalled zest for life and for living.

That is what makes her senseless killing so cruel. In her journalism she combined her passion for journalism with a deep commitment to social change.

In her writings, in her approach to issues of poverty, equality and exclusion, Lyra was not afraid to ask the difficult question, to challenge the conventional and accepted wisdoms and to look for new and imaginative solutions to problems. Thats her legacy.

TODO: define component type apester

What marked Lyra apart was her optimism, her unfailing good humour and her refusal to become cynical while fearlessly questioning the status quo.

Like Martin OHagan, Lyra did not ask for the crown of martyrdom. On her first anniversary it is important that we celebrate the legacy of a woman of imagination, humour and enormous talent.

My thoughts are with Lyras partner, family and colleagues for whom her spirit remains an abiding presence.

Sarah Canning, Lyra's partner, joined thousands who marched for same sex marriage in Northern Ireland / PA

It comes as the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) issued a fresh appeal for information into her death, offering anonymity to anyone who can help to catch the killer.

The PSNI has sent letters to those living close to where she was killed urging them to take any new information to detectives.

Detective Superintendent Jason Murphy said: While this appeal for information is being distributed by the police, it is also a direct appeal from the McKee family for help in getting justice for Lyra.

In the letter, Mr Murphy asks for mobile phone footage or photographs from the night, as well as requesting to speak to anyone who was present and can identify those involved in the disorder and has first-hand evidence relating to the events before or after the murder.
It is a sad state of affairs that medical errors are the third-leading cause of death after heart attacks and cancer in the U.S. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 255,000 Americans are dying each year from medical negligence.

Now it seems like a large percentage of that number are actionable as medical malpractice. But medical malpractice wrongful death lawsuits filed each year don't come close to 250,000.

What is actionable medical malpractice?

To establish medical malpractice a plaintiff must be able to prove the four D's with evidence. And then that evidence of having experienced the 4 D's must warrant compensation.

1. Duty

Did the healthcare provider fulfill their duty of care? This can range from listening and respecting a patient's requests to medical practitioners referring to other specialists if they are not sufficiently qualified to provide care.



2. Deviation

Did the healthcare provider deviate from the standard of care? If a healthcare provider deviates from the standard of care it is grounds for malpractice.



3. Damages

Can it be proved with sufficient evidence that the deviation from duty caused damages? Acceptable evidence includes prescription and medical records as well as statements from other physicians in a similar field.



4. Direct cause

The final step of proving actionable medical malpractice is to show that the deviation from the standard of care was the direct (not indirect) cause of injury or injuries.

3 cases of successful medical malpractice lawsuits

In these three cases, a collective amount of $73 million was awarded to the plaintiffs.

In the first case, a mother was awarded $50 million when medical staff ignored an ultrasound that showed the unborn baby hadn't moved for 6 hours during labor.

At the trial, experts testified that a cesarean section would have prevented the baby's brain damage. Unfortunately, the medical staff ignored the mother who told them the baby wasn't moving, and the ultrasound. Now the child cannot walk, speak or sit up on his own.

The second case saw a family awarded $9m in a wrongful death suit. Their daughter died from complications due to improperly prescribed birth control medication.

The daughter had a high risk of blood clots and should not have been given the medication. A month later she went for urgent care but was repeatedly misdiagnosed days before she died from a pulmonary embolism.

The final case is of a mother awarded $15 million when medical staff failed to inform her of her choices of delivery and didn't properly monitor the fetus of her son during labor. As a result, the boy suffers from cerebral palsy and other neurological deficiencies as a result of oxygen deprivation to his brain during labor.

There are many more cases like this, and you can read them here.

Know your rights and know the law is on your side

If you, or a family member, have experienced medical malpractice you should speak with an attorney. There are many attorneys out there who specialize in medical malpractice and can help you get the justice you deserve.

If you are worried about the financial burden of a lawsuit, you can get help. There are companies, like Baker Street Funding, who offer pre-settlement funding.

While a case is pending, a lawsuit funding company will liaise with your attorney and ascertain the viability of your lawsuit. And then based on that assessment they can provide a cash advance on the expected settlement.

This gives you the peace of mind to pursue justice and recompense for the medical negligence you or a loved one has experienced.
Experiments conducted by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) show the coronavirus can be 'quickly' destroyed by sunlight.

Yahoo News obtained a briefing that suggests the virus cannot survive in high temperatures and humidity on surfaces or in a droplet of saliva  giving the public hope that the end could be just around the corner as summer weather approaches for parts of the world.

The DHS found that simulated sunlight 'rapidly killed the virus in aerosols,' while without that treatment, 'no significant loss of virus was detected in 60 minutes.'

However, the unpublished documents also state that the results have yet to be proven nor does this not mean the world will see a drop in new cases if they are.

Scroll down for video

Experiments conducted by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) show the coronavirus can be 'quickly' destroyed by sunlight. Yahoo News obtained a briefing that suggests the virus cannot survive in high temperatures and humidity

A DHS spokesperson told DailyMail.com in an email: 'The department is dedicated to the fight against COVID-19, and the health and safety of the American people is its top priority. As policy, the department does not comment on allegedly leaked documents.

'It would be irresponsible to speculate, draw conclusions, or to inadvertently try to influence the public based upon a document that has not yet been peer-reviewed or subjected to the rigorous scientific validation approach.'

The idea that sunlight could be the archenemies of the coronavirus has been floating around the web for quite some time.

A post on Facebook with the heading 'GOODBYE CORONA VIRUS' details a daily regimen to cure the disease  and exposure to sunlight is on the list.

The DHS found that simulated sunlight 'rapidly killed the virus in aerosols,' while without that treatment, 'no significant loss of virus was detected in 60 minutes

The results suggests the coronavirus is most stable in lower humidity than compared to higher temperatures. However, the unpublished documents also state that the results have yet to be proven nor does this not mean the world will see a drop in new cases if they are

Many may partake in the routine with hope it actually works, but the US Centers for Disease Control Prevention (CDC) has stated there is now specific treatment or regimen for COVID-19 that is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The results shown in documents are from the DHS science and technology directorate and includes experiments conducted by the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center that was started to address biological threats following the 9/11 terrorist attacks to address biological threats.

Many infectious disease seem to arrive in the colder months and disappear once summer rolls in including the flu and measles, which has led experts to learn if the same applies to the current coronavirus sweeping the globe.

Because COVID-19 is still new to the world, experts have noted that there is not enough data to show how the virus changes with seasons.

However, a separate study looked at the cases in 100 Chinese cities last month and found transmission rates fell as the weather grew warmer or more humid.

a separate study looked at the cases in 100 Chinese cities last month and found transmission rates fell as the weather grew warmer or more humid. Each blue dot signifies the average number of transmissions per infected person at a given humidity level, meaning that on days when humidity was 100%, the transmission rate hovered mostly below two per infected person

As temperatures rose in 100 Chinese cities, the average number of people who those infected with coronavirus passed it to fell from 2.5 to less than 1.5, Chinese researchers found

Public experts and the study conducted in China suggests the viruses will not thrive in warmer temperatures, heat and humidity - but these factors will not stop it in its tracks.

Since COVID-19 emerged in China in December, the virus has spread like wildfire to more than 350,000 people worldwide amid cold weather  there are currently more than 2 million cases and over 137,00 deaths reported around the globe.

In China, the outbreak reached its peak in February with more than 15,000 cases diagnosed in a single day.

Since COVID-19 emerged in China in December, the virus has spread like wildfire to more than 350,000 people worldwide amid cold weather  there are currently more than 2 million caes and over 137,00 deaths reported around the globe

Because COVID-19 is still new to the world, experts have noted that there is not enough data to show how the virus changes with seasons

But it's officially spring there now, and with the departure of winter has come a precipitous fall of cases in China.

Scientists from MIT have also found that the coronavirus appears to loose spread slower in warmer countries.

The team found that several countries 'such as Australia, UAE, Qatar, Singapore, Bahrain, Qatar and Taiwan have performed extensive testing per capita and the number of positive 2019-nCoV cases per capita are lower in these countries compared to several European countries and the US,' reads the analysis published on March 19.

Qasim Bukhari, a computational scientist at MIT and a co-author of the analysis told Yahoo News that since publishing their work, the number of cases spreading in certain countries support their findings.

'There are more than 5,000 cases in Pakistan right now,' he said.

'But the increase is not as rapid as you see in other countries.'

MIT found several countries 'such as Australia, UAE, Qatar, Singapore, Bahrain, Qatar and Taiwan have performed extensive testing per capita and the number of positive 2019-nCoV cases per capita are lower in these countries compared to several European countries and the US

Dr. Anthony Fauci (pictured), who is an immunologist and recently started working with the White House response, said in a press briefing that the summer months might slow the virus down

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is an immunologist and recently started working with the White House response, said in a press briefing that the summer months might slow the virus down.

'It's almost certainly going to go down a bit', he said but did not confirm that warm weather will have a major impact on the outbreak.

Although there are conflicting ideas about how sunlight impacts the coronavirus, Juan Leon, a virologist who focuses on environmental health at Emory University, told NPR that results using UVC to inactive such a disease as coronavirus could be more promising.

'UVC for longer durations, over 15 minutes, was found to be more effective at inactivating SARS,' she says.
reportedly died after an incident with a patient in the mental health ward

NSW Police are investigating the death of a highly-respected mental health nurse at a Sydney Hospital which has shocked his colleagues.

The 49-year-old nurse educator died on Friday morning after suffering what's believed to be a health episode.

Emergency services were called to Liverpool Hospital and despite attempts to revive him, he died at the scene.

Emergency services were called to Liverpool Hospital and despite attempts to revive him, he died at the scene

'An investigation into the man's death has commenced,' NSW Police said in a statement.

'However initial inquiries suggest he may have suffered a medical episode. A report will be prepared for the coroner.'

The man reportedly died after an incident with a patient in the hospital's mental health ward.

NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association general Secretary Brett Holmes said his death had taken a heavy toll on those around him.

'Our immediate thoughts and deepest sympathies are with our member's family, friends and colleagues at this difficult time,' said Mr Holmes.

'He was a very well-known clinical nurse educator and a highly respected mentor to mental health nurses throughout the south western Sydney mental health service.

The man reportedly died after an incident with a patient in the hospital's mental health ward (stock)

'We are providing support directly to our members who've been impacted by this devastating tragedy and we are assisting with all necessary investigations now underway.

'Nurses never go to work expecting not to return home to their loved ones. It is a heartbreaking tragedy.'

In a joint statement NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard and Mental Health Minister Bronnie Taylor described the man as 'dedicated' and said support would be given to his family and co-workers.

'The entire NSW Health family are devastated by our colleague's untimely death,' they said.

'Our deepest sympathy goes out to the nurse's spouse, children, family, friends and co-workers.'
Retired Army Command Sgt. Maj. Bennie Adkins, a Medal of Honor recipient and Special Forces legend through three tours in Vietnam, died Friday at age 86 after a 23-day last battle against coronavirus.

"We lost a great husband, father and warrior today. Bennie G. Adkins passed away this afternoon. Please keep his family in your prayers," Adkins' family said in a Twitter post.

Adkins was diagnosed with coronavirus and respiratory failure when he was admitted to East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika, Alabama, on March 26.

Related: Legendary Medal of Honor Recipient Now Critically Ill with Coronavirus

His son, Keith, told the Opelika-Auburn News in Alabama at the time that "We're very appreciative of the prayers and support from people, frankly, from around the country. We're hopeful for the best, but realistic as well."

The Bennie G. Adkins Foundation, created by the MOH recipient to provide scholarships to Special Forces troops and their families, said on Facebook that "The COVID-19 pandemic has hit home. Bennie has been hospitalized and is critically ill with COVID-19 respiratory failure."

Adkins was awarded the nation's highest honor for valor in a September 2014 White House ceremony by President Barack Obama in recognition of his three-day battle 48 years earlier with mortars, grenades and a sawed-off shotgun in Vietnam's forbidding A Shau valley.

"God bless his soul. It's a great loss to America," said retired Marine Maj. Gen. James Livingston, a Medal of Honor recipient for his actions in the Vietnam battle of Dai Do in 1968 and a long-time friend and admirer of Adkins.

"We became fairly close" over the years, Livingston said. Adkins made a point to join Livingston, an Auburn alumnus, at events at Auburn University in Alabama, and Livingston would attend annual fundraisers in Birmingham for Adkins' Foundation.

At Auburn, one of the fraternities would send over a jeep to pick up Adkins for events where students were in awe of his record and struck by his plainspoken humility.

"He was an absolute role model," Livingston said.

"He'd tell his story, how he was a humble man from Oklahoma" who found his way in the Army, and "he certainly motivated people. Bennie always achieved that."

Adkins' valor in the A Shau valley also had a special resonance for Livingston. He recalled hearing tales of units suffering heavy losses in the valley when he took over as commander of Echo company, 2nd Battalion, Fourth Marines, in late 1967.

In March 1966, Adkins was sent to join two officers and 10 enlisted troops from the Fifth Special Forces Group at Camp A Shau in the triple-canopy valley that ran west from Hue city to the Ho Chi Minh trail in Cambodia.

At about 2 a.m. on March 9, 1966, "they hit us," Adkins said in a 2018 interview with Military.com. "They laid down some mortar, 82 and 120 mortars on us initially. Then mass assaults."

At one point, the North Vietnamese had his unit surrounded at night. "We started hearing a noise and then we could see the eyes -- about a 400-pound Indonesian tiger was stalking us that night.

"The North Vietnamese soldiers -- they backed away from us" because of the tiger "and gave us room and we were able to get away," he said.

While "the tiger kinda' helped," he said, the battle continued for another two days.

His medal citation stated that:

"During the thirty-eight-hour battle and forty-eight hours of escape and evasion, fighting with mortars, machine guns, recoilless rifles, small arms, and hand grenades, it was estimated that Sergeant First Class Adkins killed between 135 and 175 of the enemy while sustaining eighteen different wounds to his body."

Livingston recalled being with Adkins and more than 25 other Medal of Honor recipients when they were honored at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., before the start of the 2018 baseball All-Star Game.

Adkins was first out of the dugout, using a walker to get to his place on the baseline. He took his hands off the walker, came to attention, and gave the crowd a crisp salute. The stands erupted in prolonged cheers and the ballplayers later stood in line to meet him.

"They all came by," Adkins said of the ballplayers. "They were a nice group of young men. You could tell they were quality people."

The actor Bradley Cooper narrated a video on the history of the Medal of Honor that night:

"You don't win a Medal of Honor. It is earned by the rarest of heroes, heroes who reveal the remarkable capacity of their character. They connect us through the ideals they proudly represent. Tonight, in our nation's capital, it is our honor to welcome these true American heroes."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

Read More: Marine Dies During Training at 29 Palms
Shobana Radhakrishnan By

Express News Service

MADURAI: Be it a natural calamity or a pandemic, the Group-D staff are among the few who roll up their sleeves first. Being at the bottom of the government machinery, their work holds the key for any contingency planning. But, are we treating them right? Sadly, not. Their services remain underrated and unrecognised. What TNIE understood during the conversation with them is that more than claps and praises, they want real solution  permanent job and pay hike.

Around 530 Domestic Breeding Checkers (DBC workers), 155 urban health nurses and 100 anganwadi workers have been deployed to the citys seven COVID-19 containment zones -- Melamadai, Narimedu, Thapalthanthi Nagar, Anaiyur, Thideer Nagar and Mahaboopalayam  to carry out the daily survey.

Speaking to TNIE, a DBC worker Malliga (name changed), who is involved in door-to-door surveys at Melamadai, said despite being in service for many years, they have neither been made permanent nor given a pay hike. My salary remains the same for the last seven years. Its just `8,000. While the government had made announcements of special allowances for healthcare and conservancy workers, we have been neglected despite being the frontline force, she rued.

Another DBC worker Rani (name changed), who surveys Mahaboopalayam, says the workers are proud of being a part of the fight against the novel coronavirus. Not minding working an extra hour than the stipulated duty time, they check at least 50 houses every day. We start as early as 7.30 am. A van picks us up from houses and drops at containment zones. The survey goes till 1.30 pm, she said.

They collect the details of residents with co-morbid conditions and those with fever, cough, cold, respiratory illness and sore throat. Besides, they also teach the public a few respiratory exercises and give them tips to increase the immunity.

The collected data will be handed over to the designated medical officer in the nearby Urban Primary Health Centre (UPHC). If any of the residents has symptoms of COVID-19, we notify the UPHC doctor, following which the doctor will visit the patient for treatment. If they are identified with major symptoms of Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) and high fever, the doctor will immediately refer the patient to Government Rajaji Hospital, she added.

Speaking on the safety gear given to them, the workers said they were provided masks made of single layer cotton fabric along with gloves. However, they told TNIE that they dont wear gloves. When asked, a DBC worker Valli (name changed) said, The gloves are made of hard material that is ideal for conservancy workers. As one cannot jot down the details wearing such thick gloves, we dont use them.

On the challenges they face, the workers said visiting all the houses by foot under the scorching sun is an exhausting task. What makes things worse is that the lack of drinking water and toilet arrangements. We get drinking water from the houses. At some houses, we get beverages and snacks. After the survey, the van drops us at our houses, added one of them. From their survey, the workers have noticed one thing. It is the youth who break the curfew most. Even when we try to make them understand the importance of staying home, they say the virus wont affect them, they said.

No permanent job, no pay hike

Speaking to TNIE, a DBC worker Malliga (name changed), who is involved in door-to-door surveys, said despite being in service for many years, they have neither been made permanent. My salary remains the same for the last seven years. Its just Rs 8,000. While the government made announcements of allowances for healthcare and conservancy workers, we have been neglected despite being the frontline force.
Reuters

Maharashtra has become the first state in India to cross 3,000 coronavirus positive cases. The number of coronavirus cases has reached 3,323 in Maharashtra, the most affected state both in terms of infections and deaths. Read more

Here's more top news of the day:

1) India Is Shipping Tons Of Life-Saving Hydroxychloroquine & Paracetamol Tablets To 108 Countries

AP

India is not only gathering praise for its leadership and timely intervention to contain coronavirus in the country and South Asia but also gratitude for helping hundreds of countries with a life-saving drug. Read more

2) Covid-19 Hits Indian Navy As 26 Sailors In Western Naval Command Test Positive

Indian Navy

At least 26 Indian Navy personnel have tested positive for at the Western Naval Command in Mumbai, in the first case of a major outbreak of the deadly disease in the Indian armed forces. Read more

3) Government Identifies 170 Districts As Coronavirus Hotspots; All Delhi Districts In Red Zone

AFP

The government, in its effort to intensify fight against the coronavirus pandemic, has classified 170 hotspot districts in the Red Zone, while 207 non-hotspot districts with clusters and non-infected districts have been classified as Green Zone. Read more

4) UN Salutes India For Helping Other Countries In Their Fight Against Coronavirus

BCCL

With cases rising, India has been fighting a war against the coronavirus pandemic, but as severe as they are, the country hasn't abandoned its humanitarian agenda. Read more

5) Double Standard? Bride, Groom Arrested In Gujarat While Karnataka Ex-CM's Son Gets Lush Wedding

JDS

As many as 14 people, including a bride and a groom, have been arrested for gathering in a temple for a wedding amid the lockdown imposed due to the coronavirus outbreak, police in Gujarat said. Read more
A clinical trial of the experimental drug remdesivir reportedly indicated promising results as a treatment for patients with severe COVID-19, with most patients, who received the drug, remarkably improving within a week.

Official results for several trials intended to assess the efficacy and safety of the drug have yet to be released. A video from researchers at the University of Chicago suggested that remdesivir could be an effective treatment for the novel coronavirus.

Two-thirds of severely ill coronavirus patients witnessed their condition became easier, according to the study sponsored by its developer Gilead Sciences.

The drug was initially created as a treatment for illnesses including Ebola and has since been detected to have antiviral qualities.

The antiviral drug is currently subjected to testing in several studies across the globe.

Published in the "New England Journal of Medicine," the preliminary results did not have a control group. Thus, more research is crucial to better determine if the drug could help cure infected patients.

Gilead Sciences Inc.'s experimental drug is raising tentative hope to discover the first treatment for the coronavirus.

The study tracked 53 people in the U.S., Europe, and Canada who required respiratory support, with around half treated with mechanical ventilation and four subjected to a heart-lung by-pass machine.

In the closely watched clinical trial, there have been rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms with almost all patients discharged in less than a week.

The good news sent shares of remdesivir developer Gilead Sciences rising beyond 14 percent in after-hours trading.

Also read: Does Cooking Food Kill Coronavirus?

Gilead's stock price jumped from 8.1% to $82.74 at 10:14 AM on Friday.

"The entire world has been waiting for results from Gilead's clinical trials, and positive results would likely lead to fast approvals by the Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies," according to a news outlet "STAT."

Analysts caution against underscoring the experimental drug as a silver bullet in tackling the coronavirus.

"We cannot draw definitive conclusions from these data," according to Jonathan Grein, director of hospital epidemiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles, and the lead author on the study. "But the observations from this group of hospitalised patients who received remdesivir are hopeful."

The data revealed that 68% of 53 admitted patients showed clinical improvement upon taking remdesivir, making it 36 out of the 53.

In mid-May, analysts recommended that remdesivir could gain authorization as a coronavirus treatment.

Data gleaned from compassionate-use programs are limited, Gilead Chief Executive Daniel O'Day warned in an open letter. Also, the patients were not enrolled in a clinical study that utilizes a placebo or another drug for comparison.

Patients from the U.S., France, Italy, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, and Japan received the drug intravenously in a span of 10 days.

Meanwhile, the University of Chicago recruited 125 coronavirus patients for a clinical trial by Gilead Sciences, with 113 among them who had severe illness. A video showed infectious disease specialist Dr. Kathleen Mullane discussing positive early results from the trial with university colleagues.

Most of their patients were discharged, with only two patients who perished.

Related article: Can Farts Spread Coronavirus? Here's What a Doctor's Experiment Reveal

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A musician who sailed a catamaran packed with 700 kilograms of cocaine from Tahiti to NSW has been jailed for at least six years after a judge found he was only involved in the crime for 24 hours.

Craig Lembke denied knowing the drugs were on board, but was found guilty in October of importing a commercial quantity of cocaine, hidden in the twin hulls of the 13-metre catamaran Skarabej in late 2017.

The quantity of pure cocaine in the 700kg of white powder seized by police was 548kg, with a street value of $245 million.

Craig Lembke denied there were drugs hidden in the twin hulls of the 13-metre catamaran Skarabej in late 2017 (stock)

In the District Court in Coffs Harbour on Friday, Judge Jonathon Priestley jailed Lembke for nine years with a non-parole period of six years.

He found Lembe's criminal involvement was limited to the 24 hours from November 14 to 15, 2017, when the catamaran was moored in Lake Macquarie, near the Toronto Royal Motor Yacht Club.

He rejected the crown contention that Lembke knew about the importation in October 2017 before the yacht left Tahiti, having accepted an offer of $500,000 for the trip.

'I am not satisfied there was any offer made of $500,000 prior to his return,' the judge said.

The trial was told the original plan was for Lembke to sail the Skarabej to Pittwater on Sydney's northern beaches, where the drugs would be offloaded.

But this changed when the syndicate member given the job of taking the cocaine off the catamaran couldn't be contacted and it was decided to remove the drugs at Lake Macquarie.

In the District Court in Coffs Harbour (pictured) on Friday, Judge Jonathon Priestley jailed Lembke for nine years with a non-parole period of six years

The judge found this was when Lembke's limited involvement took place, when he facilitated the removal of the drug from the yacht by using a small boat to take someone off and get his lunch.

He was offered $500,000 and must then have been aware the cargo was of considerable value and weight.

A key trial witness - a syndicate member who cannot be named - gave unreliable evidence.

'It was difficult to determine when, if ever, he was telling the truth,' the judge said.

'In my view, the inference is open that the evidence shows (Lembke) was anxious to ensure he was not involved in criminal activity, until at least prior to November 14.'

The key witness, who pleaded guilty to drug importation, was jailed for 19 years, receiving a considerable discount for his plea and help to authorities.

The judge said the witness had clearly been a trusted senior figure carrying out instructions, making decisions and set to make millions, in contrast to Lembke's very brief involvement and role.

Many referees spoke highly of Lembke, describing him as being passionate about music and sailing, and having a 'disdain for wealth'.
Tracking China's Hai Yang Di Zhi 8 survey vessel's travels since it left port at Sanya on Hainan Island, April 9 and entered the waters of Malaysia on April 17, 2020.

The Malaysian coast guard confirmed Friday the presence of a Chinese survey ship that vessel-tracking software shows is operating close to an exploration vessel contracted by the Malaysian state oil company Petronas. The survey activity is just inside the nations exclusive economic zone.

The Hai Yang Di Zhi 8 left Chinas Hainan Island last week, and was spotted earlier this week moving through Vietnams waters, before arriving Thursday off the coast Malaysias Sarawak state and Brunei. Its deployment is the latest sign of Beijings expansive reach across the contested South China Sea.

It is in Malaysian waters and our duty is to remain in the area and monitor its movement, Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) Director-General Mohd Zubil Mat Som said.

I do not know of its purpose but it has not done any activities that break the laws, he added.

Under international law, a research vessel would need to request permission before operating within 200 nautical miles of a countrys coast -- an area commonly referred to as an exclusive economic zone. Mohd Zubil referred a question about whether the Chinese vessel was within that limit to Malaysias National Security Council.

The foreign ministries of Malaysia and Brunei did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Vessel-tracking tools show the Hai Yang Di Zhi 8, accompanied by China Coast Guard (CCG) escort ships, was within 200 nautical miles of Malaysias Sarawak state on Friday. After briefly entering Bruneian waters on Thursday, it sailed west and began survey activities near the West Capella, the Petronas-contracted exploration ship. Back in October, the West Capella also attracted the attentions of CCG ships in a nearby area.

On Friday, vessel-tracking software showed that two CCG ships, the Zhongguohaijing 1105 and 4203, were sailing alongside the Hai Yang Di Zhi 8.

A Malaysian security source denied reports that the Hai Yang Di Zhi 8 was being shadowed by Malaysian vessels. The official was not authorized to comment on the matter and so requested anonymity.

But the source confirmed what vessel-tracking tools indicate  that one MMEA vessel has been patrolling in the vicinity in recent days. On Wednesday, that vessel, the KM Pekan, was at the Luconia Shoals, which lies to the south of where the Chinese survey ship is now. As of Friday it had sailed further away in a westerly direction.

Chinese ships in port at Sanya, April 3, 2020. The ship in the lower left of the harbor is the Hai Yang Di Zhi 8, the survey vessel currently carrying out operations within Malaysias waters. Credit: Planet Labs Inc Prolonged standoff in 2019

Last year, the Hai Yang Di Zhi 8 was at the center of a prolonged standoff between China and Vietnam at another disputed area, the Vanguard Bank. In that case, survey activities appeared aimed at pressuring a Russian oil exploration vessel out of the area. The Chinese vessel is currently is operating just outside a Vietnam-Malaysia jointly delimited zone, part of the South China Sea claimed by both Vietnam and Malaysia.

In a report released Thursday, the Washington, D.C.,-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said that China operates more research and survey vessels than any other country, and that there is little to distinguish between those engaged in purely civilian research and those doing so on behalf of the military.

Beijing claims most of the mineral-rich South China Sea, including areas that reach the shores of its smaller neighbors. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan also have overlapping claims in the sea region.

Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines have directly disputed Chinas expansive claims in diplomatic notes in recent weeks. China has also been criticized by the United States, which says Beijing is exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic to expand its unlawful claims in the South China Sea.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said Wednesday that the Hai Yang Di Zhi 8 was conducting normal activities and accused U.S. officials of smearing Beijing, Reuters reported.
Gujarat reported 176 new cases of the coronavirus disease, taking the states tally to 1272, including 88 people who have been cured, news agency ANI cited the health department as saying on Saturday.

There were 143 Covid-19 patients in Ahmedabad, 13 each in Surat and Vadodara, two each in Rajkot and Bhavnagar and one each in Anand, Bharuch and Panchmahal, the agency reported.

The death toll in the state also rose to 48 after seven Covid-19 patients died in the state since 6pm on Friday, ANI reported.

Follow latest updates on coronavirus here

The number of coronavirus disease cases in Gujarat had crossed the 1000-mark on Friday and officials had attributed the spike in the number to intensive surveillance and testing in hotspots.

Gujarat had received 24,000 rapid testing kits from the Centre on Friday, according to the states information department.

These kits will be helpful for intense testing in containment zones, high-risk zones. More rapid testing kits will arrive in 2-3 days, the department had said.

Also read: Covid-19 virus accidently leaked by intern at Wuhan lab, says report

Most of the cases in the state have been reported in five districts of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot and Bhavnagar.

The number of Covid-19 cases in India rose to 14,378 and there were 480 deaths across the country, according to the Union health ministry on Saturday morning.

Also read: Coronavirus cases in India rise to 14,378, death toll at 480

(With agency inputs)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 05:50:07|Editor: huaxia

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KHARTOUM, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Sudan on Friday reported one new COVID-19 case and one more death from the novel coronavirus, bringing the total confirmed cases to 33, including seven deaths.

"One new coronavirus infection has been recorded together with one death case," Sudan's Health Minister Akram Ali Al-Tom said in a statement.

He noted that the suspected cases with the coronavirus in the country increased to 300 at all the quarantine centers.

On Monday, the Sudanese government decided to impose a full curfew in the Khartoum State starting on April 18, in a bid to prevent the virus spread.

On March 23, Sudan declared a partial curfew nationwide to stem the virus. Last Sunday, it banned travel of passenger vehicles between the cities and states, in accordance with the emergency law. Enditem
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The plagued Artania cruise ship has finally departed Western Australia after a three-week stay during which three people on board died of coronavirus.

The German liner began its journey from Fremantle back to Europe on Saturday afternoon, keeping to its scheduled 1pm departure time.

It will comes as a significant relief for the WA government, who have made no secret of wanting the ship to leave as soon as possible.

Australian Medical Assistance Team (AUSMAT) staff who worked with the passengers and crew on the cruise ship were seen waving goodbye as it departed

The ship's operators strapped banners and Australian flags across the upper decks thanking Freemantle for hosting the vessel while passengers and crew were treated for coronavirus

Some people brought handmade signs inscribed with well wishes to hold up as the Artania set off from Freemantle harbour

A total of 79 crew and passengers from the Artania have tested positive to coronavirus in WA.

They include a 42-year-old crewman from the Philippines who died in a Perth hospital on Thursday, taking the state's toll to seven.

The ship's captain, Morten Hansen, said the crew member had been with the company since 2006 and most recently served as a motorman, describing his death as 'heartbreaking'.

Crew members in face masks stood distanced apart as they waved goodbye to spectators farewelling the cruise liner from land

One crew member appeared overjoyed by the crowds of people who came to watch the ship set sail, pulling his phone to capture the heartwarming response

Members of the public gathered along the edge of a bank to watch as the embattled cruise liner left for Germany

Two other people from the Artania died last week, one a passenger aged in his 70s and the other a 69-year-old crewman.

Some of the crew who are expected to return home on a charter flight were removed from the ship on Saturday and transferred to a Perth hotel.

It's understood the ship will make stops in Indonesia and the Philippines en route to Germany.

The ship had been scheduled to depart earlier this month before being granted an additional 14-day quarantine period by the Australian Border Force.

Some 219 of WA's 541 cases have been among people linked to cruise ships.

Most decks remained eerily empty during the departure after 79 passengers and crew were struck down with coronavirus,

A man decked in a protective body suit and face mask raised a fist as a sign of solidarity to the Australians lining the shore

A family sit on rocks in the harbour as they watch the cruise ship set sail for Germany
Pune: The Bahrain authorities airlifted its 125 nationals from Pune airport on Saturday. The operation began at 7 am with tourist buses and taxis carrying nationals from various parts of the city, mostly from Kondhwa, arrived at the Lohegaon airport.

Speaking to HT, Ali Abdulla Al Noaimi, charge daffaires, Embassy of the Kingdom of Bahrain, New Delhi, said that the Kingdom of Bahrain supports Indias efforts to combat the pandemic.

We had a list of all the Bahraini citizens who were staying in various parts of the country. Some were tourists, some seeking medical services, and most of the nationals were students. Under the leadership of our King His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa King of the Kingdom of Bahrain, His Royal Highness Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, Prime Minister, His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, we planned a special flight Gulf Air GF7753 to expatriate the nationals back home. Across India, we had 167 nationals in cities like Pune, Delhi, Chennai, Kochy, Hyderabad, and Mumbai. We began contacting them over the past two weeks and then decided upon Pune as it had the largest contingency of nationals (126), who were mostly students, followed by Chennai which has 42 nationals for medical services, said Ali Abdulla Al Noaimi.

According to the Bahrain official, one national from Pune developed high fever and was advised rest and could not board the flight.

With all the information in place, the Ministry in Bahrain arranged a special flight in accordance with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to arrive in Pune. The Consul General of the Kingdom of Bahrain, Mumbai, Ali Al Balooshi was in Pune to see to the travel safety of the nationals.

The pick-up began at 7 am in Pune, while several of the Bahraini nationals from other parts of the country, except Chennai, had already arrived three days prior and were staying in Hotel Taj Blue Diamond in Pune. The flight left Pune airport at 4.15 pm.

Kuldeep Singh, airport director, Pune, said, All arrangements were made for thermal screening at DEP (departure) entry, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) protective gear, immigration, customs, tea-coffee snacks counter, sanitisation machine at DEP entry gate, frequent cleaning /sanitisation of the washrooms, markings for physical separation on the floor and on chairs. We opened only limited areas for the passengers movement to ensure focused cleaning. GF-7753, A321 departed for Chennai with 125 passengers at 0436 pm with one passenger with high temperature detained and referred to hospital.
On Thursday, Essential Energy Services CEO Garnet Amundson announced he was cutting his salary in half, rolling back wages for senior staff and suspending bonus programs.

The next morning, he could still manage a smile.

The federal government's plans for helping the oil and gas sector won't allow him to reverse course on those difficult decisions, but it provides a little hope for an industry facing a lot of grim news.

"We were very pleased to see that it focused on both orphan wells and inactive wells," he said.

"We have to be very pleased when there's the potential for additional cash and liquidity in the industry. The trick of the whole thing, of course, will be in the details."

The broad strokes, however, were largely welcomed by the oilpatch, including $1.7 billion to clean up orphan and inactive wells as well as a $750-million emissions reduction fund.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also said the government will be expanding credit support for medium-sized businesses, starting with the energy sector.

But big questions  and big hopes  still hang on the how far Ottawa is willing to help the oilpatch bridge the current meltdown in oil demand with some form of credit backstop. More news is still expected.

"What they gave a nod to today was liquidity for the medium-sized companies that require larger financial intervention," Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage told CBC News Friday.

"We know [there will] be more required because right now our companies are just burning through their cash every day ... because every barrel of oil they're producing is being produced at a loss."

Government of Alberta

Oil prices have plunged under the weight of a worldwide glut of crude  a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic on oil demand, plus a price war this spring between Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Canada's oilpatch has shed billions of dollars from their spending plans and ratcheted back their production, rattling the the sector from downtown office towers to rural oilfield firms.

Story continues

Nothing announced Friday will  or could  change the sagging fortunes of today's oil markets. But the new funding has the potential to be significant for a few reasons.

Orphan and inactive wells have long been a problem for provinces with a history of energy development.

The issue is particularly acute in Alberta where there are more than 6,000 orphan wells  oil and gas wells that haven't been remediated by their often-bankrupt owners.

Landowners have long been worried about their impact on crops, water and the environment.

There are also more than 90,000 inactive wells, which remain in corporate hands but sit idle for economic reasons.

The Associated Press

Of the $1.7 billion announced Friday, $1 billion will go to Alberta. The Alberta Orphan Wells Association (OWA), a group funded by industry, will receive a $200-million loan to support the clean-up of orphan sites across the province.

The clean-up program is expected to create 5,200 jobs in Alberta alone  some good news for some smaller and medium-sized companies, including drillers, which have been hard hit by plunging oilpatch spending.

"Our membership in the broader oilfield service sector will benefit greatly from it," said Mark Scholz, president of the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors.

The key for many companies will be how fast the funding finds its way into the hands of those doing the work.

The funding should also help conventional oil producers carrying inactive wells on their books. During the previous downturn, companies collapsed and left thousands of wells without reclamation.

There will be concerns about public money going toward cleaning up after industry. But if the funding can help prevent a surge in new orphan wells, while putting a dent in the current tally, it could make a difference.

"It could be the turning point in terms of how we deal with this orphan well issue in Alberta  if it's done well," said Chris Severson-Baker of the Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank.

CBC

Pembina says Alberta needs regulated timelines for cleaning up wells and an upfront bond that ensures there's money to clean up if a company fails. Such policies are needed to keep the problem in check, he said.

The federal government said Friday that Alberta has committed to implement strengthened regulation to "significantly reduce the future prospect of new orphan wells."

While details have yet to come, it said "this will create a sustainably funded system that ensures companies are bearing the costs of their environmental responsibilities."

Natural Resources Canada will also be given $750 million to create a repayable loan program to work with conventional and offshore oil and gas companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It could be used to support companies' investments in pumps, valves and other equipment to reduce methane emissions. Industry will want to take a closer look at how the program will actually work.

But the biggest issue for the sector and the Alberta government remains liquidity. Federal Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan said he heard that message clearly in recent weeks.

The federal government's plan is to expand the Business Credit Accountability Program credit support to medium-sized businesses with larger financing needs. It'll start with the energy sector.

"This support ... will provide viable energy sector companies with rapid access to financing they need to maintain operations and keep their employees working," it said.

"Viable" is the key word. It seems this is not intended to help companies on the brink before the pandemic wrought havoc on the sector.

Jason Franson/The Canadian Press

The industry will almost certainly lose companies with bad balance sheets in the coming months  something analysts have been warning about for weeks.

But it remains the hope of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to bring as much of the sector through the storm, and he sees the federal government as a big part of the answer.

Calling the federal announcement an "important first step," Kenney said again Friday it would take between $15 billion and $30 billion in liquidity measures to ensure the Canadian oil and gas sector "survives this crisis."

"We're not proposing that the federal government write anybody a $15-billion or $30-billion cheque," he said.

"But we are saying that they could play a critically helpful role in providing, effectively, forms of loan guarantees to ensure access to credit for these businesses to get through this crisis time."

Whether the Liberal government is willing to do anything like that is no small decision. Environmental groups have been lobbying the prime minister not to do so for weeks. There are likely members of his caucus who feel the same.

But hopes remain in the oilpatch that Ottawa will still do more.
A Navy ship docked in New York City accepted its first coronavirus patient from New Jersey on Friday, authorities said.

The USNS Comfort arrived at Pier 90 in Manhattan from Virginia on March 30 to provide relief for New York City hospitals that needed space for people who tested positive for the coronavirus. New York still leads the nation with the most coronavirus cases.

The ship began taking patients from New Jersey hospitals Friday in an effort to expand its COVID-19 response efforts, according to a release from the Navy.

Every one of those that we pull from the community or from the city hospitals is one more open bed for New Jersey hospitals to refill, Capt. Patrick Amersbach, commanding officer of the medical treatment facility aboard the Comfort, said in a statement. Im very proud of the crew, our medical providers, nurses, support staff that are providing outstanding care to the people of New York City and New Jersey. We look at it as one patient at a time.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Businesses that are open | Homepage

State hospitals have coordinated with Comfort doctors to ensure patients, both critical and non-critical, could be effectively transferred across state lines and aboard the ship to receive care.

The 70,000-ton Comfort has 1,000 hospital beds, a medical laboratory, a pharmacy, an optometry lab, digital radiology, a CT scan, two oxygen-producing plants and a helicopter deck.

As of Friday afternoon, 163 patients have been treated on the ship and more than 80 have been discharged, authorities said. About half of the patients treated there have tested positive for COVID-19.

The Comfort has had four of its crew members test positive for the coronavirus and all of them have recovered and returned to work aboard the ship, officials said.

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.

Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrsheldon Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.
SEOUL - How's this for a romcom plot to escape the realities of the coronavirus pandemic?

A South Korean heiress-slash-business executive crash lands in North Korea after her paraglider is caught in typhoon, and ends up falling out of a tree, straight into the arms of a strait-laced and taciturn North Korean army captain.

But, in South Korea, the Netflix series "Crash Landing on You" also has found an improbable niche in the tricky world of outreach between the two Koreas. The popular series - whose writers include a defector from the North - has earned praise for its nuanced portrayal of North Koreans that challenges the drab uniformity often depicted in South Korean pop culture.

Sokeel Park of Liberty in North Korea, a group that helps people fleeing the North, said the show "crashed the South Korean zeitgeist on North Korea" by portraying a three-dimensional country with relatable - even lovable - people.

Television and films have often blasted through cultural stereotypes, bridging political divides such as India and Pakistan, and Israelis and Palestinians. But few places are more estranged - but also bonded by language and traditions - than the Korean Peninsula.

"Crash Landing on You" was inspired by an actual event, when a South Korean actress and three friends accidentally strayed into disputed waters between North and South Korea on a boat trip in 2008, even talking to North Korean fishermen after getting lost in a fog.

The rest of "Crash Landing on You" is fantasy, which has also attracted audiences across Asia and in the United States.

The Washington Post asked three defectors for their views about the show, what they liked, what was accurate - and what was not.

- - -

Romance across the front line

Without giving too much away, the show centers on the far-fetched romance between the South Korean business executive and North Korean captain - and the incredible sacrifices and risks each take to stay together.

But is it that absurd?

Kang Ha-na fled North Korea as an 18-year-old, sheltering in China for five years, before eventually chatting with a South Korean soldier online and falling in love with him.

"At school, I was taught to detest enemy South Korean soldiers as violent and hostile," she said. "I never imagined I would meet one of them."

Their online friendship turned into love, and then into a risky gamble to buy a dead person's identity to obtain a Chinese passport. Kang used it to travel to South Korea to be with the soldier. They eventually got married.

"I had to take terrifying risks at each stage of my journey to South Korea to meet him. It was love that got me through the impossible borders," she said. "People dismiss 'Crash Landing on You' as an unrealistic drama. But I was totally feeling [the North Korean army captain character] when he lied to his family and forged a Chinese passport to save his South Korean lover. Would a North Korean man do something as crazy as that just for love? Well, look what I did."

- - -

Village life in the North

Kang, who now lives near South Korea's border with the North, recently watched the show with her husband. He kept asking her about what he was seeing on TV, she said.

"He couldn't believe that was the life I lived before meeting him, but yeah, I also made kimchi out of seawater and showered in a makeshift steam bath under plastic sheets," she said, noting scenes from the series.

Kang said she used to avoid watching South Korean films and dramas that involved North Korea, because the North was depicted as "so dark."

"My life in North Korea had hardships, but it was not just suffering," she said. "There are real people living in the country, and all kinds of things happen there. What I liked about this series is that it showed different kinds of people living in North Korea."

Plunking a wealthy South Korean woman into a North Korean village provides endless material for comedy in the show. But it also provides an eye-opening account of village life, featuring a group of women who initially come across as busybodies but eventually prove to be loyal to each other.

But Kang says that warm community feeling is no longer common in the North.

"After the state-led economy broke down, people were left on their own to survive," she said. "There's not much room left for such neighborly support."

- - -

What about the North Korean army?

In the show, the army captain character enjoys a close and informal relationship with four soldiers under his command, and these men also become central characters.

Jung Ha-neul joined the Korean People's Army fresh out of school as a 17-year-old and was stationed as a guard along the heavily militarized southern frontier, just like the characters in the show. He said it brings back many old memories, calling the show a step forward from the typical one-sided portrayal of North Korea as an emotionless place.

But he said it paints too rosy picture of life in the North Korean army.

"The border guard unit I experienced was much more rigid and hierarchical," he said, adding he has "hardly any happy memories" of the 15 months he spent in the army.

Jung sneaked across the heavily mined front line in 2013, when a typhoon knocked out some of the electric fences - just as a typhoon does in the TV drama - but he said he never would have risked his life to run away if the army had been as warm as it is portrayed.

But in one respect, he says, the show is accurate.

"When the soldiers first come to Seoul in the show, the sense of surprise and marvel they feel is real," he said. "The burgers I tasted for the first time in Seoul were amazing."

- - -

And is the Pyongyang elite so status obsessed?

The show satirizes the elite of Pyongyang, whose children study abroad and are constantly trying to one up each other. They also scatter English words into their conversation in attempts to sound cosmopolitan.

Kim Geum-hyok, 29, who was an adviser for the show, says he came from a similar background before defecting.

"The European designer goods in Pyongyang department stores, the trendy fashions of North Korea's study-abroad students, those are all real lives that I experienced myself," Kim said. "People who had the rare chance of going abroad will try to show that off by mixing broken English words into their speech. There are people like that in North Korea, just like anywhere else in the world."

But for Kim, a strong element of the show is how it presents North Koreans as having the normal human flaws.

"All kinds of people live in North Korea, but the media reduces the country to flat and negative images," he said. "I am happy to see this show that helps people look at the country in a new light."
Lesotho's Prime Minister Thomas Thabane has deployed the military onto the streets to "restore order", claiming law enforcement institutions were undermining democracy. His announcement on national television came a day after the constitutional court overturned his suspension of parliament as part of a coronavirus lockdown.

Soldiers in armed vehicles were seen patrolling the streets of the capital Maseru early Saturday, according to AFP reports.

Thabane said he had "deployed the army to take control of this situation and take necessary measures against these elements...to restore peace and order".

The prime minister did not name any specific branch of law enforcement.

The constitutional court on Friday reversed Thabane's decision to suspend parliament for three months, taken as part of Lesotho's lockdown measures to contain the spread of coronavirus.

Thabane has faced growing calls to step down after he was accused of the 2017 murder of his estranged wife. He had been due to be formally charged in February, but his lawyers claimed his office granted him immunity from prosecution.

The 80-year-old offered to resign by 31 July but rivals from within his own All Basotho Convention (ABC) party want him to leave office earlier. Some of them have teamed up with the opposition aim of forming a coalition government.

On 3 April, Thabane ordered the intelligence services to investigate his party rivals, accusing them of taking advantage of the coronavirus crisis and plotting to topple his government.

"While we are busy dealing with Covid-19, it is shocking to learn that some selfish people are busy plotting to unlawfully overthrow the government.

"Embarrassingly, some of the people leading the campaign to topple my government are legislators from the party that I am leading," he said.
The UAE will tonight (April 18) participate in the historic "One World: Together at Home" cross-platform global special event that will bring together some of the worlds biggest artists to celebrate the healthcare workers' efforts in combating the Covid-19 pandemic.

From the UAE, doctors, artists and philanthropists who are part of the global efforts against the pandemic will join the 8-hour digital livestream and broadcast event, which is expected to draw over two billion viewers worldwide, said state news agency Wam.

Launched by Global Citizens, the event features some of the worlds leading artists led by Lady Gaga including Oprah Winfery, Matthew Mcconaughey, Formula One Champion Lewis Hamilton, Andrea Bocelli, John Legend, David Beckham, Celine Dion, Alicia Keys, Taylor Swift, Idris Elba and Usher.

The historic global special uses the power of music and advocacy to bring people together from their homes. It will share messages of gratitude and appreciation from treated Covid-19 patients to the worlds healthcare workers putting their health on the line to combat the pandemic and support global Covid-19 response initiatives.

Broadcast The event will broadcast live on BBC, ABC, NBC and CBS, and stream on Amazon Prime, Apple, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube at 10pm UAE timing. UAE viewers can tune in the live-cast on Dubai TV channels and their digital platforms, stated the report.

The special event will be co-hosted by Jimmy Fallon of The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel of Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Stephen Colbert of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Friends from Sesame Street will also add to the incredible lineup.

Messages of Hope Representing the UAE and the Arab world, Emirati star Hussain Al Jassmi will join the digital livestream and TV special with some of his hits including the latest track "Benaady" (this will pass) that celebrates efforts to overcome the global coronavirus pandemic and sends messages of hope, solidarity and unity against the crisis.

Al Jassmi will make his appearance alongside some of the worlds leading celebrities including Elton John, Paul McCartney, Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Ellie Goulding, Lady Antebellum, and Zucchero Fornaciari, said the Wam report.

The real heroes, the Emirati doctors working to combat the coronavirus pandemic in different parts of the world, will share their stories at the global special through videos that document their day-to-day struggle to save lives.

Many Emirati doctors chose to remain at their posts and support efforts to combat the coronavirus overseas instead of returning home.

One such example is Emirati Dr Ajlan Al Zaki, internal medicine resident at Stanford University hospital, who opted to remain and devote long hours of work to treat coronavirus patients amid the crisis facing the US.

Dr Aysha Al Mentheri, Gynecology and Obstetrics Specialist, is currently devoting her expertise and support to save infected pregnant women and their children at Bichat University Hospital, the first hospital to admit coronavirus patients in Paris, France.

Al Mentheri chose to stay to support the Western country that nurtured her education, implementing the values of humanity and solidarity, which, she believes, is a doctors duty.

Since the coronavirus outbreak in Chinas Wuhan at the end of 2019, the UAE has carried out humanitarian efforts to support countries across the world in countering the pandemic and equip health facilities in hard-hit communities.

At the heart of these crucial efforts was the UAEs provision of tonnes of medical supplies and relief equipment to empower healthcare workers in China, Italy, Iran, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Colombia, Croatia, Uzbekistan among other nations.

In a notable humanitarian operation, the UAE evacuated hundreds of foreign citizens from Wuhan to Abu Dhabi in a plane equipped with medical facilities. The 215 evacuees received round-the-clock medical care at Emirates Humanitarian City before returning to their home countries when they tested clear from the virus.

Charitable partnerships Global Citizens has partnered with multinationals like Cisco, Coca Cola, Pepsi, IBM, Vodafone and Citi to support the World Health Organizations Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund and global relief efforts.

One World One World: Together at Home global special is organised by the Global Citizens that aims to build a movement of action-taking citizens across the world to help end extreme poverty by 2030.
US President Donald Trump said Friday that Chinas coronavirus deaths were far higher than it has admitted after the toll in the city where the pandemic originated was revised up by 50 percent.

Global criticism is mounting against China over its management of the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 145,000 people worldwide and hammered the global economy since it first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan last year.

More than half of humanity -- 4.5 billion people -- are confined to their homes as governments scramble to contain the viruss death march across the globe.

World leaders are now looking at when -- and how -- to ease widespread confinement measures to revive an economy battered by what the International Monetary Fund calls the Great Lockdown.

Trump is eager to restart business in the worlds biggest economy, while some hard-hit European nations are slowly creeping ahead on the path to normalcy, with some shops and schools starting to reopen.

China denies any cover-up

The US leader announced this week a phased reopening of the United States -- one of his central preoccupations -- but on Friday turned his attention to Chinas death toll after Wuhans city government added a further 1,290 deaths to the citys fatalities.

The revision brought the citys total to 3,869 after many dead were mistakenly reported or missed entirely, adding to growing global doubts over Chinas transparency.

China has just announced a doubling in the number of their deaths from the Invisible Enemy. It is far higher than that and far higher than the U.S., not even close! Trump tweeted.

The revised death toll out of China on Friday was specific to the city of Wuhan, not the country as a whole. The United States currently has the most reported fatalities of any country in the world, with some 33,000 deaths.

Leaders in France and Britain have also questioned Chinas management of the crisis, and French President Emmanuel Macron said it would be naive to think Beijing had handled the pandemic well.

The virus is believed to have emerged in a wet market in Wuhan in December, but two US media outlets reported suspicions the virus accidentally slipped out of a sensitive Wuhan laboratory that studied bats.

Beijing, which has come under fire at home and abroad for downplaying the severity and scope of the outbreak, hit back earlier Friday, insisting there had been no cover-up.

There has never been any concealment, and well never allow any concealment, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Life-and-death balance

Governments around the world are grappling with the question of when to reopen society, seeking a life-and-death balance between unfreezing stalled economies and preventing a second deadly coronavirus wave.

While Trump declared Thursday that the time had come for the next front in our war with a phased reboot of the US economy, others took the opposite path -- Japan, Britain and Mexico all expanded current restrictions.

Despite the United States suffering a staggering 4,500 new deaths announced Thursday, Trump proclaimed: Were opening up our country.

The presidents approach was a step back from previous hopes for a sudden reopening however, and state governors were given the freedom to set their own plans to resume business.

Lightly affected states can open literally tomorrow, said Trump, while others would receive White House freedom and guidance to achieve that at their own pace.

In New York state for example -- where more than 11,500 people have died -- Governor Andrew Cuomo extended a shutdown order until May 15.

In some of the worlds most vulnerable economies, lockdown measures are starting to pinch.

Tobacco farmers in Zimbabwe fear a delayed start to the normally busy auction season, the lifeblood for thousands of growers in impoverished rural regions.

This year our harvest hasnt been good at all... just average, farmer Shaw Mutalepo told AFP, as workers in face masks crunched cured leaves into large bales.

We might have a delay (in selling) just because of the lockdown, he added.

Lost decade

Meanwhile, there were more signs the global economy is imploding.

China reported Friday its GDP shrank 6.8 percent in the first quarter, the first contraction since quarterly growth data started in the early 1990s.

In the US, another 5.2 million workers lost their jobs, bringing the total number of newly unemployed to a staggering 22 million since mid-March.

John Williams, a top Federal Reserve official, predicted it would take a year or two if not longer for the US to recover.

The virus could spark another lost decade in Latin America, the IMF warned, while experts cautioned that freezing debt for poor countries will not save many developing world economies.

Its awful

Some European countries -- such as hard-hit Spain and Italy -- were embarking on a long road back to normality, with Venice residents strolling around quiet canals stripped of their usual throngs of tourists.

Switzerland, Denmark and Finland were among those gradually re-opening shops and schools.

In Germany, the government declared its outbreak under control and said select small shops will be allowed to reopen Monday and some childre would return to school within weeks.

Infection rates there have sunk significantly, Health Minister Jens Spahn said Friday, announcing the countrys plans to start producing up to 50 million masks a week from August to meet gaping market demand.

Germanys coronavirus deaths and infections have remained significantly below some of its worst-hit European neighbours, a fact which experts say is in part thanks to widespread testing.

But Britain, which shut down later than continental Europe, extended its lockdown for at least three more weeks.

It announced close to 850 new deaths on Friday, a slight spike from previous days that had seen fatalities start to draw down.

And in Russia, recorded infections topped 32,000 as President Vladimir Putin warned that the risks surrounding the epidemics spread are still very high, not just in Moscow but in many other Russian regions.

Around the world, people have come up with creative ways to bring back some social connection to their upended lives.

In Rome an 18-year-old guitarist takes to his balcony every evening at sunset to play covers of Italian classics.

We decided to lend a hand to Italians: a message of hope, Jacopo Mastrangelo told AFP from his patio.

We are accustomed to always seeing Rome full, teeming with people. Now the grass is growing between the cobblestones, everything has been left abandoned, and we decided to help.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has said it will likely take 18 months to develop a coronavirus vaccine - and that getting it 'shouldn't be limited by money'.

The 64-year-old business magnate claimed that - due to a lack of global preparation for the pandemic - it would take some time to create a working treatment.

And he warned that even with an 18-month timescale, corners would have to be cut as there will be 'less safety testing than we typically would have'.

Vaccines typically take around five or six years to complete, he said. Due to the ongoing global spread however, the process will have to be fast-tracked.

He vowed money would be no obstacle to the vaccine and revealed he was happy to keep on donating, saying 'well write cheques faster than governments can.'

The 64-year-old business magnate claimed that - due to a lack of global preparation for the pandemic - it would take some time to create a working treatment (pictured on the BBC)

A team of experts at the University of Oxford working to develop a vaccine that could prevent people from getting Covid-19

He told BBC Breakfast today: 'People like myself are saying 18 months [for a vaccine]. If everything went perfectly we could do slightly better than that.

'But there will be a trade-off. Well have less safety testing than we typically would have. Governments will have to decide.'

He added: 'Were doing everything we can. Well write cheques faster than governments can. It definitely shouldnt be money limited. It should be all the best constructs full speed ahead.'

Asked how a global vaccine might be found, he said: 'Research will need to fund the ten most promising constructs. Because we wont know in advance which one will prove to be safe and effective.

'It has to be effective for older people whose immune system is weak is a huge challenge. If you really amp up the vaccine to do that then you can run in to safety issues.

'So were going to have to take something that usually takes five or six years and get it done in 18 months.'

According to the researchers, UK volunteers could be given the first dose of a potential vaccine within the next week (pictured one of the researchers at the University of Oxford)

Mr Gates warned that the process of getting a vaccine could have been quicker. He warned of a global pandemic similar to coronavirus in 2015.

Asked whether he thought he had been listened to, he said: 'No. Investments could have been done so that diagnostics would have essentially been immediately available.

'We would have drugs in less than half the time and the vaccine in less than half the time. Most of those investments were not made.

'Now were scrambling and its taking us much longer to get these pieces together. Even though scientists are doing heroic work.'

But he had hope for the future, adding: 'We werent ready for this pandemic but I do think we will be ready for the next one using the new tools of science thats very doable.'

His comments are in contrast to an Oxford University professor who today said a coronavirus vaccine could be ready by autumn.

Sir John Bell said trials could be finished by mid-August but warned the real challenge would be manufacturing 'many billions of doses'.

He also revealed the prestigious institution started human trials with a candidate vaccine this week.

There have been conflicting reports over when a vaccine will be ready, with No 10's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance saying one was not around the corner.

But he said the industry has 'stepped up' to the challenge as the crisis in Britain appears to slow, despite another 847 new deaths announced yesterday.

The government yesterday launched a task force to support scientists in their attempts to find a life-saving jab.

In 2015, Mr Gates predicted a global pandemic would kill many people and grind the world economy to a halt in a 2015 TED Talk.

He said that if the wealthiest nations had prepared for a pandemic with the same urgency that they prepared for nuclear war, this could have been avoided.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates gave a TED Talk in 2015 warning that the world was ill-prepared for a global pandemic

If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, its most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war, Gates said at the time.

Not missiles, but microbes.

Gates said that the prospect of a global pandemic was overlooked by governments, even after recent outbreaks of the Ebola virus.

Ebola killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa between 2013 and 2016, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Gates said that the world was lucky that the Ebola outbreak was limited to West Africa.

Ebola, unlike coronavirus, renders those carrying it as too ill and weak to walk around and infect others.

Gates also chalked it up to sheer luck that Ebola didnt spread into urban areas.

Next time, we might not be so lucky, the multi-billionaire philanthropist said.

Bill Gates featured in this episode of the Explained series to discuss the likelihood of a killer virus going global

Gates urged Western governments to view pandemics the same way they view military threats.

He noted that while countries run drills known as war games to prepare for future military conflict, it should also run simulations known as germ games to be better prepared for widespread illness.

Gates warned: We've invested a huge amount in nuclear deterrents, but we've invested very little in a system to stop epidemics. We are not ready for the next epidemic.

In his lecture, Gates called for beefing up health systems in poor countries and embedding medical staff with the military in order to enable more rapid deployment of teams to deal with pandemics.

Last year, Gates, who since stepping down as CEO of Microsoft has devoted his energies to helping eradicate disease in the developing world, also warned of a coming pandemic.

In a 2019 Netflix documentary, Gates predicted a killer virus could originate in China's wet markets to rapidly infect the world

Gates appeared in the Netflix documentary to talk about the likelihood of a virus breaking out in one of China's wet markets where animals are killed on the spot before being sold

In what now appears to be an eerie premonition of future events, the Microsoft tycoon warned in an episode of the Netflix 'Explained' series that the world was ill-prepared to deal with a global pandemic.

In the series aired late last year Gates had warned of the likelihood of a virus breaking out in one of China's wet markets - exactly like the one in Wuhan where this new outbreak of coronavirus is believed to have originated.

In the episode titled The Next Pandemic the documentary producers go to a wet market in Lianghua, China, where animals are killed and the resulting meat sold in the same place.

This, the documentary explained, makes the wet markets a 'disease X factory' as the different animal corpses are stacked on top of each other, blood and meat mixing, before being passed from human to human.

'All the while, their viruses are mixing and mutating, increasing the odds that one finds its way to humans,' the documentary goes on to explain.

In the episode, Gates also warned the world was ill-prepared to deal with the implications of the viral spread of disease when cures were often years away.

He said if nothing was done to better prepare for pandemics the time would come when the world would look back and wish it had invested more into potential vaccines.

'If you think of anything that could come along that would kill millions of people, a pandemic is our greatest risk,' he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 18:26:07|Editor: huaxia

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YAOUNDE, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Cameroon has climbed to 1,016, according to the real time statistics updated Saturday morning by the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cameroon health authorities, who has stopped informing the public about the total number of infections since a week ago, said Friday evening that 22 persons died of the novel coronavirus, while there are 177 cured cases.

According to Cameroon health authorities, to date, seven out of ten regions of the country have reported COVID-19 cases, with more than half of the cases detected in the central region where the capital Yaounde is located.

Over 20 healthcare professionals have contracted the virus since the beginning of the pandemic in Cameroon on March 6.

On Thursday, Cameroonian government launched a campaign to disinfect public spaces nationwide. The government also announced the extension of addional 15 days of national social distancing.

On Thursday evening, Cameroon's Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute said schools will resume in the country on June 1 "depending on the evolution" of the pandemic in the country.

"There is every reason to believe that actions being carried out in various fields to limit the spread of this virus in our country are already producing encouraging results and deserve to be intensified on the ground until this pandemic is eradicated," Ngute said in a statement.

Cameroon reported its first infection on March 6, an imported case from Europe. Since March 18, the central African country has closed borders, and applied strict social distancing to slow down the spread of the coronavirus. Enditem
President Donald Trump's chief of staff is said to be 'overwhelmed' by his new role in the White House, which has reportedly seen him cry in meetings on at least two occasions since he took up the job at the end of March.

Meadows, 60, the conservative former congressman from North Carolina, is the fourth person to take on the job in the president's three years in office.

Administration officials told the New York Times that in the less than three weeks he's been in the job, Meadows has been 'overhwhelmed at times by a permanent culture at the White House that revolves around the president's moods' and 'his need for a sense of control'.

Former congressman, Mark Meadows who became President Trump's chief of staff has apparently been 'overwhelmed' in his new post

Meadows is said to have cried on at least two occasions since starting the role

And the tensions may got the better of him at times, according to leaks from inside the White House, as reported by The Times.

On two occasions, Meadows is said to have cried during meetings where staffing changes were discussed. In one of those meetings, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner was present, according to the New York Times.

However, a person close to Kushner told the Times that he denied it took place.

'He's a strong willed individual who is known to get prickly when his viewpoint doesn't prevail,' a person who worked closely with Meadows told ABC News.

Meadows was said to have been brought in by Trump in yet another staff shake-up but the administration was overwhelmed by the quick spread and chaos of the coronavirus.

Meadows has been attempting to reorganize the White House staff.

The New York Times reports that those around Meadows claim that 'his nature was not to fire people willy-nilly, but they said that was what he was doing nevertheless.'

The role which is supposed to act as a buffer between White House staff and the Oval Office is different under Trump and varies according to president's moods

Officials said Meadows has further been overwhelmed by a culture at the White House that appears to revolve around the president's moods.

The president's own management style has been described as chaotic.

Meadows is the president's fourth chief of staff but one source told ABC that he may well be heading for the exit sooner rather than later.

'Act four could be the shortest one yet,' said the source.

He was brought in by Mr. Trump as part of a staff shake-up just as the administration was overwhelmed by the fast spread of the coronavirus in the United States and struggling with equipment and testing shortages.

In the middle of the crisis, Mr. Meadows is trying to reorganize the White House staff. People close to him insisted Mr. Meadowss nature was not to fire people willy-nilly, but they said that was what he was doing nevertheless.

'The White House is fully focused on supporting the president's mission of defeating the coronavirus, saving American lives, and getting the country back to work  and Mark Meadows has already proven to be a tremendous asset in that effort,' said Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesman.

The role of chief of staff is definitely one of the more demanding.

One source claims that Trump will not have liked hearing of Meadows in tears as the president sees such a display of emotion as a weakness

The post is supposed to see its occupier controlling access to the Oval Office and serve as a buffer between the president and his staff.

Trump Chiefs of Staff Reince Priebus (January 20, 2017, until July 31, 20): Former chairman of the Republican National Committee was fired via a tweet from Air Force One. John Kelly (July 31, 2017, to January 2, 2019): Brought in to restore order to White House, he left when he couldn't bring discipline to President Trump and has criticized the president since he left the job. Mick Mulvaney: (January 2, 2019 to March 30, 2019) A Trump loyalist, Mulvaney kept the word 'acting' in his title and left the White House to be U.S. special envoy to Ireland. Advertisement

But when, like Trump, the president does not like to be controlled the job becomes even more of a challenge.

The job is made even more difficult as the president's daughter and son-in-law roam around largely unchecked having been given large amounts of responsibility within the administration.

Before joining the White House, Meadows had a warm friendship with Trump and would often receive called from the president with Meadows acting as a confidant.

The president told friends he needed a chief of staff he could trust and someone with leadership capabilities, sources said at the time after Trump dismissed his acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.

But now that the pair are working under the same roof, The Times reports their connection with one another has so far not been strengthened.

'His bouts of crying will not have enthused the president who sees emotion as a weakness,' an official said.
Hong Kong dodged a major coronavirus outbreak  without resorting to a complete lockdown  by using a combination of targeted isolation and social distancing.

As of March 31, the region had only 715 confirmed cases of COVID-19  including 94 asymptomatic cases  and four deaths among the population of 7.5 million.

Experts from from Hong Kong found that, following the implementation of public health measures, the epidemic has remained steady rather than increasing.

Many countries  including China, the UK, the US and much of western Europe  have been forced to implement tight lockdowns to slow the spread of the disease.

In contrast, Hong Kong employed a mixture of border entry restrictions, the quarantining of known cases and contacts, together with some social distancing.

The researchers argue that these measures  which are less disruptive to the economy than a lockdown  might be similarly employed in other countries.

However, the fact that a variety of approaches were employed together means that it is not clear how much each measure contributed to controlling the spread.

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Hong Kong dodged a major coronavirus outbreak  without resorting to a complete lockdown  by using a combination of targeted isolation and social distancing

WHAT MEASURES DID HONG KONG EMPLOY? Measures used included: 1,000-odd tests daily from March

Contact tracing of infected people

Repurposing holiday camps and new housing into quarantine facilities

Mandatory 14-day quarantines for travellers from mainland China or other countries with the infection

Intense monitoring of infections

Cancellation of large events

Encouraging social distancing, such as through school closures and flexible working arrangements Advertisement

'By quickly implementing public health measures, Hong Kong has demonstrated that COVID-19 transmission can be effectively contained without resorting to [a] highly disruptive complete lockdown,' said University of Hong Kong's Benjamin Cowling.

'Other governments can learn from the success of Hong Kong,' he added.

'If these measures and population responses can be sustained, while avoiding fatigue among the general population, they could substantially lessen the impact of a local COVID-19 epidemic.'

In their study, Professor Cowling and colleagues studied data on test-confirmed coronavirus cases in Hong Kong between late January and March 31, 2020.

From this, they were able to determine the virus' so-called 'effective reproductive number  that is, the average number of people each person with the virus is likely to infect  each day across the study period.

The researchers also looked at data on patients with influenza, which they used as a proxy to track the changes in the so-called 'silent' COVID-19 transmission between people who had never been tested and diagnosed with the virus.

Finally, the team also conducted three telephone surveys of around 1,000 adult Hong Kongers to determine how attitudes towards the coronavirus changed between late January, mid-February and mid-March.

As of March 31, the region had only 715 confirmed cases of COVID-19  including 94 asymptomatic cases  and four deaths among the population of 7.5 million

The team found that the effective reproductive number remained at around one  with the epidemic holding steady, rather than increasing  in the eight weeks from early February that followed the introduction of public health measures.

Meanwhile, changing population behaviours and the introduction of physical distancing has seen a 44 per cent reduction in the transmission rate of influenza across February.

In particular, school closures appears to have been associated with a reduction in the flu's effective reproductive number from 1.28 to 0.72.

This is a greater decrease than to 1015 and 16 per cent changes seen in association with school closures during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the outbreak of influenza B during the 201718 winter, respectively.

Unlike their established effects on influenza transmission, it is not entirely clear, however, what effect school closures will have on COVID-19, as it is still not clear how much children contract and spread the coronavirus, the researchers said.

The researchers did find, however, that the number of so-called 'unlinked' cases of COVID-19  those with no clear source  have been increasing since early March, potentially as a result of 'imported' infections.

This, the researchers said, highlights the importance of border control measures  including the monitoring of arriving travellers, testing and infection tracing efforts  although such are expected to become more difficult to employ as cases rise.

Experts from from Hong Kong found that, following the implementation of public health measures, the epidemic has remained steady rather than increasing

'The speed of decline in influenza activity in 2020 was quicker than in previous years when only school closures were implemented,' said paper author Peng Wu, also of the University of Hong Kong.

This, she added, suggests 'that other social distancing measures and avoidance behaviours have had a substantial additional impact on influenza transmission.'

'As both influenza and COVID-19 are directly transmissible respiratory pathogens with similar viral shedding dynamics, its likely that these control measures have also reduced COVID-19 transmission in the community.'

'As one of the most heavily affected epicentres during the SARS epidemic in 2003, Hong Kong is better equipped to contend with an outbreak of COVID-19 than many other countries.'

'Improved testing and hospital capacity to handle novel respiratory pathogens, and a population acutely aware of the need to improve personal hygiene and maintain physical distancing, put them in good stead.'

Hong Kong employed a mixture of border entry restrictions, the quarantining of known cases and contacts, together with some social distancing. The researchers argue that these measures  which are less disruptive than a lockdown  might be employed in other countries

The team also found that the response of the Hong Kong population to the COVID-19 outbreak has changed significantly since the outbreak began.

In March, for example, 85 per cent of survey respondents reported avoiding crowded places and 99 per cent said they wore face masks when leaving their homes  numbers up from 75 and 61 per cent, respectively, back in January/

In contrast, only 79 per cent and 10 per cent of Hong Kongers reported wearing face masks in response, respectively.to the 2003 SARS outbreak and the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic  suggesting that greater levels of concern surround COVID-19.

'This is an important paper and represents one of the first good quality population based studies of COVID-19,' said Paul Hunter, a health protection expert from the University of East Anglia who was not involved in the study.

'The Hong Kong authorities do not seem to have enforced a stay at home order, other than for 14 days for people entering the Special Administrative Region. Nevertheless over 80% of people reported staying at home as much as possible.

'To me this paper is very timely and provides important evidence that should influence our own plans for moving away from lock-down.'

'Although one cannot always extrapolate from an Asian to a European country, the Hong Kong approach could provide us with a way of easing the severity of the lockdown without risking case numbers increasing again.'

'It is not possible from the available data to quantify the impact that the different policy and behavioural changes will have had on the transmissibility of the infection.'

'For example, it is not possible to say how much of the reduced transmissibility of COVID-19 could be due to the almost universal wearing of face masks.'

'However, we should not reject any of the changes in Hong Kong without further review and analysis.'

The full findings of the study were published in the journal The Lancet Public Health.
The globally massive delivery servicing platform, Amazon, has been reported to have experienced several coronavirus cases at more than half of its warehouses in the US alone. Predictions state the infection will exponentially spread more extensively into the workforce in the coming weeks.

The event follows a previous issue with Amazon being banned from operating within France after a court ruled out the company was enforcing inefficient safety protocols against the deadly virus.

The Athena Coalition and Hedge Clippers were the workers' right groups that prepared the report, utilizing data given by the government health agencies and several local and national news sources.

The massive risk within the company

On April 14, the report states that nearly 75 out of 110 US warehouses operated by Amazon have reported at least one case of positive COVID-19 case. The groups expect the tally among the workers to increase exponentially if no precaution is taken.

The company places the health and safety of more than 250,000 people across the 110 warehouses, several sub-contracted delivery service partners, and at least 75,000 Flex drivers at risk.

The groups said the company is allegedly enforcing lacking safety policies and places their workers at immense risk of being infected.

A possible major outbreak within Amazon warehouses could have devastating consequences if left unchecked. Not only on the workers and contractors but as well as all their customers that they cater to which total up to 112 million Amazon Prime subscribers in the US.

Amazon has responded by saying the allegations are false and the rights groups are 'self-interested critics' who were hired by the company's competitors to ruin their image.

Read Also: [VIDEO] Small, Box-Like Device That Uses Wireless Signals Can Detect COVID-19 Patients Having Trouble Breathing: See How it Works

A spokesperson for Amazon, Kristen Kish, told Vice they value their workers' health and safety more than any other policy they have.

Kish stated they have been working closely with health agencies around the world to respond to the coronavirus pandemic appropriately. They are also ensuring to serve the community while caring for their associates and teams.

Amazon officials said they had implemented more than 150 crucial process changes in line with the increasing risk the global pandemic brings.

The company has recently opened up a blog showcasing the different changes it has made to its warehouses. Such changes include daily temperature checks and regular face mask distribution for the workers.

An increase in financial compensation was also included in their changes, where they gave out an additional $2 per hour and doubling overtime pay. They have also put established a $24 million relief fund for their partners.

The platform is currently developing its in-house testing facility to increase the response time to possible coronavirus infection cases.

Words from behind closed doors

Athena and Hedge Clippers state that the measures taken by Amazon are insufficient in responding to the pandemic and they should compensate all of their workers, both full time and part-time, with free testing and treatment, as well as those who suspect themselves to be ill.

They believe Amazon should close their warehouses and operations for two weeks to conduct proper and comprehensive disinfection of the infrastructures.

This comes in line with a group of Amazon workers announcing their plans to organize a one-day 'virtual workout' protesting the company's inadequate worker safety policies.

Read Also: Scientists Have Created a Potentially Life-Saving App But Not So Many Smartphone Users are Willing To Install It - Why is That?
Loading Meanwhile, many of the hundreds of film festivals that are the launching pads and negotiating tables for the independent film sector have been cancelled. Cannes Film Festival, the daddy of them all, is traditionally held in early May and had been provisionally delayed until June or July. This week, director Thierry Fremaux admitted that couldnt happen but insists it would be unthinkable to stream the films to festival delegates instead. "Directors of films are driven by the idea of showing their movies on a big screen and sharing them with others at events like festivals, he told Variety. Not for their works to end up on an iPhone. The unthinkable, however, has already been thought. CPH-DOCS, the worlds biggest documentary festival, took the whole festival online a few days after lockdown, selling "tickets" to audiences to stream the films at home. Tribeca is putting part of its program online; Al Cossar, the director of the Melbourne International Festival, which was due to take place in June, says the festival is looking at possibilities and to watch this space; even Toronto, which doesnt happen till September, is making provisions for an online festival. From a democratic perspective, it was remarkable; we reached people we never reach, including 30 per cent outside Copenhagen which never happens, says CPH-DOCS founder Tine Fischer. She now wants to make the digital program part of the festival.

Some say that COVID-19 has just brought into focus the changes to cinema-going that were happening anyway. Thanks to video and DVDs, we have been able to watch movies at home since the late '70s. Cannes Film Festival organisers are exploring what form the festival will take this year. Credit:Invision/AP The streaming services have changed the game, however, by making their own films with star directors  Martin Scorseses The Irishman, Alfonso Cuarons Roma  and original series of cinematic quality, all for a modest monthly fee. The televisions on which we watch them, moreover, are now huge. We have surround sound. The HD image is clear and crisp. Staying at home is not a Cinderella deal. Until now, cinema has ostensibly held its own. Last year, global box office was US$42 billion: an all-time high. For the first time, however, people spent more  US$53 billion  on streaming platforms. And more options keep coming. Six months ago, Disney+ entered the field and already has 50 million subscribers even before reaching China. Next month, HBO Max  which has the entire Warner Bros movie and television archive as part of its offer  comes online in the United States.

Loading It has already registered a trademark in Australia, where there are currently over 14 streaming services  plus free-to-air on-demand services providing even more at-home viewing choices. Figures from Roy Morgan show that 14.5 million Australians had access to a paid TV subscription service last year. Understandably, subscription rates have jumped since weve been housebound. This is what is getting us through lockdown! The question is whether, by the time we get the all-clear, well be entrenched in our lounge rooms forever. So here are a few arguments that say thats not going to happen. Firstly, the people who watch movies at home are the same people who go to the cinema: US figures show that streaming service users are twice as likely to go to the cinema as non-subscribers. Secondly, the successes of Netflixs Marriage Story and The Irishman notwithstanding, streaming services arent the easiest places to find movies. The people who watch movies at home are the same people who go to the cinema. Credit: Getty Images Going into the annals of Amazon or Netflix is nothing like a trip to Blockbusters used to be. You cant browse, except across their homepages; the only way to find something outside their current highlighted list is to search for it specifically. Youll never be surprised by that random cover that caught your eye; youll never be nudged, as you are by cinemas, to see something you wouldnt have known about otherwise.

Loading Thirdly, cinema has its own dynamic. Watching a film in a dark room full of strangers united for that purpose is the polar opposite of sitting on your couch with a cup of tea, occasionally checking your emails. You dont concentrate in the same way; there isnt the same focus, communal feeling or sense of occasion. The arthouses increasingly include a bar, maybe a restaurant and a clubby, classy atmosphere that reminds you that this is a night out  and when All This is over, a lot of us are going to be dying to go out pretty much anywhere. Multiplexes are temples of technological excellence, thanks to years of investment to ward-off the streaming challenge, immersing audiences in whizz-bang action in a way nothing at home can match. I think when people feel safe to go out and mingle, cinemas are absolutely going to boom," says Zeccola. "And there is a whole slew of great product waiting to be released as well. It is true that distributors are holding back their best films for as long as possible. Some have offloaded smaller films to Netflix and quite a few  Onward, The Invisible Woman, The Hunt - moved online to VOD platforms faster than they would have otherwise. But there has been no suggestion that any of the big-ticket films postponed until the coast is clear  Mulan, A Quiet Place II, Fast and Furious 9 and, of course, the latest James Bond  will be released digitally. Not yet, anyway. Of course, if the pandemic lingers, that could change. And even if everyone manages to hold out, the return to cinemas is going to be complicated. Al Cossar points out that safety restrictions, such as a limit on numbers of people in one place, may remain in place well after the pandemic has ostensibly passed.

Fear of a secondary wave may mean we have to maintain our distance. And, having already lived with fear for months, we may want that anyway. That presents cinemas of all sizes with logistical problems, but particularly smaller ones. From an economic standpoint, the cinema cant operate by selling every third seat, for example, says Zeccola. Cinemas would open purely to lose money. So I think thats a really dangerous moment for the industry. When its time to restart, we need to be able to restart properly. What potential audiences can afford to spend is also an issue, Cossar points out, if the pandemic is succeeded by the predicted recession. Of course, the death of cinema has been foretold many times. Each time, it has managed to mutate, survive and thrive. When cinemas reopened after the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918-19, audiences came back in bigger numbers than before. The same could happen again. Cossar imagines people holed up with their films, books and televisions rediscovering the broader value of art, creative expression and storytelling itself  In that mindset, post lockdown theyll come rushing back to cinemas with open arms. Others worry quietly that audiences, particularly the older audiences who sustain arthouses, will feel safer staying at home with Netflix. At this stage, as with so much to do with COVID-19, we just dont know.
Mary Shippee voted for Senator Bernie Sanders in Wisconsins Democratic primary this month, well after it was clear he had no chance to become the partys presidential nominee.

Now that Mr. Sanders has dropped out and endorsed former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Ms. Shippee is torn over whether to once again cast a vote for a moderate Democrat in November, after grudgingly supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016 and President Barack Obama in 2012.

What it feels like is the Democratic Party relies on guilting progressives into voting for them, and they dont want to have any meaningful changes, said Ms. Shippee, 31, a nursing student in Milwaukee. For the third election in a row, to have a candidate youre not excited about makes me a little more interested in voting third party.

Despite Mr. Sanderss call to unite behind Mr. Biden to defeat President Trump  whom the Vermont senator described as the most dangerous president of modern times  and despite Mr. Obamas assurance that the party had moved left since he left office, the youthful and impassioned army of Sanders supporters is far from ready to embrace a nominee so unlike the one they pinned their dreams on.
Consider the pros and cons of genetic screening tests.

Carrier screening. Before your pregnancy or during your first trimester, your doctor might recommend a type of genetic blood test called carrier screening, which scans your DNA for genetic mutations associated with certain genetic disorders that you might pass on to your child. Often, your decision to test will be based on your family history or ethnicity.

Sickle cell disease, for example, is more common in people of African descent; and conditions like Gaucher disease, Niemann-Pick disease and Tay-Sachs disease are more common in people with Eastern European or Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. You might also screen for genetic conditions you know run in your family, such as Huntingtons disease. Cystic fibrosis, which damages a babys lungs and digestive system, is one of the most common genetic disorders, and therefore testing for it is often recommended early in pregnancy.

One major drawback to carrier screening tests, according to Blair Stevens, M.S., a licensed genetic counselor specializing in prenatal and reproductive genetics at the University of Texas, is that they wont tell you with certainty whether your baby has a given genetic condition  only her risk for it. While this knowledge may be enough for some people, others may find the uncertainty stressful.

Keep in mind, too, that the number of conditions you screen for is up to you, but more is not always better. The more conditions you include, the greater the chance that you would find a condition in which youre a carrier, cautioned Dr. Rink, which could cause unnecessary anxiety. Also remember that passing a genetic mutation on to your children is not necessarily a death sentence for them: Some may never develop that condition or may only have mild symptoms.

The number of conditions you choose to screen for will depend on your and your partners risk, family history and desire for information. You should also consider cost, since carrier testing may or may not be covered by insurance. Talk with your doctor about whats right for you.

Genetic screening for baby. As soon as 10 weeks into your pregnancy, your doctor may ask if youre interested in blood testing that determines your babys risk for certain chromosomal conditions. As with carrier screening, this test wont definitively say whether your baby has a condition, it just reveals their risk for it.

Genetic screening could involve a combination of blood tests that measure certain pregnancy-related proteins in your body, plus an ultrasound, which checks for birth defects by measuring the thickness of your fetuss neck (usually done between weeks 11 and 14 of pregnancy). Or, you might opt for a newer type of blood test, known as cell-free DNA screening (or non-invasive prenatal testing), which can be done starting at week 10. This test scans your babys DNA, which is floating around your own blood, for abnormalities  such as too many or not enough chromosomes.
Strict nationwide lockdown is not practicable in Ghana largely because the economy is too weak to cater for the vulnerable beyond three months sustainably. The trend of the COVID-19 pandemic across the world suggests that it is not likely to die out soon.

There will certainly be catastrophic consequences to Ghana if we adopt strict nationwide lockdown policies adopted by European countries.

This means we need to have a strategic plan and approach to dealing with the pandemic unique to Ghana.

As the situation evolves, the focus of the country should be on sustainability and effectiveness of the adopted measures to contain and stamp out COVID-19.

Ghana is not ready for strict nationwide lockdown due to the following reasons:

First, informal employment is the main source of employment in Ghana, accounting for 89.2 percent of all employment (ILO, 2018). What is peculiar about informal workers is that they lack benefits such as health insurance, unemployment insurance and paid leave. Worse still, particularly the self-employed need to work every day to earn their living and pay for their basic household necessities. A prolonged lockdown will put the lives of these people in danger.

Second, SMEs are the key drivers of the growth of Ghana's economy accounting for about 38 percent of the countrys GDP (IFC, 2018). Total nationwide lockdown will mean a hefty blow to employers and employees in these sectors as well as generation of revenue for government.

Third, government is certainly not ready to support millions of people especially in the informal sectors of the economy in sustainably. Ghana doesn't have the wherewithal to shoulder the responsibility of providing adequately for five to ten million people across the country.

Fouth, there is likely to be a sharp decline in remittance inflow as countries especially the USA, Asian and European countries have locked down and these are the countries where Ghana receives huge volumes of remittances from.

Fifth, government is losing billions in tax revenue this year due to COVID-19 and its attendant disruption in economic activities even with the partial lockdown should it go beyond a month. Oil revenue is also likely to suffer as world market price of crude oil tumbles.

Sixth, nationwide lockdown will result in shortage of agricultural goods including soya beans, maize, rice, poultry products and other essentials since Ghana is a net importer of basic food and services from China, USA and others. Farmers would not be able farm, let alone increase their production.

In fact, government should immediately retool the agricultural industry, supply large scale inputs and seedlings to farmers. We should even consider plantation farms to produce enough rice, cassava, plantain, yam and other foodstuffs to feed Ghanaians beyond the next three months. Self-sufficiency in agricultural production is indispensable to our survival amidst the pandemic.

As a solution, I would recommend regional lockdown or targeted lockdowns as a more pragmatic approach to stifle and contain the spread of the pandemic as opposed to strict nationwide lockdown. In that case, a particular region or municipality could be cut off for rigorous testing and treatment within a given period of time.

Furthermore, government may gradually allow the informal sectors to operate under strict social distancing protocols monitored by the security agencies and local government agencies. The state can institute shift system for the operations of the informal sector.

Moreover, wearing of nose masks should be made compulsory for every Ghanaian in the public place. This would help to minimize the spread of the pandemic since the cost of shutting down the economy would be too devastating in the long run.

Finally, citizens should be educated in a language they understand and not how we want them to understand the situation. Citizens should be educated and not just informed about the pandemic to elicit attitudinal changes. Each Ghanaian must take responsibility for his own health and welfare. This maybe a more sustainable way forward for our country. Let's walk the talk of "Ghana Beyond Aid" mantra.

(CLEMENT ADJEI SARFO, THE CRUSADER)
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Linkedin Tess Bacalla (The Jakarta Post) Manila  Sat, April 18, 2020 16:30 633 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2c0768 3 Opinion COVID-19,the-philippines,Rodrigo-Duterte,governance,Manila Free

Running around a quiet neighborhood in a beautiful city thousands of miles away from home, amid icy post-winter weather, I soaked up the delightful sight and refreshing silence of my immediate environs  lush trees standing tall and mighty, colorful flowers fronting some houses, clear blue skies complementing fresh-smelling air, and a smattering of folk young and old walking at a moderate pace, with a few others huddled together as kith or kin in their front yards  calm and unhurried smiles writ large on their faces.

As I dashed through virtually empty streets, panting for breath, a sense of solitude engulfed my being, my heart rising up in prayer, filled with gratitude, craving nothing else, only lifes small, unheralded pleasures.

In this state of serenity I marked my natal day.

Its been a year since, and these days I am cooped up at home like countless others as the current global scourge ravages our pre-dystopian normal.

Amid the ongoing crisis, unspeakable grief tempers gratitude as life struggles to unfold. A sense of hope and faith races against a sense of foreboding, to take hold of a heart by turns weary and livid over lives needlessly lost  a poignant reality for the Philippines and its approximately 107 million people as the governments dismal state of affairs is magnified on a grand scale in these precarious times.

Today, pleasant memories of just a year ago in that foreign city are quickly nudged aside by an ugly spectacle  of dead bodies mercilessly struck down by the powerful virus; of fallen medical front liners who stayed true to their Hippocratic oath until their lives were snuffed out by the coronavirus; of the poor desperately begging for help; of the destitute in the throes of death, being in the crosshairs of a government, lorded over by a president whose confusing policies and bumbling handling of the COVID-19 crisis are matched only by his meandering and conflicting pronouncements in his late-night televised addresses; of a people long deceived by political promises that will remain so for keeps.

The ensuing confusion and chaos during the initial lockdown of Metro Manila (a megacity in the island region of Luzon) and the enhanced community quarantine across Luzon in mid-March was an unmistakable illustration of the extent of thought and planning that crept into crafting this drastic, ill-conceived pandemic response by President Rodrigo Duterte and his administration. It also mirrored the governments insensitivity to the plight of the poor, who were massively displaced in the unfolding shelter-in-place order.

By midnight of March 17, when the lockdown was widened to the entire Luzon, all hell broke loose in Metro Manila, home to a population of 57 million. Workers caught flat-footed by the announcement of the enhanced quarantine were stranded for hours on end at checkpoints, where massive build-ups of vehicles rushing to traverse the borders to nearby provinces added to the mayhem. Healthcare workers, direly needed in medical facilities but many of whom did not have the benefit of private transport, were left to fend for themselves at the onset of the quarantine. Government response to this need came as an afterthought.

With the lockdown firmly in place, violators of quarantine protocols, coming mainly from poor urban communities, are slapped with severe punishment.

Five young men found in breach of these regulations were thrust like animals into a dog cage. Alleged offenders from the LGBTQI+ community were made to perform lewd acts by a village official. Who could forget Dutertes shoot-to-kill order in the immediate aftermath of the violent dispersal of a group of informal settlers who broke quarantine rules to demand help from a government that seemed to have forgotten them?

Such acts are par for the course in a nation where the governments flagship war on drugs is pursued with brute force and wanton disregard for human rights, leaving untold numbers of suspected individuals dead and with no hope for justice.

Thanks to special powers granted by Congress to President Duterte in late March, rights to speech and free expression have emerged as collateral damage in the countrys disjointed and delayed response to the pandemic. At least a dozen individuals have been summoned to the National Bureau of Investigation on allegations of spreading false information on the coronavirus. Just what constitutes this putative infraction is as nebulous as the Duterte administrations strategy to flatten the curve. With progressive mass testing having only begun on April 14, our country has chalked up 5,660 confirmed cases and 362 deaths as of April 17.

In the Philippines, like other Southeast Asian countries, the coronavirus pandemonium has become a convenient cover for clamping down on dissent. Cyber trolls linked to the Duterte administration are quick to pounce on their perceived critics, who find his pandemic response and the realities and needs on the ground seriously out of sync.

Under Dutertes watch, cyber-troll armies have become big business in the Philippines. That the country has made the 2020 list of 20 Digital Predators in the world, released last month by Reporters Without Borders, comes as no surprise (Vietnam is the only other Southeast Asian country on the list.)

Not everything is dark and gloomy, though, amid life in the time of COVID-19 in the Philippines. Some local chief executives are demonstrating proactive and exemplary governance that contrasts sharply with the national governments lackluster coronavirus efforts. They are a breath of fresh air in a nation inured to corruption, patronage, nepotism, ineptness, cronyism, and propaganda.

To many Filipinos the lessons held out by this raging outbreak are too glaring to ignore  and they are taking those lessons to heart. Hashtags like #OustDuterte and #Halalan2022  referring to the general election two years hence, and an implied repudiation of todays crop of elected officials, notably Duterte and his allies, have gone viral.

Today, as I turn a year older amid the rampaging pandemic, I still wish for lifes small, unheralded pleasures, but for my country, nothing less than massive structural change to upend our ailing political systems. Like deadly viruses, they have ravaged our nation for way too long. Flattening the curve in this regard is one long, arduous battle.

***

Former executive director of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), and currently an independent consultant to media organizations and select institutions in the Philippines and elsewhere in the region.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 15:53:44|Editor: huaxia

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TOKYO, April 18 (Xinhua) -- City streets and tourist hot spots in Japan appeared quiet on Saturday as the country entered the first weekend since a state of emergency was expanded nationwide in a bid to stem the spread of COVID-19.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, while urging the reduction of human-to-human contact by as much as 80 percent, once again on Friday implored the nation's citizens across the country's 47 prefectures to refrain from going outside without good reason to help ease the burden on the already strained medical system here.

In the city of Utsunomiya, the capital of Tochigi Prefecture, the downtown area is sparsely populated and many restaurants selling the famous specialty dumplings have closed.

According to Utsunomiya Dumpling Association, after a state of emergency was declared in Tokyo and six other prefectures -- Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Osaka, Hyogo and Fukuoka -- on April 7, the number of visitors to the restaurants in Utsunomiya has fallen sharply to only 20 percent. At the same time, sales of frozen dumplings surged by about 30 percent.

In the southwestern prefecture of Miyazaki, few people were seen in the main shopping arcade in the capital city, with "closed" signs adorning most store doors although the prefectural government has not required nonessential businesses to cease trading.

Tokuyoshi Hidaka, a 70-year-old taxi driver told local media, "Normally there are lots of people on Saturday morning who've finished working at bars, my earnings have almost halved since March."

The famous Sand Dunes of Tottori Prefecture, in western Japan, were also largely free of people on Saturday. A 19-year-old university student told local media that he and his friends came here because they thought the site should open as it does not have the "3 Cs" -- confined spaces, crowded places and close contact, which the government is asking people to avoid.

The capital city of Tokyo entered the second weekend since a state of emergency was declared, with the number of people going out continuously falling.

The famous shopping district of Ginza, which is normally swarming with visitors on weekends, was largely deserted on Saturday. Tokyo's Shibuya station area, famous for an X-shaped pedestrian crossing usually packed shoulder-to-shoulder with people, saw a dramatic 90 percent decrease in station users compared with three months ago.

Meanwhile, Tokyo's Haneda airport began mandatory temperature testing on Friday of all passengers departing on domestic flights, in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19 from the capital. If passengers are found to have a temperature of 37.5 degrees or above, they will be asked to refrain from boarding.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, temperature checks are also being carried out on passengers arriving on domestic flights at Shin-Chitose airport in the northermost prefecture of Hokkaido and Naha Airport in Okinawa Prefecture.

The expansion of the state of emergency came ahead of the Golden Week holidays from late April to May 6. Abe has said that whether he will be able to lift the emergency declaration at the end of the holidays will hinge on the opinion of an advisory panel of medical experts, not a political decision. Enditem
Policemen stand guard during an operation to ensure the curfew declared by the government due to the Covid-19 pandemic in El Callao, on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, last week

While the world was slowly coming to terms with the biggest pandemic to hit the globe in a century, one Wexford woman was completely oblivious to the fact that while she was self-isolating from technology in the jungles of Peru, people around the entire world were self-isolating to protect themselves from one of the deadliest viruses to ever hit the world's population.

Maeve Carey, who lives in Wexford town, is originally from Camolin, but moved with her parents to Clonhaston when she was still in school.

Always interested in travelling and seeing the world, she made a trip to Colombia last October which reaffirmed her desire to explore the world a bit more.

That led to her deciding to spend six weeks in South America this year and, on February 1, she left Ireland with the intention of spending time in Peru.

However, what transpired was an incredible adventure that saw her emerge from the natural beauty of the jungle to find the world turned upside down.

Speaking to this newspaper about the ordeal of trying to get back home to Ireland, Maeve said it was a surreal experience.

'When I left I had heard of something going on in China but there wasn't too much about it at that stage,' she said.

'I just wanted to spend time away from the world of technology and the net and to just go off-grid for a while,' she added.

'It's something I had wanted to do for some time and South America is such a beautiful place and it's a place I wanted to go to for years.'

Maeve highlighted that one of the most striking things about the people of Peru is their friendliness.

'They are living on very little but yet are so giving, generous and friendly.'

From that perspective, she said the experience of visiting the country was amazing.

'They are so friendly and anything that is theirs is yours and nobody hoards anything and they basically live one day at a time,' said Maeve.

She also said that Peruvian people give while expecting nothing in return.

'If they had a biscuit they would offer to share half of it with you,' she said.

The jungle village she stayed in is called Libertad and, highlighting how different it is compared to here, she said there is very little crime there and when someone does commit a crime, more-often-than-not, they're jail time consists of them being put in a cupboard on a platform for six hours.

Some of the locals told Maeve that rarely do people who do commit crimes go into the cupboard more than twice.

'Two times seems to do the trick and it really is just a cupboard,' she said.

When Maeve travelled to Colombia in October it was a 10-day trip as part of a group but she travelled to Peru on her own with the intention of spending a few weeks there.

'I even thought I might spend some time living there for a bit,' she said.

While she was flying she saw the top of the Andes mountains and said they looked amazing.

One of the things that was a little difficult was communicating with people because Maeve, by her own admission, doesn't have great Spanish and the people in Peru 'have no English'.

On her way to Peru she flew from Europe to Bogota, in Colombia, and from there to Peru.

'I was living with an indigenous tribe and the nearest town was four hours away,' said Maeve.

'It was up in the mountains and we were sleeping in hammocks at night, covered with a plastic sheet in case it rained,' she added.

Some of the villagers had shotguns to protect everyone in case a tiger attacked and they also had machetes to cut through the jungle paths.

'Cooking was over an open fire and light faded very quickly because of the trees and you're in the middle of the forest,' said Maeve.

'In the evening time we sat around a candle or fire telling stories and jokes and we went to bed early because it got dark quickly,' she added.

Washing of clothes was done using a bar of soap in a nearby river.

While she was in the jungle Maeve was blissfully unaware of the turmoil that was taking place across the globe.

'I had planned to be back in Ireland by March 20 anyway because there was an event in Galway that I planned to be at,' she said.

However, nothing could have prepared her for what greeted her when she emerged from the jungle to the small city of Iquitos.

'I went into a restaurant there and there were some Americans there who I overheard talking about Europe being on lockdown and I thought what's that about,' said Maeve.

From that moment on things began to develop very rapidly and so did the predicament that Maeve was beginning to find herself in.

The Peruvian government gave an instruction that people had 24 hours to get out of the country before it went into complete lockdown.

The military were brought in to patrol the streets of Iquitos and another problem facing Maeve was that for her to get out of the country she would have to get from Iquitos to Lima and then get a flight out of Peru.

'Flights weren't going and I began to think I was going to be stranded there,' she said.

She went to an Airbnb because it was cheaper and was lucky to find one on the outskirts of Iquitos that was run by an Italian named David.

'He had very good English so he began to fill me in on what was happening on the TV,' said Maeve.

She admitted that while she was off-grid she had no idea at all about what was happening and it shocked her when she did find out in Iquitos.

She said that while she was trying to sort out her own predicament and find a way of getting to Lima and on a flight home she was also worried about what would happen if the virus hit Iquitos and the people in the jungle.

'Iquitos is a really poor and many people rely on markets and selling food to make a living,' said Maeve.

'There are also taxi drivers who basically ride motorbikes and that's how they make their living,' she added.

Because of the lockdown now in place they have no means of income at all and Maeve said that's something she thinks about still.

'The curfew meant they could drive between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m. but not after that at all so taxi drivers could not work during the day,' she said.

'That is how they put food on the table so their position is very serious,' she added.

Through social media and platforms like WhatsApp, Maeve got in contact with other Irish people caught in the country and there was also a social group for UK and Irish people in Iquitos.

'People kept finding each other and the groups got bigger.'

Through such interaction Maeve heard that the Irish Embassy was trying to arrange to get the Irish out of the country and back home.

She got to know another two people from Ireland, a woman named Ciara and a man from Louth, named Danny.

Maeve said that as the seriousness of the situation developed she began to wonder would she ever get out of the country.

'You start hearing about countries that were getting people out but to make the plane you obviously had to be healthy so you could on a plane if the chance came,' she said.

Maeve went into self-isolation to enhance her chances of not getting sick and she said she got great help from David, the man who owned the Airbnb.

'He would ask me of I wanted anything when he went to the shop and would bring it back for me,' she said.

'I got an electric kettle, oats, milk power and chia seeds and lived on that, and boiled tap water, during my self-isolation.'

The building she was in was three-storeys high with a fourth floor under construction.

'Because the fourth floor wasn't completed I was able to go up there to get some fresh air.'

'I stayed in my room and then after 12 days I had to get out just for the sake of my sanity,' said Maeve.

'There was an open kitchen there downstairs so it was ok because we were able to keep our distance,' she added

'After 12 days and with the [planned] flight not happening I said to myself that I couldn't stay in my room any longer and that's why I went down.'

Maeve heard about a possible flight leaving from Lima but she still had the problem of getting from Iquitos to the Peruvian capital.

She also heard about a group of Israelis who were leaving from a city called Cusco for Lima.

However, the Peruvian government stopped that flight because the Israelis would have been in Lima for more than three hours.

'The government just wanted people arriving in Lima and then leaving again straight away,' said Maeve.

'They did not want anyone staying there for too long and instead wanted you moving on as soon as possible.'

Maeve said that upon hearing reports that the Irish had got out of the country she was worried that she would be left behind and possibly even be forgotten about.

Ireland's Ambassador to Chile, Peru and Ecuador, Paul Gleeson, then contacted Maeve and offered assistance.

He put her in contact with the Austrian Honorary Consulate to Peru, Stephan Germuth, who was helping get people from EU cities out of the country.

'We still had the problem of getting from Iquitos to Lima because if we couldn't do that we wondered how we would ever get out,' said Maeve.

Her predicament was compounded by the fact there is no road access to or from Iquitos.

Eventually, Maeve got word that her name was on the list of passengers for a scheduled, approved flight to Santiago and from there to Frankfurt but she still had to get out of Iquitos.

'I had to get a motor taxi to get to the meeting point to get the bus to the [Iquitos] airport,' she said.

However, that was a precarious position to be in too as that trip took place on a day when women were supposed to be in quarantine.

'I had been told that if we were stopped by a policeman not to go to the station because that would mean a big delay and I'd miss the flight,' she added.

She kept her head down in the motor taxi but on the way to the meeting point was stopped at a military checkpoint.

'We were stopped as we headed to the meeting point and I gave the driver my phone so he could show it to the soldier as it had my [travel] permit on it and the soldier the let us go.'

After she arrived at the meeting point she had to take a 20 minute bus journey to the airport.

However, once there they had to wait for 40 minutes before being allowed into the airport and then they had a further four-hour wait because there was something wrong with the plane.

'Once we were on the plane we had to wear masks but when we landed in Frankfurt people were not wearing them,' said Maeve.

She had to stay in the transit area of the airport and ended up sleeping on the airport seats along with Danny, from Louth, and another Russian man they met.

'We had the whole run of the airport to ourselves it was a bit surreal,' said Maeve.

'We slept on the bench and the we flew out the following day,' she added.

Arriving back in Dublin airport was an emotional moment for her: 'It was just great to be back home in Ireland.'

She got a Bus Eireann bus back to Wexford and there was only a couple of other people on board 'so there was plenty of space to keep apart'.

Her parents were waiting outside her flat in the car when she got to Wexford and her mam had done some shopping for her and left the items at her door.

Happy to be home she said everyone needs to be aware of the danger posed by the virus and said if that means staying inside that's what people need to do.

'You have to do it, because everyone is doing it and playing their part,' she said.

Having already done a period of self-isolation Maeve knows she could do it again - especially given the circumstances in which she did it the first time around.

'Well this is luxurious compared to before so that's ok,' she said.

'At the moment just having the sense of security and safety or being in your own apartment is great,' she added.

'At least you know that your family and friends are just a drive away and at the end of the phone so that's good; it's a nice place to be.'

Maeve also feels that lessons can be learned from the situation the world now finds itself in.

'People need to realise that other countries aren't just neighbouring territories,' she said.

'If something happens in a poorer country it can have an effect on the entire world and there is absolutely no reason why there can't be a reasonable standard of healthcare for everyone all over the world,' she added.

'People should also have enough food to eat; good things can come from all of this but we have to approach things differently.'

Maeve also commented that the gardai shouldn't have to force people to stay at home.

'People should just stay at home,' she said.

'The gardai should not have to force people to stay at home,' she added.

'What needs to happen to get people to realise that this is real.'

Iquitos only has a small hospital which has one ventilator and Maeve heard that police officers are beginning to get sick there now.

She said the hospital will not be able to cope with any kind of pandemic.

'They are also trying to deal with dengue fever, which people are dying from, and now they have to deal with this as well.'

David, the man who owns the Airbnb where Maeve stayed, bought up a lot of paracetamol and malaria medicine so that if someone needs it he has something to give them.

'The hospital is not going to be able to handle it but Iquitos is surrounded by the jungle so hopefully the people will be protected to some extent because of that,' said Maeve

Some of the measures brought in include men only being able to venture out on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and women only getting out on Tuesdays, Saturdays and Thursdays, with nobody allowed out at all on Sundays.

'They also brought in new quarantine measures as I left which meant nobody could go out on Thursdays and Fridays as well as Sundays,' said Maeve.

'I am really afraid that if it hits there it will get really bad and when I left they were bringing in that people could only be out between 5 a.m. and 4 p.m..'

She heard that 21,000 people were arrested in Iquitos under marshal law measures for breaking the curfew as efforts intensify to keep the pandemic to a minimum.

'The rubbish is put into bags and placed out on the streets at night and then a lorry comes along at night to pick them up but I heard of a man who put out his rubbish after curfew hours and was arrested and put in jail for 24 hours,' said Maeve.

She plans to work on her Spanish: 'I want to build up my Spanish because it was frustrating not being able to communicate.'

For now she's happy to be home but for Maeve the world has many more places to explore when the time is right.
Gunmen Kill Six Local Contractors Near Main U.S. Base In Afghanistan

April 17, 2020

Gunmen have shot dead six local contractors who worked at the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan.

Wahida Shahkar, the spokeswoman for the governor of Parwan Province, said the incident occurred late April 16 some 500 meters from Bagram Airfield, north of Kabul.

Shahkar said the contractors, most of them cleaners, were in a vehicle heading home when gunmen "affiliated with the Taliban" fired on them. He said the gunmen escaped.

The Taliban denied any involvement in the attack.

Similar attacks in the past have been blamed on Taliban and Islamic State (IS) militants.

IS militants claimed responsibility for firing five rockets from a vehicle at Bagram Airfield on April 9, but there were no casualties.

Taliban militants have been carrying out attacks despite signing a peace deal with the United States in February aimed at ending the 18-year war.

Based on reporting by Tolo News and AP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/gunmen-kill-six- local-contractors-near-main-u-s-base -in-afghanistan/30561176.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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It's a hard time to launch a Kickstarter, but artist/writer/animator Stephan Franck had a story rooted in L.A. history that he wanted to tell -- and wanted to help keep the struggling comic book industry alive during the coronavirus pandemic.

"The stores are closing, the distribution chain is stopped, publishers are shutting down their production because they have nowhere to sell the books," Franck told LAist. "If I was canceling the Kickstarter, all I'm doing is canceling a job for a printer, that then will not be there for me on the other side of this."

Franck's best known for working on acclaimed animated movies like Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse and The Iron Giant, and he's also the head of animation on new Marvel Cinematic Universe cartoon What If...? But he's telling a story where he has control of the whole process with his new comic, Palomino, a neo-noir story set in the early 1980s country music club scene. At that time, L.A.'s country music clubs could draw 900 people on a weeknight, Franck said. His book is set around North Hollywood's real-life, now-defunct Palomino Club.

"That was a place where you had this convergence of the music scene coming from this country-western era, but also the hippie scene," Franck said. "You're in the Valley, and you have the other side of Hollywood -- all the TV culture, TV actors, the stuntmen."

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The cowboy loomed large in popular culture at the time, with Franck noting that it went from Kenny Rogers on the charts to cowboy actor Ronald Reagan in the White House.

VIRTUALLY REBUILDING A COUNTRY MUSIC CLUB

An imagined jam at The Palomino from the new comic. (Courtesy Stephan Franck)

To set his story in that scene, Franck took photos of key locations and looked at old photos of places that don't exist anymore. He used his skills as an animator to build CGI models of almost every location, including a club called The Palomino.

The Palomino's a banquet hall now, but it's the same structure, with the same sign, stage, and floor plan. Franck went and shot photos everywhere, then used them to build a computer model of the location. He did it to help ground the larger-than-life story, Franck said.

"It gives you the specificity and the consistency that you need," Franck said. "Once I have the set in CG, then I can block out the sequence like I would do for a movie, and go scout for the best angles I can find. And it brings almost a ... cinematic quality that sets the stage for better performance from the characters -- even though I'm drawing them."

He's bringing that polished, particular process from his animation work to Palomino in other ways, including shooting his reference photos with an anamorphic camera lens, helping to give his drawings the feel of late '70s/early '80s cinema, according to Franck.

FRANCE MEETS AMERICA

Stephan Franck (left) playing guitar. (Courtesy Stephan Franck)

He's a musician himself, which is part of what drew Franck to this material. He's also a country music fan who grew up on the '80s rockabilly revival in his native France. He remembers the impact of reading the liner notes to an Emmylou Harris album.

"It said they really want to capture the spirit of the California honky-tonk. And I was like, 'California honky-tonk'... what the heck is that?!" Franck said.

He came to the United States as part of the animation boom of the 1990s, falling in love with L.A. the moment he stepped outside LAX's Tom Bradley Terminal.

"I grew up on the outskirts of Paris -- everything was very gray and small," Franck said. "You can walk into a bar in L.A., and just talk to the person next to you randomly, and chances are they have an incredible story to tell."

He played clubs around the L.A. country scene, he said, but after its peak -- and the closure of the Palomino.

"It was definitely the afterglow of what it had been from the 1930s to the late '80s," Franck said. "But it was still active, still in existence. And I got to become friends, and play, and work with all those amazing musicians."

GETTING PERSONAL IN A DIFFERENT MEDIUM

Van Nuys Boulevard, as seen in new comic Palomino. (Courtesy Stephan Franck)

Franck uses comic books to tell more personal stories than his animated work, and often darker ones.

"With animation, you obviously have the pleasure of seeing your stuff come to life on the big screen, and the production value is extremely satisfying," Franck said. "From comics, [it's] the authorship -- whatever I feel I need to explore at the moment, I just have the full freedom to do it."

Though the comic convention experience may be changing because of to the current pandemic, the world of comics also allows him to connect with his audience in a more tangible way Over the last five years, he's had the chance to talk with a lot of fans one-on-one -- and thinks he's shaken more than 100,000 hands.

"We're going to be fine." From Palomino. (Courtesy Stephan Franck)

While he loves the California country music scene, the part that's most personal for Franck is the father/daughter story of its characters in the context of L.A. His youngest child just graduated college, so he saw Palomino as a chance to look back at his own time as a parent.

"That question that is eternal -- what is it to be a parent? Am I good at it? Am doing more harm than good? Franck said. "The thing that made me the happiest about the book is that when my kids read it, they go, 'Oh, that makes me homesick -- that's totally our life.'"

The fast-living culture of Palomino is one Franck thinks is directly relevant to our current moment.

"You're in 1981, you're playing the club, the party is going on -- you have a strong middle class with all those union jobs, and the money's flowing, and the party seems like it's never going to end," Franck said.

Then the economy started to shift, with local industry moving elsewhere and the real-estate market cratering, Franck said.

"The reality that you can take your world for granted, that it can turn on you quicker than you think, is something that's always fascinated me," Franck said. "Palomino is also that story -- it's the story of not knowing how thin the ice is that you're all standing on."

But Palomino is also a story about the hope of the next generation, with their whole life ahead of them, making it all work, Franck said.

You can find the Kickstarter for Palomino here. The comic has already been drawn, but Franck is looking for the Kickstarter to pay for printing costs -- he's run several successful Kickstarters before. This book is the first in a planned four-part series.

Read a preview of the book's first seven pages below:
As the province scrambles to contain the COVID-19 crisis in long-term care homes, disability advocates fear their sector could be next in the pandemics path of destruction and the window is closing for decisive action that could spare them from similar tragedy.

In the long-term care industry, the ingredients for disaster were baked in from the start: A deadly and infectious virus, buildings full of vulnerable people, and a highly-mobile workforce for whom close contact is part of the job description. But these risk factors are also inherent in congregate living spaces for people with disabilities and advocates say there is an urgent need for coherent plans aimed at protecting these vulnerable people.

While there is still time to take proactive steps to prevent widespread tragedy across Ontarios disabled community, that window is closing, says Lori Holloway, CEO of Bellwoods Centres for Community Living.

We dont want to be the next long-term care scenario, where were dealing with mass outbreaks, says Holloway, whose organization operates six supportive housing sites in the GTA, and helps people with disabilities live independently. Its not the time to be critical but it is the time to say theres a group here that we think has been forgotten.

While congregate living facilities for people with disabilities tend to be smaller than long-term care homes  and most residents are not elderly  they do cluster people with health complications or underlying illnesses that put them at heightened risk of deadly infection.

People who are disabled, both living in congregate settings and at home, are also highly dependent on personal support workers (PSWs), an underpaid workforce that is largely forced to work multiple jobs at different locations. While the province has ordered workers at seniors homes to choose a single workplace to limit the virus spread, a similar directive  or specific commitments for supplying personal protective gear  has yet to come for PSWs in the disability sector.

Work is now underway on a residential staffing directive that will limit staffing flexibility in order to control infection spread, said Palmer Lockridge, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services (MCCSS), in an email. But he adds that our goal is to strike the right balance between strong infection control measures to protect individuals and staff, and adequate staffing flexibility to ensure continuity of service from people who are highly dependent on others for their health and safety in everyday living.

Meanwhile, for some facilities shared by people with disabilities, COVID-19 has already crept in. To date, there have been 33 outbreaks reported by provincially-funded facilities for people with developmental disabilities, affecting 130 residents and staff, according to Lockridge. The threshold for declaring an outbreak is one confirmed case. We are monitoring this situation and working closely with our partner agencies so that their immediate needs are being met, he said.

We will do everything we can to protect our most vulnerable citizens because we all know they are most at risk during this outbreak, he said in an email. Were in constant contact with our agency partners to understand their needs as this situation evolves.

Among the group homes where COVID-19 has already erupted is Markhams Participation House, a home for people with developmental and physical disabilities where a massive outbreak has infected at least 37 of the homes 42 residents. Two have died and a dozen staff members have also been infected.

I am hopeful that Participation House is a wakeup call for every single home out there, said Laura Meffen, whose 21-year-old daughter was among the infected residents at Participation House. I am hopeful that the government is going to now understand the need.

But addressing the needs of the disability community is perhaps even more complex than shoring up protections for long-term care facilities or retirement homes. The community is diverse, spanning a range of disabilities and age groups, and living arrangements are varied. There are congregate living facilities or group homes, where residents might share bedrooms or communal spaces, and independent living housing sites, like Bellwoods, where people are clustered but live in apartment-style units and receive daily supports from PSWs.

Many people with physical or intellectual disabilities are also cared for in the community by family members or employ their own PSWs  including approximately 150 in Ontario who are on ventilation.

Complicating matters is that responsibility for the disabled population is spread across different ministries. An organization like Bellwoods is a transfer payment agency through Ontario Health, the newly-created super agency for delivering health care in the province. But group homes like Participation House fall under the purview of MCCSS, which oversees the developmental services sector.

The MCCSS recently announced new measures for its sector, including emergency childcare for workers and enhanced COVID-19 testing. A new, $40-million relief fund will also help offset extra costs for additional staffing, personal protective gear, physical distancing initiatives, and transportation to minimize infection risks but its being dispersed across several high-needs residential facilities, including womens shelters and youth homes.

In the absence of clear guidance or support aimed at the disabled community, many agencies and facilities have been working on the fly to figure out their own solutions. In the mad scramble for PPE, those in the disability sector are competing with not just the rest of the world but also better-resourced sectors in their own community.

The entire health care system has had challenges around PPE but I do feel that our sector often gets left behind, says Deborah Simon, CEO of the Ontario Community Support Association.

There is also a lack of direction for PSWs who work in the disabled community, where the need for these crucial workers is high but wages are low. The current pay gap between PSWs who work in long-term care versus home and community care is about $3.50 an hour, according to Simon.

While restricting PSWs from moving between different workplaces would help prevent further viral spread to vulnerable people, a concurrent worry is that doing so could trigger an exodus of workers from the disability sector, where their compensation is lowest but the work they do is sometimes a matter of life or death.

Were kind of holding our breath day to day to see if we do get work refusals or people asking to put their status on hold, said Holloway, who employs about 300 PSWs, three quarters of whom are part-time employees. We have clients who are in some cases non-communicative, on ventilators, on oxygen, on life-sustaining electrical powered equipment. They could be completely dependent on us for their activities of daily living.

Without specific guidance for facilities like hers, Holloway is trying to follow COVID-19 protocols developed for long-term care facilities, but many of them are difficult to adhere to because her housing sites dont follow a medical model.

For example, some protocols require an on-site medical doctor, which her organization doesnt have, so she is now working with the Ontario Medical Association to try and cobble together a stop-gap solution.

Her housing model also means her residents are tenants, covered by the Landlord and Tenant Act. So if there were an outbreak in one of her buildings, a quarantine would be much more difficult to enforce. I cant necessarily put a supportive housing building on lockdown.

Other types of congregate living facilities have also taken proactive steps, ahead of explicit direction or guidance from the province. At North Yorkers for Disabled Persons, executive director Cathy Samuelson has been terrified for her residents since first reading about the COVID-19 pandemic. Her facility has been on lockdown since March 10.

The 10 residents at North Yorkers, aged 24 to 65, have complex physical disabilities and are also non-speaking or speech-impaired; they need extensive daily assistance with everything from dressing and eating to bowel and bladder care. If any had to go to the hospital, they would need a facilitator to accompany them so that they could communicate. Some residents are also prone to respiratory issues, including one individual who was hospitalized for pneumonia for a week shortly before the pandemic hit.

An outbreak here would be devastating for us, Samuelson said.

At Community Living Central York, which operates 16 group homes for people with intellectual disabilities, they have also been racing to get ahead of the outbreak: scrabbling together PPE, cancelling day programs and raising the hourly pay for PSWs while also overhauling schedules so workers are only entering a single home.

But these steps are costly and the organization is making sacrifices in other areas to ensure these proactive steps are taken, said Suzanne Conner, vice-president of the board of directors.

We dont have a lot of direction on whos going to help us from the government but we know its the right thing to do, Conner says. It is our duty as a society to protect those who are vulnerable and these guys are as vulnerable as it gets.
MIAMI  Adult star and indie content producer Joslyn Jane delivers a new girl/girl clip for her fans, available now at her online ManyVids store

Jane portrays a lustful lesbian out to pop her roommates girl/girl cherry in her latest release, titled Sore Loser , which pairs the statuesque blonde with body positive BBW performer Breana Khalo.

Breana and I make a friendly bet: whoever loses this round in video games has to do whatever the winner wants, Jane said. I win! And as her gay roommate, I know exactly what I'm going to do to her.

Breana was such a pleasure to work with, Jane said. I met her a few months ago out in Lynwood and she has such a playful energy. Im excited for our fans to see me dominate her!

Fans know that Janes own ManyVids store is always up-to-date with her hottest content. The 5 9 PAWG with natural 34G breasts, who rose to fame as Officer Jane on Black Patrol before going on to produce and star in scores of titles across many genres, is a highly-ranked MV Girl on the powerful platform.
- Due to the extended community quarantine imposed on the whole island of Luzon, the assistance of the government for the affected families also got prolonged

- But in San Ildefonso, Bulacan, local leaders did not just give relief to residents for they also tried to put smiles to people's faces

- Mayor Carla Galvez-Tan, along with the said municipalitys councilors, brought some Darnas with them to help distribute food packs

- Those Darnas are their volunteers wearing the superheroines costume

PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed

Volunteers in San Ildefonso, Bulacan did not just give relief to residents. They also put smiles to people's faces in their area during these trying times.

Recently, the head of the said municipality, Mayor Carla Galvez-Tan, along with Councilors Ian Velarde, Krizia Jewel Velilla Silverio and Aaron Galvez brought some Darnas with them to help distribute food packs for her constituents.

The volunteers wearing Darna costumes and the local leaders handed over relief goods which include vegetables and fish.

They also brought speakers to play the song Narda by Kamikazee band while they are distributing.

One of the volunteers filmed their relief operation in a Facebook live video which gained many positive comments from netizens, including residents of San Ildefonso who expressed gratitude:

Thank you po sa foodpacks nyong pinahatid sa Amin..thank you po ate Carla Galvez Tan.. Gobless po.

Thank you po sainyo masipag naming mayor carla galvez tan thank u thank u po. Mabuhay po kayo.

Sobrang nakakagood vibes kayo.

God bless sa inio lahat, winner kau lahat, ingat!

PAY ATTENTION: Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news!

In a previous report by KAMI, a citizen of Tarlac wearing a full Spider-Man costume became a hero of his neighbors after he gave them aid amid the enhanced community quarantine.

At present, the Philippines is under a state of calamity while the entire Luzon is under an enhanced community quarantine due to the coronavirus disease outbreak.

Please like and share our amazing Facebook posts to support the KAMI team! Dont hesitate to comment and share your opinions about our stories either. We love reading about your thoughts and views on different matters!

Our host Paula Coling gave some amazing tips on how to wisely spend your time amid the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon! Check out all of the exciting videos and celebrity interviews on our KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel!

Source: KAMI.com.gh
Kriti Sanon had been busy shooting for her next film Mimi before the Coronavirus lockdown. She will be seen playing the part of a surrogate mother in the film, which is a remake of the National Award winning Marathi film Mala Aai Vhhaychay!

Kriti, who had to put on 15 kilos for the role, is saying that she has been getting amusing requests from fans to remain '15 kilos plus' and not lose all the extra weight.

In an interview with Bollywood Hungama, when the host read out a fan's request for her to remain '15 kilos plus', Kriti reacted, "I have gotten this comment a lot. It's really funny that my fans have started calling me chubby Sanon. It's too funny. It's really cute and I like the nickname also." She said that she will not be able to do that but is open to retaining 5 kilos.

When asked about her experience gaining the extra weight, Kriti said that the film's team did not believe she could do that because she has high metabolism. "It was something that actually my whole team thought I won't be able to do. My body type is such that my metabolism is high," she said.

Kriti also revealed that her initial target was 10 kilos, but was later raised to 15 kilos. "Initial target was 10 kilos and when I gained about 7, they realized that I am tall and it doesn't show as much. That's when my director Laxman sir told me that I think you will have to gain weight to 15 for it to show on your face and on the screen," she said.

Mimi is directed by Laxman Utekar and it also stars Pankaj Tripathi. Kriti said in an earlier interview that the film is very special to her.

ALSO READ: Kriti Sanon Says 2019 Was A Game Changer For Her Career

ALSO READ: Awkward! Tiger Shroff Thinks Kriti Sanon Is Out Of His League; The Actress Says 'What Rubbish!'


Shreveport, Louisiana law firm Bowie & Beresko have updated their professional family law and bankruptcy attorney services. The firm also handles redhibition, personal injury, and lemon law cases

SHREVEPORT, LA / ACCESSWIRE / April 17, 2020 / The Shreveport, Louisiana-based law firm Bowie & Beresko APLC have updated their expert family and bankruptcy law services. The firm specializes in handling family law and bankruptcy cases for individuals and companies.

More information can be found by visiting: https://shreveportlawyers.net

The firm prides itself on being a law firm that helps people file for bankruptcy relief under American Bankruptcy Codes Chapters Seven, Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen, and the new Small Business Bankruptcy under Chapter 11. It is considered a debt relief agency.

Attorney Ralph Scott Bowie is a board-certified consumer and business bankruptcy specialist. His main goal is to help individuals and companies with their bankruptcy cases using his extensive and objective knowledge of bankruptcy law in the state of Louisiana.

The lawyers also offer expert legal assistance for family law cases including divorce, child custody, child support, alimony, property division, domestic violence, and military divorce.

The Family Law Team at Bowie & Beresko knows how challenging and emotional divorce is for everyone involved, and they work closely with each client individually to ensure as little emotional damage is done as possible when navigating divorce and child custody hearings.

In addition to providing expert family and bankruptcy attorney services, the firm also specializes in personal injury cases, lemon law and redhibition cases.

The firm has over 70 years of combined experience handling personal injury cases for clients suffering from a wide variety of injuries. The firm has in-house notary publics to make the whole legal process as quick and pain-free for their clients as possible.

The firm also specializes in cases under the Motor Vehicle Warranty Act, also known as "lemon law". This a term used in Louisiana to describe a defective vehicle, boat, or motor home sold as new. People who have purchased a new vehicle that is considered a "lemon" under this act could be entitled to compensation which may include attorney fees.

Story continues

The attorneys at Bowie & Beresko are experts at law. Regardless of the type of case, they are confident they can win on behalf of their clients. Interested parties can find more information and book a free consultation at the link above.

Contact Info:

Name: Skip Beresko

Email: Send Email

Organization: Bowie & Beresko, APLC

Address: 400 Travis St #700, Shreveport, Louisiana 71101, United States

Phone: +1-318-221-0600

Website: https://shreveportlawyers.net/

SOURCE: Bowie & Beresko, APLC





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/585691/Shreveport-LA-Family-Law-Divorce-Cases-Bankruptcy-Attorney-Services-Launched




A tornado that wreaked havoc in East Brainerd on Easter Sunday likely begun just inside the Georgia line and had gained monster strength about the time it demolished Bones Smokehouse on East Brainerd Road, the National Weather Service said.

The report says the tornado reached its widest path as it blew across the Holly Hills subdivision, where many of the homes were demolished.

The tornado also did heavy damage as it moved into Ooltewah before finally weakening as it approached Bradley County.

This tornado began at 11:19 p.m. and was an EF3. It traveled 14 and 1/2 miles.

Here is the report:

"This tornado could have begun just inside the Georgia State line and continued into Hamilton County. It quickly moved across the Harris Hills area where some trees were uprooted. It then continued towards East Brainerd Road and Stratman Circle where an auto parts store was completely leveled and nearby structures had significant roof damage done. The tornado then struck the end of a large shopping building where a restaurant was located. The restaurant facade was destroyed and the roof was peeled back. This is where the tornado picked up strength and was near its peak intensity. It continued northeast into the Drake Forest neighborhood where extensive structure, roof, and tree damage was noted.

"There were likely pockets of EF-3 damage here, as well. The tornado damage path really widened as it moved northeast into the Holly Hills neighborhood. This was likely the widest part of the tornado. Nearly as far as you could see to the southeast, tree trunks were snapped and significant home damage was noted. Some areas were blocked by tree debris and fallen power poles as well as large clean up machinery which limited easy access to some areas. Additional damage was found in Ooltewah near the Summit Softball Complex and particularly the significant roof damage to several units/buildings of the Integra Hills Preserve Apartments.

"The tornado weakened as it crossed South Lee Highway and eventually dissipated in southwestern Bradley County."
All eight COVID-19 deaths in Winona County have been connected to a congregate care facility, Winona Community Services Director Karen Sanness confirmed Saturday.

None of those patients was hospitalized for the disease, Sanness said, which could indicate there was an advanced health care directive in place. That would mean a plan was set up ahead of time for these patients about what health care decisions they would prefer to be made in health-crisis situations.

Of the two most recent patients to die, both tested positive for COVID-19 after death. One was in his or her 70s; the other was in his or her 80s.

An earlier Winona County resident who died also tested positive for COVID-19 after death but had tested negative while alive.

The first five residents who died were between the ages of 76 and 100.

Earlier during the pandemic, the Minnesota Department of Health released a list of congregate care facilities with more than 10 residents who have had COVID-19 cases. Sauer Health Care was the only facility in Winona County listed.

Sauer Health Care staff declined to return calls for comment about cases within its facility.

Sauer did confirm on Facebook in March that at least two cases had been within its facility.

All COVID-19 cases in Winona County, including one new case confirmed Saturday that brought the total to 57, have been the result of community spread, Sanness confirmed.

Only one congregate care facility has experienced community spread in the county, said Kristen Ehresmann, the director of the MDH Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control Division.

These 57 patients range in age from 18 to 104.

Twenty-one of these individuals tested positive recently because of expanded testing within a congregate care facility. Some of these cases were asymptomatic, but they could still spread the disease.

The increased testing was ordered by the health system supporting the facility, Ehresmann said.

Sanness did not have available, as of Saturday, what percentage of the countys 57 cases were related to a congregate care facility.

Rachelle Schultz, president/CEO of Winona Health, confirmed during a conference call earlier this month that many cases are in one location, but that there are some cases unrelated to this location in the county.

Schultz shared in a column published in todays Winona Daily News that Sauer Health Care is attempting to move residents who have tested negative for the disease out of the facility to help protect against spread.

A plan has been created to move these patients to Lake Winona Manor for an interim stay.

Other nursing homes in the area are preparing for similar necessary separations of residents if they begin to have positive cases also, Schultz shared.

Sauer is working to battle the disease in its facility by having its staff use full personal protective equipment while interacting with any residents.

A Winona Health physician is also working in Sauer and is monitoring all residents daily, evaluating symptoms, directing treatments, and talking with residents and their families about their wishes, Schultz said in the column.

Other Winona Health physicians are helping the physician currently working in Sauer.

Schultz shared that a team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is in Minnesota and has visited Winona to help evaluate the situation and advise on how to handle it.

Ehresmann also said that a team from the Minnesota Department of Health is focused on helping the congregate care facility facing COVID-19 in Winona County. The team includes a nurse case manager, infection control experts, staff who work to examine possible exposures and members of the departments Health Regulation Division.

Winona County has experienced about 6.6% of Minnesotas COVID-19 deaths, with that total now reaching 121 across the state.

Of the states cases, though, only about 2.6% have been in Winona County. As of Saturday, there were 2,213 positive COVID-19 cases.

The county has more deaths than others  such as neighboring Olmsted County  even though Winona County has many fewer cases than these counties.

Olmsted County has experienced two deaths, though it has 177 positive cases.

Ehresmann said that Winona County has a large number of deaths compared to other counties because of the outbreak within the one congregate care facility, which skews the countys death rate from the disease. Residents outside of this facility are not facing a similar trend in data.

In the state, 1,118 of the 2,213 COVID-19 positive patients no longer need to be in isolation.

Of these cases, 561 people have been hospitalized, with 239 remaining in the hospital as of Saturday.

For daily Minnesota COVID-19 situation updates, visit www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/situation.html.
U.S. manufacturers shipped millions of dollars of face masks and other protective medical equipment to China in January and February with encouragement from the federal government, a Washington Post review of economic data and internal government documents has found. The move underscores the Trump administration's failure to recognize and prepare for the growing pandemic threat.

In those two months, the value of protective masks and related items exported from the United States to China grew more than 1,000 percent compared with the same time last year - from $1.4 million to about $17.6 million, according to a Post analysis of customs categories which, according to research by Public Citizen, contain key PPE. Similarly, shipments of ventilators and protective garments jumped by triple digits.

"Instead of taking steps to prepare, they ignored the advice of one expert after another," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas. "People right now, as we speak, are dying because there have been inadequate supplies of PPE."

While the percentage increase of exports to China was steep, they represent a small fraction of the overall U.S. need. Throughout the country, the shortage has forced hospitals, nursing homes and first responders to ration masks and other protective gear as they treat infected and high-risk patients, creating a secondary health crisis among first line providers.

In the early days of the covid-19's exponential march across the globe, when it was still mostly contained in China, there was no widespread sense of crisis in the White House. But by the end of January, briefings to White House national security staff made clear that the danger of a major pandemic was real. By then seven Americans had fallen ill, and experts said the need for an adequate supply of protective gear should have been apparent.

Nonetheless, on Jan. 30, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Fox Business that the outbreak could "accelerate the return of jobs to North America" because companies would move factories away from impacted areas.

On Feb. 26 - when total deaths had reached 2,770, nearly all in China - the Commerce Department published a flier titled "CS China COVID Procurement Service," guiding American firms on how to sell "critical medical products" to China and Hong Kong through Beijing's fast-tracked sales process. Doggett obtained the flier and other Commerce communications.

On March 3, a commercial officer in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing notified colleagues about the "new service" Commerce was offering, according to an email.

"The CS China healthcare team has been busy working with Chinese government procurement agents and U.S. companies to address local healthcare needs. We created the China and Hong Kong COVID Procurement Service - please find the flier attached. We welcome you to send this flier to relevant U.S. manufacturers and suppliers."

A senior Commerce official, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said senior leaders at the department's International Trade Administration shut the program down on March 4, shortly after the flier was distributed.

"Department of Commerce senior leadership is aware of this issue and is investigating," the official said, adding that the ITA has helped 100 groups and 47 states distribute protective equipment since the outbreak began and continues to work in 25 countries to identify sources of medical supplies.

Still, Doggett was incredulous that masks desperately sought today by U.S. medical providers were provided to China by U.S. companies in large numbers through February.

"This is one of multiple failures that have contributed to a significant loss of life in the United States," Doggett said. "At the very time that Trump is having his first press conference with his coronavirus team, his administration is hawking the vital medical supplies under the title, 'Covid-19 to China.' "

Preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control show that 9,282 U.S. health-care workers have been diagnosed with the virus through April 2. Through April 9, at least 723 had been hospitalized, including 184 in the ICU. Twenty-seven had died from a covid-19 infection.

A leading producer of masks - 3M, the St. Paul, Minnesota-based manufacturing giant - made a share of this equipment at factories in the United States as well as in plants located in China.

"We were not aware of any discouragement from anyone during those very early days of the crisis, including from the U.S. government, to export from outside of China into China," said 3M spokeswoman Jennifer Ehrlich. On the contrary, through February some administration officials were calling attention to China's plight and encouraging assistance from the United States.

Today, China's imports of masks and other PPE from around the world is seen by some White House officials as part of a deliberate attempt by China to corner the market as it concealed and downplayed the danger posed by the outbreak.

"While China was silent on the seriousness of the crisis, they were quietly buying up a large portion of the world's global supply for masks and other PPE," said Peter Navarro, who directs trade policy at the White House.

Navarro was among the U.S. officials who raised early alarms, writing memos early in the year that the outbreak could imperil millions of Americans and required increased supplies of protective equipment.

Desperate officials in Illinois reported last week that N95 masks, which typically cost $1.75 apiece, are being sold for as much as $12 each as states frantically bid against one another.

On April 2, the U.S. government reversed course completely when President Donald Trump announced his administration would invoke the Defense Production Act in a way that could have prevented 3M from selling masks to foreign customers, requiring the company to provide them to U.S. customers first. "We hit 3m hard today after seeing what they were doing with their masks," Trump tweeted, as he announced plans to invoke the Defense Production Act "against 3m."

The president's push encountered immediate resistance from Canada, other U.S. allies, and 3M, whose CEO called Trump's complaint "absurd" and warned of "consequences on a humanitarian level" if the company did not fulfill orders to other countries.

Upset that the president was antagonizing trading partners in a way that could hamper supplies of critical equipment coming to the United States, foreign leaders and U.S. companies used a White House back channel, appealing to members of a task force reporting to Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner. The backdoor approach was successful: Trump reversed course three days later and announced an "amicable" agreement: 3M could continue providing masks to foreign customers, while ramping up domestic production. Despite the president's caustic remarks about 3M, a senior White House official had praise for that company and another U.S. manufacturer of masks - Honeywell - for quickly agreeing to step up domestic mask production and distribution.

N95 masks derive their name from the fact that they filter at least 95 percent of airborne particles. Known as respirators, the N95 masks used in hospital settings differ from those used at industrial sites, and are subject to different federal regulatory requirements. It took weeks for the administration to clear the use of the industrial masks for health care purposes, and then additional delay occurred when the industry demanded Congress approve legislation shielding it from liability lawsuits.

Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Robert Kadlec testified in February that the U.S. would need 3.5 billion N95s in a serious pandemic.

Early in the outbreak response, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Strategic National Stockpile had approximately 13 million N95 respirators available to distribute to U.S. health care workers, and they have now given away 90 percent of them.

Nicole Lurie, who served as Assistant Secretary of HHS for preparedness and response in the Obama administration, said the White House "could have acted much earlier to alleviate the mask shortage by completing work on a high-speed mask production line and placing orders early to manufacturers to surge production."

Data from both the U.S. and China capture the scope of the influx of protective face masks to the world's most populous country during January and February. In those two months, China's trade data show imports of a category of goods which includes surgical and N95 masks jumped nearly 2,200 percent over a year earlier.

China produces about half of the world's masks, but in those two months, the country transformed from a minor mask buyer to the world's single biggest importer. While it did not report separate January and February totals this year, other countries' data obtained via Trade Data Monitor shows they exported far more mask-related equipment to China in February, when deaths and cases in that country peaked. Among its biggest suppliers were South Korea, Japan and the United States.

The Chinese government's customs arm estimates it cleared nearly 2.5 billion pieces of epidemic-related equipment between Jan. 24 and Feb. 29, including just over a billion masks and more than 25 million protective suits. On Feb. 24 alone, Chinese customs cleared nearly 43 million face masks. A separate analysis by Public Citizen, a left leaning, group, also found a spike in U.S. exports of protective gear to China.

America now faces acute and deadly shortages of proper medical equipment. A recent survey found nearly 90 percent of American mayors say they do not have enough test kits or face masks, while 85 percent say they do not have enough ventilators. The Office of the Inspector General at HHS found "severe shortages" of testing kits and personal protective equipment. Numerous hospitals and states have reported that nurses and doctors are forced to resort to makeshift gear that increases the odds of exposure.

Ehrlich, the 3M spokesperson, said her firm adjusted its supply chain earlier this year based on what it had learned from prior virus outbreaks.

"Nearly all of the respirators 3M produces in China are for the China market. Given the severe humanitarian need there, however, and as a company with a global supply chain, we also directed some additional production into China," she said.

Chinese officials undertook several measures to ensure that the protective equipment stayed within the country, Ehrlich added. The municipal government of Shanghai informed 3M in late January it "was requiring additional supervision and control of certain 3M facilities in China" to help control the spread of the coronavirus there, she said.

"As a result of that action, the Municipal Government of Shanghai authorities assumed responsibility for order handling and product delivery of 3M respirators in Shanghai at this time," Ehrlich said. "This impacted 3M China's ability to respond to product orders in the normal course."

Navarro said the major factor restraining the U.S. response was the fact that the Chinese government had not permitted American scientists into Wuhan, and the World Health Organization had delayed labeling the crisis a pandemic.

"America and the world lost a full six weeks of preparation to the CCP's deadly silence, a time during which the Wuhan virus might well have been put quickly back into its lethal bottle," he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

In a March 31 media conference, China's director of the Foreign Ministry Information Department Hua Chunying rejected the idea that her country was hoarding protective equipment.

"China's fight against covid-19 isn't over yet," she said. "We are under heavy pressure to guard against imported cases and a rebound in indigenous cases, and so there is a huge demand for medical supplies. It is the government's top priority to prevent and control the epidemic at home and safeguard people's health."

Hua added that China has provided 120 countries and four international organizations with surgical masks and other forms of equipment.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry declined to answer questions about its mask production and distribution, instead referring to its previous public remarks.

With local governments and hospitals appealing to members of Congress for help securing protective equipment, Congress authorized a special commission last month that will review the international supply chain and its effect on domestic health security.

"This is now on the top of our list of concerns," said Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) a nurse and public health expert, who co-sponsored the legislation. In an interview this week, she described fielding calls about a lack of protective equipments. "We cannot accept a situation that effectively makes our health professionals expendable," she said. "It is unacceptable."

- - -

The Washington Post's Liu Yang and Gerry Shih in Beijing contributed to this report.
The Times Union has lifted the paywall on this developing coverage to provide critical information to our community. To support our journalists work, consider a digital subscription.

Total COVID-19 cases:

 242,424 in New York state, including 17,627 deaths. 596,532 total tested. 54,339 hospitalized.

 734,552 in the U.S., including 38,835 deaths. 66,500 recovered. 3,698,534 total tested. 114,073 hospitalized.

 2,328,124 worldwide, including 160,518 deaths. 594,194 recovered.

Note: The number of positive confirmed cases is cumulative and includes people who have recovered as well as those who died.

Additional resources:

 Here are the latest cancellations and postponements.

 For a detailed map, check out the Times Unions New York Coronavirus Tracker

 To get regular updates on our coverage, sign up for our coronavirus newsletter.

 Share stories about people helping others in our Facebook Group.

Saturday's updates:

7:14 p.m. Marinas may stay open during COVID-19 lockdown

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced marinas, boatyards and marine manufacturers will be allowed to open for personal use in all three states as long as strict social distancing and sanitization protocols are followed. Chartered watercraft services or rentals will not be allowed. Restaurant activity at these sites must be limited to take-out or delivery only.

12:00 p.m. Marriage licenses can be obtained remotely

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo issued an executive order that allows New Yorkers to obtain a marriage license remotely and allows clerks to perform ceremonies over video conference.

There is now no excuse when the question about marriage comes up, Cuomo joked during a Saturday morning press conference. You can do it through zoom.

11:35 a.m. 2 more die in Saratoga County

The Saratoga County Department of Public Health Services today announced that there are 259 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Saratoga County and 11 of those people are hospitalized. The Department also confirmed the countys eighth and ninth deaths from COVID-19  a 61-year-old man from Clifton Park and a 77-year-old man from Mechanicville.

11:19 a.m.: Glens Falls Transit getting funds

As part of the CARES Act, which included economic relief for transit systems. U.S. Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer today announced $3,458,374 in federal funding allocated by the Federal Transit Administration for Greater Glens Fall Transit.

10:30 a.m. Albany County hospitalization rate dips

With 35 people now hospitalized, the hospitalization rate for Albany County stands at 5.63%, down slightly from Friday's rate of 5.92%. Seven of those people are in Intensive Care Units, an increase of one since yesterday. Shaker Place Rehabilitation and Nursing Center has had 13 residents in total who have tested positive, along with 5 employees and one who has recovered and returned to work. There were no additional deaths, so the number stands at 20.

___

Friday's coronavirus updates:

Churches will ring bells Monday

Capital Region Catholic churches will ring their bells at 7 p.m. Monday as a show of solidarity with health care workers, those suffering from COVID-19 and their families, the Albany diocese said Friday.

RPI: Peak could be late May, early June

A Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researcher has developed a model that shows the number of coronavirus cases in the Capital Region peaking anywhere from May 9 through mid-June, depending on how many people stay home and how quickly serious cases climb.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Rensselaer County reports more positive cases

Twelve new confirmed cases of people ages 19 to 64 were reported on Saturday, bringing the total to 186, officials said. There are 16 county residents hospitalized with three in the intensive care unit. The county has seen 2,071 residents tested. Six county residents were released bringing the total to 64.

About 350 residents are in monitor quarantine, and there have been six deaths of residents due to COVID-19.

Warren County reports 2 deaths in long-term care facilities

Warren County officials reported a fourth death Friday afternoon, and provided their first public confirmation that two of those deaths were residents of long-term care facilities.

The Warren County Board of Supervisors and Warren County Health Services said the most recent death was a resident of a nursing home in the southern part of the county, but did not specify which facility. The Pines home in Glens Falls is currently battling a large outbreak.

Of the four county residents known to have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, two were at a hospital, one was at a nursing home and one was at an adult-care facility, officials said.

Schenectady County reports 14th coronavirus death

Officials provided no details about the death. The number of confirmed cases to date in the county rose by 16 overnight to 311 as of Saturday. There have been 106 recoveries from the illness. Twenty-seven people are currently hospitalized in the county, including non-residents.

___

Albany and veterans group cancel Memorial Day parade

Mayor Kathy Sheehan and Mark Rosenzweig, the chairman of the Joint Veterans Committee, announced the decision Friday, blaming the cancelation on fear of the coronavirus pandemic. The Joint Veterans Committee coordinate with local veterans groups and schools to pull of the parade each year.

With the event canceled, the committee will hold wreath-laying events on Memorial Day at the Gold Star Families and Vietnam monuments in Lafayette Park.

Read more
Enniskerry: Parish of Powerscourt with Kilbride -Services of Worship in St Patrick's Church, Powerscourt for this Sunday - The second Sunday of Easter: All Church Services remain suspended till further notice.

Keep an eye on the parish website for updates and for details of online services of worship.

Services of Worship in St Brigid's Church, Kilbride for this Sunday - The second Sunday of Easter: All Church Services remain suspended till further notice. Keep an eye on the parish website for updates and for details of online services of worship.

Irish Trefoil Guild - Guiding for Life: Calling all former leaders of the Irish Girl Guides in Bray and the surrounding area. There is now a Trefoil Guild in Bray. Contact Anne at - braytrefoilguild@gmail.com.

Easter General Vestry Meeting for St Patrick's Church, Powerscourt: This is scheduled to take place in Powerscourt National School at 8 p.m. on Monday, April 27, if current Government restrictions on gatherings are lifted by the date which currently appears unlikely. If these restrictions remain in place, it will be automatically cancelled and rescheduled to a new date which parishioners will be advised of in due course. Keep an eye on the parish website for updates about this meeting status.

Easter General Vestry Meeting for St Brigid's Church, Kilbride: This is scheduled to take place in the Parish Room of the church at 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 23, if current Government restrictions on gatherings are lifted by the date which currently appears unlikely. If these restrictions remain in place, it will be automatically cancelled and rescheduled to a new date which parishioners will be advised of in due course. Keep an eye on the parish website for updates about this meeting status.

St Mary's Church

Parish Website: The parish of the Immaculate Heart of Mary has its own website. Please check out 'Enniskerryparish.ie' for the latest information about our parish.

Coronavirus Measures: Masses in our churches are suspended till further notice due to measures introduced by the healthcare authorities limiting attendance at public indoor gatherings. While Masses are suspended, the voice of prayer should not be silent. The Archbishop of Dublin has announced that everyone is dispensed from the obligation to physically attend Sunday Mass while the present emergency persists. Check the RTE schedule for broadcast Mass times. Mass is also brought broadcast through EWTN, Radio Maria, channel which can be found in Saorview and Channel 210. Mass from Knock Shrine is brought each day at midday; Rosary at 7 p.m. and Mass at 7.30 p.m. on knockshrine/watch-live; Mass is also broadcast by web-came from St Mary's Pro Cathedral Dublin; for a list if churches broadcasting Mass by web-cam go to dublindiocese.ie/list-of-churches-with-webcams-to-watch-listen-to-daily Mass/. Weekday Mass is now broadcast by RTE NEWS NOW at 10.30 a.m. St Mary's and St Mochonog's Church will be open for private prayer each day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. - please remember to adhere to social distancing requirements.

Maintaining Contact With Our Parishioners: At this time there are many churches across various diocese that are broadcasting Masses through webcams and parish radios. The Enniskerry Parish website has been updated so that our parish community can tune in and engage in a Spiritual Communion - go to enniskerryparish.ie and click on the Daily Mass link on the home page. On the parish website there is a Daily Reflection, a Pastoral Letter from Fr Bernard and Fr Hyacinth along with resources for families and prayers at home during this time. Parishioners will be updated on developments every week via our weekly Parish Link Newsletter which will be available each Friday on the parish website. More resources will be added in the coming days and weeks with Mass resources and spiritual links for all.

Outreach: Two support groups have been set up by local volunteers to help people who are isolated due to the present crisis and need help with food shopping, prescription and medication collection. Parishioners, who would like to volunteer Kilmacanogue are asked to call David Metcalfe at 086 3895627 and for Enniskerry to call Melanie Corrigan at 083 3642439 for further information. Parishioners, who need assistance themselves or know of someone who does, are asked to call either of these numbers.

ALONE COVID-19 Support Line for Older People: ALONE - Supporting older people to age at home - has launched a national support line and additional supports for older people who have concerns or are facing difficulties relating to the outbreak of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) in Ireland. Professional staff will be available to answer queries and give advice and reassurance where necessary. The support line will be open Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., by calling 0818 - 222 024, and hours may be extended to meet the demand.

Useful Help Lines: Society of St Vincent de Paul: 01 8550022; Samaritans: 1850-609090; Recovery: 01 6260775; Accord: 01 5053112.

History Society

Month meetings of the Enniskerry History Society, which meets the guidance of its president, John Callan, have now concluded and will resume in October.

In the meantime a new publication out is 1920-2020 Centenary Souvenir Edition of Ireland's Own magazine, the fifth in the Birth of Nation series. Edited by Sean Nolan and Shea Tomkins, in which more of the articles featured include 'The Making of Hand Grenades' by Jim Fitzgerald, 'Demons - The Black and Tans in Memory' by Tomas Mac Conmara, 'The First RIC Barracks Capture in Leinster - Hugginstown, March 1920' by Eoin Swithin Walsh, 'Law and Order: Terrible things were done by both sides... ', by Paul Craven, 'Guerrilla Warfare - The Last Days of the RIC' by Sean Beattie, and 'Literature in 1920' by Brian McCabe. Copies are currently available from news agents or can be ordered via the Ireland's Own website - irelandsown.ie; email - iosubs@irelandsown.ie or call 05391-401040.

Kilmacanogue History Society

The May meeting and all subsequent activities by the society have been suspended till further notice.

Enniskerry Library

The library remains closed till further notice. Books can be renewed online - late return fees have been suspended during the period of the library's closure.

Laragh-Glendalough

Unique birthday celebrations

Praise went out for a group in the area who wished and sang happy birthday to children whose birthday was this weekend in a drive by style, birthday gram dressed in costumes, sounding horns and singing a surprise birthday greeting for delighted children who stood in their driveways. Well done to all involved for creating a novel way of celebrating a special day adhering to recent restrictions.

Chair Yoga

Louise Curran has been keeping active with clients by providing chair yoga classes online, supporting health and fitness in recent weeks during restrictions. If you would like to join you can contact Louise at 087 6032202 or email at louiseyoga12@gmail.com.

Citizens Information

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Citizens Information Centres are offering an email and telephone service only. If you would like to request a phone call from an Information Officer please email covid19@citinfo.ie and include your phone number. An Information Officer will then give you a call. Alternatively, you can contact the Citizens Information Phone Service at 076 1074000. Covid-19 Online Information the website citizensinformation.ie provides information on a huge number of topics relating to Covid-19 (coronavirus).

The Brockagh Resource Centre

COMMUNITY CALL - Brockagh Centre are part of the Community Call, anyone needing assistance should call community assistance 1800-868-399 or email the centre brockaghresourcecentre@gmail.com.

For further information, or to share advice, email brockaghresourcecentre@gmail.com, consult the Brockagh Resource Centre Facebook page or visit brockaghresourcecentre.ie.

CLOTHES BANK - This is being emptied when it is full.

St Kevin's Parish

CANCELLED MASSES - The Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) has decided that Masses on Saturday evening and Sunday mornings will be cancelled. This is to comply with the measures to delay the spread of the coronavirus which were announced by the government on March 12 and which have since been extended to April 19. These measures will also affect the Easter Ceremonies. Weekday Masses continue as normal. The situation will be kept under review by the PPC.

BLESSING OF GRAVES - In the event that restrictions are lifted, Glendalough cemetery will be blessed on Saturday, May 16, at 8 p.m. while Brockagh cemetery will be blessed on Saturday, May 23, after 7 p.m. Mass.

Laragh GFC

OFFER OF ASSISTANCE - Laragh GFC would like to help anyone in our community (especially the elderly, vulnerable or self-isolating) who might need help in any way during the current unprecedented emergency. Our players and members are available to collect from the shop and drop it to your doorstep with minimal contact. We are also willing to help with anything else that is required. Please pass on this information to your family, friends and neighbours. Contact details for some club members are given below but, if you prefer, you can contact any of our players and members. Fergal: 087 2107876 Liam: 086 0688909 Philip: 086 8443840 Derek: 087 9184690 Damien: 086 3423561.

LOTTO - Our lotto has been a great success to date. We appreciate the support of both buyers and sellers.
Absurdly Driven usually looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.

Restaurants are just trying to survive.

They're hoping for some better day that may -- or may not -- arrive within weeks or months.

They're hoping their former staff are still around and want their jobs back.

They're also hoping customers will return with confidence.

But what should restaurant owners prepare for? How much will things change? How will they have to alter the dining experience? And what sort of customers will return?

The truly sad and disturbing closure of a San Francisco restaurant indicates just how difficult for restaurants the future will be.

Like so many, Cassava was open for takeout, both at brunch and dinner.

It found enough business to keep staff employed. Yet, a few days ago it suddenly closed. And the reason may be grounds for despair.

Owner Yuka Ioroi said the city's lack of enforcement of shelter-in-place and face-covering rules have created an unsafe environment for her staff and patrons.

"I realized that I would be a hypocrite to condemn the city for not mandating mask-wearing, companies not appropriately protecting their staff as they should, and others not adhering to the SIP order during the weekend if I didn't also ask our beloved team to stay home," she wrote on Cassava's website. "If we stay open we may be creating another reason for people to go out when they could stay at home."

Ioroi also told Eater that her employees simply felt unsafe. Customers were being disrespectful. Of the social distancing rules, that is.

She said people would pick up their food not wearing masks. This wasn't compulsory in San Francisco at the time, but many people were still doing it.

Ioroi's customers, she said, weren't even observing the shelter-in-place order.

She explained:

One group asked for takeout utensils, and I said, 'Aren't you guys going back home? That's the law.' But they said, 'Oh no, we're having a picnic.'

I live in the Bay Area and we haven't had the incidence of confirmed Coronavirus cases seen in New York.

This has caused a schism. Some people are still observing the social distancing rules. Others believe it's so much nonsense. They'll ride their bikes in tight packs and expect you to get out of the way.

Ioroi explained that, ultimately, it was her staff's discomfort at the nonchalant behavior of customers that forced her to close.

Her story reveals just one aspect of the extremely difficult path any restaurateur will have to tread if they want to re-open -- or, perish the courage -- open a restaurant for the first time.

A restaurant owner has the right to expect certain levels of behavior from customers. Without, that is, being a police officer.

Moreover, how can a restaurant owner be confident of getting back to business when some medical professionals are suggesting another outbreak will be along shortly?

The future for restaurants is enormously treacherous and it's one that every restaurant owner should thoroughly consider right now.

Last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom painted a macabre picture.

When restaurants begin to re-open, he said, they would be forced to only have half the seats they used to.

The servers would be wearing gloves and masks. Menus would be disposable. Guests would have their temperatures taken before entering. And, of course, no hugging your favorite proprietor or server.

It is, of course, understandable. But who really wants to chat to a server through a mask? Who, too, believes that the restaurant experience they know will be even remotely replicated in any sort of near future?

Restaurants often operate on very small margins. They're built on emotions around food and service. If the staff is dressed a little like a critical care worker, if the owner suddenly resembles a surgeon and if the customers are reluctant to observe new health rules, what sort of experience will it be?

I feel sure one aspect of this crisis is that people will be desperate to get out of their houses.

But what will they really want to do? Go to a newly-clinical restaurant or just walk in the fresh air for miles and miles and miles?
Centre on Saturday singled out Kasaragod in Kerala for special praise for handling of coronavirus outbreak in the district and detailed the effective implementation of various containment measures despite the various unique challenges it faced.

Health ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal said that 113 coronavirus positive patients out of a total of 168 cases in the district have already been cured due to proper clinical management and underlined that not even one infected person had died to highlight the success of the Kasargod model of coronavirus cluster containment strategy.

Out of 168 total Covid-19 cases in Kasargod, Kerala, 113 have already been cured; most importantly, due to proper clinical management, not even one infected person died. Remaining active cases, too, are being monitored well, Agarwal said.

Agarwal noted the peculiarities and challenges faced by Kasargod to put this success story in the correct perspective. He pointed out that a large percentage of the districts population lives abroad, which resulted in two waves of infections, first in Feb from a China-returned student and the second in mid-March after the return of individuals from the middle-east. The district is geographically distant from major cities and is farthest from the state capital and to add further to its woes, it was difficult to track expatriates that landed in large numbers at different airports before heading home.

Agarwals praised Keralas strategy to appoint a special state officer in Kasaragod for seamless coordination. This special officer coordinated and monitored the functioning of district administration including between the line departments on the field and secretariat level.

Kasaragods use of geospatial tracking through drones of people put in home quarantine, done under a highly effective campaign named #BreakTheChain for promoting social distancing was also praised. Agarwal said the district formed a core team of Incident Commanders to attend to all Covid-19 related emergencies. Sec-144 was imposed in the entire district and all those with travel history were home quarantined. Identification of containment cluster zones through red colour coding was done and home delivery of essentials in these containment clusters was ensured.

Highlighting the scale of the districts response to the outbreak, Agarwal said that more than 17,300 contacts of positive cases were traced and quarantined followed by aggressive and quick testing, household surveys using ASHAA workers and health inspectors and setting up of Covid Care Centres and ICU facilities including operationalisation of Kasaragod medical college in just four days.

The HT Guide to Coronavirus COVID-19

One major distinct intervention of the districts Covid-19 management was seen in quarantining of all primary and secondary contacts and also high-risk cases- those above 60 years of agein isolation centres to prevent any chance of further transmissions.

The district, Centre noted, was also not behind in social welfare initiatives to ensure poor and needy got free food and regular health checkups through Care for Kasaragod initiative that saw the constitution of Jana Jagratha Samithis at ward level for free food distribution to the poor and migrant workers. Shelter home and community kitchens were also started for this purpose.

The district was also praised for keeping an effective check on black marketing, hoarding and price rise.

We got very positive and encouraging results when people returned (in Kasargod) after being cured of Covid-19. We have to work together in fighting this battle, in a whole-of-society whole-of-government approach, Agarwal added.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 12:09:16|Editor: huaxia

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Prisoners are transported in a bus outside the Insein Prison in Yangon, Myanmar, April 17, 2020. The Myanmar government granted amnesty to a total of 24,983 prisoners unconditionally on Friday, the first day of the New Year of the Myanmar calendar. (Xinhua/U Aung)
Twelve community groups have received a total of $76,869 in funding from the new Rapid Response Fund, established by TECT, Acorn Foundation, BayTrust and Tauranga City Council.

While the lockdown has created a lull for many businesses, community groups supporting those most vulnerable in our community are busier than ever, with the lockdown conditions creating a strain on peoples finances, wellbeing and mental health.

Tauranga Community Foodbank Manager Nicki Goodwin says the $12,000 in funding they received from the Rapid Response Fund would go towards the additional food purchases and staffing required to keep up with demand.

We are so relieved to be able to continue to help our community during this difficult time. Weve issued 39% more parcels compared to this time last year and we are speaking with a lot of people who havent needed to use our service before now. Its incredibly tough on them.

We are grateful our local funders have come together to make it quick and simple to get this additional funding so we can feed the many families in need around our region.

Tauranga Living Without Violence General Manager Paula Naude says that while this is a stressful time for everyone, those dealing with already fraught relationships were at greater risk.

During the lockdown, victims of violence may not be able to access telephones, internet or other outside sources if theyre living with their abuser. Even if they can, they may be less likely to report given heightened anxieties about accommodation, financial resources and the safe bubble of the whanau/family unit.

Our caseworkers are working remotely to ensure we can continue to support victims of violence. This Rapid Response funding will allow us to purchase webcams, we have increased our mobile phone packages and we are creating a private, social platform for victims and perpetrators whilst in lockdown, moderated by our agency. We urge anyone who is feeling unsafe to contact us.

Being new to the region is particularly difficult. With accommodation tough to secure, and no wage subsidy for those in the midst of job hunting, Nepali students and newcomers have the support of the Nepalese Association in BOP.

We have received over 100 applications from those in need and weve been working hard to put together grocery packs.

The $3,000 in funding we received through the Rapid Response Fund will go a long way to ensuring we can look after the Nepali newcomers and students in our region, so they can continue their studies and their life here in our wonderful community, says Nepalese Association in BOP General Secretary Anish Paudel.

TECT General Manager Wayne Werder says that community groups role in our region is more vital than ever.

We are all going through this together, but invariably, it is the most vulnerable who will suffer most. Domestic violence victims are trapped inside with their abuser, the isolated elderly are at significant risk of infection while lacking much-needed social contact, the homeless are more vulnerable than ever and those new to the region are cut off from their support lifelines.

We are pleased that together with local funders we can help community groups support those disproportionately affected by this crisis.

The community groups supported by this fund include Tauranga Living Without Violence, Street Kai, Tauranga Community Foodbank, EmpowermentNZ, Pirirakau Hauora, Nepalese Association in BOP, Te Puna Hauora, Te Manu Toroa, The Salvation Army NZ Trust, Cancer Society Waikato/BOP, The Search Party Charitable Trust Te Puke and Reach Out Trust (Katikati Foodbank).

The funding, initially made available to community groups providing essential services as defined by the government, will be opened up to the wider not-for-profit sector next week.

To learn more about the fund, visit www.tect.org.nz.
- Various health workers and soldiers are unable to go home because of the pandemic

- An online post about a soldier celebrating his birthday amid the pandemic has gone viral on social media

- Furthermore, a photo of his daughter wrapped in a plastic bag just so she could greet him a happy birthday stirred the hearts of many netizens

- The said post also garnered reactions and comments from netizens

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Due to the threat of COVID-19 in the Philippines, various medical workers and soldiers are unable to go home to their families.

Following this news, KAMI learned that an online post about a soldier and his daughter and how they celebrated his birthday amid the pandemic has recently gone viral on social media.

In her online post, Joly Marie Garces Masa expressed how heartbreaking it was for her to witness how her daughter celebrated her father's birthday.

According to Joly, her daughter wore a black plastic bag to cover herself just so she could give her father a hug and greet him a happy birthday.

"Ali endure the heat wearing this plastic. Only to hug her daddy, greet him a happy birthday and give the letter she made last night just for him."

She also mentioned in her post that the conversation between Ali and her father only took less than three minutes.

She wrote a message to the people regarding the lockdown in her online post, "Please stay at home, so that these frontliners can go home to their kids waiting every single day for them to arrive.

"Please stay at home so that you can save the frontliners' lives at stake. Please stay at home for the kids to hug their parents once again."

The said post elicited various reactions and comments from netizens on social media.

"Happy birthday, sir! God protect the rest of you and God bless!"

"Thanks for sharing Ms. Joly. Still praying for all our frontliners and staying home."

"Happy Birthday to your dad Ali! He is a hero and you as well for being loving and brave."

"This is so heartwarming!! stay safe to this sweet kids front liner/superhero/daddy and to all of you."

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As reported earlier by KAMI, President Rodrigo Duterte placed Luzon under an enhanced community quarantine due to the pandemic. The said lockdown put a halt to various day-to-day activities on the lives of the people to prevent the spread of the virus. However, a couple from Bacolod City defied all odds as they held a wedding ceremony in the hospital.

POPULAR: Read more viral stories here

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Kuya Andrew, a Grab Food rider, received a lot of blessings after he was given food by Cha Calubaquib who shared the story in her viral post! Check out all of the exciting videos and celebrity interviews on our KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel !

Source: KAMI.com.gh
If Joe Biden were a good candidate, doesn't it seem as though it would be a breeze for any Democrat to endorse him?

He's not a normal candidate, at least when it comes to the Obamas.

Michelle Obama is in "talks" with the Biden team on all the conditions necessary to obtain her endorsement.

According to Fox News:

Former Vice President Joe Bidens team is speaking with former first lady Michelle Obama about winning her endorsement and having her play a role in his campaign, according to a report. Former President Obama endorsed Biden last week soon after Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race and Biden emerged as the apparent Democratic nominee. While the former president is still popular with his party, Michelle Obamas star power among progressives may well eclipse her husband's. "We know what pretty much everyone in America does: Michelle Obama is probably the most beloved member of the Democratic Party and her support is a big deal," a Biden aide told The Hill. "Any future announcement would reflect the incredible impact her voice has."

Hear that? Talks.

'Talks' as in Paris peace talks, something people who don't like each other do to enact a ceasefire.

It's probably not that strong a loathing between the Obamas and the Bidens, but it sure has such a flavor.

What happens if Biden doesn't agree to the Mooch's terms, for one? That coveted Michelle Obama endorsement might not be so forthcoming.

But more to the point, what we are seeing here is political horsetrading, and with Michelle Obama having a high popularity rate among Democrats at least, using that as leverage against Joe.

What might Joe be promising Michelle in exchange for her coveted endorsement? He's got to be promising something, and we all know she has extravagant tastes. Wonder what he's offering her, and what she's willing to accept. This being Joe, one thing we can look to is his taste in lucrative overseas board seats, maybe for Obama, maybe for the Obama White House cronies, maybe for the Obama kids, same as he did to get his own boy, Hunter, all set for life. One wonders if it might be some kind of sinecure for worthless Ben Rhodes, or big dollar board seats for Valerie Jarrett's relatives.

Could be anything.

One thing is certain, though: If Joe Biden were a good candidate himself, there'd be no need for negotiations, the Obama team would gladly jump onboard in the name of being there with the strong horse.

Obviously, the addled and doddering Biden is not that, so he's looking to endorsements to boost him. That Michelle doesn't want to give it right off the back speaks mountains about her opinion of him.

Couple Joe's begging with the bad record Obama endorsemnts have and it looks like Joe is desperate.

Maybe he'd like to answer such questions when the Trump-Biden debates come around, presumably later this year.

Image credit: Gage Skidmore, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 22:33:13|Editor: huaxia

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YANGON, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Nay Pyi Taw Union Territory, which includes Myanmar's capital Nay Pyi Taw, on Saturday issued an order to impose a nighttime curfew in all of its townships.

"We have planned to take further restrictions in pursuit of public health," Nay Pyi Taw Council Member Aung Myint Htun told Xinhua.

As part of measures to contain and curb spread of the COVID-19, the curfew, which will be in place in the hours between 10:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m. local time, covers all eight townships - Zabuthiri, Zeyathiri, Ottarathiri, Dekkhinathiri, Pobbathiri, Lewe, Tatkone and Pyinmana townships starting from Saturday.

Meanwhile, Yangon and Mandalay also imposed similar dusk-to-dawn curfews amid the fear of COVID-19 spread.

Number of COVID-19 infection cases inched closer to 100 in Myanmar, registering 96 confirmed cases with five deaths as of Saturday.
Moscow: US Accusing Russia of Missile Tests to Distract From Deployment of American Weapons in Space

Sputnik News

12:20 GMT 17.04.2020(updated 13:20 GMT 17.04.2020)

US Space Command accused Russia of testing a direct-ascent anti-satellite (DA-ASAT) missile on Wednesday, claiming that the test was "another example that the threats to US and allied space systems" were " real, serious and growing."

The US military's statements accusing Russia of testing an anti-satellite missile are nothing more than an attempt to distract the world from the reality that America itself is actively pursuing the weaponisation of space, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has announced.

"We seem to be dealing with a targeted campaign initiated by Washington to discredit Russian activities in space and our peaceful initiatives to try to prevent an arms race in outer space," Zakharova said, speaking to reporters at a press briefing on Friday.

According to the spokeswoman, the claim made by US Space Command is "an attempt by the United States to divert global attention from real threats in outer space and to justify the steps they're taking to deploy weapons in space, as well as to secure additional funding for these purposes."

Zakharova also stressed that Moscow remains prepared to discuss efforts to prevent the militarization of space with Washington, and that the working group on space which was created in mid-January in Geneva could serve as the basis for such talks.

The statement comes two days after a report by US Space Command accusing Russia of conducting an anti-satellite missile test. According to US Space Force chief of space operations Gen. John W. Raymond, Russia carried out the test on Wednesday, and Space Force had successfully tracked it.

Russia has repeatedly expressed concerns regarding the Trump administration's lack of initiative in the field of arms control in general, as well as Washington's plans to deploy weapons in outer space, which Moscow has warned would destroy the current global security balance.

US Space Command's latest allegations are the latest in a stream of claims about alleged aggressive Russian activity against US space assets. In February, NATO accused a Russian spy satellite of stalking a US reconaissance satellite. Moscow dismisssed those claims as an attempt to justify Washington's own plans to deploy weapons in space and to shift "the responsibility for destabilizing the situation in space security" on to others.

The United States Space Force became its own independent branch of the US armed forces in December 2019 following lobbying by the Trump administration to set up a separate, space warfare service branch. The Space Force got its own $40 million 'operation and maintenance' budget in 2020, and has requested over $15.3 billion in new funding for operations, procurement, R&D and testing of space launch vehicles, GPS anti-jamming equipment, a new satellite constellation, a next-gen global missile warning, and other equipment in 2021. If approved, the Space Force spending alone would account for nearly one third of Russia's total military budget in 2019.

Russian officials have warned that the Space Force's activities could lead to violations of the 1967 Treaty on Outer Space, which prohibits the deployment or use of offensive weapons in this domain, and could cause Russia and other countries to respond to protect the strategic balance.

A Sputnik

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Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday raised serious objection to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jaganmohan Reddy holding meetings with officials to discuss fresh schedule for local body elections amid the COVID-19 crisis.

Last month, the Andhra Pradesh State Election Commission (APSEC) had deferred by six weeks the local body elections due to the coronavirus scare and also owing to incidents of violence being reported since election dates were announced. The ruling YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) had said it would challenge the APSEC's move in the Supreme Court.

"Whether it was a joke that the YSRCP is still considering to hold polls while the whole world is fighting to mitigate the worst effects of the killer virus. He (CM Jagan) is not learning lessons and willing to risk the health of millions of people for political gains. It is shocking," Naidu said in a statement.

Naidu was reacting to reports that the Andhra Pradesh government was considering taking South Korea as an example where the elections were held on Thursday despite epidemic threat and arrangements were being made for counting.

The former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister said that the state government is expecting to control infections through extensive testing and then to go for local body polls after May 3, when the extended lockdown ends.

Expressing concern over the rise in the number of COVID-19 cases in the state, the TDP chief accused the state government of releasing "false reports" on virus transmission, creating confusion among the people.

"The total concentration of YSRCP leaders was on getting lockdown lifted and getting local body elections held as early as possible but not on saving the lives of people," he said.

Meanwhile, Naidu has also written to the chief minister asking him not to force women's self-help groups, farmers' societies, hospital managements and trade and industry organisations to donate to the CM Relief Fund in the name of coronavirus relief.

"It was highly objectionable and atrocious on the part of YSRCP leaders to make forcible collections at a time when all sections of society were facing untold hardships like never before in this epidemic lockdown crisis. If required, the government may accept voluntary donations from those who can afford to give despite the present financial distress," he said.

Naidu also alleged that YSRCP leaders are "collecting commissions" even in the distribution of Rs 1,000 cash and groceries to the poor people. "This relief was not altogether given to the 25 lakh poor people whose ration cards were removed due to political considerations," he added.

He also alleged that YSRCP leaders are "threatening and obstructing different organisations which came forward to distribute relief" in response to the Prime Minister's call.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In New York, Silvana Vergara, who is 22 weeks pregnant, said she and her husband took every precaution  working from home, avoiding public transportation and wearing gloves and masks  yet both still caught the virus. Coughing 24/7 and short of breath, she said she called the emergency room at her hospital but was informed that they didnt have any tests. It was only after she made a second call to the same hospitals maternity ward that she was told to come in, was tested and was also reassured. I just want everyone to know how contagious this is and how unprepared our medical system is, she said.
By Colin Packham

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia is to send humanitarian aid to Fiji after a tropical cyclone caused widespread destruction across the Pacific, Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne said on Thursday.

Cyclone Harold, a category five storm, lashed several island nations in the Pacific last week, killing dozens of people, flooding towns and leaving many homeless.

In Fiji, thousands of people remain without electricity, aid agencies say, and many need immediate assistance.

Australia will send shelter kits and tents, kitchen utensils, water containers and personal hygiene items to Fiji and increase aid to the Fiji Red Cross and other agencies to help.

"Just as Fijian personnel supported Australian communities during our recent bushfires, Australia stands with Fiji as family, as vuvale, in its time of need," Payne said in an emailed statement, using a Fijian word for family.

Australia's aid pledge comes as Canberra seeks to fend-off a growing Chinese presence in the Pacific.

Australia has long enjoyed nearly unchecked influence in the Pacific but its position has been challenged by China in recent years as it increases aid to the sparsely populated region that controls vast swathes of resource-rich ocean.

China denies it is seeking a sphere of influence in the Pacific, saying its aid is to help with economic development.

An Australian plane carrying aid to cyclone-struck Vanuatu turned around and returned home on Sunday as a Chinese plane with medical equipment was already on the airport's tarmac, Vanuatu airport officials said.

An Australian Defence spokeswoman said the aircraft had been unable to land safely.

(Reporting by Colin Packham; Editing by Robert Birsel)
SINGAPORE, April 10 (Reuters) - Singapore has suspended the use of video-conferencing tool Zoom by teachers, its education ministry said on Friday, after "very serious incidents" occurred in the first week of a coronavirus lockdown that has seen schools move to home-based learning.

One of the incidents involved obscene images appearing on screens and strange men making lewd comments during the streaming of a geography lesson with teenage girls, according to local media reports.

Zoom Video Communications Inc ZM.O has been plagued with safety and privacy concerns about its conferencing app which has seen a surge in usage as offices and schools around the world shut to try curb coronavirus infections.

"These are very serious incidents. MOE (Ministry of Education) is currently investigating both breaches and will lodge a police report if warranted," said Aaron Loh of the ministry's educational technology division, without detailing the incidents.

"As a precautionary measure, our teachers will suspend their use of Zoom until these security issues are ironed out."

Loh said that they would further advise teachers on security protocols such as requiring secure log-ins and not sharing the meeting link beyond the students in the class.

Taiwan and Germany have already put restrictions on Zoom's use, while Alphabet Inc's Google banned the desktop version of Zoom from corporate laptops on Wednesday. The company also faces a class-action lawsuit.

Concerns have grown over its lack of end-to-end encryption of meeting sessions, routing of traffic through China and "zoombombing" when uninvited guests crash meetings.

Officials at Berkeley High School in California said they suspended use of the app after a "naked adult male using racial slurs" intruded on what the school said was a password-protected meeting on Zoom, according to a letter to parents seen by Reuters.

To address security concerns, Zoom has embarked on a 90-day plan to bolster privacy and security issues, and has also tapped former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos as an adviser.

The Singapore government has also been using the tool to host media conferences. (Reporting by John Geddie; Editing by Michael Perry)
Advertisement

Jo Ferguson's mother has paid tribute to the fashionista and revealed that she went on a spontaneous secret trip to Sydney to get her hair done while she was dying.

The celebrity stylist was farewelled by her mother Patricia, older brother Scott and his wife Eliza at a humble funeral service on Thursday.

The 46-year-old died in hospital on April 8 from serious health problems including liver and kidney failure, both stemming from years of much publicised alcohol abuse.

'I am devastated by her loss and will always love my beautiful girl,' Scott and Patricia wrote in a touching tribute to Ferguson.

'A genuine inspiration who had a rare and passionate talent for her craft, though carried the burden of a big heart in an industry that too often places its emphasis elsewhere.

'Over the last months her hospital visits were quite frequent and Jo... being Jo, decided to 'skip school'.'

The family revealed Jo told the hospital staff she was going to the nearby cafe, only to get on a quick flight to Sydney to have her hair done.

Celebrity stylist Jo Ferguson, 46,was farewelled by her mother Patricia, brother Scott and his wife Eliza at a humble funeral service in Adelaide

Ferguson's loved ones managed brave smiles as they arrived alone for the private funeral on Thursday afternoon

'She flew back... all in time for tea,' the obituary read. 'That evening she received many comments of how nice her hair looked.

'Jo lived three lifetimes in her amazing 46 years. She travelled the world during her spectacular styling career and her enthusiasm and joyous nature helped her achieve considerable recognition, which made her whole family proud.'

The family went on to thank and praise the efforts of all medical staff who cared for Ferguson.

At the height of her career, Ferguson was fashion editor at Cleo magazine and the go-to stylist for many leading celebrities.

Jo Ferguson's family's tribute in full 'Precious daughter of Trish and Peter (dec'd). I was there when she came into the world and held her hand as her soul departed during the early hours of the pink supermoon. I am devastated by her loss and will always love my beautiful girl. Much loved sister and sister-in-law of Scott & Eliza.' 'The most loving and down to earth little sister a big brother could ask for. A genuine inspiration who had a rare and passionate talent for her craft, though carried the burden of a big heart in an industry that too often places its emphasis elsewhere. You will be sadly missed.. Much love.' 'It has been an honour having you as my sister-in-law, Jo. You are closer to our hearts than ever. Much love to you Angel' 'Love and special memories from her extended families in Western Australia and Queensland. Jo lived three lifetimes in her amazing 46 years. She travelled the world during her spectacular styling career and her enthusiasm and joyous nature helped her achieve considerable recognition, which made her whole family proud. 'Over the last months her hospital visits were quite frequent and Jo... being Jo, decided to 'skip school'. After telling the staff she was going to the hospital cafe, she booked a flight Sydney, had her hair done and flew back... all in time for tea. That evening she received many comments of how nice her hair looked. 'She also spent an inordinate time on her phone...buying things. Her new house was her dream and she filled it with striking artwork and stunning furniture. Her collections of Hermes & Chanel bags, and racks of shoes and clothes showed her love for style. Numerous parcels continually arrived at her home... Christmas everyday. 'She was here. She was loved. Her life made a difference. Special thanks to all the nurses and doctors who were empathetic to Jo during her many hospital visits. Our thanks to all those who sent their love and condolences for the loss of our beautiful Jo.' Advertisement

She was a regular at A-list events and on red carpets.

But none of that glamour was on display at the small chapel in Adelaide on Thursday.

Ferguson's mother Patricia, Scott and sister-in-law Eliza smiled bravely as they arrived to mourn their loved one.

Strict coronavirus measures meant there could be no more than 10 mourners in the service, while travel restrictions affected the ability of friends travelling interstate to attend.

After the brief service, a wicker coffin with Ferguson's body was taken away on a motorbike to be cremated - just as she had requested.

Once a stylist to the stars, Ferguson, 46, died in hospital on April 8 from serious health issues including liver and kidney failure, both stemming from years of much publicised alcohol abuse

Despite losing some of her celebrity friends as her life spiralled over the years, many paid tribute to the stylist in the wake of her death.

A friend, Lisa Poulos, asked people to light a candle at 1pm, the time of Ferguson's funeral, to honour her and to leave messages of love which would be passed on to her family.

Among those to write a lengthy tribute was model Kristy Hinze, for whom Ferguson was bridesmaid at her 2009 wedding to U.S billionaire James Clark.

'I've met some of the best people I know in the world because of Jo Ferguson. Jo was my best friend,' Hinze wrote.

But she said 'depression, anxiety and alcohol didn't mix well' with her friend's mental health issues, and she wished they had got the chance to 'part differently'.

'When I knew Jo she was vivacious with an infectious smile and a lust for life. The girl every girl wanted to be,' Hinze wrote.

'Quick with wit, confidence sublime, charismatic and beautiful inside and out.

Strict coronavirus measures meant there could be no more than 10 mourners in the service, while travel restrictions affected the ability of friends interstate to attend

'She was here. She was loved. Her life made a difference,' an emotional death notice written by her loved ones read

At the end of the small service Ferguson's body was taken away on the back of a motorbike to be cremated - just as she wanted

Her emotional brother Scott, his wife Eliza and mother Patricia look on as the wicker casket is placed on the motorbike

In a raw tribute, Ferguson's best former friend Kristy Hinze said 'alcohol didn't mix well' with her mental health issues and admitted she wished they had got the chance to 'part differently' (The pair are pictured leaving Bondi Icebergs together in 2008, at the prime of their socialite days)

'I'm heartbroken that we never had the chance to part differently. I can't change that now but I wish upon wish that I could see that sparkle again.

'I love you Jo. I hope you are finally at peace.'

Ferguson once dated TV star Tom Williams and alongside Hinze been regulars at top party spots across Sydney - taking photos with celebrities from Jon Bon Jovi to local Victoria's Secret model Miranda Kerr.

Once among the most recognisable faces on the town, Ferguson's downwards spiral began in the early 2010s.

She quit her job at Woman's Day with a sudden email at 4.30pm one Friday in 2011, a move that concerned many of those close to her.

Soon she was asking friends for money and had turned to alcohol.

But a funeral notice from her family this week gave insight into Ferguson's desperate efforts to turn her life around in recent years.

'I love you Jo. I hope you are finally at peace,' Hinze (left) wrote about her friend Ferguson (centre) and admitted she wished they had been able to end things on a different note

Ferguson was a red carpet regular and often rubbed shoulders with celebrities such as American music legend Jon Bon Jovi

Her style knowledge landed her much sought after media jobs as fashion editor for magazines like Cleo and Woman's Day

The bubbly blonde is pictured with supermodel Miranda Kerr at an A-list party in Sydney on September 13, 2007

'Jo lived three lifetimes in her amazing 46 years. She travelled the world during her spectacular styling career and her enthusiasm and joyous nature helped her achieve considerable recognition, which made her whole family proud,' the notice read.

'She spent an inordinate time on her phone... buying things. Her new house was her dream and she filled it with striking artworks and stunning furniture.

'Numerous parcels continuously arrived at her home... Christmas every day.

She was here. She was loved. Her life made a difference... Funeral notice by Jo Ferguson's family

'She was here. She was loved. Her life made a difference.'

Ferguson, who was diagnosed with blood poisoning in late 2019, was placed on a life support machine in March, only to be discharged and then readmitted.

The blood poisoning came after a complication from a blood transfusion, following a fall down the stairs of her Sydney apartment in 2016.

She moved to Adelaide to be closer to family after the accident.

In her final days, Ferguson asked doctors to turn off her life support instead of staying sober for six months which would have qualified her for a life-saving liver transplant.

Tributes flowed from the Sydney celebrities she once styled and partied with in the days after her death was announced by brother Scott.
Updates related to COVID-19 and its effects on Albuquerque and the rest of NM.

PICTURES





UPDATES

6:01 p.m.

Navajo Nation residents required to wear masks in public

The Navajo Health Command Operations Center reported a total of 1,197 COVID-19 cases Saturday, an increase of 70 cases. No new COVID-19 deaths were reported by the Navajo Health Department, Navajo Area Indian Health Service and Navajo Epidemiology Center. There remains a total of 44 COVID-19 deaths on the Navajo Nation. A news release Saturday said the average age of Navajo individuals who have died from the disease is 66 years old. The HCOC has reported a total of 4,075 negative tests.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez issued an emergency public health order Friday, requiring everyone on the reservation to wear a protective mask in public to help curb the spread of the disease. The Navajo Nation is currently under a 57-hour weekend curfew. Restaurants and food vendors are closed. Grocery stores and gas stations are operating under limited hours and occupancy restrictions.

On Sunday, President Nez will join New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland and other tribal leaders for a televised discussion about COVID-19 in Indian Country. The program will air at 6 p.m. Sunday on New Mexico PBS and will be livestreamed on the New Mexico PBS Facebook page.

The Navajo Department of Healths coronavirus webpage is www.ndoh.navajo-nsn.gov/COVID-19.

Heres how to help.

 Theresa Davis

4:26 p.m.

Lovelace to hold drive-thru screening Sunday

Lovelace Medical Center is holding a drive-through screening on April 19 from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. in the parking lot across from the hospital on the south side of Martin Luther King Jr.

The testing will be open to anyone, including those who are not showing symptoms of COVID-19, Whitney Marquez, a Lovelace spokeswoman, said in a release.

The screening site is being held in a collaboration between Lovelace and the New Mexico Department of Health in response to cases of the novel coronavirus popping up around the state.

 Matthew Reisen

4:18 p.m.

87 new cases, 2 additional virus deaths announced in NM

Officials recorded 87 cases and two additional deaths from COVID-19 on Saturday, bringing the total caseload to 1,798 statewide with 53 people having died from the virus.

Nora Meyers-Sackett, a spokeswoman for the governors office, said a women in her 60s from Bernalillo County and a woman in her 40s from McKinley County are the most recent casualties of COVID-19. Both women were hospitalized and had underlying medical conditions.

Meyers-Sackett said there are 92 people currently in the hospital with the virus and 465 designated as having recovered by the New Mexico Department of Health.

The new cases include 40 in McKinley County, 17 in San Juan County, 13 in Bernalillo County, 10 in Sandoval County, two in Dona Ana County, two in Santa Fe County and one each in Guadalupe, Cibola and Quay counties.

 Matthew Reisen

9:50 a.m.

Special session will have to wait until its safe to meet, governor says

SANTA FE  Despite calls from some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in the Roundhouse, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham does not plan to call a special legislative session anytime soon.

With New Mexicos Legislature lacking any easy way to meet remotely, bringing all 112 legislators back to Santa Fe is not a prudent idea during the COVID-19 outbreak, which has already killed 51 state residents, the governor said this week.

As soon as its safe to hold a special session, we will do so, but its clear that time is not right now, Lujan Grisham spokeswoman Nora Meyers Sackett said Friday.

The governor also believes there needs to be more consensus among lawmakers on targeted economic relief plans and a better grasp on what additional federal funding might be available before moving ahead with a special session, she added.

However, some legislators say a special session needs to happen as soon as possible to approve a relief package for businesses and employees hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak.

They say that could be done safely by having lawmakers gradually enter the Roundhouse, take necessary safety precautions and cast votes in waves so as not to violate social distancing guidelines.

Read more >>

 Dan Boyd

9:43 a.m.

Hospital threatens to discipline nurses who spoke out about protective gear

University of New Mexico Hospital administrators have threatened their front-line medical workers with disciplinary action for publicly raising concerns about their safety while treating patients during the coronavirus pandemic.

The warnings were made as the number of cases and deaths in the state attributed to COVID-19 continues to rise, and state officials have said hospitals could see a surge of patients in the coming weeks. Seven more adults  four in Bernalillo County  died amid New Mexicos coronavirus outbreak, pushing the total to 51 deaths, state health officials said Friday.

Several UNMH nurses and other hospital employees this week raised concerns  primarily about the hospitals stockpile of personal protective equipment, or PPE  during a protest outside the hospital and in interviews with the media. The employees said rules governing the use of the equipment have been changing regularly, raising concerns among the workers.

We get it. Theres a nationwide shortage of (PPE). Treat us like adults. Tell us what you have. Tell us what youre doing to preserve it and why you are cutting back, Hunter Marshall, a nurse who works in an ICU where COVID patients are treated, said Friday. Well be understanding. I have no doubt the hospital is doing the best they can. They just need to tell us what they are doing and why.

Read more >>

 Ryan Boetel

6:05 a.m.

Navajo COVID-19 cases reach 1,127

The Navajo Nation Health Command Center announced 85 new COVID-19 cases Friday, which brings the total COVID-19 cases on the Navajo Nation to 1,127. The Navajo Department of Health, Navajo Area Indian Health Service and Navajo Epidemiology Center also confirmed three additional COVID-19 deaths, and 3,673 total negative tests. There are now 44 COVID-19 deaths on the Navajo Nation.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, in a video roundtable discussion Friday with U.S. Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-AZ) and tribal leaders, expressed frustration with the slow pace of federal dollars getting to Indian Country to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is upsetting to see how the voice of tribal governments has been ignored through this process, Nez said.

Nez also said that 57% of all COVID-19 cases in the Indian Health Service network are on the Navajo Nation, but that has not been factored into the percentage of emergency funds allocated to tribal communities.

On Friday, the New Mexico Community Foundation announced the Native American Relief Fund, which will collect donations to purchase protective equipment, food and water for Navajo, Apache and Pueblo communities of New Mexico. The fund was created in coordination with the Navajo and Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund and the Santa Fe Community Foundation.

The Navajo Nation will be under a weekend curfew from 8 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. Restaurants and food vendors are closed. Grocery stores and gas stations may operate, but with limited hours and occupancy. According to a release, the Navajo Police Department issued more than 100 citations last weekend for residents who violated the curfew.

Heres how to help.

 Theresa Davis
The union for Winnipeg bus drivers is urging each rider to don a mask before they board.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/4/2020 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The union for Winnipeg bus drivers is urging each rider to don a mask before they board.

The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505 said it expects facial coverings could help protect against the spread of COVID-19.

"Itll give some piece of mind to other riders, knowing theyd be protected that way, and it gives some security to our drivers as well," said James Van Gerwen, vice-president of ATU 1505.

Advice on whether Canadians should wear masks in public has shifted over the past few weeks. Recently, health officials have said people can reduce their risk of spreading coronavirus to others by wearing non-medical masks, though the devices may not actually protect the person wearing them.

The general public has consistently been asked not to wear medical masks, to ensure those remain available for health workers and first responders.

Van Gerwen said he also hopes Winnipeg Transit will provide washable, non-medical masks to drivers.

"If were going to be in close quarters with each other, especially in an enclosed space, if everybody would have a mask on, it would (be a benefit)," he said.

The union leader said ATU and the city now agree on a separate COVID-19 matter. ATU had previously lobbied Winnipeg Transit to let riders board buses without paying fares to reduce contact with drivers. Van Gerwen said officials on both sides now agree fares should be charged.

"Weve learned from other cities that when they stopped collecting fares, the general public were coming and just riding around just for the sake of riding around and thats something we have to limit and stop," he said.

The union and Transit have both asked riders to use the bus for essential trips only during the pandemic.

Stay informed The latest updates on the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 delivered to your inbox every weeknight. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

Van Gerwen said the union still asks that those who dont require support to exit the bus through rear doors to keep more distance from drivers.

Jason Shaw, Winnipegs assistant chief of emergency management, said the city is assessing guidelines on mask use and not issuing new advice to bus riders right now.

Shaw said further Transit safety measures could be added, if provincial public health orders warrant them.

"It is an essential service and we want to continue to make sure that its safe," he said.

Joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga
Top Left leaders, including CPI(M) state secretary Surya Kanta Mishra, were detained by police on Saturday for defying the ongoing lockdown after they staged a protest here, alleging anomalies in West Bengal's public distribution system and demanding an increase in the number of COVID-19 tests in the state.

Led by Left Front chairman Biman Bose, the leaders staged a demonstration in the Red Road area, demanding that the government take immediate steps to resolve the problems in the system and ensure ration for every family in the state.

"We are here to protest as poor people are not getting ration and starving in many parts of the state. The state government is only keen on hiding the issue. We want the administration to take immediate steps to solve the problems and ensure that each and every person gets ration," CPI(M)'s legislative party leader Sujan Chakraborty said.

The Left leaders also demanded that the number of tests for detecting COVID-19 be increased in the state.

Initially, the police tried to persuade them to call off the stir and leave the area, abiding by the lockdown imposed in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, officials said.

However, as they continued to protest and kept shouting slogans against the Trinamool (TMC) Congress government in the state, wearing masks and holding up placards, they were taken into police vans, they added.

"We were adhering to the social-distancing norms while demonstrating, but the police flouted those rules when they detained us," senior CPI(M) leader and former MP Mohammad Salim said.

The opposition parties in the state have been alleging anomalies in the public distribution system, a charge denied by the ruling dispensation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
If you face chronic health issues, however, expect to be nudged toward more conventional obstetric care. If youre 38 years old, diabetic, have asthma, most practices are going to say youre not appropriate for midwifery care, said Dr. Regan Theiler, M.D., Ph.D., an obstetrician-gynecologist at the Mayo Clinic with a clinical focus on obstetrics.

The reasons for this largely have to do with regulations handed down by state medical boards. The further away you get from the hospital, the more stringent the protocols are, and the healthier you have to be in order to go through the birth process in that particular setting, Dr. Chetwynd said.

Midwives are generally covered in health insurance plans. People paying for health care out of pocket may find midwifery services more affordable than a hospital delivery. Especially for a hospital system, if youre not using the additional expertise of anesthesiology, a surgical room, a longer stay, thats going to decrease the cost of maternity care, Anderson said.

How to find a qualified midwife

The American College of Nurse-Midwives has a finder tool on its website that lets you choose a midwife affiliated with different venues in which a birth might take place  a hospital, a hospital-based or independent birthing center, or a home. (Home deliveries are an option that varies legally; each state has a health department that regulates what type of care each category of provider is permitted to offer. Home births typically require the mother to meet certain health thresholds. Midwives are the only caregivers who deliver babies in private homes.)

Hospitals and obstetricians often work with partner midwives with whom they can connect expectant mothers, said Vicki Hedley, a certified midwife and president and treasurer of MANA. And Bennett suggested asking for referrals from mothers groups and birth circles. For my practice, our best advertising is word of mouth as our families talk about their experiences, she said.

Some states allow midwives to practice without certification from the national standards boards, so its wise to start an interview by asking about your prospective midwifes qualifications. An affiliation with a local hospital is a strong indicator that a midwife has sufficient training, Dr. Theiler said.

What to expect during prenatal visits

If you have no chronic health issues or complications, prenatal care is pretty basic stuff. Your provider will take your blood pressure, conduct a urinalysis and assess the growth and wellbeing of the fetus through measurements and by listening to fetal heart tones. Midwives will spend what are usually hourlong appointments asking expectant mothers about their lives and overall health.
(Alliance News) - UK banks should speed up lending to small and medium-sized businesses to lessen the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey has suggested.

The Office for Budget Responsibility said unemployment could hit 3.4 million in a forecast from earlier this week, leaving around one in 10 of the working population without a job, while the UK economy could fall off a cliff edge.

The fiscal watchdog warned Covid-19 could lead to Britain's economy shrinking by up to 35% between April and June, with Bailey telling reporters the figure was not "implausible".

The BoE has lent GBP7.6 billion to large firms, the deputy governor, Sam Woods, said on Wednesday, as more corporate giants have sought support to stay afloat through the coronavirus crisis.

In addition, more than GBP1.1 billion of loans have been handed out to smaller UK firms as part of the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme.

Bailey said the Bank Of England was eager to avoid "scarring" on the economy from Covid-19, adding that support for struggling companies would speed up recovery and prevent long term damage.

This "does have to be tackled otherwise we will destroy people's livelihoods and get the scarring that I was just talking about", he said.

And when asked about the CBILS and issues about a significant volume of applications, he added: "From an operational point of view, I've talked to banks a number of times. I've made it very clear to them.

"They're under no illusions that they've got to get on with this."

By Alexander Britton, PA

source: PA

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
In this article we are going to estimate the intrinsic value of Zhejiang Cangnan Instrument Group Company Limited (HKG:1743) by taking the foreast future cash flows of the company and discounting them back to today's value. I will be using the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. It may sound complicated, but actually it is quite simple!

We generally believe that a company's value is the present value of all of the cash it will generate in the future. However, a DCF is just one valuation metric among many, and it is not without flaws. If you want to learn more about discounted cash flow, the rationale behind this calculation can be read in detail in the Simply Wall St analysis model.

View our latest analysis for Zhejiang Cangnan Instrument Group

What's the estimated valuation?

We're using the 2-stage growth model, which simply means we take in account two stages of company's growth. In the initial period the company may have a higher growth rate and the second stage is usually assumed to have a stable growth rate. In the first stage we need to estimate the cash flows to the business over the next ten years. Seeing as no analyst estimates of free cash flow are available to us, we have extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the company's last reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years.

Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, and so the sum of these future cash flows is then discounted to today's value:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate

2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 Levered FCF (CN, Millions) CN189.5m CN202.1m CN212.5m CN221.1m CN228.4m CN234.8m CN240.5m CN245.6m CN250.5m CN255.1m Growth Rate Estimate Source Est @ 8.88% Est @ 6.68% Est @ 5.14% Est @ 4.06% Est @ 3.31% Est @ 2.78% Est @ 2.41% Est @ 2.15% Est @ 1.97% Est @ 1.85% Present Value (CN, Millions) Discounted @ 8.4% CN175 CN172 CN167 CN160 CN153 CN145 CN137 CN129 CN121 CN114

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)

Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = CN1.5b

Story continues

We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after this ten year period. The Gordon Growth formula is used to calculate Terminal Value at a future annual growth rate equal to the 10-year government bond rate of 1.6%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 8.4%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2029  (1 + g)  (r  g) = CN255m (1 + 1.6%)  8.4% 1.6%) = CN3.8b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= CN3.8b ( 1 + 8.4%)10= CN1.7b

The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next ten years plus the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is CN3.2b. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of HK$51.0, the company appears around fair value at the time of writing. Valuations are imprecise instruments though, rather like a telescope - move a few degrees and end up in a different galaxy. Do keep this in mind.

SEHK:1743 Intrinsic value April 18th 2020

Important assumptions

We would point out that the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate and of course the actual cash flows. Part of investing is coming up with your own evaluation of a company's future performance, so try the calculation yourself and check your own assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Zhejiang Cangnan Instrument Group as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 8.4%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.081. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business.

Next Steps:

Although the valuation of a company is important, it shouldnt be the only metric you look at when researching a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Rather it should be seen as a guide to "what assumptions need to be true for this stock to be under/overvalued?" If a company grows at a different rate, or if its cost of equity or risk free rate changes sharply, the output can look very different. For Zhejiang Cangnan Instrument Group, We've compiled three essential factors you should further research:

Risks: For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Zhejiang Cangnan Instrument Group that you should be aware of before investing here. Other High Quality Alternatives: Do you like a good all-rounder? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing! Other Environmentally-Friendly Companies: Concerned about the environment and think consumers will buy eco-friendly products more and more? Browse through our interactive list of companies that are thinking about a greener future to discover some stocks you may not have thought of!

PS. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow valuation for every stock on the SEHK every day. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks just search here.

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.
PR-Inside.com: 2020-04-18 17:49:52

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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / April 18, 2020 / Mota Ventures Corp. (CSE:MOTA)(FSE:1WZ:GR)(OTCPINK:PEMTF) (the "Company") is excited to announce that for the month of March 2020, its First Class CBD brand achieved sales of Cdn$4,290,000, with related expenses of Cdn$4,240,000. Customer acquisition expenses for March 2020 include one-time costs of approximately Cdn$1,160,000 associated with the introduction of the new line of Immune Support and CBD products. The Immune Support product line experienced further positive growth contributing to First Class acquiring 20,959 new customers during the month of March. The all-natural Immunity Blend is made from 100% pure essential oils, including cinnamon leaf, lemon, clove bud, lime, eucalyptus globulus, rosemary, peppermint, spearmint and oregano. The Company also launched an Immune CBD oil, along with an Elderberry Gummy product. The new Immune CBD product contains CBD, B3, B12, Vitamin C and Zinc. Sales for March 2020 compare to sales of Cdn$1,280,000 during the same period last year, representing an increase of 235%.The Company also introduced a new brand, Nature's Exclusive CBD, in the first week of April 2020. The Nature's Exclusive CBD brand will offer a range of products, which include the new Immune CBD oil, Elderberry gummies, CBD oil drops, CBD gummies, CBD pain relief cream, CBD skin serum and CBD coffee.First Class offers a CBD hemp-oil formulation intended to provide users with therapeutic benefits that hemp may offer. The hemp oil used in the products is derived from hemp grown and cultivated in the United States. The extraction process is designed to maintain all the beneficial qualities that hemp may offer. First Class offers a range of products, which include CBD oil drops, CBD gummies, CBD pain relief cream, CBD skin serum and CBD coffee. First Class plans to continue its significant growth in their U.S. operations over the balance of 2020, as well as an expansion into the European market."I am extremely pleased with the performance of our business during March 2020, a month where the world and the economy faced immeasurable challenges. Our ability to efficiently innovate and launch new products, is a perfect example of our primary competitive advantage, and what allows us to be a leader in the ecommerce space. We expect our investment in accelerated customer acquisition from February to March, including a one-time cost of Cdn$1,160,000, will continue to produce significant revenue growth, and are hopeful it will lead to increased profitability in the upcoming months," stated Ryan Hoggan, CEO of the Company.The Company cautions that figures for revenue, expenses and margin generated from the sale of First Class CBD products have not been audited, and are based on calculations prepared by management. Actual results may differ from those reported in this release once these figures have been audited. These figures were translated from US dollars into Canadian dollars using the Bank of Canada monthly average exchange rate of US$1.00:Cdn$1.3953 for March 2020 and US$1.00:Cdn$1.3368 for March 2019.About Mota Ventures Corp.Mota is an established ecommerce, direct to consumer provider of a wide range of CBD products in the United States and Europe. In the United States, the Company sells a CBD hemp-oil formulation derived from hemp grown and formulated in the US through its First Class CBD and Nature's Exclusive brands. Within Europe, its Sativida brand of award winning 100% organic CBD oils and cosmetics are sold throughout Spain, Portugal, Austria, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Mota Ventures is also seeking to acquire additional revenue producing CBD brands and operations in both Europe and North America, with the goal of establishing an international distribution network for CBD products. Low cost production, coupled with international, direct to customer, sales channels will provide the foundation for the success of Mota Ventures.ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORSMOTA VENTURES CORP.Ryan HogganChief Executive OfficerFor further information, readers are encouraged to contact Joel Shacker, President at +604.423.4733 or by email at IR@ motaventuresco.com or www.motaventuresco.com Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release, which has been prepared by management.Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking StatementAll statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including with respect to sales generated from the First Class CBD brand, the launch of new products under the First Class CBD brand, its plans to become a vertically integrated global CBD brand, its plans to cultivate and extract cannabis to produce CBD and high-quality value added CBD products in Latin America for distribution domestically and internationally and its plans to acquire revenue-producing CBD brands and operations in Europe and North America. The Company provides forward-looking statements for the purpose of conveying information about current expectations and plans relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. By its nature, this information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited those identified and reported in the Company's public filings under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com . Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-l
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From March 19 through April 13, the burn center treated 17 adult patients for cooking-related burns. During the same timeframe last year, they treated three. Many of those injuries were to the hands or arms. Most were caused by hot liquids, grease or burning clothes.Tips for staying burn-free in the kitchenPalmieri and the burn center team have these safety tips for at-home cooks: Minimize the number of people and pets in the kitchen. Before or while cooking, avoid drinking alcohol or using substances that impair judgment. Turn pot handles inward when cooking or if they contain hot items. Be sure to have a lid for a pot nearby, especially if cooking with grease. The best way to extinguish a grease fire is to put a lid on the pot. Do not pour water on it or try to run outside with the pot. Wait a few minutes before slowly removing hot liquids from a microwave, as they can suddenly overflow. Avoid wearing billowing garments, such as robes and shirts with wide sleeves, while cooking, as they can ignite when leaning over the stove. If your clothing catches on fire, drop to the ground, cover your face with your hands and roll to extinguish the flames.The best immediate treatment for a small burn (less than the size of a palm) is to remove yourself from the source of the burn, rinse the injured area with room temperature water for 15 to 20 minutes, and then cover it with clean gauze or a wrap.Burns that cause severe pain or blisters greater than the size of a palm require medical treatment. Also get treatment if the injured area has a foul smell or oozes days after the injury.Palmieri hopes to see fewer cooks in the hospital in the next few weeks."A little extra caution and setting a few rules in the kitchen can keep meal prep time safe and help you avoid a trip to the emergency room," Palmieri said.Source: Newswise
The pair are hopeful that he will be able to make it for the birth of their first child. Pilkington, also 38 weeks pregnant, has not yet been able to arrange an appointment with a midwife in Launceston. "I called them to try and organise one and they basically said they're really busy and they probably won't be able to see me for three weeks," she says. The closure of the maternity ward is a microcosm of how the north-west Tasmanian coronavirus outbreak - believed to have started with COVID-19 patients from the Ruby Princess cruise ship  is affecting the community. Cancer patients in the region have had their treatment plans interrupted and the state has lost 20 per cent of its acute hospital capacity, while 1200 healthcare workers and a further 3800 close household contacts have been placed under a 14-day isolation.

The Defence Force has been called in to set up a makeshift emergency department. As at 5pm on Friday, Tasmania had 180 confirmed cases of coronavirus, including 10 linked to an outbreak in the state's north-west, three of whom were staff members of the North West Regional Hospital or the North West Private Hospital, or both. There have been seven deaths in the state. Australian Defence Force and Australian Medical Assistance team members arrive at Burnie Airport. Credit:The Department of Premier and Cabinet On Friday, it emerged that a worker at the hospitals had also worked across three aged-care facilities, where residents were now being tested. The cluster came as a shock to Tasmanians, who had hoped their little slice of paradise would be safe from the deadly global pandemic after Premier Peter Gutwein acted swiftly to ban cruise ships from docking and close the state's borders last month.

Federal independent senator for Tasmania Jacqui Lambie describes the sentiment on the ground in Burnie, saying: "We've been walking past people in the park over the last few days saying 'oh, and we thought we were the safest place on Earth'." "It could get really nasty here. We've got an elderly population, a lot of people here live on or below the poverty line and probably haven't got the best health." Once news of the hospital outbreak came last weekend, the entire north-west region was locked down, with all but essential businesses forced to shut their doors and the hospitals closed for deep cleaning. The response has drawn praise from federal Health Minister Greg Hunt, who this week pointed to the north-west as an example of how a quick reaction could contain isolated outbreaks once social restrictions were gradually eased around the country.

But by Friday, it became clear the containment effort was not yet complete. Gutwein said while the state had "taken every step that we possibly can to protect Tasmanians", the outbreak remained "a challenging situation" as health authorities began testing residents at the three aged-care facilities. Word spreads quickly in regional Tasmania, and in the north-west rumours about who is to blame for the disastrous outbreak have flown thick and fast. On Tuesday, the nation's Chief Medical Officer, Brendan Murphy, stunned those watching his evidence to a New Zealand parliamentary inquiry when he alleged hospital workers had spread the infection through an "illegal dinner party".

While Mr Gutwein referred the accusation  which Professor Murphy quickly withdrew amid fury from the nurses' union  to police, the rumour mill has since moved on to other theories, including that a locum doctor from Melbourne might have been the source. The fact that seriously ill patients with confirmed COVID-19 were treated in the hospital seems to have faded into the background, says independent Tasmanian state MP Ruth Forrest. The North West Regional Hospital is closed in Burnie, Tasmania. Credit:AAP "People want to apportion blame and not take any responsibility for themselves," Forrest said. She said while the regional healthcare system did rely on locums, who were not required to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in the state, blaming a fly-in fly-out doctor was not a rational assumption since "the disease was already in the hospital".

Loading Prime Minister Scott Morrison added to criticism of healthcare workers on Friday when he accused the man who had worked at three aged-care facilities and the hospital while infected of lying to contact tracers, using the case to bolster his government's push for Australians to download a tracing app. Gutwein and Tasmania's director of public health Mark Veitch said on Friday while the man had clarified that his symptoms might have begun earlier than initially reported, authorities were not accusing him of dishonesty. Lambie called on the state government to set up a parliamentary committee to probe the origins and handling of the outbreak. Gutwein says his government would welcome an inquiry once the pandemic is over. While Lambie has been pushing for a "state-of-the-art" new hospital for Burnie, Forrest says the existing hospital has a good track record, pointing to data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare showing a better-than-average record of infection control.

"It therefore seems unlikely that reckless staff behaviour is implicated in this outbreak," she says. Loading Australian Medical Association Tasmanian president John Burgess says hospitals are prone to COVID-19 outbreaks, as seen overseas and in Sydney and Melbourne, where clusters have so far been contained to individual wards. "It's just a warning to all areas and all regions ... we just have to get on top of it and learn from whatever needs to be learned from it," Professor Burgess says. Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation Tasmanian secretary Emily Shepherd says healthcare workers under isolation  including those sick with COVID-19  were "shattered" by Murphy's dinner party comment.

"Not only is it their own personal health and wellbeing affected now, it's also that of their families, given that their partners and other extended family have also had to go into isolation as well," she says. "That's meant some fairly significant financial strain for partners that are unable to work." Health and Community Service Union state assistant secretary Robbie Moore says limitations on access to personal protective equipment in the hospital may have been a factor, noting that not all of the infected workers were caring for confirmed COVID-19 cases. Tasmanian Health Minister Sarah Courtney said on Friday the state's hospitals complied with official PPE guidelines, which across Australia require P2 and N95 masks, goggles, visors and gowns to be used only for high-risk patients, and procedures to preserve stock amid supply concerns. Moore says because regional hospitals like the ones in Burnie are small, medical staff move between wards more frequently than would happen in a larger metropolitan hospital.
Medical staff look at the scan of a patient's lungs at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) hosting the COVID-19 patients at the ASST Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo, Italy, on April 3, 2020. (Piero Cruciatti/AFP via Getty Images)

Italys Virus Deaths Edge Higher, New Lockdown Approach Urged

ROMEDeaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy rose by 575 on Friday, up from 525 the day before, while the number of new cases declined slightly and scientists warned that infections were now mainly happening among family members.

The daily tally of new cases stood at 3,493, down from a previous 3,786, with both deaths and infections extending the broadly stable situation in place over the last 12 days.

This plateau is considerably lower than the peaks reached around the end of March, but the downtrend has not proceeded as was widely hoped in a country that has been in lockdown for almost six weeks.

Probably most of the infections that have occurred since the lockdown have occurred within families, Giovanni Rezza, a director of Italys top health body, the Superior Health Institute (ISS), told a news conference.

A patient is treated by a doctor at a Samaritans Purse Emergency Field Hospital in Cremona, near Milan, Italy on March 20, 2020. (Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images)

Nuclear physicist Paolo Branchini, who has been focusing on the trend of cases and deaths in Italy, told daily Corriere della Sera on Friday that the lockdown initially put a lid on infections but had now exhausted its beneficial effect.

Branchini said that because the main source of infections was now within families, the only way to reduce deaths and cases further was to put all people who tested positive in dedicated centers away from their relatives.

The official death toll since the outbreak came to light on Feb. 21 has risen to 22,745, the Civil Protection Agency said, the second highest in the world after that of the United States.

However, the Italian authorities acknowledge that the true number of fatalities is much higher.

The Superior Health Institute said a survey on a sample of nursing homes suggested more than 40 percent of residents who died from Feb. 1 to April 15 had either tested positive for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, or had symptoms consistent with the disease.

Restive Regions

The government has said its tough restrictions on movement and the closure of most businesses will continue at least until May 3, but there is not yet any clear plan over to what extent, or how gradually, it will then be lifted.

In the meantime, some of Italys 20 regions are threatening to take autonomous action.

Luca Zaia, the head of the northern Veneto region which has made particular progress in bringing the outbreak under control, said on Friday he wanted to relax restrictions before May 3.

The lockdown doesnt exist anymore, Zaia told reporters, in reference to the government having allowed a few types of business to reopen over the last week.

Two women wearing a protective facemask walk across the Piazza del Duomo, in front of the Duomo, in central Milan, on Feb.24, 2020 (Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images)

In response, the chief of the southern Campania region around Naples, Vincenzo De Luca, said if northern regions did not respect all the curbs in place, Campania would close its borders and refuse entry to non-residents for any reason.

The outbreak remains heavily concentrated in the northern regions of Lombardy, around the financial capital Milan, and neighboring Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna.

The number of officially confirmed cases in Italy on Friday totaled 172,434.
I wake with a raging fever, a dry cough and a sore throat. Out of the blue. But it's the difficulty breathing which is the cause for my anxiety.

After a quick call to our family doctor to relay symptoms I'm in the bathroom. He hopes the steam from the hot water will ease my airways, like the towel over the head inhale of eucalyptus boiling from a saucepan Id tried earlier that morning. It doesnt. The only thing that helps me breathe is sitting up or leaning forward. Not lying down.

We plan to go to the doctors surgery but instead he suggests we go to the nearest hospital. By the time we arrive my voice is muffled and I have a hard time swallowing.

Theres talk of incubators, breathing tubes and ventilators while I gasp for breath and the hospital team check my temperature which is still high. By chance, an infectious disease expert pops his head into the ER. He is visiting Ryde Hospital, where we are at, the same hospital where I was born. He asks me to open my mouth and say ahhh as he uses a Paddlepop-like implement to look down my throat.

He thinks he know what the problem is.
The chief executive



officer of Lovkushnagar Janpad in Madhya Pradesh's Chhattarpur has been accused of taking away a bag of rice meant for distribution among schoolchildren, and a video of the incident went viral after which the district collector ordered a probe, officials said on Saturday.

Activist Rajendra Singh of Social Media Lovkushnagar, an NGO, claimed students of schools in Bhaugaura panchayat were being given foodgrains instead of mid-day meals due to the lockdown in place for the coronavirus outbreak, and the bag of rice was part of this stock.

"Lovkushnagar Janpad chief executive officer Sikandar Khan took away a bag of rice from Bhaugaura ration shop in his four-wheeler on Friday," Singh alleged.

Defending himself, Khan said, "I went to the ration shop after getting complaints that schoolchildren were not getting raw food. The panchayat secretary and villagers told me all children except six have not collected their ration. So I asked the secretary to put 15 kg of rice in my vehicle to keep it the panchayat's store."



Somebody filmed the incident and uploaded it on social media claiming he had taken away the bag of rice, Khan said, adding that he had given his version to probe officials.

Lovkushnagar Sub Divisional Magistrate Avinash Rawat said he had conducted a probe on the order of the collector and a report has been submitted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The parents of the second most premature twins babies ever to survive have released astonishing pictures showing how tiny and fragile the newborns were.

Tracey Hernandez and Anthony Hope were told their twin girls would have zero chance of survival after being born at just 22 weeks in December.

But little Makayla and Makenzie Pope, born in their amniotic sacs weighing 1lb and 1lb 3oz, defied medics after spending four months in neonatal intensive care at Duke University Hospital in North Carolina, US.

They were so tiny, the sisters were branded micro-premmies  and only survived because they were able to breathe alone outside the womb.



Doctors told Tracey and Anthony if the babies were unable to breathe alone after birth, they were too small to endure resuscitation.

Now the parents are looking forward to bringing their daughters home next month.

Speaking to the Metro, Tracey said: I am so lucky and I know its an absolute miracle. I feel blessed.

It has been a long and draining journey so far but we are nearly there and the end is so close now.

They have both amazed me and they continue to amaze me. They are a blessing and I am so proud to call myself their mom.

Makayla and Makenzie are the second smallest twins in the world to survive, after Keeley and Kambry, from Iowa, were born at 22 weeks and one day.

Traceys aunt Susan is raising money for the family, you can donate at her GoFundMe page.

Susan said: My niece, Tracey Hernandez and family, had an unexpected early delivery of her precious identical twin girls at 22 weeks, Makenzie and Makayla (lovingly called the M&M twins) on December 08, 2019.

These micro preemies were born weighing 1lb 1oz and 1lb 3oz. As you can imagine, everyone was filled with joy upon their arrival but also with the uncertainty of their survival.

They are currently on the ventilator and have had multiple severe diagnosis that they are currently fighting. The M&M twins are 7 weeks old and have been in the NICU for 50 days.

They have a very long, tough, and uncertain road ahead.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
President Donald Trump on Friday said he expects US fatalities from the coronavirus to be much lower than projected earlier because of a lot of work done by his administration and came out in support of protestors seeking removal of social-distancing restrictions in Democratic-ruled states.

Right now, were heading at probably around 60-, maybe 65,000, the president told reporters at the daily White House briefing about his assessment of the state of the epidemic in the United States, where 37,079 people had died till Saturday morning, with 706,779 confirmed cases of infections.

The presidents assessment is much in line with revised projections by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which has been routinely cited by White House experts and others. It has lowered its projection of COVID-19 deaths in the United States from 80,000 at the start of the crisis to 60,308 Covid-19 deaths in the United States based on the current social-distancing measures in force.

Experts of the presidents White House task force had a more dire projection of up to $2.2 million if no mitigation efforts were undertaken and to 240,000 even if mitigation efforts such as social-distancing were enforced perfectly.

There is much more optimism now based on an assessment that the United States has past its peak, a vast number of counties have not reported new cases in the last seven days, hospitalization numbers have dropped in New York state, the epicentre of the US epidemic, and there has been a flattening of the curve on other metrics.

President Trump unveiled a set of federal guidelines Thursday for states to follow, at the discretion of the governors, to begin reopening the country based on the growing optimism among his experts and, equally, frustration among businesses, employers and employees ruined by the lockdown.

Protestors have taken to the streets in varying numbers across the country demanding an end to the restrictions. Most of them have been identified as supporters of the president, who has backed them and acknowledged being in agreement with them.

On Friday however, the president fired off a series of tweets supporting protests only in states ruled by Democratic governors. The language used in the posts was both supportive and incendiary. Liberate Virginia, Liberate Michigan and Liberate Minnesota, he wrote in separate posts.

Michigan is among the worst hit states with more than 30,000 cases and 2,200 fatalities. Virginia has fared far better with a little more than 7,400 cases and 230 deaths. But neither state has reported declining numbers, a key gatekeeping criteria laid down by his administrations reopening guidelines.

The president justified his tweets when asked about them at the briefing and said the restrictions in these states were very powerful and you can get the same result out of doing a little bit less.

The president has been eager to reopen the country and put it back to work as the epidemic has devastated the economy, shut down small and medium businesses such as restaurants, theaters and all other non-essential services, crippled large corporations specially in the aviation sector, and left 22 million people jobless.

Disbursement of loans, grants and direct cash payments are underway to businesses and families from a $2.2 trillion relief package announced last month to mitigate the hardship.

On Friday, the American president announced $18 billion in relief for farmers and ranchers, which include direct cash payments and farm purchases to be delivered to food banks.

Grocery stores have limped back to normalcy from the early days of the epidemic when people cleaned up shelves fearing shortages. Food products are available in plenty now (not toilet rolls or sanitizers), but shopping is now subject to social-distancing guidelines, in varying degrees of severity.

The use of face coverings such as masks are mandatory in public settings where social-distancing is not possible in some states, such as Florida. A man was arrested last week there for posting online a threat to open fire at a grocery store because not enough customers ere using face coverings there.
As the coronavirus pandemic continues people have been reaching out to hospitals to donate food for hospital staff.

And Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Derry Township has established new guidelines to help people who are interested in donating prepared food in support of its staff.

Food donations must be scheduled in advance. To schedule a donation for the Hershey Medical Center staff, you can contact the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center Volunteer Services by calling 717-531-6310 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday or by emailing volunteers@pennstatehealth.psu.edu. Arrangements to make weekend donations can be scheduled during the week. Scheduled deliveries may occur seven days a week and can be designated by department.

The hospital requires food that is being donated to hospital staff to be donated from a restaurant, caterer or food company that is monitored by local health inspectors and has passed a health inspection within the last 12 months. Food donations should be able to feed at least 20 people, if possible and food should be individually packaged and labeled. Whole pizzas should be delivered in sealed boxes.

If you would rather send a gift card to be donated to purchase food for Penn State Health staff, you can purchase a gift card online from a restaurant and email it to: donorrelations@pennstatehealth.psu.edu or you can mail restaurant gift cards to: Development and Alumni Relations, MC HS20, P.O. Box 852 Hershey, PA 17033-0852.

READ MORE:

The hospital is also accepting donations for PPE masks, disposable gloves, disposable disinfecting wipes, commercially-made hand sanitizer and hand soap, and infrared and disposable thermometers. You can find specific requirements at hmc.pennstatehealth.org/community. Those items can be dropped off between 8 a.m. and noon during the week Monday through Friday at the Penn State Health Center, 175 Crystal A Drive in Derry Township.

The hospital reminds residents to follow the changing guidance from the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Pennsylvania Governors Office about leaving their homes for nonessential travel and encourages people to consolidate their essential trips with drop-off activities.

We have been overwhelmed by an outpouring of support from the community for the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 outbreak, Mona Miliner, vice president of operations at Penn State Hershey said in a press release. Weve been contacted by countless people who want to help, so we modified our policies to provide the right kind of guidance for these donations and accept the communitys good will in an organized way.

--Sign up for PennLives newsletters

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.

You can follow Daniel Urie on twitter @DanielUrie2018 and you can like PennLives business page on Facebook at @PennLiveBusiness
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-17 21:37:38|Editor: huaxia

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An Afghan woman makes facemasks at a tailoring shop in Sari Pul province, Afghanistan, April 13, 2020. (Photo by Mohammad Jan Aria/Xinhua

by Abdul Haleem

SARI PUL, Afghanistan, April 17 (Xinhua) -- "Afghanistan is a poor country and it is difficult for the government to fight COVID-19 alone, therefore, I have decided to contribute the war within my capacity and encourage others to support the establishment in war against the killing disease," whispered Parwina Azimi.

Establishing a small tailoring shop in her hometown Sari Pul city, the capital of northern Sari Pul province a week ago, Azimi boasted that nine girls volunteered to make face masks free of charge and distribute them among the people to prevent the virus spread in the city.

The militancy-plagued Afghanistan has been facing the spread of COVID-19 since mid February and so far 906 positive cases have been confirmed, spokesman for Public Health Ministry, Wahidullah Mayar said Friday.

According to Mayar, 30 patients infected with COVID-19 have died and 99 others have recovered since the outbreak of the virus in mid February in Afghanistan.

To contain the spread of the disease, Afghan government has shut down all the educational centers including private and public schools and universities. It also decided to set free 10,000 inmates from prisons to prevent the virus increase.

The government also imposed daytime curfew in big cities including the capital city of Kabul since late March and has been monitoring the health status of its citizens closely.

Expressing deep concern over the spread of the killing virus in Afghanistan, the country's Public Health Minister Ferozuddin Feroz has warned that the country may face catastrophe if the advices given by the ministry overlooked by the people.

According to Feroz, COVID-19 could claim the lives of 110,000 people in Afghanistan if the spread of the killing virus goes unchecked.

"The people of Afghanistan are more vulnerable than any other nations and COVID-19 has further added to our vulnerability. It is the responsibility of all Afghans to stand alongside the government in this critical stage to overcome the war on the killing disease," the valiant girl asserted.

The number of volunteers to boost the war on the novel coronavirus has been on rise in the northern Sari Pul province, Azimi said happily, adding some 150 men and women have announced to join the war against the virus by promoting awareness among the people, and providing face masks, soap, sanitizers, gloves and more essential items.

"In our small factory, we make about 300 face masks daily and distribute among people to stay safe. I am feeling pride to serve my countrymen in this critical stage against the killing disease and I am calling upon all Afghans to join hand and fight the disease till its elimination," a lady tailor Munira Hamdard told Xinhua in her tailoring shop.

A handful of men have also contributed in fighting COVID-19 in Afghanistan by providing face masks, medical supplies or foodstuff to needy families, but it is the first time that a 10-member group of girls and women gathered under a girl to fight the disease in the patriarchal and economically impoverished society.

"I have received health kits including face masks and soaps from the volunteers team and I am thankful to the team for its assistance, as the kits cost at least 200 afghanis (2.6 U.S. dollars) and it is difficult for a villager to pay the price," a villager Mohammad Azim assumed.

)
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel-General Ruslan Khomchak, during a telephone conversation with British Defense Chief of Staff General Nick Carter, discussed areas for further military cooperation and exchange of experience according to NATO standards, the press service of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reports.

"The parties discussed areas of further military cooperation and the exchange of experience on NATO standards in the development of capabilities between the armed forces of the two countries," the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Facebook on Friday evening.

Khomchak thanked the British side for the training program for Ukrainian cadets at the Royal Military Academy in the city of Sandhurst. The parties also discussed the challenges of coronavirus infection in the world.

In conclusion, they agreed to coordinate joint efforts and to communicate on a regular basis in the future.
Prefectural governors on Friday urged the central government to be firmer in asking the public not to travel during the upcoming Golden Week holidays after it expanded a state of emergency to cover the entire country.

During an online meeting, members of the National Governorsa Association said people should be requested to refrain from traveling during the holidays starting in late April to avoid spreading the coronavirus further.

aThere is a high chance that a massive migration will occur during Golden Week,a Tokushima Gov. Kamon Iizumi, head of the association, said a day after the state of emergency, which is due to be in effect through May 6, was extended to cover the entire country.

aWe are at a critical phase in preventing the virus from spreading. All governors would like to overcome these difficult times by uniting,a he said.

Some called for stricter measures, with Tochigi Gov. Tomikazu Fukuda saying, aTraveling across prefectures should be strictly limited, and we also need to consider developing legislation.a

The governors urged the central government to compensate businesses that close and proposed that it also extend special subsidies totaling A1 trillion ($9.3 billion) for local governments as part of steps to financially aid companies complying with requests for operation closures.

After initially declaring a state of emergency for just Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama and Hyogo prefectures on April 7, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe extended the emergency to cover the remaining 40 prefectures on Thursday.
Burma soldiers walking along the Pyidaungsu highway road outside Kutkai in Shan State, on Aug. 25, 2019. (Ye Aung Thu/AFP via Getty Images)

UN: At Least 32, Mostly Women and Children Killed as Insurgents, Burmese Military Clash

A surge in fighting between Burmese (also known as Myanmar) military and insurgents have killed at least 32 people, mostly women and children. The fighting took place in the restive Rakhine and Chin states, the U.N. human rights office said on April 17, adding the military had destroyed homes and schools.

The Arakan Army, an insurgent group seeking greater autonomy for the region, has been battling government troops for more than a year.

Myanmars (Burmas) military has been carrying out almost daily airstrikes and shelling in populated areas resulting in at least 32 deaths, and 71 injuries since 23 March, the majority women and children, and they have also been destroying, and burning schools and homes, U.N. human rights office spokesman Rupert Colville told a Geneva news briefing.

A Burma Air Force Mi-35 flying over Lashio in Shan State, on Aug. 25, 2019. (Ye Aung Thu/AFP via Getty Images)

Colville said it was very difficult to get precise information from Rakhine on whether the reported casualties are the result of targeting or were caught in the crossfire between the Arakan Army and Myanmar army.

Burmas military spokesmen could not immediately be reached for comment on the report. The army has dismissed some of the accusations of civilian casualties as fabricated.

Shelling in Rakhine states Kyauk Seik village on Monday killed eight people, two local officials and a resident told Reuters. However, the army said reports that civilians in the village had been shelled were fabricated.

Burma soldiers walking along the Pyidaungsu highway road outside Kutkai in Shan State on Aug. 25, 2019. (Ye Aung Thu/AFP via Getty Images)

Countries including the United States and Britain have called for an end to fighting in Rakhine, not least to help protect vulnerable communities from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic. Burma has reported 85 cases of COVID-19 and four deaths.

The Arakan Army declared a month-long ceasefire for April along with two other ethnic armed groups, citing the pandemic. The military rejected the ceasefire, with a spokesman saying a previous truce declared by the government went unheeded by insurgents.

By Stephanie Nebehay

Epoch Times staff contributed to this report.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called for the resumption of dialogue on cybersecurity with the United States, the Russian foreign ministry said on Friday after Lavrovs telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, TASS reports.

"Sergey Lavrov recalled our proposals to resume the work of the Russian-American working group on threats in the sphere of information and communications technologies that was stopped by the previous US administration, as well as to invigorate anti-terrorism dialogue," the ministry said.
(Newser)  "Guaranteed." That word has gotten San Diego physician Jennings Staley in hot water after he allegedly promotedand offered to sellthe drug hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19, CNN reports. Staley had offered the drug on his website (now taken down) and cited President Trump's enthusiasm for it in battling the coronavirus disease. "It's preventative and curative," Staley told an undercover FBI agent pretending to be a customer over the phone, per the New York Times. "It's hard to believe, it's almost too good to be true. But it's a remarkable clinical phenomenon." According to a federal criminal complaint, the agent asked whether the Staley's COVID-19 drug kit would "cure" his family, and Staley said, "Guaranteed."

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But when agents visited his office at Skinny Beach Med Spa, Staley said he never made any such claim. "No, that would be foolish," he apparently said. "We would never say anything like that." Now the feds have charged Staley with mail fraud for selling "COVID-19 treatment packs" that cost $3,995at least in the family pack sizeand included the antibacterial drug Azithromycin, intravenous drips, anti-anxiety treatments, use of a medical hyperbaric oxygen chamber, and, of course, hydroxychloroquine. The drug has been approved for ailments from lupus to malaria, and received emergency FDA authorization as a possible aid for people hospitalized with COVID-19. Staley's lawyer says his client was only trying to help people. (One review found "cardiac" issues in patients given hydroxychloroquine.)
Syrian villagers force US military convoy to return to base

Iran Press TV

Friday, 17 April 2020 10:06 AM

Local people in Syrian village of Abu Qasaib in northeastern province of Hasakah stopped a US military convoy on Thursday, forcing the US troops to return to their occupied base.

The US convoy that sought to pass through the village near the city of Qamishli finally retreated, Syria's official news agency SANA reported.

Earlier this month, a similar incident had occurred in Hamo, near Qamishli. In that incident, a convoy of five US military vehicles was heading to Hamo village, but was forced to return when locals gathered at a Syrian army checkpoint near the village and prevented the convoy from passing.

Also in late March, local people in another border village prevented a convoy of eleven US military vehicles from passing through their village.

In the past few days, the United States has dispatched truckloads of military and logistical equipment to Syria's Hasakah as part of its plots to seize oil reserves and plunder natural resources in the war-battered country.

On Tuesday, SANA reported that a convoy of at least 40 trucks had crossed into the Syrian territory through illegitimate border crossing of al-Walid, and headed toward US positions in Hamo village, west of Qamishli.

In late October 2019, Washington reversed an earlier decision to pull out all of its troops from northeastern Syria, announcing the deployment of about 500 soldiers to the oil fields controlled by Kurdish forces in the Arab country.

The US has also deployed new troops to the Ain al-Asad base in the western Iraqi province of Anbar as well as new Patriot missile systems and Counter Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar (C-RAM) systems to a number of Iraqi bases it has occupied.

Turkey sends new troops to Idlib

Turkey has dispatched a new military convoy to Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, despite a recent ceasefire deal that Ankara has signed with Moscow to halt the escalation of violence there.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) says a Turkish convoy of some 40 military vehicles entered Syrian territory on Thursday night and headed toward the Turkish observatory posts in the so-called "de-escalation zones".

Ankara had earlier deployed nearly 6,000 troops to the de-escalation zones following the last month's ceasefire deal with Russia.

On March 5, Russia and Turkey, which support opposite sides in the Syrian conflict, came to an agreement on a ceasefire regime in Idlib, where Turkish aggression against the Syrian government had risked sparking a war.

Under the agreement, joint Russian-Turkish patrols secure a six-kilometer-wide corridor along a highway connecting the two government-held provinces of Latakia and Aleppo.

'Turkey smuggling terrorists out of Syria'

The Turkish army has been smuggling foreign terrorists and their families from Syria to Turkey, the SOHR reported, quoting its local sources.

While the Turkish troops have tightened security measures at its borders with Syria, they have turned a blind eye to several places to allow foreign militants and their families to cross.

According to SOHR sources, the terrorists and their families are smuggled from areas near Azmarin, where they cross the Asi river by water ferries through a Syrian who is involved in human smuggling.

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Coronavirus restrictions have thrown the sharing of international crews and aircraft that proved vital during the summer bushfire crisis into doubt and disrupted some hazard reduction activities.

Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council chief executive Stuart Ellis said travel restrictions and social distancing requirements to curb the spread of the virus had complicated plans to send fire crews to the US.

Coronavirus restrictions are challenging preparations for next summer's bushfire season. Credit:Nick Moir

Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada exchange hundreds of firefighters and operational workers as well as an international fleet of 150 public and privately owned water-bombing and spotter planes in their alternate summer seasons.

"Australia drew on 1000 overseas firefighters last summer  that number hasn't been as high previously," Mr Ellis said, adding the "prospect of Australia deploying the same resources to the US which we did in 2017 and 2018, I think that is pretty questionable right now".
Accordingly, the Vietnamese government donated made-in-Vietnam face masks and medical supplies worth US$ 100,000 in total to Japan. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc also presented 50,000 medical face masks to the Russian Presidential Office and the Japanese Cabinet Office.



While handing over the medical supplies to the Japanese government and people, Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son said that, amid the complicated developments of COVID-19, Vietnam and Japan have rapidly deployed cooperation within bilateral and multilateral frameworks to combat the pandemic, including coordination in successfully holding the online Special ASEAN+3 Summit on COVID-19 on April 14.



Asazuma Shinichi, Envoy of the Japanese Embassy in Vietnam, thanked the Vietnamese government and people for their valuable support, stating that the gifts are a source of great encouragement and demonstrate the sentiment and solidarity Vietnam has given to Japan.

The official described Vietnam as a model in coping with COVID-19 and affirmed that, based on the bilateral extensive strategic partnership, Japan will continue coordinating closely, sharing information and cooperating with Vietnam to combat the disease.

Minister and Chairman of the Office of the Government Mai Tien Dung, on behalf of Prime Minister Phuc, hands over the medical supplies to Russian Ambassador to Vietnam Konstantin Vnukov. (Photo: VNA)

Presenting the gifts to the Russian Presidential Office, Minister-Chairman of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung said that as a comprehensive strategic partner and traditional friend of Russia, Vietnam has always kept a close watch on the situation in Russia and highly evaluated the prompt and drastic measures that Russia has taken to prevent and control COVID-19.



Vietnam believes that under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin and with the solidarity of the Russian people as well as its world-leading medical capacity, the country will soon win in the fight against the pandemic, Dung added.

He affirmed that, as a responsible member of the international community, Vietnam is willing to share experience and join hands with other countries to implement countermeasures against COVID-19.

Russian Ambassador to Vietnam Konstantin Vnukov thanked Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc as well as leaders of the Government Office, ministries, and sectors of Vietnam for their support.





Minister and Chairman of the Office of the Government Mai Tien Dung hands over the gift of Vietnamese Government and people to US Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel Kritenbrink. (Photo: NDO/Thanh Giang)

The Vietnamese Government also presented 200,000 antibacterial cloth face masks to the US government and people to support them in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc also presented 50,000 medical face masks to the White House.

Speaking at the ceremony to hand over the medical supplies to the US, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son said that Vietnam and the US have taken effective cooperation steps in preventing and combating COVID-19 both bilaterally and multilaterally, he said, adding that the two countries have provided mutual support in terms of medical equipment and experience as well as citizen protection.

Vietnam will continue working closely with the US to quickly push back the pandemic and mitigate negative impacts caused by COVID-19, he said.

On behalf of US President Donald Trump and the US people, US Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel Kritenbrink said that in the spirit of the bilateral comprehensive partnership, the US will continue to coordinate closely, maintain the sharing of information and strengthen cooperation with Vietnam in protecting health and safety of people and in joint efforts to cope with the pandemic.
Rome, April 18 : Italian authorities have said that a group of 147 migrants who spent 12 days at sea will be quarantined on a ferry off the country's coast.

The migrants on board the Alan Kurdi ship, operated by German charity Sea-Eye, will be transferred to the ferry docked in the Italian port of Palermo, on the island of Sicily, reports eFE NEWS.

They will spend two weeks in isolation on the vessel as a precaution against the coronavirus pandemic before being relocated to various countries in the European Union.

The Aita Mari ship, run by Spanish NGO Salvamento MaritAmo Humanitario (Humanitarian Sea Rescue), with 36 rescued migrants onboard has been asked to sail to Lampedusa to the west of Sicily.

Several people were previously evacuated from the vessel for medical reasons and others were believed to have been transferred to a passenger ferry for quarantine but this had not been confirmed.

Italian authorities have used this method to isolate migrants crossing the Mediterranean after the country closed its ports due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Potential hospitals have also been alerted and prepared in case they need to carry out coronavirus tests or treatment on those on board.

A separate area has also been prepared to isolate potential patients and assistance will be provided by the Red Cross.

The situation aboard the Alan Kurdi had become desperate and several people had been evacuated due to health issues.

On Thursday a man threw himself into the sea in an attempt to swim to the coast and was rescued by a Spanish aid worker.

Several political representatives have called for a solution to deal with the health and humanitarian needs emerging from the pandemic.

German NGO Sea-Watch, Italian organisation Mediterranea and Alarm Phone, a hotline service for migrants in distress at sea, have urged authorities to rescue people at sea amid fears that 12 migrants died as they tried to reach Europe from Libya.
Prisoners tipped piping hot jam onto an inmate's genitals after they learned he had assaulted his two-year-old stepson.

A bucket containing 1kg of jam was heated in the microwave and then thrown onto the man in a brutal jailhouse attack at Borallan jail in Ipswich, in South East Queensland, on Thursday April 9.

Guards later said it was the worst assault on an inmate they had ever seen, according to the Sunday Mail.

'He had a 1kg bucket of jam heated up in the microwave and thrown over his genitalia,' one officer said.

A bucket containing 1kg of jam was heated in the microwave and then thrown onto the man in a brutal jailhouse attack at Borallan jail (pictured)

'It was allegedly over him assaulting his two-year-old stepson.'

The prisoner had be to transported to hospital for treatment of burns and other injuries.

Queensland Corrective Services confirmed investigations are underway into the incident on prison property.

'CSIU (the Corrective Services Investigation Unit) are investigating the matter so it would be inappropriate to provide any further comment,' the spokesman said.

Some state facilities had already removed microwaves from their prisoners after an earlier incident involving baked beans being thrown on a prison officer.

The assault was among a string of issues which have plagued Borallon (pictured) and other state facilities in recent weeks

The latest incident has raised questions from corrective staff around whether or not the ban should be expanded to all facilities.

The assault was among a string of issues which have plagued Borallon and other state facilities in recent weeks.

Up to 15 prisoners were involved in a 'code black' riot at Woodford jail on Tuesday after they made makeshift weapons and smashed glass.

The riot was a response to visitation restrictions which have been imposed to stop the spread of coronavirus.

There were also two stabbings at Maryborough jail in less than a week.
To teach is to touch a life forever and Yvonne Mathers from Enniskillen certainly did that for a generation of children. I should know, I was one of them.

When I last spoke to my former P7 teacher on March 16, having bumped into her on East Bridge Street in Enniskillen, she was still as thoughtful as she was when she was teaching me at Jones Memorial Primary School between 1997 and 1998.

She wanted to know how I was, asked about my work, and told me to 'keep going' just as she did when encouraging the 10-year-old me to read and write. I discovered my love for creativity and expression in her classroom, which has shaped my life.

During our brief conversation, she told me she had been to see her grandchildren a few days before and spoke of her fears over the coronavirus.

"Stay safe you" were the last words she said to me as we walked away. That was Mrs Mathers in a nutshell; always looking out for others, always caring.

But four weeks later, she would be dead, cruelly taken by Covid-19, leaving her family, friends and former pupils mourning the death of a remarkable woman.

It is strange to feel sad at the death of someone you only really knew for a year of your life, but Mrs Mathers was an exceptional person and good teachers leave a mark on you. When they die, it almost feels like a tiny part of your childhood goes, too.

This week, I found out more about the woman who inspired me and the moments leading up to her death when I spoke to her children, Michael Mathers and Joanne Kirwin, who were still reeling from her passing last Thursday.

Her daughter, Joanne, had a choice to make last week as her 70-year-old mother lay in South West Acute Hospital with Covid-19: hear her distinctive voice on the telephone, possibly for the last time, or let her go on a mechanical ventilator without saying a word in the hope that each breathe she took would help rid her of the coronavirus.

She chose the latter, dreaming that her "formidable mother" would overcome the cruel disease, so she could get back to doing what she loved most; spending time with her family.

Joanne's brother, Michael, faced similar agony from his home in Glasgow as he liaised with hospital staff and relayed updates back to his sister in Manchester. Both have lived away from Fermanagh for years and last week, neither of them had ever felt as far away from home nor as helpless as the invisible killer prevented them from being by their mother's bedside.

Expand Close Yvonne Mathers with grandchildren Matilda, Ella and six-month-old Ottilie / Facebook

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Whatsapp Yvonne Mathers with grandchildren Matilda, Ella and six-month-old Ottilie

Yvonne, a healthy mother, grandmother, sister, friend and a much-loved former teacher who inspired a generation of children, passed away while a member of the hospital's medical team wearing a mask and a gown gently held her hand in the absence of her family. "The word we keep using is shock. It's very surreal for many reasons because in part we are in lockdown and so it doesn't feel like it's really happened. We've not gone through those rituals of mourning and that order of how you do things has not happened," Joanne told The Impartial Reporter.

I thought I probably shouldn't call her if she was going on the ventilator Joanne

"We knew the coronavirus was coming; we all heard about it, but without sounding arrogant about it, a lot of us thought it wouldn't happen to us. It hasn't really hit us yet, it feels like something you see on TV," she said.

Joanne recalled the moment her mother was advised to go on a ventilator, explaining how she toyed with the idea of phoning her, having spent time exchanging text messages.

"I thought I probably shouldn't call her if she was going on the ventilator. She was probably going to be quite breathless and I didn't want to take that breath from her.

"Part of me thinks should I have, then the selfish part of me wants to remember her voice and when I last saw her and how happy and healthy she was," she said.

Joanne smiles as she recalls her mother's love for her children; Matilda, five, and six-month-old Ottilie and their love for her.

"She always encouraged us, she always wanted the best for us. She always wanted me and Michael to be happy and be settled and not have to worry about us," she said.

Yvonne had worked for the Western Education and Library Board Advisory Service and previously taught at Jones Memorial Primary School.

"She did take the teacher in her home," laughed Joanne.

"Michael and I had to remind her that 'we are home now and are not your pupils'! She could be in teacher mode as most teachers tend to be, so there were overlaps with school and home life," she said.

While Yvonne adored teaching, she told Joanne that her "biggest joy" was having grandchildren, joking that she "liked being able to hand them back".

"She loved having grandchildren apart from the fact she said it made her feel old. She used to come over to Manchester, but it wasn't to see me, the only reason was to see the girls! They brought her real joy," she said.

With her mother now gone so too is a part of her, admits Joanne.

"I am 40 now, but I always had somewhere to go. She used to say no matter what age her children were, she was always our mum. But no matter what age you are, you've lost your mum, that place to go, that sense of safety that you don't think you need when you're 40.

"But when it's gone, you've lost that, there is a hole, that driving force is no more. I will never forget the love and happiness she got from the girls and how happy she made them, as well as how happy they made her," she said.

Mum was taking all the precautions Michael

Scattered around Yvonne's now-empty home at Ashbourne Manor - where last week, neighbours took to the street to hold a poignant vigil for her - are bottles of hand sanitiser, an indication of how seriously she was taking the pandemic. When her son, Michael, arrived at the weekend, having travelled back for her burial outside Portadown, where she was originally from, he found evidence of how worried his mother, who was prone to chest infections, was.

"Mum was taking all the precautions," he said, describing his shock.

"Even when she got the positive case, we thought, 'Sure you're strong enough to work through it', and then when we got the call on Thursday of last week at 4.30pm, the nurses were saying she seemed quite stable, then by half five, we got a call that she was not going to make it and by seven o'clock, she had passed away. That's a microcosm of how I am feeling; it is so up and down," he said.

After feeling ill for more than a week, Yvonne had a choice of going into hospital and took it, believing that she was "in the right place".

"Even in this period, she was still making smart decisions. She was very self-aware, she took it in her stride. She said, 'That's what I have got', and spoke very positively of the nurses.

"The last I spoke to her on the Sunday night, she was getting tired; she was advised to go on the ventilator and thought it was the right thing to do.

"She recognised what she needed to do, so all of her choices were the right ones at the right time," said Michael.

His mother was "hugely supportive", he says, particularly during difficult periods of his life.

"She told me, 'You are always going to be my son'. She was very encouraging, but she was very direct when she needed to be, very black and white, no real nonsense.

"If she needed to tell you to pull your socks up, that's what she did in a loving and caring way. She kept us all together and I couldn't have asked for more throughout my life."

Among the children she has inspired is Michael's daughter, Ella, who is now eight-and-a-half.

"The biggest regret is that she is not here to see Ella, Matilda or Ottilie grow up and become women themselves. That's the biggest challenge in the future, encountering birthdays and looking around the room and realising that she's not there.

"She wasn't just a mother, or a grandmother, or a friend. She was an important role model in many people's lives," he said.

This was true.

I once got 10 out of 10 in my spellings and she asked me what I had for breakfast.

"Coco Pops," I replied. She laughed and told the rest of my class to eat Coco Pops.

"I remember telling mum we had to buy some," texted my old classmate, Roisin Francis, this week.

It takes a big heart to shape little minds.

Mrs Mathers had a huge heart and didn't just teach, she touched all our lives. Forever.
GENEVA  The World Health Organization is not sure whether the presence of antibodies in blood gives full protection against reinfection with the new coronavirus, Mike Ryan, the WHOs top emergencies expert, told a briefing on Friday.

Ryan also said that even if antibodies were effective there was little sign that large numbers of people had developed them and were beginning to offer so-called "herd immunity" to the broader population.

"A lot of preliminary information coming to us right now would suggest quite a low percentage of population have seroconverted [to produce antibodies]," he said.

"The expectation that ... the majority in society may have developed antibodies, the general evidence is pointing against that, so it may not solve the problem of governments."
Randolph Bromerys legacy at the University of Massachusetts begins with his place as the Amherst campus first African-American chancellor.

The current chancellor says his impact does not end there, however.

He also led a distinguished life outside of UMass,' Kumble Subbaswamy said after the UMass Board of Trustees voted unanimously to name the campus Fine Arts Center after Bromery, during whose tenure the Amherst campus began a climb to national prestige and prominence that continues today.

"His impact on higher education extends beyond our campus and his resume highlights his dedication to both the state and, chiefly, public higher education, Subbaswamy said.

Bromery served as UMass Amherst chancellor from 1971 to 1979. Those were among the most important years in the history of the university, as it began emerging from its place as a quality regional school to one of renown throughout the academic world.

Bromery, who died in 2013 at age 87, was a member of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, and flew missions in Italy. He had a notable career with the United States Geological Survey, and came to UMass as a professor of geology in 1967.

He later became department chair, vice chancellor for student affairs, and then chancellor at a time African-American were virtually unheard-of as leaders of predominantly white campuses in the United States.

As chancellor, Bromery oversaw construction of the Fine Arts Center. A dedicated saxophonist and lifelong student of jazz, Bromery said that meeting pianist Eubie Blake at UMass Amherst was one of his most special moments.

Jazz legends Max Roach, Archie Shepp and Fred Tillis became part of the UMass faculty. Tllis was the first director of the Fine Arts Center, and along with Roach and Billy Taylor, helped begin founders of the hugely popular Jazz in July program.

Naming the Fine Arts Center after Chancellor Bromery will enable us to celebrate his contributions to this campus while also extending his memory beyond our walls and into the larger Amherst community and arts community at large through the reach of the Fine Arts Center and its popular performances,'' Subbaswamy said.

The honor, which came at Subbaswamys suggestion, comes in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the UMass Department of African American Studies.

We are honored that the Fine Arts Center building will be named after such a visionary leader,'' Fine Arts Center director Jamilla Deria said.

"Chancellor Bromery was so instrumental in diversifying the UMass Amherst campus, it seems fitting that a building that houses so many creative endeavors by our diverse community of students, faculty and professionals alike should bear his name and continue this legacy.

During Bromerys tenure as chancellor, the ratio of undergraduate men to women improved to 50-50, efforts were intensified to recruit and support minority students, and the number of faculty of color increased. He led in establishing the Committee for the Collegiate Education of Black Students.

The archives of both W.E.B. Du Bois and Horace Mann Bond, which served as the foundation for the establishment of what is now the W.E.B. Du Bois Center, made UMass a national leader in African-American thought.

Bromerys career went beyond the boundaries of the UMass Amherst campus. He served as chancellor of the state Board of Regents for Higher Education, qA interim president of Westfield State College, president of Springfield College, and president of Roxbury Community College.

President George W. Bush appointed Bromery to the Presidents Committee on the National Medal of Science, and he was awarded nine honorary degrees.
The Shroud of Turin is a 14-foot linen cloth bearing an image of a crucified man that has become a popular Catholic icon. For some, it is the authentic burial shroud of Jesus Christ. For others, it is a religious icon reflecting the story of the Christ, not necessarily the original shroud. As History.com writes, more than 600 years after it first appeared in historical records, the Shroud of Turin remains an important religious symbol for Christians around the world.

1. The shroud first surfaced in medieval France.

The earliest historical records of the Shroud of Turin place it in Lirey, France during the 1350s. A French knight named Geoffroi de Charny allegedly presented it to the dean of the church in Lirey as Jesus authentic burial shroud. Theres no record of how de Charny got his hands on the shroud, nor where it was during the 1300 intervening years since Christs burial outside Jerusalem.

2. The pope soon declared it was not an actual historic relic.

After the church of Lirey put the shroud on display, the church began to draw a lot of pilgrims, and also a lot of money. However, many prominent members of the church remained skeptical of its authenticity. Around 1389, Pierre dArcisthe bishop of Troyes, Francesent a report to Pope Clement VII claiming an artist had confessed to forging the shroud. Furthermore, dArcis claimed the dean of the Lirey church knew it was a fake and had used it to raise money anyway. In response, the pope declared the shroud wasnt the true burial cloth of Christ. Still, he said the Lirey church could continue to display it if it acknowledged the cloth was a man-made religious icon, not a historic relic. Today, Pope Francis still describes it as an icon.

3. De Charnys granddaughter was excommunicated for selling it to Italian royals.

In 1418, when the Hundred Years War threatened to spill over into Lirey, Geoffroi de Charnys granddaughter Margaret de Charny and her husband offered to store the cloth in their castle. Her husband wrote a receipt for the exchange acknowledging that the cloth was not Jesus authentic burial shroud, and promising to return the shroud when it was safe. However, she later refused to return it, and instead took it on tour, advertising it as Jesus real burial shroud. In 1453, Margaret de Charny sold the shroud in exchange for two castles to the royal house of Savoy, which ruled over parts of modern-day France, Italy and Switzerland (the house later ascended to the Italian throne). As punishment for selling the shroud, she received excommunication.

4. Before the shroud moved to Turin, it was almost lost in a fire.

In 1502, the house of Savoy placed the shroud in the Sainte-Chapelle in Chambery, which is now part of France. In 1532, a fire broke out in the chapel. It melted part of the silver in the container protecting the shroud, and this silver fell onto part of the shroud, burning through it. The burn marks and the water stains from where the fire was extinguished are still visible today. In 1578, the house of Savoy moved the shroud to the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, which later became part of Italy. It has remained there ever since, with the exception of World War II, when Italy relocated it for safekeeping.

5. There have been many scientific studies about its authenticity.

Despite the fact that Pope Clement VII declared the shroud a fake over 600 years ago, there has been no end to the debate about the shrouds authenticity. Starting in the 20th century, people on both sides of the debate began to bolster their arguments with scientific studies. In the 1970s, the Shroud of Turin Research Project said the markings on the cloth were consistent with a crucified body and that the stains were real human blood. In 1988, one group of scientists said their analysis showed the shroud originated between 1260 and 1390, while another said their analysis showed it originated between 300 B.C. and A.D. 400. In 2018, researchers used forensic techniques to argue the blood stains on the shroud couldnt have come from Christ.

6. The shroud is protected by bulletproof glass.

Security is tight for the frail Shroud of Turin. It is rarely shown to the public, and is guarded by security cameras and bulletproof glass. The latter security measure actually proved to be a bit of a roadblock in 1997, when a fire broke out in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist. Firefighters had to hammer through four layers of bulletproof glass to save the shroud.

7. The shroud entered the digital age.

In April 2020, Turin Archbishop Cesare Nosiglia announced that in light of the devastation from COVID-19, people around the world would be able to view the Shroud of Turin online for Easter. On the Thursday before the holiday in 2020, Italy reported 143,626 known cases of COVID-19 and 18,279 deaths from the virus. Archbishop Nosiglia said he was motivated to provide a livestream of the shroud, which was last publicly displayed in 2015, by thousands of people who requested to view it during the global COVID-19 crisis.
CHESTNUT HILL, MA / ACCESSWIRE / April 17, 2020 / Sokolove Law announces an investigation into a securities class action lawsuit filed against Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, (APC), (APC) on behalf shareholders. APC investors who purchased at least 100,000 shares between February 20, 2015 to May 2, 2017 who are interested in learning more about the class action lawsuit should call 800-579-0349 to explore their legal rights. The April deadline is approaching, time is extremely limited-- shareholders are encouraged to call without delay.

For more information visit: FraudDanger.com

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation is an energy company that develops natural gas and oil resources in the United States and across the world. As of August 2019, Anadarko became an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corporation. Prior to the acquisition, Anadarko common stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "APC".

The lawsuit alleges that in 2009, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation discovered the "Shenandoah" oil field in the Gulf of Mexico. It is alleged that after drilling exploratory wells for the period of eight years, the Defendants made multiple positive statements about the value and prospects of the Shenandoah oil field and other assets. The lawsuit also alleges that, between February 20, 2015 to May 2, 2017, the Defendants misrepresented or failed to disclose; (1) that the Company lacked effective internal control over their financial reporting and (2) that the value of the Shenandoah assets and its potential success were overstated.

If you purchased at least 100,000 shares of APC stock between February 20, 2015 to May 2, 2017 call our experienced case managers now at 800-579-0349 to discuss your legal rights in this securities fraud class action lawsuit. The deadline to apply to be a lead plaintiff is April 20, 2020.

The class has not been certified yet. You are not represented by an attorney until certification occurs. If you do not take action you can remain an absent class member. There is no required minimum number of shares to be a class member.

Story continues

About Sokolove Law

Sokolove Law provides quality legal services that help people obtain access to the civil justice system. For more than 40 years, Sokolove Law has worked to educate people about their legal rights and helped thousands of injured parties obtain the compensation they deserved from their legal claims. Sokolove Law is a national law firm with offices and a licensed attorney in nearly every state. The firm operates as a limited liability company in all states except Virginia, California, Michigan and Tennessee, where it operates as a limited liability partnership. For more information on Sokolove Law, please visit www.sokolovelawfirm.com

THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT Sokolove Law, LLC, 1330 Boylston St, Suite 400, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467. Ricky LeBlanc admitted in MA only. While this firm maintains joint responsibility, most cases of this type are referred to other attorneys for principal responsibility. This is general information only and should not be taken or relied on as legal, medical, or other advice. No attorney-client or other professional relationship is created by providing or using this information. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. 2020 Sokolove Law, LLC

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CHESTNUT HILL, MA / ACCESSWIRE / April 10, 2020 / Sokolove Law announces an investigation into a securities class action lawsuit filed against Inovio Pharmaceuticals (INO) on behalf of shareholders. INO investors that purchased 20,000 shares or more between February 14 to March 9, 2020 and are interested in learning more about the class action lawsuit should call 800-572-0168 to explore their legal rights. The May 12th deadline is approaching, time is extremely limited- shareholders are encouraged to call without delay.

For more information visit: INOFraud.com

The lawsuit alleges that between February 14, 2020 and March 9, 2020 the defendants capitalized on extreme COVID-19 panic by falsely claiming that Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. had developed a vaccine for COVID-19. The lawsuit also alleges that Inovio Pharmaceuticals CEO J. Joseph Kim appeared on Fox Business News and stated Inovio had developed a COVID-19 vaccine. After J. Joseph Kim's statement, the market responded favorably and Inovio's stock price quadrupled from $4.28 a share on February 28, 2020, and continued to rise in subsequent weeks, reaching an intra-day high of $19.36 on March 9, 2020. It is alleged that Inovio had not developed a COVID-19 vaccine. The lawsuit states that on March 9, 2020, before trading commenced, Citron Research exposed the misstatements, calling for an SEC investigation into the matter. In response, Inovio's stock price fell dramatically from its March 9 opening price of $18.72 per share to close to $9.83. The following day, March 10, 2020, Inovio's stock price fell from its $9.30 per share opening price to close at $5.70 per share.

If you are an INO investor who purchased 20,000 shares or more between February 14, 2020 to March 9, 2020, call our experienced case managers now at 800-572-0168 to discuss your legal rights in this securities fraud class action lawsuit.

The class has not been certified yet. You are not represented by an attorney until certification occurs. If you do not take action you can remain an absent class member. There is no required minimum number of shares to be a class member.

Story continues

About Sokolove Law

Sokolove Law provides quality legal services that help people obtain access to the civil justice system. For more than 40 years, Sokolove Law has worked to educate people about their legal rights and helped thousands of injured parties obtain the compensation they deserved from their legal claims. Sokolove Law is a national law firm with offices and a licensed attorney in nearly every state. The firm operates as a limited liability company in all states except Virginia, California, Michigan and Tennessee, where it operates as a limited liability partnership. For more information on Sokolove Law, please visit www.sokolovelawfirm.com

THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT Sokolove Law, LLC, 1330 Boylston St, Suite 400, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467. Ricky LeBlanc admitted in MA only. While this firm maintains joint responsibility, most cases of this type are referred to other attorneys for principal responsibility. This is general information only and should not be taken or relied on as legal, medical, or other advice. No attorney-client or other professional relationship is created by providing or using this information. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. 2020 Sokolove Law, LLC

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Two married nurses who were pictured gazing into each other's eyes from behind protective face shields amid the coronavirus pandemic have spoken out about their famous photo.

A colleague captured Mindy Brock, 38, and her husband Ben Cayer, 46, locked in a lover's embrace while on the job at Florida's Tampa General Hospital on March 30.

The striking snap, which showed the couple clad in gloves and gowns as they tenderly held each other's masked faces, was described as a 'symbol of love' by people right around the world.

But Brock told the Associated Press Thursday that the couple had been arguing the morning the image was taken.

A striking photograph showing married nurses Mindy Brock (left) and Ben Cayer (right) gazing into one another's eyes from behind their protective face shields is being shared around the world amid the coronavirus pandemic

Brock revealed that they had disagreed about what to play on the car radio, and who was doing the dishes at home.

The married couple are both nurse anesthetists, and it was Brock's first day on the hospital's new 'airway team'. The new COVID-19 procedures were making them tense.

However, after they found themselves in the same room during a break between surgeries, all the tension melted away.

'All those trivial things that we were arguing about that morning, in the grand scheme of things, aren't that important,' Brock stated.

'It strikes a chord because were all going through the same thing right now and its a symbol of hope and love.'

The couple met in nurse anesthesia school in 2007, and married five years ago.

The couple met in nurse anesthesia school in 2007 and have been inseparable ever since

Brock and Cayer are pictured on their wedding day in April 2015. The pair were wed in Charleston, South Carolina

As nurse anesthetists, both Brock and Cayer risk contracting COVID-19.

Placing a tube into a patients mouth and down into their airway requires close contact - and because the virus spreads in droplets, they are required to wear the highest level of protective gear.

Thus far, the couple has managed to avoid the virus, although it has come close to home. Brocks mother has tested positive, and their co-workers fear catching it.

But despite the stresses of the job, the pair say they feel lucky to be going through the crisis together.

'We have grown men bawling because none of their family can be there with them,' Brock stated.

She added: 'It helps to be married to another nurse, because unless youre here doing this, theres no way to describe it, He gets it.'

And Brock has urged everyone to come together as the crisis deeps across the globe.

'Whats important is that we stick together, we work together, and we always support each other. And not just Ben and I, but the human race right now'.
American congressmen Frank Pallone, Adam Schiff, Jackie Spier, and Gus Bilirakis sent a congratulatory message to the newly elected Artsakh presidnet Arayik Harutyunyan.

The letter runs as follows:

Dear President-Elect Harutyunyan,

As members of the United States Congress and the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues, we write to offer our congratulations on Artsakhs historic election on March 31 and the subsequent presidential run-off election that took place earlier this week.

We are heartened to see the people of Artsakh and the countrys leaders remain dedicated to peaceful democracy during these difficult times. Artsakh has remained committed to a system of democratic governance that reflects the will of its citizens, all despite continued violence and threats from its hostile neighbor. And, while we understand there were some complications created by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the relative case in which voters could cast ballots in these elections without interference clearly represents the strength of the democratic process in the Republic.

As Co-Chairs of the Congressional Armenian Issues Caucus, we remain committed to promoting and bolstering the democratic independence of Artsakh. We will continue to support the rightful exercise of self-determination which contributes to regional stability and development. Please know that we will also continue to explore ways to strengthen the ties between the United States and Artsakh that includes the formal recognition of its independence.

Once again, please accept our congratulations on an election that was calm, peaceful, and free of corruption or voter intimidation. We look forward to continuing our productive and robust dialogue with your administration moving forward.
Bollywood veterans Hema Malini and Javed Akhtar have criticised the people who attacked doctors and paramedics in Moradabad, saying it is a matter of "great shame".

On April 15, a mob trying to stop a medical team from taking a coronavirus-infected man into isolation hurled stones at an ambulance in Moradabad, injuring a doctor and three paramedics.

Police later arrested 17 people including seven women allegedly involved in the incident.

Malini, a BJP MP from Mathura, uploaded a video on her official Twitter handle, asking for strict action against those who attacked the "corona warriors".

"Two days ago, some people attacked an ambulance, did stone pelting and spat at healthcare workers. Shame on them. Have some humanity. Corona warriors are trying to save the lives of people without caring about their own lives.

"Those cowards who attack and injure doctors, healthcare workers, police officials and media personnel must be taught a lesson. Remember one thing, there is life because of corona warriors. I appeal to the authorities to take strict action against such people," the actor-turned-politician said.

Akhtar also criticised the incident that happened in Moradabad.

"I can't imagine how ignorant one has to be to attack those who are at the risk of their own lives are out there to save other lives.

"What has happened in Moradabad is a matter of great shame. I request the educated people of that city to some how contact and educate such ignorants," he tweeted.

On Thursday, Bollywood superstar Salman Khan had expressed anguish and disappointment at people flouting lockdown rules and pelting stones at healthcare workers as the country grapples with the coronavirus pandemic.

"You are throwing stones at doctors, nurses who are saving your life," he said in a reference to incidents of doctors and health workers being attacked across the country.

"And those who are coronavirus positive are running away from the hospitals. Where are you running? Towards life or death? Just imagine if these doctors and police wouldn't have been there, then those who think it won't happen to them will take the entire India to doom," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Li Zhanshu, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, presides over a chairpersons' meeting of the 13th NPC Standing Committee in Beijing, capital of China, April 17, 2020. (Xinhua/Li Tao)

BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, will convene its 17th session from April 26 to 29 in Beijing, according to a statement issued after a chairpersons' meeting Friday.

Li Zhanshu, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, presided over the chairpersons' meeting.

The chairpersons' meeting suggested that the upcoming session review a draft revision to the law on the prevention and control of environmental pollution by solid waste, a draft law on administrative punishments for those working in the public sector and a draft biosecurity law.

The session is expected to deliberate proposals on revising the laws on animal epidemic prevention and the People's Armed Police Force, and amending the copyright law.

A number of proposals and reports will also be reviewed, including a proposal on a draft decision to authorize the State Council to temporarily adjust relevant laws and regulations in the Hainan pilot free trade zone, a report on environmental protection and a report on strengthening public health-related legislative work.
The impact that stem cell therapies could have on the worst diseases known to humanity is hard to overstate. From debilitating genetic disorders to currently incurable maladies like Parkinsons and Alzheimers disease  even the ability to restore mental and physical functions after a stroke  stem cells could one day treat them all. Of course, with the intensity of interest in this rapidly maturing scientific discipline comes grifters, shams, quacks and snake-oil salesmen; like the Florida clinic that nearly blinded three women last year after injecting stem cells into their eyes to treat their Macular Degeneration.

In his latest book, The Future of Brain Repair - A Realists Guide to Stem Cell Therapy, neurobiologist Jack Price takes readers on a deep dive of the state of the art in advanced therapies while walking them through the fields recent advancements, current capabilities and limitations and, in the excerpt below, the potential to directly reprogram mature cells into any other cell-type you need.

a book by Jack Price

Excerpted from The Future of Brain Repair - A Realists Guide to Stem Cell Therapy by Jack Price. Reprinted with permission from The MIT PRESS. Copyright 2020.

The work of Gurdon, Thomson, and Yamanaka revealed something quite remarkable: if a cell can be induced to express the appropriate factors, then its fate can be fundamentally transformed. In the case of iPS cells, terminally differentiated cellsfrom blood, skin, or endotheliumwere reprogrammed into pluripotent cells: that is, from cells with the most restricted of fates to cells with the most expansive. This was a shock to conventional embryologists, who had come to consider certain developmental steps irreversible. It was believed by many that once cells had been channeled during early development into one of the three primary germ layers (ectoderm, mesoderm, endoderm) then that step could not be reversed. Reprogramming destroyed that argument, but it raised an even more provocative question: if the correct genetic formula could be found was there any cell transplantation that could not be engineered?

The technique of iPS cell reprogramming takes a differentiated cell backward in development. From there, the cell can move forward again from the pluripotent state to become any of the various differentiated progeny to which such a cell would normally give rise (figure 12.1, below). The new question was: could reprogramming move a differentiated cell sideways; to another differentiated cell, for example, or a progenitor cell with a different fate? Could a fibroblast be turned directly into a neuron or a muscle cell? Or could it be turned into a neural progenitor cell or a bone marrow stem cell?

Story continues

Diagram 12.1

Remarkably, the answer to all of these questions turns out to be yes. As ever in science, there were straws in the wind long before biologists realized this was truly the case. Long before Yamanaka, a team in Seattle had shown that fibroblasts could be turned into muscle cells with a single gene.

The gene in question, MyoD, we now know to be a member of a group of transcription factors (bHLH genes) intimately involved in cell fate decisions in diverse tissuesheart, muscle, and brain. At the time, however, the molecular control of cell fate was largely unknown, and the existence of families of transcription factors was only starting to emerge as a consequence of the early genome sequencing efforts.

Colleagues, I recall, found this fate switch a troubling finding, but consoled themselves with the thought that these two cell typesfibroblasts and muscle cellswere actually pretty close embryologically, and anyway, strange things sometimes happened in tissue culture.

We have already met this phenomenon, transdifferentiation the switching of cell fatesand noted that it has had a colorful history. While there were clear examples in vivo of cells apparently jumping from one fate to another, these were largely limited to lower vertebrates and involved closely related lineages. So, for example, if the limb of an amphibian is severed, cells within the stump dedifferentiate into progenitor cells (the blastema), which then regenerates multiple different cell typesmuscle, dermis, boneand thereby reconstitutes the lost tissue. In some species, heart cells (cardiomyocytes) can also dedifferentiate in response to damage, then re-differentiate following expansion to replace the heart tissue, and similar jumps have been observed in various tissues.

But these naturally occurring reprogramming episodes did not necessarily suggest that unrestricted reprogramming might be achievable experimentally. Following Yamanaka, however, a simple formulation emerged. If the combination of factors that prescribed a particular fate could be identified, then quite plausibly, expressing those factors robustly might make a cell adopt that fate. While the extreme form of this theory probably doesnt hold upthat anything can be transformed into anythingnonetheless several quite remarkable steps have been demonstrated experimentally. Among them is the generation of neurons directly from fibroblasts.

The first demonstration of this came from Marius Wernigs laboratory at Stanford. Their experiment reflected directly the approach that Yamanaka had pioneered. They sought the combination of transcription factors that would convert mouse skin fibroblasts directly into neurons, They found it required just three genes (Ascl1, Brn2, and Myt1l), and from this conversion emerged cells with all the significant properties of neurons: they grew a neuronal morphology, expressed the proteins that neurons express, formed synapses, and were electrically active. This was not, however, the first time that neurons had been directly reprogrammed from nonneuronal cells. Magdalena Gotz and her collaborators had shown that transcription factors such as Pax6 and Olig2 modulated the capacity of glial cells to generate neurons.

But generating neurons directly from skin fibroblasts was an enormous leap in embryological terms: from a mesodermal end state (the fibroblast) directly into an ectodermal end state (the neuron), with no stem cell, or progenitor phase in between.

The neurons generated from this initial Wernig study, impressive though they were, were only characterized as generic neurons: no particular neuronal fate had been specified. The question therefore arose of whether specific populations of neurons could be generated. As weve seen, if the history of brain cell replacement has taught us anything, it is that we need the precisely correct neuron for each job. Several labs have now derived reprogramming formulas to generate specific neuronal populations, a number of which weve discussed in this book. For example, Ernest Arenas and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm have developed a protocol to generate dopaminergic neurons, while Andrew Woo and colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis have made striatal neurons directly from fibroblasts.

As well as indicating that clinically relevant neuronal populations are possible with this technology, these studies add a further wrinkle. It transpires that to achieve an optimal outcome, more than transcription factors need to go into the mix. At several points in this narrative, weve implied that cell fate can be determined by the correct combination of transcription factors. But as our understanding of cellular control mechanisms improves, we have discovered further cell components that participate in these processes. One such is noncoding RNAs.

For many years following the discovery of the genetic code in 1961, molecular biologists thought that the only essential role of DNA was to encode genes, which in turn encode proteins. Slightly alarming therefore was the discovery that only 1 percent or so of chromosomal DNA actually encoded conventional genes. The question became then: what is the other 99 percent doing? No less a person than Francis Crick is credited with concluding that it was probably little more than junk.

So the term junk DNA entered the molecular biologists vocabulary. But, of course, this had to be wrong. Were we seriously suggesting that a cell carried megabase upon megabase of DNA for which it had no use? Rather than deceiving ourselves by calling that 99 percent junk, we needed to discover what it was actually doing.

We now know that much of the genome (though still not all of it) encodes RNAs that do not encode proteins. These RNAs have a direct function, rather than just being vehicles for the transport of protein-coding information from the nucleus to the cytoplasm. That function, in many cases, is to regulate the cells translational machinery. They change the efficiency with which proteins are produced: proteins, which they themselves do not encode. Unsurprisingly therefore, they influence cell fate decisions, and can thereby influence reprogramming. In both of the direct reprogramming steps just cited, noncoding RNAs added to the mix improve the efficiency of the reprogramming steps.

This direct reprogramming has proven of interest to potential cell therapists for fairly obvious reasons. Instead of the laborious process of generating iPS cells, then taking them through a relatively long, complex process of differentiation, fibroblasts can be turned into the desired neuronal type in a single leap. There are, however, two issues with this approach, one practical and the other theoretical.

The practical problem is that, without the stem cell intermediate step, the possibility of expanding the cell population is lost. Neurons, as we know, are postmitotic: they dont divide. With the iPS cell approach, each reprogrammed fibroblast gives rise to a line of iPS cells that can be infinitely expanded, ultimately giving rise to billions of neurons. But with direct reprogramming, each reprogrammed fibroblast gives rise to a single postmitotic neuron. This does not amount to many cells. A halfway house might be to reprogram from fibroblasts to neural progenitor cells, bypassing the iPS cell, but still giving rise to a dividing cell, which can itself then be expanded to give rise to many neurons.

Strategies are now in place to pursue this route. The theoretical issue relates to the mechanism underlying the direct reprogramming. Reprogramming iPS-style makes some sort of embryological sense. You make a pluripotent cell, then allow it to differentiate following the various embryological steps it would have taken in vivo. Direct reprogramming, however, makes no embryological sense. Nothing in nature, as far as we know, ever turns directly from a fibroblast into a medium spiny striatal projection neuron. This raises a number of questions regarding the veracity of directly reprogrammed change. Certainly, the reprogrammed cells have properties appropriate to the fate theyve adopted, but have they abandoned all the indigenous programming that led them to their original fibroblast fate? This largely comes down to the epigenetic question we discussed earlier, and is the subject of current research.
Hong Kong police arrested on Saturday about a dozen democracy activists on charges of illegal assembly in raids across the Asian financial hub, media and political sources said.

Believed to be among those detained in the swoop is prominent Democratic Party founder and senior barrister Martin Lee, 81, broadcaster RTHK reported. In all, nine former legislators were arrested.

Hong Kong police have yet to confirm the arrests, which media said related to marches on Aug. 18 and Oct. 1 last year  both days of large and at times violent protests across the city.

Media showed footage of police outside the house of publishing tycoon Jimmy Lai, a financial backer of the city's pro-democracy movement.

Lai was arrested on similar charges in late February, along with veteran activists Lee Cheuk-yan and Yeung Sum. It was unclear whether he was among those arrested on Saturday, while others named by media could not be contacted.
Anusha Ravi By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: Even as Karnataka waits for one lakh Rapid Antibody Test Kits ordered from a Singapore company with the manufacturing unit in China, Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar recommended localised accuracy tests for the kits. Despite China changing its policy, mandating quality assessment and FDA certification for medical inventory being dispatched from its soil, apprehensions over the accuracy Made in China testing kits continue. Sudhakar suggested that the rapid test kits (RTKs) be used on existing positive and recovered cases to assess accuracy.

RTKs are expected to have more than 80 per cent accuracy, but RTPCRs (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction tests) are still the best testing procedure we have with about 95 per cent accuracy. I am recommending that all active and recovered patients be tested using the RTKs for immediate assessment of their accuracy,  Sudhakar said. For now, the state intends to use RTKs on frontline workers, like medical professionals, paramedics and individuals with high exposure like civic workers, policemen. Each test costs about Rs 1,000 and is easy to handle. Even private companies can afford them, he said. Unperturbed by the spike in number of cases in Karnataka over the last two days, he insisted that the numbers are rising in expected clusters and from known contamination sources.

The larger chunks of new cases are either linked to the Nanjangud pharma company cluster or Tablighi Jamaat source. We have also increased testing over the last four days. Earlier, we were testing about 300-200 samples per day, but now we have increased it to 1,200-1,300 and thats why we are seeing a spurt, he said. The minister said Karnataka, thanks to its early order of tests and personal safety kits, did not have to worry about the Union governments circular stopping states from procuring equipment. We are more than happy to receive supplies from the Union government. The Centre should supply requirements in time, he said.
Wisconsin has extended its stay-at-home order through May 26, but dont expect Michigan to do the same, Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey said Friday.

Michigan will likely have some form of restrictions beyond April 30  which is the current expiration date for the states stay-at-home order, said Shirkey, R-Clark Lake. The senator took questions during a online discussion with the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce on Friday, April 17.

I dont see any way for the legislature to agree to continuing the (stay-at-home) order as it exists today, much beyond April 30," Shirkey said. I can see a restricted social gathering and interaction executive order for sure.

Shirkey said Michigan should be reopened incrementally, systematically, surgically and safely based on research and analysis.

Representatives from Gov. Gretchen Whitmers office couldnt be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

When asked if Whitmer could extend the order without approval from the legislature, Shirkey said the answer is not clear."

There are two Michigan statutes that address emergency powers of the governor, Shirkey said, one from 1945 and another from 1976. The 1976 act specifically mentions an epidemic as a reason for emergency  while the 1945 law does not.

The more recent act also requires legislative approval for an extension, while the first does not. The question of which act applies will be the topic of debate in the coming weeks, as the state determines its next steps, Shirkey said.

The senator also talked about the reopening of the dining rooms at restaurants, saying there will likely be specific requirements to reduce capacity and increase other precautions.

"This is just a wild guess here, but Im thinking were six weeks away from even contemplating opening restaurants," Shirkey said. "It wouldnt surprise me that we require people to go in and out with a mask on and they only take them off when theyre eating."

Senate Republicans unveiled a plan Thursday for reopening Michigans economy. The plan includes five phases, starting with a modified stay-at-home order allowing low-risk businesses to open back up.

Michigan had 30,023 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 2,227 deaths from the virus, as of Friday.

Reporter Marie Weidmayer contributed to this story.

PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Carry hand sanitizer with you, and use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and when you go into places like stores.

Read more Michigan coronavirus coverage here

Friday, April 17: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan

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Whitmer launches free coronavirus mindfulness resources for Michigan residents

5 things that need to happen for Michigan to reopen its economy after the coronavirus crisis

Medical experts say Michigans coronavirus death count isnt accurate. But is it too high or too low?

Gov. Whitmer hints at how Michigan will start reopening, come May 1

Michigan Senate Republicans unveil plan for reopening economy during coronavirus pandemic

President Trump tweets to Liberate Michigan repeating sentiment from Lansing rally

Republicans, Democrats at odds about who should return to work  and when
Germany, seeking a path out of lockdown, begins broad random testing for antibodies.

While other nations are still struggling to test for infections, Germany is doing that and more. It is aiming to sample the entire population for antibodies in coming months, hoping to gain valuable insight into how deeply the virus has penetrated the society at large, how deadly it really is, and whether immunity might be developing.

In Munich, residents of 3,000 households chosen at random are being asked to allow monthly blood tests for Covid-19 antibodies for a year. Its an ambitious study whose central aim is to understand how many people  even those with no symptoms  have already had the virus, a key variable to make decisions about public life in a pandemic.

The Munich research is the largest of several regional studies being rolled out in various corners of the country, which has become a leader among Western nations figuring out how to control the contagion while returning to something resembling normal life.

The government hopes to use the findings to unravel a riddle that will allow Germany to move securely into the next phase of the pandemic: Which of the far-reaching social and economic restrictions that have slowed the virus are most effective and which can be safely lifted?
At least 15 nurses and lab technicians who were in quarantine after treating Covid-19 patients for two weeks, were asked late on Friday night to vacate their rooms in a five-star hotel where they were put up, because the facility was only for doctors, according to several people who were part of this medical team.

Two registered unions for health care workers  one representing nurses at Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital and the Indian Medical Laboratory Technologist Federation (IMLTF)  have written to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and health minister Satyendar Jain that these nurses and paramedics were made to check out of the Leela Ambience Convention Hotel in East Delhi at around 11.30pm, not provided transportation, and not told where to go for more than two hours by hotel authorities.

In letters sent on Saturday, the unions have asked the government to intervene and called for strict action against those responsible for risking lives by forcing quarantined medical professionals to move out.

A team of 45 doctors, nurses and paramedic staff from various hospitals  including Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, Babu Jagjivan Ram Memorial Hospital, Dr Baba Sahib Ambedkar Hospital, Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital and Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital  were staying at the hotel since they started their 14-day duty period on April 1. This was to be followed by a 14-day quarantine at the hotel starting on April 15, as per a government order issued late last month.

Members of our nursing staff were asked to vacate their rooms in the middle of the night (April 17), despite the Delhi government having clearly mentioned in their order that accommodation will be provided for all 28 days of duty and quarantine. We have written to the hospital administration and to the government to intervene and provide clarity, the nurses union of Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital said in a statement on Saturday.

At least three of the nurses and paramedics who were a part of the team alleged that hotel authorities told them that the facility was only for doctors, and could not be extended to them. They blamed a lack of coordination between the Delhi government and the hospital administration for the situation.

When contacted, state health minister Jain did not give a specific response to the incident at the Leela. But a senior health department official who asked not to be named said, said they will look into the incident and discuss the matter with the hospitals.

The Leela Ambience Convention Hotel declined to comment on the incident.

A Delhi government order dated March 29 said doctors, nurses and paramedics would work continuously for 14 days, and then go on a 14-day quarantine break. The order stated that doctors, nurses and paramedical staff would be provided accommodation for the entire period of 28 days.

Till the time we were on duty, we were staying at the Leela Ambience Convention Hotel. But as soon as we started our 14-day quarantine, the hotel staff started asking us to check out. All of us have submitted our samples for testing, and the results are not out yet. We do not know how many of us have contracted the infection. Is it safe for us to be walking around the streets? asked Vivek Singh, a member of the Indian Medical Laboratory Technologist Federation (IMLTF), who was staying at the hotel.

Singh said that they first got a warning from the administration of hotel on April 16, and were asked to shift to a guest house near Ghaziabad. The confusion was temporarily resolved, but later the hotel staff again gave us a deadline to vacate our rooms. Our hospitals are also not giving us any clarity, he said.

Nurses from GTB hospital also said that the team were checked out of their rooms on Friday at around 11.30, with no information of an alternative arrangement till 1.30am. They said that they were not even provided transportation to go to a new facility  a guest house in Mayur Vihar.

We finally moved to the guest house at about 2am. When we got there, the building was locked, but we managed to make a few phone calls and get them to open the rooms. The rooms are dirty, there are dogs roaming the hallways, and we got only a slice of bread and some ketchup for breakfast, said one of the nurses, who asked not to be named.

Another nurse, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they are supposed to stay in their rooms through the quarantine period and have no contact with others. However, because of the confusion over accommodation, several of her colleagues have decided to go back to their homes.

We do not want a five-star hotel, we just want to complete our quarantine without infecting anyone, the nurse said.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 21:32:59|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- German carmaker Mercedes-Benz will recall 2,167 vehicles from the Chinese market due to safety concerns, according to the country's top quality regulator.

The recall, filed by Mercedes-Benz (China) Automotive Sales Co. and Beijing Benz Automotive Co., was set to begin on Aug. 30, the State Administration for Market Regulation said in a statement on its website.

It will involve 1,622 imported C-class, CLK-class, CLS-class and E-class models manufactured between Jan. 16, 2006 and Aug. 21, 2006, and 545 domestically-produced E-class cars made between Jan. 16, 2006 and Feb. 22, 2006.

Due to faulty bond of the skylight glass with skylight frame, the glass may be separated from the vehicle, posing safety risks.

The two auto companies will examine and repair the defective parts free of charge, according to the statement. Enditem
The Union power ministry has come out with fourth draft of the Electricity (Amendment) Bill since 2014, which seeks to set up an Electricity Contract Enforcement Authority (ECEA) having power of a civil court to settle disputes related to power purchase agreement between discoms and gencos.

The draft provides that the ECEA will have sole authority to adjudicate matters related to specific performance of contracts related to purchase or sale of power, between power generation companies (gencos) and distribution companies (discoms).

The decision of the ECEA can be challenged at the Appellate Tribunal For Electricity (APTEL) and, subsequently, at the Supreme Court.

The ministry has sought the comments of the stakeholders on the Bill with three weeks from April 17.

Commenting on the Bill, All India Power Engineers' Federation (AIPEF) V K Gupta told PTI, "The setting up of ECEA would dilute the power of the state and central regulatory commissions to settle matters related to PPAs (power purchase agreements) between discoms and gencos."



Currently, state electricity regulatory commissions and Central Electricity Regulatory Commission settle state-level and inter-state PPA disputes, respectively.

He also said, "AIPEF strongly condemned the timings of the power ministry's move to bring back the Electricity Amendment Bill 2020 when the whole country is fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic."



He was of the view that the bad experience from the COVID-19 crisis should have led to nationalise all sectors, including power, across India.

"At this juncture, the Government of India's step of privatization of the power sector through the proposed amendments in the Electricity Act 2003 is "ill-timed and ill-intentioned", he added.

The ministry had brought first draft in 2014 that was introduced in the Lok Sabha seeking separate carriage and contend electricity distribution business. The Bill could have given option to consumers to change their service providers like they do for their mobile phone service. But, unfortunately, that Bill lapsed after dissolution of the Lok Sabha.

The second and third drafts were circulated in 2018 and 2019.

The AIPEF has demanded to put the bill on hold saying, "While the economy of the whole nation is paralysed and administration is in doldrums, the timing is not suitable for introducing the enactment of amendments to any law under such conditions and thus Electricity Amendment Bill 2020 be put on hold."



The body has also shot off a letter to Power Minister R K Singh demanding that the proposed date of receipt of comments should be extended to September 30 as no discussion can take place due to the lockdown.

It also urged all state governments to seek extension in time for giving their proper reply.

At first glance, Gupta said, "The purpose of the Bill seems to be to privatise discoms and ensure payment to private generators. The introduction of distribution sub-licensee and franchisee without separate licenses for them and no schedule or dispatch of electricity without the security of payment clearly points towards the intentions of the power ministry."



The body is of the view that the central government is out to destroy state sector despite the fact that during the COVID-19 crisis, only the state sector companies stood by the government, while private entities were nowhere visible in this bad time on the country.

"The proposed amendments in the Electricity Act will increase the electricity tariff exponentially. Already due to private generators, average tariff across India is Rs 8 and with these proposals, it will rise to Rs 10," said Padamjit Singh, chief patron, AIPEF.

The Bill also provides that the Electricity Act would be applicable to the entire country, including the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

It also provides that the cross (power) border trade shall cover import or export of electricity from India and any other country. The transaction related to passage of electricity through India would be treated as transit between two other countries.

The draft law provides for introduction of power distribution sub-licensee or franchisee, which would not require a separate licence from state commission and providing information about them would sufficient.

It also calls for creating National Renewable Energy Policy by the central government in consultation with state governments.

It also provides additional roles to the National Load Desptach Centre that include scheduling and dispatch of power across the country in accordance with contracts.

The bill says that there would no schedule or despatch of electricity unless there is adequate security of payment as per the contract.

The bill enables state as well as central power regulators to specify transmission charges under open access. Earlier, both functions were with the central commission.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The 52-year-old Ludhiana assistant commissioner of police, who was undergoing treatment for COVID-19 at a private hospital, died on Saturday.

ACP (North) Anil Kohli breathed his last at the SPS Hospital, Ludhiana, Civil Surgeon Rajesh Bagga said.

On Friday, the Punjab government had given its go-ahead to the hospital to conduct plasma therapy on the police officer.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh announced Rs 50 lakh ex gratia to the next of kin of the deceased. He said a similar amount will be paid to the family of any officer who dies in the line of duty due to coronavirus.

"Sad ACP Anil Kohli passed away. Died of #COVID-19. Was admitted in SPS Hospital Ludhiana," Ludhiana district public relations office tweeted.

The officer had tested positive for coronavirus on April 12. His wife, a security guard and a station house officer tested positive on Friday.

The Mohali district administration on Saturday morning sent a fully-recovered coronavirus patient to the hospital to use his plasma for treating ACP Kohli.

"District Administration Mohali is dispatching one young fully recovered/ cured COVID-19 patient to SPS/Apollo Hospital Ludhiana. His plasma may be used to try and cure the other COVID-19 positive patients by plasma therapy," Punjab's Special Chief Secretary K B S Sidhu tweeted.

The chief minister and Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta condoled the death of the police officer.

"Sad to share that we had lost Gurmail Singh Kanungo yesterday & ACP Anil Kohli in Ludhiana to #Covid19 today. In this moment of crisis, losing our Corona Warriors is a big loss for the State. I join their families in this time of grief. Rest assured Punjab will stand by them," Amarinder Singh said on Twitter.

"Our brother officer Anil Kohli, ACP Ludhiana, lost his battle against #COVID-19 today afternoon. Anil served Punjab Police and the people of Punjab for over 30 years. May his soul RIP! Our prayers are with his family, relatives and all those worked with him," the DGP tweeted.

Kohli was cremated by his son Paras Kohli with full state honour at the Gas Crematorium in Ludhiana, family sources said.

His cremation was attended by Ludhiana Police Commissioner Rakesh Agarwal, besides MP Ravneet Singh Bittu and other elected representatives and dignitaries from Ludhiana, said an official release.

Born and brought up at Jalandhar, Kohli joined Punjab Police as assistant sub inspector on February 19, 1990 in Patiala when terrorism was at its peak in the district.

Meanwhile, the CM also announced Rs 50 lakh ex gratia to the family of 58-year-old revenue official Gurmail Singh who also died of COVID-19 on Friday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
- The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) has revealed that Ghanaians still pay more for LPG despite a decision to withdraw a levy placed on it

- The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) imposed two levies which were later withdrawn by the government

- The Ministry of Energy has, meanwhile, explained that the levies are no more but there are processes to follow

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), has expressed concerns about the continuous charging of the cylinder recirculation levy paid by consumers despite an assurance given by the Minister of Energy, John Peter Amewu, that it had been withdrawn.

According to COPEC, the controversial 13.5 pesewas fee is still being charged at fuel stations all over Ghana.

The Chamber is already in court, together with the Consumer Protection Agency (CPA), to ensure that the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) refrains from imposing the charge.

READ ALSO: IES predicts electricity reliefs could cost government over GHC2.5 billion

A report by citibusinessnews.com shows that COPECs Executive Director, Duncan Amoah, maintains his argument that the NPA is still imposing the illegal tax in these times when Ghana is combating the coronavirus.

He added that inasmuch as the assurance from the minister comes at the right time, Ghanaians are still paying the illegal tax anytime they buy LPG.

The Head of Communications at the Ministry of Energy, Nana Oppong Damoah, however, explained that the directive has been issued and the processes are being undertaken to make sure that it is being implemented.

On Wednesday, April 1, 2020, the NPA instructed industry players to begin 13.5 pesewas charge on each kilogram of LPG.

It went ahead to instruct Oil Marketing Companies, OMCs, to increase the levy on Fuel Marking Margin from three pesewas to 4.5 pesewas per litre on every product.

Although the NPA has justified its actions, some industry players have said that both directives are unlawful and must be withdrawn with immediate effect given the impact it will have on the business.

The Minister of Energy, John Peter Amewu, has, meanwhile, indicated that the 13.5 pesewas levy has been withdrawn, citibusinessnews.com reports.

During a press briefing on Thursday, April 16, 2020, he explained that That slight increase in price that you saw in the papers, it has been withdrawn.

The re-circulation module, I think as you are all aware was a very noble thing introduced by the government. That amount you saw was supposed to level up the prices. It has been withdrawn.

In other news, the Minister of Energy, John Peter Amewu, has revealed that the government would pay GHC1 billion for the three months of relief from electricity bills by consumers.

According to him, the electricity produced would cover 4.8 million metres across Ghana.

On Thursday, April 9, 2020, President Akufo-Addo announced that the poorest of the poor in Ghana would pay nothing for electricity while residential and commercial users would pay 50% of the cost per month, using the March 2020 bill as a benchmark.

READ ALSO: Think-tank warns of danger ahead after government absorbs 50% of electricity bills

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New Delhi/Dhaka, April 18 : Thousands of people on Saturday defied the countrywide lockdown to attend the funeral of a Muslim cleric in Bangladesh, triggering fears of rapid spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

The news media in Bangladesh reported that thousands of people, without masks and in clear violations of social distancing, participated in the funeral prayers of Khelafat Majlish's 'Nayeb-e Amir' Maulana Zubayer Ahmad Ansari, held at a madrasa in Bertola village under Sorail Upazila of Brahmanbaria district. The cleric had passed away at his home last night.

The gathering was so large that the authorities did not bother to stop it, media reports said.

Noted Bangladeshi author who lives in exile in Sweden, Taslima Nasreen tweeted that 50,000 people had attended the funeral prayers, defying the ban on mass gatherings during the lockdown. "Stupid government didn't even try to stop these stupid people," she tweeted.

Nasreen was driven out by religious fundamentalists for her critical commentary on Islam and Muslims in her 1993 book 'Shame'.

Like many other Muslim majority countries where religious congregations are turning out to be a major multiplier in the coronavirus pandemic, the Saturday funeral gathering could become Bangladesh's hotspot for the outbreak. So far, over 2,100 people have tested positive and 84 have died due to coronavirus in Bangladesh.

Religious hardliners have thrown a major challenge in Muslim majority countries. For example, in Iran, hardline Shia Muslims stormed shrines even as they were shut after hundreds had tested positive for Covid-19. A group of over 53 senior clerics in Pakistan recently warned the Imran Khan government against the ban on religious congregations during the lockdown.
PORT AUSTIN  With many kids trapped inside due to the COVID-19 quarantine, one person at the Huron County Nature Center is looking to make friends with them through an old-fashioned means.

Caitlin Stone-Webber, a naturalist with the nature center, has become a pen pal with kids across Huron County, and further away, as they have written to her asking whatever questions are on their minds and she writes hand-written letters back.

When the coronavirus pandemic first hit Michigan, with social distancing and stay-at-home orders becoming the norm, Stone-Webber needed to figure out how the Nature Center could play a role in peoples new lives.

I thought about what makes people happy, Stone-Webber said. What makes me happy the most is getting mail.

Stone-Webber first put out a request for pen pals on Facebook on March 15, which reached over 28,000 people. Thanks to the spread through Facebook, Stone-Webber has received between 50 and 60 letters from kids. Most of them are local, but some come from as far as South Carolina and Oklahoma.

I have gotten questions about trees in Oklahoma, Stone-Webber said. It was interesting doing research for that.

To Stone-Webber, the majority of the questions she receives from kids deal with bugs.

One girl wrote to me asking how to get over her fear of bugs, Stone-Webber said.

While writing these letters, the kids get experience writing and thinking about what possible questions to ask, and they get experience with the postal service in mailing the letters. Stone-Webber said that a lot of parents have reached out to her saying how their kids enjoy coming up with questions and going to the post office.

One of them said their kid did not know what a letter is, Stone-Webber said, adding that while technology used in school makes everything instant, the kids miss out on the opportunity to write letters and get one in response.

Stone-Webber has also noticed that when an adult comes to the nature center, they ask a question and expect a simple answer. But when a kid asks a question, they want to know why something is like the way it is.

They ask where does honey come from and why its made, Stone-Webber said. They want to know not just how leaves change color, but why. They need a thorough answer to help them understand.

Thanks to the apparent success of the pen pal program, the nature center plans on making it a permanent fixture. Stone-Webber wants to have a space where kids can write their letters with questions and install a mailbox where they can drop them off.

Its a great way for kids to talk with me, Stone-Webber said. I think we can learn from more than just a chance encounter.

The nature center did receive a donation of stamps and envelopes for those without access to the necessary supplies or who are unable to get to a post office. Those interested can message the nature center on Facebook and they will mail back some paper and a stamped envelope.

Kids can mail whatever questions they have for Stone-Webber at:

Ms. Cait

C/O Huron County Nature Center

P.O. Box 462

Port Austin, MI 48467
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 14:44:12|Editor: huaxia

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Workers produce masks at a factory in the free industrial zone of Cairo, capital of Egypt, April 14, 2020. Inside a joint Egypt-China plant inaugurated last week in the free industrial zone of Cairo, people are working day and night to run five advanced machines introduced from China to produce up to 750,000 medical face masks per day. (Xinhua/Wu Huiwo)
Berlin: The outbreak of Corona that is getting increased suddenly takes the form of epidemic for the whole world. This virus has caught more than 154000 deaths so far. But still this death game has not stopped. This virus has rocked the whole world today. According to the Health Minister of Germany, the corona epidemic is completely under control and new cases of infection have decreased.

Case can be filed against China, accusation of spreading corona worldwide

New infections have decreased in Germany : Jens Spahn told reporters in Berlin on Friday that the increase in infected cases is not uncommon. According to data released by the Robert Koch Institute of the Centers for Disease Control, Germany, the rate of each person infected with corona has dropped from one to 0.7. There have been 1.7 million Tests in Germany so far.

Chinas secret reveals after revised figure, says, " did not hide epidemic"

In the UK, there were 847 more deaths from corona: in the last 24 hours in Britain, corona has been treated for infection in hospitals and 847 people have died. The total death toll in this country has increased to 14,576. Meanwhile, London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Friday demanded the British government to make face masks compulsory. He said that with the measures being taken worldwide, it proves that if the spread of the epidemic is to be stopped, the face should be covered.

Corona is wreaking havoc in this city after Spain, Know number of infected patients
By PTI

BENGALURU: The Karnataka government on Tuesday decided to ease many lockdown restrictions after April 20, including allowing industries to operate and for three per cent staff in the IT-BT sector to attend offices, to give a thrust to economic activities.

"However the easing of restrictions will not be permitted in COVID-19 affected areas in the state which will be declared as containment zones," Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa told reporters after chairing a high-level meeting, attended by senior ministers and officials.

"It was decided that there will be no restrictions on the transportation of essential goods, as well as construction materials like gravel, sand, cement and steel," he said.

Construction workers will be allowed to stay where they are employed, he added.

ALSO READ: Karnataka has more asymptomatic COVID-19 patients

The Chief Minister said 33 per cent of the workforce of IT-BT companies would be allowed to attend office after April 20.

Industries would be permitted to function in industrial clusters in villages and Special Economic Zones or industrial townships in urban areas, he said.

Inter district movement of vehicles would not be permitted, barring between Ramanagar, Bengaluru urban and Bengaluru rural district.

"These three districts will be considered as one district in view of hectic movement of people due to industrial activities, Yediyurappa said.

In the containment zones, an 'incident commander' having magisterial powers would be appointed.

He would head a team of police and health officials to ensure there are no violations in the zones.

Residents within these zones would not be allowed to come out of their homes and essential items would be supplied to them at their doorsteps, he said.

Among other decisions taken were that there would be no restrictions on use of two wheelers after April 20 and that restrictions on sale of liquor would continuetill May 3, he said.

The Chief Minister expressed happiness over the decline in the number of cases on Saturday.

"One satisfying thing is that there were 36 new cases on April 16....yesterday it was 44 and it has come down to 12 today.

Out of the 371 cases, 266 are active cases because 92 people have recovered and 13 people died," he said.






A bicyclist rides through nearly deserted Times Square during evening rush hour. / Reuters

Add fear to the list of reasons people ride bikes.

"I'm 51 and healthy, but I don't want to get on the subway," said John Donohue, a Brooklyn-based artist who bought a bike two weeks ago. Donohue, who doesn't own a car, says he's not sure when he'll be comfortable on mass transit again.

The coronavirus pandemic has sparked a surge in bike sales across the United States, according to a major manufacturer and a half dozen retailers interviewed by Reuters.

Many of the purchases are by people looking for a way to get outside at a time of sweeping shutdowns and stay-at-home orders aimed at containing the virus: Even the worst affected states are allowing people out to exercise.

Still, a portion of the sales, especially in urban areas, are to people like Donohue who also want to avoid the risk of contagion on buses or subways.

He plans to use his new 24-gear hybrid for journeys such as regular visits to a printing shop across town that he normally travels to by subway. A key feature, he said, was the bright red panniers he added to carry his artwork.

To be sure, bikes remain well down the list of U.S. commuting preferences.

About 870,000 Americans, on average, commuted to work by bicycle in the five years through 2017, or about 0.6% of all workers, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The rate was higher in urban areas, at about 1.1%, and about 20 cities with at least 60,000 residents had rates of about 5% or more.

A more recent survey, though, showed a higher percentage of U.S. workers using a bike to get to work. Private research firm Statista Inc.'s 2019 survey showed 5% rode their own bike, while another 1% used a bike share service, an increasingly common option in larger cities.

Running out of stock

The government has declared bicycles an essential transportation item, so many bike shops remain open despite the widespread business shutdown. Many, though, have modified how they operate, no longer letting buyers test bikes and handing them over on the curb rather than inside the store.

Story continues

According to the National Bicycle Dealers Association, roughly three-quarters of U.S. bike sales are through big box stores. While many of the outlets of large specialty sporting goods chains are closed, general merchandisers like Walmart, the largest seller of bikes, remain open. Walmart did not respond to a request for comment.

Kent International Inc., which imports bikes from China and also makes them at a plant in South Carolina, said sales of its low-priced bikes had surged over the past month.

Kent is already out of stock on five of its top 20 models and expects that to rise to 10 by the end of the month, chief executive and chairman Arnold Kamler said. He noted supplies were flowing in from China, which has reopened much of its manufacturing base over the past month.

Kamler said sales at most of the major retailers he supplies were up 30% last month and are up over 50% so far in April, with the surge in demand forcing him to change shipping arrangements.

He normally imports bikes to ports on both the East and West Coasts. But with many retailers asking for more bikes, he's now directing all shipments into West Coast ports, then transporting them across the country. That adds to freight costs, he said, but can cut weeks off delivery times.

Low prices

Mark Vautour, who manages a bike store near the Boston University campus, said he had sold bikes to anxious commuters  including at least one medical worker who wanted an alternative to using the subway.

"We've joked for years that trains are like a petri dish," Vautour said.

Mostly, though, his sales have been children's bikes, "because parents don't know what to do with their kids."

One indication that people are buying bikes for more utilitarian uses like commuting is that many of the purchases are low-priced bikes, several bike retailers said.

Joe Nocella, owner of 718 Cyclery & Outdoors in Brooklyn, said his normal "sweet spot" was bikes that sell for $1,500 to $2,000, used by city dwellers for touring.

"Now the average bike has turned to $500 to $800," he said.

Those lower prices are one reason many bike retailers are struggling, despite strong sales.

Andrew Crooks, chief executive of NYC Velo, a three-store chain in the New York area, said the drop in average selling prices meant revenues had fallen at a time when he was still paying rents, salaries and other costs.

"So we could keep our doors open and still end up with a business that's not viable," he said.

Still, some new buyers say they are switching to bikes for the long term.

Having been stuck at home in Baltimore, Kaitlyn Lee bought a $550 bike this weekend so she could get outdoors safely and avoid public transport when she gets a job.

Lee will finish a graduate degree in public health at the University of Maryland this spring and has applied for jobs at the Centers for Disease Control and the Health Resources and Services Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Her plan is to commute by bike to a future job, if possible.

"I mean, it'll never completely vanish," she said of the coronavirus. "Rather we will learn how to live alongside of it, just like with other viruses."

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University Challenge has long been dominated by Oxford and Cambridge  but then the two institutions are allowed to enter multiple teams.

Now, however, a star contestant on this year's BBC quiz show has called for an end to the anomaly that allows their colleges to compete individually.

Ian Wang, 21, captain of Cambridge's Corpus Christi team, who will take on Imperial College London in Monday's final, argues that the current rules 'tend to exclude people who are less white, less male, less upper middle-class'.

Oxford and Cambridge are the only two universities allowed to enter the fiendishly difficult show with individual colleges.

Ian Wang, 21, captain of Cambridge's Corpus Christi's University Challenge team

The likes of Durham and York, which also have college systems, are permitted to enter only one team each.

Since it first aired in 1962 and over 48 series of the show, currently fronted by Jeremy Paxman, Oxford colleges have won 16 and Cambridge colleges have come top 11 times.

Mr Wang told The Times: 'There doesn't seem to be much justification for it, beyond the fact the two universities are seen as special and deserving of special treatment... Oxbridge colleges are, unfortunately, some of the least diverse campuses in the country.'

Next week's final will see Mr Wang, an English student, go head-to-head with Imperial College's standout performer Brandon Blackwell. Both contestants have entertained television viewers with their breadth of knowledge and animated gestures.

Jeremy Paxman, University Challenge's long-term host
The Chief Medical Officer claims firms chartering planes to fly workers into Ireland goes against public health advice.

Keelings Fruit in Dublin has been criticised after it flew nearly 200 workers from Bulgaria to pick strawberries.

Dr Tony Holohan, who did not know about the flight until after it happened, says strict rules on who can travel here are in place.

"We don't want to see any other form of travel coming through the ports or the airports other than those sorts of categories and that has been our clear recommendation.

"Anybody who is coming through the airport that is in the categories that we identified, we see the public health advice that we have given as applying to those individuals."

The Taoiseach has now ordered a review into how the current travel restrictions are being followed at ports and airports.

Health Minister Simon Harris says he feels uneasy about the incident.

"I know that the company said that they were quarantining and follow public health advice for 14 days but I don't feel comfortable with it.

"I know the Taoiseach and I are both looking into this for more information.

"It just doesn't seem right to me or to him."

Fianna Fail is calling for the government to stop giving work permits to some international citizens during the pandemic.

Business spokesman, Robert Troy, says the Business Minister must take radical action.

"Work permits were issued at a time when we were practically at full employment and when critical sections of the economy couldn't get employees to work in these sectors," he said.

"We unfortunately don't have full employment now and I would ask that Minister Humphreys review the work permit scheme within her department."

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP)  After managing to keep on top of the first wave of coronavirus outbreaks, Singapore is grappling with an alarming rise in infections among migrant workers housed in crowded dormitories.

Such cases now account for about a quarter of Singapores 2,018 infections. The government reported 287 new cases Thursday, its biggest daily jump, and another 198 on Friday. More than 280 were linked to the foreign workers dormitories.

The tiny city-state of less than 6 million people was seen as a model in its early, swift response to the virus. But it apparently overlooked the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers living in conditions where social distancing is impossible. Now more than 50,000 workers are quarantined and others are being moved to safer locations.

The outbreaks merit attention in a region where practically every country has large numbers of migrants working, commuting and living in crowded conditions.

On one recent night, masked foreign workers laden with luggage got off buses, each keeping a small distance from the others, to be registered and screened before moving into a Singapore army camp.

The 1,300 workers moving into segregated facilities in two army camps will be required to observe strict health measures, stagger their meal times and maintain social distancing. They are due to stay in the camp until May 4.

Posing beside single cots spaced several feet apart, several gave thumbs ups in a short video on the defense ministrys Facebook page.

Others are to be moved into unoccupied housing estates, an exhibition center and other locations to help reduce crowding in their dormitories.

Foreigners account for over a third of Singapores workforce, and more than 200,000 are migrant workers from Pakistan, Bangladesh and other poorer Asian countries living in 43 registered dormitories across Singapore.

Most work in construction, shipping and maintenance jobs, helping to support Singapores trade-reliant economy.

Virus clusters have emerged in nine of the privately-run dormitories that house up to 20 men per room, with shared toilets, cooking and other facilities.

Story continues

By failing to act sooner, Singapore allowed the illness to spread more widely than expected in communities that already are relatively vulnerable, experts said.

This is a very major and urgent issue that requires active and urgent intervention, Lawrence Wong, the national development minister, said in televised remarks.

This week, the city tightened precautions with a four-week circuit breaker, shutting down non-essential businesses and schools until May 4.

Hindsight is 20/20. In general, Singapore could have implemented measures earlier that would have blunted the initial surge in imported cases in the second half of March," said Hsu Li Yang, an associate professor and program leader for Infectious Diseases at the National University of Singapore.

The important matter at hand is to swiftly disrupt the chains of transmission in the dormitories, as well as in the rest of Singapore," Hsu said.

The more than 50,000 workers quarantined for two weeks in five dormitories that were declared isolation areas are being screened and tested. They are still paid wages and provided food and other essentials. The facilities are sanitized daily and they have been given health kits with face masks and hand sanitizers.

Labor advocates have questioned the strategy, saying confinement en mass in dormitories might put the workers at greater risk.

When social distancing in dorm rooms with 1220 men per room is effectively impossible, should one worker in a room be infected  and he could be asymptomatic  the repeated contact he has with his roommates because of confinement would heighten the risk to his mates. The infection rate in the dorm could increase dramatically, the group Transient Workers Count Too, a charity group helping migrant workers, said in a statement.

It likened the quarantines to the conditions aboard cruise ships that were incubators for coronavirus infections.

The pace of testing, reportedly at less than 3,000 a day, cannot keep up with infections, and many thousands of workers live outside the 43 registered dormitories, noted the group's vice president Alex Au.

They may be able to move 5% or 10%, but our guess is that the densities in the dormitories are so high, you may need something something like a 50% reduction. Where do you place tens of thousands of workers? Its a very, very big problem, Au said.

The virus is highlighting the need for better living conditions for workers.

The problem here is Singapores whole economic model, our prosperity, is really built on the assumption or expectation of cheap labor," Au said. This is going to show us that cheap is a temporary thing. There will be hidden costs that will erupt when you dont expect it," he added.

___

AP Business Writers Zen Soo in Hong Kong and Elaine Kurtenbach in Bangkok contributed.
President Donald Trump, who on Friday urged some states to liberate themselves from coronavirus lockdowns (Alex Brandon/AP)

US President Donald Trump has urged supporters to LIBERATE three states led by Democratic governors on Friday, apparently encouraging protests against stay-at-home restrictions.

This came as some states under Republican leadership edged toward easing up the mandates aimed at stopping the coronavirus.

A day after laying out a road map to gradually reopen the crippled economy, Mr Trump tweeted the kind of rhetoric some of his supporters have used to demand the lifting of the orders that have thrown millions of Americans out of work.

LIBERATE MINNESOTA! LIBERATE MICHIGAN! LIBERATE VIRGINIA, he said in a tweet-storm in which he also lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for criticising the federal response to the pandemic.

Mr Cuomo should spend more time doing and less time complaining, the president said.

Responding to pleas from governors for help from Washington in ramping up testing for the virus, Mr Trump put the burden back on them: The States have to step up their TESTING!

He claimed very partisan voices had spread false and misleading information about the nations testing capacity, but said well help New York and all of the other states get even better on their testing.

At the same time, at least two states took their first steps toward easing the restrictions.

In Florida, Republican governor Ron DeSantis said municipalities could reopen beaches and parks if they could do so safely. In Texas, Republican governor Greg Abbott said stores could begin selling curbside, non-essential surgery could resume and state parks could reopen.

Mr Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to see businesses reopen quickly and claimed earlier this week he had total authority over the matter, even though the lockdowns and other social-distancing measures have been imposed by state and local leaders, not Washington.

We may be opening but were putting safety first, Mr Trump said.

Expand Close New York governor Andrew Cuomo (John Minchillo/AP) / Facebook

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On Thursday, he outlined a three-step set of guidelines for easing restrictions over a span of several weeks in places that have robust testing and are reporting decreases in Covid-19 cases, assuring the nations governors: Youre going to call your own shots.

But governors from both parties suggested on Friday they would be cautious in returning to normal, with some warning they could not do it without help from Washington to expand testing.

West Virginia governor Jim Justice, a Republican ally of Mr Trump, said he would listen to medical experts in deciding how to move forward.

I am not going to do something that I feel in my heart is the wrong thing thats going to endanger our people, he said.

His unhinged rantings and calls for people to liberate states could also lead to violence Washington governor Jay Inslee

Washingtons Democrat governor Jay Inslee said Mr Trumps tweets about liberating states put millions of Americans at risk of contracting Covid-19.

His unhinged rantings and calls for people to liberate states could also lead to violence, Mr Inslee said.

Weve seen it before. The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly.

Democratic Virginia governor Ralph Northam said he and his staff were focused not on the presidents tweets but on fighting a biological war.

I do not have time to involve myself in Twitter wars, said Mr Northam, who is a medical doctor.

I will continue to make sure that I do everything that I can to keep Virginians safe and to save lives.

The clash between Mr Trump and Mr Cuomo was personal, with the president complaining the governor had not said thank you for help received from Washington.

Mr Cuomo countered by saying: I dont know what Im supposed to do, send a bouquet of flowers? Thank you to the federal government for participating in a federal emergency.

Even in largely rural states with small populations, such as Wyoming, Maine and South Dakota, governors said they were not anxious to quickly resume business as usual.

However, the University of Washington, whose computer models have frequently been cited by health officials at White House briefings, on Friday predicted Vermont, West Virginia, Montana and Hawaii could open as early as May 4 if they restrict large gatherings, test widely and quarantine the contacts of people who test positive.

Iowa, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Utah, Arkansas and Oklahoma, however, are among states that would need to wait until mid-June or early July, the institute said.

The official death toll in the US is nearing 35,000, with some 685,000 confirmed infections. Some 22 million people have lost their jobs.

Many Americans, especially in rural areas and other parts of the country that have not seen major outbreaks, have urged governors to reopen their economies. Protesters have taken to the streets in Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia and Michigan, where more than 3,000 turned out on Wednesday in what looked like one of the presidents rallies, with Make America Great Again hats and Trump flags.
I think the key to Chinas success has been the ubiquity of special Communist Party committees who ruthlessly and successfully managed the epidemic.





by Eric S. Margolis





Washington-based military think tanks constantly warn of possible attacks by the wicked North Koreans who have a large arsenal of chemical and biological weapons and missiles to deliver to North America.













So do Britain, France, Russia, India, Pakistan, China, India and Israel. The US still has a very large, lethal arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. I recently wrote of how the Bush administration supplied Iraq with feeder stocks to make anthrax, Q Fever and other biowarfare materials for use against Iranians.





And yet we have just seen from the COVID-19 scare how woefully unprepared we were for a chemical/biological attack despite being world leader in germ and chemical warfare.





As the bodies of COVID-19 victims pile up from New York to New Zealand, politicians are waging a furious blame game over the pandemic.





At first, President Donald Trump dismissed COVID-19 as a simple cold or flu and, in the best dictatorial tradition, scared into silence scientists and politicians who disagreed with him for over a month.





Chinas General Secretary Xi Jinping, or high-level Communist Party officials, may have suppressed information about the Wuhan virus for six days before news of the killer virus was revealed and a common Party response agreed upon.





Covering up bad news is standard procedure in Communist and autocratic regimes. Thats a major reason why the slow motion collapse of the Soviet Unions economy went unknown to the Kremlin until too late.





In Trumpistan, none of the sycophants and yes-men around the president, except for the admirable Dr. Fauci, dared contradict the Great White Father cum Physician cum Mussolini in the White House. Anyone who does quickly gets a youre fired.





Many of Trumps evangelical supporters in the Bible Belt view him as a semi-religious figure, a sort of holy man who can, in the best Old Testament Biblical tradition, stop or even cure plague and pestilence. Thats what Trumps claim to be able to miraculously end the Coronavirus plague by Easter was all about.





Next, fearing American voters would blame him for ineptitude and quackery for downplaying the crisis, Trump sought to lay blame on China and the World Health Organization for the pandemic. Flat-earth Midwestern Republicans believe the UN and anything that sounds international is satanic. This includes the bumbling, overly bureaucratic WHO which has indeed been too easy on China as the right-wing Republicans claim.





But this is the same UN-directed outfit that played a key role in repressing or even eradicating malaria, smallpox, Ebola, river blindness, bilharzia and other dreadful plagues of Africa and Asia. WHO has also had some success in fighting dengue and tsetse flies.





After studying the timeline of recent events in Wuhan, it appears to me that there was some confusion among Chinese medical authorities because of the unknown nature of the new virus. It took them close to a week to evaluate the virus which was at first believed to be a virulent influenza.





Their confusion was minor compared to the muddled reaction of US political and medical authorities and Trump-supporting evangelical groups who each had their own beliefs (usually mistaken) about the new virus. Trump was very successful at laying blame on China  just as the lethal 1918 flu epidemic that began in US Army camps and killed millions of people was successfully marketed to the public as the Spanish flu.





In an effort to come up with a snake-oil cure, Trump told Americans to take the anti-malaria drugs Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine. French doctors warned these drugs could provoke serious, even lethal heart problems.





They were quite right. I took Chloroquine while in the jungle in southern Africa while covering the fighting between South African (SADF) forces and East-Bloc backed African Congress forces. I developed a mild but still very scary psychological problem and was sick as hell. Who wants to be psycho and paranoid in the deepest jungle?





One remarkable factor in this 21st century plague is how successful China appears to be so far in bottling up the COVID plague. It may be the Chinese are fudging the facts as Republicans, who never lie, claim.





However, I think the key to Chinas success has been the ubiquity of special Communist Party committees who ruthlessly and successfully managed the epidemic. Every Chinese factory, apartment building, school and organization has its very own Party official whose job is to spy and report on every person in their group.





Each member is graded and guided. Good Communists received better apartments, school slots, factory jobs and retirement care based on their grade book. The all-seeing party knows all, sees all, and can control just about everyone.





Thats how China has so far bested this plague - though of course Trump will try to take the credit.




Karnataka to undertake Triaging: What does it mean and how do you pronounce it

Delhi to ease restrictions, if Covid cases come down in next 2-3 days: Health Minister

Lata Mangeshkar health update: Doctor says,'She in ICU with Covid-19 and pneumonia, will be under observation'

Coronavirus outbreak: Rajasthan reports two more fatalities due to COVID-19

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Jaipur, Apr 18: Additional Chief Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh on Saturday said that two more people died of coronavirus during treatment at a state-run hospital in Jaipur. This incident has pushed the death toll due to COVID-19 in Rajasthan to 19.

The total number of COVID-19 cases in the state has risen to 1,270 after 41 more tested positive for the coronavirus.

From Prayagraj to Maharajganj, five districts in Uttar Pradesh that are free from coronavirus

Speaking to reporters, Rohit Kumar Singh said, "Two deaths have been reported in Jaipur. Both the patients had additional health problems. As many as 41 new cases have come up today, including 27 in Bharatpur."

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

Officials said the two deaths were of a 76-year-old resident of Subhash Nagar and a 47-year-old from Shastri Nagar in Jaipur. They suffered from chronic kidney disease and acute diabetes, respectively.

Of the 41 fresh cases, 27 are in Bharatpur, five in Kota, two each in Jaipur, Jodhpur and Ajmer and one each in Banswara, Nagaur and Jaisalmer.

The total number of COVID-19 cases in Rajasthan include two Italian citizens, 60 people who were brought from Iran and sent to army health centres in Jodhpur and Jaisalmer.

Coronavirus outbreak: Positive cases of COVID-19 reaches 50 in seven northeast states

The entire state is under lockdown from March 22 and a massive survey and screening is underway to trace the people carrying the virus.
Lesley Robbins is known to her friends as a woman who does it all. When Robbins saw Houstons medical industry needed face shields, she jumped on the task and recruited her entire neighborhood to help create more than 500 face shields.

Theyre on the front lines, Robbins said. For them to not have proper protection is mind blowing.
Brisbane, Australia, April 17, 2020 - (ABN Newswire) - Emerging lithium miner Sayona Mining Limited (ASX:SYA.AX - News) (HAM:DML.HM - News) (OTCMKTS:DMNXF - News)invites investors to learn more about the Company's exciting expansion plans and long-term strategy at a webinar planned for next Monday, 20 April 2020 at 9am AEST.

Sayona's Managing Director, Brett Lynch will outline the Company's current growth plans and vision to become a leading producer, amid its bid for North American Lithium and growth of the lithium-ion battery market in North America and globally.

Sayona Quebec CEO, Guy Laliberte will also participate, providing the latest update direct from Quebec on its support for the battery minerals sector.

Attendees may submit questions to management during registration or via the webcast. A recording will also be made available following the event on the Company's website.

Webinar Details

Time: 9am AEST Monday, 20 April 2020 (7pm Sunday, 19 April 2020 Montreal time)

RSVP: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7660857568417472523

Dial-in Numbers: Australia +61 3 8488 8990

Canada +1 (647) 497 9385

United States +1 (562) 247 8421

Access Code: 989-265-657

For any questions concerning the webinar, please email info@sayonamining.com.au or phone +61 (7) 3369 7058.



About Sayona Mining Ltd:

Sayona Mining Limited (ASX:SYA.AX - News) (OTCMKTS:DMNXF - News) is an Australian, ASX-listed (SYA) company focused on sourcing and developing the raw materials required to construct lithium-ion batteries for use in the rapidly growing new and green technology sectors. The Company has lithium projects in Quebec, Canada and in Western Australia.

Please visit us as at www.sayonamining.com.au

Contact:

Brett Lynch

Managing Director

Phone: +61 (7) 3369 7058

Email: info@sayonamining.com.au

Source:

Sayona Mining Ltd

Copyright (C) 2020 ABN Newswire. All rights reserved.
I had to take terrifying risks at each stage of my journey to South Korea to meet him. It was love that got me through the impossible borders, she said. People dismiss Crash Landing on You as an unrealistic drama. But I was totally feeling [the North Korean army captain character] when he lied to his family and forged a Chinese passport to save his South Korean lover. Would a North Korean man do something as crazy as that just for love? Well, look what I did.
A batch of medical aid donated by China is seen upon arrival at the Bandaranaike International Airport, Sri Lanka, on April 17, 2020. A fresh batch of medical aid donated by China arrived at the Bandaranaike International Airport on Friday evening, as the government of China and its people stood firmly with Sri Lanka in the country's battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. (China Eastern Airlines/Handout via Xinhua)

COLOMBO, April 17 (Xinhua) -- A fresh batch of medical aid donated by China arrived at the Bandaranaike International Airport on Friday evening, as the government of China and its people stood firmly with Sri Lanka in the country's battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Chinese Embassy said in a statement that the donation included 20,000 test kits, 10,000 N-95 masks, 100,000 surgical masks, 10,000 protective clothing, 1,000 goggles and 50,000 surgical gloves which arrived onboard a Chinese Eastern Airline flight.

The embassy said the plane departed Shanghai with no passengers but full of medical supplies as well as love and solidarity from China to Sri Lanka.

While departing from Colombo, the embassy said 172 guests boarded the return flight to Shanghai.

The Chinese government has in recent weeks sent medical aid to Sri Lanka, which was distributed to the health workers who were in the front lines to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, in a recent statement on his official Twitter account, thanked the Chinese government for its continued assistance in the battle against the coronavirus and also appreciated the Chinese Eastern Airlines for flying the relief packages into the country.
Hi, my name is Scott C. Waring and I wrote a few books and am currently a ESL School Owner in Taiwan. I have had my own UFO sighting up close and personal, but that's how it works right? A non believer becomes a believer when they experience their first sighting. You witnessed it, your perceptual field changes, so now you need to share it.





I created this site to help the UFO community get a little bit organized. I noticed that there was a lot of chaos when searching for UFO sighting reports, so I hope this site helps. I wanted to support those eyewitnesses who have tried to tell others about what they have seen, yet were laughed at by even closest of friends.





More and more each day the governments of the world leak bits and pieces of UFO information to the public. They have a trickle down theory in hopes of slowly getting citizens use to the idea that we are not alone in universe and never have been. The truth is being leaked drop by drop until one day we look around and find ourselves neck high in it.





The discovery of alien species in existence is the most monumental scientific event in human history, suppression of that information is a crime against humanity.





About me:

I live in Taiwan. I OWN MY OWN ENGLISH SCHOOL, AND ONCE HAD 5 SCHOOLS.

Am Former USAF at SAC base (flight line).

Age: 42

Educ: BA in Elem ed. Masters in Counseling ed.





I had two UFO sightings, (30+bus size orbs) in military and in 2012 personally saw the UFO over Taipei 101 building on New Years Day (and recored it).
Jamie Rojos silky white quinceanera dress is embroidered with red roses. The flowers honor the Willis teens Mexican heritage and their red color matches her last name.

This was the gown that Jamie, who turned 15 last month, was going to wear one spring evening as she made her debut  marking her transition from girl to young woman.

Its part of me growing up, Jamie said

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Coronavirus live updates: Oil prices plunge below $0 a barrel, Hidalgo names recovery czar

Now, though, the dress is tucked away in a closet, not to be seen or admired, as the festivities have been postponed until autumn.

Quinceaneras, celebrations of family and faith that revolve around the 15th birthday of Latina girls, are another aspect of local life being dimmed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Missing milestones

Measures aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19 have forced many parents to set aside long-planned, and sometimes costly, celebrations of their daughters milestone event.

Jamies mother, Angeli Yordan, 42, wanted her children to grow up well-rounded. A freshmen at Willis High School and the third of five kids, Jamie dances on the drill team, is learning cosmetology and is taking advanced placement classes.

Shes just an exemplary child, Yordan said.

MORE FROM JOSE R. GONZALEZ: Montgomery County Hospital District projects big increase in COVID-19 cases

Jamie had not taken an interest in having a quinceanera until she witnessed her older sisters celebrations, in 2015 and 2017.

Jamie and her mom started planning hers a couple of years ago and they agreed to have it this May because her birthday fell during the Easter season. Then came the COVID-19 outbreak.

Its a frustrating situation because we never expected to be here, Yordan said earlier this month as she scrambled to rearrange plans for the big day.

Shes devastated

Fears of spread caused Jamie to lose some in her quinceanera court of honor, composed of youths in the role of damas and chambelanes, or lady and gentleman escorts. A change of date to the fall semester means two of the chambelanes will likely be away at college.

The rehearsed dance was going to be a highlight, with a surprise sequence featuring Latin music genres such as salsa, bachata, wepa and huapango. Then a tender note would sweep over the reception hall as Jamie took to the floor to dance with her father, Jose Rojo.

A $120k AFFAIR: Houston quinceaneras have become big budget celebrations, while sticking to simple traditions

With relatives in Mexico and Florida, the delay may keep some extended family from making it to the quinceanera. This is especially disheartening for Jamie, who longs to see her paternal grandfather, who suffers from Alzheimers disease.

Shes devastated, Yordan said.

Pricey party

Though recently divorced, Jamies parents went through their two older daughters quinceaneras together without a hitch.

While Rojo is Mexican, Yordan was born and raised in Puerto Rico where quinceaneras, she recalled, were celebrated mostly by wealthy families. She had no such celebration as her father died before her 15th birthday.

Jamies family has $20,000 already put down on her event. Expenses include a nonrefundable reception hall reservation. The heavy spending, Yordan concedes, is due to showmanship among many of the Mexican American girls.

Theyre definitely more competitive, she said.

Business slowdown

Maria Montoya first noticed a slowdown in foot traffic at her Conroe boutique, Gallery Bridal & Quinceaneras, several weeks before the outbreak.

We started to feel it in January, Montoya said.

It may have been a fear of contracting COVID-19 that kept shoppers away, she said. The stores party packages, replete with all things quinceanera, from the cake to the limo service to the deejay, were put on hold by customers.

MORE FROM JOSE R. GONZALEZ: As Montgomery County Jail safeguards against coronavirus, some inmates seek release

Montoya, 60, has been in the quinceanera retailing business since 2002 and three years ago opened the store in Montgomery Plaza on North Loop 336 and Interstate 45. She was forced to furlough her two employees before the county order banning nonessential business operations was issued. She has lost at least $21,000 in the month of April.

Consecration ceremony

In Conroe, Sacred Heart Catholic Church offers classes for girls ahead of their quinceanera Mass.

Sessions include meetings with parents to determine family needs, and also college prep and scholarship information. The churchs quinceanera coordinator, Lupita Perea, said the church encourages families to shift party money to college tuition.

To comply with the county public health order, Sacred Heart initially limited the number of people at Mass to 10 people, including the priest. After a stay-at-home order was issued, all Masses were suspended, affecting four to six quinceanera Masses, including Jamies.

Its very hard for (the girls) because they worked very hard for this moment, Perea said.

Community blessing

Elizabeth Farfan-Santos, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Houston, said the postponement of quinceaneras tears at the collective effort of madrinas and padrinos, who are the events financial sponsors.

Its a privilege to be called to be a part of (the celebrating girls) quinceanera, Farfan-Santos said.

Farfan-Santos, 37, contrasted the conventionality of 1990s quinceaneras, like the one she had, with how 21st century girls have added to the generations-old ritual. Just like Jamie, girls sport prints and bold colors in their dresses instead of the standard-issue pink and replace the waltz with contemporary music.

Culture is always changing, Farfan-Santos said.

Seeking the familiar

Jamie set out to make her quinceanera as distinct from her sisters events as she could.

The main song would not be the one either of her sisters played at theirs. And she sought to have her gowns style depart from her sisters ruffled and brightly colored dresses.

The pandemicss impact on her carefully laid plans has given Jamie insight on the value of family tradition. She is left longing for the event to unfold just as ordinarily as her sisters quinceaneras did.

She acknowledged tearfully, Its not the same.

jose.gonzalez@chron.com

twitter.com/jrgzztx
Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev has congratulated the Orthodox Christian community of Azerbaijan on Holy Easter.

Dear fellow countrymen! I cordially congratulate you, the entire Christian community of Azerbaijan, on Holy Easter and convey to you my most cordial wishes.

Representatives of different peoples and religions have for centuries lived in Azerbaijan, a crossroads of civilizations, in the conditions of peace, good neighborliness, mutual trust and understanding. The preservation of historical traditions of tolerance and the promotion of public relations on the basis of multicultural values are the key directions of state policy in Azerbaijan.

The exemplary relations between the state and religion that have formed in the Republic of Azerbaijan allow the Christian community, and indeed all other segments of our society, the opportunity to fully utilize their religious and spiritual values.

With a feeling of satisfaction, I want to note that Orthodox Christians, who have their own place in our society, are heavily involved in the great process of development and creation taking place in our country.

Dear fellow countrymen! This year, Easter occurs at a time when a dangerous epidemic that has gripped the world is threatening humanity. I am sure that our compatriots will demonstrate a high sense of responsibility, harmony and organization in the fight against the global evil we are facing and our people will successfully pass this difficult test.

On the day of Easter, which is considered a symbol of renewal, rebirth, unity and equality, I wish all of you good health, happiness, and prosperity to your families. Happy holidays! said President Ilham Aliyev.
AUSTIN, Texas  Stores in Texas can soon begin selling merchandise with curbside service, and hospitals can resume nonessential surgeries. In Florida, people are returning to a few beaches and parks. And protesters are clamoring for more.

Governors eager to rescue their economies and feeling heat from President Donald Trump are moving to ease restrictions meant to control the spread of the coronavirus, even as new hot spots emerge and experts warn that moving too fast could prove disastrous.

Adding to the pressure are protests against stay-at-home orders organized by small-government groups and Trump supporters. They staged demonstrations Saturday in several cities after the president urged them to liberate three states led by Democratic governors.

Protests happened in Republican-led states, too, including at the Texas Capitol and in front of the Indiana governors home. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott already said that restrictions will begin easing next week. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb  who signed an agreement with six other Midwestern states to coordinate reopening  said he would extend his stay-at-home order until May 1.

For the first time in weeks, people were able to visit some Florida beaches, but they were still subject to restrictions on hours and activities. Beaches in big cities stayed closed.

Meanwhile, infections kept surging in the Northeast.

Rhode Island, between the hot spots of Massachusetts and New York, has seen a steady daily increase in infections and deaths, with nursing home residents accounting for more than 90 of the states 118 deaths. The states death rate of around 10 people per 100,000 is among the nations highest per capita, according to data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project.

Massachusetts had its highest number of deaths in a single day on Friday, with 159. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, citing health experts advice, said states should wait until infection rates and hospitalizations decline for about two weeks before acting.

Trump, whose administration waited months to bolster stockpiles of key medical supplies and equipment, appeared to back protesters.

LIBERATE MINNESOTA! LIBERATE MICHIGAN! LIBERATE VIRGINIA,  Trump said in a tweet-storm in which he also lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, for criticizing the federal response. Cuomo should spend more time doing and less time complaining,' the president said.

At his Saturday briefing with reporters, Cuomo cited more progress. The states daily increase in deaths fell below 550 for the first time in more than two weeks as hospitalizations continued to decline.

But the crisis is far from over: Hospitals are still reporting nearly 2,000 new COVID-19 patients per day, and nursing homes remain a feeding frenzy for this virus, he said.

We are not at a point when we are going to be reopening anything immediately, Cuomo said.

Several hundred people rallied in Texas capital, chanting Let us work! Many clamored for an immediate lifting of restrictions in a state where more than 1 million have filed for unemployment since the crisis began.

The rally was organized by a host of Infowars, owned by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who joined protesters on the Capitol steps. Jones is being sued in Austin over using his show to promote falsehoods that the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre in Connecticut was a hoax.

In Indianapolis, more than 200 people stood close together outside the governors mansion, carrying American flags and signs demanding that Gov. Holcomb lift restrictions. Indianas state health department reported 529 new cases between April 7 and midday Friday, raising the total to more than 10,600. The number of deaths rose by 26, to 545.

Elsewhere, a few hundred demonstrators waved signs outside the Statehouse in New Hampshire, which has had nearly 1,300 cases of the virus and more than three dozen deaths.

Even if the virus were 10 times as dangerous as it is, I still wouldnt stay inside my home. Id rather take the risk and be a free person, said one of the protesters, talk show host Ian Freeman.

Trump is pushing to relax the U.S. lockdown by May 1, a plan that hinges partly on more testing.

Public health officials said the ability to test enough people and trace contacts of the infected is crucial before easing restrictions, and that infections could surge anew unless people continue to take precautions.

Vice President Mike Pence delivered a commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, a trip aimed at showing the country is on course to gradually reopen.

Major cities in Brazil also saw protests Saturday by hundreds of people denouncing pandemic lockdown measures also opposed by President Jair Bolsonaro, a fierce critic of stay-at-home measures imposed by state governments.

In Asia, some nations that until recently appeared to have the outbreak under control reported fresh flareups.

Singapore reported a sharp, one-day spike of 942 infections, the highest in Southeast Asia, mostly among foreign workers staying in crowded dormitories. That brought the total to almost 6,000 in the city-state of 6 million.

Total cases topped 10,000 in Japan, where Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said hes concerned that people are not observing social distancing and announced a 100,000-yen ($930) cash handout to each resident as an incentive to stay home.

There have been tentative signs that measures to curb the outbreak are working, with the rate of new infections slowing across Europe.

France and Spain started dismantling some field hospitals, while the number of active cases in Germany has slowly declined over the past week as people recover.

Frances national health agency said Saturday that the number of virus patients in intensive care dropped for the 10th straight day, and overall virus hospitalizations have fallen for three consecutive days. The country has seen almost 20,000 virus deaths.

The agency urged the French public to stick to strict confinement measures, which have been extended until at least May 11: Dont relax our efforts at the moment when confinement is bearing fruit.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said his government will seek to extend the state of emergency to May 9 but begin easing the total confinement of children beginning April 27.

Children are thought to be a major source of transmission even if they rarely fall ill from the virus. Theyve been confined to their homes for five weeks, prompting parents to ask that they be allowed to at least take a daily walk.

Sanchez announced in a televised news conference late Saturday that kids would be able to get out of their houses for a period on a daily basis, but the specifics needed to be ironed out with experts.

The national lockdown would be rolled back only when Spains embattled health system is ready for a possible rebound of infections, he said.

The virus is believed to have infected more than 2.3 million people worldwide. While most recover, the outbreak has killed at least 155,000 people, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally based on figures supplied by health authorities around the globe.

The number almost certainly underestimates the actual toll. Nearly everywhere, thousands have died with COVID-19 symptoms  many in nursing homes  without being tested for the virus, and have thus gone uncounted.

___

Jordans reported from Berlin. Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP coverage of the pandemic at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.
WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI - The last month or more has been filled with Washtenaw County residents finding ways to help their neighbors during the age of coronavirus.

Now, theres a centralized platform to connect people to charities in the area.

Joey Panella, a Michigan Medicine employee, and Ben Swanson, a University of Michigan doctoral candidate in engineering and biology, partnered up to start reSTIMULATE, which acts like a hub where interested donors can find charities, Swanson said.

reSTIMULATE is meant to act as a resource for socially conscious individuals that want to make an impact but dont know how, Swanson said. With the recent government stimulus, were thinking that those whose incomes havent been affected by the crisis, like us, have disposable income to deploy back to the community.

The platform will direct funding to organizations engaging with issues caused by COVID-19 and connect community members who want to make donations, Swanson said. The current area of operation is Ann Arbor and Metro Detroit.

Panella and Swanson are connected not only to the university, but the Ann Arbor community as a whole, they said. That gives them a soft spot for the local area that gets them excited to make a difference here at home.

For more information, visit restimulate.org. Here are four more things that give Washtenaw County residents reason to hope during the COVID-19 crisis.

If you have a story of a business, organization or person creatively dealing with social distancing and home isolation, or are going above and beyond to help others, please email Samuel Dodge at sdodge@mlive.com.

Susan Schmidt poses at her home on South Ashley Street in Ann Arbor on Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Schmidt, who campaigned for the Michigan House of Representatives in 2012, had the idea to order and distribute the signs after passing the University of Michigan Hospital on her way back from a bicycle ride at the Arb. "As I was riding back a helicopter was taking off, and I'm always moved by that because you know it's serious," Schmidt said. "And right in front of the cancer center I saw the workers coming out and I wanted to yell 'Thank You!' When I got home I thought 'How can I tell them that?'" Schmidt worked with the art department at Scarlett Elementary, where she once taught, and Sawicki and Sons, the sign company she used when campaigning. She put out the word on Nextdoor and has handed out more than 230 of her initial 250 signs - asking only for a $3.50 donation to cover the cost - and hopes to order about 500 more when the sign shop reopens. "Demand's been constant," Schmidt said. "One person wants 200." (Jacob Hamilton | MLive.com)Jacob Hamilton/MLive.com

Update to signs thanking health care workers in Ann Arbor

Susan Schmidt, originator of the signs that thanked Ann Arbor health care workers, is unfortunately out of signs. However, the funds she received to kickstart her effort have been redirected to another worthy cause, she said.

At least $1,000 was raised for Food Gatherers, a Washtenaw County food bank, she said. The groups distribution to the local medical community, as well as helping to feed those in need, has filled her heart with joy, she said.

What a great experience this has been, Schmidt said. For the people that came to pick up signs, they were so excited to put the sign in their yards and to donate above and beyond the cost of the sign. The healthcare workers comments Ive read were so heartwarming. They felt appreciated, supported and loved by the community.

Ann Arbor woman gets amazing response to yard signs thanking health care workers

A McDonald's truck delivering food to those in need throughout Washtenaw County. Photo courtesy of Bill Herbst.Courtesy Photo

Pair of food donations efforts in Ann Arbor

Two national food chains are attempting to fill the food gap in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County.

Owners and operators of McDonalds franchises in Michigan are loading up trucks to donate food and cash to food banks across the state, according to a news release. On Tuesday morning, April 14, the burger chain delivered apple slices, English muffins, buns, GoGurts, apple juice and cheese slices to Food Gatherers in Ann Arbor.

McDonalds also donated $25,000 to food banks, including Food Gatherers, to assist local residents affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the release states.

In addition, Dave Cesarini, owner of four Dominos Pizza locations throughout Ann Arbor, sent more than 100 pizzas to local hospitals, including Michigan Medicine and the VA Hospital. He plans to donate 700 more over the next several weeks.

With these challenging times, he wanted to help out the best way he knows how  by proving a hot meal to those who have been working tirelessly to help others, according to a news release.

Community members gather to protest recent conflict with Iran outside Angell Hall on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2019.Jenna Kieser

UM academic organization grants $25,000 to student projects to help solve COVID-19 issues

A student organization within the University of Michigans department of Literature, Science and the Arts is directing $25,000 to aid projects to solve COVID-19 issues throughout Washtenaw County.

optiMize, which has students develop business projects focused on sustainability, locally and statewide, used the money to start the Community Aid Project Fund. It will do nine projects that will do critical work that will support and provide essential services to local residents, according to a news release.

The nine projects are:

Family Assessment Clinic Hardship Fund: An emergency resource to cover one month of treatment at the Family Assessment Clinic, with the option to extend if needed.

Groundcover Vendors Basic Needs Funding: Meeting Groundcover News vendors basic needs in light of the newspapers indefinite printing suspension.

Huron Valley COVID-19 Mutual Aid: Building new sustainable, social, and political relationships between those in the community by providing each other care in the form of basic needs and support during the time of COVID and beyond.

Mutuality Podcast: A podcast lifting the voices of local mutual aid organizers, prison and immigration detention center organizers, workers on strike, and others doing critical work to support our most vulnerable during the COVID-19 crisis.

Porch Food Pantry: Open-access non-perishable food pantry and paper products.

ThirdSpace Hospital Creative Arts Program: A volunteer organization providing therapeutic engagement to youth affected by mental health challenges.

Washtenaw County Neighborhood Podding: Providing resources, skills, and support to people who wish to connect the members of their neighborhood through building a culture of mutual care and powerful, social, sustainable, thoughtful, and political relationships.

Washtenaw Mask Project : Working with a network of home sewers to make and sell reusable masks, as well as mask-making kits, using all proceeds to make and donate masks to vulnerable groups.

WICIR-Supporting Undocumented Families: A fund directing financial resources to undocumented families in Washtenaw County who cannot access government aid during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another COVID-19 quarantine coloring book, this time from UM

Nearly 20 women artists from Ann Arbor collaborated on a coloring book called Color the Quarantine" earlier this week. Michigan Medicine is also highlighting its artistic efforts.

Color the Quarantine books for kids: 5 things that give us hope amid coronavirus crisis

Michigan Medicines coloring book, Georgie and the Giant Germ, was created by the Zero to Thrive program. The group focuses on mental health and wellness for young children and their parents.

People can download the book and learn more information about Zero to Thrive here. The artwork was drawn by a 12-year-old Ann Arbor girl and daughter of a psychiatry faculty member at UM, according to a news release.

Zero to Thrive is also participating in a video series hosted by C.S. Mott Childrens Hospital called Thrive with your Family. Learn more here.

The Michigan Medicine Department of Psychiatry has a free online guidebook for adults and children suffering from mental health diagnoses even before the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Read more 5 things that give us hope:"

More free meals for healthcare workers: 5 things that give us hope amid coronavirus crisis

Produce for restaurants now bundled for residents: 5 things that give us hope amid coronavirus crisis

Sidewalk chalk art cheers up Michigan Medicine nurses: 5 things that give us hope amid coronavirus crisis

Yard signs show appreciation for health care workers: 5 more things that give us hope amid coronavirus crisis

Ann Arbor caterer donating thousands of meals: 5 more things that give us hope amid coronavirus

350 meals delivered to families in need: 5 more things that give us hope amid coronavirus crisis

Free toilet paper with an oil change: Another 5 things that give us hope amid coronavirus crisis

5 things that give us hope amid the coronavirus pandemic in Washtenaw County

5 more things that give us hope amid the coronavirus outbreak in Washtenaw County

An extra 5 things that give us hope amid coronavirus crisis in Washtenaw County

Another 5 things that give us hope amid coronavirus crisis in Washtenaw, Livingston counties
Tens of thousands have defied a lockdown in Bangladesh to attend the funeral of a top Islamic preacher as the country's outbreak begins to accelerate.

An estimated 100,000 people flooded the streets of Sarail, in the east of the country, and stood side by side in large crowds to pay their final respects to Jubayer Ahmad Ansari.

His family had agreed with police that only 50 people would attend because of the risk of spreading the infection.

Bangladesh has recorded a rise in cases of more than 200 for the past five days, bringing its total to 2,144 so far. There have been 84 deaths due to the disease in the country.

Experts have warned that the actual number of infections and deaths is likely to be far higher due to a lack of testing. Only 21,307 tests have been conducted since a nationwide lockdown was imposed on March 26.

An estimated 100,000 people flooded the streets in Sarail, east Bangladesh, to pay their final respects to 55-year-old preacher Jubayer Ahmad Ansari

It came as people were also seen queuing to buy food without observing social distancing rules in the country's capital Dhaka

Authorities imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 26 to halt the spread of coronavirus. Pictured above are idling rickshaws in Dhaka today

Police chief Shahadat Hossain said officers were helpless to stop the crowds who came to honour the 55-year-old popular preacher and seminary head, who died on Friday. 'People came in waves,' he told AFP.

Organisers said some 100,000 attended the funeral. Aide to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Shah Ali Farhad, also said more than 100,000 were present.

It came as people were seen standing side by side as they queued to buy food in the capital Dhaka, in a second apparent flouting of social distancing rules.

Bangladesh imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 26 as coronavirus spread across the country of 168 million people. The first death from the disease was recorded on March 18.

Steets have been cleared as people are advised to stay inside. (Dhaka, Bangladesh)

A total of 2,144 cases have been recorded so far but experts warn this number may be higher

Only 21,307 tests for the disease have been carried out in the country so far. Pictured above is a security guard at a garment factory in the Tejgaon area in Dhaka

A man sells disinfectant on a street corner in the capital Dhaka today

The country brought in new rules recently banning more than five people from taking part in prayers in the country's 300,000 mosques.

The prime minister has called on Bangladeshis to pray at home when the Ramadan festival starts this month. But a group of influential clerics has called on Muslims to turn out in their masses for daily prayers.

Last month at least 25,000 people attended a muslim prayer meeting in a field in the southern city of Raipur to chant 'healing verses' to rid the country of the deadly virus.
michigan supreme court

Michigan Courts/Zoom

Government functions ranging from city hall meetings to supreme court cases have moved to video conferencing platforms like Zoom amid stay-at-home orders across the US brought on by COVID-19.

The transition has led to public forums being disrupted by "Zoom bombers," as well as disagreements over proper Zoom etiquette.

Multiple municipal meetings were cut short after intruders flashed nudity or blasted offensive remarks. One judge reprimanded lawyers for Zooming into court while still in bed or partially clothed.

The transition has also led to a transparency nightmare  government watchdogs say it's increasingly difficult to scrutinize proceedings that would typically have been open to the public.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The government is now on Zoom  and so far, it's chaos.

A Michigan city hall meeting was cut short after a man introduced himself as "Dan D---head." A Florida judge reprimanded lawyers for Zooming into court while still in bed. An Indiana Election Commission meeting was interrupted by a man masturbating on camera.

Across the US, government agencies and departments are struggling to adjust to the new normal of videoconferencing as the COVID-19 outbreak forces Americans to stay home and avoid contact. Many government functions are mandated by law to be open to all and allow public comment, leaving agencies to strike a balance between remaining open and preventing trolls.

The transition to videoconferencing has also become a nightmare for public oversight, according to watchdog groups and transparency advocates.

Many court watchers have been left in the dark after difficulty signing on to virtual hearings, according to a report from The Marshall Project last week. Several trials have unfolded in Los Angeles and Miami without outside observers given a link to watch remotely, while New Orleans courts have reportedly given access to video streams based on individual judges' decisions.

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And some courts  including those in New York City  have declined to put hearings online, instead forcing would-be observers to go to the courthouse and watch trials on a screen there, potentially risking their health.

"Court watching has a really important use as an accountability mechanism," Court Watch NYC cofounder Rachel Foran, who organizes court watching groups nationwide, told Business Insider. "It's a way for the community to have a say in the criminal legal process and offer a different vision of safety and justice than what the criminal legal system typically allows for."

A Zoom spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider that the company has rolled out tools to make it easier for hosts to up their security settings, and that certain programs  including K-12 classes  now only allow the meeting host to share content by default.

"We have been deeply upset to hear about these types of incidents. Zoom strongly condemns such behavior and recently updated several features to help our users more easily protect their meetings," the spokesperson said. "Zoom is continuing to engage with all of our users on how they can best use Zoom and protect their meetings. We encourage users to report any incidents of this kind either to Zoom so we can take appropriate action or directly to law enforcement authorities."

Struggling to block Zoom-bombers in an open forum

Zoom video conference

Dominic Lipinski/PA Images/Reuters

In the wake of a series of Zoom-bombing attacks in which trolls interrupt public meetings, Zoom has urged clients to change their preferences to block outsiders from joining the meeting or from being heard.

But for many city and state government agencies, locking down meetings isn't an option thanks to state laws that mandate certain government meetings be open to public comment.

The town leadership of Grosse Ile, Michigan had to cut a public Zoom meeting short last month during a legally-mandated public comment section, when two meeting participants made racist comments and a third introduced himself as "Dan D---head."

"One person out of line, in a room full of people who won't tolerate it, it just doesn't go over well," township supervisor Brian Loftus told The Detroit News, adding that the same dynamic doesn't apply in a video conference.

Zoombombing is now recognized as a criminal offense. Does that make a difference?

Mary Beth Schneider (@marybschneider) April 17, 2020

Victims of "Zoombombing" have repeatedly said that trolls who interrupted their meeting appeared to want to shock or offend as many people as possible. With public hearings on Zoom, trolls are given an even wider platform.

Earlier this month, federal prosecutors issued a warning that intruding on Zoom calls is a federal crime, and Zoombombers could face charges for "disrupting a public meeting, computer intrusion, using a computer to commit a crime, hate crimes, fraud, or transmitting threatening communications."

It's not clear just how effective enforcement will be, but the FBI is now urging people to report Zoombombs to its Internet Crime Complaint Center.

Judges nationwide have to decide how to run a virtual court  and they aren't always in agreement.

miami bond court

Miami Bond Court/Pool

As the legal justice system adapts to virtual meetings, it's not always clear what norms from the courtroom carry over to Zoom.

A Florida judge scolded lawyers in an advisory last month, stating that many had eschewed courtroom behavior.

"It is remarkable how many ATTORNEYS appear inappropriately on camera," Broward Circuit Judge Dennis Bailey wrote. "We've seen many lawyers in casual shirts and blouses, with no concern for ill-grooming, in bedrooms with the master bed in the background, etc. One male lawyer appeared shirtless and one female attorney appeared still in bed, still under the covers."

How exactly to conduct trials via videoconference falls to judges. According to The Marshall Project, some courtrooms have been publicly broadcast, while others across the country have gone dark  seemingly at the whims of the judges presiding over them.

Now, civil liberties advocates are exploring whether holding public proceedings via videoconference could be considered unconstitutional.

Police officers stand in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC, U.S., January 19, 2018.

Eric Thayer/Reuters

Douglas Keith, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, told Business Insider that while video trials have been carried out under some circumstances before COVID-19, the move to virtual courtrooms could raise constitutional questions, especially if it becomes a more common practice in years to come.

Trials held on video conferencing software that aren't made publicly available could impact the outcome if outside observers can't watch.

"One of the major purposes of the public trial is that by having the family members and interested parties in the courtroom, it reminds all of the participants of the justice system of how important their responsibilities are," Keith said. "There are questions about whether a digital hearing can convey the same impact."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 07:57:18|Editor: huaxia

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A worker works at the construction site of a cross-lake bridge in Anqing, east China's Anhui Province, April 13, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi)

China's domestic activity is expected to rebound and continue to recover in the second half of this year as the containment measures are withdrawn and policy support gains strength, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) official has said.



by Xiong Maoling, Gao Pan

WASHINGTON, April 17 (Xinhua) -- After taking a hit in the first quarter due to the COVID-19 outbreak, China's economy is expected to see a recovery in the second quarter, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) official has said.

"News of the widespread re-opening of firms and the return of employees to work give us hope that we will see a recovery in Q2," Kenneth Kang, deputy director of Asia and Pacific Department at the IMF, told Xinhua in a recent written interview.

Amid COVID-19 impact, China's gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter shrank 6.8 percent year on year, according to data released Friday by China's National Bureau of Statistics.

China is one of the few major economies that could see economic expansion this year, according to the IMF's recently released World Economic Outlook report, which projected global economy to decline by 3 percent in 2020.

Advanced economies are on track to contract by 6.1 percent, while emerging market and developing economies, which typically have growth levels well above advanced economies, will shrink by 1 percent, according to the report.

China's domestic activity is expected to rebound and continue to recover in the second half of this year as the containment measures are withdrawn and policy support gains strength, Kang said.

A worker works on the production line at the workshop of Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle Company in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, March 24, 2020. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

As economic activity normalizes and returns toward its pre-virus trend, China's economic growth will improve, Kang said, while noting that the outlook faces "downside risks."

"The virus could return and force new containment measures that would impede growth," he said. "Global growth could slow further as the pandemic continues to affect other countries."

The IMF official noted that Chinese policymakers have reacted strongly to the outbreak. "They have taken targeted action to contain the virus, mitigate its impact on the economy, and support the recovery. This has been the right approach," Kang said.

"In addition to supporting the medical response, fiscal measures should build on efforts to rebalance the economy and foster long-term sustainable growth," he said.

The IMF official also suggested China continue contributing to global solutions to fight the outbreak by increasing its production capacity of critical medical equipment and supporting international efforts to provide debt relief for low-income countries.

He noted that several Asian countries, including China, have supported the IMF through its Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust, which provides immediate debt relief to low-income countries affected by the crisis.

A customer buys flowers at a flower shop in east China's Shanghai, April 10, 2020. (Photo by Wang Xiang/Xinhua)

According to the IMF's latest projection, growth in Asia is expected to stall at zero percent in 2020 due to the pandemic, the lowest growth since the 1960s. Despite the "remarkable downgrade," Kang said Asia is in better shape than other regions and may recover faster.

"Since Asia was hit by the virus before others, a recovery may begin earlier, with growth in 2021 expected to rise to 7.6 percent," Kang said, though adding that not all the lost growth can be made up quickly.

The IMF official stressed that there is considerable uncertainty around the forecasts.

"One of the difficulties in forecasting growth is that economies in Asia are at different stages of the pandemic," he said. "The final outcome will depend on the effectiveness of the containment measures and the possibility of a second wave of outbreaks."

Kang said the hope is that policymakers around the world will continue to work to contain the outbreak, blunt its impact, and keep the recovery on track. Citing remarks from IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, Kang said many of these measures are more effective if they are implemented together.

"Indeed, we are seeing international cooperation in many key areas, such as the provision of liquidity through swap lines, and fiscal policy is being rolled out in a growing number of countries," Kang said.

The IMF official said countries should avoid trade restrictions on medical and health products to ensure that they go to where they are most needed, noting that countries with limited health care capacity and resources will need international aid to prepare for and weather the pandemic.

"The health emergency is a powerful reminder of the need for policy coordination and solidarity in an interconnected world," Kang said.

The IMF projected that global trade will decline by about 11 percent this year, but rebound strongly by about 8.5 percent next year "in line with a recovery of the global economy," he noted, calling for strong multilateral cooperation to complement national policy efforts.

"Countries should cooperate to reduce tariff and nontariff barriers that impede cross-border trade and investment and to strengthen global supply chains as the recovery takes hold," he said. 
A man receives bags of food as volunteers from City Harvest distribute it in Harlem. (Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images)

This week, amid reports of coronavirus outbreaks causing meatpacking plants to shutter and grocery stores in some parts of the U.S. struggling to keep shelves stocked, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue sought to dispel concerns about food shortages.

In the United States, we have plenty of food for all of our citizens, Perdue said during a press briefing at the White House on Wednesday.

The bare store shelves that you may see in some cities in the country are a demand issue, not a supply issue, he continued, likening the food supply chain in the United States to an interstate and the widespread closures of restaurants, schools and hotels to a crash causing a traffic jam.

Our supply chain is sophisticated, efficient, integrated and synchronized, and its taken us a few days to relocate the misalignment between institutional settings and grocery settings, he said. But that does not mean that we dont have enough food in this country to feed the American people.

It is true that, at least for now, the U.S. produces enough food for its citizens, but the gap between producers and consumers is resulting in spot shortages, which are hitting food banks that serve the poor especially hard. The effects of the coronavirus pandemic have rippled across the food supply chain, from dairy farmers and meat processing plants to restaurants and school cafeterias, exposing major vulnerabilities in the system that may not be so easy to fix.

While some parts of the food industry have been able to adapt by temporarily changing their business model during this crisis, others are not as flexible. Diminished demand has forced farmers across the country to discarded millions of pounds of fresh produce, while at the same time food banks are seeing a surge in people seeking food assistance, many of them for the first time, as skyrocketing unemployment rates are leaving more Americans unable to afford groceries.

In New York City and the surrounding region, where the coronavirus has hit the hardest, and getting food through crowded streets to feed 8.5 million people is already a daily miracle, the pandemic has required creative solutions, rapid adjustments to long-standing ways of doing business and extraordinary efforts. Here are how some of the components of the regions supply chain are coping:

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Food banks

Last week, Feeding America, a nationwide network of 200 food banks, announced that 98 percent of food banks have reported an increase in demand for food assistance since the coronavirus crisis first hit the United States in March.

This trend has been on display in New York City, which was already home to approximately 1.2 million food-insecure residents before it became the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.

Statewide, about 1.2 million people have filed unemployment insurance claims in New York during the past five weeks, though the total number of jobs lost during that time may likely be much higher. (Earlier this month, the New York State Department of Labor completely revamped its website and began tackling a backlog of claims that had quickly piled up after the existing system collapsed under an unprecedented crush of applications.) According to the most recent data released by the New York State Department of Labor this week, New York City led all other regions in the state with 521,112 initial unemployment insurance claims submitted during the previous five week.

Among the organizations grappling with this growing need is City Harvest, a New York City-based nonprofit that distributes millions of pounds of excess food from restaurants, grocers and farms through 400 food pantries, soup kitchens and other food assistance programs around the city. As of Monday evening, a spokesperson for City Harvest told Yahoo News that attendance across its nine Mobile Market locations had increased by 30 percent since about mid-March, noting that Weve heard from many new people that they are recently unemployed due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Leslie Gordon, president and CEO of Food Bank for New York City, which is also part of Feeding America, told Yahoo News that many of the local food pantries and community kitchens it works with have similarly reported an extreme uptick in demand largely driven by people who are new to the system. She offered an anecdotal example of one particular partner agency in Jamaica, Queens, which has gone from serving food to about 1,500 people in a typical week to serving upwards of 3,000.

In response to this surge in demand, Gordon said Food Bank for New York City sent out more than 5 million meals across the city in the last month, a considerable uptick from the roughly 3.5 million monthly meals the organization typically distributes. City Harvest is on track to deliver a total of 68 million pounds of food by the end of its fiscal year on June 30, 2 million more pounds than originally projected.

Employees of Food Bank for New York City provide food and other essentials for health care workers. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Food Bank For New York City)

Large food banks like City Harvest and Food Bank for New York City typically rely on their own networks of smaller, community-based agencies to distribute food through assistance programs like soup kitchens and food pantries. But many of these agencies, which rely heavily for volunteers on retirees, who are in the age group that is at heightened risk for coronavirus, or on teams recruited from large businesses that have closed their own offices, have been unable to field enough workers.

This is very different [from] a typical disaster, said Racine Lee Droz, director of food sourcing for City Harvest. Its a pandemic, and people are very afraid of being exposed.

City Harvest works with 284 individual agencies to supply food for 400 soup kitchens and other programs around the city. As of Monday evening, 96 of those agencies, some of which operate multiple programs, had completely shut down. Meanwhile, Food Bank for New York City reported this week that 41 percent of the approximately 1,000 soup kitchens and food pantries it typically serves have either closed their doors or modified their hours during the health crisis.

In response to the closures, City Harvest has partnered with other community organizations to open up 10 new Emergency Food Distribution Sites in high-need neighborhoods. To facilitate social distancing at its Mobile Markets, all food is now prebagged for quick and easy pickup.

Gordon said that Food Bank for New York City has also been adjusting its operations to the new realities of life during this pandemic, enlisting the help of large community organizations to facilitate drive-through meal pickups and seniors-only distribution hours for food, particularly in some of the more high-need neighborhoods where traditional food pantries and soup kitchens have been forced to close. It has also started teaming up with companies like Uber Eats to help deliver groceries door-to-door for more vulnerable populations, like the elderly as well as a small but growing number of pregnant women who, Gordon said, have recently been calling the food pantry to find out what services are available.

This week, Food Bank New York City also launched another partnership with NYC Health + Hospitals to provide food, beverages and hygiene products for frontline health care workers.

As New Yorks long-standing food banks navigate new hurdles to serving more people in need of food, the local government has also taken a number of steps to address concerns about growing numbers of New Yorkers who will face food insecurity as a result of the coronavirus.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio holds a bag of produce packed at a food shelf organized by the Campaign Against Hunger in Brooklyn on April 14. (Scott Heins/Getty Images)

Late last month, shortly after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered the closure of all nonessential businesses  a category that does not include groceries or takeout restaurants  Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Sanitation Department Commissioner Kathryn Garcia to serve as the COVID-19 Food Czar. The city has established a number of its own emergency food programs, including food deliveries for senior citizens and a grab-and-go meal service instituted by the Department of Education after the closure of public schools, which ordinarily offers free meals for all 1.1 million students. Initially intended for children 18 and under, the grab-and-go program has since been expanded to provide meals to anyone who needs one, regardless of age, at 400 sites around the city.

On Wednesday, de Blasio unveiled a new $170 million plan that would employ 11,000 taxi and livery drivers to deliver meals to those who cant leave their homes, provide personal protective equipment to grocery store workers and triple the emergency allocation to purchase food to $75 million.

This is a new normal for us that is going to persist for some time, said Gordon, suggesting that the millions of dollars recently pledged by the mayors office may not go very far because the need is so high.

Wholesale distributors

According to Feeding America, 59 percent of food banks in its network said theyve seen declines in inventory since the start of the coronavirus crisis. However, Droz at City Harvest told Yahoo News that volunteers are responding to hundreds of calls per day for donations. Droz explained that the recent spikes in donations, particularly of fresh food, have come in waves, following the ripple effect of the pandemic across different facets of the food industry.

The first wave was catering companies that were canceling all their events, so all that food was being donated to City Harvest, said Droz. The second wave was restaurants.

Droz told Yahoo News that, typically, restaurants make up about 3 percent of the 66 million pounds of food the organization handles in a typical year. But after New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio issued a ban on dining at bars, cafes and restaurants in mid-March, forcing many businesses to close, Droz said City Harvest saw an initial 10 percent increase in donations from restaurants that were suddenly scrambling to put their surplus of unused food to use.

Now, she said, the latest wave of donations has come from wholesale food distributors, who typically supply the restaurants, hotels, schools and other large-scale food service institutions that are now closed. Droz said that, in recent weeks, City Harvest has received tons of fresh produce from Baldor, a Bronx-based wholesaler that typically supplies food to about 10,000 restaurants, hotels and schools around New York City as well as Boston, Washington, D.C., and several other cities along the East Coast.

Basically, the faucet turned off,said Benjamin Walker, Baldors vice president of sales and marketing, referring to the closures of restaurants, schools, hotels and other food services. As these cities started to shut down, we saw about 85 percent of our [normal] business evaporate.

A sign in the window of the NYC restaurant Jean Claude reads "Due to the coronavirus pandemic we will be closed until further notice. Stay safe!" (Cindy Ord/Getty Images)

Luckily, he continued, the 10 to 15 percent of our business that we do in retail exploded.

Walker said at the same time that Baldors food service clientele was disappearing, the company saw up to 300 percent growth in our retail business.

That kinda kept the lights on for the first, I want to say, two weeks of the pandemic, he said.

But the retail market is much different from the food service market, particularly the kinds of high-end, gourmet restaurants Baldor typically supplies. While grocery stores were placing orders for more basic items like broccoli, cauliflower, onions, potatoes, Walker explained, there was suddenly little demand for the specialty produce like watercress, red sienna kale and baby mustard greens that Baldor had in stock for its regular restaurant customers.

Thats why we had such a surge in donations because ... we still had excess products, said Walker. The company has since made changes to its inventory to better meet the needs of the current market, eliminating many of those specialty items that are no longer in demand.

Now were kind of back to having our feet underneath us, and our donation amounts have gone back to where they used to be pre-COVID.

While the retail surge helped offset the loss of Baldors restaurant customer base, the company still needed another source of revenue to keep running. So, Walker said, probably within 48 to 76 hours after they shut down restaurants, Baldor decided to tackle a completely new business model: home grocery delivery for the general public.

Workers load eggs for packaging at Wilcox Family Farms in Roy, Wash. Eggs are an item that can be hard to find on grocery store shelves during the crisis. (Ted S. Warren/AP)

Never in a million years would we have thought that wed be doing home deliveries right now, said Walker. But they knew there was a market for it, as many of the retail businesses they work with were struggling to keep up with increased demand for deliveries from customers now being ordered to stay at home.

Walker explained that Baldor was somewhat uniquely positioned to take this unfamiliar turn because it already had established an e-commerce site for business customers and had a team of developers on-call who could quickly make necessary changes to the website in order to open up the catalog of products to the general public.

Probably within a week to 10 days, we had more demand than we knew what to do with, he said. Of course, the transition has hardly been a seamless one, as the quantities of food for sale are still larger than most people are used to seeing at the grocery store. We sell 40 pounds of chicken breast; we sell 25 pounds of onions, he said. We sell 12 loaves of bread, not one. The smallest unit of chicken available is 5 pounds.

It's completely different than what were used to, but hey, its what it is right now and we're making the best of it, said Walker.

Over the past few weeks, he said, the company has started to make some slight changes to help better serve its new, if temporary clientele, such as breaking down produce and bringing in some more consumer-friendly items.

Were not quite sure how long were going to be in this business, so were trying not to completely reinvent our catalog, but we are making adjustments daily, Walker said, noting that, while the ultimate goal is a return to business as usual, its unclear when realistically that will happen.

My guess is this is going to be a slow burn, and its going take a long time for especially the New York food community to get back to where it was.

Some of Baldors competitors have also gotten into the home delivery game. For example, Chefs Warehouse, another Bronx-based wholesaler that typically caters to high-end restaurants, is offering nationwide deliveries to the public and has pledged to donate 10 percent of its retail profits to furloughed restaurant workers.

U.S. Foods, a major national wholesale distributor that works with approximately 300,000 restaurants, has been another major donor to City Harvest in recent weeks, In addition to increasing donations to food pantries across the country through Feeding America, U.S. Foods also recently announced new partnerships with several national grocery store chains, wholesale grocers and brands that make consumer packaged goods.

Farmers

While Baldor was able to simply eliminate items like baby mustard greens from its inventory when its restaurant customers stopped ordering, thats not exactly an option for the small farms that specialize in those crops.

These guys cant just turn on broccoli and cauliflower and carrots overnight, said Walker. To support the regional farm economy, Baldor has also begun packaging specialty produce for sale directly to consumers through the Community Supported Agriculture program.

Small specialty farms arent the only ones suffering from drastic changes to the supply chain.

Across the country, farmers are reportedly destroying tens of millions of pounds of fresh vegetables, milk, eggs and other foods that had been destined for sale to schools, restaurants and hotels.

Even as many farms have been working with food banks to give away some of their excess goods, the process of donating such massive quantities of perishable goods poses a number of logistical and financial challenges, both for already-struggling farmers and the overwhelmed charities tasked with storing and distributing before they go bad.

Zucchini and squash were discarded by a farmer in Florida City, Fla. Many South Florida farmers say the pandemic has forced them to throw crops away due to less demand for produce in stores and restaurants. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Nobody wants to see food go to waste, especially at a time when theres increased demand, said Steve Ammerman, public affairs manager for the New York Farm Bureau.

Ammerman said that the recent disruptions to the food supply chain have been particularly problematic for New Yorks dairy industry, the largest component of the states agriculture. Most dairy farmers, he explained, dont have the capacity to process milk themselves, but rather must send the raw product to outside plants to be pasteurized or processed into butter, cheese, yogurt or other products.

Like farmers and wholesalers, processing plants vary in what they are designed to produce based on the type of clients they cater to. As restaurants, schools and other large food service institutions have closed, Ammerman explained, so too have many of the plants that process dairy products for them. Others have sought to reconfigure their production models to serve retail customers, going from [making] pallets of butter you would purchase for a restaurant to the small blocks you would buy in the grocery store, said Ammerman.

Milk pours out of the bulk tank and into a drain at the Azevedo Family Dairy in Buhl, Idaho. Owner Richard Azevedo says 4,100 gallons of milk were dumped that morning. "It's hard to watch that go down the drain," he says. (Pat Sutphin/Times-News via AP)

But the shift hasnt been widespread enough to absorb all the surplus production, leaving few options for dairy farmers, whose cows must be milked every day, regardless of the fluctuations in market demands.

While Ammerman said farmers in New York have traditionally had strong relationships with the states network of food banks, donating millions of pounds each year, the New York Farm Bureau has been working with those organizations to find better, more efficient ways to get fresh produce, including milk and dairy products, from the farmers to the food banks.

Though this effort predates the coronavirus, the disruptions in the food supply caused by the pandemic seem to be exacerbating some of those gaps in the system that Ammerman says must be fixed to eliminate waste and distribute food directly to those who need it most.

In a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the New York Farm Bureau outlined a number of steps that could ease the crisis for farmers, especially dairy farmers. The recommendations include direct payments to farms, bulk purchases of dairy products by the USDA and the creation of a voucher program to facilitate the distribution of donated milk through grocery stores and other venues since some food banks are not geared for highly perishable products.

A sign at a Target store display case in Manhattan during the pandemic. (Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters)

In a joint letter sent to Perdue earlier this week, the American Farm Bureau and Feeding America doubled down on the call for a voucher program that would deepen the relationships between farmers and food banks, allowing them to work directly with one another instead of relying upon third parties and what is sometimes a longer pathway to get food from farms to food bank shelves. The letter described the paradoxical reality in which farmers are currently being forced to throw away tons of unsellable agricultural goods while food banks are under tremendous pressure to meet the skyrocketing demand.

A voucher program, they argue, is an opportunity for USDA to act quickly to produce a win for food banks and a win for farmers as well as a chance for government to serve as a facilitator while clearing bureaucracy and red tape.

A USDA spokesperson did not respond to Yahoo News request for comment on the voucher proposal, though a press release issued Thursday by the American Farm Bureau described the Departments response to the pitch as enthusiastic.

There is a need, said Ammerman. Its really advantageous for everyone to solve this problem.

_____

Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

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From Women's Health

Joe Biden's wife is Dr. Jill Biden, who has a doctorate in education.

She is Joe's second wife; his first wife, Neilia, died in a car accident.

Jill was a teacher for much of her life and gave her highly anticipated Democratic National Convention speech from her former classroom.

Most people are pretty familiar with President Joe Biden, given that he used to be Vice President of the United States and all, but you might not know much about his family, including Joe's wife, Jill Biden.

Their partnership has stood the test of time, over 40 years and counting. And, while Jill isnt in the limelight as much as her husband, shes shared more about her life, her career, her relationship with Biden, their family, and more while helping to campaign for her husband and now as First Lady.

So, who is Jill, other than the current First Lady and former Second Lady of the United States? Heres everything you need to know.

Shes a doctor, TYVM.

Jill isnt a medical doctor, but she has a doctorate in education from the University of Delawarea title she earned in 2007, according to her official White House biography. (She did her dissertation on maximizing student retention in community colleges, btw.)

Jill also has a master's degree in English from Villanova University and a master's degree in reading from West Chester University. She's from Philadelphia originally.

As I prepare to speak at the Democratic National Convention this week, it's hard not to think about where I come from.



Ill always be that girl from Philly. pic.twitter.com/a72lFAO3T9  Dr. Jill Biden (@DrBiden) August 17, 2020

She's been teaching for a long time.

Jill taught English full-time at the Delaware Technical & Community College, her White House biography says. Before that, she was a reading specialist and English teacher for 13 years in public schools. She also worked part-time with the Rockford Psychiatric Hospital Adolescent Program.

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Watch Jill Biden discuss education and mental health while visiting New Hampshire:

She also vowed to continue to teach as First Lady in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning before the election.

"If we get to the White House, Im going to continue to teach. Its important, and I want people to value teachers and know their contributions and lift up their profession," she said.

Jill chose her former classroom as her Democratic National Convention speech location. She shared the update on Twitter: "Teaching is not what I do. It's who I am. I'll be giving my convention speech tonight from my former classroom. Brandywine High School. Room 232."

Teaching is not what I do. It's who I am.



I'll be giving my convention speech tonight from my former classroom.



Brandywine High School. Room 232. pic.twitter.com/NXx1EkqVGq  Dr. Jill Biden (@DrBiden) August 18, 2020

She was married before.

Jill was previously married to a man named Bill Stevenson, who she wed when she was 18 years old, just six months after they met, per The Sun. They divorced in 1975.

Jill is Joes second wife, too.

Joes first wife was his college sweetheart, Neilia Biden. Neilia and the couples 1-year-old daughter, Naomi, were killed just before Christmas in 1972 when a tractor-trailer slammed into their station wagon, per Biography. Bidens sons Beau and Hunter were severely injured in the crash as well, but ended up recovering.

Jill and Joe met on a blind date.

Three years after the death of Joe's wife and daughter, his brother introduced the couple. Jill was still in college and had a very good first impression of Joe. I was a senior, and I had been dating guys in jeans and clogs and T-shirts, he came to the door and he had a sport coat and loafers," she told Vogue. "When we came home . . . he shook my hand good night . . . I went upstairs and called my mother at 1:00 a.m. and said, Mom, I finally met a gentleman.

Joe was a single dad raising his two sons when they met. Jill also helped him move on after the tragedy. "She gave me back my life," Joe wrote in his 2007 memoir Promises to Keep, per O the Oprah Magazine. "She made me start to think my family might be whole again."

Jill reminisced in a recent tweet: "'How did you get this number?' Those were the first words I spoke to Joe when he called me out of the blue on a Saturday in 1975."

"How did you get this number?"



Those were the first words I spoke to Joe when he called me out of the blue on a Saturday in 1975.



Ill be speaking tonight at the #DemConvention. I hope youll tune in! pic.twitter.com/t0amDEM2kT  Dr. Jill Biden (@DrBiden) August 18, 2020

She gives great advice.

Jill did her first interview as First Lady on Kelly Clarksons talk show, and offered up some really great advice on navigating divorce.

"I want to tell you, Kelly, I mean, this is what I would say to you if I were your mother," she said. "You know, my mother always said to me, 'Things are going to look better to tomorrow,' and if you can take one day at a time, and things will get better.

She continued, I look back on it now, and I think, you know, if I hadnt gotten divorced, I never wouldve met Joe. I wouldnt have the beautiful family I have now. So I really think things happen for the best. And I think, Kelly, over timeI dont know how long its been for youbut I think over time, you heal, and youre going to be surprised. I cant wait until that day comes for you, and youre going to call me up, and youre going to say, 'Hey Jill, you were right!'"

She has five grandchildren.

Jill is mom to Ashley, a social worker, Hunter, a lawyer, and Beau, who was Delawares Attorney General. Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, sparking the Biden Cancer Initiative, which Jill and Joe co-founded.

Now, Joe and Jill are grandparents to five grandchildren: Naomi, Finnegan, Maisy, Natalie, and Hunter.

Jill shot down Joe's marriage proposal more than once.

Joe proposed to Jill five different times before she agreed to marry him, according to Vogue. "I said, 'Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.' Because by that time, of course, I had fallen in love with the boys, and I really felt that this marriage had to work," Jill said. "Because they had lost their mom, and I couldnt have them lose another mother. So I had to be 100-percent sure."

Joe chimed in and said that he actually gave Jill this ultimatum: "'Look, this is the last time Im asking you. I dont care when we get married. But I want a commitment.' And she said okay. But it took that!"

She married him in 1977 in New York City. The couple had a small ceremony with 40 family and friends at the United Nations chapel followed by a lunch reception.

After their wedding, Joe and Jill honeymooned as a family with his two sons, Vogue reported.

She continued to teach while she was Second Lady.

According to her official White House profile, Jill was really busy when her husband was vice president. "As Second Lady of the United States, Dr. Jill Biden works to bring attention to the sacrifices made by military families, to highlight the importance of community colleges to Americas future, and to raise awareness around areas of particular importance to women including breast cancer prevention, all while continuing to teach English full-time at a community college in nearby Virginia," her bio reads.

Joe is still crazy in love with her.

In the same profile for CBS Sunday Morning, Joe said that he was still madly in love with his wife: "I adore her. Im gonna sound so stupid, I was saying the other day, when she comes down the steps and I look at her my heart still skips a beat."

He also shared a sweet message to Jilly and a photo on Instagram. He wrote: "Happy Valentines Day, Jilly. You're the love of my life and the life of my love."

Joe turns to Jill for advice, and she supports him on the campaign trail.

"What Jill is best at helping me do is figure out who the people around me would be most compatible with me," he said in the CBS profile. "She knows me better than I know me."

And Jill said that they also discussed his vice presidential candidate together. "Weve talked about the different women candidates, but its gotta be Joes decision," she said. "Who he feels most comfortable with, who shares his values. And thats what hes always said thats what he and Barack had." (Of course, ultimately, Joe chose Kamala Harris as his running mate.)

Jill is an avid runner.

She loves running and loves talking about it, too. Jill started running in the early 1990s when she participated in a Komen Race for the Cure around age 40. Ideally, her weekly workout routine includes five five-mile runs each week, she told Runner's World in 2010. Jill sticks to a nine to 10-minute mile pace and also adds in some strength training.

Jill finished the 1998 Marine Corps Marathon and has done several half-marathons and 10-mile races.

Jill kept up her running as Second Lady, with a couple adjustments. "I usually have someone ahead of me and someone behind me," Jill told the publication. "I just say to them, 'I need to pretend youre not here,' because I love to run by myself, and theyre pretty respectful of that."

She's also passionate about community colleges.

Jills White House bio says that she see community colleges as "one of Americas best-kept secrets." In 2012, she traveled across the country as part of the "Community College to Career" tour to showcase successful partnerships between community colleges and employers. She also hosted the first-ever White House Summit on Community Colleges with then-president Barack Obama in 2010. During her husbands time in office, Jill frequently visited campuses and met with students, teachers, and industry representatives, her bio says.

Jill wrote a children's book about Joe.

Dr. Biden also recently wrote a childrens book about her husband's childhood, Joey: The Story of Joe Biden.

"He had to overcome a lot of hardship; he was bullied as a child, and so he knows what it feels for other kids to be bullied," she said in the CBS profile. "He stood up to the bullies, and he stood up to the bullies who bullied other kids, so I think that he's resilient. I want people to know that he's empathetic because of what he's been through in life, and that he's a leader, of course."

She gets to the point.

Jill regularly posts on Instagram, and she keeps her captions short, sweet, and to the point. Evidence:

Shes an advocate for military families.

Jill is a military momBeau Biden served in the military for several years. Jill is so supportive of military families that she and then-First Lady Michelle Obama launched a nationwide campaign called Joining Forces in 2011 to help war vets and military spouses find career opportunities.

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LUDHIANA: Assistant commissioner of police (ACP, north) Anil Kumar Kohli, 52, died of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in Ludhiana on Saturday afternoon, taking the Covid-19 toll in Punjab to 16.

He was admitted to the Satguru Partap Singh (SPS) Hospital after he tested positive on April 13.

Hospital sources said he died due to multiple organ failure before the plasma therapy could be administered.

This is the second Covid-19 death in Ludhiana in the past two days and the fifth since the pandemic struck.

On Friday, a revenue official (kanungo), Gurmel Singh, died of coronavirus infection.

Kohlis wife, who also tested positive, is undergoing treatment at the hospital.

Four officials, who were in contact with the ACP before he was diagnosed with Covid-19, are also hospitalised after they tested positive. They are sub inspector Arshpreet Kaur, driver Prabhjot Singh, assistant sub inspector Sukhdev Singh and district mandi officer Jasbir Kaur.
The Jalpaiguri correctional facility houses around 750 prisoners in eight wards and of them, 50-60 inmates are protesting, citing a Supreme Court directive, officials said.

Jalpaiguri: A section of inmates at the Jalpaiguri correctional home in West Bengal started violent protests on Saturday, demanding that they be granted bail in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, officials said.

The correctional facility houses around 750 prisoners in eight wards and of them, 50-60 inmates are protesting, citing a Supreme Court directive, they said.

On 23 March, the Supreme Court had directed all states and Union Territories to constitute high-level committees to consider releasing on parole or interim bail prisoners and undertrials for offences entailing up to seven-year jail term to decongest prisons in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Police personnel are trying to enter the main prison area, the gate of which has been shut by the inmates from inside, said Chief Disciplinary Officer Ashim Acharya. They are throwing stones from inside but no one has been injured till now, he said.

Jail authorities earlier tried to persuade the prisoners but they continued with the protests, officials said, adding that they have been provided masks and sanitisers. Officials said police personnel have been deployed along the periphery of the facility to prevent any attempts of jailbreak.

Around 2,000 undertrial prisoners and convicts have been released on bail and parole from various jails in the state, following the Supreme Court directive.

Last month, clashes broke out at the Dumdum Correctional Home near Kolkata over the state government's decision not to allow the inmates to meet their families due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The Sullane river in the Macroom area is on an Irish Water watch list for possible elevated levels of pesticide in the water supply, a spokesperson for the company has confirmed.

While the contamination is not a matter for concern in the terms of public health, Irish Water has discovered high levels of glysophate in the Macroom water supply.

In response to a query from The Corkman, Irish Water confirmed "The Macroom water supply is on the watch list for Glyphosate.

"An exceedance for Glyphosate under the Drinking Water Regulations is anything above 0.10g/l. The Macroom supply is being monitored closely, and exceedances have been detected as follows:

"In 2017, a level of 0.456g/l was detected in May and 0.136g/l detected in August.

"In 2018 a level of 0.13g/l was detected in September.

"In 2019, a level of 0.152g/l was detected in July.

"Irish Water has engaged with organisations in the Macroom area and notes that Glysophate levels have improved since 2017.

"We would ask users of pesticide products in the Sullane River catchment to continue to consider the vulnerability of the Macroom drinking water supply to pesticide contamination and the importance of this supply to the local community.

"The pesticide levels detected in these water supplies do not pose any immediate risk to health, but it is imperative that users of pesticides in these areas are mindful of best practice when spraying their lands."

Deirdre O'Loughlin, Irish Water's Regional Drinking Water Compliance Specialist, said providing safe and clean drinking water was the organisation's first priority.

"We are asking everyone to continue to be mindful to protect the water bodies," she said.
Police did not identify the man or say how he died. Anyone with information is asked to call Prince Georges Crime Solvers at 1-866-411-TIPS.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky declares that every step on the path to settlement of the situation in Donbas is a small victory, but a great result will be achieved when Ukraine returns its entire territory.

"If to speak honestly and without fanfare: for us, each of these steps is a victory. A small victory. But we want to see a result, a great result. We will have the great result when we return our territories, when troops of the illegal armed formations are withdrawn, we definitely control our border with the Russian Federation and the elections are definitely held there, Zelensky said during the talk show Freedom of Speech by Savik Shuster.

The President assured that the most important thing for him was the withdrawal of the enemy troops and Ukraines entering those territories: "if we enter, we will immediately bring our people back to life. Then, according to him, the control over the border will be gained and the elections will be held.

"Although everyone is talking about local elections and I understand that it is very important, but it is, first and foremost, important to gain our territory back," Zelensky stressed.

As reported, the Ukrainian authorities announced plans to hold local elections in October 2020 throughout Ukraine, including the occupied areas of Donbas.

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Residents of River House Condominiums in Grand Rapids wave flags and signs of thanks for healthcare workers on Thursday, April 9, 2020. (Anntaninna Biondo | MLive.com)

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Amid a global pandemic, Grand Rapids residents are still finding unique ways to show support for those on the front lines.

Residences around Spectrum Health Blodgett Hospital in East Grand Rapids have kept signs on their lawns thanking healthcare workers

At the River House Condominiums in Downtown Grand Rapids, people wave American flags on their balconies every day beginning at 5:30 p.m. They try to catch the nearby hospital workers during shift changes.

In addition, some have shown up and held signs with supporting messages at times, dating back to the first cases of coronavirus in Michigan.

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Some homes around Blodgett Hospital display signs of thanks and support for healthcare workers in East Grand Rapids on Sunday, March 29, 2020. (Anntaninna Biondo | MLive.com)

As of Thursday, Kent County had 385 total COVID-19 cases. The county had the sixth-most cases of counties in the state, but is far behind several counties in Southeast Michigan.

The coronavirus an infectious respiratory disease that led to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's "stay-at-home" order and has afflicted more than 29,000 people statewide.

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Supporters of healthcare workers hold up signs, including one with the message "A very big thank you," near a Spectrum Health hospital in Grand Rapids during the coronavirus pandemic. (Contributed by Taylor Ballek | Spectrum Health Beat)

For more about coronavirus, read MLive's coverage here.

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Every day at 5:30 p.m. residents of River House Condominiums in Grand Rapids wave flags and signs of thanks for healthcare workers. (Anntaninna Biondo | MLive.com)

Related coverage:

Michigan's coronavirus survivors describe battle to stay alive

West Michigan fishermen challenge Gov. Whitmer's stay-at-home order

Medical experts say Michigan's coronavirus death count isn't accurate

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Some homes around Blodgett Hospital display signs of thanks and support for healthcare workers in East Grand Rapids on Sunday, March 29, 2020. (Anntaninna Biondo | MLive.com)

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Dan and Kate Miller hold signs in support of hospital workers near Spectrum Health's Butterworth Hospital and the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital during the coronavirus pandemic. (Contributed by Taylor Ballek | Spectrum Health Beat)

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Residents of River House Condominiums in Grand Rapids wave American flags to thank healthcare workers during the coronavirus pandemic. (Anntaninna Biondo | MLive.com)

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Some homes around Blodgett Hospital display signs of thanks and support for healthcare workers in East Grand Rapids on Sunday, March 29, 2020. (Anntaninna Biondo | MLive.com)

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Residents of River House Condominiums in Grand Rapids wave flags and signs of thanks for healthcare workers on Thursday, April 9, 2020. (Anntaninna Biondo | MLive.com)

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Spectrum Health employees wave and acknowledge the people holding signs in support of their work during the pandemic near Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids. (Contributed by Taylor Ballek | Spectrum Health Beat)

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Residents of River House Condominiums in Grand Rapids wave flags and signs of thanks for healthcare workers on Thursday, April 9, 2020. (Anntaninna Biondo | MLive.com)

Don't Edit

Some homes around Blodgett Hospital display signs of thanks and support for healthcare workers in East Grand Rapids on Sunday, March 29, 2020. (Anntaninna Biondo | MLive.com)

Don't Edit

Residents of River House Condominiums in Grand Rapids wave flags and signs of thanks for healthcare workers on Thursday, April 9, 2020. (Anntaninna Biondo | MLive.com)
A handful of Virginians joined a growing chorus of residents in the United States protesting their states' lockdown orders under the novel coronavirus pandemic.

A few dozen protesters gathered at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond on Thursday afternoon, with photos showing one woman holding a sign reading, "End the shutdown" and another reading "We will not comply."

While that demonstration was small in size, it is part of a larger movement in the country -- one that has seemingly evoked a strong response from President Donald Trump.

On Friday morning, Trump called to "liberate" three states -- Virginia, Minnesota and Michigan -- that experienced protests. However, less than 24 hours earlier, Trump had said governors would be "empowered" to come up with their own plan for reopening.

The Virginia protest was organized by ReOpen Virginia, End The Lockdown VA and Virginians Against Excessive Quarantine, all of which have pushed back on the government's decision to close nonessential businesses.

Government mandating sick people to stay home is called quarantine. However, the government mandating healthy citizens to stay home, forcing businesses and churches to close is called tyranny, Reopen Virginia said in a statement to ABC Richmond affiliate WRIC.

PHOTO: Demonstrators stand outside of the Virginia State Capitol, April 16, 2020, in Richmond, Va., to protest continuing Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's stay at home order during the coronavirus pandemic. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

In Michigan, hundreds of residents gathered in the city of Lansing on Wednesday to protest their stay-at-home orders and call on officials to reopen businesses. In Kentucky, protesters have interrupted Gov. Andy Beshear's daily briefings on COVID-19. In Minnesota, protestors took to Gov. Tim Walz's home to condemn the orders.

Demonstrations also took place in Utah, North Carolina and Ohio this week, and more are planned for the coming days, including in Oregon, Idaho and Texas, according to Reuters.

Trump has responded to the protests, saying that "it's been a tough process for people."

"You know, I told you, theres death and theres problems and staying at home too. It's not just, isnt it wonderful to stay at home," Trump told ABC News' Chief White House Correspondent Jon Karl on Thursday.

Story continues

Some sort of lockdown has been adopted in most U.S. states as the virus continues to spread at a rapid pace. Most governors adopted such measures to curb the spread and fatalities.

There are at least 672,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Experts have warned that number could be much higher because of sparse testing early on in the pandemic. At least 33,000 people have died in the country, according to the data.

The protest in Michigan appears to have been the largest the country has so far seen. It also seemed to strike a partisan tone. The Michigan Conservative Coalition organized the protest, in addition to other groups, and some of the protesters wore red "Make America Great Again" hats and T-shirts that supported Trump.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said on "Good Morning America" that shutting the state down was not an easy decision, but it was necessary.

"My job is to protect the people of Michigan, and that's precisely what I'm doing with each of these orders. They weigh heavily on me," Whitmer said.

PHOTO: People protest against the coronavirus quarantine orders at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Mich., April 15, 2020. (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)

"There's a price that's paid and I know that there are a lot of businesses and people that are hurting right now, but the fact of the matter is it's better to be six feet apart than six feet under and that is the whole point of this," she continued. "We've got to save lives. Every life matters."

The decision to reopen states, for the most part, is now up to the governors.

"Governors will be empowered to tailor an approach that meets the diverse circumstances of their own states. Every state is very different," Trump said in a White House briefing. "Theyre all beautiful, we love them all, but theyre very, very different."

By Friday morning, Trump appeared to strike a different tone in three separate tweets: "LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" and "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!" the president tweeted.

LIBERATE MINNESOTA!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020

LIBERATE MICHIGAN!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020

LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020

This report was featured in the Monday, April 20, 2020, episode of Start Here, ABC News daily news podcast.

"Start Here" offers a straightforward look at the day's top stories in 20 minutes. Listen for free every weekday on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, the ABC News app or wherever you get your podcasts.

What to know about Coronavirus:

How it started and how to protect yourself: Coronavirus explained

What to do if you have symptoms: Coronavirus symptoms

Tracking the spread in the US and Worldwide: Coronavirus map

ABC News' Bill Hutchinson, Ben Gittleson and Mariam Khan contributed to this report.

Trump tweets to 'liberate' some states, as Virginia joins growing list with protests to stay-at-home orders originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Researchers from Oregon State University are embarking on a groundbreaking effort to identify how widespread the coronavirus is in Corvallis, especially among residents who might not have symptoms of the virus, campus officials announced this week.

The project, called Team-based Rapid Assessment of Community-Level Coronavirus Epidemics, or TRACE-COVID-19 for short, will start this weekend and run through May 16, with a goal of testing nearly 1,000 Corvallis residents, said Ben Dalziel, an assistant professor in the universitys College of Science.

Testing nationally and locally has been focused on those with symptoms, but its likely that some people who carry the virus display no symptoms, and they may have been inadvertently involved in spreading the disease without having known that they had the virus, Dalziel said in a statement.

Trained field staff will fan out across Corvallis, visiting homes that were randomly selected to provide a representative sample of the citys population of more than 58,000. Residents will be invited to participate and, if they do, researchers will provide them with a short questionnaire and test kit which they can self-administer inside their home.

Staff plan to observe physical distancing protocols, officials said, waiting outside participants homes to retrieve the completed tests.

Completed tests will be sent to the Willamette Valley Toxicology lab, with results emailed to participants within seven to 10 days.

The project takes on extra significance as state officials weigh when and how to ease distancing restrictions, said Charlie Fautin, Benton County health administrator.

So far, 27 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Benton County, and four of those people have died, according to state public health officials.

The TRACE study will provide critical information about the spread of the disease in the community, how the epidemic is changing over time and measure how public health recommendations throughout Oregon are working, Fautin said. Importantly, this study also will help inform us as to how many people, who have no symptoms of an illness at all, may not realize that they have been infected and may have been able to transmit the disease to others, including family members, friends, co-workers and neighbors.

The effort is a collaboration between the university and county health officials, with funding help through a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Though Oregon health officials have increased their testing capacity, availability has remained limited and the focus has been on testing patients with severe cases of the disease. That leaves many potentially vulnerable residents in danger of coming in contact with people who may carry the illness, but who have no symptoms, Dalziel said.

We are flying blind in many ways because we do not know how many people are infected with the virus and how that is changing over time, he said. Without this knowledge, it is much more difficult to implement effective control measures and to forecast the spread of the disease. Right now, we are managing the pandemic mostly looking in the rearview mirror. We need to be looking forward, and thats what this study will help allow.

-- Kale Williams; kwilliams@oregonian.com; 503-294-4048; @sfkale

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
This week, I woke up to one story making headlines on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) blog, the Ghanaian media and most other forms of electronic media. I must acknowledge that before I learnt about this story from the above-listed sources, my very good friend in the United Kingdom had forwarded links to the story to me.



A few minutes after, my very big sister and an outstanding Barrister at a Law firm (name withheld) and a Professional in the Ethics & Compliance Fraternity, for which I belong; had led me to the story, knowing it will be of great interest and importance to me.



Indeed, I acknowledged receipt of the information and, upon reading a few lines into the post, iterated my interest in the case. Yes, this is a case involving the U.S Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for which I preach and enforce at the workplace as an Ethics & Compliance practitioner.



Just when I had commented, my conscience quickly got me to look for the full article to read further to understand the issues. It was at this point that I comprehended how the story had all been taken out of context. It was the judgement day for the accused with commentators conclusively accusing the accused of the commission of various alleged infractions.



At this point, I remembered it is easy for someone to take sides when they only know one side of a story. I again remembered just because I am presented with one version doesn't make it the whole truth and that if I am unwilling to know the other side, I should not be so quick to make a judgement on what I have seen or heard.



Just when these thoughts kept running, I quickly went back to comment on the fact that it will be interesting to know the responses this accused person comes up with so as to enable me objectively present my thoughts and comments on the issue. Until then, all comments are speculative only and not based on full facts of the matter; I told myself.



In order to make my statements crystal clear and not leave readers perplexed about the identity of this accused person, I am referring to the immediate past Managing Director of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) Asante Berko who tendered his resignation to the President of the Republic of Ghana, H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo following bribery allegations by the US FCPA against him.



A press release issued on Monday, April 13, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the US charged Mr. Asante Berko with orchestrating a bribery scheme to help a client win a contract to build and operate a power plant in Ghana.



On the account of the comments and reportage by individuals and some media outlets, it was as though all allegations were factual and true. Well, I am in no way claiming the story is false neither am I confirming its actuality. Let me be quick to add that I have no personal relationship with the accused but I was disappointed in how disappointed some commentators alike were and the fact that they have lost interest in the accused upon seeing the one-sided story.



Comments like "the glitter never was gold", "I lost interest in him", "looks like he did what some entrepreneurs have been doing in Ghana", "so who passes the litmus test?", "criminals in suit" and the likes kept running down on one post. The other comments on radio discussions are equally undesirable.



At this point, I kept wondering whether the story was a court judgement or an initial accusation for which the accused was entitled to responses and possibly proof and/or confirmation of the accusations.



Well, at this point, I can confirm they are mere allegations and not a final determination and therefore, those backlashes were unwarranted. It was not until long that the accused issued a statement to debunk allegations levelled against him even though it is not enough to settle on the mere statement as the new truth.



The lesson drawn and being preached here now does not be quick to jump on the news until its substantiated. In as much as I hate and frown upon corruption knowing its adverse effect on the world economy, steps will however always be taken to ensure an accused is indeed guilty before pronouncing their crucifixion. I will only be disappointed in him if he is guilty.



Position yourself at an angle from the other side before getting disappointed for nothing. Remember there are two sides to every story. If you're not willing to listen to both sides, don't be so quick to make a judgement on what you have heard. In all of these, it is our level of maturity that gets exposed!



It is better full than half; don't settle for less!



A lovely weekend to you all!

Source: Mavis Asante Appiah/Law/Ethics & Compliance Professional









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.

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The Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala



Rural Development Project (SKDRDP) has donated Rs five crore to the PM-CARES Fund to fight against COVID-19.

According to SKDRDP executive director L H Manjunath, the amount has been transferred to the PM-Cares Fund.

Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala dharmadhikari D Veerendra Heggade asked all self-help group members under the project, to maintain discipline and adhere to the guidelines issued by the government.

Meanwhile, Udupi Admar mutt and mutt-owned educational institutions donated Rs 55,55,555 to PM-CARES Fund to fight the coronavirus pandemic in the country.

The donation was handed over by mutt chief Swami Vishwapriya Teertha and Paryaya seer Swami Ishapriya Teertha to Udupi-Chikkamagaluru MP Shobha Karandlaje on Friday.

Udupi district deputy commissioner G Jagadeesha and Udupi MLA Raghupathi Bhat were also present.

"Everyone should come together to support the relief work undertaken by our Prime Minister. We pray that India becomes the first COVID-19 free country in the world," Vishwapriya Teertha said in his message.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Beijing: China has dispatched three lakh more Rapid Antibody Test kits being used for quick detection of the COVID-19 to India, the Indian envoy said on Saturday (April 18).

About three lakh Rapid Antibody Test kits were airlifted to Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu from the Chinese city of Guangzhou, Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri said.

"Nearly 3 Lakh Rapid Antibody Tests have just been airlifted by @airindiain from #Guangzhou | Supplies are headed to Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. Great work on ground by our team at @cgiguangzhou?" Misri tweeted.

This is in addition to 6.50 lakh Antibody Tests and RNA Extraction Kits sent from here.

India is procuring the medical supplies from China in recent weeks to ensure availability of adequate supplies.
By Byron Kaye and Colin Packham

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australians were strongly urged to sign up for a controversial mobile phone app that will track their movements as officials warned on Friday that public life could be constrained for another year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said downloading the smartphone software, which has been criticised by civil liberties groups as an invasion of privacy, would initially be voluntary.

However, he declined to rule out making use of the "TraceTogether" app compulsory, stressing the ability to detect potential new outbreaks would be a key part of giving officials the confidence to begin winding back strict "social distancing" measures.

"I will be calling on Australians to do it, frankly, as a matter of national service," Morrison told radio station Triple M. "This would be something they might not normally do in an ordinary time, but this is not an ordinary time. If you download this app, youll be helping to save someone's life."

The government is planning to roll out the app within the next two weeks after finalising legal issues around privacy, Morrison said.

Australia has so far avoided the high numbers of coronavirus casualties reported around the world after closing its borders and imposing restrictions on public movement.

Restaurants, bars and other "non-essential" businesses have closed and public gatherings of more than two people are banned under the threat of fines and even prison, measures that are expected to double the unemployment rate by mid-year.

The daily growth rate of reported new infections has steadied in the low percentage single digits, or fewer than 50 per day, from about 25% several weeks ago. The country's most populous states reported 43 new cases on Friday, taking the total to 6,522, while the death toll rose by two to 65.

Morrison said this week that all social distancing measures will remain in place for at least another four weeks, and some would likely remain for up to a year.

Story continues

Any easing of the current limitations would not occur until Australia had increased testing capacity, strengthened contact tracing and readied local responses for further outbreaks, he said.

The smartphone app would be key to improving contact tracing by detecting whether people had spent more than 15 minutes with others who may have been infected.

Australia's Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said at least 40% of people would need to be signed up to make it effective.

The TraceTogether app has been available in Singapore since March 20, but its success has been limited with less than one in five downloading the app, the city state's government said earlier this month.

SCHOOL'S OUT

Officials in the country's most populous state, New South Wales, on Thursday said they were considering imposing an ongoing roster system for children to return to school after the current Easter vacation.

Schools have been a source of division between the federal government, which has urged them to reopen, and the states and territories, which are responsible for their governance. Morrison has cited data showing the low risk of transmission posed by children, while state officials are dealing with a backlash from parents and teachers concerned about exposure to the virus.

"We are considering our options around a rostering system which will have some students go back on a particular day to increase that level of face-to-face," New South Wales (NSW) Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters. "The alternative is that unfortunately students could face up to a year or longer at home and we don't think that's appropriate."

For universities, which rely on fees from international students, the international border closure could cost them as much as A$19 billion ($12.09 billion), Victoria University said in an analysis released on Friday, forecasting a further A$38 billion hit to the broader economy.

In the neighbouring Pacific islands, Papua New Guinea Prime (PNG) Minister James Marape said he has been tested for COVID-19 after exposure to an infected employee at the country's emergency operations centre.

PNG has also introduced lockdown measures, including a nightly curfew, a ban on all public gatherings, the closure of public transport and the prohibition of the sale of alcohol, Marape said in an emailed statement.

($1 = 1.5713 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Byron Kaye and Colin Packham; Editing by Jane Wardell)
Leading cement makers Ambuja Cements, ACC, ICC, India Cements and JK Lakshmi Cement would start manufacturing in phased manner from April 20 and are in discussion with the relevant government authorities.

The cement makers in their regulatory filings have said they would abide by the standard operating procedure (SOP) for social distancing mandated by the government.

The cement manufacturers had temporarily halted the manufacturing activity at their plants across India, after the government had announced lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

The move comes after the government, in its new guidelines on April 15, allowed functioning of industrial units located in rural areas from April 20 while observing strict social distancing norms.

"We would like to inform that the company shall resume operations, from April 20, 2020, in a phased manner, subject to requisite permissions, other relevant considerations and in accordance with the guidelines," said ACC in a regulatory filing.

The company is taking all necessary steps to adhere to the "SOP for social distancing provided by MHA and continues to work to safeguard the interests of its employees, workers and other stakeholders in our plant locations and offices", it added.

India Cements said, "The company is in the process of obtaining the requisite approvals from the respective state governments and other appropriate authorities for resuming the operations of its plants at various locations, in a phased manner."



Meanwhile, JK Lakshmi Cement's grinding units at Kalol and Surat have become partially operational on the basis of permission received from the Government of Gujarat.

The firm, which is part of JK Organisation, is also seeking necessary approvals for resuming operations at our various plant locations, it added.

While Ambuja Cements also told the exchanges that the company would start production from April 20 and it is in discussion with the government authorities for necessary approvals.

JK Cement has made its manufacturing facilities in Karnataka "partially operational" after receiving permission from the state government.

"Moreover, production at our manufacturing facilities situated in UP is being commenced shortly, in terms of permission issued by the government on April 16," it said adding that it is seeking necessary approval from authorities for resumption of production facilities situated in Rajasthan, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh.

Shree Cement said, "We will resume our operations at different production facilities in full compliance to the conditions of operation as have been/may be stipulated in permissions/approvals."



In fresh guidelines on Wednesday for enforcing the second phase of the coronavirus lockdown, the government barred all kinds of public transport and prohibited opening of public places till May 3.

However, it allowed functioning of industrial units located in rural areas from April 20 while observing strict social distancing norms.

According to the Cement Manufacturers Association (CMA), the total installed capacity in the Indian cement sector is about 500 million tonnes per annum.

The Indian cement sector accounts for over 7 per cent of the global installed capacity and is the second-largest cement industry in the world, after China.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Dogs Trust, Ireland's largest dog welfare charity, understands that frontline workers may be concerned about their own capacity to look after their dogs as their workloads increase due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

To help alleviate any worry they may have that their dog might not be receiving their usual levels of exercise and human interaction, the charity is offering essential workers a free "Dogs Trust Frontline Foster Care" card which will allow them to sign up to a special temporary fostering programme that they can avail of at any time during this unprecedented pandemic.

Nurse Annie Mathews said: "This is a fantastic initiative for frontline workers like me, its a relief to know this service is available and that my dog would be well looked after for a few weeks if I need it."

The charity has adapted their current Canine Care Card to be able to help people on the frontline, especially those who are worried about looking after their dogs while they carry out their essential and in some cases life-saving roles.

Becky Bristow, Executive Director, Dogs Trust Ireland said: "Its so important at a time like this, that we all pull together. Many people are at home right now and want to be able to support frontline workers in some way.

"The amount of offers we have received to foster dogs has been truly uplifting for us in these worrying times and we are delighted to now expand our teams services to assist essential workers.

"We want to help lighten the load of Irelands frontline workers who are facing one of the biggest challenges of our lifetime.

"They are doing everything they can to keep us safe, healthy and food and supplies on shelves so its the least we can do to take some pressure off them by offering to care for their dogs."

If you are an essential worker and need your dog fostered for a period of two weeks or more, please sign up to receive a Dogs Trust Frontline Foster Care card at www.DogsTrust.ie/Frontline.
As many as 21 samples came out negative for coronavirus here, a district official said on Saturday.

With this, 257 samples have tested negative out of a total of 262 with five positive cases so far in the district, Additional District Magistrate Alok Kumar told reporters here.

The ADM said five people from the district have tested positive till now while two residents of the district currently in Delhi and Noida have also tested positive. He said 3,736 people were quarantined in different places in the district for precautionary measures.

Meanwhile, Muzaffarnagar Senior Superintendent of Police Abhishek Yadav said 2,778 people have been booked for violation of lockdown restrictions in the district till now. Police has registered 606 cases against 2,778 people while 14,370 vehicle owners were fined for coming out on to the roads violating the lockdown so far.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 11:18:21|Editor: huaxia

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JOHANNESBURG, April 17 (Xinhua) -- South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday night said alcohol sale ban will remain in place during the COVID-19 lockdown, since liquor is "in fact considered a hindrance to the fight against the coronavirus."

Ramaphosa was responding to the Gauteng Liquor Forum, which threatened to take his government to the Constitutional Court if the ban on alcohol sale is not reversed.

The president "has carefully considered the representations made by the Gauteng Liquor Forum," Ramaphosa's spokesperson Khusela Diko said in a statement.

"As such, alcohol is not considered an essential good or item. It is in fact considered a hindrance to the fight against the coronavirus," said Diko.

There are proven links between the sale and consumption of alcohol and violent crime, motor vehicle accidents and other medical emergencies, she said. And the country is now "at a time when all private and public resources should be preparing to receive and treat the vast number of COVID-19 patients."

The spokesperson added that the forum's proposal is not echoed by others in the industry, but "the president and government as a whole remain committed to financially supporting businesses in distress during this period." Enditem
The first wave of 17,000 computers to help students access online learning during the coronavirus shutdown should hit school districts by mid-May.

Ansonia, Bridgeport, Danbury, Derby, Hamden, Naugatuck, New Haven, Norwalk, Stamford and West Haven are among districts that will see some or all of their high school computer needs met.

There will be a second and third wave scheduled, one in June and one in July, state officials confirmed on Friday.

The first round of computers is devoted to shipping sites where fewer than 60 percent of high school students have 1:1 devices. Schools where more than 60 percent of students are reported to have home computers will get their tech in later rounds.

The computers come from the Partnership for Connecticut which promised to provide the states 33 most needy school districts with up to 60,000 laptops when instruction was moved from the classroom to remote home learning in mid-March due to the coronavirus.

The Governors Learn from Home Task Force determined a week ago that the delivery of the Dell computers, together valued at $24 million, would be staggered based on the ability to secure 60,000 laptops in the middle of a pandemic.

Nearly half of all laptops delivered in Round 1 will get delivered to four major cities: Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven and Waterbury  roughly 2,000 each.

Sites with fewer than 200 total students will receive their full shipment in Round 1. That includes schools like Bridgeport Learning Center, the Alternative Learning Center for Excellence in Danbury and Hamden Collaborative Learning Center.

Sites requesting more than 200 laptops will receive nearly 40 percent of their original request in Round 1 with completion of their requests in Rounds 2 and 3.

In Ansonia, for example, 557 computers were requested in total. In Bridgeport, 5,100 computers were requested in all. In Danbury, 3,388; in Derby, 324; in Hamden, 1,632; in Naugatuck, 1,268; in New Haven, 5,729; in Norwalk, 1575; in Stamford, 4,795; and West Haven, 1,593.

In Bridgeport, Acting Schools Superintendent Michael Testani said he is grateful for what he called a generation donation to the district.

These devices will provide our students with so many learning opportunities, Testani said.

On Thursday, Testani assured members of his school board that there will be mechanisms in place to track the devices, which will be district property, when they are handed over to families.

In addition, Alliance Districts are getting Scholastic book packs starting around April 23 for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

lclambeck@ctpost.com; twitter/lclambeck
Here are 8 things you President Buharis late chief of staff, Abba Kyari.

1- Kyari worked for the law firm Fani-Kayode and Sowemimo for some time after his return to Nigeria.

2- From 1988 to 1990, he was Editor with the New Africa Holdings Limited Kaduna.

3- In 1990, he served as a Commissioner for Forestry and Animal Resources in Borno State.

4- From 1990 to 1995, Kyari was the secretary to the board of African International Bank Limited, a subsidiary of Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

5- Kyari was an executive director in charge of management services at the United Bank for Africa, and was later appointed the chief executive officer.

6- In 2002, he was appointed a board director of Unilever Nigeria, and later served on the board of Exxon Mobil Nigeria.

7- In August 2015, Kyari was appointed Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari

8  Kyari was married to the sister-in-law of Ibrahim Tahir, and has four children.

On March 24, 2020, it was made public that Kyari tested positive for COVID-19 on March 23, following an official trip to Germany nine days before.

It was also reported that Kyari has underlying medical conditions and was secretly flown out of the country. He later rejected these claims, and was moved from Abuja to Lagos.[10] .

He died on Friday 17th April, 2020 as a result of the virus.

The federal government announced that he will be buried almost immediately.

Post Views: 8
Oregon could consider relaxing social distancing measures by May 25, a week later than other West Coast states, according to first-of-their-kind projections from University of Washington researchers.

But those projections assumes that by then Oregon will have implemented a strategy to test, track and isolate coronavirus carriers and that a tiny number of active cases will remain  one in every 1 million residents.

The estimates being used by state health officials expect more than 2,000 infections will remain by May 22, far higher than one-in-a-million.

Here are more developments to know this weekend:

BUSINESS: Oregon businesses received 18,732 paycheck protection loans through the federal CARES Act. Those businesses will receive $3.8 billion, an average loan size of just over $200,000.

RESPONSE: Oregons legislative Emergency Board, which has the power to allocate state funds when the Legislature is not in session, is expected to consider allocating millions to the states coronavirus response next week.

Gov. Kate Brown issued an order Friday afternoon preventing creditors or debt collectors from seizing stimulus checks sent to Oregonians. Meanwhile, she has resisted fast-tracking a mental health hospital that advocates say is sorely needed amid the coronavirus outbreak. Multnomah County commissioners extended more protections to renters when they adopted the statewide eviction moratorium.

HELP: Coronavirus has made a free meal harder than ever to come by. But more Oregonians than ever need one. As people look for more ways to earn money, the bottle return agency turned its headquarters into an extra return center where people can exchange cans and bottles for cash.

CASES: Seventy Oregonians have now died from COVID-19 as the overall number of infections nears 1,800. The coronavirus has reached at least 10 group homes for developmentally disabled Oregonians, yet another vulnerable population facing the threat of coronavirus outbreaks.

EDUCATION: Many single parents are struggling to adjust to a new normal amid the coronavirus crisis as they balance their own jobs with caring for their children who are out of school. Divorced parents face similar challenges, while also having to navigate custody agreements with Oregons stay-at-home order in place.

YOUR STORIES:

Latest news | Live map tracker |Text alerts | Newsletter

-- The Oregonian/OregonLive

Get the latest Oregon coronavirus updates via text
Comrade Eric Adjei

18.04.2020 LISTEN

National Democratic Congress (NDC) Deputy Regional Communication Officer at Bono, Comrade Eric Adjei is charging the government to stop its over-dependency on the oil sector and rather develop the non-oil sector while investing in infrastructure.

According to him, the shocks from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and more importantly the recent drop in oil prices have fiercely uncovered the fragility and weakness of Ghanas economy on two fronts including the vulnerability of non-oil sectors of the economy and Governments negligence in investing in infrastructure.

This he believes has had a telling impact while causing unprecedented shock that has led the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to disburse an amount of $1 billion of emergency relief funds to the country in order to resolve the fiscal and balance of payment needs and to boost investor confidence.

Moving forward, Comrade Eric Adjei wants the government to stop thinking that oil-producing countries can borrow with impunity and ignore the other sectors of the economy or, adequate infrastructure to develop.

It is therefore advisable that the government should stop corruption, reduce government expenditure, invest in infrastructure, and develop the non-oil sectors of the economy, the NDC Communicator has told the government through a write-up.

He continues, Findings from several studies have disclosed that infrastructure development and diversification of the economy is strongly correlated with a resilient economy. Furthermore, scholars have also shown that the ability of a government to properly manage tax funds contributes immensely to the economic development of a nation.

Read the full write-up from Comrade Eric Adjei below:

COVID-19 Brutally Exposes The Fallacies Underlying Akufo-Addo Government's Economic Figures

The shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic and more importantly the recent drop in oil prices have fiercely uncovered the fragility and weakness of Ghanas economy on the following two fronts: The vulnerability of non-oil sectors of the Ghanaian economy and Governments negligence in investing in infrastructure.

The impact of this unprecedented shock has led the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to disburse an amount of $1 billion of emergency relief fund to the country in order to resolve the fiscal and balance of payment needs and to boost investor confidence. The loan approved under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) represents the largest amount of money the nation has ever received from the International Financial Institution in its 63-year-old history.

GHANA'S DEPENDENCE ON OIL

Figures from the World Bank (2018) shows that in 2018, Ghana was growing at a rate of 6.3%. In the year 2019, the International Monetary Fund (2019) predicted that the nations economy was going to increase at 8.8%, significantly increasing the growth of the country and putting it ahead of other emerging economies.

Similarly, buttressing this point, an article by the World Economic Forum in 2019, predicted that Ghana was going to be the fastest growing economy in the world. Much of these predictions were however tied to crude oil prices and production.

A thorough assessment of the economy reveals that in recent years, a significant proportion of Ghanas Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is driven by its new cocoa (the oil). The World Economic Forum states that Ghanas growth is now being buoyed by a different commodity: oil. Expanding crude production and rising prices have placed Ghanas economy at the top of the GDP growth tables.

Ghanas economy expanded mostly as a result of the huge investment the previous administration made in the oil and gas sector. . Commercial fields such as TEN and Sankofa-Gye Nyame started operations in late 2016 and May 2017 respectively.

According to a 2016 and 2018 report by the Ghana Energy Commission, the 2018 oil production in the country stood at around 62.1 million barrels compared to only 26.9 million in 2016. Similarly, figures from the countrys energy commission reveal that the nations crude oil was sold at $68.48 in 2018 in contrast to $46.5 in 2016, representing approximately a 47% increase.

DEPENDENCE ON OIL: CONSEQUENCES

A large oil export sector is often considered to be a potential spur to diversification and full modernization, especially when a central government controls and plans the use of oil revenues with such goals in mind (Heidarian and Green, 1989).

However, in the case of Ghana, the immediate economic contraction that ensued as a result of falling oil prices and the pandemic reveals that the government has failed woefully in managing properly the oil revenues.

For example, leading economists have revised their 2020 global economic growth forecasts downwards from 3% to 2.4%. That represents just a 0.6 % difference. However, in Ghana, the finance minister has stated that Gross Domestic Product is expected to grow at only 2.5 %. That signifies a significant difference of 4.3% for growth rate because the World Bank projected economic growth of 6.8% for Ghana in 2020.

Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the nations gross debt is expected to reach around 202 billion Ghana Cedis this year, a significant 64.5% increase compared to 2016. The forecast, however, does not include recent borrowings, as such the gross debt is expected to be much higher.

Lastly, on 15 April 2020, the cedi traded at a Bank of Ghana mid-rate of 5.51 per USD, marking a dollar appreciation of about 45% over the same day in April 2016. To put it into perspective, if a Ghanaian had 1,000 GHS in the bank account on 15 April 2016, that was worth approximately 261 dollars. Ceteris paribus, today, the money is worth a mere 181 dollars. The citizens' purchasing power has greatly reduced.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?

The root of Ghanas gloom macroeconomic outlook can be explained in the following. The government simply thinks that oil-producing countries can borrow with impunity and ignore the other sectors of the economy or, adequate infrastructure to develop.

The managers of the economy believe they can exempt themselves from the responsibility of properly managing the economy and diversifying it. However, the recent pandemic, stories of both Arab societies and modern lessons from Latin America, have provided evidence to the contrary.

It is therefore advisable that the government should stop corruption, reduce government expenditure, invest in infrastructure, and develop the non-oil sectors of the economy.

Findings from several studies have disclosed that infrastructure development and diversification of the economy is strongly correlated with a resilient economy. Furthermore, scholars have also shown that the ability of a government to properly manage tax funds contributes immensely to the economic development of a nation.

Author: Comrade Eric Adjei

NDC Deputy Regional Communication Officer (Bono).
A 26-year-old man with coronavirus symptoms has died at a government hospital's isolation ward in Uttar Pradesh's Fatehpur district, officials said on Saturday.

His swab sample for COVID-19 has been sent to Lucknow and the report is awaited, Cheif Medical Officer, Fatehpur, Umakant Pandey said, adding that he had tuberculosis.

He was admitted to the district hospital on Thursday and died a day later.

The man worked as a labourer in Mumbai and had returned here on February 2. He had mild fever and cough for some time and was undergoing treatment at a hospital in his village here, hospital authorities said. When he did not get any relief, he was brought to the district hospital.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 14:30:37|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday said only through solidarity can the international community win the battle against COVID-19.

Wang made the remark in a phone conversation with Emmanuel Bonne, diplomatic counselor to French President Emmanuel Macron.

Wang said China is paying great attention to the development of the epidemic situation in France and Europe, and the series of prevention and control measures taken by the French government are delivering positive results.

The Chinese foreign minister said he believes that under the strong leadership of President Macron, the French side will surely overcome the epidemic at an early date.

Recently, despite the difficulties it faces, China has been doing its best to provide assistances to France in purchasing medical and epidemic prevention materials in China and transporting them to France, Wang noted.

He said China will continue to provide firm support for France's fight against the epidemic until the end.

Wang pointed out that China and France, both as permanent members of the UN Security Council, should maintain mutual understanding, mutual trust and mutual support at this critical moment for the human society and play their due roles in international cooperation against COVID-19.

China fully agrees with France's appeal for international solidarity in this global fight, as the virus is a common threat to the health security of mankind, said Wang.

Any attempt to undermine unity and mutual trust or even the act of buck-passing is detrimental to the domestic fight against COVID-19, and also hurts international anti-pandemic cooperation, he added.

Wang noted that the World Health Organization (WHO), as a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN), has been playing a positive leading role in response to COVID-19.

China and France are both staunch supporters of multilateralism, said Wang, adding that supporting the WHO means supporting multilateralism and also supporting the UN.

He said China and France need to continue to safeguard the status of the WHO and encourage the agency to play a due role in international anti-pandemic cooperation.

For his part, Bonne thanked China for its support for France's purchase of medical materials in China.

The French side has called on all countries to be united in the fight against the pandemic, said Bonne, adding that France, like China, firmly supports the work of the WHO and its director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

France stands ready to work with China to enhance cooperation in the global COVID-19 fight, discuss the drafting of an action plan on uniting the world, and enhance communication and coordination in multilateral mechanisms such as the UN Security Council.

The two sides also exchanged views on how to enhance cooperation between the UN Security Council permanent members in the global COVID-19 fight. Enditem
Columbia, CA  Following a brawl at a home in Columbia, a Sonora man allegedly threatened to stab another man, and was later arrested by deputies, but not before putting up a fight.

The clash between the two men occurred at a residence on Highway 49 near Columbia recently. Tuolumne County Sheriffs Dispatch relay that when deputies arrived at the scene, they found the victim with visible injuries to his face. The wounded man recounted that 49-year-old Keith Flowers attacked him and threatened to stab him if he did not leave. The victim alleges that Flowers struck him in the face. Then says when he was trying the flee Flowers slashed two of his vehicles tires.

Flowers remained in the home and when deputies tried to question him, he put up a brief struggle, according to sheriffs officials. None of the deputies were hurt in the altercation, but Flowers suffered minor injuries. He was assigned a bail of $25,000 after being arrested for making criminal threats, resisting arrest, vandalism, and battery.
By PTI

COLOMBO: A woman who was recently in India for a pilgrimage became Sri Lanka's first coronavirus case reported from outside quarantine centres, the health ministry said on Thursday.

Over 3,500 people, including foreigners, remain quarantined in more than 40 centres across Sri Lanka following the COVID-19 outbreak.

Coronavirus tests at present are mainly confined to those who are in quarantine centres.

A woman who was in India for a pilgrimage and had returned few weeks ago became the first COVID-19 positive case reported from outside the quarantine centres, Health Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi said.

ALSO READ | Sri Lanka makes cremations compulsory for coronavirus deaths, angering Muslims

"She is the only patient we have diagnosed (COVID-19 positive) outside the circle of our quarantine programme. All other cases came from quarantine centres," Wanniarachchi said.

Lanka has so far reported 238 coronavirus cases, including seven deaths, since the first viral infection was reported on March 11.

Dr Anil Jasinghe, Director General of Health Services, said the department has been able to prevent community spreading of the deadly virus.

"Still it is a long process as cases surface through contacts. We are keeping a close watch," he said, adding that 68 people so far have been "completely cured" of the disease.

A strict nationwide lockdown is in place till April 20 to contain the spread of the virus.

Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy here said China has provided 20,000 test kits, 120,000 masks and a large quantity of other medical assistance to help the island nation combat the virus.
Hyderabad: Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar during his inspection visit to one of the city's containment zones, Chandrayangutta during the extended nationwide lockdown imposed to mitigate the spread of coronavirus; in Hyderabad on Apr 18, 2 Image Source: PK

Hyderabad, April 18 : With 43 more coronavirus positive cases coming to notice, the total such cases in Telangana rose to 809 on Saturday.

According to a bulletin released by the Health Department, with no deaths reported on Saturday the state's death toll remains 18. There were no recoveries reported during the day. The number of people discharged till now is 186.

Once again, Greater Hyderabad accounted for most new cases. As many as 31 people in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits tested positive. Gadwal reported 7 cases, followed by Sircilla and Ranga Reddy with two each and Nalgonda one.

There are 605 active cases under treatment in hospitals.

The department requested citizens to report to the nearest government health facility in case they had travelled to Tablighi Markaz meeting in Delhi or contacted any attendee.
The total number of coronavirus (Covid-19) cases in India has reached 14,352, and the overall death toll has soared to 486, according to data compiled by Worldometer. Maharashtra, where at least 201 have died from the disease so far, has been the most affected.

Odisha heaved a sigh of relief with no new Covid-19 case being reported on Friday. While Delhi remained the second-most affected, a late surge in cases made Madhya Pradesh the third. Tamil Nadu, which was the third earlier, is now down to fourth, while Rajasthan's tally of cases remains the fifth-highest among Indian ...
India would be exporting 30.5 million HCQ tablets to UAE, Indian Ambassador to UAE Pavan Kapoor told CNBC-TV18. India has got requests for HCQ from two companies in UAE. India has approved a consignment of 30.5 million HCQ tablets to UAE along with an API consignment," he said.

The Indian government is exporting the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to 55 countries. 13 countries have already received the vaccine. The drug is being supplied via commercial channels and as grants in aid as well.

The Indian envoy said that the Indian mission in UAE is trying to support the 3.4 million strong Indian diaspora at multiple levels. The Indian embassy is raising cases of citizens suffering due to COVID-19 with the UAE authorities. We have setup 24X7 helplines for Indian nationals and we are sending food and food provision kits to Indian nationals as well," said the envoy.

The Indian embassy is also providing psychological counselling to Indian citizens and has requested Indian schools to reduce fees for the period of the pandemic.

The ambassador confirmed that at least 20-25 percent of the 5,900 COVID-19 cases in the UAE would be of Indian nationals. We have confirmed reports about 4 Indian nationals who have died. Informal sources say the number of Indians dead could be around 7. In total 35 people in UAE have died of COVID-19," he said. The envoy also praised the UAE governments handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The country has carried out more than 770,000 COVID-19 tests.

Recently, UAE authorities had asked all countries to evacuate their citizens. A report in the countrys official news agency said that UAE was planning to review labour ties with countries refusing to take back their citizens. The envoy said that the Indian mission was seeking more details about these reports from the UAE foreign office. Indian and UAE have a broad strategic partnership. Our ties will not be impacted. We should not read too much into these reports. We will work with UAE authorities to find the best way forward," he said.

India is currently not evacuating any of the 13 million Indian citizens who are in foreign countries. Authorities have said they will start the process of evacuation once the travel ban is lifted.
Never mind medals on the lapel. They extend beyond the line of the sleeve.

Rear Admiral Guy Griffiths (Ret'd), 97, is the last survivor in Australia of HMS Repulse, which was torpedoed and sunk in a Japanese air attack in 1941 along with the Prince of Wales off Malaya as war raged in the Pacific.

To mark Anzac Day, he had planned to attend two functions in Britain with his son, also Guy. One was aboard the new aircraft carrier Prince of Wales by invitation of the captain. Then as patron of the Repulse/Prince of Wales survivor's association he was intending to join the annual reunion in Torquay in the West Country.

Rear Admiral (Ret'd) Guy Griffiths, pictured at his home in Castle Cove. He hopes Australia is never involved in another world war. Credit:James Brickwood

"My son said he was coming with me," Rear Admiral Griffiths said from his home in Castle Cove. "I think he wanted to make sure the old bugger got home. We just had to finesse the accommodation here and there. Now because of the virus it has all been cancelled."
As the coronavirus pandemic rages unabated, nations around the world have started looking at each other to understand how they might impede the virus' spread.

Some experts say customs and social habits in Japan such as wearing face masks during seasonal flu outbreaks, bowing rather than handshaking, and removing shoes at home might play some role in hindering transmission of the virus, although to what extent is still unknown.

But even as the scientific evidence remains pending, populations in Western countries have embraced at least one habit -- the donning of face masks in public -- that just months earlier they had seen as a quirk of Japanese or East Asian behavior.

At the same time, Japan's apparently robust practices of social hygiene could have a downside, too -- the lack of urgency with which Japan is embracing social distancing, possibly due to overconfidence in the protection afforded by its hygiene habits.

In Japan, the confirmed rate of infection has been low thus far -- about 72 confirmed cases per million people in a population of 126 million, according to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the United Nations as of April 17.

One factor that may be keeping the figure low is Japan's modest testing rate compared with other countries. As of Thursday, Japan had tested about 100,000 people, or a rate of 0.8 tests per 1,000 people, compared with over 540,000 tests (10.46/1,000) in South Korea, according to Our World in Data.

But even taking that into account, the comparison with infection cases in other developed countries -- over 2,000 per million people in the United States and 3,900/million in Spain -- is stark, especially considering Japan's huge population of elderly people, who are seen as more susceptible to the virus.
Former Labor MP and Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett has added to his property portfolio.

According to Domain on Saturday, the 67-year-old purchased a $2.25million Victorian worker's cottage in Sydney's Annandale.

The three-bedroom home is located just minutes away from The Annandale Hotel, where Peter has performed with his rock band.

Politics paid off! Former Labor MP and Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett (pictured in June 2014), 67, has purchased a $2.25million three-bedroom home in Sydney's Annandale

Peter's new property is situated on a tree-lined street and features a grey and white exterior colour palette.

The master bedroom features a period-style ensuite, while the sleek kitchen boasts state-of-the-art Miele appliances.

There is also a spacious lounge and dining area and a landscaped courtyard.

Location, location: The property is situated on a tree-lined street, just minutes away from The Annandale Hotel where Peter has played with the band

Features: The kitchen boasts Miele appliances and soft-touch cabinetry, while the living and dining areas are light-filled

Peter and his wife Doris Ricono-Garrett have made the move back to Sydney, after relocating to Kangaroo Valley in New South Wales, two years ago.

The couple sold their acreage for $2.8million in 2016, after having purchased the property for $1.2million.

Peter and Doris also snapped up a terrace in Sydney's Paddington for $2.7million in 2015, eventually selling it for $5.25million after extensive renovations.

Wife: Peter and his wife Doris Ricono-Garrett (both pictured in October 2013) have made the move back to Sydney, after relocating to Kangaroo Valley in New South Wales, two years ago

Back in 2016, Peter paid tribute to Doris in his solo album, A Version of Now.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph at the time, he said: 'I'm just pinching myselfthinking about when I met my wife and fell in love and we held it together through all this time and all the things that have happened.'

He added: 'How important is that? If you don't end up writing a song about that, you're not very good, are you?'
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin has confirmed his holiday home in west Cork had been his base during the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis.

A number of locals contacted the Irish Independent after seeing Mr Martin in the area following the introduction of travel restrictions on March 27.

However, a Fianna Fail spokesperson confirmed to the Irish Independent that Mr Martin had been staying in his home in Courtmacsherry with his two sons, who have been living there since the middle of March.

Mr Martin had been travelling back and forth to Dublin to engage in government formation talks and discussions on the response to Covid-19.

He was in Courtmacsherry when the lockdown rules were announced, and travelled to work in Dublin the following Monday.

On April 4, he returned to his holiday home, "in line with Government advice he returned to where he was when travel restrictions were introduced".

On April 6, he travelled back to Dublin where he has remained since.

The spokesperson confirmed that Mr Martin has not been to his home in Cork city since the lockdown began. "Micheal has adhered to all of the expert advice and Government restrictions during this emergency," they said.
Only a very optimistic person could find anything to be joyful about right now.

Only an optimist. Or, a columnist.

Joan and I take daily walks of about one to two miles a day. They are non-contact walks and we wear masks and gloves, dispose of the gloves when we get home, wash the masks, scrub our shoes.

One of the joys of those walks is discovering streets we have never walked down, even though weve been in Stapleton since 2003. Those discoveries usually stop us in our tracks. And we play that game that all renters playThats a nice house!

Our qualifications are few: a porch, a backyard, a driveway or a garage, few steps. Cant be too big. Its just the two of us. Just big enough to store all my possessions and have somebody stay over for a week. Oh, and two bathrooms!

We sigh and then we move on. None of those things seem remotely possible right now. Im thinking back to two years ago, when Joan and I traveled to Pennsylvania to see our friends Jim and Jeanne Clark and Rosemarie Curcio. Such a trip would put us all at risk at the present moment. So, during the past few weeks, I called them, just to check in. Thankfully, everybody was fine.

Joan and I walk and talk. We marvel that life is still going on. But, the streets are eerily quiet, like that moment in an end of the world movie right before a swarm of birds swoops down and start pecking out peoples eyeballs or the alien mothership blots out the sun or all hell breaks loose. Its very disquieting.

Im usually tuckered when we get back and require either a nap or a session with YouTube. Around six, we start making plans for dinner. Nowadays, we look for something we can cook together. I successfully baked cookies at the start of this and actually made a cool mac and cheese dish under the guidance and supervision of Joan, who knows cooking like I know the circle of fifths.

But, Im still noticing people without masks and gloves in the street. Do they just think this disease is for a certain type of person? Dont they know theyre at risk as well? Adam Sandler has said If weve got it, we dont want to give it and if youve got it, we dont want to get it.

My breaking point came when I was standing in line at a small local convenience store. They have the coconut water I survive on. So, I stood waiting and waiting and waiting and finally, I put down my shopping basket, muttered **** it! under my mask and left. I was angry. I was hurt. They had let me down. I had depended on them, had supported them during this, and they let me down. But, I had to weigh the benefits of comfort against those of my safety. Because, the cashiers werent wearing masks or gloves. And hardly anybody knew what six feet looked like.

With time on my hands while Joan worked on her radio show, I decided to remove some old photos from my computer onto my external hard drive. Foolishly, I chose Thomas Newman to play in the background while I did this. Foolishly, because he always makes me cry and, as I looked at photos of past band gigs and places Joan and I had been, I did feel a wave of overwhelming sorrow hit me. But soon, the music brought me to a place of resolve. Bruce Springsteen had broadcast live earlier that day and he had assured us that wed get through this, but things would be very, very different from now on.

So, Joan and I put routines in place. We do the garbage as usual. Thursday has become cleaning day. If I get lost during the week, Im ok by Thursday, because thats when Brooklyn 99 and Better Things are on. We still have WW meetings, via Zoom, on Friday. Its just good to see everybody faces and, more importantly, hear their voices. The first thing you always forget about somebody is their voice.

On line, a friend wrote she was sad for no particular reason. But, there is a reason. We are in mourning for the lives we once lived, and also in mourning for those whom, so far, we have lost. And, just like all stages of grief, it hits us when we least expect it, no triggers required. These are the interesting times of the dire cookie predictions!

How to get through? Find joy when and where you can. I finally tuned into a streamed service for the Easter vigil mass at my parish. It wasnt the same, but it did shore me up. And, the next day, Joan helped me make a veggie lasagna, so at least some traditions stayed in place.

Reach out to friends. Play music. Limit your news consumption. Ive found that, now, the news is like soap operas used to be. You tune in on Monday and Friday, because those are the only two days that things actually happen. If the Mayor says something on Monday, and the Governor contradicts him on Wednesday, by Friday, it all pans out. Pick and choose your binge shows wisely. I eschewed Tiger King because anything with animals upsets me. And, keep a calendar in several spots of the house and use it to remind yourself when that auto insurance or credit card bill is due.

The word routine has a double meaning. It can mean dull and boring. It can also mean a fixed schedule. And right now, that schedule is your anchor to reality.

Hold those grey heads up!

[Comment on this and all my columns can be submitted at Talk To The Old Guy on Facebook. Like and follow the page.]
We give each other a lot of space, she said, describing their marriage as a strong friendship and a collaboration. We travel so much for our work, we dont like to travel together. We hang out a lot here. I think we do best when were working on a project together. Barkev has read all my books in manuscript. We had a lot of fun designing this house, though it took nearly 50 years to do so.

When she and her husband built the house on the site of the old barn in 2007, they reversed a typical move in adulthood II, upsizing rather than downsizing. They knocked down the shed on the property and replaced it with a guest house, which they have handed over to their daughter, Sevanne Martin, an actress, who is married and has two young sons. (Sevanne is the name of a lake in Armenia; Dr. Kassarjian is Armenian. Its like naming your daughter Loch Lomond, Dr. Bateson joked. Martin is a stage name.)

The farmhouse has long been rented to a tenant who acts as caretaker when Dr. Bateson and Dr. Kassarjian are away. Both of us think of New Hampshire as home in a way in which Cambridge is not, she said, showing off the trails through the woods, the rough-cut stone statues put there by a tenant who rented the place when the family was in the Philippines (We call them the lurkers,  Dr. Bateson said) and the rusty farm equipment her son-in-law is fond of bringing home.

My husband is not convinced these are decorative objects, she said, raising an eyebrow.

There are wild blueberries on the path to Norway Pond, where Dr. Bateson takes her afternoon swim.

Home is a very important metaphor for me, she said. When I was working on Composing a Life, I referred to it as my homemaking book. How do you make a home when there is discontinuity? You are a single mother, there is a bad marriage, a job change. I started to define the word home as an environment in which one grows and learns, rather than just a refuge. Think about where you started out as a little kid and you learned to walk. Sometimes there were things you tripped over. There were people who loved you but also made demands on you.

Dr. Batesons first home life was communal. After her birth in 1939, her parents offered themselves up to the war effort (Dr. Bateson joined the Office of Strategic Services; Dr. Mead worked in Washington). Dr. Mead moved her daughter into a brownstone on Perry Street (I believe there is a plaque, Dr. Bateson said), combining households with the family of the economist and social scientist Lawrence K. Frank, who had seven children.

We had the bottom two floors and they had the top and there was a backyard, and it was just terrific, Dr. Bateson said. I got free siblings! My mother created a village, and it was wonderful. We didnt have sofas, we had beds with backs on them so my mother could always offer someone who needed it a place to sleep. So people came and went. It always seemed to me the best arrangement is the joint household instead of a separate house, a separate car, a separate lawnmower thats not always being used.

Homemaking, she stressed, needs to be less selfish.

We are living longer, but thinking shorter.
Chennai, April 18 : India's second largest car maker Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) will be assisting Air Liquide Medical Systems to ramp up its ventilator production capacity, said a senior company official.

Air Liquide Medical is the Indian subsidiary of French company Air Liquide Healthcare.

"We have understood their supply chain and also started identifying newer supply source," B.C. Dutta, Vice President, Corporate Affairs, HMIL told IANS.

According to him, HMIL's role in the partnership is to assist in ramping up the ventilator production capacity of Air Liquide Medical and also their supply chain.

Ventilators are medical devices take over the work of breathing from a patient who is unable to breathe on their own by delivering air with high concentration of oxygen to their lungs.

For patients severely affected by COVID-19, ventilators are critical to ensure continuous oxygen is supplied to overcome respiratory insufficiency.

With coronavirus spreading in the country, there is an increased demand for ventilators in the country.

Dutta said several parts manufacturers have been identified for Air Liquide Medical.

"We plan to ramp up ventilator production by Air Liquide Medical to 1,000 units per month soon.
So when are we going to get out of the house?

We all want to get back to our lives, go to work and shop for groceries without fear. We want to return to the gym, or the pool, restore our postponed appointments and worship on the weekends. Most important, we want to rip off those masks and replace distant waves with a hug.

So - when?

The answer is: nobody knows.

How - and when - we can resume our comfortable past routines is rife with uncertainty because public health officials still have no idea how many people in the country are infected with the novel coronavirus, including those who may be asymptomatic and unknowingly spreading the virus to others.

Without this information, it's impossible to predict when it will be safe for us to venture out again, joining the essential health-care, grocery and delivery workers who have soldiered on during these risky times, caring for the sick, keeping food in the stores and getting it to us, and running other critical services.

"We will have to reopen, but not having this information will make reopening much more difficult," says William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases and preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University. "I think there will have to be a staged - not sudden - reintroduction to normal life, which gives us the option to pause if there is a resurgence of the virus."

President Donald Trump, who wanted the country to reopen May 1, has since said he would leave the decision to governors. Some states are working on plans now for businesses to resume work, and as they do, many of us will be faced with difficult decisions to make about our personal risks and how we should behave. This is a daunting prospect for anyone coping with the individual pressures wrought by a national economy in turmoil, or the emotional pain of not being able to spend real time - not Zoom or FaceTime - with loved ones who live elsewhere, especially in hard-hit cities.

Nevertheless, if you ask public health officials what to do, most of them would agree that early May is too soon to forgo social distancing - and to stick close to home if you can. This is true for everyone, but especially for those at high risk.

"Yes, it will be very challenging," says Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's center for infectious disease research and policy. "But it could save your life."

David Kessler, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who is advising presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on covid-19, agrees.

"The virus is not gone," he says. "It is lurking in people who are unaware that they carry it. The vast majority of us - an overwhelming percentage of the population - is still susceptible."

This makes it dangerous to relax social distancing, even if the curve of cases starts to flatten, or the numbers decrease with the onset of warm weather, experts say.

"If the virus returns in the fall to the same extent it did this spring, people who never got infected will be in the same boat as they are right now," says Robert Schooley, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of California at San Diego.

This is disheartening to people like Kimberly Allen, 67, from Takoma Park, Maryland, a former strategic planning officer for the Law Library of Congress, who enjoyed an active retirement until mid-March.

She went to dozens of Nationals home games, including those during the World Series. She regularly rode the bus to New York City to attend the theater. She met friends for lunch and dinner, and joined them for movies, shows and concerts. She did water aerobics at the YMCA. She participated in political protests. She drove to her second home in West Virginia for long weekends in the woods.

Today, she rarely leaves the house. At her age, and suffering from high blood pressure, she risks severe covid-19 disease if she becomes infected. She hasn't had any symptoms, nor been tested, but she assumes she is negative. But that also means she has no immunity, which worries her almost as much as the thought of becoming ill. No immunity - and with no vaccine likely for a year or probably longer - portends the likelihood of an indefinite solitary confinement.

"Will I be trapped in my house for what seems like forever waiting until there's a vaccine?" she says. "The whole thing seems so surreal. I feel like I'm in the middle of a science-fiction story. I like certainty. I like to know when something is going to end, whether it's a movie or a show, or this. When I know, I can deal with it. It's very hard for me to cope with all these uncertainties."

She speaks for many of us, although most health experts believe she needs to stay home until we know how many Americans have been infected.

"Massive testing is essential," Kessler says. "The only way to avoid secondary waves and peaks of the virus is with massive testing, and markedly reduced person-to-person contact."

Even in the absence of studies, experts believe that fewer than 5 percent of the more than 330 million people in the U.S. population have already been infected. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tallied more than a half-million cases of covid-19 so far.)

"Even if this 5 percent estimate is off by a factor of two, that would mean that 90 percent of the population has not yet been infected and would be at risk for infection if the virus comes back once we 'start up' . . . and the virus could spread just about as easily as it does now," Schooley says.

To further complicate the picture, they also don't know how many asymptomatic people are infected, or whether those who became sick and recovered are truly immune - or for how long.

"In theory, the more people previously infected, the fewer left to infect should the virus come back," Schooley says. "But we will need to know with more certainty whether those who have recovered are truly protected from becoming ill again."

The bottom line: Even apparently healthy 20- and 30-somethings, as well as the elderly or chronically ill, probably should stay home as much as possible for now, experts say.

"It's the only way we can keep this virus in check, and the only way we can reduce our risk," Kessler says.

Moreover, even when daily life resumes, don't expect it to be the way it was before.

"We will still have to make serious readjustments," Schaffner says. "Supermarkets will need to keep those marks on the floor for a long time. We'll still be wearing masks and face coverings outside. Engaging in social activities, whether religious services or bridge club, will have to be with great caution. My wife can't imagine wearing a mask to her bridge club, but she may have no choice. Maybe, at some point, we can go to the movies again, but we'll probably be wearing bandannas or masks."

People are resilient at finding ways to adjust. Allen takes walks and watches shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime. She sits on her screened sun porch with her four cats, watching the birds. Although she misses the ballpark this time of year - and a season that in normal times would have been underway - she is scared to go back.

"I'm not sure I'd want to be sitting in that stadium right now with 30,000 other people," she says. "I can't imagine I will ever feel comfortable going out again until there's a vaccine."

Still, she keeps telling herself things could be worse.

"There are plenty of events in history that remind us how millions of people who were also forced to remain confined were far less fortunate," she says.
There will be a before and an after," says the European Council President. In an interview with RFI, Charles Michel affirmed that Europe developed as a result of crises  and said it will also emerge stronger from the coronavirus.

Covid-19 has been messy for the EU. Health matters are largely the concern of national governments although the bloc generously funds scientific research, which could eventually yield a vaccine.

National governments also make their own decisions about whether and when to impose and end lockdowns or re-instate border controls within the Schengen area.

The key area where the EU had a role to play was in providing financial assistance.

But as Italy struggled desperately to cope with the virus and its economic fallout, the EU bickered over how to help out financially.

The row concerned so-called coronabonds, to be issued by the European Investment Bank and shared as a mutualised debt among EU member states. The idea was unpopular with several northern EU governments, especially the Netherlands.

A variation of the bonds will be back on the table next week at an EU leaders meeting and French president Emmanuel Macron, a coronabonds champion, is raising the pressure in a bid to persuade its opponents to agree a compromise.

The EU is a political project, Macron told the Financial Times on Friday, declaring that if it failed to deliver to its citizens, the populists would win today, tomorrow, in Italy, in Spain, perhaps in France and elsewhere.

Douglas Webber, EU watcher and author of European Disintegration?: The Politics of Crisis in the European Union, observes that the coronabonds idea is now gaining ground among German politicians. He expects that if Germany agrees a compromise version, the Dutch government will drop its staunch opposition.

'True Europe' now standing up

In the meantime, EU finance ministers have agreed a 500 billion euro stimulus package for the countries hardest-hit by the virus, allowing von der Leyen to announce on Thursday that The true Europe is now standing up, after she first offered Italy the EUs heartfelt apology for the blocs earlier failure.

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The EUs reputation in Italy certainly took a hit says Douglas Webber, noting that for the third time in around a decade Italy has been one of the EUs front-line states and the EU has been slow to help if at all.

EU states were also slow to show solidarity with their neighbours on a practical level, with many governments struggling to respond to their own citizens needs. But by late March, there was better co operation and German hospitals took Covid-19 patients from saturated hospitals in France and Italy.

Next time

The crisis will of course affect the EU in numerous ways that are unforeseeable, but some shifts already seem likely.

Yves Bertoncini, consultant in EU affairs and director of Mouvement Europeen France, predicts a future EU push to become less dependent on China in strategic sectors, with the medical sector now high on the list.

To deal with the next emergency, Charles Michel himself favours the creation of a central crisis management unit with powers to give instructions.

Italy, certainly, will hope the EU after does not look just like the before.
The information was confirmed Friday night by Ton That Thanh, director of the Da Nang Center for Disease Control, after he received the information from the British Consulate in HCMC about the 66-year-old British man.

On April 14, after the man returned to the U.K., he was taken to the Royal Surrey County Hospital and had his throat swab samples taken for Covid-19 testing. A day later, the result showed he was negative.

"We feel happy and relieved with this information," Thanh said.

The British man had flown into Hanoi March 2 from London. He was announced infected with the novel coronavirus on March 8 and was treated at Da Nang Hospital until he was discharged on March 27 after testing negative three times. He was later quarantined at a hotel in Son Tra District for 14 days.

On April 10, he flew from Da Nang to HCMC and stayed at a hotel on Hong Ha Street in Tan Binh District while waiting to fly back to the U.K. His samples were taken at the HCMC's Tan Son Nhat Airport and tested twice later, and the results came out positive both times, but hed already departed for home by then.

In HCMC, 51 people including hotel receptionists, hotel guests, and those having contact with the British national have been quarantined for medical supervision.

Authorities in Da Nang also quarantined 58 people who had close contact with the Brit, but all their samples tested negative for the novel coronavirus.

Regarding the British man testing positive for Covid-19 after being discharged, some health officials are assuming the phenomenon could result from the difference in viral load at different times or the difference in procedures and test devices.

However, leading experts and doctors are of the view that Covid-19 is a new disease about which many things have to be studied further.

It is no longer rare for Covid-19 patients to test positive after a full recovery, with many such cases recorded worldwide.

Vietnam has not confirmed any new Covid-19 infection since Thursday morning, keeping its total count at 268. Of these, 201 have been discharged and 67 are active.

The Covid-19 pandemic has reached 210 countries and territories, with reported deaths surpassing 154,300.
Greece, which has just come out of a ten-year financial crisis, appears at this stage to have been relatively lightly hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

It is perhaps surprising that a country which has made significant cuts to its health sector in the past decade has not seen a larger number of fatalities, particularly when some of its near neighbours have suffered so terribly as a result of COVID-19.

On April 15, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported 2,170 recorded cases of infection and 101 deaths in Greece. Although comparisons between countries are not easy, a number of European countries with a similar populations and with less austerity experienced in their health sectors, are suffering more. On the same date, Belgium recorded 31,119 cases and 4,157 deaths, Portugal 17,448 cases and 567 deaths, Austria 14,234 and 384 deaths and Sweden 11,445 cases and 1,033 deaths. Even more importantly, the curve of the infection in Greece has stayed relatively flat from early on.

The austerity measures that Greece had to implement during the 2009-2018 financial crisis as a result of three economic adjustment programmes funded by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund included immediate cost-cutting measures in the health sector. The health budget  public and private  was reduced by 60% in 2014.

In 2017, many were declaring that Greece was in the midst of a public health meltdown and that its system was broken.

Facing weaknesses head on

Given all this, it seems extraordinary that a country of about 11 million people, with only 565 intensive care unit beds at the beginning of March 2020, could manage to deal with the coronavirus crisis.

So, what has happened in Greece? At the beginning of February, a national experts committee on public health was established and the ministry of health appointed Sotirios Tsiordas, a professor of pathology and infectious disease, as its COVID-19 spokesperson.

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The government immediately designed a preventative strategy to tackle the pandemic, taking the existing weakness of the health system into specific consideration. The decision to close schools and universities and ban large social gatherings came within days and before even one death attributed to COVID-19 was recorded.

The government managed to almost double the ICU capacity to 910 beds by the end of March via public sector coordination, smooth cooperation with the private sector and philanthropic donations.

Persuading the population to follow the governments instructions has been one of the most difficult aspects in all countries. In Greece, the government opted for an early and consistent message  this is an emergency and the priority is to save human lives. The economy is the next most important issue to deal with, but the government has been clear that it comes second.

Tsiordas holds a press conference every evening at 6pm to explain the latest scientific evidence. Then Nikos Chardalias, deputy minister for civil protection and crisis management, announces any new measures to be taken. A clear link between evidence and policy is made and any fake news or misinformation that has been spread in the previous 24 hours is tackled on the spot. Fines to people and businesses that did not comply with the new rules were applied early on to make the point even clearer.

Learning from crisis

Greece has just emerged from a ten-year financial crisis and seems to have built resilience and a stoicism over the inevitability of any crisis. The COVID-19 emergency is unprecedented in the way it has affected health and life more generally at the global level, but, for many Greeks, it is simply the next crisis that they need to tackle.

Images from neighbouring Italy and Spain made both Greek people and the government realise that the danger was in their backyard. By acting reflexively and by acknowledging the pre-existing weaknesses of the health system, the government appears to have had more scope than some other European countries to implement a drastic strategy.

What can be learned from Greece is that the health system alone is not enough to confront a pandemic. Other aspects of governance such as decisive leadership which communicates physical distancing measures effectively and steadily seems to be equally important. But the fight against the pandemic is not over. Loosening the measures taken will be equally challenging and different expertise will be needed to direct governments, as economies shrink, on how to deal with people tired of the lockdowns.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Stella Ladi is affiliated with Panteion University, Athens
Dundalk's Words That Burn have signed with UK booking agency Empire Music. The band, whose latest album Pyre was released last summer, are now looking forward to touring the UK and Europe when the current restrictions are lifted.

Their UK tour which was due to take place this month has been postponed and they are hoping to play the dates later in the year.

In the meantime they are using this period of enforced rest to work on new material.

Drogheda Arts Festival put back

In light of the high level of uncertainty about the Covid-19 pandemic, Drogheda Arts Festival will be postponed from the planned April and May dates until later in the year. Some international acts have been deferred until 2021, however, the majority of Irish artists and performers already announced will perform during the proposed new dates.

The organisers say that they will have further updates for their audiences in the coming weeks regarding new dates, refunds and credit notes.

Texaco Children's Art postponed

The judging of this year's Texaco Children's Art competition has been postponed due to the coronavirus crisis.

The competition, which celebrates its 66th anniversary this year, received 25,820 entries.

The preliminary round of judging by Dr. Denise Ferran (Artist & Art Historian), Eoin Butler (Artist & Lecturer in Visual Arts), Sean Kissane (Curator: Exhibitions, IMMA), Aoife Ruane (Director, Highlanes Municipal Art Gallery, Drogheda) and Colleen Watters (Head of Learning & Partnership, Ulster Museum, Belfast, has been completed. However, the final judging by the Chairman of the judging panel, Professor Declan McGonagle, former Director of the National College of Art & Design, has been put back.
Fashions on the Field has moved online for the first time after states cancelled mass gatherings amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The iconic fixture popular at races around the country celebrates the best dressed men and women at meets.

But with the competitions cancelled until further notice would-be racegoers have refused to stand down.

Well-heeled Australians are now battling it out on social media, with hundreds of people taking part.

The five week competition is offering more than $16,000 in prizes.

Hundreds of women have been taking part in this year's Fashion on the Field through social media

The concept was created by Viera Macikova from retailer 'Get racy' and fashion bloggers Bethany Brajkovich and Milano Imai.

Ms Macikova told 7news many Australian women had been preparing their looks for months before the shutdown.

'They source their fabric whether from overseas or Australia then they get their dressmakers to make their outfits, the milliners too,' she said.

Organisers are hopeful running the event online will allow the businesses connected to the racing industry through fashion to stay afloat.

'No races = no selling of racing fashion products and services = no income,' the website reads.

Donning their most glamours dresses, shoes and immaculate makeup they're vying for a shot at $16,000 in prizes

But judges believe the online competition is giving participants a chance to become part of a community during social isolation

'There are so many businesses that will be impacted, milliners, dress makers, accessory shops, stylists, make up artists, hairdressers etc, the list is endless, so we decided to come together and support one another, our sport and the associated businesses.'

But the judges say it's also creating a sense of community during social isolation.

'It's brought women together from all over Australia and gave them a chance to wear their race day looks in isolation, Judge Kash O'Hara said.
ON WEDNESDAY, what would have been Tax Day, many Americans who would have been wondering how much they had to send the Internal Revenue Service instead wondered how much they would get in stimulus bill money from Washington. The Posts Heather Long and Michelle Singletary reported Thursday that many did not get as much as they were promised. Some got $1,200 checks for themselves but not the $500 for each under-17 dependent they were supposed to receive. Others, including many who used tax preparation services, got nothing at all because the IRS did not have their electronic bank account information. New electronic tools to help people get their money worked for some but not others. It will likely take much longer to dispatch paper checks to those to whom the IRS cannot send money via direct deposit, even as the nations economic situation gets more desperate and the need for immediate aid gets ever-more acute.
Kuwaiti budget carrier Jazeera Airways has announced that it had operated its first all-cargo flight to and from Saudi capital Riyadh on April 15.

The all-cargo flight comes as part of the airline expanding its cargo capability during the Covid-19 shutdown of commercial passenger operations, said a statement from Jazeera Airways.

The Kuwaiti airline's entire fleet of 14 A320 aircraft is now available for cargo-only flights with a capacity of 15 tons per aircraft and within a range of six hours flying time from Kuwait, it stated. The operations are being managed by Cargo Manager, Abrar Parkar.

The airline has also secured approval from Kuwaits Directorate General of Civil Aviation to carry cargo in the main cabin. Destination airports are subject to regulatory approvals from the host country, it added.

CEO Rohit Ramachandran said: "In this challenging business environment, we have adapted quickly to focus on cargo opportunities."

"We are pleased to be able to serve companies and institutions with our cargo services, ensuring vital food and other supplies are brought into Kuwait," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Madhya Pradesh has started manufacturing 10,000 personal protective equipment (PPE) kits daily for frontline warriors battling coronavirus, the state's Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Mohammed Suleman said on Saturday.

He said the treatment for COVID-19 is free in the state.

"PPE kit is a very important thing. We ensured development of the PPE kit locally. We are making 10,000 PPE kits daily in a factory at Pithampur near Indore and providing them to our people. So far we have distributed one lakh PPE kits," he said while interacting with a group of Delhi-based journalists during a video-conference.

Suleman said the state government has over 9.5 lakh of hydroxychloroquine tablets and adequate stock of N-95 masks.

Twenty-five dedicated COVID 19 hospitals have been set up in Madhya Pradesh, besides 66 dedicated health centres and more than 400 COVID care centres, he said.

"We are utilising 28 per cent of the total capacity of isolation beds. We have sufficient spare capacity to treat people in case of any emergency. In the case of ICU beds, we are using 17 per cent of the overall capacity," Suleman said.

The official said the state government has received 30,000 rapid diagnostic kits from the central government and they will be made available in Indore and other cities.

"COVID treatment is free in Madhya Pradesh. Nobody would be charged a single penny. The Government of Madhya Pradesh will bear all the expenses and provide free of cost treatment to all," Suleman said.

After 50 more people tested positive for coronavirus in Indore on Friday night, the number of COVID-19 cases in the state has climbed to 1,360, health officials said.

So far, 69 people have died due to the infection in the state, the officials said on Saturday.

With this, the number of coronavirus positive cases in Indore has gone up to 892.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
I read with great interest Joe Valentes editorial letter, Were not the mask police, and I agree 100% with Mr. Valentes opinion that it was stepping on a constitutional right.

The biggest overreach of government abuse of power during the COVID-19 crisis, however, has been governors in several states telling people they cant go and live in their summer homes.

Im not a wealthy person. I dont own a second home on Long Beach Island, in Spring Lake, the Outerbanks or the Hamptons. But if I did, there is no way I would stay away from that home once the weather gets into the 70s and 80s.

And I also know this: The families lucky enough to own those homes are people that pay more taxes to the federal government and states each year than 98% of other people in this country.

The American public is going to begin fighting back against these overreaches of power. It has already started in Michigan, where its government is stomping on constitutional rights. It will be coming to New York and New Jersey soon, if politicians dont start using common sense.

(Joe Nugent is a West Brighton resident.)
The Chief Executive Officer of Special Group of Companies has donated 200 cartons of water and 100 cartons of soft drinks to Security personnel and the needy in Ayawaso West Municipality.



Dr Ofori Sarpong, a known business mogul who doubles as a philanthropist, has already donated to the management of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) and other programmes aimed at assisting the poor in the wake of the deadly Coronavirus.



The Marketing Manager of Special Ice, Mr Edem Kugbe, who made the presentation said that "Dr Ofori Sarpong felt obligated to support the Security and the vulnerable in the Municipality because this is where he lives and works".



He praised the Security agencies for the wonderful job they are doing and asked them to accept the donation as a token of appreciation for their commitment to protect lives and properties.



In a related development, Dr Osei Kwame Despite has also donated 10 bags of This Way Products and 5 packs of Toilet Roll towards the support of the needy in the Assembly.



Hon. Sandra Owusu-Ahinkorah the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), thanked them for the kind support they are giving throughout the country.



She asked for God's blessings for them and their businesses and assured that some of the drinks and water will be refrigerated to be served to the hardworking Security personnel throughout the lockdown period: whiles the rest of the items will go to the vulnerable and needy as the donors intend.



Also present to assist the MCE were the Municipal's Coordinating Director, Presiding Member, Finance, Planning and other senior officers of Ayawaso West Municipal Assembly.







Source: Daniel Adu Darko/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.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18)  A government official is urging the public to be cautious in sharing their bank details as thieves are taking advantage of the Luzon-wide quarantine.

Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases spokesman Karlo Nograles warning comes after the National Bureau of Investigation and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported a spike in online scams such as phishing.

Nograles said those involved in the phishing scheme are pretending to be bank personnel to have access to peoples bank accounts.

Hihingin nila ang detalye ng account mo tulad ng account number at/o password. Wag niyo pong ibigay yang mga 'yan.

[Translation: They will ask for your bank details like your account number and password. Do not share these to them.]

Nograles is also warning people against criminals impersonating reputable government organizations to solicit cash donations.

So we encourage everyone to double check and verify these requests for donations, the official said.

He also called on concern citizens to report incidents of theft to the NBI.

Luzon has been under enhanced quarantine for a month now.

The lockdown shuttered businesses, except those offering essential goods and services. It also emptied streets by prohibiting mass gatherings and ordering most, except for those rendering vital services, to stay at home. It was the most extreme measure yet to combat the coronavirus disease, which still does not have either a cure or a vaccine. The lockdown is expected to end on April 30.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 19:58:36|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, April 18 (Xinhua) -- China's economy is expected to recover for the rest of the year after registering a virus contraction in the first quarter, analysts have said.

Amid the COVID-19 impact, China's gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter shrank 6.8 percent year on year, according to data released Friday by China's National Bureau of Statistics.

Output in China will recover significantly in the second quarter and for the rest of the year, Jeffrey Sachs, a renowned economics professor at Columbia University and a senior United Nations advisor, told Xinhua via email Friday.

Now production is returning and daily life is moving to a "new normal," though certainly not back to the old normal, Sachs said.

"China's economic recovery will ultimately depend on the success of a large part of the world overcoming the epidemic in a cohesive manner," he said.

The U.S. economist suggested China "work very closely with the Asian neighbors" to create a region in which "COVID-19 is strongly under control and trade is resumed."

East Asia is the manufacturing center of the world economy, and it can and should be revived first, he added.

Also, China should be coordinating with Africa and the Middle East to try to do the same and to protect the supply chains, he said, adding that China should also try to cooperate with Europe and the United States on the recovery.

Likewise, Nicholas Lardy, senior fellow at the Washington D.C.-based think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), recently noted that "the gradual but substantial recovery" in electrical power usage is "strong evidence" of the recovery of manufacturing in China.

Lardy, who co-authored an analysis with PIIE research analyst Tianlei Huang, argued that weakened manufactured exports amid the COVID-19 pandemic will not stall China's manufacturing recovery.

"While the weakening global economy will constitute a headwind, the pace of China's domestic demand is likely to be the most important factor determining the pace of recovery of China's manufacturing sector," Lardy said.

Meanwhile, China is expected to be one of the few major economies that could see economic expansion this year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s recently released World Economic Outlook report, which projected the global economy would decline by 3 percent in 2020.

Advanced economies are on track to contract by 6.1 percent, while emerging market and developing economies, which typically have growth levels well above advanced economies, will shrink by 1 percent, according to the report.

The U.S. economy is projected to contract by 5.9 percent this year, and the Euro Area will see a decline of 7.5 percent. Japan's economic output will shrink by 5.2 percent, and Britain's will fall by 6.5 percent.

Despite an overall negative growth in emerging markets and developing economies, China and India will both see moderate growth this year, with a rate of 1.2 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively, the IMF projection added. Enditem
A driver who hurled abuse at a speed camera van was caught waving a homemade sign warning other motorists about it before telling police he was 'exercising'.

Police were monitoring speed on the A4500 near Ecton in Northamptonshire when a 30-year-old man stopped to shout abuse and swear at them at around 11am on Thursday.

He then took out a sign that said 'speed camera!' in spray paint, waving it in the air to warn other motorists of its presence.

A driver in Northamptonshire who hurled abuse at a speed camera van was caught waving a homemade sign warning other motorists about it before telling police he was 'exercising'

The man took out a sign (pictured) that said 'speed camera!' in spray paint, waving it in the air to warn other motorists of its presence

When police came out to speak to him he claimed he was getting his daily dose of exercise, which the government has allowed during the coronavirus pandemic.

Footage shows the man wandering around holding the sign above his head so others can see it.

On Twitter PC Dave Lee from the Safer Roads Team said: 'Male who drove by the enforcement van shouting and swearing abuse is further down the road waving this sign about.

Police said the man's black Ford Fiesta was not insured and so it was taken away on the back of a lorry after the incident

Footage shows the man wandering around holding the sign above his head so others can see it

'As I'm in an unmarked car he showed me as well, not realising who I was. Apparently he is out exercising.'

A police spokesman said the man was reported for breaching the Covid-19 regulations.

Police said the man's black Ford Fiesta was not insured and so it was taken away on the back of a lorry after the incident

Under current lockdown rules people are only allowed to leave their homes for one form of exercise a day, to buy essential food or get medical supplies.

However there was trouble over the Easter weekend when there was good weather, with some flouting the rules designed to save lives.
Rio Tinto has introduced further measures to help combat the spread of COVID-19 in Western Australia following the start of rapid screening trials at Perth Airport.

Alongside screening controls at airports including questionnaires and temperature screening, a range of other controls have already been introduced across Rio Tinto operations in the Pilbara region to help minimise transmission risk. This includes social distancing on planes, buses, camps and in light-vehicles, reduced people on site via a roster change and stronger controls on access to sites.

Rio Tinto is now increasing screening measures by introducing a trial of COVID-19 rapid screening at Perth Airport and at the company's nearby Operations Centre. This will form part of an enhanced five-layer screening process designed to keep the community and the company's workforce safe. This includes:

A health questionnaire employees will be asked a series of questions a day prior to traveling to screen for potential exposures to COVID-19, consistent with government restrictions on intra-state travel.

A face-to-face assessment with a nurse at Perth Airport.

Thermal screening the employee's temperature is taken via electronic thermometer.

Rapid screening enables the quick identification of people who may be at increased risk of having a viral illness prior to coming to site. This requires a small blood sample taken via a finger pinprick to detect viral related antibodies in the individual's blood. This screening process is not a test for COVID-19. The detection of any viral-related antibodies requires the individual to self-isolate as a precaution and seek prompt testing at an approved clinic.

Those cleared will receive an access band allowing them to board their flight.

Trained medical staff will perform the COVID-19 screening process with oversight by Rio Tinto's occupational physician. There will also be oversight of the comprehensive research into the COVID-19 screening outcomes. The new measures reflect Rio Tinto's health and safety obligations under applicable Australian legislation.

The intent is for anyone working on Rio Tinto's Iron Ore operations to undergo screening including all FIFO employees and contractors returning to work. Essential staff at Rio Tinto's Operations Centre will also be subject to rapid screening.

Rio Tinto Iron Ore chief executive Chris Salisbury said, "Our number one priority through this period is to protect the health of our employees and communities where we operate. We believe the introduction of rapid screening adds another layer of control to help prevent the transmission of the virus in WA.

"We are very confident in the veracity of our screening process which we strongly believe is an important tool to reduce risk for our communities and our people. This not only allows us to continue operating safely, which is important for the more than 12,000 people we employ, but it also enables us to continue making a strong contribution to the State's economy."

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200417005643/en/

Contacts:

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Jonathan Rose

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Category: General
Iran's defense minister blasts 'aggressive' US presence in Persian Gulf

Iran Press TV

Friday, 17 April 2020 6:39 AM

Iran's defense minister has dismissed US reports of harassment by Iranian vessels as "baseless" and said the "illegal and aggressive" American presence in the Persian Gulf is causing insecurity in the region.

"What leads to insecurity in the Persian Gulf region is actually the illegal and aggressive presence of the Americans who have come from the other end of the world to our borders and make such baseless claims," Defence Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami told reporters in Tehran.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also slammed the US presence, reminding Washington that its forces are "7,000 miles away from its borders" following US uproar over an encounter with Iranian patrol boats.

"US Navy can't seem to find its way around our waters... Or maybe it doesn't know what it's doing in our backyard, 7,000 miles from home," Zarif said in a tweet originally published in 2018 and reshared on Thursday.

"Yearly reminder" Zarif commented under the original tweet.

The remarks came in response to a US Navy statement published on Wednesday claiming that 11 Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps boats had closed in on up to six US naval vessels in the Persian Gulf "in dangerous and harassing approaches".

The statement also said the incident took place in the "northern Arabian Gulf", a historically flawed and provocative expression commonly adopted by anti-Iran groups instead of "Persian Gulf" term.

The development comes as Iranian vessels, usually belonging to the IRGC, commonly patrol the Persian Gulf to ensure the security of the vital global energy hub.

Tensions in the strategic waterway rose significantly last summer after a series of mysterious explosions targeted a number of oil tankers.

The US, which quickly blamed Iran for the incidents without providing conclusive evidence along with other countries such as Saudi Arabia, has since deployed thousands of troops and military equipment to the region.

Washington has also used the mysterious Persian Gulf explosions as a rallying call to form a so-called naval coalition in the Persian Gulf.

Iran has repeatedly rejected the accusations and has condemned the foreign military deployments.

Iran has stressed that regional cooperation and the rejection of foreign interference are key to settling tensions in the vital energy hub.

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Linkedin (Reuters) Bogota, Colombia  Sat, April 18, 2020 21:02 633 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2c854d 2 Science & Tech Colombia,robot,Rappi,delivery-robot,restaurant,coronavirus,COVID-19 Free

Colombian startup Rappi is piloting deliveries by robots as a safe way of getting food to people forced to stay at home due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The pilot started this week in Medellin, Colombia's second-largest city. The boxy robots, which travel on four wheels and are decked with orange flags on their antennae, carry deliveries of up to 35 square centimeters and are used to transport restaurant orders paid for digitally.

The robots complete the last mile of the deliveries and are disinfected before and after each use, Rappi said in a statement on Thursday night.

The robots are operated jointly by Rappi and US-based KiwiBot.

"We believe that by partnering with technology we will be able to continue meeting our aim of safely making people's lives easier, especially in situations like the one we find ourselves in," Rappi's Colombia country manager Matias Laks said in the statement.

Read also: Robots ride to rescue as delivery risks rise

Rappi has completed close to 120 deliveries each day with 15 robots in the pilot area, it said.

It said it intended to run the pilot until July and, if successful, roll it out to other cities where it operates.

Rappi, which has around 200,000 distributors across nine Latin American countries, reported a year-on-year 30 percent rise in deliveries during the first two months of 2020 - before the lockdown began.

In the fiercely competitive world of home deliveries, Brazil's iFood last week announced it had bought a controlling stake in Rappi's Colombian rival Domicilios.com as it looks to expand in the region.
The NSW government has expanded its $5000 fine for coughing and spitting to protect any worker after several incidents of checkout staff and transport personnel subjected to these "vile attacks".

From Monday, NSW Police will have the power to issue the hefty on-the-spot fine to anyone who coughs or spits at workers on-the-job or coming to and from their workplaces during the COVID-19 epidemic, after Health Minister extended a Ministerial Direction under the Public Health Act.

Supermarkets have been the scene of spitting attacks. Credit:Getty

"COVID-19 is every bit as dangerous as a weapon, so anybody who thinks it's funny to spit or cough on somebody are without doubt pathetic grubs," Mr Hazzard said.

The fine had only applied to frontline personnel including nurses, doctors, police, pharmacists and paramedics since it was introduced last week.
The BJPs West Bengal unit on



Saturday alleged that COVID-19 is spreading fast in the state as sufficient tests for the disease have not been conducted, a charge denied by the ruling Trinamool Congress.

While the national average of testing is 198 per million, and Rajasthan has conducted 549 tests per million, the figure is abysmally low in West Bengal - 39 per million, state BJP president Dilip Ghosh claimed.

He wondered why the state government is not conducting the tests required to detect novel coronavirus while testing kits are available with the health infrastructure.

The BJP MP said if the situation is not checked at this point, it will go out of hand and will be difficult to control.

Ghosh also accused the state government of suppressing the death figures to the public.

"There is discrepancy in the number of deaths. While the chief secretary is saying one figure, the appointed expert panel is coming out with another, Ghosh alleged.

He said this has been a result of the state government's penchant to suppress facts.

"The actual death figure is at least four times of what the government is saying," he said adding that actual figures are not being recorded and bodies are being cremated secretly, raising doubts in the mind of the people.

Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha said 12 COVID-19 patients have died so far and till Saturday, and the total number of samples tested is 4,630.

Ghosh also claimed the TMC government is not giving the true figure of personal protective equipment (PPE) available with the state.

"Enough PPEs have come to the state but the government is not making use of them," he alleged.

Ghosh said the government has failed to maintain lockdown from the start.

"After getting frustrated, the chief minister herself said that if lockdown is not properly adhered to, then the government will have to be strict", he said.

Neither the chief minister nor her ministers are honouring the lockdown, he alleged.

Alleging irregularities in the functioning of the PDS system, Ghosh claimed that foodgrains were being diverted to the houses of the Trinamool Congress workers.

"The Centre has supplied six lakh tonnes of rice and pulses for distributing through the PDS in the state. But, the foodgrains are being given selectively instead and not to all who are eligible," he added.

Both the health and PDS systems in the state are in doldrums, he added.

Ghosh also said that the BJP leaders are being targeted and police are being posted in front of their homes or put into home quarantine.

The BJP leaders said his party workers are stopped on the roads and not allowed to distribute foodgrains to the people.

Senior TMC leader and minister Jtotipriya Mullick denied the charge saying a large number of people have been tested.

He also asked Ghosh not to indulge in during a crisis.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Brian Austin Green is getting in plenty of quality family time as he quarantines amid the coronavirus pandemic.

But all does not appear to be well in paradise, as he and wife Megan Fox are rumored to be in the midst of a separation.

He ditched his wedding ring Friday as he cut a casual look to make a grocery run in Malibu during a break from isolation.

Ring finger: Brian Austin Green ditched his wedding ring Friday as he cut a casual look to make a grocery run in Malibu during a break from isolation

The 46-year-old sported a white printed t-shirt with a pair of black denim jeans and some matching Vans.

He completed the look with a grey beanie, a pair of black Ray-Ban wayfarers and a silver watch with some bracelets.

Green took precautions from COVID-19 with a face mask as he carried coffee and groceries from Vintage Grocers.

The outing came amid reports that he and Fox, 33, are spending quarantine in separate homes.

Casual outing: The 46-year-old sported a white printed t-shirt with a pair of black denim jeans and some matching Vans

Accessorizing: He completed the look with a grey beanie, a pair of black Ray-Ban wayfarers and a silver watch with some bracelets

Time apart: The outing came amid reports that he and Fox, 33, are spending quarantine in separate homes (pictured in December, 2019)

They were spotted earlier this week swapping kids and a carseat in a parking lot in Calabasas, where she's living, as he stays in Malibu.

The BH90210 star was previously spotted on some family outings with Fox and the kids, getting groceries and having picnics during quarantine.

He and the Jennifer's Body actress briefly split in 2015, even filing for divorce before getting back together in early 2016.

They tied the knot in Hawaii in 2010, sharing sons Noah, seven, Bodhi, six, and Journey, three.

Green told Us Weekly in February, when he and Fox made a rare red carpet appearance together: 'No, [Im] not [having] more kids. The kids I have right now are fine. Its enough! I have four kids, three young kids.'
Maria Krier, the nurse who helped expose gross negligence in the coronavirus outbreak at the Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley (LCC-NV) nursing home in Littleton, Massachusetts, passed away April 10 from COVID-19, which she had contracted at the home. According to LCC-NV, Maria had become ill two weeks prior and tested positive for the coronavirus.

Kriers death is but one tragic outcome of the appalling conditions faced by millions of residents and staff alike at nursing homes in New England and throughout the US. The New York Times has identified 2,500 senior and elder care locations with more than 21,000 residents and staff members who have contracted COVID-19. More than 3,800 have died. In Massachusetts, about half of the more than 1,400 deaths have been in nursing homes.

After the first case of infection at the LCC-NV nursing home was confirmed March 28, and the day after an LCC-NV resident was taken to a local hospital, Krier told a news outlet, There is no initiative to protect the nurses and patients. The LCC-NV had taken no preventative safety measures, save for issuing a no visitor policy in early March, either before the first positive test, when symptoms began, or subsequently.

Both patients and staff were kept in the dark as to the initial infections, allowing the virus to spread unabated. Krier raised the alarm, saying, They discovered this particular woman had it, they never told anybody, like, we kept waiting for the bomb to drop, like, when are you going to tell us were exposed to it?

It was not until after the Littleton Fire Department had responded to the facility an astounding 18 times, transporting 16 patients to the hospital within just the last five days of March alone, that the town of Littleton raised concerns over LCC and patients were tested. Littleton issued a statement April 2 confirming the planned mobilization of the Massachusetts National Guard (MNG) the following day to conduct testing at nursing facilities. After this unprecedented outbreak, the MNG only tested patients and not a single one of the 204 LCC-NV employees.

According to an LCC-NV numbers update released April 10, of the 109 residents at the center, 98 have been tested revealing 67 positive cases, not including the 10 residents who have already passed away from the virus, and 2 tests were still pending.

Out of 204 employees, 75 are out sick, with only 29 workers being tested, of which 14 tested positive, 9 negative, with 6 tests still pending. Seventeen employees who are presumed to be positive, showing COVID-19 symptoms, have not yet been tested.

The update states: Due to ongoing limitations in availability of testing, we do not have a mechanism to request that all staff be tested. Tests are being handled by each individual employee in consultation with their doctor. There is a seed of truth in this callous statement. Certainly, the criminal negligence of LCC-NV is not to be understated, but it also cannot be analyzed in a vacuum.

LCC-NV representatives apparently stonewalled public health officials beginning to identify close contacts with the person who tested positive. However, the MNG not testing employeesalong with the difficulties health care, grocery, transit and other essential workers across the country with symptoms face receiving testingexposes the criminal neglect of the entire ruling class and political apparatus that for decades, through bipartisan efforts, has decimated health care and other crucial social infrastructure and services.

Billionaire Forrest L. Preston is the sole owner of Life Care Centers of America (LCCA), parent company of LCC-NV. LCCA owns over 200 nursing, Alzheimers and dementia care, inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation, and assisted and independent living facilities in 28 states, including the nursing home in Kirkland, Washington where at least 35 deaths from COVID-19 were linked in the early days of the outbreak.

Experience from the outbreak in Kirkland should have given impetus to significant changes in all LCCA facilities. But the LCCAs history of subordinating the wellbeing of patients to profits extends back long before the pandemic.

In October of 2016, LCCA had to pay a $145 million government settlement, in connection with allegations from January 2006 to February 2013, for systematically prescribing unnecessary rehabilitation therapy to patients, as well as keeping them in facilities longer than was necessary in order to continue billing for rehabilitation therapy, even after the treating therapists felt that therapy should be discontinued, according to a press release from the US Department of Justice.

The settlement also resolved a separate lawsuit by the United States against Preston who, as the sole shareholder of Life Care, was unjustly enriched by Life Cares fraudulent scheme. The tragic deaths of Maria Krier and residents of LCC-NV is just one of countless examples of workers speaking out on their unmet needs to safely carry out and fulfill their work for society, but resulting in needless deaths when their warnings were not heeded.

Boeing is one recent example of the criminalization of the corporate ruling elite in the drive for profits. Repeated warnings from engineers and pilots of the safety dangers of the new Boeing 737 Max 8 were ignored. Only after two planes crashed killing 346 people were the planes finally grounded.

With Prestons current wealth of $1.7 billion, workers and residents at every LCCA facility whose payments and labor have enriched their sole owner should have ample access to PPEs and any other means necessary to keep employees and residents safe.

The impending catastrophe exposed by Maria Krier has played out at nursing homes across Massachusetts. Just some of these cases include:

Belmont Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where the virus has killed 30 patients;

AdviniaCare in Willmington, where 77 out of 98 nursing home residents tested positive;
Lt. Col. David Faggard is director of Public Affairs at Air Force Global Strike Command.

Nearly eight decades ago, on April 18, 1942, a band of airmen known as the Doolittle Raiders lined the deck of the USS Hornet in their B-25 Mitchell bombers, riding the uneasy waves of the Pacific Ocean. Readying to strike the heart of the mighty Japanese Empire - Tokyo - these bold and innovative airmen took the fight to an enemy who had earlier attacked the Hawaiian Islands.

The airmen focused their surprise offense with what they had available to them, 16 medium bombers outfitted with just four 500 pound bombs; they chose to strike the enemys heart in aviations first long-range strike operation. They chose that target not because it was easy, but because it was necessary, for the nation.

It was one of the first bold actions that would later shape our nations long-range strike team.

These aviators were the best of us and we must remain deeply humbled and honored to carry on their legacy as Strikers. With the passing of the last of these aviation giants, it is up to us to carry on their legacy through our Striker culture.

Today, Strikers find ourselves battling once again, preserving health while balancing risk to mission during a global pandemic. Risk is balanced now inside the flightdeck and on the flightline, from the maintainers down into the capsules.

Strikers are charged with providing lethal combat power, anywhere, anytime. With overwhelming force, Americas long range strike force remains postured and ready to strike any target with overwhelming and decisive power. Prepared to fight-and win-in all conditions.

All conditions.

As the alliances only ICBM and bomber fleet, Strikers are once again innovating boldly by managing a global mission with new challenges at every turn.

This is a new and historic time where bold leaders are required to make bold decisions to ensure the enterprise remains safe, secure and effective. Strikers operate in isolation and thrive in that environment like no other force can. They havent missed a beat and continue to lead by standing on the shoulders of giants like Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle and his Raiders.

These airmen are the nations ace in the hole. There is a growing and insatiable demand for global strike on speed dial. Were mentoring bold innovators and we seek the next generation of airmen ready to lead. Whether its hypersonics, reinventing an aging platform, or providing new options to combatant commands, long range strike will be there.

Our airmen fly, maintain and employ an American arsenal thats older than their parents. But, the nation is counting on us, and well meet any challenge and any crisis head-on.

-- The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.
American movie theater operators hope to fully reopen their businesses across the United States by late July. The theaters were forced to close last month to slow the coronavirus spread.

Operators are planning for a slow reopening. They aim to open some theaters in parts of the U.S. where infection numbers are dropping.

The limited business could begin as early as mid-June, said Patrick Corcoran, spokesman for the National Association of Theater Owners. However, he said the timing of the reopening is not decided yet and will depend on guidance from health officials.

Hollywood production companies are unlikely to release big-budget films during a limited reopening of theaters. Blockbusters such as Walt Disney Companys Mulan and Wonder Woman 1984 from Warner Brothers are currently planned for nationwide release in late July and August.

Will the public return?

One issue the movie industry faces is whether the public will feel safe and at ease about returning to theaters.

There are two schools of thought, Corcoran said. People will be very tense and careful and nervous, or people will just be desperate to get out of the house. Its going to probably be a mixture.

During their early weeks back in business, theaters likely will show old movies, or films that were playing in March when theaters closed, Corcoran said.

That could mean showing a beloved musical such as Grease or a series of movies like Back to the Future or Harry Potter, said Brock Bagby, a top official with B&B Theatres. The Missouri-based company operates theaters in seven states.

Movie theater companies are considering special efforts to get people back into theater seats. Ideas include audience costume competitions linked to Harry Potter or serving butterbeer, Potters favorite drink, at theaters, Bagby said. But, he added sad or very heavy dramas are not part of the plan.

We want the movies we bring back to bring joy to people, Bagby said.

Operators also are debating how to demonstrate new safety measures they establish for reopening, such as increased cleaning. Corcoran questions if seeing the measures in action will make the public more at ease or less. He also said safety measures may differ among theaters depending on local guidance.

Bagby said B&B Theaters will establish social distancing rules if health officials advise it. Several days before closing in March, the company cut the number of permitted theater visitors by 50 percent. Bagby said the theaters had no problems carrying the measure out. He said some showtimes sold out at half-full.

Difficult financial situation

During the shutdown, theater companies and independent operators have been seeking government aid or loans to avoid financial failure. Cinemark Holdings Inc., for example, said on Monday that it had raised $250 million through a sale of debt.

However, a return to usual for Hollywood movie releases will involve more than the U.S. Studios will need sales from around the world to support their costliest films, said Chris Aronson, president of Domestic Film Distribution at ViacomCBS Inc.s Paramount Pictures.

Paramount currently plans to release the family film, Sponge Bob: Sponge on the Run on July 31. The studio moved another expected summer blockbuster, Top Gun: Maverick, to December.

China, the worlds second-largest movie market, reopened theaters in March after an extended closure. Two weeks later, however, China closed them again without explanation.

If there is great uncertainty in major parts of the world, Aronson said, I think there are going to be issues opening major films.

Im Caty Weaver.

Reuters news agency reported this story. Caty Weaver adapted it for VOA Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

blockbuster n. something that is very large, costly, or successful

desperate adj. involving or employing extreme measures in an attempt to escape defeat or frustration

audience n. a group of people who gather together to listen to something (such as a concert) or watch something (such as a movie or play) : the people who attend a performance

costume n. the clothes that are worn by someone (such as an actor) who is trying to look like a different person or thing

drama n. a play, movie, television show, or radio show that is about a serious subject and is not meant to make the audience laugh
The 68-year-old was in a bad way. He had COVID-19, and his heart was failing.

Then, amazingly, he recovered. After a few days recuperating, he tested negative to COVID-19.

A little over a week later, he took another test  which came back positive. Back he went to hospital.

Seven days later, tests showed he was negative. Then, four days later, he tested positive again. Back again to hospital.
Gaithersburg, MD, April 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Associa Community Management Corporation (CMC) is proud to announce that its managed communities, Hidden Creek Homeowners Association and Kentlands Citizen Assembly, were selected to work with Sustainable Maryland on new green initiatives.

Founded in 2011 at the University of Maryland, the Sustainable Maryland program has been funded by the Chesapeake Bay Trust to work with three homeowners associations to create a Residential Sustainability Action Framework that will help municipalities guide their sustainability efforts. Hidden Creek Homeowners Association and Kentlands Citizen Assembly, along with Saybrooke HOA, will form Green Teams within their communities that will coordinate with Gaithersburgs Environmental Action Committee.

Both Hidden Creek Homeowners Association and Kentlands Citizen Assembly continue to make positive environmental progress through their dedication to green initiatives, stated John Tsitos, CMCA, AMS, PCAM, CMC president. We are proud of this recognition and are excited to see how both will work with Sustainable Maryland to make an impact on the environment, their residents, and their respective communities for years to come.

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered the state National Guard to begin testing residents and staff of nursing homes to stem the spread of COVID-19. The Guard personnel will be embedded with medical teams that will begin testing nursing homes in the hardest-hit southern part of the state. They will then continue to other regions, according to DeSantis, until supplies run out.

As of Tuesday, there were 1,135 confirmed COVID-19 cases among staff and residents inside Florida nursing homes. Overall, the state has nearly 25,000 diagnosed cases, with 726 deaths so far. The number of deaths inside nursing homes has not been disclosed to the public at this time.

The governors office has not provided the public with the names of the facilities where most of the positive cases have been found, further endangering the residents and workers there. Representatives of the Florida Health Association, a trade group that represents long term care facilities, recently requested that Governor DeSantis grant them immunity from any civil or criminal liability related to the COVID-19 outbreak.

On Tuesday the Sun-Sentinel reported that the DeSantis administration interfered in a public records lawsuit filed by the Miami Herald regarding nursing home coronavirus cases when it contacted the newspapers law firm, Holland and Knight. The firm subsequently ordered Sandy Bohrer, a partner and longtime counsel for the Herald, not to file the lawsuit.

Holland and Knight issued a statement claiming that they withdrew due to a conflict of interest. George Meros, the firms registered lobbyist, is currently representing the DeSantis administration in its attempt to deny convicted felons who have not yet paid their court fees the right to vote, an effective poll tax.

The Herald is continuing to pursue the lawsuit with a different law firm.

Meanwhile, the millions of Floridians who have become unemployed since the beginning of the outbreak continue to struggle with the states antiquated unemployment system. The total number of jobless claims in the state now stands at 600,000.

That figure likely represents a sum far lower than the actual number seeking unemployment assistance, as the states computerized system for filing claims has repeatedly crashed due to the overwhelming volume of traffic. There have been thousands of reports of residents unable to make the initial filing for benefits due to a variety of problems. This has forced many to seek assistance from the states hotline, where the wait time is hours long and they are often arbitrarily disconnected. Many thousands more have filed by mail.

According to the Miami Herald, the call centers set up by the state to handle the overflow of claims have also been overwhelmed, with only one to two percent of calls answered and an average wait time of 6.5 hours. In the last week of March, according to the Herald, only 8,395 out of a total of 864,313 calls were answered.

Those who have successfully filed claims have faced difficulties in collecting benefits, as they are required to use the same program to request payment every two weeks. Last week, DeSantis announced the state would roll out a new website to process claims faster, which immediately resulted in a huge surge in claims.

Despite the new website and the addition of 2,000 additional call center employees to handle the huge number of claims, many residents have reported that they are still typically disconnected from the website when they try to log on. Media across the state have reported that more money has now been spent trying to fix the existing system than was spent developing it in the first place.

From the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, the response of the Governors office has been characterized by criminal ineptitude and corruption. After initially resisting calls for a statewide lockdown, DeSantis capitulated after the Trump administration extended its social distancing guidelines through April 30. There has been no push for mass testing, with only 236,000 of the states more than 21 million residents tested so far.

Among those Floridians who have received tests are the entire population of Fisher island, a 216-acre enclave off the coast of downtown Miami that is the wealthiest zip code in the US. Accessible only by boat, the island is home to approximately 1,800 residents spread across 800 different residences, ranging in price from $2 to $40 million.

The islands administration was able to purchase the tests through a partnership with the University of Miami Health System, which operates a clinic on the island.
The Delhi governments plan to carry out 20,000 swab tests in containment areas over five days between Tuesday and Saturday ended with roughly 4,000 tests after the hard lockdown in these areas turned out to be a hurdle for sample collection efforts.

In an order last week, seen by HT, the government identified the need to ramp up testing and said 20,000 samples would be collected from containment areas and quarantine zones over a span of five days beginning Tuesday. On Saturday, the fifth day, this number was at 4,030.

So far, samples were being collected only in our hospitals, and we cannot ask people living in containment zones to come to the hospitals. We have to go there and set up a temporary tent or room or something where we can ask people from the area to come and give their samples. With RT-PCR tests, sample collection is more difficult because when the swab is put at the back of the throat, aerosol that might contain the virus is generated, said a senior official from Delhis health department, asking not to be named.

The need to ramp up testing comes at a time when new clusters are forming in the city. On Saturday, the city reported 186 new cases from among 736 samples that were processed in 24 hours. This means one in four people who were tested had the infection, underscoring the need to widen the net in order to detect the other cases that there may be.

To improve the testing rate, the Delhi government has decided to incentivise collection of samples and set up 21 collection centres in hotels, dharmashalas and hospitals that were not initially designated as collection centres. Additionally, all Delhi government hospitals will start collecting samples in tents outside main buildings.

Teams from the dispensaries are being mobilised to collect the samples in the containment areas. They will go to the centres being set up in the community and ask people to come there, said another official from Delhis health department.

Teams that will collect samples in the community will be paid Rs 100 per sample, with those actually taking the swabs getting a bigger share of the incentive.

The incentive per team would be worked out in such a way that the person exposed to maximum danger or higher risk will be given the greater share (2 shares) of the incentive. For example, if there are 8 members in a team with two persons taking the samples then the total amount (number of samples x 100) would be divided by 10 to ensure that the two sample collectors will be given two shares of the incentive, according to an officer order by Delhis health department.

The government has also roped in private laboratories to process the samples as it is likely to exceed the capacity of the six government-run labs.

Private laboratories will be paid Rs 4,500 if they collect a sample and use their own testing kit; R 3,500 if the sample is collected by the government and the kit is of the lab; and R 2,200 if the sample is collected by the government and the kit is also provided by it.

Yes, we have started sending samples to the private laboratories. This is done only after our own capacity is exhausted, said a third official from Delhi government health department.

Yet, this might not be enough. On Friday, 2,674 samples  more than the total number of samples collected remaining pending at both government and private labs.

In addition to the swab tests, the government will deploy 42,000 rapid testing kits it received on Saturday to check for signs of infection through a blood sample.

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Onward and upward: that has been the momentum of Chinese childrens publishing since 2002, the start of what industry insiders refer to as the golden era of childrens books in China. Whether this growth trajectory is due to the sheer number of people under 18 (about 370 million and counting) and newborns (14.65 million in 2019) or its rising middle class (around 400 million people) with higher disposable income to spend on education and reading, it is seemingly unstoppable.

The childrens book segment now accounts for 26.53% of Chinas total book retail market, which is valued at CNY 102.27 billion ($14.71 billion). This is up from 25.19% in 2018, according to the Beijing-based OpenBook, a clearinghouse for publishing statistics. The segment expanded 18.5% last year, continuing a growth streak of 19.7%, 28.8%, 21.2%, and 13.7% for 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018, respectively.

A more clearly defined target market that is also less affected by trends or societal issues is one reason for the segments continued expansion, says Sun Zhu, president of China Childrens Press & Publication Group (CCPPG), the countrys largest childrens book publisher in terms of output, adding that the segments profitability level has always been much higher than the overall market average, and this has propelled its growth at a faster clip compared to other book segments.

Childrens literature, pop science/science encyclopedias, comic books, and picture books dominate the Chinese childrens book market, as do translated titles. Channel-wise, childrens literature sells the most through bricks-and-mortar bookstores, while cartoon/comics and picture books do very well at online stores, Sun adds, pointing out that pop science, another fast-growing segment, is a focus area for many publishers.

Current bestsellers are mostly older titles, Sun says, which means that it is difficult for new publications to break through. Cross-disciplinary titles that combine literature with history and science, or picture books that offer both elements of science and art, are a future trend. Given the impact of, and media consciousness of, advancing technology, contents related to science and technology in childrens books are set to increase further.

The demand for higher-quality education coming from parents and educators will also widen the range of reading materials for children, Sun says. The types of childrens books will increase, which means that there will be less chance for a specific genre or category to dominate the market.

Last year, 26,368 new childrens titles entered the Chinese book market, down from 30,940 in the previous year, according to OpenBook. This drop is partly due to the governments intervention in trying to cool down the booming segment by prolonging the application process for Cataloging in Publication (CIP) numbers, which allows titles to be published in China.

The longer process has a positive impact on the industry, says Li Xin, vice president and general editor at Thinkingdom Childrens Books. It forces every publisher to carefully weigh the potential of each new title or rights deal and see how it fits the current market. It effectively clamps down on the tendency to just grab any title that comes into our view. With fewer but more carefully chosen titles, we can then better organize our resources and plan more focused marketing campaigns for each one that is published.

Exploring niche areas and emerging topics

The current Chinese childrens book market is a red ocean, says Yuan Hai, president of BPG Bright Technology & Culture. The focus and competition in popular and bestselling topics are immense, and this is unsustainable. We need to differentiate our offerings in order to be competitive. With the creation of our new companywhich blends Beijing Bright Culture Development Companys entrepreneurial spirit with Beijing Publishing Groups stable operational basewe are on a mission to create a strong brand, find unique and high-quality content, and create our own community of readers.

Big strides made in historical and cultural conservation and restoration across China, Yuan adds, present a potential publishing area. Books on this topic provide an understanding of, and pride in, our long history. Without the past, there is no futureas the saying goesand children need to know their history and heritage first in order to build their coming years. Such books, Yuan says, are tailor-made for museums and libraries, with immense potential for repackaging, special editions, and merchandising.

Retooling popular backlist titles to keep pace with market trends is another consideration, Yuan says. A case in point: we have the Little Science Guys: Lets Play Science Together series, published in 2014, which can be updated and reworked to include new experiments that require parental guidance or help. We will then have a new edition that will foster stronger child-parent bonding at the same time. Furthermore, repurposing and customizing content makes perfect sense in these times of fast-evolving market demands and sales channels.

Body safety, emotional health, and anti-bullying are emerging topics in the Chinese childrens book market, says Wen Ting, vice president of PHEI (Childrens Book Division). We have published several titles in these areas, including Cornelia Maude Spelmans Your Body Belongs to You and Nancy Carlsons Loudmouth George. Parents and educators are also looking for titles that offer science principles and applications in everyday life. They want their children to get excited about reading and learning science, and immediately applying what they have learned.

For Ji Tong, president of Aurora Publishing House, the industrys future is one of variety and enriched formats. Intelligent and interactive reading experiences, which we were unable to provide through paper and ink or produce at reasonable costs in the past, is now available and viable. In 2018, we published two picture booksThe Chinese Children and The Chinese New Yearwith augmented reality technology to create interest and enhance the reading experience. Such a combination of new technology with captivating content is changing the childrens-publishing industry.

Over at Thinkingdom Childrens Books, Lis focus is on publishing original titles on current trends and issues surrounding Chinese children. One such topic revolves around busy parents who are always on their mobile phonesfor work or personal reasonsand not paying enough attention to their children, she says. This is a universal concern in these times of constant connectivity and digital distractions. We will launch one picture book that addresses these issues for ages three to six by Li Qiaoqiao this October.

Developing originals and bringing in translations

With fierce competition coming from so many childrens book publishers in the marketplacenearly 600 at the last countprofit margins are getting slimmer than ever. Add heavy discounting at bookstores and online retailers, and the situation gets tougher.

Picture books such as our recently launched It Might Be an Apple by Shinsuke Yoshitake would have achieved much higher sales if they were published five years ago, Li says. But that does not mean that we are slowing down our publishing program, investment in rights-buying, or development of originals. We believe that there are many great titles out there that must be translated and introduced to our children, and outstanding talents that need to be nurtured with inspiring ideas.

The latter has prompted Li and her team to organize a seminar titled How to Create a Picture Book in November. We invited several speakers, including picture book author and award-winning illustrator Li Qiaoqiao and upcoming picture book author Sylvia Liang, and the event was attended by more than 50 people, Li says, pointing out that since it was definitely not the first such event organized by a publishing house, it goes to show that there are many people out thereauthors and illustrators, budding or otherwisethat are interested in creating original works and wanting to know how to do it better.

Sally Yan, founder and editor-in-chief at Beijing Dandelion Childrens Book House, for one, has held several talks on childrens books in the past four years. China has an abundance of talented illustrators. But they are focused on doing great illustrations as an assignment, she says. They can draw given the content, but they dont do the story or organize the plot. The same goes for animators. So, if the illustrators and animators do not get a good editor, the end result is not going to be nice. The events her publishing house held, she notes, are meant to cultivate an understanding among the creative communityauthors, illustrators, animators, editors, and publishersso that the industry can elevate itself and ensure that each player does his or her part well together. This way, we will have great original publications and a cohesive and mature industry.

Over at CCPPG, the focus is on developing original titles and nurturing new talents, and not fixated on sales figuresbut, of course, having both would be nice, says Sun, whose company is the Chinese home of Cipollino, Le Petit Nicolas, Pippi Longstocking, and Tintin. CCPPG published 753 new titles in 2019, over 85% of which are originals.

One peculiarity in the Chinese publishing world is that authors tend to publish their works with several houses at the same time. And this, says Ji, of Aurora Publishing House, is a good thing. At our company, we do not restrict our authorseven those that we nurtured and who later become well-knownor insist that they publish all their titles with us. In fact, we encourage them to go out, spread their wings, try out new genres, and broaden their experiences working with other publishers. We treat this like the development of a child: venture out of the comfort zone, leave the nest, learn new things, and grow. And an authors continuous growth, she adds, is crucial for the future of the industry. New ideas must be given the ground to germinate and not be confined to a specific space or entity.

Reaching the target audience

According to the China Internet Network Information Center, there are currently 847 million mobile phone users in the country, and the average download speed of mobile broadband has increased by about six times compared to five years ago, while mobile internet fees have dropped by over 90% during the same period. The faster service at lower costs has boosted usage growth, with the average monthly mobile data usage per user reaching 7.2 GB, or 1.2 times the global average. There are also at least 673.5 million social media users in China right now. (See Deploying Tech Tools During the Covid-19 Outbreak, p. 12.)

With rising mobile usage and speedy mobile payment, more online platforms are available to offer publishers different and effective ways to move their books off the inventory. For savvy publishers, the best marketing and promotional strategy would be selecting the most appropriate online platforms from the lot and picking some of the 70,000-plus bricks-and-mortar bookstores across China to work with.

The marketing channels and platforms are diversified and decentralized, says Bai Bing, editor-in-chief of Jieli Publishing House. And if used well, they complement each other. We must study the characteristics of each channel and platform, and customize our product planning and marketing strategies to leverage them for maximum returns. Bai and his team are experimenting with various marketing tools on Douyin (or TikTok, as it is known outside of China) while tweaking their traditional online strategies. We need to meet the habits and demands of the post-90s consumers, which also means paying more attention to retail experience than ever before.

Making use of new platforms to reach the target audience is a no-brainer. Douyin is tailor-made for titles that benefit from show and tell, says Wen, of PHEI (Childrens Books Division). For our complex pop-up title Open Up: China, we are able to showcase the pop-ups of different architectural gems through the short video presentation. It is great for generating buzz and directing traffic to our WeChat platform. Wens editorial team also created an exclusive Dangdang edition for sales through the online retailer.

Current sales at PHEI (Childrens Books Division) are mostly through online platforms. For Jon Woodcocks Coding series from DK, for instance, our translator is a Chinese-born Silicon Valley engineer who has an established WeChat account, explains Wen, whose team went on to devise a multipronged prelaunch marketing campaign. He is able to share American educational concepts and study resources as well as tips on learning English, math, and science with fans. We worked with him to provide a series of online video courses based on the books to give children a different learning approach.

Success came fast: on the launch day in June, more than 6,000 sets of the four-title series were sold (raking in more than CNY 600,000) through the translators WeChat account, which also received 54,000-plus text messages from fans. At the end of the first month, online sales had exceeded 20,000 sets.

Sun, of CCPPG, and his team also had great success working with online platforms. They collaborated with Mom Dans Children Book Library and promoted The Nine-Colored Deer series through the platforms official WeChat account last September; sales hit 80,000 copies within two weeks.

But Wen cautions that while some of the new platforms entering the fray are capable of penetrating hard-to-reach communities and fourth- and fifth-tier cities, they can be unstable and unsustainable over time. So it makes sense to spread the message across multiple channels and focus on building an even stronger Little Mammoth brand for our childrens list.

Different channels work for different purposes, says Yuan, of BPG Bright Technology & Culture. While social media platforms can bring in big sales numbers, the profit margin is low, and the effective promotional period tends to be very short. On the other hand, the bricks-and-mortar channel has the physical aspects of showing a book while allowing face-to-face interaction with the target audience. Right now, the latest method to sell and promote titles is through news programs, especially for event-specific publications. So the most important thing is to tailor our marketing strategy to fit each product.

Aurora Publishing Houses distribution department uses both online and offline methods for marketing and promotion. Additionally, we organize numerous author visits to schools each year for direct author-reader interactions, and these have proven helpful in encouraging and improving childrens interest and passion in reading and writing, Ji says. Last November, the Aurora team and author Xu Ling held several reading activities in three primary schools in Qujing City, Yunnan Province, to promote the newly published series Come On, Xiaobugu.

Eva Song, cofounder of the private library and education center Acre Junior Library, says this year will see her team investing more effort in both online and offline marketing and branding. We are focused on developing partnerships and alliances with teacher-training centers, kindergarten operators, and KOLs [key opinion leaders] who are interested in helping their students or members achieve independent reading and good reading habits. We will utilize WeChat, Douyin, and parenting platforms to get the word out about our series. Even though her sales and marketing team has barely started, word has already gotten out: about 1,000 sets of levels 1 and 2 were already sold, mostly through online retailers.

Over at Thinkingdom Childrens Books, the sales channels that work best are bricks-and-mortar outlets and online retailers, since its catalogue is predominantly single titles. For us, the ability to introduce a title, invite the author or illustrator to give a talk, curate specific activities based on the book, and directly interact with the target readers and buyers is very important, says Li, whose team holds at least 30 events every year.

Standing out in the crowded marketplace requires much more than great books and dedicated marketing and promotional activities at Beijing Dandelion Childrens Book House. Previously, we set up an online sales department to strengthen our distribution and marketing efforts, especially since many of our titles are listed at the Dandang online bookstore, Yan says. Now we are revamping our branding strategy to make it stronger and more effective, and looking into creating spin-offs, limited editions, and promotional products such as pins and badges for selected titles. Last November, we had special fridge magnets made to celebrate the sale of the 10 millionth copy of a Richard Scarry title.

Now that mega-malls are major attractions for children and parents, Yan and her team are also doing more special (and bigger) events at such venues. We did five major events last year, including one on Richard Scarry, she says. We are also increasing our direct interactions with readers to promote original publications. While we are known as the Chinese home of The Magic School Bus, Maurice Sendak, and Mauri Kunnas, among many others, our original picture books are less publicized and branded properly. Such events offer the opportunity to build that essential relationship for feedback and future promotional activities.

Gearing up for 5G

Currently, three of the countrys major telecommunications companiesChina Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecomare pushing forward with the task of setting up new 5G base stations across the country. By 2025, China is expected to have 600 million 5G users. (During the coronavirus outbreak, 5G-powered cameras and tools were already used to detect body temperature and deploy rapid medical interventions.)

One immediate impact of superfast 5G technology is on livestreaming, which often involves a celebrity or host demonstrating a product and answering questions from a digital audience. Livestreaming is becoming a very powerful tool in Chinas e-commerce market, which is valued at CNY 440 billion ($63.4 billion), according to a report by Everbright Securities/Coresight. With 5G technologies that have faster connectivity and wider bandwidth, the livestreaming experience will offer improved visual effects and smoother host-audience interactions.

5G will also bring about new tools that enable unmanned sales models and enhanced book-vending machines. And since consumption of such services will increase over time, the question now is how bricks-and-mortar stores are going to adapt to these changes, says Bai, of Jieli Publishing House, pointing out that instantaneous 5G transmission will change the way the publishing industry disseminates information to target audiences. These will expand the creative space for audio- and video-based content and media-rich multiformat publications, and present publishers with new opportunities.

Immersive reading experience that requires fast and massive data transmission will be made possible through 5G networks, and this will open up certain segments such as pop science, where virtual reality can be introduced, Bai adds, cautioning that the book industry will be disrupted by 5G, which will bring about changes to lifestyles, consumer behaviors, and reading habits. How will the childrens-publishing industry adapt to these shifts? For now, the macro perspectives need to be explored and thought through so that we can understand the impact on more specific issues, and plan our publishing programs accordingly.

Sun, of CCPPG, adds that 5G networks will inject new energy into digital reading. With faster transmission speed, lower latency, and broader bandwidth, the reading experience can be enhanced by better interactivity, more virtual reality applications, and highly personalized multiformat content. Changes in purchasing behaviors and consumption due to 5G technologies will lead to shifts in promotional and marketing activities and strategies. Publishers will also have to enhance their reading platforms to provide more intelligent and personalized services while new directions in marketing, promotional, and distribution strategies will focus on multidirectional, multichannel, and even cross-border collaborations to achieve traffic aggregation and monetization. It will be an exciting time for the publishing industry.

Fulfilling social responsibility and promoting reading

Getting books to children in rural and remote areas of China remains a challenge. But with increased mobile networks enabling book sales via online channels, the situation is not as drastic as it was before.

Rural areas now have the capabilities to purchase books online, which further reduces the disparity of access to books between rural and urban areas, says Bai, of Jieli Publishing House. Furthermore, many farming and rural communities have set up their own bookstores, and the government is funneling more books into these stores. Book consumption levels in rural areas are increasing. Bai and his team continue to distribute titles to rural bookstores even though there is little profit to be made. We want to support the reading habits of rural communities and ensure that they have quality content for themselves and their children.

Jieli Publishing House has also organized numerous reading campaigns in rural areas and smaller cities. Youth Reading in Beautiful Guangxi was one such campaign, in which authors and book experts visited remote and poor areas in Guangxi Province to talk about reading and encourage reading habits. We organize more than 300 talks per year, and local and overseas writers and illustrators often join us, says Bai, whose company donated more than 5,000 books to rural schools last year.

Ji, of Aurora Publishing House, says that one of her companys main CSR (corporate social responsibility) programs involves reaching out to border schools and those situated in the remote and mountainous areas of Yunnan Province. We do not have to look far to donate books: schools along the borders with Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam, for instance, are often underfunded in terms of books and teachers. We make it a point to visit during school breaks, bring new books, help children with their reading list, and spend time with them. We also organized activities such as reading competition to get children interested in reading and, hopefully, cultivate a lifelong reading habit. There is much to do for these schools and their children.

Aurora Publishing House is also actively participating in a state-run nationwide reading campaign. As the only publishing house involved in this provincial event, we are even more determined than ever to create great books and present them to the public, adds Ji, who has invited many of her authors to participate in the campaign, meet with readers, and read aloud from their books.

Last June, PHEI (Childrens Books Division) joined the call to get books out to children in rural areas. We curated over 1,200 titles for a book-donation drive that is focused on districts in Henan and Sichuan provinces that are under state-led poverty-alleviation programs, Wen says. Our goal is to continue reaching out to children in these areas and ensure that they have access to books that they need to change and improve their lives. Addressing the disparity between the rural and urban areas in terms of book distribution and access is the social responsibility of every publisher.

The companys launch of Agan Wins on the WeChat public platform on February 21 was about fulfilling this responsibility. We also want to educate children about the coronavirus and cheering on medical professionals and people over in Wuhan, where the outbreak started, Wen notes. The picture book is about an infected (and personified) bowl of hot noodles, Wuhans traditional dish, which remains upbeat despite being infected and is focused on its fight against the virus. Aside from offering the e-book version free for readers, we also invited the hosts of Xueying Reading Club to record the audio version, says Wen, whose editorial team took just 13 days to publish the title despite having to work and collaborate remotely from home; the hardcover version was published in March. At least 40,000 people have read the free e-book.

Last year, CCPPG carried out one major public-reading activity and donated nearly CNY 800,000 worth of books and newspapers to elementary schools in two counties in Shanxi Province. More than 30 reading-related lectures were also carried out at the schools.

In the meantime, more spaces for reading should be provided for children, and more timeand moneyneeds to be focused on reading activities, says Song, of Acre Junior Library, whose team is working to complete a brand-new Chinese-language graded reading series that helps children start reading independently and cultivate good reading habits.

Song is busy building a database of high-quality Chinese books in the hopes of achieving what Lexile frameworks for reading and listening do for English books. We have tens of thousands of Chinese childrens books in our library, and we are always trying to match a childs proficiency and interest with the right title. With the proliferation of 5G networks and artificial intelligence, we will be able to recommend a book much faster and more accurately.

Such database will help parents and educators choose the right book for their children. The problem of not knowing what to choose and read is not limited to just the big cities. It is a challenge everywhere in this nation given the number of titles in circulation in the marketplace, Song adds, pointing out that the Chinese childrens book industry en masse is moving from sheer quantity to higher quality. The development of high-quality original titles for the domestic market is only going to increase by leaps and bounds. And in the near future, we will have titles with standards and plots that are on par with those in the Western world while importing the best from overseas for our children.

For now, with the worst of the coronavirus outbreak behind them, Chinese childrens book publishers are pondering the magnitude of the economic toll on their hitherto booming segment. But with many marketing and promotional activities quickly shifted online and onto social media while editorial processes and strategies were carried out remotely, much of the damage has been mitigated. In this battle, their resilience and tenacity are the bright spots. As to how the segment holds up at the end of the day, the reading community will have its say.

Return to the main feature.
A 37-year-old Camden woman was being held after she allegedly shoplifted from a ShopRite grocery in Brooklawn, spit on an employee, and hit another with a car, and then after being arrested two days later tossed a cup of urine at jail staff, authorities said Friday.

Alycia Roman was at the Camden County Jail awaiting trial on charges that include third-degree aggravated assault and second-degree robbery.

On Sunday, Roman allegedly took a bag of groceries without paying and then spit on a store employee who followed her. She then allegedly hit another employee with her car and tried to run the employee over, but he was able to jump out of the way.

She was arrested on Tuesday, and while being booked threw the cup of urine at a correctional officer, the Camden County Prosecutors Office said in a news release.
The International Day for Monuments and Sites or World Heritage Day is observed on April 18 every year. The idea is to promote cultural heritage via activities undertaken by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).

In line with the coornavirus global pandemic this year's theme of Shared Cultures, Shared Heritage, Shared Responsibility has become even more important. Almost all the countries have imposed a complete lockdown, travelling has been barred and instead staying at home has been recommended as a measure of protection against the deadly pathogen.

The organisation in its latest release suggested certain measures to celebrate April 18 through the internet. Some activities can be undertaken like virtual conferences, online lectures, press releases and social media campaigns, the UNESCO release suggested.

The statement read: "You can post photos, information and videos on shared cultures and shared heritage from your respective country. To increase the reach, we should use hashtags and share the message with as many friends and family as possible. Individuals can also upload photos which are in relation to the theme, onto the ICOMOS Photobank."

The UNESCO backed World Heritage Convention urged people to participate in the event and invite freinds and family too. "It is through online activities like these that we can spread awareness about our shared cultural heritage and educate those who are unaware about the rich cultural history that we have," the statement further said.

Last year's theme was 'rural landscapes' and in 2017 it was 'sustainable tourism'.
Stephen King, the author of The Outsider, among many other iconic horror novels, says that the coronavirus outbreak reminds many fans of his 1978 book The Stand. He explained in a recent radio interview why its a bit uncomfortable for him. Buthes been through this before.

Stephen King on fans who think the COVID-19 pandemic is like one of his books

Author Stephen King in 2006 | BERTRAND LANGLOIS/AFP via Getty Images

Terry Gross hosts Fresh Air, the interview show on National Public Radio. She recently invited Stephen King on as a guest to discuss The Outsider HBO TV seriesas well as the ongoing pandemic.

Some readers of the famous horror author are reminded of Kings novel The Stand, when it comes to the coronavirus outbreak. The plot of the 1978 book centers around an infectious disease that spreads rapidly across the globe.

Is this pandemic the closest thing youve come to living in one of your own horror stories? Gross asked the author. King answered that it is and it isnt. He recalled that in November 2016, when Donald Trump won the election, some Stephen King fans said the same thing about his book The Dead Zone.

Now that Trump is actually president of the United States and there is a pandemic worldwide, King explained, it seems almost like those two books cross-pollinated somehow. He also revealed how it all makes him feel: its not very comfortable to be me.

I keep having people say, gee, its like were living in a Stephen King story,' he told Gross. And my only response to that is, Im sorry, its not your fault.'

Stephen King says certain things about the COVID-19 outbreak remind him of The Stand

But for King, the strangest thing he noticed amidst the outbreak was the fact that people seem to have fixated on bathroom tissue, toilet tissue, toilet paper as the focal point for their anxiety. He continued:

The shelves are totally empty of that stuff. And every time the stuff comes in, it disappears again. I asked somebody at the supermarket, what is the deal with this? And they said, we have no idea what it is, because theres no shortage. Its just that people are stockpiling that one particular thing.

He never could have predicted that detail for his pandemic novel. However, King did admit that he saw several elements of the current situation that remind [him] of The Stand. The 1978 novel became a movie in 1994. He explained how in The Stand:

People kept saying to the American public and the world public, dont worry about this. Its just the flu. Everythings OK. when you see pictures of Times Square in New York or the freeways in Los Angeles, you say, yeah, this is really something that weve never seen in our lifetime.

So in that way, it is like a Stephen King story.

The Outsider writer on the coronavirus outbreak

Instead of one of his own stories, King told Gross that the current pandemic reminded him more of a 1968 horror film. The writer shared on Fresh Air:

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert hosts guest Stephen King in 2018 | Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images

 when you were talking about viruses not being alive or dead, this really is like one of those zombie movies. were living in the Night of the Living Dead, in a sense, because the virus is just what it is, which is something thats almost incomprehensible to us and its incomprehensible to science.

Because its invisible, because we cant see it, he continued, it makes COVID-19 all the scarier.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18)  The public is safe from catching the coronavirus disease in testing centers, the Department of Health assured in a virtual media briefing on Saturday.

This was DOH Spokesperson Ma. Rosario Vergeire's response to a netizen's question on whether individuals getting tested for the virus are safe from getting infected in the said facilities.

"Ang ating pong mga doctor at health workers ay trained po sa mga ganitong gawain. Sila po ay well-versed o aral sa mga safety protocols upang masiguro na hindi lamang ang kanilang safety maging ang safety ng mga pasyente at mga tao sa kanilang paligid," explained Vergeire.

[Translation: Our doctors and health workers are trained for these activities (related to COVID-19). They are well-versed or well-learned on safety protocols to ensure not just their safety but also of the patients and the people around them.]

She said these protocols include the correct usage of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gloves.

"Salungat po sa mga nababalita, hindi po recycled o ginagamit muli ang gloves para sa maraming pasyente at sa halip ay nagpapalit po sila ng gloves sa bawat pagkuha ng specimen." Vergeire explained.

[Translation: Contrary to reports, (health workers) do not recycle or reuse gloves on multiple patients and instead replace gloves every time they get specimens (from people being tested).]

She added that frontliners undergo proper training, briefing, and orientation before getting deployed while testing facilities undergo thorough inspection before receiving certification from the department.

"Bawat detalye po ay atin talagang hinihimay para matiyak na safe po ang mga kababayan natin kapag sila ay pupunta dito," she said.

[Translation: We dissect every detail to ensure our countrymen are safe once they visit these (testing centers).]

The Philippines started progressive mass testing earlier this week, with 17 testing centers getting accredited by the DOH.

As of April 18, there are 6,087 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country. 397 have died from the illness, while 516 have recovered.

Vergeire also reiterated in Saturday's briefing the importance of social distancing, washing hands, and cough etiquette in curbing the spread of the deadly virus.
(Bloomberg) -- President Jair Bolsonaro fired the governments top doctor after he refused to bow to demands to ease social distancing policies in favor of reopening the economy.

Nelson Teich, a University of York-trained oncologist, was named health minister to replace Luiz Henrique Mandetta, whose relationship with his boss grew strained as the two publicly clashed over the best way to tackle the crisis. The administration has struggled to align its strategy in recent weeks, with Mandetta repeatedly urging Brazilians to self isolate and Bolsonaro flaunting that advice by mingling with supporters and calling the illness just a flu.

The shuffle opens the door for Bolsonaro to push ahead with plans to advocate targeted shutdowns in which only at-risk groups are quarantined. But while Teich said Thursday hes on the same page, reversing course will be no easy task as the pair still needs to convince state governors who are leading the charge on shutting schools and businesses. Global health officials caution that easing up on restrictions too soon could make way for an explosion in cases.

The measures have to be eased, Bolsonaro said Thursday at the presidential palace, while flanked by the new health minister. Teichs mission is to open jobs.

Its a critical moment in Brazils fight against the coronavirus, with the expected peak of the pandemic still weeks away. While the respiratory illness was slow to take hold in Latin Americas largest economy, cases are now ballooning. Many medical professionals -- and even Mandetta himself -- warned that the public health system would be pushed to collapse if infections track the explosion in other parts of the world. Official cases in Brazil doubled in the past week to about 30,500, with deaths nearing 2,000.

In his debut appearance as health minister, Teich said the nations social distancing policy wont be abruptly changed before more information about the virus is available. The medical professional with a background in business previously founded Grupo COI, a network of oncology clinics, and also started a clinical research institute, according to his LinkedIn page.

Story continues

Mandettas firing may further stoke criticism that Bolsonaro has responded slowly and erratically to the pandemic. The nations response is one factor weighing on Brazilian assets, with both the currency and the benchmark Ibovespa stock index ranking among the worst performers in this years global rout.

From politics to the fiscal situation, Brazil has become one of the riskiest markets in the world right now, said James Gulbrandsen, chief investment officer for Latin America at NCH Capital, which has about $3 billion in assets under management. Our pessimism is a direct function of the seriousness with which leaders take this crisis. And Bolsonaro hasnt taken this crisis seriously.

Popular Minister

Mandetta leaves the job with a stronger approval rating than that of his former boss. As Bolsonaro announced his departure, Brazilians protested by banging pots and pans in several neighborhoods of the countrys biggest cities.

The former minister, also a doctor, often snatched the spotlight during daily Health Ministry briefings and countless media interviews in which he said quarantines were needed to slow the rate of new infections and allow the health system to cope with a flood of patients.

Read More: Brazil Government Rejection Jumps in Poll Amid Slow Virus Fight

Many of Bolsonaros allies have broken with the president to support the health minister, including Rio de Janeiro Governor Wilson Witzel and Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria. Senate President Davi Alcolumbre and lower house Speaker Rodrigo Maia have also voiced their support for Mandetta.

Brazil risks being guided by politics and ideology instead of medicine and health, Doria said at a press conference on Wednesday as rumors of the cabinet change gained steam. Losing Mandetta, Doria said, would be a disaster.

(Recasts with comments from Bolsonaro and his new health minister)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

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Californias unemployment rate rose to 5.3 percent in March, according to preliminary data released Friday by the state Employment Development Department.

The present unemployment rate is almost certainly higher, experts said, as millions of Californians have filed for jobless benefits.

The data show the Bay Area shedding jobs sharply in mid-March, with San Francisco the highest in the region with a loss of 13,700 positions. That is probably due to decisions by San Francisco and other Bay Area counties to take early action and order residents to shelter in place, shutting down large portions of economic activity to quell coronavirus outbreaks, according to Christopher Thornberg, the founding partner of Beacon Economics.

Unemployment in the South Bay jumped 3.1 percentage points from February to March, according to Joint Venture Silicon Valley.

Southern California led the state in job losses, with the Los Angeles area losing 39,600 jobs in March.

On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that an additional 5.2 million Americans had filed for unemployment benefits in the week that ended Saturday, on the heels of two weeks of unemployment claims that topped 6 million nationwide.

Thornberg said that despite the bleak employment situation, the Bay Area is better situated to weather the storm than other parts of the state or country.

Relative to the national average, the San Francisco metro area has more occupations like professional and business services, said Laurence Ales, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University.

Ales said business services jobs, many of which can be done remotely as the pandemic health orders require, account for about 1 in 8 jobs nationally. In San Francisco and the Bay Area, they make up 1 out of every 5 jobs.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

He cautioned that while the March numbers probably reflect jobs directly affected by the stay-at-home orders, like those in hospitality and restaurants, even occupations that can be done from home will shed jobs as the slowdown draws out.

Drops in employment were less severe in some rural counties, likely due to many people working in sectors deemed essential, like government and agriculture, said Professor Jerry Nickelsburg of the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Nickelsburg cautioned against reading the data too closely, noting that it reflects a time when the painful economic measures had just begun to take effect. He added that compared with national unemployment figures, the data show California taking early action.

If you look at the state numbers versus the national numbers, the state has a greater than proportionate loss of jobs, Nickelsburg said. The state was early in placing restrictions on individual behavior in order to flatten the curve, referring to an epidemiological concept that slowing the spread of a disease through the population can strengthen the ability of the health care system to care for those who are ill.

Chase DiFeliciantonio is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: chase.difeliciantonio@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChaseDiFelice
- MoonBeam productions announced the series will be going off-air having aired for 21 continuous seasons

- The company cited the difficult times brought about by the global COVID-19 pandemic which has restricted movement

-The production company said they had been forced to take a break as they could not shoot because of the government's measures such as social distancing and avoiding public gathering

It is bad news for the lovers of local drama, Auntie Boss, for they will not be watching their favourite programme anymore.

The drama which airs on NTV has taken a break following the difficult times brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.

READ ALSO: Lockdown: Herd of elephants filmed calmly crossing road in Thailand

READ ALSO: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle spotted for the first time in US delivering food to the needy

In a statement by MoonBeam productions on the series's Facebook page, the show will be going off-air having aired for 21 continuous seasons.

"Auntie Boss took a bow after 21 great seasons on NTV. Thank you for welcoming us into your homes every Tuesday evening," read the statement.

READ ALSO: Raila amtia nguvu Omtatah kwa msiba, asema anaelewa uchungu wa kumpoteza mwana

According to the statement, the programme has had to take a break due to the hard times facing Kenya and the world at large.

"We have had to take a break during this difficult time as Kenya faces the COVID-19 pandemic. Stay safe, from all of us at Auntie Boss. And Stay home," concluded the statement.

On Thursday, April 16, Moonbeam, the company behind the popular show said they had been forced to take a break as they could not shoot because of the government measures which included keeping social distance and avoiding public gathering.

Following the government's measures to observe social distancing and proper sanitation, many businesses were closed.

Auntie Boss joined other global film industries who had also halted their productions until the end of the pandemic.

Fans of the programme took to social media to express their sadness.

Many said they were going to miss the cast while others inquired to know if the show will be back at a later time.

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Kemin Industries partners with Pacific GeneTech to license salmonella vaccine

Kemin Industries, a global ingredient manufacturer, has signed an exclusive agreement with Pacific GeneTech (PGT) to license PGT's Salmonella vaccine for poultry.

PGT's Salmonella vaccine addresses multiple serovars of Salmonella. It was developed from the company's proprietary Aegis platform, which is applicable to multiple pathogens, including bacteria, parasites and viruses. Both the platform and Salmonella vaccine were originally developed by the University of Arkansas's Poultry Health Laboratory, in collaboration with other US and Canadian universities and with support from the USDA and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.

"Partnering with PGT on this vaccine will allow Kemin to deliver the technology needed to address Salmonella contamination in poultry, a common pathogen that threatens food safety and the health of consumers," said Dr Chris Nelson, President and CEO, Kemin. "I am thrilled that we will be able to bring this vaccine to market around the world. This will make the vaccine more accessible which, in turn, may help reduce the incidence rate of Salmonella in consumer poultry products."

As part of its partnership with PGT, Kemin will focus on developing the Salmonella vaccine and registering it in the US and other countries, beginning with the EU. Kemin will also begin expanding the Salmonella vaccine's availability in Southeast Asia and Africa.

"Kemin has the technology, technical expertise and scientific experience to scale PGT's Salmonella vaccine and deliver it to a global audience," said Tim Collard, CEO, PGT. "We are excited to partner with Kemin because we believe that the superiority of our vaccine, coupled with Kemin's innovation, commitment to animal health and global presence, can make Salmonella prevention more attainable for many."

Kemin Biologics, a business initiative of Kemin Industries focused on developing vaccines as the first line of defense against disease to reduce the use of antibiotics, entered this partnership with PGT, a biologics company that develops and commercialises next-generation vaccines for areas of high unmet or underserved needs in food safety and animal health, in February 2020, and has begun the product registration process in multiple countries.
April 18 : The month of April 2020 brings in some positive news of many smartphone launches that will take place amid the COVID 19 lockdown. Here on this page, you get to see the releases that are yet to happen during the second half of April or the beginning of May. Major Smartphone products like Samsungs Galaxy Fold 2, then Realme Narzo and Motorolas Moto Edge will be launched after April 20. Other smartphone companies like Motorola Razr will witness its first sale by May 6, 2020. The specs and prices of each of these devices can be seen below.

Realme Narzo 10

Image Source: Prokerala Realme

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Realme on Friday announced that it will launch the Narzo smartphone series on April 21. Read more

Motorola Razr

Image Source: IANS News Motorola Razr foldable phone

Lenovo-owned smartphone brand Motorola on Wednesday announced that its foldable flagship Moto Razr will go on sale starting May 6, which was earlier scheduled for April 15. Read more

5G-powered OnePlus 8 series

Image Source: IANS News OnePlus 8 launch.

Chinese smartphone brand OnePlus on Tuesday unveiled a new 5G lineup of premium OnePlus 8 Pro and compact flagship OnePlus 8 with industry-leading 120 Hz Fluid Display and fast wireless charging. Read more

Motorola Moto Edge, Moto Edge+

Image Source: IANS Motorola G8 Plus.

Lenovo-owned smartphone brand Motorola has announced it will unveil its new flagship smartphones, the Motorola Edge Plus and Edge, on April 22. Read more

Honor 30 series

Image Source: IANS News Honor 30 series launched in China.

Chinese smartphone maker Honor on Wednesday announced a new lineup which includes the Honor 30, 30 Pro, and the 30 Pro+. Read more

Galaxy Fold 2

Image Source: IANS Samsung Galaxy Fold.

Samsung is expected to launch the Galaxy Fold 2 later this year and the device may come in martian green as well as astro blue colour variants, ditching the S-Pen this time. Read more
Assuring citizens of enough supply of food grains across the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday urged citizens to not panic amid the Coronavirus lockdown period. The Prime Minister shared Union Minister of Food & Public Transportation Ram Vilas Paswan's tweet where the latter informed that the FCI has loaded 1.99 Lakh Metric Tonne (LMT) food grains to ensure availability across the country. PM Modi also appealed citizens to keep taking proper precautions adding that together we will certainly defeat COVID-19 pandemic.

Paswan had also informed that while 1.99 LMT food grains have been loaded through 71 rail racks, FCI has loaded 1.80 LMT food grains from 64 racks. He added that states have so far lifted 29.90 LMT food grains for free distribution.

There is no need to panic.



Please keep taking the proper precautions. Together, we all will certainly defeat the COVID-19 pandemic. https://t.co/7sUpNo9Vo9  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 18, 2020

READ | Coronavirus LIVE Updates: India Revises FDI Policy To Protect Companies, Cases At 14792

READ | India Revises FDI Policy- Govt Nod Required By All Neighbouring Nations To Invest In Cos

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised all the LPG personnel working tirelessly to provide petroleum gas to families across India during the period of COVID-19 lockdown. Taking to Twitter, PM Modi said kudos to the workers ensuring that the countrys energy needs are met even during the crisis.

READ | COVID-19: India Sees 991 New Cases, 43 Deaths; 45 Districts With No New Cases In 14 Days

Coronavirus crisis in India

Addressing the daily COVID-19 briefing, Lav Agarwal - Joint Secy of Health Ministry, on Saturday, stated that India has seen 991 new cases and 43 new deaths in the past 24 hours. Stating that the mortality stands at 3.3%, he stated that with 1992 cured patients, India's recovery rate stands at 13.85%. India's COVID-19 tally stands at 14378 cases, with 480 deaths till date.

Agarwal also added that of the 14378 cases - 4291 cases were linked to the Markaz cluster. He also stated that 22 new districts have emerged with no new cases in the past 14 days. Lauding Kasargod, which has reduced its number of active cases from 168 to 55 cases, he said that cluster containment results were evidently seen.

Meanwhile, India has suspended all visas and barred travel from Afghanistan, Philippines, EU, UK, China, Malaysia and mandatory 14-day quarantine from several other countries. PM Modi has extended the lockdown till May 3, with a relaxation possibility in non-COVID hotspots after April 20.

READ | 'Kudos To All Those Ensuring India's Energy Needs Are Met,' PM Modi Hails LPG Workers
There is mounting working class resistance to the efforts of the Trump administration and governments across Europe to push for a premature return to work even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage.

The White House guidelines for a return to work are not based on any objective scientific evaluation of the consequences of an early resumption of production. They simply ignore the fact coronavirus-related deaths are increasing, with over 30,000 deaths in the US alone since the beginning of April. Likewise governments in Italy and Spain, countries that have reported the largest number of COVID-19 deaths in Europe, are pushing for a return to work.

These reckless plans are coming into conflict with the determination of workers to protect the health and safety of themselves and their loved ones. Over the past several days strikes and protests have taken place in North America and Europe over lack of elementary safety precautions by employers.

A UPS driver carts a load of boxes past two pedestrians on a Brooklyn street during the coronavirus pandemic, April 6, 2020 in New York [Credit: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan]

Amazon workers at the fulfillment center in Torrazza Piemonte outside of Turin in Italy have walked out over the cover-up by management of COVID-19 infections. The facility opened in 2018 and employs some 1,200 workers.

Management confirmed that there have been four coronavirus cases at the plant, but it has refused to provide other details. It is the second strike at the fulfillment center. The unions have sought to defuse protests by Italian Amazon workers by refusing to coordinate action at the different fulfillment centers.

In the US, a group of Amazon corporate employees is calling for an online strike for April 24 to protest Amazons policies, including the firing of Amazon warehouse workers who have spoken out against health and safety practices. The group, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, has called for workers to take a day off. Amazon has fired two leaders of the group.

On Thursday Amazon stock reached an all time high and extended its year-to-date gain to around 26 percent, further enriching billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos. Amazons market capitalization now tops an astronomical $1.22 trillion.

Steven, an Amazon worker in New Jersey, told the World Socialist Web Site, Trump is sweating right now because his lobbyist and shareholder friends are pushing him to get us all back to normal no matter how premature it is and the risk they are pushing the working class into. Its once again all about Wall Street. Workers have to realize this and resist believing these politicians; they represent the elites of the private sector, not the working class.

They have plenty of money for the airlines who rip off people on a daily basis, but not enough for government-run health insurance for everyone. This virus shows it all! Its criminal!

A worker at the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville said, Public opinion is shifting. I hope that trend continues. People are becoming aware of how the system isnt built to serve them, the taxpayers. Workers are becoming aware of where they truly stand in the eyes of the major corporations they work for.

COVID-19 has shed light on inequality that has become commonplace in the United States. The people feel they have no power because we have been pitted against each other.

While the coronavirus pandemic has initially hit hardest in the US and Europe, infections and deaths are spreading In Latin America. There have been strikes this week by workers at US companies operating south of the US-Mexican border over the lack of response to the spread of COVID-19.

More than a half-dozen workers have died this week at maquiladora factories in northern Mexico, adding to the rising tide of fatalities in Mexico.

On Thursday, hundreds of workers at a Honeywell factory in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico staged a protest demanding the plant be closed as stipulated by federal guidelines banning non-essential production. Workers are demanding full pay during the closure. A worker died of COVID-19 at the plant this week.

We want them to respect the quarantine, Honeywell worker Mario Cesar Gonzalez told the New York Times. He said the factory makes smoke alarms. The manager said that we are essential workers. I dont think an alarm is essential.

Ciuded Juarez health officials have confirmed 20 COVID-19 deaths in the city, 12 at maquiladora plants. Local public health officials warned of the potential for an explosive outbreak. About half of the more than 300 maquiladora factories in Ciudad Juarez are reportedly still in operation. Mexico has offered no financial support to laid-off workers.

An official for the Mexican state of Chihuahua, where Ciudad Juarez is located, said that 11 workers from the Lear maquiladora have died after testing positive for the coronavirus. Lear confirmed only that several workers at its factories, which are now closed, had died of respiratory illness.

In Tijuana, workers at the technology company Poly staged a protest this week after the deaths of two co-workers.

The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated not only the bankruptcy of capitalism, but also the reactionary and rotten character of the official unions. In the vast majority of cases, the widening struggles in defense of workers' health and safety have taken place independently of and in opposition to the pro-corporate trade unions. In those few cases where the unions have taken part, their role has been to limit and isolate struggles.

A report on the website Paydayreport.com tracked more than 100 wildcat strikes and protests by workers in the United States since the eruption of the pandemic in early March. Walkouts have embraced wide sectors of workers from health care to food processing, auto production, logistics and grocery.

This week there were several more walkouts. About 40 General Dynamics workers at a naval shipyard operated by BAE Systems in Norfolk, Virginia walked out Tuesday and Wednesday over health and safety conditions. Robert Fentress, age 44, a worker at the BAE shipyard, died April 9, two days after testing positive for the coronavirus.

The leader of the action, an electrician, said he had been unable to get any positive response from management over proposals to defend the health of workers. Yeah, were concerned about you, [they say,] but you know, not really enough to actually do anything.

In Waterloo, Iowa, hundreds of workers at the Tyson Fresh Meats plant have called in sick this week to protest conditions at the plant. They say that management is covering up cases of COVID-19 and has failed to provide for the safety of employees. The management, determined to maintain production at all costs, is allowing employees it knows are infected to come to work, according to workers at the facility.

On Monday, dozens of workers at the One World Beef plant in Brawley, California refused to come to work over the spread of COVID-19 at the facility. At least one person has tested positive for coronavirus at the plant.

Whole Foods workers plan to hold a nationwide sickout May 1 to protest conditions. COVID-19 infections at the Amazon-owned grocery chain are continuing to rise, and grocery workers across the US are dying. While employees have been deemed essential, workers say the company has done little to address safety concerns and has made it difficult to use sick leave. Whole Foods has been enjoying record sales during the pandemic.

Ten nurses were suspended at the Providence St. Johns Medical Center in Santa Monica, California this week for staging a protest over the failure of management to issue the standard N95 masks. A group of registered nurses who work at Mercy Medical Center Merced, in Merced, California also staged a protest Wednesday over the lack of adequate personal protective equipment.

Essential workers at five luxury buildings in North Jersey walked out for 24 hours Thursday over lack of adequate health and safety measures and low pay. On Thursday, doormen at two Manhattan luxury apartments walked out, saying they lacked sick leave and protective gear.

The unification of these struggles and all forms of working class opposition to the capitalist system is a vital question. This will not be carried out by the right-wing, pro-company unions. A new leadership based on a socialist program and perspective is critical to mapping out a way forward.

The Socialist Equality Party calls for the formation of rank-and-file committees in every workplace and factory, democratically controlled by the workers, to fight to defend lives and livelihoods. These committees should demand a halt to all non-essential production and full protection based on world health standards for workers in essential industries such as health care and food production.

All workers must receive full pay and job protection. There must be massive spending on health care, testing and contact tracing to quell the pandemic, with no return to work until conditions are safe.
By PTI

SEOUL: North Korea on Saturday said it has released all foreign nationals from coronavirus quarantine while it continues to strengthen anti-virus efforts.

The official Korean Central News Agency also said Saturday authorities released all citizens who had been quarantined in the provinces of South Phyongan and North Hwanghae, which are near capital Pyongyang, and the city of Rason at a tri-point bordering China and Russia.

The report didn't specify how many people remained under the country's 30-day quarantine.

Figures from previous state media reports suggest the North would have released close to 10,000 people over the past weeks.

The North had initially placed 380 foreigners under quarantine. The North in March arranged a special government flight to fly out dozens of diplomats to Vladivostok, Russia.

The KCNA says officials are continuing to strengthen medical monitoring of its citizens while ensuring normal activity for those released from quarantine.

The North has said there hasn't been a single virus case on its territory, but the claim is questioned by many outside experts.

Describing its anti-virus efforts as a matter of national existence, the North has banned foreign tourists, shut down nearly all cross-border traffic with China, intensified screening at entry points and mobilized health workers to monitor residents and isolate those with symptoms.
Karl Stefanovic and his wife Jasmine Yarbrough are expecting their first child together, a girl, next month.

And for The Sunday Telegraph's Stellar magazine cover story, the Today host hit back at accusations Jasmine 'stole' him from his first wife, Cassandra Thorburn, 49.

The 45-year-old Channel Nine star met the footwear designer in late 2016, five months after his 21-year marriage breakdown.

'It's rubbish and it's hurtful': Karl Stefanovic, 45, hit back at accusations Jasmine Yarbrough 'stole' him from first wife Cassandra Thorburn, for The Sunday Telegraph's Stellar magazine

'She's been through so much. She's been pilloried and accused of things that didn't happen,' Karl said of Jasmine, 36.

'It's not her fault she fell in love with bugalugs, and the accusations were wrong about her stealing me from Cassandra. It's rubbish and it's hurtful.'

'She's just a beautiful, sweet woman from Queensland who runs a business and fell in love with me,' he continued.

Vocal: 'It's not her fault she fell in love with bugalugs, and the accusations were wrong about her stealing me from Cassandra. It's rubbish and it's hurtful,' the Today host said of Jasmine, 36

Meant to be: 'She's just a beautiful, sweet woman from Queensland who runs a business and fell in love with me,' he continued

Karl is already a father to three children shared with Cassandra: son Jackson, 20, daughter Ava, 14, and son River, 12.

The presenter went on to add that Cassandra has 'earned the right' to speak about their marriage breakdown, and wishes her nothing but the best.

In 2018, Cassandra hinted at Karl having walked out on their family, in an interview with The Australian Women's Weekly.

'We are divorced, but like many broken families it is extremely stressful for everyone concerned,' she said.

Family: Karl and Jasmine (pictured) are welcoming their first child next month, a girl

Ex-wife: Karl already shares three children with ex-wife Cassandra Thorburn (pictured in October 2008). They split in 2016, five months prior to Karl meeting Jasmine

'Thankfully I've been gifted with enough resilience and strength to have got us all through these past two years. I want only for my children to be respected  so walking away, that's not respectful.'

Karl and Jasmine's whirlwind romance made headlines throughout the country back in 2016, and even shocked the couple at the time.

He previously told Stellar magazine that he never expected meeting someone so soon, just five months after his highly publicised split.

Fate: Karl previously told Stellar magazine that he never expected meeting someone so soon, just five months after his highly publicised split

Jasmine told Vogue Brides in December 2018: 'Karl and I had met through friends over the Christmas period when I was back from Los Angeles visiting family in 2016.

'When we first met, I thought he was going to be such a good friend, because we just laughed all the time. He had me in fits of laughter all day!'

The couple wed in a lavish ceremony at the One&Only Palmilla resort in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico, in December 2018.
Everyone here at The Cheshire Herald and the Record-Journal is working with a profound sense of concern for our community as the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths increases, while we worry like everyone else about the health and safety of our families, friends and neighbors.

We take our role in reporting critically important information during this public health emergency  the availability of local testing, changes to health and safety guidelines, access to food and supplies, the latest orders from state and local government etc.  very seriously.

At the same time, our coverage reflects specific challenges individuals in our community face. Weve shared stories beyond the statistics, which (hopefully) increase readers understanding of an elusive enemy and its ripple effect across every aspect of our society.

Weve reported on stories of hope and resilience, unity and compassion, and inevitably heartbreak as the human toll of the pandemic continues.

The family of retired Wallingford teacher Audrey Carretta believes she may have become infected during a long flight delay on her return trip from Florida, her daughter told reporter Lauren Takores. Carretta died on March 30. The 86-year-old said goodbye to each of her grandchildren through a video call from the hospital.

No words were really left unsaid, her daughter Stacy Stanton said. But its still hard, because we know that she was healthy  She said to me, I cant believe Im going to die of the virus.

Art Rich, the owner and founder of an iconic Southington photography studio, had lunch with friends in early March who showed no symptoms after coming in contact with someone who returned from Italy last month. Less than two weeks later, the vibrant 73-year-old was in critical condition at MidState Medical Center, isolated from family, who in turn were forced to isolate from each other to avoid infection.

Were devastated, his daughter Angel Rich told reporter Mary Ellen Godin recently as she monitored her fathers condition remotely.

Mark Brennan, the son of a Masonicare resident in Wallingford, began phoning his mother Annmarie, 76, every other day when the ban on visitors to the nursing home went into effect. He wants to keep himself fresh in her mind as she battles dementia. Then he came up with the idea of holding up signs outside the facility with messages like Hi Mom and Love You where she could see them.

Masonicare has since reported three cases of COVID-19 and one death as nursing homes across the state brace for the worst, including a vacant facility in Meriden being prepped to become a designated COVID-19 isolation unit.

As a journalist in this community for more than two decades, I can tell you that the sense of purpose and responsibility my colleagues and I feel in covering this awful, eerie, once-in-a-century crisis have never been greater.

A cruel irony of the coronavirus pandemic is that fighting the virus has meant shutting down so much of the economy  crippling otherwise viable businesses, quite possibly crushing them altogether.

The Cheshire Herald and Record-Journal have shifted strategies in recent years to build a more sustainable future for local journalism. Weve attempted to increase our value to readers by developing a deeper understanding of how they engage with our product, listening more closely to their needs and delivering high quality content strategically to meet those needs  all in hopes of building loyalty and a more stable foundation of subscription revenue.

We sincerely thank our subscribers for their generous support, which was helping put the company on a path to success before the virus outbreak.

But the sudden, sharp blow to advertising revenue caused by the crisis threatens our ability to continue providing local news at a critical moment  when the need for fact-based journalism and accurate information has never been greater. The community has been engaging with our news content during the crisis to an unprecedented degree and we want to continue to serve that need.

We do believe our organization will survive as a source of local journalism, but WE NEED YOUR HELP to keep our news team working through the crisis.

RJ Media this week joined the newly created COVID-19 Local News Fund, which supports coronavirus coverage by independent and family-owned publishers through community donations. The fundraising program developed by the Local Media Association enables private news organizations to accept tax-deductible donations to support coverage of the pandemic, using the LMAs foundation as a 501(c)3 fiscal sponsor.

In just two weeks since the fund launched nationwide, nearly 1,700 supporters of their local newspapers contributed more than $121,000 with an average donation of around $75.

If you value our content and can afford to contribute during these difficult times please consider purchasing a subscription or making a donation.

To subscribe, go to https://www.cheshireherald.com/subscribe. To learn more or to donate, visit https://givebutter.com/cheshire-herald.

As a service to the community, weve made all of our coronavirus coverage available without a subscription, but the coverage is still just as expensive to produce.

Covering the outbreak also presents personal health risks to our news staff, who continue to report from the field and to a limited degree from our offices in Cheshire and in Meriden, in order to provide the best coverage possible. Many of our journalists can report the news by working from home, but not exclusively. Others on our team  like our incredibly brave and dedicated photojournalists  cannot work from home due to the nature of their jobs.

The crisis forced the company this past week to make the painful decision to scale back hours through a handful of targeted furloughs and a smaller reduction in hours for other employees. We expect the reductions to be temporary and have thus far avoided the need for layoffs.

Your support through a subscription, gift subscription or donation will help us keep local journalists on the job reporting on the crisis while continuing to hold officials accountable at a time when public access to information and meetings is being curtailed.

Fact-based, independent news coverage is essential to a healthy democracy and local newspapers are still by far the main source of original reporting in their communities. But increasingly across the country and this state communities are underserved or simply have no source for local news. These growing news deserts have been linked to a decline in civic engagement and a rise in both local corruption and polarization, as news consumers rely more on partisan-inflected national outlets for their information, the Harvard Business Review reported last month in its series Democracy Under Attack.

So if you can, please consider helping keep the cause of local journalism alive in your community through this crisis.

Thank you!
Sarah Eden Wallace

My mother and I were chatting after I'd stopped by for tea (and to check on her  she still lives on her own at age 93). Then she made an announcement: Did you know that June died?"

My jaw dropped. Not because my mother's close friend had died. Because two weeks ago, I'd called and told her June had died.

This is...

1. At first, weird. It could be an example of what I view as my mother's aloofness. This, I know, is how first-generation Japanese American parents do feelings. As in, they don't do them. It could be relatively normal that June's death hadn't really registered.

2. To be honest, wounding. Not recalling what I'd told her feels like yet another way she disregards most anything I say. A daughter is not an authority on any topic. Now, a son or grandson, that's another deal.

3. And, for sure, troubling. When I call my brother the Harvard- and MIT-educated molecular biologist, we agree Mom's forgetfulness is worrisome. Does spacing out something as momentous as the death of a friend signify a slide toward dementia? Yet most days, she's sharper than we are, attending university lectures, making art, clipping newspaper articles for her grandchildren. Ever the scientist, he hesitates. We need more proof.

Snow on the roof

When my mom's reactions confound me, it helps to talk to my cousin. Her father, now 89, is my mother's youngest brother. Mom and my uncle grew up in a family of six kids, the only Japanese in a tiny mountain-rimmed mining town in eastern Washington state. My grandfather said it reminded him of Japan.

It's the Asian thing, my cousin often says. They won't admit they have a problem.

They don't want to impose or, God forbid, ask for help. They are off-the-charts stubborn. They were taught to endure. Japanese Americans have gritted their way through a lot since my grandparents came to this country in the early 1900s: the Asian Exclusion Act of 1924, the Great Depression, World War II incarceration camps, not to mention thermonuclear devices used against civilian populations in Nagasaki and my family's native Hiroshima. Their strength was called gaman in the camps  the grace to endure the unbearable."

Stoicism as secret weapon is well and good, but it doesn't ease my obsession about another threat: floor coverings. Every aging-with-dignity article says throw rugs are a no-no. They're like booby-trapping a senior's living space. My mother lavishes them around her apartment. When I point out the danger, she insists, I like them, and changes the subject.

Actually, this apparent lunacy might be in her DNA.

Our family laughs now remembering how Grandpa, who worked on the railroads when he first came to America and lived to be 102, would shovel snow off the roof well into his 90s. After you've survived the death-trap conditions of dynamiting tunnels through mountains, climbing a ladder with a shovel in a snowstorm is no biggie.

Prizing her perseverance

What to do? Do I lock the throw rugs away? Glue them down? Or leave her to any consequences? Social scientists use the term mismatched goals to describe this intergenerational conflict about safety versus autonomy, gerontologist Allison Heid explained in a recent New York Times article.

Having a clinical label is little comfort when it comes to what alarms me most: my mother's driving.

Early this year she ran a red light, hit two cars and totaled her car. Thankfully, no one was hurt. The next morning she went out and bought a new Prius.

Experts warn that letting go of driving can be the most fraught transition for seniors. My pleas that she give up her license were met with stony silence.

I called my brother. Sarah, he said in his seen-it-all professor voice, She's going to do whatever she wants to do. And I know he's got a point. Even though she was born in America, my mother was banned because of her race from attending the University of Washington during World War II. That did not stop her from getting two master's degrees and going on to work in the Asian art department at the world-renowned Cleveland Museum of Art. Perhaps when you've pushed back against prejudice your whole life, handing over the car keys feels too much like admitting defeat. Gaman.

What to carry

The rugs, the driving, the forgetting  it's frustrating and, as I confess to my brother, frightening. But perhaps I can see this latest lapse as yet another lesson in our attempts to support an indomitable, independent, intelligent 93-year-old nisei woman in the twilight years of her accomplished life.

My cousin says if my mom doesn't remember me telling her of a friend's death, maybe it's that she's so busy going to museums and movies, reading mystery novels, getting massages twice a month and making dinner for her grandchildren that it slips her mind. It doesn't mean she doesn't care or didn't hear me. Instead, she might need space to make the mental adjustment to this loss, as though her heart lags behind in accepting yet another friend's passing.

Maybe, instead of condemning her choices, I could honor my mother's perseverance. I could hold it as the gift of an inner fortitude she's passing to us at the end. Something to prize, not push back. Her strength is my strength. My cells come from her cells.

When 120,000 Japanese Americans were sent to the World War II incarceration camps, each person was allowed to bring only what they could carry in a single suitcase. My mom knows she can't take her life's accumulations into old age  but for now she wants to pack in all the driving and throw rugs she can. She's crossing a threshold into inevitable ebb and wants to go there on her own terms. By listening and not lecturing, I can help  and love  her the most.

This story is a winning essay from the AARP and AAJA Caregiving Contest. Learn about the contest and the other winners >>
Tax breaks for big business, deregulation and wide-scale industrial relations reform will form part of the Morrison government's attempts to lift the nation out of the economic black hole caused by the global coronavirus pandemic.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned the COVID-19 crisis would hit the economy like "a truck" on Friday but ruled out introducing a temporary levy to begin paying down tens of billions of dollars in debt accumulated from its emergency response.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says COVID-19 will hit the Australian economy "like a truck". Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

He has promised to fast-track new and existing major infrastructure projects and adopt an aggressive pro-business investment strategy ahead of the October budget to help the country claw its way out of an expected virus-induced recession.

"All I know is that the hit the Australian economy is taking is the biggest we have seen since the Great Depression," he told Melbourne's 3AW radio on Friday.
Four family members of a Virginia pastor who died from the coronavirus are now battling it themselves.

The New Deliverance Evangelistic Church in North Chesterfield, outside Richmond, announced during an Easter Sunday address that Bishop Gerald O. Glenn had died of COVID-19.

Glenn's daughter, Mar-Gerie Crawley, said in a Facebook post days later that she, her husband, her sister and her mother, Marcietia Glenn, "are all currently fighting this virus."

"We will continue to believe God for healing," she wrote. "I dont have the words right now to express myself. I pray that God would give me the strength to in the future."

Bishop Gerald Glenn in 2008. (Bob Brown / Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP file)

In a Facebook Live video on Friday, Marcietia Glenn thanked people for their prayers and support and said she and her family were getting better.

"This has been difficult. To say that it has not would be an understatement," she said. "God is still bigger than this virus. We absolutely trust God."

Glenn said her family no longer has fevers except for Crawley. "But we believe in God that he's going to handle this," she said.

Bishop Glenn held a church service on March 22 despite warnings about social distancing. During the sermon, he preached about not being afraid of death, telling the congregation, I firmly believe that God is larger than this dreaded virus, according to CBS affiliate WTVR.

A day after his sermon, Virginia banned gatherings of 10 or more. On March 30, the governor issued a stay-at-home order.

Crawley told CNN that she thinks her father is getting unfair criticism for having a church service in spite of the social distancing warnings.

"When he decided to have services, he was very clear in posting signs and having hand sanitizer, and wearing gloves and not congregating with people after service, during service," she told the outlet in an interview published Thursday. "People were asked to sit six feet apart. Family members sat together. That's it. After service, there was no talking and hanging around. Everyone left."

She said her father wanted to preach to give people "a message of hope that it's OK that this virus is out there. God is out there, too, and we believe that God will protect us."

Crawley said the family has not had a chance to mourn the loss because they are caring for each other as they fight the virus.
Chattisgarh has managed to lay down one of the best models in the country to contain novel coronavirus-COVID-19. Read on why Chattisgarh has one of the best recovery rates and lowest fatality rates.

COVID-19 is steadily spreading its wings in India with 13,495 cases throughout the nation with 448 fatalities, reported as of 17th April. On one hand, India is applauded by esteemed organisations like WHO and the entire world is praising the countrys effort in fight against novel coronavirus, whereas Chhattisgarh has made its own mark by setting up an inspirational model for other states to combat and prevent COVID-19. The state is receiving appreciation from the centre & world leaders for the way the situation was tackled and managed.

Chhattisgarh, a heavily forested state in Central India with a majority of tribal population, narrates a tale of perseverance and tactful management of the pandemic with a total of 36 cases reported in the state by now, out of which 23 recovered, zero fatalities reported and 13 active patients undergoing treatment in AIIMS, Raipur. The state accounts for as little than 0.266% of share in COVID_19 cases across India and a recovery rate of 63.88% as of 17th April. The question is, How was it is possible to prevent the spread of virus in such an efficient and effective manner in the state with speedy recovery rates and not even a single death? Was it due to the proactive measures formulated by the state government or the excellent doctors at AIIMS, Raipur who were working around the clock to treat their patients or was it about the discipline exercised by the public or was it because of the public administration and police working endlessly to ensure and implement regulatory measures or was it because of the sanitation workers ensuring hygiene and cleanliness every day or maybe the lab experts who were constantly engaged in collecting test samples, knocking from one door to the other. Well, the credit goes to joint efforts laid down by all of them.

The state worked recklessly with an agenda of early protection, early identification, early diagnosis, and early isolation. Even before the identification of the first case in the state, continuous monitoring, strict social distancing norms, border sealing with other states were ensured at the nascent stage. Self isolation and 14 day quarantine, later extended for 28 days quarantine period of people returning from other nations and states, was placed as a major priority. More than 76000 people in the state are put under home quarantine and isolation as a measure of prevention. All schools, colleges have been closed, exams have been postponed and cinema halls-multiplexes have been closed since March 13 in the state.

Also Read: Coronavirus India: 991 new cases, 41 deaths reported in last 24 hours, total number of cases cross 14,000 mark and toll reaches 480

Chhattisgarh has successfully implemented a ruthless containment strategy by exercising a strict lockdown since March 20, with the identification of the first case of a 24-year-old woman who just returned from UK. A total of 5519 samples have been tested by now, of them 4878 samples have tested negative while testing of 208 samples is currently underway.

Of the 36 cases reported in C. G, Katghora in Korba district emerged as a hotspot in the state, and accounted for 27 cases, followed by Raipur Five cases and Rajnandgaon, Bilaspur, Durg and Korba each reporting just one case. 23 districts of Chhattisgarh have remained completely untouched by COVID-19 infection. As soon as the first case of a 16-year-old boy from Purani Basti area in Katghora tested positive on 4th April, the entire area was sealed down immediately and tests were conducted for every person in the village, contacts were traced, and masks were made mandatory in the state by immediate action.

The health infrastructure was made stronger and capable enough to deal with the crisis, AIIMS in the state capital was fully equipped and prepared to deal with any sort of emergency, setting up of 100-10 bed Isolation Wards in all districts, providing license to three distilleries for industrial manufacturing of alcohol based hand sanitizer (hand rub solution) in the state, increasing the service period of 401 contract based Ayurveda physicians by three months, special allowance to staff engaged in the treatment of COVID-19, distribution of 970479 free masks were some early preventive measures undertaken by the state government.

Also Read: 135 UK nationals evacuated by special flight from Hyderabad international airport

Majority of cases in the state fall under the age group of 20-40. The major reason behind having a better recovery rate is also early detection of the cases. Most of the patients started receiving treatment in the early stages of their infection, which is why they responded well.

To control panic buying among people and to prevent over crowding in grocery stores, 70 kg lump sum rice for Two months was distributed to 65.35 lakh families of the state & free of cost to 56.55 lakh families and at Rs 10/kg to 8.81 lakh APL families, also free of cost ration was provided for One month to non ration card holders to ensure no one sleeps with an empty stomach across the state. Additionally, Disinfectants were sprayed via drones and health workers personally reached out to places to spray them. Helpline number was established at state and district level for the convenience of registered labors stranded in other states amidst lockdown and necessary help was immediately provided to them.

Also Read: Industry gives thumbs up to RBIs repo rate reduction and other announcements

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Dr. Vivek Murthy, former U.S. surgeon general under the Obama administration, expressed some frustration with the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Unfortunately, we were a bit late to recognize how bad this was as a country, Murthy said on Yahoo Finances The Ticker. We have been late, also, when it comes to ramping up testing, which we desperately need. And were also still having trouble getting the materials, particularly the protective equipment that health care providers need. Were making progress over the last month, but its unfortunately nowhere near where it needs to be if we want to feel safe to relax social distancing restrictions.

U.S. President Donald Trump reacts to a question during the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 4, 2020. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Initially, President Trump dismissed the threat of the pandemic, telling reporters in a news conference on February 27 that the virus was going to disappear. By March 4, he acknowledged the issue in the U.S. but said that some people would have it at a very light level without needing to see a doctor or hospital, and eventually get better. Then on March 17, he said: I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.

These mixed signals have caused confusion for many states, with some governors implementing strict shelter-at-home orders, while others have been more lenient. Two-thirds of Americans believe the Trump administrations response was too slow.

As of April 17, all but five states have stay-at-home orders put in place, with North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and Arkansas being the holdouts. In Utah, Wyoming, and Oklahoma, these orders are only for parts of the state. These will remain in place until individual governors decide to reopen states.

Most states have stay-at-home orders in place. (Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance)

We do need the federal government to be more aggressive

The U.S. response to the coronavirus has particularly struggled with a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers, testing kit shortages, and not enough ventilators.

What we really need both with testing and when it comes to the protective equipment is we do need the federal government to be more aggressive in stepping in and taking over the supply, the production, as well as the distribution piece of this, Murthy said.

Story continues

A caregiver wearing personal protective equipment walks past an ambulance outside the Eastpointe Rehab and Skilled Care Center amid the coronavirus disease outbreak in Chelsea, Massachusetts. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

He continued: We do need a wartime production board like we saw with World War Two to ensure that were coordinating all levers within this country to respond to this unprecedented pandemic but that were also doing so in a way thats accountable and thats still having results.

Federal, state, and local governments have made efforts to ramp up production of essential items like ventilators and face masks. General Motors (GM) reached a $490 million contract with the federal government to produce 30,000 ventilators by the end of August, and delivered its first batch to hospitals on Friday. Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom shipped ventilators from his state to New York, New Jersey, and Illinois to help with their shortfall.

Coronavirus cases are on the rise. (David Foster/Yahoo Finance)

Testing, testing, testing

It all comes down to testing. According to Mayo Clinic vaccinologist Dr. Gregory Poland, testing has to become the no. 1 priority.

Weve got to have that capacity, he told Yahoo Finance recently. Figure out who is likely to be immune. Take our lowest risk people  that is young people  allow them to get back to work, get back into school, watch and wait, and do this in a logical phase order so that you can phase back if needed.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), previously said that health officials are working on developing an antibody test to determine if a person has the antibodies to resist the virus. This could determine whether or not they can rejoin society without major social distancing measures.

A health care worker tests a person at a drive-thru testing station run by the state health department, for people who suspect they have novel coronavirus, in Denver, Colorado, U.S. March 11, 2020. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

Murthy said there are three ways that the U.S. needs to make a very focused and directed effort to dramatically ramp up testing.

One is the number of tests we have available, he said. Right now, were doing a little less than 150,000 tests a day. That number needs to be closer to a million tests a day.

Private companies and labs have begun developing their own testing to screen for the virus. And, a genomics lab at Rutgers University created a saliva-based coronavirus test, which was just approved by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

The test is shipped to you overnight. (Photo: Vault Health)

We also need to ensure theres adequate distribution of the tests so people can get them from everywhere in the country, Murthy said. And third, weve got to make sure that the turnaround time is fast for these tests. Waiting 3, 4, 5 days for a result, which is happening to many people still as of today, just means that we have people getting delayed diagnoses and were burning through protective equipment in hospitals as we keep people under quarantine while we wait for their results.

The point is to keep people from being in limbo and potentially spreading the virus to others without realizing it.

Time equals lives saved, Murthy said. The longer we delay on hitting our targets, on pulling out the stops and getting there, it means more people will suffer and more lives will be lost, and we cant afford that.

Theres progress being made

Murthy also honed in on the benefits of social distancing.

Whats really promising is what people are doing in terms of staying home, because we are seeing now that is having an effect, he said. Its camping down what was going to be an extraordinarily high peak of infections in the country. And were starting to see in some states like California, that the wave has not been as bad as we had worried it would be. In New York, were starting to see a plateauing of new cases. So, theres progress being made.

It was initially projected that by now, there would have been nearly 11,000 patients with coronavirus in California hospitals. However, on Monday, Gov. Newsom said it was only slightly over 3,000. California had been one of the first states to implement stay-at-home orders on a state level.

An Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) walks out of the Cobble Hill Health Center nursing home during the ongoing outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., April 17, 2020. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

And in New York, the number of coronavirus deaths and hospitalizations have finally begun to decrease.

But, its still too soon to celebrate, according to Murthy.

Weve got to be really cautious here because the United States is not all progressing at the same time scale when it comes to this infection, he said. So just like were seeing plateauing in New York, were also seeing other areas start to take off. In Boston, in Philadelphia, in the D.C. metro area, in Florida, were seeing that situation is actually still getting worse. So weve got to be cautious and were still unfortunately struggling with the response side of this.

The coronavirus has infected over 2 million people worldwide. (Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance)

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Here are three of the week's top pieces of financial insight, gathered from around the web:

Ripping off Instacart shoppers

Some customers are using Instacart's tipping system for a cruel bait and switch, said Sara Ashley O'Brien and Kaya Yurieff at CNN. Before accepting a work order, an Instacart shopper "can see the items requested, the store location, the payment Instacart provides for the job, and the tip being offered." With the service facing enormous demand, clients are "offering big tips, as high as $50 or more, to entice Instacart workers to pick up their orders." However, the service also allows customers to change their tips for up to three days after an order is delivered, and some people are slashing their promised tips to little or nothing. One shopper saw a $55 tip cut down to zero; another said her tip was taken away by a customer who claimed it was "unethical" she couldn't find toilet paper.

Virus wrecks retirement dream

Will the coronavirus kill the FIRE movement? asked Steven Kurutz at The New York Times. The idea behind "financial independence, retire early," was born during the 11-year bull market run, when "professionals in their 30s and 40s were saving up million-dollar nest eggs and quitting their jobs in the prime of life to live off investments." But the global pandemic has upended many plans. One couple in their 30s who retired in 2015 recently "watched their investment portfolio drop by six figures in one day." But they'd had a few years to cushion their investments. Eric Richard, a 30-year-old who quit his job less than a year ago, was planning to live in Bali "for less than $800 a month." Now he's back at his parents' house in Michigan.

Some businesses still resist closing

The definition of an "essential" business can be vague, said Polly Mosendz and Anders Melin at Bloomberg Businessweek, and some companies are taking advantage. The owner of Leslie's Poolmart tried to persuade authorities in New Jersey that "swimming pools that aren't properly cared for can be health hazards." Craft-supply chains Hobby Lobby and Joann Fabrics "have maintained they're essential because they sell materials for makeshift face masks," while GameStop resisted closure orders "by contending that some of its products, including keyboards, are necessary for people working from home." Labor lawyers say that "anyone required to be on the job has the right to demand, and should be given, protective gear" but it's not clear how  or whether  regulators will enforce that.

This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, try the magazine for a month here.

More stories from theweek.com

When time stops

A parade that killed thousands?

5 brutally funny cartoons about Dr. Fauci's Trump troubles


Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 08:45:26|Editor: huaxia

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Video: A total of 150,948 people have died of COVID-19 as of 3:30 p.m. (1930 GMT) among 2,214,861 cases worldwide, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. (Xinhua/Hu Yousong)

"We should allow markets to function, markets to clear and the supplies to go to those most in need," said the World Bank president.

WASHINGTON, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Global COVID-19 deaths surpassed 150,000 with over 2.2 million infections on Friday as international institutions are intensifying their collective efforts on battling the pandemic.

A total of 150,948 people have died of the disease as of 3:30 p.m. (1930 GMT) among 2,214,861 cases worldwide, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

The United States suffered the most fatalities at 34,575 as its total cases topped 683,000. Italy recorded 22,745 deaths and Spain reported 19,613 deaths. France and the United Kingdom also reported over 10,000 deaths, according to the CSSE.

Photo taken on April 17, 2020 shows the World Bank headquarters in Washington D.C., the United States. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

The World Bank Group (WBG) is expected to launch health emergency programs in over 100 countries by the end of April to support the fight against COVID-19, with 64 already in operation, President David Malpass said Friday.

The WBG will work to deploy as much as 160 billion U.S. dollars over the next 15 months, tailored to the nature of the health, economic and social shocks that countries are facing during the pandemic, Malpass told a virtual press conference during the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the WBG.

Other multilateral development banks (MDBs), such as Asian Development Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank, have committed as a group to roughly 80 billion dollars over this period, bringing the total funding from MDBs to 240 billion dollars, Malpass said.

The World Bank president said he is pleased that Group of Twenty (G20) countries have recently decided to provide a suspension in debt service to bilateral creditors during the crisis, calling it "a powerful fast-acting initiative that can bring real benefits to the poor."

Noting that China is one of the big creditors, Malpass said China's support in the international agreement to allow a moratorium of debt repayments for the poorest countries is "important" and was "very welcome."

In response to a question from Xinhua regarding protectionism amid the pandemic, Malpass said big countries need to step forward and pledge not to use the crisis as a reason to close or block the markets.

"We should allow markets to function, markets to clear and the supplies to go to those most in need," said the World Bank president, adding that China is exporting medical supplies to the rest of the world, which is "very welcome."

World Bank Group President David Malpass speaks at a virtual press conference, in Washington D.C., the United States, on April 17, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Shortly before the briefing, a meeting of the Development Committee, the joint ministerial committee of the boards of governors of the WBG and the IMF, also urged countries to keep trade open.

The committee "ask that all countries ensure the flow of vital medical supplies, critical agricultural products, and other goods and services across borders, and that they work to resolve disruptions to the global supply chains, to support the recovery," it said in a statement.

The committee also urged the two institutions to work with countries to design and implement policies and programs that help lift the poorest households out of poverty and support small businesses.

The policy-setting body of the IMF on Thursday also pledged collective action to mitigate the health and economic impact of COVID-19.

"The fund has revamped the fund's toolkit by doubling access levels to emergency facilities, expanding the use of precautionary lines, establishing a new short-term liquidity line, and considering other options to help countries meet their financing needs," Lesetja Kganyago, International Monetary and Financial Committee chairman, told a news conference on Thursday.

A man crosses a road in the rain near the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Headquarters in Washington D.C., the United States, April 13, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

The move came after G20 finance ministers and central bankers on Wednesday agreed to "support a time-bound suspension of debt service payments for the poorest countries that request forbearance" following a teleconference meeting.

"Just seeing how the G20 united around debt standstill for the poorest members gives me that confidence that whatever is necessary, we will collectively do in the face of this tremendous crisis," IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said Wednesday.

Speaking at the IMF and World Bank Group Spring Meeting's High-Level Virtual Event on "Mobilizing with Africa," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called for an "across-the-board debt standstill" for some developing countries in order to help them win the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I welcome G20 steps, including the suspension of debt service payments for all IDA (International Development Association) countries and Least Developed Countries," Guterres said.

Noting that this step is only "a start," he said that "the severity of the crisis demands more."

Photo taken on April 3, 2020 shows UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaking at a virtual press briefing at the United Nations headquarters in New York. (Xinhua/Xie E)

The UN chief commended "swift actions" by the IMF and World Bank Group to support member countries and the strong commitment of both the International Monetary and Financial Committee and the Development Committee to enhance access to facilities and tools.

"But we need greater resources for the IMF, including through the issuance of Special Drawing Rights, and enhanced support for the World Bank Group and other international financial institutions and bilateral mechanisms," he said.

(Article by Xinhua Reporters Yang Shilong, Gao Pan, Xiong Maoling, Chang Yuan and Wang Jiangang) 
Now that international and domestic airline service has been reduced about as much as it can be, the industry is starting to see a few faint signs of a turnaround  but it wont be a V-shaped recovery, and it wont come soon.

Americans chief sees renewed interest in travel, but the carrier is canceling a number of summer routes and pushing back other service resumptions into the fall; an airline requires passengers to wear face masks; a business travel group sees signs of a revival; Uniteds top executives paint a grim picture for the carrier; TSA relaxes some screening rules for the coronavirus era; San Francisco service resumption is tentatively planned by Virgin, Emirates, KLM.

As airline schedules shift from spring to what used to be called the peak summer travel season, most carriers are hedging their bets on the next few months, revising their schedule plans literally every few days. And schedule announcements that do emerge all come with the caveat that they are subject to change. Were seeing lots of seasonal summer routes being canceled and a number of route suspensions being extended into the fall, and basically just a whole lot of operational uncertainty from the airlines.

Still, American Airlines CEO Doug Parker said in a CNBC interview this week that his company has started to see passenger bookings tick up a little bit again for travel more than 90 days out, as well as some interest from corporate customers in meetings and events travel later in the year. Renewed trip planning certainly isnt going on in the second and third quarter, Parker said, but he does see a little bit of an indication that maybe our countrys ready to get moving again.

Air Canada is making its recommended face-covering practice mandatory as an additional safeguard for its customers and crew starting on April 20. "The requirement will apply to customers at various points in Canadian airports, during the boarding process and during flight as may be directed by Air Canada staff where social distancing is not possible. Travellers who do not have their own face-covering will be provided with a suitable mask at security by CATSA," according to an Air Canada statement.

A new member survey from the Global Business Travel Association (which represents corporate travel managers) released last week found that while business trips currently have come to a halt across the globe, about half the respondents said they expect to see some travel activity resume within the next two to three months.

DON'T MISS: San Francisco's 25 largest airlines, ranked

A grimmer picture came from United Airlines this week, in a message from CEO Oscar Munoz and President Scott Kirby. They said they now expect Uniteds May capacity to be just 10 percent of what had been planned earlier this year, with a similar dismal outlook for June. While we have not yet finalized changes to our schedule for July and August, we expect demand to remain suppressed for the remainder of 2020 and likely into next year, they said. Travel demand is essentially zero and shows no sign of improving in the near-term.

In terms of international travel, a lot depends not only on a revival of passenger demand but also on the relaxation of draconian entry restrictions on travelers that have been imposed by a number of countries and regions. These vary considerably from one country to another, but Cathay Pacific Airlines has put together a useful chart that summarizes most of them. You can see it here.

Dept. of Homeland Security

In the U.S., the Transportation Security Administration  which is benefiting from a hugely reduced workload at the nations airports these days  this week relaxed a couple of its rules for passengers screening. In an exemption from its 3.4-ounce maximum size rule for containers of liquids and gels, the agency said each passenger can now carry one bottle of liquid hand sanitizer up to 12 ounces in their carry-on bags, although it will need to be screened separately. Alcohol or antibacterial wipes are also permitted in carry-ons. Travelers are also now allowed to wear face masks during screening, although TSA officers may ask the traveler to adjust the mask to visually confirm their identity during the travel document checking process, TSA said. (And its a good move for protecting TSA officers; more than 400 of them have now tested positive for COVID-19.)

American Airlines this week revised its international schedules for May and beyond, and while a few long-haul routes are tentatively slated to resume in early June, further changes remain likely in the next few days, said Routesonline.com. At Los Angeles International, Beijing service that was due to resume April 25 has been pushed back to Oct. 23. LAX-London is set to revive June 4 with one daily flight, but LAX-Hong Kong wont start until Oct. 24. Late October resumptions are now planned for LAX service to Sydney, Shanghai, Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo, but a new LAX-Tokyo Haneda route is set to go July 7. In addition, a number of Americans planned seasonal routes to Europe have now been canceled for the summer. You can see all the most recent revisions for AAs hubs here.

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A few foreign carriers are looking to resume service on select international routes in the next few months, including some to San Francisco. For example, KLMs latest schedule update shows tentative plans to bring back San Francisco-Amsterdam service on July 4. Its current reduced schedule effective for May has been now extended through June, including three weekly LAX and Atlanta flights. Emirates latest schedule update this week shows a resumption of Dubai-San Francisco service on June 1 and LAX on July 1, both with a daily A380 flight. And Virgin Atlantic has initially set an April 28 date for restarting London flights from LAX, followed on May 4 by San Francisco and Seattle. Korean Airs update this week for May 1-31 service shows three weekly flights to SFO and service to LAX, New York, Atlanta and Chicago, but continued suspension of other U.S. routes.

And heres the really bad news from Taiwans EVA Air: Due to the impact of COVID-19, We are temporarily suspending our Hello Kitty Jet service until further notice, the carrier said, referring to its aircraft that feature special livery and service items with a theme focused on Sanrio animation characters. They have been used on select international routes including to the U.S.

On the domestic scene, the Transportation Department indicated it is going to be tough in granting airline requests to suspend service to some airports during the crisis. DOT has set minimum domestic service requirements for all airlines that are seeking federal bailout funds, although it allows them to request exemptions for some airports. JetBlue was among the first to file exemption requests, asking for permission to stop flying through June 10 to Sacramento, Albuquerque, Bozeman, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston Bush Intercontinental, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Palm Springs, Portland, Reno, Worcester (Mass.) and two regional Puerto Rico airports. But DOT denied the exemptions for all but the two Puerto Rico airports. The agency was also tough on Spirit Airlines, barring it from halting service to 25 of the 26 airports for which it had requested exemptions.

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When coronavirus trumps cancer

Its very important to protect our staff and our immunosuppressed patients, said Fred Hutch's Dr. Gary Lyman, a lead investigator on the COVID19-cancer registry study. If cancer patients get infected, theyre more at risk for life-threatening complications. We want to avoid COVID-19 infection if at all possible.

Lyman said oncologists across the country are reinventing cancer care for the COVID-19 era, rescheduling noncritical procedures, surgeries and visits; using telemedicine where possible; opting for oral medications over infusions if doable and rewriting policy on the fly to help keep high-risk cancer patients out of the ER and harms way.

These are desperate times which require desperate measures, he said.

Sapien, diagnosed at 40, had her scheduled single mastectomy this week. But her reconstruction was postponed and her request for the prophylactic removal of her other breast  a common practice  was deemed elective and denied.

Doing a double [mastectomy] increases your operating room reservation, knocking somebody out of a spot, she said. Theyre trying to use the OR for critical cases. Normally, I would have the choice, but this isnt a normal time. And I get that.

Dr. Julie Gralow, who serves as clinical director of the Breast Medical Oncology program at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and does research for both Fred Hutch and the University of Washington, said she and colleagues are discussing surgery delays and treatment swaps with patients and rescheduling prevention screenings like mammograms, bone-density tests and colonoscopies.

We are totally triaging, she said.

Those with fast-growing breast cancers  think triple negative and HER2 positive  receive the exact same standard of care: preoperative chemotherapy. But those who have slower-growing cancers such as ER positive and HER2 negative will mostly likely be put on endocrine (anti-hormone) therapy first instead of having surgery.

Im still starting chemo if its warranted, but were doing the minimum amount of surgery and no reconstruction, not even putting in tissue expanders, she said. The more surgery, the higher the likelihood of complication or infection. Our priority at this time is to keep patients out of surgery and out of the hospital. We need to protect the OR space and the ventilators and the potential ICU beds, and we need to preserve resources like masks and gowns and gloves.

Is it safe to delay treatment or surgery?

Many patients can safely have their therapies delayed or switched around to avoid clinic visits and exposures, Gralow said, adding that theres "good trial data on using endocrine therapy preoperatively in postmenopausal women with breast cancer, the most common cancer in women in the U.S.

In the vast majority of people, preoperative endocrine therapy stabilizes or shrinks the cancer, she said. Well aim to give it for three to six months to delay the surgery.

Other breast cancer patients may safely have the order of treatments swapped, as no trial has ever shown that the order of chemo and surgery impacts survival, Gralow said.

Those with metastatic cancer, in treatment for life, might also be able to take a drug holiday, she said.
Deputy Foreign Minister To Anh Dung handed over the made-in-Vietnam masks Friday in a symbolic gesture to Swedish Ambassador to Vietnam Ann Mawe, a Foreign Ministry statement said.

Dung said Vietnam stands ready to cooperate, exchange experience and join hands with other countries, including Sweden in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dung emphasized international cooperation and unity as key to protecting peoples health.

The Swedish Ambassador to Vietnam, Ann Mawe, thanked the Vietnamese government and its citizens for their help, saying it signified the traditional and friendly relationship between the two countries.

She applauded Vietnam's outstanding performance in the battle against the pandemic and expressed her hope that united efforts will help countries defeat the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sweden has reported over 13,000 infection cases and 1,400 deaths as of Saturday morning.

The same day, Construction Minister Pham Hong Ha also made a symbolic handover of 5,000 tons of rice to Cuban Ambassador to Vietnam Lianys Torres Rivera, assisting the island nations Covid-19 fight.

Vietnam has been donating over a million of thousands of antibacterial face masks and other medical supplies to countries worst-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, including France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.

Vietnam has also sent medical equipment to Cambodia, China, Indonesia and Laos.

Vietnamese companies are capable of producing eight million antibacterial cloth face masks a day, and the government has allowed their export after domestic demand is met.

Vietnam has not confirmed any new Covid-19 infection since Thursday morning, keeping its total count at 268. Of these, 201 have been discharged and 67 are active patients.

The Covid-19 pandemic has reached 210 countries and territories, with reported deaths surpassing 154,000.
Mr. Pontius Pilate Baba Apaabey, Upper East Regional Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) on Friday appealed to people not to touch their face especially the eye, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.



The Eyes, Nose, and Mouth served as gateway for the coronavirus disease to enter the body, dont touch these body parts with contaminated hands, therefore wash your hands regularly with soap under running water thoroughly to avoid contracting COVID-19, Mr Apaabey said in a statement to the Ghana News Agency in Accra.



Mr Apaabey who was leading NCCEs Anti-COVID-19 Public Education Campaign in the region to expose residents to the dangers of the coronavirus pandemic called on citizens to observe all the preventive protocols.



The NCCE Anti-COVID-19 Public Education Campaign seeks to focus on, symptoms of the disease, mode of transmission and the need to observe safety protocols outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Ghana Health Service (GHS), and the Executive Instrument on the Imposition Restriction Act, 2020 (Act, 1012).



The NCCE is undertaking the campaign in collaboration with the Church of Pentecost, which has provided mobile cinema vans to sensitise people within the Region.



The NCCE Regional Director also commended the Church of Pentecost for supporting the efforts of the commission stressing that, the NCCE needs support to undertake effective campaign against the spread of COVID-19.



He also appealed to other institutions to support the Commission with back-up operational tools including vehicles, megaphones, personal protective equipment and other logistics to enable them work effectively.



Mr Apaabey said the Commission with its partners had launched a four- week campaign across all the 15 districts in the region mainly at community lorry stations, market squares, radio stations and information centres.



He said as civic educators, we are engaging the community in their local languages which they understand best, to ensure that we all appreciate the danger at stake.



People must understand why to avoid close contact with anyone coughing or sneezing, avoid physical contact during greetings, avoid touching your face especially eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands and the use alcohol-based sanitizer are basic necessities to defeat COVID-19.



Mr Apaabey urged all to respect the Imposition Restriction Act, 2020 (1012) by the state which affects all gatherings including conferences, workshops, funerals, festivals, political rallies, and sporting events, the others include religious activities in churches, mosques, shrines and at crusades, conventions, pilgrimages and other religious gatherings.



He said the Act also enjoins public and private commercial transport services to ensure enhanced hygienic conditions in all vehicles and terminals, by providing, among others, running water and hand washing soap, alcohol-based hand sanitizers and disinfectants.



He said the most common symptoms of COVID-19 includes: fever, tiredness, dry cough, whilst some patients may have aches and pains, nasal congestion, runny nose and sore throat or diarrhoea.

Source: GNA









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The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has debunked claims by the Member of Parliament for Klottey-Korley, Dr Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings that food and other relief items are being distributed on partisan lines to head porters, kayayei.



A statement signed by the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mrs Cynthia Mamle Morrison reiterated the ministrys impartial distribution of food and relief items to the kayayei.



The MPs allegation that people are being asked to show party cards ostensibly by officials distributing government food relief items is a total fabrication.



In fact, the distribution of the food items to the kayayei and the vulnerable is being done by the officials of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) in collaboration with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and the Fifth Infantry Battalion of the Ghana Armed Forces, it said.



Klottey Korle MP



While providing food for some head porters in Accra, Dr Agyeman-Rawlings alleged that the government was politicising the distribution of relief efforts to vulnerable persons.



She said there were reports of state agents demanding evidence of party affiliation before giving out the food.



This is a humanitarian crisis, women and children are hungry. They are locked down because its not their fault the virus is in Ghana. People are literally being asked to show evidence of their party membership before being given food.



This is not acceptable [and] this is very sad [because] the virus does not show whether you are NDC or NPP before it infects you, Dr Agyeman-Rawlings alleged.



Ministry



But in its statement rebutting the allegations, the Ministry further explained that there had been equitable distribution of food to kayayei at both the Tema Station and Old Fadama contrary to the claims by the Klottey Korley legislator.



Specifically, contrary to the claim that Kayayei around the Tema Station and Old Fadama are not being fed, the ministrys monitoring system shows that on the average 5,000 packs of food are distributed to kayayei and other vulnerable persons from that vicinity daily. The MPs claims are therefore false and unfounded, it stated.



It said due to the challenges in maintaining the social distance protocols, the food distribution exercise was moved to the ministrys premises and later to the Afua Sutherland Childrens Park. On each occasion that the venue for distribution changes, the beneficiaries are informed and have reported at the new venues for their share of the food, it said.



AMA



In a related development, the AMA had also described the allegations by Dr Agyeman-Rawlings as most unfortunate.



It said although the government had welcomed efforts by all to support the effort to lessen the effects of the lockdown on the vulnerable, misinformation and attempts to politicise such efforts should not be countenanced.



A statement signed by its Chief Executive, Mr Mohammed A. Sowah, said.



This is a time when the nation and the world at large is battling a pandemic and unity of purpose with focus is expected of all in leadership, it stated.

Source: Daily Graphic









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.

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Bingmu Xie became the CEO of China Infrastructure & Logistics Group Ltd. (HKG:1719) in 2014. This analysis aims first to contrast CEO compensation with other companies that have similar market capitalization. Then we'll look at a snap shot of the business growth. And finally - as a second measure of performance - we will look at the returns shareholders have received over the last few years. This process should give us an idea about how appropriately the CEO is paid.

View our latest analysis for China Infrastructure & Logistics Group

How Does Bingmu Xie's Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies?

According to our data, China Infrastructure & Logistics Group Ltd. has a market capitalization of HK$1.2b, and paid its CEO total annual compensation worth HK$1.5m over the year to December 2018. We think total compensation is more important but we note that the CEO salary is lower, at HK$1.2m. We looked at a group of companies with market capitalizations from HK$775m to HK$3.1b, and the median CEO total compensation was HK$2.3m.

Pay mix tells us a lot about how a company functions versus the wider industry, and it's no different in the case of China Infrastructure & Logistics Group. Speaking on an industry level, we can see that nearly 87% of total compensation represents salary, while the remainder of 13% is other remuneration. So it seems like there isn't a significant difference between China Infrastructure & Logistics Group and the broader market, in terms of salary allocation in the overall compensation package.

At first glance this seems like a real positive for shareholders, since Bingmu Xie is paid less than the average total compensation paid by similar sized companies. Though positive, it's important we delve into the performance of the actual business. You can see, below, how CEO compensation at China Infrastructure & Logistics Group has changed over time.

SEHK:1719 CEO Compensation April 18th 2020

Is China Infrastructure & Logistics Group Ltd. Growing?

Story continues

China Infrastructure & Logistics Group Ltd. has reduced its earnings per share by an average of 13% a year, over the last three years (measured with a line of best fit). In the last year, its revenue is up 34%.

As investors, we are a bit wary of companies that have lower earnings per share, over three years. On the other hand, the strong revenue growth suggests the business is growing. These two metric are moving in different directions, so while it's hard to be confident judging performance, we think the stock is worth watching. Although we don't have analyst forecasts shareholders might want to examine this detailed historical graph of earnings, revenue and cash flow.

Has China Infrastructure & Logistics Group Ltd. Been A Good Investment?

With a three year total loss of 23%, China Infrastructure & Logistics Group Ltd. would certainly have some dissatisfied shareholders. This suggests it would be unwise for the company to pay the CEO too generously.

In Summary...

It appears that China Infrastructure & Logistics Group Ltd. remunerates its CEO below most similar sized companies.

Bingmu Xie is paid less than CEOs of similar size companies, but growth hasn't been particularly impressive and the total shareholder return over three years would leave many disappointed. Many shareholders would probably like to see improvements, but our analysis does not suggest that CEO compensation is too generous. Taking a breather from CEO compensation, we've spotted 3 warning signs for China Infrastructure & Logistics Group (of which 1 shouldn't be ignored!) you should know about in order to have a holistic understanding of the stock.

If you want to buy a stock that is better than China Infrastructure & Logistics Group, this free list of high return, low debt companies is a great place to look.

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.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Nearly 136 nationals of the United Kingdom were evacuated from Hyderabad in a special passenger relief flight. This is the eighth evacuation to be carried out at the airport for international passengers who are stranded in Telangana. The special relief flight of British Airways BA 9117 landed at Hyderabad international airport on Friday at 4.59 pm from Bahrain and departed at 6:46 pm with 136 UK nationals to Ahmedabad, from where a few more UK nationals were airlifted to Bahrain and then onwards to London.

All these passengers were sent through the fully-sanitised Interim International Departures Terminal (IIDT) of GMR Hyderabad International Airport, which has been kept ready for evacuation operations. The whole exercise was carried out in coordination with the British Deputy High Commission in Hyderabad and the Telangana government.

The Covid-19 pandemic has left many people stranded in various parts of the globe and there are many foreign nationals who have been stranded here in India. Today, we partnered with the British Deputy High Commission in Hyderabad and the Government of Telangana to support the operation of a special flight to evacuate UK citizens stranded in this region, said SGK Kishore, CEO, GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL).

Andrew Fleming, British Deputy High Commissioner to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, said,  We are extremely grateful for the support provided by both the State governments and Police Departments, British Airways and staff at the Hyderabad airport. I am delighted weve so far been able to help more than 4,000 British travellers return home from across India. Till April 17, the Hyderabad international airport has helped over 600 foreign nationals reach their homes in the UK, the US and Germany.
There is often disparaging discussion about the role the 'national interest' plays in coalition talks, the idea that parties use this amorphous concept as an excuse for breaking pre-election promises.

But the history of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael mean they have abiding, albeit competing, connections to the State they both founded and shaped.

The Covid-19 pandemic is a crisis moment - it threatens the achievements of the last 100 years. The crisis has sped up a process of coalition agreement and, importantly, may make it easier for the grassroots members of both parties to accept a deal which challenges much of their political identities.

They have now agreed a joint framework document they hope will entice small parties and Independents to join them in a new coalition government. The parties stand on the cusp of an historic crossing of the Civil War Rubicon.

To appreciate why this is a watershed, we should probably recap briefly on our Irish history. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael emerged from a divisive rupture in the nationalist movement which led Ireland to independence. Disagreement over the extent of political independence granted in the Anglo-Irish Treaty resulted in the formation of two political factions, anti-treaty Sinn Fein and pro-treaty Sinn Fein, and a bitter Civil War ensued.

In the post-war years, Fianna Fail emerged from the core of anti-treaty Sinn Fein, and Fine Gael from pro-treaty Sinn Fein. Society was polarised and the Civil War divide shaped politics for several decades. A pattern of Fianna Fail versus Fine Gael elections was established and it persisted until 2020.

Big questions arise about how a coalition between these two former giants of politics might affect political competition in the future. In 2016, Fianna Fail agreed to provide qualified support for a Fine Gael-led minority government in a role reversal of an earlier agreement in 1987, known as the Tallaght Strategy, when Fine Gael supported a Fianna Fail minority government. In both cases, the parties stopped short of working actively together in a coalition government. Neither party was comfortable managing minority government and, when possible, both have sought to form coalition governments, but never with each other.

Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have long maintained that there are substantial differences between them. This was undoubtedly true in the early decades, when arguments about the Anglo-Irish Treaty and Northern Ireland burned viscerally.

Historians have also shown there were notable differences in the social characteristics of those who supported the two parties. Although Fianna Fail drew support from across society, it had particular appeal among working-class voters, small farmers and agricultural labourers. Fine Gael voters were more likely to be larger farmers and come from the professional classes. Fine Gael attracted much of the vote from the Anglo-Irish aristocracy and developed a profile as the party of the establishment.

After decades in power and, especially towards the end of the 20th century, Fianna Fail had also joined the establishment and had developed strong business connections, the party's links with the construction industry being the most discussed of these.

Politics is dynamic, parties evolve, issues change and voter loyalties shift. Differences between the parties have muted. On economic policy, the parties are closer to each other than any other party in the system, with Fine Gael slightly further to the right than Fianna Fail. From the 1980s, Fine Gael became a more socially liberal party, while Fianna Fail, then and now, takes a more conservative line on social policy.

Political scientists argue that identity still matters for the two. Fine Gael politicians and party members retain an enduring connection to the party's role in setting up the institutions of the State and it sees itself as a bastion of responsible government, most especially in times of crisis. Fine Gael politicians point to their record of taking hard decisions, even when those were unpopular.

Fianna Fail also values its early history, mentioning the 1937 constitution and its long-standing commitment to peace in Northern Ireland. Fianna Fail's identity is also tied to its early commitment to housing provision and general welfare policies. It claims to stand on the side of the ordinary citizens.

All of which leaves the State with two very similar parties in policy terms but which are quite different in their identities, style and approach to politics. Several dynamics are at play in their decision to come together for a mould-breaking coalition.

The big two have seen their combined vote-share contract at recent elections. This pattern has been in train since the 1970s, when they were regularly getting 70-80pc of votes. Now, their combined share is well below 50pc.

Times have changed, and the parties are realising their vice-hold on government is no more. The reality is that the only way they can continue to yield power is to do so together. Both parties are seeking office - they have always been in government at one time or another, just not together.

They contest elections to be in government. They want to govern. This is not always the case for smaller parties, some of which have never been in government.

But a big question remains: can Fianna Fail and Fine Gael persuade other partners to join them as they stand side by side in a coalition government in 2022 and 2023, when the State commemorates the centenary of the Civil War which created Fianna Fail and Fine Gael?

Dr Theresa Reidy is a political scientist at University College Cork
FLINT, MI-- Two grants totaling $160,000 have been created to help healthcare workers in Flint and Genesee County during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The grants, made by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, aim to keep healthcare workers fed and safely housed. A $100,000 grant will keep the University of Michigan-Flints residence hall open to healthcare workers for free. A $60,000 grant will allow the Freedom Center Church to buy more than 5,000 meals from Flint restaurants and deliver them to hospitals.

Our healthcare heroes are putting their lives on the line to keep other people safe and healthy, said Ridgway White, Mott Foundation president and CEO. We hope these grants will help to support them and also show our deep appreciation for what theyre doing for the community.

Nearly 30 healthcare workers are currently residing in UM-Flints First Street Residence Hall. The university has committed to providing 30 to 60 rooms for healthcare workers through June 7. Healthcare workers need a comfortable place to stay while serving in the pandemic and keeping their families safe from COVID-19 exposure.

The grant is covering the cost of cleaning all the rooms. A company specializing in disinfecting services and biohazard cleaning will ensure the rooms are safe after each stay and meet the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 guidelines.

Linens, towels and building maintenance will also be covered by the grant.

Providing a safe, clean space for these healthcare heroes during the pandemic is a great honor, and we are proud to open one of our residence halls for this important purpose, said UMFlint Chancellor Deba Dutta. The steadfast partnership of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation makes it possible for UM-Flint to fulfill its mission of service to the community at this critical time.

Healthcare professionals interested in staying at the residence hall should fill a form out here or call 810-237-6571 for more information.

The other grant will support providing food to healthcare workers working long shifts. In mid-March, the Freedom Center Church partnered with Cafe Rhema in downtown Flint to provide 3,000 meals to workers at local hospitals.

Greater Flint community donates thousands of meals to hospital workers

The grant will support the church as it partners with more downtown Flint restaurants to deliver an additional 5,000 meals.

The Mott Foundation grant enables Freedom Center Church to bring more meals to our courageous healthcare workers and show them their importance to this community, while at the same time supporting Flint restaurants," said Dena Wiegand, Freedom Center executive director of operations. "In the end, those in need of medical care get better care, the local eateries not only get a boost but get to be a part of the solution to this crisis, and the local church gets to play our part in serving people united by this need.

Additionally, the Mott foundation granted $500,000 to support the Great Flint Urgent Relief Fund, which is established through the Community Foundation of Greater Flint and the United Way of Genesee County. The foundation also granted $200,000 to the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan for emergency food support.

Read more Michigan coronavirus coverage here

Flint mayor will not extend 30-day curfew

Flint hospitals union president, Edward Nelson, dies from coronavirus

Flint police officers, lieutenants and captains receive pay raises

Flint gets additional bottled water donations amid coronavirus shutdown
Nairobi: The coronavirus epidemic that started in China's Wuhan city has engulfed the entire world. People are forced to remain imprisoned in homes to avoid infection. Governments are distributing ration and other essentials to the people at their doorstep. Meanwhile, there are reports of small bottles of liquor being distributed to people along with relief material in Kenya.

Government nod must for investment from these countries

Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko is distributing ration materials among the people. The surprising thing in this is that small bottles of liquor are also being given to people in these packets. In a video on Twitter, Sonko can be heard saying that we are giving small bottles of Hennessy with relief material to our people. He also said that according to research conducted by other health organizations with the World Health Organization (WHO), it has been believed that alcohol is helpful in killing the coronavirus as well as some other viruses.

Protests against lockdown started in many states, people took to the streets with guns in their hands

After this news came to light, a statement issued by WHO said that alcohol does not protect against coronavirus. The release stated that alcohol consumption is associated with the category of circulatory and non-communicable diseases and mental health disorders, which may make a person more susceptible to the coronavirus.

Jalpaiguri jail inmates attack officials with stones to get bail amidst corona scare
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 20:11:22|Editor: huaxia

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Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (C) walks along the German Ambassador to Greece Ernst Reichel (L) and the Greek Alternate Minister of Migration and Asylum Giorgos Koumoutsakos in Athens, Greece, on April 18, 2020. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

ATHENS, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis urged for more European solidarity on Saturday, as he wished 49 unaccompanied refugee minors who departed from Athens for Germany a brighter future.

The minors aged 5-16, including 35 from Syria, 10 from Afghanistan, two from Eritrea and two from Iraq, were hosted at reception camps on the Greek islands of Chios, Samos and Lesvos, Greek Migration and Asylum Ministry officials told Xinhua.

They are the first group of unaccompanied children and adolescents leaving for their new homes in Germany as part of an initiative launched a few months ago by the Greek government and the EU Commission in cooperation with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), which foresees the relocation of some 1,600 such cases from Greece to other EU countries.

Currently Greece hosts over 5,000 unaccompanied minors in overcrowded refugee camps, according to official data.

The implementation of the plan has been stalled after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Greek officials said on Saturday that they hope it will be concluded over the next four months.

On Wednesday the first group of 12 unaccompanied refugees traveled to Luxembourg from Athens Eleftherios Venizelos airport.

The minors who boarded the airplane for Hannover on Saturday will initially stay in Lower Saxony for two-week quarantine according to protocols related to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Following that they will be welcomed by foster families, youth centers, while two of them will be reunited with their mother, according to the Greek ministry.

"In the era of coronavirus this act of solidarity by the German government is very much appreciated," Mitsotakis said during the farewell ceremony at Athens airport.

"Dealing with the migration crisis should be a European responsibility. We should be burden-sharing and we should be able, as Europe, to start with the most pressing problem, which is the problem of unaccompanied minors," he said.

Germany intends to receive 350 to 500 unaccompanied refugees in the coming months, German Ambassador to Greece Ernst Reichel noted, addressing the event.

"The asylum issue concerning the Eastern Aegean Sea islands and Greece overall requires European solidarity and fair distribution of burdens within the EU. It is not only about the unaccompanied minors," he said.

"Ten countries agreed in previous months to receive up to 1,600 minors. They are the 'alliance of the willing.' With the exception of Luxembourg and Germany, they have suspended the plan due to the coronavirus crisis. We want to show that it is feasible and urge other European partners to follow in our footsteps," Reichel stressed.

Since 2015, over a million refugees and migrants have crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey reaching the Greek islands to escape wars and extreme poverty. Most continued their perilous journey to other EU countries until the winter of 2016, when the borders along the Balkan route to central Europe were sealed off and an EU-Turkey agreement aimed to stem the influx was launched.

Currently, some 70,000 asylum seekers are stranded in Greece, according to Greek government figures. More than 38,800 were hosted in overcrowded reception centers on five Aegean Sea islands, according to the latest data provided by the Citizen Protection ministry on Wednesday.
The Swiss Alps on Friday (April 17, 2020) projected the Indian tricolor to give out a message of unity and hope during the coronavirus pandemic. The spectacular light illumination series is an effort to spread hope around the world during this dark time. Renowned Swiss light artist Gerry Hofstetter has been lighting up the 14,690 feet mountain of Matterhorn with displays of country flags. The gesture is to inspire solidarity among the people during these demanding times.

Hofstetter has been doing these light projections of different flags of different countries since March 24. The flags of Switzerland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy and the Swiss region of Ticino were also beamed onto the mountain on Wednesday (April 16, 2020).

The words "hope", "solidarity" and "stay home" have also been projected onto the Swiss Alps, along with a giant red heart on a white background during the coronavirus pandemic.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also shared the picture of the Matterhorn mountain with Indian Tricolour and said, ''The world is fighting COVID-19 together. Humanity will surely overcome this pandemic

The world is fighting COVID-19 together. Humanity will surely overcome this pandemic. https://t.co/7Kgwp1TU6A  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 18, 2020

Indian Foreign Service Officer Gurleen Kaur also took to Twitter and shared the photo of the India flag on the Matterhorn mountain which is nearly 800 meters high and said, "Friendship from Himalayas to Alps. Thank You.''

Switzerland, which has registered more than 18,000 cases and 430 deaths from COVID-19 and has shut schools, bars, restaurants and non-food shops in a bid to halt the spread of the virus.

Globally two million people are known to have been infected, while over 150,000 lives have been lost in the pandemic.
The coronavirus-triggered



nationwide lockdown has paralysed the supply chain of Maoists in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, which is likely to impact their conventional warfare strategy in the coming days, police officials claimed.

As a result, the Naxals have now started snatching a significant part of the ration distributed to villagers under the Public Distribution System (PDS) in Bastar division during the ongoing crisis, the officials said.

Bastar region, spread over an area of about 40,000 sq km, is considered a stronghold of ultras and comprises seven districts of Dantewada, Bijapur, Bastar, Narayanpur, Kondagaon, Sukma and Kanker.

"As per the preliminary information, Maoists' supply networks are facing a challenge to operate due to the restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of virus. To meet their need of essentials, Naxals are putting extra pressure on local villagers," Inspector General of Police (Bastar range) Sundarraj P told PTI.

In the past as well, the local militia cadres of the outlawed CPI (Maoist) used to take ration from villagers and ask them to cook food for their group of about 10-15 members, but the bigger formations of Naxals arrange food and essential commodities through their designated supply team, he said.

Haat bazaars or village markets held in remote areas of Bastar, which have been closed due to the lockdown, served as an ideal destination for Maoist couriers to procure ration and items of daily use. Besides, local cadres also visit town areas to arrange such things, he said.

"But the fear of being caught if they move to urban areas in the current situation, Maoist couriers are preferring to arrange these things from local villagers resulting in burden on innocent tribals, who do not dare to refuse them," he said.

Dantewada Superintendent of Police Abhishek Pallava said that security forces have been launching operations on getting inputs about Maoists looting the ration of villagers in remote areas in his district.

"We are constantly getting tip-offs that Naxals are snatching the month's ration of villagers in Kirandul and Bhansi police station area of Dantewada," he said.

Notably, the state government has been providing two months (March and April) ration at one go free of cost to BPL cardholders across the state during the lockdown.

"Out of fear, villagers do not dare to report these incidents to police. Acting on one such input, we had launched an operation on April 16 in the forests along Dantewada- Bijapur border, during which a Naxal was killed in a gunfight," Pallava said.

Despite a complete ban on holding religious and social gatherings, Naxals have been convening meetings of villagers deep inside the jungles and taking away their ration.

This reflects Maoists' insensitivity toward tribals in this period of crisis, he said.

Another police official posted in Bastar said, Maoists carry out annual 'tactical counter offensive campaign' (TCOC) in summer, during which they intensify their offensive against the security forces.

In the initial part of the campaign, they generally stock a huge quantity of ration and other essential items, which would help them during their three-month (March-May) long offensive.

"Scarcity of supplies could have an impact on their conventional warfare strategy in the coming days," the official added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Delhi police has seized 600 litres of adulterated ghee packed in containers of a popular dairy brand in Northwest district, officials said on Saturday.

On a tip-off, the police intercepted a vehicle in Mangolpuri area on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday, a senior police officer said, adding that the driver was not carrying invoice of the consignment.

During checking, 15 cartons of adulterated ghee were recovered, the officer said.

The vehicle and the consignment were seized and a case was registered at the Mangolpuri police station, they said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Drew Carey, 61, has forgiven alleged murderer Gareth Pursehouse, 41, for any role he might have had in the tragic passing of ex-fiancee Amie Harwick, 38.

'He was mentally ill. He was abused as a kid. You have to be able to forgive people like that. I wish he never did it. I wish he never met her,' expressed Carey during his appearance on Friday's episode of The Talk.

Pursehouse entered a 'not guilty' plea on Thursday, after prosecutors accused him of strangling Harwick and then throwing her from her third-floor balcony on February 15.

Forgiveness: Drew Carey, 61, has forgiven alleged murderer Gareth Pursehouse, 41, for his role in the tragic passing of ex-fiancee Amie Harwick, 38

Empathy: 'He was mentally ill. He was abused as a kid. You have to be able to forgive people like that. I wish he never did it. I wish he never met her,' expressed Carey during his appearance on Friday's episode of The Talk

Carey insisted that although forgiveness is freeing, 'when you forgive people, that doesn't mean you have to hang out with them and be their friend.'

During his interview, Drew revealed that after Amie's murder, he had to take a week off from his hosting gig at The Price Is Right.

'Really, I couldn't function and my first day back we taped the high school show for 'Kids Week.' It was the first show back and everybody knew what happened to me.'

According to Carey, he felt compelled to speak to the young people present at the day's taping about the importance of forgiveness.

Lost love: Carey was engaged to the renown Hollywood sex therapist in 2018, but the engagement had been called off just 18-months before her tragic death; the pair pictured in 2017

'And so, I took time during the break to talk to these kids. And I really wanted to do it because it was high school kids and I talked to them about how I forgave the guy who murdered Amie,' he explained.

'It's important for high school kids to hear and people in general to hear. It would be so easy to carry around  every day think about revenge, which is not coming. There's nothing that'll make up for what he did.

'I really try to practice instant forgiveness and unconditional love. The closest you can get to that the better you are and I fall short all the time,' concluded the Whose Line Is It Anyway alum.

Carey was engaged to the renown Hollywood sex therapist in 2018, but the engagement had been called off just 18 months before her tragic death.

Taking a step back: During Friday's interview, Drew revealed that after Amie's murder, he had to take a week off from his hosting gig at The Price Is Right

Hard to function: 'Really, I couldn't function and my first day back we taped the high school show for 'Kids Week.' It was the first show back and everybody knew what happened to me,' he said of his return to The Price Is Right following Amie's death

Speaking up: 'And so, I took time during the break to talk to these kids. And I really wanted to do it because it was high school kids and I talked to them about how I forgave the guy who murdered Amie,' he explained

Back in February, days after Amie's death, Drew spoke fondly of her character and the mark she had left on the world during a broadcast of his SiriusXM show.

'She was beautiful and fun, and cared deeply about people and improving their lives and was just a joy to be around. And I was so in love with her,' he said.

At the time, Carey also stated that Harwick was 'deathly afraid' of Pursehouse and alleged that he had been stalking her for nearly a decade.

Pursehouse is currently being charged with 'one count each of murder and first-degree residential burglary with the special circumstance allegation of lying in wait,' according to People. He will return to court on June 24 of this year.

Forgiveness: 'I really try to practice instant forgiveness and unconditional love. The closest you can get to that the better you are and I fall short all the time,' concluded the Whose Line Is It Anyway alum

Remembering: 'She was beautiful and fun, and cared deeply about people and improving their lives and was just a joy to be around. And I was so in love with her,' said Carey during an episode of his SiriusXM show in February

Harwick was found deceased on the patio of her home in Hollywood hills at around one in the morning on February 15.

According to the police report, Harwick's roommate could hear distant cries for help from the basement level of Harwick's home.

On the eve of her murder, Pursehouse had allegedly gotten into Harwick's home and waited for her to return from a Valentine's Day outing she had attended with friends, according to Los Angeles District Attorney's Office says in court documents.

Due to the wounds on Harwick's fingers and hands, as detected by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, it was clear the 41-year-old had vigorously fought for her life.
(Newser)  Teen twins gunned down this week are being mourned in their California community, and their mother's ex-boyfriend has been arrested and charged in their deaths. Caira and Leah Christopher15-year-old sophomores at Helix Charter High School in La Mesa, described by a relative as "always smiling and always happy," per the San Diego Union-Tribunewere killed in their Lemon Grove residence during a domestic violence incident, cops say. Per KGTV, San Diego County Sheriff's deputies were called to the home before noon Wednesday, where they found an anguished Joann Hoyt outside. "My twin daughters, who are 15, are dead in the house," she told them. The deceased girls were found inside the home. Police say they located Dwayne Edward Groves Jr., 38, nearby around 2:30pm. He's been charged with murder, attempted murder, and assault with a deadly weapon.

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Hoyt told OnScene.TV that she and Groves had split a week or so earlier, but that she'd agreed to let him stop by on Easter, as he's the father of her younger kids. "Then today he said he figured it all out," she said. "He finally knows what he needs to do. And he showed up at the house and shot my back window out." Hoyt added one of the twins tried to close the door on Groves, but he kicked it open and shot the girl in the head, then "went after my other three older kids." Her son, in his early 20s, was also shot but survived, with non-life-threatening injuries, a sheriff's department rep says, per CSN. A GoFundMe has been set up for the twins' family to help pay for funeral expenses. Groveswho has a lengthy rap sheet, with records showing felony arrests for carrying a loaded firearm and being a felon with a firearm, among othersis being held without bail until his arraignment on May 1. (Read more murder stories.)
KYODO NEWS - Apr 17, 2020 - 14:30 | All, Japan, Coronavirus

Japanese prefectural governors on Friday urged the central government to be firmer in asking the public not to travel during the upcoming Golden Week holidays after it expanded a state of emergency to all of the country in a bid to stem the growing spread of the new coronavirus.

At an online meeting, members of the National Governors' Association said people should be requested to avoid travel to hometowns and tourist trips during the holidays starting late April.

(Governors of Japanese prefectures attend an online meeting of the National Governors' Association on April 17, 2020.)

"There is a high chance that a massive migration will occur toward Golden Week," Tokushima Gov. Kamon Iizumi, head of the association, said a day after the state of emergency, effective through May 6 when the holidays end, was extended to the entire country.

"We are at a critical phase in preventing the virus from spreading. All governors would like to overcome these difficult times by uniting," he said.

Some called for stricter measures, with Tochigi Gov. Tomikazu Fukuda saying, "Traveling across prefectures should be strictly limited, and we also need to consider developing legislation."

The governors also urged the central government to compensate for business suspensions and proposed that it also extend special subsidies totaling 1 trillion yen ($9.3 billion) for local governments as part of steps to financially aid companies complying with requests for operation closures.

After initially declaring a state of emergency for Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama and Hyogo prefectures on April 7, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe extended it to the remaining 40 prefectures on Thursday.

Under the state of emergency, people are asked to refrain from making nonessential outings, while governors are given the power to expropriate private land and buildings for use in the battle against the virus, requisition medical supplies and food from companies that refuse to sell them and punish those that hoard or do not comply.
President Donald Trump urged supporters to LIBERATE three states led by Democratic governors Friday, apparently encouraging protests against stay-at-home restrictions. Some states under Republican leadership edged toward easing up the mandates aimed at stopping the coronavirus.

A day after laying out a road map to gradually reopen the crippled economy, Trump tweeted the kind of rhetoric some of his supporters have used to demand the lifting of the orders that have thrown millions of Americans out of work.

LIBERATE MINNESOTA! LIBERATE MICHIGAN! LIBERATE VIRGINIA, he said in a tweet-storm in which he also lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for criticizing the federal response. Cuomo should spend more time doing and less time complaining, the president said.

Responding to pleas from governors for help from Washington in ramping up testing for the virus, Trump put the burden back on them: The States have to step up their TESTING!

Trump claimed Friday that very partisan voices had spread false and misleading information about the nations testing capacity. But he said well help New York and all of the other states get even better on their testing.

At the same time, at least two states took their first steps toward easing the restrictions.

In Florida, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis said municipalities could reopen beaches and parks if they could do so safely. In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said stores could begin selling curbside, non-essential surgery could resume and state parks could reopen.

Sensitive about persistent questions about the capacity for testing, Trump had his health team lead an extensive briefing Friday outlining that adequate capacity exists to get states through the first phase of the guidelines for how they should reopen.

Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to see businesses reopen quickly and claimed earlier this week that he had total authority over the matter, even though the lockdowns and other social-distancing measures have been imposed by state and local leaders, not Washington.

We may be opening but were putting safety first, Trump said.

On Thursday, he outlined a three-step set of guidelines for easing restrictions over a span of several weeks in places that have robust testing and are seeing a decrease in COVID-19 cases, assuring the nations governors: Youre going to call your own shots.

But governors of both parties suggested Friday that they would be cautious in returning to normal, with some warning that they cant do it without help from Washington to expand testing.

The federal government cannot wipe its hands of this and say, Oh, the states are responsible for testing, said Cuomo, a Democrat. We cannot do it without federal help.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican ally of Trumps, said he would listen to medical experts in deciding how to move forward.

I am not going to do something that I feel in my heart is the wrong thing thats going to endanger our people, he said.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, said Trumps tweets about liberating states put millions of Americans at risk of contracting COVID-19.

The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly, Inslee said.

The clash between Trump and Cuomo was personal, with the president complaining the governor hasnt said thanks for the help he has received from Washington. Cuomo countered by saying: I dont know what Im supposed to do, send a bouquet of flowers? Thank you to the federal government for participating in a federal emergency.

Even in largely rural states with small populations, such as Wyoming, Maine and South Dakota, governors said they were not anxious to quickly resume business as usual.

Until weve got the testing up to speed  which has got to be part of the federal government stepping in and helping  were just not going to be there, said Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican.

The University of Washington, whose computer models have frequently been cited by health officials at White House briefings, predicted Friday that Vermont, West Virginia, Montana and Hawaii could open as early as May 4 if they restrict large gatherings, test widely and quarantine the contacts of people who test positive.

Iowa, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Utah, Arkansas and Oklahoma, however, are among states that would need to wait until mid-June or early July. About half the states should wait until at least early June to reopen, and all should gauge the capacity of their public health systems to handle outbreaks, the institute said.

Worldwide, the outbreak has infected more than 2.2 million people and killed over 150,000, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally based on figures supplied by government health authorities around the globe, though it has becoming increasingly clear that the true numbers are much higher.

The official death toll in the U.S. neared 35,000, with about 685,000 confirmed infections.

The shutdowns have inflicted heavy damage on economies around the world. In the U.S., the crisis has cost at least 22 millions Americans their jobs, pushing the unemployment rate toward levels not seen since the Great Depression.

Many Americans, especially in rural areas and other parts of the country that have not seen major outbreaks, have urged governors to reopen their economies. Protesters have taken to the streets in Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia and Michigan, where more than 3,000 turned out on Wednesday in what looked like one of the presidents rallies, with Make America Great Again hats and Trump flags.

Protests continued Friday, including one outside the home of Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and another in Idaho, where the governor is a Republican.

Public health experts have warned that easing the shutdowns must be accompanied by wider testing and tracing of infected people to keep the virus from coming back with a vengeance.

Meanwhile, China, confirming long-held suspicions, acknowledged that the coronavirus death toll in the one-time epicenter city of Wuhan was nearly 50% higher than reported, amounting to more than 4,600.

In Italy, Spain, Britain, the United States and elsewhere, similar doubts emerged as governments revised their death tolls or openly questioned the accuracy of them.

Authorities said that almost everywhere, thousands have died with COVID-19 symptoms  many in nursing homes  without being tested for the virus, and have thus gone uncounted.

In Italy, for example, where the official toll has climbed past 22,000, a government survey released Friday of about one-third of the countrys nursing homes found more than 6,000 residents have died since Feb. 1. It was unclear how many were a result of COVID-19.

In Britain, with an official count of about 14,600 dead, the countrys statistics agency said the actual number could be around 15% higher. Others think it will be far more.

The official death toll in New York City soared by more than half earlier this week when health authorities began including people who probably had COVID-19 but died without being tested. Nearly 3,800 deaths were added to the citys count.
Niall Whitty wearing some of the PPE he has made at home

Having become one of the thousands of Irish people to be placed on temporary leave due to the coronavirus, Niall Whitty found that he suddenly had a lot of time on his hands.

However, unlike most of us, the 24-year-old Gorey man has a skillset which enables him to address one of the biggest shortages brought about by the pandemic.

A graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), Niall has a background in Product Design and with that comes a knowledge of how to make vital PPE equipment from the comfort his own home.

Using a 3D printer, Niall has started to make face shields and ear protectors for use in hospitals and nursing homes throughout the country.

He explained how the process works: 'There's a standard file being used by the National 3D Printing Society which I've downloaded and put onto the printer. From there, it's just a case of putting the plastic in; it's like a roll of spaghetti, you feed it into the machine and it prints out the PPE equipment. Each one takes about 90 minutes to make.'

With each piece of equipment taking so long to print, Niall decided to try and expand his operation, to increase his output to meet demand. In order to do so he had to purchase some new printers, and they don't come cheap.

Relying on the generosity of the general public, he set up a GoFundMe page with a target of 1,500; enough to buy two new printers and cover all associated costs.

That target was met within 24 hours, and the donations continue to come in.

'I really wasn't expecting the GoFundMe to reach its target so quickly, it's been great to see it. People can continue to donate, any money that doesn't get used to make PPE I'll donate to the local hospitals.

'The money will be used to cover costs and delivery, and the electricity bill - I don't think my mother would be too happy if I didn't cover that. Because it's not a large scale production and I'm making them on my own, I can only make approximately 30 a day,' Niall said.

Having bought the two new printers from an Irish company in Carrick-on-Shannon, Niall is now ready to begin his new working life, one involving busy 12-hour days.

'I'm approaching it as a 12-hour working day. I'll turn the three printers on and start a new batch of equipment, but I don't have to be there all the time, I can reply to emails and process orders while I wait for them to print.

'When they come out, I'll disinfect them in the house before sending them away. I've already been in touch with the local hospitals and Valentia Nursing Home to see if they want some.'

And when it comes to delivering the PPE to those on the frontline, Niall has received a further offer of support from a team of like-minded individuals.

'The guys at Bravo Charlie Tango have offered to come and collect them and deliver them to wherever they need to go. They're a group of motorcyclists who've been bringing equipment to hospitals throughout the country,' Niall said.

You can donate to Niall's GoFundMe at www.gofundme.com/f/help-keep-our-frontline-heroes-safe
The coronavirus pandemic has forced the government of India to enforce a nationwide lockdown in order to prevent the spread of the virus. This obviously has had a major hit on the economy putting millions of people out of work. However, the ones that are most affected are those belonging from the lower sections of the society. Most of them survive on a daily wage and with everything shut, theyre left helpless. Several Bollywood stars have come forward to lend their support during these difficult times and joining the list is ace filmmaker Karan Johar.Karan Johar, the main man of Dharma Productions issued a statement today revealing his company would be contributing to Narendra Modis PM CARES fund along with 7 other organisation to help India in its battle with the coronavirus. The filmmaker posted a video on social media in which hes explaining the magnitude of the issue along with why it is important to stand together in the fight against the deadly virus. Along with sharing the video, Karan wrote, We're all in this together... and we need to fight this together. It is our responsibility to support those in need of help during these tough times... which is why the Dharma family has come together to support these notable causes in their mission to aid and provide relief during the lockdown.Let's all do what we can and help in whatever way possible to overcome this. #LetsUniteAgainstCOVIDKaran Johar was all set to begin the shooting for his dream project Takht this year. However, due to the sudden rise of the coronavirus, the project has been pushed indefinitely.
President Donald Trump announces guidelines for "Opening Up America Again" as he addresses the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in Washington on April 16, 2020. (Leah Millis/REUTERS)

Trump Questions Chinas Virus Figures as Beijing Raises Death Toll for Wuhan

Chinese authorities raised its official virus death toll by 50 percent in the epicenter Wuhan on April 17, drawing criticism from President Donald Trump that this was still an underreporting of the actual death toll in China.

Wuhan authorities placed the revised number of fatalities in the central Chinese city at 3,869, after adding 1,290 cases that included some who had died at home. Wuhan is also reporting another 325 confirmed infections, bringing the cumulative total to 50,333two-thirds of the countrys recorded tally.

Officials attributed the data discrepancy to the surge of patients during the outbreaks early stages, which they said had overwhelmed the medical staff and prevented them from giving timely and accurate case counts.

Revising the numbers is key to maintaining the governments credibility and show respect for each individual life, an unnamed Wuhan official told state-run Xinhua.

As death tolls mount worldwide, a growing number of Western government officials have expressed incredulity at the Chinese regimes data.

Research studies, interviews with Wuhan locals, and internal government reports obtained by The Epoch Times also reveal that Chinese authorities have been significantly understating the gravity of the outbreak.

Trump in a tweet on Friday said the revised figure still did not reflect the actual number of deaths in China.

The death toll in China is far higher than that and far higher than the U.S., not even close! Trump wrote. The confirmed deaths in the United States have climbed past 35,000.

China has just announced a doubling in the number of their deaths from the Invisible Enemy. It is far higher than that and far higher than the U.S., not even close!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020

The president has repeatedly questioned the accuracy of the regimes official infections and death toll figures, saying in a tweet on Wednesday: Do you really believe those numbers in this vast country called China, and that they have a certain number of cases and a certain number of deaths; does anybody really believe that?

Chinas foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Friday insisted that China has by and large brought the virus under control and that the government has been responsible.

Data revision in the case of highly infectious diseases is a common international practice, he said in a press conference. But he denied that the Chinese regime covered up the scale of the outbreak.

Meanwhile, a second wave of infections has erupted in the northern city of Harbin, while the number of asymptomatic carriers has been on the uptick elsewhere in the country.

This is also not the first time that China has changed its case count methodology. From January to early March, China issued seven different versions of how it defined COVID-19 diagnoses. A group of Hong Kong researchers who examined the changes found that confirmed cases would have been more than four times the official number by Feb. 20, had authorities consistently used the fifth version of the guidelines.

A March study co-written by Harvard professor Lin Xihong, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, estimated that Wuhans total cumulative cases by Feb. 18 would be around 125,959, with at least 59 percent of infected cases unascertained.

A vendor hands food to a customer over a barricade separating a residential compound in Wuhan, Chinas central Hubei province on April 6, 2020. (Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images)

An April 7 report by Washington-based think tank American Enterprise Institute estimated the number of confirmed cases to be around 2.9 millionmore than 300 times higher than official figures.

While Chinese authorities reported few domestic cases in March, reports of thousands of ash urns delivered to funeral homes and victims families waiting for hours to retrieve their loved ones ashes at funeral homes further disputed government claims that the outbreak was under control.

Lawmakers and experts worldwide have escalated their criticism of the Chinese regimes cover-up as the pathogen continues to spread globally.

U.K.s foreign secretary and acting prime minister Dominic Raab on April 16 said there will be no more business as usual after the outbreak is over.

There absolutely needs to be a very, very deep dive after the event and review of the lessons, including of the outbreak of the virus, he said at a press conference in London. I dont think we can flinch from that at all.

A number of U.S. officials, including Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), have called for an international probe into the Chinese regimes cover-up of the outbreak and to hold it accountable.

An open letter signed by over 150 politicians and experts on China called Beijings mishandling of the virus the roots of the pandemic.

The global pandemic forces us all to confront an inconvenient truth: by politicizing all aspects of life including peoples health, continued autocratic one-party rule in the Peoples Republic of China has endangered everyone, the letter read.
(Newser)  As a clearer picture emerges of COVID-19s decidedly deadly toll on black Americans, leaders are demanding a reckoning of the systemic policies they say have made many blacks far more vulnerable to the virusincluding inequity in access to health care and economic opportunity, the AP reports. A growing chorus of medical professionals, activists, and political figures is pressuring the federal government to not just release comprehensive racial demographic data of the countrys coronavirus victims, but also to outline clear strategies to blunt the devastation on blacks and other communities of color. On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its first breakdown of COVID-19 case data by race, showing that 30% of patients whose race was known were black.

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The federal data was missing racial information for 75% of all cases, however, and did not include any demographic breakdown of deaths. Health conditions that exist at higher rates in the black communityobesity, diabetes and asthmamake blacks more susceptible to the virus. They also are more likely to be uninsured, and often report that medical professionals take their ailments less seriously. "It's Americas unfinished businesswe're free, but not equal," said civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson. "There's a reality check that has been brought by the coronavirus, that exposes the weakness and the opportunity." Groups representing African Americans are calling for better COVID-19 testing and treatment data as well as better protections for incarcerated populations.

(Read more coronavirus stories.)
Hyundai Motor India on Saturday said it has tied up with French company Air Liquide Medical Systems (ALMS) for production and supply of ventilators in Tamil Nadu and other states.

France-based ALMS is present in India through a subsidiary which is based out of Chennai.

As part of the partnership, Hyundai and ALMS are looking to produce 1,000 ventilators in the first phase, and to scale up subsequently.

"Ventilators and other respiratory aids are critical devices in the fight against COVID-19 and to this end, Hyundai and ALMS are working together to ensure a steady supply of ventilators in India," Hyundai Motor India MD and CEO SS Kim said in a statement.

ALMS India Managing Director Anil Kumar said the company has initiated a prompt response towards the fight against COVID-19 in support of the government.

"We are confident that this collaboration with Hyundai Motor India will bring about a positive shift in this battle. We are one of the very few Global companies with a dedicated R&D to manufacture ventilators in India," he added.

The company is employing all the resources available to manufacture easy-to use and high-performing ventilators, Kumar said.

Ventilators are medical devices used to deliver air with high concentration of oxygen to the lungs of a patient who is unable to breathe on his own.

For patients severely affected by COVID-19, ventilators are critical to ensure continuous oxygen is supplied to overcome respiratory insufficiency.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A biologist cleans the enclosure of Humboldt penguins at the closed aquarium in Barcelona

A policeman in a mask, as a preventive measure against the spread of coronavirus, patrols Chinatown in Bangkok, Thailand

Protesters gather outside the Louisiana State Capitol during a rally against Louisianas stay-at-home order and economic shutdown

The coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 2.1 million people worldwide and more than 140,000 deaths have been recorded.

Here is the latest on the situation from around the world:

CZECH REPUBLIC: The country will allow religious services to start again as it eases restrictions imposed to contain the pandemic.

Healthcare minister Adam Vojtech said religious gatherings in churches will restart on April 27 with a maximum of 15 people, but they will have to keep a distance from one another. The number of worshippers will be allowed to grow in the following weeks.

UNITED STATES: A report has identified numerous New York state nursing homes where multiple patients died over the past few weeks.

Nineteen of the state's nursing homes have each had at least 20 deaths linked to the pandemic, the report said. One Brooklyn home was listed as having 55 deaths. Four homes, in the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island, were listed as having more than 40.

The report's release came after days of reports about homes so stricken by the virus that bodies had to be stacked inside storage rooms while families struggled to get information about isolated loved ones.

RUSSIA: President Vladimir Putin is prodding top officials to move faster to prepare for a surge in coronavirus cases.

Speaking on a conference call with federal official and regional governors, he told them to "act faster and more energetically" to secure ventilators, protective gear and other essential supplies. He warned Russia is yet to see a peak of infections, adding Moscow was the first to face soaring numbers of infections and "the problem is spreading into the regions".

Russia has registered 32,008 coronavirus cases and 273 deaths.

FRANCE: At least 940 people aboard a French aircraft carrier and its escort ships have been infected with the virus.

The total number of positive cases is expected to grow because some test results are still pending, the head of the military health service, Maryline Gygax Genero, told a Senate hearing.

Among those infected are two of four US sailors serving on the Charles de Gaulle as part of the US Navy's exchange programme.

Those infected represent more than a third of the 2,300 military personnel aboard the Charles de Gaulle and its escort ships.

SWEDEN: Princess Sofia, the 35-year-old wife of King Carl XVI Gustaf's oldest son, has joined the ranks of those helping the health sector fight coronavirus.

She had undergone a three-day medical course at a Stockholm university that allowed her to assist healthcare workers at a private hospital in the Swedish capital.

The institution has been relieving hospitals by handling surgery, primarily in cancer. Sofia wrote on Instagram on Wednesday: "I support and relieve the care staff with various tasks, including care of patients and cleaning."

ITALY: The national institute of health says a partial survey of nursing homes has found more than 6,000 residents have died since February 1 - about 7% of residents nationwide.

The number of dead is only a fraction of the total since the survey was based on data from a third of 3,000 nursing homes contacted, which in turn are home to only a third of the estimated 280,000 elderly living in assisted care facilities nationwide.

The estimate is the best guess Italian authorities have about the huge toll of nursing home dead in the European epicentre of the pandemic, most of whom are not included in the official death toll because they were never tested.

SPAIN: The official gazette has published a government order for the country's 17 autonomous regions to unify the criteria on counting the dead in the coronavirus pandemic.

The government says it is following World Health Organisation guidance and insists on counting only those who die having tested positive for the virus, whether or not they showed symptoms and no matter where they died.

That figure on Thursday rose above 19,000, with more than 188,000 infections, but the accounting system leaves out patients who died with symptoms but were not tested.
The outlook revision follows the revision in the sovereign rating outlook on April 8, which reflects the impact of the escalating COVID-19 pandemic on the Vietnamese economy.

Particularly, Fitch lowered the ratings of two state-owned banks (Vietcombank, VietinBank) and a wholly foreign-owned bank (ANZ) from Positive to Stable, based on the Long-Term Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs).

The outlook for two other joint-stock commercial banks (MB and ACB) was also lowered, from Stable to Negative.

The effects of the coronavirus epidemic are greatly mirrored by the new outlook of Fitch Ratings

These actions stem from the sharply lower  albeit positive  growth that Vietnam faces from the coronavirus pandemic and its potential to negatively affect the banks' credit profiles in the near term, at least.

The IDRs of all five banks were affirmed at existing levels as we expect a firm economic recovery in 2021, although there will be lingering effects on the banks, Fitch said.

The ratings firm also lowered Vietnam's operating environment midpoint to 'b+' from 'bb-', but kept the outlook at Stable.

The coronavirus outbreak has strained the Vietnamese economy, with GDP growth slowing to a seven-year low of 3.8 per cent in the first quarter of this year, from 7.0 per cent at the end of 2019.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic roiling the global market, Fitch expects Vietnam's GDP to grow by 3.3 per cent in 2020 and 7.3 per cent in 2021, assuming that economic recovery will only begin in the latter part of 2020.

In response, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) cut its policy rates and directed banks to extend debt relief to affected borrowers, while easing requirements on loan classification and provisioning. As a result, the banking sector has become a key intermediary  and will likely bear much of the policy burden  of financial relief.

Vietnam's relatively open economy implies that risks to the agency's base-case forecast are high, especially if external demand continues to be weak and sustained signs of virus containment remain elusive.

The countrys high system leverage, reflected in the bank credit-to-GDP ratio rising to 136 per cent by the end of 2019 from 101 per cent at the end of 2014, also leaves it more vulnerable to severe stress in the system, Fitch noted.

The sudden loss of economic momentum that banks in Vietnam have grown accustomed to in recent years will most directly affect their asset quality and earnings.

Moreover, risk appetite, capitalisation, and governance scores could also be lowered should pressure for banks to undertake policy lending manifest in large-scale non-risk-based lending.

Thin capital buffers are another area of weakness that Fitch has been wary of, with some major banks (state-owned lender Agribank, for example) still struggling to comply with local Basel II requirements.

Fitch also warned that Vietinbank has fallen behind original Basel II implementation timelines. Vietinbank's capitalisation outlook is negative, reflecting the agency's assessment of its weaker asset quality than domestic peers.
17.04.2020 LISTEN

Metro TV host Paul Adom-Otchere says Klottey-Korle MP Dr Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings claims are "baseless" regarding food being shared by the government to some 400,000 poor people in areas under lockdown.

Justifying his previous days polemic against the opposition MP on his Good Evening Ghana programme, Mr Adom-Otchere told Accra-based Citi FM on Friday that Dr Agyeman-Rawlings unsubstantiated claim could have sparked violence from members of her National Democratic Congress (NDC) against members of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), which could have degenerated into a Rwanda genocide-like war.

The comments of Mr Adom-Otchere followed the expression of an intention by the Minority in Parliament, to drag him to the National Media Commission (NMC) and the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) over what they deem his attack on one of their own, who happens to be the first daughter of the partys founder, former President Jerry John Rawlings.

In his Thursday night tirade, Mr Adom-Otchere admonished the first-time lawmaker to stop misbehaving and making unsubstantiated allegations against her political opponents at a time that the country needs unity to fight COVID-19.

Despite an initial denial by the government, the medical doctor-turned-politician, in a statement, asked President Akufo-Addo to probe the matter.

In his editorial, however, Mr Adom-Otchere, a member of the Board of the National Media Commission (NMC) described the allegation the opposition legislator as wrong and called on her to behave properly.

That is a serious allegation to make against an opposing political party or to make against a government or to make against a municipal assembly or to make against any other politician This is very wrong; members of parliament cannot do that. Dr Rawlings, youre an elected member of parliament, you cannot do that. You cannot hide behind paper and camera and make baseless accusations against your opponent, that is the kind of politics we want to stop in this country, that is not the kind of politics we want to encourage, the kind of politics we want to stop in this country is what you have done, Mr Adom-Otchere said.

Using Dr Agyeman-Rawlings own statement against her, the TV host said: In your statement, you said: My colleague MP in the Ablekuma South Constituency, Dr Oko Vanderpuije, had to also go public about how food intended for the poor was being distributed in NPP vehicles under the direct supervision of the NPP candidate for that constituency. Dr Oko Vanderpuije, before speaking to the press about the unfortunate development, had called Mrs Cynthia Mamle Morrison on phone to bring the matter to her notice and to register his protest.

This is what you do as a member of parliament, let it get into your system Dr Rawlings, let it get into your system; you come from a privileged place, we respect you, we respect your father, behave properly, stop misbehaving. How can you even issue such a statement for what you have doneweve been charitable to you because of who you are

Look at Oko Vanderpuijes behaviour you are quoting; why didnt you behave the same way? Are you better than Oko VanderpuiJe, no, no one is better than anyone, youre all members of parliament. But yes, you come from a great place that all of us wish we could come from. You are carrying the political heritage of Flt. lieutenant Rawlings, you cannot behave the way youre behaving

Mr Adom-Otchere quizzed: Who told you to issue this statement? Herrr, I dont even know what to say withdraw this statement before the lions chew you on social media. How can you tell us how Oko Vanderpuije behaved and you cannot behave that same way; how John Dumelo behaved and you cannot behave the same waythis your statement is completely flawed, never issue such a statement again, youre a great woman, a fine politician, we want you to stay in politics

---classfmonline
While staying locked up at home can be hard, it is even harder when you have to do it away from your family. These days, Sanjay Dutt is forced to stay connected with his family virtually as his wife Maanayata and children  Iqra and Shahraan  are stuck in Dubai during the lockdown.

"When the lockdown was announced, unfortunately, Maanayata and my children were already in Dubai. In the past, I have spent periods of my life in a lockdown. Back then and even now, the one thought that stays with me is the way I miss my family. For me, they are everything," Dutt told Times of India in an interview.

"Thanks to technology, I can see and talk to them multiple times in a day, and yet, I miss them terribly. These times teach you about the fragility of life, and the value of moments spent with your loved ones. We should count our blessings, and never take them for granted," he added.

The actor said that he is looking forward to the day this lockdown ends, and he can actually see his family at home. "Although I have them virtually with me, there is a difference. As a father and husband, I am worried about their safety, even though I know that they are fine," he said.

Dutt has been posting awareness videos during the lockdown, both on coronavirus safety and on staying fit at home. He has also pitched in to feed a thousand families in Mumbai at a time when the underprivileged are facing difficulty organising daily income and food for themselves amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read: Sanjay Dutt Pitches in to Feed 1000 Families Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

Follow @News18Movies for more
Gov. Greg Abbott announced Friday a return to work for some Texans, moving to reinvigorate the flagging economy even as COVID-19 cases in the state continue to increase.

The governor, who has come under pressure from fellow Republicans to prioritize the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, said retailers will be able to open drive-up operations late next week, and doctors in nonfrontline specialties can resume some procedures beginning Wednesday.

State parks also will reopen, with restrictions in place to ensure social distancing.

In opening Texas, we must be guided by data and doctors, Abbott said. We must put health and safety first. We must prioritize protecting our most vulnerable populations.

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

Abbott said school closures will be extended through the end of the school year.

Public school districts will continue to provide online instruction to avoid losing state funding and extending their calendars.

The order drew widespread praise from superintendents and leaders of unions representing school employees, who agreed that returning to classes was untenable.

More Information Gov. Abbott's orders on Friday: Close Texas schools for the remainder of the school year Create a Strike Force to Open Texas Authorize 'retail to-go' operations at closed Texas businesses, which allows them to reopen starting April 24, provided they deliver the items to a customer's vehicle, home or other location Loosen restrictions on nonessential surgeries, effective April 22 Reopen state parks, effective April 20, provided visitors wear face masks and abide by social distancing guidelines See More Collapse

The decision also ensures the states 350,000-plus high school seniors wont return to class before graduation. Many districts have pushed back graduation ceremonies into the summer, though it remains to be seen whether public health officials will advise against holding those gatherings.

Also Friday, the governor formed a new advisory team to guide his decisions on future reopenings, led by Austin banker James Huffines and conservative lobbyist Mike Toomey.

Democrats have called for increased access to testing and medical supplies, as well as a focus on the virus' disproportionate impact on African-American and Hispanic communities in the state.

Texas ranks among the lowest states for testing per capita, which means health officials have little insight into the true size of the outbreak.

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, said the governor has failed to fully deliver on earlier promises for more testing, and called his approach see no evil, hear no evil.

We still don't have a sense of how big the pandemic is in Texas, Castro said in a call with reporters.

The governor gave no specifics for how testing will expand, saying only that it will continue to grow.

In the short term, you will see daily increases, Abbott said. It will be going up quite a bit.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, whose city has been the hardest hit in Texas, said he wants more specifics on how testing will increase.

The testing has always been and continues to be the most important thing, he said. We need to hear a lot more on the plan for robust, ubiquitous testing.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a research group at the University of Washington, is predicting a statewide peak of COVID-19 infections on April 29. Hospital executives have said reopening restaurants, playgrounds and theaters then could be disastrous.

Given the projected peak later this month, medical leaders have warned against reopening businesses too soon. Dr. Paul Klotman, president of Baylor College of Medicine, said it makes no sense to pick a date based on what we wish to happen and added that the virus will and should dictate when to lift restrictions.

But Abbotts order about resuming services at hospitals was met positively by the heads of Houston Methodist and Memorial Hermann health systems Friday.

It is critical to our community that we safely and thoughtfully begin a return to diagnosing and treating medical issues, Dr. Marc Boom, president of Houston Methodist, emailed employees. Regardless of the virus, our friends, family and neighbors are still suffering from heart disease, cancer, neurological problems, etc. We must balance the need to be prepared for COVID-19 patients and the need to care for others without the virus.

Both Methodist and Memorial Hermann said they will phase back services, starting with diagnostic and imaging procedures before cautiously returning to non-elective surgeries.

Staff writers Jacob Carpenter, Dylan McGuinness and Todd Ackerman contributed to this report.
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Market Scenario

Global Smoke Detector Market is expected to reach US$2.60 billion at a CAGR of 4.50 % during forecast year. Smoke detector is device which sense the smoke and give indication for the fire.

Smoke Detector Market is segmented by detector type into photoelectric smoke detector, ionization smoke detector, Dual sensor smoke detector. Based on the mechanism type smoke detector market categorised into battery powered, hardwired with battery backup, and hardwired without battery backup. By application smoke detector market is fragmented into residential, commercial, industrial and oil, gas and mining industry. In terms of region smoke detector market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East Africa and Latin America.

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Smoke Detector Market

Growing innovation in the smoke detection technic, initiative taken by government over the protection from fire, Increase injuries or deaths due to fire incidents into commercial and residential applications are rising the demand for smoke detector. High initial and repairing cost for the smoke detector are limiting the growth in smoke detector market.

Based on the detector type, dual sensor smoke detector is expected to grow at high rate of CAGR in the near future. Dual sensor smoke detector contains the combinational properties of photoelectric and ionisation. Fire incidences can be happen in any surrounding area at different location that time selection of appropriate type of detector is difficult. With the Solution over this problems user pursue to install dual sensor smoke detector who helps to support both technology.

Based on the applications, oil, gas & mining industry is expected to share high growth in smoke detector market. Detection of the smoke in oil, gas & mining industry turn to the possibility of the fire blast like bomb blast. To overcome this risk at oil, gas & mining industry increase the demand for smoke detector which helps to drive the growth in smoke detector market.

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In terms of region, Europe is expected to dominate the Smoke detector market. In number of countries such as Austria and Germany are installing smoke detector alarm in residence area which helps to drive the smoke detector market in Europe region. Furthermore, Asia-Pacific is expected to increase smoke detector market owing to expansion of industrialisation by developing countries India and China need to use of smoke detection in manufacturing area to protect the industry from fire.

Scope of the Global Smoke Detector Market:

Global Smoke Detector Market By detector type

 Ionization smoke detector

 Photoelectric smoke detector

 Dual sensor smoke detector

Global Smoke Detector Market By mechanism type

 Battery powered

 Hardwired with battery backup

 Hardwired without battery backup

Global Smoke Detector Market By application

 Oil, gas & mining

 Commercial

 Residential

 Industrial

Global Smoke Detector Market By region

 North America

 Europe

 Asia-Pacific

 Latin America

 Middle East Africa

Key players in the Global Smoke Detector Market

 Honeywell International

 Tyco

 Siemens AG

 Johnson Control

 Robert Bosch

 NEC Corporation

 Nest labs

 Schneider Electric

 United Technologies Corporation

 Hochiki Corporation

 Kidde fire safety

 Gentex Corporation

 Mircom Group

 MSA safety

 Apollo Fire Detectors

 General Monitors

 Universal Security Instruments

 Mircom

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Migrants at a holding facility near Tunis have been on a hunger strike since April 6 to protest their continuing detention and mistreatment as well as the absence of coronavirus infection prevention measures.

To date, there are 780 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 35 deaths among the civilian population, while no cases have been recorded among the prison population.

Tunisia has been in a state of total confinement with a nightly curfew since March 21 as part of efforts to stem the spread of the virus. On March 31, President Kais Saied released 1,420 prisoners in order to reduce the spread.

Meanwhile, calls from human rights organizations to release prisoners have increased. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called on March 25 for relevant authorities to work quickly to reduce the number of people in detention. Similar appeals by the World Health Organization, the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees followed.

But despite these calls, migrants held in detention centers in Tunisia have not been allowed to return to their homes or other accommodations where they can quarantine safely.

Distressed migrant detainees held at el-Ouardia Reception and Orientation Center began their hunger strike April 6. They reached out to Al-Monitor to express their frustration that authorities had done nothing to improve their situation to keep them safe from the coronavirus. The detention facility, which lies on the outskirts of Tunis, is the subject of a damning report published Dec. 16, 2019, by the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES). The report outlined a badly run facility where migrants are detained without charge in unsanitary conditions, given meager food rations, and subjected to aggressive interrogation, nightly lock-ins and regularly forced deportations.

Rajabu Kilamuna, a human rights activist originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, has been living in Tunisia for the past seven years under asylum seeker status. However, on Feb. 14, 2020, a senior immigration official came to his house to take him to el-Ouardia. Kilamuna told Al-Monitor he was denied access to a lawyer, had his phone taken from him and initially was unable to make contact with the outside world until last week when he had access to a phone. I told them that I knew my rights and they didnt even allow me to call my mother or a lawyer, he said.

Kilamuna founded the association Migrants sans Frontieres (Migrants without Borders) to help foreign nationals facing difficulties in a variety of issues such as opening bank accounts, setting up businesses or applying for asylum seeker status in Tunisia. Now he finds himself in limbo, unable to proceed with appealing his case and unable to return to his apartment in Tunis where he could sit out confinement in peace.

Kilamuna said that, over and above the dirt and discomfort of the center, he and his fellow detainees are frightened of the virus spreading. We have demanded the authorities [give us] a protection plan from COVID-19, but there is no plan. They bring people directly from the airport or from the prisons without testing.

He continued, There are only two bathrooms between some 60+ detainees, several toilets do not work and we get only one piece of soap issued once a fortnight between three to four people. The mattresses are old and they smell, the bedding has not been changed in a long time and we are getting bitten by bugs.

He appealed, We are asking for our rights to be released; we are no longer accepting to be caged like we are in a zoo. He also expressed concern that there are also six women amongst their group and one teenage boy. We are afraid for this teenager living where adults are living.

One of the six women detained at el-Ouardia spoke on the condition of anonymity to Al-Monitor. We want to leave here. There is no water. There is nothing here to protect us. There is no heating; it is very cold at night and everybody is sick here. Where are human rights and womens rights here in Tunisia?

Another detainee, Kwame Kofi Stephane, from Cote DIvoire, served a four-month sentence in Mornaguia Prison for overstaying his visa. At the end of his prison sentence, he was transferred to el-Ouardia. I came here to work and earn money, but I was arrested for overstaying my visa and served four months and two weeks before they transferred me to el-Ouardia, he told Al-Monitor.

People are starting to get sick. They are coughing. They go to the clinic [where medical personnel] only take someones temperature; they are not testing for COVID-19. They are not given medication, just a mask. He said he is very annoyed about overcrowding and the lack of response from authorities.

Both Kofi Stephane and Kilamuna describe racist verbal abuse and a culture of financial exploitation of the detainees by el-Ouardia staff. Kofi Stephane said, The guards offer to buy things from the shop like biscuits or yogurt, but they will ask for five times the normal price to go buy it. They are making a business out of me.

Kilamuna reinforced this, saying, They come to me saying, Hey, Mr. Rajabu, give me 10 dinars, give me 20 dinars and I will give you your phone back.'

FTDES spokesperson Romdhane Ben Amor told Al-Monitor that there were high-level meetings on April 7 and 10 between the ministries of Interior, Social Affairs, and Human Rights and Transitional Justice, the Ministry for Human Rights and Relations with the Constitutional Courts and Civil Society, as well as representatives from civil society  but no promise of action was given, he said.

On April 10, the FTDES published a communique signed by 34 Tunisian civil society organizations and 23 members of parliament demanding the release of detained migrants.

That same day, those taking part in the hunger strike in el-Ouardia moved from the dormitories to the central courtyard. Al-Monitor has seen videos of police talking with detainees, and Kilamuna reported that although not aggressive, the policeman said those sleeping outside would be taken to prison if they did not return the beds to the dormitories.

Kofi Stephane is also very concerned about the health of those participating in the hunger strike. Some people are very weak; they cannot even go outside, he said.

The pandemic is shining a stern light on the issue of migrant detention in North Africa. Executive director of the Global Detention Project Michael Flynn told Al-Monitor that there is considerable pressure by Europe on North African states to stop and halt migrant/refugee movement [toward Europe].

Author of the FTDES report Amal el-Makki told Al-Monitor that Tunisia has created a clear policy on migrants and immigration. Regarding el-Ouardia, she said, There is a lack of clarity around the legal framework that regulates el-Ouardia and its activity. Theres little published legal or regulatory text related to the founding of the center.

She added, For detained migrants, the risk of infection with COVID-19 is greater when there are no preventative measures. And when authorities continue bringing in new groups of immigrants, social distancing is impossible.

Flynn said governments that take these people into custody are responsible for them. It is not just about just releasing [them], but finding a solution where they can be taken care of, where they can do social distancing.

As the fifth week of confinement in Tunisia begins, Flynn warned, I think there is a disaster waiting to happen, and I think they need to find a solution.

Minister of Human Rights and Relations with the Constitutional Courts and Civil Society Ayechi Hammami said that of the 53 migrant detainees, the Moroccan government is arranging for the 22 Moroccans detained at el-Ouardia to be repatriated. For those of sub-Saharan origin, there is still no concrete solution.

Al-Monitor pressed the minister about the status of those migrants who have persistent coughs, and he said, "It is true. There is a lack of testing in Tunisia for COVID-19; there is a doctor in the clinic of el-Ouardia, and it is he who decides to test or not to test." Spokesperson for FTDES Romdhane Ben Amor said, "Officially there are no cases of COVID-19, but the clinic at el-Ouardia doesn't have the capacity to test for COVID-19."
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Apr. 18

By Ilkin Seyfaddini  Trend:

Uzbekistan's officials held negotiations with Masahiro Yagi, the president of Yagiharu Co., Ltd trading company, which were organized via a videoconference, Trend reports with reference to the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Tokyo.

During the videoconference, the issues of supply of textile products to the Japanese market were discussed alongside options for exporting goods using different types of transportation.

Masahiro Yagi praised the quality of the textile products manufactured in Uzbekistan and noted the existing demand for Uzbek products in the Japanese market. He also informed that the trial batch from the country was successfully delivered to Japan.

Following the talks, an agreement was reached to continue joint work, including meeting via videoconference with participation of members of Uztextilprom Association.

The parties also considered the possibility of Masahiro Yagi's visit to Uzbekistan in September 2021 to continue negotiations and discuss relevant agreements.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
The Phillipsburg Free Public Library saw $145,000 in funding restored Saturday during an online town council budget meeting.

Officials also discussed the removal of $107,00 in funding for the town pool and cuts to the town surveillance camera budget this year.

Councilwoman Danielle DeGerolamo led the effort to return $145,000 to the librarys budget, bringing it up to $645,000.

The librarys funding was cut 17 percent on the first round of budget considerations, and another $125,000 was taken out in the second round, "which I dont agree with in any way, shape or form, DeGerolamo said.

The motion to return part of the library funding was approved by a 4-1 vote, with Councilman Harry Wyant Jr. as the lone nay vote.

The library has been closed since March 15, but full-time employees are working from home, library director Deb Messling said. Their work includes answering reference and tech questions, signing people up for library cards to access digital content, story time on YouTube, and Zoom book clubs.

The additional funding does help, since the previous $500,000 budget was devastating, Messling said, but the library is still facing cuts in hours or personnel.

Asked what she would need to avoid those cuts, Messling told council, I would say give me $700,000. Of course, I would say give me a million."

The librarys expenditures in previous years was closer to $900,000 but that included funding from Warren County that stopped in 2018, Messling said. The library had a reserve that was being used to supplement the towns allocations, but that will be gone this year, she said.

The towns portion of the librarys previous budget was about $670,000.

Like all libraries, personnel makes up the bulk of our budget. Books are cheap, and even technology is relatively cheap these days. People are expensive, and we have many seasoned employees -- their experience is invaluable, but of course the longer your tenure, the more you cost, Messling said via email after the meeting.

During Saturdays meeting, officials discussed the removal of $107,000 for Walters Park pool and agreed to cut funding for the towns surveillance camera system.

Mayor Todd Tersigni said he removed the pool funding after council sent his initial budget back the first time. The money was for operations and some repairs, but Tersigni said it wasnt nearly enough money for the pool, which was built in 1955.

The removal was both due to finances and the coronavirus pandemic, the mayor said. New York City announced Friday it would not open its public pools this year because of COVID-19.

Wyant was the lone vote against cutting the camera funding; the cameras were first installed in 2012 when Wyant was mayor.

He said while some of the cameras are not working and need to be replaced, they are well-utilized and very important for the town police department.

The cameras are a great tool, council President Randy Piazza Jr. said, but the town has a piecemeal system that needs to be revisited.

I dont know that $60,000 and a couple of cameras will do it, Piazza said of the budget line item. Its throwing money at a system that needs to be retooled altogether.

A maintenance contract and compatibility with a DVR system are some of the issues that need to be addressed, council members said.

Council Vice President Frank McVey said moving forward, he would like to see town police officers wearing body cameras.

Saturdays Zoom meeting was listed on the Phillipsburg town clerk and council Facebook page, but the meeting was not listed on the towns website and event calendar. Past meetings, and a town council meeting for April 21 is on the website.

Town Clerk Vicky Kleiner said the meeting was listed Wednesday in the newspaper, which is the legal requirement. The date was discussed at the last budget meeting and over 1,000 people saw the post on the clerks Facebook page, she said.

The meeting was supposed to be on the towns website; Kleiner said other employees were just learning the system to post items on the page.

Residents can sign up for town emails to be aware of meetings and other town notifications. Public notices published in The Express-Times are also posted online at lehighvalleylive.com.

Kleiner said given the changes amid the pandemic, she was trying to put notifications everywhere I can possibly get it.

Reminder Budget Meeting Saturday @. 8:30 am Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/91126694492 Meeting ID: 911 2669... Posted by Phillipsburg - Town Clerk & Council on Friday, April 17, 2020

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.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. If theres anything about this story that needs attention, please email her. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 10:00:31|Editor: huaxia

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A poster reminding people not to gather is seen in Hong Kong, south China, April 13, 2020. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaochu)

These 27 new cases include 10 domestically transmitted ones, which were reported in the provinces of Heilongjiang, Guangdong and Sichuan.

BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese health authority said Saturday that it received reports of 27 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the mainland Friday, of which 17 were imported.

The other 10 new cases were domestically transmitted, the National Health Commission said in a daily report, noting that seven cases were reported in Heilongjiang Province, two in Guangdong Province and one in Sichuan Province.

No death was reported Friday on the mainland. Five new suspected cases, all imported ones, were also reported, with three in Shanghai and two in Heilongjiang Province.

According to the commission, 50 people were discharged from hospitals after recovery Friday, while the number of severe cases decreased by 4 to 85.

As of Friday, the mainland had reported a total of 1,566 imported cases. Of the cases, 709 had been discharged from hospitals after recovery, 857 were being treated with 47 in severe condition, said the commission.

No death from the imported cases had been reported, it added.

The overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 82,719 by Friday, including 1,058 patients who were still being treated, 77,029 people who had been discharged after recovery, and 4,632 people who died of the disease, the commission said.

The commission said that 63 people, including 58 from abroad, were still suspected of being infected with the virus.

It added that 8,893 close contacts were still under medical observation. On Friday, 986 people were discharged from medical observation.

Also on Friday, 54 new asymptomatic cases, including three from abroad, were reported on the mainland. A total of nine asymptomatic cases, of which six were imported, were re-categorized as confirmed cases, and 66 were discharged from medical observation including 12 imported cases, according to the commission.

The commission said 1,017 asymptomatic cases, including 191 from abroad, were still under medical observation.

By Friday, 1,021 confirmed cases including four deaths had been reported in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), 45 confirmed cases in the Macao SAR, and 395 in Taiwan including six deaths.

A total of 532 patients in Hong Kong, 17 in Macao and 166 in Taiwan had been discharged from hospitals after recovery. 
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 09:44:41|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, April 17 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday extended his order for all staff at UN headquarters in New York to work from home through May 31 to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

In a letter to staff, Guterres said he based his decision on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's announcement that the New York State lockdown will be extended through May 15.

"As a result, in consultation with senior management and our medical services, and following a conservative and pragmatic approach, I have decided that the current telecommuting arrangements at United Nations Headquarters shall be extended through May 31, 2020," Guterres wrote.

"We will continue to review such arrangements, as subsequent extensions may be necessary, and will provide you with advance notice."

Teams are working on measures for an eventual phased, gradual and flexible return to work in the office building whenever it is considered safe to do so, said Guterres.

"Any decision will be guided by medical advice, continuous risk assessments, local conditions, including school closures, and criticality of functions for our business continuity," he added.

Guterres first ordered all staff at UN headquarters in New York, unless their physical presence in office is needed to carry out essential UN business, to work from home between March 16 and April 12. He then extended the arrangements till April 30. Enditem
I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do, and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

-- Bertrand Russell, Portraits from Memory

When Wuhan, the city at the center of the coronavirus outbreak in China, was put under lockdown, tens of thousands of policemen stepped up to help fight the virus. One of them was 52-year-old Shen Shengwen.

Shen serves the Baibuting community in Wuhans Jiangan District. When Wuhan announced the travel restrictions on January 23, he received a phone call at 5am summoning him back to duty. From that point on, Shen continued to work in the epicenter of the outbreak as a guardian of local residents.

The area Shen is responsible for is the largest low-rent housing cluster in Wuhan, which has a population of over 10,000. It is home to many low-income households, older adults who live alone, as well as patients with disabilities and mental disorders in the community. Some were diagnosed as COVID-19 patients, putting extra pressure on anyone involved in epidemic prevention and control work there.

There are many elderly people who live alone in this community. They are already very lonely, so they need more care in this time of crisis. I would be worried if I didnt go to see them, said Shen.

Since the outbreak of the epidemic, Shen has visited over a hundred senior citizens living alone one by one, and did whatever he could to help them. This included checking their body temperatures, disinfecting their houses, and even buying them daily necessities, food and medicines at his own expense.

The disease brings not only physical pain to people, but also fear, despair and helplessness to their family members, he said. My ability is limited, but I will do my best to give them some comfort and hope.

Shen Shengwen converted his private van into a transfer vehicle and volunteer to be the driver, despite the risk of being infected.

In late January, police stations in Wuhan began to help with the transfer of confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients as well as their close contacts. However, Shens station had only two police vehicles available for the job, which was far from sufficient. This prompted Shen to convert his private van into a transfer vehicle and volunteer to be the driver, despite the risk of being infected.

Shen spent a whole morning making an "isolation area" in the van using foam sheets, plastic sheets and tape. So far, he has ferried over a hundred confirmed and suspected patients and close contacts around the city.

On February 17, the first day the community was sealed, Shen and his colleagues faced an even greater challenge in helping the community implement quarantine measures.

Shen Shengwen measures a resident's body temperature. (Photo/legaldaily.com)

Guarding the gate meant maintaining security, but for Shen, this was no easy task. We see many quarrels and complaints. As its the first day, the situation is very complicated.

Within the community, many residents still went outside to take walks. When he saw this, Shen reiterated to the residents the importance of wearing masks, and offered free masks to anyone he saw without one.

When he heard about an 81-year-old woman who was now living alone after her husband passed away during the epidemic, and was unable to cook as her gas stove had malfunctioned, he immediately went to her home to fix the problem and bought daily necessities for her.

His did these things for a very simple reason. People trust me. As a policeman, I must step forward when they need me.

After his old friends donated more than 6,000 kilograms of cabbage, he joined up with community volunteers and spent more than three hours overnight handing them out to poor households. (photo/legaldaily.com)

Shen always puts other people first. When people from all walks of life donated more than 10,000 masks to him, he distributed all of them to local residents, colleagues and volunteers. After his old friends donated more than 6,000 kilograms of cabbage, he joined up with community volunteers and spent more than three hours overnight handing them out to poor households.

Shen is one of hundreds of thousands of police officers in Hubei province. After the outbreak of COVID-19 started, 119,000 police officers in the province devoted themselves to fighting the epidemic.

Since January 23, Hubei has deployed 36,000 police officers to guard more than 650 entrances and exits and more than 2,900 checkpoints in its cities 24 hours a day, ensuring that national epidemic prevention and control work is conducted under the most stringent control measures.

Shen Shengwen continued to work in the epicenter of the outbreak as a guardian of local residents.

He recalls the time just before the Spring Festival when the epidemic had just started. I drove a car for 15 minutes, without any other vehicle in sight. My heart went cold at that time. I felt that Wuhan had suddenly turned into a cold city, he said.

But we see in many provinces, PLA soldiers, nurses, doctors, materials all coming to aid Wuhan. Other countries are also standing in solidarity with us. Wuhan will get better eventually, he smiled.

Shen is not afraid of the virus, but he is worried about his wife and daughter, who havent seen him since the city went into lockdown. Every day, his wife watches TV to learn about the epidemic situation, and worries about Shens safety.

In a letter to his daughter, Shen wrote, I have too much responsibility: patients need to be transported; elderly people living alone need to be cared for; life-saving medicines for residents need to be delivered... My job has so many things that cannot be neglected, so I always miss you.

Now, Shen is looking forward to the day of victory, when he will finally be able to take his daughter on the family outing that he promised her.
By Helen Reid and Tanisha Heiberg (Reuters) - From Africa to Asia and Latin America, emerging countries disproportionately bruised by the COVID-19 pandemic are allowing some key industries to start back up in a bid to soften the economic blow.

By Helen Reid and Tanisha Heiberg

(Reuters) - From Africa to Asia and Latin America, emerging countries disproportionately bruised by the COVID-19 pandemic are allowing some key industries to start back up in a bid to soften the economic blow.

This tentative unlocking highlights the balancing act for developing nations as they seek to protect their people while averting an economic collapse some fear could do more damage than the disease itself.

While academic study of COVID-19 containment policies is in its infancy, one model by Yale economists argues social distancing measures deliver far fewer benefits, at much greater economic cost, in poorer countries.

"They're battling competing tensions. It's being framed as lives versus livelihoods," said Ronak Gopaldas, director of Africa-focused consultancy Signal Risk.

Unlike wealthier economies, developing countries cannot afford to spend trillions of dollars protecting people and businesses from the economic fallout of the pandemic. That has prompted some to start reopening key sectors.

"What's clear is that lockdowns can't go on forever and they're having to strike a balance between safety and productivity," said Gopaldas.

South Africa announced on Thursday it will allow mines to operate at 50% capacity during its lockdown, allowing workers to be called back gradually.

Mining contributed 360.9 billion rand ($19.74 billion), around 7% of GDP, to the economy in 2019. Amid mass unemployment, it provides more than 450,000 jobs.

Getting mines back to full production will take weeks, said Jacques Nel, of research firm NKC African Economics. But opening them early is essential.

"Some countries are going to recover quicker than others, so you have to position yourself as one of the more attractive ones when this blows over," he said.

SHOCK ABSORBERS

Other governments are making similar calculations, generally favouring large employers or generators of crucial foreign exchange. JPMorgan calculates that emerging market FX reserves fell by more than $190 billion in March.

"They won't be able to borrow anymore," said Wayne Camard, an ex-IMF official in Africa and Latin America who now heads the Camard Group, a business intelligence consultancy. "Mining and agricultural commodities are the main foreign exchange earners for a lot of developing countries."

Investors pulled a record $83.3 billion from emerging market stocks and bonds in March. At the same time, borrowing costs have soared, making it effectively impossible for many countries to raise funds on international capital markets.

Malaysia has allowed its palm oil industry -- the world's second-biggest -- to operate during a six-week lockdown. Its electronics industry, which produces nearly 8% of the world's semiconductors, is running on a third of its normal workforce.

Colombia, the world's fifth-biggest coal exporter, allowed coal producer Drummond to partially restart on April 9.

Coal is Colombia's second-largest source of foreign exchange, and royalties paid by coal firms are "fundamental" to coping with the health emergency and reviving the economy, the energy ministry told Reuters.

Governments that cannot afford to replace workers' lost incomes are under pressure to reopen labour-intensive sectors.

Pakistan on Tuesday extended its lockdown by two weeks but said some industries, starting with construction, would reopen in phases.

"If the construction sector can be stimulated in these testing times, it can prove to be an important shock absorber," said Sakib Sherani, chief executive of Islamabad-based economics research firm Macro Economic Insights.

Construction and related sectors account for about 8-10% of Pakistan's GDP, he estimated, and 10-12% of jobs.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is keeping open factories, which he called "the life-blood of the country", provided employees live in on-site accommodation. Manufacturing employs 10% of the formal workforce.

TARGETED MEASURES

Other countries have implemented targeted quarantines to isolate critical industries from the pandemic.

Nigeria, Africa's top crude producer, is allowing staff to travel to oilfields only when essential in a bid to avoid infections that could force a broad shutdown.

In Chile, where mining constituted 50% of exports last quarter, the government's preference for targeted, local action has helped keep large mines of Atacama and Antofagasta open.

The northern desert provinces account for most of Chile's copper and lithium output but fewer than 2% of its COVID-19 cases as of April 12, health ministry figures showed.

But in an interconnected world, damage limitation policies can only go so far.

Mexico's president last week said the auto sector, which contributes 3.8% of GDP, would only reopen when the U.S. industry ramps up again.

Developing countries also have large informal sectors which are harder to measure and lack financial safety nets.

In Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, COVID-19 restrictions ban motorbike taxis from carrying passengers, threatening the livelihood of thousands who work for ride-hailing apps.

"We pleaded for the president's help," said Igun Wicaksono, who heads "Garda Nasional", an association of 100,000 motorbike taxi drivers.

"Of course we're worried and we're scared. But if we stay at home, we won't have food."

($1 = 18.2778 rand)

(Reporting by Tanisha Heiberg, Helen Reid and Joe Bavier in Johannesburg, Gibran Peshimam in Islamabad, Krishna N. Das in Kuala Lumpur, Elias Biryabarema in Kampala, David Sherwood and Fabian Cambero in Santiago, Libby George in Lagos, Noe Torres in Mexico City, Julia Symmes Cobb in Bogota, Maikel Jefriando and Bernadette Christina Munthe in Jakarta and Karin Strohecker in London; Editing by Joe Bavier and Catherine Evans)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
According to the report by VOICE OF AMERICA(VOA), Vietnamese women in the Seattle area are sewing face masks amid of coronavirus to help those in need of essential facemasks in Washington State.

VOA informed that "Katie Nguyen, a tailor in Spanaway, Washington, who specialized in custom island attire, decided to start sewing masks when state authorities ordered nonessential businesses to close as part of the lockdown."

Phung Vo received about 200 masks from one of the volunteers named Loan Ngo. Phung Vo works in the inpatient pharmacy at EvergreenHealth Medical Center in Kirkland, Washington. Phung estimates the medical center use around 20 masks a day.

Vo recounted, "I showed the masks to my supervisor who said 'Perfect.'" He added he and his colleagues at the pharmacy are required to wear masks and are "so grateful for the cloth mask donation. Our Evergreen hospital is the most crowded with COVID-19 patients in the state."

"I'm very grateful that the community makes the masks and donates them," Vo said. "We wear them, we use them...[They're] very good quality fabric.''

Meanwhile, Washington State is the first COVID-19 case to arise in the United States on January 21. Since then, the number of cases began to skyrocket, and Governor Jay Inslee has declared a state of emergency and enforced numerous safety orders to help slow down the spread of the coronavirus.

Washington State Department of Health reports the total number of 11,445 confirmed cases, 603 deaths related to COVID-19, and 286 new confirmed cases reported as of April 16. As a whole, the United States reports 710,021 confirmed cases, 37,158 deaths, and 60,510 recovered cases.

Nguyen has transformed her home workshop to produce masks abiding social distancing guidelines, and other Vietnamese communities donated the materials needed for the production.

Nguyen told VOA Vietnamese, "We have answered pleas from hospitals, doctors and nurses who are so desperate for personal protective equipment amid the coronavirus pandemic."

Loan Ngo was one of the volunteers who helped Nguyen on producing masks, and she is now capable of arranging it at her home and continued to help medical centers.

"We're still heathy, we need to do something," said Ngo, who is from Ho Chi Minh City. "A mask is still better than nothing, right? And our doctors, nurses and health care workers are on the front lines of the battle."

"I delivered masks to Valley Medical Center in Renton this morning," Ngo said. "Sitting in my car with masks on my hands, I cried when I saw medical workers and ... ambulances rushing on the compound. They are most vulnerable to virus infection."

Vietnamese communities are contributing whatever they could to serve those in need and have created a great collaborating atmosphere in Washington.
Mr. Speaker, Fellow Anguillians at home and abroad and all those listening to the sound of my voice, Good Afternoon. I trust that we are all complying with the guidelines and restrictions that have been put in place to help prevent the spread of the Coronavirus here in Anguilla. I cannot emphasize this enough  the health and safety of all Anguillians must continue be our number one priority.

Mr. Speaker, I want to issue a word of caution to all public officials, including myself, and to persons in Anguilla who have a loyal following on all forms of media. We all have a collective responsibility, especially during this global crisis, to differentiate facts from opinion. The World Health Organization has noted that COVID-19 can spread from person to person through small droplets from the nose or mouth which are spread when a person with COVID-19 coughs or exhales. In addition, the WHO has recommended maintaining a distance of "at least 1 metre (3 feet) distance between yourself and anyone who is coughing or sneezing" and noted that persons who have a non- communicable disease or pre-existing condition such as: high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, heart attack or stroke, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more susceptible to contracting

COVID-19. https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses

Spreading misinformation, rumours and innuendo at a critical time like this is not helpful; it is counterproductive and, in some cases, could be viewed as endangering the lives of our people. I urge us all to stop such practices and to be responsible.

Every single country on the face of this planet is dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic. Anguilla is not immune, and we cannot ignore the reality of what we are facing as a nation. I repeat once more that this is not a time to play politics. This is a time for principled leadership in the interest of the health and safety of all Anguillians.

Every day, positive cases of the Coronavirus have been increasing around the world. As I prepared this statement, the numbers in the British Overseas Territories, in our region alone, were as follows:

Bermuda  48 cases with 4 deaths, Cayman Islands  45 cases with 1 death, Turks and Caicos

Islands  8 cases with 1 death, And to date Anguilla has recorded 3 positive cases.

In St Martin there have been 35 cases and 2 deaths, and in St Maarten 53 cases and 9 deaths. Anguillians, the Coronavirus pandemic is serious, it is not to be taken lightly. All governments are focused on preventing the spread of this virus and are working to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of their citizens. We must all work together in this regard.

Now to the matter at hand, the upcoming General Elections here in Anguilla. Many know that I raised this issue out of an abundance of care and concern for the health, safety and well-being of our people. Do I want to postpone the elections in Anguilla? Of course not. Notwithstanding, based

on:

1. This growing pandemic, its impact on healthcare systems, lives and livelihoods;

2. The updated science on how it is spread and its viability in the air and on surfaces for prolonged periods; and

3. The conditions which have been set out by the World Health Organization for preventing its spread, including social distancing;

I concluded that the postponement of our general elections was something that we may have to consider and plan for. Unpopular as this proposition may be, my duty and responsibility as Leader of the Opposition and the Elected Member for District One is to work to minimize the risk of COVID-

19 infection in this country. I could not bear it if one of our people got sick! Some valid questions that all stakeholders must consider:

 Can we safely execute a general election while adhering to protocols and guidelines from the World Health Organization?

 Can we and should we conduct a general election without the presence of regionally and internationally accredited election observers?

 Do we have the institutional capacity at this present moment to incorporate safety protocols into the Election Day machinery and voting procedures?

 How would we address Anguillians living and working in St. Martin/St. Maarten, for example, who have registered and are entitled to vote, when the borders there are closed?

While some have chosen to distance themselves from this subject matter, I want to make sure that our people are safeguarded as much as humanly possible from exposure to COVID-19. Mr. Speaker, I want to make it crystal clear that I would rather have a voter upset with me, than one of our citizens exposed to COVID-19 and possibly suffering from infection! Our healthcare system is not built to handle an outbreak of this virus in our population.

And the economic impact of this global pandemic is already being felt. Thankfully, we have not recorded additional cases of COVID-19, and I pray to God that we have truly escaped and will continue to escape the high infection rates that our neighbours are experiencing at this time. That being said, we hope for the best but we must plan for the worst.

Mr Speaker, what we are facing is unprecedented. Thus, my call to the public was to raise awareness on this issue and to call for an open and transparent discussion with all stakeholders, to determine the way forward. Some have claimed that, by raising this issue, I colluded with the Honourable Premier and the Governor, to postpone the elections by virtue of an Order in Council, and all this against the will of our people. Mr. Speaker, I dont want my legacy to be described as an astute politician or a political opportunist. No. Mr. Speaker, my legacy will show that in all matters I worked hard to do the right thing by the people of Anguilla, always.

To summarize Mr. Speaker: Does Pam Webster want to postpone the elections?  NO, never Mr Speaker. That is far from the truth. Indeed the contrary can be proven. By virtue of my representations the Honourable Premier consulted with the leader of the largest political party in opposition, who has chosen to be silent! By virtue of my representations, the Order in Council provides for a "possible" postponement for two months; not twelve months, as originally envisaged. Does Pam Webster believe that we should have a contingency plan in place if a postponement is necessary based on this evolving pandemic?  YES. Is Pam Webster fully satisfied that proper consultation with all stakeholders has been achieved in this process?  NO

Mr. Speaker, I believe that more can be done to ensure that all stakeholders, especially including the voters, come to a consensus on this proposed contingency plan, and I urge His Excellency the Governor to implement the process of effective consultation on this matter immediately.

Thank you, and may God Bless Anguilla.
Mr Shi Ting WANG, the Chinese Ambassador to Ghana on behalf of the Chinese Community has donated food items valued at GHC110,000.00 to the Muslim Communuty in Accra through the National Chief Imam, Sheikh Osman Nuhu Sharubutu.



The items which included 2,000 pieces of the 5kg rice bags, 1,000 pieces of two litre bottle oil, 1,000 pieces of one litre bottle Oil, and 6,000 pieces of nose mask is to be shared to Muslims in the lockdown areas in Accra.



Presenting the items, Mr WANG said, the items was meant to support muslims to observe ramadan in this period of COVID-19, as the month of ramadan was important on the Islamic Calendar.



He said Ghana was in a critical period and that the Chinese people are aware of the difficulty of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and the suffering and feelings of the Ghanaian people.



Mr Wang said the Chinese Chamber of Commerce (CCC) in Ghana is actively playing their part to support the fight against the pandemic in and that is why the chamber is supporting the Muslim community.



He said China had given special attention to more than 3,000 African students in the Hubei Province which was severely hit by COVID-19, prioritizing food supply to them even when the Chinese people were facing food shortages at the time.



Receiving the items, Sheikh Arimiyawo Shuaib, Spokesperson for the Chief Imam on his behalf said, the donation has come at the right time as most vulnerable people during Ramadan seek the support of the Imam.



He said the partial lockdown has worsen the living situation of some vulnerable people, and expressed hope that this support will ease their burden especially in this Ramadan period.



Sheikh Shuaib said the office of the Chief Imam would inform the Vice President, Dr Mahamoud Bawumiah of the kind gesture for an appropriate appreciation to be send to the Chinese Community at the diplomatic level.



He assured the Ambassador that the items would be distributed among Muslims as indicated as the primary purpose.

Source: GNA









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(Bloomberg) -- The worlds seas are simmering, with record high temperatures spurring worry among forecasters that the global warming effect may generate a chaotic year of extreme weather ahead.

Parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans all hit the record books for warmth last month, according to the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information. The high temperatures could offer clues on the ferocity of the Atlantic hurricane season, the eruption of wildfires from the Amazon region to Australia, and whether the record heat and severe thunderstorms raking the southern U.S. will continue.

In the Gulf of Mexico, where offshore drilling accounts for about 17% of U.S. oil output, water temperatures were 76.3 degrees Fahrenheit (24.6 Celsius), 1.7 degrees above the long-term average, said Phil Klotzbach at Colorado State University. If Gulf waters stay warm, it could be the fuel that intensifies any storm that comes that way, Klotzbach said.

The entire tropical ocean is above average, said Michelle LHeureux, a forecaster at the U.S. Climate Prediction Center. And there is a global warming component to that. It is really amazing when you look at all the tropical oceans and see how warm they are.

The record warm water in the Gulf of Mexico spilled over into every coastal community along the shoreline with all-time high temperatures on land, said Deke Arndt, chief of the monitoring section at the National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina. Florida recorded its warmest March on record, and Miami reached 93 degrees Wednesday, a record for the date and 10 degrees above normal, according to the National Weather Service.

While coronavirus has the nations attenton right now, global warming continues to be a threat. Sea water remembers and holds onto heat better than the atmosphere, Arndt said.

Overall, the five warmest years in the worlds seas, as measured by modern instruments, have occurred over just the last half-dozen or so years. Its definitely climate-change related, said Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts. Oceans are absorbing about 90% of the heat trapped by extra greenhouse gases.

Worldwide, sea temperatures were 1.49 degrees Fahrenheit above average in March. Thats the second highest level recorded since 1880 for the month of March, according to U.S. data. In 2016, temperatures were 1.55 degrees above average.

The first of Colorado States 2020 storm reports, led by Klotzbach, forecast this year that eight hurricanes could spin out of the Atlantic with an above-average chance at least one will make landfall in the U.S. during the six-month season starting June 1. The U.S. is set to issue its hurricane forecast next month.

Arctic Systems

The searing global temperatures this year can also be traced back to intense climate systems around the Arctic that bottled up much of that regions cold, preventing it from spilling south into temperate regions. Combined with global warming, this was a one-two punch for sea temperatures thats brought them to historic highs.

One of the best-known examples of how oceans drive global weather patterns is the development of the climate system known as El Nino. It occurs when unusually warm waters in the equatorial Pacific interact with the atmosphere to alter weather patterns worldwide. In the Atlantic, for instance, El Ninos can cause severe wind shear that can break up developing storms with the potential to become dangerous hurricanes.

This year, the chance of an El Nino developing is small, and scientists are theorizing one reason could be that climate change is warming all the worlds oceans. El Nino depends on contrasts, as well as absolute values of sea-surface temperatures, according to Kevin Trenberth, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Strengthening Their Fury

Meanwhile, if the Atlantic stays warm through the six-month storm season that starts June 1, the tropical systems can use it as fuel to strengthen their fury. In 2017, a small storm called Harvey actually fell apart as it crossed Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula into the Gulf, but once it got there it reformed and grew into a Category 4 monster that went on to flood Texas, killing at least 68 people, and caused about $125 billion in damage.

If the Gulf stays record warm then it raises the risk of another Harvey type storm perhaps, Trenberth said.The oceans also play a role in setting the stage for wildfires. In the case of Australia and the Amazon, really warm areas of the ocean can pull rain away from the land, causing drier conditions and, in extreme cases, drought. Last year, for instance, the Indian Ocean was really warm off Africa, so that is where all the storms went. Australia was left high and dry.

Back in the Atlantic, research by Katia Fernandes, a geosciences professor at the University of Arkansas, has also shown a correlation between sea surface temperatures in the northern tropical Atlantic and drought and wildfires in the Amazon. The warmer the water, the further north rainfall is pulled across South America.According to the Fernandes model, even Atlantic temperatures in March can serve to predict if the Amazon will be dry and susceptible to fires.

For California, the outlook isnt as clear. Wildfires there depend as much on how well vegetation grows, providing fuel for the flames, as it does on the weather conditions coming off the Pacific.Tricky question, said Mike Anderson, California state climatologist. Our weather outcomes are influenced by sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, but it depends on where and when the warm waters appear and how long they persist. In the end we have a highly variable climate that doesnt map in a statistically convenient way to patterns of sea-surface temperatures.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
No strangers to isolation, the trio left for the space station months before Covid-19 emerged.

The trio returned to Earth on Friday after many months on the ISS Image copyrightNASA

A crew of three has returned from the International Space Station (ISS) to a very different planet they left last year.

No strangers to isolation, Russian Oleg Skrypochka and Jessica Meir from the US left Earth in September 2019, well before Covid-19 emerged.

Another American, Andrew Morgan, has been on the ISS since July 2019.

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the usual routine for returning space crews.

"It's quite surreal to see it unfolding on Earth below," Ms Meir told reporters during a recent video call. "From here, Earth looks just as stunning as usual, so it's hard to believe all of the changes that have taken place since we left."

The trio touched down on Earth at 05:16 GMT, with Mr Skrypochka and Ms Meir having spent 205 days in space, and Mr Morgan 272 days.

A series of posts on the official ISS Twitter account described how the crew's Soyuz ship split into three modules before the descent module reached the Earth's atmosphere "creating a plasma trail" early on Friday.

The capsule then landed successfully in Kazakhstan. US space agency Nasa posted a video of the astronauts being met by a mask-wearing rescue team.

The search party has been in strict quarantine and are believed to have undergone tests for coronavirus immediately before going out to pick up the arrivals to ensure that they were not at risk of infecting them.

In normal circumstances the search team would pick up the crew and bring them to the closest airport, from where they would fly home. But Kazakhstan has declared a state of emergency and most of the airports are closed.

The Baikonur space launch pad, leased by Russia from Kazakhstan, is still operating and the three crew members will be flown there. The Russian will take a plane home while the Americans will be driven three hours south-east to Kyzylorda, from where a Nasa plane will fly them back to the US.

Astronauts arrive at ISS after long quarantine

A replacement crew of two Russians and an American who flew to the ISS on 9 April also took the utmost precautions to avoid taking the infection into space, spending a month and a half in quarantine before the launch.

Usually, a team of returning astronauts and cosmonauts will undergo a special rehabilitation program lasting several weeks. After a long stay in zero gravity, the body needs time to get used to life in constant gravity.

But this time doctors have the additional task of protecting the crew from coronavirus.

"It will be difficult to not give hugs to family and friends after being up here for seven months," Ms Meir said on the video call before returning to Earth. Last year she made history after completing the first ever all-female spacewalk with another Nasa astronaut, Christina Koch.

"I think I will feel more isolated on Earth than here. We're busy with amazing pursuits and tasks and don't feel the isolation," she added.

The ISS has been orbiting the Earth since 1998. Five partners are involved - the US, Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency. BBC
BANGKOK (AP) - Singapore reported 942 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, a single-day high for the tiny city-state that pushed its total number of infections to 5,992, including 11 deaths.

The number of cases in Singapore has more than doubled over the past week amid an explosion of infections among foreign workers staying in crowded dormitories. This group now makes up around 60% of Singapores cases.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Saturday that it will take time to break the chain of transmission in the dorms. He wrote on Facebook that the vast majority of cases among migrant workers were mild, as the workers are young. Although cases in the dorms are expected to continue to rise amid ongoing virus testing, Lee said the government is building up its health care and isolation facilities to handle the load.

More than 200,000 migrant workers from Bangladesh, India and other Asian countries live in dormitories in Singapore that house up to 20 people per room with shared facilities. Tens of thousands of workers have been quarantined in their dorms, while some have been moved to safer places to reduce crowding.

Lee said there were early signs that Singapores partial lockdown until May 4 is helping to bring the number of new cases down. But he said the government is worried about hidden cases circulating in the population and urged citizens to do their part.

In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:

A safe-distancing enforcement officer wearing a red armband watches over customers lining up to buy take-away food at a food court in Singapore on Saturday, April 18, 2020. The officers have been deployed throughout the Southeast Asian city-state to ensure people maintain distance from one another as it grapples with a spike in coronavirus cases. (AP Photo/YK Chan)

- JAPAN PASSES 10,000 CASES: Japan reported 556 new cases on Saturday, pushing its total to over 10,000. Nearly one-third of the cases come from Tokyo, where the daily surge has overburdened hospitals, triggering fears that the medical system will collapse. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this week expanded his April 7 state of emergency in Tokyo and six urban prefectures to all of Japan. In a news conference Friday, Abe expressed concern that people were not observing social distancing. He announced a 100,000-yen ($930) cash handout to each resident as an incentive to stay home.

- CHINA FIGHTS NEW INFECTIONS: China reported 27 new cases, as it tries to stem an upsurge in infections in a northeastern province bordering Russia. Twenty of the new cases were in Heilongjiang province, including 13 Chinese nationals who had returned recently from Russia. The land border with Russia has been closed. Chinas official death toll rose sharply to 4,632, reflecting a major upward revision the previous day by authorities in Wuhan, the nations hardest-hit city.

- CHINA RAMPS UP SPENDING: The top leaders of Chinas ruling Communist Party called for steps to pump up the economy after the biggest downturn since the 1960s in the first three months of this year. A Politburo meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping said Friday that the government must offset the impact of the pandemic with deficit spending and special bond issues. The worlds second-largest economy shrank by 6.8% from a year earlier in the first quarter of 2020.

- SOUTH KOREA SEES SMALL RISE IN CASES: South Korea reported 18 new cases of the coronavirus on Saturday, its lowest daily jump since Feb. 20, continuing a downward trend. Saturday's figures brought the national totals to 10,653 cases and 232 virus-related deaths. Vice Health Minister Kim Gang-lip called for vigilance to maintain the hard-won gains, raising concern over continuing infections at hospitals and local transmissions health workers are unable to trace.

- NO MORE FOREIGNERS QUARANTINED IN NORTH KOREA: North Korea said it has released all foreign nationals from coronavirus quarantine. The North's official Korean Central News Agency also said Saturday that authorities released all citizens who had been quarantined in the provinces of South Phyongan and North Hwanghae, which are near Pyongyang, the capital, and the city of Rason bordering China and Russia. The report didnt specify how many people remained under the countrys 30-day quarantine. The North has said there hasnt been a single virus case on its territory, but the claim is questioned by many outside experts.

- MYANMAR IMPOSES CURFEW: The authorities in Myanmars biggest city have ordered a six-hour curfew in a bid to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The Yangon Region Government announced that the 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew is effective beginning Saturday night. Several of the citys neighborhoods were put under lockdown, with all people required to stay at home except for essential workers, and with only one person per household allowed out to buy necessary supplies. Public health authorities on Saturday announced the confirmation of six new virus cases, bringing the total to 94, including five deaths.

- SAILORS QUARANTINED IN TAIWAN: Taiwan is quarantining more than 700 officers and sailors after three tested positive for the coronavirus after returning from a nearly two-month training mission, Taiwans Centers for Disease Control said Saturday. They include crews of all three ships - two warships and one refueling ship. They made only one stop, at the Pacific island country of Palau from March 12 to 15, and returned on April 9.

- GERMAN CRUISE LEAVES AUSTRALIA: A German cruise ship left Western Australia state after a three-week stay during which three people on board died of COVID-19. The Artania began its journey from Fremantle back to Europe. A total of 79 crew and passengers have tested positive for the coronavirus. They include a 42-year-old crewman from the Philippines who died in a Perth hospital on Thursday, raising the states death toll to seven. Two other people from the Artania died last week, one a passenger aged in his 70s and the other a 69-year-old crewman.

- INDONESIA SEES SPIKE IN CASES: Indonesias coronavirus cases have almost doubled in the past week, with the government reporting 325 new infections on Saturday to bring the total to 6,248, including 535 deaths. The surge has been driven by increasing cases in the capital, Jakarta, which has become the epicenter of the outbreak, recording more than half of the countrys total.

- AUSTRALIAN APP NOT MANDATORY: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said a cellphone app to help trace people who have been in contact with an infected person will not be mandatory. But in an interview on Friday, Morrison appeared not to rule out making the software mandatory if not enough Australians sign up to make it effective. Media reports suggested the app needed 40% of Australian users to sign up to make it work effectively. The government is planning to launch the app within several weeks.

___

Follow AP coverage at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak

A safe-distancing enforcement officer wearing a red armband checks his phone at a food court in Singapore on Saturday, April 18, 2020. The officers have been deployed throughout the Southeast Asian city-state to ensure people maintain distance from one another as it grapples with a spike in coronavirus cases. (AP Photo/YK Chan)

People wearing face masks to help protect themselves from contracting the coronavirus COVID-19 as they cross a street in Hong Kong, Saturday, April 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

People wearing face masks to protect themselves from possibly contracting the coronavirus COVID-19 enjoy time out at a park in Hong Kong, Saturday, April 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

A motorist wears a protective face mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, April 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

A man uses his mobile phone to take photos of Hotel Indonesia Kempinski, where room lights make the shape of a heart to honor healthcare and other essential workers still on the job, during the new coronavirus outbreak in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, April 17, 2020. Indonesia's capital kicked off a stricter restriction to slow the spread of the new coronavirus last week as the metropolitan area has become Indonesia's coronavirus epicenter. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

A parking attendant covers his head with a water bottle amid the coronavirus outbreak, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Friday, April 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Fahmi Rosyidih)

Members of a Hindu religious group Lal Mahendra Shiv Shakti Sewa Samiti prepare food to distribute to homeless people and stranded migrant workers during the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic in Prayagraj, India, Friday, April 17, 2020. The organization says they serve thousands of people daily at different regions in the city since the lockdown started in the country. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)
An afterthought. A postscript. A scramble to play catch-up. And hundreds of people have died - some of whose deaths must have been preventable.

What we have right now is a Covid-19 service rather than a health service. Fending off the virus is the primary focus of health professionals.

But a gap has opened up and a highly vulnerable group is being decimated, with 62pc of deaths from the virus in the State happening in nursing homes and long-term care centres.

Such places should have been prioritised for resources. Instead, they were left to their own devices until the statistics couldn't be ignored. And yes we're sorry now, and yes we're sending in crack teams of doctors and nurses, and yes we're supplying equipment and training, and yes the national ambulance service is being used to test for Covid-19 in residential facilities.

But the potential for the virus to wreak havoc in nursing homes can't come as any surprise. We're playing catch-up when it's too late for some.

The truth is our inattention turned these homes into a forgotten frontline. And in time, when we reflect on how the pandemic was handled, this neglect will be exposed as our weakest link.

Expand Close Suffering: St Marys Hospital, Phoenix Park, has recorded 11 Covid-19-related deaths. Photo: Colin Keegan / Facebook

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Whatsapp Suffering: St Marys Hospital, Phoenix Park, has recorded 11 Covid-19-related deaths. Photo: Colin Keegan

Despite what the Government is claiming now, community care facilities seem to have been overlooked when the action plan was drawn up. Dr Jack Lambert, a specialist in infectious diseases at Dublin's Mater Hospital, says the emphasis went on acute hospitals, while no battle plan for community care facilities was put in place. It's now a "national emergency" in care homes, he warns.

At the outset, it would have been logical to say that Covid-19 is deadly for the elderly, infirm and those with underlying health conditions - where are such people most likely to be gathered together? And for the State's health officials to step in to protect them, as they are now doing, at last.

Nursing homes and long-term residential units were signalling their difficulties throughout March - lack of testing and personal protective equipment (PPE) were highlighted, in particular - but their concerns weren't addressed. They were left to drift, with the focus on ensuring intensive care unit capacity wasn't overwhelmed.

But over Easter, the death count rose. One Health Service Executive-run care home in Dublin, St Mary's Hospital, has lost 11 residents from Covid-19 since April 2. Clusters of infection have been identified in various institutions. In some cases, there must be questions about whether it was the right decision to leave people with the virus in nursing homes rather than transfer them to hospital.

All week, we've heard about staff shortages in care homes because of employees contracting Covid-19 and being unable to report for work. Agency workers are relied on but are struggling to plug the gaps. Staff at these homes are carrying a heavy work burden, not just short-handed but dealing with additional stress levels.

Yesterday, Health Minister Simon Harris took to the airwaves to promise the redeployment of crisis management teams of HSE doctors and nurses to care homes. Increased testing is also being made available. But more than 300 deaths have happened in these homes to date.

Although a number of such places are in private hands, their residents are also citizens of the Republic. In an emergency, the State has an obligation to spread resources there, too. After all, it told private companies to close as well as State bodies; it took control of private hospitals. During the current pandemic, we have moved to a single-tier system and the distinction between private and public healthcare blurs.

But nursing and residential homes were left to become "nests of infection", according to Professor Ruairi Brugha, from the Royal College of Surgeons, speaking on RTE's 'Morning Ireland' yesterday.

And another thing. Visiting restrictions mean our elders have taken their final breaths without a family member beside them. Perhaps without even a regular staff member present - someone they know, at least - because of staffing difficulties. Such end-of-life isolation seems particularly harsh.

The Irish Hospice Foundation is calling for this rule to be relaxed, and for one relative to be allowed to attend at the bedside of a dying relative in hospital and care homes. "There is only one chance to get end-of-life care right and we know that dying alone is hugely problematic both for the dying person and their families - creating a lasting memory of distress for families and no doubt impacting on their bereavement," said Sharon Foley, the foundation's chief executive.

If exceptions to the rule are made, they must be managed properly. Hard-pressed staff would have to show relatives how to kit out in gowns, gloves and masks, and protective clothing would need to be disposed of safely afterwards. Yet it is the humane solution. And after all, relatives would be doing it as safely as the staff who are caring for their loved ones.

One care home professional told me: "It would allow dying people to hear a familiar voice, and give them the experience of someone who loves them holding their hand, even through gloves. That matters."

Presumably, the emergency teams being allocated to nursing and residential homes will standardise procedures, although it's odd that it's taken so long to reach this point. Different homes appear to have been operating to different standards during the pandemic.

We need to learn lessons for the future, one of which is that it has to be worthwhile pressing for a higher pay rate for temporary staff, in return for only working for one home. Agency staff, who circulate from care home to care home, risk transmitting any infection, including Covid-19.

I don't mean to suggest that care workers are doing any less than their level best for the people in their care. Whether employed on a full-time or agency basis, their efforts have been heroic in large ways and in small.

They have been flexible. Medical diagnoses for minor complaints have been conducted via video calls. Families can speak to their loved ones on similar platforms. Simple but effective distancing solutions have been put in place, such as serving more meals in their rooms to residents and staggering meal times, so the dining room has less occupants.

Finally, because we have a Covid-19 service rather than a health service and resources are being funnelled into dealing with the virus, other health issues are significantly less of a priority.

That's necessary during a pandemic. But people continue to have other health problems and even short delays may be fatal.

Operations have been cancelled, routine appointments postponed and inevitably warning signs will be missed. There will be repercussions down the line.

It's a hidden cost - and it won't become clear until life returns to something approaching normality.
New Delhi, April 18 : Migrant workers are living in conditions conducive for transmission of coronavirus infection, which also deeply disturb their psychological health, social integrity and well-being amid the ongoing lockdown due to the pandemic.

Speaking to IANS, Dr Ashish Pakhre, a senior psychiatrist from AIIMS, said the debilitating effect of pandemic on the psychosocial vulnerabilities of migrants and their families needs to be addressed adequately.

"There are chances that migrants do not get valid and correct information about the pandemic such as transmission risks, treatment and action plan being considered. Considering rampant flow of misinformation and rumours on social media, it is likely that they could be influenced badly and thus suffer more", said Pakhre.

He also called for gender sensitive steps while developing a response.

Migrants face uncertainty on food availability and financial security -- reasons for tremendous worries in this vulnerable population. Dr Pakhre said that designing public response will need urgency because infection among migrants will most likely spread quickly and they will have difficulty in accessing immediate healthcare facilities. He emphasized that the language used and communication methods should communicate the seriousness of the pandemic and its implications.

"It is crucial that multiple local languages used by migrants, their community leaders and modes of communications are utilized to ensure delivery of accurate information. During such times of rapid administrative and massive socio-environmental changes, it is essential that their human rights are not violated", said Dr Pakhre.

On the inter-linked socio-environmental changes due to lockdown, which is likely to compromise the mental health of migrants, he said there is an enormous need to protect and strengthen the psychosocial well-being of migrants given their living conditions, vulnerabilities and limited resources.

"There is a need to have a public health response in a coordinated manner which addresses the special needs, issues and concerns of vulnerable population such as the migrant workers", he added.

The cultural differences, loss of social status, risk of discrimination, separation from family in times of unpredictable stress, financial concerns, and employment loss due to economic crisis will be potential risk factors affecting their mental health.

"It is critically important that healthcare services should not have cultural and language barriers and should be migrant-inclusive, and easily accessible. The inclusion of migrant's issues in designing the response to Covid pandemic is necessary at all levels of health care response," said Dr Pakhre.

He said employers should take a supportive role at this time of the crisis, and help them to access counselling services and guide them in seeking psychological help.

(Sumit Saxena can be contacted at sumit.s@ians.in)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
President Donald Trump incited insurrection Friday against the duly elected governors of the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia. Just a day after issuing guidance for reopening America that clearly deferred decision-making to state officials - as it must under our constitutional order - the president undercut his own guidance by calling for criminal acts against the governors for not opening fast enough.

Trump tweeted, "LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" followed immediately by "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" and then "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!" This follows Wednesday's demonstration in Michigan, in which armed protesters surrounded the state capitol building in Lansing chanting "Lock her up!" in reference to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and "We will not comply," in reference to her extension of the state's coronavirus-related stay-at-home order. Much smaller and less-armed groups had on Thursday protested on the state capitol grounds in Richmond, Va., and outside the governor's mansion in St. Paul, Minn.

"Liberate" - particularly when it's declared by the chief executive of our republic - isn't some sort of cheeky throwaway. Its definition is "to set at liberty," specifically "to free (something, such as a country) from domination by a foreign power." We historically associate it with the armed defeat of hostile forces during war, such as the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany's control during World War II. Just over a year ago, Trump himself announced that "the United States has liberated all ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq."

In that context, it's not at all unreasonable to consider Trump's tweets about "liberation" as at least tacit encouragement to citizens to take up arms against duly elected state officials of the party opposite his own, in response to sometimes unpopular but legally issued stay-at-home orders. This is especially so given the president's reference to the Second Amendment being "under siege" in Virginia, where Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam just signed into law a number of gun-safety bills passed during the most recent session of the state general assembly - bills that prompted protests by Second Amendment absolutists at the state capitol in January, leading Northam to declare a state of emergency and temporarily ban firearms from the capitol grounds due to the threat of violence.

It's an echo of the "Second Amendment remedies" rhetoric of the 2010 midterm election. It's clearly a violation of federalism principles, and it's quite possibly a crime under federal law. And insurrection or treason against state government is a crime in Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota, as well as most states. Assembling with others to train or practice using firearms or other explosives for use during a civil disorder is also a crime in many states. But the president himself is calling for just that.

Regardless of whether the tweets are criminal on their own, more importantly, they are irresponsible and dangerous. Private armed militias recently expressed eagerness to support the president's veiled call to arms when he shared a comment on Twitter suggesting that if he were impeached and removed from office, it could lead to civil war:

Just a day before, the Oath Keepers Twitter account tweeted, in an apparent reference to the president, that "All he has to do is call us up. We WILL answer the call." Months before, vigilante groups responded to Trump's frequent rhetoric about an "invasion" on America's southern border by deploying to the border and illegally detaining migrants while heavily armed, dressed in military fatigues and calling themselves the "United Constitutional Patriots."

Trump has a bully pulpit unlike an ordinary citizen. His Twitter account boasts over 77 million followers, but many more see his tweets when they're retweeted by others, posted on other social media and covered by media outlets. He is prolific, having tweeted more than 50,000 times. And he is influential: his three "Liberation" tweets have been retweeted and "liked" hundreds of thousands of times. We are not talking about a typical person when we consider the impact of his statements.

That's why we can't write these tweets off as just hyperbole or political banter. And that's why these tweets aren't protected free speech. Although generally advocating for the use of force or violation of law is protected (as hard to conceive as that may be when the statements are made by someone in a position of public trust, like the president of the United States), the Supreme Court has previously articulated that where such advocacy is "inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action," it loses its First Amendment protection. The president's tweets - unabashedly using the current crisis to encourage a backlash against lawful and expert-recommended public health measures, falsely claiming a Second Amendment "siege" and calling for insurrection against elected leaders - have no place in our public discourse and enjoy no protection under our Constitution.
Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

The Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar has unveiled a bill that would cancel rent and mortgage payments for millions of Americans struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Under the legislation announced on Friday, landlords and mortgage holders would be able to have losses covered by the federal government. The program would extend for a month beyond the end of the national emergency, which was declared on 13 March, and would be made retroactive to cover April payments.

Related: US governors and coronavirus: who has responded best and worst?

The proposal comes amid an unprecedented housing crisis: 31% of Americans in rental accommodation could not pay rent at the beginning of this month. Millions have lost their jobs since.

Federal answers have been limited. The Cares Act stimulus package included $12bn for Department of Housing and Urban Development programs targeting homelessness and rental assistance. But those funds do little to address the needs of millions of Americans who now find themselves on the edge of acute housing insecurity.

National housing groups have called for more funding for rental relief. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates it would cost about $76.1bn over 12 months to provide relief to the 11.5 million people who are already or soon will become severely housing cost-burdened. The group is demanding $100bn in emergency solutions grants towards short-term rental assistance.

A pedestrian walks past graffiti that reads rent strike in Seattle, Washington, on 1 April. Photograph: Ted S Warren/AP

But many housing advocates are concerned that such assistance would fail to provide the long-term protection needed to prevent mass evictions. A federal eviction moratorium established through the Cares Act extends only through mid-May, prohibiting evictions within properties with federally backed mortgages.

Without an enforcement mechanism, or a clear way for tenants to find out if their property is covered, evictions have continued.

Omars bill seeks to tie federal funding to clear renter protections. In order to receive funds, landlords and lenders would be required to follow a set of fair renting and lending practices for five years. These terms would prohibit rent increases, evictions without just cause, discrimination against voucher holders and more. Any owner or mortgagee who breaks the terms would be subject to a fine.

Story continues

Perhaps most ambitiously, the legislation seeks to establish a fund to finance the purchase of private rental properties by not-for-profits, public housing authorities, community land trusts and state and local governments.

The legislation was developed with grassroots organizations including Peoples Action, the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and PolicyLink. Such groups hope to introduce the kind of solutions they wanted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Dianne Enriquez, CPD housing campaign coordinator, said the 2008 crisis wiped out millions of dollars in generational wealth, particularly in black and brown communities, when people lost their homes.

It created a devastation that we have not recovered from in the 12 years since, she said, adding that as a result, we are now a majority renter nation.

In New York, statewide tenant coalition Housing Justice for All is aiming to organize a million renters to withhold rent and compel the governor, Andrew Cuomo, to cancel rent and mortgage payments. Tenants are also organizing in Philadelphia and California, where thousands have pledged to withhold rent on 1 May.

Omars bill proposes an amazing way to use the federal stimulus package to not just provide direct relief but the long-term transformation of a real-estate market thats based on speculation and private profit to a housing situation that prioritizes homes, said Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator at Housing Justice for All.

It provides a pathway to a different ownership structure that doesnt rely on eviction and rent hikes to make money.
By PTI

WASHINGTON: The US is looking into reports that the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 150,000 people globally, "escaped" from a virology laboratory in China's Wuhan city, President Donald Trump has said.

The US has been conducting a full-scale investigation into whether the deadly virus "escaped" from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Fox News said in an exclusive report, adding that intelligence operatives were reportedly gathering information about the laboratory and the initial outbreak of the pathogen.

"We're looking at it, a lot of people are looking at it. It seems to make sense," Trump told reporters at a White House news conference on Friday when asked if there was an investigation into whether the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China.

"They talk about a certain kind of bat, but that bat wasn't in that area if you can believe this," he claimed.

"That bat wasn't sold at that wet zone. That bat is 40 miles away. Intelligence analysts are piecing together a timeline of what the government knew and "creating an accurate picture of what happened", the news channel quoted sources as saying.

"A lot of strange things are happening, but there is a lot of investigation going on and we are going to find out," Trump said.

"All I can say is wherever it came from, came from China in whatever form, 184 countries now are suffering because of it.

" Trump added that the US would end its grant to a level-IV lab in Wuhan.

"(The) Obama administration gave them a grant of USD 3.7 million," the president said.

"We will end that grant very quickly. A group of more than half-a-dozen lawmakers sent a letter to House and Senate leadership, requesting them to ensure that no future coronavirus relief funds be appropriated to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Meanwhile, lawmaker James Smith accused China of indulging in covering up the issue of coronavirus.

"The communist Chinese government's cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak allowed this virus to spread unchecked, threatening the health and stability of the free world.They must be held accountable," Smith said.

"When people in Wuhan began to fall ill with a mysterious SARS-like illness, instead of working to contain the virus, the Chinese Communist Party ruthlessly worked to contain the spread of information.

This secrecy endangered millions of lives, the Congressman said.

China has denied covering up the extent of its coronavirus outbreak and accused the US of attempting to divert the public attention by insinuating that the virus originated from a Wuhan lab.

The number of coronavirus cases in the US crossed 700,000 on Friday, while over 35,000 people have died of it, according to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
Rosamund Thomas peeled off the latex gloves, washed her hands and slumped onto a seat in the bathroom of the condominium where she works as a caretaker.

Working at a group home for adults with intellectual disabilities is often strenuous. But amid the coronavirus pandemic, Thomas said, each day feels like walking a tightrope - a thin one, with no safety net.

When she steps into the three-bedroom condominium in suburban Maryland, to feed, bathe and care for the three disabled residents, she worries about what she may have carried inside. And after her eight-hour shift, when she returns to her apartment, she wonders whether she might have brought anything home to Keith, her 16-year-old son.

"They are in their home. I am the one coming and going," she said of her clients one recent afternoon. "If something should happen . . . " her voice trailed off, and she began to cry.

"I can't even imagine," Thomas continued. "If they get sick, I have to live with this for the rest of my life."

Thomas works for the Arc Montgomery County, which operates 36 group homes for developmentally disabled adults in a county of 1 million people.

The residences have been in lockdown since mid-March, with no visitors allowed and only staff moving in and out. But in the past two weeks, six residents have tested positive for coronavirus, along with four caregivers. On April 11, one group home resident, a man in his 60s, died of covid-19.

For Arc and dozens of providers in the Washington region, the outbreak confirmed their worst fears about caring for some of society's most vulnerable members with stretched-thin resources.

Thomas and other caregivers are paid just slightly more than minimum wage and frequently take shifts at multiple homes, increasing the risks of viral transmission. Their clients often have other underlying health conditions that make them more susceptible to the virus.

Residents of group homes live in close quarters; some may not understand the importance of wearing masks or practicing social distancing, and many are not able to articulate whether they are experiencing covid-19 symptoms.

In harder-hit states like New York, the virus has spread through dozens of group homes and infected hundreds of developmentally disabled adults, who are dying at higher rates than the general population.

In the Washington region, providers who operate group homes have taken drastic steps to prevent outbreaks, with some wiping down surfaces and doorknobs every two hours. But the agencies say they are struggling with limited staff and equipment - a situation compounded by years of receiving less funding than requested from state and federal governments.

"We're trying our best, but we really can't do it alone," said Deborah Mark, a spokeswoman for Arc. "Every year, we've had to fight and beg for money."

Even before the coronavirus crisis, Arc had 77 vacancies for "direct service professionals" like Thomas, whose pay has stayed relatively flat even as the state and county minimum wage grew. Starting pay in Montgomery is $13.15 an hour, just 15 cents above minimum wage.

Since the outbreak, at least 25 employees have stopped working, either because they are afraid or are self-isolating after possible exposure, Mark said. Managers have started covering some shifts, dropping by group homes to cook and care for residents.

Judy and Joe Pauley of Potomac, Maryland have spent years advocating for the state to allocate more funding to the Developmental Disabilities Administration, which helps to pay workers like Thomas. Earlier this week, they found out that their daughter Cecelia, who has Down syndrome and lives at one of Arc's group homes, tested positive for coronavirus.

"[The caretakers] are my substitute. They are mom when I'm not there," said Judy, 83. "How can these be minimum wage jobs?"

Considered essential workers, caregivers have continued to work but have limited protection from the virus. Providers have struggled to obtain masks, gowns and hand sanitizer, often resorting to sharing supplies after delayed or canceled orders.

At Arc's group homes, each of which house four to five people, most staff work only with cloth masks. The few who have higher-quality protective equipment have sometimes had to reuse it, Mark said.

Montgomery's health department, which distributed two weeks' worth of protective equipment to all nursing homes, said there "are not immediate plans" to do the same at the county's 200 group homes.

A spokesman for the department said the state has distributed protective equipment to its 2,400 group homes but did not respond to follow-up questions asking why multiple providers, including Arc, report a lack of masks, gowns and goggles.

"We're kind of in last place," Mark said. Protective personal equipment "has to go hospitals, first responders, nursing homes . . . and further down the list are group homes."

Because caregivers often work multiple places, it can take just one outbreak for the virus to spread through a provider network. Daphne Pallozzi, chief executive for CHI Centers, which operates 17 group homes in Maryland, said caregivers may be "doubly exposing" or "doubly exposed."

Patience Ekpo, 60, has stopped working at one of the several group homes where she is normally employed to lower the risk of cross-contamination. She picked up additional shifts at another home because an individual there - a middle-aged man named Jimmy - keeps trying to leave the house and needs someone to watch him closely.

"He's very sociable, very happy," Ekpo said one recent afternoon from the house, which is located in Silver Spring, Maryland. "He likes to go out and shake hands."

As she was speaking, Jimmy headed for the door.

"Please, please," Ekpo said to him through her cloth mask. "I'll go out with you. Give me a minute, one minute."

Jimmy stalled, then sat down, brows furrowed.

"Are you angry? Don't be angry," Ekpo said coaxingly. "Thank you, my dear."

Ekpo and others have taken on the parental role of dispelling the fears, anxieties and boredom that come with quarantine. Pallozzi, of CHI Centers, said she purchased indoor games and activities - from bingo and adult coloring books to a box set of documentaries - but knows that these are stopgap measures.

"If we have to go through May, I don't know what we're going to do," she said.

When Ekpo watches news reports on covid-19, she said, she feels her heart palpitate. She is frightened of being a carrier, but sees it as her duty to ensure that Jimmy stays safe.

Thomas said it is hard for her to imagine what would happen if she wasn't able to care for her three residents. Who would know that one of them likes their cereal with strawberries, and another with bananas? Who would know when they liked to go for walks or when to hold their hands?

As she spoke to a reporter by phone that afternoon during her shift, a television game show audible in the background, Thomas considered what would happen if one of the group home residents contracted the virus.

"An ambulance would come, and then they would be by themselves," she said softly. "I wouldn't be able to go."

"Oh no," Thomas whispered to herself. "No, no, no."
Cash-strapped local businesses hunting for foreign M&A deals

Michael Han, head of SK Groups representative office in Vietnam, told VIR the crisis has created both opportunities and challenges for M&A in Vietnam. Local deals now look more attractive but they may have to compete with other markets globally.

In the first quarter of 2020, the whole country saw 2,523 instances of capital contribution and share purchases by foreign investors with a total value of capital contributions reaching $2 billion, up 53 per cent against the same period last year and capturing nearly 34 per cent of the total registered capital, according to data by the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

It is apparent that Vietnam saw a rise in M&A activities in the first quarter of the year before the coronavirus pandemic intensified. According to Han, the COVID-19 outbreak has clearly impacted the market and there are two groups of investors opting to take two very different paths. First, some institutional investors have been cashing out, as evidenced by recent severe fluctuations in the stock market. Second, some strategic investors could see an opportunity to enter the market. Perhaps they are the ones who have been driving up activity during the first quarter of 2020.

Masataka Sam Yoshida, head of the Cross-border Division and CEO of Vietnam RECOF Corporation, questioned if the increased deals are the ones which started after the pandemic situation arose. It is also true that the global M&A market was enjoying a boom of sorts until the beginning of 2020 and there should have been various transactions under the water.

As everyone knows, M&A transactions need a certain amount of time prior to completion, and it should be said that those which are being completed at the moment should have been started some time ago at least before the pandemic situation became recognised in China for the first time, said Sam Yoshida.

The number of M&A transactions is a lagging indicator, so the slowdown in activity from mid-February until COVID-19 is under control will inevitably be reflected gradually in the statistics from mid-April onwards.

According to lawyer Truong Thanh Duc, chairman of BASICO law firm, many listed companies are experiencing falling share prices due to the health crisis. This creates opportunities for wealthy foreign buyers to cherry pick target companies at bargain prices.

He noted that most overseas investors are in a better position to overcome the impact of COVID-19 than Vietnamese firms, most of which are especially vulnerable and small with limited financial capacity.

If COVID-19 persists for a long time, there is a high likelihood that more local companies will be taken over by buyers, said Duc. When the pandemic is over, Vietnam is expected to see a sizeable upturn in M&A as foreign buyers capitalise on the countrys economic prospects.

According to RECOFs expert, the destiny of M&A is that buyers and sellers are always on the opposite sides of the coin. The most obvious aspect of this is valuation but the economic situation of each country or global market overwhelming each side of the coin will affect the behaviour of both buyers and sellers.

In other words, when the financial situation allows the number of buyers to increase, sellers will fade out as they start to enjoy the more positive economic environment (even with the potential buyers being in the same sector), and vice versa.

Having said this, this situation often does not apply to international transactions like the ones between Vietnam and Japan, as Japanese companies are becoming more and more attracted to the growing economy of Vietnam as well as the markets that Vietnamese companies possess in their domestic market, the RECOF representative noted.

It is true that the negative impact of the COVID-19 crisis will inevitably affect some Japanese investors for a limited period. However, the fact is that several Japanese investors will be keen to expand to foreign markets, given the shrinking of the Japanese domestic market, not only because of the coronavirus but also from the issues arising from the fall in population that they were already facing prior to the crisis.

In addition, many cash-strapped Vietnamese companies may need funding to overcome their difficulties which will eventually create more opportunities for foreign investors to buy strong companies at reasonable prices.

It is clear that M&A activity has experienced obstacles as the pandemic impedes site visits and physical face to face meetings between buyers and sellers. Meanwhile, social distancing measures needed to contain the COVID-19 virus will be particularly disruptive to the M&A market.

According to SK Groups Han, We have been looking at a few deals in Vietnam. They are in a relatively early phase, so we prefer not to speculate on the likelihood of closing or the timing, but we are in a promising position.

As the trajectory of the COVID-19 crisis is uncertain, SK Group is now closely monitoring the situation. Vietnam has done a world-class job in limiting the outbreak but for the economy to get back to normal, the group also has to see how other regions of the world recover.

As the prolonged health emergency has shifted the M&A process online, RECOF is increasingly conducting marketing via their website, mail, and magazine, and is hosting teleconferences using various media rather than physically visiting sellers and buyers.

However, for a real alliance and to realise the fundamental synergies between the two parties which are the aggregate of human elements in an M&A transaction, it is crucial for people from both sides to meet up, get to know each other, and make crucial decisions on a more personal level.

In this context, RECOF will only be able to collect as much information as possible until the time a meeting could be set at the sellers place, said Sam Yoshida.
The global tally of confirmed coronavirus infections currently stands at 2.2 million, with six countries having reported more than 100,000 cases. The United States, which has been the most affected, accounts for a little more than 30 per cent of all reported cases globally. There have so far been as many as 148,651 coronavirus-related deaths across the world.

In India, there are almost 14,000 confirmed cases, and there have been over 450 deaths. Roughly 13 per cent of all reported cases in the country have now recovered. Here are a few data trends to help you understand the present ...
Washington  Democrats Dana Balter and Francis Conole will each be able to spend at least $200,000 on their campaigns in the next two months ahead of the June 23 primary election in the 24th Congressional District.

Balter has $222,000 in cash remaining for her primary campaign, compared to about $211,000 for Conole, according to new financial disclosure reports the campaigns filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Balter raised about $187,000 in the first quarter of the year through March 31, while Conole raised about $191,000, according to the FEC reports.

Federal limits on campaign contributions allow for donors to give up to $2,800 for the primary election and $2,800 for the general election this year. The fundraising totals reported by Balter and Conole this week include contributions for both elections.

Balter, 43, an educator from Syracuse, won the Democratic primary election in 2018 but lost to Rep. John Katko, R-Camillus, in the November election.

Conole, 41, of Syracuse, a Navy veteran of the Iraq War, is making his first bid for public office. He has the support of the Democratic Party committees in Onondaga and Cayuga counties, representing more than 80% of Democratic voters in the district.

The Oswego County Democratic Committee backed Balter.

Katko told the FEC this week that he has $1.2 million in cash in his campaign bank accounts to spend on the November election.

The 24th Congressional District covers all of Onondaga, Cayuga and Wayne counties, and the western half of Oswego County, including the cities of Oswego and Fulton.

READ MORE

Rep. John Katko has almost $1.2 million to spend on reelection campaign

Poll: Dana Balter early favorite over Francis Conole in Democratic primary for Congress

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Mark Weiner anytime by: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
Much the same way that the Nazis invasion of Poland in the 20th century, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) assaulted the world with a biological agent. Instead of Panzer divisions rolling down the streets of Warsaw, Communist Chinas invisible biological warfare has stricken the world with economic and human misery, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and forcing millions into unemployment lines globally.

Expansionist China is clearly a military, economic, and health threat to the world. But its reckoning time for the Chinese communist dictatorship. Washington should exert diplomatic, economic, and military pressure on Beijing that will put Chinas dictator Xi Jingping, and the evil and corrupt CCP under enormous strain.

Here are four suggestions to counter Chinas biological, military and economic threats:

Economic Distancing: Seize Chinas U.S. Treasury Notes

For America, the China virus attack was a 21st century medical Pearl Harbor, inflicting tens of thousands of casualties and placing our healthcare system under enormous strain. To counterattack Chinas criminal negligence and mishandling of the coronavirus epidemic, the U.S. needs to hit our communist comrades where it hurts the most -- their pocketbooks.

China owns approximately $1.07 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds, according to the Treasury Department. The United States government should seize the Chinese treasury obligations that Beijing holds in their name, and inform the CCP that this is a down payment for the death of tens of thousands of American citizens and the economic devastation Beijing has unleased on the U.S. economy. And the U.S. should encourage Canada, the U.K., Japan, Switzerland, and other allies to do the same.

Academic Distancing: Shutter Chinas Confucius Institutes in the U.S.

The nefarious CCP pumps over $10 billion into its Confucius Institute propaganda machine, funding over 500 Confucius Institutes on high schools, colleges, and university campuses around the world. In the U.S., there are over 100 Confucius Institutes on high school, college, and university campuses, receiving over $150 million from the Chinese communist dictatorship, according to National Association of Scholars.

The Chinese Ministry of Education, which is run by the CCPs Central Propaganda Department, infiltrates high schools, colleges, and universities, brainwashing American students into accepting communist China propaganda, textbooks and operating funds to enhance its own image abroad. Beijing-funded Confucius Institutes lack transparency, threaten academic freedom and give the Chinese communist despots access to the U.S. education system that China does not extend to American programs, according to a 2019 report by the U.S. Senates Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

All Confucius Institutes in the United States should be shut down, and all Chinese teachers deported. America must end Chinas unfettered access to our research centers and universities. Also, the Confucius Institute U.S. Center, based in Washington, D.C., should be shuttered.

Seize and Sell all CCP Property in the U.S.

The Chinese Communist Party is our enemy, so why dont we treat them that way? Lets start by seizing all CCP property in the United States and selling it as reparations for the damage they have caused to our economy. The U.S. federal government should impound and sell all CCP property in the U.S., including companies, real estate, bank accounts, aircraft, ocean-going vessels, and all other CCP assets in the USA.

Bring Back Made in the USA

The U.S. federal government should pay U.S. manufactures to leave China and return to the USA. Its time to bring U.S. manufacturing back home. Americans want to buy high-quality Made in the USA products; not cheap Chinese junk that breaks right away. To encourage U.S. manufactures to make products in the United States, the U.S. federal government should offer companies a 100 percent federal tax relief for 10-years if they open and produce products here in the USA.

It wont be easy or painless, but America ought to fundamentally reconsider its relationship with China. It is imperative that we have a hard decoupling of the U.S.-China relationship, according to political scientist Andrew A. Michta, writing in the American Interest. Its time to reduce our reliance on China as a manufacturing base.

Only one adversary poses a truly mortal challenge to the United States; that adversary is China.

Now that the Chinese Communist Party has murdered tens of thousands of people globally, the U.S. and its allies are being held hostage by the criminals that run the CCP. China is repeatedly singled out for its unfair trade practices, currency manipulation, support for rogue regimes like North Korea and Iran, proliferation of nuclear arms, cyberattacks on free societies, widespread human rights abuse at home, and undermining international institutions. And now, you can add bioterrorism to the list.

Its time to cut our ties with Communist China. This is a very dangerous time for the world. We should expect that the CCP will become more repressive domestically, aggressive internationally, and confrontational in the wake of the China virus.

And one final thought: Lets make the China plague the last Chinese import into the U.S.A.

Octavio Nuiry is a former New Orleans Times Picayune columnist. He can be reached at onuiry@gmail.com or (562) 537-2901.
Children appear to be at very low risk of severe outcomes from covid-19 if they do become infected with the coronavirus. Statistics updated Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that in the United States from Feb. 1 to April 11, only three of the first 13,130 deaths officially attributed to covid-19 involved children under 15. From age 15 to 24, there were another 13 deaths.
AN interim examiner has been appointed to Dublin-based airline CityJet, giving it protection from its creditors as it tries to survive.

Mr Justice Garrett Simons said yesterday at the High Court that he was satisfied to appoint experienced insolvency practitioner Kieran Wallace of KPMG as interim examiner to CityJet. However, the judge warned the examinership would be complex.

CityJet and its subsidiaries fly routes on behalf of other airlines, including SAS and Aer Lingus. It employs 1,175 people, over 410 of whom are based in Dublin.

The airline sought the protection of the courts from its creditors due to financial difficulties that were exacerbated after its fleet was grounded by the Covid-19 outbreak.

The company has debts of 500m, and currently has a net deficit of liabilities over assets on a going concern basis of 186m, Rossa Fanning, counsel for the airline, told the court.

Its creditors include the Triangle Group, firms involved in the leasing of aircraft, Investec, the Revenue Commissioners, as well as debts owed to related companies. CityJet is owned by Falko, which is in turn owned by funds controlled by Fortress Investment.

CityJet operates a fleet of 34 aircraft, including 28 CRJ900 jets and eight Avro RJ85s.

In order to counter its current difficulties, plans had been put in place with its creditors to restructure the business and merge with Spanish airline Air Nostrum.

That merger has been in train since 2018 and was due to be concluded just before the pandemic struck.

Counsel for the airline said that there were positive aspects to its current predicament, including that the company's main customer, SAS, has agreed to support it during the crisis, and that there had been positive engagements with its creditors.

Counsel said while a return to commercial flying was uncertain, the company expected that its services would return gradually over the coming months, and that the business could make a profit if the examinership process was successful.

The decision to seek examinership comes just two weeks after CityJet founder and executive chairman Pat Byrne said he thought the company could avoid doing so.

Speaking yesterday, Mr Byrne said that he is "totally confident" that the firm will successfully emerge from the process, and added it was "prudent" to seek examinership "in light of the compounding effect of the global shutdown of airline operations due to the impact of Covid-19".
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Hundreds of protesters gathered at the Ohio Statehouse for around two hours Saturday afternoon, demanding Gov. Mike DeWine reopen Ohio immediately.

Many wore red Make America Great caps, waved American flags and carried signs decrying liberties that have been taken away during the global pandemic. They chanted U-S-A, and We are not sheep!

Others packed in cars, pickups and sport-utility-vehicles and circled Ohio Capitol Square numerous times, blaring their horns -- which added a lot of noise to a downtown area that has been dead quiet in recent weeks.

DeWine said Thursday that Ohio would begin to open incrementally and with restrictions beginning May 1. Businesses will open with restrictions such as people wearing masks -- which some protestors donned Saturday.

From a public health standpoint, officials have justified stay-at-home orders, closing of nonessential businesses and banning mass gatherings as a way to keep people physically apart.

Coronavirus is believed to have a higher mortality rate than the flu -- possibly as high as 2% in the U.S., compared to 0.1% for influenza. Coronavirus infection rates may also be higher. Because its new, people have no natural immunity and a vaccine is at least a year away.

Idiots  justin harper (@deathtocrazy) April 18, 2020

As of Saturday, 10,222 Ohioans have been infected with coronavirus and 451 people have died.

At least one protester brought a sign that alleged the governments restrictions were akin to government run by Nazis. Another protester drove around with an anti-Semitic sign.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18)  The Department of Labor and Employment is still waiting for the feedback of the Inter-Agency Task Force and the President on its recommendation to grant hazard pay for private healthcare workers, its chief said Saturday.

"'Yung hazard pay kasi, naibibigay lang sa government employees. We were thinking of also recommending na sana 'yung mga nasa private sector din, lalong-lalo na 'yung mga nasa medical, 'yung mga frontliners," DOLE Secretary Silvestre Bello III said in a public briefing.

[Translation: The hazard pay is only given to government employees. We were thinking of also recommending for the private employees to be included in the hazard pay, especially the medical workers, the frontliners.]

"Pero we will wait for the approval of the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force, and finally, the approval of the President," Bello stated.

[Translation: But we will wait for the approval of the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force, and finally, the approval of the President.]

Health Spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire earlier announced that the Labor Department is already in talks with employers to mandate a minimum hazard pay for health workers in the private sector.

The Palace, through its Administrative Order No. 26, had set a 500 worth of daily cash aid for public medical workers and other government employees reporting for work amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nationwide, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases is now 5,878, with 487 recoveries and 387 deaths.
If an ectopic pregnancy grows and causes the fallopian tube or other organ its growing in to rupture or bleed heavily, you might have more intense abdominal pain and bleeding; and also dizziness, light-headedness, pain in your shoulder or low blood pressure.

Get diagnosed.

If your provider suspects an ectopic pregnancy, shell typically first measure the level of the pregnancy hormone hCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin, in your blood. The level will help your doctor figure out if it is a normal pregnancy, as well as if youre pregnant at all, said Dr. Loretta Strachowski, M.D., a clinical professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. Your doctor may repeat the blood test later, to see if the hormone is rising at the expected rate of a normal pregnancy or not. In an early normal pregnancy, the hCG level is expected to double in 48 hours; if its an ectopic, it wont rise at that rate.

If youre pregnant, your provider will likely also do an ultrasound at the same time (or refer you to a lab or imaging center that does it) to see if your pregnancy is where it should be  in your uterus. Under normal circumstances, doctors can spot a pregnancy in the uterus when your hCG level has reached a certain threshold. If we dont see a pregnancy in the uterus at that level, then we become more concerned about an ectopic pregnancy, said Dr. Diouf. You may need to come in again for more blood tests so your doctor can monitor your hCG level and do another ultrasound. Diagnosis isnt always made on the first visit, explained Dr. Strachowski.

Get treated.

Because doctors cant move an ectopic pregnancy to the correct location in your uterus, youll most likely need treatment to remove the pregnancy either with medication or with surgery.

Medication. The less invasive option is medication, which your doctor will likely try if youre stable and dont have certain medical conditions, such as kidney or liver disease. Methotrexate, a chemotherapeutic drug, is most commonly used and is typically injected into your upper arm or buttocks in one dose (or possibly multiple doses). It basically stops the ectopic pregnancy from growing, explained Dr. Andrew Horne, M.B., Ch.B., a professor of gynecology and reproductive Science at the University of Edinburgh. Common side effects include mouth sores and skin inflammation.

Follow-up appointments  which are typically scheduled two or three days after treatment, and again a few days after that  will ensure your hCG level is dropping and that the drug is working. If it is, youll then have weekly visits until your provider has determined that the hormone level has diminished to the point where youre no longer considered pregnant.

In 7 to 14 percent of cases, the ectopic pregnancy will still rupture the organ where it occurs, even with treatment. Its also possible that the drug wont completely resolve the ectopic pregnancy, and you might still end up needing surgery. For these reasons, its important to attend follow-up visits. If you cant, methotrexate may not be the right option for you.
Karnataka to undertake Triaging: What does it mean and how do you pronounce it

Delhi to ease restrictions, if Covid cases come down in next 2-3 days: Health Minister

Lata Mangeshkar health update: Doctor says,'She in ICU with Covid-19 and pneumonia, will be under observation'

Manmohan Singh to head Congress consultative group on COVID-19

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Apr 18: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will head a consultative group of the Congress on COVID-19, to deliberate on current matters, including those related to the coronavirus outbreak, and formulate the party's views on various issues.

The 11-member group also comprises former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, former Union Finance Minister P. Chidamabaram, Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh, Lok Sabha member Manish Tewari, party general secretary K.C.

Venugopal and party's Data and Technology wing chief Praveen Chakravarty. Randeep Surjewala will be its convenor. Financial journalist-turned-party spokespersons Supriya Shrinate and professor Gourav Vallabh are also members.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

"The consultative group will virtually meet every day to deliberate on matters of current concern and formulate views on them," Venugopal said in a statement.

The opposition party has repeatedly demanded scaling up the testing and providing personal protection equipment (PPE) to doctors, nurses and health workers.

It has also urged the government to spell out steps it planned to take to mitigate the woes of migrant labourers, poor and people stranded across the states.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Saturday, April 18, 2020, 15:55 [IST]
MIAMI, FL / ACCESSWIRE / April 17, 2020 / As founder of BrandsBuilder, Marco Calamassi connects with entrepreneurs, founders and agency owners on the daily. On his recent endeavours he met and worked with 3 young and emerging protagonists in the Tech & Digital Space.

They are proactive, innovative and leading a team of co-workers to help them achieve their business goals. That's the reason why they made it to this Top 3 Young Entrepreneurs who are establishing themselves as the authorities in Ecommerce, Startup Innovation and Agency Ownership.

Let me introduce them...ready ?

- Utkarsh Raj (Ecommerce Star)

INSTAGRAM: @utkarsh

Utkarsh Raj is a serial entrepreneur, a rising star who started earning at the age of 12. This 19-year old boy from India makes six figures through online marketing and eCommerce. Over the past 12 months, he has single-handedly created over 30 stores on Shopify. He made 6 figures from three of these stores within weeks. You won't believe it - one of his stores is bringing $50,000-$100,000 revenue each day!

Utkarsh Raj's dedication, hard work and utmost commitment has led him to successfully make his mark in the ecom space. As much as he loves his work, he loves to travel, explore the world and meet new people. He believes you can find great opportunities if you travel. Raj is living the dream most people never even get close to achieve.

He has set himself apart by realizing the potential of every opportunity you encounter and this is what led to his success. You can take the life and philosophy of Raj as a guide that leads the way to a successful business endeavor. Dare to travel and take all the chances that arise. Dare to dream and become who you want to be. Dare to embrace entrepreneurial opportunities and enjoy a life of luxury.

- Phil Sokowicz (Startup Founder)

INSTAGRAM: @ps

You may not have heard of Phil Sokowicz, but over the past year, he has been quietly transforming the German Legal Tech sector. While studying International Management, he founded his first e-commerce startup, followed by an innovative legal and tech startup providing its customers with a technically advanced claim prediction and a simplified experience during legal proceedings.

Story continues

The company uses real lawyers to look over a claim and an algorithm to predict an expected payout amount, then lawyers take the claim to court. Customers can follow the proceedings on the company's online platform.

This seamless integration of technology and law does exactly what tech does best - it transforms a process that used to be tedious and expensive into a process that is quick and cost-effective.

Phil Sokowicz describes the platform as "Justice-as-a-Service" because it makes justice widely accessible. Most people won't be able to assess their own policies to determine whether or not the policy could be financially lucrative. Few people would want to spend money on hiring legal representation before they know whether or not it is worth revoking their policy. This is where the platform comes in.

- Vincent Zampelli (Agency Owner)

INSTAGRAM: @vinceceo

Vincent Zampelli can be described as an energetic, innovative and charismatic entrepreneur + business developer from Pennsylvania having recently relocated to South Florida. After rapid growth in developing engineering and fitness businesses, Vince quickly became a thought-leader in business development and social media.

Vincent believes that the backbone of any successful company rests upon two things: consistency in revenue-generating activities and world-class customer support. Today he is the owner of two digital agencies. One for high-end advertising and branding and the second agency for curated content creation. Combined, he has a team of over 10 experts working between the two agencies.

Vincent Zampelli's latest ventures include a South American expansion for his one agency and a national partnership in the Hospitals and Healthcare Network industry. Vince has worked with other top digital entrepreneurs in co-collaboration exhibits on social media. Additionally, Vince maintains a very active physical lifestyle balance between managing his companies, employees, and partners. Be sure to follow his professional page on Instagram at @vinceceo.

Contact:

Company: BrandsBuilder

Contact Person: Marco Calamassi

Address: 888 Biscayne Blvd #4207, Miami, FL, 33132

Website: www.b randsbuilder.io

SOURCE: BrandsBuilder





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/585668/Introducing-3-Young-Entrepreneurs-Crushing-It-In-The-Digital-Environment




'Coronaspeak can help the public make sense of the crisis,' linguist said

The coronavirus pandemic has triggered a new wave of 'coronaspeak' made up of novel slang words.

Researchers at King's College London have collated the new slang terms, which are a product of the unprecedented situation people across the globe have found themselves in.

New Covid-19-related words include 'Miley Cyrus' for coronavirus and 'sanny' for hand sanitizer

New Covid-19-related words include 'Miley Cyrus' for coronavirus and 'sanny' for hand sanitizer.

Others include 'Covidiot', referring to someone who is flouting lockdown or failing to follow social distancing rules, and 'Iso', the Australian abbreviation for 'self-isolation'.

Tony Thorne of King's College London's Modern Language Centre told the Sun: 'We are having to come to terms with unfamiliar medical and scientific terminology.

The coronavirus pandemic has triggered a new wave of 'coronaspeak' made up of novel slang words

'Coronaspeak can help the public make sense of the crisis but may also increase levels of stress and confusion if people can't keep up.'

He continued: 'In China, Covid-19 led to a whole new specialisation devoted to making language services part of the emergency response.

'This underlines the need for linguists to participate in fighting Covid-19 to prevent and control miscommunication.'
A man on death row in Tennessee has been given a stay of execution due to the coronavirus.

Oscar Smith was convicted and scheduled to be executed on June 4 for the 1989 murders of his estranged wife and her two sons from a previous marriage.

That has now been rescheduled for February 2021 in order to protect the health and safety of execution witnesses and allow Mr Smith to prepare a clemency petition.

Mr Smiths attorneys had argued that they had lost time to work on his case due to restrictions in place to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

It makes no sense to bring execution witnesses and other people into the prison and possibly expose them to Covid-19 infection or introduce the virus into the prison population, Kelley Henry, Mr Smiths attorney, told the Associated Press.

Mr Smith, who has always maintained his innocence, needs to meet with his attorneys to prepare a clemency petition and investigators need to interview people to get information for the clemency petition. None of that face-to-face work can happen at this time without risking public health.

Tennessee is not the first state to delay executions due to the pandemic. Texas has already delayed five executions.

Mr Smith, 70, was sentenced to death by a jury in 1990 for the murders of Judy Robirds Smith, and her sons, Jason and Chad Burnett, 13 and 16.

In the trial, a fingerprint examiner testified that a bloody palm print found next to Judy Smiths body matched Mr Smiths left hand.
<! Kyaris body being lowered into the grave >

By Abankula

Mallam Abba Kyari was buried Saturday morning at Gudu Cemetery in Abuja, with scores of people at the graveside.

The burial ran counter to the statement by Presidential spokesman Garba Shehu that it would be strictly a private affair.

Prayer for the deceased was offered while the body was still inside the hearse that brought it.

The prayer was done in his official residence.

Then after the burial rites, a second prayer was offered.

All the people at the graveyard wore face masks.

And the pallbearers were decked in Hazmat suits, in line with WHO and NCDC protocols.

Abba Kyari, chief of staff to President Buhari since 2015, died in Lagos on Friday, from complications arising from COVID-19 infection.

Garba Shehu said the burial marked the end of all ceremonies.

There will be no condolence visits to family and the presidency, he said.

Well-wishers and all other Nigerians are instead advised to pray for the repose of the soul of the late Chief of Staff.

A condolence register will be opened at the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) from Sunday for those who are able to use the window permitted for movement by the FCT administration, he added.

His body arrived Abuja today for burial.

Kyari, a Kanuri from Bama went to the University of Warwick and the University of Cambridge, after his early education in Nigeria.

He qualified as a lawyer in Cambridge and was admitted into the Nigerian Bar in 1984.

He practised law for some years in the chambers of the father of Femi Fani-Kayode and later went to take up the job as editor of New Nigerian in 1988.

Kyari was commissioner for forestry in his native Borno State and later returned to Lagos.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa plans to end the 31-day-long round-the-clock curfew tomorrow in most areas, barring high risk zones in the districts of Colombo, Kalutara, Gampaha, Puttalam and Jaffna where new measures are to be in force. A night curfew is also likely in these areas.

The Government yesterday decided to lift the curfew from 5 am to 8 pm from Monday on a daily basis in all districts other than Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara, Puttlam, Kandy, Kegalle and Ampara districts.

However the curfew will not be lifted in the police areas of Alawathugoda, Akurana, Warakapola, Akkaraipattu. Curfew will also be lifted from 5 a.m to 8 pm on April 22 in the Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara and Puttalam districts, excluding following police areas:

Kotahena, Grandpass, Bambalapitiya, Keselwatta, Maradana, Gothatuwa, Mulleriyawa, Wellampitiya, Mt Lavinia, Dehiwala and Kohuwala in the Colombo district; Ja ela, Kochchikade and Seeduwa in the Gamapaha district, Puttlam, Marawila and Wennappuwa in the Puttlam district and Bandaragama, Payagala, Beruwala and Aluthgama in the Kalutara district.

The President has given a nod to a number of new measures after a comprehensive study by different state agencies. On a map of Sri Lanka, the SIS has highlighted in white the Grama Sevaka divisions, which will be used as protective zones where there is no high risk. The vulnerable areas have been marked in green.

Of the 339 Grama Sevaka divisions, 81 percent will return to gradual normalcy. There will be guidelines set out by the Presidential Task Force headed by Special Envoy Basil Rajapaksa. A set of handbooks prepared by the Task Force will insist on the use of face masks, restrictions on numbers attending weddings or funerals and social distancing. Every protective zone will have a committee headed by the Grama Sevaka of the division concerned. The Grama Sevakas will, in turn report, to the respective Divisional Secretary. There are 25 administrative districts in Sri Lanka and 14,029 Grama Sevaka divisions. The Government Agents in each district will be in overall charge and all matters will be monitored by Governors in each province. Thus, there is a likelihood of some Grama Sevaka divisions in high risk zones not affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, also having some restrictions removed. President Rajapaksa will meet District Secretaries next week to personally brief them on their responsibilities to ensure the gradual return to normalcy.

This week, President Rajapaksa has been chairing meetings with different stakeholders in the current complex situation to ensure that work in state and private sector institutions gradually returns to normal. Train and bus services will also resume next week. Banks and other establishments are also to open for business.

By yesterday, the confirmed number of Corvid-19 cases stood at 248. Seven have died so far. The afflicted include those found infected with the deadly virus during quarantine. Added to that were those medically regarded as most vulnerable due to other health complications they suffered. Thus, the fatalities in Sri Lanka were among the lowest compared to the developed world. Both in the United States and Britain, it is still at unmanageable levels. The contagious virus has afflicted nearly 710,300 and is rising with the death toll at over 37,000 in the US. In Britain, more than 108,000 have contracted the disease and more than 14,500 have died, and officials claim that it would be 54% or more when deaths in elders care homes are considered.

Former Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, now leader of the United National Party (UNP), told New Delhis WION (World is One) television that where the government made a lapse is that the equipment should have been arranged early in January. We should have got more testing kits, more face masks, more ventilators and we delayed on that. Other than that, Wickremesinghe, who together with Maithripala Sirisena, ousted President Mahinda Rajapaksas regime in 2015, sounded much more like a minister in the ruling SLPP-led government. He was full of praise. The UNP has been supporting governments anti-Covid 19 campaign.

True, the Sunday Times front-paged exclusive reports from Wuhan on the emergence of a deadly virus taking a heavy toll of lives. However, in the developed west, world leaders pooh-poohed its spread. Donald Trump, the mercurial President of the worlds most powerful nation, the United States, likened it to a flu and declared it will go away. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to increase the amount of testing for Covid-19, as his country saw a rapid rise in deaths. He failed, later became a victim to the deadly virus and was given intensive care. The renowned British Medical Journal (BMJ) Editor Richard Horton described the situation as the most serious science policy failure in a generation.

In the light of this, all credit for spearheading a countrywide drive against Covid-19 in Sri Lanka should go to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He mobilised the medical services notwithstanding some inevitable shortcomings. He deployed the Army, Navy, Air Force, and the Police as the second line of defence. There were occasional instances of misconduct, but they pale into insignificance. Unlike in any other national calamities, these men and women were truly committed and did their own organisations proud. The President did so without more equipment, ventilators, and vast stocks of face masks.

That is not all. For the first time in decades, President Rajapaksa included the media among the essential services officially gazetted. That gave the freedom of movement to media personnel using their professional identity cards without a curfew pass. Troops and Police recognised them. In the past, media personnel also had to queue up outside Police Stations to obtain curfew passes. A few instances  the Muslim extremist massacre on Easter Sunday last year, during Tiger guerrilla attacks in Colombo during the separatist war and even the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) backed insurgency that triggered incidents in 1987. Even if media rights groups did not recognise the significance of his move through statements  it was an acknowledgement of media as the third line of defence after medical personnel and troops. It recognises that the media have a role to play to keep the people informed and should be officially facilitated to exercise their duties.

This confidence in media helped the government in no small measure to take the message to the people. It is not wrong to say that through prompt action, President Rajapaksa, thus saved hundreds if not thousands of lives. He also abandoned his customary trip to Medamulana, the Rajapaksa ancestral home, to be on hand with brother Mahinda and other family members for avurudu. He was hands on and continued operating from the Presidential Secretariat receiving feedbacks and giving instructions.

Of course, some in the social media, did not see it that way. Their campaign against President Rajapaksa degenerated into to a malicious personal onslaught. Locally, at least 17 of them have been taken into custody for peddling disinformation. He was not alone. Even those who placed matters on record after verifying facts to ones ability in the national media became targets too. I am among those who received hate e-mail and abuse, wildly obscene, for what they called supporting Gotabaya. They seem to forget that he is no longer a government official  Secretary to the Ministry of Defence.

He has been elected as President of Sri Lanka by a majority of 1.3 million votes against his nearest rival, Sajith Premadasa, who then contested from the UNP. He polled 6,924,255 votes whilst Premadasa received 5,564,239 votes. He is thus a leader with an unquestionable and strong public mandate. The fact sems lost on some short-sighted lackeys, particularly those in opposition, to whom innate hatred or malice is all that matters. I am reminded of the words of Mark Twain who said, It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

During the month-long 24-hour curfew, de-escalating measures themselves are an arduous task. Present security measures will be in force to ensure these guidelines, each earmarked for a particular sector. For example, the plantation sector will be required to follow a different set of guidelines from factory workers.

Economic and constitutional challenges

President Rajapaksas biggest challenge, particularly after gradually scaling down the anti-Covid-19 campaign, is on the economic front. Many a blueprint is now under study. Some may be publicised in the coming week. The nett result would be for Sri Lankans to tighten their belts due to severe import restrictions. On top of that subsidised prices have also been withdrawn. Dhal will now cost Rs 134 a kilo and canned fish Rs 192.

Another equally big challenge is the storm cloud gathering over an impending constitutional crisis. This is over the parliamentary elections. Intense behind-the-scenes activity this week showed that major opposition political parties are veering towards a call for a delay. With a coronavirus pandemic amidst us, this is a time when we cannot hold free and fair elections, Ranjith Madduma Bandara, General Secretary of the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) told the Sunday Times. He said it would not be possible to conduct an election campaign without any let or hindrance.

His remarks came after SJB leader Sajith Premadasa failed in his attempt to summon a party leaders meeting and a news conference. He wrote to acting Police Chief, Chandana Wickremeratne, seeking permission to hold these two events but the request was rejected due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Thereafter, in a National New Year message, Premadasa said, We should question whether we ought to give priority to parliamentary democracy or saving peoples lives. He said holding an election at this time risks spreading the coronavirus widely. The entire state apparatus, led by health authorities and the security forces, have so far been able to keep the number of infections controlled and deaths at a minimum.

Holding an election, he said, risked betraying all these victories. In this context, we, who value parliamentary democracy and elections, and who do not shy away from facing elections, emphasise that the focus at this stage should be on saving peoples lives and not put them at risk by holding an election. This will put both the voting public and elections officials in harms way, he pointed out and added we condemn attempts to hold election based on political agendas disregarding the threat to peoples lives.

Allegations against Premadasa

This week Premadasa was giving his own take to his alliance colleagues over the conversation with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa where he was ticked off in strong words. He claimed, not correctly though, that he had no telephone call from President Rajapaksa. Asked why he did not contradict such reports by an SJB leader, Premadasa replied I have decided to ignore them. At the same time, he told colleagues, he was not involved in any wrongdoing and will continue to speak the truth. In a telephone conversation, President Rajapaksa, took exception to Premadasa referring to him as a dictator. He pointed out that there were serious allegations against Premadasa  denied by the SJB leader  on the misuse of moneys from the Central Cultural Fund which then came under him. He had neither consulted the Attorney General nor told the Police to investigate those claims. However, Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa did appoint a committee to probe the matter. After the presidential election, you cried when you telephoned me. You said you will retire from politics. If I act, dont come crying to me again, President Rajapaksa has said, according to a source familiar with the conversation.

After the Police Chiefs refusal, Madduma Bandara wrote to Election Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya. Here is the full text of the letter:

It is no secret that those who value democracy read with interest, your letter to the President noting that an election cannot be held in the current volatile and dangerous environment, thus requesting him to seek an opinion from the Supreme Court.

I would like to state that we also endorse your view regarding an election at this time. We also firmly believe that a free and fair election is not possible at this time. The danger of the Corona outbreak is still present, with 15 confirmed cases being reported yesterday (14). At the time of writing, the entire Western province and several other districts remain under an indefinite curfew.

A large number of government officials will be required to hold the election and more will be needed for the purpose of counting ballots and issuing results. Holding an election at this time puts their lives at risk as well. On the other hand, many people are of the view that the vast sums of money that will be spent on an election should go towards helping the people who have been affected by the outbreak.

Moreover, no candidate will be able to campaign for the election. It is laughable to contemplate holding an election in a situation where one cannot do anything related to an election process. Taking these into consideration, it is our view that your decision on the election and the letter sent to the President are correct.

However, the Presidents Secretary has replied to your letter asking you to take measures to hold the election before June 2. This is impossible given the current situation and we emphasise that an election cannot be held based on the requirement of one party. We further urge you to call a meeting of leaders and secretaries of all political parties to discuss this situation.

The SJBs position was endorsed by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo, during a news conference called to brief the media on the cancellation of events on the first anniversary of the Easter Sunday massacres. He said it would be wise to conduct elections after the Covid-19 pandemic was brought under full control.

Though both the UNP and the JVP are also in favour of delaying the parliamentary elections, they have not officially declared their positions. In a new development, former Speaker Karu Jayasuriya is making a bid to bring the leaders of the UNP and SJB together since they would take common position on the parliamentary elections. Whether he would succeed, with acrimony between the two reaching a peak, remains a critical question. However, Jayasuriya has also made similar peace efforts in the past. On Thursday (April 23) Jayasuriya will preside over a meeting of the Constitutional Council in his capacity as chairman.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said in a statement that the Elections Commission is mandatorily required to fix another day for the poll. They have no power to postpone the poll without fixing another date. Such mandatory legal requirements cannot be ignored on the basis of speculation as to what may or may not happen weeks and months into the future. The Elections Commission should first fulfill its duties under Section 24(3) and thereafter take up for discussion any outstanding issues Details appear elsewhere.

Even before the postponement of parliamentary polls by the Election Commission, it had not gone through a legal process. This is the gazetting of the names of those who have handed in nominations and their official numbers. These numbers are necessary for voters to cast preference votes. Thus, candidates from different parties were unable to engage in campaigns even in a smaller way due to this factor.

Basil Rajapaksa, General Secretary of the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Nidhas Sandanaya, told the Sunday Times, I do not want to comment on the parliamentary elections. That is a matter for the Election Commission. However, I am surprised by the position taken by some parties which had earlier introduced legislation to put off Provincial Council elections. They also periodically put off local government elections. They know we have ensured almost near normalcy. Look at South Korea. They held elections there and the turn out despite their being affected badly by the Covid-19 pandemic was more than their previous poll.

Basil Rajapaksa recently told Election Commission Chairman Deshapriya to avoid resorting to any action that would institutionalise the present stalemate and then blame us for the situation. In other words, the Presidents Special Envoy is making clear that an indefinite delay in the conduct of a parliamentary election would mean the indefinite continuance of the Presidency without an elected government. This means no Parliament and priority matters like amendments to the constitution will be difficult. In this setting, some Buddhist prelates have even said that President Rajapaksa should continue in office without worrying about elections.

There was no response from Chairman Deshapriya over these developments. Calls and messages to him went unanswered. Together with his two colleague members, he will meet Health officials, Police and Returning Officers tomorrow to ascertain their views on the current situation of the Covid-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka. This is a prelude to the announcement of a date for parliamentary elections. There were unconfirmed reports he would officially announce that May 23 will be the day for parliamentary polls. This will allow the new Parliament to convene before the constitutionally required deadline of June 2. This is after the nominations concluded on March 18.

One of the issues that had dogged the Election Commission in the conduct of the parliamentary elections is the unpreparedness of state sector officials of different tiers. The Covid-19 pandemic has become a deterrent and most are avoiding exposure. This is learnt to be one of the key contributory factors that compelled the Commission to put off the polls. Some senior bureaucrats lobbied those both in government and in the opposition towards this. In the light of this, it will be a tough task for the Commission to not only enlist the officers but also to put them through a stint of training.

Rsihads call to Basil

Amidst these developments, Basil Rajapaksa received a telephone call from former Minister Rishad Bathiudeen, now a key player in the SJB, this week. He pleaded for help to have his brother Riyad Bathiuddin, who has been arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), released from custody. He also sought to prevent his own arrest if indeed there were plans to do so. Rajapaksa, according to one of his aides, had explained that that the investigations were carried out by the CID which came under the purview of the President. In this instance, seven different CID teams had been engaged. He regretted his inability to interfere in the investigative process or on arrests being made.

According to sources close to the presidency, President Rajapaksa is closely monitoring some of the most important cases. The Easter Sunday attack last year was one of them. Others, these sources said, included the Central Bank bond scam and added that he was committed to punish those involved.

According to CID sources, Riyad Bathiudeen had been arrested for allegedly having links with Muslim extremists responsible for the April 21 Easter Sunday attacks that left at least 268 men, women, and children dead. Next Tuesday marks the first anniversary of the dastardly incidents. More key arrests are to follow, these sources said, adding that he was a close associate of an extremist who died. CID sources said that Riyad Bathiudeen had telephone conversations with the bomber before the incident. It is, however, not clear whether such calls were made earlier or days before the attack. The arrest comes in the wake of concerns at the highest levels over a possible strongly worded statement that was to come from the Catholic Church. This was to highlight the fact that little or nothing has been done though it is one year. This seems to have been obviated the move. Also arrested in this connection is Hejaaz Hisbullah, Attorney-at-law. CID sources alleged that he had links with two other Muslim extremists. However, no details were available.

Bar Association of Sri Lanka President, Kalinga Indatissa, wrote to acting Police Chief Chandana Wickremeratne on the arrest of this lawyer. He said,

According to the information that we have received, the reasons for his arrest have not been made known up to now. We have been informed that the arrest is based on certain functions attended to by Mr. Hisbullah in his professional capacity as a member of the Bar.

While the BASL has no intention of disturbing any pending investigation that is being conducted lawfully by the Authorities, naturally, the BASL is concerned about the wellbeing of Mr. Hisbullah. We would be extremely grateful if you could direct the investigating officers to ensure:

a. That the professional rights of Mr. Hisbullah are given due consideration,

b. That the BASL is informed of the reasons and the basis of his arrest.

Rishad Bathiudeen was also questioned by the CID for four hours on matters relating to land transactions. Investigations into him began after Rizwi Jowharsha, an attorney-at-law, lodged complaints with the CID and the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption.

Former Minister Bathiudeen, leader of the All Ceylon Makkal Congress, also issued a statement. He said, My brother Riyad Bathiudeen was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department while he was at his house in Puttalam on April 14, 2020 stating that he had connection with a suicide bomber with respect to Easter Sunday Attacks. Until now, none of his family members or his lawyer has been allowed to speak to him.

Although around seven persons were arrested along with him, only his name stating that he was my brother was published in all medias (sic) with many false allegations. I affirm that neither me nor any of my family members are involved with these terrorist attacks. Also, I wish to state that we were and will always be against terrorism since we also belong to a community that were forcibly evicted by the LTTE

Bathiudeen also figured in television clips on the social media and WhatsApp claiming he had done no wrong. He displayed a file containing the findings of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) and claimed, Even they had cleared me.

He was citing a letter sent to the PSC by acting Police Chief Wickremeratne who claimed there was no evidence against him. However, the PSC itself came in for strong public criticism on the grounds that it was designed to exculpate some persons backing the former government. Their findings were also at variance with revelations that came to light both from a Commission of Inquiry as well as those from the CID.

SJB statement

Last weeks reference in these columns about President Rajapaksas decision to exclude some members when a delegation from the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) met him has drawn an angry response from the alliance. Here is the full text of a statement General Secretary, Ranjith Madduma Bandara, issued:

There has (sic) been several misleading reports by various state media institutions about the above-mentioned discussion and we believe that the truth about the discussions should be revealed.

The political party leaders in the Samagi Jana Balawegaya unanimously decided that a discussion should be held with the President about the situation arising from the outbreak of the coronavirus and accordingly the Presidents office allocated April 6 as the date for the meeting.

The party leaders decided that it was sufficient for Mr Sajith Premadasa as the leader of the party and me as General Secretary of the party attend the meeting.

One of the myths which has been socialized is that those currently on bail were not given permission to attend the meeting. The bankrupt political attempt is baseless and hilarious.

As we reject it as a bankrupt attempt and if those on bail could not attend that meeting, we should mention that a couple of private staff members of the President, the Presidents secretary and several others, the Prime Minister and a large number in the cabinet are those who have faced legal cases or been released on bail.

The Samagi Jana Balawegaya wishes to condemn attempts to take falsehoods and baseless statements to society and calls upon (them) to act in a civilized manner. Far from facts becoming a myth or a fallacy when it is embarrassingly hurtful, the references made in the Sunday Times (Political Commentary), which reported it first, was factually accurate. President Rajapaksa did insist on the exclusion of some SJB members who were to meet him. That is the bold truth though the statement is full of confusing, contradictory, and irrelevant verbiage to bury the facts. At first, the statement denies three SJB members were excluded, but later heaps blame on government leaders and concedes that it did take place. Contradictions are all too common with the SJB. Even their leader Sajith Premadasa or General Secretary Madduma Bandara is no exception. To them, anything perceived bad news never happened.

As President Rajapaksa takes the long route to restore normalcy in the coming week, a constitutional conundrum is staring in the face of Sri Lankans. If there are no parliamentary elections, there will be no Parliament and no new reforms through legislative changes promised by the SLPP-led government. On the other hand, the opposition parties now have a ready-made campaign to delay the polls, which no doubt, will set the clock back. A much greater responsibility lies in the Election Commission. An entire nation awaits that.
We had some early talks, one or two meetings, and then the virus kicked in and we kind of put it on the back burner, Waelterman said of police and fire contract negotiations, which he helps lead for the city. There hasnt been any real movement either way on that.

He said the city will talk with the unions representing other employees about rolling back the raises to 1.5%  if theres enough to scratch together for that.

The alternative is get rid of 5 or 10% of the employees, Waelterman said. Its something weve all got to band together with and get through this. Hopefully they respect the $1,000 they got and whats going on here and power it through.

Conway said Krewson has instituted a hiring freeze, though key departments such as the health department, the police department and the fire department can fill positions in response to the pandemic. About 750 positions are vacant across the city, he said.

No shopping and no sales tax means busted budgets for St. Louis area governments during coronavirus crisis Missouri and its local governments are especially exposed to this crisis. Unlike 48 other states, Missouris GOP-dominated legislature has not passed a bill to allow the collection of online sales tax.
Actor Kangana Ranaut has come out in the defence of her sister Ragoli Chandel after her account was suspended by Twitter on Thursday. Kangana said that she and her sister will apologise if there is a single tweet of Rangoli that targeted an entire community. The actor also urged the Indian government to demolish Twitter and create similar indigenous platforms.

One of Rangolis tweet with communal undertones was reported by filmmaker Reema Kagti and designer Farah Khan Ali. Both tagged the Mumbai Polices Twitter handle in their tweets, asking them to arrest Rangoli. Talking about them, Kangana said the two made false claims against her sisters.

Now, Farah has responded to Kanganas statements, saying that Rangolis tweets were communal and dangerous. My dear Kangana, Let me begin by saying Im a Huge fan and youre an amazing Actress, Farah wrote in her response. She also talked about how Rangoli said she didnt care if people branded her a Nazi for her views. Farah said the use of the word Nazi was inappropriate and hateful.

I have nothing personal against Rangoli or you and have even met Rangoli in the past where she came across sweet. She has been an acid victim and now a social activist so should be more responsible with her tweets. She should inspire all who have lost hope to have hope. She should lead by example. Spewing hatred towards a community and calling for them to be killed for the acts of few is unacceptable. I do hope she sees her error and realises that she has the social and moral responsibility of so much more than just being your sister. God bless you both. May peace be upon you and our country at large, she added.

Also read: Karan Johar pens emotional note for daily wage workers, extends help to govt and NGOs to fight Covid-19

As for Rangoli, she has already said that she would not do anything to revive her account with Twitter. I am not reviving my account, I was my sisters spokes person now watch out for her direct interviews, she is a huge star she has many ways of reaching out, a biased platform can be easily avoided, she had said.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
An economist sees two divergent pathways after the current downturn. Which is more likely? (Lynn Scurfield/The New York Times) -- FOR USE ONLY WITH NYT STORY SLUGGED ECON VIEW BY N. GREGORY MANKIW FOR APRIL 19, 2019 -- ALL OTHER USE PROHIBITED. --

N. Gregory Mankiw

As an economist, Im often asked during recessions to divine the path of the recovery that will follow. In the current COVID-19 downturn, I find myself of two minds on this question. I thought I would share them both.

THE PESSIMIST IN ME: Economic downturns are often highly persistent. The National Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of turning points in the business cycle in the United States, has not yet declared that the country is in a recession, but it surely is. Like others, this recession may leave scars on the economy for years to come.

THE OPTIMIST IN ME: Yes, the economy is often slow to recover from downturns, including the Great Recession of 2008-09. But this recession is different. It is occurring not by accident but by design. Employment and production are falling because we want people to stay at home.

Follow our LIVE Updates on the coronavirus pandemic here

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

PESSIMIST: It sure is different. Look at the most recent jobs report. The employment-population ratio fell by 1.1 percentage points, the largest one-month drop since the data began in 1948. And that record will be broken next month, when the economic carnage of the last few weeks appears in the data. This downturn will be the deepest since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

OPTIMIST: But the employment report also offers a glimmer of hope. The number of job losers on temporary layoff increased by a whopping 1.05 million, while the number of permanent job losers increased by only 177,000. That breakdown differs from the pattern in previous recessions, and it bodes well for a quick recovery. Those on temporary layoff can easily return to work when the lockdown is over.

PESSIMIST: What makes you so confident that this will actually happen?

OPTIMIST: Think about beach communities. Every winter, local restaurants and retailers close down. Every summer, when tourists return, these businesses ramp up quickly. The same can happen nationwide once people can leave their homes.

PESSIMIST: Yes, but those businesses plan for the winter downturn. This downturn was unexpected.

OPTIMIST: Or think about the return of veterans after World War II. The domestic economy absorbed all those new workers with ease.

PESSIMIST: But many women who entered the labor force during the war subsequently left when the war ended, opening up jobs for the returning men. Nothing like that will happen this time.

OPTIMIST: But remember, many people are on temporary layoff. Their jobs are waiting for them.

PESSIMIST: Temporary layoffs can turn into permanent job losses if stay-at-home orders continue much longer and businesses become insolvent.

OPTIMIST: But we seem to be turning the corner on the pandemic. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the daily number of coronavirus-related deaths in the United States may have peaked this past week, and we should soon be heading in the right direction. Daily deaths are projected to be close to zero by early summer.

PESSIMIST: If the health situation is improving  and it may be early to say  the economic situation is not. Many people are still at home. When the draconian social distancing measures are relaxed so that normal economic life can resume, the health crisis could flare up again.

OPTIMIST: With time, well find better ways to contain the spread of the virus than closing much of the economy. The key is widespread testing. If people were tested, say, every few weeks, regardless of whether they were symptomatic, the infected could be quarantined quickly, limiting the risk of contagion they pose to others.

PESSIMIST: Tests for COVID-19 have been hard to get, and the wait for results has often been long, sometimes a week or more.

OPTIMIST: The testing is improving. Some people can now get results in a matter of hours. The government will, however, need to invest much more in testing capacity for life to return to normal. We need tests to identify the currently infected as well as those who have recovered and have the antibodies, making them no longer vulnerable to the virus or a risk to others.

PESSIMIST: Given the current dysfunction in Washington, counting on government seems like grasping at straws.

OPTIMIST: The White House was caught flat-footed by the pandemic, and Congress is as divided as ever. But they still managed to pass an emergency fiscal package to meet the challenge. Most Americans got a tax credit, unemployment insurance was expanded, and small businesses were offered forgivable loans to help cover payroll and other expenses. And the law sensibly strengthened the Federal Reserves ability to act as lender of last resort.

PESSIMIST: The fiscal package poses some big problems. For some people, expanded unemployment insurance pays more than their jobs did, giving them little reason to return to work. Not enough money was appropriated for small businesses, leading to a scramble to be first in line for funds. And some small businesses that dont really need the money will enjoy unjustified windfalls from these forgivable loans.

OPTIMIST: The legislation was not perfect, but you cant expect perfection in a crisis. It was a step in the right direction, and our elected leaders deserve a lot of credit for it. Some of the flaws can be fixed in future legislation.

PESSIMIST: All that creates a lot of uncertainty, which is never good for the economy.

OPTIMIST: True, but uncertainty is inevitable during a crisis.

PESSIMIST: At least theres one thing we can agree on.

c.2020 The New York Times Company
The Department of Health  Abu Dhabi (DoH) has launched, in collaboration with Injazat Data Systems, a new digital platform, Remote Healthcare app offering preliminary medical diagnostic services, information and guidelines.



The application provides the necessary medical support to people with chronic diseases, the elderly, and those in need of medical prescriptions and wish to not visit hospitals given the current situation, as well as those who have been infected with virus and are under home isolation, reported state news agency Wam.



The application features an Artificial Intelligence-driven tool for examining symptoms and diagnosing non-emergency cases, as well as a system for booking appointments and remote consultations with doctors via voice or video calls or texts, as well as, medical prescriptions and logistics services.



Shaikh Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Hamed, chairman of DoH, said: "This launch comes in line with our ongoing efforts to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, Covid-19, and ensure the safety and well-being of all members of the community.



"The Department of Health  Abu Dhabi continues to work closely with all relevant authorities in the UAE to further improve the health sector services.



"Through this initiative, we are keen to harness the power of Artificial Intelligence and bolster the digital infrastructure of the healthcare sector, and provide a comprehensive digital platform that allows access medical support and guidance to all members of the society," he noted.



Through the new application, users can obtain medical support and advice and get access to diagnostic services for non-emergency situations while at home, through healthcare facilities in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi that are available on the application and are regularly being updated.



People who have been infected with Covid-19 and are required to stay under home isolation can also benefit from the app, by reaching out to a specialised medical team of doctors, nurses and healthcare professional, who will provide all the necessary healthcare support remotely, and closely monitor the patients situation until they are fully recovered.



In addition to that, DoH will ensure providing the patients will all the necessary precautionary guidelines and all essential supplies that they might need while they are under home isolation.



The app will enable doctors to communicate remotely with their patients to provide consultations. It allows registered users to book and manage their appointments, and request for prescriptions online.



These prescriptions will be assigned to pharmacies that will deliver medicines directly to patients via online channels, upon obtaining the approval of insurance companies.



The Remote Healthcare Platform is developed by Injazat, a fully owned subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company. Injazat develops several healthcare services and systems managed by the DoH and Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (Seha).



The app is available on Android and iOS devices, in both Arabic and English language.
He presses for more, asking why school has closed. Its a big, messy question, so I take an abstract out, gesturing vaguely toward the front windows of our apartment. The world.

My son thinks about that for a few seconds. Then, with the sincerity of a monk, he says, I want to hit the world.

I laugh, filled with admiration for his spirit.

But my amusement would soon give way to something else. I realized that my toddlers instinct very neatly matched how my country had responded to the crisis of my youth: Sept. 11, that tender, bloody scar of a day that has begotten so much death and ruin in the 19 years since.

Hitting the world in 2001 seemed a fine solution for America. Time has proved otherwise, of course. Our reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks  getting sucked into the kind of forever wars every history book warned against, destabilizing the Middle East in the name of freedom, curbing domestic civil liberties in the pursuit of security  has now joined the annals as yet another cautionary tale.

The 2001 attacks changed our way of life for good. The pandemic will, too. How could it not? Anyone offering a return to normalcy is trying to sell something.

It seems quaint now, I know, but it wasnt supposed to be like this. I was there at 18, a rawboned ROTC cadet, watching the Twin Towers burn and collapse again and again on another TV screen and believing this would be our new calling, a 21st-century Pearl Harbor. The people I knew who joined the military then werent stereotypes: We didnt want to kill. We wanted to serve. We werent losers. We were idealists. We sought to do something bigger than ourselves. We sought do something just.

Things, well  things went awry.

Weve already lost far more Americans to the coronavirus than we lost on Sept. 11, more than the number of service members we have lost in the Afghanistan war. Its going to keep getting worse before it gets better. Yet already we have political leaders like Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, himself a veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, calling for a reckoning and retribution against China.
17.04.2020 LISTEN

In Ghana, many keep asking and wondering, in this worrying time of COVID-19 ongoing pandemic, Can I contract coronavirus through the consumption of food and/or water?

What is a virus?

A virus is a small parasite that lacks the capacity to thrive and reproduce outside of a host body.

What is coronavirus (covid-19)?

Coronaviruses are a family of viruses responsible for some respiratory diseases including common cold.

CAN COVID-19 BE PASSED ON THROUGH FOOD?

Currently, no reported or confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been linked to contamination of food and/or water.

Experiences from previous outbreaks of related coronaviruses, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), show that transmission through food consumption did not occur, noted European Food Safety Authoritys chief scientist Marta Hugas .

The major risk of transmission is from close contact with infected people.

It is however highly recommended to consumers and food vendors to maintain good food and personal hygiene practices at all times.

This includes proper and regular hand washing, thorough cooking of food, such as meat, to destroy the virus.

Is handwashing important?

It is extremely important. Food handlers like yourself must wash hands:

before cooking

after coughing, sneezing or blowing nose

before handling cooked or ready-to-eat food

after handling or preparing raw food to avoid cross-contamination

after handling waste

after [domestic] cleaning duties

after using the toilet/washroom

after handling money

Generally, wash hands thoroughly on regular basis.

If I wear gloves, is handwashing still important?

If using gloves, hand washing should be carried out before wearing gloves, between glove changes and after gloves are removed.

Is there a risk to consumers from 'open' food?

There is currently little scientific information about the survival of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) on the surface of open food. However, information on similar viruses shows that some food surfaces allow the virus to survive; others do not.

Therefore, it is important to maintain good hygiene practices around open food (e.g. unpackaged bread, cakes, fruits, vegetables, etc.) as this reduces the risk of contamination of the food.

Is there a risk associated with food packaging?

Food packaging is not known to present any specific risk to consumers. However, efforts should be made to ensure it is handled in line with usual food safety practices.

What is the advice when caring for a vulnerable person?

As older people, immunocompromised or ill people may be more vulnerable to food poisoning, you should follow proper food safety practices to ensure that the food you are providing is safe to eat.

Though no one is invulnerable, older adults appear to be at increased risk for severe illness or death from COVID-19. Underlying health conditions, including heart disease, lung disease, and diabetes, increase risk even further in those who are older. In addition, anyone with an underlying medical condition, regardless of their age, faces increased risk of serious illness.

Other precautionary measures

Frequent washing and sanitising of all food contact surfaces and utensils is advised.

Touch points such as door handles, fridge handles, keypads, etc. should be sanitised frequently.

Keep doors opened where possible to minimise contact.

Avoid handling physical money and encourage the use of contactless payments e.g. mobile money

Lets stay home. Lets stay safe.

Resources: Ghana Health Service, Food Safety Authority of Ireland, Harvard University Health Publishing, Food navigator.com
Chinese Nationals Stranded In Russia After Beijing Closes Ports of Entry in Attempt to Contain Virus

In an attempt to contain imported cases of the CCP virus, China closed off its border with Russia, causing many Chinese nationals who live or work there to be stranded.

After the outbreak of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus, Russia first closed its entire 2,600-mile-long border with China on Jan. 30, and stopped most of scheduled flights into China on Feb. 1.

Russia also banned travelers from China and evacuated its citizens from China in February.

Closed Ports

Chinese authorities closed the land ports at Heihe city, Suifenhe city, and Dongning city in Heilongjiang province, as well as Hunchun city in Jilin province, on April 4 and April 7. All are cities that border Russia.

Then, land ports at Manzhouli and Heishantou in Inner Mongolia were closed before April 11leaving no land ports with Russia open.

For Chinese nationals who wish to fly back home, Chinas foreign ministry said they are required to install a mobile health code app beginning on April 15. Chinese citizens must update their health information every day for 14 days before they take a flight back to China.

Then, the Heilongjiang provincial government announced on its website on April 15 that people would not be allowed to take flights into China if they present any CCP virus symptoms.

Because there are very few flights currently operating between Russia and China, most Chinese in Russia would choose to fly to a border city, and then take a bus to land ports to try their luck.

However, some Chinese found ways to cross the border illegally.

The Heilongjiang provincial health commission reported on April 16 that a diagnosed patient Mr. Chen entered China via the Suifenhe port on April 7.

Its unclear how Chen entered China.

The provincial government offered rewards to citizens who report people who illegally crossed the border. Anyone who reports a case of someone entering China illegally will be rewarded 3,000 yuan ($424). Anyone who detains individuals who entered China illegally and hand them to the government will be rewarded 5,000 yuan ($706), the government posted on its official Weibo account on April 13.

A boy holds his little sister in the Chinese market in the town of Ussuriysk in Russian on September 7, 2000. (Oleg Nikishin/Newsmakers)

Chinese Stranded

On April 13, Chinese who were stranded in Blagoveshchensk city, Russia posted a video on social media and asked for help. Blagoveshchensk and Heihe city of China are separated by the Amur river.

Every day, more Chinese arrive here [from other Russian cities] to wait and enter China. But we cant cross the border and nobody gave us any explanation, the man said in the video. Then, another man joined him in the video and pleaded for the Chinese government to help.

The netizen who posted the video explained that 31 Chinese were stranded in Blagoveshchensk and had to sleep on the streets because they did not have enough money to pay for accomodations.

The Chinese consulate in Vladivostok, Russia notified nationals on April 7, 15, and 16 that the land ports were closed and people should not try to return to China via Vladivostok.

Russian traders rest with their goods at the railway station, after purchasing them at the Chinese border town of Suifenhe in northeastern Heilongjiang province on July 7, 2006. (GOH CHAI HIN/AFP via Getty Images)

Life In Russia

There are some Chinese nationals who want to return home, while others have been expelled by the Russian government.

Xiu Ping has lived in Moscow for more than 20 years. She told the Chinese-language Epoch Times on April 16 that the Russia government shut down two large wholesale marketsthe Sadovod market and Lyublino marketin Moscow at the end of March.

Tens of thousands of Chinese businesspeople work at these two markets, Xiu said. Since March 28, Russia launched a stay-at-home policy.

Xiu introduced that many of these Chinese businesspeople lived in crowded places to save money, and may want to return to China where they have families.

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin spoke about the outbreak during an April 10 interview with the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.

Sobyanin said that the city punished several hundred Chinese citizens who violated the citys quarantine rules put in place to prevent the CCP virus from spreading. Dozens were repatriated.

In Moscow, people who violate quarantine rules can be fined up to 5,000 rubles ($68).

A person wearing a face mask walks along Arbat street in downtown Moscow on Feb. 19, 2020.(Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images)

Chinese historian Li Yuanhua criticized the Chinese authorities decision to block off its border with Russia, and urged the government to allow people to go back home.

Chinese regime knows very clearly that Russia is expelling some Chinese, but it still closed off the borders and refused to let Chinese go back home Its a sharp contrast from Western countries that overcame difficulties to evacuate their citizens from China when the virus first broke out, Li told the Chinese-language Epoch Times on April 15.

Mr. Yu, a resident in Harbin city, Heilongjiang also thought Chinese authorities made the wrong decision. No matter if they are studying in Russia or doing business there, they have parents and siblings in China. Its their right to come back homeThe authorities didnt take responsibility. It should evacuate people, he said.
By Trend

So far, about 15,500 legal entities and more than 21,000 individual entrepreneurs have applied for receiving financial support in Azerbaijan, Trend reports on April 17 referring to the Azerbaijani Ministry of Economy.

The Azerbaijani government is implementing a set of measures to render financial support to individual entrepreneurs affected as a result of coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19).

Presently, thousands of individual entrepreneurs and taxpayers are applying daily for the use of both programs.

Financial support for taxpayers is rendered by the Internet Tax Administration through existing electronic cabinets, based on the appeals submitted. The main condition of the mechanism for obtaining financial support is that to take advantage of this program, taxpayers must apply online through their personal profiles.

After considering the applications, a certain part of the salary and the corresponding social insurance contributions, which must be paid to the applicants' employees as soon as possible, is transferred to the bank accounts of the entrepreneurs.

A certain part of the salaries of employees will be paid gradually during two months by dividing the amount into two equal parts. If some employees working at the enterprise receive a salary higher than the average monthly salary, then the state support for them is calculated as part of the average monthly salary.

In accordance with the state support program, the funds which are paid to the entrepreneurs must be used only for the intended purpose, that is, to pay the salaries to the employees.

One of the main conditions of the support program, especially related to individual (micro) entrepreneurs, during the process of rendering financial support is the availability and activation of the bank account of legal entities and entrepreneurs.

The bank account of an entrepreneur wishing to receive financial support must be active as the funds allocated from the state budget are transferred exclusively to the bank accounts of entrepreneurs.

Taxpayers who do not have a bank account must send an application for a certificate about opening a duplicate account. An account is opened in a bank selected by the entrepreneur as soon as possible after the acceptance of the application. Afterwards, an entrepreneur may send a request for getting financial support.

In some cases, an entrepreneur who does not have a bank account has a tax and social insurance debt at the moment of making an appeal. In ordinary cases, until the entrepreneur repays the debt, he/she is not entitled to open a bank account.

But given the existing conditions, certain concessions were made. So, in such cases, an entrepreneur must submit an application in free form to remove the restriction. If the application is approved, the entrepreneur may apply for opening a bank account after removing the restriction on obtaining a duplicate certificate.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
A Springfield man was sentenced to more than six months in federal custody and faces an additional five years of supervised release after pleading guilty to failure to register as a sex offender.

Alberto Ayala, 60, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Springfield Friday.

Ayala was arrested in Springfield in September of 2018. Authorities found he had a New Jersey warrant for violating his probation by fleeing the state without notifying officials.

Ayala had been convicted of sexual assault in New Jersey in 2006, and part of his sentence was to register as a sex offender yearly. Until 2016 he did so, but then disappeared from the state.

Officials determined that Ayala had moved to Boston, later Springfield, and never registered with authorities in Massachusetts.

Friday, U.S. District Judge Mark Mastroianni sentenced Ayala to time served while awaiting sentencing, or approximately 6.5 months. He also ordered Ayala to submit to supervised release for the next five years.
The $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program is out of money.

Some small business owners, watching their receipts shrivel up in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic sheltering measures, got a loan to keep things going until shoppers return.

And some didnt.

Congress is expected to pump more money into the program, while the U.S. Treasury is considering other programs to fund small business through more traditional loans.

But among many small business owners are questions about how loans were approved, what businesses left on the outside are supposed to do going forward, and how effective the loans will be in the long run in saving an essential part of the economy.

According to the Alabama Bankers Assocation, Alabama small businesses received about 28,000 loans worth $4.86 billion through the program. Nationwide, there were a total of 1.6 million loans, with the overall average size of the loans approved on a national level totaling $206,000.

The loans went out at a dizzying speed and volume. Banks like BBVA received hundreds of applications within minutes. Regions, in its quarterly earnings report, said it assisted business customers in securing PPP loans totaling $2.8 billion.

Melissa Kendrick, 56, owns Sojourns, a boutique with clothing and handcrafted items on Third Avenue South in Birmingham. She had just spent about $20,000 to add a clothing line to her store when the pandemic shutdown began. Her last day of regular business was March 18.

Since then, shes offered curbside pickup for customers and sold items online. Sales have dropped to 25 percent of what they were when the pandemic measures started, she said.

When the Small Business Administration offered emergency disaster loans, she applied on the very first day. Then she was notified the form changed, so she reapplied. She submitted a third application when the process changed again. By the time that application went through, the program had run out of money.

Then, she inquired about the PPP loan, but was told she was considered a sole proprieter as she had only one part-time employee. By April 10, though, she was informed she could apply. But her regular bank said she would only qualify for a loan of $3,500, and that was below their threshold for applications.

They said they were not processing for less than a $10,000 request, she said. The next day, the program ran out of money.

Kendrick says she understands the pandemic measures. She worked in developing countries and even contracted malaria.

I have asthma  Im high risk, she said. I understand it. I think we should have done these measures earlier and in a more unified effort. I think the way we did it was like just putting Band-aids on stab wounds.

But she feels the loan programs  in particular the PPP  started at the wrong end of the spectrum. Larger companies that were considered small businesses in spite of being part of national franchises received money while other businesses either didnt get in line fast enough or were not eligible.

All that money could have literally saved thousands of mom-and-pops, she said. The micro businesses are the ones hurting the most.

Jodi Burnett owns A Little Bird Boutique, a womens clothing store in Grove Hill, with locations in Atmore and Saraland. She planned to open another location in Tuscaloosa a week before the shutdown began there. Just prior, she saw business dropping about 80 percent as customers began staying home.

Easter and graduation are traditionally big sales seasons that get her through the summer months. She was anticipating Easter sales of about $80,000  this year, she had about $3,000.

Now, shes just trying to hold the business together for employees to have jobs when things open up again. I might have an $18 pair of shorts at one store that Im driving one hour to mail out, she said. I cant shut it down. Its like a ball rolling.

On the advice of a friend, Burnett applied for a PPP loan at a smaller community bank. She met a bank employee in the parking lot with her application and had all the relevant documents ready online.

She learned Friday that she will receive a loan of about $21,000, having gotten approved just before the program ran out of money. That amount will take care of rent for two months. Recipients can use the loan for payroll, rent, utilities or mortgage interest, but must show they used the money for those purposes. She will also receive a $10,000 disaster grant.

But she also wonders about other businesses she knows in her community that have been able to remain open  such as restaurants  which were also able to apply and receive funds. Others forced to close were not so lucky.

I think there were businesses that didnt need it as much as others and took advantage of it, she said. Im only about 10 percent of what I used to be.
Africa and China have supported each other and cooperated closely since COVID-19 broke out in early 2020, reflecting the long-lasting friendship during this hard time. African countries fully supported China's fight against the epidemic in the past months, as COVID-19 is currently spreading in Africa. China urgently supports African countries and shares its experience in combating this infectious disease.

A video conference on Fighting Against COVID-19 and Africa-China Cooperation was co-hosted by the Africa Institute of South Africa, the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies of Nigeria and the Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University on April 17, to accurately assess the African epidemic situation, strengthen solidarity, forge consensus and provide intellectual support for the two sides to cooperate in the battle against COVID-19.

A screenshot of the video conference

A Joint Proposal on Africa and China Working Together to Fight Against COVID-19 was released online in six languages: Chinese, English, French, Arabic, Swahili and Hausa. More than 60 well-known scholars, think tank leaders and media representatives from China and 13 African countries attended the video conference.

The conference theme was Promoting the Governance Capacity to Fight Against Epidemics and Working to Build a Closer China-Africa Community with a Shared Future. The Chinese and African scholars present at the conference focused on three issues, namely current situation and trends of the COVID-19 outbreak in Africa, deepening exchange and cooperation in public health between China and Africa and promoting governance capacity and spurring common development. The in-depth discussions and candid exchanges gave way to many constructive suggestions for Africa-China cooperation to overcome the epidemic.

Liu Hongwu, dean of the Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University, and Cheryl Hendricks, dean of the Africa Institute of South Africa, delivered speeches at the opening ceremony. Liu pointed out, Africa and China have long formed a community with a shared future, with close cooperation not only the source of the robust vitality for China-Africa development but also the key to stick together in the fight against the epidemic. This conference will further consolidate the consensus, expand communication channels, and contribute to Africa and China working together to fight against COVID-19. Hendricks noted that the timing of this important conference is opportune and will unite the think tanks of China and Africa to provide strong mutual support to overcome the epidemic.

Representatives present expressed their belief that the China-Africa friendship is profound enough to withstand the test of the epidemic. China and Africa should further strengthen cooperation and exchanges in various fields such as public health governance and epidemic containment. The think tanks, scholars and media from all the countries involved should take the initiative to provide guidance and intellectual support to deepen international cooperation and work together to defeat the epidemic.

The proposal pointed out that Africa and China have worked together to help each other for the past decades. Their friendship has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people of Africa and China, and has continued to grow in this joint effort to fight the epidemic. The two sides believe in "seeing the truth in adversity."

At this unique moment, the people of Africa and China need more mutual trust, deeper understanding, sincere solidarity, mutual support and cooperation. The proposal also provided specific suggestions on more effective cooperation between China and Africa in fighting the epidemic. It is said that the proposal will also be translated into Afrikaans, among other African native languages.

The video conference was held in the following 11 places in China and Africa simultaneously: Jinhua, China, Johannesburg, South Africa, Abuja, Nigeria, Cairo, Egypt, Bamako, Mali, Dares Salaam, Tanzania, Nairobi, Kenya, Lusaka, Zambia, Mogadishu, Somalia, Tanahari, Madagascar, Burkina Faso and Ouagadougou. Mainstream media such as Senegal web portal Seneweb, Burkina Faso Tinga News, CCTV Africa Branch, CGTN, Peoples Daily, China Daily, Zhejiang Daily etc., paid full attention and timely coverage to this conference.
The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, on Friday entreated individuals and corporate groups helping with the sharing of food to collaborate with the Ministry to avoid duplication of efforts.



Dr Rita Owusu Amankwa, the Director of Social Protection at the Ministry, said that would help ensure some people did not receive more food while others starved.



"Collaborate with us and tell us the points you are catering for and the number of food you are sharing so that we can take the food to the communities where people need it the most," she said.



Dr Amankwa made this known when the Ministry shared food for the vulnerable in the lockdown areas in the Greater Accra Region.



In collaboration with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, the National Disaster Management Organisation, and the Police, the Ministry distributed 7,000 packed foods to people at the Afua Sutherland Park, the Black Star Square, Art Centre, the Kwame Nkrumah Circle and Odorna Garages.



She said to avoid giving food to the same people twice, it was distributed simultaneously at all the centres.



Dr Amankwa advised people using children to collect food severally to desist from the practice and urged them to cooperate with the Ministry to reach out to all.

Source: GNA









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Featured Video
Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

When a pandemic strikes, the worlds leading experts convene  physically or virtually  in a hi-tech chamber in the basement of the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization.

It is called the strategic health operations centre, or SHOC, an appropriately urgent acronym for a place where life and death decisions are taken, and it is where critical choices were made in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak.

Were mostly like a 1950s, never-been-upgraded place, except for the SHOC room, which was built with all the screens everywhere and the desks with computers that rise up. The whole thing does look like something that Hollywood set up, imagining a pandemic, a WHO official said.

You sit there and you hear these experts from all over the world and theyre really leading people. The best expertise available to get the best advice possible, its a very impressive sense that hey, this is really how it is supposed to work.

On 22 January, it was in this setting that the WHO emergency committee convened to make a pivotal decision on whether to advise the organisation to declare a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC)  a formal red alert for the world.

The WHO had been sharing information with member states constantly since the first cluster of pneumonia cases was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of December, but declaring a PHEIC still had huge symbolic importance.

Related: Coronavirus has killed 30,000 Americans, and all Trump can do is blame the WHO

The WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, sat in the SHOC with his top advisers watching as a succession of speakers gave their views on the screens in front of them.

First there were reports from China, and then Japan and Thailand where cases had been recently confirmed. Then it was the turn of the 15 members and six advisers on the emergency committee, drawn from around the world.

The debate was highly technical but it had one critical issue at its heart. It was known by then that the virus had spread from person to person, but the question was how easily?

Story continues

If human-to-human transmission was only happening in close quarters, in families, or between patients and health workers, then perhaps it could be largely contained without a worldwide alert, and all the global economic disruption that entailed. If the virus was spreading freely among communities, there was not a moment to lose.

The emergency committee was split down the middle on the question. So Tedros told it to convene again the next day, in the hope new data might create a consensus.

Tedross only obligation under the law is to convene a committee but not to follow it. But he feels that politically he needs to get a unanimous decision before he acts or at least an overwhelming majority, Lawrence Gostin, a professor of public health law at Georgetown University, said.

The second days meeting however, changed no ones mind, and the impasse remained. Tedros had the committee adjourn pending further study and put it on notice to reconvene at short notice. A international health emergency was declared a week later, on 30 January, after clear evidence of community spread of Covid-19 had emerged.

WHO under fire

The events of January were always destined for scrutiny. The WHO conducts an after-action report in wake of every pandemic. But by seeking to make the global body the scapegoat for the debacle of the US response, Donald Trump has ensured each detail will become exhibits in a highly-politicised show-trial, likely to last as long as the election campaign.

Furthermore, the president has used claims of WHOs dysfunction to justify cutting off US funding to it, worth over $400m a year, and hindering the organisations ability to help counter the spread of the pandemic in fragile and poor countries around the world.

In a hail of accusations hurled at the WHO in recent days, Trump has accused it of withholding critical information about the danger of Covid-19, and being under the control of China.

None of the accusations are supported by the facts.

Theyre making it seem like hes (Tedros) a crony of China, but hes caught in the middle of a super power struggle competition Lawrence Gostin

China argued against declaring an emergency on 22 January, but could not have carried the argument alone. The other emergency members and advisers were experts from the US, Thailand, Russia, France, South Korea, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Australia, Senegal, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, and New Zealand.

Their advice is confidential, but for the vote to have been split, several western, or western-aligned, representatives must have voted with Beijing.

While the emergency committee took a week to decide to declare a PHEIC, Trump spent more than a month after that playing down the threat to the US, during which the country fell weeks behind the rest of the world in diagnostic testing and stockpiling essential equipment.

There is no evidence to support Trumps claim that the WHO hid information at Chinas behest. The US is well represented in the top ranks of the organisation. There were more than a dozen officials from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) embedded in the WHO in January and February.

US health leaders were part of regular conference calls, weekly or twice weekly, beginning on 7 January. From 10 January those calls included warnings about the risk of human-to-human transmission.

Commuters in Taipei wear face masks. Taiwan has been one of the most successful countries in controlling the coronavirus epidemic. Photograph: Ann Wang/Reuters

Trumps Taiwan angle

Trumps most recent line of attack has been that the WHO ignored vital warnings from Taiwan.

Why did the WHO Ignore an email from Taiwanese health officials in late December alerting them to the possibility that coronvirus could be transmitted between humans? the president asked in a tweet on Friday, echoing a claim made by Taipei.

However, the Taiwanese email appears to have made no such warning. It was sent from Taiwans CDC to its WHO liaison officer on 31 December, hours after the first official report of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan were published online.

According to the text provided to the Guardian, the email said: News resources today indicate that at least seven, atypical pneumonia cases were reported in China.

It restates the details of Chinese report, adding I would greatly appreciate it if you have relevant information to share with us.

The email did not contain new information, and certainly nothing about human-to-human transmission. The WHO had picked up the same report on the night of 30 December and was urgently seeking more information. On 1 January it activated its incident management support team, putting the organisation on an emergency footing.

Related: China's handling of coronavirus is a diplomatic challenge for WHO

The Taiwanese government has claimed that it did not receive a reply to its inquiry and was generally shut out from WHO deliberations. Since the UN voted to recognise the Peoples Republic as the sole representative of China in 1971 and the World Health Assembly followed suit in 1972, Taiwan has not had full member status in the WHO, but it is involved in the organisations work.

It is one of 15 non-state entities that have access to expert deliberations through an information network established by the International Health Regulations (IHR), a pact on collective action against infectious disease with roots stretching back to the nineteenth century. The latest version was agreed in 2005 by 196 countries, and it provides the legal framework for the work of the WHO.

However, Taiwan says its participation is fragmentary and selective, largely because Chinese obstruction. A Taipei government statement pointed out that it reported its first confirmed coronavirus case on 21 January through the IHR system, but was not invited to participate in the three emergency committee meetings held in January, where its voice may have made a difference.

Taiwanese experts were among the first to visit Wuhan, in the first half of January, and its containment measures later proved effective. Singapore, meanwhile, had two representatives on the committee.

The Covid-19 outbreak is a reminder to all the world once again, that politics has barred Taiwan from contact and communication with WHO and global public health experts, and this can only gravely damage global cooperation in epidemic prevention and control, the statement said.

Tedros has also drawn criticism for his tireless praise of China and Xi Jinpings leadership, hailing Beijings transparency despite the critical early weeks left when the authorities tried to cover up the extent of the problem in Wuhan. The director generals defenders say such diplomatic flattery is the price of ensuring Chinese cooperation with information and WHO site visits. Tedros also complimented Trump in a March 23 tweet, claiming he was doing a great job in the fight against Covid-19, and Trump was also effusive in praising Xi in the first weeks of the pandemic.

Theyre making it seem like hes a crony of China, but hes caught in the middle of a super power struggle competition, Gostin said.

The WHO also provided ammunition to its detractors when, on 14 January, it put out a tweet citing preliminary Chinese studies finding no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.

It was issued on the same day the WHOs technical lead on Covid-19, Maria Van Kerkhove (a US immunologist) gave a press briefing in Geneva warning of precisely the opposite  the potential for rapid spread. Concerned that her briefing conflicted with the initial Chinese findings, a middle-ranking official told the social media team to put out a tweet to balance the Van Kerkhove briefing. In so doing, the WHO exposed itself to the charge of contributing to an air of complacency. But the tweet was factually true and does not appear to have been part of a deliberate strategy.

Again and again, the events of January reflected the difficulties Tedros and his organisation faced in negotiating a path between two hostile superpowers, and the egos of their leaders, without any independent powers to enforce compliance and information sharing.

However, what mistakes that may have been made in charting that course have little to do with the lethal fiasco that unfolded in the US in the two months after the WHO raised an international alarm.
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Front-line staff in St Vincent's Hospital are being treated to a little luxury during their gruelling 12-hour shifts, thanks to a local restaurant in Malahide which is delivering complimentary cuisine to our 'hero workers.'

Rob Flanagan, owner of Siam Thai restaurant in Malahide, made his first delivery to St Vincent's Emergency Department last week, offering free thai meals to hard-working doctors and nurses.

Speaking to the Fingal Independent, Rob explains why he set up the service: 'It was just something to help out - the last while with the country going a bit mad, it was trying to look after the staff first and foremost, just to make sure they were okay with payments, then once everything was clear I was thinking 'how can I help?' kind of thing. Personally, where I wanted to help was people on the front-line, because they're the heroes of Ireland really.

'It's for the Emergency Department in Vincent's. We've a branch of the restaurant in Malahide and another in Dundrum, so we would have a lot of regulars who are doctors, nurses and everything else.'

Rob says he now plans to get in touch with some other Dublin hospitals to see if frontline staff there would be interested in his generous service.

Now with some extra time on his hands since his Malahide restaurant temporarily closed, he feels he would like to help out in any way he can, he says.

Rob says: 'It kind of keeps a bit of sanity for the front-line, to have something to look forward and a treat that's not like a sandwich or something in the canteen.

'We're just trying to bring a smile to people's faces on the frontline, and if we can, that would be great.'

Rob points out the Siam Thai takeaway in Malahide continues to offer a delivery service throughout the coronavirus lockdown.
Thousands of people rushed to the beach in Jacksonville, Florida after the citys mayor ordered a partial reopening of public spaces that were closed due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Thousands filled the sand on Friday evening following the order, with few showing signs of following guidance on social distancing.

Mayor Lenny Curry ordered the reopening in the mornings and evenings in what he said was the beginning of the pathway back to normal life.

Please respect and follow these limitations. Stay within the guidelines for your safety as well as for the safety of your neighbors, he said.

The beaches will be open from 6am to 11am and from 5pm to 8pm for exercise only, the citys website said. Beachgoers will be allowed to swim and run, but will be banned from sunbathing, gathering in large groups and setting up chairs.

The order came after Donald Trump unveiled his administrations plan to reopen the country in phases to bring the stumbling economy back to life. Some state governors have expressed concern that the plan would only work with mass testing  which the US is currently lacking.

Health officials in Florida have confirmed more than 23,000 Covid-19 cases in the state and at least 633 deaths.

Mr Curry said he could reverse his decision if the plan didnt work.

If for some reason it turns to helter-skelter, were going to pull the plug again, he said on Friday.

People are seen at the beach on April 17, 2020 in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry announced Thursday that Duval Countys beaches would open at 5 p.m. but only for restricted hours and can only be used for swimming, running, surfing, walking, biking, fishing, and taking care of pets. (Getty Images / Sam Greenwood)

Floridas Republican governor Ron DeSantis was criticised for being slow to issue statewide stay-at-home orders as the virus was spreading around the country. Beaches remained open in the state through Spring Break, when students from around the country came to the state to celebrate the holiday.

Governor DeSantis had already expressed support for reopening some public spaces, and has played down the risk of transmission.

You look at how this disease is transmitted, its transmitted overwhelmingly when you are in close, sustained contact with people, usually in an indoor environment, Mr DeSantis said. Going forward, we got to be promoting people to get exercise, do it in a good way, to do it in a safe way.

The US currently has more than 700,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and some 37,000 deaths. Despite the high numbers, some hotspots such as New York have seen a plateau of hospitalisations over the past week.
Among Americas 235 million people eligible to cast ballots this fall are low-information voters, or lowfos, a sizable subset of the electorates independents bloc. Many lead busy lives, dont venture beyond the headlines, and are generally a pox on all your houses apolitical.

Lowfos may be ignorant about current events, but they are not stupid. If they vote at all, which way they fall might be determined by the last ad they saw or headline scanned. At least, thats the way it used to before coronavirus and stay at home forced them inside with nothing to do but get up to speed on whats happened to upend their routines. This is bad news for Democrats.

During their confinement, lowfos have been watching Trumps daily tour de force briefings and seen a confident, informed, indefatigable leader taking charge and making decisions. It has not escaped them that the president was a businessman with real-world experience most of his life while the swamp creatures haranguing him have been Washington pols most of theirs. Anyone who hasnt drunk the Lefts Kool-Aid knows that the loyal opposition and their media cohorts are doing everything in their power to shake public confidence in the president for political gain.

When Democrats started the blame game early on, they had already lost the Trumps at fault argument to common sense. In a recent American Spectator piece, a doctor with an infectious diseases background makes a point about culpability that people not suffering from TDS understand intuitively:

For those who want to assign blame, saying, We werent prepared, They dont know what theyre doing, etc., please stop. You marginalize everything you say when you lead with that. Youre speaking based on fear or bias or hatred, and none of that is helpful. No one is ever fully prepared for every possible crisis.

In their irrational frenzy to tar Trump for something/anything related to the pandemic, Democrats have dropped their masks and openly exploited the crisis. You dont have to be a rocket scientist to conclude the presidents enemies see the pandemic, broken economy and social isolation as pillars in their strategy to unseat Trump. These are the prices that must be paid for the greater good: voters turning on the administration and the GOP and ushering into power politicians bent on subverting the Constitution and the rule of law to remake the USA into the USSA -- the United Socialist States of America.

If the goal is to paralyze Trump, cause him to wither in the face of constant attack and attempt to appease his tormentors, it isnt working. Hes standing taller every day, almost as though hes anticipated this moment all his life. And the people who cared not a whit for politics before the pandemic have noticed.

It wont show up in the polls because the newly engaged more information voters keep their own counsel and hang up on pollsters. But theyve swallowed the red pill, and their eyes are now open. November will tell the tale.

Steve Grammatico is the author of You Hear Me, Barack? PC-Free Conservative Satire. He blogs at You Hear Me, Barack? A Repository of Conservative Satire, where hes reprised an Obama War Room spoof featuring Joe Biden.
The Armenian National Assembly voted unanimously to approve amendments to the Law on Trade and Services that will see the single-use plastic banned, PublicRadio of Armenia reports.

The changes envisage banning the use of polyethylene sacks and bags of up to 50 microns in thickness (except for sacks used for wrapping and sacks and bags made from secondary raw materials).

The bill was tabled by the Government.

The executive says the widespread use of polyethylene sacks and bags in the sphere of trade and services in Armenia has led to environmental problems.
Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala on Saturday asked the Centre to immediately lift the National Green Tribunal ban on the operation of brick kilns in NCR, saying the has become largely clean during the nationwide lockdown.

Chautala, whose Jannayak Janta Party is a coalition partner of the BJP in Haryana, made this demand during a meeting of Union Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar with states' rural development ministers via video conference, an official statement said.

"During the nationwide lockdown period, the in NCR has become largely clean and over 57 per cent of Haryana's area falls under the region," Chautala said.

The National Green Tribunal had earlier this year directed the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to conduct a carrying capacity study of brick kilns in NCR and other regions and its impact on ambient air quality.

The NGT had said that brick kilns can be permitted only after ascertaining the carrying capacity and the number of units functional in an area without the risk of degrading the

During the lockdown, the deputy chief minister said, MGNREGA workers should be allowed to engage in agricultural work, whether it is harvesting, loading-unloading in mandis or storing in godowns.

He also demanded that the central government make Aadhaar data available to the state through application programming interface to prevent double entries in wages being paid under the MGNREGA.

Chautala also informed Tomar that procurement of mustard in Haryana had started from April 15, while the purchase of wheat will begin from April 20.

The Union minister asked states to engage MGNREGA labourers in construction works under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.

Tomar also appreciated the steps being taken by the states to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Modified On May 04, 2020 10:03 AM By Sonny

From LEGO face shields to face masks for the hearing impaired, here are some positives to stay hopeful during this pandemic

The nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus has been extended from April 15 to May 3. Across the globe, several countries are extending their versions of the lockdown with the same objective, some with better results than others. The battle against this crisis continues and so do small victories across the world. Heres some good news from the fight against COVID-19:

Over 5 Lakh People Have Recovered

Even though the number of infections is on the rise, it is important to know that more and more people are also recovering from COVID-19. In the last week itself, more than 1 lakh people have reportedly recovered from the disease, taking the current tally of cured patients to over 5 lakh. As the measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus begin to take effect, detection and treatment should pick up pace too.

Source

Also read: Good News Roundup: The Fight Against Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vol. 2

LEGO Factory Is Making Protective Plastic Face Shields

The worlds favourite creative toy brand has also stepped forward to help healthcare workers. The LEGO factory in Billund, Denmark, has reconfigured some of its machinery to manufacture over 13,000 plastic visors a day. These plastic face shields will be distributed to healthcare workers across Denmark where over 6,000 cases have been confirmed so far. LEGO has also promised to donate 5 lakh sets to children in need. Along with these relief efforts, LEGO has a weblink for parents and kids where they can try building LEGO sets.

Source

India Post Vans Being Used To Deliver Crucial Medicines During Lockdown

As the nationwide lockdown has been extended till May 3, the usual supply chains remain disrupted. It has affected the logistics between hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and labs as well. However, the Indian postal service, which falls under the essential services category, will be using its red vans for delivery of essential medicines across the country. These could be life-saving drugs or even crucial medication for those with heart conditions or even cancer. India Post is one of the best-connected services in India and has already been in use during the lockdown for transporting items like COVID-19 testing kits, N95 masks, and ventilators.

Source

Select Services In India To Resume Post April 20

The announcement for the extension of the lockdown included this silver lining. The government will allow certain businesses and services to resume operations in areas outside of the coronavirus hotspots from April 20. This includes couriers, grocery stores, self-employed services (plumber, electrician, carpenter), farming, industries outside city limits, and facilities involved in the supply of essential goods. The government has also prescribed various protocols that need to be followed by businesses that will reopen from April 20. This includes social distancing at the workplace, temperature screening, and longer gaps between shifts.

Related: Coronavirus Update: Lockdown Extended Till May 3

College Student Sewing Special Face Masks For The Hearing Impaired

People around the world are doing what they can to find a solution for the lack of PPE. Many people have even been making face masks at home, however, these are not suitable for those with hearing disabilities. Ashley Lawrence, a 21-year-old college student in the US, recognised this problem and decided to use her free time to make masks with plastic windows over the mouth so ASL speakers can still use lip-reading for communication. She has been shipping these masks to hospitals and hearing impaired individuals for free. She also plans to post a how-to video on YouTube so others can learn how to make these masks.

Source

Motorbike Ambulances For Rural Areas and Tight Spaces

Access to medical relief and hospitals is not easy for everyone in India, let along during a nationwide lockdown brought about by a global pandemic. This problem is even more prevalent in rural areas as well as tight-spaced urban areas where transport is not easily available to carry patients to nearby hospitals. Thus, the use of motorbike ambulances, which are more like trikes. It adds a flat-bed construction like a sidecar where a patient can be placed flat. The sidecar rolls on its own wheel and features a swingarm suspended on two shock absorbers for a smooth ride.

Hero MotoCorp, one of Indias largest manufacturers of two-wheelers, has donated 60 of these to help combat the pandemic. It used its Xtreme 200R bike for the motorbike ambulance while the sidecar bed features a blue flashing light and a box for first-aid and tools. The Xtreme 200R uses a 199.6cc engine that produces 18.4PS and 17.1Nm.

You can also read last week's edition of the good news bulletin here.
Many would agree that the sight of a stakes race on a major TV network is welcome and good for the sport. But it takes a special kind of horse to be invited as a guest on a late night talk show segment.

He was The Horse That God Loved, and his name was Rambling Willie. Born 50 years ago today (April 18, 1970) in Monroeville, Indiana, Rambling Willie was a true superstar of harness racing in the late 1970s and early 1980s. At the time of his retirement in 1983 he was the leading Standardbred money winner of all time with more than $2 million earned, and most of his wins coming from overnight and invitational races. The winner of 128 races in 305 starts, Rambling Willie was a three-time winner of the Canadian Pacing Derby -- 1975 in a dead heat with Pickwick Baron, 1976 and 1977.

A $15,000 purchase by trainer/driver Bob Farrington, ownership was later split between Bobs wife Vivian and Paul Seibert. Mrs. Farrington in turn pledged 10% of Willies earnings to the church where her father served as pastor, earning the gelding the nickname The Horse That God Loved. In 1981 a book titled with that nickname was published. Willie and his connections did a promotional tour that included races in 17 cities and appearances on television shows including 60 Minutes and The Merv Griffin Show, the equivalent to appearing on the shows of Jimmy Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon today.

Following his retirement from racing in 1983, Willie moved to the Kentucky Horse Park where he resided until his passing in 1995, when he was buried near his paddock at the Hall of Champions. Rambling Willie was inducted into the United States Harness Racing Hall of Fame in 1997 and into the Indiana Standardbred Hall of Fame in 2003.

Robin Cruise is the niece of the late Bob Farrington, and fondly recalled Rambling Willie's desire to win and a special bond he had with her aunt Vivian.

"One thing that I can remember about Willie was he knew my aunt Viv," Cruise recently told Trot Insider. "When she would come to the barn -- she never worked in the barn, she just did the books and whatnot -- but when she came to the barn his whole presence changed. She always fed him peppermints. She would go down to see him in the paddock and pet before a race and she always said she knew how he was going to do, but never told anyone. She just had that read; it was kind of a special thing that they had between them."

A small piece of history was revealed earlier this week that might surprise some people about Rambling Willie. As a two-year-old, Willie finished second in three of four starts at Indiana county fairs but got his start in Ohio. This matinee race program from the Mercer County Harness Horsemen's Association shows Rambling Willie in action on Mother's Day -- May 14, 1972. According to the chart, he finished fifth in a mile timed in 2:23.1. Many thanks to Rusty Voorhees for sharing.

After Rambling Willie's passing, Bob Farrington was asked what he had seen in the star pacer that others missed during the early part of his career. Farrington replied, "The most important thing about a racehorse, you can't see."

Rambling Willie will join driver Paul MacDonell, trainer Ben Wallace, male horse McWicked and female horse Amour Angus in the Standardbred wing of the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2020.
Even before Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex went public with their decision to leave the British royal family, things had reportedly been tense between the Sussexes and other members of the British royal family. While the Duchess of Sussex and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge were seemingly friendly enough, the royal brothers were struggling.

Prince William and Prince Harry had been thick as thieves for years, always laughing and joking at one anothers side. However, in recent years, royal fans and experts began to see some notable tension between the two that wasnt there before.

As the older prince began prepping in earnest for his future role as the Crowned King, Prince Harry seemed determined to define a path for himself. The younger princes path has led him to a new life in Los Angeles, California. Though the Duchess of Cambridge had reportedly tried to help the brothers mend fences in the past, these days shes staying out of the drama.

'As brothers you have good days, you have bad days'



Prince Harry says the 'majority of stuff' written about his relationship with his brother William is 'created out of nothing' and adds: 'I love him dearly' #HarryAndMeghan https://t.co/GWs5KfuovM pic.twitter.com/bW7GVALZR6  ITV News (@itvnews) October 20, 2019

Prince William and Prince Harry have been in touch

Prince Harry first confirmed the rumors of a rift between himself and his older brother in October 2019. Part of this role and part of this job and this family, being under the pressure that its under, stuff happens but were brothers, Prince Harry revealed in ITVs Harry and Meghan: An African Journey. Well always be brothers, and were certainly on different paths at the moment, but Ill always be there for him, and hell always be there for me. We dont see each other as much as we used to because were so busy, but I love him dearly, and the majority of the stuff is created out of nothing, but you know, as brothers you have good days, you have bad days.

After a seemingly tense encounter during the Sussexes final royal engagement, Commonwealth Day on March 9, it appears that the coronavirus (COVID-19) global crisis has actually brought the brothers closer together. Meghan told her inner circle of friends that Harry has been communicating with Prince William and the Queen on a pretty consistent basis, an insider told Daily Mail. She said this world crisis has actually brought them all closer together, especially Harry and his brother. Harry has made it very clear to them that he will do whatever he can to help from Canada. Meghan said they are grateful, especially Harry, that they could spend time with his family before all this insanity began.

Kate Middleton hoped Prince William and Prince Harry would mend fences

Like her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Cambridge hated to see her husband and his brother so far apart. It was especially challenging for Kate since she and Prince Harry were once very close. The Duke of Cambridge called her the sister he never had.

She wishes she could speak to Harry. She misses him and fears shell never be close to him again, an insider told US Weekly. Unfortunately, Kate and Meghan were never able to form a close bond. They couldnt be further apart, the source explained.

Kate Middleton refuses to get in the middle of Prince Harry and Prince Williams drama

Amid Megxit and the coronavirus pandemic, the Duchess of Cambridge has been focusing on her children and the people of the U.K. Kate hates to see Meghan and Harry so miserable, a source told US Weekly. But while Kates concerned about Harry and Meghans well-being, she tries to stay out of the drama.[She] hopes William and Harry will eventually heal the rift and let bygones be bygones.
The government has so far purchased around 1.34 lakh tonnes of pulses and nearly 30,000 tonnes of oilseeds from farmers worth Rs 785 crore during the ongoing marketing season of rabi (winter) crops.

State-owned Food Corporation of India (FCI) and cooperative NAFED procured pulses and oilseeds at the minimum support price (MSP), on behalf of the government.

"As on 16th April 2020, a quantity of 1,33,987.65 tonnes of pulses and 29,264.17 tonnes of oilseeds was procured by NAFED/FCI valued at Rs 784.77 crores through which 1,14,338 farmers have been benefited," an official statement said.

During the lockdown period 97,337.35 tonnes of rabi pulses and oilseeds have been procured under the price support scheme (PSS).

"Procurement of notified commodities at minimum support price (MSP) from the farmers in several states in the rabi 2020-21 (marketing season) has started. Farmers are being given timely marketing support in the time of lockdown," the statement said.

The procurement of rabi pulses and oilseeds from farmers under the PSS scheme is currently in progress in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

Toor is being procured from farmers by NAFED at MSP under the price stabilisation fund (PSF) scheme and also for the buffer stock of pulses.

Toor procurement under PSS/PSF kharif (summer sown) 2019-20 marketing season is also underway in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and Telangana.

Total procurement of toor (arhar) during kharif marketing season 2019-20 is 5,32,849 tonnes, out of which 29,328.62 tonnes of toor has been procured since the lockdown period.

Procurement of mustard seeds and gram has started in Haryana in 163 centres. Limited numbers of farmers are being called everyday to maintain social distancing. About 27,276.77 tonnes of mustard seed has been procured from about 10,111 farmers in the first two days.

Preparations have been made for procurement of gram, masoor and mustard in Madhya Pradesh and farmers have been informed to bring their produce to the procurement centres.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Jean Didio Sanchez, a supercentenarian who at age 107 is believed to be Staten Islands oldest resident, died April 9. Her health had been declining. Jean had been a resident of Silver Lake Specialized Care Center since 2009.

Born in Manhattan on Sept. 16, 1912, she would have turned a 108 in four months.

Jeans mom and dad, who immigrated from Italy during the early part of the 20th century, were the parents of eight children  four girls and four boys. Jean was the oldest.

In a photo taken nearly 107 years ago, are Jean Didio Sanchez, when she was just a few months old, her mother and her aunt. (Courtesy/Anita Bosley)Staten Island Advance

She met Joseph Sanchez, the love of her life, who was a native of Tampa, Fla. The two crossed paths while Joseph was vacationing in New York.

After their marriage, the couple lived for a time in Tampa, where Jean worked in Tampa General Hospital. And although they chose to settle in Manhattan, the borough where they were married, they later set up home in the Bronx.

Jean Didio Sanchez and her husband, Joseph, during their younger years. (Courtesy/Anita Bosley)Staten Island Advance

The Sanchezes had four children, Richard Sanchez, Patricia Seger, Anita Bosley and JoAnn Rivers, who is now deceased.

Like many residents of the other four boroughs, Staten Island was a vacation mecca. Jean and Joseph owned a bungalow in the former Spanish Colony on the beach in Annadale, a longtime favorite vacation spot where Sanchez family members said they made many cherished memories of summers spent on the shores of Staten Island.

However, during the mid-1950s Jean and Joseph sold their bungalow, and because they were already familiar with the South Shore community, purchased a home on Poillion Avenue, where they resided until 1970 when Jeans husband died.

During her younger years, Jean worked as a seamstress at the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin at Mount Loretto in Pleasant Plains and was a cashier at Penn Fruit in West Brighton. And during her later years was an office receptionist, retiring when she was 60.

Jean moved to the west coast of Florida to be near her son, Richard, and his wife. But she returned to Staten Island to be closer to her daughter, JoAnn, who had taken ill.

Ironically, Jean and her daughter both were residents of Silver Lake Specialized Care Center at the same time. JoAnn died five years ago at the Brighton Heights health care facility.

Jean Didio Sanchez and her daughter, Anita Bosley. (Courtesy/Anita Bosley)Staten Island Advance

Through the years spent at Silver Lake, Jean enjoyed many happy moments playing Bingo and singing her favorite tunes.

A music lover who was blessed with a melodic voice and a keen ear, Jeans daughter, Patricia Seger recounted a heartwarming story about her mom.

A few weeks before the coronavirus pandemic struck, Patricia visited her mom, always making sure to bring a few of her favorite specialty dishes.

This particular time she brought a spaghetti and meatballs and she was so impressed with the way in which her mom ate a half pound of spaghetti and a large meatball.

Then she got very quiet and had a smile on her face and started to sing a song, said Patricia. It was the same song that my granddaughter sang at my husbands funeral. People heard her and remained. The song was Till There Was You. She knew all the words as well as the tune so perfectly."

That was the last time Patricia was able to see her mom because of the rigid coronavirus restrictions being imposed.

Her singing that song happened at the right time. And we were left with wonderful memories of my mom and we celebrate her.

Jean is also survived by 10 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren and 10 great-great-grandchildren  five generations in all.
A clutch of congresspeople are pushing for the marijuana industry to be included in the next round of government relief for businesses and people affected by the economic fallout of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The lawmakers have made a formal request for such assistance in a brief letter to House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

All told, the document bears the names of 34 members of the House. It's a bipartisan group which includes Democrats Katie Porter and Tulsi Gabbard, and Republican Matt Gaetz.

The recently passed CARES Act coronavirus relief package did not provide any support for the marijuana industry, despite its $2 trillion size. The 34 lawmakers hope to change that, asking in their letter that the sector not only be included in future aid packages, but that cannabis companies also be permitted to receive financial assistance from the government's Small Business Administration (SBA).

At the moment, since the drug remains technically illegal at the federal level, cannabis businesses are prohibited from receiving government funding.

The letter states that marijuana is a business employing around 240,000 people in this country. And despite its struggles, it produces tax revenue for states and municipalities -- a figure of $1.9 billion last year alone is quoted.

If the lawmakers' request is granted, many cannabis businesses large and small in the U.S. would benefit from the help. One that's under a bit of pressure these days is Curaleaf Holdings (OTC:CURLF). Based in Massachusetts and the operator of several dispensaries there, Curaleaf is coping with a shutdown of the state's recreational marijuana market in the wake of the coronavirus.

On Friday, Curaleaf's stock rose by 1.7%; however, that figure was outpaced by the brisk gains of the wider stock market.
The distribution of government-issued cloth face masks that are to be provided to every household in the country in the effort to fight the novel coronavirus outbreak began in Tokyo on Friday.

Post office mail delivery personnel in Setagaya Ward, which has the largest population among the 23 wards in the capital, dropped off two masks at each home, along with instructions on how to wash the protective items .

Deliveries will be rolled out in other municipalities and prefectures at a later date.

The face masks cost about A200 apiece. The final price tag for the government will be around A46.6 billion, including for procurement and delivery.

The project has drawn questions and criticisms from both ruling and opposition parties. Some have taken to calling the masks aAbenomasks,a a pun on Abeas key economic policy mix, Abenomics.

Online marketplace operators Mercari Inc. and Yahoo Japan Corp. have banned the sale of the cloth face masks on their platforms.
Hyundai is planning to go ahead with new vehicle launches despite the Covid-19 challenges. It is looking at various factors to start manufacturing in its Chennai unit, with the Tamil Nadu government likely to allow limited operations in factories located in rural areas and industrial estates, starting Monday, April 20.

Hyundai believes the work-from-home (WFH) model is quite effective as its project works are ongoing and employees have been working, even during the lockdown on all the new models that it plans to launch. New ideas have been generated in large numbers and are expected ...
A team of community-minded cleaners are helping to keep people safe during the coronavirus crisis.

Jake Anthony, 27, and his team from City Cleaning Specialists, have been out and about in protective gear disinfecting public areas of Southampton city centre and beyond.

While many in the area have been staying inside as the pandemic continues, they have been keen to do their bit for the community.

They have been cleaning and sanitising benches, public play areas and other street furniture, using the companys equipment free of charge.

Speaking to the PA news agency, Mr Anthony said: We are literally just doing our bit, just community spirit. Just giving something back to the community, really.

Lets give the community some hope.

He and his team were out in Eastleigh town centre in Hampshire on Saturday morning, wearing their white protective gear as they disinfected public areas.

Mr Anthony added: We have had a few people beep their horns, a few people clapping. Its been amazing.

He said if he could save just one person from getting Covid-19 it would all have been worth it, and vowed to keep going until the virus is well and truly out the way.

City Cleaning Specialists uses a specialist soft wash machine, which only 25 people in the the UK are certified to use, Mr Anthony said.

A GoFundMe page has been set up by members of the community to raise money for cleaning supplies: gofundme.com/f/help-jake-sanitise-southampton039s-public-spaces
Lawyers have cautioned Commonwealth governments not to misuse the emergency powers that they have enacted as part of their efforts to combat the deadly coronavirus.



When the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic in March, extraordinary measures were taken by various Commonwealth authorities.



All, to various extents, restricted freedom of movement and conferred additional powers on the Executive to provide directives to organs for security.



The UK-based Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA), while acknowledging the moves by governments, noted: there have been actions taken that raise concerns about the extent to which Rule of Law and Human Rights are being respected.



The CLA said in a statement: Giving the police emergency powers, for example to impose fines and to be able to order people away from open spaces, requires those powers to be applied with proportionality.



Emergency legislation must address the emergency.



Such emergency powers should not be seen as an opportunity to pass laws which simply shore up a government or political party.



The Rule of Law provides for scrutiny by Parliament of the acts of the Executive; allows informed criticism and debate without fear or stifling; allows for independence of the Judiciary and the legal profession.



The Executive must operate knowing it will be held to account, it added.



In Nigeria, for example, the countrys National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said on Wednesday that it had recorded "105 complaints of incidents of human rights violations perpetuated by security forces" in 24 of the 36 states in the Federation, as well as Abuja.



The NHRC said it had recorded 18 extrajudicial killings by the security forces, more than the 12 Nigerians who had officially died from coronavirus infection.



In the UK, where the lockdown has been extended for another three weeks, there have been complaints that the police were being too over-exuberant in enforcing government guidelines. These are urging people to stay at home and venturing out only for essentials such as food, health reasons and work that could not be done at home.



There have been reports that the police have been checking shoppers in supermarkets and questioning them whether what they were buying were essential supplies.



The CLA, which promotes the Rule of Law throughout the Commonwealth, said: The emergency legislation in many countries has been taken at speed and often with little or no Parliamentary scrutiny.



The Judiciary has been closed.



As a result, normal due process has been subsumed in the emergency of coping, or being seen to deal with the pandemic.



The statement went on: It is, nevertheless, essential whilst looking after the population, that governments maintain a high level of proportionality and are seen to apply the principles of the Rule of Law and Human Rights.



Governments need to strike a balance between the rights of people and the need to protect from COVID-19.



On the one hand are the rights to freedom of speech and movement, to enjoyment of family life; to privacy and to enjoy health care and education.



And on the other hand, the state must provide protection and security, the lawyers said.



They added that they were worried that insufficient consideration is being paid, in parts of the Commonwealth, to the importance of these principles and achieving the right balance.



They cautioned: The Executive in any parliamentary democracy must be scrutinised by Parliament.



The emergency legislation passed must not carry on when the emergency has passed.



These powers have a season and are unconstitutional in normal times.



The politicians who find themselves as part of an Executive at this time have responsibilities and are accountable.



On the issue of the restrictions imposed on movement and liberty, the CLA said these must be taken against the clearest weight of scientific evidence.



To confine people in their homes or anywhere else  and often in cramped, not necessarily sanitary conditions, which themselves are a source of ill health, disease or contamination  requires commensurate evidence that such confinement is of benefit to them and the society where restrictions are imposed, the CLA said.



The lawyers urged Commonwealth governments to act proportionately; act in a way which targets the current emergency and not for other purposes; ensure that emergency powers are only valid for the time of the emergency; and take into account, in all decision making relating to the Covid-19 pandemic, the necessity of abiding by, upholding and respecting the Rule of Law.

Source: GNA









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Money-saving app Snoop launched yesterday, earlier than expected in an attempt to help consumers cut costs in the coronavirus squeeze.

Founded and led by former Virgin Money boss Jayne-Anne Gadhia, the app uses technology to recommend users a list of personalised money-saving ideas.

According to its estimates, it could save the average household up to 1,500 per year. The app was expected to launch in May but said it brought the roll-out forward to help people manage their household outgoings through the lockdown and during the economic slump which is expected to follow.

Finger on the pulse: The app uses technology to recommend users a list of personalised money-saving ideas

Gadhia, Snoop's executive chairman, said: 'The coronavirus pandemic has been a game-changer for everyone. We know money is going to be tight for many in the months to come and so we've worked flat out to get to market as soon as humanly possible.'

Snoop uses so-called open banking technology to connect to a customer's bank account and credit cards and, with their permission, analyse the data. It then uses a mix of artificial and human intelligence to suggest ways in which customers could cut costs.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Human Rights Watch said Saturday that the coronavirus pandemic doesnt justify Malaysias turning away of overloaded boats carrying Muslim Rohingya and risking the refugees lives.

The New York-based rights group noted that Malaysia had recently pushed back to sea at least two boatloads of Rohingya refugees. Despite Malaysias partial coronavirus lockdown that prevents foreigners from entering the country, Human Rights Watch said the pandemic should not be an excuse for a blanket policy of turning away boats in distress.

Malaysias claims to support the rights of the Rohingya mean shockingly little when they push desperate refugees back to sea, said Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watchs Asia director. The COVID-19 pandemic does not create a justification for risking the lives of refugees on overcrowded boats.

Predominantly Muslim Malaysia has previously protested the persecution of the Rohingya and sought justice for them. But its navy on Thursday intercepted a boat with some 200 Rohingya refugees off its northern coast and prevented it from entering Malaysian waters. The fate of that boat is unknown.

On Wednesday, Bangladesh coast guard officials rescued a boatload of 382 starving Rohingya refugees. Survivors said the boat had been turned away from Malaysian waters weeks earlier and that at least 30 people on board had died before the rescue.

Malaysias National Security Council on Saturday defended the decision by enforcement agencies to turn away the boat amid concerns that the refugees might be exposed to the coronavirus. Malaysia, which has recorded 5,251 coronavirus cases with 86 deaths, has tightened border patrols to prevent illegal immigrants from sneaking in, the National Security Council said.

Siti Sabrina Imji Rahim, a senior official on the councils COVID-19 task force, said that sending the refugees to detention camps could increase the risk of spreading the virus. She said in an email reply to a query from The Associated Press that the refugees were given food and fresh water before being turned away.

Human Rights Watch, however, said Malaysias pushback policy violates international obligations to provide access to asylum seekers, and noted that the refugees could have been isolated or quarantined. It said the COVID-19 outbreak has only intensified the misery of an estimated 600,000 Rohingya who remain in Myanmar and nearly a million living in refugee camps in Bangladesh after fleeing persecution by Myanmars military.

The Malaysian government can both protect against the spread of the virus and ensure that those risking their lives at sea are rescued and given a chance to seek asylum, Robertson said.
Researchers from Protein Production UK, a collaborative project led by The Rosalind Franklin Institute, have isolated nanobodies - a type of antibody used in research, which bind to the 'spike' protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The team have already made these nanobodies, which bind with high affinity to the 'spike' protein, available to researchers at The University of Oxford. They will be making these important research tools widely available to other research groups around the world.

Nanobodies are antibodies found in camelids (llamas, alpacas and camels), which are much smaller than human antibodies. Their high stability, small structure, and specificity makes them ideal for the purification and stabilisation of proteins and protein structures, prior to imaging.

The team at The Franklin are targeting their work at a protein which sits on the outside of the SARS-CoV-2 viral particle known as the 'spike', which binds to human cells during an infection. This protein has a specific area - the receptor binding domain (RBD) - which is responsible for this binding action. The protein is a major target in COVID-19 research, as it plays a pivotal role in infection and may be a strong target for future vaccines and therapies.

Nanobodies can stabilise the 'spike' to enable better imaging at the atomic scale, using advanced imaging techniques including cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). The nanobodies also enable the RBD to be stabilised bound to its target, helping researchers better understand how it behaves in the body, and how it might interact with new drugs.

The team are also investigating whether the nanobodies they identify, or therapies derived from them, could be used to create highly specific 'blockers', which could contribute to treatments for COVID-19, by preventing the SARS-CoV-2 virus from binding to human cells and causing infection. There is also potential in nanobodies for diagnostics, creating highly efficient and quick tests.

Professor James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute explains: ""One single protein often has multiple target sites (epitopes) for the human immune system to produce antibodies to bind to. When antibodies bind to certain epitopes they 'neutralise' the virus, this prevents further infection thus stopping the virus in its tracks. The tools that PPUK, a model for multi-partner collaborations, will make available will be helpful to scientists working on SARS-CoV-2 virus."

Identifying which nanobodies have 'binding' and which have 'binding and neutralising' actions is a key next step for the group, and one which will see them search for a wider range of nanobodies, and compare their action to human antibodies derived from patient samples.

Professor Ray Owens, who leads Protein Production UK for The Franklin, says: "There is an unprecedented level of team-work and collaboration globally to image, understand, and treat COVID-19. We are working with colleagues at the University of Oxford to use the nanobodies developed here at The Franklin, to gain insights into the structure of the virus that causes COVID -19"

The Rosalind Franklin Institute is a new national research institute, funded by UK Research and Innovation through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Its mission is to develop and apply disruptive new technologies in the physical and engineering sciences to transform the UK's life science research and pharma sector.

###

Notes to editors:

About Protein Production UK

Protein Production UK (PPUK) is a project hosted by The Rosalind Franklin Institute in partnership with Diamond Light Source, the UK's national synchrotron light source, (http://www.diamond.ac.uk), and is tasked with devising new ways to deliver 'the right sample, at the right time, for the right experiment'. This involves improving existing technology and developing new methods, that will, enable the structural biology community to keep pace with the rapidly expanding range of tools available for analysis, using X-rays and electrons.

PPUK has established the nanobody discovery platform in The Franklin's Structural Biology Theme, and the rapid production of these reagents for Covid 19 work by PPUK is proof of the strategic importance of such a facility in the UK.

PPUK is currently based at the Research Complex at Harwell http://www.rc-harwell.ac.uk

Diamond Light Source have created a page dedicated to their world leading research on COVID-19 - https://www.diamond.ac.uk/covid-19.html.

More information about Structural Biology Facilities across Europe focused on research into Covid 19 is available on https://instruct-eric.eu/covid19.

The Rosalind Franklin Institute

The Rosalind Franklin Institute is a national institute dedicated to transforming life science through interdisciplinary research and technology development. The Institute will bring together researchers in life, physical science, and engineering, to develop disruptive new technologies designed to tackle major challenges in health and life sciences. Focussing initially on five major research themes, the Institute will have significant impact in imaging, diagnostics, drug development, and many more fields.

The Franklin is funded through the UK Research and Innovation through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The Institute is an independent organisation founded by the UK Research and Innovation, ten UK universities, and Diamond Light Source, and will have its central hub at the Harwell Campus.

The Rosalind Franklin Institute is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales, registration number 11266143. We are a Registered Charity, number 1179810.

Twitter: @RosFrankInst http://www.rfi.ac.uk

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

The EPSRC is the main funding body for engineering and physical sciences research in the UK. By investing in research and postgraduate training, we are building the knowledge and skills base needed to address the scientific and technological challenges facing the nation.

Our portfolio covers a vast range of fields from healthcare technologies to structural engineering, manufacturing to mathematics, advanced materials to chemistry. The research we fund has impact across all sectors. It provides a platform for future UK prosperity by contributing to a healthy, connected, resilient, productive nation.

EPSRC is part of UK Research and Innovation, a new body which works in partnership with universities, research organisations, businesses, charities, and government to create the best possible environment for research and innovation to flourish. We aim to maximise the contribution of each of our component parts, working individually and collectively. We work with our many partners to benefit everyone through knowledge, talent and ideas. For more information visit UK Research and Innovation.
There have been more than 100 sightings of endangered giant kelp in the waters off Tasmania, raising hopes these plants might have warm-water resistant characteristics that scientists could use to restore kelp forests.

Recreational fishers have been helping Tasmanian scientists by logging sightings of remnant giant kelp via a new phone app, called Kelp Tracker. The sightings have been in southern and northern waters in the past few months.

Giant kelp can grow to 30 metres tall. Credit:Cayne Layton

Giant kelp forests once dominated the islands eastern coastline, often growing so thickly in bays that kayakers and fishing boats had to push a path through the fronds.

But 95 per cent of these extensive and dense kelp forests have died over the past four decades as a result of climate change, with warm ocean currents from eastern Australia pushing into colder Tasmanian waters.
The live-action movie, "Artemis Fowl" will be premiere on Disney Plus on June 12.

The film was set to have a worldwide theatrical release on May 29 but the studio, Walt Disney, recently decided to send it directly to its streaming service Disney Plus, reported Vareity.

Artemis Fowl, directed by Kenneth Branagh from a script by Irish playwright Conor McPherson, is an adaptation of Eoin Colfer's book of the same name.

It follows 12-year-old Artemis (Ferdia Shaw), who finds himself in a battle of strength and cunning against a powerful, hidden race of fairies who may be behind his father's disappearance.

Branagh said that Artemis Fowl would be as proud as I am that families around the world will now be able to enjoy his first amazing screen adventures together, on Disney Plus."



The film will also features Colin Farrell, Josh Gad and veteran actor Judi Dench in pivotal roles.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 01:40:18|Editor: huaxia

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Sergejs Nikisins (L), chief laboratory specialist of Riga Eastern University Hospital, receives novel coronavirus test kits donated by China during a presentation at Riga Eastern University Hospital in Riga, Latvia, April 17, 2020. A consignment of 20 novel coronavirus test kits donated by China was delivered to Latvia on Friday, according to the Chinese Embassy to Latvia. The kits for 1,000 tests were delivered to Riga and handed over to Riga Eastern University Hospital where COVID-19 patients are treated at the hospital's center for infectious diseases. (Photo by Janis/Xinhua)

RIGA, April 17 (Xinhua) -- A consignment of 20 novel coronavirus test kits donated by China was delivered to Latvia on Friday, according to the Chinese Embassy in Latvia.

The donation has been arranged by the Chinese Embassy, the Latvian Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Health as well as the Mammoth Foundation in Shenzhen.

The testing technology used in these BGI kits provides results within three hours. The kits for 1,000 tests were delivered to the Latvian capital of Riga and handed over to Riga Eastern University Hospital where COVID-19 patients are treated at the hospital's center for infectious diseases.

Receiving the Chinese donation, the hospital's chief laboratory specialist Dr. Sergejs Nikisins thanked the Mammoth Foundation and BGI Group, a world-leading genomics company headquartered in Shenzhen, China, for their friendly donations during this difficult time, emphasizing that this batch of test materials will play an important role in the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic in Latvia.

By Friday noon, a total of 32,837 people in Latvia had been tested for the novel coronavirus, of which 682 tested positive. Five patients have so far died and 88 recovered.
He offered 100% loyalty to the President and all of these things that Abba Kyari brought focus to bear on, long delayed infrastructure; whether they are road, railway, power and so on, all of them have the imprints of the President on them because this is where the President lived and believed and Abba Kyari was there to ensure that President Buhari, at the end of his two terms, leaves behind legacies that will last and for which he will be remembered and these are the things that Abba Kyari cared for, he said.
Fewer cases in India are attributable to early and aggressive action to contain the spread of coronavirus disease (Covid-19), said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, regional director, World Health Organisation, South East Asia Region, of which India is a part.

High engagement with people; finding, isolating, testing and treating cases and tracing every contact; readying hospitals; and protecting and training health workers are needed to combat Covid-19, she says. In addition, adequate staffing, clinical rotation and psycho-social support to healthcare workers is a must to prevent burnout.

She speaks to Hindustan Time on Covid-19 lockdown and India efforts in slowing the spread of Covid-19. Here is the full interview:

Q: How should lockdowns be lifted?

Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh: Lockdowns must be lifted slowly, when six criteria are fulfilled -- transmission is controlled; health system capacities are in place to detect, test, isolate, treat cases and trace every contact; outbreak risks in health settings are minimised; preventive measures are implemented in social settings such as workplaces and schools; importation risks can be managed; and communities are fully educated, engaged and empowered to adjust to the new norm.

Q: How do you rate Indias efforts to slow transmission?

Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh: So far, the numbers in India are far less as compared to other countries, which can be attributed to early and aggressive measures that the country has been taking. The top-most leadership is driving a whole-of-government and whole-of-society response to the global pandemic.

Q: How does WHO define community transmission?

Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh: Community transmission is confirmed when the source of infection is not clear. In other words, when transmission in a given area is extensive, in multiple locations, without reported travel history to areas reporting community transmission, and without epidemiological links to known cases. But whatever the stage, the key action points remain -- engage with people; find, isolate, test and treat cases and trace every contact; ready hospitals; and protect and train health workers. Thats the only way to combat Covid-19.

Q: Some states in India are adopting pool testing. Is it an effective public health tool?

Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh: WHO is aware the Indian Council of Medical Research is going ahead with pool testing in some states, especially in the non-hotspot areas. While WHO is working on bringing out comprehensive guidelines, we welcome measures to scale up testing.

Q: Given the shortage of kits, how can testing be scaled up?

Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh: Good laboratory practices that produce accurate results are key to assure a good public health response. The availability of timely and accurate results can be threatened when testing demands outstrip capacity, such as when there is a backlog for testing and it is no longer possible to turn around results within 24 to 48 hours; the demand for laboratory reagents exceeds the capacity for supply; laboratory staff are exhausted and working hours need to be reduced; the number of incoming samples exceeds the capacity for safe pretesting storage; critical staff become infected or are otherwise unable to perform their duties (for example, being in quarantine); or laboratory instruments can no longer be serviced or properly maintained. Some of these constraints can be overcome by a proper risk assessment in the early phase of an outbreak and preventive solutions put in place in advance.

Q: What are the WHO recommendations for testing when resources are limited?

Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh: When resources are limited in areas with community transmission, prioritisation for testing should be given to people who are at risk of developing severe disease and vulnerable populations, who will require hospitalisation and advanced care for Covid-19; health workers (including emergency services and non-clinical staff) regardless of whether they are a contact of a confirmed case (to protect health workers and reduce the risk of nosocomial transmission); the first symptomatic person in a closed setting (for example, schools, long-term living facilities, prisons, hospitals) to quickly identify outbreaks and ensure containment measures. All other individuals with symptoms related to the close settings may be considered probable cases and isolated without additional testing if testing capacity is limited.

Q: Does warm and humid weather slow Sars-CoV2 transmission?

Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh: There is no evidence yet that the virus would not survive in high temperature.

Q: What steps should India take to protect health workers?

Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh: To prevent infection in healthcare settings, WHO recommends the use of contact and droplet precautions by health care workers caring for patients with Covid-19; and airborne precautions in settings where procedures and support treatments generate aerosols are performed.

The correct use of personal protection equipment (PPE) is critical, in particular wearing appropriate PPE for the clinical setting, paying special attention to procedures to put on and remove it correctly, and adhering to hand hygiene and other infection protection and control (IPC) measures. When these precautions are applied correctly and consistently, alongside standard precautions and administrative, engineering and environmental controls, the risk for health care workers infections is substantially reduced or avoided altogether.

WHO has also developed a risk assessment tool for health care workers exposed in a healthcare facility and a sero-epidemiological protocol to determine risk factors for infection among them, and is finalizing an in-depth epidemiological surveillance tool for health care workers infections.

Health care workers caring for patients with Covid-19 are subject to long working hours, fatigue, occupational burn-out, stigma, physical and psychological violence, and back injury from patient handling. IPC measures must be complemented by occupational safety and health measures, psycho-social support, adequate staffing levels, and clinical rotation, to reduce the risk of burn-out, for safe and healthy working environment.

Q; What is the WHO recommended treatment for Covid-19?

Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh: No pharmaceutical products have yet been shown to be safe and effective for the treatment of Covid-19. However, a number of medicines have been suggested as potential investigational therapies, many of which are now being or will soon be studied in clinical trials, including the Solidarity trial co-sponsored by WHO and participating countries.

Q: What is the progress on the Solidarity trial of four new therapies? When are results expected?

Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh: WHO is working hard with international researchers to generate the evidence about which medicines are most effective for treating Covid-19. So far, 74 countries have either joined the Solidarity trial or are in the process of joining and more than 200 patients had been randomly assigned to one of the study arms. Each new patient who joins the trial gets us one step closer to knowing which drugs work.

Q: Will President Trumps suspension of funding affect WHOs work?

Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh: Right now, Covid-19 is the WHO priority.

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- In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, people across the globe are coming together to help each other

- Africans and specifically Kenyans with a deep desire to help and support others, be they family members or not, have not been left behind

- For most of them, the novel coronavirus feels uncertain and scary but many still want to offer a helping hand

Amid the stress, fear and grief brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still glimmers of good news and hope.

The contemporary pandemic has taxed our coffers, and yet we must do what our compassionate and organized forefathers during other pandemics.

READ ALSO: Comedian Michael Che to pay rent for 160 tenants at building his late grandmother lived

For many Kenyans, the novel coronavirus feels uncertain and scary but many still want to offer a helping hand. Photo: UGC

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Desperate Kisii woman appeals for help to get cancer treatment

They extended themselves financially, they comforted personally, and they reported back to their communities with compassion, dignity and generosity of spirit.

Kenyans have been rising to the unprecedented challenge to bring relief, comfort, moments of joy and glimpses of normalcy to a curfew bound country.

As we are all facing difficult life situations, many have found surprising strength, health care workers and emergency personnel among those greatest heroes.

READ ALSO: Young dad who lost his job due to COVID-19 wins KSh 320 million lottery

There may come a time when we will ask ourselves, Did we do enough? Did we fail our people in any significant way?

Here are 11 Kenyans who have played their part in helping others affected by the pandemic that has brought the world to its knees.

1: Wellwishers help desperate Kayole man who lost work due to pandemic

Several well-wishers showed their support in the form of foodstuffs for a desperate Kayole man who lost his job as a result of the pandemic.

The man who works in the service industry as a hotelier was thrust into depression after losing his job.

Juliana Olayo was able to coordinate a few of her friends who were able to give foodstuffs to the man's family but called on more donors to come on board to help with his rent.

READ ALSO: Nairobi County Assembly declines to amend supplementary budget bill

2: Governor Mike Sonko gives Nairobi residents Hennessy among other donations in fight against coronavirus

Nairobi governor Mike Sonko gave out alcohol to Nairobi residents as he intensified measures to fight the coronavirus.

The governor said he would include small bottles of Hennessy to food packages given to the less fortunate in his region to enhance their fight against the virus.

Sonko further urged to be trusted in the distribution of food in the slums as it was something he had done many times before and knew how it should be done.

3: Raila Odinga donates KSh 15 million worth of food to Kibra residents

Opposition leader Raila Odinga and Mama Idah Odinga donated KSh 15 million worth of foodstuffs to Kibra residents.

The move was aimed at cushioning vulnerable families in the slum area from the pangs of hunger which has been made worse by the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.

READ ALSO: Coronavirus: China revises Wuhan death toll upwards by 50% bringing total to 3,869

4: Local manufacturer donates comfortable mattresses to coronavirus patients in isolation

Patients suffering from coronavirus had a reason to smile after a local manufacturer donated 50 special mattresses to enable them to have quality rest as they recuperate.

Superfoam Limited made the donation on Wednesday, April 8, to Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) which houses one of the COVID-19 isolation centres in the country.

Superfoam Limited made the donation on Wednesday, April 8, to Kenyatta National Hospital.

Source: UGC

5: Kenyan tycoon Narendra Raval donates KSh 100 million worth of oxygen to hospitals

A kind Kenyan business tycoon, Narendra Raval, donated KSh 100 million worth of oxygen to hospitals to combat the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

Kenya had so far confirmed 81 cases of COVID-19 as of Wednesday, April 1, and there were fears the figure could increase hence medical facilities needed to be fully equipped to treat patients.

READ ALSO: COVID-19 heroes: Nominated MCA Anita Thumbi joins health workers to fight pandemic from frontline

6: Good Samaritans raise funds, buy foodstuffs, toiletries for the needy in Huruma slums

Working together with Missionaries of Charity Mother Teresa Home, Pankj Shah took an initiative to organise Food Hampers which will also consist of washing detergents.

According to him, each bag will have 10kgs flour, 2kgs Atta, 5kgs beans, half kilo salt, milk, tea leaves, cooking oil, sugar, all-purpose soap and fresh bread.

Working together with Missionaries of Charity Mother Teresa Home, Pankj Shah took an initiative to organise Food Hampers. Photo: Pankj Shah.

Source: Facebook

7: Teso South couple donates 2 acres of sweet potatoes to villagers as coronavirus bites

For most people, if not all, the novel coronavirus feels uncertain and scary; but in spite of those feelings, many still want to offer a helping hand where they can.

And among the angelic souls is a couple in Teso South which decided to donated sweet potatoes from their two acres farm to locals after investors failed to buy the commodity.

Teso South which decided to donated sweet potatoes from their two acres farm to locals after investors failed to buy the commodity. Photo: The Standard.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Coronavirus: Wellwishers help desperate Kayole man who lost work due to pandemic

8: 10-year-old girl improvises facemasks using kitchen towel, donates to less fortunate children

10-year-old Grace Wanjiru of Madoya area in Huruma estate who took it upon herself to ensure fellow children in her neighbourhood had facemask.

Wanjiru, who embodies the Kenyan spirit of resilience in times of adversity, made the masks using kitchen towels and rubber bands and distributed them to the children

10-year-old Grace Wanjiru of Madoya area in Huruma estate who took it upon herself to ensure fellow children in her neighbourhood had facemask. Photo: Mike Sonko.

Source: Facebook

9: Wellwisher pays 6 months rent for Eldoret tenant whose landlady removed iron sheets over KSh500 arrears

A wellwisher has come to the rescue of an Eldoret tenant whose landlady removed the iron sheets to his house over KSh 500 rent arrears.

Ven Bosibori and David Juma who lived in Huruma estate were moved to a new house at Shauri Moyo Estate by the wellwisher after their heartbreaking story was aired.

10: Coronavirus: Kind Nairobi landlady waives rent for her 65 tenants

As the pandemic prompts unprecedented job losses across the country, one of the first problems for many households has been how to pay rent.

Christine Karimi was among landlords in the country who are caught between a rock and a hard place in deciding whether to collect rent from their tenants or forego it amid the crisis

Christine Karimi was among landlords in the country who are caught between a rock and a hard place in deciding whether to collect rent from their tenants.

Source: Original

11: Wellwishers come to the rescue of Kayole woman, seven children evicted by landlady over KSh 6k arrears

Akinyi and her children had been spending nights in the cold since Saturday, April 4, after the landlady at their former residence kicked them out over one and half months rent arrears.

But just like every cloud has a silver lining, the distraught woman's story had a happy ending as well-wishers from across the county who heard of her predicaments came to her rescue.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18) - Albay second district Rep. Joey Salceda suggested on Saturday another two-week quarantine extension to promote more mass testing efforts in further preventing the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

The risk of resurgence of infection remains significant. The national interest really remains on the prudent side on retaining the ECQ for at least two weeks in May, Salceda told CNN Philippines.

Salceda predicted that by April 30, which is the end of the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine, the country will only have 130,000 people tested for COVID-19.

Thats too small for a country of 110 million, he added.

The House Ways and Means Committee chairperson mentioned that if the ECQ does not get extended another two weeks, all the governments efforts will be wasted and will have an impact in the economy.

It will cost the economy three times as much than if we continue at least the forceful measures for another two weeks, Salceda explained.

Salceda noted the elderly and people below 20 years old must be prioritized during the ECQ, because they are vulnerable in catching the disease that has affected 6,078 individuals and claimed 397 lives in the country.

The Albay lawmaker also pointed out the Filipinos must now learn to adopt the new normal in taking care of personal health, such as frequent hand washing, access to clean water, and wearing of face masks.

These are the low cost options really, [as opposed] to lifting the ECQ, said Salceda.

Salceda also appealed for more supply of personal protective equipment and ventilators in hospitals in the country to end the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before we open up, we must have the means to confront the risk. At this point, I think we dont have the medical capacity to do that, he said.

Salceda is also one of the proponents in the House of Representatives for the country to have an economic stimulus program to aid the countrys economy affected by the COVID-19 crisis.

He also called for the initial two-week extension of the ECQ, which was originally set to expire April 13.
Eleven soldiers killed, 14 others wounded following a firefight with armed group, which pledged allegiance to ISIL.

Philippine troops have clashed with dozens of Abu Sayyaf armed fighters allied with the ISIL (ISIS) group in the countrys southern island of Mindanao, leaving 11 soldiers dead and 14 others wounded, military officials said.

Regional military commander Lieutenant General Cirilito Sobejana said on Friday that the army scout rangers had been manoeuvring for an assault when they engaged about 40 Abu Sayyaf fighters in the forested mountains off Danag village in Patikul town in Sulu province.

The gun battle raged for an hour before the Abu Sayyaf fighters withdrew.

Troops fired mortar rounds towards the retreating group, and other army troops moved to block the gunmen, the military said.

A military report said the fighters were believed to be led by Abu Sayyaf commanders Radulan Sahiron and Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, who have been blamed for kidnappings for ransom and beheadings in the southern Philippines.

Blood at the scene indicated an undetermined number of fighters were either wounded or killed, the report said.





The clash highlights the diverse problems the Philippines has in addition to the coronavirus.

The military has been staging on-and-off offensives against Abu Sayyaf, which is listed by the United States and the Philippines as a terrorist organisation, for years.

We will sustain our security efforts in order to put an end to the menace of terrorism, Sobejana told the Associated Press by phone.

The small but violent group is an offshoot of the decades-long separatist unrest in the south of the largely Roman Catholic nation.

The violence has eased since the largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, signed a peace deal with the government that replaced a Muslim autonomous area with a more powerful and better-funded region.
A resident at a nursing home where a coronavirus cluster broke out has died - taking the national death toll to 69.

The patient, who was a resident at Anglicare's Newmarch House in Caddens, western Sydney, died 'peacefully' on Saturday morning.

NSW Health said 30 people at the aged care facility, including 10 staff and 20 residents, have tested positive to coronavirus.

Most cases at Newmarch House, which has 96 residents, remain mild and Anglicare said they are being cared for by a specially trained team.

The patient, who was a resident at the Anglicare's Newmarch House in Caddens (pictured), western Sydney, died 'peacefully' on Saturday morning

A nurse worked at the aged care facility in Caddens for six days while suffering a 'scratchy throat' before testing positive to COVID-19.

NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said on Wednesday that the woman was distressed to learn that she spread the illness to elderly people, who are the most vulnerable to death or serious complications from COVID-19.

'I have spoken to the director of the public health unit and this person is absolutely mortified,' she told reporters.

'It doesn't matter how mild those symptoms are - runny nose, sore throat, or just a scratchy throat in this case. Please don't go to work.'

The latest fatality brings the NSW death toll to 29.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard on Saturday confirmed an 83-year-old Queensland man and a 58-year-old woman died.

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

'On behalf of the entire NSW community, I want to express my sympathy, and the community's sympathy, to the families of those two people,' Mr Hazzard said.

The man was a passenger on board the Celebrity Eclipse during a cruise to South America and died in Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

The woman died in Tamworth Hospital and authorities are attempting to trace how she contracted the virus.

Mr Hazzard said he was buoyed as just 10 new cases of the virus were diagnosed in the state in the 24 hours to 8pm Friday, despite an increase in testing.

After 26 cases were recorded the day prior, it takes the total number of cases in the state to 2,936.

'It is certainly positive but there has been a reduction in a number of cases and it is particularly positive, having in mind that the number of tests that were done dramatically increased to 5,152 tests,' Mr Hazzard said.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has had some contact with ministers while he is recovering from COVID-19, housing minister Robert Jenrick said on Saturday.

"He's resting and recuperating at Chequers, he's taking his doctor's advice. He has had some contact with ministers, but mostly with his private office here at Downing Street," Jenrick said at the government's daily news conference.

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Governor Ganduje of Kano State has just sacked the State Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Engr Muazu Magaji.

Engineer Muazu was sacked following his Facebook posts on Abba Kyari.

President Buharis Special Assistant on New Media Bashir Ahmad saw his write ups on Facebook and called him out on Twitter whilest also tagging the Kano State governor to the tweet.

Kano state governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje has relieved the appointment of the commissioner of Works and Infrastructure, Engr. Muazu Magaji with immediate effect.

A statement signed by the commissioner for Information, Malam Muhammad Garba said the commissioner was removed following his unguarded utterances against the person of the late Chief of Staff to the President, Malam Abba Kyari.

He said as a public servant, the commissioner ought to have respect the profanity of the office by refraining from any act capable of rendering the office to disrepute.

The action of a public servant, personal or otherwise reflects back on the government and therefore, the Ganduje administration would not tolerate people in official capacities engaging in personal vendetta or otherwise.

According to the statement, late Abba Kyari had led a life worthy of emulation by serving his country to the best of his ability
A national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, says the country must not allow the death of Abba Kyari, President Muhammadu Buharis Chief of Staff be in vain.

The former Lagos governor made this known in a condolence message released by his Media Office on Saturday.

While expressing his sadness over Kyaris death, Tinubu urged Nigerians to use the death of Kyari and others killed by the virus to strengthen their resolve in fighting the pandemic.

The death came at a time the government is working assiduously to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic.

We must not allow the passing away of Malam Kyari and other Nigerians, who have lost their lives to this terrible disease to be in vain.

Im deeply saddened by the news of the passing of Malam Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff to the President.

He was an extremely able, loyal and talented man, who dedicated his considerable skills to the success of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, Tinubu said.

Read Also: Buharis Aide Calls Out Kano Commissioner For Publicly Celebrating Kyaris Death

Whatever someone will try to say about Malam Kyari, the words will prove insufficient.

His influence in government and throughout the land was substantial and profound. He will surely be missed.

My deepest condolences go to President Buhari, the people of Nigeria and especially, the family of Mallam Kyari over this tragic loss.

May Almighty Allah comfort the president and the Kyaris family at this difficult moment.

While we must maintain spatial distance from one another, we must yet come closer in the spirit of brotherly compassion and national purpose in order to defeat the threat we now face.

Allahs will is supreme and there is no questioning it. Yet, we must learn from Malam Kyaris passing.

We must honour the departed by doing all we can to defeat the virus so that we safeguard the health of the nation that Malam Kyari loved so deeply, Tinubu said.

I pray that Allah Subuhana Watahalah grant the soul of our beloved Malam Kyari eternal rest and admit him to Aljana Firdaus, he said.
The fearsome knock on the door came after nightfall. Outside were two men in hazmat suits who told businessman Fang Bin they had come to take him into medical quarantine. But the textile trader, a gangly man in his early 40s, wasnt ill and the men outside his Wuhan apartment werent doctors. They were police officers confronting a menace the Chinese Communist Party had been grappling with as ferociously as the coronavirus itself  ordinary people who bravely expose the truth about the outbreak and refuse to keep quiet.

Mr Fangs crime was to post a video he had filmed of people dying of the virus and the body bags piled up outside a hospital clearly overwhelmed by casualties at a time when China insisted that the virus was under control. It was seen 200,000 times before censors took it down.

When he demanded a search warrant from the officers on the doorstep of his high-rise apartment, they forced their way in and took him away for questioning, ordering him to stop spreading rumours about the virus before confiscating his computer. He was later released in the early hours of the morning.

The crackdown began with reprimands issued to Dr Li Wenliang, 34, for warning fellow medics about the virus. He died at Wuhan Central Hospital of Covid-19 on February 7

One week later  on February 9  Mr Fang posted another video, this time featuring a scroll of paper bearing the words: Citizens resist. Hand power back to the people. The police returned and he hasnt been seen or heard from in two months.

Mr Fang, a normally diffident man, is an unlikely martyr. Nevertheless, moved to anger by the unimaginable horror of what was happening in his home city, he is one of three whistle-blowers disappeared by the Chinese government for exposing the terrifying extent of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Their fate is unknown but human rights groups believe Mr Fang  along with lawyer Chen Qiushi and former state TV reporter Li Zehua  are being tortured and forced to write confessions in extrajudicial detention centres where, in more normal times, Chinese police secretly terrorise lawyers and activists who are seen as enemies of the state.

Human rights groups believe Mr Fang Bin (right)  along with lawyer Chen Qiushi and former state TV reporter Li Zehua (left)  are being tortured in extrajudicial detention centres where

Now a Mail on Sunday investigation has uncovered a cynical and orchestrated campaign by the Chinese regime to stop the countrys 1.4 billion citizens even discussing the appalling Covid-19 outbreak among themselves. We have discovered that:

More than 5,100 people were arrested for sharing information in the first weeks of the outbreak

Dissidents are being labelled as sick so the government can place them in medical quarantine

Health apps used by tens of millions to show they are clear of coronavirus are being used to monitor peoples movements and further tighten control

Hundreds of ordinary citizens are being detained and fined over innocuous online messages about hospital queues, mask shortages, and the death of relatives.

The unprecedented crackdown began with reprimands issued to Dr Li Wenliang, 34, and seven other doctors for sending messages to fellow medics on December 30 warning them about the outbreak of a SARS-like illness in Wuhan Central Hospital and advising them to wear protective clothing.

Dr Li was forced to sign a police document saying he had seriously disrupted social order and breached the law before he returned to work at Wuhan Central Hospital where he died of Covid-19 on February 7, triggering grief and outrage across China. The countrys Communist leaders were shaken by a nationwide outcry which saw the hashtag #wewantfreedomofspeech shared two million times in the space of hours. But they had already embarked on a ruthless tightening of a vice-like grip on social media with the first of a string of high-profile disappearances.

Billionaire property tycoon Ren Zhiqiang, 69, (pictured) who vanished in March after calling President Xi Jinping a clown for mishandling the virus outbreak

A day before Dr Lis death, lawyer Chen Qiushi  whose videos of chaotic scenes in Wuhan hospitals with coronavirus victims lying in corridors were shared with an audience of more than 400,000 YouTube and 250,000 Twitter followers  went missing. His family was told the following day he was being held in medical quarantine at an undisclosed location.

Before his disappearance, Mr Chen realised police were closing in on him and told his followers ominously: As long as I am alive, I will speak about what I have seen and what I have heard. I am not afraid of dying. Why should I be afraid of you, Communist Party? He vanished days later.

Three weeks later, Li Zehua, 25  a reporter with Chinese state TV who went rogue to report on the death toll in Wuhan  live-streamed his own arrest when plain-clothes police officers arrived at his flat. Mr Li made a point of telling viewers he was healthy and well before he was taken away.

Earlier that day Mr Li, who filmed a series of videos showing desperate scenes of communities running low on food in virus-riddled areas of Wuhan, gave viewers a running commentary on how he was chased by police after visiting the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where it has been speculated the outbreak may have been started by a lab leak.

Im sure they want to hold me in isolation, he said in a panicked video clip as he sped away from the institute by car. Please help me.

Lawyer Chen Qiushi  whose videos of chaotic scenes in Wuhan hospitals with coronavirus victims lying in corridors were shared with an audience of more than 400,000 YouTube and 250,000 Twitter followers  went missing

The Chinese government has been silent over the fate of the whistle-blowers but all three are believed to be in secret detention centres  a sinister form of extrajudicial imprisonment described by officials as residential surveillance at a designated location.

Frances Eve, deputy director of research at Hong Kong-based watchdog Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), said: Everyone who has disappeared is at very high risk of torture  most likely to try to force them to confess that their activities were criminal or harmful to society.

Then, as weve seen in previous cases, people who have been disappeared will be brought out and forced to confess on Chinese state television.

The secret detention centres usually hold dissidents such as human rights activists and lawyers, said Ms Eve. In most cases weve tracked, people who go in have been tortured. You dont have access to your lawyer or your family or anyone outside the police.

Another critic silenced by Chinas leader is law professor Xu Zhangrun, who was put under house arrest in Beijing and had his internet access cut off

China has denied knowledge of the disappearance of the whistle-blowers. The Chinese ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, has been asked twice in TV interviews about the fate of Chen Qiushi, insisting angrily in the second interview in March: I have not heard of this person I did not know him then, and I do not know him now.

The only disappeared person China has made any official comment on is billionaire property tycoon Ren Zhiqiang, 69, who vanished in March after calling President Xi Jinping a clown for mishandling the virus outbreak.

Weeks after his arrest, Beijing officials announced that Mr Ren was being detained for serious violations of the law and Communist Party regulations  a euphemism for the trumped-up corruption charges used to ensnare any high-ranking critic of the countrys authoritarian leader.

Another critic silenced by Chinas leader is law professor Xu Zhangrun, who was put under house arrest in Beijing and had his internet access cut off after writing a searing critique of Xi Jinpings handling of the crisis which included the prediction: This may well be the last piece I write.

The stifling of any criticism of the Chinese governments handling of the outbreak extends to every level of society. Police publicly announced on February 21 they had intervened and penalised people in 5,111 cases of fabricating and deliberately disseminating false and harmful information in the first weeks of the crisis alone.

A detailed analysis by CHRD of nearly 897 police cases between January 1 and March 26 shows citizens commonly being given terms of detention ranging from three to ten days, fines of about 50, and reprimands for offences of fabricating or spreading false news and disrupting social order  accusations similar to those levelled at Dr Li.

In most attributed cases, punishments were for messages sent on WeChat  Chinas equivalent of WhatsApp  to individuals or small groups of friends.

Many exchanges involved seemingly innocuous messages about the death of relatives, hospitals being overwhelmed, and people being sent home while sick. One man was even detained for suggesting a donation of masks to medical staff. It seems that if 99-year-old NHS fundraiser Captain Tom Moore had been in China rather than Bedfordshire, he would have had his walking frame confiscated and his JustGiving account frozen rather than being hailed a hero.

Ms Eve said: All of that grief and fear that Chinese people were feeling in the early weeks of the lockdown have been deleted from the internet by the government. They detained people and punished them and sent out warnings to people to keep silent and not to share what they experienced.

The reason for the crackdown was that Chinas leaders viewed the outbreak as an existential threat and used the disappearance of high-profile critics as a way to terrify people into obedience, she argued.

She added: Theres a Chinese phrase that you kill the chicken to scare the monkey. The arrest of the eight doctors, including Dr Li, at the beginning of January was a signal to people to be silent about the coronavirus.

China is insisting that millions of people in cities affected by Covid-19 use smartphone apps with a barcode to show if they are infection-free. The app accesses other personal data, though, and can be used to increase the extent of social control through technology.

Its unlikely that these new measures introduced for contact tracing will be rolled back and this government will have used this as an excuse to increase and further develop surveillance technologies, said Ms Eve.

Human Rights Watch China director Sophie Richardson said the coronavirus safeguards were a very convenient pretext for an authoritarian regime to silence people and deny them rights.

I wouldnt be surprised further down the track to learn that other people had been taken off the grid and that a public health justification had been used.

We are increasingly of the view that the Chinese governments goal is to effectively engineer a dissent-free society.

Ms Richardson praised the disappeared detainees for having the courage to expose the truth even though they knew they would be arrested.

It is breathtakingly brave. And it is also an incredible indictment of the legal and political system in a country that claims to uphold the rule of law, she said.

US lawyers sue China for TRILLIONS of dollars as they accuse Beijing of negligence for allowing coronavirus outbreak to erupt before covering it up

Lawyers in the US have launched a landmark legal action to sue China

Leaders accused of negligence for COVID-19 outbreak and then covering it up

A second legal case accuses China of hoarding life-saving medical supplies

Pressure is now on President Xi Jinping to account fully for his countrys actions

By Ian Birrell for The Mail on Sunday

Lawyers in the US have launched a landmark legal action to sue China for trillions of dollars over the coronavirus pandemic, accusing its Communist leaders of negligence for allowing the outbreak to erupt and then covering it up.

The class action, which involves thousands of claimants from 40 countries including Britain and the US, was filed in Florida last month.

A second case launched this month on behalf of healthcare workers accuses China of hoarding life-saving medical supplies.

The legal challenges  set to be followed by another from Israeli human rights lawyers who specialise in suing states for terrorism  ramp up the pressure on President Xi Jinping to account fully for his countrys actions.

President Xi Jinping must answer tough questions over Chinas actions on Covid-19, as lawyers in the US prepare to sue the nation for 'trillions' of dollars over the coronavirus outbreak

There are calls also for the United Nations to set up an inquiry to establish how the coronavirus broke out in the city of Wuhan and then spread so fast around the world.

This follows a warning last week from Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is running the Government while Boris Johnson recovers from the virus, that it could not be business as usual after the crisis.

We will have to ask the hard questions about how it came about and how it couldnt have been stopped earlier, he said.

China faces accusations that it suppressed data, blocked several outside teams of public health experts and silenced doctors trying to warn about the epidemic when it broke out late last year.

BRITS FEEL CHINA SHOULD PAY Nearly three-quarters of Britons think the UK should sue the Chinese Communist Party for compensation over its handling of Covid-19, a poll reveals. The survey also finds that only a quarter support the Governments plans to allow controversial Chinese tech giant Huawei a role in building Britains 5G network. In the Survation poll of 1,001 people last week, 71 per cent said Britain should pursue China through the international courts. Calls for an international inquiry into Chinas handling of the outbreak were backed by 83 per cent, while 74 per cent blamed China for the pandemic. On a future role for Huawei, 40 per cent of those surveyed opposed the move, with just 23 per cent in favour. Advertisement

It has also not been established if the source of the virus was a market selling live exotic animals, as first claimed, or if it is linked to research laboratories in Wuhan.

The US legal claim was launched by Berman Law Group, a Miamibased firm that employs the brother of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as an adviser.

Chief strategist Jeremy Alters said: Chinas leaders must be held accountable for their actions. Our goal is to expose the truth. Three years ago, the firm won a $1.2 billion (960 million) case against China over the manufacture of defective building materials.

Lawyers argue that although nations have legal immunity, there are exceptions under US law for personal or property damages and for actions abroad that impact on businesses in their own borders.

Plaintiffs include Olivier Babylone, 38, an estate agent from Croydon, South London, whose income has fallen by two-thirds and who was treated in hospital earlier this month for the virus.

He said: I have been financially hurt, but many people have lost their lives so I was lucky, and the NHS was fantastic. We need to know who is responsible.

Joining him in the class action is Lorraine Caggiano, an administrator from New York who caught the virus along with nine other family members after attending a wedding.

Her father and aunt both died last month. She said: I am not expecting money. It is a symbolic gesture that we are fighting back.

A woman wearing a protective mask is seen past a portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping on a street as the country is hit with fresh accusations

I want to know how the world has been turned on its head, with people dying and companies going down the drain. We must make sure it never happens again.

A second legal case is being prepared by Shurat HaDin, an Israeli law centre that has represented victims of terrorism around the world. The centres Aviel Leitner said it would also launch its legal action in the US since most other countries would be scared of Chinas economic weight and retribution.

The lawyers will argue that Beijings negligence and reckless behaviour was so bad that, as with terrorism, the state cannot hide behind sovereign immunity.

China will fight it tooth and nail. If proved negligent, it would be catastrophe for them, said Mr Leitner.

Meanwhile, leading British human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson has called for the United Nations to set up an inquiry into the origins of Covid-19. This follows claims that the World Health Organisation, its public health body, failed in its duty by slavishly following China, which has led President Donald Trump to cut all US funding.

Mr Robertson, a former UN appeal judge, said the consequences of not tackling the virus at an early stage had been calamitous and facts were being distorted by propaganda and political point-scoring.

Our international well-being demands an independent and objective report into this disaster, not to allocate blame but to write its truthful history and learn lessons, he said. He added that Britain should use its influence as a permanent UN Security Council member to urge a formal inquiry, forcing the WHO and China to co-operate.

He said: China would suffer international hostility and perhaps economic sanctions if it refused to explain all that had happened. It has a duty to tell the truth to a world that has suffered so much.

Dr Yang Jianli, a leading Chinese dissident, called on democratic nations to back an inquiry, but doubted that the UN would have the guts.

'I've seen better seals on my fridge!' Shocking photos from inside Wuhan lab show broken seal on unit which stores 1,500 virus strains - including the bat coronavirus behind the deadly pandemic

Worrying photos have emerged from inside a Wuhan laboratory this week

Pictures show a broken seal on the door of one of the refrigerators

The fridge holds 1,500 different strains of virus including coronavirus samples

The images were originally published on Twitter in March, before being deleted

By Glen Owen for The Mail on Sunday

It is a rare glimpse inside the Chinese laboratory at the centre of mounting inter-national suspicion about the Covid-19 pandemic  and will do nothing to dispel fears that it was caused by a catastrophic leak which has been covered up by Beijing.

Pictures from inside Wuhans secretive Institute of Virology show a broken seal on the door of one of the refrigerators used to hold 1,500 different strains of virus  including the bat coronavirus which has jumped to humans with such devastating effect.

The pictures, first released by the state-owned China Daily newspaper in 2018, were published on Twitter last month, before being deleted. One comment attached read: I have seen better seals on my refrigerator in my kitchen.

The Mail on Sunday revealed a fortnight ago that Ministers now fear that the pandemic could have started as the result of a leak.

Pictures from inside Wuhans secretive Institute of Virology show a broken seal on the door (centre of shot, by medical worker's right eye) of one of the refrigerators used to hold 1,500 different strains of virus

The pictures, first released by the state-owned China Daily newspaper in 2018, were published on Twitter last month, before being deleted

The Mail on Sunday revealed a fortnight ago that Ministers now fear that the pandemic could have started as the result of a leak

Last week, this newspaper also disclosed that the institute had undertaken corona-virus experiments on bats captured more than 1,000 miles away in Yunnan, funded by a $3.7 million grant from the US government.

Sequencing of the Covid-19 genome has traced it to the bats found only in those caves.

Our revelations led to Donald Trump being quizzed at a press conference last week about the leak theory, to which the President replied: We are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation.

Twitter was immediately awash with criticisms regarding the apparent lack of safety measures

Suspicions of a Chinese cover-up increased further after the Wash-ington Post reported that Us diplomats in Beijing had written cables about the Wuhan laboratory in 2018

Mr Trump also pledged on Friday evening to scrap Us funding for the Wuhan institute.

Meanwhile, Us secretary of state Mike Pompeo has demanded that Beijing come clean over whether the virus had leaked from the lab. He said: There is still lots to learn.

The US government is work-ing diligently to figure it out. He added that one of the best ways that China could find to co-operate would be to let the world in and let the worlds scientists know exactly how this came to be, exactly how this virus began to spread.

Suspicions of a Chinese cover-up increased further after the Wash-ington Post reported that Us diplomats in Beijing had written cables about the Wuhan laboratory in 2018, warning the state Department that the labs work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARs-like pandemic.

US intelligence sources say that shortly after the coronavirus outbreak began, officials at the lab destroyed samples of the virus, erased early reports and sup-pressed academic papers  and then tried to pin the blame on Wuhans wet market, where wild animals are sold for consumption.

The sources believe that Patient Zero was an intern at the lab, who spread the virus into the local population after infecting her boyfriend.

One source described it as the costliest government cover-up of all time. After initially accepting the wet market theory, intelligence officials in the US, Britain and Canada are increasingly focusing on the Wuhan institute, not least because of the level of coincidence required for the bats in Yunnan to have infected animals in Wuhan, which then passed it on to humans.

Following a video meeting of the G7 nations on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron said: There are clearly things that have happened that we dont know about.

The World Health Organisation, which faces allegations of complicity with Beijing over the pandemic, quickly accepted and propagated the wildlife market theory.

Although British Government sources say that the evidence suggests that the virus was zoonotic  originating from an animal  that is still compatible with the theory that it first passed to humans as a result of an accident by scientists studying it in a laboratory.

However, one political source said that there was growing scientific curiosity over the symptoms of a marked loss of taste and smell in many victims of Covid-19. This might  only might  indicate a level of human interference, the source said.

Beijing insists that the fact that the countrys primary virology institute is based in the city at the centre of the outbreak is just a coincidence, dismissing links to the laboratory as baseless conspiracy theories.

In a letter to The Mail on Sunday, a Chinese Embassy spokeswoman says: There has never been any cover-up, nor was a cover-up ever allowed to happen.

The relatively low Covid-19 death toll in China proves that the containment measures are effective. strict lockdown measures have effectively slowed down the spread of the virus and minimised the cases of infection.
Travellers now need to wear a mask and have a suitable place to stay during their mandatory quarantine period

Canada adds new quarantine rules for incoming travellers Travellers now need to wear a mask and have a suitable place to stay during their mandatory quarantine period

Canada adds new quarantine rules for incoming travellers Travellers now need to wear a mask and have a suitable place to stay during their mandatory quarantine period

Canada adds new quarantine rules for incoming travellers Travellers now need to wear a mask and have a suitable place to stay during their mandatory quarantine period Shelby Thevenot Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif

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Furthering the quarantine rules already in place for travellers to Canada, the federal government is now requiring arrivals to provide a credible quarantine plan and wear a mask on the way to their destination.

The new rules state that travellers will need to confirm that they have a suitable place to isolate or quarantine upon arrival even if they are not showing symptoms of COVID-19. They are expected to already have made plans to stay in a suitable place to stay for the mandatory 14-day isolation period before arriving in Canada. A suitable place would have access to basic necessities such as food and medicine, and it cannot be in a place where they would be in contact with seniors or other individuals who might be vulnerable to the virus. Exceptions will be made if the vulnerable person consents to allow the traveller to stay with them, according to the Order in Council.

As our knowledge about COVID-19 evolves, we continue to adjust our response to this epidemic, Patty Hajdu, Canadas minister of health, said in a media release. These changes will make it clearer to asymptomatic travellers arriving in Canada that they need to have an appropriate place to self-isolate, where they will not put any vulnerable people such as adults aged 65 years or over and people with pre-existing medical conditions at risk.

Do you have more questions on coronavirus and Canada immigration?

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If travellers do not have an appropriate place to isolate or quarantine themselves, they must go to a place designated by Canadian health officials, such as a hotel. This now also applies to asymptomatic travellers. If they develop symptoms or come into contact with another person in mandatory quarantine, the 14 days starts over.

In addition, all new arrivals must wear a non-medical mask or face covering to proceed to their final destination where they will self-isolate. Canada will provide them with one if they do not have their own.

Canadas response to COVID-19 is based on the latest scientific evidence. Dr. Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, said in the release. As we learn more about this illness, we must adapt our public health measures and our border measures appropriately.

There are exceptions to these new rules that have been in effect since one minute after midnight on April 15.

Those who cross the border regularly to provide essential services to Canadians or who ensure the continued flow of goods and services are exempt from the requirement to quarantine themselves as long as they do not have coronavirus symptoms. However, these individuals are required to wear a mask or face covering upon entry into Canada and while in transit.

The Government of Canada will be conducting spot checks to verify compliance. The maximum penalties for non-compliance could mean a fine of up to $750,000, six months in jail, or both. If they are found to have caused a risk of death or bodily harm to another person while violating COVID-19 prevention regulations they could be liable for a fine of up to one million dollars, imprisonment for up to three years, or both.

Do you have more questions on coronavirus and Canada immigration?

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 19:01:02|Editor: huaxia

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SANAA, April 18 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths on Saturday condemned an attack that killed a liaison officer in the UN-led joint cease-fire monitor team in the Yemeni Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.

"My deepest condolences for the tragic death of Al-Sulihi to the Government of Yemen and his family. He was shot in Hodeidah in a deplorable and unacceptable attack," Griffiths tweeted.

"He will be remembered for his service in support of bringing peace to his country," the envoy added.

According to information minister Moammar al-Eryani, Mohammed Al-Sulihi passed away on Friday in a hospital in the southern port city of Aden due to wounds he sustained by "Houthi sniper shot" at a cease-fire observation checkpoint on March 11.

However, the Houthi group has made no comment yet.

Hodeidah has seen a shaky cease-fire between the government and the Houthi group since both sides reached a UN-sponsored cease-fire agreement in Stockholm in December 2018.

The agreement was seen as the first phase to end Yemen's nearly five years of civil war.

The civil war erupted late 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi group seized control of much of the country's north and forced the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of the capital Sanaa.

The war has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed over 20 million to the verge of starvation. Enditem
Govt. does well on health front, weak on economy: BT poll View(s):

While the government was commended for its handling of the health crisis vis-a-vis COVID-19, it has performed poorly in terms of handling the distribution of essential food and the economic impact, an email poll conducted by the Business Times (BT) this week showed.

Asked whether the Government has handled the health crisis well, 77 per cent of the respondents replied with Y (Yes) while nearly 50 per cent (49.5 per cent) responded with N (No), to the question as to whether the government had well organised the distribution of essential food and services.

To the question whether the Government handled the impact on the economy and business well, majority of the respondents (55 per cent) said N (No).

However an overwhelming majority (64 per cent) were in agreement that the curfew in the high-risk Colombo district should continue throughout April, due to the COVID-19 threat. Respondents to the poll included a cross section of Sri Lankas intellectual and middle classes.

There were many comments. One respondent said that preceding this crisis the country was on a poor footing with the government compounding the situation with ill-conceived tax cuts. We are now in a very vulnerable situation since we have no buffers to help us get out of this mess, our only hope is to go to the IMF and get relief fast, he said. Another said the government was handling the health crisis as best as it can do, adding: The people must be healthy and alive for the economy to get back on track.

A doctor, who responded to the poll, said that pharmacies and retail shops should have been opened for three hours each day for 3-4 days of the week, adding that many vendors (though not all), who come down the lanes to sell essential goods are robbing people with high prices.

A business professional criticised the government approach. Because we lack adequate testing and treatment facilities, the approach has been to lock everything and everyone down and sit out the virus, with no real understanding of the collateral damage, especially to the economy, he said.

On the distribution of essential food and services, it was the informal sector and micro businesses that have kept the masses supplied, often running the risk of arrest due to violating the curfew to do so, he said.

On the handling of the economy, he said that the government approach was blind to the realities confronting the business sector that a suspicion arose as to whether it is using the crisis to pave the way for a return to a closed economy where the state manages all business.
As the novel coronavirus continues to ravage populations around the world, with more than 22 lakh confirmed cases and 1.54 lakh deaths, millions of people are self-quarantining at home to combat the spread of the deadly virus. Still, a set of people selflessly go about their daily lives, offering aid to those infected and helping maintain a sense of order while the rest of us shelter in place.

Google doodle on Saturday (April 18, 2020) honoured all the coronavirus helpers across the globe for their selfless effort during the tough time.

The google doodle blog read, ''As COVID-19 continues to impact communities around the world, people are coming together to help one another now more than ever. Were launching a Doodle series to recognize and honor many of those on the front lines. Today, wed like to say: To all coronavirus helpers, thank you.''

The doodle is a part of the Thank You Coronavirus Helpers series introduced to celebrate professionals involved in providing essential services to people in these difficult times. Google is honoring those heroes with a series of appreciation doodles featuring health workers, teachers, medical personnel, farmers, grocery store employees, delivery persons and public transportation drivers.

On Friday, Google paid tribute to teachers and childcare workers. In the first week of April Google took the initiative to thanks the coronavirus helpers and said ''over the next two weeks, our Doodles will honor other essential frontline workers, including healthcare workers, first responders, and the many people keeping services like sanitation, food service, public transit, schools, and more up and running. Thank you to all the people who are working to save lives and keep communities safe during this pandemic.''

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 cases in India stood at 14,378 out of which 11,906 are active cases and as many as 1,991 people have been cured and discharged and one has migrated, said Ministry of Health data on Saturday morning. The cases saw a jump by 991 and 43 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.
UPPER DARBY  Its scary. There is a lot of really sick people coming in, but this is awesome.

Those words from a Emergency Department nurse help you understand the significance that 75 firefighters and cops standing out front clapping mean to the staff Delaware County Memorial Hospital, Crozer Keystone, as they battle the deadly coronavirus.

Friday evening, first responders from across Southeastern Delaware County lined their vehicles along Lansdowne Ave and stood at the front entrance of the hospital during the start of the evening shift to show their support to Americas Heroes.

With over 2,300 cases in Delaware County and 74 deaths, the virus is hitting hospitals hard.

The motivation (for the event) was to show the nurses, doctors and staff of DCMH our gratitude for all they have been doing and sacrificing since the beginning of this pandemic, said Darby Police Officer Kenneth Collins, one of the organizers of the event, which was also backed by Upper Darby Firefighters Local 2493. Its important these people who work there, regardless of their duties, are appreciated.

We want to thank all the hospital emergency personnel for their service. We just want to be there for them. They are our allies, said Upper Darby police Supt. Timothy Bernhardt.

The whole community is very grateful for everything the hospital employees do every day and especially at times like this. They are making a huge sacrifice, said Upper Darby Fire Chief Michael Gove. You could never properly compensate someone for bringing this much compassion and dedication to work everyday under conditions like this. They are truly heroes.

It brings tears to my eyes. It means a lot, said Erin Gilroy, a registered nurse in the emergency department.

Were are all in this together. We are helping each other and that is what we should do, said Emergency Department technician Flossy Taylor. With that she broke into song, Jesus is in control, all over the world.
In an effort to build an early warning system for Covid-19, the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IIT-Gn) has joined a global consortium of 51 premier universities and research institutes to undertake surveillance of sewage water to help determine and quantify excretion of the Sars-Cov-2 virus, which causes Covid-19.

On Friday, the group submitted their viewpoint paper to Environmental Science and Technology, a scientific peer-reviewed journal published by the American Chemical Society, underlining the need to survey wastewater for virus RNA during the ongoing pandemic that has affected more than 2 million people across the world.

The aim of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is to help policy makers monitor the transmission of Covid-19 within a community. The critical point here is that while it takes three to 14 days for an individual to exhibit symptoms, its occurrence in wastewater can been seen early and therefore it can be used as a warning sign, especially in densely-populated clusters, said Manish Kumar, collaborator and assistant professor, department of earth sciences, IIT-Gn.

The COVID-19 WBE Collaborative  a partnership between Sewage Analysis CORe group Europe (SCORE) network and the Global Water Pathogen Project  has laid out a standard protocol to ensure uniformity in data collection and inference.

Recent studies have reported that in 27% to 89% of patients, the infection is accompanied by persistent shedding of virus RNA in stool. Wastewater has been used in forensics for a long time  to check for the presence of narcotics, for instance. However, Covid-19 is tricky because we dont know how long the virus survives in water. But it is worth knowing its presence in wastewater because the virus has an incubation period during which it gets excreted in some way, said Kumar.

Researchers said limited capacity for diagnostic testing coupled with individuals who are asymptomatic and oligo-symptomatic (displaying few symptoms) that go undetected leads to significant uncertainty in the estimated extent of the Covid-19 infection.

Kumar will now seek permission to collect waste water samples from government authorities in Gujarat, and partner with Indian collaborators to extend the scope of the work across India.

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A total of 15,464 people have now died in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK.

The latest Department of Health and Social Care figures show another 888 more people had died as of 5pm on Friday compared to the previous day.

So far, 357,023 people have been tested for Covid-19, including 114,217 people who have tested positive.

The figures do not include the number of infections in care homes, which Number 10 said stood at 2,987 as of Tuesday.

The new figures come as a leaked email revealed that some hospitals treating patients will run out of protective gowns this weekend.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has admitted he cannot guarantee hospitals will have enough PPE to get through the next few days  after the problem was raised by military logistics officers helping to coordinate the cpintrys response to the pandemic.

In a major shift, doctors and nurses were asked to treat patients without full length waterproof gowns if necessary, and even use plastic aprons as an alternative.

But Sarah Gorton, head of health at the union Unison, said medical staff would be within their rights to refuse to work without the correct PPE.

She said: Health managers must be truly honest with their staff. If gowns run out, staff in high risk areas may well decide that its no longer safe for them to work.
The fragility of Ireland's health service has been laid bare as understaffed hospitals struggle with the spread of Covid-19 among workers.

Newly obtained figures show how healthcare workers now make up more than one-quarter of all diagnosed cases.

It comes at the end of a week when two healthcare workers tragically died after testing positive for Covid-19.

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Staff shortages have forced some hospital units across the country to close, and officials warn the virus has compounded what was already a serious issue.

Professor Shane Higgins, master at the National Maternity Hospital, revealed how more than 100 of its 900 staff members are currently cocooning, self-isolating or staying at home due to infection. The absenteeism rate for the hospital has more than doubled since the crisis began, from around 4pc to 8pc.

Up to 105 healthcare staff are currently out of work at a southern hospital due to infection or having to self-isolate, according to a trade union official.

Siptu's assistant health organiser Liam Allen described the level of absences at Mallow General Hospital as "frightening".

Out of the 9,599 cases diagnosed by April 11, 2,501 were healthcare workers. More than a third (883) of these healthcare staff were nurses.

Meanwhile, 287 were doctors. Healthcare assistants make up 18pc of staff infected, with 445 being diagnosed. Porters make up 1.5pc, with 37 confirmed cases of Covid-19.

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Earlier this month, chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said that a quarter of health workers with the virus picked it up via "healthcare related transmission", while 61pc was acquired in the community.

The number of applicants for the Be On Call for Ireland initiative was this week put at approximately 72,000. However, it is understood fewer than 1,500 have actually started or are in the process of being made available to work.

Phil Ni Sheaghdha, general secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), warned rates of healthcare worker infection are on the rise.

"The HSE was already understaffed before Covid-19 came to our shores," she said.

"That problem is compounded now that there are additional pressures on the health service.

"We know there's a large number of healthcare workers in self-isolation, along with a large number who can't work due to underlying conditions or medication, which put them at higher risk from Covid-19."

In a letter to the chief executive officer of the HSE, Paul Reid, she said a nurse at a large acute hospital had to source her own PPE. She contacted a local supplier to arrange for 2,000 masks to be delivered. "It is simply not acceptable that staff in the frontline have to secure their own protective equipment," she wrote.

The lack of childcare is going to make rosters even harder to fill

The INMO said while big numbers of staff were absent due to having to self-isolate, many were also having to take annual leave because they cannot access childcare.

"School and creche closures, combined with many elderly relatives being asked to cocoon, has made it near-impossible for many healthcare workers to find childcare. The Government need to act to provide childcare fast. We have been seeking a childcare solution for over a month now, but progress has been painfully slow.

"Well over 90pc of nurses and midwives are women. In practice, this means that childcare is a massive issue for our members.

"Increasingly, the lack of childcare is going to make rosters even harder to fill."

Prof Higgins, at the National Maternity Hospital, spoke of the challenges of rising absenteeism but told the Irish Independent the hospital was coping well and had excellent infrastructure in place.

"Our absenteeism rate would have been quite low and we haven't seen an increase in people not coming to work because of fear, but more so people are absent because we are sending them home due to health and safety.

"We are very well prepared and from the beginning we have been working hard so staff can feel safe," he added.

He said 16 staff were currently cocooning, 30 had been infected and more than 60 were self-isolating.

In Mallow General Hospital, a similar number of staff are currently out of work.

Siptu trade official Mr Allen said that the numbers were "frightening for a small hospital".

Mr Allen and his colleague Marie Butler wrote to management expressing their "great concern" about the large numbers self-isolating or diagnosed with the disease.

The hospital is doing its best to keep morale up

He said he believed around 11 Covid-19 patients were being treated there and staff looking after them were "PPE-ed up to the hilt", but others were worried.

A nurse working at one of Ireland's largest hospitals, who wishes to remain anonymous, told how staff are taking extra shifts to try to make up for gaps in the roster. "We're working harder than ever and the hospital is doing its best to keep morale up but it is incredibly stressful," she said.

The HSE said it had been collecting absenteeism data twice weekly in respect of Covid-19. However, it did not provide up to date figures when asked.

A spokesperson confirmed that 1,460 support staff who 'answered Ireland's call' were in the process of being made available.

"Nurses, doctors, support staff, allied health professionals and pathology technicians have started or have been assigned to community and acute sites," they said. It is unclear how many have actually started work.

The Irish Independent can also reveal how the Mental Health Commission (MHC) previously flagged staffing as a "high risk" issue at a centre where eight residents died from Covid-19 in a three-day period.

In its most recent report, in 2018, inspectors from the MHC said "the numbers of staff were not appropriate" at the Maryborough Centre, Portlaoise.

A HSE spokesperson said additional staff had been brought in to help care for the remaining 17 patients.
Police in Hong Kong carried out a sweeping operation against high-profile democracy campaigners on Saturday, arresting 15 activists on charges related to massive protests that rocked the Asian financial hub last year. Among those targeted was 72-year-old media tycoon Jimmy Lai, founder of anti-establishment newspaper Apple Daily, who was arrested at his home. The group also included former lawmakers Martin Lee, Margaret Ng, Albert Ho, Leung Kwok-hung, Au Nok-hin and current lawmaker Leung Yiu-chung. They are accused of organising and taking part in unlawful assemblies in August and October, according to the police. Five were arrested on suspicion of publicising unauthorised public meetings in September and October. "The arrestees were charged or will be charged with related crimes," superintendent Lam Wing-ho said. All 15 are due to appear in court mid-May. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the arrests "deeply concerning", saying in a tweet that "politicized law enforcement is inconsistent with universal values of freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly". - 'Relieved' to be defendant - "Finally I've become a defendant. How do I feel? I'm very much relieved," Lee, known as the father of democracy in Hong Kong, told media after he was bailed. "For so many years, so many months, so many good youngsters were arrested and charged, while I was not arrested. I feel sorry about it," the 81-year-old barrister and founding chairman of the city's first political party said. He added he does not regret his actions and is proud to walk with Hong Kong's youngsters in their fight for democracy -- remarks the city's police chief Chris Tang said left him "very worried and surprised". "As a veteran of the legal profession... he continues to incite youngsters to violate the law. I don't think he should feel proud, he should feel ashamed," Tang said. Media boss Lai was previously detained in February over his participation in another August rally that was banned by police for security reasons. The semi-autonomous city was shaken by widespread and sometimes violent street protests in 2019, sparked by a now-abandoned proposal to allow extraditions to the Chinese mainland and its opaque judicial system. "Today's arrests of pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong is another nail in the coffin of 'one country, two systems'," said Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch, referring to the principle that guarantees freedoms in the city not seen on the mainland. "It's hard to know Beijing's next precise move, but it seems Hong Kong officials will further enable abuses rather than defend Hong Kong people's rights." - 'This is not the rule of law' - Last year's rallies morphed into a wider movement calling for greater freedoms in the most concerted challenge to Beijing's rule since the former British colony returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. The protests and clashes with police have since died down, partly due to exhaustion and arrests but also because of the emergence of the deadly coronavirus. China's leaders have refused to accede to the protesters' demands, which include fully free elections in the city, an inquiry into alleged police misconduct during the protests and an amnesty for more than 7,000 people arrested during the movement -- many of them under the age of 20. Pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo said Saturday the local government "is trying very hard to introduce a reign of terror". "They are doing whatever they can do to try to silence, to take down the local opposition, but then united we stand," she said. "It's so obvious they're choreographing all their acts." Chris Patten, Hong Kong's last colonial governor before the 1997 handover, said the arrests were another step towards burying the city's autonomy. "This is not the rule of law. This is what authoritarian governments do," he said. "It becomes ever more clear, week by week and day by day, that Beijing is determined to throttle Hong Kong."
Members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) have joined in solidarity and remembrance to mark the first anniversary of the murder of Lyra McKee.

The senseless killing of journalist Lyra McKee is remembered in an online vigil on the first anniversary of her death today.

On April 18 2019, Ms McKee (29) was shot dead during a riot in the Creggan area of Derry.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has urged its members to use #WeStandWithLyra today on social media as a form of online vigil to pay their respects.

"Lyra was a journalist who represented the best of Northern Ireland with a future ahead that reflected her optimism, her confidence, her ambition and her strong sense of social justice and commitment to equality, said Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary.

She said that the best tribute for Ms McKee is to encourage and promote journalism.

"The greatest tribute we can pay Lyra is to find ways to encourage and promote the kind of imaginative, insightful and brave journalism for which she will be remembered."

Ms Stanistreet also paid tribute to her partner and family.

"As we remember Lyra today, and think of her partner and family, we also think of journalists elsewhere who put their lives on the line when they get up and go to work each day.

Tanaiste Simon Coveney tweeted his respects also.

"Her murder shocked so many and began a process to find a new poliical agreement in NI. She has impacted many lives for the better," he said.

Tanaiste Simon Coveney tweeted his respects also.

"Her murder shocked so many and began a process to find a new poliical agreement in NI. She has impacted many lives for the better," he said.

Irish secretary for the NUJ Seamus Dooley said that the journalists unrivalled zest made her killing so cruel.

"Lyra had an unrivalled zest for life and for living. That is what makes her senseless killing so cruel. In her journalism she combined her passion for journalism with a deep commitment to social change, he said.

"What marked Lyra apart was her optimism, her unfailing good humour and her refusal to become cynical while fearlessly questioning the status quo.

He added that her social affairs journalism with new and imaginative solutions remains her legacy.

"In her writings, in her approach to issues of poverty, equality and exclusion Lyra was not afraid to ask the difficult question, to challenge the conventional and accepted wisdoms and to look for new and imaginative solutions to problems. Thats her legacy.

"On her first anniversary it is important that we celebrate the legacy of a woman of imagination, humour and enormous talent, he said.
BISHKEK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th April, 2020) The number of people infected with the new coronavirus in Kyrgyzstan has grown by 23 to 489 within the past 24 hours, the country's COVID-19 response center told Sputnik on Friday.

"As of April 17, 2020, 23 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been registered in Kyrgyzstan," the response center's spokesperson said.

The list of the recently infected people includes 12 doctors among others.

The death toll from the coronavirus in Kyrgyzstan stands at five people, while 11 other people are in critical condition.

Kyrgyzstan has declared a state of emergency in several cities, including the capital of Bishkek, in light of the pandemic.

The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, more than 2.1 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 144,000 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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China was the first country to be hit by the novel coronavirus. But, now from a recent social media post by Michael Pettis, who is a Finance Professor at Peking University, it looks like some essence of normalcy has returned to its capital city Beijing.

In a series of tweet, Michael said, After 8 weeks of lockdown Beijingers have definitely put behind them the shock and horror that led to so much pessimism and so many predictions of social and economic disaster just a month ago.

After 8 weeks of lockdown Beijingers have definitely put behind them the shock and horror that led to so much pessimism and so many predictions of social and economic disaster just a month ago. Yang Haisong, who heads Maybe Mars, Chinas biggest indie label, even asked me if... pic.twitter.com/iGP8bhVfTp Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) April 10, 2020

In another tweet, he informed that even though Beijing is still at level one lockdown, along with nearby Tianjin, the surrounding province of Hebei and the central province of Hubei, whose capital is Wuhan, other parts of the country are more or less open now.

...return to normalcy even though Beijing is still at level one lockdown, along with nearby Tianjin, the surrounding province of Hebei, and the central province of Hubei, whose capital is Wuhan. The rest of the country has pretty much opened up, and everyone seems to explain... pic.twitter.com/xQWMUa9yhY Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) April 10, 2020

Elaborating upon why the capital city is still under lockdown, he revealed that people believe that this is where the leaders live and so that is why they shrug.

...the still-high lockdown level in Beijing with a this is where the leaders live shrug. In many provinces senior students are returning to school, although other students, including university students, are still doing all classes online. I myself just finished my 2-hour... pic.twitter.com/rn0d4WBynu Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) April 10, 2020

Michael also shared pictures of shops which were absolutely empty. But, he has however asserted that things will be better when the mood of the world is a bit lightened in the upcoming weeks. In another tweet, he has also mentioned that the future seems tough but is not apocalyptical. However, things will be grim when economic pain seriously kicks in.

...weeks in Beijing the mood has been completely transformed and the future seems merely tough, not apocalyptical. I suspect that as the economic pain begins seriously to kick in, the mood will become grim again, but the end-of-the-world feelings will be over.The last... pic.twitter.com/bkj9W35Oqp Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) April 10, 2020

...weeks in Beijing the mood has been completely transformed and the future seems merely tough, not apocalyptical. I suspect that as the economic pain begins seriously to kick in, the mood will become grim again, but the end-of-the-world feelings will be over.The last... pic.twitter.com/bkj9W35Oqp Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) April 10, 2020

...In the rest of the world I read and hear the same sort of doomed predictions of economic, political and social collapse as we heard in Beijing even 3-4 weeks ago, but in Beijing that all seems very far away right now. I suspect that within a few weeks the mood of the rest... pic.twitter.com/zvpL70QpcE Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) April 10, 2020
Midland ISD staff is recommending that seniors be ranked using grades through the end of the first semester.

During Mondays school board meeting, trustees will vote on whether to use grades through the end of the semester instead of grades through the end of the fifth six-weeks period to determine valedictorian and salutatorian.
: daemonself (mit), : USANews

 : nih

: BBS  (Fri Apr 17 21:17:34 2020, )







Lead NIH coronavirus researcher suggested pandemic could be 'genocide', said

doctors would let blacks die



EXCLUSIVE: Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, who is described by the National

Institutes of Health (NIH) as the "lead" member of the U.S. government team

racing to find a coronavirus vaccine, has engaged with online theories

calling the pandemic a black "genocide" and condemned what she called "

systematic oppression" by white people, a review of her social media posts

by "Tucker Carlson Tonight" reveals.



Corbett has also reposted a tweet urging Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and Dr.

Jerome Adams, the surgeon general, to "check" their "privilege."



Late Friday, a senior Health and Human Services (HHS) official told Fox News

: "HHS career ethics officials are reviewing the matter." Fox News is told

the inquiry is being taken very seriously, as making unprofessional

social media posts about sensitive government work can violate federal

ethical guidelines.



Corbett, 34, is an immunologist with the Vaccine Research Center, a division

of NIAID. In her social media posts, first reported Friday by "Tucker

Carlson Tonight," Corbett adopts a strikingly casual and conspiratorial tone

. Her Twitter biography reads: "Virology. Vaccinology. Vagina-ology. Vino-

ology. My tweets are my own. My science is the worlds."



On March 29, Corbett tweeted out a Bloomberg article about how the poor are

dying at higher rates from coronavirus. In her tweet, she said that doctors

would deliberately choose to deny ventilators to black Americans, leaving

them to die instead.



"I tweet for the people who will die when doctors has [sic] to choose who

gets the last ventilator and ultimately... who lives," Corbett wrote. "The

poor. And, while the article doesnt explicitly say it... the black."



FILE - Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, left, senior research fellow and scientific

lead for coronavirus vaccines and immunopathogenesis team in the Viral

Pathogenesis Laboratory, talks with President Donald Trump as he tours the

Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory at the National Institutes of Health in

Bethesda, Md., last month. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

FILE - Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, left, senior research fellow and scientific

lead for coronavirus vaccines and immunopathogenesis team in the Viral

Pathogenesis Laboratory, talks with President Donald Trump as he tours the

Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory at the National Institutes of Health in

Bethesda, Md., last month. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Someone replied to Corbett on April 9: Its so scary to think about. I

know when it comes down to it people will be turned away or left to die

because they are black. Corbett replied that same day: Yep. Both.



Another user declared, They hate us. This virus is a sure fire way to get

rid of us without having to lift a finger. Corbett replied: Some have

gone as far to call it genocide. I plead the fifth.



On April 11, Corbett implied black people are "doomed."



"I am praying that policies reflect this is [sic] multiple ways," she wrote,

referring to addressing systemic racism. "They must or we will be doomed in

the next pandemic(s) too."



Adams, the surgeon general, told a press conference last week that black

Americans suffer more from obesity, diabetes, and other ailments that

increase the risk of death from coronavirus.







Some have gone as far to call it genocide. I plead the fifth.





After Adams recommended that black Americans avoid cigarettes and alcohol to

project their health during the epidemic, Corbett retweeted another users

thread saying the suggestion was offensive because they ignore systemic

racism. That thread ended by saying, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Adams, check your

privilege. Think critically. Stop spreading harmful fallacies that support

white supremacy.



Corbett herself commented, Pasting this thread here because its

appropriately put. Black people are not dying more because of their

behaviors. That is just a cop out to adjust accountability.



CORONAVIRUS TIMELINE SHOWS STAGGERING AMOUNT OF FLIP-FLOPS BY MEDIA, OTHERS



And, in a Twitter argument last week, Corbett said that Merit [is] defined

by prejudices. Another user responded, So can we just dismiss anything

white men are involved in because theyre intrinsically malevolent?



Corbetts response: White men are not be dismissed. But the systems that

they (ancestor or current) curated are.



When the poster asked Corbett if she was advancing an "immoral" notion, she

replied: "No. Not at all. Nothing is immoral about dismantling systematic

oppression."



Replying to @KizzyPhD

So we can just dismiss anything white men are involved in because theyre

intrinsically malevolent? Come on, now.





No absolutely not. White men are not to be dismissed, but the systems that

they (ancestors or current) curated are.



3:42 AM - Apr 8, 2020

Twitter Ads info and privacy

See KizzyPhD's other Tweets

In the meantime, some of Corbett's other posts suggested that she was

enjoying her role to an unusual degree.



"What's better than bomb data emailed (at 5:30 pm) by team members fully

graphed in beautiful color schemes and clear labeling???" she wrote on

Thursday. "I'll wait..."



On March 20, she wrote: "Last yr, I took *17* trips (weekends domestically &

other); this year, I have cancelled bucket list vacations (Netherlands,

Spain, Jamaica, Greece). This the reason 'millennials' should be fighting

for research funding for future pandemics... We deserve to be in dese

streetz!"



On March 19, Corbett seemingly attempted to explain her tone on Twitter. "I

decided to take matters into my own hands when I saw the people being left

out of the direction and the press and the... you get the point," she wrote.

"So... here I am 'COVID-19,' but make it fashion.





NIHs lead scientist for coronavirus vaccine research Kizzmekia Corbett

lays out the governments race to create a vaccine, saying they could be on

track to have a vaccine from sequence to the general population within 8

months. https://cnn.it/34DnXnV





3,039 people are talking about this

In an interview earlier this month with CNN, which called Corbett "NIH's

lead scientists for coronavirus vaccine research," Corbett told Anderson

Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta that "several of our previous projects" --

including MERS and SARS research -- informed the government's ongoing

coronavirus vaccine research.



In general terms, Corbett told the hosts that a specific protein would play

a key role in the vaccine efforts. She also said that vaccine "rapid

response" had improved in recent years, in part because "we've researched

coronavirus vaccine development for the last 7 years, particularly under my

direction, the team has researched this coronavirus development for 5 years."



Various other media outlets -- including The New York Times and Fox News --

have previously covered Corbett's role as the lead coronavirus researcher.



Fox News reported earlier this week that Corbett has long been called a

superstar scientist. She got a full scholarship to the University of

Maryland, Baltimore County, where she majored in biology and sociology.



She received a doctorate from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

in 2014 and joined the NIHs Vaccine Research Center as a postdoctoral

fellow the same year.

--

 :WWW  mitbbs.com [FROM: 98.]


Shocking video shows the jaw-dropping moment when a homeless man kicked a New York City police officer onto a subway track while she and her rookie partner tried to arrest the man for fare evasion.

Officers Carolyn Anderson and rookie Elijah Pardieu were trying to arrest 25-year-old Anquando Johnson at the 125th Street subway station in Harlem just after 2am on Friday.

Joaquin Santiago. the man who filmed the altercation, said that the officers had been looking for Johnson in the station.

Scroll down for video

Officers Carolyn Anderson and rookie Elijah Pardieu were trying to arrest 25-year-old Anquando Johnson at the 125th Street subway station in Harlem just after 2am on Friday

'He came down the stairs and they came after him,' Santiago explained to the New York Daily News. 'They were looking for him. One of them said, 'Is that him?' And he said, 'Yeah, it's me.'

He added: 'I was shocked by the whole thing, I just took out my phone and started shooting.'

The clip shows the two officers repeatedly stomping and pushing down on Johnson's legs and neck as they try to restrain him for not paying the $2.75 fee.

The clip shows the two officers repeatedly stomping and pushing down on Johnson's legs and neck as they try to restrain him for not paying the $2.75 fee

Johnson can be heard telling the officers to step on his legs and neck harder as he maneuvers his body to be able to lay on his back.

The suspect then proceeds to flail his legs at the officers before kicking Anderson and sending her back.

Anderson loses her balance and doesn't secure her footing before falling onto the track.

Santiago can be heard exclaiming in shock as a northbound train comes into the station across the platform.

Anderson retrieved her bottle from the scene before she was helped off the tracks by Santiago and another man. She suffered a fractured wrist.

The suspect then proceeds to flail his legs at the officers before kicking Anderson and sending her back falling

When Johnson was finally detained and placed on a stretcher, he allegedly began spitting at cops and shouted offensive remarks at them.

'I have needles,' he said, according to a source familiar with the incident. 'I hope you catch HIV.'

'He turned while he was being handcuffed and spit in the cops face. And this during the coronavirus,' Santiago added.

Johnson was charged with assault on a police officer, reckless endangerment and theft of service.

He has been taken to the Harlem Hospital for medical and psychological evaluation.

Anderson retrieved her bottle from the scene before she was helped off the tracks by Santiago and another man. She suffered a fractured wrist

'This video is extremely disturbing,' said Sgt. Jessica McRorie, a NYPD spokeswoman. 'The officer could have easily been killed, and as a result of this assault, the officer suffered a serious injury.'

On Monday, 6,380 employees from the nation's largest police force called out sick - a total of 17.6 percent of all employees.

While that figure is still remarkably high, it marks a consistent drop that has been ongoing since Thursday of last week, suggesting that the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak could be over in New York City.

Last Thursday, the numbers of NYPD officers who phoned out sick reached a whopping 19.8 percent. The number had been gradually increasing for 27 consecutive days, and the department was forced to install extra phone lines to keep up with the ballooning number of calls from unwell officers.

But on Friday, the number dropped for the first time, prompting police commissioner Dermot Shea to state: 'There is a light at the end of the tunnel'.
Learning continues with Room to Read despite COVID-19 View(s):

School holidays are an exciting and relaxing time for all youngsters. While it is time away from school, holidays are also a great way to learn skills and knowledge through activities such as playing outdoors, visiting places etc. However, the recent COVID- 19 pandemic has confined children into their homes, restricting their learning and interaction, making their time at home uninteresting and non-educational. At such times, reading can be a respite and comfort, and serve as one of the most effective methods of learning. Whilst distant learning mechanisms have been established around the world and in Sri Lanka, children in low-income communities will have little to no access to online material and lack guidance on how to use them.

One organization that supports reading development in rural communities in Sri Lanka is Room to Read. Room to Read is a global non-profit organization founded in 2000 with the belief that world change starts with education. It envisions a world in which all children can pursue quality, holistic education that enables them to reach their full potential and contribute to their communities and economies. Room to Read conducts its programs at two critical stages of learning; early primary education for children to develop how to read and write with compression with a habit of reading, and support girls to complete secondary school with the relevant life skills to succeed in school and beyond. In Sri Lanka, Room to Read began its journey in 2005 followed by the devastating Tsunami and have impacted the education of over 01 million children thus far via both programs.

Room to Reads innovative Reading Development Program ensures that children in primary schools gain reading development holistically, have libraries filled with books in local languages, as well as teachers and librarians who are trained on how to engage a classroom of eager, young learners. By the end of grade 2, children in Room to Reads Reading Development Program read 2 to 3 times as fast and read with 87% greater comprehension than their peers in non-Room to Read program schools. In Sri Lanka, 51562 primary school children are benefiting through its the program, making an impact on 2109 schools across the country.

08 year old Nathara is one of Room to Reads Reading Development program participants from Polonnaruwa. Although Nathara loved going to school, she never understood why it was so important to read books. Inspired by Room to Reads library in school, Nathara always dreamt of having one at home, where she can read books whenever she want and share them with her neighbours. With a little bit of help from her father, Nathara found the COVID-19 lockdown the perfect time to build the library. When Room to Read made my school library, I found a lot of books in Sinhala to read. Reading is my favourite way to spend time. I am so happy to have my own library at home. Natharas enthusiasm and initiative in building a home library exemplifies the sustainability of the organizations programs and their lasting impact on the program participants.

Beginner readers need books and materials designed for their skill levels. Unfortunately, books for early readers are often limited or nonexistent in disadvantaged communities. Thus, as a childrens book publisher, Room to Read creates books that readers at various levels can enjoy. These books are written and illustrated by local artists that improves local book publishing, while the stories are culturally relevant and adaptive. So far, Room to Read has published 223 story books in both Sinhala and Tamil. In 2019, Room to Read Sri Lanka launched its first non-fiction collection in Sinhala and in 2020, it aims to enhance the collection by authoring books in Tamil. At the same time, earlier this year, Room to Read partnered with the Ministry of Education to develop a teacher-guide manual for primary educators, in order to enhance their knowledge and teaching methods on reading development.

The organisation works in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations and the government since the beginning. Involving parents and communities is vital to ensure the sustainability of the programs, when Room to Read phases out from one area to move to another in need. The parents of Harindu (a 10 year old Room to Reads Reading Development Program participant) knew about the benefits of reading all too well. Room to Read parents workshops have taught us about the value of education all too well. As soon as their holiday started, I made a timetable to allow Harindu to read. He reads the stories to his sister as well. I do not want Harindus reading to get affected during this lockdown. It is important that he maintains his learning and reaches his full potential in education. Room to Read was instrumental in teaching us parents how to support our children with their learning. Thats why I always encourage Harindu to read at home, Harindus mother commented.

Globally, Room to Read has benefited 16.6 million children in over 30,000 communities in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Grenada, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Vietnam, and Zambia. During the COVID-19 lockdown, Room to Read aims to reach out to children across the island by sharing read aloud videos via its Room to Read Sri Lanka Facebook account. As an international book publisher, children around the world can access its digital library through Room to Reads Literacy Cloud (https://literacycloud.org/), where nearly 200 books from all countries are available for our children to read and learn while they stay at home safe, amidst the COVID- 19 pandemic.
The US and Vietnamese governments are providing mutual support to each other in funds and goods

According to the US Embassy in Vietnam, the US government is leading the worlds humanitarian and health response to the COVID-19 pandemic even as they battle the virus at home. As part of the comprehensive and generous response from the American people, the US has provided nearly $4.5 million in emergency health for the Vietnamese government to build laboratories, monitoring, detect infection cases, train health experts, and pursue communication activities.

Over the last 20 years, the US poured more than $1.8 billion into Vietnam, including $706 million in the health sector.

Several days ago, the US Embassy thanked Vietnam for sending medical face masks to the US. "Today, Ambassador Kritenbrink accepted a donation of 200,000 cloth masks from the government and people of Vietnam. He also accepted a donation of 50,000 masks from Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. These masks will be used where they are most needed in the United States to fight COVID-19," the embassy posted on Facebook.

On April 16, at the headquarters of the Government Office, the government and people of Vietnam handed over medical supplies to the government and people of the US., while last week, 450,000 protective suits were sent to the US to help frontline healthcare professionals fight the global pandemic.

"This was made possible because of the partnership of two great American companies  DuPont and FedEx  and our friends in Vietnam. Thank you," Trump tweeted on Thursday morning last week (April 9).

The US is expected to receive a total of 4.5 million such suits, made by DuPont in the northern city of Haiphong, in over a month, said the US Embassy in Vietnam.

The United States is now the worst-hit nation with more than 668,000 infections including almost 32,000 deaths. Over the world, the pandemic has killed around 144,000 people and infected to 2.2 million people as of April 17.

Total US government assistance in the global fight against COVID-19 provided to date includes nearly $200 million in emergency health assistance from USAIDs Global Health Emergency Reserve Fund for Contagious Infectious-Disease Outbreaks and Global Health Programs account, nearly $195 million in humanitarian assistance from USAIDs International Disaster Assistance (IDA) account, and $50 million from the Economic Support Funding (ESF), which will help governments and NGOs in more than 100 of the most affected and at-risk countries during this global pandemic.
As a result of the ongoing lockdown, students living in rented accommodation and PGs are struggling to pay rent. Even though the MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) has issued an order according to which landlords cannot demand rent from students, workers and migrant labourers for a month.

The order by MHA states, Where ever the workers, including the migrants, are living in rented accommodation, the landlords of those properties shall not demand payment of rent for the period of one month.

The order also states, If any landlord is forcing labourers and students to vacate their premises, they will be liable for action under the Act.

Still, students are being asked to pay rent, even for rooms that are presently unoccupied as students are stuck in other places.

Mayank Yadav, a student of Delhi University, says, I have paid the rent for the month of April. I initially requested my landlord to suspend the rent for a month but they did not. Making an issue about this will just get me kicked out from here and I cannot afford this right now. I cannot travel back to my home town in Uttar Pradesh. My parents have been sending money for my rent and expenses, but in this time of crisis, it is difficult for them as well to manage everything on time.

Chon Beno, a student preparing for UPSC in Delhi, says, I have been asked to pay the rent for April and I have paid it. Nothing in my PG has changed since the lockdown and its the same. We all have been asked for the rent. My roommates might have asked for suspension of rent or reduction in the amount but we have all paid the full amount .

Many who were not in Delhi during the lockdown are also being asked by their landlords to pay the rent for the unoccupied room.

Surjkanta Saikhom, student of Delhi Universitys Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, who is in Manipur presently, says, Even when I got back home they called me twice a day for the rent. Though I left Delhi on 20th March and I paid the rent on March 28th. None of us are staying there and still we are being hounded to pay the rent.

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During normal school day operations, Spring Branch ISD Police officer Bern Collum regularly stops in for lunch at the campuses on his patrol route between Stratford and Memorial high schools.

The kids love it, he said.

I tell the teachers I am like a grandparent to the kids - I get them all riled up during lunch, then leave for the teachers to settle them down, Collum said with a friendly smile. Now, there are no students to see.

SBISD Police Officer Diego Tristan usually patrols in the Dairy Ashford neighborhoods. Based at SBISDs Westchester substation, he covers much of the districts west side, from Memorial Middle to Nottingham Elementary. All his schools remain closed at this time.

Colleague John Garner is an accident investigator, called on during normal operations with bus or district vehicle incidents. Today, SBISD is accident-free - there are no buses rolling.

Lately, all three officers have been part of the safety and security team in place during daily distribution of Grab and Go student meals at separate sites.

On Monday, April 6, Officer Collum was providing traffic control at Spring Forest Middle School. Officers Tristan and Garner helped support the meal distributions at the much-visited Hollibrook Elementary and Bear Boulevard School for Early Learning, respectively.

There is no work from home option for SBISD police officers. Around the clock, 38 men and women officers continue to work to keep the districts facilities, staff and students safe. While students are not physically in schools these days, the police are still on duty, and continue to make SBISDs community a calm and peaceful place.

Regardless of the circumstances or the events that happen, know that we are always out here to serve our students, schools and community, Police Chief D. Bruce Dareing said. We miss both our staff and students, but during this time we understand that it is more important to keep everyone safe at home.

Ready to come back, be back

Collum has worked with the SBISD police for 15 years after a career change from a construction contractor. Growing up without a father, he wanted to make a difference in the lives of young people.

I knew I wanted to work around youth, Collum said of his decision to work for the school district. I like their young spirits.

He started his SBISD career assigned to Spring Woods High School. He was open and approachable with the students, many of whom would stop by just to chat. While he enjoyed building relationships, the students understood he would not hesitate to do his job if they made poor choices.

On a recent day, Officer Collum recognized one of his former Spring Woods High students waiting in the SBISD Child Nutrition Service food supply line with his own young family inside their truck. Collum was able to recall that young fathers name. He congratulated him on having a good career as an electrician.

That meant a lot to me to see him be successful since he had a rough time when in high school, he said.

At Spring Forests meal site, parents will pause in the distribution line so students in the cars can greet the friendly officer whom they know from regular visits at schools along his route.

They tell me they are ready to come back to school, said Officer Collum. And I tell them, I am ready to have them back!

He sees all types of people in the food distribution lines, and knows kids can eat a lot, having raised two boys of his own.

Parents are used to sending kids to school for some meals, said Collum. I know (receiving food) means a lot to the families. If my two boys were still at home, I would come get some food, too!

Concerned about our economy and future

Officer Diego Tristan got the school police officer position he was seeking after applying with SBISD several times. With more than two years in SBISD, he has also served with College of the Mainland in Texas City and at University of Houstons central campus.

I love it here, he said at Hollibrook Elementary, waving misguided drivers into the correct traffic lanes. Ive worked where there is too much micro-management. Here, Chief (Dareing) entrusts us to understand what we need to be doing, and how to do it correctly. I like that.

A father of two daughters, both young adults, hes really glad to have his 20-year-old at home from New York, where she was attending the Culinary Institute of America. Hes concerned about what COVID-19s shutdown might do to both the local and national economy, too.

How, as a nation, will we jump back from this? he asks rhetorically. I worry this will be hard for the economy, and I think a lot of things we are not thinking about will change even when we get back to all the open restaurants and bars, and other kinds of establishments.

And schools, too, maybe.For the past six weekdays, Hollibrook Principal Anabel Taylor has stood outside with Child Nutrition Services workers at the bus and parent drop-off circle. The cafeteria workers chat with drivers and residents of the many nearby apartments who walk through an access gate to obtain student meals.

Hollibrook Elementary serves families who are mostly low socioeconomic status. Many include moms and dads who are immigrants. Almost all students at this campus were considered at risk - before the virus cancelled schools across Houston and Texas.

Last week, Hollibrook served breakfast and lunch to more than 800 children under age 18 for its first four days. Last Thursday, about 900 meals were served, including weekend food distribution.

Before this (COVID-19), most of our parents had jobs. This has now put many of these families out of jobs, and without this breakfast and lunch, I dont know if our kids would have enough to eat, stated Principal Taylor. What will happen to my kids if were not here?

No place like home

Officer John Garner grew up in Spring Branch. A 1995 graduate of Northbrook High, he worked at Harris County Precinct 5 and for Spring Valley Village Police before joining SBISD.

He lives in district with his wife, who is an administrator at Woodview Elementary. One adult son is serving in the Army, currently assigned to Fort Polk in Louisiana; another child attends YES Prep at Northbrook High.

On Monday, he was providing support at Bear Boulevard Pre-K on Westview, which borders on his old village patrol neighborhood. He has been with SBISD for six years, working as a patrol and a main accident investigator. Hes focused on school and facilities security now.

I help make sure that school property is secure, he said. Times are tough now for many people, and some people may decide to do things that they dont usually do. Thats why hes here and visible.

The 9-11 terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., made him decide on his law enforcement career. Hes sold on policing and investigation, and Spring Branch, too.

He has given thought to moving elsewhere a few times. The answer is always No. This is home, and its a great location, Officer Garner said.

"We look forward to getting back to normal operations but until then we are still out here, ready to help out and help keep everyone safe," the Police Chief also said.

"This is a time when the entire districts Collective Greatness and Collaborative Spirit really comes out. Our understanding, dedicated officers are prime examples of these Core Values. We look forward to getting back to normal operations, but until then we are still out here, ready to help out, and help keep everyone safe.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 22:32:22|Editor: huaxia

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NANJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- An intercontinental cargo air route has opened, linking Nantong in east China's Jiangsu Province and Brussels, capital of Belgium, via Chengdu, Sichuan Province.

A charter plane carrying 35.4 tonnes of medical supplies made its maiden voyage on the route from the Xingdong International Airport in Nantong Friday morning heading for Brussels, with a stopover in Chengdu.

Purchased by government-entrusted enterprises in Spain, the medical supplies consisting of 789 medical beds are expected to be transferred from Brussels to Barcelona by land and serve local epidemic prevention and control.

The air service is scheduled with three chartered flights. Cargos can board the plane in both Nantong and Chengdu.

The Nantong customs and the Xingdong International Airport have simplified customs clearance for swift delivery of the medical supplies to Europe. Enditem
Ukraine boosts agri-exports to US$5.7 bln in three months

23:20, 17.04.20 1918

Agri-imports for the said period increased to US$1.7 billion.
United in grief, but alone inside their own homes By Namini Wijedasa Many people affected by last years tragic Easter Sunday still feel deeply bereft and the present situation in the country has deprived them of coming together to remember their loved ones View(s): View(s):

For the Catholic survivors of last years terrorist bombings, this year is doubly hard.

They couldnt attend mass on Easter Sunday, the most important day of their religious calendar. And they cannot go to church on April 21 for the memorial service that had been planned for their loved ones.

It was meant to have been a celebration of their lives: the men, women and little children who died. But now, those left behind will be alone inside their homes, lighting candles and offering prayers when they had hoped to do it in solidarity with others who, like them, suffer the same grief.

It is natural that these families are feeling loneliness, said Fr Jude Raj Fernando, Administrator of St Anthonys Church, Kochchikade. When it was Holy Week, they would have recalled to themselves what happened last year on Maundy Thursday, on Good Friday, at the Easter vigil and, then, on Easter Sunday.

Fifty-four people died at Saint Anthonys Church. Eight-three were injured. Every day, Fr Jude and his assistant celebrate mass by themselves, expose the Blessed Sacrament and recite the Rosary. They pray for the victims, and for justice.

Many people now feel deeply bereft, said Moses Akash de Silva, National Director of the Voice for the Voiceless Foundation that worked for many months with those affected by the bombings, mainly at Katuwapitiya in Negombo and Batticaloa.

For around four to five months, there was much hype, Akash said. A lot of people visited and so on. Time passed, and now there isnt much attention. Some of them call me every day, just to say hello and to find out how Im doing.

One of them is a widower who lost his wife and daughter in the blast at St Sebastians in Katuwapitiya. He lives near the mass grave near the church were many of the dead were interred and which he visits often.

They seem to need people to be around them, especially those who lost their family members, Akash said.

One woman lost her daughter in the blast but could not attend the funeral as she was in the intensive care unit. They invited us for a meal recently, he recounted. She told me that she still didnt believe her daughter was dead because she didnt see the burial. She felt she would still come back.

This woman lost hearing in one ear. And her liver is damaged by shrapnel. She could no longer tend to the cattle that brought them an income. So Akashs organisation bought the livestock from her and sold it to three families in Batticaloa who were also affected by the bomb at the Zion Church.

Her husband drove a three-wheeler but with the curfew, his income dropped drastically. They have been living off dry ration packs that were donated to them. Their other daughter survived because she bent down to tie a shoelace. She is sitting her GCE O/Levels this year.

Another woman, who lost several members of her family, rarely left the house even before the curfew. She has not been able to cope with the grief. The head of the household also died. He was an employer and 40 others who worked under him lost their jobs.

There are three categories of people, Akash said. One is those directly affected by the bombings. The other is those who went to the churches and are partly affected. And the third are the indirectly affected.

For instance, a family that lived opposite St Sebastians had a vegetable stall which did not have business after the bomb. They recovered somewhat, along with a donation from Voice for the Voiceless, but the curfew has hit them again, making them dependent on handouts.

For Christians, there is also a question of faith because the bombings happened in church. We have been doing our level best to strengthen their faith experience, Fr Jude said. We have to understand their situation. It took them some time to come back to the church. They shared their experience of how they felt. Many were stronger than ever in their hope and have not given up.

He spoke of a young couple who had been at the fateful mass. The woman was pregnant and was trampled in the panicked melee that took place after the bomb. For a full day, she felt no movement in her womb. But she delivered a healthy baby and brought it to church for a blessing. This is a miracle child, she told the priest.

Its nearly one year now, said Fr Manjula Niroshan Fernando, the parish priest of St Sebastian. Those who have taken a journey off faith have, not totally, but to a certain extent overcome the situation. Still, its not easy for them.

That parish had the highest number of victims: 115 deaths. In five families, the children lost both parents. Of the injured, many have recovered from physical wounds. Around six are still paralysed. One remains in hospital.

They have strived hard, Fr Manjula said. I am personally happy but there are times it hits them and they feel the loneliness. Those who have full trust in the Lord have overcome the situation particularly well because of their firm faith.

A few days ago, he visited the woman who is still warded in hospital. She cannot move. I asked her what she feels now, he recounted. Does she think there is no God and whether she blames the Lord.

I also learned something from the answer she gave me, he said. She said, No Father, what are you talking about? Those who see God outside may feel that, sometimes, He is not there. But those who feel God is within them, will not think so. I am alive. It is true I cant move, but I am still alive. That is how God lives through me. I accept the situation.

This woman worked hard all her life to educate her children. Today, she is receiving help for it. Even if she is bedridden, she is happy her goals are being achieved.

As for loneliness, nobody else can take that away for them, Fr Manjula said. Can anybody fill the void a family member leaves? he asked. But I think they will tell you they have gained many friends.

The parish priest also said the new Government has promised to build 24 houses on a plot of land the church had bought for survivors who are still living on rent. The earlier administration had also pledged to do so but did not implement the plan before losing the election.

We have not distributed the lands yet, Fr Manjula said. The Government asked us to give them some time.

Light a lamp or candle, says Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith this week called on all Sri Lankans to commemorate the victims of the Easter Sunday bombings from home by lighting a lamp or candle in prayer.At 8.40 am, the bells of all Catholic churches will be rung in unison. The Cardinal urged all other religious places of worship to join in.At 8.45 amwhen the first bomb was set off at St Anthonys, Kochchikadethere will be two minutes of silence. There will be a televised programme at that time.The Cardinal then requested all citizens to light a candle or oil lamp at 8.47am and recite prayers. Elaborate ceremonies that had been scheduled to take places in the two affected churches have been cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
For the first time in his courtroom, Judge Peter Sakai on Friday used Zoom videoconferencing to swear in a new CASA volunteer class  the agencys largest with 42 people.

The mission of Child Advocates San Antonio, formed 36 years ago, is to recruit, train and supervise court-appointed volunteers who advocate for abused and neglected children and youth who are in the temporary custody of the state due to the acts or negligence of their parents and caregivers.

CASA and court officials said they were amazed and grateful to the people who signed up just as the coronavirus pandemic began, and who stayed the course to become advocates for children.

On ExpressNews.com: Get the latest update on coronavirus and a tracking map of U.S. cases

Judge Sakai, who is technically challenged, has now zoomed in, he said laughing as he greeted Marina Gonzales, chief executive officer of CASA, and the 42 people who were waiting to take their oath. Sakai administered the oath via his laptop while sitting on the bench in a mostly empty courtroom.

Before the oath, Sakai congratulated the recruits, CASA administration and staff for their efforts in providing eyes and ears to the courts by looking out for the interests of the children.

I want you to know how honored I am to swear yall in and welcome you aboard in this time of crisis. Our community needs you more than ever, the judge said.

As he read the oath, the big monitors in Sakais courtroom showed the smiling faces of the recruits as they came up one-by-one as they repeated the judge words.

CASA advocates are fact-finders for the judges and give voice to the children to which they are assigned. They carefully research the childrens backgrounds for the judges so that the courts can make sound decisions about their future, according to the agency.

For example, the courts depend on the advocate to determine if it is in the best interest of the child to live with the parent(s) or legal guardian, remain in foster care, or be freed for permanent adoption, according to the agency.

The advocates work closely with Child Protective Services, but remain independent. CASA advocates will make a recommendation about placement to the court, and then follow through until the case is permanently resolved, according to the agency.

They must commit to work with the agency for 12 months, visiting the child or children at least once a month. They must complete training and maintain confidentiality.

After the ceremony, Sakai said he was awestruck by the compassion and commitment the volunteers have shown, especially during the coronavirus outbreak. The Childrens Court has continued its work, holding hearings remotely to keep up with cases.

On ExpressNews.com: Thinking outside the box: Videoconferencing debuts in San Antonio courtroom amid coronavirus outbreak

Childrens Court has held more than 500 hearings, with no resets or delays for children and families during the coronavirus quarantine, according to data provided by the county.

There are currently 3,040 children in the foster care system in Bexar County. That number has decreased through the years from a high of 3,500, officials said.

Gonzales, who has led CASA for three years, said the agency has 550 active advocates.

The agency holds about nine classes a year. Volunteers must commit to training three nights a week, for three weeks, for a total of 33 hours of training. She said they normally have about 30 people per class, but the April class, which began with 45 people, is the largest group she has seen during her tenure.

We are thrilled to have 42 people today, Gonzales said. This class has the potential to serve at least 84 kids, which is amazing. We are very grateful to add them to our CASA team.

Chris Poage, 47, of Helotes, said he had always wanted to be a volunteer, but something was always holding him back.

He signed up after he became aware of the program during a February church retreat.

I made the decision to make serving a priority, he said Friday afternoon.

He and his wife, Wendy, raised two sons. They are grown and already out of the house, so he felt the time was right.

He said he learned through the training that 50 percent of homeless people spend their childhoods in the foster care system. That changed him.

It has given me a different perspective and opened my heart more to people and their struggles, he said.

I am a little nervous, but excited to be looking out for a child or children and whats best for them.

Elizabeth Zavala covers county and state courts in San Antonio. To read more from Elizabeth, become a subscriber. ezavala@express-news.net | Twitter: @elizabeth2863
Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Friday said he was "deeply disturbed" by news reports that people in Meghalaya and Tamil Nadu had opposed funerals of doctors who died of COVID-19 fearing it could further spread the disease.

Such incidents are a blot on the society's consciousness, he said. Citing a newspaper report, he said there was a delay of 36 hours in the funeral of the Meghalaya doctor. "Such incidents are a blot on the society's consciousness and of great concern for all of us, irrespective of party, religion and region," he said in a Facebook post. The "unfortunate behaviour" from the locals forced Chief Minister Conrad Sangma to finally intervene in the matter and help resolve it, Naidu said.

The vice president said the physician's body lay for several hours in the hospital he had founded after attempts to bury or cremate him were unsuccessful due to local resistance.

"Further distressed to know about a similar incident in Chennai, where locals resisted cremation of a doctor hailing from Nellore following his death in a city hospital. "Saddened to learn that the body had to be shifted to an alternative place for cremation with the help of police and other authorities," Naidu later said on Twitter.

He felt that there is an urgent need to educate the people and remove misconceptions on COVID-19 to prevent such inhuman incidents in the future. The vice president has shared his concerns on the issue with the home secretary and the director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

He said it is a matter of deep anguish that such incidents occurred in spite of an advisory being issued by the central government in March for the management of dead bodies infected with novel coronavirus.

"I urge all citizens to be empathic and respond compassionately, not react irrationally, especially during these testing times," Naidu said. People must act responsibly and not believe in rumours, the vice president said.

The need of the hour is to create greater social awareness among the general public by various stakeholders, he opined. "Doctors and the medical fraternity are risking their lives to save us during the COVID-19 pandemic. We need to respect them and lend our support in these testing times," he said.
Hospitals usual supplies are very quickly running out, he said.

One doctor in New York City, who was not authorized to speak publicly, recalled anguished exchanges with other physicians last week. Youre yelling at them. Youre telling them you dont have a dialysis machine to give them. You hear the intensity and the desperation in the other persons voice, the doctor said. My job was hell.

As the coronavirus spread rapidly in New York and in other cities, governors and mayors clamored for thousands more ventilators. But doctors have been surprised by the scarcity of dialysis machines and supplies, especially specialized equipment for continuous dialysis. That treatment is often used to replace the work of injured kidneys in critically ill patients.

The shortages involved not only the machines, but also fluids and other supplies needed for the dialysis regimen. Having enough trained nurses to provide the treatment has also been a bottleneck. Hospitals said they have called on the federal government to help prioritize equipment, supplies and personnel for the areas of the country that most need it, adding that manufacturers had not been fully responsive to the higher demand.

The fluids needed to run the dialysis machines are not on the Food and Drug Administrations watch list of potential drug shortages, although the agency said it was closely monitoring the supply. The Federal Emergency Management Agency described the shortage of supplies and equipment as unprecedented, and said it was working with manufacturers and hospitals to identify additional supplies, both in the United States and overseas.

Everybody thought about this as a respiratory illness, said Dr. David Charytan, the chief of nephrology at N.Y.U. Langone Medical Center. I dont think this has been on peoples radar screen.

The supplies allocated by manufacturers are insufficient, Dr. Charytan said, adding that the hospital switched to another type of machine when it couldnt get additional equipment it had wanted. It just doesnt come anywhere close to meeting the need, he said.
WASHINGTON, D.C.  In its latest move to protect its relationship with the Saudi Wahhabi monarchy, the US Deep State blocked the release of FBI files on the September 11 attacks that it has been deemed to contain information that would imperil US national security.

According to a report by ProPublica, the US Department of Justice claimed in a federal court filing late Monday night that the documents exposed state secrets, but said that it could not explain what those secrets involved, because that, too, is secret.

This assertion of privilege is over highly sensitive and classified national security information concerning foreign government information; intelligence activities, sources and methods; and information concerning foreign relations and foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources, acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell stated in a sworn declaration given to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. This information must be protected because its disclosure reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage, and in many cases exceptionally grave damage, to the national security of the United States, Grenell added, according to the blog Florida Bulldog.

His testimony was joined by those of US Attorney General William Barr and other leading intelligence officials.

The extraordinary lengths that theyre going to here suggest that there must be some deep, dark secret that theyre still trying very hard to hide after almost 20 years, Steven Pounian, a lawyer representing the September 11 victims families, told ProPublica. But who are they protecting? Something might be a Saudi government secret. But how can these be secrets that still need to be kept from the American people after all this time? Pounian noted.

The releases would have been part of a 2017 lawsuit against Saudi Arabia by the families of those who died in the September 11 attacks and the aftermath.

The official story goes that on that day, 19 hijackers from the terrorist group al-Qaeda took over four US airliners and flew them into three buildings: the two World Trade Center towers in New York, which later collapsed, and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, a portion of which burned; the fourth plane fell from the sky over Pennsylvania when the passengers attempted to retake control of it.

Of those 19 hijackers, 15 were from Saudi Arabia, and the mastermind of the operation, Osama bin Laden, came from one of the countrys wealthiest families. Last September, Barr allowed the families to learn the classified name of one of the hijackers accomplices, but only under a strict vow of secrecy.

While the 9/11 Commission fact-finding probe between 2002 and 2004 officially found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the attacks, it noted the likelihood that Saudi-sponsored charities did. A 2016 law permitting Americans to sue foreign governments for acts of terrorism is what allowed the families lawsuit to go forward.

However, after a more recent barb in the US-Saudi relationship appeared in late 2018 when Saudi journalist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated and dismembered in the Saudis Istanbul consulate, Washington similarly swept the issue under the rug, with Trump finding himself at odds with the CIA in assigning blame for the murder.
Lets Come Together, Not Sow Hate

The COVID-19 pandemic doesnt discriminate  people all over our country and world are being hospitalized, losing their jobs and health care, and fearing for the safety of their families. It impacts us all, and doesnt care what your race, national origin, gender identity, income level, sexual orientation, or age is. Stopping this virus requires following the facts, providing critical resources to those who need them, and showing kindness to one another. We will not stop it by blaming the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community.

The threats to the AAPI community and Asian immigrants are deeply disturbing and very real. A woman riding the subway was verbally attacked; a middle school child was targeted and treated unfairly by his teacher; and a woman walking to the gym was spit on  all for simply being who they are. Sadly, these are just a few examples of reports from across the country of people being harassed, bullied, and physically attacked, resulting in anyone of Asian descent living in fear of what will happen to them. A new website recently launched where victims can report incidents of hate and it saw nearly 700 cases logged in its first week  a figure representing just the tip of the iceberg, since hate crimes are often underreported. This discrimination needs to stop  now. Lets be clear: elected officials who are fanning the flames of hate with intentional word choice need to stop it. We see what you are doing and division is not the way to lead during this crisis.

It doesnt help when the president  who is supposed to unite us during trying times  is deliberately striking corona in his script and replacing it with Chinese in a speech. Calling it the Chinese Virus or Wuhan Virus isnt just racist and against expert health officials recommendations, but it is factually inaccurate, dangerous, and incites discrimination against Asian Americans and Asian immigrants. Not to mention, this and other similar behavior is beneath the office of a member of Congress, let alone the president of the United States. It is a blatant attempt to deflect accountability from the Trump administrations failure to prepare for a pandemic that places the safety of AAPI communities at risk.

The president recently tried to backtrack and condemn the bigotry that the AAPI community is experiencing right now, but thats not going to cut it. You cant claim to denounce hatred and bigotry when you continue to use racist terms that incite aggression toward the AAPI community.

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If elected leaders dont take responsibility for their actions, we will continue to call them out when they use racist terms and bring awareness to the harm they are causing. You should, too.

Both of us will use our positions to not only spread a message of kindness and inclusion, but also advocate for policies that follow the facts and help everyone through this crisis.

In the meantime, if you, a friend, or family member have been on the receiving end of hate, report it to your local authorities and hold people accountable. If you see something, say something.

During times like this, we must recognize that we have so much more in common than what separates us. Although it will be a long road to recovery from this pandemic, we know that together we can achieve anything. But to do that we have to stop hate and focus on how we will combat this virus  not each other.
As a team of Irish doctors approached Bergen-Belsen, the Nazi concentration camp liberated 75 years ago this week, they became aware of "a disquieting aroma" that came to them in wafts, gradually filling the air in the truck around them.

"It was the Belsen smell of death and decay," paediatrician and former rugby international Dr Bob Collis later wrote in his autobiography To Be a Pilgrim.

He went on to describe the unthinkable conditions: the British army had discovered unburied bodies - ten-feet high in places - and thousands of starving people when it liberated "The Horror Camp", as it became known, in northern Germany on April 15, 1945.

When he saw emaciated adults and children in the most appalling conditions, dying at a rate of 1,000 a day from starvation and typhus, Collis enlisted more help from the Netherlands. Then, he set to work in Belsen with his fellow Irish doctors - surgeon Nigel Kinnear and paediatrician Patrick MacClancy - who had all volunteered with the British Red Cross.

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Collis was in charge of two blocks that housed a number of orphaned children. On his rounds one day, he recalled meeting the "most entrancing scrap of humanity" in the arms of Dutch volunteer Han Hogerzeil, who would later become his second wife. He was describing a little boy called Zoltan Zinn, from Slovakia, whose smile seemed to be all there was of him - the rest of his body had been wasted by typhus, Collis wrote.

Zoltan and his sister Edit, along with Hungarian siblings Suszi (Suzi) and Tibor (Terry) Molnar, became what Collis described as "his special children". When they went to Sweden to convalesce, he committed to taking them back to Ireland with any others who didn't have homes.

A year passed and when they had recuperated, Collis made preparations to bring five children to Ireland and to care for them at Fairy Hill, an open-air hospital in Howth, Dublin.

He adopted Zoltan and Edit himself, raising them with support from his first wife Phyllis, with whom he had two sons, Dermot and Robbie. He arranged for the adoption of the others: Suzi and Terry were adopted by Elsie and Willie Samuels in Dublin, while Evelyn Schwartz went to Australia. She still lives there.

Looking back, Suzi Molnar (now Diamond) recalls the remarkable actions of a man who brought five children to Ireland and arranged for them to stay, even though they didn't have papers.

In recognition of his work, he was presented with a six-branched candelabrum, representing the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, and Suzi says the inscription sums him up perfectly. "It read: 'Healing requires to be inspired by love' and to me that is him to a tee. He wasn't looking for profit or for recognition in any way."

To do what he did, though, required self-belief and conviction. As Suzi recalls, he believed he was right and used that belief in his practice of medicine. For instance, when Zoltan fell ill with tuberculous meningitis in Ireland, Collis used a new medicine, streptomycin, which he had received only days before.

Collis resumed his medical work as head paediatrician at the National Children's Hospital in the same pioneering spirit, focusing as he had done before on the plight of people living in the overcrowded slums of Dublin.

He was particularly worried about the child mortality rate and tuberculosis. He also did ground-breaking work on cerebral palsy, and helped to found Cerebral Palsy Ireland.

Christy Brown, who suffered from the condition, was a patient, and Collis encouraged him to write My Left Foot. Indeed, Brown recalled that his doctor initially dismissed an early draft as "awful" but, while reading it, suddenly slapped the table and said: "Good!"

Collis went on to explain: "You have written one sentence here that stands out like a rose among a lot of weeds, one shining little gem thrown in amongst stones. It shows me that you could write if you knew how. That's what I wanted to find out."

Robert Collis, as he was known when he wrote, was a gifted writer himself and wrote two plays: Marrowbone Lane, about life in a Dublin slum, and The Barrel Organ. He also wrote several books, including an autobiography, a book on Bergen and two on his experiences of working as doctor in Nigeria in the '50s and '60s.

When his sons were older he divorced his first wife, though they remained on friendly terms. He married Han Hogerzeil and they had two sons, Sean and Niall. The couple retired to the Wicklow Mountains in the '70s, where their nephew Uto Hogerzeil still lives.

Deep passions

Uto remembers Bob Collis as a larger-than-life figure with deep passions. He came from a line of Anglo-Irish gentry and was sent to Rugby School in England; he later studied at Cambridge. When he got married, his father gave him a house at 26, Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, as a wedding present so that he could set up his surgery.

Despite his background, he had a social conscience and, with Han, wanted to help others. Their nephew recalls: "They were never interested in enriching themselves. They were desperately trying to do good. They were unselfish in their outlook on life. They didn't even have a pension."

The other side of that was he tended to be more interested in the big picture rather than the small details of family life. In his memoir Final Witness, his adopted son Zoltan wrote: "He was like Francis Drake or Walter Raleigh - an adventurer. Great on an open sea with the wind in his hair; less great in the small pond of family life."

His nephew describes a man who could be impatient but who had a great sense of humour and was endearingly eccentric. He might wear odd socks, or have a hole in his jacket or, say, if he was given a biscuit for the dog he might eat it himself, Uto laughs.

Uto believes it is very important to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen this week and to remember what his aunt Han and her husband, who died aged 75 in 1975, did to expose the horrors of the Nazi regime.

When Collis left Bergen-Belsen in 1945, he described those degradations in a chilling passage: "On the day we burned down the Horror Camp with flame-throwers, a cloud of smoke and mist hung over the scene giving the spectacle of the jets of flying flames a diabolical appearance so that we felt the wickedness of that place existed as positive Evil, that in fact positive Evil really exists in the world and the old concept of the Devil may be true."

While it is hard to look back, it is vital we do so because, as Holocaust survivor Suzi Diamond says, history can repeat itself. "Maybe not exactly in the same way but we must be on our guard against bigotry, racism and anti-Semitism whenever they show their ugly heads."
The German Development Cooperation (GIZ) in collaboration with Botswana Exporters and Manufacturers Association are identifying companies to assist in upscaling their production. GIZ CESARE has shown interest in supporting companies in the SADC region that produce relevant medical equipment such as sanitisers, gloves, gowns, masks, oxygen flasks and ventilators to increase the local production with the hope that this will help address the worldwide shortage of said medical supplies and facilitate access for the SADC region, said BEMA Chief Executive Officer, Mmantlha Sankoloba.

BEMA has submitted over 40 local manufacturing companies, mostly SMMEs to GIZ for consideration. But it has been noted that we do not have companies that locally produce surgical masks and ventilators, said Sankoloba, whose association is faced with a mammoth task of ensuring businesses survive and grow during and post the pandemic.

She said the Association is lobbying government to have holistic consultations with the private sector before strategies are implemented at national level. It is time to take a different approach, there is no other alternative but to have both the public and private sector coalesce and synergise their efforts to ensure the sector does not suffer a decline, said Sankoloba.

She said the sector has been faced with numerous issues, even before the pandemic, however, over the past weeks there has been a record on new cases arising from the effects of the COVID-19. For example, manufacturers have recorded a decline in turnover and revenue due to increase in expenditure, according to Sankoloba.

At this juncture it is important for both the private (all sectors represented) and public sector to work together, establish common ground and come up with sound solutions. It is important to consider offering much-needed support to businesses that will be largely affected by the pandemic, either from a financing perspective or ease of operations through provision of incentives that will ensure adequate working capital availability, said Sankoloba. She emphasised that it is lucrative to ensure the survival of manufacturing entities, as they have created job opportunities.
We may not have coped with the downturn very well, so now we have to manage the upturn better.

The past week has seen the official forecasts catch up with the reality that the economic downswing from this health crisis will be massive  as much as 10 per cent for the year as a whole.

The IMF believes the developed world will recover part of the way next year, but will still be down at the end of 2021 from where it was at the beginning of 2020.

Uncertain times: Online retailers are expanding, but the high streets are shattered

If these projections are anywhere near right, this hit will end up very broadly the same as the one the world economy took after the financial crash of 2008. We are going down further and faster than we did then but we will clamber back faster too.

But that is an aggregate. Some sectors will be much harder hit now than then and struggle to recover, while others will do just fine. You can see that already.

Online retailers are expanding, but the high streets are shattered. Many food businesses are running much as normal because we still have to eat, but milk sales have plunged (we've stopped buying those fancy coffees) and the cut flower trade is terrible. So what shape will the recovery take?

We have some very early signs from other countries and they are not encouraging. In Wuhan, the factories are reopening, and so manufacturing is getting going again.

But anecdotal evidence suggests that people are fearful of going out if they don't need to. The restaurants are free to reopen, but people don't want to go to them  so they stay shut. We had a glimpse of this reluctance in Austria too, where smaller shops and DIY outlets were shunned after they opened last week. People are frightened, and who can blame them?

There are other parts of the economy that can scramble through this year but will face huge problems next. Universities can teach and examine online this summer, but will see a shortfall of applicants in the autumn.

Foreign students don't know whether they will be able to travel, and there may be reluctance to start a course from home students too. Every unfilled undergraduate place is business lost for three or four years. So what's to be done?

Governments will pump in money and central banks will print the stuff. There will be gaps in their programmes, because you cannot compensate for every loss. There will also be a reckoning in the form of higher taxes and lower returns for savers in the years to come.

If you look at the big numbers the UK Government is doing more than most. But getting back to work is not just about pumping money into the economy. It is about creating confidence that we can safely get back to work  and get back to the rest of our normal lives.

People are on the whole being astoundingly resilient, abiding by the guidelines on social distancing and  as we have all experienced  showing those small courtesies to each other that make life worthwhile.

Companies have been resilient too, getting projects through at lightning speed (look at Waitrose's online investment) and re-organising supply chains. In the main, not always, they have sought to protect their workers.

There will certainly be lessons learnt that will make for more efficient business practice in the future, though I worry that there will be an investment backlog to catch up.

But without confidence, we wont get things going. Confidence in the financial markets seems to be creeping back, with shares in the UK and elsewhere having another solid week. But markets are fickle and we cannot assume that this confidence will not give way again to panic, as it did at the end of February and in early March.

In any case, this is not just about money. It is about competence and common sense.

So here is a plea to the Government. When you ease up restrictions look at what is working in other countries and what is not. Learn from that. Be practical.

Explain what you are doing and why. And then the rest of us can get things shifting again.
Back to business as unusual View(s):

Sri Lankan students who returned from China due to the outbreak of the coronavirus there, didnt waste their time anyway, according to a few of them I know. They continued to attend their lectures, participated in tutorial classes, submitted the assignments and, received assessment results from their professors. Just like others, they were also locked up in their homes under curfew, but with modern digital and delivery technology they did all their study-related work online.

They might be going back to China, perhaps, sooner than we think. After they re-enter China, most probably, their health status would be monitored and, if required their contacts would be traced too. By whom? It is not by anyone else now, but by their own smartphones. Everybody carries a smartphone nowadays, and it is a device designed for multi-purposes much more than a phone to give a call to somebody or receive a call from somebody.

Digital technology

Smartphones would be equipped with technology to monitor the owners body temperature, blood pressure and other health complications, leave the emotions and feelings aside. It will have the ability to communicate with others smartphones as well, enabling it to trace someones past contacts later. For instance, if someone is infected with coronavirus or any other virus in the future, his or her smartphone would recognise it. Not only that, going through the past contacts it would trace from whom the virus entered his or her body.

These data will be transmitted to a central monitoring agency so that within a matter of minutes, if not seconds, health authorities know all about the potential health risks. Someone might ask the question whether there would be a tradeoff between health and privacy. This may be an irrelevant question in the near future. Much more than that, it would give the access to the relevant authorities to monitor even peoples social, economic, and political life, while some of these features are already embodied in the smartphone. And this technological capabilities would even move away from the smartphone, which is an external device, to an internal device such as a micro-chip planted inside the human body.

Well, I didnt intend to go that far talking about fast-changing digital technology, but all these are realities that would cover the entire world and entire human race in the future paving the way to one world economy and polity. Digital technology will play a central role in the forthcoming economic recovery in the global business cycle.

My intention is to outline some important pre-conditions for going back to business after the coronavirus pandemic, and it is not about the business cycle. Many countries in the world still have to realise that it is not business as usual in the post-COVID era. A glimpse of what I discuss can be identified by looking at Chinas recovery.

Chinas quick recovery

China is already back to business. It is not necessarily because the outbreak of the coronavirus was first reported from China so that the country can also go back to business before others. Its because China adopted measures to control it more as a local issue limited largely to Wuhan city than a national issue on the one hand. China has already established the digital and delivery technology to manage businesses even prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus problem on the other hand.

With 11 million inhabitants, Wuhan sub-provincial city is as large as half of Sri Lanka in terms of population, but less than 8 per cent of the land area of Sri Lanka. It is a rich modern city too with over US$20,000 per capita GDP.

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, Wuhan remained in lockdown for two and half months. The transport system was shut and even funerals for the dead were banned; Wuhan residents remained locked up in their homes. As the Chinese government was able to contain the spread of coronavirus preventing it to be a national issue, 77 per cent of the total number of deaths of over 3,300 in China were from Wuhan.

Finally, the threat of the spread of coronavirus was subdued and, the lockdown of Wuhan was lifted. This week people in Wuhan were back to work, the transport system resumed, shops were open, and vehicles and pedestrians were back on the streets.

Its not new there

The new working environment is, in fact, not new in China though it looks new to many other countries in the world, including the Western countries. It is because China had already installed digital and delivery technologies on which their businesses, governance, and daily affairs have been running for years now.

Physical cash is already obsolete in urban China. People in mostly the urban sector have been systematically and rapidly doing away with notes and coins. As a result, they didnt have paper notes and coins to wash with soap and dry in the sun, when the coronavirus hit Wuhan. The mobile phone that people carry has a digital wallet; just scan the app  WeChat or Alipay  and make the payment.

The companies had already established online delivery technology to place orders and delivery to home. While in some other countries, governments and the people struggle to put the delivery systems in place, people in lockdown cities were said to have their home deliveries within less than 20 minutes after placing the order.

It is not only placing the order by a consumer and getting it delivered to the door. The shops should also have established their inventory systems and the complex supply chains in order to ensure smooth running of the production and distribution without saying no to a single customer. Big distribution businesses like Alibaba had employed artificial intelligence enabled digital inventory systems linking manufacturers and suppliers building a complex distribution network. As soon as the Chinese urban sector went under lockdown, these distribution networks remained alive in order to ensure supplies to the households.

According to a special edition of Harvard Business Review (HBR) on Coronavirus and Business, Chinas e-commerce penetration has reached 36.6 per cent of retail sales in 2019. About 71 per cent of Chinese consumers were engaging in online orders at some point, while 80 per cent of the transactions were through smartphones.

Interestingly, in spite of having the technology and infrastructure, the US and Europe have not yet come to the level of e-commerce as China has done so rapidly. Therefore, it is not only for the developing countries, but also for the traditional developed countries the emerging business platforms pose new challenges.

Back to protectionism

Although China was quick to come back to business, for many countries in the world it is still far away. Many of them were reluctant to compromise on its economic cost so that with mild restrictions they ended up with a messy national issue. As a result, the world economy is going to contract significantly, China would still escape from recording a negative growth rate. While dealing with the recessions, the countries will have to figure out doing business in a world which demands some degree of social distancing.

For many countries, going back to business might be a surprise, because they havent got used to new ways and means of doing business. Because they havent installed the necessary infrastructure as well as the norms and standards of the new business environment, they may have to focus first on changing the business environment with new parameters.

There is another way too. Some would argue that coronavirus is an unprecedented opportunity to go back to old protectionism. If it is the case, some countries may choose to strengthen their protectionist policy lines and to remain poor even though coronavirus is not a good argument for protectionism. I am sure, China would never choose to go back there, even if it has a big domestic market. It is because the prosperity of a country would be limited by the size of the market it chooses to cater to.

(The writer is a Professor of Economics at the University of Colombo and can be reached at

sirimal@econ.cmb.ac.lk).
A Vietnam Airlines plane has brought home 50 Italian nationals previously stranded in Vietnam and carried four metric tons of medical gear in aid to Italy, while returning with Vietnamese citizens in the European country.

The round trip flights, arranged by Vietnamese authorities, the Embassy of Italy in Vietnam and relevant agencies amid the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, were carried out by the national carrier this week.

It was part of the Vietnamese government's efforts to help foreign diplomatic missions in the country carry out their citizen protection duties and support the international community in the fight against COVID-19.

The Hanoi-Milan trip marked the first time Vietnam Airlines had operated a non-stop passenger flight on the nearly 10,000-kilometer route to Italy.

An experienced flight crew consisting of six pilots, 14 flight attendants and two technicians, all clad in protective gear, worked on the 12.5-hour flight.

Hot meals and magazines were not served while walking around was also restricted on the plane.

Fifty Italian citizens, who had been stranded in Vietnam due to COVID-19, were safely brought home on the flight.

The plane also carried four metric tons of medical supplies as a gift from the Vietnamese government and people to their Italian counterparts.

The gear were handed over to the Italian side after the flight touched down in Milan on Friday.

A number of Vietnamese citizens living in Italian regions hard hit by COVID-19 were brought home on the return flight which landed at Da Nang International Airport in the namesake central city on early Saturday morning.

Upon their arrival in Da Nang, all the Vietnamese passengers had their health checked and were immediately sent to concentrated quarantine areas as per Vietnams regulations on mandatory 14-day isolation for all incoming travelers.

Vietnam Airlines has operated similar special trips to bring home foreigners stranded in Vietnam to Germany, the UK and other countries in Europe.

It has also transported the Vietnamese government's medical aids to Laos, Cambodia and five European countries.

There were at least 358 foreigners stranded in Vietnam who wish to go home as of Friday, according to data pooled by the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT).

They had been prevented from returning home by closed borders, airport shutdowns, canceled flights, or quarantine regulations.

The VNAT said it will work with related agencies to arrange special flights to transport these foreign nationals home as soon as possible.

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UNITED NATIONS  A Chinese envoy on Thursday reaffirmed Chinas support for the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) in playing a leading role in coordinating international cooperation against COVID-19.

Zhang Jun, Chinas permanent representative to the United Nations, made the remarks in a letter sent to President of the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and permanent representatives of member states to the United Nations.

Zhang said that Chinese President Xi Jinping had intensive telephone conversations recently with Guterres and leaders of other countries. They exchanged views and reached an important consensus on strengthening international cooperation in combating the pandemic.

President Xi emphasized that the world is a community with a shared future. In fighting a disease that threatens the people of all countries, solidarity and cooperation is the most powerful weapon. It is imperative for the international community to strengthen confidence, act with unity, and work collectively to win this battle against a highly dangerous virus, said the ambassador.

Zhang said as a UN specialized agency responsible for public health matters, the WHO plays a crucial role in responding to the epidemic.

Under the leadership of Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO upholds a science-based, objective and unbiased stance and provides active guidance and assistance to countries around the world, making important contributions to international cooperation against epidemics, he said.

China enjoys close communication and cooperation with the WHO, and updates the WHO in an open, transparent and responsible manner. After the outbreak of COVID-19, China immediately reported to the WHO, shared with it and the international community the genetic sequence and Chinas prevention and treatment experience without reservation, said the ambassador.

Zhang said that China donated 20 million U.S. dollars to the WHO in support of global efforts to fight the disease. At the Extraordinary G20 Leaders Summit on COVID-19, President Xi Jinping called for support to the WHO. A joint statement was issued by the Group of 77 and China, commending the WHOs efforts in responding to the epidemic.

China echoed the communique adopted by the Non-Aligned Movement, which supports the WHO and Director-General Tedros in performing their duties and opposes the politicization of COVID-19. China firmly opposes any attempt to weaken the WHO, whose role is indispensable at this crucial stage, he said.

Zhang said that virus knows no border or race. No country can wall itself off from its impact. The only way to defeat the virus is to work together.

Blame-shifting will not help focus on pandemic response, but only divides the international community and jeopardizes international anti-epidemic cooperation. We firmly oppose such wrong acts as labeling, politicizing and stigmatizing, a position shared by the international community, he said.

COVID-19 will not be the last emergency in an era of economic globalization, and humankind will continue to be tested by various traditional and non-traditional security challenges, noted the ambassador.

This global public health emergency has driven home the urgency of building a community with a shared future for humankind, he said, adding that through solidarity and mutual assistance, we will prevail over this outbreak and embrace a brighter future for all.

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Jaipur, April 18 : A 67-year-old Rajasthan farmer Paburam Manda has donated his entire life savings worth Rs 50 lakh to distribute food kits among the needy to ensure no one is left hungry during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Till Friday, he distributed foodkits to 6,500 families and has inspired many more people to join the chain who have rose to help the destitute in these challenging times.

Hailing from Osian in Jodhpur district, Paburam says, "Farmers make the backbone of our country who are adept in dealing with adversities amid fewer resources. Hence in these testing times, we have decided to stand up for the nation the same way as our Army does. As my country needs me at this time, I am doing my best," he says.

His wife Munny Devi is equally supportive and has no issues in donating the entire life savings, "We can earn more if we live longer. We should contribute to ensure no one dies to disease and hunger," she says.

His son, Ramniwas Manda, says, "We have identified 6,000 such families initially who are daily wagers or migrants stuck in Osian and are providing doorstep delivery of food to them.

"One food kit has sufficient food to suffice the hunger of five members and could last for 10 days. It comes with 10 kg flour, 1 kg pulses, 1 kg oil along with biscuits, soap and spices. With lockdown extension, there are more needy families coming up and hence have already benefitted 6,500 families.

Overall, 83 such villages have been shortlisted and a comprehensive list of needy families is made with the help of administration, volunteers and Panchayat staff. As administration is a little engaged in other tasks, we are receiving full cooperation from volunteers and Gram Panchayat officials.

We started this door step food delivery drive from April 2 when we came to know that thousands of families are starving during lockdown. Till Friday, we have distributed food kits to 6,500 families, he says adding, "Now, more people have started coming up to extend a helping hand in this drive." Sanwarji, from Ballarwa gram panchayat in Tibri tehsil, is one amongst those who are inspired from the dedication of this farmer family.

"We were inspired looking at the dedication of this family who came to our village to donate foodkits to the needy. We sta with them and have made a group fo seven to join hands with them. If each one of us stand together with them at gram panchayat level, no one will die hungry," Sanwarji told IANS adding we are giving vegetables and food to needy families at 4-day interval.

Ramviwas says, "We have inspired such people to make self-help chains and help 5-10 families each day. As lockdown has increased, there are more families coming up who need such help as their saving is exhausted. If we all stand up together, no one will die of hunger in tough times of Covid-19 pandemic." he says.
Experts detail staggered exit strategy to open up SL & control COVID-19 By Kumudini Hettiarachchi, Ruqyyaha Deane & Meleeza Rathnayake View(s): View(s):

To lift or not to lift the lockdown, especially in the high-risk districts including Colombo, is the critical question Sri Lanka is facing.

We should not be in a hurry, as haste to ease the strict measures could result in an adverse situation for the country, said a health expert, with many others agreeing, while hailing the action taken so far to curb the spread of the virus.

A well-thought out staggered exit strategy is vital, many said, conceding that they understood the major impact on the economy. However, they argued that if a second wave of COVID-19 infections came, it would be a severe challenge for Sri Lanka on every front, including the economy.

The important measures taken so far are the closure of the countrys entry points including the main airport, imposition of curfew, quarantining returnees from other countries, tracing and quarantining contacts of confirmed positive cases and hospitalizing COVID-19 positive patients.

The high-risk districts in which the curfew has not been lifted are Colombo, Kalutara, Gampaha, Puttalam, Kandy and Jaffna, with several other smaller areas being sealed off to halt movement.

A senior medical specialist pointed out that many of those who have tested positive for COVID-19 do not have symptoms (asymptomatic) and there may also be others who are asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic who may spread the disease, while another said that the entry-points were closed to prevent a large number of infected people from coming into the country.

This was while curfew and quarantining helped to prevent asymptomatic infected people from giving the disease to others, the source stressed, adding that all these actions stopped an explosion of the new coronavirus.

Lets not irrevocably undo all this good work and plunge the country into crisis, was the plea of many.

Here are a few strategies being put forward to keep Sri Lanka safe from COVID-19:

Prevent re-introduction of the disease by those who come into the country by allowing incoming passenger traffic only through the main Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), Katunayake. A sophisticated laboratory should be set up at the BIA and all these passengers tested and the results obtained before they leave the airport. Then the passengers can be sent into home-quarantine if the test is negative or to hospital if it is positive.

Easing the lockdown in stages to make sure that one infected person does not visit a public place resulting in a massive outbreak. Such easing of the lockdown could be staggered with government and economic activities begun in early May, schools and universities after a lapse of some weeks and social activity after a lapse of more time.

College of Community Physicians

Reiterating that the challenge is to ensure a balance between epidemic prevention and returning to normalcy in public life, the College of Community Physicians of Sri Lanka (CCPSL) has said that an exit strategy is not a one-time approach. It should be implemented in a staggered manner taking into consideration the evolving dynamics of the epidemic.

Ending the curfew too soon could lead to a second outbreak, while enforcing it for too long could further cripple the economy and public morale. When to end the current phase must be decided at national level by an expert panel comprising health and non-health authorities with close monitoring of area-specific virus caseloads, the CCPSL cautions.

There should also be a phasing out approach: Phase I  Stringent restrictions in high-risk areas; Phase II  Moderate restrictions in moderate-risk areas; and Phase III  Relaxed restrictions in low-risk areas.

A careful analysis of the interventions already adopted should be carried out and decisions made on what aspects need to be removed or gradually scaled down. This should be done under the guidance, coordination and supervision of the National Operation Centre for Prevention of COVID-19 Outbreak, the CCPSL states, adding that it is vital to learn from other countries, where new waves of infection in several of them have prompted policy reversals with further lockdowns.

Before easing the lockdown, the CCPSL suggests that it is important to determine the stage of the epidemic  is it the post-peak stages with sporadic cases; the second wave; or the community transmission stage in each geographical area termed high risk, moderate risk or low risk? Such determination would come through:

Passive surveillance of suspected patients fulfilling the case definition of COVID-19

Active surveillance through targeted high-risk testing among all three tiers of close contacts and quarantined persons and health facility testing of close contacts

Sentinel surveillance of patients in sentinel centres fulfilling the criteria of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) and Influenza Like Illness (ILI).

Antibody testing among those providing frontline essential services (oncology, obstetrics and ICU staff) and those negative for RT-PCR, two weeks after recovery.

Urging that a blanket exit strategy should not be applicable across the country, the CCPSL recommends targeted strategies at area and district level, categorized according to the caseload based on: the number of cases reported in the last 28 days; extent of primary/secondary contact load in the last 28 days; geographical scattering of households/families; judgment on the compliance of the resident population with epidemic control measures.

Decisions on the transportation of goods and people between high-risk and low-risk areas, alternative methods of continuing school education and maintaining physical distancing in set-ups such as economic centres should be worked out by multi-sectoral teams, the CCPSL adds.

Exit plans should be based on surgical theatre model: GMOA & ICTA Sri Lankas exit strategy should be based on a common structure similar to a surgical theatre  a sterile area in a contaminated environment.This is the model being suggested by the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) and the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA).As disease elimination and eradication is not possible to-date, the GMOA-ICTA combine recommends the Hammer and Dance Theory in which COVID-19 is aggressively controlled (hammer) followed by strategies to ensure a good control (dance).Their model is that Sri Lanka should be categorized into three  Sterile Zone; Contaminated Zone; and the in-between Buffer Zone, with thwe aim being to expand the Sterile Zone and shrink the Contaminated Zone. The Divisional Secretariat level should be the smallest zone, since it is represented by 81 officials from various ministries facilitating its ability to function independently in administrative, health (with more than one hospital or medical facility) and financial (with more than one banking facility) facets, with directives from the relevant national-level authorities. There are 331 Divisional Secretariats in the country and a survey should be conducted in each to cover: the health status (COVID-19 confirmed/suspected cases, other health conditions & health resources); work & occupation (within or outside the zone); distribution of households; economic potential (banks/factories); and self-sufficiency (agricultural opportunities/fisheries/poultry/ production of goods). The decision whether the zone is sterile or contaminated should be based on this survey. The proposed criteria for the Sterile Zone would be having no confirmed COVID-19 cases for 28 days prior to declaration and having no suspects or contacts of COVID-19 patien ts for 28 days. If the presence of even one case or suspect is found, the zone would fall under the contaminated category. The proposed criteria for the Contaminated Zone would be having at least one confirmed case of COVID-19 within the 28 days prior to declaration and the presence of suspects or contacts of COVID-19 patients who would be tested immediately. If the number of cases or suspects becomes zero for 28 days, the zone would fall under the sterile category. The proposed criteria for the Buffer Zone would be a sterile area having no confirmed cases, no suspects or contacts for 28 days but being situated between a Sterile Zone and a Contaminated Zone. Such a Buffer Zone may even be between two districts. The GMOA-ICTA also propose a detailed governance strategy (corona and non-corona related) for each zone. With regard to the Contaminated Zone, the non-corona related governance includes essential food, medicines and goods being supplied through systematic delivery to the doorstep, extra support for families and individuals as a larger part of the country would have been opened up, only those involved in essential services being allowed to travel for work and within the zone only and border crossings being prohibited. For the Contaminated Zones, the corona-related governance would include curfew, home and institutional quarantine and prohibition of total movement within the zone. According to the GMOA-ICTA, the Contaminated Zones may be as large as a district such as Colombo or a smaller administrative area. Extensive surveillance involving contact tracing, testing, isolation on confirmation, quarantining, social distancing, hand hygiene and using face-masks would help shrink these areas gradually. Through this exit strategy, only the affected areas would be locked down, while other areas would function normally, the GMOA-ICTA add.

Powerful SLMA Inter-Collegiate Committee formed to face COVID-19 threat

Specialist doctors drawn from different fields have formed a powerful alliance to give evidence-based advice on how to safeguard the country, while gradually easing the restrictions.

Formed under the umbrella of the Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA), the Inter-Collegiate Committee comprises all professional colleges and associations of medical practitioners.

SLMA President Prof. Indika Karunathilake is the Chairperson, the Ceylon College of Physicians President Dr. Ananda Wijewickrama the Convener; and SLMA Secretary Dr. Sumithra Tissera the Secretary of the committee.

The reality is such that we will have to co-exist with the new coronavirus and gear ourselves to be vigilant, said Prof. Karunathilake, explaining that the relaxation of restrictions placed to curb the spread of COVID-19 should be based on strong epidemiological data and community participation in which hand-hygiene and social distancing are very much a part of the lifestyle of the people.

This is important considering the current situation faced by many countries after the relaxation of control measures. Singapore which relaxed its restrictions recently is now facing a second wave of infections, he said.

The SLMA Inter-Collegiate Committee aims to provide a common platform for all professional bodies to have a candid dialogue and establish national-level consensus among all medical professional bodies with regard to national-level guidance and recommendations now and in the future.

SLMAs mathematical model for COVID-19 A mathematical prediction model for COVID-19 has been developed under the auspices of the SLMA, based on national data, epidemiological characteristics in Sri Lanka and international trends.

The model has predicted three different scenarios based on adherence to strict controls. They are: If there is mild deviation (5%) from strict controls, the curve will reach a peak of 170-200 active patients and start to come down within this month.

If there is moderate deviation (10%) from strict controls, the peak will be around 340-400 active patients by the end of April, after which it would come down.

If there is high deviation (25%) with uncontrolled crowd-gathering, there would be about 1,400 active patients, which number would continue to rise.

If the deviation is higher and beyond 25%, no model would be able to predict the numbers as there would be an exponential increase in confirmed cases as experienced in many western countries. As a nation, we are now at a testing time for our resilience, courage and patience, says Prof. Indika Karunathilake. The model has been developed by Prof. Manuj Weerasinghe, Professor in Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, and Dr. Nishantha Perera of the Department of Mathematics, University of Colombo. The Health Ministrys Epidemiology Unit and the World Health Organizations Country Office had contributed to this model in terms of technical support.

Need for more RT-PCR testing

With much concern about a shortage of swabs needed for the RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction) tests last week, the Sunday Times learns that the issue has been overcome with a stock of swabs and viral transport media (VTM) for 11,000 tests being purchased from abroad.

This is while 1,000 swabs have been produced by the Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology (SLINTEC), with assurances that it has the capability of producing 3,000 swabs a day. These swabs are being validated, it is learnt.

Moves are also underway to increase the RT-PCR testing capacity to about 2,000 tests a day, across all institutions carrying out these tests. The centres where this gold-standard test is carried out are the Medical Research Institute (MRI), the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID); the National Hospital of Sri Lanka; the Kandy National Hospital; the Colombo North (Ragama), Anuradhapura, Karapitiya, Jaffna, Batticaloa & Kotelawala Defence University Teaching Hospitals; the National Cancer Institute; the Ratnapura Hospital; and the Sri Jayewardenepura University.

The Sunday Times understands that VTM is being produced by the MRI, which has this week been instructed by Health Ministry Secretary Bhadrani Jayawardena to produce adequate stocks for 50,000 tests.

It is also reported that Sri Lanka received 20,000 PCR test-kits from the Alibaba Group based in China and another 20,000 from China.

Some experts have suggested that as part of the exit strategy, it would be crucial to establish RT-PCR testing for the community.

This is justified by the strong argument that the only test with which a person infected with COVID-19 who can spread the disease in the community, can be confirmed is the RT PCR test.

However, the RT-PCR test is only 60% sensitive and whether it becomes positive is dependent on the viral load at the time of sampling, where the sample was taken from and the skill of the person taking the sample, one expert explained.

A person without symptoms may have to be tested repeatedly to find out whether he/she is infected or not, ideally on three occasions at 7-day intervals, especially if there is a history of contact with a COVID-19 PCR positive person. This is why it is important to establish RT-PCR testing services for the community, the source said.

Others cite Taiwan as a successful model where, as of April 13, 47,215 tests (around 2,042 tests per million population) were carried out in which 393 patients were detected. In comparison, Sri Lanka, has carried out only 4,525 tests up to that time (around 217 tests per million population) and detected 217 patients.

Therefore, there is an urgent need to increase Sri Lankas testing capacity by 10-fold or more, they state, explaining that while the existing hospital-based laboratories cater to hospitalized patients, it is necessary to establish a laboratory for the community.

They suggest that it could be done by consolidating the unutilized laboratory equipment available in hospitals and universities and mobilizing scientists and laboratory technicians in hospitals and university laboratories into one laboratory. Thereafter, walk-in or drive-through sample collection centres could be set up in the community.
Ceasefire during COVID-19 pandemic essential, to safeguard 250 million children

17 April 2020 - The head of the UN children's fund UNICEF warned on Friday that 250 million children around the world living in the "waking nightmare" of conflict desperately need warring parties to stop fighting as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads.

In her appeal, UNICEF Executive-Director Henrietta Fore urged belligerents to consider that they would not be able to fight the disease while still fighting each other.

Waking nightmares

"To the children living through these waking nightmares, a ceasefire could mean the difference between life and deathwhile the fighting continues, so too does COVID-19's silent march on vulnerable children and populations caught in the middle," she said.

A global ceasefire would protect children from being killed, maimed or forced from their homes by conflict. It would stop the attacks on vital infrastructure like health centres and water and sanitation systems.

"It would open space for vulnerable populations to access essential services like healthcare; services that are key to stopping a pandemic. It would create opportunities to engage with parties to conflicts for the safe release of children from armed forces and groups."

Lull in fighting in 11 countries

Ms. Fore's call comes nearly a month after UN chief Antonio Guterres appealed for a global ceasefire, which has resulted in a temporary lull in hostilities in 11 countries.

Violent conflict continues nonetheless in parts of Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen and elsewhere.

Recession will likely cause hundreds of thousands of child deaths

The development coincides with the publication of UN research suggesting that the global recession caused by COVID-19 could cause hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths this year.

Responding to the findings  which would reverse gains in reducing infant mortality  Mr. Guterres called for urgent action to protect youngsters' wellbeing.

Even before the pandemic, childhood malnutrition and stunting were at unacceptable levels, he said.

Now, with classrooms closed almost everywhere, nearly 310 million children who rely on school meals are missing out on this daily dose of nutrition.

School closures remove 'early warning mechanism'

"Children are both victims and witnesses of domestic violence and abuse. With schools closed, an important early warning mechanism is missing," the UN chief explained.

"Reduced household income will force poor families to cut back on essential health and food expenditures, particularly affecting children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers."

In addition to the suspension of polio vaccination campaigns, measles immunization has also been halted in at least 23 countries, the UN Secretary-General continued.

"And as health services become overwhelmed, sick children are less able to access care. With the global recession gathering pace, there could be hundreds of thousands additional child deaths in 2020."

Recommendations to Governments to counter the negative effects on children of lockdown measures include increasing assistance to families, securing food supplies from local markets and prioritizing schooling, nutrition programmes, and maternal and infant care.

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The powerful chief of staff to Nigerian leader Muhammadu Buhari has died after contracting the novel coronavirus, the presidency said Saturday.

Buhari's office announced in a statement that it "regrets to announce the passage" of Abba Kyari, who acted as gatekeeper to the president of Africa's most populous nation.

"The deceased had tested positive to the ravaging COVID-19, and had been receiving treatment. But he died on Friday, April 17, 2020," the statement said.

"May God accept his soul."

Kyari, whose exact age has never been officially confirmed but who was believed to be in his seventies, is the highest-profile person in Nigeria to be killed by a virus that has caused 493 confirmed infections in the country and 17 deaths.

He was buried in Abuja on Saturday in the presence of his family and close friends wearing traditional dress, as well as masks.

The influential technocrat, who was reported to have suffered from underlying health issues, was seen as one of the dominant figures in the tight-knit group of advisors around Buhari.

He reportedly controlled access to the president, a 77-year old former military ruler now in his second term as democratically elected leader, overseeing key meetings and granting ministers audiences.

"His death will have an enormous impact," a European diplomatic source told AFP on Saturday.

"He really was a strong force who had a key influence. Without him, there will be a vacuum for a while. Political decision-making will perhaps be a little slower," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

- 'De facto head of government ' -

The Nigerian newspaper, Daily Trust, wrote in a leader column that "his closeness to the president and Buhari's unshakable trust in him saw Kyari become the de facto head of government, especially since the president handed him a free reign."

That led to accusations "that he had the president in a golden cage," the newspaper said.

Kyari tested positive for coronavirus in late March after visiting Germany, forcing a string of top Nigerian officials who had been in contact with him to self-isolate.

In a statement released on March 29, Kyari said he had been transferred to Nigeria's biggest city Lagos for private medical treatment and hoped "to be back at my desk very soon".

There has been no official confirmation on whether Buhari has taken a test, but the president has since made repeated televised speeches imposing restrictions to curb the spread the virus.

The central government has imposed a lockdown on Nigeria's economic hub Lagos and capital Abuja, while state governors have ordered a raft of measures in other regions.

Experts say the country of 200 million is highly vulnerable to the spread of the disease given its weak healthcare system and high population density.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18)  The Department of Environment and Natural Resources said it did not find any violations from the mining and export operations in Eastern Samars Homonhon Island, which earlier caused a stir among local officials.

The operation, led by Techiron Resources, Inc., complied with quarantine requirements and the governments order to allow export work to continue, the agency clarified in a statement.

Over public health concerns amid the COVID-19 pandemic, on April 4, Governor Ben Evardone said he urged national government officials, including the police and coast guard, to stop the entry of a Chinese-manned vessel set to load 7,000 metric tons of chromite ore in Homonhon Island.

The DENR later suspended the companys mining operations on the area to make sure that everything is in order but eventually lifted the measure.

After thorough investigation and the mining company secured all the necessary quarantine certificates, the DENR had no choice but to lift the suspension, said Undersecretary for Solid Waste Management and Local Government Units Concerns Benny Antiporda said.

He maintained that the crew did not make contact with anyone from the island since the vessel was anchored 1.5 kilometers away. The DENR also denied that mining activities are being done in secret amid the Luzon-wide quarantine. Techiron's operations are still ongoing, it added.

The Inter-agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases earlier assured free movement for cargo shipments, despite the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon amid the spread of COVID-19.
It will be very difficult to eliminate Covid-19 completely from circulation in New Zealand when so many cases are believed to be asymptomatic, a leading UK virologist says.

Dr Chris Smith, consultant clinical virologist at Cambridge University and one of BBC Radio 5 Live's Naked Scientists, says hes been talking to lots of virologists and vaccine experts in the last few weeks and they are very sceptical.

Most people are of the opinion, given how well optimised this new coronavirus is, it has a really high prospect of becoming another circulating coronavirus and causing seasonal infections and cold-like symptoms or in rare cases more severe outbreaks, because by the time that presumably happens the vast majority of us will have become immune to it either because a vaccine has been invented or because we've become naturally infected with it.

But he believes it will take an extended time before a vaccine is ready and in the meantime many countries wont be able to sustain lockdown measures, and the disease will resurge as a result.

It will be particularly difficult for poorer nations to keep imposing restrictions and sustain social distancing, he told Kim Hill on RNZs Saturday Morning.

"So it's not a given that these measures will control this in many parts of the world and we'll end up with the virus resurging in many ways in many places so it will be very difficult to keep it out of countries even if we do achieve suppression very effectively at home."

He supported the UKs decision to extend its lockdown for at least another three weeks, saying the benefits of lockdown were only just starting to be seen.

The viruss cycle can last about a month from the time someone gets it, it incubates, the person becomes unwell, then badly unwell, and possibly dies.

That is why it was important control measures remained in place for some time.

New Zealands Cabinet will decide on Monday whether the country will remain in alert level 4 from midnight Wednesday 22 April or move to level 3.

Regardless of whether the country downgrades its alert level, New Zealanders are advised to stay at least 2 metres from people outside their bubble.

Chris says he believes social distancing would be needed for the foreseeable future, until a vaccine is available, or the entire population was immune.

But he says 2m is probably too close.

An experiment he did with the Naked Scientists several years ago showed snot particles projected by a sneeze could fly at a speed of 100kmh.

"One hundred kilometres an hour is pretty fast and if someone sneezes the particles are going to be way beyond 2 metres and in [less] than the time you can say 'achoo', so people won't have the time to get out of the way and if you fill the air around yourself with millions of virus particles then they're just going to hang around in the air in their millions and someone's going to come and breathe them in."

There was no way to create a safe environment unless it was proven everyone who was in contact with others was healthy, but social distancing was the best thing we could do to minimise the risk of infection, he says.

As for those particles left behind from a sneeze to linger in the air? They stay there for hours, Chris says.

"Those particles will drift around in the air for hours, so if someone was in an area where they were being symptomatic for a protracted length of time, they're slowly going to increase the amount of infectious material in the air, aren't they.

And so there reaches a point where they have significantly boosted the infectivity of a patch of air when people go through it.

So I don't think it's as simple as saying it's 2 metres because viruses don't come with tape measures."

RNZ.
By PTI

DUBAI: Dubai opened a 3,000-bed capacity field hospital on Saturday in its World Trade Centre to prepare for a potential surge in novel coronavirus cases.

The towering event and exhibition centre is located in the heart of the city, one of the seven members of the United Arab Emirates.

ALSO READ | Indian expat jumps to death in Dubai

The hospital will reinforce Dubai's healthcare system and "take advantage of all resources and infrastructure to fight the COVID-19 pandemic", said a statement from the emirate's media office said.

The hospital has a capacity that can be expanded quickly to over 3,000 beds, the statement added.

The UAE has imposed strict social distancing measures and a night-time curfew to combat the spread of the virus.

Over 6,302 COVID-19 infections have been recorded in the UAE, including 37 patients who have died.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Apr. 18

By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:

The total number of coronavirus infected people in Uzbekistan rose to 1450, Trend reports on April 18 with reference to the Ministry of Health.

To date, 156 people in the country have fully recovered from the coronavirus infection, four have died.

Since April 1, Uzbekistan announced a self-isolation regime in Tashkent, the capital, as well as in Nukus and other regional centers. Citizens over 65 are categorically prohibited from leaving their homes. They can go out only to visit pharmacies and shops near their respective places of residence.

The first case of coronavirus infection in Uzbekistan was detected on March 15 in the laboratory of the Research Institute of Virology; it was an Uzbek woman who returned from France. The Ministry of Health later announced that her son, daughter, husband and grandson also tested coronavirus-positive.

The outbreak of the coronavirus began in the Chinese city of Wuhan (an international transport hub), at a fish market in late December 2019. The number of people killed by the disease has surpassed 154,000. Over two million people have been confirmed as infected, over 569,000 have reportedly recovered.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
COVID-19 outbreak: Labour rights experts, activists and the advocacy group have been persistently requesting the government to implement the GO 13 in full spirit, and have called for a revised estimate of the total beneficiaries. They also seek a policy that covers every migrant worker unconditionally, without making employers liable.

Hyderabad: Twenty-six-year-old Ramesh and his wife have been giving their six-month-old baby smaller portions of baby formula to make it last longer than a week. The last box they bought meant a dip in their meagre savings.

A native of Kabirdham district in Chhattisgarh, Ramesh moved his family to Hyderabad, over 800 kilometres away from his village, in search of regular work earlier this year. Living at a construction site in Hafeezpet, where he works as a wage labourer, Ramesh has had no earnings since Telangana announced a seven-day lockdown on 22 March in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. The lockdown was extended by the Centre till 14 April and then again till 3 May.

Even as the Telangana government made promises of feeding every last person, many continue to slip through the cracks. With their earnings exhausted and no way of returning home, they are living on the edges in great mental and physical distress.

"Can someone please send ration?"

"Can you send someone with money to buy milk for the kids?"

"We are barely getting by."

Over the past few weeks, NGOs and activist groups in Telangana have been flooded with distress calls from migrant workers  the hardest hit in the nationwide lockdown.

Migrant workers from Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh currently live in Telangana. Most of them earn a daily wage, working in buildings and construction sites, brick kilns, textile companies, factories, small scale industries, rice mills. Some earn their daily wages by tailoring, or being artisans, as cooks, as waiters at hotels, as painters and watchmen, among others.

On 29 March, chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao termed migrant workers "partners in the development of Telangana", and assured 12 kg rice/ata and Rs 500 as relief for all. Yet, there have been several delays, and in some cases, relief has not reached the beneficiaries, yet.

This reporter spoke to 10 workers, including construction workers, brick kiln workers and artisans. They migrated to cities, towns and villages in Telangana from states including Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, and Andhra Pradesh.

Pushed to the brink

As work remains suspended due to the lockdown, in several cases pending wages are yet to be paid, and the little that people have saved has been spent on purchasing essentials in the last 21 days. The lockdown has pushed the already precarious lives of the migrant workers into further crisis.

Several migrant workers have not been able to send any support to their families back home. Several others said they have reduced the number of meals they consume in a day to make the supplies last a little longer.

Ramesh and his family came to Hyderabad, along with three other families  a group of 20 people in all. They currently live in the parking space of an under-construction building in Hafeezpet near Kondapur, where they are engaged as workers. A large section of Hyderabad's IT sector employees live in city's Kondapur area mostly in gated communities and other residential units.

Five children, aged between six months and four years, live with their parents at this site. The four families use firewood to cook food.

Speaking about the time before the lockdown, Ramesh said, "For over a month, I earned about Rs 500 a day, six days a week."

"Then, the work stopped. Now, the contractor gives us Rs 500 a week, which doesn't even cover basic needs," he added, unsure if the contractor is providing this money as an advance payment or as a relief.

Ramesh tried to access the free rice, announced by the government, from the local fair price shop. "We were told that we won't get the relief rice. They said they will let us know if rice is allocated to us," said Ramesh.

The four families had kept aside around Rs 2,000 each to return home when the lockdown lifts. The families are now pushed to use that too. "First, we were told some money will be deposited in the Jan Dhan account," Ramesh said, referring to the prime minister's financial inclusion programme. "That hasn't happened. Then, they said rice and money will be given by the state government, that also has not been provided."

Nazrul is a migrant artisan from West Bengal, living in Sayyed Nagar. "Fourteen of us live together in a flat," Nazrul said. "Two weeks ago, we stood in line for ration and money. There was a very long queue and police dispersed us. Danda maara. (They beat us with sticks.) A couple of days later, we received help from an NGO."

Several reports have appeared about workers not receiving any relief. Yet, due to the fear of the police who have been tasked with enforcing the strict lockdown  the workers have not been able to go out much to follow up on the relief.

With little bargaining power and uncertainty about future employment, workers such as Ramesh and Nazrul have not been in a position to insist that their employers provide support. Instead, thousands of migrant workers have been reaching out to NGOs or helplines being run by civil society groups.

"It is significant that the state government issued GO 13 (Government Order 13) for migrant workers early during the lockdown," said Meera Sanghamitra, member of National Alliance of People's Movements, referring to the state's order to provide relief. Meera is part of the COVID-19 Advocacy Lockdown Collective of Telangana, a broad coalition of civil society organisations. "However, official assurance hasn't translated adequately into actual implementation. The GO-13 limits its reach, by capping the figure at 3,35,669 across the state," she added.

3,35,669: How did the government arrive at this number?

On 30 March, the government of Telangana issued GO 13, specifying that '3,35,669 migrant workers' will be provided with 12 kg rice or atta and Rs 500 per person in cash as immediate relief to cope with the impact of lockdown. The state, like several others, did not have a database of migrant workers prior to this lockdown.

The specificity of the number  arrived in a hurried survey conducted by the revenue and labour department, within a week of the lockdown being announced  has bee questioned by many. The targeted distribution of relief to migrants on the state's list, instead of universalising such relief, is one of the reasons why thousands of workers have not received any relief yet.

The number is a gross underestimate, said Ravi Kanneganti of Rythu Swarajya Vedika, a part of the advocacy collective.

Mandal, or block-level, revenue officers have received additional requests for rations from migrant workers who were previously not listed in the survey conducted in March, they told this reporter.

In six of the 14 tehsils under the Ranga Reddy district, 8,271 migrant workers were provided rations till now. Some of them are yet to receive the cash. An additional 26,057 workers, over thrice as many, have been listed as migrants in just these six tehsils. Requests have been sent to the government for provision of rice, and money and the tehsildars are now awaiting a response.

The helpline launched by COVID-19 Advocacy Lockdown Collective has received distress calls from several groups of migrant workers totalling to at least 20,000 people in just a week's time. "Close to 80 percent of the calls we received on the helpline are from distressed migrant workers who have been calling for the assured ration and cash support," said Ravi.

Since the lockdown was announced, a network of NGOs has stepped in to provide temporary relief to the stranded workers. The local officials themselves have relied on the support of charities and NGOs to fill in due to the deepening crisis.

"Currently, if individuals or families call us, some of us are stepping in to provide immediate, temporary help," Ravi explained. "If there are groups of about 30-40 people, we are referring them to NGOs. For groups larger than that, we follow-up with the government."

The advocacy group has largely been occupied in juggling calls between distressed workers, NGOs and concerned officials. The results have been a hit and miss.

Temporary shelters and soup kitchens too have been serving migrant workers. However, thousands of workers have said that they did not receive any help. Ravi said it could be either due to the lapses in implementation or because they have not been listed.

Builders and contractors have been asked to continue paying wages to their workers, but several construction workers are indirectly employed, for work outsourced to small sub-contractors.

Ramu, a centring sub-contractor who employs five migrant workers at a small construction site, is scraping through to provide for the five workers and their families who work for him.

Some migrant workers from Andhra Pradesh have also been suffering.

Giddaiah, a native of Kurnool, 220 km from Hyderabad, migrated prior to the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. Giddaiah's ration card is still from Andhra Pradesh. A daily wage construction worker, Giddaiah tried to get the rice and cash.

"The police asked me to go to the local leaders who were distributing among their supporters," he said. "I called on three helpline numbers and then went to the ration shop also. They said they don't have any orders to give it to people from Andhra Pradesh."

Conundrum for construction workers

On 26 March, Telangana's Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development KT Rama Rao called upon the construction and infra companies to provide 'food, basic amenities, and healthcare needs' for the workers, failing to do which, he said, will attract action.

Even though GO-13 doesn't state it explicitly, the officials in charge of disbursal of relief said that the primary responsibility of providing food and shelter to the construction workers is on the builders.

"As per the new directives, we have been asked to not give relief to construction labourers working on-site and company workers (industrial labour) under GO 13," a tehsildar from Ranga Reddy district said, on the condition of anonymity. "We are awaiting clarification."

This was corroborated by senior officials in the labour department, and officials from other departments.

"Wherever workers live near a construction site, the builder has to provide ration and shelter," said E Gangadhar, the joint commissioner of labour, Hyderabad zone. Both the Interstate Migrant Workmen Act and The Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act state the same. Even in case of epidemics and pandemics, it is the primary responsibility of the employer, he said.

"At least, 17 notices have been issued to employers in the Ranga Reddy zone for not providing relief to the migrant workers. If we don't receive replies, we will file cases," said Joint Commissioner of Labour of Ranga Reddy zone R Chandrasekharam.

The Cyberabad Commissioner of Police VC Sajjanar's office, too, has sent a note to the media saying "legal action will be taken against the concerned companies including construction company management and labour supervisors".

Most workers usually migrate using personal networks. Employed by a small thekedar (contractor) or by a subcontractor, the workers often have no contact with the builder.

"In many cases that we have been following up, it has been observed that the contractors are behaving arbitrarily and without fear of law," Meera of NAPM said. "The initial supply of rations to workers was minimal. The request for refills hasn't been fulfilled. There is a limited role being played by the government in overseeing this."

'Universalise unconditional support'

Labour rights experts, activists and the advocacy group have been persistently requesting the government to implement the GO 13 in full spirit, and have called for a revised estimate of the total beneficiaries. They also seek a policy that covers every migrant worker unconditionally, without making employers liable.

"Creating a targeted list of beneficiaries instead of universal coverage for all migrant workers (and poor) who need it, will inevitably lead to exclusions. There have been several instances where ration shops have turned down workers who approached them for rice and cash benefits," said Kiran Vissa of Rythu Swarajya Vedika arguing in favour of universalisation. "It will be easier to have a system in place to cover all those who need relief. Government should decentralise this further, empower the grassroot level officials to take decisions and do quick distribution," he said.

The activists have also been urging the government to expand the relief provided. In times of no work, and no wage assurance, Rs 500 is grossly inadequate to meet all needs of the migrant workers, including rent, other bills, cost for gas, medical bills etc.

"Add some pulses and other essentials to the relief basket," said Kiran. "We can't expect the workers to get by with just rice. Also, the government should extend a second round of support to everyone unconditionally."
"Hunting," a TV drama spotlighting Chinese police officers for economic crime investigations, has been well-received by audiences in China since its Tuesday release via TV channels and online platforms.





Co-produced by the economic crime investigation bureau of China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the action drama follows a multi-year-long police manhunt for fugitive criminals fleeing overseas.





The show made it into the top five on the Maoyan daily TV drama online popularity rank from Wednesday through Friday and currently boasts a score of 8.0 out of 10 on review platform Douban based on more than 10,000 reviews.





It stars Wang Kai as a police officer who grows to be an outstanding economic crime investigator and helps bring home the boss of a criminal group from overseas.





The cast also includes popular actress Wang Ou and actor Hu Jun. Much of the shooting took place in foreign countries.





Focusing on economic crime investigation police, a type of police officers that is less known to the public, "Hunting" depicts their daily work and life and their pursuit after fugitives hiding overseas, said Liu Xin, the drama's director.





The show's Chinese name translates to "Fox Hunting," which is also the name of an operation launched by the MPS in 2014 to target economic crime suspects fleeing overseas.




(Photo : REUTERS/Joe Skipper) A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Crew Dragon astronaut capsule, lifts off on an in-flight abort test , a key milestone before flying humans in 2020 under NASA's commercial crew program, from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. January 19, 2020.

The United States will launch a rocket into space on May 27 from American soil for the first time since 2011, NASA has announced.

The launch will transport astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, according to the space agency. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the capsule into the International Space Station (ISS).

On a tweet on Friday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced the launch of the American mission.

The launch will happen from the Kennedy Space Center historic pad 39A where the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs were previously launched.





NASA will launch in May from American soil after 9 years

The last space shuttle mission launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center was STS-135 on July 8, 2011, which ended the 30-year history of space shuttle flight.

The space shuttle Atlantis carried four NASA astronauts on a mission to deliver supply and parts to the ISS, as well as an experiment for robotically refueling satellites in space.

Two days after the launch, Atlantis reached the station with a ceremonial ringing of the station's bell, welcoming the visitor for the last time.

The US has since then relied on Russian Soyuz rockets to get astronauts into space. The US pays about $75 million to Russia to send an astronaut into space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. However, the total cost amounts to nearly $400 million including the required water, oxygen, food, and equipment an astronaut needs.

A coronavirus surprise?

Right when the world struggles from the coronavirus crisis, NASA announced the date for its exploration.

However, it did not come as a surprise as Vice President Mike Pence spoke about it on Feb. 19 at Langley Research Center in Virginia. Also the chairman of the National Space Council, Pence promised NASA astronauts will launch again into space from US soil after nearly a decade.

"With the strong support of all of you, the United States will return American astronauts to space on American rockets from American soil," he said.

Pence also discussed the plan for Americans to set foot again on the moon through NASA's Artemis program. This aims to build a viable human presence on Earth's natural satellite and bring American astronauts on the moon by 2024.

After Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11 set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, only 10 Americans have reached the lunar surface. Apollo 17 Mission Commander Gene Cernan was the last astronaut to set foot on the moon on Dec. 14, 1972.

"Together, we're going to ensure that the first woman and the next man on the moon will be American astronauts," he said. "We're going to establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars - we're going moon to Mars."

NASA taps the support from private space companies such as SpaceX and United Launch Alliance to fund America's future space exploration through its Commercial Crew Program.

Currently, there are only three astronauts in the International Space Station. These are NASA astronaut Christopher J. Cassidy and Russians Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner who were on-board the Russian anti-satellite missile, which launched on Wednesday, April 15.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
IDEA Public Schools CEO Tom Torkelson resigned from his position leading Texas largest charter school network Friday evening, ending a two-decade run with the organization he co-founded and helped build into one of the nations most prominent charter operators.

In a message sent to staff members around midnight, IDEA board chair Al Lopez said Torkelson stepped down to embark on the next chapter of his career. Board members selected JoAnn Gama, the charters president, superintendent and other co-founder, to replace Torkelson as CEO.

We are excited that JoAnn is chief executive at this important moment, and we are grateful for everything Tom contributed to build IDEA into the remarkable organization it is, Lopez wrote.

In an interview Saturday, Torkelson said he and IDEAs board members reached a mutual decision about his departure after multiple conversations. Torkelson said he expects to support Gama with the transition amid the statewide shutdown of schools caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

I think there was 100 percent unanimity that this was the right call for the organization at this time, Torkelson said.

Torkelsons resignation caps a remarkable run for the charter pioneer, whose ambition, charisma and results-driven approach helped propel IDEAs massive expansion over the past 20 years. In recent months, however, Torkelsons push to lease a charter jet and the disclosure of questionable financial practices under his watch prompted scrutiny of the charter.

IDEA students, the vast majority of whom are Hispanic and come from low-income families, routinely score well-above average on state standardized tests and enroll in college at high rates compared to their peers. Skeptics argue IDEAs success is inflated by high academic standards that deter families from enrolling students with more intensive academic and behavioral needs.

Torkelson and Gama started IDEA in the late 1990s while working as teachers in the Rio Grande Valley, opening a single school together in the border city of Donna. After meager growth in its first decade, IDEA rapidly expanded in the 2010s in the Valley, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso and Fort Worth.

The network operates 91 schools in Texas enrolling 49,500 students, along with five campuses in Louisiana. IDEA is scheduled to open its first four Houston-area schools this year on two sites in northern Harris County.

Torkelson served as a key figure in IDEAs expansion, pushing to enroll 100,000 students across the country by 2022. Earlier this year, Torkelson told the Houston Chronicle that he wanted IDEA to become the largest high-performing school system in the United States of America.

Torkelson also played a significant role in fundraising for IDEA, which has received tens of millions of dollars from philanthropic groups to aid its expansion.

Its a bit of an unfinished masterpiece, Torkelson said Saturday. What weve created is beautiful and remarkable, but theres so much more to do.

However, some of Torkelsons financial and operational moves led to criticism over the past several months.

Torkelsons desire to lease a charter jet as a method of reducing travel hassles between the networks hubs drew sharp backlash in December 2019.

One month later, more scrutiny followed the disclosure that IDEA spent about $400,000 annually on luxury boxes and tickets for events at San Antonios AT&T Center. IDEA officials said more than 1,000 employees received tickets each season as a reward for performance, with the lions share allotted to campus-level staff and students.

During Torkelsons tenure, several relatives of IDEA executives and board members also engaged in business dealings with the charter, including a company co-owned by Chief Operating Officer Irma Munozs husband that billed more than $600,000 for uniforms, other clothing and gear.

In a letter to IDEAs 7,000-plus employees in January, Torkelson defended each expenditure as above-board but agreed with criticism that some of his recent decisions were really dumb and unhelpful.

IDEA nixed the charter jet lease, vowed to end its ticket purchases and banned financial transactions with high-level leaders and their relatives. Charter officials said private donations covered the tickets and would have been used on the jet lease.

Torkelson said Saturday that he believes IDEA leaders have made a lot of progress and improvements in some of the areas weve been criticized for.

To me, thats what makes this a nice transition point, Torkelson said. In some ways, it really is a fresh start for the organization.

Gama, who graduated from Houston ISD in 1993, also has received numerous accolades for her leadership in building IDEAs academic reputation and statewide footprint. In his letter to staff, Lopez wrote that Gama has performed or supervised just about every job in the organization over the last 20 years.

JoAnn is an inspiring, eminently capable and proven leader who can seamlessly assume a new role, Lopez wrote.

Torkelson said he reached a severance agreement with IDEA board members, though neither he nor IDEA officials immediately provided details of the agreement Saturday. He earned $555,069 in compensation in 2017-18, according to IDEAs most recently available tax records, and routinely ranked as the states highest-paid public K-12 school employee.

Torkelson said he does not have another job immediately lined up. He also does not plan to take another executive position with IDEA or its wholly owned subsidary, IPS Enterprises, which was created to assist the networks expansion outside of Texas.

jacob.carpenter@chron.com
Dear Editor,

Israel, which receives $3.8 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid, has the distinction of being the only country in the world that regularly prosecutes between 500 and 700 children each year in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections.

Children in detention report physical and verbal abuse from the moment of their arrest, and coercion and threats during interrogations. Under Israeli military law, Palestinian children have no right to a lawyer during interrogation.

For this reason, in April 2019, Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., introduced H.R. 2407, the Promoting Human Rights for Palestinian Children Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act, a bill prohibiting U.S. taxpayer funding for the military detention and abuse of children by any country, including Israel.

The legislation grows out of the No Way to Treat a Child campaign, a joint project of Defense for Children International-Palestine and the American Friends Service Committee. They believe the U.S. and Canadian governments must take concrete steps by holding Israeli authorities accountable for their violations of Palestinian childrens rights.

So far H.R. 2407 has garnered 23 congressional cosponsors, but not Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-Rhinebeck, who represents District 19. Is there any reason not to support this legislation, which aligns U.S. foreign policy with international human rights law? Please join Jewish Voice for Peace-Hudson Valley, Veterans for Peace, the Middle East Crisis Response, and other local groups by asking Rep. Delgado to endorse H.R. 2407.

Read more about Rep. McCollums bill and the No Way to Treat a Child campaign here: https://nwttac.dci-palestine.org/our_story.

Lisa Mullenneaux

West Hurley, N.Y.
(Photo : Alexandra Lee on Unsplash ) Study: China Nor US Made Coronavirus-- It's Not Man-Made Says Louisiana Scientist (Photo : ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash ) Study: China Nor US Made the Coronavirus-- It's Not Man-Made Says Louisiana Scientist

Scientists now want to stop all the rumors regarding the origin of the coronavirus. Some American experts from the field reiterated that it was not made from China, America, nor other countries. In fact, it is not made by humans at all. Some of them believe that there are a lot of strains in nature that could infect humans-- causing the pandemic. However, what they are accurate is that no one can create the virus.

Pointing Fingers

These past few weeks, a theory of the origin of the virus has been circulating online and worldwide. Tech Times suggest a lab in China was responsible for creating a coronavirus. Fox News first reported this angle and explained how the virus got created by a Chinese lab located at the place of origin of the virus called Wuhan, China.

Interestingly, it was said that 'patient zero'-- first positive with the virus-- worked inside the said Chinese lab. Accidentally-- or what seemed to be an accident--the person got infected with the virus that the Chinese lab has been formulating. After exposure, the rest is history.

This is what the 'Chinese lab Coronavirus theory' was implying. Unfortunately, this is not what most scientists in the United States believe regarding the virus.

Dr. Robert Shafer, professor of Infectious Diseases at Stanford Medical School, revealed that no special mutation could cause the creation of the SARS-CoV-2.

He believes that no human-made laboratory could make the virus. One of his co-scientists in the same university, Dr. John Ionnidis supports this claim and imposes that there are a lot of strains in nature that have the possibility of being the reason for the virus to be created-- not human-made.

"The way that it handles itself and binds to its receptors, they don't suggest anything that would be close to human manipulation," said Ionnidis. "If it were man-made, it would not look like that."

Another researcher backs up this claim.

"No scientist, in China, America or elsewhere, possibly could have constructed this virus in a laboratory," said Dr. Robert Garry, a professor at the Tulane School of Medicine who authored one of the first major studies that refute theories that COVID-19 was engineered as a biological weapon.

China denies claim

China already denied this theory. Its foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian reiterated that there is no legal evidence that proves this thought. The World Health Organization also supported China and said no laboratory could have created the virus.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
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According to Stratistics MRC, the Global Radar Systems Market is accounted for $ 19.25 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach $ 36.78 billion by 2026 growing at a CAGR of 7.5% during the forecast period. Some of the key factors influencing the market growth include Increased use of radars for unmanned vehicles, improved capabilities of radar systems resulting in greater efficiency and increased R&D investments by automotive industry to improve the safety and comfort aspects in vehicles. However, high cost incurred in the development of radar systems is restraining the market growth.

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Radar systems are used for detecting and tracking physical objects using radio waves to determine the range, angle, and velocity of objects. Radars are used in various applications in the civil, commercial, and military domain, which includes detecting ships, aircraft, spacecraft, missiles, weather information, and terrain.



Based on technology, the pulsed rada9r segment has significant growth during the forecast period. This growth can be attributed to the increased usage of pulse radars for efficient and accurate object detection and estimation of its range.



By Geography, The Asia-Pacific radar systems market is expected to grow at the considerable market share during the forecast period, due to disputes and unrest in some countries in the region, which has led to the increased procurement of surveillance systems. Countries such as China, India, and Japan have invested significantly in coastal surveillance and weather detection capabilities.



Some of the key players in global radar systems market are Honeywell International Inc., Infineon Technologies AG, NXP Semiconductors N.V., Lockheed Martin Corporation, General Dynamics Corporation, BAE Systems, Inc., Rockwell Collins, Inc., Leonardo S.p.A., Thales Group, Saab AB, Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd., Airbus Defense and Space, Inc., Raytheon Corporation, Northrop Grumman Corporation and Weibel Scientific A/S.



Components Covered:

 Transmitter

 Receiver

 Antenna

 Other Components



Technologies Covered:

 Continuous Wave (CW) Radar

 Pulsed Radar



Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Radars Covered:

 Maritime Patrol Radar

 Synthetic Aperture Radar



Ranges Covered:

 Long Range Radars

 Short Range Radars

 Medium Range Radars



Frequency Bands Covered:

 L Band

 K/Ku/Ka Band

 C Band

 Millimetric Band

 V/UHF Band

 S Band

 HF Band

 X Band

 W Band

 Other Frequency Bands



Applications Covered:

 Commercial

 Defense

 Other Applications



End-user Industries Covered:

 Automotive

 Aviation

 Military & Defense

 Maritime Applications



Regions Covered:

 North America

o US

o Canada

o Mexico

 Europe

o Germany

o UK

o Italy

o France

o Spain

o Rest of Europe

 Asia Pacific

o Japan

o China

o India

o Australia

o New Zealand

o South Korea

o Rest of Asia Pacific

 South America

o Argentina

o Brazil

o Chile

o Rest of South America

 Middle East & Africa

o Saudi Arabia

o UAE

o Qatar

o South Africa

o Rest of Middle East & Africa

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- Strategic analysis: Drivers and Constraints, Product / Technology Analysis, Porter's five forces analysis, SWOT analysis etc.

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- Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancements



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Russia relies on foreign equipment and expertise, but has banned entry to all foreigners.

Some Russian thermal power plants are moving to halt or delay maintenance as the coronavirus crisis has prevented them from bringing in foreign specialists, and they face problems with supplies of imported and Russian-made spare parts.

Russia, which has reported 32,008 cases of the novel coronavirus, relies on foreign equipment and expertise to service its conventional power stations, but it has barred entry to all foreigners to slow the spread of infection.

The Energy Ministry has said the coronavirus crisis has not affected electricity supply, but problems may arise in the coming months in servicing plants if lockdown measures are maintained across the world.

Repairs and a planned inspection came to a halt at a major power station owned by state energy holding Inter RAO in the Chelyabinsk region, some 1,500 kilometres (932 miles) east of Moscow, because foreign specialists working there left last month.





The gas turbine at the plant was made by Germanys Siemens, although Siemens said it had not been tasked with maintaining it since the end of 2016.

Inter RAO did not name the firm responsible for maintaining the plant, but Italys Ansaldo Energia received a five-year contract in 2017 to service the facility, the Italian company said in 2017.

Turbines made by Ansaldo Energia are also used at Russian power plants operated by gas giant Gazprom and Finnish energy company Fortum.

Gazprom and Fortum said they would not comment on any repairs being carried out at their stations. Ansaldo Energia did not reply to a request for comment.

More delays

Dmitry Vologzhanin, the head of an industry lobby group, told the Energy Ministry this month the lack of foreign spare parts and specialists could create delays affecting 40 power-generating units with a capacity of 6,000 megawatts.

Deputy Energy Minister Yevgeny Grabchak, however, said only units with a power-generating capacity of 3,000 megawatts were at risk.





Energy companies have already asked the government to cancel any fines incurred for delayed repairs.

Grabchak told Reuters the ministry was looking for alternative part suppliers to replace those unable to fulfil their obligations because of the coronavirus shutdown. He said some plants were being inspected remotely by video.

General Electric and Siemens in Russia said they had enough staff and equipment to carry out most of their repairs and servicing in Russia.

But Siemens said staff have found it harder to travel because of lockdowns and other companies have also had access problems.

In some regions our employees need to remain in quarantine for two weeks and cant make it to the power stations, a high-level manager at a Russian electricity company said, asking not to be named.

Russias nuclear power and hydro plants do not face the same challenges because they are less dependent on foreign equipment and specialists, industry sources said.
April 18 : Kartik Aaryans song has made the nation groove in his signature steps. This year, he made us understand the importance of social-distancing with his musical rap and monologue #CoronaStopKaroNa. But who knew that this rap would serve as workout inspiration for the great Khali.

World-famous wrestler Khali is known for his giant body and his muscles. The legendary wrestler has shared a video on his Tiktok page recently where hes seen working out and doing some weight-lifting in his house. But what makes this video extraordinary is the music playing in the background  Kartik Aaryans internet-breaking Corona Stop Karo Na rap. The monologue which is written by the actor himself and pointed the dos and donts in the times of the pandemic, took the social media by storm. But who knew that the rap would be used for some serious workout session. The wrestler is not skipping his gym sessions and working out from home and the rap is apt for this one. Well, what can we say, Kartik Aaryans songs, dance moves, monologues and raps all have a similar effect on everyone, as it gets one hooked to it. The rap has become nations anthem to fight the pandemic practicing social-distancing and looks like some of our models can use the rap to flex while they workout out ghar pe and do corona stop karo na!

Another move by Kartik Aaryan that has been trending on social media and become the talk of the town, is his new hit YouTube series Koki Poochega. The actors chat show where he gets in conversation with real life heroes working for the nation and COVID-19 survivors, is surely proving to be one of the most binge-worthy series during the lockdown. The Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 actor has also pledged Rs 1 crore to the PM Cares Relief Funds and furthered his efforts to stand with his country to battle these dark times.
The Adamawa State Government has isolated nearly a hundred citizens returning from Lagos and Ogun states.

The returnees, who were mostly people working in factories in the states, were placed in two isolation facilities near the capital, Yola, for a 14-day observation to determine their COVID-19 status.

While 59 of the returnees were placed on an isolation facility in Numan, 40 others were quarantined at the Kpacham facility in Demsa, two gateway towns to Yola.

The Secretary to the State Government (SSG) and Chairman of the Adamawa State Covid-19 Containment Committee, Bashir Ahmad, said in an interview on Saturday that he ordered the isolation of the returnees on Friday.



He said his action was in keeping with instruction by Governor Ahmadu Fintiri on handling of people coming into the state from elsewhere.

The SSG, who led a team of experts and security operatives to monitor compliance with the interstate travel ban, specified that the neighbouring states were not cooporating.

He appealed to Gombe, Bauchi and Taraba state governments to enforce the interstate travel ban.

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"Ah, Houston, we've had a problem."

April 17th marks the 50th anniversary of Apollo 13's safe return to Earth after what was intended to be NASA's third moon-landing mission. The craft launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module failed two days into the mission.

Because of the explosion, the crew orbited the moon instead and pointed the spacecraft back home to earth. However, the crew encountered a cascade of problems, all with life-threatening consequences. The Apollo 13 crew and staff tackled these problems with incredible agility and accountability, ultimately landing the three astronauts back on earth safely.

Historic events like this teach us a great deal about how to remain agile in a crisis. Times of disruption force us to pause, look at the bigger picture, and innovate bold solutions to problems that may at first appear insolvable.

Today, corporate leaders can look back at this historic mission to understand what we call the Steps To Accountability--a four step problem-solving model that can help leaders solve the most challenging problems they're experiencing today. Here's how it works.

Step 1: See It

The first step in remaining agile and taking accountability for success is the willingness to see reality. On a space mission, any issue is a matter of life or death. When the Apollo 13 oxygen tank blew, the first step was to calculate the distance between earth and the point in the spaceship's journey when critical resources would run out.

Mission control quickly assessed the amount of each essential needed for the crew to make it back alive--water, power, and reducing carbon dioxide being the main concerns. Details like these are critical; without this level of clarity, it's impossible to know exactly what problems need to be solve. What they discovered was horrifying: the failing Command Module couldn't support the crew's return.

It takes courage to acknowledge the reality of a crisis. However, leaders who see the full scope of a situation are quicker to respond to major issues that arise. In today's disrupted world, it's important to look at what priorities have shifted to keep the company on track to achieving results. Evaluate resources such as human capital, budget, supply chain, and bandwidth. Disruption destroys the status quo and often accelerates innovation. When leaders are able to acknowledge the disruption and how it impacts their team from achieving their results, they can remain agile and find a different way to achieve that goal or pivot to a new result.

Step 2: Own It

The Apollo 13 mission controllers engaged in delivering on their result: "How do we get this crew back home safely?" Without everyone taking accountability and actively owning their role in delivering on this result, the Apollo 13 mission would be remembered for a very different reason.

Just like Apollo 13, gaining traction during a crisis requires every member of an organization to personally engage. Making the mental pledge to own the new results or developing a new process to achieve established goals is imperative to moving forward with speed. Being willing to adapt isn't enough. Instead of waiting for orders, everyone needs to get involved in being part of the solution.

Step 3: Solve It

The most important step to taking accountability for desired results is asking, "What else can I do?" This is exactly the mindset that drove mission controllers as they worked towards bringing the crew home alive.

When it became clear that the crew would have to abandon the Command Module for the Lunar Module--an aircraft that was not designed for space travel and could support only two of the three astronauts for two days on the moon. The team asked, "What else can I do?" and quickly designed a supplementary carbon dioxide removal system. Following instructions from mission control, the astronauts had one hour to build the device out of plastic bags, cardboard, parts from a lunar suit and a lot of tape.

In times of crisis, the question "What else can I do?" is not about doing more but about shifting the way you think and act to achieve the result. Taking accountability means you are constantly thinking of different ways to innovate and move forward. Employees from all levels of an organization can actively work to solve issues plaguing their organizations by coming back to this mindset.

Step 4: Do It

The last three steps would be rendered useless without follow through. The key to execution is defining who will do what and by when. The team followed through on their choices by defining the "who" and "by when" for making a supplementary carbon dioxide removal system, preparing the Lunar Module as their life boat in space, and who would go to work creating a brand new procedure to restart a cold command module with limited power options. These actions lead the Apollo 13 mission to their goal of successfully bringing home the team of astronauts.

Much like the space mission, companies cannot achieve their desired results until they put their plans into action. The Do It step and the Solve It steps can be regularly reworked to achieve a new result or pivot when results aren't being met. But goals will never be achieved until teams put accountability into action.

Achieving Success Through Failure

Even though Apollo 13 did not achieve their original goal of landing on the moon, the mission was still considered a successful failure. The team at mission control gained a lot of insight on how to properly handle a crisis that can lead to life or death for their crew. They were also able to record images of the moon's surface as they passed by.
The Abia State government on Saturday denounced the killing of a middle-aged man, Friday Arunsi, by security agencies enforcing the lockdown in the South-East state.

Mr Arunsi, a businessman in Ebem Ohafia, was fatally shot by a police officer on Friday after he got into an altercation with some officers while offloading his consignment of beverages from a truck outside his shop.

The incident angered the youth in the community who subsequently attacked the Ohafia police station and released the inmates and burnt Ebem Customary and Magistrate Courts alongside the police quarters, DPOs residence, and some vehicles in the compound.

The police in Abia, on Saturday, said the officer who shot the businessman has been arrested. and detained.

We wish to reiterate that we will not accept the unwarranted killing of any citizen or resident of the state and demand once more that security agents enforcing the COVID-19 necessitated lockdown in the state do so within the operating guidelines for maintenance of internal security as issued to all arm bearing forces in Nigeria, the Abia State government said on Saturday in a statement by the Commissioner for Information in the state, John Kalu.

Reckless killing of unarmed civilians will not be tolerated by this administration and we call for an end to it forthwith.

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The state governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, has directed the chairman of Ohafia local government area to get in touch with the victims family and other affected persons and offer condolences on behalf of the state government, the statement said.

The state government urged residents of the state, and the people of Ohafia in particular, to remain calm, while it vowed to unravel the circumstances surrounding the killing. The government promised to ensure that justice is done in the case.

One person was killed on Friday in Aba, Abia State, in a similar clash between some community residents and security officials.

At least, four persons have been killed in the state in the past two weeks by security officials who are enforcing the lockdown in the state.

The state has no confirmed case of the coronavirus.
Press Release

April 17, 2020 Pangilinan: Track the virus, track the funds A month into the enhanced community quarantine, Senator Francis Pangilinan on Thursday said assistance to the people has been slow, if not wanting, guidelines are vague, and not everyone gets the promised subsidy. With billions -- from government funds, savings, loans and private donations -- being touted for disposal, Pangilinan said the public should know where the money went. "We want to see actual numbers rather than targets, and system rather than confusion in the distribution of cash and relief, and the people need to feel that the government is always responding with urgency. Service to the people should travel faster than the virus," Pangilinan said in his letter to the Office of the Senate President for reference and possible submission to the Office of the President. Reviewing the third report on anti-COVID-19 efforts, the senator observed "unsubstantial progress in the delivery of assistance" to the intended beneficiaries. Pangilinan added that the report also presented targets and funds released to agencies, but not the actual funds disbursed to beneficiaries. "There is a strong policy imperative to find alternative ways to quickly reach the poor," he stressed. Absent a clear catch-up plan that will ensure the intended family recipients receive the needed cash in the next one or two weeks, Pangilinan said the government may want to consider tapping the services of telecommunication companies offering mobile money transfers to provide the cash assistance in geographic pockets of poverty. Pangilinan urged the Department of Social Welfare and Development to speed up the validation of the additional eligible family beneficiaries identified by the local government units, so that no one will be left out and left hungry amid the pandemic. Pangilinan urged the government to consider setting up a system to aid it and the public in effectively monitoring the progress of the efforts in the fight against the coronavirus disease. One example is the use of the COVID19 PH Citizen's Budget Tracker Team or a similar system that will give a clear summary of the program, target number of beneficiaries, actual number of beneficiaries reached, actual amount released and the implementing agencies. "We can work with data analysts and citizens' groups to monitor where the money goes. It is also good practice to show the donors how their donations are making an impact on the people," Pangilinan said. "Transparency and accountability in the use of people's money should not be set aside in the mist of the coronavirus pandemic," Pangilinan added.
SADC regional Response to COVID-19: Bulletin No. 3

This report provides the global, continental and regional situation of COVID-19. On the global perspective, the report provides statistics on the global situation where over 2.5 million cases and 187, 705 deaths have been reported as at 25 April, 2020.

At the regional level, the report highlights the situation of COVID-19 in the WHO African Region as well as the SADC region and further provides information on the status of measures that serve as guidance to Member States. The report notes that of the 5,714 cases reported in the Region, South Africa accounts for about 74% of the cases with DRC, Mauritius, Madagascar and Tanzania also recording over 300 cases to date. In addition to instituting measures to restrict movement and contact, Member States are scaling up testing in response to global calls for increased testing noticed in the last few weeks. Partnerships with private sector and non-state actors to support COVID 19 response efforts are being reported in the Region.

The Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) has also announced an initiative to scale up testing known as Partnership to Accelerate COVID-19 Testing. The objective of the initiative is to distribute 1 million testing kits in 4 weeks and 10 million kits in 24 weeks to Member States in the Africa region. In line with this initiative, the report also provides guidance on scaling up testing and the benefits thereof. Other guidance provided are on maintaining essential services during the period of the pandemic, improving hand hygiene and food handling as well as guidance for schools and workplace settings.

The report further provides an update on social and economic issues and impacts that are a result of COVID-19, as well as measures being undertaken to mitigate some of the impacts. Whilst efforts to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 are ongoing, the past week saw a number of countries scaling up social protection packages to vulnerable groups adversely affected by lockdowns as well as easing some of the lockdown restrictions to lessen damage to household livelihoods and national economies.

In the report we also provide an update of progress on the implementation of Council decisions on COVID-2019 including efforts being made by Member States to align existing laws and regulations to the Regional Guidelines on Harmonization and Facilitation of Cross Border Transport Operations across the Region.

The report proposes some recommendations for consideration by Member States in areas of Public Health, Education, Food Security, Gender-Based Violence, Transport Facilitation, Law Enforcement and Military Sector.

SADC Regional Measures

Summary of the 10 coordinated regional actions taken by SADC in response to COVID-19
Iran's Judiciary Spokesman on Friday said the administration of President Hassan Rouhani had appealed to the Judiciary to grant furlough to imprisoned dual-citizens and political prisoners to protect them from coronavirus infection in prison.

In a program broadcast by Channel 5 of the state-run television on April 17, Gholam-Hossein Esmaili said the Judiciary had received two communications from Justice Minister Seyed Alireza Avai that called on the Judiciary to grant furlough to "security and dual-citizen prisoners".

"We responded to explain the conditions for benefiting from furlough and said citizenship had nothing to do with it. We also replied that a considerable number of security prisoners had been granted furlough," Esmaili said.

Iran does not recognize dual citizenship and treats Iranian dual citizens solely as its own nationals. It also refers to all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience as "security prisoners".

Many of the political prisoners and prisoners of conscience serving time in Iranian prisons have been denied furlough. The only high-profile dual-citizen who has been allowed to go on furlough is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliff, a 40-year-old British citizen. Ms. Zaghari who is required to wear an anklet while on furlough, has been serving a prison term since her arrest in 2016 on alleged charges of spying.

Iran also released Kamal Foroughi an 80-year-old British-Iranian business consultant on April 1 and allowed him to go home nine years after being arrested on spying charges.

Other dual-citizens including U.S. citizens Morad Tahbaz, Siamak Namazi, British citizen Anoush Ashouri, and French National Fariba Adelkhah are among the high-profile dual-nationals serving prison terms on similar charges who have been denied furlough despite the coronavirus epidemic.

The Judiciary has also refused to allow rights activists Narges Mohammadi and Nasrin Sotoudeh and many other high-profile political prisoners to go on temporary leave from prison despite the epidemic and even in view of serious health problems.

The U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, and a number of U.N. experts in a report released on Friday said Iran should expand its temporary release of thousands of detainees to include prisoners of conscience and dual and foreign nationals who are still behind bars despite the serious risk of being infected with COVID-19.
DETROIT, MI -- The hardest-hit area in Michigan for coronavirus COVID-19 cases and deaths is now showing the cases by ZIP Code and heat maps.

The map was unveiled late Friday, April 17.

According to the state Department of Health and Human Services, Detroit has 7,414 cases and 582 deaths.

The rest of Wayne County, outside of Detroit, and Oakland County have the next largest set of numbers. Wayne County has 5,819 cases and 462 deaths and Oakland County has 5,901 cases and 442 deaths.

The Detroit ZIP Code map shows the highest concentration of COVID-19 cases in the northwestern part of the city.

Michigan sees drop in new coronavirus cases, but new death count remains high

The 48235 ZIP Code has 724 cases. Its followed by 48219 with 547 cases, the 48228 ZIP Code with 487 cases and 48221 with 499 cases.

The 48224 ZIP Code on the citys east side also has 440 cases.

The Detroit COVID-19 data page also shows a heat map where cases appear to be more concentrated, as well as other statistics about age, race and gender.

So far in Detroit, about 55 percent of deaths have involved males and 45 percent females. Of the deaths, 77 percent were African Americans.

PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Carry hand sanitizer with you, and use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and when you go into places like stores.

Read more Michigan coronavirus coverage here

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Had no MLA mother or MP father, but I'm minister because I'm a BJP worker: Nitin Gadkari

Rs 10,000 crore funds in the offing for MSMEs says Gadkari

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Apr 18: Amid the economic uncertainty due to coronavirus, a "fund of funds" would be set up for export-oriented Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) soon, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Friday.

The fund has got approval from the finance ministry and soon it would be cleared by the cabinet, the Union MSME minister said.

The industrial units which have a good turnover and pay GST regularly will get benefit from this fund, he said in a video conference with members of the India SME Forum and Young Presidents' Organisation.

PMO meets, discusses easing of lockdown from April 20

"The government is with you and we have taken a lot of decisions. We are starting a fund of funds of about Rs 10,000 crore. GoodMSME units, the units which are into exports, those who have good turn-over and pay GST regularly, will get credit ratings.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

"We are making a provision of Rs 10,000 crore initially....If a unit wants to raise, say, Rs 50 crore from equity market, then 15 per cent will be given by the government (purchased by the government)," the minister said.

"The government will sell those shares in future when they get a good price....We are taking efforts to turn MSMEs into a capital market," said Gadkari.
Coronavirus Outbreak Updates: Kerala police chief Loknath Behera said the relaxations of restrictions imposed would come into effect in the Green and Orange-B zones in the state from Monday, allowing among other the movement of private vehicles on odd-even basis,an official release said.

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The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 12,289 while 2,014 people have been cured and discharged, and one had migrated, the health ministry said.

According to data from the Union health ministry, India reported 957 infections while 36 people lost their lives in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 14,792 and the the toll from the virus to 488.

"As of 5 pm on 18 April, 371 COVID-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state, it includes 14 deaths and 104 discharges," the health department said in a statement on Saturday.

Though the number of positive cases is nearly half of what was recorded on Friday, there has been a consistent rise in cases in the last few days.

Karnataka recorded 25 new COVID-19 positive cases on Saturday, taking the tally to 371 in the state. One casualty among the 25 fresh cases was confirmed.

Of the total 43 fatalities reported till date, 24 were above 60 years of age, making over 55% of the total death cases, they said.

The total number of coronavirus cases in the national capital on April 18 climbed to 1,893, with 186 fresh cases and one death being reported in a day, according to the Delhi government authorities.

He spoke at length on testing protocol and on case management protocols for confirmed positive cases. He informed that the high risk primary contacts those who lived in close proximity and contact with the positive patient are the highest primary contacts, for which testing are being done first.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said that condition of all the patients who have tested positive is stable as of now.

As of Saturday evening, the condition of 37 coronavirus patients was grim, officials said.

The pandemic has claimed 47 lives in Indore alone. But no fresh casualty was reported on Saturday, and the virus did not spread to any new district.

The number of COVID-19 patients in Madhya Pradesh rose up to 1,402 with 92 more individuals testing positive since Friday night, health department officials said, while the death count stood at 69.

Of the 21 positive cases, the throat swab samples of seven people came out positive late on Thursday, while the remaining 14 tested positive on Friday evening.

With 21 new COVID-19 positive cases registered in Malegaon city in just 24 hours, the total number of positive coronavirus cases in Nashik district has gone up from mere two cases on 7 April to 69 on Friday.

The development comes barely a fortnight since CMO Anurag Bhargava was replaced by Chaturvedi as the chief doctor in Gautam Buddh Nagar, a coronavirus hotspot.

The charge as the ACMO of Gautam Buddh Nagar will be additional to Ohri's current work as the principal of the RFPTC in Agra, the order stated.

Ohri has been directed to take the charge with immediate effect, according to the order issued by the Health Department of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday night.

Chief Medical Officer AP Chaturvedi of Gautam Buddh Nagar was removed from post on Saturday and DK Ohri, the principal of Agra''s Regional Family Planning Training Centre was appointed as additional CMO of the district, an official order stated.

"Twenty-six of the extended family members of the woman tested positive on Friday and rest five tested positive today. All of them are asymptomatic though, and they include children," the official said.

All of them have been sent to a self-isolation centre in Narela, a senior official said.

Thirty-one members of an extended family, including children, residing in north Delhi Jahangirpuri area, have tested positive for COVID-19, officials said on Saturday.

Recurrence of COVID-19 in one of the patients who had recovered from the infection has been reported from Una district, a health official said.

One more person tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday, taking the total number of positive coronavirus cases in the state to 40, according to the officials.

A person, who had earlier recovered from the novel coronavirus, tested positive for the infectious disease again on Saturday, taking the number of active cases in Himachal Pradesh to 23, officials said.

According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the total number of positive cases of coronavirus in Uttar Pradesh is 969, of which 86 people have recovered/migrated and 14 deaths have been reported so far.

"With 45 new positive cases of COVID-19 being reported in Agra, the total number of positive cases in the district has reached 241," said Singh.

45 more COVID-19 cases have been reported from Agra, taking the total number of coronavirus cases in the district to 241, said District Magistrate Prabhu N Singh on Sunday.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 12,969 while 2,230 people have been cured and discharged, and one had migrated, the health ministry said.

According to data released by the Union health ministry, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India has risen to 15,707. The overall death count reaches 507.

A 50-year-old COVID-19 patient passed away in Gurugram on Saturday night, according to District Administration. "A 50-year-old person, who had tested positive for COVID-19, passed away at around 12 midnight," said Gurugram District Administration"

A special flight of Gulf Air evacuated 125 Bahrain nationals from here and flew to Chennai to take on board others, said a senior official of the Pune International Airport.

One hundred and twenty-five Bahrain nationals, stranded in Pune because of coronavirus outbreak, were evacuated on Saturday, an airport official said.

China has classified coronavirus epicentre Wuhan as a low-risk area, days after it revised the city's death count by 50 percent, even as 16 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the country, health officials said on Sunday. According to the risk criteria defined in a guideline issued by China's State Council, cities, counties and districts with no newly confirmed cases in the last 14 days are categorised as low-risk areas, PTI reported.

However, in the green zone, large gatherings, functioning of educational institutions, religious-social functions, celebrations and travel outside the district will not be allowed. Not more than 20 people should take part in weddings and funerals, according to government instructions.

Green zone comprises Kottayam and Idukki. A lockdown will be in effect until 20 April and then regulations will be eased.

Orange (B) zone comprises Alappuzha, Thrissur, Palakkad, Thiruvananthapuram and Wayanad. A lockdown will be in effect until 20 April and then partial relaxation will be allowed.

Orange (A) zone comprises Pathanamthitta, Ernakulam and Kollam. A lockdown will be in effect until 24 April and then partial relaxation will be allowed.

Red zone comprises Kasaragod, Kannur, Kozhikode and Malappuram. In the red zone, a complete lockdown will be in place until 3 May. Two entry and exit points are allowed for carrying essential commodities to COVID-19 hotspots.

The Kerala government has divided its districts into four zones for containing the COVID-19 pandemic. An order has been issued in this regard:

Four family members, including a one-month-old baby of PGI employee (from CD ward who tested positive on 17 April and is in PGI's isolation ward) from Nayagaon, also test positive for COVID19, said Girish Dayalan, DC Mohali, Punjab

The death was reported from Sassoon General Hospitals. The 75-year-old woman was admitted to the facility on 11 April. She succumbed to lower respiratory tract infection.

One coronavirus positive patient died on Saturday, taking the total number of COVID-19 deaths to 51 in the district. Also, 47 new positive cases were reported in the district, where the total now stands at 612.

The Lake View Hospital in Ranchi was sealed and more than 50 members of its staff were quarantined. A man, who tested positive for COVID-19 in Gurugram, underwent treatment at this hospital for brain haemorrhage, ANI reported. The man's apartment was also sealed.

Haridwar and Nainital ditricts in Uttarakhand were declared 'red zones' after the number of confirmed cases in the state rose to 42. 80 percent of the state are from Dehradun, Haridwar and Nainital districts, Additional Secretary (Health) Yugal Kishor Pant said.

"The baby was brought by his father to the emergency ward of Lady Hardinge Hospital for respiratory ailments and later tested positive for Covid-19," said the hospital officials. The toddler's father has also tested positive while the mother's test result is awaited. The authorities added that the pediatric ICU of the hospital is being sanitised.

Two doctors, six nurses and a 10-month-old baby at Delhi's Lady Hardinge Hospital were tested positive for coronavirus, ANI reported. The eight frontline healthcare workers have been quarantined, and their contact tracing is being done.

"Vehicles used by e-commerce operators will be allowed to ply with necessary permissions," read the order.

The Ministry of Home Affairs in its latest advisory on Sunday said that the supply of non-essential goods by e-Commerce companies will remain restricted during the nationwide lockdown imposed in view of the novel coronavirus.

"On 27 April, a review meeting will be held again," said Kejriwal.

Stressing on the importance of a complete shutdown in view of the novel coronavirus, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said that there will be no relaxation in the lockdown restrictions in the hotspot areas across the city.

So far, 130 COVID-19 cases have been reported from areas under Thane Municipal Corporation, 73 from Kalyan - Dombivali, 69 from Mira-Bhayander, 60 from Navi Mumbai, 14 from Badlapur township, 10 from Thane rural, four from Ambernath township, three from Bhiwandi-Nizampur municipal limits and one from Ulhasnagar.

One more person died of the viral infection, taking the toll in the district to 12, they said.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Maharashtra's Thane district rose to 364 after 44 more people tested positive for the infectious disease, authorities said on Sunday.

"After assessing the prevailing situation in Delhi, we have decided not to permit any relaxation of the lockdown, as of now," said Kejriwal.

"All the 186 COVID-19 positive cases that were reported on Saturday were asymptomatic, they didnt know they had coronavirus," said Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, adding there will be no relaxation of the lockdown in the hotspot areas.

The number of reported cases is rising in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

With 3,651 COVID-19 cases, Maharashtra has reported the highest number of infections, followed by Delhi (1,893) and Tamil Nadu (1,372).

With 228 more individuals testing positive for COVID-19 since last evening, the total number of positive cases in the state climbed to 1,604. While five more people succumbed to the infectious disease taking the toll to 58, said Gujarat Health Department.

According to information available on the website of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, as of 11 am on Sunday, 969 cases have been reported from Uttar Pradesh with 86 cured/migrated/discharged and 14 deaths.

As many as 43 samples have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, out of the 851 samples which were tested on Saturday, according to King George's Medical University, Lucknow.

A total of 1,893 positive cases have been reported in Delhi so far.

Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare, visited the Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital on Sunday. It is one of the dedicated COVID-19 centres in the National Capital

3,651 coronavirus cases in Maharashtra, said CM Uddhav Thackeray during briefing on Sunday. He added that non-COVID patients will be neglected during the pandemic.

From 20 April we are planning to restart the industrial and commercial activities in states, said CM Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday.

Suggesting that few districts in Maharashtra have shown decrease in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, CM Uddhav Thackeray said that theb districts will be divided into red, orange and green zones.

He mentioned that lockdown measures in the state will be relaxed in graded manner. Thackeray requested the public not to venture out even though the commercial and industrial activities have been allowed to resume.

During the briefing on Sunday, Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray said of the total confirmed coronavirus cases in the state, 70-75 percent cases are asymptomatic while, 52 percent are in serious conditions.

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray issued a helpline on Sunday for those facing mental health issues. Thackeray said: "If you are feeling any mental health issue, do call 1800 120 820050."

"In other areas, a rethink of the decision will be done in the next 2 to 3 days."

"In Mumbai and Pune, which are red zones, door-to-door delivery of newspapers will not be allowed," said Thackeray said, adding that he was aware he would be criticised by journalists for this step.

"Intra-district movement in green and orange zones may be allowed," said Thackeray.

Uddhav Thackeray said that the state government has allowed certain economic activities in orange and green zones. He said the government has demarcated red, orange and green zones across the state.

GoAir has sent its employees on leave without pay, till the nationwide lockdown ends on 3 May. While the airline had already sent a large portion of its staff on leave without pay, the latest communication will now apply to all employees.

UPSC, SSC examinations that were put on hold due to lockdown, will definitely take place. We will take a call after 3 May and reschedule dates in a manner that it gives sufficient time to all the aspirants to reach to their designated examination centers, said Union Minister Jitendra Singh.

A total of 246 COVID-19 positive cases have been reported in Haryana so far. Of the total 246 confirmed cases, 24 are foreign nationals and 64 are from other states, said Haryana Health Department.

The 65-year-old patient was found to have contracted the disease following his return from the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi's Nizamudddin.

Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh on Sunday said the state no longer has any COVID 19- positive case, as the second patient, who was undergoing treatment at a hospital in Imphal, tested negative for the disease.

"The baby was brought to the hospital a few days ago. He tested positive for COVID-19. The child was admitted to SARI (Severe Acute Respiratory Illness) ward and died yesterday," a doctor at the hospital said on the condition of anonymity.

A one-and-a-half-month-old baby has died of the novel coronavirus at a hospital in Delhi, officials said on Sunday, in perhaps the first fatality of an infant due to COVID-19 in the National Capital.

The MHA order read that during the journey, social distancing norms must be followed and the buses used for transport must be sanitised.

If a group of migrants who wish to return to their places of work within the State where they are presently located, they would be thermally screened. Those who test asymptomatic would be transported to their respective places of work.

The Home Ministry issued an order on Sunday saying that there movement of labourers outside the state/Union Territory where they are currently located will be prohibited amid the nationwide lockdown.

The President of the Union Vinod Kohli, General Secretary Naveen Sharma and organizing Secretary Baljit Marwaha have demanded strict action against the SHO and concerned police staff who even after showing the identify card forcefully took the journalist to police station and misbehaved with him.

Chandigarh Punjab Union of Journalists (CPUJ) have condemned the action of Chandigarh Police against the Punjabi Tribune senior journalist Davinder Pal for harrasing him while on duty.

According to a statement by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Dharavi has recorded 20 new cases on Sunday. The area has recorded 138 coronavirus cases in all, including 11 deaths.

The DGCA has directed airlines to refrain from booking tickets, saying, "It is brought to the notice of all concerned that no decision to commence the operation of domestic/international flights with effect from 4 May, 2020 has been taken yet."

The West Bengal government has said, "The number of active cases in the state stands at 198 now. Sixty-six persons have been discharged after treatment and 12 persons have died due to COVID-19."

Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy rose by 433 on Sunday, the lowest daily toll in a week, and the number of new cases also slowed to 3,047 from a previous 3,491, Reuters quotes the Civil Protection Agency as saying.The death toll had risen by 482 on Saturday, down from 575 on Friday

No new death due to coronavirus infection was reported in Pune district of Maharashtra on Sunday but 57 new cases were detected, taking their total to 669, a Health official said. Giving the break-up, the official said, "So far 562 cases are reported in the Pune Municipal Corporation limits, 57 in neighbouring PCMC, and 50 in rural areas." Up to Saturday, the COVID-19 death toll stood at 51 in Pune district.

Meanwhile, 18 patients including two from state-run Sassoon Hospital in the city have been discharged after theirrepeat samples tested negative for coronavirus.

Thirty-five more people have tested positive for coronavirus in a containment zone in south Delhi's Tughlakabad Extension area, authorities said on Sunday, making it possibly one of the largest such zones in the National Capital in terms of number of cases. Earlier, three coronavirus cases were reported from this neighbourhood, prompting authorities to declare the area a containment zone. "After 35 new positive coronavirus cases were found, some more lanes in Tughlakabad area have been sealed," Deputy Commissioner of Police (South East) RP Meena said.

110 new cases have been reported in the National Capital in last 24 hours, taking the total to 2,003. The toll rose to 45 as two patients died due to infection today, said the state health department.

A total of 4,01,586 samples from 3,83,985 individuals have been tested till date, 17,615 individuals confirmed positive among suspected cases and contacts of known positive cases. 27,824 samples have been reported till 9 pm on Sunday of these, 1,135 were positive, said ICMR.

"One death has been reported in Jaipur. The patient was admitted to a private hospital after he complained of fever and breathlessness," Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Rohit Kumar Singh said. Officials said the 62-year-old man from the Raja Park area of Jaipur was admitted to the private hospital on 16 April. He died on Saturday night.

Onee more person died of coronavirus in Rajasthan's worst-hit Jaipur, pushing the death toll to 23 in the state, whose infection count soared to 1,478 with 127 fresh cases on Sunday. So far, Jaipur has reported 535 cases, including 13 deaths.

Pune Municipal Corporation has passed an order to declare the complete area under the jurisdiction of the civic body a Containment Zone, from today midnight till 27 April, reports ANI.

Restrictions in 88 hotspots identified across the state will not be relaxed, reports News18.

State police chief Loknath Behera said the relaxations of restrictions imposed would come into effect in the Green and Orange-B zones in the state from Monday, allowing among other the movement of private vehicles on odd-even basis,an official release said. Earlier, the Left government had colour-coded 14 districts of the state into four zones Red, Green, Orange-A and Orange-B, for containing the Covid-19 pandemic. Orange-B zone comprises Alappuzha, Thiruvananthapuram, Palakkad, Thrissur and Wayanad. The lockdown will be in effect until April 24 in this zone and then partial relaxation will be allowed. Kottayam and Idukki come under the Green zone, in which lockdown will be in effect until April 20 and then regulations will be eased.

Assam has tested a total of 4,865 samples for COVID-19 so far, of which 34 have come out positive, the state's Health and Family Welfare Departmentsaid on Sunday. According to the daily bulletin by the state government, 17 persons recovered and were discharged from hospitals, while 16 others are undergoing treatment. One patient has died. However, as per figures of the Union health ministry, Assam has reported 35 confirmed cases thus far.

Thane district neighbouring Mumbai was on Sunday night declared as a containment zone in light of surge in the number of COVID-19 cases, a senior official said. All the restrictions in place under the ongoing lockdown will remain in force without any change, and the relief stated in the April 17 notification for certain zones will not be available for Thane district, stated the order issued by district collector Rajesh Narvekar.

Coronavirus Outbreak LATEST Updates: Kerala police chief Loknath Behera said the relaxations of restrictions imposed would come into effect in the Green and Orange-B zones in the state from Monday, allowing among other the movement of private vehicles on odd-even basis,an official release said.

110 new cases have been reported in the National Capital in last 24 hours, taking the total to 2,003. The toll rose to 45 as two patients died due to infection today, said the state health department.

Two more persons tested positive for COVID-19 in Uttarakhand, taking the total to 44. Eleven persons have been cured and discharged till date, said a health bulletin.

'India as a global leader in pharmaceuticals, has stepped to make sure supplies of drugs like Hydroxychloroquine is made available to countries around the world. India is working with global partners to ensure that effective drugs and vaccines can be developed, and made available to all of us as soon as possible,' Union health minister Harsh Vardhan said at a meeting of health ministers of G20 countries, according to reports.

Ten more people, including a one-month-old girl and three of her family members in Mohali, tested positive for novel coronavirus in Punjab on Sunday, pushing the total count to 244 in the state.

Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao says he has proposed to the Cabinet that full lockdown in the state be extended till 7 May. During this period, no food delivery shall be permitted, he said.

552 new COVID19 cases and 12 deaths were reported in Maharashtra on Sunday. The total number of positive cases stands at 4,200 now. Total 223 deaths have been reported till now, while 507 patients have been discharged after full recovery, ANI quotes the state health department as saying.

The DGCA has directed airlines to refrain from booking tickets, saying, "It is brought to the notice of all concerned that no decision to commence the operation of domestic/international flights with effect from 4 May, 2020 has been taken yet."

According to the latest update put out by the Union health ministry, the total number of coronavirus cases has reached 16,116 while 2,301 have been cured or discharged and 519 deaths have been reported. The number of active cases stands at 13,295, it said.

The Lok Sabha Secretariat will resume work from Monday after it was shut in the last week of March in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, according to an official order. The Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were shut on March 24 after both houses were adjourned sine die following the passage of the Finance Bill for 2020-21, bringing a premature end to the budget session of Parliament, which was slated to conclude on 3 April.

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh stated that no relaxation will be given in the Covid-19 curfew in the state, except as needed to ensure coronavirus free procurement of wheat, till 3 May, reports News18. The situation will be reviewed again, he added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter to point out that COVID-19 strikes without looking at parameters like color, caste, creed, religion and language and called for a response to be based on unity and brotherhood.

The number of coronavirus cases in Madhya Pradesh rose to 1,407 with five more people testing positive for the disease on Sunday, reports PTI. The state also reported three more deaths due to the disease, taking the toll to 72, according to the latest health bulletin. Of these total deaths, 50 have been reported from Indore, the state's industrial hub.

Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant said that the last active COVID-19 case in Goa had tested negative and no new cases had been reported in the state since 3 April.

The health ministry and the Indian Council of Medical Research said the rate of doubling of coronavirus cases in districts that have been designated as hotspots is less than four days, against the national average of six days. However, the rate of recovery of Covid-19 patients has improved to a little over 14 percent, officials said

507 deaths have been reported, of which 27 deaths were reported since yesterday, says health ministry. With 1334 new COVID19 cases, the total cases have reached 15,712. 2,231 people have been cured so far.

Soon after procuring rapid antibody test kits, the Delhi government on Sunday began testing people for coronavirus in various containment zones spread across the city, officials said. Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Saturday said the AAP government has acquired 42,000 such kits.

The Home Ministry issued an order on Sunday saying that there movement of labourers outside the state/Union Territory where they are currently located will be prohibited amid the nationwide lockdown.

If a group of migrants who wish to return to their places of work within the State where they are presently located, they would be thermally screened. Those who test asymptomatic would be transported to their respective places of work.

The MHA order read that during the journey, social distancing norms must be followed and the buses used for transport must be sanitised.

Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh on Sunday said the state no longer has any COVID 19- positive case, as the second patient, who was undergoing treatment at a hospital in Imphal, tested negative for the disease.

The 65-year-old patient was found to have contracted the disease following his return from the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi's Nizamudddin.

UPSC, SSC examinations that were put on hold due to lockdown, will definitely take place. We will take a call after 3 May and reschedule dates in a manner that it gives sufficient time to all the aspirants to reach to their designated examination centers, said Union Minister Jitendra Singh.

Uddhav Thackeray said that the state government has allowed certain economic activities in orange and green zones. He said the government has demarcated red, orange and green zones across the state.

"Intra-district movement in green and orange zones may be allowed," said Thackeray.

"In Mumbai and Pune, which are red zones, door-to-door delivery of newspapers will not be allowed," said Thackeray said, adding that he was aware he would be criticised by journalists for this step.

"In other areas, a rethink of the decision will be done in the next 2 to 3 days."

During the briefing on Sunday, Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray said of the total confirmed coronavirus cases in the state, 70-75 percent cases are asymptomatic while, 52 percent are in serious conditions.

Suggesting that few districts in Maharashtra have shown decrease in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, CM Uddhav Thackeray said that the districts will be divided into red, orange and green zones.

He further highlighted that district borders will remain closed.

From 20 April we are planning to restart the industrial and commercial activities in states, said said CM Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Maharashtra's Thane district rose to 364 after 44 more people tested positive for the infectious disease, authorities said on Sunday.

One more person died of the viral infection, taking the toll in the district to 12, they said.

Stressing on the importance of a complete shutdown in view of the novel coronavirus, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said that there will be no relaxation in the lockdown restrictions in the hotspot areas across the city.

"On 27 April, a review meeting will be held again," said Kejriwal.

The Ministry of Home Affairs in its latest advisory on Sunday said that the supply of non-essential goods by e-Commerce companies will remain restricted during the nationwide lockdown imposed in view of the novel coronavirus.

"Vehicles used by e-commerce operators will be allowed to ply with necessary permissions," read the order.

Kerala to ease lockdown restrictions in five orange zone and two green zone districts from Monday. The Orange (B) zone comprises Alappuzha, Thrissur, Palakkad, Thiruvananthapuram and Wayanad. While the green zone comprises Kottayam and Idukki.

According to data released by the Union health ministry, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India has risen to 15,707. The overall death count reaches 507.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 12,969 while 2,230 people have been cured and discharged, and one had migrated, the health ministry said.

A person, who had earlier recovered from the novel coronavirus, tested positive for the infectious disease again on Saturday, taking the number of active cases in Himachal Pradesh to 23, officials said.

One more person tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday, taking the total number of positive coronavirus cases in the state to 40, according to the officials.

Recurrence of COVID-19 in one of the patients who had recovered from the infection has been reported from Una district, a health official said.

With 21 new COVID-19 positive cases registered in Malegaon city in just 24 hours, the total number of positive coronavirus cases in Nashik district has gone up from mere two cases on 7 April to 69 on Friday.

Of the 21 positive cases, the throat swab samples of seven people came out positive late on Thursday, while the remaining 14 tested positive on Friday evening.

On its fourth week into the coronavirus lockdown, the Union health ministry on Saturday reported a positive trend in 47 districts, however, the day sent alarm bells ringing for its military brass after 26 Indian Navy personnel tested positive at the strategically-located Western Naval Command in Mumbai.

This is first case of a major outbreak of the deadly virus in the armed forces, PTI said.

According to data from the Union health ministry, India reported 957 infections while 36 people lost their lives in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 14,792 and the the toll from the virus to 488. The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 12,289 while 2,014 people have been cured and discharged, and one had migrated, the health ministry said.

Of the 488 people who have died so far, 75 percent seems to be of age 60 and above, the health ministry said on Saturday. According to the ministry, over 13 percent patients have recovered so far, while the mortality rate in India is 3.3 percent.

Globally, the virus's mortality rate has been higher with the virus killing 1,56,140 across the world while infecting 22,74,800 people at the time of publishing this report, according to data maintained by John Hopkins University.

As of Saturday, the US is the worst-affected by the virus with 7,06,856 testing positive and 37,087 deaths. Spain, which is the second-worst affected country in the world crossed 20,000 deaths on Saturday while confirmed infections reached 1,91,726.

Italy, another country, which has been hit hard by the virus has lost 22,745 people due to the infection. In France, 18,681 have died from the virus while the toll is 15,464 in the United Kingdom.

Gujarat reports 251 cases; Delhi sees dip in fresh cases

Meanwhile in India, Gujarat registered the highest single-day jump among all Indian states on Saturday with 251 people testing positive of COVID-19, overtaking Rajasthan which has 1,229 confirmed cases as of today. Gujarat also reported the second-highest toll with 10 people losing their lives.

Except for Madhya Pradesh, which reported 191 new patients and 12 deaths, several of the five worst-affected states seemed to fare comparatively better on Saturday.

Maharashtra which has 3,323 cases, the highest in India, reported 118 new cases and seven deaths, while Delhi, which has the second highest confirmed infections registered 67 new cases taking the total to 1,707 cases. Confirmed cases have surged in the National Capital lately after the state government ramped up testing across Delhi. Four people died in Delhi till Saturday evening.

Though the health ministry reported no new infections in Tamil Nadu, which has fourth highest COVID-19 patients (1,323), state officials reported that 49 people have tested positive on Saturday.

Uttar Pradesh, on the other hand, recorded a total of 969 cases as of Saturday. Telangana has 791 cases, followed by Andhra Pradesh at 603 and Kerala at 396.

One person died in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir each since Friday evening, according to the ministry data.

The number of novel coronavirus cases has risen to 371 in Karanataka, 328 in Jammu and Kashmir, 287 in West Bengal, 225 in Haryana and 202 in Punjab.

Bihar has reported 85 infection cases, while Odisha has 60 coronavirus cases.

Forty-two people were infected with the virus in Uttarakhand, while Himachal Pradesh has 38 cases. Chhattisgarh has 36 cases and Assam has registered 35 cases each.

Jharkhand has 33 cases, Chandigarh has 21 cases and Ladakh has 18, while 12 cases have been reported from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Meghalaya has reported 11 cases while Goa and Puducherry have reported seven COVID-19 infections each. Manipur and Tripura have two cases each, while Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have reported a case each.

Maharashtra accounts for 201 of 488 deaths in India

Of the total 488 deaths, Maharashtra tops the list with 201 fatalities, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 69, Gujarat at 48 and Delhi at 42 and Telangana at 18.

Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have reported 15 deaths each till Saturday while Uttar Pradesh has reported 14 fatalities.

Punjab and Karnataka have reported 13 deaths each.

Rajasthan has registered 11 deaths while West Bengal has reported 10 fatalities.

Five people have lost their lives in Jammu and Kashmir while Kerala and Haryana have recorded three deaths each. Jharkhand and Bihar have reported two deaths each.

Meghalaya, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Assam reported one fatality each, according to the health ministry data.

75% deaths among those aged 6o and above, says health ministry

Meanwhile, the Union health ministry on Saturday said the mortality rate for COVID-19 cases in India is around 3.3 percent, while over 13 percent patients have recovered so far.

Addressing a daily media briefing about the novel coronavirus situation in the country, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said data indicates that of the people who died due the infection 14.4 percent were between 0-45 years, 10.3 percent between 45-60 years, 33.1 percent between 60-75 years and 42.2 percent were aged 75 and above.

"We saw that 75.3 per cent deaths were among those aged 60 or above and in 83 per cent cases there were co-morbidities," he said and reiterated that the elderly and those with co-morbid conditions are at high risk.

About containment strategies implemented along with the lockdown, Agarwal said field-level actions are fetching positive results in several places.

"A positive trend has been noted in 47 districts of 23 states and Union Territories. Kodaggu in Karnataka is a new district added to this list along with Mahe in Puducherry that has not reported any fresh cases during the last 28 days," the official said.

Twenty-two new districts in 12 states have not reported any fresh case in the last 14 days. These districts include Lakhisarai, Bhagalpur and Gopalganj in Bihar, Udaipur and Dholpur in Rajasthan, Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir, Rohtak in Haryana and Vishakhaptnam in Andhra Pradesh, Agarwal said.

He, however, stated that Patna in Bihar, Nadia in West Bengal and Panipat in Haryana where there were no COVID-19 positive cases in the first two weeks, have now reported incidents of the infection.

Ludhiana ACP dies of COVID-19

On Saturday, a 52-year-old Ludhiana assistant commissioner of police, who was undergoing treatment for COVID-19 at a private hospital, died from the disease.

ACP (North) Anil Kohli breathed his last at the SPS Hospital, Ludhiana, Civil Surgeon Rajesh Bagga said.

On Friday, the Punjab government had given its go-ahead to the hospital to conduct plasma therapy on the police officer.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh announced Rs 50 lakh ex gratia to the next of kin of the deceased. He said a similar amount will be paid to the family of any officer who dies in the line of duty due to coronavirus.

The officer had tested positive for coronavirus on 12 April. His wife, a security guard and a station house officer tested positive on Friday.

Govt approval compulsory for FDI from neighbouring countries, including China

The government has amended the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy to discourage opportunistic investment in Indian companies by neighbouring countries, including China, in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The amendment specifies that transfer of ownership of Indian companies arising out of FDI investments from neighbouring countries will now also be subject to government approval. Similar FDI restrictions were earlier placed on Pakistan and Bangladesh.

With inputs from PTI
Elisheva Stern wasn't ready to say goodbye to her ailing father, who was succumbing to the coronavirus in an Israeli hospital.

But knowing countless others around the world are not given the chance to say their last farewells to sick relatives, she decided to enter the virus ward and be by her father's bedside, even if only for a brief moment, before he died.

Stern's father, Simha Benshai, 75, died at Tel Aviv's Sourasky Medical Center, which offers the next of kin of dying coronavirus patients the rare opportunity to say goodbye in person.

None of us want to say bye to the people who we love. But I'm actually happy that they gave me the opportunity to say bye to my father, said Stern.

I was able to see him and to tell him I'm sorry and I love him."



The practice is in contrast to many hospitals around the world that don't allow final family visits as a precaution against spreading the highly contagious virus.

That leaves patients to die alone and forces families to grieve from afar.

Recognising this peculiar tragedy wrought by the virus, Sourasky Medical Center officials opted to spare much-needed protective gear, take careful measures to ward off infection and offer grieving families a chance to say goodbye.

"The stories of patients dying alone are horrifying," said Roni Gamzu, the hospital's chief executive.

"This is our moral duty as medical staff and as human beings. No one shall be allowed to die alone."



The hospital provides immediate next of kin who want to visit a patient with head-to-toe protective wear gear in demand around the world and often reserved for health care workers and allows them about 15 minutes to say goodbye.

It then assists them in removing the mask, cap, robe, gloves and boots with the utmost caution needed to prevent infection.

Elsewhere, family and friends are bidding tortuous goodbyes remotely, often with the help of hospital workers entrusted to speak the families' final words, or supplying their phones as a bridge to communicate with the virus-stricken relative.

The issue has gripped health care workers around the world.

Families beg to see their loved ones before they die. A seemingly simple request, which in other times would be encouraged, has become an ethical and health care dilemma, a group of medical residents from the Detroit area wrote this week in the New England Medical Journal, calling for creative solutions to address the problem.

The virus has infected over 2 million people worldwide and has killed more than 140,000. It causes mild to moderate flu-like symptoms in most patients, who recover within a few weeks.

But it is highly contagious and can cause severe illness or death, particularly in older people or those with underlying health problems.

Unlike epicenters like New York or Italy, Israel's outbreak has so far seen manageable numbers of seriously ill patients.

The country has more than 13,000 coronavirus cases, among them 158 deaths.

Hospitals are not deluged with patients, meaning Sourasky is likely not under as much pressure as other facilities in virus hotbeds and can spare the time and protective gear for the final encounters.

Four families have so far agreed to enter the coronavirus ward in the two weeks since the hospital's project began.

Dror Maor visited his dying mother-in-law at the hospital recently.

Entering the hospital room in full protective gear, he saw Segula Yanai, 81, who was sedated and breathing through a ventilator and flanked by other patients in similar condition. He recited a Jewish prayer and psalms at her bedside.

Despite the difficult scene, I felt my mother-in-law's presence and I believe that she felt mine. It was an act of devotion that I am happy to have carried out," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The debate about the tenure of judges of the Supreme Court of India is fixated somewhat unnecessarily on the retirement age than the actual time spent in the Court. Examining the length of the tenure gives some hints as to the unwritten criteria of appointment and may potentially offer a deeper understanding of the systemic problems faced by the courts.

While there is much writing about the appointment of judges of the Supreme Court of India (Sengupta and Sharma 2018), rigorous data analyses of judges appointments and tenures are few and far between. Two stand-out exceptions to this are George H Gadboiss Judges of the Supreme Court of India: 19501989 (2011) and Abhinav Chandrachuds The Informal Constitution (2014). They offer many interesting insights and, in the course of this column, I hope to build on some of them to think about how the tenure of judges might be affecting the institution itself.

Between January 1950 and April 2020, a total of 247 judges were appointed to the Supreme Court. From being seven strong in 1950, the Supreme Court currently has 33 judges as against a sanctioned strength of 34. Its size was recently increased from 31 to 34 under the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Act, 2020. The retirement age of judges, fixed under the Constitution as 65, has never been changed.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 04:24:41|Editor: huaxia

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by Saud Abu Ramadan

HEBRON, West Bank, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic, a Palestinian pharmaceutical company based in the West Bank city of Hebron has started producing nutritional supplements that it says could boost immunity against the novel coronavirus.

The company, the Palestinian National Company for Medical and Herbal Products, produces and sells a pack of 30 nutritional supplement pills, each containing 500 mg of vitamin C and 15 mg of Zinc.

"The nutritional supplement pills are put in small packages, each package contains 30 pills," said Abdulrahim al-Haddad, the company director.

He said the pills are especially made for those who suffer from weak immunity, mainly the elderly and patients with chronic diseases, who are more severely affected by the coronavirus than other groups.

On Friday, a total of 402 COVID-19 cases in Palestinian territories were confirmed, 69 of them have recovered and two died.

"The crisis of coronavirus pandemic, which has swept through the world, has urged people with weak immunity to purchase medical products to boost their immunity due to the lack of medications and vaccines," said al-Haddad.

He said his company produces the pills for the first time in Palestine, but with the same quality of the same products imported from abroad.

The company took advantage of its expertise in producing vitamins and minerals to create the new products, he said, touting that his company "is the only one licensed by the Palestinian Ministry of Health to manufacture nutritional supplements."

Al-Haddad noted that the recent anti-coronavirus measures, including closure of border crossings, airports and seaports, has made it difficult to import these products from abroad and caused a shortage of supplies in Palestine.

So, as a local company with the production capacity and experience, Al-Haddad made the decision to make and sell the pack to help Palestinians combat the infectious virus.

"The company has enough capacity to meet the demand of Palestinian markets with our new products, and I hope that our new nutritional supplements will be exported to the Gaza Strip and the neighboring Arab countries," said al-Haddad.

Six days ago, the new nutritional supplements pack received the approval and licensing from the Palestinian Health Ministry, and the company began distributing it in the West Bank, said Ahmad el-Haddad, director of marketing in the company.

The local demand for the products is big amid the COVID-19 crisis, he said.

The Palestinian company, which has 30 workers, has been producing various kinds of pharmaceutical products, vitamins, herbals, and nutritional supplements since March 2015.

Khalil al-Qawasmi, director of the Palestinian Health Ministry in Hebron, welcomed the production of the nutritional supplements due to the difficult health situation caused by the raging coronavirus pandemic.

He took the initiative to produce medications and medical supplies to combat the virus in Palestine.

Mohammad Doufish, chairman of the Palestinian Pharmacists Association in the West Bank, said that the new product "is one of the most powerful means to boost the immunity in the body to resist the virus because it contains vitamin C and Zinc." Enditem
Faith in Matt Hancock is 'draining away', union leaders say, after furious NHS staff are told to re-use PPE and 'wear aprons' to treat coronavirus patients.

The Health Secretary is being told he might have to consider his position as union leaders criticised his handling of the ongoing PPE 'scandal'.

New guidance was issued this week amid reports at least 60 NHS trusts were expecting to exhaust their stocks of gowns. This includes all hospitals in London, which reportedly need tens of thousands of gowns delivered urgently.

Rachel Harrison, national officer of the GMB, claimed the union raised critical protective equipment supply issues with the Government over a month ago.

She said Mr Hancock has 'serious and urgent questions to answer' after PPE guidance was 'redrawn based on availability, not on evidence or best practice'.

'GMB won't tolerate a situation where our members are pushed on to the front line without the basic kit they need to do their jobs safely,' she explained.

A nurse wears personal protective equipment at the Chessington testing centre yesterday

Faith in Matt Hancock (pictured) is 'draining away', union leaders say, after furious NHS staff are told to re-use PPE and 'wear aprons' to treat coronavirus patients

'NHS and ambulance staff will now face unacceptable risks as a result of gross ministerial incompetence. We won't let this go unchallenged and will now review the steps we need to take protect our members.'

Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail called the continued lack of PPE a 'national scandal' and the 'litany of broken promises' as 'shameful'.

'The public is looking on aghast as brave doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers are risking their lives to provide care to very sick patients - yet they don't have the necessary protection to carry out their roles,' she said.

'Matt Hancock needs to sort out the logjam in PPE supplies urgently, otherwise he may have to consider his position as this situation can't continue, as health professionals would be quite right to decline to put themselves in danger.

'This would go against every instinct in their body and every tenet of their professional training, but already the public is very alarmed at the rising toll of NHS staff who have died due to coronavirus as they have battled the pandemic.

'We are not just talking about NHS staff in hospitals, but those working in the community, such as health visitors and community nurses, and those employed in social care settings, such as care homes.'

The Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Nursing said nurses should refuse to treat patients 'as a last resort' if they are not provided with adequate PPE.

Prof Neil Mortensen, president-elect of the RCS, said the guidance, rushed out yesterday, was disturbing and issued without consulting expert medical bodies.

He added: 'The new guidance implies that, even in the operating theatre, surgeons and their teams may not require proper PPE. This is simply unacceptable.'

British Medical Association council chairman Dr Chaand Nagpaul said the PPE situation in the UK is now 'a truly sorry state of affairs'

The BMA has labelled the situation a 'sorry state of affairs' with doctors feeling unprotected at work despite the UK being two months into the crisis.

Frontline medics fear some NHS trusts could run out of gowns and coveralls this weekend with stocks now 'exhausted'. The anger comes amid fears they might have to treat virus patients with only plastic aprons for protection.

The guidance from PHE sets out what front-line staff should do where there are no gowns left. Options include borrowing from other hospitals with supplies, wearing coveralls or using the flimsy plastic aprons.

It is a significant U-turn from previous PHE guidance, which required full-length waterproof surgical gowns for all high-risk hospital procedures.

The move will prompt fears more doctors and nurses will become infected due to a lack of PPE, with one leading figure saying the situation is worrying.

A BMA survey of more than 6,000 doctors across the country said a significant amount of them remain without the protection they need to guard against Covid-19.

Another poll by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) found half of nurses have felt pressure to work without appropriate protective equipment during the crisis.

BMA council chairman Dr Chaand Nagpaul thundered: 'We shouldn't still be hearing that doctors feel unprotected when they go to work.

Medical staff put on personal protective equipment at a testing centre in Belfast on April 7

'The Government says that one billion items will soon have been shipped, and while there have been signs of improvement, our research clearly shows that equipment is not reaching all doctors working on the front line.'

He added: 'Just yesterday the Health and Social Care Secretary said he could not guarantee that hospitals would not run out this weekend.

'Meanwhile, the BMA has been inundated with approaches from companies offering to do their bit to supply the NHS. This is a truly sorry state of affairs and we renew our call for the Government to work with manufacturers to ramp up domestic supply.'

NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said: 'We have now reached the point where national stock of fully fluid repellent gowns and coveralls (is) exhausted. So some trusts will run out of this type of gown or coverall in the next 24 to 48 hours. What next?'

He added that NHS trusts and his group had asked national leaders several times last week to prepare a clear public plan should a trust run out of gowns.

Mr Hopson said the agreed plan in a shortage can be best summarised as to 'provide the highest level of protection possible with the equipment available'.

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, a body that describes itself as speaking for the health and care system, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I think the worrying situation is absolutely there.

'The reality is that there is a chance, and I don't think it's definite, but there is a chance hospitals could run out or, indeed, other parts of the system could run out of the gowns which are required to treat some, not all, Covid patients.

'And that means that they have had to issue this guidance to make clear that if somebody is in that position, here is the fall-back which they point out, the World Health Organisation and the Centre for Communicable Diseases in the US have said this is what you should do in that situation. But, of course, it's much less than satisfactory.'

At least 50 NHS staff members have died from the virus. They include Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, 53, who had warned a lack of PPE put medics at risk.

The new guidance was issued in response to 'acute shortages of PPE'. It said the Health and Safety Executive had approved reusing items and 'sessional' use  where one health care worker uses the same PPE for a whole shift.

It said that even though items were designed for single use, 'HSE recognises that some compromise is needed to optimise the supply of PPE in times of extreme shortages'.

It comes after Health Secretary Matt Hancock admitted he couldn't guarantee hospitals wouldn't run out this weekend.

At a briefing yesterday, Mr Hancock said 55,000 more gowns were arriving but admitted the UK was 'tight' on supplies.

NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said in a tweet: 'We have now reached the point where national stock of fully fluid repellent gowns and coveralls (is) exhausted.

He told the Commons health select committee: 'The challenge of getting protective equipment out to everybody who needs it is an incredibly difficult one.

'As of this weekend we will have shipped one billion items of personal protective equipment across the UK. I take responsibility for getting PPE out to everyone.'

Asked if he would get gowns to those who needed them this weekend he said: 'That is what we are aiming to do.'

Almost all the gowns used by the NHS are made in China and the Far East.

The UK needs around 150,000 a day, meaning the 55,000 due to arrive yesterday equates to only around eight hours worth.

They need to be water-resistant material and have long sleeves.

An RCN survey also found half of 14,000 nursing staff on duty at Easter - including those in the most high-risk areas - felt under pressure to work without PPE.

Almost a third of nursing staff treating Covid-19 patients not on ventilators reported a lack of face and eye protection.

Half said they believed they had enough alcohol hand rub.

One in ten nurses said they were relying on face or eye protection that they had either bought themselves or which was homemade.

Donna Kinnair, RCN chief executive, said: 'All decision makers involved here need to get an urgent grip on the situation. Nursing staff must be given protection.'
(Natural News) Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Thursday that the country would remain under lockdown for at least four more weeks. The announcement dashed speculation that a quick return to normal could be on the way, thanks to the sustained low growth in new COVID-19 cases.

Australia has kept its caseload low but isnt taking chances

The swift action of its federal government has helped Australia avoid the high numbers of coronavirus cases reported in other countries around the world. The government closed the countrys borders and imposed strict social distancing measures over the past month.

Nonessential businesses like bars and restaurants have closed and public gatherings of more than two people have been banned under the threat of fines and even imprisonment. Thanks to these measures, the daily growth rate of reported new infections has remained in the low percentage single digits, keeping Australias caseload to about 6,500 infections and limiting deaths to 63.

In about a month from now there will be changes to the baseline restrictions that we put in place a few weeks ago, stated Morrison during a press conference.

The prime minister added that three benchmarks needed to be met before that occurred. When we have in place the broader testing regime surveillance, the automated contract regime in place, and we have scaled out our capacity to respond to outbreaks, that is what we are looking to do in the next four weeks.

When Australia does come out of lockdown, the relaxation on restrictions will be staggered, Morrison said, with curbs on the retail and manufacturing industries being eased first.

Additionally, schools may also open sooner. In recent days, Morrison has pushed state and territory leaders to reopen schools.

Schools may be reopened sooner

Citing medical advice that children carry a low risk of transmitting the virus, Morrison has advocated the reopening of schools to help boost Australias economy, which is headed for its first recession in three decades.

However, state and territory leaders, who administer schools, have disagreed with Morrison and ordered schools to remain shut. The only exception here being children of essential workers, including those working in the health sector and groceries.

In the state of Victoria, where officials have told parents to keep their children at home if possible, just three percent of children attended school Tuesday, the first day after the Easter break. Meanwhile, students in other states and territories remain on mid-term vacation.

On Tuesday, the national cabinet, made up of state and federal leaders, was called to tackle the issue. However, an agreement on it was not reached during the meeting.

Relaxing restrictions too early is risky

While Australia has been able to keep its caseload low, experts warn that it risks suffering a massive spike in cases should it relax its restrictions too early. Some have even called the approach a mixed blessing, saying that while it has limited the size of the outbreak within its borders, it also means that the country will have to retain its restrictions for much longer.

Other countries have already seen their caseloads surge after ending their restrictions early. Singapore, once praised as a model example of how to handle the outbreak, has seen a 60 percent jump in daily new infections and has since announced a further tightening of restrictions. Japan, which was able to keep its infections low for two months, has also seen a surge in new cases, forcing the government to declare a month-long state of emergency.

If Australia comes out of our isolation too early, we risk an even bigger peak, said Ian Mackay, a professor from the University of Queensland.

This could take six months or more. We cannot lose focus. Mackay continued. Its annoying, its hard, its very tough for a lot of people, there is real pain and economic hardship in the community. But we have to stick it out, because if we relax too soon, and allow the virus to re-emerge and spread widely, all the pain we have suffered will have been for nothing.

Sources include:

Trust.org

Broadsheet.com.au

Reuters.com

TheGuardian.com 1

TheGuardian.com 2
Mike Hauke, owner of Tony Boloney's, hosts a virtual cooking class every Sunday with his 4 year-old son Greyson, Sunday, April 12, 2020. (Photo courtesy of Mike Hauke)

Were all spending a lot of time cooking these days. I am no executive chef, but I'm no slouch in the kitchen either. I make a mean turkey burger, coconut chicken and hot wings are all part of my regular rotation.

But after a month in self-isolation at the Jersey Shore, just minutes away from dozens of award-winning now-closed restaurants, Ive been getting bored of the same quarantine menu.

So when I saw Tony Boloney's -- known for their "pizza, subs and bad a$$ grub" -- was having a virtual cooking class, I had to give it a try.

For those of you who don't know Tony, aka Mike Hauke, he has four locations, Jersey City, Long Branch, Hoboken, Atlantic City, and features a clever menu featuring unique subs and creative pizzas -- try the Taco Pizza with Jewish brisket.

"We just do wild sh*t but we do it from scratch, we do it homemade," Hauke said.

Don't Edit

Once Gov. Phil Murphy put New Jersey into near-lockdown mode, ordering residents to stay at home and closing non-essential businesses, it put pressure on restaurants like Tony Boloney's to figure out a way to stay open and serve the community while still being able to pay the bills and their employees.

Hauke figured out a fun way to do that and also donate food to heros in the community -- a family virtual cooking party or class that he holds from the comfort of his Hoboken home.

"I want to pay my employees, I want to keep my head above water the best I can," said Hauke. "I want to be able to provide the community some fun, and then give back."

He started the approximately 30-minute virtual class three weeks ago -- first it was a pizza, then mozzarella, and this past Sunday, meatballs.

"And you know, who the f**k makes mozzarella from their house?" Hauke said with a laugh.

The class kits can be purchased from their website for approximately $20 and can be picked up or delivered. This money goes to his employees to help them through this tough time, he said.

"We don't make a dollar off these kits," said Hauke.

And for every kit thats sold, they donate an 18-inch pizza to first responders. Jersey City Medical Center, the Hoboken police and firefighters, a childrens hospital in Hackensack and a medical center in Long Branch are a few of the places that have benefited from the generosity of customers who want to get their hands dirty in the kitchen and pay it forward at the same time.

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The ingredients for Tony Boloney's virtual meatball making class, Sunday, April 12, 2020. These include breadcrumbs, stale bread, pecorino, spice mix, eggs, ground beef, marinara sauce, fresh mozzarella, basil and fresh pasta. (Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Hauke said his food suppliers have been more than giving by discounting and donating food which helps him because he is fronting the costs. All this help also takes a huge weight off his shoulders so he can concentrate on his new gig in front of the camera.

"I'm able to focus on what we do best, which is pump out food, and then I can be the circus clown at five o'clock on Sunday."

Friday afternoon I picked up my meatball kit from the Atlantic City location and as I was driving back home I was wondering what kind of circus act I was going to see.

On Sunday I set up my computer, put out all the ingredients, grabbed an Islamorada Ale from the fridge and hunkered down for what I expected to be an entertaining class with a clown -- I mean instructor -- who is, come to find out, a real family man.

I logged in on Instagram @TonyBoloneys a little before 5 p.m. and soon realized I didn't follow the instructions correctly -- I am a man after all. Apparently, we were supposed to sign on 30 minutes ahead of time for some pre-class prepping. Oops!

Undeterred, I started to boil the water for the fresh pasta and toasted along with Hauke to the local breweries. Even though my beer was from a brewery in the Florida Keys, my heart was in the right place.

From the get go, it was clear Hauke was not the life of this meatball party -- it was his 4-year-old son Greyson or as Hauke calls him, "Little Boloney."

"He's not sitting back and letting me run it," said Hauke.

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Meatballs made during Tony Boloney's virtual meatball making class, April 12, 2020. (Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

As Hauke walked his viewers, approximately 8,000 strong, through the meatball making process, Greyson, sporting a red tie-dyed apron and bunny ears, was right by his side.

"Don't do it, don't do it," screamed Greyson as his father was about to dump the ground beef into a bowl. Of course Little Boloney added the beef, the rest of the ingredients and helped form the meatballs.

I followed along -- adding the breadcrumbs, torn bread, pecorino, spice mix and eggs to the ground beef. Then mix and shape into an egg -- it was Easter -- and brown the meatballs. Mix with the pasta and marinara sauce.

After all was said and done, my kitchen was a mess but the meatballs were amazing and there were enough for three meals for me.

I laughed through the whole class as I followed Hauke's instructions and Little Boloney's antics. It was entertaining food theatre -- better than any cooking show because it's real -- and I picked up a few tips along the way.

By no means does this make me an expert at making meatballs but this recipe will be going into my cooking rotation. The good news is all the kits are still available if I want to expand my culinary skills.

Hauke said that the classes will continue because "people want it and they're excited about it and this is a time that they spend with their families."

This Sunday is the calzone making class and I will be logging in, this time at 4:30 p.m., to join the party, have a few laughs and make a tasty new dinner while paying it forward.

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Mixing the ground beef during Tony Boloney's virtual meatball making class, Sunday, April 12, 2020. (Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

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The meatballs brown during Tony Boloney's virtual meatball making class, Sunday, April 12, 2020. (Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

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My set up during Tony Boloney's virtual meatball making class, Sunday, April 12, 2020. (Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

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Mike Hauke, owner of Tony Boloney's, hosts a virtual cooking class every Sunday with his 4 year-old son Greyson, Sunday, April 12, 2020.

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Mike Hauke, owner of Tony Boloney's, hosts a virtual cooking class every Sunday with his 4 year-old son Greyson, Sunday, April 12, 2020.

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DOUGH EXOTIC -   Hey all you cool cats n kittens, get ready to sink your teeth into this. This pizza is so big its... Posted by Tony Boloney's Atlantic City on Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Tell us your coronavirus stories, whether it's a news tip, a topic you want us to cover, or a personal story you want to share. If you would like updates on New Jersey-specific coronavirus news, subscribe to our Coronavirus in N.J. newsletter.

Tim Hawk may be reached at thawk@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Tim on Instagram@photog_hawk and Twitter @photogthawk. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.
Our working lives as companion animal vets have changed significantly over the past month. We are normally very hands-on and social, working closely with people and their pets.

We just can't do work in the same way any more: all vets across Ireland, and indeed across the world, have had to take steps to minimise any risk of the transfer of viral infection between humans. And that means that we have had to start doing our business in a different way to normal. Vets across the country have been instructed to do this, to play our role in dealing with this crisis.

Fortunately, vets have been classified as essential workers. Our culture recognises is that animal health is not a luxury: it's a necessity. Animals are a key part of our society, and they need to be looked after. So our staff are coming to work as normal, sometimes being stopped at checkpoints to show the documentation that confirms that they are working at a vet clinic.

Our day to day work as a veterinary team now has four main parts.

First, telemedicine. We have always discussed cases with pet owners over the phone as part of our usual work, just checking that all is going well, and going over questions that they may have. But now, we are doing more work remotely than ever before. While there are some cases that obviously need to be rushed to the vet at once (e.g. an animal having a seizure), there are many others where it isn't clear at first that they need to be seen urgently. So we have an initial telephone or video consult with the owner, discussing the signs of illness in detail. And using video apps, we are now able to see the animal for ourselves. It isn't nearly the same as physically examining an animal, but it's useful for triage i.e. working out whether the animal needs to come to us for treatment.

So these days, we spend a couple of hours every day on the telephone or smart phone app (we use one called Whereby). This significantly reduces the number of people who have to leave their homes to bring their pets to see us.

Second, we still spend around six hours a day physically examining animals in person. We have a socially distant method of doing this: the owner stays in their car, phones our reception when they arrive, and the vet then talks to them on the phone, writing down comprehensive details of the pet's problem. The vet then comes out to the car - with mask, apron and gloves - and brings the pet into our clinic. Our team of nurses then helps us to physically examine the animal, carry out any tests that are necessary (such as blood and urine samples, x-rays, and ultrasound scans). This usually leads to a diagnosis, and treatment is then given. Some animals need to be hospitalised in the clinic for surgery and other treatments, perhaps staying for a few days. Most animals are sent home after the diagnosis has been made, being returned to their owner in the car park along with the necessary medication.

The process of handling animals in this way is far more time consuming than normal: we are probably only seeing a third as many animals as usual, but we are still kept busy because it is takes so long to go through those processes of talking on the phone, going out to get pets then delivering them back again. The main thing is that it's safe to work like this: safe for animals and safe for their human owners.

Euthanasias are an exception to the general rule: for us, it's so important that owners are with their pets at the end that we take special steps to allow this to happen, with everyone wearing personal protective equipment. This is a stressful time for everyone, made more complicated by COVID-19.

Third, as well as the hands-on treatment of sick animals, our clinic needs to continue to provide retail products to our patients. Just like humans, many animals are on long term medication that's essential to their ongoing good health. And many others are on specific types of pet food that they need every day. We have arranged a socially distant way to allow people to collect and pay for these products: again, they stay in their car, paying over the phone, and the medications and food are delivered to them.

The fourth part of our working day involves the in-clinic day to day stuff. People don't think about vets doing extra tasks like this, but it's always been a critical part of our daily workload. Stock needs to be ordered, staff need to be managed, the building needs to be maintained, and there are many other daily tasks. And we need to spend time reading textbooks about new and interesting ways of treating pets with different conditions. As a vet, it's a constant challenge to keep fully up to date. It's enjoyable doing this type of study, but it's still a necessary daily task that we need to keep up with. And in this crisis, it's one of the few that has not changed in our daily lives.

So we are all missing the old style of practice: chatting to owners, and petting the animals. All of this precautionary stuff is so distracting, and it dominates our lives.

We need to remember that in a year or so, we will look back and say "that was a challenging and difficult time". And today we all need to congratulate ourselves because, given that it is such a challenging and difficult time, aren't we all doing well?
Two men who were arrested by police investigating an incident in which a patrol car was rammed by another vehicle in north Belfast have been released on bail pending further enquiries.

The men, aged 29 and 32, were arrested on Friday.

It's after three police officers were injured in the New Lodge area after their patrol car was rammed by a silver Audi A4 car at around 3am.

The Audi reversed into the police car at the junction of Lepper Street and Spamount Street pushing it across the street, before leaving the area towards the Limestone Road where it then stopped.

Three police officers sustained whiplash type injuries following the incident and damage was caused to the police car requiring it to be taken off the road for repairs.

A PSNI spokesperson said: "Anyone who witnessed the incident or saw a silver Audi A4 travelling in the area in the early hours of Friday is asked to contact police in Tennent Street on 101 quoting reference number 327 17/04/20.

"Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime.
CORVALLIS, Ore.-- A study led by Oregon State University and Benton County Health Department is using door-to-door testing in order to paint a more complete picture of how far coronavirus has spread in the Corvallis community.

According to Team-based Rapid Assessment of Community-Level Coronavirus Epidemics (TRACE-COVID-19) principal investigator Ben Dalziel, current coronavirus testing numbers largely represent symptomatic patients. Testing both those who are symptomatic and those who are not can help public health officials forecast what may come.

"Looking forward to the fall, and trying to understand if there's going to be another epidemic wave, knowing the people who have been infected at the population-level is going to be critial," he said. "Community-level testing across a representative sample will give us a more complete picture and it fills the data-gap that forecasting models and decision makers need in order to move forward in the most effective way."

The study will test 960 people in the Corvallis area over four consecutive weekends. They will pilot sample-taking Sunday, and end testing May 16.

Teams will go to randomly selected neighborhoods and select random homes. Team members will take social distancing into account during the process. If residents consent to the study, they will answer medical questions and receive a nasal coronavirus test which they will complete themselves.

Dalziel said the nasal tests are newly approved, using different chemicals that will not impact testing accessibility for health care workers.

"While some of the chemicals are in short supply, the ones that we are using -- like I said -- the supply chain is strong, more tests are being authorized all the time," he said. "The testing situation is dynamic, more options are opening up. That's part of what makes this study possible."

The Oregon Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Oregon State University and Willamette Valley Toxicology Laboratory assist in processing the tests.

MORE: OSU VETERINARY SCHOOL, LOCAL LAB TO TEST FOR CORONAVIRUS

Individuals who test postive will be alerted, as well as the Benton County Health Department. However, personal details will remain private as part of the study.

Dalziel hopes this study could serve as an example for similar institutions across the nation. He said there has been a considerable learning curve in making it possible. Having a template could help other communities gather information about the spread of the virus in their areas.

Corvallis resident Bill Cohnstaedt said he would happily take a test were a member of the study to show up at his door, though he has some reservations about the reliability of self-testing.

"I would agree in a hot minute. I don't care who the tester is or what it is, as long as they feel is safe and they want me to do something I agree is safe, I would love to be tested," he said.
Schmidt said the foundation has been working nonstop to make sure Sydney and kids like her are still granted wishes after travel wishes had to be postponed.

"In this case, we knew that Sydney needed to have this wish done quickly," Schmidt said. "And we are so grateful our community could come together to allow the wish to happen really fast."

Since receiving the hot tub, Samantha said there has been nothing but smiles and giggles from Sydney.

"She can't talk, but if she could it would be This is amazing," she said.

Although Sydney's siblings were a little let down at the news of their Disneyland trip being canceled, Samantha said the entire family is happy with the hot tub because it's the "gift that keeps on giving."

"Disney wouldve been memories for a certain period of time, and the hot tub will allow us to make memories with her until she is no longer with us," she said. "It really is the gift we were meant to have and the gift she needed the whole time."

Samantha said she's grateful for the memories the hot tub has already allowed her family to make with Sydney.
Motor insurance customers could be next in line for refunds on their policies after Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe appealed to insurers to be "proactive and generous" in their treatment of policyholders.

He made the remarks on a conference call with Insurance Ireland in which he urged the sector to improve its treatment of customers in the interest of "fairness and the industry's own reputation".

Mr Donohoe told insurers there is "a strong case" that customers should see refunds due to what is expected to be a significant reduction in the number of claims.

It comes just days after it was confirmed that health insurance policyholders are in line for refunds and rebates following the

Governments effective takeover of 19 private hospitals.

Now, the Minister is putting pressure on the motor insurance industry to follow suit.

Among the key points raised on the call by Mr Donohoe was that insurers "must be proactive and generous in relation to their treatment of motor insurance policyholders".

Mr Donohoe said: "In relation to the treatment of motor insurance policyholders, I pointed out that a combination of the very profitable part of this market over the last 12 months, when combined with what is likely to be a significant reduction in claims for this period, provides a strong case for some type of refund of consumers' motor premium package."

This would provide "some financial relief" to under-pressure customers, he added. Mr Donohoe also raised concerns that some insurers have adopted a "blanket rejection of all business interruption claims".

Many businesses have raised concerns about their insurance providers refusing to pay out for claims relating to the business interruptions caused by the Covid-19 shutdown.

The Department said the failure to pay out in some cases has reinforced the Minister's view "that some insurers were doing the industry significant damage and were not treating customers fairly".

Mr Donohoe also castigated some Insurance Ireland members who have agreed to implement commitments regarding forbearance and business premises but have yet to do so, though he also commended the sector for the steps it has taken in responding to the challenges of Covid-19.

The main message that I wanted to convey to the insurance industry, through Insurance Ireland, is the need for the industry to help itself and do the right thing by customers during this time.

"I made it clear that failure to do so will be very damaging for the longer term reputation of the sector," Mr Donohoe said.

"I indicated that the cost and supply of insurance remains a priority of mine and expect it will also be one for any new Government. It is essential that the industry fully engages with the reform agenda and does so in the interest of fairness for its customers and their own reputational credibility going forward."
Following the new Pennsylvania mask requirement to stem the spread of the coronavirus, LANTA is requiring riders to wear masks or face coverings on its buses and vans.

The Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority said the move is being done under the new order from the Pennsylvania Department of Health, that will require masks or face coverings for employees and customers in all businesses that serve the public.

Entry to essential, life-saving businesses will be denied to any individual not wearing a mask unless the business is providing medication, medical supplies, or food, in which case the business must provide alternative methods of pick-up or delivery of goods," according to the order.

Enforcement of the states order is set to start at 8 p.m. Sunday, April 19. LANTAs mask rule takes effect Monday.

The face covering does not have to be a mask, but simply something that covers a persons mouth and nose, LANTA said in a news release.

* Attention**

Starting April 20th, 2020, There will be a mandatory face mask/face covering policy enforced for all passengers. This will be in effect until further notice. This policy applies to all LANTA services including, LANtaVan, LANtaBus, LANtaFlex. pic.twitter.com/SGapfywzsD  LANta LV (@LANTALV) April 17, 2020

LANTA is posting updated signs informing riders of the requirements on all buses and paratransit vans.

Riders who cannot wear a face covering due to medical reasons should inform the driver of that restriction when boarding the bus.

Anyone with questions should call LANTAs customer service line at 610-776-7433.

The state order came after video of a mask-less Philadelphia SEPTA rider being dragged off a bus went viral on social media.

At the time of the April 10 scuffle, SEPTA operators had the right to refuse to transport passengers who were not wearing face masks, CBS Philly channel 3 reported.

After the incident, the rule was rescinded, but then the states mask order was signed.

LANTA spokesman Chuck Genna said a passenger without a mask or face covering will be asked by a driver to make some attempt to cover their face, even if its pulling up a shirt to cover their mouth and nose.

State guidance does not call for removal of any passengers or contacting law-enforcement, he said.

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.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. If theres anything about this story that needs attention, please email her. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
President Muhammadu Buhari has mourned the death of his chief of staff, Abba Kyari, who died Friday of coronavirus.

Mr Kyari, 67, passed away weeks after being diagnosed of the deadly virus. He was interred in Abuja on Saturday.

In a statement, Mr Buhari extolled the qualities of his former aide, recalled their relationship of over four decades and condoled with the deceaseds family.

The presidents statement is below:

TO MY FRIEND, MALLAM ABBA KYARI

Mallam Abba Kyari, who died on 17th April, 2020, at the age of 67 from complications caused by the Coronavirus, was a true Nigerian patriot. My loyal friend and compatriot for the last 42 years  and latterly my Chief-of-Staff  he never wavered in his commitment to the betterment of every one of us.

He was only in his twenties when we first met. A diligent student, soon after he was blessed with the opportunity to study abroad  first at Warwick and then law at the University of Cambridge. But there was never any question Abba would bring his first-rate skills and newly acquired world-class knowledge back to Nigeria  which he did  immediately upon graduation.

Whilst possessing the sharpest legal and organisational mind, Abbas true focus was always the development of infrastructure and the assurance of security for the people of this nation he served so faithfully. For he knew that without both in tandem there can never be the development of the respectful society and vibrant economy that all Nigerian citizens deserve.

In political life, Abba never sought elective office for himself. Rather, he set himself against the view and conduct of two generations of Nigerias political establishment  who saw corruption as an entitlement and its practice a byproduct of possessing political office.

Becoming my Chief of Staff in 2015, he strove quietly and without any interest in publicity or personal gain to implement my agenda.

There are those who said of him that he must be secretive  because he did not have a high public profile. But Abba was the opposite: he simply had no need, nor did he seek, the cheap gratification of the crowd; for him, there was nothing to be found in popular adulation. He secured instead satisfaction and his reward solely and only from the improvement of the governance of this great country.

Working, without fail, seven days each and every week, he acted forcefully as a crucial gatekeeper to the presidency, ensuring no one  whether minister or governor had access beyond another  and that all those representing and serving our country were treated equally.

He made clear in his person and his practice, always, that every Nigerian  regardless of faith, family, fortune or frailty  was heard and treated respectfully and the same.

Mallam Abba Kyari was the very best of us. He was made of the stuff that makes Nigeria great. Rest In Peace, my dearest friend.

To his loving wife and doting family who survive him, I extend my heartfelt sorrow at your loss.

Muhammadu Buhari

President, Federal Republic of Nigeria

April 18, 2020
Some U.S. mayors and governors are bracing for new pressures to reopen their economies too soon, and fear second surges of coronavirus infections would only force fresh clampdowns.

What they're saying: "That would be like releasing someone from prison, and then saying, 'Sorry, you need to come back to serve more time,'" Paul TenHaken, the mayor of Sioux Falls, S.D., tells Axios.

Some red-state governors say they plan to relax stay-at-home orders and other social distancing measures sooner rather than later, which could create or heighten conflicts with the mayors of some of their largest cities.

I'm very concerned about any type of pressure  political or otherwise  to make hasty decisions based on the economy as opposed to the science, Tampa, Fla., Mayor Jane Castor told Axios.

 political or otherwise  to make hasty decisions based on the economy as opposed to the science, Tampa, Fla., Mayor Jane Castor told Axios. She pushed for a sheltering-in-place order for her city long before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued one statewide, and DeSantis has already relaxed some of those restrictions in the days since President Trump released his plan to begin reopening the economy.

The big picture: Governors and mayors will have to walk a political tightrope as they navigate one of the most devastating and durable emergencies in U.S. history.

Trump's guidelines make clear that states' decisions are up to governors, but as some states move forward, there are concerns that his words could add political pressure to move quickly. Already, Trump has tweeted criticisms of Democratic governors' continuation of their shelter-in-place orders.

make clear that states' decisions are up to governors, but as some states move forward, there are concerns that his words could add political pressure to move quickly. Already, Trump has tweeted criticisms of Democratic governors' continuation of their shelter-in-place orders. That pressure could also lead to tensions between mayors and governors.

could also lead to tensions between mayors and governors. I would fight any battle that would protect my citizens. But there are certain legal boundaries that I have," Castor said when asked whether she would disregard orders from DeSantis.

In Sioux Falls, TenHaken issued a "safer at home" order in his city, which has a high share of the state's rising number of COVID-19 cases. But South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has refused to enact a state-wide order. TenHaken and Noem are both Republicans.

TenHaken said the decision, which he's still wrestling with, is especially difficult in a red state, and has spurred questions about infringing on civil liberties.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced executive orders on Friday that will allow state parks and some businesses to open back up in phases, although schools will remained closed through the end of the school year.

Steve Adler, the Democratic mayor of Austin, said he thinks Abbotts reopening plans seem reasonable, but that he is eager to see what are we doing to help mitigate and minimize that risk and measure what it is that's happening in our community.

Adler said he doesnt think Abbott has been clear enough on that.

"And, if for whatever reason, he or the president or anybody was putting the community in danger that I was elected to represent, then Id have to do everything I can to try to protect it," Adler added.

"With this being an election year, you've got to be fearful that we don't do things that are good or bad for the political climate of one person or party, as opposed to what's best for the American people," said Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser, a Republican.

Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel tells Axios every mayor of a big city clashes with their governor at some point.

"Look, anywhere you go in a state, a city in a major metropolitan area is going to be a big engine," he said. "And there's going to be tension. I mean, you see it playing out either in politics, personality, or more importantly resources  and that's fine. It happens when this virus isn't happening, and it comes in distress."

Between the lines: Some governors are seeking to minimize political pressures and patchwork health risks by banding together. Governors have formed Midwest, Northeastern states and Western state coalitions  deciding to coordinate their reopening efforts.

7 East Coast governors also extended their shelter-in-place orders through May 15.

The bottom line: 66% of Americans are more concerned that state governments will lift restrictions on public activity too quickly, according to a new Pew Research survey. Only 32% are more concerned that they will not lift them soon enough.
Hospitals across the country are preparing for and awaiting necessary permissions for conducting convalescent plasma therapy to treat Covid-19 patients that will involve drawing of antibody-rich blood of the disease survivors to treat the sick. The therapy has shown promise in treating Covid-19 patients, American journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported last week.

A person in Delhi has been removed from ventilator support after the plasma therapy, said Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, referring to the improvement in the condition of a man after the therapy at a Delhi hospital. It is good news from first such experiment. Kejriwal said the success of the experiment will be known after he is fully cured.

In Mumbai, BYL Nair Hospital dean Dr Ramesh Bharmal said they have collected blood from a patient, who has recovered from coronavirus even as protocol for the therapy is to be finalised with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)s help.

Kerala was among the first states to announce the treatment through the therapy and is waiting the permissions. Sree Chithira Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) has been named as the nodal agency for harvesting plasma from cured patients in the state. We have done our work and are waiting for hospitals to carry out clinical tests. Usually, the therapy is done in cases of severely affected patients. In Kerala, we have no such patients. This may be one of the reasons for the delay besides the customary permissions, said SCTIMST director Dr Asha Kishore.

Officials in West Bengal, which announced the use of the therapy last week, said the state government was seeking approvals for setting up a plasma bank to store blood of cured Covid-19 patients.

We are exploring options on how to introduce this concept at the earliest. In China, they have got some results and in the USA, too, tests are going on..., said Abhijit Chowdhury, a public health specialist and convenor of an eight-member advisory board formed by CM Mamata Banerjee.

In Telangana, the state government-run Gandhi Hospital (Hyderabad) said it was making infrastructural arrangements for experimenting with the therapy. Dr Sravan Kumar, the hospital superintendent, said the state has given consent to the doctors for taking up the therapy. First, we need to take up clinical trials and see how they work. Only after they prove successful, we can take up the exercise. It will take another two weeks for the doctors at the hospital to do the clinical trials, Kumar said.

Lucknows King Georges Medical University (KGMU) has sent a proposal to the ICMR volunteering to be made the nodal centre for the therapy.

We have a majority of patients admitted to and have treated them too. Since the protocols of plasma therapy are already being followed in other procedures, we can be the nodal centre for plasma therapy, said Prof Tuliak Chandra, the head of transfusion medicine department at the KGMU. She said one of the patients treated for coronavirus at the KGMU three weeks back could be the first volunteer for plasma collection.

Officials of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh governments and Chandigarh said they have begun the work for seeking nod for conducting the therapy.

...A trial is being considered in Kerala first and trials will be done across the country. As and when trials are permitted, we will definitely implement the same as we have a large number of patients who have been treated successfully, said a Karnataka official who did not want to be named.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 16:13:02|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC), the country's top banking and insurance regulator, launched its WeChat public account on Saturday as a new channel of policy communication with the public.

The new platform will help financial consumers better learn developments in the sector and understand regulatory work, Liang Tao, vice chairman of the CBIRC, said in the first post of the account.

The CBIRC also looks forward to receiving opinions and suggestions on its work by the public, according to Liang.

Through this public account, the regulator will release official information, interpret financial policies and respond to public concerns.

The first post, which was released at around 8 a.m., was read nearly 80,000 times within 6.5 hours. Enditem
By PTI

LONDON: Healthcare staff across hospitals in England are being advised by the UK government to consider reusing personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gowns as it battles to deal with a shortage of supplies due to rising demand amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Public Health England updated its guidance on PPE to say that some should be considered for reuse based on advice on suitable decontamination arrangements obtained from the manufacturer or supplier.

"Gloves and aprons are subject to single-use as per SICPs [Standard Infection Control Precautions] with disposal after each patient or resident contact," notes the guidance.

"Fluid repellent surgical mask and eye protection can be used for a session of work rather than a single patient or resident contact; gowns or coveralls can be worn for a session of work in higher risk areas," it adds.

Doctors and nurses are being recommended to reuse washable surgical gowns or coveralls or similar suitable clothing such as long-sleeved laboratory coats, long-sleeved patient gowns or industrial coveralls, with a disposable plastic apron for aerosol-generating procedures (AGPs).

Unions representing healthcare workers have expressed concerns about the updated Public Health England guidance.

"If it's being proposed that staff reuse equipment, this must be demonstrably driven by science and the best evidence, rather than availability, and it absolutely cannot compromise the protection of healthcare workers," said Dr Rob Harwood, Consultants Committee chairman at the British Medical Association (BMA) doctors' union.

"Too many healthcare workers have already died. More doctors and their colleagues cannot be expected to put their own lives on the line in a bid to save others, and this new advice means they could be doing just that. It's not a decision they should have to make," he said.

Chris Hopson, chairman of NHS Providers, which represents healthcare trusts across England, said some National Health Service Trusts could run out of crucial PPE over the weekend.

"We have now reached the point where the national stock of fully fluid-repellent gowns and long-sleeved laboratory coats will be exhausted in the next 24 to 48 hours," he said.

The UK government has said that a global shortage of PPE has led to constraints but that it was working on addressing the issue, including asking manufacturers such as Burberry to reinvent their production lines and produce medical gear.

"New clinical advice has been issued today to make sure that if there are shortages in one area, frontline staff know what PPE to wear instead to minimise risk," a Department of Health spokesperson said.

The shortage of PPE across UK hospitals and care homes has been a persistent issue through the coronavirus pandemic, with ministers repeatedly pledging to address the issue.

"I would love to be able to wave a magic wand and have PPE fall from the sky in large quantities," UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons Health Committee recently.
Egypts Kasr El-Ainy Hospital has been designated as an isolation hospital for the medical, teaching and administrative staff of Cairo University infected by coronavirus.

Cairo University President Mohamed Othman El-Khesht said on Saturday the hospital was selected upon the recommendation of the Higher Committee for the Combat of Coronavirus.

El-Khesht said special incentives will be provided to the medical staff operating in the isolation hospital, setting bonuses ranging between EGP 1,000 and EGP 2,000 plus their monthly salaries.

Workers at the hospital would receive their salaries with no deductions upon presidential orders, El-Khesht said, adding that the nursing staff who wont be working in the hospital following the designation would be referred to Al-Manial Specialised University Hospital with their financial incentives intact.

El-Khesht said staff members suffering from chronic diseases or with children will be given a paid leave.

El-Khesht's statement came hours after the hospital was evacuated from all patients ahead of designating it an isolation hospital for Cairo Universitys staff.

To date, Egypt has 10 functioning quarantine hospitals, with the higher education ministry designating 33 buildings to serve as isolation hospitals at the universities of Cairo, Alexandria, Ain Shams, Assiut, Mansoura, Minya, and Helwan in the first phase.

Mahmoud Alam El-Din, Cairo University spokesman, said in televised statements on Friday that patients have been referred to Al-Manial Specialised Hospital for treatment following the evacuation.

He refuted media reports on the detection of around 200 cases in the hospital, stressing that no cases were detected after "tests were carried out" for all patients at the hospital.

Services that were previously offered at the hospital, like dialysis, will be referred to Cairo Universitys affiliated King Fahd Unit, with other treatments offered at Al-Manial hospital, he said.

Several healthcare facilities in Egypt have detected cases among their doctors and nurses in the past few days, triggering fears that the outbreak would hit the countrys overwhelmed healthcare sector.

Last week, Cairos El-Zaitoun Specialised Hospital was closed for 14 days after detecting coronavirus cases among the hospitals medical staff.

An official infection toll at the hospital was not announced at the time, but media reports set the tally at around 23 cases among doctors, nurses and visitors.

Earlier in April, at least 17 doctors and nurses at Egypts National Cancer Institute (NCI) tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Cairo University, which manages the countrys main cancer hospital.

Egypts Doctors syndicate said in earlier statements that three members of the syndicate have died from the virus and 43 have been infected, explaining that it is still in the tallying process and that the numbers announced were likely to increase."

Egypt reported its highest daily increase of coronavirus cases on Friday at 171 new infections, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 2,844.

The death toll now stands at 205, with nine new fatalities on Friday.

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WestJet Airlines will rehire 6,400 laid-off employees by using the federal governments wage subsidy program as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the airline industry.

The Calgary-based airline announced that it plans on applying for the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy program, which will supplement 75 per cent of wages for 6,400 previously laid-off employees.

This does not automatically mean that they will be coming back to work, as there may not be work there for them, WestJets chief executive Ed Sims said in a statement released Wednesday.

But it does help make ends meet and I am grateful for the hard work by the Government of Canada and of all governments across Canada to provide businesses with the tools to continue operating in these challenging times.

In order to qualify for the federal program, companies need to show that revenue declined by at least 15 per cent. WestJet suspended all international and transborder flights last month and cut domestic seat capacity in response to the coronavirus pandemic, as governments around the world imposed strict travel restrictions and passengers abandoned travel plans.

WestJet is not alone in turning to the wage subsidy program to keep employees on the payroll.

The move comes a day after Air Canada announced it plans on re-hiring and retaining thousands of employees through the use of Ottawas wage subsidy. The airline announced last month that it would cut 16,500 employees as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, which has led to a severe decline in traffic as governments imposed strict travel restrictions and passengers stay home.

Flair Airlines also said it plans on rehiring the 130 employees it laid off, topping up the subsidy so workers will earn 100 per cent of their wages. The airline will also fully restore salaries that were cut in the wake of the pandemic.

Flair has seen revenues decline by 90 per cent due to the coronavirus pandemic. Still, the company has kept 70 per cent of staff on the payroll by pivoting operations to focus on cargo and charter flying.

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Emmy Rossums exit from the hit Showtime series Shameless left a void for fans that could not be filled by anyone else. They missed seeing Fiona Gallagher in season 10 and many wondered about her latest projects.

Wonder no more, because Rossum is returning to the small screen in the NBC Peacock mini-series, Angelyne.

But Angelyne is no fictional character. Rossum is a far cry from what weve seen from her before in film and television as she tackles the role of the billboard icon. But who exactly is Angelyne?

Angelyne in her Corvette | Steve Starr/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

Angelyne is based on an investigative report

We must start from the beginning of how this production came to fruition. In 2017, The Hollywood Reporter published a feature about Angelyne by one of its senior writers, Gary Baum.

Baum, with the aid of reliable source, was able to trace her history and rise to fame as the pink-loving, self-promoting woman who turned into a local Los Angeles celebrity in the 80s and 90s. Shes a fixture.

He discovered her real name is Renee Goldberg and compared her to media personalities that we know today. Baum described Angelyne as the precursor to Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton.

NBCs Peacock streaming service picked up the TV adaptation rights for the THR article with Baum serving as a consultant.

What is Angelynes real story?

According to Baums piece, Goldberg worked hard to build an air of mystery around her Angelyne persona, going so far as to fashion a new backstory and legally change her name. She was born to two Holocaust survivors: Hendrik Goldberg and Bronia Zernicka, but the location is murky.

Her parents suffered in Germany but moved to Poland, then Israel, and later immigrated to the US, settling in California. Baum learned that Goldberg attended high school in the San Fernando Valley after her mother died and her father remarried.

After school, she had a short-lived marriage to a man named Michael Strauss whom she divorced in 1969.

A few years later, the two  still friends  bumped into each other. Strauss told Baum, I hooked up with Renee again, and she was Angelyne, he said. I wasnt there when she made the transition. All of a sudden, big boobs, blond hair, this voice  the voice used to make me nuts. It didnt compute with who Id known she was.

Thus, Angelyne came to be. She put up billboards of herself advertising a phone number for fans to reach her, and the pink Corvette and pink outfits became synonymous with Angelyne. Now 67, the Hollywood legend is known by her stage name and can still be seen around LA.

She made herself famous and has fans all over the world. Paid membership to her real-life fan club came with exclusive merchandise and sometimes, a phone call.

According to an old documentary on YouTube, Angelyne made money by selling her own brand of items such as shoes, t-shirts, bumper stickers, and lingerie.

Fans are excited to see Angelynes story

Peacock TV released the teaser trailer for the series on April 16, prompting fans to share their memories and experiences with Angelyne. Many are excited to learn more about the local legends mysterious past and have a fondness for her.

YouTube commenters are saying things like, Finally! So glad to see Angelyne get some national attention. She was reality tv before it existed. She was a Kardashian before Kris was and I always feel thrilled when I spot her driving around.

In addition to Angelyne getting love from the public, others are happy to see Rossum return to the screen. Peacock will launch in July 2020, but there is not a set release date for Angelyne.
38,000 people have died from coronavirus in the United States and more than 800,000 others have been diagnosed with the disease, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Divisions over the how to stem the spread of Covid-19 have caused an almighty row in America and President Trump is right in the middle of it.

Trump vs Cuomo

In New York State, more than 14,000 people have died from coronavirus and Governor, Andrew Cuomo, says widespread testing for the virus is vital.

New York will not be able to reactivate its economy until it has the capacity to carry out massive tests, for which it needs help from the Federal Government, said Cuomo.

That incensed the US President who immediately took to Twitter with a scathing reply.

Get out there and do the job, stop talking!" he tweeted. "We built thousands of hospital beds that you did not need or use, we gave a large number of respirators that you should have had and we helped you with the tests that you should be doing, said President Trump.

Trump supporters have hit the streets in several states demanding that the coronavirus restrictions be lifted immediately and it would appear that they have the support of the President who tweet several messages on Friday.

LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020

"Liberate Virginia, and save your great 2nd Amendment. "It is under siege", "Free Michigan" and "Free Minnesota, he said.

More than 3,000 patients have died from coronavirus in Nursing Homes in New York State, 55 of them were at the Cobble Hill Health Centre, in the Brooklyn neighbourhood of New York.

There's political disagreement in Brazil too where Nelson Teich took over as Health Minister when the Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro sacked Luiz Henrique Mandetta after furious disagreements over coronavirus restrictions.

In Sao Paulo, where 928 fatalities and 12,841 people are infected, State Governor, Joao Doria, has extended the Covid-19 quarantine until May 10.

Debt relief

On Friday the UN called for debt relief for Latin America and the Caribbean saying the coronavirus crisis will cause the worst recession in history.

"We must do everything possible to avoid what could be a devastating debt crisis, with uncontrolled defaults; relieving devastating debts is absolutely crucial, said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who also welcomed the G20's temporary suspension of debt service in the poorest countries until the end of 2020.

Updated impact in Ecuador

In Ecuador theres been 421 fatalities and 8.450 confirmed infections but experts believe that the figures do not include probable deaths in the province of Guayas in April.

The capital, Guayaquil is the worst affect province by far with 5,777 cases of coronavirus, 68.4% of the total nationwide.

Another region of concern in Ecuador is the Galapagos Islands, where 78 people have tested positive for Covid-19.

Meanwhile the World Health Organisation has asked each affected country to review their figures for COVID-19 infections and deaths "as soon as possible" to find out the true extent of the disease.

"Sometimes it is difficult in an epidemic to identify all infections and deaths, especially if the health system is saturated, so I anticipate that many countries will have similar situations, in which they will have to review their statistics to see if they have identified all the cases, said Maria van Kerkhove, head of the WHO Emerging Diseases Unit.
Over 100 tornadoes ripped through the South during Easter weekend, leaving extensive damage behind from Texas to South Carolina and into the mid-Atlantic. More than 36 people were killed due to the violent weather, according to The Associated Press.

Some of the most substantial tornadoes of the outbreak included a monster EF4 twister that was over 2 miles wide in Mississippi, a new record size for the state, a powerful EF3 twister that leveled hundreds of homes around Monroe, Louisiana, and an EF3 tornado that pummeled Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The disastrous weather has made life even more difficult for many already struggling with the coronavirus pandemic, including those usually on the front lines of storm recovery.

The American Red Cross is responding to the current disaster aftermath in the South, but due to COVID-19 and social distancing orders, the organization has had to adjust how it distributes aid and coordinates relief, Stephanie Wagner, interim executive director for the Louisiana Red Cross, told AccuWeather Broadcast Meteorologist Brittany Boyer on the AccuWeather Network.

"This environment has certainly come with some unique complications, but the Red Cross is practicing social distancing just like the rest of the nation," Wagner said. "And in this time, with this COVID-19 environment, we're adjusting some of our service delivery to be done so in a virtual capacity. Providing things like financial assistance, mental health... even our damage assessment teams are doing so through collaborations with our elected officials, our government officials and through the use of technology."

CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP

Wagner said that the Red Cross is not utilizing its current shelters. Instead, the organization is working to put families into hotels or dormitories at nearby universities.

Stephanie Wagner, interim executive director for the Louisiana Red Cross, discusses the new normal for storm relief amid the coronavirus pandemic with AccuWeather Broadcast Meteorologist Brittany Boyer. (AccuWeather)

"Right now, we have approximately 550 individuals that we are housing in hotels or dormitories across that large swath of states we are supporting," she said.

Story continues

As he toured the wreckage left behind by the "savage" storms in the tiny town of Soso, Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves, who declared a state of emergency Sunday night, said the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and the tornado disaster were interfering with each other but added the state must help the tornado victims first, the Clarion Ledger reported.

An EF3 tornado slammed East Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Easter Sunday, leaving piles of debris in its wake. (Hamilton County, Tennessee Office of Emergency Management & Homeland Security)

"Both of these emergencies are complicating the other one, but in the immediate aftermath of a tornado, our No. 1 priority has to be helping those who need [it]," Reeves said.

Across the South, people working to clean up the damage have been seen wearing masks to help protect others from the virus.

Red Cross volunteer Katherine Campbell Hudson wears her face mask as she visits tornado damaged residences in this south Prentiss, Miss., neighborhood, Tuesday, April 14, 2020, as recovery from Sunday's tornado continues. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

In the town of Prentiss, which took a direct hit from a tornado, Pastor Sean Coney of the James Hill Church, told the AP that breathing through a mask made cleanup work more difficult, "but you can't be selfish," he said. The church reportedly suffered extensive damage.

"As difficult as it may be, you have to do it," Coney said to the AP.

The severe thunderstorms have been keeping insurance agents busy this spring. But with current stay-at-home mandates and social distancing guidelines in place due to COVID-19, agents have had to turn to technology to assist customers with insurance claims as AccuWeather's Bill Wadell reports.

Chris Coon, an agent with State Farm, has been handling car damage claims by smartphone. Coon told Wadell that he asks customers to place coins of various sizes onto their vehicles to help gauge the size of dents.

Insurance agents use digital tools to help storm victims. (AccuWeather / Bill Wadell)

Other agents have utilized their eye in the sky. Casey Jones, another State Farm agent, said he uses drones to inspect roof damage.

"We know what we're looking for, so when we're going through these images, we're making sure that if the customer has damage, absolutely we're going to go ahead and recommend for roof replacement or roof repair, whatever is necessary," Jones said

Wagner said families across the country should take the time now to prepare for future emergencies and ensure every family member knows there's a plan in place.

"We just want to encourage folks at this time to use their time at home, their time with their families to build their emergency preparedness kit to create their plans, that disasters are frequent and they can happen anywhere at anytime, so now is the time to prepare whether it's for hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or just any kind of normal emergency like a home fire," Wagner said.

Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
Violence of all sorts has declined as everyone pays attention to the coronavirus (covid19) pandemic. Israel and all its neighbors are coping with the medical and economic impact of the virus whether they want to or not.

Israel is ranked as the most effective nation in dealing with the virus. Israel has developed more successful treatments and is closing in on a vaccine. Israel has the best public health system in the region and, because of the constant threat of attack, the best civil defense system and capabilities to handle a large-scale emergency. So far Israel has suffered 1,444 infected per million Israelis and 15 dead per million. The Israeli population travels to foreign destinations more (per million people) than any other nation in the region. That meant Israel was infected about the same time the rest industrialized nations were.

The virus and quarantine response are hurting the economy. The unemployment rate is up from 4 percent on March 1st to 25 percent now. GDP growth will be less this year. How much less depends on how long the nationwide quarantine and business shutdown lasts.

Israeli medical experts believe the health crises will pass in a month or two. At that point, the terrorist and other violence against Israel will resume. The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are accumulating more grievances against their leaders (Fatah and Hamas respectively ) because of the inept way the covid19 crises is being handled At first Fatah and Hamas blamed the virus on Israel and insisted the struggle to destroy Israel would go on despite the health emergency. That soon changed because of the Palestinian popular demand for action against the virus. Fatah and Hamas blame any problems dealing with the virus on Israel and the need to continue allocating resources to the fight against Israel. Fatah has bigger problems because there is a constant movement of people between the West Bank and Israel. That allowed the virus to spread into the West Bank. Fatah has been slower to accept Israeli help and put that aid to work.

In Gaza, Hamas has taken advantage of the isolation Gaza normally experiences because of the Hamas sponsored violence. Hamas closed the one crossing to Egypt for a while before opening it again to allow Gaza residents who had business in Egypt to return. Those coming from Egypt were greeted by masked and gloved medical personnel who checked everyone and then put the returnees in 21 days of quarantine to ensure they were not infected. So far Gaza has only had about twenty people infected and those are being treated. The weekly mobs organized by Hamas to try and force their way into Israel have been suspended until the health crises is over.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah has been quick to mobilize their members to deal with the covid19 threat. Uniformed Hezbollah members were very visible aiding victims or handling disinfection and aid distribution work. Hezbollah is desperate to rehabilitate its reputation inside Lebanon. More and more Lebanese are openly criticizing Hezbollah and demanding a government free of Hezbollah violence and influence. For example, many Lebanese blame Hezbollah for bringing covid19 to Lebanon because of frequent travel of Hezbollah personnel to and from Iran. Hezbollah often brings back Iranians with them and several of these recent visitors were later found to have been infected.

April 15, 2020: In the north, on the border between Syria and Lebanon an armed UAV, believed to be Israeli, destroyed a vehicle crossing the border illegally. Israel often targets lone vehicles in this area because intel has identified the people inside as Hezbollah, Iranian or Islamic terrorists trying to attack Israel.

April 14, 2020: In the south, three men were caught trying to sneak into Israel from Gaza. They were arrested after they got past the security fence and were found to be carrying knives and incendiary devices. The three were interrogated and returned to Gaza.

Further south in Egypt (Cairo) police acted on a tip and raided a possible Islamic terrorist hideout. The tip was accurate and one policeman was killed and three wounded as the seven Islamic terrorists fought to the death during the subsequent gun battle. Many weapon and much ammo were found at the location, but no explosives.

April 13, 2020: In the south (east of Gaza in the Negev Desert) an Arab man was confronted by soldiers after he had sneaked onto the Mishmar Hanegey army base. The intruder had a knife and fought the two soldiers, wounding one of them. The intruder then escaped into the pre-dawn darkness and fled the base through the hole in the fence he got in through. The intruder was apparently intent on theft, of weapons or anything portable and of value.

April 12, 2020: Egypt is detecting more people with covid19 but the pandemic has not done major damage. In the last four weeks, the number of infected with covid19 went from 366 to 1,939. Currently, the virus has infected 18 per million Egyptians and killed one in a million. At some point in March, two Egyptian army major generals died from covid19. The national health system in Egypt is largely non-existent and many cases of covid19 will go undetected as will deaths, which can be confused with any number of similar diseases. In contrast, Israel has the best health care system in the region and more of its population is regularly exposed to foreign travelers who unknowingly spread such diseases all over the world. So far Israel has detected 1,241 cases per million population and suffered 12 deaths per million.

April 10, 2020: Israel has again warned Syria to keep Hezbollah away from the Golan Heights. A recent Syrian news video showed the Syrian corps commander in charge of the Golan Heights sector personally showing a senior Hezbollah commander around the Golan Heights border. If this was meant to taunt Israel it worked as Israel announced that both these commanders were on the target list as were any Hezbollah personnel found near the Golan Heights. Israel has occupied most of the Golan Heights since 1967 when they took the area after Syrian used these heights to attack Israeli territory to the south. In 1981 Israel annexed the area. The UN opposed this but that had no impact on the situation. Israel points out that Syria has never made a serious effort to retake the Golan Heights since 1973. In that respect Israel considers the Golan Heights abandoned property and has absorbed it. Iran ordered Syria and Hezbollah to assist Iran in turning the Golan Heights into a combat zone. So far that has gotten a lot of Syrians and Lebanese members of Hezbollah killed. Recently Iran spent a lot of money to recruit nearly 4,000 Syrians into a Syrian branch of Hezbollah. A similar effort was undertaken in Iraq.

April 7, 2020: Another Arab-Israeli has been arrested and charged with working as a spy for Iran. Police have observed the suspect meeting with Iranian intel personnel and then seeking to recruit other Arab-Israelis to work for Iran and help destroy Israel. Since 2014, and the appearance of ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), there has been a sharp increase in Arab-Israelis actively working t0 destroy Israel. Police estimate that between over 50 Arab-Israelis have actually made it to Syria and joined ISIL and about as many were detected in Israel or in Turkey before they got to Syria. Not many Palestinians (about a hundred) have actually gone to Syria. ISIL put the destruction of Israel high on its todo list and called on Arab-Israelis to join the fight. Many of those who did not want to fight in Syria were receptive to Iranian efforts, via Hezbollah) to recruit Arab-Israelis to serve as spies. In most cases, Iran simply wanted a reliable source of basic information any Israeli citizen could pick up by driving around the country or consulting local media.

April 4, 2020: In Lebanon Ali Mohammed Younes, the head of Hezbollah counter-intelligence (catching spies) was assassinated by gunmen and also stabbed with a knife. Hezbollah blamed this on Israel but few Hezbollah members believed that. The killing was probably because of an internal feud, possibly over money. With the recent sharp cuts in Iranian cash assistance to Hezbollah, there has been a lot scrambling to placate Hezbollah members who have lost their jobs or had their pay cut. Even commanders were hit with cuts and the search for additional funds brought to the surface some of the corrupt deals Hezbollah leaders engage in to enrich themselves and their families. The death of Younes was a plus for Israel because he had led an increasingly successful effort to detect and eliminate Israeli informants in Hezbollah controlled southern Lebanon. This effort was made possible by Iranian technical assistance.

April 1, 2020: Ethiopia announced it would defy Egypt and proceed to begin blocking the flow of Nile River water in July. In the last month, Egypt has tried to get Ethiopia to agree to a plan on how to fill and operate GERD (Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam) that was agreeable to Egypt. The dispute over the GERD involves Nile River water rights, which Egypt considers an issue of national survival. Officials say the GERD is about 75 percent complete and filling of the huge reservoir behind the dam can begin. Egypt wants seven years for the initial fill while Ethiopia wants to fill it in four years. Once it is filled, the GERDs reservoir will serve as a hedge against drought for all nations involved. The GERD will also supply electrical power to a region running from Kenya and Uganda through South Sudan and Sudan to Egypt. The main fear in Egypt that reducing the flow of Nile River water could cause shortages in Egypt that would lead to less food produced.

March 31, 2020: In eastern Syria (Homs province), someone (apparently Israel) carried out an airstrike against Shayrat airbase. Most of the Syrian airstrikes in northern Syria are flown out of Shayat. Satellite photos later showed massive damage to Shayrat with at least craters in the runways and damage to airbase support facilities.

There have been several attacks on Shayrat by unidentified aircraft during the last two years. These were at night and Syria tried to portray many of them as a mysterious explosion rather than an airstrike the Syrian military was unable to prevent. Open season on Shayrat began three years ago when the U.S. Navy hit the base with 59 cruise missiles, launched from ships in the eastern Mediterranean. The United States was retaliating for the recent Syrian use of nerve gas. Shayat was inoperable for a day or two because all but one of the Tomahawks hit their targets. This was all about the Syrian government being held responsible for using nerve gas in a recent attack on a rebel village in Idlib province. This would be a clear violation of the 2013 Russian brokered deal where Syria surrendered all its chemical weapons in return for no foreign intervention (as the U.S. has promised) because chemical weapons were used. An August 2013 attack used nerve gas to kill over 1,400 people in a rebel-controlled village outside Damascus. The evidence was overwhelming for the 2013 attack and this latest one in Idlib is equally incriminating. The Syrian government, Russia, Iran and Iraq condemned the American Shayat attack and supported the Syrian Assad government denials that they had anything to do with the use of nerve gas. But the rest of the world either openly supported the attack or were undecided. Most Western nations openly supported the attack as did Middle Eastern nations Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE (United Arab Emirates). This American action was a big deal in Israel which had hoped the newly elected American government would be more supportive of Israeli efforts to deal with Islamic terrorism (both Sunni and Shia) in the region. Israel and its new Sunni Arab allies are particularly concerned about the growing threat from Iran, which the previous U.S. government did not take as seriously as the Middle Eastern nations (particularly Israel) that Iran openly threatened.

March 22, 2020: In eastern Syria (Deir Ezzor province) there was apparently another Israeli airstrike against Iranian weapons being stored near the Al Bukamal crossing into Iraq. These border crossings are vital for the Iran-to-Mediterranean land route. This road is essential to supporting any Iranian military expansion in Syria and Lebanon. Israel has bombed it before and will apparently continue doing so. That is what will also happen to the new military base Iran is building here on the Syrian side of the border. The base is nearly complete despite several Israeli airstrikes. At that point, the Israeli airstrikes usually intensify in an effort to obliterate the completed base.

For the first time, the Assad government in Syria admitted that the covid19 virus has reached Syria. Unofficially the virus had been encountered in Syria over a month earlier. The Assad government denied this for as long as they thought they could get away with it. There are still a lot of anti-Assad Syrians in Syria and they believe Assad looked the other way as Iranians infected with covid19 were allowed into the country. This happened before these Iranians experienced symptoms. One can get covid19 and not feel it for a week or two. Most countries avoid letting infected people in by imposing a two-week quarantine on visitors to verify they are virus-free. No such quarantine was imposed on any Iranians coming in.

March 21, 2020: Efforts to improve relations with Morocco continue, but slowly. Morocco still hesitates to establish official diplomatic and economic relations. The small Jewish community in Morocco continues to thrive and tourism between the two countries grows. In 2019 75,000 Israelis visited Morocco and 3,000 Moroccans visited Israel. The growing tourism has made Morocco receptive to allowing regular direct flights between the two countries and fewer bureaucratic obstacles for Moroccans visiting Israel.

March 19, 2020: In Syria, Iranian military advisors are continuing to recruit local Shia into new mercenary units based in the south, near the Israeli and Jordan borders and the northeast, near the autonomous Kurdish provinces. Some of these units are for local defense but the better paid ones will get more training and better weapons so they can be moved around the country as needed.
This is a community calendar. To accommodate demand for the print edition, we ask that items be brief and include time, date, place, address, admission cost and a contact number for publication. Inclusion of items is at the discretion of the newspaper. Further information is available at 541-758-9524 or jane.stoltz@lee.net.

Assistance

SUNDAY

Emergency food boxes, by appointment, North Corvallis Ministry Center, 5050 NE Elliott Circle. Appointments: 541-220-1040.

Corvallis Men's Shelter, 211 SE Chapman Place. Now serving men and women in need during the COVID emergency. Food, showers and laundry available from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Hot meals served 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.; overnight shelter not available. Information: 541-791-6691.

Food distribution, 10 a.m. to noon, food pantry, North Corvallis Ministry Center, 5050 NE Elliott Circle. Applications available at the pantry.

Stone Soup dinner, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., McLean Hall, First Christian Church, 602 SW Madison Ave., Corvallis. Free meal for those in need.

MONDAY

Emergency food boxes, by appointment, North Corvallis Ministry Center, 5050 NE Elliott Circle. Appointments: 541-220-1040.

Lebanon Schools emergency meal distribution for all children ages 1 to 18, 9 to 9:30 a.m., noon to 1 p.m., Lebanon High School, 1700 S. Fifth St. Drive-through service; enter in the bus slip area in front of LHS.

Greater Albany Public Schools offers free grab-and-go sack lunches for all children ages 1 to 18: 11 to 11:30 a.m., Columbus Greens, Memorial Middle School, Oak Elementary School, Tangent Elementary School; 11:15 to 11:45 a.m., Lafayette Elementary School, Lake Creek Ranch; 11:20 to 11:50 a.m., Waverly Elementary School; 11:30 a.m. to noon, Albany Meadows, Sunrise Elementary School; 11:40 a.m. to 12:10 p.m., Periwinkle Elementary School, South Shore Elementary School; 11:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., Albany Boys & Girls Club; Takena Elementary School; noon to 12:30 p.m., Lexington Park, South Albany High School, Three Lake Estates.

Senior Health Insurance Benefits Assistance (SHIBA), 12:30 to 3:30 p.m., Corvallis Senior Center, 2601 NW Tyler Ave. Free, confidential, impartial Medicare counseling and education. Appointments required; call 541-812-0849.

Corvallis Men's Shelter, 211 SE Chapman Place. Now serving men and women in need during the COVID emergency. Food, showers and laundry available from 1 to 6 p.m. Hot meals served 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Emergency food boxes, 1:30 to 4 p.m., St. Vincent de Paul Society Corvallis Conference Food Pantry, campus of St. Marys Catholic Church, 501 NW 25th St. No appointment needed. A thrift store is in the same building; proceeds help support the pantry. Information: 541-757-1988, Ext. 317.

Stone Soup dinner, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., gymnasium, St. Marys Catholic School, 501 NW 25th St., Corvallis. Free meal for those in need.

Classes

SUNDAY

Free gentle yoga online, 10 a.m. Suitable for all bodies. Go to www.livewellstudio.com.

MONDAY

Free gentle yoga online, 10 a.m. Go to www.livewellstudio.com.

Government

MONDAY

Albany Community Development Commission, noon, call 669-900-6833 and enter meeting ID 354 905 736.

Community Services Consortium Governing Board Executive Committee, 2 p.m., https://zoom.us/j/108954735, meeting ID: 108 954 735.

Corvallis City Council, 6 p.m., video conference, Comcast Cable Channel 21 or https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1442493691208398092.

Opportunities

The Oregon Senior Peer Outreach Line, 1-833-736-4676, offers weekly phone-based support and connection with Community Support Solutions. This free service is available to adults age 55 or over experiencing loneliness and isolation. Participants are matched with a trained peer support specialist and receive scheduled weekly phone calls.

Schools

MONDAY

Philomath School District Board of Directors, 7 p.m., Facebook. Executive session, 6 p.m., to discuss labor negotiations. Agenda: https://www.philomathsd.net/about/school-board.

Support groups

SUNDAY

Alcoholics Anonymous during the COVID-19 pandemic: Local hotline, 541-967-4252, answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by members of the local AA community. Many local and global AA groups are hosting meetings virtually. You can attend virtual meetings on your computer, smartphone or by dialing in. Attendees will remain anonymous and need only introduce themselves by first name. To access both local and global meetings occurring online 24 hours a day, visit https://aaoregon-district21.org.

Al-Anon Care and Share meeting, 4 to 5:30 p.m., community room, First Christian Church, 432 Ferry St. SW, Albany. Information: 541-224-6651.

Narcotics Anonymous, 5 p.m., Room 11, First Christian Church, 602 SW Madison Ave., Corvallis. Information (24 hours): 877-233-4287 or www.lblna.org.

Overeaters Anonymous, 5:30 p.m., meeting room at back of building, Free Methodist Church, 580 'F' St., Lebanon. Information: 541-405-5032.

Sex Addicts Anonymous, 7 p.m., Room 18, First Christian Church, 602 SW Madison Ave., Corvallis. Information: 541-286-5315.

MONDAY

Alcoholics Anonymous during the COVID-19 pandemic: Local hotline, 541-967-4252; local and global meetings occurring online 24 hours a day, https://aaoregon-district21.org.

Narcotics Anonymous:

 Noon to 1 p.m., 7 p.m., Room 11, First Christian Church, 602 SW Madison Ave., Corvallis. Information (24 hours): 877-233-4287 or www.lblna.org.

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RIDGEFIELD  A town resident and engineer who helped create the Hubble Space Telescope and volunteered in his spare time died March 29 after contracting COVID-19, his obituary said.

Orest Engelbrecht, 85, came to the United States from Germany in 1952, his obituary said. Throughout his career, he worked at places including United Technologies Corporation, PerkinElmer Corporation, Bausch + Lomb, Kodak and, most recently, Rockwell International.
Of course we would prefer that the circumstances were different, that we didnt have to work under these conditions, but it is the reality we are faced with and it is our collaborative and positive approach that will drive our success both on this project and as country, and as such we continue to pull together, said De Lille.
Indian students may not consider themselves 'stranded' owing to the crutch of technology but they do have substantial issues to deal with at a young age.

With universities across the globe shut down because of the coronavirus outbreak, a large number of Indian students continue to live away from family at a time they need an emotional anchor the most.

On 12 April, Indian National Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill questioned the Centre why Indian students stranded abroad are not being evacuated, while the government is in "active mode" to help foreign nationals stuck in India. "The BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) government is in 'active mode' for foreign nationals and is in 'sleep mode' for Indian students stranded abroad in this hour of global crisis," Shergill said in a statement.

Away but not 'stranded'

But a lot of the Indian students still in their dorms, private accommodations or at a relative's place, away from their immediate families, say they are not feeling 'stranded' or 'stuck.' Some of them claim they are used to living by themselves for they left their parents' shelter years ago.

Certainly, during a global crisis like this, they admit they feel the need to be in constant touch with their parents but technology has bridged the gap. Apps like Facetime and WhatsApp video calling have allowed them and their parents to combat emotional distancing.

If given a choice, would they have taken the plunge and returned to India rather than stay away from family? Many were not in favour of doing so, at least under the circumstances they were in when they had a choice.

"I think it's much safer for everyone, including me, to stay put where they are. Going back would've put the safety of my parents, as well as (that of) potentially society, at risk, and definitely mine too. Moreover, I'm not facing any problems here so I don't see any reason for me to go back. It's just a matter of coping with living alone, and I think that's a small challenge compared to the risk I'll be putting everyone at if I went back," says Mayank Sehgal, currently pursuing MBA from HEC Paris.

Aditya Tank, who studies at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University in the United States, reasons that even if he braved the risk of infected airplanes and airports, it was too late for him to escape the state quarantine. "By the time I could travel, it was already 16 March, when India had made 14-day state quarantine compulsory for anyone coming from the US. So even after going through all the hassle, I'd have to spend two weeks away from family. My parents were obviously worried but they got my decision when I explained the above point to them. So as of now, we're looking forward to the time when there are no restrictions, and I can come back without having to stay in the state quarantine."

Another hurdle that is stopping the students abroad to return to their parents' comfort is the time difference between both the countries. Since a majority of the colleges across the globe have converted the classes online (through Zoom or similar conference video calling app), they will have to wake up at odd hours in order to 'attend' the classes. "My classes and assignments are still going on so I didn't want to go back to India only to operate on a 9.5-hour time difference. It didn't make sense," says Varun Natu, currently in Pittsburgh, who believes he would barely get the time to spend quality time with parents in that case.

State intervention

Besides these technical and logical reasons, many also have the administration, either the government or the college, to blame for not acting well within time. "You know how lax the US has been about their response to the pandemic. When my parents had asked me to fly back, at that point, my university had declared the online class setting till only 6 April," says Aditya Tank. Even after the change was made subsequently to extend the online classes till the end of the semester, it was already too late to travel.

Pranati Sharma, pursuing MBA in Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, recalls the college administration initially took drastic steps to curb the spread of coronavirus, which resulted in complete chaos among the students. "We got a mail from college on the night of 15 March, giving us three days to vacate all the student accommodations under Trinity, even the private ones. However, the college sent a clarification mail a day later, allowing students to stay. This created a lot of chaos, and 90 percent of the people, including Indians, booked flights on 15 March itself for the very next day to return to India."

While Pranati chose not to travel even after the college's rather knee-jerk approach, Amishi Agrawal, studying at the University of Tokyo in Japan, has a different story to tell. "We haven't had a lockdown yet. A state of emergency was declared a few days ago but there are no rules in place. Most places are open, and you can go out if you want to. The greater challenge here is to ensure you're safe since the government isn't doing much on that front, and also the linguistic barrier. For now, we're just reading up more, and pushing for stricter rules within our dormitories."

ALSO READ: Under lockdown in Europe, Indian students go online to protest inequalities back home, keep up with academics

She explains how the lack of awareness by the state can make the pandemic even worse, if not for the information coming in from other countries. "I thought at the start that Japan was handling it very well. It turned out that was a lie as Japan was trying to conceal information because they wanted to host the Olympics (which was later pushed tentatively to 2021). Had I known the situation in Japan was so grave, I'd have definitely gone back to India then."

Even Sweden seems to be not taking the crisis as seriously despite rising cases in the country. Sarthak Prakash, currently pursuing a Master's degree in Biomedical Technology from Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden, says the lockdown is not as stringent as the one in India despite similar graphs in coronavirus infections in both the countries. "There are no restrictions at all. All the pubs and restaurants are open. The only change I'm facing is online classes and virtual group meetings. People are advised to maintain social distancing. The population of Sweden is about 10 million, and they have 10,000 cases now (by the time his input was taken). It's mostly concentrated in Stockholm so the rest of the economy is open. They (government) fear bad repercussions if the restrictions are imposed for an extended time."

Mayank, however, is grateful to the French government for its transparency in dealing with the crisis. "They're communicating with us very clearly what's happening and what's going to happen (as far as they know). The confinement has been extended till 11 May, after which things will gradually open up again. Even alcohol and cigarettes are available. We're allowed to go for a walk within 1 km radius of our residence."

Daily chores, increasing constraints

Besides the occasional long queues outside grocery stores in Paris and ordering grocery for a week in advance in Pittsburgh, regular supplies has not been the primary issue for most of the students abroad. But Taruna Venkat, currently pursuing a Master's in Science Degree (Tropical Biology and Conservation) from James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, says constant delay in the lifting of lockdown will only worsen the situation for students monetarily. "I'm concerned about stretching out my savings, and avoiding asking family for money given they also require to save up. I'm also concerned about them, since they're aged and live in Mumbai, which is rapidly becoming a hotspot of the coronavirus spread."

Tashveen Bagga, enrolled in a Master's course in Fashion and Entrepreneurship at RMIT University in Melborune, Australia, still gets chills thinking about the day he realised the graveness of the epidemic. "I remember I went to a supermarket to get grocery but there was absolutely nothing there because of panic buying. All the racks you think will never be seen empty were like that. It's the basic requirement, and it wasn't available. That hit me hard when I went back home. Things are much better now."

Apart from the daily chores of cooking, clean, and buying grocery, what is keeping all the students busy are the online classes by the university and work from home for any internship or training they were employed in beside the college. Naman Jain, working as a Master's student at Max Planck Institute of Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, explains why despite the lockdown period being "an introvert-heaven," the lack of interpersonal contact is getting to his nerves now. "Research groups are incredibly important for reasons more than just academic discussions. It's getting limited because of the 'indirect-ness' over mails or video calls. The productivity isn't as much if one doesn't discuss or collaborate," he says.

He adds he did not contemplate going back since he had only two months of training left after working there for over nine months. "My parents have spent most of the time mulling I should've come back when I could. But I get their concern. They don't know it's safe around here, groceries and medical help are easily available, people are cooperative, and there aren't as less number of people on the streets as I'd expected."

Life-altering events stand altered

It is certainly not easy to withdraw when one is so close to the finishing line. Both Purushartha Singh (BSc in Computer Science from Pennsylvania State University) and Aditya Tank were days away from their respective convocation ceremonies. "My parents were scheduled to come here from India, and then we had a little tour planned. But obviously now, all that has gone for a toss. After online classes, home assignments, and online exams, the university is even planning an online convocation," says Purushartha.

As strange as online convocation sounds, Aditya is hopeful his university will have a flesh-and-blood ceremony whenever the situation is completely normal. "But my visa is expiring soon so I'm planning to go back to India at the end of May, hopefully."

As some are busy getting to the end, others starting their journey have their own issues to deal with. Arunima Gitai, studying Counselling and Psychotherapy at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia, details her struggles to find accommodation. "I landed in Perth on 29 February, and the lockdown started here in the first week of March. Everyone was already on the edge about the virus. Most of the people were wary to give rented accommodation to people, especially who had arrived in the country recently. Everyone whom I spoke to would ask me when I landed, ask me to show my travel documents, ask if I got tested, or if I had a connecting flight from China."

She adds a "sweet woman" empathised with her situation and asked her to move into a rented accommodation immediately. But she confesses she had a terrible time putting up at a temporary accommodation for a week. "It was very hostile to live among aggressive people who would ask me, sometimes even in every couple of hours, when I'd move out, or who told me I should go back to India. The epidemic was bringing out the worst in people. Humans are mean, aggressive, and self-preserving by nature, and the circumstances just happen to bring that out more openly."

Logistical issues like these only tend to add to the mental and emotional toll a young person goes through, particularly in the absence of a familiar environment. But all students across the globe that this writer talked to were on the same page of not returning to India especially because of the risks in travel involved. They would end up making their 'new home' more inhabitable, and are determined to get through with the crutch of technology, creative pursuits, and by just observing nature heal itself.

Naman's parting words give many like him hope that the spring is not far behind. "Nature was incredibly beautiful since I came here. Nothing has changed (on that front). It's just that spring has come around, so it's more pretty out here, but nothing else."

(Click here to follow LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak)
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Linkedin Joey Roulette (Reuters)  Sat, April 18, 2020 22:03 633 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2c8563 2 Science & Tech NASA,SpaceX,space-station,space,astronaut,united-states Free

NASA on Friday set a launch date of May 27 for its first astronaut mission from US soil in nearly ten years.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted that billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's space company, SpaceX, will send two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station aboard its Falcon 9 rocket from Florida - marking the company's first mission carrying humans aboard.

BREAKING: On May 27, @NASA will once again launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil! With our @SpaceX partners, @Astro_Doug and @AstroBehnken will launch to the @Space_Station on the #CrewDragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket. Let's #LaunchAmerica  pic.twitter.com/RINb3mfRWI  Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) April 17, 2020

"BREAKING: On May 27, @NASA will once again launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil!" Bridenstine wrote on Twitter.

The US space agency had previously said the mission, in which NASA astronauts Bob Behnken, 48, and Doug Hurley, 52 will ride SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule to the space station, would launch sometime in May.

As with most high-profile missions, the new date could slip. If all goes as planned, the mission would mark the first time NASA launches its astronauts from US soil since the 2011 retirement of the space shuttle.

Read also: SpaceX announces partnership to send tourists to ISS

The space agency has since relied on Russia's space program to ferry astronauts to the space station.

A decade in the making, next month's mission is the final test for Crew Dragon before regularly flying humans for NASA under its Commercial Crew Program, a public-private initiative. Boeing Co is developing its competing Starliner astronaut taxi as the agency's second ride to space.

The agency is mulling whether to extend Behnken and Hurley's stay aboard the space station from a week as originally planned to up to six months in order to ensure US astronauts are staffed on the station continuously.

Timelines for the crew program have been pushed back by years, with the first crew launch originally slated for early 2017.

The development delays with Crew Dragon and Boeing's Starliner have forced NASA to buy more crew seats from Russia's space agency, an increasingly costly expense as Moscow scales its own Soyuz program back to just two missions a year.
Donald Trump capped another wild week of the coronavirus outbreak by again criticising some of the countrys governors and declaring the United States the king of ventilators and his public health team discounted governors claims on testing shortages  even as the coronavirus death toll topped 36,000 with 692,000 confirmed cases.

The president, oddly, did not directly answer questions about criticisms from some Democratic governors. Some have claimed his rooting on conservative protesters who have called for their governors to open their states amounts to him inciting domestic instability. But Mr Trump said the protesters, many clad in pro-Trump gear, look like pretty responsible people, to me.

Leading Democrats continue to claim the president and his administration oversaw a slow federal response and have done little to fill what they call an ongoing testing kit shortage. But that did not stop the president from declaring that the United States has tested more people per capita than other developed countries.

And Anthony Fauci, his leading infectious disease expert, sided with Mr Trump, despite being hailed as a truth-telling saviour by some Democrats. The thing that were hearing is testing is everything, he said, and it isnt.

Minutes later, vice president Mike Pence declared this: Our best scientists and health experts assess that states today have enough tests to implement the criteria of phase one if they choose to do so.

But Democratic governors, like New Yorks Andrew Cuomo, also have panned Mr Trump and the federal government for providing too few ventilators needed to treat Covid-19 patients for the respiratory disease, which victims report can feel as if it is suffocating them.

As he typically does, Mr Trump made a series of bold claims during his opening remarks, including saying the federal government now expects around 60,000, maybe 65,000 deaths inside the United States from the virus. Friday evenings briefing, which Mr Trump himself rescheduled form 5 pm to 6 pm local time, capped another wild week in Washington as the nationwide death toll topped 36,000, with over 692,000 confirmed coronavirus cases.

That projection comes a few weeks after Mr Trump, citing estimates done by coronavirus task force member Deborah Birx, said as many as 200,000 Americans could die from Covid-19. The president on Friday night again used that 140,000 projected death difference as evidence, according to him, of the great job he and his administration have done fighting the pandemic.

Mr Trump, for a third night in a row, appeared to have his re-election campaign on his mind. After backing down three nights earlier from a threat to withhold federal funds unless state chiefs executive complied with a reopening order he said only he could give  before also walking away from that  he announced federal financial assistance for one of his key voting blocs: $19bn for US farmers.

Our farmers, ranchers ... great Americans. Never complain, he said. They never complain. They just do what they have to do.

High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Show all 18 1 /18 High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Najaf, Iraq A man holds a pocket watch at noon, at an almost empty market near the Imam Ali shrine Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Bangkok, Thailand Wat Phra Si Rattana Satsadaram (The Temple of the Emerald Buddha, part of The Grand Palace) Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Prague, Czech Republic An empty street leading to the historic Old Town Square Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Washington DC, US Lawn stretching towards the Capitol, home of Congress Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Jerusalem's Old City A watch showing the time in front of Damascus Gate Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world London, UK The Houses of Parliament seen from Westminster Bridge Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Wuhan, China Empty lanes in the city that saw the first outbreak of disease Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Havana, Cuba The Malecon road and esplanade winds along the city's seafront Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Cairo, Egypt A little busier than elsewhere: midday traffic in Tahrir Square Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Berlin, Germany The Brandenburg Gate, the only surviving city gate in the capital Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Caracas, Venezuela Bolivar Avenue, opened in 1949 and the site of many demonstrations and rallies Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Moscow, Russia Spasskaya Tower (left) on the eastern wall of the Kremlin, and St Basil's Cathedral Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Istanbul,Turkey The harbourside Eminonu district is usually buzzing with activity Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world New Delhi, India Rajpath, a ceremonial boulevard that runs through the capital Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Amman, Jordan The Roman amphitheatre that dates back to the 2nd century AD Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world New York City, US The main concourse of Grand Central station in Manhattan Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Kiev, Ukraine Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the site of many political protests since the end of the Soviet era Reuters High noon in a coronavirus-stricken world Accra, Ghana The odd walker out in the midday sun on Ring Road Central Reuters

Mr Trump began the week with a contentious Monday evening press conference during which he declared that he  and he alone  had the legal authority to give an order reopening individual states or the entire country.

In a remark that echoed former President Richard Nixons claim that if the president does it, its not illegal, Mr Trump angrily told reporters that, in his view, when somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total.

That claim is false, as clearly stated in the constitution. About 24 hours later, the president climbed down from that claim by announcing during his Tuesday night press conference that state chiefs executive would decide when and how to open their state schools and businesses.

Youre going to call your own shots, Mr. Trump told governors on an afternoon teleconference. Youre going to be calling the shots. Well be standing right alongside of you, and were going to get our country open and get it working.

New plan, old plan

That prompted Hawaii senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat, to tell CNN that the White Houses new plan sounds like the old plan, which is to declare victory and engage in magical thinking to try to survive another 24-hour news cycle.

Political analysts said Mr Trumps latest policy reversal was mostly about his own re-election campaign, putting state leaders in a position to catch his blame if the American economy continues sputtering until election day.

The notion that Trump has an angle, a play, is always a good assumption to start with, said Marc Hetherington, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina.

Although such an approach fits perfectly to Trumps personal DNA, he is missing an incredible opportunity, Mr Hetherington said. If he were a normal president, he would try to rally the country, arguing we are all in this together. Governors who have followed this playbook have seen their approval ratings rise 20 points or more - even with thousands of people from their jurisdictions dying.

Trump, in contrast, continues to divide us on a daily basis, he added. In return, he got a paltry 5-point bounce, and it is already gone. In the end, presidents tend to get blamed for bad outcomes.

Political risks



Mr Trump's plan to put governors in charge of reopening their territories presents clear "political risks" for them, says one GOP insider.

The governors and their health secretaries will still be dependent on the data - like testing results, infection trends, hospitalisations and deaths - that I assume will still be provided mainly by the feds, the Republican insider, granted anonymity to be candid. I assume the states will differ in how they interpret the data, [so] there is a political risk.

But other sources noted that cuts both ways. Meaning it could backfire on Mr Trump if states interpret the data incorrectly or use parts of it to open too soon, leading to a new spread of Covid-19 in those states, including ones governed by GOP state executives.

As the president moved into re-election mode, the campaign for former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, criticised Mr Trump for what it sees as a lack of a federal testing program.

Mr Trump is pushing the country to reopen quickly even as the number of coronavirus tests completed plateaus at a pace far below what is needed, the Biden campaign said in a statement. Trumps initial failure to quickly develop and roll out an effective and reliable test resulted in a lost month and left America blind as the virus spread rapidly within the United States.
President Donald Trumps former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, is to be released early from prison, due to coronavirus fears.

Mr Cohen was informed on Thursday, by the federal Bureau of Prisons, that he would be leaving early, his lawyer, Roger Adler told CNN.

The disgraced attorney is currently serving a three year sentence at the federal prison in Otisville, New York, that is due to end in November 2021.

Mr Cohen will complete the remainder of his sentence in home confinement, after a 14-day quarantine period at the prison.

At the time of writing, 14 inmates and seven staff members have tested positive for Covid-19 at the prison, according to CNN.

He pleaded guilty in 2018 to tax evasion and campaign finance violations, and reported to prison on 6 May 2019.

Mr Cohen said that he violated campaign finance rules, under the direction of Mr Trump, for the principal purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election. The president denies these claims.

His initial request for his sentence to be modified or reduced due to the coronavirus, was denied by a federal judge last month, who accused him of using the pandemic to stay relevant.

US District Court Judge William Pauley wrote that ten months into his prison term, its time that Cohen accept the consequences of his criminal convictions for serious crimes that had far reaching institutional harms.

He added: That Cohen would seek to single himself out for release to home confinement appears to be just another effort to inject himself into the news cycle.

Googles dedicated coronavirus page shows that New York State has upwards of 222,284 confirmed cases and at least 14,636 deaths.

According to a tracking project hosted by Johns Hopkins University, nationally there are upwards of 671,493 people who have tested positive for coronavirus. The death toll has reached at least 33,288.
Himachal Pradesh Epidemic Disease (COVID-19) Regulations, 2020 was on Saturday given an ex-post facto approval by the state Cabinet, an official spokesperson said.

The regulations, notified on March 11 and further amended on March 14, were given approval in a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, he said.

During the meeting, the Cabinet was also apprised of various regulatory and preventive measures undertaken and instructions issued by the Department of Health and Family Welfare under various provisions of HPED Regulations to tackle the situation arisen due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Cabinet also gave its consent to fill up one vacant post of assistant professor in the Department of Pulmonary Medicine at Lal Bahadur Shastri Government Medical College, Ner Chowk in Mandi district through direct recruitment.

The Cabinet also approved a proposal to regularise services of contractual employees who have completed three years of continuous service as on March 31 or who would be completing it by September 30.

The Cabinet also decided to regularise services of eligible daily wagers or contingent paid employees who have completed five years of their services as on March 31 or who would be completing five years by September 30.

It also decided to fill up 13 posts of clerks in Health and Family Welfare Department on compassionate grounds.

The Cabinet also gave its consent to fill up the post Sainik Welfare Department director through Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (HPPSC) on regular basis.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
'Elements like the LeT may see the fight against the coronavirus as an opportunity of a lifetime,' warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

Photograph: Umar Ganie for Rediff.com IMAGE: A car on fire after the Pakistan army shelled a village in Kupwara in the Kashmir valley.

Terrorist infiltration attempts in Kashmir and the Pakistan army's firing at the ceasefire line in rhe Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir has been going on while the world fights a grim battle of survival against a virus.

Many well-meaning Indians have attributed Pakistani enmity towards India to the Kashmir issue.

These Indians will do well to ponder over the fact that when Lashkar e Tayiba terrorists bombed suburban trains in Mumbai on July 11, 2006 or launched an attack in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, there was no proximate reason linked to Kashmir.

General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's former military ruler, is on record saying that even if the Kashmir issue is resolved, India-Pakistan relations will not improve. Musharraf was telling the unvarnished truth.

The Pakistani motivation -- at least of some Pakistanis -- is Gazwa e Hind, conquest of India, and not just 'liberation' of Kashmir.

The LeT is a virtual arm of the Pakistani military. Many conservative elements in Pakistan believe it is their religious duty to work for Gazwa e Hind.

In the light of this persistent motivation, it is not unlikely that elements like the LeT may see the fight against the coronavirus as an opportunity of a lifetime.

India has no option, but to be ready to face the threat.

Like suicide bombers, we may see suicide virus spreaders.

Let us not forget that al-Qaeda had similar plans via a Pakistani origin scientist based in the United States. Thanks to timely American action, she is now locked up for 99 years in prison.

India has to be ready and alert to thwart such designs.

With the abrogation of Article 370 and the government's firm grip over Kashmir, the LeT and such terror entities are desperate for action.

While the country fights the coronavirus, the armed forces have to be ready to face this additional threat.

Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) is a military hisotian.
We know whats worked and what hasnt.

For Marion Ruybalid, 37, of Walla Walla, Wash., who gave birth to her ninth child in December, the hardest period was after Kid No. 6. She and her husband had four children in four years, and the kids were too young to help around the house. Now, she said, things have gotten a bit easier. One child can scramble eggs or make pasta while she drives some of the others to a piano class. Several kids took care of the laundry as she recovered after giving birth. The older children take turns making dinner and breakfast; they even make bread. Ruybalid home-schools her children, which she said makes life automatically simpler; she doesnt need to usher them off to three different schools. She enrolls her children in the same extracurricular activities to simplify pickups and drop offs  all of the older kids do ballet.

Her children see her as a person, she said, not a supermom. Theres no space to hide when shes having a rough day. She and her husband have apologized to their older kids for being too strict in the past, or altering the way they parent the younger ones: Now, we know whats worked and what hasnt. The kids enjoy being part of a team, she said. Her 10-year-old frequently chats with her while she cleans the bathroom; she recently asked him if he wanted to learn how to help. Now, she said, he asks if he can scrub the toilet.

You cant prepare.

Sarah Kwilinski, 44, of Michigan, thought she and her husband were prepared to go from three children to five overnight. Of course, you cant prepare, she laughed. In November 2018, they began to foster two girls, a 3-year-old and an 18-month-old, to raise alongside their three biological children. She and her husband had bought a larger dining room table to accommodate them, but hadnt realized, until they tried to take the whole family out for a drive, that they would need a new van. They bought one, and on the first big road trip with all five kids and a dog  a six-and-a-half-hour drive to Illinois for Thanksgiving  Kwilinski glanced at the back of the van and thought, Wow, we fill every inch of this car.

A former special education teacher, Kwilinski uses many of the tactics she learned in the classroom to manage her family. When a kid throws a toy or has a meltdown at the grocery store, she squats down and gets close  sometimes nose to nose  to her child, and says just a few words in what she calls a threatening whisper. When the family travels, her eyes are always moving. She dresses the little ones in coordinating colors; fluorescent green shirts are easier to monitor. Her children are now 17, 13, 4, 4 and 2  and she feels as if shes seen everything before. Kwilinskis teenage son recently saw her struggling to calm a shrieking toddler. I remember doing that, he laughed. Hang in there.

Its not like it gets magically easy.

Sarah Delima, 36, a pediatric neurologist with six children, ages 10 years to 7 months old, said she takes 60 seconds to linger in her car and center herself before heading into work or returning home. She thinks its important for parents of large families to remember what they enjoy doing as individuals. Every few months, she and a friend will attend a wine and painting class, or she and her husband will grab dinner and see a play. They dont allow themselves to talk about their children for the first 30 minutes of each date. She keeps up with friends through social media and goes to brunches with a womens group at her church. As with everything in her life, she carefully tracks and plans these events, noting them on a color-coded calendar. People frequently ask her how she does it all. One kid was hard, two was hard, three was hard, she said. Its not like it gets magically easy. But in the moments when she looks over her shoulder in the car and thinks, Wow, there are really eight of us, or when she sees her kids playing together, its a great feeling, she said. This was the best decision.
Palestinian officials say Arab population of occupied East Jerusalem overlooked by Israeli efforts to contain COVID-19.

An elderly Palestinian woman has become the first fatal victim of the coronavirus disease, COVID-19, in occupied East Jerusalem, health officials have said.

Nawal Abu Hummus, 78, died on Saturday, said Palestinian Authority (PA) spokesperson Ibrahim Milhem in a statement. Abu Hummus, from the Issawiyah neighbourhood, had pre-existing chronic illnesses, he added.

The Palestinian Minister of Health May al-Kayla also announced the registration of six new infections in the occupied Palestinian territories, including two workers from the town of Qatana, northwest of Jerusalem, raising the number of cases in East Jerusalem to 105.

The four other cases were found in Yatta, south of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, and Beit Annan, al-Eizariya and Jericho, bringing the total number of infected cases to 313, in addition to 69 recoveries.

Since the onset of the health crisis, Palestinian officials allege the Arab population of East Jerusalem has been overlooked by Israeli efforts to curb the spread of the virus that has killed more than 150,000 people worldwide.

Israeli police recently shuttered a COVID-19 screening facility in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan  the testing was unauthorised, they said, because it was only overseen by the PA, and not Israel.

Our goal is to provide aid to the people of East Jerusalem who are intentionally being neglected by Israel, Fadi al-Hadami, the Palestinian governments minister for Jerusalem affairs, told AFP.

But meetings with hospital doctors in Jerusalem, interviews with media calling on people to stay at home to fight corona(virus)  they [Israel] consider these things violations, he lamented.

Earlier this month, Hadami and Adnan Ghaith, the Palestinians governor of Jerusalem, were arrested by Israeli authorities amid their on-the-ground response to the coronavirus crisis.

Test clinics doubled

Israel recently doubled the number of its screening centres in Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem from three to six following a petition to the supreme court by a rights group.

The detention of the senior Palestinian officials this month was nothing new  Ghaith has been arrested seven times in two years and Hadami four times.

But this time, the leaders said, they were not asked about political activities but their work spreading awareness about the coronavirus among Palestinians in Jerusalem.

The two officials are from Jerusalem, but due to Israeli restrictions they work in al-Ram, on the other side of an Israeli wall separating the city and the West Bank.

If I walk in the street the Israelis consider it political because of my position, Hadami said.

Israel will carry out such arrests until it is cemented in peoples minds that the city is subject to its authority alone, Ghaith said.

Since 2001, the height of the second Palestinian Intifada, Israel has closed more than 80 Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem, he said.

And since the US broke with decades of diplomacy and international consensus by recognising Jerusalem as Israels capital in December 2017, Israel has escalated the pace of its activity, he added.

Israel prevents any visibility of Palestinians in Jerusalem or activity of any kind.

For Amal Jamal, a political scientist at Tel Aviv University, on the one hand, Israel neglects the Palestinian part of the city and does not invest in it.

On the other, it wants loyalty from the Palestinian population.
By PTI

GENEVA: Switzerland has expressed solidarity with India in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic by projecting the tricolour on the famous Matterhorn mountain in the Swiss Alps to give "hope and strength" to all Indians.

Swiss light artist Gerry Hofstetter has been lighting up the 4,478-meter pyramidal peak straddling between Switzerland and Italy with spectacular displays of flags of different countries and messages of hope as part of a nightly series supporting the nations combating the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

"As one of the most populous countries in the world, India is suffering from the Corona crisis. The challenges in such a large country are immense.The Indian flag on the Matterhorn is intended to express our solidarity and give hope and strength to all Indians," the tourism organisation Zermatt Matterhorn wrote on its Facebook page.

"Indian Tricolor of more than 1000 meters in size projected on Matterhorn Mountain, Zermatt, Switzerland to express Solidarity to all Indians in the fight against COVID 19.A big Thank You to @zermatt_tourism for the gesture," the Indian embassy in Switzerland tweeted.

INDIAN TRICOLOR ON THE MATTERHORN MOUNTAIN: Indian Tricolor of more than 1000 meters in size projected on Matterhorn Mountain, Zermatt, Switzerland to express Solidarity to all Indians in the fight against COVID 19. A big Thank You to @zermatt_tourism for the gesture. @MEAIndia pic.twitter.com/y4diNDSlT9  India in Switzerland, The Holy See & Liechtenstein (@IndiainSwiss) April 17, 2020

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also shared the tweet with a caption saying, "The world is fighting COVID-19 together.Humanity will surely overcome this pandemic".

" As the world grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, Switzerland has been sending out messages of hope, love and empathy.

The daily projections have been illuminating the mountain since the end of March.

The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 480 and the number of cases to 14,378 in India on Saturday, according to the Union Health Ministry.

The country has extended the nationwide lockdown till May 3 to stem the spread of coronavirus.

According to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University, a total of 154,142 people have died and 2,242,868 people have been infected by the novel coronavirus that originated in China in November last year.

Over 35,000 people have died in the US and the country has 701,131 infections, the highest in the world.
Political figures and advisers who profit by helping the Chinese regime to target British businesses are to be investigated by MPs amid growing fears that Beijing is using the cover of Covid-19 to advance its commercial interests.

The move comes after a China backed company mounted an attempted coup at Imagination technologies, a UK firm which designs graphic chips for apple.

The company was sold to private equity business Canyon Bridge Capital Partners in 2017 for 550million in a deal approved by Theresa May's Government on the basis that the company would remain subject to US laws.

However, the organisation later moved its head office to the Cayman Islands  outside Us jurisdiction. Last week, senior MPs sounded the alarm after China Reform Holdings, the Beijing-backed lead investor in Canyon Bridge, tried to take control of the firm  amid fears it planned to transfer the ownership of intellectual property to China.

The Mail on Sunday has seen correspondence linking Global Counsel, the public affairs company chaired by Peter Mandelson, to Canyon Bridge

Tom Tugendhat, the Tory chairman of the Foreign affairs Committee, warns 'suited svengalis' who profit from the skills they've acquired over years of training would face scrutiny.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he says: 'too frequently, we've seen those who once wrote the rules and negotiated agreements to protect us, and some who still sit in our Parliament, selling the tricks they learned in Government.'

This newspaper has seen correspondence linking Global Counsel, the public affairs company chaired by Peter Mandelson, to Canyon Bridge. Global Counsel's staff includes Alex Dawson, who was working for Mrs May in Downing street when the 2017 deal was agreed.

In the correspondence, Ben Wegg-Prosser, the company's managing director, advises Canyon Bridge over how to respond to MPs demanding reassurances over the British company's future.

It is understood that Sir Simon Fraser, the former Permanent secretary of the Foreign Office, also has a paid role advising Chinese company Huawei

The row follows a similar outcry in the party over Boris Johnson's decision to allow Huawei to help to build the UK's 5G network, which led to furious protests over the potential threat to security.

The Chinese tech giant  which refutes claims it is an arm of the Chinese Communist Party  has built up a network of spin doctors and lobbyists with a combined annual wage bill running into several million pounds.

Their lobbying efforts are led by Roland Rudd, brother of former Home secretary amber Rudd, in association with a network of former Government special advisers and journalists.

BRITS FEEL CHINA SHOULD PAY Nearly three-quarters of Britons think the UK should sue the Chinese Communist Party for compensation over its handling of Covid-19, a poll reveals. The survey also finds that only a quarter support the Government's plans to allow controversial Chinese tech giant Huawei a role in building Britain's 5G network. In the Survation poll of 1,001 people last week, 71 per cent said Britain should pursue China through the international courts. Calls for an international inquiry into China's handling of the outbreak were backed by 83 per cent, while 74 per cent blamed China for the pandemic. On a future role for Huawei, 40 per cent of those surveyed opposed the move, with just 23 per cent in favour. Advertisement

This newspaper has also learnt that Sir Simon Fraser, the former Permanent secretary of the Foreign Office, also has a paid role advising Huawei.

His firm Flint Global provides strategic advice to Huawei's UK arm. During his time at the Foreign Office, Sir simon championed the so-called 'Golden Era' agenda in the run up to the state visit by China's president Xi in 2015.

Ministers have now dubbed this push to become China's closest ally in the west, the 'Golden Error'. Huawei has also signed the exboss of British telecom, Sir Michael Rake, to chair its board.

Mail on Sunday understands that the Cabinet Office is considering tightening up the coming National security Investment Bill that will give the Government more powers to block deals that threaten national interests.

On Saturday night, a source at Global Counsel said the firm advised Canyon Bridge on 'policy matters relating to its investment portfolio' and had no contractual relationship with China Reform Holdings.

The source said neither Mr Mandelson nor Alex Dawson had any involvement in Global Counsel's mandate for Canyon Bridge, and added that Imagination technologies had reconfirmed its commitment to the UK on Friday following a meeting with the Government.

A Finsbury Spokesperson said: 'Finsbury and Roland Rudd do not lobby government on behalf of Huawei. Finsbury provides Huawei with strategic communications advice.'
Varanasi: Besides keeping track of quarantined cases and medical help required by residents, the control room at the Sonbhadra district headquarters has also been monitoring an additional input. Since March 30, the administration authorities of the states second largest district have been running 683 community kitchens. Home to 18 lakh people, over 43% of population belongs to scheduled caste and scheduled tribe groups who depend on forest produce and daily wage work. Due to the lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus, labourers have lost work and factories are closed.

The community kitchens cater to around 45,000 people  24,000 families  daily, chief development officer Ajay Dwivedi said. Around 40% of the kitchens are in remote villages in rough terrains like Dudhi, Ghorawal, and Myorupur. At least 250 villages are located in extremely tough terrains.

Each kitchen also has an Anaj bank, to which residents and local businesses have contributed foodgrains, flour, lentils, rice and oil for making ration kits for the underprivileged. Till now, Dwivedi said around 176 quintal of flour, 203 quintal of rice, 36 quintals of lentils, 74 quintals of salt, 224 kg of spices, 2,759 liter of mustard oil and 89 quintal of vegetable. Much was distributed in 3,000 ration kits. Some is also used in the community kitchens.

The administration has also provided a fund of Rs 10,000 each to gram panchayat to ensure that the community kitchen is well stocked. Opened in the compounds of primary schools, those employed in making mid-day meals are now cooking food for the larger community in the villages. Locals also help in packaging the food to deliver to all homes.

Pyare Lal, a resident of Pharipaan area of Myorpur, however, did not receive food packets till a few days ago (others in his village did not face any problem). His neighbour, Jagat Vishwakarma took the matter up with assistant development officer (block) Shailendra Singh. Lal, who lives alone, now gets the food packet twice every day.

Sanjay Kumar, a resident of Karahiya village in the rough terrain of Duddhi area said that till last week, he would receive only two or three poori and a small quantity of vegetable in the food packet that was delivered to him daily. Together with some other locals, he raised the issue of insufficient food to senior authorities and the District Magistrate e S Rajalingam instructed the panchayat secretary to visit the village and ensure that the needy receive a full meal from the community kitchen. Since Monday, our food packets comprise six puris and sabji in the morning and six rotis with vegetable or dal chawal in the evening, he said.

Dwivedi said that strict monitoring was being done through video calling the village panchayat secretary and village head, who have been given the responsibility to look after the community kitchens, from preparing the food to delivering it, to find out whether the community kitchens are running properly and food packets with enough food are being delivered. As soon as a complaint is received, it is addressed immediately, he said.

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Three weeks ago Deborah, a 38-year-old health-care specialist, showed up to work at the Parker Jewish Institute, an assisted-care facility in Long Island, New York, nervous about what she would face amid the growing coronavirus pandemic. The situation in New York was worsening by the hour, with hundreds of people testing positive and dozens dying each day, particularly elderly individuals similar to those she helped treat at her facility.

And despite pleas from scientists, academics and local officials working the coronavirus response, the federal government was lagging in helping states obtain essential medical supplies needed to treat patients. In press conferences, Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned that the worst was yet to come and that without the proper equipment more people would become infected with the virus, including health-care workers like Deborah.

On that day at the end of March, Deborah, whose name has been altered because she fears retribution from her facilitys executives, found nurses wearing trash bags as makeshift gowns and treating patients without N95 respiratorsone of the best systems of protection for doctors and nurses who come into contact with coronavirus patients. Some supplies such as face shields and gloves did trickle into the facility over the following days. But not enough to protect all of the health-care workers for the duration of the pandemic. Multiple nurses working with the elderly tested positive for the virus and went home, stressing an already overworked staff. Meanwhile, the number of residents with coronavirus continued to rise.

On Monday, the State of New York released a partial dataset of some of the nursing homes and long-term care facilities that are reporting coronavirus cases to the state. Parker Jewish had the third highest number of deaths38 deaths in total. But as of Thursday, 179 patients there had tested positive for the virus and 48 had died, according to a separate dataset that circulated internally at the facility, which The Daily Beast obtained.

Story continues

The facility has a capacity of about 530 beds. But nurses there say it is not full and that, despite the outbreak of coronavirus on site, it is still accepting new residents.

I dont think anyone is focusing on nursing homes, Deborah said earlier this week. But we have a lot of sick people here. We have dedicated units for COVID patients but its spreading to the other floors. They gave us some generic masks the other day that werent N95 so were wearing the same one from last week. Were scared we dont have protection.

A Coronavirus ICU Nurse on Dying Alone Behind Sliding Glass Doors

The ongoing crisis at the Parker Institute is representative of a broader problem in New York and New Jersey nursing homes where facilities are struggling to limit the number of deaths as health-care workers continue to cite a lack of proper personal protective gear needed to treat residents.

For weeks, it was unclear just how many individuals in New York and New Jersey nursing homes and other assisted care facilities had tested positive for the coronavirus and how many people had died because of it. Despite the increased focus by officials and doctors on the vulnerability of the elderly population, the states coronavirus data sets did not reflect nursing home or long-term care facilities numbers.

Then, on Monday, a report by the New Jersey Herald revealed that local police had found 17 bodies in a small morgue inside the Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center. The nursing home had struggled to keep up with the uptick in the number of patients dying. The incident sparked immediate questions about whether other facilities were experiencing similar crises.

During his Friday press briefing, Cuomo said 630 people in New York died within a 24-hour period. Forty of those deaths were in nursing homes, he said. And in New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy said that 384 long-term care facilities in the state have at least one coronavirus patient, with a total of 9,000 positive cases and 1,530 deaths. The number of positive cases jumped by almost 800 overnight, according to the New Jersey Department of Health publicly available datasets. According to a tally put together by The New York Times, at least 6,900 people living in or connected to nursing homes in the U.S. have died of the coronavirus.

The people in the nursing homes are vulnerable to the virus, so the death tolls are going to be higher there no matter what. But the thing about nursing homes is that its someones home. And executives and staff are not used to treating their facilities like a hospital, said Michael Barnett, an assistant professor of health policy and management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a primary care physician at Brigham and Womens Hospital. Nursing homes dont have lots of resources to train their staff and ramp up supplies and be nimble. This situation in these facilities is going to get so much worse. I dont think people are prepared for that.

After an anonymous tip to police, 17 people were found dead at the Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty

Officially, at Parker Jewish Institute, everything is under control. Lina Scacco, a spokesperson for the facility, told The Daily Beast that everyone there has what they need. She added that she could guarantee no one in the facility had worn trash bags as gowns.

Its actually disturbing to me that people are telling you that, she said. We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on personal protective equipment. Whoever is telling you these thingsmaybe there is something going on in their lives or they are trying to sensationalize things. I dont trust them.

Scacco noted that the facility this week had its first resident, a short-term patient, recover from the coronavirus and return home.

Privately, things seem far more dire. Over the course of three weeks Deborah, who The Daily Beast independently confirmed worked at the Parker Institute, shared pictures revealing the personal protective equipment shortages in the facility and outlined how the increasing number of coronavirus cases there made it nearly impossible to ensure that residents were receiving adequate care. The situation was made worse by a number of health-care workers testing positive for coronavirus and leaving the workplace to recover, Deborah said.

On March 29, after this reporter put a call out on Twitter for information from nurses and doctors treating coronavirus patients, Deborah reached out to The Daily Beast for the first time. Over the course of three weeks, she spoke with The Daily Beast, sometimes at night after her shift ended, other times in the morning when she was just getting to work.

The initial call took place after she had worked a shift at the Parker Institute. She said she was growing increasingly concerned that the lack of essential medical supplies and the uptick in the number of health-care workers leaving the facility was putting residents at risk. By that juncture, the idea of not speaking up seemed like a dereliction of her duty to the patients, she said. Already, several residents in the Parker Jewish Institute had tested positive for the coronavirus and it appeared as though the virus was spreading throughout the facility.

We come to work because we feel bad for the patients. But it feels like everyday somebody doesnt because they are sick or quit and you have to work with less staff. Then you learn somebody else is dead. Theres lots of neglect happening like wounds not being changed, Deborah said. I have a patient that still has stitches in them from a surgery a month ago.

On that first call, Deborah noted that nurses were wearing trash bags as gowns and taking care of residents without N95 respirators. A similar scene had gone viral on Twitter three days earlier when nurses from Mount Sinai West Hospital in New York City posted a picture of themselves in similar trash bags and cleaning gloves. The healthcare workers at the institute did eventually end up receiving N95 masks, Deborah said, but that was over a month ago and they havent received new ones since then.

The day after the first call, Deborah called again. She said she had been told the personal protective equipment was in storage in the basement of the facility but had not been distributed onto the floors. Three days later, that glimmer of hope faded. She texted: Hey, it looks like we just ran out of [personal protective equipment]. A nurse told me to put on a patient gown and a trash bag.

As the days rolled by, Deobrah and her colleagues continued to find ways to protect themselves by doubling up on surgical masks as the number of patients testing positive for the virus continued to rise. Deborah described a scene of a facility scrambling to catch up to a disease they didnt understand and couldnt beat back.

The hospital next door is sending Covid patients to us. I thought they were telemetry patients but I think they lied to us, she said, adding that the facility was not removing short-term patients because they need the insurance money.

Nursing Homes Balk at Taking Back Patients From Hospitals

This is a fairly common practice, Barnett said. In almost every nursing home... most of their beds are taken up by people who live there. But a small slice of their beds are taken up by people who are getting rehab after being in the hospital, he added. They lose money on long-term care residents. So they need to have these short term residents. In the current state... its possible nursing homes are desperate to hold on to revenue that they are trying to cling on to these residents and not send them home until they are forced to.

By the end of the first week of April, Parker Jewish had begun moving residents who had tested positive for coronavirus to a select floor to prevent community spread, both Deborah and a spokesperson for the facility said. That week, Deborah said health-care workers in the facility had received personal protective equipment after inquiring about the lack of masks and face shields. But not everyone received a new set of equipment each day.

Last week, Deborah shared a picture of her N95 mask she received at the beginning of April. She had been wearing it, by that point, for two straight weeks.

Were short staffed. Patients falling, she told The Daily Beast in a message, adding that a nurse had accidentally pulled out a patients catheter line. She bled all over the place. They sent her to the hospital. Another COVID patient went to the hospital yesterday. I think our coworker might have it now. He left work early today because he couldnt stop coughing.

On Tuesday, Deborah said her directors told her team to pick up new N95 masks from the personal protective equipment pile to replace the month-old ones they had been wearing. But the masks were not N95. They were regular surgical masks. We decided to wear the old masks with another mask on top, Deborah said, adding that two of her coworkers were out sick. Theyre waiting on results, she said.

There was one perverse upside, however. We wont run out of gowns now because people keep quitting, said Deborah, adding that she had considered leaving herself in the past few weeks.

It wasnt until Thursday that Deborah and her colleagues understood the true scale of the outbreak in the facility. A list of residents who had tested positive for the coronavirus circulated among the staff, showing that the institute had taken in new residents that ended up contracting the virus and that some of those individuals had been transferred to a nearby hospital. Forty-eight out of the 179 patients who had tested positive had an additional marker: Expired.

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STAMFORD  There was a time when Stamford Hospital was a sort of the canary in the coal mine for the COVID-19 outbreak in Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont said.

The hospital, and the city of Stamford in general, were epicenters of the pandemic of the respiratory illness. Earlier this month, it was reported that the city had the most people in the state testing positive for COVID-19 and Stamford Hospitals intensive care unit was approaching capacity.

The situation, however, is starting to change, Stamford Health President and Chief Executive Officer Kathleen Silard said Friday during a teleconference with the governor.

In the past few days, our patient census has stabilized at around 140, she said. We are confident that social distancing is having an impact.

Silard and Lamont spoke during a webinar sponsored by the Womens Business Development Council. About 150 people attended the virtual event, hosted through the video conferencing application, Zoom.

During the webinar, Silard discussed the progress made in Stamford, the actions that have been taken and the work that still needs to be done. She said, as of Friday morning, there had been 1,620 COVID-19 cases in Stamford, 369 people treated as in-patients, and 60 deaths due to the disease.

However, she said, the good news is that many of the hospitals COVID-19 patients have been discharged. Silard also commended other hospitals for helping Stamford during the height of need. That included Hartford HealthCare, which provided ventilators and other supplies.

Hospitals also have been taking on each others patients. Silard said. Upon hearing of a spike of patients in Bridgeport, Stamford offered to have some of Bridgeport Hospitals patients transferred to Stamford Hospital.

All of this is happening in the great spirit of cooperation, she said.

Though she said social distancing  the practice of avoiding crowds, wearing masks, maintaining a distance of at least 6 feet from other people and taking similar precautions  has helped flatten the curve, and contributed to the stabilization of cases, it has to continue.

Early optimism is just early optimism, Silard said. Please do not abandon social distancing yet.

She said, for progress to continue, there needs to be more widespread testing for COVID-19, and there needs to be testing for COVID-19 antibodies. Both of these are starting to pick up in the state.

On Friday, Lamont announced the state formed a partnership with CVS Health in an initiative to make free, rapid COVID-19 tests available to eligible Connecticut residents. This included the opening Friday of the states first rapid testing site at the former Gateway Community College campus at Long Wharf in New Haven.

The new program is aimed to conduct up to 750 tests per day, seven days a week.

During Fridays webinar, Lamont commended Silard for the hospitals work in handling the COVID-19 situation in Stamford.

We got close to topping out on that surge, but we didnt do it, he said.

However, he, like Silard, said social distancing is far from being a thing of the past. Lamont said the state is making progress toward re-opening businesses, but it will be a slow process. He urged Silard to keep preaching the importance of flattening the curve.

I need Kathy and I need her staff to tell the rest of the state that story, Lamont said.
ELSAH  Everyone can also have a front-row seat for Principias Dance Production 2020, a virtual presentation of the colleges annual dance concert at 7 p.m. Friday, April 17, via Zoom webinar.

Ten student choreographers will present their dances in two forms  a work in-progress stage version; and a work in-progress dance-for-camera version  same dance, concept, dancers  two different mediums, two different results.

Directed by assistant professor of dance Erin Lane, in Prins Theatre and Dance Department, Dance Production 2020 will include a video of the students stage version performed at The McVay Center, on the last day before the start of spring break. The second work is a dance-for-camera piece of the same dance. Differences between the two versions depend on the dance and what the choreographers decide.

Theyve been directed to identify the essence of their dance and make a video version based on that, Lane explained.

They can keep all their choreography, and have their cast video of themselves in their respective places in the world, where they are doing the choreography, she continued. Or they can choose some movement motif or theme from their dance and simply focus on that movement in the video.

Consequently, some dances could look similar to the corresponding stage version and some may look very different. The biggest difference will be the environment in which the dancers are recording. It has made a stage dance into a site-specific dance for the camera piece.

I think its going to open the door to more choreographers playing with video, Lane noted.

It also might reveal that some choreographers may never want to use video again, because their aesthetic doesnt lend itself well to the video, she said.

Even if it ends up being something they find in the choreographic process, the amount of learning through the creative problem-solving process will be invaluable for the students.

The whole experience has opened the door to new ways of sharing their work with a wider audience, Lane said, which is a good thing one she will continue to consider.

Well see how this format works and definitely continue to see how we can use digital platforms to share our work freely, she said.

Dance performers range from freshman to seniors and include other adult community members. Choreographers are sophomores, juniors and seniors.

Also included is the virtual presentation of Dolce with Principia dancers, by guest artist Lynn Peterson, co-founder of SYREN Modern Dance (New York City-based dance company), with student reflection on the rehearsal and workshop process with Peterson.

A video talkback session will be held on Saturday with Lane, costume designer Leah McFall, lighting designer Tom Halsey, all 10 student choreographers, theater faculty guest choreographer Chrissy Steele, and student stage manager Gavin Austin.

Steele, associate professor of theater in the schools Theatre and Dance Department, said professors throughout the world have had to quickly adjust their classes to online.

We have found many new, online, international communities of theater and dance artists who are sharing how they are working remotely with their students, he said. I have gotten ideas and support from international artists who I never would have met before this. There is a lot of experimenting, and trial and error, but we are finding ways to connect with ourselves and others as human beings.

She said she believes the arts are vital right now as a way to keep connected to our humanity and to community, especially when we cant all be in the same space.

We have found that our students really want to be in class together, seeing each other move, hearing each other speak poems and sonnets, doing this together even as we are spread out across different time zones, Steele said.

Some professors at Principia have students overseas, so the time difference is challenging, but many of our classes are still synchronous so that students can have some interaction with professors and fellow students. That connection feels vital right now for all of us.

Each event is being hosted as a Zoom webinar. Registration is required. The links provided will register individuals and also send reminders before the programs start.

To register for Dance Production 2020 at 7 p.m., Friday, April 17, visit https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QVz1blyLRJ2rmZWZabP4ow.

A special talkback with Dance Production 2020 choreographers, designers and director will be live from 2 to 2:30 p.m., Saturday, April 18. Visit https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_wewZsoZkRC2KIfm9-Om4MA to register.

Individuals are invited to make a donation to the Principia Response Fund, which has been established to cover the extraordinary expenses that this challenge has presented to Principia and our community. Visit principiagiving.org to make a gift.
Former Vice President Joe Bidens presidential campaign on Saturday released a new digital ad in key battleground states meant to counter President Donald Trumps efforts to portray him as soft on China.

The ad is part of a coordinated response on behalf of the Biden campaign aiming to highlight Trumps slow response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has cost over 35,000 lives in the U.S. and ground the economy to a standstill.

Trump in recent days has sought to pin the blame for the spread of the disease on China and the World Health Organization, even though he praised both in the early stages of the outbreak, which began in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

When Trump rolled over for the Chinese, he took their word for it. Trump praised the Chinese 15 times in January and February as the coronavirus spread across the world, the narrator in the Biden ad says, as images of various Trump tweets flash on the screen.

Bidens campaign said the ad will run online in the key battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina and Florida.

Last week, Trumps reelection campaign released a montage of Biden meeting with Chinese government officials during his time as vice president, claiming that Biden stands up for China. The ad included Gary Locke, who at the time was the U.S. ambassador to China  falsely implying that Locke, a third-generation Chinese American, is a Chinese government official.

China has emerged as a major campaign issue during the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier this week, a pro-Trump super PAC announced a $10 million ad campaign in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin targeting the former vice president over China. The pro-Biden group American Bridge responded with its own $15 million ad campaign in the same battleground states.

Watch the new Biden campaign ad below:

A HuffPost Guide To Coronavirus
TOKYO, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese embassy in Japan on Friday provided Chinese students studying here with health packs containing an anti-epidemic guide and medical kits, as the number of COVID-19 cases has topped 9,000 in the country.

During a speech at the ceremony, Chinese Ambassador to Japan Kong Xuanyou told representatives of the students that since the outbreak of COVID-19, the Chinese government and people as well as their families have always been concerned about their safety and health.

According to Kong, the health packs handed out today is not only to help students enhance their ability to protect themselves and strengthen their confidence in combating the epidemic, but also to convey the care and greetings from the the Communist Party of China and the government to all the Chinese students in Japan.

Noting the continuous development of the outbreak in Japan, the ambassador urged the Chinese students to remain calm, show solidarity and follow the information issued by the Japanese government and the embassy.

He also called on students to consciously comply with the relevant epidemic prevention requirements, understand the knowledge of scientific protection while maintaining adequate sleep and nutrition.

The student representatives, for their part, told Kong that the health packs contain great energy. From the motherland to the embassy and then to their hands, the health packs convey the care of the motherland for the students, giving them the confidence to combat the epidemic.

The first batch of 10,000 health packs arrived at the embassy on Thursday evening, and are expected to be delivered to Chinese students in more than 200 schools. According to the embassy, another batch of health packs will arrive on Sunday.
Wade Boggs went to the hospital in the middle of the night during March because he felt sick and was diagnosed with pneumonia. But reflecting back, he wonders whether he had coronavirus and possibly caught it from Red Sox ace Chris Sale, the Tampa Bay Times reported Sunday.

Boggs told the Times he hopes to take an antibodies test to see if he had COVID-19.

Sale  who Boggs spoke with during spring training  missed time at the beginning of camp because of what was believed to be pneumonia, but Sale now wonders if he had the virus. Hes also interested in taking an antibodies test to see if he had it.

Its crazy to look at my symptoms and think about the symptoms of people that have the COVID-19 virus, and some of the similarities, Sale said April 7. "We may never know, but Im definitely hoping not.

Boggs shook hands and had a a lengthy conversation with Sale at an event for sponsors and limited partners in Fort Myers, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

The 61-year-old, whose No. 26 is retired by the Red Sox, also told the newspaper he feels fine now but he had a really rough recovery.
New Jersey state officials on Saturday reported 230 new deaths caused by the coronavirus.

The state also released a second set of figures on outbreaks, cases and deaths in long-term care facilities.

New Jerseys death toll reached 4,070 Saturday afternoon, with 1,655 of those fatalities reportedly from long-term care facilities like nursing homes. In one North Jersey nursing home, 90% of patients have symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and 25 people have died.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Businesses that are open | Homepage

The state reported 3,026 new positive tests on Saturday. In total, 81,420 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in New Jersey.

The number of deaths in N.J. from COVID-19 now exceeds the number of residents who die from strokes each year.

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Saturday marked three consecutive days that the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients dropped. The state reported that 7,718 people were hospitalized, down 293 from the day prior.

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Businesses have been closed for a month so far in New Jersey and Murphy hasnt made any indication that will change soon.

We have come a long way already, Murphy said Friday.

New Jersey nursing homes have been hit hard by the coronavirus. The state released a second day of data on outbreaks, cases and deaths at nursing homes and long-term facilities. On Saturday, the state reported 10,163 cases and 1,655 deaths at 413 facilities.

On Thursday, Gov. Phil Murphy extended the closure of all N.J. schools through at least May 15. He originally ordered the closures on March 18 for two weeks before extending for the first time to April 17.

Let me be perfectly clear: There is nobody who wants to open the schools more than I do, Murphy said. I cant do that right now.

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Union County currently has the highest concentration of COVID-19 cases, at 1,620 per 100,000 residents. Salem County now has the lowest concentration of cases, with 166 per 100,000 residents.

On Friday, state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said North Jersey may have already seen the peak of the pandemic, though Central and South Jersey have not yet.

Its coming, she said.

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.

If you would like updates on New Jersey-specific coronavirus news, subscribe to our Coronavirus in N.J. newsletter.

J. Dale Shoemaker is a reporter on the data & investigations team. He can be reached at jshoemaker@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JDale_Shoemaker.
Several Christians killed, 2 beheaded as Fulani terror attacks rage on in Nigeria

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Several Christians have been killed this month by armed Fulani radicals who carried out attacks in the Plateau and Benue states of Nigeria as thousands have died in the escalating violence in the West African countrys Middle Belt in recent years.

Morning Star News reports that three people were murdered in attacks carried out by separate groups of nomadic herding radicals on predominantly Christian farming communities in the last week.

The first attack occurred in the Daffo district of Plateau state last Saturday and another occurred in the Ologba village of the Agatu local government area of Benue state on Monday morning.

In Benue, residents said that two members of a Catholic church were killed in the Agatu community, a majority-Christian farming area where hundreds have been killed and thousands have been displaced by Fulani massacres in recent years.

My nephew, Oche Alaade, and his friend had come to the village for a visit and were returning to Obagaji town today in the morning where they reside, when they were ambushed by armed Fulani herdsmen, who killed them by cutting off their heads, Oyaje Sule, the uncle of one of the victims, told the persecution watchdog outlet.

And because of the nature of their death, the two of them have been buried without their heads.

A local pastor from Agatu confirmed the murders in WhatsApp messages to The Christian Post this week. He shared a gruesome photograph of one of the victim's whose head was nearly decapitated.

In Plateau, a 30-year-old farmer named Mabur Mallo Gwang from the Maiduna village of Plateaus Daffo district in the Bokkos local government area was killed on Saturday when four herdsmen attacked him at his home.

The herdsmen were armed with guns and machetes, village resident John Machief told Morning Star News. They forced their way into the victims house by shooting and breaking doors into his house.

The persecution watchdog outlet reports that as many as 40 Christians in the Daffo area have been killed while 11 communities in the region have been destroyed in the past two years.

Another attack in Plateau occurred in the early hours of April 2 when suspected Fulani raided Hukke village and set fire to as many as 30 homes. According to the Christian humanitarian charity Barnabus Aid, seven elderly Christians were murdered in the overnight attack.

"While the attack lasted, for over two hours, a security force came comprising of some policemen, a Hukke pastor was quoted as telling Barnabas Aid. They simply stopped at a distance and kept firing in the air and eventually left.

The attack in Hukke was also confirmed by International Christian Concern, a United States-based persecution watchdog.

ICC reports that on March 31, two villages in the Miango District of Plateau state were attacked by suspected Fulani.

Three more people were reportedly killed in Ancha village, including a pregnant member of the villages Baptist church and another member of the church. A member of a Methodist church was identified as the third person killed, according to ICC.

Yakubu Kpasa, a local pastor of an evangelical church, told ICC that the attackers also destroyed their church building. He said the entire Ancha village has been vacated.

The village has been attacked multiple times, including a 2017 attack that killed 20 people.

To see attacks continuing almost three years later in the same village is infuriating, ICC Regional Manager Nathan Johnson said in a statement. The governments complete incompetency is causing many Christians to lose their lives needlessly.

As previously reported, another Fulani attack in Miango district took place on April 7. Morning Star News reports that a pastor and three churchgoers were killed  including a 10-year-old child.

The Nigerian-based nongovernmental organization International Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law (Intersociety) issued a statement last week indicating that at least 50 Nigerian Christians were killed in March with another 10 being killed in the first two days of April by radical Fulani herdsmen.

In all, not less than 410 Christian lives have been lost in Nigeria to Jihadist Fulani terrorists in the past 93 days of 2020, Intersociety stressed in its statement.

In a special report issued earlier this year, the group estimated that about 11,500 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since 2015 by Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram and highway bandits.

As displaced communities have complained of little help and support from the Nigerian government, Nigeria was placed on the U.S. State Departments special watch list of countries that are engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom in December.

Additionally, Nigeria is ranked as the 12th worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution on Open Doors USAs 2020 World Watch List.
17.04.2020 LISTEN

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis, the first of its kind in our contemporary world at this level, depth and width. It makes no distinction of race or country and knows of no borders. It will only be solved with collective and coordinated efforts. This is a matter of shared interest.

Africa is facing a severe challenge. In most countries, it will prove difficult at best to implement the measures adopted by more developed countries, such as social distancing, public health campaigns, and generous financial support offered to people and businesses. Many economies, whether mostly driven by commodity exports or sustained by high debt levels, will be highly disrupted. For most of the continent and its people, the economic crisis will hit hard and long. This will destroy recent progress, and worsen already existing fragilities, with all its consequences.

We thus fully share, endorse and support the 'call for action' from African and European leaders published in the Financial Times, their view that only a global victory that fully includes Africa can bring this pandemic to an end, and their call for strong collective leadership, able to tackle the multiple, interconnected and cumulative aspects of this crisis. We must indeed address, together and at the same time, and the sooner the better, the need to strengthen Africas emergency health response capacity; the need to share scientific knowledge and expertise; the need to ensure the relevant humanitarian supply for the most affected communities - namely food security - lest people die from hunger before COVID-19; and the need to deploy a massive economic stimulus package - beginning with immediate debt relief.

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation also wishes to welcome the recent appointment by the African Union of the four COVID-19 Special Envoys, Donald Kaberuka, Trevor Manuel, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and Tidjane Thiam. These great African brothers and sisters are close friends of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, with Donald Kaberuka one of MIFs Board members, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala a member of MIFs inaugural Prize Committee. They can rely on our full and committed support.

Signatories

Ibrahim Laureates: President Joaquim Chissano, President Festus Mogae, President Pedro Pires, President Hifikepunye Pohamba, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Board members: Valerie Amos, Jing-Yong Cai, Nathalie Delapalme, Jendayi Frazer, Hadeel Ibrahim, Hosh Ibrahim, Mo Ibrahim, Abdoulie Janneh, Donald Kaberuka, Pascal Lamy, Keith Luxon, Graca Machel, Jay Naidoo, President Mary Robinson, Ngaire Woods.

Prize Committee members: Aicha Bah Diallo, Mohamed ElBaradei, President Horst Kohler, Graca Machel, President Festus Mogae, President Mary Robinson.

About the Foundation

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation was established in 2006 with a focus on the critical importance of political leadership and public governance in Africa. By providing tools to support progress in leadership and governance, the Foundation aims to promote meaningful change on the continent. The Foundation, which is a non-grant-making organisation, focusses on defining, assessing and enhancing public governance and political leadership in Africa.

About the signatories

Ibrahim Laureates

President Festus Mogae | Former President of Botswana; 2008 Ibrahim Prize Laureate and Chair of the Prize Committee since 1 January 2020

President Joaquim Chissano | Former President of Mozambique; 2007 Ibrahim Laureate

President Pedro Pires | Former President of Cabo Verde; 2011 Ibrahim Laureate

President Hifikepunye Pohamba | Former President of Namibia; 2014 Ibrahim Laureate

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf | Former President of Liberia; 2017 Ibrahim Laureate

Board members

Valerie Amos | Director of SOAS; former Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator at the United Nations

Jing-Yong Cai | Partner at Global Infrastructure Partners; former Chief Executive Officer of the International Finance Corporation (IFC)

Nathalie Delapalme | Executive Director of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation

Jendayi Frazer | President and CEO of 50 Ventures, LLC; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs

Hadeel Ibrahim | Board director at the Mo Ibrahim Foundation; co-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Africa Center

Hosh Ibrahim | Board director at the Mo Ibrahim Foundation

Mo Ibrahim | Founder and Chair of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation

Abdoulie Janneh | Executive Director, Liaison with Governments and Institutions in Africa for the Mo Ibrahim Foundation; former UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)

Donald Kaberuka | former President of the African Development Bank

Pascal Lamy | President emerite of the Institut Jacques Delors; former General Director of the World Trade Organization (WTO)

Keith Luxon | Director of Finance at the Mo Ibrahim Foundation

Jay Naidoo | Former Chairperson of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN); Former Minister in Mandela Cabinet; General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions

Ngaire Woods | Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government and Professor of Global Economic Governance at the University of Oxford

Prize Committee members

Aicha Bah Diallo | President, Network for Education for All in Africa; Former Minister of Education in Guinea

Mohamed ElBaradei | Director General Emeritus, International Atomic Energy Agency; Nobel Laureate

President Horst Kohler | Former UNSG Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, Former President of Germany

Graca Machel | President, Foundation for Community Development; Former Minister of Education in Mozambique; Mo Ibrahim Foundation Board Member

Mary Robinson | Chair of The Elders; UN Special Envoy for El Nino and Climate; Former UN Special Envoy on the Great Lakes Region of Africa; Former President of Ireland; Mo Ibrahim Foundation Board Member
Soon after the COVID-19 outbreak hit western Wisconsin, the Eau Claire Community Foundation and the United Way of the Greater Chippewa Valley set up a quick response community fund, aimed at helping people have food, health and shelter.

Friday, officials announced more than $223,000 in grants has been awarded from the fund, going to more than 30 area nonprofits.

Eau Claire Community Foundation Executive Director Sue Bornick says in the following weeks, they expect to give out another $100,000 or more.

Over $50,000 was awarded to 11 area nonprofits in the most-recent week of granting.

For more information on the fund,
Popular Nigerian celebrities have taken to their social media space to discuss relationship ideologies.

Nigerian actor, Adeniyi Johnson took to his Instagram page to dish out advice to couples on ways to treat themselves during the lockdown period.

This sparked mixed reactions among fans as a troll asked why his marriage to Toyin Abraham crashed despite the actor claiming to know so much on how to spice up a marriage.

The actor advised married women to cook and take care of their husbands needs before directing his focus to men.

Johnson took a swipe at men that often complain and maltreat about their wives.

Nollywood actress, Tonto Dikeh also spilled some tea about her love life and relationship.

The actress revealed she has been dating a man for 4 years and she visits one of his houses in Abuja whenever she wants to see him because she respects her son so much to bring him to her house.
This is apart from the requirement to stock hydroxychloroquine (200 mg) and Azithromycin (500 mg) tablets for patients requiring ICU management, asymptomatic healthcare workers and asymptomatic household contacts of positive cases.

The drug regulatory authority has directed pharmaceutical traders and retailers to stock sufficient quantities of 55 formulations required in the intensive care units (ICU) of the hospitals treating COVID-19 patients.

The traders' body has said it has urged all its state affiliates to hold three months' inventory of these drugs.

The list of these 55 drugs has been forwarded by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).

It was prepared by the Director General of Health Services (DGHS), the technical wing of the health ministry.

In addition, the DGHS has also provided a general list containing essential drugs projected to be required during the three-month period following the lockdown.

This is apart from the requirement to stock hydroxychloroquine (200 mg) and Azithromycin (500 mg) tablets for patients requiring ICU management, asymptomatic healthcare workers and asymptomatic household contacts of positive cases.

All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), the largest pharmaceutical traders' body in the country, which claims to have around 850,000 retailers in its fold, has urged its members to keep the stock these medicines as per the requirement.

"We have the stock with us and getting sufficient supply from the companies also," said Rajiv Singhal, general secretary of AIOCD regarding the availability of the medicine for stocking.

The government is taking steps to monitor stockpiling of drugs and sanitisers, and is tightening procedures to monitor for any possible shortages of the drugs caused by disruption to global supplies.

It is also maintaining checks on the availability of drugs for use in the treatment of COVID-19, and developing a pandemic communication strategy with dealers, distributors and pharmacies to help deterimite available quantities of medical supplies used in slowing the spread of the virus.

Besides, steps are being taken to ensure medicines are available at affordable rates and retailers continue to adhere to normal ordering patterns and avoid stockpiling.

The drug categories required to be stocked for ICU management include emergency cardiac drugs, sedatives, muscle relaxants, antibiotics and antimicrobial agents, nebulisation drugs, IV fluids, and anti-epileptic formulations.

The other drugs the government asked the traders to stock include pain killers, antibacterial agents, anti fungal drugs, antiviral drugs and Cardiovascular drugs.

Image used for representation purpose only.

Photograph: Jacky Naegelen/Reuters
The Centre has written to the states and port authorities asking them to identify land parcels of 50 to 500 acres for setting up hubs for manufacturing renewable energy equipment to meet domestic demands as well as to attract firms shifting base from China amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

It may be stated that in a time when many companies are planning to shift their manufacturing base from China, it is opportune time for India to bring policy changes for facilitating and catalysing manufacturing in India, the Union new and renewable energy ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

The pandemic originated from China, where it has disrupted supply chains and promoted many companies to think about shifting their manufacturing base to other countries.

Japan has allocated a package of $2.2 billion to help its manufacturing firms shift production out of China due to the outbreak.

The Tuticorin Port Trust, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha have expressed interest in setting up renewable energy parks, according to the ministry. The Centre is separately planning to utilise vacant land belonging to the railways to set up solar power plants of 30 gigawatts (GW) capacity. The railways plans to set up plants to generate 10 GW under the first phase.

According to officials aware of the development, renewable energy secretary, chaired a meeting with representatives of manufacturing companies last week to discuss. The ministry is in touch with trade commissioners and representatives of various countries to invite foreign firms to invest in India, they added.

India also reached out to the US India Strategic Partnership Forum, a non-profit organisation, earlier this week and sought collaboration to attract investments by American firms, the ministry said.

These hubs will manufacture equipment like silicon ingots and wafers, solar cells and modules, wind equipment and ancillary items like back sheets, glass, steel frames, inverters, batteries etc, an official said on condition of anonymity.

India has around 10 GW of wind equipment manufacturing capacity and imports nearly 85% of solar cells and modules. To incentivise domestic manufacturing, the government of India has already announced provisions to enable levying of basic customs duty on import of solar cells and modules, the ministry said.

The ministry has also set up a Renewable Energy Facilitation and Promotion Board to facilitate investment in the sector. The ministry has also strengthened the clauses in Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) to boost investor confidence. ... Power Finance Corporation, Rural Electrification Corporation Limited and Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency have reduced their repayment charges to 2% for enhancing the fund availability for new projects in the sector. IREDA [Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited] has brought out a new scheme for project-specific funding to promote RE [renewable energy] manufacturing in India, the ministry added.

Indias renewable energy sector has also been tasked to meet its power generation target of 175 GW by 2022.
Thank you

Thank you to Troys business community and city government for coming together via Zoom to discuss how businesses and schools are adapting to the COVID-19 closure. Collaboration is critical in addressing short-term priorities and creating long-term recovery plans.

The digital divide has become more acute during this pandemic not only locally, but regionally, statewide and across the country and globe. It is estimated that 42 million Americans and about half of the worlds population lack internet access, which the U.N. now considers a fundamental enabler of human rights.

The growing gap in access to and use of the internet is both a cause and effect of poverty  and can perpetuate poverty by restricting opportunities for social mobility many now take for granted.

In times of social distancing, families without internet access are increasingly disconnected and unable to participate in their childs digital learning. Moreover, their health and safety are at risk now that more people are going online for COVID-19 information.

I applaud this group for its efforts in addressing this gap locally. State and federal recovery plans  along with business, government and philanthropic groups  must close the digital divide. After all, this investment is a matter of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the long term, this too will impact the economic engine of our region and state.

Dr. Gladys I. Cruz

District Superintendent

Questar III BOCES

Castleton-on-Hudson, NY

Helping out the Postal Service

To the Editor:

During these challenging times, postal employees are essential workers keeping Upstate New York connected through the mail. Whether medications, a package, a paycheck, benefits or pension check, a bill or letter from a family member, every piece of mail is important.

The Postal Service follows the social distancing precautions recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and local health officials. You will see at your next visit to a local post office, with markings on the floor and a variety of cough/sneeze guards now in place.

We also ask people to not approach our carriers to accept delivery. Let the carrier leave the mailbox before collecting the mail. With schools not in session, children should also be encouraged to not approach a postal vehicle or carrier.

If a delivery requires a signature, carriers will knock on the door rather than touching the bell. They will maintain a safe distance, and instead of asking for a signature on their mobile device, theyll ask for the residents name. Carriers will leave the mail or package in a safe place for retrieval.

We are proud of the role all our employees play in processing, transporting, and delivering mail and packages for the American public. The CDC, World Health Organization, as well as the Surgeon General indicate there is currently no evidence that COVID-19 is being spread through the mail.

With social distancing, we can keep the mail moving while keeping our employees, and our community, safe.

HENRY DYNKA

District Manager

U.S. Postal Service  Albany District

The Postal Services Albany District extends from the Capital Region to the Finger Lakes and also includes postal operations in the Southern Tier, North Country, Central New York and the Adirondacks.
Government recommendations that people wear a face mask whenever out in public to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus have resulted in an unexpected issue for lots of bespectacled folks: Foggy lenses.

Whether someone wears a surgical mask or a homemade cloth face covering, the masks can have the unfortunate side effect of sending ones warm breath directly upward and behind a pair of eyeglasses or sunglasses.

While this problem is certainly a comparatively minor one and does not affect everyone, about 64 percent of Americans wear glasses, according to the Vision Council of America.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Businesses that are open | Homepage

For those who do wear glasses, fogged-up lenses have become an issue over the past few weeks. If you are one of the many New Jerseyans who have been dealing with it, there are several potential fixes to combat the issue.

Perhaps the most obvious solution is to buy a spray designed specifically to reduce fogging on glasses. There are a number of sprays and cleaners available for purchase on Amazon.

If the prospect of sorting through thousands of product reviews and ratings seems like a daunting task, Environmental Design and Construction Magazine put together a list of the best anti-fog sprays, updated for 2020.

If you are looking for a fix using household items instead, there is another ultra-simple method that actually has been proved effective in a scientific study. While most of us are only now encountering this problem, doctors and surgeons who wear face masks have been dealing with foggy lenses for decades.

According to a 2011 study published by The Royal College of Surgeons of England, simply washing lenses with soap and water will prevent the buildup of moisture.

An excerpt from the study states that immediately before wearing a face mask, one should "wash the spectacles with soapy water and shake off the excess. Then, let the spectacles air dry or gently dry off the lenses with a soft tissue before putting them back on.

If it is good enough for doctors and surgeons, it ought to be good enough for a trip to the grocery store.

Another method that may be effective, especially for DIY-ers using homemade cloth masks, is the use of self-adhesive fasteners that are normally used to bind hole-punched papers in a folder. By bending a fastener over the top of a cloth mask to the shape of the bridge of ones nose, it can mimic the metal piece that sits at the top of surgical masks, helping create a tight seal and keeping lenses clear.

It has also been suggested, such as in this graphic from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, that folding the top portion of the mask down will create extra space for air to escape before reaching the lenses.

However, while it may keep lenses clear, this may not be the most effective technique in reducing the spread of the virus, as it could reduce the snugness of the masks fit, something that the CDC maintains is one of the most important factors in wearing a mask properly.

Whichever method you decide on in your attempt to reduce fogged-up lenses, make sure it conforms to the CDCs guidelines on how to properly wear a face covering.

Casey Roland may be reached at croland@njadvancemedia.com. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.

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.
Rouhani: Iran should sell-off crude oil

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, April 17, IRNA -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Friday urged the petroleum minister to accelerate its stabilization polices to increase the production of petroleum products through selling off the crude oil as much as possible.

In a telephone conversation with Iran's minister of petroleum Bijan Zangeneh on Friday, Hassan Rouhani praised the efforts of all employees of the Ministry of petroleum and said: This is a great opportunity for us to distance ourselves as much as possible from the crude oil sales.

He noted the sharp fluctuations in the global oil market and the fall in prices. "Accelerating the ministry's plans to increase production of petroleum products and prevent the sale of raw materials could damage the sharp fluctuations in the global market and lower oil prices help the economy to be stabilized in minimum.

Iranian President called the Iranian New year as the year of preparation and operation of major development and infrastructure projects in the country and asked the Minister of Oil to plan in such a way that the country's major oil projects will be put into operation this year as per schedule. .

Hassan Rouhani added: "If there are any obstacles in the way of these programs, these problems should be referred to the headquarters set up for this purpose in the office of the President, so that these possible obstacles can be removed as soon as possible."

Iran's minister of petroleum Bijan Zanganeh also presented a report on the progress of oil projects, the global oil market and oil exchanges with countries around the world.

6125**1430

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A Toronto lawyer gets a $750 ticket for doing chin-ups on a bar in Centennial Park. An Oakville father gets one for bringing his three sons rollerblading in an empty parking lot. Lingering on park benches has been outlawed and could also result in a fine.

Civil liberties are being compromised by emergency measures at all levels of government in a way that would have seemed outrageous just a few weeks ago, but which most people now seem to agree is necessary to fight the spread of COVID-19.

Its how those measures are being enforced that matters, and could give rise to legal challenges, say rights watchdogs.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has received numerous complaints so far over how the new rules are being enforced in jurisdictions across the country, says CCLA executive director Michael Bryant, a former Ontario attorney general.

A common complaint is that bylaw officers are ticketing first and asking questions later.

Dylan Finlay was complying with the citys social distancing bylaw when he was ticketed on Tuesday.

He was jogging alone in Centennial Park when he decided to throw in a few chin-ups on a chin-up bar. Finlay admits he should have known that outdoor recreational amenities, including outdoor exercise equipment like the chin-up bar, are closed under a provincial order. A nearby playground in the park had signs warning people not to use the equipment. The chin-up bar did not.

A bylaw officer ticketed him without warning, he says.

The set fine for failing to comply with an order under the provincial Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act (EMPCA) is $750. With the 20 per cent provincial victim fine surcharge, which is deposited into a special fund to help victims of crime, the ticket totalled $880.

Finlay isnt looking for sympathy. Hes a criminal lawyer. He knows that ignorance of the law is not a defence. And hes in a position to fight or pay the fine.

But he points out that not everyone who will be ticketed for violating the emergency measures will be so fortunate and for those who have been rendered unemployed by business closures, the fine is hefty, and may not be proportionate, especially considering that the minimum penalty for driving while impaired is $1,000.

Even higher is the set fine for failing to keep two metres away from strangers in Toronto parks and plazas  a municipal bylaw passed by Mayor John Tory without council under an emergency declaration. The set fine for that offence is $1,000.

Finlay worries that a zero tolerance approach on the part of bylaw enforcement officers will erode the public goodwill that has made social isolation a success so far, helping to flatten the rising curve of infections so that hospitals are not overwhelmed.

As a general rule, people should be concerned any time a government enacts laws that restrict things like freedom of movement or association, says Peter Loewen, a professor in the department of political science and the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.

He points to Germany, where families have been encouraged to go to parks.

Theyre encouraging people to make use of public space, because they are realizing we are in this for the long haul.

He thinks the fines are high.

We have to ask about how calibrated this is.

Emergency measures have a bit of a checkered past, points out Jack Rozdilsky, an associate professor at York Universitys School of Administrative Studies and an expert in disaster and emergency management.

Canadas federal War Measures Act, for example, was infamously used to intern Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.

The late Pierre Elliott Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act in 1970 to tackle the FLQ crisis in Quebec and the actions taken then remain controversial to this day, says Rozdilsky.

The War Measures Act was retired after the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms was passed. It was replaced by the Emergencies Act, which sets a high bar in terms of the consideration that must be given to rights of the individual, says Rozdilsky.

Thats probably one reason Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has shown such reluctance to invoke the measure, which would grant the federal government sweeping powers, including the power to confine people in their homes on a broad scale.

There may also be personal reasons for his reluctance  he probably doesnt want to follow in his fathers footsteps by invoking the controversial legislation unless he truly has no other choice, says Rozdilsky.

Its not a legacy, really, that any leader or politician would want to have.

Some of the emergency measures that have been invoked also infringe upon our democratic institutions  critics question, for example, whether its really necessary for Tory to be acting without having to consult council.

The crowd-sourcing of opinion that happens through a city council or legislature, as politicians bring their different perspectives and expertise to an issue  it usually results in better decisions overall, says Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch.

Yes, that all has to be sped up in a crisis situation, but that is the solution, just speed it up, dont throw the process out.

The CCLAs Bryant wants to know how the information gathered in the enforcement of the new provincial measures and byaws will be gathered and where it will be stored.

He wants to see statistics on who is being stopped, especially since under provincial emergency measures, police officers are once again allowed to stop people and ask for their identification  seen by some as a return to carding.

Bylaw officers have also been granted the power to enforce provincial offences.

Toronto Police Service spokesperson Meaghan Gray, however, says that the information can only be requested for the purpose of issuing a ticket or a summons officers cannot ask for the information and then form grounds for a ticket, summons or arrest.

Bryant says that before COVID-19 I think our heads would have exploded, at the kind of curtailment of personal freedoms taking place today.

But based on what were hearing, we can infer the necessity of it.

Still, the CCLA is reaching out to people, asking them to get in touch if they feel they have been wrongly treated or fined or issued a summons.

My experience in my decades at Queens Park is that in moments of high anxiety the hubris of power takes over in a way that is insatiable, says Bryant.

The desire to do something and be seen to be doing something is so powerful that people stray from their Constitutional anchor and that is when they start doing things that are not prescribed by law.

Tory said Friday he stands by the legislation and the hefty fines and he believes residents of Toronto do too.

It sends a message to people that this is really important.
Home Cooking

The #1 book in the country is Magnolia Table, Vol. 2 by Joanna Gaines, a solid, breezy sophomore outing per our review. The author held a book signing at home on release day, with older daughter Ella running security and husband Chip and the other kids, including toddler Crew, playing fans. Shes also been posting somewhat anarchic cooking videos using recipes from the book: Quarantine Cooking Episode 1Jos Chocolate Chip Cookies has garnered 925K views on YouTube. On April 8 she appeared on Today, speaking for many when she told Hoda Kotbe, I feel like every day Im baking something. I need to tone it down a bit.

In Clubland

The latest Oprah Book Club pick, Hidden Valley Road by journalist Robert Kolker, debuts at #5 in hardcover nonfiction. Our starred review called the book, which centers on a family in which six of 12 children were diagnosed with schizophrenia, a haunting and memorable look at the impact of mental illness on multiple generations. Among the hard truths Kolker learned in researching the book, he told PW in a February 24 q&a, was the fact that even after all this time, despite major advancements in treating bipolar disorder and depression and other illnesses, no one can still agree on exactly what schizophrenia is.

The Life-Changing Magic of Working from Home

Decluttering guru Marie Kondo and Rice University management professor Scott Sonenshein debut at #12 in nonfiction with Joy at Work, and the coauthors have been making the media rounds with work-from-home tips. Before you begin working, take a moment to center yourself, Kondo told Good Housekeeping. I strike a tuning fork to purify the air around me, a practice that helps me to focus and feel calm. Sonenshein spoke with his universitys student paper about challenges hes faced in the remote classroom. One of my classes has 60 people, and you cant even see all of them on the Zoom screen, he told the Rice Thresher. The book focuses on building higher quality relationships instead of higher quantity.

NEW & NOTABLE

THE LAST BOOK ON THE LEFT

Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks, and Henry Zebrowski

#6 Hardcover Nonfiction

Featuring cartoon illustrations by Tom Neely, this book of serial killer profiles is based on the authors true crime program, The Last Podcast on the Left. Some 12,000 Patreon supporters pledge more than $62K a month to support the show, which the authors, who met on the Brooklyn comedy scene, launched in 2010.

THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB'S GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES

Grady Hendrix

#14 Hardcover Fiction

This powerful, eclectic novel, our starred review said, both pays homage to the literary vampire canon and stands singularly within it. Grady has several virtual events lined up, including an April 22 Facebook Live panel hosted by Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego, and an April 23 pay-what-you-can discussion supporting Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, N.C.
With the spread of coronavirus slowing in France, the country's largest makeshift morgue at the Rungis food market outside Paris looks set to avoid hitting saturation point, as earlier feared.

A giant funeral home set up in Rungis's vast refrigerated hall will probably never reach its maximum capacity of a thousand places, reported French daily Le Parisien, after speaking to an unnamed source.

As of Friday, just under 800 bodies were stored at in the world's largest wholesale produce market.

Paris and the Ile-de-France region are one of the areas hit hardest by the pandemic, with funeral homes overwhelmed by the number of coronavirus fatalities.

However in a press conference Friday, the head of France's public health authority, Jerome Salomon, said the number of people in hospital had declined for a third day running, with the number of intensive care patients falling for the ninth day in a row.

The source at Rungis told Le Parisien: "We no longer fear saturation. This marks a reversal from the morgue's first few days, when a spillover effect saw bodies arriving from saturated mortuary chambers in the eight departments of the Ile-de-France zone that surrounds the capital.

It was happening very fastwe had to anticipate in case we were overwhelmed, the source added.

'Dignified conditions'

When the Rungis morgue opened in a little over two weeks ago, a French police statement said the warehouse would allow bodies to be kept in the most dignified and acceptable conditions from a public health point of view.

Family members have been able to pay tribute to loved ones in two reception rooms  lined with white marquee-style tents and decorated with plastic flowers  before the bodies are transported away for cremation or burial.

Social-distancing measures mean a maximum of 20 people are allowed inside a room at any one time.

Following controversy over mortuary prices at Rungis, funeral operator OGF  in charge of the management of the reception of coffins  said it would cover the costs.

"The OGF group does not want to add to the pain of the families and announces that it will bear all the costs relating to this temporary funeral home, from this day until its closure," it said in a statement last week.

The coronavirus crisis is not the first time Rungis has been turned into a morgue. In 2003, the bodies of hundreds of victims of the 2003 French heatwave were stored in a 4,000m2 warehouse, refrigerated at 5C.
Two dogs and four cats at the Farmington Pound; and two cats at the Fredericktown Pound are seeking their owners or new homes where they can be cared for and loved.

Farmington Pound

573-747-1988

One-year-old male dog was surrendered by his owners. A little skittish, he will warm up to someone who treats him with love and patience.

Male cattle dog mix is 3-4 years old.

Cat, gender unknown, is scared. It is somewhere between 9 months and a year old. The cat was picked up in the 1200 block of Walker Drive and is available now for adoption.

Two feral cats, gender unknown, are around 6-9 months old. They were picked up in the 1400 block of Camille and will be available for adoption April 21. Both need a barn home.

Male feral cat is 6-9 months old and needs a barn home. He was picked up in the 1400 block of Camille and will be available for adoption April 21.

Fredericktown Pound

573-783-3660, Option 4

Female cat is 1-2 years old, friendly, spayed and fully vetted. She wants to be the only cat and is available now for adoption.

Male cat is friendly, 5-8 years old, neutered, declawed and fully vetted. He is available now for adoption.

Dogs and cats remain for at least seven days at the Park Hills and Farmington pounds; and at least five days at the Desloge and Leadwood Pounds to allow owners the opportunity to claim them. After that, they are eligible for adoption or euthanasia. There are no adoption fees, but rescuers are required by the Missouri Department of Agriculture to sign a spay/neuter/vaccination commitment.

Contact any other pounds listed for their adoption policies and fees.

Sometimes space does not allow for every pound pup photo to be published, and animals not featured in this story may also be available for adoption.

After that, they are eligible for adoption or euthanasia. There are no adoption fees, but rescuers are required by the Missouri Department of Agriculture to sign a spay / neuter / vaccination commitment.

Contact other pounds listed for their adoption policies and fees.

Space doesn't often allow for photos of every pound pup to be published. Additionally, animals not featured in this story may also be available for adoption.

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Kathryn Foxhall remembers a time when reporters could call up any doctor or researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and ask them questions on the record. A journalist might even get them to open up for a "background" interview, offering candid information on the condition the expert's name would not be used.

"There was the official story and then there was everything else," the former editor of the Nation's Health, an industry publication, told me. "We took this for granted."

Foxhall watched with dismay as that openness disintegrated radically over the past two decades. Federal agencies, including the CDC, began to require media inquiries to go through a public information officer. Direct contact was minimized and tightly monitored. Interviews might take place with a public-relations "minder" present.

When the coronavirus pandemic arrived, the situation got much worse.

Suddenly, the filter between journalists and experts became even more opaque - and much more politicized. Who got to speak publicly, including to the news media, was controlled by Vice President Mike Pence's office after he was put in charge of the administration's pandemic response.

The new restrictions are dangerous, said Anna Diakun, staff attorney with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which this month sued the CDC for the release of records about White House and CDC policies that may keep the agency's employees from speaking to the press and public.

"The White House is promoting inaccurate and misleading claims about the pandemic, even as it is restricting CDC employees from speaking to the press and the public," she said.

She told me what's happening amounts to a "gag order" on the very experts that the public needs to hear from directly. And it may be a violation of constitutionally protected free speech.

While conflicting information about the pandemic has made expert opinion especially crucial right now, the underlying free-speech issue has been building for a long time.

"This problem predates President [Donald] Trump and the epidemic by 20 years," Foxhall said. And she's been battling it for years, working with the Society of Professional Journalists to survey journalists about the restrictive practices they have grown accustomed to - and, in her view, have failed to fight back against strongly enough.

Journalists work around these constraints instead of challenging them, she believes, and it's the public that loses out because the press can no longer get the full picture of what's happening inside federal agencies.

"It's like fishing over a 25-foot wall: We don't know the character of the ocean on the other side," she said.

I talked about the broader free-speech issues with Frank LoMonte, media law professor and director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida. Like Foxhall, LoMonte believes these times demand more pushback against free-speech restrictions.

"There's a widespread misperception that you check all your free-speech rights at the door when you take a job," LoMonte said, talking about government workers as well as those employed by private corporations. But the courts have said that's not true: Citizens often have the right to speak out, particularly about working conditions.

A recent case in Maine makes the point: An employee of a private hospital was fired after she criticized her employer in a letter to the editor of the local paper. But when she took it to court, an administrative law judge called her firing an unfair labor practice and ordered her reinstated.

When the hospital appealed, the National Labor Relations Board, for the most part, backed up the local judge and the employee. (If public statements are made in an effort to improve working conditions, and these were found to be, they are protected speech, the board found. It's worth noting that even an NLRB now filled with Trump appointees saw the wisdom of this decision.)

LoMonte found the outcome encouraging. The underlying issues are certainly germane right now when doctors and nurses are getting fired for talking about the lack of personal protective equipment, and when scientists need a political office's approval to share their expert views.

But even apart from the pandemic, LoMonte urges employees to "be skeptical consumers" of the supposedly ironclad rules in their workplaces that forbid posting on social media or speaking to reporters.

"They're like an unwritten whispering campaign that has taken on the force of law," he said. Sometimes the rules aren't as strict as employers may lead them to believe, and sometimes, the rules won't hold up legally.

He likens our collective shrug over speech restrictions in the workplace to the way drivers consistently ignore a 55 mph speed limit and cruise along at 70.

"The fact that it's well-accepted doesn't make it legal, it just makes it common," he said. LoMonte's article in the Kansas Law Review last year analyzed dozens of cases from the Supreme Court and other federal courts, and concluded that, for government employees, "wholesale prohibitions on unapproved contact with journalists or with the general public, have long been recognized as unconstitutional." It offers a road map for challenging those restrictions.

In her soon-to-be-published book, "Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All," Suzanne Nossel, chief executive of PEN America, a free-speech advocacy nonprofit, calls for a citizens' movement to safeguard free speech from "government, the tech platforms, or the censorious outrage of others." It couldn't be more timely.

We're now at a moment when experts must be free to share their knowledge and front-line workers must be free to tell their stories without being muzzled or threatened - and certainly without being fired.

It's no exaggeration to say that lives depend on it.
The key measurement IHME modelers used in determining the date is when they believe infections in a state will drop below 1 infection per 1 million people. But that measurement is imperfect because many other factors that go into deciding to lift restrictions  including whether a state has enough testing or enough public health workers to do the labor-intensive work of contact tracing. Testing capacity remains woefully lacking across the country, and local health departments lack the necessary staff, money and training to do contact tracing called for in most experts plans to reopen.
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Councils were today ordered by the Government to keep parks open after some closed their gates in recent weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick told the Downing Street daily press conference how he had 'made it clear' that green spaces should not be shut.

He also confirmed this afternoon that funerals can still go ahead - and asked councils to keep cemeteries open to allow families to grieve for their loved ones.

However he warned that people must abide by social distancing rules, and not congregate in parks  but they must be accessible for 'the health of the nation'.

Mr Jenrick said the lockdown measures in place since March 23 were harder for those without gardens or open spaces and that 'people need parks'.

It comes as Mr Jenrick also told the press conference today:

England's councils will be given an extra 1.6billion in funding;

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is 'resting and recuperating at Chequers;

Captain Tom Moore will be the guest of honour at a Nightingale Hospital opening;

The Government will 'swiftly' carry out research into why a disproportionate number of BAME people are suffering from coronavirus;

A 'very large consignment' of PPE - including 400,000 gowns - is due to arrive in the UK from Turkey tomorrow.

Mr Jenrick has asked councils to keep cemeteries open to allow families to grieve for their loved ones.

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick appears with NHS England national medical director Professor Stephen Powis during the daily Downing Street press conference today

A woman wearing a face mask is pictured jogging through St James's Park, London, today

A man walks through St James's Park in central London yesterday. A sign warns visitors to stay at least two metres away from each other

People pictured walking through Clapham Common in London today during the UK's lockdown

A masked man rides a scooter through Clapham Common. Lambeth council has taped up benches in the park in a bid to discourage people from sitting down

Two people walk through St James's Park in central London today. A sign reminds those in the area to maintain at least two metres between each other

He pointed to the death of 13-year-old Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, from Brixton, who died after contracting Covid-19.

He said the tragedy was compounded after the family could not attend his funeral.

'Very large consignment' of PPE - including 400,000 gowns - is due to arrive in the UK from Turkey tomorrow Mr Jenrick said 'a very large consignment' of PPE - including 400,000 gowns - is due to arrive in the UK from Turkey tomorrow. He said: 'Today I can report that a very large consignment of PPE is due to arrive in the UK tomorrow from Turkey, which amounts to 84 tonnes of PPE and will include for example, 400,000 gowns - so a very significant additional shipment. 'But demand is also very high. We are working with British manufacturers to ensure that they can make a contribution, and you've heard of some of the more prominent ones like Burberry and Barbour but there are many SMEs as well being involved in that, and my department is also involved in trying to ensure that the supplies that we have get out, not just to the NHS, critical though that is, but also to social care, often to smaller establishments like care homes, all across the country. 'There's over 50,000 healthcare settings like that in the country, and we're using local resilience forums, backed by almost 200 military planners to do the logistical task of taking the stocks that we do have, and getting them to the front line, but I completely accept that this is extremely challenging. 'Supply in some areas, particularly gowns and certain types of masks and aprons, is in short supply at the moment, and that must be an extremely anxious time for people working on the front line, but they should be assured that we are doing everything we can to correct this issue, and to get them the equipment that they need.' Asked about PPE, Professor Powis said: 'I'm a doctor, I've worked for many years on the front line and I can absolutely assure you for me and my clinical colleagues, this is very personal. 'These are my friends, colleagues, extended family.' He said the Government was working 'incredibly hard' to deliver PPE to frontline health staff, including a shipment arriving on Sunday, but stressed there was a 'global emergency' and strains on supply chains across the world. He added: 'The Government does stockpile PPE for pandemics, and that has been incredibly important and useful in our response to this.' Advertisement

'That is not right and it shouldn't have happened,' he added. 'For clarity, funerals can go ahead with close family present.

'Social distancing measures must be respected, but families must have the opportunity to say a respectful goodbye to those that they love.'

The Government will publish further guidance on funerals, Mr Jenrick said, adding: 'I'm also asking councils to keep open or indeed to reopen cemeteries and graveyards... for people to make that private visit and seek solace at the grave of someone you've loved or to privately lay flowers.

'There have been times in my life when I have needed to do that. These are small steps, but small mercies can make a difference.'

Asked about how Prime Minister Boris Johnson is following his release from hospital, Mr Jenrick said: 'He's resting and recuperating at Chequers. He's taking his doctor's advice.

'He has had some contact with ministers, but mostly with his private office here at Downing Street and that's absolutely right.

'We all wish him well and hope that he takes the time to get better as quickly as he possibly can in the interim.'

NHS England national medical director Professor Stephen Powis said at the press conference that officials 'don't have the perfect test for antibodies yet', but the UK is working on one which will assess the real number of infections in the community.

He said: 'What's important now as we are a few weeks further on is actually getting the real number on infections in the community and that is best done by testing antibodies i.e. testing people who have caught the virus, and then developed an immune response and then have antibodies in their blood.

'We are beginning to see some studies from other countries that are doing that, it's not straightforward, firstly because the tests are still being worked out and we don't have the perfect test for antibodies yet.

'We don't know how many people produce antibodies when they have the virus and when they produce it and how long they last for.

'That's the important information that will give us an actual figure that is much more closer to the number of infections.

'That work is ongoing in the UK at the moment so we can have that information in the UK rather than relying on other countries.'

Mr Jenrick also pledged councils across England will be given an extra 1.6billion in funding after complaints from local authorities that services could suffer.

The Local Government Association has said the situation on funding during the pandemic could cause some councils to 'take extreme cost-cutting and rationing measures soon'.

The crisis has raised pressure on council services like support for those living with disabilities and social care, while income from areas like parking fees has dropped.

Mr Jenrick said the extra money will boost the backing councils have received to cope with the pandemic to 3.2billion.

An extra 300million will go to devolved administrations, with Scotland getting 155million, Wales 95million, and Northern Ireland 50million.

Mr Jenrick said: 'I promised local government would have the resources they need to meet this challenge.

'We stand shoulder to shoulder with local government and my priority is to make sure they are supported so they can continue to support their communities through this challenging time.

The number of people in hospital with coronavirus in Britain has fallen 5 per cent in 24 hours

This graph shows new UK cases for coronavirus, with an extra 5,526 cases in the latest figures

This graph shows the global deats comparison, which is aligned by the stage of the outbreak

Transport usage across all forms has plummeted since the pandemic took hold of Britain

'Up and down the country council workers are the unsung heroes as we tackle this virus. They are in the front line of the national effort to keep the public safe and deliver the services people need.'

Ministers will 'swiftly' review why BAME people are being disproportionately affected by coronavirus The Government will 'swiftly' carry out research into why a disproportionate number of people from black, Asian and minority ethnic are suffering from coronavirus. Asked about the effect of the virus on those from BAME)communities, Mr Jenrick said: 'There does appear to be a disproportionate impact of the virus on those from BAME communities. 'For that reason, the chief medical officer commissioned work from Public Health England to better understand this issue.' He said it was 'right that we do thorough research swiftly' in order to 'better understand it'. Last week, data on patients with confirmed coronavirus from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre suggested ethnic minorities are over-represented compared with the general population. Of 1,966 patients with Covid-19, the centre said 64.8 per cent were white, 13.6 per cent black, 13.8per cent Asian, and 6.6 per cent were described as other. Around 7.5 per cent of the population were Asian and 3.3 per cent black in the 2011 UK census. The first ten doctors named as having died from coronavirus in the UK were from BAME communities. Advertisement

Mr Jenrick also said the Government will pay out 850million to councils this month to help the most vulnerable.

He added: 'We are also helping councils with inevitable cash flow challenges by deferring 2.6billion in business rate payments to central government, and paying them 850million in social care grants upfront this month.

'Working with councils and charities, we have made huge progress in protecting the most vulnerable during this national emergency.'

Mr Jenrick also spoke about equipment within the NHS, adding: 'As of today, there are 10,606 ventilators within the NHS. As I understand it, 190 of those have come from the new UK suppliers who rose to the challenge.'

He also said: 'There is sufficient capacity today in the NHS.

'There are sufficient ventilators, and, although, you could never exactly predict the future trajectory of the virus, we are increasingly confident that there will be sufficient ventilator capacity in the NHS in the weeks and months ahead - which is obviously hugely reassuring to all of us because just a few weeks ago that was one of our great concerns, would we have that capacity?'

Mr Jenrick said: 'It is absolutely correct that the hard work, the forbearance, the fortitude of the British public is paying off.

'The rates of transmission in the community are falling, and there's a number of positive indicators which give us cause for hope, and to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

'But nonetheless, the number of deaths that I've announced today remains extremely sobering, and more and more of us I think across the country, know somebody who has been unwell.

'More of our lives have been touched by this virus as every day goes by, and I think that just reinforces to us all the need to consider this moment as the one to keep going.

'Don't lose what's been hard won over the last few weeks. Keep adhering to the measures, keep respecting the advice from the clinicians, and if we do that together as a society, then in the weeks to come there may be opportunities to begin very cautiously to ease the lockdown measures.

'But that day is not today, as the First Secretary said, just a few days ago.'

Sunbathers are seen at Clissold Park in Stoke Newington, North London, on April 11

Mounted police officers patrol in St James's Park in Central London yesterday

Police move through St James's Park, central London, on bikes today

Mr Jenrick was asked about concerns over undocumented migrants who have developed symptoms and are too afraid to seek medical help, either due to their immigration status or fears of deportation.

Robert Jenrick is pressed on whether his main home is in London or Herefordshire Mr Jenrick was questioned on his claim that his house in Herefordshire was his main home, as his children and wife attend school and work in London. He was asked whether he should apologise to the public for seeming to have broken the rules when visiting his Herefordshire home during the lockdown. He responded: 'I joined my family at our home in Herefordshire as soon as I was able to do so, as soon as we made the decision that it was no longer necessary to work in person in Westminster. 'I've been there since I've been working from home and returned to Westminster last night to do this press conference because parliament returns next week.' He said he also delivered medicine to his elderly parents who are self-isolating and that this was done within guidelines. Advertisement

When asked whether the Government will respond to calls for NHS immigration checks to be dropped, Mr Jenrick said: 'I have heard a number of representations about those people who do not currently have recourse to public funds, who have come in undocumented ways from other countries, the Government policy on that hasn't changed.

'But there is the ability for local councils to make sensible decisions based on the risk to life that there may be in a small number of cases, and that's the way I know many councils regularly treat real concerns, for example with rough sleepers in winter, it's the way that those councils would approach this situation as well.'

Mr Jenrick also said has is 'very proud' of the effort of councils to help vulnerable people in their own areas, including securing safe accommodation for rough sleepers.

'And our plan to protect rough sleepers has resulted in over 90 per cent being offered safe accommodation,' he said.

Mr Jenrick added: 'Of course, this is not the end of rough sleeping. There is still a great deal of work to be done. And my department and I will be at the heart of that.'

On the subject of high streets and local businesses, he said: 'I'm delighted that so many cafes and restaurants and other businesses have taken up the opportunity to switch to offering delivery, take away, and click-and-collect services.

'This expands the supply of food available to people, alongside the supermarkets, as well as allowing businesses that would otherwise have closed to remain open and to keep paying their staff.'

Richard Watts, the leader of Islington Council in North London, told BBC News today (pictured) that councils are 'going to have to start taking some pretty quick decisions if we don't get the support we think we need'

Park wardens are pictured above approaching a man who is sitting on Clapham Common

Two people walk through Clapham Common, London, today wearing face masks

Boris Johnson has been in contact with ministers and private office at Downing St while he continues to recuperate at Chequers Boris Johnson has been in contact with ministers while he continues 'resting and recuperating' from coronavirus at his country residence of Chequers. Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick provided an update on the Prime Minister's health today. Mr Johnson was released from St Thomas' Hospital in London last weekend following treatment in intensive care as his symptoms worsened after being admitted. Asked about how Mr Johnson is, Mr Jenrick said this afternoon: 'He's resting and recuperating at Chequers. He's taking his doctor's advice. 'He has had some contact with ministers, but mostly with his private office here at Downing Street and that's absolutely right. 'We all wish him well and hope that he takes the time to get better as quickly as he possibly can in the interim.' Advertisement

Richard Watts, the leader of Islington Council in North London, told BBC News today: 'We are faced with this double whammy of spending money that we in normal circumstances wouldn't have to spend on things like adult social care, as in the homeless, providing food and support for residents who are personally in financial crisis, at the same time as losing money hand over fist because of a loss of income from parking charges, of rents where we rent out our own buildings, people aren't using leisure centres for obvious reasons.

'So councils who are already struggling financially given ten years of pretty hard spending cuts imposed on us over the last decade are really teetering on the edge without further backing.'

He added: 'We're going to have to start taking some pretty quick decisions if we don't get the support we think we need. We need to hear that the Government is going to carry on standing by local government.

'At the rate we're going we are probably going to need a similar size further tranche of money at some point down the line because it's a really challenging situation for us.'

In a letter to Mr Jenrick before the extra funding was announced, the LGA said 'radical action' to prevent councils 'rationing spending' was needed

The organisation said that unless more funding was received, the situation would end up 'harming both the long-term continuity of existing services and the Covid-19 response at a time when both are so vitally needed, something we all wish to avoid'.

The letter also stressed the loss of income being generated by councils.

It said: 'Local authorities are suffering severe income loss from a range of services from leisure, parking, bus operations, planning and commercial waste.

'Many councils rely heavily on this income to fund their annual expenditure - on average, 10 per cent of total gross service costs are funded through fees and charges, going up to 25 per cent on average for shire districts in particular.'

Robert Jenrick says Captain Tom Moore will be guest of honour at Nightingale opening Second World War hero Captain Tom Moore will be the guest of honour when the new NHS Nightingale Hospital for the Yorkshire region is opened in Harrogate next week. The 99-year-old's bid to raise money for the NHS by walking laps of his garden hit 23 million this afternoon - less than two weeks after he started the challenge. Captain Tom Moore completes 100 laps of his Bedfordshire garden on Thursday On April 6 he set out to walk 100 laps of his garden in Bedfordshire before his 100th birthday on April 30, but he completed the challenge on Thursday. Mr Jenrick thanked Captain Moore for his fundraising efforts for the NHS, stating: 'We have all been humbled by the gestures, large and small, by people across the country to show support for those working so hard to protect the NHS and save lives. 'None more so than Captain Tom Moore, who has raised an astonishing 23 million this week for NHS charities. 'I can't think of a more worthy person to be the guest of honour at the opening of the new Nightingale Hospital in Harrogate next week.' Advertisement

It comes as surgeons are being advised 'not to risk their health' by working without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) amid fears that hospitals could run out of supplies this weekend.

The Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS) said it was 'deeply disturbed' by changes to official guidance, which now states healthcare professionals could be asked to reuse items when treating Covid-19 patients.

NHS Providers said this afternoon that the supply of clinical gowns was now 'critical', whilst unions leaders warned faith in Health Secretary Matt Hancock is 'draining away' over the shortage in supplies.

On Friday evening, Public Health England (PHE) reversed its guidance which stipulated that long-sleeved disposable fluid repellent gowns should be worn.

If the gowns are not available, clinical staff are now advised to wear 'disposable, non-fluid repellent gowns or coveralls' or 'washable surgical gowns', with aprons, and to wash their forearms afterwards.

The updated guidance states that the 'reuse of PPE should be implemented until confirmation of adequate re-supply is in place', and that 'some compromise is needed to optimise the supply of PPE in times of extreme shortages'.

Professor Neil Mortensen, president-elect of the RCS, said the updated guidance implied that surgeons may not require adequate PPE, which he called 'simply unacceptable'.

He said that like all doctors, surgeons are committed to their patients and 'many will put themselves in the firing line' during the crisis.

Elsewhere, senior Tory MPs have accused ministers of underestimating the public by refusing to discuss exit strategies for ending the coronavirus lockdown.

Former Brexit secretary David Davis told the PA news agency: 'There are lots and lots of benefits of being open about this.

'The argument that was put, that we don't want to confuse the message, I think is just wrong. It underestimates the public. The public understand that there are phases to this.'
Labour Party TD for Dublin Fingal, Duncan Smith, has called for priority treatment for HSE staff on our roads.

Deputy Smith said: 'As part of Operation Fanacht, we are seeing the Gardai implement more checks on our roads and are rerouting many drivers at this time, including nurses and doctors who are en route to and from our hospitals.

'While obviously Operation Fanacht is a key plank of the State's response against the further spread of Covid-19 this weekend, we need to have a smart response to ensuring front-line health staff get to where they need to be in a timely manner. Anecdotally, we are hearing stories of nurses and doctors sitting in traffic for long periods of time following a long work shift, for their journey home to be made longer because of re-routing.

'I'm calling on the Ministers for Transport and Health to come together to grant HSE frontline staff who are driving to and from their place of work special road permits that allow them through the road checks as part of Operation Fanacht seamlessly.

'Our healthcare heroes are stressed enough, we need to make sure that they can get to and from work with as little getting in their way as possible.'
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged the United Nations Security Council to extend the international arms embargo on Iran, set to expire in October.

In a tweet on Saturday, April 18, Pompeo asserted that lifting the sanctions imposed on Tehran may give rise to violence in the Middle East.

"The arms embargo on Iran  the worlds leading state sponsor of terror  expires six months from today. The UN Security Council (UNSC) must extend the embargo before Irans violence escalates and they start a new arms race in the Middle East. The clock is ticking," Pompeo tweeted.

"In the last year, Iran fired ballistic missiles at its neighbors, mined and captured oil tankers, smuggled weapons into conflict zones, and shot down a civilian passenger jet. We cant risk Iran buying more advanced weapons and transferring their arsenal to irresponsible actors," Pompeo reiterated.

Earlier, on March 5, Pompeo had tabled a similar demand, telling the State Department reporters, "As we approach this big demarcation that occurs in October, the very missiles that put American lives at risk in Iraq, and the very missiles that fell on Saudi Aramco, can be lawfully sold by China or Russia to Iran."

The arms embargo on the clergy-dominated Iran is scheduled to be lifted in October 2020, five years after it was set in conjunction with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed that year to curb Irans nuclear program.

Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic President Hassan Rouhani has repeatedly declared that Tehran was looking forward to the lifting of the arms embargo.

In November 2019, he said Iran would regain access to the international arms market after the lifting of the sanctions.

"When the embargois lifted next year, we can easily buy and sell weaponsThis is one of those important impacts of this (nuclear) agreement, said Rouhani.

Washington dropped the nuclear deal in 2018, and unilaterally imposed a series of devastating sanctions on Tehran.

In the meantime, as a permanent member of the UNSC authorized to veto the council's resolutions, Russia has already announced that it would not support extending the arms embargo.

The 2015 nuclear deal includes "sunset provisions" lifting restrictions on Irans military, missiles, and nuclear programs. The first to expire is the U.N. arms embargo.

Referring to "sunset provisions", Pompeo has cautioned, "This is consistent with the JCPOA. This is the fundamental failing. Iran will be free to buy conventional weapons systems from any willing seller".

The "sunset provisions" were a key factor in President Donald Trumps decision to drop the JCPOA in May 2018 and impose batches of sanctions on Iran.
Kolkata, April 18 : The Calcutta High Court has asked the West Bengal government to give a deeper look into the requirement for conducting more tests "on war footing" to detect the coronavirus infection and ordered that the guidelines laid down by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) be followed by all stake holders including the state administration.

"We are of the view that WHO and ICMR being expert authorities in the field, their guidelines and advisories are required to be followed by all stakeholders including the state administration and we are sure the same shall be done," the high court division bench of Chief Justice Thottathil B Radhakrishnan and Justice Arijit Banerjee said in its order.

The court order followed a series of Public Interest Litigations (PILs) filed before it seeking directions for more testing, ensuring security of medical professionals, as also against the state government constituting an audit committee to take the final call on whether a coronavirus positive person died of COVID-19 or due to other comorbidities.

"We are of the view that it is necessary that the official respondents give a deeper look to the requirement of more number of samples being collected and subjected to tests on war footing," the bench said.

The state government in its response said 300 samples were being tested daily in five government and two private laboratories, and the number would go up in the days ahead with the addition of some more facilities which are being developed.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader and physician Fuad Halim filed the petition, while Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ritesh Tewari and some others got involved in the PIL through a letter.

The judges did not agree with the state government's submission that the PIL be thrown out as it was filed with "political intent".

"This is not an occasion or time for us to consider the maintainability of this writ petition and this is not a matter which should be thrown out at the threshold", the bench said.

"We may here and now note that the virus which has now been named as COVID-19 makes no distinction on the basis of caste, creed, colour, sex, religion, domicile or geographical identity to affect any person in any economic strata. Therefore, we are of theA view that the identifying characteristic to consider whether there is public interest in this litigation need not presently stall further proceedings in the matter," it said.

The court refused to say anything on the petitioners' criticism about the state forming the death audit committee but said it "expects the state government to place their response in this regard with the views of the health personnel concerned".

The Court ordered the state government to file an affidavit on the issues referred to by the petitioners including on the compliance of WHO and ICMR guidelines on the pandemic.

The matter will again be heard on April 23.
Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Tyagi on Saturday urged the institution's alumni to serve the society during the lockdown period.

While highlighting the steps taken by the DU to ensure that students do not miss out on academics, the VC asked ex-students to also share with the university information on efforts made by them.

"You have been a constant pillar of support to the university and also a great contributor to nation-building. Today, your alma mater urges you to intensify your efforts to serve the society in whatever form you can from wherever you are located," he said.

He said the ex-students could write to the university at UnitedAgainstCorona@du.ac.in.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Dear Amy: I have five young sons. Everywhere I go, people ask me if I'm "done having kids" or if I'm "going to try for a girl." I get these questions from friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers.

I feel that the topic of future reproductive plans is a personal one. But I am a friendly person, and I end up answering some pretty personal questions, so as not to hurt the feelings of the person asking. Honestly, I would rather steer clear of the matter entirely!

Sometimes I just say, "We love boys!" when people ask if I'm going to try for a girl, especially when my kids are listening. People still like to push the question further. I know I've hurt at least one person's feelings by trying to change the subject at that point.

I understand that people are curious about our family, but I would rather not discuss whether or not I'm done having kids unless I choose to bring it up, myself. What is a friendly way I can steer the conversation?

-- A Mom

Dear Mom: You sound quite patient and understanding - great qualities in a mom of five young boys. ("We love boys!" is a fantastic answer when this intrusive question is raised in front of your children, by the way.)

I'm trying to comprehend how a person asking you about your reproductive plans - in front of your kids - could possibly have their feelings hurt when you deftly try to change the subject, but I take it as a given that sometimes people who are insensitive (or merely thoughtless) toward others are extra-sensitive about themselves.

One way to respond to this sort of query would be to say, "Haha - aren't you sweet?" This is sort of a catch-all (Southern-born) phrase that you can plug into almost any awkward conversational gap. Think of it as conversational caulk.

You could put the inquisitor a little more on the spot by saying (with a smile), "Well, that's a pretty personal question, don't you think?"

Dear Amy: I am divorced from my ex-husband, "Barry," but he and I remain friends.

He is very open with me.

He has been dating a nice woman for about a year now. She has some serious health issues, which I can sympathize with because I also have serious health issues.

Barry has been complaining about his girlfriend and the problems she has. He makes remarks about finding "a healthy woman." He told me that a woman he has had a "crush" on for several years has asked him out.

Barry says he is planning on "hanging out" with his crush.

I'm angry that he would even consider doing this! His girlfriend deserves so much better. I think his girlfriend should be made aware of this, but I'm torn. She is preparing to have major surgery soon. The last thing she needs is a boyfriend that is not there for her and who is out with someone else.

What are your thoughts?

-- Annoyed

Dear Annoyed: One advantage of moving a spouse into the "ex-files" is that you don't necessarily have to engage with them when they are displaying their less attractive qualities.

Your being divorced doesn't give your ex license to display his awfulness to you without consequence. Furthermore, his choice to complain about his current partner and about their relationship means that he is being more emotionally intimate with you than he is with her.

No, I don't think you should warn his girlfriend about him. Unless you and she are close friends, your warning would likely be dismissed by her -- and dismantled by him.

If you and Barry are truly friends, then as his friend you get to deliver an occasional challenging truth. You could start with, "Barry, you are acting like a low-life. If we weren't already divorced, I'd divorce you all over again."

Dear Amy: I was deeply offended by your response to "No Thanks." This was a woman who didn't want to date men of different races. You called her a racist. That's not being racist.

-- Offended

Dear Offended: It would have been very easy for this woman to simply tell any man who approached her, "No thank you," or "I'm not interested."

According to her question, she was only looking for a response to repel men of other races.

I don't know the racial identity of the woman who asked this question, but "I stick to my own kind" is a racist trope, at least in my opinion.

(You can email Amy Dickinson at askamy@amydickinson.com or send a letter to Ask Amy, P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or Facebook.)
ALBANY  As state officials link widespread testing to reopening the economy, about half of New Yorks counties have tested less than 1 percent of their population for COVID-19, a Times Union analysis shows.

The testing is particularly low upstate, with counties as large as Erie  with nearly 1 million residents  administering just more than 8,000 tests as of Thursday.

The numbers are sharply below the testing levels that state and federal officials, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, have asserted are necessary to safely reopen the economy. Officials have been pushing for increased testing both to diagnose the coronavirus in all symptomatic individuals  but also to test potentially millions of New Yorkers to determine whether they have antibodies produced after contracting and recovering from the illness.

To do the testing, you need testing equipment, Cuomo said at a daily coronavirus task force briefing last week. You need swabs, you need vials, and you need all of these things at a capacity that does not now exist.

ALSO: Explore coronavirus testing in New York with interactive dashboard

Communities have faced a myriad of obstacles to expand testing  from a national shortage of swabs to test for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, to staffing the sites that will administer the tests  but state health officials say more public and private entities are volunteering their services. Cuomo issued an executive order on Friday instructing New York's public and private labs to coordinate with one another to rapidly scale up testing.

With state resources concentrated in the harder-hit downstate region, where many kits have been used to check first responders and health care workers on the front lines, local partnerships have been key for many upstate counties that have worked across jurisdictional lines to respond to the public health crisis.

A threshold for testing capacity and a timeline to restart the economy remains unclear, even as both Cuomo and President Donald Trump have discussed plans to gradually reopen businesses and allow small gatherings. Trump released a detailed plan Thursday offering states guidelines to reopen, requiring a 14-day period of "downward trajectory" of COVID-19 cases; at the same time, Cuomo has extended the state's "on PAUSE" order to at least May 15.

New estimates from Harvard University researchers on Friday indicated that current testing levels would have to triple to reopen the United States by mid-May  a minimum of 152 tests per 100,000 people, The New York Times reported. New York is currently averaging 118 tests per 100,000 individuals.

David Holtgrave, the dean of the School of Public Health at the University at Albany, said there is no magic number of tests the state must perform before reopening the economy, but testing should be so widely available that any person with symptoms can easily access a test. The state must also ramp up antibody testing to determine who can safely return to work, he said.

As testing ramps up  and as tests become more easily accessible for the average person  the state must also monitor the percentage of tests administered that return a positive result, he said.

If there is widespread testing and if the positivity rate stays low or falls to a low level, one can have more confidence that the new infections are staying low or lessening in that area, Holtgrave said in an email.

Expanding capabilities

The key hurdle to scaling up testing in New York and across the country remains a lack of testing kits, mostly as local labs are running low on supplies to quickly increase capacity. About 30 large private companies make equipment for test kits, which then distribute those supplies to about 300 local labs in New York, Cuomo said.

When the state asked the top 50 labs what they needed to double their testing capacity, most said they ran low on reagents  the chemicals needed to activate the tests, Cuomo said Saturday.

But in the face of those challenges, some counties have taken matters into their own hands. In Ulster County  where county Executive Patrick Ryan partnered with leaders in surrounding Dutchess and Orange counties to develop local testing sites  testing capacity is slightly higher than counties farther north.

As of Thursday, Orange County has tested more than 4 percent of its population; Dutchess has tested 3.2 percent; and Ulster has tested nearly 2.7 percent.

But Ryan added that officials assume the true number of positive cases is eight to 10 times higher than the number officially recorded.

Weve only tested a very small percentage of people and I think its easy for people to say we dont need to test anymore, we have it under control. I don't think thats the right answer, he said. We have to be very careful about how we are drawing those conclusions.

In some upstate areas, including Albany, officials have decided only to distribute tests to vulnerable people  those over 70 years old or with immune deficiencies  health care workers, or only those showing symptoms. The result is an unusually high positive return that does not provide an accurate reflection of community spread, said Albany County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen.

What were learning is there may be a significant number of people who are spreading COVID who are asymptomatic, she said. When we talk about people getting back into society, I think we should maintain caution. None of us can really be guaranteed safety, and I think it's something all of us have to consider going forward.

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Stephen J. Acquario, the executive director of the New York State Association of Counties, said capacity is expected to improve with the push for more rapid testing, self-administered at-home kits and new testing methodologies.

Before they had access to test kits, county public health officials acted under the presumption that someone was positive if they showed symptoms and then ordered other potentially exposed people to stay home, Acquario said. State officials have said that as testing becomes more widely available, contact tracing and isolation will need to continue to contain the virus.

We used infectious disease protocol for presumed positives and it made a serious difference in flattening the curve and preventing the spread, Acquario said.

Antibody tests will be key to filling that gap in knowledge, state officials say, identifying those who have had the illness but were asymptomatic or couldn't access a diagnostic test in the early stages of the pandemic. Antibody tests are easier to manufacture and administer than their diagnostic counterparts, meaning a quicker road to mass production.

Distributing tests

Early on, downstate New York became the epicenter for the pandemic  for the state and the country  and officials raced to distribute tests to those areas with the most urgent need and quickest spread.

Westchester County, which housed New Yorks first coronavirus hot spot in early March, has the most testing per capita at about 7 percent, with Rockland County following close behind at about 6.4 percent. New York City suburbs have counted the highest testing per capita, while the citys five boroughs range from about 2.7 to 4 percent.

Upstate counties  where Cuomo has said that coronavirus spread is "stabilizing"  have testing rates per capita far lower, with Yates, a small suburban county near Rochester, at the bottom with .45 percent. The Capital Region has ranged between about 1 and 2 percent.

In all, the state has tested nearly 600,000 people for the coronavirus, by far exceeding any other state and many countries. The state issues between 15,000 and 25,000 tests a day, with about 40 percent returning positive.

State officials have said the discrepancy in testing per county is a reflection of pure data, as testing is distributed to municipalities depending on how many people have already tested positive or exhibited symptoms there. Tests have also been prioritized in the city because the virus spreads most quickly in dense areas, they said.

The COVID-19 tests are prioritized for people who have come in close contact with another person who is known to be positive; someone who has traveled to a Level 2 or Level 3 country as designated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a person who is quarantined and showing symptoms of the virus; or a person is symptomatic and hasnt tested positive for any other infection, according to the state Department of Health.

Cuomo stressed early on that the state would shift supplies as needed to the areas with the most need, often rebuffing any notion of an upstate-downstate divide. That has concentrated many state resources downstate, leaving most counties north of the metropolis to collaborate with surrounding communities and private companies to expand access to testing.

Collaborating across government levels

As New York hopes to quickly increase testing availability, Cuomo has again asked Trump for help in distributing resources from the federal government to states.

He emphasized during a press briefing Friday that many of the needed supplies  such as chemicals to make the tests  come from China and other countries. The federal government could also help obtain more chemical reagents for tests, Cuomo said.

"That's why the federal government has to be part of this approach and part of this answer," Cuomo said. "I can do what I can do on the state-side, but the federal government cannot wipe their hands of this and say, 'Oh, the states are responsible for testing.' We cannot do it without federal help."

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, who is serving on Trump's task force to reopen the economy, said the state needs a partnership with the federal government to support testing, as relatively few people in her sprawling rural district in upstate New York  where robust public health departments are not widely available  have been tested. Many counties in her district have tested at rates below the state average of roughly 1.6 percent.

The federal government should fast-track approval of newer tests in New York, she said, while cautioning that the federal government overseeing the entire process would not acknowledge the "different needs" of states across the country.

"The vaccine is when we will start to be not back to the old normal, but the new normal," Stefanik said on a press call last week. "I think, until then, my priority is making sure ... New York state has access to the testing capabilities."

New York has been in constant contact with county leaders and health care facilities to ensure the necessary equipment and resources are available, state officials said. Private businesses  like pharmacies and doctors offices  are also providing testing sites or researching new methodologies to tackle the virus.

State health officials said they also offer training for communities where public health departments may be non-existent or lacking adequate resources.

In the mid-Hudson Valley, Ulster, Dutchess and Orange counties were the first to launch mobile testing sites, knowing that the state was preoccupied with hotspots farther south.

Albany County most recently launched its own additional testing sites in partnership with Whitney M. Young Jr. Health Center to bring testing to more difficult to reach communities.

By partnering with public and private entities, Ryan said, Ulster County took charge  and he encouraged other county leaders to do the same to expand testing sites on their own.

You have to do it, and you have to do it now," he said. "Youre doing something far outside the normal mandates of what you would do as a county government, and so it's going to be uncomfortable, but you have to do it. We know that testing is the key way out of this in the short term and long term.
The application date for the 2020 Family Land Heritage recognition has been extended.

Texas Department of Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller announced in a news release that the new deadline will pushed to July 1. This is due to many county offices closed to the public because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The new deadline should help applying families to gather the necessary documents.

The TDAs Family Land Heritage program pays tribute to families who have kept their land in production for 100 continuous years. To be eligible for the honor, farms and ranches must be owned and operated by the descendants of the original founder, be it through blood, marriage or adoption. At least 10 acres of land must have been in continuous production of agriculture over the last 100 years or longer.

Documents needed to apply include land ownership documents that prove the continuous possession by the descendants and a completed Family Land Heritage application. Applicants can contact their county clerk to track down the documents. These documents must also be submitted to the county judge where the property is located to be certified.

Applications may be submitted for the TDA either digitally or in a hard copy format.

For more information and the access the application, visit https://www.texasagriculture.gov/NewsEvents/FamilyLandHeritage.aspx.
rmb lOGO

Billings, MT, April 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rocky Mountain Bank and its sister banks are currently processing approximately $1.5B in Paycheck Protection Program loans said Tod Petersen, President and CEO of Rocky Mountain Bank. After they received over 7,000 requests for loans under the CARES Act Paycheck Protection Program in 72 hours, Rocky Mountain Bank and its sister banks stopped accepting new requests for the program on Monday afternoon. Petersen stated, Our customers and wide-spread local communities are depending on us now more than ever, and our teams across the company have stepped up and worked countless hours to provide a lifeline to our customers as they navigate the provisions of the CARES Act.

Unlike many banks across the country, Rocky Mountain Bank and other Heartland Financial USA, Inc. community banks began accepting applications for the Paycheck Protection Program early on Friday morning just hours after the SBA published interim rules for participation. We have been closely monitoring developments and preparing to be agile to accommodate the many changes introduced by the SBA, so that we were able to support our customers and local communities during this time of need, added Petersen Our small business customers across the Montana footprint have struggled to navigate the complexity and changing requirements of the of the Paycheck Protection Program and we have hosted an educational webinar, built resource centers on our bank website and individually consulted with customers to provide support and assist them in calculating payroll costs and completing applications correctly. he said.

On Monday, April 6, the Federal Reserve released a statement committing the central bank to providing financing to lenders processing the $350B Paycheck Protection Program. Additionally, early on Tuesday morning, April 7, U.S. Treasury Security Steven Mnuchin, told Fox Business Network, that over 3,000 lenders were participating in the $349 billion small business loan program and the Federal Reserve and Treasury were working to set up facilities to support main street and municipal borrowers. Mnuchin said, If you cant get the loan today or tomorrow, dont worry there will be money. If we run out of money, well go back for more. There is extraordinary demand.



Petersen commented, Its encouraging to see our government agencies rapidly responding to the demand for the program and recognizing that banks, even those like Rocky Mountain Bank that have strong liquidity and are well capitalized, do not have unlimited resources to meet the needs of customers during this crisis alone.

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Rocky Mountain Bank is not only relying on the government and the CARES Act to support customers and employees as they battle the current COVID-19 pandemic. They have delivered relief programs for consumers and business customers that include waiving account maintenance and ATM fees, deferral on loan payments and waiving penalties on early redemption of CDs. And in addition to moving most employees to work from home arrangements, the companys liberal pandemic time off program provides 100% compensation through May 31, for employees who are unable to work due to illness, school and daycare closures or other reasons caused by the pandemic. Rocky Mountain Bank is paying front line workers in their branches and call centers a premium and has offered 100% coverage for health care expenses related to COVID-19. Petersen shared, Our employees take care of our customers every day and are the reason for our success, and during these unprecedented times, our number one priority is the health and safety of the Rocky Mountain Bank family. We want our employees to take care of themselves, their families and each other and not worry about a paycheck. Our employees have peace of mind knowing  weve got them covered.

CONTACT:

Tod Petersen

President & CEO

Rocky Mountain Bank

406-556-7607

tpetersen@rmbank.com



Steve Ebner

Regional Marketing Officer

Rocky Mountain Bank

303-880-3405

sebner@htlf.com

About

About Rocky Mountain Bank Rocky Mountain Bank, a subsidiary of Heartland Financial USA, Inc., (HTLF), is a state-chartered, community-invested bank with more than $532 million in assets. Headquartered in Billings, Montana, the bank also has offices in Bigfork, Bozeman, Kalispell, Plains, Plentywood, Stevensville and Whitehall. With a focus on business and personal lending, and deposit services, they are dedicated to making Great Things Happen! for their customers. For more information, visit www.rmbank.com or call 406.655.5112. Rocky Mountain Bank is a member of the FDIC and an Equal Housing Lender. About Heartland Financial USA, Inc. Heartland Financial USA, Inc. is a diversified financial services company with assets of $13.2 billion. The company provides banking, mortgage, private client, investment and insurance services to individuals and businesses. Heartland currently has 114 banking locations serving 83 communities in Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Arizona, Montana, Colorado, Minnesota, Kansas, Missouri, Texas and California. Additional information about Heartland Financial USA, Inc. is available at www.htlf.com. Safe Harbor Statement This release, and future oral and written statements of Heartland and its management, may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 about Heartlands financial condition, results of operations, plans, objectives, future performance and business. Although these forward-looking statements are based upon the beliefs, expectations and assumptions of Heartlands management, there are a number of factors, many of which are beyond the ability of management to control or predict, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in its forward-looking statements. These factors, which are detailed in the risk factors included in Heartlands Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, include, among others: (i) the strength of the local and national economy; (ii) the economic impact of past and any future terrorist threats and attacks and any acts of war, (iii) changes in state and federal laws, regulations and governmental policies concerning the Companys general business; (iv) changes in interest rates and prepayment rates of the Companys assets; (v) increased competition in the financial services sector and the inability to attract new customers; (vi) changes in technology and the ability to develop and maintain secure and reliable electronic systems; (vii) the loss of key executives or employees; (viii) changes in consumer spending; (ix) unexpected results of acquisitions; (x) unexpected outcomes of existing or new litigation involving the Company; and (xi) changes in accounting policies and practices. All statements in this release, including forward-looking statements, speak only as of the date they are made, and Heartland undertakes no obligation to update any statement in light of new information or future events.
Singapore on Friday said that 558 new coronavirus cases out of 623 reported on Friday were from dormitories used for foreign workers.

"A total of 558 new cases are from foreign worker dormitories, while 37 are work permit holders residing outside dormitories," said the Singapore's Health Ministry.

The total number of coronavirus infections in the country now stands at 5,050, with 11 deaths.

National Development Minister Lawrence Wong has warned Singaporeans, saying a "long fight" with COVID-19 may last "many more months, and likely beyond the end of the year".

"We have to be prepared for future waves of infection and we have to steel ourselves for a long fight," he said in a Facebook post on Friday.

Minister Wong, who is part of the Muti-ministry Task Force to combat COVID-19, said the number of cases among foreign workers should be expected to remain high as authorities continue to actively test and isolate workers who caught the coronavirus.

"The vast majority of the workers are young, and they tend to have very mild cough/cold symptoms that are not picked up by temperature taking alone.

"So, the teams are working doubly hard to sweep through the dorms and test the workers, and this is also the reason why we are seeing such high reported cases every day," he said in a Facebook post on Friday.

"We have to expect the numbers to remain high for some time as we continue this effort to swab, test and isolate the workers," he added.

Of the new cases announced on Friday, 69 per cent are linked to previously identified clusters while the rest are pending contact tracing.

Twenty-seven cases reported on Friday were local from the community.

Twenty-two of the 2,113 confirmed cases in hospital are in critical condition in the intensive care unit. Most of the rest are stable or improving.

A total of 2,218 cases who are clinically well but still test positive for COVID-19 are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

Twenty-five more patients have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Friday.

In all, 708 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged.

Since measures to contain the spread of deadly disease, the "circuit breaker", was implemented on Apr 7, the number of new cases in the community has decreased, "from an average of 40 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 32 per day in the past week", the ministry said.

"The circuit breaker measures appear to have helped, but we still have to monitor carefully the numbers over the next few days," it said.

The Ministry has been detecting new cases by testing "a small sample of patients at our primary care facilities" for COVID-19 as part of an ongoing surveillance programme.

This indicates the presence of undetected cases in the community, the Ministry added.
(Newser)  A 72-year-old man was assaulted after coughing up a storm last month on an East Baltimore bus, Fox Baltimore reports. Authorities say two female passengers told him to stop but the man said he couldn't, and an argument erupted involving another male passengerwho warned the victim to "watch your mouth, those are young ladies you're talking to." The cougher replied, "I am an old man, I'm 70 years old," and the man answered, "I'm 60 years old."

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The man then allegedly pushed the victim down and he fell unconscious, prompting the assailant and the two women to flee the bus. The victim was hospitalized in serious but stable condition and later released. The Maryland Transit Authority describes the suspect as a black male, roughly 60 years old, while the others are black females about 30 years old. Homicide detectives also investigated due to the seriousness of the victim's injuries, CBS Baltimore reports. (Read more assault stories.)
The spokesman for the 2nd Judicial District Attorneys Office is on administrative leave following an alleged domestic violence incident.

The Albuquerque Police Department says a criminal summons will be issued for Michael Patrick for the charge of battery on a household member. The alleged victim is his wife, KOAT-TVs Shelly Ribando.

Police were called to the couples Northeast Albuquerque home after a credit card agent on the phone with Ribando reported that she heard a scuffle and that Ribando said her husband hit her, a police report states. They were arguing because Patrick had used a credit card to get an apartment, and Ribando was trying to cancel the payment.

Ribando reportedly told responding officers that Patrick pushed her down and that he also pushed their 8-year-old daughter. Patrick denied the allegations, and his daughter also denied being pushed by him. Police said they did not observe any injuries on anyone.

The DAs office in a statement issued said Patrick has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation into (the) allegations. The office also noted that APD would be making any criminal referral to an independent special prosecutor.

This office will also conduct a thorough investigation into Mr. Patricks conduct and will make a separate determination about his future employment once APD has concluded its criminal investigation, Adolfo J. Mendez II, chief of policy and planning, said in the statement.
Grimly accepting Gov. Greg Abbotts decision Friday that the coronavirus threat requires Texas schools to stay closed for the semester, area education leaders told parents that the hard task of remote learning will continue but that decisions on how it ends can now be made.

Abbott on March 31 had kept schools closed through May 1. The finality of the latest statewide order removed the looming need for school boards and superintendents to make the call themselves. Some said they agreed with the governors action.

The all-out, improvised attempt to move Bexar Countys 300,000 public school students from supportive classrooms to wildly varying home learning situations had settled into a difficult routine of extra effort by families and teachers. It cant let up, area school superintendents told parents in letters that thanked and encouraged them.

We knew this was a very real possibility, said North East Independent School District superintendent Sean Maika. Since the onset of COVID-19 in our community, we have made the health and safety of our families and our staff our top priority.

Priscilla Garcia, a gifted and talented facilitator at East Central ISD, posted a video to her Facebook account reacting tearfully to the governors order. She had hoped it would eventually be safe to finish the year on campus, and she asked for prayers for students and teachers.

Im asking you to be vigilant in your communities. There are children out there who are not going to be safe. We are their safety. We are their food. We are their help, Garcia said.

Teachers dont want to be home, she said, adding, We want to be doing our job where we can be our absolute best self, where all our resources are, where all our things are. This is not easy.

Local school districts have avoided announcing any graduation plans, though pressed by parents on the question for weeks. In the coming days , several superintendents said, they will work out the details on how to end the year remotely, including grading and graduations, with guidance from the Texas Education Agency. Some still held out the possibility of in-person commencement ceremonies or other forms of recognition.

Roland Toscano, East Centrals superintendent, addressed graduates directly, saying they deserved exceptional praise and reverence for their dedication, grit, and success.

Seniors, we know that this was not a pleasant way to close out the year, he said. Over the past couple of weeks, our graduation committee and senior celebratory committees are actively creating solutions for graduation and recognition.

Boerne ISD Superintendent Thomas Price Jr. said disappointment at not seeing students back until August was offset by knowledge that Abbott had made the best and safest decision.

Required Reading: Get San Antonio education news sent directly to your inbox

Our administration has already begun logistical planning on several fronts, including continuation of distance learning, student textbook return and locker item retrieval, end of year grading guidelines, among others, Price said.

Several superintendents listed resources still available, including meals, and new ones being added to help distance learners.

Maika reminded NEISD parents that the district had added a school nurse hotline for health questions and concerns.

No one imagined in August that wed be completing this school year in our homes, Maika said. It isnt fair to your families or to our teachers who never got to see their students in the classroom again.

With more than 105,700 students, Northside ISD is the citys largest district. Superintendent Brian Woods thanked parents for their understanding during an incredibly challenging time, and urged them to stay safe and connected to their schools, saying of the extended closure, I know that this probably isnt what most of you wanted to hear and I can tell you that it is not what Northside educators wanted to hear, either.

On ExpressNews.com: Closed for coronavirus and teaching remotely, San Antonio schools hunt for missing students

I am hopeful to have a decision regarding graduations soon. It is still my hope that we would be able to do in-person events later in the summer. However, we are also discussing what virtual graduation ceremonies would look like. Ultimately, any decision we make will be one that honors and celebrates our graduates to the very best of our ability, Woods said.

San Antonio ISDs academic calendar was already scheduled to end May 27, earlier than its neighbors, having started the school year before them. Distance learning, virtual counseling and meal distributions will continue through May 27, said Leslie Price, SAISD spokeswoman.

Its good to know for sure now where we stand, as far as classroom instruction, she said.We know this is a really tough time.

The district will post information next week about graduations and resources for seniors, including virtual summer programs, and a video of top administrators answering some seniors frequently asked questions is already online. SAISD officials are still deciding what to do about other summer programs, including whether to offer them virtually, Price said.

In a letter, Superintendent Pedro Martinez pointed SAISD families to newly available sources of wireless internet for students. Lot 3 of the AT&T Center will become a Park and Learn location starting Monday with free wi-fi for students on the spursgive network from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Traffic cones will block alternate parking spaces for social distancing.

VIA Metropolitan Transit is also sending VIAtrans vans around the city to provide wi-fi to students whose vehicles are parked within 100 to 200 feet, as part of a collaborative effort with the city, the San Antonio Housing Authority, SAISD and Northside ISD. A daily schedule with locations is at www.VIAinfo.net/cares.

Pleasanton ISD Superintendent Matthew Mann said he remained very anxious about the long-term academic damage of schools being closed for so long  but student safety always comes first, he said.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio educators: our best efforts cant stop coronavirus closures from hurting students

The districts online learning has been as rigorous and wide-ranging as possible, but that will never compare to face-to-face learning, Mann said. Were preparing for that potential gap.

The district distributed 1,500 Chromebooks and put up wi-fi hotspots around town with the help of restaurants and churches, so kids could sit in a parking lot if they wanted and do work, he said. Over 90 percent of our kids were able to log on.

Ive been in education for 25 years and no one I know has seen anything like this. Weve seen multi-day closures due to floods, but this is global, Mann said. When stuff like this happens we all just react. You find out quickly who are the solution-oriented people.

Staff writer Bruce Selcraig contributed to this report. | Krista Torralva covers several school districts and public universities in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Krista, become a subscriber. Krista.Torralva@express-news.net | Twitter: @KMTorralva

Alia Malik covers several school districts and the Alamo Colleges District in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Alia, become a subscriber. amalik@express-news.net | Twitter: @AliaAtSAEN
One more coronavirus patient died in Andhra Pradesh, taking the total number of Covid-19 casualties in the southern state to 15, officials said on Saturday. The latest death took place on Friday in Krishna district, which has seen five deaths due to the diseasethe maximum in the state.

The state also registered 31 new positive cases of Covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours, raising the total number of patients to 603. 18 of the 31 new cases were reported from Krishna district alone and five were from Kurnool.

Kurnool accounts for the maximum number of coronavirus cases till now at 129, followed by 126 in Guntur, 70 in Krishna, 67 in Nellore, 44 in Prakasam, 37 in Kadapa, 35 in West Godavari, 30 in Chittoor, 26 in Anantapur and 20 in Visakhapatnam.

A total of 42 patients have so far recovered and were discharged from hospitals bringing down the number of active cases to 546.

State nodal officer for Covid-19 Arja Sreekanth said the testing of samples would pick up speed from Saturday as the state had imported one lakh rapid testing kits from South Korea for the purpose of community testing.

Officials said a door to door survey will be carried out and those with symptoms and those living in red zones will be tested at their doorsteps.

Since the test result would be out within 10-15 minutes, it would help the officials prevent the spread of Covid-19 to a large extent, Sreekanth said.

The HT Guide to Coronavirus COVID-19

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Russian authorities are investigating the crash of a light aircraft that killed four people near the village of Lesnoye in Russias Far Eastern Khabarovsk region.



Russias emergency services said that they were still investigating whether the crash during a training flight early on April 18 was the result of a technical failure or pilot error.



Local officials in the Khabarovsk region said three of the people killed in the crash had been in the plane.



They said the body of a fourth victim was found at the crash site beneath the planes debris.



Authorities said on April 18 that they were still trying to confirm the identities of all the victims.

Based on reports by TASS and Interfax
The state government has struck a deal with two of Australia's wealthiest families to transform the neglected East Perth Power Station into the 'eastern gateway of the CBD'.

On Saturday, the McGowan government announced Kerry Stokes' Australian Capital Equity and Andrew Forrest's Minderoo Group had been chosen as the preferred joint proponent for the works, which will see a $218 million facelift of the century-old industrial landmark.

Artist's impression of the East Perth Power Station redevelopment.

The first stage of the works will involve the construction of a mix of residential, commercial and recreational developments by the shores of the Swan River.

Artist's impressions released by the state government show a combination of retail and dining options in an industrial warehouse space, and a landscaped waterfront with boat access.
Bengaluru, April 18 : One person was arrested and 2,000 liquor tetra packs were seized from his possession for illegally selling them amid the Covid-19 induced lockdown, an official said on Saturday.

"Raju, 32, hoarded the liquor packs and was selling them to people through his network via phone calls to known persons by word of mouth publicity," Central Crime Branch (CCB) Deputy Commissioner of Police, Kuldeep Jain, told IANS.

The illegal liquor sale occurred within the Rammurthy Nagar station limits.

Raju was arrested under Excise Act 32 and 34 for selling those tetra packs which come in smaller quantities such as 90 ml, Jain said.

Acting on a tip-off, the police raided Raju's home and seized the illegal liquor stock.

"Seized more than 2,000 liquor tetra packs being sold illegally," tweeted CCB Joint Commissioner Sandeep Patil.
April 18, 1982, was declared World Heritage Day by the International Council on Monuments and Sites to raise awareness about monuments and other sites which form a part of our history and culture. World Heritage Day also aims to recognise all the people involved in preserving these heritage sites around the world, especially scientists, archaeologists, geographers and engineers. The 2020 theme - Shared Culture, Shared Heritage and Shared Responsibility - comes at a time when the world together is battling the coronavirus pandemic. The idea behind this years theme is the recognition and value of all types of heritage sites across varied diverse groups and communities. This theme will continue to be the highlight of the ICOMOS 20th General Assembly and Scientific Symposium which is set to take place in Australia this year.

India, which is home to several UNESCO World Heritage Sites, from natural wonders to architectural marvels, boasts of a total number of 37 such sites which are further categorised as 29 cultural sites, 7 natural sites, and 1 mixed site.

Lets take a look at all these sites, listed in chronological order when they were commissioned as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India:

Ajanta Caves (1983): Built in circa 2nd century BC, followed by a second phase in the 5th century AD, these caves showcase richly decorated paintings and frescoes. The 31 rock-cut cave monuments found within the site are believed to be representative of Buddhist religious art.

Ellora Caves (1983): This archaeological site is a blend of religious arts from the Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism practices. The caves are home to 34 monasteries and temples that were sculpted into the rocks of the basalt cliffs.

Taj Mahal (1983): One of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Taj Mahal is a notable tourist attraction worldwide. It was built as a monument of love by Mughal emperor Shahjahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal after she died in 1631. Made out of pure white marble, the Taj Mahal exemplifies the principles of Mughal architectural style. It took 16 years to build the Taj Mahal.

Agra Fort (1983): The Agra Fort, also referred to as the Red Fort, is a key example of the progress of the Mughal dynasty in India. The fort portrays opulence of the Mughals and is built from red sandstone, is surrounded by towers, moats, palaces, mosques and located next to the bank of the Yamuna River.

Sun Temple, Konark (1984): Shaped like a gigantic chariot with details including walls, pillars, and carved stone wheels, the majority of the temple is now in ruins. It was also included in the list of the Seven Wonders of India.

Mahabalipuram (1984): This collection of monuments was founded by the Pallava kings during the 7th to 8th centuries and is carved from rock. The most distinctive features of the complex are the temples that are shaped like chariots, cave sanctuaries and open-air reliefs. Another notable monument in the site is the Temple of Rivage that features several sculptures glorifying Lord Shiva.

Great Living Chola Temples (1987): The three temples included in this site were built during the 11th to the 12th centuries. They are Brihadeeswarar Temple in Thanjavur, Airavateshwarar Temple and Brihadeeswarar Temple in Gangakondacholisvaram. The temples exemplify the architectural achievements of the Chola dynasty in India and also showcases the other art forms they excelled in namely bronze casting, painting and sculpture.

Sundarbans National Park (1987): Considered an important natural monument in India, it comprises a national park, tiger reserve and biosphere reserve. It is located in West Bengal, India, adjacent to the Sundarban Reserve Forest in Bangladesh and close to the Ganges Delta. The Sundarbans are filled with mangrove forest and is home to a giant reserve for Bengal tigers. Several species of birds, reptiles, and invertebrates also inhabit the area.

Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks (1988): The park consists of two core areas: Nanda Devi National Park and Valley of Flowers National Park. Nanda Devi National Park was inscribed in 1988, which was later expanded in 2005 to include the Valley of Flowers National Park.

Keoladeo National Park (1985): This bird sanctuary is also one of few natural sites listed under UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India. Every year, there are thousands of birds which flock to the area, especially during winters. The sanctuary is home to over 230 species of birds. It is already a protected sanctuary since 1971, before being named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Kaziranga Wildlife Sanctuary, Assam (1985): In 1908, Kaziranga Wildlife Sanctuary was named as a reserved forest in order to preserve the dwindling population of the Indian one-horned rhinoceros along with other species of mammals and birds.

Manas Wildlife Sanctuary, Assam (1985): Located in the foothills of the Himalayas, this sanctuary serves as home to various plant and threatened species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. After being declared a reserved forest, it was included in the Project Tiger initiative wherein the sanctuary was developed into a tiger reserve.

Churches and Convents of Goa (1986): Built by the Portuguese colonial rulers between the 16th and 18th centuries in Goa, The Basilica of Born Jesus in Old Goa is one of the primary structures among these monuments, and has been dubbed as the Rome of the Orient. The church was established by eight Franciscan friars who arrived in Goa in 1517. Retaining the Portuguese-Manueline style portal of its older structure, first built in 1665, the Church of St Francis of Assisi offers a visual contrast between its simple exterior facade and its lavish Baroque interior. Featuring Corinthian influences, the main altar is the highlight of its interiors, with a large statue of St Francis of Assisi above it, along with one of Jesus Christ.

Khajuraho Group of Monuments, Madhya Pradesh (1986): These monuments masterfully combine architecture and sculpture in its art form and are attributed to the Chandela dynasty in India. There are a total of 85 temples built within this complex but only 22 have survived.

Group of Monuments at Hampi (1986): Named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986, the temples showcase how the town became an important religious centre for Hindu worshippers. The Virupaksha temple and several other monuments comprise this cultural heritage site.

Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh (1986): The city was founded in the mid-16th century and served as the capital for the Mughal Empire. However, it was abandoned due to political unrest and re-constructed as a walled city which took 15 years to complete. The rebuilt city resulted in the construction of royal palaces, mosques, courts, private quarters and many other buildings and is dubbed as the City of Victory, as the name suggests.

Elephanta Caves (1987): Located on Elephanta Island, these are a series of sculpted caves consisting of five Hindu caves and two Buddhist caves. The rock-cut architecture used in both caves dates back to the 5th century. The group of caves underwent renovation in 1970.

Pattadakal (1987): Comprising nine Hindu temples and a Jain sanctuary, the most important architectural edifice belonging to this group of monuments is the Virupaksha Temple. It shares its name with the temple in Hampi. Most of these temples were built during the reign of the Chalukya Dynasty during the 6th to the 8th centuries. The architectural styles are inspired by both Northern and Southern India.

Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh (1989): This site is composed of a collection of Buddhist monuments that date back from 200 to 100 BC. Its however believed by many that the site developed under the rule of the Mauryan Empire in the 3rd century BC. Sanchi has been bestowed a rich legacy of Buddhist monuments - from the Sanchi Stupa to the Ashoka Pillar in its complex.

Humayuns Tomb, Delhi (1993): This tomb was commonly referred to as the precursor to the Taj Mahal, and the site is listed by UNESCO due to its cultural value. It was built by the widow of Mughal Emperor Humayun and is a work of Mirza Ghiyath. Humayuns Tomb has since also earned the name of the Necropolis of the Mughal dynasty. The entire property holds the tomb of Humayun and 150 tombs from the royal family.

Qutb Minar and its Monuments, Delhi (1993): The main feature of this complex is the red sandstone tower, Qutb Minar (also spelt as Qutub Minar), that stands over 72 meters tall. These complex structures were built in the 13th century and are most notable for showcasing the artistic and architectural excellence of Islam.

Mahabodhi Temple Complex at Bodh Gaya, Bihar (2002): The temple complex in Bodh Gaya is one of the four holy sites relating to the life of Buddha. Its one of the first Buddhist temples that were constructed solely out of brick.

Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh (2003): The Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka was recognised by UNESCO as a repository of rock paintings within sandstone formations expanding up to 2000 hectares of land area. The paintings inside these rock shelters are believed to date back to the Mesolithic period. Interestingly, the 21 villages that surround the area strongly correlate to the subject of these paintings.

Champaner-Pavagahdh Archaeological Park, Gujarat (2004): The archaeological park is home to a prehistoric Chalcolithic site, hill fortress and what is left of the 16th century Gujarat capital. From palaces, religious buildings, fortifications, to agricultural structures, the site is one of the most important in the region.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, erstwhile Victoria Terminus (2004): Located in Mumbai, India, it is also the headquarters for the Central Railways in India. The station was designed during the late 19th century by architect Frederick William Stevens. The project took 10 years to complete and was originally named after Queen and Empress Victoria. It features a Gothic architectural style and passersby can often enjoy views of this building bathed in light to commemorate special days celebrated in the country.

Red Fort Complex (2007): This palace fort was built for the 5th Mughal Emperor in the 17th century and boasts of a unique architectural design that features a blend of Indian, Persian and Timuri styles. The enclosure wall surrounding this complex is made of red sandstone, which is why it was named as the Red Fort Complex.

Jantar Mantar, Jaipur (2010): Home to a collection of various architectural astronomical instruments, the construction was commissioned for by Maharaja Jai Singh II. There are 5 facilities in total that were built in different locations - the one in Jaipur is the largest and best preserved out of the five facilities. UNESCO has described it as an expression of the astronomical skills and cosmological concepts.

Mountain Railways of India (1999, 2005, and 2008): These rail routes were built in the 19th and 20th centuries and comprise a total of five mountain railways in India, out of which only three were recognized by UNESCO. These railways have been recognised for their bold engineering solutions by establishing a rail link in a rugged terrain.

Western Ghats (2012): Listed as one of the worlds biodiversity hotspots, its listed under the Natural category for UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India. According to incredibleindia.org, The Western Ghats shelters over 139 types of mammals, 508 species of birds, 5,000 kinds of flowering plants and 179 varieties of amphibians that are unique to the region. Some of the endangered species, such as Malabar large-spotted civet, Asian elephants, black panther, lion-tailed macaque, tiger, wild boar, sloth bear, leopard, sambar and the great Indian hornbill, can be spotted here. The forests of the Western Ghats include 39 reserves and 13 national parks. This is eighth biodiversity hotspot in the world and covers the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala.

Hill Forts of Rajasthan (2013): This World Heritage Site is composed of six forts: Chittorgarh Fort, Kumbhalgarh Fort, Ranthambore Fort, Gagron Fort, Amber Fort, and Jaisalmer Fort (which is also considered the only living fort in the country as families have lived her for generations. These forts are located within the Aravalli Range and date back to the 5th century.

Rani ki vav or The Queens Stepwell (2014): Located in the town of Patan, this stepwell is constructed near the banks of the Saraswati River. It was constructed in Maru-Gurjara architectural style that consists of seven levels of stairs and an inverted temple as a subterranean water resource and storage system in the third millennium BC.

Great Himalayan National Park (2014): The park was founded in 1984 and consists of alpine meadows, alpine peaks, and riverine forests. The glacial and snow meltwater is an important source of water supply. The site is home to a variety of species of mammals, birds, reptiles, molluscs, amphibians, and insects.

Nalanda (2016): An archaeological site consisting of scholastic and monastic institutional remains, this site dates back to the 3rd century BC. One can find various artworks, stuccoes, stupas, shrines and viharas within this site. It stands as an important example of the spread of Buddhism as a religion and how it came to be used for educational and monastic purposes. Nalanda acts as a memorial of the past and stands as a silent witness to the rich history of the region. Hieun Tsang, the Chinese traveller, who first visited Nalanda in the 7th century, mentions that the city was named after a serpent in his writings. It is also said that Sariputra, an ardent follower of Lord Buddha, was born here.

Khangchendzonga National Park (2016): The Khangchendzonga National Park includes a diversity of plains, valleys, lakes, glaciers and spectacular, snow-capped mountains covered with ancient forests, including the worlds third highest peak, Mount Kanchenjunga (or Khangchendzonga). It offers a diverse landscape ranging from glaciers to plains to valleys.

Complexe du Capitole: The Architectural Works of Le Corbusier (2016): The architectural works of Le Corbusier is spread over 17 sites in 7 different countries. The other sites are located in Japan, France, Argentina, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. The Complexe du Capitole, in Chandigarh is set against the mighty Shivalik range and includes three distinctive masterpieces of Le Corbusier (architect of the city of Chandigarh): the Secretariat, the High Court and the Legislative Assembly. The Open Hand monument is situated in this complex too.

Ahmedabads Old City: The Historic City of Ahmedabad is a walled city founded in the early 15th century by Ahmad Shah I of Gujarat Sultanate. Its an important political and commercial centre of Gujarat.

Victorian and Art Deco Ensemble of Mumbai (2018): A global trading centre in the 19th century, Mumbai began modernising and constructing a number of public buildings in the Victorian Neo-Gothic style and later in the Art Deco style in the early 20th century. This fascinating blend of styles has come to be known as Indo-Deco over the years. About 94 buildings stand along the sea and are largely located around the Oval Maidan, a historical open space that continues to thrive with visitors. Bombay High Court, University Library and Convention Hall, David Sasoon Library, the Public Works Department Office, Elphinstone College and more are some of the buildings with this architectural style.

Jaipur City (2019): Founded by Sawai Jai Singh II in 1727, the citys urban planning shows a confluence of ideas from ancient Hindu, early Mughal era as well as Western cultures. The grid plan is a model that prevails in the West, while the organization of the different city sectors (chowkris) refers to traditional Hindu concepts, according to UNESCO. Designed to be a commercial capital, the streets feature a continuous row of buildings, market spaces etc. that intersect in the centre, creating large public squares called chaupars. The pink city as Jaipur is also called, has maintained its local commercial, artisanal and cooperative traditions to this day.

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It is a rare glimpse inside the Chinese laboratory at the centre of mounting inter-national suspicion about the Covid-19 pandemic  and will do nothing to dispel fears that it was caused by a catastrophic leak which has been covered up by Beijing.

Pictures from inside Wuhans secretive Institute of Virology show a broken seal on the door of one of the refrigerators used to hold 1,500 different strains of virus  including the bat coronavirus which has jumped to humans with such devastating effect.

The pictures, first released by the state-owned China Daily newspaper in 2018, were published on Twitter last month, before being deleted. One comment attached read: I have seen better seals on my refrigerator in my kitchen.

The Mail on Sunday revealed a fortnight ago that Ministers now fear that the pandemic could have started as the result of a leak.

Pictures from inside Wuhans secretive Institute of Virology show a broken seal on the door (centre of shot, by medical worker's right eye) of one of the refrigerators used to hold 1,500 different strains of virus

The pictures, first released by the state-owned China Daily newspaper in 2018, were published on Twitter last month, before being deleted

Last week, this newspaper also disclosed that the institute had undertaken corona-virus experiments on bats captured more than 1,000 miles away in Yunnan, funded by a $3.7 million grant from the US government.

Sequencing of the Covid-19 genome has traced it to the bats found only in those caves.

Our revelations led to Donald Trump being quizzed at a press conference last week about the leak theory, to which the President replied: We are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation.

Twitter was immediately awash with criticisms regarding the apparent lack of safety measures

We never tried to cover up: A letter from the Chinese embassy in London Last week, The Mail on Sunday carried an article which made groundless accusations, speculations and vicious slanders against China. It even quoted claims from a member of an outlawed cult to discredit Chinas effective work in fighting Covid-19 and defame Chinas image and reputation. This constitutes a serious breach of the professional ethics of journalism. We strongly deplore it. We would like to make the following comments. First, the Chinese government always regards peoples lives and health as the top priority. Since the outbreak, the government has put in place the strictest, most thorough and most comprehensive containment measures, which have proved to be effective. As the World Health Organisation says, China has taken the most courageous, most flexible and most active prevention and control measures, which altered the dangerous course of the viruss quick spread and prevented hundreds of thousands of infections nationwide. Second, China has been releasing information related to the epidemic in the most open, transparent and responsible manner, publicising relevant data since the early days of the outbreak. Recently, following standard epidemiological practice, the authorities in Wuhan revisited the cases and made revision to the number of confirmed cases and fatalities on a factual basis. Data revision in the case of highly infectious diseases is a common international practice. At the early stage of an epidemic, a small number of medical facilities might be overwhelmed with a flood of new cases and might not be promptly linked up with the disease prevention and control data collection system. At the same time, preoccupation with saving lives during the most challenging times of the epidemic could result in an inadvertent delay in reporting, under-reporting or misreporting at some facilities. But there has never been any cover-up, nor was a cover-up ever allowed to happen. The relatively low Covid-19 death toll in China proves that the containment measures are effective. The strict lockdown measures have effectively slowed down the spread of the virus and minimised the cases of infection. Regarding reports of people in Wuhan queuing to collect urns, this was because funeral parlours were closed from January 23 to March 23. Urns of those who died of other causes in the past two months are also being delivered now. The lifting of outbound travel restrictions in Hubei province and Wuhan symbolises an initial victory against the virus and proves that the disease is preventable, controllable and curable. Certainly, the reopening of Wuhan doesnt mean that China is lowering its guard. The Chinese government remains vigilant against imported cases and a domestic resurgence of Covid-19 and is taking targeted measures to contain it. At the same time it is getting the economy back on track, reopening factories and ensuring unimpeded travel within the country. The incident that happened on the border between Hubei and Jiangxi provinces in late March was already resolved. It makes no sense hyping up something that is no longer an issue. Currently, China is standing together with the UK in the global fight against Covid-19. Our people are joining hands to overcome the current difficulties. At this critical moment, the media should send out positive signals to promote mutual understanding and co-operation, instead of whipping up anti-China sentiments and poisoning the atmosphere of China-UK co-operation. Advertisement

Mr Trump also pledged on Friday evening to scrap Us funding for the Wuhan institute.

Meanwhile, Us secretary of state Mike Pompeo has demanded that Beijing come clean over whether the virus had leaked from the lab. He said: There is still lots to learn.

The US government is work-ing diligently to figure it out.

He added that one of the best ways that China could find to co-operate would be to let the world in and let the worlds scientists know exactly how this came to be, exactly how this virus began to spread.

Suspicions of a Chinese cover-up increased further after the Washington Post reported that US diplomats in Beijing had written cables about the Wuhan laboratory in 2018, warning the state Department that the labs work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARs-like pandemic.

US intelligence sources say that shortly after the coronavirus outbreak began, officials at the lab destroyed samples of the virus, erased early reports and sup-pressed academic papers  and then tried to pin the blame on Wuhans wet market, where wild animals are sold for consumption.

The sources believe that Patient Zero was an intern at the lab, who spread the virus into the local population after infecting her boyfriend.

One source described it as the costliest government cover-up of all time.

After initially accepting the wet market theory, intelligence officials in the US, Britain and Canada are increasingly focusing on the Wuhan institute, not least because of the level of coincidence required for the bats in Yunnan to have infected animals in Wuhan, which then passed it on to humans.

Following a video meeting of the G7 nations on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron said: There are clearly things that have happened that we dont know about.

The World Health Organisation, which faces allegations of complicity with Beijing over the pandemic, quickly accepted and propagated the wildlife market theory.

Although British Government sources say that the evidence suggests that the virus was zoonotic  originating from an animal  that is still compatible with the theory that it first passed to humans as a result of an accident by scientists studying it in a laboratory.

However, one political source said that there was growing scientific curiosity over the symptoms of a marked loss of taste and smell in many victims of Covid-19.

This might  only might  indicate a level of human interference, the source said.

Beijing insists that the fact that the countrys primary virology institute is based in the city at the centre of the outbreak is just a coincidence, dismissing links to the laboratory as baseless conspiracy theories.

In a letter to The Mail on Sunday, a Chinese Embassy spokeswoman says: There has never been any cover-up, nor was a cover-up ever allowed to happen.

The relatively low Covid-19 death toll in China proves that the containment measures are effective. strict lockdown measures have effectively slowed down the spread of the virus and minimised the cases of infection.
MyBroadband has released its Q1 2020 Mobile Operator Report, which shows that MTN is the top-rated mobile provider in South Africa.

The report is based on 7,608 customer satisfaction ratings from mobile data users across South Africa.

These ratings provide an overview of which operators have the happiest customers, and which operators should improve.

MTN received the highest customer satisfaction rating at 84%, followed by Vodacom on 70%, Rain on 69%, Cell C on 63%, and Telkom on 60%.

What makes these customer ratings interesting is that they closely follow the network quality of the operators.

One would expect data prices and customer support to play a more prominent role in customer satisfaction, but it is not the case. Or at least not for middle-class South Africans.

Network quality, and not pricing, is the dominant metric for many people when they decide on which mobile operator to support.

This is why Vodacom and MTN continue to show strong growth despite their competitors  Telkom, Rain, and Cell C  offering lower prices.

The table below provides an overview of the mobile network customer satisfaction ratings in Q1 2020.

Mobile Operator Customer Satisfaction Ratings Operator Percentage MTN SA 84% Vodacom SA 70% Rain 69% Cell C 63% Telkom SA 60%

The importance of having the best network

While many consumers may find the importance of network quality surprising, Vodacom and MTN have known this for years.

They continue to invest billions into their networks each year  money which could have been spent on dividends for shareholders or bonuses for executives.

They know that unless they have a world-class network, they will lose subscribers and struggle to compete.

Vodacom and MTN also know they do not have to be the cheapest. They just have to offer the best service.

Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub said they have never tried to be the cheapest. Instead, their focus is on providing a quality service.

There is also a good reason why Vodacom and MTN have been engaged in numerous advertising battles around the claim of having the best network in South Africa.

Industry insiders told MyBroadband the Best Mobile Network in South Africa claim is worth billions.

It is clear that having the best network, especially in an age where data has surpassed voice as the main revenue driver, is now more important than ever.

Network quality and customer satisfaction

The table below shows the relationship between network quality and customer satisfaction ratings.

It shows that providers which offer cheaper data have a higher customer satisfaction score than their network quality score. The inverse is true for MTN and Vodacom.

The overall rankings, however, remained the same. This shows a clear link between network quality and customer happiness.

Network Quality vs Customer Satisfaction Operator Network Quality Score Customer Satisfaction MTN SA 9.69 8.36 Vodacom SA 7.13 7.02 Rain 5.51 6.90 Cell C 5.00 6.33 Telkom SA 4.61 6.00

Now read: The best and worst mobile networks in South Africa
Dolphins have been swimming in groups near popular beach destinations in Nha Trang and Binh Thuan in central Vietnam since tourist activities have been suspended due to COVID-19.

Dolphins have been seen near Nha Trang and Binh Thuan beaches since tourist activities have been suspended due to the COVID-19 outbreak. VNA/VNS Photo

Locals and experts believe the suspension of tourism and the absence of tourist boats may have caused dolphins to feel free to gather near the shore.

Nha Trang Bay in the central province of Khanh Hoa and Binh Thuan City are well known worldwide for their beaches and attractions, including scuba diving.

They draw large crowds of foreign tourists, backpackers and more affluent travellers, as well as Vietnamese tourists.

Elsewhere in Vietnam in recent years, dolphins have appeared in groups in the waters off Hoi An Town in the central province of Quang Nam and on Phu Quoc, Vietnams largest island in the Mekong Delta province of Kien Giang.

Whales and dolphins are considered sacred by Vietnamese fishermen. They believe that saving injured whales and dolphins and giving a proper burial to those that die ashore will bless them with luck, good weather, bountiful catches and protection while at sea.  VNS

Top popular destinations close to Nha Trang Ninh Hoa commune located in the central coastal province of Khanh Hoa has attracted a large number of travelers to its stunning beaches and salt making villages.
AUSTIN  Encouraged by the apparent support of President Donald Trump, about 200 protesters defied social distancing rules Saturday afternoon to mass in front of the Texas Capitol to call for lifting of social and economic restrictions enacted to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Chanting Let us work! Fire Fauci and Make America free again, participants took turns yelling into megaphones, recording each other on their phones and parading up and down 11th Street at the Congress Avenue intersection. About two dozen Austin police and Texas Department of Public Safety officers stood by.

After an initial confrontation with several protesters edging into the street, the police mostly observed the protest, declining to issue citations for the generally unmasked and non-social-distancing participants.

The rally had been organized and promoted by Owen Shroyer, an Infowars host and colleague of Alex Jones, the sites founder. Jones made an appearance about 30 minutes into the event, yelling through a megaphone through the sunroof of a black Infowars Humvee, inspiring loud cheers from the crowd.

The protest was the latest in a flurry of similar demonstrations across the country, including in California, Ohio, North Carolina and Michigan, where a demonstration in Lansing drew thousands of protesters.

On Friday, Trump appeared to throw his support behind the demonstrations, tweeting LIBERATE MICHIGAN and LIBERATE MINNESOTA, two states led by Democratic governors.

The timing of the Austin protest, a day after Gov. Greg Abbott unveiled a plan to ease the economic restrictions in Texas that have crippled businesses and caused the states unemployment rate to skyrocket, suggested that the Austin protest was more political than economic. Participants appeared to represent a wide range of conservative causes, from anti-vaccination and anti-abortion activists, to people quoting Scripture and blowing a shofar.

In addition to Dont Tread on Me flags, others carried signs saying Dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery and Legalize jiu jitsu, an apparent reference to martial arts studios shuttered by government order. Another blasted ZZ Top songs. A man wore a personal body camera.

On Friday afternoon, Abbott announced that retailers could open for curbside delivery. He also reopened state parks for small groups of visitors who must still wear face masks. He said some elective medical procedures could resume, as well, although abortions were not included.

The governor said he would announce more measures April 27 and again in May, provided the spread of the novel coronavirus appeared to be controlled.

Under pressure from constituent dislocations because of their tanking economies, governors in several other states have also announced loosened restrictions. Epidemiologists have warned that such measures are risky without better and more available testing.

About 18,000 Texans have tested positive for the new coronavirus; 450 have died.
With Covid-19 dominating  understandably  every sector of the news, the focus on healthcare has never been greater. Companies making everything from vaccines to disinfectant are suddenly having their moment in the sun.

Doctor Paul Jourdan is chief executive of specialist fund manager Amati Global Investors, a company that invests in small to medium-sized companies listed on the UK stock market.

He says the healthcare sector is facing 'the equivalent of a very accelerated dotcom boom' where companies with even a whiff of a product that might help treat or prevent coronavirus are rewarded with a huge mark-up in their stock market valuation.

The doc-com boom?: The share prices of some research firms are rising as they seek a vaccine for Covid-19

'There will be big winners,' he says, 'but there will be losers, too.' Jourdan predicts that healthcare spending as a whole will rise significantly across the globe in the short to medium term.

Furthermore, some traditional restrictions on getting drugs quickly to market may be removed or loosened in the race to create a vaccine  leading to quicker routes to company profits in the longer term.

If you are interested in adding healthcare stocks to your portfolio at this time, it's important to understand the different types of companies involved in the sector  and how they might be affected by Covid-19.

Big Pharma and biotechs...firms that make up sector

With research scientists popping up everywhere at the moment, it can be hard to understand how the drugs, healthcare and pharmaceutical industries in the UK intertwine. In fact, the fight against coronavirus is being carried out in many different types of establishments.

These include so-called 'Big Pharma', such as UK-listed companies GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, which have large market capitalisations and huge portfolios of drugs for everything from gastric ulcers to cancer.

These giants are seen as slow and steady stocks in defensive investment portfolios as they have guaranteed cash-flow from many commonly used drugs. But they are creating new drugs all the time. AstraZeneca has seen its share price react positively on news that it will test its blood cancer drug Calquence on Covid-19 patients.

Meanwhile, GlaxoSmithKline has teamed up with another big healthcare firm  the French-based Sanofi  to make a Covid-19 vaccine. Apart from these large pharmaceutical companies, there are many smaller biotechnology businesses  often spun out from leading universities.

The drugs they are testing are often at very early stages, and may not even be in human trials at present. Most do not make a profit and rely for success on one of their drugs making it to the market. In many cases, they are acquired by big pharmaceutical companies as soon as they have identified a promising product, rather than carrying out the later-stage research themselves.

There are also healthcare companies making equipment, instead of drugs and vaccines, including testing services and much-needed products such as implants and stents. It's good to be a manufacturer of ventilator parts or testing reagents at the moment  less good if you manufacture parts for elective surgery: Smith & Nephew, which makes knee and hip replacement parts, recently warned that its results would be hit by the cancellation of routine surgeries as Covid19 sufferers take precedence.

'Even the healthcare industry is not immune from the global shutdown,' explains Darius McDermott, managing director of investment fund specialist Chelsea Financial Services. He warns against seeing healthcare investment as a guaranteed shot in the arm for your battered portfolio. He explains: 'Intractable challenges and obstacles remain.

Before coronavirus, the healthcare sector had issues around rising costs, rapid changes to the models used to deliver care, impacts from climate change and pollution, and massive inequities in access to care. But when the worst of this crisis has passed, we believe the quest to deliver the holy grail of better healthcare for less money will continue. 'And the investment opportunities will be plentiful.'

Where exactly should I look to invest now?

Dzimitry Lipski, head of fund research at wealth manager Interactive Investor, says the healthcare sector has performed remarkably well in the crisis so far, but has further to go.

He says 'The healthcare sector has outperformed the wider stock market since the breakout of coronavirus and is at the epicentre of this crisis. Whilst the MSCI World Index is down almost 11.6 per cent over the year to date, the MSCI World Healthcare index is down just 1.6 per cent.'

He adds: 'After this pandemic, there could be significantly higher spending both by the Government and private sector on healthcare.'

AJ Bell's Ryan Hughes suggests the XTrackers MSCI Healthcare exchange traded fund

Interested investors have several options if they want to obtain exposure to healthcare stocks. They could look at buying shares in listed healthcare and biotechnology companies or buying healthcare investment funds and stock market-listed investment trusts.

But the cheapest option is a so-called tracker fund or exchange traded fund that tracks the stock market fortunes of the healthcare sector as a whole. Ryan Hughes, of wealth manager AJ Bell, suggests the XTrackers MSCI Healthcare exchange traded fund.

This tracks the 145 largest healthcare companies across the world, with annual charges of 0.3 per cent. He describes it as a sound choice 'for those that want exposure to a broad range of healthcare companies'.

The fund has generated three-year returns of 31 per cent. For those interested in exposure to larger pharmaceutical companies, many popular investment funds have a sizeable healthcare holding.

Fundsmith Equity, for example, has 25 per cent of its portfolio in healthcare stocks, while many of the funds that are marketed as sustainable are also heavily focused on healthcare. AstraZeneca and Glaxo SmithKline are held in fund Royal London Sustainable Leaders while Royal London Sustainable Diversified has AstraZeneca as a top ten holding.

Both have more than a fifth of their assets in healthcare. Exposure to smaller biotechnology companies looking for a Covid-19 vaccine may require more specialist investments. Oxford BioMedica, which is behind the Oxford University consortium that hopes to have a vaccine ready by September, is a well-established listed company that spun out of the university in 1995.

The shares have risen strongly on the company's links to the Covid-19 vaccine. They were priced at 428p on March 16  and are now trading at 724p. But Amati's Jourdan says that buying into Oxford BioMedica is more than just a bet on a Covid-19 vaccine as the company has a pipeline of other promising drugs and new manufacturing facilities.

Investment trusts with a focus on healthcare companies are another possibility. Lipski, at Interactive Investor, likes Worldwide Healthcare Trust, which holds Chinese vaccine maker CanSino Biologics, as well as Swiss pharmaceutical stalwart Novartis. The trust has generated returns of 37 per cent over the past three years  65 per cent over five years.

Chelsea's McDermott likes Baillie Gifford Global Discovery, a global smaller companies fund with 40 per cent of its portfolio in healthcare businesses. He also recommends fund Comgest Growth Europe  among its large holdings is Swiss pharmaceuticals company Roche that is at the forefront of coronavirus testing. The Baillie Gifford fund has recorded returns of 61 per cent over three years and 85 per cent over five.

Equivalent returns for Comgest fund are 25 per cent and 51 per cent. Amati's AIM Venture Capital Trust includes companies such as Tristel which makes hospital disinfectants and next-generation hand sanitiser product Byotrol  both of which are seeing increased interest due to the crisis. The trust's shares are up more than 10 per cent since mid-March.

Finally, Jourdan says investors should not forget healthcare companies in the sector that are currently out of favour. Demand for Smith & Nephew's products, for example, will rebound as soon as the hospitals reopen for non-Covid-19 activity.

Jourdan adds: 'When looking at the healthcare companies hit by coronavirus ask yourself whether the need for their products has been destroyed or delayed. In this case it is just a delay.'
A man has been arrested on suspicion of drug driving and other road traffic offences after a driver refused to stop for gardai at a coronavirus checkpoint in Co Cork during earlier this week.

On Wednesday afternoon, gardai on patrol in the Mitchelstown area signalled for a car to stop.
WOODLAND PARK, N.J.  It was the best news Steve Mastropietro could have hoped to receive.

His 91-year-old father had made a near-miraculous rebound on Saturday morning after being diagnosed two days before with COVID-19.

A nurse at the New Jersey Veterans Home in Paramus said Tom Mastropietro no longer had a fever. The Korean War veteran had not only eaten breakfast, but even walked to the bathroom unaided.

I was stunned but happy, Steve said. He looked like hell the last time I saw him. They made me think he had turned a corner.

Four hours later, the nursing staff called again.

They had made a terrible mistake.

Tom Mastropietro had died hours earlier.

Thomas Mastropietro, 91, died at the New Jersey Veterans Home in Paramus from COVID-19

Steve would soon learn that his father and another patient were given the wrong identification bands amid the chaos that had overtaken the Paramus nursing home in recent weeks as coronavirus tore through the facility, infecting dozens of residents and staff.

Tom's body had even been taken to the other man's funeral home to be prepared for cremation the next day  Tom's wishes were to be buried next to his wife. It was a funeral home worker who noticed two medical bracelets on the body with different names.

What happened to the Mastropietro family is an egregious example of the breakdown in care and communication at New Jersey's state-run veterans homes in Paramus and Menlo Park.

We are devastated that this error occurred and we offer our most sincere apology for the mistake in the notification of their fathers passing, said Dr. Mark Piterski, deputy commissioner with the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, which oversees the homes.

COVID-19 has infected at least 25% of the two homes' 504 residents, killing at least 50 residents as of Thursday. The death toll due to COVID-19, however, may be far greater since the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs only counts those residents who tested positive for coronavirus. Since March 23, 80 residents have died at the two homes.

Story continues

The virus has infected dozens of nurses and aides, causing such a significant staff shortage that Gov. Phil Murphy sent in National Guard medics and dozens of federal Veterans Affairs nurses to assist.

Staff at the homes, who have requested anonymity, said no service training was held in preparation for the pandemic, and workers initially were told not to wear masks, gowns or gloves because it would scare the residents. Some brought their own protective gear.

Since NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey broke the story last week of the death toll at the Paramus home, families across the state with veterans home residents living and deceased have described a near-blackout of communications from the facilities.

Phones go unanswered. Voicemails are not returned. When families do get someone on the phone, it is often a hurried conversation with little or confusing information conveyed. The residents' best advocates  their families  have been barred from entering the homes for over a month in an effort to avoid infection. It is a story being played out at many of the more than 300 nursing homes in New Jersey.

And there may be no family that has experienced this more than the Mastropietros.

A role model father

Tom Mastropietros formal education ended at grade school, yet he spent his life acquiring skills like carpentry, which helped him build a small summer home on Lake Hopatcong and fashion triangular boxes to hold ceremonial flags for families of deceased veterans.

The longtime North Bergen resident was a jack-of-all-trades, his son Steve said. He could do anything.

Tom and his wife Mary raised three boys, Thomas, Michael and Stephen. Tom worked as a boiler maintenance man at Bendix aircraft in Teterboro.

Thomas Mastropietro flanked by his grandsons Steve and Mark at a Christmas dinner in recent years. Mastropietro died at the New Jersey Veterans Home in Paramus from COVID-19.

But before any of that, he served in the U.S. Army for four years during the Korean War, which made him eligible to live out his days in a veterans home if need be.

When Mary died in 2016 and dementia started taking its toll on Tom, his family tried using nursing aides in his home for a few years. But Tom gradually showed signs of depression from being alone. He ate erratically and lost weight.

In early February, he moved into the New Jersey Veterans Home in Paramus. I thought, Lets try this, Steve said. If it doesnt work out, its okay. Its temporary. We can take him out.

The veterans home lifted Toms spirits. He gained his weight back and was happy to be around people. His favorite activity was a modified cooking and baking class that  nurses said jokingly  he tried to take over.

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I was initially upset about putting him in there, but after two or three weeks that was gone, Steve said. He was happy. He was doing better than he had been doing in a long time. And we felt like we made a great decision. But we didnt know what was coming.

The outbreak

Steve visited his father in early March, and noticed that one of the wards called Valor had been closed off to house residents with respiratory issues. I inquired about the coronavirus and was told there were no cases, Steve said. Looking back Im sure there were coronavirus cases, but no one had been tested.

Shortly after the visit, the Paramus home barred visitors for fear of infecting residents.

Steve felt his dad was safe since he was in a room by himself and in a ward away from those suspected to have the disease. He questioned staffers if coronavirus had broken out but was told it had not.

I made the decision to leave him there and Im kicking myself, Steve said.

On April 6, Steve received a call that his dad had a fever and cough, and would be tested for coronavirus. Steve kept calling for updates.

One hour he was fine and then hours later I was called to see if they should move him to the hospital, he said. I had no idea of his condition. The information was not clear.

Having seen images of overrun emergency rooms and intensive care units, Steve didnt want his dad going to the hospital for fear of exposure.

On April 8, he was finally able to see his dad via FaceTime. He looked like death, Steve said. He looked weak and was incoherent.

The next day, the test result showed Tom had COVID-19, and he was moved to the Valor ward with other coronavirus residents.

It's here that Steve suspects the wrong identification bands were given to his father and another man, because the next day a nurse told Steve that his father had only a low-grade fever.

At 8 a.m. on April 11, Steve was given the surprising news that his father was making tremendous strides.

But Tom had already been dead for several hours.

Anthony Cassie, the funeral director of S.W. Brown & Son Funeral Home in Nutley, was called early Saturday morning by the other man's family to pick up what they believed to be his body.

Cassie said the Paramus home's staff brought him to the room and identified Tom Mastropietro as the other man. The identification band on Tom's wrist had the other man's name.

Cassie took Tom's body to his funeral home and received a call shortly after from the home saying they may have misidentified the body. Cassie examined the body and found a medical bracelet near an elbow with the name: Tom Mastropietro. It was given to Tom by his family.

At noon, the Paramus home staff called Steve and told him Tom was dead.

"They gave us hope and it was total misinformation," Steve said. "It was crushing."

Cassie eventually got in touch with Steve and emailed him photos of his father's face to get a positive identification.

"So you have one family who was told that their loved one was dead when he wasn't," Cassie said. "And you have another family who was told their father was alive when he wasn't. I've never seen anything like this."

Cassie said the other man is still alive. His family was unable to be contacted for comment.

"This should never have happened," Cassie said. "These men are veterans and this is how they're treated? They deserve better."

Thomas Mastropietro, 91, died at the New Jersey Veterans Home in Paramus from COVID-19.

Kryn Westhoven, a spokesman for the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said policies and procedures have been in place to prevent this type of mistake.

"Unfortunately, human error combined with unprecedented circumstances created the situation in which a terrible mix-up occurred," he said in a statement.

The Paramus home has since suspended all room changes, unless deemed necessary by staff, he said.

A facility-wide inspection was immediately completed after Tom's death by the home's executives to ensure that all room assignments, bed assignments and wrist band placements were accurate.

The moves do little to comfort the Mastropietro family. Steve says he feels guilty that he didn't move his father when he suspected something was wrong in March.

On Thursday afternoon, Tom Mastropietro was laid to rest at Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington with a small graveside ceremony. He was buried in a family plot next to his wife Mary.

"I was holding my mom's hand when she died," Steve said. "I never had that chance with my dad. I never had the chance to say goodbye."

Follow Scott Fallon on Twitter: @newsfallon

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Coronavirus: New Jersey veterans home misidentifies man's body
After some delay, Wyomingites on unemployment insurance should begin to receive $600 weekly payments from the federal government by the middle of next week, officials from the Department of Workforce Services said Friday.

"The Wyoming Department of Workforce Services is working tirelessly around the clock to provide these additional financial resources to our Wyoming neighbors," Programs Administrator Holly McKamey Simoni said in a statement. "The $600 per week addition will be applied to unemployment benefits automatically. Those who are receiving unemployment benefits already do not have to do anything to get these funds."

According to a news release, benefits are retroactive to the week of March 29 and will be in effect through July 25. Those already registered to receive unemployment insurance through the department should see the amounts reflected in their next payment and are asked not to call the office.

Taxes  as well as child support payments, when applicable  will be automatically applied to the $600 amount, meaning the actual payments will be approximately $540 or less for beneficiaries.
Libya's east-based military forces fired into residential neighborhoods of the country's besieged capital with heavy weapons, killing four civilians on Friday, including an elderly man and a teenager, according to Tripoli health officials.

"The humanitarian situation is catastrophic, terrifying, really," said health ministry official Amin al-Hashemi.

Despite appeals for a freeze in the fighting so that authorities can confront the coronavirus pandemic, "the shelling has not stopped for hours, it is only increasing," he said.

On Friday, artillery rounds crashed into houses across from the prominent Royal Health Clinic in southern Tripoli, killing a 16-year-old boy and wounding his mother and two younger brothers, aged 12 and 8, said health ministry spokesman Malek Merset.

In the Souk al-Juma neighborhood of Tripoli, one man was killed when a Grad rocket struck his home, and four others wounded, including a woman, he added.

In a western Tripoli neighborhood, a 70-year-old man was killed and four members of the same family wounded when shells hit grocery stores and surrounding homes, said al-Hashemi.

A shelter for civilians who fled fighting in other parts of the city also came under fire, killing one 40-year-old man and wounding two policemen.

The fighting over Tripoli erupted last April, when forces under the east-based commander Khalifa Hifter launched a campaign to seize the capital from the UN-backed government.

In recent weeks, Hifter's forces have escalated their use of Grad rockets and artillery shells in Tripoli's densely-populated neighbourhoods. The weapons by their nature cannot be fired precisely and place civilians at grave risk.

The intensifying assault drew condemnation from the United Nations, where spokesman Stephane Dujarric appealed for a cease-fire on humanitarian grounds to slow the spread of the virus. The majority of Libya's 49 infections have been reported in Tripoli and the western city of Misrata.

The UN-backed government, which controls just a corner of the country's west, imposed a lockdown on Friday in its most sweeping anti-virus measure yet, warning that violators who venture out after curfew hours would be penalized. But while the virus may lurk in streets and public spaces, Tripoli residents increasingly do not feel safe in their homes either.

"A humanitarian pause is urgently required," said Dujarric, noting that the UN had recorded at least 131 civilian casualties, including 64 deaths, in just the first three months of this year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 22:51:29|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- People who are released from a 14-day concentrated quarantine in Beijing were suggested to have self-observation at home for seven more days, an official with the Beijing Center for Diseases Prevention and Control (Beijing CDC) said Saturday at a press conference.

Liu Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Beijing CDC, noted that the people, especially those who had a travel history in COVID-19 hotspots or had contact with confirmed COVID-19 cases, should keep good self-protection and pay close attention to their physical condition during the week-long period.

Imported cases have caused sporadic cases of infection in Beijing, which has brought hidden dangers and risks to the city's epidemic prevention and control work, Liu noted.

"Those who return home after concentrated quarantine should report immediately to community workers if they develop even mild symptoms like fever and cough, and go to fever clinics as soon as possible," Liu said. Enditem
The New Jersey Department of Health handed down several citations to a Sussex County nursing home with a years-long history of health deficiencies, where a makeshift morgue crammed with 17 bodies was discovered earlier this week during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center I and II received several citations from the state department of health after a Friday survey of the facility, state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said during the states daily coronavirus press briefing Saturday.

State officials told NJ Advance Media that 38 people had died from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, as of Saturday afternoon.

Surveyors from the state and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) visited the 699-bed facility in Andover Township on Friday, said Persichilli. After the survey was completed, the state held a conference call with the homes co-owner Chaim Scheinbaum and the homes nursing consultant Friday, she said.

It was unclear how many citations the facility received, but Donna Leusner, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health, said the citations were over infection control issues.

The infection control nurse and administrator were out sick," Leusner said.

The NJDOH issued a Directed Plan of Correction (DPOC) requiring the facility to hire a Consultant Administrator, Consultant Director of Nursing and an Infection Control consultant, the spokeswoman said.

Scheinbaum will be required to submit a plan of correction by Monday that includes hiring an on-site infection prevention specialist, chief nurse officer and in leadership, an administrative manager, Persichilli said.

Calls on Saturday to Scheinbaum and Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center I and II administration were not immediately returned.

The Andover facility gained national attention after local police, alerted by an anonymous tip, found 17 bodies in a makeshift morgue.

In a statement released Thursday, Scheinbaum blamed the crammed bodies and the number of deaths linked to the coronavirus to a backup ... after hours holiday weekend issues" and more-than-average deaths.

Since November 2016, the centers second building, where the pile of bodies was found, has had 26 health deficiencies, according to data from the CMS. The centers first building has had 10 health deficiencies dating back to October 2017, records show.

One of the more egregious cases was of a resident who fell last September, injuring their hip. It took 11 days for the resident to be taken to an acute care hospital, where the resident was diagnosed and underwent surgery.

The larger of the centers two buildings is ranked at the bottom in the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare ratings, with 1 out of 5 stars, or much below average. The other is ranked 3 stars, or average.

Local officials and relatives of the homes residents have complained of a lack of transparency from the facility. Until reports came out of the makeshift morgue and an outbreak, the numbers submitted by the home and what was reported by the county did not appear to jibe, Andover Township Mayor Michael Lesnak previously said.

The township, which has a population of just under 6,000, had an outsized number of fatalities from COVID-19, he said. That number, he was told, was being skewed by deaths at the nursing home.

NJ Advance Media staff writer Brent Johnson contributed to this report.

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.

If you would like updates on New Jersey-specific coronavirus news, subscribe to our Coronavirus in N.J. newsletter.

Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rodrigotorrejon.
Iran finally frees Christian woman imprisoned for talking about Christianity

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An Iranian Christian woman, who was sent to prison in 2018 after being convicted of spreading propaganda against the regime for discussing Christian doctrine inside a house church has been released, according to the U.K.-based group Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

Fatemeh Bakhteri, who was sentenced to 12 months in prison on Sept. 22, 2018, after being found guilty of her charges, was released earlier this month, CSW said in a statement.

The Iranian Christian convert, from the Church of Iran denomination, was granted temporary release from the infamous Evin prison on March 15 due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in the Islamic countrys overcrowded prisons, CSW explained. On April 12, Bakhteri was told by prison authorities that she doesnt have to return to prison.

Bakhteri was arrested along with another Christian, Saheb Fadaie, on the same charges. Fadaie was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Local sources told CSW that the verdict against them claimed that they discussed Christian doctrine in house churches which was considered an attack on Islam.

We welcome Fatemeh Bakhteris release, but note that the charges against her were unfounded and amount to criminalizing Christian activities, CSWs Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said.

Ms. Bakhteri has spent a year away from her loved ones for discussing Christian doctrine with fellow Christians, which is not illegal, Thomas added. She is amongst many Iranians who are being penalized for adopting a religion of their choice.

Bakhteri was one of over 85,000 prisoners serving short-term prison sentences who were released around March in an attempt by the Iranian regime to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

Around the same time, a 35-year-old Iranian Christian, Ramiel Bet Tamraz, was also released three months early from his four-month prison sentence for participating in house churches.

Tamraz had been in prison since early January and was released in late February. We are very happy and excited that Ramiel is safe and back home. This was a big surprise and a miracle for our family, his sister, Assyrian Christian Dabrina Bet-Tamraz, told Al Arabiya English. We still pray for those who are in prison, for God's protection over their health.

Dabrina had met with President Trump at the White House last July.

Many who have gained their freedom in the mass release will only be released temporarily and will have to go back to prison at a later date. But Tamraz will not have to serve the remainder of his time.

Iran has for years been designated by the U.S. State Department as a country of particular concern for religious freedom violations.

Last December, nine Christians, who were arrested in January and February 2019, were sentenced to a combined total of 45 years in prison by Irans Revolutionary Court. In Iran, it is illegal for a Muslim to convert to Christianity.

Iran ranks as the ninth-worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution on Open Doors USAs 2020 World Watch List. At least 169 Christians were arrested in Iran during the organizations 2019 reporting period  Nov. 1, 2018, to Oct. 31, 2019.
The West Bengal government will



issue reminders to private schools that have not responded favourably to the state minister's request for not hiking fees in view of the COVID-19 triggered lockdown, a senior school department official said on Saturday.

The reminder notice would also be sent to schools that are seeking money from guardians under heads such as development fee or stationary fee, the official said.

Minister Partha Chatterjee had on April 8 appealed to all private schools not to increase fees saying his department had received several complaints from guardians over fee hikes during this crisis.

The school education department issued a notification in this regard two days later.

"It is unfortunate that authorities of some private unaided schools affiliated to various boards have not only hiked their fees but also put pressure on guardians to pay during the lockdown period," the notification said.

It also asked those schools to refrain from effecting any decision to hike fees considering the case of those guardians who would find it difficult to pay the existing fee during the ongoing lockdown.

The official said a few private schools in past one week have announced putting on hold the decision to raise fees, but several others have increased it and insisted that guardians pay the new fee by net banking within a stipulated period.

"Some of the institutes which did not increase fees are asking the guardians to pay a specific amount of money under categories like development fee or stationary fee by May, though the schools will remain closed till June 10.

"We are keeping a tab on all these developments and also got feedback from many guardians. We will send the schools concerned another reminder, if required. Then we will think about future action with the power vested on us," he said.

The official refused to name the schools saying it would not be proper.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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MIAMI, FL / ACCESSWIRE / April 17, 2020 / As founder of BrandsBuilder, Marco Calamassi connects with entrepreneurs, founders and agency owners on the daily. On his recent endeavours he met and worked with 3 young and emerging protagonists in the Tech & Digital Space.They are proactive, innovative and leading a team of co-workers to help them achieve their business goals. That's the reason why they made it to this Top 3 Young Entrepreneurs who are establishing themselves as the authorities in Ecommerce, Startup Innovation and Agency Ownership.Let me introduce them...ready ?- Utkarsh Raj(Ecommerce Star)INSTAGRAM: @utkarshUtkarsh Raj is a serial entrepreneur, a rising star who started earning at the age of 12. This 19-year old boy from India makes six figures through online marketing and eCommerce. Over the past 12 months, he has single-handedly created over 30 stores on Shopify. He made 6 figures from three of these stores within weeks. You won't believe it - one of his stores is bringing $50,000-$100,000 revenue each day!Utkarsh Raj's dedication, hard work and utmost commitment has led him to successfully make his mark in the ecom space. As much as he loves his work, he loves to travel, explore the world and meet new people. He believes you can find great opportunities if you travel. Raj is living the dream most people never even get close to achieve.He has set himself apart by realizing the potential of every opportunity you encounter and this is what led to his success. You can take the life and philosophy of Raj as a guide that leads the way to a successful business endeavor. Dare to travel and take all the chances that arise. Dare to dream and become who you want to be. Dare to embrace entrepreneurial opportunities and enjoy a life of luxury.- Phil Sokowicz (Startup Founder)INSTAGRAM: @psYou may not have heard of Phil Sokowicz, but over the past year, he has been quietly transforming the German Legal Tech sector. While studying International Management, he founded his first e-commerce startup, followed by an innovative legal and tech startup providing its customers with a technically advanced claim prediction and a simplified experience during legal proceedings.The company uses real lawyers to look over a claim and an algorithm to predict an expected payout amount, then lawyers take the claim to court. Customers can follow the proceedings on the company's online platform.This seamless integration of technology and law does exactly what tech does best - it transforms a process that used to be tedious and expensive into a process that is quick and cost-effective.Phil Sokowicz describes the platform as "Justice-as-a-Service" because it makes justice widely accessible. Most people won't be able to assess their own policies to determine whether or not the policy could be financially lucrative. Few people would want to spend money on hiring legal representation before they know whether or not it is worth revoking their policy. This is where the platform comes in.- Vincent Zampelli (Agency Owner)INSTAGRAM: @vinceceoVincent Zampelli can be described as an energetic, innovative and charismatic entrepreneur + business developer from Pennsylvania having recently relocated to South Florida. After rapid growth in developing engineering and fitness businesses, Vince quickly became a thought-leader in business development and social media.Vincent believes that the backbone of any successful company rests upon two things: consistency in revenue-generating activities and world-class customer support. Today he is the owner of two digital agencies. One for high-end advertising and branding and the second agency for curated content creation. Combined, he has a team of over 10 experts working between the two agencies.Vincent Zampelli's latest ventures include a South American expansion for his one agency and a national partnership in the Hospitals and Healthcare Network industry. Vince has worked with other top digital entrepreneurs in co-collaboration exhibits on social media. Additionally, Vince maintains a very active physical lifestyle balance between managing his companies, employees, and partners. Be sure to follow his professional page on Instagram at @vinceceo.Contact:Company: BrandsBuilderContact Person: Marco CalamassiAddress: 888 Biscayne Blvd #4207, Miami, FL, 33132Website: www.brandsbuilder.io SOURCE: BrandsBuilder
A Detroit man, who was cited for larceny after employees at Auto Zone, 8947 Tireman Avenue, in Dearborn, identified him, was caught and cited a second time after he doubled back and tried to retrieve the tools from a yard where he had hidden them.

On the afternoon of April 9, police officers responded to a call from Auto Zone employees, who said a man had walked out of the store carrying a $160 ratchet set. Dearborn police officers were unable to find the man, but Detroit police officers soon apprehended him, without the ratchet set, and turned him over to Dearborn police officers.

Following identification by store employees, the man was cited for larceny and released. Police officers then initiated surveillance and saw the man retrieve the tools from a yard east of Wyoming Avenue and north of Tireman Avenue. The man was cited a second time, the tools were confiscated, and he was released at the scene. The tools were returned to Auto Zone.
N asa has set a date for its first manned US space launch in nine years.

Astronauts have not launched into orbit from the US since Nasa's last space shuttle flight in 2011.

After nine years of complete Russian dependence, Nasa and Elon Musk's SpaceX picked May 27 for resuming astronaut launches from the US.

Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine announced the launch date on Friday.

The International Space Station - In pictures 1 /66 The International Space Station - In pictures US space shuttle Endeavour crew member Jim Newman on the outside of the Unity module of the International Space Station AFP/Getty Images 1998 Astronaut James H. Newman, waves at camera as he holds onto one of the hand rails on the Unity connecting module Getty Images 2017 The International Space Station continues its orbit around the Earth as Expedition 50 astronauts captured this night image of sparkling cities and a sliver of daylight framing the northern hemisphere NASA 2013 Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield performing aboard the International Space Station EPA 1986 The Space Shuttle Challenger explodes just 73 seconds after lifting off from Kennedy Space Center, Jan. 28, 1986. All seven crew members lost their lives. AP 1998 Jerry Ross and Jim Newman train for one of the three spacewalks they will perform Getty Images 1998 Shuttle Astronaut Jerry L. Ross takes a picture during a 7-hour, 21 minute spacewalk Getty Images 1998 Technicians attach lifting gear to the Unity module of the International Space Station 23 October 1998 AFP/Getty Images 1998 The Unity module of the International Space Station is lifted for installation into a payload canister at Kennedy Space Center in Florida AFP/Getty Images 1998 The crew of Space Shuttle Mission STS-88 beginning construction of the International Space Station Getty Images 1998 Clouds over Asia form the backdrop for this scene of Unity module of the International Space Station Getty Images 2000 US astronaut Bill Shepherd (L), Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalyov (R) pose for a snapshot inside the Soyuz TM31 rocket at Baikonur cosmodrome 27 October 2000 AFP/Getty Images 2000 Astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria hangs onto a handrail Getty Images 2001 The worlds first space tourist Dennis Tito poses with the International Space Station crew shortly after his arrival to the station April 30, 2001 Getty Images 2001 CSA astronaut Chris A. Hadfield stands on a Canadian-built robot arm to work with another robot arm Getty Images 2001 The space shuttle Discovery lifts-off launch pad 39-B at sunrise 08 March 2001, at the Kennedy Space Center AFP/Getty Images 2001 US space shuttle Atlantis crewmembers from Baltimore, Maryland (L-R) Mission Specialist Robert Curbeam and Mission Specialist Tom Jones, board the Astro Van at Kennedy Space Center, Florida 07 February 2001 AFP/Getty Images 2004 This artist's concept shows the International Space Station when its assembly sequence is completed in 2004 Getty Images 2005 Astronaut Stephen K. Robinson anchored to a foot restraint on the International Space Station Reuters 2006 European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter gives the thumbs-up from aboard the Destiny module of the International Space Station Reuters 2007 Two astronauts floated out of the International Space Station on November 3 on a risky spacewalk for what could be a make-or-break repair for completion of the $100 billion space outpost Reuters 2008 Astronaut Rex Walheim translates along the outside of the Columbus laboratory AP US space shuttle Endeavour crewmembers (L-R) US Mission Specialist Nancy Currie, US Commander Bob Cabana and US Pilot Rick Sturckow AFP/Getty Images US space shuttle Endeavour crewmembers Jim Newman (L) and Jerry Ross (R) work on a section between the US Unity connecting module (foreground) and the Russian Zarya control module (background) AFP/Getty Images The US space shuttle Endeavor's robot arm (R) holds the Russian Zarya control module (top) a few feet from the US Unity connecting module (bottom) prior to bringing the two together for the initial stage of the International Space Station AFP/Getty Images The US space shuttle Endeavour lights up the surrounding area as it streaks into space from launch pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center AFP/Getty Images Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev, a Russian cosmonaut, is assisted with his ascent and re-entry flight suit Getty Images US space shuttle Endeavour crewmember Jim Newman grabs a hold of the US Unity connecting module as he works removing covers and connecting cables AFP/Getty Images The Space Shuttle Endeavour lights up the night sky as it embarks on the first U.S. mission dedicated to the assembly of the International Space Station Getty Images The crew of the space shuttle Endeavour walk out of the Operations and Checkout Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida AFP/Getty Images The space shuttle Endeavour sits on launch pad 39-A after the lift-off was scrubbed with nineteen seconds left in the count AFP/Getty Images The Space Shuttle Endeavour lights up the night sky as it embarks on the first U.S. mission dedicated to the assembly of the International Space Station Getty Images Backdropped by Earth, the International Space Station is seen in an image taken by a crew member onboard the space shuttle Endeavour Reuters 2010 The space shuttle Endeavour is seen in this view from the International Space Station Reuters 2010 The International Space Station photographed soon after the space shuttle Atlantis and the station began their post-undocking separation EPA 2011 The International Space Station and the Docked Space Shuttle Endeavour NASA 2011 The Space Shuttle Endeavour is seen with the International Space Station in the foreground Reuters 2012 Nighttime view from the International Space Station shows the Atlantic coast of the United States Reuters 2017 Nasa's stunning images of eclipse from International Space Station by astronaut Paolo Nespoli 2018 The crew of Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft took these images of the International Space Station in October 2018 Roscosmos/NASA 2018 The crew of Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft took these images of the International Space Station in October 2018 Roscosmos/NASA 2018 The crew of Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft took these images of the International Space Station in October 2018 Roscosmos/NASA 2018 "Captured Cygnus today with @Astro_AlexProud to have The SS John Young on-board!" tweeted astronaut Serena Aunon-Chancellor AFP/Getty Images 2018 Hurricane Florence gains strength in the Atlantic Ocean as it moves west, seen from the International Space Station Getty Images 2018 Russian Soyuz MS-09 crew craft, left, and the Northrop Grumman (formerly Orbital ATK) Cygnus space freighter are attached to the International Space Station AP British astronaut Major Tim Peake was the first official British astronaut at the International Space Station in 2015 NASA 2019 Hurricane Dorian passing near the Dominican Republic from the International Space Station AFP/Getty Images 2019 Smoke from the Kincade Fire in Sonoma County, northern California NASA/AFP via Getty Images 2019 Astronaut Christina Koch during her spacewalk outside the International Space Station NASA TV/AFP via Getty Images 2019 A large volcanic ash and gas plume is seen from the International Space Station rising above the Kuril Islands in the North Pacific Ocean after an unexpected series of blasts from the Raikoke Volcano erupts Reuters

The private aerospace manufacturer, SpaceX, aims to end the drought by sending two Nasa astronauts to the International Space Station

On May 27, @NASA will once again launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil! Mr Bridenstine tweeted.

Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken will blast off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, departing from the same Kennedy Space Centre launch pad used by shuttle Atlantis in July 2011, as well as the Apollo moonshots a half-century ago.

Mr Hurley served as pilot on that last shuttle mission and will be the spacecraft commander for SpaceXs Dragon crew capsule.

Launch day will be a Wednesday, with a liftoff time of 4.32pm EDT. It is too soon to know whether the coronavirus pandemic will prompt crowd restrictions.

Only three countries have launched people into orbit since 1961: Russia, the US and China, in that order. SpaceX would be the first company.

SpaceX successfully conducted its first test flight of a Dragon crew capsule a year ago, sending the capsule  minus a crew  to the space station.

The returned capsule was accidentally destroyed during ground testing at Cape Canaveral, further delaying the astronaut launch.

TODO: define component type apester

With the space station crew now down to three, Mr Hurley and Mr Behnken will spend weeks, perhaps months, helping to maintain the orbiting lab.

The length of their mission is still under review, according to Nasa. Meanwhile Nasa is in the process of buying another seat on a Russian rocket.

Nasa astronauts make safe return to earth from International Space Station

Since 2011 Russian Soyuz capsules have been the sole means of crew transportation to and from the space station.

SpaceX has been using Falcon 9 rockets to launch cargo to the space station in the companys original Dragon capsules since 2012.

Nasa turned to private companies for deliveries once the shuttle programme ended.

Boeing also is working to launch astronauts under Nasas commercial crew programme, but the companys effort suffered a serious setback following last Decembers botched test flight.

Launching without anyone on board, Boeings Starliner capsule failed to reach the space station after ending up in the wrong orbit and came close to destruction twice because of software errors.
500+ foreign specialists to be quarantined upon entering Vietnam for work

Authorities in Thanh Hoa and Quang Ninh provinces have prepared to quarantine over 500 foreign specialists scheduled to enter the country this month.

Authorities in the north central province of Thanh Hoa received 104 specialists from CR Asia Thailand Company to work at Nghi Son Oil Refinery on Friday evening. Two of them are from South Africa, one from New Zealand and the remainder from Thailand.

After landing at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, they were transferred to the quarantine area at Anh Phat 3 Hotel in Nghi Son Economic Zone, 200 km south of the capital.

Based in Thanh Hoas Nghi Son Open Economic Zone, the refinery boasts a capacity of 200,000 barrels of crude oil a day in its first phase, equivalent to 10 million tonnes a year.

On Thursday, authorities in the northern province of Quang Ninh said it would cooperate with the South Korean Embassy in Vietnam to bring 400 South Koreans back to Vietnam to resume work.

The specialists, who hold main positions at South Korean enterprises operating in Vietnam, are expected to land at Van Don International Airport this month. 308 of them, engineers of Samsung Vietnam, landed on Friday afternoon.

They will be quarantined for 14 days at a five-star hotel in Ha Long, with all associated fees covered by the South Korean side.

Upon entering the country, all foreign experts are required to show an official certificate confirming they are free of the novel coronavirus, issued by competent authorities of the host countries and approved by the Vietnamese government.

Earlier, Vietnam agreed to let 700 engineers of Samsung Display skip mandatory centralized quarantine but ordered strict medical supervision for 14 days for the South Korean engineers who must also make medical declarations before entering the country.

Starting March 22, Vietnam suspended entry for all foreign nationals, including those of Vietnamese origin and family members with visa waivers.

Only Vietnamese nationals and foreigners carrying diplomatic and official passports such as business managers, experts and high-skilled workers are allowed to enter the country at this time, and all entrants will be quarantined for 14 days.

One of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic is that 24,410 foreigners were not able to the country to work, according to data from the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs. These include 18,999 Chinese, 2,826 South Koreans, and 2,585 citizens from other countries and territories, including experts, skilled workers and managers.

A survey by the ministry last month found 34 cities and provinces want to bring back over 9,000 foreigners, mostly Chinese and South Koreans.

Vietnams infection tally rose to 268 Thursday morning, with 97 active cases and 171 discharged from hospital.

The global Covid-19 death toll has risen to 134,300 as the disease has spread to 210 countries and territories.
The head of the Tablighi Jamaat, Maulana Saad, has written to the Delhi Police seeking a copy of the first information report (FIR) against him and seven others. Police had filed a criminal case against Saad and six other top officials of the Jamaat on March 31 for defying a series of government directives, which curbed religious and large gatherings, issued to contain the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19) disease in the Capital.

In the letter, Saad has asked the police if they have added any new Indian Penal Code sections to the FIR.

Delhi Police officers, requesting anonymity, had on Wednesday confirmed that they had added Section 304 in the FIR against Saad.

Section 304 of the IPC, related to culpable homicide not amounting to murder, is a stringent section, unlike the other sections of Epidemic Diseases Act which had been levied in the FIR initially. A person convicted under Section 304 of the IPC could be sentenced to a maximum of ten years imprisonment.

In a letter to the case investigating officer, Saad has written that he had joined the investigation by replying to the polices two e-mails sent earlier this month.

Saads lawyer Shahid Ali confirmed that they wrote to the police on Thursday. We have given a letter to the Delhi Police stating that we have replied twice to the notices issued to us. We also asked them about media reports related to a particular section that has reportedly been added to the FIR. We also sought the copy of the FIR. We have reiterated that we are always available for cooperation in the investigation. We have not received any notices or summons to join the investigation except for some information they asked of us in their two letters.

The FIR, filed March 31, was first registered under sections of the Disaster Management Act as well as IPC sections which included criminal conspiracy (120 B), a negligent act likely to spread disease (269), malignant act likely to spread infection (270), disobedience to quarantine rule (271) and defying prohibitory orders (188). The maximum punishment, if convicted, under those sections is a two-year prison term with a fine or both.

Last month, police officers and state government officials had evacuated more than 2,300 persons from inside the Markaz building in Delhis Nizamuddin, the headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat, where they had gathered for a religious congregation of indeterminate length. The meetings continued despite orders by the Delhi government banning all religious events (March 13), restricting gatherings to 200 people (March 16), and then putting a four-person limit (March 21) on all gatherings. The Nizamuddin area was also declared a containment zone after the evacuation. At least 21 evacuated persons had then tested positive for the Sars-Cov-2.

Earlier this month, police had sent two questionnaires to Saad, containing 29 questions related to the Tablighi Jamaat and the gatherings between March 10 and 15. In the first notice, which had 26 questions, sent on April 1, the investigating officer had sought details of CCTV cameras inside the building and had asked Saad to preserve the footage. The police had asked for details of all the people, including foreigners, present in the building last month. There was also a question on the steps taken by the management to disperse the gathering after the government had issued the prohibitory orders.
Medical staff put on their personal protective equipment at an MOT testing centre in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which is being used as a drive through testing location for Covid-19. - Justin Kernoghan /PA

The NHS medical director has warned that the Government must get sufficient protective equipment delivered to the Covid-19 front line.

Professor Stephen Powis made an impassioned plea during the Government's daily press conference, stating his "friends, colleagues and extended family" are on the front line and need PPE delivered.

"I can absolutely assure you that for me and my clinical colleagues this is very personal," Professor Powis said.

"These are my friends, these are my colleagues, these are some of my extended family...I know government is working incredibly hard to get that procurement in... but what I hear from my clinical colleagues is that what they need is PPE delivered."

His warning comes as NHS staff were said to be considering refusing to work if supplies of gowns and other PPE are unavailable for them to deal with coronavirus patients, the union Unison says.

Robert Jenrick, Communities Secretary, said a shipment of 84 tonnes of PPE, including 400,000 gowns, will be delivered from Turkey this week.

The death toll in the UK has now topped 15,000 after 888 more deaths were announced by the Department of Health and Social Care.

Follow the latest updates below.
National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines wants to buy 50 additional airplanes despite numerous difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The information was given by Vietnam Airlines General Director Duong Tri Thanh at a meeting between Hanoi authorities and local enterprises on their operations amid the pandemic.

An airplane of Vietnam Airlines

Thanh said that now Vietnam Airlines mainly focuses on how it can recover after Covid-19. So, the plan to buy 50 new airplanes is among the measures.

According to Thanh, since the start of the social distancing, only 2-5% of the carriers flight capacity has been utilised. For international routes, Vietnam Airlines flights mostly repatriated Vietnamese citizens and transported medical equipment. Around 3,000 flight attendants and 1,000 pilots have been affected by the pandemic.

With the current fleet of around 100 airplanes, Vietnam Airlines can cover losses caused by Covid-19 if operations remain good for the next five years.

It would have previously taken Vietnam Airlines 3-4 years to be handed over with airplanes, but now, it would be much quicker as many airlines have cancelled their orders due to their financial difficulties due to Covid-19.

By March 20, Vietnam Airlines total short-term loans were estimated at VND3.568 trillion (USD155 million). The carrier would need an additional VND15 trillion (USD652 million) this year.

However, with this financial situation, it would be hard for Vietnam Airlines to get additional loans. Therefore, Vietnam Airlines needs the governments financial support from late this month. Dan Viet/Dtinews



Aviation policies fair and equal for all airlines, says transport ministry The Ministry of Transport said it did not assign the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam to study a protection policy dedicated to Vietnam Airlines, which recently reported a loss of VND20 trillion due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the 11th century Jagannath temple in Puri shutting down for over a month amid the coronavirus crisis, the temple administration on Friday decided to give Rs 5,000 to each of its 2100 servitors working in the temple.

Odisha had shut its most famous temple for pilgrims from March 20 to contain the spread of coronavirus disease. With no devotees visiting the temple, cash donations from devotees, the major source of earning for the priests there has stopped.

Jitendra Sahu, who is the administrator of rituals in the temple, said Rs 1.06 crore would be given to the 2,130 sevayat (priests or servitors) of the temple. The Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) will credit Rs 5,000 to the bank accounts of each servitor, Sahu said.

This is a welcome step. I, on behalf of the servitors and the Temple Managing Committee, thank the chief administrator and the deputy chief administrator of the temple administration for this decision, said Ramachandra Dasmohapatra, a servitor and member of the Temple Managing Committee.

Priests at other temples demand financial assistance

Priests of other temples in Odisha have also demanded assistance from the government. At Sakshigopal temple, a shrine of Lord Vishnu located 40 kilometres away from Jagannath temple, over 200 priests are having a tough time amid the lockdown. Every day thousands of people who came to Puri used to visit the 400-year-old temple until the lockdown was enforced amid the coronavirus pandemic last month.

We are entirely dependent on the generosity of the pilgrims. We are somehow keeping up the rituals of the Lord. As Jagannath temple is cash-rich, they could give money to the priests. Who will look after us, said Shaymsundar Mohapatra, a senior priest at the temple.

Similarly, hundreds of priests in Lingaraj temple in Bhubaneswar have also demanded financial assistance from the government.

We thought we would earn something from the Rukuna Rathyatra last month. But we were disappointed after it was cancelled. How long will we go on like this, asked Kamalakanta Badu, a priest of the temple.

Uncertainty over Rath Yatra looms

The financial assistance to the families of the temple priests has come at a time when there is a lot of uncertainty over the conduct of the annual Rath Yatra on June 23. The annual Chandan Jatra of Lord Jagannath scheduled on April 26 at Narendra Pokhari (pond) in Puri would be held without the participation of devotees in view of the lockdown. The slicing of the wooden logs for the car festival has already started and the construction of the three chariots is scheduled to start on April 26.

Though Puri is not in the list of Covid-19 hotspots of the country, there is still a lot of doubt if the annual car festival can be held this year.

Whether Rath Yatra will be organised or not this year is under discussion. No decision has been taken so far in this regard. We will take a final call on it soon, said state law minister Pratap Jena.

The lockdown had led to the cancellation of another famous car festival in Bhubaneswar, the Rukuna Rathayatra, on April 1. For the first time in its history, the annual car festival of Lord Lingaraj in Bhubaneswar on the occasion of Ashokastami could not be held this year due to the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown.

During the occasion, the idols of Lord Lingaraj along with Gopalini (Parvati), Kumara and Nandikesvara and an image of Govinda are taken out in a chariot from Lingaraj temple to Rameswaram temple.
When an undocumented immigrant complained about a shortened lunch program at the Southern California elementary school her two daughters attended, the principal threatened to report her to immigration.

The mother sued, on behalf of herself and her daughters. So far, the courts have been unreceptive.

While (the) threat may be unseemly and unbecomng of a school principal, it did not violate anyones right to free speech or equality under the law, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Thursday.

The 2-1 ruling noted that the threat was never carried out, and said merely uttering it did not discriminate against the family or violate any clearly established constitutional rights.

Judges Sandra Ikuta and Kenneth Lee signed the majority opinion upholding a federal judges dismissal of the suit. In dissent, Algenon Marbley, a federal judge from Ohio temporarily assigned to the appeals court, said the stigma and loss of dignity from the school principals threat .. singled (the children) out for discriminatory treatment on the basis of their national origin.

The case dates from August 2015, when the woman complained about a policy at Madison Elementary School in Pasadena to throw away lunches at the school cafeteria if children did not finish eating them in a short period of time. The woman said one of her daughters had anemia and could be harmed by having to rush through lunch or forego it.

In response, she said, the principal, Juan Ruelas, threatened to call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on her.

When the woman took her complaint to the school board a month later, the board referred the complaint back to Ruelas. When she met with the principal and a school district representative shortly afterward, she said, the representative told her she was defaming Ruelas and he could take action against her.

The mother raised the subject again at a board meeting in 2016 and said a school aide spoke of contacting ICE. The woman also said Ruelas prevented her from volunteering for some school programs that she had served in the past.

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.

Her lawsuit said discrimination can psychologically damage schoolchildren and their parents, and cited language to that effect in the Supreme Courts epic 1954 ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education that prohibited racial segregation in public schools. The appeals court scoffed at the comparison.

Whatever harm the woman and her children may have suffered cannot compare to the shameful chapter in our nations history of sustained and systemic segregation, the court majority said. It also said there was no evidence that the Pasadena Unified School District, another defendant in the case, had a discriminatory policy.

The family may ask the full appeals court for a new hearing before a larger panel, said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which represented them.

This threat was clearly directed at someones immigration status, Saenz said. Unless the courts intervene, he said, Im concerned this kind of behavior will recur.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
New Delhi: Coronavirus infection is increasing in the country. Everyday there is an increase in corona cases. The deaths due to coronavirus are also seen increasing daily. Now the number of deaths due to Coronavirus in the country is increasing towards 500.

38 new corona cases found in Rajasthan, 1270 infected

Due to Coronavirus, the number of infected patients in the country has reached beyond 14 thousand. So far, Coronavirus infection has been found in 14378 people in the country. The death toll due to Coronavirus is also increasing. So far 480 people have lost their lives due to Corona virus in the country. 1992 people have recovered. Maharashtra is among the most affected states due to Coronavirus in the country. In Maharashtra alone, more than 3200 cases of coronavirus have been reported.

India is helping world in Corona crisis, Pakistan is exporting terror: Army Chief Narwane

The death toll due to Coronavirus in Maharashtra is also the highest in the country. In Maharashtra, 201 people have died due to coronavirus. Madhya Pradesh has recorded the second highest number of deaths in the country. In Madhya Pradesh, where the number of corona-infected patients has reached beyond 300, 69 people have also lost their lives in Madhya Pradesh.

Congress leader Sidhu violates lockdown, Senior Advocate complained to CM Amarinder
A plane of Vietnam Airlines (Source: VNA)

On April 17, the flight, arranged between Vietnamese authorities, the Italian Embassy in Vietnam and ENI Company (Italy), took back to Italy a number of Italian citizens who had been stranded in Vietnam due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The flight was part of the Vietnamese Governments efforts to help foreign diplomatic agencies in the country carry out citizen protection duties and support the international community in the fight against COVID-19.

It also transported medical masks as a gift from the Vietnamese Government and people to their Italian counterparts.

A number of Vietnamese students and citizens living in Italys regions hard hit by COVID-19 came back on the return flight which landed at the Da Nang International Airport in the central city of Da Nang on early April 18 morning.

After touching down in Vietnam, all the passengers had their health checked and were immediately sent to concentrated quarantine areas in line with the countrys regulations.

Vietnam Airlines strictly applied COVID-19 prevention and control measures during the course of the flight to prevent the spread of the pandemic.
President Donald Trump appeared to lend support to protesters in several US states who have been demonstrating against stay-at-home orders imposed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

"LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" Trump tweeted on Friday. "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" The Republican president followed those tweets with another saying: "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!"



All three states -- Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia -- have seen demonstrations this week against the lockdowns imposed by their governors in a bid to prevent the spread of the highly contagious virus.

All three states also have Democratic governors and Trump's tweets appeared to be politically motivated.

Trump also lashed out on Friday at New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, another Democrat, saying he should "get out there and get the job done."



New York state with more than 10,000 deaths is the epicentre of the virus outbreak in the United States.

Cuomo, who has said previously he does not want to get in a "fight" with the president, shot back: "If he's sitting home watching TV, maybe he should get up and go to work."



More than 40 of the 50 US states have imposed stay-at-home orders and about 95 percent of the US population is currently under some form of lockdown in accordance with social distancing guidelines from the federal government.

Trump unveiled plans on Thursday for states to reopen their economies but largely left the decision to the governor of each state.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer told reporters on Friday that she hoped Trump's tweets were "not encouraging more protests."



"There is a lot of anxiety and I think, you know the most important thing that anyone with a platform can do is try to use that platform to tell people, 'We are going to get through this,'" Whitmer said. "We will reengage our economy when it's safe," she said.

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam shrugged off Trump's tweets. "As the governor of the commonwealth of Virginia I, along with my staff, are fighting a biological war," Northam said. "I do not have time to involve myself in Twitter wars."



Asked about Trump's tweets, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said his "first responsibility is the protection of Minnesota's people.

"I just don't have time to try to figure out why something like that would happen," he said. "We're leading as we were asked. If I thought we could go back to work tomorrow that's exactly what we would do."



While Whitmer, Northam and Walz reacted cautiously to Trump's tweets, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, was furious.

"The president's statements this morning encourage illegal and dangerous acts," Inslee said. "He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting COVID-19.

"His unhinged rantings and calls for people to 'liberate' states could also lead to violence," Inslee warned in a statement. "The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies, even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly, and that we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted."



The Second Amendment reference in Trump's tweet refers to the part of the US Constitution giving Americans the "right to bear arms."



Northam, the Virginia governor, last week signed legislation enacting several gun control measures in the state.

The largest protest against stay-at-home orders was on Wednesday in Lansing, the state capital of Michigan, which with more than 2,200 deaths has the third-highest toll in the country.

There have been more than 230 COVID-19-related deaths in Virginia and more than 110 in Minnesota.

The Michigan protest in defiance of the stay-at-home orders imposed by Governor Whitmer attracted around 3,000 demonstrators, some of whom were armed. It was organised by a coalition of right-wing groups calling themselves "Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine."



"We Want to Work" and "End the Lockdown" read signs carried by the protesters, a number of whom wore red pro-Trump "Make America Great Again" hats and waved "Trump 2020" flags.

About 800 protesters demonstrated outside Minnesota Governor Walz's residence in St Paul on Friday, according to the Star Tribune newspaper, under the banner of "Liberate Minnesota.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By West Kentucky Star Staff Apr. 17, 2020 | 07:57 PM | FRANKFORT





Beshear and Dr. Steven Stack, Commissioner of the Department for Public Health, both say the new normal going forward will not be the same normal as going into the pandemic.







"When we start lifting restrictions, I want to be very clear, there will be more disease. More people will get infected." Stack continued, "There is a counterbalancing need with people's need to go on with life and people's need to remain safe. We have recognized that all along."







The benchmarks for the first stage of reopening are as follows:







 14 days where cases are decreasing



 Increased testing capacity and contact tracing



 Personal protective equipment (PPE) availability



 Ability to protect at-risk populations



 Ability to social distance and follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines on large gatherings



 Preparedness for possible future spike



 Status of vaccine and treatment







Once Kentucky meets that criteria, the White House provided the following guidance on what the first stage of reopening may look like:







Individuals





 Individuals should continue to practice good hygiene



 People who feel sick should stay home



 All vulnerable individuals should continue to shelter in place



 All individuals, when in public, should maximize physical distance from others



 All individuals should avoid gatherings of more than 10 people, unless precautionary measures can be strictly observed



 Minimize non-essential travel and adhere to CDC guidelines regarding isolation following travel







Employers







 Should continue to encourage telework



 If possible, should return to work in phases



 Close common areas



 Minimize non-essential travel and adhere to CDC guidelines regarding isolation following travel



 Strongly consider special accommodations for personnel who are members of a vulnerable population







Specific types of employers







 Schools and organized youth activities that are currently closed should remain closed



 Visits to senior living facilities and hospitals should still be prohibited

 Large venues (sit-down dining, movie theaters, sporting venues, places of worship) can operate under strict physical distancing protocols



 Elective surgeries can resume, as clinically appropriate, on an outpatient basis at facilities that adhere to CMS guidelines



 Gyms can reopen if they adhere to strict physical distancing and sanitation protocols



 Bars should remain closed





For more information on the White House's criteria and all three proposed phases of reopening, visit the link below.





Beshear announced that Kentucky's public schools have provided more than 4.65 million meals to students throughout March, including breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Approximately 230,000 students received meals each day.







As of Friday, there were 134 new cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky, for a total of 2,522 cases. Out of the 2,522 total cases, so far 979 people have recovered. He also reported eight new deaths associated with the virus, for a total of 137 deaths related to the virus. One of the confirmed deaths was a 93-year-old Graves County woman.

During his Friday update, Governor Andy Beshear reviewed the seven benchmarks the Commonwealth must meet before reopening the economy.

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Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Saturday (April 18) defended the Gowda family for conducting a marriage and reportedly defying lockdown restrictions and stated it was performed in a simple manner and well within their limits.

"All the necessary permissions were given and the marriage was performed in a simple manner. There is no need to discuss about it. They had done it well within their limits for which I congratulate them," Yediyurappa said

Nikhil, son of former Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, tied the nuptial knot with Revathi, the grand-niece of former Karnataka housing minister M Krishnappa. The marriage was solemnised at Kumaraswamy's Kethaganahalli farmhouse at Bidadi in the neighbouring Ramanagara district, a JD(S) stronghold.

On Friday, scores of people thronged the Kethaganahalli farmhouse on Friday to get a glimpse of the wedding, ignoring appeals not to visit the venue in view of the ongoing lockdown to check the COVID-19 outbreak.

In addition, photos and videos from the lavish wedding ceremony also showed a clear violation of social distancing norms when the state of battling to contains coronavirus.

Earlier, the former chief minister had assured that the wedding will be a simple one. He had appealed to the party workers to not to attend this ceremony.
Taiwan warns against nationals working for CPC-affiliated agencies

ROC Central News Agency

04/17/2020 07:54 PM

Taipei, April 17 (CNA) Taiwan warned Friday of legal action against Taiwanese citizens working for China-based media outlets with links to the Communist Party of China (CPC), after an incident that came to light at a recent White House news briefing.

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), Taiwan's top agency in charge of cross-Taiwan Strait interaction, reiterated in a statement that it is unlawful for Taiwanese nationals to work for Chinese political or military agencies, whatever is the status of their employment.

The MAC comments pointed to a case involving Chang Ching-yi (), a reporter from Taiwan who works in Washington, D.C. for Shanghai-based Dragon TV, who replied to U.S. President Donald Trump in an April 8 White House news conference when questioned on where he was from, that he was from Taiwan after he raised questions on the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Chang's comments triggered responses from both sides of the strait. Some Chinese netizens accused Chang of being pro-Taiwan independence; some in Taiwan criticized him for working for a Chinese media, while others expressed concern that he will not be the last victim of what they described as a "witch hunt" by the Taiwanese authorities.

"We will invite the reporter in question to provide an explanation," MAC Deputy Minister Chiu Chui-cheng () said Friday.

In a routine news conference Thursday, Chiu said that "any Taiwanese citizens who work for Chinese organizations linked to the CPC, administrative or military authorities are in violation of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area."

Taiwanese people, institutions or groups found guilty of contravening the act will face fines of between NT$100,000 and NT$500,000 (US$16,620), Chiu noted.

Citing a decree issued by the government in March 2004, the MAC said what it called "Chinese political or military authorities" refer to enterprises, institutions and groups belonging to all levels of CPC and government agencies in China.

On Friday, the MAC reaffirmed that Dragon Television, which employs Chang, falls under the Shanghai Media Group, which is affiliated to the CPC's Shanghai chapter and the Shanghai city government.

Commenting on a media report that Chang is only a contract reporter at the network, the MAC said the status of employment does not have a part in its judgment of the work being carried out.

The MAC also noted that Taiwanese people are free to choose where to work and who to work for in China, as long as it does not pose a threat to Taiwan's national security and interests.

(By Flor Wang and Lai Yen-hsi)

Enditem/J

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The amendments give the president the power to adopt measures necessary to contain critical health conditions

Egyptian parliament's Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee approved in an urgent meeting on Saturday new amendments to the law regulating the state of emergency (162/1958).

Bahaaeddin Abu Shoka, head of the committee, told committee members that the amendments give the president new powers necessary to contain critical health conditions such as the outbreak of the coronavirus.

"It was unthinkable when the emergency law was drafted many years ago that the country might face such critical health conditions as the outbreak of the coronavirus," said Abu Shoka.

He explained that "the current emergency law focuses on granting the president powers to fight terrorist threats and drug trafficking crimes, but it comes short of standing up to pandemic threats such as the coronavirus."

As a result, Abu Shoka said the amendments give the president such powers as closing schools and universities, shutting down certain ministries and authorities entirely or partially, postponing the payment of water, electricity and natural gas bills entirely or partially, and compelling Egyptian expatriates returning home to undergo necessary health and quarantine measures.

"The amendments also give the president the right to allocate cash and in-kind assistance to individuals and families, offer financial support to medical research, provide financial and in-kind support to damaged economic sectors, postpone the payment of certain taxes, and turn schools and youth centres into field hospitals," he said.

The amended law grants the president the right to ban all kinds of private and public assemblies, processions and festivals.

"The amendments give the president the right to impose restrictions on exports and the handling of certain goods, commodities, and services and to regulate the methods of collecting financial and in-kind donations necessary to contain certain critical health conditions," said Abu Shoka.

He added that "the new presidential powers comprise imposing control on research, scientific and laboratorial works related in particular to biological material, and toughening measures regarding the possession, use, handling and disposal of such material."

Egypt's current state of emergency will expire on 27 April, but it is expected to be renewed for another three months when parliament meets on Tuesday.

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Security review in J&K is message to Pak not to use Taliban win in Kashmir

Day after Category A terrorist was killed, 2 more gunned down today in J&K

Security forces gun down hardcore naxal

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Sukma, Apr 18: A hardcore Naxal, carrying a cash reward of Rs 5 lakh on his head, was gunned down in an encounter with security forces in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh, police said on Saturday.

The incident took place on Friday evening, the said.

Based on a specific intelligence input about the presence of some Naxals from Odisha in the jungles of Chitalnar-Mundwal villages under the limits of Puspal police station, a team of District Reserve Guard (DRG) had launched the operation on Friday, Inspector General of Police (Bastar range) Sundarraj P said.

Sukma naxal attack: Massive search operation for soldiers

"When the patrolling team was cordoning off the jungles near the location on Friday evening, an exchange of fire broke out between the two sides," he said.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

During a search of the spot conducted later, the body of a male Naxal along with a .315 bore firearm, a tiffin bomb, two hand grenades, a couple of detonators, cordex wire, Maoist literature and items of daily use were recovered, he said.

The killed ultra has been identified as Podiyam Kama alias Nagesh, who was active as an area committee member in Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee of Maoists, he said.

Nagesh, a native of Bheji area of Sukma, had been working in Kalimela LOS (local organisation squad) on Andhra Pradesh-Odisha Border since the last six years, the IG said, adding that he was carrying a reward of Rs 5 lakh in Chhattisgarh.
On April 14, nearly three weeks into a month-long nationwide lockdown to combat COVID-19, the New Zealand Treasury painted a dire picture of the countrys economic prospects.

The announcement preceded the International Monetary Fund forecast that the world economy is entering its worst slump since the 1930s Great Depression and that the loss of output will dwarf that which flowed from the 2008 global financial crisis.

Treasurys modelling predicted a surge in NZs unemployment to 13 percent, even if COVID-19 infections are contained and the nations lockdown is eased after four weeks, beginning on April 23. Attempting to browbeat workers into accepting a prompt return to work, it forecast a massive increase in unemployment to 26 percent and a fall in GDP of 23 percent if the strictest shutdown level remains in place for six months.

The unemployment rate, currently just over 4 percent, is expected to be higher in the June quarter than the 6.7 percent reached during the 2008 crisis. In the latest onslaught, the NZME media group revealed last week it had cut 200 jobs, while the owner of restaurant franchise operator Burger King was placed in receivership and mobile phone operator 2Degrees announced it would cut its staff of 1,200 by 10 percent.

Following the Treasurys report, Finance Minister Grant Robinson ratcheted up the governments fiscal stimulus package above the $NZ20 billion already pledged. He told BusinessNZ that small enterprises will get a $3 billion boost through tax breaks.

As of Friday, authorities had reported eight new cases of coronavirus in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to 1,409, with two more deaths, for a total of 11.

Like governments around the world, the priority of Prime Minister Jacinda Arderns Labour-led coalition has been to prop up the wealth of the super-rich and big businesses, with billions in corporate bailouts at the expense of working people. Even as the pandemic continues to rage internationally, campaigns are underway for workers to return to work in order to shore up profits.

Sections of NZs business elite and the media are already braying for the lockdown to be ended, and demanding that working people risk their lives and health to defend the capitalist economy. Taking their cue from US President Donald Trump, prominent media commentators have begun calculating the cost of saving lives versus the measures they deem necessary to restart the economy.

Even before the first hints that the number of new COVID-19 cases was beginning to decline, a drumbeat was initiated calling for more shops and businesses to reopen. Under the headline Kill or Cure? the Sunday Star Times demanded to know on its April 5 front page: When will this end, and could the solution be worse than the disease?

The next day, TV3 breakfast host Duncan Garner told viewers: Businesses are screaming for a signal we are returning to work soon. Heather du Plessis-Allan on Newstalk ZB declared: Im starting to feel desperate for businesses who have been told theyre not allowed to operate during this lockdown.

Broadcaster Mike Hosking said on April 17: Basically, we have lost a month economically. The lockdown had failed and Australias numbers are equal if not better than ours, he declared.

Some of the commentary bordered on the fascistic, identifying cohorts of people whose lives could be sacrificed. Commentator Matthew Hooton wrote in the New Zealand Herald on April 4: It may be repulsive to express it explicitly, but a protracted suppression strategy would materially and perhaps permanently damage the lives of the two million New Zealanders under the age of 30 to briefly maintain the life expectancy of some thousands of people in their 80s.

Speaking on Radio NZ on April 14, Hooton criticised more extreme elements in the public health community who are advocating some form of lockdown for six months or longer. Former National Party Finance Minister Steven Joyce told Newstalk ZB it was a pie in the sky fantasy to suggest COVID-19 could be eliminated, and said that staying in lockdown would cause irreparable financial damage to businesses.

Health experts have warned, however, that the government does not yet have sufficient scientific information on which to base a decision. Otago University epidemiologist David Skegg told a parliamentary committee the government would be playing Russian roulette with peoples lives if it exited the lockdown without ramping up its contact-tracing work.

Epidemiologist Michael Baker, who is on the Health Ministrys COVID-19 technical advisory group, said some of the data he needed to see to be confident of reducing to alert level 3 may not yet exist. He told Radio NZ that he had been asking the Health Ministry for weeks for key data about border control, contact tracing and testing but had not received it, nor had the advisory subgroup he was on with four other epidemiologists.

Baker previously predicted a long, drawn-out battle with the virus as waves of the pandemic hit separate countries at different times. Anyone who says it will be over by Christmas hasnt thought about it enough, he said.

In contrast to the growing back-to-work agitation, a survey released last week found that almost two-thirds of people would accept an extension of the lockdown beyond April 22.

Research NZ asked if they would be willing to remain in lockdown for at least another two weeks beyond when it is due to finish. Sixty percent agreed they would, 14 percent disagreed, and 26 percent didnt know. This was despite many respondents fears about losing jobs and paying mortgages and rents.

Despite this, and the continuing emergence of new cases of COVID-19, government leaders have begun preparing the way to drop the current lockdown from alert level 4 to level 3. While still restrictive, a level 3 lockdown would enable many businesses to begin operating again. Significantly, schools will reopen, raising concerns among teachers and parents that they could once again become centres for the spread of the virus.

Prime Minister Ardern is set to announce on Monday whether the lockdown will end.

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, from the right-wing populist NZ First Party, declared on April 16 that the country is likely to come out of lockdown next week, meaning a whole lot of businesses could immediately reopen if they met guidelines. Peters also criticised the World Health Organisation for not declaring the pandemic earlier and claimed it did not act fast enough, in line with recent statements by US President Donald Trump.

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Media glorifies New Zealand governments pro-business response to the pandemic

[14 April 2020]

New Zealand government says unemployment will hit double digits

[9 April 2020]
People protest against excessive quarantine amid the coronavirus pandemic at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan on April 15, 2020. Jeff Kowalsky | AFP | Getty Images

Stores in Texas can soon begin selling merchandise with curbside service, and hospitals can resume nonessential surgeries. In Florida, people are returning to a few beaches and parks. And protesters are clamoring for more. Governors eager to rescue their economies and feeling heat from President Donald Trump are moving to ease restrictions meant to control the spread of the coronavirus, even as new hot spots emerge and experts warn that moving too fast could prove disastrous. Adding to the pressure are protests against stay-at-home orders organized by small-government groups and Trump supporters. They staged demonstrations Saturday in several cities after the president urged them to "liberate" three states led by Democratic governors. Protests happened in Republican-led states, too, including at the Texas Capitol and in front of the Indiana governor's home. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott already said that restrictions will begin easing next week. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb  who signed an agreement with six other Midwestern states to coordinate reopening  said he would extend his stay-at-home order until May 1. For the first time in weeks, people were able to visit some Florida beaches, but they were still subject to restrictions on hours and activities. Beaches in big cities stayed closed.

People are seen at the beach on April 17, 2020 in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry announced Thursday that Duval County's beaches would open at 5 p.m. but only for restricted hours and can only be used for swimming, running, surfing, walking, biking, fishing, and taking care of pets. Sam Greenwood | Getty Images

Meanwhile, infections kept surging in the Northeast. Rhode Island, between the hot spots of Massachusetts and New York, has seen a steady daily increase in infections and deaths, with nursing home residents accounting for more than 90 of the state's 118 deaths. The state's death rate of around 10 people per 100,000 is among the nation's highest per capita, according to data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project. Massachusetts had its highest number of deaths in a single day on Friday, with 159. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, citing the advice of health experts, said states should wait until infection rates and hospitalizations decline for about two weeks before acting. Trump, whose administration waited months to bolster stockpiles of key medical supplies and equipment, appeared to back protesters. "LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, " Trump said in a tweet-storm in which he also lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, for criticizing the federal response. Cuomo "should spend more time 'doing' and less time 'complaining,'" the president said. At his Saturday briefing with reporters, Cuomo cited more progress. The daily increase in deaths in New York state fell below 550 for the first time in more than two weeks as hospitalizations continued to decline. But the crisis is far from over: Hospitals are still reporting nearly 2,000 new COVID-19 patients per day, and nursing homes remain a "feeding frenzy for this virus," he said. "We are not at a point when we are going to be reopening anything immediately," Cuomo said. In Texas, several hundred people rallied on steps of the state Capitol to call for an end to social restrictions. Many protesters sought an immediate lifting of restrictions and chanted "Let us work!" in a state where more than 1 million people have filed for unemployment since the crisis began. The rally was organized by a host of Infowars, owned by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who joined protesters on the Capitol steps. Jones is being sued in Austin over using his show to promote falsehoods that the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre in Connecticut was a hoax. More than 200 people stood close together outside the governor's mansion in Indianapolis, carrying American flags and signs demanding that Holcomb lift restrictions. The state health department reported 529 new coronavirus cases between April 7 and midday Friday, raising the total to more than 10,600. The number of deaths rose by 26, to 545. Elsewhere, a few hundred demonstrators cheered and waved signs outside the Statehouse in New Hampshire, which has had nearly 1,300 cases of the virus and more than three dozen deaths through Friday. "Even if the virus were 10 times as dangerous as it is, I still wouldn't stay inside my home. I'd rather take the risk and be a free person," said one of the protesters, talk show host Ian Freeman. Trump is pushing to relax the U.S. lockdown by May 1, a plan that hinges partly on more testing. Public health officials said the ability to test enough people and trace contacts of those who are infected is crucial before easing restrictions, and that infections could surge anew unless people continue to take precautions.

In Asia, some nations that until recently appeared to have the outbreak under control reported a fresh increase in cases Saturday. Japan's total case number rose above 10,000. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said he's concerned that people are not observing social distancing and announced a 100,000-yen ($930) cash handout to each resident as an incentive to stay home. Singapore reported a sharp, one-day spike of 942 infections, the highest in Southeast Asia, mostly among foreign workers staying in crowded dormitories. That brought the total to almost 6,000 in the tiny city-state of 6 million. There have been tentative signs that measures to curb the outbreak are working, with the rate of new infections slowing across Europe.
China Sanjiang Fine Chemicals (HKG:2198) shareholders are no doubt pleased to see that the share price has had a great month, posting a 32% gain, recovering from prior weakness. But shareholders may not all be feeling jubilant, since the share price is still down 28% in the last year.

All else being equal, a sharp share price increase should make a stock less attractive to potential investors. While the market sentiment towards a stock is very changeable, in the long run, the share price will tend to move in the same direction as earnings per share. The implication here is that deep value investors might steer clear when expectations of a company are too high. Perhaps the simplest way to get a read on investors' expectations of a business 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 China Sanjiang Fine Chemicals

How Does China Sanjiang Fine Chemicals's P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers?

We can tell from its P/E ratio of 3.14 that sentiment around China Sanjiang Fine Chemicals isn't particularly high. If you look at the image below, you can see China Sanjiang Fine Chemicals has a lower P/E than the average (6.6) in the chemicals industry classification.

SEHK:2198 Price Estimation Relative to Market April 17th 2020

This suggests that market participants think China Sanjiang Fine Chemicals will underperform other companies in its industry. Since the market seems unimpressed with China Sanjiang Fine Chemicals, it's quite possible it could surprise on the upside. 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

If earnings fall then in the future the 'E' will be lower. Therefore, even if you pay a low multiple of earnings now, that multiple will become higher in the future. A higher P/E should indicate the stock is expensive relative to others -- and that may encourage shareholders to sell.

Story continues

It's great to see that China Sanjiang Fine Chemicals grew EPS by 20% in the last year. And it has bolstered its earnings per share by 28% per year over the last five years. With that performance, you might expect an above average P/E ratio. But earnings per share are down 6.0% per year over the last three years.

Remember: P/E Ratios Don't Consider The Balance Sheet

One drawback of using a P/E ratio is that it considers market capitalization, but not the balance sheet. That means it doesn't take debt or cash into account. In theory, a company can lower its future P/E ratio by using cash or debt to invest in 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.

China Sanjiang Fine Chemicals's Balance Sheet

China Sanjiang Fine Chemicals has net debt worth a very significant 144% of its market capitalization. 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 Bottom Line On China Sanjiang Fine Chemicals's P/E Ratio

China Sanjiang Fine Chemicals trades on a P/E ratio of 3.1, which is below the HK market average of 9.5. The company has a meaningful amount of debt on the balance sheet, but that should not eclipse the solid earnings growth. If the company can continue to grow earnings, then the current P/E may be unjustifiably low. What is very clear is that the market has become less pessimistic about China Sanjiang Fine Chemicals over the last month, with the P/E ratio rising from 2.4 back then to 3.1 today. If you like to buy stocks that could be turnaround opportunities, then this one might be a candidate; but if you're more sensitive to price, then you may feel the opportunity has passed.

Investors should be looking to buy stocks that the market is wrong about. If it is underestimating a company, investors can make money by buying and holding the shares until the market corrects itself. Although we don't have analyst forecasts shareholders might want to examine this detailed historical graph of earnings, revenue and cash flow.

Of course you might be able to find a better stock than China Sanjiang Fine Chemicals. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have grown earnings strongly.

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.
A flexible solar cell was created by an international team they say could power the future generation of wearable technology. The device would be less than a tenth the width of a human hair and can also be bent. Researchers expect the invention have a lifespan of about 11.5 years and operate for more than 20,000 hours with little to no quality deterioration.

The research paper was posted on the Joule and PNAS journals.

The research team involved Monash University and had developed the high efficiency super-thin solar cell and comes with advanced mechanical bending and stretching capabilities while also featuring the extensive capacity to act as a long-lasting power source.

What were the team's research findings

The Joule paper reveals the researchers were having successfully developed innovative, mechanically sturdy photo-absorbent materials which can produce ultra-flexible solar cells.

These machinations can reach a power conversion efficiency of about 13% while having 97% and 89% efficiency retention after 1,000 bending and stretching cycles, respectively.

Research Fellow in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering from Monash University Dr Wenchao Huang explained the 13% efficiency they were able to derive from the device was monumental as its one of the highest efficiencies in organic solar cells.

The PNAS paper, on the other hand, showed upon exposure to a unique method, the device's performance decreased by only 4.8% after operating for a whipping 4,736 hours. It also showed the cells could run for more than 20,000 hours or 2.5 years continuously, with little to no quality deterioration.

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At 2 square centimetres, the device is light enough to be placed on a flower petal and has a power generation of 9.9W per gram.

With continuous experiments, this innovation could someday replace batteries and several technologies, including, but not limited to; mobile phones, watches, and other wearable or miniature tech.

Who are the minds behind the innovation?

Japanese researchers at RIKEN, along with the help of teams from several universities along with Monash University, were the leaders of the study. The next step would be to bring the device to the commercial market, which the authors are now working on.

Dr Huang stated they had developed one of the thinnest solar cells in the world while being ultra-flexible. The technology can also simultaneously achieve better power conversion efficiency, exceptional mechanical properties, and profound stability. Huang is very optimistic about the potential of the invention in replacing power sources of the future.

The devices were created in a laboratory in Japan with state-of-the-art equipment and scientific processes. Other sensitive methods, though, were conducted in a separate facility that specializes in renewable energy experiments.

These low-cost solar cells can be produced with ease utilizing continuous printing technology, which is ideal for mass production and meeting demand.

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By Hugh Bronstein

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - An Argentine official has given some on-air sex education for onanistic lovers in the time of the coronavirus, underscoring how the pandemic and lockdown in response to it are shaking up every aspect of people's lives.

Jose Barletta, a doctor with the country's health ministry, said in a televised broadcast that people needed to wash their hands after sex - whether it was in person or, as is increasingly the case, over digital channels.

"It's more important than ever to wash your hands after having sexual relations, after masturbation, or virtual sex," the doctor said.

"It is important to disinfect keyboards, telephones, sex toys and whatever else you might be using, whether or not you are sharing these things with others," he said.

The coronavirus lockdown has led to an increase in sales of sex toys in countries ranging from Denmark to Colombia.

Argentina's lockdown began on March 20 and will run until at least April 26. The country has recorded 2,669 confirmed cases of the coronavirus so far, 122 of them fatal.

The country's center-left President Alberto Fernandez, who has been praised for being one of the first leaders in Latin America to impose strict measures aimed at slowing the spread of the pandemic, was even drawn into the question.

In a radio interview on Friday, Fernandez was asked about the guidance offered by the ministry about sex and hygiene.

"If it's what the health ministry says, you should listen," the first-term Peronist leader said. "Don't make me offer my own opinion about this."

(Reporting by Hugh Bronstein, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
On Thursday, the White House announced that Reps. Elise Stefanik, Lee Zeldin, Tom Suozzi and John Katko, would be joining its new Opening Up America Again Congressional Group.

"We can begin the next front in our war, which we are calling 'Opening Up America Again,'" Trump said during a press conference on Thursday. "To preserve the health of Americans, we must preserve the health of our economy."

"We are not opening all at once, but one careful step at a time," Trump added. "Some states will be able to open up sooner than others."

The bipartisan group, which includes 97 members of the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, is just one of the task forces created by the White House to assess when the country should begin lifting restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19 crisis. Trump has created a series of what the White House calls "Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups" full of corporate executives.

None of the lawmakers tapped to be on the congressional task force are from New York City, the epicenter of the nations novel coronavirus outbreak. Suozzis district includes a tiny sliver of Queens, but the former Nassau county executive and Glen Cove mayor has mainly served Long Island throughout his political career.

Considering downstate New York has been hit so much harder than upstate, where Stefanik and Katko hail from, its notable that prominent city lawmakers such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Hakeem Jeffries and Jerry Nadler were left off the task force. The two Democratic senators from the state, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, were also left out. However, the congressional group has members from red rural states such as Wyoming, Missouri and Idaho, which have far fewer cases per capita than downstate New York.

One might expect upstate New York representatives to look out for their fellow New Yorkers interests, but Stefanik hasnt appeared concerned with the welfare of New York City or its suburbs. This was especially clear when she aggressively pushed back against Gov. Andrew Cuomo when he sought to lend unused ventilators from less-affected areas of the state to those potentially running out of the lifesaving breathing machines. The congresswoman was one of the main signatories on a letter that objected to the redistribution of ventilators.

Stefaniks main interest during the states COVID-19 outbreak seems to be protecting the economic interests of upstate dairy farmers.

Even after being appointed to the new task force, Stefanik continued to emphasize the prioritization of upstate, even though it accounts for just a small fraction of the cases in New York. "Prioritizing the needs of upstate New York and rural communities as a whole will be critical to protecting public health and restarting the American economy, getting people back to work, and easing the burden on so many families across my district and the entire country," Stefanik said on Thursday.

President Donald Trump is known to reward those who are loyal to him and punish those who he considers disloyal. Presumably, the president selected Stefanik and Zeldin due to their outspoken support for him and their willingness to defend him at almost every turn. Trump grew especially fond of Stefanik after her performance at his impeachment trial in November 2019, which helped boost her popularity among Republicans. In January, Trump appointed Stefanik and Zeldin  another longtime champion of the president  to join his impeachment defense team.
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After revenue at Cass Bradleys photography business dried up, she spent weeks trying to find a lender that would accept her application for the federal governments $350 billion small business loan fund.

Charlotte Metro Federal Credit Union, where she had an account, was sending customers through a third-party lending platform. Still, her accountant advised her that she would be more likely to get in the line for funding if she went directly to a big bank.

Every bank she turned to was only accepting existing customers. Finally, PayPal announced last week it would start offering the loans, and she was able to submit an application.

But on Thursday, the program ran out of money as businesses clamored to apply. Bradleys application is still pending with PayPal.

The depletion of the relief funds has left Charlottes small businesses in the lurch as the coronavirus has already forced them to close and lay off or furlough many employees.

Meanwhile, Congress is gridlocked over negotiations to replenish the program, with Democrats arguing that any legislation should also include funds for state and local governments and for businesses that may have had trouble accessing the program initially.

But for those who missed out, or are uncertain of their application status, its another snag in what has been a frustrating and confusing process.

The politicians are telling us that this is going well, said Michael Brawley, owner of Brawleys Beverage. The day this rolled out I saw the president on TV say there were some minor glitches, I got it worked out quickly.  And here I am almost two weeks later with nothing. Through no fault of my own.

Michael Brawley, owner of Brawleys Beverage, is one of thousands of business owners who have applied for a small business loan program, part of the federal stimulus package. He still doesnt know if the government received his application in time before funds dried up.

Has the program worked?

The Small Business Administration reported Friday that 39,520 businesses in North Carolina were approved for the Paycheck Protection Program, totaling $8 billion, before the funding ran out.

North Carolina was 16th in terms of the money lent out to small businesses, despite being the ninth largest state.

Story continues

On a call with reporters Friday, Thomas Stith III, the SBA Director for North Carolina, said the agency approved 14 years worth of loans, compared to its normal volume, in the span of 14 days. He said its difficult to compare states in terms of the total loans given out because the number of eligible small businesses and lending institutions in each state varies.

The amount of financial support our businesses received in a very short time period is to be commended, he said.

Republicans are pushing to add an additional $250 billion to the program, but rejected the Democrats proposal to make changes to the aid and fund hospitals, food stamps and local and state governments.

I have already heard from North Carolina business owners who are worried about the future of their company and employees now that the program has run out of funding, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said in a statement Friday.

In an email, U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, a Democrat whose district includes portions of Charlotte, also said shes heard from constituents who are suffering and have been denied PPP assistance. But she said its critical that minority and women-owned businesses have access to the relief.

Small business owners say the political fights are delaying their much-needed help.

It is frustrating that theyre able to get things passed for these industries that are too big to fail, said Dan Wade, co-founder and head brewer at Wooden Robot Brewery. But when it comes to small business owners, it seems like both sides of the aisle dont seem to prioritize that we are taken care of.

The Wooden Robot Brewery taproom. Co-owner and head brewer Dan Wade said the brewery has applied for a loan from the Small Business Administration and the bank has notified him that his application has been sent to the agency. But hes worried it may not have been sent in before the program funding dried up.

Wade tried to apply with Wells Fargo, but was unable to at first, because the bank reached a self-imposed cap of $10 billion in one weekend. The bank said if it lent any more, it would risk violating the asset cap federal regulators imposed on it as a result of its fake accounts scandal.

A few days later, the Federal Reserve allowed Wells Fargo to make the loans  but Wade said the delay set his business back. Wells Fargo said in a statement Thursday that it is continuing to process applications for when more funds for the program become available.

After Wells initially advised customers to look elsewhere, Wade created an account and submitted an application through PNC Bank.

Wade said he was notified within the last day or so that his application had been sent to the SBA but hes worried it may not have been sent in time. He needs the money to pay his staff of around 30, many of whom hes had to lay off.

There was a little bit of optimism when Congress passed and the president signed the CARES Act that help was coming, he said. And then with each passing day, it seemed like the help was farther off.

Bryan Meredith, owner of barbecue restaurant Queen City Q in uptown, said hes relatively pleased with the program, although it was stressful at first. He received his money Thursday evening  about $167,000 and is writing a check to the 34 employees that were on his last payroll.

Im 60, and Ive never seen the federal government work this fast before, he said.

Who got the money?

N.C. SBA spokesman Gregory Grevelding said in an email that if the agency received an application from a qualified lender before mid-morning Thursday, it will be processed in the order it was received.

Still, some businesses whose applications have gone through dont know whether the paperwork was sent in time.

Brawley said he received a notification Wednesday that his loan request had been sent to the SBA, but hes waiting to see whether he will actually receive the check to be able to pay his employees.

The unknown is as bad as the frustration of searching mindlessly, he said.

And news that major corporations received tens of millions in funding from the program enraged many small firms struggling to survive.

The owner of Ruths Chris Steak House, for example, received $20 million in government-subsidized loans. The funding was aimed for those businesses with fewer than 500 employees, but the stimulus bill allows restaurant and hotel chains to receive money regardless of size.

The federal government said Friday that nearly three-quarters of the loans have been for less than $150,000.

Cass Bradley, who runs BlueSky Photo Artists, applied for a small business loan with PayPal after searching for weeks. But before her application could be finalized, the funding for the small business stimulus program dried up.

As for Bradley, In addition to her BlueSky Photo Artist photography business, she also runs an organization to support female entrepreneurs. She said just two of the hundred or-so members have received SBA funding.

It was up to the people that we elected to put precautions in place to protect what I deem a true small business, which doesnt necessarily mean somebody whos bringing in billions of dollars of revenue, she said. Youve got these really talented, resourceful business women that are now struggling. Its just hit me personally.
New Delhi, April 18 : "Extraction" director and popular Hollywood stunt coordinator Sam Hargrave feels cinema has space for either "super big budget movies like superheroes" or smaller movies, saying that it doesnt leave much room for mid-budget action movies.

Talking about his upcoming Netflix action film, Hargrave told IANS: "It seems that there's not as much space in the cinemas for these kinds of mid-budget action movies. It seems that it's mostly the super big budget superhero movies or the kind of the smaller stuff." Hargrave is glad that his first movie will reach a wider audience through Netflix.

"Netflix has carved out a space for itself for movies like these to exist, which I think is really great... Because there are a lot of great stories out there... These kinds of movies, now, have a place to be seen, be viewed and be enjoyed," he said.

Image Source: IANS News

With "Extraction", Hargrave is graduating from being Chris Evans' stunt double in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" for fight scenes and stunt coordinator in "Captain America: Civil War" to a feature director. Hargrave was an additional second unit director in "Avengers: Infinity War".

Hargrave continued: "I think that's a really great thing for audiences around the world. I'm happy that my first time directing (feature film) come out on a platform like Netflix where so many people can see this. It is a very unique experience and one that I'm looking forward to seeing how it all plays out when it comes out on April 24." For his first film, Hargrave reunited with his "Avengers" family. He got "Thor" star Chris Hemsworth to lead the film, screenplay of which is done by Joe Russo. The film is produced by Russo Brothers (Joe and Anthony Russo), Mike Larocca, Chris Hemsworth, Eric Gitter, and Peter Schwerin.

Originally titled "Dhaka", the film also stars Indian actors Randeep Hooda, Pankaj Tripathi, Priyanshu Painyulli, and Rudraksh Jaiswal. It revolves around Tyler Rake (essayed by Hemsworth), a fearless, black market mercenary, who embarks on the most deadly extraction of his career when he is enlisted to rescue the kidnapped son of an imprisoned international crime lord. It has been shot extensively in India, along with other places around the world.

(Sugandha Rawal can be contacted at sugandha.r@ians.in)

-- Syndicated from IANS
Indian Military Camp in Kashmir's Pulwama District Attacked by Terrorists

Sputnik News

14:47 GMT 17.04.2020(updated 15:50 GMT 17.04.2020)

Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed organisation has claimed responsibility for the attack.

A Central Reserve Police Force camp in South Kashmir's Pulwama district was attacked by terrorists, a military official said.

One CRPF trooper suffered a bullet injury in his ankle and was hospitalised, it added.

The area of the attack has been cordoned off while a search for the suspected attackers is underway.

The attack has been claimed by the Jaish-e-Mohammed organisation. This Pakistan-based organisation killed at least 40 Indian soldiers in Pulwama last year after fresh tensions erupted between India and Pakistan following New Delhi's move to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.

In a separate development, two terrorists have been killed during a joint operation with the Jammu and Kashmir Police, the Indian Army said.

 Sputnik

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A reputed mobster whose legendary airport robbery was recounted in the movie 'Goodfellas' has been released over fears he could contract coronavirus while serving his eight-year prison sentence.

Vinny Asaro, 85, was jailed in 2017 on arson charges following a 2012 road-rage incident.

But on Friday, he was granted compassionate release from prison over concerns he could possibly die should he catch the contagious disease.

Asaro suffered a stroke last year which potentially would place him at risk of COVID-19.

Vincent Asaro was released from prison in Missouri on Friday over fears he could contract coronavirus due to poor health and suffering a stroke last year. He is pictures here in 2015

Vincent Asaro is pictured leaving court in 2015. On Friday, he was granted compassionate release from prison over concerns he could possibly die should he catch coronavirus

'If Asaro were to contract COVID-19, given his age and current state, it is not unlikely that the consequences would be dire,' Brooklyn federal Judge Allyne Ross wrote in a 16-page ruling.

Ross is the same judge who presided over his 2015 trial in which Asaro was cleared on charges that he took part in the Lufthansa job as well as the 1969 gangland murder of associate Paul Katz according to the New York Post.

Asaro was being held at a medical prison in Springfield, Missouri.

Although there have been no reported cases of COVID-19 in the facility, the disease has been spreading throughout the state.

The US Attorneys Office in Brooklyn has said prosecutors are reviewing Judge Ross ruling and are weighing legal options.

Asaro was sentenced to eight years in prison for road rage arson in 2017. The sentence was double what federal guidelines set out as punishment for a 2012 car torching

At his sentencing in 2017, Asaro called his jailing 'a death sentence.'

The sentence was more than double what federal guidelines set out as punishment for the 2012 car torching, which prosecutors said resulted when Asaro directed Bonanno crime family associates to track down and set afire the car of a motorist he believed had cut him off.

Asaro, speaking before the announcement of the sentence, said he was 'terribly sorry'.

'I was on my way home,' he said. 'It happened. It just got out of hand.'

At the time, judge Ross said she had 'no illusion' that prison will result in Asaro's rehabilitation or bring an end to his 'lifelong career as a member of the Mafia'.

The prison term resulted from a road rage encounter between Asaro and a motorist who became 'embroiled in a high-speed chase at the hands of an enraged Asaro,' the FBI said

She said she was mindful of Asaro's 2015 acquittal in the infamous 1978 heist at the Lufthansa cargo terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, a robbery retold in the 1990 hit film 'Goodfellas,' starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci.

His prison term resulted from a road rage encounter between Asaro and a motorist who became 'embroiled in a high-speed chase at the hands of an enraged Asaro,' the FBI said.

Asaro contacted an associate with access to a local law enforcement database, identified the license plate information of the car and triggered a plan to burn the car in front of the motorist's home, said the head of New York's FBI office, William F. Sweeney Jr.

Acting US Attorney Bridget M. Rohde said Asaro's sentence was 'for a lifetime of violent criminal activity'.

At his 2017 sentencing, the judge said she was mindful of Asaro's 2015 acquittal in the infamous 1978 heist at the Lufthansa cargo terminal at JFK Airport, a robbery retold in the 1990 hit film 'Goodfellas,' starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta (right) and Joe Pesci (left)

The mobster-turned-FBI informant portrayed by Liotta in the movie, Henry Hill (seen right in 2018), is said to have told an author that Asaro 'had no involvement' in the Lufthansa heist

Robert Di Niro, Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci starred in the 1990 film Goodfellas. It portrayed the Lufthansa heist where in the early hours of December 11, 1978, half a dozen armed men wearing ski masks broke into the vault inside the Lufthansa Cargo building at John F Kennedy Airport, New York

Assistant US Attorney Nicole Argentieri called Asaro a 'one-man crime wave' and said he was a hero in his Queens neighborhood after he was acquitted at trial.

'It's time to send a message, to break the cycle,' she said.

Interestingly enough, the mobster-turned-FBI informant portrayed by Ray Liotta in the Goodfellas film, Henry Hill, is said to have told an author that Asaro 'had no involvement' in the Lufthansa heist.

Nonetheless, Asaro remains the only individual connected to the mob who was ever formally charged in connection to the robbery.

A police car is parked beside a stolen black van discovered in Brooklyn. The government used opportunistic Mafia turncoats to make its case against aging mobster Vincent Asaro in the decades-old airport heist

This photo shows a stolen black van discovered in Brooklyn that police suspected was the van used by thieves who escaped with more than $6 million in cash and jewels from JFK in 1978

The mastermind of the robbery was James 'Jimmy the Gent' Burke (seen left after his arrest in 1979), the Irish mobster with the Bonanno crime organization. He was portrayed in the film by De Niro (right). The federal government says Burke and Asaro were close associates

The judge said she reviewed evidence from the trial she had presided over and cited proof Asaro had participated in a 1969 murder and had admitted his role and obtained jewelry from the armed robbery of more than $6 million in cash and jewelry from the Lufthansa terminal.

In 2015, Asaro's son, Jerome Asaro (above), was sentenced to 7 and a half years in prison

'He remains dangerous to the public,' she said.

The 1969 murder which the judge referred to was that of Paul Katz.

According to the New York Post, Katz was an associate of both Asaro and James 'Jimmy the Gent' Burke.

Burke was the Irish mobster who was portrayed in the Scorsese classic by De Niro.

He was also the mastermind of the Lufthansa heist.

Federal prosecutors have long maintained that Burke and Asaro killed Katz because Burke suspected that he was secretly cooperating with the FBI.

Katz, who was strangled to death with a dog chain, was then buried underneath Burke's home in Ozone Park, Queens.

There they found some of Katz's remains that Jerome Asaro failed to remove.

In March 2015, Jerome Asaro was sentenced to 7 and a half years in federal prison.

The US Attorneys Office in Brooklyn has said prosecutors are reviewing Judge Ross ruling and weighing legal options. Asaro is pictured here in 2014
BAGHDAD - Two rockets struck near a Chinese oil facility south of Baghdad without causing any casualties, Iraqi officials said Saturday, the second such attack to target energy interests in the country this month.

An Iraqi army statement said the rockets struck near a Chinese company in the Nahrawan area, southeast of Baghdad, without elaborating. Iraqi security officials said the rockets caused minor damage.

Chinas ZhenHua, a subsidiary of the arms manufacturer Norinco, has been working in the nearby East Baghdad oil fields since May 2018 under a 25-year development contract with the Oil Ministry. The officials did not say whether this was the company that was targeted.

One security official said the rockets were launched by militia groups as a threat following a failed business proposition. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

Iraq depends on revenues from oil exports to fund 90% of its budget.

On April 6, at least three rockets targeted the site of an American oil field service company in the southern oil-rich province of Basra. The rockets were targeting Halliburton in the Burjesia area and caused no damage, according to Iraqs military.

___

Associated Press writer Murtada Faraj contributed to this report.
YEREVAN, APRIL 18, ARMENPRESS. 47 new cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) have been confirmed in Armenia, 121 more patients have recovered, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Facebook.

Yesterday 1003 people passed testing. The new confirmed cases are 47. 1 patient has died. 121 more patients have recovered.

Thus, we had a decline in active cases by 75. If in the previous day the number of active cases was 780, today this number is 705, the PM added.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
One of my favorite things to do on a road trip is to visit different craft breweries to check out the brews and see what they have on the menu. Ive come across several in the last year or so where I was impressed in many ways - with the beer selection, with the amazing food that was prepared and by the atmosphere and structure itself, which can very so much from place to place. Some are in repurposed industrial warehouses, some are tucked into off-the-beaten path locations and some are in historic buildings. In some of them, weve done tours. In others we just kicked back and sipped. Sometimes we listened to live music while doing so.

I sure wish right now that I could return to some of those Midwest favorites  Junk Ditch Brewing in Fort Wayne; Kenosha Brewing Company in Kenosha, Wisconsin; Jamesport Brewing Company in Ludington, Michigan; Trails Edge Brewery in Frankfort, Illinois; Grand River Brewery in Marshall, Michigan; Bells Brewery in Comstock, Michigan; Studebaker Brewing Co. in South Bend; Iechyd Da Brewing Company in Elkhart; The Lone Buffalo/Tangled Roots Brewing in Ottawa, Illinois; Paw Paw Brewing Company in Paw Paw, Michigan; and Galena Brewing Company in Galena, Illinois.
- Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said he was informed about the incident by Homa Bay governor Cyprian Awiti who quarantined the passengers and found the car driver to be COVID-19 positive

- The CS said the travellers did not comply with the restricted movement requirement and would face the full force of the law

- The government had earlier announced cessation of movement in and out of Nairobi, Mombasa, Kwale and Kilifi counties as they were classified as COVID-19 hotspots

Cheeky travellers have ferried an empty coffin from Nairobi to Homa Bay county with the pretense they were going for a funeral to avoid arrest by security officials manning roadblocks.

Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said he was informed about the the incident by Homa Bay Governor Cyprian Awiti who quarantined them and found the car driver to be COVID-19 positive.

READ ALSO: Coronavirus: 10 ways gov't has supported Kenyans as they battle pandemic

Health CS Mutahi Kagwe updating Kenyans on the COVID-19 situation in the country on Saturday, April 18. Photo: MoH.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Eldoret: William Ruto supporters burn national newspaper over story indicating DP is lonely, powerless

In his daily coronavirus briefing on Saturday, April 18, the CS said the travellers did not comply with the restricted movement requirement and would face the full force of the law.

"We have noted there are people not complying with the restricted movement requirement in and out of counties. I want to caution truck and other drivers smuggling people from one restricted area to another. Enforcement agencies will deal with such issues,"

"The governor of Homa Bay informed me this morning of a group of people who travelled from Nairobi to Homa Bay in a private vehicle pretending they were attending a funeral. They were fully equipped with an empty coffin, but thanks to the administration there who took action after getting suspicious," the CS said.

Kagwe confirmed 16 new cases of the pandemic bringing the national tally to 262.

Out of the total cases, 60 had recovered while 12 others had succumbed to the deadly virus.

A file photo of a coffin. Photo: TUKO.co.ke.

Source: Original

READ ALSO: Mpambe wa Rais Buhari afariki kutokana na coronavirus

The government had earlier announced cessation of movement in and out of Nairobi, Mombasa, Kwale and Kilifi counties as they were classified as COVID-19 hotspots.

"Fully conscious that 82% of Kenya's reported cases of COVID-19 have been in respect of residents from the Nairobi metropolitan area and 14% from Mombasa, Kwale and Kilifi, the Ministry of Health has declared the counties as COVID-19 infected areas,"

"There shall be cessation of all movement by road, rail or air in and out of the Nairobi metropolitan area and the three other counties," President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Monday, April 6.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly.

He took his own life because of hunger in Kenya | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Backing plasma therapy to assist significantly in treating Covid-19 patients, Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar said that the government was awaiting Indian Council of Medical Research's (ICMR) approval to pursue it further.

Follow live updates on coronavirus

"As a doctor, I am confident that plasma therapy will work," Sudhakar, the minister in-charge for Covid-19 in Bengaluru, told DH, following a meeting chaired by Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa with senior ministers and officials. The treatment has shown great promise in Kerala, and Karnataka was keen on taking up the same to treat patients, he said.

Follow the state-wise total of confirmed coronavirus cases here

It can be recalled that the Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI) ethics committee had cleared convalescent plasma therapy for treating critically-ill Covid-19 patients. The therapy will transfuse the antibodies present in a recovered patient's blood to a patients on ventilator support, which increases chances of the patients' recovery.

Rapid kits

One lakh rapid testing kits will arrive soon in the State, Sudhakar said, adding that they cannot be used to diagnose whether a patient had Covid-19. "Only Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test has 100% accuracy in detecting the disease. Rapid kits can be used just to check whether anti-bodies that fight Covid-19 are generated in a body," he said.
Now an agreement on US$8 billion was reached.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is very important for Ukraine in the current circumstances, namely during the coronavirus pandemic and the global economic crisis.

"Now it [IMF assistance] is like blood for the human body," he said during a "Freedom of Speech by Savik Shuster" panel show on Ukraine TV channel on April 17, according to the president's press service.

Continued cooperation with the IMF will open the door for other countries to help Ukraine, as it will be a signal to the whole world that our country can be trusted, the president said.

Read alsoUkraine may receive first US$2 bln tranche from IMF in May  MP

"If it was at other times, if it was calm, we could talk about whether it is profitable to us or not. I talk to the leaders of the countries almost every day, with the United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan, Canada, Germany... All of them are focused on one thing. They say: if there is [a continued cooperation of Ukraine with the IMF], we will support you. This includes humanitarian aid, preferential credits to support the economy of Ukraine. It depends on the signal. The signal is one for them  a memorandum with the International Monetary Fund. It is about trust in Ukraine," Zelensky said.

He reminded that a US$5.5 billion cooperation program with the IMF for three years had been agreed earlier. Now an agreement on US$8 billion was reached. Together with the assistance from the World Bank and the EU, Ukraine's total financial support could amount to US$10 billion.

At the same time, Zelensky reminded that in order to cooperate with the IMF and receive the aforementioned support, Ukraine must fulfill two conditions: to approve the land reform and the law on banks and banking activities. The first condition has already been fulfilled  the Verkhovna Rada approved the law on the circulation of agricultural land.

The president expressed his belief that despite the considerable resistance to the adoption of the banking law, to which more than 16,000 amendments had been submitted during preparations for the second reading, it would also be approved.

"We are strong people, young people  we will cope with that," Zelensky added.
As growth falters and the governments financing needs expand, Ghana received an aid from the International Monetary Fund. The West African country which was promoting a big project called Ghana Beyond Aids could not face along the impact of the new pandemic on its economy.

The IMF has approved a $1 billion (910-million-euro) aid package for Ghana to help the country manage fallout from the new coronavirus pandemic. According to IMF, the credit which is through the IMFs rapid credit facility to help Ghana.

IMF reports that Covid-19 pandemic is already impacting Ghana severely. The countrys growth is slowing down, slowing financial conditions have tightened, and the exchange rate is under pressure.

The aid disbursement will help address the urgent fiscal and balance of payments needs that Ghana is facing, improve confidence, and catalyze support from other development, IMF said

The International Monetary Fund on Monday 13th April, also announced it had approved immediate debt relief for 25 poor member countries, nineteen of them in Africa, to help them free up funds to fight the pandemic.

Senegal will also benefit by mid-April of SDR 161.8 million (about US$221 million) of which two thirds or US$ 147.3 million under the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) and one third or US$ 73.6 million under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) from the IMF.
Gym chain 24 Hour Fitness is working with advisors at investment bank Lazard and law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges to weigh options including a bankruptcy that could come as soon as the next few months, people familiar with the matter tell CNBC.

The chain is grappling with a heavy debt load, deteriorating performance and a coronavirus pandemic that forced it to shut its more than 400 clubs. The mid-priced fitness studio is already struggling to compete against premium rivals like Equinox and cheaper competitors like Planet Fitness.

Credit ratings agency Moody's recently downgraded the chain over worries around its "negative membership trends, very high-interest burden and negative free cash flow prior to the coronavirus outbreak, as well as approaching maturities to provide limited flexibility to manage through the crisis."

It has an $837 million term loan with a so-called springing maturity in March 2022 and $500 million in unsecured notes maturing in June 2022, if more than a fifth of those notes remain outstanding.

San Ramon, California-based 24 Hour Fitness had roughly $1.5 billion in sales in 2019, and less than $1 million in cash, according to Moody's. It is controlled by AEA Investors, which acquired it through a $1.8 billion deal with Fitness Capital Partners and Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan in 2014.

The people, who requested anonymity because the information is confidential, cautioned that bankruptcy is not definite, and may still be avoided. Spokespeople for Lazard and Weil, Gotshal & Manges as well as 24 Hour Fitness did not respond to requests for comment. AEA declined to comment.
Khartoum has been paced under a three-week lockdown as health ministry reports 30 new coronavirus cases in a day.

Sudans capital Khartoum has been placed under a three-week lockdown following a sharp increase in coronavirus cases.

The decision came as the countrys Federal Ministry of Health on Saturday reported 30 new cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number to 66.

Twenty-seven of these cases were reported in Khartoum state, while for the first time two cases were confirmed in White Nile state and one in Gazeera state, the ministry said in a statement.

The total deaths from the coronavirus in the country rose to 10, as four more people died in the past 24 hours, it added.

Khartoum has more than 90 percent of Sudans reported coronavirus cases.





An outbreak in Sudan would severely strain the health system, which has been weakened by decades of civil war and sanctions.

Authorities have also banned Friday prayers in Khartoum mosques, a measure taken by several other countries in the region.

Al Jazeeras Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum, said while the lockdown is in place, people will still be allowed to go out for a few hours every day to get essentials but strictly within their neighbourhood.

[The government has] put the military, police and security forces on each bridge to make sure people dont cross from one part of the capital to the other, she said, adding that the government has said it is facing severe shortages in testing kits and personal protection equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers.

The prime minister has made a plea to the UN to make sure that it supports the government to be able to combat the disease, she said.

We know from the UN economic commission that there will 300,000 people in Africa that will suffer and die from the coronavirus and we know that Sudan will be one of the countries affected because of the infrastructure.
By Olivia Rose

MARTIN Barga, a 44-year old construction worker from the Dominican Republic, was tragically shot and killed in Blue Hills on Monday (April 13).





According to police public relations officer Takara Bain, the incident happened on Millennium Highway at about 11am.





A second man, aged 55, was also shot during the incident.





Both were taken to Cheshire Hall Medical Centre where Barga was pronounced dead. The 55-year-old is in a stable condition.





The Weekly News spoke to several close friends of the victim who suggested that the men were targeted.





One friend, who asked to remain anonymous, said Barga and the other victim had just made a trip to the dump in Blue Hills to offload garbage when they were attacked.





According to the friend, he was involved in a local lottery style business and often carried large sums of cash.





"I strongly believe he was called out - they would have known he would have money on him.





Another said: "He was a real good person. The first time I met him was about 10 years ago where we all randomly went on a trip to Miami together.





"Meeting someone for the first time he insisted on paying for everything. Just a genuinely good person, never knew him to be in any drama.





"He always would see me out and ask about my family and tell me of his plans and what he was doing.





"He was building his house in Long Bay and has a small kid too. Its really sad hes gone.





A third friend, also asking to remain anonymous, described Barga as an "easy going and kind hearted person who was full of life.





An investigation into the murder is underway by the Serious Crimes Unit of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force (RTCIPF).





Commissioner of Police Trevor Botting said: "It is under extremely terrible circumstances that we are now investigating a murder on Providenciales.





"Condolences to the family of the deceased; my thoughts and prayers are with everyone involved.





"These are difficult times for all of us in the Turks and Caicos Islands as we deal with the Covid-19 pandemic but to commit such a heinous act and bring an additional strain on the countrys resources at this time is despicable.





He stressed that while the force is committed to its response to the Covid-19, it is also ready and committed to respond to acts of violence and gun crime.





Botting added: "I believe that when we are confronted with tragedies like this in our community, it is important that we work together to bring justice to the community.





The police commissioner appealed to anyone with information relating to this incident to call 911 or contact Crime Stoppers anonymously on 1-800-8477.




Marie Kondo is right on time, of course. It's 7.30pm, but lunchtime in LA where the Japanese tidying expert now lives, and when she pops up on my laptop screen, she is startlingly, preternaturally beautiful. Kondo insisted on video rather than face-to-face, presciently so; when the interview was first arranged, we weren't nearly as far down the path to panic and no one was contemplating a full lockdown.

But arguably, Kondo was built for this kind of crisis. Not for her family - husband, Takumi, and two daughters, aged three and four - a descent into hoarding and chaotic self-isolation. Her mission, ever since she discovered a talent for organising aged just five, has been about creating calm through tidiness, keeping only those things that "spark joy", as her catchphrase goes.

As anyone who even flirted with the KonMari Method outlined in her first book, 2011's 10-million-selling The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, can attest, purging your possessions and carefully curating what's left really does make you feel happier, lighter and calmer. And now, more than ever, she's an evangelist for its powers.

"There is so much anxiety in the world right now, and I do feel like there's a need for self-reflection, to ponder that question of how do you want to live your life," she says through her translator. "One solution is to tidy your home, because that process is discovering what's most important to you. It allows you to control the environment you are able to control, so it does offer a solution in that sense.

"It's a process of clarifying what's going on inside you as well, and the more you are in touch with that, the calmer your viewpoint of the world. Even if you feel society is mired in anxiety and restlessness, this makes you see what's in front of you, and remember the things and people you do have, to foster a feeling of gratitude for them. That has a calming effect on your heart."

Somewhat ironically, the book we're here to talk about today is about a place few of us are able to be right now: our workplaces. Joy at Work is the fourth spin-off of her original bestseller, following, most recently, one for teens: The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up.

This book, co-written with professor of management Scott Sonenshein, covers how to organise your workspace and also tackles digital decluttering. But while most are unable to work in our offices, many are still working from home, where clearing a space - physically and psychologically - that allows for concentration if you're all cramped together 24/7 is more important than ever.

Much of what she advises in the book can equally apply to a home office. She has three hard rules about desk storage, for instance. Rule 1: Designate a place for each item and store by category. Rule 2: Use boxes and store things upright - this will help maximise space. Rule 3: Don't store anything on top of your desk. On this last one, she's a little flexible: she allows you to keep pens in a stand on your desk rather than in a drawer, and you're also allowed an ornament or a potted plant.

There's a daily ritual for the post-corona germ-phobe too, which she used to do when she worked in an office: when you arrive each morning, wipe the top of your desk, your computer, mouse, keyboard and phone, and on Mondays, do a deeper clean - the legs of your chair, the cables under the desk. "It sounds like a lot of work, but altogether it took less than a minute," she writes. "Yet it made my desk area look so neat and tidy, it seemed like a world apart. The atmosphere lightened, and it was easier to get down to work. While my hands were busy cleaning, I could empty my mind and make this part of my day into a little meditation, a ritual that allowed me to switch into working mode."

There's a degree of anxiety in letting Marie Kondo visit your home, even without her physically there, so in the hours before our scheduled call, I find myself trying to tidy up, but it's a futile gesture. A few months earlier, I would have been proudly showing off my neatly labelled boxes on the shelves, because I am a Konvert, albeit a lapsed one. I've sorted beauty products, clothes and electrical cables according to the world-famous KonMari Method: dump everything into an enormous pile, sort by category and only keep what truly sparks joy. As I sheepishly point to the shelves behind me and start to explain how I once 'Kondo'd' them, I catch a glimpse of the look on her face: the shutters have come down, stress momentarily flashing across it.

What must it be like to be Kondo: instantly recognisable, continually accosted by fans eager to show her pictures of their Kondo'd cupboards and drawers, hungry for her approval? "It really depends on the person," she says, before insisting, somewhat hollowly, that "what makes me particularly happy is when people share that they have finished tidying by my method, and share with me how their life has changed afterwards."

To have your name become a verb must be an odd feeling. She nods. "It feels very strange. To know it has permeated so much around the world is very surprising."

No one could have predicted the phenomenon she would become. No one, that is, except editor Tomohiro Takahashi, who, according to an article in the Japanese publishing journal Shin-bunka, bought the book before she'd even written a word, after her proposal won first prize in a publishing training course. According to the journal, he worked with her intensively on the book for eight months, and when it came out, he was proved right: with worldwide fame following her success at home in Japan.

The story Kondo herself tells is a little different. As she describes it, after setting up her organising business as a student, she gradually gained so many clients she had a waiting list, at which point people started begging her to write a book so they could gain her expertise. The book, she has said, took three months to write.

Like all the best superhero-origin stories, Kondo's is a story of continual triumphs over adversity. In the past, she has related how her mania for throwing things away as a child eventually drove her parents to ban her from tidying. But it was her mother's zeal for housework that initially inspired her interest. "She would go about it with so much joy, it looked like she was having so much fun," she tells me.

As a schoolgirl, she became so obsessed with purging her possessions that she had something akin to a spiritual awakening.

"I would come home from school every day and wander round the house with a rubbish bag looking for things to throw away," she has recounted previously. "One day, when I opened the door of my room, everything in it looked dark and murky and I thought, 'I hate everything in this room, I'm going to throw it all away, I never want to tidy again.' And I fell to the ground." When she awoke two hours later, "Everything in the room was shining and I realised that you shouldn't be looking for things to throw away, you should be looking for the things you want to keep."

Despite the medieval-sounding fainting spell, and the fact she worked for five years in a Shinto shrine, she refuses to describe her work as a religious calling or even spiritual. But that childhood revelation did lead to what is the central differentiating principle to her method: a kind of animism. Before you discard something, she asks you to thank it for its service; she thanks her purse when she puts it away at the end of each day. To non-Konverts this may sound silly, but it's oddly freeing.

Once Kondo arrived at university, her hobby was allowed free rein. "I would tidy my friends' homes, and eventually word spread that when Marie comes to visit, your home becomes remarkably tidy and organised. Gradually, people I didn't know would say, 'I would pay you to teach me how to organise my home.' This made me see that this might be something that can be shared with a wider audience. Little by little it led to my establishing a business."

But when she tried to scale it up from one-on-one 'tidying lessons', it wasn't an immediate hit. By then in her mid-20s, she had quit an unsatisfying job at a staffing agency to go full-time and describes, in Joy at Work, being crushed with embarrassment when "only four people signed up for my first seminar, and two cancelled at the last minute". Rather than giving up, she looked at the problem rationally, decided she needed to market herself better, built up from smaller groups to larger ones, and found her way again.

Watching her debut book take off was 'thrilling', but as it grew bigger, so did the pressure to be 'Happy Marie, always full of joy'. "I started to create my own obstacle," she recalls, "telling myself I needed to be constantly sparking joy in my own life. Otherwise, I don't have the right or permission to share this message with the world."

In 2015, when sales for her books had reached eight figures, she was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People, and became inundated with offers from around the world, accepting as many as she could. She was also pregnant with her first child, and the pressure, as she writes in Joy at Work, "took a toll on my mind and body". She describes being physically and mentally exhausted, and ultimately, she realised that "I simply couldn't go on like this".

The arrival of her daughters - as for any minimalism-inclined parent - was equally challenging and, in fact, led to her largely abandoning her perfectionism, something she has not admitted until recently. In fact, one of the sharpest criticisms of her method has been that it's unrealistic when you have children. But in Joy at Work, she reveals a far more believable scenario.

"Even before I had my own, a lot of my clients had children, so I based a lot of what I learnt on their experience and I firmly believed that tidying was possible, even with children," she says now. "But after I had my own, particularly when my daughters were one or two years old, and they were completely out of control and would overturn the shelves and make a mess, that's when I realised it is really very difficult."

When I ask whether her decision to be more honest had been influenced by her move to America, and its far more emotionally revelatory culture, she turns and speaks to someone, and I realise she's not alone - her husband is in the room. She bats away the idea, but tells me that ever since that low point, they do, as a couple, something that sounds distinctly LA: a 'joy analysis'. Once a month they sit with a sketchbook and figure out what's on their agenda for the next few months, whether that will make them happy, what they should commit to and what they shouldn't.

Takumi is CEO at KonMari Media, and is the most supportive of husbands, taking on all the childcare and housework when her work is at its busiest. "He is naturally very good at organising," she nods, approvingly. "And he's so great at cooking, he is a master."

He leans in so I can see him and nods his agreement, mock-seriously. I ask whether he was ever concerned for her, as her fame grew.

"I did get worried about how she would handle that recognition," he says, through the translator, although, like Kondo, he does speak some English. "Because I know her as someone who loves being at home. She's a bit of an introvert. Whether her being recognised would add to her stress... that's definitely a concern I had and have even now. We try to stay together as much as possible so she doesn't feel like she is facing this alone. I always want to be aware of how she's feeling in the present. She not only gave birth to this method, but it's her role to communicate with the world. For her to do that, I very much feel that she has to be protected, she must be in a good state."

When I ask how much it would cost me to have her come round these days, I get a surprising answer. "I don't know my going rate," she shrugs, a little sadly. "I don't actually give private lessons any more." Takumi leans in again and interrupts. "Priceless," he says.  Telegraph

'Joy at Work: Organising Your Professional Life' by Marie Kondo and Scott Sonenshein is out now (Bluebird, 18.99)
Offices at the Phyongchon District People's Hospital are disinfected to help curb the spread of the coronavirus on Wednesday, April 1, 2020, in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Authorities in North Korea have been telling citizens in public lectures that there were confirmed coronavirus cases within the reclusive countrys borders as early as late March, contradicting Pyongyangs claims that it remains free of the epidemic that has spread to all of its neighbors, RFA has learned.

Two sources within North Korea say the government held lectures at every organization and neighborhood watch unit in late March to educate people about the pandemic, where speakers publicly stated that COVID-19 was spreading in three specific areas of the country.

[They] held a lecture session for all the residents titled Lets all work together on the coronavirus quarantine project to [successfully] implement the Supreme Leaders policies, a resident in Ryanggang province, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, told RFAs Korean Service Thursday.

The speaker at the lecture publicly stated that there were confirmed coronavirus patients among [the people], the source added.

They said that the [Korean Workers] Partys quarantine guidelines had not been implemented properly by us, and that this caused serious damage to the peoples economy, the source said.

The speaker appealed to us all to prevent [further] damage [to society] so we can together win the war against the coronavirus, said the source.

North Koreas dilapidated, underfunded health-care system  where some hospitals lack reliable running water and electricity  leaves the population particularly vulnerable to a pandemic.

The announcement that there were North Koreans who had contracted the virus did not sit well with residents in attendance, according to the source.

They were wondering how it could be possible when the authorities had been claiming that there were no victims in North Korea thanks to the partys thorough emergency quarantine measures, the source said.

The source said authorities had been touting these policies and contrasting North Koreas situation with that of South Korea and the rest of the world, where large numbers were falling ill and dying.

The speaker reiterated that North Korea has the most superior socialist healthcare system, making it the country with the fewest confirmed cases in the world, said the source.

Suspicious residents

The authorities, he added, told the audience for the mandatory lectures that in North Korea, which is the size of the U.S. state of Missisippi, there were confirmed cases in only three areas  Pyongyang, South Hwanghae province, and North Hamgyong province. But residents found that to be suspicious.

North Hamgyong and South Hwanghae are located at the top and bottom of the map of our country, and Pyongyang is in the middle. Can you believe that there are confirmed cases in only these three areas? questioned the source.

If the virus spread from the northern end of the country [near the border with China] to the southern end, it means it has to have spread across the entire country.

A map showing the confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus (nCoV) in North Korea.



Another source who requested anonymity told RFA from Pyongyang on Wednesday that the lectures were held in the capital as well and the same claims were made.

The lecturer told us we should be proud that we live in the country with the fewest confirmed coronavirus cases because of our socialist medical system and healthcare policies, said the second source.

They even told us that we should pledge our undying loyalty to our leader for providing us with such a great healthcare system, the second source said.

The attendees in Pyongyang, however, did the exact opposite.

They say that the Supreme Leader [Kim Jong Un] did nothing for residents who are struggling to make ends meet. They are criticizing the authorities for blaming the people for failing to implement the partys quarantine guidelines [instead of themselves]

On April 1, Pyongyang publicly declared to foreign media that its preventative measures against the deadly virus were 100 percent successful and that not a single case existed in the country.

Not one single person has been infected with the novel coronavirus in our country so far, Pak Myong Su, director of the anti-epidemic department of North Koreas Central Emergency Anti-epidemic Headquarters, told a news conference. He attributed this to measures such as the closure of borders and quarantine and inspection procedures.

Since the epidemic flared up in China in January, RFAs Korean Service has reported on Pyongyangs extensive preventative measures, including the quarantine of entire counties near the Chinese border, the cancellation of key political and cultural events, and the establishment of a quarantine center in a large Pyongyang hotel.

Porous border with China

The government also isolated foreign residents and those who recently had been to China, issued mandates that citizens don facemasks while in public, cancelled public meetings in favor of video conferences, and suspended trade with China.

But despite these measures and those reported by other outlets, Pyongyang never reported a single confirmed case of the virus.

Outside experts have publicly expressed their doubts, saying it is very likely that it crossed into North Korea from China in the early days of the epidemic, because the long border is quite porous. On top of that, North Koreas healthcare system largely collapsed during a 1990s famine and remains rudimentary and resource-starved.

But according to data presented by Johns Hopkins Universitys Center for Systems Science and Engineering, as of Friday, Pyongyang has still not reported any cases, a fact clearly contradicted by the statements made at the late March community lectures to the North Korean people.

RFA and other media outlets have reported many mysterious deaths in North Korea without confirming they were due to COVID 19.

In February, RFA reported that a hospital in Chongjin, North Hamgyong hurriedly cremated patients who had died of pneumonia-like symptoms and that the entire hospital had to be disinfected.

An official told RFA that the fact that the hospital cremated the bodies instead of allowing the deceased patients families to perform the rite was highly irregular and indicated that they likely died of a highly contagious disease.

Earlier this month, a local reporter for the Japan-based Asia Press reported that Chongjin had a growing number of suspected COVID-19 cases, with patients showing symptoms of cough and high-fever, some of whom perished.

As of Friday, the WHO did not reply to questions from RFA on the lecturers admission that COVID-19 has taken hold in Pyongyang, North Hamgyong and South Hwanghae.

Reported by Jieun Kim for RFAs Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

Water managers are preparing for a below-average summer on the Rio Grande, thanks to limited March snowpack in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico.

This week, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released their annual operating plan for reservoir storage and releases on the river.

Ed Kandl, a hydrologist at Reclamations Albuquerque office, presented the plan Thursday in a webinar.

Low streamflow is predicted for spring and summer, meaning reservoirs on the Middle Rio Grande will likely be operating under Article VI restrictions by late June or early July. Those restrictions come into play when water levels at Elephant Butte and Caballo reservoirs drop below 400,000 acre-feet and no water can be stored in El Vado or other upstream reservoirs.

MRGCD will store as much as they can in El Vado before then, Kandl said. We hope to have an irrigation season that will last through September.

At the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District meeting hosted by phone on Monday, Jennifer Faler, Reclamations Albuquerque area manager, said districts should expect a full allocation of San Juan-Chama Project water. That water helps cities and irrigation districts reduce dependence on groundwater. Last years plentiful runoff enabled Reclamation to store project water for this years use.

The agency doesnt predict enough water this year to conduct big releases from El Vado and create high flows for the Rio Grande silvery minnow. The MRGCD might do a jiggle process  dropping water levels at a diversion dam and then bringing levels up a day or two later  to imitate runoff on the river and create spawning habitat.

David Gensler, the districts water operations division manager, said there was a lot less water in the river than he likes to see in early April.

Irrigation demand often rises in April faster than the river does  and the 2020 season is proving this out for us, Gensler said. Colorado diversions are pretty much fully online, and that has dramatically affected the flow into the Rio Grande. Flows crossing the state line into New Mexico dropped to as little as 70 (cubic feet per second) in the past few days and that had a strong impact on our flows at Otowi gauge.

Much of northern New Mexico is experiencing moderate or severe drought, according to data from the National Drought Mitigation Center, but drought is not as widespread as it was this time last year.

Theresa Davis is a Report for America corps member covering water and the environment for the Albuquerque Journal.
WA Premier Mark McGowan has ruled out following Queensland's lead in bailing out Virgin Australia, adding there isnt really much in it for WA.

During a press conference on Saturday, Mr McGowan said the airline had been supported with a $165 million package from the federal government, and while he was supportive of the move, he was going to let the Queensland government make their own decisions.

Virgin is based in Brisbane, I understand why they might do that, but theres not really much in that for us, he said.

The Queensland government committed $200 million towards a national package to save the carrier after it fell victim to the novel coronavirus downturn.

However, the Queensland offer on Saturday was conditional on similar backing from the federal government and the other states and territories, debt restructuring at the airline, shareholder and bondholder support, ongoing regional flights and the carrier's headquarters remaining in Brisbane.

The federal government is yet to confirm they will match the offer, but so far has committed a total of $1.28 billion to support the aviation industry.
Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda



Sonowal on Saturday urged his counterparts from various states to provide relief to people from Assam stranded in their respective states due to the lockdown imposed to contain the coronavirus outbreak.

Sonowal called up Uddhav Thackeray of Maharashtra, Vijay Rupani of Gujarat, Y S Jaganmohan Reddy of Andhra Pradesh, Pinarayi Vijayan of Kerala, Ashok Gehlot of Rajasthan and B S Yediyurappa of Karnataka and spoke with them over the issue, an official release said.

Sonowal requested the chief ministers to provide food, accommodation, and security to the stranded persons from the northeastern state and assured them of helping people from their states stranded in Assam, it said.

"I will be grateful to you if you direct your respective district administrations to ensure the safekeeping of the people from Assam who for their professional, academic, medical and other requirements got stranded in your respective states," the release quoted Sonowal as saying.

He said the Assam government will require assistance from the local administrations to provide succour to the stranded people from the state.

Sonowal said his administration has sent letters to various state governments over the issue.

Noting that his administration has received similar letters from other state governments requesting help for people from those states stranded in Assam, the chief minister said his government is providing food, accommodation, and security to them.

Sonowal also apprised his counterparts of the situation in Assam arising out of the coronavirus outbreak and measures taken by his administration to mitigate the crisis, it added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Praising India's effort in fighting the Corona epidemic, Switzerland has illuminated its Matterhorn Mountains in the tricolour. Many countries including the WHO have praised India's preparedness in the war against the Coronavirus. The Swiss Alps Matterhorn Mountains have been illuminated with the tricolour with the help of lights.

Punjab: If you leave house without mask, police will take such action

The reason for this honour for India is also that in times of crisis, India has helped every country in Asia or Africa, Europe or America. PM Modi has shared the picture of the mountain bathed in the colour of the tricolour on his Twitter and said that the world is fighting unitedly against Corona. Mankind will definitely win over the epidemic.' Light artist Gary Hopstetter from Switzerland has illuminated this 14,690-foot high mountain with a tricolour light.

Shiv Sena came in support of Ejaz Khan, Rahul Kanal says "keep shining and Satyameva Jayate"

The Indian Foreign Service official and India's second secretary in the World Trade Organization, Gurleen Kaur, tweeted, "Switzerland has shown that it stands with India in fighting the Corona epidemic. Friendship from the Himalayas to the Alps. Zermatt Tourism Thank you."

Bihar Government to start offices from 20 April
Coronavirus testing is underway at makeshift facilities in Chessington, Brighton, and Lincoln as NHS staff are swabbed by medical workers and the military.

Dozens of vehicles were seen queueing at a test centre in the car park of the Chessington World of Adventures in Greater London today.

Frontline medical workers and members of the Armed Forces wore protective face masks, gloves, and aprons as they administered tests.

NHS staff are also being tested for Covid-19 at the AMEX Stadium in Brighton and in Bracebridge Heath, Lincoln today as the pandemic rages on.

Meanwhile, makeshift coronavirus testing facilities at Edinburgh Airport and the Ricoh Arena in Coventry have appeared empty this week.

Official statistics published yesterday show that the Government is using just over half of its daily coronavirus testing capacity.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma said 21,328 tests were carried out on Thursday. But No10 has estimated the UK's testinf capacity is now at 38,000 a day.

Ministers are continuing to struggle to explain why actual test numbers are falling so far short of what could be done during the crisis.

A member of the Armed Forces tests an NHS worker for the novel coronavirus at a testing facility at the Chessington World of Adventures Resort (April 18, 2020)

Staff and members of the Armed Forces prepare for the opening of a new testing facility for NHS workers at the AMEX Stadium in Brighton (April 18, 2020)

NHS staff carry out Coronavirus tests at a testing facility in Bracebridge Heath, Lincoln as the coronavirus pandemic continues to afflict the UK (April 18, 2020)

Meanwhile a coronavirus testing facility at Edinburgh Airport appears empty (April 16, 2020)

It comes as the Government faces condemnation from medical professionals for new guidance which means doctors and nurses in England could be asked to work without full-length gowns and to reuse items when treating coronavirus patients.

The Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Nursing said nurses should refuse to treat patients 'as a last resort' if they are not provided with adequate PPE.

Prof Neil Mortensen, president-elect of the RCS, said the guidance, rushed out yesterday, was disturbing and issued without consulting expert medical bodies.

He added: 'The new guidance implies that, even in the operating theatre, surgeons and their teams may not require proper PPE. This is simply unacceptable.'

Union leaders now say faith in Matt Hancock is 'draining away' after the change in PPE guidance, suggesting he might have to consider his position.

Rachel Harrison, national officer of the GMB, said the union raised critical protective equipment supply issues with the Government more than a month ago.

She said the Government's PPE plan is 'falling apart', adding that 'key workers on the front line' are 'paying the price for this litany of failure'.

'It appears Government guidance is being hastily redrawn based on availability, not on evidence or best practice,' Ms Harrison said. 'This is downright dangerous territory and one that will amplify the concerns of NHS staff.

'The Health Secretary now has serious and urgent questions to answer.

A coronavirus testing facility at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry appears empty (April 18, 2020)

People are seen queuing in their cars outside a coronavirus test centre in the car park of Chessington World of Adventures amid the coronavirus pandemic (April 18, 2020)

A person is tested at a coronavirus test centre in the car park of Chessington World of Adventures as the spread of Covid-19 continues (April 18, 2020)

Meanwhile a coronavirus testing facility at Edinburgh Airport appears empty (April 16, 2020)

'Trust is draining away. He must urgently explain how this apparently non-clinical decision was made to downgrade public health advice in apparent contravention of global standards and previous advice.

'GMB won't tolerate a situation where our members are pushed on to the front line without the basic kit they need to do their jobs safely. NHS and ambulance staff will now face unacceptable risks as a result of gross ministerial incompetence.'

The BMA labelled the situation a 'sorry state of affairs' with doctors feeling unprotected at work despite the UK being two months into the crisis.

Frontline medics fear some NHS trusts could run out of gowns and coveralls this weekend with stocks now 'exhausted', with the anger coming amid fears they might have to treat virus patients with only plastic aprons for protection.

New guidance was issued this week amid reports at least 60 NHS trusts were expecting to exhaust their stocks of gowns. This includes all hospitals in London, which reportedly need tens of thousands of gowns delivered urgently.

People are seen queuing in their cars outside a coronavirus test centre in the car park of Chessington World of Adventures amid the coronavirus pandemic (April 18, 2020)

A coronavirus testing facility at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry appears empty (April 18, 2020)

Meanwhile a coronavirus testing facility at Edinburgh Airport appears empty (April 16, 2020)

A person is seen queuing in their car at a coronavirus test centre in the car park of Chessington World of Adventures amid the coronavirus pandemic (April 18, 2020)

The guidance from Public Health England sets out what front-line staff should do where there are no gowns left. Options include borrowing from other hospitals with supplies, wearing coveralls or using the flimsy plastic aprons.

It is a significant U-turn from previous PHE guidance, which required full-length waterproof surgical gowns for all high-risk hospital procedures.

The move will prompt fears more doctors and nurses will become infected due to a lack of PPE, with one leading health figure saying the situation is worrying.

A BMA survey of more than 6,000 doctors across the country said a significant amount of them remain without the protection they need to guard against Covid-19.

Another poll by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) found half of nurses have felt pressure to work without appropriate protective equipment during the crisis.

BMA council chairman Dr Chaand Nagpaul said: 'We shouldn't still be hearing that doctors feel unprotected when they go to work.'
The governor declined to say which businesses might get the initial go-ahead, or when restaurants might reopen for table service, though he said all that is under review with a focus on ensuring the safety of both employees and customers.

"We're going to be responsible, very methodical," Holcomb said. "What we don't want to do, one of the worst things that could happen, is that we get this resurgence. So you have to prevent putting yourself in a position where there is a resurgence of COVID-19."

As an example, Holcomb said hospitals might be allowed to resume, in stages, by region, elective medical procedures, since he said the coronavirus surge appears to have plateaued in several areas of the state.

"There is a lot of work that needs to be done between now and April 22 and then May 1, and then there will be after that as well," Holcomb said. "But this is going to allow us to make sure we're all on the same page, as a state, in this together, one Indiana."

He said credit for the potential reopening goes to the 99.99% of Hoosiers who he said consistently are following his stay-at-home order, and not leaving home except to obtain "essential" supplies or work at an "essential" job.
CASS COUNTY, MI  A 45-year-old man died in southwest Michigan Friday, when he was pinned underneath his vehicle while working on it.

The Cass County Sheriffs Department responded to the incident around 5 p.m. April 17 in the 1100 block of Huntly Road in Niles, according to a news release.

Deputies identified the man as Kenneth Charles Horner Jr., of Niles.

Horner was working on a vehicle that was being supported by a car jack when the jack reportedly failed and pinned him underneath.

When people at the residence found Horner, they lifted the vehicle off of him and started CPR until officers arrived, police said.

Horner was taken to Lakeland Niles Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

Deputies were assisted at the scene by SMCAS Ambulance, Howard Township Fire Department and Michigan State Police.

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80 pounds of cocaine, fentanyl seized from trucker trying to cross border from Port Huron to Canada

Kalamazoo County sees highest spike in coronavirus cases yet

Kalamazoo police honor officer Eric Zapata on ninth anniversary of his death
The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu, has ordered the redeployment of the Commissioner of Police in Rivers State, Dandaura Mustapha.

Adamus directive was disclosed by the Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, on Friday evening.

Also Read: Lockdown: IGP Deploys Special Squads To Tackle Crime In Lagos, Ogun

According to a statement by Mba, Mustapha is now replaced with Joseph Gobum Mukari.

Dandaura seems to have been redeployed amidst a row between the Rivers state governor, Nyesom Wike, and oil companies in the state.

Recall that Mr Wike on Thursday ordered the arrest of 22 employees of ExxonMobil who entered Rivers state from Akwa Ibom State.

Recall also that some days ago, two pilots working with Caverton Helicopters were arrested, charged to court, and remanded in Port Harcourt prison for flying a helicopter into Port Harcourt.

Mba stated that the redeployment takes immediate effect.

The third officer who was redeployed was CP Musa Adze, who is to become Commissioner of P olice Anti-Fraud Unit.
LONDON, April 17 (Reuters) - The United Kingdom was too slow to react on a number of fronts to the novel coronavirus outbreak, a leading public health professor told a parliamentary committee on Friday.

"Where were the system errors that led us to have probably the highest death rates in Europe?," Anthony Costello, professor of International Child Health and Director of the UCL Institute for Global Health, told the Health and Social Care Committee.

"And we have to face the reality of that: We were too slow with a number of things. But we can make sure in the second wave we are not too slow."

Donna Kinnair, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, told the committee that there was still an issue over testing front line health professionals in Britain. (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Elizabeth Piper, editing by Paul Sandle)
ANN ARBOR, MI  The Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) at the University of Michigan announced Friday it has come to an agreement with the university on a new three-year contract for graduate student instructors and staff assistants.

The three-year agreement comes after more than 150 hours spent bargaining since November 2019, GEO said in a press release. GEO proposed raises to bring pay in line with Ann Arbors high cost of living. Improved benefits, protections against overwork and strengthened sexual misconduct protections were also negotiated, the union said. GEO also made proposals to address food insecurity on campus, housing insecurity in Ann Arbor, racial justice and climate justice.

Members of the union have voted to ratify a three-year contract that promises annual wage increases of 3%, 3.4% and 3.7% on the Ann Arbor and Dearborn campuses, while GEO members on the Flint campus will receive a 3% increase each year, the university announced.

The contract reduces the mental health copay for graduate student employees to $500 per individual, per year, and paid sick leave for graduate student employees was doubled and can be used to extend parental leave, the GEO release said. The new contract also updated language on sexual misconduct and harassment to reflect current best practices and the timeline for sexual misconduct grievances has quadrupled, the GEO release said.

The agreement comes a week after graduate student employees protested the universitys policies on pay, sexual assault and climate change during a car rally that toured most of UMs Ann Arbor campus.

Graduate student workers union rallies in cars amid contract talks with University of Michigan

Almost 2,200 university employees working as graduate student instructors or graduate student staff assistants are represented by GEO, the UM release said, with approximately 2,155 graduate student instructors and 36 graduate student staff assistants on the three campuses.

Ellen Grachek, associate director for academic human resources, and GEO President Emily Gauld led the negotiations and said both teams worked hard to solve problems and reach an agreement, according to the UM release.

The new contract is effective May 1 and runs through April 30, 2023, the UM release said.

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The National Ambulance Service says it is disappointing that it was asked to help bail out the Cork-based community air ambulance service and says it simply does not have the funds to support it.

The Irish Community Rapid Response had looked for a cash injection of 400,000 from the service to cover its deficit for 2019.

It said it couldnt help and had previously been assured the project was sustainable and self-funding.

In correspondence obtained under freedom of information, National Ambulance service director Martin Dunne wrote it had never said it would be able to fund the operational requirements of the Irish Community Rapid Response: As such [we] are neither funded nor have funding available to support this initiative in the manner requested.

He said the Irish Community Rapid Response appeared to be partly laying fault with the service for its deficit.

In its letter, the air ambulance service said a major restriction had been its inability to publicise individual missions due to GDPR concerns patient confidentiality.

Chairman John Finnegan said this made fundraising difficult and it needed to be able to give more detail of the lifesaving service it was providing.

Mr Finnegan said that it had also attracted some negativity from local media and members of the community because it had to fundraise: [They] feel that residents in the south of Ireland are being discriminated against as they must pay for a life-saving service that is provided free to residents in Midlands/ west of Ireland.

Mr Dunne said the Irish Community Rapid Response had known all the terms and conditions when it signed up to provide the service: It should also be noted that in relation to the main reasons that this deficit occurred appears in the main levied at the National Ambulance Service which in the main does not reflect the partnership approach which you alluded to.

The Irish Community Rapid Response signed with full agreement and knowledge the service level agreement in relation to this initiative, he said.

The service will continue to operate until mid-May and is still seeking fundraising and corporate partners in the hope of continuing.

A HSE spokeswoman said it had been given assurances that the charitable model was sustainable and that the Irish Community Rapid Response had a number of benefactors who would support [them] for the first few years while the service evolved.
Will always be with you to fight injustice: Rahul Gandhi to media

'Thank You': Rahul Gandhi on Centre revising FDI policy amid COVID-19 crisis

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Apr 18: Minutes after the government amended foreign direct investment (FDI) norms for companies based in neighbouring countries, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi thanked the government for amending the policy.

"I thank the Government for taking note of my warning and amending the FDI norms to make it mandatory for Government approval in some specific cases," he wrote on Twitter.

Gandhi had, on April 12, flagged the issue of alleged takeover of some Indian companies after those became vulnerable in the wake of the economic slowdown.

"The massive economic slowdown has weakened many Indian corporates making them attractive targets for takeovers. The Government must not allow foreign interests to take control of any Indian corporate at this time of national crisis," he had written on Twitter.

Gandhi's warning came after the People's Bank of China (PBoC) invested in HDFC and took up a stake in the finance company.

Earlier in the day, the Commerce and Industry Minister said foreign companies looking to invest in the country must now approach the government if they are based in a nation that shares borders with India.

As per the earlier policy, companies from Bangladesh and Pakistan were required to take the government route. The rule has now been revised to include companies from China.

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Story first published: Saturday, April 18, 2020, 19:14 [IST]
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By Bill Hughes

Apr. 18, 2020 | PADUCAH

By Bill Hughes Apr. 18, 2020 | 01:31 PM | PADUCAH

The legislative session ended Wednesday night with the Kentucky House and Senate passing several bills and overriding a couple of Governor Andy Beshear's vetoes, but another bill related to medical care didn't get approved. Legislators were hoping it would allow chiropractors to practice in the Commonwealth - the only place in America where they can't.



Senate Bill 136 was originally written to require home-health aides to receive certain training and certification, but was amended near the end of the session to include language allowing chiropractors to open and provide emergent care if they follow CDC guidelines.



Senator Danny Carroll and Representative Randy Bridges told West Kentucky Star a revenue measure was added to the bill that caused problems.



Carroll said, "By rules, a revenue measure cannot generate in the senate, and because it was attached to a senate bill, that created a procedural and rules issue that leadership says invalidated the bill."



Bridges said, "There were some technicalities and we simply ran out of time, to be honest. There was not time to send it back to the house and then back to the senate. Both sides wanted to get it in and get it passed."



Since they were ordered to close on March 20, Kentucky is the only state where chiropractors are not considered, "essential," and are not allowed to practice. Some said they learned of the forced closure from the Kentucky Board of Chiropractic Examiners, while others said it was the Office of the Inspector General. Former Kentucky Senator and McCracken County Judge-Executive Bob Leeper, who is a chiropractor, called the governor's office and asked a staff member about the order to close.



Leeper said, "I had been told that it was somebody besides the governor, I approached this person about that and he said, 'no, the buck stops with the governor.' That was his quote, not the governor's, but I assume the governor is taking responsibility for it."



Bridges and Carroll both said they suspect SB136 would have been vetoed by Governor Beshear, because it would have infringed on his current power, and the end of the session means they would not have been able to override the veto.



Carroll says the executive branch is interpreting another bill in a way that allows the governor to mandate the closure.



Senate Bill 150 was passed to give relief during the pandemic, and included language to allow health care providers to practice under certain circumstances.



"It basically says that if a healthcare provider, in their professional judgement, deems a procedure or service to be emergent or urgent, they can provide those services. They have to follow the CDC guidelines," Carroll said.



While the bill did not specifically list every type of medical practice so they wouldn't leave anyone out, Carroll says the executive branch has been very strict in their interpretation of the law.



"When some of these chiropractors have sought advice, they have told them they can't practice under any circumstances, and I've even gotten a message that they threatened to pull licensing of one of the providers that asked or had been providing services," Carroll said.



Leeper said chiropractors he knows have been very cautious, because if they treat patients and end up in court, their professional future could be determined by how the court interprets that same law.



Carroll said some legislators have asked Attorney General Daniel Cameron to publicly issue an opinion on SB150 to clarify that the medical professionals were to be given authority to practice with proper discretion.



Carroll added that the governor could still ignore that opinion.



He said, "At this point, we're out of Frankfort, so he will continue to govern by executive order and there's really not much that we can do."



Leeper said he thought the language of SB150 was, "very limiting," in the types of patients he could see, even if the governor changed his interpretation.



"I've got family members who are chiropractors in other states and they're practicing as usual. It wouldn't be the same as that, but a least we could take care of those people who call us and are in a significant situation," he said.



Bridges said it's not just chiropractors, other physicians need to be able to work, too, like dentists and eye doctors. As just a small example of what he calls, "extreme measures," relating to social distancing, Bridges says his eyeglasses are broken but he can't get them fixed or replaced.



He said, "There are several instances that they're calling elective procedures that should to be allowed. If people are suffering and they're in pain...but, I don't have that power, all i can do is what I'm elected to do."



Leeper expressed that it's been tough to hear from patients that are experiencing problems that could be alleviated by his care, but he's not able to help.



"Daily we get calls from people who would like for us to see them and we can't do it," Leeper said. "Being the only state in the country that has that restriction is pretty frustrating."



Bridges said the shortened session was a game-changer, in terms of what legislators could accomplish. They gaveled into session for only 53 days, which is seven days less than allowed by the Kentucky Constitution.



"My personal feeling is we should have been up there. We've got a responsibility just as the governor, but he fought us tooth and toenail trying to keep us away," Bridges said.



Besides the shortened session, Carroll said the pandemic led lawmakers to pass only a one-year budget because they know tax revenue will be down by a substantial amount. He said it's time for leaders to begin talking about opening some businesses and services.



Bridges said the financial shortfall in 2020, "is gonna be extreme." He said, "we've got to find a balance," between keeping everyone safe and keeping businesses operational for the sake of the economy and budget responsibility.



Carroll said, "Is it time to open back up the entire state? No, that would be irresponsible. But it's time for us to put our plans together and start looking in that direction."



He added, "I think it's enough of the, 'Andy Beshear Hour,' every day. They need to spend more time planning on getting this state going again. That's where the leadership is really going to be needed because we are going to struggle as a state - economically, fiscally - and we're gonna need some strong leadership through that."



Bridges said the only updates he gets are at 4 pm every day just like everyone else, and the executive branch has not reached out to legislators as far as he knows.



He said, "You've got 138 people peppered throughout the state that knows each community, city, county much better than one person could ever know. That's probably the most disappointing part is that there's no cooperation."


After the coronavirus shuttered Tucson schools and turned traditional classroom instruction upside down, state and local education officials are now tasked with planning for the upcoming school year as the pandemic rages on.

Planning for how and when schools will reopen is a complicated question that hinges on the states ability to curb the spread of new cases, the availability of testing and other factors.

Most Tucson school districts said they dont yet have a contingency plan for next school year, having spent all their time and resources on managing the present crisis of shifting to remote learning in a matter of days with virtually no training or extra financial support. One district, however, is planning for the possibility that the virus will still be prevalent when the new school year is slated to begin.

One consideration by the Vail School District is having students attend on a staggered schedule, trading off in-person instruction and livestreaming classes from home. Such a plan would allow for social distancing if smaller class sizes were required and would also accommodate parents who are nervous about sending their kids back to school, said district spokeswoman Darcy Mentone.

Vail has the technology in place to livestream classes, however, staggering attendance is only an idea at this point and would require state lawmakers changing the way schools are funded, Mentone said. Schools are funded based on in-person enrollment during the first 100 days of the school year.
Photo: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

In an intriguing bit of non-coronavirus news this week, noted rock star Princess Anne became one of the first members of the British royal family in years to agree to a magazine profile, in which she talked at length with the Windsors hoity-toity outlet of choice, Horse & Hound. Oh no, sorry, it was Vanity Fair. The piece was as as blandly pleasant as you could imagine, with Anne mostly expounding upon her well-documented love of equestrian culture and charitable causes, which have stealthily made her one of the most industrious royals of all-time. (About 500 official engagements a year, Vanity Fair reports.) While we didnt get an answer if Anne watches The Crown or not, the princess instead gave us a spoonful of sugar for our tea when she admitted that she worries about how the younger generation of royals is trying to innovate philanthropy.

I dont think this younger generation probably understands what I was doing in the past and its often true, isnt it? she explained. You dont necessarily look at the previous generation and say, Oh, you did that? Or, You went there? Nowadays, theyre much more looking for, Oh lets do it a new way. And Im already at the stage, Please do not reinvent that particular wheel. Weve been there, done that. Some of these things dont work. You may need to go back to basics. Anne added that she doesnt care if shes labelled the boring old fuddy-duddy at the back, because she just wants everyone to remember the basics of their duties. Unsurprisingly, she didnt give any names of the younger royals who are ruffling her fascinators, but wed be remiss if we didnt point out that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle recently announced their new nonprofit organization. Coincidence?
He's been in a relationship with his glam model girlfriend Nicole Hadlow since 2017.

And Emmerdale star Joe-Warren Plant showed things were still going strong with his 23-year-old love on Saturday, when he shared a shot of them posing together in matching yellow outfits days after welcoming his 18th birthday.

The Blackpool native, who portrays Jacob Gallagher on the ITV soap, took to Instagram to post the pair of images, which showed them looking loved up as they posed atop his roof days after his April 12 landmark birthday.

Pose: Emmerdale star Joe-Warren Plant, 18, shared a shot of himself posing with his 23-year-old girlfriend Nicole Hadlow on Saturday, days after celebrating his landmark birthday

The screen star cut a casually cool figure, donning a patterned shorts co-ord with white running shoes as he held hands with brunette Nicole, who stepped out in a plaid crop top with matching bottoms and gold wedge heels.

Joe-Warren has had much more time to devote to his relationship with Nicole, as production on his hit soap was recently halted amid the coronavirus pandemic.

His post with Nicole comes one year after he shared a snap of himself cosying up to Nicole in a resurfaced snap, as they posed in a hot tub when he was 15.

Shot: The pair looked loved up as they donned matching yellow outfits for the Instagram shot

The soap star could be seen beaming as he cuddled up to the model for the Instagram post from June 2017.

Nicole donned a stylish gold bikini as she relaxed in the hot tub with Joe, for a snap where they were also joined by her brother Branson.

The couple's romance was first revealed in 2018, thanks to slew of snaps that Joe posted to Instagram.

Actor Joe hasn't held back in documenting his romance with Nicole with Instagram snaps, and the couple recently enjoyed a glamorous black tie occasion together.

Throwback: His post with Nicole comes one year after he shared a snap of himself cosying up to Nicole in a resurfaced snap, as they posed in a hot tub when he was 15

Love: The soap star, who turned 18 on April 12, has been in a relationship with Nicole since 2017

And over the summer of that year, the couple also enjoyed a romantic holiday in Mexico, which Joe happily documented on social media.

Back in August 2018, Joe and Nicole celebrated their one-year anniversary during the sunny Mexican break, and the actor didn't hold back in expressing his love for the brunette beauty.

He wrote: '1 Year Today. I look forward to making even more memories with you right by my side. I love you.'

Beaming: The soap star - who plays Jacob Gallagher on the hit ITV soap - is no stranger to a social media snap or two with his model girlfriend

Happy: Back in August 2018, Joe and Nicole celebrated their one-year anniversary with a sunny break in Mexico

Nicole is a regular feature on Joe's Instagram, as the couple also dress up for plenty of fun-filled parties.

Joe's character was a central part of Emmerdale's shocking grooming storyline last year, which saw Jacob in a disturbing and inappropriate relationship with perpetrator Maya Stepney.

The actor joined the cast of Emmerdale in 2010. His character is the adoptive son of Alicia Harding and the biological son of Leyla Harding and Justin Gallagher.

Out and about: Nicole - who works as a model - is a regular feature on Joe's Instagram, as the couple enjoy plenty of fun-filled outings together
Security forces on Friday eliminated four terrorists in two separate incidents in J&K. Two of them, belonging to Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, were responsible for killing a special police officer (SPO) and injuring another in Kishtwar district on April 13.

The other two terrorists were killed in south Kashmirs Dairoo village after an encounter. A senior police officer said, With the killing of two terrorists in Kishtwar and as many in Shopian in South Kashmir, the ongoing operations concluded today and a total of four terrorists have been eliminated. Weapons have also been recovered.

Speaking about the Kishtwar encounter, inspector general of police, Jammu zone, Mukesh Singh said, After meticulous search and painstaking efforts for three days, security forces zeroed in on a spot behind village Saunder...Terrorists, who were in hiding, fired at the search party and were killed in retaliatory action. An AK- 74 Rifle and an INSAS rifle were recovered.

One of them, Ashiq Hussain, was a rape accused released 20 days ago in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. Both Hussain and his associate Basharat Hussain were residents of Tander village in Dachhan and were reportedly responsible for hacking to death SPO Basit Iqbal and injuring SPO Vishal Singh.

Meanwhile, late on Thursday evening, in a joint operation by the army, police and the CRPF in Dairoo village in Shopian, two terrorists, believed to be locals, were killed.

This was the fifth encounter in Kashmir since the 21-day lockdown was clamped across the country to break the chain of Covid-19 infections. Twelve militants and five security personnel have been killed in encounters in different parts of the region in the past few weeks.

Earlier this week, two people in the security establishment had told HT that the Armys artillery assault on terror launch pads at Dudhnial facing the Keran sector across the Line of Control (LoC) on April 10 had killed eight terrorists and 15 Pakistan Army soldiers.

It was from this mountain town that the five terrorists neutralised by the Army special forces in the Keran sector on April 5 had been launched.

Three of them belonged to the Union Territory.
A US-Russian space crew landed safely Friday in the steppes of Kazakhstan, greeted with extra precautions amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Following a stint on the International Space Station, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan and Russian Oleg Skripochka touched down as scheduled at 11:16 am Friday. Their Soyuz landing capsule landed under a striped orange-and-white parachute about 150 kilometers (93 miles) southeast of Dzhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan.

Russian officials said they took stringent measures to protect the crew amid the pandemic. The recovery team and medical personnel assigned to help the crew out of the capsule and for post-flight checks had been under close medical observation for nearly a month, including tests for the coronavirus.

The space crew smiled as they talked to medical experts wearing masks. Following a quick checkup, the crew will be flown by helicopters to Baikonur, from where Skripochka will be taken to Moscow, said Vyacheslav Rogozhnikov, a Russian medical official who oversaw the crew's return.

Morgan and Meir will have to be driven from Baikonur to Kyzyl-Orda, 300 kilometers (190 miles) away, to board a flight to the U.S.  a strenuous journey made necessary by Kazakhstan's quarantine measures.

On Thursday, the Russian government coronavirus headquarters reported the first contagion at the Star City, which serves as the main hub for pre-flight training of U.S., Russian and other international crew members of the International Space Station. The Star City also has residential quarters for cosmonauts and support staff.

Roscosmos Director Dmitry Rogozin said Wednesday that the Russian space corporation had 30 coronavirus cases.

The crew returned to Earth exactly 50 years after the Apollo 13 astronauts splashed down in the Pacific after an oxygen tank explosion aborted the moon-landing mission.

Morgan wrapped up a 272-day mission on his first flight into space. He conducted seven space walks, four of which were to improve and extend the life of the station's Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which looks for evidence of dark matter in the universe.

Meir and Skripochka spent 205 days in space, with Meir carrying out the first three all-women spacewalks with her crewmate Christina Koch, who returned from space in February.

Speaking from the orbiting outpost before the return to Earth, the crew said that coming back to the world drastically changed by the pandemic will be challenging.

Morgan said the crew has tried to keep atop the coronavirus news, but added that it's hard to comprehend what's really going on.

It is quite surreal for us to see this whole situation unfolding on the planet below, said Meir.

We can tell you that the Earth still looks just as stunning as always from up here, so it's difficult to believe all the changes that have taken place since both of us have been up here. A new crew comprising NASA's Chris Cassidy and Russians Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner arrived at the station on April 9.

They said before blastoff that they had been under a very strict quarantine for a month before the flight and were feeling good.
Risking it all for an election View(s):

Typically, in Sri Lanka, even when there is a national calamity, it is politics that seems to dominate the national agenda.

In more recent years, when there was imminent Indian military adventurism into Sri Lankas sovereignty and territorial integrity (1987), certain leaders of the then Government scuttled a joint statement from Parliament saying it would give the Opposition at the time some political leverage. When the tsunami ravaged the country (2004), the then Prime Minister was dragged over the coals for Helping Hambantota. When 17 Opposition MPs joined a wobbly Government to shore up its Parliamentary strength during a crucial stage of the fight against the LTTE, they were branded opportunists for crossing party lines.

Now comes the whiff of Government plans to press for a general election in the midst of a global and local war against a deadly virus. No country in the world, not even where it all started, can really say it is out of the woods  yet.

The Chairman of the Election Commission (EC) has written twice to the President urging him to seek an opinion from the Supreme Court on whether the election can be postponed beyond June 2 which is the last date by which it must be held in view of the dissolution of Parliament on March 2. The reason for writing was obvious; the EC was exploring the need to put off the election for a date after June 2. The President has dismissed this suggestion probably as unsolicited advice and asked the EC to make an election date itself.

While ostensibly asking the EC to decide on the date, the Government is seen as preparing the groundwork for an early election  some saying Saturday, May 23 is already earmarked in their minds.

The constitutional problem is that with Parliament dissolved, there is a requirement to hold the election within three months. The practical problem, however, is whether hundreds of party workers can be let loose to campaign and thousands of public servants, police and service personnel can be called to action risking exposure to a virus that cannot yet be declared defeated. That is without counting the millions who will stand in long queues to vote. The entire exercise is scary.

If there is a move to fast forward the holding of a poll, the Governments indecent hurry comes into question. In a way, the Government is currently experiencing a dream platform to govern; no Opposition in Parliament, the Courts not sitting due to a curfew, Provincial Councils defunct (which is not a bad thing), a critical Press unable to distribute newspapers, and still, the Government not being accused of the closure of these democratic institutions because of a genuine reason  COVID-19.

Thus unhampered in what they want to do, even the distribution of financial handouts to the poor is in the hands of the ruling party with no monitoring and therefore no censure from the EC or civil society groups. Some of the Police orders being rattled off from time to time from its headquarters are legally questionable even though the people are following them faithfully to the Governments advantage.

The only drawback for the Government is that it cannot pass legislation and pass money. There is a real constitutional question whether the Government has the legal authority to spend money after April 30 when the last Vote on Account lapses. The emasculated Opposition has raised this issue and urged that Parliament reconvenes to rectify this anomaly.

This again, the Government has brushed aside as inconsequential, arguing it has the powers  and with the courts not sitting to test the constitutionality of it all, it is having a free run. The President is in no mood to reconvene Parliament. It betrays the fact that as far as the Government is concerned, the 2015 Parliament is done and dusted and it is a new 2020 Parliament that is being looked forward to.

The EC has announced that it will meet tomorrow (April 20) to discuss the holding of an election in the current environment. On the other hand, the Government wants to strike while the iron is hot which translates to taking advantage of the disarray in the ranks of the Opposition. Such a mindset within the Government is reinforced by the very fact that it insisted on the original deadline for the nomination of candidates despite the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country. Usually Governments get termed dictatorships when elections are postponed. In this case, its the reverse; it is being accused of rushing an election.

The Government will maintain that it is the EC that must fix the date of the election. The onus is clearly on the EC but writing two letters to the President asking him to clarify matters betrays an over-dependence on its part on the Government to what is essentially a decision that is its and its alone to make.

The Governments decision to reopen schools on May 11 and universities even earlier has already run into a storm of protests from teachers. The World Health Organisation (WHO)  the UN agency which came under fire for delaying in alerting the world about COVID-19  has now warned governments worldwide about any premature relaxation of the tough lockdown measures that the peoples of the world are enduring to arrest the virus. The way down could be as dangerous as the way up, it has said referring to countries that see a pale ray of sunshine in the numbers of COVID-19 victims declining.

The disaster that struck the people of Iran by when an election was held amidst the pandemic must not be ignored. South Korea has just held an election but under tight testing procedures for voters and officials in protective clothing which Sri Lanka is not geared for. There are disturbing reports, too, of those who recovered from the virus in South Korea getting relapses.

When the first patient in Sri Lanka who tested positive for the virus was cleared and the Minister and the nurses kissed her in a glare of publicity, the Government did not bargain for what was to come. At the end of this week there are more than 240 known COVID-19 patients in the country.

Likewise, second waves of the virus are being talked about globally and fresh explosions of cases cannot be ruled out. One must remember Sri Lankas testing record for patients is wanting. However acclaimed the countrys handling has been, notwithstanding some early shortcomings, the success must not be reversed due to political agendas.

The priority is to get rid of the virus and reopen the economy. The country cannot afford an outbreak of the virus that looks like being avoided, and then having to spend another Rs. 6 billion on having yet another election if the newly elected MPs are to come to Parliament infected with the virus.
Yair Lapid, leader of Israels Yesh Atid-Telem party has reportedly proposed a six month political freeze to prevent fourth elections amid coronavirus pandemic. His views were supported by the lawmaker and former Chief of Defence Staff, Moshe Yaalon who said that Benny Gantz was unfit to serve as prime minister over his willingness to sit in a government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Read: Israel MPs Tasked With Ending Deadlock Over Unity Govt

Read: Israelis Get Chance To Say Goodbye To COVID-19 Patients

Isreal is most likely to head towards the fourth election in a little over the year after Netanyahus rivals failed to form a government. Both the leaders have missed the midnight deadline, on April 15, to reach a power-sharing deal for a national emergency government. This has resulted in the task of forming Israels government falling upon the nations parliament for a period of 21 days.

Speaking at the Knesset plenum Yair Lapid said People dont have enough food to put on the table. Businesses are collapsing. People are dying in hospitals. We need to solve the crisis of the lack of tests. We need to start to tackle the economic crisis because no one has really started to tackle it". He went on to say that the creation of a corrupt and bloated government was a national disaster adding that the idea of the fourth election was disturbing.

'Transitional government will continue'

"So Im going back to a proposal I suggested before  a simple, clean proposal. To freeze everything for six months. In six months well come back to the same situation. In those six months, instead of dealing with politics, we will work to save the economy and the healthcare system and peoples lives. In those six months, the transitional government will continue. I think its a bad government but it wont be able to do whatever it wants because well control the Knesset. The Knesset will have teeth and it will have a majority, he added.

Read: Israel: PM Netanyahu, Main Rival Gantz Miss Deadline For Unity Deal

Read: Virus Patients At One Israeli Hospital Are Not Dying Alone
AUTO LAB TALK RADIO FROM NYC, Saturday April 18, 2020; WNYM Radio AM 970 7-9 AM





Auto Lab Talk Radio on New York City's WNYM Radio AM 970 Is Streamed Worldwide On TheAutoChannel.Com

This a a Prerecorded Best Of Auto Lab - No Calls Please











Auto Lab is also about the automotive industry, its history, and its culture, presenting the ideas and advice of leading college faculty, authors, and automotive practitioners in a relaxed, conversational interactive format.

Listeners can find audio recordings of the past 20 years of archived Auto Lab shows as simulcast on The Auto Channel; The Auto Lab Index Page includes; Audio-on-Demand Archives, Community College Auto Program Database, Guests Pictures

This Weeks Show: April 18, 2020, 2020

In Studio Expert Automotive Panel

Harold Bendell, Major World

Tim Cacace- Master Mechanix

David Goldsmith-Urban Classics

Joseph Guarino- Joe Guarino's Auto Repairs

Jerry Pastore- D & J Diagnostics

Johanna Pastore-D & J Diagnostics

Michael Porcelli, Bronx Community College, City University of New York

Nicholas Prague, MTA

Interviews

Robert Erskine, Senior European Correspondent:

"CLEAN HANDS AND SUPER FAST 90 SECOND OIL AND FILTER CHANGES"

Sharon Sudol John Russell Senior Correspondents:

"2020 SUBARU LEGACY SPORT"

Russ Rader Senior Vice President Insurance Institute for Highway Safety:

"NEW TEST RESULTS FOR THE CHEVROLET TRAVERSE AND BUICK ENCLAVE"

Robert Sinclair AAA NORTHEAST

"GASOLINE PRICES HOLD ANY INTEREST?"
The Karnataka government on



Tuesday decided to ease many lockdown restrictions after April 20, including allowing industries to operate and for three per cent staff in the IT-BT sector to attend offices, to give a thrust to economic activities.

"However the easing of restrictions will not be permitted in COVID-19 affected areas in the state which will be declared as containment zones," Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa told reporters after chairing a high-level meeting, attended by senior ministers and officials.

"It was decided that there will be no restrictions on the transportation of essential goods, as well as construction materials like gravel, sand, cement and steel," he said.

Construction workers will be allowed to stay where they are employed, he added.

The Chief Minister said 33 per cent of the workforce of IT-BT companies would be allowed to attend office after April 20.

Industries would be permitted to function in industrial clusters in villages and Special Economic Zones or industrial townships in urban areas, he said.

Inter district movement of vehicles would not be permitted, barring between Ramanagar, Bengaluru urban and Bengaluru rural district.

"These three districts will be considered as one district in view of hectic movement of people due to industrial activities, Yediyurappa said.

In the containment zones, an 'incident commander' having magisterial powers would be appointed.

He would head a team of police and health officials to ensure there are no violations in the zones.

Residents within these zones would not be allowed to come out of their homes and essential items would be supplied to them at their doorsteps, he said.

Among other decisions taken were that there would be no restrictions on use of two wheelers after April 20 and that restrictions on sale of liquor would continuetill May 3, he said.

The Chief Minister expressed happiness over the decline in the number of cases on Saturday.

"One satisfying thing is that there were 36 new cases on April 16.... yesterday it was 44 and it has come down to 12 today.

Out of the 371 cases, 266 are active cases because 92 people have recovered and 13 people died," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Affordable and reliable energy and electricity are essential for the world to alleviate the coronavirus pandemic. Without reliable electricity, hospitals cant save lives, and without crude oil powering our modern world, the virus would overwhelm civilized nations. A movie released earlier this year titled Juice: How Electricity Explains the World, underscores how economic development (and medicine) depends on reliable and affordable power.

Those holding degrees from elite universities now seem useless compared to farmworkers, truckdrivers, and warehouse stock clerks. These same university-educated folk believe renewable energy (sun and wind) can deliver critical medical equipment, ultrasound systems, ventilators, CT systems, X-ray machines, personal protection equipment, masks, (and) gloves.

Each of these medical commodities are examples of the over 6,000 products that start from a barrel of crude oil. The plastic in plastic gloves is overwhelmingly made from crude oil.

Under current technology, and a world turned upside down by this virus, the United States (U.S.), European Union (EU), and remaining United Nations signatories are not replacing or banishing fossil fuels and the medical products derived from them with renewables.

Zero-carbon societies will ravage lives, leading to death, and wholeheartedly believing in global warming/climate change without thorough questioning of this ideology renders the global, green-aligned environmental movement impotent and feckless in the face of global pandemics.

Only fossil fuels can save lives and realign international relations by countering the asinine negligence of the Chinese Communist government which has allowed wet markets to reopen in Wuhan, China.

Renewables can never be relied upon to fight global sickness, disease, and uncontrollable Chinese-borne viruses. China continues to mislead the world on the coronavirus, and U.S.-led western powers are slowly attempting to decouple their medical resources and pharmaceuticals from Chinese manufacturing centers.

Sovereign nations critically need reliable energy and electricity moving forward, after this pandemic lifts, to shift away from Chinas economy. When every part in the supply chain for solar panels and wind turbines rely on crude oil to function, along with destructive mining practices for precious minerals to operate, depending on renewables is a lose-lose proposition.

Germany has the highest electricity prices in the world due to relying on wind turbines for their power needs; a 2019 McKinsey & Company report said German energy policies pose a significant threat to the nations economy and energy supply. Unstable German electrical generation is hindering their medical community. Australias fixation with solar and wind energy to electricity has their economy grasping to fight the virus as well.

Their total electrical output reductions caused by heavy reliance on renewables has serious implications for how effectively their governmental and electrical institutions can reasonably fight COVID-19. The Tasmanian government announced before the pandemic they would be 200% renewable by 2040. No, they wont -- they continue using coal-fired power plants from Australia.

Britain is spiraling downward and crashing their electrical thanks to dependence on wind power. Brexit is a political reality, leaving the British to fend for themselves. Could this be why Britain has been hit so hard by the slowdown and the virus? Let the British begin fracking their abundant oil and gas reserves instead of allowing their wind industry to demand continuous taxpayer subsidies.

Scotlands descent into using wind power over fossil fuels caused Scottish taxpayers to pay over 650 million euros to electricity companies to not produce power from wind turbine farms. This compensation takes place when electricity companies are forced to turn off wind turbines on short notice when too much wind overloads the UKs National Grid.

Intermittent electricity from the wind and sun also irreparably damages grids when the sun and wind fluctuate chaotically. Additionally, renewables destroy pristine wilderness and wildlife habitats.

When just one wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2500 tons of concrete, and 45 tons of plastic, the economic benefits do not outweigh the environmental destruction giant, land-grabbing wind turbines, and solar panels wreak on societies. Zero-carbon nuclear power is a better option.

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are normally greeted with fanfare as the most effective method of storing energy to electricity in the world. But grid-scale BESS are fire hazards, and ineffective for load-sharing, according to IHS Markit. One example is Shell Oils new 100 megawatt grid storage battery in western England financed by Chinese investment fund CNIC and state-run utility Huaneng Group that will hold enough juice to power 10,000 homes for a single day.

In actuality, the battery will only be able to replace wind (energy) for less than one minute if the wind stopped blowing, based on average U.K. wind output producing 60 TWh a year.

The U.S. is still the global policeman, realist foreign policy-balancer, top oil and natural gas producer (pre-COVID), and the only realistic option for contending against Chinese duplicity. So why are U.S. wind and solar firms demanding billions in subsidies to save their taxpayer-handout-dependent businesses during this viral outbreak?

Billions are squandered propping up renewables when ventilators, disinfectant wipes, and restarting the free-falling American economy are more important than feed-in tariffs for solar and wind farms. Virginia is the latest U.S. state to embrace Democratic Party policies advocating for decarbonization via renewables without considering the dire consequences of their actions.

COVID-19 models forecasting global cases and deaths have been overprojected. Michael Levitt, a Nobel laureate, and Stanford biophysicist, correctly examined the Chinese coronavirus numbers in January and predicted that the the world would get through the worst of the coronavirus outbreak long before many health experts had predicted. The world needs stable energy and electricity. We are barreling towards crunch-time deciding who is correct: economists or epidemiologists for opening up the world and the American economy.
They say third times a charm and in the case of Trina Braxton, its proving to be true with her new hubby Von Scales. Braxton and Scales married in a St. Louis ceremony in Dec. 2019. Details of their special day were scarce with just a few unauthorized images scattered across social media but the Braxton Family Values star sat down with Rolling Out and revealed all for her fans.

Von Scales and Trina Braxton-Scales | Prince Williams/Wireimage

Trina Braxton and Von Scaless relationship

Braxton and Scales met on a blind double date that mutual friends set up. Both had recently ended bad relationships and after hitting it off at dinner and a movie with their friends, they decided to go out again on their own and have been together ever since.

Much of their relationship was long-distance, with Scales traveling from his home in St. Louis to visit Braxton. The show chronicled Scales meeting Braxtons family, whom they instantly liked. He asked for Braxtons hand in marriage from both of her parents, as well as her two sons.

After a year and a half of dating, Scales proposed during a family couples trip to Napa Valley with her sisters surrounding her with their stamp of approval  with the exception of her baby sister Tamar who was upset that Scales proposed during a trip that she said was in honor of her birthday. Tamar eventually apologized to her sister for her behavior.

Trina Braxton gives exclusive details on her wedding day

Braxton and Scales were married on Sunday, Dec. 15 in Scaless hometown of St. Louis at Windows on Washington. She sat down for an exclusive interview with Rolling Out to dish on the details of her day.

Braxton donned a beautiful custom made gown equipped with crystals, a semi sweetheart neckline with straps and lace. The dress took a lot of work as the designers are based in Israel and required several alterations, leaving Braxton and her team shipping the gown to and from until it was just right.

Known as the cheap sister out of the Braxton clan, she revealed that she struck gold with her headpiece. She ordered the accessory online from Amazon for a whopping $8.99 and admitted that she was a bit nervous that it was too good to be true.

When I saw it I was like, It cant possibly be this cute on me but the next day when it came I was like, This is cute, she exclaimed before joking, Im a bargain Betty honey.

Braxton stuck to the traditional theme of something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue  revealing that her sisters and her mother all contributed something special to her special day for her overall look. Her mother provided her with her jewelry, which was the something new aspect. The shoes she wore designed by her older sister Traci, who is currently working on a shoe line.

For the reception, Braxton changed into a white off the shoulder top with matching pants as Scales wore a gray suit. Her hair and makeup were done by well-known artists from the Atlanta area where she resides. She went for a natural look, rocking a natural simple ponytail to highlight her headpiece.

All of her immediate family were present for the nuptials, including her father Michael Braxton, who skipped out on her second wedding to her late ex-husband Gabe Solis.

The couples wedding was officiated by former Divorce Court judge Mablean Ephriam, who administered their pre-marital counseling and even wrote custom vows for them based off of their sessions.

Throughout the interview, Braxton gushed about Scales, calling marriage with him easy. They honeymooned for eight days in Mexico, leaving the day after their wedding. They now reside full-time in Atlanta and have blended their families  they both have sons from previous marriages.

Braxton promises the wedding day will be aired during the upcoming season of Braxton Family Values.
The entire world is on a lockdown as the coronavirus pandemic has claimed over 1,50,000 lives with more than 2 million testing positive for the disease. With governments around the world informing people to adhere to social distancing in order to avoid being affected or be a reason for the spread of the virus, the COVID-19 outbreak has brought in a lot of despair for Iran as well as the Arab nation has seen 80,000 positive cases with nearly 5,000 deaths and 55,000 recoveries reported so far. In the midst of such turmoil, Iran is in the news for all the wrong reasons after a human rights organization claimed that Fatemeh Khishvand, a popular Iranian Instagram star under the name, SaharfTabar, known predominantly among followers as the 'Zombie Angelina Jolie', has been jailed and is currently on a ventilator after contracting coronavirus while in custody.

Fatemeh Khishvand's lawyers have now asked for her release due to the COVID-19 oubreak, but the appeal was refused by a judge, as per the US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran. Human rights lawyer Payam Derafshan in a statement said, "We find it unacceptable that this young woman has now caught the coronavirus in these circumstances while her detention order has been extended during all this time in jail,". Arrested in October, Khishvand, 22, has been in detention owing to a crackdown on Instagram celebrities across the nation. She has been widely accused of blasphemy, instigation of violence and encouraging the corruption of young people, for expressing herself on her widely followed Instagram account.

Khishvands lawyer made an appeal saying she is nowhere to be found amidst the spread of the COVID-19 virus in the country with Judge Mohammad Moghiseh on several occasions rejecting the bail requests. Claims of the Instagram star contracting the virus were denied by jail officials in Tehran, which were ridiculed by Khishvands lawyer, who later in a statement said, "It seems like it has become a habit for the authorities to deny everything. It makes no sense to deny this. The prison director should acknowledge the infection and admit she has been hospitalized."

Derafshan further added, "Many women in Shahr-e Rey Prison have contacted my colleague and me about the terrible situation inside the prison and the fear that exists among the inmates [due to the coronavirus]. We want the authorities to issue a general order to allow these prisoners to be temporarily released. In the absence of judges who are sick or not coming to work, this is the only solution."

Khishvand became a national sensation in 2017 on Instagram (it is the only social media app available in Iran as Facebook and Twitter are banned) after she stated she had undergone 50 surgeries to resemble her favorite Hollywood star, Angelina Jolie, and posted several selfies in which she was shown in an almost anorexic state with hollow cheeks and inflated lips including her nose being upturned. Her transformation left many shocked around the world as she revealed that her look was created using makeup and digital editing.
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size The COVID-19 pandemic has already exacted a heavy toll on Telstra boss Andy Penn as a father, son and chief executive. One of his daughters is out of a job, his sister-in-law is recovering in the US and now his elderly mother, based in the UK, has caught the virus. "The unique thing about this crisis is we're all living it at the same time as having to manage within it," Penn says. "My daughter lost her job, I've got very sick elderly parents in the UK and I can't visit - my mother's got COVID-19." Telstra chief executive Andy Penn. Credit:Eddie Jim The pandemic is a unique type of challenge for Penn, who is no stranger to challenges and isn't the sort to back down from them. Having taken the reins at Telstra in 2015, Penn's tenure to date has been anything but smooth. From widespread network outages in 2016 to mass job cuts and last summers national bushfire crisis, Penn has managed to see off every test. Telstra's core business has undergone a significant makeover in the last four years. Its wholesale telecommunications monopoly has almost entirely vanished, thanks to the National Broadband Network, taking with it billions of dollars in revenue. It has also been forced to cut the dividend it pays to investors, many of them mum and dad shareholders and self-funded retirees, who have seen the value of their Telstra shares halve under Penn's watch. Meanwhile, Telstra's margins continue to wither in the face of the fierce competition in the mobile market and the high wholesale prices charged by the NBN.

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Penn says while that while he and his senior team are well prepared to handle the challenge of COVID-19, it's also a wake-up call. As executives, sometimes you go through life thinking you are superhuman but nothing really impacts you at a personal level and you build up this great degree of resilience, Penn tells The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age from his home and workplace of five weeks on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. Actually being cognisant of [the fact] that it must be having a bit of impact on you personally...giving yourself the latitude to feel sad about that or feel concerned about family and friends, have a sense of loss - that is only natural. Loading Telstras reaction to the pandemic was fast. The telco had barely finished crisis management and resiliency work to help bushfire-affected communities when it made the decision to send its 20,000 staff home to work. The crisis management team was well-trained, but Penn knew the pandemic was uncharted waters and a second daily meeting for Penn and his senior executives was quickly organised. When we're in the crisis management discussions, we are dealing very much with the technical issues of today and tomorrow. We've had several sessions now, which we run in parallel, where we are not making those immediate in the moment decisions, Penn says. While you can't predict exactly how the world's going to look in the future, there are certain things that you can probably safely conclude. The world is probably going to stay working virtually more than it has done previously so that says something about the...configuration of our networks.

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An example, he explains, is the way the company reacted to the impact of the pandemic on its call centre workforce offshore. Telstras business continuity planning had been focused on diversification - employing thousands of staff in multiple locations and different countries, but stringent restrictions in places like Philippines meant staff could not get to work. That diversification hasn't really helped anybody in the current environment, he says. Loading In addition to call centre roles, Telstra has also announced a discount on services for those on the JobSeeker benefit, a $30 a month offer for anyone with a valid healthcare card and a freeze on job cuts and plans to speed up spending on its 5G mobile network. This week the company said it would extend its customer support measures, including unlimited data at no additional charge for consumer and small business broadband customers, an extra 25GB of data for post-paid customers and a waiver of late payment fees, until June 30. The telco's T22 transformation plan, launched in 2018 included mass job cuts. Of the 8000 roles expected to be removed in the four-year plan, 6000 were shed last financial year. These job cuts are temporarily on hold, which Penn says is to provide staff with job security during the crisis. Telstra was one of the first companies to send its Australian staff home. Credit:Carla Gottgens, Bloomberg The measures will inevitably have a financial impact, but Penn sees COVID-19 as a time to demonstrate Telstras corporate responsibility and hopes some of that will translate into brand loyalty from the public.

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The importance of connection and keeping people connected is absolutely highlighted [in this pandemic]. Having said that, we're a commercial business so we can't do that for nothing, he says. But I think that by trying to be very thoughtful about the packages that we've put in place to help customers that are particularly challenged through this period by giving them unlimited data as a broadband customer or more data if they are a mobile customer or hardship plans if theyve got difficulty paying. We think that's both the right thing to do from a corporate social responsibility point of view, but also the right thing to do ultimately in terms of brand value and customer loyalty in the long term. Loading If we can find ways to keep people connected while recognising we're still a commercial business and have a responsibility to shareholders and a responsibility to stay strong...then I do think it builds that long term brand and customer loyalty. Penn does not believe the COVID-19 pandemic will change the way his company plans to operate in a few years' time. If anything he says the pandemic has led the telco giant to double down on its T22 transformation strategy. We set out these five key priorities for the next sort of three to six months, he says. They're basically protecting the health and the well-being of our people, keeping our customers connected, building flexibility and capacity into our networks, and ensuring we're financially sustainable. The last one is ensuring that we come out of this current situation with strong growth potential in our core business and growth potential in our current adjacencies. One of the divisions Penn is focused on is Telstra Health, home to the countrys electronic prescription digital platform and the national cervical and bowel cancer digital registries. The whole essence of what we're trying to do in Telstra health was to digitally enable the health system, he says.

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Mustafa al-Kadhimi, director of Iraq's National Intelligence Service, is expected to present his cabinet to the Council of Representatives early next week.

On April 9, Iraqi President Barham Salih designated Kadhimi to form a new government within 30 days. Kadhimi is the third PM-designate this year. Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi and Adnan al-Zurfi previously tried, and failed, to form governments.

Kadhimi appears to have broad backing among Iraqs political factions  all of the major Shiite parties, as well as the key Kurdish and Sunni blocs support him  with no major political opposition so far.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry announced its support for Kadhimis appointment on April 10. The United States, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Nations in Iraq have also signalled thier backing.

Most of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) have either come out in favor of Kadhimi or remained quiet. Some of the PMUs have close ties to Iran. Those that have opposed Kadhimi, like the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah, have so far not appeared to get any wider traction. Kataib Hezbollah previously accused Kadhimi, without evidence, of being involved in the US killing of Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani and PMU deputy chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis on Jan 3. A leading member of PMUs Fatah bloc, Abbas Zameli, has since said the charge against Kadhimi is baseless.

Kataib Hezbollah, which has attacked and killed US personnel in Iraq, is more or less isolated in its opposition, especially given Iran's support for Kadhimi.

The visit to Iraq of the new IRGC Quds Force chief, Esmail Ghaani, Soelimani's replacement, last month may have served to mitigate PMU or other opposition.

For example, Kataib al-Imam Ali, another PMU with reportedly close ties to Iran, soonafter announced its support for Kadhimi's nomination and also rejected the accusations against him.

Even Qais al-Khazali, the leader of the PMU Asaib Ahl al-Haq, said his faction would not prevent Kadhimi's nomination, despite past differences. And the appearance of Hadi al-Amiri, the head of the Fatah bloc, next to Kadhimi at the designation meeting was a clear sign of unity.

US-Iran tensions will continue to play a role in Iraqi politics, and PMU factions linked to Iran will press for a reduction or withdrawal of US troops in Iraq. However, a broad consensus has developed among Iraqs leaders to continue to cooperate with the US-led coalition against the Islamic State.

Kadhimi said his government would work with the United States in the upcoming strategic dialogue between the two countries, which will take place in June.
Urgent Government support is needed for Wexford County Council if it is to emerge from the corona pandemic with the financial clout to continue it make vital steps towards stimulating the local economy, according to council chairman Cllr Michael Sheehan.

Cllr Sheehan said several capital projects across the county have been stalled due to the restrictions imposed from Government to help limit the spread of the virus. These include work on the South West Greenway stretching from New Ross To Waterford and the advancement of two advance factories in New Ross, the Enniscorthy Technology Park, the Min Ryan Park, and the development of the Hatch Lab in Gorey.

Over 200m in spending was planned for the coming decade within the county - funded by a rates harmonisation policy approved by councillors and state support.

Cllr Sheehan said: 'We had signed off on the economic programme which was a rolling programme over a multi-annual timeframe and is to include the technology park in Enniscorthy, Hatch Lab 2.0 in Gorey, the Min Ryan Park, Trinity Wharf, the New Ross and other greenways, two advance factories in New Ross or one large factory on top of other smaller projects in the town.'

The appointment of a tourism director of services to oversee the development of major tourism projects in Enniscorthy and New Ross is also planned.

A universal ticketing system for Hook Lighthouse, the Norman and Dunbrody experience in New Ross and the Irish National Heritage Park and other attractions is being worked out.

'The advance factory was working away nicely and we were expecting an announcement but when the coronavirus hit we went into lockdown. The Government needs to put a billion euro into local authorities for capital project countrywide that we, in Wexford, can apply for. Unlike other counties we have all of these projects on the shelf ready to go.'

Cllr Sheehan said: 'We are in a prime position to apply. We are going to have to ramp up the economy and the only way is to boost the economy. In Co Wexford 1,760 people signed on for the Covid payment in four days. We have 18,000 extra on the dole and this week we may have more people let off depending on the Government restrictions.'

Cllr Sheehan said local authorities need to be funded to build houses, acknowledging that some projects will be delayed because of coronavirus.

'Most of the projects we have are capital projects essential for the economy of the county.

'Getting the factory in New Ross up and running may be more challenging if there is a global recession. We have spent the last couple of years getting our deficit down to a manageable level. If this carries on for four months we'll be back to where we were a decade ago after the last recession.'

He said: 'The Government has said that any loss to LPT or any other revenues will be met by central Government but they haven't said how or when. I'm sure we will get money back for losses on business rates as we are going to have to stop business rates for a load of businesses for the next six to 12 months. We may have to start again next year and the Government are going to have to start pumping money into these businesses. If we are losing the bones of 2m a month in LPT, rates, rent and parking and this lasts four months you're talking an 8m loss in revenue.'

Micro finance loans and grants will be needed to assist the businesses, he added; otherwise it would be very easy for some businesses to shut their doors once restrictions are lifted, he added.

'A lot of people will be scratching their heads, saying "I was barely able to survive before. How can I survive now, paying bills and staff?" Interest free loans may be needed.'

He suggested having another Gathering event to bring tens of thousands of tourists into the country next year.

'People have been cooped up for the past month now so we need to do something to prime the pump.'
He attacked allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and wrote a book and produced a documentary during impeachment that were both titled "The Ukraine Hoax." He has accused former Vice President Joe Biden's son of profiting off his father's name.

Now Michael R. Caputo, a longtime Trump loyalist who made a cameo in the Mueller report, has been installed as the public face of the Health and Human Services Department in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

"I'm delighted to have Michael Caputo join our team at HHSGov as our Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs," the department's secretary, Alex Azar, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday with a photograph of the two men already at work together, "especially at this critical time in our nation's public health history."

Caputo, 58, has no background in health care. But what he lacks in expertise, he makes up in loyalty to President Donald Trump, a critical attribute as a superstitious commander-in-chief has sought to recreate some of the team he assembled for his election victory  and as he has expressed distrust of Azar.

Caputo had been passed over for a job early in the administration, according to a person with knowledge of the process, but he contacted administration officials in the past month expressing renewed interest in a position. Caputo, who is from western New York, has remained friendly with Dan Scavino, a New Yorker and one of the few original campaign aides still on the White House staff. Scavino played a role in reconnecting Trump and Caputo last year, people familiar with the discussion said.

Trump allies heralded the move as in line with the hiring the administration should have done from the beginning: appointing officials devoted to Trump and his agenda. They described Caputo as a media-savvy operative who credits himself with good relationships with many journalists.

Critics said a pandemic was no time to rely on hyperpartisans.

"In a crisis, the public is looking for credible, nonpartisan voices with real expertise," said Dan Pfeiffer, a former White House communications director for President Barack Obama. "Picking a partisan loyalist with a history of promoting conspiracy theories is the exact opposite of the right thing to do but it is very much on brand."

Caputo declined to comment for this article, which is based on interviews with six administration officials and others with knowledge of his hiring.

A protege of the operative and self-described "dirty trickster" Roger Stone, Caputo has known Trump since the 1980s, when he worked for a lobbying and political consulting firm started by Stone and two other Republican operatives, Charlie Black and Paul Manafort. Manafort went on to run Trump's campaign and was sentenced last year to more than seven years in prison on financial and tax fraud convictions.

The firm worked for Trump in the '80s and '90s, fighting Indian casino expansions that threatened his gambling business in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and pushing to change the flight path of planes near his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. At one point, Caputo even served as Trump's driver, delivering him to a congressional hearing on the casino expansions.

Manafort, whom Caputo regarded with awe, primarily handled that work. Caputo was more closely allied with Stone, whom he considered a mentor, and who remained close to Trump, pushing him to run for president for years before he finally did.

By 2010, Caputo had resettled in the Buffalo area where he grew up, joined by his second wife, whom he met while working for Stone in Ukraine advising a parliamentary campaign. He found work that year in local Republican circles, running the campaign for governor of Carl P. Paladino, a wealthy real estate developer who secured the Republican nomination in an upset before losing to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in the general election.

Caputo then volunteered his service to Trump in 2014, first advising him as he explored a potential bid for New York governor, and then working with him on an unsuccessful effort to buy the Buffalo Bills of the NFL.

Caputo encouraged Trump for more than a decade to run either for president or governor of New York, and Trump drafted him in late 2015 to help run his presidential campaign's effort in the New York state primary.

The hiring served as a homecoming of sorts after a peripatetic career that took Caputo from Washington to Moscow, where he immersed himself in former Soviet culture and politics, met his first wife and worked for American and Russian nonprofit groups and campaigns, advising Russian politicians.

Caputo also reunited with Manafort, who asked Caputo to stay on after the New York primary as a communications adviser working out of Trump Tower.

But Caputo was forced to resign in 2016 shortly after celebrating the firing of Trump's first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, by tweeting a celebratory "Ding Dong the witch is dead." After leaving the campaign, however, he helped to raise money for a super PAC supporting the campaign, despite having clashed with Trump advisers.

Caputo came under scrutiny from Robert Mueller, special counsel who investigated links between Trump's campaign and Russia. A Russian who was directed by a Caputo business associate contacted Caputo in 2016, saying he wanted to help provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton, according to the Mueller report, citing interviews with both men. Caputo directed the Russian to Stone.

Throughout the investigation, Caputo echoed Trump's claims that the inquiry was a politically motivated witch hunt. Caputo compared his questioning by investigators to a "proctology exam," and he and Stone have claimed that the contact with the Russian was a setup by federal law enforcement officials to entrap them. But Caputo was never charged with a crime, and Stone, who lost a retrial bid on Thursday, was convicted on charges unrelated to the meeting.

The attention incited threats against him and his family, Caputo has said, while the legal fees forced him to drain his children's college tuition fund.

During impeachment, Caputo sought to forcefully defend Trump by attacking their perceived enemies. In his book, he drew on his experience in Ukraine to try to undermine the case against Manafort and impeachment, while raising questions about the overlap between Biden's diplomacy in Ukraine and his son's position on the board of a gas company there.

White House officials said that they have been looking for a spot for Caputo for some time.

"Michael possesses two of the most important attributes to succeed in this administration: The president trusts him, and he's able to communicate complex policies in a digestible way," said Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to Trump.




Brady Wood and Doctor Megan Wood, the owners of Jose, a modern Mexican restaurant in Dallas, with the restaurant's executive chef Anastacia Quinones-Pittman continue their operations for a good cause--to provide meals for the frontline staff of two hospitals in Dallas.

The three devised a plan to effectively provide meals for free to the medical staff of two hospitals in Dallas by calling back their staff for work again.

Megan Wood helped train medical workers at UT-Southwestern Medical Center and Parkland Hospital. She knows the daily struggle of every hospital staff. It was empathy that inspired her to help provide meals to the staff of the two hospitals in Dallas.

Every day, they make tacos. They asked some of their staff to come in for work and make them. Quinones-Pittman calls the meals 'five hundred sack lunches.' A team of eighteen makes the meals five days a week, says an article.

The Meals

They started providing meals to medical staff on March 31. They prepared the meals from Monday to Friday.

The five hundred sack lunches include two tacos and salsa. The meals are in four varieties. Some of the food they put in the lunch packs are carnitas, beef Asada, and chicken Asada. They also do vegan.

The vegan taco is made with refried black beans and spiced cauliflower. They plan to do something different with the meals shortly.





Check these out:



Putting Notes on Every Lunch Sack

According to Quinones-Pittman, they appreciate all of the efforts of the frontline workers to help with the COVID-19 crisis. She is happy to provide happiness through the meals they prepare for them.

The note they put in the lunch sacks says, "We appreciate everything you are doing. Stay healthy. Stay strong. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. From the la familia of Jose."

How Was the First Day?

On the first day, they put to work all of their morning staff. They started at approximately six-thirty o'clock in the morning. They were all rusty, trying to figure out how to make their plan work.

However, they still successfully made it through the day and prepared and pack the meals for the frontline staff of the two hospitals.

Motivation to Help the Frontline Staff of the Hospital

Every time their back hurts due to bending over too much, they just remember for whom they are doing the deed, and they get inspired to continue their work. The staff always reminds themselves of the sacrifices the frontline staff has to go through to help with the COVID-19 crisis and take care of patients with COVID-19. That thought fuels up their energies to finish their tasks and complete the meals for the two hospitals every day.
And dont discount the little things! Having your favorite music playing, the lights how you want them or whatever makes you comfortable can give you a much-needed sense of control and ease, said Dr. Jessica Zucker, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist specializing in womens reproductive and maternal mental health.

Reframe the idea of a plan

The word plan can connote an orderly, step-by-step march toward a set of goals  not exactly how birth unfolds. In general, we all need plans for our lives, Dr. Zucker said. But we also need to be open to the idea that this is not just you anymore. The baby also dictates how things go  she might turn, or you might have back labor. Thinking in terms of your preferences or wishes might remove some of the pressure.

Its crucial to use your list of preferences as a jumping-off point for an ongoing conversation, both during your prenatal care and when youre an inpatient. Dr. Allison Bryant Mantha, M.D., a maternal-fetal medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, said she encourages her patients to write down and share their preferences with her; she will flag things that seem infeasible or unsafe. You may also realize that many of the things included in a typical birth plan, such as skin-to-skin contact, are already standard care, and that you will be able to do them as long as theres no medical reason not to.

Have a plan B  and C

Birth doesnt always proceed as expected, especially for a first-time mom. For starters, your provider during pregnancy may not be the person who delivers your baby. Ask your provider ahead of time how best to convey your preferences to the other doctors or midwives in the practice. Can you meet them ahead of time? Are you all on the same page?

What you want may also evolve as labor progresses. So, think ahead: You may not want an epidural, but under what circumstances (length of labor, pain level) might that change? The pain of childbirth can be thought of as purposeful pain, but if it hurts so much that your birth becomes a traumatic experience, thats not helping anyone, Dr. Zucker said. Knowing your limits is a valid form of self-care, she added.

In addition, you may need interventions for medical reasons. Even if you are planning for a vaginal birth, take some time to consider your C-section options in case you end up with a surgical delivery. The good news is that you increasingly have choices there, too, including having your partner stay with you as much as possible, keeping an arm free to touch the baby, a clear drape or lowered screen to see the birth, and skin-to-skin contact right after the birth. (Research has found that having a birth plan doesnt correlate with a higher rate of C-sections.)

[What to do when your experience of childbirth doesnt match your expectations]

Know that its O.K. not to have an extensive plan

Plenty of women go into childbirth without a detailed plan. If you want to go with the flow or dont have strong opinions on issues such as pain control, thats perfectly fine. Too rigid  or too many  preferences may set you up for disappointment. One study found that having a higher number of birth plan requests fulfilled correlated with higher satisfaction, though having a high number of requests was correlated with lower satisfaction. In short, the more a detailed plan diverges from what actually happens, the less satisfied the mother, said Dr. Yalda Afshar, a maternal-fetal medicine fellow at U.C.L.A. and an author of the study, who has seen birth plans ranging from 1 to 90 requests, with about 10 as the average. But even if you dont have strong ideas about what you want going into labor, a childbirth education class is still a good idea so you understand the options you may face, said Bogardus. Then, at the hospital, you can have a more informed discussion about the benefits and risks of what youre being offered.
A Gazette investigation shows an increasing number of soldiers, including wounded combat veterans, are being kicked out of the service for misconduct, often with no benefits, as the Army downsizes after a decade of war.
It's official: Murray State becomes member of Missouri Valley Conference
New Delhi: The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak rose to 488 and the number of cases to 14,792 in the country on Saturday, registering an increase of 36 deaths and 957 cases since Friday evening, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 12,289 while 2,014 people have been cured and discharged, and one had migrated, it said. The ministry's figure of overall 14,792 cases includes 76 foreign nationals.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said 16,365 individuals in the country have so far been confirmed positive for the infection.

Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary in the ministry, earlier on Saturday said 4,291 cases are epidemiologically linked to the Tablighi Jamaat's event in Delhi's Nizamuddin that took place last month. "These cases are spread across 23 states and Union Territories, which include most of the high-degree burden cases -- Tamil Nadu has 84% cases, Delhi 63% and Assam 91%, Uttar Pradesh 61% and Andaman & Nicobar 83%."

Thirty-six deaths -- 12 from Madhya Pradesh, 10 from Gujarat, seven from Maharashtra, four from Delhi and one each from Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir -- have been reported since Friday evening, according to the ministry data.

Of the 488 deaths, Maharashtra tops the list with 201 fatalities, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 69, Gujarat at 48 and Delhi at 42 and Telangana at 18. Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have reported 15 deaths each while Uttar Pradesh has reported 14 fatalities.

Punjab and Karnataka have reported 13 deaths each. Rajasthan has registered 11 deaths while West Bengal has reported 10 fatalities.

Five people have lost their lives in Jammu and Kashmir while Kerala and Haryana have recorded three deaths each. Jharkhand and Bihar have reported two deaths each.

Meghalaya, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Assam reported one fatality each.

However, a PTI tally of the figures reported by various states as of Saturday night showed 518 deaths.

There has been a lag in the ministry figures compared to the number of deaths announced by different states, which officials attribute to procedural delays in assigning the cases to individual states.

According to the ministry's data updated in the evening, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 3,323 followed by Delhi at 1,707, Madhya Pradesh at 1,355 and Tamil Nadu at 1,323. COVID-19 cases have gone up to 1,272 in Gujarat, 1,229 in Rajasthan and 969 in Uttar Pradesh.

Telangana has 791 cases, followed by Andhra Pradesh at 603 and Kerala at 396.

The number of cases has risen to 371 in Karanataka, 328 in Jammu and Kashmir, 287 in West Bengal, 225 in Haryana and 202 in Punjab. Bihar has reported 85 infection cases, while Odisha has 60 coronavirus cases.

Forty-two people were infected with the virus in Uttarakhand, while Himachal Pradesh has 38 cases. Chhattisgarh has 36 cases and Assam has registered 35 cases each.

Jharkhand has 33 cases, Chandigarh has 21 cases and Ladakh has 18, while 12 cases have been reported from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Meghalaya has reported 11 cases while Goa and Puducherry have reported seven COVID-19 infections each. Manipur and Tripura have two cases each, while Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have reported a case each.

(With inputs from PTI)
In the lead-up to the holy month of Ramadan, Ramia Abdo Sultan would usually gather with at least 100 family members in a community centre.

"We do that because it's impossible to fit into a house," she said.

Forat and Ramia Sultan, pictured with their children (l-r) Zahra, Layla and Aneesa, will observe Ramadan from their Revesby home due to the coronavirus. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

But the coronavirus containment measures have put an end to the large gatherings that are an integral part of how the Sultan family and Australia's community of 600,000 Muslims normally observe Ramadan, which begins on Thursday.

"That's not going to happen," Mrs Sultan said. "But we can break our fast and catch up through Zoom and Skype conversations."
Recent reports of discrimination against Africans in China in the wake of the new coronavirus pandemic have cast my mind back to Emmanuel John Hevis book, An African Student in China, that gives a vivid narrative of his experiences in communist China some 60 years ago .

According to Dr. Sandra Gillespie, a Canadian scholar who had acquainted herself with Mr. Hevi through his writings, Mr. Hevi was the only African student who had written books about his experiences in China - and fifty years later he still has been the only one. His books remain the touch stone, the only first-person accounts in the field and thus the necessary entry point for scholars all over the world. For the last 50 years, Mr. Hevi - a self-educated man continues to engage the minds of Cambridge, Oxford, and Ivy league scholars across the globe. His books are praised, debated, critiqued, sometime criticized - but he is always referenced, as he must be, in every publication in the field wrote Sandra in her 2018 eulogy of the man with the Golden Pen.

In this bestseller book, An African Study in China, Emmanuel John Hevi (EJH) posited that the Chinese had so long posed as defenders of the African and the persecuted races that it must really come as a shock to many people to hear that racial discrimination was practiced in China. But he asserted that racial discrimination was not of the kind that sprang spontaneously from the Chinese people. They were "manufactured" directly or indirectly by the Communist Party to make the Africans more pliable for pro-communist moulding. There was a deliberate attempt by the Communist Party to ideologize and make the African accept once and for all the idea of the superiority of Yellow over Black. He recalled a Chinese telling him that Africa is universally known as the most backward continent on earth.

As part of a complex scheme, EJH noted that many Chinese students, mainly boys, approached the Africans with intent to make friends, but these Chinese were informers who reported on almost everything they did to help the authorities determine the Africans level of socialist consciousness. Any girlfriends the Africans took were packed off to prison or to commune farms for hard labour, their only crime being that they dared to make friends with Africans, contrary to the Communist Party's orders.

On the flip side, foreign students were treated better than their Chinese student counterparts, workers, and peasants. Who would blame a Chinese worker for being hostile to African students when the former who toiled to contribute to the latters scholarship funds is left half-starving while the foreigners could eat good food in almost unlimited quantities? And how could Chinese students be expected to put up easily with the fact of being packed eight to a room (ten by twelve feet in size) with a monthly allowance of 10 yuan while foreigners in the same institution lived one or two in a room and had 100 yuan each per month? Could Chinese tutors put up kindly with the idea of being paid 40 yuan monthly, not even half as much as their foreign students got? (source: Harper's Magazine, January 1964).

The renowned author rightly agreed that the African never did a thing to merit the privileged treatment accorded them in China. And it dawned on him that the warmth accorded the Ghanaians in China was because Chinese reserved most cordialities for people whose countries were known, or were expected, to be traveling along the same road as China - to communism.

Fasttrack to the year 2020 under a COVID-19 pandemic that is confounding the world, and China is at it again with reports of discriminating against Africans in China, labelling them as carriers of the virus. For a fair reportage, the Chinese are asserting that there are Africans who have overstayed their visas and out of fear have therefore not tendered their passports for the mandatory COVID-19 tests and subsequent issuance of health certificate. Not allowing oneself to be tested for possible quarantine, if infected, is a major recipe for the spread of the disease and households habouring untested foreigners risk penal action hence the evictions of the unfortunate Africans. Irrespective of the merits or demerits of this stance, one line in Emmanuel John Hevis book keeps bouncing back to me  the racial discrimination is not of the kind that springs spontaneously from the Chinese people. It lends credence to the fact that most xenophobic attacks are all manufactured, directly or indirectly, by authorities.

I was privileged to have met Mr. Emmanuel John Hevi in 2017 through my good North American friends, Sandra Gillespie and Michael Wolk. Sandra had been tracking to meet this legend for years and coincidentally when we first met in Rwanda in 2016, a Nigerian professor and friend of EJH, Emeritus Professor PAI Obanya gave a ray of hope that the most sought-after publisher on Sino-Africa student experiences was alive. Then through a Ghanaian publisher, Mr. Joojo Ampah, who had publishing rights to some of EJHs books, and his son, Salvatore, direct contacts were made, and Sandra and Michael made that great missionary journey to Ghana in July 2017. The great rendezvous were full of surprises upon surprises, and EJH, who had reclused into a very private life, almost as a hermit, was presented each day with a new surprise by the Sandra and Michael. A computer on one day (he was not acquainted with its usage), copies of his books that were long gone off the shelves and then a party on August 3 to mark his 87th birthday.

I was privileged to be given the opportunity by my North American friends to interview him on his life and in six days, I had put together what later became his biography. His reflexes were very sharp, and his recollection of events were very accurate, vivid and consistent. It was the desire of Sandra and Mike to have EJH on the silver screens and well celebrated so upon their return to America, a colleague from a local television station in Ghana, Ernest Danso Abiam, and I decided to do this on their behalf. However, just two days to the interview, the television station retrenched many of its staff and the interview was called off.

Sandra and Michael decided to come back to Ghana in July 2018 for a full documentary on EJH and we arranged a full weeks interview with EJH again. Just eight days prior to his journey to Accra in preparation, he was suddenly taken ill and rushed to the Hohoe Government Hospital where he passed on three days later on the night of Tuesday 10th July, 2018.

Alas! A great opportunity was lost to showcase one of the greatest African writers of all times but yet remains unknown and unsung even in his own country. Emmanuel John HEVI was a self-taught person who was fluent in English, French, German, Chinese, Italian and Spanish. Mr. Hevi took to active writing after he returned from a self-imposed exile in Nigeria and authored many books, including:

An African Student in China

The Dragon's Embrace: The Chinese Communists and Africa

Roses for Sondia

Feed Me Forever

The Valley of the Dead

The Mixup

Man The King

Ntafo bi a wne wn ho ses ho asm (Asante Twi)

The Bush Rangers (Vol. 1)

The Bush Rangers (Vol. 2)

The Homo Twins

The Mad Brigadier

The Gods Speak in Anger

Country of the Wise

Country of No Death

He wrote eight (8) manuscripts for Ghana Publishing Corporation (GPC) but realising that not even a single one was or would be published, he left his typewriter, picked up a double-barrelled shotgun and became a hunter.

The maltreatments of African in China will continue to remind those of us familiar with the literary works of Emmanuel John Hevi on the philosophy and ideology of the Chinese towards Africa and Africans. May his soul rest in perfect peace.

Ransford Bekoe
Nagreeka Exports Limited, a firm engaged in manufacture and export of cotton yarns, fabric and textiles has filed a plea in the Supreme Court seeking to quash a government order that asks employers to pay full salary to employees, contract and casual workers during the lockdown. Nagreeka stated in its plea that since operations have stopped since the lockdown began on March 25, it has suffered losses to the tune of Rs 1.50 crore till the time the plea was filed.

The petition stated, "On top of that, as per the said orders dated March 29, 2020, and March 31, 2020, petitioner had to disburse full salaries to all its employees on its payroll, which amounts to approximately Rs 1.75 crore."

The plea challenges the constitutional validity of the order issued by the MHA on March 29. The MHA order had stated: All the employers, be it in the industry or the shops and commercial establishments, shall make payment of wages of their workers, at their workplaces, on the due date, without any deduction, for the period their establishments are under closure during lockdown period.

The exporter has additionally challenged the subsequent Maharashtra government order of March 31 to the limited extent of compelling the petitioner to pay full salary to all its staff, workers, contract workers, casual workers during the period of lockdown, when its factories are not operational.

Nagreeka's petition seeks to adjudicate whether the Central government or the Maharashtra government are empowered to issue such a direction to a private establishment to pay 100 per cent wages under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

The exporter also argued that its losses will multiply now since the lockdown has been extended. Additionally, it argued that if it has to follow the government orders in entirety, its business will become unsustainable.

The orders will have "more far reaching consequences, affecting the livelihood of more people," the plea said.

The plea states that the government orders passed by the MHA and the Maharashtra government are "illegal, unconstitutional" and violative of Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution of India.

The petitioner has asked the apex court to set aside both the Centre's and Maharashtra government's orders to the extent that payment of full salaries were mandated.

Nagreeka further stated that till the pendency of the plea, it should be allowed to pay only 50 per cent of the salaries to its workers.

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Dermatologists always say that the best sunscreen is the one youll actually useso how to choose one youll like that really protects you? Consumer Reports ratings of 48 lotions and sprays will help you find a product that protects you against the effects of overexposure to the suns ultraviolet rayssunburn, skin cancer, and wrinklesand that has a scent and feel thats right for you.

Three productsa lotion and two spraysscored well enough in CRs tests to be recommended. There are a few others that, while not at the top of the ratings, still provide adequate protection. Keep in mind, though, that using any sunscreen on exposed skin is better than no sunscreen when youre spending time outdoors.

But sunscreen shouldnt be the only sun-savvy step you take. You also need to cover up with clothing, wear a hat and sunglasses, and stay in the shade or indoors when the suns rays are the strongestfrom 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

How We Test Sunscreens

CR uses a testing protocol that is modeled on the one the Food and Drug Administration requires sunscreen manufacturers to use. But as is the case with other products we test that have government or industry standards, we use those standards as benchmarks and develop our own methodology to identify differences in performance and give consumers a comparative evaluation.

We buy the sunscreens for our tests off the shelf, the way consumers would, says Susan Booth, the project leader for our sunscreen testing. We use three samples, preferably with different lot numbers, of each product. All the products are tested for SPF and ultraviolet A (UVA) protection.

SPF stands for sun protection factor and is a measure of how well a sunscreen protects against sunburn, which is mostly the result of exposure to the suns UVB rays.

To check SPF, a standard amount of each sunscreen is applied to 2x3-inch rectangle on panelists backs. Then they soak in a tub of water. Afterward, smaller sections of that area are exposed to five to six intensities of UV light from a sun simulator for a set time. About a day later, a trained technician examines the areas for redness. The resulting SPF ratingsExcellent to Poorreflect each products effectiveness after water immersion and are based on an average of our results for each sunscreen. We also calculate a score for variation from SPF. This is a measure of how closely a sunscreens tested SPF matched the SPF on the label.

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In order to be labeled broad spectrum, the FDA requires that a sunscreen protect against UVB and UVA rays. UVA rays penetrate deeply into the skin and cause damage that can lead to skin cancer and skin aging.

To test for UVA protection, we smear sunscreen on plastic plates, pass UV light through, and measure the amount of UVA and UVB rays that are absorbed. That information is used to calculate our UVA score.

This test is similar to the critical wavelength test the FDA requires sunscreen manufacturers to do in order to label their products broad-spectrum. This is a pass/fail test, and just as you can pass a test with either an A or a D grade, some sunscreens do a much better job of defending against UVA than others. Thats why, for our ratings, we also use a test that allows us to measure the degree of UVA protection a sunscreen provides.

Our sunscreen ratings, updated now for the second time in 2021, currently have fewer products than in past years, primarily because of the pandemics impact on our testing schedule, and because some previously tested sunscreens have been reformulated or discontinued. We plan to update our sunscreen ratings in the coming months.

Finding a Sunscreen Youll Want to Use

For many people, the way a sunscreen smells and feels on their skin is as important as the UV protection it provides. So in addition to our performance tests, our trained sensory panelists also evaluate sunscreens for scent and feel. The sensory testing isnt factored into our Overall Scorewhat people prefer is subjective, so we cant say, for instance, whether a sunscreen that has a tropical aroma is better than one with a classic beachy aroma. But our panelists objectively describe the scent and feel of every sunscreen we test so that you can pick the best product for you.

We also include the price per container and the price per ounce so that you can weigh all the factors when youre choosing a sunscreen.

Below are some of the top-performing sunscreens in our tests, listed in alphabetical order within their category. CR members have access to our full ratings.

Best Lotion Sunscreens

Its easier to make sure youre getting adequate coverage with a lotion than with a spray because you can see how much youre applying. Use about a teaspoon per body part or area thats not covered up with clothing: 1 teaspoon for your face, head, and neck; 1 for each arm; 1 for each leg; 1 for your chest and abdomen; and 1 for your back and the back of your neck. If you are in a bathing suit, youll need about an ounce of lotion to cover your body. Thats about the amount that fills a shot glass.

Best Spray Sunscreens

Our tests found that if you apply spray properly, you can cover your skin adequately in one pass, but proper application isnt always easy, especially when its windy. Oftentimes you end up protecting the air more than your skin. The proper way to use a spray is to hold the nozzle close to your skin and spray until your skin glistens, then rub it in. Do this even if a spray is labeled no rub; smoothing it into skin increases its protection. Then repeat, just to be safe. Never spray your face because you could get it in your eyes or inhale it. Instead, spray the sunscreen into your hands and rub it onto your face.

Consumer Reports recommends using a lotion on kids rather than a spray, but if you choose to use a spray, be very careful when applying it. Children are more likely to inhale the mist, which could cause lung irritation. The best thing to do is spray it into your hands and rub it onto your childs skin. At the very least, have children close their eyes and mouth and turn their heads while you spray. And sprays can be flammable when they are wet, so be sure to keep yourself and kids away from any heat sourcesuch as a grilluntil the product is thoroughly dry on the skin.

Best Mineral Sunscreens

So-called mineral or natural sunscreens are those that contain titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, or both as the active ingredients. Many people prefer them because they dont contain chemical active ingredients such as avobenzone or oxybenzone. However, in CRs testing over the years, mineral sunscreens have consistently performed less well than those that contain chemical active ingredients. Some provide adequate SPF protection but not enough UVA protection, or vice versa. If you are concerned about chemical exposure and prefer to use a mineral sunscreen, our testing found that these two provide acceptable protection, although they arent among the top performers in our tests.
On March 23, Stephanie Abbott was wheeled to an operating room for a scheduled abdominal surgery at North Central Baptist Hospital in San Antonio, three hours away from her home in Rockport.

She was admitted three days before through the emergency room to see Dr. Mario Alcantara, a colorectal surgeon shes trusted for years to help her keep a painful chronic condition under control.

Moments before her surgery to remove a partial bowel obstruction, hospital administrators intervened. Her surgery needed to be postponed under state orders barring elective surgeries, stemming from the novel coronavirus pandemic. Physicians who violated the terms of the executive order could face jail time and a fine.

Honestly, I really just wanted to die, said Abbott, who has been waiting nearly a month for the surgery. Now, Ive become so depressed I just cry constantly.

On Friday, Gov. Greg Abbott issued a new executive order allowing non-emergency medical procedures to resume Tuesday as long as those surgeries dont deplete medical resources.

Abbott loosened his March 22 elective-surgery restriction, intended to conserve supplies and free up bed space, after facing pressure from patients and the Texas Medical Association.

Stephanie Abbott, who works at the district court office in Aransas County, hopes the governors new order means her surgery will be rescheduled soon because her condition could worsen at any time, requiring emergency surgery.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio hospitals cut hours, furlough workers amid coronavirus pandemic

But the new state mandate comes with a catch.

Hospitals would need to submit a letter to the states Health and Human Services Commission promising to reserve at least 25 percent of its capacity for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Also, facilities that resume elective surgeries cant request personal protective equipment, such as masks, from local, state or national stockpiles for the duration of the outbreak.

Hours after the announcement, San Antonio hospital systems were still mulling the order. Several facilities had already furloughed employees working in those surgical departments.

Officials at University Health System, funded by Bexar County taxpayers, planned to discuss the order on Monday.

Christus Health spokeswoman Katy Kiser said the company is reviewing the order to see what it means for its six area hospitals, which include the Childrens Hospital of San Antonio and Christus Santa Rosa-Medical Center.

We do know, however, that our facilities are ready and willing to provide safe and effective care to all those who need it now, she said in a statement. We know that despite COVID-19, heart disease, cancer care and debilitating joint pain doesnt stop for the people we serve. We must be able to meet their needs.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio patients undergo cancer treatment during COVID-19

Methodist Healthcare System, which operates nine hospitals in the San Antonio area under a 50-50 ownership agreement between Tennessee-based HCA Healthcare and the nonprofit Methodist Healthcare Ministries, hadnt decided late Friday whether to again perform non-emergency surgeries.

Palmira Arellano, vice president of communications at Methodist, said the governors executive order is a good first step towards getting back to performing non-emergency and elective surgeries.

She said Methodist will look to the Texas Medical Board for guidance before moving forward.

Earlier this week, the state regulatory board pushed for Abbott to ease the restrictions.

Executives at Southwest General Hospital, a 325-bed facility on the citys South Side, are also reviewing the order, said Jennifer Taylor, a spokeswoman for Dallas-based owner Steward Health Care System.

Officials at Baptist Health System, owned by Dallas-based Tenet Health Corp., confirmed late Friday that they are prepared to schedule cases quickly based on doctors orders.

The system operates six hospitals in the San Antonio area, including the facility where Abbott was admitted, in additon to eight smaller facilities called micro hospitals.

Two days ago, Baptist said it will furlough San Antonio employees, less than 3 percent of its area workforce. Officials cited the loss of revenue from nonessential surgeries during the coronavirus pandemic.

Laura Garcia covers the health care industry in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Laura, become a subscriber. laura.garcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @Reporter_Laura
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 10:29:44|Editor: huaxia

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CAPE TOWN,April 17 (Xinhua) -- One impoverished district in South Africa's Cape Town on Friday received donations from a Chinese company and the Chinese community in the city to help fight COVID-19.

The Chinese corporation named Longyuan Mulilo Wind Projects and the local Chinese community donated cash, food parcels, surgical masks and other medical supplies worth about 1.2 million rand (about 64,000 U.S. dollars) to the residents of the coronavirus-stricken Cape Flats, who have to rely on food parcels from the city due to a nationwide lockdown that started on March 26.

The donations were handed over to Cape Town Executive Mayor Dan Plato at the Chinese Consulate in Cape Town.

Noting that part of the donation will be used to buy food for the numerous soup kitchens which offer free meals to local people in need, Plato said "this donation will take us very very far, and we will definitely engage with other parties on the Cape Flats."

South Africa registered 178 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Friday, the sharpest rise for a single day since the country recorded its first confirmed case on March 5, according to the Health Ministry.

As of 4:00 a.m. Saturday local time, the country reported 2,783 confirmed cases and 50 deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally. Enditem
BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 18

By Elnur Baghishov - Trend

Allocation of $5 million by the Azerbaijani government to fight the coronavirus in Iran has caused a great positive resonance in the country, Irans Ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh told Trend.



According to Jahangirzadeh, Azerbaijan and Iran have more than 750 kilometers of land border, and it is natural that every event affects the relations between the two countries.

Jahangirzadeh added that such events lead to increased cooperation and rapprochement between the two countries. The peoples and states never forget each other's needs in their difficult days, and the tragedy of the spread of the coronavirus is no exception.

"We have witnessed the spirit of brotherhood and solidarity in contacts and talks between high-ranking officials. Undoubtedly, these difficult days will be over. Mutual visits of citizens of the two countries will return to normal," he said.

Iran is one of the countries heavily affected by the rapidly-spreading coronavirus. According to recent reports from the Iranian officials, over 79,400 people have been infected, 4,958 people have already died. Meanwhile, over 54,000 have reportedly recovered from the disease.

The country continues to apply strict measures to contain the further spread. Reportedly, the disease was brought to Iran by a businessman from Iran's Qom city, who went on a business trip to China, despite official warnings. The man died later from the disease.

The Islamic Republic only announced its first infections and deaths from the coronavirus on Feb. 19.
In a time of heightened anxiety, a yoga studio is offering the gift of stress relief to two groups facing acute pressure: healthcare workers and MacMurray College employees facing the schools pending closure.

Wendy Smith, co-owner of Jax Yoga, said the states stay-home order has closed her studio for in-person classes, but it is offering yoga and barre classes online through Zoom at a discount to help those struggling financially.

Front-line healthcare workers and MacMurray College employees have been offered free classes. The stress of the moment can be especially difficult for both groups, she said, because healthcare professionals are in the midst of a pandemic and MacMurray College employees are navigating the eventual loss of their jobs.

Smith said the Jax Yoga team felt the free classes could provide some physical and mental aid.

As a firm believer in yogas healing potential, Smith said its core concepts  practices that incorporate breathing with physical movement  would be beneficial to people who felt overwhelmed.

According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, yoga can help with back pain relief, heart health and stress management, as well as increase mental and physical energy.

Smith also believes the yoga classes can be space for community and the free courses can help to maintain that sense of community for some of the most affected people.

One of the great things about yoga is the benefits to ones personal and mental health, Smith said. We thought people would benefit from yoga, meditation and community.

Healthcare workers are of particular interest to Smith, who spent about 10 years working in the healthcare field. Family members and friends of Smith are also working in healthcare: her mother is a nurse and her best friend is a nurse practitioner.

People on the front lines are close to my hearts, Smith said.

About 150 healthcare workers and MacMurray College employees are members of the studio, with about 70 to 80 members coming from each group.
TORONTO, April 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --



Dear shareholders



As we at EarthRenew Inc. (ERTH.CN)(EarthRenew or the Company) look to tool up for commercial operations in the coming year, I want to take the time to provide a corporate update to our shareholders.

First, I would like to extend a sincere thank you to everyone for their support over the past several years while weve been preparing the Company for large scale rollout of our economic and earth-friendly organic fertilizer offerings. Our primary goal at EarthRenew is to become a world leader in the budding organic fertilizer market in just a few years time. I am very proud of the foundation we laid in 2019 and Q1 of 2020 to help reach that goal. We aim to be in a position to provide encouraging updates for shareholders in the near-term.

Let me briefly explain where we have come from, where we are at now, and where we see EarthRenew heading in the coming 12 to 24 months.

I was appointed President and CEO of EarthRenew in 2017. At the time, the facility was shuttered, and its patented technology had been, effectively, on the shelf for many years. We had limited information on historic trials, little insight into the technology, and no experience with the equipment.

In the year that followed, we compiled as much information as possible to determine whether the technology was still viable, completing a feasibility study, an engineering study and a marketing study to frame our understanding. Once we knew the technology was viable, we got to know our key asset, the Rolls Royce turbine, which we began testing in the spring of 2019. By the summer of 2019, we were generating electricity, and our electricity generation revenue began to roll in.

As we deepened our understanding of the technology, we were also busy renewing certifications of the products organic status with the Organic Material Review Institute, the Washington State Department of Agriculture, the California Department of Food & Agriculture and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, as well as reviving our US patents and permits through the United States Department of Agriculture. Renewing these certifications is critical for EarthRenew as it is a requirement for the target markets we aim to penetrate including California, Washington State, Western Canada, and others.

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As well, we obtained a facility permit extension from the Ministry of Alberta Environment and Parks and began an analysis of a new facility design at the Strathmore site designed to allow us to produce 10 tonnes of product per hour. The renewal for this approval comes up again in the fall and we are already well into the process of applying for continuing approval.

With facility planning well underway, and all permits and approvals in progress, our attention has turned toward validating some of the historical field trials that were conducted when the facility was first built in the early 2000s and developing future formulations for our organic bio-fertilizer offering. New formulations can provide several benefits, namely the ability to service a broader range of crops. We have recently completed new product formulation testing with CCm Technologies Ltd., a leader in CleanTech in the UK, that we expect will allow us to significantly increase the nitrogen content of our product and give us a unique competitive advantage in the market as few other players offer an organic fertilizer with a very high nitrogen component.

We have also incorporated softwood biochar into our base formulation and are able to offer this new odor-free version of our product for customers who are sensitive to this need.

In addition to investigating new formulations, our plan is to commence field trials and greenhouse trials this spring with academic partners who can assist with yield studies and offer us introductions to partners who can become customers and advocates of our product. These field trials are built upon a strong history of trials from the Companys prior iteration. We intend to initially focus on the base formulation (original) and then shift to new formulations that we anticipate can offer value to crops with varying nutrient needs. Beginning In the 2nd quarter of 2020, and finishing at the end of the growing season, we intend to initiate field trials on broadacre and specialty crops. We plan to grow our understanding of crop yield in a variety of real-world scenarios. At the same time, we will also begin greenhouse studies that will help us understand germination rates of crops in a potted setting which can give an indicator of plant vigor. Successful field trials are projected to represent an inflection point as they are expected to give us the information we need to determine which organic fertilizer products to bring to market in the spring of 2021.

Well-Positioned in an Aggressive Growing Market

We believe that EarthRenew is well positioned to participate in a market that continues to gain momentum. The agriculture and agri-food sectors are key economic drivers in Canada and the organic food industry is considered one of the fastest growing sectors of this market.1 The World of Organic Agriculture 2019 report noted that the total areas of organic farmland in Canada increased by more than 45% between 2011 and 2017, compared to a 1% decline in farmland overall. The Canadian Government estimates that the nations organic farming industry is made up of more than 4,200 certified organic and transitional producers working on more than 930,000 hectares of land. We recognize that consumers are looking to the agri-food industry to produce healthy and environmentally sustainable organic food. To meet this demand, we project that farmers will need to consistently produce high-yield, chemical free crops. We believe that EarthRenew sits at the intersection of this need with a new organic fertilizer offering that helps farmers rebuild and sustain levels of soil health needed to grow such crops.

There is another key factor affecting the availability of chemical fertilizer: phosphate uncertainty. The majority of global phosphate production occurs in the Western Sahara in Morocco, which contains approximately 50 billion tons, or 72% of the 70 billion tons available worldwide2. Together with China, Algeria, and Syria, the four nations with the largest phosphate reserves account for over 80% of the global supply3. As the demand for food supply increases around the world, we understand that reliance on phosphate has become a concern, prompting governments and private businesses to develop alternatives. Potentially, with future phosphorous supplies uncertain and over-use becoming a major issue, we believe that the timing is ripe for companies like EarthRenew who can offer new sources of nutrients for crops in the form of organic bio-fertilizers.

Furthermore, we are of the opinion that the use of organic-based fertilizers benefits the environment (and consumers) when you consider the decreased dependency on chemical-based fertilizers and the reduction of excess nutrients leaching into watersheds.

Addressing the Growing Challenges of Dealing with Manure Waste

Weve discussed how EarthRenews product benefits the soil to grow plants; EarthRenew also provides a solution for many livestock producers who would like to scale their operations, but are limited by their ability to handle disposal of manure waste. We see manure waste as a growing problem in many regions throughout North America due to the excess amounts of phosphorus contained in manure. While the nitrogen in manure is very useful for crops, the phosphorous, in excess, can leach into groundwater causing the familiar algae blooms we see in freshwater bodies. For example, Lake Erie has been battling algae blooms the last few summers, threatening the drinking water supply for millions of people, killing off fish populations and turning the water toxic over large areas. By co-locating at feedlots, EarthRenew presents a business solution that we anticipate will reduce or eliminate farmers excess manure problems.

Looking ahead, we anticipate starting the recommissioning of our facility at the Strathmore site, planning our expansion to locations across Canada and the US, and developing strategic partnerships that can grow product lines and generate economic synergies.

I would like to acknowledge the dedicated team at EarthRenew, our partners, our Board of Directors, and, once again, our shareholders. Every one of you has been instrumental in aligning all the necessary pieces of the puzzle so that we are in a position to enter field trials  a significant milestone that has the potential to validate our product offerings across a broad range of crops.

At EarthRenew, we aim to support a more sustainable agriculture model that can responsibly feed the Earths growing population. EarthRenew has overcome many challenges to date, and we now have our resources fully focused on this exciting next phase of growth.

Keith Driver

CEO, EarthRenew

kdriver@earthrenew.ca

About Us

EarthRenew transforms livestock waste into concentrated organic fertilizer to be used by organic growers in Canada and the United States. Located on a 25,000 head cattle feedlot, our Strathmore plant is capable of producing up to four megawatts (MW) per hour of low-cost electricity powered by a natural gas fired turbine. The exhausted heat from the turbine is used to convert the manure into a variety of organic fertilizer formulations. At EarthRenew, our mission is to support a more sustainable agricultural model that can responsibly feed the Earths growing population. Our fertilizers are formulated with organic ingredients that we believe perform as well as synthetics  all without harming the Earth.

Cautionary Note regarding Forward-Looking Information

This letter contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to EarthRenews ability to sell electricity to the electrical grid, EarthRenews ability to execute its business plan, our commercial production facility redevelopment plan, implementing CCms technology into our processes, the evaluation and implementation of various technologies to increase and maximize the efficacy of our fertilizers, our ability to increase the organic nitrogen content of our pelleted fertilizer, our ability to develop specialist formulations in the future, anticipated future electricity prices in Alberta and EarthRenews proposed business activity. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, geopolitical and social uncertainties; regulatory risks; and other risks of the energy and fertilizer industries. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this letter.





1 The World of Organic Agriculture  Statistics & Emerging Trends 2019 Julia Lernoud and Helga Willer. 2019. https://shop.fibl.org/chen/mwdownloads/download/link/id/1202/

2 The Desert Rock That Feeds the World A dispute over Western Saharas phosphate reserves could disrupt food production around the globe. Alex Kasprak. 2019. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/the-desert-rock-that-feeds-the-world/508853/
(Bloomberg) --

If Chinas experience emerging from lockdown is anything to go by, it will be a long time before the world resumes anything like life as it was before.

Economists are warning of a hard road ahead as Beijing reported the countrys first quarterly contraction in decades. Perhaps more troubling was a revision in its official death toll by some 40%, adding to suspicions about Chinas transparency in handling the Covid-19 outbreak from the outset.Even with all of Chinas heavy-handed measures to police the lockdown and censor information, things are still slow to get back to normal. Beijing malls check the temperature of everyone who enters, while residential communities require passes for entry. Banners around the city remind citizens to avoid large gatherings, and face masks are ubiquitous.Below the surface, frustration at the ongoing clamp down is growing. That has manifested in online nationalism, outright xenophobia and even some calls for greater freedom of speech.Chinas experience suggests an even tougher recovery for places with more respect for civil liberties. The lesson for the rest of the world? The economic reckoning could last for years, with unpredictable ramifications coursing throughout society that politicians are mostly powerless to stop.

Global Headlines

Devolved power | Days after insisting he had absolute authority to steer the U.S.s economic recovery from the outbreak, President Donald Trump instead handed over the keys to governors and businesses. The White House laid out a three-stage process for states to consider as they decide whether to relax social-distancing measures. It set no deadlines, demanded no particular action and offered little federal assistance.

Click here for more on how Trumps bid to restart the economy in May could hinge on help from Canada and Mexico.

Administering aid | The U.S. Congress gave the colossal task of quickly getting $349 billion in pandemic relief for mom-and-pop firms to a small, understaffed federal agency that was overwhelmed from the programs start. With the funds now tapped out after just 13 days, many businesses remain in the cold, while some that had loans approved are still wondering where the money is.

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Click here for more on the problems that arose the last time Congress disgorged billions of dollars for a national emergency (think strawberry shortcake martinis served from a carved beef station).

Huawei heat | Mounting opposition in the U.K.s ruling Conservative party is threatening Prime Minister Boris Johnsons plan to let Huawei Technologies help build fifth-generation mobile networks. As Kitty Donaldson reports, Chinas handling of the pandemic has triggered calls from prominent Tories for a rethink of the U.K.s push for closer ties with Beijing.

Virus clash | Brazils President Jair Bolsonaro took the dramatic step of firing his health minister amid a disagreement over how quickly to reopen the economy. Luiz Henrique Mandetta had repeatedly urged Brazilians to self isolate, while the president openly flaunted the advice, mingling with supporters and calling the illness just a flu. Even with a new minister, reversing course wont be easy: State governors have the last say on when and how to ease restrictions.

Dream over | As the coronavirus widens fractures in the European Union, hopes of an enlargement fade in Albania, one of the continents poorest countries. Although the Balkan nation has made some progress in reform-making, the economic devastation caused by the virus means that the EU is unlikely to make a priority of admitting Albania as a member anytime soon, Andrea Dudik and Flavia Krause-Jackson write.

What to Watch

African Union envoy Tidjane Thiam says some countries on the continent may require further debt relief, even after the worlds biggest economies agreed on a payment moratorium for 2020. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has raised the prospect of using the country's pension funds to bail out companies. Cameroons Paul Biya appeared in a photograph yesterday with French ambassador Christophe Guilhou, the first time Africas second-longest serving president has been seen in public since March 11.

Pop quiz, readers (no cheating!). Which world leader romped home in an election after voters rewarded his handling of the coronavirus crisis? Send us your answers and tell us how were doing or what were missing at balancepower@bloomberg.net.And finally  An unexpected outcome of the pandemic is beginning to be witnessed in the oceans. With restaurants and hotels closed, global demand for fish and seafood has plummeted and fleets worldwide are stuck in port. Thats prompting scientists to look for signs of a recovery in marine life, a phenomenon witnessed during the first and second world wars. While evidence remains anecdotal, Laura Millan Lombrana reports that sightings of killer whales, seals and dolphins are being recorded in areas where those mammals havent been seen in decades.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

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(Newser)  Thousands of people took to the streets of Tel Aviv Thursday to demonstrate against Benjamin Netanyahu, with claims that he's steeped in corruption and undermining democracy amid the coronavirus pandemic. None other than the prime minister's son ended up stoking controversy over the protests. The Times of Israel reports that "arch-conservative" Yair Netanyahu, 28, who's known to get people riled up on social media, apparently didn't like the public outcry against his father, which the paper says was held in a "socially distanced" manner. Nitzan Horowitz, who heads up the far-left Meretz party, was in attendance, and he tweeted out a photo of himself at the protest wearing a face mask, per Haaretz. "A very strong demonstration now in the stage square," he wrote. "Fight corruption Struggling for democracy."

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The younger Netanyahu responded. "I hope the elderly who die following this protest will only be from your camp," he wrote in a now-deleted tweet. He added: "So statistically, there is a good chance that the left-wing protesters tonight caused the future deaths of elderly people. I prefer them not to be ours." Although there are strict lockdown rules in place due to the virus, protests are still permitted, and both the right and the left have been holding them. In what the Forward calls "an unusual move," the prime minister's office issued a statement shaking its head at Yair Netanyahu's comments. "The prime minister absolutely rejects these remarks," the statement read. "The fight against the coronavirus has no camps and must not have them." (Read more Yair Netanyahu stories.)
Hyderabad, April 18 : Telangana Health Minister E. Rajender here on Saturday said attacks on doctors and other healthcare professionals, fighting coronavirus battle, would not be tolerated and stringent action would be taken against culprit.

"We will take strong action and culprit will not be spared," Rajender said referring to the recent attacks on doctors at state-run Gandhi and Osmania hospitals here. He said doctors were staying away from their families to do their duties and risking their own lives to save others.

Two days ago, the Hyderabad Police arrested three persons, including a Covid-19 patient, for attacking doctors.

Rajender also attended a blood donation camp, organised by the Telangana Non-Gazetted Officers' Association. Around 200 people donated blood at the camp.

Pointing to blood shortage at hospitals, the Minister said Thalassemia patients were suffering due to this and appealed donors to come forward to help overcome the shortage.

Latest updates on Gandhi Jayanti 2019
US president said during a briefing on Friday that the federal government is investigating whether a new type of coronavirus has spread from a lab in Wuhan, Fox News reported.

Donald Trump promised the government will find out how the pandemic arose.

Asked about the accuracy of theories that COVID-19 likely started spreading first from a Wuhan lab and not from a Chinese wet market, Trump signaled the US is taking the matter seriously.

"We're looking at it. A lot of people are looking at it. It seems to make sense," Trump told reporters Friday at the White House. "... There is a lot of investigation going on and we're going to find out," Trump said of the origin of COVD-19.

The US president added that a global pandemic could have been prevented if China had taken action earlier.

"All I can say is wherever it came from -- it came from China, in whatever form -- 184 countries are suffering because of it. And it's too bad, isn't it? It could have been solved very easily when it was just starting."
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.  The Navajo Nation has canceled its spring legislative session amid an outbreak of coronavirus that has kept lawmakers away from the tribal capital.

Lawmakers calling in remotely Friday approved the legislation during a special session. The legislative branch cited the difficulty in getting everyone who plays a part in the session, including the 24 lawmakers, support staff, attorneys, and heads of tribal offices, to participate from afar.

Byron Shorty, a spokesman for the council, said a regular legislative session hasnt been canceled in decades.

The Navajo Nation Council usually gathers quarterly in Window Rock for weeklong sessions. The spring session was scheduled to start Monday.

Lawmakers on Friday also approved bills to provide $250,000 for burial assistance and to give $121,000 to the Office of the Speaker for supplies, communication, utilities and outreach. Another bill would create a fund to take in donations for the coronavirus response.

Tribal President Jonathan Nez has 10 days to act on the legislation once he receives it. He warned lawmakers this week of possible vetoes on spending measures.

We have to be good stewards of our resources and of our own money, he said Thursday. Im sure that hurts. If you dont want a veto, dont let it come to our desks because we are taking care of Navajo peoples money for the future.

The Navajo Nation has been hit harder by the coronavirus than any other Native American tribe. As of Friday, it had 1,127 cases among the 175,000 residents of the vast reservation that extends into New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Deaths total 44.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death. The vast majority of people recover.

Residents of the Navajo Nation, including non-tribal members, are under a daily nighttime curfew. Lockdowns for the next two weekends will prevent them from leaving their homes, except in the case of an emergency, from dusk Friday until early Monday.

Drive-thru restaurants were ordered closed over the weekend, and people who sell hay, wood, food or other goods from the roadside cannot operate. Gas stations and grocery stores will be open but for limited hours and must regulate the number of people inside.

Navajo police are enforcing the curfews and lockdown by issuing citations that can carry a fine of up to $1,000 and 30 days in jail. Essential workers are not subject to the restrictions.

Among other developments regarding the Navajo Nation:

The Navajo Tribal Utility Authority has postponed a project to connect 300 families to the electric grid for the first time. Nearly 40 utilities from 15 states had volunteered for the project.

The City of Albuquerque asked its residents to consider donating non-perishable food to the Navajo community of Tohajiilee, which lies west of the New Mexico city.
If youve watched even one coronavirus update by San Francisco Mayor London Breed and city department heads, youve seen the ceremonial sanitizing of the microphones, again and again.

An official steps up to the podium, pulls out a wipe, rubs down the microphone stands and then massages the two small microphones with vigilant care. He or she repeats the process before stepping out of view  followed by the next bureaucrat doing the same thing.

The ritual, performed with relish by some and awkwardness by others, does more than teach by example. It shows how, in the month since San Francisco and other Bay Area counties imposed shelter-in-place orders, Breeds three-times-weekly briefing has taken on a life and rhythm of its own.

This isnt Donald Trump being belligerent to reporters, or Gavin Newsom unreeling state policy with wonkish ease. Instead, the mayor and her supporting cast gather at a makeshift studio inside Moscone South, the convention facility now serving as the citys emergency operations center, and spend 90 minutes laying out the status of the administrations efforts to anyone watching online.

We cant let up, Breed said Friday during her introductory talk, three flags behind her and a sign proclaiming Stay Home in four languages to her right. That could raise the possibility of more people getting infected and seeing numbers surge completely out of control.

More Information Watch the briefings The briefings are regularly scheduled for 1 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at youtube.com/sfgtv, sfgovtv.org, instagram.com/sfgovtv See More Collapse

Next up is Grant Colfax, director of the Department of Public Health. Not only is the health expert the most fastidious at scrubbing down the lectern, hes the most methodical speaker, offering a detailed dissection of fresh medical initiatives and data before reprising the familiar theme.

The virus is still out there, vigilant, Colfax concluded Friday. There are good signs of progress, but we still have a long way to go.

Two other officials gave formal presentations on Friday: Jeff Tumlin, San Franciscos San Franciscos director of transportation, and Police Chief Bill Scott.

Tumlin discussed aspects of how the Municipal Transportation Agency is responding to virus-altered transit needs. Scott, a regular at the briefings, emphasized yet again that the city is serious about the rule that individuals should practice social distancing.

Catch a few briefings, and motifs beyond the microphone wipe emerge.

Breed uses variations of the word challenge a lot  15 times on Wednesday, including an observation that the economic repercussions of the shutdown for many people have been really, really, very challenging.

Colfax emphasizes the importance of being guided by medical facts, rather than emotion or political whims: Every decision we make ... has everything to do with the science and the data, is a frequent refrain.

And when it comes time for questions from reporters, officials signal  though discreetly  their annoyance at being forced to repeat themselves because journalists werent paying attention earlier.

As I stated in my prior answer, Colfax began one response Monday to a question from Fox News.

As I said in my earlier remarks, said Abigail Stewart-Kahn, director of the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, as she politely kicked off her answer to a Huffington Post query.

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 back-and-forth with reporters, by the way, is nothing like the exchanges seen in other coronavirus briefings being held across the country right now.

How so? Simple. Because of the citys shelter-in-place restrictions, no reporters are in the briefing room  the updates are streamed live. Journalists sign in via Cisco WebEx meetings. Theyre allowed to submit one question. In writing. With one follow-up. Next!

Theres no evidence as of yet that the updates will go viral  the combined streaming figures from YouTube and Facebook average fewer than 15,000 viewers. But the updates serve a purpose. If the view is filtered, its valuable all the same.

For as long as they continue, the briefings will evolve.

By Friday, some officials were tempting fate and skipping their pre-presentation podium cleansing if the official before them had been particularly thorough. Tumlin ended his five-minute talk by donning a natty, red patterned mask.

Wednesday, Breed concluded her remarks by saying that Colfax would speak next. She reached into the back of the podium and fumbled for several seconds, apparently groping for the box of wipes.

As soon as I clean the microphone, she muttered.

John King is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jking@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @johnkingsfchron
Karnataka to undertake Triaging: What does it mean and how do you pronounce it

Coronavirus cases in US crosses 7,00,000

International

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Washington, Apr 18: The number of the coronavirus cases in the US crossed 7,00,000 on Friday, while over 35,000 people have died from the disease, as President Donald Trump assured his people that America was "very close" to see the light "shinning brightly" at the end of the tunnel.

New York, the financial capital of the world, has emerged as the epicentre of the pandemic. More than 14,000 people have died in the city and over 2,00,000 lakh people have tested positive so far. Neighbouring New Jersey has more than 78,000 cases and 3,800 deaths.

Did coronavirus escape from a Wuhan lab? US looking into reports

President Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday that to date the US had conducted more than 3.78 million coronavirus tests, by far the most in any country.

"It's not even close. In the hardest-hit areas such as New York and Louisiana we have also tested more people per capita than South Korea, Singapore, and every other country. The United States has the most robust, advanced and accurate testing system anywhere in the world," he said.

Trump said that the number of deaths could have been much higher if his administration had not mounted a massive effort against containing the coronavirus. Against initial estimated death of between one and two lakhs, Trump hoped that the death toll could be far less and around 65,000.

"It's a horrible thing that happened to our country. This is a horrible thing that happened to 184 countries all over the world. It was a horrible thing and there was no reason for it. That should never, ever happen again," Trump said.

Ultimate victory in this war will be made possible by America's scientific brilliance, Trump asserted.

"There is nothing like us, there is nobody like us, not even close. I wish I could tell you stories what other countries, even powerful countries say to me, the leaders. They say it quietly and they say off the record, but they have great respect for what we can do," he said.

The last few months have been among the most challenging times in the history of the nation, Trump said.

"This invisible enemy is tough and it's smart and it's a vicious that every day we are getting closer to the future that we all have been waiting for," he said.

"I talk about the light at the end of the tunnel. We are getting very, very close to seeing that light shine very brightly at the end of that tunnel and it is happening," he said.

According to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University, Over 35,000 people have died in the US and the country has 7,01,131 infections, the highest in the world.

Vice President Mike Pence said on Friday that despite the tragic loss of more than 36,000 Americans, the latest data show that the new cases are slow and steady on the West Coast.

"We continue to see cases and hospitalisations declining in the new greater New York City area, in New Orleans and Detroit and elsewhere," he said.

A total of 1,54,142 people have died and 22,42,868 people have been infected by the novel coronavirus that originated in China in November last year, according to Johns Hopkins University.
For decades, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been known for suppressing freedom of expression and obstructing foreign journalists from reporting on sensitive issues, such as human rights violations, in the country. Reporters Without Borders ranked China 177th out of 180 countries in its 2019 World Press Freedom Index.

In circumstances such as these, how do reporters avoid being monitored or surveyed by state agents? One journalist discovered a creative wayoffering free rides in exchange for a conversation.

Frank Langfitt, the author of the book The Shanghai Free Taxi and an international NPR correspondent previously based in Shanghai, wrote about the challenges he encountered while trying to report on whats happening in China.

Taxi drivers wait for customers at the Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai. (MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images)

How to Avoid Surveillance

In an op-ed article for NPR from September 2019, Langfitt recalled how state agents in China were already monitoring him since the late 1990s when he was a newspaper reporter in Beijing.

Recalling one incident from that time, Langfitt said he had booked a flight to the southeast of China after getting a tip that two farmers were shot to death and several others were injured by the Peoples Armed Police while protesting against high taxes. However, before Langfitt could even make his way off the plane, the government officials had already caught up with him.

I figured the government knew my flight number by listening to conversations on my office phone, a common practice, Langfitt wrote.

When he was being interrogated, Langfitt tried asking a young foreign ministry official who was monitoring him in the hotel room for his opinion. The official, who was disturbed by the killings, was visibly uncomfortable and stammered in his reply, Langfitt said.

In 2012, Langfitt experienced a similar situationstate security agents followed him while he was covering news on the communist regimes corruption. Once again, they had traced him via his cell phone. In an attempt to prevent further surveillance, Langfitt decided to make use of a bag of potato chips.

Eat a bag of potato chips, wash out the bag and put your cellphone inside. The foil bag blocks electromagnetic fields, preventing GPS updates, he said.

However, getting the Chinese citizens to speak to the media was not an easy feat. So, Langfitt came up with a unique approach: offering free taxi rides. Langfitt, who worked as a taxi driver in Philadelphia in the 1980s, recalled how passengers would open up to him during the ride. Unsurprisingly, Langfitts idea worked.

My Shanghai free taxi turned the normal foreign reporting experience in China on its headinstead of me asking the questions, my passengers sometimes interviewed me, Langfitt said.

Not long after, many of them started to invite Langfitt to dinner, and some even exchanged their contact information with him. Meanwhile, others even talked to him about sensitive topics such as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Moreover, the free taxi rides helped Langfitt to avoid surveillance from the state security agents. In fact, Langfitt wrote that one agent even liked the stories as the agent was able to connect with the character in Langfitts reporting.

The Pillar of Shame: a monument constructed to honor the dead and shame the Chinese regime that refused to apologize for the Tiananmen Square massacrethe killing of students on June 4, 1989. (MIKE CLARKE/AFP via Getty Images)

Recent Suppression of Freedom of Expression

In the recent past, some foreign journalists faced suppression and retaliation from the CCP. After the outbreak of the CCP virus, many foreign journalists traveled to the Chinese city of Wuhan to report and uncover the true situation. However, some of them were obstructed from reporting.

Financial Times reported that some journalists were told by local authorities that they were not allowed to get close to Hubei Province due to quarantine requirements. There were also others who were forced to delete videos that they had recorded near hospitals, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In February 2020, after The Wall Street Journal refused to apologize for publishing an opinion piece titled China is the Real Sick Man of Asia in regard to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, three of its Beijing-based reporters who worked in the news section had their press credentials revoked.

A month later, the regime announced it was going to expel the U.S. journalists working for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal in retaliation for the Trump administrations recent actions targeting Chinese state-run media outlets in the United States.

A March 17 statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry stated that it would require all journalists with U.S. citizenship employed at the above three organizations whose press credentials are due to expire before the end of the year to hand back their press cards within 10 days.

Medical staff wearing protective clothing to protect against a previously unknown coronavirus arrive with a patient at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital in Wuhan on Jan. 25, 2020. (HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)

However, foreign journalists are not the only ones who have had their freedom of expression suppressed. Wuhan journalists working for Caixin, Phoenix News, and other state-approved media outlets were told by the communist partys propaganda department to review their news reports after the outlets reported that local officials had covered up on the impact of the CCP virus, Radio Free Asia reported.

There were also reports that several Chinese citizen journalists disappeared after the outbreak when they sought to reveal the impact of the CCP virus on the Chinese city of Wuhan.
But what will be the cost of survival, in human lives, to this community that has resisted so much? he asked. How will the authorities help to make sure the cost is as small as possible?
Two rockets struck near a Chinese oil facility south of Baghdad without causing any casualties, Iraqi officials said Saturday, the second such attack to target energy interests in the country this month.

An Iraqi army statement said the rockets struck near a Chinese company in the Nahrawan area, southeast of Baghdad, without elaborating. Iraqi security officials said the rockets caused minor damage.

China's ZhenHua, a subsidiary of the arms manufacturer Norinco, has been working in the nearby East Baghdad oil fields since May 2018 under a 25-year development contract with the Oil Ministry. The officials did not say whether this was the company that was targeted. One security official said the rockets were launched by militia groups as a threat following a failed business proposition. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

Iraq depends on revenues from oil exports to fund 90% of its budget.

On April 6, at least three rockets targeted the site of an American oil field service company in the southern oil-rich province of Basra. The rockets were targeting Halliburton in the Burjesia area and caused no damage, according to Iraq's military.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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NEWSALERT-PD-PM 2 Revising women's marriage age to 21 years done for "our daughters' betterment," ensure them a career: PM Modi at National Youth Festival.Revising women's marriage age to 21 years done for "our daughters' betterment," ensure them a career: PM Modi at National Youth Festival.

NEWSALERT-PD-PM Over two crore children in the 15-18 years age group vaccinated with Covid-19 doses, says PM Modi at National Youth Festival.Over two crore children in the 15-18 years age group vaccinated with Covid-19 doses, says PM Modi at National Youth Festival.
The corona virus pandemic has sickened nearly 2 million people, killed over 100,000 and wrought economic ruin around the world within the space of a few months. It is a global calamity such as humankind has not witnessed since the Second World War. It is also an opportunity and an imperative for the United Nations to bring countries and peoples together, not only to beat back this scourge, but also to build a better world in the process.

This may sound delusional at a time when the world seems to be going down the path of every nation for itself, with countries turning their backs on one another and even competing for scarce medical supplies. The leader of the most powerful of them all, the United States, is openly blaming China for the pandemic and has suspended funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) when it is most needed.

Authoritarian leaders around the world are also taking advantage of the pandemic to restrict citizens rights and freedoms and concentrate power in their own hands.

The pandemic has laid bare the gross inequalities and injustices of a world in which nearly one in two people lives on less than $5.50 a day and half have no access to essential health services, while the richest 1% monopolizes twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people.

the virus that supposedly does not discriminate

In New York, the city with the greatest number of billionaires in the world, the virus that supposedly does not discriminate has been killing black and Hispanic people at a disproportionately high rate. Many of them work in jobs that will not allow them to stay home and do not have health insurance. Those who are undocumented immigrants are often reluctant to seek health services for fear of being deported.

In the poor neighborhoods of the city of Guayaquil in Ecuador, people die on the streets and the bodies of those who have died in their homes go uncollected, with underfunded public hospitals and funeral services overwhelmed. It is a tragedy heartbreaking for me to witness, having learned to love this country and its warm-hearted people while working there for UNICEF many years ago.

Many African countries are facing the pandemic with even more disastrously inadequate health systems, while also struggling with widespread poverty.

The poor and marginalized of the world are and will continue to be the hardest hit by the pandemic. The virus may not discriminate  but we human beings do.

humanity is facing a common challenge that must be taken on together

Yet this calamity has also led to some signs of hope that this injustice can be corrected. One is a shared awareness  if not among all, hopefully many  that all of humanity is facing a common challenge that must be taken on together. And unlike climate change, when you see daily images of hospitals overflowing, health workers imploring for help, families being robbed of loved ones by the disease in different parts of the world, deniers cannot easily wave this one away.

With this awareness have also arisen empathy and solidarity, both within and across national borders. As a Japanese citizen, it has been gratifying to see how the crisis appears to have brought China and Japan closer together as the two countries, both the governments and ordinary citizens, have sought to support one another in fighting the pandemic. Local communities around the world have also come together to help the elderly and other vulnerable groups with their daily necessities. Messages of gratitude abound in social media, not only to health workers but to supermarket workers, garbage collectors, bus drivers, postal workers and other members of society we had hitherto not bothered to recognize.

The pandemic is also helping us to realize how central to our lives are the bonds we form with one another and to be part of a community. At the same time, it has opened the possibility for expanding that community beyond our immediate families and friends, even our countries, by showing us how people all around the world are battling the same enemy. The pandemic is letting us know that we all have the same capacity for pain and grief, for courage and generosity.

But our feelings of sympathy and good will toward others  both near and far  need to be translated into a recognition of shared rights and freedoms, as well as a shared responsibility to protect those rights and freedoms. And that recognition must be formalized in legal and policy instruments that will outlast our sentiments.

The United Nations must assume the leadership to make this happen. The UN has recently issued a report on the devastating social and economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. It calls for countries to work together toward a coordinated health response, as well as concrete measures aimed at building more inclusive and sustainable economies. The Secretary-General has also called for a global cease fire.

It is often pointed out that without the support of its members states, and particularly of the great powers that hold veto rights in the Security Council, the Secretary-General and the staff of the UN have no decision-making power. But they do have a unique moral authority  the legitimacy that comes from representing an organization made up of 193 member states, and hence speaking for the world.

I worked in the UN System for 35 years. Over those years, I saw how the UN, when it exercised this legitimacy with intelligence, determination and perseverance, succeeded in swaying nations toward greater caring for their citizens, particularly the most vulnerable, greater recognition of universal rights and freedoms, and greater accountability for their actions

But the leaders of the UN must fully assume and exercise their moral authority in order to make a difference. Otherwise, this idea that the UN has no power becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. That too has happened, when the UN has chosen to stay passive in the face of injustices and atrocities.

A recent article in The Guardian about the role of the WHO in pandemics, in explaining its success with the SARS epidemic, points out that under the then Director-General, Gro Harlem Brundtland, WHO had been willing to wield authority that it had, in a sense, created simply by speaking it into existence.

The UN must do the same today. And in doing so, it must reach out not only to the worlds political leaders but also to us, the ordinary citizens of the world. It needs to urge us to go beyond merely surviving this calamity, to aspire to more. The UN needs to call on us to exercise responsible and caring citizenship toward building more just and inclusive societies and a more peaceful and collaborative international community, including demanding that our leaders take action toward that goal.

The UN showed that it was capable of this kind of outreach when it mobilized citizen participation in the formulation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development  a process in which over 5 million people around the world participated. The UN made a special effort to hear from people normally excluded from decision making  the poor, the ethnic and cultural minorities, migrants, women, LGBT people and others. The resulting agenda, approved by all UN member states in 2015, was far from perfect. But it did signify a real shift toward a more just, more sustainable and more caring vision of development.

 the UN will have to build and mobilize partnerships with those that share this vision to push for real change

Only now, the United Nations will have to do more and better, and call on all of us to do the same  to build and mobilize partnerships with those that share this vision to push for real change, to coax and badger those who are reluctant or indifferent, including the powerful who do not like to be questioned, to stand up and speak out for the excluded and invisible.

I think the UN will find that there is a longing for such a collective effort among people around the world at this moment. A longing to do more than just hunker down to wait for the storm to pass. A longing for purpose.
Trump Announces $19 Billion Relief Program for Farmers, Ranchers

President Donald Trump on Friday announced a $19 billion relief program for those in the agriculture industry who are economically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 Food Assistance Program includes $16 billion in direct payments to farmers, ranchers and producers, and $3 billion for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to purchase fresh produce, dairy, and meat products from the farmers to redistribute through community food banks and other non-profits and faith-based organizations, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said.

Having to dump milk or to plow under vegetables ready to market is not only financially distressing, but its heartbreaking as well to those who produce that, Perdue said at a press conference on Friday. This program will not only provide financial relief to farmers and ranchers but will allow the purchase and distribution of agricultural abundance in this country to help our fellow Americans in need.

The USDA said in a statement that it will begin with the procurement of an estimated $100 million per month in fresh fruits and vegetables, $100 million per month in a variety of dairy products, and $100 million per month in meat products.

Perdue said that $6.5 billion from the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), as well as $19.5 billion in CCP virus relief funding, will be used to speed up the direct payments, rather than wait for the replenishment of the CCC funds in July. The CCC is a government corporation created in 1933 to support the domestic agricultural sector.

USDA will do everything in our power to implement this program as quickly and as efficiently as possible to help our farmers, ranchers, producers, and consumers during this time of need, Perdue said.

Trump at the press briefing on the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as the novel coronavirus, praised the resilience of farmers and ranchers.

Our farmers, ranchersthese are great people, great Americans. Never complain, they just do what they have to do, he said. The USDA will receive another $14 billion in July to continue helping our farmers and ranchers. Its money well deserved.

Not only were they targeted at one point by Chinathat was over a period of timeand they never complained, but that worked out really well: $12 billion they got and $16 billion they got. Now it is $19 billion, the president continued.

The Trump administration in 2018 and 2019 authorized $12 billion and $16 billion in aid respectively to American farmers who were suffering from retaliatory tariffs imposed by Americas trading partners, which included China.

Long lines have formed at U.S. food banks in recent weeks as millions have become unemployed due to lockdowns to halt the spread of the CCP virus.

Several U.S. beef and pork packing plants have shut down as workers have fallen ill or died from the CCP virus that causes COVID-19 disease.

Smithfield Foods, for example, the worlds biggest pork processor, said on Sunday that it would shut a U.S. plant indefinitely due to a rash of CCP virus cases among employees and warned the country was moving perilously close to the edge in supplies for grocers.

Reuters contributed to this report.
More than 16,000 has been raised for a young boy who lost his mother and grandmother to coronavirus days apart, as his father fights for his life in hospital.

Julianne Cadby, a 49-year-old employee in the NHS, died on Wednesday after testing positive for Covid-19, four days after her 84-year-old mother passed away due to the virus.

Her seven-year-old son, Evan, is being looked after by family members and Ms Cadbys friends have set up a fundraising page for him, while his father Chris remains in hospital being treated for coronavirus.

Myself and all of Juliannes friends from year two St Bernadettes would like to help this family as much as we can, and ask you to please dig as deep as your pockets will allow for this lovely family who have endured the worst possible loss, Natalie Lloyd-Hughes, who set up the fundraiser, wrote on the JustGiving page.

To Julianne and Chriss families and friends, we send our deepest condolences and pray for you at this sad time.

The page has raised 16,847 by 6pm on Saturday, after originally setting a target of just 1,000.

Ms Cadby was a business manager at the specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services unit for Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, where she had worked for 30 years.

Julianne was a much loved member of our team, she was extremely warm and caring and would always make time to help and support colleagues, a statement from the health board said.

Her dedication shone through, playing a central role in all that we do in the service and her focus was always on ensuring we are delivering the best service we can for children and young people.

Ms Cadby is one of a number of NHS staff who have died during the UKs coronavirus epidemic in recent weeks.

On Thursday, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said the government had identified 27 NHS staff members who have died after contracting coronavirus, but the true total is thought to be much higher.

The Press Association news agency has confirmed the deaths of at least 40 frontline NHS workers during the pandemic, as of Friday.
Phuket Lockdown shall end on Apr 30

PHUKET: The Phuket Governor has extended all lockdown orders to Apr 30. The previous orders were set to expire on Apr 26.

Saturday 18 April 2020, 10:28AM

Image: NBT / as posted by PR Dept

The Phuket Lockdown was extended through a handful of orders dated as issued on Wednesday (Apr 15), and marked as in effect from Wednesday, but were only publicly posted after 8:30pm last night. (See here.)

The only explanation given for extending the lockdown was to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

However, in its summary of the orders, the Phuket office of the Public Relations Department noted: All orders of Phuket Province shall end on 30 April 2020.

The orders made special note that the health regulations in force to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 also apply to all boats, and that all boats except commercial fishing boats, traditional fishing boats, rescue boats, nursing vessels and government vessels are prohibited from the harbor and coast within Phuket.

For those boats that are allowed to put to sea, the orders noted, When leaving the port or coast at any place, notification must be made to enter the port or coast at the place of departure and the operators and the owners of the boats are to be strict in [enforcing] the epidemic prevention measures.

All the boat officials must wear face masks and maintain a space of not less than 1.5 metres [from other people] and [must] strictly follow the procedures Measures of the Ministry of Public Health and Communicable Disease Committees.

The special reminder for boat captains and crews, which only repeat the health regulations for everyone initially laid down weeks ago, came as Vice Admiral Cherngchai Chomcherngpat of the Royal Thai Navy Third Area Command yesterday (Apr 17) announced that Phukets fishing fleet was free from any COVID-19 infection as he led inspections of fishing crews as part of the efforts to help prevent the spread of virus. (See story here.)

However, as the orders are dated as issued Wednesday, despite being publicly proclaimed only last night, they were technically issued before the Vice Admiral Cherngchai made his claim.

Also given special mention in the latest orders is that all private kindergartens and nurseries must remain closed, and that construction is still allowed to continue, but contractors must only use the construction materials that are already on site. Construction operators are not allowed to move new materials to their worksites.

As is standard, the orders reminded all persons that violating any of the health regulations and restrictions issued under the Emergency Decree would be a breach of Section 52 of the Communicable Disease Act 2015, which can incur a penalty of up to one year in prison or a fine of up to B100,000, or both.

Violating the orders may also be punished under Section 18 of the Emergency Decree, which may incur a penalty of up to two years in prison or a fine of up to B40,000, or both, the orders noted.
WASHINGTON  Over two frantic weeks, the U.S. government pledged $350 billion to Main Street businesses across America desperate for cash after coronavirus lockdowns.

Now a picture is emerging of who got the money. More than 25% of the total pot went to fewer than 2% of the firms that got relief. They include a number of publicly traded companies with thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales.

The loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration  totaling $342.3 billion as of Thursday  went to companies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories, and were spread across all 20 of the main industry sectors.

Congress directed the SBA to award $349 billion to struggling businesses with 500 or fewer workers as part of a $2.3 trillion coronavirus aid package that President Donald Trump signed into law on March 27. The Payroll Protection Program (PPP) was crafted to keep Americans off unemployment benefits, by giving small and mid-sized companies forgivable loans for keeping employees on the books.

The SBA does not make the loans directly but instead backs loans made by participating financial firms.
TRACKING AN OUTBREAK

A picture caption with an article on Friday about protests against stay-at-home orders misidentified the location of a protest in Michigan. It was in Lansing, at the State Capitol, not in East Lansing.

BUSINESS

An article on Friday about banks that are withholding stimulus checks from customers who have overdrawn accounts referred incorrectly to the status of Minnesota day care service during the pandemic. Some day care centers have closed, but the state did not order all child care facilities to shut down.

T MAGAZINE

A picture caption with an article on Page 58 misstates Alberta Ferrettis title with Aeffe. She is the vice president and creative director, not the product director. The caption also misstates Stefano Canalis title with Canali. He is the president and chief executive officer, not the general manager. And it misidentifies the brand for which Andrea Molteni is the director of product development. It is Molteni & C Dada, not Molteni & C.

An article on Page 70 about alumni of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp misstates the years that the Belgian artist Luc Tuymans studied painting there. It was from 1978 to 1979, not 1980 to 1982.
You are here: World

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A Chinese medical team arrived in Tashkent Friday to assist Uzbekistan's ongoing efforts to fight COVID-19.

The 15-member team also brought medical supplies donated by east China's Jiangxi Province, including surgical masks, N95 respirators, medical protective suits, nucleic acid testing kits, goggles and non-invasive ventilators.

The experts specializing in various areas including traditional Chinese medicine, intensive care, hospital infection control and emergency treatment are from several hospitals in Jiangxi and the provincial center for disease prevention and control.

"All the team members are with firsthand experience in treating COVID-19 patients or controlling the epidemic," said team leader Luo Lisheng.

"We will share China's experience in fighting COVID-19 and offer training on disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment with our counterparts in Uzbekistan," Luo added.

"China will never forget the Uzbek aid when China was badly hit by the virus. I hope that the work of Chinese experts will be useful to the Uzbek side to achieve a final victory in fight against COVID-19," said Jiang Yan, Chinese ambassador to Uzbekistan who greeted the Chinese experts at the airport.

"We have been looking forward to Chinese experts for a long time. I believe that their valuable experience in treating COVID-19 patients or controlling the epidemic will help Uzbekistan overcome the epidemic as soon as possible," Uzbek Deputy Health Minister Bahodir Nizomov said.

The medical team will also provide necessary medical supplies, training and consultation service for overseas Chinese in Uzbekistan.

Late last month, China donated protective medical supplies to Uzbekistan to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Uzbekistan now has 1,390 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and has effectively locked down all major cities including its capital city Tashkent.
Nurses and other health care workers have carried out strikes and protests in several Brazilian cities over a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) that is leaving many of them sick and some dying from the COVID-19.

After rising rapidly throughout the week, the number of officially confirmed coronavirus cases in Brazil reached 30,425 on Thursday, while the death toll stood at 1,924. However, a study carried out by the Health Intelligence and Operations Center (NOIS) points out that, due to extreme underreporting and lack of testing, the actual number of cases would be 12 times greateri.e., more than 350,000 infected. And many COVID-19 deaths are going unrecorded.

The situation has been exacerbated by the actions of Brazils fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro who, since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, has waged a criminal campaign to sabotage any measures to contain the epidemic that conflict with immediate profit interests.

Nurses block street in protest against unsafe condition in Belem [WhatsApp]

This scenario is leading to the collapse of the Brazilian health care system. Health care workers have been denouncing the precarious conditions of both care and work since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country. This week, protests, including work stoppages, have spread to hospitals and other health care units in various parts of Brazil.

In Sao Luis, the capital city of Maranhao, in the northeast of the country, health professionals from Djalma Marques Municipal Hospital, known as Socorrao 1, threatened to carry out a wildcat strike on Monday. The workers were outraged after two co-workers died from COVID-19, victims of the lack of the most basic protection measures.

Whats happening in Socorrao 1??? Two dead employees, already identified the source of infection, technicians testing positive... Where is the washing of the terminal, or the interdiction of the sector, where is Coren (Regional Nursing Council), where is the Sindhosp (Union of Hospitals, Clinics and Laboratories), the Municipal Secretary... Nobody will speak about it?! For Gods sake, there are already MANY infected, so take action, an employee protested on Facebook.

The next day, in another unit, Socorrao 2, 40-year-old radiology technician Sergio Costa died after contracting the virus under the same conditions.

In Maranhao, of the 797 confirmed cases, 79 work in the states health care network. The real number of infected workers in the area is undoubtedly much higher as other sectors are also acting in the front line in the fight against the virus. In Sao Luis, for example, there are three large private hospitals treating COVID-19 patients.

Sign reads: We want PPE, professionals ask for help!

Over 2,500 kilometers south of Maranhao, nurses, technicians, physiotherapists, psychologists and hospital administrative staff of the Minas Gerais State Hospital Foundation (Fhemig) carried out a work stoppage on Wednesday morning.

In addition to the conditions of insecurity, with the lack of PPE, the workers were protesting against their exclusion from a temporary bonus granted by the state government to doctors only.

It was very frustrating ... to benefit only the medical professionals, because the hospital contains everything, from the doormen at the entrance. Its absurd, because were working like them in an inhumane fashion, without equipment, but we are here, a Fhemig worker told the TV station Record.

Another one commented: Why reward only a class of workers, given that we are a team? Besides the stress, the constant fear because we have relatives at home, is our work of less value?

The governor of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema, responded by stating that the workers protest was incomprehensible, since a few years ago these professionals did not get paid on time, and this month they did.

On Wednesday night another protest by health workers took place in Belem do Para, in northern Brazil. The nurses of the Emergency Room Mario Pinotti left work and blocked the avenue in front of the hospital, demonstrating against the deadly conditions to which they and their patients are subjected.

In an interview with Rede Liberal, nurse Socorro Brito declared: This is the worst crisis we have gone through, because the virus has been inside for more than two months and there is still not a project to work with these people. The patients enter through the same door as the other patients, including children. Its revolting.

Nauza Araujo, another nurse said: Working without masks, without a gown. Entering the isolation without PPE means assured contamination, means professionals leaving, and that cant happen. In a few days you wont have anyone else to look after the patients. We just want dignity to work, to do our job.

Although more than one health care provider has already been removed on suspicion of infection with the virus, professionals who are in the highest risk groups continue working normally. I will turn 70 in June, I am diabetic and hypertensive... I am there working but I am not feeling well, said Maria das Gracas.

Belem nurses striking for PPE [Twitter/Joao Paulo Guimaraes]

The following night, on Thursday, professionals from another health unit in Belem paralyzed work. In a video posted on Twitter, the workers, from the Emergency Care Unit in the Sacramenta neighborhood, appear holding posters demanding appropriate PPE. In addition to extremely precarious conditions, such as a lack of water during the night, they denounced the fact that 15 professionals in the residence are sick and without assistance.

I need us to be heard and to guarantee us minimum working conditions. Thats all we need to attend to this population that needs us, appealed a nurse who says shes been working for eight years as a permanent employee. Those who know me know my commitment to my work, and we just want the minimum conditions so we dont get sick, so we dont take the disease home.

The mayor of Belem, Zenaldo Coutinho from the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), responded to the protest on Twitter: I wanted to say that the demonstration that took place yesterday in front of the PSM da 14 was a serious mistake because the employees went to the street with their PPE and uniforms. It was a mistake that we lament.

Zenaldo also said, in an interview on the TV program Jornal Liberal, that the lack of PPE in hospitals is due to a shortage of products on the world market. However, he claimed that professionals have necessary equipment guaranteed until at least next week.

An interview given to the G1 by an anonymous doctor, who works at Pronto-Socorro Mario Pinotti, or PSM da 14, completely refutes the mayors claims. According to him, the absence of basic working conditions, in fact, came much earlier than the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic.

A month ago, when cases in Belem began to appear, we doctors began to demand minimum working conditions: water, soap, paper towels and PPE. But unfortunately the problems of the PSM da 14 are also structural, there is not much room for an illness that requires social distancing. The lack is not only of PPE, but also of materials such as oxygen catheters.

I have been in the unit for two years, I have never seen anything like it. The patients situation is sad. There are no stretchers, not enough oxygen plugs. Its a real war scene in there. Ive never seen so many people in need of oxygen and intubation like Ive seen lately. Unfortunately, the public system in Belem has already collapsed.
The Delhi High Court has declined to interfere with the Centre and Air India's decision to operate chartered flights to repatriate foreign nationals to their respective countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A bench of justices J R Midha and Jyoti Singh was of the view that the Centre and the national carrier have taken measures such as issuing protection kits to the pilots and crew of the flights to protect them from the novel coronavirus.

The court also noted that the government has issued guidelines with regard to screening and testing of the pilots and cabin crew when they return to India and the measures to be taken during their home quarantine.

"COVID-19 is an unprecedented pandemic and calamity of enormous magnitude and the government is taking all necessary steps to ensure protection of its airline crew, as assured by the Additional Solicitor General, and would continue to do so...," the bench said.

It also took note of the work being done by the airline crew and said they should be applauded for serving humanity at this hour of crisis.

The observations by the bench came while dismissing a plea challenging the government and Air India's decision to operate chartered flights to repatriate foreign nationals.

The court, however, said petitioner Vaibhav Sharma is free to give his suggestions to the government.

The petitioner, in his plea, wanted the government to lodge the crew of such flights in hotels, instead of home-quarantining them.

The bench said it agrees with the government that at this stage, it is not possible to lodge the airline crew in hotels due to logistic issues and that home quarantine is the best possible measure currently.

The petition, filed through advocate H S Nanda, had also claimed that the pilots and cabin crew of these chartered flights were not being provided with personal protection equipment.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has ordered an 'urgent review' of rules involving workers being flown into the country.

Mr Varadkar has said he is uncomfortable with a large number of people coming in to work a strawberry farm operated by Keelings.

Mr Varadkar said: "I share the discomfort expressed by the chief medical officer about the report of a large number of people coming to Ireland earlier this week to work in the horticulture sector.

"We need to keep our airports and ports open so essential goods and essential workers can get in and out of the country and Irish citizens and residents can return home.

"However, we need to keep travel to a minimum and ensure that passengers are interviewed on arrival and that quarantine is observed.

"I have therefore asked for an urgent review of the current rules and procedures to be carried out over the weekend."

A national recruitment campaign will begin shortly for temporary horticultural workers, targeting those who are on the dole in Ireland.

Keelings said in a statement that it flew 189 seasonal workers on a charter flight from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Dublin last Monday.

"All had been health screened by a doctor before they travelled to Sofia Airport where they were temperature checked before entry," it said.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Yes, Theyre Open" is a new web series highlighting local bars and restaurants that are still open for takeout, delivery or pickup during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

Live streams from the featured restaurants are broadcast on the Advance Facebook page every weekday around 3 p.m.

On Friday, the Advance visited Johns Deli at 173 New Dorp Lane. The deli is open for pickup and delivery throughout the borough from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Call 718-351-1144 to place your order.

Staten Island restaurant owners: If you would like your establishment featured for free as part of Yes, Theyre Open, email reporter Victoria Priola at vpriola@siadvance.com.

For a full list of restaurants and bars that are still open for takeout, delivery and curbside pickup, click here.

YES, THEYRE OPEN: Johns Deli in New Dorp, located at 173 New Dorp Lane, is open for pickup and delivery. The deli is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Call 718-351-1144 to place your order. Posted by Staten Island Advance on Friday, April 17, 2020

MORE ON YES, THEYRE OPEN

Mezcals, 20 Bradley Ave.

ONeills, 1614 Forest Ave.

Maxs Es-Ca, 1559 Richmond Road.

Harvest Cafe, 694 New Dorp Lane

Tropical Smoothie Cafe, 1650 Richmond Ave., 1407 Forest Ave. and 7001 Amboy Road

Kings Arms Diner, 500 Forest Ave.

Giovannis Trattoria, 3800 Richmond Ave.

Reggianos, 7339 Amboy Road

Beso, 11 Schuyler St.

Blue, 1115 Richmond Terrace

In Fine Fettle, 961 Jewett Ave.

West Shore Inn, 3955 Victory Blvd.

Better Gourmet Health Kitchen, 2333 Hylan Blvd., 400 Forest Ave., 4077 Victory Blvd. and 877 Huguenot Ave.

Campania Coal Fired Pizza, 3900 Richmond Ave.

Call It A Wrap, 1198 Forest Ave.

Beans and Leaves, 422 Forest Ave.
Sebastian Vettel says he is only negotiating with Ferrari over a new contract for 2021.

Earlier, amid intense speculation about his future, the German was linked with a potential switch to McLaren.

But the 32-year-old quadruple world champion says he is talking only to Ferrari.

"I think I had made that clear before," German media reports quote him as saying. "It's not part of the discussion."

Vettel said he is expecting negotiations to be complete before Formula 1's interrupted 2020 season begins.

"The likelihood of this is high," he said. "We won't be racing before June or July. We don't have a timetable, but we surely have enough time to find a solution and discuss the issue before it starts again."

He says there is no rush amid the global pandemic.

"Everything that wasn't immediately important was put on hold. Firstly it was about the welfare of the employees," said Vettel.

"The top priority is how we all deal with this situation."

There has been speculation of a one-year deal for Vettel, but he indicated that he would prefer a longer one.

"In the past, I've always had three-year contracts," he said. "I have experience but I'm not the oldest. Age shouldn't be a limiting factor."

Finally, Vettel said he would not reveal publicly whether he has agreed to take a pay-cut amid the coronavirus crisis.

"I'm not fond of communicating something like this. I don't want to take advantage of the situation to polish up my image in public," he said.

(GMM)
Don't blame the boss if you spend too many hours at work. Instead point the finger at your forebears  who set the cultural template by toiling too long in the fields, a study says.

Societies with a history of labour-intensive cultivation of crops prefer harder work, the scientists suggest.

Author Dr Vicky Fouka, from Stanford University in the US, said: High marginal returns in agricultural production provides an incentive for investment in a preference for work.

Societies with a history of labour-intensive cultivation of crops prefer harder work, scientists from Stanford University in the US suggest in a new study (file photo)

Other things being equal, societies that cultivate crops more dependent on labour effort work more hours.

Preferences for longer working hours, and more effort put in during those hours, can then persist through cultural transmission and institutional feedback mechanisms  even after societies have transitioned away from agriculture.

Most of the UK and Irish population can trace their roots back to the first farmers that trekked across Europe thousands of years ago.

The Stanford research could explain why Britains full-time employees work an average of 42 hours a week  almost two hours more than a typical counterpart on the Continent. The study, published in The Economic Journal, used data from the bi-annual European Social Survey between 2002 to 2014.

It focused on three measures: the hours a week respondents reported working, their desired hours and the difference between actual and contracted hours.

Dr Fouka said: The work effort in European regions can be explained by variation in suitability for labour intensive crops.

Most of the UK and Irish population can trace their roots back to the first farmers that trekked across Europe thousands of years ago (file photo of Dulwich allotments during Dig for Victory)

The Stanford research could explain why Britains full-time employees work an average of 42 hours a week - almost two hours more than a typical counterpart on the Continent (file photo)

The researchers also looked at how preferences for hard work come to persist in a society over time.

They found significant aspects of work ethics are transmitted from parents to children, leading to more prominent results in respondents who have native-born parents.

Dr Fouka said: High work ethic is correlated with lower preferences for redistribution, suggesting a feedback between culture and institutions that perpetuates cultural preferences.

She added: The laborious nature of rice cultivation has been theorised to have an impact on the work ethic of those societies that have depended on it.

This research shows systematically that this is true for a variety of crops, across the regions of Europe.
The Rite Aid Foundation in East Pennsboro Township has announced it will donate $5 million in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The donations will support the healthcare providers and first responders; children, families and communities impacted by the outbreak; and Rite Aid associates as they continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Rite Aid Foundation will contribute $500,000 each to the CDC Foundation, the American Nurses Foundations Coronavirus Response Fund for Nurses, and The First Responders Childrens Foundation COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund. These donations will support organizations and funds supporting healthcare providers and first responders on the front-line of the pandemic as well as their families.

The Rite Aid Foundation will contribute $750,000 combined to the New York Community Trusts NYC COVID-19 Response & Impact Fund, the New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund, the United Way for Southeastern Michigans COVID-19 Community Response Fund, the Seattle Foundations COVID-19 Response Fund and the COVID-19 Los Angeles County Response Fund. The Rite Aid Foundation will reserve $750,000 to respond to emerging hotspots or existing hotspots in need of additional support.

The Rite Aid Foundation will contribute $500,000 each to Feeding America and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to support their ongoing efforts to mitigate the effects of the pandemic.

READ MORE:

The Rite Aid Foundation will contribute $1 million to The Rite Aid Foundation Associate Relief Fund, to support grants for extraordinary financial hardships due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The funds can be applied to medical, childcare, household or special expenses.

Now more than ever, Rite Aid associates are living our company values  to be caring neighbors who are passionate about our communities  and its critical for The Rite Aid Foundation to support them during their time of need, too, Jessica Kazmaier, president of The Rite Aid Foundations board of directors and chief human resources officer of Rite Aid said in a press release. We sincerely thank them for all that they are doing every day.

The Rite Aid Foundation was founded in 2001 and has awarded more than $68 million to nonprofit organizations.

Last week, the Rite Aid Foundation also announced that Matthew DeCamara of Montgomery County has joined the organization as its new executive director. The foundation runs Rite Aids annual in-store campaign to benefit Childrens Miracle Network Hospitals and the foundation also runs Rite Aids KidCents program.

Other large donations that have been announced include:

Computer Aid Inc. a business technology services firm in the Allentown area announced its support of Feeding America through a $100,000 contribution to the COVID-19 Response Fund.

The Central Pennsylvania Food Bank announced it received a $100,000 grant from the PNC Foundation to aid in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

Wakefern Food Corp., along with its cooperative members  who own and operate supermarkets across nine states  announced it will donate one million dollars to regional food banks to help meet the increase in demand for food and essentials during the COVID-19 pandemic. The donation will be divided among 30 food banks across the nine-state trading area of its supermarket banners -- ShopRite, Price Rite Marketplace and The Fresh Grocer.

Pennsylvania Skill, whose skill games are manufactured by Pace-O-Matic and Williamsport-based Miele Manufacturing, donated $250,000 to Feeding Pennsylvania, the state association of Feeding America Food Banks.

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Haiti - Justice : Release of 322 detainees





The National Penitentiary Authority (APN) has informed the United Nations and partner NGOs of its needs in terms of infection prevention and control, as well as the management of suspect cases in the country's 19 prisons.



Support from the United Nations Office for Project Support Services in Haiti (UNOPS), the UNICEF, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and other partners are expected in the coming days. In accordance with national commitments and global advocacy for the release of eligible detainees to reduce the number of detainees and mitigate the transmission of Covid-19, 12 children have been released from detention to date. Advocacy actions with the national authorities to increase the number of released children are underway.



To date, 322 detainees have already been released from Haitian prisons, including 21 women and 12 minors. Most of these detainees were in prolonged pretrial detention while others were convicted for minor crimes, nearing the end of their sentence, or had co-morbidities linked to the COVID-19. Prisoners releases are likely to accelerate following an instruction sent by the MJPS to the Directorate of Penitentiary Administration (DAP) with clear eligibility criteria.



In addition, remember that the national number 188 managed by the Brigade for the Protection of Minors (BPM) of the PNH continues to operate. The helpline is particularly important in this period of social distancing to ensure that children and their families can benefit from distance assistance and referrals.



Learn more about the situation of minors in prison :

According to UNICEF, in Haiti, more than 11,000 people are detained in the 20 prisons listed: 8,300 men, 2,800 women and 220 minors. 85% of boys and 92% of girls are in prolonged pretrial detention https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25863-haiti-justice-urgency-to-act-at-the-rehabilitation-center-for-minors-in-conflict-with-the-law.html



In line with national commitments and global advocacy for the release of eligible detainees to unclog prisons and mitigate the spread of Covid-19, 5 children have been released, but advocacy to free other children continues. The number 188 managed by the BPM of the PNH continues to function, so that children and their families can benefit from remote assistance during this period of social distancing.



UNICEF supports the Haitian government to prevent the detention of children in conflict with the law and expedite the trial of those in preventive detention while advocating for the protection of children.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25863-haiti-justice-urgency-to-act-at-the-rehabilitation-center-for-minors-in-conflict-with-the-law.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-25213-icihaiti-justice-project-to-take-care-of-200-minor-children-in-pre-trial-detention.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18649-haiti-justice-liberation-of-2-minors-illegally-detained-for-over-2-years.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-17795-icihaiti-justice-36-minors-released-from-cermicol.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Japanese President Shinzo Abe said Friday he absolutely would not think of reducing funding for the WHO at a time when it is leading the global fight against the COVID-19 virus.

Abe made the comments to reporters during a news briefing in Tokyo. He had been asked about U.S. President Donald Trump's decision earlier this week to temporarily halt U.S. funding for the WHO. Trump alleges there are failures in the organization's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 13:11:35|Editor: huaxia

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by Christopher Guly

OTTAWA, April 17 (Xinhua) -- While the economy remains stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian government gave a boost on Friday to the energy sector battered by low oil prices and oversupply.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced up to 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in federal funding to clean up orphan and inactive oil and gas wells in Canada's three western provinces: Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

Most of the orphan, or abandoned, wells -- 4,700 out of 5,650 -- are in oil-rich Alberta, which also is home to 91,000 inactive wells that are no longer productive. There are also 48,000 non-productive wells in the other two provinces.

Alberta will receive 714 million dollars of the federal funding for the clean-up operation, which is considered an essential service under the Canadian government's pandemic guidelines. Alberta's Premier Jason Kenney tweeted that the measure will get "thousands of people in the energy sector back to work immediately."

Trudeau said his government will also establish a 536-million-dollar emission reduction fund -- in the form of a repayable loan program -- to help oil and gas companies reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, with a focus on methane, which accounts for 43 percent of emissions.

"Many energy firms are experiencing a cash crunch, so they don't have the funds to invest in technologies to reduce emissions or fix methane leaks," Trudeau said at his Friday's news conference outside his residence.

To help deal with the COVID-19 crisis, 125 members of the Canadian Armed Forces with health care training will go to the French-speaking province of Quebec on Saturday.

As of Friday night, the province had 16,798 of the total 31,872 COVID-19 cases in Canada. It has also reported 688 deaths, more than half of the Canadian total at 1,310.

About half of Quebec's fatalities occurred at nursing homes or long-term care facilities for seniors, of which about three quarters have experienced COVID-19 outbreaks.

At the request of the Quebec government, the Canadian military team will assist doctors and nurses at the long-term care centers.

On Friday, Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau also announced a new measure due to take effect on Monday, which will require all airline passengers to cover their mouths and noses with either a non-medical mask or other face covering at airport screening checkpoints.

"Aviation passengers on all flights departing or arriving at Canadian airports will also be required to demonstrate they have the necessary non-medical mask or face covering during the boarding process, otherwise they will not be allowed to continue on their journey," said a news release of the ministry on Friday. Enditem
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday gave the green light for some beaches in northern Florida to reopen, even though the state has continued to see an increase in coronavirus cases.

As of Friday, Florida had reported over 24,000 cases and nearly 700 deaths.

DeSantis has received backlash for his handling of his state's outbreak, first for his refusal to close the beaches in March during spring break and then for his selection of "essential" businesses that includes the WWE Performance Center in Orlando.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is allowing some beaches in northern Florida to reopen, The Associated Press reported on Friday, even though the state has continued to see an increase in coronavirus cases.

As of Friday, Florida had reported over 24,000 cases of the virus and nearly 700 deaths.

DeSantis, who initially left it up to local officials to close their beaches and other establishments, said at a news conference on Friday that some counties could start reopening their beaches if they wanted, adding that it was important for people to get fresh air, the AP reported.

"Do it in a good way," DeSantis said. "Do it in a safe way."

Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry said beaches in Duval County would reopen from 6 to 11 a.m. and 5 to 8 p.m., the AP said. Meanwhile, St. Johns County, where DeSantis lives, said it would reopen its beaches from 6 a.m. to noon daily.

"Folks, this could be the beginning of the pathway back to normal life, but please respect and follow these limitations," Curry said in a video on social media, according to the AP. "We'll get back to life as we know it, but we must be patient."

Gatherings of 50 or more people are still banned, and people are encouraged to socially distance on the beach as they exercise or do activities like surfing.

"Walk to exercise, not to socialize," said Dawn C. Allicock, the director of the Florida Department of Health in St. Johns County. "As long as individuals adhere to the CDC guidelines of social distancing, getting exercise and fresh air can be beneficial for our citizens' physical and mental health."

Story continues

DeSantis faced backlash after initially refusing to issue a statewide order closing Florida's beaches in March during spring break, leaving local governments to deal with the influx of young people who came to their cities. The New York Times reported last week that tourism is an $86 billion industry for the state.

After DeSantis finally issued a statewide stay-at-home order on April 1, he said local authorities could not impose stronger restrictions. Since then, he has said that the WWE Performance Center in Orlando is an essential business and has refused to ban church services.

Read the original article on Business Insider
TROY  Chinese parents of international students stuck in New York college dorms due to the COVID-19 crisis know first-hand what New Yorkers are going through as the state's lockdown drags into its second month.

Parents in China began reaching out to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in March to ask how they can help support the health of the campus and the wider New York community. RPI last month transitioned to online instruction to limit the risks to the campus community, but many international students and others with extenuating circumstances remain in campus housing.

The inquiry led to a coordinated effort involving more than 200 Chinese families to ship thousands of surgical masks from China to the Troy college, RPI officials said.

I really appreciate all the efforts RPI has made to keep students safe and ensure that classes are ongoing during the pandemic, one parent from China wrote to college leaders as plans to ship the masks came together. I fully understand the challenges you are facing now, as China just experienced the same challenges in the past two months. All the Chinese parents are very glad to do what we can do to support RPI and overcome these difficulties.

RPI announced Wednesday that it will donate 10,000 of the masks to New York hospitals; 5,000 surgical masks will be sent to Mount Sinai in New York City and Albany Medical Center and St. Peters Health Partners in the Capital Region will each receive 2,500 masks.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

In addition to donating 10,000 masks to hospitals, Rensselaer will be able to provide surgical masks to all students remaining in campus housing, as well as all essential staff who may be returning or continuing to work on campus, on an ongoing basis as a result of this international collaboration, school officials said.

We thank these incredibly generous families for their support and their ingenuity during this difficult time, school President Shirley Ann Jackson said. As they have demonstrated, Rensselaer is truly a global community, and we are all committed to doing our part to change the world for the better. We are glad to be able to extend the goodwill of our parents in China to support the health care workers on the front lines of the battle with COVID-19 in New York.
Singapores health ministry confirmed 942 more coronavirus infections on Saturday, a new daily record, the vast majority of which are among migrant workers living in dormitories.

Authorities have managed to mitigate the spread of the virus and the COVID-19 respiratory disease it causes among Singapores citizens by rigorous contact tracing and surveillance, earning praise from the World Health Organization.

The Ministry of Health reported just 14 cases among Singaporeans and permanent residents on Saturday.

But the disease is spreading rapidly within the large migrant worker community, highlighting what rights groups say is a weak link in containment efforts. Authorities have ramped up testing for the disease in the dormitories.

Saturdays new cases takes the total in the city-state, which is under a partial lockdown, to 5,992. It has reported 11 deaths from the disease.

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Jersey Shore business owners say they cant pretend they wouldnt be hurt if forced to stay closed until June or July thanks to the coronavirus, and some say they might never reopen if that happens and they lose half their summer season.

Obviously, its going to affect us, Maria Saltzman, a spokesperson for the Casino Pier amusement park in Seaside Heights, said of Gov. Phil Murphys prediction that his shutdown order might not begin to reverse until June or July. Whenever it turns out to be, Saltzman added, If they let us re-open, well be ready."

Until then, arcades, amusements, pool clubs, souvenir shops and other non-essential businesses that are staples of the Jersey Shore experience will remain closed. Restaurants and bars are allowed to sell food and drink for take-out and delivery, but those orders account for a negligible share of the bar or restaurant business at the Shore, where business leaders say dinner is at least as much about socializing as it is about satisfying appetites.

The June-July timeframe means Shore businesses would remain dormant through the Memorial Day holiday weekend, the unofficial start of the summer season and a big money-maker.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Businesses that are open | Homepage

At the Long Branch Chamber of Commerce, officials said they were hoping that Murphy would take a cue from his New York counterpart, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has so far scheduled his states lockdown to end May 15. Its the same date Murphy set on Thursday for the end of his statewide schools closure, though Murphy was extending the previous school closing end date by a month, from April 17.

I really believe that the governors going get us up and running by mid-May, said Pauline Poyner, a realtor who is president of the Long Branch chamber. I think he has an understanding of how important the Shore economy is to New Jersey, and I think hes going to meet with economists who are going to guide him accordingly.

If the closure remains in effect as long as the governor suggested, Poyner said it would likely mean that some businesses never reopen, regardless of loans or grants to keep them solvent.

I have to think of course it would, she said. Theres only so much money the state can pump into these places if theyre not doing business.

Payner said Long Branch hosts the Jersey Shores biggest Fourth of July gathering, the annual Oceanfest, which attracts a 250,000 people.

Poyner suggested using some of the same social distancing strategies now in effect for essential businesses to allow tourist attractions to reopen. If we have people going to the grocery stores with their masks on, why cant they go into other businesses with their masks and their gloves? she said.

Asked if she thought people would be willing to take the same precautions for voluntary leisure activities that they now must do for essential business, Poyner said, I dont have the answer to that, but whatever has to be done we need to open the economy.

OceanFest in Long Branch, see in this undated photo, is said to be the largest July 4 gathering on the Jersey Shore, typically drawing a quarter-million people, the local chamber of commerce said. Social distancing could be problem at the event.Mark R. Sullivan | For NJ Advance Media

Poyner expressed a view increasingly popular among conservative pundits, midwestern governors and others that the cure  that is, social distancing, shutdowns and other measures intended to curb the spread of COVID-19  is becoming more harmful than the disease itself, with more than 20 million Americans having lost their jobs in the past month.

The harm wrought by the virus, on the other hand, includes 633,954 confirmed cases and 28,280 deaths nationwide as of Thursday, including 75,317 cases and 3,518 deaths in New Jersey.

In an interview on Fox Wednesday touching on the issue, Murphy told host Tucker Carlson that the economic toll of his closure order did weigh on him, heavily. But Murphy said his administration continues to, make every call based on the facts, the data, the science as best we can, and that the alternative  allowing the virus to go unchecked  was worse.

In Cape May, the pandemic has not been the best of times for Susan and Carl Spatocco, a husband and wife duo who run the Cape Island Foods group, which produces Cape May brand peanut butter and olive oil, a Spice Cellar shop, and the Wing Nutz Nut House at Cape May Airport. They also run the Inn at the Park Bed and Breakfast in town.

Apart from only being able to visit their newest grandchild via Facetime, the Spatoccos have seen all their businesses take a hit.

Even with the payroll stimulus packages, once that's all said and done, that will probably make us whole for the end of April, Carl said. Anything we go beyond that, the money's gone.

The entrances to Jenkinson's Boardwalk in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., are blocked off, Thursday, March 26, 2020. Point Pleasant Beach closed its boardwalk Tuesday amid concerns the boardwalk was too narrow to safely practice social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.Lori M. Nichols | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

But the Spatoccos are optimistic. They and other business owners in the Victorian seaside resort at the states southern tip are looking forward to reopening, with touches to accommodate social distancing and make customers feel at ease.

The restaurants have already started doing things like setting the tables further out and things like that, he said. We are hoping that people are not afraid to come down and spend their money in Cape May.

Fortunately, the Spatoccos had a decent run before the outbreak, allowing them to keep their full-time employees on the job, and even do a little more than that.

We actually were able to finalize a 401(K) where were contributing into their retirement and everything, he said. Thats keeping our people going. Were very fortunate in that respect that we have great managers and great staff. We certainly didnt want to lose anyone."

Back in Seaside Heights, Casino Pier is not only one of the boroughs biggest taxpayers, its also its biggest seasonal employer, hiring 500 workers every summer, including local residents and people from surrounding areas, as well as students from overseas.

And every day that the parks Ferris wheel doesnt turn and its coaster doesnt roll is both a lost day of fun for kids and adults who ride them, as well as a day out of work for people who count on the amusement pier for at least part of their overall annual income.

Earlier this year, there had been concern among Jersey Shore employers that they might not be able to fill summer positions if international travel restrictions kept out overseas students who make up a significant portion of their workforce. More recently, however, as the seriousness of the outbreak has intensified, concern has shifted to whether those businesses will be permitted to operate at all.

And Saltzman said the availability of labor is no longer an issue, after layoffs resulting from the forced closing of so many year-round businesses.

A lot of people are unemployed right now, so well be able to accept them, Saltzman said.

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.

If you would like updates on New Jersey-specific coronavirus news, subscribe to our Coronavirus in N.J. newsletter.

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips

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Congress leader Jitin Prasada on Saturday urged Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to rescue the people from the state who are stuck in various parts of the country, suggesting that a control room be set up in Lucknow to coordinate such efforts.

In a letter to Adityanath, Prasada said thousands of migrants from Uttar Pradesh are stranded in different parts of the country due to the outbreak of the coronavirus and uncertainty and fear has gripped their minds and that of their families.

"In the hour of this crisis, these people, especially in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru as well as from other parts of the country, are longing to return to their permanent residence.They are looking at the state government for help," the former Union minister said.

In his letter, Prasada made four suggestions to the UP government including one that a survey be conducted at the tehsil or block level to find out details like in which part of the country are people with permanent residence in the state stranded and get a rough estimate of the logistics for the help that would be needed.

A control room be set up in Lucknow and its number should be widely disseminated so that people stranded outside the state as well as their family members can be reached out to and their needs assessed, said Prasada.

"This will also help the government to understand the seriousness of this problem and to raise the required resources for its solution," the Congress leader said.

This will also help in keeping close tabs on the problems of migrant labourers who have gone to different parts of the country in search of employment, find solutions for them, as well as to contact the concerned state governments, he said.

Prasada urged the chief minister to take appropriate measures to ensure the safe return of the people from the state who are stranded in other parts of the country.

There is also a need to arrange for the health checkup and quarantine facilities in the vicinity of the residence of those returning to the state, he said.

Prasada said such people would also need financial assistance, ration and other reliefs to sustain them in this time of crisis.

He also thanked the chief minister for bringing back students from Kota in Rajasthan.

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday, in a letter to Adityanath, had sought the setting up of a task force for economic revival in Uttar Pradesh and providing relief for farmers and labourers in the state suffering due to the crisis created by coronavirus.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, Tim Hepher, Koustav Samanta, Laurence Frost, Reuters | Apr. 15, 2020

Demand for flights and jet fuel could take years to recover from the coronavirus crisis as airlines struggle to survive their worst downturn, haunted by possible changes in the habits of tourists and business travellers.

Among the various fuels, jet has been hit hardest and industry leaders warn it will take years for all-important airline-industry demand to return to 2019 levels.

"Jet fuel consumption will be impacted for a longer time and maybe not recover fully even next year, as travellers remain concerned about long-haul vacations, and businesses get used to online meetings," said Per Magnus Nysveen, head of analysis at Rystad Energy, a consultancy.

Exemptions for agriculture and freight from widespread lockdowns have offered some support to diesel and fuel oil, but jet demand remains weak as a significant slice of the world's 23,000-strong commercial plane fleet is in storage.

Jet fuel prices in Singapore JET-SIN have slumped 61% over the last two months. Refining margins or cracks for jet fuel in Singapore JET-SIN are currently lingering at narrow premiums over Dubai crude after hitting minus $3.35 per barrel earlier this month, their lowest on record.

The International Air Transport Association, representing airlines, has already warned of a slower recovery than in past crises. On Tuesday, it raised its forecast for 2020 revenue losses by 25% to $314 billion.

Director General Alexandre de Juniac told Reuters he sees a staggered lifting of restrictions starting with domestic, then regional and finally intercontinental routes being reopened where fuel consumption plays a critical role.

IATA has warned any recovery would not start before the last quarter of the year.

Planemakers Airbus and Boeing have also warned of an extended crisis, with few analysts predicting a return to previous conditions until 2023 or 2024.

According to Robert Stallard of Vertical Research Partners, it could be almost five years before the active aircraft fleet returns to where it was at the end of 2019.

But the head of Ryanair, Europe's largest low-cost airline, brushed off forecasts of a sluggish recovery, telling Reuters he saw a swift traffic rebound fuelled by "massive price-dumping" in a race to win back passengers.

Just as important for fuel demand, many airlines expect to use the crisis to speed up retirements of their oldest and thirstiest jets. That said, low oil prices mean the incentive to invest in costly new equipment is tempered for now.

Jet fuel demand averages about 8 million barrels per day (bpd). The International Energy Agency said on Wednesday it expected demand for jet fuel and kerosene to fall by 2.1 million bpd on average in 2020, or 26%.

"The full effect of these measures is likely to be seen in April, when demand will fall by 4.6 million bpd (-59%), a historic record," it said in its monthly report.

Rystad expected jet fuel demand to fall at least 1.9 million bpd in 2020, and JBC Energy consultancy estimated jet fuel demand over the next few months would fall to below 2 million bpd and to 5.2 million bpd on average in 2020.

"We see some normalisation only in 2021," said JBC Energy Asia's managing director Richard Gorry, who sees a drop of 70% in jet fuel demand in the second quarter of 2020.

Some analysts believe growth in online working during mandatory lockdowns might not disappear entirely once the coronavirus goes away. For finance directors, that offers a tempting chance to reduce office, event and travel costs.

Homayoun Falakshahi, senior analyst at Kpler, said leisure trips could recover in the next couple of years, but business travel may take longer.

"Technology improvement is a key reason why we don't think business travel will resume sharply any time soon," he said.

Others say pressure to do business face-to-face will resume when economies grow. Air travel and GDP have been closely tied.

Airport health checks, while helping to restore confidence through visible safety measures, could also discourage people from travelling by air. "Rather like what happened in the United States after 9/11, we could see the imposition of health checks, more paperwork, and basically more hassle and time getting through airports," said Stallard.

Changing lifestyles could also play a role. Under lockdowns people are adapting to a more local existence and consuming less globally produced fresh food, which may have a lasting impact on fuel demand, analysts at Goldman Sachs said. "Commuters and airlines account for 16 million bpd of global oil demand and may never return to their prior levels."

But IATA's de Juniac said economic integration, which has supported consistent growth in air transport.

"Yes there will be a slowdown - there is already - but after a while people will recognise all the benefits coming from globalisation," he said in a video interview.
Our undercover friend told us a different story. He showed us, once again, how the authorities stop at nothing to control the narrative coming out of China. His creeping presence was also a painful reminder that this trip would be my last in China for a while. At the end of the week, I had to leave the country, a part of an expulsion of the majority of reporters for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A federal judge weighing whether to order the release of hundreds of inmates from a federal prison in Ohio where the coronavirus has quickly spread seemed keenly interested as to why the prison had so few tests.

U.S. District Judge James Gwin raised the issue at a hearing held Friday for a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. The organization is seeking the release of vulnerable inmates from Federal Correctional Institution Elkton in Columbiana County, where several inmates have already died.

The judge, whose courtroom is in Cleveland, wondered how the Federal Bureau of Prisons reluctance to release potentially vulnerable inmates squared with statements made by President Donald Trump about an abundance of testing. The presidents insistence goes against statements made by medical professionals nationwide who say tests are short supply and only available to a fraction of the population.

Youve got the president every day saying testings available for everybody, Gwin said to Assistant U.S. Attorney James Bennett. And youre saying you only had 59 total tests and only have 25 of the rapid tests per week for a population of 1,500.

Bennett responded that he could not speak to the overall lack of tests but said the prisons bureau does not have enough.

I know that they desire to get more tests, Bennett said. Why they cant, I cant speak to that. I also cant speak to statements made in the press or by other government officials regarding getting tests. I can only report to the court what information the prison has and the number of tests that they have.

Gwins numbers were slightly off, but his point still stood. Elktons grounds encompass the central prison with 2,000 inmates and a satellite facility with more than 400 inmates.

Bennett wrote in a court filing Saturday that the prison had 55 coronavirus tests  five from LabCorp and 50 from the Columbiana County Health Department. It also received a testing machine and 25 rapid test cassettes from the prisons bureau on Monday and expected an additional 25 cassettes each week.

The staff has tested 37 inmates, and others were tested at outside hospitals, Bennett wrote.

Elkton, about 100 miles southeast of Cleveland, has been the home to one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks of any federal prison in the country. Six prisoners have died as of Saturday. Bennett wrote that 59 inmates have confirmed cases of the virus. Officials suspect another 207 have it. The prison is on lockdown, and inmates who either have it or are suspected of having it are isolated.

Gov. Mike DeWine has deployed members of the Ohio National Guard to assist at the prison, and U.S. Attorney General William Barr has told officials to look at certain inmates cases and see if they qualify for release on home confinement. Bennett said six had been approved for release so far.

The ACLU on Monday sued to force the prisons bureau to release hundreds of inmates from Elkton, to protect their safety and to allow inmates to socially distance. The prisons bureau opposes the motion and says staff is taking adequate precautions to protect inmates. It also said they fear an undue burden placed local law enforcement should those released on home confinement or otherwise commit more crimes.

Gwin, a 1997 appointee of President Bill Clinton, indicated he would likely rule by early next week.

He asked attorneys on both sides on how many inmates have medical conditions that could put them at increased risk of illness associated with coronavirus. It was not clear from the hearing how many inmates could be affected, but Bennett said 772 inmates at Elkton are over the age of 50.

Laura Osseck, an attorney for Disability Rights Ohio, also wrote in a brief that Elkton accommodates prisoners with certain medical conditions that officials say could put them at increased risk.

ACLU attorney David Carey said the prison space, which does not involve cells but rather open dorm areas with partitions for sleeping areas, makes spreading out impossible at the current population level.

The prisoners are unable to socially distance. They are rubbing up against each other at all hours and they are subjected, by the fact of being there, to an extreme degree of risk to their health and to the health of the surrounding community, Carey said.

Read more:

BOP says sixth inmate dies of coronavirus at Elkton federal prison in Ohio

Groups seek release of hundreds of inmates from Ohio federal prison where 3 inmates died from coronavirus

Ohio National Guard will assist with coronavirus response at Elkton federal prison

U.S. attorney general says officials must prioritize releasing inmates at federal prison in Ohio due to coronavirus outbreak
New Jersey on Saturday reported another 3,026 positive coronavirus tests and 231 new deaths related to COVID-19, bringing the statewide total to at least 81,420 confirmed cases and 4,070 fatalities  though officials continued to stress signs of hope.

Gov. Phil Murphy said despite the big increase, the rates of both infections and hospitalizations are stabilizing after a month of stay-at-home orders and business closings.

We are flattening the curve, Murphy said during his daily coronavirus press briefing in Trenton, noting that residents following lockdown orders are making a real difference."

This is a credit to each and every one of you who has taken to heart our aggressive social distancing measures and who continue to do your part, he said.

The governor added that the state is now reporting more people leaving the hospital than entering."

Murphy presented a series of charts to show how rates are leveling off:

Look at this graph: the rate of growth of new cases over the past 21 days



We are flattening the curve.



This is a credit to each and every one of you who has taken to heart our aggressive social distancing measures and who continues to do your part. pic.twitter.com/9TYtnKS9VA  Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) April 18, 2020

Look at this chart: the daily rates of new hospitalizations since April 1st.



There is a direct cause-effect relationship between this graph and the first one. The slower the rate of new cases, the slower the rate of new hospitalizations. Its really that simple. pic.twitter.com/dTA0L9tSbf  Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) April 18, 2020

Need further proof of why we must keep up with our aggressive social distancing?



Look at this map  the time it is taking for cases to double across much of the state is slowing significantly. pic.twitter.com/aj1asf1DJD  Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) April 18, 2020

Still, Murphy said cases and deaths are still being confirmed, and hes not ready to lift lockdown restrictions in the state. He called on all New Jerseyans to continue staying home and maintaining social distancing when outside to make sure the numbers dont surge back up.

Heres the problem: The short connection between an abrupt change in human behavior and all those charts, graphs, and progress is shocking," the governor said. In other words, if we let our guard down right now, we would literally see it tomorrow."

Were not out of the woods," Murphy added. "We have not yet plateaued.

Plus, despite the release of daily statistics, its difficult to get a complete picture of exactly how many people in New Jersey currently have COVID-19 because the state is testing only residents who are showing symptoms and test results have been backed up for up days. The state also is not reporting significant increases in daily testing, so it is unclear exactly how quickly the virus is spreading.

But Murphy stressed that the state knows for sure that the death and hospitalization curves are flattening, and he stressed the state is working to increase testing.

The governor also got heated over a Facebook post from Atlantic County Surrogate James Curcio, who called on officials to immediately reopen New Jersey without restrictions.

That is irresponsible," Murphy said. (If) we quote-unquote untie the system right now, there will be blood on our hands. And I want to make sure folks understand that. This is literally life and death."

New Jersey, a state of 9 million residents, continues to be one of the nations coronavirus hot spots. Only neighboring New York has more cases and deaths among U.S. states.

Its a number that takes your breath away, Murphy said of the total deaths in New Jersey.

As of 10 p.m. Friday, the state had 7,718 coronavirus patients hospitalized, with 2,024 in critical care, 1,641 on ventilators, and 90 patients at field medical stations.

Murphy said 814 coronavirus patients were discharged from New Jersey hospitals between 10 p.m. Thursday and 10 p.m. Friday.

State Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said Friday she believes North Jersey has already seen the peak of hospitalizations from COVID-19. Still, she noted Central and South Jersey are still awaiting their peaks.

There have now been 9,692 coronavirus patients discharged from New Jersey hospitals, Persichilli said Saturday.

She said 125 of the new deaths reported Saturday  more than half  were at New Jerseys longterm care facilities.

There have now been at least 10,163 cases and 1,655 related deaths at the states 413 longterm care centers, which includes nursing homes, veterans homes, and similar facilities.

In all, 147,850 coronavirus tests have been performed in the Garden State since the outbreak began, with a positivity rate of 45.14%, Persichilli said.

The racial breakdown of deaths among New Jerseyans with known medical histories is 50.9% white, 22% black, 16.7% Hispanic, 5.4% Asian and 5.8% other races.

COMPARING CORONAVIRUS TO THE FLU

Murphy said hes heard of some residents are not taking the coronavirus outbreak seriously because they compare it to the flu.

Based on everything we know, that point of view is wrong," the governor said in an angry tone. Surely, we see flu outbreaks every year, and yes, New Jerseyans die of the flu every year. But the flu has not caused the devastation we are seeing. Especially among our most vulnerable populations.

Murphy noted the states 4,070 deaths from COVID-19 over the last six weeks is more than those "lost in past three flu seasons in their entirety combined.

He also said COVID-19 is more contagious, the hospitalizations are higher, and, most notably, there is no vaccine, unlike with the flu.

This is a pandemic the likes of which we havent seen in a century," Murphy said.

FEARS OF MASSIVE LAYOFFS

At the same time, Murphy warned the state could face massive and historic layoffs among public workers because of sharply lower revenue coming in amid the pandemic and shutdowns. To avoid that, he said, New Jersey needs direct state aid approved by Congress and the state needs to approve emergency plans for borrowing money.

We need both direct financial assistance to the states via a stimulus bill and we will need bonding flexibility in either case, the governor said.

CORONAVIRUS CASES IN EACH COUNTY

Here are the latest county-by-county breakdowns of confirmed cases as of early Saturday afternoon, according to the state coronavirus tracking website. Hudson County has now surpassed Essex County in overall cases, but Essex still has far more fatal cases.

Bergen County: 12,163 cases, with 741 deaths

Hudson County: 9,956 cases, with 434 deaths

Essex County: 9,901 cases, with 732 deaths

Union County: 8,959 cases, with 356 deaths

Passaic County: 7,936 cases, with 243 deaths

Middlesex County: 7,624 cases, with 313 deaths

Ocean County: 4,548 cases, with 212 deaths

Monmouth County: 4,528 cases, with 221 deaths

Morris County: 3,984 cases, with 255 deaths

Somerset County: 2,283 cases, with 146 deaths

Mercer County: 2,215 cases, with 110 deaths

Camden County: 1,918 cases, with 73 deaths

Burlington County: 1,456 cases, with 57 deaths

Gloucester County: 683 cases, with 23 deaths

Sussex County: 626 cases, with 55 deaths

Warren County: 543 cases, with 39 deaths

Hunterdon County: 391 cases, with 17 deaths

Atlantic County: 382 cases, with 19 deaths

Cumberland County: 272 cases, with 4 deaths

Cape May County: 199 cases, with 14 deaths

Salem County: 105 cases, with 4 deaths

There are another 748 cases and two deaths that are still under investigation to determine where the people reside.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump unveiled guidelines that governors can take to gradually lifting coronavirus restrictions and reopen the U.S. economy in phases. But Trump said the decision is ultimately up to individual states, and he admitted New Jersey and New York will not open soon.

Murphy stressed again Saturday that tough restrictions need to stay in place until there is rapid-scale testing, contact tracing, and means to quarantine and isolate the infected.

Those elements must be in place," the governor said. "Then we can have the confidence, you can have the confidence that we can begin to open again.

As of early Saturday afternoon, more than 2.2 million people across the globe had tested positive for COVID-19, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. Of those, more than 156,100 had died  including 37,300 in the United States.

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.

If you would like updates on New Jersey-specific coronavirus news, subscribe to our Coronavirus in N.J. newsletter.

Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01. Len Melisurgo may be reached at LMelisurgo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @LensReality. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips

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Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to yield under pressure. That is a matter of pride for Putin himself and a key aspect of his appeal to Russian elites and the public alike. The trick is preserving that reputation in the real world, where leaders routinely miscalculate and pivot while remaining loathe to admitting mistakes. The plunge in oil prices because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the collapse of the OPEC+ agreement on production cuts provide the most recent test.

In early March, the Saudis called for a meeting of the OPEC+ group to agree on further drastic production cuts of 1.5 million barrels a day to support oil prices as COVID-19 spread, crushing economic activity and demand. The Russians balked. According to the spokesperson of Rosneft, Russias oil-sector national champion run by Igor Sechin, a close associate of Putins: This deal made no sense from the standpoint of Russian interests. By removing cheap Arab and Russian oil from our own markets, we open up the way for expensive American shale oil. Moscow wanted to maintain current levels of production for a few months to get a better sense of the economic consequences of the spreading pandemic before deciding on further cuts. And, when those cuts came, it wanted to make sure that the United States bore its fair share.

Moscow also had other reasons for wanting to strike a blow against the American energy sector. Late last year, Washington levied sanctions against Nord Stream 2, a strategic gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, pushing back its completion date by at least several months and raising costs, at a time when American shale gas was entering European markets. More recently, the United States sanctioned a Rosneft subsidiary, Rosneft Trading, for assisting the Maduro regime in circumventing US restrictions on Venezuelan oil exports.

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But Moscow did not anticipate the Saudi reaction to its refusal to agree to further cuts. The Saudis threat to open the spigot and offer steep discounts on their oil exports pushed oil prices down to lows not seen in decades. The price war had begun, even if only the Saudis were prosecuting it robustly: The Saudis had the capacity to add 2.5 million barrels a day, the Russians, 300,000. True to form, Moscow was defiant. Despite Russias dependence on oil for two-thirds of its export earnings and 40 percent of its budget revenue, the Ministry of Finance announced that Russia could withstand prices as low as $25 a barrel for up to ten years. It would draw on its $150 billion National Wealth Fund to cover gaps in the budget, currently based on an oil price of $42 a barrel. That was certainly an exaggeration, and the Russian oil industry itself would suffer significant damage in the short term if wells had to be capped. Still, the ministry sent the unequivocal message that Moscow would not back down.

Story continues

Downward slide: Many governments slow economic activity in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, yet an OPEC+ agreement to slash output may not lift prices to early March levels (Source: Investing.com)



Despite such rhetoric, the collapse in oil prices raised grave domestic challenges for Putin. Earlier this year, in Russias analog to the State of the Union address, Putin stressed his determination to stimulate the economy and raise living standards, which have largely stagnated for the past six years. The bleak socioeconomic conditions were fueling discontent across the country, as Russians protested over educational, health and ecological matters, as well as official corruption, callousness and incompetence. The unrest has not risen to levels that threaten Putin, but the Kremlin has historically been wary of mass discontent  workers protests after all played a role in the overthrow of Russian autocracy in 1917 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

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Now, the global economic consequences of COVID-19 would inevitably slow Russian economic growth. A prolonged collapse in oil prices would almost certainly push the economy into recession. Putins promises evaporated. In these circumstances, Putin needs to raise and stabilize oil prices. The question was how to do that without appearing to yield to Saudi or American pressure.

US President Donald. Trump gave Putin the opening he sought. Trump initially greeted the price collapse as a big tax cut, but by the end of March, he changed his tune under pressure from the domestic oil sector. He set about trying to persuade the two strongmen he had cultivated since assuming office, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Putin, to agree to major production cuts.

On March 31, Trump called Putin to discuss the novel coronavirus crisis and oil markets. Kremlin statements routinely note who initiates the call when Putin talks to foreign leaders, and the Kremlin readout makes it clear that Trump made the call  the inference was that Trump, not Putin, urgently needed relief from the price war and the pandemic. The next day Russia sent a planeload of humanitarian assistance to New York, underscoring again that the United States, not Russia, was in need. Three days later, Putin announced that Russia was prepared to work with its partners, the United States and Saudi Arabia, to stabilize oil markets. Production, he said could be reduced by up to 10 million barrels day. He supported another meeting of OPEC+ to work out the details. As far as Moscow was concerned, cuts in US production, a key Russian goal from the outset of the crisis, would have to be part of the deal.

As Putin was pivoting, two narratives for the oil price war gained greater prominence in Russian media. One presented the Saudis as determined to drive American shale oil off the market by cratering oil prices. The other suggested the price war was, from the beginning, a US-Saudi conspiracy to undermine the Russian oil sector through a combination of production cuts and sanctions. The first narrative absolved Russia of any ill will against the United States, and the second portrayed Russia as an innocent victim. Both reinforced standard Kremlin tropes of Russian goodwill and victimhood.

Where oil prices will settle in the next few months is far from certain. Daniel Yergin, a leading expert on the global energy sector, has noted in Foreign Affairs that prices will likely plummet in late April and May as demand plunges and storage capacity is depleted. The cuts OPEC+ agreed to this weekend  9.7 million barrels a day  are insufficient to stave off the decline in price. In this environment, US production will inevitably drop, as Moscow wants, but so will Saudi and Russian production, beyond what was already negotiated, if not through further negotiations then through market dynamics. No matter what Trump, MBS and Putin do, tougher times lie ahead. But, for Russians, despite the initial miscalculations, Putin will appear as a decisive and constructive leader in battling the crisis, playing a stronger hand than Trump. More important, Putin, and Russia, did not yield.

By Yale Global Online

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

Read this article on OilPrice.com
Thiruvananthapuram, April 18 : A 52-year-old Congress leader M.A. Latheef is a no frills personality and is popular among the poorest of the poor in the capital city suburbs.

He has been with them whenever times are bad and by now has distributed over 2000 kits of rice since the beginning of this month.

An executive committee member of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, Latheef has been working amongst the fishermen and the SC/ST members in and around Kazhakootam, from where he hails, ever since Covid-19 struck.

On Saturday, former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy through video conferencing, inaugurated the day's distribution of the kit.

"We maintain social distancing and we (three of us) go to the homes of these people and distribute the kit which consists of 4 to 5 kilogram of rice. We first identify the families and give them a token and tell them to be at their homes. The next day we go and give the kit," said Latheef, who has a few volunteers for distribution.

"The entire money for sourcing rice comes from my friends and well wishers. As a policy, we rarely collect money, instead, tell them to pay it to the rice dealer. We then go and collect the rice bags. Then we pack it in packets of 4 and 5 kilograms. It's then handed over to the people. By now we have distributed over 2000 kits," said Latheef.

He says the next area which he has identified is where around 500 families are there and is now waiting to make arrangements for supplying there, but the source of funds is yet to come.

"I am confident, people will come to help the poorest of the poor," said the unassuming Congress leader who has been a friend of the poor since his student days.
US consulate warns Americans to avoid Chinese city terrorizing black people McDonalds apologizes for banning black people from entering restaurant in China

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As a U.S. consulate has advised African Americans to stay away from the Chinese city of Guangzhou, where authorities have forced people of African origin out of their homes and hotels and denied them access to buy food in an alleged crackdown on imported coronavirus, a McDonalds restaurant has apologized for banning black people from entering its restaurant.

Black people are not allowed to enter, said a sign displayed at a McDonalds restaurant in the southern Guangzhou metropolitan area, according to numerous social media posts after Chinese officials alleged that the incidence of imported coronavirus cases was rising.

The sign is not representative of our inclusive values and has been removed, McDonalds said in a statement to NBC News on Friday.

The restaurant has been temporarily shut down to further educate managers and employees on our values, which includes serving all members of the communities in which we operate, the fast-food chain added.

Taking note of a campaign against black people, the office of the U.S. Consulate General Guangzhou said the city police ordered bars and restaurants not to serve clients who appear to be of African origin.

It added, Moreover, local officials launched a round of mandatory tests for COVID-19, followed by mandatory self-quarantine, for anyone with African contacts, regardless of recent travel history or previous quarantine completion. African Americans have also reported that some businesses and hotels refuse to do business with them.

Chinas government denied that it has discriminated against African brothers," despite mounting evidence disputing the regime's claims.

All foreigners are treated equally, a foreign ministry spokesman claimed, according to The U.K. Sunday Times. We have zero tolerance for discrimination. The Chinese people always see in the African people partners and brothers through thick and thin. African friends can count on getting [a] fair, just, cordial and friendly reception in China.

The spokesman blamed the U.S. for sowing discord, calling it irresponsible and immoral.

On social media in China, topics like a black man beating a nurse in Guangzhou and five Nigerians being tested positive for COVID-19 are trending.

Amid the reports of discrimination, the musician turned Ugandan presidential candidate Bobi Wine is planning a humanitarian mission to airlift black people out of China, the Times reported.

Wine plans to use private jets of his wealthy contacts for the mission. He also said that there are over a million Chinese people in Africa, who are in most cases treated better than Africans.

Our priority is to restore our peoples dignity. This virus did not start in Africa so it is not right that Africans should be punished for it, he added.

Nigerian activists are urging their government to intervene and warning China that its diplomatic relations with Nigeria could be at risk due to the discrimination, according to The Epoch Times.

In Nigeria, we have a lot of Chinese. I dont think you have ever received any information that the government of Nigeria go to their various houses and pick them for quarantine, so why are Africans and indeed Nigerians being targeted? asked the Consul-General of the Nigerian High Commission in China, Anozie Maduabuchi Cyril. We have European people here, people from America, Spain, and Italy and other countries, so why are you harassing them?

There have been reports pointing to the responsibility of the Chinese Communist Party in putting millions of lives and the global economy at huge risk due to its lies about the coronavirus outbreak.

Cardinal Charles Bo of Myanmar recently called on China to apologize to the world and pay compensation for the damage caused. There is one government that has primary responsibility for what it has done and what it has failed to do, and that is the CCP regime in Beijing, the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Yangon wrote in an op-ed published in UCA News.
Re: Stern vs Johnson ($) for Strategy Consulting [ #permalink

3 Kudos

Hmm. At Stern, the biggest benefit will be that in spring of MBA1, you can potentially do a consulting project. That will definitely help your 2nd year recruiting if you were not successful in your initial MBA1 fall search. In terms of community, it is a little bit true. However, if you want to spend time with people on campus, there will be plenty of them who you can do that with (there will be people who just can't do that for whatever reason, like me lol).



Now, all are these worth full-sticker price against full ride at Johnson? I don't know. I would say it depends on your risk tolerance. However, I normally side with taking money with lower ranked school as long as your prospective employer comes to your campus to recruit, because you have same opportunity to put your face in front of those employers. So, look at Johnson's employment report, and then if you're content with it (and you don't have 180k to throw away), I'd take money. If you end up at the same employer at graduation, you'd be so thankful that you took money not a higher ranked school.
When Karol Smiths mother got so sick she let her 20-year-old daughter care for her, Smith began to worry.

Rosa Gonzalez was fiercely independent and a little bit stubborn. The 60-year-old Allentown woman struggled with high-blood pressure and diabetes over her life, so Smith had navigated illness with her mother before.

Smith called an ambulance early in the hours of April 2 after a harrowing night where her mother became increasingly disoriented. She thought it would be like the other times. A few days in the hospital and then back home.

Instead, her mother would be dead in a few hours, one of the 53 Lehigh Valley residents whose lives have been claimed by the coronavirus.

Gonzalezs swift death left her daughter reeling, trying to understand how a Costa Rican immigrant, who rarely left the house, had contracted a new virus that is taking the largest toll on the elderly and infirm.

It could really take one time, she said of the one time her mom went to the store. She really didnt go out.

After herself testing positive for COVID-19, Smiths watched the virus sweep through Allentown. She believes her peers and neighbors dont seem to take the deadly virus seriously.

Lehigh County has surpassed 2,000 coronavirus cases with more than 61% of them involving Allentown residents, with four wards seeing the highest number of cases. The county remains the statewide leader in coronavirus cases per capita, with about 554 per 100,000 residents.

Smith is sharing her mothers story on Facebook and with lehighvalleylive.com in hopes of convincing young people this can happen to their family.

If you are in my age group, if you care about people in your family who are older than you, you have to be the one to prevent it, Smith, who is a style assistant at Sleek Style Salon in the city, said.

She got tested for the virus after her mothers death and learned shed also contracted it. Shes feeling better after self-quarantining through her recovery.

I didnt realize. I had a small cough and I thought it was allergies or something," Smith said. "I didnt take it as seriously. I didnt go get checked or anything. And then my mom got sick.

Her mother was sick for a few days before she was hospitalized, but it did not seem serious. Worried about her mom contracting the virus at the hospital, Smith thought it was safest to keep her home.

Smith didnt sleep at all into the morning of April 2 as her mother became more and more disoriented. She helped her mother to the bathroom, adjusted her diabetes medication and kept forcing her to drink water.

When she began coughing up blood around 6 a.m., Smith called 911.

Gonzalez was taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital in Salisbury Township. Smith at first was not allowed to see her mother. When she was allowed into her mothers room, hospital staff informed her they suspected her mother had COVID-19.

Gonzalezs body was taking in dangerously low levels of oxygen when she got into the ambulance. At the hospital, Smith said her mothers oxygen levels improved enough she felt comfortable returning home to shower, disinfect the house and grab some belongings. She expected her mom to be hospitalized for some time.

While she was showering at home, hospital staff called to say they needed to put her mom on a ventilator. She asked to speak to her mother, who only spoke Spanish, to explain what was happening.

Her mother had always said she did not want to be placed on life support, Smith said. But in that moment Gonzalez agreed, saying she might die without it. Smith told her mother she loved her and consented to the intubation.

She began praying fiercely. Before she left their home, the hospital called again to say her mother might not make it.

It just happened so fast, Smith said,

By the time Smith made it back to the intensive care unit, her mother was gone.

I was in the waiting room basically, Smith said, adding she was on the phone with hospital staff as she made her way back to the unit. I dont remember anyones face that found me. I had all of these nurses around me. I was crying so hard.

Doctors told Smith the virus left her moms throat so swollen they were unable to intubate her. She was deprived of oxygen for too long after attempts at a tracheotomy failed.

The hospital allowed Smith to don protective gear to say goodbye to her mother. But she didnt linger. Her mother believed at death the soul left the body immediately and shed urged her daughter not to wail at her passing.

At least I got to be with her all night," Smith said referencing the prior evening. "My mom never let me take care of her and that day she did.

Gonzalez came to the U.S. from Costa Rica in 1998 on a work visa and eventually became a citizen. All of her family remains in her native country.

Her mother was a major bargain hunter, who made a lot of her income from flea marketing and reselling items. As Smith started her career, she enjoyed working and helping to provide for her mother.

She is still trying to understand how this all happened.

I just want people to take it more serious, Smith said. I still see people getting together in groups. Younger people can carry it and they wont know they have it and you are spreading it."

My generation is stubborn. They think its a joke. They just want to have fun and hang out, she said. Theres a whole pandemic happening. When I first heard of it in March, I felt like it was so far away. I felt like it was never going to happen to me.

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.

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.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > My Days in the IIIAS, Shimla: An Autobiographical Reflection in honour of (...)

by Kadayam Subramanian

December 17, 2019

I was Visiting Fellow at the prestigious Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla from 1973 to 1975. A former IB official, I had decided to research the evolution of the communist movement in India. My inspiration came partly from the conversations I had earlier had with the inspirational friend and Guru Dr. K. Raghavendra Rao Professor of Political Science, Karnatak University, Dharwad and also from my studies. I had a very useful time doing my work in Shimla. My sources of research were mainly published Indian and other material and conversations with my Guru, Professor Rao. I enjoyed my work and met several learned scholars. The studies contributed to my intellectual improvement. I had no thought about the publication of my work if at all. I did not realise the difficulties I would encounter from official agencies such as the IB and the Union Home Ministry in the process. Reading and writing were all for me. I had not realized that as a serving public official on study leave, I needed government approval for publication of my academic work. My struggle to get the necessary government approval was needless and prolonged. I had to go through an arduous difficulty before my book titled Parliamentary Communism: Crisis in the Indian Communist Movement, was published in 1989. In this process Professor Raos support was invaluable. He helped in getting myself admitted to a PhD programme under him in his department at the Karnatak University. Hence this article in his memory.

The circumstances which brought me to this situation is worth narration. During my earlier posting on law and order duties in New Delhi in the mid-1960s, I had been subjected to a physical attack causing a serious injury at the hands of a riotous mob of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) men. On recovery from the injury, I had been deputed to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) for five years.

While in the IB, I was placed in charge of the Kerala desk of the important B Group of branches of the IB (B for Bolshevik), which dealt with communist activities in India. This was an educative experience. I developed academic interest in the communist politics and became experienced in writing reports on communist politics of Kerala. Interactions with officials on other desks in the B Group were useful. The most important of these desks was the one dealing with ideological developments in the communist movement in India, which had been entrusted to an experienced official.

Every Friday, usually at 10 am, the IB officials held a meeting with the super boss of the organisation, the Director of the Intelligence Bureau or DIB, to brief him on political developments in different parts of the country. A battery of senior officials met the DIB at a conference to briefed him. The DIB was the holy cow of the IB and regarded with almost religious fervour. As the man in charge of the Kerala desk, I was part of the largish group of officials who briefed the DIB every Friday.

These meetings in the IB provided insights into matters of the moment for the IB. The DIB used these insights to educate the Home minister, the Prime Minister and so on.

At these Friday meetings, the DIB spoke rarely but listened intently to the various presentations by the highly submissive officials. A generalised atmosphere of supplication and information provision to the DIB was the norm. It was in this situation that at the Friday meeting once, I felt compelled to open up and correct the DIB on a factual point. on Kerala. Complete silence followed my brief intervention. The meeting ended. As everyone came out, I noticed that I was being avoided by my colleagues.

I did not I fully comprehend the impact of my intervention at the meeting with the big boss. However, at the next meeting with our immediate boss, I was briefly upbraided. The indication was that I had erred in attempting to correct the DIB. I realized that my days in the IB were numbered. When my B tenure ended in July 1972, I was asked to proceed to the Northeast on a so called punishment posting. I opted to return to my cadre of the IPS, which was also in the Northeast.

By then my academic interests had become prominent. Before my departure for the Northeast, I submitted a research proposal on Peaceful Transition to Socialism in India, a hot topic, to Professor SC Dube, Director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla. I also met the Director who appreciated my research interests.

In early 1973, I received a fellowship offer from the IIAS, Shimla. My application for the grant of study leave was rejected by the state government, whereupon I submitted a one-line resignation from the IPS. The Chief Secretary summoned me and after a serious conversation, he offered to grant me study leave for two years. I found myself in Shimla in March 1973.

My experience in the IIAS, Shimla was most interesting and educative. Meeting eminent scholars at one place and interacting with them on a daily basis was exhilarating. Professor Dube, a deep and refined sociologist, had welcomed me as a social scientist. The witty Professor VV John and the even wittier Ramu Gandhi, grandson of the Mahatma proved a great company.

My Guru, the erudite political philosopher, poet, novelist, social anthropologist and political theorist Professor K Raghavendra Rao of the Karnatak University Dharwad was also in Shimla. He played a crucial role in my academic work at the IIAS. At the end of my two-year term at the Institute, I submitted to the Director IIAS my output work titled The Ideological Evolution of the Indian Communist Movement in the Post-independence Period and returned to my job in the government of Tripura.

The All India Services (Conduct) Rules, as it then existed, provided that serving civil servants must get government permission before publishing any academic or literary work. As a law-abiding civil servant, I had submitted my application for the grant of government permission for publication of my Shimla manuscript. After a long delay, I was informed that my work was being examined from the security angle. I met the concerned IB official and clarified that I had not used any classified material in my work. The IB official stated that my mind had been corrupted by the study I had undertaken. This led to refusal of permission for the publication of my manuscript.

Luckily, Professor K Raghavendra Rao of the Political Science at the Karnatak University, Dharwad, admitted me to a to a PhD programme in Political Science in the Karnatak University.

I returned to Delhi in 1980, on a posting in the Union Home Ministry assignment, I pursued my studies and received a PhD in Political Science from the Karnatak University, Dharwad in 1984. Professor Raghavendra Rao was immensely helpful.

Interestingly in 1989, the All India Services (Conduct) Rules were amended to permit serving civil servants to publish their literary and academic work. I had to certify that I had used any classified information in writing my thesis. As mentioned above, my PhD thesis was published as a book. A great relief for me!

(The author was Director-General of the State Institute of Public Administration and Rural Development in the government of Tripura).
Description

GIS  18 April, 2020: One new case of Covid-19 was registered, today, after the country had seen zero new cases for the last five consecutive days. As at now, Mauritius has recorded 325 cases, with 133 active cases. Seventy-two additional patients have recovered bringing the total to 180.

The Minister of Health and Wellness , Dr Kailesh Kumar Singh Jagutpal , shared the latest figures, this evening, during the daily press briefing of the National Communication Committee on the Covid-19, through videoconference, from his office, in Port-Louis.

The Minister informed that the newly infected patient went to the flu clinic of a public hospital yesterday with fever symptoms. The tests conducted proved that the patient was infected with the virus and was thereafter transferred to one of the four Covid-19 treatment centres. Contact tracing was carried out within the patients family circle and, consequently, around ten persons were tested. The test results are expected tomorrow.

Moreover, the Minister exhorted the population to be more vigilant and not to underestimate the virus. An infected person can transmit the virus to three more persons, he remarked. Thus, he emphasised, the importance to stop at the earliest the transmission chain by staying at home. Dr Jagutpal also called upon citizens to strictly continue abiding to the lockdown restrictions as well as the social distancing rules.

The Ministry of Health and Wellness is doing its best to contain the spread of the novel Coronavirus and provide appropriate treatment, however, each citizen is responsible to ensure their own wellbeing, he highlighted. Dr Jagutpal also lauded the work accomplished by health professionals and all those who are working hard to curb the propagation of the Covid-19. Government, he recalled, is elaborating a post-lockdown plan so that the curfew be lifted without any risk.

As regards the suspension of the nationwide anti-influenza vaccination campaign since yesterday, the Minister indicated that the exercise will take up again once the country receives the new shipment of vaccines, scheduled this coming week.

Additional information relayed:

 One person is currently on ventilator

 Nine deaths have been recorded as at now

 A total of 10 032 tests have been carried out so far since Mauritius recorded its first three cases of Covid-19 one month back, that is, on 18 March 2020

#ResOuLakaz #BeSafeMoris
A total of 69 prisoners were



released on Saturday from different jails in Manipur as per the Supreme Court guidelines to decongest prisons in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, an official said.

Of the 69 released prisoners, 64 were from Manipur Central Jail Sajiwa and five from Central Jail Imphal, said a statement issued by the Superintendent of Manipur Central Jail Sajiwa, S Touthang.

The prisoners were released on interim bail or parole for three months, the official said.

The prisoners were released to decongest the prisons in view of the outbreak of COVID-19 based on the recommendation of the high powered committee constituted by the state government comprising of Justice Kh Moving Singh, Chief Secretary J Suresh Babu and ADGP (Prisons) P Doungel.

On Thursday 11 inmates were released from Manipur Central Jail, Sajiwa here.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
50 Headlines: Welcome to the new normal

By off-Guardian

Always remember that these Measures are for your own good. Doubting The Measures is a possible sign of infection. Consult your treatment diary for the required dosage of BBC programming needed to remove Doubts.

Thank you for your cooperation.

*

As well as enforcing quarantine measures, the law also allows the authorities to force people to be vaccinated, even though there is currently no vaccination for the virus.

Denmark rushes through emergency coronavirus law, (The Local, 13/3/20)

During the state of emergency, people will only be allowed out on to public streets for the following reasons: to buy food, basic or pharmaceutical items; to attend medical centres; to go to and from work  Spain orders nationwide lockdown to battle coronavirus (The Guardian, 14/3/20)

Police are patrolling the streets to ensure we only leave our homes for work and health-related reasons  we must fill and carry certificates stating our reasons. If caught out without a certificate, we will be fined and face up to three months in jail.

LIFE UNDER ITALYS CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN, (Newsweek, 13/3/20)

We are going to take the powers to make sure that we can quarantine people if they are a risk to public health, yes, and thats important.

Police to arrest Brits with coronavirus who ignore quarantine (Metro, 15/3/20)

If you want to leave the house, you now have to print off a document to explain to police your timing, destination and motive. Orderly, dour, cowed: how my beloved Italy is changed by coronavirus(The Guardian, 15/3/20)

There are also plans for soldiers to protect quarantine zones with the police, if that ever came into force. Coronavirus: Thousands of armed forces staff could be put on standby over COVID-19 spread, (Sky News, 16/3/20)

Israel has authorized the countrys internal security agency to tap into a vast and previously undisclosed trove of cellphone data to retrace the movements of people who have contracted the coronavirus and identify others who should be quarantined

To Track Coronavirus, Israel Moves to Tap Secret Trove of Cellphone Data, (NYT, 16/3/20)

We are at war  a public health war, certainly but we are at war, against an invisible and elusive enemy, Macron said, outlawing all journeys outside the home  anyone flouting the new regulations would be punished, he said.

Coronavirus: France imposes lockdown as EU calls for 30-day travel ban, (The Guardian, 16/3/20) Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

The interior minister, Christophe Castaner, said 100,000 police officers would be deployed to enforce the lockdown  Macron said that if necessary, the government would legislate by decree 

France at war: how Parisians are coping with life under lockdown, (The Guardian, 17/3/20)

We will intervene where necessary to make sure that people respect the confinement decree.

Italy records its deadliest day of coronavirus outbreak with 475 deaths (The Guardian, 18/3/20)

The Ministry of Defence is to double the size of the militarys civil contingency unit to create a 20,000-strong Covid support force  the armed forces need to be prepared for the threat of a breakdown in civil order. 10,000 extra troops to join British armys Covid support force (The Guardian, 18/3/20)

The new force  made up of 10,000 military personnel who are regularly deployed to civilian activities, plus an extra 10,000 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic  has been placed at high readiness.

UK armed forces prepare 20,000 troops to help in crisis (Financial Times)

We have the ability to do martial law  if we feel the necessity.

Coronavirus: California prepared to enact martial law if its a necessity, governor says (Yahoo News)

Police and immigration officials would be able to place people in appropriate isolation facilities under plans.

Coronavirus: Sweeping emergency powers announced (BBC, 18/3/20)

Standby orders were issued more than three weeks ago to ready these plans, not just to protect Washington but also to prepare for the possibility of some form of martial law.

Exclusive: Inside The Militarys Top Secret Plans If Coronavirus Cripples the Government (Newsweek, 18/3/20)

Twitter will remove tweets that run the risk of causing harm by spreading dangerous misinformation about Covid-19  it will be applying a new broader definition of harm to address content that goes directly against guidance from authoritative sources.

Twitter to remove harmful fake news about coronavirus (The Guardian, 19/3/20)

Some 100,000 police have fanned out across France to enforce the lockdown, with people allowed out of their homes only to buy groceries, go to work, exercise alone or seek medical help.

Woman bundled to ground by police for breaking lockdown in Paris (Metro, 19/3/20)

He is in a specially cleaned area designated for those who should be self-isolating. Minister Quayle said, we cannot allow our critical health services to become overwhelmed and must have the means to prosecute those who choose to act irresponsibly.

Coronavirus: No prosecution for man who failed to self-isolate, (BBC, 20/3/20)

Dane County, Wisconsin residents now have a method to report violations of the governors ban on gatherings of 10 or more people.

Dane County sets up website to report gatherings of 10 or more people, (WKOW, 19/3/20)

Germanys 83 million citizens have been told they risk being confined to their homes from Monday unless they behave responsibly this weekend.

Coronavirus: Italy and Spain record highest single-day death tolls, (The Guardian, 20/3/20)

These [social restrictions] would need to be in place for at least most of a year. Under such as policy, at least half of the year would be spent under the stricter social distancing measures.

Social distancing may need to go on for almost 12 months (Independent, 20/3/20)

The government has now agreed that the military can be used to help enforce the lockdown.

Italy calls in military to enforce coronavirus lockdown, (CNN, 20/3/20)

As of Wednesday, the camps have been locked down from 7pm to 7am. In the daytime, only one person is allowed out per family, and the police control their movements.

Fears of catastrophe as Greece puts migrant camps into lockdown, (The Guardian, 21/3/20)

The National Guard is expecting a rapid increase in unit activations over the next few weeks, leaders said at the Pentagon Thursday, filling roles like coronavirus testing and potentially law enforcement.

Guard activations expected to rapidly increase, could be used for law enforcement, (Military Times, 19/3/20)

[T]he U.S. military is preparing forces to assume a larger role in the coronavirus response, including the controversial mission of quelling civil disturbances 

INSIDE THE U.S. MILITARYS PLANS TO STOP CIVIL DISTURBANCES AMID CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC, (Newsweek, 20/3/20)

These provisions will be enforced  the violation of any provision of [the] order constitutes an imminent threat and creates an immediate menace to public health.

Heres what a stay home order means for New York, (The Guardian, 21/3/20)

When MK Yoav Kish (Likud) sought to clarify whether she meant a total lockdown or curfew, Sadetsky replied  A lockdown and personal monitoring of people, and a total halt to personal freedoms.

Total Suspension of Individual Freedom: Inside Israels Secret Coronavirus Debate (Haaretz, 19/3/20)

A final option: Permanent changes in our behavior that allow us to keep transmission rates low  that could include strict policies of testing and quarantine for anyone who comes down with COVID-19  or even long-term bans on large gatherings.

Coronavirus exit strategy could be months  or years  away, (New York Post, 21/3/20)

The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies  part of a push for new powers that comes as the coronavirus spreads through the United States.

DOJ seeks new emergency powers amid coronavirus pandemic, (Politico, 21/3/20)

Germany has issued a contact ban, limiting interactions of more than 2 people  there will be fines of up to 25,000 for those not keeping a 2 meter distance between people. The measures will be enforced by police and stay in place until April 19.

Coronavirus latest: Angela Merkel to quarantine after meeting infected doctor, (DW, 21/3/20)

The Justice Department is using the COVID-19 outbreak to press for sweeping new powers that include being able to detain Americans indefinitely without a trial.

Justice Department Reportedly Asks Congress for Indefinite Detention Powers To Fight Coronavirus, (Reason, 21/3/20)

Quebec City police have arrested a woman, who has tested positive for the coronavirus, for being out in the citys Limoilou neighbourhood despite being under a quarantine order.

Quebec City police arrest COVID-19 patient for defying quarantine, (CBC, 20/3/20)

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said hes considering his most drastic move yet  moving certain people at risk to isolation shelters.

DeSantis considers new strategy in Florida coronavirus fight: isolation shelters, (Miamia Herald, 21/3/20)

From a technological perspective, the coronavirus pandemic is one massive testbed for surveillance capitalism  governments are rolling out surveillance measures, all in the effort to ensure that policies of mass behaviour modification are successful.

Coronavirus Could Infect Privacy And Civil Liberties Forever, (Forbes, 23/3/20)

Counter-terrorism troops have been redeployed across Italy to beef up police  patrol cars are circulating in every major city with a voice warning citizens over a loudspeaker not to leave their residences  Go back into your homes, the voice warns.

Lock the F*ck Down or End Up Like Italy, (Daily Beast, 22/3/20)

Some police departments in California plan on using drones to enforce a coronavirus lockdown and to, in part, monitor the homeless population.

Police in California city consider new ways to use drones during coronavirus outbreak, (Fox News, 23/3/20)

A woman in Spain was arrested after she was caught visiting the home of a man she had met on a dating app, breaking mandatory home confinement rules put in place due to the coronavirus pandemic.

WOMAN IN SPAIN ARRESTED FOR BREAKING CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN TO VISIT MAN SHE MET ON DATING APP, (Newsweek, 23/3/20)

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe gave a national address to give details of the new rules  [French citizens] must have their justification paper  signed, dated and with the time they have left home  to show if stopped by the police or gendarmes.

Global confirmed Covid-19 cases top 400,000  as it happened. (The Guardian, 25/3/20)

The UK government has sent a mass text message to as many phones as possible, urging citizens to stay at home during the coronavirus lockdown: CORONAVIRUS ALERT. New rules in force now: you must stay at home. Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives.

GOVERNMENT SENDS MASS TEXT MESSAGE URGING PEOPLE TO STAY AT HOME, (Independent, 24/3/20)

The Government is set to publish its coronavirus bill in Parliament this week. It gives officers from the police and immigration powers to detain people in appropriate isolation centres if they are a risk to public health.

Coronavirus: New powers to detain those refusing to isolate, (The Argus, 19/3/20)

Police in Texas are searching for an 18-year-old girl who claimed to have tested positive for and to be willfully spreading the coronavirus  the teenager faces a charge of making a terroristic threat.

Texas teen faces terrorism charge for threatening to spread coronavirus, police say, NBC, 7/4/20)

Americas top coronavirus expert has warned Covid-19 is the new normal  and that the killer virus might never go away.

Top coronavirus expert warns killer virus may be new normal and never go away , (Metro, 7/4/20)

Security officers in several African countries have been beating, harassing and, in some cases, killing people as they enforce measures aimed at preventing the spread of Covid-19.

Coronavirus in Africa: Emergency laws v individual rights, (BBC, 9/4/20)

World Health Organization executive director Dr. Michael Ryan said surveillance is part of whats required for life to return to normal in a world without a vaccine.

After coronavirus, AI could be central to our new normal, (Venture Beat, 8/4/20)

White House senior adviser Jared Kushners task force has reached out to a range of health technology companies about creating a national coronavirus surveillance system 

Kushners team seeks national coronavirus surveillance system, (Politico, 7/4/20)

East Asian countries have demonstrated that a robust regime of surveillance is essential to fighting a pandemic. Western democracies must rise to meet the need for democratic surveillance to protect their own populations.

Coronavirus and the Future of Surveillance, (Foreign Affairs, 6/4/20)

Its an extraordinary moment that might call for extraordinary surveillance methods.

PRIVACY EXPERTS SAY RESPONSIBLE CORONAVIRUS SURVEILLANCE IS POSSIBLE, (The Intercept, 2/4/20)

Australia will deploy helicopters, set up police checkpoints and hand out hefty fines to deter people from breaking an Easter travel ban  Police said they will block roads and use number plate recognition technology to catch those infringing the bans.

Confirmed worldwide Covid-19 death toll passes 100,000 (The Guardian, 11/4/20)

Officers say they responded to a synagogue in Monsey after receiving complaints. They found 30-50 men praying together. Eight were arrested for disorderly conduct. Police say they will arrest more people if the gatherings continue.

8 Arrested In Monsey For Violating Social Distancing Emergency Orders, (CBS, 9/4/20)

These drones will be around the City with an automated message from the Mayor telling you to STOP gathering, disperse and go home, the police department said.

Coronavirus Surveillance Is Entering Dystopian Territory, (Vanity Fair, 9/4/20)

Our law-enforcement agencies, politicians and corporate overlords are working hard, night and day, to protect us from this terrible disease. Consider sparing a thought for our brave boys in black this evening during your allotted compulsory appreciation window.

REPORT ALL NON-APPRECIATORS TO YOUR NEAREST SURVEILLANCE DRONE. Those guilty of virus denial or other forms of sedition weaken our morale and can cause outbreaks.

Remember, good citizenship will earn you a higher place on the vaccination schedule.

" Source "

Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here

==See Also==
In an effort to provide much-needed assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dole Packaged Foods, LLC has launched an initiative to supply nutritious foods to those in need. Dole is inviting other organizations and companies, large and small throughout the world, to join them to help cast a little sunshine in dark times and to ensure the health of those in need globally.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200417005326/en/

From kids to the elderly, to those who are on the front lines caring for others, through a series of donations and partnerships Dole is aiming to help close the gaps to access to healthy food in trying times. The company has committed its resources, facilities, and social impact efforts under its Sunshine for All Promise for people to have access to the nutritious food they need right now, including:

Delivering sunshine for the frontline in partnership with several smoothie chains in local markets. Dole is delivering weekly, nutrient-packed smoothies or fruit care packages to 650 hospitals with personalized messages of gratitude, hope and encouragement to frontline workers from Dole employees. Additionally the brand is delivering vouchers for Dole products to health care workers in 5,000 hospitals nationwide.

in partnership with several smoothie chains in local markets. Dole is delivering weekly, nutrient-packed smoothies or fruit care packages to 650 hospitals with personalized messages of gratitude, hope and encouragement to frontline workers from Dole employees. Additionally the brand is delivering vouchers for Dole products to health care workers in 5,000 hospitals nationwide. Teaming up with World Central Kitchen to support seniors and underserved families in California by supplying the wholesome nutrition they need to stay healthy with a donation of 15,000 cases of fruit cups and providing space for meal prep and staging.

to support seniors and underserved families in California by supplying the wholesome nutrition they need to stay healthy with a donation of 15,000 cases of fruit cups and providing space for meal prep and staging. A commitment to Jackson, Mississippi , one of the largest food deserts in the U.S., to close the gap to access to wholesome, healthy food for residents. By working with the Mayors Disaster Relief Action, a partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs, and supporting students and families at Galloway Elementary, Dole is providing 2,100 cases of fruit cups and fridge packs, creating healthy meals for underserved families, providing notes of hope and encouragement, and making a cash donation to fix flood damage at local underserved schools. Additionally, Dole is committing to help Jackson close gaps in childhood nutrition over the next year.

, one of the largest food deserts in the U.S., to close the gap to access to wholesome, healthy food for residents. By working with the Mayors Disaster Relief Action, a partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs, and supporting students and families at Galloway Elementary, Dole is providing 2,100 cases of fruit cups and fridge packs, creating healthy meals for underserved families, providing notes of hope and encouragement, and making a cash donation to fix flood damage at local underserved schools. Additionally, Dole is committing to help Jackson close gaps in childhood nutrition over the next year. Partnering with Lyft to provide underserved seniors with nutritious foods in Seattle and Chicago. Through a last-mile partnership with Lyft, Dole will be paying Lyft drivers to pick up Dole products from outside its warehouses and deliver more than 4,000 cases of fruit cups to assisted living facilities.

in Seattle and Chicago. Through a last-mile partnership with Lyft, Dole will be paying Lyft drivers to pick up Dole products from outside its warehouses and deliver more than 4,000 cases of fruit cups to assisted living facilities. Working with the charity St Mungos to donate 14,500 fruit cups that will be distributed to some of the most vulnerable people in London, who are currently housed by the Intercontinental Hotel Group and would otherwise be homeless. In addition, Dole is forging partnerships with food banks in the UK to organize delivery of fruit cups to elderly residents currently isolating.

that will be distributed to some of the most vulnerable people in London, who are currently housed by the Intercontinental Hotel Group and would otherwise be homeless. In addition, to organize delivery of fruit cups to elderly residents currently isolating. Delivering fruit cups to healthcare workers in hospitals in Paris, France; Barcelona, Spain; Auckland, New Zealand; Manila, Philippines; Kobe, Japan; Singapore; Toronto, Canada, as well as those in regions of Thailand, Vietnam, India and Korea.

Dole will also launch a campaign honoring essential frontline workers as superheroes, thanking their partners, and calling on others to join their mission to make Sunshine For All a reality.

While this time may feel dark, Dole is committed to providing opportunities for people to find sunshine in their lives.

Dole wants to create a world where everyone  irrespective of age, income, location or gender  has access to what they need to stay healthy, stated Pier Luigi Sigismondi, President, Dole Worldwide Packaged Foods. Dole is committed to finding ways to help close the access gap to nutritious food in trying times, but we recognize we cant do this alone. Now is the time for companies across all industries, sectors and countries to come together to make the biggest impact for good.

Dole has also doubled down with their employees to ensure they have what they need to stay healthy. Dole has created resources for employees who may come in contact with the virus and is working to upgrade its hospital immunity facilities in Dolefil/Polomolok to ensure doctors are well equipped to service the community.

To learn more about Doles efforts and how you can join them, visit sunshineforall.com. 

About Dole Packaged Foods, LLC 

Dole Packaged Foods, LLC, is a world leader in growing, sourcing, distributing and marketing fruit and healthy snacks. Dole sells a full-line of packaged shelf stable fruit, frozen fruit, dried fruit, and juices. The company focuses on four pillars of sustainability in all of its operations: water management, carbon footprint, soil conservation and waste reduction. For more information please visit dolesunshine.com or doleintlcsr.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200417005326/en/
Prominent Nigerians have reacted to the demise of Abba Kyari, the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari.

In separate tweets, they all paid glowing tributes to the deceased.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan, in his condolence message, prayed for Kyaris friends and family during this moment of grief.

Nigerias Senate President, Ahmed Lawan in his message, asked God to forgive the shortcomings of the late Kyari.



The Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama disclosed Kyari was his best friend.

The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, also disclosed that the deceased was a good man.

He said: May Allah forgive Mallam Abba Kyari and have mercy upon him. Was a truly good man, profoundly faithful and loyal to our country.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who expressed sadness, said: Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiun. I am saddened by the death of Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari. May Allah comfort his family, forgive his sins and grant him AlJannah Firdaus. Ameen.

Former Kaduna Senator, Shehu Sani said: Abba Kyari; The President has lost a trusted and loyal friend. A man who took the bullets of his master with smiles,calmness and silence. We knew his cap and his colours but never his mind or his own side of his story. He will be missed as a Punchman. RIP AK.

Femi Fani-Kayode said: I have lost a friend of 40 years. We were at Cambridge together. We worked in my fathers law firm together. We remained close throughout right up until the end even though we disagreed politically. Abba was a good man: a man of honour and a loyal friend. May his soul rest in peace.

The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, described the death of the Chief of Staff to the President, Mr Abba Kyari, as shocking and an unfortunate surprise.

Ooni described the late Kyari as a coolheaded gentleman and great respecter of the traditional institution.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
NEET PG 2020 and NEET MDS 2020 state counselling will be held between April 20 and May 4. According to the latest notice issued by the medical counselling committee (MCC), the ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) has approved the state counselling authorities to conduct the round -1 of the PG counselling from April 20 onwards.

The round -1 of All India Quota of PG Counselling had commenced on March 12 and was scheduled to end on April 3. However, the counselling had to be halted due to the lockdown. After a meeting held by MoHFW on April 7, the counselling was resumed on April 9 and its result was published on April 10. The reporting module for online/physical joining for round-1 counselling is also going on since April 13 and will close on April 24.

According to the latest notice issued by MCC, the schedule for round-2 of All India counselling will be notified in the due course of time as the lockdown is still continuing and physical movement of students is not possible.

Check official notice here

The MCC Committee is allowing online reporting for students who will not be able to commute. The committee has also enabled a special provision for students to take admission during the lockdown.

In view of the Coronavirus pandemic, the MCC has also advised the colleges to sympathetically deal with the issues faced by candidates of NEET PG 2020. Colleges have been instructed to ask only for the essential documents for admission. The list of essential documents is available on the MCC website at www.mcc.nic.in

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On Tuesday, at his daily briefing, Mr. Trump was candid about the transactional rationale behind his stance toward China. Pressed on how he could criticize the World Health Organization for what he called pushing Chinas misinformation, after he had also lavished praise on Beijings purported transparency, he responded, Well, I did a trade deal with China, where China is supposed to be spending $250 billion in our country.

Id love to have a good relationship with China, he added.

On Friday, however, he posited that China must have the most deaths from the coronavirus  the United States does  and later said, Im not happy with China. He repeated the assertion on Saturday, saying that China had many more deaths than it had reported, and that the virus could have been stopped in China. Before it started. But he continued to show deference to Mr. Xi, saying I dont want to embarrass countries that I like and leaders that I like, but you have to see some of these numbers.

Despite the presidents diverging public statements, a central pillar of his campaigns approach is to deflect anger over the human casualties and economic pain of the coronavirus onto an adversary that many Americans already view warily.

The strategy includes efforts to leverage the U.S.-China relationship against Mr. Biden, who Republicans believe is vulnerable because of his comments last year playing down the geopolitical challenge posed by China and what Republicans claim was high-paying work that his son, Hunter, has done there. (A lawyer for the younger Mr. Biden said he was uncompensated for his work.)

Mr. Biden, for his part, has criticized Mr. Trumps warm words for China. On Friday, his campaign released a video assailing the president for not pressing Mr. Xi to let the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into his country and for being more worried about protecting his trade deal with China than he was about the virus.



On a conference call with reporters, Antony J. Blinken, a senior Biden adviser, noted that in January and February the president praised China and President Xi more than 15 times. He attributed the flattery to the administrations not wanting to risk that China pull back on implementing the initial trade agreement the two countries signed in January.
Producer Karim Morani, who was diagnosed with COVID-19 earlier last week along with his daughters, has been sent home on Friday, after testing negative for the virus. Karim, who is best know for backing films like Ra. One, Chennai Express, Dilwale and more, revealed that his last two tests results for Coronavirus were negative.

In a statement, Morani revealed that he was at the Nanavati Hospital where he remained for the treatment. He also thanked the doctors and healthcare workers for their hard work and said, "To my friends and family with gods grace and kindness (I) am back home as I have now tested negative twice. I was very comfortable at Nanavati hospital where I remained asymptotic through my stay, I must say every department from the government to the medical warriors are doing a fantastic job."(sic)

However, as advised by the doctors, Karim Morani will remain in quarantine for the next 14 days as a precautionary measure. "I will now quarantine as required in my room only for a further 14 days. It's a big relief to be back home thank you all for your prayers. God bless you stay safe," he added.

Morani's two daughters Zoa and Shaza had tested positive for COVID-19 on April 6, and two days later, Morani also tested positive for the virus. The two sisters, who were treated at different hospitals, had also been discharged on April 13 after testing negative for Coronavirus. Shaza reportedly had returned from Sri Lanka in the first week of March and Zoa had come home after a trip in Rajasthan in mid-March.

According to the health ministry, the death toll due to COVID-19 has risen to 452 in the country; while cases have climbed to 13,835.

ALSO READ: Abhishek Bachchan Teases Farah Khan On Twitter; Asks Her To Make A Work-Out Video



Arjun Kapoor Opens Up On Marriage Plans With GF Malaika Arora, Says Love That She Is Patient With Me
SACRAMENTO  A soaring economy gave Gov. Gavin Newsom wide latitude during his first year in office to set California on a path to the sweeping liberal agenda he outlined during his campaign.

Now, as the coronavirus pandemic plays havoc with the state budget, Newsom suddenly faces tough and unexpected choices that may require him to temporarily abandon key policy goals and disappoint allies.

Advocates are pushing to expand social services just as tax revenue is drying up. Industries teetering on the edge are seeking regulatory relief from laws revered by organized labor. And all are hoping their needs wont be forgotten as Newsom charts a course out of his statewide stay-at-home order.

No one is fighting for something that they feel can be pushed off, said Sarah Dar, director of health and public benefits policy at the California Immigrant Policy Center.

The organization recently shifted online its years-long campaign to open the state health care program and tax credit for the working poor to people who are living in the country illegally. Dar acknowledged the challenge of asking for that aid while Newsom is staring down the barrel of cuts.

There will be people at the end of this who see some promises as broken. Its a difficult position to be in, she said.

Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

With record numbers of Californians now applying for unemployment insurance and consumer spending shriveling, the state appears to be hurtling into a severe recession. The legislative analyst warned last week that the pandemic could blow a $35 billion hole in next years budget, with additional losses of $85 billion in the years that follow.

Newsom has scrapped his $222 billion January budget proposal and plans to continue the states current spending levels into the 2020-21 fiscal year, with the expectation that further adjustments, including potential cuts, will come in the months ahead. Legislative leaders have said there is unlikely to be time or money to focus on anything other than the coronavirus response, wildfire prevention and homelessness.

The world is radically changed since the January budget was proposed, Newsom told reporters this month. So everything is on the table. Thats an honest and sober reflection of that reality.

That includes an expansive health care plan meant to get California closer to Newsoms goal of providing universal coverage. One of his central proposals was making Medi-Cal, the states health insurance for the poor, available to all income-eligible seniors, regardless of their immigration status. The governor and lawmakers extended the program last year to undocumented young adults.

Newsoms administration projected the new plan would add 27,000 people to Medi-Cal, eventually costing taxpayers about $320 million annually. Newsom said in January that it was not only the right thing to do morally and ethically, but would also save money in the long run by reducing emergency medical expenses.

Anthony Wright, executive director of the consumer advocacy group Health Access California, said expanding Medi-Cal, as well as state subsidies for other insurance options, would be more important than ever during the coronavirus pandemic, when people are losing health coverage they had through their employers.

Last week, Newsom unveiled his plan for lifting restrictions on public life in California, which he said could not happen until there is widespread testing that would allow the state to isolate people exposed to the virus and trace people with whom they have come in contact.

We want to make sure that people can get the testing and treatment they need without fear, Wright said. This is a public health emergency and will require some public health investment to get out of.

The legislative caucuses representing Latino and Asian Pacific Islander members have written to the governor urging him to treat health care for all undocumented adults as a priority in the coronavirus response. Advocates note seniors are most at risk of severe health problems from the virus.

But requests for new spending or taxes are drawing opposition from business groups, which say they are looking for signals that Newsom is mindful of their challenges during what they expect will be a slow and fragile recovery.

If they expand spending now, that would be singularly the most irresponsible thing they could do, said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable.Who pays for it? Its business.

Lapsleys group and other businesses organizations are asking the governor for breaks such as freezing the workers compensation rate and suspending the ability to sue over certain labor code violations. Doing that, they say, would give them a more solid financial footing and allow them to start hiring people back sooner.

John Kabatek, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business in California, said Newsom should pause enforcement of several major laws that took effect this year, including AB5, which makes it harder for companies to label workers as independent contractors, and the Consumer Privacy Act, which gave customers additional control over their personal information online.

Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

To impose laws right now that have new costs, new regulations, is asking a lot of already fragile businesses, Kabatek said.

A minimum wage hike scheduled for 2021, to $14 an hour for large employers and $13 an hour for small businesses, could be the biggest fight.

A 2016 law that put California on track to eventually reach a $15 hourly minimum included an off-ramp in case of an economic downturn. If the state finance director determines by July 28 that employment and sales tax revenue are down or that raising the minimum wage would push the state into a budget deficit, the governor can suspend the increase for a year. He would have to make a final decision by Sept. 1.

Well make a determination in real time, Newsom said this month.

The California Restaurant Association sent a letter to the governor last month asking for a delay. President and CEO Jot Condie said in an interview that the conditions Newsom has suggested restaurants will have to adopt to return would mean fewer customers. With profit margins already thin, he said, some restaurant owners may decide not to reopen at all without the certainty that labor costs, their biggest expense, wont rise again within a few months.

Pausing the minimum wage, however, would mean crossing Californias labor unions, which are among the biggest sources of money and volunteers for Democratic campaigns in the state.

Tia Orr, director of government affairs for SEIU California, said the off-ramp is not an option. The union, which represents about 700,000 workers, was at the forefront of the minimum wage fight and helped bring a reluctant then-Gov. Jerry Brown to the negotiating table by pursuing a ballot measure to raise the hourly rate. It was pulled after he signed the 2016 law.

Orr said the coronavirus recovery plan must invest in those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Many of the essential employees still going to work during the crisis, like child care providers and janitors, are among the lowest paid.

The most important thing we can do for families right now is to get more money in their pockets, so they can get back on their feet, Orr said.

Guadalupe Sanchez, 53, prepares and cooks food at a McDonalds in San Leandro. She earns $14.50 an hour, 50 cents more than the citys minimum wage, but hours have been cut by as much as half in recent weeks. She was able to spare only $100 from her last paycheck for her parents in Mexico, a third of what she usually sends them, and she worries about making her $600 rent next month for the Hayward home she shares with four people.

Sanchez, an activist with the Fight for $15 movement, said workers like her are counting on the minimum wage increase.

Bills dont wait. We have to pay the rent. We have to eat, she said in Spanish. I dont think we can survive like this.

Alexei Koseff is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: alexei.koseff@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @akoseff
The Congress on Saturday highlighted the plight of retail traders during lockdown, alleging the government is doing "injustice" to them by allowing only e-commerce companies to sell non-essential items.

Congress senior spokesperson Ajay Maken demanded a level-playing field for retailers and asked the Home Ministry to issue guidelines for online sales.

"While their shops are locked down for last one months, their main competitors are open and have been allowed to sell non-essential items online. This is injustice to retailers and the government should not allow this," he said.

Maken said traders have locked down their shops for the past one month and before that, suffered due to demonetisation, e-commerce competition and the GST, which have broken their backbone.

Coronavirus India News LIVE Updates

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

These retailers still will have to pay salaries, rent, fixed electricity charges, property taxes at commercial rates, he said, adding that on top of this, the Home Ministry allowed e-commerce companies and their vehicles to run after April 20.

"This (April 15) order does not stop e-commerce companies from trading non-essential items. We demand from the government that the Home Ministry clarifies if the e-commerce companies have been allowed to trade non-essential items. Government should take steps so that a level-playing field is provided for these locked-down small-shop owners," he said at a press conference addressed through video.

Maken said the government should come forward for the rescue of small-shop owners.

"We demand that the government waive fixed electricity charges for small traders and share their salary burden on the lines of MSMEs," he said.

The Congress leader said as per the Sixth Economic Census, retail trade is the most dominant economic activity outside the agriculture sector, factoring for 35.41 per cent of the total.

As far as the employment generation is concerned, retail trade accounts for the one-fifth of total employment in India, giving employment to around 2.72 crore families, Maken said.

He said other state governments should follow Congress-ruled Punjab and Rajasthan where fixed charges on electricity for non-domestic connections have been deferred by two months.

Follow our full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here
Petrochemicals is a lucrative market sector for countries and oil companies which have been hit hard by falling oil prices. A new Lux Research study points to synthetic biology (synbio) as a breakthrough in speeding up the development of petrochemicals into new and profitable channels.

Synbio could be getting a lot of interest as investors look to alternatives  but there are other non-oil and gas energy sources to follow as well, including hydrogen. One of these new solutions is creating a profit center out of offering the oil and gas industry a new way to dispose of its hydrogen sulfide.

Lux Research, an intelligence firm tracking emerging technologies, recommends using synbio for the creation of specialty chemicals, where numerous value propositions like cost savings for producers make it even more appealing. The petrochemical sector has seen numerous failures when trying to use fermentation capabilities to produce new products for commodities, Lux cautions.

Major petrochemical manufacturers like BASF, BP, Chevron Phillips Chemical, Sinopec, DuPont, ExxonMobil, and Dow, have done well in mainstream segments such as ethylene, propylene, butadiene, and benzene. New specialty products are gaining backing. Synbio can cut off years and billions in investments to bring new and viable chemicals to market, according to the study.

Synbio will propel companies that understand the right strategy for the distinct value propositions it offers at each step in the production life cycle, said Lux analyst Gihan Hewage. Companies with products in the ideation and early development stages will differentiate most from flexible production and the ability to create novel products, whereas products in later stages of development can leverage the environmental and marketing benefits of the technology.

Premium: The Oil Sector That Will Suffer The Most

Like other energy segments beyond oil and gas, petrochemicals has seen its share of winners and losers. North America, Europe, China, Japan, and India, have been pleased with results in the higher-value petrochemicals sector. Oman, while not an OPEC member, has been supportive of the oil conglomerate in fighting for its share of the global oil market; however, building a solid footing in petrochemicals as an alternative to oil price instability means a lot of upfront spending in advance of profitable returns coming back much later down the line. Thats hurt Oman and other countries.

For now, hydrogen is gaining much backing as an alternative segment with expectations for long-term gains for BP, Chevron, Shell, Sinopec, and Total S.A. Waste management companies are also supporting efforts to diversify their portfolio with alternative energy gaining more support. Turning waste into biogas like renewable natural gas is gaining in popularity for these utilities, as is extracting hydrogen from biogas and biomass.

Standard Hydrogen Co. is now offering an improvement to the way the oil and gas industry disposes of hydrogen sulfide  and that can turn garbage into hydrogen.

Hydrogen sulfide is a highly flammable, explosive gas, and can cause possible life-threatening situations if not properly handled, so oil and gas companies have reasons for finding cost-effective methods to extract it.

Standard Hydrogen is a company that developed and patented technology to economically split hydrogen sulfide into pure hydrogen and sulfur. Its taking an expensive part of the refinery business into cost-effective and ecologically sound production of high purity hydrogen and sulfur, the company said.

Premium: 2 Stocks To Consider As Oil Nears $15

Plastic, tires, paper, wood, mattresses, rotting food, and even used clothing, are examples of waste that can be turned into hydrogen. Metals and glass would not be used in this process.

The company says that it has recently proven the science behind the new technology by economically producing hydrogen from hydrogen sulfide. More research and development will be conducted through mid-2020, while seeking additional joint venture partners to complete the engineering phase of the technology rollout, Standard Hydrogen said.

Getting hydrogen sulfide under control has been a big deal for maritime shipping companies in recent years. Its been a topic of discussion for port authorities and shipping companies for safety issues; and for reducing the amount of sulfur coming from ships. Hydrogen sulfide is a precursor to elemental sulfur.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) released its long-anticipated regulation on sulfur emissions on January 1. The ocean shipping industry accounts for 90 percent of global trade, and the IMOs international mandate to reduce bunker fuel sulfur content in marine fuel oil from 3.5 percent to 0.5 percent is expected to have a major economic impact. That will go for maritime shipping and trucking, which is already hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.

By Jon LeSage for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
By Luiza Ilie BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Carmen Mocanu, a 51-year-old labourer, has spent most springs for 15 years picking fruit and vegetables on a German farm. When her employer called again this April, she decided to go, despite the coronavirus pandemic that has forced countries across Europe to go into lockdown, including her native Romania. Travelling might carry additional health risks but she felt she might be safer in German hospitals than in Romania, if she did contract the highly contagious virus

By Luiza Ilie

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Carmen Mocanu, a 51-year-old labourer, has spent most springs for 15 years picking fruit and vegetables on a German farm.

When her employer called again this April, she decided to go, despite the coronavirus pandemic that has forced countries across Europe to go into lockdown, including her native Romania.

Travelling might carry additional health risks but she felt she might be safer in German hospitals than in Romania, if she did contract the highly contagious virus. And the money, about six times what she earns at home, was important.

Tens of thousands of Romanians are expected to make the same choice in the coming weeks, flying to Germany and Britain, where farmers have lobbied their governments to relax travel restrictions and allow badly needed foreign workers - primarily from poorer eastern Europe - to rescue harvests.

Waiting at the airport in Bucharest, Mocanu greeted familiar faces she had met on previous travels.

"The work is the same as here, but over there it is much better paid, and we've been taken care of," said Mocanu, wearing a protective mask and gloves, as she waited with some 300 others to board planes for Dusseldorf and Rheinmunster in Germany.

Some were travelling with family members. Many have been working on farms in Germany for years.

Like many other countries in Europe, Romania has closed schools and restaurants and banned public gatherings before enforcing a nationwide lockdown on March 24. It has reported 8,067 coronavirus cases and 411 deaths.

Some German trade unionists have warned of risks that some seasonal workers might be underpaid, overworked and not be granted health insurance, but Mocanu said the fear she would be infected with coronavirus was not an overriding concern.

She and the new arrivals will get a medical checkup on arrival, will be isolated from other workers for two weeks and will lodge two to a room instead of four as in previous years.

Images of almost 2,000 Romanians crowding to catch back-to-back charter planes in the western city of Cluj last week fuelled a heated public debate in Romania, with some worried about the spread of disease.

A resident of the eastern Romanian town of Buzau, Mocanu normally earns 16 euros a day working in a nursing home. She has seen her town shrink every year as people leave, frustrated with low pay, political corruption and decrepit public services.

Roughly five million Romanians now live abroad, a third of the total population.

Mocanu first found work in Germany through her twin sister, who immigrated there permanently with her husband and son.

"It was hard in the beginning, your back hurts from bending so much, but it's worth it in the end. It's a financial choice."

(Editing by Justyna Pawlak and Gareth Jones)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Coronavirus deaths have surged past 150,000 worldwide with nearly a quarter of them in the United States, where new rallies against lockdown orders are being held after President Donald Trump lent his support to the protesters.

Evidence is mounting that social distancing successfully slowed the pandemic after more than half of humanity  4.5 billion people  were confined to their homes.

Governments around the world are now grappling with when and how to ease lockdowns that have crippled the global economy, even as the COVID-19 death toll climbs further in hard-hit countries.

Demonstrators in three US states staged rallies this week to demand an end to the restrictions, with the largest protest in Michigan attracting 3,000 people  some of whom were armed.

Trump has largely left decisions on easing lockdowns to state officials even as he laid out guidelines for a staged reopening of the national economy.

But his call to liberate Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia in a series of tweets Friday were rebuked by the Democratic leaders of all three states.

I do not have time to involve myself in Twitter wars, said Virginia governor Ralph Northam.

 Africa death toll tops 1,000 

The United States accounts for nearly a third of the 2.25 million coronavirus infections reported globally.

It has also recorded over 37,000 deaths, more than any other nation, followed by Italy, Spain and France which have all been ravaged by their own outbreaks.

Many countries are testing only the most serious cases and the number of confirmed infections is likely to be only a fraction of the true total.

Virtually no corner of the world has been left untouched, with deaths in Africa passing 1,000.

Nigeria announced the death of President Muhammadu Buharis top aide, the highest-profile person to succumb to the virus in Africas most populous nation.

Meanwhile, many of the worlds 260 million Orthodox Christians are preparing to mark Easter without attending church services.

The Russian Orthodox Church has asked the faithful to celebrate at home, even though many places or worship will remain open. Services in Turkey will be closed to the public and broadcast on the internet.

In Zimbabwe, mass rallies and military parades to mark the countrys 40th anniversary of independence from British colonial rule were cancelled.

And Buckingham Palace announced that Queen Elizabeth II will not mark her birthday on Tuesday with a traditional gun salute.

Britains overall death toll is officially almost 15,500, but a charity says the number of virus deaths in care homes alone could be as high as 7,500, five times more than estimated.

 Cover-up claims 

Chinas death toll jumped to 4,632 on Friday after it raised by 50 percent the number of fatalities for the city of Wuhan, where the respiratory disease first emerged late last year.

Trump, who has angrily shot back at claims he reacted too slowly to the virus threat, has accused Beijing of downplaying the impact of the disease within its borders.

It is far higher than that and far higher than the U.S., not even close! he tweeted.

Trump did not offer evidence to back his claim, but pressure has mounted on Beijing to come clean over its handling of the initial outbreak.

Leaders in France and Britain have also questioned Chinas management of the crisis but Beijing hit back, saying it had not concealed information about the illness.

 My family is hungry 

Signs that the outbreak could be easing in parts of Europe prompted Switzerland, Denmark and Finland to begin reopening shops and schools this week.

Germanys health minister said Friday that the virus was under control after 3,400 deaths, and the country is now beginning the delicate task of lifting some restrictions without triggering a secondary outbreak.

Some shops will be allowed to reopen Monday, and some children will return to school within weeks.

Parts of Italy began emerging from lockdown too, with Venice residents strolling around quiet canals.

Iran also allowed some Tehran businesses to reopen Saturday despite the Middle Easts deadliest outbreak, as many faced a bitter choice between risking infection and economic ruin.

How can I stay keep staying home? My family is hungry, said Hamdollah Mahmoudi, 45, a shopworker in Tehrans Grand Bazaar.

And one gets mentally sick without work.

But Spain, where the death toll topped 20,000, has extended its strict lockdown, while Japan, Britain and Mexico have all expanded their current movement restrictions.

 Its heartbreaking 

Signs of the economic carnage wrought by the pandemic are mounting, with China reporting its first GDP contraction since at least the early 1990s after several decades of breakneck growth.

The Trump administration pledged another $19 billion in relief for farmers reeling from a massive jolt to agricultural markets with schools and restaurants shuttered across the country.

Part of the funds will be used to buy up surplus dairy products and produce that farmers have been destroying, unable to get it to consumers or food processors.

Having to dump milk and plow under vegetables ready to market is not only financially distressing, but its heartbreaking as well to those who produce them, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said.

African state leaders and global financial bodies warned Friday that the continent needed tens of billions of dollars in additional funds to fight the outbreak.

The IMF also warned the virus could spark another lost decade in Latin America and backed debt moratoriums for the regions fragile economies.

SOURCE: AFP
There are so many part-time workers in retailing, and weve always had second-class status, with more unstable schedules and no benefits. Like a third of the hourly workers in the service sector, I was stuck with part-time work even though I wanted more hours.

The kinds of people who are most likely to be underemployed are Latinas, people paid hourly, people with variable work schedules, people working in sales and retailing and people with low household incomes  all of which describe me. And those of us stuck in part-time jobs are paid 30 percent less per hour than full-timers doing the same thing. That means we face a double penalty: not enough hours, and lower pay for each hour we do work. No wonder I had zero savings when I lost my job.

The times and lengths of my shifts changed all the time, and sometimes we got our schedules only two days before the week started. I needed as many hours as I could get, so I would always pick up shifts if my co-workers were unavailable. Sometimes Id work close to 40 hours, but then Id be cut back, because the manager would get in trouble with corporate if I got too close to full time.

During my time at Sephora, I had several conversations with my manager about how I could get promoted to full time, and I was told it would happen. But now I think I was just being promised something I was never going to get. I was hired as a cashier, and my manager told me that I was 99 percent ready to be a lead cashier, but then she hired someone else.

I worked pretty often in color matching, which is helping customers select the right shades of makeup for their skin tone. I was earning $13 an hour, my cashier rate, even when I worked in color matching. I believe my full time co-workers with that job make $15 or $16 per hour, but Im not sure because the company discouraged us from talking about our wages. One day I got so frustrated I started crying, because I was doing all the work without the benefits that color consultants get, like training and free products.
The Karnataka government



has managed to get the contact details of nine out of 10 foreign nationals who had visited Jubilant Life Sciences, a pharmaceutical company in Mysuru district's Nanjangud which has been declared a coronavirus hotspot, State minister S Suresh Kumar said on Saturday.

As many as 66 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Nanjangud.

While investigating the source of virus in what is now known as 'Nanjangud cluster', the Mysuru administration could get information that 10 foreign nationals had visited this town, Kumar told reporters.

Soon the External Affairs Ministry's help was sought which managed to track nine of them, Kumar said, adding that the MEA contacted its embassies in China, Germany, Japan and USA to track these persons.

"Out of 10,they could contact nine and got details. All of them have said that they were all healthy and they did not have any symptoms.

Hence, they did not feel the need to undergo COVID-19 tests," the minister said.

He opined that many people do not show the symptoms but they could be carriers of the virus.

"It all depends on the person's immunity," Kumar explained.

A foreign national from Germany who had visited Nanjangud could not be reached as her contact details were not available.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Deoksu Palace, circa 1910-1920s. Robert Neff Collection



By Robert Neff



According to most sources, the telephone was introduced to Korea in early 1898 and was used by Emperor Gojong at his palace (Deoksugung) to communicate with the offices of his highest government officials. But was this really the first time a telephone had been used on the Korean Peninsula?



According to Henry A. Savage-Landor, the introduction of the telephone took place in 1890, shortly after Queen Dowager Cho was buried in mid-October. He wrote:



"A strange tale was told me, which I shall repeat, as I know it to be true. It is to this effect: A few months previous to my visit to Seoul, a foreigner had visited the king soliciting orders for installations of telephones. The king, being much astounded, and pleased at the wonderful invention, immediately, at great expense, set about connecting by telephone the tomb of the queen dowager with the royal palace  a distance of several miles!



"Needless to say, though many hours a day were spent by His Majesty and his suite in listening at their end of the telephone, and a watchman kept all night in case the queen dowager should wake up from her eternal sleep, not a message, or a sound, or murmur even, was heard, which result caused the telephone to be condemned as a fraud by His Majesty the King of Cho-sen."



How accurate the tale was is unknown but we do know, judging from items gleaned from the contemporary newspapers, there were telephones at the palace before 1898.





Deoksu Palace Gate, circa 1900s. Robert Neff Collection



In February 1897, The Independent (an English-language newspaper printed in Seoul) reported a telephone system had been established connecting the palace with the War Office, Police Department and the barracks of the Royal Body Guard. The editor somewhat lightheartedly posed the question  would Koreans adopt the word "hello" when answering the telephone? The editor felt that "yobo" would be a fine substitute for "hello."



But, later that month, there were bigger concerns than telephone etiquette when answering the phone. During the Lunar New Year, the sky was filled with kites battling one another  a popular holiday pastime that apparently played havoc with telephone wires. It became such a problem that police were sent out "to prohibit the children from entangling the kite strings on the telephone wires between the War Office and the [Royal Body Guard] barracks."



Apparently the line went dead on at least one occasion and the children and their kites were not the cause. Some of the more conservative court officials thought telephones were detrimental to Korean culture. They argued that it was impossible to "observe proper ceremony" and maintain the dignity required when conducting official business.



To emphasize their opposition, somebody cut the line. Shortly afterward, King Gojong (he had not yet assumed the title of emperor) issued a decree that damaging telephone equipment would be considered a capital offense. Fortunately for the line-cutter, his identity was never discovered and thus he retained his head.



By the end of the year, all the government departments were connected to the palace by phone. But, as the editor of The Independent noted, not all conversations were for official business: "The employees are having great fun with the phones as they ring up their friends whenever they feel lonesome and carry on conversations on all subjects."



By late January 1898, communication between the palace and the senior government official at the port of Chemulpo (modern Incheon) was established. Three months later, the American Legation in Seoul was able to call the main office of the Seoul-Chemulpo Railroad that was located at the port.





Seokjojeon in Deoksu Palace, circa 1910-1930s. Robert Neff Collection
Daqo New Energy Corp. (NYSE:DQ), which is in the semiconductor business, and is based in China, received a lot of attention from a substantial price movement on the NYSE over the last few months, increasing to US$77.64 at one point, and dropping to the lows of US$42.83. Some share price movements can give investors a better opportunity to enter into the stock, and potentially buy at a lower price. A question to answer is whether Daqo New Energy's current trading price of US$46.69 reflective of the actual value of the small-cap? Or is it currently undervalued, providing us with the opportunity to buy? Lets take a look at Daqo New Energys outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if there are any catalysts for a price change.

View our latest analysis for Daqo New Energy

Is Daqo New Energy still cheap?

Great news for investors  Daqo New Energy is still trading at a fairly cheap price according to my price multiple model, where I compare the company's price-to-earnings ratio to the industry average. In this instance, Ive used the price-to-earnings (PE) ratio given that there is not enough information to reliably forecast the stocks cash flows. I find that Daqo New Energys ratio of 22.44x is below its peer average of 29.6x, which indicates the stock is trading at a lower price compared to the Semiconductor industry. Whats more interesting is that, Daqo New Energys share price is quite volatile, which gives us more chances to buy since the share price could sink lower (or rise higher) in the future. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for how much the stock moves relative to the rest of the market.

Can we expect growth from Daqo New Energy?

NYSE:DQ Past and Future Earnings April 18th 2020

Investors looking for growth in their portfolio may want to consider the prospects of a company before buying its shares. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so lets also take a look at the company's future expectations. With profit expected to more than double over the next couple of years, the future seems bright for Daqo New Energy. It looks like higher cash flow is on the cards for the stock, which should feed into a higher share valuation.

Story continues

What this means for you:

Are you a shareholder? Since DQ is currently below the industry PE ratio, it may be a great time to increase your holdings in the stock. With a positive outlook on the horizon, it seems like this growth has not yet been fully factored into the share price. However, there are also other factors such as financial health to consider, which could explain the current price multiple.

Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping an eye on DQ for a while, now might be the time to make a leap. Its prosperous future profit outlook isnt fully reflected in the current share price yet, which means its not too late to buy DQ. But before you make any investment decisions, consider other factors such as the track record of its management team, in order to make a well-informed assessment.

Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters  the fundamentals  before you make a decision on Daqo New Energy. You can find everything you need to know about Daqo New Energy in the latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Daqo New Energy, you can use our free platform to see my list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential.

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.




Good day, Nigeria, welcome to Naija News roundup of top Coronavirus news headlines for today Saturday, April 18th, 2020.

Below is a roundup of top stories on the COVID-19 disease

The Kano State Government has confirmed six new cases of Coronavirus.

The development was revealed on Twitter on Friday by the State Ministry of Health.

It said, As at 10:56 pm, 17th April 2020, @KanostateNg confirms Six (6) additional cases of COVID-19, totalling 27 cases, 1 death #StayAtHome #StaySafeNigeria, #lockDownKano.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has confirmed Fifty-One new cases of the coronavirus in Nigeria on Friday.

NCDC in a post on its official Twitter account around 10:10 pm on Friday noted that the total number of confirmed cases in the country now stands at 493, while 159 people have been discharge and 17 death recorded.

According to the NCDC, Lagos state has 32 confirmed cases, while Kano has 6 cases, 5 in Kwara, 2 in FCT, 2 in Oyo, 2 in Katsina, 1 in Ogun and 1 in Ekiti.

The Lagos state government on Saturday announced that three patients have died due to the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19).

This was made known in a post on Twitter by the State Commissioner of Health, Professor Akin Abayomi.

Prof. Abayomi disclosed that the deceased are two males and a female aged 52, 63 and 67 respectively.

He added that two of the victims had underlying health issues.

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Defending sons lockdown wedding, Kumaraswamy cites WHO on face masks

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Bengaluru, Apr 18: A day after former Karnataka chief minister was criticised for being irresponsible by hosting his son's wedding at a time when the country is battling a pandemic, he said that he had taken all precautionary measures.

Kumaraswamy's son, Nikhil wed Revathi, the grand-niece of Congress leader, M Krishnappa on April 17. Prior to the wedding, Kumaraswamy had tweeted, " heartfelt thanks to the millions of activists and well-wishers. Let us sit down and have a meal together when this situation that the world is facing gets over."

Masks made mandatory in Gujarat, Haryana, Bengal

Kumaraswamy told India Today that he felt hurt when there were demands for the arrest of his father and former prime minister of India, H D Deve Gowda. When asked about the social distancing norms, he said that all precautions were taken. He also questioned Karnataka Chief Minister, B S Yediyurappa for flouting social distancing norms. The wedding was attended only by blood relatives, he said.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

I challenge the CM to take any action if we did anything wrong. The wedding was permitted by the district magistrate and every case was issued a pass for the function. On why none were wearing face masks, the former CM said that the WHO said it is not necessary for everyone to wear face masks.
Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, receives an exclusive interview with Xinhua in Seattle, the United States, on Nov. 13, 2019. (Xinhua/Qin Lang)

"We have a responsibility to meet this global crisis with global solidarity," said Gates Foundation co-chair Melinda Gates.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 16 (Xinhua) -- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Wednesday rolled out a series of expanded measures including an additional 150 million U.S. dollars to combat COVID-19 globally.

According to the announcement, the added funds will finance the development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines, as well as new efforts to provide partners in Africa and South Asia with resources to scale their COVID-19 detection, treatment, and isolation efforts, the announcement said.

Furthermore, the foundation will also leverage a portion of its 2.5 billion Strategic Investment Fund, which uses a suite of financial tools to address market failures and incentivize private enterprise to develop affordable and accessible health products, the foundation said.

In announcing the funding, the foundation called on world leaders to unite in a global response to COVID-19 to ensure equitable access to diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines.

Photo provided by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation shows that Bill Gates (R) and Melinda Gates pose for a photo after annotating the 2019 annual letter in Kirkland, Washington, the United States, on Jan. 8, 2019. (Xinhua)

"We have a responsibility to meet this global crisis with global solidarity," said Gates Foundation co-chair Melinda Gates.

"The world community must understand that so long as COVID-19 is somewhere, we need to act as if it were everywhere. Beating this pandemic will require an unprecedented level of international funding and cooperation," said foundation Co-chair Bill Gates.

The foundation identified four priority areas for investment including accelerating virus detection, protecting the most vulnerable, minimizing social and economic impact and developing products for a sustained response, and cooperating with national governments and international organizations such as the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund.

The newly announced funding builds on the 100 million dollars the foundation has committed to date to support the global response.
A nine-month-old infant who is among the latest coronavirus cases detected in Uttarakhand contracted the infection from his father after he returned from a Tablighi Jamaat congregation, officials said on Saturday.

They did not say where the congregation was held or when the infant's father had tested positive.

The infant is one of the three new coronavirus cases detected in Uttarakhand on Friday. The number of cases in the state after these fresh infections has risen to 40, a health department spokesperson said.

The baby is quarantined at a school in Jakhan area of Dehradun, he said.

According to the spokesperson, the infant's father is one of the 10 Tablighi Jamaat members under treatment for COVID-19 in Dehradun. He is admitted to the isolation ward at the Doon Hospital.

However, the baby's mother has tested negative for COVID-19, he said.

The other two persons who tested positive on Friday were a woman officer posted at a military hospital here and a Tablighi Jamaat member from Nainital district, the spokesperson said.

The woman officer had recently returned from training in Lucknow. Contact tracing of the officer is underway, he said.

The Tablighi Jamaat member is undergoing treatment at Sushila Tiwari Hospital, Haldwani, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Columbus A/S (CPH:COLUM) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 20% in the last month. Meanwhile over the last three years the stock has dropped hard. Tragically, the share price declined 52% in that time. So the improvement may be a real relief to some. Perhaps the company has turned over a new leaf.

View our latest analysis for Columbus

In his essay The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville Warren Buffett described how share prices do not always rationally reflect the value of a business. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.

During the three years that the share price fell, Columbus's earnings per share (EPS) dropped by 38% each year. In comparison the 22% compound annual share price decline isn't as bad as the EPS drop-off. So, despite the prior disappointment, shareholders must have some confidence the situation will improve, longer term.

The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

CPSE:COLUM Past and Future Earnings April 18th 2020

It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on Columbus's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What about the Total Shareholder Return (TSR)?

Investors should note that there's a difference between Columbus's total shareholder return (TSR) and its share price change, which we've covered above. 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. Its history of dividend payouts mean that Columbus's TSR, which was a 51% drop over the last 3 years, was not as bad as the share price return.

A Different Perspective

While the broader market gained around 14% in the last year, Columbus shareholders lost 48%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 3.6%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Columbus better, we need to consider many other factors. Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 4 warning signs with Columbus , and understanding them should be part of your investment process.

Story continues

If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on DK 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.
The Navy and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will begin a voluntary testing of 1,000 sailors onboard the virus-stricken carrier Theodore Roosevelt over the next week to collect data that could give leaders a better understanding of how the virus affects populations in close quarters, officials said Friday.

Rear Adm. Bruce Gillingham, Surgeon General and Chief of Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, told reporters that medical personnel will take a swab sample and blood tests for sailors on the carrier, which remains docked in Guam amid the coronavirus outbreak which has affected nearly 600 sailors on board the ship; a sailor who was moved to an intensive care unit in Guam earlier this month died this week from the disease.

Sailors will be asked to fill out a survey which they disclose their age, other physical details and any potential preexisting conditions to determine which sailors may be most vulnerable to the disease, added Capt. Robert Hawkins, commander of the Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center. Hawkins briefed alongside Gillingham and Dr. Dan Payne, epidemiologist for the CDC.

Related: Navy Believes Delivery Flights, Not Vietnam Port Stop, Brought Virus to Carrier

"Both samples will be submitted to the CDC laboratory, where the nasal swab will undergo a diagnostic test for COVID-19," Gillingham said. "The blood sample will undergo a new test that identifies COVID-19 antibodies in the blood ... The results will tell us if people have been exposed to the coronavirus and subsequently developed antibodies."

The outbreak analysis will also study how asymptomatic transmission -- when those who have the virus spread it to other individuals before exhibiting symptoms themselves -- takes place in a close-quarters environment, the officials said.

"We find the serologic testing to be very important because we can actually identify who did mount an immune response, some kind of antibody response against the infection, perhaps not even showing any symptoms," Payne said. "So it helps us to unveil that angle of the investigation."

"When you connect the results of the lab test together, you begin to get a picture that may allow us to adjust policies, to make policies and [to] inform public health practices a whole," Hawkins added.

The process should take roughly one month to generate results.

The Navy has already tested more 92% of the sailors assigned to Roosevelt and discovered at least 585 positive cases of the virus. As of Sunday, the Navy said that 3,724 sailors have tested negative since the carrier pulled into Guam last month.

Officials on the call stressed the latest investigation will not focus on determining which individual may have been "patient zero," though it is likely asymptomatic sailors -- what Gillingham called "presymptomatic" -- allowed the virus to pass through the ship "quite freely."

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that aircraft carrier onboard deliveries, known as CODs, were the catalyst for bringing COVID-19 on board the ship. The flights in question could have originated in the Philippines or Japan as the carrier operated in the Asia-Pacific region, an official told Military.com.

On Friday, a Navy official separately confirmed that the first two cases on the ship were from the air wing, but said officials have not delineated whether the aviators were from the COD flights, F/A-18 strike fighter squadrons, or the helicopter squadrons onboard the carrier.

Gillingham said crew members who have tested positive for COVID-19 remain in isolation at controlled locations and Naval base Guam, where they receive daily medical supporting care.

In addition to onboard medical personnel and members from US Naval Hospital Guam, the US Marine Corps' 3rd Medical Battalion from Okinawa is assisting patients, he said.

-- Gina Harkins contributed to this report.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.

Read More: DoD Watchdog Wants to Know if Navy's P-8 Spy Plane Can Track Russian Subs
President Trump fired off a series of tweets Friday that appeared to encourage citizens in states protesting strict coronavirus lockdown orders to LIBERATE themselves from their governors  specifically, Democratic governors in states that could be important in the presidential election.

Two minutes after Fox News aired a segment on a Minnesota protest against social distancing orders issued by Gov. Tim Walz, Trump hit the all-caps key and threw his support behind those angry about the restrictions.

LIBERATE MINNESOTA!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020

The president then targeted two more states where protests had erupted on Thursday.

LIBERATE MICHIGAN!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020

LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020

In Michigan, where more than 29,000 people have tested positive for the coronavirus, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has put in place strict stay-at-home orders. Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, which has reported more than 7,400 cases, has done the same. Their orders were based on the federal guidelines that Trump himself issued in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Other states, including some with Republican governors, have enacted similar restrictions.

When you see a political rally  thats what it was yesterday  a political rally where people arent wearing masks and theyre in close quarters and theyre touching one another, you know that thats precisely what makes this kind of disease drag out and expose more people, Whitmer said in an interview with MSNBC.

Trumps tweets targeting swing states with Democratic governors came the day after he unveiled new criteria for the lifting of stay-at-home orders that he said will allow governors to take a phased and deliberate approach to reopening their individual states. During the course of the week, he has at different times claimed total authority to overrule governors on emergency measures and said he would defer to their decisions.

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Protesters attend a rally outside the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on April 15. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

At his Thursday evening press briefing, Trump declined to condemn protesters, many of whom wore clothing or carried banners supporting him, saying, I think theyre listening, I think they listen to me.

Theres death and theres problems in staying at home too, Trump said when asked about the protesters. Its not just, Isnt it wonderful to stay at home? Theyre suffering. This country wasnt built on that principle. It was built on an exact opposite principle, actually.

Approximately 95 percent of Americans are living under social distancing restrictions, and Trump, who first floated the idea of resuming normal activity on Easter Sunday before his coronavirus advisers convinced him it wouldnt be safe, has since been pushing for governors to lift them by May 1.

While 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the country went into near lockdown, a Pew Research poll released Thursday found that 66 percent of those surveyed said that they feared that state governments would lift restrictions too soon.

As of Friday, nearly 673,000 Americans had tested positive for the coronavirus, and more than 33,000 had died.

In RealClearPolitics average of polls, former Vice President Joe Biden leads Trump by an average of 4.4 points in Michigan, by 7.3 points in Virginia and by 12 points in Minnesota.

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Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

Read more:
Global demand for rubber-based products soar View(s):

Governments across the world are urgently trying to acquire and store critical medical supplies such as masks and gloves as frontline doctors and nurses readying to battle COVID-19 pandemic face shortages.

This pandemic is forcing many of the biggest makers in this part of the world to run factories around the clock to meet demand and Sri Lanka isnt an exception.

This is the reason behind the local rubber manufacturing and export industry receiving the nod from the government to resume operations immediately.

Sri Lanka Association of Manufacturers and Exporters of Rubber Products (SLAMERP) Director General Rohan Masakorala told the Business Times that the association had met with the Presidential Taskforce seeking permission to resume the industry during the curfew. There is high demand in Sri Lanka and globally for surgical gloves, medical gloves and protective gloves. Our manufacturers have many orders for these type of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Mr. Masakorala said noting that rubber manufacturers and the supply chains linked to it are allowed to start work immediately with necessary facilitation of curfew passes. He added that some firms are not labour-intensive but machine-intensive which makes it easier for them to start operations immediately.

Natural and synthetic rubber gloves are used by healthcare workers and food service workers, and in industrial settings. Protective equipment for healthcare workers is critical to the fight against coronavirus. In early March, the World Health Organisation (WHO) urged businesses and governments to act fast to increase supplies of protective equipment, including gloves, medical masks, and respirators, for healthcare workers on the frontlines combating COVID-19. To meet rising global demand, the WHO estimates manufacturers to increase production by 40 per cent.

Sri Lanka has a real opportunity in this space. Glove manufacturing and exporting industry of Sri Lanka is placed as one of the top manufactures of the world which also contributes more than 5 per cent of global demand, according to the Sri Lanka Export Development Board, the apex state organisation for the development and promotion of exports.

Sri Lankan glove manufacturers and suppliers hold latex to be perhaps the best raw material to manufacture certain products such as surgical gloves. The major rubber export markets are the US, Germany, Belgium, Italy and the UK. The rubber and rubber-based products sector fetched US$600 million in value last year.

(DEC)
In the glare of a public spotlight, Adm. Mike Gilday will decide whether Navy Capt. Brett Crozier stepped out of line when he went around his chain of command and sent an email pushing for action to stem the outbreak. As of Friday, 660 sailors on the aircraft carrier, now docked at Guam, had tested positive for the virus and seven were hospitalized. One sailor has died, and more than 4,000 of the ships 5,000 crew members have been moved onto the island for quarantine.
N azanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is set to receive news on her return to prison after being temporarily freed amid the coronavirus outbreak in Iran.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had originally been released for two weeks with an ankle tag on the eve of her scheduled return, Iran is still in the grip of the pandemic.

Iran is thought to have been one of the hardest-hit countries in the Middle East.

The Iranian government claims there have been fewer than 5,000 deaths in total. However, pandemic modellers based in the US estimate that as of March 20, more than 15,000 had lost their lives.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the Britsh-Iranian woman jailed in Iran, who has had her leave from prison extended by two weeks, according to her husband. / PA

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffes husband Richard Ratcliffe told the PA news agency: We are waiting on news.

Her lawyer will go to the Prosecutors office to check whether she needs to return to prison or it has been extended.

When she was first released, Mr Ratcliffe said: My feelings today have been all of a mix  pleased at the happiness for Nazanin and (their daughter) Gabriella, but fear this is a new drawn out game of chess.

He added: The issue now is to make it permanent and bring Nazanin home. It is one feeling to walk out of prison. It is completely different to walk back in. No-one should be asked to go and be a hostage again. So we are watching carefully.

British-Iranian mother Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested at Tehrans Imam Khomeini airport while travelling to show her young daughter, Gabriella, to her parents in April 2016.

She was sentenced to five years in prison over allegations of plotting to overthrow the Tehran government.

She has been afforded diplomatic protection by the UK Government.
Ben Affleck enjoyed some quality time with his sweetheart Ana de Armas on Saturday.

The actor, 47, snuggled his gorgeous girlfriend as they waited in line to pick up a box of donuts in Santa Monica.

Armed with face masks, the couple seemed to have forgotten about all the problems in the world as they enjoyed some time together.

Donut run! Ben Affleck enjoyed some quality time with his sweetheart Ana de Armas on Saturday

Ben affectionately placed an arm around Ana's neck as they waited outside together in the sunshine.

Once inside, the couple got close as they checked out something on Ana's cell phone.

After their order was complete, Ben strode outside the shop with a box full of pastries.

Ana was looking incredible in a satin tank top tucked into her blue jeans, along with a long beige coat added for extra warmth.

His sweetheart: The actor, 47, snuggled his gorgeous girlfriend as they waited in line to pick up a box of donuts in Santa Monica

Hand in hand: The couple affectionately held onto each other

She wore a stylish pair of black flats, gold crescent necklace, and her hair down.

Ana also flashed a stunning jewel ring on her left hand.

Ben followed close behind clad in a blue jacket, slacks, and green button down shirt.

The couple are currently quarantining together at Ben's home in Pacific Palisades.

A source told PEOPLE: 'They order delivery food and groceries and only leave the house for walks around the neighborhood with their dogs. Ben looks incredibly happy. They are flirty and goofy.'

Doing their part: The couple are currently quarantining together at Ben's home in Pacific Palisades

Bling bling! Ana flashed a stunning ring on her left hand

What's that? The couple were checking out something on Ana's phone

The couple met on the set of their thriller Deep Water last year and went public with their relationship last month after a romantic trip to Ana's native Cuba and Costa Rica.

A source previously told the magazine that they had an 'instant connection' while filming the movie.

'They had great chemistry right from the start,' the source said of Affleck and de Armas, who play a couple in the movie from Fatal Attraction director Adrian Lyne.

'Ben always seemed very relaxed and happy around Ana, but at the time there were no signs of romance. He was very focused on making a fantastic movie.'

Oh goody! Affleck left the store carrying a box of donuts
Investigations are under way in several residential care homes in the US, where it is believed thousands have died.

From reporting the first COVID-19 deaths to an alarming and rising death toll, nursing homes across the US have been particularly hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

The crisis has shed light on some of the underlying issues of the US system, with many homes accused of prioritising profit over the wellbeing of residents.

Al Jazeeras Shihab Rattansi reports.
Amid mounting pressure for transparency, state officials on Thursday released detailed information on the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in each Connecticut nursing home.

There are 375 reported deaths in nursing homes to date  accounting for nearly 40 percent of the states total deaths.

The number of cases recorded is 1,713 - which represents about 11 percent of all coronavirus cases here.

Family members with loved ones in nursing facilities have called on Gov. Ned Lamonts administration to release the numbers. Several people told the CT Mirror earlier this month that with visitations restricted, they were in the dark about what was happening inside the homes. Lawmakers and advocates have also pressed for the data to be published.

The figures released Thursday show 108 facilities  just over half of the states nursing homes  with at least one COVID-19-positive resident. The number of cases at many facilities was in the double digits.

The Abbott Terrace Health Center in Waterbury recorded the most confirmed cases among residents, with 69. The Golden Hill Rehab Pavilion in Milford had 67 cases, and the Grimes Center in New Haven had 58.

Other nursing homes with a high number of cases include the Parkway Pavilion Health and Rehabilitation Center in Enfield (45), The Willows in Woodbridge (43), Gardner Heights Health Care Center in Shelton (42), and Apple Shelton Lakes in Shelton (40).

Abbott Terrace and Gardner Heights reported the most coronavirus-related deaths among residents and former residents, with 15 each. Whispering Pines in East Haven reported 14 deaths, Apple Shelton Lakes reported 13, and Bishop-Wicke Health and Rehabilitation in Shelton and Litchfield Woods in Torrington each reported 12.

The state did not disclose the total number of residents at each facility, so it was not clear what percentage of residents were sick at each home. State officials released the number of licensed beds at each facility, but not the number of occupied beds.

Timothy Brown, a spokesman for Athena Health Care Systems, which owns Abbott Terrace, said in a statement late Thursday that he was not confident the states numbers offered an accurate picture of cases at the nursing home.

Abbott Terrace has accepted COVID-19 positive residents from area assisted livings and other nursing homes who were unable to be cared for in those settings, he said.

Brown said the numbers also appeared to include cases in which test results were pending and deaths of residents who were receiving hospice care prior to contracting COVID-19.

Matthew Barrett, president and CEO of the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities, defended nursing home operators and staff.

The data continues to show that COVID-19 is making its way indiscriminately into nursing homes in Connecticut and across the nation, he said. This means that nursing home operators and employees who are doing all the right things will have to battle the virus through no fault of their own.

A full list of cases and deaths per facility is available here.

COVID-19-positive nursing homes begin admitting residents

A nursing home in Sharon has begun accepting COVID-19-positive residents and a second facility - in Bridgeport - will begin welcoming those residents Monday, officials said.

The facilities are part of a plan by nursing home leaders and the state to separate residents felled by the disease from healthy ones.

The state designated four sites for the sick residents. Two are existing nursing homes - the Sharon Health Care Center in Sharon and the Northbridge Health Care Center in Bridgeport - and two are defunct facilities that are being cleaned in reopened. The reopened buildings are in Meriden and Torrington.

Athena Health Care Systems, which owns the Sharon and Bridgeport nursing homes and is managing the two formerly vacant buildings, said COVID-19-positive residents began arriving at the Sharon location Thursday.

Healthy residents have been transferred out of that facility this week and are continuing to be moved out.

The Covid-19 pandemic has presented incredible and unprecedented challenges to the state. I am glad that Athena Health Care Systems is in a position to answer the states call for assistance at this critical time, Larry Santilli, Athenas president, said in a statement.

Northbridge will begin accepting sick residents on Monday. Managers there have already started moving healthy residents out.

The Torrington facility is staffed, but new employees still must attend an orientation and supervisors are waiting on equipment. It is expected to begin accepting sick residents on Tuesday. There was no timetable for the Meriden building.

Asked Thursday why it took more than month to get the facilities ready, Josh Geballe, Lamonts chief operating officer, pointed to the complexity of arranging separate nursing homes and said a shift in guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also delayed efforts.

There are a lot of stakeholders involved and this is a very complicated environment  very at-risk patients; getting all the right frameworks in place, the right financial models in place, he said. Also  were still learning new things. We had to take a change of direction about a week or week and a half ago, when the CDC updated their guidance to indicate that COVID-19 could be transmitted up to 48 hours before someone starts exhibiting symptoms. That changed the plan significantly in terms of what we can assume and what we should not assume relative to our existing population.

Financial concerns

Earlier this week, nursing home leaders warned in a letter to Lamont and top administration officials that facilities across the state are struggling to care for residents amid the pandemic, saying Lamonts 10 percent Medicaid rate hike is inadequate to cover an unprecedented staffing crisis and skyrocketing equipment costs.

While the special buildings have been arranged for sick residents, many other nursing homes will continue caring for people who tested positive for COVID-19.

Lamonts Medicaid rate increase translated into an $11.6 million payment to nursing homes by April 7, with projections that by the end of June facilities would have received an extra $35.3 million.

The four facilities dedicated to COVID-19-positive residents are eligible for a $600-per-day payment for each person served, more than double the average daily rate. So far, the financial concerns raised by nursing home leaders have not disrupted the plans for those facilities.
WASHINGTON>> Over the past week, President Donald Trump was pretender to a throne that doesnt exist as he claimed king-like powers over the coronavirus pandemic response and Congress.

He also denied praising Chinas openness in the pandemic, when hes on record doing so repeatedly, and claimed far more Chinese than Americans are dying from COVID-19 when the numbers show the opposite.

A look at his recent rhetoric and its relationship with reality.

CHINA vs. US

TRUMP: China has just announced a doubling in the number of their deaths from the Invisible Enemy. It is far higher than that and far higher than the U.S., not even close!  tweet Friday.

THE FACTS: Its the reverse, more than 4,600 recorded deaths in China compared with more than 36,000 in the United States. And the notion that China can overtake the U.S. in a final accounting of the dead is a long shot right now.

Even with the upward revision Friday of Chinese deaths  which was not a doubling, as Trump claimed  the recorded U.S. death toll is about seven times higher than Chinas, according to the count by Johns Hopkins University as of Friday night. And China has more than four times more people.

The full picture is not known in either country. Trump routinely manipulates information to make the U.S response to the coronavirus pandemic look better than it is. Chinas secretive leadership obscured the severity of the crisis for crucial weeks, and its numbers remain in question.

As well, deaths from the virus have not been fully reported in either country because the pandemic is still raging in the U.S. and still being accounted for in China.

But for China to surpass the U.S. in this count, it would have to be underreporting deaths by the tens of thousands, and deaths in the U.S. would have to nosedive from the current trend and projections.

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EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY

TRUMP: Some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect  It is the decision of the President.  tweets Monday.

TRUMP, asked about his level of authority to reopen the country: I have the ultimate authority. They cant do anything without the approval of the president of the United States.  news briefing Monday.

THE FACTS: The federal government did not close down the country and wont be reopening it. Restrictions on public gatherings, workplaces, mobility, store operations, schools and more were ordered by states and communities, not Washington. The federal government has imposed border controls; otherwise its social distancing actions are mostly recommendations, not mandates.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, knocking down a series of false rumors about the coronavirus, makes clear that states and cities are responsible for announcing curfews, shelters in place, or other restrictions and safety measures.

Trump has argued that states and communities imposed restrictions because he let them and that he can overrule their decisions. Constitutional experts disagree.

The president can un-declare his national emergency declarations, which freed up federal funds and provided assistance to state and local governments, said Walter Dellinger, a former acting U.S. solicitor general. But he has no federal statutory or constitutional power to override steps taken by governors and mayors under state law. He has never understood that he lacks a general power to rule by decree.

The federal government does have broad constitutional authority over states on things that cross state lines and involve the entire nation, such as regulating interstate commerce and immigration, levying taxes or declaring war. What Trump is proposing, however, is different. He is wading into states sharply defined powers to protect public health.

Asked what authority he had to make such an assertion of presidential power, Trump promised earlier in the week that he would provide a legal memorandum supporting his view. By Thursday, he hadnt and he told governors that day they could reopen states when they deem appropriate.

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TRUMP: If the House will not agree to that adjournment, I will exercise my constitutional authority to adjourn both chambers of Congress.  news briefing Wednesday.

THE FACTS: His power to adjourn Congress is highly questionable.

The Constitution does not spell out a unilateral power for the president to adjourn Congress. It states only that he can decide on adjournment if there is a dispute over that matter between the House and Senate. Such a disagreement does not exist, nor is it likely to arise.

Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley said on Twitter the Constitution gives a president authority in extraordinary occasions to convene or adjourn Congress. But, he said, This power has never been used and should not be used now.

Trump is unhappy that Congress has refused to fully adjourn during most breaks. Because Congress is still formally in session, Trump cant circumvent Congress and unilaterally put his nominees for various positions to work in the jobs he wants them to have. Lawmakers also used the tactic of holding off on adjournment to thwart some of President Barack Obamas nominees.

Doug Andres, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said McConnell will find ways to confirm nominees essential to the pandemic response but Senate rules will require that the Democratic leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, give consent to move forward on them.

___

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION

TRUMP, explaining in part why he is freezing money to the World Health Organization: The WHO willingly took Chinas assurances to face value, and they took it just at face value and defended the actions of the Chinese government, even praising China for its so-called transparency. I dont think so.  news briefing Tuesday.

TRUMP, asked about his past praise of China: I dont talk about Chinas transparency.  news briefing Tuesday.

THE FACTS: He did praise Chinas transparency as well as its overall performance in the pandemic.

While its true that WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus complimented Chinas response, Trump early on similarly took Chinas assurances at face value.

In a CNBC interview on Jan. 22, Trump was asked if he trusted information from China about the coronavirus. I do, Trump said. I have a great relationship with President Xi.

Two days later, he was even more effusive. China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus, he tweeted. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. I want to thank President Xi!

Trump kept up the compliments when asked several times in February about whether data from China can be trusted,. He called Xi extremely capable and said hes doing a very good job with a very, very tough situation.

Such praise faded as the pandemic hit hard in the U.S. and the federal response stumbled. The time was ripe for scapegoats. It also become clearer that China had not been forthcoming at the start.

On March 21, Trump said of his earlier remarks: China was transparent at that time, but when we saw what happened, they could have been transparent much earlier than they were. In any event, his denial that he ever praised Chinas openness is false.

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TRADE

TRUMP: China has paid us nothing in your last administration, nothing in any previous administration. They paid us tens of billions of dollars because of what weve done. And the trade deal we have, they have to give us $250 billion in purchases. Were taking in billions of dollars for China  from China. They never paid us 10 cents.  news briefing Tuesday.

THE FACTS: A familiar assertion, false to the core.

Its false to say the U.S. never collected a dime in tariffs on Chinese goods before he took action. They are simply higher in some cases than they were before. Its also wrong to suggest that the tariffs are being paid by China. Tariff money coming into the treasury is mainly from U.S. businesses and consumers, not from China. Tariffs are primarily if not entirely a tax paid domestically.

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TRUMP, on the World Trade Organization: Were winning a lot of lawsuits right now that we never won before in the past. Were winning a lot of money that we never won in the past. Thats with the World Trade.  news briefing Wednesday.

THE FACTS: He is wildly wrong to suggest that the U.S. was bound to lose disputes taken to the trade organization before him.

The U.S. has always had a high success rate when it pursues cases against other countries at the WTO. In 2017, trade analyst Daniel Ikenson of the libertarian Cato Institute found that the U.S. won 91% of the cases it took to the Geneva-based trade monitor.

As Ikenson noted, countries bringing complaints to the organization tend to win because they dont bother going to the WTO in the first place if they dont have a strong case.

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DRUG TREATMENTS

TRUMP, on the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine: We have millions of doses that we bought, and many people are using it all over the country. And just recently, a friend of mine told me he got better because of the use of that  that drug. So, who knows? Its a lot of good things that are happening with it.  news briefing Monday.

THE FACTS: He continues to make unverified claims about a drug that can have serious side effects and may not work. The drug has not been proven as a treatment for COVID-19, and Trumps own health experts say more studies are needed to know whether its safe and effective to use.

The president has been talking up hydroxychloroquine, a drug long used to treat malaria, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, after very small preliminary studies suggested it might help prevent coronavirus from entering cells and possibly help patients clear the virus sooner.

Doctors can already prescribe the malaria drug to patients with COVID-19, a practice known as off-label prescribing. The Food and Drug Administration has allowed the drugs into the national stockpile, but only for narrowly defined purposes as studies continue on whether they are effective and safe enough to be approved for wider use by people sick with the coronavirus.

The drug has major potential side effects, especially for the heart, and large studies are underway. The FDA says people should not take it without a prescription and emphasizes that the malaria drugs being explored are not FDA-approved for treatment of COVID-19.

The American Medical Association, the American Pharmacists Association and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists in a joint statement warned against prophylactically prescribing medications currently identified as potential treatments for COVID-19. That means prescribing a medicine for the purpose of warding off a disease or preventing its spread.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday barred pilots from taking hydroxychloroquine and closely related chloroquine within 48 hours of flying. The safety agency cites the wide variety of dosages and lack of standards around using the drugs to treat the coronavirus in deciding that any pilots who take them must wait before flying.

___

TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS

TRUMP, on imposing restrictions on travel from China: I saved tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives, by doing that.  news briefing Monday.

TRUMP: And if we didnt close our border early  very early, long before the kind of dates youre talking about  we would have had thousands and probably hundreds of thousands more death.  news briefing Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Trump has no standing to boast about saving thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of lives because he imposed travel restrictions on China when he did. The impact hasnt been quantified.

While Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health has praised the travel restrictions on China for slowing the virus, public health officials dont know the effect of them. The move left plenty of gaps in containment.

Trumps order in late January did not fully close the U.S. off to China, as he asserts. It temporarily barred entry by foreign nationals who had traveled in China within the previous 14 days, with exceptions for the immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

Americans returning from China were allowed back after enhanced screening at select ports of entry and for 14 days afterward. But screenings can miss people who dont yet show symptoms of COVID-19. While symptoms often appear within five days or six days of exposure, the incubation period is 14 days.

A recent study from the journal Science found Chinas internal crackdown modestly delayed the spread of the virus. It cast doubt that travel restrictions elsewhere will do much compared with other preventive measures, citing in part the likelihood that a large number of people exposed to the virus had already been traveling internationally without being detected.

For weeks after the first U.S. case of the coronavirus was confirmed in January, government missteps caused a shortage of reliable laboratory tests, leading to delays in diagnoses.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal believes that Ukraine's integration into the EU will remain among the priorities of Croatian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

"Ukraine is committed to further work on the implementation of the Agreement on the association and sectoral integration with the EU in accordance with the principles and priorities of the 6th meeting of the EU-Ukraine Association Council, which took place on January 28 this year," the Head of the Ukrainian Government said during a phone conversation with Prime Minister of Croatia Andrej Plenkovic, the Government portal informs.

Among the priorities, he mentioned tangible progress in deepening of sectoral integration in the areas of digital market, customs cooperation, energy, justice, freedom and security and the updating of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) within the framework of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine expressed his hope that Ukraine's integration into the EU will remain among the priorities under Croatian EU presidency, the statement reads.

Besides, during the talks, the Ukrainian side offered to sign a Common Aviation Area Agreement between Ukraine and the EU during the Eastern Partnership Summit.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine also expressed his hope that after the abolition of all restrictive measures related to the epidemic, an expert mission would be sent to conduct the preliminary assessment of the quality of Ukrainian infrastructure.

"We are looking forward to accelerating the process of transition to formal negotiations on the conclusion of the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (ACAA)," said Denys Shmyhal.

The parties also discussed NATO cooperation program and aspects of integration into NATO. "NATO membership is a strategic path of Ukraine enshrined in the Constitution. Today, we focus on the practical aspects of integration into the Alliance. Achieving interoperability with the armed forces of the Alliance is one of the priorities being achieved through the defense reform. We rely on Croatia's support in this area," the Head of the Government of Ukraine noted.

Moreover, the parties agreed to continue active development of bilateral cooperation and to make official visits to the capitals of both countries after lifting the quarantine restrictions.

On January 1, 2020, Croatia took over the rotating six-month Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Its motto is "A strong Europe in a world of challenges".

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 05:15:15|Editor: huaxia

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ANKARA, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Turkey sent a planeload of medical aid to Somalia on Friday to help its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We delivered the medical materials, which was prepared under the instructions of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to Somalia," Turkey's Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The medical materials were prepared by the Ministry of Health and Red Crescent, and transported to Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, by an aircraft of the Turkish Armed Forces, said the ministry.

The aircraft also carried materials to meet the needs of Turkish soldiers in the region, it added. Enditem
Family members and friends greet Myanmar prisoners released under a presidential amnesty marking the Buddhist New Year in Lashio, Myanmar's northern Shan state, April 17, 2020.

Myanmar President Win Myint pardoned nearly 24,900 prisoners from across the country on humanitarian grounds on Friday, including as many as 20 political detainees, as part of an annual holiday amnesty marking Myanmars Buddhist New Year.

The president commuted death sentences to life-in-prison terms with no release, and reduced life sentences without a time limit to 40 years, sentences of more than 40 years to only 40 years, and sentences of less than 40 years to a quarter of the prisoners original terms.

The amnesty did not include two prominent Rakhine politicians  Aye Maung, a member of parliament and former chairman of the Arakan National Party (ANP), and writer Wai Hin Aung  both political prisoners convicted of high treason and defamation.

Aye Maungs son, Tin Maung Win, who lives in Rakhine states capital Sittwe, said he is not hopeful that his father will be released because the rule of law does not prevail in Myanmar.

Some friends called me to say that my father might be included in the amnesty, he told RFAs Myanmar Service. For us, we are not hopeful anymore.

This country is full of lawlessness, so we have nothing to hope for. I think the situation is getting worse under the NLD government, he said, referring to the ruling, civilian-led National League for Democracy administration that has run the country since 2016.

Aung Maung and Wai Hin Aung were arrested in January 2018 after giving speeches at a public event in Rathedaung township in Myanmars volatile Rakhine state.

They were sentenced by the Sittwe District Court in March 2019 to 20 years in prison each for high treason and to two years for incitement with the sentences to be served concurrently.

Bo Kyi, cofounder and secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) (AAPP), a nonprofit human rights organization that advocates for the unconditional release of all political prisoners, said his group was compiling a list of those who have been freed.

The AAPP confirmed the release of 10 political prisoners on Friday and believes that 21 in all could be released.

We are contacting their families as much as we can, Bo Kyi said. Once they are reunited with their families, we can confirm their release.

Political prisoners in jail or undergoing trial include those who allegedly criticized government officials or the powerful Myanmar military, and peaceful protestors such as ethnic minorities who demonstrated against armed conflict in Myanmar.

There are 76 political prisoners in jails across the country, with 140 more facing trials while in detention, and 400 others undergoing trials outside prison.

Myanmar presidents customarily commemorate the Buddhist New Year festival known as Thingyan by releasing thousands of prisoners.

The amnesty may be continued for another day, Bo Kyi said. The government will have several challenges as it is working with many organizations. We have appealed to it to release all prisoners of conscience.

A bus waits to transport newly released prisoners from a correctional facility to their hometowns following a presidential amnesty marking the Buddhist New Year in Lashio, Myanmar's northern Shan state, April 17, 2020. Credit: RFA Naga rebels released

Aung Htut, chairman of the Naga ethnic groups Culture and Literature Committee, told RFA that 11 ethnic Naga prisoners, including the leader of the rebel Naga National Socialist Council, were freed on Friday.

All eleven prisoners have been released, he said. Two in Mandalay, one in Monywa, two in Shwebo, and six in Kanti. We are helping transport them to their homes by chartered buses since all the [public] bus services are closed.

Aung Htut said that the Naga Culture and Literature Committee had sent a written appeal to the president to release the 11 political prisoners.

Nearly 3,000 prisoners, meanwhile, were released from Yangons notorious Insein Prison, while more than 1,551 were freed from Obo Prison in Mandalay, Myanmars second-largest city by population.

Myo Htay, deputy director of Obo Prison, told RFA that there are no more political prisoners in his correctional facility.

We dont have any political prisoners, he said. A quarter of our prisoners were granted amnesty today, and it was given fairly to them. We have coordinated with the Myanmar Police Force to arrange chartered buses to transport them.

More than 400 prisoners, including Chinese nationals, were freed from jails in Lashio, the largest town in northern Shan state.Over 1,000 inmates, including 10 Chinese, were released from Myitkyina, capital of neighboring Kachin state. Both states border China.

More than 473 inmates were released from Kinthar Nos. 1 and 2 Manufacturing Detention Camps in Tatkone township of the capital Naypyidaw, while 53 others were let go from Naypyidaw Prison.

We are releasing all prisoners convicted for drug-related charges, said Htay Lwin Tun, assistant director of Kinthar No. 1 Manufacturing Detention Camp.Some have been convicted of other charges as well. In those cases, they were granted amnesty for sentences on drug charges, while their remaining sentences were reduced by a quarter.

If the remaining sentences meet the requirements for todays amnesty, then those prisoners will be released, he added.

A prison official informs Myanmar inmates about coronavirus protection measures before they are released under a presidential amnesty marking the Buddhist New Year in Myanmar's capital Naypyidaw, April 17, 2020. Credit: RFA Checkups, COVID-19 briefings

Prisoners who were granted presidential pardons received medical checkups and were briefed on coronavirus prevention before they were released to curb the spread of the deadly pandemic, the Ministry of Home Affairs said.

Htay Lwin Tun said that newly released inmates were given certificates to show they were free of the virus so that they will be accepted back into their home communities.

Than Zaw, a prisoner who was released from Naypyidaw Prison, told RFA that there were frequent programs inside the detention facility to educate inmates about the coronavirus, or COVID-19.

It has been three or four weeks since the first COVID-19 cases were detected, he said. Since then, weve had many workshops about the disease.

All the prison officers are taking it very seriously, he added. They also have instructed the prisoners to maintain social distancing and to wash their hands frequently after they return home from prison.

Earlier in April, rights groups in Myanmar called for the release of low-risk offenders as the countrys number of confirmed COVID-19 cases inched upwards, sparking fears of outbreaks in overcrowded detention centers.

The AAPP and Human Rights Watch also called on Myanmar authorities in early April to release prisoners from the countrys unsanitary, jam-packed jails to limit the spread of the virus.

As of Friday, Myanmar registered a total of 88 confirmed COVID-19 cases, though the number of deaths remained four. The country confirmed its first coronavirus-related death on March 31.

During Thingyan in April 2019, Win Myint pardoned 9,551 prisoners  most of them serving time for narcotics offenses  including 16 foreigners and only two political prisoners.

About a week later, he ordered the release of nearly 7,000 inmates from seven prisons during a second presidential amnesty, including two political prisoners from Kachin state.

In early May, the president announced a third amnesty, releasing about 6,500 more detainees, including 20 political prisoners, among whom were two Reuters reporters serving seven-year jail terms for violating Myanmars state secrets law.

Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Scores are feared killed in Katsina state as bandits launched multiple attacks in three local government areas of Safana, Danmusa and Dutsinma.

Sources say the attacks were coming few days after relief materials were shared to some Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the area.

The beneficiaries were said to have gone home with food items given to them by the government when the bandits struck in the early hours, snatching them away. The villagers formed some resistance which led to more bandits coming out in large numbers to attack unsuspecting people in the areas and killing many, Daily Trust reports.



A source also confided in Daily Trust said that many corpses are being brought to hospitals across the areas.

As Im talking to you, the attacks are ongoing, he added.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
At the Vnukovo airport, a special board landed with the Holy Fire from Jerusalem.

The shrine from Israel was delivered by a delegation of the Andrew the First-Called Foundation. The Holy Fire will be transferred to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior for the patriarchal service, RIA Novosti informs.

The fire descended in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Representatives of ten countries received the shrine, including the Russian ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Viktorov, who handed the fire over to the foundations delegates.
Wearing face masks to help protect against the spread of the new coronavirus, South Korean president Moon Jae-in (left) and his wife Kim Jung-sook pose as they cast their votes in the election at a polling station in Seoul, South Korea on April 10, 2020. (AP)

In South Koreas parliamentary elections earlier this week, controversially held amid the coronavirus restrictions, president Moon Jae-ins Democratic Party won a decisive victory with 163 seats in the 300-member legislature, while its ally Platform Party won another 17 seats, giving the ruling side a comfortable majority of 180 seats.

South Korea has a multitude of political parties based on ideology, region and personalities. The names of the parties also keep changing with factions leaving and forming new political groupings. In this election 35 political parties had participated, but the main contest was between the left-of-centre Democratic Party and the more anti-North Korea and pro-industry United Future Party. In the last election in 2016, no party had a clear majority with the DP having 122 and United Future Party 123 seats.

This years election saw a turnout of 66.2 per cent, the highest in 28 years for a parliamentary election. This indicates that South Koreans accept all the precautions against the virus regarding social distancing, but are not unduly scared of going out to perform their civic duties.

The DPs victory is being interpreted as a clear endorsement of president Moons leadership in effectively combating the Covid-19 crisis. South Korea was one of the first countries affected by this deadly virus, which is not surprising given its massive tourism and business traffic with China. But the South Korean strategy of diagnosing and tracking infected individuals, massive testing, effective isolation of contacts and prompt quarantine and treatment led to the rapid containment of the epidemic. In fact, the South Korean strategy has been widely praised by experts as well as the WHO for being prompt, nationwide, clear and effective.

South Korea was successful in flattening the curve of Covid-19 cases by March 15 without a full and strict lockdown. With about 10,000 cases, it has been the most successful, among the 10 most affected countries, in controlling the pandemic. The emphasis was on large-scale testing of possible contact cases after the identification of the members of the Shinchionjee Church as the primary source of infection. In mid-January itself the health authorities, R&D institutions and the pharma industry were mobilised to produce massive quantities of test kits and other equipment. The testing was aggressive and with a population of 50 million, South Korea conducted more than 18,000 tests a day. In comparison, in India, after a slow start, we are doing about 15,000 tests a day. Also, in South Korea, there are 650 testing centres nationwide where anybody can get tested within minutes and receive the result by SMS the very next day. Consequently, South Korea, along with Singapore and Hong Kong, was able to keep most factories, shopping malls and even restaurants open. The loss of jobs and disruption in daily life of ordinary people was thus minimal.

Using artificial intelligence and its high Internet penetration, South Korea analysed on real-time basis data from mobile phones, credit card transactions and surveillance cameras to map the movements and contacts of actual and suspect virus carriers. The persons identified as having been exposed to a carrier were quickly tested and quarantined. South Koreas ambassador to India Shin Bong-kil has called it the Trace-Test-Treat strategy. On April 9, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Moon Jae-in had discussed ways to tackle the pandemic. Mr Modi appreciated the technology-based response deployed in that country for managing the crisis. President Moon appreciated the way India has motivated its vast population to fight the pandemic with unity of purpose.

After consistently high approval ratings since his election, president Moons ratings had slipped below 50 per cent last year due to the apparent impasse in his accommodative North Korea policy and the sluggish South Korean economy. However, now his approval rating is over 52 per cent after being in the 45-47 per cent range for a long time.

In times of crisis it is normal for people to look for strong and effective leadership. In general, the citizenry at large tends to rally around a national leader if that leader is seen to be credible, objective and decisive. However, eventually it is the outcome that matters. For president Moon Jae-in, the strategy to combat Covid-19 has worked both in a positive outcome and in public perception. In contrast, US president Donald Trumps attempts to win the perception battle for his re-election as the outcome of his cynical and foot-dragging approach has been dismal for the American people.
Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion at 9 PM. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.

Centre tells states to use mobile tracking method for quarantine enforcement

The Union governments telecommunications department is offering states the ability to mass track people using mobile network tower data, offering a platform that can let ground-level authorities create virtual geo-fences for those meant to be in quarantine, as well as a second service that can let officials send out SMS messages to people in a specific area for Covid-19 containment efforts. Read more

Covid-19: Maharashtra registers 328 new Covid-19 cases, 184 are from Mumbai

Maharashtra on Saturday registered 328 fresh Covid-19 cases, taking the total tally to 3,648 patients, the state health department said. Capital city Mumbai, which is one of the worst-affected cities in the country with coronavirus positive patients now, has 2,269 cases. Read more

Govt tweaks FDI rules to guard domestic firms. Thank you, tweets Rahul Gandhi

Government approval will be necessary a company or an individual from a country that shares land border with India can invest in any sector, the Commerce Ministrys Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) said Saturday. Read more

How will Covid-19 end? Because all pandemics do

It is safe to say that for the next year or so, life will not return to normal for the world. Even if the Indian epidemic peaks around May , as some experts are now predicting, it will take several months for the deaths to stop. And in the interim, and perhaps for months afterwards, it will still be considered dangerous to go to the cinema, to attend large weddings, to shake hands with strangers, etc. Read more

Mozilla Firefox users need to update the browser immediately: CERT-in alerts

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has issued an advisory alerting Mozilla Firefox users about multiple vulnerabilities in the internet browser and has asked that they update it immediately. Read more

IIT Jodhpur develops sterilisation system for medical accessories used in Covid-19 cases

Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur has developed an Advanced Photocatalytic Oxidation Sterilization System based on UV-light and metal oxide nanoparticles catalyst panels. This can be used for sterilization of medical accessories being used by Doctors and COVID-19 patient handlers. The current system facilitates the reuse of N95 Filtering Face-mask Respirators. Read more

Punjab Polices special surprise for this childs first birthday. Watch

Many people have had or even will have their birthdays in the time of self-isolation and social distancing. So does that mean these people do not get to celebrate their birthdays? Not at all. This video shared on Twitter shows how even the tiniest of celebration to mark that special day will be enough for memories of a lifetime. Read more

Tablighi Jamaat chief shouldve warned people: AAP MP on Covid hotspot source

Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh said Tablighi Jamaat chief Mualana Saad should have warned people earlier. Singh, speaking on the Nizamuddin Covid cluster, said the situation could have been avoided if Maulana Saad took steps earlier. The Tablighi jamaat chief was booked under sections of the Epidemic Disease Act. He was separately booked by ED under the money laundering case. Nearly 30% of Indias Covid-19 cases are linked to Tablighi Jamaat, Health Ministry had confirmed on Saturday. Watch more
While many parts of the U.S. are under shelter-in-place orders in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, China is beginning to ease some of the restrictions on its residents.

Eager to resume manufacturing, many of China's factories began opening in late February. Now, following two months of draconian social-distancing measures due to coronavirus, citizens in China are also able go out for haircuts, or even visits to the mall.

In Beijing, the Apple stores have reopened. And in Wuhan, considered to be the epicenter of the pandemic, public buses and the subway are finally running again.

Meanwhile, in South Korea, people are going out to the park and eating out at cafes.

The country has been widely praised for significantly slowing the spread of the virus without a complete countrywide lock-down. Instead, South Korea focused on widespread testing and tracing where infected individuals traveled. It quarantined those who lived near infection clusters.

But fears of a second wave of infections and financial instability may hinder a fast and smooth economic recovery for China and South Korea.

In early April, the South Korean government ordered more than 400 bars, night clubs and discos in the capital to shut down amid concerns of coronavirus transmissions.

Now, the U.S. and the rest of the world are closely watching as Chinese and South Korean citizens attempt to return to normal life, and trying to surmise what the recovery may tell them about their own futures.

Watch the video above to learn more.
(Newser)  Weeks of quarantine with kids have a way of burning through a movie collection. Even with the libraries of streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, Disney Plus, and others, there are plenty of households that have already had their fill of Frozen and overdosed on Onward. In the best of times, the canon for kids movies can feel limiting. Disney overwhelms. But theres a wider world of movies out there for young ones, the AP reports. We'll assume theyve already accrued a solid foundation of some of the essentials: Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Iron Giant, Pixar, the Muppets, et cetera. So here's a few slightly further afield optionsall available to stream, rent, or are freethat your kids might not have seen:

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Fly Away Home : In this 1996 film, with Anna Paquin and Jeff Daniels, a 13-year-old (Paquin) moves in with her estranged father (Daniels) in rural Canada after the death of her mother. She adopts an abandoned nest of goose eggs, raises them, and teaches them to fly South for the winter. Available to stream on the Criterion Channel.

: In this 1996 film, with Anna Paquin and Jeff Daniels, a 13-year-old (Paquin) moves in with her estranged father (Daniels) in rural Canada after the death of her mother. She adopts an abandoned nest of goose eggs, raises them, and teaches them to fly South for the winter. Available to stream on the Criterion Channel. Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro : Studio Ghibli films are so goodamong the most wondrous in cinemayou might just go ahead and buy copies of My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke. But for now, you can stream the feature-film directing debut of Hayao Miyazaki, The Castle of Cagliostro, on Netflix.

: Studio Ghibli films are so goodamong the most wondrous in cinemayou might just go ahead and buy copies of My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke. But for now, you can stream the feature-film directing debut of Hayao Miyazaki, The Castle of Cagliostro, on Netflix. Buster Keaton : No child raised on Buster Keaton can turn out bad. Its just a fact. Keatons features are widely available, but many of his equally brilliant shorts can be streamed for free. Among them, One Week, in which he tries to assemble a house; The Goat, wherein Keaton is mistaken for a murderer; and Cops, in which he angers the entire Los Angeles police force.

: No child raised on Buster Keaton can turn out bad. Its just a fact. Keatons features are widely available, but many of his equally brilliant shorts can be streamed for free. Among them, One Week, in which he tries to assemble a house; The Goat, wherein Keaton is mistaken for a murderer; and Cops, in which he angers the entire Los Angeles police force. For more suggestions, including Stop Making Sense, Apollo 11, and The Three Caballeros, click here.

(For adults, there's a prophetic book that saw all this coming.)


As Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders exited the race last week, speculation was rampant about the impact of this decision on the 2020 election. Would it be a replay of 2016, where Sanders would take his time, and reluctantly support Clinton? Evidence indicates that this is not the case, and Sanders is far more enthusiastic about backing Joe Biden, who is expected to be the nominee.

Exhibit A is the timing of the endorsement. Bernie Sanders dropped out on April 8, 2020. Five days later, he endorsed Biden. In 2016, Bernie Sanders stayed in the race until the June 14 D.C. Primary. He gave a speech on June 16 making it official that he was not running, but did not endorse Clinton until July 12, or 26 days later.

Exhibit B is the primary calendar. In 2016, Sanders waited until all primaries were done before he took leave of the race (the District of Columbia was the last one). There are 19 states and 5 territories who still havent held primaries (and not all were rescheduled because of COVID-19).

Exhibit C is the manner in which Sanders withdrew. There was little positive in his words toward Clinton in June of 2016, and would not be forthcoming until the following month. That was in direct contrast to 2020, when Sanders said in his withdrawal, I congratulate Joe Biden, a very decent man, who I will work with to move our progressive ideas forward.

Many missed that detail because CNNs John King and Dana Bash incorrectly stated that Sanders said nothing nice about Biden, just minutes after airing that clip. Both apologized for getting it wrong, citing audio issues. At least the facts are now out there.

Exhibit D are the ideologies of both candidates. Though both candidates were treated as different as night and day by a few in campaigns and the media, the two are not so different. A fact checker I saw on social touted to highlight differences between the two found a lot more similarities between Sanders and Biden, even on trade, with some differences (like Bidens support of an assault weapons ban and Sanders opposition to it) to be closer to the views of Sanders supporters.

Using the American Conservative Union Voting Scores, I found Biden and Sanders to be within six percentage points of each other over their legislative careers.

And Biden is far closer to Sanders in views than Trump ever has been. In taking the I-side-with online study (with the expanded options for every question), I found Biden and Sanders to be 10 percentage points different from each other. With Trump and Sanders, it was closer to 25 percentage points different.

But theres the most important factor, Exhibit E, which is how candidates treat each other. As David Catanese writes for McClatchy noted, Sanders, in fact, ignored some advisers appeals to attack Biden in earlier debates because Biden was nice to him in the Senate, before it was cool to befriend Bernie. Biden returned the favor during the campaign, according to Catanese.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump, desperate to divide the Democratic Party base, immediately dropped the insulting moniker, Crazy Bernie Sanders that hes used for a long time and began a belated wooing of Sanders supporters, claiming they are alike on racial justice and trade, which assumes Sanders supporters never heard of the Central Park 5 and that Trump really pushes for stronger labor and environmental standards in trade deals.

If Trump really cared about Sanders and what he stood for, he might have started that charm offensive earlier.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His Twitter account is JohnTures2.
18.04.2020 LISTEN

The shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic and more importantly the recent drop in oil prices have fiercely uncovered the fragility and weakness of Ghanas economy on the following two fronts: The vulnerability of non-oil sectors of the Ghanaian economy and Governments negligence in investing in infrastructure.

The impact of this unprecedented shock has led the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to disburse an amount of $1 billion of emergency relief fund to the country in order to resolve the fiscal and balance of payment needs and to boost investor confidence. The loan approved under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) represents the largest amount of money the nation has ever received from the International Financial Institution in its 63-year-old history.

GHANA'S DEPENDENCE ON OIL

Figures from the World Bank (2018) shows that in 2018, Ghana was growing at a rate of 6.3%. In the year 2019, the International Monetary Fund (2019) predicted that the nations economy was going to increase at 8.8%, significantly increasing the growth of the country and putting it ahead of other emerging economies.

Similarly, buttressing this point, an article by the World Economic Forum in 2019, predicted that Ghana was going to be the fastest growing economy in the world. Much of these predictions were however tied to crude oil prices and production.

A thorough assessment of the economy reveals that in recent years, a significant proportion of Ghanas Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is driven by its new cocoa (the oil). The World Economic Forum states that Ghanas growth is now being buoyed by a different commodity: oil. Expanding crude production and rising prices have placed Ghanas economy at the top of the GDP growth tables.

Ghanas economy expanded mostly as a result of the huge investment the previous administration made in the oil and gas sector. Commercial fields such as TEN and Sankofa-Gye Nyame started operations in late 2016 and May 2017 respectively.

According to a 2016 and 2018 report by the Ghana Energy Commission, the 2018 oil production in the country stood at around 62.1 million barrels compared to only 26.9 million in 2016. Similarly, figures from the countrys energy commission reveal that the nations crude oil was sold at $68.48 in 2018 in contrast to $46.5 in 2016, representing approximately a 47% increase.

DEPENDENCE ON OIL: CONSEQUENCES

A large oil export sector is often considered to be a potential spur to diversification and full modernization, especially when a central government controls and plans the use of oil revenues with such goals in mind (Heidarian and Green, 1989).

However, in the case of Ghana, the immediate economic contraction that ensued as a result of falling oil prices and the pandemic reveals that the government has failed woefully in managing properly the oil revenues.

For example, leading economists have revised their 2020 global economic growth forecasts downwards from 3% to 2.4%. That represents just a 0.6 % difference. However, in Ghana, the finance minister has stated that Gross Domestic Product is expected to grow at only 2.5 %. That signifies a significant difference of 4.3% for growth rate because the World Bank projected economic growth of 6.8% for Ghana in 2020.

Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the nations gross debt is expected to reach around 202 billion Ghana Cedis this year, a significant 64.5% increase compared to 2016. The forecast, however, does not include recent borrowings, as such the gross debt is expected to be much higher.

Lastly, on 15 April 2020, the cedi traded at a Bank of Ghana mid-rate of 5.51 per USD, marking a dollar appreciation of about 45% over the same day in April 2016. To put it into perspective, if a Ghanaian had 1,000 GHS in the bank account on 15 April 2016, that was worth approximately 261 dollars. Ceteris paribus, today, the money is worth a mere 181 dollars. The citizens' purchasing power has greatly reduced.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?

The root of Ghanas gloom macroeconomic outlook can be explained in the following. The government simply thinks that oil-producing countries can borrow with impunity and ignore the other sectors of the economy or, adequate infrastructure to develop.

The managers of the economy believe they can exempt themselves from the responsibility of properly managing the economy and diversifying it. However, the recent pandemic, stories of both Arab societies and modern lessons from Latin America, have provided evidence to the contrary.

It is therefore advisable that the government should stop corruption, reduce government expenditure, invest in infrastructure, and develop the non-oil sectors of the economy.

Findings from several studies have disclosed that infrastructure development and diversification of the economy is strongly correlated with a resilient economy. Furthermore, scholars have also shown that the ability of a government to properly manage tax funds contributes immensely to the economic development of a nation.

Author: Comrade Eric Adjei

NDC Deputy Regional Communication Officer (Bono).
A six-week-old baby who was abducted near Brisbane has been found.

The girl was found safe and well, police said in a statement just after midnight. No further details were provided.

Police earlier issued an alert after the newborn was taken at 10am on Friday from a Narangba address following a domestic violence incident.

AAP
As the fight to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus shuts down economies across the globe, we have had to change the way that we live as broad swaths of the worldwide population shelters in place. Already, we have seen massive implications for peoples employments and livelihoods, sweeping announcements of bankruptcy across a multitude of market sectors, and huge disruptions to global supply chains.

While the coronavirus has been a tragedy of massive proportions, having killed nearly 150,000 people across the globe and financially devastated many more, there have been some silver linings to the shutdown of the global economy. In China, the dramatic decrease in air pollution has actually saved more lives than COVID-19 has taken. Los Angeles has gone from being notoriously smoggy to being one of the least air-polluted major cities in the world. In New York, traffic accidents have dropped by 40 percent as people stay off the streets. In Venice, the canals are running crystal clear and marine life has returned to the newly clean waterways. Giant pandas at the Hong Kong zoo have finally mated after a decade of attempts in their newfound privacy.

All of these things are excellent for the environment, and considerably less excellent for the economy. This is also true of energy usage in the United States, which has fallen to its lowest level in 16 years, thanks to so many offices, restaurants, and industrial facilities closing down. The amount of energy usage in the United States, according to the Indicator podcast report from NPRs Planet Money, is a particularly valuable indicator of how the economy is doing as a whole. How much electricity the country uses tends to match how much the economy is growing or shrinking really closely, said Cardiff Garcia, one of the shows hosts, earlier this week. It can tell us how much worse the economy is getting in real-time, and it should also tell us when the economy has started to recover.

Story continues

Related: Russia And Saudi Arabia Consider Even Deeper Oil Output Cuts



According to estimates from the New York Times, electricity usage in the United States has roughly fallen by 8 percent since February, a dramatic decline. For comparison, in the 2008 financial crisis, energy usage never faltered by a considerable amount. Other measures from the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) show that the nations electricity demand is down 5.7 percent as compared to the same week in 2019, making this lowest week for energy use since 2004. EEI said power output fell to 64,896-gigawatt hours during the week ended April 4. That was down 5.7% from the same week in 2019 and was the lowest in a week since April 2004.

Energy traders noted power use also declined last week as mild weather kept heating demand low across much of the country, the World Economic Forum reported this week. And we can expect more of the same going forward. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected economic slowdown and stay-at-home orders would reduce electricity and natural gas consumption in coming months.

The slowdown in energy consumption will undoubtedly continue to have restorative externalities for the environment, but it is decidedly terrible news for the global energy industry, which has taken a beating throughout the duration of this pandemic. As the oil-producing countries of the world scramble to recover bottomed-out oil prices and reduce the global crude glut, the news that energy demand will remain low for some time to come is surely a blow to investors and insiders.

But industry insiders are not the only people who should be concerned about the impacts of this changing energy landscape. COVID-19 has not just changed the quantity of energy used, it has also changed the way that energy is used and who pays for it. As Oilprice reported last month, new legions of telecommuters, their tablet-happy toddlers, and kids adjusting to attending school online are eating up huge amounts of bandwidth, not to mention the new added costs of keeping the lights on at home all day. This translates to a lot of families around the world ponying up a lot of money for their internet package and electricity bills as we head into what is certain to be a particularly brutal recession.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

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Linkedin Will Dunham (Reuters) Washington, United States  Sat, April 18, 2020 08:01 634 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2a48e2 2 Environment lemur,animals,environment,flirting Free

For human beings, "stink flirting" may not sound like a prudent dating strategy. For ring-tailed lemurs, it is the way to go.

Scientists on Thursday described the results of a comprehensive study of this behavior - unique in the animal kingdom - that is exhibited by these primates native to Madagascar.

Male ring-tailed lemurs increase their attractiveness to females by secreting from glands on their wrists a fruity and floral aroma smelling similar to a pear, the researchers said.

The behavior dubbed "stink flirting" involves a male rubbing a fragrant clear liquid that oozes from those glands against his long fluffy tail and then waving the tail at females. The researchers pinpointed three compounds responsible for the scent.

"It turns out that the key odorants were not really stinky," said University of Tokyo biochemistry professor Kazushige Touhara, who led the study published in the journal Current Biology.

"We can say that the identified odors are strong candidates for sex pheromones," Touhara said, referring to chemical substances released by an animal that affects the behavior of other members of its species.

Until now, no pheromones have been identified in any primates, a group that also includes monkeys, apes and people, Touhara said.

Read also: Two thumbs up - or is it four? Odd lemur has evolved extra 'finger'

"Although there are many circumstances in which humans utilize olfactory cues for communication, there is no authentic pheromone that has been chemically identified," Touhara said.

"I believe there is no classic sex pheromone in humans that elicits attractive behavior to the opposite sex. But there are probably crucial odors that affect each other's emotions - for example, a baby's head smell that parents sniff and feel happy, and a woman's axillary (underarm) odors that affect the emotions of males."

Olfactory communication is important for ring-tailed lemurs, which possess well-developed scent glands on their wrists and shoulders that they use to mark territory and designate social rank in addition to romance.

Among primates, lemurs are part of a separate evolutionary lineage with a keener sense of smell than the group that spans monkeys, apes and humans.

The researchers found a close relationship between the male hormone testosterone and the lemur odor compounds. They also found that the male scent worked its magic only during the breeding season when females were sexually receptive, as measured by the amount of time spent sniffing the scent during lab experiments.

Outside of the breeding season, the researchers found, the male gland secretions smelled different - more bitter and leathery. The females, the researchers found, showed scant interest in that.

Topics : lemur animals environment flirting
Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Saturday ordered the courts to treat cases of domestic abuse as urgent and proceed with the matters in accordance with the circulars issued regarding the procedure to be followed to ensure social distancing.

Taking a suo-moto notice of the negative impact of lockdown imposed due to COVID-19 pandemic on women and girls, a Coram consisting of Chief Justice, Justice Geeta Mittal and Justice Rajnesh Oswal today heard the case from their respective residences through video conferencing.

The Court highlighted the point that globally it has been observed that the adverse social and economic consequences of the pandemic for women and girls are devastating. The HC issued notices to J&K government and asked it to submit a report with regard to the steps taken regarding domestic or any other kind of violence being faced by women on account of the implementation of the COVID-19 lockdown.

The Court also directed concerned officials to examine remedial measures taken by various countries in this regard and a view be taken with regard to the requirements and steps to be taken to mitigate the sufferings of the victims of domestic violence in the twin Union Territories.

The Court directed that a report of the measures in place, steps underway and those contemplated be placed before it before the next date.

Furthermore, the Secretary, Jammu and Kashmir Legal Services Authority has been directed to call for a list of all cases involving cases of domestic violence which are pending as complaints with the police stations in the Union Territories or in the courts and ascertain the safety and well-being of the complainants.
Hong Kong police arrested at least 14 opposition activists on Saturday for allegedly holding unlawful protests last year, the South China Morning Post reported.

Former lawmakers Martin Lee, Albert Ho and Leung Kwok-hung were among those arrested, the newspaper reported, citing unidentified legal sources. Police also visited the home of Hong Kong media tycoon and prominent democracy advocate Jimmy Lai but he wasnt there, the Morning Post said. Lai was charged for unlawful assembly in February.

The group was arrested for allegedly organizing unlawful assemblies on Aug. 18, Oct. 1 and 20 last year, according to the Morning Post.

The city is experiencing a lull in protest activity as it battles the coronavirus outbreak. Chief Executive Carrie Lam and other pro-establishment figures have recently accused the opposition of endangering Hong Kongs autonomy and livelihoods, echoing criticism from China.

The mainlands Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, the top agency overseeing the financial hub, accused lawmakers of potentially violating their oaths by blocking action by the local legislature. Opposition lawmakers have prevented the bodys agenda-setting House Committee from electing a chairman since October, barring the panel from conducting business, it said.

Some opposition lawmakers have resorted to sleazy tactics to paralyze the legislature for political gain at the expense of the public, which is tantamount to political mutual destruction, the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said. They could have violated their oath, which could mean misconduct in public office.




A Guatemalan health official reported 44 migrants on one U.S. deportation flight this week were found to be infected with COVID-19.

The migrants flew to Guatemala from Brownsville, Texas, on April 13. The deportees were received amid rising rejection due to virus fears.

Immigrants and advocates have been warning the Guatemalan government for weeks about the potential risk attributed to receiving deportation flight from the United States. They believe the flights could hasten the spread of the health crisis in the country.

The warning comes after a man who arrived in Guatemala from Arizona on March 12 tested positive for coronavirus a few days later. According to local medical officials, he started presenting symptoms two days after landing in Guatemala. He was tested and found to be infected with COVID-19.

The man was immediately hospitalized and isolated. Forty other passengers of the same flight were identified and quarantined at home.





Closing Borders



In a press conference on Thursday, Guatemala Foreign Affairs Miniter Pedro Bolo announced the suspension of deportation flights. He did not reveal the reason behind the suspension. He also said he does not know when the flights would resume operation.

Guatemala's presidential spokesman said the government is working closely with the U.S. to confirm the health status of all migrants returned in recent days.

Health officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Guatemala's medical experts will also carry out tests on citizens in both countries. Patients who tested positive and those whose results were negative will undergo swabbing.

A spokesperson for ICE said they are prioritizing the health and welfare of all detainees under their custody. ICE authorities are strictly observing the federal health agency's COVID-19 guidelines.

The spokesman also said CDC representatives were sent to Guatemala to review and validate the test results performed on the migrants. The ICE will determine whether or not they need to re-evaluate existing medical procedures after the conclusion of the investigation is released.

According to their website, ICE officers conduct a visual screening on all detainees before boarding. Should a flight medical provider find anything suspicious, the migrant will be denied boarding and immediately referred to an ICE facility for further screening.





Flight Confusion

The flight carrying the 44 infected deportees reportedly brought 76 Guatemalans. Three migrants were promptly taken to local medical care facilities after displaying coronavirus-like symptoms. Local authorities tested others who had been quarantined at the airport after one of the tests came back positive.

Initially, there was confusion over where the flight originated.

On Monday, a spokeswoman for Guatemala's immigration department revealed two flights containing the migrants had arrived from Louisiana and Texas. She corrected herself seconds later, saying they came from Brownsville and El Paso, Texas.

However, a flight-tracking site FlightAware found one of the flights came from Alexandria, Louisiana. The second flight initially departed Brownsville and landed at El Paso before flying to Guatemala.

Immigration experts say the country is under enormous pressure to continue receiving deportees in the country. They believe the country needs to start having deportees quarantined in government facilities rather than asking them to self-isolate in their homes, which puts their families and friends at a higher risk of contracting the virus.





Keep yourself updated with news from Latin America:
Lisa Wilkinson sat alongside Karl Stefanovic on the Today show for 10 years, before leaving Nine in October 2017 over a reported gender pay gap dispute.

And for The Sunday Telegraph's Stellar magazine cover story, Karl denied he had any part in determining his former co-host's salary.

The 45-year-old also revealed how just like his marriage to first wife Cassandra Thorburn, their relationship had simply 'run its course'.

'I certainly didn't control what she got paid': Karl Stefanovic, 45, denied a gender pay gap dispute with former Today co-host Lisa Wilkinson, 60, in The Sunday Telegraph's Stellar magazine. Both pictured on Today

'I became part of the dialogue, but I had nothing to do with the capacity of Lisa to earn, and I certainly didn't control what she was getting paid,' Karl told Stellar.

The father-of-three added that while he 'loved' working with Lisa, she was 'probably getting tired' of working alongside him.

'We had 10 years together and we could've kept it together for a few more years, but I think we were done. It was the same with my marriage. We just ran our course.'

No hard feelings: Karl added that Lisa, she was 'probably getting tired' of working alongside him: 'We had 10 years together and we could've kept it together for a few more years, but I think we were done. It was the same with my marriage. We just ran our course'

Lisa, 60, was believed to have quit Today because Karl, as her male co-host, was reportedly earning $2million a year with a potential bonus that could take his salary to $3million if ratings were a hit, The Australian wrote in 2017.

The former magazine editor was said to be on a $1.1million a year contract, with Nine only willing to increase the amount to $1.8million, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The amount was not enough for her to stay with the network, prompting her departure.

Reports: Lisa was believed to have quit Today because Karl, as her male co-host, was reportedly earning $2million a year with a potential bonus that could take his salary to $3million if ratings were a hit, The Australian wrote in 2017. Pictured on Ten's The Project

Figures: The former magazine editor was said to be on a $1.1million a year contract, with Nine only willing to increase the amount to $1.8million, according to The Daily Telegraph

Since joining The Sunday Project in 2018, Lisa has landed sit-down interviews with the likes of Kim Kardashian, Kylie Minogue and Bradley Cooper.

In an interview with The Herald Sun in December 2018, Lisa applauded the 'integrity' and high 'calibre' of her colleagues at Ten, referencing Carrie Bickmore, Fifi Box, Amanda Keller, Julia Morris and Gorgi Coghlan.

'One of the absolute bonuses that I really hadn't anticipated in moving to Ten, is the calibre of my colleagues,' she said.

Rival network: Since joining The Sunday Project in 2018, Lisa has landed sit-down interviews with A-list stars. Pictured with co-hosts Tommy Little (left) and Waleed Aly (right)
President Trump holds a sheet of paper containing information on the low number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. at the time of a White House briefing on Feb. 26. (Getty Images)

To the editor: President Trump has been extensively blamed for not preparing to contain the coronavirus in the United States. Problem is, millions of us did not prepare either.

Initially many people thought that the virus was a Chinese malaise, one that wouldn't touch our Western world. When alarming news came from Italy, many said it was a virus that was dangerous only to the elderly, and as such more protective measures were needed in nursing homes.

Let's face it: We did not want to alter our lives. When social distancing and stay-home orders took effect, many people thought governments were overreacting. It took weeks to build a national consensus on the need for such action.

After five weeks of this, it is time to stop the blame game and concentrate efforts not only on gradually getting to back to normal, but also better preparing for future catastrophes.

Berta Graciano-Buchman, Beverly Hills

..

To the editor: Columnist Nicholas Goldberg misses a crucial fact.

If Trump were a CEO and mismanaged a corporate crisis, he would be fired immediately, not after the bankruptcy. If he were a general who mismanaged a crucial deployment, he would be relieved of command immediately, not after the war ended.

We know that Trump has mishandled this crisis. Now is exactly the time for placing blame, and since we cant fire him, we need to limit his authority in other ways. Waiting has already cost lives.

Rob Aft, Rancho Park

..

To the editor: Goldberg suggests Democrats should stop assigning blame for the unnecessary deaths in the coronavirus crisis. He mentions the very reason why his conclusion is wrong: Trump is furiously trying to rewrite history to cast himself as the nation's savior.

If the Democrats were to go silent, Trump would likely succeed and therefore ensure his reelection in November. We should not take Goldberg's advice and hand Trump the presidency again.

Mark Chipman, San Diego
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department /Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

While Texas State Parks will reopen on Monday as part of Gov. Gregg Abbott's plan to jump start the state's economy, visitors will only be allowed in during the day.

Those hoping to utilize one of the state parks will have to make advance reservations and pay online, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said.
With the school holidays ending this week, it's the choice facing every parent: send the kids back to school, or do as the state government has asked and keep them learning from home for the first two weeks of term?

Some of Sydney's famous faces have battled the hazards of home-schooling and are preparing for many more weeks of DIY learning. Today Extra co-host David Campbell and his wife Lisa were quick to remove their children Leo, 9 and twins Billy and Betty, 5 out of school after a coronavirus scare in the family.

David and Lisa Campbell were early adopters of home-schooling for their three kids. Credit:Instagram

Last month the TV presenter was forced into quarantine after interviewing Hollywood actress and singer Rita Wilson, who later tested positive for the virus along with her husband Tom Hanks.

"We were very conscious of not spreading it asymptomatically and made the decision about a week or two before schools shut down to take our kids out," Campbell told The Sun-Herald. "Once we knew I was exposed we acted quickly."
At least 15 people working



in a small industrial unit in Jalna district of Maharashtra have been shifted to government hospital after a 30-year-old woman worker tested positive for coronavirus, officials said on Saturday.

Authorities are now tracing people who might have come in contact with the woman who had recently travelled to her native Narmada district in Gujarat from Gundewadi village in Jalna.

"The woman had left the village following a fight with her husband who also works in the same unit," a senior Jalna administration official said.

She reached Narmada district on April 14 and was tested positive on April 15, he said quoting a communication from Narmada district superintendent of police.

After receiving the letter, Health department and the Jalna police swung into action and admitted 15 people working in the factory, including husband of the woman, and some villagers who came in contact with her, in hospital, another official said.

When asked about how could the woman managed to travel to Narmada district, which is located around 450 kms away from Jalna while the lockdown is in force, the official said she might have hitched ride in a private vehicle or a ruck.

"At least two factories are located in Gundewadi area, and many trucks and vehicles pass through that area," he said.

Authorities are now trying to find out whether the woman contracted the infection in Gundewadi village or while travelling to Gujarat.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
It was 1972. Richard Nixon was ensconced in the White House and Republicans were confident that he would win a second term. Democrats were trying to find positives wherever they could and there was good news in Delaware that November when a young upstart, Joe Biden, managed to upset the odds and take a Senate seat off veteran Republican J Caleb Boggs.

But Biden's joy was short-lived. A few weeks later, his wife Neilia and their one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in a car crash. Her car was hit by an articulated lorry as she pulled out at a junction. Their other children, sons Beau and Hunter, were taken to hospital but would make full recoveries.

The fledgling politician, who had just turned 30, considered dropping out to care full-time for his family, but senior figures in the Democratic Party urged him to keep his seat. On January 5, 1973, he was sworn into office in the hospital ward where his children were being cared for. Moving photographs showed four-year-old Beau in the bed as his father took the oath.

The pictures would go viral years later when Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, aged 46.

Expand Close Tragic past: Senator Joseph Biden takes the oath of office in January 1973 in his son Beau Biden's hospital room after a car crash that killed his wife and daughter. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Tragic past: Senator Joseph Biden takes the oath of office in January 1973 in his son Beau Biden's hospital room after a car crash that killed his wife and daughter.

Whatever one may feel about Biden's politics, there is no doubt that he has suffered great loss in his private life. It is said that his devout Catholic faith helped him through those tough times - as did his marriage to Jill Jacobs, whom he wed in 1977 - and he will likely need to muster as much inner strength as he can when, as the Democrats' presumptive nominee for president, he takes on the formidable presence of Donald Trump in a bid for the Oval Office.

Should Biden be successful, he would - at 78 - be the oldest to be sworn in as president. That record is held by Trump, who was 70 on Inauguration Day in January 2017.

But Biden's age is likely to be used against him time and again by Trump, who already likes to refer to his opponent as 'Sleepy Joe'. And it's said to be a cause for concern for many dyed-in-the-wool Democrats who, in April 2020, may be coming to terms with the surprise that it is Biden - and not the likes of Elizabeth Warren - who is the last of the party's hopefuls still standing.

For a long time, it looked as though the man who served as vice president for eight years under Barack Obama, was an outside bet for the nomination. Bernie Sanders - one year Biden's senior - had the backing of the most left-wing strand of Democrats as well as being something of a star for celebrities as diverse as comedian Larry David and rock band The Strokes. But on April 8, Sanders suspended his campaign and later vowed to support Biden.

Sanders' brand of socialism seems at odds with Biden's relative conservatism, and for many Democrats, they are being left with a bleak choice when it comes to voting for a new president.

"Sanders' supporters now face a nearly impossible situation," writes Derecka Purnell, a Guardian US columnist. "For years, politicians and pundits asserted that Sanders is not a 'real Democrat'. Those same critics now expect Sanders supporters to 'vote blue no matter who', regardless of being independent voters.

Expand Close Jibes: Trump refers to his opponent as 'Sleepy Joe' / Facebook

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Whatsapp Jibes: Trump refers to his opponent as 'Sleepy Joe'

"If Biden loses to Donald Trump, then Sanders' supporters will be blamed for failing to fall in line. If Biden wins, the Democratic party will resist any transformational concessions to the party's left voters."

Several opinion polls show Biden narrowly ahead of Trump when it comes to American voters' choice of president with a Reuters/Ipsos poll putting the Democrat five percentage points in front. The same poll, however, showed an increase in support for Trump with 48pc of respondents approving of the way he has handled the Covid-19 crisis.

While the polls go up and down, one guarantee is that a bruising campaign is in the offing for Biden. Larry Donnelly, a Boston attorney and US politics commentator who is based in Ireland, believes his age will come to be seen as important in the months before November's vote.

"Not only is he 77, but he looks and sounds every bit of those 77 years," he says. "He has visibly aged since he was vice president and there is genuine concern among Democrats about his ability to take on Trump in this campaign and what his capacity to govern for four years is. And Trump and his people will use that against him time and time again.

"By contrast, Trump is just a few calendar years younger but seems to have boundless energy. He's up to all hours of the night tweeting and at it again the next morning. Whether you like or loathe him, he never slows down and in that respect, he and Biden could not be more different."

But with age comes experience, and Biden is among the most seasoned of American politicians - with almost half a century of high-level work under his belt.

Appeal in black America

"You would be hard-pressed to find an American who doesn't know who Joe Biden is," Donnelly says, "and not just because he was vice president for eight years. He was one of the best-known people in the Senate, especially when he was on the judiciary committee for the Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas hearings."

And, Donnelly suggests that while his conservatism may not appeal to Sanders supporters, it's the very quality that might make him palatable to some who voted Republican in 2016 but have now tired of Trump.

"He has an appeal to middle America that Sanders and Clinton don't have," he says. "And that's significant."

For Liam Kennedy, professor of American Studies and director of the Clinton Institute, UCD, Biden's appeal in black America should not be discounted either. "It's a demographic that Sanders couldn't come close to reaching, not to mention Trump. You have to remember that the black vote is probably the single most powerful and important block of votes within the very diverse Democratic Party. That can't be underestimated. It can help carry home states. And Biden carries much of that [respect among African Americans] thanks to his vice presidency with Obama."

Kennedy also believes that Biden's Irish roots will be important to the estimated 70 million Americans who claim some Irish ancestry. Biden has long claimed to be proud of his sense of Irishness and genealogists have shown that his closest Irish connection is his great grandfather on his mother's side, James Finnegan, who emigrated as a child from Co Louth to the US in 1850.

"I think there's a sense that he's seen as one of their own," Kennedy says, "although he's not in there at those Irish-American events in the way that others might be - people like [Congressman] Richie Neal. But I do think his Catholicism will be seen to be important. There is an older Irish American who regards him as one of their own - there's a respect for him there. He's seen as an empathetic figure."

Should Biden become the next president, he would only be the second Catholic - after John F Kennedy - to hold the office.

"It's remarkable," Kennedy says, "especially when you consider the high proportion of Catholics in both the Senate and Congress and when you think of the fact that a significant chunk of the population is Catholic."

Despite Elizabeth Warren's assertion this week that she would happily stand as Biden's running mate, the smart money is on him selecting Kamala Harris. The 55-year-old Californian senator is seen as a going-places-fast figure who can help him win votes.

"You can't forget that most white female voters last time voted for Donald Trump," Larry Donnelly says, "but I think they are more likely to go with Biden this time, especially if someone like Kamala Harris is on the same ticket as him. That will draw women voters for sure."

There have been question marks over Biden's suitability for office considering that there is a sexual assault allegation from an ex-aide hanging over him. Biden has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Liam Kennedy believes Biden's commitment to choosing a female running mate will be seen to be an important one. After all, there has never been a female vice president, let alone president. "Of the many diverse constituencies that the Democrats need to win over in order to win this election, what they call 'suburban women' is certainly one.

"A female candidate may be able to reach out there. It's certainly felt that the female vote for Trump, which was high in 2016, is not his most stable vote and there are people there who could move away if they see someone they like more. Ironically, a lot of them didn't like [Hillary] Clinton at all."

For Larry Donnelly, Biden's candidacy will be marked by significant strengths and weaknesses. "Biden's greatest strength is that, as someone from Pennsylvania, he's rooted very strongly in middle America. He has a tremendous amount of experience - nobody can say that he's not qualified for the presidency.

"Plus, he's likeable and relatable. He's trying to appeal to people who feel left behind in today's America. He's talked about having a terrible stutter when he was younger and of overcoming that - and that's a theme that he might be able to use to his advantage, especially if he can paint Donald Trump as a bully during the campaign."

The negatives? "Well, there are open questions about his capacity. He seems to lose his train of thought in the middle of a sentence."

And there have been numerous incidences of this on the campaign trail, he says, and that's why his choice of running mate will be crucial.

"And he can't electrify people in the way that Obama did. There's no question about that. He has to make a 'safe pair of hands' type of argument."

Liam Kennedy, meanwhile, says when it comes to Biden, one cannot discount the numerous gaffes he has made. Biden, after all, once quipped: "I may be Irish, but I'm not stupid" - words that hardly endeared him to Irish America.

Fighting Irish aspect

"And there's the possibility health issues will rear their head in ways that could be damaging. And will he be assertive enough when it comes to directly engaging Trump, because he's someone who, so far, has tried to side-step the more argumentative debates and commentary. I think he is capable of doing it [fighting Trump], but it's not his natural forte. Maybe he should play up that fighting Irish aspect a bit more.

"But there are two key strengths. One is that he does present a sense of steady hands in a time of great political uncertainty, someone who's been there a long time and someone who's served at the highest points of American politics - not just as vice president, but chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on two occasions, chairing the Judiciary [Committee in the Senate] before that.

"This is an exceptionally distinguished politician at a point when Americans feel insecure. That's a big selling point and I think you've already seen that in the way that people have rallied around him in the Democratic Party."

The other main strength Kennedy observes is his empathy. "He is a deeply empathetic figure. Now, he doesn't want to carry that empathy into the touchy-feely stuff, but people really sense that he has a lot of empathy and it's what they like about him. And I think that's very powerful messaging at this point in time when there's so much division and partisanship and polarisation in the US.

"And so much of that has been deepened and worsened by the way the pandemic has been itself politicised, particularly by Trump and the Republican Party."

Forty eight years ago, Biden wasn't given a hope of defeating J Caleb Boggs in Delaware. He had virtually no money to run a campaign and he was regarded as a somewhat naive outsider. But Biden prevailed.

In 2020, he faces the biggest fight of his long political life - and one that carries the greatest prize of all. This time, few would bet against him.
As protests continue to erupt in the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, and across the world in outrage against the horrific shooting of Jacob Bla Read more
Ecuador's Diocese of Latacunga sets up a food bank where residents can express solidarity with those in need, as the Latin American nation gets to grips with the Covid-19 emergency.

By James Blears & Devin Watkins

The Diocese of Latacunga is inviting Ecuadorians to donate excess food supplies so that the poor can have something to eat, since many sources of income have dried up due to social-distancing measures.

Bishop Geovanni Mauricio Paz launched the food bank appeal as a sign of the Church's care for those in need. "The number of poor people are growing every day due to the global economic crisis. They always hope that we will share something with them," he said.

Bishop Paz added that the charitable initiative is a good way to build "a merciful Church which lives in love and closeness to those in need."

Staggering death toll

Ecuador has been hard-hit by the Covid-19 coronavirus, with authorities working to assess the staggering death toll in the largest city, Guayaquil.

Authorities say the Guayas province, where the Pacific port city of Guayaquil is situated, is at the epicenter of the coronavirus in Ecuador, estimating that more than 6,500 people have perished in the first half of April.

This is likely a significant underestimation, not because of any deliberate evasion, but rather an inability to keep up with the sheer pace of the grim reaper, which is wreaking a swift, unrelenting and deadly havoc.

Disturbing and heartbreaking pictures have emerged of bodies abandoned on the streets, sometimes for days, wrapped in thick plastic in the cloying heat. Officials say more than 60 per day are now being collected and placed in large refrigeration units.

The dignity of funerals will have to wait, as respect for the dead is currently secondary to the vital survival of the living. Some are left without wooden coffins, as they're being replaced by cardboard boxes, which once held succulent fruit.

Elusive causes

Theories about just why the city and region has been hit so devastatingly hard abound.

Some say it's because of direct trade links to Spain and Italy. Others say it's because of the urban population density, which doesn't distinguish a fig between the vast gulf dividing the affluent rich and the struggling poor.

A sixty dollars per month stipend to stay at home for workers isn't going to buy sufficient beans, rice, or the precious time needed to sustain the average household. Many have already been affected by the crash of global oil prices for beleaguered Ecuador, soaking up and slumping due to another agonizing body blow.



Vice President Otto Sonnenholzen has already apologized for the slow and initially sluggish response of the government to the pandemic, as well as for the lack of proper distancing advice. This allowed Covid-19 to microscopically, yet insidiously, carve an opportunistic swathe through a close-knit and utterly-unprepared population.

The tragedy of Guayaquil and its terrible anguish serves as a virulent and timely warning to the rest of Latin America, which can still avoid its fate by keeping death at arms length, or even further away.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 21:29:16|Editor: huaxia

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DAKAR, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Senegal reported 8 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, bringing the total to 350 in the west African country, Senegalese Ministry of Health and Social Action announced on Saturday.

During the daily COVID-19 briefing, Marie Khemesse Ngom Ndiaye, Director General of Public Health and President of the National Committee for the Management of Epidemics, said 8 of the 226 virological examinations carried out within the past 24 hours came back positive.

The new cases are 3 follow-up contact cases and five cases of community transmission. A total of 211 patients out of the 350 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Senegal are cured, she said.

So far, Senegal has reported 350 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since March 2, the start of the pandemic in Senegal. Among those confirmed cases, 85 are imported ones.

Facing the increasing number of community transmission cases, Senegalese Minister of Health and Social Action Abdoulaye Diouf Sarr strongly recommended the population to wear masks at public places, including markets and public transports.

Senegalese President Macky Sall said Friday evening the daily curfew could be extended by three hours in a bid to contain the rise of community transmission cases.

Sall extended the current state of emergency in a presidential decree on April 4, along with the dusk-to-dawn curfew for 30 days, till May 4. Enditem
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) receives Cuban Ambassador to Vietnam Lianys Torres Rivera (Photo: VNA)

He made the pledge while hosting a reception for Cuban Ambassador to Vietnam Lianys Torres Rivera in Hanoi.

At the reception, he voiced his gratitude to Cuban high-ranking leaders and Government for their prompt support for Vietnam in the struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Party, Government and people of Vietnam recently presented 5,000 tonnes of rice for Cuban people, he said.

The Ministry of Defence of Vietnam has been tasked with serving as a focal point in cooperation with Cuba in COVID-19 prevention and control. Since the beginning of April, the two countries have held regular online conferences at all levels to share experiences in battling the disease.

The PM noted that Vietnamese people always treasure solidarity and friendship with their Cuban counterparts and appreciate Cubas support for the countrys liberation and revolutionary cause in the past.

He affirmed that Vietnam will spare no efforts in nurturing the traditional and comprehensive Vietnam-Cuba relations, thereby strengthening the bilateral ties in a practical and effective manner.

In reply, the Cuban ambassador thanked Vietnam for the assistance in the context of trade embargo against Cuba and the global pandemic.

She congratulated Vietnam on its achievements in COVID-19 prevention and control, adding that Cuba is ready to work with Vietnam in research into the cure for COVID-19 and other pharmaceutical products.

The diplomat expressed her hope that the bilateral ties will be promoted in various spheres after visits of Vietnamese high-ranking leaders to Cuba, adding that technology transfer has contributed to Cubas agricultural development.
Syndicated and guest columns represent the personal views of the writers, not necessarily those of the editorial staff. The editorial department operates entirely independently of the news department and is not involved in newsroom operations.
Sitting before the Victorian Parliament is the Constitution Amendment (Fracking Ban) Bill 2020. It's a bill to take existing legislative bans on fracking and coal seam gas activities that currently sit in the Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Act 1990 and the Petroleum Act 1998 and, effectively, insert them into Victoria's constitution.

The government said openly that it would amend the constitution to insert the existing legislative bans on fracking and coal seam gas activities. Credit:

At the outset, I want to make it clear that I support, and have always supported, bans on fracking and coal seam gas activities. The concern I have with this bill is not the policy it promulgates, but rather its resort to the constitution as a means of fortifying what are, in essence, policy positions, albeit very important policy positions.

In his second reading speech a few weeks ago, Treasurer Tim Pallas said, "The bill will amend the Constitution Act by introducing a new Part, making it more difficult for a future Parliament to repeal, alter, or vary the existing legislated bans."

The reason for this is that once the bill passes it will, along with many other provisions of Victoria's constitution, require a three-fifths majority of each House of Parliament if it is ever to be amended. There are some constitutional provisions which require that amendments pass at a referendum, but that is not the case with this bill.
Karnataka to undertake Triaging: What does it mean and how do you pronounce it

Delhi to ease restrictions, if Covid cases come down in next 2-3 days: Health Minister

Lata Mangeshkar health update: Doctor says,'She in ICU with Covid-19 and pneumonia, will be under observation'

Shah reviews lockdown situation, takes stock of supply of essential commodities

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Apr 18: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday reviewed the prevailing situation in the country during the ongoing lockdown and took stock of the supply of essential commodities, officials said.

During the meeting, he was apprised about the steps taken by the home ministry to provide support to migrant workers who are stranded in different parts of the country. Shah also reviewed the working of a 24x7 control room set up to monitor the coronavirus pandemic and coordinate with states and union territories.

"The home minister reviewed the working of MHA control room and reviewed COVID-19 situation in various states in a meeting with officers.

"The control room is operational 24x7 and is coordinating with states as well as with various ministries of central government," a home ministry spokesperson said.

Coronavirus outbreak: PIL in SC demands govt to allow COVID-19 negative migrants return home

The meeting was attended by his two junior ministers G Kishan Reddy and Nityanand Rai, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla and other senior officers.

Earlier, Shah called up Jammu and Kashmir DGP Dilbag Singh and conveyed his deep appreciation for effective lockdown and excellent services rendered by all ranks of J&K Police. Shah also complimented the Jammu and Kashmir Police for good counter-terrorism and law and order management in the union territory.

The lockdown was first announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from March 24 for 21 days -- till April 14 -- in a bid to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The lockdown was further extended till May 3.
A judge does not, under the guise of a judgement, write an essay on legal issues of his concern not arising from the issues before him, no matter how erudite his opinion may, ex facie, appear. This is the brutal conclusion of a panel of three Court of Appeal Judges as it punched holes into a judgement by Francistown High Court Judge Lot Moroka that a breathalyser machine used by police has not been prescribed by the Minister.

Justice Moroka had drawn this conclusion in an appeal by Freeman Mapukule who was convicted and sentenced by Selibe Phikwe Magistrate court in February 2018 on two counts of failure to provide sufficient breath specimen and driving a motor vehicle without due care and attention. This was after Mapukule had been involved in a car accident in Seliber Phikwe in September 2016. Mapukule appealed against his conviction and sentence on the first count only, contending that he was erroneously convicted.

His excuse was that he failed to produce enough breath specimen due to his health. Motivating this before Justice Moroka, Mapuluke questioned the serviceability of the machine arguing that he was not given the manual when he demanded documents to see if the machine was serviceable.

In his judgement Justice Moroka said the trial court erred in convicting "him on the basis of a machine whose serviceability was never proven beyond all reasonable doubt." He pointed out that in using the Intoximeter EC/IR the police were using a breathalyser not prescribed by the Minister. "The act of testing the Appellant was therefore a nullity. The result can therefore not stand." The judge said for it to be an offence under Section 47(5) of the Road Traffic Act, the failure to provide sufficient specimen of breath must be without reasonable cause. He pointed out that a reasonable excuse for purposes of Section 47(5) of the Act included certifiable health reasons or injuries arising from an accident.

He added that in cases where there is a road accident with potential for injuries to the driver and passengers, it is preferable that they be taken to hospital for medical examination and where there is need, to extract blood for alcohol testing. But Justices Isaac Lesetedi, Stephen Gaongalelwe and Singh Walia found that there was no justification is given "for this onerous and potentially resource straining obligation to the police." The panel indicated that no argument from the DPP - as representative of the state - had been heard on this point nor had it been the accused' case that he should have been taken to the hospital for extraction of blood sample.

"It is the duty of a judge to uphold, vindicate and apply the law as prescribed by statute and not to detract from it. The only time when the judge may act otherwise is when the constitutionality of the law is at the fore and that law fails constitutional muster. Startlingly, he quashed and set aside the conviction and sentence in respect of both counts notwithstanding that there was no appeal against conviction and sentence on the second count.

I comment on the judge's views on his second issue solely because they go against the grain of the law and being those of a superior court, may be relied upon by subordinate courts if not corrected," Justice Lesetedi said adding that the finding that the device used in testing Mapuluke was not prescribed by the minister had far-reaching consequences as it affected not only him but thousands of road traffic cases in which that type of breathalyser had been used.

According to the panel one of the principles of the rule of law in an adversarial system of justice, of which "ours is one is that the judge sits as an arbiter of the dispute brought before him or her by litigants be it a civil or criminal case. The judges argued that either Justice Moroka was unaware of this binding judicial precedent on these well-established principles or he did not bring them to bear on the matter before him, both of which are unfortunate as they undercut basic judicial tenets.

They pointed out also that the points which Justice Moroka ruled upon in respect of whether the breathalyser used was prescribed by the minister and the appeal against the second count were not issues that arose for determination in the appeal before him. "It is improper for the judge to play the role of an appellant, a respondent and a judge all rolled into one. A judge does not, under the guise of a judgement, write an essay on legal issues of his concern not arising from the issues before him, no matter how erudite his opinion may, ex facie, appear.

The panel of judges found that this unfortunately is not the first case of this nature coming before the Appeals court and cited examples of the case of BOTSWANA POWER CORPORATION v BOTSWANA CORPORATION MIDDLE MANAGEMENT UNION, CACGB-0077-14 at paras 26-28 and FRANCISTOWN CITY COUNCIL v X, CACGB-034-18 both cases emanating from Justice Moroka.

It is therefore directed that the copy of this judgement be made available to Moroka J for his attention," the judges said when setting aside Justice Moroka's judgement.
The Shiv Sena on Saturday praised Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, saying that he has taken a positive stand over the coronavirus pandemic and shown how a responsible opposition party should behave during a crisis.

The party, which shares power with Congress and Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra, said that Gandhi took a stand in public interest and displayed political maturity when he said that he might have differences with Modi, but this is not the time to quarrel as the country needs to give a united fight against the pandemic.

In an editorial in the party mouthpiece Saamana, the Sena said that Gandhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi should hold one-on-one talks to discuss the pandemic for the benefit of the country.

'There can be certain opinions about Rahul Gandhi. Well, there are opinions about PM Narendra Modi and Amit Shah as well. Half of the Bharatiya Janata Party's success is due to tarnishing the image of Rahul Gandhi. This continues even today.

'But Gandhi has to be praised for the stand he has taken in the present crisis. He has created a model code of conduct on how an opposition party should behave when the country is faced with a crisis,' the Uddhav Thackeray-led party said.

'Gandhi recognised the coronavirus threat well in advance and continuously warned the government to take necessary steps. When everybody was busy pulling down the (Congress-led) Madhya Pradesh government, Gandhi was trying to wake the government up to tackle the coronavirus crisis,' the Sena said.

Gandhi repeatedly urged the government to stop the export of medical equipment required in the treatment of coronavirus patients, it added.

'On Thursday, Gandhi again said that this is not the time to quarrel. He said, he might have difference with PM Modi, but this is not the time for it. He said that we need to unite in the fight against coronavirus pandemic and if we quarrel, we will not succeed in it,' the party said.

'He also said that lockdown was not a remedy, but just a 'pause button' in the coronavirus fight. He said once the lockdown is lifted, the virus will once again spread, which is why tests should be conducted on maximum number of people. His statement that lockdown doesn't kill the virus, but allows the government to create medical facilities is completely true,' it added.

'We need to have a concrete strategy to come out of the lockdown,' the Sena said.

It added that the thoughts expressed by Gandhi are like a 'chintan shibir' (brainstorming session) for the government and opposition parties, and would benefit the country.

'After hearing Gandhi's views, we feel that he and PM Modi should hold direct talks over the coronavirus crisis at least once,' it added.
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Health care workers are the obvious heroes of the coronavirus pandemic. But there are other essential workers who put themselves and their safety on the front line every day. The most unsung of these are public transit workers. They not only deserve our praise, they also deserve our sympathy.

In New York City, a dreadful new statistic is that 68 employees of the Mass Transit Authority (MTA) have died of coronavirus. Another 2,496 MTA employees (out of 71,000) have tested positive.

WHAT IS REMDESIVIR, GILEAD'S POSSIBLE CORONAVIRUS DRUG THAT'S IN TRIALS?

Think of that. Working in or around a subway or a bus is now one of the most dangerous occupations in New York.

We New Yorkers have a love-hate relationship with our mass transit system, the largest in North America. Everyone except the super-rich  and even some of them  depend on our busses and underground to get us quickly around and under New Yorks snarled traffic.

Still, there is a lot to complain about. At least once a week, we invariably complain loudly (is there any other way for a New Yorker to complain?) about a late or dirty subway car  or a nasty bus driver who closes the door in our face after weve sprinted half a block to catch up with him.

ABBOTT LABS TO SHIP 4M CORONAVIRUS ANTIBODY TESTS THIS MONTH

But complaints are now mute. Sixty-eight human beings who were part of our daily lives have suddenly died.

We need to know why.

Of course, maybe theres no one to blame. Maybe its just the nature of the beast that the whole world is fighting right now. But maybe its at least in part an example of government inefficiency  in this case brutal inefficiency.

Government always operates less efficiently than the private sector. In fact, New Yorks subway system got off to a great start because it was not a government operation.

It opened in 1904 as a private enterprise with competing subway lines. It worked so well that the city and state governments got greedy and began taking it over piece by piece.

Story continues

By 1968, the state-controlled MTA had taken complete control. Not long after that, a state and city financial crisis hastened the deterioration of subways, buses and transit hubs, which became crime-ridden, graffiti-filled cesspools.

CENTRAL BANK CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE 'PUSHING ON A STRING': EL-ERIAN

During the Giuliani administration (1993-2002), there was a brief improvement, which continued for a few years after 9/11. But it wasnt long before government and union inefficiencies crept back into the system, despite huge increases in fares and taxes  including an outrageous $3-$4 per ride MTA Taxi Tax.

We entered into another transit crisis in 2017, and that brought us right into the horror of the coronavirus.

Whether the governments history of messing up mass transit in New York led directly or indirectly to the death of those 68 MTA workers is hard to say.

We do know that workers complain the MTA was slow in providing them with disinfecting kits, personal protective equipment and enforcement of social distancing.

We also know, according to the New York Times, that bureaucratic supervisors reprimanded workers who brought in their own disinfectant and tried to cordon off safe spaces among seats with their own duct tape. And new video of subway cars essentially turned into unsanitary homeless shelters, should give subway employees and riders alike serious concerns about the utter failure of MTA administrators to assure safe travel.

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MTA Chairman Patrick Foye, who himself tested positive for the coronavirus, claims the bureaucracy has taken aggressive action to protect the health and safety of our heroic workforce on the front lines of this crisis. But words after death offer little consolation.

Workers in a transit system should not face odds in this pandemic worse than those faced by cops, firefighters and even health workers in ICUs.

So what to do? Instead of waiting for the same lame excuses and promises of better times to come, perhaps its time for something different. How about putting New Yorks subways up for sale?

They began as a private venture and did damn well when they were private. It wasnt until the city and state bureaucrats took over that things got inefficient, dirty, dangerous  and costly.

A 2017 New York Times report found that MTA construction costs were 5 times the international average.

A study by the Mises Institute found that despite having spent $100 billion since 1980 on infrastructure upgrades, New York subways still use a signal system from the 1930s!

Why? According to the Mises report: perverse political incentives encourage spending on projects that produce short-term results over less glamorous, long-term alternatives like infrastructure repair.

Keep in mind that these wasteful habits and outrageous expenditures took place when the subways had full ridership. After the coronavirus outbreak, it will be a while before commuters feel comfortable riding as before. Until then, the MTA will have virtually no source of income, other than subsidies from a state that is itself broke, as Gov. Cuomo recently admitted. New York may be forced to sell  but to whom?

WILL CORONAVIRUS CRISIS SPARK FRESH EXODUS FROM HIGH-TAX STATES?

There are only a few billionaires in the world who could step in and buy it. And why would they want to? The MTA loses about $6 billion dollars a year, and at some point soon, the system will need a major overhaul. A 2018 estimate to repair and refurbish the system came in at $37 billion!

Then there are personnel costs. Because of a politically powerful union, the average pay for an MTA employee is well over $80,000 a year. But the main reason that average is so high is because of an extremely top-heavy management.

More than one in four MTA employees make over $100,000 a year. Theres a burdensome mix of agency heads, supervisors, and foremen that would be unacceptable in any private organization. And it must be painfully pointed out, supervisors are supposed to look out for employees under their charge.

Clearly the deaths and infection of so many MTA workers proves these managers were not doing their job.

And for all the strikes against privatization, there are some examples around the world of where it worked  at least partially. Economic writer Scott Beyer wrote a piece in Catalyst on privatizing New Yorks subways just this past November. He notes that in the UK, the government keeps control of the tracks, but many train operations are farmed out.

Hong Kongs mass transit system sold 25% of its stock to private investors, which incentivized profitable expansions. And Tokyos largely private metro stays profitable, even though it must deal with government price controls. Beyer notes theres no reason New York City cant implement one of these modelsit has the density and demand to support profitable rail transit.

Of course, Beyers words were written before the virus outbreak. Some would say that would make privatization more difficult to implement.

Others would say that after the death of 68 MTA workers, the implementation of something radical like privatization is more imperative now than ever.

David Asman joined FOX News Channel in 1997 and helped launch FOX Business Network (FBN) in 2007. He is the host of FBNs post-market program "Bulls & Bears" (weekdays 5-6PM/ET). Read more.

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Nearly 47,000 small businesses in Massachusetts were approved for a combined $10.36 billion in Paycheck Protection Program loans before the program ran out of funding on Thursday, according to newly published data.

The Bay State punched above its weight when it comes to PPP activity. It ranked ninth in terms of both the number and value of the loans approved by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), even though it ranks 15th among states in total population.

However, even with tens of thousands of Massachusetts businesses securing the low-interest, forgivable loans, there are still many that did not receive approvals before the $349 billion allotted by Congress ran out on Thursday morning. Lawmakers in Washington are still negotiating a potential $250 billion in additional funding, though local bankers worry even that may not be enough to cover the need.

The data show the flurry of activity in the final days of that $349 billion allotment. Between Monday and Thursday, the SBA approved an average of more than $1 billion a day in PPP loans to Massachusetts businesses. An average of around 6,500 businesses in the state won approvals in each of those three days.

I cant tell you the amount of work on the part of the lenders in order to make this happen, Robert Nelson, the SBAs top Massachusetts official, said in an interview. Youre looking at $10 billion-plus being pumped into the Massachusetts economy. It really is amazing.

Asked how much of that money has been dispersed to businesses at this point, Nelson said that lenders are supposed to get the loans to customers within 10 days of a loans approval. Some are turning the money around in as little as 24 hours, he said.

This is a lot of work now, to close almost 47,000 loans, and get those funds deposited into folks accounts, Nelson said. I know from my talks with banks, theyre going to continue to work over the weekend.

Many Boston-area banks have stopped taking PPP applications, since the program has no funding, although a select few are continuing to do so. Many businesses have already submitted applications to banks but did not receive approvals before the funding ran out.

This article originally appeared on the Boston Business Journals website.

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A lorry driver boasted 'I hate foreigners' before 39 Vietnamese migrants were found dead in his refrigerator truck, it has been reported.

Maurice Robinson, 25, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of all 39 Vietnamese nationals, including ten teenagers and two 15-year-old boys, at the Old Bailey earlier this month.

Their bodies were discovered by emergency services shortly after the trailer was left at an industrial estate in Grays, Essex, on October 23 last year.

It had arrived in Purfleet in the early hours that morning after travelling 173 miles from Zeebrugge in Belgium.

Maurice Robinson, 25, of Craigavon in Northern Ireland, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of 39 people, who were found dead in a refrigerated truck in Essex this month

Robinson had posted on social media saying he hated foreigners several years ago

The bodies of 31 men and eight women were found in a refrigerated lorry (pictured) in an industrial estate in Grays, Essex, on Wednesday, October 23

Robinson accused foreigners in a foul-mouthed rant on social media of '(coming) here and act like they own the place'.

'I actually hate foreigners, do us all a huge favour and go home,' he wrote in one post.

'It's just the truth!' he wrote in a social media comment. 'They come here and then act like they own the place when they shouldn't even be here'.

In a third disturbing comment, reported by the Daily Star, he wrote: 'I know! Stuffed in the back of a lorry then come and take everything that is supposed to be ours!'

The shameful remarks were made eight years ago by Robinson on his now deleted social media page.

His victims sent text messages to family saying they 'couldn't breathe' in the refrigerator unit which reached temperatures as low as minus 25C.

The bodies of the victims, who all died of hypothermia or asphyxia, were discovered 30 minutes after he drove away.

Thirty of the group were from Vietnam's poverty-stricken provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh, which are said to be the heartlands of the country's trafficking trade.

Robinson's truck (pictured above) was found to have carried 39 migrants, all of which died

Pham Tra My, 26, has been confirmed as among the 39 people who died in a lorry in Essex

Fifteen-year-old Nguyen Huy Hung (left) was the youngest of the group, 10 of whom were teenagers. Nguyen Dinh Lurong, 20, (right) was also named among those who died

Anna Bui Thi Nhung, 19, (left) and cousins Nguyen van Hung, 33, (centre) and Hoang Van Tiep, 18, (right) are also among the dead

Carpenter Le Van Ha, 30, father-of-two Vo Ngoc Nam, 28, and Nguyen Dinh Tu, 26, have also been named among the dead

An Essex Police investigation into an alleged people-smuggling ring linked to the deaths led to charges against five men, including lorry driver Robinson.

During a virtual hearing at the Old Bailey, Robinson admitted 39 counts of manslaughter on or before October 24 last year.

Robinson, of Craigavon in Northern Ireland, had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration of non-European Union citizens between May 1 2018 and October 24 2019.

He admitted acquiring criminal property, but denied a further charge of transferring criminal property.

The prosecution asked for three weeks to consider whether to go ahead with a trial on that charge.

The victims were were from five provinces in the central, coastal area of Vietnam and two provinces near Hanoi

Robinson appeared by videolink from custody before Mr Justice Sweeney alongside four co-defendants early this month.

He was jointly charged with British Romanian Gheorghe Nica, 43, of Mimosa Close in Langdon Hills, who denied 39 counts of manslaughter.

Nica also denied one count of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.

Romanian national Alexandru-Ovidiu Hanga, 27, of Hobart Road in Tilbury, denied a charge of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.

Christopher Kennedy, 23, of Corkley Road in Darkley, Co Armagh, Northern Ireland, has previously denied conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.

The fifth defendant, Valentin Calota, 37, of Cossington Road in Birmingham, was not asked to enter a plea to the charge of conspiring to assist unlawful immigration.

Prosecutor William Emlyn Jones QC said a human trafficking conspiracy charge in relation to Kennedy and Robinson was being dropped by the Crown.

An Essex Police investigation into an alleged people-smuggling ring linked to the deaths led to charges against five men, including lorry driver Robinson

Alongside the investigation in the UK, police in Vietnam arrested eight people over the deaths, according to state media

Robinson's four co-defendants now face a trial at the Old Bailey, lasting up to eight weeks from October 5.

The hearing was conducted virtually with most lawyers and court reporters attending by Skype.

Alongside the investigation in the UK, police in Vietnam arrested eight people over the deaths, according to state media.

There was also a significant response from the Vietnamese community in the UK, who paid tribute to those who died.

Following the discovery of the bodies, members of the Vietnamese community gathered for a vigil at the Church of the Holy Name and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in East London.

More than 100 people gathered as candles arranged to read '39' were at the foot of the altar at the Catholic church, which has a large Vietnamese congregation.
Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) has reacted to the death of Abba Kyari, the late Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari.

Recall that Kyari was confirmed dead by the Senior Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina on Saturday morning.

Kanu expressed that with the death of Abba Kayri, China will go on more burnings of Nigerias public institutions.

He tweeted: As Nigeria grapples with an impostor President (#JubrilAlSudani) & a dead de-facto President (KYARI), the #Chinese will go on more BURNINGS of Nigerias public institutions to obliterate evidence of their corrupt dealings with the #Fulani cabal that controls the #Zoo. Be warned!
Many provinces and cities in Vietnam, including Ho Chi Minh City, have again postponed their school reopening to early May, prolonging an already months-long break to stem the spread of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

In its latest directive on Saturday, the Peoples Committee of Ho Chi Minh City decided to keep all schools and universities in the southern metropolis closed until the end of May 3.

This is an extended closure due to COVID-19 after the city had previously asked all K-12 students, as well as university and college students to stay home through April 19.

The municipal People's Committee said it will continue to propose that the Ministry of Education and Training adjust the academic plan for the 2019-20 school year, the back-to-school timeline, as well as the start of the 2020-21 school year.

Several other localities have also announced prolonging their school break until next month.

Meanwhile, Hanoi decided on a shorter delay of its back-to-school date by telling all students to stay home through April 22.

The central city of Da Nang has asked local students to stay home until further notice.

Noticeably, the southernmost province of Ca Mau  categorized as a "low-risk" locality by the National Steering Committee on COVID-19 Prevention and Control  has asked its 9th- and 12th-grade students to get back to school next Monday, April 20, the soonest among all localities.

Locality Back-to-school plan Ca Mau 9th and 12th graders: April 20 Vinh Long 9th and 12th graders: April 27; others: pending further notice Phu Yen 9th and 12th graders: still considering, April 27 at the soonest Binh Phuoc Stay home through April 26 Cao Bang Remains undecided between the end of April and early May Dak Lak Early May expected Thanh Hoa Middle and high schools: early May expected; others: in 1-2 weeks Yen Bai Undecided; April 20 at the soonest, June 15 at the latest Lao Cai Early May expected Ha Nam Stay home through May 3 Nghe An High schools: early May expected; others: in 1-2 weeks Quang Nam High schools: early May expected; others: in 1-2 weeks Dong Thap Stay home through May 2 Quang Ninh Stay home through April 30 Da Nang Stay home until further notice Hanoi Stay home through April 22 Quang Ngai May 4 expected Tien Giang Stay home through May 3 Long An Early May expected Thua Thien - Hue Early May expected Ho Chi Minh City Stay home through May 3

Schools across Vietnam have remained shut since the end of the Lunar New Year holiday in early February, with the closure being repeatedly extended owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Local departments of education and training, together with the education ministry, have been applying alternative teaching methods such as online lessons and educational television to keep students focused on schoolwork.

Vietnam has so far confirmed 268 cases of COVID-19, a tally that has stayed unchanged for more than 48 hours since Thursday.

Only 67 patients remained in treatment on Saturday morning, including 66 Vietnamese and one foreigner.

No death related to the respiratory disease has been reported in the country.

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Only nine players make up the O'Neill St. Mary's girls basketball roster in 2021-22 and three of those nine are sophomores. All three started last year as freshmen, all three are averaging in double figures this year and all three have led the Cardinals to an 8-2 start.
New Delhi/Lucknow, April 18 : Congress leader Jitin Prasada has written a letter to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, urging him to bring back the migrants who are stuck in different states around the country, as was done for the students from UP who were stuck in Rajasthans Kota.

On Friday, the UP government dispatched buses from Agra to Kota to bring back stranded students from there.

Prasada, who is a member of the Congress Working Committee, said, "The migrants have lost their jobs and don't have any source of livelihood. At this time of distress, people want to be with their family and get support from their loved ones." The Congress leader suggested that the UP government should open a control room and circulate its numbers so that migrants could contact these numbers and register themselves for returning home.

He also said that a quarantine centre should be established for the migrants returning home and all relief, including ration, should be provided to each of them.

Prasada said a large number of people from Uttar Pradesh live in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Ambala, Ludhiana, Bengaluru, Chennai, Surat and Ahmedabad.

The government should provide buses and bring them back as "we do not know how they are living in the other states," he said.

While Prasada said that bringing back students from Kota was a good step, he demanded that the same parameters should be applied to others stranded in different states.

Around 250 buses from Uttar Pradesh on Friday reached Kota to pick up stranded students and drop them to their native districts, officials confirmed, adding that the Rajasthan government has also kept 100 buses ready for the purpose, as and when required.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Chamber of Commerce & Industry of St. Maarten is in preparation and working diligently to improve its own online service platform. Promotion of these opportunities and especially during the lack of having physical foot traffic to the various stores, it is important to generate or rather create other avenues of revenue generation.

Online services, web-shops, and e-commerce are growing throughout the world. With any progress and adaptation to new markets, there are pitfalls and you should be aware of this.

The International Police Organization INTERPOL has recently advised the global business community and the public to exercise caution when purchasing medical supplies online during the current pandemic as criminals are taking advantage of trying to defraud victims online.

INTERPOL reports with surgical masks and other medical supplies in high demand yet difficult to find in retail stores as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, fake shops, websites, social media accounts and email addresses claiming to sell these items have sprung up online.

But instead of receiving the promised masks and supplies, unsuspecting victims have seen their money disappear into the hands of the criminals involved.

This is one of several types of financial fraud schemes connected to the ongoing global health crisis which have been reported to INTERPOL by authorities in its member countries, INTERPOL says.

The international police organization adds that Scams linked to the virus include: Telephone fraud  criminals call victims pretending to be a clinic or hospital officials, who claim that a relative of the victim has fallen sick with the virus and request payments for medical treatment;

Phishing  emails claiming to be from national or global health authorities, with the aim of tricking victims to provide personal credentials or payment details, or to open an attachment containing malware.

In many cases, the fraudsters impersonate legitimate companies, using similar names, websites and email addresses in their attempt to trick unsuspecting members of the public, even reaching out proactively via emails and messages on social media platforms.

COCI is advising the business community and the general public to be alert as many people are spending more time online. The advice of the Government and the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to remain at home in order to protect the public health care system and the population from the spread of COVID-19 and at the same time to prevent the spread within the community, without a doubt has led to an increase in online internet activity.

COCI supports the advice given by INTERPOL stating that if you are looking to buy medical supplies online, or receive emails or links offering medical support, be alert to the signs of a potential scam to protect yourself and your money.

Independently verify the company/individual offering the items before making any purchases; Be aware of bogus websites  criminals will often use a web address that looks almost identical to the legitimate one, e.g. abc.org instead of abc.com.

Check online reviews of a company before making a purchase  for example, have there been complaints of other customers not receiving the promised items?; Be wary if asked to make a payment to a bank account located in a different country than where the company is located.

If you believe you have been the victim of fraud, alert your bank immediately so the payment can be stopped.

Do not click on links or open attachments which you were not expecting to receive, or come from an unknown sender; Be wary of unsolicited emails offering medical equipment or requesting your personal information for medical checks  legitimate health authorities do not normally contact the general public in this manner.
About four to five Rohingyas



here, who visited Ajmer and other places,have been advised home isolation in the wake of spread of COVID-19, police said on Saturday.

Health and police personnel would visit them to check their health status, police sources said, adding that no positive case has been reported with regard to Rohingyas under the Rachakonda police commissionerate here.

Around 4,000 Rohingyas stay at a locality under the commissionerate, the sources added.

The Union Home Ministry has asked all states and union territories to screen Rohingya Muslims living under their jurisdiction for COVID-19 as many of them had attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi's Nizamuddin, according to officials.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Moscow, April 18 : The decision of US President Donald Trump to suspend funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) is "counterproductive and irresponsible", the Russian Foreign Ministry has said.

"We consider Washington's decision to suspend contributions to the WHO's budget and its attempts to blame the WHO for what is happening in the US counterproductive and irresponsible," the ministry's spokesperson Maria Zakharova said at a news briefing on Friday, Xinhua reported.

She added that accusations against the WHO of passivity, opacity and maliciousness are completely groundless.

Zakharova noted that the WHO at all stages of the development of the COVID-19 pandemic acted within its mandate and on the basis of scientific data.

Earlier this week, Trump announced that he had instructed his administration to suspend funding to the WHO, which he accused of "severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus."
A group of Amazon employees are attempting to stage a sickout in protest of the companys treatment of workers amidst the coronavirus.

The protest, which is being organised online by the group, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ), urges employees to call in sick on the 24 April.

The move comes just after two Amazon employees who were both leaders of the group were fired.

Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, who had both spoken out online in support of Amazons warehouse workers protesting conditions amidst the virus, were fired by the company last week.

On 14 April during a virtual panel with Amazon employees, the two women called for workers to participate in the sick out.

We want to tell Amazon that we are sick of all this -- sick of the firings, sick of the silencing, sick of pollution, sick of racism, and sick of the climate crisis. So were asking tech workers to join us for a sick out on Friday, 24 April and show Amazon that you do not agree with their actions, said Ms Costa to event attendees.

When contacted for comment on the climate groups protest an Amazon spokesperson reiterated an earlier statement: We support every employees right to criticise their employers working conditions, but that does not come with blanket immunity against any and all internal policies. We terminated these employees for repeatedly violating internal policies.

According to a post about the protest online, the two women had worked at Amazon for over 20 years between them. The group said they and have been prominent figures in their climate campaign, which formed in December 2018.

At Amazons shareholder meeting last year, Ms Cunningham called for Amazon to reduce its use of fossil fuels, according to CNCB.

Last year the group almost 3,000 corporate workers to walk out for the #GlobalClimateStrike in September 2019, and in April 2019 over 8,700 employees signed an open letter, about the companys climate failures, according to a press release from AECJ.

Theyve wanted me gone for a while, Ms Cunningham claimed upon her termination, according to The Washington Post.

They were targeting the most visible leaders in an attempt to silence everyone, Ms Costa also said according to the outlet.

According to the groups post about the event the protesters are demanding that Amazon reinstate workers who have been fired, improve efforts to protect employees from infection and make commitments to climate justice.

Amazon has drawn continued scrutiny in recent weeks over its treatment of employees amidst the pandemic as at least two other Amazon employees who were involved in protesting working conditions were recently fired.

Bashir Mohamed, who worked at Amazons Minnesota warehouse, was fired last week and told BuzzFeed News that he had been campaigning for safer working conditions to protect workers from the transmission of the coronavirus.

According to the report, Mr Mohamed said Amazon told him he was terminated because he refused to speak to his supervisor. Mr Mohamed reportedly did not deny that allegation, although he is said to have alleged his supervisor treated him unfairly.

An Amazon spokesperson told The Independent that Mr Mohamed was terminated as a result of progressive disciplinary action for inappropriate language, behaviour, and violating social distancing guidelines.

We respect the rights of employees to protest and recognise their legal right to do so; however, these rights do not provide blanket immunity against bad actions, particularly those that endanger the health, well-being or safety of their colleagues, Kristen Kish an Amazon Spokesperson told The Independent.

Not long before Mr Mohameds termination, the company faced criticism for firing a worker who was involved in organising a protest of the firms handling of coronavirus in Staten Island.

Christian Smalls claimed that senior warehouse staff had not engaged with calls for the Staten Island site to be closed for sterilisation and organised a walkout in protes

Amazon would rather fire workers than face up to its total failure to do what it should to keep us, our families, and our communities safe, Mr Smalls said in a statement.

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

Amazon denied that Mr Smalls was fired for the protest and said his employment was ended because he breached health and safety regulations.

Mr Smalls received multiple warnings for violating social distancing guidelines. He was also found to have had close contact with a diagnosed associate with a confirmed case of Covid-19 and was asked to remain home with pay for 14-days, which is a measure were taking at sites around the world. Despite that instruction to stay home with pay, he came onsite further putting the teams at risk, Ms Kish previously told The Independent in a statement.

The online retailer has come under increasing pressure by workers over safety concerns at their warehouses amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Post reported that at least 74 warehouses and delivery facilities in the US have had employees test positive for the novel coronavirus.

On Tuesday Amazon acknowledged the first reported coronavirus-related death among its workers as a manager in its Hawthorne, California, warehouse, according to reports.
Mauritius has confirmed its first three cases of coronavirus, its government said in a statement on Thursday.

"It concerns three Mauritian nationals who have travelled back to Mauritius recently aged 21, 25 and 59 years respectively. Two have worked on cruise ships and one is from the United Kingdom," the government said in a statement on its website.
Somalias health-care system is one of the poorest in the world. Yusuf estimates that there is just one doctor for every 100,000 people. Those doctors are concentrated in the capital, Mogadishu, where the government runs its response out of a dilapidated hospital dating to the Italian colonial era. Beyond the city, the extremist group al-Shabab controls much of the countrys rural areas, making access nearly impossible.
Former Bigg Boss contestant and Bollywood actor Ajaz Khan has been arrested by the Khar police station in Mumbai for posting objectionable content on his social media accounts.

Ajaz Khan    ,      ; Check Video | FilmiBeat

According to Mumbai police spokesperson Pranay Ashok, Ajaz has been booked under IPC Sections 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language), 117 (Abetting commission of offence by the public or by more than ten persons), 188 (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 501 (Printing or engraving matter known to be defamatory), 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 505 (2) (Statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill will between classes).

Ajaz allegedly made hateful comments during a Facebook live session, and according to the police spokesperson, more probe will be done into his case. He will be produced before a court on Sunday.

Ajaz was arrested in July last year for something similar; he was arrested for posting objectionable videos which could have caused hate among communities.

In October 2018, Ajaz was held for alleged possession of banned drugs.

Ajaz was a contestant in the 7th season of Bigg Boss, and has acted in films such as Allah Ke Banday, Rakta Charitra and Lakeer Ka Fakeer.

ALSO READ: Asim Riaz Unfollows John Cena and Ajaz Khan on social media ; Here's Why

ALSO READ: Paras Chhabra On Ex Akanksha Puri: 'She Is A Very Good Person But Our Thoughts Don't Match'
At a press conference on Thursday, Congress Member of Parliament, and former party president, Rahul Gandhi spoke about the coronavirus pandemic  and Indias efforts to tackle it. Keeping aside the substance of his intervention for now, the most important point that Gandhi made was this was not a moment to fight. He underlined that he had many differences with Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, but this was not the time to get into these; instead, it was the time to unite and fight a common enemy, the virus.

Gandhis statement echoes the general tone adopted by Opposition leaders across the spectrum. Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, on the morning of April 14, before the PM announced the extension of the lockdown, gave a speech thanking health care workers and those providing services in these times. Chief ministers, who are in the frontline of the battle, have had a similar approach. They have demands and grievances; they would like the Centre to do more; but at the core of it, they have been collaborative and have let Modi take the lead, and the Centre determine the broad policy line, despite health being a state subject.

To be fair, this has also been the approach of the leadership of the ruling party and the central government. Bharatiya Janata Party president JP Nadda thanked Sonia Gandhi for her speech  and enquired about her health. Modi has now had three separate video conferences with chief ministers  the last one spanning over four hours  where he has carefully listened to their interventions. And in his public speeches, he has repeatedly acknowledged the role of all state governments in this battle against the pandemic.

To be sure, there may be underlying differences in approach. But it is important to note that this is a rare moment Ain Indian democracy, which is otherwise marked by constant arguments, rancour, squabble, battles, and bitter contestations. The gravity of the crisis is such that, notwithstanding the barbs exchanged every day by the social media warriors of differing persuasions on Twitter, there is a spirit of cooperation that is unprecedented in recent times.

This, then, brings us to what the role of the Opposition should be? In normal times, in any democracy, especially in a parliamentary democracy like India, the Oppositions job is to ruthlessly critique the government, point to gaps in each policy decision, speak up for those who are not being heard in decision-making, mobilise both grassroots and elite opinion against the ruling dispensation, and eventually, through elections, displace the party in power and win a democratic mandate.

But in exceptional times such as these, the role of the Opposition changes somewhat. It has to begin with the premise that the governments intent is noble  that even if there is political rivalry, those who are exercising State power want to help the country overcome the challenge posed by the pandemic. This faith in intent has to be supplemented by cooperation, for it is only when the political class in a united manner takes on a challenge  across federal units  that there can be a commonality in the action plan and the implementation of it. This has indeed happened. The Opposition has supported the lockdown announced by the PM; there is also a broad consensus about the methods to be adopted to battle the pandemic  from testing to identifying hotspots and containment zones, from the importance of social distancing to increasing isolation and quarantine facilities, from providing relief to the poor to redressing the economic slowdown.

But beyond that, the Oppositions job is not to go along with each government measure or action. It has to, while being supportive, critique the government if it is falling short, in a careful and calibrated manner, by remaining constructive, and not adversarial.

This, too, has happened in three broad areas. One, despite experts consistently pointing to the need for greater testing as a way to identify the spread of the infection, the government was initially slow, although it has increased testing now. But the Opposition has been right in pointing to this gap and chief ministers have been right in identifying the lack of testing kits as a pressing need. This has pushed the government to do more.

Two, the lack of personal protective equipment (PPEs) for health workers has been a gap in Indias response. Here, too, the Opposition  along with civil society  has increased the pressure, legitimately, on the government to deliver. It has given voice to frontline warriors in this battle. India is still short of requirements, but PPEs today are recognised as an issue.

Third, the Opposition has played an important role in pointing to the economic misery caused by the lockdown. This is, once again, the collective responsibility of all governments. But given the role of the Centre, its wider jurisdiction, and the resources at its command, it is primarily the duty of New Delhi  not state capitals  to come up with measures. The government has announced a Rs 1.7 lakh crore relief package for the marginalised. But this is not enough  not enough to ensure the viability of businesses; keep up employment; restore supply chains; augment demand, and help sectors which are in acute crisis such as tourism, aviation, hospitality, micro, medium and small enterprises, among others. The Opposition has raised this issue consistently, though one could argue that it needs to do so more effectively.

The crisis is not just a test for the government. It is also a test for the Opposition. So far, it has done well  by remaining supportive, yet giving constructive feedback. It must remain vigilant, while recognising that this is not the time for political point-scoring. The government would do well to reciprocate, and not try to take political advantage of the situation either. That will show Indian democracy and federalism at its best.

letters@hindustantimes.com

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Kerala, which is on the verge of flattening the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) curve, is bracing for yet another daunting challenge. The weakening of oil prices coupled with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the oil-dependent economies in the Persian Gulf countries have led to uncertainties, as out of 1.8 million workers from Kerala in West Asia at least 200,000 are desperate to come back home after losing their jobs.

The state government is looking at getting at these stranded expatriates back home after the ongoing nationwide lockdown, enforced initially for 21 days and since then further extended for another 19 days till May 3 to contain the spread of Covid-19 outbreak, is lifted.

The authorities are planning to repatriate the migrant workers in batches and lodging them in quarantine facilities for a mandatory 14 days. The government is working overtime to create accommodation for these Gulf returnees. Though many Covid-19 facilities have come up near four international airports in the state, more similar accommodations are required because of the anticipated bulk inflow of Gulf returnees. The state government has intensified searches for vacant flats, houses lying empty and even houseboats in the backwaters in Alappuzha that would be converted into makeshift quarantine facilities and Covid-19 hospitals.

Kerala has reported 395 Covid-19 positive cases in the state to date, of whom 50% are either Gulf returnees or their contacts, as the state government is staring at an uphill task. Around 1.8 million people from Kerala work in the Persian Gulf nations, of whom over one million alone is in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Last week, the UAE had threatened to impose restrictions on countries that refuse to take back their citizens, leading the state government to intensify its evacuation plans for the Malayalee expatriates.

Kerala is indebted to its expatriate population for the states rapid development and progress. We will try our best to bring them back. We know they are going through a harrowing time. We are with them. We will screen and quarantine them upon their return, said state chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. He has also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi twice seeking his intervention to repatriate the stranded Keralites from Persian Gulf countries.

It is a double whammy for Kerala. While the states working-class population sought greener pastures in the Gulf, people from north India and the north-east filled the growing migrant labourers void in Kerala. The petro-dollar-fuelled a real estate boom in Kerala, as at least four million interstate migrant workers found jobs in the state at one point in time. Gradually, the boom has gone bust, and the migrant workers strength has dipped to 2.5 million after the central governments demonetisation drive in 2016, triggering a crash in the realty sector.

Kerala is grappling with twin issues.

The state has to do a fine balancing act. It has to keep its interstate migrant workers in good humour and at the same time bring the expatriates back home even though the remittances will take a beating, albeit temporarily. Migration is in an average Malyalaees genes. If not the Gulf, they will find another happy hunting ground soon. However, the next six months will be a struggle, said Dr Irudaya Rajan, a migration expert and a faculty member at Thiruvananthapuram-based Centre for Development Studies.

In 2018-19, the expatriates remitted Rs 88,000 crore, the backbone of the states money order economy.

Many countries had evacuated their nationals from West Asia. Our population there is huge. But India could have at least airlifted the sick and pregnant women, who are stranded there. Some of us feel that we are living in no mans land. We hope that our evacuation will be expedited after the lockdown restrictions are lifted, said KC Sajith, a Bahrain-based non-resident Keralite.

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Looking back, Im not so sure I was wrong, although I was clearly on the verge of hysterics  which was helping no one, including Sophie. I walked into that meeting unprepared and anxiety-ridden, full of caffeine and advice from parents of older kids with disabilities. Wherever I looked  text messages, emails, articles, Facebook posts  these parents were all saying the same thing:

If you dont get your kid fully included in a general education classroom in kindergarten, it will never happen later. After this year, it will only get harder.

The words swirled in my head at night, as I tossed and turned: It will only get harder.

In the preschool library, half a dozen aides, therapists, a psychologist and the principal hunched over a low Formica table alongside Sophies teacher, shuffling piles of reports.

Sophie had done really well in preschool, the teacher reported. She had learned to put her backpack in her cubby each morning and was able to sit still during circle time. At birth, she had qualified for therapy and other services from the state, simply because she had Down syndrome. But at 6, the state of Arizona reassesses kids based on cognitive ability, not diagnosis  and she was doing so well that she was in danger of losing services.

I prepared to take notes while the principal talked about options.

Quickly, it became clear that there was really just one.

Our neighborhood school was out of the question, the principal said firmly, even when I mentioned that Sophies older sister had attended kindergarten there with a teacher who had already met Sophie and was eager to have her in class.
WEST CHESTER  A corrections officer at Chester County Prison who was among those staff members to have first contracted the COVID-19 disease early this month has died, a county spokeswoman confirmed Friday.

The officer, a 58-year-old Delaware County resident who had been hospitalized since testing positive for the disease, died Thursday in Delaware County, Public Information Officer Rebecca Brain said in a brief interview.

Brain said the county was not releasing the mans name at the request of his family. No other details were given.

We were extremely saddened to receive the news that one of our own staff, a Chester County Prison corrections officer, had passed due to COVID-19, and we extend our heartfelt condolences to his wife and family, the three county commissioners  Marian Moskowitz, Josh Maxwell and Michelle Kichline  said in a statement.

According to figures from the prison, 10 inmates at the facility in Pocopson currently have tested positive for COVID-19; the first positive test on an inmate came in early April. The inmates had all been on the same two cell blocks, and are displaying mild symptoms of the disease, the county said last week. Eight staff members tested positive.

All are being housed in the prisons Medical Unit, including one inmate who was briefly hospitalized outside the prison walls after testing positive for the virus, which has afflicted more than 29,000 Pennsylvanians and killed 756  27 of them county residents, according to state and county Health Department statistics.

Prison officials have been concerned about the potential impact of the coronavirus in a setting like this since before the first case came to the United States, and they have worked with many partners to prepare for it, Brain said in a statement last week.

The warden and his team are focused on controlling the spread, providing medical attention to those who need it  just as they always would in any medical situation, and have prepared the prison to cope with potential impact of COVID-19.

The entire prison is quarantined. This means that inmates within the majority of (cell) blocks cannot leave their respective block unless absolutely necessary, she said in an email. If an inmate must leave the block, they are given protective equipment including a mask and gown.

On Friday, the county Health Department reported that there had been 773 residents of the county who tested positive for COVID-19, the disease that results from infection by the novel coronavirus. There were 3,605 negative tests, and 27 deaths.

The county continues to have fewer number of cases and deaths than surrounding counties. In Berks County, there are 1,537 positive cases and 34, deaths, according to the state Health Department. In Bucks County, there are 1,524 positive cases and 64 deaths; in Delaware County, there are 2,226 cases and 73 deaths; in Lancaster County, there are 1.030 cases and 35 deaths; in Montgomery County, 2,684 cases and 97 deaths; and in Philadelphia, there are 8,138 cases and 136 deaths, the state said.

Earlier in April, the state Health Department was reporting the results of more than 7,000 coronavirus tests per day. For each of the last three days, health officials have announced the results of fewer than 4,000 tests.

State health officials said they want to do more testing but havent been able to get the necessary supplies. A mass testing site in Philadelphia has also shut down.

Weve had great difficulty accessing the reagents and chemicals, the state health secretary, Dr. Rachel Levine, said Thursday. Wed like to do much more widespread testing.

Fewer people might be showing up to get tested, as well, health department spokesman Nate Wardle said.

To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
There will be no gun salutes and other ceremonial events for Queen Elizabeths 94th birthday on Tuesday, Buckingham Palace announced on Saturday, as the death toll from coronavirus pandemic in the UK climbed to 15,464 (a day-rise of 888).

Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that the commitment to pick up 80 per cent of the salary of employees furloughed by companies for three months would be extended by another month, since the economic conditions are unlikely to recover soon enough.

A Buckingham Palace official said the monarch had decided that the gun salutes usually held in Hyde Park and the Tower of London would not be appropriate at this time. As of Saturday, the UK-wide number of cases tested positive for the virus was 114,217 (day-rise of 5,526).

The queen, who moved to the Windsor Castle after the Boris Johnson government announced lockdown and other measures in March, earlier delivered a rare message to the Commonwealth, striking an optimistic note: We will meet again.

Krishan Arora, a doctor practicising for 27 years in Croydon, London, passed away after being infected by the virus, health officials announced. He is one of over 50 Indian and other non-white medical professionals who passed away in recent days.

Unions warned on Saturday that the continuing shortage of personal protection equipment could lead to medical staff refusing to work in hospitals dealing with thousands of patients. Some hospitals reportedly asked the staff to use aprons instead of standard gowns.

Sara Gorton of Unison union said: If gowns run out, staff in high-risk areas may well decide that its no longer safe for them to work. No part of the NHS should use this move as an excuse to ration supplies of gowns when they still have stocks. That would cause a damaging breakdown of trust at a time when staff are working under intense pressure.

Health secretary Matt Hancock admitted during a hearing of the House of Commons health and social care select committee on Friday that the NHS was tight on gowns, describing it as a pressure point.

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Hundreds of workers poured onto the streets of Bangladesh's port city of Chittagong on Saturday, flouting social distancing rules to demand work and wages during the coronavirus shutdown.

Bangladesh, the world's second-largest apparel producer after China, is set to lose about $6 billion of export revenues this fiscal year as retailers and brands across the world cancel orders, two industry bodies have said.

The country reported 306 new cases of coronavirus and nine more deaths on Saturday, taking the total to 2,144 cases and 84 deaths.

Those figures are still relatively low compared with the worst-hit regions including China, parts of Europe and the United States.

But health officials have warned that the infection could still spread fast through the surrounding South Asia region, home to a fifth of the world's population where millions live in packed slums with fragile public health systems.

Neighbouring India reported 991 new cases and 42 new deaths from the virus on Saturday, taking the total number of reported cases to 14,378 and deaths to 480.

Indian health ministry official Lav Agarwal told reporters some districts had not reported any new cases. But he urged people to stick to social distancing rules. This is a battle for which we have to stay vigilant continuously, he said.

India is in the fourth week of a nationwide shutdown, though the government has said it will allow industries in the countryside to reopen and some farms to resume work next week.

Sri Lanka's government said on Saturday it would partially ease restrictions from April 20.

Bangladesh has sent troops out into the streets to help enforce a shutdown on travel and restrictions on gatherings.

In Chittagong, the crowds of workers on the streets said they were still waiting for last month's wages.

Police had talked to one factory owner who had promised to make the payments by April 28, local officer Mohammad Zamiruddin told Reuters.

Bangladeshs government last month launched a $588 million package to help companies in the crucial garments sector pay staff during the pandemic, but manufacturers have said it is not enough.

Among the countries in South Asia, India has reported 14,378 cases, including 480 deaths, Pakistan has reported 7,638 cases, including 143 deaths and Afghanistan has reported 933 cases and 30 people have died so far. Sri Lanka has reported 248 cases and seven deaths. Bangladesh has reported 2,144 cases and 84 people have lost their lives to the virus. Maldives has reported 34 cases and no deaths, Nepal has reported 30 cases and no deaths whereas Bhutan has reported five cases and no deaths.
Under the MoU, in the next four years, IFC will work with the Plant Protection Department to improve the legal framework and public services to expand export market with a focus on raising fruit to meet international standards, such as dragon fruit and passion fruit.

These types of fruit have posted the fastest production and export growth and possess high potential in approaching high value markets.

According to IFC, although Vietnams vegetable and fruit export has tripled in the five years from 2013-2018, almost all products were exported through informal channels at less competitive prices due to the application of incomplete quality standards.

Therefore, improvements to quality will help Vietnamese products to approach new markets, contributing to promoting exports and increasing income for farmers.

IFC will collaborate with the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Japanese Government and the Republic of Korea Green Growth Trust Fund to implement an online system of requirements related to the export of dragon fruit and passion fruit by 2022.

The quality infrastructure services including standards development and testing and certification of products will also be improved to ensure that exported products comply with international standards.

The access to new and diverse markets will not only help to increase export revenue and expand production, but will also improve Vietnamese agricultural enterprises resilience to sudden drops in demand in several markets caused by crises, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, said Kyle Kelhofer, IFC Country Manager for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

The signing of this MoU will help protect jobs and livelihoods for millions of workers and farmers in the agribusiness, contributing to building a sustainable, export-oriented and higher added value agriculture sector in Vietnam, he added.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged governments around the world to tighten restrictions on access to alcohol during the lockdown, saying consumption can increase the risk of catching the coronavirus and worsen chances of recovery once contracted.



The WHO Europe in a publication said alcohol consumption was associated with a number of communicable and noncommunicable diseases that can make a person more vulnerable to Coronavirus.



"Alcohol consumption is associated with a range of communicable and noncommunicable diseases and mental health disorders, which can make a person more vulnerable to COVID-19," the organisation said.



"In particular, alcohol compromises the bodys immune system and increases the risk of adverse health outcomes. Therefore, people should minimize their alcohol consumption at any time, and particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic".



The WHO also discounted "a dangerous myth" that consuming high-strength alcohol can kill the COVID-19 virus, warning that the consumption of high-strength ethanol could result in death.



Restricting alcohol access during the COVID-19 pandemic



Alcohol is responsible for 3 million deaths a year worldwide, a third of which occur in the WHO European Region, also the region with the highest prevalence of alcohol use disorders in the population and the highest share of deaths caused by alcohol, among all deaths.



Alcohol is consumed in excessive quantities in the European Region, and leaves too many victims. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we should really ask ourselves what risks we are taking in leaving people under lockdown in their homes with a substance that is harmful both in terms of their health and the effects of their behaviour on others, including violence, Carina Ferreira-Borges, Programme Manager, Alcohol and Illicit Drugs Programme, WHO/Europe said.



Meanwhile, the South African government has reaffirmed its position on an alcohol ban currently in place to prevent the further spread of COVID-19.



Addressing the media on Thursday afternoon, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, charged with overseeing governments response to the outbreak under the Disaster Management Act, revealed that laws would not be amended to allow for the sale of liquor.



Dlamini-Zuma, who was joined by Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola, said that law enforcement operations, conducted by the South African Police Service (SAPS), with support from the National Defence Force (SANDF), would continue to crack down on defiant liquor distributors.



Dlamini-Zuma reiterated: We are stressing the prohibition of the transport of liquor. The only alcohol that is allowed to be transported, is the one that is used for commercial purposes for our sanitisers. Liquor that you drink, is not allowed to be exported in the same way that it is not allowed to be sold.

Source: Daily Graphic









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Apple announced the Apple Card last March and Huawei unveiled its physical payments card last week. Now TechCrunch reports Google is also preparing to announce its physical payments card. Its exact name is currently unknown, so let's call it Google Card for now.

This is not the final design of Google Card

Unlike the Apple Card, which is a credit card made in collaboration with Mastercard and Goldman Sachs, Google Card is a debit card that will be co-branded with different bank partners, including Stanford Federal Credit Union and Citi.

Besides, Google Card will come with a Visa-powered chip, but the search giant may expand support for other payment processors like Mastercard later on.

The Google Card could be used for purchases at retail stores and it will support contactless payments as well. There will also be a virtual version of Google Card which could be used for Bluetooth mobile payments, and you'll get a virtual card number as well for online purchases.

Users will be able to monitor all their transactions from a Google app, likely Google Pay, and they will have the option to lock the card if it's being misused or gets stolen. And if someone gains unauthorized access to your account, you can lock it, too.

It's currently unclear when Google will announce this physical debit card, but the company in a statement confirmed that it's exploring ways to "partner with banks and credit unions in the US to offer smart checking accounts through Google Pay, helping their customers benefit from useful insights and budgeting tools, while keeping their money in an FDIC or NCUA-insured account".

Source
Even as more workers aboard the Ruby Princess cruise liner test positive for COVID-19 each day, authorities have ordered the ship to leave Australian waters within days.

New South Wales (NSW) Police Commissioner Mick Fuller told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday that the ship would depart on Sunday. While Fuller later said the date was aspirational, he added that the Ruby cant stay forever.

The ship is currently moored at Port Kembla near Wollongong, having been forced to leave the Sydney region on April 5. So far, 162 of the 1,056 crew members on board have contracted COVID-19, and testing is not yet complete.

Ruby Princess [Photo: Wikipedia]

As recently as Thursday, four weeks after the ship arrived in Sydney, fewer than 300 of the ships crew had been tested. Testing of the entire crew was only started on Thursday, as part of preparations to force the ship out of Australian waters.

Although the workers have been self-isolated in their cabins since March 19, the illness has continued to spread. Thirteen crew members have been evacuated to receive medical treatment on land.

Reports indicate that the Ruby Princess will first travel to the Philippines, but it is unclear whether the crew will be allowed to leave the vessel when it arrives.

At least 50 nationalities are represented in the current crew. With tight restrictions on international travel in place throughout the world, returning home may be impossible.

Many of the crew, having expected to be at sea for several more months, likely do not have homes to return to.

Further complicating matters are reports that the ships captain is in isolation after being exposed to an infected crew member. Fuller told reporters: If he was [infected], then wed have to fly a new captain over  if they need to fly in additional crew members then we would facilitate that sensibly.

Asked why the ships current crew could not be flown home, Fuller insisted: We have offered that to Carnival  if people want to get to the airport [and] theyre clearly not corona-symptomatic then we will facilitate that before [the ship] goes.

Comments from crew members online and in the media indicate that at least some are in fact eager for such an opportunity.

Kate Henegan, an Irish musician on the ship, posted on Facebook: We have been confined and self-isolated to our rooms for 23 days now. We would all like to get tested, and if healthy, get the chance to go home.

Byron Sodani, a fitness instructor from Italy, told the Illawarra Mercury: I have been okay on the boat for about 30 days but by the time it goes back to the US I might lose it on here.

Care packages from Port Kembla residents are loaded on to the Ruby Princess [Source: NSW Police]

State and federal governments insist that Australias infection rate is low, and decreasing, as a result of social distancing measures. While the low number of tests conducted each day limits the conclusions that can be drawn from the official figures, only a relatively small number of COVID-19 patients are currently in hospital.

The Australian health system, criminally underfunded though it is, certainly has the capacity to provide a high level of medical care to any of the Ruby Princess crew who require it.

The crew should be allowed to leave the ship immediately, quarantined in vacant hotels, provided any medical care necessary and flown home when their safe passage can be guaranteed.

Instead, they are being treated as reckless criminals. An anonymous crew member told the Sunday Telegraph: Am I trapped? Yes, beyond recognition  we are criminals under investigation and prisoners to the NSW authorities.

Me and many other people have been refused [testing] and told its not necessary from day one.

Channel 7 last night broadcast footage of restaurant workers on the ship entertaining passengers on March 18, the last night of the cruise. Implying that the crew was responsible for the virus outbreak, the report characterised their actionsa normal part of what they are contractually obliged to doas partying with passengers, and declared that homicide detectives are in possession of the vision.

Despite such blatant efforts to malign the innocent Ruby Princess workers, the working class has shown great solidarity with the trapped crew.

On Tuesday afternoon the crew received 1,200 boxes containing snacks, tampons, razors, soap and other personal care items, along with notes of support from Port Kembla workers and their families. In response to the great compassion, love and support shown by the local community since the ships arrival, members of the Ruby Princess crew set up a crowdfunding page to raise money for a Wollongong charity that provides emergency housing.

While the crew languishes on board the ship, Carnival has terminated their contracts and those of their 90,000 or so colleagues around the world. According to Business Insider, a letter was sent to crew members on April 9 stating that all contracts would end on or before May 10. Workers would not be paid beyond June 9, whatever the original terms of their contract.

Crew members whose role was not deemed essential for the upkeep of their ship, but who are forced to remain on board in self-isolation would not be paid, but merely receive food, lodging, and medical care. In other words, the company plans to treat its employees as stateless prisoners.

Carnival is determined to quickly return the ship to the US, whatever the consequences for its crew. Jan Swartz, the companys Australian group president said in a video posted to Facebook on Tuesday: We remain optimistic that Emerald and Ruby Princess will still be able to offer roundtrip cruises from Seattle to Alaska in the late Summer.

On March 19, Carnival offered up their fleet to governments around the world for use as temporary offshore hospitals. In an effort to conceal the cynical character of this move, the company said it would charge for only the essential costs of the ships operations while in port.

The same day, the Ruby Princess docked in Sydney and Australian authorities allowed it to offload 2,700 passengerssome already exhibiting respiratory symptomswithout testing, screening, or quarantine.

In Australia alone, more than 650 COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths, have been linked to Ruby Princess passengers. An outbreak in northwest Tasmania, which resulted in the closure of two hospitals, and seven deaths so far, started with the return of three of the passengers.

The irresponsible actions of Carnival and the Australian authorities began earlier, however. The ship should never have been allowed to take on passengers and leave Sydney on its final voyage on March 8.

At that time, eight people had already died after contracting COVID-19 on another Carnival ship, the Diamond Princess, on which the virus had spread at a rate seven times higher than on land.

While the danger was clear, Carnival chose to pursue profit rather than protect the health and safety of its crew and passengers. The Australian government, determined to maintain business as usual for as long as possible amid signs the coronavirus was becoming a global pandemic, allowed the ship to sail and return.
Joe Biden has committed to choosing a woman as his running mate. He's vowed to nominate an African-American woman to the Supreme Court. And now, he's toying with the idea of creating new Cabinet posts and possibly even naming potential agency secretaries before the election.

The presumptive Democratic nominee is sketching out an increasingly detailed portrait of the kinds of people he would surround himself with if he became president. At a moment when the coronavirus pandemic has shaken the country's faith in government and frequently rendered Biden's candidacy a lonely pursuit, his campaign is emphasizing what would happen after the election - were he to win - more so than what he will do in the nearly seven months of campaigning before the November vote.

He is also making his pitch as much about his allies as about him, presenting himself as the conductor of an orchestra whose individual players might appeal to the disparate elements of a party Biden is seeking to unify.

His moves reflect a campaign trying to project know-how and preparedness, qualities it hopes will contrast in the minds of many voters with President Donald Trump, whom Biden is casting as chaotic and woefully unreliable in moments of crisis.

Voters "need reassurance delivered in specific information," said Henry Munoz, a former Democratic National Committee finance chairman and an informal Biden adviser. "The best form of leadership is a person who is willing to surround themselves with diverse, strong voices."

The strategy is also driven by the practical problem of mounting a campaign in the era of the coronavirus. When the former vice president hits the trail these days, it means beaming into people's living rooms from his makeshift basement TV studio, piping into their headphones with his new podcast and schmoozing with donors on Zoom, all from a safe social distance that has isolated him from the country he wants to lead.

Some Democrats worry about Biden being eclipsed by Trump, whose White House pandemic briefings are carried live and whose hourly battles with political rivals have been splashed across newspaper front pages.

Biden's slow rollout of a growing army of high-wattage surrogates offers the potential, at least, of breaking through the din.

"It's difficult because he's not a public official now, and he's in this period of time when he's a candidate when we're in the middle of a worldwide pandemic," said Sen. Robert Casey Jr., D-Pa., a close Biden ally who said the "physical limitations" of campaigning from home also present a challenge.

Biden, speaking at a virtual fundraiser, said Thursday that he has started constructing a presidential transition team, a process he said has been underway for several weeks.

Discussions are in progress about the prospect of elevating some White House offices to Cabinet-level positions, Biden said. Among those under consideration: the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the global health security pandemic office and a separate climate change operation that "goes beyond the EPA," he said.

Biden said he "would consider announcing some Cabinet members before the election," a move that would be highly unusual, but he clarified that he hasn't "made that commitment" yet. Still, he signaled that he has a good idea of who would fill the positions.

"If the Lord Almighty said: 'Joe, I tell you what. You have to decide in three hours what your Cabinet is or you're going to be bounced out of the race,' I could write down who could be in the Cabinet," he said. "There are at least two or three people qualified for every one of those positions."

In contrast with the vision of firm leadership that the former vice president is seeking to put forward, Trump and his allies are casting Biden as shaky and unprepared, and calling attention to his verbal stumbles. "No more late night television Sleepy Joe!" the Trump campaign tweeted this week, with a clip of Biden appearing to look down at his notes during a long-winded comment on CNN.

Many Democrats recognize that Biden's status as a 77-year-old white man at the head of a diverse party has made the question of whom he will pick for his administration more significant, and his running mate choice more consequential. Some say they want to see evidence that Biden would put together a government that reflects the country.

Biden has been offering hints about who would serve in his government for months. At the final debate of the primary race in mid-March, he said he would choose a woman as his running mate, setting off a spirited discussion in the party over whom he ought to select.

The declaration focused media attention on several women seen as potential picks, including Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada; Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer; and former Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, among others.

Even that discussion, however, has received little public attention. Some Democrats from competitive swing areas have said Biden needs to find a fresh way to stand out against Trump in the weeks ahead.

"The president is on TV every day. He's coming to us into our TV screens every day from his news conference," Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said in an interview last week. "So it's going to be important for the [former] vice president to be visible and to use this time in key states like Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, to really rethink creatively what a campaign looks like in an era of social distancing."

Trump had a head start in his outreach, although his pitches have been aimed more at reminding supporters of their affection than at seeking out new acolytes. Every time the president tweets - such as on Friday, when he used misleading information to call President Barack Obama and Biden "a disaster" in their 2009 response to the H1N1 influenza - his message goes to more than 77 million Twitter followers. Biden has just under 5 million followers.

Over the past several days, Biden has made this most of his circumstances. He won the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Monday, joining his former rival in a live-streamed discussion that conveyed a warmer relationship between the two men than Sanders ever had with Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The next day, Obama bestowed his support on Biden, and the day after that Warren endorsed him. The campaign rounded out the week with endorsements from leading Muslim and Jewish organizations, highlighting the diversity in his coalition.

The new alliances are expected to pay off in multiple ways: On May 1, a network of influential Obama alumni is planning to participate in a virtual fundraiser for Biden, according to a person with knowledge of the event. Ticket prices will range from $250 to $2,800.

But the credibility transfer from his endorsers to Biden has limits. That is why the candidate, seen in some quarters of the party as unappealing to younger voters and facing challenges with Latino voters, also has been willing to make pronouncements that have gone beyond what past nominees have guaranteed.

"I'm looking forward to making sure there is a black woman on the Supreme Court," Biden said at a February debate, drawing loud applause.

The creation of his Cabinet - and more broadly his view of himself as a transitional figure who can help build the next generation of Democrats - has been on Biden's mind for a while. During an April 3 virtual fundraiser, he said he was committed to selecting diverse personnel.

"Men, women, gay, straight, center, across the board. Black, white, Asian. It really matters that you look like the country, because everyone brings a slightly different perspective," said Biden.

Presidents-elect typically tap experienced government hands to help them evolve from candidate to officeholder. Cabinet nominations - such as secretary of state and attorney general - are normally announced beginning in the two-month period between the election and the inauguration.

Biden would not say who is heading his transition team, but he vowed that those who will take part will be "first rate." He also argued that there is no shortage of qualified people who could serve.

"I have had literally several hundred serious, serious players who have held positions in every department in the federal government who have said, including some Republicans, who have said: 'If you win, I want to come back. I'm ready to serve,' " he said.

The words sought to offer a measure of clarity at a time when there is little certainty about the future of the country's economy, its health and its mind-set. By Biden's own estimation, the election itself is not even set in stone.

Biden said at the Thursday fundraiser that the recent Wisconsin primary led him to question how efficiently states can hold elections during the coronavirus crisis, particularly as Trump and other Republicans have fought a transition to mail-in ballots. When asked whether he believes the public can trust that the November election will be held as expected, Biden replied, "Right now they can't trust that."

- - -

The Washington Post's Matt Viser contributed to this report.
A group of 47 unaccompanied children evacuated from refugee camps in Greece landed in Germany on Saturday, German officials said.

The Interior Ministry said the minors landed in Hanover on a flight from Athens.

They were all tested for the coronavirus before departure and will remain in two-week quarantine before moving on to other German states Germany's interior minister, Horst Seehofer, said the evacuation was the result of months of preparation and intense talks with our European partners" and expressed hope that other countries would also begin taking in refugee children soon.

The children come from Afghanistan, Syria and Eritrea. Four are girls and there are several siblings among the group.

Some of them have families waiting for them in Germany.

They were previously housed in refugee camps on the Greek islands of Lesbos, Samos and Chios that have been criticized as unsuitable for children by human rights activists.

The Greek government has been trying to sensitize other EU countries to (the plight) of the young children, who have fled war and persecution, to find new families and start a new life. I'm glad this program is finally being implemented, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotsakis told reporters at the Athens airport, where he met the departing children, alongside the German ambassador to Greece, Ernst Reichel.

Mitsotakis added that he hoped over 1,500 minors would be relocated over the next months.

Germany pledged last month to take in at least 350 children living in Greek refugee camps as part of a joint European effort, but the plan has stalled in some countries due to the pandemic.

Greece will continue to treat all that arrive in our country with great sensitivity. But, at the same time, it has the obligation to guard and protect its borders. We have proven, as a country, that we can do both, Mitsotakis said.

This was the second flight taking unaccompanied minor refugees to another European country. On Wednesday, 12 children traveled to Luxembourg.

According to the United Nations Secretary-General's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, there were over 5,200 unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors in Greece in early April in urgent need of durable solutions, including expedited registration, family reunification and relocation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Planned Parenthood was paid nearly $25,000 for aborted baby body parts, unsealed documents show

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Newly unsealed documents show that over the course of three months in 2012, Planned Parenthood was paid thousands of dollars for the body parts of aborted babies, directly related to their "usability."

While the abortion giant has long denied the accusation that they profited from this exchange  insisting they were only reimbursed for relevant costs  the previously unsealed invoices, which had been redacted, show Planned Parenthood Mar Monte in California billing biotech outfit StemExpress nearly $25,000 over July, August and September in 2012 for samples of fetal organs harvested from abortions and maternal blood, multiple reports say.

Other documents show a renewable contract agreement between the same Planned Parenthood location and StemExpress starting in April of 2010 stipulating that the biotech company would pay $55 for each specimen "determined in the clinic to be usable" and $10 for every blood sample. The contract designates the payments as reimbursements for "reasonable costs."

The contract also defines POC, or a product of conception, as any fetal organ or other fetal or placental material taken from a human uterus during an abortion. A fetal organ is defined as the human kidney, heart, lung, pancreas, bone marrow, cornea, eye, bone, and skin, or any subpart thereof and any other human organ or any subpart thereof as from a fetus.

The emergence of the documents come as a result of lengthy investigations into Planned Parenthood in light of the undercover investigation from David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress. In the summer of 2015, the group began posting video footage they had obtained while undercover, interviewing top Planned Parenthood executives and doctors speaking cavalierly about the abortion procedures they perform in order to obtain intact fetal organs and tissues.

Since then, Planned Parenthood has filed lawsuits against Daleiden in Texas and California, while continuing to assert that his videos were deceptively edited. The charges against him in Texas were thrown out but in California, the abortion giant was awarded over $2 million in damages in November. Daleiden's attorneys have said they will appeal the lawsuit.

The abortion giant said after the publication of the vides that they would cease supplying such tissue and would no longer accept payment.

Although the document had been under seal, they had been previously referenced and published in a Congressional investigation in 2016. The 2012 invoice showing the approximately $25,000 Planned Parenthood was paid had also been published but with the parties involved, invoice number, and terms of repayment all redacted.
Mario Lopez has been using his various social platforms to urge his followers to remain in lockdown amid COVID-19.

But the 46-year-old TV host broke out of his personal quarantine on Friday to perfect his Jiu Jitsu skills at Gracie Barra in Glendale, California.

Weeks ago, Lopez received some major heat online when he openly defied social-distancing to enjoy a joint workout with Hollywood colleague Mark Wahlberg.

Breaking free: Mario Lopez broke out of his personal quarantine on Friday to perfect his Jiu Jitsu skills at Gracie Barra in Glendale, California

The Saved By The Bell alum looked ready to jump right into the action, when he exited his vehicle in a full Jiu Jitsu Gi.

His signature raven toned locks, were perfectly slicked back as he made his way across the parking lot in a pair of New Balance slides.

Lopez was all smiles, while he openly engaged in a lengthy conversation on his cellphone.

He juggled an assortment of keys, as well as his Jiu Jitsu belts, in his hands, while a stuffed Everlast backpack remained slung over his left shoulder.

Ready: The Saved By The Bell alum looked ready to jump right into the action, when he exited his vehicle in a full Jiu Jitsu Gi

Multitasking: Lopez was all smiles, while he openly engaged in a lengthy conversation on his cellphone

Mario is no stranger to fitness - often showing off his various routines and his impressive progress on Instagram.

But when he shared footage from a workout session with Wahlberg to his Instagram on March 26, the actor raised some major eyebrows.

Both Mario and Mark have used their Instagram to preach the importance of social distancing, yet teamed up at a gym to shed sweat in what many deemed to be 'too close' in terms of proximity.

Although Lopez did insist that him and the Four Brothers star were maintaining the recommended six-feet distance from one another, fans still took issue with their decision.

'That gazelle right there? My boy, Mark, we're staying six feet away,' said Mario.

Hypocrisy: Both Mario and Mark have used their Instagram to preach the importance of social distancing, yet teamed up at a gym to shed sweat in what many deemed to be 'too close' of proximity; Mario and Mark pictured on March 26

Six feet: 'That gazelle right there? My boy, Mark, we're staying six feet away,' said Mario

'This place we're at right now we have completely to ourselves. It is sanitized, disinfected, we did a heck of a workout F45 style. Homie brought me the batting gloves. We're good to go!'

In the video, that has since amassed over 100,000 views, Lopez also remarked on the difficulties of being 'cooped up' at home and urged his followers to 'stay active.'

'I think now more than ever since we don't know when this is going to end, we need to stay active, not just for your physical health but for your mental health.'

On Wednesday, Mario Lopez returned as A.C. Slater, alongside Elizabeth Berkley as Jessie Spano, in the first teaser trailer for the highly-anticipated Saved by the Bell reboot.

He's back: On Wednesday, Mario Lopez returned as A.C. Slater, alongside Elizabeth Berkley as Jessie Spano, in the first teaser trailer for the highly-anticipated Saved by the Bell reboot

On schedule: While production shut down on Saved by the Bell due to the coronavirus outbreak, the show is still believed to debut this year on the Peacock streaming service; Elizabeth Berkley pictured

The series's trailer - that will debut on NBC's new streaming service Peacock - did not feature cameos by any of the other original stars.

Though, it did offer new details about the original characters, and the new youngsters enrolled at Bayside High.

While production shut down on Saved by the Bell due to the coronavirus outbreak, the show is still believed to debut this year on the Peacock streaming service.

The original Saved by the Bell ran for four seasons between 1989 and 1992, which lead to Saved by the Bell: The College Years, which just ran one season in 1993.

The original also spawned Saved by the Bell: The New Class, and a number of TV movies such as Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style and Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas.
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Telehealth has come into focus during the COVID-19 pandemic as physicians face an immediate need to reduce exposure by providing careor at least triageremotely when appropriate.

Under usual circumstances, telemedicine is comparatively low risk. That said, telemedicine does bring specific risks to patient safety and physician/practice liability. Minimizing those risks calls for adapting daily practice routines around informed consent, documentation, and other standard components of a patient encounter, as well as adjusting the practices insurance coverage.

The following are seven recommendations for any medical practice starting to provide care via telemedicine:

1. Distinguish between new and established patients.

The foundation of care remains the physician-patient relationship. If someone you were seeing before this pandemic calls with a problem, its reasonable to speak to them by phone or video chat.

With new patients, however, proceed with caution. Likely your state or your insurance carrier usually requires that your first visit with a patient be in-person. During this pandemic, such restrictions may be relaxedbut just because you can treat a new patient by telehealth, doesnt mean you should. New patients may be more difficult to assess, and are also more likely to be experiencing acute situations not appropriate to treat by telehealth.

2. Maintain privacy.

Consider who is in the physical space or within listening distance of the patient-physician conversation when treating patients remotely. This includes other people in their spaceand also yours.

Physician-patient conversations are confidential. Its up to the patient to determine who might be with them during that visit, but its the physicians responsibility to discuss confidentiality. Also, let the patient know who from your staff is participatingthey may not know whos in the room.

3. Prepare the patient before the appointment.

Talk to your patient about whether it is in their best interests to pursue care by virtual visit. This obviously depends upon your specialty, the patients presenting concerns, etc. As always, let patients know that they have a right to stop or refuse treatment.

Consider not only your technology, but what patients are using. Have your staff review technology needs with patients before you begin.

Receive informed consent from the patient for telehealth treatment. A telehealth-specific informed consent form may already exist within your EHR, or here is a sample informed consent. At minimum, get your patients verbal consent to consult by telehealthand document itbefore forging ahead.

Agree with your patient what youll do if theres a technology malfunction, whether its to resume by phone or have the patient come to the office.

Talk to the patient about billing. You may tell them, Heres what your insurance company says about telehealth. Or, We dont know what your insurance company will say about telehealth. States and insurers are making a variety of exceptions to their usual rules during COVID-19but the exceptions keep changing, so billing is a moving target.

First and foremost, do what you think is in your patients best interest as guided by good clinical judgment. Physicians need to be able to support their practices, but the payment has to come secondary to doing the best for your patient in this environment.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are posting payment updates. Also, check your states health authority website for updates regarding state-to-state licensing issues.

4. Develop your web-side manner.

Consider your surroundings as you prepare for video visits. Perhaps the brightly colored and patterned wall-hanging behind you could be distracting. If youre working from home in what was recently a guest room, turn the camera so that the background is your desk, not the guest bed, for a more professional tone.

With newer patents, remember your white coatand make sure your badge is visible. Clothing does look different on camera than in person, so avoid distracting rainbow effects by choosing solid colors over patterns.

A little common sense goes a long way in removing distractions and maintaining a professional tone during telehealth visits.

5. Call on creativity to examine patients remotely.

Some symptoms and conditions must be evaluated in person. However, a virtual exam may be more informative than youd think. For instance, one can assess for peritonitis by asking the patient to jump up and down. Musculoskeletal injuries may be assessed using the Ottawa knee and ankle rules. The Roth Score allows a preliminary assessment for shortness of breath by simply asking the patient to take a deep breath and count out loud to 30potential COVID-19 patients may be unable to get past seven. For more information about remote evaluation tools, start with The Transition from Reimagining to Recreating Health Care Is Now.

6. Consider additional insurance needs.

Remote conversations with patients mean heightened risk for cybercrime, so consider increasing cybersecurity coverage during this time.

Review your business associate agreements with technology providers to understand who will be liable in case of a breach. Privacy liability is critical.

Consider adding or increasing business interruption coverage: If youre primarily delivering care via telehealth, any interruption in your communication technology can be considered business interruption.

7. Acknowledge when telehealth is not appropriate.

A physician using best judgment can say to a patient, Its hard for me to fully evaluate your symptoms using this kind of encounter, and I need you to come in. Its easier to miss things with telehealth, so when you have that second sense youre missing somethingact on it.

Remember that a virtual visit is the next best thingbut not the best thing. If you, in your best judgment, think a physical exam is called for, and you think the risk of them coming to your office is less than the risk of not seeing them, then you should have them come to your office.

David L. Feldman is chief medical officer, The Doctors Company and Healthcare Risk Advisors.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Firefighters Battle New Blazes In Ukraine's Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

By RFE/RL April 17, 2020

More than 1,000 firefighters have been sent to extinguish new fires that broke out in the radiation-contaminated area around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant.

Three new fires broke out on April 16 and were continuing to burn on April 17 but were "not large-scale and not threatening," Ukrainian officials said. Gusty winds fanning the flames have made it harder to put them out.

Volodymyr Demchuk, director of the Emergency Response Department, said in a video statement the "radioactive background" in Kyiv and the Kyiv region "is within normal limits."

Emergency workers aided by rain on April 14 were able to extinguish wildfires burning in the forests near the plant, which has a structure covering its destroyed section.

The earlier fires began on April 3 in the western part of the uninhabited exclusion zone and spread into the forest. They posed no threat to facilities holding radioactive waste, the emergency service said in a statement.

Environmental experts feared that the fires could stir up radioactive ash in the ground, potentially blowing contamination-laden smoke into Kyiv, about 100 kilometers to the north.

But two senior Ukrainian officials on April 17 denied that smoke from forest fires in the radiation-contaminated Chernobyl exclusion zone was blowing into Kyiv, contradicting an earlier statement by the city government.

The head of Ukraine's State Emergency Service, Mykola Chechotkin, told President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on April 17 that "this smell of smoke in Kyiv is in no way related to the fires in the Chernobyl zone."

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov echoed Chechotkin's assessment, saying smoke in Kyiv was not from the vicinity of the devastated Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Avakov said that 90 percent of the smoke in Kyiv was from the Zhytomyr region, near the Chernobyl zone.

Emergency workers used planes and helicopters to help put out the fires earlier this week, but heavy winds prevented them from doing so on April 16, Deputy Interior Minister Anton Herashchenko was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

The reactor meltdown and explosion at the Chernobyl plant in 1986 sent clouds of nuclear material across much of Europe. It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, AP, AFP, Reuters, TASS, and Interfax

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine- chernobyl-fires/30560436.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. As the Covid-19 pandemic spreads around the world, claiming the lives of thousands of people and changing life as we know it, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar warned on Easter Sunday that Ireland's 'darkness days have yet to come'.

Yet in the midst of the grief and fear, there are stories of tremendous community spirit, of dedication and sacrifice by frontline staff, of kindness and generosity.

Candles burned and Christmas lights glowed as homes and businesses throughout the county responded to the call to join #ShineYourLight campaign to remember those who had lost their lives in the coronavirus crisis and in support of Ireland's frontline staff.

Fr Malachy Conlon brought hope to the people of the neighbouring parishes of Cooley and Carlingford and Omeath when he travelled on Holy Thursday in the Pope Mobile used by Pope John Paul II to bless parishioners and their homes with the Holy Eucharist.

Local businesses too are stepping up to the plate. Bellurgan Precision Engineering is ramping up production to make parts for ventilators in the face of a worldwide shortage of these life saving devices.

Dundalk Bay Brewery has swapped gin making for producing hand sanitiser while Ovelle are also manufacturing hand sanitiser. Other businesses have made welcome donations to hospitals and nursing homes.
The coverage on this live blog has ended  but for up-to-the-minute coverage on the coronavirus, visit the live blog from CNBC's Asia-Pacific team. Global cases: More than 2.3 million

Global deaths: At least 158,600

U.S. cases: More than 726,600

U.S. deaths: At least 37,900 The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

5:52 pm: Trump says Texas and Vermont will start reopening Monday

President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Texas and Vermont will allow certain businesses to reopen on Monday while still observing coronavirus-related precautions and Montana will begin lifting restrictions on Friday. "We continue to see a number of positive signs that the virus has passed its peak," Trump told reporters at a daily briefing. Some state governors have warned, however, that they will not act prematurely to reopen their economies until there is more testing. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said on Friday that some retailers will be able to resume "to go" services, or pickup and delivery, and that restrictions on elective surgeries would be eased. State parks will reopen on Monday for visitors wearing face masks, with social distancing required, The Dallas Morning News reported. Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont announced that in certain low-contact professional services industries, firms could bring two people each back to work, starting Monday. Property management and construction firms can also operate with two-person crews, per the governor's order, according to the VT Digger. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock said Friday that his state will begin to open up next week but did not provide details. Associated Press and Tucker Higgins

5:23 pm: Healthcare workers demand more protective gear

Overwhelmed healthcare workers across the country are taking to the streets to demand safer working conditions and more personal protection equipment to help them fight the coronavirus pandemic. Nurses and doctors on the frontlines are asking federal and state governments as well as hospitals to do more to protect staff and want more PPE to ensure their safety while on the job. See the full slide show here. Adam Jeffery

4:38 pm: U.S. Air Force Academy cadets graduate early

Spaced eight feet apart, United States Air Force Academy cadets celebrate their graduation as a team of F-16 Air Force Thunderbirds fly over the academy on April 18, 2020 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Michael Ciaglo | Getty Images

The U.S. Air Force Academy sent its 2020 graduates into the ranks six weeks early on Saturday  a move the military hasn't done since World War II  as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the nation. The ceremony for the nearly 1,000 cadets took place on the academy grounds in Colorado Springs with guests and families watching virtually in order to comply with social distancing guidelines. Cadets marched eight feet apart, sat six feet apart and some wore face masks at the ceremony. Of the graduating cadets, 86 commissioned for the first time into the U.S. Space Force. While the scene was unlike previous military academy graduations, the 66-year-old tradition of the nation's newly-minted officers throwing their caps towards the sky as U.S. Air Force Thunderbird jets flew over remained. Amanda Macias

4:29 pm: Walmart to require workers to wear masks

Walmart and Sam's Club will require their approximately 1.5 million U.S.-based associates to wear masks or other face coverings beginning on Monday, according to a memo sent by the CEOs of Walmart U.S. and Sam's Club, a Walmart division. The retailers will also encourage customers to wear face coverings, according to the memo, which is dated Friday. It was sent by John Furner of Walmart and Kath McLay of Sam's Club to associates in the United States, and comes as an increasing number of states and cities, including New York, are mandating that residents wear masks in public settings. "We have evolved our policy on face coverings from optional to mandatory as public health guidance has shifted," Furner and McLay wrote. Tucker Higgins

4:10 pm: 24 Hour Fitness weighs bankruptcy as pandemic threatens gym industry

Gym chain 24 Hour Fitness is working with advisors at investment bank Lazard and law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges to weigh options including a bankruptcy that could come as soon as the next few months, people familiar with the matter tell CNBC. The chain is grappling with a heavy debt load, deteriorating performance and a pandemic that forced it to shut its more than 400 clubs. The mid-priced fitness studio is already struggling to compete against premium rivals like Equinox and cheaper competitors like Planet Fitness. Lauren Hirsch

4:03 pm: Connecticut lawyer sues over governor's order to wear masks in public

A Connecticut criminal defense lawyer filed a federal lawsuit on Saturday that challenges the constitutionality of Gov. Ned Lamon's executive order mandating that people wear masks when they are outdoors and unable to keep six-feet away from other individuals, The Hartford Courant reported. The lawyer, Lindy Urso says in his suit that "The damage to the plaintiff's individual freedoms, and even his health ... far outweighs any theoretical public benefit to compelling all citizens to carry and/or wear a mask or cloth facial covering in public. Lamont's order takes effect Monday. Dan Mangan

3:55 pm: World cruise, begun before pandemic, nears end of odyssey

The cruise ship Costa Deliziosa anchors off the island of Santorini. In the foreground the houses of the capital Fira with their whitewashed facades. 12 June 2019. picture alliance

Passengers on a luxury liner's around-the-world cruise, begun before the globe was gripped by the coronavirus pandemic, are finally approaching the end of their odyssey after 15 weeks at sea. Their ship, the Costa Deliziosa, heads to ports in Spain and Italy, two of the countries most devastated by the coronavirus outbreak. Costa Crociere, an Italian cruise company, said Saturday that the Deliziosa, which set sail from Venice in early January with 1,831 passengers, has reached the western Mediterranean, with no cases of COVID-19 aboard. The Deliziosa, a nearly 1,000-foot vessel, will disembark 168 Spanish passengers early next week at the port of Barcelona, Spain, the company said. Then the Deliziosa will head to its final destination, Genoa, Italy, where it is expected to disembark the remaining passengers, Italians and those of other nationalities, on Wednesday. A company spokesman said a passenger left the ship earlier in the week in Marsala, Sicily, for health issues and had a COVID-19 test, which was negative. Being on the liner for weeks during the pandemic "was not surreal, it was incredible,'' said passenger Carlos Paya', who lives in Valencia, Spain, and is sailing with his wife. Associated Press

3:40 pm: Israel set to relax some lockdown restrictions

Israel will gradually ease its coronavirus lockdown from Sunday by letting some businesses reopen and relaxing curbs on movement after a slowdown in infection rates, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Authorities have steadily tightened a partial lockdown imposed on March 14, shuttering offices, closing schools and ordering people to stay mostly at home. The measures have battered Israel's economy, forced many businesses to close and sent unemployment above 25%. But in televised remarks, Netanyahu said Israel had "succeeded in (its) mission so far" in combating the pandemic and argued that the restrictions had "proven themselves in a slowdown" in infection rates. Israel has reported at least 164 deaths and nearly 13,300 cases of COVID-19, as of Saturday evening. However, infection rates have generally declined over the past two weeks, according to Israeli health ministry data. Reuters

2:55 pm: Lady Gaga's One World:Together At Home is underway

Singer songwriter Lady Gaga partnered up with the World Health Organization and Global Citizen to organize a star-studded six-hour live concert to raise money for fighting coronavirus. The event started streaming on YouTube at 2 p.m. ET and a curated selection will be broadcast on all NBC networks, ABC, ViacomCBS Networks, The CW and iHeartMedia channels starting at 8 p.m. ET. Late night show personalities Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert and Jimmey Kimmel will host the broadcast. Performers such as Billie Eilish, Lizzo, John Legend and Taylor Swift are slated to appear. The proceeds will support WHO and frontline health care workers. Elisabeth Butler Cordova

2:25 pm: Horse racing gets more TV time with other sports scratched

Socially distanced crews in New York and California are keeping horse racing on television in the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic. Horse racing is one of the few sports ongoing, albeit in a limited capacity at a handful of empty tracks, but its TV presence has expanded because of the dearth of other options. The New York Racing Association helps produce "America's Day at the Races" on Fox Sports while TVG has partnered with NBC Sports for a dozen hours of coverage each week. The horse-race industry aims to stay afloat and gain more exposure during these trying times. "Horse racing has been a welcome substitute for other events that are currently unavailable," Fox Sports executive vice president Mike Mulvihill said. "Viewing of horse racing has tripled over last year. Online sign-ups for new bettors are up. Betting handle at the tracks we present is up. It's been a nice bit of normalcy when the rest of the sports world is anything but." Associated Press

2:11 pm: Where's my money? Your stimulus-check questions answered

Millions of Americans received stimulus checks from the U.S. government this week to help stave off the negative economic effects of the coronavirus. But many people are still asking: Where is my money? If you haven't received your payment yet, take heart: Millions more Americans are slated to receive their money in the coming weeks. CNBC answers your biggest questions about the stimulus checks here. Lorie Konish

1:38 pm: France coronavirus death toll increases, at a slowing rate

France registered 642 more deaths from coronavirus infections on Saturday, bringing the total to 19,323, the fourth-highest tally in the world, although the number of people in hospital declined for a fourth day running. France's public health authority said in a statement that the total number of people in intensive care units also fell for the 10th day in a row, to 5,833 - the lowest level since March 31. France has been in virtual lockdown since March 17 as part of efforts to curb the outbreak. Reuters

1:30 pm: Pence delivering Air Force Academy commencement address

Mike Pence being interviewed by CNBC, February 7, 2020. Source: CNBC

In a symbolic show of normalcy, Vice President Mike Pence will deliver a commencement address to the U.S. Air Force Academy's 2020 graduating class  a trip aimed at showing the country is on course to gradually reopening after weeks of the coronavirus shutdown. Making only his second trip outside Washington in the last six weeks, Pence will be speaking at a scaled-down ceremony in Colorado Springs. The event usually attracts a big crowd to Falcon Stadium, which has a maximum capacity of more than 46,000. But this year, the pandemic forced the academy to close it to visitors and limit it to 30 minutes. Still, the ceremony will feature its signature dramatic demonstration by the Air Force Thunderbirds. Cadets will march 6 feet (1.8 meters) apart and sit 8 feet (2.4 meters) apart during the ceremony to maintain the recommended social distancing, The Gazette reported. Despite the changes, the day trip was meant as a signal to the nation that the pandemic response has entered a new phase. Associated Press

1:20 pm: Turkey's coronavirus cases overtake Iran, highest in the Middle East

Turkey's confirmed coronavirus cases have risen to 82,329, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Saturday, overtaking neighboring Iran for the first time to register the highest total in the Middle East. An increase of 3,783 cases in the last 24 hours also pushed Turkey's confirmed tally within a few hundred of China, where the novel coronavirus first emerged. Koca said 121 more people have died, taking the death toll to 1,890. A total of 1,822 people have recovered from coronavirus so far, and the number of tests carried out over the past 24 hours came to 40,520, the minister said. The Interior Ministry also said it was extending restrictions on travel between 31 cities for a further 15 days starting at midnight on Saturday. Reuters

12:21 pm: New York hospitalizations continue to decline as Cuomo calls for federal testing help

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gives his a press briefing about the coronavirus crisis on April 17, 2020 in Albany, New York. Matthew Cavanaugh | Getty Images

New York state continues to see a decline in the number of hospitalizations from the coronavirus and deaths from infections, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. But in noting for the need to signficantly expand testing for Covid-19 in the state, Cuomo during a press conference called on the federal government to help New York labs acquire chemical reagents needed to perform those tests. Cuomo said that reopening state businesses and other public spaces will require a larger number of coronavirus testing than are now being performed, in order to make sure that the virus is not spreading at an excessively high rate. Dan Mangan, Tucker Higgins

12:13 pm: Italy's daily death toll the lowest since April 12

Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy rose by 482, the lowest daily increase since April 12, while the number of new cases was stable at 3,491, the Civil Protection Agency said. The death toll had risen by 575 on Friday, up from 525 the day before, with 3,493 new cases recorded. The daily tallies of deaths and cases extend the broadly stable situation in place over the last 13 days. This plateau is down considerably from peaks reached around the end of March, but the downtrend has not proceeded as fast as was hoped in a country that has been in lockdown for almost six weeks. Saturday's number of deaths marked the lowest daily rise since last Sunday, when it stood at 431. The total death toll since the outbreak came to light on Feb. 21 rose to 23,227, the second highest in the world after that of the United States. Total confirmed cases stood at 175,925. Reuters

11:42 am: How to get refunds on travel and other deals made before the pandemic

As of Thursday, 5.245 million more Americans filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance, according to the Labor Department. The new filings bring the crisis total to just over 22 million in just four weeks, ending the decade-plus economic expansion. Economists expect layoffs to continue mounting in the coming weeks as stay-at-home orders show no signs of being lifted. Under that economic cloud, many consumers are having second thoughts about their summer plans. And for good reasons: The average summer vacation clocks in at $1,979, according to a survey from bankrate.com, the personal financial site. "Even if you are able to travel, I don't think it will make anyone feel better to go on a vacation they can't afford," said certified financial planner Rose Swanger of Advise Financial in Knoxville, Tennessee. "You'll come back and feel more guilty than ever." But can you get your money back? It depends. Experts share tips to help you try to get a refund. Ilana Polyak

11:35 am: Canada, US extend border restrictions for another 30 days

US President Donald Trump (L) talks with Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the plenary session of the NATO summit at the Grove hotel in Watford, northeast of London on December 4, 2019. Nicholas Kamm | AFP | Getty Images

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the U.S. and Canada have agreed to keep their border closed to nonessential travel for another 30 days. Trudeau said it will keep people on both sides of the border safe amid the pandemic. U.S. President Donald Trump said this past Wednesday that the U.S.-Canada border will be among the first borders to open and says the U.S. and Canada are doing well in handling the pandemic. The U.S. has more confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19 than any country in the world. The U.S. and Canada agreed last month to limit border crossings to essential travel amid the pandemic, but that agreement was due to expire this coming week. Nearly 200,000 people cross that border daily in normal times. Truck drivers and Canadians who live in the U.S. for part of the year and are returning to Canada are among those who are exempted from the current travel ban. Canada sends 75% of its exports to the U.S. and about 18% of American exports go to Canada. Associated Press

11:00 am: Could you get PTSD from your pandemic experience? The long-term mental health effects of coronavirus

Experiencing intense flashbacks, nightmares, irritability, anger, and fear? In the face of a traumatic event like the Covid-19 pandemic, it's common to feel this way. While many people associate post-traumatic stress disorder with something like war, it's a chronic psychiatric disorder that can occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event, such as a serious accident, terrorist attack or a physical assault. After the SARS outbreak in 2003, both healthcare workers and people who were self-quarantined exhibited symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The Covid-19 pandemic could have a similar effect, according to experts. Even if you aren't clinically diagnosed with PTSD, you may have a strong emotional reaction to the trauma of Covid-19 that can last long after an incident. Cory Stieg

10:59 am: US cases continue to far outpace the number of cases in any other country worldwide

10:49 am: The Covid-19 response must balance civil liberties and public health  here's how

The Covid-19 pandemic is barely four months old, but civil liberties groups are already alarmed by how some governments are responding. At the start of the crisis, Chinese authorities used software to sort citizens into color-coded categories  red, yellow, green  corresponding to their level of risk for having the virus. Those in the green group had the most freedom of movement. Yellow and red meant that citizens could find themselves barred from entry to eateries and shopping malls. This is the kind of "big data" that experts have not encountered before in prior pandemics, and it presents new challenges as well as opportunities. Here are some of the ways new public health intervention tools could jeopardize an individual's rights. Christina Farr

10:36 am: Gucci plans to reopen prototype activities at its Italian site

A woman wearing a Gucci belt and bag is seen during Paris Fashion Week in September 2018 Christian Vierig | Getty Images

Kering's fashion powerhouse Gucci plans to reopen prototype activities at one of its main Italian sites next week after reaching a deal with unions on health and safety measures for workers, it said. Most businesses and production sites have been shut across Italy under a lockdown imposed by the government in March due to the coronavirus emergency. Tough restrictions on movement and the closure of many economic activities will remain in place until at least May 3, but there is not yet any clear plan over to what extent, or how gradually, they will then be relaxed. Gucci, one of the world's biggest luxury labels by sales, said in a statement a small group of workers will resume making prototypes for leather goods and shoe designs at its ArtLab site near Florence from April 20. A spokesman said around 10% of the site's 1,000-strong workforce will go back to work at this stage. Reuters

10:31 am: The pandemic is changing the way people celebrate major events and holidays

As springtime holidays and events come and go, many are finding ways to celebrate virtually, reaching friends, family, and community members through video conferencing and social media. Here's how several people across the U.S. are adapting their traditions and celebrations to life during a pandemic. Addie Joseph

10:16 am: These financial advisors applied for the PPP loan. They share some lessons learned

More than 1.6 million small businesses received forgivable loans through the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program. Independent financial advisors also applied for the program, hoping to shore up their payroll as revenue from assets under management takes a hit. Though the PPP program is now out of funding, Congress may refill the pot. Continue gathering your necessary documents and get to know your community bank, just in case. Here are three lessons from advisors who applied for the funding so you're prepared when the opportunity for funding strikes. Darla Mercado

10:10 am: US girds its satellite communications infrastructure in space during the pandemic

As commercial traffic increases, U.S. officials worry about political conflict in deep space. During the COVID-19 pandemic, tracking and protecting our nation's satellites from accidental crash or purposeful meddling is critical. Right now four GSSAP satellites are in orbit, with two more scheduled to launch this year. They're part of an increasingly intense stare at the space beyond low-Earth orbit: from geosynchronous orbit, or GEO, out to the Moon. Sarah Scoles, special to CNBC.com

9:44 am: Britain is reportedly mulling new ways to financially support businesses

Britain is considering a new bailout mechanism to help firms affected by the coronavirus, Sky News reported, saying that individual loans to companies could be bundled together into securities. Finance minister Rishi Sunak has already set out a range of different schemes to help companies through a national lockdown which has effectively shuttered large parts of the world's fifth-largest economy. Sunak was now considering an additional program to help provide loans to companies in sectors seen as making a material contribution to the economy such as aviation, retail, and hospitality, Sky News reported citing a document circulated to City of London institutions by the finance ministry. Asked about the report, the finance ministry said: "We're always open to ways to improve the package but no decisions have been taken." Reuters

9:41 am: Spain is set to finish soccer season without fans in stadiums

Dominique Faget | AFP | Getty Images

Soccer matches and other sports events in Spain will take place in empty venues at least until the end of the summer, the mayor of Madrid said. Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida told the Onda Cero radio station that the coronavirus pandemic likely "won't be under control" by then for events with big crowds to resume normally. "In the spring and summer there won't be any events with crowds in Spain, and possibly not in the fall either," Martinez-Almeida said. "Because obviously the situation will not be fully under control. We will have to change our habits and behaviors even after being allowed to go back on to the streets." Spain has been one of the hardest-hit countries with more than 190,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, behind only the U.S. More than 20,000 have died in the European nation. The Spanish league is not expecting to resume at least until the end of May. President Javier Tebas has said he expects to play the first few games in empty stadiums and that the league is also working on other scenarios, including playing without fans through the fall. "Soccer matches without fans in the summer is a possibility, as long as health and safety conditions are observed," Martinez-Almeida said. Associated Press

9:26 am: Here's what life after shelter-in-place may look like in the US

The U.S. and the rest of the world are closely watching as Chinese and South Korean citizens attempt to return to normal life, and trying to surmise what the recovery may tell them about their own futures. Watch the video below to learn more. Magdalena Petrova

9:15 am: The stock market is rising on hope for a pharma solution to the virus

Though big-ticket spending and small-business loans provide short-term relief, investors say a coronavirus remedy is the No.1 go-ahead signal they're waiting for to jump back to the market in force. The race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine thus far includes major drugmakers Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Moderna. That bullishness about a pharma solution was on full display this week, when a report stated that a Chicago hospital using Gilead's remdesivir in a trial appeared to ease Covid-19 symptoms in the majority of patients treated with the drug. "As long as you don't have a strong treatment or vaccine, you're under the cloud of second-wave risk and people being more cautious about how they interact," said one market strategist. Thomas Franck

9:10 am: Confirmed US cases continue to climb

8:53 am: New York City businesses are staying open by pitching into relief efforts and going virtual

Across New York City, businesses hardly resemble their pre-pandemic operations. Fashion designers are sewing face masks instead of garments, restaurants have transformed into grocery stores, and distilleries are making alcohol that's too strong to drink. Business owners have been pinpointing the places demand has shifted during the Covid-19 crisis and figuring out ways to move their businesses along with it. For many New Yorkers, it's a feeling that calls back to 9/11, when the entire city was thrust into a new reality and neighbors worked to figure out how to help one another. This time, New Yorkers are rebuilding from a safe distance apart and often over the internet. Lauren Feiner

8:25 am: Nations debate easing lockdown as economic hardship grows

People walk past a red-and-white police warning tape in Plainpalais place in Geneva on April 16, 2020, during the lockdown due to the novel coronavirus, Covid-19. Fabrice Coffrini | AFP via Getty Images

Facing rising unemployment and with many of their citizens struggling to make ends meet, governments around the world are wrestling with when and how to ease the restrictions designed to control the coronavirus pandemic. Mandatory lockdowns to stop the spread of the new virus, which has so far infected more than 2.2 million people and for which there is no vaccine, have brought widespread hardship. In a joint statement, a group of 13 countries including Canada, Brazil, Italy, and Germany called for global co-operation to lessen the economic impact of the pandemic. "It is vital that we work together to save lives and livelihoods," they said. The group, which also includes Britain, France Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, South Korea, Singapore, and Turkey, said it was committed to "work with all countries to co-ordinate on public health, travel, trade, economic and financial measures in order to minimize disruptions and recover stronger." Associated Press

8:15 am: Swiss death toll reaches 1,111, with infections rising to 27,404

The Swiss death toll from the new coronavirus has reached 1,111 people, the country's public health agency said, rising from 1,059 a day earlier. The number of people showing positive tests for the disease increased to 27,404, the agency said, up from 27,078. Reuters

8:00 am: Netherlands cases cross 31,000, with 142 new deaths

The Netherlands has reported an additional 1,140 new coronavirus cases, health authorities said on Saturday, bringing the total number of Covid-19 infections up to 31,589. Dutch health officials also recorded 142 new deaths as a result of the coronavirus, Reuters reported.  Sam Meredith

7:20 am: Spain's death toll tops 20,000

Spain's coronavirus death toll has climbed to 20,043, the country's health ministry said on Saturday, according to multiple media reports, up from 19,478 on Friday. Second only to the U.S. worldwide, Spain has recorded the most number of coronavirus cases in Europe.  Sam Meredith

A woman wearing a sanitary mask as a preventive measure, leaving the train during the first day of work for non-essential sectors. Barcelona faces its 31st day of house confinement due to the contagion of Covid-19. Paco Freire | SOPA Images | LightRocket via Getty Images

6:35 am: Nigerian president's chief of staff dies after contracting Covid-19, spokesman says

The chief of staff to Nigeria's president, Abba Kyari, has died after contracting the coronavirus, the government's official spokesperson confirmed via Twitter on Saturday. Kyari, who was reportedly in his 70s, had been receiving treatment for Covid-19 but died on Friday, presidency spokesperson Garba Shehu said. To date, the West African country has recorded 493 cases of the coronavirus, with 17 deaths nationwide, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.  Sam Meredith

5:40 am: Iran records an additional 73 deaths

Iran has confirmed 73 further fatalities as a result of the coronavirus over the last 24 hours, Reuters reported Saturday, citing a health ministry official. To date, the Islamic Republic has recorded 80,868 infections of Covid-19.  Sam Meredith

A man wears a respiratory mask after deaths and new confirmed cases revealed from the coronavirus in Qom, Iran on February 25, 2020. Stringer | Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Ethnically Chinese international students who were bashed by a stranger in Melbourne's CBD say they were told to "get out of our country" before they were attacked.

Two female students were walking along Elizabeth Street towards Woolworths about 5.30pm on Wednesday when they were confronted by a group including two women in their 20s and a male. The students were told to "go back to China", according to Nine News, and were taunted about coronavirus.

CCTV images of the alleged attackers. Credit:Victoria Police

The 18 and 20-year-old Melbourne University students responded to the taunt and were then attacked by one of the women from the group, who police are now searching for.

Footage shows one of the women grabbing one of the students and punching her repeatedly in the head as the student tries to protect herself, before dragging her to the ground and kneeing and kicking her upper body.
A 78-year-old man killed his 45-year-old physically challenged son during a quarrel that broke out over the son not wearing a facial mask while going out of the house during lockdown in north Kolkata on Saturday evening.

The man then went to the local police station and surrendered. Police have arrested the accused and initiated a murder case against him.

It was around 7 pm that the accused Banshidhar Mallick came to the Shyampukur police station and said that he has killed his son Sirshendu Mallick around 5:30 pm. The son was physically challenged. The accused had strangulated the victim with a piece of cloth, said a Kolkata Police top officer.

Officers from the local police station rushed to the spot and the Kolkata Polices homicide squad was also informed.

According to investigating officers, the accused didnt share a cordial relation with his son. They used to quarrel almost regularly. While the man is a retired employee of a private firm, his son was unemployed. He was suffering from physical disabilities since childhood.

Over the past few days, the man and his son were having fights regularly because every time the son went out of the house, his father insisted that he should wear a mask and the son refused. On Saturday, a heated altercation broke out for the same reason and the man killed his son in a fit of rage. He strangulated his son with a cloth, said an officer of the local police station on the condition of anonymity.

On March 12, the West Bengal government had made it mandatory for all citizens to wear masks especially in public places.

Some areas in north and central Kolkata have been declared as Red Zones after multiple people were found to be infected with Covid-19 disease from those areas.

We have initiated a murder case. Further investigation is on, said a top official of Kolkata Police.
However, this vaccine has not yet been clinically tested

Open source

A million doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine being developed by British scientists are already being manufactured and will be available by September, even before trials prove whether the shot is effective, Reuters reports.

The Oxford University teams experimental product, called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, is a type known as a recombinant viral vector vaccine and is one of at least 70 potential COVID-19 candidate shots under development by biotech and research teams around the world.

At least five of those are in preliminary testing in people.

The Oxford scientists said on Friday they were recruiting volunteers for early stage - Phase 1 - human trials of their shot, and large-scale production capacity was being put in place at risk. This means the shots will be produced in large numbers at risk of being useless if trials show they do not work.

We have started at risk manufacturing of this vaccine not just on a smallish scale ... but with a network of manufacturers in as many as seven different places around the world, Adrian Hill, a professor and director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford University, told reporters in an online briefing.

The aim is to have at least a million doses by around about September, when we also hope to have efficacy (trial) results.

He said three of the manufacturing partners were in Britain, two in Europe, one in India and one in China.

The scientists said initial manufacturing costs would be in tens of millions of pounds and acknowledged the investment risk of pressing ahead with production before verification.

They did not give details of their financing.

More than 2.14 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 143,744 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

Hills team said they plan to start safety and then mid-stage efficacy trials of their potential COVID-19 vaccine in adults aged between 18 and 55 within weeks.

They then plan to expand the trial group to older age groups later, and hope to run a final phase trial with around 5,000 volunteers in the late summer.

Hill and his co-researchers - including Sarah Gilbert, an Oxford professor of vaccinology - said they have a high degree of confidence that human trials of the ChAdOx1 shot will show positive results in protecting against COVID-19 infection.

They acknowledged that many other research teams worldwide were also working on potential vaccines, with only a proportion likely to be fully successful.

We can never be certain these things are going to work, Gilbert told the briefing. My view is that I think this one has a very strong chance of working.

Asked when the shot - if proven to work - might be able to be made widely available to the public, Hill said the best case scenario would be for regulators to grant it emergency use approval - something that could be achieved within six weeks beyond the point at which data show whether it is effective.

That, he said, could mean around six weeks from September, when the team hopes to have positive trial data.
This story was originally published on Oct. 10, 2019 in NYT Parenting.

It was 1 a.m. on Thursday, and Kristen Mascia was pumping breast milk in her car for her 2-month-old son.

The winds had finally picked up near her home in Kensington, Calif., between Berkeley and El Cerrito, and the power had cut out late Wednesday night, leaving her little choice but to retreat to her Mitsubishi hybrid. Fortunately, it had a standard outlet inside.

The Medela pump Ms. Mascia uses is basically now an extension of my body, she said. She pumps overnight to maintain a breast milk supply for her son, born six weeks early. He and I are still establishing an exclusive nursing relationship, she said.

[Read our guide on how to breastfeed during the first two weeks of life.]

Ms. Mascia, 36, was among around 600,000 electricity customers who were without power on Thursday morning after Californias largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, shut down electrical lines to try to prevent wildfires in Northern California. It was unclear how long the outage would last, but the company has said it could take up to five days to inspect the power lines and restore service.
New York/IBNS: The head of the UN childrens fund UNICEF warned on Friday that 250 million children around the world living in the waking nightmare of conflict desperately need warring parties to stop fighting as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads.

In her appeal, UNICEF Executive-Director Henrietta Fore urged belligerents to consider that they would not be able to fight the disease while still fighting each other.

Waking nightmares

To the children living through these waking nightmares, a ceasefire could mean the difference between life and deathwhile the fighting continues, so too does COVID-19s silent march on vulnerable children and populations caught in the middle, she said.

A global ceasefire would protect children from being killed, maimed or forced from their homes by conflict. It would stop the attacks on vital infrastructure like health centres and water and sanitation systems.

It would open space for vulnerable populations to access essential services like healthcare; services that are key to stopping a pandemic. It would create opportunities to engage with parties to conflicts for the safe release of children from armed forces and groups.

Lull in fighting in 11 countries

Ms. Fores call comes nearly a month after UN chief Antonio Guterres appealed for a global ceasefire, which has resulted in a temporary lull in hostilities in 11 countries.

Violent conflict continues nonetheless in parts of Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen and elsewhere.

Recession will likely cause hundreds of thousands of child deaths

The development coincides with the publication of UN research suggesting that the global recession caused by COVID-19 could cause hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths this year.

Responding to the findings  which would reverse gains in reducing infant mortality  Mr. Guterres called for urgent action to protect youngsters wellbeing.

Even before the pandemic, childhood malnutrition and stunting were at unacceptable levels, he said.

Now, with classrooms closed almost everywhere, nearly 310 million children who rely on school meals are missing out on this daily dose of nutrition.

School closures remove early warning mechanism

Children are both victims and witnesses of domestic violence and abuse. With schools closed, an important early warning mechanism is missing, the UN chief explained.a

Reduced household income will force poor families to cut back on essential health and food expenditures, particularly affecting children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers.

In addition to the suspension of polio vaccination campaigns, measles immunization has also been halted in at least 23 countries, the UN Secretary-General continued.

And as health services become overwhelmed, sick children are less able to access care. With the global recession gathering pace, there could be hundreds of thousands additional child deaths in 2020.a

Recommendations to Governments to counter the negative effects on children of lockdown measures include increasing assistance to families, securing food supplies from local markets and prioritizing schooling, nutrition programmes, and maternal and infant care.

Photo caption and credit: UNICEF/Shiraaz Mohamed

Children wear masks at a pre-school in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Motorists should be given refunds on their insurance policies because of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, says Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe.

There has been a dramatic drop in the numbers driving during the coronavirus pandemic, leading to fewer crashes and fewer payouts.

As a result, insurance companies have saved millions, leading to calls for it to issue refunds to customers.

The failure to pay out in some cases has reinforced the ministers view that some insurers were doing the industry significant damage and were not treating customers fairly.

The call for refunds comes as the Department of Health confirmed 44 more people have died from Covid-19 in Ireland, bringing the overall death toll to 530.

A further 597 cases of the coronavirus have also been diagnosed in the Republic.

Following a conference call meeting with insurance bodies yesterday, Mr Donohoe appealed to the companies to be proactive and generous in their treatment of policyholders.

Mr Donohoe told insurers there is a strong case that motor insurance customers should see refunds on their premiums due to what is expected to be a significant reduction in the number of claims.

It comes just days after it was confirmed that health insurance policyholders are in line for refunds and rebates following the Governments effective takeover of 19 private hospitals.

Now, the minister is putting pressure on the motor insurance industry to follow suit.

Mr Donohoe also raised concerns that some insurers have adopted a blanket rejection of all business interruption claims.

Health officials said that a blitz of 30,000 nursing home patients and workers will take place over the next seven to 10 days to address a high number of clusters of cases of Covid-19.

Health officials yesterday said it is planning to expand testing capacity to 100,000 tests per week, operating on a seven-day week basis for a minimum of six months, to bring about a situation of real-time turnaround.

Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said such an increase of testing is crucial as we move into the next phase of dealing with the virus.

A summary of all 530 deaths provided by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre shows 308 (58%) of those who died were male and 222 (42%) were female.

The age range of those who have died is 23 to 105, while 316 of these cases were admitted to hospital with 45 admitted to intensive care units.

Bodies of those who have died of suspected or confirmed Covid-19 will be kept in a bodybag inside their coffin, after new guidelines announced yesterday.

New guidance and advice for grieving families has been published by the Government, with a number of new processes for dealing with the deceased and funeral arrangements.

The measures for funerals issued by the Government in the Guide of the Bereaved, have not been taken lightly, according to the document.

Due to its contagious nature, in all confirmed or suspected cases of Covid-19, the body may be placed in a bodybag before being placed in a coffin, and practices and ceremonies which take place, such as washing the body, kissing the deceased, a wake in the home, and other practices that may be important to families and loved ones, are all prohibited.

In cases where it is unclear if Covid-19 was the cause of death, a Covid-19 test may be required on the body.

The latest restrictions in operation since Friday, March 27 mandate that everyone should stay at home, only leaving to:
Delhi police filed a charge sheet against Sharjeel Imam on Saturday for allegedly giving a seditious speech and abetting riots in Jamia Millia Islamia during a protest against the new citizenship law, officials said.

Imam was arrested for instigating and abetting riots with his speech delivered on December 13.

Two days after the speech, Jamia students clashed with police during a march against the amended law.

A senior police officer said the first charge sheet in the case was filed against the rioters and sections 124 A IPC and 153 A IPC (Sedition and promoting enmity between classes) were invoked.

A supplementary charge sheet has now been filed in the Saket court, the officer added.

Imam, who came into the limelight during the Shaheen Bagh protest, was arrested from Bihar's Jehanabad on January 28.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
CHESTNUT HILL, MA /ACCESSWIRE / April 17, 2020 / Sokolove Law announces an investigation into a securities class action lawsuit filed Tupperware Brands Corp, (TUP) on behalf shareholders. TUP investors who purchased at least 20,000 shares between January 30, 2019 to February 24, 2020 who are interested in learning more about the class action lawsuit should call 800-578-0689 to explore their legal rights. The April deadline is approaching, time is extremely limited- shareholders are encouraged to call without delay.

For more information visit: TUPFraud.com

Tupperware Brands Corp is a direct-to-consumer marketer of various consumer products across the world. In addition to selling Tupperware products, the Company also manufactures and distributes hair care, cosmetics, skincare, bath and body care, fragrances, jewelry and nutritional products under the brand names Avroy Shlain, Fuller, NaturCare, Nutrimetics, and Nuvo brands. The lawsuit alleges that the Defendants throughout the period between January 30, 2019 to February 24, 2020, made false and misleading statements. They failed to disclose five key items: (1) Tupperware did not have effective internal controls; (2) Tupperware needed to investigate Fuller Mexico's liabilities, accounting systems (including the accounts payable and accrued liabilities); (3) Tupperware would not be able to file its annual report on Form 10-K for the 2019 fiscal year; (4) Tupperware provided overvalued earnings per share guidance and; (5) Tupperware would need relief from its $650 million dollar Credit Agreement. Because of these issues, the Defendants' statements about Tupperware's business, prospects and operations were materially inaccurate and lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times. It is alleged that once the market discovered the truth about Tupperware, shareholders suffered damages.

If you purchased at least 20,000 shares of TUP stock between January 30, 2019 to February 24, 2020, call our experienced case managers now at 800-578-0689 to discuss your legal rights in this securities fraud class action lawsuit.

Story continues

The lawsuit in question alleges Tupperware Brands Corp violated federal securities laws and the class has not been certified yet. You are not represented by an attorney until certification occurs. If you do not take action you can remain an absent class member. There is no required minimum number of shares to be a class member.

About Sokolove Law

Sokolove Law provides quality legal services that help people obtain access to the civil justice system. For more than 40 years, Sokolove Law has worked to educate people about their legal rights and helped thousands of injured parties obtain the compensation they deserved from their legal claims. Sokolove Law is a national law firm with offices and a licensed attorney in nearly every state. The firm operates as a limited liability company in all states except Virginia, California, Michigan and Tennessee, where it operates as a limited liability partnership. For more information on Sokolove Law, please visit www.sokolovelawfirm.com

THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT Sokolove Law, LLC, 1330 Boylston St, Suite 400, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467. Ricky LeBlanc admitted in MA only. While this firm maintains joint responsibility, most cases of this type are referred to other attorneys for principal responsibility. This is general information only and should not be taken or relied on as legal, medical, or other advice. No attorney-client or other professional relationship is created by providing or using this information. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. 2020 Sokolove Law.

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During my 30 years on television as a BBC reporter, Ive handled some quite extraordinary things. But nothing quite compared to the spongy, heavy mass of a real brain.

I had the privilege of standing among a sea of them two months ago during my visit to one of the UKs few brain banks.

Just 48 hours earlier, the brain in my hands was inside an 84-year-old woman, who chose to gift it to medical science.

BBC journalist Rory Cellan-Jones, pictured inside Hammersmith Hospital's brain bank holding a donated organ has decided he will make a gift to the facility upon his death

Mr Cellan-Jones, pictured, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease a year ago

Now neuroscientists were asking me the startling question: would I do the same?

We can see the woman had a long history of Parkinsons disease because there are no cells in this mid-brain area, explained Professor Stephen Gentleman, one of the scientists who runs the facility at Hammersmith Hospital in London.

I raised my trembling hand to his eye line and asked: Perhaps this means those cells are disappearing from my brain, too?

You see, I also have Parkinsons. The neurological condition, which affects about 145,000 Britons, is incurable and degenerative.

Slowly, cells in the brain involved in movement begin to die off, causing muscle stiffness and tremors. Medication can be given to help ease the symptoms slightly but eventually many sufferers lose control of their body, leaving them disabled.

A year after my diagnosis, my symptoms are confined to a mild shake in my right hand and a slight weakness in my right foot. But I know that things will, one day, get worse.

For now, Im still playing the piano and enjoying long walks (sticking to social distancing rules, of course) with the dog.

Yet, here in front of my eyes, was my bitter end  in all its shrivelled glory. It was a stark reminder that my time will likely come far earlier than Id hoped.

You see, I also have another, even more frightening diagnosis  cancer. About 15 years ago, I was diagnosed with a rare, slow-growing eye tumour called choroidal melanoma.

Parkinson's disease is a progressive, degenerative neurological condition which does not have a cure

For most of the past decade, its not caused me much trouble. But last year it began to get bigger.

Doctors referred me for a high-tech radiotherapy treatment designed to zap the tiny growth into nothingness. But my last scan, in January, suggested it hadnt worked as well as wed hoped. And my latest check-up, scheduled for two weeks ago, was cancelled.

Id be lying if I said I wasnt anxious about it. Its no surprise then that thoughts about the end are suddenly hard to avoid.

So when I was invited to visit the brain bank  and do my bit for medical research  I said yes immediately. I realised I didnt have time to waste.

I was interested to learn that, unlike cancer, scientists know very little about Parkinsons. Why?

Most research relies on people donating their brains after they die  and there is a shortage, says Prof Gentleman, neuropathologist and director of the brain bank at Hammersmith.

We need both healthy and diseased brains from Parkinsons patients so that we can spot the crucial differences.

While 23 million Britons have signed up as organ donors, only 6,000 are on the register to give their brain to the Hammersmith bank, one of 12 sites in the UK, and the only one to exclusively research Parkinsons. The shortage of brains for study, Prof Gentleman tells me, is a problem for research into all neurological conditions, including Alzheimers disease and other kinds of dementia  conditions that, collectively, blight millions of us.

Each brain is a finite resource  the tissue gets used up very quickly, he says.

It has to get here within 48 hours of someone dying to be usable. There are often delays so it doesnt reach us in time. We constantly need more. So could I donate mine? Initially, the thought felt like a step too far. Would my family be forced to transport my body for dissecting, hours after my death? Could I still be buried  or even have a funeral?

I wasnt quite sure I wanted my head cracked open within moments of my death.

Researchers at the brain bank use the donated organs to study the damage caused by Parkinson's disease and use this information to develop treatment for the condition

Yet there was something almost magical about watching Prof Gentleman in action, working tirelessly to tackle my disease.

One important aim is to improve diagnosis of the condition by spotting telltale signs in the brain that can be picked up on scans.

Roughly ten to 15 per cent of people have atypical symptoms, he explains. The condition can also be mistaken for depression.

If we know what Parkinsons looks like in the brain, doctors will be able to spot the disease faster.

Were also looking for signs of what may have caused these changes, so we can develop treatments that target the problem.

One such treatment, first discovered in this very lab, is a new drug which removes a build-up of toxic compounds in the brain.

Professor David Dexter, the former scientific director of the brain bank, stumbled upon these clues during research for his doctorate a decade ago.

The drug is now undergoing clinical trials in the UK and France and showing promising results.

Some leave labs their whole body Patients can opt to gift their whole body to medical schools in teaching hospitals. With the paperwork signed prior to the end of life, the institution will arrange for the individual to be transported there within 48 hours of death. Cremations or burials take place about two years later after research has been carried out. Some medical schools hold annual memorial services, allowing the families to meet the students and professors who benefit from the donation. For more details, visit the Human Tissue Authority at hta.gov.uk. Advertisement

Out of the lab, Prof Gentleman explains the process of donating your brain to science, which wasnt nearly as offputting as I expected.

For one, the family neednt arrange anything  the funeral director and a local hospital take care of it.

It takes doctors a few hours to remove the sample, which is then posted to us.

The hospital then arranges for the person to be taken back to the funeral director.

Remarkably, there is such little damage to the patient that you can still have a burial  and even have an open casket.

There are certain conditions which prevent you from being a brain donor, such as HIV or hepatitis B or C, due to the risk of researchers handling infected blood vessels  but coronavirus is not one of them.

After his visit to Hammersmith Hospital, Mr Cellan-Jones committed to donating his brain to the researchers to assist in the fight against Parkinson's disease

I was beginning to come around to the idea. And then came the clincher.

Why do people bequeath their brains to medical science? I asked Prof Gentleman.

Choices like this are what makes us human, he replied.

We are all altruistic. We want to help other people.

And then I began to cry.

He was, of course, right.

The swathe of recent community projects set up to help victims of Covid-19 are evidence of this. The human desire to help others knows no bounds. In that sense, I am just like everyone else.

So minutes later, I signed the donor form  and you should too.
Seaside's Drastic, Startling Changes: Oregon Coast History, Part Two

Published 04/14/2020 at 5:24 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Seaside, Oregon)  Since its inception as a major tourist destination for Oregon back in the 1880s, Seaside and the areas north of there have undergone some remarkable changes. Its been dramatic and startling, as seen in part one of Seaside Changes, Oregon Coast History.

The biggest catalyst was the building of the jetties on the Columbia River, which within ten years of their completion in 1917 resulted in thousands of extra feet of shoreline getting added. It caused the currents to change so much they deposited as much as an extra mile of sand in some areas. In Seaside, the beach went from 100 or so feet wide to its current 1,000 feet.

The story picks up again here:

In 1921 the concrete Promenade we all know and love was finished  and next year is set to be a big 100-year celebration of that (barring more coronavirus issues).

Up north, dunes started marching eastward and tussling up farmlands. Around then, invasive species of beach grass were introduced to stabilize wind-blown dunes, which sometimes actually made the situation worse all up and down the Oregon coast. Those invasive species took over, knocking out many native trees and plants of the region. In a way those invasive species backfired as well: it halted the spread eastward but the dunes along the beaches grew fatter and taller. The big Bandon fire about a century ago happened because of invasive species introduced into the area.





A weird little secret about those dunes is that Seaside should look like Gearhart, with its massive dune complex and thick cover of beach grass. However, Seaside sculpts its look  it does a bit of dune manscaping, if you will. The town actually shaves down the dunes occasionally, leaving the view open from the Prom to the sea. Otherwise it would have that look of Gearharts.



Above: the cove in '87 as debris was building a new beach (photo courtesy Tom Horning)



Above: near the Cove at Seaside over 100 years ago, courtesy Seaside History Museum.



Another rather startling change to Seasides landscape happened in the late 80s. Until then, the southern end at the Cove was still tiny by comparison. There was about 300 feet less than what you see now. But in 1987, something bizarre happened: a major landslide along the western part of Tillamook Head dumped massive amounts of boulders and debris into the sea, which added some 300 feet to a beach only about 200 feet wide. Much of that stretch from the parking lot at Avenue U wasnt there until after 87.

All that rocky stuff started filling in the Cove quite quickly. Soon after, a new rocky spit appeared. Locals appreciated that, using it to catch loads of fish. Before long, however, the spit and the land were connected by moving debris and sand, thus forming large pools of sea water that, well, stank really bad awfully soon. At one point, time and tide filled in all that and created a beach that had never been there before.





This has an extra added element of weirdness because there were a lot of dead bodies buried in unmarked graves in this area going back maybe hundreds of years, starting with the native population. But as soon as proto-Seaside was settled, the bodies of people that had drowned offshore ended up here, often from ships that were en route to Astoria from exotic places like Russia, Scandinavia or Portugal. They frequently buried them in the cove area.

There is a grave of the unknown sailor still tended to today at the Cove.

There were major look changes to the north Oregon coast town for a time, including the towering cranes that eventually constructed high-rise condos at the Turnaround. First, they tore down the old buildings that had been in those spots for decades. Then the massive cranes went up, looking a bit like something out of a sci-fi movie. They slowly built the skyscraper-like condos, now the tallest structures on the Oregon coast.





Those dunes along this stretch from Seaside to the northern border of Oregon have an interesting secret. If you look at the mass

Natures changes have a little more in store for Seaside and Clatsop Beach. These days, all that sand building up has slowed its rate greatly, down to dune expansion of only 12 feet per year or so, according to Seaside geologist Tom Horning. It had been as much as 35 feet per year. Larger erosion events take place every other year or so, eating away chunks of dunes, and it may not be long before we start seeing Clatsop Beach shrinking. Drastic Changes and Old Looks of Seaside: Oregon Coast History Part 1

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Shrink: Norwegian will be among the carriers to become smaller, according to Davy. Photo: John Mulligan

AIRLINE traffic levels beyond the year 2022 are fated to be "well below" 2019 levels, according to Davy Stockbrokers who have predicted a more consolidated industry in Europe that could see carriers such as Norwegian and Alitalia shrink.

"European airlines could have a quick financial recovery, aided by pent-up demand and hedging at very low fuel prices," noted the broker in a report. "Fare discounting may be prevalent to kick-start demand into 2021 and beyond."

Earlier this week, Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary said that deep ticket discounting can be expected once carriers resume flying.

"The minute we're about to start flying again we'll start doing seat sales, and so will every other airline," he told Reuters.

He added: "Whether it's 9.99 euros, 4.99, 1.99 or 99 cents per seat, we almost don't care - our critical thing in the short term isn't to make money, it will be to get our pilots and cabin crew back flying and the aircraft back in the air."

Davy said it expects that the European airline market will follow the US model of consolidation.

"Airlines that were strong coming into this crisis should be stronger coming out," it noted.

"Many will disappear, some will be significantly smaller, Davy added. "Aircraft deferrals, lease extensions and aircraft retirements will become the norm."

Norwegian has already indicated that it intends to undertake a major debt for equity swap which will all but wipe out existing shareholders. The carrier was already struggling before the coronavirus pandemic grounded flights.

Davy noted that 95pc of earnings by airlines in Europe are in operations controlled by six carriers. But the top six carriers in Europe account for 66pc of overall capacity. In the United States, the top ten airlines control 99pc of the market.

The broker said the current crisis will "hasten" consolidation in Europe. It said that could see some of the long "tail" of European airlines disappearing, with carriers such as Norwegian and Alitalia shrinking. It predicted that even some of the stronger airlines, such as Lufthansa, may be smaller after the pandemic.

Davy also warned that restarting airlines after the crisis will be "complicated".

"We have never shut down the industry on a global scale before," it added.
Elgaar Parishad: Teltumbdes NIA custody extended until April 25

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Mumbai, Apr 18: A special court in Mumbai has extended the National Investigation custody of activist, Anand Teltumbde until April 25 in connection with the Elgaar Parishad case.

Teltumbde was arrested on April 15 along with activist, Gautam Navlakha. They were ordered by the Supreme Court to surrender before the NIA within a week.

Last week the Supreme Court had questioned them for not surrendering in compliance of its order, by which the court had on March 16 directed them to surrender, within three weeks.

Elgar Parishad: Navlakha, Teltumbde in NIA custody, following SC order

Though we expected that the accused would surrender, honouring the order of this court, they have not done so. We are told that in Bombay the courts are functioning. It would have been appropriate for the accused to surrender as the courts are open and not totally closed.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

Since the petitioners have enjoyed protection for long, by way of the last opportunity, we extend the time grand to surrender for one week, the Bench had said. The activists had approached the Supreme Court seeking more time to surrender due to the outbreak of the coronavirus. They contended that they were suffering from ailments and hence should not allow themselves to be exposed to public places. The Centre, however, opposed their contention and said that the jail will be a safe place for them.
A block of Second Street Southwest, just west of Broadway Avenue, will close Monday, with anticipated work to last into the fall.

The closure makes way for sewer work, which will connect projects on First Avenue Southwest and Second Street Southeast, according to Rochester Public Works.

The Second Street Southeast sewer project will reduce the traffic east of Broadway Avenue to a single lane westbound from Third Avenue. The closure of eastbound travel on Second Street Southeast is expected to last into August.

Additionally, access to the Second Street parking ramp and nearby alleys is being closed for 30 days.

The Second Street lane restrictions and closures are not expected to impact traffic on Broadway Avenue.

ADVERTISEMENT

While the block of Second Street Southwest is closed, Rochester Public Transit plans to shift the location of many downtown bus stops:

 All local routes (21-26) will stop on the west side (southbound lane) of Second Avenue Southwest.

 Direct routes will stay on Second Street Southwest.

 The 1D and 6D buses will stop on the north side (westbound lane) of Second Street Southwest in front of Calvary Episcopal Church.

 The 3D and 18D buses will stop on the south side (eastbound lane).

Pedestrian access is expected to be maintained throughout these corridors, though slight detours may be necessary.
Romanian/US actor Sebastian Stan arrives for the World premiere of Marvel Studios' "Avengers: Endgame" at the Los Angeles Convention Center on April 22, 2019 in Los Angeles. (Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP) (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images)

Ahead of promoting his new romantic dram Endings, Beginnings, Sebastian Stan was well aware that hed be quizzed about his return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier.

We actually know when well see Stans superhero back in action, as he is one of the titular characters in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, which will premiere on Disney+ towards the end of this year.

Read More: Sebastian Stan unsure when 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier' will resume filming after coronavirus

But, after both Infinity War and Endgame, Marvel fans are dying for information on when the new look Avengers will get together, especially since two massive holes need to be filled, as Iron Man and Captain America have departed from the franchise.

Variety asked Stan for an update on the next Avengers film during a recent Instagram Live about Endings, Beginnings, and, initially, he insisted that he knew nothing, adding, You know I know nothing about that. You know, Im just Im just a man.

The Avengers gather together for a run in Endgame (Image by Marvel)

But it was Stans next comments that immediately sparked speculation were going to have to wait a while for the fifth Avengers films.

Weve got to figure out a couple of other missions first before we even get there, before he then immediately started poking fun at his fellow The Falcon And The Winter Soldier leading man, Anthony Mackie.

Read More: Sebastian Stan called the 'CEO of staying safe' for extreme coronavirus precaution on flight

I gotta deal with this other person that I have to deal with. Its been nice to have a break from [Anthony Mackie], its kind of nice to have a little quiet in this quarantine without him. But we got to figure out some adventures together first before we get there."

We know for certain that it wont be before 2022, as the slate for the fourth phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has already been announced, while the sequels to Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Guardians Of The Galaxy, as well as the debuts of X-Men and Blade are all expected before another Avengers film, too.
After a month of severe restrictions on residents and businesses, the states top health official said Friday shes cautiously optimistic New Jersey is seeing a flattening of the coronavirus outbreak that has ravaged the state.

State Health Commissioner Judith Persichili even said the northern part of the state may have already seen the peak of hospitalizations from COVID-19.

But the central and southern regions of the state have yet to see their peaks, Persichilli said.

As we look at the hospitalizations, we are seeing some flattening," she said during the states daily coronavirus press briefing in Trenton. We separate out the state into north, central and south, and we actually are seeing the transmission of the disease moving down the state.

In the north, we have seen the peak," Persichilli added. "We have not seen it in central and south. And its coming.

Officials did not go into detail about statistics that might back this claim, and it remains unclear if  given New Jerseys limited testing  anyone can say with confidence if any part of the state has reached a peak.

Persichilli stressed "we expect to still be very busy through April and and until around May 12, though she emphasized the prediction changes every day.

Were cautiously optimistic and hopefully optimistic that were leveling off, but we still expect it to be pretty high, she added.

Gov. Phil Murphy said the peak is difficult to determine.

I would define the peak as not a day in time, but as in a period of time, Murphy said. And it feels like were still in the thick of it."

New Jersey continues to have the second most cases and deaths of COVID-19 among U.S. states, after neighboring New York. On Friday, officials said New Jersey has seen at least 78,467 confirmed cases, including at least 3,840 deaths. The state reported another 3,250 positive tests and 323 fatalities in the last 24 hours.

On Tuesday, Persichilli said the state was expecting its peak number of hospitalizations from the virus to hit April 25, with 15,922 people projected to be hospitalized with COVID-19 or under investigation for it. Of those, 3,821 were projected to be in critical care, with 3,503 on ventilators.

As of of 10 p.m. Thursday, 8,011 residents were hospitalized in New Jersey either with the virus or under investigation for it, officials said. Of those, 1,961 were in critical care and 1,594 on ventilators.

And between 10 p.m. Wednesday and 10 p.m. Thursday, 787 residents with the virus or under investigation were discharged from New Jersey hospitals.

Persichilli has said officials have been working to greatly expand the number of hospital beds in New Jersey, including using reopened hospital space, field hospitals, hotels, and college dormitories.

The new numbers come a day after President Donald Trump just unveiled guidelines that governors can take to lift restrictions and reopen their states as the country struggles with countless business closings and record unemployment because of the lockdowns.

But Trump said it will be up to governors to make the call and admitted that New Jersey and New York will not reopen soon.

Murphy confirmed Friday that were not there yet." The governor said cases in New Jersey need to keep dropping and there needs to be broader testing  with help from the federal government  before the state can begin to gradually remove restrictions.

April is gonna be our toughest period, assuming we keep doing what were doing, the governor said. May will be somewhat better  we just dont know how much better.  And then were hoping that we can have the healthcare infrastructure in place and we can begin to responsibly open things up in the warm months.

Meanwhile, protests have begun popping up in parts of the country, with citizens saying lockdowns have gone on too long and infringe upon their constitutional rights.

As New Jersey officials held the briefing Friday, a number of protestors walked through the streets of Trenton  without face masks  calling on Murphy to end his orders.

A quarter-mile from where @GovMurphy and health commissioner told reporters that social distancing was working, this maskless, open-Jersey demo popped up. Peak has yet to hit Central/South. Movement using these hashtags: #ReopenNewJersey #ReopenAmerica pic.twitter.com/plkdjDeoEr  Elise Young (@EliseOnDeadline) April 17, 2020

But Murphy insisted that while the lockdowns appear to be helping slow the rate of infection in the state, cases and deaths are still rising and residents need to keep staying at home and practicing social distancing.

Lets remember while were talking about really good progress and signs of really good daylight  its within our hands to either keep it that way, or  please God, dont do this  let our guard down, the governor said. Were still in the war.

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.

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NEW YORK - Two television doctors  Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil  are finding themselves trying to explain comments they made about coronavirus restrictions during appearances on Fox News Channel this week.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/4/2020 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FILE - This Dec. 4, 2019 file photo shows Dr. Mehmet Oz at the 14th annual L'Oreal Paris Women of Worth Gala in New York. Oz says he misspoke during a Fox News Channel appearance this week where he said reopening schools was a very appetizing opportunity despite the coronavirus epidemic. In a Twitter post late Thursday, April 16, the heart surgeon and television talk show host said he recognized his comments had confused and upset people, and that was never his intention. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

NEW YORK - Two television doctors  Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil  are finding themselves trying to explain comments they made about coronavirus restrictions during appearances on Fox News Channel this week.

Mehmet Oz says that he misspoke in an interview with Fox's Sean Hannity, when he said reopening schools was a "very appetizing opportunity" despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Phil McGraw, another daytime talk show host who, like Oz, catapulted to TV fame as a protege of Oprah Winfrey, received social media heat for comparing coronavirus deaths to those caused by swimming pool and automobile accidents.

Oz, in a Twitter post late Thursday, said that he recognized his comments had confused and upset people, and that was never his intention. The heart surgeon talked with Hannity on Tuesday about ways to get "our mojo back" during the outbreak and mentioned schools, which are largely closed across the United States.

FILE - This Feb. 21, 2020 file photo shows talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw speaking during a ceremony awarding him with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles. Two television doctors  Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil  find themselves trying to explain comments made on Fox News Channel about the coronavirus. Dr. Mehmet Oz says he misspoke during an appearance where he said reopening schools was a very appetizing opportunity despite the coronavirus epidemic. Meanwhile, McGraw says he used bad examples while appearing on Laura Ingraham's show when he compared coronavirus deaths to deaths caused by cigarettes, auto accidents and swimming pools. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

"I just saw a nice piece in the Lancet arguing that the opening of schools may only cost us 2% to 3% in terms of total mortality," he said.

"You know, any life is a life lost, but to get every child back into school where they are being safely educated, being fed and making the most out of their lives with the theoretical risk on the backside might be a trade-off some folks would consider," he said.

It's not clear exactly what he was trying to say  if he meant that a certain number of deaths was worth the benefit of schools resuming  and his representative did not immediately offer a clarification on Friday.

While not a staff member at Fox News, Oz has made frequent appearances on the network since the beginning of the outbreak.

In his Twitter message, he said that he's spent his career fighting to save lives by minimizing risk. But he's constantly being asked how people can get back to their normal lives.

"To do that, one of the important steps will be figuring out how to get our children safely back to school," he said. "We know for many kids school is a place of security, nutrition and learning that is missing right now.

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"These are issues that we are all wrestling with and I'll continue to look for solutions to beat this virus," he said.

McGraw appeared on Laura Ingraham's show Thursday. He pointed out the number of people who died because of cigarettes, auto accidents and swimming poll accidents and noted that those didn't cause any lockdowns.

"The fallout is going to last for years because people's lives are being destroyed," he said. Ingraham has been among the television personalities who have pushed for a plan to reopen the country.

In an online message posted Friday, McGraw said he used bad examples because they were not contagious diseases. He also said he incorrectly stated the number of swimming pool deaths.

"If I offended people's sensibilities last night with my examples, then erase those," he said.

McGraw urged listeners to follow guidelines from health experts and government leaders. He said he was trying to express concern about the mental health and economic impacts of shutting much of the country down.
Two Vietnamese travel bloggers have recently caught the attention of local netizens with their photo collection capturing the duo "traveling the world" while staying put at home due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Trung Duc and Khai Quan, both 30, transformed their home into world scenes and used them as the backdrops for their 'Lost at Home' album.

The photos were taken as travel restrictions are in place in Vietnam and across the globe, with carriers suspending most of their international services and many countries tightening immigration as a precaution against COVID-19.

However, that did not stop Duc and Quan, founders of the Wanderful Dreams blog, from tapping into their wanderlust.

While they cannot reach out to the real world, they have turned their house into a world of their own.

In their 'Lost at Home' project, the two turned every corner of their house into a concept reflecting the lands they wish to "travel" to.

Hong Kong, India, South Korea, and Egypt are just some of the many places on Earth reimagined in the duo's photoshoot.

Trung Duc and Khai Quan visit a fortune teller in India, played by Duc's mother, in their imaginary 'Lost at Home' photo collection in which they turned their house into world scenes.

Talking to Tuoi Tre (Youth)newspaper, Duc and Quan recalled that 'Lost at Home' sprang into their mind after their travel plans and photography projects had been indefinitely delayed owing to COVID-19.

Staying at home all day drove the two "insane," so they wanted to do something to satiate their thirst for travel, they explained.

It took Duc and Quan two days for the photos, including time spent drafting ideas, preparing props, and shooting, before the whole album was posted to their Facebook page on April 13.

"All shops are closed during the social distancing period so we could not buy all the things that we needed [for the photoshoot], so we made do with things available in our house," Khai Quan said.

"However, as we had earlier planned to establish a small studio at our house, we had quite enough equipment, decorations and costumes at our disposal," he added.

Vietnam went into 15 days of nationwide social distancing on April 1 as per a directive issued by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

Increased social distancing measures are carried on in 28 provinces and cities for at least another week after April 15.

Trung Duc and Khai Quan are captured visiting Hong Kong in their imaginary 'Lost at Home' photo collection in which they turned their house into world scenes.

Trung Duc and Khai Quan enjoy the beach in Thailand's Phuket in their imaginary 'Lost at Home' photo collection in which they turned their house into world scenes.

Trung Duc and Khai Quan are seen taking shelter from a rain in South Korea in their imaginary 'Lost at Home' photo collection in which they turned their house into world scenes.

Trung Duc and Khai Quan camp overnight in the Sahara desert in Africa in their imaginary 'Lost at Home' photo collection in which they turned their house into world scenes.

Trung Duc and Khai Quan visit a fortune teller in India, played by Ducs mother, in their imaginary Lost at Home photo collection in which they staged their house into world scenes.

Trung Duc and Khai Quan are seen riding a train to Raohe night market in Taiwan's Taipei in their imaginary 'Lost at Home' photo collection in which they turned their house into world scenes.

Trung Duc and Khai Quan are seen visiting Tibet in their imaginary 'Lost at Home' photo collection in which they turned their house into world scenes.

Trung Duc and Khai Quan visit the Amazon rainforest in their imaginary 'Lost at Home' photo collection in which they turned their house into world scenes.

Trung Duc and Khai Quan read books while lying on a hammock in the middle of a forest in Indonesia's Bali in their imaginary 'Lost at Home' photo collection in which they turned their house into world scenes.

Trung Duc and Khai Quan are seen enjoying the cherry blossom season at Ueno Park in Japan's Tokyo in their imaginary 'Lost at Home' photo collection in which they turned their house into world scenes.

The bitter truth revealed: Trung Duc and Khai Quan are only practicing social distancing at their home in Vietnam.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
The conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell on five of six charges of recruiting and grooming teenage girls for sexual encounters with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein is not and should not be the end of the story. While Maxwell has been held accountable for her actions, the men who engaged in th
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A 21-year-old man is now the second person charged in an attempted robbery that led to a deadly shooting at a Kansas City apartment complex. George Steen has been charged with second-degree murder, first-degree burglary and armed criminal action in the death of Monrico Roseberry, prosecutors said Friday.
During I.V.F., a womans eggs are surgically retrieved from her ovaries; fertilized and developed into embryos in a lab; and then transferred back into her uterus. But IUI is much simpler. Sperm  whether from your partner or a donor  is prepared and then inserted into the uterus through a soft catheter. Most women (myself included) dont feel a thing, and it only takes a few minutes.

What happens during an IUI cycle at a fertility clinic?

A typical IUI cycle begins at the start of your period and ends when you take a blood pregnancy test, about two weeks after your IUI.

First, youll get a blood test on the second or third day of your period to confirm that you arent already pregnant. Your doctors will often perform a transvaginal ultrasound to examine your uterine lining and your ovarian follicles (the small, fluid-filled sacs in your ovaries that typically contain one immature, microscopic egg).

During the weeks before ovulation, your doctor will perform additional ultrasounds to make sure that your uterine lining is thickening and your follicles are growing.

When at least one mature follicle on the ultrasound measures over 20 millimeters, ovulation is likely to happen soon. At this point, your doctor might instruct you to take an hCG trigger shot (which induces ovulation about 36 hours after the injection) and will schedule your IUI.

Or, your doctor might tell you to continue measuring the level of luteinizing hormone (which peaks 24 to 48 hours before ovulation) in your urine with an at-home test. When the test indicates that your LH levels have peaked, the IUI is typically performed the following day.

If you are using sperm from a male partner, he will come to the clinic on the day of your IUI to deposit a sample, and the fertility clinic will prepare it for insemination. This process involves washing it to remove unwanted substances like non-motile sperm, white blood cells and prostaglandins (hormone-like chemicals that can cause painful cramping when deposited into the uterus).
A name familiar to all Laredoans was named to Gov. Greg Abbott's newly announced Strike Force, which was organized Friday by the Governor as part of three new executive orders outlining the process of re-opening the state's economy.

IBC Bank Chairman and CEO Dennis E. Nixon is among the number of experts who Abbott will rely on in order to get Texans back to work safely and efficiently.

The Strike Force is a team of nationally recognized medical experts and private and public leaders that will advise on best practices to safely re-open the state.

I am grateful to Governor Abbott for appointing me to this important effort, Nixon said in a press release. As a community bank, IBC Bank is committed to creating economic opportunity across Texas. In order to be effective for our customers, we must be engaged in the issues that affect them.

Nixon has a multitude of experience with IBC, first joining the bank in 1975. Under his leadership, the bank has grown in notoriety. The IBC corporation has regularly been named on Forbes Magazine's list of 100 Best Banks in America, and has become one of the largest independent bank holding companies in Texas and Oklahoma.

Getting the economy moving again will be more like merging onto a busy highway than turning on a light switch, Nixon said. Businesses will need time to open for business and the hiring process is sure to be affected. Because supply chains have been disrupted, processes and procedures have changed, and our daily routines have changed, we need to prepare a plan now to ensure our ramp-up is smooth and successful

Nixon was also pivotal in the passage of the original North American Free Trade Agreement, and the resulting United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which was passed in NAFTA's place.

A number of famous Texas leaders are also on the force, including Michael Dell, Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale, Nancy Kinder and Kendra Scott.

"The Strike Force to Open Texas brings together nationally recognized medical experts with public and private sector leaders to achieve this mission," Abbott said in a statement. "By coming together, we can get Texans back to work, practice safe standards that will prevent the spread of COVID-19, and we can overcome this pandemic."

See who's who on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's Strike Force in the photos above...

For the full list of members of the Strike Force, visit Abbott's website.

LMT Web Producer Louis San Miguel contributed to this report.

Rebecca Hennes covers community news. Read her on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | rebecca.hennes@chron.com
18.04.2020 LISTEN

Once upon a time, after nine solid months of hectic ordeals, the labour ward was finally in severe tension. Mum was lying down helplessly unless for that from God, battling for her life and yours( her beautiful baby). A day had come for her to introduce you into the world to feel the freshness of air, the brightness of light and many more.

She was lying flat on her back with her legs wide opened. The doctors at the scene were moving to-and-fro, doing their best  tirelessly and relentlessly  to see you out. A little while later, you finally landed into the living world. She welcomed you with lovely smiles coupled with tears of joy, as she embraced you tightly to her chest.

The journey had begun

Fast forward to some few seconds after your arrival, the first thing you fed on was a part of her  breast milk. She had to feed you with that thick, golden yellow milk (colostrum), enriched with loads of nutrients, to make you strong and sound. A whole slew of individuals at the scene said her Hey, with dismay correctly drawn on their faces, you shouldnt feed this child with this dirty liquid; its so sticky and unhealthy. Given your health, she never listened to them as she knew the benefits youd get from that first milk.

A lot of loved ones and well-wishers congratulated and welcomed her home for having introduced you into the world. Nonetheless, a handful of them aided her in your upbringing. Even more probably, she suffered the pain of your upbringing alone. She did all the Elephant fathers job, as the Hausa man would say  ranging from bathing you, dressing you up, feeding you and making sure you were always fine  without a salary from anyone.

When morning comes and you dont spend a penny, she never felt okay. Until you had taken your breakfast, it would never appear to her to take one for herself. During times when you were sick, her heart palpitated and she stood by you until Gods glory found you. All these continued until you reached school-going age.

Albeit she was uncomfortable with leaving you in the care of others to be taken to school, she had no other plausible option, as making you a better person through education was a paramount mania to her. She cried when you left her for school, the first day, and smiled when you( her everything) returned home safe.

As a results of all the above, here you are today. Arent these enough reasons for making her  The Primus Inter Pares in your world? They are, unequivocally.

Even though Ive never been to a labour ward to witness what our mothers go through, I can give an account of what happens there, out of ever being an eye witness to a sheep in labour in my house.

It was a sunny afternoon when I sighted a sheep in labour in my house. The scene was so pitiful and tragic. The sheep was lying helplessly and screaming constantly, ostensibly out of pain of labour. A little while later, it managed to deliver the first lamb. It continued screaming until fast forward to about thirty minutes or so later, it delivered the second lamb  howbeit, lifeless. Only one lamb survived. I watched quietly in consternation and asked myself in silence  Is this similar to what happens to our mothers in labour wards?

Given all the above, I believe youd not hesitate to say God bless our mothers and all other women yet to be mothers. Amen.

AUTHOR: MOHAMMED EZZIDEEN YAKUB[UHAS - MEDICINE LEVEL 100].

[email protected]

POWERED BY: EDUPACT.
A Chinese-owned pork processing plant in South Dakota has lost the trust of its employees after at least 634 people tested positive for the coronavirus and staff expressed concern that the company was not being forthcoming about possible exposure.

Normally 3,700 people work at the Sioux Falls Smithfield Foods plant, so roughly 17 per cent of staff are infected with the virus. The plant has stopped processing meat after receiving requests from the governor and city mayor.

'We understand from firsthand employee accounts that they were not provided any protective gear,' Taneeza Islam, founder of the South Dakota Dream Coalition, explained to NPR. 'They were not given any hand sanitizer. There was no social distancing occurring on the lines from at least before March 26, to when some measures like taking temperatures outside of the plant before employees had to come in, took place on Monday, April 6.'

Staff at the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Smithfield Foods plant say they were not provided 'any protective gear' before the facility was closed due to exposure to coronavirus. 634 people have tested positive for the virus.

Islam, who represents an immigrants advocacy group for workers at the company, was speaking against sentiments expressed by executive vice president for corporate affairs, Keira Lombardo.

Lombardo claimed that the company took 17 steps to protect workers. These included adding hand sanitizing stations, enhanced cleaning and installing plexiglass barriers at its plants.

But she did add that the company was experiencing shortages.

'We are doing everything in our power to help protect our team members from COVID-19 in the workplace,' said Lombardo. 'We have been working to get these measures implemented for many many weeks, all day, every day. But we do not have a magic wand.'

Smithfield announced the closures of packing plants in Cudahy, Wisconsin and Martin City, Missouri on Wednesday, days after its Sioux Falls, South Dakota plant was indefinitely shuttered

But according to Islam, workers consider themselves to be 'inches apart.'

'That lunchrooms held 500 employees at a time. And that was still occurring until mitigation efforts were being taken the week of April 6,' she added.

Worker morale is at a low and the staff is having a hard time trusting execs, Islam explained.

'I think the first death of a Smithfield employee that just occurred has really shaken the community and employees as a whole,' Islam said. 'There's a strong sentiment that if proper mitigation efforts, proper PPE, proper social distancing, proper sanitizing, that it wouldn't have been this bad. We all understand that we can't eradicate the virus, but we could have curtailed [it.'

Smithfield announced the closures of packing plants in Cudahy, Wisconsin and Martin City, Missouri on Wednesday, days after its Sioux Falls, South Dakota plant was indefinitely shuttered.

The Sioux Falls plant, where 518 employees and 120 of their family members have tested positive for coronavirus, is now the largest single source of cases in the U.S., and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention has dispatched a critical response team to the scene.

Smithfield said in a statement that a 'small number of employees' at both the Cudahy and the Martin City plants had tested positive for the virus, without offering further details.

Shelves at this Publix in Atlanta are seen stripped bare last month after panic buying. Plant closures now threaten the supply of pork in the US, raising the possibility of shortages

The Cudahy plant, which processes dry sausage and bacon, will be closed for two weeks, during which time employees will continue to be paid and rigorous deep cleaning and sanitization will be repeated.

Union members at the Cudahy plant criticized the company last month for continuing to operate after the union said two employees tested positive for coronavirus.

The Martin City plant, which produces spiral and smoked hams, receives raw materials from the shuttered Sioux Falls plant, and will not be able to reopen until officials clear the upstream plant to reopen, the company said.

'The closure of our Martin City plant is part of the domino effect underway in our industry,' Smithfield president and CEO Kenneth M. Sullivan said in a statement.

'It highlights the interdependence and interconnectivity of our food supply chain. Our country is blessed with abundant livestock supplies, but our processing facilities are the bottleneck of our food chain,' he continued.

Smithfield's Martin City, Missouri plant (above), which produces spiral and smoked hams, receives raw materials from the shuttered Sioux Falls plant, and will close indefinitely

The Cudahy, Wisconsi plant, which processes dry sausage and bacon, will be closed for two weeks for repeated deep cleaning and sanitization

'This is why our government has named food and agriculture critical infrastructure sectors and called on us to maintain operations and normal work schedules,' Sullivan said. 'For the security of our nation, I cannot understate how critical it is for our industry to continue to operate unabated.'

Sullivan said that Smithfield has implemented rigorous protocols to try to protect workers, including the use of thermal scanning, personal protective equipment and physical barriers, and that the company tells any employee who feels sick to remain home on paid sick leave.

The company's Sioux Falls plant, which employs some 3,700 workers, is a massive food processing hub supplying Americans with nearly 130 million servings of food per week, or about 18 million servings per day.

The plant processes roughly five percent of the U.S. pork supply.

Smithfield, which is based in Virginia, was purchased by Chinese meat processing giant WH Group in 2013 for $4.72 billion.

WH Group Chairman Wan Long (left) and Smithfield president and CEO Kenneth M. Sullivan (right) are seen above. WH Group bought Smithfield in 2013 for $4.72 billion

The Food and Drug Administration has said that there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with the transmission of coronavirus.

Smithfield has not been the only meat processor to shut down plants due to workplace outbreaks of coronavirus.

Last week, Tyson Foods was forced to suspend operations at a pork processing plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa, after more than 24 employees there tested positive for coronavirus.

'In an effort to minimize the impact on our overall production, we're diverting the livestock supply originally scheduled for delivery to Columbus Junction to some of our other pork plants in the region,' Tyson CEO Noel White said in a statement on April 6.

Meanwhile, JBS USA, another major meat processor, has stopped operations at its beef plant in Souderton, Pennsylvania due to sick employees there. The plant plans to reopen April 16, after two weeks.

Cargill also paused operations at its protein plant in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, where 900 people typically work.
Under layers of personal protective (PPE) equipment, staff at Cork University Hospital (CUH) work long hours fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.

A patient lies in an intensive care bed surrounded by five attentive medics, while outside the room, others make careful notes at hallway desks, process blood tests in the laboratory, and forensically clean every inch of the hospital, from floor to ceiling. But along with concentration-furrowed brows are grins.

Glimpses of friendly banter among doctors in the corridors, eyes creased in laughter above surgical masks.

Or catering staff sharing jokes as they prepare huge quantities of food in the cavernous kitchen - each spaced at least 2m apart.

And construction is under way in some parts of the hospital, where new wards are being painted in preparation for patients.

Gerard OCallaghan, hospital CEO, said the situation is currently stable at CUH.

The hospital has had about 30 Covid-positive patients for the last three weeks  as some heal, others come in to take their place  but the numbers have not increased much in the last 14 days.

Theres a stream coming in, but its being managed well, Mr OCallaghan said.

Staff have been terrific. They have been totally committed to looking after all patients  whether Covid-positive or not.

"We have suspect cases as well which have to be treated as positive until we get the results.

"Theres great teamwork across all of the disciplines.

atering staff at CUH busy preparing meals. Picture: Darragh McSweeney/Provision

Six Covid-positive patients are currently in intensive care in the hospital, leaving 18 intensive care beds open. But another 50 ICU beds could be opened up if a surge comes, Mr OCallaghan said.

We dont have any problems in relation to intensive care.

"Quite a few Covid-positive patients dont need intensive care, and theyre in separate isolation areas of the hospital.

Its been a challenge the last few weeks but its worked out very well. Weve been lucky that we have not had the major surge that was expected.

"Maybe thats down to the fact that we had time to prepare and social distancing has worked.

Looking at figures nationally, weve done very well. Were nowhere near what was predicted.

"But I dont think anyone will come out and say that we have definitely got beyond the surge because no one knows what will happen next.

Staff busy on the wards of Cork University Hospital. Picture: Darragh McSweeney/Provision

"We dont know enough about this virus.

Despite the hard work and brilliant progress made in the fight against the virus at CUH, lives have been lost.

We havent experienced any great surge but there have been some deaths unfortunately, Mr OCallaghan said.

Anyone who has passed away here has had other co-morbidities - there was an underlying health problem.

"And those with underlying health problems and the elderly have been most at risk.

Occupational therapy continuing at CUH. Picture: Darragh McSweeney/Provision

Everyone can pick up the virus, but recovery seems to be better in young people. The ones that dont have co-morbidities.

But despite the deaths, every one of which is tragic, he does not currently foresee the necessity for temporary morgues  like the grim resting places pictured in Italy and the US  to have to pitch up outside his door.

At the moment it doesnt look like those will be required. Were hoping that weve flattened the curve but well just have to wait and see.

Mr OCallaghan said the hospitals in-house labs can now process a Covid-19 test in just three to four hours. And the hospital has ramped up capacity so it can get through 300 or 400 Covid tests in one day.

Staff in the laboratory at Cork University Hospital. Picture: Darragh McSweeney/Provision

We have a very good testing system, he said.

The labs turn the tests around in three to four hours, potentially, we could get about 300 or 400 test results through every day.

Weve upgraded our system here over the last few weeks. Were testing not just for the hospital but were also providing tests for our public health colleagues and for some other hospitals.

Picture: Darragh McSweeney/Provision

He said CUH has no great backlog in test requests, but the national shortage was due to a limited supply of reagent - the chemicals used to process Covid-19 swabs - with too many laboratories relying on the same source.

But labs have since upgraded their systems nationally and are using different reagent sources.

Were not all pulling from the same pot of reagents. Thats worked very well. Were all utilising different systems so the shortage is not so bad now, he said.

Only a very small number of staff have tested positive for the virus at CUH, he said, and the hospital gives daily training in safety equipment and donning and doffing - medical speak for dressing in and removing PPE - to keep staff safe.

Every day donning and doffing training is going on which is really important.

Emergency department staff at Cork University Hospital. Picture: Darragh McSweeney/Provision

You have to know how to put them on properly but taking them off is really critical to ensure that youre not exposing yourself to potential risk.

"Thats ongoing and its working very well.

He said that the pandemic has turned work at the hospital on its head - instead of filling beds management have had to try to keep them empty in anticipation of the harrowing surge experienced in Italy.

Our objective here was to clear space in the hospital, get as many ventilators into the hospital, have enough beds available for a surge, and train up people to ensure staffing was adequate if we did meet a surge.

"So, we havent had the same level of attendance in our emergency departments and we have cancelled a lot of non-urgent surgeries and outpatient clinics to free up space in the hospital.

Radio Therapy continuing at Cork University Hospital. Picture: Darragh McSweeney/Provision

"Its been very different. We tried to create space so that we wouldnt have Covid-positive patients in the same area as non-Covid.

The surge, thankfully, hasnt come yet, and thats where were at. Its a very surreal situation.

"Were just waiting to see if anything happens. But at the moment things are quite stable.

And since last weekend, possibly precipitated by some DIY accidents and a lessoning fear, non-Covid patients have started to return to the hospital, he said.

Cleaning staff at the emergency department of Cork University Hospital. Picture: Darragh McSweeney/Provision

Since the weekend, numbers have actually started to go back up again in the emergency department.

"Were starting to see non-Covid people coming to the hospital again.

"Well probably be quite busy for a while we get out of this.

"Were just hoping people have not stayed away too long.

The latest restrictions in operation since Friday, March 27 mandate that everyone should stay at home, only leaving to:
April 17, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - Months after President Donald Trump promised to open FBI files to help families of the 9/11 victims in a civil lawsuit against the Saudi government, the Justice Department has doubled down on its claim that the information is a state secret.

In a series of filings just before a midnight court deadline on Monday, the attorney general, William Barr; the acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell; and other senior officials insisted to a federal judge in the civil case that further disclosures about Saudi connections to the 9/11 plot would imperil national security.

But the administration insisted in court filings that even its justification for that secrecy needed to remain secret. Four statements to the court by FBI and Justice Department officials were filed under seal so they could not be seen by the public. An additional five, including one from the CIA, were shared only with the judge and cannot be read even by the plaintiffs lawyers.

Barr insisted to the court that public discussion of the issue would reveal information that could cause the very harms my assertion of the state secrets privilege is intended to prevent.

What the various security agencies are trying to hide remains a mystery.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

Since the plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in federal district court in New York in 2017, their primary focus has been on the relationship between the hijackers and relatively low-level Saudi officials. Those include at least two Saudis who crossed paths in Southern California with the first two Al Qaeda operatives who were sent to the United States by Osama bin Laden in January 2000.

Yet the broad outlines of the hijackers connections to those two Saudi officials  a diplomat at the kingdoms Los Angeles consulate and a suspected Saudi spy living as an exchange student in San Diego  have been publicly known for years. The FBI shared thousands of pages of its files on the plot with the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, which explored them in its 2004 report.

The extraordinary lengths that theyre going to here suggest that there must be some deep, dark secret that theyre still trying very hard to hide after almost 20 years, said a lawyer for the families, Steven Pounian. But who are they protecting? Something might be a Saudi government secret. But how can these be secrets that still need to be kept from the American people after all this time?

The Justice Department has declassified some information about the Saudi role in 9/11 and shared it with lawyers for the plaintiffs under a protective order that allows them to read it but not make it public. But the department has not asked the lawyers to obtain security clearances to view other material, as is fairly common in national security cases involving American and foreign citizens whose constitutional rights are at issue.

The chorus of senior national security officials who wrote in support of the Trump administrations secrets claim appeared to respond in part to Justice Department guidelines set down by the Obama administration in 2009. Those rules were intended to restrain overly aggressive use of the privilege, which the administration of George W. Bush had often cited after 9/11 to block legal challenges to its policies on torture, extraordinary rendition and warrantless surveillance.

Barr cited those more restrictive guidelines in his statement to the district court, noting that they prohibited the government from asserting a state secrets claim in order to conceal illegalities or potential embarrassment. He assured the magistrate judge in the case, Sarah Netburn, that those guidelines had been met.

At a ceremonial gathering at the White House last Sept. 11, representatives of the families of those killed in the attacks repeatedly asked Trump for fuller access to the FBIs secret files in the case. According to more than a half-dozen people who were at the meeting, he assured several of them he would help.

He looked us in the eye on 9/11, he shook our hands in the White House and said, Im going to help you  its done, recalled one of those present, Brett Eagleson, a banker whose father was killed in the World Trade Center. I think the 9/11 families have lost all hope that the president is going to step up and do the right thing. Hes too beholden to the Saudis.

The White House press office did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the families characterizations of the meeting. One day after that encounter, Justice Department officials agreed to release the name of one mid-level Saudi religious official who had been tied to the case in an FBI document that had been partially declassified earlier. At the same time, however, Barr asserted the state secrets privilege to protect other FBI documents sought by the families. The latest flurry of statements supporting that claim responded to challenges from the plaintiffs.

Although the close alliance between the United States and the Saudi kingdom has survived countless moments of tension, it has frayed in recent months in ways that could prove helpful to plaintiffs in the 9/11 lawsuit.

In recent weeks, Republican senators from states that have been hard hit by the collapse of world oil prices have criticized the Saudi government with growing intensity. On March 25, before the Trump administration negotiated a cut in Saudi oil production, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska cited the law under which the 9/11 families were allowed to sue the Saudi government as one of the levers of pressure that the United States could use if the kingdom did not take account of American concerns.

In a letter on Monday, three other influential senators asked the Justice Departments inspector general to examine in depth why the FBI has refused to disclose more information about Saudi connections to the plot in response to a subpoena filed by the 9/11 families in 2018.

Those senators, Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican, and two Democrats, minority leader Charles Schumer of New York and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, cited a recent investigative report by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine that raised new questions about the FBIs inquiry into the Saudi role in the attacks.

The September 11 attacks represent a singular and defining tragedy in the history of our Nation, the senators wrote to the Justice Department inspector general, Michael Horowitz. Nearly 20 years later, the 9/11 families and the American public still have not received the full and transparent accounting of the potential sources of support for those attacks to which they are entitled.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. - " Source "

Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here

==See Also==
Alongside my disbelief, horror and sadness at the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, my main emotions are anger and frustration. Frustration that the pandemic we are living through was predictable and preventable.

Weve spoken many times about the roots of Covid-19 in the wildlife trade and the importance of investing in research into zoonotic diseases. It is no comfort to me now that the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) has been campaigning for much greater focus by governments and businesses on both these areas for many years.

Humanitys relentless exploitation of wildlife has been putting us at increasing risk of an event like this for decades. And this knowledge has not been some big secret, despite the rhetoric from various world leaders claiming this pandemic couldnt have been anticipated. The truth is, we knew this was coming. Not just scientists and conservationists. Even Hollywood knew this was coming; check out the movie billboards from 2011, advertising the film Contagion, which followed the rapid progress of a lethal virus that passes from a pig, infected by a bat, to humans in a Chinese live animal wet market.

Experts believe the Covid-19 virus spilled over from an animal host to a human in a wet market in Wuhan, China, sometime late last year. Perhaps the prime example of human overexploitation of wildlife, animals in these markets are taken from the wild, brought together from different places, transported over large distances and crammed together into cages. By this stage, they are stressed and immunosuppressed and so excrete whatever pathogens they have in them while also being increasingly vulnerable to infections they might not naturally encounter. People, who are in intimate contact with the body fluids of slaughtered animals, are also exposed to novel pathogens, creating the ideal environment for new diseases to emerge.

Closing the markets seems like one simple, quick decision. But that doesnt account for the scores of people, often living in poverty, who rely on these types of markets for their sustenance, their income  their lives. Simply banning or closing wet markets where wildlife is sold would leave millions of people in the developing world without a vital source of nutrition. It can never be a long-term solution. But, unregulated  often illegal  wildlife trade exposes humanity to dangerous diseases like Covid-19, drives species to extinction, and funds organised crime.

In response to the coronavirus crisis, instead of knee-jerk bans that would be impossible to enforce and potentially drive trade underground, we need significant investment in wildlife health research, its application and improved regulation of wildlife markets. With investment, we can build a strong understanding of the risk factors associated with zoonotic disease emergence and how we can support communities to take action to prevent the horrendous impacts of these diseases they have experienced. Coming out of this crisis, we need to focus on recovery strategies that reduce zoonotic disease spill-over, better conserve nature and restore the valuable protection against diseases that ecosystems provide.

Battling the illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade has long been core to our field conservation and policy work, and bringing wild animal trafficking under control must be an international priority in the wake of coronavirus. Leading ZSL, I am confronted daily with the impact of the havoc being wrought on wildlife. The numbers scare me. Some 100 million sharks killed every year, mostly for their fins; 20,000 African elephants slaughtered annually for their ivory; more than 1,000 rhinos poached every year from South Africa alone since 2013. Take a longer view and you see the indiscriminate scale of the destruction; in ZSLs Living Planet Index, weve tracked a 60 per cent decline in the size of wildlife populations since 1970. Today, one million species are threatened with extinction.

Trafficking isnt just a problem for the rest of the world, nor one that doesnt touch us here in the UK. Since 2000, weve provided homes at ZSL London Zoo for 3,370 animals confiscated by the UKs Border Force, including Egyptian tortoises, red rain frogs, green tree pythons and hundreds of corals. We recently gave a home to Professor Lew, a critically endangered Chinese giant salamander smuggled into the UK in, of all things, a cereal box.

Wildlife health and human health go hand in hand. As this coronavirus outbreak has demonstrated  with tragic consequences  the way we interact with wildlife has ramifications for us all. As we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, with its enormous human and economic impacts, we must ensure there is a fundamental rethink of the relationship between humans and wildlife. We cant let a temporary clearing of the smog over London, Delhi or Beijing, or a brief resurgence of wildlife in densely populated areas, be the only positives to emerge from global lockdown.

Part of what ZSL is about, now and after the lockdown, is helping to make sure that a return to business as usual in humanitys relationship with nature, which got us here in the first place, is just not an option. We simply cannot afford to go back to old habits and old ways  for the sake of human health, of wildlife health and the future of our ecosystems.

Dominic Jermey is director-general of ZSL. The Independents Stop the Wildlife Trade campaign calls for an international effort to tighten restrictions on wet markets to reduce the risk of future pandemics.
When a substitute teacher had a fall and hit her head during her kindergartner class, every student stood shocked. That is, every child apart from one tiny hero who rushed to get help and in turn saved the womans life. The gratefulness and recognition the boy received as a result is incredibly touching.

It was August 2019, and the school year had only started two weeks earlier. Joyce Darr was teaching a class at Frostproof Elementary School in Polk County, Florida. One of the children accidentally bumped into her, and shes 67 years old, she lost her balance, and she fell over and cracked her head, the womans son, Derek Darr, explained, according to Fox13 News.

While most of the class stood stupefied at the sight of their unconscious teacher, one of the 6-year-olds, Max Aguilar, took immediate action. The little boy ran to the nearest classroom and sounded the alarm. Paramedics were called, and Mrs. Darr had to be airlifted to Lakeland Regional Hospital.

The substitute teacher had suffered severe injuries. Her son told Fox 13 News that she had a fractured skull and brain bleed. The poor woman was put on life support, and it took her nearly two weeks to regain consciousness. However, if not for the quick thinking of little Max, she likely would not have survived her fall. Its a miracle, and if it wasnt for Max shed be dead, no doubt about it, Derek said.

As a thank you for his heroic act, Derek gifted little Max with a brand-new pair of Air Jordan sneakers. He loved them, he thanked me, he hugged me, the man recalled, according to ABC News. He took a photo of the touching moment and posted it on Facebook. You will forever be family Max. I love you forever for this lil man! Thank you thank you thank you, the heartfelt post read.

However, the recognition didnt stop there. Sheriff Grady Judd presented the little boy with a good-citizen award and a brand-new bicycle at the elementary in front of all of his peers, Judd stated in a video posted on the Polk County Sheriffs Office Facebook page. The clip shows Max receiving his award as the sheriff tells him, Thats yours for doing good.

Maxs mom, Monica Aguilar, couldnt be any happier about her sons sharp wit that saved his teachers life. For me, it was very, very exciting. Im proud, you know, to be his mom! She told ABC News. Hes my baby. Hes always been my hero. But now, for everybody else.

The child himself seemed a bit camera shy during his ABC interview and said, They did call me a hero, before adorably referring to himself as a superhero!

Joyce Darr could have lost her life while at work in front of a whole classroom full of children. However, thanks to the quick-witted actions of a 6-year-old, she survived. Despite his small size, Max is indeed a worthy example to be followed.
So what is it about the pandemic crisis that has prompted the ACCC to suddenly give the green light to behaviour that would normally attract hefty fines, and in some cases could even lead to jail time? As Sims sees it, the pandemic is a war-like crisis. Normally, allowing companies to co-operate would lead to "complacency, inefficiency and higher prices". Facing an emergency like a pandemic, however, the community can be better off if big companies work together and share some resources or information, just like wed support companies pooling capacity to lift output in a war. "At a time of crisis such as in war or with a pandemic, where there is a common enemy to fight for the nations survival, and so a sense of national purpose, co-ordination is both efficient and carries little or no downside," Sims said in a speech last month. The scale of these temporary authorisations is major, but its not unprecedented for the watchdog to allow firms to co-operate where it thinks the public benefit outweighs the damage. But normally the ACCC will allow companies to work together in a more narrow set of circumstances, such as if coal miners want to negotiate with a monopoly owner of a port.

Loading Even with the recent approvals handed out by Sims, there are also still strict limits on what the companies can discuss. The exact conditions vary between industries, but price-fixing remains well and truly out of bounds. All the same, at a philosophical level, it may still strike you as surprising for the competition watchdog to be allowing anti-competitive behaviour among some of the biggest companies in the country. So, what does it tell us about competition more generally if the watchdog is prepared to so radically change tack in a crisis? In brief, it is an illustration of how competition, regarded as something of a holy grail in economics, is not an end in itself. Indeed, competition can at times lead to behaviour that's mutually destructive. This is because of what economists call collective action problems  where a group of people or firms would be better off co-operating, but their own individual interest stops this from happening. Back on the example of bank relief packages, you wouldnt normally expect banks to compete fiercely on whose hardship policies are most generous to customers, because a bank that was much more lenient on customers than rivals could put it at a competitive disadvantage.

In an economic crisis as extreme as the pandemic, however, if a regulator can step in and allow banks to agree on some common standards for treating people in distress, its a better outcome for all. Add-on insurance, a dubious type of cover that was sold to customers making other purchases, such as buying a car, was found to often be worthless. Credit:Nic Walker This problem of companies lacking the right incentive to work collectively on a problem is not exactly new to the financial sector. It also reared its head repeatedly in the royal commission into financial misconduct. Take the example of add-on insurance, a frequently dubious type of cover that was sold to customers making other purchases, such as buying a car. All too often, the policies were worthless. Deputy chairman of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, John Lonsdale, last year said insurance companies knew they were paying out much less in claims for these policies, compared to regular car insurance, and theyd been warned years earlier by regulators about the poor customer outcomes. But many continued to sell the cover anyway, because pulling out of the market would be a first-mover disadvantage.

Loading Returning to todays pandemic, all sorts of big businesses are now under pressure to take action that will help their customers  but they also face a disincentive to move ahead of rivals. The ACCCs recent actions have tried to deal with this problem, while removing the risk of being sued or facing criminal charges. Putting aside economic theory, the ACCC says these authorisations should have tangible results. These include: well-stocked supermarket shelves; reliable supplies of essentials such as petrol, electricity, medical equipment and drugs; internet services that cope with a surge in usage as everyone stays home; and life insurers covering doctors and nurses against their higher risk of catching COVID-19. All valuable contributions to the war effort, even if they are brought about through anti-competitive behaviour. Ross Gittins is on leave.
Improving mental resilience during COVID times View(s):

I did not, until now, believe the Butterfly Effect. Popularised by the Hollywood film of that name, it was coined by the meteorologist Edward Lorenz who in the 1960s theorized that a small change in weather in one place  a butterfly flapping its wings can potentially cause a hurricane in a far-off place. But the origin of the COVID-19 epidemic is the perfect example for the Butterfly Effect. Believed to have originated from a bat or pangolin, the deadly virus jumped a species to cause chaos around the globe.

Yes, there have been epidemics before but somehow, they died down before much harm could be done. The COVID-19 virus by contrast at the time of writing has infected nearly two million and killed over a 100,000 people around the world. All continents other than remote Antarctica have been affected, air travel across the globe has come to a near standstill and many communities are in lockdown or had their movements severely restricted. As the world reels from the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic the rapidity escalation of the infection has given the worlds population little time to cope.

Social media is very active these days. And it has been suggested that science has been found to be wanting and is standing helpless. I respectfully differ. I firmly believe that more than ever it is the time to remain calm and trust in rational thinking and the scientific method. And that applies to how we are going to maintain our mental health too.

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly dramatically describes another pandemic, a much worse one than the current one, which hit Europe in the 14th century. Originating in Central Asia, it spread across Europe between 1347 and 1351 killing one third of the population  reducing it from 75 to 50 million. Half the population of Britain died as well.

The Black Death as it was called was caused by organism called Yersinia pestis transmitted to humans from infected fleas via rats that spread through seaports from ships. The disease is now known as the plague. The mortality rate for plague was around 60 percent compared to the COVID-19 virus which at its worst is less than 10 percent. In the 14th century no one knew what caused the Black Death, uncertainty adding to the terror and panic that gripped the population. Amid the chaos, one city state in Europe  Venice, stood out.

There are two aspects to managing a threat such as pandemic. The first is risk management and the second resilience. Risk management is a series of steps we can take to reduce damage from a known threat. But when the cause of the threat is unknown, risk management is not possible. We are more fortunate than the Venetians in that in a short space of time, thanks to advances in science, we know quite a lot about the COVID-19 virus. We know how it is transmitted and can identify and take measures to reduce the risk. Physical distancing, wearing of masks and use of protective gear for high risk health staff are some of these measures. The final measures that will end the pandemic are an effective vaccine and specific treatments which are not available as yet. The lack of understanding of the cause of the Black Death meant that effective risk management was not possible. But what the Venetians did well, in contrast to the rest of Europe was the second measure; resilience. In systems management resilience focuses on maintaining a system functional through disturbances. Though such concepts did not exist in those times, Venetian state officials instinctively grasped the principles.

City officials traced the spread of plague from the ships through storehouses and the city. All incoming ships were stopped at outer islands where they were confined for 40 days before being allowed into the city. The concepts of Lazaretto (isolation in space) and Quarantine (isolation in time) were introduced in Venice. The Italian word quarantine is derived from the Latin for forty. What was so special about forty? The Venetians through observation thought that 40 days would be a reasonable time for Black Death to manifest. They overestimated the time as we now know the incubation period for plague is less than a week.

Later, again through observation, physical distancing between patients and healthy persons was introduced as well. Eventually the people of Venice did get hit hard. Sixty percent of their population died of the disease but in the end though epidemics of plague continued to ravage Europe through the next century, Venice remained free of further epidemics.

I think we in Sri Lanka are fortunate in having a team of officials who are following the Venetian system even though ironically this time Venice and the rest of Italy forgot their past at least initially and paid a heavy price. In Sri Lanka we have got it right but the danger now is that of complacence and social and economic frustration due to the enforced isolation which might result in us throwing caution to the wind, letting go of restrictions too early with possible disastrous consequences. Now that we have got the other bits right, it is more important than ever to maintain our mental resilience.

Let us see what science can teach us on that subject.

In his book Nerve: Poise Under Pressure, Serenity Under Stress, and the Brave New Science of Fear and Cool, science writer Taylor Clark writes on the science behind how well or badly persons face stressful circumstances. When faced with a threat the natural tendency of any animal including humans is to feel fearful. This a protective mechanism is inbuilt into our brains through years of evolution. Any person who claims otherwise is either highly abnormal or is lying. But the important difference between persons who maintain their cool and those who crack up is in how they deal with fear.

Here are some valuable tips from the book Nerve on how you can maintain your cool in difficult times.

Learn to breathe:

When you are under stress, we tend to breathe shallowly and quickly at times even holding our breath. When we are calm, we breathe slowly and deeply. By deliberately controlling our breath we can calm our minds and send our minds the message that things are under control.

Here is the tactical breathing method taught by combat psychologist Dave Grossman for use in tense situations. Breathe through your nose to a slow count of four, hold for four counts, and exhale through your mouth for four counts. Repeat as necessary.

Put your feelings into words:

Research shows that talking or writing about your emotions helps the brain to process it. Speaking honestly about our emotions even negative ones without self-judgement or blame helps us come to terms with them. That is partly how psychotherapy works. But no need to rush to find a therapist  a friend or relative would do, and if you cant find one, write in a diary. A personal journal of your worries and fears will help.

Train for the worst:

Training and repeated practice is the best way to prepare for a disaster or a difficult task. You have all been told by the media on what precautions you should take when going out for your essential needs. Practise in your mind and then run through a checklist of safety procedures when you return home.

Change your focus:

It is not fear that causes a breakdown but misdirected focus. When we focus inwards and worry about the worst that can happen, our minds disintegrate. A cool-headed hero is not a person who does not feel fear but a person who is able to concentrate on the present, on the task at hand rather than all the things that can go wrong in the future. How do you develop this ability? Meditation helps but might take years of practice to master. Without going that far, pause for a few moments a few times a day become consciously aware of what is happening around you. In ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy) we call this anchoring.

Here is a simple anchoring exercise you can do. Sit up straight on a chair. Push your feet firmly on to the floor. Notice what is happening to your body. Notice the thoughts running through your minds. Name 5 things you can see around you. Name 3 or 4 things you can hear. Notice your difficult thoughts again. Notice that your noticing self is different from your thoughts. Your body is separate from your thoughts. There is a room and a world around you where things are happening. You can repeat this exercise several times.

Mindfully disentangle from worries and anxious thoughts:

There are two ways to deal with anxious thoughts. First, we can wrestle with them and try to logically argue ourselves out of anxiety. That is the hard way and is often unsuccessful. The second is to distance yourself from the worrying thoughts. You can write a worry down on a piece of paper and look at it later during a designated worry time. Or you can take the mindfulness approach and let the thoughts come and go through your mind without getting hooked on the thoughts. That will need a little practice.

Here is the Leaves on Stream exercise from ACT. Sit comfortably in a chair and visualise yourself sitting near a gently flowing stream with leaves floating by on it. For the next few minutes each thought that arises in your mind place on a leaf and let it float by. Dont dwell on or try to analyse your thoughts. With time you will learn to better manage your anxious thoughts.

Expose yourself to your fears:

Usually the treatment for an unreasonable fear or phobia is exposure or deliberately placing yourself in situations that invoke your particular fear. But of course, in these times when there is a real danger this advice comes with a caveat. Do not recklessly expose yourself to danger like the beach revellers on Bondi beach but with due precautions as advised by the experts try to go about your daily routine as much as possible.

Learn to accept uncertainty and lack of control:

When we feel uncertain about the future and helpless over our destiny, our anxiety will increase. These days with our normal routines breaking down life appears more uncertain than ever. But in the best of times life always had some uncertainty. The well-known Serenity Prayer is applicable here, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to accept the things I can and Wisdom to know the difference.

Reframe the situation:

You cant change facts but within the realities there is always room for a more positive reinterpretation. It is like framing a picture. The same picture can look beautiful or ugly depending on the appropriateness and elegance of the frame. Our minds tend to exaggerate danger. That is our inbuilt protection. In the ancient past it was better to mistake a rock for a sabre tooth tiger and live to see another day rather than vice versa and become food for a hungry predator. In our modern world there are no sabre tooth tigers but there is a dangerous virus lurking around. Still for all do not panic, take time to reappraise the situation and you will often find that it is not as bad as you initially thought.

Find a sense of humour:

Social media is full of jokes related to the pandemic. Though at times you might feel a sense of irritation that people are trivialising an important issue, humour plays an important role in managing anxiety in difficult times. Staying within the boundaries of social propriety, humour is helpful in reducing the effects of the grim realities of life.

Keep focused on your values:

Fear and anxiety may make our world appear chaotic and without purpose. So, aligning ourselves to a higher purpose be it spiritual, or personal will help in keeping control. Steven Hayes, the pioneer of acceptance commitment therapy believes that our emotional pain points to what is important to us.

I would leave you with this quote by the psychiatrist Victor Frankl who survived the worst possible situation a human can be put into  a Nazi concentration camp. He said: There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in ones life.
Upcoming NPC sessions 'the first step' to two sessions, as China moves toward normalcy

Global Times

By Deng Xiaoci, Chen Qingqing and Wang Wenwen Source:Global Times Published: 2020/4/17 20:48:40

Upcoming NPC sessions 'the first step' to two sessions, as China moves toward normalcy

The next session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) will be held in Beijing from April 26 to 29, the first step to the national two sessions, sources said. While Chinese President Xi Jinping's inspection of Wuhan on March 10 signaled the success of the fight against the coronavirus epidemic in the heavily hit province of Hubei, the opening of the "two sessions" indicates China is walking toward normalcy, which are milestone indicators of the country's epidemic battle.

The 17th session of the Standing Committee of the 13th NPC, China's top legislature, will be held in Beijing from April 26 to 29, according to the 50th chairman's session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress held by Li Zhanshu, chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC, on Friday.

On the same day, a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, chaired by General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi, was also held in Beijing, emphasizing arrangements to implement regular epidemic prevention and control measures and analyzed the current economic situation. The meeting echoed demands for long-term prevention and control work against novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19).

The preparation for this year's "two sessions" is also guided by the key requirements and spirit of the Politburo meeting. While Beijing maintains the same level of emergency response as Hubei to prevent COVID-19, the opening of the most important political event in the capital city of China is seen as meaningful and a recovery from the epidemic, observers said.

It also shows China is rebounding from the epidemic and taking regular preventive measures in fending off a resurgence of infection while accelerating resumption of work.

The openings of the annual sessions of the NPC and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top political advisory body, is usually held on March 5 and March 3, respectively. The postponement of the key events in the country's political calendar this year is widely seen as efforts of top authorities to prioritize the prevention and control work against COVID-19.

Several sources close to the matter told the Global Times that such an arrangement of the Standing Committee of NPC marks a major first step toward an official announcement of this year's national "two sessions" schedule.

The upcoming session has been scheduled to revise drafts on a series of matters including a law on the prevention and control of environmental pollution by solid waste, the administrative punishment of public officials, biosecurity and animal epidemic prevention laws, an amendment to the copyright law, and armed police law.

"Such an arrangement marks the first step toward an official announcement of this year's national two sessions schedule," Luo Yameng, a Beijing-based senior urban management and planning expert, told the Global Times on Friday.

Usually it takes a month to launch the two sessions - the annual meetings of China's top legislative body and top political consultative body - after the Standing Committee of the NPC session is held, Luo noted. "It's highly likely that the two sessions this year will be held in the second half of May or at the beginning of June," he said.

Given the current situation of preventing and controlling epidemic, the decision to hold the "two sessions" in May is a prudent and sound one, an anonymous source close to the matter told the Global Times.

A Hong Kong deputy to the NPC also told the Global Times on Friday that he did not know the exact date of the NPC, but had been informed by a local journalist who was told by Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) member that the date may fall on May 23.

Against the backdrop of the pandemic, the commencement of local two sessions has a critical meaning for governments that are making comprehensive strategies for the country amid great uncertainties brought about by the pandemic, observers said.

"Holding this year's national two sessions would carry an even more significant message than usual, as it would declare a total victory in the country's battle against COVID-19," Luo said.

Several cities in provinces such as East China's Zhejiang and Southwest China's Sichuan have set dates for their local two sessions. For instance, Wenzhou in Zhejiang recently announced it would hold its local two sessions - the Wenzhou Municipal Committee of the CPPCC and the People's Congress of Wenzhou - on April 21 and 22.

The commencement of local two sessions, like reopening schools, is a manifestation of epidemic control, and it is a critical step to review the government's work from the previous year and hear its plans for the current year, as the whole country has been steadily resuming work and production.

Some deputies to the Beijing People's Congress suggested that the national two sessions could be shortened this year, given the epidemic prevention and control situation.

"Some meetings could be done online, which has become a regular platform for deputies to the People's Congress of Beijing," An Lijuan, a deputy to the People's Congress of Beijing, told the Global Times.

Zhu Zhengfu, a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), told the Global Times on Friday that he also supports the idea of using a video conference for the meetings of the national "two sessions," given the epidemic control and prevention situation.

The current technology is more than enough to ensure the transmission quality of the information as well as the security of such transmission, Zhu noted.

An also said she welcomes Xuexiqiangguo, a widely used Party theory learning app, to develop a special two-session version for the online sessions, and compared to other commercial apps, Xuexiqiangguo could provide an extra sense of responsibility to the deputies who represent the public, to raise proposals, and to cast their votes.

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A WWF ad was previously released for the exact recent situation. A Sumatran elephant was found helpless with its trunk previously hacked off earlier this week as the authorities suspect that it was previously killed for intruding on residential areas.

The specific male elephant's carcass was found some time around 2:15pm on Wednesday located in the Riau province of Indonesia. The carcass was found about 2.5 miles away from the well known Kelayang district office located in Indragiri Hulu regency, according to The Jakarta Post.

The elephant was regarded as critically endangered and was found with its own face severely mutilated along with its own trunk cut off.

The recent incident report

Suharyono, who is known as the head of the Natural Resources Conservation Agency or BKSDA in Riau has recently said that "the dead elephant ... was separated from its herd in the Tesso Tenggara elephant enclosure," later on explaining that the elephant had lived in the southeast Tesso lephant area of Riau's own Tesso Nilo National Park.

According to Suharyono, he thought that the elephant could have possibly been considered a pest by locals. The elephant apparently entered the residential and also plantation areas which were an essential part of its home range on several occasions resulting to some of the plants found to be damaged not just once, but on multiple occasions.

Between the months of May 2019 and April 2020, a certain BKSDA team has been trying to drive the elephants back into the forest a total of four times. The agency has already been going on regular attempts to barricade a few residential areas ever since last year in an attempt to keep the elephants away but according to Suharyono, some villagers have not been too cooperative.

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The case of the elephants

Suhayono previously said that he had also received and a report that indicated the elephant's head was actually cut open with a certain sharp object and some parts of its own trunk were then scattered around the carcass.

The BKSDA Riau has already launched an investigation regarding the current case with none other than the Kelayang District Police as well as the Special Crime Unit of the Riau Police themselves! They have arrived on the scene and have been conducting an autopsy into the current elephant's death.

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WWF on this matter

WWF estimates that the current population of the Sumatran elephants is around 2,400 and 2,800 and are both protected under Indonesia's own conservation laws but still face threats in specific places. The current threats to the Sumatran elephants include illegal logging, human-wildlife conflict, and also illegal hunting itself where poachers kill for the animal's own tusks.

The status of these elephants has reached 'Critically Endangered' in 2012 after losing half of their population and their status as just 'Endangered'. According to the WWF, this was actually largely due to the habitat loss and also a result of certain human-elephant conflict.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday the US and Canada have agreed to keep their border closed to nonessential travel for another 30 days.

Trudeau said it will keep people on both sides of the border safe amid the pandemic.

The agreement is the same terms. It's just extended for another 30 days. It will ensure we continue to get essential goods and services back and forth across the border, Trudeau said.

US President Donald Trump said this past Wednesday that the U.S.-Canada border will be among the first borders to open and said the U.S. and Canada are doing well in handling the pandemic. The U.S. has more confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19 than any country in the world.

The US and Canada agreed last month to limit border crossings to essential travel amid the pandemic, but that agreement was due to expire this coming week. Nearly 200,000 people cross that border daily in normal times.

Essential cross-border workers like healthcare professionals, airline crews and truck drivers will still be permitted to cross. Truck drivers are critical as they supply grocery stores and medical goods in both directions. Much of Canada's food supply comes from or via the US.

Canadians who live in the US for part of the year and are returning to Canada are among those who are also exempted from the current travel ban.

Canada sends 75% of its exports to the U.S. and about 18% of American exports go to Canada. The U.S. Canada border is world's longest between two nations.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Terming it a disaster for the local trade industry, several traders associations have opposed the decision taken by the Union government to allow Flipkart, Amazon and other e-commerce firms to start delivery of non-essential products such as mobiles, refrigerators, garments, etc in the country from Monday.

The organisations have expressed concern over the possibility of the spread of coronavirus through delivery of products.

Leaders of different associations rued that local traders have stored a large number of products before the lockdown and are expecting to sell the products after the lockdown period was over.

They said, As the local traders are already reeling under losses, the crisis for them will deepen further as the demand for the products will decrease with the supply of non-essential products by e-commerce companies during the lockdown period. This step will also defeat the purpose of the Make In India initiative of the Union government.

President of the Punjab Chapter of Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) Harkesh Mittal said, If e-commerce companies started the sale of non-essential goods, then the local trade industry would witness its impact in the coming time.

Mittal said the CAIT will also take up the matter with the Union government and demand withdrawal of the decision.

President of the Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal Arvinder Singh Makkar said apart from impacting the trade industry adversely, the decision might also contribute to the spread of the deadly virus.

A Delhi incident, wherein a pizza delivery boy, was found corona positive and 72 families had to be quarantined is a recent example.

YAD SEEKS PACKAGE FOR MIDDLE CLASS, TRADERS

District resident of the Youth Akali Dal (YAD) Gurdeep Singh Gosha regretted that the state government had failed to announce a package for the middle class and traders.

Gosha demanded the government should announce a relief package for electricity bills, school fees, etc.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A Kent County judge has come under criticism for issuing an order earlier this month that allows authorities to detain people up to 24 hours if they are believed ill from COVID-19 and refuse to isolate themselves.

The order, issued by Kent County Chief Circuit Court Judge Mark Trusock, has never been used since it was signed April 6 and officials do not expect it will be needed.

David Kallman with the Great Lakes Justice Center in Lansing questioned whether the order was constitutional.

Judge Trusocks order is called a general warrant that illegally delegates to county health officials and the police his sole authority to decide if a person should be detained, Kallman wrote in an email.

The fear and paranoia over the current pandemic must not be permitted to allow government authorities to run roughshod over the constitutional rights of everyone, he wrote.

Michigan sees drop in new coronavirus cases, but new death count remains high

But Trusock said hes consulted with Kent Countys corporate counsel and determined that, given the current unprecedented health crisis, the order is legal.

It simply allows for police or a health officer to involuntarily detain someone for up to 24 hours who shows signs of COVID-19 illness with a fever, has already tested positive in the last seven days or is awaiting test results. The person also must be unwilling to isolate themselves.

After the 24 hours, the officer must file a petition for treatment of infectious disease to be signed by a judge for any further involuntary detainment.

Trusock said the order initially was envisioned as a way to hold Kent County Jail inmates -- about to be released at the end of their sentence -- who showed signs of COVID-19 illness but refused to isolate themselves.

If I thought it was unconstitutional, I wouldnt do it, Trusock said.

He said the order is all about protecting the public and community safety" and gives the police and health officers limited discretion.

Anyone detained beyond 24 hours through a petition would have the right to a hearing within 72 hours.

Kent County Corporate Counsel Linda Howell, in an email, said the April 6 judicial order is backed up by a 1978 Public Health Code law that allows a Health Officer to protect public health by requiring a person with a communicable disease to take or refrain from certain actions that could spread the disease.

Besides the potential for a lack of cooperation by soon-to-be released inmates, authorities also wondered about the homeless population and how they would isolate if needed.

Howell said the Guiding Light Mission worked cooperatively with the Kent County Health Department to establish an isolation center at the mission for homeless people who either tested positive for COVID-19 or were waiting for results.

She said more than 30 people have cooperated and voluntarily stayed at the isolation center until they were medically cleared.

Howell expects the April 6 judicial order to be rescinded next week without ever being used.

PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Carry hand sanitizer with you, and use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and when you go into places like stores.

Read more Michigan coronavirus coverage here

Friday, April 17: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan

5 things that need to happen for Michigan to reopen its economy after the coronavirus crisis

Medical experts say Michigans coronavirus death count isnt accurate. But is it too high or too low?
Twenty nine people, including 26 foreigners who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi last month, were arrested on Saturday for religious preaching while visiting on tourist visa and violating prohibitiory orders, police said.

They had been quarantined till Friday.

While the foreign nationals were remanded to police custody till April 24 by a local court in Ahmednagar on Saturday, the Indian nationals were remanded to judicial custody before being released on bail.

These 29 people were among 35 people who, police say, had attended the Tablighi Jamaats two-day congregation at its headquarters in Delhis Nizamuddin area. Cases were registered against them at various police stations in Ahmednagar.

Follow coronavirus latest updates here.

These 29 people were found along with six others who tested positive for Covid-19 while these 29 had tested negative 15 days ago. While the positive cases are being treated, the others were in institutional quarantine until yesterday (Friday) and arrested today. The court remanded the foreign nationals to police custody and granted bail to three Indian nationals who had tested negative, said Police inspector Dilip Pawar.

Of the 35 people who were booked - 29 were foreign nationals while six were Indians. Three foreign nationals and three Indians tested positive, while the 29 others were sent to institutional quarantine. Among the three foreign nationals who had tested positive, one is from Indonesia, one from Djibouti, and one from Ivory Coast.

Among the 26 arrested foreign nationals, 8 are from Ivory Coast, 3 from Tanzania, 4 each from Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam and Djibouti, and one each from Iran, Benin and Ghana.

Out of the group of 35 people, 14 were found in Kazi Masjid in Jamkhed, 10 were found in Bhaldar Markaz Masjid in Nevasa, and 11 in Mehraj Masjid in Ahmednagar.

Cases against them were registered on April 5 under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, Maharashtra Police Act, Maharahstra Covid 19 Regulation, Epidemic Diseases Act, the National Disaster Management Act and the Foreign National Act.
Actor Disha Patani had been shooting for Salman Khans Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai before the coronavirus lockdown was announced. Her co-stars in the film include Salman and Tiger Shroffs father Jackie. In an interview to Bombay Times, she has shared her experience of working with Tigers dad.

Speaking about Jackie, she mentioned how he is humble and easy to work with. She said, His energy is unmatchable. Nobody can match up to his swag. He is humble, easy to work with, quick with his shots and a great actor. 

He is just so cool to hang out with. I dont consider myself cool at all, but whenever I hang out with him, I feel cool. It doesnt matter if you are an introvert, because when you are with him, he does most of the talking. She also mentioned how Jackie loved being called Tiger ka baap.

In early March, Salman and Disha were to fly to Azerbaijan for Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhais shoot, which had to be called off owing to the looming threat of coronavirus pandemic, a Mid Day copy mentioned.

Quoting a source, it said, Considering the coronavirus outbreak, its scary to travel with a large number of unit hands abroad. It doesnt make sense. Now, it will have to be shot elsewhere. The copy had added that a song and an action sequence was scheduled to be canned in that country.

Also read: Amitabh Bachchan was asked if he wants to become prime minister, his response is hilarious

Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai, meanwhile, is most likely to be delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The film was scheduled to hit the screens on May 22. This will be for the first time in over a decade that ardent Salman fans will not see a release on Eid, a festival date which has been synonymous with the actor. Salman started shooting for Radhe... last November.However, due to the shutdown on all television and film production work due to the outbreak, the last leg of filming is yet to be completed.

Radhe... will be pushed ahead for sure. We have got two songs to shoot, there is some patch work left of about five days or so, we also have editing that is left. We dont know when the situation will be normal and when we can shoot and finish our pending work, a source close to the production had told PTI.

(With PTI inputs)

Follow @htshowbiz for more
The world has been hit by the coronavirus pandemic. The COVID-19 disease which started in the Chinese city of Wuhan has now spread across the globe.

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

The COVID-19 has now affected over 2.1 million people in the world. It has also killed about 146,000 people worldwide.

The pandemic has brought hardship on many economies, businesses, and individuals.

READ ALSO: Ban on public gathering: Pastor, 2 church workers jailed 4 years each

Governments the world over have also adapted innovative and humanitarian assistance to its people and Ghana is not an exception.

YEN.com.gh in this article will highlight how the government of Ghana and other governments across the world have been supporting its citizens to mitigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown.

1. Ghana

President Nana Akufo-Addo as part of measures to support Ghanaians has announced free water supply for three months (April, May, and June). The government is absorbing full electricity bill for the poorest people in the country for the period the nation battles the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also, government will absorb 50% of electricity bills for residential and commercial consumers within the period.

Again, over 400,000 Ghanaians are benefitting from the government's distribution of free meals to Ghanaians in locked-down areas amidst the COVID-19 outbreak in Ghana.

Lastly, government is proving food and some money to some stranded head porters, also known as kayayei. The government has committed to feeding and housing the needy kayayei in Kumasi and the Greater Accra Region during the partial lockdown.

The Finance Minister got approval for 1.2b to fund the government's Coronavirus Alleviation Programme.

2. United States of America

To mitigate the damaging impact of the pandemic, President Donald Trump and the US Congress enacted a $2 trillion stimulus bill.

This includes direct payments to many Americans, expansion in unemployment benefits and $350 billion in small business loans.

READ ALSO: Only a new voters' register can make the 2020 elections credible - EC reiterates

Individual Americans will get up to $1,200 and couples would receive up to $2,400, plus $500 per child. Jobless workers may also get an extra $600 a week in addition to their state benefits for up to four months. The stimulus checks will be sent out to mails with President Trump's name printed on it. According to reports, about 70 million Americans will be captured in the stimulus package.

3. Nigeria

Conditional Cash Transfer: National Social Register, BVN and Mobile network In Nigeria, the federal government is using the Conditional Cash Transfer programme to reach out to the poorest citizens.

Using the National Social Register, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management is distributing N20,000 to the poor citizens across the states of the federation.

In order to capture the urban poor, the ministry has also announced that it will use Bank Verification Number (BVN) and mobile network (phone recharge history) to distribute relief funds. Under this plan, Nigerians with not more than N5,000 in their accounts will benefit from the initiative. The programme is still at its early stage as many Nigerians have not benefited from it. The government has also said that only 25% of the population will benefit from the palliatives. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has also made available N50 billion Targeted Credit Facility (TCF) stimulus package to support households and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The loans are disbursed through the NIRSAL Microfinance Bank.

4. Canada

The government of Canada has created a COVID-19 Economic Response Plan which will provide up to C$107bn ($75bn, 64bn) to support Canadian workers and businesses. Under the stimulus plan, Canadians without paid sick leave who are sick, quarantined or forced to stay home to care for children are being paid stipends.

Also, Canadians who lose their jobs or face reduced hours as a result of COVIDs impact are being paid stipends of C$2,000 a month for the next four months

The Canadian government also has stimulus plans for small businesses facing challenges as a result of the pandemic.

READ ALSO: COVID-19 lockdown: 17-year-old girls 'arrested' by police confess they were going to visit a boyfriend (video)

5. South Korea

The Asian country has an employee-retention programme which covers 70 percent of wages or more. This is to help companies stay afloat without sacking their workers in the face of the economic hardship imposed by the pandemic.

YEN.com.gh earlier reported that health authorities in China's Wuhan city have revised the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic upwards by over 50%.

Wuhans Epidemic Prevention and Control Center said on Friday, April 17, that 3,869 people had died from the disease in the city as of Thursday, April 16.

51-year-old Fred Drah recovers from COVID-19 in Ghana | #Yencomgh

READ ALSO: COVID-19: Food was shared on party lines; I have clear evidence  Zanetor

Want to be featured on YEN.com.gh? Send us a message on our Facebook page with your stories, photos or videos.

Source: YEN.com.gh
Sahar Tabar, who is best known for her Instagram photos where she attempts to look like Angelina Jolie, is reportedly on a ventilator after contracting coronavirus while in jail.

The Sun reports the 22-year-old, whose real name is Fatemeh Khishvand, was arrested in Iran on charges including blasphemy, inciting violence, insulting the Islamic veil, encouraging youths into corruption and more.

Instagram famous Sahar Tabar, who is known for looking like a 'zombie' Angeline Jolie, has contracted coronavirus in prison. Photo: Instagram/Sahar Tabar

Iran released approximately 85,000 prisoners last month in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus.

Sahar's lawyer Payam Derafshan has taken to Instagram to share an open letter to the head of Iran's judiciary Ebrahim Reisei, pleading for her release.

The lawyer wrote, "Her arrest warrant was issued in October 2018, at the time she was a minor and I venture to draw your attention to this critical issue that she has contracted coronavirus in jail."

He also asked Reisei to take "appropriate and responsible measures within the frameworks of law and issued regulations."

Derafshan then quoted an Arabic proverb, "The human who has no mercy, he does not receive mercy."

Speaking with the Centre For Human Rights in Iran, Derafshan said the judge who has the power to release Sahar has been unreachable.

Sahar's lawyer is begging for her release from prison, however, the judge has been unreachable. Photo: Instagram/Sahar Tabar

We find it unacceptable that this young woman has now caught the coronavirus in these circumstances while her detention order has been extended during all this time in jail," he said.

We went to Mr. Moghisehs office many times and asked him to cancel the detention order and grant bail instead, he said. All the other people accused in this case have been released and our client is the only one who has remained in detention But the judge said no.

"And now that the coronavirus has spread, we keep looking for Mr. Moghiseh but we cant find him in the courthouse. They say hes there, but we havent seen him," he added.

Sahar has shared numerous photos of herself to Instagram where she's edited them to make her look like Jolie and social media hasn't been all that kind to her.

Story continues

People have called Sahar "creepy", "ghost" and "zombie bride" on her Instagram page. Photo: Instagram/Sahar Tabar

One user called her "creepy", another questioned how any doctor would feel comfortable operating on her, writing, "I don't understand how a doctor agrees to do that after he sees that she had done this before. Which doctor operates her over and over again after seeing her. I don't want to condemn you but your doc is cruel."

Others labelled her as a "zombie", "ghost" and "corpse bride".

Got a story tip or just want to get in touch? Email us at lifestyle.tips@verizonmedia.com.
French Military Launches Inquiry After 1,081 Aircraft Carrier Members Test Positive for COVID-19

Sputnik News

19:43 GMT 17.04.2020

With France's coronavirus death toll reaching 18,681, according to the latest figures compiled by John Hopkins University, the country has become one of the worst-hit globally by the ongoing pandemic, and it now seems that France's navy could be emerging as an infection hotspot.

The French foreign ministry has now stated that 1,081 members of the 2,300-strong Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier have now tested positive for COVID-19, and the boat has since returned to port.

The number could turn out to be even larger, as Maryline Gygax Genero, Director of the Armed Force's Health Service, claims that more test results are being awaited.

The French military has now launched an investigation into the outbreak, amid reports in the national media that the situation had been mishandled, and that the vessel was allegedly still allowed to operate out of the port of Brest even after crew members had been diagnosed with COVID-19.

A Sputnik

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By Pamela Barbaglia LONDON (Reuters) - India's third-largest motorbike manufacturer TVS Motor has agreed a deal to buy British brand Norton Motorcycles as part of a distressed sale, sources told Reuters. The deal, which has been in the works for several months, will see TVS take full control of the 122-year-old Leicestershire motorbike brand for an undisclosed amount, the sources said.

By Pamela Barbaglia

LONDON (Reuters) - India's third-largest motorbike manufacturer TVS Motor has agreed a deal to buy British brand Norton Motorcycles as part of a distressed sale, sources told Reuters.

The deal, which has been in the works for several months, will see TVS take full control of the 122-year-old Leicestershire motorbike brand for an undisclosed amount, the sources said.

Accountancy firm BDO stepped in as Norton's administrator in January after production was halted at its Donington Hall factory.

BDO led the discussions with TVS which is expected to provide enough investment to revive the famous brand and resume production, one of the sources said.

TVS Motor and Norton Motorcycles were not immediately available to comment.

(Reporting by Pamela Barbaglia in London, additional reporting by Aditi Shah; editing by David Evans)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
El Hannouny was seen on surveillance video looking through the doors of the building, observing it was occupied, and returning several times with leaves that he placed near a gas main and air conditioning unit, which he set on fire, police said.
MARSHFIELD, Vt. - They were far away from home -- young adults from Latin America, working seasonally at U.S. ski resorts. Then the coronavirus arrived, even before the snows departed.

Though some made it home, others were stranded. But they were not abandoned.

The resorts have stepped up to support workers like Antonella Atto, of Lima, Peru, who returned for a third season to work at Jay Peak Resort in northern Vermont during her colleges summer break. The 22-year-old had planned to fly home in mid-March, but when the pandemic closed Perus borders she was stuck with dozens of others from Peru and Argentina.

As they await word on when they might get home, Jay Peak delivers them food and houses them in condominiums at no cost. At the same time, the resort is trying to get them onto flights home and to the airport, hours away. A resort official checks in with each student daily.

The students feel like they have family here, said Atto.

I know that its hard for everyone but we feel really safe in here, she said.

Around the country, more than 1,500 young adults from Latin America on so-called J1 visas are estimated to remain in the U.S., according to Rafael Espinoza, CEO of Universal Student Exchange. U.S. ski areas employ about 7,500 such visa holders each year, according to the U.S. Ski Areas Association.

In Colorado, about 80 Ecuadorian workers for Vail Resorts are stranded.

Susy Osorio-Kinsky of Denver, a native of Ecuador, said she is working with Ecuadorian officials to charter a plane to get them home. Ecuador closed its borders the same week Vail shut its resorts to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Some workers are staying with family or friends in the U.S., but many didnt have anywhere to go.

Many of the workers are staying rent-free in employee housing. Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz and his wife have donated $1 million to create a new fund to help active, furloughed and seasonal employees who intend to return to work when the crisis eases.

At Waterville Valley in New Hampshire, the few remaining international visitors are also staying in employee housing rent-free. The resort started a kitchen to feed them, with the base lodges head chef preparing a hot breakfast and a dinner for curbside pick-up. Its also providing transportation to a nearby town so they can fetch groceries and other supplies.

At Vermonts Jay Peak, employees wearing protective face masks and clothes deliver groceries once a week to the now 23 stranded workers, giving them gloves and masks to wear during the exchange.

Twice this past week, a nearby restaurant, The Belfry, provided dinners of steak, chicken picatta or salmon, with risotto and vegetables on Monday and paella or a pork chop on Thursday.

Melissa Sheffer, the resorts director of rooms and community engagement, has been working around the clock to get the students home on humanitarian flights provided by Peru.

Sheffer, who speaks Spanish, checks in with the students each day by phone or FaceTime. She also occasionally fields calls from their parents.

Its been this family sort of atmosphere now, she said. Theyre happy, as happy as they can be.

____

AP reporters Thomas Peipert contributed to this report from Denver and Kathy McCormack from Concord, New Hampshire.

___

While nonstop global news about the effects of the coronavirus has become commonplace, so, too, are the stories about the kindness of strangers and individuals who have sacrificed for others. One Good Thing is an AP continuing series reflecting these acts of kindness.
Dozens of Springfield and state police cruisers responded to the area of College and Maynard streets for reports of shots fired moments after 7 p.m. Friday.

Police set up crime scenes on both streets just after an ambulance was seen leaving the area.

On College Street, cruisers blocked traffic as officers stretched yellow crime scene tape north of the Shattuck Street intersection.

Gideon Innis Jr. was hanging out with his cousin at his Maynard Street home one block from the College Street scene. He said he heard the shots, but thought they were fireworks.

I didnt think they were anything. I thought maybe bottle rockets, but then 30 or 45 seconds later the police came flying in here.

Gideons cousin Leyando Wray said he knew they were gunshots from the beginning.

They were too consistent, he said. Each one was exactly the same as the others. I knew.

He said he heard between six and 10 shots.

Wray said he grabbed his 11-month-old daughter and moved to the back of the house as far away from the gunfire as he could.

On parallel Maynard Street, residents said they head a barrage of gunshots, some coming from nearby College Street and some right on Maynard itself.

Jose Aguara lives on Maynard Street. He was having dinner when he heard what he at first thought was a dirt bike backfiring.

I didnt think anything of it, he said. I thought it was a dirt bike, but I hear people shouting and my brother came in to check on us. I went out and looked at my car and theres a hole in the windshield.

A bullet entered Aguaras Subaru low on the left side of the windshield, traversed the front seat area and exited out the drivers side rear window, shattering the window.

Not far up the street, several residents pointed out shell casings in the street.

Neighbors looking over Aguaras car realized if he was sitting in the car when the shots were fired, he would have been hit.

This is a breaking story. Updated information will be posted as it becomes available.
Growing up, I moved in almost exclusively Chinese friendship circles. My friends parents, all of whom were immigrants from China, always warmly welcomed me into their homes. I knew, though, that I would not have been welcome if Id been black. For these Chinese parents, the worst thing that could happen would be for their child to pair up romantically with a black person.

A couple of years ago, Rafael Santiago, a half-black, half-Hispanic man, wrote about the racism he experienced growing up in America when hanging out with a half-Asian friend. Santiago tried to fit in with his friends Asian community, but it never quite worked. Eventually, a group of Asians beat him up badly, leaving him with permanent scars, because they thought hed hit upon one of the girls in the group.

To give context to the attacks against him, Santiago researched racism within the Asian community and discovered what Id long known: Asians believe that they are a superior race, making other races inferior. And within that class of supposedly inferior people, blacks are at the bottom:

What happened to me is but one of many examples of racism and intolerance in Asian communities. China in particular has ramped up its anti-black rhetoric in recent years; Chinese politicians are trying to solve the Black population in China, and WeChat, an application used by nearly everyone in China to communicate, recently translated the words Black foreigner to nigger. One would think that there would be plenty of Asian activists or celebrities who would cover the issue of Asian racism and look to address it, but I see very few, if any, speaking out. Instead, I feel as though the pressure is put on me to not harbor any animosity towards the Asian community. But that doesnt make any sense, given that there are Asians who fear every Black person, I dont get why its on me to understand that not every Asian is racist or intolerant.

Three years ago, Chinese TV ran a commercial in which a woman brutally pushed a masculine black man into a washing machine, added the correct brand of detergent, and transformed him into an effeminate Asian man. The commercial implies that this change was all to the good:

With that as a background, only naive people should find surprising how Chinese people and the Chinese government are persecuting blacks by making them scapegoats for Wuhan virus:

While American liberals castigate President Donald Trump as racist for countering Chinese Communist Party propaganda (which claims the coronavirus originated in America) by referring to the "Chinese virus," black people in China face extra quarantines, exclusion from businesses, suspicion from police, and some have even been booted from their own homes in the name of fighting the virus. "The way they are treating black people, you cannot accept," Congolese businessman Felly Mwamba, who has lived in China for 16 years and now faces restrictions in the southern city of Guangzhou, told The New York Times. He said he found himself sealed in his home, prohibited from leaving and viewed with suspicion as a carrier of the disease, simply because he was African. "We are not animals." [snip] The attacks on foreigners seem particularly targeted against black people. Africans in Guangzhou told The Washington Post they have been evicted from their apartments and refused entry to restaurants. Other residents in a part of the city known as "Little Africa" are being forced to remain in their apartments, even if they have not traveled anywhere that would warrant quarantine, and submit to coronavirus tests. "Photos and videos posted on social media over the weekend showed Africans sleeping on sidewalks or waiting under shop awnings after being ordered out of their apartments and hotel rooms. Others showed Nigerian diplomats delivering food in the pouring rain to evicted compatriots, and Chinese police in riot gear herding African men along a street," the Post reported.

Until now, the Democrats unanimously and reflexively supported China simply because Trump has always warned against it. That support went stratospheric with the Wuhan virus, as Democrats strained to show that the virus was Trumps fault, not Chinas. (This Twitter thread documents the medias unabashed support for the communist governments party line.)

Now, though, Democrats have a problem:

If I had to take bets, Id say that, despite both the Times and the WaPo covering Chinas little racism problem, Democrats will end up siding with China. After all, theyve already shown that they will do anything and ally with anybody to destroy Trump. Moreover, as the Blexit moving keeps saying, the Democrat party takes blacks for granted. Having noted China's racism, Democrats will feel that, by throwing a sop to blacks, they can go back to parroting the communist governments' anti-Trump, anti-American propaganda.






General Motors said on Friday it had started delivering the first batch of 54 ventilators to U.S. hospitals treating severely ill COVID-19 patients.

GM said the Franciscan Health Olympia Fields hospital in Olympia Fields, Illinois, and Chicago's Weiss Memorial Hospitals will receive shipments of 10 ventilators each via package delivery company UPS Inc on Friday.

A third shipment comprising 34 ventilators will be delivered by UPS to the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency at the Gary/Chicago International Airport on Saturday to be distributed at other locations.

The passion and commitment that people at GM, Ventec and our suppliers have put into this work is inspiring, and we are all humbled to support the heroic efforts of medical professionals in Chicagoland and across the world who are fighting to save lives and turn the tide of the pandemic, said GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra in a statement.

The deliveries are part of a contract awarded to GM by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for 30,000 ventilators by the end of August. The contract is worth $489.4 million.

GM is working with ventilator firm Ventec Life Systems to produce the equipment.

(Reporting by Ashwini Raj and Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)

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Every year, April 18 is celebrated as the International Day for Monuments and Sites or World Heritage Day. The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) promote cultural heritage and diversity of the worlds monuments and heritage sites on this day. Read more

Watch| Im not happy: Donald Trump slams China over handling of COVID-19 crisis
ALBANY  As state officials link widespread testing to reopening the economy, about half of New Yorks counties have tested less than 1 percent of their population for COVID-19, a Times Union analysis shows.

The testing is particularly low upstate, with counties as large as Erie  with nearly 1 million residents  administering just more than 8,000 tests as of Thursday.

The numbers are sharply below the testing levels that state and federal officials, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, have asserted are necessary to safely reopen the economy. Officials have been pushing for increased testing both to diagnose the coronavirus in all symptomatic individuals  but also to test potentially millions of New Yorkers to determine whether they have antibodies produced after contracting and recovering from the illness.

To do the testing, you need testing equipment, Cuomo said at a daily coronavirus task force briefing last week. You need swabs, you need vials, and you need all of these things at a capacity that does not now exist.

ALSO: Explore coronavirus testing in New York with interactive dashboard

Communities have faced a myriad of obstacles to expand testing  from a national shortage of swabs to test for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, to staffing the sites that will administer the tests  but state health officials say more public and private entities are volunteering their services. Cuomo issued an executive order on Friday instructing New York's public and private labs to coordinate with one another to rapidly scale up testing.

With state resources concentrated in the harder-hit downstate region, where many kits have been used to check first responders and health care workers on the front lines, local partnerships have been key for many upstate counties that have worked across jurisdictional lines to respond to the public health crisis.

A threshold for testing capacity and a timeline to restart the economy remains unclear, even as both Cuomo and President Donald Trump have discussed plans to gradually reopen businesses and allow small gatherings. Trump released a detailed plan Thursday offering states guidelines to reopen, requiring a 14-day period of "downward trajectory" of COVID-19 cases; at the same time, Cuomo has extended the state's "on PAUSE" order to at least May 15.

New estimates from Harvard University researchers on Friday indicated that current testing levels would have to triple to reopen the United States by mid-May  a minimum of 152 tests per 100,000 people, The New York Times reported. New York is currently averaging 118 tests per 100,000 individuals.

David Holtgrave, the dean of the School of Public Health at the University at Albany, said there is no magic number of tests the state must perform before reopening the economy, but testing should be so widely available that any person with symptoms can easily access a test. The state must also ramp up antibody testing to determine who can safely return to work, he said.

As testing ramps up  and as tests become more easily accessible for the average person  the state must also monitor the percentage of tests administered that return a positive result, he said.

If there is widespread testing and if the positivity rate stays low or falls to a low level, one can have more confidence that the new infections are staying low or lessening in that area, Holtgrave said in an email.

Expanding capabilities

The key hurdle to scaling up testing in New York and across the country remains a lack of testing kits, mostly as local labs are running low on supplies to quickly increase capacity. About 30 large private companies make equipment for test kits, which then distribute those supplies to about 300 local labs in New York, Cuomo said.

When the state asked the top 50 labs what they needed to double their testing capacity, most said they ran low on reagents  the chemicals needed to activate the tests, Cuomo said Saturday.

But in the face of those challenges, some counties have taken matters into their own hands. In Ulster County  where county Executive Patrick Ryan partnered with leaders in surrounding Dutchess and Orange counties to develop local testing sites  testing capacity is slightly higher than counties farther north.

As of Thursday, Orange County has tested more than 4 percent of its population; Dutchess has tested 3.2 percent; and Ulster has tested nearly 2.7 percent.

But Ryan added that officials assume the true number of positive cases is eight to 10 times higher than the number officially recorded.

Weve only tested a very small percentage of people and I think its easy for people to say we dont need to test anymore, we have it under control. I don't think thats the right answer, he said. We have to be very careful about how we are drawing those conclusions.

In some upstate areas, including Albany, officials have decided only to distribute tests to vulnerable people  those over 70 years old or with immune deficiencies  health care workers, or only those showing symptoms. The result is an unusually high positive return that does not provide an accurate reflection of community spread, said Albany County Health Commissioner Elizabeth Whalen.

What were learning is there may be a significant number of people who are spreading COVID who are asymptomatic, she said. When we talk about people getting back into society, I think we should maintain caution. None of us can really be guaranteed safety, and I think it's something all of us have to consider going forward.

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Stephen J. Acquario, the executive director of the New York State Association of Counties, said capacity is expected to improve with the push for more rapid testing, self-administered at-home kits and new testing methodologies.

Before they had access to test kits, county public health officials acted under the presumption that someone was positive if they showed symptoms and then ordered other potentially exposed people to stay home, Acquario said. State officials have said that as testing becomes more widely available, contact tracing and isolation will need to continue to contain the virus.

We used infectious disease protocol for presumed positives and it made a serious difference in flattening the curve and preventing the spread, Acquario said.

Antibody tests will be key to filling that gap in knowledge, state officials say, identifying those who have had the illness but were asymptomatic or couldn't access a diagnostic test in the early stages of the pandemic. Antibody tests are easier to manufacture and administer than their diagnostic counterparts, meaning a quicker road to mass production.

Distributing tests

Early on, downstate New York became the epicenter for the pandemic  for the state and the country  and officials raced to distribute tests to those areas with the most urgent need and quickest spread.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Westchester County, which housed New Yorks first coronavirus hot spot in early March, has the most testing per capita at about 7 percent, with Rockland County following close behind at about 6.4 percent. New York City suburbs have counted the highest testing per capita, while the citys five boroughs range from about 2.7 to 4 percent.

Upstate counties  where Cuomo has said that coronavirus spread is "stabilizing"  have testing rates per capita far lower, with Yates, a small suburban county near Rochester, at the bottom with .45 percent. The Capital Region has ranged between about 1 and 2 percent.

In all, the state has tested nearly 600,000 people for the coronavirus, by far exceeding any other state and many countries. The state issues between 15,000 and 25,000 tests a day, with about 40 percent returning positive.

State officials have said the discrepancy in testing per county is a reflection of pure data, as testing is distributed to municipalities depending on how many people have already tested positive or exhibited symptoms there. Tests have also been prioritized in the city because the virus spreads most quickly in dense areas, they said.

The COVID-19 tests are prioritized for people who have come in close contact with another person who is known to be positive; someone who has traveled to a Level 2 or Level 3 country as designated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a person who is quarantined and showing symptoms of the virus; or a person is symptomatic and hasnt tested positive for any other infection, according to the state Department of Health.

Cuomo stressed early on that the state would shift supplies as needed to the areas with the most need, often rebuffing any notion of an upstate-downstate divide. That has concentrated many state resources downstate, leaving most counties north of the metropolis to collaborate with surrounding communities and private companies to expand access to testing.

Collaborating across government levels

As New York hopes to quickly increase testing availability, Cuomo has again asked Trump for help in distributing resources from the federal government to states.

He emphasized during a press briefing Friday that many of the needed supplies  such as chemicals to make the tests  come from China and other countries. The federal government could also help obtain more chemical reagents for tests, Cuomo said.

"That's why the federal government has to be part of this approach and part of this answer," Cuomo said. "I can do what I can do on the state-side, but the federal government cannot wipe their hands of this and say, 'Oh, the states are responsible for testing.' We cannot do it without federal help."

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, who is serving on Trump's task force to reopen the economy, said the state needs a partnership with the federal government to support testing, as relatively few people in her sprawling rural district in upstate New York  where robust public health departments are not widely available  have been tested. Many counties in her district have tested at rates below the state average of roughly 1.6 percent.

The federal government should fast-track approval of newer tests in New York, she said, while cautioning that the federal government overseeing the entire process would not acknowledge the "different needs" of states across the country.

"The vaccine is when we will start to be not back to the old normal, but the new normal," Stefanik said on a press call last week. "I think, until then, my priority is making sure ... New York state has access to the testing capabilities."

New York has been in constant contact with county leaders and health care facilities to ensure the necessary equipment and resources are available, state officials said. Private businesses  like pharmacies and doctors offices  are also providing testing sites or researching new methodologies to tackle the virus.

State health officials said they also offer training for communities where public health departments may be non-existent or lacking adequate resources.

In the mid-Hudson Valley, Ulster, Dutchess and Orange counties were the first to launch mobile testing sites, knowing that the state was preoccupied with hotspots farther south.

Albany County most recently launched its own additional testing sites in partnership with Whitney M. Young Jr. Health Center to bring testing to more difficult to reach communities.

By partnering with public and private entities, Ryan said, Ulster County took charge  and he encouraged other county leaders to do the same to expand testing sites on their own.

You have to do it, and you have to do it now," he said. "Youre doing something far outside the normal mandates of what you would do as a county government, and so it's going to be uncomfortable, but you have to do it. We know that testing is the key way out of this in the short term and long term.
The Week In Russia: The Coronavirus And Kremlin Control

By Steve Gutterman April 17, 2020

When Russian President Vladimir Putin was cracking down on opponents, critics, and protesters dismayed by his return to the Kremlin in 2012, I asked the human rights activist Lyudmila Alekseyeva how far he would go -- and how close to the murderous methods used by dictator Josef Stalin and other Soviet leaders.

Alekseyeva, whose resistance to the state began amid the 1960s trials that ended the Thaw and remained strong over the long years of Putin's rule before her death in December 2018, said that the former KGB officer would probably like to use full-scale Soviet tactics to maintain control -- but that he could not do so in the 21st century.

That, of course, is why some of the Russians who admire Stalin, or say they would want a leader like him, do not care for Putin: Despite what critics call the persistent rollback of democracy and steps to increase the Kremlin's grip on politics nationwide, in the halls of government and on the streets, he does not have the level of control.

Just how much he does have comes into question frequently: Whenever the deadly effects of an accident or disaster are aggravated by corruption or negligence, whenever an influential person seems to get away with looting public coffers, and whenever Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov flouts federal law in a land he rules like a fiefdom, for example.

In principle, as they say, Putin should possess more control than ever. In power as president or prime minister for over 20 years, he is in the process of handing himself the option of running for two more six-year stints in the Kremlin after his current term ends in 2024, and a loyal party dominates the national parliament and regional governments nationwide.

But as he maneuvers between what analysts say are signals that he is taking charge of the response to Russia's growing COVID-19 crisis and steps to avoid blame for bad outcomes, the Kremlin's shifting approach to the pandemic seems to point to the limits of that control.

On March 17, Putin declared that Russia had managed "to contain the mass penetration and spread" of COVID-19, adding: "The situation is generally under control."

This Is Now

At the time, that seemed potentially credible despite the absence of measures such as lockdowns: The Kremlin had essentially closed Russia's border with China, where the outbreak began in December, and the publicly reported numbers of infections and deaths were far lower than in many other countries.

Today, the picture is different. The official numbers have been rising fast in April, reaching 32,008 confirmed cases on April 17, but their accuracy -- and particularly, now, the declared death toll of 273 -- also remains in doubt.

Lockdowns are in place, ambulances with patients inside hurry up and wait in line outside overtaxed hospitals, and Putin said on April 13 -- at the start of a week in which the official case count has more than doubled -- that "the situation is changing almost on a daily basis, and, unfortunately, it is changing for the worse."

In a development rich in symbolism, China sealed off parts of its long border with Russia after a surge of new COVID-19 infections among people returning from foreign countries including Russia.

The COVID-19 pandemic is clearly a major test for the governments of countries around the globe. But in some ways, Putin's predicament may be unique: He has been in power for many years, but this is arguably both the biggest crisis Russia has faced and the one whose ultimate outcome is the least susceptible to PR -- to efforts to manage the optics.

The terror attacks of the 2000s -- at Moscow's Dubrovka Theater in 2002, at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, in 2004, at Domodedovo Airport in the capital in 2010, and many more -- were both deadly and highly visible. Each one a blow to the notion that Putin and the Kremlin could adequately protect the country and its citizens.

But they stemmed from a situation that was well known to Putin and even formed the backdrop for his rise to power: the insurgency that persisted in the North Caucasus following two devastating wars against Chechen separatists -- one of them waged with Putin in a leading role, as prime minister in 1999 and then president after that.

More recently, Russia has become deeply involved in two wars beyond its borders, backing separatists fighting government forces in neighboring Ukraine and supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the devastating nine-year conflict against his opponents in the Middle Eastern country.

In both cases, Putin got Russia involved by choice -- his country has not been attacked.

So, the coronavirus is one of biggest challenges to come from outside Russia, if not the biggest, since he came to power.

The Cruelest Month

For Putin politically, it has turned what was supposed to have been a triumphant spring of easy image-making -- with a May 9 military parade on Red Square following an April 22 vote cementing the constitutional changes allowing him to seek reelection -- into a tricky season in which his governing prowess is being tested in real life.

In late March 25, Putin put off the constitutional vote, and on April 16 he declared that the Victory Day parade marking the 75th anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat would be held at a later date -- sometime this year, he promised, using martial language ("We will make the threat we face today retreat") to suggest that the country faces a new foe in COVID-19.

Those two announcements served as markers in Putin's shifting approach to the coronavirus, which he at first seemed to dismiss.

The changing response was also marked by Putin's televised appearances. At first, he seemed to be nowhere to be seen, while Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin was thrust into the spotlight.

For Putin that meant criticism -- and even comparisons to the way Stalin was silent and unseen in public for 11 days after Hitler broke a pact and invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.

OK, Zoomer

Putin soon popped back into view, however, and turned to videoconferences to make his public statements and imply that he was in command. With office workers in Russia and around the world holding virtual meetings while isolated at home, Putin's apparent enthusiasm for this form of communication led to 'OK, Boomer' jokes at his expense.

From the start, though, he has seemed to waver between wanting to show that he is in control and wanting to avoid blame if the situation spirals out of control.

"Putin doesn't want to become the Covid-tsar, but nor does he appear willing to empower his regional satraps on a massive scale, with the money, autonomy and control over federal institutions that would require," Mark Galeotti, a senior associate fellow at the British-based Royal United Services Institute, wrote in an April 14 article in The Moscow Times.

"Instead, he is just grumbling about 'sloppiness' in the regions, in effect putting much of his legitimacy as president in the hands of his governors, without being able to give them the tools they need yet for it," Galeotti wrote. "The calculation may be that if need be, the governors can be blamed, but given how centralized this system has become, it is questionable how far a long-suffering Russian electorate will buy that."

When it comes to Putin, polls have shown that in recent years, the Russian public has become a less enthusiastic consumer.

Survey results published by the independent Levada Center on April 14 indicated that, as The Moscow Times put it, Russians' opinions about Putin "have become more negative for a third consecutive year."

Specifically, the poll said, a total of 29 percent said they felt "delight" over or "liking" for Putin, fewer than at any time since 2013. The proportion who felt "antipathy" or disgust" for Putin or found "nothing good to say" about him was 16 percent, higher than at any time since he came to power.

Asked to choose qualities that attracted them to Putin, the number who called him a "true leader" was 13 percent, the lowest since 2002, and the number who called him an "energetic, decisive strong-willed person" was 25 percent, fewer than ever before in similar surveys by the pollster going back to October 1999.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/week-in-russia -coronavirus-kremlin-control -putin/30561478.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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He remained hopeful in the midst of all the obstacles and thought of the 'khaki' he had worn all his adult life. The courage his uniform espoused helped him win against an adversary as mysterious as the coronavirus.

Assistant Sub-Inspector Jeet Singh returned home on Friday, proud and confident, as his neighbours in Kalkaji showered petals on him. He said he thought of the disease like any other illness and did not submit to it.

"My message to those battling with the contagious virus is don't be afraid. Stay positive," said the 49-year-old.

"Treat it like any other illness and you will recover soon. Believe in God and only good things will happy to you if you think positive. Don't take it to your heart, because that really helped me" said Singh, the first policeman from Delhi to test positive for COVID-19.

He had consulted doctors at AIIMS after he developed fever and was advised to go into quarantine. Later, he was admitted to Safdarjung Hospital.

"I was on home quarantine when I received the report on April 7. It was my son who read the report and said 'you had tested positive for coronavirus'. My family was taken aback. But I motivated them and told them to not lose hope," he said.

Singh told his family he will be fine and went to the hospital accompanied by his wife and son in a police vehicle.

"I was alone in a room but doctors and nurses visited multiple times a day. I faced the challenges by taking God's name. I didn't bother doctors unless I was under extreme difficulty because they were also attending to other patients," he said.

The policeman said he developed a belief that he has to bounce back and resume duty.

"I was only thinking about my 'khaki' and eagerly waiting to join duty. I had this willpower that I will recover soon. I felt much better on April 9 (three days after being hospitalised) even though I had throat pain," he said.

Doctors had advised him to not of think about the illness.

Singh's wife, three sons and a daughter-in-law were also taken to hospital next he was admitted.

"However, all of them tested negative for COVID-19 since we were strictly maintaining social distancing at home," he said. The family nonetheless remained at Rajiv Gandhi Hospital for three days.

"Even since I was on home quarantine, I isolated myself in a separate room and did not allow my family members inside the room. They would always keep food and necessary essentials at the doorstep," he said.

Even after returning home from the hospital, the family is strictly maintaining a social distance and Singh has isolated himself in a room for another 14 days.

Asked about who played the most critical role in his recovery, he said, "Doctors and nurses and the safai karamcharis. They are like God."



"They were always there with soap, hand wash, medicines, food and water. They would come in every hour to check on me. They have taken care of us. Today, if I'm healthy, it's only because of them."



While he was in hospital, his seniors and colleagues would keep a tab on his health.

"Kalkaji SHO Sandeep Ghai would call up daily, motivate me and encourage me.

"Farsh Bazar SHO A K Singh has taken care of my family like his own.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
They need a place close to work where they can rest and regenerate, said Ty Warner, the Beanie Baby billionaire who is now owner of that Four Seasons, in a news release earlier this month. I heard Governor [Andrew] Cuomos call to action during one of his press conferences, and there was no other option for us but do whatever we could to help.
WASHINGTON  The United States military is sharply reducing its emergency casualty evacuation services in West Africa, raising concerns that American troops on missions there could be left vulnerable if they run into trouble at a time when violence is surging in that corner of the continent.

The action by the Pentagons Africa Command comes shortly after U.S. military advisers accompanied forces in Niger last month on a major counterterrorism operation near Diffa, a small town on the border with Nigeria that has been a hot spot for attacks by the militant group Boko Haram.

It was the first time American forces in Niger had joined a combat mission alongside their local counterparts since 2017, when U.S. commanders imposed strict guidelines on ground forces. Those new restrictions were imposed after an ambush in October that year near the border with Mali that left four American soldiers dead.

At issue now is the militarys decision to cancel a $23 million annual contract with Erickson, an aviation services company that flies logistics and casualty evacuation flights for Army Green Berets who have been training and advising Nigerien troops for two years in Arlit, a remote city in northern Niger. The Nigerien troops have been conducting operations to intercept terrorists as they flow in and out of Libya.
For Ilana Akstein, coronavirus has given her something even more elusive than toilet paper: serenity.

I just feel free, like nobodys around, says Akstein of the daily runs shes been doing for the last three weeks, in order to get a break from the noise at home, where she now works alongside her husband and their children, Marina 13, and Maya, 5.

Ilana Akstien waves goodbye to her husband, Jayme, and daughters, Marina and Maya, before her daily run. Credit:Rhett Wyman

Akstein, a counsellor, last ran six years ago, after which point the chaos of daily life got in her way. And, to her surprise, she has now become fitter than ever.

Oh, I feel much better, says Akstein, 49, of Matraville, in Sydney. Im very surprised, like, oh my gosh, its actually something good and fit that is coming out of this.
As the future king of the U.K., Prince Charles has been ironing out his plans for years now. However, his main goal will not help the royal family in any way and might only harm the monarchy in the end.

Prince Charles, being the heir to the throne, previously unrolled his plan of slimming down the number of working royals.

With Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's exit following Prince Andrew's decision to step down late in 2019, the total number of working royal family members have already decreased -- making Prince Charles' scheme more attainable now.

However, despite dedicating his life to pursue his life-long dream, the Prince of Wales is not actually doing any good and is only putting the monarchy in danger.

According to The Talko, the departure of three royal family members and further decreasing the working royals could truly tone down the risks of drama and scandals once Prince Charles takes over the throne. In return, however, it would increase the workload for those who remain under his reign.

Once Prince Charles becomes king, he plans to highlight only the works of those closer to the throne -- which include the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duchess of Cornwall.

But this kind of set-up would bring more pressure to everyone, most especially to Prince William and Kate Middleton.

What could make this plan worse is the fact that Princess Anne, who was hailed as one of the most hardworking royals despite being 14th in the line of succession, might be out of the limelight under Prince Charles' reign.

"In addition to an increased workload for William and Kate, this would risk alienating hardworking members of the Royal Family, including Princess Anne," the magazine stated.

Royal Family's Downfall?

To recall, the Prince of Wales already received a warning from royal expert Lydia Starbucks that he would risk the monarchy if he forced Queen Elizabeth II's only daughter to retire.

"She does support such a huge range of charities and organisations and she gives them a much higher profile," Lydia said shortly after Prince Andrew quit. "The thing is, were she to be taken out of the royal rota, they would lose a big percentage of the engagements they carry out every year."

There were times when Prince Charles only surpassed Princess Anne's achievements by just two or three engagements.

Meanwhile, royal commentator Brittani Barger jokingly asked the Royal Central news editor: "When Charles does ascend the throne, his calls for a slimmed-down monarchy and everything...should he keep Anne, working and everything?"

To this, Lydia answered with a definitive "yes".

Aside from these experts, even Prince Charles' parents -- Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip -- expressed their disapproval over the idea of slimming down the royal family members.

Last year, the Duke of Edinburg told his son that modernizing the monarchy is "harmful," and his plans to pursue this is making him "too political."

Moreover, Prince Philip went against his son's proposal to transform the Buckingham Palace into a "space for the nation," which meant there will be a need to relocate the royal family's base to Windsor Castle.
Many people in this age group do not have a choice about where they will quarantine. Some, such as first responders and those in the service industry, may not have jobs that allow for remote work. Others, who have been furloughed or laid off, are forced to move home because they can no longer afford rent or food. And about a third of young people already live with their parents, according to 2017 census data.
A stitch in time that could save Lankas apparel industry By Namini Wijedasa Manufacturers here like their counterparts in other countries, are looking at entering the ever-increasing market for personal protective equipment (PPE) View(s): View(s):

There is a glimmer of hope for Sri Lankas troubled apparel industry: the world just cant have enough masks and gowns.

One producer of fashion clothing is even exploring the production of fashionable facemasksusing materials such as denimfor labels in the West, including Levis and Lucky Brand jeans. With masks becoming normalised in the foreseeable future, it makes more sense to get out of disposables and don reusable face covers that looks halfway good.

But while Sri Lankan manufacturers, like their counterparts in other countries, are edging towards personal protective equipment (PPE), industry leaders here are also cautious not to go Chinas way. Earlier this month, after European buyers complained of poor standards, Chinese manufacturers were ordered to get licensed domestically before selling abroad.

This is not a space like the conventional apparel industry, said Sohan Patrick, General Manager of Strategic Planning and Business Support for MAS Holdings, one of the companies leading the present journey towards PPE manufacture. We not only have to make sure we go to the right leads, there are important regulatory requirements governing standards that have to be met because these will be used in clinical settings.

We have made some progress although much of it is at inquiry stage, he said. There are some positive leads.

The company received some initial orders for masks from an existing customer but there are many components of PPEs: gloves, gowns, shoe covers, head covers, masks, respirators, eye protection, face shields and goggles. MAS will focus on five or six of these.

Meanwhile, UNICEF and the Government this week discussed with Sri Lankan factories whether they could provide the UN agency 10 million face masks per week and a million surgical gloves for distribution worldwide.

There is a possible business opportunity, said Tuli Cooray, Secretary-General of the Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF). But they dont want the ordinary surgical masks that factories have so far produced for the Government using available fabric and design. They want sterile, patented, N95 masks.

Such manufacture demands specific capacityskills, machinery and fabric that Sri Lankan doesnt yet have. The Board of Investment is coordinating with factories in this regard. And some large conglomerates have expressed interest, Mr Cooray said.

Everyone is trying to understand how best to offer on price, delivery time and quality, he explained. We need to see if the fabric is freely available in the market before going for it. Even the Ministry of Defence wants around 60 million pieces.

As far as certification goes, factories here will have no impediments, Mr Cooray said. They are among the best in the world. Even the smaller ones upped their standards in order to take on subcontracts. But materials and machinery have to be procured. And it is still not clear to what extent manufacturing can start in lockdown situations, even when curfew is eased.

In the next few months, traditional apparels will take a back seat, Mr Patrick predicted. Even beer companies are making hand sanitisers now. Sri Lankas markets in the US and Europe are nowhere close to opening up. As long as the malls are closed, usual business will be impacted. Job losses and slow economy will affect disposable income.

Many Sri Lankan factories are exploring some form of mask orders. Getting the raw material for many of the more specialised products remains a challenge.

Its mainly China at the moment but we also need to develop alternate supply chain partners as well as build capability to manufacture our own fast, Mr Patrick said. If we approach this right, not only will be gain in the short to medium term, we will hopefully build a longer term avenue.

It has been too early to decide on the commercial viability of this segment but there could be decent margins in PPE.

His advice to the industry is dont jump into it without first building competency. Here, you are dealing with lives, he pointed out. The regulatory environment is also different. You can be sued.

But, if done right, there will be enough work to go round. Right now, there is so much of demand I dont think one country can cater to it, Mr Patrick said. The requirements come in millions. And all of them needed it yesterday. Longer term, it depends on how you stabilise your performance and the trust you build with the institutions you work with.

Factories respond to Govt call for masks, gowns Any growth in the PPE export market will ensure that domestic requirement is also catered to, apparel industry experts feel.Many factories have already heeded the Governments call for surgical facemasks and polythene gownsboth disposable and non-disposable. Many are part of their corporate social responsibility programmes. This week, even an auto seating manufacturer started making personal protection overalls and face shields. We have our sewing division that does car seat covers, said Dimantha Jayawardena, a partner of Ideal Auto Seating (Pvt) Lt. We converted that division to do the complete, level one, disposable PPE kit and the other assembly to produce the face protection cover. Part of this will be donated to the Governments Medical Supplies Division. Others are available for sale. And, if the logistics can be finalised, Ideal can meet an export order it secured from Africa.
Why Discount Carriers Like Spirit and Frontier May Come Up Short in the U.S. Airline Bailout

U.S. travelers spent much of the last decade complaining about discount airlines that charged low fares but bombarded consumers with fees. Now the U.S. government may be pushing at least two prominent ultra-low-cost-carriers  Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines  into financial purgatory, though perhaps not on purpose.

The CARES Act signed last month by President Trump includes up to $50 billion in grants and loans for U.S. passenger airlines, a group that includes not only full-service carriers, but also discount ones. But the legislation overwhelmingly favors larger airlines, and while the U.S. Department of Transportation had a chance to tweak requirements on grant money to help smaller carriers, it has not done so.

The biggest impediment is a requirement that airlines fly to most domestic markets they served before the Covid-19 pandemic suppressed travel demand. Congress did not want airlines to take billions in government subsidies and then quit providing air service for people who needed it.

Airlines understood the concerns, but expected the Department of Transportation would show leniency, allowing them temporarily to drop markets that dont make sense in a climate where demand is down 90 percent or more.

This week, though, the Department of Transportation signaled itll be stingy with exceptions. On Thursday, in one of its first rulings, it denied all but one of Spirits exemption requests. That means if Spirit wants the money  and airline spokesman said it does  it will have to keep flying empty airplanes from smaller airports.

In a blog post on Friday, analyst Seth Miller criticized the governments position, saying DOTs requirements exceed any rational view of minimum connectivity into the national airspace network, adding, it is a view that benefits the larger legacy carriers at the expense of newer airlines with more flexible schedules.

Two other discount airlines  Allegiant Air and Sun County Airlines  also are suffering from the same issues.

Story continues

Unfair to Discounters

For a giant global airline, the destination requirement is more annoyance than huge hindrance. At first, some asked if the government might force airlines to retain all routes served before the pandemic, but thats not the case. As long as airlines keep one flight to each city, theyre in compliance.

Just look at how easy it is for United Airlines to retain to service to Salt Lake City, one of its smaller stations, and still satisfy the law. During good times, United flies from Salt Lake to six hubs, and most cities see multiple flights a day. United can cut all but one daily flight and comply, which why United can slash 90 percent of its schedule next next month, and take $5 billion in government aid.

But mathematically speaking, Frontier and Spirit cannot cut 90 percent of flying and still meet the laws intent.

This is because both airlines are point-to-point carriers, eschewing giant hubs in favor of any nonstop routes where they can make money. Unlike United, which could have five-to-20 flights a day even at smaller stations, Frontier and Spirit may fly to a city only once per day, or even a couple of times a week.

Sacramento is one example for both airlines. Had demand stayed strong, Frontier was planning two flights to Sacramento, one to Denver and one to Las Vegas. By the governments standards, it must retain at least one route, flying at least three days per week.

Spirit had planned to fly three daily trips this summer to Las Vegas from Sacramento. It also must keep one flight on at least three days each week, even if it flies empty.

Each airline has a lot of cities like Sacramento. Spirit asked to stop flying to 26 markets, but received just one exemption, with the DOT allowing it to suspend service to an airport in Puerto Rico that is essentially closed. (Not all of Spirits requests were at small stations; the airline also wanted to pull out of San Francisco and New York-area airports.)

Frontier asked for 35 exemptions, including Albany, New York, Fargo, North Dakota, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Harlingen, Texas and Wichita, Kansas. As of early Friday afternoon, the DOT had not ruled on its requests, but given Spirits experience, Frontier likely will have to keep most service.

The service requirement is not the only place where ultra-low-cost-carriers may be getting raw deal. In good times, Spirit and Frontier saved money by using contractors at airports rather than its own employees. But the government law favors airlines that directly employ workers since the Treasury Department awards more grant money to airlines with higher payrolls, Spirit said in a filing.

It bears emphasis that because the CARES Act grants are limited to airline employee wages and salaries, Spirit will not receive the same benefit from these grants as the larger carriers, lawyers for the airline wrote in a filing earlier this month. Instead, Spirit will have to pay for these services but will not receive any grant money to cover any part of that cost.

Looking on the Bright Side

U.S. discount airlines are in trouble, but if they can get through to the other side, they could be the first beneficiaries of a recovery.

When demand comes back, it may return first in the domestic market. Some countries will probably ban overseas visitors for awhile, and even if countries accept them, Americans may not want to risk traveling abroad.

Both Spirit and Frontier are predominantly domestic airlines, with some flights to the Caribbean, Central America and South America. Each is positioned to capture this first part of the recovery, as Americans visit friends and relatives and go on vacation.

There will be just a ton of pent-up demand, said Jay Shabat, Skift Airline Weeklys senior analyst. After sitting at home for three months, people will be like, I need to get the hell out of here.

Those people can fly legacy airlines, too. But many economists now predict a recession, and with so many people out of work, more Americans may look for the cheapest option, rather than the most comfortable. In times of economic uncertainty, including the 2008-09 global recession, discount carriers usually perform better than full-service ones, as people trade down but dont stop traveling.

A deep recession could also depress demand for business travel, as companies reduce budgets, even once it is safer to travel. Frontier and Spirit dont carry many business travelers, so they would be insulated.

Fares could be very low, but that may not deter Frontier or Spirit. Their costs, on a per passenger basis, are less than half of a big airlines, and with cheap fuel prices, they often can make a profit on a $30 ticket when the majors cannot.

Correction: This story was updated with more complete information about how many days per week Frontier and Spirit must fly to various markets.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 22:17:18|Editor: huaxia

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A staff member of Kadikoy Municipality takes care of stray cats in Istanbul, Turkey, on April 18, 2020. Bahar Cetinkaya and her three-member team took the streets in Istanbul on Saturday, with a car filled with dry animal food, as the city is under lockdown for the weekend due to COVID-19. (Photo by Yasin Akgul/Xinhua)

by Zeynep Cermen

ISTANBUL, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Bahar Cetinkaya and her three-member team took the streets in Istanbul on Saturday, with a car filled with dry animal food, as the city is under lockdown for the weekend due to COVID-19.

"Throughout the day, we will tour the district to ensure that stray animals are not left hungry and dehydrated during the two-day curfew," Cetinkaya told Xinhua, noting that they have special permission from the governorate which enables them to go out during lockdowns.

Cetinkaya and her colleagues are working for the Kadikoy Municipality, one of Istanbul's crowded districts on the Asian side. Apart from their everyday tasks, they have been continuously taking care of stray animals since the first coronavirus case was seen in the city and Turkey last month, forcing people to stay at their homes.

The municipality has recently designated a particular call center that receives the reports of the citizens about the condition of stray animals.

"The residents are giving us location details, and information about the condition of animals that they want us to check," Cetinkaya explained the process. "Upon the information we receive, we go and find them who are in need or sick. We feed them or bring them to the Kadikoy animal rehabilitation center if necessary."

In her view, the "stay at home" calls and curfews as part of the fight against the coronavirus significantly worsened the condition of street animals across the city.

Cetinkaya said before the pandemic, Istanbulites were feeding them several times a day, providing shelters and protecting them very well.

"We are now working with all our strength not to leave them alone and neglected during this crisis," she noted, as around 40 stray cats in the Fenerbahce park surrounded her.

Cetinkaya and her team are not only interested in street cats and dogs, but also all kinds of birds.

"Seagulls and crows are also in a difficult situation," she said. "During the curfews, we find them walking on the streets, looking for food."

For Gozde Dogan, a veterinarian, stray animals could become wilder when they stop contacting people.

"Also, when hunger is added, this can be an important problem," she told Xinhua.

"In that sense, what these people do is very meaningful," Dogan added, referring to the efforts of municipal teams.

Sevda Kucukacer, a Kadikoy resident, has been regularly feeding stray animals in her Acibadem neighborhood.

"In my neighborhood, there are lots of cats. We can continue to feed them easily, but I know that there are dog colonies who are desperate to find food in several slum areas and forest zones around the district," Kucukacer told Xinhua.

In her view, the sole burden of feeding them is now on the shoulders of local officials.

Kucukkaya pays 150 Turkish liras (around 22 U.S. dollars) for 20 kg of dog supplies and 120 liras (17 dollars) for cat food.

"Before the outbreak, we were able to collect some food residue from hotels or restaurants, but now they are all closed," she also said, complaining about the high prices in the stores.

Turkey's first lockdown was imposed on April 11 and 12, aiming at preventing people from going out as weather conditions across the country improved.

Turkey has so far recorded 78,546 coronavirus cases and 1,769 deaths, according to the latest data released by the health ministry.
The COVID-19 cases have gone up exponentially in Madhya Pradesh as the previous Congress government did not get the Tablighi Jamaat members tested and was busy organising a film awards event in the initial days of the outbreak, a top BJP leader, who is convenor of state's health task force, said.

Madhya Pradesh BJP President VD Sharma also said that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan did not immediately expand his council of ministers because the "top-most priority" for the administration was to tackle the pandemic and not "waste time" on any other issue.

Former chief minister and Congress leader Kamal Nath had attacked the BJP over the issue, saying it is fooling the people of the state which does not have a cabinet or even a health minister amid the pandemic.

Hitting back, Sharma, who has been made the convenor of the state's health task force, said the Kamal Nath government had allowed people from Tablighi Jamaat to enter the state and did not get them checked for COVID-19. He said they will investigate this and also if any Rohingyas were allowed to enter the state along with the Jamaat members.

A religious congregation in Delhi of the Jamaat in which thousands of people from India and abroad had participated has emerged as one of the biggest coronavirus hotspots. Many of these people have tested positive for coronavirus.

"I am making an open charge that due to the fear of the Tablighi Jamaat people you (previous Congress government) helped them unauthorisedly. You gave them entry (into the state) and allowed them to live and did not subject them to any kind of medical inspection," Sharma, who has been made the convenor of the state's health task force, said.

The previous Congress government had to quit on March 20 after losing majority in the Assembly. Subsequently, Chouhan took charge as the chief minister but is yet to expand his ministry.

Sharma, the MP from Khajuraho, said Chouhan took things in his hands and decided to prioritise on fighting coronavirus rather than expanding his cabinet.

Madhya Pradesh has 1,360 positive cases and 69 deaths, one of the highest in the country, as per latest data. Out of this, Indore alone has recorded 892 cases and 47 deaths.

Apart from the Tablighi Jamaat activists, Sharma alleged, the other reason for the higher number of COVID-19 cases in the central Indian state was that the entire administrative and police machinery of Indore had been directed to ensure smooth conduct of the International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA) event by the former chief minister and the then chief secretary, SR Mohanty.

"This was the biggest mistake...so IIFA was priority and not coronavirus. The former CM did nothing. It was on his behest that the administration of Indore gave priority to the conduct of the event," Sharma alleged.

Indore has been identified as one of the worst coronavirus affected cities in the country.

"Till yesterday, Indore had more than 707 positive coronavirus cases and almost 600 are linked to the Tablighi Jamaat," Sharma alleged.

The film awards event that was supposed to take place in March in the city with an edition in Bhopal too. "The entire administration and police of Indore were engaged with full vigour to organise IIFA. This was on directions of the former CM and the ex-chief secretary...the administration's priority was not to tackle coronavirus," the BJP leader said.

He said the unfortunate result of this is not only being faced by Indore but by entire Madhya Pradesh. "I want to ask Kamal Nath and his government what were you doing then? Tell me one action you took in this context?" he asked. Sharma said similar situation has occurred in capital Bhopal too.

"In Bhopal too, you saw what happened. The doctors were attacked, the police personnel were attacked. What is this? This unauthorised help that Congress administration gave (to Jamaat)... the result was that entire mankind and the life of people of Madhya Pradesh is at risk," he claimed, adding, "we will investigate this".

He alleged that Nath government did not create any COVID-19 related medical facility in the state, nor did it take any action to create any team to take on the challenge posed by the pandemic that has claimed thousands of lives and infected over 13 lakh people globally.

"In fact, we suspect that even Rohingya refugees could have entered into Bhopal and Indore with the aid of Tablighi Jamaat members," he said, adding the task force decided on Friday that this should be investigated.

The BJP leader said the situation in the state was "under control" now. "There was no medical facility... there were only two testing labs but we have taken it to nine now" and as "more people are being detected and tested" the numbers are going up, he said.

Asked as to how a number of officials in the health and police administration were infected in state capital Bhopal, Sharma said this happened as they were "vigorously" working to trace such suspects and patients.

"We are proud of them that they staked their lives to save others. They are like heroes. They are the people who were doing their service with dedication and when they were not helped we saw cases were increasing," Sharma said.

"They are our 'corona warriors' and hence we have started honouring them in the public and giving salary incentives," he said.

Nearly 89 personnel of the Madhya Pradesh health department, including four IAS officers and a few doctors, who were in the COVID-19 front-line have tested positive for coronavirus in the state

Sharma said the 10-member state COVID-19 task force, headed by Chouhan, has asked the administrative officials to keep looking for suspected cases. Strict action will be taken against those who do not cooperate in this drive, he said.

Asked about a news report that a number of doctors sent by the state government have failed to join duty, Sharma said the task force is confident that people who consider service as their duty and mission will go.

"We are in touch with many other doctors and experts who will go to help the Indore administration. They need more hands as they have been working continuously for so many days now," he said.

Talking about the way forward in Madhya Pradesh, Sharma said the approach is multi-pronged. "We have got in touch with the public representatives in every district of the state and are asking them to ensure that essential supplies of food, medical facilities for non-COVID-19 patients run smoothly.

"We have asked our booth level workers in 63,000 such units to step up distribution of food, dry rations and run community kitchens.

"So far, we have provided food to 1.5 crore people and over 35 lakh masks have been distributed in the state with the help of our party workers, government machinery and social service organisations," Sharma said.

Over 1.25 lakh people of the state who are out at present have contacted the control room and "the chief minister has begun depositing Rs 1,000 in their bank accounts", he said.
In a bid to contain the spread of coronavirus, the Home Ministry on Saturday has asked all states and Union Territories to screen Rohingyas living in their jurisdiction for COVID-19. The MHA states that the step is being taken as many of them had attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi's Nizamuddin, which was declared as a COVID hotspot. As per health ministry, Markaz related cases account for 30% of total cases in the country.

READ | Nizamuddin Markaz chief Maulana Saad issues statement: 'Not underground, framing response'

In a communication to Chief Secretaries and DGPs, the ministry said there have been reports that several Rohingya Muslims have attended 'Ijtemas' and other religious congregations of Tablighi Jamaat and there is a possibility of their contracting COVID-19. The ministry added that the Rohingyas residing in camps in Hyderabad had attended Tablighi Jamaat 'Ijtema' at Haryana's Mewat, and had also attended the meet at national capital's Nizamuddin.

READ | Coronavirus LIVE Updates

Who are Rohingyas?

Rohingyas are an ethnic minority in Myanmar residing in the Rakhine state of the country. While most of the Rohingyas are Muslims, very few are also Hindus. The Buddhist majority nation of Myanmar claims that Rohingyas are residents of Bangladesh and have denied them citizenship rights since 1962. Moreover, the army has been accused of torturing the Rohingyas, with the UN calling 'genocide' attempts of Myanmar army a 'textbook example of ethnic cleansing.'

In August 2017, a Rohingya militant group called Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) claimed responsibility of attacking police and army posts. This prompted action from the Myanmar army, which declared ARSA as a terrorist organisation and allegedly started a brutal campaign in Rakhine state, burning their houses, forcing almost seven hundred thousand Rohingya to leave the country. It was then that the Rohingyas slipped into neighbouring Bangladesh, India and few other countries to seek refuge.

The Indian government has, however, ordered to deport Rohingyas as they are illegal migrants. The Supreme Court too had on September 2018, deferred a plea filed by two Rohingya refugees challenging Centre's decision to deport them. As per reports, there are approximately 40,000 Rohingyas in India.

READ | Delhi Markaz's Maulana Saad booked for culpable homicide; LoC for 2000 foreign Tablighis

Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi's Nizamuddin

A religious programme was organised at Tablighi Jamaat's headquarters Markaz Nizamuddin mosque between 13-15 March which had over 3400 attendees from Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Kyrgyzstan and from several states in India. After attending the meeting, prior to the nationwide lockdown, 1500 of these attendees returned to several parts of the country. As the incident came into light on March 30, the tracing operation began across the nation, while coronavirus cases related to people who attended the congregation started coming up. The Delhi Crime Branch booked Markaz chief Maulana Saad for violating lockdown and charged him of culpable homicide. Saad urged all attendees to cooperate with Police and health workers and in a recent development, has joined the investigation process on Friday.

The Health Ministry, meanwhile, stated that over 30% of the total COVID-19 cases in India were related to the Markaz. Several states like Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Assam, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh have cases majorly due to attendees of the event and the people they came in contact with. Most of the above-mentioned states have traced the attendees, but those attendees in hiding have been warned of legal action if they don't surrender. India's current COVID-19 tally is at 13,835 cases at 452 deaths.

READ | Nizamuddin Markaz: Delhi Police files FIR against Maulana Saad, others of Tablighi Jamaat


A man has spared jail after he admitted attacking his wife when she tried to restrain his early morning drinking during lockdown.

At Belfast Magistrates Court on Saturday Sydney McCallum pleaded guilty to one charge of assault on the vulnerable woman on Friday.

A prosecution lawyer told the court his daughter had phone the police that evening after learning of an argument between the two during which a drunk McCallum slapped her across the cheeks.

When interviewed about the incident the 62-year-old painter from Carrickfergus told officers he was totally disgusted by his actions.

McCallums solicitor told the court he tried to start drinking at 8am to which his wife objected and consumed two bottles of wine.

He added that the pair have since been reconciled and asked that he be given a suspended sentence to reign him in.

District Judge Mark McGarrity said the fact she was a vulnerable person and McCallums record for violence aggravated the offence which crossed the custody threshold.

He gave McCallum credit for his guilty plea but warned him if he offended again he would likely face a lengthy custodial sentence.

Judge McGarrity sentenced him to three months in prison suspended for two years.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, April 18, 2020 10:30 634 fc6853813033f564188675f8bd2ac298 1 National Mount-Semeru,awan-panas,hot-ash,East-Java Free

Mount Semeru in Lumajang, East Java, has reportedly shown elevated volcanic activity that was marked with a 300-second tectonic earthquake and a 2,000-meter-high column of ash blowing south.

The increasing activity was recorded on Friday morning at around 6 a.m., the Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center (PVMBG) confirmed, citing that the mountain had persistently erupted and expelled lava from its crater since the beginning of April.

"For now, the volcano will potentially expel lava and hot ash in the direction of the Besuk Bang, Besuk Kobokan and Besuk Kembar deltas," the PVMBG staff member in charge of monitoring Mount Semeru, Kristyanto, said as reported by kompas.com.

Read also: Anak Krakatau not alone as three more Indonesian volcanoes erupt

Authorities, however, still maintained caution in the alert status for the volcano, which is the second-highest level, despite the increasing activity.

A top official at the Lumajang Disaster Mitigation Agency, Wawan Hadi, separately called on local residents not to panic yet remain alert. (vny)
PORTLAND, Ore.  Oregon public health officials have identified 49 new cases of the new coronavirus in the state as of 8:00 a.m. on Friday, April 17, as well as six more deaths attributed to the virus.

The latest deaths bring the state total up to 70.

We want to keep you informed about #COVID19 in #Oregon. Data are provisional and change frequently. For more information, visit https://t.co/HOiXqGkygF pic.twitter.com/50d04skPdR  OR Health Authority (@OHAOregon) April 17, 2020

The Oregon Health Authority said that there are now a total of 1,785 people in the state who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 through a positive test.

RELATED: Josephine County reports no new COVID-19 cases for fifth day straight

OHA reported new cases in the following counties: Clackamas (3), Deschutes (2), Jackson (1), Lane (1), Linn (3), Marion (8), Multnomah (19), Polk (1), Tillamook (1), Umatilla (1), Washington (7), and Yamhill (2).

Samples for 34,536 people have tested negative for COVID-19 in the state so far.

Examples of people who have recovered fully after testing positive for the coronavirus have been reported only sporadically by local health officials thus far, and the state has yet to report a count of a total across the state.

OHA has a partial, but incomplete count of how many people in the state have been hospitalized from the virus. According to that data, at least 427 Oregonians have been hospitalized since the outbreak began.

State numbers still vary widely. While the state lists only 125 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized, that number rises to 301 when suspected COVID-19 patients are included  indicating that many still have not received results from a completed test.

SPECIAL SECTION: Coronavirus Watch

OHA gave the following information about each of the new fatalities in the state:

Oregons 65th COVID-19 death is an 88-year-old woman in Clackamas County, who tested positive on April 15 and died April 16 at Adventist Medical Center. She had underlying medical conditions.

Oregons 66th COVID-19 death is a 95-year-old man in Linn County, who tested positive on April 2 and died April 14 at his residence. He had underlying medical conditions.

Oregons 67th COVID-19 death is an 86-year-old man in Linn County, who tested positive on April 6 and died April 15 at his residence. He had underlying medical conditions.

Oregons 68th COVID-19 death is a 65-year-old woman in Marion County, who tested positive on March 26 and died April 6 at Salem Hospital. She had underlying medical conditions.

Oregons 69th COVID-19 death is a 91-year-old woman in Marion County, who tested positive on April 12 and died April 16 at her residence. She had underlying medical conditions.

Oregons 70th COVID-19 death is a 76-year-old woman in Multnomah County, who tested positive on April 7 and died April 11 at Adventist Medical Center. She had underlying medical conditions.

OHA: Modeling report shows 'physical distancing measures are working'

On Friday OHA released an update to its epidemic modeling report, intended to help Oregons leaders understand the progression and the projections for the COVID-19 outbreak.

"Todays modeling update tells us that statewide mitigation efforts are keeping the caseload and hospitalizations well below the numbers we would have seen absent our efforts as a state," said state epidemiologist Dean Sidelinger, MD. "We are encouraged by the continued success of our mitigation efforts, which are allowing us to begin planning for suppression strategies for when the statewide measure can begin to be lifted."
If the Union government, which has built a national consensus on the lockdown to help flatten the graph of coronavirus infection, is looking for more ideas, then former Congress president Rahul Gandhi has some to offer. The takeaways of his Press conference on Thursday are two: One, a lockdown is not the panacea and the virus may come back once it is lifted and hence the government must aggressively pursue screening, testing and isolation and two; the government should fund state governments efforts and address the concerns of the real poor who have been stranded on the streets.

Gandhi has stated the obvious; but we have come to a pass whereby we need to remind the government of the obvious. The lockdown should be seen only as a pause button, not a solution. Economists and health experts have been saying that a lockdown alone cannot win the battle for India. Our experience also shows it. Kerala, which has reasonably contained the virus despite being hit in the early days, did so by a policy of aggressive tracing, screening and testing. However, the national data on testing has not been very encouraging, especially when compared with other nations. The Indian Council for Medical Research has contended that our test per positive case is comparatively better. If this truly represents the reality on the ground, then we have reason to be confident. However, discoveries of new hotspots despite three weeks of lockdown have played spoilsport. Mr Gandhis call for spending more money for the poor through the state governments and a package for the industry has also been discussed on many fora, including Prime Minister Narendra Modis video conferencing with chief ministers. At least now, the government must realise the urgency of the situation and act sharp.
Jinx Lennon was supposed to be celebrating the launch of his latest album 'Border Schizo FFFolk Songs For The Fuc**d' with a gig in The Spirit Store.

Instead, in common with other musicians in these strange times, it's had a virtual launch, but that's not to say it has gone unnoticed, getting a four star review from Tony Clayton Lea in the Irish Times, who describes it as Lennon's 'best work yet.'

This, Jinx's tenth album, sees him giving voice to the stories and people of his native Dundalk and its border hinterland.

He describes it as 'a psychedelic punk rock folk concept album about the characters and situations I've come across personally, been told about or read about in this locality or the hinterlands beyond.'

Featuring a generous 34 tracks, including eleven spoken/sonic inserts, the album was mastered and engineered by musician Ben Reel ,and features Cavan man Sean Bradley on guitar banjo,and poltergeist noise, Sharon Mc Ardle on harp, Conor Duffy on Uileann pipes,

The Mary Wallopers on backing vocals and Jinx on guitars, bass, samplers, keyboards and everything else! Local music teacher Heather Oakes the children's chorus for the song 'Pink Ice Cream and Aeroplanes'.

'It's definitely North Louth folk music, a mixture of folk, punk rock, hip hop, pop, psychedelia, sean nos and country,' says Jinx. 'I'm proud to push this new North East Border music. I want to see a lot more artists celebrating the name of the Dundalk streets and singing about daily life making the mundane magical and universal.'

The album is available to buy at Septic Tiger Records www.jinxlennon1.bandcamp.com or via his website www.jinxennon.com. It comes as a download, CD or vinyl, with Jinx himself recommended the latter for superior sound qualithy,

The promo video, directed by Niall McCann with Gregory Dunn and Matthew Boyd, feauturing musician and artist Sarah Jane Hopkins fromt he band NITs can be viewed on YouTube.

Jinx will be doing a number of online gigs, which he will announce on his social media, until such time as he can bring his unique sound on stage.
Dwight Everett, a recovered COVID-19 patient, awaits his blood draw at St. John's Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo. Plasma from the 65-year-old retired electrician went to Ron Shirley, an 80-year-old retired gas company planner who was being ravaged by the same disease. (Handout)

Dwight Everett, a 65-year-old retired electrician, had just recovered from COVID-19.

Ron Shirley, an 80-year-old retired gas company planner, was being ravaged by the same disease.

Both Camarillo residents were patients of Dr. George Yu, a pulmonary specialist who in late March had just read about the promising results of a study in China, where sick patients improved after infusions of plasma from those who had recovered from COVID-19.

When I saw Ron on a ventilator, the thought that came to me was that I have Dwight, and wouldnt it be nice if I could link the two together, said Yu. The experimental treatment was being tried in a few locations in the United States, Yu said, but this would be the first time in Ventura County.

First they needed to check blood types, but that hurdle was cleared when they discovered Everett and Shirley were a match.

Then Everett had to test negative for at least 14 days.

At last he did, and he was eager to help.

I had no reservations whatsoever, said Everett.

Shirley was at St. Johns Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo, and Yu knew thered be legal, ethical and regulatory challenges to work through. But Shirley's condition was critical and he didnt have much time.

Dr. Lynn Jeffers, the hospitals chief medical officer, was tentatively on board. She thought the use of plasma from convalescent COVID-19 patients made sense in theory, and recalled that the same antibody treatment had been used with some success during previous virus epidemics. She talked to the hospitals lawyers and the Food and Drug Administration about how to proceed, then convened a two-hour conference call April 3.

We wanted to be sure we were doing it right, said Jeffers.

Anyone could have said no, we dont want to do it, said Yu, who was on the conference call. But everyone came forward and said were trying to save a life. It was the most collaborative and compassionate coming together of a group of medical professionals and administrators Ive ever witnessed.

Story continues

Dr. George Yu, a Camarillo pulmonologist, read about promising plasma treatments in China. He asked recovered COVID-19 patient Dwight Everett if he'd be willing to donate plasma, which he did. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)





Yu and the rest of the staff knew that the treatments, even if successful for some patients, wouldn't be a miracle cure. And even if critically sick patients recovered, the medical team might never know whether it was the plasma or something else that made the difference. But we are in uncharted waters with this virus, and at hospitals across America, healthcare workers are taking unprecedented steps to try to save their patients from its ravages. Yu was determined to use every potential tool in his arsenal.

Everetts plasma was pushed into Shirleys body. But there was little improvement.

That night I thought we were losing him and I sent a text to everyone saying it didnt look like Ron would make it through the night, but I was so proud of them for signing off on this, Yu said. And then I started crying.

The next morning, Yu got word that Shirley was still alive and slightly improved.

I was flabbergasted, said Yu.

But the improvement was fleeting, and Shirley died April 9, his organs under attack from a viral storm.

Shirley's wife, Zoe, a cancer survivor who is also recovering from COVID-19, was nevertheless grateful. Dr. Yu moved mountains and broke protocol," she said, "and I will forever be in his debt.

Zoe Shirley described her husband as a soft-spoken, giving man who with his wife fostered 13 children and adopted four of them. She said she believes part of his legacy is to have been a local pioneer, along with Dwight Everett, in the use of plasma as a potential treatment.

Ron Shirley pictured with his wife, Zoe. Ron was the first recipient of Dwight Everett's plasma. He improved briefly but then died. (Shirley family)

Since Shirleys death, plasma from Everett has been used to treat at least two other patients, and more plasma donors have now stepped forward.

We are seeing some promising signs from the infusions we've done, said Jeffers. Its still too early to establish strong evidence that the plasma is whats making the difference, but Jeffers said the results have nevertheless been encouraging.

Everett said he learned from doctors that some of his plasma was taken to Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria and used to treat a critically ill female COVID-19 patient who, like Shirley, was on a ventilator. That womans husband, Louis Meza, a chef who also has a landscaping business, said he was told by one of his wife's doctors that Everett was the donor, and the two men talked by phone.

He just wanted to thank me so much for donating and he wanted to let me know that he was also recovering from COVID-19, said Everett.

In fact, Louis Meza was hospitalized for six days. On the day he left the hospital to quarantine at home, where he is still recovering, his wife, Melissa, who works in the operations division of a Santa Maria bank, went into the hospital with a severe case of the virus and was intubated and placed on a ventilator.

Meza said his wife was so sick, even after the plasma infusion, that her doctors wanted to transport her to Providence St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica to put her on a lung bypass machine called an ECMO. But they werent sure she could survive the nearly three-hour ambulance ride.

One of Melissa Mezas doctors, pulmonary and critical care specialist Baljinder Sidhu, spoke to Louis Meza about the risks and possible benefits of moving his wife to Santa Monica.

Sidhu said that while he thought it was Melissa's best hope, he couldnt guarantee Louis that a three-hour trip would have no adverse consequences for his wife.

They looped in a physician who is a Meza family friend, and after talking it over, Louis decided to green-light the trip.

She had not been improving, he told me. For three days prior, she was 100% on the ventilator, couldnt breathe, with a fever of 103 and 104, and her white cell blood count was high.

Meza believed it might be his wife's only hope.

They transferred her on Easter day, at 6:30 in the evening, Louis Meza said.

Dr. Sidhu decided to travel with Mrs. Meza in the ambulance, and he was in contact with Meza along the way to let him know how it was going.

He called and said, We just hit Santa Barbara, Meza said. I owe this doctor everything. Im not kidding you, this guy went above and beyond, riding in the ambulance all the way to make sure she got there safely.

Sidhu told me Melissa Mezas blood pressure fell on the trip. He texted surgeons and other staff at St. Johns along the way, letting them know when the ambulance was approaching. Sidhus voice broke when he described arriving at the hospital in Santa Monica and being met by a medical team of 20 or so.

They turned an ICU unit into an operating theater, Sidhu said.

A breathing tube was inserted into Mrs. Mezas neck, Sidhu said. With another surgical procedure, blood was siphoned from her body, drawn into a machine and pumped back into her body to stabilize oxygen levels.

When I spoke to Louis Meza on Thursday, he was feeling cautiously upbeat for the first time in weeks. He said Melissa had finally shown some improvement that morning. On Friday, she was even more alert during a video call. Meza said he knows his wife is still extremely ill, with a long recovery ahead, but he was encouraged by what he saw. He told her she had missed Easter, their anniversary, and her 43rd birthday.

She was opening her eyes, Louis said. I told her, I love you, and she mouthed back, I love you. I blew her a kiss and she blew me one back. She was smiling. Its incredible. Ive been on Cloud 9.

Louis and Melissa Meza of Santa Maria, Calif. Louis contracted COVID-19 and is still in quarantine. Melissa, critically ill with the disease, received a plasma infusion and is now better. (Meza family)

Sidhu told me Mrs. Meza remains quite ill, and said its hard to know whether the ECMO, steroids, plasma infusion or other therapies led to her improvement. It might have been a combination of those things, he said, adding that he thinks plasma infusions might be helpful for some patients going forward, but the science of how to treat the coronavirus is young and still evolving, with many lessons still to be learned.

You have to be inspired, though, and take a measure of hope, in the human spirit of survival, and in all the courageous efforts of so many medical professionals who are themselves at great risk.

Until theres a vaccine and proven remedies, Yu said, antibody-rich plasma is one tool to lean on, and a single donation can be used on several patients.

We can reach out and touch someone in the most intimate way, and there are thousands of recovered individuals who could potentially be donors, said Yu.

In Camarillo, Jeffers said the website conquercovidtogether.com has been set up to accept plasma donations. Donors can give as often as once a week. The Red Cross also has a donation website for COVID-19 survivors.

In Santa Maria, Louis Meza, still praying his wife gets through this ordeal, told me he is hoping to test negative soon so that he can donate plasma. With both him and his wife out of work, and bills piling up, he said hes been humbled by the response to a Gofundme page set up for the family.

In Camarillo, Dwight Everett  who got sick after a cruise ship vacation, and became worried after learning another passenger had died  said he plans to donate more plasma soon.

And Zoe Shirley said she plans to donate, too, in the name of her husband of 30 years.

I think God is pulling us all together, she said, to give what we can, unselfishly, one people.

Steve.lopez@latimes.com




Source: Xinhua| 2020-04-18 07:15:10|Editor: huaxia

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by Xiong Maoling, Gao Pan

WASHINGTON, April 17 (Xinhua) -- After taking a hit in the first quarter due to the COVID-19 outbreak, China's economy is expected to see a recovery in the second quarter, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) official has said.

"News of the widespread re-opening of firms and the return of employees to work give us hope that we will see a recovery in Q2," Kenneth Kang, deputy director of Asia and Pacific Department at the IMF, told Xinhua in a recent written interview.

Amid COVID-19 impact, China's gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter shrank 6.8 percent year on year, according to data released Friday by China's National Bureau of Statistics.

China is one of the few major economies that could see economic expansion this year, according to the IMF's recently released World Economic Outlook report, which projected global economy to decline by 3 percent in 2020.

Advanced economies are on track to contract by 6.1 percent, while emerging market and developing economies, which typically have growth levels well above advanced economies, will shrink by 1 percent, according to the report.

China's domestic activity is expected to rebound and continue to recover in the second half of this year as the containment measures are withdrawn and policy support gains strength, Kang said.

As economic activity normalizes and returns toward its pre-virus trend, China's economic growth will improve, Kang said, while noting that the outlook faces "downside risks."

"The virus could return and force new containment measures that would impede growth," he said. "Global growth could slow further as the pandemic continues to affect other countries."

The IMF official noted that Chinese policymakers have reacted strongly to the outbreak. "They have taken targeted action to contain the virus, mitigate its impact on the economy, and support the recovery. This has been the right approach," Kang said.

"In addition to supporting the medical response, fiscal measures should build on efforts to rebalance the economy and foster long-term sustainable growth," he said.

The IMF official also suggested China continue contributing to global solutions to fight the outbreak by increasing its production capacity of critical medical equipment and supporting international efforts to provide debt relief for low-income countries.

He noted that several Asian countries, including China, have supported the IMF through its Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust, which provides immediate debt relief to low-income countries affected by the crisis.

According to the IMF's latest projection, growth in Asia is expected to stall at zero percent in 2020 due to the pandemic, the lowest growth since the 1960s. Despite the "remarkable downgrade," Kang said Asia is in better shape than other regions and may recover faster.

"Since Asia was hit by the virus before others, a recovery may begin earlier, with growth in 2021 expected to rise to 7.6 percent," Kang said, though adding that not all the lost growth can be made up quickly.

The IMF official stressed that there is considerable uncertainty around the forecasts.

"One of the difficulties in forecasting growth is that economies in Asia are at different stages of the pandemic," he said. "The final outcome will depend on the effectiveness of the containment measures and the possibility of a second wave of outbreaks."

Kang said the hope is that policymakers around the world will continue to work to contain the outbreak, blunt its impact, and keep the recovery on track. Citing remarks from IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, Kang said many of these measures are more effective if they are implemented together.

"Indeed, we are seeing international cooperation in many key areas, such as the provision of liquidity through swap lines, and fiscal policy is being rolled out in a growing number of countries," Kang said.

The IMF official said countries should avoid trade restrictions on medical and health products to ensure that they go to where they are most needed, noting that countries with limited health care capacity and resources will need international aid to prepare for and weather the pandemic.

"The health emergency is a powerful reminder of the need for policy coordination and solidarity in an interconnected world," Kang said.

The IMF projected that global trade will decline by about 11 percent this year, but rebound strongly by about 8.5 percent next year "in line with a recovery of the global economy," he noted, calling for strong multilateral cooperation to complement national policy efforts.

"Countries should cooperate to reduce tariff and nontariff barriers that impede cross-border trade and investment and to strengthen global supply chains as the recovery takes hold," he said. Enditem
By Trend

The Azerbaijani embassy in Russia has issued an appeal in connection with coronavirus, the embassy told Trend.

"As part of the efforts being made to prevent the spread of coronavirus infection, the state border between Azerbaijan and Russia was temporarily closed, the embassy said. Some citizens of the Republic of Azerbaijan for one reason or another could not leave the country and are forced to stay in the Russian Federation. Many of them faced a difficult situation due to strict quarantine measures. They virtually have no income. Some people have health problems. Some individuals are in the hospital or stay self-isolated. Unfortunately, among them there are people who are unable to pay for meal and accommodation.

The embassy, being in constant contact with the responsible individuals and the Operational Headquarters under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, in coordination with the Foreign Ministry and other official structures of the Russian Federation, continues to render assistance and take appropriate measures, within its diplomatic powers and limited capabilities, to help the Azerbaijani citizens, the message said.

Being on high alert, the embassy has created a 24/7 hotline, the message said. As a result of hard work in a short period of time, more than 2,000 fellow citizens were returned to Azerbaijan.

The embassy appreciates and expresses gratitude to all those who, in coordination with the embassy or personally, have already rendered any assistance to the Azerbaijani citizens who need help, the message said.

While appealing to the diaspora organizations, businessmen, wealthy Azerbaijanis, the embassy calls on all compatriots living in Russia to put aside all disputes, misunderstanding, and render any assistance to their fellow countrymen without populism and insults, the message said.

The embassy, for its part, expresses readiness to continue coordination of such humanitarian activity and wishes everyone robust health and patience, the message said. Amid an urgent need today, we urge all Azerbaijanis in Russia to join the appeal of the Azerbaijani president - "We are strong together!". We believe that the wise Azerbaijani people will overcome this difficult situation with dignity.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
WASHINGTON  Even as the spread of the coronavirus in the United States has increased shortages of critical medicines, the federal government has failed so far to provide members of Congress with crucial information about the nations drug supply and the scope of potential shortages.

Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, was raising alarms about the drug supply even prior to the pandemic. The U.S. medical system is already facing shortfalls in protective equipment, ventilators and coronavirus tests, but now Peters says drug shortages are set to become even more acute.

The drug shortage is right on the heels of all this. It is coming up. Itll be the next thing, Peters said in an interview with Yahoo News on Wednesday.

In December, before cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, were reported in China, the Democratic staff on Peterss committee compiled a report on cost, supply and security threats to the nations inventory of prescription drugs. The report concluded active drug shortages in the United States were at their highest levels in almost five years due to multiple factors including diminished U.S. manufacturing capacity and overdependence on foreign pharmaceutical supply chains. Those existing issues have all been exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis.

In a statement to Yahoo News, the Food and Drug Administration acknowledged that drug shortages have been an issue and said it is working to address the issue.

During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, FDA has been closely monitoring the medical product supply chain with the expectation that it may be impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak, potentially leading to supply disruptions or shortages of drug products in the U.S. Many hospitals are currently experiencing difficulties accessing FDA-approved drug products used for patients with COVID-19, the statement said.

Story continues

And the FDA predicted the problem could worsen as the pandemic continues.

Paralytics are in short supply. (Getty Images)

Due to the large number of persons infected with COVID-19 and subsequent hospitalizations, it is possible that other FDA-approved drug products may become unavailable in the future, the statement said. FDA understands the significant impact that this can have on patient care and is doing everything within its authority to help prevent and alleviate shortages.

According to Peters, doctors in his home state of Michigan, which has some of the highest numbers of COVID-19 cases in the United States, have told him they are have experienced shortages of drugs involved in the treatment of COVID-19 including paralytics and sedatives used to place patients on ventilators and more basic medicines such as IV fluids and drugs to avoid secondary infections during hospital stays. Peters predicted the problem is going to become a growing issue around the country and said the federal government needs to aggressively start acquiring some of these drugs.

Theyre looking at shortages on some critical drugs  the ones that we're most concerned about now are those that are related to dealing with patients on ventilators, Peters said of the doctors in his home state. Its going to be a problem for the whole country.

Doctors in New York, which is the epicenter of Americas coronavirus crisis, have also reported dangerous drug shortages.

On April 8, Peters and Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee, sent a letter to Vice President Mike Pence, who is the head of the President Trumps coronavirus task force, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services urging them to take immediate and necessary steps to mitigate and prepare for critical drug shortages as our countrys health care providers fight the growing number of Novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) cases throughout the United States.

The letter noted indications key supplies are already low.

Reports indicate that in the past month, orders for sedatives like morphine, propofol and midazolam have increased between 60 and 100 percent, the senators wrote. Similarly, during that same time frame, orders for antibiotics and antivirals nearly tripled. While there is a spike in demand, orders are not being filled at the same rate.

In the letter, Peters and Murray asked for a number of details about the Trump administrations plan to address and prevent continued drug shortages, including which government agency is responsible for procuring and distributing critical drugs that will likely experience a significant increase in demand during this pandemic and number of drug products currently held in the Strategic National Stockpile.

The letter asked the Trump administration to provide the information by April 14, but the senators have, so far, received no information.

Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Peters told Yahoo News that while the Trump administration did not provide the requested information by the deadline, he did speak with FDA Commissioner Hahn on Tuesday evening. The senator described it as a really good conversation, though he also said he is concerned that the administration has not provided the detailed information requested.

He did promise to get that to us shortly, Peters said of Hahn. I also understand that theres a lot going on.

The White House declined to comment. An FDA spokesperson told Yahoo News the agency will continue to work with all members of Congress to provide updates and information regarding the agencys COVID-19 response efforts.

A FEMA spokesperson provided Yahoo News with a statement that said the agency and the Department of Health and Human Services have received requests for assistance from states and localities to fill pharmaceutical shortages.

Regional emergency coordinators from the office of the HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response are working closely with our state and local colleagues to ensure that any critical shortfalls are identified, the statement said. FEMA and HHS are coordinating requests for assistance from the states and working with our partners in the private sector to ensure that drugs are directed to areas of critical need.

Both agencies are also working with manufacturers and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to increase production of critical pharmaceuticals, ensuring these drugs remain available, the statement continued.

HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

In their letter, Peters and Murray said they were concerned about reports indicating the prior issues distributing protective gear stemmed from an inadequate response to looming shortages. They urged the Trump administration not to make the same mistake with medications.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

Dr. Erin Fox, the senior pharmacy director at University of Utah Health and an expert on drug shortages, said part of the reason there were drug supply issues prior to the pandemic is that manufacturing processes for medications are very lean. She explained that its difficult to quickly increase the supplies of any given medication since there are just a few companies making these products, drug manufacturing is time-consuming, and it requires specialized equipment.

These manufacturers keep maybe three to six months of product on hand throughout the supply chain at any given time. And, you know, they manufacture pretty tightly to schedules that take into account past use history and forecasting a little bit for increased demand, but those are pretty tightly done. They dont have a lot of extra capacity, Fox said, adding, Some of these plants are making, you know, 10 or 20 drugs from the same manufacturing line.  What that means is even when we have a normal shortage in normal times where its a manufacturing glitch, the other companies cant ramp up enough supply in time to make a difference.

And, obviously, these are not normal times.

The one tool kit that FDA usually has is not open to us in a pandemic situation. They usually are very good about getting imported product  usually from Europe. Europe is having the same shortages that were having though, said Fox.

Fox said she fears what will happen as the coronavirus spreads to the areas of the country that have, thus far, seen relatively fewer cases. Its scary what a huge spike in demand can do to the drug supply, Fox said.

Both Fox and Peters said they believe there needs to be a coordinated federal response to identify shortages, procure needed drugs, distribute them and ramp up production without causing stocks of other medications to run low.

A medical supply production line at a factory in Huaian, China. (China Daily via Reuters)

Peters also believes that part of that response should be reestablishing domestic manufacturing for drugs. The pre-coronavirus report on potential drug supply issues that Peterss committee published in December pointed to dependence on foreign imports, particularly from China, as major issues endangering Americas prescription drug supply.

Rosemary Gibson, a health care expert at the Hastings Center, was quoted in the report warning that if China shut the door on exports of medicines and their key ingredients and raw materials, U.S. hospitals and military hospitals and clinics would cease to function within months, if not days.

Peters said the concerns about foreign suppliers have grown with the coronavirus. Both China and India have had lockdowns due to large numbers of COVID-19 cases, which has increased demand for drugs in both countries while also diminishing manufacturing capacity.

India also provides dramatic evidence that relying on other countries for vital medical supplies can be problematic. Officials in that country have recently complained that there have been delays in shipments of protective equipment and ventilators from China that are hampering efforts to combat the coronavirus there.

Ive always been worried about our dependency on China, and Ive always been concerned that the supply chain could be broken for a whole host of reasons, said Peters. You cannot be dependent on one country ... for something as important as drugs.

And Americas relationship with China is particularly fraught. The two countries were embroiled in a trade war prior to the pandemic, and relations have grown more tense since. Chinese officials have promoted a conspiracy theory that the U.S. military brought the virus to China. And, on Tuesday, Yahoo News reported that the U.S. intelligence community is seriously considering whether the coronavirus was spread by an accident at a Chinese research lab.

Peters said drug supplies are a matter of life and death for Americans and vital to national security. However, he noted we approach it far differently than weapons, which we make efforts to produce domestically.

We make sure we can make tanks and armored personnel carriers and military equipment for the Army. We have to be able to make it in the United States, Peters said.

You dont want to be dependent on another country, and you certainly dont want to be dependent on a potential adversary, he added. That does not make sense.

_____

Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

Read more:
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 18)  A Philippine Labor official stationed in Dubai has been suspended due to alleged misconduct.

A statement from the Department of Labor and Employment Friday said Secretary Silvestre Bello III had ordered the immediate administrative suspension of Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) welfare officer Danilo Flores.

Bello also ordered an investigation into Flores' "culpability for alleged misbehavior in dealing with our overseas Filipino workers."

The DOLE statement said the investigation will look into an incident between Flores and an OFW during the distribution of food packages for Filipino workers in Dubai and the Northern Emirates who were displaced by the COVID-19 crisis.
Dr Winfred Ofosu, the Upper East Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), has called on all municipal and district assemblies in the Region to close their markets temporarily or draw a time table for traders due to non-observance of social distancing.



He observed that the overcrowding at those markets could aid the rapid spread of the COVID-19.



Dr Ofosu made the call after he received some items to help fight the disease from a Civil Society Organisation comprising natives of Bolgatanga, Nabdam, Bongo and Tongo (BONABOTO) in Bolgatanga.



The items included Veronica buckets, alcohol-based hand sanitizers, boxes of handwashing soap and gloves.



Dr Ofosu expressed gratitude to BONABOTO for the support and stated that at the onset of the pandemic, BONABOTO had been complementing governments efforts in tackling the menace.



It had also supported the Directorate in developing educational messages on the pandemic in local languages for radio broadcast.



He said government alone could not fight the disease and implored corporate bodies, Non-Governmental Organisations and individuals to complement efforts at tackling the canker.



Dr Ofosu urged the people not to panic but rather adhere strictly to the Presidents directives and the World Health Organisations protocols on the disease.



He said as part of measures to curb the spread of the pandemic, many interventions including the distribution of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and the training of more health staff on it was ongoing in the Region.



He later distributed the items to the beneficiary district health directorates including the Bolgatanga Municipal, Bolgatanga East, Bongo, Nabdam and the Talensi.



Mr Esmond Agurgo Balfour, the Regional Chairman of BONABOTO, who presented the items, commended the staff of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and other professional bodies in the Region for working hard to help curb the spread of the COVID-19.



He appealed to residents to obey the preventive protocols, particularly social distance and constant handwashing with soap and running water.

Source: GNA









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.

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Russia says US continuing to violate Iran nuclear deal

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Moscow, April 17, IRNA -- Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday that the United States continues to violate a 2015 multilateral nuclear deal with Iran  known as JCPOA  despite widespread appeal by the international community to save the deal.

Zakharova made the remarks during a video conference as her press conferences are held in the absence of reporters due to the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

She said that the US violation of JCPOA is taking place while the UNSC Resolution 2231 urges the need to honor this international accord.

The US even violates the provisions of this UNSC resolution which is a binding one, Zakharova said.

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The UK government has said they will provide an extra 50 million towards tackling the coronavirus crisis in Northern Ireland.

This takes the total funding the UK Government has made available to Stormont to almost 1.2 billion.

It comes as part of the UK Governments funding boost for councils across England and is intended to provide essential services and support during the national emergency.

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said Westminster is committed to doing what it can to support the devolved administrations.

"Today's funding, in addition to the support offered to people and businesses across Northern Ireland through UK-wide initiatives, reinforces our commitment to ensuring that everyone in Northern Ireland is able to access the resources and support they need at this incredibly challenging time."

It comes as a further 17 deaths as a result of coronavirus were announced in Northern Ireland on Saturday.

There are also a further 148 confirmed cases of the virus, in the biggest daily rise to date - bringing the total number of cases here to 2,486.

A total of 765 individuals have been tested for the virus since Friday.

A total of 193 people have now died after testing positive for the virus in Northern Ireland, although separate figures released by Northern Ireland's statistics agency suggested the death toll here is a third higher than reported by the PHA.

The Department of Health in the Republic has confirmed that 41 more people have died from Covid-19, bringing the overall death toll there to 571. There are also 14,758 confirmed cases.

There have been a further 888 deaths due to coronavirus in Britain, the UK government has said. Of those hospitalised with the virus, 15,464 have died. There are 114,217 confirmed cases.

Here's how Saturday unfolded:
This story was originally published on June 19, 2019 in NYT Parenting.

For most kids, summer means freedom: a chance to take a break from the structured school day and to, well, let the good times roll. But for my 7-year-old son, Charlie, who has just finished kindergarten (a feat we werent sure he would be able to accomplish in a mainstream classroom), the start of summer vacation this month has been a little heartbreaking.

Because of Charlies cerebral palsy, he relies on a wheelchair to move and on a speaking device to talk. For these reasons alone, I feared his introduction to public school. I had heard horror stories from other special-needs parents  about kids unable to use the toilet coming home in diapers that had never been changed, kids ignored by teachers and peers and left to their own (extremely limited) resources. I worried that Charlie would not be able to connect with his kindergarten teacher or classroom aides. I knew that my sons receptive language skills  what he understands and absorbs  are above average. But because Charlie was still learning how to use his speaking device at the start of the school year, I worried that his intelligence would go unrecognized because no one would care enough to draw him out.

Last August, on Charlies first day of kindergarten, I waited with him in our driveway for the school bus to arrive. He was in his chair while I knelt by his side, a pose that is comforting to both of us. I told Charlie what I knew about his schedule for the day, reminded him of his new special education teachers name and promised over and over that he would see me again that afternoon. When the bus arrived, I sent him off, doing my best to hide my sense of trepidation on his behalf.

To my surprise and relief, Charlie came home that afternoon exhausted, but happy. His bag overflowed with the crayon self-portraits his classmates had made to introduce themselves. Charlie had found a community that welcomed him, that was eager to engage with him and support him.
The Delhi University has reached out to its alumni network to contribute to the COVID-19 relief work. University Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Tyagi urged the alumni to 'intensify' their efforts in serving society.

The Delhi University has reached out to its alumni network to contribute to the COVID-19 relief work. University Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Tyagi urged the alumni to 'intensify' their efforts in serving society.

Follow LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak here

Elaborating that normal academic activities  mainly classroom teaching and laboratory research  have suffered owing to the distancing mandate, he added that they have not allowed such constraints to hamper their pursuit of knowledge.

Our faculty members have successfully explored virtual classrooms and other digital aids to ensure continuity in the teaching-learning process, he said.

The V-C added that they are contemplating the conduct of examinations for the current session for nine lakh learners and are reviewing preparations for admissions to the next session.

Tyagi also informed that the University has responded promptly to the call for national service with faculty and staff members contributing their one days salary, amounting to more than Rs 4 crore, to the Prime Ministers Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM-CARES).

The university has launched the 'DU Care for Neighbour' programme to help feed the poor and homeless in the North and South Campuses and has constituted a Special Task Force that regularly holds meeting virtually to devise and implement solutions for impending challenges.

The V-C's letter to the alumni comes to the countrywide lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus that has been extended to 3 May.
20 Indian Navy personnel test positive for COVID-19

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Apr 18: At least 20 personnel of the Indian Navy have tested positive for COVID-19. The personnel have been admitted to the naval hospital INHS Asvini in Mumbai's Colaba, a report in the Hindustan Times stated.

This is the first reported case of coronavirus in the Indian Navy. The Army has reported 8 positive cases. On Friday, Army Chief, M M Naravane said that the Army had 8 cases of which two are doctors, while one is a nursing assistant. Four are responding well to treatment, he also said.

Air evacuation pod for coronavirus patients developed by Navy

Our personnel who have not come in contact with any infected person are being moved back to the units. Two special trains have been catered for them between Bengaluru and Jammu and Bengaluru and Guwahati, he had said.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

On April 9, the Indian Navy Chief had said that, the Navy should plan for the worst. We need to be ready for the worst case scenario and to my mind, it will be a long battle, he had also said.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Saturday, April 18, 2020, 8:01 [IST]
Spains death toll from Covid-19 has surpassed 20,000, the health ministry has said.

The number of people to have died after contracting the coronavirus rose by 565 on Saturday to a total of 20,043.

This marked a smaller daily increase than on Friday, when the government said 585 people had died.

According to Saturdays figures, 191,726 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in the country to date, up from 188,068 on Friday.

Spain has been one of the countries worst hit by the pandemic, with the third-highest death toll in the world, according to a global count by Reuters.

In the United States, 37,175 people who tested positive have died to date, while 22,745 coronavirus patients have died in Italy as of Saturday.

Spain slightly eased its lockdown measures earlier this week to let people in construction and manufacturing go back to work.

Before that, only essential workers  such as health professionals and the police  were allowed to travel to work, as authorities worked to limit the spread of the virus.

Other lockdown measures remain in place, with people ordered to stay inside unless it is deemed necessary  for example, to get groceries, medicine, or to go to work.

The government announced on Friday that it was planning on paying a basic monthly income to about a million of the countrys poorest households in an effort to help people deal with the financial blow of the coronavirus outbreak.

Spain shed nearly 900,000 jobs during the first two weeks of the lockdown, which was imposed on 14 March to limit the spread of Covid-19, pushing the number of those who are officially unemployed back up to where it had been three years ago.

Additional reporting by Reuters
A study from Stanford University has found that the number of people infected with the novel coronavirus maybe significantly higher than what was originally anticipated.

Researchers analysed samples of 3,300 residents of Californias Santa Clara county and discovered that the virus was 50 to 85 times more common than what the official numbers had suggested, The Guardian reported. The study, which was made available to the public on Friday, is yet to be peer reviewed.

If the lockdown, imposed to limit the spread of Covid-19, is to be relaxed, health authorities need to ascertain how many people have contracted the infection. Extensive studies about the pervasiveness of the virus in a region could offer key insights, researchers said.

The study is the first wide-ranging of its kind and was undertaken by identifying antibodies in healthy persons by using a finger prick test. The test would show if the person had already contracted and recovered from the virus.

This has implications for learning how far we are in the course of the epidemic, Eran Bendavid, the associate professor of medicine at Stanford University who led the study told The Guardian.

It has implications for epidemic models that are being used to design policies and estimate what it means for our healthcare system, he added.

When the study was conducted, Santa Clara county had over 1,000 Covid-19 cases, including 50 deaths. However, given the rate of people having antibodies, it is probable that 48,000 to 81,000 people may have been infected in the area by early April itself  a number that is around 50 to 80 times greater, the report added.

While the findings have raised concerns over the potency of the virus, it also suggests that the novel coronavirus is less lethal to the over population, that what was thought.

The study, many say, could indicate that we are inching closer towards herd immunity  the concept that if adequate people in a population have developed antibodies to an illness, then that population becomes immune  than what was thought.

This would make it easier for a few individuals to resume work more quickly, a plan currently being employed in Sweden. However, the researchers who conducted the study have asked the world community to not draw any immediate conclusions till further research has been carried out.

The idea this would be a passport to going safely back to work and getting us up and running has two constraints: we do not know if antibodies protect you and for how long, and a very small percentage of the population even has antibodies, Arthur Reingold, an epidemiology professor at UC Berkeley, who was not involved in the study, told The Guardian.

It is pertinent to note that even after taking into account the adjusted rate of infection as discovered by the study, just 3% of the population has contracted the novel coronavirus implying that 97% does not.

To attain herd immunity, 50% or more people in a population would need to have contracted the virus, and be cured of it, the report added.

It is further not clear whether a study, undertaken exclusively on individuals of a county in California, is representative of the United States, researchers said.

But experts, including Jayanta Bhattacharya, a professor at Stanford and author on the study, note that it is absolutely critical that similar studies be done across the country.
The border between Canada and the United States will remain closed to non-essential travel for another 30 days due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Saturday.

The prime minister said the travel ban extension, made in agreement between both countries, will stay in place for many, many weeks to come, the Associated Press reported April 18.

The agreement is the same terms. Its just extended for another 30 days," Trudeau said. "It will ensure we continue to get essential goods and services back and forth across the border.

Last month, Trudeau announced Canada would close its borders to international travel as the coronavirus began spreading worldwide.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced March 20 the U.S. would close its borders with Canada and Mexico to all non-essential travel in response to the crisis.

U.S. border with Canada, Mexico will close Friday night for non-essential travel to reduce spread of coronavirus

The border restrictions previously set by the U.S. and Canada last month were set to expire this week. Before the coronavirus pandemic changed travel standards worldwide, nearly 200,000 people crossed the U.S.-Canada border on a daily basis, the Associated Press reported.

U.S. President Donald Trump said this week that the border between Canada and the U.S. would be among the first borders to open, the Associated Press reported. The president reportedly said the U.S. and Canada are doing well in handling the pandemic.

Many of Canadas confirmed coronavirus cases have come from people who had returned from travel in the U.S., according to the Associated Press. The country reportedly has more than 31,884 confirmed coronavirus cases.

We will continue to take the measures necessary to keep Canadians safe while ensuring the continued flow of our essential supply chains on which so many Canadians depend, Trudeau said.

Essential cross-border workers such as truck drivers, healthcare professionals and airline crews are still allowed to cross the border, the Associated Press reported.

Canadian residents who live in the U.S. and are returning to Canada are also exempted from the travel ban.

The U.S.-Canada border is the worlds longest border between two nations.

PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Carry hand sanitizer with you, and use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and when you go into places like stores.

Read more Michigan coronavirus coverage here

Saturday, April 18: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan

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Detroit releases ZIP Code map of coronavirus cases

No more extensions on stay-at-home order as is, senate majority leader says
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced new aid for Canadas battered oil and gas sector, responding to pleas for help as commodity prices fell to record lows and demand disappeared due to COVID-19.

Speaking at his daily news briefing in front of Rideau Cottage, Trudeau said Ottawa would spend $1.7 billion on cleaning up abandoned oil and gas wells in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. He also announced a $750 million Emission Reductions Fund, including $75 million to help the offshore oil industry.

The measures are expected to help the sector maintain roughly 10,000 jobs across the country.

Right now, workers and families are struggling because of things beyond their control. Both the devastating effects of the pandemic and the price war driven by foreign oil interests. As a result, companies have had to slow down or pause their operations, leaving many people out of work, Trudeau said on Friday.

Our goal is to create immediate jobs in these provinces, while helping companies avoid bankruptcy, and supporting our environmental targets.

The energy industry-funded Orphan Well Association estimates there are nearly 3,000 orphaned wells in Alberta as of April 15. The wells are themselves a product of the dramatic downturn the Canadian energy sector has suffered in recent years.

These wells, which are no longer in use, can be detrimental not only to our environment, but to peoples health, Trudeau said. Think of the farmer who cant grow anything on his land because of an abandoned well a few steps away from her home.

Trudeau said the Emission Reductions Fund will focus on reducing the methane output across Canada's energy industry, including on offshore rigs in Newfoundland and Labrador.

This fund will provide primarily repayable contributions to firms to make them more competitive, reduce waste and pollution, and most importantly, protect jobs, Trudeau said. Right now, many energy firms are experiencing a cash crunch, so they do not have the funds to invest in technologies to reduce emissions or fix methane leaks.

Story continues

Trudeau said the government is also working with Export Development Canada and Business Development Canada to expand credit support for at risk medium-sized energy country companies, so they can maintain operations and keep their employees.

Asked if the oil and gas support measures announced on Friday will constitute the entirety of the governments response, Trudeau pointed to previously announced measures to support individual workers and businesses at large. He added that Ottawa continues to look at ways to support important industries, including oil and gas.

Rank and file oil and gas workers, C-suite executives, and scores of Canadians employed by businesses that rely on a functioning energy industry have held their breath since late March, when Finance Minister Bill Morneau said a plan would be unveiled in hours, potentially days.

Companies in Canadas energy patch have been bombarded by the dual shock of constricted global demand due to COVID-19, and the threat of a flood of cheap foreign crude as a result of the Saudi-Russian price war.

Rachel Ziemba, founder of Ziemba Insights, said the Prime Minister found a smart way to thread the needle between environmental goals, energy sector liabilities, and employment needs.

I doubt the oil patch will be very happy, she added. They hoped it would lead to major support or carbon tax abatement. But this its a good way to increase technology and make elements of the Canadian energy sector more competitive in a world that is not going to forget about decarbonization, despite the crisis.

In a letter revealed in news reports on Friday, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers CEO Tim McMillan asked Trudeau and other government ministers to relax environment regulation and freeze the carbon tax while the industry weathers the storm of COVID-19.

Asked about the letter, Trudeau responded by saying, Just because were in a health crisis, doesnt mean we can neglect the environmental crisis.

Rory Johnston, managing director and market economist at Price Street, called the new measures announced on Friday a good support effort in the face of extremely negative global conditions.

These programs are far from a complete offset, and the Canadian oil patch needs prices to rebound in order to avoid further production shut-ins, he said.

Canadas oil and gas sector has laid off workers, halted operations, slashed spending, and shut in production. Albertas benchmark heavy oil, Western Canadian Select, plunged to a record low below US$3 per barrel earlier this week as it was dragged down by the worldwide oil slump.

The spat between the energy powers Saudi Arabia and Russia began at the March 5 OPEC+ meeting in Vienna. Russia balked at a plan to restrain production to stabilize the global crude market in response to COVID-19. Saudi Arabia responded by slashing its official selling prices for April to between US$6 and US$8 per barrel. OPEC+ responded last week with a 9.7 million barrels per day production cut for May and June that would wind down before ending in 2022.

Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

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The location and shaking intensity of a magnitude 3.2 earthquake Friday evening a mile from Valle Vista, Calif.

A magnitude 3.2 earthquake was reported Friday at 9:41 p.m. Pacific time one mile from Valle Vista, Calif., according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The earthquake occurred four miles from Hemet, Calif., four miles from East Hemet, Calif., five miles from San Jacinto, Calif. and 10 miles from Beaumont, Calif.

In the last 10 days, there have been three earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby.

An average of 234 earthquakes with magnitudes between 3.0 and 4.0 occur per year in California and Nevada, according to a recent three-year data sample.

The earthquake occurred at a depth of 10.4 miles. Did you feel this earthquake? Consider reporting what you felt to the USGS.

Even if you didn't feel this small earthquake, you never know when the Big One is going to strike. Ready yourself by following our five-step earthquake preparedness guide and building your own emergency kit.

This story was automatically generated by Quakebot, a computer application that monitors the latest earthquakes detected by the USGS. A Times editor reviewed the post before it was published. If you're interested in learning more about the system, visit our list of frequently asked questions.
I pick up a piece and walk around with it and think, Where will this fit? he said. I spend a lot more time looking than welding.

Another reason for using scrapped and repurposed metal parts is the cost, said Kuzara, who also makes smaller sculptures out of bronze and assemblage pieces.

To make a horse that size  its 11 feet tall from the base to the top of the main  out of bronze, it would cost over $100,000, he said. With scrap pieces, you can make it.

While the sculptures welded outer parts captivate viewers, the unseen inner structure holds it up. Kuzara said a framework of metal tubing and gussets provide the inner strength.

Most of the weight is in the front of the horse, so you have to support that so it stands up, he explained. Ive been on the legs and jumped up and down on them to make sure they would hold up.

The horse is now a permanent outdoor fixture at the home of Tim OKeeffe in North Bend, Nebraska. Kuzara delivered the sculpture to OKeeffe in late March.
'We're not out of the woods yet

How long will these two phases last? That depends on where you live and what's happening in your community. Some states, Fauci said on Thursday, may be ready to start the first phase of the guidelines now. It will be staggered. Not every state, not every region is going to do it at the same time; that's clearly obvious because of the very dynamics of the country, he added.

As long as infection levels remain low and communities continue to meet the safety checkpoints outlined in the plan, areas can advance to the next phase. A rebound in cases, however, may require reinstating restrictions.

"We're not out of the woods yet, said Laura Perry, a primary geriatrician and assistant clinical professor in the Division of Geriatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. That's what I'm telling my patients: Keep up the precautions even if some regulations are eased in your area.

These precautions include limiting trips out in public, or at least making those trips as infrequently as possible, Perry said. It's better to do one big grocery shop every two weeks than to go every other day, because then you'll run into fewer people.

If you do go out, wear a cloth mask or face covering, avoid touching your face, and wash your hands as soon as you can. Perry also suggested wearing an outer layer of clothing, such as a jacket or sweatshirt, that you can take off and leave by the door as soon as you get home to minimize the likelihood of bringing germs into the house.

"These kinds of personal activities or habits will continue to be really important for people at higher risk of severe illness, agreed Caitlin Rivers, senior associate at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

As hard as it may be to continue missing out on visits with grandchildren and lunches with friends, all of these behaviors and activities are going to continue to reduce your risk of a coronavirus infection, Rivers said.

Phase three of the government's guidelines gives the green light for vulnerable populations to resume public interactions. Practicing physical distancing and limiting time spent in crowded environments, however, is still encouraged because we know that we still have an issue with asymptomatic spread, said Deborah Birx, M.D., the response coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force. Some experts say on-and-off physical distancing may be needed into 2022 to limit a resurgence of coronavirus cases.
New Delhi, April 18 : As the holy month of Ramadan this year falls between late April and late May amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) has urged people to keep maintaining physical distancing.

"Practice physical distancing by strictly maintaining a distance of at least 1 metre (3 feet) between people at all times," the WHO said in its interim guidance titled "Safe Ramadan practices in the context of the Covid-19".

"Use culturally and religiously sanctioned greetings that avoid physical contact, such as waving, nodding, or placing the hand over the heart," said the document.

The transmission of Covid-19 is facilitated by close contact between people, as the virus is spread through respiratory droplets and contact with contaminated surfaces.

To mitigate the public health impact, several countries have implemented physical distancing measures aimed at interrupting transmission of the virus by reducing interaction between people.

"These measures are fundamental control mechanisms to control the spread of infectious diseases, particularly respiratory infections, associated with large gatherings of people," said WHO.

"Physical distancing measures, including the closing of mosques, monitoring of public gatherings and other restrictions on movement, will have direct implications for the social and religious gatherings central to Ramadan," said the document that highlights public health advice for social and religious practices and gatherings during Ramadan that can be applied across different national contexts.

Saying that cancelling social and religious gatherings should be seriously considered, WHO recommended that any decision to restrict, modify, postpone, cancel, or proceed with holding a mass gathering should be based on a standardised risk assessment exercise.

While cancelling social and religious gatherings, where possible, virtual alternatives using platforms such as television, radio, digital and social media can be used instead, the WHO said.

If Ramadan gatherings are allowed to proceed, measures to mitigate the risk of Covid-19 transmission should be implemented, it added.

"National health authorities should be considered the primary source of information and advice regarding physical distancing and other measures related to Covid-19 in the context of Ramadan. Compliance with these established measures should be assured," said the guidance document.

In India, Islamic scholars from all schools of thought on Thursday appealed to Muslims to offer prayers during the holy month of Ramadan at their homes in view of the nationwide lockdown to check the spread of coronavirus.

Ulemas and Muftis, in their joint appeal, urged the community to offer 'Taraveeh' prayers at their homes.

They also advised members of the community to eat 'Sahr' (pre-dawn meals for fast) and 'Iftar' (breaking the fast) at their homes. They were urged not to go to the mosques for 'Iftar'.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
And, on Thursday, Morrison emerged from a meeting of the national cabinet to announce to a press conference how the next phase would be pursued. The baseline restrictions on movement would be maintained for the next four weeks. In that time, three key capabilities would be ramped up, summarised as "test, trace, isolate" to aggressively seek and destroy new localised outbreaks.

"If we are going to move to an environment where there are fewer restrictions then you need these three things in place," Morrison said. "That," says the man credited with persuading NZ to embrace elimination, Professor Michael Baker, "sounds exactly like an elimination strategy to me." But not according to Morrison. At his Thursday press conference, he said that Australia was continuing with suppression. "We are not in an eradication mode." Why not aim for eradication, asked a reporter, if it's all going so well? It could happen as a "byproduct" Morrison conceded. "But the eradication pathway involves an approach which would see even more economic restrictions than are currently in place." Morrison waxed lyrical for a moment on the importance of staying in the "groove of Australian ethos" and Australian's great love of freedom and barbecues, as if to suggest the Kiwis are somehow partial to repression, maybe the odd bit of police brutality, and prefer their snags raw. He concluded by saying "we are not looking to copy anyone".

It's true that the NZ restrictions are tighter than Australia's on some measures. For instance, all schools are closed and learning is done online. Even many food retailers, like butchers, are shut.

But the restrictions are broadly similar. You can go to the park for exercise but the gyms are closed. You can shop for groceries and pharmaceuticals but don't leave home unnecessarily. Work from home if you can but go to work if you must. "Your lockdown is not as intense as ours," says Baker, professor of public health at NZ's Otago University. "But we are pretty much in sync  except maybe haircuts. It always amuses us that you can get a haircut in Australia. We are all getting quite shaggy." Loading His big chance may be approaching. After successfully limiting its outbreak, NZ is due to consider easing its level four lockdown to level three in the next few days. Baker, a member of the NZ government's technical advisory group on COVID-19, understands why Morrison mightn't want to declare eradication. "Our politicians didn't want to use the 'elimination' word for a while because it sounds too absolute." "I really understand not wanting to apply an absolute," Baker says. "In fact, the definition of 'elimination' allows for failure  as long as it's controlled."

And that is precisely the point of the three-part system that Morrison has set out as a prerequisite for easing restrictions. The more rigorous program of intensified testing, tracing and isolating is designed to find and crush any new outbreak before it can become a second wave. What does Australia's Chief Medical Officer, Brendan Murphy, have to say on this? After listening to Morrison reject "eradication" on Thursday, Murphy said: "We are on the same trajectory as NZ, which is aiming for eradication, and if we achieve complete lack of transmission and no cases that would be great," said Murphy. Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy is circumspect about the ultimate goal. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "Essentially there is not a lot of difference between an aggressive suppression strategy and an eradication strategy, with the exception that we don't feel the need to hold the country very seriously in lockdown until we have no cases. But if that happens, with the measures we are doing now, that would be fantastic." It verges on being a distinction without a meaningful difference. Indeed, in the official statement published by the Australian national cabinet on Thursday, it commits that "Australia will continue to progress a successful suppression/elimination strategy".

So why does Morrison go to such trouble to resist using the words "elimination" or "eradication"? If the national cabinet, his own health minister and public health experts are happy enough to embrace elimination, or a variation such as Hunt's "effective eradication", why not the Prime Minister? It serves a political purpose. He can tell the Coalition's political tribe that he's different to NZ's Jacinda Ardern, a Labor prime minister. He's not some kind of Kiwi collectivist, he seems to be implying. She may be some kind of fanatic who enjoys shutting down the economy, but Morrison is not. Loading Does it matter in the real world? Yes, it does. Once the virus is effectively eliminated, NZ Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has raised the possibility of Australia and NZ, while keeping their borders closed to the rest of the world, opening to each other. Peters describes it as a "trans-Tasman bubble" that would allow the two nations to trade and travel freely with each other even as the rest of the world remains too dangerous. Ardern added: "Both [Australia and NZ] have the same goal in mind at the moment  get it under control in our own countries and then we can talk about together what were able to achieve."

Morrison's response was to say that no border changes with NZ were under contemplation, then added: "Our measures have largely mirrored each other, NZ decided to go a lot further but Id note that the outcomes we are getting are actually on a per capita basis actually better than what is happening in NZ, that is not a criticism that is just to say that while following different practices, where weve pitched it has managed to get as good if not a better outcome." It seems more important to Morrison to maintain a difference rather than to find common cause. Which is, of course, entirely his choice. But if fortune has presented the Prime Minister with the opportunity to establish total victory over the epidemic without needing any further restrictions, perhaps he should embrace his luck. Loading Just as Morrison appears to have embraced the opportunity presented to him by the Reserve Bank governor, Philip Lowe. The Prime Minister said that Lowe had given the national cabinet a briefing on Thursday with "a very clear message": "If you think you can grow the economy under the old settings then we need to think again." Morrison, who to now has resisted any proposals for economic reform, seized the moment: "On the other side of the virus," he said, "any sense of business-as-usual when it comes to the policy frameworks that we had prior to the election will need to be reconsidered on the other side to ensure that we can achieve the growth that will be necessary in our economy to get people back into work, to get our economy back on track."
Accra, 17th April 2020 - Cenpower Generation Company Limited, an Independent Power Producer, today donated an amount of GHS200,000.00 to the National COVID-19 Trust Fund established by the President of Ghana as part of efforts to raise resources for combating the effects of the virus in the country.

A Director of Cenpower, Dr Jimmy Heymann, on behalf of the Cenpower Board of Directors, Management and Staff, presented the cheque at the Jubilee House to the National COVID-19 Trust Fund Board of Trustees.

He said Cenpower remains committed to contributing to the development of Ghana and stands firmly with the government and the people of Ghana at this difficult time in the efforts to address the effects of COVID-19 on the country. He added that through this contribution, we hope to touch as many lives as possible just as the electricity we produce reaches different homes in Ghana.

He further encouraged that there are brighter days ahead for us all. Through standing together, Ghana is sure to overcome the problems arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important though to observe all recommendations on social distancing, regular use of sanitizers and handwashing.

The Chairperson of the Board of Trustees for the National COVID-19 Trust Fund, Madam Sophia Akuffo, received the cheque on behalf of the Board.

The Chief Executive Officer of Cenpower, Mr. Theophilus Sackey, reiterated Cenpower's commitment to continue generating electricity in a least-cost, reliable and environmentally sustainable manner to meet national requirements.

We recognize that availability of power is critical, especially for the economy and the health sector at this time and we will continue to deliver on this mandate, Mr. Sackey assured.

About Us

Cenpower Generation Company Limited is the first Project Finance green-field project finance Independent Power Producer (IPP) in Ghana. The 350MW multi-fuel (light crude oil, distillate, and gas) Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) power plant is located in the municipality of Kpone, within the Tema industrial zone. Developed by Cenpower Generation Company Limited, the power plant commenced commercial operation on June 10, 2019, and supplies power to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), the state-owned utility company.
Saudi Arabias topmost religious authority, Grand Mufti Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, has asked Muslims to perform Ramazan and the Eid prayers at home if the coronavirus outbreak doesnt subside. The Grand Muftis statement was reported by the kingdoms Okaz newspaper.

Ramadans Taraweeh prayer can be performed at home if it cannot be performed at mosques due to the preventive measures taken to fight the spread of coronavirus, the Mufti is reported to have said.

He added that the same will need to be followed for the Eid prayers if the virus doesnt relent by then, necessitating continuance of social distancing measures.

The month of Ramazan, which is slated to begin on the evening of April 23 this year and end with Eid celebrations, likely on May 24, is considered to be Muslims holy month, marked by day-long fasts and prayers to the almighty.

Saudi Arabia had issued instructions last month to stop people from offering five daily prayers along with the Friday prayers inside mosques to aid in coronavirus containment efforts in the country.

The kingdom on Sunday indefinitely extended the curfew to 24 hours a day to fight new infections that have grown rapidly recently.

On Thursday, the Prophets Mosque in the holy city of Medina said that serving of evening meals in the mosque during Ramazan to poor people in need wont be allowed as part of the breaking of the daily fast.

Saudi Arabia currently has over 8,000 cases of coronavirus as per Worldometer, the website that tabulates and analyses all Covid-19 cases across the world, including over 90 deaths.

Indias minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, too, had made a similar appeal to the Muslim clerics and other community leaders in India, asking them to encourage Ramzan prayers inside homes instead at public places such as mosques.
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In the last month, 2.7 million Californians have filed for unemployment. With stay-at-home orders in place until at least May 15, those numbers are expected to go up. More than ever, people need help, not just with making rent or keeping businesses afloat but with the most basic necessities  like food.

Nowhere is that clearer than at Southern California's food banks and food pantries. Lines stretch out the door and snake around the block. Cars wait in mile-long queues at drive-through distribution centers.

"I've talked to people that have been in the food banking and pantry business for a lifetime, 30-plus years," says Harald Herrmann, CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County. "No one's ever seen anything like this."

A mix of perishable and non perishable foods available at a Southern California food bank. (Chava Sanchez/LAist)

What's The Difference Between A Food Bank And A Food Pantry?

The key difference is storage and distribution. A food bank is typically a non-profit that functions as a storage point  usually a big warehouse  for food donated by retailers, producers, restaurants and grocery stores. Food banks work with drivers to transport food to member agencies that distribute the food to people in need. These agencies can include meal programs, charities and distribution centers, known as food pantries, where people can receive groceries. Food pantries come in all forms. Some are tied to schools and some are mobile, traveling to neighborhoods that may not have a traditional food pantry.

Cars line up to get free groceries distribution on April 10 in Inglewood. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

What Are Southern California Food Banks Seeing?

Skyrocketing demand.

The week of April 6, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank distributed roughly 3 million pounds of food (or about 2.5 million meals) in Los Angeles County. "That overall volume is more than double the distribution volume of that same week a year ago," says president and CEO Michael Flood.

"Our demand has gone up March over February by over 30% as a food bank  not as a pantry, just as a food bank," Herrmann says. On April 11, at their weekly drive-through distribution held at Anaheim's Honda Center, Second Harvest gave out food to more than 6,000 cars.

Some of the pantries and agencies Second Harvest works with have seen a 200% increase in demand. Others, especially smaller operations, have closed due to the challenges of physical distancing, fewer volunteers and, in some cases, overwhelming demand.

"What we're seeing as a food bank is the steady increase, longer lines and increased demands, not only on the pantries that we serve but also at the food distribution points that we've opened as a safety net," Herrmann says.

Glen Curado, the CEO and founder of World Harvest Food Bank, has also been seeing a steady increase in patrons. Unlike most food pantries, World Harvest operates more like a co-op grocery. For $40 (cash, credit, or EBT), anyone can come in and fill up a shopping cart with food. (If you can't pay, you can do four hours of volunteer work at the store.)

"Before the coronavirus, we were getting 100 to 200 families coming through our doors Monday through Friday. That has doubled," Curado says, adding that on April 11, they served some 400 families. "We're seeing a huge spike because of the virus, even more so than back in 2008 during the recession."

A customer shops last July at World Harvest Food Bank. (Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images)

Was Food Insecurity A Problem Before The Pandemic?

Yes. It was a critical issue before coronavirus. In California, 4.7 million adults and 2 million children live in households affected by food insecurity, meaning they don't have reliable access to affordable and nutritious food.

"If I have a family of five and I'm working minimum wage, supporting my family, I have two choices: Do I pay the rent so we're not homeless or do I buy food for my family so they don't starve?" Curado says. The pandemic has only worsened those problems.

People wait in line to receive food at a food bank distribution on April 9 in Van Nuys. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Who's Showing Up To Get Food Assistance? The short answer is everyone.

Second Harvest is seeing a broader variety of people requesting food aid. "It's a population that we're calling the newly vulnerable. It's not just the working poor," Herrmann says. He's referring to two-income households that, due to a layoff or a furlough, have gone down to one income; families that relied on now-closed schools to provide some meal assistance for their children; and families that were at least a couple of paychecks away from needing aid.

"Just in [Orange] county alone, over 40% of our residents are tied to an industry that's at high risk of layoff," Herrmann says, referring to businesses associated with travel and hospitality.

"Our food has always gone to a range of people, everyone from families to seniors and veteran and college students," says Genevieve Riutort, chief development officer of the Westside Food Bank in Santa Monica.

Now, she's seeing a wave of people who are new to food banks and who have never needed aid before. Many were laid-off, furloughed or had hours cut at hospitality-related jobs. "Who among us doesn't know someone who is now on unemployment and struggling to get by?" she says.

A volunteer holds food to be distributed to a family at a Los Angeles Regional Food Bank distribution on April 9 in Van Nuys. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

How Are Food Banks Meeting Increased Demand?

By staying organized, planning ahead and working together with other food banks and relief efforts.

Herrmann says Second Harvest started gearing up in late February. They anticipated that the surplus food that grocery stores provide them would be impacted by the stay-at-home order, so the organization began buying shelf-stable foods, like canned goods, in larger quantities.

"If you look at the global and national landscape, we are in good shape. We have a five or six week cushion," Herrmann says.

Some grocery stores, because they were recently affected by heavy demand, have over-ordered certain items. That overflow is making its way to food banks.

The California Association of Food Banks has been providing food kits to Westside Food Bank and other food banks around the state. Food banks are also working together to share resources. The Farm to Family program allows food banks to share truckloads of fresh produce, especially when one bank simply can't handle so much of a single item.

"No one food bank has the capacity to take an entire truckload of carrots or any single produce item," Riutort says.

The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and World Harvest have provided more support to food box delivery programs that focus on vulnerable populations, like the elderly. Additionally, L.A. Regional has supplemented after-school meal programs too. Traditionally, programs like these are designed to provide meals primarily for children. But now families can go to grab-and-go distribution points to pick up food not only for their children, but the entire family as well.

Recipients stand with food they received at a food bank distribution in Van Nuys this month. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

What About COVID Safety Protocols?

To limit potential COVID-19 exposure, for both the public and staff, food banks have had to rethink the way they give out food.

One solution is drive-through distributions  aka pop-up food pantries  which allow can pick up food while practicing social distancing. On April 9, at a drive-through event in Van Nuys, L.A. Regional Food Bank distributed 36-pound food boxes that included chicken, oranges and rice to more than 2,500 families. At another distribution at the Forum in Inglewood, Flood says they were expecting 5,000 families. More than 7,000 turned up.

If someone doesn't have a car, they can still walk and line up  while maintaining six feet of space from other people  at distribution centers.

World Harvest, which operates more like a grocery store, has been following the same protocols as most supermarket chains. They've been sanitizing shopping carts, ensuring staff wear masks and making sure customers and staff are maintaining distance from each other.

A customer shops last year at World Harvest Food Bank in Los Angeles. (Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images)

What Are The Practical Challenges Of Getting Food To People?

Storing food and getting it to pantries while maintaining social distancing has been complicated.

Westside Food Bank has had to speed up its food distribution to meet the needs of member agencies. "We've never seen this happen before," Riutort says. "Typically, depending on the kind of food, an item might sit in our warehouse anywhere from a week to a couple of months. Now food is going out sometimes the same day it's delivered."

Food banks rely heavily on volunteers, many of whom are retirees. Older adults are at increased risk for complications due to COVID-19, so some food banks and pantries need volunteers. Other food banks aren't taking volunteers because they operate in tight spaces, so they can only work with small crews.

A volunteer stands with boxes of food to give away at a Los Angeles Regional Food Bank this month in Van Nuys. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Are Food Banks Going To Run Out Of Food? Not yet. So far, the overall supply of sourced food has remained steady, even with increased pressure on grocery stores due to stay-at-home restrictions.

At World Harvest, Curado sources some of his food from the hospitality industry. He says with restaurants and hotels mostly shuttered, the supply has remained steady.

Flood, at Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, echoes that sentiment. "We have not experienced a decrease in the amount of food coming into the food bank," he says. He thinks it's because the restaurant industry is largely frozen, freeing up overall supply. "We haven't seen an impact on donated food yet."

He is, however, keeping an eye on the economy. If things continue to worsen, the overall volume of donated food may be impacted, and they'd have to adjust and seek out other resources.

For now, food banks are doing all right, although they're busier than ever. "We've got hundreds of thousands of people that are depending on us right now," Herrmann says. "We take that very seriously, and we're planning accordingly."

Ana Meni, President of AFSCME Local 809, wears a face covering at a free groceries distribution in observance of Good Friday for those impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, including hospitality union workers, in Inglewood. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

How Can The Rest Of Us Help?

Donate money.

It's better than donating goods because more money means food banks can better leverage their wholesale purchasing power. "We can turn every dollar into enough food for four meals," says Riutort of the Westside Food Bank. "Even if you're shopping and buying cans at the 99 Cents Only Store, we can take that dollar and get a case of cans."

If you prefer to donate food, check with your local food bank to see what items they will accept. Remember, if you wouldn't eat it and it isn't nutritious, don't donate it.

If you're interested in contributing financially, or if you want to learn more about your local food bank or pantry, considering visiting their website.



The L.A. Regional Food Bank also has a helpful food pantry locator on its site.
An NHS hospital worker has been described as having a 'heart of gold' after health chiefs announced she had died from coronavirus.

Healthcare assistant Jenelyn Carter, 41, had been working on the wards of Morriston Hospital in Swansea when she contracted Covid-19.

Philippines-born Jenelyn, of Ammanford, South Wales, was treated by her own colleagues after being admitted for the virus but died.

Tributes have been paid to a nurse with a 'heart of gold' after she died from Coronavirus

Mark Madams, Morriston Hospital's nurse director said: 'Jenelyn would go the extra mile for anyone, and was a lovely caring person inside and out, with a heart of gold'

Her employers Swansea Bay University Health Board announced her death saying she was 'well loved' by patients and colleagues.

A spokeswoman said: 'We are deeply saddened to report that one of our healthcare assistants who was being treated for COVID-19 has died.

'Jenelyn Carter worked on the admissions ward at Morriston Hospital and was well loved by all her colleagues and patients.'

Tributes have been paid to Morriston Hospital Nurse Jenelyn Carter who was well loved by all her colleagues and patients died after being treated for Covid19

Mark Madams, Morriston Hospital's nurse director said: 'Jenelyn would go the extra mile for anyone, and was a lovely caring person inside and out, with a heart of gold'

Mark Madams, Morriston Hospital's nurse director said: 'Jenelyn would go the extra mile for anyone, and was a lovely caring person inside and out, with a heart of gold.

'We are devastated by her death and offer our sincere condolences to her family and friends.'
The first thing Stacy Allegro wants you to know: COVID-19 is definitely not just a really bad flu.

The Novato resident, 58, had a horrible fever for nine straight days  and thats before she was admitted to the hospital, and the real physical punishment began.

Ive never felt that kind of ... I cant even explain it, Allegro said. All systems shutting down basically. The pneumonia in my lungs was not good, the fever was still raging, they had IVs in both my arms. For the first two or three days I didnt even know where I was.

But as is the case for a lot of people right now, she seems to find catharsis in telling each agonizing detail of her tribulation, which leads to a very emotional ending. COVID-19 will devastate many lives. But through the pain, slow recovery and positive interactions with health providers who are barely visible underneath their personal protective equipment, Allegros story proves that human connection may be stronger than ever.

Allegros husband got a fever after returning from Morocco on March 10, and she started to feel sick on March 16. The CDC requirements for coronavirus testing were much more stringent at the time, and Allegro didnt meet the specifications for a test to confirm what all were pretty certain was COVID-19.

Her fever and night sweats got worse, then started to rage past logical pain limits, going on for nine days, including one trip to Kaiser San Rafael to confirm she had pneumonia.

I felt like a pinata, being punched at a 15-year-olds birthday party, Allegro said. My ribs started hurting, every single bone in my body; the sheets were too heavy on my feet. It was just awful.

Then her fever spiked to 103.7, and she called her primary care physician, who told her to rush to the emergency room. Arriving with the clothes on her back  a lucky pair of sweats that got her through a cancer scare  she sat down in a chair in the San Rafael Kaiser ER, and passed out.

The next thing I remember I was in a glassed-in sort of a box with doctors and nurses and all kinds of PPEs, Allegro said. You dont even know who they are, theyre so covered, they look like something out of a really horrible Twilight Zone.

What she didnt know at the time is that blood tests showed her liver and kidneys had perilous enzyme and creatinine levels  concerns that could lead to organ distress. She was isolated in a negative pressure room on the fourth floor, filled with equipment, and the fight of her life began.

That was when the monsters came out from under the bed, Allegro said. I was absolutely terrified because I didnt want to die without seeing my mom, my brother, my husband, my family, my dog. The nights felt like years.

The first three days were a blur, and the most pain Allegro has experienced in her life. Which brings up the second thing Allegro wants you to know: Healthy people are getting this, and some are dying.

Allegro has been a pilates instructor for 25 years, also working as development director for the National Service Animals Monument, and was in very good health. At the time she was admitted, the average COVID-19 patient at the Kaiser facility was 52 years old.

Its happening to patients of all ages, said Dr. Orna Hananel, Allegros Kaiser physician. Weve had young 20-year-old pregnant girls coming to the tent. Weve had a 92-year-old lady coming to the tent.

Before she contracted the illness, Allegro heard people minimizing the potential of the virus. Now she wishes everyone would limit their grocery trips, and err on the side of safety when following the rules. It didnt feel like any kind of flu Ive ever had ... because of the crushing fever she said. Any other flu you take some aspirin, and maybe the fever might come back. I had a fever for 19 days. The pressure in my lungs and the cough  I was just laid out there. I was spent.

Stacy Allegro

But there was a point, even before her recovery started, when the acts of kindness began to pile up.

Some of the nurses were covered in personal protective equipment, barely identifiable, with helmets like astronauts. So Allegro decided to interview each of the nurses  to find out their names, whether they had families, why they got into nursing.

And slowly but surely, these people, these sort of science fiction characters, became human, Allegro said. Because I knew who they were; I knew about their families  I couldnt believe that they were coming in every day risking their lives to save mine. It was shocking to me.

Allegro said Kaiser had departments she didnt know existed, including one with a spiritual counselor. Others brought her new sweats and T-shirts, as she perspired through multiple garments every night. The catering department took a comfort-food request for meatloaf. As Allegro met each new nurse, social worker or food service employee, she wrote down their names.

Allegro calls Hananel my angel. The doctor called her several times a day, sometimes at 10 or 11 p.m., and sent her care packages with useful things like a nail clipper and toothpaste.

Courtesy Stacy Allegro

For safety reasons, Hananel couldnt visit Allegro in person, even as she started improving halfway through the week. When Allegro discovered that the COVID-19 testing tent was just outside her window, she asked her doctor to step out and wave during her shift.

She not only stepped out, but she brought everybody out, the nurses and the people that were in there, Allegro said. And they all started waving to me, giving thumbs up. It was really, really touching.

Hananel offers a fond laugh when she remembers the conversations, including one where Allegro made a request for chocolate. She was very humorous, Hananel said. We felt like she was in Alcatraz, and we were bootlegging everything that she needed.

Allegros chart numbers were good enough, after a full week in the hospital, to talk about a discharge the next day. She still had a slight fever, and wasnt allowed to give anything to the nurses. Any item the patient left in her room would have to be destroyed. She had a pen, and a few pieces of paper.

And thats the last thing Allegro wants you to know: Even in the lowest moments, there is still so much good in the world.

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.

I took that paper, and I wrote a sign, Allegro said. I took the tape that they use for your IV to hold it down and I taped it all together. And I used some surgical gloves because I thought I sorely needed some decoration. They represent the purple heart, and the hands that helped me through this. And then I folded an origami bird, because I thought this means love and peace. And I just sort of stuck it all together and hung it on the wall.

Theres a main note, with others written on paper hearts. The gloves and bird and a little sunlight add warmth to the cold hospital wall, which reads, in part:

To everyone on the 4th floor,

There are not enough words to express my love and gratitude for all of you! You are the bravest people I have ever met.

You made me feel like family at a time when my own family could not be with me. You chased away all the monsters, including the ones under my bed. I will never forget any of you. May you all be safe and watched over.

Love & sincere gratitude,

Stacy Allegro

Allegro left Kaiser on April 3, to recover in her parents old home in Sonoma, with instructions to stay in isolation until she was two weeks asymptomatic.

The pneumonia wasnt gone when she left Kaiser, and the night sweats continued, but the isolation was the hardest part. Her rescue dog Benson joined her a few days ago. Video conferences with Hananel have been one highlight of her days.

I still every once in a while wake up with night terrors, thinking Im still in the hospital, Allegro said, as the end of her two-week isolation neared. The nights still seem like weeks.

Allegro took one drive through Santa Rosa, to pick up medication through a quickly unrolled car window. As she drove, Allegro said she was terrified to see people not wearing masks, not social distancing, not taking the virus seriously enough.

I would be wrecked if I thought I gave this to any other human being on the planet, she said. Im paralyzed. Even if my doctor called today and said, Stacy, youre good, you can wear your gloves and mask, you can go shopping. I wouldnt do it.

But Allegro says the disease has put me closer to my feelings than ever before. Shes telling her mother and other loved ones how much she loves them. Shes expressing gratitude.

This whole thing, she said, has renewed my faith in the human spirit.

Peter Hartlaub is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub




Haiti - News : Zapping...





FLASH : Earthquake 5.5 to 30 km from Port-au-Prince

This Saturday morning April 18, 2020 at 9:14:07 am, an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 on the Richter scale was recorded, not far from Gressier and Leogane, at 18.45N, 72.61W, 30km at South-West of Port-au-Prince, 7 km South-East of Leogane, at a depth of 121km. No damage reported by the municipal committees of the Directorate of Civil Protection (DPC).



102 Gourdes for 1 US dollar

The Gourde continues to depreciate, Friday it took at least 102 gourdes, for the purchase of a US dollar in commercial banks.



USA : Health support of 13.2 million

The Government of the United States of America has decided to commit $13.2 million in health and humanitarian assistance to Haiti. This sum will support, among other things, awareness-raising activities, access to water and sanitation, infection prevention, Covid-19 case management, laboratories, etc. The United States has invested 1.8 billion in health in Haiti over the past 20 years.



Death of Mambo Annette Auguste

The Mambo (voodoo priestess) and political activist Annette Auguste alias "So Anne", died on the night of Thursday to Friday April 17, 2020, at the age of 80 years, at the Bernard Mevs hospital, from cancer. "I would like to associate my voice with that of my wife Sophia Martelly to salute the memory and celebrate the passage among us of Annette Auguste. The memory that I will keep of her is that of a fighter, a true political activist who showed boundless generosity towards the most deprived, this until her last fight against death 'So Ann ou nan ke no'" former President Michel Martelly.



The PM is waiting for the masks for the distribution

The Prime Minister revealed this week that he had ordered 10 million masks but has so far received only around 300,000 to 400,000. He asked the population to wait as the government plans to distribute masks across the country. In addition, he recommends regular hand washing, wearing masks and even glasses in order to protect the eyes, which are a gateway to the virus...



A BSEIPH delegation visiting Camp Leveque

Saturday April 4, 2020, a delegation from the Office of the Secretary of State for the Integration of Persons with Disabilities (BSEIPH) led by Secretary of State Soinette Desir was visiting Camp Leveque, locality of Cabaret where deaf people live, in view to make an inventory and to deepen the study of hydraulic works to allow the community of disabled people in Camp Leveque to have access to drinking water. On this occasion, Mrs. Desir met with Josnel Exalus, President of the Association of the Deaf of Leveque of Haiti around their various concerns. Food kits were handed to her for the benefit of members of the association.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















The state of alarm decreed in Spain a month ago to combat the coronavirus crisis has put transparency legislation on hold. While citizens may still file requests for information, the automatic reply is that these will not be processed until the country goes back to normal.

This makes it impossible to access documents such as the meeting minutes of the expert committee that the government says it is basing its coronavirus decisions on, or a copy of the contract showing the purchase of 640,000 rapid tests from China that turned out to be defective.

It is also not possible to access data that might indicate how many tests are being conducted by each region of Spain, a figure that the Health Ministry is not revealing even though it has this information. Spain implemented a Transparency Law in 2014.

We are forced to be in confinement, but not to be left in the dark Daniel Cerdan, Canary Islands transparency official

Procurement is another opaque area. Ever since the state of alarm was declared on March 14, public agencies have stopped making new purchases save for urgently needed material such as medical equipment and protective gear. These acquisitions are going through special emergency channels designed to deal with natural disasters, allowing the government to, for instance, order road repairs without public bidding in the event of a flood.

A few regional governments such as Catalonia, and individual centers like La Paz Hospital in Madrid, are releasing information about some of their emergency purchases, including who they are buying from and how much they are paying. But the Spanish Health Ministry is keeping information about its own purchases under wraps.

The only way to obtain this kind of information right now is through the daily briefings offered by government officials. But Health Minister Salvador Illa has repeatedly avoided answering direct questions about the mysterious Spanish distributor used by the ministry as an intermediary to purchase the unreliable coronavirus tests that had to be returned to China. Yet information about this government contract should be public, as Illa was recently reminded by a public procurement advisory board that answers to the Finance Ministry.

In a recent report disclosed by the online daily El Confidencial, this body said that the emergency measures are no excuse to withhold information about these purchases, and that the Health Ministry is therefore violating national laws on public procurement. The ministry has not replied to questions sent by EL PAIS.

A shipment of medical supplies flown in from China on a plane chartered by Telefonica.

The opacity extends to some regions, though not others. Madrid is not processing written requests for information, a regional government spokesperson has confirmed. Nor is Andalusia. But Castilla y Leon is. We believe that this situation demands all possible transparency, and this right [to file requests] is an essential ingredient, said Joaquin Meseguer, the regional chief of transparency and good governance. Unlike other regions, Castilla y Leon has been providing detailed, comprehensive data throughout the coronavirus crisis.

Emilio Guichot, a professor of administrative law at Seville University, adds that transparency legislation forces the Health Ministry to show how it is spending its money, and that all public contracts should be available on the governments transparency website, Portal de Transparencia, regardless of what mechanisms were used to make the purchase.

Esperanza Zambrano, an official at the Transparency and Good Governance Council  Spains transparency watchdog  said that citizen requests regarding the coronavirus crisis and its management should be processed even during the state of alarm.

The way things stand, any request filed now will not be looked at until April 26 at the earliest, which is when the state of alarm officially ends (although Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has already said he will probably ask for another 15-day extension). And the government has 30 days to reply, which means that an answer should not be expected before May or June.

It should not be the case that just when more transparency is required to create trust among citizens, there is less of it Miguel Angel Blanes, jurist

This date clearly does not match the immediate need for transparency required by this situation, and which is made worse by the absence of a general proactive attitude towards transparency on matters of interest, writes Zambrano.

It should not be the case that just when more transparency is required to create trust among citizens, there is less of it, said Miguel Angel Blanes, a jurist who specializes in transparency issues.

We are forced to be in confinement, but not to be left in the dark, said Daniel Cerdan, a transparency official with the regional government of the Canary Islands, who adds that it is inconsistent to withhold information while simultaneously declaring the media an essential service.

One expert consulted by this newspaper believes that transparency is not a priority right now. Vicente Alvarez, a professor of administrative law at Extremadura University, said that because of the current crisis we are living in a different juridical moment.

When these measures end, it will be time to hold [authorities] to account politically, administratively and juridically, he added. Were going to see millions of lawsuits.

English version by Susana Urra.
At least 26 Indian Navy personnel have tested positive for coronavirus at the Western Naval Command in Mumbai, in first case of a major outbreak of the deadly disease in the Indian armed forces.

All the infected sailors were serving at the INS Angre, a shore-based logistics and support establishment, and they are undergoing treatment at a Navy hospital, official sources said.

"The number of infected sailors is 26," said a source.

The Navy has launched a large-scale contact tracing operation to track the people who may have come in contact with the sailors.

The outbreak of the infection in the Indian Navy comes at a time when a number of navies globally are grappling with the pandemic. A sailor on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier, reported as many as 500 cases of the virus. The French Navy has also been hit hard by the pandemic.

The sources said 25 of of the infected sailors were staying at a building having single-room accomodations and barracks within the INS Angre complex, while one sailor was living with his mother in his own house.

The sailor's mother has also tested positive, the sources said.

The Navy is carrying out virus testing of all people staying in the residential accommodation and it has been declared as a "containment zone", while INS Angre was put under total lockdown as per the prescribed protocol of apex medical research body ICMR, they said.

In a statement, the Navy said 21 serving personnel have been tested positive for COVID-19 at the facility.

"Most of these are asymptomatic and have been traced to a single sailor who was tested positive on April 7. They all reside in the same accommodation block at INS Angre," it said.

Sources said the top defence ministry officials as well as the Naval headquarters are keeping an eye on the incident.

They said the Navy has ordered all its establishments to maintain highest precaution to protect the personnel from the virus.

It is the first case of a sizeable number of military personnel being treated for COVID-19. The Indian Army has reported eight cases of the deadly virus so far.

Last week, Navy Chief Admiral Karambir Singh, in a video message, told his personnel that vital operational assets such as ships and submarines must remain free from the virus.

"The coronavirus pandemic is unprecedented and it has never been seen before. Its impact has been extraordinary across the globe, including India," he said.

The danger posed by this disease is real, imminent and unprecedented, he noted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Investors may wish to note that an insider of China Technology Industry Group Limited, , recently netted from selling stock, receiving an average price of . On the bright side, that's just a small sale and only reduced their holding by .

Check out our latest analysis for China Technology Industry Group

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At China Technology Industry Group

Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by insider Bo Huang for HK$95m worth of shares, at about HK$0.44 per share. That means that even when the share price was higher than HK$0.08 (the recent price), an insider wanted to purchase shares. While their view may have changed since the purchase was made, this does at least suggest they have had confidence in the company's future. We always take careful note of the price insiders pay when purchasing shares. As a general rule, we feel more positive about a stock if insiders have bought shares at above current prices, because that suggests they viewed the stock as good value, even at a higher price.

Over the last year, we can see that insiders have bought 729.60m shares worth HK$144m. But they sold 216363636 shares for HK$19m. Overall, China Technology Industry Group insiders were net buyers during the last year. They paid about HK$0.20 on average. I'd consider this a positive as it suggests insiders see value at around the current price. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by individuals) over the last 12 months, below. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction!

SEHK:8111 Recent Insider Trading April 18th 2020

China Technology Industry Group is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of growing companies with insider buying.

Insider Ownership

Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. Usually, the higher the insider ownership, the more likely it is that insiders will be incentivised to build the company for the long term. China Technology Industry Group insiders own 40% of the company, currently worth about HK$69m based on the recent share price. I like to see this level of insider ownership, because it increases the chances that management are thinking about the best interests of shareholders.

Story continues

What Might The Insider Transactions At China Technology Industry Group Tell Us?

It is good to see recent purchasing. And an analysis of the transactions over the last year also gives us confidence. But we don't feel the same about the fact the company is making losses. When combined with notable insider ownership, these factors suggest China Technology Industry Group insiders are well aligned, and quite possibly think the share price is too low. Looks promising! While we like knowing what's going on with the insider's ownership and transactions, we make sure to also consider what risks are facing a stock before making any investment decision. To that end, you should learn about the 5 warning signs we've spotted with China Technology Industry Group (including 2 which shouldn't be ignored).

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.
A 16-year-old high school sophomore has alleged in a federal lawsuit against a Wisconsin sheriff that she was threatened with jail if she didn't remove social media posts saying she had COVID-19.

The Wisconsin Institute for Liberty and Law filed the lawsuit against Marquette County Sheriff Joseph Konrath and a patrol sergeant.

The lawsuit alleges that the sergeant went to the home of Amyiah Cohoon of Oxford, Wisconsin, last month and demanded that her Instagram posts be deleted or she and her parents would face arrest.

'I am still on breathing treatment but have beaten the coronavirus. Stay home and be safe,' Amyiah Cohoon, 16, captioned the March 26 Instagram post which she was told to remove

The teenager, pictured, has accused Sheriff Konrath of violating her First Amendment rights in a lawsuit brought in Green Bay Federal Court

Cohoon has accused Sheriff Konrath of violating her First Amendment rights in a lawsuit brought in Green Bay Federal Court. Her parents are also plaintiffs.

No one was threatened with arrest, and an 'aggressive defense' is planned, said Samuel Hall, attorney for the sheriff and the Marquette County Sheriff's Department to Fox News.

Hall says that the Sheriff's Office acted in 'good faith'.

'I am finally home after being hospitalized for a day and a half. I am still on breathing treatment but have beaten the coronavirus. Stay home and be safe,' Amyiah wrote in a March 26 Instagram post, according to the lawsuit.

She also posted a picture of herself in the hospital with an oxygen mask on her face.

Patrol Sgt. Cameron Klump, pictured, left, went to the Cohoon's home under the orders of Sheriff Joseph Konrath, right to demand that Amiyah Cohoon, 16, delete her post where she told Instagram viewers she had coronavirus

It's alleged the following day, Konrath sent Sgt. Cameron Klump to Amyiah's home whereupon Klump threatened to arrest the teen and her parents for disorderly conduct if her COVID-19 posts weren't deleted.

'Sheriff Konrath advised me he wished for me to respond to the residence and have the post removed from her social media,' Klump wrote in his incident report, according to the lawsuit.

Hall said the girl's messages 'caused distress and panic within the school system and law enforcement acted at the request of school health officials in a good faith effort to avoid unfounded panic.'

Cohoon, a sophomore in the Westfield School District in Marquette County, suffered a severe respiratory illness with symptoms matching those of COVID-19 during a spring break trip to Florida with the school's band, the lawsuit said.

The teen came down with a fever and dry cough five days after returning home on March 15.

The sophomore became ill after she traveled to Disney World and Universal Studios with her Westfield Area High School band class on March 7, at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States

The lawsuit has been filed on behalf of Amyiah and her parents, Richard, pictured, and Angela, by the Wisconsin Institute for Liberty and Law, seeks nominal damages and a declaration that the social media posts were protected free speech

Her mother, Angela Cohoon, took her to the emergency room at Divine Savior Hospital on March 22, when she started having difficulty breathing.

She tested negative for the disease, but her attorney said that doctors told the girl's family that she likely had the virus but missed the window for testing positive. Upon returning back home, she was told to self-quarantine.

Her condition worsened and had to be taken to UW Children's Hospital in Madison where she stayed overnight.

It was after she returned from hospital that she posted a selfie of her wearing an oxygen mask.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of Amyiah and her parents, Richard and Angela, by the Wisconsin Institute for Liberty and Law, seeks nominal damages and a declaration that the social media posts were protected free speech.
Iran celebrates Army Day with COVID-19 aid convoys

Iran Press TV

Friday, 17 April 2020 9:14 AM

Iran has marked its annual National Army day by replacing usual parades with a COVID-19 aid march of military vehicles designed and packed with supplies to help assist the country's battle with the coronavirus.

The parades, which took place across the country on Friday, showcased some of the Army's equipment used to assist the country fight against the outbreak, including mobile hospitals, disinfection equipment and specially designed vehicles.

The convoys of military vehicles were dispatched to assist in disinfection operations and to distribute aid after leaving the premises of the march.

According to the latest numbers released by Iran's Health Ministry on Thursday, 77,995 Iranians have contracted the disease, and 4,869 others have died. Another 52,229 have also recovered.

'Army assisting frontline medical workers'

Addressing Army Day celebrations, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the usual parades were not possible due to "health protocols".

He said the Army, along with other branches of the armed forces, were standing side by side with the the country's health personnel in "protecting the lives of the people" from the outbreak.

"You were once in the frontlines and the citizens were behind it; however, it is now the health sector personnel which are on the frontlines and you who are trying to assist them from behind them," he added.

The Iranian president praised the Iranian Army's role in assisting the country in other times of need such as during natural disasters.

"Our Army is not a symbol of militarism but a manifestation of supporting the nation and upholding its national interests," he said.

Also addressing the Army Day celebrations, Chief Commander of Iran's Army, Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi said that the Army, along with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps and the Police, were providing services in 49 cities across the country.

"I have to especially thank the more than 11,000 Army medical personnel serving alongside the country's health workers," he added.

"I assure the Iranian nation that the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be a firm barrier against its enemies and will be patiently and passionately alongside the Iranian people," he added.

'Iran Army to receive indigenously made T-90 tanks'

This year's different Army Day celebrations come as the country's annual military parades usually showcased the Army's latest equipment upgrades.

Speaking a day earlier on the occasion of the Army Day celebrations, Brigadier General Kiomars Heidari, Commander of the Iranian Army's Ground Forces, said new weapons will be supplied to the Army later this year as part of the "Labbaik 2" program.

The program will provide the force with equipment "fitting the Army's new structure", he said, including a new weapon replacing the Army's widely used G3 rifle and three new machine guns.

"In the field of armor, we are currently working on developing the T-90 tank with assistance from the Armed Forces and the Defense Ministry," he said, adding that tests were underway.

"We have added seven new upgrades on it, including stabilizers and biological defense systems, turning the tank to a future warfare weapon," he said.

"We hope to receive the first series of tanks in October," he added.



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SPRINGFIELD - A man accused of attempting to bomb a Jewish nursing facility was ordered back to jail by a federal judge on Friday, following his release on bail just two days earlier.

John Michael Rathbun, of Lori Lane in East Longmeadow, was arrested on April 15 after FBI agents searched his home for evidence related to a makeshift firebomb placed outside the entrance of Ruths House in Longmeadow.

He was charged with two arson-related counts and faces up to 20 years in prison.

A large container filled with five gallons of gasoline, stuffed with a Christian church pamphlet and set on fire was discovered outside the facility around 10 a.m. on April 2, according to court records.

The homemade bomb flamed out before it caused any injuries, police have said.

The alleged arson attempt seemed one of thousands of recorded hate crimes cropping up across the U.S. each year -- a large number targeting Jews, watchdogs have said.

Rathbun, 36, is an admitted, longtime drug user and petty criminal. He was released by U.S. Magistrate Judge Katherine Robertson to home confinement on April 15, the same day he was arrested.

Prosecutors who believe Rathbun is linked to white supremacy groups appealed the ruling.

The defendants freedom proved fleeting. He was remanded to the U.S. Marshals Service and went back to jail by late Friday afternoon.

The defendant not only built the device, he deployed it at an extremely vulnerable place, at an extremely vulnerable time, Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven H. Breslow argued during a hearing on Friday afternoon, referring to the persisting plight of the elderly during the COVD-19 pandemic.

Rathbun was ordered back behind bars pending trial by U.S. District Judge Mark G. Mastroianni. The judge ruled Rathbun was too unstable to remain at his parents home with scant supervision in the coronavirus criminal justice world where electronic monitoring is essentially not possible.

Ruths House, a picturesque campus set back from Converse Street, offers 68 assisted living apartments for seniors. The facility is managed by JGS Lifecare, a nonprofit organization dedicated to caring for Jewish elders and those of all faiths, according to its website.

Breslow argued the would-be firebomb potentially placed many in danger, targeting Jewish seniors during the coronavirus crisis, when they and all nursing home residents are already in peril.

Rathbun has denied the allegations and any affiliations with anti-Semitic or white supremacy groups.

Had the device ignited, it may have sparked an inferno at a well-traveled spot in the Western Massachusetts bedroom community -- where pedestrians, joggers, parents pushing strollers and staff heading in and out of the campus are plentiful, Breslow said.

A private Jewish elementary school, three synagogues and a Jewish community center also sit in close proximity. Rathbuns family home in the neighboring town is less than two miles away, the prosecutor said. Rathbun admitted traveling by there each day to go to a methadone clinic to mitigate his heroin addiction.

According to court records, Longmeadow police discovered a sturdy plastic container filled with five gallons of gasoline, and a charred Christian church pamphlet jammed in its spout around 10 on that April morning.

The DNA profile of Rathbun -- a previously convicted felon whose DNA had already been logged into law enforcement databases -- was discovered on both the container and the leaflet, FBI agents said. The items were speckled with blood and Rathbun had fresh wounds on his hands when his house was raided at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, court records show.

He was charged with two arson-related offenses and federal prosecutors have characterized the incident as a hate crime. An online war had been waged against the Jewish geriatric care campus by anonymous white supremacists, FBI agents have said.

An online user logged into a white supremacy chatroom in March and invited others to target that jew nursing home in longmeadow (sic) massachusetts in addition to deeming April 3 jew killing day, according to an FBI affidavit filed in connection with the case.

Another post from the same apparent user read F--- JEWS, according to court records.

An Illinois synagogue also was cited as a possible target in the same chatroom, Breslow said.

The FBI and the Anti-Defamation League indicate Jews were the most targeted for hate crimes among religion-based groups in 2018, a consistent statistic since 1991. Nearly 60 percent of hate crimes were leveled at Jews, the organizations reported.

Leaders of Ruths House and JGS submitted letters to the court saying the April 2 incident -- which occurred six days before Passover -- placed residents and staff in fear.

Our staffs, already under tremendous mental stress, now fear for their lives as they come to work. Our residents, already fighting for their lives against COVID-19, now are in fear of their lives from a man filled with hate with the audacity to take action to kill because of that hate, and others like him, said a JGS director, in court filings.

Rathbuns attorney, Timothy Watkins, argued that agents found no evidence of white supremacy propaganda at his clients home or in his car while executing search warrants.

This court has had its share of fringe defendants. These are not people who keep quiet about it ... There is absolutely zero evidence of this at his house or in the cars, Watkins said.

Agents discovered gasoline containers at Rathbuns home, where he lives with his parents and daughter. But, Watkins said they were intended for a lawnmower and a leaf blower the family kept in a shed.

Rathbun has a history of OUIs, breaking and entering offenses, receiving stolen property, restraining orders and violations of those, Breslow said.

Rathbun was on probation for violating a restraining order last year when the Wednesday arrest occurred, and a brand new arrest warrant issued out of Palmer District Court for while the federal court hearing was literally midstream on Friday, Breslow said.

So, Rathbun was going to be held by state court officials if not by the federal system.

While Watkins argued there was little to no evidence his client was part of a white supremacy hatred group and the governments evidence was thin on that point, Mastroianni seemed intent on detention.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Katheriene Robertson on Wednesday appeared heavily focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and keeping pretrial defendants out of jails where they could be exposed to the disease. But Breslow argued there were no cases among Hampden County inmates.

I find it ironic ... if not terribly disturbing that the defendant would  particularly target a nursing home, of whatever faith, already under siege from this pandemic  and then seek shelter, and argue the COVID-19 pandemic should keep him out of jail, Breslow said.

He added that there were no cases of COVID-19 among inmates at the Hamdpen County House of Corrections.

Watkins countered that there were nine cases among staff who had contracted the virus.

Make no mistake-- this is a pandemic, and its only a matter of time, Watkins said.

Mastroianni reversed Robertsons earlier ruling. Rathbun will remain behind bars.

"I find easily that Mr. Rathbun is a danger to the community through clear and convincing evidence, " the judge said.

He was led away in handcuffs.
COVID-19 as of Friday had killed 398 residents of nursing and personal care homes  56% of total deaths in Pennsylvania, Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine said.

In addition to the deaths, another 3,716 people living in the facilities and 420 employees had tested positive for the new coronavirus, Levine said Friday. Levine said 321 facilities had cases.

She said preventing further spread of the infections is a top priority for her department.

Levine noted facilities have been closed to visitors since early in the crisis. She said that means the infections are being carried inside by employees, highlighting dangers that occur when the disease is spreading in a community.

The health department, she said, is working the facilities, with one of the main tactics involving isolating residents who are infected in a separate wing of the facility, and designating staff to care for them exclusively.

She said another key tactic is making sure staff caring for them has adequate protective equipment.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvanias overall infection rate is leveling off, even with daily spikes state officials attribute to a drop in tests and reporting of test results related to the recent holidays.

Gov. Tom Wolf said that, rather than focusing on daily cases, state officials focus on a rolling average.

He said Its too early to declare victory  But our sense is the rate of increase is going down.

Below is an updated look at Pennsylvanias most pertinent coronavirus numbers:

April 17

1,706 new cases

29,441 total cases

6% increase in total cases from the previous day

1.4 growth factor (for new cases)

49 new deaths

756 total deaths

2,524 people hospitalized with COVID-19 as of early Friday  equaling about 9%of people who tested positive

2.6 percent death rate from COVID-19

654 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, or 26 percent, on breathing ventilators

1,472 health care workers had tested positive

April 16

1,245 new cases

27,735 total cases

5% increase in total cases from previous day

1.1 growth factor (for new cases)

60 new deaths

707 total deaths

April 15

1,145 new cases

26,490 total cases

5% increase

0.99 growth factor

63 new deaths

647 total deaths

April 14

1,146 new cases

25,345 total cases

5% increase

0.8 growth factor

60 new deaths

584 total deaths

April 13

1,366 cases

24,199 total cases

6% increase

1.2 growth factor

17 new deaths

524 total deaths

April 12

1,178 new cases

22,833 total cases

5% increase

0.7 growth factor

13 new deaths

507 total deaths

April 11

1,676 new cases

21,655 total cases

8% increase

0.96 growth factor

78 new deaths

494 total deaths

April 10

1,751 new cases

19,979 total cases

10% increase

0.88 growth factor

78 new deaths

416 total deaths

April 9

1,989 new cases

18,228 total cases

12% increase

1.2 growth factor

29 new deaths

338 total deaths

April 8

1,680 new cases

16,239 total cases

12% increase

1.1 growth factor

70 new deaths

310 total deaths

April 7

1,579 new cases

14,559 total cases

12% increase

1.07 growth factor

78 new deaths

240 total deaths

April 6

1,470 new cases

12,890 total cases

13% increase

0.99 growth factor

12 new deaths

162 total deaths

April 5

1,493 new

11,510 total cases

15% increase

0.93 growth factor

14 new deaths

150 total deaths

April 4

1,597 new

10,017 total

19% increase

1.14 growth factor

34 new deaths

136 total deaths

April 3

1,404 new cases

8,420 total cases

20% increase

1.16 growth factor

102 deaths, all adults

April 2

1,211 new cases

7,016 total cases

21% increase

1.26 growth factor

16 new deaths

90 total death, all adults

April 1

962 new cases

5,805 total cases

20% increase

1.27 growth factor

74 deaths, all adults

about 620 hospitalized since March 6

March 31

756 new cases

4,843 cases

18% increase

1.09 growth factor

63 deaths

about 514 hospitalized since March 6

about 159 needed ICU

about 94 needed ventilators

RELATED: Read all PennLive coverage of the new coronavirus here.

March 30

693 new cases

4,087 total cases

20% increase

1.06 growth factor

48 deaths

about 386 hospitalized since March 6

about 110 needed ICU

about 67 needed ventilators

March 29

649 new cases

3,400 total cases

24% increase

1.22 growth factor

March 28

533 new cases

2,751 total cases

24% percent increase

1.004 growth factor

March 27

531 new cases

2,218 total cases

31% increase

.95 growth factor

March 26

560 new cases

1,687 total cases

50% increase

2 growth factor

March 25

276 new cases

1,127 total cases

32% increase

1.33 growth factor

March 24

207 new cases

851 total cases

32% increase

1.25 growth factor

March 23

165 new cases

644 total cases

34% increase

1.53 growth factor

March 22

108 new cases

479 total cases

29% increase

1.05 growth factor

March 21

103 new cases

371 total cases

38% increase

1.24 growth factor

March 20

83 new cases

268 total cases

45% increase

1.6 growth factor

March 19

52 new cases

185 total cases

39% increase

1.4 growth factor

March 18

37 new cases

133 total cases

39% increase

1.85 growth factor

March 17

20 new cases

96 total cases

26% increase

1.54 growth factor

March 16

13 new cases

76 total cases

21% increase

.81 growth factor

March 15

16 new cases

63 total cases

34% increase

2.67 growth factor

March 14

6 new cases

47 total cases

14% increase

.31 growth factor

March 13

19 new cases

41 total cases

86% increase

3.2 growth factor

March 12

6 new cases

22 total cases

38 percent increase

1.5 growth factor

March 11

4 new cases

16 total cases

33% increase

2 growth factor

March 10

2 new cases

12 total cases

20% increase

.5 growth factor

March 9

4 new cases

10 total cases

67% increase

growth factor 2

March 8

2 new cases

6 total cases

50% increase

1 growth factor

March 7

2 new cases

4 total case

100% increase

1 growth factor

March 6

Pennsylvania registers its first 2 cases
Can the cops in Massachusetts use digital surveillance technologies to track every drivers every movement throughout the state? Not without violating the constitution, says the states highest court.

In a series of crucial court rulings culminating in the historic 2018 Supreme Court decision in Carpenter v. United States, courts in the United States have recognized that 21st century electronic surveillance capabilities fundamentally change the balance of power between the people and the government. In Carpenter, the nations high court ruled that police cannot search our historical cell phone location information without a warranteven if the data reveal a persons movements in public spaces.

Today, in Commonwealth v. McCarthy, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts applies the logic developed in cell phone location tracking cases like Carpenter to police use of automatic license plate readers. With enough cameras in enough locations, the Court says, the historic location data from an ALPR system in Massachusetts would invade a reasonable expectation of privacy and would constitute a search for constitutional purposes.

Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) use optical character recognition to automatically translate images of license plates into machine readable text, creating a file of each car that passes by the cameras. Each license plate reader file contains a picture of the car, the time, date, and location of the surveillance capture, and the cars license plate number. These data are retained in local, state, regional, and federal databases, and shared among police and federal agencies as well as private corporations. One firm, Vigilant Solutions, boasts a license plate reader database containing billions of images and associated metadata. With a large enough database, populated by license plate reader cameras from across a city, state, or region, police and private entities can keep tabs on the real-time and historical movements of millions of people not suspected of any wrongdoing. Effectively, the technology facilitates dragnet surveillance of motorists.

Here in Massachusetts, dozens of police departments maintain their own license plate reader systems, the Massachusetts State Police key among them. It is unknown how many license plate readers the State Police maintain or access, or how many data points officers have at their disposal. According to a policy governing the State Police, it maintains a one-year retention period for the data its own cameras collect.

In Commonwealth v. McCarthy, the State Police used information from four of its license plate readers at two fixed locations to track the movements of Mr. McCarthy to and from Cape Cod. The information from license plate readers on two bridges was used to investigate and ultimately prosecute Mr. McCarthy on drug charges. Mr. McCarthy moved to suppress evidence related to the license plate readers, arguing that the use of the technology to track his visits to Cape Cod, absent a warrant, violated his rights under Article 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, the states version of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

But the record in Mr. McCarthys case did not cover the full extent of license plate reader surveillance in Massachusetts. As a result, the only evidence before the Supreme Judicial Court concerned data from two Cape Cod bridges. This snapshot-style surveillance, the Court holds, wasnt sufficiently sensitive or detailed enough to trigger constitutional protection.

But the Supreme Judicial Courts opinion today is clear: in a case with more evidence about the extent of license plate reader surveillance in Massachusetts, the result might have been different.

With enough cameras in enough locations, the historic location data from an ALPR system in Massachusetts would invade a reasonable expectation of privacy and would constitute a search for constitutional purposes. The one-year retention period indicated in the [State Police] retention policy certainly is long enough to warrant constitutional protection, the Court holds.

Like [cell phone location] data, ALPRs allow the police to reconstruct peoples past movements without knowing in advance who police are looking for, thus granting police access to a category of information otherwise [and previously] unknowable. [] Like both [cell phone] and GPS data, ALPRs circumvent traditional constraints on police surveillance power by being cheap (relative to human surveillance) and surreptitious.

Crucially, the opinion considers what kinds of license plate reader surveillance could trigger constitutional protection, noting the importance of both the quantity of cameras and the sensitivity of the locations under surveillance.

Of course, the constitutional question is not merely an exercise in counting cameras; the analysis should focus, ultimately, on the extent to which a substantial picture of the defendants public movements are revealed by the surveillance. For that purpose, where the ALPRs are placed matters too, the Court explains.

ALPRs near constitutionally sensitive locations  the home, a place of worship, etc.  reveal more of an individuals life and associations than does an ALPR trained on an interstate highway. A network of ALPRs that surveils every residential side street paints a much more nuanced and invasive picture of a drivers life and public movements than one limited to major highways that open into innumerable possible destinations. For while no ALPR network is likely to be as detailed in its surveillance as GPS or [cell phone] data, one well may be able to make many of the same inferences from ALPR data that implicate expressive and associative rights.

Crucially, the SJC also says that any evaluation of the constitutionality of license plate reader surveillance mustnt be based merely on the few data points police and prosecutors use as evidence in a criminal prosecution, but rather on the larger universe of data that the government has amassed or accessed: In determining whether a reasonable expectation of privacy has been invaded, the Court holds, it is not the amount of data that the Commonwealth seeks to admit in evidence that counts, but, rather, the amount of data that the government collects or to which it gains access.

Ultimately, the Court recognizes that members of the public and law enforcement officers will need additional guidance, and that more specific rules will come into focus in future court cases.

But the Commonwealth of Massachusetts doesnt have to wait for those cases to work themselves through the courts. Lawmakers on Beacon Hill can act to join the long list of states that have passed comprehensive privacy protections for police use of license plate readers. Now that the states highest court has said that persistent, pervasive, dragnet surveillance of motorists movements would violate the Constitution, the ball is in the legislatures proverbial court to fill in the details.

The post Mass. High Court: License Plate Reader Surveillance Can Trigger Constitutional Protections appeared first on Privacy SOS.
HONG KONG  More than a dozen leading pro-democracy activists and former lawmakers in Hong Kong were arrested on Saturday in connection with the protests that raged in the city last year, the biggest roundup of prominent opposition figures in recent memory.

The arrests signaled a broader crackdown on the antigovernment movement that roiled the semiautonomous city last year, one of the most significant challenges to Communist Party rule in decades. Beijing and pro-government supporters in the city have called for lawmakers to pass national security laws that residents worry would allow the mainland authorities to further encroach upon the territorys civic freedoms.

The high-profile arrests were made as Hong Kong battled to contain the coronavirus outbreak, which has helped quiet down the huge street protests but fueled further distrust of the authorities. The virus has halted protests around the world, forcing people to stay home and giving the authorities new laws for limiting public gatherings and detaining people with less fear of public blowback while many residents remained under lockdowns or observing limits on their movement.

But the arrests on Saturday in Hong Kong, along with a renewed push for national security legislation in the city, could anger protesters and reinvigorate mass demonstrations that had tapered off.
YNW Melly had his request for house arrest denied earlier this week, after he was diagnosed with the coronavirus while waiting trial on murder charges due to being infected with the coronavirus.

The 20-year-old rapper used his Twitter account on Thursday to ask Kanye West for help as he remains in the Broward County Jail in Florida awaiting his double-murder trial.

In a tweet posted to his account he wrote '@kanyewest need your help Dm.'

Public plea: YNW Melly publicly asked Kanye West for help after his request for house arrest was denied, as he suffers from the coronavirus while awaiting his double murder trial

Get in contact: In a tweet posted to his account he wrote '@kanyewest need your help Dm,' it is unclear if Kanye saw the tweet

It's unclear if the rapper saw the tweet from his 2019 Mixed Personalities collaborator as he did not publicly respond.

The Jesus is King hitmaker and his wife Kim Kardashian West have been working on prison reform recently and have the ear of President Donald Trump.

Kanye encouraged Trump last year to work with Swedish authorities and have ASAP Rocky released from jail abroad.

And last December, Kim even lobbied the President on a prison reform bill that went on to passed the Senate and was signed into law.

Collaborators: Kanye and YNW Melly (born Jamell Maurice Demons) collaborated on 2019's Mixed Personalities

On Tuesay, a judge issued an order denying his request for house arrest and said if the rapper (born Jamell Maurice Demons) required special medical treatment he could request it from the Broward Sheriff's Office.

Melly's lawyer Bradford Cohen had filed court documents claiming his client was suffering from several COVID-19 symptoms, including chills, labored breathing, headaches and body aches after testing positive for coronavirus.

The rapper's lawyer argued that he was in danger of dying due to the infection and inadequate health care provided by the jail.

The Murder On My Mind rapper was seeking house arrest and treatment at a medical facility of his choosing at his own expense.

In custody: The 20-year-old rapper, shown in November 2018 on Instagram, will remain in the Broward County Jail in Florida awaiting his double murder trial

The families of Melly's alleged victims opposed his release request stating he didn't deserve it and could be a potential threat to them and other witnesses.

Melly was arrested in February 2019 and charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

He pleaded not guilty in March 2019 to the double-murder charges and awaits trial.

Prosecutors allege that Melly and fellow YNW rapper Cortlen Henry, also known as YNW Bortlen, staged the double-murder of Anthony 'YNW Sakchaser' Williams, 21, and Christopher 'YNW Juvy' Thomas Jr, 19, to make it appear as if they were fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting.

Awaiting trial: YNW Melly, shown in February 2019 in West Hollywood, California, pleaded not guilty in March 2019 to the double-murder charges and awaits trial

Tested positive: The rapper via management revealed April 2 on social media that he tested positive for COVID-19

Melly turned himself in on February 13, 2019.

The rapper via management revealed April 2 on social media that he tested positive for COVID-19.

The Gifford, Florida native faces either life in prison or the death penalty, if convicted.
Former lawmaker, Senator Ben Murray Bruce has taken to his Twitter handle to express his sadness over the death of Abba Kyari, the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari.

Kyaris death was announced in the early hours of Saturday weeks after contracting the deadly Coronavirus.

Also Read: BREAKING: Chief Of Staff To The President, Abba Kyari Is Dead

Reacting to this news, Murray-Bruce who lost his wife, Evelyn in some weeks ago, sent his condolence to the family of Kyari and President Buhari.

He tweeted:

I am saddened by the news of the death of Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari. My sincere condolences to the family and loved ones, and also President @MBuhari. May his soul rest in peace.
Team Thailand to save nation

THAILAND: Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha will next week ask the kingdoms top 20 wealthiest businessmen and key leaders to join his so-called Team Thailand, a group that will shape the fight against COVID-19 in the future as the government considers relaxing anti-virus measures.

CoronavirusCOVID-19

By Bangkok Post

Saturday 18 April 2020, 09:27AM

Suvarnabhumi airport is nearly deserted on Thursday (Apr 16) as the coronavirus pandemic ground air travel. Photo: Nutthawat Wicheanbut

During an address to the nation yesterday (Apr 17), Gen Prayut stressed the need for unity and cooperation from all parties during the current hardships derived from the coronavirus pandemic.

The government alone cannot give answers to all questions, he said. This crisis is big and complicated, so we need to unite and join together as Team Thailand.

The country needs experts from all sectors of society to help, including government officials, academics, members of the health and private sectors, and billionaires who have influence on the economy.

Gen Prayut said he will issue an open letter to 20 of the countrys richest billionaires to ask them to join Team Thailand, which will consist of people with great experience and seniority. He said they will be asked how they can help the country and give additional support.

Also, the prime minister said he will meet business associations of all sizes to understand the challenges they face amid the outbreak. Gen Prayut said he wants their opinions, suggestions and demands.

If we want to overcome COVID-19, we need to accept our weak points and differing opinions, he said.

We need to work together as a family and change the crisis into an opportunity, Gen Prayut added. We have to join forces without colours and the political divide.

His address came after the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration noted earlier yesterday that the government may decide next week to relax disease control measures, including possibly reopening some shops and banks.

The kingdom has been under a state of emergency since March. It recorded 28 new cases yesterday, another double-digit increase, which brought the total number of patients infected with the virus to 2,700.

CCSA spokesman Dr Taweesilp Visanuyothin said talks with business representatives and health experts are needed after the government revealed its plan to release control measures.

The aim is to ensure effective disease control if some business places are to reopen.

A proposal for Gen Prayut to consider will be submitted.

Premises that could reopen include electronics shops, banks, barbers, salons and general stores.

There must be measures in place to control the disease, Dr Taweesilp said. What is important is enforcement and compliance.

He noted that hairdressers and their clients would be required to wear face masks. Clients would have to clean their hands with alcohol before entering a salon and some services would not be offered.

Other measures for salons will cover hygiene and distancing between customers, Dr Taweesilp said.

Overcrowding in shops would be prevented by limiting the number of customers inside at any one time.

These are possible. These plans have not been approved, Dr Taweesilp said, adding the World Health Organization (WHO) lists six criteria for countries to check before disease control measures are relaxed.

Thailand has done well in local disease control; patient detection; reducing risk in vulnerable places such as senior homes; safety management in schools, offices and public places; and monitoring inbound travellers.

Dr Taweesilp said the most difficult WHO criterion to meet is increasing peoples knowledge and participation in disease control measures.

People must maintain their hygiene routines like wearing masks and washing their hands, he said. This must be their new normal.

On Thursday night, more than 900 people were caught breaking the nationwide curfew and gathering ban, DrTaweesilp said.

In other news, a Chon Buri official raised doubts that relaxing business restrictions after April 30 could help revive Pattayas tourism industry, which is still gripped with COVID-19 fears.

We cannot base a decision purely on the economic factors, Sinchai Watthanasatsathon, an adviser to the Pattaya Business and Tourism Association, said.
Press Release

April 18, 2020 Bong Go commends inclusion of barangay tanods, health and daycare workers in DSWD's cash aid; appeals for quick delivery of assistance to these barangay frontliners Senator Christopher Lawrence "Bong" Go appealed to the national government agencies and local government units to immediately provide assistance to barangay tanods, health care (BHWs) and daycare workers as part of the list of recipients for the government's social amelioration program (SAP) amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) health emergency after the Department of Social Welfare and Development has deemed them eligible for such benefits. "Marami po sa mga barangay workers na ito ay sub-minimum wage earners kaya naman dapat lamang po silang maisama sa mga mabibigyan ng tulong ng DSWD. Malaki rin po ang kanilang papel bilang frontliners ng ating mga barangay, lalo na sa kasalukuyang emergency na dinaranas ng bansa dulot ng COVID-19," Go said. DSWD has recently included barangay tanods, healthcare and daycare workers in the list of sectors eligible for the government's social amelioration program during the COVID-19 health emergency in response to an earlier call by the Senator. In a memorandum released by the agency on Friday, April 16, DSWD adopted the recommendation of the Department of the Interior and Local Government to include the above-mentioned barangay functionaries as target beneficiaries of the program. According to the recommendation, barangay tanods, health care and daycare workers should not be outrightly disqualified from the assistance since they belong to the vulnerable and disadvantaged sectors as sub-minimum wage earners. Sub-minimum wage earners, by definition, refer to any person who earns a wage below the prescribed minimum and are the sole income earners of their respective families. DILG and DSWD also noted that "the so-called heavy-lifting job for the immediate response to the pandemic has been delegated to (Barangay Health Workers) and tanods as the frontliners in all communities." "Umaapela rin ako sa DSWD at LGUs na isama nila agad sa mga makakatanggap ng ayuda ang mga qualified na barangay tanod, BHWs at daycare workers na nangangailangan rin ng tulong habang ginagampanan nila ang kanilang tungkulin sa kanilang mga komunidad," Go appealed. Around eighteen million low-income families and those in vulnerable sectors are targeted to receive monthly cash subsidies of an amount between P5,000 to P8,000, depending on regional wage rates, for two months as mandated by Republic Act No. 11469 or the "Bayanihan to Heal as One Act". According to the DSWD, the government has released more than P60 billion to 1,228 local government units, which are in charge of the distribution of the cash assistance. Meanwhile, around P67.5 million has also been spent by the DSWD for COVID-19 related concerns, including medical and burial assistance, and food packs to families. Earlier, Go called on concerned national government agencies and LGUs to work together to resolve issues on conflicting lists of beneficiaries and improve the distribution system for the government's social amelioration program. "I am appealing to all concerned agencies and LGUs that they should aim to perfect the distribution system of food and cash assistance as the government continues to address the COVID-19 situation," Go said. "Ayusin na natin agad kapag may mga nakikitang problema. Siguraduhin natin na magamit ang pondo ng tama, walang masayang, at maramdaman ng mga tao kahit sa malalayong lugar ang tulong mula sa gobyerno," the Senator added. Go also enjoined all sectors of society, public or private, to unite in ensuring that the needs of the Filipino family are satisfied during the global pandemic. "Let us work together to fill in the gaps as the needs of Filipino families affected by the COVID-19 crisis continue to grow," Go said.
Brussels, April 02, 2020 (SPS) the representation of Frente POLISARIO to European Union EU has sent a letter of condolence to the Sahrawi people following the demise of long-time diplomat and international strategist, Emhamed Khadad.

Ambassador Khadad was an icon within the Sahrawi community and an accomplished diplomat who dedicated his life to the freedom and self-determination of the Sahrawi people, he served in various capacities as our Chair of its external action committee and coordinator of our relationship with the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). FPs representation to EU says in his condolence letter

The letter went on saying that Ambassador Khadads service to his people began during his years as a University student in the mid-1970s, when he joined the Saharawi national movement for liberation. As a result of his expertise in international strategy and foreign affairs, he quickly rose the ranks of the Frente POLISARIOs leadership and emerged as our most esteemed diplomat, serving as a member of the Frente POLISARIOs negotiating team during successive rounds of UN-led peace talks.

Ambassador Khadad  added the same letter - was charged with overseeing the Frente POLSIARIOs relationship with the UN, since the ceasefire brokered with Morocco under UN auspices in 1991, among his responsibilities was that of supervising the identification of an electoral body for the referendum. When Moroccan intransigence halted the implementation of the referendum, he was a key member within the Sahrawi negotiations team in Houston just six years later, and went on to represent the Frente POLISARIO in successive rounds of UN-led peace talks in Europe  including the most recent negotiations held in Geneva in December 2018 and March 2019.

Ambassador Khadad was an unwavering defender of international law and the rights and dignity of the Saharwi people. From 2011 onwards, he spearheaded the Frente POLISARIOs legal challenge against Moroccos illegal plundering of Sahrawis natural resources. His efforts were enormously successful, resulting most recently in the European Court of Justice rulings against illegal trade deals agreed between the EU and Morocco, which applied to the territory of Western Sahara, despite having lacked the consent of the Sahrawi people. POLISARIOs representation to EU concludes its condolence letter SPS

125/090/
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Earlier, the Seoul court released an order for the film Time to Hunt to be on a halt after an order for an injunction was filed while everyone tries to reach for negotiations and due process. Then, the court and the concerned companies finally reached an amicable agreement, making it possible for the film to be on air soon.

Time to Hunt was initially scheduled to make its theatrical release on February 26 in selected theatres in South Korea. However, it was postponed due to the pandemic COVID-19. After a while, Little Big Pictures finally acquired the enormous world rights agreement with Netflix. The deal will allow the movie to premiere in 190 countries on April 10.

Unfortunately, before the film's set on air, representatives from Contents Panda filed a case for an injunction in court. They claimed rights and opposed to the production company. Also, they cited that they are holding an existing agreement with Little Big Pictures, leading to yet another standby of the Netflix original, waiting for the results if they will ever have the chance to release.

Time to Hunt made a widespread release in Berlinale early this year. Written and helmed by Sung-Hyun Yoon, it revolves around a group of young men working together to survive the crises in Korea. They committed crimes and creates chaos to supply their needs to live.

An official statement was released on Thursday by the CEO of Little Big Pictures, Mr. Kwon Ji-Won. Being the film's local distributor, they honored and apologized to the foreign sales distributor company, Contents Panda.

"First of all, we are deeply sorry to those who have been interested in 'Time to Hunt.' As the distributor of the film, we feel sorry and responsible for the confusion being caused. We though showing 'Time to Hunt' on Netflix to 190 countries around the world was a chance to promote Korean moviemakers, producers, and actors to the world," he stated.

"However, we ignored to promote the efforts of Contents Panda, who contributed greatly to the foreign sales of 'Time to Hunt' for the past year and, as a result, was prohibited from screening the film overseas. We respect the court's decision and we ask for an apology to Contents Panda," Kwon added.

Kwon shared that their company and Contents Panda reached an agreement with requisite fees to settle. This settlement leads the court to issue a positive order for both companies.

On the other hand, a conclusive announcement from Contents Panda came out after it finalized within the court.

"Since signing an overseas sales contract with Little Big Pictures in January last year, we have faithfully fulfilled our responsibilities to promote the film to the world. When the common sense procedures were ignored and the contract was terminated, we confirmed our legitimate rights and obligations with the court," Contents Panda stated.

"To prevent our trust with overseas buyers who signed the contract believing in the legitimate rights of Content Panda. To protect ourselves from being undermined by speculations based on false information. Since then, after renegotiating with overseas buyers, we have reached an agreement with Little Big Pictures to withdraw injunction and to assume that there is no problem to release 'Time to Hunt' through Netflix," the company went on.
Kazakhstans government will invest in start-ups across south-east Asia as part of efforts to diversify central Asias largest economy away from oil and gas, where prices have been slammed by the coronavirus pandemic, Financial Times writes in the article Kazakhstan eyes Asia start-ups as coronavirus hits oil price. The countrys state wealth fund, Baiterek National Managing Holdings, will be the anchor investor in a vehicle run by Singapore-based Quest Ventures. The fund has also been backed by Pavilion Capital, which is owned by Temasek Holdings, Singapores state investment company.

At $50m, the fund is small but it forms part of a broader push to create an economic corridor between central and south-east Asia. Adil Nurgozhin, chairman of Baiterek subsidiary QazTech Ventures, called the deal an important step in connecting the regions economies.

Kazakhstan, sandwiched between regional powers China and Russia, is looking to diversify its portfolio investments into different parts of the world, according to people familiar with the situation. The move into venture capital comes as oil-rich economies, such as those in the Middle East, have sought to broaden their revenue sources against a backdrop of volatile crude prices and a broader shift away from fossil fuels.

Oil and related industries make up about 40 per cent of Kazakhstans gross domestic product and its economy has been hit by a recent slump in crude prices and the coronavirus outbreak.

Kazakhstans government was previously linked with an investment in Japanese conglomerate SoftBanks second Vision Fund, which could have given the country exposure to technology start-ups across the globe. However, that vehicle was permanently frozen this week after SoftBank warned of a $16.7bn loss for its first Vision Fund. Kazakhstan also held talks about an investment in SoftBanks planned multibillion-dollar hedge fund-style vehicle.

Digital transformation has been greatly accelerated by the Covid-19 outbreak Jeffrey Seah, Quest Ventures SoftBanks woes, coupled with a fall in start-up valuations following the failed initial public offering of office sharing company WeWork last year, have prompted some big investors to turn to alternative venture capital players. Post WeWork, investors are turning to experienced operators to identify and guide start-ups, said Quest Ventures partner Jeffrey Seah.

The Quest Ventures fund will invest in start-ups in countries including Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. It will be about building a quality business rather than [attracting] high valuations, he added. The fund has been backed by Pavilion Capital, which is owned by Temasek Holdings, Singapores state investment company.

Mr Seah said it was the right time to invest in start-ups in the region, given many were being forced to boost their online offerings because of coronavirus stay-at-home measures. Businesses digital transformation has been greatly accelerated by the Covid-19 outbreak  when the virus is over these new habits will remain, he added.

Baitereks assets equalled about $15bn, or 8 per cent of Kazakhstans 2018 GDP, according to Fitch Ratings.

The fund officially launched its venture capital arm, QazTech Ventures, in December with an agreement to back V Global Fund, a venture capital fund set up by US-based investor 500 Startups.
The Winnebago County leaders  of communities ranging in population from roughly 1,300 to 23,000 people  said in a Friday letter to Pritzker that thousands of employees, including in the restaurant, fitness and salon industries are being unnecessarily harmed because theyre not considered essential workers, according to the Rockford Register Star. They said the need for financial aid has exceeded resources. Read more here. Associated Press
Joseph Dindiok Kpemka

17.04.2020 LISTEN

Deputy Attorney General and Member of Parliament for Tempane, Joseph Dindiok Kpemka is urging persons politicizing the government's efforts to fight the Covid-19 pandemic to put an end to it because it impedes progress.

According to the Tempane MP, government is working with the advise from health and development experts to get a lasting solution for the pandemic and needs all Ghanaians to comply with directive to curb the spread.

The spread of this virus is a national concern, if it continues to spread it is the whole country that will be affected; if we end the spread, the whole country will benefit and go about our businesses and activities without fear. It is a collective fight and we must all comply for our collective good.

The Deputy Attorney General was speaking in his constituency; Tempane in the Upper East Region where he handed over some items to the Tempane District Health Directorate to help curb the spread of Covid-19 in the district.

The donation was done by the MP and the DCE for the Tempane District Assembly, Paul Abugri and will be distributed to all health facilities and other public and vantage points in the district.

The items included 85 Veronica buckets, 72 large boxes of hand sanitizers, 355 pieces of liquid soap and 102 tissue papers.

According to Mr. Kpemka, many Ghanaians are still doubting the existence of the virus in the country, saying there are still Ghanaians who are underrating the danger Covid-19 can pose to them, their families and communities.

He advised his constituents to frequently wash their hands with soap under running water and avoid crowded areas till the fight against the rapid spread of Convid-19 is won across Ghana.

So far the Tempane district in the Upper East Region has not recorded any positive case of Covid-19, which the District Chief Executive expects to maintain for a long time.

Paul Abugri called on traditional authorities in the district and the entire Upper East Region to join in sensitizing the public in order to curb the spread of Covid-19 in Ghana.

Meanwhile, the Upper Regional Security Council in collaboration with the various districts and municipalities are implementing some measures to enforce social distancing.

---Daily Guide
A doctor allegedly committed suicide on Saturday morning in south Delhi's Neb Sarai area, police said.

A suicide note recovered from the victim's house stated that AAP MLA Prakash Jarwal was responsible for his death, they said.

The victim has been identified as Rajendra Singh (52), a resident of Durga Vihar, police said.

According to the police, Singh hanged himself with the help of a rope at his house.

A tenant noticed the body around 5.30 am and informed his family members, a senior police officer said.

The body was sent to AIIMS for postmortem, he said.

Meanwhile, the victim's son alleged that his father used to run a clinic in the locality and was also in the business of water supply with the Delhi Jal Board since 2007, police said.

A case of extortion, abetment of suicide and threat has been registered against the Deoli MLA, one Kapil Nagar and others at Neb Sarai Police Station based on a complaint by the victim's son, they added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Walmart Inc, Walmart Foundation and e-commerce major Flipkart on Saturday said they are supporting India's COVID-19 response by donating personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers and funds for organisations providing essential relief materials to farmers and small businesses.

Walmart Inc and e-commerce major Flipkart will spend Rs 38.3 crore towards in-kind donations into India to help with the front-line response efforts, a statement said. "The companies will focus on providing PPE, such as N95 masks and medical gowns, for distribution by non-government organizations (NGOs) to public healthcare workers," an official statement said.

"Walmart and Flipkart have already secured 300,000 N95 masks and 1 million medical gowns, and they will continue to leverage their global supply chains to source these critical necessities for medical workers who stand at the frontline of the fight against the COVID-19 outbreak in India.

In addition to this in-kind support, the Walmart Foundation is donating a total of Rs 7.7 crore to Goonj and Srijan, NGOs supporting vulnerable communities through the crisis. The funds will be used to support the procurement of essential relief materials, such as food, medicine, and hygiene items, for distribution by the organizations to support farmers, rural communities, and the micro-businesses.

Our customers and associates in India have been deeply impacted by COVID-19 and our hearts continue to be with them. In times like these, we all need to come together to support our communities and the efforts of healthcare workers, NGOs and government organizations. We are grateful to all those providing reliefs in India and we want to help," said Kathleen McLaughlin, executive vice president and chief sustainability officer for Walmart and president of the Walmart Foundation.

Our Flipkart teams are working around the clock to respond to the COVID-19 crisis with care and compassion. We are very proud of them. The emergency relief efforts we are announcing today underscore our commitment to continuing to work with the private and public sector in India to respond to this unprecedented challenge, said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO, Flipkart Group.

While keeping supply lines open to ensure that Indian consumers have access to essential daily necessities, Walmart and Flipkart are also taking important steps to help protect public health and the safety of customers and associates as the COVID-19 situation continues to evolve. These efforts include enhanced hygiene practices across the supply chain and delivery network, insurance and health benefits for workers, contactless deliveries where possible and supporting cashless payments.

Corporate India has been rushing in to help the government and citizens fight the pandemic. Tata Trusts and Tata group together have pledged Rs 1,500 crore, while Wipro Ltd, Wipro Enterprises Ltd and Azim Premji Foundation have together committed Rs 1,125 crore. A number of other companies have extended support by providing sanitizers, masks and meals to people.
Outlander star Sam Heughan recently opened up about being bullied and harassed on social media. His co-star, Caitriona Balfe, shared her support for the actor and slammed online trolls for their mean behavior.

Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan | Randy Brooke/FilmMagic/Getty Images

Sam Heughan writes an emotional post about being bullied online

In a lengthy post, shared on both Twitter and Instagram, Heughan opened up about the years of harsh and unwarranted criticism hes faced from fans online. After the past 6 years of constant bullying, harassment, stalking and false narrative I am at a loss, upset, hurt and have to speak out. Its affecting my life, mental state and is a daily concern, Heughan wrote in the post. My costars, friends, family, myself, in fact, anyone Im associated with, has been subjected to personal slurs, shaming, abuse, death threats, stalking, sharing of private information and vile, false narrative.

The actor also mentioned that some of the threats and harassment have forced him to take legal action. Ive never spoken about it because I believe in humanity and have always hoped these bullies would just go away, he wrote. I cant elaborate for ongoing legal reasons but they are professionals: teachers, psychologists, adults who should know better.

Heughan also revealed that online trolls bully him about his integrity and sexuality, and have recently started harassing him for choosing to self-isolate in Hawaii during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, these false claims vary from me manipulating fans, being a closet-homosexual, trying to mislead or exhort fans for money and disregarding COVID advice, Heughan added. Ive done none [sic] of the above. Im a normal guy and nothing like the characters I play.

The Outlander star also revealed that people have stalked his residences, shared his private information, created false narratives about him and his colleagues, and have tried to hack his personal accounts. He ended the post with an appreciative message for the fans that support him.

To every fan that has supported me and the work I do, THANK YOU, he wrote. Im so grateful, from the bottom of my heart. Stay safe and please be kind to yourself and each other.

Heughans Outlander co-star Caitriona Balfe defends and supports his sentiments

Soon after Heughan shared his post, Balfe, who plays his wife Claire on Outlander, retweeted it. She took the opportunity to show support for her co-star while slamming all the haters who harass him.

Sad that Sam has had to come out and say all this. I would have thought mean bitchy behaviour would have been left in the school yard. But unfortunately a VERY SMALL but very vocal part of this fandom use their energy to write and say awful untrue things  maybe they should https://t.co/fCfHp9sP72  Caitriona Balfe (@caitrionambalfe) April 17, 2020

Sad that Sam has had to come out and say all this, Balfe wrote in her tweet. I would have thought mean bitchy behaviour would have been left in the school yard. But unfortunately, a VERY SMALL but very vocal part of this fandom use their energy to write and say awful untrue things.

In her post, Balfe suggested the online bullies use their energy for good instead of hate. Maybe they should harness all that energy to get involved in their local charities, she added. And honestly its quite simple  If you dont like us its a big beautiful world out there. Find something you do love and enjoy that. Life, as its all too clear right now, is short. Why waste it hating.


OTTAWA  The federal Liberals are pushing for Parliament to meet virtually, but some Manitoba MPs would be left buffering, because the keystone province ranks among the worst for internet connectivity.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/4/2020 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  The federal Liberals are pushing for Parliament to meet virtually, but some Manitoba MPs would be left buffering, because the keystone province ranks among the worst for internet connectivity.

"In the House of Commons, we all sit there with the same privileges and rights," said Tory MP James Bezan.

"A virtual sitting may take away that equality, because of the inequity of wifi, broadband, 4G and whether you have fibre optic or cable."

Manitoba has some of the slowest internet speeds in Canada, according to the the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Commission. A CRTC map of broadband coverage shows gaps around Pinawa, Boissevain, the Interlake and across the north.

An internal briefing note Industry Canada prepared for its deputy minister noted that as of August 2018, "northern Manitoba has the worst connectivity in all of Canada."

Hes among MPs who say they cant get a solid connection for a video call, as public-health officials urge everyone to stay home.

Parliament is set to resume regular sittings Monday, after two sets of emergency assemblies where a small group of MPs and Senators passed large spending legislation.

Most expect the same small-scale Parliament to take place Monday, dominated by Ontario and Quebec MPs.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cited Friday that lack of regional representation in pushing for meeting and voting online.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says virtual sittings would allow for broader regional representation. (Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press)

"The point of virtual sittings would be to ensure that Canadians who are not within driving distance of Ottawa continue to have their views represented and their concerns heard," Trudeau told the Free Press at his daily news conference.

"We need to make sure that our democracy continues to function and this is something that we are very serious about."

The Conservative caucus have been meeting through Zoom calls, and Bezan said Manitoba and Saskatchewan MPs in particular have struggled with garbled audio and freezing video.

Even in urban Canada, network providers have been grappling to maintain high-speed service, as people try working at home through video calls, and those laid off tune into Netflix and streaming video games.

Vancouvers city council had a bumpy start to online meetings Tuesday. Councillors struggled to hear each other, with the feed at one point broadcasting the sound of a flushing toilet. The mayor eventually drove down to City Hall.

In their homes, Tory MPs such as Candice Bergen, Ted Falk and Larry Maguire said they can get a decent connection in Winkler, Steinbach and Brandon, with somewhat reliable video calls.

But they all felt Question Period helps hold governments to account. Falk often requests data and reports that the government by law only tables when Parliament actually sits.

Were not just talking about a couple of weeks here, were looking at months with COVID-19.  NDP MP Niki Ashton

NDP MP Niki Ashton strongly supports a virtual Parliament. She has been live-streaming to constituents from her home in Thompson, which has fibre-optic internet.

She said the Liberals should look at getting the government to expedite the construction of high-speed internet infrastructure.

Ashton said MPs in remote areas have crucial issues to raise, and cant simply rely on colleagues from central Canada.

"Were not just talking about a couple of weeks here, were looking at months with COVID-19," said Ashton. "Its not about partisanship; its about accountability."

ChurchillKeewatinook Aski MP Niki Ashton has been live-streaming from her home in Thompson, but says MPs in more remote areas might not have the same reliable internet service. (Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press files)

Bezan suggested, instead, parties could rotate some regional MPs who can isolate and dont have vulnerable family members.

The Samara Centre for Democracy, a non-partisan think tank, will release a report next week on how Westminster legislatures have met during COVID-19.

Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

In Ottawa, "theres been consideration given to balancing out representation between the parties, but not between the regions," said research director Michael Morden.

Britain is moving towards a virtual Parliament, but the country has far better internet speeds than Canada, Morden noted. He suggested some temporary mechanism such as using costly satellite connections.

Between provinces, infection rates and economic issues differ, which he feels shows why Parliament needs regional voices to help craft massive spending packages.

"Im not really sure why this is a moment where we feel we can dispense with the niceties of regional representation," he said. "The skeleton crew isnt really providing that."

A committee of MPs is studying the idea of meeting virtually. Already, some parliamentary committees have met through choppy phone and video meetings, with multiple issues involving simultaneous translation.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
Twenty-somethings were condemned for congregating at bars and crowding at beaches before much of the United States shut down. They heard calls to "go home" from politicians and celebrities shaming them for continued spring break revelry. But for a typically transient age group that splits time among family, roommates and ill-defined romantic partners, where, exactly, is home?

Stay-at-home orders and coronavirus quarantines have highlighted dilemmas specific to emerging adults - those 18 to 29 who are increasingly likely to be without spouses, children or long-term jobs. Because the average ages of marriage and parenthood have risen over the last decades, mobility has become a larger part of their identity but has them struggling to decide where to hunker down during the crisis.

Yevette Smith, a 23-year-old graduate student at American University, has opted, at least for now, to quarantine with her parents in Chicago instead of in her District of Columbia apartment. While she is grateful for the company and home-cooked meals, Smith said, she is evaluating every two weeks whether it is safe to return to her own place, where she can feel like an adult again.

"I feel myself regressing," she said. "My mom came up to me and said, 'Put your video games away, you have to do your homework.' I am in my second year of my master's degree. I know how to do my homework."

Smith, who even misses going to the grocery store alone, said she decided to stay in Chicago for one reason: "In the back of my mind, I know I wouldn't want to go through this alone."

While some have found that their conception of home has changed since they last lived with their families, Smith is not alone in returning to her childhood abode to weather the storm.

"Their life is in flux right now, and they do not have a stable home base where they feel safe and comfortable," said Daniel Liberman, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at George Washington University. "For the majority of them, in the context of fear and uncertainty, their instinct is to return home to their family of origin."

Many people in this age group do not have a choice about where they will quarantine. Some, such as first responders and those in the service industry, may not have jobs that allow for remote work. Others, who have been furloughed or laid off, are forced to move home because they can no longer afford rent or food. And about a third of young people already live with their parents, according to 2017 census data.

For those who do have a choice about where to quarantine, deciding whether to return to a childhood home can be complicated. College students living in off-campus apartments may want to stay near their school with friends, even though their classes are online. Some young professionals can elect to ride out the pandemic with roommates or alone in apartments.

"This age group is better equipped than some of us because they are used to technology and video chatting," said Sarah Hedlund, a clinical assistant professor of clinical psychology at George Washington University. "But in other ways it really is an interruption not only of their lives but also of their development."

For many emerging adults, the question of whether to return to family means considering the health of older parents, who tend to be more vulnerable to the coronavirus.

Arya Hodjat, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Maryland, has spent about 40 days of his senior year, so far, isolated in his off-campus apartment. He decided in early March to quarantine away from his father, 67, and his mother, a 56-year-old cancer survivor.

"I just felt too paranoid to go back because I didn't want to put them at risk," he said from his College Park apartment, which his roommates have vacated. "Now, with all of these stay-at-home orders, I feel it would be irresponsible to pack up all my stuff and move home."

Emma Vecchione, a 22-year-old senior at Brown University, wrestled for weeks with whether to stay with her friends in Providence, Rhode Island, or return to her 62-year-old mom on Long Island.

"Especially because I am not very good at taking care of myself in the food department, the idea of having my mom cook for me sounds really lovely right now," Vecchione said from her off-campus house, where she has decided to stay for the time being. "But what if I were to be the person that got my parent sick? That would be the worst thing in the world that could happen."

Vecchione said her fear of infecting her mom is 65 percent of the reason she decided to stay in Providence. The other 35 percent? The new "family" she has found since leaving home: her roommates and longtime boyfriend, who have stayed in Providence with her.

"My friends and I have been saying, 'Is this what adulthood is like?' " she said. "More than ever, I am dependent on other people my own age for emotional support."

Vecchione's mother, Maureen Vecchione, understands her daughter's decision to stay in Rhode Island, though she misses her child while spending days alone in her apartment.

"I think she is calmer there than she would be here," Maureen Vecchione said.

Some young people have turned to romantic interests to get them through the quarantine. The percentage of 20- to 34-year-olds who are married or living with a partner has dropped over the last decades to about 43 percent in 2016, according to demographers. But some 20-somethings are choosing to seek shelter with romantic partners - no matter how new the relationship.

Rachel Futterman, 23, has been dating her boyfriend for less than a year. When it came time to decide where they should quarantine, they packed their bags in New York and moved into her parents' suburban house together. The couple had never spent more than five consecutive days in the same space. Now, they are facing the possibility of months glued to each other's side.

"I was nervous that we would nitpick things that we learned about each other from spending so much time together," Futterman said. "We were certainly not ready to live together, but I was also excited to have a snippet into what it would be like to live together."

The mass movement of young people means many parents are learning how to live with their adult children.

Jeffrey Arnett, who edited the book "Emerging Adults in America: Coming of Age in the 21st Century," said even he had a hard time adjusting when his 20-year-old twins returned home from college in early March.

"I was surprised at how difficult I personally found it to have this unexpected event of my kids coming home," said Arnett, 62. "They do go to bed at different hours than we do. They leave stuff around. There are certain things that they like to eat and don't like to eat."

But three weeks in, he began to cherish the time with his kids.

"There are a lot of wild card games, let me put it that way," he said, laughing. "But we keep it friendly."
Pharmacists dispense medicines according to Lung Cleansing and Detoxifying Decoction prescriptions at Anhui University of Chinese Medicine on Feb 21, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

Traditional medicines found helpful in treating patients during outbreak

Senior traditional Chinese medicine experts have called for strengthening research into using TCM drugs to treat infectious diseases and incorporating TCM into China's disease prevention and control system.

During the domestic novel coronavirus epidemic, the breadth and depth of TCM's involvement in unraveling the virus and treating patients are unprecedented, with several TCM drugs proving to be effective and being widely adopted, Wang Wei, vice-president of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, said during a news conference on Friday.

"TCM has played an irreplaceable role in coping with viral, contagious illnesses," he said.

"Its advantage lies in that TCM doctors can rapidly put forward a treatment plan based on a number of factors, such as the patient's clinical symptoms and other outward signs, the geographical and weather patterns.

"By contrast, Western medicine practitioners may lag behind due to time spent on pathogen analysis, research on animal models and clinical trials."

Historical records show that China has gone through at least 300 epidemics in the past, giving rise to an abundance of experience and writings in combating contagious diseases that are worth exploring, Wang said.

For instance, the creation of Qingfei Paidu soup, an herbal concoction that has shown great efficiency in treating novel coronavirus cases, has integrated prescriptions in age-old TCM tomes with latest observations of infected cases in Wuhan, the hardest-hit city amid the domestic epidemic.

"It shows the strong vitality of TCM and its unique role in treatment," Wang said.

However, he added that investment into in-depth research centering on TCM has been weakened in recent years and is insufficient.

"Stepping up research into TCM's role in curbing outbreaks of infectious diseases in the future will bring great benefits," Wang said.

"We strongly suggest adding research on TCM treatment methods into the list of national key scientific research projects."

As the domestic outbreak has abated, Wang Qi, a professor with the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, also called for summarizing experiences in treating infections with TCM and intensifying research into the mechanism of TCM therapies' impact on patients.

"We also need to explore how to integrate TCM into the national system of contagious disease prevention and control, and establishing relevant online platforms," he said.

"These efforts will contribute to building a disease control system with Chinese characteristics."

Wang also suggested setting up a permanent base designed for handling sudden outbreaks of infectious diseases.

The base will combine TCM with Western medicine to better fend off such illnesses.
By Trend

According to the UN resolutions and documents, the occupied territories must be returned to Azerbaijan, Irans Ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh told Trend.

Iran has always supported the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, the ambassador said.

Jahangirzadeh added that the Islamic Republic of Iran was one of the first countries to offer assistance and mediation in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and positive steps have been taken in this direction.

The ambassador said that there is a need for stability and cooperation in the region. Iran is pleased that Azerbaijan has always demonstrated its readiness for a peaceful solution to this conflict.

Commenting on the video footage of Iranian trucks allegedly transporting goods to Nagorno Karabakh, he said it is fake and unreliable.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has nothing to do with the illegal regime created in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, added Jahangirzadeh.

Talking about the recently held so-called "elections" in Nagorno-Karabakh, he noted that Iran condemns any move that would undermine the negotiation process on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"Such actions will not help resolve the conflict and will only complicate it. The Armenian side must prove its claim to be sincere in the discussions, but their actions prove the opposite," he said.

Recently, a video was posted on social media allegedlyshowing transportation of goods and fuel to the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh of Azerbaijan by Iranian trucks. The Iranian side said that the footage was fake.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding regions.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding regions.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
US Building Ground-Based Network of Offensive Weapons to Jam Russian Satellites  Report

Sputnik News

18:12 GMT 17.04.2020(updated 18:19 GMT 17.04.2020)

The Space Force, the newest branch of the US military, has requested over $15.3 billion in funding for operations, equipment and satellite equipment for fiscal year 2021.

Over the next seven years, the US Space Force is looking to amass dozens of ground-based weapons systems capable of jamming Russian or Chinese communication satellites en masse, Bloomberg has reported, citing military sources.

The arsenal is expected to consist of Counter Communications System (CCS) ground-based satellite communications jamming units, with 16 of these already delivered and 28 more on the way. This system is an upgrade of jamming weapon first introduced in the US Air Force in 2004, and has undergone several new iterations, including additional frequency bands and technology refreshes.

In addition, L3Harris Technologies Inc., the defence contractor making the CCS, is also said to be putting the finishing touches on a new piece of equipment called the Meadowland, the next iteration of the CSS, with that system expected to be shrunken down in size, and to feature open architecture software. Meadowland is expected to be ready by 2021, and Space Force expects to get its hands on four of the systems by late 2022, with as many as 28 more expected to be purchased between 2023 and 2027.

Offensive Defence

Lt. Col Stephen Brogan, a combat systems unit head at the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base, boasts that Meadowland's software architecture will allow the system to "go after more satellites, using more techniques as they are developed."

He also insists that the weapons were the only equipment the Space Force has to date that's "offensive in nature," with its interference reversible.

In a statement to Bloomberg, the Air Force indicated that jamming using these systems could prevent the enemy from accomplishing "command and control, early warning and propaganda" across "multiple frequency bands." It's not clear what the Air Force means by "propaganda," although it can be speculated that it means Russian or Chinese foreign-language media broadcasting information which may not line up with the US narrative of events.

Emphasizing its own peace-loving nature, the Space Force has instead repeatedly accused Russia of weaponizing space and threatening US space capabilities, giving America the right to 'self-defence.'

On Wednesday, US Space Command claimed that Russia tested a direct-ascent satellite-killing weapon, serving as "another example" that the threats to US and allied space systems were "real, serious and growing." The Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed the claims on Friday, suggesting the reports are a US attempt to "divert global attention from real threats in outer space and to justify the steps" America itself was "taking to deploy weapons in space." In recent months, Moscow has repeatedly warned about the implicit dangers of the militarization of space.

According to Pentagon intelligence estimates, Russia and China have about 40 and 30 communications satellites at their disposal, respectively, with the satellites divvied up between civil, commercial and military operators.

Russia's military is by all indications fully aware of the threat of the US's offensive anti-satellite capabilities. In February, Deputy Defence Minister Alexei Krivoruchko announced that Russia would create systems to protect its military satellites from external interference in the state armament programme running through 2027.

The Space Force's deployment of its new weapons comes on the heels of an assessment by the US National Air and Space Intelligence Center earlier this year warning that Russian and Chinese activities in space have put US space assets at risk and serve to "challenge US superiority," including through the use of jamming, anti-satellite missiles, laser energy-based and satellite-based attacks.

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A pair of New York men were arrested Friday and charged with the attempted murder of a 23-year-old Little Egg Harbor man in town earlier this month, authorities said.

The Little Egg Harbor Police rushed to Center Street at 11:45 p.m. on April 3 after they received a call of a man laying in the road and found Charles Storino suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, according to a joint release from the Ocean County Prosecutors Office and the Little Egg Harbor Police.

Storino was taken to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City where he was remained in critical condition on Friday, the office said.

An investigation revealed that two men, Ademola Bostick, 24, of Bay Shore, New York, and Rajah Mayo, 20, of Freeport, New York, drove from New York to Little Egg Harbor and shot Storino several times with handgun, police said.

While Bostick was the one who allegedly pulled the trigger, it was determined that the men acted together in the shooting, authorities said.

The duo was arrested early Friday morning at their New York homes by members of the United States Marshals Fugitive Task Force, the office said.

In addition to attempted murder, Bostick and Mayo were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and Bostick was also charged with weapons-related offenses, according to the release

Both men are awaiting extradition to Ocean County and once they arrive, they will be taken to Ocean County Jail pending their detention hearing, police said.

I am beyond thankful for the hard-work and determination of all the officers involved in the apprehension of these two very dangerous individuals, Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said in the release. This is a perfect example of what the brave men and women in law enforcement can accomplish when they work together toward achieving the common good."

Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrsheldon Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.
Many are finding working from home stressful while coping with the current pandemic that has put the country into a lockdown. (Getty)

Before the coronavirus crisis took hold in the UK, an increasing number of businesses were embracing flexible working. Instead of the traditional 9-5 day in the office, more companies were allowing employees to choose their own hours, work from home or change their schedules to fit around childcare responsibilities.

We know the much-touted benefits of flexible working, including improving our work-life balance and avoiding wasting time on an uncomfortable commute. Research has shown that being able to work flexibly is something most of us desire in the job, with one recent survey suggesting that 58% of Brits think flexible working is the future. In fact, more than a third (35%) said they'd rather have flexible working options than a pay rise.

But as the coronavirus pandemic creates a huge shift to remote work as countries advise people to stay at home, it is an increasing source of stress.

Read more: Four ways you can reduce stress when working from home

According to a survey of more than 1,000 adults by the employee experience company Qualtrics, the majority are finding home-working stressful. Those surveyed usually worked in an office, but were now working at home because of coronavirus. The results showed 54% of people felt more stressed working from home, compared with 18% who felt less stressed. A further 52% felt more anxious working from home compared with 14% who felt less. So why are we finding it so hard?

First, trying to keep calm and carry on during a global pandemic is already stressful. People are feeling anxious about the future, worried about loved ones, unmotivated and isolated. Under normal circumstances, we would meet a friend for coffee or a glass of wine post-work to talk through any anxieties  but now, obviously, this is not possible. With this in mind, its hard to focus on the positives of being able to work from home.

Theres also the sudden nature of being thrown into remote working. This is the first time many people will have worked from home  and they wont have had time to prepare. Some are working without a proper office space, or trying to get things done while looking after children or relatives. In the space of just a few weeks, our work lives and home lives have become entwined, which isnt easy.

Story continues

If you arent used to working from home, too, it can be hard to disconnect and switch off from work.

Read more: How to look after your mental health during the coronavirus pandemic

The difference to work and life over the last month has been brutal, says Jonathan Ratcliffe from flexible workspace broker Offices.co.uk. Most of us in business have come from a vibrant, booming and highly social workplace, down to working from home in isolation. Its a shock to the system and shouldnt be underestimated.

Everyone Ive spoken with is having tough times right now. The pressures some are under are insane both financially and mentally  we need to talk to each other and know that when you have a wobble, someone is there for you  because everyone will at some point.

It also takes preparation for employees to be able to work from home. People need a secure internet connection and they need to be equipped with basic tools  such as a decent laptop or tablet  to be productive.

Remote working can also make communication more of a challenge, so businesses need to ensure workers have access to the apps and platforms they need to be able to stay connected. But with the sudden onset of the coronavirus outbreak, many are working at home in less-than-ideal circumstances  for example, with weak internet or a slow computer.

Another crucial factor is that not everyone wants to work from home. Some people thrive in a quiet, solitary environment, although even they may be pushed to their limit during the lockdown. Others love the social aspect that comes with working in an office surrounded by other people  and struggle when forced into isolation.

Many of my colleagues love their business life because its so sociable, but now we are isolated from that social network, and its tough times for everyone, Ratcliffe says. Its important not to under-estimate the stress of the current situation.
In late March, a Berlin judge told the people in his packed courtroom that it could take just 15 minutes for a single person with the coronavirus to infect them all.

For a group of lawyers and legal-technology firms in Germany it was a compelling moment: They wrote to state and federal justice ministers demanding an end to years of foot-dragging toward the roll out of digital justice.

As covid-19 closed in on Europe's biggest economy, they told the politicians that "to avoid a justice gridlock" it's "imperative to initiate the necessary steps." Investing in technology and short-term use of internet-based video conferencing instead of regular hearings was the only pragmatic solution, they said.

The warning to embrace digitalization comes as scores of hearings are being postponed amid efforts to contain the pandemic. The growing sense of urgency may finally transform a system that in large parts still relies on paper files and proceedings that look much like a century ago.

The sight of a cameras recording judges and screens showing lawyers attending from afar is rare in German courtrooms, even though rules have allowed video hearings since 2013. The obstacles are not only technical, said Frank Richter, vice president of the Frankfurt Local Court. Attorneys and judges are generally rather conservative, often unready to change settled practices, he said.

Richter is one of four judges pioneering the digital evolution at his tribunal. They're the first to regularly hold video hearings.

"The crisis will accelerates the digitalization of the justice system," Richter said "I only hope that once all the aid packages for the economy have been paid out, there'll still be some money left to equip courts with the necessary technology."

One problem is that the court systems in the 16 German states don't even all use the same technology. Another barrier is that attorneys can't be forced to agree to video hearings. Some dodge them because of the equipment costs or for tactical reasons if it's in their clients' interest to delay suits.

That's why a group of German top labor court justices took a more radical approach: They urged the government to push for emergency legislation allowing them to hear wrongful-dismissal suits from home via platforms such as Skype or Zoom without having to ask the parties to agree. These exceptions, which would curb the fundamental right to a public hearing, should be limited for the time required to combat the virus, they say.

Germany's Labor Ministry, which is responsible for the labor court system, declined to comment on that proposal.

Germany is not alone in grappling with digitalization. The virus also prompts other jurisdictions to turn to web-based solutions.

The website Remote Courts Worldwide is listing efforts around the globe. These include a Kenyan appeals court judge turning to Zoom, Brazilian tribunals working with Cisco Systems Inc. on a video platform and the Italian Appeals Court deciding via video links. The website also cites a Dutch tribunal using Skype and the Dubai Civil and Commercial Court moving to video-conferencing.

But going digital has proved troublesome for the Germany legal community all along.

The nation's bar association had to repeatedly postpone the rollout of a electronic letter box for lawyers because of glitches. Berlin's top tribunal last year had to pull the plug on its computer system after a cyberattack, halting operations for weeks.

Many lawyers still file on paper and some clerks still have to run dockets the traditional way. They print out everything they receive electronically to manage cases. While German courts have had to accept electronic filings since 2018, many lawyers still file on paper and some clerks still have to run dockets the traditional way. They print out everything they receive electronically to manage cases.

Sven Rebehn, the German Judges' Association's managing director, said the virus should make authorities push hard and fast for digitalization. However, he isn't optimistic there's a quick fix.

"The crisis highlights the gaps in IT-equipment of courts, the lack of network capacity and problems of electronic legal communication," he said. "In the short term, we won't be able to solve the issue by moving hearings online."
- Wine said he has partnered with businessman Neil Nelson to airlift his African compatriots from the Asian country

- The Kyaddondo East MP challenged African leaders to wake up from slumber and urgently attend to their nationals being mistreated in foreign countries

- He noted his mission would be effective only if one country on the continent would be ready to receive and host them as they plan to move to their respective states

- Wine is one of President Yoweri Museveni's fiercest critics and has announced intentions to challenge him in the upcoming General Election

Ugandan musician-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi popularly known as Bobi Wine has offered to fly home Kenyans and other Africans being mistreated in China.

Wine's announcement came in the wake of rampant cases of discrimination, frustration and mistreatment of Africans by the Chinese authorities over claims they were the ones spreading the new wave of COVID-19 in the country.

READ ALSO: Activist Okiya Omtatah loses daughter after short illness

Ugandan MP Bobi Wine has offered to fly home Kenyans and Africans suffering in China. Photo: Bobi Wine

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Raila amtia nguvu Omtatah kwa msiba, asema anaelewa uchungu wa kumpoteza mwana

Wine in a statement said he would partner with businessman Neil Nelson to airlift his African compatriots from the Asian country.

He, however, noted the mission would be effective only if one country on the continent would be ready to receive and host them as they plan to move to their respective states.

"Together with my friend Neil Nelson, CEO Atlanta BlackStar, we are offering to airlift Africans and African-Americans being subjected to inhumane treatment in parts of China. Only if we get an African nation and/or the US willing to receive them," said the youthful leader.

He challenged African leaders to wake up from slumber and urgently attend to their nationals being mistreated in foreign countries.

The Kyaddondo East MP said it was disheartening for African leaders to remain mum and watch as their helpless citizens were being tortured and frustrated by their international partners.

"We call upon leaders from across the global African community including political leaders, social activists, artists and other leaders to join in this effort, he added in the statement.

The firebrand Opposition MP is one of President Yoweri Museveni's fiercest critics and had announced intentions to challenge him in the upcoming election

His idea of airlifting African nationals including Kenyans stuck in foreign lands came barely two days after Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Kamau Macharia ruled out the possibility of flying home Kenyans in China and other places.

Foreign Affairs PS Kamau Macharia ruled out possibility of airlifting Kenyans stuck in foreign countries. Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs Kenya.

Source: UGC

Macharia said it was impracticable to airlift thousands of Kenyans spread across the foreign nations adding it would unnecessarily cost the government billions of shillings.

"A plane is not like a matatu that jumps from one point to another to collect people. Is not easy to airlift these people because they are spread across foreign countries and live in different cities," he said while appearing before a parliamentary committee.

He also dismissed allegations that Kenyans were being mistreated arguing those who had been evicted from their rental houses had violated government directive aimed at combating the spread of COVID-19.

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Ruth Matete is not telling the truth about her husband's death - Pastor John's manager | Tuko TV

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Police personnel across the country are working tirelessly to ensure proper law and order is maintained during the lockdown. Many are also going above the call of duty to offer extra help to those who need it. Just like these officials of Najafgarh Police who have taken the onus of feeding thousands of people in the area. A video posted on Facebook shows policewomen preparing the food at the police station so it can be distributed to those who need it.

Najafgarh police officers in the Dwarka police district are feeding thousands of people every day, Sunil Gupta, Station House Officer of Najafgarh Police Station, told Hindustan Times. The food is prepared inside the police station by cops who are not on active duty, he said.

Food being distributed outside the police station.

The food is distributed to labourers living in the areas close by. Police has also sought help of Samaritans, NGOs, and the government for this.

A video shared on Facebook shows the food being prepared. It collected over 30,000 shares since it was posted a week ago.

The kind deed has been praised by many on Facebook.

Respect, reads a comment. Hats off, reads another.

Such acts of kindness always bring a smile to ones face and inspire others to offer help however they can.

Also Read | PM Modi is proud of this 74-year-old man. After knowing what he did, youll be too
Asia

Bangladeshi garment workers protest over factory closures and unpaid wages

Thousands of garment workers from industrial estates in Gazipur, Ashulia, Savar Narayanganj, Dhaka, Uttara, Tongi, Mirpur, Pallabi, and Chattogram are continuing protests begun on April 4 after finding their factories closed when they attempted to return to work following the lifting of the coronavirus lockdown. They are demanding unpaid wages and the reopening of the factories.

On Tuesday, in Ashulia and Savar, thousands of garment workers of four factories, including those of World One Denim and Washing Ltd, protested, demanding several months of unpaid wages. The factories closed on February 20. In Gazipur around 20,000 garment workers from shuttered factories demonstrated on Sunday and Monday demanding unpaid wages.

India: Migrant workers caught up in COVID-lockdown demand outstanding wages

Hundreds of migrant workers impacted by Indias nationwide COVID-19 lockdown demonstrated in Surat, Gujarat state, on April 10 to demand their wages be paid so they can return home. Some workers were arrested by police.

On Tuesday migrant workers demonstrated at the Bandra bus stand in Mumbai, Indias largest city. They were demanding transport and outstanding wages in order to return to their village homes. Lathi (cane) wielding police attacked some of the demonstrators. Workers ended their protest after the Maharashtra state government promised to provide food and accommodation.

Thousands of garment workers in Cambodia and Burma lose jobs due to COVID-19

Hundreds of thousands of low paid garment workers in Cambodia and Burma face being laid off as hundreds of factories close in response to cancelled orders from large western retail outlets due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 110 factories employing about 96,000 workers have applied to the Cambodian government to suspend production because of the pandemic. The government said it would offer suspended workers $US40 per month while factories would provide S30, a smaller sum than promised earlier this year.

A spokesperson from the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said many workers had received their March wages but in April ,I think its going to be complete chaos. Most of Cambodias 800,000 garment workers earn a monthly minimum salary of just $190 and are forced to work overtime to make ends meet.

In Burma, around 20,000 migrants returned home from Thailand last month after losing their jobs due to factory closures.

Taxi drivers in China protest

Tens of thousands of Chinas struggling 2.6 million taxi drivers are demonstrating in several cities across the country. They are demanding a reduction in the fees they have to pay cab companies or the right to leave the business entirely without penalty.

Many drivers report that their income has dropped by 80 percent due to the coronavirus pandemic but many cab companies continue to demand the normal monthly rental fees. Drivers protested in Shenzhen and Guangzhou on April 13 and 14 respectively. Taxi drivers have held 25 nationwide protests since the start of the year to demand a reduction in rental or contract cancellations.

Australia

Electronics retail workers demand shutdown

Australias largest consumer electronic retailer JB HI-FI is ignoring workers concerns and is remaining open and potentially exposing more than 12,000 employees to the deadly COVID-19 infection. Almost 900 workers have so far signed a petition calling for the retailer to shut its doors and continue paying wages.

JB HI-FIs decision to keep operating is supported by the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA). The union is attempting to convince its members that retailers should keep their doors open where and when it is safe so workers in the battered retail sector, the countrys largest private employer, can keep their jobs.

One worker told media, Im grateful to have a job, dont get me wrong, but it gets to a point where [you ask], is our safety being prioritised over sales? I dont think it is. Another worker said, People are browsing, people are touching everything and were supposed to be cleaning everything straight after they touch it.

Many JB HI-FI workers argue that the stores are not providing an essential service as many of the goods they sell can be bought online or even from supermarkets. More than 100,000 retail workers have been stood down since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, with many casual workers unable to access the federal governments JobKeeper wage subsidy.

Qantas workers ordered into isolation over COVID-19

Over 750 workers of Australias largest airline company Qantas have been ordered into isolation by SA (South Australia) Health after Qantas staff at Adelaide Airport were directed to continue working after it was discovered they had been exposed to COVID-19. The quarantine order was an attempt to contain a cluster of cases linked to the airport, including 18 baggage handlers, three other workers and 13 close contacts.

The Transport Workers Union (TWU) says it is compiling evidence Qantas knowingly exposed workers to the virus after it was made aware of the first confirmed case. However, while the TWU accused Qantas of taking a blase approach in managing the issue, the union had failed to shut down the infected work site, leaving it up to SA Health to take action.

The quarantine order applies to employees who worked in certain areas of the airport since March 17, and affects cabin crew, pilots, customer service staff, engineers and baggage handlers. Prior to this incident Qantas had refused to pay staff who went into self-isolation, compelling infected workers to remain on the job.

Maritime union ends Sydney strike over COVID-19 at Hutchison Ports

The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), a division of the CFMMEU, announced on Wednesday that it has reached a deal with international stevedore company Hutchison Ports Australia. The agreement ends a 10-day shutdown following positive COVID-19 infections amongst workers at its Sydney terminal.

Hutchison took six days to notify workers of the positive COVID-19 infections. Despite this unnecessary and dangerous delay, the unions deal with the company introduces workplace measures to combat workplace transmission of Covid-19.

Under the agreement, which the union claims is a victory, production will continue at the Sydney facility. The deal is supposed to include shift and physical distancing protocols, cleanliness measures across the entire terminal and machinery, a communication process prior to each shift informing members not to come to work if they are ill, and full provision and supply of PPE.

The union called the ten-day shutdown of Hutchinsons Sydney terminal only after an intervention by the NSW Department of Health.
Hospitals and health services are scrambling to bring maternity care online and into the community to keep tens of thousands of newborn babies and their parents safe during the coronavirus pandemic.

Obstetricians are holding telehealth consultations for routine check-ups, some birthing and breastfeeding classes have moved online, and there's a push to have health workers visit peoples homes to keep families away from hospitals and clinics.

Lauren Healy from Cecil Hills in western Sydney, who is due to be induced on Monday at Westmead Private Hospital, has had some of her recent obstetrician appointments by phone or video call.

Midwife Michelle Penn teaching a maternity class over Zoom at Westmead Private.

She also had her maternity classes switch from in-person to Zoom halfway through the course.
"It's looking more and more like Warhol has overtaken Picasso as the most important and influential artist of the 20th century." That's the assessment of Blake Gopnik, a journalist and former art critic for The Washington Post, in "Warhol," his impressive, sweeping biography of the artist.

Andy Warhol may have ended Abstract Expressionism when he launched Pop Art in the early 1960s, but, like Picasso, he also became a cultural figure. In his career, Warhol had a lasting effect on advertising, fashion, music, film, television and photography, all while achieving a level of renown far surpassing the 15 minutes of fame he predicted everyone would have. In "Warhol," Gopnik chronicles the full scope of this career.

He was born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh in 1928, one of three sons of Slavic immigrants Andrej, a laborer, and Julia, a housekeeper. He was a frail boy after a bout of St. Vitus' Dance, a neurological disorder, so he became a creature of his imagination, devouring novels and magazines and dreaming of Hollywood.

A gift for art landed him at Carnegie Institute of Technology. He nearly flunked out after his first year but won a reprieve: "I created a big scene and cried."

After college, ambition drove him to New York. Tina Fredericks at Glamour magazine gave him his break, an opportunity he did not squander. Gigs at companies like Noonday Press, Bonwit Teller and I. Miller (for which he produced shoe drawings celebrated in the advertising industry) made him "piles of money," Gopnik said. He got his own place, eventually purchasing a Lexington Avenue town house.

As his commercial art business flourished, Warhol took up fine art, experimenting with the concrete image and the silk-screening process. Among his initial attempts was a series of paintings of Campbell's Soup cans, which Henry Geldzahler, the art curator, called "the Nude Descending a Staircase of the Pop movement." When Dennis Hopper, the actor and photographer, first saw one, he immediately understood the potential: "I started jumping up and down, saying, 'That's it! that's it!'" he said. "That's a return to reality." Pop Art was born.

A Stable Gallery show featuring silk-screens of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Troy Donohue "established Warhol," Gopnik argues, "as a true rival of all the greats who had come before."

"Death and Disaster," a masterwork, was followed by "Flowers" (paintings) and "Brillo Boxes" (sculpture), all produced in a new studio space, known as the Factory, the walls of which were covered in aluminum foil by Billy Name, the first of many Warhol acolytes.

Then, in 1965, Warhol announced his "retirement" from art to focus on movies. He had shot experimental films already, including "Sleep," "Kiss" and "Empire," an eight-hour black-and-white shot of the Empire State Building. Now he made "Poor Little Rich Girl" with Edie Sedgwick, his first "superstar." Others followed: Brigid Berlin, Paul America and Viva, among others, appearing in films like "My Hustler," "The Nude Restaurant" and the cult classic "The Chelsea Girls."

Warhol managed the Velvet Underground, pairing the group with Nico to make a landmark rock album. He pioneered performance art with the Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia event. Then, on June 3, 1968, he was shot by Valerie Solanas, a radical feminist and Factory hanger-on, in the throes of a psychotic breakdown. Gopnik's account of the attempted murder is gripping: "The slug pierced Andy Warhol's right side just under his arm and he began to bleed out." Warhol flatlined at Columbus Hospital before doctors revived him.

He was never the same. "Andy died when Valerie Solanas shot him," Gopnik quotes Taylor Mead, a Warhol superstar, as saying. "He's just somebody to have at your dinner table now. Charming, but he's the ghost of a genius." Maybe, but during the 1970s  under the guidance of Fred Hughes, who ended up managing Warhol's business life for more than 25 years  he built an empire.

Warhol made movies including "Flesh," "Blue Movie" and "Lonesome Cowboys." He returned to art, producing a series of paintings of the Chinese Communist Party chairman, Mao Zedong, and the masterwork "Shadows." He also turned portraiture into a lucrative enterprise, starting with Happy Rockefeller and proceeding to an array of figures like Halston and Liza Minnelli. He founded Interview Magazine and bought a Montauk estate and a Rolls-Royce.

He also enjoyed his most successful personal relationship. Just before the shooting, he had hired Jed Johnson as an assistant; after the shooting, the two moved in together. "Over the next dozen years," Gopnik writes, Johnson "came to fill the traditional role of devoted young spouse." He decorated Warhol's new town house on East 66th Street. Their eventual breakup left Warhol devastated, though few knew it. He was loath to express emotion. After his mother died in 1972, he neither attended her funeral nor announced her death. Anyone inquiring about her was told that she was shopping at Bloomingdale's.

The 1980s were also productive  more art, collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat, ventures into television, a new Factory  until he went to the hospital for gallbladder surgery and died of complications Feb. 22, 1987.

"The critical skepticism that Warhol lived with has evaporated in the years since his death," Gopnik concludes. That clarity has afforded observers the chance to appraise Warhol objectively. He was America's Picasso.
NEW YORK, NY, April 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- INVNT, the global brand storytelling agency, has submitted two pieces of creative to the United Nations (UN) global call out, in a move designed to help the organization translate its key COVID-19 public health messages into engaging and informative work that resonates with people across different cultures, languages, communities and platforms.

Responding to the UNs myth-busting health message, the Captain CO-RID: #RealHeroesStopTheSpread animation campaign follows the adventures of an everyday Aussie who swaps a uniform of khaki and cork hats for his superhero get up when his comrades need him most.



Captain CO-RID educates the public at rapid fast rates and calls on them to become everyday heroesand villainslike him, by both adopting and helping him communicate these myth-busting messages faster than the spread of the coronavirus.



The work represents a collaboration between INVNT, who identified the opportunity, devised the core campaign idea, and wrote the script, Melbourne-based animation studio, Viskatoons led by Peter Viska, who brought Captain CO-RID to life visually, provided script writing support, animated the script and identified a suitable voice over partner, and voice over and audio production specialists Abes Audio, who provided sound design and recorded the script.



Responding to the UNs public health message of personal hygienespecifically respiratory hygiene, The Box of Home Heroes: Every Tissue Can Stop the Spread! creative takes the form of a craftily designed tissue box which features heroic characters and respiratory hygiene practices localized in Aussie slang, to inspire the public to become heroes in the fight against COVID-19.



The tissue box surface was chosen because not only does the UN recommend the use of tissues for good respiratory hygiene, tissue boxes tend to be prominently displayed on kitchen benches, coffee tables and bedside tablesensuring they act as a practical and unmissable in-home reminder for people to adopt good respiratory hygiene practices.



Every Australian household would receive a complimentary box of tissuesa welcome gift given they are a scarce commodity in our current climate, and the campaign can live on through partnerships with key supermarket chains, who would stock the tissue boxes throughout the duration of the pandemic.

"INVNT is aligned with a number of charities because we are passionate about doing good work, and about doing work that does good for others. So, the opportunity to respond to the United Nations global creative call out was a must for us. The coronavirus has had a dramatic impact on countries and lives across the world, and we want to do our bit and lend our support wherever we can," explains INVNT CEO, Scott Cullather.

Adam Harriden, Executive Creative Director, INVNT adds: "We are really proud of both pieces of work, which highlight that when creatives from different backgrounds and specialties collaborate, amazing things can happen.

"Both responses draw on the idea that to be a true hero, we need to be villains too, by joining forces to kill the coronavirus. They have also been designed with a global lens, and we see the work evolving accordingly. The Captain CO-RID script and character can be localized so that he or she resonates with viewers in-region, and we can translate the on-box tissue messages and partner with local manufacturers and supermarket chains on the production and distribution of the tissue boxes, with donations going to the UN or its affiliated organizations in different countries or regions," he explains.

###



About INVNT

Founded in 2008 by Scott Cullather and Kristina McCoobery, INVNT is the global brand storytelling agency. The company's challenge everything positioning statement helps clients including General Motors, Grant Thornton, Merck, PepsiCo, Samsung and Subway  share their stories  live and virtually  with every audience that matters. The tribe is INVNT's diverse, talented and creative team behind the stories and brand experiences that people just can't stop talking about. INVNT's offices are strategically located in New York, where INVNTs story studio, HEVE and brand strategy firm, Folk Hero are also based, London, Sydney, Detroit, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Stockholm and Singapore. For more information visit www.invnt.com

About VISKATOONS

As Australias longest running animation studio, Viskatoons creates and produces original content for global markets, local networks and internet viewing. Series to date include the iconic Lil Elvis Jones and the Truckstoppers, Monster Chef, Suspect Moustache and two series of Jar Dwellers SOS. Short form productions like Be Deadly Online and works for Government departments showcase the talents of the creative team, who use animation for its intended purpose: to communicate with viewers anywhere. While creating and developing new concepts for childrens screens Viskatoons animates TVCs, explainer videos and music videos. For more information visit www.viskatoons.com

About Abes Audio

Head to www.abesaudio.com.au to learn more.

Attachments
The Tiger King himself  Joseph Maldonado-Passage (aka Joe Exotic)  is sitting behind bars on a 22-year sentence. Other stars of the Netflix hit docuseries are speaking out. Jeff and Lauren Lowe have been labeled villains in Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness. Now, theyre setting the record straight about a few things such as Maldonado-Passages claims that he had a medical condition.

The feud between Jeff Lowe and Joe Exotic never ends

Jeff Lowe | Netflix

Tiger King is in Netflixs top spot and for good reason. The seven-part docuseries is the gift that keeps on giving. Its follows a former Oklahoma zookeeper (Maldonado-Passage), his big cat rivalry with Big Cat Rescue owner, Carole Baskin, and the new owners of the zoo, Jeff and Lauren Lowe.

The Lowes have been on the defense. Theyre clarifying different pieces of Tiger King they feel arent accurate representations of themselves, the zoo, or Maldonado-Passage.

In a recent interview with RADIO.COMs Channel Q, [Jeff] Lowe said there was a time when Maldonado-Passage claimed he was HIV+. However, there was more to the story and the Lowes werent the only ones to unravel it.

Journalist, Robert Moor, tweeted about Joe Exotics Facebook post

To anyone currently bingeing #tigerking on Netflix:



I spent four years working on a podcast and a long magazine story about Joe and Carole. I spent a week living at the zoo. Ive spoken with almost everyone youre seeing in the doc, and I attended the trial. Ask me anything!  (@robertmoor_) March 21, 2020

Shortly after the release of Tiger King, journalist and podcaster of Over My Dead Body: Joe Exotic, Robert Moor, offered a plethora of information not included in the Netflix series.

Some tweets mentioned what happened to Maldonado-Passages big cats after they died, which of Maldonado-Passages former flames is serving life in prison, and who of Baskins exes filed a protection order against her.

All the tweets are juicy enough to dive back into Tiger King with a fresh lens, but theres one that the Lowes can corroborate.

Heres what Jeff Lowe said about Joe Exotics Apparent Medical Condition

As mentioned by Moor via a March 24 tweet, For a long time, Joe told everyone he was dying from prostate & bone marrow cancer. He raised $$$ from his Facebook fans for his expenses. He showed me this horrifying photo as proof. I later learned he just had an infected prostate, dehydration, & a bad outbreak of herpes.

Viewers couldve taken that with a grain of salt. However, when the Lowes were asked about the same incident, Jeff had a few things to say about it, too. It all started when Maldonado-Passage revealed he was HIV+ and needed someone to take over the zoo when he passed, according to [Jeff] Lowe.

When asked if Maldonado-Passage offered proof of his HIV+ status, they mentioned knowing about his first husband, Brian Rhyne, who did in fact die from complications from HIV. After coming across the same photo Moor did, [Jeff] said he later found out itd been taken after two facelift procedures.

He actually stole the money from the animals for the facelift, Lauren added.

Its unclear if the two have proof this is the case. Regardless, it doesnt look like Tiger King news  or any related feuds will slow down anytime soon.

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness is available on Netflix now.
The Pentagon is extending its ban on most military and domestic travel, including permanent change of station moves, by nearly two months as COVID-19 cases continue to increase across the force.

Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness Matthew Donovan told reporters in a Saturday morning call that an order set to take effect Monday will extend the end date for the travel prohibition from May 11 to June 30. However, he added, there will be increased flexibility for exemptions in the new order as the military enters its busy summer PCS season.

Officials were vague about what restrictions will be eased in the new extension order, which remains in draft form and has yet to be signed by Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Donovan said military deployments and redeployments, largely halted in the initial stop-movement order that took effect March 13, will now move forward on a case-by-case basis, pending the discretion of relevant commanders. Travel for recruiting and entry-level training is also approved, he said.

Related: Pentagon Bans Domestic Travel for Troops, Families as Virus Spreads

"Understanding we are approaching our major permanent change of station season, the department will actively provide support options to assist our people," Donovan said. "The new guidance ... allows travelers who are in the middle of temporary duty travel or permanent change of station moves to continue on to their home stations or new duty stations. It also exempts travel for medical reasons."

Waivers will continue to be granted for travel deemed necessary because of personal hardship, humanitarian and mission-related reasons, and those who are pending retirement or military separation will be allowed to travel.

"Also, when it meets operational requirements, we will consider in-place assignment extensions or waivers for PCS moves for service members with school-age dependents to minimize school-year disruptions and education costs," he said.

While full details about which PCS moves will be waivered under the new policy were not available, Donovan noted that the military services would be allowed determine which moves should be given highest priority.

"I think roughly we move 100,000 people during [the summer PCS] season," he said. "Because of the constraints of the coronavirus, that will be phased in and will take a longer period."

Donovan told Military.com that PCS and travel waivers were being granted regularly under the standing guidance; U.S. Transportation Command, he said, had indicated that military moves are taking place at about 30% of the typical rate, and the military services have each said they are at about 10% of their normal move volume.

It's possible the order could be extended further or curtailed prior to June 30 if conditions change, Donovan said; Esper, he said, will formally review the travel ban every 15 days in conjunction with White House and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance and make a determination.

The strict rules on travel imposed in March affected more than 2.8 million uniformed and civilian personnel in the Defense Department, officials have said.

Esper's memo said that all military installations and DoD agencies had to defer all but "mission-essential" travel. Exceptions would have to be approved by a general or flag officer, or a member of the Senior Executive Service, the memo said.

"These exceptions are to be done on a case by case basis, shall be limited in number, and shall be coordinated between the gaining and losing organizations," Esper wrote. "Individuals pending retirement or separation within the next 60 days are exempt."

DoD estimated at the time that about 90,000 service members who were scheduled to deploy or redeploy over the 60 days of the initial stop movement order would be impacted.

The main exceptions allowed were for those who had already initiated travel, and travel by patients and medical providers for purposes of medical treatment for DoD personnel and their families.

Scheduled deployments and redeployments of Navy ships and embarked units were also excepted, provided that they were in transit for at least 14 days and complied with White House and CDC guidelines on protection against coronavirus.

In addition, those whose temporary duty assignments ended while the 60-day stop movement was in effect were also excepted.

Another exception was for the planned withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Donovan could not say Saturday whether any units had actually returned from the region since the restrictions went into effect.

Donovan would not rule out that the restrictions could become "a little bit looser" before June 30, depending on the spread of COVID-19.

Many of the decisions on approval for travel, he said, would be up to individual installation commanders.

"We have to make sure the movers are ready" at both ends of the travel arrangement, he said.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
Its late March and Curtis Sittenfeld is speaking via Skype from her Minneapolis home about the complexities of writing a novel inspired by the life of Hillary Clinton. Sittenfeld deeply admires Clinton, and that esteem fueled her desire to write Rodham (Random House, May), her sixth novel, which imagines Clintons life if she hadnt married Bill.

But Sittenfeld says she had to keep those feelings in check for the project. Sitting at her desk in a black sweater and thick-framed eyeglasses, her straight brown hair cut in a no-nonsense shoulder-length style, she explains that to write a good novel she had to make decisions that served the story rather than ones that would please Clinton.

Still, shes only human.

If I got word that Hillary Clinton wanted to have lunch with me, I would be delighted, Sittenfeld says. I would start walking to New York. But I dont think thats going to happen. I probably made narrative choices that I thought served the book but also ensured that that wouldnt happen.

Of course, at the moment no one is going anywhere. While, at the time of our conversation, the coronavirus outbreak had not yet hit Minnesota with the ferocity that it hit other states, Sittenfeld was already observing social distancing with her husband and two children. The kids were drawing and enjoying a little extra screen time during spring break, before online school started. Sittenfeld wasnt particularly ambitious for herself, either. Like a lot of people Im mostly refreshing the New York Times, she says. Thats what I treat as my full-time job.

Rodham is a counterfactual novel, a meditation on where we all might be if one woman had made a different decision decades ago. But Sittenfeld doesnt seem particularly obsessed with what if and if only. Though yes, she would feel better if someone different was in the White House right now.

The idea for Rodham originated during the 2016 presidential campaign, when Sittenfeld received several requests to write essays about Clinton. In 2008, she published American Wife (Random House), a novel inspired by Laura Bush, and editors thought the deep thinking and research Sittenfeld did for that project made her a natural to write about Clinton. But Sittenfeld declined those requests. I didnt feel like I had anything to say about Hillary that hadnt been said a thousand times before, she recalls.

Then, on the eve of Clintons nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate, an editor at Esquire asked Sittenfeld to write a short story from Clintons point of view. I thought, I dont really have anything to say from a nonfiction perspective, but I have a lot to say from a fictional perspective, Sittenfeld says.

The story gives the nominees take on the journalist interviewing hershe appreciates the reporters intelligence, but not her sense of entitlement. In other words, Sittenfeld flipped the question nonfiction think pieces ask. It wasnt saying, What does her existence or her role in our culture mean? What does she mean?  she explains. It was saying, How do we look to her? What does she think of us? 

Sittenfeld also realized that school-age children are old enough to know who Clinton is but dont necessarily know much about her husband or his baggage. I started to think, What if that was true for adults, too? What if we perceived Hillary totally separately from Bill?  she says.

The novel begins with events pulled from Clintons life. At her 1969 Wellesley College commencement speech, Hillary Rodham sparks controversy when she directly responds to the remarks of the U.S. senator who spoke before her, arguing against his plea for political restraint rather than protest. At Yale Law School, she falls in love with a wildly charismatic classmate named Bill Clinton. After graduation, she works in Washington, D.C., on the Watergate hearings before joining Bill in Arkansas and considering his multiple marriage proposals.

In Rodham, she says no. From that point, we see a protagonist who bears obvious resemblance to her real-life inspirationshe is brilliant, hardworking, and ambitious. But in the novel, we also see her conflicted inner life and the weaknesses and blind spots that shape some of her decisions. For example, Rodham becomes a U.S. senator from Illinois at the expense of Carol Moseley Braunwho, in real life, was the first woman of color elected to the Senate. Rodhams justification for running, given to her deeply disappointed law school mentor, is that she doesnt think Moseley Braun can defeat the Republican incumbent. The informed reader knows better.

If I made her never make a questionable decision, the book would have seemed like a preposterous love letter, Sittenfeld says. Im sure to some readers it will seem like a preposterous love letter anyway, but realistically I do not think Hillary Clinton is less moral than average. I actually think shes probably more moral than average.

Rodhams decision to leave Bill has a tremendous impact on his career, and in this timeline other public figures behave differently too. For instance, Bernie Sanders does not run for president in 2016. Sittenfeld says she made decisions about what to change and keep on a case-by-case basis. Thats the work of the book: to think, Okay, this would still be true, but this wouldnt be true, or this might have a little variation,  she says.

Clinton has resided somewhere in Sittenfelds consciousness for her entire adult life. The author was a senior in high school when Bill Clinton was elected president. I thought that Hillary seemed really interesting and impressive, says Sittenfeld, who watched the first lady from the Massachusetts boarding school that inspired her breakout first novel, Prep (Random House, 2005).

But by the end of the 90s, Sittenfeld had scandal fatigue, and her opinion of the couple dropped. By the time Clinton became a U.S. senator from New York, Sittenfeld was a student at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and the politician wasnt on her mind.

When Clinton launched her first presidential campaign, Sittenfeld became intrigued again. While researching American Wife, she read Clintons 2003 memoir Living History. I started reflecting on why my opinion of her had been lowered based on Bills choices, Sittenfeld says. Ever since, Ive thought of her as a really complex, smart person.

At 44, Sittenfeld is now the age that Clinton was when Bill announced his presidential bid in 1991. She has spent a lot of time contemplating Clinton and sometimes feels frustrated that the former secretary of state is still so misunderstood. When she gave her concession speech in November 2016, Sittenfeld says, a lot of people asked, Why didnt she show this side of herself? Actually, she did, but we were blind to it.

The intense vitriol of Clinton haters is well documented; her admirers are far less recognized. Like many, Sittenfeld finds this perplexing. Its such a weird thing, she says. A lot of people really like her. Shes incredibly inspiring to lots of people. That seems so ridiculous that Im telling you that, but its something that we pretend is not really true, which is almost disrespectful to all the people for whom it is true.

In another reality, Sittenfelds book tour might have been a place for those Clinton admirers to come together and steep themselves in the legacy of one of the most admired, and reviled, women in U.S. history. But that was before a virus from the other side of the world changed everything.

Theres a lot of unknowns, Sittenfeld says. Things that seemed normal last week are not anymore.

Sara Eckel is the author of Its Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons Youre Single (TarcherPerigee).
Marlon James, photographed at Jumel Terrace Books in Harlem in 2014. (Carolyn Cole/ Los Angeles Times)

If theres a person you want to talk to in the midst of a pandemic, its probably a writer of speculative fiction  someone whose imagination is as wild and gnarly as the wild and gnarly times. Marlon James fourth novel, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, the winner of The Times inaugural Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, is his first foray into fantasy, but it retains the epic scope and kaleidoscopic quality familiar from his Booker Prize-winning novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings  a mind-expanding, brain-bending sensibility that asks for (and rewards) a readers focus and dedication.

Narrated by a man called Tracker, whose supernaturally keen nose has earned him work as a kind of bounty hunter, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is also a distinctly Jamesian entry into the fantasy canon. The book, the first in the planned Dark Star trilogy, is rooted in African mythology and animated by queer desire; it expands the genre it enters, asking us to continue to expand our reality and explore our relationship to the very idea of truth. Heres our edited conversation about busting genre walls, dystopia as realism under the pandemic and the prospect of pop-culture world domination.

So well start with whats usually not a very loaded question: How are you?

All right as can be, I guess. I was reading about vigilantes in Maine blocking roads and forcing people they think are visitors to stay in their houses. I'm like, "Wow! We're at 'Walking Dead,' and we don't even have the zombies yet."

You once said in an interview, about wanting to write speculative fiction: We come to the end of what realism can express. But its hard not to feel like life has become totally surreal.

It absolutely has, and it's surprising how practical it is. The thing about dystopian fiction is, we focus on the horrors of it, but we never focus on the inevitability. I was watching Handmaid's Tale last night, and every time I watch it I go, But this could actually happen. I come out of [the] evangelical church. I know the people working to make this happen!

Story continues

I don't think we can put that wall between us and dystopian fiction anymore. I don't think we can read it the way we read historical fiction, where we are separated from it by reality.

It's a great time to read the original speculative novel, Mary Shelley's The Last Man. Funny enough, it was a plague  I was like, "Damn, girl. The original dystopian novel got it right!" And if there was ever a time to read Moby Dick, it's now. I'm not talking the plague; I'm talking the way in which our government's responding to it. We're heading in this ridiculous direction. You want to understand the world, you need to get your Moby Dick on.

(Riverhead Books)

Black Leopard, Red Wolf brings African mythology into the white Western popular conscience. You did a lot of research for that book. What were some of the things that felt exciting and fresh to you?

One of the things that felt very exciting to me was the older attitudes towards queerness and otherness. I didn't go looking for it, and I was quite shocked and pleased to find it. The whole idea of different genders and so on I'm so glad people are accepting these other identities, particularly trans identities, but at the same time, y'all late. When you read these mythologies, some of these people have 14 genders!

The book also does a lot of work to make the reader question whether they can trust the story theyre reading. Why was that interesting to you?

The thing is that ancient audiences were far more discerning, and they brought far more skepticism and intelligence and wit to a story than we do. We bring almost nothing but our eyes. In a lot of African stories, for example, it's a trickster that's telling a story. So they make it already clear: I'm an unreliable narrator. The act of defining truth becomes something the reader has to find out.

Who are the writers who informed your work? Whos in your speculative fiction canon?

I've read everybody. But in terms of the writers that made me think I want to do that  even though it took years to do it  lots of Nalo Hopkinson. The whole idea that the stories in my backyard could be a source of fantasy blew my mind. A lot of the fantasies for me wouldn't be called fantasies. They'd probably be called more magical realist, but to me they're fantasies. To me, Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon is a magical realist novel.

It's sometimes very hard for certain writers, writers of color and queer writers and so on, to write down on paper the story that's in your head. The writers who will go on your permanent bookshelf tend to be the writers who redefine for you what is possible.

Theres also something that may not have seemed like a blessing to me when I was growing up, but I realize it now: I don't have genre snobbery, because I couldn't afford it. If you asked me, what kind of book did I read? Whatever book was next. God bless if I got a Virginia Woolf, but the next novel is gonna be Jackie Collins, who I adore. The only requirement I had for a book was that it was next.

Marlon James thinks you need to "get your 'Moby Dick' on." (Mark Seliger)

Speaking of reading  you're getting an award named after Ray Bradbury. Did you read him growing up? What did his work mean to you?

There's so much of his work that was made into film and TV, so he was always a part of my pop culture universe. Ray Bradbury signifies to me a world of unabashed wonder, and the idea that the speculative story can still tell us as much about the human condition as any other kind of story.

Michael B. Jordan is working on adapting the Dark Star trilogy that begins with this novel. Will Marlon James one day be as big a piece of pop culture as Bradbury?

As a pop culture kid I'm like, "Hell yeah. Bring it on. I still have my 'Star Wars' action figures." But also, part of me still doesn't believe it, still finds it shocking that, in terms of storytelling, our time has come. Black Leopard, Red Wolf is not just an African story or black story. It's a queer story. And the idea that that story's time has come is surprising. I'm still having to pinch myself to believe it.

If what this means is that we're opening up again, or widening the idea of what constitutes a story, then I'm all for it. My favorite thing now to watch is Korean zombie flicks  The Kingdom and Last Train to Busan. Just these stories that are familiar and foreign at the same time, which is what you want from any great story. Every great story is ultimately both things: totally familiar and absolutely foreign.

Romanoff is a writer and the author of several novels for young adults.
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How much is China really spending on defense? Official Chinese spending is about 30 percent of what the U.S. spends. Yet China has a larger, by about 53 percent, number of troops on active duty than the 1.3 million personnel in the American military. And the Chinese build about three times as many warships each year compared to the United States as well as more warplanes and armored vehicles.

The situation is similar to what went on during the 1947-1991 Cold War when figuring out how much the Soviet Union (communist Russian empire) was actually spending. Until near the end of the Soviet Union, the Russians never published an accurate defense budget. For most of the Cold War the official budget, the one available to most Russians and all foreigners, showed a number that was less than 25 percent of what the U.S. spent.

In the last few years of the Cold War a reform minded Russian leader published more accurate defense spending data. This showed annual defense spending that was about 70 percent of what the Americans spent. It was worse than that, something most Russians, in and out of the government, discovered. Russia was spending about 20 percent of GDP on the military, a percentage more than three times what the U.S. spent. This was meant to explain to the Russian people why the nation was poor and becoming more so each year. There were growing food shortages and less spending on infrastructure, housing and things that mattered most to the majority of Russians. The Soviet Union was not defeated militarily but economically. The Soviet Union literally fell apart in 1991, with half the population forming themselves into 14 new nations. The Soviet Union didnt fight this because it couldnt rely on the security forces because most of the troops were conscripts who knew how bad life was. Even many career officers, especially the younger ones, were not willing to fight to preserve the Soviet Union.

China was alarmed at the sudden demise of the Soviet Union and learned from it. During the last decade of the Soviet Union China realized that the communist economic model did not work and devised a new system that retained the communist dictatorship but allowed the economy to operate largely free of tight government control. This was similar to the fascist model of World War II that was adopted by Germany, Japan, Italy and several other smaller nations. China learned from that as well. The World War II fascists destroyed themselves with overambitious military expansionism. The German fascists called themselves national socialists and that meant the traditional German national anthem, Deutschland Uber Alles (Germany over all others) was applied literally and with enormous violence and initial success. The Japanese took a similar approach and like the German fascists eventually suffered enormous losses and total defeat. The Chinese fascist state revved up the economy and built a huge and powerful military but used that force to intimidate rather than wage war on a ruinous and potentially self-destructive scale. Slow-motion and more subtle conquest was actually something of a Chinese tradition developed over thousands of years.

Another Chinese innovation was to make the enemy pay for the Chinese economic and military buildup. Not in the traditional way, with armies being sent out each year to spend a few months plundering enemy territory, or using the threat of that to extort large payments for protection from the plundering. China realized that the most valuable item foreign nations had was technology, especially secret military technology and commercial tech (trade secrets) not protected by patents. To use that patented commercial tech you had to pay for it and the trade secrets were even more difficult to obtain legitimately. But if you stole trade secrets and patents and modified it a bit you could get away with calling it Chinese developed. This tech plunder has been a major factor in the rapid growth of the Chinese economy and the military. One way this became clear was when American intelligence agencies and military researchers tried to build an accurate picture of actual Chinese defense spending. This soon turned into a deja vu experience.

During the Cold War the American CIA tried the same thing with the Soviet Union and discovered that the Russians were indeed using far more of their economy for the military than their official military budget indicated. The CIA discovered using an analysis technique called PPP (Purchasing Power Parity). While the United States alone accounts for over a third of the annual defense spending worldwide, this is not as overwhelming as it appears to be. There are several very practical reasons for this misperception. First is purchasing power parity, which is mainly about using the relative cost of common goods in different countries instead of just what things cost in the United States. If you take into account PPP, those nations with lower costs (like China and India), loom larger as defense spenders. They get more bang for their buck, at least on paper.

Without PPP the top five in military spending are the United States, China, Russia, Britain and Japan. Adjust for PPP and India rises into the top five while Japan falls out. Thats because things like local supplies and labor are much cheaper in India than Japan. Applying PPP also makes American defense spending much less effective compared to what China spends. Thus without PPP American defense spending is closer to 20 percent of global spending.

Adjusting for PPP Chinese defense spending goes from a quarter of what America spends to over 70 percent. Yet American forces deploy many more high teach weapons than China. Thats because U.S. defense spending has been the highest in the world since the 1940s. Since major items of military equipment (ships, aircraft and armored vehicles) have useful lives of over 30 years the Americans have had plenty of time to accumulate a much larger arsenal of expensive equipment than China. But that will change in the future because Chinese annual defense spending has nearly tripled in the last decade. Thus if China keeps its defense spending high and relative costs low, it will match the U.S. in many areas within two or three decades.

That probably will not happen because of other factors and trends that do not favor China and many other nations. First, there is the fact that not only has the Chinese economy been growing rapidly since the 1980s, but so have wages and the costs of much else besides. Thus over time the PPP advantage diminishes. China also has a greater problem with corruption in the military than the United States and most Western nations. This greatly (by 20 percent of more) diminishes the effectiveness of their defense spending. Corruption in defense spending is found everywhere, but it has, for thousands of years, been particularly bad in China. The Chinese government has, since the late 1980s, been making strenuous efforts to reduce corruption but has had limited success.

What was not taken into account until recently was the value of technical knowledge China has stolen. Western mass media have long been full of stories about Chinese hackers stealing enormous qualities of Western data and using to gain an economic advantage. When the value of military R&D (Research and Development) is taken into account, and you calculate what it would have cost the Chinese to develop all that military tech it turns out that Chinese defense spending is nearly 90 percent of American defense spending.

The technology angle plays an enormous role in creating military power, something many people fail to take into account. The larger amount of technology and knowledge now used in warfare is why modern weapons are more powerful, and expensive than those of the past. Consider, for example, the differences between a World War II bomber, and a modern one. The principal World War II bomber was the B-17, which weighed 29 tons, had a crew of ten, and could carry three tons of bombs to targets 1,500 kilometers away. In current dollars, each B-17 cost about $2.5 million. But that was because over 12,000 of them were built. If bought in much smaller quantities, as is typical in peacetime, each B-17 would cost over $15 million. Now compare that to a modern bomber of comparable size (or at least weight), the F-15E. With a max weight of 36 tons, an F-15E can carry up to seven tons of bombs three or four times farther than the B-17. An F-15E has a crew of only two. But this $90 million dollar aircraft is much more than six times as lethal as the B-17. That's because of smart bombs. A B-17 carried a dozen 500 pound bombs, but it took over 300 of these unguided bombs to guarantee a hit on a target below. The smart bombs of the F-15E guarantee a hit with two bombs. Actually, it's 1.something, because there are occasional system failures with smart bombs. The smart bombs also glide 40 kilometers or more, allowing the F-15E to avoid most anti-aircraft fire.

Thus the big difference between these two aircraft is knowledge, as manifested in more, and better, technology. This tech was expensive to develop, both in terms of time and money. This has been a trend that has been ongoing for over a century and continues. More technology requires fewer people in harms way to achieve the same results or results that were impossible in the past. Casualties are also lower. The air force is not the only component of the armed services that is undergoing these simultaneous personnel shrinkages, and increased capabilities. China realized the value of tech and the enormous advantages they would obtain if they found ways to steal and apply this tech.

There is another complication when comparing defense spending. This big one is the relative cost of defending your nation versus attacking someone somewhere else. Its much cheaper to defend. Going on the offensive, especially over long distances, is much more expensive. Depending on how far your forces have to travel, equipping an offensive force can be anywhere from a quarter more expensive if you plan to attack a neighbor, to more than twice as expensive if you are prepared to go anywhere in the world.

China does not have global military obligations and, historically, chose not to go that way. Despite the dependence of the modern Chinese economy on imports (oil and ores mainly) from distant places, China still sees itself as a continental power concerned mainly with being military superior to the neighbors and not much concerned with waging war halfway around the world.

Then there is your military leadership. If your generals and admirals know what they are doing and maintain high standards for subordinates and concentrate on training and readiness for combat, the forces at their disposal will be much more effective than when, as is often the case, the military is treated like a jobs program to keep unemployment low and, if there is a lot of corruption, make politicians and senior officers rich. The Chinese military served this purpose for a long time but when modernization got going in a big way back in the 1980s the Chinese military began to shrink while training became more intense and based on proven Western models.

PPP works in other ways. Nations that spend little cash, but have cheap local costs for food, housing and payroll, like Iran and Pakistan, all of a sudden have larger defense spending, Iran is now about six percent of U.S. spending, and Pakistan about four percent. Purchasing Power Parity shows how poor nations can spend only a few billion dollars a year on defense, yet have hundreds of thousands of troops in service. If these soldiers have good leadership and train regularly, they can be a formidable foe even to a high tech force from the West. But most of the poor nations don't have high quality officers and NCOs, and their troops fade quickly when confronted with a well-equipped and well trained force. Unfortunately, the media is not very keen on examining the quality of training and leadership in anyone's armed forces. Yet, time and again, these two factors have proved to be the most critical ones. And that will remain the case in the future.

All this explains how China was able to become a worldwide military threat in such a short period of time. From the Chinese perspective, this is simply returning China to the status of the worlds most powerful and prosperous nation. This was the status China enjoyed for most of the last three thousand years. China lost that status several centuries ago when the West had the Industrial Revolution and China did not. For China, the good old days have returned.
Prince Harry's departure from the royal frontline caused people to fear that he might end up like one former exiled royal family member.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced their decision to step down as senior members of the royal family in January 2020 and officially left the firm on March 31. Currently, they are residing in Los Angeles where they are believed to be experiencing difficulties without the support of the monarchy.

Because of their current situation, Edward VIII's name came into the limelight, and the Duke of Sussex got compared to the "tragic king".

Edward VIII, the former Duke of Windsor, gave up his royal life and abdicated. He then moved to France and spent the rest of his life with Wallis Simpson.

In 2013, Express journalist Simon Edge explained that the former king quit because he wanted to protect his mother Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth from any public damages once they ignored his American wife.

"[But] he stressed that he was far from happy with the arrangement and he wasn't prepared to abide by it for much longer," the journalist went on.

His abdication led the monarchy to make Queen Elizabeth II's father, George VI, to be the official monarch then. However, it set a bad example for The Firm.

History Repeats Itself?

Back in January, Prince Harry delivered a personal address that expressed the same discontentment Edward VIII felt back then.

"Our hope was to continue serving the Queen, the Commonwealth, and my military associations without public funding. Unfortunately that wasn't possible," the Duke of Sussex hastily pronounced.

Although he pledged to be "the same man" who would continue to support his causes and military communities after his departure, Her Majesty showed her authority to stop his desire to do a half-in-half-out role.

Queen Elizabeth II unrolled two choices for Harry and Meghan: they were either working royals or financially independent. The royal couple chose the latter.

Even though he seemed to have ultimately shared the same fate as the exiled royal, Prince Harry still received a sign from the Queen in March 2020 that she would still welcome him back any time soon.

The outcome of their heart-to-heart talk was far from what the former Duke of Windsor faced after he abdicated. As soon as he turned his back from the monarchy, he was forbidden from returning.

"In fact, the Duke was to stay away for the rest of his life, to the huge relief of a political establishment that had considered him unsuitable to be King well before the crisis over his choice of wife," Edge reported.

Currently, Harry and Meghan are already receiving disapproval from the public.

For instance, when they launched their new charity, Archewell, a poll in express.co.uk showed that 81 percent of their readers said that they no longer care about the royal couple and their new brand, while the remaining 19 percent of the respondents voted for "yes".
The 360 shows you diverse perspectives on the days top stories and debates.

Whats happening

In the span of three days, Joe Biden received endorsements from a trio of the Democratic Partys most prominent voices, as his presidential campaign shifts from the primary to the upcoming general election against Donald Trump.

The first endorsement came from Sen. Bernie Sanders, Bidens chief rival in the primary. Sanders called for the party to come together to defeat Trump, whom he called the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country. The duo also announced the creation of six working groups to help find middle ground between Bidens more moderate policies and Sanderss progressive platform.

A day later, Barack Obama formally endorsed Biden, saying his former vice president has the character and the experience to guide us through one of our darkest times and heal us through a long recovery.

On Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren threw her support behind Biden as well. Biden now has the backing of each significant competitor in the primary, plus a long list of lawmakers and former high-ranking officials.

Why theres debate

This string of endorsements could provide Biden a significant boost in the general election, some political analysts argue. Many in the progressive wing of the party  particularly Sanders supporters  have been intensely critical of Biden throughout the campaign for his moderate policies and tenure in the Senate. Sanders and Warren throwing their support behind Biden could help alleviate that skepticism among more liberal Democrats. Partnering with Sanders on policy may also signal to progressive voters that they have a voice in the Democratic Party.

Obamas endorsement could also make a difference. The former president is extremely popular among Democrats, and his support could help drive turnout in groups that Biden likely needs to win in November. The endorsement also bolsters the Biden campaigns narrative that he represents a continuation of Obamas legacy, some argue.

Story continues

Others are skeptical that these endorsements will have much of an impact. Many in the left wing of the party are so staunchly opposed to Biden that even the backing of the progressive movements standard-bearers wont convince them. The influential group Democratic Socialists of America announced it would not be supporting Biden following Sanderss endorsement. This same group also holds a less favorable view of the Obama presidency and is less likely to be swayed by his support of Biden. The timing of the endorsements, in the midst of a pandemic that is drowning out all other news, may also stunt their impact, some argue.

Whats next

As he looks to shore up support within the left wing of the party, Biden has reportedly been in contact with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other young lawmakers in the Squad. Ocasio-Cortez said she hopes to have some policy conversation with Biden and his team before formally endorsing his candidacy.

Perspectives

The endorsements were an important show of unity

Obamas speech underscored that Democrats are far less divided than their primary battle suggested. From health care to climate change to economic inequality, Democrats have moved across the board in a more progressive direction. Obama has done so himself because he sees openings for social reform now that he didnt have when he was in office.  E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post

Policy changes, not endorsements, are needed to win over progressive voters

Their lingering skepticism of Biden signals an emerging pressure campaign to score key policy concessions from the former vice president, a relative moderate who for months fought off criticism from progressives that his platform and political history were out of step with a younger, more liberal Democratic coalition.  Max Greenwood, The Hill

Sanders carries major sway over progressive Democrats

Normally, its not particularly important when one candidate in a primary endorses another. But Sanders is not a normal candidate. He inspires passionate support and he doesnt identify as a member of the Democratic Party. Some of his voters wont automatically shift their support to another Democrat.  David Leonhardt, New York Times

The impact of the endorsements was reduced because of the timing

In ordinary times, the past two weeks would have been a campaign highlight reel for Joe Biden.  To Bidens dismay, these are not ordinary times. The national struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered American life and completely upended traditional politics.  Carl Golden, Burlington County Times

The endorsements show progressives that theres space for them in the Democratic Party

Biden is acting less like a candidate than a party leader, less like one side of an argument that will be settled by his victory and more like a legislator who recognizes the only way to win is to make real, serious concessions to his colleagues. Hes not asking the left to bend the knee and accept his victory. Hes inviting them into coalition and offering concrete concessions and avenues of influence in return for their participation.  Ezra Klein, Vox

Obamas support likely wont change many votes

I just dont think theres anyone out there who is saying, Well, I was on the fence about Biden, but now that Obama has endorsed him, he has my support.  Nathaniel Rakich, FiveThirtyEight

Obama could have made more of an impact with an endorsement during the primary

While its not clear if there was anyone else Obama wanted, his backing of Biden when there are no alternatives smacks of acceptance rather than preference.  Michael Goodwin, New York Post

Obama is a better spokesman for Biden than Biden himself

Endorsements are almost always overrated in campaigns, as voters want the candidate to make their own case. But this one from Barack (and Michelle) Obama is critical to Joe Biden because the two can frame the stakes of the election and the personal qualities of Joe Biden in a way that is more compelling and effective than even Biden can himself.  Joe Lockhart, CNN

Is there a topic youd like to see covered in The 360? Send your suggestions to the360@yahoonews.com.

Read more 360s

Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP (4), Getty Images
The posts were addressed to King Salman (pictured), the princess's uncle and Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince. Photo: Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA

The Saudi princess who vanished last year amid reports she had been abducted by the crown prince has resurfaced online, posting a series of desperate messages urging the royal family to free her from prison.

Princess Basmah bint Saud Al Saud claimed in the posts on Twitter that she had been "arbitrarily detained" in the kingdom's Al Ha'ir prison without any criminal charges.

"As you may be aware (?) I am currently being arbitrarily held at Al-Ha'ir prison without criminal, or otherwise any charges against my person. My health is deteriorating to an extent that is [severe], and that could lead to my death," she wrote in one message.

"I have not received medical care or even response to the letters I dispatched from jail to the Royal Court. I was abducted without an explanation together with one of my daughters, and thrown into prison," she added.

The messages were posted on her official Twitter account, which has been verified by the social media platform.

Activist

The posts were addressed to King Salman, the princess's uncle, and Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince.

She also tagged several senior US officials, President Donald Trump and various media outlets in the posts.

It is unclear whether the tweets were sent by Princess Basmah herself or on her behalf by relatives or staff members.

Princess Basmah (56) was a prominent women's rights activist and political commentator in Saudi Arabia before she vanished in 2019.

According to reports, Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, had her arrested as she attempted to leave the country for emergency medical treatment in February.

"She just fell off the radar; no one knew where she was. We actually feared the worst," Princess Basmah's US lawyer said at the time.

It then emerged in November 2019 that the princess was being held under house arrest and under 24-hour surveillance after attempting to "flee the country".

Plotting

However, the tweets from the princess's official Twitter account claim she is now being held at Al-Ha'ir, a maximum security prison near the Saudi capital Riyadh.

The prison has been used to house a number of royals who were suspected of plotting against the crown prince and King Salman.

Before her arrest, Princess Basmah was a keen supporter of reforming the kingdom's ultra-conservative religious laws.

She also highlighted wealth inequality and corruption in Saudi Arabia, which may have irritated the crown prince, who has sought to style himself as a great reformer since taking power.

Princess Basmah is the youngest daughter of former King Saud, who ruled from 1953 to 1964, when he was deposed.

The Saudi authorities have been approached for comment on the claims in her tweets. ( Daily Telegraph, London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
Donald Trump hit out at rude and nasty Democratic senators in a Twitter rant on Saturday, as the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States passed 700,000.

Mr Trump sought to defend vice president Mike Pence following criticism from senate Democrats about a lack of federal support for coronavirus testing.

V.P. Mike Pence held a conference call yesterday with all Democrat Senators. He gave them everything that they would have wanted to hear in terms of gaining ground on the CoronaVirus, but nothing that anyone could have said, including its over, could have made.... them happy, or even a little bit satisfied, he wrote.

They were RUDE and NASTY. This is their political playbook, and they will use it right up to the election on November 3rd. They will not change because they feel that this is the only way they can win.

Mr Trump's Twitter tirade came as the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the US passed 700,000 on Saturday. More than 37,000 Americans have died from the virus.

Democrats expressed anger following the call with Mr Pence on Friday afternoon, claiming they were not given clear answers about plans to ramp up testing for the coronavirus across the country. Mr Trump has in recent days made a push to reopen the US economy after weeks of lockdown, but health experts say widespread testing should be an essential step to those efforts.

Maine Senator Angus King said afterwards that he had never been so mad about a phone call in my life. A Democratic source told the Hill that the senators questioned the administration's "inadequate testing regime," but they felt they did not receive sufficient answers from Mr Pence.

Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire tweeted after the call that it was deeply concerning that the administration still doesnt have a plan to track daily testing capacity in every lab in the country, publicly release that data, and put forward a plan and timeline for identifying gaps.

The Trump administration released a plan this week to reopen the US economy in stages, despite concerns from governors that it is too early to do so.

Mr Pence claimed on Friday that the US has enough tests for states to begin "phase one" of the president's reopening guidelines, but the plan does not have a national testing strategy. Its criteria says states should have a "downward trajectory" in cases and flu-like symptoms over a two-week period.
Karnataka to undertake Triaging: What does it mean and how do you pronounce it

Coronavirus outbreak: Disclose price of rapid test kits, DMK urges TN govt

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Chennai, Apr 18: DMK president M K Stalin on Saturday demanded that the party would disclose the pricing of kits purchased from China. Stalin, the leader of opposition in the Assembly cited Chattisgarh Minister T S Singh Deo's twitter post on the price of kits his State has bought and sought a similar disclosure from the AIADMK-led government.

The Chattisgarh Minister has transparently announced the number of kits purchased, and its low price, the DMK chief said in a Facebook post.

Rapid test kits: Two Indian firms begin production

"Similarly, the Tamil Nadu government should transparently announce the number of kits bought and its price. I am urging disclosure as there should be transparency in government administration," he said.

NEWS AT 3 PM, APRIL 18th, 2020

The Dravidian party leader also tagged Deo's post which said, "We are procuring 75,000 high quality rapid testing kits at a benchmark price of Rs 337 + GST from a South Korean company based in India, which has proven to be the lowest bidder. The rate we have been able to close at is the lowest in India."

On April 17, Stalin had hit out at Chief Minister K Palaniswami for his expectation that the number of fresh coronavirus cases will slide to zero and demanded expeditious steps to procure equipment, carry out rapid testing besides measures for treatment, relief and rehabilitation. Palaniswami had said Tamil Nadu has received 24,000 rapid test kits from China.

As a precautionary step, the government had already placed orders for 1.25 lakh kits from China and remitted payment for it also, the CM had said adding the 24,000 kits were part of this. Noting that there was some delay in getting the consignment from China, he assured all measures to quicken the rest of the shipment from the dragon nation.
The number of coronavirus victims in Britain's care homes could be as high as 7,500, five times more than the official estimate, the sector's main charity warned on Saturday.

Care England, Britain's largest representative body for care homes, told the Daily Telegraph that estimates based on "some of the death rates since April 1" suggested up to 7,500 may have died of the virus.

"Without testing, it is very difficult to give an absolute figure," Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, told The Daily Telegraph.

"However, if we look at some of the death rates since April 1 and compare them with previous years' rates, we estimate a figure of about 7,500 people may have died as a result of COVID-19." The figure is more than five times higher than the estimate of 1,400 suggested by the government earlier this week.

It is also far in excess of the 217 care home deaths recorded by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) up to April 3, the most recent date for which official data is available.

Britain's official coronavirus toll currently stands at 14,576, although that only includes deaths recorded in hospitals, which can take some days to register fatalities.

The ONS said this week that its data suggested that deaths in hospital accounted for around 85 percent of all coronavirus fatalities in the country. This figure was calculated by comparing overall excess deaths in the country to the official coronavirus toll.

But the Care England estimate would mean that deaths in hospital account for a far lower proportion of the true total than the ONS data suggested.

"This is a shocking and utterly heartbreaking estimate that will send a chill down the spine of anyone with a loved one living in a care home," said Caroline Abrahams, charity director at the Age UK charity.

"As we have feared for some time, what's going on in care homes -- not only here but in many other countries too -- is a tragedy in the making." Care England did not publish the data underlying its estimate, but Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the health and social care committee on Friday that figures would be published "very shortly".

Care home bosses have accused the government of a "shambolic" response to the sector's crisis, particularly over "haphazard" deliveries of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a rare move, Texas highest court on Friday issued a warrant for a man accused of assaulting his ex-girlfriend and her grandmother after he had been released on bail by a Harris County magistrate.

Timothy Singleton, 31, was charged with aggravated assault for allegedly beating his ex-girlfriend and throwing her grandmother to the ground on Wednesday.

The county magistrates set the bail at $500, but prosecutors appealed and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals increased Singletons bail to $100,000. They also ordered that he could not be released on personal recognizance bond, according to the Harris County District Attorneys Office.

We have worked hard to keep the citizens of Harris County safe through this crisis by agreeing that non-violent defendants should be released from the jail, but the public needs protection from violent offenders accused of violent crimes, said District Attorney Kim Ogg in a statement. The ruling, and the urgency with which the Court of Criminal Appeals acted, shows that our concern for public safety has to be taken into account by our local judges.

Oggs office said it argued that judges cant legally consider concerns about the COVID-19 outbreak to set bail amounts.

Singleton did not present a specific health concern that would have placed him at higher risk of COVID-19 infection than any other member of the community, prosecutors said in a statement.

Two weeks prior to this alleged assault, Singleton has been released on $500 bail after he allegedly pulled a gun on another man on March 31.
A mining worker who decided to travel to Bali for a holiday has been slammed as 'selfish' after he brought coronavirus back to Australia.

The Rio Tinto employee tested positive for COVID-19 after a company-wide screening of 1600 employees in Western Australia this week.

WA Premier Mark McGowan slammed the worker by for taking a holiday during the coronavirus pandemic, during a media briefing on Saturday.

A mining worker who decided to travel overseas to Bali for a holiday has been slammed as 'selfish' after he brought coronavirus back to Australia (Pictured: a small crowd of tourists walk across Jimbaran Beach in Bali in March)

The worker has been slammed by WA Premier Mark McGowan (pictured) for taking a holiday during the coronavirus pandemic

'I just want to express my disappointment at this case,' he said.

'It was pretty selfish and irresponsible to travel to Bali last month during these circumstances we were facing. It makes me so angry.'

Authorities understand the worker self-isolated after arriving back home however contact tracing is underway as a precaution by health authorities.

Western Australias Chief Health Officer, Dr Andrew Robertson said the miner's case was no cause for alarm.

'The case had become mildly symptomatic shortly after returning from a trip to Indonesia which would indicate he most likely contracted the virus overseas,' Dr Robertson said.

Dr Robertson said the pin-prick test performed by Rio Tinto was not an acute diagnostic test or even a reliable means of screening for current COVID-19 infection.

A new case of coronavirus in Western Australia overnight was worker who holidayed to Bali (Pictured: A beach is almost empty at Kuta in Bali after coronavirus devastated the tourism industry in March)

He said public health officials were currently working to verify the results of the individual at an accredited laboratory because the validity of the point-of-care test was unknown.

The mining giant announced on Friday it would be ramping up screening measures for fly in fly out (FIFO) workers in Western Australia.

Rio Tinto will be conducting screening controls at the Perth airport to minimise the risk of COVID-19 being brought in from out of state.

The Rio Tinto employee tested positive for COVID-19 after a company-wide screening of 1600 employees in Western Australia this week (Pictured: haulage trucks a the Rio Tinto iron ore mine in Western Australia's Pilbara region)

Rio Tinto Iron Ore chief executive Chris Salisbury said they're confident the new measures will reduce health risk to their workers and the communities they operate in.

'Our number one priority through this period is to protect the health of our employees and communities where we operate. We believe the introduction of rapid screening adds another layer of control to help prevent the transmission of the virus in WA,' he said.

The worker was one of three new cases in Western Australia overnight, bringing the state's total to 544.

The other two cases were from the Artania Cruise ship.

The other two cases for COVID-19 in Western Australia overnight were from the Artania Cruise ship (pictured)
(Photo : Artur uczka on Unsplash ) Solar Cell Thinner Than Hair Strand Proves to Give 2-Year Battery for Smartwatch (Photo : Photo by Alvan Nee on Unsplash) Solar Cell Thinner Than Hair Strand Proves to Give 2-Year Battery for Smartwatch

Solar-powered smartwatches are now one of the trendlines in the fashion and health industries. If you happen to have one of these-- whatever brand is it-- here's good news for you. Researchers at one of the leading universities in Australia, Monash University has recently released a new creation that could force you to stay you in shape while under the Sun.

This solar cell hair strand-like weight can power your Smartwatch for years

An extremely awesome tech research team at Monash University managed to create an 'ultralight flexible solar cell' that can power your smartwatch for more than two years of gradual usage.

According to Dr. Wenchao Huang, lead researcher at the university's Department of Materials Science and Engineering, his team developed an extra-light and flexible solar cell that was said to be thinner than a hair strand but could have the key to promising power resource-- with this case, a smartwatch.

"Power conversion efficiency considers how much solar energy can be converted into electricity. The solar energy illuminated on Earth is 1000 watts per square meter. Our device can produce 130 watts of electricity per square meter. The 13 percent efficiency we were able to achieve is one of the highest efficiencies in organic solar cells," said him.

Aside from its contained strong power to energize a smartwatch, this device was also said to degrade by just 4.8 percent after more than 4,700 hours, and can last for 20,000 hours with "minimal degradation." This means that once your smartwatch has this solar cell, it could power up your device that can last for more than two years. Even add the factor that it has a useful shelf life of about 11.5 years before damaged.

Smartwatches are not the only possible device that this solar cell can also power up. Huang claims that their creation can even power devices that measure heart or lung.

"Our ultra-flexible solar cells can simultaneously achieve improved power conversion efficiency, excellent mechanical properties, and robust stability. This makes them a very promising candidate as a power source in wearable electronics to realize long-term monitoring of various physiological signals, such as heart and breathing rates," added by him.

Researchers now ready to commercialize the solar cell

Thankfully, Monash researchers also said in the study that they are ready to commercialize the solar cell soon. Unfortunately, it might not be as quickly as possible since the researches with the device are not yet fully done, as per Huang.

"Currently, silicon solar cells are the dominant technology in the photovoltaic market, which are commonly found in rooftop installations. But, their brittle nature means solar cells exhibit poor performance when bent or stretched," explains him.

For now, it is certain to say that it might probably take a while.

ALSO READ: Artificial Leaf: New Solar Cell Uses Carbon Dioxide And Sunlight To Produce Hydrocarbon Fuel

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Afenifere chieftain Chief Reuben Fasoranti has started sleeping soundly after police arrested the suspected killers of his daughter, Mrs...

The suspected killers

Afenifere chieftain Chief Reuben Fasoranti has started sleeping soundly after police arrested the suspected killers of his daughter, Mrs. Funke Olakunrin.Mrs. Olakunrin was murdered between Kajola and Ore on the Ondo-Ore Road in Ondo State on July 13, 2019 while travelling in a black Toyota Highlander SUV.The police on Thursday confirmed the arrest of Lawal Mazaje, 40, from the Felele area of Kogi State; Adamu Adamu, 50, from Jada, Adamawa State; Mohammed Usman, 26, from Illela, Sokoto State; and Auwal Abubakar, 25, an indigene of Shinkafi, Zamfara State.It was also revealed the killing was carried out by eight fully armed suspected robbers led by one Tambaya (other names unknown), who is currently at large.Spokesman for Afenifere, Mr. Yinka Odumakin said this on Friday while featuring on a private radio station, Rave FM in Osogbo on a programme, Frank Talk monitored by our correspondent.Odumakin said since the daughter of the elder statesman was killed, he couldnt sleep soundly but after news got to him about the arrest of the suspected killers he sleeps better.His words: One of the Babas daughters told me that for the past nine months now, he will wake up in the middle of the night and be steering into space.But since he was informed that the killers have been arrested, he has been sleeping like a baby  a very sound sleep.Not that the daughter is back because the killers have been arrested. You cannot just kill a lady like that and nothing happens.
With only essential businesses open during the coronavirus pandemic, Portland police have noticed a significant increase in commercial burglaries of retails shops and others that are closed.

Most are occurring at night and patrol officers are paying more attention on their evening shifts, Burglary Detective Darren Posey said Friday.

The bureau has recorded 174 commercial burglaries from March 12 through April 5, an 80 percent increase compared to the number of burglaries for the same period averaged over the last three years, or 96.7 burglaries, according to police.

Burglars have swiped cash registers, phones and bank bags in plain view.

Business owners should take inventories of their stock and equipment, work to better secure their properties and remove anything visible from their window or display cases of potential value, police said.

Remove that opportunity, Posey said.

Local residents also should look out for the businesses near them and report anything suspicious.

Often community members are the best eyes on these cases, and the information they share helps lead to arrests, Posey said.

On April 1, for example, a resident called 911 after she heard glass breaking near her apartment on Northwest Sixth Avenue.

That helped police nab a 32-year-old man now accused of breaking into Cal Skate Skateboards early that morning. An officer spotted JoJo M. Brittain walking away from the store holding several skateboards, hoodies and a pair of shoes, according to Thomas Cleary, a Multnomah County deputy district attorney.

Police found a rear window of the shop broken and a window next to the front door smashed as well. The owner estimated the cost to repair the windows at $3,000, according to court records.

On March 21, 18-year-old twins, a brother and sister who are high school seniors with no prior criminal record, used an ax to smash the front door of the Oregon Weedery marijuana store on Northwest Kearney Street, police and prosecutors said.

Someone spotted the teens walking to the business carrying the ax and started to film them and alerted police, Posey said. Officers responded at 4:23 a.m. and caught Elisha and Dov Hirschfield, who were running away, according to court records.

Elisha Hirschfield told police that he and his sister wanted to burn off some energy and do something "reckless'' for the "thrill of it,'' Deputy District Attorney Alexander H. Garcia wrote in a probable cause affidavit. They were each accused of second-degree burglary.

With the increase in commercial burglaries, police also are noticing an increase in bicycle thefts -- many from secure storage areas, said Officer Dave Sanders of the bike theft task force.

While bike thefts typically increase in spring with warmer weather when more people are out riding bikes, Sanders said he believes people also are taking advantage of the pandemic when fewer people are around to witness the thefts.

Sanders hasnt been immune to bike theft himself.

A few months ago, he said he had his personal bike stolen after he handcuffed it to a bike rack outside the Multnomah County Courthouse downtown. A second bike that Sanders had secured to the front of a police car was stolen when the officer turned his back to the car.

He urged bicycle owners to always secure their bikes with a heavy-duty lock, even if the bikes are left indoors, and to register their bicycles.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

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One more person tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday, taking the total number of coronavirus cases in Himachal Pradesh to 40, officials said.

The man was identified as a Tablighi Jamaat member who had recently returned from Nizamuddin in Delhi and is a resident of Amb subdivision in Una district, Una Deputy Commissioner Sandeep Kumar said.

The DC told PTI that the man had returned to his home in Jaman Kuali village in Rajpur Jaswan panchayat around March 8-9 after attending a congregation in Nizamuddin last month.

"We are surprised that he has been found positive over a monthafter returning from Nizamuddin Markaz. He may have come in contact with some other positive COVID-19 person. We are trying to find his primary contacts," he added.

The number of active cases in the state has risen to 22. They are being treated in various hospitals of the state.

Twelve patients - three each from Chamba, Kangra, Una and Solan districts - have recovered.

Four persons were shifted to a private hospital outside Himachal Pradesh, while two others have died.

The two deaths include a 70-year-old woman from Delhi who had been staying in Baddi since March 15 and died at PGIMER, Chandigarh on April 2.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
LOS ANGELESIn the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, sex workers who have gone online to make a living are discovering the market is saturated with performers, with many fans canceling their subscriptions, Newsweek has reported.

According to reporter Ewan Palmers article today, established online performers are losing customers or receiving less money from fans who are experiencing their own financial struggles as the economy continues to spiral downward. As many go online to make ends meet, those without an existing online profile are finding a glut of performers and difficulty trying to break in.

In addition, American sex workers are barred from the government's effort to help small businesses whose incomes were severely impacted by the pandemic. The Small Business Association's Economic Injury Disaster Program prohibits anyone who presents "live performances of a prurient sexual nature" or derives their income from "the sale of products or services, or the presentation of any depictions or displays, of a prurient sexual nature" from receiving benefits. [Ed. note: In spite of this apparent prohibition, it appears adult industry members may still be able to apply for SBA Disaster Loans, as AVN's Mark Kernes explained here.]

"From personal experience, I feel like a lot of newer models will flood the cam rooms, but they'll realize it is super hard and not follow through with getting on," said veteran cam girl Shelby Paris in the article. "It is hard to cam and I give the all full-time cam girl major props for hustling and continuing to get on every single day."

Henna, a trans sex worker from an Amsterdam brothel, told Newsweek she was ill prepared for working online when the pandemic hit.

"First of all, it requires a completely its own kind of skill set. I don't have the needed equipment nor the skill, even when I'm very good with computers and photographing," Henna told Newsweek.

"Those sex workers who do online sex work and are successful have worked hard and long to be successful. Me or anyone else starting online sex work now cannot really expect to get instant results from it.

"Also, imagine every stripper and full-service sex worker turning to online work? You don't think it crashes the market?"

Codi, an adult video performer who had to turn to online sex work, started a campaign urging porn sites to increase sex workers pay due to the current crisis.

"A lot of people working on these sites are earning a supplemental income while also working a vanilla job, or have a partner working a vanilla job, and because so many people are being laid off, they now have to rely entirely on online sex work for the first time."

Reya Sunshine, a veteran strip club dancer and top cam model, told the magazine she estimates she is losing as much as one-third of her usual income due to currently being unable to dance at clubs or attend events.

Veteran director and performer Miles Long told Newsweek that straight male performers face even greater challenges adapting to the change and trying to establish themselves online.

"While it's not impossible for a newer male performer to achieve this, just like anything else, it requires perseverance, work ethic, and a drive to excel in order to build a name and a fan base that will help you generate long term revenue, so this will be a long-term growth area, not a short-term gain one," Long said.

To read the full story, click here.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The EOC and Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs is satisfied with the reaction of the St. Maarten community who were given the opportunity to shop on Thursday and Friday as the lockdown continues for the next three weeks.

Prime Minister Jacobs in response to a questioned by SMN News said that St. Maarten already spent over NAF2.4 million at CPS that is busy with the testing and monitoring of COVID-19 patients. Jacobs also said that she did not have the final figure as to how much government spent already, but admitted that the amount is in the millions since the government of St. Maarten covered the expenses of the hospitainer at the St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC).

At moment SMMC got 30 persons from AMI in the United States assisting with the COVID-19 patients, while CPS has four persons that came in from the Netherlands to assist them, they are two public health nurses and a hygiene specialist.

Jacobs said that the crowd was indeed large during the morning hours of both days and that the social distancing was acceptable. The EOC admitted that there were a few places where shoppers and the owners of the supermarkets did not adhere to social distancing.

Jacobs said the week has been heavy and also long for the front liners, she said while the shutdown continues supermarkets, banks, gas stations, fisheries and agriculturist, health stores, and other essential services will open at least 3 days per week to continue selling basic necessities to the residents of St. Maarten. Deliveries will also continue to take place throughout the lockdown.

Shoppers are advised to shop once a week and only one person per household should be going to supermarkets while shoppers should wear facial protective gear such as a mask. Senior citizens, pregnant women and the disabled will be given preference at the supermarkets, especially during the first hour.

Head of CPS Eva Lista de Weever said that there are currently 64 confirmed cases on St. Maarten and it is expected that the number will continue to rise as the CPS team with including the local volunteers will continue testing in the various districts. De Weever said that many persons that CPS reached were not keen in taking the tests, she said the information collected by CPS will not be shared with anyone outside of CPS, therefore persons that are having influenza-like symptoms should not hesitate to contact CPS at 914, De Weever also said that the testing conducted by CPS is free of charge.

Fenna Arnell said that SMMC capacity will increase this weekend while the hospitainer will also be operational by this weekend. Arnell further explained that the White and Yellow Cross have decided to assist by accepting patients from the SMMC that only needs nursing care this she said was done to further create space at the medical institution.

Arnell called on persons wearing masks to ensure they wear them correctly by following procedures not to contaminate the masks while putting them on or removing them.

Joy Arnell of the Department of Social Affairs said that they are continuing with their community outreach program and that last week 1,500 care packages were distributed. She said the department received more items these past two days and they are busy packaging another 1,500 care packages for distribution in the coming days.

Miguel de Weever Secretary-General of the Ministry of TEATT said his department has tightened up with controls and businesses that are not considered as essential services will be closed and issued with fines if they open. De Weever said on Thursday one cosmetic store was closed and fined for opening for business while they were not authorized to do so.

Asked if the Department of Economic Affairs will be conducting controls and issue fines to businesses that are not complying with the guidelines, De Weever said they have not issued fined to any supermarket but they have assisted by asking persons to maintain the social distancing.
Herzeliya, Israel and Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - April 17, 2020) - InnoCan Pharma Corporation (CSE: INNO) ("InnoCan" or the "Company") announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, InnoCan Pharma Ltd. of Herzliya Israel, has entered into a sponsored research agreement dated April 17, 2020 (the "Research Agreement") with Ramot at Tel Aviv University ("Ramot") to collaborate with Tel Aviv university to develop a novel, revolutionary approach to treat COVID-19 by using Cannabidiol (CBD) loaded Exosomes ("ICLX").

Under the terms of the Research Agreement, InnoCan and a team led by Prof. Daniel Offen, a leading researcher specializing in Neuroscience and Exosome technology at Tel Aviv University, will collaborate to develop the cell therapy product, based on Prof. Offen's work in the field. Innocan has agreed to fund the research based on agreed milestones, in the aggregate amount of approximately US $450,000 for the first stage.

InnoCan and Ramot are collaborating on a new, revolutionary exosome-based technology that targets both central nervous system (CNS) indications and the Covid-19 Corona Virus. CBD-Loaded Exosomes hold the potential to provide a highly synergistic effect of anti-inflammatory properties and help in the recovery of infected lung cells. This product, which is expected to be administrated by inhalation, will be tested against a variety of lung infections.

Exosomes are small particles created when stem cells are multiplied. Exosomes can act as "homing missiles", targeting specific damaged organs and have an important role in cell-to-cell communication. When the cell healing properties of the exosomes are combined with the anti-inflammatory properties of CBD, it is expected to reach high synergetic effect. The research results may be beneficial to additional treatments for Central Nerve System ( CNS ) indications such as epilepsy and Alzheimer's Disease.

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The Research Agreement also gives InnoCan Pharma the exclusive option to receive an exclusive worldwide royalty-bearing license to Ramot's background technology and the research results to allow InnoCan to develop and manufacture ICLX for the treatment of COVID-19 and potentially for other types of lung inflammations and additional respiratory related illnesses. Once InnoCan Pharma provides notice of intent to exercise the option, InnoCan Pharma and Ramot have agreed to negotiate the license agreement in good faith according to predefined commercial terms annexed to the Research Agreement.



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Background

The world is suffering from a rapid rise in illness due to the fast growing spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The lungs are the organ most affected by COVID-19, causing pneumonia that rapidly progresses to acute respiratory distress syndrome and can further result in respiratory failure, septic shock, or multi-organ failure, and in the most severe cases death.

Recent in-vivo and in-vitro studies have demonstrated that exosomes derived from mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) can promote regeneration and improve immune reaction processes in damaged tissues. Exosomes contain anti-inflammatory agents that can target inflamed organs. Prof. Offen and his team have already successfully loaded exosomes with various molecules. They have also succeeded in treating different tissue injuries in animal models, while significantly reducing inflammation and pathological impairment. To date, there have been hundreds of publications and several clinical studies using exosomes globally, demonstrating their therapeutic potential at different applications.

Animal studies have also demonstrated CBD as effective in reducing lung inflammation. Based on these findings and the capability of attaching molecules to Exosomes as was shown at Prof. Offen studies, InnoCan believes that its ICLX therapy has the potential to treat the COVID-19 virus by combining CBD with exosomes, thereby creating therapeutic synergies. The suggested combination may have strong synergetic effects, thereby increasing the potential efficacy of planned treatments.

Prof. Dani Offen, of the Sackler School of Medicine, Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University, said, "I am pleased to work with the InnoCan team on this exciting ICLX development project. We are facing a challenging time, and I believe our unique approach holds a promise to offer a treatment for COVID-19, pneumonia and perhaps for other lung inflammations as well."

Iris Bincovich, CEO of InnoCan's CEO, also commented, "COVID-19 has quickly become one of the largest challenges in healthcare today. With the development of ICLX, we are creating a new treatment, to join the global mission to combat the effects of COVID-19. We are determined to make a difference as quickly as possible to assist patients worldwide."

Keren Primor Cohen, CEO of Ramot at Tel Aviv University, summarized, "We hope that this collaboration with Innocan Pharma will assist in transforming Prof. Offen's promising technology into a real treatment for the global threat of COVID-19."

The Company is not making any express or implied claims that the research to be conducted under the Research Agreement will be successful or that any products developed from the research will have the ability to eliminate, cure, treat or contain the Covid-19 Coronavirus or other lung conditions.

Innocan Pharma has also been approved for listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE) under the trading symbol: FRA: IP4.

About InnoCan Pharma Corporation

The Company, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Innocan Pharma Ltd. ("Innocan Pharma Israel"), is a pharmaceutical tech company that focuses on the development of several drug delivery platforms combining cannabidiol ("CBD"). The Company signed on a worldwide exclusive license agreement with Yissum, the commercial arm of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to develop CBD drug delivery platform based on a unique-controlled release Liposome to be administrated by Injection. The company planes, together with Prof. Berenholtz, Head of the Laboratory of Membrane and Liposome Research of the Hebrew University to test the Liposome platform on several potential indications. -The company is also working on dermal product integrating CBD with other pharmaceutical ingredients as well as the development and sale of CBD-integrated pharmaceuticals. include, but are not limited to, topical treatments for relief of psoriasis symptoms as well as the treatment of muscle pain and rheumatic pain.The founders and officers of InnoCan have commercially successful track records in the pharmaceutical and technology sectors in Israel and globally.

About Ramot

Ramot is the technology transfer company of Tel Aviv University, one of Israel's foremost research and teaching universities. It is one of the major hubs that has contributed to Israel's global reputation as the "Startup Nation". Founded in 1956, Tel Aviv University is located in Israel's cultural, financial and industrial center. Rooted in both academic and corporate arenas, Ramot is uniquely positioned to cultivate the special relationships between these two compelling worlds, creating win-win connections that support fertile, groundbreaking research while providing companies with discoveries that give them a crucial competitive edge.

So far, these collaborations have produced more than 60 active start-up companies and the registration of over 70 patents a year. Around 300 additional patents are currently commercially available while awaiting the finalization of the patenting process. Dry eye therapy with Tubilux Pharma, Circadin, a treatment for sleeping disorders with Neurim Pharmaceuticals Blistex Inc., improved flash memory with SanDisk and others have proven that the industry can benefit greatly from the talent pool Tel Aviv University has to offer, and that rigorous research and out-of-the-box thinking can create a product that answers a consumer's everyday needs.

For further information, please contact:

For InnoCan Pharma Corporation:

Iris Bincovich, CEO

+972-54-3012842

info@innocanpharma.com

NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER HAVE REVIEWED OR ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

Caution regarding forward-looking information

Certain information set forth in this news release, including, without limitation, information regarding the markets, requisite regulatory approvals and the anticipated timing for market entry, is forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. By its nature, forward-looking information is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, some of which are beyond InnoCan's control. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by InnoCan, including expectations and assumptions concerning the anticipated benefits of the product markets, satisfaction of regulatory requirements in various jurisdictions and satisfactory completion of requisite production and distribution arrangements.

Forward-looking information is subject to various risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results and experience to differ materially from the anticipated results or expectations expressed in this news release. The key risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to: general global and local (national) economic, market and business conditions; governmental and regulatory requirements and actions by governmental authorities; and relationships with suppliers, manufacturers, customers, business partners and competitors. There are also risks that are inherent in the nature of product distribution, including failure to obtain any required regulatory and other approvals (or to do so in a timely manner) and availability in each market of product inputs and finished products. The anticipated timeline for entry to markets may change for a number of reasons, including the inability to secure necessary regulatory requirements, or the need for additional time to conclude and/or satisfy the manufacturing and distribution arrangements. As a result of the foregoing, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking information contained in this news release concerning the timing of launch of product distribution. A comprehensive discussion of other risks that impact InnoCan can also be found in InnoCan's public reports and filings which are available under InnoCan's profile at www.sedar.com.

Readers are cautioned that undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking information as actual results may vary materially from the forward-looking information. InnoCan Pharma does not undertake to update, correct or revise any forward-looking information as a result of any new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable law.

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To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/54575
Generally speaking, yes. Banks are among the businesses deemed essential, and as such they are permitted to operate even where stay-at-home orders are in place.

However, major banks may temporarily close some branches and reduce hours or services at others. Some locations are restricted to ATM and drive-through access; others are providing walk-in service by appointment only. Check your banks online branch locator to see whats available in your area.

If you have questions about accessing bank services during the pandemic, call the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) at 877-275-3342 or check the agencys COVID-19 information page.

Are banks helping customers facing financial hardship due to the pandemic?

Many banks are waiving various fees, such as monthly service charges and ATM surcharges, or penalties for overdrafts, exceeding monthly transaction limits or making early CD withdrawals. Some are doing so for all customers, while others are doing it on a case-by-case basis at the customers request.

Many banks are also offering hardship assistance to borrowers affected by the outbreak, such as deferring payments or waiving late fees on credit card bills, mortgages and other loans. You'll need to contact your bank to discuss available relief options.

Look for a dedicated COVID-19 page on your bank's website or call its customer service line to see what help is being offered. The American Bankers Association has a page on its website outlining steps taken by more than 200 national, regional and local banks.
Guidelines to help keep online sellers in check By Shaadya Ismail View(s): View(s):

Online commerce business operators will be issued guidelines in the coming weeks, the consumer rights watchdog says.

The Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) director Asela Bandara told the Sunday Times: Sri Lanka lacks regulations to control buying and selling in a digital marketplace.

He said online purchases had not been popular with the masses until the coronavirus-related shutdown.

According to him, currently many consumers are facing problems with online purchases.

There are many who complain about the exorbitant prices charged by them for goods and delivery because there is no fixed charge for delivery, and other complaints include delays in receiving goods and sometimes the quality of the product, he explained.

When asked if online prices could be controlled, Mr. Bandara said, that if the regulator gets complaints of an unreasonable increases in prices for goods, controls could be imposed.

Meanwhile, raids on traders are continuing on a small scale.

We have deployed two teams, each team comprising three officers for raids in the Western Province, and this number is small as opposed to the complaints and raids that needs to be done on a daily basis, said CAA assistant director A.A. Jasoor, who oversees the Western Province.

From March 18 to April 16, about 275 complaints have been received from the Western Province.

According to Mr. Jasoor, online sales have posed the biggest problems in the Colombo district.

Most complaints include high prices, delivery charges, and not receiving the ordered goods on time.

There have been cases where the sellers have received the money but not delivered the goods, he said.

According to the head of the Kalutara District CAA, Janaka Prasad, an average of 50 to 60 complaints a day are recorded from people.

The most prominent issue is that, most retailers sell goods from the back of their premises and at high prices.

He said prosecuting retailers in such circumstances is challenging because proving that they had operated during the curfew is difficult.

Meanwhile, in the Ratnapura district, six wholesalers were raided in Ratnapura and Eheliyagoda on Wednesday, and six retailers were raided in Ratnapura, Kahawatta, and Pelmadulla on Thursday.

The CAA officer in charge in the Ratnapura district, Udaya Namalgama, said 25 to 30 complaints are received on a daily basis.

There were 250 complaints in Kandy as of April 17 and 200 complaints had been checked.

The CAA assistant director of the Central Province, said that the recent raids were mostly related to rice, face masks, and fertiliser being sold at high prices.
With This Pandemic, President Trump Has Now Officially, Publicly Become Dangerous, Part I So this President Trump said the World Health Organization, the WHO, didn't advise us soon enough and they misrepresented things? Then, in the middle of this worst, most deadly, killing pandemic in the last 100 years, cut their funding from us, the US. Here's proof he's wrong. So very, very wrong.

We've seen this controversial timeline come up in the comments . . . But here's a passionate local Internets pundit signing on to the meme and calling out the White House for a lack of leadership . . . Take a look: